palms of the little fertile spot they had just left, and the circle
of goatskin tents, stood out in sharp relief against the yellow
sand--a phantom paradise upon a phantom sea. Before them rose the
grim and silent mountains. Tarzan's blood leaped in his veins.
This was life! He looked down upon the girl beside him--a daughter
of the desert walking across the face of a dead world with a son
of the jungle. He smiled at the thought. He wished that he had
had a sister, and that she had been like this girl. What a bully
chum she would have been!

They had entered the mountains now, and were progressing more
slowly, for the trail was steeper and very rocky.

For a few minutes they had been silent. The girl was wondering if
they would reach her father's DOUAR before the pursuit had overtaken
them. Tarzan was wishing that they might walk on thus forever. If
the girl were only a man they might. He longed for a friend who
loved the same wild life that he loved. He had learned to crave
companionship, but it was his misfortune that most of the men he
knew preferred immaculate linen and their clubs to nakedness and
the jungle. It was, of course, difficult to understand, yet it
was very evident that they did.

The two had just turned a projecting rock around which the trail
ran when they were brought to a sudden stop. There, before them,
directly in the middle of the path, stood Numa, EL ADREA, the
black lion. His green eyes looked very wicked, and he bared his
teeth, and lashed his bay-black sides with his angry tail. Then
he roared--the fearsome, terror-inspiring roar of the hungry lion
which is also angry.