"When Lieutenant Gernois returned and reported that he had not found
you at the spot that you had chosen to remain while the detachment
was scouting, I was filled with alarm. We searched the mountain
for days. Then came word that you had been killed and eaten by a
lion. As proof your gun was brought to us. Your horse had returned
to camp the second day after your disappearance. We could not doubt.
Lieutenant Gernois was grief-stricken--he took all the blame upon
himself. It was he who insisted on carrying on the search himself.
It was he who found the Arab with your gun. He will be delighted
to know that you are safe."

"Doubtless," said Tarzan, with a grim smile.

"He is down in the town now, or I should send for him," continued
Captain Gerard. "I shall tell him as soon as he returns."

Tarzan let the officer think that he had been lost, wandering
finally into the DOUAR of Kadour ben Saden, who had escorted him
back to Bou Saada. As soon as possible he bade the good officer
adieu, and hastened back into the town. At the native inn he had
learned through Kadour ben Saden a piece of interesting information.
It told of a black-bearded white man who went always disguised as
an Arab. For a time he had nursed a broken wrist. More recently
he had been away from Bou Saada, but now he was back, and Tarzan
knew his place of concealment. It was for there he headed.

Through narrow, stinking alleys, black as Erebus, he groped, and
then up a rickety stairway, at the end of which was a closed door
and a tiny, unglazed window. The window was high under the low