no help. Come! If they suffer no more for the balance of the day
they will feel reassured, and the relapse into fear will be even
more nerve-racking than as though we continued to frighten them
all afternoon."

So they marched back to their camp of the previous night, and,
lighting great fires, ate and recounted the adventures of the day
until long after dark. Tarzan slept until midnight, then he arose
and crept into the Cimmerian blackness of the forest. An hour later
he came to the edge of the clearing before the village. There was
a camp-fire burning within the palisade. The ape-man crept across
the clearing until he stood before the barred gates. Through the
interstices he saw a lone sentry sitting before the fire.

Quietly Tarzan went to the tree at the end of the village street.
He climbed softly to his place, and fitted an arrow to his bow.
For several minutes he tried to sight fairly upon the sentry, but
the waving branches and flickering firelight convinced him that
the danger of a miss was too great--he must touch the heart full
in the center to bring the quiet and sudden death his plan required.

He had brought, besides, his bow, arrows, and rope, the gun he had
taken the previous day from the other sentry he had killed. Caching
all these in a convenient crotch of the tree, he dropped lightly
to the ground within the palisade, armed only with his long knife.
The sentry's back was toward him. Like a cat Tarzan crept upon the
dozing man. He was within two paces of him now--another instant
and the knife would slide silently into the fellow's heart.

Tarzan crouched for a spring, for that is ever the quickest and