was as terribly primeval and savage as though it were being staged
in the dim dawn of humanity, countless ages in the past.

As the excitement waxed the ape-man sprang to his feet and joined
in the wild ceremony. In the center of the circle of glittering
black bodies he leaped and roared and shook his heavy spear in
the same mad abandon that enthralled his fellow savages. The last
remnant of his civilization was forgotten--he was a primitive man
to the fullest now; reveling in the freedom of the fierce, wild
life he loved, gloating in his kingship among these wild blacks.

Ah, if Olga de Coude had but seen him then--could she have
recognized the well-dressed, quiet young man whose well-bred face
and irreproachable manners had so captivated her but a few short
months ago? And Jane Porter! Would she have still loved this savage
warrior chieftain, dancing naked among his naked savage subjects?
And D'Arnot! Could D'Arnot have believed that this was the same
man he had introduced into half a dozen of the most select clubs
of Paris? What would his fellow peers in the House of Lords have
said had one pointed to this dancing giant, with his barbaric
headdress and his metal ornaments, and said: "There, my lords, is
John Clayton, Lord Greystoke."

And so Tarzan of the Apes came into a real kingship among men--slowly
but surely was he following the evolution of his ancestors, for
had he not started at the very bottom?