But now when he saw the huge brute beset by two of the natural enemies of both the Mangani and the Bolgani, there flared within his breast a sudden loyalty that burned away the personal prejudices of a lifetime.
He was directly above Stimbol, and with such celerity do the mind and muscles of the ape-man coordinate that even as the American raised his weapon to his shoulder Tarzan had dropped upon his back, felling him to the earth; and before Stimbol could discover what had happened to him, long before he could stumble, cursing, to his feet, Tarzan, who had been unarmed, had snatched the hunter’s knife from its scabbard and leaped full upon the writhing, struggling mass of python and gorilla. Stimbol came to his feet ready to kill but what he saw before him temporarily drove the desire for vengeance from his mind.
Naked but for a loin cloth, bronzed, black-haired, a giant white man battled with the dread python; and as Stimbol watched he shuddered as he became aware that the low, beast-like growls he heard came not alone from the savage lips of the gorilla but from the throat of the godlike man-thing that fought for him.
Steel fingers encircled the python just back of its head, while those of the free hand drove Stimbol’s hunting knife again and again into the coiling, writhing body of the serpent. With the projection of a new and more menacing enemy into the battle, Histah was forced partially to release his hold upon Bolgani with, at first, the intention of including Tarzan in the same embrace that he might crush them both at once; but soon he discovered that the hairless man-thing constituted a distinct menace to his life that would necessitate his undivided attention, and so he quickly uncoiled from about Bolgani and in a frenzy of rage and pain that whipped his great length into a lashing fury of destruction he sought to encircle the ape-man; but wheresoever his coils approached, the keen knife bit deep into tortured flesh.
Bolgani, the spark of life all but crushed from him, lay gasping upon the ground, unable to come to the aid of his preserver, while Stimbol, goggle-eyed with awe and terror, kept at a safe distance, momentarily forgetful both of his lust for trophies and his bent for revenge.
Thus was Tarzan pitted, single-handed, against one of the mightiest of Nature’s creations in a duel to the death, the result of which seemed to the watching American already a foregone conclusion, for what man born of woman could hope, unaided, to escape from the embrace of the deadly coils of a python?
Already Histah had encircled the torso and one leg of the ape-man, but his powers of constriction, lessened by the frightful wounds he had received, had as yet been unable to crush his adversary into helplessness, and Tarzan was now concentrating his attention and the heavy blade of the hunting knife upon a single portion of the weakening body in an attempt to cut Histah in two.
Man and serpent were red with blood; and crimson were the grasses and the brush for yards in all directions as, with a final effort, Histah closed his giant coils spasmodically about his victim at the instant that Tarzan with a mighty upward heavy lunge cut through the vertebrae of the great snake.
Lashing and writhing, the nether portion, headless, flopped aside while the ape-man, still fighting with what remained, exerting his superhuman strength to its ultimate utmost, slowly forced the coils from about his body and cast the dying Histah from him. Then, without a glance at Stimbol, he turned to Bolgani.
“You are hurt to death?” he asked in the language of the great apes.
“No,” replied the gorilla. “I am Bolgani! I kill, Tarmangani!”
“I am Tarzan of the Apes,” said the ape-man. “I saved you from Histah.”
“You did not come to kill Bolgani?” inquired the gorilla.
“No. Let us be friends.”
Bolgani frowned in an effort to concentrate upon this remarkable problem. Presently he spoke. “We will be friends,” he said. “The Tarmangani behind you will kill us both with his thunder stick. Let us kill him first.” Painfully he staggered to his feet.
“No,” remonstrated Tarzan. “I will send the Tarmangani away.”
“You? He will not go.”
“I am Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle,” replied the ape-man. “The word of Tarzan is law in the jungle.”
Stimbol, who had been watching, was under the impression that the man and the beast were growling at one another and that a new duel impended. Had he guessed the truth and suspicioned that they considered him a common enemy he would have felt far less at ease. Now, his rifle regained, he started toward Tarzan just as the latter turned to address him.
“Stand to one side, young fellow,” said Stimbol, “while I finish that gorilla. After the experience you just had with the snake, I doubt if you want that fellow to jump you, too.” The American was none too sure of what the attitude of the white giant might be, for all too fresh in his mind was the startling and disconcerting manner of the wild man’s introduction; but he felt safe because he held a rifle, while the other was unarmed, and he guessed that the giant might be only too glad to be saved from the attentions of the gorilla, which, from Stimbol’s imagined knowledge of such beasts, appeared to him to be quite evidently threatening.
Tarzan halted directly between Bolgani and the hunter and eyed the latter appraisingly for a moment. “Lower your rifle,” he said, presently. “You are not going to shoot the gorilla.”
“The hell I’m not!” ejaculated Stimbol. “What do you suppose I’ve been chasing him through the jungle for?”
“Under a misapprehension,” replied Tarzan.
“What misapprehension?” demanded Stimbol.
“That you were going to shoot
