Page:Jungle Tales of Tarzan.djvu/229

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The Nightmare
217

in pain and yet it persisted in eating, eating, ever eating. Tarzan could endure it no longer—neither his hunger nor his disgust Silently he slipped to the ground with the bole of the great tree between himself and the f caster.

The man was still kneeling, bent almost double in agony, before the cooking pot His back was toward the ape-man. Swiftly and noiselessly Tarzan approached him. There was no sound as steel fingers closed about the black throat. The struggle was short, for the man was old and already half stupefied from the effects of the gorging and the beer.

Tarzan dropped the inert mass and scooped several large pieces of meat from the cooking pot—enough to satisfy even his great hunger—then he raised the body of the f caster and shoved it into the vessel. When the other blacks awoke they would have something to think about! Tarzan grinned. As he turned toward the tree with his meat, he picked up a vessel containing beer and raised it to his lips, but at the first taste he spat the stuff from his mouth and tossed the primitive tankard aside. He was quite sure that even Dango would draw the line at such filthy tasting drink as that, and his contempt for man increased with the conviction.

Tarzan swung off into the jungle some half mile or so before he paused to partake of his stolen food. He noticed that it gave forth a strange and unpleas-