THE FIGHT IN THE DESERT
let Abdul down, then he lowered the girl to the arms of the waiting Arab.
From the window Abdul dropped the short distance to the street below, while Tarzan took the girl in his arms and leaped down as he had done on so many other occasions in his own forest with a burden in his arms. A little cry of alarm was startled from the girl's lips, but Tarzan landed in the street with but an imperceptible jar, and lowered her in safety to her feet.
She clung to him for a moment.
"How strong m'sieur is, and how active," she cried. "El adrea, the black lion, himself is not more so."
"I should like to meet this el adrea of yours," he said. "I have heard much about him."
"And you come to the douar of my father you shall see him," said the girl. "He lives in a spur of the mountains north of us, and comes down from his lair at night to rob my father's douar. With a single blow of his mighty paw he crushes the skull of a bull, and woe betide the belated wayfarer who meets el adrea abroad at night."
Without further mishap they reached the hotel. The sleepy landlord objected strenuously to instituting a search for Kadour ben Saden until the following morning, but a piece of gold put a different aspect on the matter, so that a few moments later a servant had started to make the rounds of the lesser native hostelries where it might be expected that a desert sheik would find congenial associations. Tarzan had felt it necessary to find the girl's father that night, for fear
[103]
