"Dango! Dango!" shouted Nkima. "Little Nkima is afraid of Dango."
"If you come now," said Tarzan, "it will be safe; but if you wait too long, Dango will kill Tarzan; and then to whom may little Nkima go for protection?"
"Nkima comes," shouted the little monkey, and dropping quickly through the trees, he leaped to Tarzan's shoulder.
The hyaena bared his fangs and laughed his horrid laugh. Tarzan spoke. "Quick, the thongs, Nkima," urged Tarzan; and the little monkey, his fingers trembling with terror, went to work upon the leather thongs at Tarzan's wrists.
Dango, his ugly head lowered, made a sudden rush; and from the deep lungs of the ape-man came a thunderous roar that might have done credit to Numa himself. With a yelp of terror the cowardly Dango turned and fled to the extremity of the glade, where he stood bristling and growling.
"Hurry, Nkima," said Tarzan. "Dango will come again. Maybe once, maybe twice, maybe many times before he closes on me; but in the end he will realize that I am helpless, and then he will not stop or turn back."
"Little Nkima's fingers are sick," said the Manu. "They are weak and they tremble. They will not untie the knot."
"Nkima has sharp teeth," Tarzan reminded him. "Why waste your time with sick fingers over knots that they cannot untie? Let your sharp teeth do the work."
Instantly Nkima commenced to gnaw upon the strands. Silent perforce because his mouth was otherwise occupied, Nkima strove diligently and without interruption.
Dango, in the meantime, made two short rushes, each time coming a little closer, but each time turning back before the menace of the ape-man's roars and savage growls, which by now had aroused the jungle.