← catalogue

Tarzan the Terrible

by Edgar Rice Burroughs · English · Gutenberg #2020 · 547,846 chars · public domain (US)

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Tarzan the Terrible
    
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.

Title: Tarzan the Terrible

Author: Edgar Rice Burroughs


        
Release date: January 1, 2000 [eBook #2020]
                Most recently updated: December 31, 2020

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2020

Credits: Produced by Judy Boss.


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TARZAN THE TERRIBLE ***




Produced by Judy Boss.









Tarzan the Terrible


By

Edgar Rice Burroughs





CHAPTER

     I  The Pithecanthropus
    II  "To the Death!"
   III  Pan-at-lee
    IV  Tarzan-jad-guru
     V  In the Kor-ul-GRYF
    VI  The Tor-o-don
   VII  Jungle Craft
  VIII  A-lur
    IX  Blood-Stained Altars
     X  The Forbidden Garden
    XI  The Sentence of Death
   XII  The Giant Stranger
  XIII  The Masquerader
   XIV  The Temple of the Gryf
    XV  "The King Is Dead!"
   XVI  The Secret Way
  XVII  By Jad-bal-lul
 XVIII  The Lion Pit of Tu-lur
   XIX  Diana of the Jungle
    XX  Silently in the Night
   XXI  The Maniac
  XXII  A Journey on a Gryf
 XXIII  Taken Alive
  XXIV  The Messenger of Death
   XXV  Home
        Glossary





1

The Pithecanthropus

Silent as the shadows through which he moved, the great beast slunk
through the midnight jungle, his yellow-green eyes round and staring,
his sinewy tail undulating behind him, his head lowered and flattened,
and every muscle vibrant to the thrill of the hunt. The jungle moon
dappled an occasional clearing which the great cat was always careful
to avoid. Though he moved through thick verdure across a carpet of
innumerable twigs, broken branches, and leaves, his passing gave forth
no sound that might have been apprehended by dull human ears.

Apparently less cautious was the hunted thing moving even as silently
as the lion a hundred paces ahead of the tawny carnivore, for instead
of skirting the moon-splashed natural clearings it passed directly
across them, and by the tortuous record of its spoor it might indeed be
guessed that it sought these avenues of least resistance, as well it
might, since, unlike its grim stalker, it walked erect upon two
feet--it walked upon two feet and was hairless except for a black
thatch upon its head; its arms were well shaped and muscular; its hands
powerful and slender with long tapering fingers and thumbs reaching
almost to the first joint of the index fingers. Its legs too were
shapely but its feet departed from the standards of all races of men,
except possibly a few of the lowest races, in that the great toes
protruded at right angles from the foot.

Pausing momentarily in the full light of the gorgeous African moon the
creature turned an attentive ear to the rear and then, his head lifted,
his features might readily have been discerned in the moonlight. They
were strong, clean cut, and regular--features that would have attracted
attention for their masculine beauty in any of the great capitals of
the world. But was this thing a man? It would have been hard for a
watcher in the trees to have decided as the lion's prey resumed its way
across the silver tapestry that Luna had laid upon the floor of the
dismal jungle, for from beneath the loin cloth of black fur that
girdled its thighs there depended a long hairless, white tail.

In one hand the creature carried a stout club, and suspended at its
left side from a shoulder belt was a short, sheathed knife, while a
cross belt supported a pouch at its right hip. Confining these straps
to the body and also apparently supporting the loin cloth was a broad
girdle which glittered in the moonlight as though encrusted with virgin
gold, and was clasped in the center of the belly with a huge buckle of
ornate design that scintillated as with precious stones.

Closer and closer crept Numa, the lion, to his intended victim, and
that the latter was not entirely unaware of his danger was evidenced by
the increasing frequency with which he turned his ear and his sharp
black eyes in the direction of the cat upon his trail. He did not
greatly increase his speed, a long swinging walk where the open places
permitted, but he loosened the knife in its scabbard and at all times
kept his club in readiness for instant action.

Forging at last through a narrow strip of dense jungle vegetation the
man-thing broke through into an almost treeless area of considerable
extent. For an instant he hesitated, glancing quickly behind him and
then up at the security of the branches of the great trees waving
overhead, but some greater urge than fear or caution influenced his
decision apparently, for he moved off again across the little plain
leaving the safety of the trees behind him. At greater or less
intervals leafy sanctuaries dotted the grassy expanse ahead of him and
the route he took, leading from one to another, indicated that he had
not entirely cast discretion to the winds. But after the second tree
had been left behind the distance to the next was considerable, and it
was then that Numa walked from the concealing cover of the jungle and,
seeing his quarry apparently helpless before him, raised his tail
stiffly erect and charged.

Two months--two long, weary months filled with hunger, with thirst,
with hardships, with disappointment, and, greater than all, with
gnawing pain--had passed since Tarzan of the Apes learned from the
diary of the dead German captain that his wife still lived. A brief
investigation in which he was enthusiastically aided by the
Intelligence Department of the British East African Expedition revealed
the fact that an attempt had been made to keep Lady Jane in hiding in
the interior, for reasons of which only the German High Command might
be cognizant.

In charge of Lieutenant Obergatz and a detachment of native German
troops she had been sent across the border into the Congo Free State.

Starting out alone in search of her, Tarzan had succeeded in finding
the village in which she had been incarcerated only to learn that she
had escaped months before, and that the German officer had disappeared
at the same time. From there on the stories of the chiefs and the
warriors whom he quizzed, were vague and often contradictory. Even the
direction that the fugitives had taken Tarzan could only guess at by
piecing together bits of fragmentary evidence gleaned from various
sources.

Sinister conjectures were forced upon him by various observations which
he made in the village. One was incontrovertible proof that these
people were man-eaters; the other, the presence in the village of
various articles of native German uniforms and equipment. At great risk
and in the face of surly objection on the part of the chief, the
ape-man made a careful inspection of every hut in the village from
which at least a little ray of hope resulted from the fact that he
found no article that might have belonged to his wife.

Leaving the village he had made his way toward the southwest, crossing,
after the most appalling hardships, a vast waterless steppe covered for
the most part with dense thorn, coming at last into a district that had
probably never been previously entered by any white man and which was
known only in the legends of the tribes whose country bordered it. Here
were precipitous mountains, well-watered plateaus, wide plains, and
vast swampy morasses, but neither the plains, nor the plateaus, nor the
mountains were accessible to him until after weeks of arduous effort he
succeeded in finding a spot where he might cross the morasses--a
hideous stretch infested by venomous snakes and other larger dangerous
reptiles. On several occasions he glimpsed at distances or by night
what might have been titanic reptilian monsters, but as there were
hippopotami, rhinoceri, and elephants in great numbers in and about the
marsh he was never positive that the forms he saw were not of these.

When at last he stood upon firm ground after crossing the morasses he
realized why it was that for perhaps countless ages this territory had
defied the courage and hardihood of the heroic races of the outer world
that had, after innumerable reverses and unbelievable suffering
penetrated to practically every other region, from pole to pole.

From the abundance and diversity of the game it might have appeared
that every known species of bird and beast and reptile had sought here
a refuge wherein they might take their last stand against the
encroaching multitudes of men that had steadily spread themselves over
the surface of the earth, wresting the hunting grounds from the lower
orders, from the moment that the first ape shed his hair and ceased to
walk upon his knuckles.  Even the species with which Tarzan was
familiar showed here either the results of a divergent line of
evolution or an unaltered form that had been transmitted without
variation for countless ages.

Too, there were many hybrid strains, not the least interesting of which
to Tarzan was a yellow and black striped lion. Smaller than the species
with which Tarzan was familiar, but still a most formidable beast,
since it possessed in addition to sharp saber-like canines the
disposition of a devil. To Tarzan it presented evidence that tigers had
once roamed the jungles of Africa, possibly giant saber-tooths of
another epoch, and these apparently had crossed with lions with the
resultant terrors that he occasionally encountered at the present day.

The true lions of this new, Old World differed but little from those
with which he was familiar; in size and conformation they were almost
identical, but instead of shedding the leopard spots of cubhood, they
retained them through life as definitely marked as those of the leopard.

Two months of effort had revealed no slightest evidence that she he
sought had entered this beautiful yet forbidding land. His
investigation, however, of the cannibal village and his questioning of
other tribes in the neighborhood had convinced him that if Lady Jane
still lived it must be in this direction that he seek her, since by a
process of elimination he had reduced the direction of her flight to
only this possibility. How she had crossed the morass he could not
guess and yet something within seemed to urge upon him belief that she
had crossed it, and that if she still lived it was here that she must
be sought. But this unknown, untraversed wild was of vast extent; grim,
forbidding mountains blocked his way, torrents tumbling from rocky
fastnesses impeded his progress, and at every turn he was forced to
match wits and muscles with the great carnivora that he might procure
sustenance.

Time and again Tarzan and Numa stalked the same quarry and now one, now
the other bore off the prize. Seldom however did the ape-man go hungry
for the country was rich in game animals and birds and fish, in fruit
and the countless other forms of vegetable life upon which the
jungle-bred man may subsist.

Tarzan often wondered why in so rich a country he found no evidences of
man and had at last come to the conclusion that the parched,
thorn-covered steppe and the hideous morasses had formed a sufficient
barrier to protect this country effectively from the inroads of mankind.

After days of searching he had succeeded finally in discovering a pass
through the mountains and, coming down upon the opposite side, had
found himself in a country practically identical with that which he had
left. The hunting was good and at a water hole in the mouth of a canyon
where it debouched upon a tree-covered plain Bara, the deer, fell an
easy victim to the ape-man's cunning.

It was just at dusk. The voices of great four-footed hunters rose now
and again from various directions, and as the canyon afforded among its
trees no comfortable retreat the ape-man shouldered the carcass of the
deer and started downward onto the plain. At its opposite side rose
lofty trees--a great forest which suggested to his practiced eye a
mighty jungle. Toward this the ape-man bent his step, but when midway
of the plain he discovered standing alone such a tree as best suited
him for a night's abode, swung lightly to its branches and, presently,
a comfortable resting place.

Here he ate the flesh of Bara and when satisfied carried the balance of
the carcass to the opposite side of the tree where he deposited it far
above the ground in a secure place. Returning to his crotch he settled
himself for sleep and in another moment the roars of the lions and the
howlings of the lesser cats fell upon deaf ears.

The usual noises of the jungle composed rather than disturbed the
ape-man but an unusual sound, however imperceptible to the awakened ear
of civilized man, seldom failed to impinge upon the consciousness of
Tarzan, however deep his slumber, and so it was that when the moon was
high a sudden rush of feet across the grassy carpet in the vicinity of
his tree brought him to alert and ready activity. Tarzan does not
awaken as you and I with the weight of slumber still upon his eyes and
brain, for did the creatures of the wild awaken thus, their awakenings
would be few.  As his eyes snapped open, clear and bright, so, clear
and bright upon the nerve centers of his brain, were registered the
various perceptions of all his senses.

Almost beneath him, racing toward his tree was what at first glance
appeared to be an almost naked white man, yet even at the first instant
of discovery the long, white tail projecting rearward did not escape
the ape-man. Behind the fleeing figure, escaping, came Numa, the lion,
in full charge. Voiceless the prey, voiceless the killer; as two
spirits in a dead world the two moved in silent swiftness toward the
culminating tragedy of this grim race.

Even as his eyes opened and took in the scene beneath him--even in that
brief instant of perception, followed reason, judgment, and decision,
so rapidly one upon the heels of the other that almost simultaneously
the ape-man was in mid-air, for he had seen a white-skinned creature
cast in a mold similar to his own, pursued by Tarzan's hereditary
enemy. So close was the lion to the fleeing man-thing that Tarzan had
no time carefully to choose the method of his attack. As a diver leaps
from the springboard headforemost into the waters beneath, so Tarzan of
the Apes dove straight for Numa, the lion; naked in his right hand the
blade of his father that so many times before had tasted the blood of
lions.

A raking talon caught Tarzan on the side, inflicting a long, deep wound
and then the ape-man was on Numa's back and the blade was sinking again
and again into the savage side. Nor was the man-thing either longer
fleeing, or idle. He too, creature of the wild, had sensed on the
instant the truth of the miracle of his saving, and turning in his
tracks, had leaped forward with raised bludgeon to Tarzan's assistance
and Numa's undoing. A single terrific blow upon the flattened skull of
the beast laid him insensible and then as Tarzan's knife found the wild
heart a few convulsive shudders and a sudden relaxation marked the
passing of the carnivore.

Leaping to his feet the ape-man placed his foot upon the carcass of his
kill and, raising his face to Goro, the moon, voiced the savage victory
cry that had so often awakened the echoes of his native jungle.

As the hideous scream burst from the ape-man's lips the man-thing
stepped quickly back as in sudden awe, but when Tarzan returned his
hunting knife to its sheath and turned toward him the other saw in the
quiet dignity of his demeanor no cause for apprehension.

For a moment the two stood appraising each other, and then the
man-thing spoke. Tarzan realized that the creature before him was
uttering articulate sounds which expressed in speech, though in a
language with which Tarzan was unfamiliar, the thoughts of a man
possessing to a greater or less extent the same powers of reason that
he possessed. In other words, that though the creature before him had
the tail and thumbs and great toes of a monkey, it was, in all other
respects, quite evidently a man.

The blood, which was now flowing down Tarzan's side, caught the
creature's attention. From the pocket-pouch at his side he took a small
bag and approaching Tarzan indicated by signs that he wished the
ape-man to lie down that he might treat the wound, whereupon, spreading
the edges of the cut apart, he sprinkled the raw flesh with powder from
the little bag. The pain of the wound was as nothing to the exquisite
torture of the remedy but, accustomed to physical suffering, the
ape-man withstood it stoically and in a few moments not only had the
bleeding ceased but the pain as well.

In reply to the soft and far from unpleasant modulations of the other's
voice, Tarzan spoke in various tribal dialects of the interior as well
as in the language of the great apes, but it was evident that the man
understood none of these. Seeing that they could not make each other
understood, the pithecanthropus advanced toward Tarzan and placing his
left hand over his own heart laid the palm of his right hand over the
heart of the ape-man. To the latter the action appeared as a form of
friendly greeting and, being versed in the ways of uncivilized races,
he responded in kind as he realized it was doubtless intended that he
should. His action seemed to satisfy and please his new-found
acquaintance, who immediately fell to talking again and finally, with
his head tipped back, sniffed the air in the direction of the tree
above them and then suddenly pointing toward the carcass of Bara, the
deer, he touched his stomach in a sign language which even the densest
might interpret. With a wave of his hand Tarzan invited his guest to
partake of the remains of his savage repast, and the other, leaping
nimbly as a little monkey to the lower branches of the tree, made his
way quickly to the flesh, assisted always by his long, strong sinuous
tail.

The pithecanthropus ate in silence, cutting small strips from the
deer's loin with his keen knife. From his crotch in the tree Tarzan
watched his companion, noting the preponderance of human attributes
which were doubtless accentuated by the paradoxical thumbs, great toes,
and tail.

He wondered if this creature was representative of some strange race or
if, what seemed more likely, but an atavism. Either supposition would
have seemed preposterous enough did he not have before him the evidence
of the creature's existence. There he was, however, a tailed man with
distinctly arboreal hands and feet. His trappings, gold encrusted and
jewel studded, could have been wrought only by skilled artisans; but
whether they were the work of this individual or of others like him, or
of an entirely different race, Tarzan could not, of course, determine.

His meal finished, the guest wiped his fingers and lips with leaves
broken from a nearby branch, looked up at Tarzan with a pleasant smile
that revealed a row of strong white teeth, the canines of which were no
longer than Tarzan's own, spoke a few words which Tarzan judged were a
polite expression of thanks and then sought a comfortable place in the
tree for the night.

The earth was shadowed in the darkness which precedes the dawn when
Tarzan was awakened by a violent shaking of the tree in which he had
found shelter. As he opened his eyes he saw that his companion was also
astir, and glancing around quickly to apprehend the cause of the
disturbance, the ape-man was astounded at the sight which met his eyes.

The dim shadow of a colossal form reared close beside the tree and he
saw that it was the scraping of the giant body against the branches
that had awakened him. That such a tremendous creature could have
approached so closely without disturbing him filled Tarzan with both
wonderment and chagrin. In the gloom the ape-man at first conceived the
intruder to be an elephant; yet, if so, one of greater proportions than
any he had ever before seen, but as the dim outlines became less
indistinct he saw on a line with his eyes and twenty feet above the
ground the dim silhouette of a grotesquely serrated back that gave the
impression of a creature whose each and every spinal vertebra grew a
thick, heavy horn.  Only a portion of the back was visible to the
ape-man, the rest of the body being lost in the dense shadows beneath
the tree, from whence there now arose the sound of giant jaws
powerfully crunching flesh and bones. From the odors that rose to the
ape-man's sensitive nostrils he presently realized that beneath him was
some huge reptile feeding upon the carcass of the lion that had been
slain there earlier in the night.

As Tarzan's eyes, straining with curiosity, bored futilely into the
dark shadows he felt a light touch upon his shoulder, and, turning, saw
that his companion was attempting to attract his attention. The
creature, pressing a forefinger to his own lips as to enjoin silence,
attempted by pulling on Tarzan's arm to indicate that they should leave
at once.

Realizing that he was in a strange country, evidently infested by
creatures of titanic size, with the habits and powers of which he was
entirely unfamiliar, the ape-man permitted himself to be drawn away.
With the utmost caution the pithecanthropus descended the tree upon the
opposite side from the great nocturnal prowler, and, closely followed
by Tarzan, moved silently away through the night across the plain.

The ape-man was rather loath thus to relinquish an opportunity to
inspect a creature which he realized was probably entirely different
from anything in his past experience; yet he was wise enough to know
when discretion was the better part of valor and now, as in the past,
he yielded to that law which dominates the kindred of the wild,
preventing them from courting danger uselessly, whose lives are
sufficiently filled with danger in their ordinary routine of feeding
and mating.

As the rising sun dispelled the shadows of the night, Tarzan found
himself again upon the verge of a great forest into which his guide
plunged, taking nimbly to the branches of the trees through which he
made his way with the celerity of long habitude and hereditary
instinct, but though aided by a prehensile tail, fingers, and toes, the
man-thing moved through the forest with no greater ease or surety than
did the giant ape-man.

It was during this journey that Tarzan recalled the wound in his side
inflicted upon him the previous night by the raking talons of Numa, the
lion, and examining it was surprised to discover that not only was it
painless but along its edges were no indications of inflammation, the
results doubtless of the antiseptic powder his strange companion had
sprinkled upon it.

They had proceeded for a mile or two when Tarzan's companion came to
earth upon a grassy slope beneath a great tree whose branches overhung
a clear brook. Here they drank and Tarzan discovered the water to be
not only deliciously pure and fresh but of an icy temperature that
indicated its rapid descent from the lofty mountains of its origin.

Casting aside his loin cloth and weapons Tarzan entered the little pool
beneath the tree and after a moment emerged, greatly refreshed and
filled with a keen desire to breakfast. As he came out of the pool he
noticed his companion examining him with a puzzled expression upon his
face. Taking the ape-man by the shoulder he turned him around so that
Tarzan's back was toward him and then, touching the end of Tarzan's
spine with his forefinger, he curled his own tail up over his shoulder
and, wheeling the ape-man about again, pointed first at Tarzan and then
at his own caudal appendage, a look of puzzlement upon his face, the
while he jabbered excitedly in his strange tongue.

The ape-man realized that probably for the first time his companion had
discovered that he was tailless by nature rather than by accident, and
so he called attention to his own great toes and thumbs to further
impress upon the creature that they were of different species.

The fellow shook his head dubiously as though entirely unable to
comprehend why Tarzan should differ so from him but at last, apparently
giving the problem up with a shrug, he laid aside his own harness,
skin, and weapons and entered the pool.

His ablutions completed and his meager apparel redonned he seated
himself at the foot of the tree and motioning Tarzan to a place beside
him, opened the pouch that hung at his right side taking from it strips
of dried flesh and a couple of handfuls of thin-shelled nuts with which
Tarzan was unfamiliar. Seeing the other break them with his teeth and
eat the kernel, Tarzan followed the example thus set him, discovering
the meat to be rich and well flavored. The dried flesh also was far
from unpalatable, though it had evidently been jerked without salt, a
commodity which Tarzan imagined might be rather difficult to obtain in
this locality.

As they ate Tarzan's companion pointed to the nuts, the dried meat, and
various other nearby objects, in each instance repeating what Tarzan
readily discovered must be the names of these things in the creature's
native language. The ape-man could but smile at this evident desire
upon the part of his new-found acquaintance to impart to him
instructions that eventually might lead to an exchange of thoughts
between them. Having already mastered several languages and a multitude
of dialects the ape-man felt that he could readily assimilate another
even though this appeared one entirely unrelated to any with which he
was familiar.

So occupied were they with their breakfast and the lesson that neither
was aware of the beady eyes glittering down upon them from above; nor
was Tarzan cognizant of any impending danger until the instant that a
huge, hairy body leaped full upon his companion from the branches above
them.



2

"To the Death!"

In the moment of discovery Tarzan saw that the creature was almost a
counterpart of his companion in size and conformation, with the
exception that his body was entirely clothed with a coat of shaggy
black hair which almost concealed his features, while his harness and
weapons were similar to those of the creature he had attacked. Ere
Tarzan could prevent the creature had struck the ape-man's companion a
blow upon the head with his knotted club that felled him, unconscious,
to the earth; but before he could inflict further injury upon his
defenseless prey the ape-man had closed with him.

Instantly Tarzan realized that he was locked with a creature of almost
superhuman strength. The sinewy fingers of a powerful hand sought his
throat while the other lifted the bludgeon above his head. But if the
strength of the hairy attacker was great, great too was that of his
smooth-skinned antagonist. Swinging a single terrific blow with
clenched fist to the point of the other's chin, Tarzan momentarily
staggered his assailant and then his own fingers closed upon the shaggy
throat, as with the other hand he seized the wrist of the arm that
swung the club. With equal celerity he shot his right leg behind the
shaggy brute and throwing his weight forward hurled the thing over his
hip heavily to the ground, at the same time precipitating his own body
upon the other's chest.

With the shock of the impact the club fell from the brute's hand and
Tarzan's hold was wrenched from its throat. Instantly the two were
locked in a deathlike embrace. Though the creature bit at Tarzan the
latter was quickly aware that this was not a particularly formidable
method of offense or defense, since its canines were scarcely more
developed than his own. The thing that he had principally to guard
against was the sinuous tail which sought steadily to wrap itself about
his throat and against which experience had afforded him no defense.

Struggling and snarling the two rolled growling about the sward at the
foot of the tree, first one on top and then the other but each more
occupied at present in defending his throat from the other's choking
grasp than in aggressive, offensive tactics. But presently the ape-man
saw his opportunity and as they rolled about he forced the creature
closer and closer to the pool, upon the banks of which the battle was
progressing. At last they lay upon the very verge of the water and now
it remained for Tarzan to precipitate them both beneath the surface but
in such a way that he might remain on top.

At the same instant there came within range of Tarzan's vision, just
behind the prostrate form of his companion, the crouching, devil-faced
figure of the striped saber-tooth hybrid, eyeing him with snarling,
malevolent face.

Almost simultaneously Tarzan's shaggy antagonist discovered the
menacing figure of the great cat. Immediately he ceased his belligerent
activities against Tarzan and, jabbering and chattering to the ape-man,
he tried to disengage himself from Tarzan's hold but in such a way that
indicated that as far as he was concerned their battle was over.
Appreciating the danger to his unconscious companion and being anxious
to protect him from the saber-tooth the ape-man relinquished his hold
upon his adversary and together the two rose to their feet.

Drawing his knife Tarzan moved slowly toward the body of his companion,
expecting that his recent antagonist would grasp the opportunity for
escape. To his surprise, however, the beast, after regaining its club,
advanced at his side.

The great cat, flattened upon its belly, remained motionless except for
twitching tail and snarling lips where it lay perhaps fifty feet beyond
the body of the pithecanthropus. As Tarzan stepped over the body of the
latter he saw the eyelids quiver and open, and in his heart he felt a
strange sense of relief that the creature was not dead and a
realization that without his suspecting it there had arisen within his
savage bosom a bond of attachment for this strange new friend.

Tarzan continued to approach the saber-tooth, nor did the shaggy beast
at his right lag behind. Closer and closer they came until at a
distance of about twenty feet the hybrid charged. Its rush was directed
toward the shaggy manlike ape who halted in his tracks with upraised
bludgeon to meet the assault. Tarzan, on the contrary, leaped forward
and with a celerity second not even to that of the swift-moving cat, he
threw himself headlong upon him as might a Rugby tackler on an American
gridiron. His right arm circled the beast's neck in front of the right
shoulder, his left behind the left foreleg, and so great was the force
of the impact that the two rolled over and over several times upon the
ground, the cat screaming and clawing to liberate itself that it might
turn upon its attacker, the man clinging desperately to his hold.

Seemingly the attack was one of mad, senseless ferocity unguided by
either reason or skill. Nothing, however, could have been farther from
the truth than such an assumption since every muscle in the ape-man's
giant frame obeyed the dictates of the cunning mind that long
experience had trained to meet every exigency of such an encounter. The
long, powerful legs, though seemingly inextricably entangled with the
hind feet of the clawing cat, ever as by a miracle, escaped the raking
talons and yet at just the proper instant in the midst of all the
rolling and tossing they were where they should be to carry out the
ape-man's plan of offense. So that on the instant that the cat believed
it had won the mastery of its antagonist it was jerked suddenly upward
as the ape-man rose to his feet, holding the striped back close against
his body as he rose and forcing it backward until it could but claw the
air helplessly.

Instantly the shaggy black rushed in with drawn knife which it buried
in the beast's heart. For a few moments Tarzan retained his hold but
when the body had relaxed in final dissolution he pushed it from him
and the two who had formerly been locked in mortal combat stood facing
each other across the body of the common foe.

Tarzan waited, ready either for peace or war. Presently two shaggy
black hands were raised; the left was laid upon its own heart and the
right extended until the palm touched Tarzan's breast. It was the same
form of friendly salutation with which the pithecanthropus had sealed
his alliance with the ape-man and Tarzan, glad of every ally he could
win in this strange and savage world, quickly accepted the proffered
friendship.

At the conclusion of the brief ceremony Tarzan, glancing in the
direction of the hairless pithecanthropus, discovered that the latter
had recovered consciousness and was sitting erect watching them
intently. He now rose slowly and at the same time the shaggy black
turned in his direction and addressed him in what evidently was their
common language. The hairless one replied and the two approached each
other slowly. Tarzan watched interestedly the outcome of their meeting.
They halted a few paces apart, first one and then the other speaking
rapidly but without apparent excitement, each occasionally glancing or
nodding toward Tarzan, indicating that he was to some extent the
subject of their conversation.

Presently they advanced again until they met, whereupon was repeated
the brief ceremony of alliance which had previously marked the
cessation of hostilities between Tarzan and the black.  They then
advanced toward the ape-man addressing him earnestly as though
endeavoring to convey to him some important information.  Presently,
however, they gave it up as an unprofitable job and, resorting to sign
language, conveyed to Tarzan that they were proceeding upon their way
together and were urging him to accompany them.

As the direction they indicated was a route which Tarzan had not
previously traversed he was extremely willing to accede to their
request, as he had determined thoroughly to explore this unknown land
before definitely abandoning search for Lady Jane therein.

For several days their way led through the foothills parallel to the
lofty range towering above. Often were they menaced by the savage
denizens of this remote fastness, and occasionally Tarzan glimpsed
weird forms of gigantic proportions amidst the shadows of the nights.

On the third day they came upon a large natural cave in the face of a
low cliff at the foot of which tumbled one of the numerous mountain
brooks that watered the plain below and fed the morasses in the
lowlands at the country's edge. Here the three took up their temporary
abode where Tarzan's instruction in the language of his companions
progressed more rapidly than while on the march.

The cave gave evidence of having harbored other manlike forms in the
past. Remnants of a crude, rock fireplace remained and the walls and
ceiling were blackened with the smoke of many fires. Scratched in the
soot, and sometimes deeply into the rock beneath, were strange
hieroglyphics and the outlines of beasts and birds and reptiles, some
of the latter of weird form suggesting the extinct creatures of
Jurassic times. Some of the more recently made hieroglyphics Tarzan's
companions read with interest and commented upon, and then with the
points of their knives they too added to the possibly age-old record of
the blackened walls.

Tarzan's curiosity was aroused, but the only explanation at which he
could arrive was that he was looking upon possibly the world's most
primitive hotel register. At least it gave him a further insight into
the development of the strange creatures with which Fate had thrown
him. Here were men with the tails of monkeys, one of them as hair
covered as any fur-bearing brute of the lower orders, and yet it was
evident that they possessed not only a spoken, but a written language.
The former he was slowly mastering and at this new evidence of
unlooked-for civilization in creatures possessing so many of the
physical attributes of beasts, Tarzan's curiosity was still further
piqued and his desire quickly to master their tongue strengthened, with
the result that he fell to with even greater assiduity to the task he
had set himself. Already he knew the names of his companions and the
common names of the fauna and flora with which they had most often come
in contact.

Ta-den, he of the hairless, white skin, having assumed the role of
tutor, prosecuted his task with a singleness of purpose that was
reflected in his pupil's rapid mastery of Ta-den's mother tongue.
Om-at, the hairy black, also seemed to feel that there rested upon his
broad shoulders a portion of the burden of responsibility for Tarzan's
education, with the result that either one or the other of them was
almost constantly coaching the ape-man during his waking hours. The
result was only what might have been expected--a rapid assimilation of
the teachings to the end that before any of them realized it,
communication by word of mouth became an accomplished fact.

Tarzan explained to his companions the purpose of his mission but
neither could give him any slightest thread of hope to weave into the
fabric of his longing. Never had there been in their country a woman
such as he described, nor any tailless man other than himself that they
ever had seen.

"I have been gone from A-lur while Bu, the moon, has eaten seven
times," said Ta-den. "Many things may happen in seven times
twenty-eight days; but I doubt that your woman could have entered our
country across the terrible morasses which even you found an almost
insurmountable obstacle, and if she had, could she have survived the
perils that you already have encountered beside those of which you have
yet to learn? Not even our own women venture into the savage lands
beyond the cities."

"'A-lur,' Light-city, City of Light," mused Tarzan, translating the
word into his own tongue. "And where is A-lur?" he asked. "Is it your
city, Ta-den, and Om-at's?"

"It is mine," replied the hairless one; "but not Om-at's. The Waz-don
have no cities--they live in the trees of the forests and the caves of
the hills--is it not so, black man?" he concluded, turning toward the
hairy giant beside him.

"Yes," replied Om-at, "We Waz-don are free--only the Hodon imprison
themselves in cities. I would not be a white man!"

Tarzan smiled. Even here was the racial distinction between white man
and black man--Ho-don and Waz-don. Not even the fact that they appeared
to be equals in the matter of intelligence made any difference--one was
white and one was black, and it was easy to see that the white
considered himself superior to the other--one could see it in his quiet
smile.

"Where is A-lur?" Tarzan asked again. "You are returning to it?"

"It is beyond the mountains," replied Ta-den. "I do not return to
it--not yet. Not until Ko-tan is no more."

"Ko-tan?" queried Tarzan.

"Ko-tan is king," explained the pithecanthropus. "He rules this land. I
was one of his warriors. I lived in the palace of Ko-tan and there I
met O-lo-a, his daughter. We loved, Likestar-light, and I; but Ko-tan
would have none of me. He sent me away to fight with the men of the
village of Dak-at, who had refused to pay his tribute to the king,
thinking that I would be killed, for Dak-at is famous for his many fine
warriors. And I was not killed.  Instead I returned victorious with the
tribute and with Dak-at himself my prisoner; but Ko-tan was not pleased
because he saw that O-lo-a loved me even more than before, her love
being strengthened and fortified by pride in my achievement.

"Powerful is my father, Ja-don, the Lion-man, chief of the largest
village outside of A-lur. Him Ko-tan hesitated to affront and so he
could not but praise me for my success, though he did it with half a
smile. But you do not understand! It is what we call a smile that moves
only the muscles of the face and affects not the light of the eyes--it
means hypocrisy and duplicity. I must be praised and rewarded. What
better than that he reward me with the hand of O-lo-a, his daughter?
But no, he saves O-lo-a for Bu-lot, son of Mo-sar, the chief whose
great-grandfather was king and who thinks that he should be king. Thus
would Ko-tan appease the wrath of Mo-sar and win the friendship of
those who think with Mo-sar that Mo-sar should be king.

"But what reward shall repay the faithful Ta-den? Greatly do we honor
our priests. Within the temples even the chiefs and the king himself
bow down to them. No greater honor could Ko-tan confer upon a
subject--who wished to be a priest, but I did not so wish. Priests
other than the high priest must become eunuchs for they may never marry.

"It was O-lo-a herself who brought word to me that her father had given
the commands that would set in motion the machinery of the temple. A
messenger was on his way in search of me to summon me to Ko-tan's
presence. To have refused the priesthood once it was offered me by the
king would have been to have affronted the temple and the gods--that
would have meant death; but if I did not appear before Ko-tan I would
not have to refuse anything.  O-lo-a and I decided that I must not
appear. It was better to fly, carrying in my bosom a shred of hope,
than to remain and, with my priesthood, abandon hope forever.

"Beneath the shadows of the great trees that grow within the palace
grounds I pressed her to me for, perhaps, the last time and then, lest
by ill-fate I meet the messenger, I scaled the great wall that guards
the palace and passed through the darkened city. My name and rank
carried me beyond the city gate. Since then I have wandered far from
the haunts of the Ho-don but strong within me is the urge to return if
even but to look from without her walls upon the city that holds her
most dear to me and again to visit the village of my birth, to see
again my father and my mother."

"But the risk is too great?" asked Tarzan.

"It is great, but not too great," replied Ta-den. "I shall go."

"And I shall go with you, if I may," said the ape-man, "for I must see
this City of Light, this A-lur of yours, and search there for my lost
mate even though you believe that there is little chance that I find
her. And you, Om-at, do you come with us?"

"Why not?" asked the hairy one. "The lairs of my tribe lie in the crags
above A-lur and though Es-sat, our chief, drove me out I should like to
return again, for there is a she there upon whom I should be glad to
look once more and who would be glad to look upon me. Yes, I will go
with you. Es-sat feared that I might become chief and who knows but
that Es-sat was right. But Pan-at-lee! it is she I seek first even
before a chieftainship."

"We three, then, shall travel together," said Tarzan.

"And fight together," added Ta-den; "the three as one," and as he spoke
he drew his knife and held it above his head.

"The three as one," repeated Om-at, drawing his weapon and duplicating
Ta-den's act. "It is spoken!"

"The three as one!" cried Tarzan of the Apes. "To the death!" and his
blade flashed in the sunlight.

"Let us go, then," said Om-at; "my knife is dry and cries aloud for the
blood of Es-sat."

The trail over which Ta-den and Om-at led and which scarcely could be
dignified even by the name of trail was suited more to mountain sheep,
monkeys, or birds than to man; but the three that followed it were
trained to ways which no ordinary man might essay. Now, upon the lower
slopes, it led through dense forests where the ground was so matted
with fallen trees and over-rioting vines and brush that the way held
always to the swaying branches high above the tangle; again it skirted
yawning gorges whose slippery-faced rocks gave but momentary foothold
even to the bare feet that lightly touched them as the three leaped
chamois-like from one precarious foothold to the next. Dizzy and
terrifying was the way that Om-at chose across the summit as he led
them around the shoulder of a towering crag that rose a sheer two
thousand feet of perpendicular rock above a tumbling river. And when at
last they stood upon comparatively level ground again Om-at turned and
looked at them both intently and especially at Tarzan of the Apes.

"You will both do," he said. "You are fit companions for Om-at, the
Waz-don."

"What do you mean?" asked Tarzan.

"I brought you this way," replied the black, "to learn if either lacked
the courage to follow where Om-at led. It is here that the young
warriors of Es-sat come to prove their courage. And yet, though we are
born and raised upon cliff sides, it is considered no disgrace to admit
that Pastar-ul-ved, the Father of Mountains, has defeated us, for of
those who try it only a few succeed--the bones of the others lie at the
feet of Pastar-ul-ved."

Ta-den laughed. "I would not care to come this way often," he said.

"No," replied Om-at; "but it has shortened our journey by at least a
full day. So much the sooner shall Tarzan look upon the Valley of
Jad-ben-Otho. Come!" and he led the way upward along the shoulder of
Pastar-ul-ved until there lay spread below them a scene of mystery and
of beauty--a green valley girt by towering cliffs of marble
whiteness--a green valley dotted by deep blue lakes and crossed by the
blue trail of a winding river. In the center a city of the whiteness of
the marble cliffs--a city which even at so great a distance evidenced a
strange, yet artistic architecture. Outside the city there were visible
about the valley isolated groups of buildings--sometimes one, again two
and three and four in a cluster--but always of the same glaring
whiteness, and always in some fantastic form.

About the valley the cliffs were occasionally cleft by deep gorges,
verdure filled, giving the appearance of green rivers rioting downward
toward a central sea of green.

"Jad Pele ul Jad-ben-Otho," murmured Tarzan in the tongue of the
pithecanthropi; "The Valley of the Great God--it is beautiful!"

"Here, in A-lur, lives Ko-tan, the king, ruler over all Pal-ul-don,"
said Ta-den.

"And here in these gorges live the Waz-don," exclaimed Om-at, "who do
not acknowledge that Ko-tan is the ruler over all the Land-of-man."

Ta-den smiled and shrugged. "We will not quarrel, you and I," he said
to Om-at, "over that which all the ages have not proved sufficient time
in which to reconcile the Ho-don and Waz-don; but let me whisper to you
a secret, Om-at. The Ho-don live together in greater or less peace
under one ruler so that when danger threatens them they face the enemy
with many warriors, for every fighting Ho-don of Pal-ul-don is there.
But you Waz-don, how is it with you? You have a dozen kings who fight
not only with the Ho-don but with one another. When one of your tribes
goes forth upon the fighting trail, even against the Ho-don, it must
leave behind sufficient warriors to protect its women and its children
from the neighbors upon either hand. When we want eunuchs for the
temples or servants for the fields or the homes we march forth in great
numbers upon one of your villages. You cannot even flee, for upon
either side of you are enemies and though you fight bravely we come
back with those who will presently be eunuchs in the temples and
servants in our fields and homes. So long as the Waz-don are thus
foolish the Ho-don will dominate and their king will be king of
Pal-ul-don."

"Perhaps you are right," admitted Om-at. "It is because our neighbors
are fools, each thinking that his tribe is the greatest and should rule
among the Waz-don. They will not admit that the warriors of my tribe
are the bravest and our shes the most beautiful."

Ta-den grinned. "Each of the others presents precisely the same
arguments that you present, Om-at," he said, "which, my friend, is the
strongest bulwark of defense possessed by the Ho-don."

"Come!" exclaimed Tarzan; "such discussions often lead to quarrels and
we three must have no quarrels. I, of course, am interested in learning
what I can of the political and economic conditions of your land; I
should like to know something of your religion; but not at the expense
of bitterness between my only friends in Pal-ul-don. Possibly, however,
you hold to the same god?"

"There indeed we do differ," cried Om-at, somewhat bitterly and with a
trace of excitement in his voice.

"Differ!" almost shouted Ta-den; "and why should we not differ? Who
could agree with the preposterous----"

"Stop!" cried Tarzan. "Now, indeed, have I stirred up a hornets' nest.
Let us speak no more of matters political or religious."

"That is wiser," agreed Om-at; "but I might mention, for your
information, that the one and only god has a long tail."

"It is sacrilege," cried Ta-den, laying his hand upon his knife;
"Jad-ben-Otho has no tail!"

"Stop!" shrieked Om-at, springing forward; but instantly Tarzan
interposed himself between them.

"Enough!" he snapped. "Let us be true to our oaths of friendship that
we may be honorable in the sight of God in whatever form we conceive
Him."

"You are right, Tailless One," said Ta-den. "Come, Om-at, let us look
after our friendship and ourselves, secure in the conviction that
Jad-ben-Otho is sufficiently powerful to look after himself."

"Done!" agreed Om-at, "but----"

"No 'buts,' Om-at," admonished Tarzan.

The shaggy black shrugged his shoulders and smiled. "Shall we make our
way down toward the valley?" he asked. "The gorge below us is
uninhabited; that to the left contains the caves of my people. I would
see Pan-at-lee once more. Ta-den would visit his father in the valley
below and Tarzan seeks entrance to A-lur in search of the mate that
would be better dead than in the clutches of the Ho-don priests of
Jad-ben-Otho. How shall we proceed?"

"Let us remain together as long as possible," urged Ta-den.  "You,
Om-at, must seek Pan-at-lee by night and by stealth, for three, even we
three, may not hope to overcome Es-sat and all his warriors. At any
time may we go to the village where my father is chief, for Ja-don
always will welcome the friends of his son. But for Tarzan to enter
A-lur is another matter, though there is a way and he has the courage
to put it to the test--listen, come close for Jad-ben-Otho has keen
ears and this he must not hear," and with his lips close to the ears of
his companions Ta-den, the Tall-tree, son of Ja-don, the Lion-man,
unfolded his daring plan.

And at the same moment, a hundred miles away, a lithe figure, naked but
for a loin cloth and weapons, moved silently across a thorn-covered,
waterless steppe, searching always along the ground before him with
keen eyes and sensitive nostrils.



3

Pan-at-lee

Night had fallen upon unchartered Pal-ul-don. A slender moon, low in
the west, bathed the white faces of the chalk cliffs presented to her,
in a mellow, unearthly glow. Black were the shadows in Kor-ul-JA,
Gorge-of-lions, where dwelt the tribe of the same name under Es-sat,
their chief. From an aperture near the summit of the lofty escarpment a
hairy figure emerged--the head and shoulders first--and fierce eyes
scanned the cliff side in every direction.

It was Es-sat, the chief. To right and left and below he looked as
though to assure himself that he was unobserved, but no other figure
moved upon the cliff face, nor did another hairy body protrude from any
of the numerous cave mouths from the high-flung abode of the chief to
the habitations of the more lowly members of the tribe nearer the
cliff's base. Then he moved outward upon the sheer face of the white
chalk wall. In the half-light of the baby moon it appeared that the
heavy, shaggy black figure moved across the face of the perpendicular
wall in some miraculous manner, but closer examination would have
revealed stout pegs, as large around as a man's wrist protruding from
holes in the cliff into which they were driven. Es-sat's four handlike
members and his long, sinuous tail permitted him to move with
consummate ease whither he chose--a gigantic rat upon a mighty wall. As
he progressed upon his way he avoided the cave mouths, passing either
above or below those that lay in his path.

The outward appearance of these caves was similar. An opening from
eight to as much as twenty feet long by eight high and four to six feet
deep was cut into the chalklike rock of the cliff, in the back of this
large opening, which formed what might be described as the front
veranda of the home, was an opening about three feet wide and six feet
high, evidently forming the doorway to the interior apartment or
apartments. On either side of this doorway were smaller openings which
it were easy to assume were windows through which light and air might
find their way to the inhabitants. Similar windows were also dotted
over the cliff face between the entrance porches, suggesting that the
entire face of the cliff was honeycombed with apartments. From many of
these smaller apertures small streams of water trickled down the
escarpment, and the walls above others was blackened as by smoke.
Where the water ran the wall was eroded to a depth of from a few inches
to as much as a foot, suggesting that some of the tiny streams had been
trickling downward to the green carpet of vegetation below for ages.

In this primeval setting the great pithecanthropus aroused no jarring
discord for he was as much a part of it as the trees that grew upon the
summit of the cliff or those that hid their feet among the dank ferns
in the bottom of the gorge.

Now he paused before an entrance-way and listened and then, noiselessly
as the moonlight upon the trickling waters, he merged with the shadows
of the outer porch. At the doorway leading into the interior he paused
again, listening, and then quietly pushing aside the heavy skin that
covered the aperture he passed within a large chamber hewn from the
living rock. From the far end, through another doorway, shone a light,
dimly. Toward this he crept with utmost stealth, his naked feet giving
forth no sound.  The knotted club that had been hanging at his back
from a thong about his neck he now removed and carried in his left hand.

Beyond the second doorway was a corridor running parallel with the
cliff face. In this corridor were three more doorways, one at each end
and a third almost opposite that in which Es-sat stood.  The light was
coming from an apartment at the end of the corridor at his left. A
sputtering flame rose and fell in a small stone receptacle that stood
upon a table or bench of the same material, a monolithic bench
fashioned at the time the room was excavated, rising massively from the
floor, of which it was a part.

In one corner of the room beyond the table had been left a dais of
stone about four feet wide and eight feet long. Upon this were piled a
foot or so of softly tanned pelts from which the fur had not been
removed. Upon the edge of this dais sat a young female Waz-don. In one
hand she held a thin piece of metal, apparently of hammered gold, with
serrated edges, and in the other a short, stiff brush. With these she
was occupied in going over her smooth, glossy coat which bore a
remarkable resemblance to plucked sealskin. Her loin cloth of yellow
and black striped JATO-skin lay on the couch beside her with the
circular breastplates of beaten gold, revealing the symmetrical lines
of her nude figure in all its beauty and harmony of contour, for even
though the creature was jet black and entirely covered with hair yet
she was undeniably beautiful.

That she was beautiful in the eyes of Es-sat, the chief, was evidenced
by the gloating expression upon his fierce countenance and the
increased rapidity of his breathing. Moving quickly forward he entered
the room and as he did so the young she looked up. Instantly her eyes
filled with terror and as quickly she seized the loin cloth and with a
few deft movements adjusted it about her. As she gathered up her
breastplates Es-sat rounded the table and moved quickly toward her.

"What do you want?" she whispered, though she knew full well.

"Pan-at-lee," he said, "your chief has come for you."

"It was for this that you sent away my father and my brothers to spy
upon the Kor-ul-lul? I will not have you. Leave the cave of my
ancestors!"

Es-sat smiled. It was the smile of a strong and wicked man who knows
his power--not a pleasant smile at all. "I will leave, Pan-at-lee," he
said; "but you shall go with me--to the cave of Es-sat, the chief, to
be the envied of the shes of Kor-ul-JA.  Come!"

"Never!" cried Pan-at-lee. "I hate you. Sooner would I mate with a
Ho-don than with you, beater of women, murderer of babes."

A frightful scowl distorted the features of the chief. "She-JATO!" he
cried. "I will tame you! I will break you! Es-sat, the chief, takes
what he will and who dares question his right, or combat his least
purpose, will first serve that purpose and then be broken as I break
this," and he picked a stone platter from the table and broke it in his
powerful hands. "You might have been first and most favored in the cave
of the ancestors of Es-sat; but now shall you be last and least and
when I am done with you you shall belong to all of the men of Es-sat's
cave. Thus for those who spurn the love of their chief!"

He advanced quickly to seize her and as he laid a rough hand upon her
she struck him heavily upon the side of his head with her golden
breastplates. Without a sound Es-sat, the chief, sank to the floor of
the apartment. For a moment Pan-at-lee bent over him, her improvised
weapon raised to strike again should he show signs of returning
consciousness, her glossy breasts rising and falling with her quickened
breathing. Suddenly she stooped and removed Es-sat's knife with its
scabbard and shoulder belt.  Slipping it over her own shoulder she
quickly adjusted her breastplates and keeping a watchful glance upon
the figure of the fallen chief, backed from the room.

In a niche in the outer room, just beside the doorway leading to the
balcony, were neatly piled a number of rounded pegs from eighteen to
twenty inches in length. Selecting five of these she made them into a
little bundle about which she twined the lower extremity of her sinuous
tail and thus carrying them made her way to the outer edge of the
balcony. Assuring herself that there was none about to see, or hinder
her, she took quickly to the pegs already set in the face of the cliff
and with the celerity of a monkey clambered swiftly aloft to the
highest row of pegs which she followed in the direction of the lower
end of the gorge for a matter of some hundred yards. Here, above her
head, were a series of small round holes placed one above another in
three parallel rows. Clinging only with her toes she removed two of the
pegs from the bundle carried in her tail and taking one in either hand
she inserted them in two opposite holes of the outer rows as far above
her as she could reach. Hanging by these new holds she now took one of
the three remaining pegs in each of her feet, leaving the fifth grasped
securely in her tail. Reaching above her with this member she inserted
the fifth peg in one of the holes of the center row and then,
alternately hanging by her tail, her feet, or her hands, she moved the
pegs upward to new holes, thus carrying her stairway with her as she
ascended.

At the summit of the cliff a gnarled tree exposed its time-worn roots
above the topmost holes forming the last step from the sheer face of
the precipice to level footing. This was the last avenue of escape for
members of the tribe hard pressed by enemies from below. There were
three such emergency exits from the village and it were death to use
them in other than an emergency.  This Pan-at-lee well knew; but she
knew, too, that it were worse than death to remain where the angered
Es-sat might lay hands upon her.

When she had gained the summit, the girl moved quickly through the
darkness in the direction of the next gorge which cut the mountain-side
a mile beyond Kor-ul-JA. It was the Gorge-of-water, Kor-ul-lul, to
which her father and two brothers had been sent by Es-sat ostensibly to
spy upon the neighboring tribe. There was a chance, a slender chance,
that she might find them; if not there was the deserted Kor-ul-GRYF
several miles beyond, where she might hide indefinitely from man if she
could elude the frightful monster from which the gorge derived its name
and whose presence there had rendered its caves uninhabitable for
generations.

Pan-at-lee crept stealthily along the rim of the Kor-ul-lul. Just where
her father and brothers would watch she did not know. Sometimes their
spies remained upon the rim, sometimes they watched from the gorge's
bottom. Pan-at-lee was at a loss to know what to do or where to go. She
felt very small and helpless alone in the vast darkness of the night.
Strange noises fell upon her ears. They came from the lonely reaches of
the towering mountains above her, from far away in the invisible valley
and from the nearer foothills and once, in the distance, she heard what
she thought was the bellow of a bull GRYF. It came from the direction
of the Kor-ul-GRYF. She shuddered.

Presently there came to her keen ears another sound. Something
approached her along the rim of the gorge. It was coming from above.
She halted, listening. Perhaps it was her father, or a brother. It was
coming closer. She strained her eyes through the darkness. She did not
move--she scarcely breathed. And then, of a sudden, quite close it
seemed, there blazed through the black night two yellow-green spots of
fire.

Pan-at-lee was brave, but as always with the primitive, the darkness
held infinite terrors for her. Not alone the terrors of the known but
more frightful ones as well--those of the unknown.  She had passed
through much this night and her nerves were keyed to the highest
pitch--raw, taut nerves, they were, ready to react in an exaggerated
form to the slightest shock.

But this was no slight shock. To hope for a father and a brother and to
see death instead glaring out of the darkness! Yes, Pan-at-lee was
brave, but she was not of iron. With a shriek that reverberated among
the hills she turned and fled along the rim of Kor-ul-lul and behind
her, swiftly, came the devil-eyed lion of the mountains of Pal-ul-don.

Pan-at-lee was lost. Death was inevitable. Of this there could be no
doubt, but to die beneath the rending fangs of the carnivore,
congenital terror of her kind--it was unthinkable. But there was an
alternative. The lion was almost upon her--another instant and he would
seize her. Pan-at-lee turned sharply to her left.  Just a few steps she
took in the new direction before she disappeared over the rim of
Kor-ul-lul. The baffled lion, planting all four feet, barely stopped
upon the verge of the abyss. Glaring down into the black shadows
beneath he mounted an angry roar.

Through the darkness at the bottom of Kor-ul-JA, Om-at led the way
toward the caves of his people. Behind him came Tarzan and Ta-den.
Presently they halted beneath a great tree that grew close to the cliff.

"First," whispered Om-at, "I will go to the cave of Pan-at-lee. Then
will I seek the cave of my ancestors to have speech with my own blood.
It will not take long. Wait here--I shall return soon. Afterward shall
we go together to Ta-den's people."

He moved silently toward the foot of the cliff up which Tarzan could
presently see him ascending like a great fly on a wall. In the dim
light the ape-man could not see the pegs set in the face of the cliff.
Om-at moved warily. In the lower tier of caves there should be a
sentry. His knowledge of his people and their customs told him,
however, that in all probability the sentry was asleep. In this he was
not mistaken, yet he did not in any way abate his wariness. Smoothly
and swiftly he ascended toward the cave of Pan-at-lee while from below
Tarzan and Ta-den watched him.

"How does he do it?" asked Tarzan. "I can see no foothold upon that
vertical surface and yet he appears to be climbing with the utmost
ease."

Ta-den explained the stairway of pegs. "You could ascend easily," he
said, "although a tail would be of great assistance."

They watched until Om-at was about to enter the cave of Pan-at-lee
without seeing any indication that he had been observed and then,
simultaneously, both saw a head appear in the mouth of one of the lower
caves. It was quickly evident that its owner had discovered Om-at for
immediately he started upward in pursuit. Without a word Tarzan and
Ta-den sprang forward toward the foot of the cliff. The pithecanthropus
was the first to reach it and the ape-man saw him spring upward for a
handhold on the lowest peg above him. Now Tarzan saw other pegs roughly
paralleling each other in zigzag rows up the cliff face. He sprang and
caught one of these, pulled himself upward by one hand until he could
reach a second with his other hand; and when he had ascended far enough
to use his feet, discovered that he could make rapid progress. Ta-den
was outstripping him, however, for these precarious ladders were no
novelty to him and, further, he had an advantage in possessing a tail.

Nevertheless, the ape-man gave a good account of himself, being
presently urged to redoubled efforts by the fact that the Waz-don above
Ta-den glanced down and discovered his pursuers just before the Ho-don
overtook him. Instantly a wild cry shattered the silence of the
gorge--a cry that was immediately answered by hundreds of savage
throats as warrior after warrior emerged from the entrance to his cave.

The creature who had raised the alarm had now reached the recess before
Pan-at-lee's cave and here he halted and turned to give battle to
Ta-den. Unslinging his club which had hung down his back from a thong
about his neck he stood upon the level floor of the entrance-way
effectually blocking Ta-den's ascent. From all directions the warriors
of Kor-ul-JA were swarming toward the interlopers. Tarzan, who had
reached a point on the same level with Ta-den but a little to the
latter's left, saw that nothing short of a miracle could save them.
Just at the ape-man's left was the entrance to a cave that either was
deserted or whose occupants had not as yet been aroused, for the level
recess remained unoccupied. Resourceful was the alert mind of Tarzan of
the Apes and quick to respond were the trained muscles. In the time
that you or I might give to debating an action he would accomplish it
and now, though only seconds separated his nearest antagonist from him,
in the brief span of time at his disposal he had stepped into the
recess, unslung his long rope and leaning far out shot the sinuous
noose, with the precision of long habitude, toward the menacing figure
wielding its heavy club above Ta-den. There was a momentary pause of
the rope-hand as the noose sped toward its goal, a quick movement of
the right wrist that closed it upon its victim as it settled over his
head and then a surging tug as, seizing the rope in both hands, Tarzan
threw back upon it all the weight of his great frame.

Voicing a terrified shriek, the Waz-don lunged headforemost from the
recess above Ta-den. Tarzan braced himself for the coming shock when
the creature's body should have fallen the full length of the rope and
as it did there was a snap of the vertebrae that rose sickeningly in
the momentary silence that had followed the doomed man's departing
scream. Unshaken by the stress of the suddenly arrested weight at the
end of the rope, Tarzan quickly pulled the body to his side that he
might remove the noose from about its neck, for he could not afford to
lose so priceless a weapon.

During the several seconds that had elapsed since he cast the rope the
Waz-don warriors had remained inert as though paralyzed by wonder or by
terror. Now, again, one of them found his voice and his head and
straightway, shrieking invectives at the strange intruder, started
upward for the ape-man, urging his fellows to attack. This man was the
closest to Tarzan. But for him the ape-man could easily have reached
Ta-den's side as the latter was urging him to do. Tarzan raised the
body of the dead Waz-don above his head, held it poised there for a
moment as with face raised to the heavens he screamed forth the horrid
challenge of the bull apes of the tribe of Kerchak, and with all the
strength of his giant sinews he hurled the corpse heavily upon the
ascending warrior. So great was the force of the impact that not only
was the Waz-don torn from his hold but two of the pegs to which he
clung were broken short in their sockets.

As the two bodies, the living and the dead, hurtled downward toward the
foot of the cliff a great cry arose from the Waz-don. "Jad-guru-don!
Jad-guru-don!" they screamed, and then: "Kill him! Kill him!"

And now Tarzan stood in the recess beside Ta-den. "Jad-guru-don!"
repeated the latter, smiling--"The terrible man! Tarzan the Terrible!
They may kill you, but they will never forget you."

"They shall not ki--What have we here?" Tarzan's statement as to what
"they" should not do was interrupted by a sudden ejaculation as two
figures, locked in deathlike embrace, stumbled through the doorway of
the cave to the outer porch. One was Om-at, the other a creature of his
own kind but with a rough coat, the hairs of which seemed to grow
straight outward from the skin, stiffly, unlike Om-at's sleek covering.
The two were quite evidently well matched and equally evident was the
fact that each was bent upon murder. They fought almost in silence
except for an occasional low growl as one or the other acknowledged
thus some new hurt.

Tarzan, following a natural impulse to aid his ally, leaped forward to
enter the dispute only to be checked by a grunted admonition from
Om-at. "Back!" he said. "This fight is mine, alone."

The ape-man understood and stepped aside.

"It is a gund-bar," explained Ta-den, "a chief-battle. This fellow must
be Es-sat, the chief. If Om-at kills him without assistance Om-at may
become chief."

Tarzan smiled. It was the law of his own jungle--the law of the tribe
of Kerchak, the bull ape--the ancient law of primitive man that needed
but the refining influences of civilization to introduce the hired
dagger and the poison cup. Then his attention was drawn to the outer
edge of the vestibule. Above it appeared the shaggy face of one of
Es-sat's warriors. Tarzan sprang to intercept the man; but Ta-den was
there ahead of him.  "Back!" cried the Ho-don to the newcomer. "It is
gund-bar." The fellow looked scrutinizingly at the two fighters, then
turned his face downward toward his fellows. "Back!" he cried, "it is
gund-bar between Es-sat and Om-at." Then he looked back at Ta-den and
Tarzan. "Who are you?" he asked.

"We are Om-at's friends," replied Ta-den.

The fellow nodded. "We will attend to you later," he said and
disappeared below the edge of the recess.

The battle upon the ledge continued with unabated ferocity, Tarzan and
Ta-den having difficulty in keeping out of the way of the contestants
who tore and beat at each other with hands and feet and lashing tails.
Es-sat was unarmed--Pan-at-lee had seen to that--but at Om-at's side
swung a sheathed knife which he made no effort to draw. That would have
been contrary to their savage and primitive code for the chief-battle
must be fought with nature's weapons.

Sometimes they separated for an instant only to rush upon each other
again with all the ferocity and nearly the strength of mad bulls.
Presently one of them tripped the other but in that viselike embrace
one could not fall alone--Es-sat dragged Om-at with him, toppling upon
the brink of the niche. Even Tarzan held his breath. There they surged
to and fro perilously for a moment and then the inevitable
happened--the two, locked in murderous embrace, rolled over the edge
and disappeared from the ape-man's view.

Tarzan voiced a suppressed sigh for he had liked Om-at and then, with
Ta-den, approached the edge and looked over. Far below, in the dim
light of the coming dawn, two inert forms should be lying stark in
death; but, to Tarzan's amazement, such was far from the sight that met
his eyes. Instead, there were the two figures still vibrant with life
and still battling only a few feet below him. Clinging always to the
pegs with two holds--a hand and a foot, or a foot and a tail, they
seemed as much at home upon the perpendicular wall as upon the level
surface of the vestibule; but now their tactics were slightly altered,
for each seemed particularly bent upon dislodging his antagonist from
his holds and precipitating him to certain death below. It was soon
evident that Om-at, younger and with greater powers of endurance than
Es-sat, was gaining an advantage. Now was the chief almost wholly on
the defensive. Holding him by the cross belt with one mighty hand Om-at
was forcing his foeman straight out from the cliff, and with the other
hand and one foot was rapidly breaking first one of Es-sat's holds and
then another, alternating his efforts, or rather punctuating them, with
vicious blows to the pit of his adversary's stomach. Rapidly was Es-sat
weakening and with the knowledge of impending death there came, as
there comes to every coward and bully under similar circumstances, a
crumbling of the veneer of bravado which had long masqueraded as
courage and with it crumbled his code of ethics. Now was Es-sat no
longer chief of Kor-ul-JA--instead he was a whimpering craven battling
for life.  Clutching at Om-at, clutching at the nearest pegs he sought
any support that would save him from that awful fall, and as he strove
to push aside the hand of death, whose cold fingers he already felt
upon his heart, his tail sought Om-at's side and the handle of the
knife that hung there.

Tarzan saw and even as Es-sat drew the blade from its sheath he dropped
catlike to the pegs beside the battling men. Es-sat's tail had drawn
back for the cowardly fatal thrust. Now many others saw the perfidious
act and a great cry of rage and disgust arose from savage throats; but
as the blade sped toward its goal, the ape-man seized the hairy member
that wielded it, and at the same instant Om-at thrust the body of
Es-sat from him with such force that its weakened holds were broken and
it hurtled downward, a brief meteor of screaming fear, to death.



4

Tarzan-jad-guru

As Tarzan and Om-at clambered back to the vestibule of Pan-at-lee's
cave and took their stand beside Ta-den in readiness for whatever
eventuality might follow the death of Es-sat, the sun that topped the
eastern hills touched also the figure of a sleeper upon a distant,
thorn-covered steppe awakening him to another day of tireless tracking
along a faint and rapidly disappearing spoor.

For a time silence reigned in the Kor-ul-JA. The tribesmen waited,
looking now down upon the dead thing that had been their chief, now at
one another, and now at Om-at and the two who stood upon his either
side. Presently Om-at spoke. "I am Om-at," he cried. "Who will say that
Om-at is not gund of Kor-ul-JA?"

He waited for a taker of his challenge. One or two of the larger young
bucks fidgeted restlessly and eyed him; but there was no reply.

"Then Om-at is gund," he said with finality. "Now tell me, where are
Pan-at-lee, her father, and her brothers?"

An old warrior spoke. "Pan-at-lee should be in her cave. Who should
know that better than you who are there now? Her father and her
brothers were sent to watch Kor-ul-lul; but neither of these questions
arouse any tumult in our breasts. There is one that does: Can Om-at be
chief of Kor-ul-JA and yet stand at bay against his own people with a
Ho-don and that terrible man at his side--that terrible man who has no
tail? Hand the strangers over to your people to be slain as is the way
of the Waz-don and then may Om-at be gund."

Neither Tarzan nor Ta-den spoke then, they but stood watching Om-at and
waiting for his decision, the ghost of a smile upon the lips of the
ape-man. Ta-den, at least, knew that the old warrior had spoken the
truth--the Waz-don entertain no strangers and take no prisoners of an
alien race.

Then spoke Om-at. "Always there is change," he said. "Even the old
hills of Pal-ul-don appear never twice alike--the brilliant sun, a
passing cloud, the moon, a mist, the changing seasons, the sharp
clearness following a storm; these things bring each a new change in
our hills. From birth to death, day by day, there is constant change in
each of us. Change, then, is one of Jad-ben-Otho's laws.

"And now I, Om-at, your gund, bring another change. Strangers who are
brave men and good friends shall no longer be slain by the Waz-don of
Kor-ul-JA!"

There were growls and murmurings and a restless moving among the
warriors as each eyed the others to see who would take the initiative
against Om-at, the iconoclast.

"Cease your mutterings," admonished the new gund. "I am your chief. My
word is your law. You had no part in making me chief.  Some of you
helped Es-sat to drive me from the cave of my ancestors; the rest of
you permitted it. I owe you nothing. Only these two, whom you would
have me kill, were loyal to me. I am gund and if there be any who
doubts it let him speak--he cannot die younger."

Tarzan was pleased. Here was a man after his own heart. He admired the
fearlessness of Om-at's challenge and he was a sufficiently good judge
of men to know that he had listened to no idle bluff--Om-at would back
up his words to the death, if necessary, and the chances were that he
would not be the one to die. Evidently the majority of the
Kor-ul-jaians entertained the same conviction.

"I will make you a good gund," said Om-at, seeing that no one appeared
inclined to dispute his rights. "Your wives and daughters will be
safe--they were not safe while Es-sat ruled.  Go now to your crops and
your hunting. I leave to search for Pan-at-lee. Ab-on will be gund
while I am away--look to him for guidance and to me for an accounting
when I return--and may Jad-ben-Otho smile upon you."

He turned toward Tarzan and the Ho-don. "And you, my friends," he said,
"are free to go among my people; the cave of my ancestors is yours, do
what you will."

"I," said Tarzan, "will go with Om-at to search for Pan-at-lee."

"And I," said Ta-den.

Om-at smiled. "Good!" he exclaimed. "And when we have found her we
shall go together upon Tarzan's business and Ta-den's. Where first
shall we search?" He turned toward his warriors. "Who knows where she
may be?"

None knew other than that Pan-at-lee had gone to her cave with the
others the previous evening--there was no clew, no suggestion as to her
whereabouts.

"Show me where she sleeps," said Tarzan; "let me see something that
belongs to her--an article of her apparel--then, doubtless, I can help
you."

Two young warriors climbed closer to the ledge upon which Om-at stood.
They were In-sad and O-dan. It was the latter who spoke.

"Gund of Kor-ul-JA," he said, "we would go with you to search for
Pan-at-lee."

It was the first acknowledgment of Om-at's chieftainship and
immediately following it the tenseness that had prevailed seemed to
relax--the warriors spoke aloud instead of in whispers, and the women
appeared from the mouths of caves as with the passing of a sudden
storm. In-sad and O-dan had taken the lead and now all seemed glad to
follow. Some came to talk with Om-at and to look more closely at
Tarzan; others, heads of caves, gathered their hunters and discussed
the business of the day. The women and children prepared to descend to
the fields with the youths and the old men, whose duty it was to guard
them.

"O-dan and In-sad shall go with us," announced Om-at, "we shall not
need more. Tarzan, come with me and I shall show you where Pan-at-lee
sleeps, though why you should wish to know I cannot guess--she is not
there. I have looked for myself."

The two entered the cave where Om-at led the way to the apartment in
which Es-sat had surprised Pan-at-lee the previous night.

"All here are hers," said Om-at, "except the war club lying on the
floor--that was Es-sat's."

The ape-man moved silently about the apartment, the quivering of his
sensitive nostrils scarcely apparent to his companion who only wondered
what good purpose could be served here and chafed at the delay.

"Come!" said the ape-man, presently, and led the way toward the outer
recess.

Here their three companions were awaiting them. Tarzan passed to the
left side of the niche and examined the pegs that lay within reach. He
looked at them but it was not his eyes that were examining them. Keener
than his keen eyes was that marvelously trained sense of scent that had
first been developed in him during infancy under the tutorage of his
foster mother, Kala, the she-ape, and further sharpened in the grim
jungles by that master teacher--the instinct of self-preservation.

From the left side of the niche he turned to the right. Om-at was
becoming impatient.

"Let us be off," he said. "We must search for Pan-at-lee if we would
ever find her."

"Where shall we search?" asked Tarzan.

Om-at scratched his head. "Where?" he repeated. "Why all Pal-ul-don, if
necessary."

"A large job," said Tarzan. "Come," he added, "she went this way," and
he took to the pegs that led aloft toward the summit of the cliff. Here
he followed the scent easily since none had passed that way since
Pan-at-lee had fled. At the point at which she had left the permanent
pegs and resorted to those carried with her Tarzan came to an abrupt
halt. "She went this way to the summit," he called back to Om-at who
was directly behind him; "but there are no pegs here."

"I do not know how you know that she went this way," said Om-at; "but
we will get pegs. In-sad, return and fetch climbing pegs for five."

The young warrior was soon back and the pegs distributed. Om-at handed
five to Tarzan and explained their use. The ape-man returned one. "I
need but four," he said.

Om-at smiled. "What a wonderful creature you would be if you were not
deformed," he said, glancing with pride at his own strong tail.

"I admit that I am handicapped," replied Tarzan. "You others go ahead
and leave the pegs in place for me. I am afraid that otherwise it will
be slow work as I cannot hold the pegs in my toes as you do."

"All right," agreed Om-at; "Ta-den, In-sad, and I will go first, you
follow and O-dan bring up the rear and collect the pegs--we cannot
leave them here for our enemies."

"Can't your enemies bring their own pegs?" asked Tarzan.

"Yes; but it delays them and makes easier our defense and--they do not
know which of all the holes you see are deep enough for pegs--the
others are made to confuse our enemies and are too shallow to hold a
peg."

At the top of the cliff beside the gnarled tree Tarzan again took up
the trail. Here the scent was fully as strong as upon the pegs and the
ape-man moved rapidly across the ridge in the direction of the
Kor-ul-lul.

Presently he paused and turned toward Om-at. "Here she moved swiftly,
running at top speed, and, Om-at, she was pursued by a lion."

"You can read that in the grass?" asked O-dan as the others gathered
about the ape-man.

Tarzan nodded. "I do not think the lion got her," he added; "but that
we shall determine quickly. No, he did not get her--look!" and he
pointed toward the southwest, down the ridge.

Following the direction indicated by his finger, the others presently
detected a movement in some bushes a couple of hundred yards away.

"What is it?" asked Om-at. "It is she?" and he started toward the spot.

"Wait," advised Tarzan. "It is the lion which pursued her."

"You can see him?" asked Ta-den.

"No, I can smell him."

The others looked their astonishment and incredulity; but of the fact
that it was indeed a lion they were not left long in doubt. Presently
the bushes parted and the creature stepped out in full view, facing
them. It was a magnificent beast, large and beautifully maned, with the
brilliant leopard spots of its kind well marked and symmetrical. For a
moment it eyed them and then, still chafing at the loss of its prey
earlier in the morning, it charged.

The Pal-ul-donians unslung their clubs and stood waiting the onrushing
beast. Tarzan of the Apes drew his hunting knife and crouched in the
path of the fanged fury. It was almost upon him when it swerved to the
right and leaped for Om-at only to be sent to earth with a staggering
blow upon the head. Almost instantly it was up and though the men
rushed fearlessly in, it managed to sweep aside their weapons with its
mighty paws. A single blow wrenched O-dan's club from his hand and sent
it hurtling against Ta-den, knocking him from his feet. Taking
advantage of its opportunity the lion rose to throw itself upon O-dan
and at the same instant Tarzan flung himself upon its back. Strong,
white teeth buried themselves in the spotted neck, mighty arms
encircled the savage throat and the sinewy legs of the ape-man locked
themselves about the gaunt belly.

The others, powerless to aid, stood breathlessly about as the great
lion lunged hither and thither, clawing and biting fearfully and
futilely at the savage creature that had fastened itself upon him. Over
and over they rolled and now the onlookers saw a brown hand raised
above the lion's side--a brown hand grasping a keen blade. They saw it
fall and rise and fall again--each time with terrific force and in its
wake they saw a crimson stream trickling down JA's gorgeous coat.

Now from the lion's throat rose hideous screams of hate and rage and
pain as he redoubled his efforts to dislodge and punish his tormentor;
but always the tousled black head remained half buried in the dark
brown mane and the mighty arm rose and fell to plunge the knife again
and again into the dying beast.

The Pal-ul-donians stood in mute wonder and admiration. Brave men and
mighty hunters they were and as such the first to accord honor to a
mightier.

"And you would have had me slay him!" cried Om-at, glancing at In-sad
and O-dan.

"Jad-ben-Otho reward you that you did not," breathed In-sad.

And now the lion lunged suddenly to earth and with a few spasmodic
quiverings lay still. The ape-man rose and shook himself, even as might
JA, the leopard-coated lion of Pal-ul-don, had he been the one to
survive.

O-dan advanced quickly toward Tarzan. Placing a palm upon his own
breast and the other on Tarzan's, "Tarzan the Terrible," he said, "I
ask no greater honor than your friendship."

"And I no more than the friendship of Om-at's friends," replied the
ape-man simply, returning the other's salute.

"Do you think," asked Om-at, coming close to Tarzan and laying a hand
upon the other's shoulder, "that he got her?"

"No, my friend; it was a hungry lion that charged us."

"You seem to know much of lions," said In-sad.

"Had I a brother I could not know him better," replied Tarzan.

"Then where can she be?" continued Om-at.

"We can but follow while the spoor is fresh," answered the ape-man and
again taking up his interrupted tracking he led them down the ridge and
at a sharp turning of the trail to the left brought them to the verge
of the cliff that dropped into the Kor-ul-lul. For a moment Tarzan
examined the ground to the right and to the left, then he stood erect
and looking at Om-at pointed into the gorge.

For a moment the Waz-don gazed down into the green rift at the bottom
of which a tumultuous river tumbled downward along its rocky bed, then
he closed his eyes as to a sudden spasm of pain and turned away.

"You--mean--she jumped?" he asked.

"To escape the lion," replied Tarzan. "He was right behind her--look,
you can see where his four paws left their impress in the turf as he
checked his charge upon the very verge of the abyss."

"Is there any chance--" commenced Om-at, to be suddenly silenced by a
warning gesture from Tarzan.

"Down!" whispered the ape-man, "many men are coming. They are
running--from down the ridge." He flattened himself upon his belly in
the grass, the others following his example.

For some minutes they waited thus and then the others, too, heard the
sound of running feet and now a hoarse shout followed by many more.

"It is the war cry of the Kor-ul-lul," whispered Om-at--"the hunting
cry of men who hunt men. Presently shall we see them and if
Jad-ben-Otho is pleased with us they shall not too greatly outnumber
us."

"They are many," said Tarzan, "forty or fifty, I should say; but how
many are the pursued and how many the pursuers we cannot even guess,
except that the latter must greatly outnumber the former, else these
would not run so fast."

"Here they come," said Ta-den.

"It is An-un, father of Pan-at-lee, and his two sons," exclaimed O-dan.
"They will pass without seeing us if we do not hurry," he added looking
at Om-at, the chief, for a sign.

"Come!" cried the latter, springing to his feet and running rapidly to
intercept the three fugitives. The others followed him.

"Five friends!" shouted Om-at as An-un and his sons discovered them.

"Adenen yo!" echoed O-dan and In-sad.

The fugitives scarcely paused as these unexpected reinforcements joined
them but they eyed Ta-den and Tarzan with puzzled glances.

"The Kor-ul-lul are many," shouted An-un. "Would that we might pause
and fight; but first we must warn Es-sat and our people."

"Yes," said Om-at, "we must warn our people."

"Es-sat is dead," said In-sad.

"Who is chief?" asked one of An-un's sons.

"Om-at," replied O-dan.

"It is well," cried An-un. "Pan-at-lee said that you would come back
and slay Es-sat."

Now the enemy broke into sight behind them.

"Come!" cried Tarzan, "let us turn and charge them, raising a great
cry. They pursued but three and when they see eight charging upon them
they will think that many men have come to do battle. They will believe
that there are more even than they see and then one who is swift will
have time to reach the gorge and warn your people."

"It is well," said Om-at. "Id-an, you are swift--carry word to the
warriors of Kor-ul-JA that we fight the Kor-ul-lul upon the ridge and
that Ab-on shall send a hundred men."

Id-an, the son of An-un, sped swiftly toward the cliff-dwellings of the
Kor-ul-JA while the others charged the oncoming Kor-ul-lul, the war
cries of the two tribes rising and falling in a certain grim harmony.
The leaders of the Kor-ul-lul paused at sight of the reinforcements,
waiting apparently for those behind to catch up with them and,
possibly, also to learn how great a force confronted them. The leaders,
swifter runners than their fellows, perhaps, were far in advance while
the balance of their number had not yet emerged from the brush; and now
as Om-at and his companions fell upon them with a ferocity born of
necessity they fell back, so that when their companions at last came in
sight of them they appeared to be in full rout. The natural result was
that the others turned and fled.

Encouraged by this first success Om-at followed them into the brush,
his little company charging valiantly upon his either side, and loud
and terrifying were the savage yells with which they pursued the
fleeing enemy. The brush, while not growing so closely together as to
impede progress, was of such height as to hide the members of the party
from one another when they became separated by even a few yards. The
result was that Tarzan, always swift and always keen for battle, was
soon pursuing the enemy far in the lead of the others--a lack of
prudence which was to prove his undoing.

The warriors of Kor-ul-lul, doubtless as valorous as their foemen,
retreated only to a more strategic position in the brush, nor were they
long in guessing that the number of their pursuers was fewer than their
own. They made a stand then where the brush was densest--an ambush it
was, and into this ran Tarzan of the Apes. They tricked him neatly.
Yes, sad as is the narration of it, they tricked the wily jungle lord.
But then they were fighting on their own ground, every foot of which
they knew as you know your front parlor, and they were following their
own tactics, of which Tarzan knew nothing.

A single black warrior appeared to Tarzan a laggard in the rear of the
retreating enemy and thus retreating he lured Tarzan on.  At last he
turned at bay confronting the ape-man with bludgeon and drawn knife and
as Tarzan charged him a score of burly Waz-don leaped from the
surrounding brush. Instantly, but too late, the giant Tarmangani
realized his peril. There flashed before him a vision of his lost mate
and a great and sickening regret surged through him with the
realization that if she still lived she might no longer hope, for
though she might never know of the passing of her lord the fact of it
must inevitably seal her doom.

And consequent to this thought there enveloped him a blind frenzy of
hatred for these creatures who dared thwart his purpose and menace the
welfare of his wife. With a savage growl he threw himself upon the
warrior before him twisting the heavy club from the creature's hand as
if he had been a little child, and with his left fist backed by the
weight and sinew of his giant frame, he crashed a shattering blow to
the center of the Waz-don's face--a blow that crushed the bones and
dropped the fellow in his tracks. Then he swung upon the others with
their fallen comrade's bludgeon striking to right and left mighty,
unmerciful blows that drove down their own weapons until that wielded
by the ape-man was splintered and shattered. On either hand they fell
before his cudgel; so rapid the delivery of his blows, so catlike his
recovery that in the first few moments of the battle he seemed
invulnerable to their attack; but it could not last--he was outnumbered
twenty to one and his undoing came from a thrown club. It struck him
upon the back of the head. For a moment he stood swaying and then like
a great pine beneath the woodsman's ax he crashed to earth.

Others of the Kor-ul-lul had rushed to engage the balance of Om-at's
party. They could be heard fighting at a short distance and it was
evident that the Kor-ul-JA were falling slowly back and as they fell
Om-at called to the missing one: "Tarzan the Terrible! Tarzan the
Terrible!"

"Jad-guru, indeed," repeated one of the Kor-ul-lul rising from where
Tarzan had dropped him. "Tarzan-jad-guru! He was worse than that."



5

In the Kor-ul-GRYF

As Tarzan fell among his enemies a man halted many miles away upon the
outer verge of the morass that encircles Pal-ul-don.  Naked he was
except for a loin cloth and three belts of cartridges, two of which
passed over his shoulders, crossing upon his chest and back, while the
third encircled his waist. Slung to his back by its leathern
sling-strap was an Enfield, and he carried too a long knife, a bow and
a quiver of arrows. He had come far, through wild and savage lands,
menaced by fierce beasts and fiercer men, yet intact to the last
cartridge was the ammunition that had filled his belts the day that he
set out.

The bow and the arrows and the long knife had brought him thus far
safely, yet often in the face of great risks that could have been
minimized by a single shot from the well-kept rifle at his back. What
purpose might he have for conserving this precious ammunition? in
risking his life to bring the last bright shining missile to his
unknown goal? For what, for whom were these death-dealing bits of metal
preserved? In all the world only he knew.

When Pan-at-lee stepped over the edge of the cliff above Kor-ul-lul she
expected to be dashed to instant death upon the rocks below; but she
had chosen this in preference to the rending fangs of JA. Instead,
chance had ordained that she make the frightful plunge at a point where
the tumbling river swung close beneath the overhanging cliff to eddy
for a slow moment in a deep pool before plunging madly downward again
in a cataract of boiling foam, and water thundering against rocks.

Into this icy pool the girl shot, and down and down beneath the watery
surface until, half choked, yet fighting bravely, she battled her way
once more to air. Swimming strongly she made the opposite shore and
there dragged herself out upon the bank to lie panting and spent until
the approaching dawn warned her to seek concealment, for she was in the
country of her people's enemies.

Rising, she moved into the concealment of the rank vegetation that
grows so riotously in the well-watered kors[1] of Pal-ul-don.

Hidden amidst the plant life from the sight of any who might chance to
pass along the well-beaten trail that skirted the river Pan-at-lee
sought rest and food, the latter growing in abundance all about her in
the form of fruits and berries and succulent tubers which she scooped
from the earth with the knife of the dead Es-sat.

Ah! if she had but known that he was dead! What trials and risks and
terrors she might have been saved; but she thought that he still lived
and so she dared not return to Kor-ul-JA. At least not yet while his
rage was at white heat. Later, perhaps, her father and brothers
returned to their cave, she might risk it; but not now--not now. Nor
could she for long remain here in the neighborhood of the hostile
Kor-ul-lul and somewhere she must find safety from beasts before the
night set in.

As she sat upon the bole of a fallen tree seeking some solution of the
problem of existence that confronted her, there broke upon her ears
from up the gorge the voices of shouting men--a sound that she
recognized all too well. It was the war cry of the Kor-ul-lul. Closer
and closer it approached her hiding place.  Then, through the veil of
foliage she caught glimpses of three figures fleeing along the trail,
and behind them the shouting of the pursuers rose louder and louder as
they neared her. Again she caught sight of the fugitives crossing the
river below the cataract and again they were lost to sight. And now the
pursuers came into view--shouting Kor-ul-lul warriors, fierce and
implacable. Forty, perhaps fifty of them. She waited breathless; but
they did not swerve from the trail and passed her, unguessing that an
enemy she lay hid within a few yards of them.

Once again she caught sight of the pursued--three Waz-don warriors
clambering the cliff face at a point where portions of the summit had
fallen away presenting a steep slope that might be ascended by such as
these. Suddenly her attention was riveted upon the three. Could it be?
O Jad-ben-Otho! had she but known a moment before. When they passed she
might have joined them, for they were her father and two brothers. Now
it was too late. With bated breath and tense muscles she watched the
race. Would they reach the summit? Would the Kor-ul-lul overhaul them?
They climbed well, but, oh, so slowly. Now one lost his footing in the
loose shale and slipped back! The Kor-ul-lul were ascending--one hurled
his club at the nearest fugitive. The Great God was pleased with the
brother of Pan-at-lee, for he caused the club to fall short of its
target, and to fall, rolling and bounding, back upon its owner carrying
him from his feet and precipitating him to the bottom of the gorge.

Standing now, her hands pressed tight above her golden breastplates,
Pan-at-lee watched the race for life. Now one, her older brother,
reached the summit and clinging there to something that she could not
see he lowered his body and his long tail to the father beneath him.
The latter, seizing this support, extended his own tail to the son
below--the one who had slipped back--and thus, upon a living ladder of
their own making, the three reached the summit and disappeared from
view before the Kor-ul-lul overtook them. But the latter did not
abandon the chase. On they went until they too had disappeared from
sight and only a faint shouting came down to Pan-at-lee to tell her
that the pursuit continued.

The girl knew that she must move on. At any moment now might come a
hunting party, combing the gorge for the smaller animals that fed or
bedded there.

Behind her were Es-sat and the returning party of Kor-ul-lul that had
pursued her kin; before her, across the next ridge, was the
Kor-ul-GRYF, the lair of the terrifying monsters that brought the chill
of fear to every inhabitant of Pal-ul-don; below her, in the valley,
was the country of the Ho-don, where she could look for only slavery,
or death; here were the Kor-ul-lul, the ancient enemies of her people
and everywhere were the wild beasts that eat the flesh of man.

For but a moment she debated and then turning her face toward the
southeast she set out across the gorge of water toward the
Kor-ul-GRYF--at least there were no men there. As it is now, so it was
in the beginning, back to the primitive progenitor of man which is
typified by Pan-at-lee and her kind today, of all the hunters that
woman fears, man is the most relentless, the most terrible. To the
dangers of man she preferred the dangers of the GRYF.

Moving cautiously she reached the foot of the cliff at the far side of
Kor-ul-lul and here, toward noon, she found a comparatively easy
ascent. Crossing the ridge she stood at last upon the brink of
Kor-ul-GRYF--the horror place of the folklore of her race. Dank and
mysterious grew the vegetation below; giant trees waved their plumed
tops almost level with the summit of the cliff; and over all brooded an
ominous silence.

Pan-at-lee lay upon her belly and stretching over the edge scanned the
cliff face below her. She could see caves there and the stone pegs
which the ancients had fashioned so laboriously by hand. She had heard
of these in the firelight tales of her childhood and of how the gryfs
had come from the morasses across the mountains and of how at last the
people had fled after many had been seized and devoured by the hideous
creatures, leaving their caves untenanted for no man living knew how
long. Some said that Jad-ben-Otho, who has lived forever, was still a
little boy.  Pan-at-lee shuddered; but there were caves and in them she
would be safe even from the gryfs.

She found a place where the stone pegs reached to the very summit of
the cliff, left there no doubt in the final exodus of the tribe when
there was no longer need of safeguarding the deserted caves against
invasion. Pan-at-lee clambered slowly down toward the uppermost cave.
She found the recess in front of the doorway almost identical with
those of her own tribe. The floor of it, though, was littered with
twigs and old nests and the droppings of birds, until it was half
choked. She moved along to another recess and still another, but all
were alike in the accumulated filth. Evidently there was no need in
looking further. This one seemed large and commodious. With her knife
she fell to work cleaning away the debris by the simple expedient of
pushing it over the edge, and always her eyes turned constantly toward
the silent gorge where lurked the fearsome creatures of Pal-ul-don. And
other eyes there were, eyes she did not see, but that saw her and
watched her every move--fierce eyes, greedy eyes, cunning and cruel.
They watched her, and a red tongue licked flabby, pendulous lips. They
watched her, and a half-human brain laboriously evolved a brutish
design.

As in her own Kor-ul-JA, the natural springs in the cliff had been
developed by the long-dead builders of the caves so that fresh, pure
water trickled now, as it had for ages, within easy access to the cave
entrances. Her only difficulty would be in procuring food and for that
she must take the risk at least once in two days, for she was sure that
she could find fruits and tubers and perhaps small animals, birds, and
eggs near the foot of the cliff, the last two, possibly, in the caves
themselves.  Thus might she live on here indefinitely. She felt now a
certain sense of security imparted doubtless by the impregnability of
her high-flung sanctuary that she knew to be safe from all the more
dangerous beasts, and this one from men, too, since it lay in the
abjured Kor-ul-GRYF.

Now she determined to inspect the interior of her new home. The sun
still in the south, lighted the interior of the first apartment. It was
similar to those of her experience--the same beasts and men were
depicted in the same crude fashion in the carvings on the
walls--evidently there had been little progress in the race of Waz-don
during the generations that had come and departed since Kor-ul-GRYF had
been abandoned by men. Of course Pan-at-lee thought no such thoughts,
for evolution and progress existed not for her, or her kind. Things
were as they had always been and would always be as they were.

That these strange creatures have existed thus for incalculable ages it
can scarce be doubted, so marked are the indications of antiquity about
their dwellings--deep furrows worn by naked feet in living rock; the
hollow in the jamb of a stone doorway where many arms have touched in
passing; the endless carvings that cover, ofttimes, the entire face of
a great cliff and all the walls and ceilings of every cave and each
carving wrought by a different hand, for each is the coat of arms, one
might say, of the adult male who traced it.

And so Pan-at-lee found this ancient cave homelike and familiar. There
was less litter within than she had found without and what there was
was mostly an accumulation of dust. Beside the doorway was the niche in
which wood and tinder were kept, but there remained nothing now other
than mere dust. She had however saved a little pile of twigs from the
debris on the porch. In a short time she had made a light by firing a
bundle of twigs and lighting others from this fire she explored some of
the inner rooms. Nor here did she find aught that was new or strange
nor any relic of the departed owners other than a few broken stone
dishes. She had been looking for something soft to sleep upon, but was
doomed to disappointment as the former owners had evidently made a
leisurely departure, carrying all their belongings with them. Below, in
the gorge were leaves and grasses and fragrant branches, but Pan-at-lee
felt no stomach for descending into that horrid abyss for the
gratification of mere creature comfort--only the necessity for food
would drive her there.

And so, as the shadows lengthened and night approached she prepared to
make as comfortable a bed as she could by gathering the dust of ages
into a little pile and spreading it between her soft body and the hard
floor--at best it was only better than nothing. But Pan-at-lee was very
tired. She had not slept since two nights before and in the interval
she had experienced many dangers and hardships. What wonder then that
despite the hard bed, she was asleep almost immediately she had
composed herself for rest.

She slept and the moon rose, casting its silver light upon the cliff's
white face and lessening the gloom of the dark forest and the dismal
gorge. In the distance a lion roared. There was a long silence. From
the upper reaches of the gorge came a deep bellow. There was a movement
in the trees at the cliff's foot. Again the bellow, low and ominous. It
was answered from below the deserted village. Something dropped from
the foliage of a tree directly below the cave in which Pan-at-lee
slept--it dropped to the ground among the dense shadows. Now it moved,
cautiously. It moved toward the foot of the cliff, taking form and
shape in the moonlight. It moved like the creature of a bad
dream--slowly, sluggishly. It might have been a huge sloth--it might
have been a man, with so grotesque a brush does the moon paint--master
cubist.

Slowly it moved up the face of the cliff--like a great grubworm it
moved, but now the moon-brush touched it again and it had hands and
feet and with them it clung to the stone pegs and raised itself
laboriously aloft toward the cave where Pan-at-lee slept. From the
lower reaches of the gorge came again the sound of bellowing, and it
was answered from above the village.

Tarzan of the Apes opened his eyes. He was conscious of a pain in his
head, and at first that was about all. A moment later grotesque
shadows, rising and falling, focused his arousing perceptions.
Presently he saw that he was in a cave. A dozen Waz-don warriors
squatted about, talking. A rude stone cresset containing burning oil
lighted the interior and as the flame rose and fell the exaggerated
shadows of the warriors danced upon the walls behind them.

"We brought him to you alive, Gund," he heard one of them saying,
"because never before was Ho-don like him seen. He has no tail--he was
born without one, for there is no scar to mark where a tail had been
cut off. The thumbs upon his hands and feet are unlike those of the
races of Pal-ul-don. He is more powerful than many men put together and
he attacks with the fearlessness of JA.  We brought him alive, that you
might see him before he is slain."

The chief rose and approached the ape-man, who closed his eyes and
feigned unconsciousness. He felt hairy hands upon him as he was turned
over, none too gently. The gund examined him from head to foot, making
comments, especially upon the shape and size of his thumbs and great
toes.

"With these and with no tail," he said, "it cannot climb."

"No," agreed one of the warriors, "it would surely fall even from the
cliff pegs."

"I have never seen a thing like it," said the chief. "It is neither
Waz-don nor Ho-don. I wonder from whence it came and what it is called."

"The Kor-ul-JA shouted aloud, 'Tarzan-jad-guru!' and we thought that
they might be calling this one," said a warrior. "Shall we kill it now?"

"No," replied the chief, "we will wait until its life returns into its
head that I may question it. Remain here, In-tan, and watch it. When it
can again hear and speak call me."

He turned and departed from the cave, the others, except In-tan,
following him. As they moved past him and out of the chamber Tarzan
caught snatches of their conversation which indicated that the
Kor-ul-JA reinforcements had fallen upon their little party in great
numbers and driven them away. Evidently the swift feet of Id-an had
saved the day for the warriors of Om-at. The ape-man smiled, then he
partially opened an eye and cast it upon In-tan. The warrior stood at
the entrance to the cave looking out--his back was toward his prisoner.
Tarzan tested the bonds that secured his wrists. They seemed none too
stout and they had tied his hands in front of him! Evidence indeed that
the Waz-don took few prisoners--if any.

Cautiously he raised his wrists until he could examine the thongs that
confined them. A grim smile lighted his features. Instantly he was at
work upon the bonds with his strong teeth, but ever a wary eye was upon
In-tan, the warrior of Kor-ul-lul. The last knot had been loosened and
Tarzan's hands were free when In-tan turned to cast an appraising eye
upon his ward. He saw that the prisoner's position was changed--he no
longer lay upon his back as they had left him, but upon his side and
his hands were drawn up against his face. In-tan came closer and bent
down. The bonds seemed very loose upon the prisoner's wrists. He
extended his hand to examine them with his fingers and instantly the
two hands leaped from their bonds--one to seize his own wrist, the
other his throat. So unexpected the catlike attack that In-tan had not
even time to cry out before steel fingers silenced him. The creature
pulled him suddenly forward so that he lost his balance and rolled over
upon the prisoner and to the floor beyond to stop with Tarzan upon his
breast. In-tan struggled to release himself--struggled to draw his
knife; but Tarzan found it before him. The Waz-don's tail leaped to the
other's throat, encircling it--he too could choke; but his own knife,
in the hands of his antagonist, severed the beloved member close to its
root.

The Waz-don's struggles became weaker--a film was obscuring his vision.
He knew that he was dying and he was right. A moment later he was dead.
Tarzan rose to his feet and placed one foot upon the breast of his dead
foe. How the urge seized him to roar forth the victory cry of his kind!
But he dared not. He discovered that they had not removed his rope from
his shoulders and that they had replaced his knife in its sheath. It
had been in his hand when he was felled. Strange creatures! He did not
know that they held a superstitious fear of the weapons of a dead
enemy, believing that if buried without them he would forever haunt his
slayers in search of them and that when he found them he would kill the
man who killed him. Against the wall leaned his bow and quiver of
arrows.

Tarzan stepped toward the doorway of the cave and looked out. Night had
just fallen. He could hear voices from the nearer caves and there
floated to his nostrils the odor of cooking food. He looked down and
experienced a sensation of relief. The cave in which he had been held
was in the lowest tier--scarce thirty feet from the base of the cliff.
He was about to chance an immediate descent when there occurred to him
a thought that brought a grin to his savage lips--a thought that was
born of the name the Waz-don had given him--Tarzan-jad-guru--Tarzan the
Terrible--and a recollection of the days when he had delighted in
baiting the blacks of the distant jungle of his birth. He turned back
into the cave where lay the dead body of In-tan. With his knife he
severed the warrior's head and carrying it to the outer edge of the
recess tossed it to the ground below, then he dropped swiftly and
silently down the ladder of pegs in a way that would have surprised the
Kor-ul-lul who had been so sure that he could not climb.

At the bottom he picked up the head of In-tan and disappeared among the
shadows of the trees carrying the grisly trophy by its shock of shaggy
hair. Horrible? But you are judging a wild beast by the standards of
civilization. You may teach a lion tricks, but he is still a lion.
Tarzan looked well in a Tuxedo, but he was still a Tarmangani and
beneath his pleated shirt beat a wild and savage heart.

Nor was his madness lacking in method. He knew that the hearts of the
Kor-ul-lul would be filled with rage when they discovered the thing
that he had done and he knew too, that mixed with the rage would be a
leaven of fear and it was fear of him that had made Tarzan master of
many jungles--one does not win the respect of the killers with bonbons.

Below the village Tarzan returned to the foot of the cliff searching
for a point where he could make the ascent to the ridge and thus back
to the village of Om-at, the Kor-ul-JA. He came at last to a place
where the river ran so close to the rocky wall that he was forced to
swim it in search of a trail upon the opposite side and here it was
that his keen nostrils detected a familiar spoor. It was the scent of
Pan-at-lee at the spot where she had emerged from the pool and taken to
the safety of the jungle.

Immediately the ape-man's plans were changed. Pan-at-lee lived, or at
least she had lived after the leap from the cliff's summit. He had
started in search of her for Om-at, his friend, and for Om-at he would
continue upon the trail he had picked up thus fortuitously by accident.
It led him into the jungle and across the gorge and then to the point
at which Pan-at-lee had commenced the ascent of the opposite cliffs.
Here Tarzan abandoned the head of In-tan, tying it to the lower branch
of a tree, for he knew that it would handicap him in his ascent of the
steep escarpment.  Apelike he ascended, following easily the scent
spoor of Pan-at-lee. Over the summit and across the ridge the trail
lay, plain as a printed page to the delicate senses of the jungle-bred
tracker.

Tarzan knew naught of the Kor-ul-GRYF. He had seen, dimly in the
shadows of the night, strange, monstrous forms and Ta-den and Om-at had
spoken of great creatures that all men feared; but always, everywhere,
by night and by day, there were dangers. From infancy death had
stalked, grim and terrible, at his heels. He knew little of any other
existence. To cope with danger was his life and he lived his life as
simply and as naturally as you live yours amidst the dangers of the
crowded city streets. The black man who goes abroad in the jungle by
night is afraid, for he has spent his life since infancy surrounded by
numbers of his own kind and safeguarded, especially at night, by such
crude means as lie within his powers. But Tarzan had lived as the lion
lives and the panther and the elephant and the ape--a true jungle
creature dependent solely upon his prowess and his wits, playing a lone
hand against creation. Therefore he was surprised at nothing and feared
nothing and so he walked through the strange night as undisturbed and
unapprehensive as the farmer to the cow lot in the darkness before the
dawn.

Once more Pan-at-lee's trail ended at the verge of a cliff; but this
time there was no indication that she had leaped over the edge and a
moment's search revealed to Tarzan the stone pegs upon which she had
made her descent. As he lay upon his belly leaning over the top of the
cliff examining the pegs his attention was suddenly attracted by
something at the foot of the cliff. He could not distinguish its
identity, but he saw that it moved and presently that it was ascending
slowly, apparently by means of pegs similar to those directly below
him. He watched it intently as it rose higher and higher until he was
able to distinguish its form more clearly, with the result that he
became convinced that it more nearly resembled some form of great ape
than a lower order. It had a tail, though, and in other respects it did
not seem a true ape.

Slowly it ascended to the upper tier of caves, into one of which it
disappeared. Then Tarzan took up again the trail of Pan-at-lee. He
followed it down the stone pegs to the nearest cave and then further
along the upper tier. The ape-man raised his eyebrows when he saw the
direction in which it led, and quickened his pace. He had almost
reached the third cave when the echoes of Kor-ul-GRYF were awakened by
a shrill scream of terror.


[1] I have used the Pal-ul-don word for gorge with the English plural,
which is not the correct native plural form. The latter, it seems to
me, is awkward for us and so I have generally ignored it throughout my
manuscript, permitting, for example, Kor-ul-JA to answer for both
singular and plural. However, for the benefit of those who may be
interested in such things I may say that the plurals are formed simply
for all words in the Pal-ul-don language by doubling the initial letter
of the word, as k'kor, gorges, pronounced as though written kakor, the
a having the sound of a in sofa. Lions, d' don.



6

The Tor-o-don

Pan-at-lee slept--the troubled sleep, of physical and nervous
exhaustion, filled with weird dreamings. She dreamed that she slept
beneath a great tree in the bottom of the Kor-ul-GRYF and that one of
the fearsome beasts was creeping upon her but she could not open her
eyes nor move. She tried to scream but no sound issued from her lips.
She felt the thing touch her throat, her breast, her arm, and there it
closed and seemed to be dragging her toward it. With a super-human
effort of will she opened her eyes. In the instant she knew that she
was dreaming and that quickly the hallucination of the dream would
fade--it had happened to her many times before. But it persisted. In
the dim light that filtered into the dark chamber she saw a form beside
her, she felt hairy fingers upon her and a hairy breast against which
she was being drawn. Jad-ben-Otho! this was no dream. And then she
screamed and tried to fight the thing from her; but her scream was
answered by a low growl and another hairy hand seized her by the hair
of the head. The beast rose now upon its hind legs and dragged her from
the cave to the moonlit recess without and at the same instant she saw
the figure of what she took to be a Ho-don rise above the outer edge of
the niche.

The beast that held her saw it too and growled ominously but it did not
relinquish its hold upon her hair. It crouched as though waiting an
attack, and it increased the volume and frequency of its growls until
the horrid sounds reverberated through the gorge, drowning even the
deep bellowings of the beasts below, whose mighty thunderings had
broken out anew with the sudden commotion from the high-flung cave. The
beast that held her crouched and the creature that faced it crouched
also, and growled--as hideously as the other. Pan-at-lee trembled. This
was no Ho-don and though she feared the Ho-don she feared this thing
more, with its catlike crouch and its beastly growls. She was
lost--that Pan-at-lee knew. The two things might fight for her, but
whichever won she was lost. Perhaps, during the battle, if it came to
that, she might find the opportunity to throw herself over into the
Kor-ul-GRYF.

The thing that held her she had recognized now as a Tor-o-don, but the
other thing she could not place, though in the moonlight she could see
it very distinctly. It had no tail. She could see its hands and its
feet, and they were not the hands and feet of the races of Pal-ul-don.
It was slowly closing upon the Tor-o-don and in one hand it held a
gleaming knife. Now it spoke and to Pan-at-lee's terror was added an
equal weight of consternation.

"When it leaves go of you," it said, "as it will presently to defend
itself, run quickly behind me, Pan-at-lee, and go to the cave nearest
the pegs you descended from the cliff top. Watch from there. If I am
defeated you will have time to escape this slow thing; if I am not I
will come to you there. I am Om-at's friend and yours."

The last words took the keen edge from Pan-at-lee's terror; but she did
not understand. How did this strange creature know her name? How did it
know that she had descended the pegs by a certain cave? It must, then,
have been here when she came.  Pan-at-lee was puzzled.

"Who are you?" she asked, "and from whence do you come?"

"I am Tarzan," he replied, "and just now I came from Om-at, of
Kor-ul-JA, in search of you."

Om-at, gund of Kor-ul-JA! What wild talk was this? She would have
questioned him further, but now he was approaching the Tor-o-don and
the latter was screaming and growling so loudly as to drown the sound
of her voice. And then it did what the strange creature had said that
it would do--it released its hold upon her hair as it prepared to
charge. Charge it did and in those close quarters there was no room to
fence for openings. Instantly the two beasts locked in deadly embrace,
each seeking the other's throat.  Pan-at-lee watched, taking no
advantage of the opportunity to escape which their preoccupation gave
her. She watched and waited, for into her savage little brain had come
the resolve to pin her faith to this strange creature who had unlocked
her heart with those four words--"I am Om-at's friend!" And so she
waited, with drawn knife, the opportunity to do her bit in the
vanquishing of the Tor-o-don. That the newcomer could do it unaided she
well knew to be beyond the realms of possibility, for she knew well the
prowess of the beastlike man with whom it fought. There were not many
of them in Pal-ul-don, but what few there were were a terror to the
women of the Waz-don and the Ho-don, for the old Tor-o-don bulls roamed
the mountains and the valleys of Pal-ul-don between rutting seasons and
woe betide the women who fell in their paths.

With his tail the Tor-o-don sought one of Tarzan's ankles, and finding
it, tripped him. The two fell heavily, but so agile was the ape-man and
so quick his powerful muscles that even in falling he twisted the beast
beneath him, so that Tarzan fell on top and now the tail that had
tripped him sought his throat as had the tail of In-tan, the
Kor-ul-lul. In the effort of turning his antagonist's body during the
fall Tarzan had had to relinquish his knife that he might seize the
shaggy body with both hands and now the weapon lay out of reach at the
very edge of the recess.  Both hands were occupied for the moment in
fending off the clutching fingers that sought to seize him and drag his
throat within reach of his foe's formidable fangs and now the tail was
seeking its deadly hold with a formidable persistence that would not be
denied.

Pan-at-lee hovered about, breathless, her dagger ready, but there was
no opening that did not also endanger Tarzan, so constantly were the
two duelists changing their positions. Tarzan felt the tail slowly but
surely insinuating itself about his neck though he had drawn his head
down between the muscles of his shoulders in an effort to protect this
vulnerable part. The battle seemed to be going against him for the
giant beast against which he strove would have been a fair match in
weight and strength for Bolgani, the gorilla. And knowing this he
suddenly exerted a single super-human effort, thrust far apart the
giant hands and with the swiftness of a striking snake buried his fangs
in the jugular of the Tor-o-don. At the same instant the creature's
tail coiled about his own throat and then commenced a battle royal of
turning and twisting bodies as each sought to dislodge the fatal hold
of the other, but the acts of the ape-man were guided by a human brain
and thus it was that the rolling bodies rolled in the direction that
Tarzan wished--toward the edge of the recess.

The choking tail had shut the air from his lungs, he knew that his
gasping lips were parted and his tongue protruding; and now his brain
reeled and his sight grew dim; but not before he reached his goal and a
quick hand shot out to seize the knife that now lay within reach as the
two bodies tottered perilously upon the brink of the chasm.

With all his remaining strength the ape-man drove home the blade--once,
twice, thrice, and then all went black before him as he felt himself,
still in the clutches of the Tor-o-don, topple from the recess.

Fortunate it was for Tarzan that Pan-at-lee had not obeyed his
injunction to make good her escape while he engaged the Tor-o-don, for
it was to this fact that he owed his life. Close beside the struggling
forms during the brief moments of the terrific climax she had realized
every detail of the danger to Tarzan with which the emergency was
fraught and as she saw the two rolling over the outer edge of the niche
she seized the ape-man by an ankle at the same time throwing herself
prone upon the rocky floor. The muscles of the Tor-o-don relaxed in
death with the last thrust of Tarzan's knife and with its hold upon the
ape-man released it shot from sight into the gorge below.

It was with infinite difficulty that Pan-at-lee retained her hold upon
the ankle of her protector, but she did so and then, slowly, she sought
to drag the dead weight back to the safety of the niche. This, however,
was beyond her strength and she could but hold on tightly, hoping that
some plan would suggest itself before her powers of endurance failed.
She wondered if, after all, the creature was already dead, but that she
could not bring herself to believe--and if not dead how long it would
be before he regained consciousness. If he did not regain it soon he
never would regain it, that she knew, for she felt her fingers numbing
to the strain upon them and slipping, slowly, slowly, from their hold.
It was then that Tarzan regained consciousness. He could not know what
power upheld him, but he felt that whatever it was it was slowly
releasing its hold upon his ankle. Within easy reach of his hands were
two pegs and these he seized upon just as Pan-at-lee's fingers slipped
from their hold.

As it was he came near to being precipitated into the gorge--only his
great strength saved him. He was upright now and his feet found other
pegs. His first thought was of his foe. Where was he? Waiting above
there to finish him? Tarzan looked up just as the frightened face of
Pan-at-lee appeared over the threshold of the recess.

"You live?" she cried.

"Yes," replied Tarzan. "Where is the shaggy one?"

Pan-at-lee pointed downward. "There," she said, "dead."

"Good!" exclaimed the ape-man, clambering to her side. "You are
unharmed?" he asked.

"You came just in time," replied Pan-at-lee; "but who are you and how
did you know that I was here and what do you know of Om-at and where
did you come from and what did you mean by calling Om-at, gund?"

"Wait, wait," cried Tarzan; "one at a time. My, but you are all
alike--the shes of the tribe of Kerchak, the ladies of England, and
their sisters of Pal-ul-don. Have patience and I will try to tell you
all that you wish to know. Four of us set out with Om-at from Kor-ul-JA
to search for you. We were attacked by the Kor-ul-lul and separated. I
was taken prisoner, but escaped.  Again I stumbled upon your trail and
followed it, reaching the summit of this cliff just as the hairy one
was climbing up after you. I was coming to investigate when I heard
your scream--the rest you know."

"But you called Om-at, gund of Kor-ul-JA," she insisted. "Es-sat is
gund."

"Es-sat is dead," explained the ape-man. "Om-at slew him and now Om-at
is gund. Om-at came back seeking you. He found Es-sat in your cave and
killed him."

"Yes," said the girl, "Es-sat came to my cave and I struck him down
with my golden breastplates and escaped."

"And a lion pursued you," continued Tarzan, "and you leaped from the
cliff into Kor-ul-lul, but why you were not killed is beyond me."

"Is there anything beyond you?" exclaimed Pan-at-lee. "How could you
know that a lion pursued me and that I leaped from the cliff and not
know that it was the pool of deep water below that saved me?"

"I would have known that, too, had not the Kor-ul-lul come then and
prevented me continuing upon your trail. But now I would ask you a
question--by what name do you call the thing with which I just fought?"

"It was a Tor-o-don," she replied. "I have seen but one before.  They
are terrible creatures with the cunning of man and the ferocity of a
beast. Great indeed must be the warrior who slays one single-handed."
She gazed at him in open admiration.

"And now," said Tarzan, "you must sleep, for tomorrow we shall return
to Kor-ul-JA and Om-at, and I doubt that you have had much rest these
two nights."

Pan-at-lee, lulled by a feeling of security, slept peacefully into the
morning while Tarzan stretched himself upon the hard floor of the
recess just outside her cave.

The sun was high in the heavens when he awoke; for two hours it had
looked down upon another heroic figure miles away--the figure of a
godlike man fighting his way through the hideous morass that lies like
a filthy moat defending Pal-ul-don from the creatures of the outer
world. Now waist deep in the sucking ooze, now menaced by loathsome
reptiles, the man advanced only by virtue of Herculean efforts gaining
laboriously by inches along the devious way that he was forced to
choose in selecting the least precarious footing. Near the center of
the morass was open water--slimy, green-hued water. He reached it at
last after more than two hours of such effort as would have left an
ordinary man spent and dying in the sticky mud, yet he was less than
halfway across the marsh. Greasy with slime and mud was his smooth,
brown hide, and greasy with slime and mud was his beloved Enfield that
had shone so brightly in the first rays of the rising sun.

He paused a moment upon the edge of the open water and then throwing
himself forward struck out to swim across. He swam with long, easy,
powerful strokes calculated less for speed than for endurance, for his
was, primarily, a test of the latter, since beyond the open water was
another two hours or more of gruelling effort between it and solid
ground. He was, perhaps, halfway across and congratulating himself upon
the ease of the achievement of this portion of his task when there
arose from the depths directly in his path a hideous reptile, which,
with wide-distended jaws, bore down upon him, hissing shrilly.

Tarzan arose and stretched, expanded his great chest and drank in deep
draughts of the fresh morning air. His clear eyes scanned the wondrous
beauties of the landscape spread out before them.  Directly below lay
Kor-ul-GRYF, a dense, somber green of gently moving tree tops. To
Tarzan it was neither grim, nor forbidding--it was jungle, beloved
jungle. To his right there spread a panorama of the lower reaches of
the Valley of Jad-ben-Otho, with its winding streams and its blue
lakes.  Gleaming whitely in the sunlight were scattered groups of
dwellings--the feudal strongholds of the lesser chiefs of the Ho-don.
A-lur, the City of Light, he could not see as it was hidden by the
shoulder of the cliff in which the deserted village lay.

For a moment Tarzan gave himself over to that spiritual enjoyment of
beauty that only the man-mind may attain and then Nature asserted
herself and the belly of the beast called aloud that it was hungry.
Again Tarzan looked down at Kor-ul-GRYF. There was the jungle! Grew
there a jungle that would not feed Tarzan? The ape-man smiled and
commenced the descent to the gorge. Was there danger there? Of course.
Who knew it better than Tarzan? In all jungles lies death, for life and
death go hand in hand and where life teems death reaps his fullest
harvest. Never had Tarzan met a creature of the jungle with which he
could not cope--sometimes by virtue of brute strength alone, again by a
combination of brute strength and the cunning of the man-mind; but
Tarzan had never met a GRYF.

He had heard the bellowings in the gorge the night before after he had
lain down to sleep and he had meant to ask Pan-at-lee this morning what
manner of beast so disturbed the slumbers of its betters. He reached
the foot of the cliff and strode into the jungle and here he halted,
his keen eyes and ears watchful and alert, his sensitive nostrils
searching each shifting air current for the scent spoor of game. Again
he advanced deeper into the wood, his light step giving forth no sound,
his bow and arrows in readiness. A light morning breeze was blowing
from up the gorge and in this direction he bent his steps. Many odors
impinged upon his organs of scent. Some of these he classified without
effort, but others were strange--the odors of beasts and of birds, of
trees and shrubs and flowers with which he was unfamiliar. He sensed
faintly the reptilian odor that he had learned to connect with the
strange, nocturnal forms that had loomed dim and bulky on several
occasions since his introduction to Pal-ul-don.

And then, suddenly he caught plainly the strong, sweet odor of Bara,
the deer. Were the belly vocal, Tarzan's would have given a little cry
of joy, for it loved the flesh of Bara. The ape-man moved rapidly, but
cautiously forward. The prey was not far distant and as the hunter
approached it, he took silently to the trees and still in his nostrils
was the faint reptilian odor that spoke of a great creature which he
had never yet seen except as a denser shadow among the dense shadows of
the night; but the odor was of such a faintness as suggests to the
jungle bred the distance of absolute safety.

And now, moving noiselessly, Tarzan came within sight of Bara drinking
at a pool where the stream that waters Kor-ul-GRYF crosses an open
place in the jungle. The deer was too far from the nearest tree to risk
a charge, so the ape-man must depend upon the accuracy and force of his
first arrow, which must drop the deer in its tracks or forfeit both
deer and shaft. Far back came the right hand and the bow, that you or I
might not move, bent easily beneath the muscles of the forest god.
There was a singing twang and Bara, leaping high in air, collapsed upon
the ground, an arrow through his heart. Tarzan dropped to earth and ran
to his kill, lest the animal might even yet rise and escape; but Bara
was safely dead. As Tarzan stooped to lift it to his shoulder there
fell upon his ears a thunderous bellow that seemed almost at his right
elbow, and as his eyes shot in the direction of the sound, there broke
upon his vision such a creature as paleontologists have dreamed as
having possibly existed in the dimmest vistas of Earth's infancy--a
gigantic creature, vibrant with mad rage, that charged, bellowing, upon
him.

When Pan-at-lee awoke she looked out upon the niche in search of
Tarzan. He was not there. She sprang to her feet and rushed out,
looking down into Kor-ul-GRYF guessing that he had gone down in search
of food and there she caught a glimpse of him disappearing into the
forest. For an instant she was panic-stricken. She knew that he was a
stranger in Pal-ul-don and that, so, he might not realize the dangers
that lay in that gorge of terror. Why did she not call to him to
return? You or I might have done so, but no Pal-ul-don, for they know
the ways of the GRYF--they know the weak eyes and the keen ears, and
that at the sound of a human voice they come. To have called to Tarzan,
then, would but have been to invite disaster and so she did not call.
Instead, afraid though she was, she descended into the gorge for the
purpose of overhauling Tarzan and warning him in whispers of his
danger. It was a brave act, since it was performed in the face of
countless ages of inherited fear of the creatures that she might be
called upon to face. Men have been decorated for less.

Pan-at-lee, descended from a long line of hunters, assumed that Tarzan
would move up wind and in this direction she sought his tracks, which
she soon found well marked, since he had made no effort to conceal
them. She moved rapidly until she reached the point at which Tarzan had
taken to the trees. Of course she knew what had happened; since her own
people were semi-arboreal; but she could not track him through the
trees, having no such well-developed sense of scent as he.

She could but hope that he had continued on up wind and in this
direction she moved, her heart pounding in terror against her ribs, her
eyes glancing first in one direction and then another.  She had reached
the edge of a clearing when two things happened--she caught sight of
Tarzan bending over a dead deer and at the same instant a deafening
roar sounded almost beside her.  It terrified her beyond description,
but it brought no paralysis of fear. Instead it galvanized her into
instant action with the result that Pan-at-lee swarmed up the nearest
tree to the very loftiest branch that would sustain her weight. Then
she looked down.

The thing that Tarzan saw charging him when the warning bellow
attracted his surprised eyes loomed terrifically monstrous before
him--monstrous and awe-inspiring; but it did not terrify Tarzan, it
only angered him, for he saw that it was beyond even his powers to
combat and that meant that it might cause him to lose his kill, and
Tarzan was hungry. There was but a single alternative to remaining for
annihilation and that was flight--swift and immediate. And Tarzan fled,
but he carried the carcass of Bara, the deer, with him. He had not more
than a dozen paces start, but on the other hand the nearest tree was
almost as close. His greatest danger lay, he imagined, in the great,
towering height of the creature pursuing him, for even though he
reached the tree he would have to climb high in an incredibly short
time as, unless appearances were deceiving, the thing could reach up
and pluck him down from any branch under thirty feet above the ground,
and possibly from those up to fifty feet, if it reared up on its hind
legs.

But Tarzan was no sluggard and though the GRYF was incredibly fast
despite its great bulk, it was no match for Tarzan, and when it comes
to climbing, the little monkeys gaze with envy upon the feats of the
ape-man. And so it was that the bellowing GRYF came to a baffled stop
at the foot of the tree and even though he reared up and sought to
seize his prey among the branches, as Tarzan had guessed he might, he
failed in this also. And then, well out of reach, Tarzan came to a stop
and there, just above him, he saw Pan-at-lee sitting, wide-eyed and
trembling.

"How came you here?" he asked.

She told him. "You came to warn me!" he said. "It was very brave and
unselfish of you. I am chagrined that I should have been thus
surprised. The creature was up wind from me and yet I did not sense its
near presence until it charged. I cannot understand it."

"It is not strange," said Pan-at-lee. "That is one of the peculiarities
of the GRYF--it is said that man never knows of its presence until it
is upon him--so silently does it move despite its great size."

"But I should have smelled it," cried Tarzan, disgustedly.

"Smelled it!" ejaculated Pan-at-lee. "Smelled it?"

"Certainly. How do you suppose I found this deer so quickly? And I
sensed the GRYF, too, but faintly as at a great distance." Tarzan
suddenly ceased speaking and looked down at the bellowing creature
below them--his nostrils quivered as though searching for a scent.
"Ah!" he exclaimed. "I have it!"

"What?" asked Pan-at-lee.

"I was deceived because the creature gives off practically no odor,"
explained the ape-man. "What I smelled was the faint aroma that
doubtless permeates the entire jungle because of the long presence of
many of the creatures--it is the sort of odor that would remain for a
long time, faint as it is.

"Pan-at-lee, did you ever hear of a triceratops? No? Well this thing
that you call a GRYF is a triceratops and it has been extinct for
hundreds of thousands of years. I have seen its skeleton in the museum
in London and a figure of one restored. I always thought that the
scientists who did such work depended principally upon an overwrought
imagination, but I see that I was wrong. This living thing is not an
exact counterpart of the restoration that I saw; but it is so similar
as to be easily recognizable, and then, too, we must remember that
during the ages that have elapsed since the paleontologist's specimen
lived many changes might have been wrought by evolution in the living
line that has quite evidently persisted in Pal-ul-don."

"Triceratops, London, paleo--I don't know what you are talking about,"
cried Pan-at-lee.

Tarzan smiled and threw a piece of dead wood at the face of the angry
creature below them. Instantly the great bony hood over the neck was
erected and a mad bellow rolled upward from the gigantic body. Full
twenty feet at the shoulder the thing stood, a dirty slate-blue in
color except for its yellow face with the blue bands encircling the
eyes, the red hood with the yellow lining and the yellow belly. The
three parallel lines of bony protuberances down the back gave a further
touch of color to the body, those following the line of the spine being
red, while those on either side are yellow. The five- and three-toed
hoofs of the ancient horned dinosaurs had become talons in the GRYF,
but the three horns, two large ones above the eyes and a median horn on
the nose, had persisted through all the ages. Weird and terrible as was
its appearance Tarzan could not but admire the mighty creature looming
big below him, its seventy-five feet of length majestically typifying
those things which all his life the ape-man had admired--courage and
strength. In that massive tail alone was the strength of an elephant.

The wicked little eyes looked up at him and the horny beak opened to
disclose a full set of powerful teeth.

"Herbivorous!" murmured the ape-man. "Your ancestors may have been, but
not you," and then to Pan-at-lee: "Let us go now. At the cave we will
have deer meat and then--back to Kor-ul-JA and Om-at."

The girl shuddered. "Go?" she repeated. "We will never go from here."

"Why not?" asked Tarzan.

For answer she but pointed to the GRYF.

"Nonsense!" exclaimed the man. "It cannot climb. We can reach the cliff
through the trees and be back in the cave before it knows what has
become of us."

"You do not know the GRYF," replied Pan-at-lee gloomily.

"Wherever we go it will follow and always it will be ready at the foot
of each tree when we would descend. It will never give us up."

"We can live in the trees for a long time if necessary," replied
Tarzan, "and sometime the thing will leave."

The girl shook her head. "Never," she said, "and then there are the
Tor-o-don. They will come and kill us and after eating a little will
throw the balance to the GRYF--the GRYF and Tor-o-don are friends,
because the Tor-o-don shares his food with the GRYF."

"You may be right," said Tarzan; "but even so I don't intend waiting
here for someone to come along and eat part of me and then feed the
balance to that beast below. If I don't get out of this place whole it
won't be my fault. Come along now and we'll make a try at it," and so
saying he moved off through the tree tops with Pan-at-lee close behind.
Below them, on the ground, moved the horned dinosaur and when they
reached the edge of the forest where there lay fifty yards of open
ground to cross to the foot of the cliff he was there with them, at the
bottom of the tree, waiting.

Tarzan looked ruefully down and scratched his head.



7

Jungle Craft

Presently he looked up and at Pan-at-lee. "Can you cross the gorge
through the trees very rapidly?" he questioned.

"Alone?" she asked.

"No," replied Tarzan.

"I can follow wherever you can lead," she said then.

"Across and back again?"

"Yes."

"Then come, and do exactly as I bid." He started back again through the
trees, swiftly, swinging monkey-like from limb to limb, following a
zigzag course that he tried to select with an eye for the difficulties
of the trail beneath. Where the underbrush was heaviest, where fallen
trees blocked the way, he led the footsteps of the creature below them;
but all to no avail. When they reached the opposite side of the gorge
the GRYF was with them.

"Back again," said Tarzan, and, turning, the two retraced their
high-flung way through the upper terraces of the ancient forest of
Kor-ul-GRYF. But the result was the same--no, not quite; it was worse,
for another GRYF had joined the first and now two waited beneath the
tree in which they stopped.

The cliff looming high above them with its innumerable cave mouths
seemed to beckon and to taunt them. It was so near, yet eternity yawned
between. The body of the Tor-o-don lay at the cliff's foot where it had
fallen. It was in plain view of the two in the tree. One of the gryfs
walked over and sniffed about it, but did not offer to devour it.
Tarzan had examined it casually as he had passed earlier in the
morning. He guessed that it represented either a very high order of ape
or a very low order of man--something akin to the Java man, perhaps; a
truer example of the pithecanthropi than either the Ho-don or the
Waz-don; possibly the precursor of them both. As his eyes wandered idly
over the scene below his active brain was working out the details of
the plan that he had made to permit Pan-at-lee's escape from the gorge.
His thoughts were interrupted by a strange cry from above them in the
gorge.

"Whee-oo! Whee-oo!" it sounded, coming closer.

The gryfs below raised their heads and looked in the direction of the
interruption. One of them made a low, rumbling sound in its throat. It
was not a bellow and it did not indicate anger.  Immediately the
"Whee-oo!" responded. The gryfs repeated the rumbling and at intervals
the "Whee-oo!" was repeated, coming ever closer.

Tarzan looked at Pan-at-lee. "What is it?" he asked.

"I do not know," she replied. "Perhaps a strange bird, or another
horrid beast that dwells in this frightful place."

"Ah," exclaimed Tarzan; "there it is. Look!"

Pan-at-lee voiced a cry of despair. "A Tor-o-don!"

The creature, walking erect and carrying a stick in one hand, advanced
at a slow, lumbering gait. It walked directly toward the gryfs who
moved aside, as though afraid. Tarzan watched intently. The Tor-o-don
was now quite close to one of the triceratops. It swung its head and
snapped at him viciously. Instantly the Tor-o-don sprang in and
commenced to belabor the huge beast across the face with his stick. To
the ape-man's amazement the GRYF, that might have annihilated the
comparatively puny Tor-o-don instantly in any of a dozen ways, cringed
like a whipped cur.

"Whee-oo! Whee-oo!" shouted the Tor-o-don and the GRYF came slowly
toward him. A whack on the median horn brought it to a stop. Then the
Tor-o-don walked around behind it, clambered up its tail and seated
himself astraddle of the huge back.  "Whee-oo!" he shouted and prodded
the beast with a sharp point of his stick. The GRYF commenced to move
off.

So rapt had Tarzan been in the scene below him that he had given no
thought to escape, for he realized that for him and Pan-at-lee time had
in these brief moments turned back countless ages to spread before
their eyes a page of the dim and distant past. They two had looked upon
the first man and his primitive beasts of burden.

And now the ridden GRYF halted and looked up at them, bellowing. It was
sufficient. The creature had warned its master of their presence.
Instantly the Tor-o-don urged the beast close beneath the tree which
held them, at the same time leaping to his feet upon the horny back.
Tarzan saw the bestial face, the great fangs, the mighty muscles. From
the loins of such had sprung the human race--and only from such could
it have sprung, for only such as this might have survived the horrid
dangers of the age that was theirs.

The Tor-o-don beat upon his breast and growled horribly--hideous,
uncouth, beastly. Tarzan rose to his full height upon a swaying
branch--straight and beautiful as a demigod--unspoiled by the taint of
civilization--a perfect specimen of what the human race might have been
had the laws of man not interfered with the laws of nature.

The Present fitted an arrow to his bow and drew the shaft far back. The
Past basing its claims upon brute strength sought to reach the other
and drag him down; but the loosed arrow sank deep into the savage heart
and the Past sank back into the oblivion that had claimed his kind.

"Tarzan-jad-guru!" murmured Pan-at-lee, unknowingly giving him out of
the fullness of her admiration the same title that the warriors of her
tribe had bestowed upon him.

The ape-man turned to her. "Pan-at-lee," he said, "these beasts may
keep us treed here indefinitely. I doubt if we can escape together, but
I have a plan. You remain here, hiding yourself in the foliage, while I
start back across the gorge in sight of them and yelling to attract
their attention. Unless they have more brains than I suspect they will
follow me. When they are gone you make for the cliff. Wait for me in
the cave not longer than today. If I do not come by tomorrow's sun you
will have to start back for Kor-ul-JA alone. Here is a joint of deer
meat for you." He had severed one of the deer's hind legs and this he
passed up to her.

"I cannot desert you," she said simply; "it is not the way of my people
to desert a friend and ally. Om-at would never forgive me."

"Tell Om-at that I commanded you to go," replied Tarzan.

"It is a command?" she asked.

"It is! Good-bye, Pan-at-lee. Hasten back to Om-at--you are a fitting
mate for the chief of Kor-ul-JA." He moved off slowly through the trees.

"Good-bye, Tarzan-jad-guru!" she called after him. "Fortunate are my
Om-at and his Pan-at-lee in owning such a friend."

Tarzan, shouting aloud, continued upon his way and the great gryfs,
lured by his voice, followed beneath. His ruse was evidently proving
successful and he was filled with elation as he led the bellowing
beasts farther and farther from Pan-at-lee. He hoped that she would
take advantage of the opportunity afforded her for escape, yet at the
same time he was filled with concern as to her ability to survive the
dangers which lay between Kor-ul-GRYF and Kor-ul-JA. There were lions
and Tor-o-dons and the unfriendly tribe of Kor-ul-lul to hinder her
progress, though the distance in itself to the cliffs of her people was
not great.

He realized her bravery and understood the resourcefulness that she
must share in common with all primitive people who, day by day, must
contend face to face with nature's law of the survival of the fittest,
unaided by any of the numerous artificial protections that civilization
has thrown around its brood of weaklings.

Several times during this crossing of the gorge Tarzan endeavored to
outwit his keen pursuers, but all to no avail. Double as he would he
could not throw them off his track and ever as he changed his course
they changed theirs to conform. Along the verge of the forest upon the
southeastern side of the gorge he sought some point at which the trees
touched some negotiable portion of the cliff, but though he traveled
far both up and down the gorge he discovered no such easy avenue of
escape. The ape-man finally commenced to entertain an idea of the
hopelessness of his case and to realize to the full why the Kor-ul-GRYF
had been religiously abjured by the races of Pal-ul-don for all these
many ages.

Night was falling and though since early morning he had sought
diligently a way out of this cul-de-sac he was no nearer to liberty
than at the moment the first bellowing GRYF had charged him as he
stooped over the carcass of his kill: but with the falling of night
came renewed hope for, in common with the great cats, Tarzan was, to a
greater or lesser extent, a nocturnal beast. It is true he could not
see by night as well as they, but that lack was largely recompensed for
by the keenness of his scent and the highly developed sensitiveness of
his other organs of perception. As the blind follow and interpret their
Braille characters with deft fingers, so Tarzan reads the book of the
jungle with feet and hands and eyes and ears and nose; each
contributing its share to the quick and accurate translation of the
text.

But again he was doomed to be thwarted by one vital weakness--he did
not know the GRYF, and before the night was over he wondered if the
things never slept, for wheresoever he moved they moved also, and
always they barred his road to liberty. Finally, just before dawn, he
relinquished his immediate effort and sought rest in a friendly tree
crotch in the safety of the middle terrace.

Once again was the sun high when Tarzan awoke, rested and refreshed.
Keen to the necessities of the moment he made no effort to locate his
jailers lest in the act he might apprise them of his movements. Instead
he sought cautiously and silently to melt away among the foliage of the
trees. His first move, however, was heralded by a deep bellow from
below.

Among the numerous refinements of civilization that Tarzan had failed
to acquire was that of profanity, and possibly it is to be regretted
since there are circumstances under which it is at least a relief to
pent emotion. And it may be that in effect Tarzan resorted to profanity
if there can be physical as well as vocal swearing, since immediately
the bellow announced that his hopes had been again frustrated, he
turned quickly and seeing the hideous face of the GRYF below him seized
a large fruit from a nearby branch and hurled it viciously at the
horned snout. The missile struck full between the creature's eyes,
resulting in a reaction that surprised the ape-man; it did not arouse
the beast to a show of revengeful rage as Tarzan had expected and
hoped; instead the creature gave a single vicious side snap at the
fruit as it bounded from his skull and then turned sulkily away,
walking off a few steps.

There was that in the act that recalled immediately to Tarzan's mind
similar action on the preceding day when the Tor-o-don had struck one
of the creatures across the face with his staff, and instantly there
sprung to the cunning and courageous brain a plan of escape from his
predicament that might have blanched the cheek of the most heroic.

The gambling instinct is not strong among creatures of the wild; the
chances of their daily life are sufficient stimuli for the beneficial
excitement of their nerve centers. It has remained for civilized man,
protected in a measure from the natural dangers of existence, to invent
artificial stimulants in the form of cards and dice and roulette
wheels. Yet when necessity bids there are no greater gamblers than the
savage denizens of the jungle, the forest, and the hills, for as
lightly as you roll the ivory cubes upon the green cloth they will
gamble with death--their own lives the stake.

And so Tarzan would gamble now, pitting the seemingly wild deductions
of his shrewd brain against all the proofs of the bestial ferocity of
his antagonists that his experience of them had adduced--against all
the age-old folklore and legend that had been handed down for countless
generations and passed on to him through the lips of Pan-at-lee.

Yet as he worked in preparation for the greatest play that man can make
in the game of life, he smiled; nor was there any indication of haste
or excitement or nervousness in his demeanor.

First he selected a long, straight branch about two inches in diameter
at its base. This he cut from the tree with his knife, removed the
smaller branches and twigs until he had fashioned a pole about ten feet
in length. This he sharpened at the smaller end. The staff finished to
his satisfaction he looked down upon the triceratops.

"Whee-oo!" he cried.

Instantly the beasts raised their heads and looked at him. From the
throat of one of them came faintly a low rumbling sound.

"Whee-oo!" repeated Tarzan and hurled the balance of the carcass of the
deer to them.

Instantly the gryfs fell upon it with much bellowing, one of them
attempting to seize it and keep it from the other: but finally the
second obtained a hold and an instant later it had been torn asunder
and greedily devoured. Once again they looked up at the ape-man and
this time they saw him descending to the ground.

One of them started toward him. Again Tarzan repeated the weird cry of
the Tor-o-don. The GRYF halted in his track, apparently puzzled, while
Tarzan slipped lightly to the earth and advanced toward the nearer
beast, his staff raised menacingly and the call of the first-man upon
his lips.

Would the cry be answered by the low rumbling of the beast of burden or
the horrid bellow of the man-eater? Upon the answer to this question
hung the fate of the ape-man.

Pan-at-lee was listening intently to the sounds of the departing gryfs
as Tarzan led them cunningly from her, and when she was sure that they
were far enough away to insure her safe retreat she dropped swiftly
from the branches to the ground and sped like a frightened deer across
the open space to the foot of the cliff, stepped over the body of the
Tor-o-don who had attacked her the night before and was soon climbing
rapidly up the ancient stone pegs of the deserted cliff village. In the
mouth of the cave near that which she had occupied she kindled a fire
and cooked the haunch of venison that Tarzan had left her, and from one
of the trickling streams that ran down the face of the escarpment she
obtained water to satisfy her thirst.

All day she waited, hearing in the distance, and sometimes close at
hand, the bellowing of the gryfs which pursued the strange creature
that had dropped so miraculously into her life. For him she felt the
same keen, almost fanatical loyalty that many another had experienced
for Tarzan of the Apes. Beast and human, he had held them to him with
bonds that were stronger than steel--those of them that were clean and
courageous, and the weak and the helpless; but never could Tarzan claim
among his admirers the coward, the ingrate or the scoundrel; from such,
both man and beast, he had won fear and hatred.

To Pan-at-lee he was all that was brave and noble and heroic and, too,
he was Om-at's friend--the friend of the man she loved. For any one of
these reasons Pan-at-lee would have died for Tarzan, for such is the
loyalty of the simple-minded children of nature. It has remained for
civilization to teach us to weigh the relative rewards of loyalty and
its antithesis. The loyalty of the primitive is spontaneous,
unreasoning, unselfish and such was the loyalty of Pan-at-lee for the
Tarmangani.

And so it was that she waited that day and night, hoping that he would
return that she might accompany him back to Om-at, for her experience
had taught her that in the face of danger two have a better chance than
one. But Tarzan-jad-guru had not come, and so upon the following
morning Pan-at-lee set out upon her return to Kor-ul-JA.

She knew the dangers and yet she faced them with the stolid
indifference of her race. When they directly confronted and menaced her
would be time enough to experience fear or excitement or confidence. In
the meantime it was unnecessary to waste nerve energy by anticipating
them. She moved therefore through her savage land with no greater show
of concern than might mark your sauntering to a corner drug-store for a
sundae. But this is your life and that is Pan-at-lee's and even now as
you read this Pan-at-lee may be sitting upon the edge of the recess of
Om-at's cave while the JA and JATO roar from the gorge below and from
the ridge above, and the Kor-ul-lul threaten upon the south and the
Ho-don from the Valley of Jad-ben-Otho far below, for Pan-at-lee still
lives and preens her silky coat of jet beneath the tropical moonlight
of Pal-ul-don.

But she was not to reach Kor-ul-JA this day, nor the next, nor for many
days after though the danger that threatened her was neither Waz-don
enemy nor savage beast.

She came without misadventure to the Kor-ul-lul and after descending
its rocky southern wall without catching the slightest glimpse of the
hereditary enemies of her people, she experienced a renewal of
confidence that was little short of practical assurance that she would
successfully terminate her venture and be restored once more to her own
people and the lover she had not seen for so many long and weary moons.

She was almost across the gorge now and moving with an extreme caution
abated no wit by her confidence, for wariness is an instinctive trait
of the primitive, something which cannot be laid aside even momentarily
if one would survive. And so she came to the trail that follows the
windings of Kor-ul-lul from its uppermost reaches down into the broad
and fertile Valley of Jad-ben-Otho.

And as she stepped into the trail there arose on either side of her
from out of the bushes that border the path, as though materialized
from thin air, a score of tall, white warriors of the Ho-don. Like a
frightened deer Pan-at-lee cast a single startled look at these
menacers of her freedom and leaped quickly toward the bushes in an
effort to escape; but the warriors were too close at hand. They closed
upon her from every side and then, drawing her knife she turned at bay,
metamorphosed by the fires of fear and hate from a startled deer to a
raging tiger-cat. They did not try to kill her, but only to subdue and
capture her; and so it was that more than a single Ho-don warrior felt
the keen edge of her blade in his flesh before they had succeeded in
overpowering her by numbers. And still she fought and scratched and bit
after they had taken the knife from her until it was necessary to tie
her hands and fasten a piece of wood between her teeth by means of
thongs passed behind her head.

At first she refused to walk when they started off in the direction of
the valley but after two of them had seized her by the hair and dragged
her for a number of yards she thought better of her original decision
and came along with them, though still as defiant as her bound wrists
and gagged mouth would permit.

Near the entrance to Kor-ul-lul they came upon another body of their
warriors with which were several Waz-don prisoners from the tribe of
Kor-ul-lul. It was a raiding party come up from a Ho-don city of the
valley after slaves. This Pan-at-lee knew for the occurrence was by no
means unusual. During her lifetime the tribe to which she belonged had
been sufficiently fortunate, or powerful, to withstand successfully the
majority of such raids made upon them, but yet Pan-at-lee had known of
friends and relatives who had been carried into slavery by the Ho-don
and she knew, too, another thing which gave her hope, as doubtless it
did to each of the other captives--that occasionally the prisoners
escaped from the cities of the hairless whites.

After they had joined the other party the entire band set forth into
the valley and presently, from the conversation of her captors,
Pan-at-lee knew that she was headed for A-lur, the City of Light; while
in the cave of his ancestors, Om-at, chief of the Kor-ul-JA, bemoaned
the loss of both his friend and she that was to have been his mate.



8

A-lur

As the hissing reptile bore down upon the stranger swimming in the open
water near the center of the morass on the frontier of Pal-ul-don it
seemed to the man that this indeed must be the futile termination of an
arduous and danger-filled journey. It seemed, too, equally futile to
pit his puny knife against this frightful creature. Had he been
attacked on land it is possible that he might as a last resort have
used his Enfield, though he had come thus far through all these weary,
danger-ridden miles without recourse to it, though again and again had
his life hung in the balance in the face of the savage denizens of
forest, jungle, and steppe. For whatever it may have been for which he
was preserving his precious ammunition he evidently held it more sacred
even than his life, for as yet he had not used a single round and now
the decision was not required of him, since it would have been
impossible for him to have unslung his Enfield, loaded and fired with
the necessary celerity while swimming.

Though his chance for survival seemed slender, and hope at its lowest
ebb, he was not minded therefore to give up without a struggle. Instead
he drew his blade and awaited the oncoming reptile. The creature was
like no living thing he ever before had seen although possibly it
resembled a crocodile in some respects more than it did anything with
which he was familiar.

As this frightful survivor of some extinct progenitor charged upon him
with distended jaws there came to the man quickly a full consciousness
of the futility of endeavoring to stay the mad rush or pierce the
armor-coated hide with his little knife. The thing was almost upon him
now and whatever form of defense he chose must be made quickly. There
seemed but a single alternative to instant death, and this he took at
almost the instant the great reptile towered directly above him.

With the celerity of a seal he dove headforemost beneath the oncoming
body and at the same instant, turning upon his back, he plunged his
blade into the soft, cold surface of the slimy belly as the momentum of
the hurtling reptile carried it swiftly over him; and then with
powerful strokes he swam on beneath the surface for a dozen yards
before he rose. A glance showed him the stricken monster plunging madly
in pain and rage upon the surface of the water behind him. That it was
writhing in its death agonies was evidenced by the fact that it made no
effort to pursue him, and so, to the accompaniment of the shrill
screaming of the dying monster, the man won at last to the farther edge
of the open water to take up once more the almost superhuman effort of
crossing the last stretch of clinging mud which separated him from the
solid ground of Pal-ul-don.

A good two hours it took him to drag his now weary body through the
clinging, stinking muck, but at last, mud covered and spent, he dragged
himself out upon the soft grasses of the bank. A hundred yards away a
stream, winding its way down from the distant mountains, emptied into
the morass, and, after a short rest, he made his way to this and
seeking a quiet pool, bathed himself and washed the mud and slime from
his weapons, accouterments, and loin cloth. Another hour was spent
beneath the rays of the hot sun in wiping, polishing, and oiling his
Enfield though the means at hand for drying it consisted principally of
dry grasses. It was afternoon before he had satisfied himself that his
precious weapon was safe from any harm by dirt, or dampness, and then
he arose and took up the search for the spoor he had followed to the
opposite side of the swamp.

Would he find again the trail that had led into the opposite side of
the morass, to be lost there, even to his trained senses? If he found
it not again upon this side of the almost impassable barrier he might
assume that his long journey had ended in failure. And so he sought up
and down the verge of the stagnant water for traces of an old spoor
that would have been invisible to your eyes or mine, even had we
followed directly in the tracks of its maker.

As Tarzan advanced upon the gryfs he imitated as closely as he could
recall them the methods and mannerisms of the Tor-o-don, but up to the
instant that he stood close beside one of the huge creatures he
realized that his fate still hung in the balance, for the thing gave
forth no sign, either menacing or otherwise.  It only stood there,
watching him out of its cold, reptilian eyes and then Tarzan raised his
staff and with a menacing "Whee-oo!" struck the GRYF a vicious blow
across the face.

The creature made a sudden side snap in his direction, a snap that did
not reach him, and then turned sullenly away, precisely as it had when
the Tor-o-don commanded it. Walking around to its rear as he had seen
the shaggy first-man do, Tarzan ran up the broad tail and seated
himself upon the creature's back, and then again imitating the acts of
the Tor-o-don he prodded it with the sharpened point of his staff, and
thus goading it forward and guiding it with blows, first upon one side
and then upon the other, he started it down the gorge in the direction
of the valley.

At first it had been in his mind only to determine if he could
successfully assert any authority over the great monsters, realizing
that in this possibility lay his only hope of immediate escape from his
jailers. But once seated upon the back of his titanic mount the ape-man
experienced the sensation of a new thrill that recalled to him the day
in his boyhood that he had first clambered to the broad head of Tantor,
the elephant, and this, together with the sense of mastery that was
always meat and drink to the lord of the jungle, decided him to put his
newly acquired power to some utilitarian purpose.

Pan-at-lee he judged must either have already reached safety or met
with death. At least, no longer could he be of service to her, while
below Kor-ul-GRYF, in the soft green valley, lay A-lur, the City of
Light, which, since he had gazed upon it from the shoulder of
Pastar-ul-ved, had been his ambition and his goal.

Whether or not its gleaming walls held the secret of his lost mate he
could not even guess but if she lived at all within the precincts of
Pal-ul-don it must be among the Ho-don, since the hairy black men of
this forgotten world took no prisoners. And so to A-lur he would go,
and how more effectively than upon the back of this grim and terrible
creature that the races of Pal-ul-don held in such awe?

A little mountain stream tumbles down from Kor-ul-GRYF to be joined in
the foothills with that which empties the waters of Kor-ul-lul into the
valley, forming a small river which runs southwest, eventually entering
the valley's largest lake at the City of A-lur, through the center of
which the stream passes. An ancient trail, well marked by countless
generations of naked feet of man and beast, leads down toward A-lur
beside the river, and along this Tarzan guided the GRYF. Once clear of
the forest which ran below the mouth of the gorge, Tarzan caught
occasional glimpses of the city gleaming in the distance far below him.

The country through which he passed was resplendent with the riotous
beauties of tropical verdure. Thick, lush grasses grew waist high upon
either side of the trail and the way was broken now and again by
patches of open park-like forest, or perhaps a little patch of dense
jungle where the trees overarched the way and trailing creepers
depended in graceful loops from branch to branch.

At times the ape-man had difficulty in commanding obedience upon the
part of his unruly beast, but always in the end its fear of the
relatively puny goad urged it on to obedience. Late in the afternoon as
they approached the confluence of the stream they were skirting and
another which appeared to come from the direction of Kor-ul-JA the
ape-man, emerging from one of the jungle patches, discovered a
considerable party of Ho-don upon the opposite bank. Simultaneously
they saw him and the mighty creature he bestrode. For a moment they
stood in wide-eyed amazement and then, in answer to the command of
their leader, they turned and bolted for the shelter of the nearby wood.

The ape-man had but a brief glimpse of them but it was sufficient
indication that there were Waz-don with them, doubtless prisoners taken
in one of the raids upon the Waz-don villages of which Ta-den and Om-at
had told him.

At the sound of their voices the GRYF had bellowed terrifically and
started in pursuit even though a river intervened, but by dint of much
prodding and beating, Tarzan had succeeded in heading the animal back
into the path though thereafter for a long time it was sullen and more
intractable than ever.

As the sun dropped nearer the summit of the western hills Tarzan became
aware that his plan to enter A-lur upon the back of a GRYF was likely
doomed to failure, since the stubbornness of the great beast was
increasing momentarily, doubtless due to the fact that its huge belly
was crying out for food. The ape-man wondered if the Tor-o-dons had any
means of picketing their beasts for the night, but as he did not know
and as no plan suggested itself, he determined that he should have to
trust to the chance of finding it again in the morning.

There now arose in his mind a question as to what would be their
relationship when Tarzan had dismounted. Would it again revert to that
of hunter and quarry or would fear of the goad continue to hold its
supremacy over the natural instinct of the hunting flesh-eater? Tarzan
wondered but as he could not remain upon the GRYF forever, and as he
preferred dismounting and putting the matter to a final test while it
was still light, he decided to act at once.

How to stop the creature he did not know, as up to this time his sole
desire had been to urge it forward. By experimenting with his staff,
however, he found that he could bring it to a halt by reaching forward
and striking the thing upon its beaklike snout. Close by grew a number
of leafy trees, in any one of which the ape-man could have found
sanctuary, but it had occurred to him that should he immediately take
to the trees it might suggest to the mind of the GRYF that the creature
that had been commanding him all day feared him, with the result that
Tarzan would once again be held a prisoner by the triceratops.

And so, when the GRYF halted, Tarzan slid to the ground, struck the
creature a careless blow across the flank as though in dismissal and
walked indifferently away. From the throat of the beast came a low
rumbling sound and without even a glance at Tarzan it turned and
entered the river where it stood drinking for a long time.

Convinced that the GRYF no longer constituted a menace to him the
ape-man, spurred on himself by the gnawing of hunger, unslung his bow
and selecting a handful of arrows set forth cautiously in search of
food, evidence of the near presence of which was being borne up to him
by a breeze from down river.

Ten minutes later he had made his kill, again one of the Pal-ul-don
specimens of antelope, all species of which Tarzan had known since
childhood as Bara, the deer, since in the little primer that had been
the basis of his education the picture of a deer had been the nearest
approach to the likeness of the antelope, from the giant eland to the
smaller bushbuck of the hunting grounds of his youth.

Cutting off a haunch he cached it in a nearby tree, and throwing the
balance of the carcass across his shoulder trotted back toward the spot
at which he had left the GRYF. The great beast was just emerging from
the river when Tarzan, seeing it, issued the weird cry of the
Tor-o-don. The creature looked in the direction of the sound voicing at
the same time the low rumble with which it answered the call of its
master. Twice Tarzan repeated his cry before the beast moved slowly
toward him, and when it had come within a few paces he tossed the
carcass of the deer to it, upon which it fell with greedy jaws.

"If anything will keep it within call," mused the ape-man as he
returned to the tree in which he had cached his own portion of his
kill, "it is the knowledge that I will feed it." But as he finished his
repast and settled himself comfortably for the night high among the
swaying branches of his eyrie he had little confidence that he would
ride into A-lur the following day upon his prehistoric steed.

When Tarzan awoke early the following morning he dropped lightly to the
ground and made his way to the stream. Removing his weapons and loin
cloth he entered the cold waters of the little pool, and after his
refreshing bath returned to the tree to breakfast upon another portion
of Bara, the deer, adding to his repast some fruits and berries which
grew in abundance nearby.

His meal over he sought the ground again and raising his voice in the
weird cry that he had learned, he called aloud on the chance of
attracting the GRYF, but though he waited for some time and continued
calling there was no response, and he was finally forced to the
conclusion that he had seen the last of his great mount of the
preceding day.

And so he set his face toward A-lur, pinning his faith upon his
knowledge of the Ho-don tongue, his great strength and his native wit.

Refreshed by food and rest, the journey toward A-lur, made in the cool
of the morning along the bank of the joyous river, he found delightful
in the extreme. Differentiating him from his fellows of the savage
jungle were many characteristics other than those physical and mental.
Not the least of these were in a measure spiritual, and one that had
doubtless been as strong as another in influencing Tarzan's love of the
jungle had been his appreciation of the beauties of nature. The apes
cared more for a grubworm in a rotten log than for all the majestic
grandeur of the forest giants waving above them. The only beauties that
Numa acknowledged were those of his own person as he paraded them
before the admiring eyes of his mate, but in all the manifestations of
the creative power of nature of which Tarzan was cognizant he
appreciated the beauties.

As Tarzan neared the city his interest became centered upon the
architecture of the outlying buildings which were hewn from the
chalklike limestone of what had once been a group of low hills, similar
to the many grass-covered hillocks that dotted the valley in every
direction. Ta-den's explanation of the Ho-don methods of house
construction accounted for the ofttimes remarkable shapes and
proportions of the buildings which, during the ages that must have been
required for their construction, had been hewn from the limestone
hills, the exteriors chiseled to such architectural forms as appealed
to the eyes of the builders while at the same time following roughly
the original outlines of the hills in an evident desire to economize
both labor and space. The excavation of the apartments within had been
similarly governed by necessity.

As he came nearer Tarzan saw that the waste material from these
building operations had been utilized in the construction of outer
walls about each building or group of buildings resulting from a single
hillock, and later he was to learn that it had also been used for the
filling of inequalities between the hills and the forming of paved
streets throughout the city, the result, possibly, more of the adoption
of an easy method of disposing of the quantities of broken limestone
than by any real necessity for pavements.

There were people moving about within the city and upon the narrow
ledges and terraces that broke the lines of the buildings and which
seemed to be a peculiarity of Ho-don architecture, a concession, no
doubt, to some inherent instinct that might be traced back to their
early cliff-dwelling progenitors.

Tarzan was not surprised that at a short distance he aroused no
suspicion or curiosity in the minds of those who saw him, since, until
closer scrutiny was possible, there was little to distinguish him from
a native either in his general conformation or his color. He had, of
course, formulated a plan of action and, having decided, he did not
hesitate in the carrying out his plan.

With the same assurance that you might venture upon the main street of
a neighboring city Tarzan strode into the Ho-don city of A-lur. The
first person to detect his spuriousness was a little child playing in
the arched gateway of one of the walled buildings. "No tail! no tail!"
it shouted, throwing a stone at him, and then it suddenly grew dumb and
its eyes wide as it sensed that this creature was something other than
a mere Ho-don warrior who had lost his tail. With a gasp the child
turned and fled screaming into the courtyard of its home.

Tarzan continued on his way, fully realizing that the moment was
imminent when the fate of his plan would be decided. Nor had he long to
wait since at the next turning of the winding street he came face to
face with a Ho-don warrior. He saw the sudden surprise in the latter's
eyes, followed instantly by one of suspicion, but before the fellow
could speak Tarzan addressed him.

"I am a stranger from another land," he said; "I would speak with
Ko-tan, your king."

The fellow stepped back, laying his hand upon his knife. "There are no
strangers that come to the gates of A-lur," he said, "other than as
enemies or slaves."

"I come neither as a slave nor an enemy," replied Tarzan. "I come
directly from Jad-ben-Otho. Look!" and he held out his hands that the
Ho-don might see how greatly they differed from his own, and then
wheeled about that the other might see that he was tailless, for it was
upon this fact that his plan had been based, due to his recollection of
the quarrel between Ta-den and Om-at, in which the Waz-don had claimed
that Jad-ben-Otho had a long tail while the Ho-don had been equally
willing to fight for his faith in the taillessness of his god.

The warrior's eyes widened and an expression of awe crept into them,
though it was still tinged with suspicion. "Jad-ben-Otho!" he murmured,
and then, "It is true that you are neither Ho-don nor Waz-don, and it
is also true that Jad-ben-Otho has no tail.  Come," he said, "I will
take you to Ko-tan, for this is a matter in which no common warrior may
interfere. Follow me," and still clutching the handle of his knife and
keeping a wary side glance upon the ape-man he led the way through
A-lur.

The city covered a large area. Sometimes there was a considerable
distance between groups of buildings, and again they were quite close
together. There were numerous imposing groups, evidently hewn from the
larger hills, often rising to a height of a hundred feet or more. As
they advanced they met numerous warriors and women, all of whom showed
great curiosity in the stranger, but there was no attempt to menace him
when it was found that he was being conducted to the palace of the king.

They came at last to a great pile that sprawled over a considerable
area, its western front facing upon a large blue lake and evidently
hewn from what had once been a natural cliff.  This group of buildings
was surrounded by a wall of considerably greater height than any that
Tarzan had before seen. His guide led him to a gateway before which
waited a dozen or more warriors who had risen to their feet and formed
a barrier across the entrance-way as Tarzan and his party appeared
around the corner of the palace wall, for by this time he had
accumulated such a following of the curious as presented to the guards
the appearance of a formidable mob.

The guide's story told, Tarzan was conducted into the courtyard where
he was held while one of the warriors entered the palace, evidently
with the intention of notifying Ko-tan. Fifteen minutes later a large
warrior appeared, followed by several others, all of whom examined
Tarzan with every sign of curiosity as they approached.

The leader of the party halted before the ape-man. "Who are you?" he
asked, "and what do you want of Ko-tan, the king?"

"I am a friend," replied the ape-man, "and I have come from the country
of Jad-ben-Otho to visit Ko-tan of Pal-ul-don."

The warrior and his followers seemed impressed. Tarzan could see the
latter whispering among themselves.

"How come you here," asked the spokesman, "and what do you want of
Ko-tan?"

Tarzan drew himself to his full height. "Enough!" he cried.  "Must the
messenger of Jad-ben-Otho be subjected to the treatment that might be
accorded to a wandering Waz-don? Take me to the king at once lest the
wrath of Jad-ben-Otho fall upon you."

There was some question in the mind of the ape-man as to how far he
might carry his unwarranted show of assurance, and he waited therefore
with amused interest the result of his demand. He did not, however,
have long to wait for almost immediately the attitude of his questioner
changed. He whitened, cast an apprehensive glance toward the eastern
sky and then extended his right palm toward Tarzan, placing his left
over his own heart in the sign of amity that was common among the
peoples of Pal-ul-don.

Tarzan stepped quickly back as though from a profaning hand, a feigned
expression of horror and disgust upon his face.

"Stop!" he cried, "who would dare touch the sacred person of the
messenger of Jad-ben-Otho? Only as a special mark of favor from
Jad-ben-Otho may even Ko-tan himself receive this honor from me.
Hasten! Already now have I waited too long! What manner of reception
the Ho-don of A-lur would extend to the son of my father!"

At first Tarzan had been inclined to adopt the role of Jad-ben-Otho
himself but it occurred to him that it might prove embarrassing and
considerable of a bore to be compelled constantly to portray the
character of a god, but with the growing success of his scheme it had
suddenly occurred to him that the authority of the son of Jad-ben-Otho
would be far greater than that of an ordinary messenger of a god, while
at the same time giving him some leeway in the matter of his acts and
demeanor, the ape-man reasoning that a young god would not be held so
strictly accountable in the matter of his dignity and bearing as an
older and greater god.

This time the effect of his words was immediately and painfully
noticeable upon all those near him. With one accord they shrank back,
the spokesman almost collapsing in evident terror. His apologies, when
finally the paralysis of his fear would permit him to voice them, were
so abject that the ape-man could scarce repress a smile of amused
contempt.

"Have mercy, O Dor-ul-Otho," he pleaded, "on poor old Dak-lot. Precede
me and I will show you to where Ko-tan, the king, awaits you,
trembling. Aside, snakes and vermin," he cried pushing his warriors to
right and left for the purpose of forming an avenue for Tarzan.

"Come!" cried the ape-man peremptorily, "lead the way, and let these
others follow."

The now thoroughly frightened Dak-lot did as he was bid, and Tarzan of
the Apes was ushered into the palace of Kotan, King of Pal-ul-don.



9

Blood-Stained Altars

The entrance through which he caught his first glimpse of the interior
was rather beautifully carved in geometric designs, and within the
walls were similarly treated, though as he proceeded from one apartment
to another he found also the figures of animals, birds, and men taking
their places among the more formal figures of the mural decorator's
art. Stone vessels were much in evidence as well as ornaments of gold
and the skins of many animals, but nowhere did he see an indication of
any woven fabric, indicating that in that respect at least the Ho-don
were still low in the scale of evolution, and yet the proportions and
symmetry of the corridors and apartments bespoke a degree of
civilization.

The way led through several apartments and long corridors, up at least
three flights of stone stairs and finally out upon a ledge upon the
western side of the building overlooking the blue lake. Along this
ledge, or arcade, his guide led him for a hundred yards, to stop at
last before a wide entrance-way leading into another apartment of the
palace.

Here Tarzan beheld a considerable concourse of warriors in an enormous
apartment, the domed ceiling of which was fully fifty feet above the
floor. Almost filling the chamber was a great pyramid ascending in
broad steps well up under the dome in which were a number of round
apertures which let in the light. The steps of the pyramid were
occupied by warriors to the very pinnacle, upon which sat a large,
imposing figure of a man whose golden trappings shone brightly in the
light of the afternoon sun, a shaft of which poured through one of the
tiny apertures of the dome.

"Ko-tan!" cried Dak-lot, addressing the resplendent figure at the
pinnacle of the pyramid. "Ko-tan and warriors of Pal-ul-don! Behold the
honor that Jad-ben-Otho has done you in sending as his messenger his
own son," and Dak-lot, stepping aside, indicated Tarzan with a dramatic
sweep of his hand.

Ko-tan rose to his feet and every warrior within sight craned his neck
to have a better view of the newcomer. Those upon the opposite side of
the pyramid crowded to the front as the words of the old warrior
reached them. Skeptical were the expressions on most of the faces; but
theirs was a skepticism marked with caution. No matter which way
fortune jumped they wished to be upon the right side of the fence. For
a moment all eyes were centered upon Tarzan and then gradually they
drifted to Ko-tan, for from his attitude would they receive the cue
that would determine theirs. But Ko-tan was evidently in the same
quandary as they--the very attitude of his body indicated it--it was
one of indecision and of doubt.

The ape-man stood erect, his arms folded upon his broad breast, an
expression of haughty disdain upon his handsome face; but to Dak-lot
there seemed to be indications also of growing anger. The situation was
becoming strained. Dak-lot fidgeted, casting apprehensive glances at
Tarzan and appealing ones at Ko-tan. The silence of the tomb wrapped
the great chamber of the throneroom of Pal-ul-don.

At last Ko-tan spoke. "Who says that he is Dor-ul-Otho?" he asked,
casting a terrible look at Dak-lot.

"He does!" almost shouted that terrified noble.

"And so it must be true?" queried Ko-tan.

Could it be that there was a trace of irony in the chief's tone? Otho
forbid! Dak-lot cast a side glance at Tarzan--a glance that he intended
should carry the assurance of his own faith; but that succeeded only in
impressing the ape-man with the other's pitiable terror.

"O Ko-tan!" pleaded Dak-lot, "your own eyes must convince you that
indeed he is the son of Otho. Behold his godlike figure, his hands, and
his feet, that are not as ours, and that he is entirely tailless as is
his mighty father."

Ko-tan appeared to be perceiving these facts for the first time and
there was an indication that his skepticism was faltering. At that
moment a young warrior who had pushed his way forward from the opposite
side of the pyramid to where he could obtain a good look at Tarzan
raised his voice.

"Ko-tan," he cried, "it must be even as Dak-lot says, for I am sure now
that I have seen Dor-ul-Otho before. Yesterday as we were returning
with the Kor-ul-lul prisoners we beheld him seated upon the back of a
great GRYF. We hid in the woods before he came too near, but I saw
enough to make sure that he who rode upon the great beast was none
other than the messenger who stands here now."

This evidence seemed to be quite enough to convince the majority of the
warriors that they indeed stood in the presence of deity--their faces
showed it only too plainly, and a sudden modesty that caused them to
shrink behind their neighbors. As their neighbors were attempting to do
the same thing, the result was a sudden melting away of those who stood
nearest the ape-man, until the steps of the pyramid directly before him
lay vacant to the very apex and to Ko-tan. The latter, possibly
influenced as much by the fearful attitude of his followers as by the
evidence adduced, now altered his tone and his manner in such a degree
as might comport with the requirements if the stranger was indeed the
Dor-ul-Otho while leaving his dignity a loophole of escape should it
appear that he had entertained an impostor.

"If indeed you are the Dor-ul-Otho," he said, addressing Tarzan, "you
will know that our doubts were but natural since we have received no
sign from Jad-ben-Otho that he intended honoring us so greatly, nor how
could we know, even, that the Great God had a son? If you are he, all
Pal-ul-don rejoices to honor you; if you are not he, swift and terrible
shall be the punishment of your temerity. I, Ko-tan, King of
Pal-ul-don, have spoken."

"And spoken well, as a king should speak," said Tarzan, breaking his
long silence, "who fears and honors the god of his people. It is well
that you insist that I indeed be the Dor-ul-Otho before you accord me
the homage that is my due. Jad-ben-Otho charged me specially to
ascertain if you were fit to rule his people. My first experience of
you indicates that Jad-ben-Otho chose well when he breathed the spirit
of a king into the babe at your mother's breast."

The effect of this statement, made so casually, was marked in the
expressions and excited whispers of the now awe-struck assemblage. At
last they knew how kings were made! It was decided by Jad-ben-Otho
while the candidate was still a suckling babe!  Wonderful! A miracle!
and this divine creature in whose presence they stood knew all about
it. Doubtless he even discussed such matters with their god daily. If
there had been an atheist among them before, or an agnostic, there was
none now, for had they not looked with their own eyes upon the son of
god?

"It is well then," continued the ape-man, "that you should assure
yourself that I am no impostor. Come closer that you may see that I am
not as are men. Furthermore it is not meet that you stand upon a higher
level than the son of your god." There was a sudden scramble to reach
the floor of the throne-room, nor was Ko-tan far behind his warriors,
though he managed to maintain a certain majestic dignity as he
descended the broad stairs that countless naked feet had polished to a
gleaming smoothness through the ages. "And now," said Tarzan as the
king stood before him, "you can have no doubt that I am not of the same
race as you. Your priests have told you that Jad-ben-Otho is tailless.
Tailless, therefore, must be the race of gods that spring from his
loins.  But enough of such proofs as these! You know the power of
Jad-ben-Otho; how his lightnings gleaming out of the sky carry death as
he wills it; how the rains come at his bidding, and the fruits and the
berries and the grains, the grasses, the trees and the flowers spring
to life at his divine direction; you have witnessed birth and death,
and those who honor their god honor him because he controls these
things. How would it fare then with an impostor who claimed to be the
son of this all-powerful god?  This then is all the proof that you
require, for as he would strike you down should you deny me, so would
he strike down one who wrongfully claimed kinship with him."

This line of argument being unanswerable must needs be convincing.
There could be no questioning of this creature's statements without the
tacit admission of lack of faith in the omnipotence of Jad-ben-Otho.
Ko-tan was satisfied that he was entertaining deity, but as to just
what form his entertainment should take he was rather at a loss to
know. His conception of god had been rather a vague and hazy affair,
though in common with all primitive people his god was a personal one
as were his devils and demons. The pleasures of Jad-ben-Otho he had
assumed to be the excesses which he himself enjoyed, but devoid of any
unpleasant reaction. It therefore occurred to him that the Dor-ul-Otho
would be greatly entertained by eating--eating large quantities of
everything that Ko-tan liked best and that he had found most injurious;
and there was also a drink that the women of the Ho-don made by
allowing corn to soak in the juices of succulent fruits, to which they
had added certain other ingredients best known to themselves. Ko-tan
knew by experience that a single draught of this potent liquor would
bring happiness and surcease from worry, while several would cause even
a king to do things and enjoy things that he would never even think of
doing or enjoying while not under the magical influence of the potion,
but unfortunately the next morning brought suffering in direct ratio to
the joy of the preceding day. A god, Ko-tan reasoned, could experience
all the pleasure without the headache, but for the immediate present he
must think of the necessary dignities and honors to be accorded his
immortal guest.

No foot other than a king's had touched the surface of the apex of the
pyramid in the throneroom at A-lur during all the forgotten ages
through which the kings of Pal-ul-don had ruled from its high eminence.
So what higher honor could Ko-tan offer than to give place beside him
to the Dor-ul-Otho? And so he invited Tarzan to ascend the pyramid and
take his place upon the stone bench that topped it. As they reached the
step below the sacred pinnacle Ko-tan continued as though to mount to
his throne, but Tarzan laid a detaining hand upon his arm.

"None may sit upon a level with the gods," he admonished, stepping
confidently up and seating himself upon the throne. The abashed Ko-tan
showed his embarrassment, an embarrassment he feared to voice lest he
incur the wrath of the king of kings.

"But," added Tarzan, "a god may honor his faithful servant by inviting
him to a place at his side. Come, Ko-tan; thus would I honor you in the
name of Jad-ben-Otho."

The ape-man's policy had for its basis an attempt not only to arouse
the fearful respect of Ko-tan but to do it without making of him an
enemy at heart, for he did not know how strong a hold the religion of
the Ho-don had upon them, for since the time that he had prevented
Ta-den and Om-at from quarreling over a religious difference the
subject had been utterly taboo among them. He was therefore quick to
note the evident though wordless resentment of Ko-tan at the suggestion
that he entirely relinquish his throne to his guest. On the whole,
however, the effect had been satisfactory as he could see from the
renewed evidence of awe upon the faces of the warriors.

At Tarzan's direction the business of the court continued where it had
been interrupted by his advent. It consisted principally in the
settling of disputes between warriors. There was present one who stood
upon the step just below the throne and which Tarzan was to learn was
the place reserved for the higher chiefs of the allied tribes which
made up Ko-tan's kingdom. The one who attracted Tarzan's attention was
a stalwart warrior of powerful physique and massive, lion-like
features. He was addressing Ko-tan on a question that is as old as
government and that will continue in unabated importance until man
ceases to exist. It had to do with a boundary dispute with one of his
neighbors.

The matter itself held little or no interest for Tarzan, but he was
impressed by the appearance of the speaker and when Ko-tan addressed
him as Ja-don the ape-man's interest was permanently crystallized, for
Ja-don was the father of Ta-den. That the knowledge would benefit him
in any wa

Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/2020