Jungle Tales of Tarzan | Page 6

the tribe, and
as he did so he heard a panther's scream mingled with the frightened

cry of a she-ape. Taug heard, too; but he did not pause in his flight.
With the ape-boy, however, it was different. He looked back to see if
any member of the tribe was close pressed by the beast of prey, and the
sight that met his eyes filled them with an expression of horror.
Teeka it was who cried out in terror as she fled across a little clearing
toward the trees upon the opposite side, for after her leaped Sheeta, the
panther, in easy, graceful bounds. Sheeta appeared to be in no hurry.
His meat was assured, since even though the ape reached the trees
ahead of him she could not climb beyond his clutches before he could
be upon her.
Tarzan saw that Teeka must die. He cried to Taug and the other bulls to
hasten to Teeka's assistance, and at the same time he ran toward the
pursuing beast, taking down his rope as he came. Tarzan knew that
once the great bulls were aroused none of the jungle, not even Numa,
the lion, was anxious to measure fangs with them, and that if all those
of the tribe who chanced to be present today would charge, Sheeta, the
great cat, would doubtless turn tail and run for his life.
Taug heard, as did the others, but no one came to Tarzan's assistance or
Teeka's rescue, and Sheeta was rapidly closing up the distance between
himself and his prey.
The ape-boy, leaping after the panther, cried aloud to the beast in an
effort to turn it from Teeka or otherwise distract its attention until the
she-ape could gain the safety of the higher branches where Sheeta
dared not go. He called the panther every opprobrious name that fell to
his tongue. He dared him to stop and do battle with him; but Sheeta
only loped on after the luscious titbit now almost within his reach.
Tarzan was not far behind and he was gaining, but the distance was so
short that he scarce hoped to overhaul the carnivore before it had felled
Teeka. In his right hand the boy swung his grass rope above his head as
he ran. He hated to chance a miss, for the distance was much greater
than he ever had cast before except in practice. It was the full length of
his grass rope which separated him from Sheeta, and yet there was no

other thing to do. He could not reach the brute's side before it
overhauled Teeka. He must chance a throw.
And just as Teeka sprang for the lower limb of a great tree, and Sheeta
rose behind her in a long, sinuous leap, the coils of the ape-boy's grass
rope shot swiftly through the air, straightening into a long thin line as
the open noose hovered for an instant above the savage head and the
snarling jaws. Then it settled--clean and true about the tawny neck it
settled, and Tarzan, with a quick twist of his rope-hand, drew the noose
taut, bracing himself for the shock when Sheeta should have taken up
the slack.
Just short of Teeka's glossy rump the cruel talons raked the air as the
rope tightened and Sheeta was brought to a sudden stop--a stop that
snapped the big beast over upon his back. Instantly Sheeta was
up--with glaring eyes, and lashing tail, and gaping jaws, from which
issued hideous cries of rage and disappointment.
He saw the ape-boy, the cause of his discomfiture, scarce forty feet
before him, and Sheeta charged.
Teeka was safe now; Tarzan saw to that by a quick glance into the tree
whose safety she had gained not an instant too soon, and Sheeta was
charging. It was useless to risk his life in idle and unequal combat from
which no good could come; but could he escape a battle with the
enraged cat? And if he was forced to fight, what chance had he to
survive? Tarzan was constrained to admit that his position was aught
but a desirable one. The trees were too far to hope to reach in time to
elude the cat. Tarzan could but stand facing that hideous charge. In his
right hand he grasped his hunting knife--a puny, futile thing indeed by
comparison with the great rows of mighty teeth which lined Sheeta's
powerful jaws, and the sharp talons encased within his padded paws;
yet the young Lord Greystoke faced it with the same courageous
resignation with which some fearless ancestor went down to defeat and
death on Senlac Hill by Hastings.
From safety points in the trees the great apes watched, screaming
hatred at Sheeta and advice at Tarzan, for the progenitors of man have,

naturally, many human