Ki-Gor and the Nirvana of the Seven Voodoos | Page 6

when Ki-Gor halted. He had made another uncomfortable discovery. The trail of the two gorilla-men had separated, going each in a different direction. The jungle man was face to face with a horrible dilemma. One of those two half-human animals was bearing the limp form of Helene--but which one?
Ki-Gor could do no more than guess which trail to follow. He chose the one which went straight up the mountain side, and quickened his steps.
CHAPTER II
MR. ROBERT SPELVIN OF CINCINNATI
He was rewarded, in a short time, by a noticeable strengthening of apesmell in the air. Apparently the giant gorilla-man had grown careless of pursuit, and was loitering along, picking nuts and fruit along the way. Ki-Gor raced uphill in an agony of suspense. Would he be in time? Was Helene still alive? Was this the man-ape who had kidnapped her?
The sun was coming up red, as Ki-Gor halted on the edge of an open space on the mountain side. His heart sank. Upwind of him, sitting in the middle of the open space was a gorilla-man. But nowhere was there any sign of Helene. He had followed the wrong beast.
A burning desire for revenge swept over Ki-Gor. If this shaggy monster had not actually abducted Helene it had at least assisted in the operation, and Ki-Gor determined that it should die for it.
He crept closer to the great man-ape, unnoticed.
The gorilla-man was sitting, shoulders hunched apathetically, licking a forearm. The coarse hairs of its chest and abdomen were caked with dried blood. Evidently it was the same animal that Ki-Gor had fought the night before. Relentlessly, Ki-Gor crept forward, until he was behind the gorilla-man, though still down-wind from him. Then, silently, he sprang.
The weight of his body hitting the gorilla-man's back flung it face-forward on the ground. He pounced on the thick hairy brute, and stabbed at its neck with his spear. The beast reared up unsteadily on its hind legs, heaved and screamed with pain, and reached a huge black hand over its shoulder. Ki-Gor was plucked off and hurled twenty feet away, as if he were a terrier.
He lay stunned for a moment, then began to collect his senses as the gorilla-man slowly reared itself off the ground. The brute stood up unsteadily on its hind legs for a moment, gave a terrible roar, and started toward Ki-Gor's recumbent form. But, blood was gushing from the wound in the neck, and its short legs suddenly buckled. Before it could reach the helpless Ki-Gor, the gorilla-man's evil little eyes glazed, and it wavered and fell in a crumpled heap.
Ki-Gor picked himself up, made sure none of his bones were broken, and approached the fallen gorilla-man warily. There was no doubt about it, the strange monster was stone dead, its jugular severed. In death it looked more simian than in life.
The jungle man's blue eyes flashed. He uttered a bellow of triumph, and started back down the man-ape's trail. He was going back to pick up the spoor of the other monster, the one who was carrying off Helene.
But his triumph was short-lived. His nose was assailed by a strong smell of Bantu. A moment later he was surrounded by a dozen or more tall, well-formed blacks, armed with broad-bladed assegais.
"Stay, O strange inkosi," said the tallest one in halting Swahili, "and tell us how it is possible that you could thus slay the fearsome brute, single-handed and without a fire-stick."
"Nay, stand aside, black men," Ki-Gor answered. "I have no time for idle chatter. There yet is another gorilla-man I must slay--a murdering beast that is carrying off my woman. I must find him before he kills her--if he has not already done so."
"Indeed, inkosi," said the tribesman, "that is a dreadful story. This other gorilla-man, then, is not far away?"
"That I do not know," said Ki-Gor. "I must first pick up his trail which I left before sunrise. So, let me pass."
"Nay, inkosi," said the tall black, "if the gorilla-man bearing your woman has that much of a head-start, then indeed, you are on a fool's errand."
"What do you mean, black man?" said Ki-Gor, sternly. "I will catch him and I will kill him, as you have seen me do with this other ape up the hill."
"It is this way, inkosi," the tribesman said patiently, "when you catch up with the man-ape bearing your woman, you will find not one man-ape but hundreds. By now, he has undoubtedly carried her into the Land of the Living Dead. The entrances to that Land are guarded by hordes of these ferocious gorilla-men. And it is said that these man-apes, furthermore, are not wild man-apes, but trained beasts who obey the wicked commands of some mysterious human."
"O cowardly black man," said Ki-Gor, "chicken-hearted Bantu, why do you tell me old woman's stories