Tarzan the Terrible | Page 6

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 canon 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 canon 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