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?"