Avan, chief of the Clovi, had placed warriors before the entrance to
the cavern and as Tarzan approached it to enter they halted him.
"Where are you going?" demanded one.
"Into the cavern," replied Tarzan.
"Why?" asked the warrior.
"I wish to sleep," replied the ape-man. "I have entered often before
and no one has ever stopped me."
"Avan has issued orders that no strangers are to enter or leave the
cavern until after the council of the warriors," exclaimed the guard.
At this juncture Avan approached. "Let him enter," he said. "I sent him
hither, but do not let him come out again."
Without a word of comment or question the Lord of the Jungle passed
into the interior of the gloomy cavern of Clovi. It was several moments
before his eyes became accustomed to the subdued light within and
permitted him to take account of his surroundings.
That portion of the cavern which was visible and with which he was
familiar was of considerable extent. He could see the walls on either
side, and, very vaguely, a portion of the rear wall, but adjoining that
was utter darkness, suggesting that the cavern extended further into
the mountainside. Against the walls upon pallets of dry grasses covered
with hide lay many warriors and a few women and children, almost all of
whom were wrapped in slumber. In the greater light near the entrance a
group squatted engaged in whispered conversation as, silently, he moved
about the cavern searching for the girl from Zoram. It was she who
recognized him first, attracting his attention by a low whistle.
"You have a plan of escape?" she asked as Tarzan seated himself upon a
skin beside her.
"No," he said, "all that we may do is to await developments and take
advantage of any opportunity that may present itself."
"I should think that it would be easy for you to escape," said the
girl; "they do not treat you as a prisoner; you go about among them
freely and they have permitted you to retain your weapons."
"I am a prisoner now," he replied. "Avan just instructed the warriors
at the entrance not to permit me to leave here until after the council
of warriors had decided my fate."
"Your future does not look very bright then," said Jana, "and as for
me I already know my fate, but they shall not have me, Carb nor any
other!"
They talked together in low tones with many periods of long silence,
but when Jana turned the conversation upon the world from which Jason
had come, the silences were few and far between. She would not let
Tarzan rest, but plied him with questions, the answers to many of which
were far beyond her powers to understand. Steam and electricity and all
the countless activities of civilized existence which are dependent
upon them were utterly beyond her powers of comprehension, as were the
heavenly bodies or musical instruments or books, and yet despite what
appeared to be the darkest depth of ignorance, to the very bottom of
which she had plumbed, she was intelligent and when she spoke of those
things pertaining to her own world with which she was familiar, she was
both interesting and entertaining.
Presently a warrior near them opened his eyes, sat up and stretched. He
looked about him and then he arose to his feet. He walked around the
apartment awakening the other warriors.
"Awaken," he said to each, "and attend the council of the warriors."
When he approached Tarzan and Jana he recognized the former and stopped
to glare down at him.
"What are you doing here?" he demanded.
Tarzan arose and faced the Clovian warrior, but he did not reply to the
other's question.
"Answer me," growled Carb. "Why are you here?"
"You are not the chief," said Tarzan. "Go and ask your question of
women and children."
Carb sputtered angrily. "Go!" said Tarzan, pointing toward the exit.
For an instant the Clovian hesitated, then he continued on around the
apartment, awakening the remaining warriors.
"Now he will see that you are killed," said the girl.
"He had determined on that before," replied Tarzan. "We are no worse
off than we were."
Now they lapsed into silence, each waiting for the doom that was to
be pronounced upon them. They knew that outside upon the ledge the
warriors were sitting in a great circle and that there would be much
talking and boasting and argument before any decision was reached, most
of it unnecessary, for that has been the way with men who make laws
from time immemorial, a great advantage, however, lying with our modern
lawmakers in that they know more words than the first ape-men.
As Tarzan and Jana waited a youth entered the cavern. He bore a torch
in the light of which he searched about the interior. Presently he
discovered Tarzan and came swiftly toward him. It was Ovan.
"The council has reached its decision," he said. "They will kill you
and the girl goes to Carb."
Tarzan of the Apes rose to his feet. "Come," he said to Jana, "now is
as good a time as any. If we can cross the ledge and reach the trail
only a swift warrior can overtake us. And if you are my friend," he
continued, turning to Ovan, "and you have said that you are, you will
remain silent and give us our chance."
"I am your friend," replied the youth; "that is why I am here, but you
would never live to cross the ledge to the trail, there are too many
warriors and they are all prepared. They know that you are armed and
they expect that you will try to escape."
"There is no other way," said Tarzan.
"There is another way," replied the boy, "and I have come to show it to
you."
"Where?" asked Jana.
"Follow me," replied Ovan, and he started back into the remote recesses
of the cavern, which were fitfully illumined by his flickering torch,
while behind him followed Jana and the ape-man.
The walls of the cavern narrowed, the floor rose steeply ahead of them,
so that in places it was only with considerable difficulty that they
ascended in the semi-darkness. At last Ovan halted and held his torch
high above his head, revealing a small, natural chamber, at the far end
of which there was a dark fissure.
"In that dark hole," he said, "lies a trail that leads to the summit
of the mountains. Only the chief and the chief's first son ever know
of this trail. If my father learns that I have shown it to you, he
will have to kill me, but he shall never know for when next they find
me I shall be asleep upon a skin in the cavern far below. The trail is
steep and rough, but it is the only way. Go now. This is the return I
make you for having saved my life." With that he dashed the torch to
the floor, leaving them in utter darkness. He did not speak again, but
Tarzan heard the soft falls of his sandaled feet groping their way back
down toward the cavern of the Clovi.
The ape-man reached out through the darkness and found Jana's hand.
Carefully he led her through the stygian darkness toward the mouth of
the fissure. Feeling his way step by step, groping forward with his
free hand, the ape-man finally discovered the entrance to the trail.
Clambering upward over broken masses of jagged granite through utter
darkness, it seemed to the two fugitives that they made no progress
whatever. If time could be measured by muscular effort and physical
discomfort, the two might have guessed that they passed an eternity in
this black fissure, but at length the darkness lessened and they knew
that they were approaching the opening in the summit of the mountains;
nor was it long thereafter before they emerged into the brilliant light
of the noonday sun.
"And now," said Tarzan, "in which direction lies Zoram?"
The girl pointed. "But we cannot reach it by going back that way," she
said, "for every trail will be guarded by Carb and his fellows. Do not
think that they will let us escape so easily. Perhaps in searching for
us they may even find the fissure and follow us here."
"This is your world," said Tarzan. "You are more familiar with it than
I. What, then, do you suggest?"
"We should descend the mountains, going directly away from Clovi,"
replied Jana, "for it is in the mountains that they will look for us.
When we have reached the lowland we can turn back along the foot of the
range until we are below Zoram, but not until then should we come back
to the mountains."
The descent of the mountains was slow because neither of them was
familiar with this part of the range. Oftentimes, their way barred by
yawning chasms, they were compelled to retrace their steps to find
another way around. They ate many times and slept thrice and thus only
could Tarzan guess that they had consumed considerable time in the
descent, but what was time to them?
During the descent Tarzan had caught glimpses of a vast plain,
stretching away as far as the eye could reach. The last stage of their
descent was down a long, winding canyon, and when, at last, they came
to its mouth they found themselves upon the edge of the plain that
Tarzan had seen. It was almost treeless and from where he stood it
looked as level as a lake.
"This is the Gyor Cors," said Jana, "and may we not have the bad
fortune to meet a Gyor."
"And what is a Gyor?" asked Tarzan.
"Oh, it is a terrible creature," replied Jana. "I have never seen one,
but some of the warriors of Zoram have been to the Gyor Cors and they
have seen them. They are twice the size of a tandor and their length
is more than that of four tall men, lying upon the ground. They have a
curved beak and three great horns, two above their eyes and one above
their nose. Standing upright at the backs of their heads is a great
collar of bony substance covered with thick, horny hide, which protects
them from the horns of their fellows and spears of men. They do not
eat flesh, but they are irritable and short tempered, charging every
creature that they see and thus keeping the Gyor Cors for their own
use."
"Theirs is a vast domain," said Tarzan, letting his eyes sweep the
illimitable expanse of pasture land that rolled on and on, curving
slowly upward into the distant haze, "and your description of them
suggests that they have few enemies who would care to dispute their
dominion."
"Only the Horibs," replied Jana. "They hunt them for their flesh and
hide."
"What are Horibs?" asked Tarzan.
The girl shuddered. "The snake people," she whispered in an awed tone.
"Snake people," repeated Tarzan, "and what are they?"
"Let us not speak of them. They are horrible. They are worse than the
Gyors. Their blood is cold and men say that they have no hearts, for
they do not possess any of the characteristics that men admire, knowing
not friendship or sympathy or love."
Along the bottom of the canyon through which they had descended a
mountain torrent had cut a deep gorge, the sides of which were so
precipitous that they found it expedient to follow the stream down into
the plain in order to discover an easier crossing, since the stream lay
between them and Zoram.
They had proceeded for about a mile below the mouth of the canyon;
around them were low, rolling hills which gradually merged with the
plain below; here and there were scattered clumps of trees; to their
knees grew the gently waving grasses that rendered the Gyor Cors a
paradise for the huge herbivorous dinosaurs. The noonday sun shone
down upon a scene of peace and quiet, yet Tarzan of the Apes was
restless. The apparent absence of animal life seemed almost uncanny to
one familiar with the usual teeming activity of Pellucidar; yet the
ape-man knew that there were creatures about and it was the strange and
unfamiliar scent spoors carried to his nostrils that aroused within him
a foreboding of ill omen. Familiar odors had no such effect upon him,
but here were scents that he could not place, strangely disagreeable
in the nostrils of man. They suggested the scent spoor of Histah the
snake, but they were not his.
For Jana's sake Tarzan wished that they might quickly find a crossing
and ascend again to the higher levels on their journey to Zoram, for
there the creatures would be well known to them, and the dangers which
they portended familiar dangers with which they were prepared to cope,
but the vertical banks of the raging torrent as yet offered no means of
descent and now they saw that the appearance of flatness which distance
had imparted to the great Gyor Cors was deceptive, since it was cut by
ravines and broken by depressions, some of which were of considerable
extent and depth. Presently a lateral ravine, opening into the now
comparatively shallow gorge of the river, necessitated a detour which
took them directly away from Zoram. They had proceeded for about a mile
in this direction when they discovered a crossing and as they emerged
upon the opposite side the girl touched Tarzan's arm and pointed. The
thing that she saw he had seen simultaneously.
"A Gyor," whispered the girl. "Let us lie down and hide in this tall
grass."
"He has not seen us yet," said Tarzan, "and he may not come in this
direction."
No description of the beast looming tremendously before them could
convey an adequate impression of its titanic proportions or its
frightful mien. At the first glance Tarzan was impressed by its
remarkable likeness to the Gryfs of Pal-ul-don. It had the two large
horns above the eyes, a medial horn on the nose, a horny beak and a
great, horny hood or transverse crest over the neck, and its coloration
was similar but more subdued, the predominant note being a slaty gray
with yellowish belly and face. The blue bands around the eyes were
less well marked and the red of the hood and the bony protuberances
along the spine were less brilliant than in the Gryf. That it was
herbivorous, a fact that he had learned from Jana, convinced him that
he was looking upon an almost unaltered type of the gigantic triceratop
that had, with its fellow dinosaurs, ruled the ancient Jurassic world.
Jana had thrown herself prone among the grasses and was urging Tarzan
to do likewise. Crouching low, his eyes just above the grasses, Tarzan
watched the huge dinosaur.
"I think he has caught our scent," he said. "He is standing with his
head up, looking about him; now he is trotting around in a circle. He
is very light on his feet for a beast of such enormous size. There,
he has caught a scent, but it is not ours; the wind is not in the
right direction. There is something approaching from our left, but
it is still at a considerable distance. I can just hear it, a faint
suggestion of something moving. The Gyor is looking in that direction
now. Whatever is coming is coming swiftly. I can tell by the rapidly
increasing volume of sound, and there are more than one--there are
many. He is moving forward now to investigate, but he will pass at
a considerable distance to our left." Tarzan watched the Gyor and
listened to the sound coming from the, as yet, invisible creatures that
were approaching. "Whatever is approaching is coming along the bottom
of the ravine we just crossed," he whispered. "They will pass directly
behind us."
Jana remained hiding low in the grasses. She did not wish to tempt Fate
by revealing even the top of her head to attract the attention of the
Gyor. "Perhaps we had better try to crawl away while his attention is
attracted elsewhere," she suggested.
"They are coming out of the ravine," whispered Tarzan. "They are coming
up over the edge--a number of men--but in the name of God what is it
that they are riding?"
Jana raised her eyes above the level of the grasses and looked in the
direction that Tarzan was gazing. She shuddered. "They are not men,"
she said; "they are the Horibs and the things upon the backs of which
they ride are Gorobors. If they see us we are lost. Nothing in the
world can escape the Gorobors, for there is nothing in all Pellucidar
so swift as they. Lie still. Our only chance is that they may not
discover us."
At sight of the Horibs the Gyor emitted a terrific bellow that shook
the ground and, lowering his head, he charged straight for them. Fully
fifty of the Horibs on their horrid mounts had emerged from the ravine.
Tarzan could see that the riders were armed with long lances--pitiful
and inadequate weapons, he thought, with which to face an enraged
triceratop. But it soon became apparent that the Horibs did not intend
to meet that charge head-on. Wheeling to their right they formed in
single file behind their leader and then for the first time Tarzan had
an exhibition of the phenomenal speed of the huge lizards upon which
they were mounted, which is comparable only to the lightning-like
rapidity of a tiny desert lizard known as a swift.
Following tactics similar to those of the plains Indians of western
America, the Horibs were circling their prey. The bellowing Gyor,
aroused to a frenzy of rage, charged first in one direction and then
another, but the Gorobors darted from his path so swiftly that he never
could overtake them. Panting and blowing, he presently came to bay and
then the Horibs drew their circle closer, whirling dizzily about him,
while Tarzan watched the amazing scene, wondering by what means they
might ever hope to dispatch the ten tons of incarnate fury that wheeled
first this way and then that at the center of their circle.
As swiftly as they had darted in all three wheeled and were out again,
part of the racing circle, but in the sides of the Gyor they had
left two lances deeply imbedded. The fury of the wounded triceratop
transcended any of his previous demonstrations. His bellowing became a
hoarse, coughing scream as once again he lowered his head and charged.
This time he did not turn and charge in another direction as he had
in the past, but kept on in a straight line, possibly in the hope of
breaking through the encircling Horibs, and to his dismay the ape-man
saw that he and Jana were directly in the path of the charging beast.
If the Horibs did not turn him, they were lost.
A dozen of the reptile-men darted in upon the rear of the Gyor. A dozen
more lances sank deeply into its body, proving sufficient to turn him
in an effort to avenge himself upon those who had inflicted these new
hurts.
This charge had carried the Gyor within fifty feet of Tarzan and Jana.
It had given the ape-man an uncomfortable moment, but its results were
almost equally disastrous for it brought the circling Horibs close to
their position.
The Gyor stood now with lowered head, breathing heavily and bleeding
from more than a dozen wounds. A Horib now rode slowly toward him,
approaching him directly from in front. The attention of the triceratop
was centered wholly upon this single adversary as two more moved toward
him diagonally from the rear, one on either side, but in such a manner
that they were concealed from his view by the great transverse crest
encircling his neck behind the horns and eyes. The three approached
thus to within about fifty feet of the brute and then those in the
rear darted forward simultaneously at terrific speed, leaning well
forward upon their mounts, their lances lowered. At the same instant
each struck heavily upon either side of the Gyor, driving their spears
far in. So close did they come to their prey that their mounts struck
the shoulders of the Gyor as they turned and darted out again.
For an instant the great creature stood reeling in its tracks and then
it slumped forward heavily and rolled over upon its side--the final
lances had pierced its heart.
Tarzan was glad that it was over as he had momentarily feared discovery
by the circling Horibs and he was congratulating himself upon their
good fortune when the entire band of snake-men wheeled their mounts and
raced swiftly in the direction of their hiding place. Once more they
formed their circle, but this time Tarzan and Jana were at its center.
Evidently the Horibs had seen them, but had temporarily ignored them
until after they had dispatched the Gyor.
"We shall have to fight," said Tarzan, and as concealment was no longer
possible he arose to his feet.
"Yes," said Jana, arising to stand beside him. "We shall have to fight,
but the end will be the same. There are fifty of them and we are but
two."
Tarzan fitted an arrow to his bow. The Horibs were circling slowly
about them inspecting their new prey. Finally they came closer and
halted their mounts, facing the two.
Now for the first time Tarzan was able to obtain a good view of the
snake-men and their equally hideous mounts. The conformation of the
Horibs was almost identical to man insofar as the torso and extremities
were concerned. Their three-toed feet and five-toed hands were those
of reptiles. The head and face resembled a snake, but pointed ears and
two short horns gave a grotesque appearance that was at the same time
hideous. The arms were better proportioned than the legs, which were
quite shapeless. The entire body was covered with scales, although
those upon the hands, feet and face were so minute as to give the
impression of bare skin, a resemblance which was further emphasized by
the fact that these portions of the body were a much lighter color,
approximating the shiny dead whiteness of a snake's belly. They wore a
single apron-like garment fashioned from a piece of very heavy hide,
apparently that of some gigantic reptile. This garment was really a
piece of armor, its sole purpose being, as Tarzan later learned, to
cover the soft, white bellies of the Horibs. Upon the breast of each
garment was a strange device--an eight-pronged cross with a circle in
the center. Around his waist each Horib wore a leather belt, which
supported a scabbard in which was inserted a bone knife. About each
wrist and above each elbow was a band or bracelet. These completed
their apparel and ornaments. In addition to his knife each Horib
carried a long lance shod with bone. They sat on their grotesque mounts
with their toes locked behind the elbows of the Gorobors, anomodont
reptiles of the Triassic, known to paleontologists as Pareiasuri. Many
of these creatures measured ten feet in length, though they stood low
upon squat and powerful legs.
As Tarzan gazed in fascination upon the Horibs, whose "blood ran cold
and who had no hearts," he realized that he might be gazing upon one of
the vagaries of evolution, or possibly upon a replica of some form that
had once existed upon the outer crust and that had blazed the trail
that some, to us, unknown creature must have blazed from the age of
reptiles to the age of man. Nor did it seem to him, after reflection,
any more remarkable that a man-like reptile might evolve from reptiles
than that birds should have done so or, as scientific discoveries are
now demonstrating, mammals must have.
These thoughts passed quickly, almost instantaneously, through his
mind as the Horibs sat there with their beady, lidless eyes fastened
upon them, but if Tarzan had been astounded by the appearance of these
creatures the emotion thus aroused was nothing compared with the shock
he received when one of them spoke, addressing him in the common
language of the gilaks of Pellucidar.
"You cannot escape," he said. "Lay down your weapons."