第24章

The Tor-o-don

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.