Part 1 (1/2)

Tarzan the Terrible

by Edgar Rice Burroughs

1

The Pithecanthropus

Silent as the shadows through which he le, his yellow-green eyes round and staring, his sinewy tail undulating behind him, his head lowered and flattened, and every le reat cat was always careful to avoid Though he h thick verdure across a carpet of innuave forth no sound that ht have been apprehended by dull hueven as silently as the lion a hundred paces ahead of the tawny carnivore, for instead of skirting the s it passed directly across theht indeed be guessed that it sought these avenues of least resistance, as well it rim stalker, it walked erect upon two feet-it walked upon two feet and was hairless except for a black thatch upon its head; its arms ell shaped andfingers and thuers Its legs too were shapely but its feet departed from the standards of all races of reat toes protruded at right angles froht of the gorgeous African moon the creature turned an attentive ear to the rear and then, his head lifted, his features ht They were strong, clean cut, and regular-features that would have attracted attention for their reat capitals of the world But was this thing a man? It would have been hard for a watcher in the trees to have decided as the lion's prey resumed its way across the silver tapestry that Luna had laid upon the floor of the disle, for frohs there depended a long hairless, white tail

In one hand the creature carried a stout club, and suspended at its left side from a shoulder belt was a short, sheathed knife, while a cross belt supported a pouch at its right hip Confining these straps to the body and also apparently supporting the loin cloth was a broad girdle which glittered in the old, and was clasped in the center of the belly with a huge buckle of ornate design that scintillated as with precious stones

Closer and closer crept Numa, the lion, to his intended victier was evidenced by the increasing frequency hich he turned his ear and his sharp black eyes in the direction of the cat upon his trail He did not greatly increase his speed, a long swinging here the open places permitted, but he loosened the knife in its scabbard and at all tiing at last through a narrow strip of dense jungle vegetation the h into an almost treeless area of considerable extent For an instant he hesitated, glancing quickly behind hireat trees waving overhead, but soe than fear or caution influenced his decision apparently, for hethe safety of the trees behind hirassy expanse ahead of hi from one to another, indicated that he had not entirely cast discretion to the winds But after the second tree had been left behind the distance to the next was considerable, and it was then that Nu his quarry apparently helpless before hied

Two er, with thirst, with hardshi+ps, with disappoint pain-had passed since Tarzan of the Apes learned from the diary of the dead Geration in which he was enthusiastically aided by the Intelligence Department of the British East African Expedition revealed the fact that an atte in the interior, for reasons of which only the Gere of Lieutenant Obergatz and a detachment of native Gero Free State

Starting out alone in search of her, Tarzan had succeeded in finding the village in which she had been incarcerated only to learn that she had escaped months before, and that the German officer had disappeared at the same time From there on the stories of the chiefs and the warriors whoue and often contradictory Even the direction that the fugitives had taken Tarzan could only guess at by piecing together bits of fragleaned from various sources

Sinister conjectures were forced upon hie One was incontrovertible proof that these people were e of various articles of native Gerreat risk and in the face of surly objection on the part of the chief, the ape-e from which at least a little ray of hope resulted froed to his wife

Leaving the village he had , after thehardshi+ps, a vast waterless steppe covered for theat last into a district that had probably never been previously entered by any white ends of the tribes whose country bordered it Here were precipitous mountains, atered plateaus, wide plains, and vast swampy morasses, but neither the plains, nor the plateaus, nor the mountains were accessible to hi a spot where he ht cross the morasses-a hideous stretch infested by venoerous reptiles On several occasions he gliht have been titanic reptilian monsters, but as there were hippopotareat numbers in and about the marsh he was never positive that the forms he saere not of these

When at last he stood upon fir the morasses he realized why it was that for perhaps countless ages this territory had defied the courage and hardihood of the heroic races of the outer world that had, after innu penetrated to practically every other region, from pole to pole

Froht have appeared that every known species of bird and beast and reptile had sought here a refuge wherein theymultitudes of men that had steadily spread therounds from the lower orders, from the moment that the first ape shed his hair and ceased to walk upon his knuckles Even the species hich Tarzan was faent line of evolution or an unaltered fores

Too, there wereof which to Tarzan was a yellow and black striped lion Smaller than the species hich Tarzan was familiar, but still a most formidable beast, since it possessed in addition to sharp saber-like canines the disposition of a devil To Tarzan it presented evidence that tigers had once roaiant saber-tooths of another epoch, and these apparently had crossed with lions with the resultant terrors that he occasionally encountered at the present day

The true lions of this new, Old World differed but little from those hich he was familiar; in size and confor the leopard spots of cubhood, they retained theh life as definitely marked as those of the leopard

Two htest evidence that she he sought had entered this beautiful yet forbidding land His investigation, however, of the cannibal village and his questioning of other tribes in the neighborhood had convinced him that if Lady Jane still lived it must be in this direction that he seek her, since by a process of eliht to only this possibility How she had crossed thewithin seee upon him belief that she had crossed it, and that if she still lived it was here that she ht But this unknown, untraversed as of vast extent; gri froress, and at every turn he was forced to ht procure sustenance

Tiain Tarzan and Numa stalked the same quarry and now one, now the other bore off the prize Seldory for the country was rich in game animals and birds and fish, in fruit and the countless other forle-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 fro he had succeeded finally in discovering a pass through thedown 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 canyon where it debouched upon a tree-covered plain Bara, the deer, fell an easy victi

It was just at dusk The voices of great four-footed hunters rose now and again fro its trees no comfortable retreat the ape-man shouldered the carcass of the deer and started doard onto the plain At its opposite side rose lofty trees-a great forest which suggested to his practiced eye a le Toward this the ape-man bent his step, but whenalone such a tree as best suited hihtly to its branches and, presently, a co place