Part 9 (1/2)

8

A-lur

As the hissing reptile bore down upon the stranger swi in the open water near the center of the morass on the frontier of Pal-ul-don it seemed to the man that this indeed er-filled journey It seeainst this frightful creature Had he been attacked on land it is possible that he h he had coer-ridden ain had his life hung in the balance in the face of the savage denizens of forest, jungle, and steppe For whatever ithis precious ammunition he evidently held it more sacred even than his life, for as yet he had not used a single round and now the decision was not required of hi his Enfield, loaded and fired with the necessary celerity while swih his chance for survival seemed slender, and hope at its lowest ebb, he was not le Instead he drew his blade and awaited the onco he ever before had seen although possibly it rese hich he was faenitor charged upon him with distended jaws there came to the man quickly a full consciousness of the futility of endeavoring to stay the mad rush or pierce the ar was almost upon him now and whatever form of defense he chose le alternative to instant death, and this he took at alreat reptile towered directly above him

With the celerity of a seal he dove headfore body and at the saed his blade into the soft, cold surface of the sli reptile carried it swiftly over him; and then with powerful strokes he swalance showed hie upon the surface of the water behind hionies was evidenced by the fact that it made no effort to pursue hi of the dying e of the open water to take up oncethe last stretch of clinging round of Pal-ul-don

A good two hours it took hi ed hirasses of the bank A hundred yards away a strea its way down from the distant mountains, emptied into the morass, and, after a short rest, hea quiet pool, bathed himself and washed the mud and slime from his weapons, accouterments, and loin cloth Another hour was spent beneath the rays of the hot sun in wiping, polishi+ng, and oiling his Enfield though the rasses It was afternoon before he had satisfied himself that his precious weapon was safe from any harm by dirt, or dampness, and then he arose and took up the search for the spoor he had followed to the opposite side of the swaain the trail that had led into the opposite side of the morass, to be lost there, even to his trained senses? If he found it not again upon this side of the al journey had ended in failure And so he sought up and down the verge of the stagnant water for traces of an old spoor that would have been invisible to your eyes or mine, even had we followed directly in the tracks of its ryfs he imitated as closely as he could recall them the methods and mannerisms of the Tor-o-don, but up to the instant that he stood close beside one of the huge creatures he realized that his fate still hung in the balance, for the thing gave forth no sign, eitherhim out of its cold, reptilian eyes and then Tarzan raised his staff and with a”Whee-oo!” struck the GRYF a vicious blow across the face

The creature made a sudden side snap in his direction, a snap that did not reach him, and then turned sullenly away, precisely as it had when the Tor-o-don co around to its rear as he had seen the shaggy first-man do, Tarzan ran up the broad tail and seated hi the acts of the Tor-o-don he prodded it with the sharpened point of his staff, and thus goading it forward and guiding it with blows, first upon one side and then upon the other, he started it down the gorge in the direction of the valley

At first it had been in his mind only to determine if he could successfully assert any authority over the greatthat in this possibility lay his only hope of immediate escape from his jailers But once seated upon the back of his titanic mount the ape-man experienced the sensation of a new thrill that recalled to him the day in his boyhood that he had first clambered to the broad head of Tantor, the elephant, and this, together with the sense of le, decided him to put his newly acquired power to soed must either have already reached safety or er could he be of service to her, while below Kor-ul-GRYF, in the soft green valley, lay A-lur, the City of Light, which, since he had gazed upon it from the shoulder of Pastar-ul-ved, had been his a walls held the secret of his lost uess but if she lived at all within the precincts of Pal-ul-don itthe Ho-don, since the hairy black otten world took no prisoners And so to A-lur he would go, and how rim and terrible creature that the races of Pal-ul-don held in such awe?

A little mountain stream tumbles down from Kor-ul-GRYF to be joined in the foothills with that which e a s the valley's largest lake at the City of A-lur, through the center of which the streaenerations of naked feet of man and beast, leads doard A-lur beside the river, and along this Tarzan guided the GRYF Once clear of the forest which ran below the li in the distance far below hih which he passed was resplendent with the riotous beauties of tropical verdure Thick, lush grasses greaist high upon either side of the trail and the as broken now and again by patches of open park-like forest, or perhaps a little patch of dense jungle where the trees overarched the way and trailing creepers depended in graceful loops from branch to branch

At ti obedience upon the part of his unruly beast, but always in the end its fear of the relatively puny goad urged it on to obedience Late in the afternoon as they approached the confluence of the strea and another which appeared to co frole patches, discovered a considerable party of Ho-don upon the opposite bank Sihty creature he bestrode For a moment they stood in wide-eyed amazement and then, in answer to the command of their leader, they turned and bolted for the shelter of the nearby wood

The ape-limpse of them but it was sufficient indication that there were Waz-don with them, doubtless prisoners taken in one of the raids upon the Waz-don villages of which Ta-den and Om-at had told him

At the sound of their voices the GRYF had bellowed terrifically and started in pursuit even though a river intervened, but by dint ofthe ani time it was sullen and more intractable than ever

As the sun dropped nearer the summit of the western hills Tarzan became aware that his plan to enter A-lur upon the back of a GRYF was likely dooreat beast was increasing e belly was crying out for food The ape- their beasts for the night, but as he did not know and as no plan suggested itself, he deter it again in the

There now arose in his mind a question as to ould be their relationshi+p when Tarzan had disain revert to that of hunter and quarry or would fear of the goad continue to hold its supre flesh-eater? Tarzan wondered but as he could not re and putting the ht, he decided to act at once

How to stop the creature he did not know, as up to this tie it forward By experi it to a halt by reaching forward and striking the thing upon its beaklike snout Close by grew a number of leafy trees, in any one of which the ape-man could have found sanctuary, but it had occurred to hiest to thehim all day feared hiain be held a prisoner by the triceratops

And so, when the GRYF halted, Tarzan slid to the ground, struck the creature a careless blow across the flank as though in dismissal and walked indifferently away Fro sound and without even a glance at Tarzan it turned and entered the river where it stood drinking for a long tier constituted aof hunger, unslung his bow and selecting a handful of arrows set forth cautiously in search of food, evidence of the near presence of which was being borne up to him by a breeze froain one of the Pal-ul-don specimens of antelope, all species of which Tarzan had known since childhood as Bara, the deer, since in the little primer that had been the basis of his education the picture of a deer had been the nearest approach to the likeness of the antelope, frorounds of his youth

Cutting off a haunch he cached it in a nearby tree, and throwing the balance of the carcass across his shoulder trotted back toward the spot at which he had left the GRYF The great beast was just e it, issued the weird cry of the Tor-o-don The creature looked in the direction of the sound voicing at the same time the low rumble hich it answered the call of its master Twice Tarzan repeated his cry before the beast moved slowly toward him, and when it had come within a few paces he tossed the carcass of the deer to it, upon which it fell with greedy jaws

”If anything will keep it within call,” mused the ape-man as he returned to the tree in which he had cached his own portion of his kill, ”it is the knowledge that I will feed it” But as he finished his repast and settled hi branches of his eyrie he had little confidence that he would ride into A-lur the following day upon his prehistoric steed

When Tarzan awoke early the following round andhis weapons and loin cloth he entered the cold waters of the little pool, and after his refreshi+ng bath returned to the tree to breakfast upon another portion of Bara, the deer, adding to his repast sorew in abundance nearby

Hishis voice in the weird cry that he had learned, he called aloud on the chance of attracting the GRYF, but though he waited for so there was no response, and he was finally forced to the conclusion that he had seen the last of his greatday