Part 23 (2/2)
She felt that she ood spear, a knife, and bow and arrows Possibly when these had been achieved she ht her way to one of civilization's nearest outposts In the meantime it was necessary to construct soreater sense of security by night, for she knew that there was a possibility that any night she h she had as yet seen none upon this side of the valley Aside froer she felt co of the long poles for her hoed in the search for food These poles she carried high into her tree and with the the poles together and also to the branches with fibers frorew in profusion near the stream Similarly she built walls and a roof, the latter thatched withof the barred s and the door wereinterest The s, there were two of thee and the bars pere enough to perh easily on hands and knees, which made it easier to barricade She lost count of the days that the house cost her; but ti else It meant so little to her that she had not even any desire to keep account of it How long since she and Obergatz had fled froers she did not know and she could only roughly guess at the seasons She worked hard for two reasons; one was to hasten the coe, and the other a desire for such physical exhaustion at night that she would sleep through those dreaded hours to a new day As a matter of fact the house was finished in less than a week-that is, it was ardless of how long shetouches and refinements here and there
Her daily life was filled with her house building and her hunting, to which was added an occasional spice of excite lions To the woodcraft that she had learned from Tarzan, that master of the art, was added a considerable store of practical experience derived froin soe To these facts was attributable her apparent i before he crept close enough for a successful charge and, too, they kept her close to those never-failing havens of retreat-the trees
The nights, filled with their weird noises, were lonely and depressing Only her ability to sleep quickly and soundly ht that she spent in her completed house behind barred s and barricaded door was one of alht noises see of the wind in the trees was gently soothing Before, it had carried a ht hide the approach of soht she slept indeed
She went further afield now in search of food So far nothing but rodents had fallen to her spear-her aive her, and the gut for her bow, the hide would prove invaluable during the colder weather that she kneould accolimpses of these wary animals and was sure that they always crossed the stream at a certain spot above her camp It was to this place that she went to hunt theh the forest, circling about to get up wind froht that ht menace her-herself the personification of a hunted deer Now she moved silently down upon the chosen spot What luck! A beautiful buck stood drinking in the stream The woman wormed her way closer Now she lay upon her belly behind a s distance of the quarry She ht and throw her spear alreat force and perfect accuracy She thrilled with the excitement of the minute, yet cool and steady were her swift muscles as she rose and cast her er did the point strike froh, landed upon the bank of the strea quickly forward toward her kill
”Bravo!” A lish from the shrubbery upon the opposite side of the stream Jane Clayton halted in her tracks-stunned, alure of a nize him, but when she did, instinctively she stepped back
”Lieutenant Obergatz!” she cried ”Can it be you?”
”It can It is,” replied the Gerht, no doubt; but still it is I, Erich Obergatz And you? You have changed too, is it not?”
He was looking at her naked liolden breastplates, the loin cloth of JATO-hide, the harness and ornaments that constitute the apparel of a Ho-don wos that Lu-don had dressed her in as his passion for her grew Not Ko-tan's daughter, even, had finer trappings
”But why are you here?” Jane insisted ”I had thought you safely a civilized men by this time, if you still lived”
”Gott!” he exclaimed ”I do not knohy I continue to live I have prayed to die and yet I cling to life There is no hope We are doo! The frightful bog! I have searched its shores for a place to cross until I have entirely circled the hideous country Easily enough we entered; but the rains have coh of sliry reptiles Have I not tried it! And the beasts that roaht”
”But how have you escaped theloory and thirsty in tree tops for days at a time I have fashi+oned weapons-clubs and spears-and I have learned to use them I have slain a lion with ht And we are no better than rats in this land of stupendous dangers, you and I But tellthat I live, how much more so that you still survive”
Briefly she told hiht do to rid herself of hied existence with him as her sole companion Better, a thousand times better, to be alone Never had her hatred and conte weeks and months of their constant companionshi+p, and now that he could be of no service in returning her to civilization, she shrank fro him daily And, too, she feared hiht in his eye that had not been there when last she saw hiave her a feeling of apprehension-a na then in the city of A-lur?” he said, speaking in the language of Pal-ul-don
”You have learned this tongue?” she asked ”How?”
”I fell in with a band of half-breeds,” he replied, ”ut through which the principal river of the valley empties into the e is partly s and partly of houses carved fronorant and superstitious and when they first saw me and realized that I had no tail and that my hands and feet were not like theirs they were afraid ofin a position where I could neither escape them nor defendthem to such an extent that they conducted me to their city, which they call Bu-lur, and there they fed e I sought to impress them more and more with the idea that I was a God, and I succeeded, too, until an old felloas so the power That was the beginning of the end and ca the end in fact He told them that if I was a God I would not bleed if a knife was stuck into me-if I did bleed it would prove conclusively that I was not a God Without e the ordeal before the whole village upon a certain night-it was upon one of those numerous occasions when they eat and drink to Jad-ben-Otho, their pagan deity Under the influence of their vile liquor they would be ripe for any bloodthirsty scheht evolve One of the women told er, but prompted merely by feminine curiosity as to whether or not I would bleed if stuck with a dagger She could not wait, it seemed, for the orderly procedure of the ordeal-she wanted to know at once, and when I caught her trying to slip a knife intowith the ut-it would have been futile to make any sort of appeal either to their intellects or their superstitions There was but one alternative to death and that was flight I told the woed and offended at this reflection upon my Godhood and that as a mark of my disfavor I should abandon them to their fate
”'I shall return to heaven at once!' I exclaio, but I told her that her eyes would be blasted by the fire surrounding my departure and that she must leave at once and not return to the spot for at least an hour I also impressed upon her the fact that should any other approach this part of the village within that time not only they, but she as well, would burst into flames and be consumed
”She was veryback as she departed that if I were indeed gone in an hour she and all the village would know that I was no less than Jad-ben-Otho himself, and so they one in hborhood of the city of Bu-lur since,” and he fell to laughing in harsh, cackling notes that sent a shi+ver through the woatz talked Jane had recovered her spear fro herself with the removal of the hide Theand watching her, the while he continually ran his filthy fingers through his matted hair and beard His face and body were caked with dirt and he was naked except for a torn greasy hide about his loins His weapons consisted of a club and knife of Waz-don pattern, that he had stolen froreatly concerned the wohter and the strange expression in his eyes
She went on with her work, however, re only as ht consule creature to relish it beyond that stage, and then she straightened up and faced the atz,” she said, ”by a chance of accident we haveanyin coendered by my natural dislike and suspicion of you, one of the authors of all the misery and sorrow that I have endured for endless ht of discovery and occupation Go away and leave me to enjoy here what peace Ithat you have done h his fishy eyes for a moment in silence, then there broke frohter