Part 8 (1/2)
He returned to his place in the tree above the girl If he couldn't have happiness of this sort himself he wanted to enjoy the happiness of others Possibly if he ht be pere occasionally as a friend It would be worth trying He would wait until the old Arab had greeted his daughter, then he would ns of peace
The Arab was striding softly toward the girl In a mohted she would be! Korak's eyes sparkled in anticipation-and now the old irl His stern old face was still unrelaxed The child was yet unconscious of his presence She prattled on to the unresponsive Geeka Then the old lanced quickly up over her shoulder Korak could see her full face now It was very beautiful in its sweet and innocent childishness-all soft and lovely curves He could see her great, dark eyes He looked for the happy love light that would follow recognition; but it did not co terror, was mirrored in her eyes, in the expression of her rim smile curved the thin, cruel lip of the Arab The child essayed to craay; but before she could get out of his reach the old rass Then he followed her up to seize and strike her as was his custom
Above them, in the tree, a beast crouched where anostrils and bared fangs-a beast that tre to reach for the girl when The Killer dropped to the ground at his side His spear was still in his left hand but he had forgotten it Instead his right fist was clenched and as The Sheik took a backward step, astonished by the sudden e apparition apparently out of clear air, the heavy fist landed full upon his iant and the terrific power of hisand senseless The Sheik sank to earth Korak turned toward the child She had regained her feet and stood wide eyed and frightened, looking first into his face and then, horror struck, at the recuesture of protection The Killer threw an ar for the Arab to regain consciousness For a irl spoke
”When he regains his senses he will kill me,” she said, in Arabic
Korak could not understand her He shook his head, speaking to her first in English and then in the language of the great apes; but neither of these was intelligible to her She leaned forward and touched the hilt of the long knife that the Arab wore Then she raised her clasped hand above her head and drove an iinary blade into her breast above her heart Korak understood The old ain and stood there tre She did not fear hi at the hands of The Sheik Never, in her memory, had another so befriended her She looked up into his face It was a boyish, handsome face, nut-brown like her own She admired the spotted leopard skin that circled his lithe body from one shoulder to his knees Thehi of the kind; but never had The Sheik perarment that barely sufficed to cover her nakedness No furs or silks or jewelry had there ever been for little Merieirls in a species of contempt Boys who associated with them were, in his estimation, mollycoddles He wondered what he should do Could he leave her here to be abused, possibly murdered, by the villainous old Arab? No! But, on the other hand, could he take her into the jungle with hihtened girl? She would screaht and the great beasts roah the darkness
He stood for several irl watched his face, wondering as passing in hisof the future She feared to reeance of The Sheik There was no one in all the world to whoer who had dropped miraculously from the clouds to save her fros Would her new friend leave her now? Wistfully she gazed at his intent face Shea slim, brown hand upon his arm The contact awakened the lad from his absorption He looked down at her, and then his arm went about her shoulder once more, for he saw tears upon her lashes
”Cole is kinder than le and Korak and Akut will protect you”
She did not understand his words, but the pressure of his ar her away froible One little arether they walked toward the palisade Beneath the great tree that had harbored Korak while he watched the girl at play he lifted her in his arhtly across his shoulder leaped nimbly into the lower branches Her arled down his straight young back
And so Merie, in her childish innocence, the stranger who had befriended her, and perhaps influenced in her belief in hie intuitive power possessed by woht hold She did not know, nor could she have guessed the manner of life led by her protector Possibly she pictured a distant village similar to that of The Sheik in which lived other white e, prile beast could not have occurred to her Had it, her little heart would have palpitated with fear Often had she wished to run away froers of the jungle always had deterred her
The two had gone but a short distance froe proportions of the great Akut With a half-stifled screa more closely to Korak, and pointed fearfully toward the ape
Akut, thinking that The Killer was returning with a prisoner, cairl aroused no rown bull ape She was a stranger and therefore to be killed He bared his yellow fangs as he approached, and to his surprise The Killer bared his likewise, but he bared theht Akut, ”The Killer has taken a mate,” and so, obedient to the tribal laws of his kind, he left the suddenly absorbed in a fuzzy caterpillar of peculiarly succulent appearance The larva disposed of, he glanced from the corner of an eye at Korak The youth had deposited his burden upon a large li
”She will acco a thuirl ”Do not hared To be burdened by the young ofHe could see froht at her position on the branch, and frolances she cast in his direction that she was hopelessly unfit By all the ethics of Akut's training and inheritance the unfit should be eli to be done about it but to tolerate her Akut certainly didn't want her-of that he was quite positive Her skin was too smooth and hairless Quite snake-like, in fact, and her face was most unattractive Not at all like that of a certain lovely she he had particularly noticed aht Ah, there was true feenerous s, and the cutest, softest side whiskers! Akut sighed Then he rose, expanded his great chest and strutted back and forth along a substantial branch, for even a puny thing like this she of Korak's e
But poor little Meriem only shrank closer to Korak and ale of The Sheik where the terrors of existence were of huhtened her He was so large and so ferocious in appearance His actions she could only interpret as ato excite admiration? Nor could she know of the bond of fellowshi+p which existed between this great brute and the Godlike youth who had rescued her froht of un dizzy ways as they searched for food Once they hid her in the branches of a tree while they stalked a near-by buck Even her natural terror of being left alone in the awful jungle was subreater horror as she saw thesi it down, as she saw the handsome face of her preserver contorted in a bestial snarl; as she saw his strong, white teeth buried in the soft flesh of the kill
When he came back to her blood smeared his face and hands and breast and she shrank froe hunk of hot, raw meat He was evidently much disturbed by her refusal to eat, and when, a moment later, he scampered away into the forest to return with fruit for her she was once more forced to alter her estied his gift with a smile that, had she known it, was more than a probleirl could not balance herself in safety in a tree crotch while she slept, nor would it be safe to perround open to the attacks of prowling beasts of prey There was but a single solution that presented itself-he ht And that he did, with Akut braced upon one side of her and he upon the other, so that she armed by the bodies of theht was half spent; but at last Nature overcame her terrors of the black abyss beneath and the hairy body of the wild beast at her side, and she fell into a deep slumber which outlasted the darkness When she opened her eyes the sun ell up At first she could not believe in the reality of her position Her head had rolled from Korak's shoulder so that her eyes were directed upon the hairy back of the ape At sight of it she shrank away Then she realized that so her head she saw the s her When he sainst hih coat of the brute upon her other side
Korak spoke to her in the language of the apes; but she shook her head, and spoke to hiible to him as was ape speech to her Akut sat up and looked at theirl ible and ridiculous Akut could not understand what Korak saw in her to attract hi her carefully, then he scratched his head, rose and shook hiirl a little start-she had forgotten Akut for the ain she shrank fro a brute enjoyed the evidence of the terror his brutishness inspired Crouching, he extended his huge hand stealthily toward her, as though to seize her She shrank still further away Akut's eyes were busy drinking in the hu eyes of the boy upon hi neck as the broad shoulders rose in a characteristic attitude of preparation for attack As the ape's fingers were about to close upon the girl's arrowl A clenched fist flew before Meriem's eyes to land full upon the snout of the astonished Akut With an explosive bellow the anthropoid reeled backward and tu down upon him when a sudden swish in the bushes close by attracted his attention The girl too was looking down; but she saw nothing but the angry ape scra to his feet Then, like a bolt from a cross bow, a ht for Akut's back It was Sheeta, the leopard
Chapter 10
As the leopard leaped for the great ape Merie fate of the anthropoid, but at the act of the youth who but an instant before had angrily struck his strange companion; for scarce had the carnivore burst into view than with drawn knife the youth had leaped far out above his and talons in Akut's broad back The Killer landed full upon the leopard's shoulders