6
The Tor-o-don
Pan-at-lee slept--the troubled sleep, of physical and nervousexhaustion, filled with weird dreamings. She dreamed that she sleptbeneath a great tree in the bottom of the Kor-ul-GRYF and that one ofthe fearsome beasts was creeping upon her but she could not open hereyes 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 itclosed and seemed to be dragging her toward it. With a super-humaneffort of will she opened her eyes. In the instant she knew that shewas dreaming and that quickly the hallucination of the dream wouldfade--it had happened to her many times before. But it persisted. Inthe dim light that filtered into the dark chamber she saw a form besideher, she felt hairy fingers upon her and a hairy breast against whichshe was being drawn. Jad-ben-Otho! this was no dream. And then shescreamed and tried to fight the thing from her; but her scream wasanswered by a low growl and another hairy hand seized her by the hairof the head. The beast rose now upon its hind legs and dragged her fromthe cave to the moonlit recess without and at the same instant she sawthe figure of what she took to be a Ho-don rise above the outer edge ofthe niche.
The beast that held her saw it too and growled ominously but it did notrelinquish its hold upon her hair. It crouched as though waiting anattack, and it increased the volume and frequency of its growls untilthe horrid sounds reverberated through the gorge, drowning even thedeep bellowings of the beasts below, whose mighty thunderings hadbroken out anew with the sudden commotion from the high-flung cave. Thebeast that held her crouched and the creature that faced it crouchedalso, and growled--as hideously as the other. Pan-at-lee trembled. Thiswas no Ho-don and though she feared the Ho-don she feared this thingmore, with its catlike crouch and its beastly growls. She waslost--that Pan-at-lee knew. The two things might fight for her, butwhichever won she was lost. Perhaps, during the battle, if it came tothat, she might find the opportunity to throw herself over into theKor-ul-GRYF.
The thing that held her she had recognized now as a Tor-o-don, but theother thing she could not place, though in the moonlight she could seeit very distinctly. It had no tail. She could see its hands and itsfeet, 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 agleaming knife. Now it spoke and to Pan-at-lee's terror was added anequal weight of consternation.
"When it leaves go of you," it said, "as it will presently to defenditself, run quickly behind me, Pan-at-lee, and go to the cave nearestthe pegs you descended from the cliff top. Watch from there. If I amdefeated you will have time to escape this slow thing; if I am not Iwill 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 didnot understand. How did this strange creature know her name? How did itknow 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, ofKor-ul-JA, in search of you."
Om-at, gund of Kor-ul-JA! What wild talk was this? She would havequestioned him further, but now he was approaching the Tor-o-don andthe latter was screaming and growling so loudly as to drown the soundof her voice. And then it did what the strange creature had said thatit would do--it released its hold upon her hair as it prepared tocharge. Charge it did and in those close quarters there was no room tofence for openings. Instantly the two beasts locked in deadly embrace,each seeking the other's throat. Pan-at-lee watched, taking noadvantage of the opportunity to escape which their preoccupation gaveher. She watched and waited, for into her savage little brain had comethe resolve to pin her faith to this strange creature who had unlockedher heart with those four words--"I am Om-at's friend!" And so shewaited, with drawn knife, the opportunity to do her bit in thevanquishing of the Tor-o-don. That the newcomer could do it unaided shewell knew to be beyond the realms of possibility, for she knew well theprowess of the beastlike man with whom it fought. There were not manyof them in Pal-ul-don, but what few there were were a terror to thewomen of the Waz-don and the Ho-don, for the old Tor-o-don bulls roamedthe mountains and the valleys of Pal-ul-don between rutting seasons andwoe betide the women who fell in their paths.
With his tail the Tor-o-don sought one of Tarzan's ankles, and findingit, tripped him. The two fell heavily, but so agile was the ape-man andso quick his powerful muscles that even in falling he twisted the beastbeneath him, so that Tarzan fell on top and now the tail that hadtripped him sought his throat as had the tail of In-tan, theKor-ul-lul. In the effort of turning his antagonist's body during thefall Tarzan had had to relinquish his knife that he might seize theshaggy body with both hands and now the weapon lay out of reach at thevery edge of the recess. Both hands were occupied for the moment infending off the clutching fingers that sought to seize him and drag histhroat within reach of his foe's formidable fangs and now the tail wasseeking its deadly hold with a formidable persistence that would not bedenied.
Pan-at-lee hovered about, breathless, her dagger ready, but there wasno opening that did not also endanger Tarzan, so constantly were thetwo duelists changing their positions. Tarzan felt the tail slowly butsurely insinuating itself about his neck though he had drawn his headdown between the muscles of his shoulders in an effort to protect thisvulnerable part. The battle seemed to be going against him for thegiant beast against which he strove would have been a fair match inweight and strength for Bolgani, the gorilla. And knowing this hesuddenly exerted a single super-human effort, thrust far apart thegiant hands and with the swiftness of a striking snake buried his fangsin the jugular of the Tor-o-don. At the same instant the creature'stail coiled about his own throat and then commenced a battle royal ofturning and twisting bodies as each sought to dislodge the fatal holdof the other, but the acts of the ape-man were guided by a human brainand thus it was that the rolling bodies rolled in the direction thatTarzan wished--toward the edge of the recess.
The choking tail had shut the air from his lungs, he knew that hisgasping lips were parted and his tongue protruding; and now his brainreeled and his sight grew dim; but not before he reached his goal and aquick hand shot out to seize the knife that now lay within reach as thetwo bodies tottered perilously upon the brink of the chasm.
With all his remaining strength the ape-man drove home the blade--once,twice, thrice, and then all went black before him as he felt himself,still in the clutches of the Tor-o-don, topple from the recess.
Fortunate it was for Tarzan that Pan-at-lee had not obeyed hisinjunction to make good her escape while he engaged the Tor-o-don, forit was to this fact that he owed his life. Close beside the strugglingforms during the brief moments of the terrific climax she had realizedevery detail of the danger to Tarzan with which the emergency wasfraught and as she saw the two rolling over the outer edge of the nicheshe seized the ape-man by an ankle at the same time throwing herselfprone upon the rocky floor. The muscles of the Tor-o-don relaxed indeath with the last thrust of Tarzan's knife and with its hold upon theape-man released it shot from sight into the gorge below.
It was with infinite difficulty that Pan-at-lee retained her hold uponthe ankle of her protector, but she did so and then, slowly, she soughtto drag the dead weight back to the safety of the niche. This, however,was beyond her strength and she could but hold on tightly, hoping thatsome plan would suggest itself before her powers of endurance failed.She wondered if, after all, the creature was already dead, but that shecould not bring herself to believe--and if not dead how long it wouldbe before he regained consciousness. If he did not regain it soon henever would regain it, that she knew, for she felt her fingers numbingto the strain upon them and slipping, slowly, slowly, from their hold.It was then that Tarzan regained consciousness. He could not know whatpower upheld him, but he felt that whatever it was it was slowlyreleasing its hold upon his ankle. Within easy reach of his hands weretwo
pegs and these he seized upon just as Pan-at-lee's fingers slippedfrom their hold.
As it was he came near to being precipitated into the gorge--only hisgreat strength saved him. He was upright now and his feet found otherpegs. His first thought was of his foe. Where was he? Waiting abovethere to finish him? Tarzan looked up just as the frightened face ofPan-at-lee appeared over the threshold of the recess.
"You live?" she cried.
"Yes," replied Tarzan. "Where is the shaggy one?"
Pan-at-lee pointed downward. "There," she said, "dead."
"Good!" exclaimed the ape-man, clambering to her side. "You areunharmed?" he asked.
"You came just in time," replied Pan-at-lee; "but who are you and howdid you know that I was here and what do you know of Om-at and wheredid you come from and what did you mean by calling Om-at, gund?"
"Wait, wait," cried Tarzan; "one at a time. My, but you are allalike--the shes of the tribe of Kerchak, the ladies of England, andtheir sisters of Pal-ul-don. Have patience and I will try to tell youall that you wish to know. Four of us set out with Om-at from Kor-ul-JAto search for you. We were attacked by the Kor-ul-lul and separated. Iwas taken prisoner, but escaped. Again I stumbled upon your trail andfollowed it, reaching the summit of this cliff just as the hairy onewas climbing up after you. I was coming to investigate when I heardyour scream--the rest you know."
"But you called Om-at, gund of Kor-ul-JA," she insisted. "Es-sat isgund."
"Es-sat is dead," explained the ape-man. "Om-at slew him and now Om-atis gund. Om-at came back seeking you. He found Es-sat in your cave andkilled him."
"Yes," said the girl, "Es-sat came to my cave and I struck him downwith my golden breastplates and escaped."
"And a lion pursued you," continued Tarzan, "and you leaped from thecliff into Kor-ul-lul, but why you were not killed is beyond me."
"Is there anything beyond you?" exclaimed Pan-at-lee. "How could youknow that a lion pursued me and that I leaped from the cliff and notknow that it was the pool of deep water below that saved me?"
"I would have known that, too, had not the Kor-ul-lul come then andprevented me continuing upon your trail. But now I would ask you aquestion--by what name do you call the thing with which I just fought?"
"It was a Tor-o-don," she replied. "I have seen but one before. Theyare terrible creatures with the cunning of man and the ferocity of abeast. Great indeed must be the warrior who slays one single-handed."She gazed at him in open admiration.
"And now," said Tarzan, "you must sleep, for tomorrow we shall returnto Kor-ul-JA and Om-at, and I doubt that you have had much rest thesetwo nights."
Pan-at-lee, lulled by a feeling of security, slept peacefully into themorning while Tarzan stretched himself upon the hard floor of therecess just outside her cave.
The sun was high in the heavens when he awoke; for two hours it hadlooked down upon another heroic figure miles away--the figure of agodlike man fighting his way through the hideous morass that lies likea filthy moat defending Pal-ul-don from the creatures of the outerworld. Now waist deep in the sucking ooze, now menaced by loathsomereptiles, the man advanced only by virtue of Herculean efforts gaininglaboriously by inches along the devious way that he was forced tochoose in selecting the least precarious footing. Near the center ofthe morass was open water--slimy, green-hued water. He reached it atlast after more than two hours of such effort as would have left anordinary man spent and dying in the sticky mud, yet he was less thanhalfway across the marsh. Greasy with slime and mud was his smooth,brown hide, and greasy with slime and mud was his beloved Enfield thathad shone so brightly in the first rays of the rising sun.
He paused a moment upon the edge of the open water and then throwinghimself forward struck out to swim across. He swam with long, easy,powerful strokes calculated less for speed than for endurance, for hiswas, primarily, a test of the latter, since beyond the open water wasanother two hours or more of gruelling effort between it and solidground. He was, perhaps, halfway across and congratulating himself uponthe ease of the achievement of this portion of his task when therearose from the depths directly in his path a hideous reptile, which,with wide-distended jaws, bore down upon him, hissing shrilly.
Tarzan arose and stretched, expanded his great chest and drank in deepdraughts of the fresh morning air. His clear eyes scanned the wondrousbeauties of the landscape spread out before them. Directly below layKor-ul-GRYF, a dense, somber green of gently moving tree tops. ToTarzan it was neither grim, nor forbidding--it was jungle, belovedjungle. To his right there spread a panorama of the lower reaches ofthe Valley of Jad-ben-Otho, with its winding streams and its bluelakes. Gleaming whitely in the sunlight were scattered groups ofdwellings--the feudal strongholds of the lesser chiefs of the Ho-don.A-lur, the City of Light, he could not see as it was hidden by theshoulder of the cliff in which the deserted village lay.
For a moment Tarzan gave himself over to that spiritual enjoyment ofbeauty that only the man-mind may attain and then Nature assertedherself and the belly of the beast called aloud that it was hungry.Again Tarzan looked down at Kor-ul-GRYF. There was the jungle! Grewthere a jungle that would not feed Tarzan? The ape-man smiled andcommenced the descent to the gorge. Was there danger there? Of course.Who knew it better than Tarzan? In all jungles lies death, for life anddeath go hand in hand and where life teems death reaps his fullestharvest. Never had Tarzan met a creature of the jungle with which hecould not cope--sometimes by virtue of brute strength alone, again by acombination of brute strength and the cunning of the man-mind; butTarzan had never met a GRYF.
He had heard the bellowings in the gorge the night before after he hadlain down to sleep and he had meant to ask Pan-at-lee this morning whatmanner of beast so disturbed the slumbers of its betters. He reachedthe foot of the cliff and strode into the jungle and here he halted,his keen eyes and ears watchful and alert, his sensitive nostrilssearching each shifting air current for the scent spoor of game. Againhe advanced deeper into the wood, his light step giving forth no sound,his bow and arrows in readiness. A light morning breeze was blowingfrom up the gorge and in this direction he bent his steps. Many odorsimpinged upon his organs of scent. Some of these he classified withouteffort, but others were strange--the odors of beasts and of birds, oftrees and shrubs and flowers with which he was unfamiliar. He sensedfaintly the reptilian odor that he had learned to connect with thestrange, nocturnal forms that had loomed dim and bulky on severaloccasions since his introduction to Pal-ul-don.
And then, suddenly he caught plainly the strong, sweet odor of Bara,the deer. Were the belly vocal, Tarzan's would have given a little cryof joy, for it loved the flesh of Bara. The ape-man moved rapidly, butcautiously forward. The prey was not far distant and as the hunterapproached it, he took silently to the trees and still in his nostrilswas the faint reptilian odor that spoke of a great creature which hehad never yet seen except as a denser shadow among the dense shadows ofthe night; but the odor was of such a faintness as suggests to thejungle bred the distance of absolute safety.
And now, moving noiselessly, Tarzan came within sight of Bara drinkingat a pool where the stream that waters Kor-ul-GRYF crosses an openplace in the jungle. The deer was too far from the nearest tree to riska charge, so the ape-man must depend upon the accuracy and force of hisfirst arrow, which must drop the deer in its tracks or forfeit bothdeer and shaft. Far back came the right hand and the bow, that you or Imight not move, bent easily beneath the muscles of the forest god.There was a singing twang and Bara, leaping high in air, collapsed uponthe ground, an arrow through his heart. Tarzan dropped to earth and ranto his kill, lest the animal might even yet rise and escape; but Barawas safely dead. As Tarzan stooped to lift it to his shoulder therefell upon his ears a thunderous bellow that seemed almost at his rightelbow, and as his eyes shot in the direction of the sound, there brokeupon his vision such a creature as paleontologists have dreamed ashaving possibly existed in the dimmest vistas of Earth's infancy--agigantic creature, vibrant with mad rage, that
charged, bellowing, uponhim.
When Pan-at-lee awoke she looked out upon the niche in search ofTarzan. He was not there. She sprang to her feet and rushed out,looking down into Kor-ul-GRYF guessing that he had gone down in searchof food and there she caught a glimpse of him disappearing into theforest. For an instant she was panic-stricken. She knew that he was astranger in Pal-ul-don and that, so, he might not realize the dangersthat lay in that gorge of terror. Why did she not call to him toreturn? You or I might have done so, but no Pal-ul-don, for they knowthe ways of the GRYF--they know the weak eyes and the keen ears, andthat at the sound of a human voice they come. To have called to Tarzan,then, would but have been to invite disaster and so she did not call.Instead, afraid though she was, she descended into the gorge for thepurpose of overhauling Tarzan and warning him in whispers of hisdanger. It was a brave act, since it was performed in the face ofcountless ages of inherited fear of the creatures that she might becalled upon to face. Men have been decorated for less.
Pan-at-lee, descended from a long line of hunters, assumed that Tarzanwould move up wind and in this direction she sought his tracks, whichshe soon found well marked, since he had made no effort to concealthem. She moved rapidly until she reached the point at which Tarzan hadtaken to the trees. Of course she knew what had happened; since her ownpeople were semi-arboreal; but she could not track him through thetrees, having no such well-developed sense of scent as he.
She could but hope that he had continued on up wind and in thisdirection she moved, her heart pounding in terror against her ribs, hereyes glancing first in one direction and then another. She had reachedthe edge of a clearing when two things happened--she caught sight ofTarzan bending over a dead deer and at the same instant a deafeningroar sounded almost beside her. It terrified her beyond description,but it brought no paralysis of fear. Instead it galvanized her intoinstant action with the result that Pan-at-lee swarmed up the nearesttree to the very loftiest branch that would sustain her weight. Thenshe looked down.
The thing that Tarzan saw charging him when the warning bellowattracted his surprised eyes loomed terrifically monstrous beforehim--monstrous and awe-inspiring; but it did not terrify Tarzan, itonly angered him, for he saw that it was beyond even his powers tocombat and that meant that it might cause him to lose his kill, andTarzan was hungry. There was but a single alternative to remaining forannihilation and that was flight--swift and immediate. And Tarzan fled,but he carried the carcass of Bara, the deer, with him. He had not morethan a dozen paces start, but on the other hand the nearest tree wasalmost as close. His greatest danger lay, he imagined, in the great,towering height of the creature pursuing him, for even though hereached the tree he would have to climb high in an incredibly shorttime as, unless appearances were deceiving, the thing could reach upand pluck him down from any branch under thirty feet above the ground,and possibly from those up to fifty feet, if it reared up on its hindlegs.
But Tarzan was no sluggard and though the GRYF was incredibly fastdespite its great bulk, it was no match for Tarzan, and when it comesto climbing, the little monkeys gaze with envy upon the feats of theape-man. And so it was that the bellowing GRYF came to a baffled stopat the foot of the tree and even though he reared up and sought toseize his prey among the branches, as Tarzan had guessed he might, hefailed in this also. And then, well out of reach, Tarzan came to a stopand there, just above him, he saw Pan-at-lee sitting, wide-eyed andtrembling.
"How came you here?" he asked.
She told him. "You came to warn me!" he said. "It was very brave andunselfish of you. I am chagrined that I should have been thussurprised. The creature was up wind from me and yet I did not sense itsnear presence until it charged. I cannot understand it."
"It is not strange," said Pan-at-lee. "That is one of the peculiaritiesof the GRYF--it is said that man never knows of its presence until itis upon him--so silently does it move despite its great size."
"But I should have smelled it," cried Tarzan, disgustedly.
"Smelled it!" ejaculated Pan-at-lee. "Smelled it?"
"Certainly. How do you suppose I found this deer so quickly? And Isensed the GRYF, too, but faintly as at a great distance." Tarzansuddenly ceased speaking and looked down at the bellowing creaturebelow them--his nostrils quivered as though searching for a scent."Ah!" he exclaimed. "I have it!"
"What?" asked Pan-at-lee.
"I was deceived because the creature gives off practically no odor,"explained the ape-man. "What I smelled was the faint aroma thatdoubtless permeates the entire jungle because of the long presence ofmany of the creatures--it is the sort of odor that would remain for along time, faint as it is.
"Pan-at-lee, did you ever hear of a triceratops? No? Well this thingthat you call a GRYF is a triceratops and it has been extinct forhundreds of thousands of years. I have seen its skeleton in the museumin London and a figure of one restored. I always thought that thescientists who did such work depended principally upon an overwroughtimagination, but I see that I was wrong. This living thing is not anexact counterpart of the restoration that I saw; but it is so similaras to be easily recognizable, and then, too, we must remember thatduring the ages that have elapsed since the paleontologist's specimenlived many changes might have been wrought by evolution in the livingline that has quite evidently persisted in Pal-ul-don."
"Triceratops, London, paleo--I don't know what you are talking about,"cried Pan-at-lee.
Tarzan smiled and threw a piece of dead wood at the face of the angrycreature below them. Instantly the great bony hood over the neck waserected and a mad bellow rolled upward from the gigantic body. Fulltwenty feet at the shoulder the thing stood, a dirty slate-blue incolor except for its yellow face with the blue bands encircling theeyes, the red hood with the yellow lining and the yellow belly. Thethree parallel lines of bony protuberances down the back gave a furthertouch of color to the body, those following the line of the spine beingred, while those on either side are yellow. The five- and three-toedhoofs of the ancient horned dinosaurs had become talons in the GRYF,but the three horns, two large ones above the eyes and a median horn onthe nose, had persisted through all the ages. Weird and terrible as wasits appearance Tarzan could not but admire the mighty creature loomingbig below him, its seventy-five feet of length majestically typifyingthose things which all his life the ape-man had admired--courage andstrength. In that massive tail alone was the strength of an elephant.
The wicked little eyes looked up at him and the horny beak opened todisclose a full set of powerful teeth.
"Herbivorous!" murmured the ape-man. "Your ancestors may have been, butnot you," and then to Pan-at-lee: "Let us go now. At the cave we willhave deer meat and then--back to Kor-ul-JA and Om-at."
The girl shuddered. "Go?" she repeated. "We will never go from here."
"Why not?" asked Tarzan.
For answer she but pointed to the GRYF.
"Nonsense!" exclaimed the man. "It cannot climb. We can reach the cliffthrough the trees and be back in the cave before it knows what hasbecome of us."
"You do not know the GRYF," replied Pan-at-lee gloomily.
"Wherever we go it will follow and always it will be ready at the footof each tree when we would descend. It will never give us up."
"We can live in the trees for a long time if necessary," repliedTarzan, "and sometime the thing will leave."
The girl shook her head. "Never," she said, "and then there are theTor-o-don. They will come and kill us and after eating a little willthrow the balance to the GRYF--the GRYF and Tor-o-don are friends,because the Tor-o-don shares his food with the GRYF."
"You may be right," said Tarzan; "but even so I don't intend waitinghere for someone to come along and eat part of me and then feed thebalance to that beast below. If I don't get out of this place whole itwon't be my fault. Come along now and we'll make a try at it," and sosaying he moved off through the tree tops with Pan-at-lee close behind.Below them, on the ground, moved the horned dinosaur and when theyreached the edge of t
he forest where there lay fifty yards of openground to cross to the foot of the cliff he was there with them, at thebottom of the tree, waiting.
Tarzan looked ruefully down and scratched his head.
Tarzan the Terrible Page 6