Delphi Collected Works of Edgar Rice Burroughs (Illustrated) (Series Four Book 26)

by Edgar Rice Burroughs

  When Pan-at-lee awoke she looked out upon the niche in search of Tarzan. 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 search of food and there she caught a glimpse of him disappearing into the forest. For an instant she was panic-stricken. She knew that he was a stranger in Pal-ul-don and that, so, he might not realize the dangers that lay in that gorge of terror. Why did she not call to him to return? You or I might have done so, but no Pal-ul-don, for they know the ways of the GRYF — they know the weak eyes and the keen ears, and that 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 the purpose of overhauling Tarzan and warning him in whispers of his danger. It was a brave act, since it was performed in the face of countless ages of inherited fear of the creatures that she might be called upon to face. Men have been decorated for less.

  Pan-at-lee, descended from a long line of hunters, assumed that Tarzan would move up wind and in this direction she sought his tracks, which she soon found well marked, since he had made no effort to conceal them. She moved rapidly until she reached the point at which Tarzan had taken to the trees. Of course she knew what had happened; since her own people were semi-arboreal; but she could not track him through the trees, having no such well-developed sense of scent as he.

  She could but hope that he had continued on up wind and in this direction she moved, her heart pounding in terror against her ribs, her eyes glancing first in one direction and then another. She had reached the edge of a clearing when two things happened — she caught sight of Tarzan bending over a dead deer and at the same instant a deafening roar sounded almost beside her. It terrified her beyond description, but it brought no paralysis of fear. Instead it galvanized her into instant action with the result that Pan-at-lee swarmed up the nearest tree to the very loftiest branch that would sustain her weight. Then she looked down.

  The thing that Tarzan saw charging him when the warning bellow attracted his surprised eyes loomed terrifically monstrous before him — monstrous and awe-inspiring; but it did not terrify Tarzan, it only angered him, for he saw that it was beyond even his powers to combat and that meant that it might cause him to lose his kill, and Tarzan was hungry. There was but a single alternative to remaining for annihilation and that was flight — swift and immediate. And Tarzan fled, but he carried the carcass of Bara, the deer, with him. He had not more than a dozen paces start, but on the other hand the nearest tree was almost as close. His greatest danger lay, he imagined, in the great, towering height of the creature pursuing him, for even though he reached the tree he would have to climb high in an incredibly short time as, unless appearances were deceiving, the thing could reach up and 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 hind legs.

  But Tarzan was no sluggard and though the GRYF was incredibly fast despite its great bulk, it was no match for Tarzan, and when it comes to climbing, the little monkeys gaze with envy upon the feats of the ape-man. And so it was that the bellowing GRYF came to a baffled stop at the foot of the tree and even though he reared up and sought to seize his prey among the branches, as Tarzan had guessed he might, he failed in this also. And then, well out of reach, Tarzan came to a stop and there, just above him, he saw Pan-at-lee sitting, wide-eyed and trembling.

  “How came you here?” he asked.

  She told him. “You came to warn me!” he said. “It was very brave and unselfish of you. I am chagrined that I should have been thus surprised. The creature was up wind from me and yet I did not sense its near presence until it charged. I cannot understand it.”

  “It is not strange,” said Pan-at-lee. “That is one of the peculiarities of the GRYF — it is said that man never knows of its presence until it is 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 I sensed the GRYF, too, but faintly as at a great distance.” Tarzan suddenly ceased speaking and looked down at the bellowing creature below 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 that doubtless permeates the entire jungle because of the long presence of many of the creatures — it is the sort of odor that would remain for a long time, faint as it is.

  “Pan-at-lee, did you ever hear of a triceratops? No? Well this thing that you call a GRYF is a triceratops and it has been extinct for hundreds of thousands of years. I have seen its skeleton in the museum in London and a figure of one restored. I always thought that the scientists who did such work depended principally upon an overwrought imagination, but I see that I was wrong. This living thing is not an exact counterpart of the restoration that I saw; but it is so similar as to be easily recognizable, and then, too, we must remember that during the ages that have elapsed since the paleontologist’s specimen lived many changes might have been wrought by evolution in the living line 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 angry creature below them. Instantly the great bony hood over the neck was erected and a mad bellow rolled upward from the gigantic body. Full twenty feet at the shoulder the thing stood, a dirty slate-blue in color except for its yellow face with the blue bands encircling the eyes, the red hood with the yellow lining and the yellow belly. The three parallel lines of bony protuberances down the back gave a further touch of color to the body, those following the line of the spine being red, while those on either side are yellow. The five- and three-toed hoofs 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 on the nose, had persisted through all the ages. Weird and terrible as was its appearance Tarzan could not but admire the mighty creature looming big below him, its seventy-five feet of length majestically typifying those things which all his life the ape-man had admired — courage and strength. In that massive tail alone was the strength of an elephant.

  The wicked little eyes looked up at him and the horny beak opened to disclose a full set of powerful teeth.

  “Herbivorous!” murmured the ape-man. “Your ancestors may have been, but not you,” and then to Pan-at-lee: “Let us go now. At the cave we will have 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 cliff through the trees and be back in the cave before it knows what has become 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 foot of each tree when we would descend. It will never give us up.”

  “We can live in the trees for a long time if necessary,” replied Tarzan, “and sometime the thing will leave.”

  The girl shook her head. “Never,” she said, “and then there are the Tor-o-don. They will come and kill us and after eating a little will throw 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 waiting here for someone to come along and eat part of me and then feed the balance to that beast below. If I don’t get out of this
place whole it won’t be my fault. Come along now and we’ll make a try at it,” and so saying he moved off through the tree tops with Pan-at-lee close behind. Below them, on the ground, moved the horned dinosaur and when they reached the edge of the forest where there lay fifty yards of open ground to cross to the foot of the cliff he was there with them, at the bottom of the tree, waiting.

  Tarzan looked ruefully down and scratched his head.

  CHAPTER 7

  Jungle Craft

  Presently he looked up and at Pan-at-lee. “Can you cross the gorge through the trees very rapidly?” he questioned.

  “Alone?” she asked.

  “No,” replied Tarzan.

  “I can follow wherever you can lead,” she said then.

  “Across and back again?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then come, and do exactly as I bid.” He started back again through the trees, swiftly, swinging monkey-like from limb to limb, following a zigzag course that he tried to select with an eye for the difficulties of the trail beneath. Where the underbrush was heaviest, where fallen trees blocked the way, he led the footsteps of the creature below them; but all to no avail. When they reached the opposite side of the gorge the GRYF was with them.

  “Back again,” said Tarzan, and, turning, the two retraced their high-flung way through the upper terraces of the ancient forest of Kor-ul-GRYF. But the result was the same — no, not quite; it was worse, for another GRYF had joined the first and now two waited beneath the tree in which they stopped.

  The cliff looming high above them with its innumerable cave mouths seemed to beckon and to taunt them. It was so near, yet eternity yawned between. The body of the Tor-o-don lay at the cliff’s foot where it had fallen. It was in plain view of the two in the tree. One of the gryfs walked over and sniffed about it, but did not offer to devour it. Tarzan had examined it casually as he had passed earlier in the morning. He guessed that it represented either a very high order of ape or a very low order of man — something akin to the Java man, perhaps; a truer example of the pithecanthropi than either the Ho-don or the Waz-don; possibly the precursor of them both. As his eyes wandered idly over the scene below his active brain was working out the details of the plan that he had made to permit Pan-at-lee’s escape from the gorge. His thoughts were interrupted by a strange cry from above them in the gorge.

  “Whee-oo! Whee-oo!” it sounded, coming closer.

  The gryfs below raised their heads and looked in the direction of the interruption. One of them made a low, rumbling sound in its throat. It was not a bellow and it did not indicate anger. Immediately the “Whee-oo!” responded. The gryfs repeated the rumbling and at intervals the “Whee-oo!” was repeated, coming ever closer.

  Tarzan looked at Pan-at-lee. “What is it?” he asked.

  “I do not know,” she replied. “Perhaps a strange bird, or another horrid beast that dwells in this frightful place.”

  “Ah,” exclaimed Tarzan; “there it is. Look!”

  Pan-at-lee voiced a cry of despair. “A Tor-o-don!”

  The creature, walking erect and carrying a stick in one hand, advanced at a slow, lumbering gait. It walked directly toward the gryfs who moved aside, as though afraid. Tarzan watched intently. The Tor-o-don was now quite close to one of the triceratops. It swung its head and snapped at him viciously. Instantly the Tor-o-don sprang in and commenced to belabor the huge beast across the face with his stick. To the ape-man’s amazement the GRYF, that might have annihilated the comparatively puny Tor-o-don instantly in any of a dozen ways, cringed like a whipped cur.

  “Whee-oo! Whee-oo!” shouted the Tor-o-don and the GRYF came slowly toward him. A whack on the median horn brought it to a stop. Then the Tor-o-don walked around behind it, clambered up its tail and seated himself astraddle of the huge back. “Whee-oo!” he shouted and prodded the beast with a sharp point of his stick. The GRYF commenced to move off.

  So rapt had Tarzan been in the scene below him that he had given no thought to escape, for he realized that for him and Pan-at-lee time had in these brief moments turned back countless ages to spread before their eyes a page of the dim and distant past. They two had looked upon the first man and his primitive beasts of burden.

  And now the ridden GRYF halted and looked up at them, bellowing. It was sufficient. The creature had warned its master of their presence. Instantly the Tor-o-don urged the beast close beneath the tree which held them, at the same time leaping to his feet upon the horny back. Tarzan saw the bestial face, the great fangs, the mighty muscles. From the loins of such had sprung the human race — and only from such could it have sprung, for only such as this might have survived the horrid dangers of the age that was theirs.

  The Tor-o-don beat upon his breast and growled horribly — hideous, uncouth, beastly. Tarzan rose to his full height upon a swaying branch — straight and beautiful as a demigod — unspoiled by the taint of civilization — a perfect specimen of what the human race might have been had the laws of man not interfered with the laws of nature.

  The Present fitted an arrow to his bow and drew the shaft far back. The Past basing its claims upon brute strength sought to reach the other and drag him down; but the loosed arrow sank deep into the savage heart and the Past sank back into the oblivion that had claimed his kind.

  “Tarzan-jad-guru!” murmured Pan-at-lee, unknowingly giving him out of the fullness of her admiration the same title that the warriors of her tribe had bestowed upon him.

  The ape-man turned to her. “Pan-at-lee,” he said, “these beasts may keep us treed here indefinitely. I doubt if we can escape together, but I have a plan. You remain here, hiding yourself in the foliage, while I start back across the gorge in sight of them and yelling to attract their attention. Unless they have more brains than I suspect they will follow me. When they are gone you make for the cliff. Wait for me in the cave not longer than today. If I do not come by tomorrow’s sun you will have to start back for Kor-ul-JA alone. Here is a joint of deer meat for you.” He had severed one of the deer’s hind legs and this he passed up to her.

  “I cannot desert you,” she said simply; “it is not the way of my people to desert a friend and ally. Om-at would never forgive me.”

  “Tell Om-at that I commanded you to go,” replied Tarzan.

  “It is a command?” she asked.

  “It is! Good-bye, Pan-at-lee. Hasten back to Om-at — you are a fitting mate for the chief of Kor-ul-JA.” He moved off slowly through the trees.

  “Good-bye, Tarzan-jad-guru!” she called after him. “Fortunate are my Om-at and his Pan-at-lee in owning such a friend.”

  Tarzan, shouting aloud, continued upon his way and the great gryfs, lured by his voice, followed beneath. His ruse was evidently proving successful and he was filled with elation as he led the bellowing beasts farther and farther from Pan-at-lee. He hoped that she would take advantage of the opportunity afforded her for escape, yet at the same time he was filled with concern as to her ability to survive the dangers which lay between Kor-ul-GRYF and Kor-ul-JA. There were lions and Tor-o-dons and the unfriendly tribe of Kor-ul-lul to hinder her progress, though the distance in itself to the cliffs of her people was not great.

  He realized her bravery and understood the resourcefulness that she must share in common with all primitive people who, day by day, must contend face to face with nature’s law of the survival of the fittest, unaided by any of the numerous artificial protections that civilization has thrown around its brood of weaklings.

  Several times during this crossing of the gorge Tarzan endeavored to outwit his keen pursuers, but all to no avail. Double as he would he could not throw them off his track and ever as he changed his course they changed theirs to conform. Along the verge of the forest upon the southeastern side of the gorge he sought some point at which the trees touched some negotiable portion of the cliff, but though he traveled far both up and down the gorge he discovered no such easy avenue of escape. The ape-man finally commenced to entertain an idea of the hop
elessness of his case and to realize to the full why the Kor-ul-GRYF had been religiously abjured by the races of Pal-ul-don for all these many ages.

  Night was falling and though since early morning he had sought diligently a way out of this cul-de-sac he was no nearer to liberty than at the moment the first bellowing GRYF had charged him as he stooped over the carcass of his kill: but with the falling of night came renewed hope for, in common with the great cats, Tarzan was, to a greater or lesser extent, a nocturnal beast. It is true he could not see by night as well as they, but that lack was largely recompensed for by the keenness of his scent and the highly developed sensitiveness of his other organs of perception. As the blind follow and interpret their Braille characters with deft fingers, so Tarzan reads the book of the jungle with feet and hands and eyes and ears and nose; each contributing its share to the quick and accurate translation of the text.

  But again he was doomed to be thwarted by one vital weakness — he did not know the GRYF, and before the night was over he wondered if the things never slept, for wheresoever he moved they moved also, and always they barred his road to liberty. Finally, just before dawn, he relinquished his immediate effort and sought rest in a friendly tree crotch in the safety of the middle terrace.