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ferocious growls Numa wheeled to the right, and with raking talons struck right
and left among a little handful of terrified guardsmen who were endeavoring to
elude him, and then Tarzan and Smith-Oldwick closed with the others.
For a moment their most formidable antagonist was the officer in command. He
wielded his curved saber as only an adept might as he faced Tarzan, to whom the
similar weapon in his own hand was most unfamiliar. Smith-Oldwick could not
fire for fear of hitting the ape-man when suddenly to his dismay he saw Tarzan's
weapon fly from his grasp as the Xujan warrior neatly disarmed his opponent.
With a scream the fellow raised his saber for the final cut that would terminate
the earthly career of Tarzan of the Apes when, to the astonishment of both the
ape-man and Smith-Oldwick, the fellow stiffened rigidly, his weapon dropped
from the nerveless fingers of his upraised hand, his mad eyes rolled upward and
foam flecked his bared lip. Gasping as though in the throes of strangulation the
fellow pitched forward at Tarzan's feet.
Tarzan stooped and picked up the dead man's weapon, a smile upon his face as
he turned and glanced toward the young Englishman.
"The fellow is an epileptic," said Smith-Oldwick. "I suppose many of them are.
Their nervous condition is not without its good points--a normal man would have
gotten you."
The other guardsmen seemed utterly demoralized at the loss of their leader. They
were huddled upon the opposite side of the street at the left of the gate,
screaming at the tops of their voices and looking in the direction from which
sounds of reinforcements were coming, as though urging on the men and lions
that were already too close for the comfort of the fugitives. Six guardsmen still
stood with their backs against the gate, their weapons flashing in the light of the
flares and their parchment-like faces distorted in horrid grimaces of rage and
terror.
Numa had pursued two fleeing warriors down the street which paralleled the wall
for a short distance at this point. The ape-man turned to Smith-Oldwick. "You
will have to use your pistol now," he said, "and we must get by these fellows at
once;" and as the young Englishman fired, Tarzan rushed in to close quarters as
though he had not already discovered that with the saber he was no match for
these trained swordsmen. Two men fell to Smith-Oldwick's first two shots and
then he missed, while the four remaining divided, two leaping for the aviator and
two for Tarzan.
The ape-man rushed in in an effort to close with one of his antagonists where the
other's saber would be comparatively useless. Smith-Oldwick dropped one of his
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