| 125 | 126 | 127 | 128 | 129 |
| 1 | 41 | 81 | 122 | 162 |
|
www.freeclassicebooks.com
them were otherwise engaged--for up the monkey-ladder in their rear was
thronging a hideous horde.
First came five snarling apes, huge, manlike beasts, with bared fangs and
slavering jaws; and after them a giant black warrior, his long spear gleaming in
the moonlight.
Behind him again scrambled another creature, and of all the horrid horde it was
this they most feared--Sheeta, the panther, with gleaming jaws agape and fiery
eyes blazing at them in the mightiness of his hate and of his blood lust.
The shots that had been fired at Tarzan missed him, and he would have been
upon Rokoff in another instant had not the great coward dodged backward
between his two henchmen, and, screaming in hysterical terror, bolted forward
toward the forecastle.
For the moment Tarzan's attention was distracted by the two men before him, so
that he could not at the time pursue the Russian. About him the apes and
Mugambi were battling with the balance of the Russian's party.
Beneath the terrible ferocity of the beasts the men were soon scampering in all
directions--those who still lived to scamper, for the great fangs of the apes of Akut
and the tearing talons of Sheeta already had found more than a single victim.
Four, however, escaped and disappeared into the forecastle, where they hoped to
barricade themselves against further assault. Here they found Rokoff, and,
enraged at his desertion of them in their moment of peril, no less than at the
uniformly brutal treatment it had been his wont to accord them, they gloated
upon the opportunity now offered them to revenge themselves in part upon their
hated employer.
Despite his prayers and grovelling pleas, therefore, they hurled him bodily out
upon the deck, delivering him to the mercy of the fearful things from which they
had themselves just escaped.
Tarzan saw the man emerge from the forecastle--saw and recognized his enemy;
but another saw him even as soon.
It was Sheeta, and with grinning jaws the mighty beast slunk silently toward the
terror-stricken man.
When Rokoff saw what it was that stalked him his shrieks for help filled the air,
as with trembling knees he stood, as one paralyzed, before the hideous death that
was creeping upon him.
127
Page
Quick Jump
|