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He came to Tarzan's side and pricked him with a spear. From the lips of the
ape-man came a weird, uncanny sound, and in answer to it there leaped from the
blackness of the hut's farthermost corner a bolt of fur-clad death. Full upon the
breast of the painted savage the great beast struck, burying sharp talons in the
black flesh and sinking great yellow fangs in the ebon throat.
There was a fearful scream of anguish and terror from the black, and mingled
with it was the hideous challenge of the killing panther. Then came silence--
silence except for the rending of bloody flesh and the crunching of human bones
between mighty jaws.
The noise had brought sudden quiet to the village without. Then there came the
sound of voices in consultation.
High-pitched, fear-filled voices, and deep, low tones of authority, as the chief
spoke. Tarzan and the panther heard the approaching footsteps of many men,
and then, to Tarzan's surprise, the great cat rose from across the body of its kill,
and slunk noiselessly from the hut through the aperture through which it had
entered.
The man heard the soft scraping of the body as it passed over the top of the
palisade, and then silence. From the opposite side of the hut he heard the
savages approaching to investigate.
He had little hope that Sheeta would return, for had the great cat intended to
defend him against all comers it would have remained by his side as it heard the
approaching savages without.
Tarzan knew how strange were the workings of the brains of the mighty carnivora
of the jungle--how fiendishly fearless they might be in the face of certain death,
and again how timid upon the slightest provocation. There was doubt in his
mind that some note of the approaching blacks vibrating with fear had struck an
answering chord in the nervous system of the panther, sending him slinking
through the jungle, his tail between his legs.
The man shrugged. Well, what of it? He had expected to die, and, after all, what
might Sheeta have done for him other than to maul a couple of his enemies
before a rifle in the hands of one of the whites should have dispatched him!
If the cat could have released him! Ah! that would have resulted in a very
different story; but it had proved beyond the understanding of Sheeta, and now
the beast was gone and Tarzan must definitely abandon hope.
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