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approached when she felt she must return to her flier lest she be caught in the
revealing light of low swinging Thuria. She dreaded leaving the water for she
knew that she must become very thirsty before she could hope to come again to
the stream. If she only had some little receptacle in which to carry water, even a
small amount would tide her over until the following night; but she had nothing
and so she must content herself as best she could with the juices of the fruit and
tubers she had gathered.
After a last drink at the stream, the longest and deepest she had allowed herself,
she rose to retrace her steps toward the hills; but even as she did so she became
suddenly tense with apprehension. What was that? She could have sworn that
she saw something move in the shadows beneath a tree not far away. For a long
minute the girl did not move--she scarce breathed. Her eyes remained fixed upon
the dense shadows below the tree, her ears strained through the silence of the
night. A low moaning came down from the hills where her flier was hidden. She
knew it well--the weird note of the hunting banth. And the great carnivore lay
directly in her path. But he was not so close as this other thing, hiding there in
the shadows just a little way off. What was it? It was the strain of uncertainty
that weighed heaviest upon her. Had she known the nature of the creature
lurking there half its menace would have vanished. She cast quickly about her in
search of some haven of refuge should the thing prove dangerous.
Again arose the moaning from the hills, but this time closer. Almost immediately
it was answered from the opposite side of the valley, behind her, and then from
the distance to the right of her, and twice upon her left. Her eyes had found a
tree, quite near. Slowly, and without taking her eyes from the shadows of that
other tree, she moved toward the overhanging branches that might afford her
sanctuary in the event of need, and at her first move a low growl rose from the
spot she had been watching and she heard the sudden moving of a big body.
Simultaneously the creature shot into the moonlight in full charge upon her, its
tail erect, its tiny ears laid flat, its great mouth with its multiple rows of sharp
and powerful fangs already yawning for its prey, its ten legs carrying it forward in
great leaps, and now from the beast's throat issued the frightful roar with which
it seeks to paralyze its prey. It was a banth--the great, maned lion of Barsoom.
Tara of Helium saw it coming and leaped for the tree toward which she had been
moving, and the banth realized her intention and redoubled his speed. As his
hideous roar awakened the echoes in the hills, so too it awakened echoes in the
valley; but these echoes came from the living throats of others of his kind, until it
seemed to the girl that Fate had thrown her into the midst of a countless
multitude of these savage beasts.
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