Adventure stories; Fantasy fiction; Tarzan (Fictitious character) -- Fiction
"Janzara!" he cried! "My Princess, I come!" and seizing the bench
upon which he had been sitting, and the only thing within the chamber
that might be converted into a weapon, he swung wide the gate and
leaped into the chamber where the four were now facing the thoroughly
infuriated beasts.
Both animals, bleeding from many wounds, were mad with pain, rage and
hunger. Screaming and growling they threw themselves upon the swords
of the two men, who had pushed the girls behind them and were backing
slowly toward the gate, and then the man with the bench joined Tarzan
and Komodoflorensal and the three fought back the charges of the
infuriated carnivora.
The bench proved fully as good a weapon of defense as the swords and so
together the five drew slowly back, until, quite suddenly and without
the slightest warning both cats leaped quickly to one side and darted
behind the party as though sensing that the women would prove easier
prey. One of them came near to closing upon Janzara had not the man
with the bench, imbued apparently with demoniacal fury, leaped upon it
with his strange weapon and beaten it back so desperately that it was
forced to abandon the princess.
Even then the man did not cease to follow it, but, brandishing the
bench, pursued it and its fellow with such terrifying cries and
prodigious blows that, to escape him, both cats suddenly dodged into
the chamber that the man had occupied, and before they could return to
the attack he with the bench had slammed the gate and fastened them
upon its opposite side. Then he wheeled and faced the four.
"Zoanthrohago!" cried the princess.
"Your slave!" replied the noble, dropping to one knee and leaning far
back, with outstretched arms.
"You have saved my life, Zoanthrohago," said Janzara, "and after all
the indignities that I have heaped upon you! How can I reward you?"
"I love you, Princess, as you have long known," replied the man; "but
now it is too late, for tomorrow I die by the king's will. Elkomoelhago
has spoken, and, even though you be his daughter, I do not hesitate
to say his very ignorance prevents him ever changing a decision once
reached."
"I know," said Janzara. "He is my sire but I love him not. He killed
my mother in a fit of unreasoning jealousy. He is a fool--the fool of
fools."
Suddenly she turned upon the others. "These slaves would escape,
Zoanthrohago," she cried. "With my aid they might accomplish it. With
their company we might succeed in escaping, too, and in finding an
asylum in their own land."
"If any one of them is of sufficient power in his native city," replied
Zoanthrohago.
"This one," said Tarzan, seeing a miraculous opportunity for freedom,
"is the son of Adendrohahkis, King of Trohanadalmakus--the oldest son,
and Zertolosto."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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