Adventure stories; Fantasy fiction; Tarzan (Fictitious character) -- Fiction
The woman who had brought Tarzan to the amphitheater rose and stood
before the entrance to her cave. We shall have to call her The First
Woman, for she had no name; in the muddy convolutions of her sluggish
brain she never had sensed even the need for a distinctive specific
appellation and among her fellows she was equally nameless, as were
they, and so, that we may differentiate her from the others, we shall
call her The First Woman, and, similarly, we shall know the creature
that she felled with her bludgeon as The Second Woman, and she who
now entered the amphitheater with a burden upon each shoulder, as
The Third Woman. So The First Woman rose, her eyes fixed upon the
newcomer, her ears up-pricked. And The Second Woman rose, and all the
others that were in sight, and all stood glaring at The Third Woman
who moved steadily along with her burden, her watchful eyes ever upon
the menacing figures of her fellows. She was very large, this Third
Woman, so for a while the others only stood and glared at her, but
presently The First Woman took a step forward and turning, cast a long
look at The Second Woman, and then she took another step forward and
stopped and looked again at The Second Woman, and this time she pointed
at herself, at The Second Woman and then at The Third Woman who now
quickened her pace in the direction of her cave, for she understood
the menace in the attitude of The First Woman. The Second Woman
understood, too, and moved forward now with The First Woman. No word
was spoken, no sound issued from those savage lips; lips that never had
parted to a smile; lips that never had known laughter, nor ever would.
As the two approached her The Third Woman dropped her spoils in a heap
at her feet, gripped her cudgel more firmly and prepared to defend her
rights. The others, brandishing their own weapons, charged her. The
remaining women were now but on-lookers, their hands stayed, perhaps,
by some ancient tribal custom that gauged the number of attackers
by the quantity of spoil, awarding the right of contest to whoever
initiated it. When The First Woman had been attacked by The Second
Woman the others had all held aloof, for it had been The Second Woman
that had advanced first to try conclusions for the possession of
Tarzan. And now The Third Woman had come with two prizes, and since The
First Woman and The Second Woman had stepped out to meet her the others
had held back.
As the three women came together it seemed inevitable that The Third
Woman would go down beneath the bludgeons of the others, but she warded
both blows with the skill and celerity of a trained fencer and stepping
quickly into the opening she had made dealt The First Woman a terrific
blow upon the head that stretched her motionless upon the ground, where
a little pool of blood and brains attested the terrible strength of
the wielder of the bludgeon the while it marked the savage, unmourned
passing of The First Woman.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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