As yet Tarzan had not caught a glimpse of Jana, though he knew that
she must be there somewhere in the rear of the remaining Horibs, and
then he saw her as she flashed by in the distance, borne swiftly upon
the back of a fleet Gorobor. What appeared to be the only chance to
save her now was to shoot down the swift beast upon which she was
being borne away. Tarzan swung his rifle to his shoulder and at the
same instant a riderless Gorobor struck him in the back and sent him
sprawling upon the ground. By the time he had regained his feet, Jana
and her captor were out of sight, hidden by the boles of intervening
trees.
Milling near the Waziri were a number of terrified, riderless Gorobors.
It was from this number that the fellow had broken who had knocked
Tarzan down. The beasts seemed to be lost without the guidance of their
masters, but when they saw one of their number start in pursuit of
the Horibs who had ridden away, the others followed and in their mad
rush these savage beasts constituted as great a menace as the Horibs
themselves.
Muviro and his warriors leaped nimbly behind the boles of large trees
to escape them, but to the mind of the ape-man they carried a new hope,
offering as they did the only means whereby he might overtake the Horib
who was bearing away The Red Flower of Zoram, and then, to the horror
and astonishment of the Waziri, Tarzan leaped to the back of one of the
great lizards as it scuttled abreast of him. Locking his toes beneath
its elbows, as he had seen the Horibs do, he was carried swiftly in
the mad rush of the creature to overtake its fellows and its masters.
No need to urge it on, if he had known what means to employ to do so,
for probably still terrified and excited by the battle it darted with
incredible swiftness among the boles of the gray trees, out-stripping
its fellows and leaving them behind.
Presently, just ahead of him, Tarzan saw the Horib who was bearing Jana
away and he saw, too, that he would soon overtake him, but so swiftly
was his own mount running that it seemed quite likely that he would be
carried past Jana without being able to accomplish anything toward her
rescue, and with this thought came the realization that he must stop
the Horib's mount.
There was just an instant in which to decide and act, but in that
instant he raised his rifle and fired. Perhaps it was a wonderful bit
of marksmanship, or perhaps it was just luck, but the bullet struck the
Gorobor in the spine and a moment later its hind legs collapsed and it
rolled over on its side, pitching Jana and the Horib heavily to the
ground. Simultaneously Tarzan's mount swept by and the ape-man, risking
a bad fall, slipped from its back to go tumbling head over heels
against the carcass of the Horib's mount.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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