The plane turned completely over and at the same instant Gridley
jumped. He jerked the rip cord of his parachute. Something struck him
on the head and he lost consciousness.
VI
A PHORORHACOS OF THE MIOCENE
"Where are your people?" Tar-gash asked again.
Tarzan shook his head. "I do not know," he said.
"Where is your country?" asked Tar-gash.
"It is a long way off," replied the ape-man. "It is not in Pellucidar;"
but that the Sagoth could not understand any more than he could
understand that a creature might be lost at all, for inherent in
him was that same homing instinct that marked all the creatures of
Pellucidar and which constitutes a wise provision of nature in a world
without guiding celestial bodies.
Had it been possible to transport Tar-gash instantly to any point
within that mighty inner world, elsewhere than upon the surface of an
ocean, he could have unerringly found his way to the very spot where
he was born, and because that power was instinctive he could not
understand why Tarzan did not possess it.
"I know where there is a tribe of men," he said, presently. "Perhaps
they are your people. I shall lead you to them."
As Tarzan had no idea as to the direction in which the ship lay and as
it was remotely possible that Tar-gash was referring to the members
of the O-220 expedition, he felt that he was as well off following
where Tar-gash led as elsewhere, and so he signified his readiness to
accompany the Sagoth.
"How long since you saw this tribe of men," he asked after a while,
"and how long have they lived where you saw them?"
Upon the Sagoth's reply to these questions, the ape-man felt that he
might determine the possibility of the men to whom Tar-gash referred
being the members of his own party, for if they were newcomers in the
district then the chances were excellent that they were the people
he sought; but his questions elicited no satisfactory reply for the
excellent reason that time meant nothing to Tar-gash. And so the two
set out upon a leisurely search for the tribe of men that Tar-gash knew
of. It was leisurely because for Tar-gash time did not exist; nor had
it ever been a very important factor in the existence of the ape-man,
except in occasional moments of emergency.
They were a strangely assorted pair--one a creature just standing upon
the threshold of humanity, the other an English Lord in his own right,
who was, at the same time, in many respects as primitive as the savage,
shaggy bull into whose companionship chance had thrown him.
At first Tar-gash had been inclined to look with contempt upon this
creature of another race, which he considered far inferior to his own
in strength, agility, courage and woodcraft, but he soon came to hold
the ape-man in vast respect. And because he could respect his prowess
he became attached to him in bonds of loyalty that were as closely akin
to friendship as the savage nature of his primitive mind permitted.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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