Adventure stories; Fantasy fiction; Tarzan (Fictitious character) -- Fiction
The beast had emerged from the forest and was looking about through his
weak eyes, evidently in search of them. Tarzan raised his voice in the
weird notes of the Tor-o-don's cry, "Whee-oo! Whee-oo! Whee-oo!" For a
moment the great beast stood motionless, his attention riveted by the
call. The ape-man advanced straight toward him, Jane Clayton at his
elbow. "Whee-oo!" he cried again peremptorily. A low rumble rolled
from the GRYF's cavernous chest in answer to the call, and the beast
moved slowly toward them.
"Fine!" exclaimed Tarzan. "The odds are in our favor now. You can keep
your nerve?--but I do not need to ask."
"I know no fear when I am with Tarzan of the Apes," she replied softly,
and he felt the pressure of her soft fingers on his arm.
And thus the two approached the giant monster of a forgotten epoch
until they stood close in the shadow of a mighty shoulder. "Whee-oo!"
shouted Tarzan and struck the hideous snout with the shaft of the
spear. The vicious side snap that did not reach its mark--that
evidently was not intended to reach its mark--was the hoped-for answer.
"Come," said Tarzan, and taking Jane by the hand he led her around
behind the monster and up the broad tail to the great, horned back.
"Now will we ride in the state that our forebears knew, before which
the pomp of modern kings pales into cheap and tawdry insignificance.
How would you like to canter through Hyde Park on a mount like this?"
"I am afraid the Bobbies would be shocked by our riding habits, John,"
she cried, laughingly.
Tarzan guided the GRYF in the direction that they wished to go. Steep
embankments and rivers proved no slightest obstacle to the ponderous
creature.
"A prehistoric tank, this," Jane assured him, and laughing and talking
they continued on their way. Once they came unexpectedly upon a dozen
Ho-don warriors as the GRYF emerged suddenly into a small clearing. The
fellows were lying about in the shade of a single tree that grew alone.
When they saw the beast they leaped to their feet in consternation and
at their shouts the GRYF issued his hideous, challenging bellow and
charged them. The warriors fled in all directions while Tarzan
belabored the beast across the snout with his spear in an effort to
control him, and at last he succeeded, just as the GRYF was almost upon
one poor devil that it seemed to have singled out for its special prey.
With an angry grunt the GRYF stopped and the man, with a single
backward glance that showed a face white with terror, disappeared in
the jungle he had been seeking to reach.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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