Adventure stories; Fantasy fiction; Tarzan (Fictitious character) -- Fiction
"The Kor-ul-lul are many," shouted An-un. "Would that we might pause
and fight; but first we must warn Es-sat and our people."
"Yes," said Om-at, "we must warn our people."
"Es-sat is dead," said In-sad.
"Who is chief?" asked one of An-un's sons.
"Om-at," replied O-dan.
"It is well," cried An-un. "Pan-at-lee said that you would come back
and slay Es-sat."
Now the enemy broke into sight behind them.
"Come!" cried Tarzan, "let us turn and charge them, raising a great
cry. They pursued but three and when they see eight charging upon them
they will think that many men have come to do battle. They will believe
that there are more even than they see and then one who is swift will
have time to reach the gorge and warn your people."
"It is well," said Om-at. "Id-an, you are swift--carry word to the
warriors of Kor-ul-JA that we fight the Kor-ul-lul upon the ridge and
that Ab-on shall send a hundred men."
Id-an, the son of An-un, sped swiftly toward the cliff-dwellings of the
Kor-ul-JA while the others charged the oncoming Kor-ul-lul, the war
cries of the two tribes rising and falling in a certain grim harmony.
The leaders of the Kor-ul-lul paused at sight of the reinforcements,
waiting apparently for those behind to catch up with them and,
possibly, also to learn how great a force confronted them. The leaders,
swifter runners than their fellows, perhaps, were far in advance while
the balance of their number had not yet emerged from the brush; and now
as Om-at and his companions fell upon them with a ferocity born of
necessity they fell back, so that when their companions at last came in
sight of them they appeared to be in full rout. The natural result was
that the others turned and fled.
Encouraged by this first success Om-at followed them into the brush,
his little company charging valiantly upon his either side, and loud
and terrifying were the savage yells with which they pursued the
fleeing enemy. The brush, while not growing so closely together as to
impede progress, was of such height as to hide the members of the party
from one another when they became separated by even a few yards. The
result was that Tarzan, always swift and always keen for battle, was
soon pursuing the enemy far in the lead of the others--a lack of
prudence which was to prove his undoing.
The warriors of Kor-ul-lul, doubtless as valorous as their foemen,
retreated only to a more strategic position in the brush, nor were they
long in guessing that the number of their pursuers was fewer than their
own. They made a stand then where the brush was densest--an ambush it
was, and into this ran Tarzan of the Apes. They tricked him neatly.
Yes, sad as is the narration of it, they tricked the wily jungle lord.
But then they were fighting on their own ground, every foot of which
they knew as you know your front parlor, and they were following their
own tactics, of which Tarzan knew nothing.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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