The man with whom Professor Maxon had grappled had no opportunity to
use his weapons for the crazed man held him close with one encircling
arm while he tore and struck at him with his free hand. The fourth Dyak
danced around the two with raised parang watching for an opening that
he might deliver a silencing blow upon the white man’s skull.
The great odds against the two men—their bravery in the face of death,
their grave danger—and last and greatest, the fact that one was the
father of the beautiful creature he worshipped, wrought a sudden change
in Number Thirteen. In an instant he forgot that he had come here to
kill the white-haired man, and with a bound stood in the center of the
room—an unarmed giant towering above the battling four.
The parang of the Dyak who sought Professor Maxon’s life was already
falling as a mighty hand grasped the wrist of the head hunter; but even
then it was too late to more than lessen the weight of the blow, and
the sharp edge of the blade bit deep into the forehead of the white
man. As he sank to his knees his other antagonist freed an arm from the
embrace which had pinioned it to his side, but before he could deal the
professor a blow with the short knife that up to now he had been unable
to use, Number Thirteen had hurled his man across the room and was upon
him who menaced the scientist.
Tearing him loose from his prey, he raised him far above his head and
threw him heavily against the opposite wall, then he turned his
attention toward Sing’s assailants. All that had so far saved the
Chinaman from death was the fact that the two savages were each so
anxious to secure his head for the verandah rafters of his own
particular long-house that they interfered with one another in the
consummation of their common desire.
Although battling for his life, Sing had not failed to note the advent
of the strange young giant, nor the part he had played in succoring the
professor, so that it was with a feeling of relief that he saw the
newcomer turn his attention toward those who were rapidly reducing the
citadel of his own existence.
The two Dyaks who sought the trophy which nature had set upon the
Chinaman’s shoulders were so busily engaged with their victim that they
knew nothing of the presence of Number Thirteen until a mighty hand
seized each by the neck and they were raised bodily from the floor,
shaken viciously for an instant, and then hurled to the opposite end of
the room upon the bodies of the two who had preceded them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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