Appreciating the danger to his unconscious
companion and being anxious to protect him from the saber-tooth
the ape-man relinquished his hold upon his adversary and together
the two rose to their feet.
Drawing his knife Tarzan moved slowly toward the body of his
companion, expecting that his recent antagonist would grasp the
opportunity for escape. To his surprise, however, the beast, after
regaining its club, advanced at his side.
The great cat, flattened upon its belly, remained motionless except
for twitching tail and snarling lips where it lay perhaps fifty
feet beyond the body of the pithecanthropus. As Tarzan stepped over
the body of the latter he saw the eyelids quiver and open, and in
his heart he felt a strange sense of relief that the creature was
not dead and a realization that without his suspecting it there
had arisen within his savage bosom a bond of attachment for this
strange new friend.
Tarzan continued to approach the saber-tooth, nor did the shaggy
beast at his right lag behind. Closer and closer they came until
at a distance of about twenty feet the hybrid charged. Its rush was
directed toward the shaggy manlike ape who halted in his tracks
with upraised bludgeon to meet the assault. Tarzan, on the contrary,
leaped forward and with a celerity second not even to that of the
swift-moving cat, he threw himself headlong upon him as might a
Rugby tackler on an American gridiron.
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