There was that in the act that recalled immediately to Tarzan's mind
similar action on the preceding day when the Tor-o-don had struck
one of the creatures across the face with his staff, and instantly
there sprung to the cunning and courageous brain a plan of escape
from his predicament that might have blanched the cheek of the most
heroic.
The gambling instinct is not strong among creatures of the wild;
the chances of their daily life are sufficient stimuli for the
beneficial excitement of their nerve centers. It has remained for
civilized man, protected in a measure from the natural dangers of
existence, to invent artificial stimulants in the form of cards
and dice and roulette wheels. Yet when necessity bids there are
no greater gamblers than the savage denizens of the jungle, the
forest, and the hills, for as lightly as you roll the ivory cubes
upon the green cloth they will gamble with death--their own lives
the stake.
And so Tarzan would gamble now, pitting the seemingly wild deductions
of his shrewd brain against all the proofs of the bestial ferocity
of his antagonists that his experience of them had adduced--against
all the age-old folklore and legend that had been handed down for
countless generations and passed on to him through the lips of
Pan-at-lee.
Yet as he worked in preparation for the greatest play that man can
make in the game of life, he smiled; nor was there any indication
of haste or excitement or nervousness in his demeanor.
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