To Pan-at-lee he was all that was brave and noble and heroic and,
too, he was Om-at's friend--the friend of the man she loved. For
any one of these reasons Pan-at-lee would have died for Tarzan,
for such is the loyalty of the simple-minded children of nature.
It has remained for civilization to teach us to weigh the relative
rewards of loyalty and its antithesis. The loyalty of the primitive
is spontaneous, unreasoning, unselfish and such was the loyalty of
Pan-at-lee for the Tarmangani.
And so it was that she waited that day and night, hoping that he
would return that she might accompany him back to Om-at, for her
experience had taught her that in the face of danger two have a
better chance than one. But Tarzan-jad-guru had not come, and so
upon the following morning Pan-at-lee set out upon her return to
Kor-ul-ja.
She knew the dangers and yet she faced them with the stolid indifference
of her race. When they directly confronted and menaced her would
be time enough to experience fear or excitement or confidence. In
the meantime it was unnecessary to waste nerve energy by anticipating
them. She moved therefore through her savage land with no greater
show of concern than might mark your sauntering to a corner drug-store
for a sundae. But this is your life and that is Pan-at-lee's and
even now as you read this Pan-at-lee may be sitting upon the edge
of the recess of Om-at's cave while the ja and jato roar from the
gorge below and from the ridge above, and the Kor-ul-lul threaten
upon the south and the Ho-don from the Valley of Jad-ben-Otho far
below, for Pan-at-lee still lives and preens her silky coat of jet
beneath the tropical moonlight of Pal-ul-don.
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