To elude the creature, then, upon the possibility of discovering
some loophole of escape from his predicament seemed to the ape-man
the wisest course to pursue. Too much was at stake to risk an
encounter that might be avoided--an encounter the outcome of which
there was every reason to apprehend would seal the fate of the
mate that he had just found, only to lose again so harrowingly.
Yet high as his disappointment and chagrin ran, hopeless as his
present estate now appeared, there tingled in the veins of the
savage lord a warm glow of thanksgiving and elation. She lived!
After all these weary months of hopelessness and fear he had found
her. She lived!
To the opposite side of the chamber, silently as the wraith of
a disembodied soul, the swift jungle creature moved from the path
of the charging Titan that, guided solely in the semi-darkness by
its keen ears, bore down upon the spot toward which Tarzan's noisy
entrance into its lair had attracted it. Along the further wall the
ape-man hurried. Before him now appeared the black opening of the
corridor from which the beast had emerged into the larger chamber.
Without hesitation Tarzan plunged into it. Even here his eyes,
long accustomed to darkness that would have seemed total to you or
to me, saw dimly the floor and the walls within a radius of a few
feet--enough at least to prevent him plunging into any unguessed
abyss, or dashing himself upon solid rock at a sudden turning.
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