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Burroughs, Edgar Rice, 1875-1950

"Tarzan the Terrible"

All was silence broken
only by the scrape, scrape, scrape of the ape-man's tireless blade.
Those without heard it and listening sought to explain it. They
whispered in low tones making their plans. Two would raise the door
quickly and the others would rush in and hurl their clubs at the
prisoner. They would take no chances, for the stories that had
circulated in A-lur had been brought to Tu-lur--stories of the great
strength and wonderful prowess of Tarzan-jad-guru that caused the
sweat to stand upon the brows of the warriors, though it was cool
in the damp corridor and they were twelve to one.
And then the high priest gave the signal--the door shot upward
and ten warriors leaped into the chamber with poised clubs. Three
of the heavy weapons flew across the room toward a darker shadow
that lay in the shadow of the opposite wall, then the flare of the
torch in the priest's hand lighted the interior and they saw that
the thing at which they had flung their clubs was a pile of skins
torn from the windows and that except for themselves the chamber
was vacant.
One of them hastened to a window. All but a single bar was gone and
to this was tied one end of a braided rope fashioned from strips
cut from the leather window hangings.
To the ordinary dangers of Jane Clayton's existence was now added
the menace of Obergatz' knowledge of her whereabouts.


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