ng form flattened against the trunk of a great
tree, her hands tight pressed against her rising and falling bosom, and
her eyes wide with mingled horror, fascination, fear, and
admiration--watched the primordial ape battle with the primeval man for
possession of a woman--for her.
As the great muscles of the man's back and shoulders knotted beneath
the tension of his efforts, and the huge biceps and forearm held at bay
those mighty tusks, the veil of centuries of civilization and culture
was swept from the blurred vision of the Baltimore girl.
When the long knife drank deep a dozen times of Terkoz' heart's blood,
and the great carcass rolled lifeless upon the ground, it was a
primeval woman who sprang forward with outstretched arms toward the
primeval man who had fought for her and won her.
And Tarzan?
He did what no red-blooded man needs lessons in doing. He took his
woman in his arms and smothered her upturned, panting lips with kisses.
For a moment Jane lay there with half-closed eyes. For a moment--the
first in her young life--she knew the meaning of love.
But as suddenly as the veil had been withdrawn it dropped again, and an
outraged conscience suffused her face with its scarlet mantle, and a
mortified woman thrust Tarzan of the Apes from her and buried her face
in her hands.
Tarzan had been surprised when he had found the girl he had learned to
love after a vague and abstract manner a willing prisoner in his arms.
Now he was surprised that she repulsed him.
He came close to her once more and took hold of her arm. She turned
upon him like a tigress, striking his great breast with her tiny hands.
Tarzan could not understand it.
A moment ago and it had been his intention to hasten Jane back to her
people, but that little moment was lost now in the dim and distant past
of things which were but can never be again, and with it the good
intentions had gone to join the impossible.
Since then Tarzan of the Apes had felt a warm, lithe form close pressed
to his. Hot, sweet breath against his cheek and mouth had fanned a new
flame to life within his breast, and perfect lips had clung to his in
burning kisses that had seared a deep brand into his soul--a brand
which marked a new Tarzan.
Again he laid his hand upon her arm. Again she repulsed him. And then
Tarzan of the Apes did just what his first ancestor would have done.
He took his woman in his arms and carried her into the jungle.
Ear
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