Page:Tarzan and the Ant Men.pdf/51

Rh making excited signs with hands, head and body. He appeared to be trying to dissuade or prevent the girls from the carrying out of their plan, he even appealed to the other boys for backing, but they merely glanced at the girls and continued their culinary preparations. At last however, as the girls were deliberately approaching the ape-man he placed himself directly in their path and attempted to stop them. Instantly the three little demons swung their bludgeons and sprang for­ward to destroy him. The boy dodged, plucked several of the feathered stones from his girdle and flung them at his assailants. So swift and so accurate did the missiles speed that two girls dropped, howling, to the ground. The third missed, striking one of the other boys on the tem­ple, killing him instantly. He was the youth who had stolen Tarzan’s locket, which, being like all his fellow males a timid creature, he had kept continually covered by a palm since the ape-man’s return to consciousness had brought him out into the courtyard among them.

The older girl, nothing daunted, leaped for­ward, her face hideous in a snarl of rage. The boy cast another stone at her and then turned and ran toward the ape-man. What reception he expected he himself probably did not know. Perhaps it was the recrudescence of a long dead emo­tion of fellowship that prompted him to place himself at Tarzan’s side—possibly Tarzan ­