Page:The Cave Girl - Edgar Rice Burroughs.pdf/166

 was matted low over his forehead. The balance of his face was covered by a bushy red beard.

At sight of Thandar his close set, little eyes burned with sudden rage and cunning. From his thick lips burst a savage yell—it was the preliminary challenge.

Ordinarily a certain amount of vituperation and coarse insults must pass between strangers meeting upon this inhospitable isle before they fly at one another’s throat.

“I am Thurg,” bellowed the brute. “I can kill you,” and then followed a volley of vulgar allusions to Thandar’s possible origin, and the origin of his ancestors.

“The bad men,” whispered Nadara.

With her words there swept into the man’s memory the scene upon the face of the cliff that night a year before when, even in the throes of cowardly terror, he had turned to do battle with a huge cave man that the fellow might not prevent the escape of Nadara.

He glanced at the right forearm of the creature who faced him. A smile touched Thandar’s lips—the arm was crooked as from the knitting of a broken bone, poorly set.

“You would kill Thandar—again?” he asked tauntingly, pointing toward the deformed member.

Then came recognition to the red-rimmed eyes