Presently
a spear reached out and pricked the victim. It was the signal
for fifty others.
Eyes, ears, arms and legs were pierced; every inch of the
poor writhing body that did not cover a vital organ became
the target of the cruel lancers.
The women and children shrieked their delight.
The warriors licked their hideous lips in anticipation of the
feast to come, and vied with one another in the savagery and
loathsomeness of the cruel indignities with which they tortured
the still conscious prisoner.
Then it was that Tarzan of the Apes saw his chance. All eyes
were fixed upon the thrilling spectacle at the stake. The
light of day had given place to the darkness of a moonless night,
and only the fires in the immediate vicinity of the orgy had
been kept alight to cast a restless glow upon the restless scene.
Gently the lithe boy dropped to the soft earth at the end of
the village street. Quickly he gathered up the arrows--all of
them this time, for he had brought a number of long fibers to
bind them into a bundle.
Without haste he wrapped them securely, and then, ere he
turned to leave, the devil of capriciousness entered his heart.
He looked about for some hint of a wild prank to play upon
these strange, grotesque creatures that they might be again
aware of his presence among them.
Dropping his bundle of arrows at the foot of the tree, Tarzan
crept among the shadows at the side of the street until he
came to the same hut he had entered on the occasion of his
first visit.
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