Tarzan the Terrible quotes

Silent as the shadows through which he moved, the great beast slunk through the midnight jungle, his yellow-green eyes round and staring, his sinewy tail undulating behind him, his head lowered and flattened, and every muscle vibrant to the thrill of the hunt.

The jungle moon dappled an occasional clearing which the great cat was always careful to avoid.

… seldom failed to impinge upon the consciousness of Tarzan, however deep his slumber, and so it was that when the moon was high a sudden rush of feet across the grassy carpet in the vicinity of his tree brought him to alert and ready activity.

Tarzan does not awaken as you and I with the weight of slumber still upon his eyes and brain, for did the creatures of the wild awaken thus, their awakenings would be few.

As his eyes snapped open, clear and bright, so, clear and bright upon the nerve centers of his brain, were registered the various perceptions of all his senses.

Om-at scratched his head. “Where?” he repeated. “Why all Pal-ul-don, if necessary.”

“A large job,” said Tarzan.

“Come,” he added, “she went this way,” and he took to the pegs that led aloft toward the summit of the cliff. Here he followed the scent easily since none had passed that way since Pan-at-lee had fled.

At the bottom he picked up the head of In-tan and disappeared among the shadows of the trees carrying the grisly trophy by its shock of shaggy hair.

Horrible? But you are judging a wild beast by the standards of civilization. You may teach a lion tricks, but he is still a lion.

Tarzan looked well in a Tuxedo, but he was still a Tarmangani and beneath his pleated shirt beat a wild and savage heart.

Horrible? But you are judging a wild beast by the standards of civilization. You may teach a lion tricks, but he is still a lion.

Tarzan looked well in a Tuxedo, but he was still a Tarmangani and beneath his pleated shirt beat a wild and savage heart.

Nor was his madness lacking in method.

“And a lion pursued you,” continued Tarzan, “and you leaped from the cliff into Kor-ul-lul, but why you were not killed is beyond me.”

“Is there anything beyond you?” exclaimed Pan-at-lee.

“How could you know that a lion pursued me and that I leaped from the cliff and not know that it was the pool of deep water below that saved me?”

But

Tarzan was no sluggard and though the gryf was incredibly fast despite its great bulk, it was no match for Tarzan, and when it comes to climbing, the little monkeys gaze with envy upon the feats of the ape-man.

And so it was that the bellowing gryf came to a baffled stop at the foot of the tree and even though he reared up and sought to seize his prey among the branches, as Tarzan had guessed he might, he failed in this also.

… them, on the ground, moved the horned dinosaur and when they reached the edge of the forest where there lay fifty yards of open ground to cross to the foot of the cliff he was there with them, at the bottom of the tree, waiting.

Tarzan looked ruefully down and scratched his head.

Tarzan rose to his full height upon a swaying branch—straight and beautiful as a demigod—unspoiled by the taint of civilization—a perfect specimen of what the human race might have been had the laws of man not interfered with the laws of nature.

The Present fitted an arrow to his bow and drew the shaft far back. The Past basing its claims upon brute strength sought to reach the other and drag him down; but the loosed arrow sank deep into the savage heart and the Past sank back into the oblivion that had claimed his kind.

“Tarzan-jad-guru!” murmured Pan-at-lee, unknowingly giving him out of the fullness of her admiration the same title that the warriors of her tribe had bestowed upon him.

It is true he could not see by night as well as they, but that lack was largely recompensed for by the keenness of his scent and the highly developed sensitiveness of his other organs of perception.

As the blind follow and interpret their Braille characters with deft fingers, so Tarzan reads the book of the jungle with feet and hands and eyes and ears and nose; each contributing its share to the quick and accurate translation of the text.

But again he was doomed to be thwarted by one vital weakness—he did not know the gryf, and before the night was over he wondered if the things never slept, for wheresoever he moved they moved also, and always they barred his road to liberty.

For him she felt the same keen, almost fanatical loyalty that many another had experienced for Tarzan of the Apes.

Beast and human, he had held them to him with bonds that were stronger than steel

—those of them that were clean and courageous, and the weak and the helpless; but never could Tarzan claim among his admirers the coward, the ingrate or the scoundrel; from such, both man and beast, he had won fear and hatred.

For any one of these reasons Pan-at-lee would have died for Tarzan, for such is the loyalty of the simple-minded children of nature. It has remained for civilization to teach us to weigh the relative rewards of loyalty and its antithesis.

The loyalty of the primitive is spontaneous, unreasoning, unselfish and such was the loyalty of Pan-at-lee for the Tarmangani.

And so it was that she waited that day and night, hoping that he would return that she might accompany him back to Om-at, for her experience had taught her that in the face of danger two have a better chance than one.

He had, of course, formulated a plan of action and, having decided, he did not hesitate in the carrying out his plan.

With the same assurance that you might venture upon the main street of a neighboring city Tarzan strode into the Ho-don city of A-lur.

The first person to detect his spuriousness was a little child playing in the arched gateway of one of the walled buildings. “No tail! no tail!”

The effect of this statement, made so casually, was marked in the expressions and excited whispers of the now awestruck assemblage.

At last they knew how kings were made! It was decided by Jad-ben-Otho while the candidate was still a suckling babe! Wonderful! A miracle!

and this divine creature in whose presence they stood knew all about it. Doubtless he even discussed such matters with their god daily.

As they reached the step below the sacred pinnacle Ko-tan continued as though to mount to his throne, but Tarzan laid a detaining hand upon his arm.

“None may sit upon a level with the gods,” he admonished, stepping confidently up and seating himself upon the throne.

The abashed Ko-tan showed his embarrassment, an embarrassment he feared to voice lest he incur the wrath of the king of kings.

“But there are others,” said Tarzan.

“Yes,” replied O-lo-a, “there are others, but there is only one Pan-at-lee.”

“Many slaves are brought to the city?” asked Tarzan.

As he gained a footing there he turned and looked down upon those beneath. For a moment he stood in silence and then he spoke.

“Who dare believe,” he cried, “that Jad-ben-Otho would forsake his son?” and then he dropped from their sight upon the other side.

There were two at least left within the enclosure whose hearts leaped with involuntary elation at the success of the ape-man’s maneuver, and one of them smiled openly. This was Ja-don, and the other, Pan-at-lee.

“He is a friend of Tarzan-jad-guru,” exclaimed Ta-den.

“Either a friend or a great liar,” replied Om-at.

“Tarzan,” continued the stranger, “you know him? He lives? O God, if I could only speak your language.” And again reverting to sign language he sought to ascertain where Tarzan was.

A cunning jungle creature, if he could reach the spot unsuspected, might remain concealed there for a considerable time, but how he was to traverse the distance between the temple grounds and the garden unseen was a question the seriousness of which he fully appreciated.

“Mighty is Tarzan,” he soliloquized, “in his native jungle, but in the cities of man he is little better than they.”

Depending upon his keen observation and sense of location he felt safe in assuming that he could reach the palace grounds by means of the subterranean corridors and chambers of the temple through which he had been conducted the day before, nor any slightest detail …

“But tomorrow they give me to Bu-lot,” she said sadly.

“May it be always tomorrow,” replied Tarzan, “for tomorrow never comes.”

“Ah, but this unhappiness will come, and for all the tomorrows of my life I must pine in misery for the Ta-den who will never be mine.”

… months of imprisonment and danger and hardship it had fitfully flickered and flamed only to sink after each renewal to smaller proportions than before and now it had died out entirely leaving only cold, charred embers that Jane Clayton knew would never again be rekindled.

Hope was dead as she faced Lu-don, the high priest, in her prison quarters in the Temple of the Gryf at A-lur.

Both time and hardship had failed to leave their impress upon her physical beauty—the contours of her perfect form, the glory of her radiant loveliness had defied them, yet to these very attributes she owed the danger which now confronted her, for Lu-don desired her.

He was close beside her now. His laugh grated upon her ears.

“Love does not kill,” he replied mockingly.

He reached for her arm and at the same instant something clashed against the bars of one of the windows, crashing them inward to the floor, to be followed almost simultaneously by a human figure which dove headforemost into the room, its head enveloped in …

“Delay!” she murmured; “blessed delay!”

Tenacious indeed of life is Hope even though it be reduced to cold and lifeless char⁠—a veritable phoenix.

“How beautiful you are,” she said simply.

Jane smiled, sadly; for she had found that beauty may be a curse.

“That is indeed a compliment,” she replied quickly, “from one so radiant as the Princess O-lo-a.”

… the lesser priests gathering their warriors in the city below,” and without waiting for any further parley he strode directly toward them in the direction of the gate upon the opposite side of the courtyard which led toward the principal entrance to the palace ground.

Slower in wit than he, they were swept away by his greater initiative and that compelling power which is inherent to all natural leaders.

And so they followed him, the giant ape-man with a dead tail dragging the ground behind him—a demigod where another would have been ridiculous.

From within there came to his sensitive nostrils the same delicate aroma that had arrested his eager attention at the little stream a mile away. He crouched upon the branch close to the little door.

“Jane,” he called, “heart of my heart, it is I.”

The only answer from within was as the sudden indrawing of a breath that was half gasp and half sigh, and the sound of a body falling to the floor.

She smiled and snuggled closer to him.

“God has been good to us, Tarzan of the Apes,” she said.

For some time neither spoke. It was enough that they were reunited and that each knew that the other was alive and safe.

A new idea came and persisted. He looked down at himself, examining his body, and seeing the filthy loin cloth, now water soaked and more bedraggled than before, he tore it from him and flung it into the lake.

“Gods do not wear dirty rags,” he said aloud.

“They do not wear anything but wreaths and garlands of flowers and I am a god—I am Jad-ben-Otho—and I go in state to my sacred city of A-lur.”

“Fine!” exclaimed Tarzan. “The odds are in our favor now. You can keep your nerve?—but I do not need to ask.”

“I know no fear when I am with Tarzan of the Apes,” she replied softly, and he felt the pressure of her soft fingers on his arm.

And thus the two approached the giant monster of a forgotten epoch until they stood close in the shadow of a mighty shoulder. “Whee-oo!” shouted Tarzan and struck the hideous snout with the shaft of the spear.

Tarzan guided the gryf in the direction that they wished to go. Steep embankments and rivers proved no slightest obstacle to the ponderous creature.

“A prehistoric tank, this,” Jane assured him, and laughing and talking they continued on their way.

Once they came unexpectedly upon a dozen Ho-don warriors as the gryf emerged suddenly into a small clearing. The fellows were lying about in the shade of a single tree that grew alone.

There is a Pal-ul-donian proverb setting forth a truth similar to that contained in the old Scotch adage that “The best laid schemes o’ mice and men gang aft a-gley.” Freely translated it might read,

“He who follows the right trail sometimes reaches the wrong destination,”

and such apparently was the fate that lay in the footsteps of the great chieftain of the north and his godlike ally.