Tarzan of the Apes Read Online Free PDF

practically cut him off from escape, he felt a vague little shiver play up and down his spine.
    He knew that, armed only with an axe, his chances with this ferocious monster were small indeed—and Alice; 0 God, he thought, what will become of Alice?
    There was yet a slight chance of reaching the cabin. He
turned and ran toward it, shouting an alarm to his wife to run in and close the great door in case the ape cut off his retreat.
    Lady Greystoke had been sitting a little way from the cabin, and when she heard his cry she looked up to see the ape springing with almost incredible swiftness, for so large and awkward an animal, in an effort to head off Clayton.
    With a low cry she sprang toward the cabin, and, as she entered, gave a backward glance which filled her soul with terror, for the brute had intercepted her husband, who now stood at bay grasping his axe with both hands ready to swing it upon the infuriated animal when he should make his final charge.
    “Close and bolt the door, Alice,” cried Clayton. “I can finish this fellow with my axe.”
    But he knew he was facing a horrible death, and so did she.
    The ape was a great bull, weighing probably three hundred pounds. His nasty, close-set eyes gleamed hatred from beneath his shaggy brows, while his great canine fangs were bared in a horrid snarl as he paused a moment before his prey.
    Over the brute’s shoulder Clayton could see the doorway of his cabin, not twenty paces distant, and a great wave of horror and fear swept over him as he saw his young wife emerged, armed with one of his rifles.
    She had always been afraid of firearms, and would never touch them, but now she rushed toward the ape with the fearlessness of a lioness protecting its young.
    “Back, Alice,” shouted Clayton, “for God’s sake, go back.”
    But she would not heed, and just then the ape charged, so that Clayton could say no more.
    The man swung his axe with all his mighty strength, but the powerful brute seized it in those terrible hands, and tearing it from Clayton’s grasp hurled it far to one side.
    With an ugly snarl he closed upon his defenseless victim, but ere his fangs had reached the throat they thirsted for,
there was a sharp report and a bullet entered the ape’s back between his shoulders.
    Throwing Clayton to the ground the beast turned upon his new enemy. There before him stood the terrified girl vainly trying to fire another bullet into the animal’s body; but she did not understand the mechanism of the firearm, and the hammer fell futilely upon an empty cartridge.
    Screaming with rage and pain, the ape flew at the delicate woman, who went down beneath him to merciful unconsciousness.
    Almost simultaneously Clayton regained his feet, and without thought of the utter hopelessness of it, he rushed forward to drag the ape from his wife’s prostrate form.
    With little or no effort he succeeded, and the great bulk rolled inertly upon the turf before him—the ape was dead. The bullet had done its work.
    A hasty examination of his wife revealed no marks upon her, and Clayton decided that the huge brute had died the instant he had sprung toward Alice.
    Gently he lifted his wife’s still unconscious form, and bore her to the little cabin, but it was fully two hours before she regained consciousness. Her first words filled Clayton with vague apprehension. For some time after regaining her senses, Alice gazed wonderingly about the interior of the little cabin, and then, with a satisfied sigh, said:
    “0, John, it is so good to be really home! I have had an awful dream, dear. I thought we were no longer in London, but in some horrible place where great beasts attacked us.”
    “There, there, Alice,” he said, stroking her forehead, “try to sleep again, and do not worry your head about bad dreams.”
    That night a little son was born in the tiny cabin beside the primeval forest, while a leopard screamed before the door, and the deep notes of a lion’s roar sounded from