And then the girl, panting from her quick run, returned with the
short spear Tarzan had left her as her sole weapon of protection.
She did not wait to hand it to the Englishman who ran forward to
receive it, but brushed past him and leaped into close quarters
beside the growling, tumbling mass of yellow fur and smooth brown
hide. Several times she attempted to press the point home into
the cat's body, but on both occasions the fear of endangering the
ape-man caused her to desist, but at last the two lay motionless
for a moment as the carnivore sought a moment's rest from the
strenuous exertions of battle, and then it was that Bertha Kircher
pressed the point of the spear to the tawny side and drove it deep
into the savage heart.
Tarzan rose from the dead body of Sheeta and shook himself after
the manner of beasts that are entirely clothed with hair. Like
many other of his traits and mannerisms this was the result of
environment rather than heredity or reversion, and even though he
was outwardly a man, the Englishman and the girl were both impressed
with the naturalness of the act. It was as though Numa, emerging
from a fight, had shaken himself to straighten his rumpled mane and
coat, and yet, too, there was something uncanny about it as there
had been when the savage growls and hideous snarls issued from
those clean-cut lips.
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