Tarzan and the city of gold

by Edgar Rice Burroughs

"Kill! Kill!" shouted the Phobeg adherents. "Death! Death! Give us a death!"

"Don't you wish to throw me about a bit first?" asked Tarzan in a low voice, as he lightly side-stepped the other's mad charge.

"No!" screamed Phobeg, turning clumsily and charging again. "I kill! I kill!"

Tarzan caught the outstretched hands and spread them wide; then a bronzed arm, lightning-like, clamped about Phobeg's short neck; the ape-man wheeled suddenly about, leaned forward, and hurled his antagonist over his head. Phobeg fell heavily to the sandy gravel of the arena.

Nemone leaned from the royal loge, her eyes flashing, her bosom heaving. Erot was but one of many nobles who experienced a constriction of the diaphragm. Nemone turned to him. "Would you like to bet a little more on the strongest man in Cathne?" she asked.

Erot smiled a sickly smile. "The battle has only commenced," he said.

"But already it is as good as over," taunted Nemone.

Phobeg arose but this time more slowly, nor did he charge again but approached his antagonist warily; his tactics now were very different from what they had been. He wanted to get close enough to Tarzan to get a hold; that was all he desired, just a hold; then, he knew, he could crush the man with his great strength.

Perhaps the ape-man sensed what was in the mind of his foe, perhaps it was just chance that caused him to taunt Phobeg by holding his left wrist out to the other; but whatever it was, Phobeg seized upon the opportunity and, grasping Tarzan's wrist, sought to drag the ape-man into his embrace; then Tarzan stepped in quickly, struck Phobeg a terrific blow in the face with his right fist, seized the wrist of the hand that held his, and, again whirling quickly beneath his victim, threw him heavily once more, using Phobeg's arm as a lever and his own shoulder as a fulcrum.

This time Phobeg had difficulty in arising at all. He came up very slowly. The ape-man was standing over him. The blood froze in the veins of the Cathnean as he heard the low, beast-like growl rumbling in the throat of the stranger.