"Not until I have searched that cave," she said, almost defiantly, and Barney knew that she would have her way.
Together they entered the forbidding grotto, Barney in advance, striking matches with one hand while he clung to his cocked rifle with the other; but there was nothing there that longer had the power to injure.
In a far corner the feeble rays of the match lighted something that brought Barney to a sudden halt. He tried to turn the girl back as though there was nothing more to be seen, but she had seen too and pressed forward. She made her brother light another match, and there before them lay the crumbling skeleton of a large man. By its side rested a broken, stone-tipped spear, and there was a stone knife and a stone ax as well.
"Look!" whispered the girl, pointing to something that lay just beyond the skeleton.
Barney raised the match he held until its feeble flame carried to that other object—the grinning skull of a great cat, its upper jaw armed with two mighty, eighteen-inch, curved fangs.
"Oo, the killer of men and of mammals," whispered Victoria Custer, in an awed voice, "and Nu, the son of Nu, who killed him for his Nat-ul—for me!"
EDGAR RICE BURROUGHS
books available in Ace editions
| F-156 AT THE EARTH'S CORE |
| F-157 THE MOON MAID |
| F-158 PELLUCIDAR |
| F-159 THE MOON MEN |
| F-168 THUVIA, MAID OF MARS |
| F-169 TARZAN AND THE LOST EMPIRE |
| F-170 THE CHESSMEN OF MARS |
| F-171 TANAR OF PELLUCIDAR |
| F-179 PIRATES OF VENUS |
| F-180 TARZAN AT THE EARTH'S CORE |
| F-181 THE MASTERMIND OF MARS |
| F-182 THE MONSTER MEN |
| F-189 TARZAN THE INVINCIBLE |
| F-190 A FIGHTING MAN OF MARS |
| F-193 THE SON OF TARZAN |
| F-194 TARZAN TRIUMPHANT |
| F-203 THE BEASTS OF TARZAN |
| F-204 TARZAN AND THE JEWELS OF OPAR |
| F-205 TARZAN AND THE CITY OF GOLD |
| F-206 JUNGLE TALES OF TARZAN |
| F-212 TARZAN AND THE LION MAN |
| F-213 THE LAND THAT TIME FORGOT |
| F-220 THE PEOPLE THAT TIME FORGOT |
| F-221 LOST ON VENUS |
| F-232 THE LAND OF HIDDEN MEN |
| F-233 OUT OF TIME'S ABYSS |
| F-235 THE LOST CONTINENT |