With his knife he hacked off a strip of his loin cloth. This he bound about his left wrist, then took up the bow, his chin set in determined lines.
On his third attempt he hit the mark, sending an arrowhead deep into the center of the white patch.
The cave-man all but shouted aloud. Lovingly he ran his palms over the black wood. No matter what he had suffered at Sepharian hands, they had repaid many times over by disclosing to him the power in a gut-strung branch. Now in truth was he lord of the jungle! He pictured Sadu dead, a few well-placed arrows in his carcass. And shaggy-coated Conta, the cave-bear; of what protection his tough hide against such keen-tipped shafts?
Clearly, Tharn had forgotten the mission that had sent him into the jungle. Everything ceased to exist for him except the bow in his hands and the quiver of arrows at his back. Although he continued on toward the west, his progress was slow and uncertain; for the cave-man was determined to become an expert bowman without delay.
At first he was content to use nothing more difficult than tree trunks as targets; but as he increased in skill his ambition led him to seek more difficult marks.
Nobar, the monkey, industriously occupied in searching the hairs on his belly for dried bits of dead skin, almost fell from his perch in fright as something streaked past his nose with a vicious hiss. With the nimble alacrity of his kind he rocketed thirty feet upward, where, from a swaying vine, he hurled a torrent of verbal abuse at the grinning youth in the trail below.
The hours sped by, but Tharn never noticed. At first he lost almost every arrow he shot, but little by little his skill was increasing. He attempted drawing the bow with either hand; he sought to release a second arrow before the first had struck; he shot at birds on the wing.
Darkness came upon him without warning. Then it was he remembered he had not eaten since morning. An inventory of his supply of arrows revealed only eight remained of the full two dozen he had brought from Sephar.
He would sleep now. In the morning he would find food and water. And he would make his kill with an arrow—of that he was determined. The bow had proved a wonderful toy; when Dyta came Tharn would prove its practical worth....