Tarzan dropped the pole when he made his leap, and now he yelled to stand back.
"You can't take it alone," Hunt said.
"Wait until it is preoccupied with me," Tarzan yelled. "Then strike."
Tarzan mimicked the creature's moves. He tried to focus only on Ebopa. The intentions of Ebopa were hard to read. Its body English was unlike that of human beings. A slight movement might lead one to realize an attack was coming from one direction in a human being, could be totally misleading against this monster. Its bones, muscles... They did not operate in the same manner.
Ebopa began to hop, posture. Tarzan did the same. The creature struck with a hooked hand, and Tarzan blocked the strike and struck back. Striking the mantis was like striking a brick wall.
Tarzan bounced back, casually uncoiled the chain from around his waist, wrapped it around one of his palms and began to swing it over his head.
Ebopa watched this with considerable curiosity. The movement of the chain was mesmerizing to the creature. When Tarzan felt it was preoccupied, he thrust his right leg forward like a fencer, and whipped the chain out and low, caught Ebopa's foreleg, and twisted the length of the chain around it.
Then Tarzan jerked, causing Ebopa to smash onto its back.
Jean and Nyama and Hunt started to rush forward, but Tarzan yelled them back. The chain had come uncoiled from around Ebopa's leg, and with amazing, almost supernatural speed, Ebopa had regained its footing.
The crowd in the arena had panicked at first, but now they and the warriors watched the spectacle below with bloodthirsty interest. Never, never, never, had they seen Ebopa on its back. Never had they seen a man challenge it with its own movements, or with such bravery.
Jad-bal-ja brought his jaws together against the black lion's throat, shook his foe dramatically, then fell over, the black lion falling on top of him. Jad-bal-ja tried to crawl from beneath the dispatched lion, but his wounds were too great. He could smell the man he loved below, could sense he was in trouble, but he could not help him. The lion began to whimper and painfully inch its way from beneath its fallen adversary.
A little figure scuttled up the steps and moved close to the lion. It was Nkima. The little monkey, searching for Tarzan, had picked up the spoor of the lion and had followed the scent to the arena box.
Jad-bal-ja purred softly, and Nkima stroked the lion's head.
"I would like to eat you," growled the lion.
"You cannot," chattered the monkey, "for I am Nkima and I am much too fast."
Hanson, Billy, and Wilson arrived in sight of the great city of Ur. Even from a distance, they could hear the roar of a massive crowd.
"Sounds like a baseball stadium," Hanson said. "If you think we're gonna just ride up there, get this daughter of yours out, you're a fool," Wilson said.
"Shut up," Hanson said. "Shut up before I shoot you down."
"Easy, Bwana," Billy said. "Jackass is right. They put holes through us many times with arrows, we come ride up. We best unbridle zebras, let them go."
"You let them go," Wilson said. "They'll head home. To Ur. The city might decide to investigate the loss of its warriors. Maybe they're already looking."
"If they were a hunting party," Hanson said. "Maybe not."
"Jackass right," Billy said. "Best kill zebras."
"But they are innocent animals," Hanson said.
"I am innocent animal too," Billy said. "And live one. Would like to stay that way. Like zebras fine. Like self more."
"We'll hobble, them," Hanson said. "They cannot go far bobbled. We'll leave them hobbled until we're finished here. We might need them."
"You're soft, Hanson," said Wilson.
"Good for you," Hanson said. "If I wasn't, you'd be long dead and meat for the worms."
The interior of Ebopa's brain experienced something it had never imagined it possessed. Surprise. This thing! This frail-looking thing was not frail at all! And it was fast. Almost as fast as Ebopa itself. Ebopa could not understand it. Not only was it strong and fast, it hurt him. It struck with a shiny black tail, and when it struck, it hurt.
Tarzan realized what Ebopa realized. It could feel pain. The lion's attack had been against the hard, bony arms and legs of Ebopa, but Tarzan determined the place to attack with his chain was the creature's joints, what passed for its knees, elbows, and neck. There it was weak.
Tarzan let forth with the cry of the bull ape, whipped the chain like a scorpion's tail, and finally Ebopa, relying on its uncanny speed, rushed the ape-man. Tarzan could not move completely out of the way of one of its hooked hands, and the hook tore the flesh on Tarzan's shoulder, yet the ape-man was able to sidestep enough to grab Ebopa's shoulder, pull it back and down, and whip the chain around its neck.
Ebopa stood up, pranced about the arena with Tarzan dangling on its back, the chain tight around its neck. Tarzan dropped all of his weight and yanked back on the chain, striving for a marriage of gravity; if he could plunge all his weight to the center of Ebopa's back, he hoped he might snap its spine.
Ebopa went backwards, but its "knees" bent the opposite way, taking pressure off of Tarzan's attack. Ebopa shook its head and bent forward and sent Tarzan flying.
The jungle man landed, rolled, and scuttled to his feet as the thing hopped toward him.
Tarzan fell on his back before Ebopa's onslaught, brought his foot up, caught Ebopa in the center of its bony chest, pushed up and back with all his might. Ebopa went flying, crashed into the arena wall below Kuvandi's box.
Tarzan whirled to his feet, and saw an amazing sight.
Ebopa was fleeing. It went up the smooth arena wall as easily as if it were running across the ground. It game the box effortlessly, then leapt from the box into the stands of the arena.
Formerly excited patrons now fled before their god. It sprang amongst them, spraying humanity before it like a wild man tossing wet wash. The Urs flopped and flapped and broke and snapped.
Tarzan took the moment to wrap the chain around his waist, then he recovered the flagpole and used it to launch himself into Kurvandi's box. There he found poor Jad-bal-ja and a panicked Nkima. The lion was badly hurt. Tarzan tore strips from Kurvandi's clothes and bound the lion's wounds to the sounds of Ebopa' destruction: yells of tenor, the thudding of feet. Ur was in a panic.
Nkima chattered softly.
"So, my friend," Tarzan said. "In spite of your cowardly nature, you came to try and help."
Nkima told a lie about a brave deed he had performed, but his heart wasn't in it. It was just something for him to say. He made a cooing noise, asked about the lion.
"I cannot say, Nkima," Tarzan said. "Jad-bal-ja is badly injured. But he is strong."
Hanson, Billy, and Wilson were making their way through the woods, and had just reached the grasslands in front of the city moat, when they heard a yell quite unlike that of any before.
"Must be a home run," Wilson said.
Suddenly, the drawbridge dropped, and fearful warriors, servants, the whole of Ur, tried to exit through that doorway. They fell beneath the feet of their friends and family, were knocked into the moat where the crocodiles happily greeted them.
"Drop back," Billy said. "Bad business here."
Hanson jammed a rifle into Wilson's spine, and Wilson, Hanson, and Billy slid back into the jungle, watching this strange spectacle with a kind of awe.
When Jad-bal-ja's wounds were dressed as well as possible, Tarzan extended the pole, and one at a time he pulled his three companions up to the arena box.