TARZAN AND THE LOST EMPIRE
perfectly that the contrary was the fact and that his strength must be ebbing and that it would continue to ebb still more rapidly the longer that he was forced to expend it in arduous efforts to descend the cliff and without any possibility of rebuilding it with food.
Even to Erich von Harben, young, self-confident and enthusiastic, his next step seemed little better than suicidal. To another the mere idea of attempting the descent of these towering cliffs would have seemed madness, but in other mountains von Harben had always found a way, and with this thin thread upon which to hang his hopes he faced the descent into the unknown. Now he was just about to lower himself over the edge of the fissure when he heard the sounds of footsteps behind him. Wheeling quickly, he drew his Luger.
Chapter Three
Little Nkima came racing through the tree tops, jabbering excitedly, and dropped to the knee of Tarzan of the Apes where the latter lay stretched upon the great branch of a jungle giant, his back against the rough bole, where he was lying up after making a kill and feeding.
"Gomangani! Gomangani!" shrilled Nkima. "They come! They come!"
"Peace," said Tarzan. "You are a greater nuisance than all the Gomangani in the jungle."
"They will kill little Nkima," cried the monkey. "They are strange Gomangani, and there are no Tarmangani among them."
"Nkima thinks everything wants to kill him," said Tarzan, "and yet he has lived many years and is not dead yet."
"Sabor and Sheeta and Numa, the Gomangani, and Histah
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