rward and guiding it with blows, first upon one side
and then upon the other, he started it down the gorge in the direction
of the valley.

At first it had been in his mind only to determine if he could
successfully assert any authority over the great monsters, realizing
that in this possibility lay his only hope of immediate escape from his
jailers. But once seated upon the back of his titanic mount the ape-man
experienced the sensation of a new thrill that recalled to him the day
in his boyhood that he had first clambered to the broad head of Tantor,
the elephant, and this, together with the sense of mastery that was
always meat and drink to the lord of the jungle, decided him to put his
newly acquired power to some utilitarian purpose.

Pan-at-lee he judged must either have already reached safety or met
with death. At least, no longer could he be of service to her, while
below Kor-ul-gryf, in the soft green valley, lay A-lur, the City of
Light, which, since he had gazed upon it from the shoulder of
Pastar-ul-ved, had been his ambition and his goal.

Whether or not its gleaming walls held the secret of his lost mate he
could not even guess but if she lived at all within the precincts of
Pal-ul-don it must be among the Ho-don, since the hairy black men of
this forgotten world took no prisoners. And so to A-lur he would go,
and how more effectively than upon the back of this grim and terrible
creature that the races of Pal-ul-don held in such awe?

A little mountain stream tumbles down from Kor-ul-gryf to be joined in
the foothills with that which empties the waters of Kor-ul-lul into the
valley, forming a small river which runs southwest, eventually entering
the valley's largest lake at the City of A-lur, through the center of
which the stream passes. An ancient trail, well marked by countless
generations of naked feet of man and beast, leads down toward A-lur
beside the river, and along this Tarzan guided the gryf. Once clear of
the forest which ran below the mouth of the gorge, Tarzan caught
occasional glimpses of the city gleaming in the distance far below him.

The country through which he passed was resplendent with the riotous
beauties of tropical verdure. Thick, lush grasses grew waist high upon
either side of the trail and the way was broken now and again by
patches of open park-like forest, or perhaps a little patch of dense
jungle where the trees overarched the way and trailing creepers
depended in grace