To communicate his plan to the apes was not a particularly difficult
matter, though their narrow and limited vocabulary was strained in
the effort; but to impress upon the little, wicked brain of Sheeta
that he was to hunt with and not for his legitimate prey proved a
task almost beyond the powers of the ape-man.
Tarzan, among his other weapons, possessed a long, stout cudgel,
and after fastening his rope about the panther's neck he used this
instrument freely upon the snarling beast, endeavouring in this
way to impress upon its memory that it must not attack the great,
shaggy manlike creatures that had approached more closely once they
had seen the purpose of the rope about Sheeta's neck.
That the cat did not turn and rend Tarzan is something of a miracle
which may possibly be accounted for by the fact that twice when
it turned growling upon the ape-man he had rapped it sharply upon
its sensitive nose, inculcating in its mind thereby a most wholesome
fear of the cudgel and the ape-beasts behind it.
It is a question if the original cause of his attachment for Tarzan
was still at all clear in the mind of the panther, though doubtless
some subconscious suggestion, superinduced by this primary reason
and aided and abetted by the habit of the past few days, did much
to compel the beast to tolerate treatment at his hands that would
have sent it at the throat of any other creature.
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