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👁 :192
The Tree-top Hunter
Catagory:Fiction
Author:Edgar Rice Burroughs
Posted Date:03/26/2025
Posted By:utopia online

The morning after the Dum-Dum the tribe started slowly back through the forest toward the coast.The body of Tublat lay where it had fallen, for the people of Kerchak do not eat their own dead. The march was but a leisurely search for food. Cabbage palm and gray plum, pisang and scitamine they found in abundance, with wild pineapple, and occasionally small mammals, birds, eggs, reptiles, and insects. The nuts they cracked between their powerful jaws, or, if too hard, broke by pounding between stones. Once old Sabor, crossing their path, sent them scurrying to the safety of the higher branches, for if she respected their number and their sharp fangs, they on their part held her cruel and mighty ferocity in equal esteem. Upon a low-hanging branch sat Tarzan directly above the majestic, supple body as it forged silently through the thick jungle. He hurled a pineapple at the ancient enemy of his people. The great beast stopped and, turning, eyed the taunting figure above her. With an angry lash of her tail she bared her yellow fangs, curling her great lips in a hideous snarl that wrinkled her bristling snout in serried ridges and closed her wicked eyes to two narrow slits of rage and hatred. With back-laid ears she looked straight into the eyes of Tarzan of the Apes and sounded her fierce, shrill challenge. And from the safety of his overhanging limb the ape-child sent back the fearsome answer of his kind. For a moment the two eyed each other in silence, and then the great cat turned into the jungle, which swallowed her as the ocean engulfs a tossed pebble. But into the mind of Tarzan a great plan sprang. He had killed the fierce Tublat, so was he not therefore a mighty fighter? Now would he track down the crafty Sabor and slay her likewise. He would be a mighty hunter, also. At the bottom of his little English heart beat the great desire to cover his nakedness with clothes for he had learned from his picture books that all men were so covered, while monkeys and apes and every other living thing went naked. Clothes therefore, must be truly a badge of greatness; the insignia of the superiority of man over all other animals, for surely there could be no other reason for wearing the hideous things. Many moons ago, when he had been much smaller, he had desired the skin of Sabor, the lioness, or Numa, the lion, or Sheeta, the leopard to cover his hairless body that he might no longer resemble hideous Histah, the snake; but now he was proud of his sleek skin for it betokened his descent from a mighty race, and the conflicting desires to go naked in prideful proof of his ancestry, or to conform to the customs of his own kind and wear hideous and uncomfortable apparel found first one and then the other in the ascendency. As the tribe continued their slow way through the forest after the passing of Sabor, Tarzan’s head was filled with his great scheme for slaying his enemy, and for many days thereafter he thought of little else. On this day, however, he presently had other and more immediate interests to attract his attention. Suddenly it became as midnight; the noises of the jungle ceased; the trees stood motionless as though in paralyzed expectancy of some great and imminent disaster. All nature waited—but not for long. Faintly, from a distance, came a low, sad moaning. Nearer and nearer it approached, mounting louder and louder in volume. The great trees bent in unison as though pressed earthward by a mighty hand. Farther and farther toward the ground they inclined, and still there was no sound save the deep and awesome moaning of the wind. Then, suddenly, the jungle giants whipped back, lashing their mighty tops in angry and deafening protest. A vivid and blinding light flashed from the whirling, inky clouds above. The deep cannonade of roaring thunder belched forth its fearsome challenge. The deluge came—all hell broke loose upon the jungle. The tribe shivering from the cold rain, huddled at the bases of great trees. The lightning, darting and flashing through the blackness, showed wildly waving branches, whipping streamers and bending trunks. Now and again some ancient patriarch of the woods, rent by a flashing bolt, would crash in a thousand pieces among the surrounding trees, carrying down numberless branches and many smaller neighbors to add to the tangled confusion of the tropical jungle. Branches, great and small, torn away by the ferocity of the tornado, hurtled through the wildly waving verdure, carrying death and destruction to countless unhappy denizens of the thickly peopled world below. For hours the fury of the storm continued without surcease, and still the tribe huddled close in shivering fear. In constant danger from falling trunks and branches and paralyzed by the vivid flashing of lightning and the bellowing of thunder they crouched in pitiful misery until the storm passed. The end was as sudden as the beginning. The wind ceased, the sun shone forth—nature smiled once more. The dripping leaves and branches, and the moist petals of gorgeous flowers glistened in the splendor of the returning day. And, so—as Nature forgot, her children forgot also. Busy life went on as it had been before the darkness and the fright. But to Tarzan a dawning light had come to explain the mystery of clothes. How snug he would have been beneath the heavy coat of Sabor! And so was added a further incentive to the adventure. For several months the tribe hovered near the beach where stood Tarzan’s cabin, and his studies took up the greater portion of his time, but always when journeying through the forest he kept his rope in readiness, and many were the smaller animals that fell into the snare of the quick thrown noose. Once it fell about the short neck of Horta, the boar, and his mad lunge for freedom toppled Tarzan from the overhanging limb where he had lain in wait and from whence he had launched his sinuous coil. The mighty tusker turned at the sound of his falling body, and, seeing only the easy prey of a young ape, he lowered his head and charged madly at the surprised youth. Tarzan, happily, was uninjured by the fall, alighting catlike upon all fours far outspread to take up the shock. He was on his feet in an instant and, leaping with the agility of the monkey he was, he gained the safety of a low limb as Horta, the boar, rushed futilely beneath. Thus it was that Tarzan learned by experience the limitations as well as the possibilities of his strange weapon. He lost a long rope on this occasion, but he knew that had it been Sabor who had thus dragged him from his perch the outcome might have been very different, for he would have lost his life, doubtless, into the bargain. It took him many days to braid a new rope, but when, finally, it was done he went forth purposely to hunt, and lie in wait among the dense foliage of a great branch right above the well-beaten trail that led to water. Several small animals passed unharmed beneath him. He did not want such insignificant game. It would take a strong animal to test the efficacy of his new scheme. At last came she whom Tarzan sought, with lithe sinews rolling beneath shimmering hide; fat and glossy came Sabor, the lioness. Her great padded feet fell soft and noiseless on the narrow trail. Her head was high in ever alert attention; her long tail moved slowly in sinuous and graceful undulations. Nearer and nearer she came to where Tarzan of the Apes crouched upon his limb, the coils of his long rope poised ready in his hand. Like a thing of bronze, motionless as death, sat Tarzan. Sabor passed beneath. One stride beyond she took—a second, a third, and then the silent coil shot out above her. For an instant the spreading noose hung above her head like a great snake, and then, as she looked upward to detect the origin of the swishing sound of the rope, it settled about her neck. With a quick jerk Tarzan snapped the noose tight about the glossy throat, and then he dropped the rope and clung to his support with both hands. Sabor was trapped. With a bound the startled beast turned into the jungle, but Tarzan was not to lose another rope through the same cause as the first. He had learned from experience. The lioness had taken but half her second bound when she felt the rope tighten about her neck; her body turned completely over in the air and she fell with a heavy crash upon her back. Tarzan had fastened the end of the rope securely to the trunk of the great tree on which he sat. Thus far his plan had worked to perfection, but when he grasped the rope, bracing himself behind a crotch of two mighty branches, he found that dragging the mighty, struggling, clawing, biting, screaming mass of iron-muscled fury up to the tree and hanging her was a very different proposition. The weight of old Sabor was immense, and when she braced her huge paws nothing less than Tantor, the elephant, himself, could have budged her. The lioness was now back in the path where she could see the author of the indignity which had been placed upon her. Screaming with rage she suddenly charged, leaping high into the air toward Tarzan, but when her huge body struck the limb on which Tarzan had been, Tarzan was no longer there. Instead he perched lightly upon a smaller branch twenty feet above the raging captive. For a moment Sabor hung half across the branch, while Tarzan mocked, and hurled twigs and branches at her unprotected face. Presently the beast dropped to the earth again and Tarzan came quickly to seize the rope, but Sabor had now found that it was only a slender cord that held her, and grasping it in her huge jaws severed it before Tarzan could tighten the strangling noose a second time. Tarzan was much hurt. His well-laid plan had come to naught, so he sat there screaming at the roaring creature beneath him and making mocking grimaces at it. Sabor paced back and forth beneath the tree for hours; four times she crouched and sprang at the dancing sprite above her, but might as well have clutched at the illusive wind that murmured through the tree tops. At last Tarzan tired of the sport, and with a parting roar of challenge and a well-aimed ripe fruit that spread soft and sticky over the snarling face of his enemy, he swung rapidly through the trees, a hundred feet above the ground, and in a short time was among the members of his tribe. Here he recounted the details of his adventure, with swelling chest and so considerable swagger that he quite impressed even his bitterest enemies, while Kala fairly danced for joy and pride.


Type:Technology
👁 :83
I was the kid next door’s imaginary friend.”
Catagory:Jock
Author:Eric Landa
Posted Date:03/26/2025
Posted By:utopia online

A man in the grocery store notices a woman with a three-year-old girl in her cart. As they pass the cookie section, the little girl screams for cookies. The mother says, “Now Missy, we only have a few more aisles to go—don’t throw a fit. It won’t be long.” In the candy aisle, the little girl whines for candy. The mother says, “There, there, Missy, don’t cry. Two more aisles, and we’ll be checking out.” When they get to the checkout stand, the little girl howls for gum. The mother says, reassuringly, “Missy, we’ll be done in five minutes, and then you can go home and have a bottle and a nice snooze.” In the parking lot, the man stops the woman to compliment her. “I couldn’t help noticing how patient you were with little Missy,” he says. The mother sighs, “Oh, no—my little girl’s name is Francine. I’m Missy.”  In bullfighting a Veronica is a motion in which the matador slowly twirls his cape away from a charging bull.  The plastic tag closures on loaves of bread are color coded to different days of the week to help ensure proper stock rotation.  The average human eats 8 spiders in their lifetime at night.  The Beetham Tower cost over £150 million to build.  During the chariot scene in "Ben Hur," a small red car can be seen in the distance.


Type:Technology
👁 :112
The Goal of Strategy: Win All Without Fighting
Catagory:Reading
Author:S U N T z u and M A R K M C N E I L L L Y
Posted Date:03/26/2025
Posted By:utopia online

Many city-states, countries, and empires have been built by leveraging their unique history, geography, and assets to control their environment. Thus, they were able to survive, achieve stability, expand, dominate their neighbors, and ultimately prosper for hundreds of years. The Roman Empire grew from a small area surrounding Rome to extend from Britain to the Black Sea to Egypt to Gibralter. It lasted over five hundred years. The Mongol Empire began with a single nomadic tribe in central Asia but grew to rule lands from China to India to Europe. And, of course, the sun never set on the British Empire for several centuries. Businesses, like countries, have a unique history and a set of assets. But how does one judge whether a business has been successful? The Western view is that a business exists primarily to provide a return on investment for stockholders. In contrast, the Asian view is that a business exists primarily to provide jobs for its employees. Although both views differ, there is one constant between them: to meet either goal, a business must survive and prosper. Therefore, successful businesses, like successful countries, are those that may have started small but ended up surviving and prospering over a long period .If the goal of a business is to survive and prosper, then what is the goal of its strategy? Sun Tzu offers this advice: • Your aim must be to take All-under-Heaven intact. Thus your troops are not worn out and your gains will be complete. This is the art of offensive strategy. (III.11) The goal of business strategy must be "to take AU-Under-Heaven intact"—to capture your marketplace. You must define the markets you are going after and commit to achieving relative market dominance in those markets. By doing so, your company will ensure its survival and prosperity.There are many examples of companies that have done this. They began as seedlings, but used creative strategy to bring value to the marketplace, grow quickly, and continue doing business successfully for a number of years. They had to be able to gain a position in their industry or niche that enabled them to protect themselves and shape the forces in their industry in their favor. They achieved relative market dominance.Market dominance can appear in many forms; technology leadership, brand recognition, or cost leadership are some signs of it. Market dominance can also be thought of in terms of market share. Companies with dominant market share in an industry segment or an entire industry are more able to influence the industry, direct its evolution, and establish an excellent competitive position. Their powerful position allows them to set the industry's standards and define the playing field. Firms that have achieved dominant market share most likely also enjoy the advantages of higher customer loyalty, larger volumes, better economies of scale, and strong distribution capabilities. In addition, substantial data and research have shown that market share and profitability go hand-in-hand in a number of industry environments. Those same advantages tend to increase revenues and lower unit costs, thus increasing profitability. If a company can achieve relative market dominance properly, prosperity will eventually come. In the 1970s and 1980s,Japanese companies, with their long-term view of strategy, emphasis on competition and survival, and belief that business is war, supported this thinking. Japanese companies were very successful at capturing market share and achieving a dominant position in many industries. Whether the industry involved automobiles, consumer electronics, or office equipment, the inroads they made in U.S.,European, and Asian markets were significant. This provided these Japanese companies with the ability to influence their respective industries and ensure their survival, even when American and European firms began to successfully respond to their attacks. In the United States, GE's John Welch charged his business units to be number one or number two in their industry or face being sold off. Microsoft's dominance of the software market for personal computer operating systems has enabled it to call the tune that other computer system companies, application software companies, and PC hardware firms have danced to for the last decade. Microsoft's CEO and chief strategist, William H. Gates III, has been able to influence the industry so effectively that it is difficult for any firm to make a move without considering how Microsoft will react. Both Microsoft and GE have experienced prosperity utilizing this strategy; GE, a $60- billion-dollar company, became America's most profitable company in 1994 with earnings of $6 billion. Microsoft has also done well; between 1990 and 1994, its sales grew 47% and its profits increased 53% per year.2 One may argue that relative market dominance is not necessary for survival and prosperity, pointing to small "corporate Switzerlands" as examples. The country of Switzerland has survived hundreds of years and prospered; it has done this not by seeking expansion and domination but by creating a strong defensive position. Switzerland combines a well-trained citizen army with its forbidding terrain, thus making the costs of attacking it outweigh the benefits of conquering it.The Swiss also use their neutrality to serve the warring nations of the globe, playing a key role as a site for negotiations and a go-between for antagonists. Switzerland utilizes the assets it has been given and a unique strategy to find a defensible position in the world. Likewise, companies do exist with low market share that have found defensible positions in their industry along with sustained profitability. They too have done so by understanding their strengths and weaknesses and using strategy to create a place in which they can survive and prosper.3 However, these businesses, like Switzerland, exist at the whim of the dominant players. Like major world powers, at any time market leaders may decide that these little "Switzerlands" have served their purpose in the industry and choose to eliminate them. Although a small company might cause a lot of problems for a dominant player before going away, in the end it would be eliminated. Thus, the only true way to control your firm's destiny is to drive for relative market dominance. This must be your purpose. • The Grand Duke said: "One who is confused in purpose cannot respond to his enemy." (III.23 Meng)


Type:Technology
👁 :25
Professor Elisabeth Researcher of Ethiopian Modern Art
Catagory:News
Author:BBC
Posted Date:03/27/2025
Posted By:utopia online

If there were an Ethiopian research and development ship, its captain would be Professor Elisabeth Wolde Giorgis. Professor Elizabeth has made a name for herself in contemporary art and art criticism in Ethiopia. Many, including her friends and acquaintances, call Professor Elizabeth 'you', so let's continue with that. She challenged the traditional Ethiopian historiography, which she calls "based on a patriarchal, patriarchal, and hierarchical power relation" and which many accept without question or scrutiny. Since Professor Elizabeth came to the academy, Ethiopian studies and research, especially historiography, have been transformed. She has strived to include communities that have been hidden from history and historiography, a discipline that has focused on gender and politics. Her efforts have borne fruit. Prof. Elisabeth served as the Director of Ethiopian Studies and Research at Addis Ababa University from 1996 to 2002. She also served as Dean of the University's College of Arts for three years. She co-founded the first Gebre Kristos Desta Museum of Contemporary Art in Ethiopia and was its director. At this center, she has brought to the public the internationally recognized works of Ethiopian-born Julie Mehret and Danish Olafur Eliasson. In 2010, she joined the Africa Institute at the University of International Studies in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates, as an Ali Mazuri Fellow. She has since been instrumental in establishing the institution's postgraduate and doctoral programs. She served as the chair of the institute's Department of Anthropology and as a professor of art history, theory, and criticism. She was also an adjunct professor at Brown University and the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts, and a fellow at the Rockefeller Bellagio Center in Italy.Prof. Elizabeth, along with two other colleagues, published a book titled 'Ethiopia: Modern Nation–Ancient Roots' a few months ago. She also recently published a book titled 'The Darkness' by artist Henok Muqalazer. In 2005, she edited a book titled "What is 'Zemenawinet'? Perspective on Ethiopian Modernity." The book examines Ethiopian modernity through the lens of history, literature, architecture, and art. This Ethiopian scholar and researcher, a symbol of Ethiopian contemporary art criticism, passed away last weekend, March 7, 2017.


Type:Technology
👁 :310
Make today a masterpiece
Catagory:Reading
Author:Chandler, Steve.
Posted Date:03/25/2025
Posted By:utopia online

Most of us think our lives accumulate. We think they are adding up to something. We think of our lives as being strung together like a long smoky train, so that we can add new freight cars when we're feeling right, and dump the others on a siding somewhere when we're not. But when basketball legend John Wooden's father said to him, "Make each day your masterpiece," Wooden knew something profound: Life is now. Life is not later on. And the more we hypnotize ourselves into thinking we have all the time in the world to do what we want to do, the more we sleepwalk past life's finest opportunities. Self-motivation flows from the importance we attach to today. John Wooden was the most successful college basketball coach of all time. His UCLA teams won 10 national championships in a 12-year time span. Wooden created a major portion of his coaching and living philosophy from one thought—a single sentence passed on to him by his father when Wooden was a little boy— "Make each day your masterpiece." While other coaches would try to gear their players toward important games in the future, Wooden always focused on today. His practice sessions at UCLA were every bit as important as any championship game. In his philosophy, there was no reason not to make today the proudest day of your life. There was no reason not to play as hard in practice as you do in a game. He wanted every player to go to bed each night thinking, "Today I was at my best." Most of us, however, don't want it to be this way. If someone asks us if today can be used as a model to judge our entire life by, we would shriek, "On no! It isn't one of my better days. Give me a year or two and I'll live a day, I'm certain of it, that you can use to represent my life." The key to personal transformation is in your willingness to do very tiny things—but to do them today. Transformation is not an all-or-nothing game, it's a work in progress. A little touch here and a small touch there is what makes your day (and, therefore, your life) great. Today is a microcosm of your entire life. It is your whole life in miniature. You were "born" when you woke up, and you'll "die" when you go to sleep. It was designed this way, so that you could live your whole life in a day.


Type:Technology
👁 :255
The Dance of Death
Catagory:Fiction
Author:Joan Burroughs
Posted Date:03/25/2025
Posted By:utopia online

Through the luxuriant, tangled vegetation of the Stygian jungle night a great lithe body made its way sinuously and in utter silence upon its soft padded feet. Only two blazing points of yellow-green flame shone occasionally with the reflected light of the equatorial moon that now and again pierced the softly sighing roof rustling in the night wind. Occasionally the beast would stop with high-held nose, sniffing searchingly. At other times a quick, brief incursion into the branches above delayed it momentarily in its steady journey toward the east. To its sensitive nostrils came the subtle unseen spoor of many a tender four-footed creature, bringing the slaver of hunger to the cruel, drooping jowl. But steadfastly it kept on its way, strangely ignoring the cravings of appetite that at another time would have sent the rolling, fur-clad muscles flying at some soft throat. All that night the creature pursued its lonely way, and the next day it halted only to make a single kill, which it tore to fragments and devoured with sullen, grumbling rumbles as though half famished for lack of food. It was dusk when it approached the palisade that surrounded a large native village. Like the shadow of a swift and silent death it circled the village, nose to ground, halting at last close to the palisade, where it almost touched the backs of several huts. Here the beast sniffed for a moment, and then, turning its head upon one side, listened with up-pricked ears. What it heard was no sound by the standards of human ears, yet to the highly attuned and delicate organs of the beast a message seemed to be borne to the savage brain. A wondrous transformation was wrought in the motionless mass of statuesque bone and muscle that had an instant before stood as though carved out of the living bronze. As if it had been poised upon steel springs, suddenly released, it rose quickly and silently to the top of the palisade, disappearing, stealthily and cat-like, into the dark space between the wall and the back of an adjacent hut. In the village street beyond women were preparing many little fires and fetching cooking-pots filled with water, for a great feast was to be celebrated ere the night was many hours older. About a stout stake near the centre of the circling fires a little knot of black warriors stood conversing, their bodies smeared with white and blue and ochre in broad and grotesque bands. Great circles of colour were drawn about their eyes and lips, their breasts and abdomens, and from their clay-plastered coiffures rose gay feathers and bits of long, straight wire. The village was preparing for the feast, while in a hut at one side of the scene of the coming orgy the bound victim of their bestial appetites lay waiting for the end. And such an end! Tarzan of the Apes, tensing his mighty muscles, strained at the bonds that pinioned him; but they had been re-enforced many times at the instigation of the Russian, so that not even the ape-man’s giant brawn could budge them. Death! Tarzan had looked the Hideous Hunter in the face many a time, and smiled. And he would smile again tonight when he knew the end was coming quickly; but now his thoughts were not of himself, but of those others—the dear ones who must suffer most because of his passing. Jane would never know the manner of it. For that he thanked Heaven; and he was thankful also that she at least was safe in the heart of the world’s greatest city. Safe among kind and loving friends who would do their best to lighten her misery. But the boy! Tarzan writhed at the thought of him. His son! And now he—the mighty Lord of the Jungle—he, Tarzan, King of the Apes, the only one in all the world fitted to find and save the child from the horrors that Rokoff’s evil mind had planned—had been trapped like a silly, dumb creature. He was to die in a few hours, and with him would go the child’s last chance of succour. Rokoff had been in to see and revile and abuse him several times during the afternoon; but he had been able to wring no word of remonstrance or murmur of pain from the lips of the giant captive. So at last he had given up, reserving his particular bit of exquisite mental torture for the last moment, when, just before the savage spears of the cannibals should for ever make the object of his hatred immune to further suffering, the Russian planned to reveal to his enemy the true whereabouts of his wife whom he thought safe in England. Dusk had fallen upon the village, and the ape-man could hear the preparations going forward for the torture and the feast. The dance of death he could picture in his mind’s eye—for he had seen the thing many times in the past. Now he was to be the central figure, bound to the stake. The torture of the slow death as the circling warriors cut him to bits with the fiendish skill, that mutilated without bringing unconsciousness, had no terrors for him. He was inured to suffering and to the sight of blood and to cruel death; but the desire to live was no less strong within him, and until the last spark of life should flicker and go out, his whole being would remain quick with hope and determination. Let them relax their watchfulness but for an instant, he knew that his cunning mind and giant muscles would find a way to escape—escape and revenge. As he lay, thinking furiously on every possibility of self-salvation, there came to his sensitive nostrils a faint and a familiar scent. Instantly every faculty of his mind was upon the alert. Presently his trained ears caught the sound of the soundless presence without—behind the hut wherein he lay. His lips moved, and though no sound came forth that might have been appreciable to a human ear beyond the walls of his prison, yet he realized that the one beyond would hear. Already he knew who that one was, for his nostrils had told him as plainly as your eyes or mine tell us of the identity of an old friend whom we come upon in broad daylight. An instant later he heard the soft sound of a fur-clad body and padded feet scaling the outer wall behind the hut and then a tearing at the poles which formed the wall. Presently through the hole thus made slunk a great beast, pressing its cold muzzle close to his neck. It was Sheeta, the panther. The beast snuffed round the prostrate man, whining a little. There was a limit to the interchange of ideas which could take place between these two, and so Tarzan could not be sure that Sheeta understood all that he attempted to communicate to him. That the man was tied and helpless Sheeta could, of course, see; but that to the mind of the panther this would carry any suggestion of harm in so far as his master was concerned, Tarzan could not guess. What had brought the beast to him? The fact that he had come augured well for what he might accomplish; but when Tarzan tried to get Sheeta to gnaw his bonds asunder the great animal could not seem to understand what was expected of him, and, instead, but licked the wrists and arms of the prisoner. Presently there came an interruption. Some one was approaching the hut. Sheeta gave a low growl and slunk into the blackness of a far corner. Evidently the visitor did not hear the warning sound, for almost immediately he entered the hut—a tall, naked, savage warrior. He came to Tarzan’s side and pricked him with a spear. From the lips of the ape-man came a weird, uncanny sound, and in answer to it there leaped from the blackness of the hut’s farthermost corner a bolt of fur-clad death. Full upon the breast of the painted savage the great beast struck, burying sharp talons in the black flesh and sinking great yellow fangs in the ebon throat. There was a fearful scream of anguish and terror from the black, and mingled with it was the hideous challenge of the killing panther. Then came silence—silence except for the rending of bloody flesh and the crunching of human bones between mighty jaws. The noise had brought sudden quiet to the village without. Then there came the sound of voices in consultation. High-pitched, fear-filled voices, and deep, low tones of authority, as the chief spoke. Tarzan and the panther heard the approaching footsteps of many men, and then, to Tarzan’s surprise, the great cat rose from across the body of its kill, and slunk noiselessly from the hut through the aperture through which it had entered. The man heard the soft scraping of the body as it passed over the top of the palisade, and then silence. From the opposite side of the hut he heard the savages approaching to investigate. He had little hope that Sheeta would return, for had the great cat intended to defend him against all comers it would have remained by his side as it heard the approaching savages without. Tarzan knew how strange were the workings of the brains of the mighty carnivora of the jungle—how fiendishly fearless they might be in the face of certain death, and again how timid upon the slightest provocation. There was doubt in his mind that some note of the approaching blacks vibrating with fear had struck an answering chord in the nervous system of the panther, sending him slinking through the jungle, his tail between his legs. The man shrugged. Well, what of it? He had expected to die, and, after all, what might Sheeta have done for him other than to maul a couple of his enemies before a rifle in the hands of one of the whites should have dispatched him! If the cat could have released him! Ah! that would have resulted in a very different story; but it had proved beyond the understanding of Sheeta, and now the beast was gone and Tarzan must definitely abandon hope. The natives were at the entrance to the hut now, peering fearfully into the dark interior. Two in advance held lighted torches in their left hands and ready spears in their right. They held back timorously against those behind, who were pushing them forward. The shrieks of the panther’s victim, mingled with those of the great cat, had wrought mightily upon their poor nerves, and now the awful silence of the dark interior seemed even more terribly ominous than had the frightful screaming. Presently one of those who was being forced unwillingly within hit upon a happy scheme for learning first the precise nature of the danger which menaced him from the silent interior. With a quick movement he flung his lighted torch into the centre of the hut. Instantly all within was illuminated for a brief second before the burning brand was dashed out against the earth floor. There was the figure of the white prisoner still securely bound as they had last seen him, and in the centre of the hut another figure equally as motionless, its throat and breasts horribly torn and mangled. The sight that met the eyes of the foremost savages inspired more terror within their superstitious breasts than would the presence of Sheeta, for they saw only the result of a ferocious attack upon one of their fellows. Not seeing the cause, their fear-ridden minds were free to attribute the ghastly work to supernatural causes, and with the thought they turned, screaming, from the hut, bowling over those who stood directly behind them in the exuberance of their terror. For an hour Tarzan heard only the murmur of excited voices from the far end of the village. Evidently the savages were once more attempting to work up their flickering courage to a point that would permit them to make another invasion of the hut, for now and then came a savage yell, such as the warriors give to bolster up their bravery upon the field of battle. But in the end it was two of the whites who first entered, carrying torches and guns. Tarzan was not surprised to discover that neither of them was Rokoff. He would have wagered his soul that no power on earth could have tempted that great coward to face the unknown menace of the hut. When the natives saw that the white men were not attacked they, too, crowded into the interior, their voices hushed with terror as they looked upon the mutilated corpse of their comrade. The whites tried in vain to elicit an explanation from Tarzan; but to all their queries he but shook his head, a grim and knowing smile curving his lips. At last Rokoff came. His face grew very white as his eyes rested upon the bloody thing grinning up at him from the floor, the face set in a death mask of excruciating horror. “Come!” he said to the chief. “Let us get to work and finish this demon before he has an opportunity to repeat this thing upon more of your people.” The chief gave orders that Tarzan should be lifted and carried to the stake; but it was several minutes before he could prevail upon any of his men to touch the prisoner. At last, however, four of the younger warriors dragged Tarzan roughly from the hut, and once outside the pall of terror seemed lifted from the savage hearts. A score of howling blacks pushed and buffeted the prisoner down the village street and bound him to the post in the centre of the circle of little fires and boiling cooking-pots. When at last he was made fast and seemed quite helpless and beyond the faintest hope of succour, Rokoff’s shrivelled wart of courage swelled to its usual proportions when danger was not present. He stepped close to the ape-man, and, seizing a spear from the hands of one of the savages, was the first to prod the helpless victim. A little stream of blood trickled down the giant’s smooth skin from the wound in his side; but no murmur of pain passed his lips. The smile of contempt upon his face seemed to infuriate the Russian. With a volley of oaths he leaped at the helpless captive, beating him upon the face with his clenched fists and kicking him mercilessly about the legs. Then he raised the heavy spear to drive it through the mighty heart, and still Tarzan of the Apes smiled contemptuously upon him. Before Rokoff could drive the weapon home the chief sprang upon him and dragged him away from his intended victim. “Stop, white man!” he cried. “Rob us of this prisoner and our death-dance, and you yourself may have to take his place.” The threat proved most effective in keeping the Russian from further assaults upon the prisoner, though he continued to stand a little apart and hurl taunts at his enemy. He told Tarzan that he himself was going to eat the ape-man’s heart. He enlarged upon the horrors of the future life of Tarzan’s son, and intimated that his vengeance would reach as well to Jane Clayton. “You think your wife safe in England,” said Rokoff. “Poor fool! She is even now in the hands of one not even of decent birth, and far from the safety of London and the protection of her friends. I had not meant to tell you this until I could bring to you upon Jungle Island proof of her fate. “Now that you are about to die the most unthinkably horrid death that it is given a white man to die—let this word of the plight of your wife add to the torments that you must suffer before the last savage spear-thrust releases you from your torture.” The dance had commenced now, and the yells of the circling warriors drowned Rokoff’s further attempts to distress his victim. The leaping savages, the flickering firelight playing upon their painted bodies, circled about the victim at the stake. To Tarzan’s memory came a similar scene, when he had rescued D’Arnot from a like predicament at the last moment before the final spear-thrust should have ended his sufferings. Who was there now to rescue him? In all the world there was none able to save him from the torture and the death. The thought that these human fiends would devour him when the dance was done caused him not a single qualm of horror or disgust. It did not add to his sufferings as it would have to those of an ordinary white man, for all his life Tarzan had seen the beasts of the jungle devour the flesh of their kills. Had he not himself battled for the grisly forearm of a great ape at that long-gone Dum-Dum, when he had slain the fierce Tublat and won his niche in the respect of the Apes of Kerchak? The dancers were leaping more closely to him now. The spears were commencing to find his body in the first torturing pricks that prefaced the more serious thrusts. It would not be long now. The ape-man longed for the last savage lunge that would end his misery. And then, far out in the mazes of the weird jungle, rose a shrill scream. For an instant the dancers paused, and in the silence of the interval there rose from the lips of the fast-bound white man an answering shriek, more fearsome and more terrible than that of the jungle-beast that had roused it. For several minutes the blacks hesitated; then, at the urging of Rokoff and their chief, they leaped in to finish the dance and the victim; but ere ever another spear touched the brown hide a tawny streak of green-eyed hate and ferocity bounded from the door of the hut in which Tarzan had been imprisoned, and Sheeta, the panther, stood snarling beside his master. For an instant the blacks and the whites stood transfixed with terror. Their eyes were riveted upon the bared fangs of the jungle cat. Only Tarzan of the Apes saw what else there was emerging from the dark interior of the hut.


Type:Technology
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Paulo Coelho
Catagory:Biography
Author:-
Posted Date:03/25/2025
Posted By:utopia online

The most widely published Brazilian author of all time, Paulo Coelho has sold close to 100 million copies of his books and has also been a theater director, an actor, a songwriter, and a journalist. When Paulo Coelho told his parents he wanted to be a writer, they thought he was crazy - literally. The Brazilian teenager’s parents had him committed to an insane asylum! Paulo escaped three times before he was finally released and ready to follow a more normal path through life. He then enrolled in law school, as his parents desired. But his creative instinct was too strong to be locked away, either behind bars or inside his own life. He had to break free. So Paulo dropped out of school, became a hippie, and traveled around Brazil looking for his inspiration. He found it through music and started writing amazing, strange, and wonderful songs. Soon, Paulo Coelho’s work was being recorded by some of the biggest singing stars in Brazil. Unfortunately, the oppressive military government at that time thought his songs were too subversive because they talked about freedom and defying authority. Coelho was arrested and tortured for his beliefs. However, nothing would stop him from using his creative powers. Years after his release, Coelho went for a walk - a 500-mile walk along a road in northern Spain.He used the time to reflect on his life, and he came to the realization that he still wanted to be a writer. So even though he was now middle-aged, Paulo Coelho started on a new career as a novelist. His first two books went nowhere, but his third book, The Alchemist, made world history. It has sold more than sixty million copies (one of the bestselling books ever written), and holds the world record for being translated into more languages - seventy-one - than any other book by a living author. Since then, Coelho has written more than two dozen books, sharing his unique world view with readers everywhere. He has also been a pioneer of sharing his work for free - his publisher once caught him pirating his own books online. His greatest life lesson, he says, has been to never surrender your dreams or give up on making them come true. “The secret to life,” according to Coelho, “is to fall down seven times, but to get back up eight times.” Paulo Coelho is also an outspoken activist for peace and social justice. He is a Messenger of Peace for the UN, an Ambassador to the European Union for Intercultural Dialogue, and a member of many other organizations that advocate for peace.


Type:Technology
👁 :38
SUNRISE
Catagory:Phoeme
Author:CHARLES TENNYSON TURNER.
Posted Date:03/24/2025
Posted By:utopia online

As on my bed at dawn I mused and prayed, I saw my lattice prankt upon the wall, The flaunting leaves and flitting birds withal— A sunny phantom interlaced with shade; "Thanks be to Heaven," in happy mood I said, "What sweeter aid my matins could befall Than this fair glory from the east hath made? What holy sleights hath God, the Lord of all, To bid us feel and see! We are not free To say we see not, for the glory comes Nightly and daily, like the flowing sea; His lustre pierces through the midnight glooms, And at prime hours, behold! he follows me With golden shadows to my secret rooms."  Philip II of Spain moved the capital of his nation from Valladolid to Madrid in 1561.  Prior to a 1968 ruling, flight attendants could be terminated if they got married or reached the age of 32 or 35 depending on the airline.  Geologists discovered that much of sand in the Grand Canyon actually originated in the Appalachian Mountains.


Type:Technology
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