Flinging it far to one side he stood motionless for just an instant glaring into my face with such a horrid leer of malignant triumph as to almost unnerve me—­then he sprang for me with his bare hands.  But it was Jubal’s day to learn new methods of warfare.  For the first time he had seen a bow and arrows, never before that duel had he beheld a sword, and now he learned what a man who knows may do with his bare fists.

As he came for me, like a great bear, I ducked again beneath his outstretched arm, and as I came up planted as clean a blow upon his jaw as ever you have seen.  Down went that great mountain of flesh sprawling upon the ground.  He was so surprised and dazed that he lay there for several seconds before he made any attempt to rise, and I stood over him with another dose ready when he should gain his knees.

Up he came at last, almost roaring in his rage and mortification; but he didn’t stay up—­I let him have a left fair on the point of the jaw that sent him tumbling over on his back.  By this time I think Jubal had gone mad with hate, for no sane man would have come back for more as many times as he did.  Time after time I bowled him over as fast as he could stagger up, until toward the last he lay longer on the ground between blows, and each time came up weaker than before.

He was bleeding very profusely now from the wound in his lungs, and presently a terrific blow over the heart sent him reeling heavily to the ground, where he lay very still, and somehow I knew at once that Jubal the Ugly One would never get up again.  But even as I looked upon that massive body lying there so grim and terrible in death, I could not believe that I, single-handed, had bested this slayer of fearful beasts—­this gigantic ogre of the Stone Age.

Picking up my sword I leaned upon it, looking down on the dead body of my foeman, and as I thought of the battle I had just fought and won a great idea was born in my brain—­the outcome of this and the suggestion that Perry had made within the city of Phutra.  If skill and science could render a comparative pygmy the master of this mighty brute, what could not the brute’s fellows accomplish with the same skill and science.  Why all Pellucidar would be at their feet—­and I would be their king and Dian their queen.

Dian!  A little wave of doubt swept over me.  It was quite within the possibilities of Dian to look down upon me even were I king.  She was quite the most superior person I ever had met—­with the most convincing way of letting you know that she was superior.  Well, I could go to the cave, and tell her that I had killed Jubal, and then she might feel more kindly toward me, since I had freed her of her tormentor.  I hoped that she had found the cave easily—­it would be terrible had I lost her again, and I turned to gather up my shield and bow to hurry after her, when to my astonishment I found her standing not ten paces behind me.