stealthy

Every sense alert, the bronzed giant clutched his weapons and studied the golden vista before him. Ahead, the trail dipped into a stony declivity, and the sounds that would normally ricochet between the trees were blocked by cracked granite outcroppings.
Moving down a worn jungle trail, elephants stepping carefully to avoid gnarled surface roots and fallen jungle vines, the pachyderm train prepared to descend into the sun-infused depression.
Tarzan’s eyes were scanning the trees, for they should have been full of birds and climbing monkeys, but they were barren of all life—except drowsing insects. The hum and drone of the latter seemed hushed, but that might have been mere imagination creating that uneasy impression.
It was rare when Tarzan of the Apes was caught by surprise in his own element. He could smell a lion crouched in a thicket, preparing to spring. A panther in a high tree limb emits a telltale warning growl before he springs. Even a poisonous viper will rustle vegetation as it moves otherwise silently in for the kill.
The wary ape-man was studying the high jungle terraces ahead, thinking that he might stand up and take to them, in order to achieve a better vantage point, when suddenly something massive shoved up in his path, blocking the way.
The creature appeared with such startling silence that when Tarzan’s grey eyes fell upon it, astonishment caused them to widen sharply. It seemed to take a fraction of a second longer to absorb the overwhelming vision before the ape-man reacted.
This was Zu-jar-bolgani, whom the apes of To-yat called Go-pand-usen. His huge leathery hands seized an outcropping on either side of the jungle declivity entrance, as if to bar the way. His mouth hung open, and the fangs that shone within them were prodigious.


King Kong vs Tarzan, Chapter 63