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Tarzan of the Apes smiled. As unmistakably as though a human voice had

spoken, the lion had said to him "I am hungry, even more than hungry. I am

starving," and the ape-man looked down upon the lion beneath him and smiled, a

slow quizzical smile, and then he shifted the carcass from his shoulder to the

branch before him and, drawing the long blade that had been his father's, deftly

cut off a hind quarter and, wiping the bloody blade upon Bara's smooth coat, he

returned it to its scabbard. Numa, with watering jaws, looked up at the tempting

meat and whined again and the ape-man smiled down upon him his slow smile

and, raising the hind quarter in his strong brown hands buried his teeth in the

tender, juicy flesh.

For the third time Numa, the lion, uttered that low pleading whine and then, with

a rueful and disgusted shake of his head, Tarzan of the Apes raised the balance

of the carcass of Bara, the deer, and hurled it to the famished beast below.

Old woman," muttered the ape-man. "Tarzan has become a weak old woman.

Presently he would shed tears because he has killed Bara, the deer. He cannot

see Numa, his enemy, go hungry, because Tarzan's heart is turning to water by

contact with the soft, weak creatures of civilization." But yet he smiled, nor was

he sorry that he had given way to the dictates of a kindly impulse.

As Tarzan tore the flesh from that portion of the kill he had retained for himself

his eyes were taking in each detail of the scene below. He saw the avidity with

which Numa devoured the carcass; he noted with growing admiration the finer

points of the beast, and also the cunning construction of the trap. The ordinary

lion pit with which Tarzan was familiar had stakes imbedded in the bottom, upon

whose sharpened points the hapless lion would be impaled, but this pit was not

so made. Here the short stakes were set at intervals of about a foot around the

walls near the top, their sharpened points inclining downward so that the lion

had fallen unhurt into the trap but could not leap out because each time he

essayed it his head came in contact with the sharp end of a stake above him.

Evidently, then, the purpose of the Wamabos was to capture a lion alive. As this

tribe had no contact whatsoever with white men in so far as Tarzan knew, their

motive was doubtless due to a desire to torture the beast to death that they might

enjoy to the utmost his dying agonies.

Having fed the lion, it presently occurred to Tarzan that his act would be futile

were he to leave the beast to the mercies of the blacks, and then too it occurred to

him that he could derive more pleasure through causing the blacks discomfiture

than by leaving Numa to his fate. But how was he to release him? By removing

two stakes there would be left plenty of room for the lion to leap from the pit,

which was not of any great depth. However, what assurance had Tarzan that

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Tarzan the Untamed