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But even as he turned the matter over in his mind Numa turned suddenly and

walked majestically toward the tunnel without even a backward glance. The

instant that he disappeared, Tarzan dropped lightly to the ground upon the far

side of the tree and was away at top speed for the cliff. The lion had no sooner

entered the tunnel than he backed immediately out again and, pivoting like a

flash, was off across the gulch in full charge after the flying ape-man; but

Tarzan's lead was too great--if he could find finger or foothold upon the sheer wall

he would be safe; but should he slip from the wet rocks his doom was already

sealed as he would fall directly into Numa's clutches where even the Great

Tarmangani would be helpless.

With the agility of a cat Tarzan ran up the cliff for thirty feet before he paused,

and there finding a secure foothold, he stopped and looked down upon Numa who

was leaping upward in a wild and futile attempt to scale the rocky wall to his

prey. Fifteen or twenty feet from the ground the lion would scramble only to fall

backward again defeated. Tarzan eyed him for a moment and then commenced a

slow and cautious ascent toward the summit. Several times he had difficulty in

finding holds but at last he drew himself over the edge, rose, picked up a bit of

loose rock, hurled it at Numa and strode away.

Finding an easy descent to the gorge, he was about to pursue his journey in the

direction of the still-booming guns when a sudden thought caused him to halt

and a half-smile to play about his lips. Turning, he trotted quickly back to the

outer opening of Numa's tunnel. Close beside it he listened for a moment and

then rapidly began to gather large rocks and pile them within the entrance. He

had almost closed the aperture when the lion appeared upon the inside--a very

ferocious and angry lion that pawed and clawed at the rocks and uttered mighty

roars that caused the earth to tremble; but roars did not frighten Tarzan of the

Apes. At Kala's shaggy breast he had closed his infant eyes in sleep upon

countless nights in years gone by to the savage chorus of similar roars. Scarcely a

day or night of his jungle life--and practically all his life had been spent in the

jungle--had he not heard the roaring of hungry lions, or angry lions, or love-sick

lions. Such sounds affected Tarzan as the tooting of an automobile horn may

affect you--if you are in front of the automobile it warns you out of the way, if you

are not in front of it you scarcely notice it. Figuratively Tarzan was not in front of

the automobile--Numa could not reach him and Tarzan knew it, so he continued

deliberately to choke the entrance until there was no possibility of Numa's getting

out again. When he was quite through he made a grimace at the hidden lion

beyond the barrier and resumed his way toward the east. "A man-eater who will

eat no more men," he soliloquized.

Tarzan the Untamed