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low growl of warning rumbled from his throat and Sheeta halted with one paw

upon Tarzan's back and turned suddenly to eye the intruder.

What passed within those savage brains? Who may say? The panther seemed

debating the wisdom of defending his find, for he growled horribly as though

warning Numa away from the prey. And Numa? Was the idea of property rights

dominating his thoughts? The Tarmangani was his, or he was the Tarmangani's.

Had not the Great White Ape mastered and subdued him and, too, had he not fed

him? Numa recalled the fear that he had felt of this man-thing and his cruel

spear; but in savage brains fear is more likely to engender respect than hatred

and so Numa found that he respected the creature who had subdued and

mastered him. He saw Sheeta, upon whom he looked with contempt, daring to

molest the master of the lion. Jealousy and greed alone might have been

sufficient to prompt Numa to drive Sheeta away, even though the lion was not

sufficiently hungry to devour the flesh that he thus wrested from the lesser cat;

but then, too, there was in the little brain within the massive head a sense of

loyalty, and perhaps this it was that sent Numa quickly forward, growling, toward

the spitting Sheeta.

For a moment the latter stood his ground with arched back and snarling face, for

all the world like a great, spotted tabby.

Numa had not felt like fighting; but the sight of Sheeta daring to dispute his

rights kindled his ferocious brain to sudden fire. His rounded eyes glared with

rage, his undulating tail snapped to stiff erectness as, with a frightful roar, he

charged this presuming vassal.

It came so suddenly and from so short a distance that Sheeta had no chance to

turn and flee the rush, and so he met it with raking talons and snapping jaws;

but the odds were all against him. To the larger fangs and the more powerful jaws

of his adversary were added huge talons and the preponderance of the lion's great

weight. At the first clash Sheeta was crushed and, though he deliberately fell

upon his back and drew up his powerful hind legs beneath Numa with the

intention of disemboweling him, the lion forestalled him and at the same time

closed his awful jaws upon Sheeta's throat.

It was soon over. Numa rose, shaking himself, and stood above the torn and

mutilated body of his foe. His own sleek coat was cut and the red blood trickled

down his flank; though it was but a minor injury, it angered him. He glared down

at the dead panther and then, in a fit of rage, he seized and mauled the body only

to drop it in a moment, lower his head, voice a single terrific roar, and turn

toward the ape-man.

Tarzan the Untamed