"Now I am doubly sorry that I must die," said Gemnon.
"Why more so than before?" asked Thudos.
"I shall never have the opportunity to tell the story of Xerstle's grand hunt," he explained. "What a story that would make!"
The morning dawned bright and beautiful, just as though there was no misery or sorrow or cruelty in the world, but it did not change matters at all, other than to make the cell in which the three men were confined uncomfortably warm as the day progressed.
Shortly after noon a guard came and took Tarzan away. All three of the prisoners were acquainted with the officer who commanded it, a decent fellow who spoke sympathetically to them. "Is he coming back?" asked Thudos, nodding toward Tarzan.
The officer shook his head. "No. The queen hunts today."
Thudos and Gemnon pressed the ape-man's shoulder.
No word was spoken, but that wordless farewell was more eloquent than words. They saw him go out, saw the door close behind him, but neither spoke, and so they sat for a long hour in silence.
In the guardroom, to which he had been conducted from his cell, Tarzan was heavily chained. A golden collar was placed about his neck, and a chain reaching from each side of it was held in the hands of a warrior.
"Why all the precautions?" demanded the ape-man.
"It is merely a custom," explained the officer. "It is always thus that the queen's quarry is led to the Field of the Lions."
Once again Tarzan of the Apes walked near the chariot of the queen of Cathne, but this time he walked behind it, a chained prisoner between two stalwart warriors and surrounded by a score of others. Once again he crossed the bridge of gold out onto the Field of the Lions in the valley of Onthar.
The procession did not go far, scarcely more than a mile from the city. With scowling brows Nemone sat brooding in her chariot as it stopped at last at the point she had selected for the start of the hunt. She ordered the guard to fetch the prisoner to her. She was looking straight ahead as the ape-man halted by the wheel of her chariot.
"Send all away except the two warriors who hold him," commanded Nemone.
"You may send them, too, if you wish," said Tarzan. "I give you my word not to harm you or try to escape while they are away.
Nemone, still looking straight ahead, was silent for a moment; then, "You may all go. I would speak with the prisoner alone."
When the guard had departed a number of paces, the queen turned her eyes toward Tarzan and found his smiling into her own. "You are going to be very happy, Nemone," he said in an easy, friendly voice.
"What do you mean?" she asked. "How am I going to be happy?"
"You are going to see me die, that is if the lion catches me," he laughed.
"You think that will give me pleasure? Well, I thought so myself, but now I am wondering if it will. Nothing in life is ever what I hope for."
"Possibly you don't hope for the right things," he suggested. "Did you ever try hoping for something that would bring pleasure and happiness to someone beside yourself?"
"Why should I?" she asked. "I hope for my own happiness; let others do the same. I strive for my own happiness—"
"And never have any," interrupted the ape-man good-naturedly.
"Probably I should have less if I strove only for the happiness of others," she insisted.
"There are people like that," he assented. "Perhaps you are one of them, so you might as well go on striving for happiness in your own way. Of course you won't get it, but you will at least have the pleasures of anticipation, and that is something."
"I think I know myself and my own affairs well enough to determine for myself how to conduct my life," she said with a note of asperity in her voice.
Tarzan shrugged. "It was not in my thoughts to interfere," he said. "If you are determined to kill me and are quite sure that you will derive pleasure from it, why, I should be the last in the world to suggest that you abandon the idea."
"You do not amuse me," said Nemone haughtily. "I do not care for irony that is aimed at myself." She turned fiercely on him. "Men have died for less!" she cried, and the Lord of the Jungle laughed in her face.
"How many times?" he asked.
"A moment ago," said Nemone, "I was beginning to regret the thing that is about to happen. Had you been different, I might have relented and returned you to favor, but you do everything to antagonize me. You affront me, you insult me, you laugh at me." Her voice was rising, a barometric indication, Tarzan had learned, of her mental state.
"You will go on killing people and being unhappy until it is your turn to be killed," Tarzan said.
She shuddered. "Killed!" she repeated. "Yes, they are all killed, the kings and queens of Cathne. But it is not my turn yet. While Belthar lives, Nemone lives."
She was silent for a moment. "You may live, too, Tarzan, if you kneel here, before my people, and beg for mercy. "Bring on your lion," said Tarzan. "His mercy might be kinder than Nemone's."
"You refuse?" she demanded angrily. "You would kill me eventually," he replied. "There is a chance the lion may not be able to."
"Not a chance!" she said. "Have you seen the lion?"
"No."
Nemone turned and called a noble. "Have the hunting lion brought to scent the quarry!"
Behind them there was a scattering of troops and nobles as they made an avenue for the hunting lion and his keepers, and along the avenue Tarzan saw a great lion straining at the golden leashes to which eight men clung. Growling and roaring, the beast sprang from side to side in an effort to seize a keeper or lay hold upon one of the warriors or nobles that lined the way; so that it was all that four stalwart men on either side of him could do to prevent his accomplishing his design.
He was still afar when Tarzan saw the tuft of white hair in the center of his mane between his ears. It was Belthar!
Nemone was eying the man at her side as a cat might eye a mouse, but though the lion was close now she saw no change in the expression on Tarzan's face. "Do you not recognize him?" she demanded.
"Of course I do," he replied.
"And you are not afraid?"
"Of what?" he asked, looking at her wonderingly.
She stamped her foot in anger, thinking that he was trying to rob her of the satisfaction of witnessing his terror, for how could she know that Tarzan of the Apes could not understand the meaning of fear? "Prepare for the grand hunt!" she commanded, turning to a noble standing with the guard.
The warriors who had held Tarzan in leash ran forward and picked up the golden chains that were attached to the golden collar about his neck, the guards took posts about the chariot of the queen, and Tarzan was led a few yards in advance of it. Then the keepers brought Belthar closer to him, holding him just out of reach but only with difficulty, for when the irascible beast recognized the ape-man he flew into a frenzy of rage that taxed the eight men to hold him at all.
A noble approached Tarzan. He was Phordos, the father of Gemnon, hereditary captain of the hunt for the rulers of Cathne. He came quite close to Tarzan and spoke to him in a low whisper. "I am sorry that I must have a part in this," he said, "but my office requires it." And then aloud, "In the name of the queen, silence! These are the rules of the grand hunt of Nemone, queen of Cathne: the quarry shall move north down the center of the lane of warriors; when he has proceeded a hundred paces the keepers shall unleash the hunting lion, Belthar. Let no man distract the lion from the chase or aid the quarry, under penalty of death."
"What if I elude him and escape?" demanded the ape-man. "Shall I have my freedom then?"
Phordos shook his head sadly. "You will not escape him," he said. Then he turned toward the queen and knelt. "Allis in readiness, your majesty. Shall the hunt commence?"