"Let the lion scent the quarry once more; then the hunt may start," she directed.
The keepers let Belthar move a little closer to the ape-man.
Nemone leaned forward eagerly, staring at the savage beast that was the pride of her stable; the light of insanity gleamed in her eyes now. "It is enough!" she cried.
In a hollow near the river that runs past Cathne a lion lay asleep in dense brush, a mighty beast with a yellow coat and a great black mane. Strange sounds coming to him from the plain disturbed him and he rumbled complainingly in his throat, but as yet he seemed only half awake.
His eyes were closed, but his half wakefulness was only seeming. Numa was awake, but he wanted to sleep and was angry with the men-things that were disturbing him. They were not too close as yet, but he knew that if they came closer he would have to get up and investigate. and that he did not want to do. He felt very lazy.
Out on the field Tarzan was striding along the spear bound lane. He counted his steps, knowing that at the hundredth Belthar would be loosed upon him. The ape-man had a plan. Across the river to the east was the forest in which he had hunted with Xerstle and Pindes and Gemnon; could he reach it, he would be safe. No lion or no man could hope ever to overtake the Lord of the Jungle once he swung to the branches of those towering old trees.
But could he reach the wood before Belthar overtook him? Tarzan was swift, but there are few creatures as swift as Numa at the height of his charge. With a start of a hundred paces, the ape-man felt that he might outdistance an ordinary lion, but Belthar was no ordinary lion.
At the hundredth pace Tarzan leaped forward at top speed. Behind him he heard the frenzied roar of the hunting lion as his leashes were slipped and, mingling with it, the roar of the crowd.
Smoothly and low ran Belthar, the hunting lion, swiftly closing up the distance that separated him from the quarry. He looked neither to right nor to left; his fierce, blazing eyes remained fixed upon the fleeing man ahead.
Belthar was gaining on the quarry when Tarzan turned suddenly to the east toward the river after he had passed the end of the gauntlet that had held him to a straight path at the beginning of his flight.
A scream of rage burst from the lips of Nemone as she saw and realized the purpose of the quarry. A sullen roar rose from the pursuing crowd. They had not thought that the hunted man had a chance, but now they understood that he might yet reach the river and the forest.
Tarzan, glancing back over a bronzed shoulder, realized that the end was near. The river was still two hundred yards away and the lion, steadily gaining on him, but fifty.
Then the ape-man turned and waited. He stood at ease, his arms hanging at his side, but he was alert and ready.
He knew precisely what Belthar would do, and he knew what he would do. No amount of training would have changed the lion's instinctive method of attack. He would rush at Tarzan, rear upon his hind feet when close, seize him with his taloned paws and drive his great fangs through his head or neck or shoulder. Then he would drag him down.
But Tarzan had met the charge of lions before. It would not be quite as easy for Belthar as Belthar and the screaming audience believed, yet the ape-man guessed that, without a knife, he could do no more than delay the inevitable. He would die fighting, however, and now, as Belthar charged growling upon him, he crouched slightly and answered the roaring challenge of the carnivore with a roar as savage as the lion's.
Suddenly he detected a new note in the voice of the crowd, a note of surprise and consternation. Belthar was almost upon him as a tawny body streaked past the ape-man, brushing his leg as it came from behind him, and, as Belthar rose upon his hind feet, fell upon him, a fury of talons and gleaming fangs, a great lion with a golden coat and a black mane—a mighty engine of rage and destruction.
Roaring and growling, the two great beasts rolled upon The ground as they tore at one another with teeth and claws while the astounded ape-man looked on and the chariot of the queen approached, and the breathless crowd pressed forward.
The strange lion was larger than Belthar and more powerful, a giant of a lion in the full prime of his strength and ferocity. Presently Belthar gave him an opening, and his great jaws closed upon the throat of the hunting lion of Nemone, jaws that drove mighty fangs through the thick mane of his adversary, through hide and flesh deep into the jugular of Belthar. Then he braced his feet and shook Belthar as a cat might shake a mouse.
Dropping Belthar to the ground, the victor faced the astonished Cathneans with snarling face. Then he slowly backed to where the ape- man stood and stopped beside him and Tarzan laid his hand upon the black mane of Jad-bal-ja, the Golden Lion.
For a long moment there was unbroken silence as the two faced the enemies of the Lord of the Jungle, and the awed Cathneans only stood and stared; then a woman s voice rose in a weird scream. It was Nemone. Slowly she stepped from her golden car and amidst utter silence walked toward the dead Belthar while her people watched her, motionless and wondering.
She stopped with her sandaled feet touching the bloody mane of the hunting lion and gazed down upon the dead carnivore.
"Belthar is dead!" she screamed, and whipping her dagger from its sheath drove its glittering point deep into her own heart.
As the moon rose, Tarzan placed a final rock upon a mound of earth beside the river that runs to Cathne through the valley of Onthar.
The warriors and the nobles and the people had followed Phordos to the city to empty the dungeons of Nemone and proclaim Alextar king, leaving their dead queen lying at the edge of the Field of the Lions with the dead Belthar.
The human service they had neglected, the beast-man had performed, and now beneath the soft radiance of an African moon he stood with bowed head beside the grave of a woman who had found happiness at last.
THE END
EDGAR RICE BURROUGHS TARZAN AND THE LION MAN BOOK 17 IN THE TARZAN SERIES Serialized in Liberty Magazine, November 11, 1933—January 6, 1934
First Book Edition—Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc., September 1934
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter 1. In Conference
Chapter 2. Mud
Chapter 3. Poisoned Arrows
Chapter 4. Dissension
Chapter 5. Death
Chapter 6. Remorse
Chapter 7. Disaster
Chapter 8. The Coward
Chapter 9. Treachery
Chapter 10. Torture
Chapter 11. The Last Victim
Chapter 12. The Map
Chapter 13. A Ghost