Even as his eyes opened and took in the scene beneath him--even in
that brief instant of perception, followed reason, judgment, and
decision, so rapidly one upon the heels of the other that almost
simultaneously the ape-man was in mid-air, for he had seen a
white-skinned creature cast in a mold similar to his own, pursued
by Tarzan's hereditary enemy. So close was the lion to the fleeing
man-thing that Tarzan had no time carefully to choose the method
of his attack. As a diver leaps from the springboard headforemost
into the waters beneath, so Tarzan of the Apes dove straight for
Numa, the lion; naked in his right hand the blade of his father
that so many times before had tasted the blood of lions.

A raking talon caught Tarzan on the side, inflicting a long, deep
wound and then the ape-man was on Numa's back and the blade was
sinking again and again into the savage side. Nor was the man-thing
either longer fleeing, or idle. He too, creature of the wild, had
sensed on the instant the truth of the miracle of his saving, and
turning in his tracks, had leaped forward with raised bludgeon to
Tarzan's assistance and Numa's undoing. A single terrific blow upon
the flattened skull of the beast laid him insensible and then as
Tarzan's knife found the wild heart a few convulsive shudders and
a sudden relaxation marked the passing of the carnivore.

Leaping to his feet the ape-man placed his foot upon the carcass
of his kill and, raising his face to Goro, the moon, voiced the
savage victory cry that had so often awakened the echoes of his
native jungle.

As the hideous scream burst from the ape-man's lips the man-thing
stepped quickly back as in sudden awe, but when Tarzan returned his