tediousness.

But I had more to learn yet. The male tiger, either taught by
his own devilishness, or by those brutes that were his keepers, had
still another ruse in store. He rose to his feet and turned round,
backing against the chain. A yell of applause from the hidden men
behind the arrow-slits told that they knew what was in store; and
then the monstrous beast, stretched to the utmost of its vast
length, kicked sharply with one hind paw.

I heard the crunch of the prisoner's ribs as the pads struck
him, and at that same moment the poor wretch's body was spurned
away by the blow, as one might throw a fruit with the hand. But it
did not travel far. It was clear that the she-tiger knew this
manoeuvre of her mate's. She caught the man on his bound, nuzzling
over him for a minute, and then tossing him high into the air, and
leaping up to the full of her splendid height after him.

Those other onlookers thought it magnificent; their gleeful
shouts said as much. But for me, my gorge rose at the sight. Once
the tigers had reached him, the man had been killed, it is true,
without any unnecessary lingering. Even a light blow from those
terrific paws would slay the strongest man living. But to see the
two cave-tigers toying with the poor body was an insult to the
pride of our race.

However, I was not there to preach the superiority of man to
the beasts, and the indecency and degradation of permitting man to
be unduly insulted. I had come to learn for myself the new balance
of things in the kingdom of Atlantis, and so I stood at my place