teeth, leaped for the nearest of the lower branches that swung
above his head.

With both hands he grasped the limb, and, at the instant that Numa
sprang, drew himself and his prey out of reach of the animal's
cruel talons.

There was a thud below him as the baffled cat fell back to earth,
and then Tarzan of the Apes, drawing his dinner farther up to the
safety of a higher limb, looked down with grinning face into the
gleaming yellow eyes of the other wild beast that glared up at him
from beneath, and with taunting insults flaunted the tender carcass
of his kill in the face of him whom he had cheated of it.

With his crude stone knife he cut a juicy steak from the hindquarters,
and while the great lion paced, growling, back and forth below him,
Lord Greystoke filled his savage belly, nor ever in the choicest
of his exclusive London clubs had a meal tasted more palatable.

The warm blood of his kill smeared his hands and face and filled
his nostrils with the scent that the savage carnivora love best.

And when he had finished he left the balance of the carcass in
a high fork of the tree where he had dined, and with Numa trailing
below him, still keen for revenge, he made his way back to his tree-top
shelter, where he slept until the sun was high the following morning.