It
was his intention to flee through the shallow ford and escape upon
the opposite side of the river.
Not a hundred yards behind him came Numa.
Tarzan could see him quite plainly now. Below the ape-man Bara
was about to pass. Could he do it? But even as he asked himself
the question the hungry man launched himself from his perch full
upon the back of the startled buck.
In another instant Numa would be upon them both, so if the ape-man
were to dine that night, or ever again, he must act quickly.
Scarcely had he touched the sleek hide of the deer with a momentum
that sent the animal to its knees than he had grasped a horn in
either hand, and with a single quick wrench twisted the animal's
neck completely round, until he felt the vertebrae snap beneath
his grip.
The lion was roaring in rage close behind him as he swung the deer
across his shoulder, and, grasping a foreleg between his strong
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.
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