As the girl turned to bid them good night, she thought thatshe saw a shadowy form moving in the darkness beyondthem, and almost simultaneously she was sure that sheheard the sounds of stealthy movement in the same direction.

"What is that?" she whispered. "There is something outthere in the darkness."

"Yes," replied Tarzan, "it is a lion. It has been there forsome time. Hadn't you noticed it before?"

"Oh!" cried the girl, breathing a sigh of relief, "is it ourlion?"

"No," said Tarzan, "it is not our lion; it is another lion andhe is hunting."

"He is stalking us?" asked the girl.

"He is," replied the ape-man. Smith-Oldwick fingered thegrip of his pistol.

Tarzan saw the involuntary movement and shook his head.

"Leave that thing where it is, Lieutenant," he said.

The officer laughed nervously. "I couldn't help it, you know,old man," he said; "instinct of self-preservation and all that."

"It would prove an instinct of self-destruction," said Tarzan."There are at least three hunting lions out there watching us.If we had a fire or the moon were up you would see their eyesplainly. Presently they may come after us but the chances arethat they will not. If you are very anxious that they should,fire your pistol and hit one of them."

"What if they do charge?" asked the girl; "there is no meansof escape."

"Why, we should have to fight them," replied Tarzan.

"What chance would we three have against them?" askedthe girl.

The ape-man shrugged his shoulders. "One must die some-time," he said. "To you doubtless it may seem terrible -- sucha death; but Tarzan of the Apes has always expected to go outin some such way. Few of us die of old age in the jungle, norshould I care to die thus. Some day Numa will get me, orSheeta, or a black warrior. These or some of the others. Whatdifference does it make which it is, or whether it comes tonightor next year or in ten years? After it is over it will be all thesame."

The girl shuddered. "Yes," she said in a dull, hopeless voice,"after it is over it will be all the same."

Then she went into the cavern and lay down upon the sand.Smith-Oldwick sat in the entrance and leaned against the cliff.Tarzan squatted on the opposite side.

"May I smoke?" questioned the officer of Tarzan. "I havebeen hoarding a few cigarettes and if it won't attract thosebouncers out there I would like to have one last smoke beforeI cash in. Will you join me?" and he proffered the ape-man acigarette.

"No, thanks," said Tarzan, "but it will be all right if yousmoke. No wild animal is particularly fond of the fumes oftobacco so it certainly won't entice them any closer."

Smith-Oldwick lighted his cigarette and sat puffing slowlyupon it. He had proffered one to the girl but she had refused,and thus they sat in silence for some time, the silence of thenight ruffled occasionally by the faint crunching of paddedfeet upon the soft sands of the gorge's floor.

It was Smith-Oldwick who broke the silence. "Aren't theyunusually quiet for lions?" he asked.

"No," replied the ape-man; "the lion that goes roaringaround the jungle does not do it to attract prey. They are veryquiet when they are stalking their quarry."

"I wish they would roar," said the officer. "I wish theywould do anything, even charge. Just knowing that they arethere and occasionally seeing something like a shadow in thedarkness and the faint sounds that come to us from them aregetting on my nerves. But I hope," he said, "that all threedon't charge at once."

"Three?" said Tarzan. "There are seven of them out therenow."

"Good Lord! exclaimed Smith-Oldwick.

"Couldn't we build a fire," asked the girl, "and frighten themaway?"

"I don't know that it would do any good," said Tarzan, "asI have an idea that these lions are a little different from anythat we are familiar with and possibly for the same reasonwhich at first puzzled me a little -- I refer to the apparentdocility in the presence of a man of the lion who was with ustoday. A man is out there now with those lions."

"It is impossible!" exclaimed Smith-Oldwick. "They wouldtear him to pieces."

"What makes you think there is a man there?" asked thegirl.

Tarzan smiled and shook his head. "I am afraid you wouldnot understand," he replied. "It is difficult for us to under-stand anything that is beyond our own powers."

"What do you mean by that?" asked the officer.

"Well," said Tarzan, "if you had been born without eyes youcould not understand sense impressions that the eyes of otherstransmit to their brains, and as you have both been born with-out any sense of smell I am afraid you cannot understand howI can know that there is a man there."

"You mean that you scent a man?" asked the girl.

Tarzan nodded affirmatively.

"And in the same way you know the number of lions?"asked the man.

"Yes," said Tarzan. "No two lions look alike, no two havethe same scent."

The young Englishman shook his head. "No," he said, "Icannot understand."

"I doubt if the lions or the man are here necessarily for thepurpose of harming us," said Tarzan, "because there has beennothing to prevent their doing so long before had they wishedto. I have a theory, but it is utterly preposterous."

"What is it?" asked the girl.

"I think they are here," replied Tarzan, "to prevent us fromgoing some place that they do not wish us to go; in otherwords we are under surveillance, and possibly as long as wedon't go where we are not wanted we shall not be bothered."

"But how are we to know where they don't want us to go?"asked Smith-Oldwick.

"We can't know," replied Tarzan, "and the chances are thatthe very place we are seeking is the place they don't wish usto trespass on."

"You mean the water?" asked the girl.

"Yes," replied Tarzan.

For some time they sat in silence which was broken only byan occasional sound of movement from the outer darkness. Itmust have been an hour later that the ape-man rose quietlyand drew his long blade from its sheath. Smith-Oldwick wasdozing against the rocky wall of the cavern entrance, while thegirl, exhausted by the excitement and fatigue of the day, hadfallen into deep slumber. An instant after Tarzan arose,Smith-Oldwick and the girl were aroused by a volley ofthunderous roars and the noise of many padded feet rushingtoward them.

Tarzan of the Apes stood directly before the entrance to thecavern, his knife in his hand, awaiting the charge. The ape-man had not expected any such concerted action as he nowrealized had been taken by those watching them. He hadknown for some time that other men had joined those whowere with the lions earlier in the evening, and when he aroseto his feet it was because he knew that the lions and the menwere moving cautiously closer to him and his party. He mighteasily have eluded them, for he had seen that the face of thecliff rising above the mouth of the cavern might be scaled byas good a climber as himself. It might have been wiser hadhe tried to escape, for he knew that in the face of such oddseven he was helpless, but he stood his ground though I doubtif he could have told why.

He owed nothing either of duty or friendship to the girlsleeping in the cavern, nor could he longer be of any protec-tion to her or her companion. Yet something held him there infutile self-sacrifice.

The great Tarmangani had not even the satisfaction ofstriking a blow in self-defense. A veritable avalanche of savagebeasts rolled over him and threw him heavily to the ground.In falling his head struck the rocky surface of the cliff, stun-ning him.

It was daylight when he regained consciousness. The firstdim impression borne to his awakening mind was a confusionof savage sounds which gradually resolved themselves intothe growling of lions, and then, little by little, there camebackto him the recollections of what had preceded the blow thathad felled him.

Strong in his nostrils was the scent of Numa, the lion, andagainst one naked leg he could feel the coat of some animal.Slowly Tarzan opened his eyes. He was lying on his side andas he looked down his body, he saw that a great lion stoodstraddling him -- a great lion who growled hideously at some-thing which Tarzan could not see.

With the full return of his senses Tarzan's nose told himthat the beast above him was Numa of the Wamabo pit.

Thus reassured, the ape-man spoke to the lion and at thesame time made a motion as though he would arise. Immedi-ately Numa stepped from above him. As Tarzan raised hishead, he saw that he still lay where he had fallen before theopening of the cliff where the girl had been sleeping and thatNuma, backed against the cliffside, was apparently defendinghim from two other lions who paced to and fro a shortdistance from their intended victim.

And then Tarzan turned his eyes into the cave and saw thatthe girl and Smith-Oldwick were gone.

His efforts had been for naught. With an angry toss of hishead, the ape-man turned upon the two lions who had con-tinued to pace back and forth a few yards from him. Numaof the lion pit turned a friendly glance in Tarzan's direction,rubbed his head against the ape-man's side, and then directedhis snarling countenance toward the two hunters.

"I think," said Tarzan to Numa, "that you and I togethercan make these beasts very unhappy." He spoke in English,which, of course, Numa did not understand at all, but theremust have been something reassuring in the tone, for Numawhined pleadingly and moved impatiently to and fro parallelwith their antagonists.

"Come," said Tarzan suddenly and grasping the lion's manewith his left hand he moved toward the other lions, his com-panion pacing at his side. As the two advanced the others drewslowly back and, finally separating, moved off to either side.Tarzan and Numa passed between them but neither the greatblack-maned lion nor the man failed to keep an eye upon thebeast nearer him so that they were not caught unawares when,as though at some preconcerted signal, the two cats chargedsimultaneously from opposite directions.

The ape-man met the charge of his antagonist after the samefashion of fighting that he had been accustomed to employingin previous encounters with Numa and Sheeta. To have at-tempted to meet the full shock of a lion's charge would havebeen suicidal even for the giant Tarmangani. Instead he re-sorted to methods of agility and cunning, for quick as are thegreat cats, even quicker is Tarzan of the Apes.

With outspread, raking talons and bared fangs Numa sprangfor the naked chest of the ape-man. Throwing up his left armas a boxer might ward off a blow, Tarzan struck upwardbeneath the left forearm of the lion, at the same time rushingin with his shoulder beneath the animal's body and simul-taneously drove his blade into the tawny hide behind theshoulder. With a roar of pain Numa wheeled again, the per-sonification of bestial rage. Now indeed would he exterminatethis presumptuous man-thing who dared even to think that hecould thwart the king of beasts in his desires. But as hewheeled, his intended quarry wheeled with him, brown fingerslocked in the heavy mane on the powerful neck and again theblade struck deep into the lion's side.

Then it was that Numa went mad with hate and pain andat the same instant the ape-man leaped full upon his back.Easily before had Tarzan locked his legs beneath the belly ofa lion while he clung to its long mane and stabbed it until hispoint reached its heart. So easy it had seemed before that heexperienced a sharp feeling of resentment that he was unableto do so now, for the quick movements of the lion preventedhim, and presently, to his dismay, as the lion leaped and threwhim about, the ape-man realized that he was swinging in-evitably beneath those frightful talons.

With a final effort he threw himself from Numa's back andsought, by his quickness, to elude the frenzied beast for thefraction of an instant that would permit him to regain hisfeet and meet the animal again upon a more even footing. Butthis time Numa was too quick for him and he was but partiallyup when a great paw struck him on the side of the head andbowled him over.

As he fell he saw a black streak shoot above him and an-other lion close upon his antagonist. Rolling from beneath thetwo battling lions Tarzan regained his feet, though he was halfdazed and staggering from the impact of the terrible blow hehad received. Behind him he saw a lifeless lion lying torn andbleeding upon the sand, and before him Numa of the pit wassavagely mauling the second lion.

He of the black coat tremendously outclassed his adversaryin point of size and strength as well as in ferocity. Thebattlingbeasts made a few feints and passes at each other before thelarger succeeded in fastening his fangs in the other's throat,and then, as a cat shakes a mouse, the larger lion shook thelesser, and when his dying foe sought to roll beneath and rakehis conqueror with his hind claws, the other met him halfwayat his own game, and as the great talons buried themselves inthe lower part of the other's chest and then were raked down-ward with all the terrific strength of the mighty hind legs, thebattle was ended.

As Numa rose from his second victim and shook himself,Tarzan could not but again note the wondrous proportions andsymmetry of the beast. The lions they had bested were splendidspecimens themselves and in their coats Tarzan noted a sugges-tion of the black which was such a strongly marked character-istic of Numa of the pit. Their manes were just a trifle darkerthan an ordinary black-maned lion but the tawny shade on thebalance of their coats predominated. However, the ape-manrealized that they were a distinct species from any he had seenas though they had sprung originally from a cross between theforest lion of his acquaintance and a breed of which Numa ofthe pit might be typical.

The immediate obstruction in his way having been removed,Tarzan was for setting out in search of the spoor of the girland Smith-Oldwick, that he might discover their fate. Hesuddenly found himself tremendously hungry and as he circledabout over the sandy bottom searching among the tangled net-work of innumerable tracks for those of his proteges, therebroke from his lips involuntarily the whine of a hungry beast.Immediately Numa of the pit pricked up his ears and, regard-ing the ape-man steadily for a moment, he answered the callof hunger and started briskly off toward the south, stoppingoccasionally to see if Tarzan was following.

The ape-man realized that the beast was leading him tofood, and so he followed and as he followed his keen eyes andsensitive nostrils sought for some indication of the directiontaken by the man and the girl. Presently out of the mass oflion tracks, Tarzan picked up those of many sandaled feet andthe scent spoor of the members of the strange race such ashad been with the lions the night before, and then faintly hecaught the scent spoor of the girl and a little later that ofSmith-Oldwick. Presently the tracks thinned and here those ofthe girl and the Englishman became well marked.

They had been walking side by side and there had beenmen and lions to the right and left of them, and men and lionsin front and behind. The ape-man was puzzled by the possi-bilities suggested by the tracks, but in the light of anypreviousexperience he could not explain satisfactorily to himself whathis perceptions indicated.

There was little change in the formation of the gorge; it stillwound its erratic course between precipitous cliffs. In placesit widened out and again it became very narrow and alwaysdeeper the further south they traveled. Presently the bottomof the gorge began to slope more rapidly. Here and there wereindications of ancient rapids and waterfalls. The trail becamemore difficult but was well marked and showed indications ofgreat antiquity, and, in places, the handiwork of man. Theyhad proceeded for a half or three-quarters of a mile when, ata turning of the gorge, Tarzan saw before him a narrow valleycut deep into the living rock of the earth's crust, with loftymountain ranges bounding it upon the south. How far it ex-tended east and west he could not see, but apparently it wasno more than three or four miles across from north to south.

That it was a well-watered valley was indicated by thewealth of vegetation that carpeted its floor from the rockycliffs upon the north to the mountains on the south.

Over the edge of the cliffs from which the ape-man viewedthe valley a trail had been hewn that led downward to thebase. Preceded by the lion Tarzan descended into the valley,which, at this point, was forested with large trees. Before himthe trail wound onward toward the center of the valley.Raucous-voiced birds of brilliant plumage screamed amongthe branches while innumerable monkeys chattered andscolded above him.

The forest teemed with life, and yet there was borne in uponthe ape-man a sense of unutterable loneliness, a sensation thathe never before had felt in his beloved jungles. There wasunreality in everything about him -- in the valley itself, lyinghidden and forgotten in what was supposed to be an aridwaste. The birds and the monkeys, while similar in type tomany with which he was familiar, were identical with none,nor was the vegetation without its idiosyncrasies. It was asthough he had been suddenly transported to another worldand he felt a strange restlessness that might easily have beena premonition of danger.

Fruits were growing among the trees and some of these hesaw that Manu, the monkey, ate. Being hungry he swung tothe lower branches and, amidst a great chattering of themonkeys, proceeded to eat such of the fruit as he saw themonkeys ate in safety. When he had partially satisfied hishunger, for meat alone could fully do so, he looked about himfor Numa of the pit to discover that the lion had gone.