gers were used, it appeared, to this disgusting sport.
There were no more wild springs, no more stubbings at the end of the
massive chains. They lay down on the pavement, and presently began to
purr, rolling on to their sides and rubbing themselves luxuriously. The
prisoner still lay motionless in his form.

By slow degrees the monstrous brutes each drew to the end of its chain
and began to reach at the man with out-stretched forepaw. The male could
not touch him; the female could just reach him with the far tip of a
claw; and I saw a red scratch start up in the bare skin of his side at
every stroke. But still the prisoner would not stir. It seemed to me
that they must slack out more links of one of the tigers' chains, or let
the vile play linger into mere 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 behind the
arrow-slit with a still face. And presently another scene in this
ghastly play was enacted.

The cave-tigers tired of th