ions. They
were placing and baiting a trap for Numa, the lion. In a cage upon
wheels they were tying a kid, so fastening it that when Numa seized the
unfortunate creature, the door of the cage would drop behind him,
making him a prisoner.

These things the blacks had learned in their old home, before they
escaped through the untracked jungle to their new village. Formerly
they had dwelt in the Belgian Congo until the cruelties of their
heartless oppressors had driven them to seek the safety of unexplored
solitudes beyond the boundaries of Leopold's domain.

In their old life they often had trapped animals for the agents of
European dealers, and had learned from them certain tricks, such as
this one, which permitted them to capture even Numa without injuring
him, and to transport him in safety and with comparative ease to their
village.

No longer was there a white market for their savage wares; but there
was still a sufficient incentive for the taking of Numa--alive. First
was the necessity for ridding the jungle of man-eaters, and it was only
after depredations by these grim and terrible scourges that a lion hunt
was organized. Secondarily was the excuse for an orgy of celebration
was the hunt successful, and the fact that such fetes were rendered
doubly pleasurable by the presence of a live creature that might be put
to death by torture.

Tarzan had witnessed these cruel rites in the past. Being himself more
savage than the savage warriors of the Gomangani, he was not so shocked
by the cruelty of them as he should have been, yet they did shock him.
He could not understand the strange feeling of revulsion which
possessed him at such times. He had no love for Numa, the lion, yet he
bristled with rage when the blacks inflicted upon his enemy such
indignities and cruelties as only the mind of the one creature molded
in the image of God can conceive.

Upon two occasions he had freed Numa from the trap before the blacks
had returned to discover the success or failure of their venture. He
would do the same today--that he decided immediately he realized the
nature of their intentions.

Leaving the trap in the center of a broad elephant trail near the
drinking hole, the warriors turned back toward their village. On the
morrow they would come again. Tarzan looked after them, upon his lips
an unconscious sneer--the heritage of unguessed caste. He saw them
file along the broad trail, beneath the overhanging verd