Now he came forward calling to Numa in the language of the great
apes--warning him away from the girl. It is open to question that
Numa, the lion, understood him; but he did understand the menace of
the heavy spear that the Tarmangani carried so ready in his brown,
right hand, and so he drew back, growling, trying to decide in his
little brain whether to charge or flee.
On came the ape-man with never a pause, straight for the lion. "Go
away, Numa," he cried, "or Tarzan will tie you up again and lead
you through the jungle without food. See Arad, my spear! Do you
recall how his point stuck into you and how with his haft I beat
you over the head? Go, Numa! I am Tarzan of the Apes!"
Numa wrinkled the skin of his face into great folds, until his
eyes almost disappeared and he growled and roared and snarled and
growled again, and when the spear point came at last quite close
to him he struck at it viciously with his armed paw; but he drew
back. Tarzan stepped over the dead horse and the girl lying behind
him gazed in wide-eyed astonishment at the handsome figure driving
an angry lion deliberately from its kill.
When Numa had retreated a few yards, the ape-man called back to
the girl in perfect German, "Are you badly hurt?"
"I think not," she replied; "but I cannot extricate my foot from
beneath my horse.
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