Never before, perhaps, was staged a more thrilling race, and yet it
was run with only the moon and stars to see. Alone and in silence
the two beasts sped across the moonlit clearing. Numa gained with
appalling rapidity upon the fleeing man, yet at every bound Tarzan
was nearer to the vine-clad wall. Once the ape-man glanced back.
Numa was so close upon him that it seemed inevitable that at the
next bound he should drag him down; so close was he that the ape-man
drew his knife as he ran, that he might at least give a good account
of himself in the last moments of his life.
But Numa had reached the limit of his speed and endurance. Gradually
he dropped behind but he did not give up the pursuit, and now Tarzan
realized how much hinged upon the strength of the untested vines.
If, at the inception of the race, only Goro and the stars had looked
down upon the contestants, such was not the case at its finish,
since from an embrasure near the summit of the wall two close-set
black eyes peered down upon the two. Tarzan was a dozen yards
ahead of Numa when he reached the wall. There was no time to stop
and institute a search for sturdy stems and safe handholds. His
fate was in the hands of chance and with the realization he gave a
final spurt and running catlike up the side of the wall among the
vines, sought with his hands for something that would sustain his
weight.
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