As Tarzan leaped for the vines he realized that the lion was
close upon him and that his life depended upon the strength of the
creepers clinging to the city walls; but to his intense relief he
found the stems as large around as a man's arm, and the tendrils
which had fastened themselves to the wall so firmly fixed, that his
weight upon the stem appeared to have no appreciable effect upon
them.
He heard Numa's baffled roar as the lion slipped downward clawing
futilely at the leafy creepers, and then with the agility of the
apes who had reared him, Tarzan bounded nimbly aloft to the summit
of the wall.
A few feet below him was the flat roof of the adjoining building
and as he dropped to it his back was toward the niche from which
an embrasure looked out upon the gardens and the forest beyond, so
that he did not see the figure crouching there in the dark shadow.
But if he did not see he was not long in ignorance of the fact that
he was not alone, for scarcely had his feet touched the roof when
a heavy body leaped upon him from behind and brawny arms encircled
him about the waist.
Taken at a disadvantage and lifted from his feet, the ape-man was,
for the time being, helpless. Whatever the creature was that had
seized him, it apparently had a well-defined purpose in mind, for
it walked directly toward the edge of the roof so that it was soon
apparent to Tarzan that he was to be hurled to the pavement below--a
most efficacious manner of disposing of an intruder.
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