Like Numa of the pit they occasionally made excursions across
the desert to the fertile valley of the Wamabos, but principally
they took their toll of meat from the herds of the walled city of
Herog, the mad king, or seized upon some of his luckless subjects.
Numa of the pit was in some respect an exception to the rule which
guided his fellows of the forest in that as a cub he had been
trapped and carried into the city, where he was kept for breeding
purposes, only to escape in his second year. They had tried to teach
him in the city of maniacs that he must not eat the flesh of man,
and the result of their schooling was that only when aroused to
anger or upon that one occasion that he had been impelled by the
pangs of hunger, did he ever attack man.
The animal corrals of the maniacs are protected by an outer wall
or palisade of upright logs, the lower ends of which are imbedded
in the ground, the logs themselves being placed as close together
as possible and further reinforced and bound together by withes.
At intervals there are gates through which the flocks are turned
on to the grazing land south of the city during the daytime. It is
at such times that the black lions of the forest take their greatest
toll from the herds, and it is infrequent that a lion attempts to
enter the corrals at night. But Numa of the pit, having scented the
spoor of his benefactor, was minded again to pass into the walled
city, and with that idea in his cunning brain he crept stealthily
along the outer side of the palisade, testing each gateway with a
padded foot until at last he discovered one which seemed insecurely
fastened.
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