"Oh, but I did. It was I who helped him escape. That was why his brother was so grateful to me."
"I still do not understand," said Gemnon.
"There is probably much connected with Xerstle's grand hunt that you do not understand," suggested Tarzan. "In the first place, the purpose of the hunt was, primarily, to destroy me rather than the nominal quarry; the scheme was probably hatched between Xerstle and Erot. In the second place, I didn't approve of the ethics of the hunters; the poor devil they were chasing had no chance. I went ahead, therefore, through the trees until I overtook the black; then I carried him for a mile to throw the lions off the scent. You know how well the plan succeeded.
"When I came back and we laid the wager, that gave Xerstle and Pindes the opening they wished but which they would have found by some other means before the day was over; so Pindes took me with him; and after we were far enough away from you he suggested that we separate, whereupon he loosed his lion upon me."
"And it was you who killed the lion?"
"I should have much preferred to have killed Pindes and Xerstle, but I felt that the time was not yet ripe. Now, perhaps, I shall never have the opportunity to kill them," he added regretfully.
"Now I am doubly sorry that I must die," said Gemnon.
"Why more so than before?" asked Thudos.
"I shall never have the opportunity to tell the story of Xerstle's grand hunt," he explained. "What a story that would make!"
The morning dawned bright and beautiful, just as though there was no misery or sorrow or cruelty in the world; but it did not change matters at all, other than to make the cell in which the three men were confined uncomfortably warm as the day progressed.