"It requires practice," the ape-man told him.
"There is a trick to it," insisted the under-officer. "Let me see you do it again."
The other warriors, watching with manifest interest, whispered among themselves or commented openly. "It takes a strong man to bend that stick," said one.
"Althides is a strong man," retorted another.
"But he is not strong enough."
Althides, the under-officer, watched intently while Tarzan strung the bow again and bent it; he saw how easily the stranger flexed the heavy wood, and he marvelled. The other men looked on in open admiration, and this time a shout of approval arose as Tarzan's second arrow crowded the first in the mouth of the lion. When the symbols of high authority are absent men can be human.
Althides scratched his head. "I shall have to lock you up now," he said, "or old Tomos will have my head on the wall of his palace; but I shall practice with this strange weapon until I learn to use it. Are you sure that there is no trick in bending that thing you call a bow?"
"There is no trick to it," Tarzan assured him. "Make yourself a lighter bow and you will find it easier, or bring me the material and I will make one for you."
"That I will do," exclaimed Althides. "Come now and be locked up."
A guard accompanied Tarzan across the courtyard to another building where he was placed in a room which, in the light of the torches borne by his escort, he saw had another occupant; then they left him locking the heavy door behind them; and Tarzan heard their footsteps dying away across the courtyard as they took themselves and their torches off, leaving him in darkness.