“I swear it,” he cried.
“I will go with you,” she whispered, “though I do not understand why it is necessary.” She leaned toward him and he took her in his arms and bent to press his lips to hers.
At the same instant the head of a huge tusker poked through the trees that fringed the clearing. The Hon. Morison and Meriem, with eyes and ears for one another alone, did not see or hear; but Numa did. The man upon Tantor’s broad head saw the girl in the man’s arms. It was Korak; but in the trim figure of the neatly garbed girl he did not recognize his Meriem. He only saw a Tarmangani with his she. And then Numa charged.
With a frightful roar, fearful lest Tantor had come to frighten away his prey, the great beast leaped from his hiding place. The earth trembled to his mighty voice. The ponies stood for an instant transfixed with terror. The Hon. Morison Baynes went white and cold. The lion was charging toward them full in the brilliant light of the magnificent moon. The muscles of the Hon. Morison no longer obeyed his will—they flexed to the urge of a greater power—the power of Nature’s first law. They drove his spurred heels deep into his pony’s flanks, they bore the rein against the brute’s neck that wheeled him with an impetuous drive toward the plain and safety.
The girl’s pony, squealing in terror, reared and plunged upon the heels of his mate. The lion was close upon him. Only the girl was cool—the girl and the half-naked savage who bestrode the neck of his mighty mount and grinned at the exciting spectacle chance had staked for his enjoyment.
To Korak here were but two strange Tarmangani pursued by Numa, who was empty. It was Numa’s right to prey; but one was a she. Korak felt an intuitive urge to rush to her protection. Why, he could not guess. All Tarmangani were enemies now. He had lived too long a beast to feel strongly the humanitarian impulses that were inherent in him—yet feel them he did, for the girl at least.
He urged Tantor forward. He raised his heavy spear and hurled it at the flying target of the lion’s body. The girl’s pony had reached the trees upon the opposite side of the clearing. Here he would become easy prey to the swiftly moving lion; but Numa, infuriated, preferred the woman upon his back. It was for her he leaped.
Korak gave an exclamation of astonishment and approval as Numa landed upon the pony’s rump and at the same instant the girl swung free of her mount to the branches of a tree above her.
Korak’s spear struck Numa in the shoulder, knocking him from his precarious hold upon the frantically plunging horse. Freed of the weight of both girl and lion the pony raced ahead toward safety. Numa tore and struck at the missile in his shoulder but could not dislodge it. Then he resumed the chase.
Korak guided Tantor into the seclusion of the jungle. He did not wish to be seen, nor had he.