When I could catch my breath again I realized that there was no time to waste. Speed looked at me angrily, but I jerked open the grating, flung another chair into the cage, leaped in, and, singling out Empress Khatoun, I sailed into her with passionless thoroughness, punishing her to a stand-still, while the other lions, Aicha, Marghouz, Timour, and Genghis Khan snarled and watched me steadily.
As I emerged from the cage Speed asked me whether I was hurt, and I gasped out that I was not.
“What went wrong?” he persisted.
“Timour and that young lioness—no, I went wrong; the lions knew it at once; something failed me, I don’t know what; upon my soul, Speed, I don’t know what happened.”
“You lost your nerve?”
“No, not that. Timour began looking at me in a peculiar way—he certainly dominated me for an instant—for a tenth of a second; and then Khatoun flew at me before I could control Timour—”
I hesitated.
“Speed, it was one of those seconds that come to us, when the faintest shadow of indecision settles matters. Engineers are subject to it at the throttle, pilots at the helm, captains in battle—”
“Men in love,” added Speed.
I looked at him, not comprehending.