Presently, when I had been there fully three hours, I heard the sounds of reed instruments, clashing cymbals and rolling drums outside, followed by the hum of human voices, at first low and distant, but, as another hour wore on, increasing in volume. Shouts and light laughter reached me, and, by the excited manner the dozen lions paced and repaced before my cell, I felt instinctively that the great amphitheatre was now filled with eager spectators.
Each moment seemed an hour. Awaiting my doom, I stood with my back against the heavy-bolted door by which I had entered, with bated breath, striving to meet my end with fortitude. Hoping against hope, my strained eyes were watching the iron bars that separated me from the hungry beasts, dreading each moment that they would be lifted.
Suddenly, as I stood thinking of Azala, wondering how she had fared, and whether Tiamo had yet reached Kano with news of my death, one of the shaggy beasts sprang past my bars, and next second a dull roar of applause and the loud clapping of hands broke upon my ear.
A dead silence was again followed by the wild plaudits of the multitude.
Again and again this was repeated; then there seemed a long wait. Apparently I was considered a valuable prize, and it was probable that my turn was next.
At that moment one of the lions slunk past my cell to his lair, his tail trailing on the ground and bearing between his teeth some object.
There crept over me a strange faintness such as I had never before experienced. Yet I strove against it, supporting myself against the wall, and knowing that my fate could not be much longer delayed.
Those moments were full of breathless horror. From where I stood I could hear the animals crunching bones between their teeth. They were preparing themselves for another victim. My blood froze in my veins.
The fatal moment at last came. A loud, grating noise sounded in the roof of the cell, and slowly the iron bars were lifted bodily, removing the barrier between myself and death.
I stood paralysed by fear. Another moment and I should cease to live! Yet in that brief instant a flood of memories surged though my turbulent brain, and the thought of my terrible doom was rendered the more acute because I had actually succeeded in gaining the Land of the No Return when all others had failed.