Rokoff could not resist the temptation to turn and fling a parting
taunt at Tarzan. "Sleep well, monsieur," he said, "and do not
forget to pray well, for when you die tomorrow it will be in such
agony that you will be unable to pray for blaspheming."

No one had bothered to bring Tarzan either food or water since
noon, and consequently he suffered considerably from thirst. He
wondered if it would be worth while to ask his guard for water, but
after making two or three requests without receiving any response,
he decided that it would not.

Far up in the mountains he heard a lion roar. How much safer one
was, he soliloquized, in the haunts of wild beasts than in the haunts
of men. Never in all his jungle life had he been more relentlessly
tracked down than in the past few months of his experience among
civilized men. Never had he been any nearer death.

Again the lion roared. It sounded a little nearer. Tarzan felt
the old, wild impulse to reply with the challenge of his kind. His
kind? He had almost forgotten that he was a man and not an ape.
He tugged at his bonds. God, if he could but get them near those
strong teeth of his. He felt a wild wave of madness sweep over
him as his efforts to regain his liberty met with failure.

Numa was roaring almost continually now. It was quite evident
that he was coming down into the desert to hunt. It was the roar
of a hungry lion. Tarzan envied him, for he was free. No one
would tie him with ropes and slaughter him like a sheep. It was
that which galled the ape-man. He did not fear to die, no--it was
the humiliation of defeat before death, without even a chance to