Tarzan does not awaken as you and I with the weight of slumber still
upon his eyes and brain, for did the creatures of the wild awaken
thus, their awakenings would be few. As his eyes snapped open,
clear and bright, so, clear and bright upon the nerve centers of his
brain, were registered the various perceptions of all his senses.
Almost beneath him, racing toward his tree was what at first glance
appeared to be an almost naked white man, yet even at the first
instant of discovery the long, white tail projecting rearward did
not escape the ape-man. Behind the fleeing figure, escaping, came
Numa, the lion, in full charge. Voiceless the prey, voiceless the
killer; as two spirits in a dead world the two moved in silent
swiftness toward the culminating tragedy of this grim race.
Even as his eyes opened and took in the scene beneath him--even in
that brief instant of perception, followed reason, judgment, and
decision, so rapidly one upon the heels of the other that almost
simultaneously the ape-man was in mid-air, for he had seen a
white-skinned creature cast in a mold similar to his own, pursued
by Tarzan's hereditary enemy. So close was the lion to the fleeing
man-thing that Tarzan had no time carefully to choose the method
of his attack. As a diver leaps from the springboard headforemost
into the waters beneath, so Tarzan of the Apes dove straight for
Numa, the lion; naked in his right hand the blade of his father
that so many times before had tasted the blood of lions.
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