"By Thoos!" exclaimed Nemone. "If the lion kills him, I will have it torn limb from limb. It must not kill him! Go down there, Erot, and help him. Go, Gemnon."
Gemnon did not wait, but springing to the parapet, lowered himself by the stakes and dropped into the courtyard. Erot hung back. "Let him take care of himself," he grumbled.
Nemone turned to the guard standing behind her. She was white with apprehension because of Tarzan an: with rage and disgust at Erot. "Throw him into the pit" she commanded, pointing at the cringing favourite. But Erot did not wait to be thrown, and a moment later he had followed Gemnon to the courtyard.
Neither Erot nor Gemnon nor the man from Athne was needed to save Tarzan from the lion, for already he had sunk the sword into the tawny side. Twice again the point drove into the wild heart before the roaring beast collapsed upon the white stones, and its great voice was stilled forever.
Then Tarzan rose to his feet. For a moment the men about him, the queen leaning across the parapet above, the city of gold, all were forgotten. Here was no English lord, but a beast of the jungle that had made its kill. With one foot upon the carcass of the lion, the ape-man raised his face towards the heavens, and from the heart of the palace of Nemone rose the hideous victory cry of the bull ape that has killed.
Gemnon and Erot shuddered, and Nemone drew back in terror. But the Athnean was unmoved; he had heard that savage challenge before. He was Valthor. And now Tarzan turned; all the savagery faded from his countenance as he stretched forth a hand and laid it on Valthor's shoulder. "We meet again, my friend," he said.
"And once again you save my life!" exclaimed the Athnean noble.
The two men had spoken in low tones that had not carried to the ears of Nemone or the others in the balcony; Erot, fearful that the lion might not be dead, had run to the far end of the court, where he was cowering behind a column; that Gemnon might have heard did not concern Tarzan, who trusted the young Cathnean. But those others must not know that he had known Valthor before, or immediately the old story that Tarzan had come from Athne to assassinate Nemene would be revived and then a miracle could save either them.
His hand still upon Valthor's shoulder, Tarzan spoke again rapidly in a whisper. "They must not know that we are acquainted," he said. "They are looking for an excuse to kill me, some of them, but as far as you are concerned they do not have to look for any."
Nemone was now calling orders rapidly to those about her. "Go down and let Tarzan out of the arena; Tarzan and Gemnon, send them to me. Erot may go to his quarters until I give further orders; I do not wish to see him again. Take the Athnean back to his cell; later I will decide how he shall be destroyed."
Tarzan heard the queen's commands with surprise and resentment, and, wheeling, he looked up at her. "This man is free by your own word," he reminded her. "If he be returned to a cell, I shall go with him, for I have told him that he would be free."
"Do with him as you please," cried Nemone; "he is yours. Only come up to me, Tarzan. I thought that you would be killed, and I am still frightened." Erot and Gemnon heard these words with vastly different emotions. Each recognized that they signalized a change in the affairs of the court of Cathne. Gemnon anticipated the effects of a better influence injected into the councils of Nemone, and was pleased. Erot saw the flimsy structure of his temporary grandeur and reflected authority crumbling to ruin. Both were astonished by this sudden revealment of a new Nemone, whom none had ever before seen bow to the authority of other than M'duze.
Accompanied by Gemnon and Valthor, Tarzan returned to the balcony where Nemone, her composure regained, awaited them. For a moment, moved by excitement and apprehension for Tarzan's safety, she had revealed a feminine side of her character that few of her intimates might even have suspected she possessed, but now she was the queen again. She surveyed Valthor haughtily and yet with interest.
"What is your name, Athnean?" she demanded.
"Valthor," he replied and added, "of the house of Xanthus ."
"We know the house," remarked Nemone. "Its head is a king's councillor; a most noble house and close to the royal line in both blood and authority."
"My father is the head of the house of Xanthus ," said Valthor.
"You would have made a noble hostage," sighed Nemone, "but we have given our promise that you shall be freed."
"I would have been honoured by such a position," replied Valthor, the faintest trace of a smile upon his lips, "but I shall have to be content to wait a more propitious event."
"We shall look forward with keen anticipation to that moment," rejoined Nemone graciously. "In the meantime we will arrange an escort to return you to Athne, and hope for better fortune the next time that you fall into our hands. Be ready then early tomorrow to return to your own country."
"I thank your majesty," replied Valthor. "I shall be ready, and when I go I shall carry with me, to cherish through life, the memory of the gracious and beautiful queen of Cathne."
"Our noble Gemnon shall be your host until tomorrow" announced Nemone. "Take him with you now to your quarters, Gemnon, and let it be known that he is Nemone's guest whom none may harm."
Tarzan would have accompanied Gemnon and Valthor, But Nemone detained him. "You will return to my apartments with me," she directed. "I wish to talk with you."
As they walked through the palace, the queen did not Precede her companion as the etiquette of the court Demanded but moved close at his side, looking up into his face as she talked. "I was frightened, Tarzan," she confided. "It is not often that Nemone is frightened by the peril of another, but when I saw you leap into the arena with the lion, my heart stood still. Why did you do it, Tarzan?"
"I was disgusted with what I saw," replied the ape-man shortly.
"Disgusted! What do you mean?"
"The cowardliness of the authority that would permit an unarmed and utterly defenceless man to be forced into an arena with a lion," explained Tarzan candidly.
Nemone flushed. "You know that that authority is I," she said coldly.
"Of course I know it," replied the ape-man, "but that only renders it the more odious."
"What do you mean?" she snapped. "Are you trying to drive me beyond my patience? If you knew me better you would know that that is not safe, not even for you, before whom I have already humbled myself."
"I am not seeking to try your patience," replied the ape-man quietly, "for I am neither interested nor concerned in your powers of self-control. I am merely shocked that one so beautiful may at the same time be so heartless."
The flush faded from the queen's face, the anger from her eyes. She moved on in silence, her mood suddenly introspective, and when they reached the anteroom leading to her private chambers she halted at the threshold of the latter and laid a hand gently upon the arm of the man at her side.
"You are very brave," she said. "Only a very brave man would have leaped into the arena with the lion to save a stranger, but only the bravest of the brave could have dared to speak to Nemone as you have spoken, for the death that the lion deals may be merciful compared with that which Nemone deals when she has been affronted."
"Yet perhaps you knew that I would forgive you. Oh, Tarzan, what magic have you exercised to win such power over me!" She took him by the hand then and led him toward the doorway of her chambers. "You shall teach Nemone how to be human!" As the door swung open there was a new light in the eyes of the queen of Cathne, a softer light than had ever before shone in those beautiful depths. Then it faded, to be replaced by a cold, hard glitter of bitterness and hate. Facing them, in the centre of the apartment, stood M'duze.