Dropping Belthar to the ground, the victor faced the astonished Cathneans with snarling face. Then he slowly backed to where the ape-man stood and stopped beside him and Tarzan laid his hand upon the black mane of Jad-bal-ja, the Golden Lion.
For a long moment there was unbroken silence as the two faced the enemies of the Lord of the Jungle, and the awed Cathneans only stood and stared; then a woman s voice rose in a weird scream. It was Nemone. Slowly she stepped from her golden car and amidst utter silence walked toward the dead Belthar while her people watched her, motionless and wondering.
She stopped with her sandalled feet touching the bloody mane of the hunting lion and gazed down upon the dead carnivore.
"Belthar is dead!" she screamed, and whipping her dagger from its sheath drove its glittering point deep into her own heart.
As the moon rose, Tarzan placed a final rock upon a mound of earth beside the river that runs to Cathne through the valley of Onthar .
The warriors and the nobles and the people had followed Phordos to the city to empty the dungeons of Nemone and proclaim Alextar king, leaving their dead queen lying at the edge of the Field of the Lions with the dead Belthar.
The human service they had neglected, the beast-man had performed, and now beneath the soft radiance of an African moon he stood with bowed head beside the grave of a woman who had found happiness at last.