He knew no fear. His
father had had none to transmit to him; but honor and conscience he
did have and these were to trouble him many times as they battled
with his inherent love of freedom for possession of his soul.
They had passed but a short distance to the rear of Numa when the
boy caught the unpleasant odor of the carnivore. His face lighted
with a smile. Something told him that he would have known that
scent among a myriad of others even if Akut had not told him that
a lion lay near. There was a strange familiarity--a weird familiarity
in it that made the short hairs rise at the nape of his neck, and
brought his upper lip into an involuntary snarl that bared his
fighting fangs. There was a sense of stretching of the skin about
his ears, for all the world as though those members were flattening
back against his skull in preparation for deadly combat. His skin
tingled. He was aglow with a pleasurable sensation that he never
before had known. He was, upon the instant, another creature--wary,
alert, ready. Thus did the scent of Numa, the lion, transform the
boy into a beast.
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