t hisself!" cried Moses with a look of concern.

Van der Kemp was a man of action. "Not a moment to lose," he said, and
organised the band into several smaller parties, each led by a native
familiar with the jungle.

"Let this be our meeting-place," he said, as they were on the point of
starting off together; "and let those of us who have fire-arms discharge
them occasionally."

Meanwhile, the professor was walking at full speed in what he supposed
to be--and in truth was--"back."

He was not alone, however. In the jungle close beside him a tiger
prowled along with the stealthy, lithe, sneaking activity of a cat. By
that time it was not absolutely dark, but the forest had assumed a very
sombre appearance. Suddenly the tiger made a tremendous bound on to the
track right in front of the man. Whether it had miscalculated the
position of its intended victim or not we cannot say, but it crouched
for another spring. The professor, almost instinctively, crouched also,
and, being a brave man, stared the animal straight in the face without
winking! and so the two crouched there, absolutely motionless and with a
fixed glare, such as we have often seen in a couple of tom-cats who were
mutually afraid to attack each other.

What the tiger thought at that critical and crucial moment we cannot
tell, but the professor's thoughts were swift, varied,
tremendous--almost sublime, and once or twice even ridiculous!

"Vat shall I do? Deaf stares me in zee face! No veapons! only a net, ant
he is _not_ a bootterfly! Science, adieu! Home of my chilthood,
farevell! My moder--Hah! zee fusees!"

Such were a few of the thoughts that burned but found no utterance. The
last thought however led to action. Verkimier, foolish man! was a
smoker. He carried fusees. Slowly, with no more apparent motion than the
hour-hand on the face of a watch, he let his hand glide into his
coat-pocket and took out the box of fusees. The tiger seemed uneasy, but
the bold man never for one instant ceased to glare, and no disturbed
expression or hasty movement gave the tiger the slightest excuse for a
spring. Bringing the box up by painfully slow degrees in front of his
nose the man opened it, took out a fusee, struck it, and revealed the
blue binoculars!

The effect on the tiger was instantaneous and astounding. With a
demi-volt or backward somersault it hurled itself into the jungle whence
it had come with a terrific roar of alarm, and its tail--undoubtedly
tho