or him.
Well, thought the Hon. Morison, let him wait. Lions can't climb trees,
and if I get into this one I shall be safe enough from him.

The young Englishman's feet hunt almost to the surface of the
water--closer than he knew, for all was pitch dark below as above him.
Presently he heard a slight commotion in the river beneath him and
something banged against one of his feet, followed almost instantly by
a sound that he felt he could not have mistaken--the click of great
jaws snapping together.

"By George!" exclaimed the Hon. Morison, aloud. "The beggar nearly got
me," and immediately he struggled again to climb higher and to
comparative safety; but with that final effort he knew that it was
futile. Hope that had survived persistently until now began to wane.
He felt his tired, numbed fingers slipping from their hold--he was
dropping back into the river--into the jaws of the frightful death that
awaited him there.

And then he heard the leaves above him rustle to the movement of a
creature among them. The branch to which he clung bent beneath an
added weight--and no light weight, from the way it sagged; but still
Baynes clung desperately--he would not give up voluntarily either to
the death above or the death below.

He felt a soft, warm pad upon the fingers of one of his hands where
they circled the branch to which he clung, and then something reached
down out of the blackness above and dragged him up among the branches
of the tree.

Chapter 24

Sometimes lolling upon Tantor's back, sometimes roaming the jungle in
solitude, Korak made his way slowly toward the West and South. He made
but a few miles a day, for he had a whole lifetime before him and no
place in particular to go. Possibly he would have moved more rapidly
but for the thought which continually haunted him that each mile he
traversed carried him further and further away from Meriem--no longer
his Meriem, as of yore, it is true! but still as dear to him as ever.

Thus he came upon the trail of The Sheik's band as it traveled down
river from the point where The Sheik had captured Meriem to his own
stockaded village. Korak pretty well knew who it was that had passed,
for there were few in the great jungle with whom he was not familiar,
though it had been years since he had come this far north. He had no
particular business, however, with the old Sheik and so he did not
propose following him--the further from men he could stay the be