r.

They did not speak for some minutes. The lion below them paced
nervously back and forth. The third figure in the tree was hidden by
the dense shadows near the stem. He, too, was silent--motionless as a
graven image.

"You certainly pulled me up into this tree just in time," said the
professor at last. "I want to thank you. You saved my life."

"But I didn't pull you up here, Professor," said Mr. Philander. "Bless
me! The excitement of the moment quite caused me to forget that I
myself was drawn up here by some outside agency--there must be someone
or something in this tree with us."

"Eh?" ejaculated Professor Porter. "Are you quite positive, Mr.
Philander?"

"Most positive, Professor," replied Mr. Philander, "and," he added, "I
think we should thank the party. He may be sitting right next to you
now, Professor."

"Eh? What's that? Tut, tut, Mr. Philander, tut, tut!" said Professor
Porter, edging cautiously nearer to Mr. Philander.

Just then it occurred to Tarzan of the Apes that Numa had loitered
beneath the tree for a sufficient length of time, so he raised his
young head toward the heavens, and there rang out upon the terrified
ears of the two old men the awful warning challenge of the anthropoid.

The two friends, huddled trembling in their precarious position on the
limb, saw the great lion halt in his restless pacing as the
blood-curdling cry smote his ears, and then slink quickly into the
jungle, to be instantly lost to view.

"Even the lion trembles in fear," whispered Mr. Philander.

"Most remarkable, most remarkable," murmured Professor Porter,
clutching frantically at Mr. Philander to regain the balance which the
sudden fright had so perilously endangered. Unfortunately for them
both, Mr. Philander's center of equilibrium was at that very moment
hanging upon the ragged edge of nothing, so that it needed but the
gentle impetus supplied by the additional weight of Professor Porter's
body to topple the devoted secretary from the limb.

For a moment they swayed uncertainly, and then, with mingled and most
unscholarly shrieks, they pitched headlong from the tree, locked in
frenzied embrace.

It was quite some moments ere either moved, for both were positive that
any such attempt would reveal so many breaks and fractures as to make
further progress impossible.

At length Professor Porter made an attempt to move one leg. To his
surprise, it responded to his will as in days gone by.