“Lordy, how good that sounds! When you’re human, Ark, I love you; but somehow it seems as though you had forgotten how to be human for the last twenty years.”
The professor reached out a thin, trembling old hand through the darkness until it found his old friend’s shoulder.
“Forgive me, Skinny,” he said, softly. “It hasn’t been quite twenty years, and God alone knows how hard I have tried to be ‘human’ for Jane’s sake, and yours, too, since He took my other Jane away.”
Another old hand stole up from Mr. Philander’s side to clasp the one that lay upon his shoulder, and no other message could better have translated the one heart to the other.
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. He now drew up its mate and stretched it forth again.
“Most remarkable, most remarkable,” he murmured.
“Thank God, Professor,” whispered Mr. Philander, fervently, “you are not dead, then?”
“Tut, tut, Mr. Philander, tut, tut,” cautioned Professor Porter, “I do not know with accuracy as yet.”
With infinite solicitude Professor Porter wiggled his right arm—joy! It was intact. Breathlessly he waved his left arm above his prostrate body—it waved!
“Most remarkable, most remarkable,” he said.
“To whom are you signaling, Professor?” asked Mr. Philander, in an excited tone.
Professor Porter deigned to make no response to this puerile inquiry. Instead he raised his head gently from the ground, nodding it back and forth a half dozen times.
“Most remarkable,” he breathed. “It remains intact.”
Mr. Philander had not moved from where he had fallen; he had not dared the attempt. How indeed could one move when one’s arms and legs and back were broken?
One eye was buried in the soft loam; the other, rolling sidewise, was fixed in awe upon the strange gyrations of Professor Porter.
“How sad!” exclaimed Mr. Philander, half aloud. “Concussion of the brain, superinducing total mental aberration. How very sad indeed! and for one still so young!”
Professor Porter rolled over upon his stomach; gingerly he bowed his back until he resembled a huge tom cat in proximity to a yelping dog. Then he sat up and felt of various portions of his anatomy.
“They are all here,” he exclaimed. “Most remarkable!”
Whereupon he arose, and, bending a scathing glance upon the still prostrate form of Mr. Samuel T. Philander, he said:
“Tut, tut, Mr. Philander; this is no time to indulge in slothful ease. We must be up and doing.”
Mr. Philander lifted his other eye out of the mud and gazed in speechless rage at Professor Porter. Then he attempted to rise; nor could there have been any more surprised than he when his efforts were immediately crowned with marked success.
He was still bursting with rage, however, at the cruel injustice of Professor Porter’s insinuation, and was on the point of rendering a tart rejoinder when his eyes fell upon a strange figure standing a few paces away, scrutinizing them intently.
Professor Porter had recovered his shiny silk hat, which he had brushed carefully upon the sleeve of his coat and replaced upon his head. When he saw Mr. Philander pointing to something behind him he turned to behold a giant, naked but for a loin cloth and a few metal ornaments, standing motionless before him.
“Good evening, sir!” said the professor, lifting his hat.
For reply the giant motioned them to follow him, and set off up the beach in the direction from which they had recently come.
“I think it the better part of discretion to follow him,” said Mr. Philander.
“Tut, tut, Mr. Philander,” returned the professor. “A short time since you were advancing a most logical argument in substantiation of your theory that camp lay directly south of us. I was skeptical, but you finally convinced me; so now I am positive that toward the south we must travel to reach our friends. Therefore I shall continue south.”
“But, Professor Porter, this man may know better than either of us. He seems to be indigenous to this part of the world. Let us at least follow him for a short distance.”
“Tut, tut, Mr. Philander,” repeated the professor. “I am a difficult man to convince, but when once convinced my decision is unalterable. I shall continue in the proper direction, if I have to circumambulate the continent of Africa to reach my destination.”
Further argument was interrupted by Tarzan, who, seeing that these strange men were not following him, had returned to their side.
Again he beckoned to them; but still they stood in argument.
Presently the ape-man lost patience with their stupid ignorance. He grasped the frightened Mr. Philander by the shoulder, and before that worthy gentleman knew whether he was being killed or merely maimed for life, Tarzan had tied one end of his rope securely about Mr. Philander’s neck.
“Tut, tut, Mr. Philander,” remonstrated Professor Porter; “it is most unbeseeming in you to submit to such indignities.”
But scarcely were the words out of his mouth ere he, too, had been seized and securely bound by the neck with the same rope. Then Tarzan set off toward the north, leading the now thoroughly frightened professor and his secretary.
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