"
"Agreed!"
"Let us go down, then!" said Joe.
"Don't use your weapons, excepting at the last extremity!
It would be a useless risk to make the natives
aware of our presence in such a place as this."
Dick and Joe replied with signs of assent, and then
letting themselves slide noiselessly toward the tree, took
their position in a fork among the strong branches where
the anchor had caught.
For some moments they listened minutely and motionlessly
among the foliage, and ere long Joe seized Kenedy's hand
as he heard a sort of rubbing sound against the bark of
the tree.
"Don't you hear that?" he whispered.
"Yes, and it's coming nearer."
"Suppose it should be a serpent? That hissing or
whistling that you heard before--"
"No! there was something human in it."
"I'd prefer the savages, for I have a horror of those
snakes."
"The noise is increasing," said Kennedy, again, after
a lapse of a few moments.
"Yes! something's coming up toward us--climbing."
"Keep watch on this side, and I'll take care of the other."
"Very good!"
There they were, isolated at the top of one of the
larger branches shooting out in the midst of one of
those miniature forests called baobab-trees. The darkness,
heightened by the density of the foliage, was profound;
however, Joe, leaning over to Kennedy's ear and pointing
down the tree, whispered:
"The blacks! They're climbing toward us.
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