'there's the beggar now.'
'Where?' demanded Bolton .
'Off there to the left,' said Crouch.
'Can't see a bloody thing,' said Algy.
'I think we should go back,' said Bolton ; 'we wouldn't have a chance if that fellow charged; one of us would be sure to be killed—maybe more.'
'I think you're right,' said Crouch; 'I don't like the idea of having that fellow between us and camp.' There was a sudden crashing in the underbrush a short distance from them.
'My God!' exclaimed Algy, 'here he comes!' as he threw down his gun and clambered into a tree.
The other men followed Algy's example and none too soon, for they were scarcely out of harm's way when a great Bengal tiger broke from cover and leaped into the trail. He stood looking around for a moment, and then he caught sight of the treed men and growled. His terrible yellow-green eyes and his snarling face were turned up toward them.
Crouch commenced to laugh, and the other two men looked at him in surprise. 'I'm glad there was no one here to see that,' he said; 'it would have been a terrible blow to British prestige.'
'What the devil else could we do?' demanded Bolton . 'You know as well as I do that we didn't have a ghost of a show against him, even with three guns.'
'Of course not,' said Algy; 'couldn't have got a sight of him to fire at until he was upon us. Certainly was lucky for us there were some trees we could climb in a hurry; good old trees; I always did like trees.'
The tiger came forward growling, and when he was beneath the tree in which Algy was perched, he crouched and sprang.
'By jove!' exclaimed Algy, climbing higher; 'the beggar almost got me.'
Twice more the tiger sprang for one of them, and then he walked back along the trail a short distance and lay down patiently.
'The beggar's got us to rights,' said Bolton . 'He won't stay there forever,' said Crouch.
Bolton shook his head. 'I hope not,' he said, 'but they have an amazing amount of patience; I know a chap who was treed by one all night in Bengal .'
'Oh, I say, he couldn't do that, you know,' objected Algy. 'What does he take us for—a lot of bally asses? Does he think we're coming down there to be eaten up?'
'He probably thinks that when we are ripe, we'll fall off, like apples and things.'
'This is deucedly uncomfortable,' said Algy after a while; 'I'm pretty well fed up with it. I wish I had my gun.'
'It's right down there at the foot of your tree,' said Crouch; 'why don't you go down and get it?'
'I say, old thing!' exclaimed Algy; 'I just had a brainstorm. Watch.' He took off his shirt, commenced tearing it into strips which he tied together, and when he had a long string of this he made a slip noose at one end; then he came down to a lower branch and dropped the noose down close to the muzzle of his gun, which, because of the way in which the weapon had fallen, was raised a couple of inches from the ground.
'Clever?' demanded Algy.
'Very,' said Bolton . 'The tiger is admiring your ingenuity; see him watching you?'
'If that noose catches behind the sight, I can draw the bally thing up here, and then I'll let old stripes have what for.'
'You should have been an engineer, Algy,' said Crouch.
'My mother wanted me to study for the Church,' said Algy, 'and my father wanted me to go into the diplomatic corps—both make me bored; so I just played tennis instead.'
'And you're rotten at that,' said Crouch, laughing.
'Righto, old thing!' agreed Algy. 'Look! I have it.'
After much fishing, the noose had slipped over the muzzle of the gun, and as Algy pulled gently, it tightened below the sight; then he started drawing the weapon up towards him.
He had it within a foot of his hand when the tiger leaped to his feet with a roar and charged. As the beast sprang into the air towards Algy, the man dropped everything and scrambled towards safety, as the raking talons swept within an inch of his foot.
'Whe-e-ew!' exclaimed Algy, as he reached a higher branch.
'Now you've even lost your shirt,' said Crouch.
The tiger stood looking up for a moment, growling and lashing his tail, and then he went back and lay down again.
'I believe the beggar is going to keep us here all night,' said Algy.
Chapter XVI
Krause and his fellows had not gone two days march from the camp of the castaways, as Tarzan had ordered them to do. They had gone only about four miles up the coast, where they had camped by another stream where it emptied into the ocean. They were a bitter and angry company as they squatted disconsolately upon the beach and ate the fruit that they had made the Lascars gather. They sweated and fumed for a couple of days and made plans and quarrelled. Both Krause and Schmidt wished to command, and Schmidt won out because Krause was the bigger coward and was afraid of the madman. Abdullah Abu Nejm sat apart and hated them all. Oubanovitch talked a great deal in a loud tone of voice and argued that they should all be comrades and that nobody should command. By a single thread of common interest were they held together-their hatred of Tarzan, because he had sent them away without arms or ammunition.
'We could go back at night and steal what we need,' suggested Oubanovitch.
'I have been thinking that same thing, myself,' said Schmidt. 'You go back now, Oubanovitch, and reconnoiter. You can hide in the jungle just outside their camp and get a good lay of the land, so that we shall know just where the rifles are kept.'
'You go yourself,' said Oubanovitch, 'you can't order me around.'
'I'm in command,' screamed Schmidt, springing to his feet.
Oubanovitch stood up too. He was a big hulking brute, much larger than Schmidt. 'So what!' he demanded.
'There's no sense in fighting among ourselves,' said Krause. 'Why don't you send a Lascar?'
'If I had a gun this dirty Communist would obey me,' Schmidt grumbled, and then he called to one of the Lascar sailors. 'Come here, Chuldrup,' he ordered.
The Lascar slouched forward, sullen and scowling. He hated Schmidt; but all his life he had taken orders from white men, and the habit was strong upon him.
'You go other camp,' Schmidt directed; 'hide in jungle; see where guns, bullets kept.'
'No go,' said Chuldrup; 'tiger in jungle.'
'The hell you won't got,' exclaimed Schmidt, and knocked the sailor down. 'I'll teach you.' The sailor came to his feet, a boiling caldron of hate. He wanted to kill the white man, but he was still afraid. 'Now get out of here, you heathen dog,' Schmidt yelled at him; 'and see that you don't come back until you find out what you want to know.' Chuldrup turned and walked away, and a moment later the jungle closed behind him.
'I say!' exclaimed Algy. 'What's the blighter doing now?' The tiger had arisen and was standing, ears forward, looking back along the trail. He cocked his head on one side, listening.
'He hears something coming,' said Bolton .
'There he goes,' said Crouch, as the tiger slunk into the underbrush beside the trail.
'Now's our chance,' said Algy.
'He didn't go far,' said Bolton ; 'he's right there; I can see him.'
'Trying to fool us,' said Crouch.
Chuldrup was very much afraid; he was afraid of the jungle, but he was more afraid to return to Schmidt without the information the man wanted. He stopped for a moment to think the matter over; should he go back and hide in the jungle for a while close to Schmidt's camp and then when there had been time for him to fulfill his
