At last they caught sight of him again on the top of a very high tree, and the professor got two more shots, but without bringing him down.  Then he was seen, quite exposed for a moment, walking in a stooping posture along the large limb of a tree, but the hunter was loading at the time and lost the chance.  Finally he got on to a tree whose top was covered with a dense mass of creepers which completely hid him from view.  Then he halted and the sound of snapping branches was heard.

“You’ve not much chance of him now,” remarked the hermit, as they all stood in a group gazing up into the tree-top.  “I have often seen the mias act thus when severely wounded.  He is making a nest to lie down and die in.”

“Zen ve must shoot again,” said the professor, moving round the tree and looking out for a sign of the animal.  At last he seemed to have found what he wanted, for raising his rifle he took a steady aim and fired.

A considerable commotion of leaves and fall of broken branches followed.  Then the huge red body of the mias appeared falling through, but it was not dead, for it caught hold of branches as it fell and hung on as long as it could; then it came crashing down, and alighted on its face with an awful thud.

After firing the last shot Verkimier had not reloaded, being too intent on watching the dying struggles of the creature, and when it fell with such violence he concluded that it was dead.  For the same reason Nigel had neglected to reload after firing.  Thus it happened that when the enormous brute suddenly rose and made for a tree with the evident intention of climbing it, no one was prepared to stop it except the Dyak youth Gurulam.  He chanced to be standing between the mias and the tree.

Boldly he levelled his spear and made a thrust that would probably have killed the beast, if it had not caught the point of the spear and turned it aside.  Then with its left paw it caught the youth by the neck, seized his thigh with one of its hind paws, and fixed its teeth in his right shoulder.

Never was man rendered more suddenly and completely helpless, and death would have been his sure portion before the hunters had reloaded if Van der Kemp had not leaped forward, and, thrusting his spear completely through the animal’s body, killed it on the spot.

CHAPTER XVI.

BEGINS WITH A TERRIBLE FIGHT AND ENDS WITH A HASTY FLIGHT.

The hunt, we need scarcely say, was abruptly terminated, and immediate preparations were made for conveying the wounded man and the two orangs to the Dyak village.  This was quickly arranged, for the convenient bamboo afforded ready-made poles wherewith to form a litter on which to carry them.

The huge creature which had given them so much trouble, and so nearly cost them one human life, was found to be indeed of the largest size.  It was not tall but very broad and large.  The exact measurements, taken by the professor, who never travelled without his tape measure, were as follows:—­