“What is it now?” asked Mr. Hume.

“They have cut the track,” said the chief; “and it is as I thought, they have gone down from this tree to the ground, maybe to climb up further on.”

“Why?”

“Maybe a man has fallen to the ground here—­who can say; or the stinging ants have made a home.  That tree beyond is taboo to the little people, and we also will go down here.”

“What’s the good?” said Venning, beginning to climb up.

“No, no,” said Mr. Hume.  “We must leave this to the chief;” and he turned to descend.

Venning, however, was standing well placed for a swing, and he let himself go, reaching out with his left hand for another hold, and gaining the other side easily.  Compton, of course, followed, and the two stood examining the tree for sign of the path.  The track certainly had gone through that tree, but there were no signs of recent passage, and moss had grown over the branches.  They called down that they were going on, and, passing across several trees, found themselves once more cut off from the next tree, on which the well-beaten track once again ran on.

“Here’s the place,” they shouted, to guide the others; then looked about to see how they were to cross.

“We’ll have to shin down,” said Compton, “for there’s no crossing here.”

Venning sat down astride a branch with his back to the trunk.

“May as well rest awhile till they come up.”

“That’s a queer-looking branch underneath,” said Compton, following suit, and dropping a piece of bark on a bough that had attracted his attention.  “It’s covered all over with little squares of velvet moss.  See!”

“Suppose we lower our guns by the rope, then we can swarm down easily,” replied Venning, who had seen too many branches to be interested; and passing the rope round the two rifles, he lowered them to the ground, letting the rope follow.

“I believe it’s moving, or else I’ve got fever or something.”

“What’s moving?”

“That;” and Compton pointed down.

“By Jenkins!” muttered Venning; and the two knitted their brows as they peered down into the shadows, for the branch certainly was moving, and moving away as if it meant to part company with the trunk.  Their glances ran along the branch outwards, and then their eyes suddenly dilated, and their bodies stiffened.

So they stood like images, their hands clasping a branch, their heads thrust forward, and their eyes staring.  On the same level with their heads and about twelve feet off was the head of that moving “branch,” square-nosed, wedge-shaped, with the line of the jaws running right round to the broad part under the eyes, and a black-forked tongue flickering through an opening beneath the nostrils, It was the fixed stare of the lidless eyes, and the rigid position of the grim head poised in mid air on a neck that began like the muscular wrist of an athlete, thickening to where it was anchored on a branch three feet away to the size of an athlete’s leg.  And while the head, with the three feet of neck remained rigid, the body was gliding out and up, finding an anchorage in the forks of the tree on a level with the head, in readiness for the attack.