Usanga clutched wildly at the control and the
machine shot upward at a steep angle. Dangling at the end of the
rope the ape-man swung pendulum-like in space. The Englishman, lying
bound upon the ground, had been a witness of all these happenings.
His heart stood still as he saw Tarzan's body hurtling through the
air toward the tree tops among which it seemed he must inevitably
crash; but the plane was rising rapidly, so that the beast-man
cleared the top-most branches. Then slowly, hand over hand, he
climbed toward the fuselage. The girl, clinging desperately to the
noose, strained every muscle to hold the great weight dangling at
the lower end of the rope.
Usanga, all unconscious of what was going on behind him, drove the
plane higher and higher into the air.
Tarzan glanced downward. Below him the tree tops and the river
passed rapidly to the rear and only a slender grass rope and the
muscles of a frail girl stood between him and the death yawning
there thousands of feet below.
It seemed to Bertha Kircher that the fingers of her hands were dead.
The numbness was running up her arms to her elbows. How much longer
she could cling to the straining strands she could not guess. It
seemed to her that those lifeless fingers must relax at any instant
and then, when she had about given up hope, she saw a strong brown
hand reach up and grasp the side of the fuselage.
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