Akut had now wandered quite close beneath the tree wherein lay the waiting death.

From time to time one or another of them had passed close to Teeka, and Tarzan had been uninterested.

Tom's turn came last, and meanwhile he was all eyes, looking first with awe at the great man, who sat close to him, and was helped first, and who read a hard-looking book all the time he was eating; and when he got up and walked off to the fire, at the small boys round him, some of whom were reading, and the rest talking in whispers to one another, or stealing one another's bread, or shooting pellets, or digging their forks through the tablecloth.