"What strain!" she exclaimed. "Stanley Obroski, you come and lie down here and let me rub your head—perhaps it will put you to sleep."
"I'm not sleepy. Don't you want to get out of here?"
"Of course I do, but we can't."
"Perhaps not, but we can try. I asked you if you felt the draft on the floor."
"Of course I feel it, but what has that to do with anything. I'm not cold."
"It may not have anything to do with anything," Tarzan admitted, "but it suggests possibilities."
"What possibilities?" she demanded.
"A way out. The fresh air comes in from that other room through the bars of that door; it has to go out somewhere. The draft is so strong that it suggests a rather large opening. Do you see any large opening in this room through which the air could escape."
The girl rose to her feet. She was commencing to understand the drift of his remarks. "No," she said, "I see no opening."
"Neither do I; but there must be one, and we know that it must be some place that we cannot see." He spoke in a whisper.
"Yes, that is right."
"And the only part of this room that we can't see plainly is among the dark shadows on the ceiling over in that far corner. Also, I have felt the air current moving in that direction."
He walked over to the part of the room he had indicated and looked up into the darkness. The girl came and stood beside him, also peering upward.
"Do you see anything?" she asked, her voice barely audible.
"It is very dark," he replied, "but I think that I do see something—a little patch that appears darker than the rest, as though it had depth."
"Your eyes are better than mine," she said. "I see nothing."
From somewhere apparently directly above them, but at a distance, sounded a hollow chuckle, weird, uncanny.
Rhonda laid her hand impulsively on Tarzan's arm. "You are right," she whispered. "There is an opening above us—that sound came down through it."
"We must be very careful what we say above a whisper," he cautioned.
The opening in the ceiling, if such it were, appeared to be directly in the corner of the room. Tarzan examined the walls carefully, feeling every square foot of them as high as he could reach; but he found nothing that would give him a handhold. Then he sprang upward with outstretched hand—and felt an edge of an opening in the ceiling.
"It is there," he whispered.
"But what good will it do us? We can't reach it."
"We can try," he said; then he stooped down close to the wall in the corner of the room. "Get on my shoulders," he directed—"Stand on them. Support yourself with your hands against the wall."
Rhonda climbed to his broad shoulders. Grasping her legs to steady her, he rose slowly until he stood erect.
"Feel carefully in all directions," he whispered. "Estimate the seize of the opening; search for a handhold."
For some time the girl was silent. He could tell by the shifting of her weight from one foot to the other and by the stretching of her leg muscles that she was examining the opening in every direction as far as she could reach.
Presently she spoke to him. "Let me down," she said.
He lowered her to the floor. "What did you discover?" he asked.
"The opening is about two feet by three. It seems to extend inward over the top of the wall at one side—I could distinctly feel a ledge there. If I could get on it I could explore higher."
"We'll try again," said Tarzan. "Put your hands on my shoulders." They stood facing one another. "Now place your left foot in my right hand. That's it! Straighten up and put your other foot in my left hand. Now keep your legs and body rigid, steady yourself with your hands against the wall; and I'll lift you up again—probably a foot and a half higher than you were before."
"All right," she whispered. "Lift!"
He raised her easily but slowly to the full extent of Ms arms. For a moment he held her thus; then, first from one hand and then from the other, her weight was lifted from him.
He waited, listening. A long minute of silence ensued; then, from above him, came a surprised "Ouch!"
Tarzan made no sound, he asked no question—he waited. He could hear her breathing, and knew that nothing very serious had surprised that exclamation from her. Presently he caught a low whisper from above.
"Toss me your rope!"
He lifted the grass rope from where it lay coiled across one shoulder and threw a loop upward into the darkness toward the girl above. The first time, she missed it and it fell back; but the next, she caught it. He heard her working with it in the darkness above.
"Try it," she whispered presently.
He seized the rope above his head and raised his feet from the ground so that it supported all his weight. It held without slipping; then, hand over hand, he climbed. He felt the girl reach out and touch his body; then she guided one of his feet to the ledge where she stood—a moment later he was standing by her side.
"What have you found?" he asked, straining his eyes through the darkness.
"I found a wooden beam," she replied. "I bumped my head on it."
He understood now the origin of the exclamation he had heard, and reaching out felt a heavy beam opposite his shoulders. The rope was fastened around it. The ledge they were standing on was evidently the top of the wall of the room below. The shaft that ran upward was, as the girl had said, about two feet by three. The beam bisected its longer axis, leaving a space on each side large enough to permit a man's body to pass.
Tarzan wedged himself through, and clambered to the top of the beam. Above him, the shaft rose as far as he could reach without handhold or foothold.
He leaned down toward the girl. "Give me your hand," he said, and lifted her to the beam. "We've got to do a little more exploring," he whispered. "I'll lift you as I did before."
"I hope you can keep your balance on this beam," she said, but she did not hesitate to step into his cupped hands.
"I hope so," he replied laconically.
For a moment she groped about above her; then she whispered, "Let me down."
He lowered her to his side, holding her so that she would not lose her balance and fall
"Well?" he asked.
"I found another beam," she said, "but the top of it is just out of my reach. I could feel the bottom and a part of each side, but I was just a few inches too short to reach the top. What are we to do? It is just like a nightmare—straining here in the darkness, with some horrible menace lurking ready to seize one, and not being quite able to reach the sole means of safety."
Tarzan stooped and untied the rope that was still fastened around the beam upon which they stood.
"The tarmangani have a number of foolish sayings," he remarked. "One of them is that there are more ways than one of skinning a cat."
"Who are the tarmangani?" she asked.
Tarzan grinned in the safety of the concealing darkness. For a moment he had forgotten that he was playing a part. "Oh, just a silly tribe," he replied.
"That is an old saying in America. I have heard my grandfather use it. It is strange that an African tribe should have an identical proverb."
He did not tell her that in his mother tongue, the first language that he had learned, the language of the great apes, tarmangani meant any or all white men.
He coiled the rope; and, holding one end, tossed the coils into the darkness of the shaft above him. They fell back on top of them. Again he coiled and threw—again with the same result. Twice more he failed, and then the end of the rope that he held in his hand remained stretching up into the darkness while the opposite end dropped to swing against them. With the free end that he had thrown over the beam he bent a noose around the length that depended from the opposite side of the beam, making it fast with a bowline knot; then he pulled the noose up tight against the beam above.