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"
What makes you think there is a man there?" asked the girl.
Tarzan smiled and shook his head. "I am afraid you would not understand," he
replied. "It is difficult for us to understand anything that is beyond our own
powers."
"What do you mean by that?" asked the officer.
"
Well," said Tarzan, "if you had been born without eyes you could not understand
sense impressions that the eyes of others transmit to their brains, and as you
have both been born without any sense of smell I am afraid you cannot
understand how I can know that there is a man there."
"You mean that you scent a man?" asked the girl.
Tarzan nodded affirmatively.
"
And in the same way you know the number of lions?" asked the man.
Yes," said Tarzan. "No two lions look alike, no two have the same scent."
"
The young Englishman shook his head. "No," he said, "I cannot understand."
"
I doubt if the lions or the man are here necessarily for the purpose of harming
us," said Tarzan, "because there has been nothing to prevent their doing so long
before had they wished to. I have a theory, but it is utterly preposterous."
"
What is it?" asked the girl.
"I think they are here," replied Tarzan, "to prevent us from going some place that
they do not wish us to go; in other words we are under surveillance, and possibly
as long as we don't go where we are not wanted we shall not be bothered."
"
But how are we to know where they don't want us to go?" asked Smith-Oldwick.
We can't know," replied Tarzan, "and the chances are that the very place we are
"
seeking is the place they don't wish us to trespass on."
"
You mean the water?" asked the girl.
Yes," replied Tarzan.
"
For some time they sat in silence which was broken only by an occasional sound
of movement from the outer darkness. It must have been an hour later that the
ape-man rose quietly and drew his long blade from its sheath. Smith-Oldwick was
dozing against the rocky wall of the cavern entrance, while the girl, exhausted by
the excitement and fatigue of the day, had fallen into deep slumber. An instant
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