asp of his chin on
the swing, and with tremendous exertion, working the lower end of his
spine against the railing, he began gradually to ascend the side of his
cage. The labor was so great that he was compelled to pause at
intervals, and his breathing was hard and painful; and even while thus
resting he was in a position of terrible strain, and his pushing
against the swing caused it to press hard against his windpipe and
nearly strangle him.

After amazing effort he had elevated the lower end of his body until it
protruded above the railing, the top of which was now across the lower
end of his abdomen. Gradually he worked his body over, going backward,
until there was sufficient excess of weight on the outer side of the
rail; and then, with a quick lurch, he raised his head and shoulders
and swung into a horizontal position on top of the rail. Of course, he
would have fallen to the floor below had it not been for the line which
he held in his teeth. With so great nicety had he estimated the
distance between his mouth and the point where the rope was fastened to
the rail, that the line tightened and checked him just as he reached
the horizontal position on the rail. If one had told me beforehand that
such a feat as I had just seen this man accomplish was possible, I
should have thought him a fool.

Neranya was now balanced on his stomach across the top of the rail, and
he eased his position by bending his spine and hanging down on either
side as much as possible. Having rested thus for some minutes, he began
cautiously to slide off backward, slowly paying out the line through
his teeth, finding almost a fatal difficulty in passing the knots. Now,
it is quite possible that the line would have escaped altogether from
his teeth laterally when he would slightly relax his hold to let it
slip, had it not been for a very ingenious plan to which he had
resorted. This consisted in his having made a turn of the line around
his neck before he attacked the swing, thus securing a threefold
control of the line,--one by his teeth, another by friction against his
neck, and a third by his ability to compress it between his cheek and
shoulder. It was quite evident now that the minutest details of a most
elaborate plan had been carefully worked out by him before beginning
the task, and that possibly weeks of difficult theoretical study had
been consumed in the mental preparation. As I observed him I was
reminded of certain hitherto una