One of their sword-blades grazed Tim’s shin, and he quickly fell from his perch right to the bottom of the trunk, and some three feet below the surface of the earth.
For be it remarked the tree was an immense old cypress, which in all cases have hollow trunks.
The two skeletons searched and searched in vain.
They cut, and hacked the soft bark, and, wherever they found a knot-hole, plunged their long sword-blades into it, in hopes of transfixing the unlucky, and timorous groom.
But with a long-drawn sigh, Tim thanked his stars that he was now safe, and, as he turned his eyes upwards, he plainly saw the two skeletons looking down upon him.
But they did not perceive him.
They gave up the search, thinking that their intended victim had escaped by crawling out on to a large branch, and then dropping to the ground among the combatants on every side.
They left the tree; and Tim, all alone in his momentary glory, had serious misgivings as to how he should escape.
He could not get up again, for his own weight in his descent had forced him down, with a little squeezing, but it could not force him up again!
“I’m doomed!” groaned Tim, in his dismal incarceration; “and shall be stifled, or die of hunger here.”