“Oh, look how the tree’s bending over!” cried Jack.
“Yes, he had no business to choose such a slight one,” said the captain, as the tree swayed beneath the man’s weight.
“Had I better stop him?” said Sir John.
“I think perhaps you had better not startle him and make him nervous, father. We don’t want any accidents.”
“Indeed we don’t,” said the doctor; “better let him be. Why, if he goes on like this the tree will bend over like a fishing-rod, and he can drop from the top to the ground.”
Then silence fell upon the group, and the sailors ceased to cheer, as, with the elastic rod-like tree bending more and more over, and swaying up and down, Ned climbed on, till the last part of his progress was after the fashion of a sloth, hanging back downward, and at every movement coming nearer, till the great crown of leaves and nuts, which had stood forty feet in the air, was not more than twenty.
“Another two or three feet will do it,” said the doctor; “but I’m afraid he will not be able to get the nuts off.”
“Oh yes; he can screw them off,” said the captain.
“What I’m afraid of is—”
Crack!