At any rate I saw to my dismay that there was every prospect of my making a second acquaintance with that snapping tip.

The end of the trunk was lying along my bough like a huge brown snake and creeping up, up, up.
"He'll get us," I muttered.
Hans said nothing but leaned forward a little, holding on with his left hand.

Next instant in the light of the rising sun I saw a knife flash, saw also that the point of it had been driven through the lower lip of Jana's trunk, pinning it to the bough like a butterfly to a board.
My word! what a commotion ensued! Up the trunk came a scream which nearly blew me away.

Then Jana, with a wriggling motion, tried to unnail himself as gently as possible, for it was clear that the knife point hurt him, but could not do so because Hans still held the handle and had driven the blade deep into the wood.

Lastly he dragged himself downwards with such energy that something had to go, that something being the skin and muscle of the lower lip, which was cut clean through, leaving the knife erect in the bough.
Over he went backwards, a most imperial cropper.