a leopard, and to outstare some chance lion prowling on the outskirts.  They made “monkey faces” at him, and no monkey can stand that.  They raised their eyebrows, grinned, shot out their jaws, made little grunting noises; and when the great ape imitated them unconsciously in his rage, they broke into unseemly laughter.  The gorilla took up the gage of battle and advanced, snapping the branches as a sign of what he would do when he laid a hand or a foot on his enemies.  The little men doubled back and put themselves under the sheltering bulk of the hunter’s powerful frame, while the two boys sat astride of a big branch, the better to handle their carbines.  The gorilla, however, did not push his attack home.  They heard his surly grunt as he stopped to take stock of them, and as he did not venture closer, they had to resume the march, not, however, without a very distinct feeling of uneasiness.  For when they had got into the swing once more, the gorilla dogged them.  Like a hungry shark about an open boat at sea he came and went, now following steadily behind, now ranging up on the starboard quarter, now forging ahead, again coming up mysteriously from the depths below, and now breaking cover on the port side, but never giving a chance for a shot, and always reappearing at a new point after a long interval of silence.

“I don’t like the game of hide-and-seek,” said Mr. Hume, stopping.

“It’s the fault of those little beggars,” said Compton.  “They appear to enjoy the joke.”

The guides pointed to the ground and started to descend, pausing, however, to see if they were followed.

“I suppose we may as well go down?”

The little men laughed when they saw the others descending, and, sliding to the ground down slender vine-ropes, they immediately set to work insulting the gorilla again by a series of rapidly emitted cries.  This brought the brute up with a charge, just as the three white men had their attention occupied, and their hands engaged, by the descent.  From the branches above there dropped a huge black hairy object, with apparently four pairs of hands.

“By the Lord,” cried Mr. Hume, who was the first to see the enemy, “drop!”

He shinned down on top of Compton, who in turn descended on Venning, and the whole three of them reached the ground together in a jumble.  The gorilla lighted on all fours a few feet away, then, instead of springing on his helpless victims, he slowly raised himself to an erect position, and so standing on short bow-legs, emitted a tremendous roar, beginning with low mutterings, increasing to the deep-throated bark, and then dying away in hoarse grumblings.  A terrible object he was truly, with his fierce grey eyes, formidable dog-teeth projecting from his powerful jaws, which rested without the interval of anything like a neck on the curve of a chest that swept out vast on the well-founded ribs, wrought in strength to support the weight of the protruding stomach.