of reach, and as they regained their feet they heard the report of a rifle as Mr. Hume fired into ‘’ the hairy body.  With its last effort the dying ape seized the hunter by the leg and hurled him to the ground, his fall being luckily broken by a decaying branch, which was crushed under his weight.  Bruised and shaken, the three travellers stood by the carcase, over which the little men were singing a song of triumph, as if they had been the chief actors instead of intensely interested spectators.  One of them was tugging at the knife to free it from the skull, and as he could not move it, the second, and then the third, had a try, all laughing with much merriment.

“It’s fun for them,” said Venning, rubbing a bruised arm.

“I believe,” said Mr. Hume, sourly, “they contrived the whole thing as a gladiatorial spectacle for their amusement.  I don’t think I was ever so near death;” and he shook hands gravely.  “If you had not fired when you did, he would have had me.”

“And what about us?” said Compton.  “I never saw anything so awful, and never felt so helpless, as when it stood over us.”

“A good job for us he did stand,” said Venning, taking out his tape.  “I should like to have his measurements.  Just straighten him out.”  He passed the tape over.  “Length, 6 ft. 2 in.; round the chest, 55 in.; round the abdomen, 60 in.; length of arm, 44 in.; biceps, 14 in.—­not so very huge; forearm, 15 in.; calf, 13 in.  His power is in the muscles of the shoulders, chest, and back.”

“And jaw,” said Compton.  “Look at the sweep of the jaw-bone.  He would crack a man’s thigh with ease.”

“And just think,” said Venning, “that he has practically four hands, that he can spring like a lion, climb like a leopard, walk like a man, swing like a monkey, bite like a hyaena, and strike like a battering-ram.  I guess I’ve had enough of gorillas.”

When Mr. Hume signalled to the guides to continue, they expressed by signs their astonishment that the white men did not sit down to make a meal off the gorilla; and when they really did gather that the feast was to be abandoned, one remained behind, and another disappeared into the trees, while the third resumed the journey with backward looks of regret.  About an hour later they met the entire pigmy tribe on the way to the feast, and as they swarmed over the tree in passing, the little people greeted Mr. Hume with much honour as the “father of all the gorillas.”

The next day the travellers reached the opening whence they had started on the trail of the cannibals a few days before.  They parted with the sooty guide, giving him a handful of sugar, a stick of tobacco, a small tin of salt, and a cartridge-case.  The latter he placed proudly in a hole in the lobe of his ear; the other things he stowed away in his little sack, made from the skin of a small monkey.