“Whilst I was the victim of this insect’s ferocity the horizon had become darkened by the shadowy outline of an enormous apish form.  I wanted to run away, but could not, and was compelled, sorely against my will, to witness its approach.  Never shall I forget the agonies of doubt I endured during its advance.  No man in a tiger’s den, nor deer tied to a tree awaiting its destroyer, could have suffered more than I did then, and my terror increased tenfold when I recognized in the monster—­Neppon—­a young gorilla that had been under my charge and had given me no end of trouble when I was head keeper in the Zoological Gardens at Berne.

“I never hated anything so much as I had hated that baboon.  At my hands it had undergone a thousand subtle torments.  I had pinched it, poked it, pulled its hair, frightened it by putting on masks and making all sorts of queer noises, and finally I had secretly poisoned it.  And now we stood face to face without any bars between us.  Never shall I forget the look of intense satisfaction in its hideous eyes, as its gaze encountered mine.

“In that strange forlorn world we faced each other; I, the tyrant once, now the quarry.  In the wildness of its glee it capered about like a mad thing, executing the most exaggerated antics that augmented my terror.  Every second I anticipated an assault, and the knowledge of my fears lent additional fierceness to its gambols.  A sudden change in my attitude at length made it cease.  The use had returned to my limbs; my muscles were quivering, and before it could stop me I had fled!  The wildest of chases then ensued.  I ran with a speed that would have shamed a record-beater on earth.  With extraordinary nimbleness I vaulted over titanic boulders of rocks; jumped across dykes of infinite depth, scurried like lightning over tracts of rough, lacerating ground, and never for one instant felt like flagging.

“Suddenly, to my horror, I came to an abrupt standstill, and the cry of some hunted animal burst from my lips.  Unwittingly I had run against a huge wall of granite, and escape was now impossible.  Again and again I clawed the hard rock, until the skin hung in shreds from my fingers, and the blood pattered on the dark soil, that in all probability had never tasted moisture before.  All this amused my pursuer vastly; it watched with the leisure of one who knows its fish will be landed in safety, and there suddenly came to me, through my olfactory nerves, a knowledge that it was speaking to me in the language of scents—­the language I never understood till now was the language of all animals.

“‘Reach, a little higher,’ it said; ’there are niches up there, and you must stretch your limbs.  Ha! ha!  Do you remember how you used to make me stretch mine?  You do!  Well, you needn’t shiver.  Explain to me how it is I find you here.’

“‘I cannot comprehend,’ I gasped with a gesticulation that was grotesque.

“The great beast laughed in my face.  ‘How so?’ it queried.  ’You used to quibble me upon my dull wits; must I now return the compliment?  Ha!  There’s blood on your hands.  Blood!  I will lick it up.’  And with a mocking grin it advanced.