THE GORILLA AT HOME
My emotions were mixed. I was angry, and yet at the same time I was
very grateful to Stringer and Providence. No man enjoys being the
victim of a practical joke; neither does he relish the feeling that
only good luck has prevented his committing homicide.
I thrust my revolver back into my hip pocket, and strode over to the
gentleman with the club.
"Gran'pa!" I said. "You and your confounded _monkey_ tricks will end in
disaster one of these bright days. Why you couldn't have acquainted us
of your approach is beyond me. You might have known that we were on the
alert--ready to shoot at almost anything."
He removed his gorilla mask, mopped his brow and gave a forced laugh.
"Perhaps it was rather foolish of me," he admitted. "But I'd been
watching you all from behind that bush for some minutes, and I couldn't
resist a little practical joke. . . . Phew! That was a near thing,
George! I thought my last day had come."
He looked very shaky (served him right) and we had to take him over
to the cage and give him a sip of brandy. I also had one, and so did
Stringer.
We all felt better after that, and Stringer and I took off our
anthropoid heads and escorted Gran'pa on a tour of inspection.
The enraged prisoners of war roared at us more defiantly than ever, now
that their suspicions were confirmed. Their attempts at escape became
prodigious and their language frightful.
"We got these two birds with one stone, so to speak," I shouted.
"Did you, by jove?" he cried.
He looked at them more closely and a shadow of pain seemed to flit over
his features.
"You've knocked them about a lot, George. Was it necessary?"
"_We_ didn't do it. They did it themselves. Fighting!"
I explained things to him in detail.
"No 'fluence?" he inquired of Stringer.
"No time for it!"
"H'm! Still, we might try a little of it now, to quieten them. . . ."
"Anything to stop this infernal row," agreed Stringer.
So, once more--but this time in the heart of the African
jungle--Stringer brought his great mental powers to bear on the gorilla.
He stood as near as he dared to the largest and noisiest of our
captives, focussed his compelling gaze on its wicked little eyes, and
made domineering noises in the back of his throat.
The great brute quavered, fought a brief struggle for mental mastery,
and then began shifting its gaze hither and thither in a vain endeavor
to escape that burning, penetrating, hypnotic glare.
"Keep it up!" I said. "He's giving way!"
"_Tchah!_" cried Stringer.
The poor animal gave a shiver, let up a little whimper of shame
and submission, and suddenly grew resigned to its fate. At the
psychological moment Stringer stretched forth a hand, rested it on the
monster's head and pressed downwards. The victory of mind over matter
was complete.
Five minutes later, the other two had been similarly pacified. But
when the stretcher bearers arrived from the aerodrome the three brutes
began to recover their evil tempers again, and we had great difficulty
in placing them on their portable beds. The negroes were scared and
refused to help us. Finally, however, Gran'pa, and Stringer and I each
took charge of a stretcher and persuaded three of the blacks to catch
hold of the opposite ends.
Thus we carried our roaring burdens along the narrow jungle pathway
which led to the place of embarkation.
"They're quietening down again," said Gran'pa, as we unloaded. "Even a
gorilla has enough sense to find out the futility of noise. Look! That
big one's beginning to sulk. He'll probably maintain that attitude now
and never utter another word. Let's give him some food, to show our
approval."
We tried him with some of the white ribs of the pineapple leaf (a
particular gorilla delicacy), but he refused. So did the others.
"Well, we can't waste time. They'll soon come round when they've got
over their bad temper and begin to feel hungry. . . . We'd better get
them aboard the 'planes."
Oakley had two on his machine, and Newland had the third.
It was a strange sight. The poor fellows looked so old-fashioned,
sitting up in their chairs, with their curious little eyes peering from
one side to another and their heads moving from side to side while
the remainder of their bodies kept perfectly still. One could hardly
believe that they were animals.
"As this is the first consignment," said Gran'pa, "I think you'd
better pop over in Newland's 'plane, George, and see them put safely
aboard 'The Pilgrim Father.' You'll also be able to keep an eye on the
others. . . . I say, Oakley!"
"Yes?"
"Don't get too far apart on the way back. Mr. Barnett's coming, as
well, to act as an observer for both of you!"
"Good!"
I clambered aboard (with our gorilla in the middle seat), the
propellers were swung, and off we went--upwards and upwards into the
blue sky and the refreshingly cool air.
My excitement was intense. I had not even bothered to take off my
gorilla skin. The head had been removed, of course, and I had slipped
into my great coat and helmet, but I had not yet rid myself of the
feeling that I was half-man and half-anthropoid ape.
For the first hundred miles, we flew without anything unusual happening.
Our own gorilla made neither movement nor sound, but the rear one on
Oakley's machine kept straining at its bonds, with a stupid, brutish
persistency. It was the huge beast which Stringer had commenced to bind
while I was lying under the evil influence of that gas, and once or
twice I couldn't help thinking:
"Is that brute secure?"
When we reached the upper course of the "Moondah" I scribbled a note on
a scrap of paper and thrust it over to Newland.
"_Keep as near as you can to Oakley's 'plane_," I had written.
I watched him read it, saw him nod his head, and felt the machine put
on an extra spurt until the two 'planes were flying almost side by side.
Oakley's machine was now about fifty feet to the right and a little
below the level of ours, so that I could see his passengers quite
distinctly. The front one was quiet and resigned, but the rear one was
still viciously struggling to escape. I was getting anxious, and, had
there been any landing place visible, I should have felt very much
inclined to signal Oakley to make a temporary halt for the purpose of
examining the animal's bonds. The thought of its breaking loose in
mid-air was appalling.
I kept a careful watch on its every movement and once, when it
looked vindictively upwards at our 'plane, I shook my fist at it
threateningly, waved my arms, and tried in every way I could to
distract its attention. But it was useless. It turned its face away
with supreme contempt and merely renewed its efforts with more
enthusiasm than ever. It wrenched, and twisted, and strained; and
suddenly something seemed to give way. After that, it kept very still
for a while.
"What's happened?" I thought. "Has it kinked a muscle, broken a bone,
or . . . ?"
My mental query was answered by the dramatic appearance of first one
free arm and then another. The scene was strangely reminiscent of one
of those turns at a music hall, when a man undertakes to escape from a
complexity of knotted ropes in so many minutes. It thrilled me by its
cleverness; but it scared me by its dangerous possibilities.
In an instant I had my revolver out and kept the brute covered. As
long as it remained quiet, it was safe; but the moment it got out of
that seat it would be a dead gorilla.
I saw Newland glance round at me and take in the whole situation. He
brought the machine a little closer to the other and, as he did so, the
gorilla grew alarmed, raised its hands in the air and sought for a hold
amidst the struts.
"My God! The controls!" I thought, swiftly. "If it touches one of
those, Oakley's done!"
I took a steady aim, pressed my finger to the trigger and fired three
times in rapid succession.
But I was too late. The gorilla was hit at the precise moment that it
had grabbed one of the thin wires on which so much depends when a man
is in mid-air.
Down went the great roaring machine--spinning round and round like a
falling leaf in an autumn gale. For over two thousand feet it must have
dropped. And then, I saw a little brown speck fall out into space. The
machine nose-dived, flattened out, switchbacked, and gradually began to
ascend into the blue heavens again.
"Good old Oakley!" I thought. "You're a marvel, man!"
As he came up, so we glided down to meet him, until at last I could
wave my handkerchief as a sign of approval and welcome.
He answered my signal with a raised arm (and probably a quiet smile of
triumph, had I been able to see it!) and once more we continued our
journey homewards.
We met with no further exciting adventures, and half-an-hour later
we alighted at the Corisco aerodrome and transferred our cargo
from aeroplane to ship. There, the liberation of the monsters was
accomplished with cunning simplicity. A large cage, capable of holding
about thirty gorillas, had been erected, together with a sort of annex,
which connected with the former by means of a sliding door. In this
smaller cage we placed the first gorilla, loosened his bonds a little
(without actually untying them), and then placed him with his back to
the bars. In this way we were able to remove his handcuffs from the
outside.
He had sufficient intelligence and perseverance to liberate himself
from the remainder of the bonds without our help, and when he had done
this we raised the sliding door, drove him into the larger cage, closed
the door again--and were ready for the next! Could anything have been
simpler or safer?
Our two captives safely berthed, we wasted no time in returning to the
Gorilla Country, which we again reached in just over an hour and a half.
I expected to find on our arrival a further consignment of live
gorilla. But I was disappointed. The three red balloons hung lazily in
the still, tropical air; but none of them showed the welcome flags of
victory.
It appeared that Gran'pa and Stringer had returned to the jungle
immediately after we had left for Corisco and since then--silence had
reigned. Not a roar, not a bark of a gorilla had been heard. The three
white men, with their retinue of blacks, might have been non-existent
for all the signs of life they had shown since their return to the
gloomy depths of the forest.
"Well," I said to Oakley, "I think I'll be getting along to my cage
again."
"Right-ho!"
"We have to start back in four hours' time, don't we?"
He looked at his wrist watch. "Better not leave it any later than that."
"Bye-bye!"
"So long!" he answered, lighting a cigarette.
I went along the narrow pathway which led to our first cage, alone--and
a little scared (although I wouldn't have admitted it to myself or
anyone else for worlds).
There is something terribly unnerving about the perpetual, twilight
gloom of the great African forests, unpenetrated by the sun even at
mid-day. The trees lean over and threaten one with their immense bulk
of branch and leaf; the bushes harbor God knows what crawling and
prowling peril; and the swaying tendrils wave their arms to and fro
like long, sentient things. All vegetable life seems to be working in
unison with the animal life which creeps behind its dark and sinister
shelter. One is given no respite.
There is always that sense of a Vindictive Something sneaking behind,
or waiting in ambush in front, or prowling alongside--watching for
its opportunity to spring. The snap of a twig, the sudden flight of
a bird, the scurry of something small and harmless, the sough of the
wind (like a deep breath), the rustle of leaves, the pad-pad of one's
own feet, even the thumping of one's own heart--all these sounds are
instantly translated into a sign of some terrible, carnivorous menace.
One's sense of hearing becomes painfully acute--almost raw! One's
nerves become keyed up to the breaking point. One's feeling of immense
loneliness is appalling--and palpable!
As I hurried along, the conviction grew that I was no longer Man,
the Lord of Creation, but merely a poor little defenceless creature,
fleeing through a land of hideous, nightmare shapes. Of what use was a
sporting rifle, or a revolver? I could not aim in the dark. And, even
if I could, there was still the danger of being taken unawares.
_What was that?_
Merely, the shrill cry of a parrot. . . .
I tried to laugh at my folly, and, as a temporary diversion, I
even tried to picture the wet and glistening streets converging on
Piccadilly Circus--that symbol of a great civilized city where Man was
indeed omnipotent.
But the vision would not persist. It became an epitome of vain
endeavor. New York, London, Paris, all those huge capitals--what were
they? Little blobs of buildings, which did not cover a millionth
part of the world's wide surface; mere temporary excrescences on the
immobile face of Mother Earth.
The jungle was unchanging, cynically indifferent to all but the
relentless laws of Nature. It had seen men like me before, travelling
blindly and painfully onwards to some ephemeral goal, and now and then
it smote at us with its diseases, its lurking animals, its crawling
reptiles, and its poisonous vegetation. But still we came.
What did these little serious and eager white men seek? It was not
food; nor was it mates--as was the custom of the jungle folk. Who were
these men, to-day, who came over on their great roaring birds and
disguised themselves in the skins of their ancestors? Who was this
solitary unit of humanity stumbling onward in the gloom? What did he
seek?
I looked upwards at the great questioning canopy of green. But I could
not answer. My name sounded too tragically inconsequential; my mission
so childishly absurd!
The day before yesterday, men brought the Bible and medicine to the
blacks, and received in exchange their intangible souls. Yesterday,
they brought cheap jewelry and deadly firearms, and took away ivory
and rubber--and human life. To-day, they came with weird cries and
sleep-inducing vapors--and flew away with live and protesting gorillas.
To-morrow? . . . Perhaps, they would remove the jungle itself. . . .
It was strange that I, George Barnett, late of His Britannic Majesty's
Civil Service, should become so psychological. Strange it was that I
(who had never found thought of much consequence in my old profession)
should now utilize my brains so freely. Was it morbid, or was it
natural? . . .
I was brought back from the abstract to the real by the sudden
appearance of a gigantic snake lying right in the centre of my path. It
evidently heard my approach, for it erected its head, slid forward a
little, and prepared to strike.
At the same moment, I fired--and missed.
Not daring to risk another shot, I turned and ran for my life,
the hideous thing coming after me with a peculiar half-leaping,
half-slithering motion.
I ran as I've never run before, with sheer terror lending a miraculous
aid to my flying feet, and when I saw an elephant track crossing my
line of retreat at right-angles I rounded the corner like the wind.
But it was a vain hope. The serpent, with the age-long wisdom of its
kind, was not to be hoodwinked in this simple manner. Instead, it cut
through the underbrush and thereby gained a good yard.
On and on I tore--a man in gorilla's clothing, but with the heart of a
mouse!
I must have covered over a quarter of a mile before I reached the
end of the chase, and it came so suddenly and swiftly that I thought
for one wild moment that my pursuer had overtaken and struck me. The
ground gave way beneath my feet, I shot head over heels down a steep
slope, hit a tree trunk, bounded off again, and at last came to a full
stop.
Dazed as I was by the fall, I realized at once what had happened. I
had tumbled ignominiously into one of the elephant-traps made by the
natives of this locality. It was a hole about eight feet square and
nearly a dozen deep, and, as I looked upwards, I saw the serpent's head
appear over the edge, then its body--and down it came with a flop.
It is astonishing how quickly the human mind can work in moments of
real danger. In the merest fraction of a second my eyes had taken in
the one possible avenue of escape--a long vertical creeper, dangling
the end of its thick arm within a yard of my head.
With a cry, I leapt into the air, grabbed my hope of salvation in both
hands and hauled myself aloft.
The serpent, too, had erected itself on a coiled base and was preparing
to strike. Its head swayed slowly to and fro and its evil tongue shot
in and out, as if in grim, sardonic anticipation of its meal.
I wriggled my right hand free, got at my revolver, took aim, and fired
straight into its open mouth.
The sight was terrible--but majestic! The huge bulk of headless muscle
lurched forward, struck blindly at my legs and collapsed in a writhing
mass of impotence.
For fully a minute I hung there, watching the death throes of my
pursuer. Then, when I could hold on no longer, I jumped clear, landed
heavily on my feet and hands, and commenced scrambling out of that
horrible pit.
Safe and sound again, I retraced my steps at a gentle trot.
To the chattering monkeys who swung from branch to branch above and
looked down on me with startled curiosity, I must have presented a
strange sight. My gorilla skin was tattered and torn, my face and hands
were scratched and bleeding, my hair was in wild disorder. A fine
caricature of a man who had known the joys of white spats and carefully
creased trousers and a well cut coat, and bone-rimmed, circular
spectacles!
I must have covered nearly a mile before I realized what I ought to
have guessed long ago. I was lost!
It was not a pleasant discovery, and, the moment I made it, I stood
still and did some very hard thinking. Now that it was too late, I saw
that we should have prepared for such a contingency and marked some of
the trees which flanked our pathway from the aerodrome to the cages.
I tried to recollect the way I had come, but knew that any attempt to
get back to the open country where the aerodrome was situated might
only lead me still further astray.
"Oh, for a 'plane--or a balloon!" I thought.
That last mental image saved me! I sought out a suitable tree, leapt
up at its lowest branch, caught hold of it, and raised my bruised and
weary body to the first step upwards.
I climbed slowly but alertly--and much to the alarm of a couple of
monkeys perched in one of its topmost branches. They fled chattering
along the pale green surface above.
Half-way up, I cursed my torn and impeding gorilla skin, discarded it,
and resumed the journey in a pair of "shorts" and a shirt.
Below, everything was dark and gloomy and foreboding; but, above, the
sun extended thin fingers of gold amidst the green leaves.
"If I have to die," I thought, "let it be up here, where the air is
pure and there is light."
For over a hundred feet I continued that ascent to freedom, and then I
stopped and listened to a peculiar fluttering noise on my left.
I craned my neck and peered through the branches.
The "thing" came into view--a great red ball, beneath which there
billowed and waved the flags of America and England!
"Balloon ahoy!" I shouted, deliriously.
("And they've caught another gorilla!" I thought, subconsciously.)
There was no answer, and after giving still another futile shout, I
began working my way from one tree to another until I came to the edge
of a clearing containing one of our cages. By crawling out to the
extremity of a huge horizontal branch, I was at last able to look below.
"Hello, there!" I shouted.
I saw the two blacks turn their faces skywards and, tearing off my
vest, I waved it aloft.
"Hel-lo-oh . . . !" came a voice which was apparently Gran'pa's.
Without further palaver, I commenced my descent to _terra firma_. From
bough to bough I dropped in quick succession, until, when I reached the
last, I was only twenty feet above ground level.
Having no desire to drop from this height into a tangle of underbrush,
I worked my way out to the tip of the branch, hung for a moment on the
end of the arch it so considerately made, and then let go.
I fell on my feet as gracefully as an acrobat.
"By George!" exclaimed Gran'pa, running up to me. "It's . . . George!"
"What's left of him!" I breathed.
"What on earth have you been doing now?" he asked.
(A nice greeting, but characteristic of Gran'pa!)
"It's a new game," I observed, quietly. "When _you_ get lost in that
damned jungle it may occur to even you! I've been up there looking for
the nearest balloon. Thank God I found it--even if it did happen to be
yours!"
I told him the tale of my adventures.
"It was very foolish of you to come alone," he admonished.
"And--where's your gorilla skin?"
"Half-way up a tree--such as there's left of it. . . . You've caught
another gorilla, I see."
"Yes! A beauty! How did you get on with the other three?"
"So--so! . . . One of them broke loose on the way back--and I had to
shoot it."
"But. . . ."
"For heaven's sake, don't argue!" I said. "If I _hadn't_ shot the
brute. . . . Well, as it was, Oakley very nearly crashed."
"We do seem to be unlucky, George!" he complained.
"I think it's just the opposite. Four captures on the first day is
far better than any of us expected. We're collecting _gorillas_--not
monkey-nuts."
"I agree. But Stringer and you should have paid greater attention to
the bindings. There's really no excuse, George, for slipshod work in a
dangerous job like this. We don't want any blood shed, either our own
or the gorillas. Already, we've lost one life and it was apparently by
the merest fluke that we didn't lose two others."
It was disgraceful of him to start lecturing a man who had just been
through what I had. Besides, he was no paragon himself.
"What about yourself and your silly monkey trick this morning?" I
retorted. "You nearly lost _your_ life! If ever a man had a beam in his
eye . . ."
"Now, now, George! I'm only telling you what should be obvious to
everyone of us. We _must_ exercise more care. We're getting far too
matter-of-fact. Things have been too easy for us."
I glanced at my bruised and bloodstained legs and arms.
"I'd like you to have ten minutes with that snake I met. You'd be a
much better man for it--if you were spared!"
"Don't be so vindictive, George! It was your own fault. You shouldn't
go wandering about the jungle alone! You ought to have known better."
"Oh, rats!" I exclaimed. "I'm fed up with this. I've had quite enough
for one day--and I want my tea. . . . I'm going home."
"Go back to the aerodrome by all means, but at least wait there until
the rest of us are ready to return."
I could feel my temper rising rapidly and could also see that Gran'pa
was in one of his calm, sarcastic, irritating moods. It was safer to
go, before I rose in my wrath and smote him.
"Very well!" I snapped. "Lend me a black to take me back."
Without another word to me, Gran'pa beckoned to one of them, told him
to escort me to the aerodrome, and then walked away in the direction of
his cage, softly whistling to himself.
I left immediately, deliberately stifling all desire for a
reconciliation. I would not stand any more of this rejuvenated old
man's impertinence. Damn him and his collection of doddering ancients!
Why should I endanger my health and vitality as a gland-snatching
maniac in the middle of a jungle? For two pins I'd mutiny and return to
England. . . .
My temper rose. So did my temperature. And the upshot of it was that my
complaint was diagnosed that evening as malaria.
It was a mild attack, and quinine and Sally Rebecca soon pulled me
through; but it left me weak and depressed for many days. To add to
my depression, the others experienced a spell of very bad luck in the
jungle. The gorillas had apparently "got the wind up," as Gran'pa said.
They not only avoided our cages, but even migrated from the whole of
the surrounding country. Negroes went out reconnoitering, hoping to
discover their line of retreat; the cages were moved by aeroplane
to spots fifty or sixty miles further inland; and the hangar was
transferred to a new aerodrome. By these means we managed to capture
another eight gorillas, making a grand total of eleven (not counting
the one lost in transit).
Already the first two of the six months dry season had nearly passed.
"This will never do," I said to Gran'pa, who had just returned from
spending the day in Libreville. "Even if we maintain the same rate
of capture we can't collect more than thirty or forty before the wet
season sets in."
I was sitting on the veranda of our bungalow, overlooking the deep blue
Bay of Corisco. It was evening, and from the shore came the sound of
negro merriment.
"You'll be able to join us again next week," said Gran'pa. "I hope for
better luck then. . . ."
"That's very nice of you!"
"Besides, we now have half the neighboring tribes searching for new
hunting grounds. These blacks will do anything for a trip in a 'plane.
It gives them a big social status, you know--like a knighthood in your
country."
Molly and Sally Rebecca entered.
"Hello, Mollikins!" greeted Gran'pa. "Been for a swim?"
"Rather!" cried Molly. "It was lovely!"
"The water's like silk to-night," corroborated Sally Rebecca. "I do
wish I could swim--instead of wading. . . . How are you feeling,
George?"
"Not so bad for a youngster," I said, contrasting my own jaded
condition with that of Gran'pa's fiancée. (There was no doubt that
the active, open-air life and Gran'pa's system of physical jerks had
greatly improved her health and vitality).
"_I_ think Daddy looks _heaps_ better," asserted Molly, standing and
viewing me with her feet apart.
"So I am, my dear! Who wouldn't be, with two such companions as you
girls?"
The girl of seventy blushed and the girl of twelve laughed
good-humoredly--the old and the modern way of taking a compliment.
Then Stringer and Dr. Croft entered.
They had just come back from the jungle, and looked a little jaded and
despondent.
"Any luck today?" I asked.
"None!" answered Croft, briefly. "But we've news--of a sort. Old Nchago
says that he's discovered a fresh hunting ground, and has seen, or
heard, upwards of a dozen male and female gorillas."
"Ah!" exclaimed Gran'pa, with a quick glance at his beloved. "I'm glad
there's a chance of getting a lady gorilla or two. I was beginning to
lose heart. . . ."
"They'll take some catching," I said. "If we could pursue the ladies,
instead of trying to _lure_ them . . . up to the gas-works. . . ."
"You're quite right, George. Were we merely after their blood, instead
of their glands--like the so-called average sportsman--we should have
been overstocked by now!"
Stringer, who very seldom had any suggestion to make, joined in. The
slump in captives had depressed him even more than the rest of us.
"I think the mistake," he observed, "was not to have kept the old men
in Corisco. We could then have shot our gorillas, taken their glands
back the same evening, and finished the whole job within twenty-four
hours. This business of collecting live gorillas and keeping them for
several months. . . ." Words failed him and he made no effort to conceal
his disgust.
Gran'pa disagreed, as usual.
"I thought all this out before," he said. "I didn't feel that the
climate here would suit men of seventy and upwards."
"It seems to have agreed with Miss Froud," grunted Stringer, rather
rudely.
I am thankful to say that Sally Rebecca and Molly had tactfully left
us, no doubt aware that trouble was brewing.
Gran'pa, who hated criticism, kept calm. He weighed his words
carefully, and uttered them soothingly.
"You must remember," he pointed out, "that Miss Froud is an exception.
Not only is she the youngest and healthiest of these old people but, in
addition, she has naturally been the object of more individual care
and attention than I could possibly lavish on a party of eighty-seven
old men."
"I admit that," mumbled Stringer, pessimistically. "But I don't see why
the others couldn't have taken their chance. _We_ have to--out there in
the jungle. . . ." He waved a podgy arm eastwards, in the direction of
the Dark Continent.
"No man recognizes the fact more than I do," replied Gran'pa, quickly
and warmly. "I needn't have come at all. None of us need!"
I could see that both Stringer and Gran'pa were beginning to lose their
tempers, and I tried to smooth matters down.
"All this," I remarked, "doesn't get us any further. The point is,
would it be advisable to bring the old men to the gorillas, as Stringer
suggests, or take the gorillas to the old men, as we had arranged?"
"We can't have them here," said Gran'pa. "The delay and trouble
would be tremendous. Besides, I will not be a party to the wholesale
slaughter of any animal. It isn't sport, but murder! You've read of
modern tiger-hunting. Half-naked blacks, armed with sticks, drive the
poor, frightened beasts out of the jungle as if they were rabbits. And
the big game hunters shoot them down--again, like rabbits. Pah! It
makes my blood boil! What chance has the tiger? . . . They'll start
_shelling_ animals next--or machine-gunning them. . . . No! We must go
on doing our best, and doing it cleanly and humanely. There may be a
temporary slump; but things aren't hopeless. To-morrow, we'll get on
the track of this new colony, or whatever it is. Come, Stringer, I'm
surprised at you! . . . Don't look so miserable. . . ."
Stringer's expression of Old Bill-like melancholy slowly vanished, and
we began basking in the sunshine of one of his most fascinating smiles.
His bushy eyebrows and walrus moustache gave up bristling, and gently
subsided; his eyes twinkled; once more did hope kindle in his breast.
"That's better!" exclaimed Gran'pa. "Now, if only we could only hit
on some idea for attracting the females--which seem to be about six
times as plentiful as the males--and a hundred times as shy. . . .
We might, for instance, capture one of their babies and use it as a
sort of decoy duck. . . . It's obviously no good trying to disguise
ourselves as infant gorillas-in-arms. The real article is what we
want. . . . George, we must get one of their 'puppies'--something which
will howl for its mummie! If only we can awaken the lady gorilla's
finer feelings--her desire to cherish and fondle the young--she's ours!
What? . . . ?"
"It sounds rather a low down trick," I replied.
"Not at all," said Dr. Croft. "It's perfectly legitimate--if it works!"
Stringer, who had been looking much brighter and happier up to this
point, again showed signs of despondency.
"If you do get a baby gorilla," he observed, "it doesn't follow that
any but its own mother will show affection for it."
"Nonsense!" dogmatized Gran'pa. "The moment its howl for food or
material comfort goes up, it will awaken a tender response in the
breast of every true feminine gorilla in the jungle. You see if I'm not
correct!"
Four days later, we got our first chance of proving--or
disproving--Gran'pa's new theory.