Читать книгу The African Cycle: Action & Adventure Novels - R. M. Ballantyne - Страница 14

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“It never rains but it pours,” is a true proverb. I have often noticed, in the course of my observations on sublunary affairs, that events seldom come singly. I have often gone out fishing for trout in the rivers of my native land, day after day, and caught nothing, while at other times I have, day after day, returned home with my basket full.

As it was in England, so I found it in Africa. For many days after our arrival in the gorilla country, we wandered about without seeing a single creature of any kind. Lions, we ascertained, were never found in those regions, and we were told that this was in consequence of their having been beaten off the field by gorillas. But at last, after we had all, severally and collectively, given way to despair, we came upon the tracks of a gorilla, and from that hour we were kept constantly on the qui vive, and in the course of the few weeks we spent in that part of the country, we “bagged,” as Peterkin expressed it, “no end of gorillas”—great and small, young and old.

I will never forget the powerful sensations of excitement and anxiety that filled our breasts when we came on the first gorilla footprint. We felt as no doubt Robinson Crusoe did when he discovered the footprint of a savage in the sand. Here at last was the indubitable evidence of the existence and presence of the terrible animal we had come so far to see. Here was the footstep of that creature about which we had heard so many wonderful stories, whose existence the civilised world had, up to within a very short time back, doubted exceedingly, and in regard to which, even now, we knew comparatively very little.

Makarooroo assured us that he had hunted this animal some years ago, and had seen one or two at a distance, though he had never killed one, and stated most emphatically that the footprint before us, which happened to be in a soft sandy spot, was undoubtedly caused by the foot of a gorilla.

Being satisfied on this head, we four sat down in a circle round the footprint to examine it, while our men stood round about us, looking on with deep interest expressed in their dark faces.

“At last!” said I, carefully brushing away some twigs that partly covered the impression.

“Ay, at last!” echoed Jack, while his eyes sparkled with enthusiasm.

“Ay,” observed Peterkin, “and a pretty big last he must require, too. I shouldn’t like to be his shoemaker. What a thumb, or a toe. One doesn’t know very well which to call it.”

“I wonder if it’s old?” said I.

“As old as the hills,” replied Peterkin; “at least 50 I would judge from its size.”

“You mistake me. I mean that I wonder whether the footprint is old, or if it has been made recently.”

“Him’s quite noo,” interposed our guide.

“How d’ye know, Mak?”

“’Cause me see.”

“Ay; but what do you see that enables you to form such an opinion?”

“O Ralph, how can you expect a nigger to understand such a sentence as that?” said Jack, as he turned to Mak and added, “What do you see?”

“Me see one leetle stick brok in middel. If you look to him you see him white and clean. If hims was old, hims would be mark wid rain and dirt.”

“There!” cried Peterkin, giving me a poke in the side, “see what it is to be a minute student of the small things in nature. Make a note of it, Ralph.”

I did make a note of it mentally on the spot, and then proposed that we should go in search of the gorilla without further delay.

We were in the midst of a dark gloomy wood in the neighbourhood of a range of mountains whose blue serrated peaks rose up into the clouds. Their sides were partly clothed with wood. We were travelling—not hunting—at the time we fell in with the track above referred to, so we immediately ordered the men to encamp where they were, while we should go after the gorilla, accompanied only by Mak, whose nerves we could depend on.

Shouldering our trusty rifles, and buckling tight the belts of our heavy hunting-knives, we sallied forth after the manner of American Indians, in single file, keeping, as may well be supposed, a sharp lookout as we went along. The fact was that long delay, frequent disappointment, and now the near prospect of success, conspired together to fill us with a species of nervous excitement that caused us to start at every sound.

The woods here were pretty thick, but they varied in their character so frequently that we were at one time pushing slowly among dense, almost impenetrable underwood, at another walking briskly over small plains which were covered in many places with large boulders. It was altogether a gloomy, savage-looking country, and seemed to me well suited to be the home of so dreadful an animal. There were few animals to be seen here. Even birds were scarce, and a few chattering monkeys were almost the only creatures that broke the monotonous silence and solitude around us.

“What a dismal place!” said Peterkin, in a low tone. “I feel as if we had got to the fag-end of the world, as if we were about plunging into ancient chaos.”

“It is, indeed,” I replied, “a most dreary region. I think that the gorillas will not be disturbed by many hunters with white faces.”

“There’s no saying,” interposed Jack. “I should not wonder, now, if you, Ralph, were to go home and write a book detailing our adventures in these parts, that at least half the sportsmen of England would be in Africa next year, and the race of gorillas would probably become extinct.”

“If the sportsmen don’t come out until I write a book about them, I fear the gorillas will remain undisturbed for all time to come.”

At that time, reader, I was not aware of the extreme difficulty that travellers experience in resisting the urgent entreaties of admiring and too partial friends!

Presently we came to a part of the forest where the underwood became so dense that we could scarcely make our way through it at all, and here we began for the first time to have some clearer conception of the immense power of the creature we were in pursuit of; for in order to clear its way it had torn down great branches of the trees, and in one or two places had seized young trees as thick as a man’s arm, and snapped them in two as one would snap a walking-cane.

Following the track with the utmost care for several miles, we at length came to a place where several huge rocks lay among the trees. Here, while we were walking along in silence, Makarooroo made a peculiar noise with his tongue, which we knew meant that he had discovered something worthy of special attention, so we came to an abrupt pause and looked at him.

“What is it, Mak?” inquired Jack.

The guide put his finger on his mouth to impose silence, and stood in a listening attitude with his eyes cast upon the ground, his nostrils distended, and every muscle of his dusky frame rigid, as if he were a statue of black marble. We also listened attentively, and presently heard a sound as of the breaking of twigs and branches.

“Dat am be gorilla,” said the guide, in a low whisper.

We exchanged looks of eager satisfaction.

“How shall we proceed, Mak?” inquired Jack.

“We mus’ go bery slow, dis way,” said the guide, imitating the process of walking with extreme caution. “No break leetle stick. If you break leetle stick hims go right away.”

Promising Mak that we would attend to his injunctions most carefully, we desired him to lead the way, and in a few minutes after came so near to where the sound of breaking sticks was going on that we all halted, fearing that we should scare the animal away before we could get a sight of it amongst the dense underwood.

“What can he be doing?” said I to the guide, as we stood looking at each other for a few seconds uncertain how to act.

“Him’s breakin’ down branches for git at him’s feed, s’pose.”

“Do you see that?” whispered Peterkin, as he pointed to an open space among the bushes. “Isn’t that a bit o’ the hairy brute?”

“It looks like it,” replied Jack eagerly.

“Cluck!” ejaculated Makarooroo, making a peculiar noise with his tongue. “Dat him. Blaze away!”

“But it may not be a mortal part,” objected Peterkin. “He might escape if only wounded.”

“Nebber fear. Hims come at us if hims be wound. Only we mus’ be ready for him.”

“All ready,” said Jack, cocking both barrels of his rifle.—“Now, Peterkin, a good aim. If he comes here he shall get a quietus.”

All this was said in the lowest possible whispers. Peterkin took a steady aim at the part of the creature that was visible, and fired.

I have gone through many wild adventures since then. I have heard the roar of the lion and the tiger in all circumstances, and the laugh of the hyena, besides many other hideous sounds, but I never in all my life listened to anything that in any degree approached in thundering ferocity the appalling roar that burst upon our ears immediately after that shot was fired. I can compare it to nothing, for nothing I ever heard was like it. If the reader can conceive a human fiend endued with a voice far louder than that of the lion, yet retaining a little of the intonation both of the man’s voice and of what we should suppose a fiend’s voice to be, he may form some slight idea of what that roar was. It is impossible to describe it. Perhaps Mak’s expression in regard to it is the most emphatic and truthful: it was absolutely “horriboble!” Every one has heard a sturdy, well-grown little boy, when being thrashed, howling at the very top of his bent. If one can conceive of a full-grown male giant twenty feet high pouring forth his whole soul and voice with similarly unrestrained fervour, he may approximate to a notion of it.

And it was not uttered once or twice, but again and again, until the whole woods trembled with it, and we felt as if our ears could not endure more of it without the tympanums being burst.

For several moments we stood motionless with our guns ready, expecting an immediate attack, and gazing with awe, not unmingled—at least on my part—with fear, at the turmoil of leaves and twigs and broken branches that was going on round the spot where the monster had been wounded.

“Come,” cried Jack at length, losing patience and springing forward; “if he won’t attack us we must attack him.”

We followed close on his heels, and next moment emerged upon a small and comparatively open space, in the midst of which we found the gorilla seated on the ground, tearing up the earth with its hands, grinning horribly and beating its chest, which sent forth a loud hollow sound as if it were a large drum. We saw at once that both its thighs had been broken by Peterkin’s shot.

Of all the hideous creatures I had ever seen or heard of, none came up in the least degree to this. Apart altogether from its gigantic size, this monster was calculated to strike terror into the hearts of beholders simply by the expression of its visage, which was quite satanic. I could scarcely persuade myself that I was awake. It seemed as if I were gazing on one of those hideous creatures one beholds when oppressed with nightmare.

But we had little time to indulge in contemplation, for the instant the brute beheld us it renewed its terrible roar, and attempted to spring up; but both its legs at once gave way, and it fell with a passionate growl, biting the earth, and twisting and tearing bunches of twigs and leaves in its fury. Suddenly it rushed upon us rapidly by means of its fore legs or arms.

“Look out, Jack!” we cried in alarm.

Jack stood like a rock and deliberately levelled his rifle. Even at this moment of intense excitement I could not help marvelling at the diminutive appearance of my friend when contrasted with the gorilla. In height, indeed, he was of course superior, and would have been so had the gorilla been able to stand erect, but his breadth of shoulder and chest, and his length and size of arm, were strikingly inferior. Just as the monster approached to within three yards of him, Jack sent a ball into its chest, and the king of the African woods fell dead at our feet!

It is impossible to convey in words an idea of the gush of mingled feelings that filled our breasts as we stood beside and gazed at the huge carcass of our victim. Pity at first predominated in my heart, then I felt like an accomplice to a murder, and then an exulting sensation of joy at having obtained a specimen of one of the rarest animals in the world overwhelmed every other feeling.

The size of this animal—and we measured him very carefully—was as follows:—

Height, 5 feet 6 inches; girth of the chest, 4 feet 2 inches; spread of its arms, 7 feet 2 inches. Perhaps the most extraordinary measurement was that of the great thumb of its hind foot, which was 5 and a half inches in circumference. When I looked at this and at the great bunches of hard muscles which composed its brawny chest and arms, I could almost believe in the stories told by the natives of the tremendous feats of strength performed by the gorilla. The body of this brute was covered with grey hair, but the chest was bare and covered with tough skin, and its face was intensely black. I shuddered as I looked upon it, for there was something terribly human-like about it, despite the brutishness of its aspect.

“Now, I’ll tell you what we shall do,” said Jack, after we had completed our examination of the gorilla. “We will encamp where we are for the night, and send Makarooroo back to bring our fellows up with the packs, so that you, Ralph, will be able to begin the work of skinning and cleaning the bones at once. What say you?”

“Agreed, with all my heart,” I replied.

“Well, then,” observed Peterkin, “here goes for a fire, to begin with, and then for victuals to continue with. By the way, what say you to a gorilla steak? I’m told the niggers eat him.—Don’t they, Mak?”

“Yis, massa, dey does. More dan dat, de niggers in dis part ob country eat mans.”

“Eat mans!” echoed Peterkin in horror.

“Yis, eat mans, and womins, an’ childerdens.”

“Oh, the brutes! But I don’t believe you, Mak. What are the villains called?”

“Well, it not be easy for say what dem be called. Miss’naries calls dem canibobbles.”

“Ho!” shouted Peterkin, “canibobbles? eh! well done. Mak, I must get you to write a new dictionary; I think it would pay!”

“It won’t pay to go on talking like this, though,” observed Jack. “Come, hand me the axe. I’ll fell this tree while you strike a light, Peterkin.—Be off with you, Mak.—As for Ralph, we must leave him to his note-book; I see there is no chance of getting him away from his beloved gorilla till he has torn its skin from its flesh, and its flesh from its bones.”

Jack was right. I had now several long hours’ work before me, which I knew could not be delayed, and to which I applied myself forthwith most eagerly, while my comrades lit the fire and prepared the camp, and Makarooroo set off on his return journey to bring up the remainder of our party.

That night, while I sat by the light of the camp-fire toiling at my task, long after the others had retired to rest, I observed the features of Jack and Peterkin working convulsively, and their hands clutching nervously as they slept, and I smiled to think of the battles with gorillas which I felt assured they must be fighting, and the enormous “bags” they would be certain to tell of on returning from the realms of dreamland to the regions of reality.