y aside and crouched
afresh as its enemy fell. It was evident, however, that there was no
more fight left in the gorilla; the creature was, beyond doubt, mortally
injured, and lay there moaning piteously, with the blood streaming
through his fingers, making no attempt to regain his feet. His enemy at
length seemed to realise this, for after remaining crouched and watching
for some three or four minutes, it rose to its feet and began to slink
away, but was promptly stopped and laid low by a shot from Sir
Reginald's rifle; while Lethbridge, cautiously approaching the prostrate
gorilla, sent a bullet through his skull, and thus put him out of his
misery.

"Now we must push on again," exclaimed Sir Reginald. "I don't know,
Professor, whether or not you wish to have either of those skins; but,
if you do, we must wait until we get back to the ship, and then come and
look for them. We cannot spare the time to take them now, or cumber
ourselves with them when taken. Now, gentlemen, it is noon, and there
is the sun. He is on the meridian, and consequently due north of us.
He certainly does not cast a very long shadow, but he casts enough to
show that yonder lies our path; so, forward!"

Their path happened to lead almost directly through the centre of this
wide, open space, and the going being easy they quickly traversed it,
and plunged again into the forest shadows on the other side, where their
slow, toilsome, groping style of progress was resumed. For three long
hours they struggled on, weary, now, beyond power of expression, often
in grave doubt as to whether or no they were pursuing the right
direction, and every moment growing more seriously disconcerted at the
extraordinary circumstance that, although during the day they must have
journeyed many more miles than they had during the previous night, they
still failed to reach the river for which they were aiming.

At length, quite late in the afternoon, they again unexpectedly emerged
from the forest into another open space, very similar in size and
appearance to the one in which they had witnessed the combat between the
gorilla and the leopard. As they stood for a moment in the open,
blinking their dazzled eyes in the strong and unaccustomed sunshine, in
a vain effort to classify the several objects, moving and motionless,
that they saw dotted about the plain, a shout reached their ears,
answered by another and another, and half a dozen more. Then they
became aw