t had
entered just behind the ear and buried itself in the brain.

The great silence of the forest flowed in over us, as it were; for quite
a while no one did or said anything. Then from somewhere down amidst the
mosses I heard a thin voice, the sound of which reminded me of air being
squeezed out of an indiarubber cushion.

"Very good shot, Baas," it piped up, "as good as that which killed the
king-vulture at Dingaan's kraal, and more difficult. But if the Baas
could pull the god off me I should say--Thank you."

The "thank you" was almost inaudible, and no wonder, for poor Hans had
fainted. There he lay under the huge bulk of the gorilla, just his nose
and mouth appearing between the brute's body and its arm. Had it not
been for the soft cushion of wet moss in which he reclined, I think that
he would have been crushed flat.

We rolled the creature off him somehow and poured a little brandy down
his throat, which had a wonderful effect, for in less than a minute he
sat up, grasping like a dying fish, and asked for more.

Leaving Brother John to examine Hans to see if he was really injured,
I bethought me of poor Jerry and went to look at him. One glance was
enough. He was quite dead. Indeed, he seemed to be crushed out of shape
like a buck that has been enveloped in the coils of a boa-constrictor.
Brother John told me afterwards that both his arms and nearly all
his ribs had been broken in that terrible embrace. Even his spine was
dislocated.

I have often wondered why the gorilla ran down the line without touching
me or the others, to vent his rage upon Jerry. I can only suggest that
it was because the unlucky Mazitu had sat next to the Kalubi on the
previous night, which may have caused the brute to identify him by smell
with the priest whom he had learned to hate and killed. It is true that
Hans had sat on the other side of the Kalubi, but perhaps the odour of
the Pongo had not clung to him so much, or perhaps it meant to deal with
him after it had done with Jerry.

When we knew that the Mazitu was past human help and had discovered
to our joy that, save for a few bruises, no one else was really
hurt, although Stephen's clothes were half-torn off him, we made an
examination of the dead god. Truly it was a fearful creature.

What its exact weight or size may have been we had no means of
ascertaining, but I never saw or heard of such an enormous ape, if a
gorilla is really an ape. It needed the united strengt