astrophe; and it
would be vain to attempt any description of their emotions.

It was no relief when the two hunters came up, as they did at that
instant, on their return from the chase. Their approach for the last
two or three hundred yards had been hastened into a run by the shrieks
of Helen and the shouts of Henry and Murtagh. Their arrival only added
two new figures to the tableau of distress, and two voices to its
expression.

The ape could still be seen through the foliage ascending to the top of
the tree; but Captain Redwood felt that the rifle he held in his hands,
though sure of aim and fatal in effect, was of no more use than if it
had been a piece of wood.

Saloo had the same feeling in regard to his blow-gun. The rifle might
send a deadly bullet through the skull of the gorilla, and the latter
pierce its body with an arrow that would carry a quick-spreading poison
through its veins.

But to what purpose, even though they could be certain of killing it?
Its death would be also the death of the child. She was still living,
and apparently unhurt; for they could see her moving, and hear her
voice, as she was carried onward and upward in that horrible embrace.

Captain Redwood dared not send a bullet nor Saloo an arrow. Slight as
the chances were of saving the girl, either would have made them
slighter. A successful shot of the rifle or puff of the blow-gun would
be as fatal to the abducted as the abductor; and the former, with or
without the latter, would be certain to fall to the foot of the tree.
It was a hundred feet sheer from the point which the ape had attained to
the ground. The child would not only be killed, but crushed to a
shapeless mass.

Ah me! what a terrible scene for her father! What a spectacle for him
to contemplate!

And as he stood in unutterable agony, his companions gathered around,
all helpless and irresolute as to how they should act, they saw the ape
suddenly change his direction, and move outward from the trunk of the
tree along one of its largest limbs. This trended off in a nearly
horizontal direction, at its end interlocking with a limb of the
neighbouring tree, which stretched out as if to shake hands with it.

A distance of more than fifty feet lay between the two trunks, but their
branches met in close embrace.

The purpose of the ape was apparent. It designed passing from one to
the other, and thence into the depths of the forest.

The design was quickly fol