For fully a minute, none of us uttered a sound. Gran'pa was holding his breath expectantly, the Menagerie Man looked on with a sort of detached interest, and Stringer was evidently battling with all the powers of his strange and uncanny nature—returning stare for stare—as immobile and silent as a statue.
Suddenly, the brute let out a terrible and blood-curdling shriek, which sent an ice cold wave down my spine. It shook at the bars of the cage, ground its teeth, and quivered with rage. Then it abruptly relaxed, dropped its arms to its side and went waddling away into the corner furthest away from Stringer. Clearly, it was already very shaken and intimidated and kept turning its head from side to side in dismay.
The Menagerie Man grunted, Stringer lowered his bristling moustache and Gran'pa took a deep breath. The moment he did this I guessed what was coming.
"?..?..? !...?..?..? !..." Gran'pa cried.
It was a peculiar, clucking, guttural sound, which came from the back of the throat, and the second it was uttered the great ape turned its head and listened in amazement to its native call.
"?..?..? !" repeated Gran'pa, kindly but firmly.
The brute hesitated, as if still uncertain whether to respond or not.
At last it found its voice and answered—in identical tones! Gran'pa repeated the signal, at the same time whispering:
"Quick, Stringer! Over here!"
And then the miracle happened. The gorilla hurried waddlingly across to us, Gran'pa and Stringer exchanged places, and the latter looked the brute full in the face, and suddenly emitted a monosyllabic ejaculation which sounded like: