While we were thus engaged none of us spoke above the merest whisper, and the negroes themselves moved as silently as shadows. To a spectator, we should have presented a strange sight indeed. He would have seen a small, natural clearing in the jungle and a peculiar, leaf-bedecked arrangement of vertical green bars, behind which two negroes and (apparently) two gorillas were working in perfect harmony and peace. He would also have smelt a strong odor of aniseed (beloved of all animals), and, so we hoped, a reliable camouflage to our tell-tale "man-scent." Then he would have seen the centre portion of the bars slide apart and one of the gorillas emerge into the open and emit weird cries. At this point such a spectator would probably have fled (or fired!). . . .
The interior of the cage was painted a dull black, so that from the outside everything behind the bars was, as it were, in deep shadows, the negroes themselves being almost invisible. (Yes! We had thought of everything!)
When Stringer stepped out of our shelter and gave vent to that inhuman call signifying "food and plenty," I held my breath and listened. The air was hot, heavy, damp and oppressive—an almost tangible medium in which we were immersed from the throat downwards. Animal and insect life was silent and deathlike, but from the moisture-laden, luxurious foliage came the subdued murmur of at least one form of movement.
Drip! . . . Drip! . . . Drip! . . .
As Stringer cautiously advanced, he carried in his left hand that sleep-inducing nozzle connected with the gas cylinder; whilst in his right hand he held a death-inducing automatic—in case there arose the vital question: "My life or yours?"
At a distance of twenty or thirty feet from the cage he sat down on his haunches, raised his great anthropoid head to heaven, and let forth another and louder cry.
There was no answer, save that eternal and infernal:
Drip! . . . Drip! . . . Drip! . . .
A giant tree shook itself in a slight breeze which sprang up, and I saw a snake make its way stealthily across one corner of the clearing and disappear into the underbrush.
Silence and stillness again.