“Don’t fire, Nick,” exclaimed Wilmore, as he noticed Gilbert’s demeanour. “You’d enrage them greatly, if you were to wound or kill any of them. They have been known to tear a fellow to pieces, who shot one of their number. They’re terribly fierce and strong, if they are provoked.”
“What am I to do, then?” returned Gilbert. “They’ve not only carried off my knapsack and pipe, but my hat and shoes too; and I can’t venture to walk a step in these parts without them.”
“The best way will be to scare them away,” suggested Wilmore, “if we could think of any way of doing it.”
“I’ll tell you,” cried Nick, catching a sudden inspiration. “Do you climb up into the tree on the other side. The leaves are so thick that these brutes won’t see you, and the branches are easy enough to climb. When you’re well up over their heads, let fly with your gun. I’ll do the same the moment afterwards, and between the two reports they’ll be so scared, I expect, that they’ll cut for it straightway.”
“Very well,” said Frank, laughing, “I’ve no objection. We can but try, any way.” He carefully uncocked his gun, and began mounting the branches as quietly as possible, while Nick distracted the attention of the monkeys, by shaking his fist at them, and pelting them with fragments of bark. Presently there came the double explosion, which fully answered his expectations. Uttering a Babel of discordant screams, they dropped their recently acquired treasures, and made off at the top of their speed, bounding from tree to tree till they were lost in the distance. Nick set himself to collect the various articles thus restored, and had nearly repossessed himself of all of them, when Frank descended from his elevation and joined him on the platform.
“You get into scrapes, Nick, more than most,” he said, “but you’ve a wonderful knack of getting out of them again, that’s certain. Well, come along, if you’ve got everything. The doctor is anxious to start, if this Hottentot chap will let us, and you’ve still your breakfast to get.”
“The Hottentot let us start this morning!” repeated Gilbert. “Not if he’s to go with us himself, to be sure! To look at him last night, he wouldn’t be fit to walk again this side of Christmas. Perhaps he expects us to carry him, as we did yesterday—do you really think that, Frank?” continued Gilbert, stopping short, and eyeing his companion with an expression of much dismay.
“No, I don’t,” returned Wilmore, again bursting into a laugh; “and if he did expect it, he’d find his expectations deceive him considerably. That’s what I expect, at all events.”
“Well, here we are,” said Nick, a minute or two afterwards, as they reached the post. “Well, doctor, I’m sorry to be late, but Frank will tell you that I have been in the hands of the swell mob, and have only just contrived to escape them.”
The doctor looked puzzled, but he had no time for explanations. “Eat your breakfast, Gilbert,” he said, “while we settle what is to be done to-day. I suppose we are all agreed that it won’t do for us to stop here longer than we can help. Now Omatoko is not able to travel very far, but he could walk a few miles if he went very slowly and had a rest every now and then. He thinks so himself, and wishes to start at once.”