“Ha, ha!” mocked the shrill voice, so clear that it appeared to come from behind his ear.
This was too much to bear; Gorilla bounded up and vented a roar of rage. He tossed the pots, the baskets, the bodies, and bed-grass about—bellowing so loudly and funnily in his fury that Kinneneh, away up in the loft, could scarcely forbear imitating him. But the mocker could not be found, and Gorilla roared loudly in the open place before the village, and tore in and out of each house, looking for him.
Kinneneh descended swiftly from his hiding-place, and bore every banana into the loft as before.
Gorilla hastened to the plantation again, and so angry was he that he uprooted the banana-stalks by the root, and snapped off the clusters with one stroke of his great dog-teeth, and having got together a large stock, he bore it in his arms to the house.
“There,” said he, “ha, ha! Now I shall eat in comfort and have a long sleep afterwards, and if that fellow who mocks me comes near—ah! I would”—and he crushed a big bunch in his arms and cried, “ha, ha!”
“Ha, ha! Ha, ha!” cried the mocking voice; and again it seemed to be at the back of his head. Whereupon Gorilla flung his arms behind in the hope of catching him, but there was nothing but his own back, which sounded like a damp drum with the stroke.
“Ha, ha! Ha, ha!” repeated the voice, at which Gorilla shot out of the door, and raced round the house, thinking that the owner was flying before him, but he never could overtake the flyer. Then he went around outside of the other houses, and flew round and round the village, but he could discover naught. But meanwhile Kinneneh had borne all the stock of bananas up into the loft above, and when Gorilla returned there was not one banana of all the great pile he had brought left on the floor.
When, after he was certain that there was not a single bit of a banana left for him to eat, he scratched his sides and his legs, and putting his hand on the top of his head, he uttered a great cry just like a great, stupid child, but the crying did not fill his tummy. No, he must have bananas for that—and he rose up after awhile and went to procure some more fruit.
But when he had brought a great pile of it and had sat down with his nice-smelling bunch before him, he would exclaim, “Ha, ha! Now—now I shall eat and be satisfied. I shall fill myself with the sweet fruit, and then lie down and sleep. Ha, ha!”
Then instantly the mocking voice would cry out after him, “Ha, ha!” and sometimes it sounded close to his ears, and then behind his head, sometimes it appeared to come from under the bananas and sometimes from the doorway:—that Gorilla would roar in fury, and he would grind his teeth just like two grinding-stones, and chatter to himself, and race about the village, trying to discover whence the voice came, but in his absence the fruit would be swept away by his invisible enemy, and when he would come in to finish his meal, lo! there were only blackened and stained banana peelings—the refuse of his first feast.