There was nothing ridiculous about him, but a combination of all that was revolting, bestial, and terrifying.
His flat forehead and pent brows; his dreadful jaws, which were slightly open in a senile kind of leer that exhibited his fangs; his shapeless, bulging paunch, short legs, deep chest, and long arms covered with dingy-looking hair,—he looked the embodiment of brutality, loathsome ugliness, and ferocious strength.
The first glance made them shiver with horror, the second filled them with the desire to kill this half-human, wholly fiend-like monstrosity.
The tree under which this awful group sat grew on the edge of a precipice, while in front of them the torrent could be seen and heard as it fell into the chasm, with a sound like thunder, from a lofty cliff. With that thundering in their ears, and the vibration of the covered rocks under their feet, they did not fear being heard by the brutes in front of them, Cocoeni made a silent sign, and the hunters crept through the leafage to make a half-circle round the still unconscious family party. While they were doing this, he drew back and whispered to Ned—
“Don’t shoot till I give you the sign. I know how to manage this fellow.”
“So do I,” replied Ned—“from what I have read.”
“All right. Now for him.”
Cocoeni stepped into the open, holding his gun ready, while our heroes followed him. They knew that they must kill with the first shot or it would be all over with them.
Neither of the baboons had heard them, but they had got the scent of the other hunters, and looked up sniffing the air suspiciously.
In a moment the male baboon saw his foes, and scrambled upright, fixing his wicked and ferocious eyes upon them. With a roar that eclipsed the thunder of the waterfall and echoed horribly in their ears, he opened his jaws, and grinned on them, showing all his teeth.