Saloo had the same feeling in regard to his blow-gun. The rifle might send a deadly bullet through the skull of the gorilla, and the latter pierce its body with an arrow that would carry a quick-spreading poison through its veins.
But to what purpose, even though they could be certain of killing it? Its death would be also the death of the child. She was still living, and apparently unhurt; for they could see her moving, and hear her voice, as she was carried onward and upward in that horrible embrace.
Captain Redwood dared not send a bullet nor Saloo an arrow. Slight as the chances were of saving the girl, either would have made them slighter. A successful shot of the rifle or puff of the blow-gun would be as fatal to the abducted as the abductor; and the former, with or without the latter, would be certain to fall to the foot of the tree. It was a hundred feet sheer from the point which the ape had attained to the ground. The child would not only be killed, but crushed to a shapeless mass.
Ah me! what a terrible scene for her father! What a spectacle for him to contemplate!
And as he stood in unutterable agony, his companions gathered around, all helpless and irresolute as to how they should act, they saw the ape suddenly change his direction, and move outward from the trunk of the tree along one of its largest limbs. This trended off in a nearly horizontal direction, at its end interlocking with a limb of the neighbouring tree, which stretched out as if to shake hands with it.
A distance of more than fifty feet lay between the two trunks, but their branches met in close embrace.
The purpose of the ape was apparent. It designed passing from one to the other, and thence into the depths of the forest.
The design was quickly followed by its execution. As the spectators rushed to the side by which the gorilla was retreating, they saw it lay hold of the interlocking twigs, draw the branch nearer, bridge the space between with its long straggling arm, and then bound from one to the other with the agility of a squirrel.
And this with the use of only one arm, for by the other the child was still carried in the same close hug. Its legs acted as arms, and for travelling through the tree-tops three were sufficient.
On into the heart of the deep foliage of the second tree, and without a pause on into the next; along another pair of counterpart limbs, which, intertwining their leafy sprays and boughs, still further into the forest, all the time bearing its precious burden along with it.