Mrs. Braymore blanched a little more, but smiled as bravely as she could.
"Well," she said quietly, "I know Alicia well enough to promise you that we'll be as little of a drawback as possible. If you decide to try anything drastic, such as attempting to escape through the bush, we'll do our best to keep up. And I think both of us are fairly good shots."
"I'm hoping there'll be no need for anything on that order," I said with more respect than before in my tone. "We'll try to stick it out here. My boys are loyal, I think, at least they've been loyal up to now, and even if we are besieged, one of them will probably take a message to the fort."
I had little enough hope of that, Heaven knows, but I did not want Mrs. Braymore to worry more than was necessary. She seemed to realize that I was speaking more from my hopes than my beliefs, because she shrugged her shoulders.
"There's really no need to soften things for me," she said, "Alicia and I won't——"
She stopped and caught her breath. A shot had sounded, off in the bush from the direction in which Evan had vanished. A second's interval, and another shot. Then there was a horrid outcry, and a maniacal shrieking.
"The gorilla," I snapped, and started down the steps with my rifle at full cock.
We heard a second outburst of the same beastlike sounds and a crashing in the bushes. I raised my rifle. A figure showed dimly through the bush. I fired vindictively. Evan stumbled and fell in the clearing, just out of the jungle!