“Look out, Jack!” we cried in alarm.
Jack stood like a rock and deliberately levelled his rifle. Even at this moment of intense excitement I could not help marvelling at the diminutive appearance of my friend when contrasted with the gorilla. In height, indeed, he was of course superior, and would have been so had the gorilla been able to stand erect, but his breadth of shoulder and chest, and his length and size of arm, were strikingly inferior. Just as the monster approached to within three yards of him, Jack sent a ball into its chest, and the king of the African woods fell dead at our feet!
It is impossible to convey in words an idea of the gush of mingled feelings that filled our breasts as we stood beside and gazed at the huge carcass of our victim. Pity at first predominated in my heart, then I felt like an accomplice to a murder, and then an exulting sensation of joy at having obtained a specimen of one of the rarest animals in the world overwhelmed every other feeling.
The size of this animal—and we measured him very carefully—was as follows:—
Height, 5 feet 6 inches; girth of the chest, 4 feet 2 inches; spread of its arms, 7 feet 2 inches. Perhaps the most extraordinary measurement was that of the great thumb of its hind foot, which was 5 and a half inches in circumference. When I looked at this and at the great bunches of hard muscles which composed its brawny chest and arms, I could almost believe in the stories told by the natives of the tremendous feats of strength performed by the gorilla. The body of this brute was covered with grey hair, but the chest was bare and covered with tough skin, and its face was intensely black. I shuddered as I looked upon it, for there was something terribly human-like about it, despite the brutishness of its aspect.
“Now, I’ll tell you what we shall do,” said Jack, after we had completed our examination of the gorilla. “We will encamp where we are for the night, and send Makarooroo back to bring our fellows up with the packs, so that you, Ralph, will be able to begin the work of skinning and cleaning the bones at once. What say you?”
“Agreed, with all my heart,” I replied.
“Well, then,” observed Peterkin, “here goes for a fire, to begin with, and then for victuals to continue with. By the way, what say you to a gorilla steak? I’m told the niggers eat him.—Don’t they, Mak?”
“Yis, massa, dey does. More dan dat, de niggers in dis part ob country eat mans.”
“Eat mans!” echoed Peterkin in horror.