At this stage of the reading, I, too, left the place suddenly, the learned lecturer still speaking; but my motive was of a very different kind. During the lecture I had noticed a large and portly middle-aged gorilla look at me from time to time, and with increasing frequency. Each time, too, the glance was kindlier, and at last was accompanied by a nod, a beck, or a smile. What did this mean? I doubted; but for a moment. I considered the subject of the lecture, so stimulating to the female fancy, the experiences of the sex related in it, so fitted to awaken the instinct of imitation in the female breast; I thought of Darwin’s book, which I had read before I started for Africa, and I remembered the dreadful words: “et dignoscebat in turba, et advocat voce, gestuque,” just, too, as this portly old person was doing. It was too plain: this middle-aged dame, entering into the spirit of the lecture, had selected me. And now, being one of those that rose, she approached me as rapidly as possible. The sweat started from every pore, and, with double horror, I felt the hair on my body rise, reminding me, as it did so, of what likeness there was between me and this infatuated female. There was but one thing to do—to flee.

I got out of the throng as quickly as I could, and, glancing over my shoulder, I saw that she was following. I plunged into the forest, goaded by an indefinable terror. The thicket hampered me, but I pushed on; twigs clung to me, thorns seized me; I tore myself away; but, alas! I left my clothes. I was gradually stripped of my artificial covering, and revealed to my pursuer in that state of nature which bore yet further witness to our kindred. I turned my head again; she was gaining on me rapidly. The jungle that impeded and bewildered me, offered little or no restraint to her swift, practised steps. Observing this, I sought an open glade, which I saw ahead of me, and took to that, hoping—as I was now weighted only by my revolver, the leathern belt of which had resisted the laceration which had removed all my other covering—that on its even surface I might be at least the equal of my pursuer. In vain. Glancing backward as I ran, I saw her steadily approaching, and always nodding and beckoning with what seemed to me a loathsome leer. At last she came so near that I heard her panting breath. In a moment she might clasp me in her arms. I took the alternative, and turned to fight. My revolver was a slight weapon against such a creature, but still it was one of the largest bore; and, if it did not kill or disable my pursuer, it would at least enrage, and I might thus hope that instead of being embraced I would be disembowelled. As I faced her, she rose, and laying her hands upon her breast, bellowed out her admiration. I took steady aim across my left arm and fired. She sprang into the air, evidently hit, and as she came down I fired again, with like effect, and she fell to the ground.

I gazed a moment at my prostrate and dying admirer; and seeing that she was incapable of rising or doing me injury, I approached, with a certain feeling of pity and remorse, to look at her closely. And then I found that my terror, although justified, was entirely misplaced. I had mistaken the sex of my pursuer: my enamored female was a male—an enraged male, of course, and I was saved, not from marriage but from death. But no; faint, and dying fast, he turned and held out his hand to me. “Cousin, what made you run? Why did you hurt me so?” he said. I answered with a feeling of shame that I hope never to have again: “Because I thought you were a lady that wanted to marry me.” “Oh, no,” he said, with feeble and interrupted breath, “I only thought you looked something like a friend of ours who was here a few years ago; and I wanted to take you to a place where there are some cocoa-nut trees and a fresh spring, and we’d talk this matter over. And let me tell you something,” he said, drawing my ear down near his lips. “Don’t go on supposing that every female that may look at you pleasantly and seek your society has selected you. Remember me kindly to Du Chaillu. Adieu!”

He died; and I walked slowly on, musing upon my adventure, a more modest, if not a wiser man, and did not quicken my pace until I remembered that I was charged with Livingstone’s message to Murchison.

THE END.