Still for a while I lay to at one side of it against the towering cliff, both to listen in case what I had done should be discovered, and for fear lest the lightning which was still bright, although the storm centre was rapidly passing away, should reveal me to any watchers.
For quite ten minutes I hid thus, and then, determining to risk it, paddled softly towards the opposite bank keeping, however, a little to the west of the cave and taking my line by a certain very tall tree which, as I had noted, towered up against the sky at the back of the graveyard.
As it happened my calculations were accurate and in the end I directed the bow of the canoe into the rushes behind which I had left my companions.

Just then the moon began to struggle out through the thinning rain-clouds, and by its light they saw me, and I saw what for a moment I took to be the gorilla-god himself waddling forward to seize the boat.

There was the dreadful brute exactly as he had appeared in the forest, except that it seemed a little smaller.
Then I remembered and laughed and that laugh did me a world of good.
"Is that you, Baas ?" said a muffled voice, speaking apparently from the middle of the gorilla.

"Are you safe, Baas ?" "Of course," I answered, "or how should I be here ?" adding cheerfully, "Are you comfortable in that nice warm skin on this wet night, Hans ?" "Oh! Baas," answered the voice, "tell me what happened.

Even in this stink I burn to know." "Death happened to the Motombo, Hans.