Whither she was going she did not know, nor was it a matter
of great moment since death must be her lot sooner or later.
Fortune favored her that night, for she passed unscathed through
as savage and lion-ridden an area as there is in all Africa--a
natural hunting ground which the white man has not yet discovered,
where deer and antelope and zebra, giraffe and elephant, buffalo,
rhinoceros, and the other herbivorous animals of central Africa
abound unmolested by none but their natural enemies, the great
cats which, lured here by easy prey and immunity from the rifles
of big-game hunters, swarm the district.
She had fled for an hour or two, perhaps, when her attention was
arrested by the sound of animals moving about, muttering and growling
close ahead. Assured that she had covered a sufficient distance
to insure her a good start in the morning before the blacks could
take to her trail, and fearful of what the creatures might be,
she climbed into a large tree with the intention of spending the
balance of the night there.
She had no sooner reached a safe and comfortable branch when she
discovered that the tree stood upon the edge of a small clearing
that had been hidden from her by the heavy undergrowth upon the
ground below, and simultaneously she discovered the identity of
the beasts she had heard.
In the center of the clearing below her, clearly visible in the
bright moonlight, she saw fully twenty huge, manlike apes--great,
shaggy fellows who went upon their hind feet with only slight
assistance from the knuckles of their hands.
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