Page:Guy Boothby - The Beautiful White Devil.djvu/135

 I knew, I was without even as much as a scratch, and then we went across the little plain to where the ugly brute lay dead.

It was with a curious feeling that I stood and looked down upon that great mass of inanimate flesh and reflected how near he had been to terminating my own existence. From a contemplation of his ugliness I turned to the dog, who, at his mistress' command, had saved my life. Two ugly red gashes seamed his sides, and these I could only suppose had been made by the talons of the ape.

"Old man," I said to him, as I stooped and patted his ugly head, "you and I will have to be better friends than ever after this. You have saved my life to-day and I am grateful to you." Then turning to his mistress I continued, "Alie, how on earth did you manage to come up just in the nick of time, like that?"

"I heard your first shot," she answered, "and thought I would follow you. Thank Heaven I did, for if I had been five minutes longer on the road I should have been too late. Now we must be getting back to the camp as fast as we can go. Breakfast will be ready, I expect, and at twelve I want to send a messenger back to the settlement with letters."

Accordingly we set off at a good pace on our return, reaching the huts in something under three-quarters of an hour.

As we approached the plateau we saw a man on horseback enter it from the jungle on the other side. He pulled up before the dining-hut, and then I saw that it was my old friend Walworth, covered with dust and showing all the signs of having ridden in great