Page:The Swiss Family Robinson (Kingston).djvu/450

404 we continued our way in peace to Prospect Hill, but only to discover the havoc the wretches had made there.

“Would you believe it, father? The pleasant cottage had been over-run and ruined by apes just as Woodlands last summer! The most dreadful dirt and disorder met our eyes wherever we turned, and we had hard work to make the place fit for human habitation; and even then we preferred the tent. I felt quite at a loss how to guard the farm for the future; but seeing a bottle of the poisonous gum of the Euphorbia in the tool chest, I devised a plan for the destruction of the apes which succeeded beyond my expectations.

“I mixed poison with milk, bruised millet, and anything I thought the monkeys would eat, and put it in cocoa-nut shells, which I hung about in the trees, high enough to be out of reach of our own animals. The evening was calm and lovely; the sea murmured in the distance, and the rising moon shed a beauty over the landscape which we seemed never before to have so admired and enjoyed. The summer night closed around us in all its solemn stillness, and our deepest feelings were touched; when suddenly the spell was broken by an outburst of the most hideous and discordant noises. As by one consent, every beast of the forest seemed to arise from its den, and utter its wild nocturnal cry. Snorting, snarling, and shrieking filled the woods beneath us.

“From the hills echoed the mournful howl of jackals, answered by Fangs in the yard, who was backed up by the barking and yelping of his friends Floss and Bruno. Far away beyond the rocky fastnesses of the Gap, sounded unearthly hollow snortings and neighings, reminding one of the strange cry of the hippopotamus; above these, occasional deep majestic roarings made our hearts quail with the conviction that we heard the voices of lions and elephants.

“Overawed and silent, we retired to rest, hoping to forget in