Page:Under the Sun.djvu/158

134 monkeys that had been gravely pondering over our preparations for the evening meal were startled out of their self-respect and off their perches, and plunged precipitately into a tangle of lianes. My spirits had returned, and with as light a heart as ever I had, I ambled off in the direction the Soko had taken.

But soon the voices of the camp had died away behind me, and there had grown up between me and it the wall of mist that in this sunless forest region makes every mile as secret from the next as if you were in the highest ether — surely the most secret of all places — or in the lowest sea. And over the soft, rich vegetable mould the ass’s feet went noiseless as an owl’s wing upon the air; and, except for the rhythmical jingling of his ass’s harness, Shumari’s presence might never have been suspected. And then in this cathedral solitude — with cloistered tree-trunks reaching away at every point of view into long vistas closed in gray mist; overhead, hanging like tattered tapestry, great lengths and rags of moss-growths, strange textures of fungus and parasite, hanging plumb down in endless points, all as motionless as possible; without a breath of life stirring about me — bird, beast, or insect — the same horrid thoughts took possession of me again, and I began to recall the gestures of the wild thing which, when I startled the panther, had fled away into the forest depths.

It had stood upright amongst the upright men, and turning to run had stooped, but only so much as a man might do when running with all his speed. In the gait there was a one-sided swing, just as some great man-ape — gorilla or chimpanzee — might have when, as travellers tell us, they help themselves along on the knuckles of the long fore-arm, the body swaying down to the side