As it was eleven o'clock when we reached Bristol, we immediately made for the nearest hotel, partook of a light supper, and went to bed.

"We're being called at six-thirty sharp in the morning," said Gran'pa, as we parted on the landing. "Breakfast's at a quarter-past seven, and we reach the menagerie at eight. They leave for Gloucester at ten. Night-night!"

In five minutes I was in bed, in another ten sound asleep. I dreamt a little, but not as hideously and consistently as during the previous night; and at the appointed hour next morning I arose with a feeling of exuberant expectation. To-day, I should witness the Great Prelude to Adventure. After ten years of lingering death in a Government office the resurrection had come. I was alive!

Although each of us tried to conceal the fact, we were very excited and ate far less breakfast than usual. Stringer, on whom the brunt of the situation would naturally fall, was quite abstemious. He consumed only one piece of bacon and a little toast. But he drank three cups of strong coffee—and looked much better for it....

Breakfast over, we took a taxi to the huge canvas town on the outskirts of the city.

Already, at the early hour of eight o'clock, it was thronged with industrious, gesticulating citizens who were knocking pegs from out of the ground, loosening ropes, and lowering and rolling up the vast expanse of gray-white canvas. Little columns of blue smoke ascended vertically and steadily from the caravan chimneys into the still air; there was the confused noise of many people talking and shouting; the smell of trodden orange peel, frizzling bacon, and wild beasts; the thud of horses' feet on the soft turf; and then, suddenly, the sound of a man crying out: "Go easy, damn your eyes!... Mind that rope, Jim!"

We wended our way through the litter and commotion and smell, until we found some responsible-looking person who conducted us to the proprietor's caravan, a travelling palace of yellow and black, with its brasswork shining in the morning sun like burnished gold. There we met the strange man who amassed wealth by the simple method of exhibiting wild animals in cages, freaks on platforms, ladies and gentlemen on galloping horses. He shook hands with us, looked curiously at Stringer for a few moments, and then led the way to an isolated cage situated in one corner of the field.

"I had it brought up here into a quiet spot where you won't be disturbed," he said.

A canvas curtain was hung over the front of the van and when this had been removed we found ourselves confronted by a sheet of plate glass, behind which were the steel bars that kept our friend the gorilla at bay.

"Consumption is the greatest danger we have to face," said the proprietor. "Next to that, we have to guard against cold. You'll notice the cage is specially made for keeping contaminated air out and the heat in—particularly during the performances and in cold weather. The atmosphere is kept moist by means of an electric heater in that pool of salt water, and the four radiators you see maintain a temperature varying from about 60 to 90 degrees each day—which is the average variation in the jungle. Nothing is worse for the gorilla than a constant degree of heat, which one never finds under natural conditions.

"Over nursing and pampering is another danger. Given careful attention to all these details, there seems to be no reason why gorillas shouldn't live for twenty or thirty years in captivity. We've had this one over ten years, and he's as strong and healthy as the day he landed at Southampton. He's a very fine fellow and weighs two hundred and fifty pounds and measures six foot one—in his socks!"

During the whole of this instructive little speech I had been watching the brute carefully—as carefully (but not as maliciously) as he watched us—and I was astounded at the formidable and muscular immensity of his frame. Alfred seemed but a child compared with the specimen before us. One sensed the capacity for merciless cruelty and cunning behind those alert, dark gray eyes, terrific strength in the long arms, and horrible, crushing properties in the tremendous, projecting jaws. "Monarch of the Jungle" was a feeble expression for such a creature. Fiend Incarnate would have been more appropriate. When I glanced at Stringer through the corner of my eyes I half shuddered. The contrast between these two antagonists was ludicrous—as ludicrous as Charlie Chaplin versus Carpentier.

Gran'pa was the first of us to break the silence.

"I congratulate you, sir!" he said in quiet and dignified phraseology. "Your knowledge of the treatment of these animals in captivity should prove of very great assistance to me later. Meanwhile—is it possible to remove the plate glass?"

It was! In less than ten minutes half-a-dozen men had taken down the great metal framework in which it was set (and clamped to the cage), and there was nothing between us and the gorilla save a row of metal bars.

We heard the beast give a deep sigh, as if it appreciated a greater sense of freedom. It raised itself on the layer of earth which covered the bottom of the cage, stretched its immense arms to their fullest extent, inflated its chest, and then came waddling across to the corner nearest to Stringer, swinging its arms to preserve its balance. Clutching at the bars with its hands, it squatted down, drew back its flap-like lips in an expression of intense hatred, and began glaring steadily and evilly at "Old Bill's" double. Call it merely imagination if you like, but I am certain that it instinctively sensed him as an enemy of its race.

For fully a minute, none of us uttered a sound. Gran'pa was holding his breath expectantly, the Menagerie Man looked on with a sort of detached interest, and Stringer was evidently battling with all the powers of his strange and uncanny nature—returning stare for stare—as immobile and silent as a statue.

Suddenly, the brute let out a terrible and blood-curdling shriek, which sent an ice cold wave down my spine. It shook at the bars of the cage, ground its teeth, and quivered with rage. Then it abruptly relaxed, dropped its arms to its side and went waddling away into the corner furthest away from Stringer. Clearly, it was already very shaken and intimidated and kept turning its head from side to side in dismay.

The Menagerie Man grunted, Stringer lowered his bristling moustache and Gran'pa took a deep breath. The moment he did this I guessed what was coming.

"?..?..? !...?..?..? !..." Gran'pa cried.

It was a peculiar, clucking, guttural sound, which came from the back of the throat, and the second it was uttered the great ape turned its head and listened in amazement to its native call.

"?..?..?!" repeated Gran'pa, kindly but firmly.

The brute hesitated, as if still uncertain whether to respond or not.

At last it found its voice and answered—in identical tones! Gran'pa repeated the signal, at the same time whispering:

"Quick, Stringer! Over here!"

And then the miracle happened. The gorilla hurried waddlingly across to us, Gran'pa and Stringer exchanged places, and the latter looked the brute full in the face, and suddenly emitted a monosyllabic ejaculation which sounded like:

"Tchah!"

The gorilla's eyes lost their ferocity, its lips closed over the hideous teeth, its arms and body grew limp, and a plaintive whine escaped it, like a human cry of distress.

The next moment Stringer the Fearless, had extended a hand into the cage and gently pressed the gorilla's head to the ground!

If ever an animal knew its master, that poor subjugated brute in the cage certainly did. It literally bit the dust, and from the peculiar noise it kept making I gathered that it was conscious of draining the cup of indignity to the last dregs. My heart went out to it in its almost human agony. Had any animal ever before been in such a shameful position as this harmless, inoffensive ape, crouching there on all fours, like a slave beneath the foot of a Roman Emperor? Had there ever before been such an instance of all-conquering mental prowess as Stringer's victory over this two hundred and fifty pound personification of muscular cruelty?

Gran'pa and I and the Menagerie Man stood there spell-bound and breathless, whilst Stringer slowly stroked the huge head and pulled at the little, furry ears.

"Be careful!" whispered Gran'pa.

But the warning came a second too late. With amazing swiftness the brute had suddenly shot out its long, hairy arm, gripped Stringer round the waist and tugged him to the bars of the cage.

As he struck them we heard the breath driven from his body, as if he had been hit a terrific blow below the belt, and the ape gave a hideous cry of triumph—long and deep, like the rolling of a drum.

We flung ourselves on the encircling arm, tearing at it and hammering it with clenched fists, but it was like trying to remove an iron band. The muscles were as hard as stone and I felt them quivering as they contracted more and more closely.

"Quick, George! Get that crowbar!" cried Gran'pa.

I turned round, rushed over to the spot where the implement was lying, some half-a-dozen yards away, and picked it up.

By dint of great effort, we managed at last to thrust it between the arm and Stringer. Then we pulled, lever fashion, using the bottom of the cage as a fulcrum.

"Harder!" shouted Gran'pa.

As the three of us tugged and strained we heard the wood splinter and give a little, and with a moan of anguish the imprisoned man collapsed. But there was still no sign of capitulation on the part of the gorilla. It held on firmly and stoically and resolutely—the embodiment of inexorable revenge.

Above the fierce pounding of my heart, I heard the sound of running footsteps on the soft turf and, an eternity later, two men arrived.

"Grab it—and pull!" cried the Menagerie Man.

Even with the five of us straining our utmost at that crowbar the brute would not relax a muscle.

"Hold on ... a minute ..." gasped Gran'pa, suddenly letting go. "I've an idea!"

We hung on grimly and doggedly, and as we did so we saw the gorilla slowly wriggling its body upwards until its great jaws were opposite to Stringer's face, which was resting limply against the bars of the cage.

In a flash Gran'pa was to the rescue. He pulled the unconscious man's head away from the menace of those awful teeth, took out a penknife, and suddenly jabbed it into the fleshiest part of the brute's arm.

There was a scream of pain, a spluttered, half-human curse, a sudden relaxation, and the next moment everything gave way and we were sprawling on the ground.

We arose to the most frightful pandemonium imaginable. The gorilla was rushing excitedly round the cage, shaking at the bars, tearing up the earth with its hands, and flinging the stuff at us in a paroxysm of fury. Its language was hideous, and consisted of a series of short barks and high-pitched screams, which made my ears sing and sent the blood rushing through my veins like cold water.

"Can't you do anything?" I shouted at Gran'pa. "Speak to it, man!"

He inflated his chest, advanced towards the cage, and gave that weird, inexpressible cry which in ape language was intended to signify alarm.

Three times he repeated it at the top of his voice. Gradually, the enraged brute grew quieter, uttered a moan of distress and retreated to a corner of the cage, shivering with fear. There it sat, like an old man, nursing its wounded arm and whimpering to itself about the callous injustice of life.

The Menagerie Man stared at Gran'pa and then at the gorilla.

"Phew!" he breathed, wiping his perspiring brow. "I don't know whether I'm on my head or my heels. It's ... like a nightmare."

We picked up poor little Stringer, who had now regained consciousness, carried him into the nearest caravan and sent for a doctor. When he arrived we were informed that there were no injuries, beyond a couple of broken ribs and a severe bruising. This was certainly bad enough, but we all felt that it had been a miraculous escape—and a distinct warning to us not to tamper with the unknown forces of nature.

"This hypnotism," I said to Gran'pa, presently, "isn't going to be reliable enough a method. It's too risky. If that had happened in the African jungle there'd have been no Stringer left to tell the tale afterwards."

"Nonsense!" he replied. "The conditions out there will be quite the reverse of here."

"That's just what I've been saying!"

"I'm afraid you miss my point, George. What I mean is that we shall be in the cage and the gorillas outside. We shall simply adopt the procedure followed by 'What's-his-name?'—that explorer—when he was studying the chimpanzee and gorilla in their native haunts. He lived in the cage, and the apes wandered around it. Surely that's simple enough!"

"Everything is—the moment you tackle it!" I exclaimed.

"Now don't be sarcastic, George! If you wish to withdraw just because of this little setback...."

"I made no such suggestion. I'm keener than ever. But it's just as well to anticipate the difficulties we're bound to encounter."

"That's what I've been doing all along. Why do you think I've taken so much trouble over these initial experiments? Wasn't it with the idea of perfecting our method of attack before we actually get there?"

It seemed boorish to criticize a man so invincibly logical, and I tendered an apology for having done so.

"I think you'll agree, however," I said, "that we must have something better to fall back on than mere hypnotism."

"Granted! I've given much thought to the question."

"Any result?" I asked, anxiously.

"Y-e-s! I think I've pretty well solved it at last. Roughly, my plan is to wait in the cage with Stringer, call the gorilla to us, hold him for a moment or two with the magnetic gaze, and then let him have a whiff or two of gas!"

"Do you mean poison gas?" I gasped.

"Not exactly! We shall stupefy him and make him unconscious, if possible, but the stuff mustn't go beyond that. It won't have to leave any injurious effects behind. I've already ascertained that such a thing is possible.""Your ingenuity is ... limitless!" I exclaimed.

"It's necessary ..." he answered, simply.

"I should think it is! Upon my word, Gran'pa!"

"Ah! Here's our friend the circus proprietor!"

He had just returned from issuing orders to some of his men and looked very pensive.

"I'm sorry all this trouble should have occurred, Mr. Boswell," said Gran'pa. "Particularly the episode with the knife.... If there is any monetary compensation I can make, I hope you won't fail to..."

"Well," interrupted the other. "I think you've knocked a good bit off his value. He's never been exactly gentle in his ways, but he's a thousand times worse now than ever he was." He paused and then said, expressively: "I've just had another look at him...."

"Oh, he'll quieten down again in a day or two."

The Menagerie Man shook his head.

"A brute like that never forgets—and never forgives. He'll brood on it. I shall have to strengthen that cage. Already he's bent a couple of the bars...."

"But surely he's shown signs of a temper before this!"

"Yes! But not spitefully. Once a brute like that gets spiteful it's the very devil to pay. He'll start flinging earth about, screaming at people—doing anything he can to annoy or destroy."

Gran'pa looked a little ashamed of himself (but very interested).

"I can hardly believe that this affair will change his whole nature," he said. "At any rate, I sincerely hope not. I can only express my deepest regret, Mr. Boswell; and, as I said before, if there is anything I can do in the way of ..."

"It's knocked at least a good fifty pounds off his value ..." observed the Menagerie Man, half to himself.

"That's a rather high figure."

"Well, we'll say forty...."

Gran'pa looked a little annoyed. But in the end he paid up, and half-an-hour later we were conveying the bruised and broken Stringer by car to a hospital, where he was eventually trussed up in splints and bandages and handed over to us again for removal to town.

In the first class compartment which we reserved, he looked very quaint, sitting perfectly stiff and straight, with a couple of pillows behind his back.

"THIS SIDE UP! WITH CARE!" I couldn't help thinking.

"Any pain?" asked Gran'pa.

"Not much! It's a numbed sensation—with a sharp twinge every now and again."

He winced as we suddenly went rattling and swaying through a junction.

"It was most unfortunate!" said Gran'pa. "Still, we live and learn.... I hope this hasn't made you change your mind."

"No!" answered Stringer, biting his lip as we shot over a medley of joints in the line.

I admired the man's courage. There was no doubt that he felt the pain far more than he cared to admit; and he had come through an ordeal such as few men would be willing to risk again.

"You're the stuff we want on this expedition," said Gran'pa. "I'm proud of you, Stringer!"

From Paddington Station we brought him home by taxi, put him to bed and then fought despairingly against the volley of questions which Molly had ready for us.

"What's happened, Daddy?" she asked, a little wide-eyed at the vision of trussed humanity.

"Oh!... A slight accident. Mr. Stringer has broken a rib or two, and we're letting him stay here until he's well again."

"I know where you've been!" she said, when she had absorbed this item of news.

"Who told you?"

"I did, George!" answered Gran'pa. "Will you get it into your head that Molly is part and parcel of this expedition."

"If you mean that she's coming gorilla-hunting with us ..." I began, excitedly.

"She'll come to Gaboon, anyway," he said, quietly.

"It's absurd. The idea of a child of twelve ..."

"Daddy! You are mean!" she cried. "I shan't stop at home. If you leave me I ... I shall run away ... and I won't go to school...."

"What's that, young woman?"

"Let her alone, George! You don't deserve a daughter! The child has spirit and it ought to be fostered, not squashed. In my young days a girl of her age would have wept her eyes out at the mere thought of leaving home—let alone going abroad and perhaps flying by aeroplane. This is the chance of her life. Isn't it, Molly?"

"Yes!" she cried, jubilantly, running to him and jumping on his knee.

I groaned. These two ... children were inseparable—and incorrigible.

"The sea voyage," went on Gran'pa, relentlessly, "will do her fifty times as much good as all the schooling in the world."

"I doubt it ..." I said, feeling like a dog in the manger.

"We don't! Do we, Molly?"

"No ... fear!" she chortled, simply pouncing on the last word. "It will be the loveliest thing that ever was!" She got down from the knees of her confederate and protector and ran over to me: "Oh! Daddy! You might let me."

"You'd be terribly sick," I said, pulling at her hair.

"I wouldn't mind a bit. It'll be only at first. I should soon get over it."

"There are no theatres or moving pictures in Gaboon."

"Pooh! I can see those any time!"

"You'd leave Nanny?" I asked, playing my last trump.

She hesitated a moment—until the obvious struck her.

"But couldn't she come, too?"

"By all means!" I said, glaring at Gran'pa. "This is a quiet little family trip. We might even invite a few dozen friends as well."

"Now, George!" admonished Gran'pa. "Don't be feeble! Molly's suggestion is quite natural, but unfortunately, my dear," he said, addressing her direct, "it would not be convenient to take Nanny. She will stay and look after the house. And, in any case, she wouldn't want to come. She was never intended for quick transit from place to place."

Like all the rest of Gran'pa's ideas, this one of taking Molly with us to Gaboon looked idiotic at first; then it slowly emerged into a perfectly reasonable though slightly unconventional project. After all, the sea voyage would undoubtedly do her good. The question was, would the climate of Gaboon do likewise? I asked this ninety-five-year-old usurper of my parental authority what he had to say to that?

"Oh, I don't think you need worry, George. There are spots on the north bank of the river which are moderately healthy, so I've ascertained. In addition, we shall seldom be away for more than a few nights at a time—that's the beauty of aeroplaning!"

"Meanwhile, where's Molly going to stay? She can't wander about alone."

"She'll be with other whites—at one of the mission stations."

"Heaven help the missionaries!" I gasped.

"You are rude, Daddy!" cried Molly.

"After all, my dear," I explained, "a missionary is only sent out to enlighten the poor misguided heathen—he isn't supposed to tackle the modern white girl as well."

"Don't you believe it, George," cried Gran'pa. "They'll be delighted to have a bundle of mischief like Molly trotting around. It'll conjure up visions of the homeland—and all the rest of it.... She'll have the time of her life there. I've managed to obtain an introduction to the Rev. Timothy Brady from a very old friend of his who knows the place well. The station is at Baraka, on the summit of a hill and near the north shore of the Gaboon river. There are plenty of lime and fruit trees there, as well as the cocoanut and mango. Also, a church—a library—a school ..." he said, looking at Molly.

"Oh!" she exclaimed. "I think it's horrid....""... Which, of course, she will not be obliged to attend," added Gran'pa.

"Hooray!"

"You seem to have arranged everything very nicely," I observed.

"I always do, George. If I left it to you we should never get anything done."

It was a baseless accusation, but I didn't bother to refute it by reminding him of who found Alfred—the originator of all the trouble. He would only have blustered.

"I suppose," I conceded at last, "that if missionaries and their wives can live there, a few months won't hurt Molly. Remind me in the morning, dear, to write a note to your school teacher, and you can take it with you."

"Won't all the other girls be jealous!" she cried. "I told some of them I should probably be going out to Africa in a few weeks time—and they were mad! Kitty Vincent said I was just boasting—and I wanted to fight her...."

For nearly five minutes she continued in this vein.

"You seem to have taken everything for granted, my child," I remarked. "Supposing I had refused? What then?"

"But, Daddy, I knew you wouldn't!"

Gran'pa arose and stretched himself.

"George," he said, "that child's an atavism—a throw-back! She throws back to me. And I'm proud of it! Come and give your poor old great-great-grand-dad a kiss, my dear."

Molly saluted him and told him he wasn't the teeny-weeniest bit old.

"Perhaps you're right ..." he mused.Then he chuckled to himself and commenced whistling "Sally in Our Alley." It was followed by "Sweet Alice Ben Bolt." Finally he burst into parodied song:

"How's that for a modern version? Eh, George?"

"Very true to life!" I laughed.

"Ah!" he cried. "It's good to be so young that you can feel yourself back with some of those old songs again. I heard of 'Dorothy Dean' and her 'flying machine' at the Tivoli Music Hall—over fifty years ago.... And yet ... I wasn't so young even then. It's a queer business, George!"

He couldn't contain himself that night. He played the piano, sang dead and long-forgotten songs, danced a "solo" minuet to his own whistled accompaniment, and even showed us how the old-time "saraband" went.

"That's the first dance I had with your great-great-grandmother," he told Molly.

Thereupon, he suddenly grew silent.

Had he loved that dead woman, I wondered? How much did he miss her, now that he had come to his second youth again? Was this rejuvenation ever tinctured with regret? Might it not be that the backward march through life was sometimes a journey of great loneliness of soul? All the friends of his boyhood, his youth, and even of his middle-age had died long ago. In a sense, he was a solitary figure, living in a world peopled only by his memories of the dead....

I watched him go pensively up to his easy chair and drop into it with a deep sigh, and as he did so, some sixth sense seemed to give him an inkling of my thoughts.

He looked up at me.

"Memories ..." he said. "They're strange things, George. Those little dances.... What visions they recall!"

"May they be only the pleasant ones," I answered, inadequately.

"Ah! That's the trouble! I wouldn't mind the others. One can shake them off. It's the pleasant ones which stick.... You feel that so many things might have been different—if only you had known.... The happy moment, the great joy—which lasted only an instant—and ended in nothing...."

He hesitated, as if he had half-turned one of the hidden pages of his past life and dreaded to read the message written by a relentless fate.

"There was a minuet," he said, at last. "It went like this."

He rose to his feet again and began softly humming to himself. With a courtly, old-fashioned grace, he went through the steps, his eyes half-closed and his hands extended as if towards some invisible partner. He was in another world, another time, where the mad and feverish jazzing of to-day was unknown. As he turned and pirouetted I almost heard the faint swish of the crinoline and the murmur of some hidden and distant orchestra.

For nearly ten minutes he held Molly and myself silent and entranced, and then he suddenly stopped, bowed to his dream-partner,—and returned to the world of grim reality."I'm an old fool ..." he said. "Over fifty years ago.... She may be dead by now."

And, as he mused, so the story of romance slowly unfolded itself. His married life had not been happy. The oldest sin on earth had been committed. He had married, not the girl he loved, but the girl whom his parents in their worldly wisdom had chosen. Money? Partly—for he was unable to support a wife without some help from his father. But, mainly, because life for the young was ordered differently in those days. One was told to do a thing and, in the end—one did it.

Little boys and girls were brought up on the "to be seen and not heard" principle, until obedience to one's elders was in the blood. It was a religion, and few there were that escaped its stultifying influence.

"I was only twenty," he said. "What could I do?"

And when he was forty-five, and was in England on business, SHE came—a chance meeting at a big country ball, a dance, and then the keen, swift birth of love and that tragic realization of the impossibility of its fulfilment.

"I saw her again—three times in all. But there was my duty to my wife and children in America. I knew that it was hopeless, and so—I said, 'Good-by.' There were tears, George. Even I ... crumpled up a little.... I fled back to the States immediately—I was afraid of myself.... It was a long time ago, and yet— Do you think I'm foolish to hope that she might ... still be alive—and still remember?"

"No!" I answered.

"It isn't that I haven't thought of such a possibility before. But I always seemed so old. I couldn't dispel the feeling that she still had eternal youth on her side. You see, she was only twenty-one when we last met. Even now I can't picture her as any older than that."

He fell back into the silence of his own thoughts.

"George," he cried at last. "Why shouldn't I? I'm a comparatively young man again. Supposing I did find her and could persuade her to join me—rejuvenated?... Even after all these years I can still remember where she lived."

"Good Lord, Gran'pa!" I couldn't help exclaiming.

"And why not?" he challenged with a sudden look of defiance in his eyes.

"It's absurd. It isn't even proper...."

"Proper, George? You seem to suggest at times that I'm not a human being!"

His face was flushed with excitement and he took huge, deep breaths, which inflated his chest almost to the point of bursting off his waistcoat buttons. Was it the spring air, the new glands, or merely old-world memories that roused him to such ecstasy?

"If you're going to begin resurrecting some antiquated love affair," I said, "we shan't get to Africa for months. Which is it going to be—love or adventure?"

"Both!" cried Gran'pa.