er grip to be obtained.

Other creatures had waited for the drying of the leaves beside
themselves, and whenever they passed the white-grey branches of a
wild fig tree, they were treated to a scolding from green parrots on
the feed, and heard frequently the clapping report of the wood-
pigeons as they brought their wings together, and the harsh cry of
the toucans. Oh yes, there was life and there was death.

Venning, going on ahead, saw below him in the fork of a tree the
face of a monkey, with the eyes closed as if in sleep. He stopped to
look, stooping his head, and his eyes caught a slight movement. Then
he saw that the sleeping monkey was cradled in the coils of a python
resting in the forks of the tree, its head raised a little, and its
tail gripping a branch. The head of the monkey rested peacefully on
one of the black and yellow coils, for death had come upon it
swiftly.

"What do you look at?" asked Muata, bending forward.

"Shall I shoot?

"So," muttered the chief. "It is the silent hunter. Let him be; let
him be, and pass on. No other looks at man as he looks. It is his
kill; pass on."

They passed on, leaving the "silent hunter" with the monkey, that
looked as if he slept, and silent and motionless he remained as each
one paused to glance down, his dull, unwinking yellow eyes showing
like coloured glass in the lifted head.

"Look well," said Muata, warningly; "where there is one, there will
be another near. The silent ones hunt in couples."

"Would they attack men?"

"Ask the 'little' people."

"But they are no bigger than monkeys."

"There is the monkey bigger than man, and he, too, must give way to
the silent hunter."

"What! Is the gorilla afraid of the python?"

"Between the ape and the serpent there is always war. See where you
place your foot then, for you travel the monkey-path, and we go hand
and foot like monkeys. Look well where you place your hand, for a
straight branch may be the body of the silent hunter."

Venning went on with renewed caution, studying the branches above
and below, for, lover as he was of all manner of live things, he had
the common repugnance to the serpent-kind. But the trees were
innocent of guile, and presently some other object claimed his
absorbed attention, no less than an old man gorilla, who thrust his
black head above a tree-top a little way off, and violently shook
the branches. At the noise every one stopped and peered out.

"Look!" he shouted.