reat man-monkey and vatching his habits.--Hush! Do I not
hear somet'ing?"

"Nothing but your own voice, I think," said Nigel, with a twinkle in his
eye.

"Vell--hush! Keep kviet, all of you."

As the whole party marched in single file after the professor, and were
at the moment absolutely silent, this order induced the display of a
good many teeth.

Just then the man of science was seen to put his rifle quickly to the
shoulder; the arches of the forest rang with a loud report; various
horrified creatures were seen and heard to scamper away, and next moment
a middle-sized orang-utan came crashing through the branches of a tall
tree and fell dead with a heavy thud on the ground.

The professor's rifle was a breechloader. He therefore lost no time in
re-charging, and hurried forward as if he saw other game, while the rest
of the party--except Van der Kemp, Nigel, and Gurulam--fell behind to
look at and pick up the fallen animal.

"Look out!" whispered Nigel, pointing to a bit of brown hair that he saw
among the leaves high overhead.

"Vere? I cannot see him," whispered the naturalist, whose eyes blazed
enough almost to melt his blue glasses. "Do _you_ fire, Mr. Roy?"

"My gun is charged only with small-shot, for birds. It is useless for
such game," said Nigel.

"Ach! I see!"

Up went the rifle and again the echoes were startled and the animal
kingdom astounded, especially that portion at which the professor had
fired, for there was immediately a tremendous commotion among the leaves
overhead, and another orang of the largest size was seen to cross an
open space and disappear among the thick foliage. Evidently the creature
had been hit, but not severely, for it travelled among the tree-tops at
the rate of full five miles an hour, obliging the hunters to run at a
rapid pace over the rough ground in order to keep up with it. In its
passage from tree to tree the animal showed caution and foresight,
selecting only those branches that interlaced with other boughs, so that
it made uninterrupted progress, and also had a knack of always keeping
masses of thick foliage underneath it so that for some time no
opportunity was found of firing another shot. At last, however, it came
to one of those Dyak roads of which we have made mention, so that it
could not easily swing from one tree to another, and the stoppage of
rustling among the leaves told that the creature had halted. For some
time they gazed up among the branches