"Overawed and silent, we retired to rest, hoping to forget in sleep the terrors of the midnight forest, but ere long the most fearful cries in the adjoining woods gave notice that the apes were beginning to suffer from the poisoned repast prepared for them. "As our dogs could not remain silent amid the uproar and din, we had not a wink of sleep until the morning. It was late, therefore, when we rose, and looked on the awful spectacle presented by the multitude of dead monkeys and baboons thickly strewn under the trees round the farm. I shall not tell you how many there were. I can only say, I wished I had not found the poison, and we made all haste to clear away the dead bodies and the dangerous food, burying some deep in the earth, and carrying the rest to the shore, where we pitched them over the rocks into the sea. That day we traveled on to the Gap." The same evening that the boys reached the rocky pass, a messenger pigeon arrived at Rockburg, bearing a note which concluded as follows: "The barricade at the Gap is broken down. Everything laid waste as far as the sugar-brake, where the hut is knocked to pieces, and the fields trampled over by huge footmarks. Come to us, father--we are safe, but feel we are no match for this unknown danger." I lost not an instant, but saddled Swift, late as it was, in order to ride to the assistance of our boys, desiring Ernest to prepare the small cart, and follow me with his mother at daybreak, bringing everything we should require for camping out for some days. The bright moonlight favored my journey, and my arrival at the Gap surprised and delighted the boys, who did not expect me till the next day. Early on the following morning I inspected the footprints and ravages of the great unknown. The canebrake had, without doubt, been visited by an elephant. That great animal alone could have left such traces and committed such fearful ravages. Thick posts in the barricade were snapped across like reeds; the trees in the vicinity, where we planned to build a cool summerhouse, were stripped of leaves and branches to a great height, but the worst mischief was done among the young sugar-cane plants, which were all either devoured or trampled down and destroyed. It seemed to me that not one elephant, but a troop must have invaded our grounds. The tracks were very numerous, and the footprints of various sizes; but, to my satisfaction, I saw that they could be traced not only from the Gap, but back to it in evidently equal numbers. We did not, therefore, suppose that the mighty animals remained hidden in the woods of our territory; but concluded that, after this freebooting incursion, they had withdrawn to their native wilds, where, by greatly increasing the strength of our ramparts, we hoped henceforth to oblige them to remain. The mother and Ernest arrived next day, and she rejoiced to find all well, making light of trodden fields and trampled sugar canes, since her sons were sound in life and limb.