We held a council immediately. The drums on every side of us meant evil brewing. So much was certain. For a white man to attempt to stop the juju councils would be perilous in the extreme, but it was our only chance. On the other hand, for one of us to get through the jungle to take that desperate chance meant eluding the watchfulness of the hate-mad gorilla, whose cunning was increasing. "I don't know how he got to me," said Evan, still shaking from the unexpectedness of the whole affair. "I heard a snarl, and he was coming for me not ten paces away. Startled, I pulled the trigger without aiming, and he came on. I got my rifle halfway to my shoulder, when he reached me. One of his great, hairy paws grasped the muzzle as I fired the second time, while the other reached for my throat. When the rifle went off, he started back and burst out in his screaming. It must have burned or injured his paw. I turned and ran, but he had done this to me in the meantime." His coat was half torn from him, and the deep scratches on his cheek showed where the claws had just grazed his face. "I don't mind facing natives," Evan admitted in conclusion, "but I'll tell you frankly I don't care to go through that jungle again while that beast is in it." The eternal menace of the drums came to our ears, borne to us through the open windows. Arthur began to pace up and down the room, cursing under his breath. Alicia bit her lip and tapped nervously on the floor with her foot. Mrs. Braymore carefully began to fold and refold her handkerchief. Quite suddenly, I noticed that it was falling into shreds beneath her fingers. Struggle as any of us would, our nerves were badly worn. The strain grew worse during the day. There were two or three dogs about the place, and it was curious to see them puzzled over our abstraction. They kept alertly out of Evan's way, but they were obviously disconcerted by the absence of the servants who usually attended to them, and they looked at us with perplexity in their eyes. They could get no attention from the solitary native girl who remained. She had withdrawn into panic-stricken silence, serving us when necessary, but spending most of her time in the room to which she had been assigned. We had ordered her to leave the servants' quarters and stay in the house itself. All the morning the drums beat rhythmically. During lunch they continued their hypnotic muttering. And all afternoon they kept on, kept on, until it seemed as if we would be crushed by their regular, pulselike, ominous rumbling. Far off in the bush, where we could never reach them, we knew juju councils were going on. Weirdly painted and tattooed witch doctors whirled in their mystic dances and inflamed the minds of the blacks against us.