Mrs. Braymore joined in the conversation. "I should like to receive an invitation to tea," she said wistfully. "I should like to go somewhere to tea and have people talk interestedly of poetry, and the approaching marriage of somebody's daughter, and what the curate said about the possibility of repairing the parish house." We all laughed at the idea. I set down one of the tins of potted meat and reached for another. "For myself----" I began and stopped short, every muscle tense. On the veranda outside the house I had heard a sound, the creaking of a board as a heavy weight was put cautiously upon it. There was something infinitely furtive in the sound. I listened and heard nothing more, but was oppressed by a sense of danger. The sound had come from the front of the house. I drew an automatic from my belt and silently passed it to Alicia. She had heard nothing, but my expression warned her and she took it quickly. Mrs. Braymore took the other. I picked up my rifle from the side wall and tiptoed through the house toward the front. I heard an almost unbelievable slight sound again from the porch. The door into the front room was standing open. I slipped silently up to the threshold. Arthur had heard. He was still sitting in the chair, but he was alert and ready. His eyes were fixed on the window some fifteen feet from him, and he was slowly and carefully bringing his rifle to bear. The sun was shining from without and struck upon the curtains that hung inside. Evan had made his house ready for the visitors he expected, and every window was curtained. There was a moment of breath-taking suspense. Arthur, still seated lest the sound of his rising alarm whoever or whatever was outside, was bringing his rifle to his shoulder. I slipped into the room and came to his side, my own rifle ready. Our eyes were fixed upon the window. Then the slanting rays of the sun flung a shadow upon the curtain. The thing was not yet before the window, but its shadow moved on before it because of the position of the rising sun. We saw, cast in perfect clearness upon the flimsy cloth, the silhouette of the head of the gorilla! Its small ears lay back, its jaw protruded in that fearful ferocity of the anthropoid tribe, and we saw it peering from right to left in suspicious cunning. I held my breath, waiting for the moment when we could fire. The head turned sharply, and I thought I saw the nostrils quivering. Then, abruptly, it vanished, and a dog burst into frantic barking and hysterical yelping on the veranda. Another instant and the dog screamed in terror. There was a crash against the wall of the house, and the yelping became a moan. Arthur and I had dashed for the door and now rushed down the veranda with hearts thumping madly. One of the dogs was writhing in agony on the floor. It had been flung against the house with terrific force and now lay with broken ribs and backbone, dying. The gorilla had vanished.