On and on I tore--a man in gorilla's clothing, but with the heart of a mouse! I must have covered over a quarter of a mile before I reached the end of the chase, and it came so suddenly and swiftly that I thought for one wild moment that my pursuer had overtaken and struck me. The ground gave way beneath my feet, I shot head over heels down a steep slope, hit a tree trunk, bounded off again, and at last came to a full stop. Dazed as I was by the fall, I realized at once what had happened. I had tumbled ignominiously into one of the elephant-traps made by the natives of this locality. It was a hole about eight feet square and nearly a dozen deep, and, as I looked upwards, I saw the serpent's head appear over the edge, then its body--and down it came with a flop. It is astonishing how quickly the human mind can work in moments of real danger. In the merest fraction of a second my eyes had taken in the one possible avenue of escape--a long vertical creeper, dangling the end of its thick arm within a yard of my head. With a cry, I leapt into the air, grabbed my hope of salvation in both hands and hauled myself aloft. The serpent, too, had erected itself on a coiled base and was preparing to strike. Its head swayed slowly to and fro and its evil tongue shot in and out, as if in grim, sardonic anticipation of its meal. I wriggled my right hand free, got at my revolver, took aim, and fired straight into its open mouth. The sight was terrible--but majestic! The huge bulk of headless muscle lurched forward, struck blindly at my legs and collapsed in a writhing mass of impotence. For fully a minute I hung there, watching the death throes of my pursuer. Then, when I could hold on no longer, I jumped clear, landed heavily on my feet and hands, and commenced scrambling out of that horrible pit. Safe and sound again, I retraced my steps at a gentle trot. To the chattering monkeys who swung from branch to branch above and looked down on me with startled curiosity, I must have presented a strange sight. My gorilla skin was tattered and torn, my face and hands were scratched and bleeding, my hair was in wild disorder. A fine caricature of a man who had known the joys of white spats and carefully creased trousers and a well cut coat, and bone-rimmed, circular spectacles! I must have covered nearly a mile before I realized what I ought to have guessed long ago. I was lost! It was not a pleasant discovery, and, the moment I made it, I stood still and did some very hard thinking. Now that it was too late, I saw that we should have prepared for such a contingency and marked some of the trees which flanked our pathway from the aerodrome to the cages. I tried to recollect the way I had come, but knew that any attempt to get back to the open country where the aerodrome was situated might only lead me still further astray. "Oh, for a 'plane--or a balloon!" I thought.