I Have a Desperate Encounter and a Narrow Escape.  
The happiness that now beamed in the faces of Makarooroo, Okandaga, and Njamie was a sufficient reward to us for all the trouble we had taken and all the risk we had run on their account. Poor Njamie was exceedingly grateful to us. She sought by every means in her power to show this, and among other things, hearing us call her son by the name of Puggy, she at once adopted it, to the immense amusement and delight of Peterkin.
 
After the first excitement of our meeting had subsided somewhat, we consulted together as to what we should now do. On the one hand, we were unwilling to quit the scene of our hunting triumphs and adventures; on the other hand, Makarooroo and his bride were anxious to reach the mission stations on the coast and get married in the Christian manner.
 
“Our opposing interests are indeed a little perplexing,” said Jack, after some conversation had passed on the subject.—“No doubt, Mak, you and Mbango with his friends might reach the coast safely enough without us; but then what should we do without an interpreter?”
 
Our poor guide, whose troubles seemed as though they would never end, sighed deeply and glanced at his bride with a melancholy countenance as he replied—
 
“Me’ll go wid you, massa, an’ Okandaga’ll go to coast an’ wait dere for me come.”
 
“Ha!” ejaculated Peterkin, “that’s all very well, Mak, but you’ll do nothing of the sort. That plan won’t do, so we’ll have to try again.”
 
“I agree with you, Peterkin,” observed Jack. “That plan certainly will not do; but I cannot think of any other that will, so we must just exercise a little self-denial for once, give up all further attacks on the wild beasts of Africa, and accompany Mak to the coast.”
 
“Could we not manage a compromise?” said I.
 
“What be a cumprumoise?” asked Makarooroo, who had been glancing anxiously from one to the other as we conversed.
 
Peterkin laid hold of his chin, pursed up his mouth, and looked at me with a gleeful leer.
 
“There’s a chance for you, Ralph,” said he; “why don’t you explain?”
 
“Because it’s not easy to explain,” said I, considering the best way in which to convey the meaning of such a word.—“A compromise, Mak, is—is a bargain, a compact—at least so Johnson puts it—”
 
“Yes,” interposed Peterkin; “so you see, Mak, when you agree with a trader to get him an elephant-tusk, that’s a cumprumoise, according to Johnson.”
 
“No, no, Mak,” said I quickly; “Peterkin is talking nonsense. It is not a bargain of that kind; it’s a—a—You know every question has two sides?”
 
“Yis, massa.”
 
“Well, suppose you took one side.”
 
“Yis.”
 
“And suppose I took the other side.”
 
“Then suppose we were to agree to forsake our respective sides and meet, as it were, half-way, and thus hold the same middle course—”
 
“Ay, down the middle and up again; that’s it, Mak,” again interrupted Peterkin—“that’s a cumprumoise. In short, to put it in another and a clearer light, suppose that I were to resolve to hit you an awful whack on one side of your head, and suppose that Ralph were to determine to hit you a frightful bang on the other side, then suppose that we were to agree to give up those amiable intentions, and instead thereof to give you, unitedly, one tremendous smash on the place where, if you had one, the bridge of your nose would be—that would be a cumprumoise.”
 
“Ho! ha! ha! hi!” shouted our guide, rolling over on the grass and splitting himself with laughter; for Makarooroo, like the most of his race, was excessively fond of a joke, no matter how bad, and was always ready on the shortest notice to go off into fits of laughter, if he had only the remotest idea of what the jest meant. He had become so accustomed at last to expect something jocular from Peterkin, that he almost invariably opened his mouth to be ready whenever he observed our friend make any demonstration that gave indication of his being about to speak.
 
From the mere force of sympathy Mbango began to laugh also, and I know not how long the two would have gone on, had not Jack checked them by saying—
 
“I suspect we are not very well fitted to instruct the unenlightened mind,” (“Ho—hi!” sighed Makarooroo, gathering himself up and settling down to listen), “and it seems to me that you’ll have to try again, Peterkin, some other mode of explanation.”
 
“Very good, by all means,” said our friend.—“Now, Mak, look here. You want to go there” (pointing to the coast with his left hand), “and we want to go there” (pointing to the interior with his right hand). “Now if we both agree to go there,” (pointing straight before him with his nose), “that will be a cumprumoise. D’ye understand?”
 
“Ho yis, massa, me compiperhend now.”
 
“Exactly so,” said I; “that’s just it. There is a branch of this river that takes a great bend away to the north before it turns towards the sea, is there not? I think I have heard yourself say so before now.”
 
“Yis, massa, hall right.”
 
“Well, let us go by that branch. We shall be a good deal longer on the route, but we shall be always nearing the end of our journey, and at the same time shall pass through a good deal of new country, in which we may hope to see much game.”
 
“Good,” said Jack; “you have wisdom with you for once, Ralph—it seems feasible.—What say you, Mak? I think it a capital plan.”
 
“Yis, massa, it am a copitle plan, sure ’nuff.”
 
The plan being thus arranged and agreed to, we set about the execution of it at once, and ere long our two canoes were floating side by side down the smooth current of the river.
 
The route which we had chosen led us, as I had before suspected, into the neighbourhood of the gorilla country, and I was much gratified to learn from Mbango, who had travelled over an immense portion of south-western Africa, that it was not improbable we should meet with several of those monstrous apes before finally turning off towards the coast. I say that I was much gratified to learn this; but I little imagined that I was at that time hastening towards a conflict that well-nigh proved fatal to me, and the bare remembrance of which still makes me shudder.
 
It occurred several weeks after the events just related. We had gone ashore for the purpose of hunting, our supply of provisions chancing at that time to be rather low. Feeling a desire to wander through the woods in solitude for a short time, I separated from my companions. I soon came to regret this deeply, for about an hour afterwards I came upon the tracks of a gor............