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They knew that he was able to hold and handle the great gun, and might think some bird or animal had come near and tempted him to take a shot at it. On the other hand, the report would strike upon the ears of the mias, might distract it from the triumph in which it was indulging, and bring it to the spot where they were standing.
This was not an easy matter, as the Mias had a knack of selecting places with dense foliage beneath. Very soon, however, one of the Dyaks called me and pointed upwards, and on looking I saw a great red hairy body and a huge black face gazing down from a great height, as if wanting to know what was making such a disturbance below.
On June 21st I shot another adult female, which was eating fruit in a low tree, and was the only one which I ever killed by a single ball. On June 24th I was called by a Chinaman to shoot a Mias, which, he said, was on a tree close by his house, at the coal-mines.
Its struggles became fainter and fainter, and in a short time it seemed perfectly still and dead. Knowing the strength of the crocodile, it gave us a good idea of the immense power of muscle exercised by the mias; and Oliver said it made him feel doubly grateful that he had escaped from the creature which had so nearly killed him. His hurts still gave him pain.
The mias now turned round and moved towards the dog, but Merlin was too sagacious to allow himself to be caught, and when almost within the creature's reach he bounded on one side, and then wheeled off, still barking, with the evident intention of drawing it away from us. How thankful I felt when I saw him do so, for his purpose was answered.
Thus it happened that when the enormous brute suddenly rose and made for a tree with the evident intention of climbing it, no one was prepared to stop it except the Dyak youth Gurulam. He chanced to be standing between the mias and the tree. Boldly he levelled his spear and made a thrust that would probably have killed the beast, if it had not caught the point of the spear and turned it aside.
Ask any old Bornean bee-hunter, and he will tell you just such a tale as the above; adding that the ourang-outang, or red gorilla, which he calls mias, is a match, and more than a match, for any animal it may encounter in forest or jungle; and that the only two creatures which dare attack it are the crocodile and the great ular or python, the latter a serpent of the boa-constructor kind, with one of which our castaways had already formed acquaintance.
Saloo only expressed a hope that they might get upon the limb of a tree near enough to send a bullet or arrow into the body of the mias, and terminate his career. There seemed no other chance, and they swam on, keeping it before their minds. About the direction, they had no difficulty whatever.
What was my horror the next moment to see it rising on its hind legs, and bending forward, fix its teeth into Oliver's arm, which he had raised to defend his head. Meantime Merlin, who had been with the rest of the party, came bounding back, and attacked with his powerful jaws the leg of the mias. The creature for an instant let go Oliver's arm. "Fly, Miss Emily! fly!" he cried out.
Saloo at once recognised the permanent nest or roosting-place of a mias rombi such as he had often seen in the forests of Sumatra, where the same, or a closely allied species, has its home.
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