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Updated: May 26, 2025
We had no idea at how long a distance man could hit us with the thunder-sticks, but we preferred to be on the safe side, and it must have been at least two hours before we stopped for a moment to take breath. And when a bear is in a hurry, two hours, even for a cub, mean more than twenty miles.
Without the thunder-sticks we should have had no difficulty in meeting them, but with those weapons in their hands it would only be sacrificing our lives in vain to attempt a rescue. So there we had to stand and watch, my mother all the time whimpering and my father growling, and sitting up on his haunches and rubbing his nose in his chest.
She was fighting every inch of the way, but her struggles against four men were useless, and slowly, yard by yard, she was being dragged away from us. But if she could not fight four men, could not we? There were four of us, and I said so to my father. But he only grunted, and reminded me of the thunder-sticks. It was only too true.
They were a long way ahead, and it was some time before I could get near enough to attract their attention and tell them that Kahwa was missing. Mother wished to charge straight down the hill again at the men, thunder-sticks or no thunder-sticks; but father dissuaded her, and at last we began to retrace our steps cautiously, keeping our ears and noses open for any sign either of Kahwa or of man.
A breeze had sprung up from the west, and when I woke after a few hours' sleep sleep which had been one long nightmare of man and thunder-sticks and broken leg the air was full of a new smell, very sharp and pungent; and not only was there the smell, but with the breeze the cloud from the west had been rolling towards us, and the whole mountain-side was covered with a thin haze, like a mist, only different from any mist that I had seen.
The sentries were but a few paces away; but the ape did not dare expose himself, even for an instant, to those feared and hated thunder-sticks which the Tarmangani knew so well how to use, if there were another and safer method of attack.
So we stood and watched, while the man, still running as if we were at his very heels, tore up to the house, and out from behind it came three or four others. We could see them brandishing their arms and talking very excitedly. Then two of them plunged into the house, and came out with yes, there could be no doubt of it; these were the real things the dreaded thunder-sticks themselves.
Had it not been for dread of the thunder-sticks, I should have gone down into the town and attacked the first man that I met.
Chulk had remained at his post until the cries and shots of the Arabs had filled his simple soul with terror, for above all things the ape folk fear the thunder-sticks of the Tarmangani; then he had clambered nimbly over the palisade, tearing his burnoose in the effort, and fled into the depths of the jungle, grumbling and scolding as he went.
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