Manchurian Books

Panting, puzzled, his ears
on the stretch, he waited, when suddenly the sharp report of a gun
rang through the woods.
A cry followed, and the monkey, mortally wounded, fell heavily on the
ground, still holding Torres' case.
"By Jove!" he muttered, "that bullet came at the right time!"
And then, without fearing to be seen, he came out of the thicket, and
two young gentlemen appeared from under the trees.
They were Brazilians clothed as hunters, with leather boots, light
palm-leaf hats, waistcoats, or rather tunics, buckled in at the
waist, and more convenient than the national poncho. By their
features and their complexion they were at once recognizable as of
Portuguese descent.
Each of them was armed with one of those long guns of Spanish make
which slightly remind us of the arms of the Arabs, guns of long range
and considerable precision, which the dwellers in the forest of the
upper Amazon handle with success.
What had just happened was a proof of this. At an angular distance of
more than eighty paces the quadruman had been shot full in the head.


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