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There were several incongruous features in the scene that unfolded right before my very eyes, some of them terrifying, but my attention was first drawn to a strange figure standing motionless, thirty paces away and peering in my direction.
I almost shouted in amazement. Yes, despite my terror, despite the tragedy of my own position----being caught between the beaters and the guns----stupefaction overrode all other emotion when I saw this creature on the lookout, lying in wait for the game. It was an ape, a large-sized gorilla. It was in vain that I told myself I was going mad. I could not entertain the slightest doubt as to his species. But an encounter with a gorilla on the distant planet Silauros was not the essential outlandishness of the situation. This for me lay in the fact that the ape was properly dressed, like a man of Earth, and above all that he wore his clothes in such an easy manner. This natural aspect was what struck me first of all. No sooner had I seen the animal than I realized that he was not in any way disguised. The state in which I saw him was normal, as normal to hm as nakedness was to Novaya and her people.
He was dressed in a campy, almost Dickensian style. Like an oldtime American westerner, a Gold Rush-era character come to life. His black oilskin vest could have been made by the best American outfitter and it revealed underneath a plaid shirt of the kind a deer hunter wears. His breeches, flaring out slightly above his calves, terminated in a pair of leggings. But the resemblance stopped there, for instead of cowboy-style boots he wore big black gloves over his feet.
But it was still a gorilla, damn it to hell! (Although the monkey may dress herself in silk, she remains a monkey, or so the Spaniards say) From his shirt collar emerged a hideous head, its top shaped like a sugarloaf and covered with black hair, with a flattened nose and jutting jaws. There he stood, leaning slightly forward, in the manner of a hunter on the lookout, grasping a rifle in his long hands. He was facing me, on the other side of a large gap cut out of the rainforest at right angles to the direction of the drive.
Suddenly the bastard stiffened. He noticed---I had noticed---a faint sound in the bushes a little bit to my right. He turned around and at the same time raised his weapon, ready to put it to his shoulder. From my position, I could see the furrow left in the undergrowth by one of the fugitives who was running blindly straight ahead. I almost shouted a warning to him, so obvious was that ape's intention. But I had neither time nor strength for such nobility; the man was already racing like a mountain goat across the open field. The shot rang out while he was still halfway across the field of fire. He gave a leap in the air, collapsed in a heap on the ground, and after a few convulsions, lay still.
But it was only a little later that I noticed the victim's death agony, my attention still being focused on the gorilla. I had followed the changes in his expression from the moment he was alerted by the noise and had noted a number of surprising facts: first, the cruelty of the hunter stalking his prey and the feverish pleasure he derived from this pastime---but above all the human character of his expression---in this beast's eyes there was a spark of intelligence that I had sought in vain among the men of Silauros.
The realization of my own position soon aroused me from my torpor. The shot made me direct my gaze again towards the victim, and I was the horrified witness of his final twitches. I then noticed with horror that the cleared space in the forest was littered with bloody human bodies! It was now impossible to delude myself as to the meaning of this scene. I caught sight of another gorilla like the first one, a hundred paces off. I was witnessing a drive---alas, I was taking part in it! ---a fantastic drive in which the gunners, posted at regular intervals, were apes and the game consisted of men, men like me, men and women whose naked, ruined bodies, twisted in lunatic postures, lay bleeding on the ground.
I turned aside from this unspeakable horror. I preferred the sight of the merely grotesque, and I gazed back at the gorilla blocking my way. He had taken a step to one side, revealing another ape standing beside him, like a servant beside his master. It was a chimpanzee, a young chimpanzee, it seemed to me, but a chimpanzee, I tell you, dressed in less elegance than the gorilla, in loose-fitting trousers and a shirt, and easily playing his part in the meticulous organization that I was beginning to discern. The hunter had just handed him his gun. The chimpanzee exchanged it for another he was holding in his hand. Then, with precise gestures, using the cartridges in the belt he was wearing around his waist and that gleamed harshly in the rays of Chang-Er, the little chimpanzee reloaded the weapon. Then each resumed his position.
All of the aforementioned impressions had taken, I would guess, just a few seconds. I should have liked to think about these discoveries, to analyze them; I had no time to do so. Lying beside me, Denis Petrov, numb with fright, was unable to lend me even the slightest aid. The danger was mounting at every second. The beaters were approaching from behind. The din they made was now deafening. We were at bay like wild animals, like those unfortunate creatures whom I still see flitting all around us. The size of the colony must have been bigger than I had suspected, for many men were still rushing along the track, to meet there a grisly death.
Not all, however. Forcing myself to recover my composure, from the top of my hillock I studied the behavior of the fugitives. Some of them, totally panic stricken, rushed along snapping the undergrowth in their flight, thereby alerting the apes, who easily shot them dead. Others gave evidence of more cunning, like old lions who have hunted several times and have learned a number of tricks. These crept forward on all fours, paused for a moment on the edge of the clearing, studied the nearest hunter through the leaves, and waited for the moment when his attention would be focused on another direction. Then, in a single bound, at full speed, they crossed the deadly alley. Several of them thus succeeded in reaching the opposite side unhurt and vanished into the forest.
Therein, perhaps, lay a chance of safety. I motioned to Petrov to follow me and slipped soundlessly forward as far as the last thicket in front of the path. There I found myself overwhelmed by a ridiculous scruple. Should I, a man, really resort to those kinds of tricks just to get the better of an ape? Surely the only behavior worthy of my condition was to rise to my feet, advanced on the filthy beast, and beat it within an inch of its life? The ever-increasing tumult behind me reduced this insane inclination to nothing.
The hunt was ending in an infernal din. The beaters were at our heels. I saw one of them emerge from the foliage. It was an enormous silverback gorilla, laying about him at random with a club and screeching fit that would have burst the lungs of a human being. That one made an even more horrifying impression on me than the hunter with the gun. Petrov started chattering with fear and trembling from head to toe, while I kept my eye on the newcomer in front of me and waited for my chance to strike.
My wretched companion unconsciously saved my life by his imprudence. He'd gone stark raving mad. He got up without taking any precautions, started running off at random, coming out into the alley in full view of the hunter's line of fire. He went no further. The shot seemed to snap him in two and he fell, adding his body to all those that already lay there. I wasted no time in mourning him---what could I do for him? ---but waited feverishly for the moment when the gorilla would hand his gun over to his servant. Upon doing so, I sprang out and dashed across to the alley. I saw the hunter, as if in a dream, hasten to seize his weapon, but I was already under cover by the time he could lift it to his shoulder. I heard an exclamation that sounded like an oath but had no time for thought about this latest oddity.
I had got the best of him, by God! I felt a strange joy, which was balm to my humiliation. I went on running at top speed, leaving the carnage behind me, until I could no longer hear the noise of the beaters. I was saved!
Saved! But I was underestimating the maliciousness of the ape-men of Silauros. Hardly had I gone one hundred yards when I stumbled headlong into an obstacle hidden in the foliage. It was a wide-meshed net stretched above the ground and equipped with large pockets, in one of which I was now entangled. I was not the only captive, I'm afraid. The net ran across a large tract of the forest, and a crowd of fugitives who had escaped being shot had let themselves be caught as I had. To my right and left frenzied jerks accompanied by furious whines bore witness to their efforts to break free.
A wild rage overcame me when I felt myself thus imprisoned, a rage stronger than terror, leaving my utterly unable to think. I did just what my reason admonished me not to do---I struggled in an utterly insane manner, with the result that the net became even more tightly wound around me. I was eventually so closely bound as to be paralyzed, thereby leaving me to the mercy of the apes I heard approaching.
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