"And if so, what shall we say?"

"Tell them the truth. We shall proceed direct to Falcon's Nest; and if the stranger--confiding in our habit of sleeping during the night--be there as usual, we shall do ourselves the honor of helping him to get up."

"Providing he does not nightly change his quarters like Oliver Cromwell--not so much to avoid enemies, as to calm his uneasy conscience."

"Well, we shall be no worse than before; we shall have tried to restore our wonted quietude, and, if we fail, we can say, like Francis I. at Pavia, '_All is lost except our honor_.'"

Some minutes after this conversation, three shadows might have been seen stealing through the glades in the direction of Falcon's Nest.

Nothing was to be heard but the rustling of the leaves--the deafened beating of the sea upon the rocks--and, to use the words of Lamartine, "those unknown tongues that night and the wind whisper in the air."

The trees were mirrored in the rays of the moon, and the ground, at intervals, seemed strewn with monstrous giants; their hearts beat, not with fear, but with that feverish impatience that anticipates decisive results.

When they arrived at the foot of the tree on which the aerial dwelling was situated, Fritz opened the door, and resolutely, but stealthily, ascended.

Willis and Jack followed him with military precision.

They reached the top of the staircase, and held the latch of the door that opened into the apartment.

A train of mice, in the strictest incognito, could not have performed these operations with a greater amount of secretiveness. On opening the door they stood and listened.

Not a sound. Jack fired off a pistol, and the fraudulent occupier of the room instantly started up on his feet. Fritz rushed forward, and clasped him tightly round the body.

"Ho, ho, comrade," said he, "this time you do not get off so easily!"

CHAPTER IX.

THE CHIMPANZEE--IMPERFECT NEGRO, OR PERFECT APE--THE HARMONIES OF NATURE--A HANDFUL OF PAWS--A STONE SKIN--SEVENTEEN THOUSAND SPECTACLES ON ONE NOSE--ANIMALCULae--PELION ON OSSA--PTOLEMY--COPERNICUS TO GALILEO--METAPHYSICS AND COSMOGONIES--ISAIAH--A LIVE TIGER.

"The chimpanze or chimpanzee," says Buffon, the French naturalist, "is much more sagacious than the _ourang outang_, with which it has been inaccurately confounded; it likewise bears a more marked resemblance to the human being; the height is the same, and it has the same aspect, members, and strength; it always walks on two feet, with the head erect, has no tail, has calves to its legs, hair on its head, a beard on its chin, a face that Grimaldi would have envied, hands and nails like those of men, whose manners and habits it is susceptible of acquiring."

Buffon knew an individual of the species that sat demurely at table, taking his place with the other guests; like them he would spread out his napkin, and stick one corner of it into his button-hole just as they did, and he was exceedingly dexterous in the use of his knife, fork, and spoon. Spectators were not a little surprised to see him go to a bed made for him, tie up his head in a pocket-handkerchief, place it sideways on a pillow, tuck himself carefully in the bed-clothes, pretend to be sick, stretch out his pulse to be felt, and affect to undergo the process of being bled.

The naturalist adds that he is very easily taught, and may be made a useful domestic servant, at least as regards the humbler operations of the kitchen; he promptly obeys signs and the voice, whilst other species of apes only obey the stick; he will rinse glasses, serve at table, turn the spit, grind coffee, or carry water. Add to his virtues as a domestic, that he is not much addicted to chattering about the family affairs, has no followers, and is very accommodating in the matter of wages.

It was neither more nor less than a chimpanzee that Fritz had caught in the dark at Falcon's Nest.

"Now then, old fellow," said he, "you will help us to clear up this mysterious affair."

The caged stranger made no reply to this observation; Willis and Jack then questioned him, the one in English and the other in French.

Still no reply.

He did not submit, however, to be interrogated quietly; on the contrary, his struggles to get away were most vigorous, so much so that Fritz adopted the precaution of binding him.

"If it had been one of our sailors," said Willis, "he would have recognized my voice long ago."

"Who are you?" asked one.

"Where do you come from?" inquired another.

"Do not attempt to escape," said a third.

"We mean you no harm; on the contrary, we are friends, disposed to do you good if we can."

"If all his brothers and sisters are as talkative as himself,"

remarked Jack, "they must be a very amusing sort of people."

"He can walk at all events," said Fritz giving him a smart push.

The chimpanzee fell flat on the floor.

"It appears, sir, that you are determined to have your own way, we must therefore wait till daylight."

An hour passed in polyglot expostulations with the stranger on the score of his obstinacy, but all to no purpose; to use a popular expression, he was as dumb as the Doges. He deigned, however, to empty at a single draught a calabash of Malaga that Willis gave him, but there his condescension stopped.

The Pilot, who now encountered mosquitoes in all directions, made preparations for smoking; the light he struck, however, instead of clearing up the mystery, only perplexed them more and more; there lay their new companion, stretched on the ground, staring at them with a ludicrous grin.

If, on the one hand, it occurred to them this man was an animal, on the other the animal was a man, and Buffon did not happen to be there at the time to assign him officially a place in the former kingdom.

The next difficulty that presented itself was, how they were to get him along; when they broke in the onagra, they ran a prong through his ear; in reducing the buffalo to subjection, they did not feel the slightest compunction in thrusting a pin through the cartilage of his nose; then, in order to give elasticity to the legs of the ostrich, they yoked him to two or three other animals, and, willing or unwilling, he was compelled ultimately to yield obedience to the lords of creation. But whether the creature before them was a lower order of negro or a higher order of ape, there was too great a resemblance between the captured and the capturers to admit of any of these methods of impulsion being adopted. It was, therefore, stretched on a plank, like a nabob in his palanquin, that the chimpanzee made his first appearance at Rockhouse.

When the cavalcade arrived there, all the family, with the exception of Ernest and Frank, were still asleep. The first thing they did was to clothe the creature they had captured in a sailor's pantaloons and jacket, with which he seemed rather pleased, and the result of this operation was, that he began to assume a less ferocious aspect, and behave more respectfully towards his captors. All the family had sat down to breakfast, when Fritz and Jack, taking him by the hands, led him gravely into the gallery. A cord was attached to his legs, allowing him to walk, but was so arranged that he could not run.

On his appearance the young girls fled at once; and, more accustomed to drawing-rooms than the rude realities of savage life, Mrs.

Wolston's first impulse was to do the same.

"Goodness gracious!" she cried with an air of alarm, "what horror is that?"

"That, madam, is precisely what we have been anxious for the last two or three hours to find out," replied Fritz.

"Does the creature speak?"

"Up till now, madam," replied Willis, "he has only opened his mouth to swallow my calabash of Malaga; beyond that, he has kept as close as a purser's locker."

When the first shock had passed, and the company had regained their self-possession, Jack related, with his customary originality, the incidents of the nocturnal expedition, of which Fritz was the originator, leader, and hero. The ladies then, for the first time, were made acquainted with the doubts, fears, perplexities, and battues, which, out of gallantry, they had hitherto been kept in ignorance of. Becker then, having carefully investigated the creature, pronounced it to be (as we already know) a full-grown specimen of a kind of ape, called by the Africans "the wild man of the woods," and by naturalists the _jocko_ or chimpanzee.

"It is naturally very savage," added Becker; "but this individual seems already to have received some degree of education."

As a proof of this, the chimpanzee seated himself amongst them very much at his ease; he scanned the faces surrounding him with an air of curiosity, and seemed to search for a particular countenance that it annoyed him not to find. Some fruit and nuts that were given him put him in excellent humor.

"He has, without doubt, been on board some ship, wrecked on the coast," said Wolston, "for I recollect having read that his kindred are only found in Western Africa and the adjacent islands; do you not recognize him, Willis, to belong to the _Nelson_, like the plank of the other day?"

"No, sir."

"So much the better."