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.
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