became so excited that I could scarcely command myself. A crash, as of smashing large bones, and a horrible shriek! The noise and fury of the combat were redoubled for a minute or two! Then came a pause! The dust and cloud of leaves subsided. The lion was uppermost. The left arm of the gorilla was across his tremendous mouth. It was the crunching of the double bones of the fore arm which I had heard! His claws were firmly fixed in the gorilla’s shoulder and head, but he was himself nearly torn asunder and disembowelled! Huge rents were in his body, and the feet of the gorilla were buried in his loins, whilst the mighty right arm of the ape was free, and would be active again directly breath had been taken.
The final struggle quickly came. Up rose the cloud of dust and leaves again! Whirling, shrieking, bounding, striking, growling, struggling, groaning, the confused mass rushed hither and thither with increased velocity! Over, and over it rolled, like a tangle of fighting demons, until it came uncomfortably near to where I and my negro guide were lying hid. It swayed away from us, returned again, rolled off, then back; and just as the Fan and I both sprang to our feet to escape from such dangerous proximity, the combatants, locked in their deadly embrace, came crashing against us, knocking us over, and into a deep pit which we had not seen, falling upon us with a force which for an instant deprived me of consciousness. Recovering myself, however, I struggled furiously, fearing that even if the beasts had killed each other, I should be smothered under their bleeding carcases. I kicked, struck, and tried to push the dreadful load away. The noise above me was terrific, but I was able to distinguish my own name amidst the uproar, and it struck me that the voice in which it was pronounced was somewhat familiar. I paused in my efforts to extricate myself, and listened. Again and again my name was called loudly, distinctly, and earnestly.
“John, John!” It was the voice of my wife whom I had left safely at home in London.
“John, John! Wake up, will you? You’ve got the nightmare, and have fallen out of bed! John, John, do get up, dear! You’ve dragged all the bedclothes down on the floor with you. You’ve rolled yourself up in them so tightly that I can’t get you out. You’ll be smothered if you don’t wake up. Oh dear! oh dear me! Wake up, you great stupid, do!”
“Bless my soul!” said I. “How fortunate—how curious it is, too, that you should have come to my rescue so opportunely. It was very kind of you, and so courageous besides! When did you arrive out?—Do you know I was wondering, just as I was tumbling into this horrid pit, why the gorilla’s wife didn’t come to his assistance. You know she might have done it easily and safely enough, for the lion wouldn’t have let go his hold, and if she had sprung on his back she might have enabled her husband to freshen his grip. They might have quickly strangled him between them. Is it not cu—”
“My goodness gracious me!” said my wife, interrupting me. “What stuff and nonsense are you talking? Lions and gorillas!—fiddlesticks! There are gorillas and lions enough in the street! Drunken women screaming, and nasty men fighting, and the police trying to take them off to the station. The noise they made woke me, and there I found you snorting and grunting and struggling on your back, and the moment I touched you, away you floundered out of the bed, rolling yourself up in the clothes, and dragging them all away with you. Oh, don’t sit on the floor there, like a great donkey, with your night-cap on one side, looking so silly and ridiculous. Do get up and help me to set the clothes straight on the bed again.”
“What!” said I. “Was it all a dream, and is not even my noble Fan a reality?”
“Your fan, indeed!” retorted Mrs. Smith, who was beginning to lose her placidity of temper. “If you are so warm as to want a fan, you may sit up there and use mine. I’ll lend it to you and welcome. But please let me have the bedclothes, for I don’t want fanning. My teeth are chattering with the cold. The police have taken all the fighting and shouting and screaming gorillas and lions, male and female, to the station-house. The fans are in the wardrobe. Do, there’s a dear, get up off the floor. That’s right.”
A. W. H.
MOBS.
Let me, correct reader, be pardoned if I bustle into my subject at once without more ado. The secret of the unpremeditated character of a mob’s movements, which changes quickly from rage to laughter, and back again, lies in the loss of individual responsibility felt by those who compose it. Each member yields to the licence of concealment, and follows the last whim; sometimes his neighbour’s, sometimes his own. A quick definite proposal is caught in a moment. Each one is ready for anything, having nothing ready himself. A gentleman, once, being mobbed, and in danger, cried out, “A guinea for whoever will take my side.” “Here you are, sir,” cried a fellow. “Hit him boys,” retorted the briber; “hit him boys! he’s a traitor.” “Hurrah!” shouted the mob, and let their intended victim off, to thrash the substitute thus cleverly supplied. A grin, a wink, will turn a mob, if delivered at some happy pause; but woe betide the man who loses his temper, or attempts to argue with such an audience. It is bad enough to be proved wrong when you are alone, and have to think of the consequences of a rejoinder, but when you are lost in a crowd, and are only “a voice,” conviction is intolerable. Unanswerable logic must be bonneted at once, if sternly and correctly urged. It is not fair; combatants must be armed alike, and a mob cannot debate with reason. But do not let us on this account be hard upon mobs. They are an essential part of the British constitution, without which the three estates would fail. Suppress mobs and you drive the inflammation to the vitals. Mobs are the representative assemblies of those who cannot be otherwise heard. Philanthropists may plead their destitution and labour for their improvement. The decorous friends of the people, however, are too polite. It is all very well
