Gorillas in the Mist Read Online Free Page B

yet humanlike stench. Then the thin mountain air was shattered like window glass by a high-pitched series of deafening screams. Nothing can possibly prepare one for such a terrifying avalanche of sound. The only thing that prevented me from fleeing down the misted slopes of the volcano was the presence of Manual behind me and the Congolese tracker, Sanweke, guiding Alan Root ten yards ahead.
    We all froze where we stood hip deep in a soaking-wet bed of stinging nettles surrounded by a seemingly impenetrable wall of foliage. For a minute the chill, fog-dripping forest was unbelievably silent, then it was rent by even more ferocious screams punctuated by thunderous, drumlike tattoos. Once more we froze until the forest was hushed.
    We could see only a few feet into the lush, green mass, but Sanweke now very carefully and almost silently began cutting a window through it with his
panga
bush knife. Alan motioned me forward and I crept to his side, both of us stooping low. He pointed, and I peered through the opening. There they were: the devilmen of native stories;the basis of the King Kong myth; the last of the Mountain Kings of Africa.
    A group of about six adult gorillas stared apprehensively back at us through the opening in the wall of vegetation. A phalanx of enormous, half-seen, looming black bodies surmounted by shiny black patent-leather faces with deep-set warm brown eyes. They were big and imposing, but not monstrous at all. Somehow they looked more like members of a picnic party surprised by interlopers. Their bright gazes darted nervously from under their heavy brows as they tried to determine if we were dangerous. They were evidently wondering if it was safe to stay or if they had better run for it.
    “Kweli nudugu yanga!”
These words in Swahili, whispered by the awestruck Manual, who was also seeing his first gorilla, summed up exactly what I was feeling.
    “Surely, God, these are my kin.”
    I left Mt. Mikeno next day, never doubting that somehow I would return to learn more about the Virunga gorillas.
    After three and a half hours spent struggling down the mountain through thunder, lightning, and mud, Dian reached the Traveler’s Rest, freezing and covered in muck from head to foot.
    Walter Baumgartel greeted her warmly, and after a good night’s sleep Dian awoke to the sounds of chickens clucking and Baumgartel’s Siamese cat lapping fresh cream from a bowl on the terrace. When she looked out the open window, she saw Baumgartel striding across the tidy courtyard in his pyjamas, bringing a pail of hot water for her bath. In the background the blue-green Virungas seemed to dissolve in the pale morning mist. She watched them slowly retreating into their own mystery.

— 2 —
    D ian had never thought she would be as pleased to see Franz Forrester as she was in the moment when she stepped off the plane in Salisbury and searched the crowd in the arrivals area for a friendly face. There was the doggedly devoted Pookie, accompanied by his smiling, handsome mother. They took her off to the elaborate family town house where Dian unburdened herself of the troubles she had endured with her white hunter.
    “Don’t let it spoil your trip, my dear,” Mrs. Forrester consoled her. “Just put him out of your mind.”
    Next day Dian and Franz drove two hundred miles south to the wide sweep of the home farm—a tobacco plantation near Victoria. Here she met Franz’s elder brother, Alexie. Shirtless, dark-haired, tall and brawny, he was riding a tractor in a tobacco field when she first saw him. She was impressed.
    The Forresters’ farm is truly lovely — horses, gardens, tennis, a big, gracious house that fits the count’s background, and lots of black servants. I like them all, but Alexie is quite remarkable. I think he is inclined to be arrogant, but there’s something powerful about him I never felt with Pookie. He’s thirty-one, single, and just about the best-looking man I’ve ever laid eyes on. Pookie