CHAPTER IX.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 745, 11 June 1886, Page 9

CHAPTER IX.

Jessie’s adventure. High up on the cliffs at Gibraltar, above all the batteries on Sugar Loaf Hill, few people are apt te ramble, unless very enthusiastic in their search of line prospects. The climbing is laborious, and the nearest neighbors, outside of the man at the signalatation are the babouns, or apes, that inhabit the summits of the rocks, where no <*ne else cares to climb. Nevertheless on the afternoon of the very day when the Sea Bird came in past the b'ockaders, a young lady, with a passion for botany and sketching from nature, was roaming further and further, and gradually getting into a region where the boldest climbers seldom ventured, while it was a favorite resort for Ali Baba and his fellow thieves, the Gibraltar baboon colony. She climbed like an old mountaineer, deftly and boldly, till she had come to a point where she could look out over the Mediteranean, to the east, and behold, beneath her, the blue expanse of water that divides Europe from that far away coast of Xt was a dangerous perch she had chosen ; for the cliffs on that side of Gibraltar fall to the sea perpendicularly, and there are fe.w places where man can take the view in safety when high winds prevail. There was quite a stiff breeze that day, that ruffled the sea into hosts of * white caps,’ so that Miss Jessie Ross found that she had to sit down by the edge of the precipice, her fluttering drapery affording too much sail to render a standing position secure at that elevation. However, after a half-frightened giggle at her escape from being blown over, she settled herself to work with pencil and book as well as she could, when she was startled by the soft rustling of bare feet behind her, and, turning round, beheld several baboons, as large 'as big cats, coming towards her cautiously as if half afraid of the intruder. For a moment she felt the blood rushing to her heart, which gave a great jump. Then, as she recognised the leader of the troop, she felt reassured; for the collar round its neck was the mark of Ali Baba, the favorite of General Elliott, an animal she had often teased or petted, as the spirit moved her, in the garden of her father’s quarGeneral Ross was second in command at the fort which explained the freedom Miss Jessie enjoyed in roaming where she pleased. She snapped her fingers and called to the ape : « Go off, sir ! Go away, Ali Baba ! What are you doing here, sir ? ’ Ali Baba stopped, as if the sound of the human voice scared him, and set up a

chattering, which was echoed by his companions, as they gathered in a bunch, and held a consultation on the subject of what 3hould be done. Jessie profited by the interval to draw back from the edge of the precipice by which she was seated, crawling on her hands and knees. The apes, taking the movement for a signal of assault, scampered back a few paces, and set up a loud screech. Then the young lady began to get seriously afraid, for the screech seemed to be a signal to other baboons, and she saw them coming, to the number of at least twenty or thirty, up the rocks all round her, grinning and chattering, as if they were getting angry. She had nothing with her to fight them off, if her cries failed to frighten them ; and, as the thought that they might really attack her became more and more imminent, Jessie Ross felt the tightening at her heart increasing, and began to wish most heartily that she had never come up there. But she kept on creeping away from the edge of the precipice, though the movement brought her nearer to the apes, and screamed at them, as sternly as she could, in the hope that their fear of man might cause them to retreat, and leave her time to get down where other people lived. She had climbed the highest point, above even the Signal Tower. Below her were bare rocks, a few mosses and lichens clinging in their crevices, while the sea lay thirteen hundred feet below the precipice, _to which any movement in retreat would drive her. But, as she crawled on, the apes seemed to he getting bolder at her defenceless condition, and when she had gotten fifty feet from the edge of the precipice, Ali Baba made a bound to meet her, followed by the

other apes. In the instinct of humanity facing danger, Jessie sprang to her feet and waved her arms, screaming loudly ‘ Go away ! Go away ! Ali Baba, do you hear, sir ? Get out, sir ! ’ But this time Ali Baba and his friends did not retreat more than a few feet, and then they chattered angrily at her, and she saw that she could not hope to scare them long. She made a rush at them, shaking her sketch-book and screaming, and they ran back a few more feet; but then they all stopped, and as soon as she ceased to scream for an instant the whole pack began to creep stealthily towards her in a fashion that terrified her more than their anger, for it looked as if they were preparing to fight in earnest. She had often petted the apes in the gardens ; but at the moment when they began to advance on her for the third time she Wthought they looked like little demons, with their half human faces and the bestial attitude on all-fours which they constantly assumed. As a last resort she stooped to pick up a stone, for there were loose fragments scattered allround, but the moment she did so they uttered an angry screech, and imitated her example with a facility that she had often laughed at before, but which frightened her at that moment more than she had been frightened since she saw them first coining behind her. She dropped the stone she had picked up and began to shriek loudly, retreating blindly to the fatal precipice she had been so anxious to avoid a moment before. Her nerves were giving way under the strain, and she was losing the courage which had made her so cool up to that moment. The baboons seeing her terror chattered more loudly than before, and began to throw the fragments of rock they had picked up a 3 hard as they could at her. Luckily they were but small animals, and had not sutfi-

cient strength to send large pieces: but what they threw went with an accuracy cf aim, and every one hit her, stinging sharply, and forcing her to go back still further towards the terrible precipice that lay behind her.

She shrieked her loudest, and just as she gave herself up for lost the shriek was answered by a shout. The shout came from behind the apes, and as they heard it the whole pack gave a bound to the rear, and scampered away for a few yards, when they stopped, chattering angrily, as if discussing the advisability of further and more desperate measures to chastise the daring young person who had invaded their domain.

Jessie saw their retreat, and heard the shout, which came in the voice of a man on the other side of the slope by which she had ascended, though she could not yet see the person who had answered her call. She went forward a few steps towards the place whence the voice had come, and then, as the head of a man, in the silk head-kerchief of a contrabandista—for the wind was too fierce to admit of the broad, flapping hat being worn up there - she uttered a cry of joy and sauk down, trembling, on the roeks, completely exhausted, now that the peril was over, as she fancied.

In the meantime the head of the stranger rose above the rocks, and the figure followed it, in the pictusesque costume of a Spanish townsman. She recognised in him a young man of whom she had often heard talk of as ‘Bel Rubio, the contrabandista,’ whose fair curls and soft, black eyes had earned so many admiring glances from even the prim British maidens and matrons of the garrison, when he came among them to sell smuggled goods. Bel Rubio came up as if he had expected to find her hanging to a crag by the precipice ; but as he took in the real cause of the fright she had suffered, and of her shrieks, he turned round on the apes, which had gathered into a knot to fight a little more, and burst into a torrent of Spanish abuse, while he bombarded them with stones with such accuracy that they found the new foe more than a match, and fled in dismay, shrieking, in their turn, at the injustice which drove them from their sacred haunts to please a young lady who had no business there.

Jessie watched the whole proceeding from where she had sunk down on her knees. As the vigorous young man chased the animals away from her, she uttered a sigh of content, and actually smiled at the sight of Ali Baba, who was limping from a blow on the hind leg, which caught him just as he was going over the edge of a rock, and elicited a shriek of pain. ‘ The wicked brute !' she exclaimed. * Served him right ! I wonder I was not killed ! I declare I’ll never pet a monkey again ! Ugh !’ Bel Rubio did not desist from this bombardment till the last of Jessie’s diminutive foes had dissappeared over the rocks, when he came back to her side, and removing the sketch-book from the ground, where it had fallen in the course of the late encounter, he presented it to her with a courtly bow, saying in the excellent English he always spoke : * I am charmed, Senorita, that I came in time to chase off those beasts. I hope you are not hurt!’

He offered his hand as she spoke, and the young lady rose with a vivid blush, stammering : ‘ No, thank you, not much —but—oh, I was so—so frightened. I had nothing in the world to beat them off, and they were so bold. Oh, what an escape ! I owe you my life, sir ! You have been so kind, so kind !’

Her thanks were earnest and heartfelt, for she had been in imminent danger, and realized it, with fervent gratitude to the man who had saved her from going over the precipice. Whether the fact that he was the handsomest man that she had ever met had anything to do with the warmth of her manner is uncertain ; but, on the other hand, Bel Rubio did not seem to be averse to hearing the thanks repeated, and his fine dark eye 3 had a dangerous light in them as he said, earnestly :

‘Oh, Senorita, if I only had had the opportunity to do you a service involving real danger !’ The earnest way in which he spoke may have been inspired by the native chivalry of his race ; but it may be remarked, in addition, that Jessie Ross was the prettiest girl in the garrison, with the peculiar dark, violet-blue eyes of a Highland lassie, and the blue snood that confined her auburn hair was said to enclose the finest and silkiest locks in Gibraltar. Her complexion of snow and white spoke for itself; and her position as the daughter of the second in command of the garrison made her the star of every young sub fresh from England.

(To be continued.)