What Happened to Stella

The fight was over. In all we had lost seven men killed, and several
more severely bitten, while but few had escaped without some tokens
whereby he might remember what a baboon's teeth and claws are like. How
many of the brutes we killed I never knew, because we did not count, but
it was a vast number. I should think that the stock must have been low
about Babyan's Peak for many years afterwards. From that day to this,
however, I have always avoided baboons, feeling more afraid of them than
any beast that lives.

The path was clear, and we rushed forward along the water-course. But
first we picked up little Tota. The child was not in a swoon, as I had
thought, but paralyzed by terror, so that she could scarcely speak.
Otherwise she was unhurt, though it took her many a week to recover her
nerve. Had she been older, and had she not remembered Hendrika, I doubt
if she would have recovered it. She knew me again, and flung her little
arms about my neck, clinging to me so closely that I did not dare to
give her to any one else to carry lest I should add to her terrors. So I
went on with her in my arms. The fears that pierced my heart may well be
imagined. Should I find Stella living or dead? Should I find her at all?
Well, we should soon know now. We stumbled on up the stony watercourse;
notwithstanding the weight of Tota I led the way, for suspense lent me
wings. Now we were through, and an extraordinary scene lay before us. We
were in a great natural amphitheatre, only it was three times the size
of any amphitheatre ever shaped by man, and the walls were formed of
precipitous cliffs, ranging from one to two hundred feet in height.
For the rest, the space thus enclosed was level, studded with park-like
trees, brilliant with flowers, and having a stream running through
the centre of it, that, as I afterwards discovered, welled up from the
ground at the head of the open space.