reatment was dictated by either cruelty or malice--I was a curiosity,
a freak, a new plaything, and their childish minds required the added
evidence of all their senses to back up the testimony of their eyes.

Presently they dragged me within the village, which consisted of
several hundred rude shelters of boughs and leaves supported upon the
branches of the trees.

Between the huts, which sometimes formed crooked streets, were dead
branches and the trunks of small trees which connected the huts upon
one tree to those within adjoining trees; the whole network of huts and
pathways forming an almost solid flooring a good fifty feet above the
ground.

I wondered why these agile creatures required connecting bridges
between the trees, but later when I saw the motley aggregation of
half-savage beasts which they kept within their village I realized the
necessity for the pathways. There were a number of the same vicious
wolf-dogs which we had left worrying the dyryth, and many goatlike
animals whose distended udders explained the reasons for their presence.

My guard halted before one of the huts into which I was pushed; then
two of the creatures squatted down before the entrance--to prevent my
escape, doubtless. Though where I should have escaped to I certainly
had not the remotest conception. I had no more than entered the dark
shadows of the interior than there fell upon my ears the tones of a
familiar voice, in prayer.

"Perry!" I cried. "Dear old Perry! Thank the Lord you are safe."

"David! Can it be possible that you escaped?" And the old man stumbled
toward me and threw his arms about me.

He had seen me fall before the dyryth, and then he had been seized by a
number of the ape-creatures and borne through the tree tops to their
village. His captors had been as inquisitive as to his strange
clothing as had mine, with the same result. As we looked at each other
we could not help but laugh.

"With a tail, David," remarked Perry, "you would make a very handsome
ape."

"Maybe we can borrow a couple," I rejoined. "They seem to be quite the
thing this season. I wonder what the creatures intend doing with us,
Perry. They don't seem really savage. What do you suppose they can
be? You were about to tell me where we are when that great hairy
frigate bore down upon us--have you really any idea at all?"

"Yes, David," he replied, "I know precisely where we are. We have made
a magnificent discovery, my boy!