robbing me of it. He truly believes
that he is the real Lord Greystoke, and the chances are that he will
make a better English lord than a man who was born and raised in an
African jungle. You know that I am but half civilized even now. Let
me see red in anger but for a moment, and all the instincts of the
savage beast that I really am, submerge what little I possess of the
milder ways of culture and refinement.

"And then again, had I declared myself I should have robbed the woman I
love of the wealth and position that her marriage to Clayton will now
insure to her. I could not have done that--could I, Paul?

"Nor is the matter of birth of great importance to me," he went on,
without waiting for a reply. "Raised as I have been, I see no worth in
man or beast that is not theirs by virtue of their own mental or
physical prowess. And so I am as happy to think of Kala as my mother
as I would be to try to picture the poor, unhappy little English girl
who passed away a year after she bore me. Kala was always kind to me
in her fierce and savage way. I must have nursed at her hairy breast
from the time that my own mother died. She fought for me against the
wild denizens of the forest, and against the savage members of our
tribe, with the ferocity of real mother love.

"And I, on my part, loved her, Paul. I did not realize how much until
after the cruel spear and the poisoned arrow of Mbonga's black warrior
had stolen her away from me. I was still a child when that occurred,
and I threw myself upon her dead body and wept out my anguish as a
child might for his own mother. To you, my friend, she would have
appeared a hideous and ugly creature, but to me she was beautiful--so
gloriously does love transfigure its object. And so I am perfectly
content to remain forever the son of Kala, the she-ape."

"I do not admire you the less for your loyalty," said D'Arnot, "but the
time will come when you will be glad to claim your own. Remember what
I say, and let us hope that it will be as easy then as it is now. You
must bear in mind that Professor Porter and Mr. Philander are the only
people in the world who can swear that the little skeleton found in the
cabin with those of your father and mother was that of an infant
anthropoid ape, and not the offspring of Lord and Lady Greystoke. That
evidence is most important. They are both old men. They may not live
many years longer. And then, did it not occur to you that on