Slowly
the mass separated into two rings, the outer of which was composed
of shes and the very young, the inner of mature bulls. The former
ceased to move and squatted upon their haunches, while the bulls
now moved slowly about in a circle the center of which was the drum
and all now in the same direction.

It was then that there came faintly to the ears of the girl from
the direction of the village she had recently quitted a weird and
high-pitched cry. The effect upon the apes was electrical--they
stopped their movements and stood in attitudes of intent listening
for a moment, and then one fellow, huger than his companions, raised
his face to the heavens and in a voice that sent the cold shudders
through the girl's slight frame answered the far-off cry.

Once again the beaters took up their drumming and the slow dance
went on. There was a certain fascination in the savage ceremony
that held the girl spellbound, and as there seemed little likelihood
of her being discovered, she felt that she might as well remain
the balance of the night in her tree and resume her flight by the
comparatively greater safety of daylight.

Assuring herself that her packet of papers was safe she sought as
comfortable a position as possible among the branches, and settled
herself to watch the weird proceedings in the clearing below her.

A half-hour passed, during which the cadence of the drum increased
gradually. Now the great bull that had replied to the distant call
leaped from the inner circle to dance alone between the drummers
and the other bulls. He leaped and crouched and leaped again, now
growling and barking, again stopping to raise his hideous face
to Goro, the moon, and, beating upon his shaggy breast, uttered
a piercing scream-the challenge of the bull ape, had the girl but
known it.

He stood thus in the full glare of the great moon, motionless after
screaming forth his weird challenge, in the setting of the primeval
jungle and the circling apes a picture of primitive savagery and
power--a mightily muscled Hercules out of the dawn of life--when
from close behind her the girl heard an answering scream, and an
instant later saw an almost naked white man drop from a near-by
tree into the clearing.

Instantly the apes became a roaring, snarling pack of angry beasts.
Bertha Kircher held her breath. What maniac was this who dared
approach these frightful creatures in their own haunts, alone against
fifty? She saw the brown-s