arter had placed in the ape's skull-pan. Bentley would
never forget the horror of that grim awakening, in which he had found
himself walking on bent knuckles, his voice the fighting bellow of a
giant anthropoid.

[Illustration: _A bullet ploughed through the top of the ape's
head._]

Yes, it was a far cry from the African jungles to populous Manhattan.

As soon as Ellen and Lee considered themselves recovered from the
shock of the experience they would be married. They had already spent
two months of absolute rest in England after their escape from Africa,
but they found it had not been enough. Their story had been told in
the press of the world and they had been constantly besieged by the
curious, which of course had not helped them to forget.

- - -

"Lee," whispered Ellen, "I'll never feel sure that Caleb Barter is
dead. We should have gone out that morning when he forgot to take his
whip and we thought the vengeful apes had slain him. We should have
proved it to our own satisfaction. It would be an ironic jest,
characteristic of Barter, to allow us to think him dead."

"He's dead all right, dear," replied Bentley, his nostrils quivering
with pleasure as he looked ahead at New York, while the breeze along
the Hudson pushed his hair back from his forehead. "He had abused the
great anthropoids for too many years. They seized their opportunity,
don't mistake that."

"Still, he was a genius in his way, a mad, frightful genius. It hardly
seems possible to me that he would allow himself to be so easily
trapped. It's a reflection on his great mentality, twisted though it
was."

"Forget it, dear," replied Bentley, putting his arm around her
shoulders. "We'll both try to forget. After our nerves have returned
to normal we'll be married. Then nothing can trouble us."

The vessel docked and later Lee and Ellen entered a taxicab near the
pier.

"I'll take you to your home, Ellen," said Bentley. "Then I'll look
after my own affairs for the next couple of days, which includes
making peace with my father, then we'll go on from here."

They looked through the windows of the cab as they rolled into lower
Fifth Avenue and headed uptown. Newsies were screaming an extra from
the sidewalks.

"Excitement!" said Bentley enthusiastically. "It's certainly good to
be home and hear a newsboy's unintelligible screaming of an extra,
isn't it?"

On an impulse he ordered the cabbie to draw up to the curb and
purchas