d upon Ellen, and all
he could do was wait.

Slowly she began to move. Moans escaped her lips, little pathetic
moans, and the name of Lee Bentley.

At last her eyes opened, and widened with horror when they met those
of Manape. Bentley knew that there were tears on the face of
Bentley-Manape. Manape, it seemed, cried easily, like a child.

Her eyes still wide with horror. Ellen Estabrook slowly turned them
until she gazed at the dust rectangle in which presumably a great ape
had written words in English. But Bentley-Manape had rubbed out the
words. She turned and looked at Manape again, and her lips writhed and
twisted. She was seeking for words, shaping words, to ask questions
such as none in all the world's history had ever asked of a giant
anthropoid, with any hope of receiving answers.

"You tell me you are Lee," she began slowly, hesitantly, as though the
words were literally forced from her against her will. "I cannot grasp
the meaning of that. You say you are Lee, yet I recognize you as
Manape, Caleb Barter's great ape. Yet Manape could not have written
those words. Yet, if you are Lee Bentley, who or what is that?"

* * * * *

She turned and pointed a trembling finger at Apeman. Bentley of course
could not answer her in words, yet his mind was busy conceiving of
some way in which he might answer her. She turned back to him after a
long look at Apeman and studied him. His huge barrel chest, the mighty
arms, the receding forehead--the outward seeming of a giant ape.

Again that hesitant, horribly difficult task, of forcing the arms of
Manape to perform actions which were not natural to the arms of a
great ape. Bentley managed to raise the right arm in the gesture of
pointing.

He pointed at the other apes, some of which slept, some of which ate
of grubs and worms, or bickered savagely among themselves over
whatever childish trifles seemed important to the ape mind.

"You mean," said Ellen huskily, "that Lee Bentley there is really an
ape?"

Manape nodded, ponderously.

Ellen's face became animated. She was beginning to understand how to
hold speech with Manape.

"You tell me he is a great ape, yet he has the body of Lee Bentley.
You tell me you are Bentley, yet I see you as Manape. Caleb Barter's
trained ape. How am I to understand? Are my eyes betraying me, or is
this a nightmare from which I shall waken presently? I see the shape
of Manape, who writes in the dust th