well in
order that the world may be told at once."

Laughing immoderately, Barter piled the manuscript he had written, and
weighted it with a piece of rock. His face was a constant grin. His
fingers trembled with eagerness. He could not contain himself.

Finally, as though from sheer joy of what he had accomplished, he
raced from the cabin, and out across the clearing. Ellen and Bentley
smiled at each other. Moments passed. Still came to their ears the
mourning wails of the great apes.

* * * * *

Then suddenly there broke a sound so utterly appalling that the two
were frozen with terror for a moment. First it was the laughter of
Caleb Barter. Then, mingled with the laughter, the bellowing,
frightful and paralyzing, of man apes challenging a hated enemy. The
drumming of ape fists on huge barrel chests. Then the laughter of
Barter, dying away, ironic, terrible, into silence. Immediately
afterward, high-pitched, mighty as the jungle itself, the concerted
cries of half a dozen apes, as if bellowing their joy of the kill.

"They--they--" began Ellen in a choked voice. "The apes must have got
Professor Barter!"

Silently Bentley nodded, and pointed.

Coiled on a nail near the door was Barter's whip. In his excitement he
had gone into the jungle without it for the first--and last--time.

"There is one thing to do," whispered Ellen, "before we prepare to get
you fully well. I shall care for you, and we shall both try to forget.
And then we shall return to our own people."

"And the one thing?" asked Bentley.

The strained silence was suddenly broken by the bellowing of the great
apes, which now charged into the cabin. Bentley and Ellen cringed back
from the murderous brutes to no avail. There was no denying them.
Their slavering jaws, drooled below flaring nostrils, their eyes
emitted sparks of animal fury. Bentley leaped to the girl and
interposed his body between hers and the vanguard of the apes, who now
were surging into the room through the open door, and spreading apart
within like water released from a dam.

The apes were bent on murder, there could be no doubt.

A very monster towered over Bentley. His jaws were wide, his little
red eyes fixed on the white man's neck. His great arms were coming
forward to gather in both Ellen and Bentley--whom he could crush as
easily as he crushed the grubs which were his food.

Bentley was helpless and knew it. This was the end for Elle