yelped the voice of the Ape-man, some twenty yards to the right.

When I heard that, I forgave the poor wretch all the fear he had
inspired in me. I heard the twigs snap and the boughs swish aside
before the heavy tread of the Horse-rhinoceros upon my right.
Then suddenly through a polygon of green, in the half darkness
under the luxuriant growth, I saw the creature we were hunting.
I halted. He was crouched together into the smallest possible compass,
his luminous green eyes turned over his shoulder regarding me.

It may seem a strange contradiction in me,--I cannot explain the
fact,--but now, seeing the creature there in a perfectly animal
attitude, with the light gleaming in its eyes and its imperfectly
human face distorted with terror, I realised again the fact of its
humanity. In another moment other of its pursuers would see it,
and it would be overpowered and captured, to experience once more
the horrible tortures of the enclosure. Abruptly I slipped out
my revolver, aimed between its terror-struck eyes, and fired.
As I did so, the Hyena-swine saw the Thing, and flung itself upon
it with an eager cry, thrusting thirsty teeth into its neck.
All about me the green masses of the thicket were swaying and cracking
as the Beast People came rushing together. One face and then
another appeared.

"Don't kill it, Prendick!" cried Moreau. "Don't kill it!"
and I saw him stooping as he pushed through under the fronds
of the big ferns.

In another moment he had beaten off the Hyena-swine with the handle of
his whip, and he and Montgomery were keeping away the excited carnivorous
Beast People, and particularly M'ling, from the still quivering body.
The hairy-grey Thing came sniffing at the corpse under my arm.
The other animals, in their animal ardour, jostled me to get a
nearer view.

"Confound you, Prendick!" said Moreau. "I wanted him."

"I'm sorry," said I, though I was not. "It was the impulse
of the moment." I felt sick with exertion and excitement.
Turning, I pushed my way out of the crowding Beast People and went
on alone up the slope towards the higher part of the headland.
Under the shouted directions of Moreau I heard the three white-swathed
Bull-men begin dragging the victim down towards the water.

It was easy now for me to be alone. The Beast People manifested a quite
human curiosity about the dead body, and followed it in a thick knot,
sniffing and growling at it as the Bull-men dragged it do