rboard also, though there were those
among them who wanted to keep the corpse on board. Hunger was changing
them from human beasts to wild beasts.

Two days before they had been picked up by the cruiser they had become
too weak to handle the vessel, and that same day three men died. On
the following morning it was seen that one of the corpses had been
partially devoured.

All that day the men lay glaring at each other like beasts of prey, and
the following morning two of the corpses lay almost entirely stripped
of flesh.

The men were but little stronger for their ghoulish repast, for the
want of water was by far the greatest agony with which they had to
contend. And then the cruiser had come.

When those who could had recovered, the entire story had been told to
the French commander; but the men were too ignorant to be able to tell
him at just what point on the coast the professor and his party had
been marooned, so the cruiser had steamed slowly along within sight of
land, firing occasional signal guns and scanning every inch of the
beach with glasses.

They had anchored by night so as not to neglect a particle of the shore
line, and it had happened that the preceding night had brought them off
the very beach where lay the little camp they sought.

The signal guns of the afternoon before had not been heard by those on
shore, it was presumed, because they had doubtless been in the thick of
the jungle searching for Jane Porter, where the noise of their own
crashing through the underbrush would have drowned the report of a far
distant gun.

By the time the two parties had narrated their several adventures, the
cruiser's boat had returned with supplies and arms for the expedition.

Within a few minutes the little body of sailors and the two French
officers, together with Professor Porter and Clayton, set off upon
their hopeless and ill-fated quest into the untracked jungle.

Chapter XX

Heredity

When Jane realized that she was being borne away a captive by the
strange forest creature who had rescued her from the clutches of the
ape she struggled desperately to escape, but the strong arms that held
her as easily as though she had been but a day-old babe only pressed a
little more tightly.

So presently she gave up the futile effort and lay quietly, looking
through half-closed lids at the faces of the man who strode easily
through the tangled undergrowth with her.

The face above her was one of