harsh jabbering in the branches just across the water
made them look up.

The tree-tops opposite were full of great apes, mowing and gibbering
at them with every sign of hate. The beasts were as big and massive as
Hobbo himself, and covered thickly with long, blackish fur. Their
faces, half human, half dog-like, were hairless and of a bright but
bilious blue, with great livid red circles about the small, furious
eyes. With derisive gestures they swung themselves out upon the
overhanging branches, till it almost seemed as if they would hurl
themselves into the water in their rage against the little knot of
human beings.

The girl A-ya, overcome with loathing horror because the beasts were
so hideous a caricature of man, covered her eyes with one hand. Young
Mo, his fiery temper stung by their challenge, clapped an arrow to his
string and raised his bow to shoot. But Grom checked him sternly,
dreading to fix any thirst of vengeance in the minds of the terrible
troop.

"They can't come at us here. Let them forget about us," said he.
"Don't take any more notice of them at all."

As he led the way once more through the branches along the edge of the
bayou, the apes kept pace with them on the other side. But presently
the bayou widened, and then swept sharply off to the west. Grom kept
on straight to the north, by the route which he had planned. And the
mad gibbering died away into the hot, green silence of the tree-tops.

The adventurers now pushed on with redoubled speed, unwilling to pass
another night in the tree-tops when such dangerous antagonists were in
the neighborhood. The hills, however, were still far off when evening
came again. Not knowing that the great apes always slept at night,
Grom decided to continue the journey in order to lessen the risk of a
surprise. When the moon rose, round and huge and honey-colored, over
the sea of foliage, traveling through the tree-tops was almost as easy
as by day, while the earth below them, with its prowling and battling
monsters, was buried in inky gloom. When day broke, there were the
rounded hills startlingly close ahead, as if they had crept forward to
meet them in the night.

And now the hills looked different. Between the nearest--a long,
rolling, treeless ridge of downland--and the edge of the jungle
lay an expanse of open, grassy savannah, dotted with ponds, and
here and there a curious, solitary, naked tree-trunk, with what
looked like a bunch of grass on its