n trying to
replace the ladder, by which it would have been easy to descend; perhaps
in their terror they had forgotten this way of escape. The colonists,
now being able to take aim without difficulty, fired. Some, wounded or
killed, fell back into the rooms, uttering piercing cries. The rest,
throwing themselves out, were dashed to pieces in their fall, and in a
few minutes, so far as they knew, there was not a living quadrumana in
Granite House.

At this moment the ladder was seen to slip over the threshold, then
unroll and fall to the ground.

"Hullo!" cried the sailor, "this is queer!"

"Very strange!" murmured the engineer, leaping first up the ladder.

"Take care, captain!" cried Pencroft, "perhaps there are still some of
these rascals.

"We shall soon see," replied the engineer, without stopping however.

All his companions followed him, and in a minute they had arrived at the
threshold. They searched everywhere. There was no one in the rooms nor
in the storehouse, which had been respected by the band of quadrumana.

"Well now, and the ladder," cried the sailor; "who can the gentleman
have been who sent us that down?"

But at that moment a cry was heard, and a great orang, who had hidden
himself in the passage, rushed into the room, pursued by Neb.

"Ah, the robber!" cried Pencroft.

And hatchet in hand, he was about to cleave the head of the animal, when
Cyrus Harding seized his arm, saying,--

"Spare him, Pencroft."

"Pardon this rascal?"

"Yes! it was he who threw us the ladder!"

And the engineer said this in such a peculiar voice that it was
difficult to know whether he spoke seriously or not.

Nevertheless, they threw themselves on the orang, who defended himself
gallantly, but was soon overpowered and bound.

"There!" said Pencroft. "And what shall we make of him, now we've got
him?"

"A servant!" replied Herbert.

The lad was not joking in saying this, for he knew how this intelligent
race could be turned to account.

The settlers then approached the ape and gazed at it attentively. He
belonged to the family of anthropoid apes, of which the facial angle is
not much inferior to that of the Australians and Hottentots. It was an
orangoutang, and as such, had neither the ferocity of the gorilla, nor
the stupidity of the baboon. It is to this family of the anthropoid apes
that so many characteristics belong which prove them to be possessed
of an almost human intelligence. Employed in h