The moonlight glanced
from their glossy coats, the numerous gray-tipped hairs imparting
a sheen that made the hideous creatures almost magnificent in their
appearance.
The girl had watched them but a minute or two when the little band
was joined by others, coming singly and in groups until there were
fully fifty of the great brutes gathered there in the moonlight.
Among them were young apes and several little ones clinging tightly
to their mothers' shaggy shoulders. Presently the group parted to
form a circle about what appeared to be a small, flat-topped mound
of earth in the center of the clearing. Squatting close about this
mound were three old females armed with short, heavy clubs with
which they presently began to pound upon the flat top of the earth
mound which gave forth a dull, booming sound, and almost immediately
the other apes commenced to move about restlessly, weaving in and
out aimlessly until they carried the impression of a moving mass
of great, black maggots.
The beating of the drum was in a slow, ponderous cadence, at first
without time but presently settling into a heavy rhythm to which
the apes kept time with measured tread and swaying bodies. Slowly
the mass separated into two rings, the outer of which was composed
of shes and the very young, the inner of mature bulls. The former
ceased to move and squatted upon their haunches, while the bulls
now moved slowly about in a circle the center of which was the drum
and all now in the same direction.
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