He stood thus in the full glare of the great moon, motionless after
screaming forth his weird challenge, in the setting of the primeval
jungle and the circling apes a picture of primitive savagery and
power--a mightily muscled Hercules out of the dawn of life--when
from close behind her the girl heard an answering scream, and an
instant later saw an almost naked white man drop from a near-by
tree into the clearing.
Instantly the apes became a roaring, snarling pack of angry beasts.
Bertha Kircher held her breath. What maniac was this who dared
approach these frightful creatures in their own haunts, alone against
fifty? She saw the brown-skinned figure bathed in moonlight walk
straight toward the snarling pack. She saw the symmetry and the
beauty of that perfect body--its grace, its strength, its wondrous
proportioning, and then she recognized him. It was the same creature
whom she had seen carry Major Schneider from General Kraut's
headquarters, the same who had rescued her from Numa, the lion;
the same whom she had struck down with the butt of her pistol and
escaped when he would have returned her to her enemies, the same
who had slain Hauptmann Fritz Schneider and spared her life that
night in Wilhelmstal.
Fear-filled and fascinated she watched him as he neared the apes.
She heard sounds issue from his throat--sounds identical with
those uttered by the apes--and though she could scarce believe the
testimony of her own ears, she knew that this godlike creature was
conversing with the brutes in their own tongue.
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