Chapter 3: A Night of Horror

The meal consisted of various fruits, some meat which Bentley could not identify, and wild honey which was delicious. The bread tasted queer but was distinctly edible. The castaways ate ravenously, but even as he ate Bentley noticed that Ellen’s face was chalky pale, and that in spite of a distinct effort of will she simply had to look at intervals toward the great beast in the cage.

Caleb Barter sat with his back to the animal. Bentley sat at the left of the old scientist, Ellen Estabrook at his right. The great beast was quiet now, but he squatted within his prison and his red-rimmed eyes swerved from one person to the other in the room with a peculiar intentness.

“I’d swear that beast can almost read our thoughts!” ejaculated Bentley at last, after he had somewhat sated his appetite.

Barter smiled with those too-red lips of his.

“He can--almost. You’d be surprised to know how nearly human the great apes are, and how nearly human this particular one is. Ah!”

“What do you mean, this particular one?” asked Bentley curiously. “He doesn’t look any different to me from the others I’ve seen except that he is far and away the largest.”

“I don’t see why you should be so curious,” said Barter testily. “It’s none of your business you know--yet.”

“What do you mean?” demanded Bentley, nettled by Barter’s tone.

“Lee, hush,” said Ellen. “Professor Barter is not on trial for any crime.”

Bentley looked at her in hurt surprise, inclined to be angry with her for the tone she was taking, but he saw such a look of appeal in her eyes that he choked back the words that rushed to his lips for utterance. He was decidedly on edge, more, he felt, than he should have been despite what they had gone through. When their eyes met he saw her glance quickly toward the ape, and noted a frown of worry between her brows.

Bentley glanced at the ape. The brute now was staring at the girl in a way that made Bentley’s flesh crawl. It was preposterous of course, but he had the feeling, something which seemed to flow out of that mighty cage like some evil emanation from a dank tarn, that the ape knew the girl’s sex--and that he desired her! It was horrible in the extreme to contemplate, yet Bentley knew when he glanced swiftly at the girl that she had sensed the same thing and was fighting to keep the natural horror she felt at such a ghastly thought from being noticeable. It was absurd. The ape was a prisoner. But...

“Professor Barter,” said Bentley, “you’re accustomed to being with this brute, but it isn’t so nice for us, especially for Miss Estabrook.”

Barter now frowned angrily.

“My dear Bentley,” he said with that odd testiness which he had assumed toward Bentley before, “I refuse to have any interference with my experiment. This is part of it.”

“You mean--” began Bentley.

“I mean that I’m training that ape--I call him Manape--to behave like human beings. How better can he learn than by watching our behavior?”

“Just the same,” said Bentley, “I don’t like it.”

“It’s all right, Lee,” said Ellen quickly. “I don’t mind.”

But Bentley knew that it wasn’t all right, and that she did mind, terribly.

Barter finished eating. Bentley had noticed that despite the long years he had been a virtual hermit, Barter ate as fastidiously as he probably had done when he had lived among his own kind. He pushed back his chair with a swift movement.

Instantly the roaring of Manape rang through the room. The great brute rose to his full height and grasped the bars of his cage, shaking them with savage fury. He glared at his master and bestial rage glittered from his red-rimmed eyes. He was a horrible sight. Ellen Estabrook, with no apology, stepped around the table and crouched wide-eyed in the arm of Lee Bentley.

“Lee,” she said, “I’m terribly afraid. I almost wish we had trusted ourselves in the jungle.”

“I’ll look out for you,” he whispered, as Barter turned his attention to the great ape.

But Bentley was watching the animal. So was Barter. The eyes of the scientist were shining like coals of fire. For the moment he appeared to have forgotten his guests.

“It is a success!” he cried. “As far as it goes, I mean!”

What did Barter mean? Seeking some answer to the enigma, Bentley studied the ape anew. Now he was positive of another thing: Manape was scarcely concerned with Barter, whom he appeared to hate with an utterly satanic hatred. His beady eyes were staring at Bentley instead!

“The brute is jealous of me!” thought Bentley. “Good God, what does it mean, anyway?”

Barter turned back to them and all at once became the genial host.

“Shall we return to the other room?” he asked politely.

It was a relief to the castaways to put that awful room behind them. Barter closed and barred the door with deliberate slowness.

Why had this old man shut himself away from civilization like this? How long had he held this great ape in captivity? What was the purpose of it? What experiment was he performing? What part of it had the castaways been witnessing that they had not recognized? Bentley, recalling the distinct impression that the ape had stared at Ellen almost with the eyes of a lustful man, and had even appeared to be jealous of him because the girl had gone into his arms--Bentley felt a shiver of revulsion course through him as it struck him now how human the regard and the jealousy of the creature had been!

He felt like clutching at the girl and racing with her into the hazards of the jungle. But he remembered the anthropoids out there, and Barter’s peculiar domination of the brutes.

Barter was now watching the two with interest, studying them in turn speculatively, unmindful of the impertinence of his studious regard and silence.