The Human Zero. The Science Fiction Stories of Erle Stanley Gardner

Author’s Note

I guess all of us writers dabble in the occult more or less. I was fooling around with it twelve or fifteen years ago, and I had a funny experience with a man who claimed to be a priest of Hanuman.

When you come right down to it what is a monkey?

The priests of Hanuman claim he’s a man that got started downward in the chain of reincarnation. He was a man. Now he’s something less than a man, and we call him a monkey.

Science tells us he’s a creature that hasn’t evolved to the same extent as a man. Or rather that man has evolved from a “missing link” up from the monkey family.

Rob them of their differentiations in terminology and there’s not such a great deal of difference between the two schools of thought. It would be interesting to turn the clock back a few million years and see what the answer really is, or was.

This chap that I knew wouldn’t ever admit he worshiped monkeys. Rather he felt he had devoted his life to hastening the monkey karma which would bring them back to the estate of man.

I remembered his theories, and one time when l was watching a serious-faced monkey with moist, sad eyes do clowning at the bidding of the dirty organ grinder who “owned” him l tried to put some of his theories in practice. I don’t know exactly what happened. Call it hypnotism or animal magnetism or anything you want, but the monkey came to me and clung to me, Begged me for something. It broke up the show. I felt conspicuous and embarrassed, and got away. Thereby I probably turned away from what might have developed into something a little more significant than an adventure.

But some day when you get the eyes of a monkey, remember something of the theory of the priests of Hanuman. Will with all your deepest sympathy to help speed that monkey along the path of evolution, or of reincarnation.

And if you’re really thinking of what you’re trying to think about, instead of being conscious of the ego that’s thinking the thoughts — well, something may happen. It’s worth trying.

And I’ve heard stories of what goes on in the jungle — little still whispers, they are. They can’t be authenticated, and they can’t be repeated; but they’re persistent whispers. Fictionized they make good stories. Perhaps some reader can tell us something about those whispers. Perhaps “Monkey Eyes” isn’t quite as much fiction as it might appear. All I can say is it’s founded, not on fact, but on whispers.

And that brings us back to where we started. What is a monkey?

— Erle Stanley Gardner

Chapter 1 Suspicion

There were four men at the table: Arthur Forbes, who talked too much; Colonel Crayson, whose glazed eyes wandered aimlessly from face to face; Murasingh, who held his countenance studiously impassive; and Phil Nickers, who tried to draw out the others.

The other diner was a woman, Colonel Crayson’s niece, Jean. She, too, was a fresh arrival. Nickers recognized her as a fellow passenger on the India-bound boat. Yet he had not known she was coming to Assam until the day before docking. And not until he met her at dinner did he know they were to be sheltered, at least temporarily, under the same roof.

Colonel Crayson made an excellent, if somewhat mechanical, host. Black servants flitted about. The food was good, the wine excellent. The dinner should have been a huge success.

But, very apparently, it was not. An atmosphere of distrust settled upon the board as a pall. In one way or another it affected all the diners, brought out different phases of their characters.

Phil Nickers wondered if some rumor of his errand had, in some manner, preceded him. The thought was absurd. He had embarked secretly, with no credentials other than a single letter of introduction to Colonel Crayson. Since his embarkation he had written no letters, and received none.

And yet the calm air of the warm, Indian night reeked with suspicion.

That was why Forbes talked too much, why Colonel Crayson let his glassy eyes wander from face to face, puzzled in his heavy, pop-eyed manner. Was it why Murasingh kept his face as woodenly impassive as a poker player? Nickers would have given much to know the answer to that question.

And Forbes rattled on in perpetual conversation. He touched on thousands of subjects, exhausted them in a brief rapid monologue, and pattered on to other subjects. With the cordials he branched into war-time aviation.

“Cleverest stunt of ’em all was the Yankee chap that piloted the ‘captured’ plane back over the German lines and got commissioned to fly back as a spy. What was that fellow’s name? Always made up my mind I’d keep track of him, see what he did afterward. Nickley, Naker, no, by gad, it was Nickers! Wasn’t any relation of yours, was he, Nickers? You’re from the States.”

Phil Nickers blew a casual smoke ring.

“The city directories in the States are full of persons named Nickers,” he said.

Through the drifting smoke he saw Murasingh’s face. The muscles themselves remained impassive, but the dark eyes glittered with red hatred. And Forbes was grinning, the frankly impertinent grin of one who has let a cat out of the conversational bag.

“Have some more Benedictine,” proffered the colonel, heartily.

Nickers shook his head. He would have given much to throttle Forbes.

The dining room was up on a glassed-in porch. The huge windows slid back. Screens kept out insects, but let in soft, spice-scented breezes. Below the terraced lawn glowed mysterious lights. Night sounds, softened by the warm air, penetrated the room, mingled with the clink of glass and silver as well-trained servants bustled about their tasks.

And Arthur Forbes became suddenly silent.

Nickers was relieved when the girl flashed a signal to her uncle. The chairs scraped back. The torture of that first dinner was over.

Nickers sought his room, pleading fatigue from travel. Billiards did not appeal to him. The thought of cards bored him. And a sudden suspicion made him want to inspect his baggage. An Indian servant had unpacked his bags before dinner. But his brief case was locked, and he had dropped it into his heavy kit bag, and locked the bag.

Some flash of deep suspicion caused him to unlock bag and brief case. The papers had been replaced with an eye to order, but a misplaced letter told the story. The brief case had been systematically searched, the locks picked in a thoroughly workmanlike manner.

The papers had, of course, been carefully prepared. They were the papers that a Mr. Philip Nickers, of Seattle, Washington, U.S.A., touring to collect material for a book, would be likely to carry. The secret notebook contained data and instructions, carefully concealed among a lot of meaningless notes.

Phil Nickers looked up as a step sounded without. A gentle tap on the door announced a visitor.

Arthur Forbes grinned at him from the threshold. Moving with the silence of a shadow, he availed himself of an invitation which had not been given, and slipped into the room.

“Thought I talked too much at dinner, eh?”

Nickers made no comment.

“Had to be sure of my ground before I made the break,” went on Forbes. “You’ll be Phil Nickers, former army aviator, at present a detective, sent here to investigate the deaths of Harley Kent and his daughter, Audrey. I think Murasingh suspects it. You may have noticed his eyes contained rather a glitter once or twice. And we don’t have many chaps from the States dropping in on us in such an elaborately casual manner. They’re bound to attract attention and interest.”

Phil Nickers measured his visitor with uncordial eyes.

“Some one’s been interested enough to pick the locks on my baggage and make a search of my private papers.”

If Forbes noticed the glare of hostile accusation which accompanied the words, he gave no sign.

“They would,” he said with a chuckle. “That’s Murasingh for you, efficient, prudent. You can’t tell just how many of the servants he controls; but it’s plenty.”

Nickers remained uncordial.

“Just what was it caused you to associate my name with that of the aviator?”

“Bless you, dear chap, you’re as obvious as a school boy — no, no! Don’t take offense, Nickers. But down here we get a schooling in native indirectness. As far as I’m concerned, I remembered your pictures. A man who wishes to become a detective should never become nationally known and pose for motion picture newsreels. But I’d rather kept track of you anyway. You see, aviation’s my hobby. I’ve never amounted to much as a pilot. Bad heart keeps me out of the game for one thing. But I keep track of the best of them. I heard you’d gone into business.

“Look here, old chap, don’t get me wrong. I suspected your identity and your mission. I think Murasingh knows. This is a funny corner of the world, not at all like the States. And Harley Kent was a friend of mine. I’d have started an investigation myself if I’d had anything to go on, or been in any position to do it. Mind you, it may be all right. Kent was murdered, truly enough. How or by whom, are questions. But the girl, Audrey: well, until they find her body, I won’t be at all certain. The charred corpse that was found in the ruins of the house wasn’t Audrey. It was one of the native women. I’m virtually certain of that, despite the identification from rings and teeth. And there was a mysterious airplane heard that night. But, of course, your folks know all about that or they wouldn’t have sent an aviator out on the case.”

Phil Nickers balanced a pencil upon the table. In the silence which followed, his eyes remained riveted upon the slim, wooden cylinder.

“You’re doing the talking,” he said, at length. “I’m listening. You have a theory?”

Arthur Forbes jerked a bony thumb over his shoulder.

“To the north of here is forbidden territory,” he said.

If Nickers knew what was meant he did not betray it. “Yes?” he asked.

“Quite so. All along here. The inner line beyond which whites can’t go. It’s recognized by treaty. In Darrang, toward the Bhutias, Akas and Daphlas. In Lakhimper, toward the Daphlas, Mirio, Abors, Mishmis, Khamtis, Singphos and Nagas; and in Sibsager, toward the Nagas.”

Nickers had managed to get the pencil balanced.

“Just who is Murasingh?” he asked, shooting the question with explosive abruptness.

Forbes lowered his voice.

“String of native titles that’d take five minutes to tell. Aside from that, he’s a sportsman and adventurer. Educated in England. That part of the education that has to do with reading and writing stuck. As for the rest it’s a question — just as it is with any educated native. He plays polo, pilots a plane, does quite a bit of hunting, not much drinking, keeps fit, and is reputed, strictly sub rosa, to be fomenting trouble.”

The pencil, moved by some faint puff of languid air, dropped to the table. Nickers gave his attention to rebalancing it.

“And, while you may not have noticed it,” muttered Forbes, speaking now in a tone so low that the words could hardly be distinguished, “Jean Crayson and Audrey Kent were very much of a type. Both of them have blond hair, blue eyes, a milky skin, red lips, a full face, rounded figure.”

Nickers let the pencil roll to the floor.

“Yes?” he asked, looking full at Forbes.

“Yes,” said Forbes, arising after the manner of one whose work has been done. And, without so much as a word of good night, walked abruptly from the room.

Chapter 2 A Night Flight

The American extinguished the light, moved his chair to the window. There was much food for thought in what he had heard. In the main, it merely corroborated what he had heard before, what had previously been communicated to him as a basis upon which to work. But the similarity in the appearances of the two girls was something new to him. The thought flitted in and out of his mind, and bothered him. What had Forbes meant? What had he been trying to intimate?

And it bothered Nickers that the elaborate precautions he had taken to conceal the real object of his visit should so easily have been ripped aside.

He read for two hours, disrobed, and dropped into fitful slumber. The air was heavy, warm, oppressive. Nickers’s body was bathed in a slime of perspiration. Straggling thoughts lodged in his mind long enough to breed nightmares.

The drone of an airplane became the buzzing of a giant bee, settling, about to attack. Nickers gave an exclamation, made a great effort to ward off the huge insect, and stirred his limbs from the lethargy of sleep to the weariness of unrested awaking.

The sound was plainer now; an airplane was actually dropping to earth not far away. Phil Nickers ripped the covers apart and hit the bare floor. Padding to the window he saw a late moon, pale, distant stars, a steely glow of cold light in the east. And a plane, glinting silver from its moon-tipped wings, banked sharply, settled, and made a three-point landing in a field some five hundred yards distant.

As the plane came to rest dark shadows flitted to the wings. A man climbed wearily from the cockpit, walked stiffly toward the house. The black, flitting shadows slipped a cloth hood over the motor, wheeled the plane toward a low shed. The moonlight caught the features of the man who strode toward the house.

The man was Murasingh.

Phil Nickers sighed and went back to bed. The air was cool, but still oppressive. The sheets were damp with perspiration. Phil folded himself into the sheets and tossed upon the pillow, his mind seething with unanswered questions.

At length he fell into fitful and unresting slumber. A dark-skinned servant, attired in white, aroused him with a cup of steaming coffee. Forbes followed the servant, looking as fresh as a dew-touched flower.

“Get your cold tub, and I’ll have a chin-chin with you.”

Nickers owned a great curiosity. His tub occupied but a few minutes. Dressed, shaved, with fresh linen, he felt better. A casual glance from the window told him the plane had been wheeled into the shed, the doors closed. But the field showed plainly what it was, a private landing field.

Forbes followed his glance.

“The colonel has it for his guests. Murasingh, for instance, is a regular visitor. He flies over whenever he takes a notion. Has several planes, that chap. Saw him this morning. He said he didn’t sleep well so he got his plane out and went for a joy ride in the late moonlight. Come on down for breakfast. We’ll probably be alone. Murasingh is making up for the sleep he lost last night. The colonel’s had a cup of coffee and gone for a ride. Miss Jean’s still in her room.”

Phil ate a silent breakfast, aware of the ceaseless scrutiny of black eyes from behind. Aware, also, that Arthur Forbes had something on his mind.

“Like to take a look at the field?” asked Forbes, his eyes squinting meaningly.

Nickers nodded.

The two men strolled into the sunlight. The glare was eye-wearying.

Forbes glanced swiftly about him.

“I happen to know he took off shortly after midnight,” he muttered. “Funny thing was he took off in one plane and came back in another. I was watching with the night glasses.”

“But what’s that got to do with” — Nickers checked himself — “with the high price of tobacco?” he concluded, irritably.

Forbes laughed.

“Maybe nothing. Perhaps a lot. Let’s take a look at the plane.”

The plane turned out to be a Waco 9, powered with a Curtiss OX5.

“Funny thing about Murasingh,” genially remarked Forbes, “he uses American planes entirely. He’s got a cabin plane powered with a Wright J4. It’s got more speed than this job. Then he’s got another, a monoplane. That’s what he took off with last night. He brought this job back.”

The plane was deserted. A dark-skinned servant squatted in the shade some fifty feet away. From time to time he turned his turbaned head in careless appraisal. But he said no word, made no move.

Forbes leaned over the rear of the fuselage, then climbed to the wing step and peered down at the gasoline gauges. Of a sudden he cocked his head to one side, listening.

Nickers jerked a thumb toward the back of the pilot’s seat.

“It’s coming from in there,” he said.

Both men listened, their ears attentive to the chattering noise which emanated faintly from some part of the plane.

Forbes gave a swift glance at the squatted native, then pulled the back cushion away from the frame. There appeared a small door, cunningly fashioned. Nickers used his knife blade to obtain a purchase, pulled the door away from its frame.

Instantly the chattering grew louder. Phil Nickers saw two small points of light glittering, a flash of white, a splotch of red. He drew back in surprise as there came a motion from within the compartment, and a monkey thrust his chattering countenance out into the light.

The eyes were wide, round, moist. The lips were stretched back from glistening teeth. The red mouth showed as a frame for the clicking tongue that chattered with a shrill, metallic note.

Phil noticed that the compartment had been fitted as a little room with a mattress, a cup of water, a little food. He saw also, a collar about the monkey’s neck, a gold collar, studded with rubies.

And then the animal was out, sitting on the back of the pilot’s seat, his tail curled around the edge of the cowl. The chattering arose in volume until it became a shrill patter of protest.

Phil Nickers glanced to one side. What he saw surprised him. The native watchman had become a dynamo of action. He was running swiftly toward them. In his right hand the sun caught the glint of cold steel.

From the other side came the pound of swift steps, and Murasingh shot around the corner of the shed, saw the two men, and came to an abrupt stop.

His face was cold with rage. His eyes were as two pools of red, uncontrolled fire. His lips drew back from white teeth that were as menacing as the fangs of a beast.

For a moment he stood so, apparently meditating attack, then he took a deep breath, regained control of his manner and features. But his eyes still glowed with red rage.

“Really, gentlemen, this is rather unusual.”

The native with the knife slipped beneath the wing.

Murasingh sharply clapped his hands, rattled out a few swift words of a tongue Phil Nickers did not understand. The man instantly became motionless, waiting. But there was a tense menace about his pose.

Nickers squirmed. After all, his invasion of Murasingh’s property had been unwarranted. He felt suddenly ill at ease, not sure of himself.

Forbes took charge of the situation.

“Heard a devil of a commotion in here, old man, and thought something had gone wrong. Sorry. Pet or something? You don’t object?”

The eyes lost their reddish glare, became as expressionless as twin chunks of polished ebony. Murasingh was once more charmingly suave, politely hostile.

“Yes, he’s a pet. Take him for a ride with me sometimes. But I didn’t know he was in there this trip.”

He held out his arms to the monkey.

As though steel springs had exploded inside the animal, he went into such swift action that the eye could see only a blur of black fur. The monkey shot from the cockpit to Nickers’s shoulder, from Nickers to Forbes, and fetched up in Murasingh’s arms, his tail wrapped firmly about a forearm, his hairy arms clasped about the swarthy neck, his face flattened against the white lapel of the coat, eyes turning to survey the two white men.

Elaborately casual, Forbes took his leave. Nickers followed, keenly aware of the eyes that burned behind, following their every motion.

Forbes lowered his voice, making his words inaudible to any save his companion, and spoke without turning his head.

“Easy. Don’t look back. Act as though we hadn’t seen a thing out of the ordinary. But keep walking. Keep moving.”

“Why all the fuss over a monkey?” asked Phil.

“Easy, old chap, easy. We’ll have a chance to talk later. Just act as though you were interested in the scenery now.”

And Phil stopped, extended a pointing forefinger as though indicating some interesting bit of scenery.

It was not until they were safely ensconced in Phil’s room that Forbes let down the bars, showed himself as he was, keenly excited, thoughtful.

“I’d suspected something of the sort all along,” the Englishman said. “And, even now, I’m not sure of it. But did you see the collar on that monkey? It was solid gold, hand-carved, set with rubies of the finest pigeon blood. And Murasingh didn’t know the brute was in there. You see he’d changed planes somewhere last night.”

“But, surely, a man has a right to a pet monkey,” expostulated Phil Nickers. “I’ve even seen ’em in the States. And here, where they’re plentiful—”

Forbes, who had been pacing the room as a penned tiger might pace his cage, whirled upon Nickers.

“You’ve got photographs of Audrey Kent!”

Phil was the cautious detective again, reluctant to admit definitely the confidential mission which had taken him to this strange land.

“Well, supposing I had, what then?”

“Did you notice the eyes? They were more round than the average eyes. You’ll notice that Jean Cray son has the same sort of eyes.”

“Well?”

“Monkey eyes, old chap, monkey eyes! Not very pronounced, but different from the ordinary run of eyes. Did you notice how Jean’s eyes glisten? They’re moist, shiny, and deep. You see them once in a while, eyes like that. I tried to think what it was they reminded me of. Now I know. They’re monkey eyes.”

Nickers lit a cigarette. “Personally, I think you’re just a bit off,” he said, coldly, suddenly regretting that he had allowed this man to discuss his confidential mission with him.

Forbes shook his head, without rancor.

“You just don’t know the country,” he said, good-naturedly.

Nickers remained coldly formal as the Englishman proceeded:

“And the collar had Sanskrit words on it! Lord, I’d have given a good deal to have had that confounded monkey hold off his jabbering for just thirty seconds. If I could have stolen that collar!”

“You’d have stolen the collar?”

“Sure!”

“Might I ask why you’re so confoundedly interested?”

Arthur Forbes turned a face, suddenly gray with pain, upon his questioner.

“I was engaged to Audrey Kent,” he said.

Nickers started. “Why, in that event — I was instructed to get in touch with you. You were the one who wrote to—”

Forbes nodded.

“Precisely. But I didn’t want to disclose my identity until after I was sure. That was why I gave another name in the letter. Then when you showed up last night, and I had Murasingh at the table at the same time — it was too good an opportunity to overlook. I just kept gabbing, leading the conversation around to where I wanted it. I wanted to see if Murasingh was suspicious. He was.”

Nickers drummed on the table. “Look here, Forbes. I don’t want to go off half cocked on this thing, but I wonder if you couldn’t scare up a plane, a fast two-seater. It might come in handy.”

Forbes nodded.

“Now you’re talking. There’s a big cabin job I might be able to get. It’s got a Pratt & Whitney Wasp, and will fly circles around anything hereabouts.”

Nickers nodded slowly.

“I can’t help thinking that that monkey — well, that the monkey will go back to where he came from. If you think the monkey’s connected with the case in any way, it might be worth while to tag along.”

Forbes interrupted.

“Look here, old chap. I’m not making any foolish statements. That monkey may not have a blamed thing to do with what we’re working on. But I’ve been watching Murasingh ever since — ever since Audrey disappeared. And I’ll swear Murasingh has a finger in the pie somewhere.”

“All right,” Nickers nodded. “Anything that connects up with Murasingh is our meat. Right now the monkey seems to be a big factor in the situation as far as he’s concerned. Therefore, I’m willing to do anything we can to get the straight of it. But I still don’t see why a man can’t have a pet monkey.”

Forbes sat down, extended a long, bony forefinger. His features twitched with enthusiasm and anxiety. His eyes glowed with a fire of inner emotion.

“Look here, Nickers, this is India. Don’t ever forget that fact. Now let me tell you something: One of the sacred legends of this country is the Ramayana, a long, rambling account of the early doings of the Gods and Goddesses. And Hanuman is one of the main figures in the Ramayana. He’s supposed to be the child of a nymph, by the God of the Wind — and he’s a monkey god. The god Rama, who is an incarnation of Vishnu, had his wife kidnaped by a demon. The woman was taken to the demon’s cave in Ceylon. Rama would have been powerless had it not been for his ally, the monkey god, Hanuman. Hanuman started a horde of monkeys bringing bowlders clean from the slopes of the Himalayas. They fetched the bowlders by the millions, over a vast expanse of country, and they threw them into the sea, bridging over to Ceylon.

“Now, all that sounds to your Western ears like any ordinary bit of folklore, an old myth that’s something a bit more personal than a fairy tale. But this is India. Don’t forget it. Right now there exists a powerful caste that considers itself bound to the god Hanuman as priests. And they worship the monkeys as being symbolic of their god. It’s all rather a complicated mess, but it simmers down to the fact that the priests of Hanuman either worship the monkeys or else consider that they owe a service to the monkeys to get them started on a higher spiral of evolution.

“It’s mixed up with reincarnation theories, and no end of secret stuff, and no white man knows the whole inside of the thing. But you can take it from me that there are temples devoted to monkey worship in the midst of the jungles. And that gold collar with the Sanskrit words on it, studded with rubies, carved cunningly by hand — well, that collar isn’t found on any ordinary pet monkey, and it isn’t found on any ordinary jungle monkey.”

Forbes got up, flung himself into a regular stride of rhythmic pacing. Nickers shook himself after the mariner of one shaking off the effects of a deep sleep, troubled with dreams. He stared at the pacing figure intently, studiously.

Certainly there was nothing about Arthur Forbes to suggest mental unbalance. He had talked too much at dinner, to be sure, but he had explained that. In the light of his explanation, his conduct seemed highly rational.

He was tall, spare, big-boned. His joints were large, made his hands and wrists awkward. His cheek bones were high and prominent; his eyes gray, framed in a network of wrinkles. A small mustache set off the square chin, the prominent nose. Tropical living had left him untouched by that flabby softness which so frequently comes to the white man.

Phil Nickers reached a sudden decision.

“Let’s start after that plane.”

Forbes shook his head.

“Not now. Get all the sleep you can today. The monkey will go back tonight, after the moon gets up.”

And so it was settled.

Chapter 3 Into the Himalayas

The late moon slipped over the eastern hills. Like a piece of pitted orange peel it glowed redly, giving a certain hazy, indefinite light.

Arthur Forbes stood concealed in the long shadow of a hedge. Night glasses were glued to his eyes.

“There he goes,” he said.

Through the still air sounded the throb of an engine, swelling in volume until it became a muffled roar. A silvery shadow glided smoothly along the field, quivered, hung poised, then zoomed upward.

Forbes snapped the glasses back into a case, looked at Nickers. Nickers was already stepping toward the pilot’s seat of the powerful plane.

“Not much of a place for a field, but we got in, and we can get out,” he said.

The motor throbbed to life. With blocks under the wheels, Nickers opened and closed the throttle, warming up the engine. He tested his gauges, manipulated the controls, glanced at Forbes, and nodded.

The motor slowed as Forbes jerked out the blocks, climbed into the inclosed cabin, adjusted safety belt, and once more adjusted the night glasses. His finger pointed northeast. Nickers nodded, opened the throttle. The plane glided swiftly. Jolts ran up from the landing wheels, jolts that became momentarily shorter, sharper. A hedge loomed ahead as an indistinct blotch of regular shadow. Phil pulled back the stick, gave her all she had.

Like a startled teal, the plane shot up into the air, banked, circled, and stretched out to the northeast. Phil throttled her down to moderate flying speed. The inclosed cabin shut out enough of the motor noise to make loud conversation audible.

Below them the ground, broken and hilly, slipped swiftly by. Roads showed in the moonlight, winding and twisting, following the contours of hills that were almost invisible from the plane. Houses on hilltops, native settlements, fields, the glint of water. The moon rose higher. The shadows shortened. The sky seemed a dreamy, silver haze.

Forbes kept his glasses at his eyes, gave Phil flying directions. But the plane ahead winged steadily to the northeast as a homing pigeon in flight. Once or twice when they seemed to be getting too close, Phil swung his plane in a circle rather than take elevation. They wanted to keep their quarry above them, so he would be outlined against the glow of the sky.

And then, after nearly an hour, Arthur Forbes tapped Phil on the knee.

“He’s changing his course. Perhaps he’s arrived,” he said.

But Phil frowned and banked. There had been no need for the observer’s remark. The plane ahead was plainly visible, and there was something in the way that course had been changed which suggested a return rather than one banking for a spiral to the landing field.

Phil dropped, seeking to make himself invisible against the ground below. They were now flying over an elevated plateau, cut with shadowed canons, timbered with a thick growth of trees. Ahead loomed a massive mountain wall.

Too late Phil realized the real significance of the maneuver of the other plane. By dropping close to the ground he had hoped to make himself invisible. But the moon was high enough to throw a shadow, and he came close enough to send a black shadow from his plane scudding over the tree tops. The air above him screamed into life. A twisting, diving apparition roared from the heavens; and, above the roar, punctuating it at intervals with steady regularity, sounded a rat-a-tat-tat-tat.

“A machine gun!” yelled Forbes. “He installed a machine gun on the job and trapped us.”

And so it seemed. They were flying low over a wilderness, far from the treaty lines. Below was only a forest, canons, tumbling streams. There was no place where a plane could land without crashing. And Murasingh was above them, mercilessly holding to their tail, raining machine gun bullets.

But Phil had superior speed. He jerked the throttle open, zoomed, banked, twisted, seemed to be sideslipping into the jagged tops of moonlit trees, swung, scudded along over the tree tops like a frightened fowl, then zoomed again.

Murasingh was outmaneuvered, left behind by the superior power and speed of the faster plane. The machine gun spat a spiteful farewell, and then Phil found himself holding his course without pursuit.

Forbes pointed to several holes in the fabric of the plane, a spattered series of zigzag cracks in the shatterproof glass of the cabin.

Nickers grinned, nodded, and held the course of the plane, climbing steadily, gaining altitude. Forbes swept the ground below with his night glasses, finally picked out the other plane, saw that it was turning back. Had they, then, been led on a wild-goose chase? Or was Murasingh seeking to cut off their escape, getting ready to swoop down upon them for a final burst of gunfire. It was a miracle they had not been shot down. But the giant plane continued to purr through the night.

Higher and higher they went. The moon slid up into the heavens, and a faint tinge of brassy light glittered over the eastern rim of the universe. But the ground below remained unchanged, a high plateau, covered with trees, interspersed with canons, rimmed by steep, rocky mountains that finally swept up into a sky-piercing tumble of jagged pinnacles.

It grew lighter rapidly. Phil knew that his only salvation lay in guarding against a surprise attack, and he chose to gain such an altitude the other could not hope to sit in the sky above him, waiting to make up for the deficient speed in a power dive.

It grew colder and lighter as they climbed. At eighteen thousand feet the ground below was but a blur of tumbled terrain. The tree tops blended together to give the impression of a level meadow.

Phil glanced at the gasoline gauge of the starboard tank, saw that the black half circle had swung so that it almost covered the top of the gauge. He pointed to it, shouted to Forbes.

“About half the gasoline supply is gone!”

Forbes nodded, sweeping the country below with his glasses. The sun came up, gilding them with cold radiance, but not, as yet, touching the country below, which still slumbered in the gray light of early dawn.

Phil sighed, swung the plane back. With half of their gasoline supply exhausted, prudence demanded that they swing back. To be caught in this country without gas would be fatal. He swung the cock to the port gasoline tank and settled back for a long period of steady flying. To his surprise, the motor coughed, missed, sputtered.

His frantic eyes swept the gauge on the port side, and then his fingers leaped to the cock, switching back to the depleted tank on the starboard side.

Neither man spoke. They had no need. Their eyes met in a single swift glance, then abruptly looked away. The port tank, carefully filled before their departure, showed an ominous black circle in the gauge. One of the bullets from the machine gun had punctured it.

Now, at an altitude of nearly nineteen thousand feet, the plane had enough gasoline left for only a few minutes of flight. Behind them the ground was known. It offered no opportunity for a forced landing. Ahead lay their only chance. The motor would work more efficiently at a lower elevation, but their height gave them a greater gliding radius.

The plane roared ahead. The sun swept a long finger of golden light across the ground below. Both men scanned the country ahead eagerly. Within a few minutes they would be either safe upon that ground or else mangled in death.

In the meantime the plane roared with as steady a throb of reassuring power as though its flight was not bounded by minutes.

A ridge lay ahead. Beyond it there seemed to be a little bare ground bordering a stream. Beyond that another stretch of plateau was lost in the morning mists.

The motor coughed, sputtered, throbbed into life again, and then abruptly died. The sudden silence, broken only by the whine of air through the struts, made the high spaces seem an aching void.

Phil nosed the plane into as flat a glide as was safe. He wanted to inspect the ground along that stream from as high an elevation as was possible. Then, if it should prove impossible to land, he would have a chance to keep going. Otherwise he could spiral down.

As they glided Arthur Forbes studied the ground below through his glasses. Untroubled by the vibration of the motor, he was now able to make things out clearly.

The ridge drifted closer. The ground beyond it opened out, showed where the forest came to a stop, the level land bordering the creek caught the glint of sunlight.

Forbes puckered his brow, snapped out a handkerchief, and wiped the lenses of the powerful glasses, then resumed a survey of the ground. At length he slowly shook his head. Steady gray eyes met eyes of steel. Neither faltered.

“Rocks and brush. A side stream runs through, and there’s a bog or marsh below that. We can’t make it.”

“Better than the trees? We might pancake in.”

“Just about a toss-up. Better keep going and see what’s below those mists. We can see through ’em when we get directly overhead.”

The two men could hear each other plainly now, get the little tone variations which bespoke emotion. Both were under a strain, flipping dice with death, and death had the odds. But both voices were steady, cool.

The ridge with the open ground by the stream slipped astern. The ground below showed in a dim circle through the mists, walled on all sides by a blanket of chalky white where the mists thickened. Only from directly above could the ground be distinguished.

And it was trees, nothing but forest, a vast unbroken procession of nodding tree tops that appeared as a smooth meadow until the glasses were trained upon them.

On and on went the plane, gliding at its greatest gliding angle. Down below, the trees marched in endless succession through the little circle of clear vision. Lower and lower dropped the plane, gliding like a sailing hawk.

The tree tops became plainly visible to the naked eye. They stretched their waving branches closer and closer, reaching for the plane with a grasp that must inevitably clutch the landing wheels. Then the vast machine would pitch forward, nose-dive into a crash against heavy branches. Too late now to turn and try the open ground about the creek. They had gone past, and their only hope lay in keeping on. The trees reached up. One tall fellow almost touched the wheels, sending high branches reaching up out of the mist. To the men in the plane it seemed the tree had almost jumped at them.

It was the end.

Forbes sighed — a long-drawn sigh. And then Nickers uttered a swift exclamation. He slammed the stick forward. The plane shot down, gathered speed. Then Phil pulled back on the joy stick, sent the tail skidding down. Level, cleared ground was directly below.

The landing wheels reached cautiously down. The plane touched ground, bounced once or twice, then rolled heavily. A rock caught under the left wheel. The plane, without power to drag it evenly, started to swing, wobbled slightly, and skidded to a stop.

Phil flung open the cabin door, heaved a great sigh of relief, and stepped to the ground. His steel eyes caught the gray eyes of Arthur Forbes, and the two men smiled silently. The mists were thicker here, but to the rear could be seen the towering forest, coming to such an abrupt termination that it seemed the work of man must be responsible for the clearing.

To the left appeared regular blotches of bulk, indistinct in the mist. Ahead the ground swept on until it vanished in the thin steam from the forest. Overhead the sky shone a pale blue, globules of moisture drifting slowly across the field of vision.

“We’re here,” said Nickers.

“And getting here may not be so good. Those are buildings over there — and we’re ’way on the wrong side of the treaty line. The whites are trying to educate ’em to regard that line as obsolete. But the natives regard their rights as sacred.”

He broke off, glanced at the forest.

“Perhaps we’d better slip into the trees. Not that it’s much good, but it’s prolonging things a bit.”

Phil’s hand touched his shoulder.

“Too late,” he said.

Forbes followed the direction of the pointing finger.

Chapter 4 “Time to Be Tried!”

Gray shapes were striding solemnly out of the mists. In the lead appeared a wizened old man, garbed in gray, his hands folded upon his chest. Behind him strode natives, marching solemnly, their hands folded upon their chests.

And then Phil’s eyes seemed to jerk themselves to the extreme limit of their sockets. He could hardly believe that which he saw. For, behind the natives, marching every bit as solemnly, although awkward in their strides, appeared the black outlines of monkeys, formed in file, marching gravely, tails curled and encircling the necks of the following monkeys. And each of the monkeys had his hands folded upon his chest in solemn mimicry of the men who strode ahead.

Phil heard Arthur Forbes’s low voice in his ear.

“And, unless I’m mistaken, this is the place we were due to make an inspection of. I think you’ll find this is where Murasingh keeps his plane!”

The procession marched with grim silence.

The leader came abreast of the plane, swung slightly to the left, circled it. The trail of monkeys marching with folded arms, encircling tails, stretched so far into the mist that by the time the wizened old man had completed a circle of the plane the end of the monkeys’ line had not yet entirely appeared.

The man made a sharp noise, seemingly by pursing his puckered lips. It was a shrill, penetrating sound, a single keen squeak.

As though by magic, the entire line halted.

In silence the watchers and the watched appraised each other.

The old man was stooped by great age. His dark skin had thickened and wrinkled until it resembled the skin of an old potato. The eyes were glittering, yet expressionless. The wasted neck seemed hardly able to support the withered head. The bony shoulders protruded upward in two knobs from beneath the gray robe. The feet were bare, dust-covered.

The natives behind were swarthy, powerful men. On their faces appeared a certain uniformity of expression. They were lean, yet powerfully built. Their features showed a grim asceticism, and in their eyes was a certain something, a burning flame of devouring fanaticism.

The old man’s puckered lips parted. Harsh speech husked from his withered throat. At the first words Nickers knew that he could not understand. But a swift glance told him that his companion was following the conversation.

The old man ceased talking.

Nickers glanced at Forbes. Forbes broke into speech, the same speech that the man had used. He seemed to be explaining something. His hands made an inclusive, sweeping gesture toward the airplane. Then he bowed courteously, spread out his palms in a circling, courteous motion.

As he ceased his talk the old man nodded his withered head slowly, solemnly, impressively.

“Believe I’ve made a sale,” muttered Forbes in an undertone.

But again there came grave, husky speech.

Again Forbes made answer, and this time Nickers was able to detect an undertone of anxiety in his answer. Again the hands gestured.

And then the old man took a tottering step toward the plane, glanced back at those behind him, unfolded his arms, and started a clumsy dance. It was as though a spavined truck horse had tried to cavort as a colt. There was a hideous suggestion of a game in what the man was doing. But it was a game of youth played with the decadence of withered age.

First on one foot, then on the other, he hopped until he was at the plane itself. Then he extended a wrinkled claw, attached to a forearm that was unbelievably skinny. The brown talons ripped a small bit of fabric from the wings.

Nickers uttered an exclamation, made a move as though to stop him. But Forbes held his hand in a viselike grip upon Nicker’s arm.

“Hold everything. Steady, old chap, steady!”

With the sound of ripping fabric the old man hopped to the other side of the plane, waving the bit of cloth as though it had been a trophy of skill won at some friendly game.

Behind him the natives unfolded their arms, skipped toward the plane, tore bits of cloth, and waved them with high glee. Their eyes remained deadly serious, tinged with the reddish glow of dangerous fanaticism. But their lips were drawn back from white teeth in the semblance of a happy grin.

There remained the line of monkeys, moist round eyes watching intently the antics of the humans. Then face turned to face. The monkeys chattered some shrill command and came trooping forward.

“Monkey see, monkey do,” muttered Forbes, the first to catch the significance of the action.

Like brown projectiles cannonballed from a gun, the monkeys trooped across the dust-covered bare ground, leaped to the plane, and began ripping the fabric.

Phil Nickers groaned.

From out of the mists came monkeys, droves of monkeys, troops of monkeys. Shrilling their chatterings to the high heavens, they leaped upon the plane, grabbed a bit of cloth, a fragment of wood, and scampered away.

And other monkeys came from the trees about where they had been watching, concealed by the heavy foliage.

“Millions of monkeys,” groaned Phil. “The plane’s gone.”

Forbes nodded.

“The game is to take things easy and prolong the end as long as possible. There may be a chance yet, but it’s a slim one.”

The monkeys scuttled up and over the plane, and beneath their vandal touch it melted like a lump of ice over which boiling water is poured. In a startlingly short space of time there remained nothing of the graceful plane except the heavier things which were anchored with nuts and bolts, were welded to the frame, or were too heavy to move.

The old man shrilled some command. The monkeys took to the trees or fell in behind the natives. Each monkey carried some bit of the wrecked plane.

The puckered lips husked out a dry command.

“He says ‘walk,’ ” muttered Forbes.

And so they walked in a strange procession. The old man led the way, stalking like some grim corpse, partially mummified. Back of him came the two white men. Behind them the file of natives, and, behind the natives, the file of serious monkeys, aping the solemnity of their leaders, marching with a gravity as outwardly profound as that of a supreme court marching to affirm a sentence of death.

The buildings loomed larger through the mist as the men approached. There was the glitter of gold, the solid gray of old masonry.

Forbes, keeping his eyes ahead, his face upturned, muttered comments from the side of his lips.

“Notice the old pile. And that’s real gold you see on the stone. Sanskrit letters, made of pure gold. They carved the rock and then pounded the gold into the stones, just like a dentist would make a filling. Good God! Look at that ruby over the door. In the form of an eye. See it? Evidently this is the headquarters of priests of Hanuman. But it’s some isolated sect that no white man knows anything about. They’re fanatics. Be careful, and, whatever you do, don’t offend the monkeys. Treat them as though they were sacred.

“There are other people in the house. Get the flicker of motion from that window on the second floor? Seems to be real glass in the windows. Bet these places could tell a story if the stones had the power of speech.

“Hangar over there on the left. Seems to be empty. But there must be a place around here somewhere where Murasingh keeps his planes. Remember he switched planes last night. That is where he picked up the monkey — forgot it was in the plane, or else didn’t search. The monkey probably climbed in for a joy-ride. I say, looks as if they were going to throw us in a dungeon. See the bars on the windows?”

Nickers marched stolidly on, seeing everything, yet keeping silent. He realized now the desperate situation they were in. Their captors were fanatics, and they would stop at nothing.

A door opened before them. As the sunlight was breaking up the rolling clouds of light mist, the men were thrust into a dungeon. A door clanged, and they were left to themselves.

Nickers chuckled.

“Takes an airplane to get a change of environment.”

Forbes grinned.

“Righto. But this is India.”

“What’s the next move?”

“Lord knows. These natives claim to be within their rights in killing white men who get into this section of the country. That’s only half the story. They’ll try their damnedest to keep any news of this place from leaking out to the outside world. This gold didn’t come over a million miles to get here. There must be a regular ledge of it around here somewhere. Then there’s the religious end. These priests of Hanuman take their stuff pretty seriously. Hello, somebody’s coming.”

Outside of the door sounded a strange shuffle, slip, slap, shuffle, slop, slop, shuffle. The noise sounded along the mud floor. A bolt shot back from the massive door, and it swung noiselessly back.

Two natives flanked the doorway, and they were armed with glittering knives whose blades fairly radiated a razor keenness.

Between the natives was a woman. And if ever woman observed the name of witch this woman did. In age she approximated the age of the withered native who had led the procession to the plane. But there was about her a look of malevolent hardness, a glittering-eyed cunning, a hard-jawed selfishness. Her nose hooked down to her chin. Her round chin protruded outward, seemed almost to touch the beak of that huge nose. As she opened her mouth, pink, toothless gums showed back of the wrinkled lips. Her head shook and wagged in perpetual palsy.

Upon her shoulder sat a gorgeous green parrot, tail feathers sweeping in a blaze of brilliance. The beady, twinkling eyes of the parrot, hard as twin diamonds, glittered about the dungeon.

“Time to be tried! Time to be tried!” crooned the old hag.

The parrot on her shoulder took up the refrain, speaking in the toneless falsetto which comes from the roof of a hard mouth.

“Time to be tried!”

Nickers could not repress a start of surprise.

“But she’s English!” he exclaimed. There could be no mistaking the modulations of tone. And her skin was white, a leathery whiteness to be sure, but white, nevertheless.

“This is India,” whispered Forbes.

The woman nodded her shaking head. “This is India, and it’s time to be tried.”

“Time to be tried,” came the echoing squawk.

“I’ve come to prepare you for the ordeal, come to tell you what you must do, how you must act.”

“Goofy as a bedbug!” muttered Nickers, but Forbes kicked him warningly.

“This is a monkey world,” went on the hag, speaking her well-modulated English, the words seeming to come from the tip of her sharp tongue, each as hissing as the swish of a knife. “The monkeys rule. We guide the monkeys, but they do the ruling. It’s well that you should know something of the priests of Hanuman. Most people will tell you we worship the monkeys. They’re wrong. We serve the monkeys. They’re men the same as you two, and they’ve slipped in the wheel of incarnation, down, down, down.”

She paused and the parrot took up the refrain.

“Down, down, ark! ark! awarrruk!”

“And we’re raising ’em up,” chanted the woman. “Up, up, up! And our work can’t be interfered with. You two: what are you? Just two insignificant lives in the Wheel of Life. But what are we? What’s our work? We’re dealing with millions of souls, restoring them to free will and understanding.

“It will take time. Oh, yes. It’ll take time, all right! We’ve been at it a couple of thousand years, and we’ll be at it a couple of thousand years more. But we’ve got two souls! Hear that! Two of our monkeys have developed above the group soul of animals into the individual souls of men. You don’t know, you two. You’ll say they’re just well-trained monkeys. But we know. We can see the soul gleaming through their eyes. Before the work of saving those two souls, bringing up the whole band into light of understanding, your lives aren’t worth that!”

She tried to snap her fingers, but the claws gave only a rasping sound of skin rubbing against skin.

“The Grandharaus are servants of Agni, the god of light; bodyguard of Soma, right-hand assistants to Varuna the divine judge. There are twenty-seven in all. Three groups of nine, and each of the nines is split into three groups. Three of the Grandharaus are from the subjects of Hanuman. And we’ve brought to light two of those suppressed Grandharaus of the monkey men! They’ve been weighted down by thousands of lives of sin. Their destinies, their karma has slipped until they’ve almost been blotted out in a single group soul. But we’ve got their souls back. One of the two is the judge. You’ll be taken to his court. The other one you can’t see. He’s preparing for his wedding. Yes, a wedding. We’ve got to have an Apsaras for the Grandharaus. And we’ve found her, a woman with monkey eyes!”

The parrot chanted.

“Monkey eyes, arawk! The woman with monkey eyes.”

Forbes shot a meaning gaze at Nickers. Phil felt a cold sweat bursting from the pores of his skin. The crone went on:

“Who can tell, maybe a million years ago, maybe two million years there came the dividing line. One branch of the souls went down. The other branch was held chained to the Wheel of Life, through hundreds of thousands of incarnations. Life after life, death after death. And one soul slipped down, and one went up. But the things that are to be will be. And always there remains the carry-over of karma. And the humans that left the monkey karma have a look in their eyes. One can always tell. And we’re bringing them back together. The two paths are coming together again. That’s our work. That’s the work of the priests of Hanuman. I’ve told you so you’ll know what the trial is about. And you’ll know why we can’t allow a pair of human lives to interfere with that work now it’s so near completion. You’d be willing to die rather than to plunge the whole monkey tribe back a million years in the cosmic scheme of things, wouldn’t you?”

And the parrot, teetering back and forth on the palsied shoulder, joined in a toneless chorus.

“Wouldn’t you? Wouldn’t you? Arawwwwk!”

“Good God, they’re not kidnaping a white girl to mate with a monkey?” hissed Nickers, and then was sorry he spoke, for the skin upon Arthur Forbes’s face was as white as parchment. The veins stood knotted upon his forehead, and the taut skin gleamed with slimy perspiration.

“Come and be tried. Come and be tried!” chanted the old witch.

“Come and be tried,” squawked the parrot.

And the two natives, whirling deftly, presented the points of their keen knives just below their left shoulder blades. Under the prick of those knives they followed the woman as she turned and slippety-slopped, shufflety-slapped her lethargic feet along the clay-bricked floor.

“Come and be tried, come and be tried!” chanted the woman, her feet shuffling through the dust, sending little clouds of powdery white eddying up around her legs.

Nickers gave a longing look at the open ground, at the cool shadows of the forest. For a moment he felt the urge to jump wildly forward and sprint for the cover of those trees. But what he saw in the shadows stopped him.

Monkeys were gathered upon the limbs, watching in silent conclave. They were so still, so motionless that he had some difficulty in seeing them at all. But, after he once saw them, he realized something of the numbers of the monkey colony. They were by the thousands, the ten thousands, and they seemed to have some peculiar psychic alignment with those priests of Hanuman, those red-eyed fanatics who had started with a theory of a division in the life-stream, back in the dim antiquity of a million or more years ago.

“Come and be tried! Come and be tried!”

A door, studded with gold letters, swung noiselessly open and the two prisoners were ushered into something that served as an assembly room and a court of justice.

Instead of chairs running in a circle around the floor, against the walls, there was a long rail, and back of this rail were elevated perches, strung in tiers up to the ceiling. Upon these perches, sitting noiselessly, necks craned forward, moist eyes swimming with interest and curiosity, were the monkey people.

A raised platform, made of dark, polished wood, was in the center of the railed-off space. Upon this platform were several chairs. Back of one of the chairs was a dark curtain of black tapestry, embroidered with gold.

The chairs were occupied by the native fanatics. In one of the center chairs sat the withered old man who had led the procession to the plane.

The prisoners were placed before the platform. The old witch circled thrice around the dais.

“Come and be tried! Come and be tried!” she chanted.

And then there was silence, a tense silence, a waiting, quivering silence of suspense. All were waiting for something to happen. All eyes were turned upon the vacant chair back of which was the black curtain.

The curtain bellied, shook, parted. A robed body came through the parted cloth. And, in the brief glimpse that Nickers had of the robed figure, before it came into the light, he could have sworn that a pair of human hands pushed the body out through the curtains.

But when the curtains fell back into place, leaving the robed judge well within the room, there was no further hesitation. The figure walked awkwardly around the chair and took a seat. A dark hand plucked off the hood that had shielded the features.

Nickers gave an audible gasp.

He had expected a monkey, some larger ape than the average of his species. He had even been prepared for some evidences of trained intelligence. But he was totally unprepared for that which his eyes actually encountered.

The face had simian features, but those features had, somehow, taken on the caricature of a human face. The long upper lip, the short nose, the glittering eyes, round and swimming with a moist film, were startlingly human. And the face was almost white, nearly hairless. Perhaps it was a dye, perhaps it was some freak of breeding, but the fact remained that the beast was a gross caricature of a man.

“Steady, old chap,” muttered Forbes, but his voice showed that he, too, despite his assumption of ease, was shocked and surprised.

The ape, almost as large as a man, seemed to have some of the intelligence of humankind, coupled with the cunning of a beast. He surveyed the gathering with round, moist eyes. Then his paw banged upon the arm of the chair, and every one in the room stood up. Again the arm banged. The audience resumed their seats.

The old man arose, pointed to Forbes, then to Nickers.

The old man sat down.

The ape turned his head aimlessly from side to side as though wondering what was expected of him next. The old hag again circled the platform.

“He that was a man and now is a man is about to judge,” she intoned.

“Awwwwwk!” squawked the parrot.

The roving eyes of the ape caught those of Phil Nickers. Instantly their gaze locked.

In the depths of those swimming brown eyes Phil saw something that interested him. For one wild moment he seemed to get the viewpoint of these people about him. Back of the surface, into the very depths of the monkey soul he looked. And what he saw was an individuality struggling for expression.

Phil wondered if there could be any real basis for the statements these of the monkey-clan made. Had this been a man who had drifted back to beast in the scheme of evolution, who would again return to man’s estate?

A great sympathy welled within his mind, and it was as though the ape sensed that sympathy. The eyes softened, glowed with an affectionate regard. The ape flung up a hairy arm.

“They will live! They will live!” shrieked the woman. “They understand!”

And the squawk of the parrot punctuated the last exclamation.

It needed but that wordless intonation of the talking bird to snap Phil Nickers back to the world of reality. He suddenly felt his sympathy leaving him. The ape was a beast. The parrot was but a bird, trained to mimic sounds, to echo words. The people about him were fanatics. And something in the very idea of men devoting their lives to beasts, almost worshiping a great, white-faced ape, aroused a sense of revulsion within him.

His eyes were still locked with those of the ape. The hairy arm with open palm was still upraised.

And a sudden transformation came in those brown eyes. The kind sympathy, the soft affection that had welled within those round orbs vanished; they became instead flinty hard.

Dimly Phil realized his position, strove mightily to stimulate kindness and sympathetic understanding. It was in vain. The mood had left him.

The hard eyes of the ape became almost human in their antagonism. The palm that had been raised and opened, closed into a fist. The hairy arm swept downward in a crashing circle. The fist banged against the arm of the chair.

And it did not need the hoarse croaking of the old crone to tell Phil what that descending arm meant.

“They die! They die!” shrieked the hag.

“They die!” echoed the parrot.

“They die!” roared the natives.

And the old man sucked in his puckered lips and nodded sagely.

The natives with knives instantly pricked the prisoners to their feet, marched them from the hall, out into the sunlight. Surrounding them came other natives, and, from the trees, trooped monkeys. The monkeys who had been in the hall remained, perhaps ready to participate in some additional ceremony of judging.

“Man, you almost got away with it!” whispered Forbes. “Ten seconds more and they’d have accepted us.” There was no regret in his tone, nothing but praise. “I know something of monkey psychology,” he went on, still in a whisper. “It’s hard to move ’em. But you sure had that ape eating out of your hand for a minute or two.”

“And when I lost my grip, I signed our death warrants,” replied Phil. “It was that damned parrot that spilled the beans.”

It was apparent that the guards were taking them across the yard to another building.

“Probably immediate execution,” commented Forbes casually.

But his guess was wrong. It seemed the monkey tribe was awaiting some other development, for a door opened, the prisoners were escorted into a dark and gloomy corridor, and then taken down a short flight of steps. Dank, damp air assailed their nostrils. A bare room walled with massive square stones opened before them. A barred window grilled the blue sky.

The natives ran swift hands over their clothes, took from them knives, keys, even pencils and pens. Every object which might have furnished a tool of escape or a weapon of attack was stripped from them. A heavy door clanged shut, and the two men were left to stare at each other.

“Bum place. Not even a seat,” commented Forbes.

And Phil Nickers noticed that there were no bed, no blankets. Apparently it was intended to keep the prisoners only for a short time.

Chapter 5 “Monkey See, Monkey Do”

Forbes seemed to read his thoughts.

“Evidently they figure we won’t have any use for a bed,” he said. “Looks like the end of the trail, old chap. Sorry I got you into it.”

“We’re not dead yet,” muttered Phil, fastening his eyes upon the barred window.

He tried the bars, found that they were embedded in solid masonry. No slightest chance to work loose a bar. He banged the stone wall with his shoe, trying to ascertain from the sound how thick it was.

“Must be like a fort; sounds as if it were three or four feet through,” he muttered.

“They build ’em strong,” agreed Forbes, and laughed. “Wish the beggars hadn’t taken all our matches and cigarettes. It’d help to blow a few smoke rings.”

Phil walked to the window, surveyed the scenery visible.

There was no glass over the opening. The bars were sufficiently close to keep one from getting even a shoulder out into the air.

Through the window appeared a section of the landing field, a distant view of a corner of the other buildings, and a stretch of tree fronds where the heavy timber crept up to the clearing.

“This place has been here for some time,” announced Forbes, who had been inspecting the walls. “Notice how the mortar has crumbled. See, you can even pick it out in pieces. Chance to work out quite a bit of it. They’ve had other prisoners before who had the idea. See where some one worked all the way around the stone on this inner wall. He worked out all the mortar he could with his finger, and then had to stop. Just back an inch or two, and the rock’s probably a foot thick. But the mortar’s badly shot.”

Phil turned with a smile.

“That’s why they took away our knives and keys. They know the mortar could be picked out. But we’re just as helpless as the other poor chap that wore out his finger getting the mortar worked loose. Say, I guess we’re going to have a visitor. Unless that’s Murasingh coming down in a plane, I’m a poor judge of aviation.”

Forbes joined him at the window.

Together they watched the speck in the sky grow to a great man-bird, side-slip, circle, straighten and land.

Several of the natives ran eagerly to the plane. Murasingh arose from the cockpit, loosed his helmet, swept back goggles, and engaged in rapid conversation with the natives.

“Bet they’ve a lot of chatter to hand each other,” chuckled Nickers.

The monkeys came trooping in from the trees, gathered about the plane in an attentive circle. For some ten minutes the little group remained unchanged. Murasingh talking with the natives, the monkeys sitting in attentive silence.

Then one of the natives moved forward. Murasingh stooped, picked up a shapeless bundle from the bottom of the cockpit, heaved the bundle gently over the side. The eager hands of reaching natives stretched up.

And, at that moment, the bundle assumed shape, straightened so that the men who watched from the prison dungeon could see what it was.

“Good Heavens, a girl!” exclaimed Phil.

“Jean Crayson — in her night-clothes,” agreed Forbes, his lips white. “He drugged her, hid her in the plane. Remember what I said about her having eyes like Audrey Kent’s? They’re rounder than most eyes.”

Each stared at the white, drawn face of the other. Nickers gasped.

“To think of a white girl — bride of an ape-man — here!”

Suddenly a great bitterness filled Phil’s soul. He might face death himself as merely a part of the game, but this kidnaping of attractive women, the hideous fate that was in store for them, the menace of the whole organization of the priests of Hanuman, caused his very soul to revolt.

“Look here, Forbes,” he said, turning a white, strained face away from the light, regarding the four walls of the gloomy dungeon. “I’m not going to stand for this. I’m going to get out of here, put a stop to the whole thing.”

Forbes extended a cold, white hand.

“I’m with you, old chap. But how we’re going to do it is another thing.”

“If I get my hands on that smooth, polished, educated devil of a Murasingh I’ll leave a vacancy in the world,” promised Phil.

And, as though his words had been heard, the door of the cell swung back and Murasingh grinned from the threshold.

“Gentlemen, good morning! You arrived a little sooner than I did. I trust you’ve been made comfortable.”

His eyes glowed with dancing mockery.

“I thought you were just taking a casual joy-ride in a plane, and tried to warn you back. You know it’s not healthy for whites to disregard their treaty promises and invade certain sections of India.”

Phil crouched, moved slowly toward him.

Murasingh whipped an ugly automatic from his pocket, covered the men. His eyes were as hard as black flints.

“Don’t try it, boys. I’d hate to have to kill you, but I can. And if you so much as threatened me, your death wouldn’t be pleasant. As it is, I think I can promise you a reasonably swift death. But there are other ways that might not be so pleasant. There was one poor devil that went through it. You might be able to imagine what happened. He was tied hand and foot. One of the men ran to him, pinched off a bit of flesh and ran away laughing, as though it was some new game. Another and another did the same thing. The monkeys were watching from the trees. The new game appealed to them. After all, you know, they’re little men, actuated by all the cruelties of a savage, yet containing all of the possibilities of development of a man himself.

“I know how you boys feel. But you’ve cut in on this game. No one asked you to do a damn thing except mind your own business. But you had to come prying and snooping. There’s a work going on here that’s bigger than you and bigger than me, and bigger than all of us put together. Don’t think for a moment you can interfere with that work. You must have some conception of it. They tell me one of you almost convinced the judge. In that case, you’d have been allowed to come in as one of the priests — after you’d gone through a sufficient course of training.

“I dropped in to tell you chaps good-by. You’ll be here until midnight. The wedding takes place at one o’clock. You won’t be here for the wedding — a double wedding with the rising of the old moon. Good-by.”

The door clanged. There was the rasp of a lock shooting bars into the solid wall of squared rock.

“And that’s that,” muttered Phil, his hands slimed with cold perspiration.

“That’s that,” agreed Forbes, and tried to grin.

“We couldn’t have rushed the automatic, and we’ve got until midnight.”

Phil broke off to stare meditatively at Forbes.

“He must have drugged her, sneaked into her room, loaded her into the plane, tied her down. That’s why we didn’t see anything of her when the planes were doing their stuff. Of course he’s a fanatic, like all the rest. Sincerely believes in all this stuff. As far as he’s concerned we’re just fellows who butted in and asked for what we got.”

There descended a silence. Each man was wrapped in his own thoughts.

Phil Nickers fell to pacing the floor.

“There’s a way. There must be a way. Somehow, somewhere. Good Lord! A situation like this can’t exist—”

He stopped, mid-stride, to stare at the window.

A monkey sat in the window, propped between the bars, regarding him gravely. A shadow moved across the ground, and another monkey thrust an eager, curious face over the other’s shoulder.

“Think of how they train ’em,” muttered Forbes. “Of course, it’s natural for the monkeys to imitate people. They work on that. How awful it must have been to teach them that tearing a human being to pieces was a game. Their fingers are as strong as steel nippers.”

The monkeys regarded him in moist-eyed gravity.

Phil suddenly dropped to all fours, scampered around the floor, chattering like a monkey, running, cavorting, crawling, leaping.

Forbes regarded him with startled, wide eyes. “Steady, old chap, steady. Death comes to us all. Take it easy. Don’t let the damn beasts get on your nerves.”

But Phil continued to run around.

“Start chasing me,” he hissed. “Get started after me. Run.”

“What in thunder?”

“Don’t argue. Get down while we’ve got their attention. Start running. Chase me around.”

Forbes dropped doubtfully to hands and knees, crawled clumsily.

Phil chattered shrilly.

The monkeys became excited, stirred uneasily, chattered to themselves. Other shadows came across the yard, blotted light from the window. Monkey after monkey came to see the cause of the excitement.

Phil ran on hands and feet, avoided Forbes’s reaching hand, stopped before the joint between two of the square stones on an inner wall, picked out a bit of mortar, threw it at Forbes.

Then the Englishman got the idea.

“Great stuff, old chap! It may work!”

And he, chattering shrilly, ran to the same place, picked out a bit of mortar, hurled it.

Back and forth the two men went, cavorting like huge dogs, running, jumping, and every few minutes pausing to pick a bit of mortar from the same place between the rocks and hurl the soft, crumbing white pebble at the other.

The monkeys in the window chattered shrill glee.

Suddenly one of them dropped, swung from his tail that was looped around the bars, then leaped lightly to the floor. In a mad scamper he went to the exact point in the wall where Phil had been getting mortar, picked out a bit with his wire-strong fingers, and hurled it at one of the monkeys in the window.

Almost on the instant there came a furry flood of dark animals pouring through the window. In a mad kaleidoscope of action they chased each other, stopping to grab mortar from the chink and fling it at each other.

More monkeys came. The men withdrew from the race, leaned back against the wall, panting for air, watching the scampering monkeys.

Phil’s palms were bleeding, his knees raw, but a slow smile of content swept his face.

The monkeys had pulled out all of the mortar that could have been reached by human fingers. Now they were plunging their slender, sinewy arms in between the rocks, picking out little chunks of mortar, flinging them wildly, chattering, scrambling, scampering. And they enjoyed the game.

A monkey snatched a bit of mortar from a different place, getting it where it was more accessible. Phil made a swift kick at the animal. The monkey avoided the kick, stopped to chatter his rage and surprise. But the others continued the game.

Then the chase slowed. The monkeys became interested in prying into the wall. Minutes lengthened into an hour, and still the monkeys worked, exploring, chattering, pulling out mortar. Bit by bit they loosened the mortar all the way around the stone. The mortar became harder as it went deeper into the wall, but the tough little fingers made short work of pinching out bits, dragging it to the floor.

Finally they wearied of the game. One of the monkeys jumped for the window, paused, hesitated a bit, saw the green tops of waving trees, and scampered for the cool forest. Another joined him, and soon the cell was deserted save for the human occupants.

Phil stooped to the floor, began picking up the fine chunks of mortar.

“This comes first,” he said. “We can’t let the guards get suspicious.”

For more than an hour they labored frantically, getting the mortar picked up, throwing it through the bars. At length they had the cell well cleaned, and Phil was able to turn his attention to the stone which had been partially loosened.

He placed his hands against the face of the stone, heaved, grunted, twisted, withdrew his hands and shook his head. There were two red blobs upon the rock where his bleeding palms had strained.

“Still solid. Can’t loosen it a bit, but there’s a lot of mortar gone. I’ll keep tugging, first one direction, then the other. Then you can try it for a while.”

He inserted fingers in the crack in the wall, tugged at the stone, then placed palms against it again and pushed. Alternately he tugged and pushed, pushed and tugged. When he was exhausted Forbes tried it for a while.

“No use, old chap,” remarked Forbes, after a bit of last, straining effort, during which they had crowded their grimed, perspiring faces together to both pull and tug at the stone in unison. “It’s too heavy and it’s still anchored too well. The thing must be two feet square, and no knowing how far back it goes. The mortar gets stronger as it gets back where it’s protected from the air. I have a hunch we’re on a wrong tack.”

The men slipped to the floor, sat slumped against the wall, surveying each other dispiritedly. It had been their one chance and they seemed to have lost.

The sun swung away from the window. The heat became more pronounced. Flies droned lazily. Phil noticed that Forbes was nodding, dozing. His own eyes felt leaden. The lids closed, opened, blinked, and fluttered closed again.

Phil Nickers slept, a fitful sleep of dreams, of irritated slaps at crawling flies that clung to his greasy skin. His eyes opened at length, sleep swollen and bloodshot. His temples throbbed and pounded.

But his first, automatic concern was for that which had awakened him. A single glance told him all he needed to know. A monkey, holding some glittering object in its paw, was racing around the cell. Behind him came half a dozen other monkeys in mad pursuit. The animals paid no attention to the motionless forms of the sleepers. It was the brushing of a furry body against his shoulder that had awakened Phil.

The monkey who held the coveted prize wheeled and dodged, but Phil’s hand, snapping out, caught the animal by the tail.

With a shrill squeak of rage, he turned, and flashed glittering teeth. But that which he had been holding dropped from his paw.

Phil made a grab for it, not realizing what it was, hardly knowing why he had interfered in the chase. He let go the monkey’s tail as he grasped the glittering object. The monkey jumped for the bars, stood in the window, jabbering monkey-curses. The other animals followed him, remained grouped just without the bars.

Phil gasped as he saw what he had secured. It was a diamond ring, set after the fashion of an engagement ring, and it was engraved with Sanskrit characters on the inner circle.

The size of the stone alone was enough to command attention. It was a crystal-clear diamond of the finest water, and light radiated in snapping scintillations from its facets. It was larger than any diamond Phil had ever seen, and more brilliant.

He glanced at the monkeys, wondering where the ring had come from, sensing that it had been pilfered from one of the principals who were to take part in the wedding ceremony.

And then, as he saw the round, inquisitive eyes watching him greedily, Phil conceived a brilliant idea. He took the diamond between thumb and finger, made a quick pass, and thrust his fingers into the chink the monkeys had made in the stone side of their cell.

Apparently the diamond was in his fingers when he thrust his hand to the wall. Actually the diamond had been slipped to his other hand. Therefore, when he slowly withdrew his empty fingers from the dark chink, the gesture was convincing.

Then Phil gazed solemnly at his snoring partner, and smiled, with his face turned toward the window. Then he, too, crawled back against the wall and pretended to sleep.

The monkeys looked at each other.

Such things they could understand. The strange man-creature had stolen the gem from the monkeys, and had now hidden it in that strange dark crack in the wall. Then the man had gone to sleep.

The leading monkey cautiously dropped along the wall, his powerful, furry tail looped about the bars of the window. For several seconds he hung swinging back and forth, while Phil anxiously surveyed him from half-closed eyes.

Then the monkey dropped to the flag floor, and scampered across to the wall. He plunged his hand gropingly within, pulled forth his arm, and inspected that which he held in his grasp. It was nothing but a round piece of dead white mortar. He made a grimace, dropped the bit of mortar to the floor, screwed his forehead into washboard wrinkles and reached again.

The other monkeys trooped into the room.

Phil remained motionless, his eyes closed to mere slits, watching with tense anxiety, praying that Forbes would not awaken and frighten the little workers.

The afternoon sun slanted to the west. The cell became darker. Both men leaned against the wall, breathing regularly, rhythmically. The monkeys worked feverishly. They had apparently seen the gem go in that crack, they had not seen it come out. And they had become fond of the diamond, wanted to survey its glittering surfaces. There was nothing to fear from these two sleepers, and so they pulled out bit after bit of mortar, each monkey thinking he had secured possession of the gem until that which his fingers had closed upon was brought to light.

It was not until dusk approached and Arthur Forbes terminated a snore in a snort, moved, rubbed his eyes, that the monkeys took alarm, scampered off into the gathering shadows.

Phil made a swift leap for the stone.

At the bottom of the wall was a considerable pile of mortar fragments. The monkeys had worked their way well around the stone, searching for their plaything. And each monkey had dug for himself. As a result a dark band showed about the entire outline of the stone.

Phil tugged at the rock, pushed, tugged again. A very faint, crunching sound transmitted itself through the stone.

“I believe it’s working loose. Lend a hand,” hissed Phil.

The two men strained, twisted, pulled, pushed. At length the rock budged slightly on one end. The other was firmly anchored.

“If we keep it up long enough there’s a chance,” agreed Forbes.

There followed hours of sweating labor. The obstinate rock seemed malevolently intelligent in its resistance. The men nipped their fingers, tore nails loose, groped, pushed, pulled, sought for a finger hold. And, at length the rock slid back. They pushed it out, heard the thud with which it fell to the floor.

Phil was first through the opening, worming and twisting, aided by such pressure as Forbes could apply. Then Arthur Forbes, tired, almost exhausted, slipped his feet through the opening, felt Phil’s fingers clutching his ankles.

The mortar on the inside of the wall had set until it was like cement. The hard particles scraped their flesh as they wormed through the hole, accounted for the hours of final effort.

“Seems to be a blind room without a single window,” remarked Phil, keeping his voice in a whisper.

“Wish we had matches,” agreed Forbes, his tone worried. “We haven’t the faintest idea of whether it’s a dungeon, or a snake pit, and we’ve got to hurry — there’s the wedding.”

“There’s the wedding,” agreed Phil. “We can’t be particular about the room. And no matter what’s here it can’t be any worse than what we’ve left. Let’s go.”

“Easy, old chap. This is India, you know, and that whole room with its crumbling mortar and all may be nothing but a trap. These fellows like to get prisoners to kill themselves trying to escape. Let’s make sure. It’s just a little queer, you know, that that diamond ring should have turned up so opportunely. Let’s keep our arms interlaced, and then feel cautiously. There may be a pit in the center of the floor for all we know.”

“Good idea,” agreed Phil. “But we’ve got to work fast. They’ll be coming in to look us over any minute now. And that stone from the wall is as good as written directions telling them where to go to look for us. They know the place, and we don’t.”

With arms interlocked, feeling with outstretched fingers, shrouded in pitch darkness, the men groped their way about the room.

Of a sudden Phil felt his companion stumble, draw back.

“Just as I suspected. There’s a pit in the center of the floor here. Watch out. I nearly fell, would have if it hadn’t been for your arm. Let’s see how far it goes, what it’s like.”

Phil came forward, cautiously, finger tips scraping the floor. Abruptly his arms swept off into black space. He continued to grope about the edge.

“Circular,” he said at length. “Let’s keep working around it. I’ll tear off a bit of cloth from my shirt and leave it here so we’ll know when we get back to the starting point.”

There was the sound of tearing cloth, and then the noise of garments rasping along stone as the two men explored the pit. It was Phil whose exploring fingers found the stairs. They were stone stairs, rounded by years of use. Moving in the darkness, not knowing what was below, their ears attuned for the scraping rustle which would mean the presence of a deadly snake, the two men descended.

Chapter 6 The Halls of Hanuman

For some thirty feet they went down. The stairs circled the pit, swinging in a spiral. At the bottom began the game once more of finger-tip exploration. This time it took them but a matter of seconds to become oriented. They were at the entrance of a walled passageway, arched at the top, some eight feet wide, leading on a gradual slope. Water had oozed through the stones until a green slime had formed over the rocks. There was a damp, dank, stagnant smell, and the darkness teemed with the suggestion of living things.

But only once did they hear the scraping of a scaled body moving over the stones, and that noise grew less, terminated in a long-drawn hiss. The men pressed on, knowing that death lay behind, not knowing what was ahead.

A regular throbbing of the atmosphere seemed to pulse in their blood before their ears became directly conscious of it as sound.

“Tom-toms,” remarked Forbes. “You never hear ’em but what you know you’ve been listening to ’em long before you first heard ’em.”

“Where are they?” asked Phil, turning his head in the darkness, this way and then that, after the manner of a bird listening to a whistle.

“Have to keep going to tell. It’s the hardest sound in the world to locate.”

As they progressed, the sound of the tom-toms grew louder, seemed to come from above them. Phil touched his hand to the side of the passage, and noticed that the walls were now dry and free from the green slime.

“We’ve been underground for a while. Now we’ve climbed back up,” he announced.

“And we must have covered at least half a mile,” said Forbes. “You know I’m wondering—” He broke off and lapsed into silence.

They went for some hundred feet farther, and then a current of air, striking Phil’s left cheek, caused him to stop and investigate.

A door led from the stone passageway. That door had been left slightly ajar, and through the crack came a current of drier air.

Phil thrust his hand into the opening, pulled. Slowly the heavy door creaked back. Ahead was a flight of stairs, and from the top came the first faint light the men had seen since they entered upon the passageway. As they started up, walking cautiously, a sound from above caused them to stop abruptly.

The faint slithering of rhythmic sound could come only from feet descending the stairway. The men exchanged glances in consternation. Perhaps their escape from their cell had been discovered. In that event the searchers might have decided to cover both ends of the passage. Or, on the other hand, the approaching feet might merely belong to some of the priests of Hanuman, who were using the passage as a means of communication with other parts of the temple buildings.

The stairs offered no place where they could conceal themselves, unless they trusted to chance that the others would walk past them in the darkness. And the same was true of the passageway.

Now they could see the feet approaching, faint shadows outlined against the dim light from above. No word was spoken; by faint pressures of the hand alone Nickers conveyed to his companion the idea that but two approached, that they would take their chances on a hand-to-hand encounter in the darkness. It was better to surprise them and attack them than to play fugitive and run into a trap.

They crouched, bracing themselves. The feet of the figures who descended the stairs were now more plainly visible. And Phil’s eyes detected the hairy legs as soon as Arthur Forbes’s hissed warning penetrated the darkness.

One of those who descended was an ape!

Of necessity that changed the plans of the two who crouched in the darkness. They would be no match for the ape. They dropped back, cautiously, a step at a time, feeling their way, trusting to luck that they should make no noise.

As they regained the passage, the darkness above them was split by the beam of an electric flashlight which cut through the darkness, illuminated the arched passageway, the stairs, the dancing shadows.

The men braced themselves for an uneven conflict. In close quarters the great strength of the giant ape would make their own efforts puny by comparison.

And then a voice purred and rippled through a guttural dialect which was strange to the listeners. But they recognized the sound of the voice. It was Murasingh, talking to the ape-man as one would chat with an intimate friend.

Was it pose or could the ape-man understand the language? The men glanced at each other, and then stiffened. For the light flickered its beam at their very feet. The sound of shuffling feet was upon them, and the strange pair literally brushed past.

It was the ape-man who saw them. Perhaps it was that his eyes were more accustomed to darkness, perhaps some keen sense of smell enabled him to detect the presence of others.

He uttered a shrill sound sequence which seemed to be like words, sounded startlingly like the dialect in which Murasingh had been talking.

The men who crouched in the darkness of the passageway could not understand the words, but there could be no mistaking the sudden shrill tone in which they were uttered.

Phil Nickers raised his foot, swung it as swift and true as a football player punting the ball down a muddy field. He aimed his toe for a point above the flashlight, and connected with the wrist of Murasingh.

The light snapped out, clattered against the stones of the passageway. And all became struggle, noise, confusion. The ape-man gave short, shrill screams of rage, perhaps mingled with terror. Murasingh, not knowing the numbers nor identity of those who opposed him, fought wildly in the darkness.

Phil swung his fist chin high, in a long, pivoting swing, had the satisfaction of feeling a tingle of pain run up his forearm as the blow connected.

There was the sound of a falling body, and then a hairy arm shot out through the darkness, grazed his own body. Fingers that were as steel gripped the shoulder of his coat.

Phil flung himself forward and down, swung a futile blow with his left. The mighty arm did not so much as quiver when Phil’s weight hurled against it. But the cloth gave way and Nickers sprawled free on the floor of the passageway.

But he sensed that other great arm was busy, not concerning itself with him, but reaching for his companion. There was the swish of rapid motion above, the sound of feet dragging over the flags. Something slid over Phil’s sprawling figure. He flung up his hands and encountered the shod feet of Arthur Forbes. The man was being dragged as though he was a sack of meal, the feet trailing behind.

Phil rolled to hands and knees, braced himself for a tackle, and then his hands closed upon something cool and metallic. In an instant he realized that he had the flashlight he had kicked from Murasingh’s hand. Would it work?

He grasped it, pressed the button. A reassuring beam of light stabbed the darkness. And Phil thrust that stabbing beam directly into the face of the ape.

Man or animal, enough of the animal remained in the ape to give him a fear of that sudden light. Phil had a picture stamped indelibly upon his memory of a hairy ape, the face almost devoid of hair, pale and thin of skin, lips twisted back from glittering fangs, nostrils that were merely two dark, quivering holes, eyes that were wide, dark-pupilled, moist with fright.

And in that swift stab of light he saw also Arthur Forbes’s white face, drained of color, lifeless, with that hairy hand reaching at his throat, ready to tear out the flesh.

The light made the ape recoil, jump back. His hairy arms flashed up, using his hands as shields to keep the blinding light from his eyes. And Arthur Forbes, released from the grasp of the man-beast, thudded to the stone flags.

As the ape-man recoiled, Phil pushed the light ahead, taking every inch he could gain, keeping his advantage pressed home. A huddled something on the stones moved, tripped Phil, sent him sprawling. Hands clutched at his arm, pulled the flashlight down.

Phil had a brief glimpse of Murasingh, lying upon the stones, his face white with pain but grim with determination. Then there was the flash of a steel blade, and a knife bit through the cloth of his coat, razored the skin apart, sent a warm trickle of blood flowing down his arm.

Phil felt himself tottering forward, and doubled his left fist, sent it crashing down ahead of him, a stiff-armed jolt with all the impetus of his falling body behind it.

The fist grazed the countenance of the man below. The flashlight was tom from Phil’s grasp, and the two locked on the floor in a hand-to-hand struggle. The ape-man, terrified by the cold fire that had been plunged in his face, was running awkwardly back, down the passage, toward the room from which Phil and his companion had escaped.

Forbes was still unconscious. The struggle was hand to knife, finger to throat, between the fanatic and Phil Nickers. Murasingh seemed intent upon plunging the knife to a vital spot. But he was underneath, fighting against the crushing weight of the man above. And Phil pressed that advantage to the limit, keeping on top, groping for the hand with the knife, smashing home vicious short-arm jabs with his fist.

At length his questing fingers caught the lean wrist that was wielding the knife. Phil’s fingers tightened, gave a twist, and the knife slithered along the dark stone.

Murasingh sought his throat. Phil’s fingers were first to their goal. He tightened his grip. The struggles of the man below grew less violent, suddenly subsided. Fearing a trap, Phil continued the pressure for a moment or two more, then released his grip. Murasingh lay still.

Phil turned to Forbes, found that there was a pulse, and pulled his companion to a semi-upright position against the side of the passageway. Then he returned to Murasingh, a recollection of the automatic with which the fanatic had been armed, sending his fingers questing through the man’s clothing.

And he found it, gripped the precious metal in his damp hand with a strange sense of power. He groped about until his hands once more closed upon the flashlight. Now he was willing to meet the foe in any numbers, under any conditions.

A rustle of motion apprised him of Forbes’s motions. He swung the flashlight, encountered dazed eyes.

“It’s all right, old man. How d’you feel?”

“Like a chunk of meat that’s been through the sausage grinder. I’m groggy, but guess I’m all right aside from that. What happened?”

“I frightened the ape with the flashlight. He wasn’t the one that acted as judge, but another. Guess he’s the one that was to be the bridegroom. He’s gone for help. Murasingh is out, but he gave us a flashlight and automatic before he went. Feel up to walking? We’ve got to stop that wedding, you know.”

For answer, Forbes staggered to his feet.

“I’m just shaken up a bit. We’re going to stop that wedding, even if we have to walk in and fight the outfit.”

They ascended the stairs, trapped between two flanking dangers. Up the passage lay the menace of being trapped within cramped quarters. Down the passage lay the menace of the hideous ape-man. From up the stairs came the booming of the great drums. As they pounded, the rhythmic chant of throbbing sound which entered the pulsations of the blood, seemed to stir the very soul with monotonous repetition of sound.

The light grew stronger as they ascended. From a corridor ahead came a mellow glow. There seemed to be no particular light source. It was merely that there was light. The hallway glowed with a soft radiance that was almost phosphorescence. So might the interior of a rotting log seem to a tiny grub.

Phil stopped, surprised at the lighting effect. And, as he stood there — dimly conscious of the weird surroundings, the boom of drums, and the shuffle of many feet upon stone floors — the scream of a woman knifed the night.

There was a wild terror in that scream, a blood-curdling horror that stabbed the eardrums. Forbes straightened, turned toward the source of that sound. Phil gripped the automatic, and there sounded the flutter of filmy draperies. A woman rushed out from a side corridor, saw the men, paused in terror, and turned wide eyes back over her shoulder.

From behind her came the sound of a low laugh, demoniacal, triumphant. The woman turned again and her terror-darkened eyes surveyed the two men.

Of a sudden, wild incredulity flooded her countenance.

Phil heard a choking gasp at his side.

“Audrey!” muttered Forbes, and the word was as a prayer.

“Arthur!” she cried.

He went to her in a swift flash of motion that took no heed of threatening dangers. “Arthur,” she said once more, as his arms folded about her, and the tone was a caress.

“Come back and be married. Come back and be married!” chanted the dry voice of the old hag.

“Come and be married! Awwwrk!”

There was the slippety-slop of feet on the stone.

The girl’s eyes darkened once more with terror. Phil could see her blue lips whispering rapid words to Arthur Forbes, saw him stiffen. And then there was the pad-pad of swift feet, and the hairy arm of a man-ape reached out.

A body followed the arm, a grimacing face. Phil recognized the ape as being the one he had encountered in the passageway below. By some secret side-exit he had returned to the rooms above.

But now there was no fear upon the bestial countenance, merely a savage leer of animal triumph. At the sight of Arthur Forbes, his lips curled back from glittering fangs. For a moment he stood so.

Phil raised the automatic.

A bounding ball of swift motion cut across the sights. With a gasp of surprise Phil realized what had happened. Arthur Forbes had moved to the attack.

His left and right flashed squarely into the face of the snarling beast, staggered it. But those long, hairy arms, so heavily muscled that they seemed as the legs of a lion, swept up, encircled the man in a hideous embrace. The snarling face of the enraged beast was thrust close. The bared fangs snapped for the throat.

Forbes jerked his head back and to one side, dodged the menace of that first spring. The girl screamed again. Pattering feet ran down the corridor.

Forbes struggled valiantly, sought to free one of his arms, to press back against the crushing pressure that enfolded him. As well have sought to struggle with a steam hammer. With a gloating snarl of cruel bloodlust upon its countenance, the ape freed one hairy arm, reached upward with talon fingers, and cruelly sought to pluck out his adversary’s eyes, one at a time.

But that motion gave Phil the chance he sought. The line of the sights ceased to show a blur of bodies struggling for life, and showed instead merely a furry body with white face twisted into an expression of fiendish rage.

He squeezed the trigger.

The hall reverberated to the roar of the explosion. The hairy body staggered, then stood erect. One of the arms clutched at the side of the head.

Arthur Forbes wormed free. The ape staggered forward. Forbes braced himself, swung a terrific right, catching the beast full upon the chin. It wobbled backward, and Forbes sprang to the side of the girl.

“This way,” called Phil, sprinting to their side, pointing down a side passageway.

Over their shoulder he could see a confused throng. There was the old man with the wizened countenance, his rheumy eyes expressionless, glittering darkly, the old woman with the parrot perched perpetually upon her shoulder; and the swarming natives, robed as for some strange ceremony. Behind them were the drummers, and behind them, in a room that radiated soft light, a horde of monkeys, sitting upon perches, tails twisting and twining.

The couple ran down the corridor. Phil remained behind, the automatic menacing those who followed. A native lowered a deadly knife, charged, chanting some weird song.

Phil’s finger squeezed the trigger. The native stumbled back, clutching his shoulder, stumbled, fell sprawling. The others swarmed over him, steady, relentless. The corridors reechoed the force of the explosion, sending it back multiplied a hundredfold.

The old man was the leader, and the natives seemed to look to his leadership, suiting their pace to his. After that one wild rush by the native, the throng advanced in a steady manner, as remorseless as the welling of an incoming tide. The old man was making such time as his withered limbs permitted. The others suited their pace to his.

“It’s a blind corridor, that’s why they’re taking their time, old chap,” said Forbes, looking ahead.

Phil’s grip tightened. He knew there were only a few more shells in the gun. Before that revengeful horde, seeking his death in such a remorseless, deliberate fashion, he would be torn to pieces. Anything was better than that. And there was the thought of the girl.

“The last shots are for the three of us,” she pleaded softly. “You don’t know the cruelty of them. Please.”

But a line in the masonry caught Phil’s eye. He acted upon a hunch, placed his shoulder against it and pushed. The wall seemed to yield, and than a door swung back upon well-oiled hinges.

“This way,” he called, and pushed the others within.

Two of the natives, barefooted, dark, the light rippling along powerful muscles, dashed forward, knives flashing back.

One of the knives glittered through the air, thudded against the rock wall and tinkled to the pavement. The other was never thrown. Once more Phil’s finger squeezed the trigger, and the man with upraised knife faltered, stumbled, and slumped forward.

Chapter 7 Flight

It was a low exclamation from the girl that attracted Phil’s attention as the door swung back into place and a bar clicked into the masonry.

Audrey Kent was bending over a bed; and on the bed, a gold and stone affair, studded with gems, covered with gold tapestry, lay the slumbering form of Jean Cray son.

The men exchanged swift glances. The impediment of that unconscious figure would greatly lessen their chances of escape. The three might escape. The three, burdened with a sleeping, drugged girl, would be almost certain to face recapture.

But that single glance sufficed for each to know the mind of the other.

Phil tossed the automatic to Forbes.

“You and Miss Kent try to make it. I’ll follow.”

And he stooped to the bed, slipped strong arms under the sleeper, throwing the gold tapestry about her.

“We stick together,” grumbled Forbes in a low voice. “If it’s death we take it standing up and smiling.”

It was then that Audrey Kent seemed to recover from the sheer panic that had gripped her. She laughed, a low, rippling laugh.

“Don’t be silly, Mr. Whoever-you-are.”

There was a window in the wall, open, unbarred. Soft night breezes flicked the delicate curtains which filmed the opening. Forbes thrust his head out.

“Can do,” he said. “It’s not over six feet. I’ll hand the girls down.”

He vaulted lightly. The thud of his landing feet could be heard in the room. Audrey Kent followed, dropped into his waiting arms. Phil lowered the sleeping form, and jumped. From the temple came the sound of a long wail, a cry of sheer animal anguish.

They ran across the bare ground, not knowing where they were going or for what purpose, surrendering themselves to blind flight, trying to leave behind them the memory of that nightmare, escape the crowd of fanatical pursuers.

A door swung open, a long streamer of light oblonged a golden path across the field. Phil, looking up from his labored running, saw the glint of reflected light from some silvery object.

“The cabin plane,” he yelled. “Quick. It’s our only chance!”

They altered their course. From the door came a pell-mell of figures that sent dancing shadows across the oblong of golden light. At their lead was a terrific spectacle, the ape-man who had sat in judgment, his mighty chest thrust forward, head up, jaw set, lips curled back from bare fangs.

He ran, not as a man, but as an ape, assisting himself in the running by touching the ground with the bare knuckles of his hands, swinging along by the aid of those mighty arms. And he made two feet to every one that the crowd behind him covered.

Forbes reached the plane, slammed open the door, bundled in the girl, jumped for the starter. There sounded the mechanism of whirring springs. The motor throbbed into life.

It was then that Phil Nickers noticed the ropes running from wing tips to stakes, saw the blocks under the landing wheels. There was no time to communicate his discovery, no time to waste in first getting the drugged girl into the cabin.

He laid her along a wing, dived underneath, pulling blocks out, ripping rope from driven stakes. Their only chance was that Forbes could send the plane in a ground run to the other end of the field, leaving the pursuers behind, then turn and take off. As for Phil, he felt that he could only fight as long as possible, delay matters for a few seconds.

Phil emerged from under the far wing tip, pointed to the unconscious figure on the wing, waved his hands to urge the plane on, knowing that Forbes could stop at the other end of the field to get the sleeping girl in the cabin.

And then he turned toward his pursuers.

He expected to hear the song of the motor gather in volume. Forbes could taxi the plane sufficiently to finish warming up the motor. And with the engine he could dodge the pursuers. But there was no increase in the steady roar of the motor. Forbes was waiting. That would be the girl’s order.

Phil dashed for the door of the cabin.

The great ape-man was before him. A mighty arm plucked him from the step as a man might pluck an orange from a tree. Phil was hurled back, spinning. Before him loomed the solid front of advancing foe. The ape reached out great arms, scooped from the wing the figure that was rolled in golden tapestries.

And Phil, recovering his balance, unarmed, charged in a low tackle, straight for the ape. Forbes flung open the door of the cabin, thrust out the barrel of the automatic, pulled the trigger.

There was no report. The firing pin clicked with a metallic noise of hollow futility.

The ape staggered at Phil’s impact, then regained his balance. One arm encircled the golden tapestry. The other dropped, caught Phil’s neck in a crushing embrace. And then the ape turned toward those who were almost upon them.

His face twisted up in the agony of that superhuman grip which was literally crushing the muscles of his neck to jelly, ripping apart the vertebrae, Phil saw the white face of the ape-man. It was illuminated from the open doorway. Each change of facial expression was indelibly stamped upon Phil’s memory.

The ape looked at the old man, the natives, then at the slumbering features of the drugged girl, at the white, horror-frozen features of those in the plane, so near and yet so far from liberty.

Of a sudden the eyes lost their brute ferocity. The face was flooded with an expression such as comes to a human being in a moment of great renunciation. The ape-man shot out a hairy paw, literally flung Nickers into the plane. Then he extended the drugged figure, gently thrust her within.

And then they were upon him, a frenzied throng of shouting madmen. But the ape-man held them back, his great chest flung outward. The motor roared into increased speed, and the plane moved slowly and majestically out upon the field, out of the ribbon of light that came from the open door, out into the darkness of the calm night.

The ape-man turned, and Phil was able to see that there were tears in his eyes. But the expression of self-sacrifice still stamped his features with a something that was not only human, but more than human.

Then the throng swept past him, clutching hands tried for the tail assembly. One man, more swift than the others, reached for one of the wing tips. But the prop had swirled up a vortex of seething air, thick with dust. The dust-cloud swept into the eyes of the pursuers. The current of wind held them back even as the plane gathered speed.

And, just before the dust-cloud swirled about the lone form of the giant ape, he swung up one arm, in a gesture of farewell.

The plane swept down the field. Phil had grasped the throttles, his strained neck muscles aching with pain, his eyes seeming to protrude from their sockets. But his trained fingers guided the plane with a great sweep, into a huge circle.

He had no time to get the direction of what wind there might be. He needed to warm up the motor a few more degrees. And he must guard against crashing into the trees which lined the field. How far did he dare go? Would the foe chase after him on the inside of a circle and head him off? He could only take a chance.

He cut the plane in a series of ground antics like the zigzag of a huge bumblebee with one wing gone. Droning, snarling, ripping through the night, the plane skidded and twisted. The engine temperature rose. Phil pulled back on the stick. The wheels left the ground. Directly below appeared a light, a sea of upturned faces, clutching hands. Somehow the field had been flooded with light, disclosing the plane, the enemy. And the plane had got off just in time, for the clutching fingers barely missed the tips of the wings. One or two caught the bar of the landing wheels, but the terrific speed tore it from their grasp. Had those fingers caught a wing tip, however, the story might have been different.

The plane wobbled as it was, then zoomed upward. A row of black tree tops appeared ahead, swept toward them. But the plane leaped upward like a bird, the tree tops were below, and the motor sang a song of roaring power.

Phil took his direction from the stars, headed back upon a blind course. He was flying through the night as a fish might swim in a dark sea. Overhead were the glittering points of stars. Below was a great blotch of darkness, broken only by a fast-disappearing square of golden light. That light was filled with dancing shadows, bounded by the sides of great buildings, gold letters wrought in the solid stone, forming some Sanskrit sentence.

And in the center of that lighted pandemonium stood a solemn figure, apart from the rest, head bowed upon mighty chest in sorrow. It was the ape who was not a man, nor yet an ape. The animal that had surrendered victory for something that was higher and better.

The blob of light became a small circle, no larger than a dime, then slipped behind, faded, reappeared, and vanished forever. The plane roared on. The lights illuminated the instrument board, showed the various gauges and speed indicators. By reflection it showed the ovals of blurred, strained faces, peering into the night.

Phil caught Forbes’s eye, gave a forced, strained smile, and received a wan smile in return.

“I wish we could have taken that ape!” shouted Forbes.

Phil nodded. His mind was filled with the events of the past twenty-four hours. And he knew that the sudden flood of lights on that landing field omened danger. Murasingh had another plane, a lighter, faster plane, armed. Perhaps he had several planes there.

But the darkness gave them their hope of salvation. If it would only mist up with a fog he could sit back relieved. From time to time he glanced toward the east, anxiously.

The motor roared on. The east glowed with a soft light. The horn of the old moon slipped up over the horizon. Ahead showed fleecy clouds, seemingly like balls of soft cotton, drifting slowly between the plane and the ground. The glare of the moon tinged them with gold and black shadows.

And then it came. The other plane had evidently been following a compass course, watching, waiting. The rising moon had betrayed its quarry. A sudden snapping sound marked the indication of a hole in the cabin. The glass rippled into a series of radiating cracks. Another snapping sound marked another hole.

Phil snapped the plane over on one wing, sideslipped, twisted, rolled, and zoomed. The other plane was in sight now, a huge shadow of the night, swooping as an owl might swoop upon a mouse. From its bow came a spitting series of ruddy flashes.

Phil swung the plane, gave an anxious glance toward the clouds, then sent the plane sideslipping for the nearest.

The other plane followed, ripping machine gun bullets into the night. The cloud sent up welcoming streamers. Then the moonlight and stars vanished, swallowed in a sea of moisture. Phil kicked the rudder, swung the stick, glanced at the instruments, seeking to read the turn and bank indicator, get back to an even keel.

The plane righted, wobbled drunkenly, shot through the cloud and dived for the earth. Phil straightened her out, looked for another cloud. One loomed ahead and lower. From the white mist behind them shot the other plane, straight on their tail.

They flung into the second cloud, and Phil resorted to a desperate maneuver. He flung the stick over, kicked the rudder, banked, turned, whipped back the stick, and zoomed. For a moment he held himself braced. They had flipped about in a complete turn almost in a vertical bank. They stood a big chance of crashing into the pursuing plane.

But the danger passed. They shot out into the night, climbed back up into the first cloud, and then Phil turned at right angles. The cloud was thicker in this direction. They flew for more than a minute before they again debouched into the weak moonlight. The pursuing plane was nowhere in sight.

Minute after minute passed while they roared on this new course and then Phil swung sharply, back to the south. The tachometer showed the motor was performing at its best, hitting like a top. The air was bumpy along the clouds, but the plane rode through the bumps, handling splendidly. Phil knew that nothing vital had been touched by those deadly bullets.

Below appeared a cluster of twinkling lights. Farther ahead showed another blob of golden illumination. They were approaching settlements.

A mountain, jagging the glowing sky with distinctive turrets, gave Phil a landmark. Forbes pointed out a gray sweep of landscape and Phil nodded. The song of the motor died from a deep-throated roar to a monotone of droning power as the nose dipped and the ship settled toward the ground.

Below could be seen the terraced grounds of Crayson’s house. Farther on appeared the sweep of the field, somewhat to the west of where Phil had expected to find it. But the distinctive landmark of the towering mountain had served as an unfailing guide.

The plane settled, turned in a spiral, circled the field, and then came on in for an easy landing. A tawny native ran out to grasp the wing tip.

As he saw the occupants of the plane emerge into the moonlight, his features underwent a spasm of surprise. Then they settled into emotionless impassivity. He made no comment in answer to Phil’s question in English, or to Arthur Forbes’s sharp comment in the native tongue.

They lifted the still slumbering figure, carried her to the dark house. Through a back entrance they slipped and encountered a pacing figure, haggard of eye, blue of lip, pale of skin.

Arthur Forbes explained.

Colonel Crayson heard him in utter silence, then turned to Audrey Kent.

“Can you tell how you happened to arrive at that place?”

She shook her head, slowly, thoughtfully.

“I guess it’s just the same story of being drugged and kidnaped.”

“Humph!” snorted the colonel. “We’ll take it up with the authorities.”

“The thing that can’t help but impress you,” went on the girl, “is their utter sincerity. The old woman I’m not so sure about. She’s just a cracked old witch. But the rest are devoting their lives to a cause. Aside from the living exile of it, they treated me as a queen. Of course, they were grooming me, trying to get me to understand their life work, their ambitions, and there was the wedding that was to come—”

She broke off and shuddered.

“I think, Colonel,” she went on, “it’d be better not to let Jean know anything. Just let her sleep it off and ask no questions.”

The colonel fell to pacing the floor again, but it seemed that years had fallen from his shoulders. His lips were colored again, his eyes more clear.

“This is India,” he said at length.

“And those people are sincere,” muttered the girl. “After all, who can say there’s not something in their work?”

And the thoughts of all three turned to that last sight they had had of the man-ape, standing with head bowed in sorrow, while about him raged the boiling turmoil of maddened priests.

The rays of morning light shrouded the room on a soft, gray cloak. From without came the long-drawn drone of a high flying motor.

“Murasingh!” muttered Phil.

Colonel Crayson went to his desk, buckled on a heavy service revolver.

“We’ll meet him,” he said simply, but his eyes were pools of glassy menace.

They stepped out into the freshness of the dawn.

“Do you suppose there’s any possibility he thinks we’re shot down?” asked Forbes.

But Phil with puckered brows was watching the golden ribbons of streaming dawn, and the little man speck that was circling high overhead.

The plane circled, swung, hung poised.

The rim of golden sun that slipped over the eastern hills sent soft rays bathing the circling plane.

“I wonder—” began the girl, but broke off as the plane dipped forward, slowly circled down in a spiral that became tighter and tighter.

Phil knew, tried to pull the girl away. But she remained, calm, steady, watching the plane spinning down.

It crashed half a mile away. Murasingh was a gentleman in that. He did not bring the shock of his tragic death home too closely to the Crayson house.

They persuaded the girl to go back. The men went to the plane. That which had been Murasingh was a huddled bundle of shapeless flesh. But the paper which he had pasted to the instrument board had survived the crash. Upon it appeared a brief message:

Murasingh, high priest of the secret cult of Hanuman, leader in the two-thousand-year long experiment to return an ape to human status, had offered his life in payment of his crimes against the British law, a mute plea not to let his acts bring disaster on the great experiment he held higher than life itself.

Phil turned back to the house, his soul sickened, face pale. The words of the girl came to him. “They’re so utterly sincere.”

At the entrance he met Jean Crayson, with sleep-dilated eyes.

“Something crashed? I was asleep and I felt the earth jar. It shook the house. In some manner I seem to have had a horrible nightmare, and... oh, who left me this?”

She looked with uncomprehending eyes at the golden tapestry that shrouded her limbs, then sank into a chair.

“A funny dream,” she said, and slipped off to sleep.

Phil gazed down at her face, noticed the peculiar contour of the eyes. After all, there was a something about them that reminded him faintly of the round eyes of the man-ape.

He reached in his pocket, pulled out the diamond ring with the strange characters engraved in its golden circlet.

Moved by some strange impulse, he stooped and pressed the ring upon the sleep-limpened fingers of the girl’s left hand.

Then he tiptoed from the room.