an has not yet discovered,
where deer and antelope and zebra, giraffe and elephant, buffalo,
rhinoceros, and the other herbivorous animals of central Africa
abound unmolested by none but their natural enemies, the great
cats which, lured here by easy prey and immunity from the rifles
of big-game hunters, swarm the district.

She had fled for an hour or two, perhaps, when her attention was
arrested by the sound of animals moving about, muttering and growling
close ahead. Assured that she had covered a sufficient distance
to insure her a good start in the morning before the blacks could
take to her trail, and fearful of what the creatures might be,
she climbed into a large tree with the intention of spending the
balance of the night there.

She had no sooner reached a safe and comfortable branch when she
discovered that the tree stood upon the edge of a small clearing
that had been hidden from her by the heavy undergrowth upon the
ground below, and simultaneously she discovered the identity of
the beasts she had heard.

In the center of the clearing below her, clearly visible in the
bright moonlight, she saw fully twenty huge, manlike apes--great,
shaggy fellows who went upon their hind feet with only slight
assistance from the knuckles of their hands. The moonlight glanced
from their glossy coats, the numerous gray-tipped hairs imparting
a sheen that made the hideous creatures almost magnificent in their
appearance.

The girl had watched them but a minute or two when the little band
was joined by others, coming singly and in groups until there were
fully fifty of the great brutes gathered there in the moonlight.
Among them were young apes and several little ones clinging tightly
to their mothers' shaggy shoulders. Presently the group parted to
form a circle about what appeared to be a small, flat-topped mound
of earth in the center of the clearing. Squatting close about this
mound were three old females armed with short, heavy clubs with
which they presently began to pound upon the flat top of the earth
mound which gave forth a dull, booming sound, and almost immediately
the other apes commenced to move about restlessly, weaving in and
out aimlessly until they carried the impression of a moving mass
of great, black maggots.

The beating of the drum was in a slow, ponderous cadence, at first
without time but presently settling into a heavy rhythm to which
the apes kept time with measured tread and swaying bodies.