hes.

Suddenly the manape Keller swept his great hairy arm out between the
bars and snatched the tube from Bentley's hand. With a cry of mortal
anguish Bentley recoiled from the cage. God! Now all was lost if the
manape clicked on the deadly ray and swept it over the room.

Before he could formulate a plan of action, the manape pressed the
fatal button. With a cry Bentley threw himself across the room to
where Ellen lay unconscious, his only thought to somehow protect her
from the tube.

- - -

But the manape, Keller, swung the ray upon the other apes with the
human minds, and they dissolved into ashy nothingness with bewildering
rapidity. The keen mind of Keller was doing what he knew must be done
for the good of everyone concerned.

Numbed with horror, Bentley saw the ray directed on Morton and
Stanley. They fell silently and without protest....

Keller clicked off the button and looked over at Bentley. He alone
remained of Barter's frightful experiment. He alone remained and it
seemed that he was trying to tell Bentley something ... asking him to
now take the tube and turn it full on the body which housed his human
brain.

While Bentley hesitated, the manape bent down and placed the tube on
the floor of the cage, the muzzle pointing inward. With a clumsy
motion of a long hairy arm he reached out and snicked on the button,
then placed himself within its deadly range. Keller vanished and the
ray bit into the wall back of the cage; began to eat through.

Bentley leaped to his feet and tore across the floor. He plunged his
trembling hand through the bars of the cage, switched off the button
and lifted the tube.

There were the remaining normal apes. They could have been saved for
transportation to the zoo, but horror was on Bentley and he used the
tube again, and yet again....

And there were the keys. He pulled them from their slots in the
porcelain slab, in case there should be other "Stanley-Morton-Cleves"
abroad of whom he knew nothing....

He turned the tube against the red lights and the green lights.

Then he turned the tube upward and held it steadily. He watched the
charred hole grow bigger and deeper in the high ceiling....

When at last he heard the approaching clang of the fire engine bells
and the screaming triumph of police sirens, he carefully snicked off
the button of the tube and returned to lift the form of Ellen in arms
that were strong to hold her.

(_The end._)