e
in the great jungle when our Korak is away. What will he bring us this
time, eh? Another shining band of metal for Meriem's ankle? Or a
soft, doeskin loin cloth from the body of a black she? He tells me
that it is harder to get the possessions of the shes, for he will not
kill them as he does the males, and they fight savagely when he leaps
upon them to wrest their ornaments from them. Then come the males with
spears and arrows and Korak takes to the trees. Sometimes he takes the
she with him and high among the branches divests her of the things he
wishes to bring home to Meriem. He says that the blacks fear him now,
and at first sight of him the women and children run shrieking to their
huts; but he follows them within, and it is not often that he returns
without arrows for himself and a present for Meriem. Korak is mighty
among the jungle people--our Korak, Geeka--no, MY Korak!"

Meriem's conversation was interrupted by the sudden plunge of an
excited little monkey that landed upon her shoulders in a flying leap
from a neighboring tree.

"Climb!" he cried. "Climb! The Mangani are coming."

Meriem glanced lazily over her shoulder at the excited disturber of her
peace.

"Climb, yourself, little Manu," she said. "The only Mangani in our
jungle are Korak and Akut. It is they you have seen returning from the
hunt. Some day you will see your own shadow, little Manu, and then you
will be frightened to death."

But the monkey only screamed his warning more lustily before he raced
upward toward the safety of the high terrace where Mangani, the great
ape, could not follow. Presently Meriem heard the sound of approaching
bodies swinging through the trees. She listened attentively. There
were two and they were great apes--Korak and Akut. To her Korak was an
ape--a Mangani, for as such the three always described themselves. Man
was an enemy, so they did not think of themselves as belonging any
longer to the same genus. Tarmangani, or great white ape, which
described the white man in their language, did not fit them all.
Gomangani--great black ape, or Negro--described none of them so they
called themselves plain Mangani.

Meriem decided that she would feign slumber and play a joke on Korak.
So she lay very still with eyes tightly closed. She heard the two
approaching closer and closer. They were in the adjoining tree now and
must have discovered her, for they had halted. Why were they so quiet?
Why d