to be twisted about and held at arm's length. Then he
shouted to his boys to come and kill the stranger. In response a dozen
strange blacks entered the tent. They, too, were powerful,
clean-limbed men, not at all like the mangy crew that followed the
Swedes.

"We have had enough foolishness," said the stranger to Malbihn. "You
deserve death, but I am not the law. I know now who you are. I have
heard of you before. You and your friend here bear a most unsavory
reputation. We do not want you in our country. I shall let you go
this time; but should you ever return I shall take the law into my own
hands. You understand?"

Malbihn blustered and threatened, finishing by applying a most
uncomplimentary name to his captor. For this he received a shaking
that rattled his teeth. Those who know say that the most painful
punishment that can be inflicted upon an adult male, short of injuring
him, is a good, old fashioned shaking. Malbihn received such a shaking.

"Now get out," said the stranger, "and next time you see me remember
who I am," and he spoke a name in the Swede's ear--a name that more
effectually subdued the scoundrel than many beatings--then he gave him
a push that carried him bodily through the tent doorway to sprawl upon
the turf beyond.

"Now," he said, turning toward Meriem, "who has the key to this thing
about your neck?"

The girl pointed to Jenssen's body. "He carried it always," she said.

The stranger searched the clothing on the corpse until he came upon the
key. A moment more Meriem was free.

"Will you let me go back to my Korak?" she asked.

"I will see that you are returned to your people," he replied. "Who
are they and where is their village?"

He had been eyeing her strange, barbaric garmenture wonderingly. From
her speech she was evidently an Arab girl; but he had never before seen
one thus clothed.

"Who are your people? Who is Korak?" he asked again.

"Korak! Why Korak is an ape. I have no other people. Korak and I
live in the jungle alone since A'ht went to be king of the apes." She
had always thus pronounced Akut's name, for so it had sounded to her
when first she came with Korak and the ape. "Korak could have been
kind, but he would not."

A questioning expression entered the stranger's eyes. He looked at the
girl closely.

"So Korak is an ape?" he said. "And what, pray, are you?"

"I am Meriem. I, also, am an ape."

"M-m," was the stranger's only oral