orning. They wished him to accompany him; but the
ape-man had no heart for the society of any. Jungle life had
encouraged taciturnity in him. His sorrow had deepened this to a
sullen moroseness that could not brook even the savage companionship of
the ill-natured baboons.

Brooding and despondent he took his solitary way into the deepest
jungle. He moved along the ground when he knew that Numa was abroad
and hungry. He took to the same trees that harbored Sheeta, the
panther. He courted death in a hundred ways and a hundred forms. His
mind was ever occupied with reminiscences of Meriem and the happy years
that they had spent together. He realized now to the full what she had
meant to him. The sweet face, the tanned, supple, little body, the
bright smile that always had welcomed his return from the hunt haunted
him continually.

Inaction soon threatened him with madness. He must be on the go. He
must fill his days with labor and excitement that he might forget--that
night might find him so exhausted that he should sleep in blessed
unconsciousness of his misery until a new day had come.

Had he guessed that by any possibility Meriem might still live he would
at least have had hope. His days could have been devoted to searching
for her; but he implicitly believed that she was dead.

For a long year he led his solitary, roaming life. Occasionally he
fell in with Akut and his tribe, hunting with them for a day or two; or
he might travel to the hill country where the baboons had come to
accept him as a matter of course; but most of all was he with Tantor,
the elephant--the great gray battle ship of the jungle--the
super-dreadnaught of his savage world.

The peaceful quiet of the monster bulls, the watchful solicitude of the
mother cows, the awkward playfulness of the calves rested, interested,
and amused Korak. The life of the huge beasts took his mind,
temporarily from his own grief. He came to love them as he loved not
even the great apes, and there was one gigantic tusker in particular of
which he was very fond--the lord of the herd--a savage beast that was
wont to charge a stranger upon the slightest provocation, or upon no
provocation whatsoever. And to Korak this mountain of destruction was
docile and affectionate as a lap dog.

He came when Korak called. He wound his trunk about the ape-man's body
and lifted him to his broad neck in response to a gesture, and there
would Korak lie at full length