!"

"Yes." Kirby pointed jerkily. "In the middle of the procession, there,
surrounded by his caciques!"

The Duca!

Yet his approach did not hold Kirby. Directly behind the priests were
emerging now from the jungle a new company of ape-men. Squinting his
eyes, Kirby saw that two of them were lugging on a pole across their
shoulders a curious burden--a sort of monstrous bird cage of barked
withes. Crouched on the floor of the cage in a little motionless, white
heap--

But Kirby closed his eyes. Ivana, cowering against him, gulped as though
she were going to be sick. Nini leaned down from above and looked at
them with dilated eyes. Although none of them spoke, all knew that they
had found Naida at last.

Kirby was the first to pull himself up. Opening his eyes, he stared long
at the white gowned, motionless shape within the cage. Next summing up
the whole situation--the cage surrounded by an armed band, the clearing
crammed with a thousand ape-men--he shook his head. Afterward, he made a
quick movement with his hands.

Ivana, seeing that movement, seeing the expression on his face, started
out of her daze.

"No! No! Oh, there must be some other way out for her! There must--"

* * * * *

Her cry, half a shriek, did not change Kirby's look. What he had done
with his hands was to throw a shell into the chamber of his rifle. Now
he held the rifle grimly, ready to carry it to his shoulder.

The procession with the bodyguard of ape-men at its head, the renegade
Duca and his caciques following next, and the cage bringing up the rear,
advanced relentlessly down the lane to the central stage. The
gargoyle-faced ape-man who held the stage alone danced with increasing
wildness, writhing, twisting, with weird suppleness. Upon the dancing
giant the procession bore down, and before him it finally halted.

The halt left the Duca and the king ape facing each other, and the ape
ended his dance. After each had given a salute made by raising their
arms, both Duca and the king ape turned to face the creatures who were
standing with the cage slung across their shoulders. Whereupon the
bearers of the cage advanced with it until they stood between two of the
tall poles. There, facing the ominous hole in the center of the
clearing, with a pole on either side of them, the ape-men lowered the
cage to the ground.

Kirby felt his last hope and courage ebbing. Now he noticed that each
pole was equipped w