ith a rope which passed through a hole near its top,
like a thread through the eye of a needle. And while he stared at the
dangling ropes, the ape-men made one end of each fast to a ring in the
top of the cage. The next instant they leaped back, and began to heave
at the other end of the lines.

From the drums came a quicker pounding, a more head-splitting volume of
thunder. Over all the ape-people who watched the show, passed a shiver
of what seemed to be whole-souled, ecstatic satisfaction. Slowly, as the
two ape-men heaved hard, the cage swung off the ground, and slowly rose
higher and higher into the moonlit air.

* * * * *

When finally the thing hung high above the heads of the multitude,
swaying midway between its tall supports, the ape-men who had done the
hoisting fastened their lines to cleats on the poles. Then they turned
to the Duca and the giant king who stood behind them, executed a queer,
lumbering bow, and fell back to the rear.

The next moment it seemed as though every creature in the clearing--men
and those who were only half men--had gone crazy. The king flung himself
into the air as if he were a mass of bounding rubber. Following his
lead, the whole assembly let out howls that drowned even the drums, and
then began to sway, to squirm, to leap, even as their king was doing
before them.

The caciques and the Duca joined in the madness of foul dancing as
heartily as any there. Their eyes were flaming, their long robes
flapping, their beards streaming.

On his perch in the tree Kirby muttered an oath which was lost, swept
away like a breath, in the shrieking turmoil of sound. Then he turned to
Ivana.

"They've brought Naida here to sacrifice her."

"But _why_?" Ivana's sweet face was frozen in lines of horror. "I've
been able to guess what was going to happen to her. But--_sacrifice_.
Why will it be that?"

"Don't you see?" Looking up to include Nini, Kirby found his hands
quivering against his rifle. "It is easy to understand. In the temple
yesterday, what the Duca hoped to do was to kidnap most, or all, of the
girls for the ape-people. But he was able to get only Naida. The first
result was that the ape-men started to quarrel over the one girl. From
what Gori says, trouble started on all sides at once. It became
inadvisable to let Naida live. So the Duca, in his shrewdness, planned a
sacrifice. By sacrificing Naida, he rids himself of a source of
contention