crouching for the charge; and then John
Clayton rose with a sudden start and faced them.

The sight that met his eyes must have frozen him with horror, for
there, within the door, stood three great bull apes, while behind them
crowded many more; how many he never knew, for his revolvers were
hanging on the far wall beside his rifle, and Kerchak was charging.

When the king ape released the limp form which had been John Clayton,
Lord Greystoke, he turned his attention toward the little cradle; but
Kala was there before him, and when he would have grasped the child she
snatched it herself, and before he could intercept her she had bolted
through the door and taken refuge in a high tree.

As she took up the little live baby of Alice Clayton she dropped the
dead body of her own into the empty cradle; for the wail of the living
had answered the call of universal motherhood within her wild breast
which the dead could not still.

High up among the branches of a mighty tree she hugged the shrieking
infant to her bosom, and soon the instinct that was as dominant in this
fierce female as it had been in the breast of his tender and beautiful
mother--the instinct of mother love--reached out to the tiny
man-child's half-formed understanding, and he became quiet.

Then hunger closed the gap between them, and the son of an English lord
and an English lady nursed at the breast of Kala, the great ape.

In the meantime the beasts within the cabin were warily examining the
contents of this strange lair.

Once satisfied that Clayton was dead, Kerchak turned his attention to
the thing which lay upon the bed, covered by a piece of sailcloth.

Gingerly he lifted one corner of the shroud, but when he saw the body
of the woman beneath he tore the cloth roughly from her form and seized
the still, white throat in his huge, hairy hands.

A moment he let his fingers sink deep into the cold flesh, and then,
realizing that she was already dead, he turned from her, to examine the
contents of the room; nor did he again molest the body of either Lady
Alice or Sir John.

The rifle hanging upon the wall caught his first attention; it was for
this strange, death-dealing thunder-stick that he had yearned for
months; but now that it was within his grasp he scarcely had the
temerity to seize it.

Cautiously he approached the thing, ready to flee precipitately should
it speak in its deep roaring tones, as he had heard it speak before,
the last wo