a taste of the open fields? And if Romulus so had
reasoned, was it a sense of chivalry or a desire for companionship that
led him to the rescue of this one weaker and more unfortunate than he?

He went cautiously to the fence, and put through his hand and touched
Moses. The lad, much pleased, took the hand of the ape in his, and at
once there was a good understanding between them. Romulus teased the
boy to follow him, by going away a few steps and looking back, and then
going and pulling his hand through the fence--doing this
repeatedly--until his intention worked its way into the idiot's mind.
The fence was too high to be scaled; but now that the desire for
freedom had invaded his being, Moses crushed the pickets with his huge
feet and emerged from his prison.

These two, then, were at large. The heavens were lifted higher and the
horizon was extended. At a convenient ditch they slaked their thirst,
and in an orchard they found ripe apricots; but what can satisfy the
hunger of an ape or an idiot? The world was wide and sweet and
beautiful, and the exquisite sense of boundless freedom worked like
rich old wine in unaccustomed veins. These all brought infinite delight
to Romulus and his charge as over the fields they went.

I will not tell particularly of all they did that wild, mad, happy
afternoon, while drunk and reeling with freedom. I might say in passing
that at one place they tore open the cage of a canary-bird swinging in
a cherry-tree out of sight of the house, and at another they unbuckled
the straps which bound a baby in a cart, and might have made off with
it but for fear of arrest; but these things have no relation to the
climax of their adventures, now hastening to accomplishment.

When the sun had sunk lower in the yellow splendor of the west and the
great nickel dome of the observatory on Mount Hamilton had changed from
silver to copper, the two revellers, weary and now hungry again, came
upon a strange and perplexing place. It was a great oak with its long,
cone-shaped shadow pointed towards the east and the cool depths of its
foliage that first attracted them. About the tree were mounds with
wooden head-boards, which wiser ones would have known the meaning of.
But how could an ape or an idiot know of a freedom so sweet and silent
and unencompassed and unconditional as death? And how could they know
that the winners of so rich a prize should be mourned, should be wetted
with tears, should be placed i