Astounding Stories, June, 1931 Part 8

He felt like clutching at the girl and racing with her into the hazards of the jungle. But he remembered the anthropoids out there, and Barter's peculiar domination of the brutes.

Barter was now watching the two with interest, studying them in turn speculatively, unmindful of the impertinence of his studious regard and silence.

"I have it!" he said. "Will you two be good enough to excuse me? You will need rest, I am sure. I am going away for a little time, but I shall return shortly after dark. Make yourselves at home. But remember--don't enter that room!"

"You need not worry," said Bentley grimly. "I sincerely hope we take our next meal in some other room."

Barter laughed and pa.s.sed out of the door without a backward glance.

From the jungle immediately afterward came the drumming of the great apes, and now and again the laughter of Barter--high-pitched at first, but dying away as Barter apparently moved off into the jungle.

"Ellen," said Bentley quickly, "I don't know what's going on here, but I'm sure it's something sinister and awful. Let's take a look at our rooms. If there isn't a door between them which can be left open, then you'll have to spend the night in my room while I remain awake on guard."

"I was thinking of the same thing, Lee," she whispered. "This place gives me the horrors. Barter's a.s.sociation with the apes is a terrible thing."

Hand in hand they stepped to the door Barter had designated as that of Ellen Estabrook's. Bentley opened it cautiously, heaving a sigh of relief to find it empty. He scarcely knew what he had expected. There was a connecting door between the two rooms, open, and they peered into the chamber Bentley was to occupy.

Back they came to her room, to stand before a window which gave onto a shadowed little clearing in the rear of the cabin.

"Look!" whispered Ellen.

There was a single mound of earth, with a white cross set over it, on which was the single word: Mangor.

It might have been a word in some native dialect. It might have been some native's name. It might have been anything, but, whatever it was, it added to the sinister atmosphere which seemed to hang like an evil mist over the home of Caleb Barter.

"That settles it, Ellen," he said. "You'll spend the night in my room."

Ellen retired in Bentley's room, closing the door which led to the adjoining room, and Bentley walked back and forth in the reception room, waiting for Barter to return. When darkness fell he lighted the lamps he had previously located. Their odor caused him to guess that the fuel they used was some sort of animal fat. In the strange glow from the lamps, his shadow on the walls, as he walked to and fro, was grotesque, terrible--and at times a grim reminder of the great apes.

It caused him to consider how, after all, human beings were akin to gorillas and chimpanzees. Somehow, now, it was a horrible thought.

The night wore on and Bentley's stride became faster. Now and again he peered into the girl's room. She was sleeping the sleep of utter exhaustion and he did not waken her. Bentley felt it was near midnight when Barter returned, his return heralded by a strange commotion in the clearing, and the frightful drumming of the great apes--or at least _one_ great ape. Bentley shuddered as the animal behind the locked door answered the drumming challenge with a drumming thunder of his own.

Barter came in, and Bentley accosted him at once.

"See here, Barter," he began. "I don't like it here. There's something strange going on in this clearing. Miss Estabrook and I wish to leave immediately in the morning! And that grave behind the cabin, who or what is it?"

Barter studied the almost trembling Bentley for all of a minute.

"That grave?" he said at last, with silken softness. "It's the grave of a jungle savage. He died in the interest of science. As for you, you'll leave here when I bid you, and not before, understand? I've a guardian outside that would tear both of you limb from limb."

But Bentley caught and held fast to certain words the scientist had spoken.

"The savage died in the interest of science?" he said. "What do you mean?"

Barter smiled his red-lipped smile.

"I took the savage and Manape, who wasn't called Manape then, and administered an anesthetic of my own invention. You've heard that I was a master of trephining? No matter if you haven't heard, the whole world will know soon! While the native and the ape were under anesthesia I transferred their brains. I put the black man's brain in the skull pan of the ape, and the ape's brain in that of the savage.

The ape lived--and he is Manape. The savage, with the ape's brain, died, and I buried him in that grave you asked about!"

With a cry of horror Bentley turned and fled from Barter as though the man had been His Satanic Majesty himself. He entered the room with Ellen and barred the door behind him. He likewise barred the door which led to that other room. Now in total darkness it was all he could do from clambering on the bed where Ellen slept, and begging her to touch him--anything--if only to prove to him that there still were sane creatures left in a mad world.

Outside Barter laughed.

"Oh, Bentley," he called after a long interval of silence, "do you like the odor of violets? Goodnight, and pleasant dreams!"

What had Barter meant?

Again a.s.suring himself that the connecting door could not be opened if anything or anybody tried to enter that way, Bentley flung himself down before the door which gave on the reception room. He had no intention of sleeping. But in spite of himself he dozed off, though he fought against sleep with all his will.

Strange, but as he gradually slipped away into unconsciousness he was cognizant of the odor of violets--like invisible tentacles which reached through the very door and wrapped themselves gently about him.

His last conscious thought was of Manape, the ape with the brain of a jungle savage. But in spite of the vague feeling of horror he could not fight off the desire for sleep.

CHAPTER IV

_Grim Awakening_

Bentley returned to consciousness with a dull headache. He rose to a sitting posture and looked dully about him. Dimwittedly he tried to recall all that had pa.s.sed since he had last been awake. He knew he had gone to sleep under the door in the room where Ellen had slept.

Yet he was not there now. He peered about him.

He recognized the room.

Yonder was the table where they had eaten last night, or yesterday afternoon. Yonder was the bed he guessed Barter customarily used, and he shuddered a little as he fancied a man sleeping in the same room with that ghastly travesty which was neither ape nor human--Manape.

The creature's name was simple, being simply "man" and "ape" joined together to fit the creature perfectly--too perfectly. Barter's bed had been slept in, but Barter was nowhere to be seen. Where was he?

How came Bentley in this room? Barter had forbidden him to enter the place at all, on any pretext whatever. Had he walked in his sleep, drawn by some freak of his subconscious mind into the room of Manape?

Slowly, afraid to look yet forced by something outside himself, he turned his eyes toward the corner where the beast's cage was.

The cage was empty!

The door of it was open!

Stunned by his discovery, wondering what had happened during the night, Bentley looked about him. He noticed the long narrow table at the end of the cage, and the white covering it bore. He recognized it instantly as an operating table, and wondered afresh.

Where was Barter?

Bentley raised his voice to shout the scientist's name. But before he could himself recognize the syllables of the scientist's name, through the whole room rang the bellowing challenge of a giant anthropoid ape.

Bentley cowered down fearfully and looked around him. Where was the ape that had uttered that frightful noise? The sound had broken in that very room, yet save for himself the room was empty.

Bentley turned his head as he heard someone fumbling with the door.