We had imagined that our pursuers, the ape-men, knew nothing of ourbrush-wood hiding-place, but we were soon to find out our mistake. There was no sound in the woods--not a leaf moved upon the trees,and all was peace around us--but we should have been warned by ourfirst experience how cunningly and how patiently these creaturescan watch and wait until their chance comes. Whatever fate may bemine through life, I am very sure that I shall never be nearer deaththan I was that morning. But I will tell you the thing in its due order.

We all awoke exhausted after the terrific emotions and scantyfood of yesterday. Summerlee was still so weak that it was aneffort for him to stand; but the old man was full of a sort ofsurly courage which would never admit defeat. A council washeld, and it was agreed that we should wait quietly for an houror two where we were, have our much-needed breakfast, and thenmake our way across the plateau and round the central lake to thecaves where my observations had shown that the Indians lived. We relied upon the fact that we could count upon the good wordof those whom we had rescued to ensure a warm welcome fromtheir fellows. Then, with our mission accomplished and possessinga fuller knowledge of the secrets of Maple White Land, we shouldturn our whole thoughts to the vital problem of our escape and return. Even Challenger was ready to admit that we should then have doneall for which we had come, and that our first duty from that timeonwards was to carry back to civilization the amazing discoverieswe had made.

We were able now to take a more leisurely view of the Indianswhom we had rescued. They were small men, wiry, active, andwell-built, with lank black hair tied up in a bunch behind theirheads with a leathern thong, and leathern also were theirloin-clothes. Their faces were hairless, well formed, andgood-humored. The lobes of their ears, hanging ragged andbloody, showed that they had been pierced for some ornamentswhich their captors had torn out. Their speech, thoughunintelligible to us, was fluent among themselves, and as theypointed to each other and uttered the word "Accala" many timesover, we gathered that this was the name of the nation. Occasionally, with faces which were convulsed with fear andhatred, they shook their clenched hands at the woods round andcried: "Doda! Doda!" which was surely their term for their enemies.

What do you make of them, Challenger?" asked Lord John. "One thingis very clear to me, and that is that the little chap with the frontof his head shaved is a chief among them."

It was indeed evident that this man stood apart from the others,and that they never ventured to address him without every sign ofdeep respect. He seemed to be the youngest of them all, and yet,so proud and high was his spirit that, upon Challenger laying hisgreat hand upon his head, he started like a spurred horse and,with a quick flash of his dark eyes, moved further away fromthe Professor. Then, placing his hand upon his breast andholding himself with great dignity, he uttered the word "Maretas"several times. The Professor, unabashed, seized the nearest Indianby the shoulder and proceeded to lecture upon him as if he were apotted specimen in a class-room.

"The type of these people," said he in his sonorous fashion,"whether judged by cranial capacity, facial angle, or any othertest, cannot be regarded as a low one; on the contrary, we mustplace it as considerably higher in the scale than many SouthAmerican tribes which I can mention. On no possible suppositioncan we explain the evolution of such a race in this place. For that matter, so great a gap separates these ape-men from theprimitive animals which have survived upon this plateau, that itis inadmissible to think that they could have developed where wefind them."

"Then where the dooce did they drop from?" asked Lord John.

"A question which will, no doubt, be eagerly discussed in everyscientific society in Europe and America," the Professor answered. "My own reading of the situation for what it is worth--" he inflatedhis chest enormously and looked insolently around him at the words--"is that evolution has advanced under the peculiar conditions ofthis country up to the vertebrate stage, the old types survivingand living on in company with the newer ones. Thus we find suchmodern creatures as the tapir--an animal with quite a respectablelength of pedigree--the great deer, and the ant-eater in thecompanionship of reptilian forms of jurassic type. So much is clear. And now come the ape-men and the Indian. What is the scientificmind to think of their presence? I can only account for it by aninvasion from outside. It is probable that there existed ananthropoid ape in South America, who in past ages found his wayto this place, and that he developed into the creatures we haveseen, some of which"--here he looked hard at me--"were of anappearance and shape which, if it had been accompanied bycorresponding intelligence, would, I do not hesitate to say,have reflected credit upon any living race. As to the IndiansI cannot doubt that they are more recent immigrants from below. Under the stress of famine or of conquest they have made theirway up here. Faced by ferocious creatures which they had neverbefore seen, they took refuge in the caves which our young friendhas described, but they have no doubt had a bitter fight to holdtheir own against wild beasts, and especially against the ape-menwho would regard them as intruders, and wage a merciless war uponthem with a cunning which the larger beasts would lack. Hence thefact that their numbers appear to be limited. Well, gentlemen,have I read you the riddle aright, or is there any point whichyou would query?"

Professor Summerlee for once was too depressed to argue, thoughhe shook his head violently as a token of general disagreement. Lord John merely scratched his scanty locks with the remark thathe couldn't put up a fight as he wasn't in the same weight or class. For my own part I performed my usual role of bringing things downto a strictly prosaic and practical level by the remark that oneof the Indians was missing.

"He has gone to fetch some water," said Lord Roxton. "We fittedhim up with an empty beef tin and he is off."

"To the old camp?" I asked.

"No, to the brook. It's among the trees there. It can't be morethan a couple of hundred yards. But the beggar is certainlytaking his time."

"I'll go and look after him," said I. I picked up my rifle andstrolled in the direction of the brook, leaving my friends to layout the scanty breakfast. It may seem to you rash that even forso short a distance I should quit the shelter of our friendlythicket, but you will remember that we were many miles fromApe-town, that so far as we knew the creatures had not discoveredour retreat, and that in any case with a rifle in my hands I hadno fear of them. I had not yet learned their cunning or their strength.

I could hear the murmur of our brook somewhere ahead of me, butthere was a tangle of trees and brushwood between me and it. I was making my way through this at a point which was just out ofsight of my companions, when, under one of the trees, I noticedsomething red huddled among the bushes. As I approached it, Iwas shocked to see that it was the dead body of the missing Indian. He lay upon his side, his limbs drawn up, and his head screwedround at a most unnatural angle, so that he seemed to be lookingstraight over his own shoulder. I gave a cry to warn my friendsthat something was amiss, and running forwards I stooped overthe body. Surely my guardian angel was very near me then, forsome instinct of fear, or it may have been some faint rustleof leaves, made me glance upwards. Out of the thick greenfoliage which hung low over my head, two long muscular armscovered with reddish hair were slowly descending. Another instantand the great stealthy hands would have been round my throat. I sprang backwards, but quick as I was, those hands werequicker still. Through my sudden spring they missed a fatalgrip, but one of them caught the back of my neck and the otherone my face. I threw my hands up to protect my throat, and thenext moment the huge paw had slid down my face and closed over them. I was lifted lightly from the ground, and I felt an intolerablepressure forcing my head back and back until the strain upon thecervical spine was more than I could bear. My senses swam, butI still tore at the hand and forced it out from my chin. Looking up I saw a frightful face with cold inexorablelight blue eyes looking down into mine. There was somethinghypnotic in those terrible eyes. I could struggle no longer. As the creature felt me grow limp in his grasp, two white caninesgleamed for a moment at each side of the vile mouth, and the griptightened still more upon my chin, forcing it always upwards and back. A thin, oval-tinted mist formed before my eyes and little silverybells tinkled in my ears. Dully and far off I heard the crack ofa rifle and was feebly aware of the shock as I was dropped to theearth, where I lay without sense or motion.

I awoke to find myself on my back upon the grass in our lairwithin the thicket. Someone had brought the water from thebrook, and Lord John was sprinkling my head with it, whileChallenger and Summerlee were propping me up, with concern intheir faces. For a moment I had a glimpse of the human spiritsbehind their scientific masks. It was really shock, rather thanany injury, which had prostrated me, and in half-an-hour, inspite of aching head and stiff neck, I was sitting up and readyfor anything.

"But you've had the escape of your life, young fellah my lad,"said Lord Roxton. "When I heard your cry and ran forward, andsaw your head twisted half-off and your stohwassers kickin' inthe air, I thought we were one short. I missed the beast in myflurry, but he dropped you all right and was off like a streak. By George! I wish I had fifty men with rifles. I'd clear out thewhole infernal gang of them and leave this country a bit cleanerthan we found it."

It was clear now that the ape-men had in some way marked us down,and that we were watched on every side. We had not so much tofear from them during the day, but they would be very likely torush us by night; so the sooner we got away from theirneighborhood the better. On three sides of us was absoluteforest, and there we might find ourselves in an ambush. But onthe fourth side--that which sloped down in the direction of thelake--there was only low scrub, with scattered trees andoccasional open glades. It was, in fact, the route which I hadmyself taken in my solitary journey, and it led us straight forthe Indian caves. This then must for every reason be our road.

One great regret we had, and that was to leave our old campbehind us, not only for the sake of the stores which remainedthere, but even more because we were losing touch with Zambo, ourlink with the outside world. However, we had a fair supply ofcartridges and all our guns, so, for a time at least, we couldlook after ourselves, and we hoped soon to have a chance ofreturning and restoring our communications with our negro. He had faithfully promised to stay where he was, and we had not adoubt that he would be as good as his word.

It was in the early afternoon that we started upon our journey. The young chief walked at our head as our guide, but refusedindignantly to carry any burden. Behind him came the twosurviving Indians with our scanty possessions upon their backs. We four white men walked in the rear with rifles loaded and ready. As we started there broke from the thick silent woods behind usa sudden great ululation of the ape-men, which may have been acheer of triumph at our departure or a jeer of contempt atour flight. Looking back we saw only the dense screen of trees,but that long-drawn yell told us how many of our enemies lurkedamong them. We saw no sign of pursuit, however, and soon we hadgot into more open country and beyond their power.

As I tramped along, the rearmost of the four, I could not helpsmiling at the appearance of my three companions in front. Was thisthe luxurious Lord John Roxton who had sat that evening in theAlbany amidst his Persian rugs and his pictures in the pinkradiance of the tinted lights? And was this the imposingProfessor who had swelled behind the great desk in his massivestudy at Enmore Park? And, finally, could this be the austere andprim figure which had risen before the meeting at the ZoologicalInstitute? No three tramps that one could have met in a Surreylane could have looked more hopeless and bedraggled. We had, itis true, been only a week or so upon the top of the plateau, butall our spare clothing was in our camp below, and the one weekhad been a severe one upon us all, though least to me who had notto endure the handling of the ape-men. My three friends had alllost their hats, and had now bound handkerchiefs round their heads,their clothes hung in ribbons about them, and their unshaven grimyfaces were hardly to be recognized. Both Summerlee and Challengerwere limping heavily, while I still dragged my feet from weaknessafter the shock of the morning, and my neck was as stiff as a boardfrom the murderous grip that held it. We were indeed a sorry crew,and I did not wonder to see our Indian companions glance back at usoccasionally with horror and amazement on their faces.

In the late afternoon we reached the margin of the lake, and aswe emerged from the bush and saw the sheet of water stretchingbefore us our native friends set up a shrill cry of joy andpointed eagerly in front of them. It was indeed a wonderfulsight which lay before us. Sweeping over the glassy surface wasa great flotilla of canoes coming straight for the shore uponwhich we stood. They were some miles out when we first saw them,but they shot forward with great swiftness, and were soon so nearthat the rowers could distinguish our persons. Instantly athunderous shout of delight burst from them, and we saw them risefrom their seats, waving their paddles and spears madly in the air. Then bending to their work once more, they flew across theintervening water, beached their boats upon the sloping sand,and rushed up to us, prostrating themselves with loud cries ofgreeting before the young chief. Finally one of them, an elderlyman, with a necklace and bracelet of great lustrous glass beadsand the skin of some beautiful mottled amber-colored animal slungover his shoulders, ran forward and embraced most tenderly theyouth whom we had saved. He then looked at us and asked somequestions, after which he stepped up with much dignity andembraced us also each in turn. Then, at his order, the wholetribe lay down upon the ground before us in homage. Personally Ifelt shy and uncomfortable at this obsequious adoration, and Iread the same feeling in the faces of Roxton and Summerlee, butChallenger expanded like a flower in the sun.

"They may be undeveloped types," said he, stroking his beardand looking round at them, "but their deportment in thepresence of their superiors might be a lesson to some of ourmore advanced Europeans. Strange how correct are the instinctsof the natural man!"

It was clear that the natives had come out upon the war-path, forevery man carried his spear--a long bamboo tipped with bone--hisbow and arrows, and some sort of club or stone battle-axe slungat his side. Their dark, angry glances at the woods from whichwe had come, and the frequent repetition of the word "Doda," madeit clear enough that this was a rescue party who had set forth tosave or revenge the old chief's son, for such we gathered thatthe youth must be. A council was now held by the whole tribesquatting in a circle, whilst we sat near on a slab of basalt andwatched their proceedings. Two or three warriors spoke, andfinally our young friend made a spirited harangue with sucheloquent features and gestures that we could understand it all asclearly as if we had known his language.

"What is the use of returning?" he said. "Sooner or later thething must be done. Your comrades have been murdered. What ifI have returned safe? These others have been done to death. There is no safety for any of us. We are assembled now and ready."Then he pointed to us. "These strange men are our friends. They are great fighters, and they hate the ape-men even as we do. They command," here he pointed up to heaven, "the thunder andthe lightning. When shall we have such a chance again? Let us goforward, and either die now or live for the future in safety. How else shall we go back unashamed to our women?"

The little red warriors hung upon the words of the speaker, andwhen he had finished they burst into a roar of applause, wavingtheir rude weapons in the air. The old chief stepped forward tous, and asked us some questions, pointing at the same time tothe woods. Lord John made a sign to him that he should wait foran answer and then he turned to us.

"Well, it's up to you to say what you will do," said he; "for mypart I have a score to settle with these monkey-folk, and if itends by wiping them off the face of the earth I don't see thatthe earth need fret about it. I'm goin' with our little red palsand I mean to see them through the scrap. What do you say,young fellah?"

"Of course I will come."

"And you, Challenger?"

"I will assuredly co-operate."

"And you, Summerlee?"

"We seem to be drifting very far from the object of thisexpedition, Lord John. I assure you that I little thought when Ileft my professional chair in London that it was for the purposeof heading a raid of savages upon a colony of anthropoid apes."

"To such base uses do we come," said Lord John, smiling. "But weare up against it, so what's the decision?"

"It seems a most questionable step," said Summerlee,argumentative to the last, "but if you are all going, I hardlysee how I can remain behind."

"Then it is settled," said Lord John, and turning to the chief henodded and slapped his rifle.

The old fellow clasped our hands, each in turn, while his mencheered louder than ever. It was too late to advance that night,so the Indians settled down into a rude bivouac. On all sidestheir fires began to glimmer and smoke. Some of them who haddisappeared into the jungle came back presently driving a youngiguanodon before them. Like the others, it had a daub of asphaltupon its shoulder, and it was only when we saw one of the nativesstep forward with the air of an owner and give his consent to thebeast's slaughter that we understood at last that these greatcreatures were as much private property as a herd of cattle, andthat these symbols which had so perplexed us were nothing morethan the marks of the owner. Helpless, torpid, and vegetarian,with great limbs but a minute brain, they could be rounded up anddriven by a child. In a few minutes the huge beast had been cutup and slabs of him were hanging over a dozen camp fires,together with great scaly ganoid fish which had been speared inthe lake.

Summerlee had lain down and slept upon the sand, but we othersroamed round the edge of the water, seeking to learn somethingmore of this strange country. Twice we found pits of blue clay,such as we had already seen in the swamp of the pterodactyls. These were old volcanic vents, and for some reason excited thegreatest interest in Lord John. What attracted Challenger, onthe other hand, was a bubbling, gurgling mud geyser, where somestrange gas formed great bursting bubbles upon the surface. He thrust a hollow reed into it and cried out with delight like aschoolboy then he was able, on touching it with a lighted match,to cause a sharp explosion and a blue flame at the far end ofthe tube. Still more pleased was he when, inverting a leathernpouch over the end of the reed, and so filling it with the gas,he was able to send it soaring up into the air.

"An inflammable gas, and one markedly lighter than the atmosphere. I should say beyond doubt that it contained a considerableproportion of free hydrogen. The resources of G. E. C. are notyet exhausted, my young friend. I may yet show you how a greatmind molds all Nature to its use." He swelled with some secretpurpose, but would say no more.

There was nothing which we could see upon the shore which seemed tome so wonderful as the great sheet of water before us. Our numbersand our noise had frightened all living creatures away, and save fora few pterodactyls, which soared round high above our heads whilethey waited for the carrion, all was still around the camp. But itwas different out upon the rose-tinted waters of the central lake. It boiled and heaved with strange life. Great slate-colored backsand high serrated dorsal fins shot up with a fringe of silver, andthen rolled down into the depths again. The sand-banks far outwere spotted with uncouth crawling forms, huge turtles, strangesaurians, and one great flat creature like a writhing, palpitatingmat of black greasy leather, which flopped its way slowly to the lake. Here and there high serpent heads projected out of the water, cuttingswiftly through it with a little collar of foam in front, and along swirling wake behind, rising and falling in graceful,swan-like undulations as they went. It was not until one ofthese creatures wriggled on to a sand-bank within a few hundredyards of us, and exposed a barrel-shaped body and huge flippersbehind the long serpent neck, that Challenger, and Summerlee, whohad joined us, broke out into their duet of wonder and admiration.

"Plesiosaurus! A fresh-water plesiosaurus!" cried Summerlee. "That I should have lived to see such a sight! We are blessed,my dear Challenger, above all zoologists since the world began!"

It was not until the night had fallen, and the fires of oursavage allies glowed red in the shadows, that our two men ofscience could be dragged away from the fascinations of thatprimeval lake. Even in the darkness as we lay upon the strand,we heard from time to time the snort and plunge of the hugecreatures who lived therein.

At earliest dawn our camp was astir and an hour later we hadstarted upon our memorable expedition. Often in my dreams have Ithought that I might live to be a war correspondent. In whatwildest one could I have conceived the nature of the campaignwhich it should be my lot to report! Here then is my firstdespatch from a field of battle:

Our numbers had been reinforced during the night by a fresh batchof natives from the caves, and we may have been four or fivehundred strong when we made our advance. A fringe of scouts wasthrown out in front, and behind them the whole force in a solidcolumn made their way up the long slope of the bush country untilwe were near the edge of the forest. Here they spread out intoa long straggling line of spearmen and bowmen. Roxton andSummerlee took their position upon the right flank, whileChallenger and I were on the left. It was a host of the stoneage that we were accompanying to battle--we with the last word ofthe gunsmith's art from St. James' Street and the Strand.

We had not long to wait for our enemy. A wild shrill clamorrose from the edge of the wood and suddenly a body of ape-menrushed out with clubs and stones, and made for the center of theIndian line. It was a valiant move but a foolish one, for thegreat bandy-legged creatures were slow of foot, while theiropponents were as active as cats. It was horrible to see thefierce brutes with foaming mouths and glaring eyes, rushing andgrasping, but forever missing their elusive enemies, while arrowafter arrow buried itself in their hides. One great fellow ranpast me roaring with pain, with a dozen darts sticking from hischest and ribs. In mercy I put a bullet through his skull, andhe fell sprawling among the aloes. But this was the only shotfired, for the attack had been on the center of the line, and theIndians there had needed no help of ours in repulsing it. Of allthe ape-men who had rushed out into the open, I do not think thatone got back to cover.

But the matter was more deadly when we came among the trees. For anhour or more after we entered the wood, there was a desperatestruggle in which for a time we hardly held our own. Springing outfrom among the scrub the ape-men with huge clubs broke in upon theIndians and often felled three or four of them before they couldbe speared. Their frightful blows shattered everything upon whichthey fell. One of them knocked Summerlee's rifle to matchwoodand the next would have crushed his skull had an Indian notstabbed the beast to the heart. Other ape-men in the trees aboveus hurled down stones and logs of wood, occasionally droppingbodily on to our ranks and fighting furiously until they were felled. Once our allies broke under the pressure, and had it not been forthe execution done by our rifles they would certainly have takento their heels. But they were gallantly rallied by their oldchief and came on with such a rush that the ape-men began in turnto give way. Summerlee was weaponless, but I was emptying mymagazine as quick as I could fire, and on the further flank weheard the continuous cracking of our companion's rifles.

Then in a moment came the panic and the collapse. Screaming andhowling, the great creatures rushed away in all directionsthrough the brushwood, while our allies yelled in their savagedelight, following swiftly after their flying enemies. All thefeuds of countless generations, all the hatreds and cruelties oftheir narrow history, all the memories of ill-usage andpersecution were to be purged that day. At last man was to besupreme and the man-beast to find forever his allotted place. Fly as they would the fugitives were too slow to escape from theactive savages, and from every side in the tangled woods we heardthe exultant yells, the twanging of bows, and the crash and thudas ape-men were brought down from their hiding-places in the trees.

I was following the others, when I found that Lord John andChallenger had come across to join us.

"It's over," said Lord John. "I think we can leave the tidying upto them. Perhaps the less we see of it the better we shall sleep."

Challenger's eyes were shining with the lust of slaughter.

"We have been privileged," he cried, strutting about like agamecock, "to be present at one of the typical decisive battlesof history--the battles which have determined the fate ofthe world. What, my friends, is the conquest of one nationby another? It is meaningless. Each produces the same result. But those fierce fights, when in the dawn of the ages thecave-dwellers held their own against the tiger folk, or theelephants first found that they had a master, those were the realconquests--the victories that count. By this strange turn offate we have seen and helped to decide even such a contest. Now upon this plateau the future must ever be for man."

It needed a robust faith in the end to justify such tragic means. As we advanced together through the woods we found the ape-menlying thick, transfixed with spears or arrows. Here and there alittle group of shattered Indians marked where one of theanthropoids had turned to bay, and sold his life dearly. Always infront of us we heard the yelling and roaring which showed thedirection of the pursuit. The ape-men had been driven back totheir city, they had made a last stand there, once again they hadbeen broken, and now we were in time to see the final fearfulscene of all. Some eighty or a hundred males, the lastsurvivors, had been driven across that same little clearing whichled to the edge of the cliff, the scene of our own exploit twodays before. As we arrived the Indians, a semicircle ofspearmen, had closed in on them, and in a minute it was over,Thirty or forty died where they stood. The others, screaming andclawing, were thrust over the precipice, and went hurtling down,as their prisoners had of old, on to the sharp bamboos sixhundred feet below. It was as Challenger had said, and the reignof man was assured forever in Maple White Land. The males wereexterminated, Ape Town was destroyed, the females and young weredriven away to live in bondage, and the long rivalry of untoldcenturies had reached its bloody end.

For us the victory brought much advantage. Once again we wereable to visit our camp and get at our stores. Once more also wewere able to communicate with Zambo, who had been terrified bythe spectacle from afar of an avalanche of apes falling from theedge of the cliff.

"Come away, Massas, come away!" he cried, his eyes starting fromhis head. "The debbil get you sure if you stay up there."

"It is the voice of sanity!" said Summerlee with conviction. "We have had adventures enough and they are neither suitable toour character or our position. I hold you to your word, Challenger. From now onwards you devote your energies to getting us out ofthis horrible country and back once more to civilization."