All I desired now was that he would be able to use the same species of disarming logic on the morrow, when eighty-seven eager old men began clamoring for their new glands.
[CHAPTER XVI]
THE ANCIENTS CAST LOTS
By eight o'clock the following morning we had stored, in ice-packed vacuum flasks, twenty-two pairs of strong, active glands (eighteen culled from gentlemen and four from ladies). In return for their mainsprings of youth, so to speak, the gorillas had unfortunately to content themselves with goat glands, a much inferior article, but as Gran'pa so aptly said: "Half a life is better than none."
Leaving the poor brutes on board until we returned, by which time they would be convalescent, we set out, in a cool steady breeze, for Windhuk, a little over one hundred miles away and lying 5,000 feet above sea level.
Our 'planes flew evenly and swiftly over the narrow coastal sand belt, and then the great sand dunes, and finally the hilly country that gradually ascends towards the immense plateau of the interior.
Physically, the journey was uneventful and tame after our many jungle flights; but psychologically, it was one of the most romantic that could be imagined.
We were carrying Youth and Life, Happiness and Power—the veritable concentrated essence of being—monkey glands. Gods we were, moving through the high heavens for the benefit of the little humans who toiled and grew weary and old on the green lands beneath. Gods we were, soaring above the tempest and lightning of the mountain sides.
Even Bellerophon, aflight on his winged Pegasus, was no more godlike than we. For were we not going forth to fight the terrible chimæra of Old Age—a much more formidable and elusive monster than the mythological creature which threatened Lycia.
Our foe dwelt not in one country, but in all the lands of the earth. It arose with the first dim speck of life, striving slowly and ruthlessly against Youth and the beauty of Youth. It stole the roses from the maiden's cheek, the lustre from her eye, the fleetness from her limbs, the gold from her hair, the grace from her movements, and the swiftness of thought from her brain.