QUEST IS SURPRISED AT FINDING THE STOLEN NECKLACE IN THE BLACK BOX.
The Professor nodded deliberately as Quest finished the letter.
“Now, perhaps, you can understand,” he said, “why it was necessary to keep Hartoo absolutely hidden. In a month’s time my papers will be ready. Then I shall electrify the world. I shall write not a new page but a new volume across the history of science. I shall—”
The door was suddenly thrown open. Craig sprang in, no longer the self-contained, perfect man-servant, but with the face of some wild creature. His shout was one almost of agony.
“The hut, Professor! The hut is on fire!” he cried.
His appearance on the threshold was like a flash. They heard his flying feet down the hall, and without a moment’s hesitation they all followed. The Professor led the way down a narrow and concealed path, but when they reached the little clearing in which the hut was situated, they were unable to approach any nearer. The place was a whirlwind of flame. The smell of kerosene was almost overpowering. The wild yell of the leopard rose above the strange, half-human gibbering of the monkeys and the hoarse, bass calling of another voice, at the sound of which Lenora and even Quest shuddered. Then, as they came, breathless, to a standstill, they saw a strange thing. One side of the hut fell in, and almost immediately the leopard with a mighty spring, leapt from the place and ran howling into the undergrowth. The monkeys followed but they came straight for the Professor, wringing their hands. They fawned at his feet as though trying to show him their scorched bodies. Then for a single moment they saw the form of the ape-man as he struggled to follow the others. His strength failed him, however. He fell backwards into the burning chasm.
The Professor bade them farewell, an hour later, on the steps of the house. He seemed suddenly to have aged.
“You have done your best, Mr. Quest,” he said, “but Fate has been too strong. Remember this, though. It is quite true that the cunning of Hartoo may have made it possible for him to have stolen the skeleton and to have brought it back to its hiding-place, but it was jealousy—cruel, brutal, foul jealousy which smeared the walls of that hut with kerosene and set a light to it. The work of a lifetime, my dreams of scientific immortality, have vanished in those flames.”