"And why not?" demanded the ape-man. "Who are you?"
The creature took a step nearer the bars and tapped its hairy chest with a horny talon. "I am God!" it cried.
XXV
"BEFORE I EAT YOU!"
As the thing that called itself God departed from the other chamber, closing the door after it, Tarzan turned toward the girl sitting on the straw of their prison cell.
"I have seen many strange things in my life," he said, "but this is by far the strangest. Sometimes I think that I must be dreaming."
"That is what I thought at first," replied the girl; "but this is no dream—it is a terrible, a frightful reality."
"Including God?" he asked.
"Yes; even God is a reality. That thing is the god of these gorillas. They all fear him and most of them worship him. They say that he created them. I do not understand it—it is all like a hideous chimera."
"What do you suppose he intends to do with us?"