She gasped and bent backward, striving to wrench loose. Her strength was such that Pritchard, turning to hand the cub back to McManus, almost lost his balance.
"Stop it," she cried. "You don't know what—"
Her lips moved for another second, but the words were lost in the sudden tumult that erupted about them. The jungle exploded, almost seemed to come alive at their very feet. Dimly-seen shapes came lurching and crashing toward them from every side, clambering and trampling and swinging from branch to branch. Here and there a tree cracked, splintered and fell.
The men whipped out their snappers and backed against each other, eyes rolling nervously in grim set faces. The girl frantically twisted out of Pritchard's fingers and stuck two fingers in her mouth.
A piercing, two-noted whistle stabbed through the mounting din. It stabbed again, and the uproar subsided into a confused rustling and shuffling. Silence fell across the dust-charged air.
All about, in the jungle surrounding the head of the path the scouting party had hacked, the vegetation barely concealed a shoulder-to-shoulder wall of hulking beasts, while smaller animals and what looked like maned gorillas crouched or stood along the bending branches. Tusks protruded from drooling jaws and hundreds of eyes blazed forth steadily.
"No shooting, no shooting!" Pritchard was bellowing. "She has them under control, boys. Hold your fire." Then he took a deep breath and turned toward Cornelia Boyce. She had backed off to a safe distance from him, her eyes twin pools of green contempt.
"My people." She bowed ironically. "At your service."
Pritchard grinned tautly. "You win. Of course, my intentions were only of the best. I thought you ought to come back to Terra for a little observation and examination, but—" he waved lightly "—let's skip it."
"You were lucky that I was able to stop them," she said. "Next time I might not be able to in time. Now if you're wise you'll just take your little ship and go home."