As I said this to myself, I caught at one phrase therein. Swing through the trees.
It was obvious that my physical powers had undergone a terrific change. I did not remember my hands ever being so powerful before. Never, certainly, had my reflexes been so flawless. Why, take but one instance: my leap from the second floor of the museum. That leap yesterday would more than likely have cost me two fractured ankles.
Superstitiously I looked in the mirror again and felt my muscles. Had they grown overnight, bulging out into the great biceps of whatever primitive entity had emerged within me? So far as I could tell, they were just my old muscles—not bad for a writer, because I swam a lot and did calisthenics regularly, but surely no marvels as muscles go. The change appeared to be in my use of them. Instinctively I could employ them in the most effective way. What could that be but a racial memory acting beneath the surface of the skin?
Other implausible explanations of the business occurred to me as I packed. I discarded them. Nothing seemed to fit except the abrupt return of a personality from eons ago, some great brute out of my lineage. That chimed with the curious recollection I had had in the cave, and with the accent I had several times put upon the word man to describe my enemies. A gorilla? I laughed to myself. An intriguing thought, indeed! I did not for a minute believe it. But what?
CHAPTER V
I caught the five A.M. train for another big city—never mind which. I had about two hundred dollars in my wallet, a fair selection of clothes and essentials in my Gladstone, and the portable typewriter in its beat-up case. For a while I was well enough provided for. I settled back in the reclining chair, watched the dawn come up beyond the windows of the train, and listened with half an ear to the whispering voice that was calling to me from the unknown.
An hour passed. I was drowsing, comfortably, my eyes shut. Then in an instant I was wide awake. Someone was watching me. I felt their gaze through my eyelids. As though moving in my sleep I turned myself around, opened my eyes the merest slit. It was the girl across the aisle. I observed her carefully. She was a pretty blonde, and yesterday's Bill Cuff would have been flattered to find her regarding him. Not I! A steady regard was a menacing thing.
I made sure she was alone. Then I opened my eyes wide and said, "Do I know you?" It flustered her. She turned pink and said confusedly, "I—I don't think so!"
I had one of those singular picture-thoughts, that seemed to come and go unbidden in my mind. I saw another female of this girl's race, whom I had taken from her people. I had desired her deeply, and later had trusted her more than I should.