t was a relief to the castaways to put that awful room behind them. Barter closed and barred the door with deliberate slowness.
Why had this old man shut himself away from civilization like this? How long had he held this great ape in captivity? What was the purpose of it? What experiment was he performing? What part of it had the castaways been witnessing that they had not recognized? Bentley, recalling the distinct impression that the ape had stared at Ellen almost with the eyes of a lustful man, and had even appeared to be jealous of him because the girl had gone into his arms—Bentley felt a shiver of revulsion course through him as it struck him now how human the regard and the jealousy of the creature had been!
He felt like clutching at the girl and racing with her into the hazards of the jungle. But he remembered the anthropoids out there, and Barter's peculiar domination of the brutes.
Barter was now watching the two with interest, studying them in turn speculatively, unmindful of the impertinence of his studious regard and silence.
"I have it!" he said. "Will you two be good enough to excuse me? You will need rest, I am sure. I am going away for a little time, but I shall return shortly after dark. Make yourselves at home. But remember—don't enter that room!"
"You need not worry," said Bentley grimly. "I sincerely hope we take our next meal in some other room."
Barter laughed and passed out of the door without a backward glance.
From the jungle immediately afterward came the drumming of the great apes, and now and again the laughter of Barter—high-pitched at first, but dying away as Barter apparently moved off into the jungle.