arter stopped there. Bentley stiffened.
From the room where he knew Ellen Estabrook to be came her voice, raised high in a shout of fear.
"Lee! Please! I can't understand you. Please don't touch me! Your eyes burn me—please go away. What in the world has come over you?"
Bentley listened for the reply of the creature he knew was in the other room with Ellen Estabrook.
But the answer was a gurgling gibberish that made no sense at all! His own body, directed by the brain of an ape, could not emit speech that Ellen could understand, because the ape could not speak. The ape's vocal cords, which now were Bentley's, were incapable of speech.
How, if Barter continued to keep Ellen in ignorance of what had happened, would she ever know the horrible truth—and realize the danger that threatened her?
"Don't worry for the moment, Bentley," said Barter with a smile. "I am not yet ready for your other self to go to undue lengths—though I dislike intensely to leave the marks of my whip on that handsome body of yours!"
Barter slipped from the room.
Bentley listened, amazed at the clarity with which he heard every vagrant little sound—until he remembered again that his hearing was that of a jungle beast—until he knew that Barter had entered that other room.