gain the effort of forcing the hands of Manape to obedience.
Manape-Bentley tapped his receding forehead with his knuckles, and a gasp burst from the lips of Ellen Estabrook.
"You mean your brain is Bentley's brain, and that Bentley's body holds the brain of a great ape?"
Manape nodded clumsily.
"But how? You mean—Caleb Barter? I remember about him now. A master surgeon, an expert on anesthesia—a thousand years ahead of his time. You mean then that we three are part of an experiment? You, Manape, have the brain of Bentley, and Bentley has the brain of a great ape?"
Bentley nodded.
The face of Ellen Estabrook writhed and twisted. Her eyes studied the person of Manape the great ape. She could not believe the thing she had been told, yet she was thinking back and back—back to when Apeman had carried her away, his subsequent behavior, his behavior in the house of Barter, and his interest in the she ape who had licked his wounds.
She remembered how Manape in the beginning had looked at her with the eyes of a lustful man—and how later all his attitude had been protective. There seemed evidence in plenty to support the statement Manape had mutely managed to give her. She was forced to believe.
"But, Lee,"—she came closer to Manape as she spoke—"we must do something for that creature there—that thing with the ape she which looks like the man I love. You've heard me say that I love Lee Bentley?"