But when the curtains fell back into place, leaving the robed judge well within the room, there was no further hesitation. The figure walked awkwardly around the chair and took a seat. A dark hand plucked off the hood that had shielded the features.
Nickers gave an audible gasp.
He had expected a monkey, some larger ape than the average of his species. He had even been prepared for some evidences of trained intelligence. But he was totally unprepared for that which his eyes actually encountered.
The face had simian features, but those features had, somehow, taken on the caricature of a human face. The long upper lip, the short nose, the glittering eyes, round and swimming with a moist film, were startlingly human. And the face was almost white, nearly hairless. Perhaps it was a dye, perhaps it was some freak of breeding, but the fact remained that the beast was a gross caricature of a man.
“Steady, old chap,” muttered Forbes, but his voice showed that he, too, despite his assumption of ease, was shocked and surprised.
The ape, almost as large as a man, seemed to have some of the intelligence of humankind, coupled with the cunning of a beast. He surveyed the gathering with round, moist eyes. Then his paw banged upon the arm of the chair, and every one in the room stood up. Again the arm banged. The audience resumed their seats.
The old man arose, pointed to Forbes, then to Nickers.
The old man sat down.
The ape turned his head aimlessly from side to side as though wondering what was expected of him next. The old hag again circled the platform.
“He that was a man and now is a man is about to judge,” she intoned.
“Awwwwwk!” squawked the parrot.
The roving eyes of the ape caught those of Phil Nickers. Instantly their gaze locked.
In the depths of those swimming brown eyes Phil saw something that interested him. For one wild moment he seemed to get the viewpoint of these people about him. Back of the surface, into the very depths of the monkey soul he looked. And what he saw was an individuality struggling for expression.
Phil wondered if there could be any real basis for the statements these of the monkey-clan made. Had this been a man who had drifted back to beast in the scheme of evolution, who would again return to man’s estate?
A great sympathy welled within his mind, and it was as though the ape sensed that sympathy. The eyes softened, glowed with an affectionate regard. The ape flung up a hairy arm.
“They will live! They will live!” shrieked the woman. “They understand!”
And the squawk of the parrot punctuated the last exclamation.
It needed but that wordless intonation of the talking bird to snap Phil Nickers back to the world of reality. He suddenly felt his sympathy leaving him. The ape was a beast. The parrot was but a bird, trained to mimic sounds, to echo words. The people about him were fanatics. And something in the very idea of men devoting their lives to beasts, almost worshiping a great, white-faced ape, aroused a sense of revulsion within him.
His eyes were still locked with those of the ape. The hairy arm with open palm was still upraised.
And a sudden transformation came in those brown eyes. The kind sympathy, the soft affection that had welled within those round orbs vanished; they became instead flinty hard.
Dimly Phil realized his position, strove mightily to stimulate kindness and sympathetic understanding. It was in vain. The mood had left him.
The hard eyes of the ape became almost human in their antagonism. The palm that had been raised and opened, closed into a fist. The hairy arm swept downward in a crashing circle. The fist banged against the arm of the chair.
And it did not need the hoarse croaking of the old crone to tell Phil what that descending arm meant.
“They die! They die!” shrieked the hag.
“They die!” echoed the parrot.
“They die!” roared the natives.
And the old man sucked in his puckered lips and nodded sagely.
The natives with knives instantly pricked the prisoners to their feet, marched them from the hall, out into the sunlight. Surrounding them came other natives, and, from the trees, trooped monkeys. The monkeys who had been in the hall remained, perhaps ready to participate in some additional ceremony of judging.
“Man, you almost got away with it!” whispered Forbes. “Ten seconds more and they’d have accepted us.” There was no regret in his tone, nothing but praise. “I know something of monkey psychology,” he went on, still in a whisper. “It’s hard to move ’em. But you sure had that ape eating out of your hand for a minute or two.”
“And when I lost my grip, I signed our death warrants,” replied Phil. “It was that damned parrot that spilled the beans.”
It was apparent that the guards were taking them across the yard to another building.
“Probably immediate execution,” commented Forbes casually.
But his guess was wrong. It seemed the monkey tribe was awaiting some other development, for a door opened, the prisoners were escorted into a dark and gloomy corridor, and then taken down a short flight of steps. Dank, damp air assailed their nostrils. A bare room walled with massive square stones opened before them. A barred window grilled the blue sky.
The natives ran swift hands over their clothes, took from them knives, keys, even pencils and pens. Every object which might have furnished a tool of escape or a weapon of attack was stripped from them. A heavy door clanged shut, and the two men were left to stare at each other.
“Bum place. Not even a seat,” commented Forbes.
And Phil Nickers noticed that there were no bed, no blankets. Apparently it was intended to keep the prisoners only for a short time.
Chapter 5
“Monkey See, Monkey Do”
Forbes seemed to read his thoughts.
“Evidently they figure we won’t have any use for a bed,” he said. “Looks like the end of the trail, old chap. Sorry I got you into it.”
“We’re not dead yet,” muttered Phil, fastening his eyes upon the barred window.
He tried the bars, found that they were embedded in solid masonry. No slightest chance to work loose a bar. He banged the stone wall with his shoe, trying to ascertain from the sound how thick it was.
“Must be like a fort; sounds as if it were three or four feet through,” he muttered.
“They build ’em strong,” agreed Forbes, and laughed. “Wish the beggars hadn’t taken all our matches and cigarettes. It’d help to blow a few smoke rings.”
Phil walked to the window, surveyed the scenery visible.
There was no glass over the opening. The bars were sufficiently close to keep one from getting even a shoulder out into the air.
Through the window appeared a section of the landing field, a distant view of a corner of the other buildings, and a stretch of tree fronds where the heavy timber crept up to the clearing.
“This place has been here for some time,” announced Forbes, who had been inspecting the walls. “Notice how the mortar has crumbled. See, you can even pick it out in pieces. Chance to work out quite a bit of it. They’ve had other prisoners before who had the idea. See where some one worked all the way around the stone on this inner wall. He worked out all the mortar he could with his finger, and then had to stop. Just back an inch or two, and the rock’s probably a foot thick. But the mortar’s badly shot.”
Phil turned with a smile.
“That’s why they took away our knives and keys. They know the mortar could be picked out. But we’re just as helpless as the other poor chap that wore out his finger getting the mortar worked loose. Say, I guess we’re going to have a visitor. Unless that’s Murasingh coming down in a plane, I’m a poor judge of aviation.”