Letts ran to a cupboard and whipped out a revolver. He rushed outside
without a word. Ross followed him: he felt that wherever a revolver was
going he should go also.
The two men ran in the moonlight toward Koomadhi’s house, for the yells
were still coming from that direction. When they got within sight of the
house Letts cried out in amazement. By the light of the full moon the
strangest sight that he had ever seen was before his eyes. Koomadhi’s
house was invisible; but where it should have been there was an enormous
pyramid of jabbering apes. They were so thick upon the roof and the
verandah as to conceal every portion of the building, and hundreds were
on the pathway around the place. The noise they made was appalling.
Letts and the surgeon crouched behind a cane-brake and watched that
strange scene; but they had not been long in concealment before the
creatures began trooping off to the jungle. Baboons, chimpanzees, and
gorillas, more horrible than had ever been depicted, were rushing from
the house yelling and gibbering with grotesque gestures beneath the
light of the moon.
Before the last of the monstrous procession had disappeared--while the
shrieks of the wild parrots were still filling the air--the two men left
their place of concealment and hurried toward the house. They had to
struggle through an odour of monkeys that would have overpowered most
men. A glance was sufficient to show them that the shutters of the room
in which Koomadhi slept had been torn away. Letts sprang through
the open window, and Boss heard his cry of horror before he followed
him--before he saw the ghastly sight that the moonlight revealed. The
body of Dr Koomadhi lay torn and mangled upon the floor, his empty
revolver still warm in his hand. Around him lay the carcases of four
enormous apes, with bullet-holes in their breasts.
“Ross,” said Letts after a long pause, “there is a stronger power still
than the devil even on the West Coast of Africa.”
*****
“Women, I have often heard, have strange notions at times,” said Major
Minton, leaning over the deck-chair under the awning of the _Penguin_,
where his wife was sitting, “but that fancy which you say you had before
your attack beats the record. Still, I was greatly to blame. I’ll never
forgive myself. I had no business interesting myself in that simian
jabber. If at any time I feel a craving in such a direction I’ll get an
order for the Strangers’ Gallery of the House of Commons when a debate
on an Irish question is going on. Poor Koomadhi! Letts declared that,
as he lay among the dead apes, it was difficult to say whether he was an
ape or a man.”