As the sun was going down that evening, I saw the lonely figure of the Indian crossing the enormous plain far below.
He was our one small hope of rescue.
I watched him for as long as I could, until the evening mist began rising between the distant river and me. The setting sun turned the mist pink, and soon the Indian disappeared completely into it.
By the time I finally returned to our ruined camp, it was completely dark.
The last thing I saw before turning away was the red glow of Zambo’s fire far below the plateau. It was the only light I could see in the whole world.
In a strange way, that little fire gave me comfort. Zambo’s faithful presence was like a small light in the darkness of my own mind.
I actually felt better than I had since discovering that my companions were missing.
At least there was now a chance that someone in the outside world would learn what we had accomplished. Even if we all died on the plateau, our names and our discoveries might survive us.
That thought gave me some comfort.
Sleeping in our deserted camp was frightening enough.
But sleeping alone somewhere in the jungle seemed even worse.
I had to choose between the two.
Common sense told me to stay awake and keep watch.
My exhausted body told me that I could do no such thing.
I tried climbing onto one of the branches of the great gingko tree, but its rounded surface gave me no secure place to sit. The moment I fell asleep, I would probably roll off and break my neck.
So I climbed down again and considered my options.
Finally, I shut the gate of the thorn enclosure.
I built three separate fires in a triangle around me.
After eating a good meal, I lay down.
Within minutes, I was completely asleep.
Then, just as dawn was beginning, I felt a hand on my arm.
I woke instantly.
My nerves were on fire, and my hand instinctively searched for a rifle.
Then I saw who was kneeling beside me.
I almost shouted with joy.
It was Lord John Roxton.
And yet he hardly looked like the man I had seen the previous day.
I had left him calm, neat, and perfectly composed.
Now his face was pale, his eyes were wild, and he was breathing heavily like a man who had run for miles.
His thin face was covered with scratches and blood.
His clothes hung in torn pieces.
His hat was gone.
Before I could ask a single question, he began grabbing our supplies.
“Quick, young fellah! Quick! We’ve no time to waste.”
“Get both rifles. I’ve got the other two.”
“Now get every cartridge you can find. Fill your pockets.”
“Food, too. Six tins will be enough.”
“That’s it. Don’t stand there talking. Move, or we’re finished!”
I was still half asleep and had no idea what was happening.
But somehow I found myself running after him through the forest, carrying a rifle under each arm and as many supplies as I could hold.
He led me through the thickest bushes he could find.
At last he reached a dense patch of brush.
He pushed straight into it, ignoring the thorns, and pulled me down beside him.
“There,” he whispered, breathing hard. “We should be safe here.”
“They’ll come straight for the camp. That’s the first place they’ll search.”
“But this little hiding place should throw them off.”
“What is happening?” I asked once I could breathe again.
“Where are the professors?”
“And what is chasing us?”
“The ape-men,” he whispered.
“My God, what creatures!”
“Don’t speak too loudly. They’ve got excellent hearing and sharp eyes.”
“But as far as I can tell, they have no sense of smell. So I don’t think they can track us that way.”
“Where have you been, young fellah? You were lucky to miss all this.”
I quickly whispered the story of my night adventure.
Roxton listened carefully.
“Pretty bad,” he said when I finished.
“That pit and the dinosaur don’t sound like the ideal place for a quiet night’s rest.”
“But I had no idea what this plateau was really like until those devils captured us.”
“I’ve been in the hands of cannibals in Papua before, but compared with these creatures, those people were gentlemen.”
“How did it happen?” I asked.
“It was early this morning.”
“Our learned friends were just waking up. They hadn’t even started arguing yet.”
“Then suddenly, it started raining apes.”
“They came down on us from the trees like apples falling from a tree.”
“They must have been gathering in the darkness. There were so many of them that the great tree above our camp seemed to be covered with them.”
“I shot one through the stomach.”
“But before we even understood what was happening, they had thrown all three of us onto our backs.”
“I call them apes, but they’re much more than ordinary animals.”
“They carry sticks and stones. They communicate with each other. And they tied our hands with vines.”
“They’re more advanced than any wild beast I’ve ever encountered.”
“Ape-men,” I said.
“Exactly. The Missing Links.”
“And I wish they’d stayed missing.”
“They carried away the one I had shot. He was bleeding terribly.”
“Then they sat around us.”
“I’ve never seen such hatred in anyone’s face.”
“They were about as big as a man, but much stronger.”
“They have strange gray eyes beneath reddish hair, and they just sat there staring at us as if they were deciding how to kill us.”
“Even Challenger was frightened.”
“He managed to get onto his feet and shouted at them to finish him.”
“I think the shock had driven him half mad, because he started yelling and cursing at them like a lunatic.”
“If they had been a group of journalists he hated, he couldn’t have insulted them more.”
“What did they do?”
“I thought we were finished.”
“But instead, something strange happened.”
“They started chattering among themselves.”
“Then one of them stepped forward and stood beside Challenger.”
“You’ll laugh when I tell you this, but they looked almost related.”
“I wouldn’t have believed it unless I’d seen it myself.”
“The ape-man was their chief.”
“He looked like a red-haired version of Challenger.”
“Same short body.”
“Same huge shoulders.”
“Same round chest.”
“Almost no neck.”
“A great reddish beard.”
“Heavy eyebrows.”
“And that same expression in his eyes that seemed to say, ‘What do you want, damn you?'”
“When he stood beside Challenger and put his hand on the Professor’s shoulder, the resemblance was almost ridiculous.”
“Summerlee was so nervous that he began laughing until he cried.”
“The ape-men laughed too—or at least they made a terrible cackling noise.”
“Then they dragged us into the forest.”
“They wouldn’t touch our guns or equipment. I suppose they were afraid of them.”
“But they took all the food they could carry.”
“Summerlee and I were badly scratched on the way.”
“They dragged us straight through the thorn bushes. Their skin is so tough that the thorns hardly bother them.”
“But Challenger had an easier time.”
“Four of them carried him on their shoulders.”
“He looked like a Roman emperor being carried in triumph.”
“What is that?”
A strange clicking sound had come from somewhere in the distance.
It sounded almost like someone striking wooden castanets together.
“There they are,” Roxton whispered.
He began loading cartridges into the second double-barreled Express rifle.
“Load up, young fellah.”
“We’re not going to let them take us alive.”
“That’s the noise they make when they’re excited.”
“By George, they’ll have plenty to get excited about if they find us.”
“The Last Stand of the Grays won’t be remembered as a quiet affair.”
“Can you hear them now?”
“Only faintly.”
“That little group won’t do us much harm.”
“But I expect they’ve got search parties spread throughout the forest.”
“Anyway, I was telling you what happened.”
“They took us to their village.”
“It’s about three or four miles from here.”
“Imagine a huge grove of trees filled with perhaps a thousand huts made from branches and leaves.”
“Those filthy creatures examined me from head to foot. I still feel dirty just thinking about it.”
“They tied Summerlee and me up.”
“The fellow who tied me knew what he was doing. He could have been a sailor tying knots.”
“We were left lying beneath a tree with our feet tied up.”
“A huge ape-man stood guard over us with a club.”
“By ‘we,’ I mean Summerlee and me.”
“Challenger was treated differently.”
“He was sitting up in a tree, eating fruit and apparently having a wonderful time.”
“To be fair, he managed to get some fruit down to us.”
“Then he actually loosened our bonds himself.”
“You should have seen him sitting in that tree beside his red-haired twin, singing in that huge voice of his.”
“He was singing ‘Ring Out, Wild Bells.'”
“Apparently, music put the creatures into a better mood.”
“Of course, Summerlee and I weren’t exactly in the mood for a concert.”
“They were willing to let Challenger do more or less whatever he wanted.”
“But they weren’t nearly as kind to us.”
“Still, it was a great comfort to know that you were somewhere outside their reach and that you had all our records.”
Roxton paused briefly.
“Now here’s something that will surprise you.”
“You said you’d seen signs of human beings—fires, traps, and so on.”
“Well, we actually saw the people themselves.”
“They’re miserable little creatures.”
“They have every reason to look frightened.”
“It seems the humans occupy one side of the plateau.”
“The side where you saw the caves.”
“The ape-men control this side.”
“And the two groups are constantly at war.”
“That’s about as much as I could understand.”
“Yesterday, the ape-men captured about a dozen of the humans and brought them back to their village.”
“You’ve never heard such screaming and shouting.”
“The men were small and red-skinned.”
“They had been bitten and scratched so badly that some could barely walk.”
“The ape-men killed two of them immediately.”
“One poor fellow had his arm practically torn off.”
“It was horrible.”
“Yet those little men showed incredible courage.”
“They hardly made a sound.”
“It was too much for us.”
“Summerlee fainted.”
“Even Challenger could hardly bear watching.”
“I think they’ve moved on now. Don’t you?”
We listened carefully.
The forest was quiet again.
Only the calls of birds could be heard.
Roxton continued.
“Young fellah, I think you had the luckiest escape of your life.”
“It was the capture of those Indians that saved you.”
“Otherwise, those ape-men would certainly have returned to the camp and found you.”
“They had been watching us from that tree from the beginning.”
“They knew perfectly well that one of us was missing.”
“But once they captured those Indians, they became distracted.”
“So it wasn’t a group of apes that came to your camp this morning.”
“It was me.”
“I was the one who suddenly appeared beside you.”
“But afterward we had a terrible time.”
“My God, this whole place is a nightmare.”
“Do you remember the field of sharp stakes below where we found the American’s skeleton?”
“That’s directly beneath the ape-men’s village.”
“That’s where they send their prisoners to die.”
“I expect there are hundreds of skeletons down there.”
“They have a sort of open platform above the cliff.”
“They turn the executions into a ceremony.”
“One prisoner at a time is forced to jump.”
“The ape-men watch to see whether the victim simply falls to his death or lands on one of the sharp stakes.”
“They took us there to watch.”
“The whole tribe lined the edge.”
“Four Indians were forced to jump.”
“The stakes went through them like knitting needles through soft butter.”
“Now you understand why we found that American skeleton with stakes sticking between his ribs.”
“It was horrible.”
“And yet it was strangely fascinating.”
“We couldn’t stop watching, even though we knew that we might be the next ones standing on that platform.”
“But they didn’t kill us.”
“They kept six of the Indians alive for today, at least as far as I could understand.”
“But I suspect they planned to make us the main attraction.”
“Challenger might have survived.”
“But Summerlee and I were almost certainly going to be killed.”
“I decided it was time to escape.”
“I had already worked out a few things.”
“Summerlee was in no condition to help.”
“And Challenger wasn’t much better.”
“The only time the two of them managed to agree on anything was when they started arguing about what species these red-haired creatures belonged to.”
“One said they were Java dryopithecus.”
“The other said they were pithecanthropus.”
“Madness!”
“They’re both crazy.”
“But I had noticed a couple of useful things.”
“First, these creatures can’t run as fast as a man in open ground.”
“They’ve got short, bent legs and heavy bodies.”
“Even Challenger could outrun the best of them over a short distance.”
“You and I would be like professional runners compared with them.”
“Second, they know almost nothing about firearms.”
“I don’t think they even understood how the fellow I shot had been wounded.”
“If we could get our rifles back, we would have a real chance.”
“So early this morning, I knocked out my guard with a kick to the stomach.”
“Then I ran straight back to the camp.”
“I found you.”
“I found the guns.”
“And now we’re here.”
“But what about the professors?” I cried.
“We have to go back for them.”
“I couldn’t bring them with me.”
“Challenger was up in the tree.”
“Summerlee was too weak to run.”
“Our only chance was to get the guns and then come back for them.”
“Of course, the ape-men may kill them immediately in revenge.”
“I don’t think they’ll harm Challenger.”
“But I wouldn’t bet on Summerlee.”
“Either way, they were going to kill him eventually.”
“So I haven’t made things any worse by escaping.”
“We have a duty to go back.”
“We either bring them out, or we die trying.”
“So get yourself ready, young fellah.”
“One way or another, this will be over before sunset.”
I have tried to reproduce Lord Roxton’s strange, clipped way of speaking, because it suited his character perfectly.
He was a natural leader.
The greater the danger became, the more cheerful he seemed.
His sentences became shorter and more energetic.
His normally cold eyes came alive with excitement.
Even his great mustache seemed to bristle with pleasure.
He loved danger.
He loved the drama of adventure.
To him, every dangerous situation was a contest between a man and Fate, with death as the price for losing.
In any other circumstances, it would have been exciting to face such an adventure beside a man like him.
But our missing companions made it impossible to enjoy.
We were just getting ready to leave our hiding place when Roxton suddenly grabbed my arm.
“By George!” he whispered.
“Here they come!”
From our hiding place, we could see a long brown corridor between the trees.
A group of ape-men was moving through it.
They walked in single file.
Their knees were bent, their backs rounded, and their hands sometimes touched the ground as they moved.
Their heads constantly turned from side to side.
Their crouching posture made them look shorter than they really were.
I estimated that they were about five feet tall.
They had enormous chests and long arms.
Many carried clubs or sticks.
From a distance they looked like a group of huge, hairy, deformed men.
For only a few seconds I had a clear view of them.
Then the bushes swallowed them again.
“Not yet,” Roxton whispered.
He picked up his rifle.
“Our best move is to stay hidden until they’ve given up searching.”
“Then we’ll see whether we can reach their village and hit them where it hurts.”
“Give them an hour.”
“Then we’ll move.”
We used the waiting time to eat breakfast.
We opened one of the food tins.
Roxton had eaten almost nothing except fruit since the previous morning, so he attacked the food like a starving man.
At last we were ready.
Our pockets were packed with cartridges.
Each of us carried a rifle.
Before leaving, we carefully marked our hiding place and memorized its direction from Fort Challenger.
If we needed to retreat, we had to be able to find it again.
We moved silently through the bushes.
Eventually we reached the edge of the cliff, close to our old camp.
There we stopped.
Roxton explained his plan.
“As long as we’re inside thick forest, these animals have the advantage.”
“They can see us.”
“We can’t see them.”
“But things are different in the open.”
“We can move faster than they can.”
“The trees are thinner along the edge of the plateau than they are farther inland.”
“So that’s the route we’ll take.”
“Move slowly.”
“Keep your eyes open.”
“Keep your rifle ready.”
“And remember this above everything else: never let them capture you while you’ve still got a cartridge left.”
“That’s my final advice to you, young fellah.”
When we reached the cliff edge, I looked down.
Zambo was sitting on a rock below, smoking quietly.
I desperately wanted to call out to him and tell him what had happened.
But it was too dangerous.
The forest around us seemed to be filled with ape-men.
Every so often we heard their strange clicking calls.
Whenever we heard them nearby, we hid in the closest bushes and waited until the sound faded.
Because of this, our progress was painfully slow.
At least two hours passed.
Then I noticed that Roxton was moving even more carefully.
We had to be close.
He signaled for me to stay where I was.
Then he crawled forward alone.
A minute later he came back.
His face was trembling with excitement.
“Come on,” he whispered.
“Quick!”
“I hope to God we’re not too late.”
I crawled forward beside him.
We lay flat in the grass and looked through the bushes.
Before us was a wide clearing.
It was a sight I will never forget.
It was so strange and unbelievable that I still wonder how I can describe it properly.
Years from now, if I survive long enough to sit again in the Savage Club in London, surrounded by the ordinary sights of civilization, I may think this whole experience was nothing more than a fever dream.
But I am writing it down now while it is still fresh in my mind.
And the man lying beside me in the grass can confirm every word.
The clearing was enormous, several hundred yards across.
Green grass covered the ground, mixed with low ferns that grew almost to the edge of the cliff.
A half-circle of trees surrounded it.
Among the branches were hundreds of strange huts made from leaves and branches piled together.
The whole thing reminded me of a rookery where every bird’s nest had somehow become a little house.
The branches and huts were packed with ape-people.
From their smaller size, I assumed many were females and young.
They formed a huge audience.
Every one of them was staring toward the center of the clearing.
Near the cliff edge stood perhaps a hundred more ape-men.
These were the adult males.
They were large, powerful, covered in reddish hair, and extremely ugly.
Yet they seemed to have some kind of discipline.
They stood in a line and did not break formation.
In front of them stood several Indian prisoners.
They were small, thin, red-skinned men with strong, healthy bodies.
In the sunlight their skin looked almost like polished bronze.
Beside them stood a tall, thin white man.
His head was bowed.
His arms were folded.
Everything about him showed exhaustion and despair.
There was no doubt who it was.
Professor Summerlee.
Several ape-men stood around the prisoners, watching them closely.
There was no possible way for them to escape.
Then I noticed two other figures standing apart from the crowd near the edge of the cliff.
They were so strange that I could hardly look away.
One was Professor Challenger.
What remained of his coat hung from his shoulders in torn strips.
His shirt had been completely ripped away.
His enormous beard blended into the thick black hair covering his powerful chest.
His hat was gone.
His hair, which had grown long during our time on the plateau, was flying wildly around his head.
In a single day, the proud professor had been transformed from a highly civilized European scholar into something that looked almost like a wild man.
Standing beside him was the king of the ape-men.
Roxton had been right.
The creature looked astonishingly like Challenger.
Only his coloring was different.
He was red instead of dark-skinned.
He had the same short, broad body.
The same enormous shoulders.
The same heavy chest.
The same arms hanging forward.
The same thick beard disappearing into his hairy chest.
The biggest difference was above the eyes.
The ape-man had a low, sloping forehead and a much smaller skull.
Challenger’s broad forehead and enormous head were unmistakably human.
In almost every other respect, the ape-man king looked like a ridiculous copy of our professor.
All of this passed before my eyes in only a few seconds.
Then the real horror began.
Two ape-men grabbed one of the Indian prisoners.
They dragged him toward the edge of the cliff.
The ape-man king raised one hand.
That was the signal.
The two guards grabbed the prisoner by one arm and one leg.
They swung him backward and forward three times with enormous force.
Then they threw him over the cliff.
The poor man flew high into the air before disappearing from sight.
The entire crowd rushed toward the edge.
For several seconds, there was complete silence.
Then the ape-men erupted into screams of excitement.
They jumped around, waved their long arms, and howled with delight.
Afterward they returned to their places and waited for the next prisoner.
This time, it was Summerlee.
Two guards seized him by the wrists and dragged him forward.
His thin body and long legs struggled helplessly.
He looked like a chicken being dragged from a cage.
Challenger turned toward the ape-man king.
He waved his arms desperately.
He was pleading for Summerlee’s life.
The king shoved him aside.
Then he shook his head.
That was the last deliberate movement he ever made.
Roxton’s rifle cracked.
The ape-man king collapsed onto the ground.
“Fire into the middle of them!”
“Shoot, sonny! Shoot!”
Something savage awakened inside me.
I am naturally a gentle man.
I have felt sorry for wounded animals many times.
But at that moment, I felt no pity for the ape-men.
I stood up and fired.
I emptied one magazine.
Then another.
I opened the rifle, reloaded, closed it again, and fired once more.
I was shouting with excitement as I did it.
Roxton and I had four loaded rifles between us, and together we created terrible destruction.
Both men holding Summerlee were shot.
Summerlee staggered around in confusion, apparently unable to understand that he was free.
The ape-men were completely bewildered.
They had no idea where the bullets were coming from.
They screamed, waved their arms, and ran in every direction.
Some stumbled over their fallen companions.
Then suddenly the whole crowd rushed toward the trees.
They disappeared into the forest, leaving many of their wounded and dead behind.
For the moment, the prisoners were alone.
Challenger understood immediately.
He grabbed Summerlee’s arm.
Together they ran toward us.
Two ape-men chased after them.
Roxton shot both.
We ran forward to meet our friends.
I pushed a loaded rifle into Summerlee’s hands.
But he was exhausted.
He could barely stand.
The ape-men were already recovering from their panic.
They were moving through the bushes, trying to surround us.
Challenger and I each took one of Summerlee’s arms and dragged him forward.
Roxton stayed behind us, covering our retreat.
Again and again his rifle cracked.
Whenever an ape-man appeared among the bushes, another shot drove it back.
For more than a mile, the creatures chased us.
They stayed close behind, shouting and chattering.
But eventually they realized what the rifles could do.
They were no longer willing to face Roxton’s accurate shooting.
At last we reached our camp.
We looked back.
No one was following us.
At least, that’s what we thought.
We quickly shut the thorn gate.
Then we grabbed one another’s hands and collapsed beside the spring, exhausted and gasping for breath.
Suddenly we heard footsteps outside.
Then came a soft, frightened cry.
Roxton immediately grabbed his rifle and opened the gate.
Four small figures were lying face down on the ground.
They were the surviving Indian prisoners.
They were terrified of us, but they were also begging us for protection.
One of them pointed desperately toward the forest.
He was trying to tell us that the woods were full of danger.
Then he rushed forward, wrapped his arms around Roxton’s legs, and pressed his face against them.
“By George!” Roxton exclaimed.
He tugged at his mustache in complete confusion.
“What on earth are we supposed to do with these people?”
“Come on, little fellow. Get up.”
“And please get your face off my boots.”
Summerlee was sitting up nearby, filling his old pipe with tobacco.
“We have to get them somewhere safe,” he said.
“You saved all of us from certain death.”
“That was excellent work, Roxton.”
“Admirable!” Challenger exclaimed.
“Absolutely admirable!”
“Not only you and I as individuals, but science itself owes you a great debt.”
“I would go so far as to say that if Professor Summerlee and I had disappeared, modern zoology would have suffered a serious loss.”
“Our young friend and you have done extremely well.”
He gave us his familiar fatherly smile.
But if the scientific world could have seen its great professor at that moment, it might not have recognized him.
His hair was wild.
His chest was bare.
His clothes were in tatters.
He was sitting with a meat tin between his knees, holding a large piece of cold Australian mutton in one hand.
One of the Indians looked at him.
The poor man gave a little cry, dropped to the ground, and clung to Roxton’s leg.
“Don’t be frightened, my boy,” Roxton said.
He gently patted the man’s tangled hair.
“Challenger can’t help the way he looks.”
“And, by George, I can’t blame the poor fellow for being frightened.”
“Don’t worry, little chap.”
“He’s only a human being, just like the rest of us.”
“Really, sir!” Challenger protested.
“You’re lucky, Challenger, that you’re a little unusual.”
“If you hadn’t looked so much like their king—”
“Upon my word, Lord John, you are taking far too much freedom with your remarks.”
“Well, it’s true.”
“I insist that we change the subject.”
“Your comments have nothing to do with the matter before us.”
“The real question is what we should do with these Indians.”
“If we knew where their home was, the obvious answer would be to escort them there.”
“I know where they live,” I said.
“They live in the caves on the other side of the central lake.”
“Our young friend knows the location,” Challenger said.
“I assume it is some distance away.”
“About twenty miles,” I replied.
Summerlee groaned.
“I could never walk that far.”
“And surely I can still hear those creatures following us.”
As he spoke, we heard the distant cries of the ape-men coming from the forest.
The four Indians immediately began whimpering with fear.
“We have to move,” Roxton said.
“And we have to move now.”
“You help Summerlee, young fellah.”
“The Indians can carry some of the supplies.”
“Come on, before those creatures spot us.”
Within half an hour, we had reached our hidden position in the bushes.
We settled down there and remained concealed.
All day we could hear the ape-men calling and shouting somewhere near our old camp.
But none of them came toward us.
Eventually, the exhausted fugitives—both the Indians and the professors—fell into a deep sleep.
I was dozing myself that evening when someone gently pulled at my sleeve.
I opened my eyes.
Professor Challenger was kneeling beside me.
“You keep a diary of these events, Mr. Malone,” he said solemnly.
“And I understand that you intend to publish it.”
“I’m only here as a newspaper reporter,” I replied.
“Exactly.”
“You may have heard some rather foolish comments from Lord John Roxton.”
“He seemed to suggest that there was some resemblance between—”
“Yes,” I said.
“I heard him.”
“I need hardly tell you that publishing such an idea would be extremely offensive to me.”
“Any jokes or exaggerations about it would be equally unacceptable.”
“I’ll tell the truth,” I assured him.
“Lord John’s comments are often wildly imaginative.”
“He has a habit of inventing ridiculous explanations for things.”
“In this case, he seems to have misunderstood the respect that less-developed races naturally show toward dignity and character.”
“You understand what I mean?”
“Perfectly.”
“I’ll leave the matter in your hands.”
He was silent for a moment.
Then he added:
“The king of the ape-men was actually a very impressive creature.”
“In fact, he was remarkably handsome and intelligent.”
“Didn’t you think so?”
“A remarkable creature,” I replied.
Apparently satisfied, Professor Challenger finally settled down and went back to sleep.