seen, had locked the throat of my guardian and slowly were choking
out his life, and bending back his head and neck upon his body,
where I momentarily expected the former to fall limp at the end of
a broken neck.

In accomplishing this the ape was tearing away the entire front of
its breast, which was held in the vise-like grip of the powerful
jaws. Back and forth upon the floor they rolled, neither one
emitting a sound of fear or pain. Presently I saw the great eyes
of my beast bulging completely from their sockets and blood flowing
from its nostrils. That he was weakening perceptibly was evident,
but so also was the ape, whose struggles were growing momentarily
less.

Suddenly I came to myself and, with that strange instinct which
seems ever to prompt me to my duty, I seized the cudgel, which had
fallen to the floor at the commencement of the battle, and swinging
it with all the power of my earthly arms I crashed it full upon the
head of the ape, crushing his skull as though it had been an
eggshell.

Scarcely had the blow descended when I was confronted with a new
danger. The ape's mate, recovered from its first shock of terror,
had returned to the scene of the encounter by way of the interior
of the building. I glimpsed him just before he reached the doorway
and the sight of him, now roaring as he perceived his lifeless
fellow stretched upon the floor, and frothing at the mouth, in the
extremity of his rage, filled me, I must confess, with dire
forebodings.