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I was sorry that my bonds prevented me from taking part in it, but I urged on the brutemen with my voice, and cheered old Gr-gr-gr, their chief, each time that his mighty jaws crunched out the life of a Hoojan. When the battle was over we found that a few of our captors had escaped, but the majority of them lay dead about us. The gorilla-men paid no further attention to them.
In other words, it is my belief that the first man was a freak of nature nor would one have to draw over-strongly upon his credulity to be convinced that Gr-gr-gr and his tribe were also freaks. The great man-brute seated himself upon a flat rock his throne, I imagine just before the entrance to his lair.
Here my guards set me upon my feet and called out a word which sounded like "Gr-gr-gr!" and which I later learned was the name of their king. Presently there emerged from the cavernous depths of the lair a monstrous creature, scarred from a hundred battles, almost hairless and with an empty socket where one eye had been.
I never was a farmer nor particularly keen for this sort of work, and I am free to confess that time never had dragged so heavily as it did during the hour or the year I spent there at that work. How long it really was I do not know, of course; but it was all too long. The creatures that worked about me were quite simple and friendly. One of them proved to be a son of Gr-gr-gr.
Gr-gr-gr had returned my weapons to me, and at last I was once more upon my oft-interrupted way toward my goal. Whether I should find Dian at the end of my journey or no I could not even surmise; but I was none the less impatient to be off, for if only the worst lay in store for me I wished to know even the worst at once.
"If you hate Hooja," I suggested, "why not let me, who hate him, too, go and punish him?" For some time Gr-gr-gr sat in thought. Then he raised his head and addressed my guard. "Take him to his work," he ordered. His tone was final. As if to emphasize it he turned and entered his burrow.
Then I picked up smaller fragments and with all the control and accuracy for which I had earned justly deserved fame in my collegiate days I rained down a hail of death upon those beneath me. Gr-gr-gr was coming toward me again. I pointed to the litter of rubble upon the cliff-top. "Hurl these down upon the enemy!" I cried to him. "Tell your warriors to throw rocks down upon them!"
Here again we met resistance, but at last the remnant of Hooja's horde surrendered. Juag was with me, and I lost no time in returning to him and his tribe the hilltop that had been their ancestral home for ages until they were robbed of it by Hooja. I created a kingdom of the island, making Juag king there. Before we sailed I went to Gr-gr-gr, chief of the beast-men, taking Juag with me.
With elbows on knees and chin in palms he regarded me intently through his lone sheep-eye while one of my captors told of my taking. When all had been related Gr-gr-gr questioned me.
High above the ground I reached a point whence I could see the summit of the hill. Evidently it was a flat-topped butte similar to that on which dwelt the tribe of Gr-gr-gr. As I sat gazing at it a figure appeared at the very edge. It was that of a young girl in whose hair was a gorgeous bloom plucked from some flowering tree of the forest.
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