“ Hul -lo!” suddenly shouted Montgomery, “Hul-lo, there!”
“Confound you!” said I, and gripped my pistol.
There was a silence, then a crashing among the interlacing vegetation, first here, then there, and then half-a-dozen faces appeared—strange faces, lit by a strange light. M’ling made a growling noise in his throat. I recognised the ape-man: I had indeed already identified his voice, and two of the white-swathed brown-featured creatures I had seen in Montgomery’s boat. With these were the two dappled brutes and that grey, horribly crooked creature who said the law, with grey hair streaming down its cheeks, heavy grey eyebrows, and grey locks pouring off from a central parting upon its sloping forehead—a heavy, faceless thing, with strange red eyes, looking at us curiously from amidst the green.
For a space no one spoke. Then Montgomery hiccuped, “Who—said he was dead?”
The monkey-man looked guiltily at the hairy-grey thing. “He is dead,” said this monster. “They saw.”
There was nothing threatening about this detachment, at any rate. They seemed awestricken and puzzled.
“Where is he?” said Montgomery.
“Beyond,” and the grey creature pointed.
“Is there a law now?” asked the monkey-man. “Is it still to be this and that? Is he dead indeed?”
“Is there a law?” repeated the man in white. “Is there a law, thou other with the whip?”
“He is dead,” said the hairy-grey thing. And they all stood watching us.