“He is a five-man, a five-man, a five-man⁠—like me,” said the ape-man.

I held out my hands. The grey creature in the corner leant forward.

“Not to run on all fours; that is the law. Are we not men?” he said.

He put out a strangely distorted talon and gripped my fingers. The thing was almost like the hoof of a deer produced into claws. I could have yelled with surprise and pain. His face came forward and peered at my nails, came forward into the light of the opening of the hut and I saw with a quivering disgust that it was like the face of neither man nor beast, but a mere shock of grey hair, with three shadowy over-archings to mark the eyes and mouth.

“He has little nails,” said this grisly creature in his hairy beard. “It is well.”

He threw my hand down, and instinctively I gripped my stick.