but could distinguish nothing.
“It is a man,” the voice repeated. “He comes to live with us?”
It was a thick voice, with something in it—a kind of whistling overtone—that struck me as peculiar; but the English accent was strangely good.
The ape-man looked at me as though he expected something. I perceived the pause was interrogative. “He comes to live with you,” I said.
“It is a man. He must learn the law.”
I began to distinguish now a deeper blackness in the black, a vague outline of a hunched-up figure. Then I noticed the opening of the place was darkened by two more black heads. My hand tightened on my stick.
The thing in the dark repeated in a louder tone, “Say the words.” I had missed its last remark. “Not to go on all fours; that is the law,” it repeated in a kind of singsong.