The long boat of the Marjorie W. was floating down thebroad Ugambi with ebb tide and current. Her crew werelazily enjoying this respite from the arduous labor of rowingup stream. Three miles below them lay the Marjorie W.herself, quite ready to sail so soon as they should have clamberedaboard and swung the long boat to its davits. Presently theattention of every man was drawn from his dreaming or hisgossiping to the northern bank of the river. There, screamingat them in a cracked falsetto and with skinny arms outstretched,stood a strange apparition of a man.

"Wot the 'ell?" ejaculated one of the crew.

"A white man!" muttered the mate, and then: "Man theoars, boys, and we'll just pull over an' see what he wants."

When they came close to the shore they saw an emaciatedcreature with scant white locks tangled and matted. The thin,bent body was naked but for a loin cloth. Tears were rollingdown the sunken pock-marked cheeks. The man jabbered atthem in a strange tongue.

"Rooshun," hazarded the mate. "Savvy English?" he calledto the man.

He did, and in that tongue, brokenly and haltingly, as thoughit had been many years since he had used it, he begged them totake him with them away from this awful country. Once onboard the Marjorie W. the stranger told his rescuers a pitifultale of privation, hardships, and torture, extending over a periodof ten years. How he happened to have come to Africa he did nottell them, leaving them to assume he had forgotten the incidentsof his life prior to the frightful ordeals that had wrecked himmentally and physically. He did not even tell them his true name,and so they knew him only as Michael Sabrov, nor was there anyresemblance between this sorry wreck and the virile, thoughunprincipled, Alexis Paulvitch of old.

It had been ten years since the Russian had escaped the fateof his friend, the arch-fiend Rokoff, and not once, but manytimes during those ten years had Paulvitch cursed the fate thathad given to Nicholas Rokoff death and immunity from sufferingwhile it had meted to him the hideous terrors of an existenceinfinitely worse than the death that persistently refused toclaim him.

Paulvitch had taken to the jungle when he had seen the beastsof Tarzan and their savage lord swarm the deck of the Kincaid,and in his terror lest Tarzan pursue and capture him he hadstumbled on deep into the jungle, only to fall at last into thehands of one of the savage cannibal tribes that had felt the weightof Rokoff's evil temper and cruel brutality. Some strange whimof the chief of this tribe saved Paulvitch from death only toplunge him into a life of misery and torture. For ten years hehad been the butt of the village, beaten and stoned by the womenand children, cut and slashed and disfigured by the warriors;a victim of often recurring fevers of the most malignant variety.Yet he did not die. Smallpox laid its hideous clutches upon him;leaving him unspeakably branded with its repulsive marks. Between it and the attentions of the tribe the countenance ofAlexis Paulvitch was so altered that his own mother could nothave recognized in the pitiful mask he called his face a singlefamiliar feature. A few scraggly, yellow-white locks had supplantedthe thick, dark hair that had covered his head. His limbs were bentand twisted, he walked with a shuffling, unsteady gait, his bodydoubled forward. His teeth were gone--knocked out by his savage masters. Even his mentality was but a sorry mockery of what it once had been.

They took him aboard the Marjorie W., and there they fedand nursed him. He gained a little in strength; but hisappearance never altered for the better--a human derelict,battered and wrecked, they had found him; a human derelict,battered and wrecked, he would remain until death claimed him. Though still in his thirties, Alexis Paulvitch could easilyhave passed for eighty. Inscrutable Nature had demanded ofthe accomplice a greater penalty than his principal had paid.

In the mind of Alexis Paulvitch there lingered no thoughts ofrevenge--only a dull hatred of the man whom he and Rokoffhad tried to break, and failed. There was hatred, too, of thememory of Rokoff, for Rokoff had led him into the horrors hehad undergone. There was hatred of the police of a score ofcities from which he had had to flee. There was hatred of law,hatred of order, hatred of everything. Every moment of the man'swaking life was filled with morbid thought of hatred--he hadbecome mentally as he was physically in outward appearance,the personification of the blighting emotion of Hate. He hadlittle or nothing to do with the men who had rescued him. He was too weak to work and too morose for company, and sothey quickly left him alone to his own devices.

The Marjorie W. had been chartered by a syndicate of wealthymanufacturers, equipped with a laboratory and a staff of scientists,and sent out to search for some natural product which themanufacturers who footed the bills had been importing fromSouth America at an enormous cost. What the product was noneon board the Marjorie W. knew except the scientists, nor isit of any moment to us, other than that it led the ship to acertain island off the coast of Africa after Alexis Paulvitchhad been taken aboard.

The ship lay at anchor off the coast for several weeks. The monotony of life aboard her became trying for the crew. They went often ashore, and finally Paulvitch asked to accompanythem--he too was tiring of the blighting sameness of existenceupon the ship.

The island was heavily timbered. Dense jungle ran down almostto the beach. The scientists were far inland, prosecutingtheir search for the valuable commodity that native rumor uponthe mainland had led them to believe might be found here inmarketable quantity. The ship's company fished, hunted,and explored. Paulvitch shuffled up and down the beach, or layin the shade of the great trees that skirted it. One day, as themen were gathered at a little distance inspecting the body of apanther that had fallen to the gun of one of them who had beenhunting inland, Paulvitch lay sleeping beneath his tree. He wasawakened by the touch of a hand upon his shoulder. With a starthe sat up to see a huge, anthropoid ape squatting at his side,inspecting him intently. The Russian was thoroughly frightened. He glanced toward the sailors--they were a couple of hundredyards away. Again the ape plucked at his shoulder, jabberingplaintively. Paulvitch saw no menace in the inquiring gaze, orin the attitude of the beast. He got slowly to his feet. The aperose at his side.

Half doubled, the man shuffled cautiously away toward the sailors. The ape moved with him, taking one of his arms. They had comealmost to the little knot of men before they were seen, andby this time Paulvitch had become assured that the beastmeant no harm. The animal evidently was accustomed to theassociation of human beings. It occurred to the Russian that theape represented a certain considerable money value, and beforethey reached the sailors he had decided he should be the one toprofit by it.

When the men looked up and saw the oddly paired coupleshuffling toward them they were filled with amazement, andstarted on a run toward the two. The ape showed no sign of fear.Instead he grasped each sailor by the shoulder and peered longand earnestly into his face. Having inspected them all hereturned to Paulvitch's side, disappointment written stronglyupon his countenance and in his carriage.

The men were delighted with him. They gathered about,asking Paulvitch many questions, and examining his companion. The Russian told them that the ape was his--nothing furtherwould he offer--but kept harping continually upon the sametheme, "The ape is mine. The ape is mine." Tiring of Paulvitch,one of the men essayed a pleasantry. Circling about behind theape he prodded the anthropoid in the back with a pin. Like aflash the beast wheeled upon its tormentor, and, in the briefestinstant of turning, the placid, friendly animal was metamorphosedto a frenzied demon of rage. The broad grin that had sat uponthe sailor's face as he perpetrated his little joke froze to anexpression of terror. He attempted to dodge the long armsthat reached for him; but, failing, drew a long knife that hungat his belt. With a single wrench the ape tore the weapon fromthe man's grasp and flung it to one side, then his yellow fangswere buried in the sailor's shoulder.

With sticks and knives the man's companions fell upon thebeast, while Paulvitch danced around the cursing snarling packmumbling and screaming pleas and threats. He saw his visionsof wealth rapidly dissipating before the weapons of the sailors.

The ape, however, proved no easy victim to the superior numbersthat seemed fated to overwhelm him. Rising from the sailorwho had precipitated the battle he shook his giant shoulders,freeing himself from two of the men that were clinging to hisback, and with mighty blows of his open palms felled one afteranother of his attackers, leaping hither and thither with theagility of a small monkey.

The fight had been witnessed by the captain and mate whowere just landing from the Marjorie W., and Paulvitch sawthese two now running forward with drawn revolvers while thetwo sailors who had brought them ashore trailed at their heels. The ape stood looking about him at the havoc he had wrought, butwhether he was awaiting a renewal of the attack or wasdeliberating which of his foes he should exterminate firstPaulvitch could not guess. What he could guess, however,was that the moment the two officers came within firing distanceof the beast they would put an end to him in short order unlesssomething were done and done quickly to prevent. The ape hadmade no move to attack the Russian but even so the man was nonetoo sure of what might happen were he to interfere with the savagebeast, now thoroughly aroused to bestial rage, and with thesmell of new spilled blood fresh in its nostrils. For an instant hehesitated, and then again there rose before him the dreams ofaffluence which this great anthropoid would doubtless turn torealities once Paulvitch had landed him safely in some greatmetropolis like London.

The captain was shouting to him now to stand aside that hemight have a shot at the animal; but instead Paulvitch shuffledto the ape's side, and though the man's hair quivered at its rootshe mastered his fear and laid hold of the ape's arm.

"Come!" he commanded, and tugged to pull the beast fromamong the sailors, many of whom were now sitting up in wideeyed fright or crawling away from their conqueror upon handsand knees.

Slowly the ape permitted itself to be led to one side, nor didit show the slightest indication of a desire to harm the Russian.The captain came to a halt a few paces from the odd pair.

"Get aside, Sabrov!" he commanded. "I'll put that brutewhere he won't chew up any more able seamen."

"It wasn't his fault, captain," pleaded Paulvitch. "Please don'tshoot him. The men started it--they attacked him first. You see,he's perfectly gentle--and he's mine--he's mine--he's mine! I won't let you kill him," he concluded, as his half-wreckedmentality pictured anew the pleasure that money would buy inLondon--money that he could not hope to possess without somesuch windfall as the ape represented.

The captain lowered his weapon. "The men started it, didthey?" he repeated. "How about that?" and he turned towardthe sailors who had by this time picked themselves from theground, none of them much the worse for his experience exceptthe fellow who had been the cause of it, and who woulddoubtless nurse a sore shoulder for a week or so.

"Simpson done it," said one of the men. "He stuck a pininto the monk from behind, and the monk got him--whichserved him bloomin' well right--an' he got the rest of us, too,for which I can't blame him, since we all jumped him to once."

The captain looked at Simpson, who sheepishly admitted thetruth of the allegation, then he stepped over to the ape as thoughto discover for himself the sort of temper the beast possessed,but it was noticeable that he kept his revolver cocked and leveledas he did so. However, he spoke soothingly to the animal whosquatted at the Russian's side looking first at one and thenanother of the sailors. As the captain approached him the apehalf rose and waddled forward to meet him. Upon his countenancewas the same strange, searching expression that had marked hisscrutiny of each of the sailors he had first encountered. He camequite close to the officer and laid a paw upon one of the man'sshoulders, studying his face intently for a long moment, thencame the expression of disappointment accompanied by whatwas almost a human sigh, as he turned away to peer in the samecurious fashion into the faces of the mate and the two sailorswho had arrived with the officers. In each instance he sighedand passed on, returning at length to Paulvitch's side, where hesquatted down once more; thereafter evincing little or nointerest in any of the other men, and apparently forgetfulof his recent battle with them.

When the party returned aboard the Marjorie W., Paulvitchwas accompanied by the ape, who seemed anxious to follow him. The captain interposed no obstacles to the arrangement,and so the great anthropoid was tacitly admitted to membershipin the ship's company. Once aboard he examined each new faceminutely, evincing the same disappointment in each instancethat had marked his scrutiny of the others. The officers andscientists aboard often discussed the beast, but they were unableto account satisfactorily for the strange ceremony with which hegreeted each new face. Had he been discovered upon the mainland,or any other place than the almost unknown island thathad been his home, they would have concluded that he hadformerly been a pet of man; but that theory was not tenable inthe face of the isolation of his uninhabited island. He seemedcontinually to be searching for someone, and during the firstdays of the return voyage from the island he was often discoverednosing about in various parts of the ship; but after he had seenand examined each face of the ship's company, and exploredevery corner of the vessel he lapsed into utter indifference of allabout him. Even the Russian elicited only casual interest whenhe brought him food. At other times the ape appeared merelyto tolerate him. He never showed affection for him, or for anyoneelse upon the Marjorie W., nor did he at any time evince anyindication of the savage temper that had marked his resentmentof the attack of the sailors upon him at the time that he had comeamong them.

Most of his time was spent in the eye of the ship scanning thehorizon ahead, as though he were endowed with sufficient reasonto know that the vessel was bound for some port where therewould be other human beings to undergo his searching scrutiny.All in all, Ajax, as he had been dubbed, was considered themost remarkable and intelligent ape that any one aboard theMarjorie W. ever had seen. Nor was his intelligence the onlyremarkable attribute he owned. His stature and physique were,for an ape, awe inspiring. That he was old was quite evident,but if his age had impaired his physical or mental powers in theslightest it was not apparent.

And so at length the Marjorie W. came to England, and therethe officers and the scientists, filled with compassion for thepitiful wreck of a man they had rescued from the jungles,furnished Paulvitch with funds and bid him and his Ajax Godspeed.

Upon the dock and all through the journey to London theRussian had his hands full with Ajax. Each new face of thethousands that came within the anthropoid's ken must becarefully scrutinized, much to the horror of many of hisvictims; but at last, failing, apparently, to discover whomhe sought, the great ape relapsed into morbid indifference,only occasionally evincing interest in a passing face.

In London, Paulvitch went directly with his prize to a certainfamous animal trainer. This man was much impressed with Ajaxwith the result that he agreed to train him for a lion's share ofthe profits of exhibiting him, and in the meantime to provide forthe keep of both the ape and his owner.

And so came Ajax to London, and there was forged another linkin the chain of strange circumstances that were to affect thelives of many people.