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"So you thought? What do youwas loath to part with theods?"

"But sell them to you the Oba did," observed the doctor "He ht of hard bargaining, he did, but not the number Warthrop desired He wanted four, aBut we sailed with only three in our hold: a two-year-old cub, a young male, and the last…" He closed his eyes and took a deep, quivering breath "The she-devil, the largest of her ferocious troop-larger than the biggest ht feet tall-the one the Benin feared more than any other We took that one We took her" Appalled by the thought after more than twenty years, ly tucked sheets

"But why did he want four? Did he say?"

"Dear God, man, he did not say, and I did not ask! I did not even knohen I sailed for that das were Warthrop offered a king’s ransom for the work, and I cared not whether he wanted four or fourscore! The war had brought hard times to the Feronia I accepted his offer without question, without a second thought!"

Warthrop turned away from the bed and in two steps was at the , hands clasped behind his back, studying, in all appearance and of all things, the sill He carefully picked up one of the dead flies, pinching its delicate wings between his thuer, and then held it up as if to examine it for the cause of its demise

The prostrate leviathan on the bed did not watch hi and whatever coht him, his enormous body as still as a corpse’s beneath the spotless sheets How long had he lain thus paralyzed, I wondered, unable to move neither head nor limb, forced to stare hour after hour, day after day, upon that blank canvas, and what terrible scenes of hell unleashed, unbounded by the dictates of our Victorian sensibilities, had his iination painted there in the vibrant colors supplied by his merciless memory? Poor paralyzed creature, no wonder Warthrop’s father abandoned thee! What succor could he offer to one whose very mind had betrayed the body that sustained it? Even if it so willed, could any intellect be stronger than the horror that freezes the eon chain is the metaphorical ropes that bound thee, Hezekiah Varner!

"Or so you thought,"could equal the vision of hell you saw that day… or so you thought"

Varner laughed, a sound as thin and crackling as autu went terribly wrong on your return passage to Aist

"He tried to warnreply

"Who? Who tried to warn you?"

"The Oba! The old devil, on the ht s his raven cheeks, asked what provisions we had et quite ‘tetchy’ after several days without their ‘victuals,’ and offered two of his slaves to tide the though he called hiodless heathen I aret your rebuke," observed Warthrop

"I had had assurances," Varner ist We reinforced the hold, welded iron bars across the portholes, fastened double locks upon the doors Two hundred pounds of salt pork we had on board, and in Sapele we took on the livestock in kind and quantity precisely as Warthrop prescribed: twelve goats, five young calves, and seven chimps ‘Try the chimps if all else fails,’ he told me ‘They are the closest relative to their preferred prey’ The closest relative! Heaven help us!"

Warthrop let fall the dead fly froertips It fluttered to the floor, and he pressed the tip of his boot down upon its desiccated carcass

"Flies," he murmured pensively "What of the flies?" He watched theainst the smeared pane before he turned to face Varner "They refused to feed," he said It was not a question

"Aye, refuse they did, as you know, as you know all the rest, and so I will speak no more of it I know not why you have co questions the answers to which you already know I know not why you’ve co old s you, Warthrop, except it be God’s truth you are your father’s son! You know already what special order your father had filled and what fate befell the crew of the Feronia What sadistic cause brings you here to my deathbed? To remind ive the knife your father sank a final twist before I ael’s last embrace? Have mercy on me! Have nored this diatribe, this anguished plea punctuated by nored it and said, "They would kill iave them-they are fiercely territorial-but they would not eat it In a hterhouse"

"No," whispered Varner, closing his eyes "No ed to escape soest they can swim, so they broke into the ship, not out of it And at least two survived until the grounding of the vessel at Swahed, a gravelly exhalation, like a shoe scraping over pebbles The eyes caue protruded, the voice escaped "They ate the little one It was her own cub, or so the Oba told me The she-beast ripped him to shreds With my own eyes-ah, these accursed eyes!-I saw her stuff his beating heart into her das that remained she left for her partner"