Slowly and dejectedly, the ape-man crept to where he had been ordered and
sat there with dull, non-comprehending stare. It was a new force, this, a
note of which he had felt--the superman raising the voice of authority.
Quest touched his forehead and found it damp. The strain of those few
seconds had been intolerable.
"I don't think these other animals will hurt," he said. "Let's have a look
around the place."
The search took only a few moments. The monkeys ran and jumped around
them, gibbering as though with pleasure. The leopard watched them always
with a snarl and an evil light in his eye. They found nothing unusual
until they came to the distant corner, where a huge piano box lay on its
side with the opening turned to the wall.
"This is where the brute sleeps, I suppose," Quest remarked. "We'll turn
it round, any way."
They dragged it a few feet away from the wall, so that the opening faced
them. Then Lenora gave a little cry and Quest stood suddenly still.
"The skeleton!" Lenora shrieked. "It's the skeleton!"
Quest stooped down and drew away the matting which concealed some portion
of this strange-looking object. It was a skeleton so old that the bones
had turned to a dull grey. Yet so far as regards its limbs, it was almost
complete. Quest glanced towards the hands.
"Little fingers both missing," he muttered. "That's the skeleton all
right, Lenora."
"Remember the message!" she exclaimed. "'Where the skeleton is, the
necklace may be also.
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