"He says nothing," said the Satyr. "Men have voices."
"Yesterday he asked me of things to eat," said the Ape-man. "He
did not know."
Then they spoke inaudible things, and I heard the Satyr laughing.
It was on our way back that we came upon the dead rabbit.
The red body of the wretched little beast was rent to pieces, many of
the ribs stripped white, and the backbone indisputably gnawed.
At that Montgomery stopped. "Good God!" said he, stooping down,
and picking up some of the crushed vertebrae to examine them more closely.
"Good God!" he repeated, "what can this mean?"
"Some carnivore of yours has remembered its old habits,"
I said after a pause. "This backbone has been bitten through."
He stood staring, with his face white and his lip pulled askew.
"I don't like this," he said slowly.
"I saw something of the same kind," said I, "the first day I came here."
"The devil you did! What was it?"
"A rabbit with its head twisted off."
"The day you came here?"
"The day I came here. In the undergrowth at the back of the enclosure,
when I went out in the evening. The head was completely wrung off."
He gave a long, low whistle.
"And what is more, I have an idea which of your brutes did the thing.
It's only a suspicion, you know. Before I came on the rabbit I saw one
of your monsters drinking in the stream."
"Sucking his drink?"
"Yes."
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