It was surrounded by a pack of some hundred wolf-like creatures--wild
dogs they seemed--that rushed growling and snapping in upon it
from all sides, so that they sank their white fangs into the slow
brute and were away again before it could reach them with its huge
paws or sweeping tail.
But these were not all that my startled eyes perceived. Chattering
and gibbering through the lower branches of the trees came a company
of manlike creatures evidently urging on the dog pack. They were
to all appearances strikingly similar in aspect to the Negro of
Africa. Their skins were very black, and their features much like
those of the more pronounced Negroid type except that the head
receded more rapidly above the eyes, leaving little or no forehead.
Their arms were rather longer and their legs shorter in proportion
to the torso than in man, and later I noticed that their great
toes protruded at right angles from their feet--because of their
arboreal habits, I presume. Behind them trailed long, slender
tails which they used in climbing quite as much as they did either
their hands or feet.
I had stumbled to my feet the moment that I discovered that the
wolf-dogs were holding the dyryth at bay. At sight of me several
of the savage creatures left off worrying the great brute to come
slinking with bared fangs toward me, and as I turned to run toward
the trees again to seek safety among the lower branches, I saw
a number of the man-apes leaping and chattering in the foliage of
the nearest tree.
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