The Galleon, Volume 1, Number 3, June 1925 Page: 6
41 p. : ill. ; 22 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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THE GALLEON
trees and waddled across the en-
closure with a remarkable
swiftness. He walked, seeming-
ly on his haunches, using his ex-
tremely long arms as crutches.
The huge ape, for such it was,
slouched over to the drum, and,
picking up a knotted branch
stick, began to beat the drum
with mighty blows. It seemed
to reverberate far and wide
through the jungle land. The
very treetops seemed to shiver
with the burden of sound that
flowed from the resounding of
the booming drum.
But was it the sound of the
drum that caused the trees o
shake? No. For soon here be-
gan to pour into the circle a ver-
itable army of apes. Young and
old, male and female, old chief
and vigorous young warrior, all
came to the call of the drum.
And last came four great bull-
apes. And on their shoulders
they bore the body of another
great ape, but evidently not of
their own ribe, since the apes of
one ribe, never touch the dead
flesh of one of their own tribe.
These apes carried the body
of this dead enemy to the very
foot of the drum where they
laid it down. Then all of the
tribe gathered around to see the
victim. They viewed the body,
at first, only curiously, then as
their slow minds were able to
grasp the significance of this
strange creature, they began to
show their tendencies in other
ways. They growled, -and fangs
were drawn back over slavering
jaws. Soon, however, they
withdrew and squatted a few
paces from the carcass.
Directly, three old females,
began a deafening tatoo on the
great drum. The roar seemed
to permeate everything. Sud-
denly, a great male jumped to
the middle of the space beforethe corpse and began a slinking
sort of dance, stopping each
round in front of the body and
giving vent to the savage, ter-
rifying scream of the bull-ape
who has made a kill. Soon an-
other male sprang in, and then
another, and another and an-
other, until the whole tribe was
leaping *and screaming around
the body of the dead ape. Sud-
deniy, the big chief seized a
club and ,ran in and hit Lh, dead
ape a powerful blow. Instantly
tlc others followed suit. Soon
they resumed the dance which
waxed in fury until the very
earth seemed to tremble. Then
at a given signal from the King,
the females scattered, and the
maales made a mad rush for
body. Each gatheired some ten-
dpr morsel and be gan to eat it.
The big bull-ape got a long,
hairy arm and went off to one
3:de to eat it. H turned his
head this way and that, and
then, before taking a bite, he
laid the arm down on his knees,
and looked steadily into my very
eyes.
I awoke with a strat, the pic-
ture was gone. Nothing re-
mained except the black ashes
of the fire. I glanced dazedly
out of the window, only to see
the sun shining brightly in the
splendor of a new day. What I
had seen was only a dream. Yes,
only a dream. But, for the life
of me, I could not dispell the pic-
ture of that old ape, as he squat-
ted there, .the blood dripping
from his great yellow fangs, the
hairy face and the low, sloping.
forehead drawn in an awful
scowl, as he prepared to eat the
dead flesh of his enemy.
I live in a small West Texas
city. Now, in the West, there
still occasionally, appears one of
those terrors of the sparsel
populated territories, the out-6
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McMurry College. The Galleon, Volume 1, Number 3, June 1925, periodical, June 1925; Abilene, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth137773/m1/4/: accessed May 13, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting McMurry University Library.