We returned to the others, a curious lethargy settling upon us. We had been at such high tension for so long that it was impossible to keep keyed up. I, for one, felt an almost-overpowering desire to sleep. Alicia had recovered her composure by now and was trying to bandage Evan's hand. He was indifferently submitting, but after she had finished, he looked at it and took the bandage off, substituting a mere strip of adhesive for the many turns of the cloth. "I can handle my rifle like this," he said dully. Mrs. Braymore made coffee and we drank it in silence. Presently Arthur motioned to the women to leave the room and began to tug at the bodies lying on the floor. It was absurd for us to think of trying to bury them. He dragged them to the edge of the veranda and dropped them over the edge to the ground below. He moved jerkily, almost like a man asleep. "No need to do that," said Evan suddenly, a little while later. Arthur stopped and looked at him questioningly. "We'll have to start for the coast," Evan explained uninterestedly. "We can't stick it out here. The natives won't bother us now. The fight's taken out of them." "But the gorilla?" "Have to chance it," said Evan slowly. "There's nothing else to do." "He'll get us within the first ten miles," I remarked, speaking with difficulty because of the peculiar lethargy that affected us all. "You know how he trailed Arthur." There was a moment's silence, then Arthur automatically resumed his task. Alicia came into the room and silently gave us something to eat. Arthur stopped dumbly and began to chew on his food, forgetting the grisly labor he had been performing but a moment before. "We can't start to-day, anyway," he said after a little. "We've got to rest. We're all in bad shape and we've two weeks' travel before we reach another white man's house." Evan made some reply, but I did not catch it. I fell asleep with food in my hands and slept like a dead man for hours. Alicia waked me at noon to eat again. All that day we were possessed by a peculiar indifference, the result of the reaction from the tension at which we had lived for so many days. I woke with a start at three o'clock, hearing the dogs bark. Evan came slowly into the room. "I let the dogs loose," he said, noticing my expression. "They were whining." "We'll need them to-night, in case the beast comes back." I rose stiffly and went back to douse my head with water. It roused me a little and, after a cup of coffee, I joined the other two. We were all languid and tired, but thoroughly awake now. "Of course we can't stay on here," Arthur was admitting, "but we wouldn't have one chance in a hundred to make it through the jungle with that ape following us. You've seen how it manages to reach the house here."