Balisle looked down. It must have been a terrifying experience to swing above such a horrible abyss by one leg, and for a moment Balisle lost his head. He screamed and started to grapple with his grim captor. "Don't, Balisle!" shouted Tyler. "You'll make him lose his balance. Hang on as you are and we'll get him when he reaches the street." "What good will it do?" screamed Balisle, his voice taking on a high keening note as the ape dropped again, this time from the twelfth to the eleventh floor. "He slipped it over a hundred men to get me this far. He'll find a way to beat you when he reaches the street, too." Bentley had a sinking feeling that Balisle spoke the truth; but even so, he could not see how anybody, even Barter, could walk through the trap which was being tightened around the descending anthropoid. It made Bentley dizzy to watch the slow methodical descent of the anthropoid. He could fancy himself in Balisle's position and it made him sick and faint. He understood the desperation which caused Balisle to make yet another attempt to battle with the ape. Then the ape did a grim thing. He paused on the eleventh floor, and crouching on a window sill, deliberately snapped Balisle's head against the wall of the Clinton Building! In his time Bentley had slain rabbits exactly like that. Balisle hung now as limp as a rag and blood dripped from his mouth and nose. But Bentley knew, as his face went white at the sound of that sharp, thudding blow that Balisle had not been killed by it. - - - Savage oaths burst from the lips of policemen who saw the action of the ape. "He acts like a human being! An ape wouldn't have thought of that!" The words came hysterically from the lips of a woman who, frightened though she was, could not tear herself from the window to the right of where Bentley and Tyler leaned out to stare down. Bentley smiled grimly. What would she think if he told her gravely that the creature crawling down the face of the building was not quite an ape? So far the public didn't know what the Mind Master schemed. He'd spoken of stealing brains, but that had meant nothing to the general public. Just the maunderings of a madman, perhaps. At the third floor the anthropoid hesitated. He seemed to be gazing all around, noting the preparations which were being made to trap him at the street level. "An ape wouldn't do that," muttered Bentley. "A man would. The man in that manape is showing through--but he won't be able to force himself free of Barter's domination. If he could he'd probably throw Balisle down now to keep him from being ... well, treated as Barter intends to treat him." The ape dropped to the second floor. Silence seemed to hang over Fifth Avenue. Ugly gun muzzles protruded from every window across the street. Scores of rifles were aimed down from windows in the Clinton Building, to drill the ape through from above.