“You do not understand,” broke in the man, “you cannot guess the horrors that I have seen upon this island, or the worse horrors that are to come. Could you dream of what lies in store for you, you would seek death rather than face the future. I have been loyal to your father, Virginia, but were you not blind, or indifferent, you would long since have seen that your welfare means more to me than my loyalty to him—more to me than my life or my honor. 

 “You asked where the creature came from that attacked you today. I shall tell you. It is one of a dozen similarly hideous things that your father has created in his mad desire to solve the problem of life. He has solved it; but, God, at what a price in misshapen, soulless, hideous monsters!” 

 The girl looked up at him, horror stricken. 

 “Do you mean to say that my father in a mad attempt to usurp the functions of God created that awful thing?” she asked in a low, faint voice, “and that there are others like it upon the island?” 

 “In the campong next to yours there are a dozen others,” replied von Horn, “nor would it be easy to say which is the most hideous and repulsive. They are grotesque caricatures of humanity—without soul and almost without brain.” 

 “God!” murmured the girl, burying her face in her hands, “he has gone mad; he has gone mad.” 

 “I truly believe that he is mad,” said von Horn, “nor could you doubt it for a moment were I to tell you the worst.” 

 “The worst!” exclaimed the girl. “What could be worse than that which you already have divulged? Oh, how could you have permitted it?” 

 “There is much worse than I have told you, Virginia. So much worse that I can scarce force my lips to frame the words, but you must be told. I would be more criminally liable than your father were I to keep it from you, for my brain, at least, is not crazed. Virginia, you have in your mind a picture of the hideous thing that carried you off into the jungle?” 

 “Yes,” and as the girl replied a convulsive shudder racked her frame. 

 Von Horn grasped her arm gently as he went on, as though to support and protect her during the shock that he was about to administer. 

 “Virginia,” he said in a very low voice, “it is your father’s intention to wed you to one of his creatures.” 

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