Dracula of the Apes 3, стр. 29
All agreed that the previous tenant had been of European stock, and must have been marooned upon the shore like themselves. They’d found a small trove of coal beneath the yurt that must have come from a steamship, the door to the shelter had a nautical look, the walls were of reinforced canvas and the sailor’s tunic they’d discovered was self-explanatory.
They all felt he had been shipwrecked.
And his attempt to recreate a familiar setting?
“A reminder, perhaps a testimony to another time, a better time...something he preferred,” Van Resen said.
During the day, Jacob had found a long curved sword out in the tall grass; its rusty blade had almost tripped him up where it lay. He took the weapon out again and passed it around until the scientist brandished it overhead, laughing.
“I see now! I see!” Van Resen’s eyes glittered. “Hungarian, I declare—to match the marks in the journal. My friends we are in a Cossack’s house!”
CHAPTER 12 – The Winding Trails
Gazda had returned to his tribe of apes that morning to sleep but managed little rest for his body still burned with desire and his thoughts whirled around the memory of “Lilly.”
“Lilly” for so the young female had named herself in mind as they embraced.
Lilly. The sweet scent of her blood and flesh still clung about his nose and lips.
But it was fading. The stink of apes encroaching on Gazda’s senses had seen to that.
An overpowering smell, and yet he had not seen a single ape.
He had chosen a secluded sleeping place near where the shambling group of anthropoids had camped in the trees around a termite mound.
Disgust clouded Gazda’s features when he later woke to find his tribe grooming each other in the midday light.
Lilly! He could not push her flashing eyes or smooth limbs from his mind. Hairless, they were, and pliant.
He moved unseen through the branches above the apes where he struggled with the urge to leave them outright—to go away forever—return to his lair, to the strange night apes and Lilly.
Lilly.
Her face and body were ever in his thoughts as he clung to the pleasures they had shared. His heart throbbed at the memory. Like mates they had been, entwined and coupled; he had been unable to resist the hot blood surging there beneath her skin.
Had not her teeth scraped at his white flesh as well?
She had bitten Gazda as their passion swelled.
Lilly. She had offered everything, and in the transcendent moment of flesh and blood and pleasure, Gazda had come close to taking it...
...taking all she had.
The light of day had left him thoughtful, and while he dwelled upon each soft, sweet memory, he grew more concerned.
Gazda shivered at a memory and an image.
Lilly’s blood dripped from small punctures in her throat—punctures he made with his fangs, and blood that he lapped with his red tongue. Still he remembered his desire for more, to set his teeth deep in her quivering flesh and drink away the heady mixture that she was. As he had mated with her—with Lilly.
Yet, Gazda had pulled away near the end, steered clear of abandon.
Though he doubted his strength of will would have been enough had the brown-haired female not grown restless in her sleep. Her beautiful brows had clenched upon her dreams and she drifted close to waking.
So the night ape had retreated from the tree-nest, moving softly and smoothly, buoyed up by passion and obscured by the black fog that floated near.
The night air had grown chill, and the shadows were filled with loneliness, so with arms closed about his great chest he staggered away from the lair, and the warmth of Lilly.
Lilly...that he still craved.
He did not trust himself in the dark with the black fog lapping at his knees, and so he had escaped the murk and sped back toward his tribe to fill his heart with company.
Only to awaken with the smell of apes.
His eyes fell on the she-ape Nuklo cleaning her daughter’s body with her long, red tongue.
Beasts! The thought blazed in Gazda’s mind as he climbed down from the branches, as a hoot and warning call came from the greenery, as a blackback rushed out to challenge him.
But, old Baho lumbered forward from the undergrowth where panting happily, he first received his king. The bull ape’s display was exuberant. With open hands he beat the earth, and ever nodding; he came to Gazda lurching sideways, grunting respectfully, and showing vulnerable ribs and belly as he moved. The former silverback panted and coughed his undying loyalty as his king’s knuckles brushed his offered palm.
Baho’s behavior was then mimicked by loyal blackbacks who came forward from the trees, and their displays were copied again as the females hurried out, and again as the young came from their games to greet the king.
As this warm welcome continued, the haughty night ape regretted his prideful disdain, for these apes reminded him of his generous mother and his life among their kind.
So, as the tribe broke into little groups to feed and groom in the thick brush, Gazda sat with Baho who reported that blackback guards had glimpsed a strange bull ape. On two occasions the invader was seen in the distant treetops and on another glimpsed lurking in the undergrowth where he slipped from view.
Neither Gazda nor Baho needed to say the name that most concerned them, for while the strange bull ape was described as any other, both thought of the would-be usurper Sip-sip.
Baho was certain that the crippled ape would never dare return, and if