Treachery

African drums are talking. Land of serene beauty and staring horror. Slimy rivers and parched plains. Gwen age her laughs in a thousand voices to mock the efforts of civilization, where masked murder thrives and hides itself behind the cloak of life.

This is Africa. Professor Anton Edwards and his party led by Farby, a beautiful native girl, enter the Whispering Forest of Death in search of a legendary treasure. Leaving Lorna and Iphabi with Nguru, the professor and Jack go in search of water.

They find the stream, but as they stoop to fill the containers, a weird prehistoric man creature wades through the water, passes close to them and disappears among the trees. A scream from Lorna brings them running to camp, but the girls are vanished, and only the tracks of the beast man are visible.

They follow these and find Nguru already following the tracks. The trail leads them to a lake with the huts of prehistoric lake dwellers skirting the shore. All is quiet, and the professor believes that the man there following is waiting in the fringe of the forest for the moon to be obscured before carrying his prizes across the open space between forest and lake.

The three men intently watch the curving edge of the forest as a cloud moves eerily across the moon. Something moving across the sedge here? It's keeping rules to the trees. Where, Jack? Follow the line on my finger.

It's moving upwards now. Yes, I've got it. Going down towards the lake. That's the fellow we're after, see? Yes. He's carrying the girls. One over each shoulder. Well, and, uh, good old coach. Plenty of good fight.