A Fight That Won Friends

In accomplishing this the ape was tearing away the entire front of its
breast, which was held in the vise-like grip of the powerful jaws.
Back and forth upon the floor they rolled, neither one emitting a sound
of fear or pain. Presently I saw the great eyes of my beast bulging
completely from their sockets and blood flowing from its nostrils.
That he was weakening perceptibly was evident, but so also was the ape,
whose struggles were growing momentarily less.

Suddenly I came to myself and, with that strange instinct which seems
ever to prompt me to my duty, I seized the cudgel, which had fallen to
the floor at the commencement of the battle, and swinging it with all
the power of my earthly arms I crashed it full upon the head of the
ape, crushing his skull as though it had been an eggshell.

Scarcely had the blow descended when I was confronted with a new
danger. The ape's mate, recovered from its first shock of terror, had
returned to the scene of the encounter by way of the interior of the
building. I glimpsed him just before he reached the doorway and the
sight of him, now roaring as he perceived his lifeless fellow stretched
upon the floor, and frothing at the mouth, in the extremity of his
rage, filled me, I must confess, with dire forebodings.

I am ever willing to stand and fight when the odds are not too
overwhelmingly against me, but in this instance I perceived neither
glory nor profit in pitting my relatively puny strength against the
iron muscles and brutal ferocity of this enraged denizen of an unknown
world; in fact, the only outcome of such an encounter, so far as I
might be concerned, seemed sudden death.