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Chapter 4 - A NEW FACE
As Professor Maxon and von Horn rushed from the workshop to their own
campong, they neglected, in their haste, to lock the door between, and for the first
time since the camp was completed it stood unlatched and ajar.
The professor had been engaged in taking careful measurements of the head of
his latest experiment, the while he coached the young man in the first rudiments
of spoken language, and now the subject of his labors found himself suddenly
deserted and alone. He had not yet been without the four walls of the workshop,
as the professor had wished to keep him from association with the grotesque
results of his earlier experiments, and now a natural curiosity tempted him to
approach the door through which his creator and the man with the bull whip had
so suddenly disappeared.
He saw before him a great walled enclosure roofed by a lofty azure dome, and
beyond the walls the tops of green trees swaying gently in the soft breezes. His
nostrils tasted the incense of fresh earth and growing things. For the first time
he felt the breath of Nature, free and unconfined, upon his brow.
He drew his giant frame to its full height and drank in the freedom and the
sweetness of it all, filling his great lungs to their fullest; and with the first taste he
learned to hate the close and stuffy confines of his prison.
His virgin mind was filled with wonder at the wealth of new impressions which
surged to his brain through every sense. He longed for more, and the open
gateway of the campong was a scarce needed invitation to pass to the wide world
beyond. With the free and easy tread of utter unconsciousness of self, he passed
across the enclosure and stepped out into the clearing which lay between the
palisade and the jungle.
Ah, here was a still more beautiful world! The green leaves nodded to him, and at
their invitation he came and the jungle reached out its million arms to embrace
him. Now before him, behind, on either side there was naught but glorious green
beauty shot with splashes of gorgeous color that made him gasp in wonderment.
Brilliant birds rose from amidst it all, skimming hither and thither above his
head--he thought that the flowers and the birds were the same, and when he
reached out and plucked a blossom, tenderly, he wondered that it did not flutter
in his hand. On and on he walked, but slowly, for he must not miss a single
sight in the strange and wonderful place; and then, of a sudden, the quiet beauty
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