Dan offered no resistance, his arm was broken, and he was completely paralysed by the insistence of the monster attacking him.  Five minutes later Dan, Heeley, the Bold Birragua Boy, was securely tied to a tree, with about three fathoms of inch manila, and the Professor’s cash box, with its proper contents increased by certain sums that were illegally Heeley’s, was safely bestowed in its locker again.

“What was the price you said the Government had put on your head, Dan, my boy?” asked Professor Thunder.  “Two hundred and fifty of the best?  It’s mine, Daniel.”

Heeley made no reply; his frightened eyes were fixed on the man-monkey cowering in the shade, with the revolver tight in its right hand.

“The Missing Link will watch over you to-night, Dan,” continued the Professor, jauntily.  “He’s as strong as ten men, so don’t try tricks with him.”

But the Professor did not get that L250.  At day-break, to Heeley’s great amazement, the huge monkey cut him free, and made no attempt to resist his flight.  Nicholas Crips had very satisfactory reasons for not being mixed up in a long, legal ceremonial such as the handing of Heeley over to the police would have entailed.  Nicholas remembered a certain strange adventure in Bigg’s Buildings, and his desire was to give the police of Victoria as wide a berth as the most exclusive officer could possibly long for.

CHAPTER XII.

A curious mischance at Bullfrog.

Professor thunder freely admitted that Nickie the Kid was by far the best Missing Link he had ever met.

“There ain’t your equal in the whole profession, my boy,” he said, clapping the man-monkey heartily between the shoulder blades, “and if you go on improving your interpretation and developing the character, by the Lord Harry, I believe it’ll be worth our while to do a world’s tour one of these days.”

In consideration of Mahdi’s perfections the Professor had twice generously raised his salary by half a-crown a week.

“There isn’t a Woolly Man o’ the Woods or a Wild Man from Borneo now on the roads’ drawing the salary you are, Crips,” said the Professor.  “Two pounds two and six a week is princely pay for a Missing Link.  Let me tell you there are stars playing Romeo and Hamlet that aren’t getting such good money, my boy.”

Nickie certainly deserved his munificent salary, as he was the best draw in the museum, and was improving the attractiveness of the show weekly, with bright ideas and new schemes for inciting the interest of the Professor’s bucolic customers.  It was Nickie suggested the idea of a ride through Bullfrog town ship in character.

“I’m afraid, my boy,” said the Professor, “it’s risky—­very risky.  You’ll be giving the game away one of them days, and once it gets about that Professor Sullivan Thunder’s marvellous and only-living Missing Link is a fake, the metropolitan press will be down on me like a ton of bricks, and I’ll come to running a Punch and Judy show at baby parties in my old age.”