As it was, Nickie’s senses were battered out of him, and within a few minutes, he was so bound round with rope that he looked like a huge Cocoon.  Two saplings were cut, and suspended between these, and borne on the shoulders of eight men, the Missing Link was carried back through the township of ’Tween Bridges.  The hunters shouted jubilantly, fired their guns, and yelled triumphant songs as they went, and the whole of the inhabitants turned out and made a triumphal march of it, pressing forward to see the monstrous ape dangling between the saplings.

So Mahdi, the Missing Link, was brought home to the Museum of Marvels.  When Nickie was dumped on the floor of the tent, Madame Marve screamed believing he was dead.

“We shot him first,” Watkins explained, “an’ then we got at him with our sticks.”

“Great heavens!” gasped the Professor, thought of manslaughter flashing upon him.  “You might have murdered him.”

“He might ’ave murdered us,” replied the veracious Watkins, “Why, his struggles was somethin’ awful, an’ he roared like a lion an’ bit an’ tore.  It took ten of us t’ down him, an’ then he bit through Orton’s leg, all’ knocked Billy Tett sick and ’epless.  I reckon it’s worth a flyer, mister.”

“But if he’s killed—­if he’s killed!” cried the tremulous Professor.

Thunder and Madame Marve carried Nickie into he Mystic’s tent; the cut away the ropes that were choking him, and discovered that although gory and bruised, he still lived and breathed, and then the Professor, always quick to seize, an opportunity, stood the hunters a whole barrel of beer, and till well on to daylight ’Tween Bridges was agitated by drink and reiterations of the sensational story of the capture of the man-eating Missing Link.

At sunrise, Bonypart returned to the show, contrite and trembling for his billet, and by this time Nickie the Kid, his bruises painted with iodine, and his battered head liberally patched with court plaster, was sleeping off the effects of his overdose of whisky.

The truants had to be on duty early that day, for the story of the escape of the man-monkey and, his capture by the heroes of ’Tween Bridges brought people from all over the district to inspect the marvel, but Madhi remained on his straw in the dark recesses of his cage, stiff, sore and filled with bitterness, while Professor Thunder explained to his awed patrons the animal’s amazingly human viciousness, his love for drink, and his utterly depraved nature.

“D’yeh think I’m fallin’ into fat.  Nickie?” whispered the Living Skeleton, from his pedestal that evening.  “I ate an awful lot o’ cheese.”

The Missing Link shook his head and groaned.  “Next time I get tight I won’t do it in character,” he said, “my realisation of the part is too convincing.”

CHAPTER XIX.

The Link’s last appearance.