The leader of them, a huge "old man" gorilla, brandished an immense
stone which he hurled with vicious energy at the new arrivals.
Luckily it fell short of the air-ship or it would have crashed
through the plane covers and have seriously crippled, if not ruined,
the air-ship.

The boys' rifles cracked simultaneously and two of the attackers
rolled over, with horrible human-like cries, but the leader, the bad
"old man," was still in the field. As he saw his fellows fall he
gave a mighty yell of rage and hatred that seemed to come from the
depths of his hairy chest, and beating rapidly on it, as if it were
a war-drum he rushed straight at the aeroplane.

"Don't let 'em get near the engines," was all Frank had time to
shout before the avalanche of hairy, ill-smelling brutes was upon
them. Some of them had armed themselves with rocks which they
hurled with ferocious force. Others used nothing but their bare
hands. Some of them, wounded as they were, fought with added
fierceness. Desperately the boys fought them off and when the
magazines of the rifles and revolvers were emptied they fell back on
their hunting knives.

Frank had made a furious lunge at the "old man" and missed him by a
hair's-breadth when he felt two great hairy arms encircle him from
behind and the hot breath of one of his horrible opponents whistling
savagely in his ear. He tried to lunge backwards at the creature,
but toppled over and fell sprawling. In a flash the "old-man"
gorilla was on him when Ben's revolver cracked and the "old-man,"
badly wounded, sprang high into the air and rolled over and over,
clutching his head with both his huge hands and screaming in an