She had always retreated timidly into the deepest jungle whenever she saw, or even heard or scented one.

What did the horrible creatures want of her?

They did not kill her for food. They did not beat her. They fed her fruits. But how unspeakably they ­tortured her by compelling her to squat day and night in that miserable barred crate. They carried her cage away from the jungle, farther and farther away, while with every day her longing for the forest devoured, gnawed, burned deeper into Yppa.

She saw streets such as she never had seen, broad plains that dismayed her, villages and cities that were a torture to her. But the most dreadful torture was the fact that everybody could watch her. All her instincts revolted. Her nature struggled desperately, with the profoundest aversion, against this abject naked exposure.

She became prudent and crafty, refusing to stir as long as it was daylight and there was a human being near. She did not pay the slightest attention to proffered delicacies but sat like a figure of bronze or wood, holding her head forlornly in her hands and concealing her face. At night she would quickly satisfy her hunger, then work passionately, with all her strength, to break open her cage. She bent one or two of the iron bars slightly, but it was hardly noticeable. Though her hands were torn, she was exhausted, and her bones, forehead and teeth ached, that was all she succeeded in doing.

But she could stretch her arm out of the cage. Secretly, when no one was looking she would clutch at freedom in this way. One day she succeeded in seizing the keeper as he offered her fresh fruit. She caught the terrified man between his neck and shoulder, pressing him against the cage until he was breathless while she spewed her desperate hate into his white face. Had she been able to force her other arm between the bars, she would have strangled the horrible creature. Had she been able to get at him with her gaping jaws, she would have torn his neck open.

She held him tightly while he screamed. Oh, what a pleasure it was to hold him so tight, to bury her nails in his skin, and see blood oozing between her fingers from the keeper’s tortured flesh. She tightened her grip as the other humans rushed up shouting. Yppa was not afraid, no indeed! She gripped him more fiercely.

A sharp pain in her hand compelled her to release her victim.

It was a whip. The first time Yppa sprang up. She was frightful as she stood erect. The long red hair on her shoulders made them seem broader. Her tousled beard, her stringy red locks, her terrible snarling jaws and fierce growls made her a terrifying monster. But behind the bars she was not dangerous. An amusing sight, no more.

The whip cracked between the bars. They were trying to beat her.

Yppa was infuriated. She snatched at the whip. Feeling the knotted leather between her fingers, she pulled once, twice, so that they had to let go at the other end. Yppa pulled the whip into the cage, and in a twinkling tore and bit and trampled it, so that the air was filled with little pieces.

A tall man interfered.