Grue remained motionless.
"I am going to offer you," I said, "the sum of one thousand dollars in
gold if you can guide us to a spot where we may see this hitherto unknown
species--a creature which is apparently a man but which has, in the back
of his head, a _third eye_--"
I paused in amazement: Grue's cheeks had suddenly puffed out and were
quivering; and from the corners of his slitted mouth he was emitting a
whimpering sound like the noise made by a low-circling pigeon.
"Grue!" I cried. "What's the matter with you?"
"What is _he_ doing?" screamed Grue, quivering from head to foot, but not
turning around.
"Who?" I cried.
"The man behind me!"
"Professor Kemper? He's setting up the folding cage--"
With a screech that raised my hair, Grue whipped out his murderous knife
and _hurled himself backward_ at Kemper, but the latter shrank aside
behind the partly erected cage, and Grue whirled around, snarling,
hacking, and even biting at the wood frame and steel bars.
And then occurred a thing so horrid that it sickened me to the pit of my
stomach; for the man's sagging straw hat had fallen off, and there, in
the back of his head, through the coarse, black, ratty hair, I saw a
glassy eye glaring at me.
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