WE left the cabin and found a man at the companion obstructing
our way. He was standing on the ladder with his back to us, peering
over the combing of the hatchway. He was, I could see, a misshapen
man, short, broad, and clumsy, with a crooked back, a hairy neck,
and a head sunk between his shoulders. He was dressed in dark-blue
serge, and had peculiarly thick, coarse, black hair. I heard the
unseen dogs growl furiously, and forthwith he ducked back,—coming
into contact with the hand I put out to fend him off from myself.
He turned with animal swiftness.
In some indefinable way the black face thus flashed upon me
shocked me profoundly. It was a singularly deformed one. The facial
part projected, forming something dimly suggestive of a muzzle, and
the huge half-open mouth showed as big white teeth as I had ever
seen in a human mouth. His eyes were blood-shot at the edges, with
scarcely a rim of white round the hazel pupils. There was a curious
glow of excitement in his face.
"Confound you!" said Montgomery. "Why the devil don't you get
out of the way?"
The black-faced man started aside without a word. I went on up
the companion, staring at him instinctively as I did so. Montgomery
stayed at the foot for a moment. "You have no business here, you
know," he said in a deliberate tone. "Your place is forward."
The black-faced man cowered. "They—won't have me forward." He
spoke slowly, with a queer, hoarse quality in his voice.
"Won't have you forward!" said Montgomery, in a menacing voice.
"But I tell you to go!" He was on the brink of saying something
further, then looked up at me suddenly and followed me up the
ladder.
I had paused half way through the hatchway, looking back, still
astonished beyond measure at the grotesque ugliness of this
black-faced creature. I had never beheld such a repulsive and
extraordinary face before, and yet—if the contradiction is
credible—I experienced at the same time an odd feeling that in some
way I had already encountered exactly the features and gestures
that now amazed me. Afterwards it occurred to me that probably I
had seen him as I was lifted aboard; and yet that scarcely
satisfied my suspicion of a previous acquaintance. Yet how one
could have set eyes on so singular a face and yet have forgotten
the precise occasion, passed my imagination.
Montgomery's movement to follow me released my attention, and I
turned and looked about me at the flush deck of the little
schooner. I was already half prepared by the sounds I had heard for
what I saw. Certainly I never beheld a deck so dirty. It was
littered with scraps of carrot, shreds of green stuff, and
indescribable filth. Fastened by chains to the mainmast were a
number of grisly staghounds, who now began leaping and barking at
me, and by the mizzen a huge puma was cramped in a little iron cage
far too small even to give it turning room. Farther under the
starboard bulwark were some big hutches containing a number of
rabbits, and a solitary llama was squeezed in a mere box of a cage
forward. The dogs were muzzled by leather straps. The only human
being on deck was a gaunt and silent sailor at the wheel.
The patched and dirty spankers were tense before the wind, and
up aloft the little ship seemed carrying every sail she had. The
sky was clear, the sun midway down the western sky; long waves,
capped by the breeze with froth, were running with us. We went past
the steersman to the taffrail, and saw the water come foaming under
the stern and the bubbles go dancing and vanishing in her wake. I
turned and surveyed the unsavoury length of the ship.
"Is this an ocean menagerie?" said I.
"Looks like it," said Montgomery.
"What are these beasts for? Merchandise, curios? Does the
captain think he is going to sell them somewhere in the South
Seas?"
"It looks like it, doesn't it?" said Montgomery, and turned
towards the wake again.
Suddenly we heard a yelp and a volley of furious blasphemy from
the companion hatchway, and the deformed man with the black face
came up hurriedly. He was immediately followed by a heavy
red-haired man in a white cap. At the sight of the former the
staghounds, who had all tired of barking at me by this time, became
furiously excited, howling and leaping against their chains. The
black hesitated before them, and this gave the red-haired man time
to come up with him and deliver a tremendous blow between the
shoulder-blades. The poor devil went down like a felled ox, and
rolled in the dirt among the furiously excited dogs. It was lucky
for him that they were muzzled. The red-haired man gave a yawp of
exultation and stood staggering, and as it seemed to me in serious
danger of either going backwards down the companion hatchway or
forwards upon his victim.
So soon as the second man had appeared, Montgomery had started
forward. "Steady on there!" he cried, in a tone of remonstrance. A
couple of sailors appeared on the forecastle. The black-faced man,
howling in a singular voice rolled about under the feet of the
dogs. No one attempted to help him. The brutes did their best to
worry him, butting their muzzles at him. There was a quick dance of
their lithe grey-figured bodies over the clumsy, prostrate figure.
The sailors forward shouted, as though it was admirable sport.
Montgomery gave an angry exclamation, and went striding down the
deck, and I followed him. The black-faced man scrambled up and
staggered forward, going and leaning over the bulwark by the main
shrouds, where he remained, panting and glaring over his shoulder
at the dogs. The red-haired man laughed a satisfied laugh.
"Look here, Captain," said Montgomery, with his lisp a little
accentuated, gripping the elbows of the red-haired man, "this won't
do!"
I stood behind Montgomery. The captain came half round, and
regarded him with the dull and solemn eyes of a drunken man. "Wha'
won't do?" he said, and added, after looking sleepily into
Montgomery's face for a minute, "Blasted Sawbones!"
With a sudden movement he shook his arms free, and after two
ineffectual attempts stuck his freckled fists into his side
pockets.
"That man's a passenger," said Montgomery. "I'd advise you to
keep your hands off him."
"Go to hell!" said the captain, loudly. He suddenly turned and
staggered towards the side. "Do what I like on my own ship," he
said.
I think Montgomery might have left him then, seeing the brute
was drunk; but he only turned a shade paler, and followed the
captain to the bulwarks.
"Look you here, Captain," he said; "that man of mine is not to
be ill-treated. He has been hazed ever since he came aboard."
For a minute, alcoholic fumes kept the captain speechless.
"Blasted Sawbones!" was all he considered necessary.
I could see that Montgomery had one of those slow, pertinacious
tempers that will warm day after day to a white heat, and never
again cool to forgiveness; and I saw too that this quarrel had been
some time growing. "The man's drunk," said I, perhaps officiously;
"you'll do no good."
Montgomery gave an ugly twist to his dropping lip. "He's always
drunk. Do you think that excuses his assaulting his
passengers?"
"My ship," began the captain, waving his hand unsteadily towards
the cages, "was a clean ship. Look at it now!" It was certainly
anything but clean. "Crew," continued the captain, "clean,
respectable crew."
"You agreed to take the beasts."
"I wish I'd never set eyes on your infernal island. What the
devil—want beasts for on an island like that? Then, that man of
yours—understood he was a man. He's a lunatic; and he hadn't no
business aft. Do you think the whole damned ship belongs to
you?"
"Your sailors began to haze the poor devil as soon as he came
aboard."
"That's just what he is—he's a devil! an ugly devil! My men
can't stand him. I can't stand him. None of us can't stand him. Nor
you either!"
Montgomery turned away. "You leave that man alone, anyhow," he
said, nodding his head as he spoke.
But the captain meant to quarrel now. He raised his voice. "If
he comes this end of the ship again I'll cut his insides out, I
tell you. Cut out his blasted insides! Who are you, to tell me what
I'm to do? I tell you I'm captain of this ship,—captain and owner.
I'm the law here, I tell you,—the law and the prophets. I bargained
to take a man and his attendant to and from Arica, and bring back
some animals. I never bargained to carry a mad devil and a silly
Sawbones, a—"
Well, never mind what he called Montgomery. I saw the latter
take a step forward, and interposed. "He's drunk," said I. The
captain began some abuse even fouler than the last. "Shut up!" I
said, turning on him sharply, for I had seen danger in Montgomery's
white face. With that I brought the downpour on myself.
However, I was glad to avert what was uncommonly near a scuffle,
even at the price of the captain's drunken ill-will. I do not think
I have ever heard quite so much vile language come in a continuous
stream from any man's lips before, though I have frequented
eccentric company enough. I found some of it hard to endure, though
I am a mild-tempered man; but, certainly, when I told the captain
to "shut up" I had forgotten that I was merely a bit of human
flotsam, cut off from my resources and with my fare unpaid; a mere
casual dependant on the bounty, or speculative enterprise, of the
ship. He reminded me of it with considerable vigour; but at any
rate I prevented a fight.