by H. G. Wells
III. THE STRANGE FACE.
WE left the cabin and found a man at the companion obstructingour 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 dressedin dark-blue serge, and had peculiarly thick, coarse, black hair.I heard the unseen dogs growl furiously, and forthwith he duckedback,--coming into contact with the hand I put out to fend him offfrom myself. He turned with animal swiftness.
In some indefinable way the black face thus flashed upon meshocked me profoundly. It was a singularly deformed one.The facial part projected, forming something dimly suggestiveof a muzzle, and the huge half-open mouth showed as big white teethas I had ever seen in a human mouth. His eyes were blood-shotat 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 getout of the way?"
The black-faced man started aside without a word.I went on up the companion, staring at him instinctivelyas 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 astonishedbeyond 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 atthe same time an odd feeling that in some way I _had_ alreadyencountered exactly the features and gestures that now amazed me.Afterwards it occurred to me that probably I had seen him as Iwas lifted aboard; and yet that scarcely satisfied my suspicionof a previous acquaintance. Yet how one could have set eyes onso singular a face and yet have forgotten the precise occasion,passed my imagination.
Montgomery's movement to follow me released my attention, and Iturned 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 withscraps 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 wascramped in a little iron cage far too small even to give it turning room.Farther under the starboard bulwark were some big hutches containinga number of rabbits, and a solitary llama was squeezed in a merebox of a cage forward. The dogs were muzzled by leather straps.The only human being on deck was a gaunt and silent sailor atthe 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 comefoaming under the stern and the bubbles go dancing and vanishingin her wake. I turned and surveyed the unsavoury length ofthe ship.
"Is this an ocean menagerie?" said I.
"Looks like it," said Montgomery.
"What are these beasts for? Merchandise, curios? Does the captainthink he is going to sell them somewhere in the South Seas?"
"It looks like it, doesn't it?" said Montgomery, and turned towardsthe wake again.
Suddenly we heard a yelp and a volley of furious blasphemyfrom the companion hatchway, and the deformed man with the blackface came up hurriedly. He was immediately followed by a heavyred-haired man in a white cap. At the sight of the formerthe 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 mantime to come up with him and deliver a tremendous blow betweenthe 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 gavea yawp of exultation and stood staggering, and as it seemed to mein serious danger of either going backwards down the companion hatchwayor 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 theirlithe 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 downthe deck, and I followed him. The black-faced man scrambledup and staggered forward, going and leaning over the bulwarkby the main shrouds, where he remained, panting and glaringover his shoulder at the dogs. The red-haired man laughed asatisfied 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 intoMontgomery's face for a minute, "Blasted Sawbones!"
With a sudden movement he shook his arms free, and after twoineffectual attempts stuck his freckled fists into his side pockets.
"That man's a passenger," said Montgomery. "I'd advise you to keepyour hands off him."
"Go to hell!" said the captain, loudly. He suddenly turnedand 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 captainto the bulwarks.
"Look you here, Captain," he said; "that man of mine is not to beill-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 tempersthat will warm day after day to a white heat, and never againcool to forgiveness; and I saw too that this quarrel had beensome 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 unsteadilytowards 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 thedevil--want beasts for on an island like that? Then, that man ofyours--understood he was a man. He's a lunatic; and he hadn't nobusiness 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 mencan'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 comesthis 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 deviland a silly Sawbones, a--"
; Well, never mind what he called Montgomery. I saw the latter takea step forward, and interposed. "He's drunk," said I. The captainbegan 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 thinkI have ever heard quite so much vile language come in a continuousstream from any man's lips before, though I have frequented eccentriccompany enough. I found some of it hard to endure, though I ama 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 casualdependant on the bounty, or speculative enterprise, of the ship.He reminded me of it with considerable vigour; but at any rate I preventeda fight.