The Island of Doctor Moreau | Page 7

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 arm 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