VI. THE EVIL-LOOKING BOATMEN.
BUT the islanders, seeing that I was really adrift, took pity on me.I drifted very slowly to the eastward, approaching the island slantingly;and presently I saw, with hysterical relief, the launch come round andreturn towards me. She was heavily laden, and I could make out as shedrew nearer Montgomery's white-haired, broad-shouldered companion sittingcramped up with the dogs and several packing-cases in the stern sheets.This individual stared fixedly at me without moving or speaking.The black-faced cripple was glaring at me as fixedly in the bowsnear the puma. There were three other men besides,--three strangebrutish-looking fellows, at whom the staghounds were snarling savagely.Montgomery, who was steering, brought the boat by me, and rising,caught and fastened my painter to the tiller to tow me, for there was noroom aboard.
I had recovered from my hysterical phase by this timeand answered his hail, as he approached, bravely enough.I told him the dingey was nearly swamped, and he reached me a piggin.I was jerked back as the rope tightened between the boats.For some time I was busy baling.
It was not until I had got the water under (for the waterin the dingey had been shipped; the boat was perfectly sound)that I had leisure to look at the people in the launch again.
The white-haired man I found was still regarding me steadfastly,but with an expression, as I now fancied, of some perplexity.When my eyes met his, he looked down at the staghound that satbetween his knees. He was a powerfully-built man, as I have said,with a fine forehead and rather heavy features; but his eyeshad that odd drooping of the skin above the lids which oftencomes with advancing years, and the fall of his heavy mouthat the corners gave him an expression of pugnacious resolution.He talked to Montgomery in a tone too low for me to hear.
From him my eyes travelled to his three men; and a strange crew they were.I saw only their faces, yet there was something in theirfaces--I knew not what--that gave me a queer spasm of disgust.I looked steadily at them, and the impression did not pass,though I failed to see what had occasioned it. They seemedto me then to be brown men; but their limbs were oddly swathedin some thin, dirty, white stuff down even to the fingers and feet:I have never seen men so wrapped up before, and women so only in the East.They wore turbans too, and thereunder peered out their elfinfaces at me,--faces with protruding lower-jaws and bright eyes.They had lank black hair, almost like horsehair, and seemedas they sat to exceed in stature any race of men I have seen.The white-haired man, who I knew was a good six feet in height,sat a head below any one of the three. I found afterwards that reallynone were taller than myself; but their bodies were abnormally long,and the thigh-part of the leg short and curiously twisted.At any rate, they were an amazingly ugly gang, and over the headsof them under the forward lug peered the black face of the man whoseeyes were luminous in the dark. As I stared at them, they met my gaze;and then first one and then another turned away from my direct stare,and looked at me in an odd, furtive manner. It occurred to me that Iwas perhaps annoying them, and I turned my attention to the islandwe were approaching.
It was low, and covered with thick vegetation,--chiefly a kind of palm,that was new to me. From one point a thin white thread of vapour roseslantingly to an immense height, and then frayed out like a down feather.We were now within the embrace of a broad bay flanked on eitherhand by a low promontory. The beach was of dull-grey sand,and sloped steeply up to a ridge, perhaps sixty or seventy feet abovethe sea-level, and irregularly set with trees and undergrowth.Half way up was a square enclosure of some greyish stone, which I foundsubsequently was built partly of coral and partly of pumiceous lava.Two thatched roofs peeped from within this enclosure.A man stood awaiting us at the water's edge. I fancied while wewere still far off that I saw some other and very grotesque-lookingcreatures scuttle into the bushes upon the slope; but I saw nothingof these as we drew nearer. This man was of a moderate size,and with a black negroid face. He had a large, almost lipless,mouth, extraordinary lank arms, long thin feet, and bow-legs,and stood with his heavy face thrust forward staring at us.He was dressed like Montgomery and his white-haired companion,in jacket and trousers of blue serge. As we came still nearer,this individual began to run to and fro on the beach, making the mostgrotesque movements.
At a word of command from Montgomery, the four men in the launchsprang up, and with singularly awkward gestures struck the lugs.Montgomery steered us round and into a narrow little dock excavatedin the beach. Then the man on the beach hastened towards us.This dock, as I call it, was really a mere ditch just longenough at this phase of the tide to take the longboat.I heard the bows ground in the sand, staved the dingey off the rudderof the big boat with my piggin, and freeing the painter, landed.The three muffled men, with the clumsiest movements, scrambled outupon the sand, and forthwith set to landing the cargo, assisted bythe man on the beach. I was struck especially by the curiousmovements of the legs of the three swathed and bandaged boatmen,--notstiff they were, but distorted in some odd way, almost as if theywere jointed in the wrong place. The dogs were still snarling,and strained at their chains after these men, as the white-hairedman landed with them. The three big fellows spoke to one anotherin odd guttural tones, and the man who had waited for us onthe beach began chattering to them excitedly--a foreign language,as I fancied--as they laid hands on some bales piled near the stern.Somewhere I had heard such a voice before, and I could not think where.The white-haired man stood, holding in a tumult of six dogs, and bawlingorders over their din. Montgomery, having unshipped the rudder,landed likewise, and all set to work at unloading. I was too faint,what with my long fast and the sun beating down on my bare head, to offerany assistance.
Presently the white-haired man seemed to recollect my presence,and came up to me.
"You look," said he, "as though you had scarcely breakfasted."His little eyes were a brilliant black under his heavy brows."I must apologise for that. Now you are our guest, we mustmake you comfortable,--though you are uninvited, you know."He looked keenly into my face. "Montgomery says you are an educated man,Mr. Prendick; says you know something of science. May I ask whatthat signifies?"
I told him I had spent some years at the Royal College of Science,and had done some researches in biology under Huxley. He raisedhis eyebrows slightly at that.
"That alters the case a little, Mr. Prendick," he said,with a trifle more respect in his manner. "As it happens,we are biologists here. This is a biological station--of a sort."His eye rested on the men in white who were busily hauling the puma,on rollers, towards the walled yard. "I and Montgomery, at least,"he added. Then, "When you will be able to get away, I can't say.We're off the track to anywhere. We see a ship once in a twelve-monthor so."
He left me abruptly, and went up the beach past this group, and Ithink entered the enclosure. The other two men were with Montgomery,erecting a pile of smaller packages on a low-wheeled truck.The llama was still on the launch with the rabbit hutches;the staghounds were still lashed to the thwarts.The pile of things completed, all three men laid hold of the truckand began shoving the ton-weight or so upon it after the puma.Presently Montgomery left them, and coming back to me held outhis hand.
"I'm glad," said he, "for my own part. That captain was a silly ass.He'd have made things lively for you."
"It was you," said I, "that saved me again."
"That depends. You'll find this island an infernally rum place,I promise you. I'd watch my goings carefully, if I were you._He_--" He hesitated, and seemed to alter his mind about whatwas on his lips. "I wish you'd help me with these rabbits,"he said.
His procedure with the rabbits was singular. I wadedin with him, and helped him lug one of the hutches ashore.No sooner was that done than he opened the door of it, and tiltingthe thing on one end turned its living contents out on the ground.They fell in a struggling heap one on the top of the other.He clapped his hands, and forthwith they went off with that hoppingrun of theirs, fifteen or twenty of them I should think, upthe beach.
"Incr
ease and multiply, my friends," said Montgomery."Replenish the island. Hitherto we've had a certain lack of meat here."
As I watched them disappearing, the white-haired man returned with abrandy-flask and some biscuits. "Something to go on with, Prendick,"said he, in a far more familiar tone than before. I made no ado,but set to work on the biscuits at once, while the white-haired manhelped Montgomery to release about a score more of the rabbits.Three big hutches, however, went up to the house with the puma.The brandy I did not touch, for I have been an abstainer frommy birth.