The Island of Doctor Moreau Read Free

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