I saw Molly spin round with sheer delirious joy, extend her arms, throw back her head, and proceed to give an unauthorized version of an Irish dancer.
"Begorrah!" she cried; and "Och!" (apparently under the impression that all primitive people emitted weird noises when executing a national dance.)
Croft turned to say something to me, but before the words had time to leave his mouth a dull, muffled thud seemed to shake the whole ship. It was as if someone had struck a blow with a great hammer, away down in the deepest and darkest part of the hold.
The next moment the music ceased, and I saw a light in one of the port-holes flicker out into nothingness. There followed the sharp, rending crash of breaking wood-work, a roar like distant thunder, a heavy plump on deck, and a deep-throated animal cry of triumph.
"My God!" I cried. "It's one of those gorillas! Row, man! . . . Row!"
We must have been some thirty to forty yards from the ship's side, but in the pandemonium which followed it seemed as inaccessible as if we had been that many miles away. Everything happened so quickly. Everything was so indeterminate and phantomlike in the dusk.
I heard Molly and Captain Morgan give a shout of dismay and terror and saw them turn their heads swiftly in the direction of the hatch. A second later they were running for their lives in the opposite direction.
"Jump!" I shouted at the top of my voice. "Molly! Jump!"
Whether the poor distracted child heard me I do not know, but she certainly took no heed. As she and the Captain disappeared round the other side of the ship there was a sudden and uncanny silence, broken presently by another blood-curdling roar from the gorilla.
I stood up in the rocking boat, shouted again, raised my revolver in the air, and fired into the starlit sky.