Almost frantic with excitement, Joy fairly scaled the bow of the derelict. As his hand touched the broken rail, he heard the heavy breathing beneath him. A familiar voice gasped:
“Hurry, hurry, Joy! Me want to come, too. Hurry! I no afraid any more, even if I see plenty devil. Quick!”
The next moment Joy threw one leg over the bulwark and dropped to the deck. Then, with eyes bulging and face whitened to the color of chalk, he turned to spring back over the side.
Trolley grasped him by the arms and held him against the rail. A sailor appeared above the level of the deck, took one glance, then vanished. A sullen splash proclaimed his destination.
Joy’s fright faded by degrees. Finally he again looked down the deck over the little house-like structure amidships. What he saw was this:
Up on the high after, or cabin deck, were four horribly grotesque figures. One was a giant negro, coal black in color, and almost devoid of clothing.
Tied around his middle was a simple strip of some animal’s skin. His hair was long and matted. His mouth savage in its brutal gaping. His narrow eyes fierce and bloodshot. He was bleeding from a great wound, evidently just given him by Lieutenant Watson, who had retreated to the extreme after rail.
With the maniac, for such he seemed to be, were three monster apes, almost as large as a man. They were leaping about with appalling nimbleness, and uttering strange, blood-curdling, half-human cries.
Lying huddled in the port scupper was Clif, apparently dead. His uniform had been rent in tatters, and a little rivulet of blood trickled back and forth upon the deck near him as the derelict pitched and rolled.
This much Joy and Trolley saw, then one of the apes caught sight of them.