CHAPTER X
AS SOON as the ape had disappeared, Chi Loo descended apparently as calm as if nothing had ever occurred to ruffle his bland serenity.
“Chi Loo wolk; make tiffin,” he explained. “Wild man catch um. No got nice knife; Chi Loo mus' go velly quick.”
“But where did he come from?” demanded Vi, glancing at the companion door.
“No know. He come long. Chi Loo go catch um
“But he'll tear Chi Loo to pieces, won't he?” queried Vi.
“Yes. Wait here, Chi Loo,” commanded Carnell, “and I'll get a revolver. There's two in the chart-house.”
The last words reminded Vi of her uncle.
“Oh, poor uncle!” she murmured. “But, Mr. Carnell, the orang-outan couldn't have killed him, could it? Nor the other people? I can't understand it. They strangle, don't they?”
“Yes, I think so. But we must find out. Will you go on the bridge and keep a lookout, Miss Kelvett? I'll rouse the crew for'a'd there and we'll hunt up this beast. Chi Loo, go along and call the men; savvee?”
“Me savvee,” assented Chi Loo and departed.
For once Vi obeyed without question. The horizon was as deserted as usual. Automatically she lighted a cigaret and leaned over the rail, pondering on the death of her uncle—which was evidently caused by the same medium as those of the crew and passengers—and wondering what significance that ape could have.
An ape strangles or at any rate uses its terrible paws. The victims had died all together. Impossible, she decided, to connect the deeds with a brute.
Suddenly she recollected the bite on the arm of the little girl. That undoubtedly was done by the ape, but even then that offered no further solution of the mystery. Even supposing that the beast's teeth were poisonous—and she had never heard that they were—he could not have bitten them all simultaneously. Absurd. What, then?
And that voice singing hymns at night. That couldn't have been the ape. Had he, the singer, been Selwyn drunk? Had the orang-outan already killed him? It appeared ferocious; and any man unarmed would be like a doll in those great, hairy arms.
Some of her natural resistance seemed to have evaporated. She suddenly felt weak and helpless; unable to cope with something that appeared to be coiling around them; indeed, it seemed as if the ship were haunted.
“Rot!” she muttered at the thought.
There must be an explanation. But whatever that was that wouldn't be of much use if they were all going to be done to death.
She saw Chi Loo emerge from the forecastle followed by the five men who were left of the crew. The little sea-lawyer Gregory was at the head, arguing excitedly about something. The second mate, who was waiting on the break of the bridge, hailed them.
“'Ere, mister,” demanded Gregory,“wot's this chink gassing about a bleedin' monkey?”
“Listen, men,” said Carnell, “something serious has happened. There appears to be an orang-outan loose on board. From what Chi Loo says the beast appears to be dangerous. It's gone below and”
“W'ere's the Old Man?” queried one man at the back.
“Now be quiet a moment and listen,” continued Carnell. “You know the condition in which we found the remainder of the crew of this ship when we boarded her?”
“Wot's that gotter do wiv the monkey?”
“That's what I want to find out,” acknowledged the Second, “But—Well, I'm sorry to tell you that the captain is dead”
“Dead! Wot done 'im 'in? The monkey?”
“No. He died as the others did from some mysterious agency”
“E're!” exclaimed Gregory as if suddenly aware of the fact. “Wot 'ave you stopped 'er for?”
“I'm coming to that. The engines stopped, and I went down to find the men lying about just like those people we found in the saloon.”
“Wot! The bleedin' lot!” ejaculated several.
“Yes, unfortunately.”
The men looked at each other.
“Oh, gor!” commented one.
“But, mister, wot's the monkey gotter do wiv it?”
I don't know; we've got to find out. It's gone down below and we've got to hunt and find out”
“Not me, guv'nor,” said Gregory very decidedly.
“Nor me,” said another.
“Let the blighter stay there.”
“I've 'ad enough, I 'ave,” asserted Gregory. “Same as them Lascars. No bloomin' wonder they quit! Wot d'you say, mates?”
CARNELL watched them as they began to discuss the situation. He had a revolver, but that would be no use in compelling them to search below.
“Look 'ere, mister,” announced Gregory at length, “we've 'ad enough. We signed on, the 'Esperus. She's gawn, ain't she? Them others we found, and then the young feller, disappears; and now the Ol' Man's gawn and our mates as well. There somefing funny about this boat. 'Aunted I says. Don't mind 'Uns and fings. You kin get 'em; but this 'ere—bleedin' monkey an'”
“But recollect, men,” urged Carnell, “that the Monsoon is very valuable salvage and”
“And !” said Gregory. “I'm on for the rhino, but not wiv bleedin' spooks an'— Oh, Gawd!”
The group of men, whose nerves we evidently already shaken, actually jumped—as from behind the deck-house came the vague voice singing. But as Carnell rushed in the direction, revolver in hand, the voice ceased.
“It came from there beyond the fiddley,” directed Vi from the top bridge.
Watched by the group of men and the placid Chi Loo, Carnell hunted around the deck but without finding ape or man.
“The voice came from that ventilator,” he announced as he returned. “I'm going down to find out who is there. Who will volunteer?”
“Looking for a bleedin' monkey wot sings 'ymns! Oh, Lor', I'm off!” exclaimed one man solemnly and started for the fore main-deck.
Gregory and the others began to follow him
“But, look here!” expostulated Carnell. “You're not going to leave the young lady?”
“She kin come wiv us, can't she?” demanded Gregory.
“I shall not leave the ship until Mr. Carnell thinks that we ought to,” called Vi from the upper bridge. “He's in command now, recollect.”
“ 'e is!” protested Gregory. “Beggin' yer pardon, Miss. We ain't in 'is Majesty's service lookin' for' Uns, but just or'nary sailors on a tramp wot's gawn. W'en the 'Esperus went so did our contract, missee. You arsk the Board o' Trade.
“We're going to git, salvage or no salvage, afore that there bleeding singing monkey does us in. You'd better come along.”
In a group they moved away. Carnell called:
“Will you stop there, Miss Kelvett? I'm going down to find out what the trouble is. Then those fellows won't want to go.”
“All right,” assented Vi.
Followed by Chi Loo, Carnell hurried down the companionway. As she began to walk up and down the bridge Vi felt a sense of the uncanny—“funny,” as the men had put it—produced by being up against something that reason could not grapple with. Of course a “singing monkey” was ridiculous; nor could it, she assured herself for the hundredth time, have anything to do with the wholesale slaughter. As a dismal foreboding that Carnell too would never appear alive gripped her, she knew that she was actually afraid.
The men came out of the forecastle carry1g bundles of hastily gathered provisions and their wardrobes, which they had replenished on the Monsoon. As they passed over the lower bridge they called out urging her to join them. She did not deign to reply.
They made for the one boat left on the starboard side of the after end of the middle bridge and began to swing her out. Apparently there was some discussion about getting better provisions from the saloon, but nobody apparently was willing to descend to the proximity of the “singing monkey,” as they termed the ape.
As she stood there, watching the black bows rising and falling almost imperceptibly against the expanse of sea gaily flecked in the bright sunlight, she grew very conscious of the body of her uncle in the chartroom below. A sense of awful desolation overcame her. She became the prey of a picture of herself alone in the great ship at the mercy of this orang-utan or whatever other horrors were beneath the deck that had been responsible for the death of the previous victims.
Hours it seemed, waiting on the bridge there, listening to the swish of the seas against the indifferent hull. She could hear the men abaft the engine-room skylight still wrangling about some matter.
“Fools!” muttered Vi angrily. “They don't know how to navigate, and they'll never be picked up!”
IN THE dismal statement Vi found pleasure which seemed to comfort her. If only a steamer would come along! She could not forget the body of her uncle in the chart-house. She lighted another cigaret to dispel the emotion. Perpetually she glanced anxiously at the companion doorway.
Then some thought disturbed her. Supposing the beastly ape came out and attacked her! She had no revolver nor a weapon of any kind.
Involuntarily her eyes sought the direction of the men loading the boat. Conviction began to grow that Carnell and Chi Loo had been killed too; that she would be left alone with this singing horror. There was another boat left, but she could not handle that single-handed.
Sense of time became distorted. At length in desperation she descended to the bridge-deck with an idea of seeking in the chart-house for another revolver, recollecting that Carnell had said that there were two.
As she approached the door she heard distinctly a step on the companion stairs. Certain that it was Carnell returning, she rushed to the door. She peered below, but she could not see any one.
“I'd better get that revolver,” she thought and turned toward the chart-house.
Simultaneously with the sound of scuffling feet a body struck her shoulders and arms wound about her. Convinced that the singing monkey had got her, she screamed. Then she heard a laugh and glimpsed a coat sleeve.
“Selwyn!” she gasped, and began to struggle furiously.
He laughed and, lifting her off her feet, bore her down the stairs, saying in her ear—
“I've got you now, you little devil!”
But the contact with something so tangible as Selwyn had instantly dispelled uncanny fear and allowed the return of reason. Vi lay still until he was half-way across the saloon and then made a convulsive wriggle. This enabled her to get out of his arms for a moment and to free her right hand, which she brought with all her force across his mouth.
He swore and grabbed her. They went down on the floor together. She fought as fiercely as a leopardess, trying to get a ju-jutsu hold. But he managed to evade her long enough to drag off the saloon table-cloth, which he succeeded in wrapping about her arms and mouth. At length, gasping with anger and exertion, he sat down on a chair and swore, telling her what he intended to do with her as he wiped sweat and blood from his face.
Suddenly he got up, entered the pantry and came back with a bottle of champagne, which he proceeded to drink. With his shirt in ribbons and the stubble of his face covered in streaks of blood, he looked an ugly object.
This man could not have been responsible for the first murders obviously. As Vi was thinking desperately how to circumvent him and wondering what had become of Carnell and Chi Loo a giggle sounded outside, and into the saloon pranced a creature in a shirt and a pair of dungaree pants. His straggly wisps of beard sprouted from a wizened face almost the color of mahogany and his bald white cranium was decorated with tufts of gray hairs on each side.
As soon as he saw Vi lying prostrate on the floor he pointed and began to giggle afresh. Roughly Selwyn told him to “shut up,” at which he subsided on the floor and began to sing softly, waving one ridiculous, skinny finger as if beating time. Selwyn looked at him, laughed and drank.
“This is Professor Lamberteau,” said he, waving one hand between them. “Mad as a hatter, y' know, but quite a dear! Invented a nice little thing the Huns would have given millions for; but he's gone dotty; which is a pity, what? Pity too he ain't a parson; then he might marry us; eh, darling?”
He leered at her and bending deliberately kissed her on the cheek above the gag.
“Sorry I had to gag you, ol' thing,” he continued mockingly, “but I haven't disposed of your amiable lover yet. I've got a revolver now, pettest. As soon as the men have gone—what's left of 'em after Professor Nutty has finished with them—and I've finished this thirst you've given me I'll go and fix him, you bleeding little wild-cat.”
Vi's heart gave a thump of relief at the news that Carnell was still alive.
“Oh, shut up, you old fool!” added Selwyn sharply to the singing idiot.
“You'll bring him down here”
“Then we'll have a nice little honeymoon; eh, sweetheart? We're sure to be picked up sooner or later. There's enough food for three months anyway although I doubt whether the booze will last me that long. Then salvage will recompense me for all the little inconveniences and the Hesperus your fool of an uncle lost.”
As he stopped to take another drink Vi saw around the corner of the open saloon door the hairy face of the monkey peering.
“As for you,” continued Selwyn, “well, darling dearest, if you consent to behave yourself we'll go halves with the loot, eh? If not”
At that moment Vi saw a white object leave the hand of the ape. As it smashed in front of her, Selwyn literally screamed and the mad professor squawked.
Both sprang for the door and banged it behind them. As she listened to their footsteps racing up the companion stairs she stared perplexedly at the smashed egg in front of her, the yolk of which had sprayed over her dress.