Chapter 4 Chapter 3 Strange Faces

We went into the cabin and found a man on the cabin ladder, blocking our way.He stood on the ladder with his back to us, staring at the spray splashing on the hatch.He was a grotesque fellow, stubby, clumsy, stooped, with a hairy neck, and his head almost sunk into his shoulders.He was dressed in dark blue twill serge clothes, and his thick, bristly black hair was surprisingly thick.I heard the howling and barking of a pack of dogs I hadn't seen yet, and he quickly backed away just in time for my outstretched hand to fend him off.With animal-like agility, he turned around suddenly. The black face that flashed at me scared me out of my wits.It was a strangely deformed face.The face is protruding, making people feel that it looks like the face of an animal; the half-open huge mouth shows two rows of big white teeth that I have never seen in a human mouth; the corners of the eyes are bloodshot, and the circle is incomplete Hazel pupils surround the whites of his eyes.There was a strange look on his face.Excited flush.

"Damn it, bastard!" Montgomery shouted. "Why the hell don't you move out of the way?" The black-faced man skipped aside without saying a word. I continued up the ladder, almost involuntarily still staring at him.Montgomery paused for a moment at the foot of the ladder. "It's none of your business here, you know," he said in a deliberately unhurried tone. "Your place is at the front of the ship." The black-faced man flinched. "They?? Don't want me to go to the front boat." He said slowly, his voice was hoarse and weird. "I don't want you to go to the foreboat!" said Montgomery threateningly, "but I told you to go there." He was on the verge of swearing again, and then suddenly looked up at me.Follow me up the escalator.I stopped at the hatch, one foot in, one foot out, looking back, still in utter amazement at the astonishing ugliness of this black-faced fellow.I had never before seen such a repulsively peculiar face, and yet, if this contradiction is to be believed, I had at the same time a strange feeling that, on some occasion, I did and this now brought me together. Such a terrified countenance and expression had met before, and then I remembered that I might have seen him when I was being carried aboard, and the thought was not enough to unravel the mystery that I seemed to have met him before. Doubt.However, I then thought, how can a person who has seen such an ugly face with his own eyes forget the exact occasion of meeting him.

Montgomery followed me up the escalator, diverting my attention.I turned and looked around at the flat deck of the little schooner from bow to stern.From hearing the clamor of Xuan, how prepared I was for what I saw.Of course, I've never seen such a dirty deck.Broken carrots, scattered vegetables, vegetation, and indescribable dirt made the deck messy and ugly.Fearsome-looking deer, chained to the king-mast, came upon me, barking.In a small iron cage by the mizzenmast, a large cougar was tightly shut.The cage was so small that there was almost no room for the mountain leopard to turn around in it.In addition, some rabbits were kept in a cage under the starboard wall.In one of the bays in the previous cage a single llama was stuffed.The dogs were all on leashes.The only living being on deck was a gaunt, taciturn sailor at the wheel.

【① Deer: A hunting dog for hunting deer. 】 【② Llama, also known as vicuna.A thickly-coated pack animal native to South America. 】 The boat was patched, with a dirty sternspout, and the schooner was full with the wind, as if with all sails, to cut through the waves.The sky is clear, the red sun is half-set in the west; the waves, with the foamy breeze passing over the waves, are chasing us.We passed the helmsman to the transom and gazed side by side at the foam rising under the stern and the bubbles dancing and disappearing in the lane.I turned and looked around at the disgusting sight on the long deck of this ship.

"Is this a traveling exhibit of marine animals?" I asked. "It looks alike," Montgomery said. "What are these animals for? Merchandise? Precious exotic animals? Does the captain want to sell them somewhere in the South China Sea?" "It's quite like that, isn't it?" said Montgomery, turning again to look at the channel behind the ship.Suddenly we heard a howl and angry curses from under the ladder, and saw the misshapen dark-faced man hastily climb up the ladder.Immediately behind him was a man with thick red hair in a white bonnet.At this moment, the deerhounds, who were already tired of barking at me, became excited again when they saw the black-faced man in front of them, howling crazily and jumping, trying to break free from their chains.The black-faced man hesitated in front of the group of dogs, and the red-haired man took a step forward and slapped him between the shoulder blades.The poor fellow, like a downed bull, was subdued, curled up in the filth among the furious and excited dogs.Good luck to the blackface to put muzzles on these crazy dogs.The red-haired man let out a strange cry of pride, and stood there staggeringly.It seemed to me that he hesitated, whether to return to his body and go down the ladder, or to throw himself upon his victim?

As soon as the redhead showed his head, Montgomery jumped up with a start. "Beware!" he cried in a persuasive tone.In the forecastle below the forecastle, two more sailors appeared. The black-faced man barked wildly in a strange voice, and rolled around at the feet of the dogs.No one wanted to help him.The beasts bit and bit as hard as they could, teased him, and charged him with their muzzles.I saw the soft gray bodies of the dogs jumping up and down on the rough black-faced man lying on the ground.The sailors came up to the fun, and yelled at them, as if it were such a wonderful amusement.Montgomery gave a cry of indignation and strode down onto the deck.I followed closely behind him.

In the blink of an eye, the black-faced man got up and staggered forward.He tripped over the shrouds, staggered against the bulwark, gasped heavily, and turned his head to stare angrily at the pack of vicious dogs.The redhead smiled with satisfaction. "I say, Captain," said Montgomery, with a firm grip on the redhead's elbow, and with a little emphasis of his great tongue, "this won't work." I stand behind Montgomery.The captain half-turned and gazed at him with that insensitivity, serious drunken eye of a drunk. "What's wrong?" he said, staring sleepily into Montgomery's face for a moment, then added, "Damn the bonesetter!"

He jerked his arm free, tried twice to put his hands in the side pockets, failed, and finally thrust his speckled fists into the side pockets. "He's a ship's passenger," said Montgomery, "and I've advised you to leave him alone." "Go to hell!" shouted the captain.He turned around abruptly, and staggered towards the side of the ship. "In my own boat I can do what I please!" he said. I thought Montgomery saw the guy was drunk enough to stop talking to him.Unexpectedly, his dark face became even paler, and he followed the captain to the bulwark.

"I say, Captain," he said. "Stop mistreating this squire of mine, he has been bullied and teased since he came aboard." The captain was momentarily silenced by the smell of alcohol. "Damn bonesetter!" was the only vent he thought he had to say. I saw that Montgomery was a man of a bad temper.I also noticed that the spat had become increasingly heated. "He's drunk," I might say meddling; "you're doing no good." Montgomery's drooping lips twisted ugly. "He's always drunk. Do you think that excuses him for his insults to his ship's passengers?"

"My ship," said the captain, waving his hand unsteadily, pointing to the iron cages, "It's a clean boat. Now look at it." Of course, the boat wasn't clean at all. "Sailors," continued the captain, "clean and respectable sailors." "It was you who agreed to transport these animals." "Wish I never saw your dreadful little island. What the hell do you want these animals for on such an island? So that man of yours knows he's a man. He's a madman. There's no His business. Do you think the whole fucking ship belongs to you?

"As soon as he got aboard, your fellows began to tease and tease the poor wretch." "Exactly. He's a ghost, an ugly devil. My people can't stand him. I can't stand him. We can't stand him. Neither can you." Montgomery turned and walked away. "Anyway, don't mess with him," he said, nodding his head. But now the captain decided to quarrel.He raised his voice: "If he comes back here in the stern again, tell you, I'll beat his guts out, beat his goddam guts out! How old are you to tell me what to do. Tell you , I am the captain of this ship--captain and owner. Here I am the law, I tell you, the law and the prophet. I have negotiated a price to carry a master and a servant to and from Arica, and bring back some Animals. But I never talked about a madman and a stupid bonesetter, a—” Well, never mind what he called Montgomery.Seeing Montgomery take a step forward, I immediately intervened, wedged between them. "He's drunk," I said. The captain uttered another foul word than that last sentence. "Shut up," I said, turning sharply away from him, for I could tell from Montgomery's pale face that something was going to happen.In doing so, I directed the downpour of curses upon myself.However, I was very happy, because I prevented a melee that was about to break out, even if I risked the captain's drunken malice, I didn't care.Never, though I had met eccentric fellow-travelers many times before, had such a flow, such a rich variety of baseness, come from any one.Although I am a mild-mannered person, I found some of the curses almost unbearable. But when I told the captain to shut up, I doubtless forgot that I was but a mere survivor of a shipwreck, a tramp cut off from means and means, unpaid for the ship, and dependent on the A benevolent -- or speculative -- bum.The captain reminded me of this with his rather forceful actions. But no matter what, I did prevent a fight.