A boat’s crew came bundling aft to the cry of the mate; in a mighty hurry the gripes were cast adrift, and the tackles slackened away with the men in their places, and the fourth officer in the stern sheets shipping the rudder as the boat sank. There was a deal of confusion for the moment, what with the tumbling aft of the sailors, the passengers getting out of their road, the hubbub of ladies’ voices, and the cries of the seamen dragging upon the weather main-braces to back the yards. ‘There she goes!’ cried I; ‘there’ll not be many of the creatures rescued, I believe. Monkeys are indifferent swimmers.’ ‘Lively now, Mr. Jenkinson,’ yelled Mr. Prance to the fourth officer, ‘or they’ll all be drowned.’ The chaps gave way with a will, and the boat buzzed towards the patch of little black heads that rose and sank upon the swell as though a sack of cocoa-nuts had been capsized out there. All hands stood gazing in silence. The drowning struggle of a single beast is a pitiful sight; but to see a crowd perishing, a whole mob of brutes horribly counterfeiting the aspect and motions of suffering humanity with their faces and gestures, is painful, and indeed intolerable. The ladies had come to the forward end of the poop out of the way of the seamen pulling upon the main brace, and I found myself next to Miss Temple at the rail. ‘They _are_ monkeys, I suppose?’ she said, swiftly shooting a glance of her black eyes at me, and then staring again seawards with her pale face as passionless as a piece of carving, and nothing to show that she was in the least degree moved by the excitement of the scene of drowning monkeys and speeding boat, saving her parted lips, as though she breathed a little fast. ‘They are as much monkeys,’ said I, ‘as fur and tails can make a creature.’ ‘Do you suppose there were living people locked up in that hold?’ ‘God forbid!’ said I. ‘It is not a thing to conjecture _now_.’ ‘How could those monkeys have lived without air?’ ‘Air there must have been, Miss Temple, or they could not have lived. The story of the wreck seems simple enough to my mind. She was, no doubt, a little schooner from the Brazilian coast, bound to a European port with a freight of monkeys, which are always a saleable commodity. They would be stowed away somewhere aft in the run, perhaps, as it is called. The vessel capsized, and floated, as Captain Keeling suggested, upon the air in her. Our cannon-ball knocked a hole in the hulk right over the monkeys’ quarters, and out they came. I can tell you of more wonderful things than that.’ ‘She must have _capsized_, as you call it, very recently,’ said she, glancing at me again--it was rarely more than a glance with her, as though she believed that such beauty as her eyes had entitled them to a royal privacy. ‘No doubt,’ I answered.