By this time the boat had reached the spot where the hulk had foundered, and we could see the men lying over the side picking up the monkeys. I ran my gaze eagerly over the surface there, somehow fancying that one or more bodies of men might rise; but there was nothing in that way to be seen. The boat lingered with the fellows in her standing up and looking around them. They then reseated themselves, the oars sparkled, and presently the little fabric came rushing through the water to alongside. ‘How many have you picked up, Mr. Jenkinson!’ cried the mate. ‘Only eight, sir. I believe they were half dead with hunger and thirst, and had no strength to swim, for most of them had sunk before we could approach them.’ ‘Hand the poor brutes up.’ Some of the Jacks jumped into the chains to receive the creatures, and they were passed over the rail on to the quarter-deck. Deeply as one might pity the unhappy brutes, it was impossible to look at them with a grave face. One of them was an ape with white whiskers like a frill, and a tuft of hair upon his brow that made the rest of his head look bald. He had lost an eye, but the other blinker was so full of human expression that I found myself shaking with laughter as I watched him. He sat on his hams like a Lascar, gazing up at us with his one eye with a wrinkled and grinning countenance of appeal grotesque beyond the wildest fancies of the caricaturist. There was one pretty little chap with red fur upon his breast like a waistcoat. Some of the creatures, on feeling the warm planks of the deck, lay down in the exact posture of human beings, reposing their heads upon their extended arms and closing their eyes. ‘Bo’sun,’ called Mr. Prance, ‘get those poor beasts forward and have water and food given them. Swing the topsail yard--lee main topsail braces.’ In a few minutes the quarter-deck was clear again, with an ordinary seaman swabbing the wet spaces left by the monkeys, and the ship quietly pushing forwards on her course. CHAPTER IX A SECRET BLOW