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The wind howled about her, the torrential rain beat loudly upon her, but except
for a slight rocking the ship lay quiet.
Hours passed with no other sounds than those of the rapidly waning tempest.
The girl heard no signs of life upon the ship. Her curiosity became more and
more keenly aroused. She had that indefinable, intuitive feeling that she was
utterly alone upon the vessel, and at length, unable to endure the inaction and
uncertainty longer, made her way to the companion ladder where for half an hour
she futilely attempted to remove the hatch.
As she worked she failed to hear the scraping of naked bodies clambering over
the ship's side, or the padding of unshod feet upon the deck above her. She was
about to give up her work at the hatch when the heavy wooden cover suddenly
commenced to move above her as though actuated by some supernatural power.
Fascinated, the girl stood gazing in wide-eyed astonishment as one end of the
hatch rose higher and higher until a little patch of blue sky revealed the fact that
morning had come. Then the cover slid suddenly back and Virginia Maxon found
herself looking into a savage and terrible face.
The dark skin was creased in fierce wrinkles about the eyes and mouth. Gleaming
tiger cat's teeth curved upward from holes pierced to receive them in the upper
half of each ear. The slit ear lobes supported heavy rings whose weight had
stretched the skin until the long loop rested upon the brown shoulders. The filed
and blackened teeth behind the loose lips added the last touch of hideousness to
this terrible countenance.
Nor was this all. A score of equally ferocious faces peered down from behind the
foremost. With a little scream Virginia Maxon sprang back to the lower deck and
ran toward her stateroom. Behind her she heard the commotion of many men
descending the companionway.
As Number Thirteen came into the campong after quitting the bungalow his
heart was a chaos of conflicting emotions. His little world had been wiped out.
His creator--the man whom he thought his only friend and benefactor--had
suddenly turned against him. The beautiful creature he worshipped was either
lost or dead; Sing had said so. He was nothing but a miserable THING. There
was no place in the world for him, and even should he again find Virginia Maxon,
he had von Horn's word for it that she would shrink from him and loathe him
even more than another.
With no plans and no hopes he walked aimlessly through the blinding rain,
oblivious of it and of the vivid lightning and deafening thunder. The palisade at
length brought him to a sudden stop. Mechanically he squatted on his haunches
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