He must have the room next to mine."
"We can manage that easily for you."
Schomberg steered with dignity, staring straight ahead, but very much
interested by these two promising "accounts." Their belongings, a couple
of large leather trunks browned by age and a few smaller packages,
were piled up in the bows. A third individual--a nondescript, hairy
creature--had modestly made his way forward and had perched himself on
the luggage. The lower part of his physiognomy was over-developed;
his narrow and low forehead, unintelligently furrowed by horizontal
wrinkles, surmounted wildly hirsute cheeks and a flat nose with wide,
baboon-like nostrils. There was something equivocal in the appearance of
his shaggy, hair-smothered humanity. He, too, seemed to be a follower of
the clean-shaven man, and apparently had travelled on deck with native
passengers, sleeping under the awnings. His broad, squat frame denoted
great strength. Grasping the gunwales of the launch, he displayed a
pair of remarkably long arms, terminating in thick, brown hairy paws of
simian aspect.
"What shall we do with the fellow of mine?" the chief of the party asked
Schomberg. "There must be a boarding-house somewhere near the port--some
grog-shop where they could let him have a mat to sleep on?"
Schomberg said there was a place kept by a Portuguese half-caste.
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