"Caramba!" cried Gerilleau, and resorted to Holroyd forthwith.
Holroyd was half-way up the companion. "Did you see dat?" said the
captain.
"Dead!" said Holroyd. "Yes. You'd better send a boat aboard. There's
something wrong."
"Did you--by any chance--see his face?"
"What was it like?"
"It was--ugh!--I have no words." And the captain suddenly turned his back
on Holroyd and became an active and strident commander.
The gunboat came about, steamed parallel to the erratic course of the
canoe, and dropped the boat with Lieutenant da Cunha and three sailors to
board her. Then the curiosity of the captain made him draw up almost
alongside as the lieutenant got aboard, so that the whole of the _Santa
Rosa_, deck and hold, was visible to Holroyd.
He saw now clearly that the sole crew of the vessel was these two dead
men, and though he could not see their faces, he saw by their outstretched
hands, which were all of ragged flesh, that they had been subjected to
some strange exceptional process of decay.
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