The Morgan City daily review. (Morgan City, La.) 1916-1920, 1917-11-05
CHAPTER /.
Paulvitch and an Ape.

The Marjorie WIS long boat was
floating down the broad Ugambi with
ebb tide and current. Her crew were
lazily enjoying this respite from the
arduous labor of rowing upstream.
Three miles below them lay the Mar
iorie herself. quite ready to sail 80
soon as they should have clambered
aboard and swung the long boat to It's
davits.
Presently the attention Of every man
was drawn from his dreaming or his
g0ssiping to the northern bank of the
river. There, screaming at them in a
cracked falsettO, and with skinny arms
outstretched, stood strange appari-
ton of a man.
"Wot in thunder" calculated one of
the crew.
"A white man." muttered the mate
and then: Man the oars, boys, and
we'll just pull over an see what he
wants"
When they came close to the shore
they saw an emaciated creature with
scant white locks, tangled and matted.
The thin, bent body was naked save
for loin cloth. Tears were rolling
down the sunken. pockmarked cheeks.
The man jabbered ut them In a strange
tongue.
"Rooshun," hazarded the mate.
"Savvy English?' he called to the
man.
The scarecr0w did, and in that tongue,
hsokenly and haltingly. as though it
had been many years since he had used
Il, he begged them to take him with
them away from this awful country.
Once on board the Marjorie w. the
stranger told his rescuers pitiful tale
OF prfvation, hardships and torture, ex-
tending over a period of ten years.
How he happened to have come to
Africa he did not tell them, leaving
them to assume that he had forgotten
the incidents Of his life prior to the
Gightful ordeals that had wrecked him
mentally and physically. His name, he
said, was Alexis Paulvitch.
A few scraggly, yellow-white locks
had supplanted the thick dark hair tia.
had once covered his head. His limb.
were bent and twisted; he walked with
a shutting. unsteady gait, his body
doubled forward. His teeth were gone
out by his savage masters.
Even his mentality was but a sorry
mockery of what it once had been.
They took him aboard the Marjorie
W., and there they d and nursed him.
He gained little In strength, hut his
appearance never altered for the bet
tH-a human derelict, battered ana
wrecked, they had found him; human
derelict, battered and wrecked, he
would remain until death claimed him.
Alexis Paulvitch could easily have
passed for eighty.
The Marjorie w. had been chartered
by syndicate of wealthy manufac-
turers, equipped with a laboratory and
q staff of scientists and sent out to
search for some natural product which
the manufactures who footed the bills
had been importing from South Amer
lea at an enormous cost. What the
product was none on board tho Mar
5orie w. knew except the scientists;
nor is 1t Of any moment to us, other
than that it led the ship to certain
island of the coast Of Africa after
Alexis Paulvitch had been taken
aboard.
The ship lay at anchor OF the coast
for several weeks. The monotony Of
ME aboard her became trying for the
crew. They went often ashore, and
finally Paalvitch asked to accompany
then-he. too, was firing Of the blight
ing sameness u existence upon the
ship.
The island was heavily ttmbe9ed
Dense jungle ran d0wA almost TO the
beach. The scientists were f1 iniend,
Prosecuting their search for IL yu1u'