It was his deserved misfortune that those rags
which nobody could possibly be supposed to own looked on him as if they
had been stolen. His neck was long and thin; his eyelids were red; rare
hairs hung about his jaws; his shoulders were peaked and drooped like
the broken wings of a bird; all his left side was caked with mud
which showed that he had lately slept in a wet ditch. He had saved his
inefficient carcass from violent destruction by running away from an
American ship where, in a moment of forgetful folly, he had dared to
engage himself; and he had knocked about for a fortnight ashore in the
native quarter, cadging for drinks, starving, sleeping on rubbish-heaps,
wandering in sunshine: a startling visitor from a world of nightmares.
He stood repulsive and smiling in the sudden silence. This clean white
forecastle was his refuge; the place where he could be lazy; where he
could wallow, and lie and eat--and curse the food he ate; where he could
display his talents for shirking work, for cheating, for cadging; where
he could find surely some one to wheedle and some one to bully--and
where he would be paid for doing all this.
Pages:
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33