“But why?”

“The men, on account of the men swearin’ blood an’ vengeance and warrants against me because of my ways of teachin’ them to be sailors.  Why, the times I was caught, and the fines the skipper paid for me—and yet it was my work that made the ship make money.”

He held up his huge paws, and as I stared at the battered, malformed knuckles I understood the nature of his work.

“But all that’s stopped now,” he lamented.  “A sailor’s a gentleman these days.  You can’t raise your voice or your hand to them.”

At this moment he was addressed from the poop-rail above by the second mate, a medium-sized, heavily built, clean-shaven, blond man.

“The tug’s in sight with the crew, sir,” he announced.

The mate grunted an acknowledgment, then added, “Come on down, Mr. Mellaire, and meet our passenger.”

I could not help noting the air and carriage with which Mr. Mellaire came down the poop-ladder and took his part in the introduction.  He was courteous in an old-world way, soft-spoken, suave, and unmistakably from south of Mason and Dixon .

“A Southerner,” I said.

“Georgia, sir.”  He bowed and smiled, as only a Southerner can bow and smile.

His features and expression were genial and gentle, and yet his mouth was the cruellest gash I had ever seen in a man’s face.  It was a gash.  There is no other way of describing that harsh, thin-lipped, shapeless mouth that uttered gracious things so graciously.  Involuntarily I glanced at his hands.  Like the mate’s, they were thick-boned, broken-knuckled, and malformed.  Back into his blue eyes I looked.  On the surface of them was a film of light, a gloss of gentle kindness and cordiality, but behind that gloss I knew resided neither sincerity nor mercy.  Behind that gloss was something cold and terrible, that lurked and waited and watched—something catlike, something inimical and deadly.  Behind that gloss of soft light and of social sparkle was the live, fearful thing that had shaped that mouth into the gash it was.  What I sensed behind in those eyes chilled me with its repulsiveness and strangeness.