oss forehead and temple and cheek in a
white, jagged seam. This discoloration was of a livid blue, about the
tint of a tattoo mark. It made a patch the size of a man's hand, lying
across the cheek and the side of the neck. Hiram could not keep his eyes
from this mark and the white scar cutting across it.

There was an odd sort of incongruity in Levi's dress; a pair of heavy
gold earrings and a dirty red handkerchief knotted loosely around his
neck, beneath an open collar, displaying to its full length the lean,
sinewy throat with its bony "Adam's apple," gave to his costume somewhat
the smack of a sailor. He wore a coat that had once been of fine
plum color--now stained and faded--too small for his lean length, and
furbished with tarnished lace. Dirty cambric cuffs hung at his wrists
and on his fingers were half a dozen and more rings, set with stones
that shone, and glistened, and twinkled in the light of the fire. The
hair at either temple was twisted into a Spanish curl, plastered flat to
the cheek, and a plaited queue hung halfway down his back.

Hiram, speaking never a word, sat motionless, his dull little eyes
traveling slowly up and down and around and around his stepbrother's
person.

Levi did not seem to notice his scrutiny, leaning forward, now with
his palms spread out to the grateful warmth, now rubbing them slowly
together. But at last he suddenly whirled his chair around, rasping
on the floor, and faced his stepbrother. He thrust his hand into his
capacious coat pocket and brought out a pipe which he proceeded to fill
from a skin of tobacco. "Well, Hi," said he, "d'ye see I've come back
home again?"

"Thought you was dead," said Hiram, dully.

Levi laughed, then he drew a red-hot coal out of the fire, put it upon
the bowl of the pipe and began puffing out clouds of pungent smoke.
"Nay, nay," said he; "not dead--not dead by odds. But [puff] by the
Eternal Holy, Hi, I played many a close game [puff] with old Davy Jones,
for all that."

Hiram's look turned inquiringly toward the jagged scar and Levi caught
the slow glance. "You're lookin' at this," said he, running his finger
down the crooked seam. "That looks bad, but it wasn't so close as
this"--laying his hand for a moment upon the livid stain. "A cooly devil
off Singapore gave me that cut when we fell foul of an opium junk in the
China Sea four years ago last September. This," touching the disfiguring
blue patch again, "was a closer miss, Hi. A Spa