ressed
in a frock-coat and white trousers; a flower stuck in his button-hole,
his bearded chin set forward, his mouth clenched with habitual
determination. There was not much of the sailor in his looks, but plenty
of the martinet; a dry, precise man, who might pass for a preacher in
some rigid sect; and, whatever he was, not the Captain Trent of San
Francisco. The men, too, were all new to me: the cook, an unmistakable
Chinaman, in his characteristic dress, standing apart on the poop
steps. But perhaps I turned on the whole with the greatest curiosity to
the figure labelled "E. Goddedaal, 1st off." He whom I had never seen,
he might be the identical; he might be the clue and spring of all this
mystery; and I scanned his features with the eye of a detective. He was
of great stature, seemingly blonde as a Viking, his hair clustering
round his head in frowsy curls, and two enormous whiskers, like the
tusks of some strange animal, jutting from his cheeks. With these virile
appendages and the defiant attitude in which he stood, the expression of
his face only imperfectly harmonised. It was wild, heroic, and
womanish-looking; and I felt I was prepared to hear he was a
sentimentalist, and to see him weep.

For some while I digested my discovery in private, reflecting how best,
and how with most of drama, I might share it with the captain. Then my
sketch-book came in my head, and I fished it out from where it lay, with
other miscellaneous possessions, at the foot of my bunk, and turned to
my sketch of Captain Trent and the survivors of the British brig _Flying
Scud_ in the San Francisco bar-room.

"Nares," said I, "I've told you how I first saw Captain Trent in that
saloon in 'Frisco? how he came with his men, one of them a Kanaka with a
canary-bird in a cage? and how I saw him afterwards at the auction,
frightened to death, and as much surprised at how the figures skipped up
as anybody there. Well," said I, "there's the man I saw"--and I laid the
sketch before him--"there's Trent of 'Frisco and there are his three
hands. Find one of them in the photograph, and I'll be obliged."

Nares compared the two in silence. "Well," he said at last, "I call this
rather a relief: seems to clear the horizon. We might have guessed at
something of the kind from the double ration of chests that figured."

"Does it explain anything?" I asked.

"It would explain everything," Nares replied, "but for the
steam-crusher. It'll all tally as neat