hatchways and savagely chewing
the end of a cigar, was the man whose casual glance had rescued me from
the sea. His height was probably five feet ten inches, or ten and a
half; but my first impression, or feel of the man, was not of this, but
of his strength. And yet, while he was of massive build, with broad
shoulders and deep chest, I could not characterize his strength as
massive. It was what might be termed a sinewy, knotty strength, of the
kind we ascribe to lean and wiry men, but which, in him, because of his
heavy build, partook more of the enlarged gorilla order. Not that in
appearance he seemed in the least gorilla-like. What I am striving to
express is this strength itself, more as a thing apart from his physical
semblance. It was a strength we are wont to associate with things
primitive, with wild animals, and the creatures we imagine our
tree-dwelling prototypes to have been--a strength savage, ferocious,
alive in itself, the essence of life in that it is the potency of motion,
the elemental stuff itself out of which the many forms of life have been
moulded; in short, that which writhes in the body of a snake when the
head is cut off, and the snake, as a snake, is dead, or which lingers in
the shapeless lump of turtle-meat and recoils and quivers from the prod
of a finger.

Such was the impression of strength I gathered from this man who paced up
and down. He was firmly planted on his legs; his feet struck the deck
squarely and with surety; every movement of a muscle, from the heave of
the shoulders to the tightening of the lips about the cigar, was
decisive, and seemed to come out of a strength that was excessive and
overwhelming. In fact, though this strength pervaded every action of
his, it seemed but the advertisement of a greater strength that lurked
within, that lay dormant and no more than stirred from time to time, but
which might arouse, at any moment, terrible and compelling, like the rage
of a lion or the wrath of a storm.

The cook stuck his head out of the galley door and grinned encouragingly
at me, at the same time jerking his thumb in the direction of the man who
paced up and down by the hatchway. Thus I was given to understand that
he was the captain, the "Old Man," in the cook's vernacular, the
individual whom I must interview and put to the trouble of somehow
getting me ashore. I had half started forward, to get over with what I
was certain would be a stormy five minutes, when a