The scar where the case-knife had slashed his cheek so long ago stood starkly out from the dull red of his face.
At that the old man threw back his head and burst into a great guffaw of laughter. He laughed until the lantern trembled, until his chair leaned so far back that I feared he was about to fall,--or hoped he was,--until it seemed as if the echoes must come booming back from the farthest shore.
"Lads, lads!" he cried, "you're good lads. You're the delight of an old man's heart! You've done fine! Roger Hamlin, I've a new ship to be finished this summer. You shall be master, if you'll be so kind, for an old man that wishes you well, and"--here he slyly winked at me--"on the day you take a wife, there'll come to your bride a kiss and a thousand dollars in gold from Thomas Webster. As for Ben, here, he's done fine as supercargo of the old Island Princess,--them are good accounts, boy,--and I'll recommend he sails in the new ship with you."
He stopped short then and looked away as if through the bulkhead and over the sea as far, perhaps, as Sunda Strait, and the long line of Sunda Islands bending like a curved blade to guard the mysteries of the East against such young adventurers as we.
After a time he said in a very different voice, "I was warned of one man in the crew, just after you sailed." His fingers beat a dull tattoo on the polished table. "It was too late then to help matters, so I said never a word--not even to my own sons. But--" the old man's voice hardened--"if Nathan Falk ever again sets foot on American soil he'll hang higher than ever Haman hung, if I have to build the gallows with my own two hands, Mr. Hamlin--ay, he or any man of his crew. The law and I'll work together to that end, Mr. Hamlin."
So for a long time we sat and talked of one thing and another.
When at last we went on deck, Mr. Cledd spoke to Roger of something that had happened early in the watch. I approached them idly, overheard a phrase or two and joined them.
"It was the cook," Mr. Cledd was saying. "He was trying to sneak aboard in the dark. I don't think he had been drinking. I can't understand it. He had a big bag of dried apples and said that was all he went for. I don't like to discipline a man so late in the voyage."