"
Not for many a long day was I to realize the dire part that scar in
Mr. Mellaire's head was to play in his destiny and in the destiny of
the Elsinore. Had I known at the time, Captain West would have
received the most unusual awakening from sleep that he ever
experienced; for he would have been routed out by a very determined,
partially-dressed passenger with a proposition capable of going to
the extent of buying the Elsinore outright with all her cargo, so
that she might be sailed straight back to Baltimore.
As it was, I merely thought it a very marvellous thing that Mr.
Mellaire should have lived so many years with such a hole in his
head.
We talked on, and he gave me many details of that particular
happening, and of other happenings at sea on the part of the lunatics
that seem to infest the sea.
And yet I could not like the man. In nothing he said, nor in the
manner of saying things, could I find fault. He seemed generous,
broad-minded, and, for a sailor, very much of a man of the world. It
was easy for me to overlook his excessive suavity of speech and
super-courtesy of social mannerism.
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