"O'Sullivan used a razor," said Mr. Mellaire.
"And that is Andy Fay?" I cried.
"No, sir, not Andy. That's a Dutchman. Christian Jespersen was his
name on the articles. He got in O'Sullivan's way when O'Sullivan
went after the boots. That's what saved Andy. Andy was more active.
Jespersen couldn't get out of his own way, much less out of
O'Sullivan's. There's Andy sitting over there."
I followed Mr. Mellaire's gaze, and saw the burnt-out, aged little
Scotchman squatted on a spare spar and sucking a pipe. One arm was
in a sling and his head was bandaged. Beside him squatted Mulligan
Jacobs. They were a pair. Both were blue-eyed, and both were
malevolent-eyed. And they were equally emaciated. It was easy to
see that they had discovered early in the voyage their kinship of
bitterness. Andy Fay, I knew, was sixty-three years old, although he
looked a hundred; and Mulligan Jacobs, who was only about fifty, made
up for the difference by the furnace-heat of hatred that burned in
his face and eyes. I wondered if he sat beside the injured bitter
one in some sense of sympathy, or if he were there in order to gloat.
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