- end_line
- 3638
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:48:26.981Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 3584
- text
- powerful head, and shaggy. An iron-gray beard broad as a commodore’s
pennant, and about the mouth indelibly streaked with the moodily
dribbled tobacco juice of all his cruises. In his day watch-below
silently couched by himself on the gun-deck in a bay between black
cannon, he might have suggested an image of the Great Grizzly of the
California Sierras, his coat the worse for wear, grim in his last den
awaiting the last hour.
In his shore moorings--hard by the waters, not very far from the
docks--what with his all-night-in and easier lot in every particular,
with choice of associates when he desired them, which was not always,
happily he lost most of his gruffness as the old mastiff of the mainmast
exposed to all weathers and with salt-horse for his diet. A stranger
accosting him sunning himself upon some old spar on the strand, and
kindly saluting him there, would receive no surly response, and if more
than mere salutation was exchanged, would probably go away with the
impression that he had been talking with an interesting oddity, a salt
philosopher, not lacking in a sort of grim common-sense.
After being ashore for a period, a singularity in his habits was
remarked. At times, but only when he might think himself quite alone, he
would roll aside the bosom of his darned Guernsey frock and steadfastly
contemplate something on his body. If by chance discovered in this, he
would quickly conceal all and growl his resentment.
This peculiarity awakening the curiosity of certain idle observers,
lodgers under the same roof with him, and none caring to be so bold as
to question him as to the reason of it, or to ask what it was on his
body, a drug was enlisted as a means of finding out the secret. In
prudent quantities it was slyly slipped into his huge bowl of tea at
supper. Next morning a certain old-clothes-man whispered to his gossips
the result of his sorry intrusion overnight.
Drawing them into a corner, and looking around furtively, ‘Listen,’ said
he, and told them an eerie story, following it up with shuddering
conjectures, vague enough, but dear to the superstitious and ignorant
mind. What he had really discovered was this: a crucifix in indigo and
vermilion tattooed on the chest and on the side of the heart. Slanting
across the crucifix and paling the pigment there ran a whitish scar,
long and thin, such as might ensue from the slash of a cutlass
imperfectly parried or dodged. The cross of the Passion is often
tattooed upon the sailor, upon the forearm generally, sometimes, though
but rarely, on the trunk. As for the scar, the old mastman had in
legitimate naval service known what it was to repel boarders and not
without receiving a sabre mark from them. It may be. The gossips of the
lodging, however, took another view of the discovery, and at last
reported to the landlady that the old sailor was a sort of _man forbid_,
a man branded by the Evil Spirit, and it would be well to get rid of
him, lest the charm in the horse-shoe nailed over the house-door should
be fatally counteracted and be naught. The good woman, however, was a
sensible lady with no belief in the horse-shoe, though she tolerated it,
and as the old mastman was regular in his weekly dues, and never made
noise or gave trouble, she turned a deaf ear to all solicitations
against him.
- title
- Chunk 2