Answer me this, Lieutenant Cringle, and
truly, so help you God at your utmost need, did the mate leave the cabin
at any moment after I was wounded by the splinter?" And he seized one of
my hands convulsively with his iron paw, while he pointed up through the
open scuttle towards heaven with the other, which trembled like a reed.
The moon shone strong on the upper part of his countenance, while the
yellow smoky glare of the candle over which he bent, blending harshly
and inharmoniously with the pale silver light, fell full on his uncouth
figure, and on his long scraggy bare neck and chin and cheeks, giving
altogether a most unearthly expression to his savage features, from the
conflicting tints and changing shadows cast by the flickering moonbeams
streaming fitfully through the skylight, as the vessel rolled to and
fro, and by the large torchlike candle as it wavered in the night wind.
The Prince of the Powers of the Air might have sat for his picture by
proxy. It was just such a face as one has dreamed of after a hot supper
and cold ale, when the whisky had been forgotten--horrible, changing,
vague, glimmering, and undefined; and as if something was still wanting
to complete the utter frightfulness of his aspect, the splinter wound in
his head burst out afresh from his violent agitation, and streamed down
in heavy drops from his forehead, falling warm on my hand. I was much
shaken at being adjured in this tremendous way, with the hot blood
glewing our hands together, but I returned his grasp as steadily as I
could, while I replied, with all the composure he had left me, and that
would not have quite filled a Winchester bushel.
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