The man who was standing before Surajah was broader and taller than those around him. The sun had darkened his face, until its shade approached those of his companions, and yet there was no mistaking the fact that he was a European. A heavy moustache and beard, streaked with grey, concealed the lower part of his face. Dick dared not gaze on the man too earnestly, and could see no likeness to the picture on the wall at Shadwell; but, allowing for the effects of hardship and suffering, he judged him to be about the age of his father.
The man was evidently on good terms with the soldiers, one or two of whom were chaffing him on his purchase.
"Will nothing but the best tobacco satisfy you?" one laughed.
"Nothing; and even that won't really satisfy me. This stuff is good enough, when rolled up, for cigars, and it does well enough in hookahs; but I would give all this pound for a couple of pipes of pigtail, which is the tobacco we smoked at sea."
Again Dick's heart beat rapidly. This man must have been a sailor. He could not restrain himself from speaking.
"Have you been a sailor, then?" he asked.
"Ay, I was a sailor, though it is many years ago, now, since I saw the sea."
"We got some English tobacco at Madras," Dick said, not hesitating for once at telling an untruth. "We sold most of it to the Feringhee soldiers, on our way up, but I think I have got a little of it still left somewhere in the pack. I am too busy to look for it now, and we shall soon be going to show our goods to the officers' wives; but if you can come here at nine o'clock, I may have looked it out for you."
"I can't come at nine," the man said, "for at half-past eight I am shut up for the night."
"Come at eight, then," Dick said. "If I am not back, come the first thing in the morning, before we get busy."