Altogether, his face had in it more of pure intellect and pictorial manly beauty than any I had ever seen. His costume was a scarlet forage cap, the tassel of which drooped on his right shoulder, and a loose tunic of dark green cloth, the cuffs, collar, and skirts of which were trimmed with sables; but this peculiar garment, like his long military boots, seemed well worn, or as Jack said, "decidedly shabby."
He remained very much aloof from the passengers, and either sat or walked apart, communing apparently with himself, and smoking a huge pipe, the aspect of which was as foreign as his own.
A figure so melo-dramatic on board of a steamer—even a Spanish one—was too remarkable in the present day to escape notice, and I repeatedly drew Slingsby's attention to him; but honest Jack had not quite recovered the effect of the start given him last night on the hills of Trohniona, and replied briefly,—
"An interesting foreigner, eh! that will sound very well to the ears of a novel-reading miss at home; but such personages excite a very different feeling in me. A seedy sharper! I am sick, Ramble, of your interesting foreigners; they are invariably swindlers, refugees, and all that sort of thing, unless we except the poor monkeys in the Zoological gardens," and so Jack assumed a sulky air of reserve, while our voyager in the furs and long boots smoked his huge meerschaum to leeward, and all unconscious that he was an object of remark or interest to any one.
On visiting our horses in the stalls, we found that our fellow-traveller had also a nag, and that this animal seemed the object of all his cares; for he was by its side almost every half hour, stroking its sleek coat and slender legs; tickling its square nostrils and pointed ears, or wiping its fine liquid eyes with his white handkerchief, and feeding it from the palm of his hands, which were white and muscular, while he spoke caressingly in a barbarous language, which the horse—a noble Arab-steed, with a magnificent head, and limbs as slender as a girl's wrist—seemed to understand. There was something so peculiar in all this, and especially in the man's strong and tender regard for his horse, that Slingsby's John Bullism began to relax, for the proverbial crustiness of his country little became a frank fellow like him; so he ventured a few remarks in English on horses in general, and this fine barb in particular.
The foreigner shook his head, and smiled pleasantly, as he articulated with difficulty that he scarcely knew a word of English; whereupon Jack turned his remarks into very choice Spanish.
Again the stranger smiled and bowed, showing under his close and thick mustache that he had a set of teeth our brightest belles might envy, as he said in the language of our allies,—
"I beg your pardon, sir, but I speak only French with my native language; and it maybe a little—Russ."
"Russ—indeed!" said I, with fresh interest; "are you a Cossack?"
"No," said he, with a sudden air of haughty reserve, "do I look like one?"