'Long Kiang, that we talked so much about—the fellow described in the China Mail.'
'You've got Long Kiang on the brain,' said I, laughing; but the laughter ceased when I did look.
The light breeze had partly deranged the Arab-like keffiah that enveloped his head, and by the rays of the binnacle lamp we saw that he was minus the left eye, that the whole of that side of his face was distorted as if scorched by powder, and for a moment or two the strange malformation of his left arm was distinctly visible, as he gasped one of the under-spokes of the wheel.
'It cannot be,' said I. 'How about his certificates, Charlie?'
'Another man's papers—stolen, no doubt.'
'If he should, after all, be Long Kiang,' I began, and then paused, for as I spoke the name seemed to catch his ear, and he turned on me his solitary eye, which in the moonlight glistened redly, like that of a rattlesnake. A knife of portentous length was in the same sheath with his chopsticks, a knife suggestive of cutting other things than yams or salt junk.
'Won't you youngsters turn in?' said the mate, coming aft. 'You are both in the middle watch.'
'Thank you, sir; not just yet,' said I, for, truth to tell, we were disposed to be wide awake as weasels.
Long Kiang had been such a standing joke during the latter part of our voyage—at least after leaving Aden—that neither of us, whatever we thought, ventured to tell our fears or suspicions to the mate, or to the men forward. While we were talking to the mate, the captain, who had come on deck, called him to the port side of the ship, which was going before the wind, but very slowly.
The captain was a tall, stout, and well-built man, with a florid complexion and a mass of iron-grey hair, luxuriant as when in youth, and likely to be so for years to come. There was an air of sturdy Scotch power and strength of mind and body about him that showed at once his resolute will and energetic brain.