"Who is some one?" I asked.
"Just some one," he answered. "Some one who gets more money than I get." His mouth drew into a hard and cruel line; he lapsed into his day-dream, still chewing his plug of tobacco. "Some one," he added, "who don't like questions, and don't like to be talked about too much."
He was silent for a minute or two, while Hugh and I looked at each other.
"Oh, I'm not going to keep you long," said the man. "Them redcoats'll have done asking questions about here before your dinner time. Then they'll ride on, and a good riddance. Your lady will know how to answer them all right. But till they're gone, why, here you'll stay. So let's be comp'ny. What's your name, young master?" He gave Hugh a dig in the ribs with his boot.
"Hugh," he answered.
"Hugh," said the man: "Hugh! You won't never come to much, you won't. What's your name?" He nudged me in the same way.
"Jim," I said.
"Ah! Jim, Jim," he repeated. "I've known a many Jims. Some were good in their way, too." He seemed to shrink into himself suddenly—I can't explain it—but he seemed to shrink, like a cat crouched to spring, and his eyes burned and danced; they seemed to look right into me, horribly gleaming, till the whole man became, as it were, just two bright spots of eyes—one saw nothing else.
"Ah," he said, after a long, cruel glare at me, "this is the first time Jim and I ever met. The first time. We shall be great friends, we shall. We shall be better acquainted, you and I. I wouldn't wonder if I didn't make a man of you, one time or another. Give me your hand, Jim."
I gave him my hand; he looked at it under the lantern; he traced one or two of the lines with his blackened finger-nails, muttering some words in a strange language, which somehow made my flesh creep. He repeated the words: "Orel. Orel. Adartha Cay." Then he glanced at the other hand, still muttering, and made a sort of mark with his fingers on my forehead. Hugh told me afterwards that he seemed to trace a kind of zigzag on my left temple. All the time he was muttering he seemed to be half-conscious, almost in a trance, or as if he were mad: he frightened us dreadfully. After he had made the mark upon my brow he came to himself again.