“Well known, and I have incurred no reproach since I came here.”
“Very well,” said the captain. “I will make inquiry respecting you.”
“Inquire, captain, and if you say yes, my bag shall be on board this evening.”
“What is your name?”
“Hunt.”
“And you are—?”
“An American.”
This Hunt was a man of short stature, his weather beaten face was brick red, his skin of a yellowish-brown like an Indian’s, his body clumsy, his head very large, his legs were bowed, his whole frame denoted exceptional strength, especially the arms, which terminated in huge hands. His grizzled hair resembled a kind of fur.
A particular and anything but prepossessing character was imparted to the physiognomy of this individual by the extraordinary keenness of his small eyes, his almost lipless mouth, which stretched from ear to ear, and his long teeth, which were dazzlingly white; their enamel being intact, for he had never been attacked by scurvy, the common scourge of seamen in high latitudes.
Hunt had been living in the Falklands for three years; he lived alone on a pension, no one knew from whence this was derived. He was singularly uncommunicative, and passed his time in fishing, by which he might have lived, not only as a matter of sustenance, but as an article of commerce.