With trembling hands and blanched face the old man rose to his feet, and in a hoarse whisper there escaped from his lips a name that he had long years ago cursed and forgotten. His hands opened and shut again convulsively, and then his savage, vindictive nature asserted itself again as he found his voice, and with the rasping accents of passion poured out curses upon the brown, half-naked man that stood before him. Then he turned to go. But the other man put out a detaining hand.
“It is as you say. I am a disgraced man. But you haven't heard why I deserted from the Tagus. Listen while I tell you. I was flogged. I was only a boy, and it broke my heart.”
“Curse you, you chicken-hearted sweep! I've laid the cat on the back of many a better man than myself, and none of 'em ever disgraced themselves by runnin' away and turnin' into a nigger, like you!”
The man heard the sneer with unmoved face, then resumed—
“It broke my heart. And when I was hiding in Dover, and my mother used to come and dress my wounds, do you remember what happened?”
“Aye, you naked swab, I do: your father kicked you out!”
“And I got caught again, and put in irons, and got more cat. Two years afterwards I cleared again in Sydney, from the Sirius.... And I came here to live and die among savages. That's nigh on eight years ago.”
There was a brief silence. The old man, with fierce, scornful eyes, looked sneeringly at the wild figure of the broken wanderer, and then said—
“What's to stop me from telling our lieutenant you're a deserter? I would, too, by God, only I don't want my shipmates to know I've got a nigger for a son.”