"Look there!" said the man, in tones that Bridge could hear. "See what seamanship amounts to in these floating blast furnaces! That fellow's a sailor, if I know one, from his head to his heels. But they've made him a scrubwoman."
"I should think he would try to do better," answered the old lady, after a searching look at Bridge's expressionless face. "Notice his bearing. He is Othello, off the stage. There are unlimited possibilities in such a nature."
They halted near the rail for a further inspection of him. Bridge, swabbing industriously, pretended not to hear. He had not attracted so much attention for years.
"See the slumbering fire in those dark eyes," went on the innocent old lady—"the reserve power, the strength to do, and dare, and die—the tremendous will of a strong man, who lets nothing baffle him when aroused. That man has not been aroused. See his hair—"
"Nonsense! A stiff drink'll arouse him."
"There you are again, skeptic," laughed the old lady. "But, I tell you, eyes and hair indicate character! His hair is the very opposite of Zaza's, but equally rare and matchless in hue. Each indicates temperament."
They went on, and Bridge dropped his swab and watched them till they were out of sight. He had never seen them, to his knowledge, and their comment on himself and his work had not greatly disturbed him. But the name Zaza, the name of someone they knew, had seemed familiar. It had brought the same thrill of recognition that he had experienced years before at school, when the little girl was called up to sing—the little girl that died, and whom he had almost forgotten.
"Zaza, Zaza," he repeated to himself. It was a strange name. Where had he heard it?
It was his lookout at the bow that night from eight to ten, and he took his place clad in sou'wester and oilskins; for a fog thick as darkness had settled down on the ship. He could see the stem in front of him, but little farther in the smudge. Aft was the dim outline of the windlass, and beyond the dimmer outline of the V-shaped breakwater. To starboard and port were the two mighty anchors, magnified by the fog. Eyes were of little use on such a night; but he dutifully kept his ears open for sound of foghorn or steam whistle, and paced up and down, thinking of matters unthought of for years—his old home and school days, his mother and sister, and little golden-haired Zenie who had died. Step by step he reviewed his life of failure and incompetence. Voyage after voyage, event after event, men and influences—all came under the criticism of his aroused faculties, until they ended with the comment of the old lady on the after deck. "That man has not been aroused," she had said. Where was the reserve power, the strength, the will to do, that she had seen in him?
The review went backward, man after man, happening after happening, to the meeting with his stepfather at the ash pile, and back of this to the boy in the street, who had told him a casual piece of news and asked him to the ball ground. Here was where it went out of him—the courage to do, and strive, and work, and win. He now realized that it was not the passing away of his mother and his sweet little sister, nor the mis-judgment of his stepfather and the ill treatment of men, that had unnerved him; it was the losing of Zenie, who had never looked at him but once, but whose presence on earth had made him a strong, victorious boy and a good scholar. And the heart hunger and pain that had left him at the ash pile came to him again.