The next moment we heard the new-comer say to the barman,—
"Say, Fred, I've been down to that old schooner the Constitution, but couldn't find Slocum aboard. They told me he often came here to get a cheap drink. I want him to take a letter to Tahiti. Do you know where he is?"
Slocum saw it was of no use attempting to "lie low," so with a nervous hand he opened the door.
I've knocked about the world a good deal since I sat in the little back parlour in Third Street, Frisco, but neither before nor since I left Strong's Island have I seen such a splendid specimen of humanity as the man who then entered.
Much that I am about to relate I learned during my later experience.
William Henry Hayston was born in one of the Western States of America, and received his education at Norfolk, Virginia. As his first appointment he obtained a cadetship in the United States Revenue Service, subsequently retiring to become captain of one of the large lake steamers.
In '55 he joined the navy, serving with great gallantry under Admiral Farragut. The reported reason of his leaving the service was a disagreement with Captain Carroll, afterwards commander of the rebel cruiser Shenandoah. So bitter was their feud, that years afterwards, when that vessel was in the South Pacific, her commander made no secret of his ardent wish to meet Hayston and settle accounts with him, even to the death.
Hayston was a giant in stature: six feet four in height, with a chest that measured, from shoulder to shoulder, forty-nine inches; and there was nothing clumsy about him, as his many antagonists could testify. His strength was enormous, and he was proud of it. But, apart from his magnificent physique, Hayston was one of the most remarkably handsome men about this time that I have ever seen. His hair fell in clusters across his forehead, above laughing eyes of the brightest blue; his nose was a bold aquiline; a well-cut, full-lipped mouth that could set like fate was covered by a huge moustache. A Vandyke beard completed the tout ensemble of a visage which, once seen, was rarely forgotten by friend or foe. Taking him altogether, what with face, figure, and manner, he had a personal magnetism only too fatally attractive, as many a man—ay, and woman too—knew to their cost. He was my beau ideal of a naval officer—bold and masterful, yet soft and pleasant-voiced withal when he chose to conciliate. His sole disfigurement—not wholly so, perhaps, in the eye of his admirers—was a sabre cut which extended from the right temple to his ear.
For his character, the one controlling influence in his life was an ungovernable temper. It was utterly beyond his mastery. Let any one offend him, and though he might have been smiling the instant before, the blue eyes would suddenly turn almost black, his face become a deep purple. Then it was time for friend or foe to beware. For I never saw the man that could stand up to him. Strangely enough, I have sometimes seen him go laughing through a fight until he had finished his man. At other times his cyclone of a mood would discharge itself without warning or restraint. It was probably this appalling temper that gained him a character for being bloodthirsty; for, once roused, nothing could stop him. Yet I do him the justice to say that I never once witnessed an act of deliberate cruelty at his hands. In the islands he was surrounded by a strange collection of the greatest scoundrels unhung. There, of necessity, his rule was one of "blood and iron."