I have seen this passion burn itself out like a flash of tropical lightning, and I’ve seen it smoulder like the damp coal in a ship’s hold and last until it passes quietly into the perfect friendship between an old man and an old woman.
But because it don’t last, don’t think that it lacks force while it does act.
I’m a plain man and known as “Bull Gore” among the deep-water men. My face is too big to be handsome, and I’ve the girth of forty-five inches around the heave of my chest. In spite of this, I knew I was going to have a tough struggle and would need all my strength for the fracas brewing within me.
Who is it, I say? Who is it that has felt this passion and can say no one was ever hurt or killed by it?
Why, I once saw a Japanese samurai pass his heavy two-handed sword through nine men in succession for—
Well, I’m not a young man, but I don’t mean to be garrulous.
CHAPTER X.
I don’t remember how I made out at the breakfast-table that morning, but as soon as I came on deck I looked for the Countess of Warwick.
She lay right abreast of us, and so close aboard that I could have flung a belaying-pin into her waist.
Our passengers went aft and sat in the shade of the spanker. They appeared very much interested in the English ship.