“I am Dr. Harris,” I answered, smiling.
He looked uneasy on my pronouncing the word doctor, stepped back and grasped the handle of his cabin door, yet paused to say, “Are you a passenger, sir?”
“I am the ship’s doctor,” I answered.
Without another word he entered his cabin and shut the door upon himself.
His behaviour was so abrupt, discourteous, that I suspected his brain was at fault. Indeed, I made up my mind, in the interests of the passengers, and for the security of the ship, to keep my eye upon him—that is, by accosting him from time to time, and by watching him without seeming to watch whenever we should happen to be on deck together. And yet I was not altogether satisfied with my suspicion of his not being right-headed, either; I found my puzzlement going another way, but in a direction that I could by no means make clear to myself.
However, not to refine upon this matter: I think it was next day that, happening to come along from the forecastle where I had been visiting a sick sailor, I spied the young fellow standing before the mainmast in a sort of peeping posture; his eyes were directed aft; he was watching the people walking on the poop. I stopped to look at him, struck by his attitude. The great body of the mast effectually concealed him from all observers aft. He turned his head and saw me; his face was ghastly white, the expression wonderful for the tragic wrath of it. On meeting my eyes he coloured up, I never could have credited so swift a transformation of hue; his blush was deep and dark and his eyes shone like fire. He scowled angrily, stepped round the mast, and disappeared through the cuddy door.
After this I saw no more of him for a week. I questioned the steward, who told me the youth was keeping his cabin.
“What’s his name again?” said I.
“John Burgess, sir.”
“That’s an English name, but he’s not an Englishman,” said I.