Haley laughed.

“Maybe he looked like that when he saw him, but he ain’t no bigger man than I am; he won’t weigh as much by fifteen pound.  Fact is he mighty seldom looks the same, fer thet’s part o’ his game.  Them whiskers is false, an’ so is the saller look to his face.  I ’ve seen him in all sorts o’ disguises.  It’s only his eyes he can’t hide, an’ thar’s been times when I thought they wus the ugliest eyes ever I saw.  He’s sure an ornary devil, an’ when he gits mad, I’d rather be afront of a tiger.  Besides fightin’s his trade, an’ no weaklin’ ain’t goin’ ter control the sort o’ chaps he’s got ter handle.  Most of ’em would murder him in a minute if they dared.  Oh, he’s bad all right, but yer wouldn’t exactly think so, just ter look at him, I’ve run up agin a lot o’ different men in my time, thet I ’d naturally sheer off from a blame sight quicker than I would from him.”

“You mean that when he is not in disguise he does not appear dangerous.  What then does he really look like?”

Haley spat again onto the deck, and scratched his shock of hair as though thus to stimulate his memory.

“Oh, a sorter swash-bucklin’ Spanish don—­the kind whut likes ter dress up, an’ play the dandy.  He’s got a pink an’ white complexion, the Castilian kind yer know, an’ wears a little moustache, waxed up at the ends.  He’s about two inches taller than I am, with no extra flesh, but with a hell of a grip in his hands.  As I said afore, if it wa’n’t fer his eyes nobody’d ever look at him twice.  All his devilishness shows thar, an’ I’ve seen ’em laugh like he didn’t have a care on earth.”

“How old a man is he?”

“How old is the devil?  I heard he wus about forty-five; I reckon he must be thet, but he don’t look older than thirty.  He ain’t the kind yer can guess at.”

We talked together for quite a while longer, our conversation gradually drifting to the recounting of various sea adventures, and my thoughts did not again recur to Sanchez until after I rested back once more in my berth, endeavoring to fall asleep.  Haley must have dropped off immediately, for I could distinguish his heavy breathing among the others; but my mind continued to wander, until it conjured up once again this West India pirate.  His name, and the story of his exploits, had been familiar to me ever since I first went to sea.  While only one among many operating in those haunted waters, his resourcefulness, daring and cruelty had won him an infamous reputation, a name of horror.  In those days, when the curse of piracy made the sea a terror, no ordinary man could ever have succeeded in attaining such supremacy in crime.  No doubt much that had been reported was either false, or exaggerated, yet there flashed across my memory numberless tales of rapine, outrage and cold-blooded cruelty in which this demon of the sea had figured, causing me to shudder at the recollection.  To my mind he had long been a fiend incarnate, his