“I should think rings would be somewhat inconvenient at sea,” resumed Israel.  “On my first voyage to the West Indies, I wore a girl’s ring on my middle finger here, and it wasn’t long before, what with hauling wet ropes, and what not, it got a kind of grown down into the flesh, and pained me very bad, let me tell you, it hugged the finger so.”

“And did the girl grow as close to your heart, lad?”

“Ah, Captain, girls grow themselves off quicker than we grow them on.”

“Some experience with the countesses as well as myself, eh?  But the story; wave your yellow mane, my lion—­the story.”

So Israel went on and told the story in all particulars.

At its conclusion Captain Paul eyed him very earnestly.  His wild, lonely heart, incapable of sympathizing with cuddled natures made humdrum by long exemption from pain, was yet drawn towards a being, who in desperation of friendlessness, something like his own, had so fiercely waged battle against tyrannical odds.

“Did you go to sea young, lad?”

“Yes, pretty young.”

“I went at twelve, from Whitehaven.  Only so high,” raising his hand some four feet from the deck.  “I was so small, and looked so queer in my little blue jacket, that they called me the monkey.  They’ll call me something else before long.  Did you ever sail out of Whitehaven?”

“No, Captain.”

“If you had, you’d have heard sad stories about me.  To this hour they say there that I—­bloodthirsty, coward dog that I am—­flogged a sailor, one Mungo Maxwell, to death.  It’s a lie, by Heaven!  I flogged him, for he was a mutinous scamp.  But he died naturally, some time afterwards, and on board another ship.  But why talk?  They didn’t believe the affidavits of others taken before London courts, triumphantly acquitting me; how then will they credit my interested words?  If slander, however much a lie, once gets hold of a man, it will stick closer than fair fame, as black pitch sticks closer than white cream.  But let ’em slander.  I will give the slanderers matter for curses.  When last I left Whitehaven, I swore never again to set foot on her pier, except, like Caesar, at Sandwich, as a foreign invader.  Spring under me, good ship; on you I bound to my vengeance!”

Men with poignant feelings, buried under an air of care-free self command, are never proof to the sudden incitements of passion.  Though in the main they may control themselves, yet if they but once permit the smallest vent, then they may bid adieu to all self-restraint, at least for that time.  Thus with Paul on the present occasion.  His sympathy with Israel had prompted this momentary ebullition.  When it was gone by, he seemed not a little to regret it.  But he passed it over lightly, saying, “You see, my fine fellow, what sort of a bloody cannibal I am.  Will you be a sailor of mine?  A sailor of the Captain who flogged poor Mungo Maxwell to death?”