The mates renewed their choosing, and in a few more moments we were all gathered in two groups, regarding each other across the empty deck.  There were fifteen men in the mate’s watch, but, because of Newman’s absence, only fourteen had fallen to Lynch.

The Old Man handed down the articles to Mister Lynch.  “All right, Mister, muster them,” he said.  “And (addressing us generally) if you don’t recognize your names, answer anyway—­or we’ll baptize you anew!”

Lynch held the papers before his face.  I thrilled with a sudden expectancy.  Something startling was going to happen, I felt it in my bones.  Some clairvoyant gleam told me the forepeak hatch was wide open now.

“Answer to your names!” boomed Lynch’s great voice.  “A.  Newman!”

“Here!” was the loud and instant response.

As one man, we swung our heads, and looked forward.  Sauntering aft, and just passing the main hatch, was the man with the scar.  He came abreast of us, and paused there in the empty center of the deck.

It was the lady, on the poop above, who broke the spell of silence the man’s dramatic arrival had placed upon all hands.  She broke it with a kind of strangled gasp.  “Roy—­it is Roy—­oh, God!” she said, and she swayed, and clutched the rail before her as though to keep from falling.  She stared down at Newman as if he were a ghost from the grave.

But it was the manner of Captain Swope which commanded the attention of all hands.  He was seeing a ghost, too, an evil ghost.  It was like foc’sle belief come true—­this man had sold his soul to the Devil, and the Devil was suddenly come to claim his own.  He, too, stared down at Newman, and clutched the rail for support, while the flesh of his face became a livid hue, and his expression one of incredulous horror.

“Where have you come from?” he said in a shrill, strained voice.

Newman’s clothes and face were smutted with the grime from the peak, but his air was debonair.  He answered Captain Swope airily.  “Why—­I come just now from your forepeak—­a most unpleasant, filthy hole, Angus!  And less recently, I come from my grave, from that shameful grave of stripes and bars to which your lying words sent me, Angus!  I’ve come to pay you a visit, to sail with you.  Why, I’m on your articles—­I am ‘A.  Newman.’  An apt name, a true name—­eh, Angus?  Come now, are you not glad to see me?”

It was unprecedented, that occurrence.  A foremast hand badgering the captain on his own poop deck; badgering Yankee Swope of the Golden Bough, whilst his two trusty buckos stood by inactive and gaping.  But, as I explained, there was an air about Newman that said “Hands off!” It was not so much his huge, muscular body; there was something in the spirit of the man that was respect-compelling; something lethal, a half-hidden, over-powering menace; something that overawed.  He was no foc’sle Jack, no commonplace hard case; as he stood there alone, he had the bearing of a man who commanded large ships, who directed great affairs.  And his bearing held inactive and over-awed those two fighting mates, while he mocked their god, Swope.