Hans Neilsen was a big Dane, with a great wave of blond beard blowing from just below his pale blue eyes, and a leonine head covered with a straw-coloured mane. Although he was a giant in he was not what you would call a fine figure of a man, for he was round-shouldered and loosely . And besides these things he had a shambling, undecided gait and a side-long glance, ever searching for a potential . Yet with all his I loved him, I never knew why. Perhaps it was the unfailing instinct of a child—I was scarcely more—for people whose hearts are kind. He was an A.B. on board of a old American-built ship owned in Liverpool and presently bound thence to Batavia. I was “the boy”—that is to say, any job that a man could possibly himself out of or shirk in any way rapidly filtered down to me, mine by sea-right. And in my leisure I had the doubtful privilege of being body servant to eighteen men of mixed nationalities and a never-satisfied budget of wants. Of course she wasn’t as bad as a Geordie collier, the old Tucson. I didn’t get booted about the head for every little thing, nor was I ever aroused out of a dead sleep to hand a fellow a drink of water who was sitting on the breaker. Nevertheless, being nobody’s especial fancy and conscious of my inability to take my own part, I was certainly no menial.  
They were a queer lot, those fellows. Nothing strange in that, of course, so far, remembering how ships’ crews are made up nowadays, but these were queer beyond the average. In the first place no two of them were countrymen. There were representatives of countries I had till then been ignorant of. The “boss” of the fo’c’s’le was a huge Montenegrin, who looked to my excited fancy like a bandit chief, and used to talk in the worst-sounding I ever heard with Giuseppe from Trieste and Antone from Patras. Louis Didelot, a nimble black-avised little matelot from Nantes, was worst off for communication with his shipmates, not one of whom could speak French, but somehow he managed to rub along with a barbarous compound of French, Spanish, and English. Neilsen chummed, as far as an occasional chat went, with a swarthy little Norwegian from Hammerfest (I believe he was a Lapp), whose language did not seem to differ much from Danish. The rest of the crew were made up of negroes from various far-sundered lands, South American including one pure-blooded Mexican with a skin like , a Russian and two Malays. That fo’c’s’le was Babel over again, although in some strange manner all seemed to find some sufficient medium for making themselves understood. On deck of course English (?) was spoken, but such English as would puzzle the acutest that ever lived if he wasn’t a sailor-man too. Nothing could have borne more to the of our noble tongue than the way in which the business of that ship was carried on without any by those British officers and their crew. And another thing—there were no rows. I have said that Sam the Montenegrin (Heaven only knows what his name really was) was the boss of the fo’c’s’le, but he certainly took no advantage of his tacitly accorded position, and except for the maddening mixture of languages our quarters were as quiet as any well-regulated household.
 
But as long as I live I shall always believe that most, if not all, of our fellows were from justice, criminals of every stamp, and owing to the accident of their being thus thrown together in an easy-going English ship they were just enjoying a little off-season of rest prior to resuming operations in their respective departments when the voyage was over. I may be doing them an , but as I picked up fragments of the various languages I heard many strange things, which, when I averaged them up, drove me to the conclusion I have stated. From none of them, however, did I get anything definite in the way of information about their past except Neilsen. He excellent English, or American, with hardly a trace of Scandinavian accent, and often, when sitting alone in the dusk of the second dog-watch on the spars along by the bulwarks,[364] I used to hear him muttering to himself in that tongue, every now and then giving to a short barking laugh of scorn. I was long getting into his confidence, for he shrank from all society, preferring to with his chin supported on both hands staring at and keeping up an muttering. But at last the many little attentions I managed to show him his attitude of reserve towards me a little, and he permitted me to sit by his side and to him of my Arab life in London, and of my queer experiences in the various ways of getting something to eat before I went to sea. Even then he would often scare me just as I was in the middle of a by throwing up his head and uttering his bark of , following it up immediately by leaving me. Still I couldn’t be frightened of him, although I felt certain he was a little mad, and I , taking no notice of his . At last we became great friends, and he would talk to me by the hour, when during the stillness of the shining night-watches all our shipmates, except the helmsman and look-out man, were curled up in various corners asleep.
 
So matters progressed until we were half-way up the Indian Ocean from St. Paul’s. One night in the middle watch I happened to say (in what connection I don’t know), “It’s my birthday to-day. I’m thirteen.” “Why, what day is it ?” he said listlessly. “The 25th of June,” I replied. “My God! my God!” he murmured softly, burying his face in his hands and trembling violently. I[365] was so badly scared I could say nothing for a few minutes, but sat wondering whether the moon, which was blazing down upon us out of the intense clearness above, had his weak brain. Presently he seemed to get steadier, and I ventured to touch his arm and say, “Ain’t you well, Neilsen? Can I get you anythin’?” There was silence for another short spell. Then he suddenly lifted his head, and said, not looking at me, but straight before him, “Yes, I vill tell him. I must tell him.” Then, still without looking at me, he went on—“Boy, I’m goin’ t’ tell ye a yarn about myself, somethin’ happened to me long time ago. Me an’ my chum, a little chap, was ’fore de mast aboard of a Yank we’d shipped in in Liverpool. She wuz a reg’lar blood-boat. You’ve o’ de kind, I ’spose, no watch an’ watch all day, everythin’ polished ’n painted till you c’d see y’r face in it ’low and aloft. Ole man ’n three mates alwas pradin’ roun’ ’ith one han’ on their pistol pockets ’n never a ’norder give widout a ‘Gaw-dam-ye’ to it down like. I tell ye wot ’tis; sailors offen tawk ’bout hell erflote, but der ain’t menny off ’em knows wot it means, leest not nowdays. I’ve sailed in de packets, the Westerun oshun boats I mean, under some toughs, ’fore steam run ’em off, an’ I ’low dey wuz hard—forrard’s well’s aft—but, boy, dey wuz church, dey wuz dat, ’longside the ’Zekiel B. Peck. W’y! dey tort nuttin’, nuttin ’tall, ov scurfin’ ye way frum de wheel, you a doin’ yer damdest too, ter her troo d’ eye ov a needle, ’n lammin’ th’ very Gawdfergotten soul out ov yer jest ter keep der &............