I was told the very same day that my impression was correct, by a person who was better informed than Atkins, although the latter pretended to great intimacy with the captain.

The truth was that nobody had penetrated that reserved nature.
I may as well say at once that the person to whom I have alluded was the boatswain of the _Halbrane_, a man named Hurliguerly, who came from the Isle of Wight.

This person was about forty-four, short, stout, strong, and bow-legged; his arms stuck out from his body, his head was set like a ball on a bull neck, his chest was broad enough to hold two pairs of lungs (and he seemed to want a double supply, for he was always puffing, blowing, and talking), he had droll roguish eyes, with a network of wrinkles under them.

A noteworthy detail was an ear-ring, one only, which hung from the lobe of his left ear.

What a contrast to the captain of the schooner, and how did two such dissimilar beings contrive to get on together?
They had contrived it, somehow, for they had been at sea in each other's company for fifteen years, first in the brig _Power_, which had been replaced by the schooner _Halbrane_, six years before the beginning of this story.
Atkins had told Hurliguerly on his arrival that I would take passage on the _Halbrane_, if Captain Len Guy consented to my doing so, and the boatswain presented himself on the following morning without any notice or introduction.