In spite of all this, Caius had expected a more villainous-looking person, and so great was his loathing that he would rather have seen him in a more obnoxious light.

The man had a certain dignity of bearing; his face had that unfurrowed look that means a low moral sense, for there is no evidence of conflict.

His eyes were too near each other; this last was, perhaps, the only sign by which Nature from the outset had marred a really excellent piece of manly proportion.
Caius made these observations involuntarily.

As Le Maitre stepped here and there in a dull way while a chest that belonged to him was being lowered into the boat, Caius could not help realizing that his preconceived notions of the man as a monster had been exaggerated; he was a common man, fallen into low habits, and fixed in them by middle age.
Le Maitre got into the boat in seaman-like fashion.

He was perfectly at home there, and dull as his eye looked, he tacitly assumed command.