Lower down on the opposite side, one or two nondescripts

between, sat the big, blond, bearded stranger with his son. Diagonally

across from himself and the doctor, they were in full view.

O’Malley talked to all and sundry whom his voice could reach,

being easily forthcoming to people whom he was not likely to see

again. But he was particularly pleased to find himself next to the

ship’s doctor, Dr. Heinrich Stahl, for the man both attracted and

antagonized him, and they had crossed swords pleasantly on more

voyages than one. There was a fundamental contradiction in his

character due—O’Malley divined—to the fact that his experiences did

not tally as he wished them to do with his beliefs, or vice versa.

Affecting to believe in nothing, he occasionally dropped remarks that

betrayed a belief in all kinds of things, unorthodox things. Then,

having led the Irishman into confessions of his own fairy faith, he

would abruptly rule the whole subject out of order with some cynical

phrase that closed discussion. In this sarcastic attitude O’Malley

detected a pose assumed for his own protection. “No man of sense can

possibly accept such a thing; it is incredible and foolish.” Yet, the

biting way he said the words betrayed him; the very thing his reason

rejected, his soul believed… .

These vivid impressions the Irishman had of people, one wonders

how accurate they were! In this case, perhaps, he was not far from the

truth. That a man with Dr. Stahl’s knowledge and ability could be

content to hide his light under the bushel of a mere Schiffsarzt

required explanation. His own explanation was that he wanted leisure

for thinking and writing. Bald-headed, slovenly, prematurely old, his

beard stained with tobacco and snuff, under-sized, scientific in the

imaginative sense that made him speculative beyond mere formulæ, his

was an individuality that inspired a respect one could never quite

account for. He had keen dark eyes that twinkled, sometimes

mockingly, sometimes, if the word may be allowed, bitterly, yet often

too with a good-humoured amusement which sympathy with human

weaknesses could alone have caused. A warm heart he certainly had, as

more than one forlorn passenger could testify.

Conversation at their table was slow at first. It began at the

lower end where the French tourists chattered briskly over the soup,

then crept upwards like a slow fire o’erleaping various individuals

who would not catch. For instance, it passed the harvest-machine man;

it passed the nondescripts; it also passed the big light-haired

stranger and his son.

At the table behind, there was a steady roar and buzz of voices;

the Captain was easy and genial, prophesying to the ladies on either

side of him a calm voyage. In the shelter of his big voice even the

shy found it easy to make remarks to their neighbours. Listening to

fragments of the talk O’Malley found that his own eyes kept wandering

down the table— diagonally across—to the two strangers. Once or

twice he intercepted the doctor’s glance travelling in the same

direction, and on these occasions it was on the tip of his tongue to

make a remark about them, or to ask a question. Yet the words did not

come. Dr. Stahl, he felt, knew a similar hesitation. Each, wanting to

speak, yet kept silence, waiting for the other to break the ice.

“This mistral is tiresome,” observed the doctor, as the tide of

talk flowed up to his end and made a remark necessary. “It tries the

nerves of some.” He glanced at O’Malley, but it was the fur-merchant

who replied, spreading a beringed hand over his plate to feel the

warmth.