the schooner's deck, was one who merits special attention--not only
because of the grotesque appearance of his person, but also because he
is one of the principal actors in our tale.

He was a large, powerful man, of that rugged build and hairy aspect that
might have suggested the idea that he would be difficult to kill. He
was a fair man, with red hair, and a deeply sun-burned face, on which
jovial good humor sat almost perpetually enthroned. At the moment when
we introduce him to the reader, however, that expression happened to be
modified in consequence of his having laid him down to sleep in a
sprawling manner on his back--the place as well as the position being,
apparently, one of studied discomfort. His legs lay over the heel of the
bowsprit, his big body reposed on a confused heap of blocks and cordage,
and his neck rested on the stock of an anchor so that his head hung down
over it, presenting the face to view with the large mouth wide open, in
an upside-down position. The man was evidently on the verge of choking,
but, being a strong man, and a rugged man, and a healthy man, he did not
care. He seemed to prefer choking to the trouble of rousing himself and
improving his position.

How long he would have lain in this state of felicity it is impossible
to say, for his slumbers were rudely interrupted by a slight lurch of
the schooner, which caused the blocks and cordage attached to the sheet
of the jib to sweep slowly, but with rasping asperity, across his face.
Any ordinary man would have been seriously damaged--at least in
appearance--by such an accident; but this particular sea-dog was tough
in the skin,--he was only awakened by it--nothing more. He yawned,
raised himself lazily, and gazed round with that vacant stare of
unreasonable surprise which is common to man on passing from a state of
somnolence to that of wakefulness.