His agile eye presently fastened itself upon me, as a stranger. He
came nearer and nearer to me, as he paced rapidly to and fro, and was
evidently several times on the point of addressing me, but, looking
over his shoulder apprehensively, he passed on. At length, with a
great effort, he paused for an instant, and invited me to join him in
his walk. Before the invitation was fairly uttered, he was in motion
again. I followed, but I could not overtake him. He kept just before
me, and turned occasionally with an air of terror, as if he fancied I
were dogging him; then glided on more rapidly.

His face was by no means agreeable, but it had an inexplicable
fascination, as if it had been turned upon what no other mortal eyes
had ever seen. Yet I could hardly tell whether it were, probably, an
object of supreme beauty or of terror. He looked at everything as if
he hoped its impression might obliterate some anterior and awful one;
and I was gradually possessed with the unpleasant idea that his eyes
were never closed--that, in fact, he never slept.

Suddenly, fixing me with his unnatural, wakeful glare, he whispered
something which I could not understand, and then darted forward even
more rapidly, as if he dreaded that, in merely speaking, he had lost
time.

Still the ship drove on, and I walked hurriedly along the deck, just
behind my companion. But our speed and that of the ship contrasted
strangely with the mouldy smell of old rigging, and the listless and
lazy groups, smoking and leaning on the bulwarks. The seasons, in
endless succession and iteration, passed over the ship. The twilight
was summer haze at the stern, while it was the fiercest winter mist at
the bows. But as a tropical breath, like the warmth of a Syrian day,