nd a fluttering red ribbon; but
beneath it his coal-black hair behind was chopped as close as could be,
leaving a single long and well-oiled ringlet on each side, which curled
like snakes around a pair of large gold rings pendent from his ears. His
complexion was dark, bilious, and swarthy, with a thin, sharp nose, and
a million of minute wrinkles, all meeting above, at the corners, and
under a small line of a mouth; quite like rays, in fact, and only
relaxed when the lips parted to show a few ragged, rotten pegs of sharp
teeth. But perhaps the most noticeable feature in his face was his
eye--for he had but one--and the spot where the other is seen in the
species was merely a red, closed patch of tightly-drawn skin, with a few
hairs sticking out like iron tacks. His single eye, however, was a jet
black, round, piercing organ, which seemed to do duty for half a dozen
ordinary glims, and danced with a sharp, malevolent scrutiny, as if the
owner was always in search of something and never found it, and every
body and every thing appeared to slink out of its light wherever it
glanced around. His age might have been any where from forty to sixty.
As he stepped on deck, clear of the cuddy cabin hatch, his sinister
optic played about in its socket--now scanning the long brass gun, the
half-furled sails, the crew, the ropes, or taking a steady, unwinking
glance at the midday sun, and then shining off to the shore, and
sweeping in the "Centipede," the little pool of blue water, and the
mouth of the inlet. Feeling apparently satisfied with the present aspect
of affairs, he slowly pulled out a machero from his waistcoat pocket,
plucked a cigarette from the case, and then proceeded deliberately to
strike a light. Even while performing this simple operation, his uneasy
orb, like unto a black bull's-eye, traversed about in its habitual way;
and when he raised the spark of fire with his brown, thin hand, and the
claws of fingers loaded with rings, he seemed to be looking into his own
mouth. Nodding to a fellow who stood near, with a crimson sash around
his waist, he inclined his eye toward the shore, blew out a thin wreath
of smoke from his lungs--all the while his vigilant organ shining like a
burning spark of lambent jet through the smoke--and merely said,

"The boat!"

In a moment a small cockle-shell of a punt was lowered from the stern of
the felucca, when, stepping carefully in, he seized a scull, and with a
few vigorous twists