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eradicable hall-mark of the sea which was the arena of their lives; they salted the barren place with its vigor and pungency. Pausing within the door, Tom Mowbray sent his pale inexpressive glance flickering along the faces they turned towards him. "Well, boys," he said; "takin' it easy fer a spell?" There was a murmur of reply from the men; they watched him warily, knowing that he was not genial for nothing. He was a man of fifty or more, bloated in body, with an immobile grey face and a gay white moustache that masked his gross and ruthless mouth. He was dressed like any other successful merchant, bulging waistcoat, showy linen and all; the commodity in which he dealt was the flesh and blood of seamen, and his house was eminent among those which helped the water-front of San Francisco "the Barbary Coast," as sailors call it to its unholy fame. He stood among the sunburnt, steady-eyed seamen like a fungus in fresh grass. "An' now, who's for a good ship?" he inquired. There was a sort of mirth in his voice as he spoke. "Good wages, good grub, an' a soft job. Don't all of ye speak at once." The sailors eyed him warily. From the end of the room a white-haired American looked up wryly. "What's her name?" he asked. "Name?" Tom Mowbray kept his countenance, though the name was the cream of the joke. He paused, watching the faces of those who had been ashore a week and were due to ship again when he should give the word. "Oh, you don't want to be scared of her name; her name's all right. She's the Etna." Somebody laughed, and Tom Mowbray gave him an approving glance; the others interchanged looks. The Etna had a reputation familiar to seamen and a nickname too; they called her the "Hell-packet." Of all the tall and beautiful ships which maintained their smartness and their beauty upon the agony of wronged and driven seamen, the Etna was the most terrible, a blue-water penitentiary, a floating place of torment. To enhance the strange terror of her, the bitter devil who was her captain carried his wife on board; the daily brutalities that made her infamous went on under the eyes and within the hearing of a woman; it added a touch of the grotesque to what was otherwise fearful enough. Tom Mowbray stood enjoying the dumb consternation of his victims. "Well, who's for it?" he inquired. "Ain't there none of you that wants a good ship like that Noo York an' back here, an' eighteen dollars a month? Well, I s'pos
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