ate, toward the room where the double tragedy
had been enacted, and where our hero yet stood silent and inert.

All this while Jonathan made no endeavor to escape, but stood passive
and submissive to what might occur. He felt himself the victim of
circumstances over which he himself had no control. Gazing at the
partly opened door, he waited for whatever adventure might next befall
him. Once again the footsteps paused, this time at the very threshold,
and then the door was slowly pushed open from without.

As our hero gazed at the aperture there presently became disclosed to
his view the strong and robust figure of one who was evidently of a
seafaring habit. From the gold braid upon his hat, the seals dangling
from the ribbon at his fob, and a certain particularity of custom, he
was evidently one of no small consideration in his profession. He was
of a strong and powerful build, with a head set close to his
shoulders, and upon a round, short bull neck. He wore a black cravat,
loosely tied into a knot, and a red waistcoat elaborately trimmed with
gold braid; a leather belt with a brass buckle and hanger, and huge
sea boots completed a costume singularly suggestive of his occupation
in life. His face was round and broad, like that of a cat, and a
complexion stained, by constant exposure to the sun and wind, to a
color of newly polished mahogany. But a countenance which otherwise
might have been humorous, in this case was rendered singularly
repulsive by the fact that his nose had been broken so flat to his
face that all that remained to distinguish that feature were two
circular orifices where the nostrils should have been. His eyes were
by no means so sinister as the rest of his visage, being of a
light-gray color and exceedingly vivacious--even good-natured in the
merry restlessness of their glance--albeit they were well-nigh hidden
beneath a black bush of overhanging eyebrows. When he spoke, his voice
was so deep and resonant that it was as though it issued from a barrel
rather than from the breast of a human being.

"How now, my hearty!" cried he, in stentorian tones, so loud that they
seemed to stun the tensely drawn drums of our hero's ears. "How now,
my hearty! What's to do here? Who is shooting pistols at this hour of
the night?" Then, catching sight of the figures lying in a huddle upon
the floor, his great, thick lips parted into a gape of wonder and his
gray eyes rolled in his head like two balls, so that wha