Hans Neilsen was a big Dane, with a great wave of blond beard blowing from just below his pale blue eyes, and a leonine head covered with a straw-coloured mane. Although he was a giant in stature¹ he was not what you would call a fine figure of a man, for he was round-shouldered and loosely jointed². And besides these things he had a shambling, undecided gait and a furtive³ side-long glance, ever apparently⁴ searching for a potential foe⁵. Yet with all his peculiarities⁶ I loved him, I never knew why. Perhaps it was the unfailing instinct of a child—I was scarcely more—for people whose hearts are kind. He was an A.B. on board of a lumbering⁸ old American-built ship owned in Liverpool and presently bound thence to Batavia. I was “the boy”—that is to say, any job that a man could possibly growl⁹ himself out of or shirk in any way rapidly filtered down to me, mine by sea-right. And in my leisure I had the doubtful privilege of being body servant to eighteen men of mixed nationalities and a never-satisfied budget of wants. Of course she wasn’t as bad as a Geordie collier, the old Tucson. I didn’t get booted about the head for every little thing, nor was I ever aroused out of a dead sleep to hand a fellow a drink of water who was sitting on the breaker. Nevertheless, being nobody’s especial fancy and fully¹⁰ conscious of my inability to take my own part, I was certainly no pampered¹¹ menial.