Page:Doctor Syn - A Smuggler Tale of the Romney Marsh.djvu/163

 that whenever the mulatto was ordered to work alone—alone, mind you, without the help of the other seamen—why, he could accomplish anything, but when he was working with anybody, he seemed, in spite of himself, to become singularly useless."

"You call yourself dense, Captain, and you affirm that I am not; but you seem to have a keener perception of the abstruse and vague than I have, or can even follow."

"You will be able to follow me in a moment," said the captain humbly. "I fear it is the poor way in which I am getting to the point; but I have to tell things in my own way, not being given to talk much."

"Go on, then, in your own way," said the cleric.

"I then recollected that in my short acquaintance with this mulatto I never remember to have seen him in actual contact with any one, or any thing. And I also recollect a strong tendency among the men to avoid him—in fact, to keep out of any personal contact with him."

"Natural enough," explained the cleric. "It is the white man's antipathy toward a native. Perfectly natural."

"Perfectly," agreed Captain Collyer. "And I think we may add the Englishman's antipathy toward the uncanny and mysterious."

"I dare say," said Doctor Syn.

"I am sure of it," went on the captain. "Indeed, I