And how I need to exult in watching him deal with matter! He never took
anything by the wrong end, nor failed to grasp a swinging rope or a
flapping sail, nor miscalculated the effort necessary to the
performance of whatever he undertook. He was silent, but not morose.
Yet there was something in his measured tones and the gaze of his large
gray eyes which Mike compared in their mingled effects to the charms
of sight and sound that the victims of the rattlesnake's fascination
are said to undergo. Whatever sensations they occasioned, men shrank
from renewing them, and the frankest and boldest of the crew shunned
occasions for addressing him. Stranger still, this feeling, instead
of wearing off by the close companionship of our little bark, seemed
to deepen and strengthen, until at length, except myself, no one spoke
to him who could avoid it. Even the captain, when circumstances allowed
him a choice, always directed his orders to another, though this man's
duties were performed with the quiet promptness of a machine.
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