CHAPTER V.
HASSAN I suppose it must have been two hours after dawn on the following morning that I was awakened by knocks upon the door and the voice of Jack saying that Sam, the cook, wanted to speak to me.
Wondering what he could be doing there, as I understood he was sleeping on the ship, I called out that he was to come in.

Now this Sam, I should say, hailed from the Cape, and was a person of mixed blood.

The original stock, I imagine, was Malay which had been crossed with Indian coolie.
Also, somewhere or other, there was a dash of white and possibly, but of this I am not sure, a little Hottentot.

The result was a person of few vices and many virtues.

Sammy, I may say at once, was perhaps the biggest coward I ever met.