I did not hanker after a three days' celebrity as the man who got a black eye or something of the sort from the mate of the Patna.
He, in all probability, did not care what he did, or at any rate would be fully justified in his own eyes.

It took no magician to see he was amazingly angry about something, for all his quiet and even torpid demeanour.

I don't deny I was extremely desirous to pacify him at all costs, had I only known what to do.

But I didn't know, as you may well imagine.

It was a blackness without a single gleam.