27/31 There might have been secret reasons. He wagged his old chin knowingly. He was a man of great experience, and he wanted _that_ white Tuan to know--he turned towards Brierly, who didn't raise his head--that he had acquired a knowledge of many things by serving white men on the sea for a great number of years--and, suddenly, with shaky excitement he poured upon our spellbound attention a lot of queer-sounding names, names of dead-and-gone skippers, names of forgotten country ships, names of familiar and distorted sound, as if the hand of dumb time had been at work on them for ages. |