It was hard to guess at his age, but he could scarce have been under his fiftieth year, though the ease with which he had boarded our boat proved that his strength and energy were unimpaired.

Of all his characteristics, however, nothing attracted my attention so much as his eyes, which were almost covered by their drooping lids, and yet looked out through the thin slits which remained with marvellous brightness and keenness.

A passing glance might give the idea that he was languid and half asleep, but a closer one would reveal those glittering, shifting lines of light, and warn the prudent man not to trust too much to his first impressions.
'I could swim to Portsmouth,' he remarked, rummaging in the pockets of his sodden jacket; 'I could swim well-nigh anywhere.

I once swam from Gran on the Danube to Buda, while a hundred thousand Janissaries danced with rage on the nether bank.

I did, by the keys of St.Peter! Wessenburg's Pandours would tell you whether Decimus Saxon could swim.