"
M. de la Pailletine stamped and swore, upbraiding them for their
cowardice. He was about to order them down again when a diversion
occurred.
A door slammed below, a wheezing cough was heard, and Captain
Barker's head appeared at the top of the ladder.
"Which of you is the French captain?"
M. de la Pailletine lifted his hat.
"H'mph!"
He stepped up on deck and the French officers drew back in sheer
amazement. They looked at this man who had defied them for pretty
near an hour. They had expected to see a giant. Instead they saw a
tiny man, hump-backed, wry-necked, pale of face, with a twisted
smile, and glaring green eyes, that surveyed them with a malicious
twinkle. His wig was off, and his bandaged scalp, as well as his
face, was smeared black with powder; and it appeared that he could
not even walk like other men, for he moved across the deck with a
gait that was something between a trot and a shamble and
indescribably ludicrous.
Yet all this abated his dignity no whit. He trotted straight up to
M. de la Pailletine (whose astonishment mastered his manners for the
moment, so that he stared and drew back), and working his jaw, as a
man who has to swallow a bitter pill which sticks in his mouth, he
held out his sword without ceremony.
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