No trousers covered the long, lean, mahogany-coloured legs of this official; an ample abba was rolled round his body, and a tattered keffiah, of no particular hue, thrown loosely round his head, partly muffled his face, so that we could see but little of his features. The wind freshened after a time; we let fall the courses and stretched them home, glad to make way on the ship; which had been drifting with a current. Instead of standing by the binnacle and giving instructions to a steersman, the native pilot grasped the wheel unaided in his powerful hands, and from time to time it seemed to me that he cast his eyes oftener to the shore than aloft to keep the canvas full. As he stood there between us and the moonlight, his tall and muscular form and fantastic dress, when viewed in dark outline, had something weird and mysterious about them, and so thought Charlie Newcome, who was watching him narrowly, as we stood on the starboard side of the quarter-deck. The mate of the watch was forward, looking after the 'ground tackle' and large anchor, and the captain was below, when suddenly Charlie, on whom the tall, stark figure of the stranger seemed to make an impression, twitched my sleeve and whispered: 'Look, Bob! look now! By Jove! isn't he like--like----' 'Like who?' 'Long Kiang, that we talked so much about--the fellow described in the _China Mail_.' 'You've got Long Kiang on the brain,' said I, laughing; but the laughter ceased when I _did_ look. The light breeze had partly deranged the Arab-like keffiah that enveloped his head, and by the rays of the binnacle lamp we saw that he was minus the left eye, that the whole of that side of his face was distorted as if scorched by powder, and for a moment or two the strange malformation of his left arm was distinctly visible, as he gasped one of the under-spokes of the wheel. 'It cannot be,' said I. 'How about his certificates, Charlie?' 'Another man's papers--stolen, no doubt.' 'If he should, after all, be Long Kiang,' I began, and then paused, for as I spoke the name seemed to catch his ear, and he turned on me his solitary eye, which in the moonlight glistened redly, like that of a rattlesnake. A knife of portentous length was in the same sheath with his chopsticks, a knife suggestive of cutting other things than yams or salt junk. 'Won't you youngsters turn in?' said the mate, coming aft. 'You are both in the middle watch.' 'Thank you, sir; not just yet,' said I, for, truth to tell, we were disposed to be wide awake as weasels. Long Kiang had been such a standing joke during the latter part of our voyage--at least after leaving Aden--that neither of us, whatever we thought, ventured to tell our fears or suspicions to the mate, or to the men forward. While we were talking to the mate, the captain, who had come on deck, called him to the port side of the ship, which was going before the wind, but very slowly.