"I have been at sea now, man and boy, for seven-and-thirty years, and
I've never heard of such a thing happening in an English ship. And that
it should be my ship. Wife on board, too."
I was hardly listening to him.
"Don't you think," I said, "that the heavy sea which, you told me, came
aboard just then might have killed the man? I have seen the sheer weight
of a sea kill a man very neatly, by simply breaking his neck."
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"Good God!" he uttered, impressively, fixing his smeary blue eyes on
me. "The sea! No man killed by the sea ever looked like that." He seemed
positively scandalized at my suggestion. And as I gazed at him certainly
not prepared for anything original on his part, he advanced his head
close to mine and thrust his tongue out at me so suddenly that I
couldn't help starting back.
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