He picked up one, and,
sending the maid back to fetch another to fill up her order, returned
at once to the private room. My gentleman there was standing with
his back to the door, stripped to the waist, with the shirt in his
hand, ready to slip it on. He wasn't expecting Bogue so soon, and he
turned about with a jump, but not before Bogue had sight of his back
and a great picture tattooed across it--Adam and Eve, with the tree
between 'em, and the serpent coiled around it complete."
"The man Bogue must have quick sight," commented Miss Belcher.
"So I told him, but his answer was that it didn't need more than a
glance, because this picture is a favourite with seamen. Bogue has
been a seaman himself."
"That is so," Captain Branscome corroborated. "The man must have
been a seaman, and at one time or another in the Navy. There's a
superstition about that particular picture: tattooed across the back
and loins it's supposed to protect them, in a moderate degree,
against flogging."
"Well," said Miss Belcher, "his belonging to the Navy seems likely
enough. It accounts, in one way, for his finding himself in a French
war-prison. Go on, Jack."
"The man (said Bogue) faced about with a start, catching his hands--
with the shirt in 'em--towards his chest, and half covering it, but
not so as to hide from Bogue that his chest, too, was marked.
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