40
METIPOM’S HOSTAGE
distinguished, not only by their dress, but by the more cheerful countenances that they wore: ship’s captains and rolling-gaited sailors redolent of tar and, he feared, rum as well; Negroes and an occasional Indian; dark men who wore gold rings in their ears. But in the end he turned down toward the shore and so into Ship Street and saw the swinging sign of the King’s Head Tavern ahead and was presently beating a gay tattoo on the portal of Master William Elkins, Merchant.
