Moxons Master 6

Yielding to an impulse to seek further light from him whom I now recognized as my master and guide, I had unconsciously turned about, and almost before I was aware of having done so found myself again at Moxon's door. I was drenched¹ with rain, but felt no discomfort². Unable in my excitement to find the doorbell I instinctively³ tried the knob. It turned and, entering, I mounted the stairs to the room that I had so recently left. All was dark and silent; Moxon, as I had supposed, was in the adjoining room -- the 'machine-shop.' Groping along the wall until found the communicating door I knocked loudly several times, but got no response, which I attributed to the uproar⁴（骚动，喧嚣） outside, for the wind was blowing a gale⁵ and dashing the rain against the thin walls in sheets. The drumming upon the shingle⁶ roof spanning the unceiled room was loud and incessant⁷. I had never been invited into the machine-shop-had, indeed, been denied admittance, as had all others, with one exception, a skilled metal worker, of whom no one knew anything except that his name was Haley and his habit silence. But in my spiritual exaltation（欣喜） , discretion⁸ and civility were alike forgotten, and I opened the door. What I saw took all philosophical⁹ speculation¹⁰ out of me in short order.

Moxon sat facing me at the farther side of a small table upon which a single candle made all the light that was in the room. Opposite him, his back toward me, sat another person. On the table between the two was a chess-board; the men were playing. I knew little of chess, but as only a few pieces were on the board it was obvious that the game was near its close. Moxon was intensely interested -- not so much, it seemed to me, in the game as in his antagonist¹¹, upon whom he had fixed¹² so intent a look that, standing¹³ though I did directly in the line of his vision, I was altogether unobserved. His face was ghastly（惨白地） white, and his eyes glittered like diamonds. Of his antagonist I had only a back view, but that was sufficient; I should not have cared to see his face.

He was apparently¹⁴ not more than five feet in height, with proportions suggesting those of a gorilla¹⁵ -- a tremendous breadth of shoulders, thick, short neck and broad, squat¹⁶ head, which had a tangled¹⁷ growth of black hair and was topped with a crimson¹⁸ fez（土耳其毡帽） . A tunic¹⁹ of the same colour, belted tightly to the waist, reached the seat -- apparently a box -- upon which he sat; his legs and feet were not seen. His left forearm appeared to rest in his lap; he moved his pieces with his right hand, which seemed disproportionately long.