v the boatman whose vessel wixelor boarded next was even worse than the one before : a hideously deformed man of indeterminate age , whose scarlet-skinned face looked as though it were a mask of wax that had been held too close to a flame , the left side of it sagging an inch lower than the right and stretching the left halves of the nose and mouth to a pair of downward-sloping slits , while the runny left eye seemed about to fall out of its distended , permanently parted lids .