"The depth of a man's fall," Murkard was saying, with drunken deliberation, "can be best gauged by an investigation of the company he keeps. To think that I should fall as low as this spawn!" Here he looked round the room, and having spat in disgust upon the floor, said in conclusion, "How long, my God, how long?"
A big pearler, known in the settlement by reason of his fighting powers as Paddy the Lasher, rolled heavily along the counter and confronted him.
"Look here, my duck," he said warningly, "I don't want to interfere with you, but if our company aint good enough for the likes of you and your mate there, I don't know as how it wouldn't be best for us to part."
But the little man only sighed, and then remarked somewhat inconsequently to the moths fluttering round the lamp above his head:
"The honest heart that's free from a' Intended fraud or guile, However Fortune kick the ba', Has aye some cause to smile."
Paddy the Lasher's reply was a blow direct from the shoulder. It caught the other half an inch above the left eyebrow, and felled him to the ground like a log. In an instant the whole bar was alive; men rose from their seats inside, and more poured into the room from the benches outside. There was every prospect of a fight, and as the company had stood in need of some sort of excitement for a considerable time past, they did not attempt to stop it.
Murkard lay just as he had fallen, but his companion was not so comatose. He picked the inanimate figure up and placed him in a corner. Then, without the slightest sign of emotion, rolling up his tattered shirt-sleeves as he went, he stepped across to where the hitter waited the course of events.
"I believe I shall be obliged to have your blood for that blow," he said, as calmly as if it were a matter of personal indifference.
"You mean to say you think you'll have a try. Well, all things considered, I don't know as how I'm not willing to oblige you! Come outside."
Without another word they passed from the reeking, stifling barroom into the fragrant summer night. Overhead the Southern Cross and myriads of other stars shone lustrous and wonderful, their effulgence being reflected in the coal-black waters of the bay until it had all the appearance of an ebony floor powdered with finest gold-dust. Not a voice was to be heard, only the roll of the surf upon the beach, the faint music of a concertina from somewhere on the hillside, and the rustling of the night wind among the palms.