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The Marriage of Esther
CHAPTER I
TWO MEN – A FIGHT – AND A SERIES OF CALAMITOUS CIRCUMSTANCES
Scene. – The bar of the Hotel of All Nations, Thursday Island. Time, 9.35, one hot evening towards the end of summer. The room contains about twenty men, in various stages of undress; an atmosphere like the furnace doors of Sheol; two tatterdemalions lolling, apart from the rest, at the end of a long counter; a babel of voices, with the thunder of the surf, on the beach outside, over all.
There was surely complete evidence before the house that the two ragamuffins particularised above were unpopular. So far the silent but contemptuous superiority of the taller, and the drunken and consequently more outspoken insolence of his companion, had failed to prepossess one single soul in their favour. Even the barman, upon whose professional affability the most detested might, during moments of the world's disaffection, rely with some degree of certainty, had not been able to bring himself to treat them otherwise than with the most studied coldness. This fact was in itself significant, not only because it showed the state of his own feelings regarding them, but inasmuch as it served to give the customers of the Hotel of All Nations their cue, upon which they were not slow to model their own behaviour. Men are peculiarly imitative animals at times.
But, however much his manners might fall short of the ideal, the taller of the twain was certainly not ill-looking. In stature he might have been described as distinctly tall; his inches would have totalled considerably over six feet. His frame was large, his limbs plainly muscular; his head was not only well set upon his shoulders, but admirably shaped; while his features, with the exception of a somewhat pronounced nose, were clearly cut, and, if one may be permitted the expression, exceedingly harmonious. His eyes were of an almost greeny shade of blue, and his hair, brown like his moustache, fell back off his forehead in graceful curls, as if the better to accentuate the fact that his ears were small and flat, and, what is uncommon in those organs, packed in close to his head. On the other hand, however, his costume, judged even by Thursday Island standards, was not so satisfactory. It consisted of a pair of much worn moleskin trousers, a patched shirt of doubtful texture and more than doubtful hue, open at the neck and revealing to the world's gaze a waste of sunburnt chest, and a cabbage-tree hat that had long since ceased to be either new or waterproof. His extremities were bare, and, at the moment of our introduction, for want of something better to do he was engaged in idly tracing Euclid's Pons Asinorum in the sand of the floor with the big toe of his right foot. So much for Cuthbert Ellison, the principal figure in our story.
Silas Murkard, his companion, was fashioned on totally different lines. His height was as much below the average as his companion's was above it; his back was broad, but ill-shaped; while his legs, which were altogether too long for his body, had a peculiar habit of knocking themselves together at the knees as he walked. It was for this reason that he wore the two leather patches inside, and halfway up, his trouser legs, that had been the subject of so much ironical comment earlier in the day. But, since the patches had been put in, the garment had shrunk almost out of recognition, and consequently they were no longer of use in checking the friction. As a result, two ominous holes were assisting still further in the business of disintegration going on all over his raiment. It was peculiar also, that in spite of the workmanship once bestowed upon his threadbare coat, the hump between his abnormally broad shoulder-blades gave his head an appearance of being always craned forward in search of something, which notion of inquisitiveness was not lessened by the pinched sharpness of his face. Indeed, it might almost be said that his features backed up the impression thus given, and hinted that he was one of that peculiar class of persons who, having much to conceal in their own lives, are never really happy unless they are engaged in discovering something of an equally detrimental character in those of their neighbours. But in this respect Dame Nature had maligned him. He had many faults – few men more – but whatever else he might have been, he certainly was not inquisitive. Doubtless, had he been questioned on the subject, he would have replied with the Apocrypha, "The curiosity of knowing things has been given to man for a scourge." And even if he had not anything else to boast of, he had, at least, his own ideas of the use and properties of scourges!
The two men had appeared in the settlement that morning for the first time. Up to the moment of their debarkation from the trading schooner Merry Mermaid, not one of the inhabitants had, to his knowledge, ever set eyes on them before. Who they were, and what the reason of their destitution, were problems presenting equal difficulties of solution. But Thursday Island has not the reputation of being a fastidious place, and it is probable that, had their behaviour not been such as to excite remark, their presence would have passed unnoticed. But, as I have already said, the smaller of the pair was unfortunately under the influence of liquor; and, as if to be in harmony with his own distorted outline, it was a curious form that his inebriation took. Had the observer chanced upon him casually, he would, in nine cases out of ten, have taken it for his normal condition. He stood leaning against the counter, his head craned forward, slowly and deliberately talking to himself, criticising the appearance and manners of those about him. And though every word he uttered could be plainly heard all over the bar, his companion did not seek to check him. Indeed, it was very possible, being buried in his own thoughts, that he did not hear him.
"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.
Having made a ring, the combatants faced each other. They were both powerful men, and, though temporarily the
