“I saw the blood drip from ’er bare shoulders, mates,” the man continued huskily, and with his big dirty hands he strove to illustrate his words.  “An’ that old yellow devil lashed an’ lashed until the poor gal was past screamin’.  She just sunk down on the floor all of a ‘cap, moanin’ and moanin’—­Gawd!  I can ’ear ‘er moanin’ now!”

“Meanwhile, ’ere’s me with murder in me ‘eart lyin’ there watchin’, an’ I can’t speak, no!  I can’t even curse the yellow rat, an’ I can’t move—­not a ’and, not a foot!  Just as she fell there right up against the joss an’ ’er blood trickled down on ‘is gilded feet, old Ma Lorenzo comes staggerin’ in.  I remember all this as clear as print, mates, remember it plain, but wot ‘appened next ain’t so good an’ clear.  Somethink seemed to bust in me ’ead.  Only just before I went off, the winder—­there’s only one in the room—­was smashed to smithereens an’ somebody come in through it.”

“Are you sure?” said Harley eagerly.  “Are you sure?”

That he was intensely absorbed in the story he revealed by a piece of bad artistry, very rare in him.  He temporarily forgot his dialect.  Our marine friend, however, was too much taken up with his own story to notice the slip, and: 

“Dead sure!” he shouted.

He suddenly twisted around in his chair.

“Tell me I was dreamin’, mate,” he invited, “and if you ain’t dreamin’ in ’arf a tick it won’t be because I ’aven’t put yer to sleep!”

“I ain’t arguin’, old son,” said Harley soothingly.  “Get on with your yarn.”

“Ho!” said the fireman, mollified, “so long as you ain’t.  Well, then, it’s all blotted out after that.  Somebody come in at the winder, but ’oo it was or wot it was I can’t tell yer, not for fifty quid.  When I woke up, which is about ’arf an hour before you see me, I’m all alone—­see?  There’s no sign of Kwen Lung nor the gal nor old Ma Lorenzo nor anybody.  I sez to meself, wot you keep on sayin’.  I sez, ‘You’re dreamin’, Bill.’”

“But I don’t think you was,” declared Harley.  “Straight I don’t.”

“I know I wasn’t!” roared the fireman, and banged the table lustily.  “I see ‘er blood on the joss an’ on the floor where she lay!”

“This morning?” I interjected.

“This mornin’, in the light of the little oil lamp where old Ma Lorenzo ‘ad roasted the pills!  It’s all still an’ quiet an’ I feel more dead than alive.  I’m goin’ to give ’er a hail, see?  When I sez to myself, ‘Bill,’ I sez, ’put out to sea; you’re amongst Kaffirs, Bill.’  It occurred to me as old Kwen Lung might wonder ’ow much I knew.  So I beat it.  But when I got in the open air I felt I’d never make my lodgin’s without a tonic.  That’s ’ow I come to meet you, mates.