The Marriage of Esther

GUY BOOTHBY
AUTHOR OF ON THE WALLABY, ETC.

NEW YORK
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
1895
Copyright, 1895,
By D. APPLETON AND COMPANY.

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.