The adventure of the broad arrow: An Australian romance

An Australian Romance
MORLEY ROBERTS
London Hutchinson & Co. 34 Paternoster Row, E.C. 1897
CONTENTS
Chap.

THE ADVENTURE OF THE BROAD ARROW
It's possible to be damned without being dead, said Smith, as he drank his nobbler at the Pilbarra Hotel. And miners are the men who know it, in such a place as this.
He looked out of the reeking bar-room on the light brown glare of waterless desert, with a few thirsty trees scattered over it.
We're in the pit, so to speak, he continued, but not the lowest, for there are drinks here still. Fill 'em up again, Bob, and have one yourself. As for me, I feel I could blue my skin and shirt for a last one before I tumble to pieces and rot finger by finger in this hole.
The men in the bar stood and drank with him silently. Yet one who was mad drunk with brandy and sunlight smashed his tumbler on the bar top, and pitched the bottom at a mongrel dog slinking outside in a thin shadow.