"Si, senhores."
Schwandorf got up.
"If you will pardon me, I will drink my kümmel. Frankly, I do not like whisky."
"And frankly, we do not like kümmel. All a matter of taste."
"Truly. So let each of us drink his own preference. I will join you in a moment."
The Americans sauntered to the door, while the German strode into his room.
"Blunt sort of cuss," Knowlton commented.
"Ay, blunt. But not candid. Knows more than he's telling."
Disposing themselves comfortably, they sat watching the lights of the town and the jungle—the first pouring from windows and open doors, the latter streaking across the darkness where the big fire beetles of the tropics winged their way. As Knowlton had predicted, the night noise of forest and stream had diminished; but now from the village itself rose a new discord—a babel of vocal and instrumental efforts at music emanating from the badly worn records of dozens of cheap phonographs grinding away in the stilt-poled huts.
"Good Lord!" groaned McKay. "Even here at the end of the world one can't get away from those beastly instruments."