'Christian outdone!'
'No,' Christian said, 'I think not. No, none say so.'
He stretched wearily, sighed, and, laying his head down on his arms, slept profoundly. They exchanged woful looks.
'Poor lad, poor lad!' said the old man brokenly.
'Ah, yes; he bested the lot: in rowing hardly, in swimming easily. Oh, don't ask! it was pretty bad. Bad! Oh, good Lord, but it makes one man sweat again to look back on it.
'Oh! God damn their greedy eyes! Yet some few of our lot turned fair ashamed of their own handiwork; and when one brute of the Islands said—no matter what, but his own fellows muttered shame—and Philip would have struck him, yonder poor fool knocked up his arm quick.
'Yes, Philip, girl! and I tell you I saw no hate: and he looked long and close too.'
Stirless in sleep, Christian offered remonstrance to nerves that quivered under the halting tale.
'The worst? no, the worst was after the young fools in their cups got heady. And in the end—well, the end of all was that Philip floored his man. And that should have been Christian's business, and he would not stir, though I nudged him to be up and at such foul jests. "I have heard nothing unfit," he says. And I wished I were underground. I never want to foot the quay again. Poor lad! ay, and poor spirit! the very man of him has got flawed.'
'No,' said Lois painfully, 'however it came he did worthily, up to his name.'