"An' me, too," said Bill, sulkily, as he uncorked a black bottle. "Give us that pannikin, you spawn!"
Engelhardt handed it over unmoved. He was past caring what was said or done to him personally. Bill drank first.
"Here's fun!" said he, saluting the other two simultaneously with a single cross-eyed leer.
"'An' they say so—an' we hope so!'" chanted the Bo's'n, who came next. "Anyway, here's to the moon, for there she spouts!"
As he raised his pannikin, he pointed it over Engelhardt's shoulder, and the latter involuntarily turned his head. He brought it back next moment, with a jerk and a shudder. Far away, behind the scrub, on the edge of the earth, lay the moon, with a silvery pathway leading up to her, and a million twigs and branches furrowing her face. But against the top of the great white disc there fell those horrible boots and spurs, in grisly silhouette, and still swaying a little to the mournful accompaniment of the groaning bough above. Surely the works of God and man were never in ghastlier contrast than when Engelhardt turned his head without thinking and twitched it back with a shudder. And yet to him this was not the worst; he was now in time to catch that which made the blood run colder still in all his veins.
CHAPTER XIII A SMOKING CONCERT
Simons was toasting Naomi Pryse. It took Engelhardt some moments to realize this. The language he could stand; but no sooner did he grasp its incredible application than his self-control boiled over on the spot.
"Stop it!" he shrieked at the shearer. "How dare you speak of her like that? How dare you?"
The foul mouth fell open, and the camp-fire flames licked the yellow teeth within. Engelhardt was within a few inches of them, with a doubled fist and reckless eyes. To his amazement, the man burst out laughing in his face.