"You haven't missed much by not knowing him," said Moropulos, "but he's a good-looking fellow."
He flicked the ash of his cigarette on to the tiled hearth. "Steppe is still annoyed with me." Sault smiled to himself.
"You think he is justified? Perhaps. I was terribly drunk, but I was happy. Some day, my dear brother, I shall get so drunk that even you will not hold me. I move towards my apotheosis of intoxication certainly and surely. Then I will be irresistible and I shall have no fear of those brute arms of yours." He sucked at the cigarette without speaking for a long time. Sault went back to his work.
"I have often wondered!" said Moropulos at last.
"What?"
"Whether it would have been better if I had followed the advice of my head man that morning I pulled you aboard the sloop. You remember Bob the Kanaka boy? He wanted to knock you on the head and drop you overboard; you were too dangerous, he said. If a government boat had picked us up and you had been found on board as well as—certain other illicit properties, I should have had a double charge against me. I said 'no' because I was sorry for you."
"Because you were afraid of me," said Sault calmly, "I knew you were afraid when I looked into your eyes. Why do you speak of the islands now—we haven't talked about the Pacific since I left the boat."
"I've been thinking about you," confessed Moropulos with a quick sly glance at the man. "Do you realize how—not 'curious'—what is the word?"
"Incurious!" suggested Sault, and Moropulos looked at him with reluctant admiration.
"You are an extraordinary hombre, Sault. Merville says you have the vocabulaire—that is English or something like it—of an educated man. But to return—do you realize how incurious I am? For example, I have never once asked you, in all our years of knowing one another, why you killed that man?"