He wearied me, however, with his chatter and efforts to make himself agreeable, and after the meal I escaped from him on the plea of business which must be attended to before the steamer sailed.
Leaving the walled city, I crossed the Bridge of Spain to the Escolta and took a stroll in Calle Rosario, where the Chinese merchants keep themselves in grateful shade with miles of awning. After an hour of sight-seeing, I found myself in a square near the San Miguel Bridge.
There was a crowd gathered before a building, which I remember on account of the picture of a frigate painted upon the stucco wall and the great red letters spelling out:
THE FLAGSHIP BAR
There had evidently been a fight; and coolies and natives, and Europeans in white, clustered at the door. I joined the knot of people and pressed forward to see what was holding their attention, and saw the body of a big, foreign-looking man, half inside the door and half on the pavement, with his head outside.
His mouth was open, and from his upper lips drooped long, black moustaches, looking all the blacker for the ghastly pallor of his cheeks. He had been stabbed in the back, and the spectators in the front of the group edged away to avoid the growing pool of blood on the sidewalk.
"Does anybody know who he is?" demanded a khaki-clad policeman, taking out a note-book.
"A sailor," said an American in a white apron, who leaned out of the door. "Drank whiskey and vermouth and talked like a squarehead."
"Greek he was," said a man with the appearance of a mariner.
"Here's his cap in here," said the bartender, and he turned and picked up a watch-cap, and held it so we could see letters wrought in it with gilt cord, and I made out "Kut Sang," which excited my interest in the case.