“What in —— do you mean by striking me, you drunken pig?” growled Jim, but not yet striking. Conscious of his strength, he had the instinctive forbearance of superiority, but it was fast mastered by the maddening liquor.
“Time to go home! Time to go home!” cried the thin piping voice of the liquor-seller.
“What the —— do you mean by insulting my friend?” half hiccuped Dick, shaking his head threateningly, and stiffening his arm and fist at his side as he edged toward Abel.
The hard black eyes of Abel Newt shot sullen fire; His rage half sobered him. He threw his head with the old defiant air, tossing the hair back. The old beauty flashed for an instant through the ruin that had been wrought in his face, and, kindling into a wild, glittering look of wrath, his eye swept them all as he struck heavily forward.
“Time to go home! Time to go home!” came the cry again, unheeded, unheard.
There was a sudden, fierce, brutal struggle. The men’s faces were human no longer, but livid with bestial passion. The liquor-seller rushed into the street, and shouted aloud for help. The cry rang along the dark, still houses, and startled the drowsy, reluctant watchmen on their rounds. They sprang their rattles.
“Murder! murder!” was the cry, which did not disturb the neighbors, who were heavy sleepers, and accustomed to noise and fighting.
“Murder! murder!” It rang nearer and nearer as the watchmen hastened toward the corner. They found the little man standing at his door, bareheaded, and shouting,
“My God! my God! they’ve killed a man—they’ve killed a man!”
“Stop your noise, and let us in. What is it?”