Here Panuroff stopped and took his coat off. I followed his example. Then from his breast he drew a sort of stiletto, with which, I suppose, he had armed himself on purpose for the present occasion. I had of course my sheath-knife. While we were making our preparations the moon emerged from behind a bank of clouds, and as she did so the wind dropped and the faint clang of eight bells came up to us from a steamer in the harbour.
I could hardly believe that I was standing face to face with a fellow-creature, my one aim and object being to take his life. But it is a strange fact that man is never so dangerous as when his passions are not roused, that is to say, when he is able to enter upon the work of butchery with a contemplative and evenly balanced mind. Contrary to what I should have expected, I had not the least fear as to the result.
For perhaps a minute we stood regarding each other. I could hear his excited breathing as he prepared for his spring. Then like a wild cat he gathered himself together, and leapt towards me. I sprang on one side, but not before his knife had grazed my arm. The struggle had commenced in downright earnest. Like game cocks, we circled round and round each other, waiting and watching for an opportunity to strike. It was no child's play, for we were both active men in first-class training.
Suddenly my foot caught in a boulder, and for a second my attention was diverted from his eyes. It was fatal; with one great bound he rushed in upon me, and clutching me round the neck, attempted to drive his knife between my shoulder and my neck. With the strength of despair I clutched the wrist of the hand that held the knife, and backwards and forwards, round and round, here, there, and everywhere about that little plot of ground we passed, swaying to and fro, breathing hard, and wrestling for our very lives. Surely such a struggle the island, with all its strange and mysterious population, could never have witnessed before! At last my right hand reached his throat—my left still held the wrist—I closed my fingers on his windpipe.
Such is the strange construction of the human mind, that at that moment, when both our lives trembled in the balance, I remember, distinctly, thinking what a wonderful contrivance the Adam's apple of the throat must be.
Further and further his head went back; his breath came from him in thick gasps. The moon shone clear, and by her light I could see the look of despair settling in his eyes. At last, to avoid being throttled, he fell to the ground, I with him. Here the battle recommenced, for both our holds were loosened by the fall. Rolling over, he seized upon me, and raised his knife; yet again I clutched the hand that held it, and with one gigantic effort threw him off; but the exertion was too much for me, and before I could rise he was upon me, and had stabbed me twice. I remember no more.
When I recovered my senses, I was too weak and faint to care very much where I was. But somehow, in a hazy sort of fashion, I got hold of the idea that I was back in John Trelsar's tent at Broken Hill. After a while, however, curiosity got the upper hand of indifference, and I re-opened my eyes to look about me. It was a strange sort of room that I found myself in, and one that it did not take me a year to see, had lately been in the occupation of Chinamen. A couple of celestial jumpers hung on pegs behind the door, and an opium pipe stood on a shelf upon the wall. Through the small window opposite my bed I could distinctly hear the sound of surf breaking on a shore, and as if to prove that my reasoning powers were in no way impaired by my terrible experience, I made it out that I must either be on one of the neighbouring islands, or on a part of Thursday which I had never visited. For several reasons I inclined towards the latter belief.
How I knew I was not in any proximity to the township itself was the fact, plainly discernible to one having experience in such matters, that the sea was not breaking on sand, but on shingle; and what was more important still, among mangrove trees. Now I knew that the beach on the settlement side of Thursday Island was sandy, while that on the other side I had heard was pebbly; on the former there were no mangroves, on the latter they abounded. But observation of these things was beyond me for very long, so, feeling tired, I turned my face to the wall, and was presently asleep again.
Many hours must have elapsed before I woke; when I did the sun had set, and the room would have been dark but for a candle burning on a table by my side. Rather dazed by my long sleep, I looked around me, and as I did so my eyes lighted upon the most extraordinary being I think I have ever beheld in my life.
He was an albino, and what was worse, a dwarf albino. He sat upon a high box, and was staring hard at me; his hair, very long and snow-white, was just moved by the draught from the window; and his eyes, which I discovered later to be of a peculiar shade of pink, flashed and twinkled like enormous rubies. All the time he cracked his finger-joints, first one way, then another, then backwards, then forwards, with a most alarming noise.