In the silence Silva softly held up a finger.
"You," he noted softly, "are a dirty renegade!"
Above, the line of swinging punkahs fanned the thick air with regular beat. It threw a constant flicker of shadow over the guests. Otherwise they showed no change of expression. They leaned against the tables and mopped their faces and drank and looked on. The way many men, not ingrained with cruelty to begin, have learned to look on at many curious things in regions where that particular devil does business.
"Pity," suggested the engineer after a time, emptying his glass deliberately—"a pity he can't pick a flask or two out that bloomin' hat he's wearin'. 'S big enough."
One of the loafers snickered.
"There's the river waiting for him. Full of drinks. And he could wash in it too."
"Turn him into those pigpens at the rear," advised the bat-eared clerk. "Let him try his games on the mixed lot inside, in the back rooms."
"No, sir, you won'!" Zimballo entered a gusty veto. "That sweep? He ain' fit for my back rooms neither!"
"You're right," said Silva. This yellow man did no mopping; his skin had the gloss of a salamander's, and his eyes were like dusky jewels. A humorist in his own fashion he surely was—and his speech was tipped with malice as with acrid poison. "The blighter's not good enough for half-castes, even."