第71章

One night Captain Nichols and Strickland were sitting in one of the bars of the Rue Bouterie.The Rue Bouterie is a narrow street of one- storeyed houses, each house consisting of but one room; they are like the booths in a crowded fair or the cages of animals in a circus.At every door you see a woman.Some lean lazily against the side-posts, humming to themselves or calling to the passer-by in a raucous voice, and some listlessly read.They are French.Italian, Spanish, Japanese, coloured; some are fat and some are thin; and under the thick paint on their faces, the heavy smears on their eyebrows, and the scarlet of their lips, you see the lines of age and the scars of dissipation.Some wear black shifts and flesh-coloured stockings; some with curly hair, dyed yellow, are dressed like little girls in short muslin frocks.Through the open door you see a red-tiled floor, a large wooden bed, and on a deal table a ewer and a basin.A motley crowd saunters along the streets -- Lascars off a P.and O., blond Northmen from a Swedish barque, Japanese from a man-of-war, English sailors, Spaniards, pleasant-looking fellows from a French cruiser, negroes off an American tramp.By day it is merely sordid, but at night, lit only by the lamps in the little huts, the street has a sinister beauty.The hideous lust that pervades the air is oppressive and horrible, and yet there is something mysterious in the sight which haunts and troubles you.You feel I know not what primitive force which repels and yet fascinates you.Here all the decencies of civilisation are swept away, and you feel that men are face to face with a sombre reality.There is an atmosphere that is at once intense and tragic.

In the bar in which Strickland and Nichols sat a mechanical piano was loudly grinding out dance music.Round the room people were sitting at table, here half a dozen sailors uproariously drunk, there a group of soldiers; and in the middle, crowded together, couples were dancing.Bearded sailors with brown faces and large horny hands clasped theirpartners in a tight embrace.The women wore nothing but a shift.Now and then two sailors would get up and dance together.The noise was deafening.People were singing, shouting, laughing; and when a man gave a long kiss to the girl sitting on his knees, cat-calls from the English sailors increased the din.The air was heavy with the dust beaten up by the heavy boots of the men, and gray with smoke.It was very hot.Behind the bar was seated a woman nursing her baby.The waiter, an undersized youth with a flat, spotty face, hurried to and fro carrying a tray laden with glasses of beer.

In a little while Tough Bill, accompanied by two huge negroes, came in, and it was easy to see that he was already three parts drunk.He was looking for trouble.He lurched against a table at which three soldiers were sitting and knocked over a glass of beer.There was an angry altercation, and the owner of the bar stepped forward and ordered Tough Bill to go.He was a hefty fellow, in the habit of standing no nonsense from his customers, and Tough Bill hesitated.The landlord was not a man he cared to tackle, for the police were on his side, and with an oath he turned on his heel. Suddenly he caught sight of Strickland. He rolled up to him.He did not speak.He gathered the spittle in his mouth and spat full in Strickland's face.Strickland seized his glass and flung it at him.The dancers stopped suddenly still.There was an instant of complete silence, but when Tough Bill threw himself on Strickland the lust of battle seized them all, and in a moment there was a confused scrimmage.Tables were overturned, glasses crashed to the ground.There was a hellish row.The women scattered to the door and behind the bar.Passers-by surged in from the street.You heard curses in every tongue the sound of blows, cries; and in the middle of the room a dozen men were fighting with all their might.On a sudden the police rushed in, and everyone who could made for the door.When the bar was more or less cleared, Tough Bill was lying insensible on the floor with a great gash in his head.Captain Nichols dragged Strickland, bleeding from a wound in his arm, his clothes in rags, into the street.His own face was covered with blood from a blow on the nose.

"I guess you'd better get out of Marseilles before Tough Bill comes outof hospital," he said to Strickland, when they had got back to the Chink's Head and were cleaning themselves.

"This beats cock-fighting," said Strickland.I could see his sardonic smile.

Captain Nichols was anxious.He knew Tough Bill's vindictiveness.Strickland had downed the mulatto twice, and the mulatto, sober, was a man to be reckoned with.He would bide his time stealthily.He would be in no hurry, but one night Strickland would get a knife-thrust in his back, and in a day or two the corpse of a nameless beach-comber would be fished out of the dirty water of the harbour.Nichols went next evening to Tough Bill's house and made enquiries.He was in hospital still, but his wife, who had been to see him, said he was swearing hard to kill Strickland when they let him out.

A week passed.

"That's what I always say," reflected Captain Nichols, "when you hurt a man, hurt him bad.It gives you a bit of time to look about and think what you'll do next."Then Strickland had a bit of luck.A ship bound for Australia had sent to the Sailors' Home for a stoker in place of one who had thrown himself overboard off Gibraltar in an attack of delirium tremens.

"You double down to the harbour, my lad," said the Captain to Strickland, "and sign on. You've got your papers."Strickland set off at once, and that was the last Captain Nichols saw of him.The ship was only in port for six hours, and in the evening Captain Nichols watched the vanishing smoke from her funnels as she ploughed East through the wintry sea.

I have narrated all this as best I could, because I like the contrast of these episodes with the life that I had seen Strickland live in Ashley Gardens when he was occupied with stocks and shares; but I am aware that Captain Nichols was an outrageous liar, and I dare say there is not a word of truth in anything he told me.I should not be surprised to learn that he had never seen Strickland in his life, and owed his knowledge of Marseilles to the pages of a magazine.