Page:Rowland--The Mountain of Fears.djvu/290

  was in a syncope, poor fellow! He saw light again, but never outline.

Our game was abandoned. Leyden and I strolled aft to our favorite place by the hand steering-gear, where Leyden puffed at his porcelain pipe in silence for so long a time that I began to think that he would hold to the resolution made early in the evening and not tell the story which hung on the edge of his mind.

"Ach!" he exclaimed suddenly, and taking the pipe from his mouth, tapped the horn mouth-piece against the awning stanchion. "Ach! One would almost think that God might spare a man two such spectacles as that which we have just witnessed. I am accustomed to seeing men killed, Doctor; also to seeing men suffer within reasonable limits, but I protest against casually witnessing torture. . ..

"It was not so long ago, Doctor," he resumed presently, "I was going out to Java via Singapore, and the first night out, while [ 274 ]