group of figures that surrounded the fighters. The knife occupied a
place in the picture, he decided, and would show well, with a sort of
gleam, in the light of the stars. But of all this no hint had crept into
his speech. "He tried to bite off my nose," he concluded.

"Oh," the girl said, in a faint, far voice, and he noticed the shock in
her sensitive face.

He felt a shock himself, and a blush of embarrassment shone faintly on
his sunburned cheeks, though to him it burned as hotly as when his cheeks
had been exposed to the open furnace-door in the fire-room. Such sordid
things as stabbing affrays were evidently not fit subjects for
conversation with a lady. People in the books, in her walk of life, did
not talk about such things--perhaps they did not know about them, either.

There was a brief pause in the conversation they were trying to get
started. Then she asked tentatively about the scar on his cheek. Even
as she asked, he realized that she was making an effort to talk his talk,
and he resolved to get away from it and talk hers.

"It was just an accident," he said, putting his hand to his cheek. "One
night, in a calm, with a heavy sea running, the main-boom-lift carried
away, an' next the tackle. The lift was wire, an' it was threshin'
around like a snake. The whole watch was tryin' to grab it, an' I rushed
in an' got swatted."

"Oh," she said, this time with an accent of comprehension, though
secretly his speech had been so much Greek to her and she was wondering
what a _lift_ was and what _swatted_ meant.