re the
fisherman's knife round her waist. She put her hand on it.

"Yes, the knife is safe."

"If that chap downs me for good," said Raft, "stick that knife through
yourself. If he doesn't you take my orders and take them sharp."

He had risen to his feet and without a word more he came down the
shingle again towards the workers, walking in a leisurely way and
trailing the harpoon along.

He approached Chang who turned on him again with the anger of a busy man
importuned by a beggar. The most heart-sickening thing to the girl was
the way in which, after the first driving off of Raft, the great
Chinaman and his crew had gone on with their work as though they were
alone on the beach. Pity and humanity seemed as remote from that crowd
as from the carcases they were handling. Active hostility would have
been less horrible, somehow, than this absolute indifference to the
condition of others.

Chang did not wait for Raft to speak, this time; he began the speaking,
or, rather, the shouting, advancing on the other who began to retreat.
Chang, as if wishing to have done with this matter for good, followed
him up and at every step the devil in him seemed to rise higher whilst
his voice filled the beach.

What a voice that was! Half-singing, half-booming, the
"whant-whong-goom-along" of the running coolie chanting as he runs
seemed mixed with it, till, his anger breaking bounds, he let fly with
the strap in his hand, catching the other across the shoulder of the arm
that held the harpoon.

Then Raft killed him.

The girl who saw the killing was less appalled for the moment by the
deed than the doer of it. The blow of the harpoon that sent Chang's
brains flying like the contents of a smashed custard apple was like a
flash of lightning, it was the thunder that terrified.

Roaring like a sea bull he sprang from the body of Chang towards the
crowd who faced him for a moment with their flensing knives like a herd
of jackals. The girl, who had sprung to her feet, plucked the knife from
her belt and came running, terror gone and a wind seeming to carry her
over the shingle; zoned in steel blue light she saw the harpoon flying
from right to left destroying everything in its way, knives flying into
the air as if tossed by jugglers, a yellow greasy back into which she
struck with her knife, a yellow Chinese face falling backwards with eyes
wide on her, as if the Chinese soul of the creature she had stabbed to
the heart were tryi