"Gold, little woman, English gold; spit on it for luck, little woman"; and I am bound to say that she did so, hobbling out of the room with the gold piece clenched in her nut-cracker jaws. Then I began to search with my eyes for Paolo; and, although the smoke was very thick, I saw him seated near the drinking-bar, a tumbler of brandy before him, his arms resting on the edge of the counter where the liquor was sold. I judged then that he had made no idle visit to this place; and in a quarter of an hour or so my surmise was proved. The glass door again swung open; three men entered through it, and I recognised the three of them in a moment. The first was the Irishman, "Four Eyes"; the second-was the lantern-jawed Scotsman, who had been addressed in Paris as "Dick the Ranter"; the third was "Roaring John," into whose face Dan had emptied the contents of his duck-gun three days before. The ruffian had his mouth all bound in a bloody rag, so I hugged myself with the knowledge that he had been well hit; but he was in nowise depressed; and, although the gun had stopped his speech, he smacked Paolo on the back when he greeted him, and the others soon had their faces in the great brown jugs.
The sight of this company warmed me to the work. I seemed to stand on the threshold of discovery. If only I could follow them hence to Black's house the whole aim of my journey would be fulfilled. And why not? I said; they will leave this place and go to their leader some time—if not now, at least to-morrow; and why should I lose touch with them? So far it was certain that my presence was undiscovered. The hag had suspicion of me, but not in their way; the men were too busy, I thought, talking of their own affairs to meddle even with their neighbours. Dan knew on what business I had left the ship, and would quieten Roderick's alarm for me. It was plain that fortune had turned kindly eyes on me.
I sat sipping the beer and smoking an old clay pipe, which I found in the breast-pocket of Dan's garment, doing these things to escape the remarks which the neglect of them would have occasioned, when there was some change in the bibulous entertainment as yet provided for us in the drink-hole. The hag raised her voice, worn to a croak with long scolding, and shrieked—
"Jack's a-going to dance for ye! Silence, pretty boys. Ho! ho! Jack the Fire-Devil, will ye listen, then? And it's help me move the tables ye will, Master Dick, or ye're no minister that I took ye for. Back, my pretty gentlemen, lest I throw me vitriol on ye. Ha! but they love me like their own mother!"
She poked round with her stick at the seamen's feet, compelling them to fall back, and to make a ring for the dancer in the centre; and I saw with no satisfaction that the foul-mouthed villain who was called the "Ranter" came to give her his help to the work.
"Hoots, mither," he cried in his broadest Scots, "did ye mistake that I was a gentleman frae the Hielands o' bonnie Scotland? And I'll be verra glad to throttle some for a wee cup o' yer pretty poison. So ho! ye lubbers, it's an ower-fine discoors for a summer Sawbath that my boot will teach you. Mak' way, mak' way!"
Thus, with unctuous mockery and rough menace, the fellow followed the fury round the room, and forced the drunken crew to the wall. He came to my seat; but I buried my head in my hands, lest he should have carried the memory of my face from Paris; and he passed, having taken no notice of me as I hoped. Soon he had made a great ring for the dancing; and one of the long mirrors opened, showing a door, whose existence I had not suspected; and a great negro with a flaming firepot entered the room. His entry brought applause; but he was a common quack of a performer at the beginning, for he made pretence to eat the fire, and to bring it up again from his vitals. Then, to some wild music from a fiddler, he bound coils of the flaming stuff about his head; and, the lamps being lowered, he gave us a weird picture of a man dancing, all circled with flame; working himself up until I recalled pictures of the dervishes I had seen in the old quarter of Cairo. It was an extraordinary exhibition, and it pleased the men about so that they roared with delight. I was watching it at last as intent as they were; but my attention was suddenly diverted by the sense that something under the marble table at which I was sitting was pulling at my leg. I looked down quickly, and saw a strange sight: it was the black face of the lad Splinters, who had been treated so brutally in Paris. He, crouching under the table, was making signs to me, earnest, meaning signs, so that without any betrayal I leant my head down as though upon my hands, and spoke to him—
"What is it, lad?" I asked in a whisper. "What do you want to say?"
"Don't stop here, sir!" he answered in a state of great agitation. "They know you, and are going to kill you!"
He said no more, crawling away at once; but he left me hot with fear. The mad dance was still going on, and the room was quite dark save for the glow cast by the spirit flames about the huge negro. It occurred to me at once that the darkness might save me if only I could reach the door unobserved; and I left my seat, and pushed amongst the men, passing nearer and nearer to the street, until at last I was at the very portal itself. Then I saw that a change had been made while I had been sitting. The doors of glass were wide open, but the way to the street without was no longer clear—an iron curtain had been drawn across the entrance, and a hundred men could not have forced it.
This was a terrible discovery. It seemed to me that the iron door had been closed for an especial purpose. I knew, however, that when the dance was over some of the audience would wish to go out, and so I waited by the curtain until the lamps were turned up, and the negro had disappeared. The men were then about to push their tables to the centre again, but the hag raised her voice and cried—
"As you are, my pretty gentleman; it's only the first part ye've been treated to. No, no; ye don't have the door drawn till ye've seen yer mother dance awhile. Good boys, all of ye, there's work to do; ho! ho! work to do, and Mother Catch will do it!"
At the words "work to do" a strange silence, which I did not then understand, fell on the company. Somehow, all the men immediately around me slunk away, and I found myself standing quite alone, with many staring at me. The four men whom most I feared had turned their backs, and were busy with their mugs; but the rest of the assembly had eyes only for the terrible woman and for myself. Presently the discordant music began again. The hag, who had been bent double, reared herself up with a "Ho!" after the fashion of a Scottish sword-dancer, and began to make a wretched shuffle with her feet. Then she moved with a hobble and a jig to the far end of the room; and she called out, beginning to come straight down to the door whereby I stood. I know not what presentiment forewarned me to beware as the creature drew near; but yet I felt the danger, and the throbbing of my heart. That I could hope for help amongst such a crew was out of the question. I had my revolver in my pocket, but had I shown it twenty barrels would have answered the folly. There was nothing to do but to face the screeching woman; and this I did as the unearthly music became louder, and the stillness of the men was speaking in its depth.
At the last, the old witch, who had danced for some moments at a distance of ten paces from the spot where I stood, became as one possessed. She made a few dreadful antics, uttered a piercing shriek, and hurled herself almost on me. In that instant I remember seeing the three men with Paolo suddenly rise to their feet, while the others in the room called out in their excitement. But the hag herself drew from her breast something that she had concealed there; and, as she stood within a yard of me, she brought it crash upon my head, and all my senses left me.
CHAPTER XIII.
ASTERN OF THE "LABRADOR."
Complete unconsciousness is a blessing, I think, which comes rarely to us. Sleep, they say, is akin to death; yet I have often questioned if there be an absolute void of existence in sleep; and I am sure that in few cases where a blow robs us of sense does the brain cease to be active or to bring dreams in its working. I have been struck down unconscious twice in my life; but in each instance I have suffered much during the after-days from that trouble of mind which is akin to the feverish dream of an exhausted system. Horrid sights does the brain then bear to us; terrible situations; weird phantoms known to the opium-eater; wild struggles with unnatural enemies; wrestlings even for existence itself. All these I knew during the days that followed my rash visit to the drinking