* * * * *

These gates were closed and locked. The cabby, after shooting his things

off the roof of his machine into young Powell's arms, drove away leaving

him alone with his sea-chest, a sail cloth bag and a few parcels on the

pavement about his feet. It was a dark, narrow thoroughfare he told us.

A mean row of houses on the other side looked empty: there wasn't the

smallest gleam of light in them. The white-hot glare of a gin palace a

good way off made the intervening piece of the street pitch black. Some

human shapes appearing mysteriously, as if they had sprung up from the

dark ground, shunned the edge of the faint light thrown down by the

gateway lamps. These figures were wary in their movements and perfectly

silent of foot, like beasts of prey slinking about a camp fire. Powell

gathered up his belongings and hovered over them like a hen over her

brood. A gruffly insinuating voice said: "Let's carry your things in, Capt'in!

I've got my pal 'ere."

He was a tall, bony, grey-haired ruffian with a bulldog jaw, in a torn

cotton shirt and moleskin trousers. The shadow of his hobnailed boots

was enormous and coffinlike. His pal, who didn't come up much higher

than his elbow, stepping forward exhibited a pale face with a long

drooping nose and no chin to speak of. He seemed to have just scrambled

out of a dust-bin in a tam-o'shanter cap and a tattered soldier's coat

much too long for him. Being so deadly white he looked like a horrible

dirty invalid in a ragged dressing gown. The coat flapped open in front

and the rest of his apparel consisted of one brace which crossed his

naked, bony chest, and a pair of trousers. He blinked rapidly as if

dazed by the faint light, while his patron, the old bandit, glowered at

young Powell from under his beetling brow.

"Say the word, Capt'in. The bobby'll let us in all right. 'E knows both

of us."

"I didn't answer him," continued Mr. Powell. "I was listening to

footsteps on the other side of the gate, echoing between the walls of the

warehouses as if in an uninhabited town of very high buildings dark from

basement to roof. You could never have guessed that within a stone's

throw there was an open sheet of water and big ships lying afloat. The

few gas lamps showing up a bit of brick work here and there, appeared in

the blackness like penny dips in a range of cellars--and the solitary

footsteps came on, tramp, tramp. A dock policeman strode into the light

on the other side of the gate, very broad-chested and stern.




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