the
street. Some fifteen or twenty men, chiefly foreigners, were gathered
about a large table covered with green baize, on which a small lamp was
burning. A few of the men were seated on chairs ranged about, the others
were standing at the back in rows two deep. They were gambling. The game
was faro. Rows of lucifer matches were laid on the table, half-crowns
were staked on them, and cards were cut and dealt. Except the banker, a
middle-aged man with the wild eye of the hard spirit-drinker, everybody
had his face turned away from the cellar stairs.

They did not smoke or drink, and they only spoke to each other when the
stakes were being received or paid. Then they quarrelled and swore in
English. After that there was a chilling and hideous silence, as if
something awful were about to occur. The lamp cast a strong light on the
table, but the rest of the room was darkened by patches of shadow.

The coal vault had been turned into a drinking-bar, and behind the
counter there was a well-stocked stillage. In the depths of its shade a
woman sat knitting. She had a gross red and white face, and in the arch
above her was the iron grid in the pavement. Somebody on the street
walked over it, causing a hollow sound as of soil falling on a coffin.

John Storm was no coward, but a certain tremor passed over him on finding
himself in this subterranean lurking-place of men who were as beasts. He
stood a full minute unseen. Then he heard the woman say in a low hiss,
"Cat's mee-e-et!" and he knew he had been observed. The men turned and
looked at him, not suddenly, or all at once, but furtively, cautiously,
slowly. The banker crouched at the table with an astonished face and
tried to smuggle the cards out of sight.

John stood calmly, his whole figure displaying courage and confidence.
The group of men broke up. "He's got the 'coppers,'" said one. Nobody
else spoke, and they began to melt away. They disappeared through a door
at the back which led into a yard, for, like rats, the human vermin
always have a second way out of their holes.

In half a minute the cellar was nearly empty. Only the banker and the
woman and one young man remained. The young man was Charlie.

"What cheer, myte?" he said with an air of unconcern. "Is it trecks ye
want, sir? Here ye are then," and he threw a pack of cards at John's
feet.

"It's that gel o' yawn that's done this," said the woman.

"So it's a got-up thing, is it?" said Charlie, and stepping