ough
the darkness from sheer fright.

He reached the bottom of the stairs at last, and paused to take breath.
He was as winded as a spent runner, and as white as a sheet, and
trembling in every limb. The place was as black as a pocket, save for
where, through a grille-door on the left-hand side of him (which was
actually supposed to be her door, if he had but known it, and led
through to the torture-chamber which Cleek himself had traversed), a
single candle shone with a pale, sickly light, sending a tiny shaft in
his direction, though, with peering through at it, he could only just
see its vague outline in some room beyond.

"Gawdamassy!" he ejaculated, his eyes fairly popping out of his head at
this sight. "Someun's 'ere, that's a fact! And from what I knows er
ghosts, they shine wiv a more unearthly light than wot comes from a
candle in a bottle. Now, 'oo the dickens----"

But his searchings after light on this subject were cut off short by the
sound of softly speaking voices creeping to him through that grilled
door, and coming from some long distance away within it. He darted back
against the wall and, groping with his hands, found a cupboard door
ajar, slipped into it, and drew himself up taut against the inner wall,
and waited for that which might come to pass, every nerve a-tremble, his
eyes fixed upon the crack of the door, which at present showed black as
a pocket.

The soft voices continued--men's voices, too, and one with the changing
inflections of the foreigner.

"Blinkin' German!" thought Dollops excitedly. "Or a Chink! Don't know
the difference between their parley-vous meself, but it's orl alike wiv
_foreigners_. But the other 'un--'e's English orl right. Never 'eard
'is voice before, that's certain! Gawd! they're comin' out now, an' I
prays 'eaven they ain't a jossin' ter fetch nuffin' from this 'ere
cupboard, or little Dollops's number'll be up with a vengeance! I don't
fancy bein' done in by a blinkin' pigtail, neither! Nah!--then! Keep
still, Dollops, me boy, and stop yer tremblin'. You'll 'ave the 'ouse
a-shakin' in a minit, an' they'll fink it's a earfquake instead of a
boy-quake--strite they will!"

Having wrestled himself into some sort of quiet of heart and brain,
Dollops continued to lie in wait until the strangers had come out
through the grilled door, and stood a moment with the candle between
them, talking in low tones, and glancing occasionally up the flight of
stairs by which he h