foreign and high. "Come in. All
may come in to-night."

Dawson entered, leading a trail of water over a floor of bare boards.
His face was running wet, and he was newly dazzled with the light.
But when he had wiped his eyes, he drew a deep breath of relief and
looked about him. The room was unfurnished save for a littered table
and some chairs, and a gaudy picture of the Virgin that hung on the
wall. On each side of it was a sconce, in which a slovenly candle
guttered. A woman was perched on a corner of the table, a heavy shawl
over her head. Under it the dark face, propped in the fork of her
hand, glowed sullenly, and her bare, white arm was like a menacing
thing. Dawson bowed to her with an instinct of politeness. In a chair
near her a grossly fat man was huddled, scowling heavily under thick,
fair brows, while the other man, he who had opened the door, stood
smiling.

The woman laughed softly as Dawson ducked to her, scanning him with
an amusement that he felt as ignominy. But she pointed to the image
dangling in his hand.

"What is that?" she asked.

Dawson laid it on the floor carefully. "It's a curio," he explained.
"I was fetching it for a lady. An idol, you know."

The fat man burst into a hoarse laugh, and the other man spoke to
Dawson.

"An' you?" he queried. "What you doing 'ere, so late an' so wet?"

"I was trying to take a short cut to the landing-stage," Dawson
replied. "Like a silly fool, I thought I could find my way through
here. But I got lost somehow."

The fat man laughed again.

"You come off the German steamer?" suggested the woman.

Dawson nodded. "I came ashore with some friends," he answered, "from
the second-class. But I left them to go back and fetch this idol, and
here I am."

The tall man who had opened the door turned to the woman.

"So we must wait a leetle longer for your frien's," he said.

She tossed her head sharply.

"Friends!" she exclaimed. "Mother of God! Would you walk about with
your knives for ever? When every day other men are taken, can you ask
to go free? Am I the wife of the Intendente?"

"No, nod the vife!" barked the stout man violently. "But if you gan't
tell us noding better than to stop for der police to dake us, vot's
der good of you?"

The woman shrugged her shoulders, and the shawl slipped, and showed
them bare and white above her bodice.

"I have done all that one could do," she answered sullenly, with
defiant eyes. "Seven months you have do