nity's sake, for the
girl's sake, and told the real truth. It might avail. Well, that would
be the last resort.

"For small stakes?" said the grimy quack in a gloating voice.

Rawley nodded and then added, "We stop at eleven o'clock, unless I've
lost or won all before that."

"And stake what's left on the last throw?"

"Yes."

There was silence for a moment, in which Rawley seemed to grow older,
and a set look came to his mouth--a broken pledge, no matter what the
cause, brings heavy penalties to the honest mind. He shut his eyes for
an instant, and, when he opened them, he saw that his fellow-gambler
was watching him with an enigmatical and furtive smile. Did this Caliban
have some understanding of what was at stake in his heart and soul?

"Play!" Rawley said sharply, and was himself again. For hour after hour
there was scarce a sound, save the rattle of the dice and an occasional
exclamation from the old man as he threw a double-six. As dusk fell, the
door had been shut, and a lighted lantern was hung over their heads.

Fortune had fluctuated. Once the old man's pile had diminished to two
notes, then the luck had changed and his pile grew larger; then fell
again; but, as the hands of the clock on the wall above the blue
medicine bottles reached a quarter to eleven, it increased steadily
throw after throw.

Now the player's fever was in Rawley's eyes. His face was deadly pale,
but his hand threw steadily, calmly, almost negligently, as it might
seem. All at once, at eight minutes to eleven, the luck turned in
his favour, and his pile mounted again. Time after time he dropped
double-sixes. It was almost uncanny. He seemed to see the dice in the
box, and his hand threw them out with the precision of a machine. Long
afterwards he had this vivid illusion that he could see the dice in the
box. As the clock was about to strike eleven he had before him three
thousand eight hundred dollars. It was his throw.

"Two hundred," he said in a whisper, and threw. He won.

With a gasp of relief, he got to his feet, the money in his hand. He
stepped backward from the table, then staggered, and a faintness passed
over him. He had sat so long without moving that his legs bent under
him. There was a pail of water with a dipper in it on a bench. He caught
up a dipperful of water, drank it empty, and let it fall in the pail
again with a clatter.

"Dan," he said abstractedly, "Dan, you're all safe now."

Then he seemed to wake