Police plunge. "Hullo! What's here?" Down flashes the lantern, and a
white hand with black nails comes out of the gloom. Somebody is asleep
or drunk in the cot. The ring of lantern light travels slowly up and
down the body. "A sailor from the ships. He'll be robbed before the
morning most likely." The man is sleeping like a little child, both arms
thrown over his head, and he is not unhandsome. He is shoeless, and
there are huge holes in his stockings. He is a pure-blooded white, and
carries the flush of innocent sleep on his cheeks.

The light is turned off, and the Police depart; while the woman in the
loose-box shivers, and moans that she is "seek; vary, _vary_ seek."

CHAPTER VII

DEEPER AND DEEPER STILL.

"I built myself a lordly pleasure-house,
Wherein at ease for aye to dwell;
I said:--'O Soul, make merry and carouse.
Dear Soul--for all is well.'"

--_The Palace of Art._

"And where next? I don't like Colootollah." The Police and their charge
are standing in the interminable waste of houses under the starlight.
"To the lowest sink of all, but you wouldn't know if you were told."
They lead till they come to the last circle of the Inferno--a long,
quiet, winding road. "There you are; you can see for yourself."

But there is nothing to be seen. On one side are houses--gaunt and dark,
naked and devoid of furniture; on the other, low, mean stalls, lighted,
and with shamelessly open doors, where women stand and mutter and
whisper one to another. There is a hush here, or at least the busy
silence of an officer of counting-house in working hours. One look down
the street is sufficient. Lead on, gentlemen of the Calcutta Police. We
do not love the lines of open doors, the flaring lamps within, the
glimpses of the tawdry toilet-tables adorned with little plaster dogs,
glass balls from Christmas-trees, and--for religion must not be despised
though women be fallen--pictures of the saints and statuettes of the
Virgin. The street is a long one, and other streets, full of the same
pitiful wares, branch off from it.

"Why are they so quiet? Why don't they make a row and sing and shout,
and so on?" "Why should they, poor devils?" say the Police, and fall to
telling tales of horror, of women decoyed and shot into this trap. Then
other tales that shatter one's belief in all things and folk of good
repute. "How can you Police have faith in humanity?"

"That's because you're seeing it all i