ll its inhabitants in brick-walled
and wooden-beamed subterranean galleries, strengthened with iron-framed
doors and gates. On the second underground floor a man asked for
_cumshaw_ and took me downstairs to yet another cellar, where the air
was as thick as butter, and the lamps burned little holes in it not more
than an inch square. In this place a poker club had assembled and was in
full swing. The Chinaman loves "pokel," and plays it with great skill,
swearing like a cat when he loses. Most of the men round the table were
in semi-European dress, their pigtails curled up under billy-cock hats.
One of the company looked like a Eurasian, whence I argued that he was a
Mexican--a supposition that later inquiries confirmed. They were a
picturesque set of fiends and polite, being too absorbed in their game
to look at the stranger. We were all deep down under the earth, and save
for the rustle of a blue gown sleeve and the ghostly whisper of the
cards as they were shuffled and played, there was no sound. The heat was
almost unendurable. There was some dispute between the Mexican and the
man on his left. The latter shifted his place to put the table between
himself and his opponent, and stretched a lean yellow hand towards the
Mexican's winnings.

Mark how purely man is a creature of instinct. Rarely introduced to the
pistol, I saw the Mexican half rise in his chair and at the same instant
found myself full length on the floor. None had told me that this was
the best attitude when bullets are abroad. I was there prone before I
had time to think--dropping as the room was filled with an intolerable
clamour like the discharge of a cannon. In those close quarters the
pistol report had no room to spread any more than the smoke--then acrid
in my nostrils. There was no second shot, but a great silence in which I
rose slowly to my knees. The Chinaman was gripping the table with both
hands and staring in front of him at an empty chair. The Mexican had
gone, and a little whirl of smoke was floating near the roof. Still
gripping the table, the Chinaman said: "Ah!" in the tone that a man
would use when, looking up from his work suddenly, he sees a well-known
friend in the doorway. Then he coughed and fell over to his own right,
and I saw that he had been shot in the stomach.

I became aware that, save for two men leaning over the stricken one, the
room was empty; and all the tides of intense fear, hitherto held back by
intenser curiosit