Cast Adrift Part 13

"Come!" he said, sternly.

"What are you going to do with me?" she asked, not moving from where she stood.

"Lock you up," replied the policeman. "So come along."

"What's the matter here?" demanded a tall, strongly-built woman, pressing forward. She spoke with a foreign accent, and in a tone of command. The motley crowd, above whom she towered, gave way for her as she approached. Everything about the woman showed her to be superior in mind and moral force to the unsightly wretches about her. She had the fair skin, blue eyes and light hair of her nation. Her features were strong, but not masculine. You saw in them no trace of coa.r.s.e sensuality or vicious indulgence.

"Here's Norah! here's the queen!" shouted a voice from the crowd.

"What's the matter here?" asked the woman as she gained an entrance to the hovel.

"Going to lock up Pinky Swett," said a ragged little girl who had forced her way in.

"What for?" demanded the woman, speaking with the air of one in authority.

"'Cause she wouldn't let old Sal beat Kit half to death," answered the child.

"Ho! Sal's a devil and Pinky's a fool to meddle with her." Then turning to the policeman, who still had his hand on the girl, she said,

"What're you goin' to do, John?"

"Goin' to lock her up. She's drunk an' bin a-fightin'."

"You're not goin' to do any such thing."

"I'm not drunk, and it's a lie if anybody says so," broke in Pinky. "I tried to keep this devil from beating the life out of poor little Kit, and she pitched into me and tore my clothes off. That's what's the matter."

The policeman quietly removed his hand from Pinky's shoulder, and glanced toward the woman named Sal, and stood as if waiting orders.

"Better lock _her_ up," said the "queen," as she had been called. Sal snarled like a fretted wild beast.

"It's awful, the way she beats poor Kit," chimed in the little girl who had before spoken against her. "If I was Kit, I'd run away, so I would."

"I'll wring your neck off," growled Sal, in a fierce undertone, making a dash toward the girl, and swearing frightfully. But the child shrank to the side of the policeman.

"If you lay a finger on Kit to-night," said the queen, "I'll have her taken away, and you locked up into the the bargain."

Sal responded with another snarl.

"Come." The queen moved toward the door. Pinky followed, the policeman offering no resistance. A few minutes later, and the miserable crowd of depraved human beings had been absorbed again into cellar and garret, hovel and rookery, to take up the thread of their evil and sensual lives, and to plot wickedness, and to prey upon and deprave each other--to dwell as to their inner and real lives among infernals, to be in h.e.l.l as to their spirits, while their bodies yet remained upon the earth.

Pinky and her rescuer pa.s.sed down the street for a short distance until they came to another that was still narrower. On each side dim lights shone from the houses, and made some revelation of what was going on within. Here liquor was sold, and there policies. Here was a junk-shop, and there an eating-saloon where for six cents you could make a meal out of the cullings from beggars' baskets. Not very tempting to an ordinary appet.i.te was the display inside, nor agreeable to the nostrils the odors that filled the atmosphere. But hunger like the swines', that was not over-nice, satisfied itself amid these disgusting conglomerations, and kept off starvation.

Along this wretched street, with scarcely an apology for a sidewalk, moved Pinky and the queen, until they reached a small two-story frame house that presented a different aspect from the wretched tenements amid which it stood. It was clean upon the outside, and had, as contrasted with its neighbors, an air of superiority. This was the queen's residence. Inside, all was plain and homely, but clean and in order.

The excitement into which Pinky had been thrown was nearly over by this time.

"You've done me a good turn, Norah," she said as the door closed upon them, "and I'll not soon forget you."

"Ugh!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Norah as she looked into Pinky's bruised face; "Sal's. .h.i.t you square in the eye; it'll be black as y'r boot by morning. I'll get some cold water."

A basin of cold water was brought, and Pinky held a wet cloth to the swollen spot for a long time, hoping thereby not only to reduce the swelling, but to prevent discoloration.

"Y'r a fool to meddle with Sal," said Norah as she set the basin of water before Pinky.

"Why don't you meddle with her? Why do you let her beat poor little Kit the way she does?" demanded Pinky.

Norah shrugged her shoulders, and answered with no more feeling in her voice than if she had been speaking of inanimate things:

"She's got to keep Kit up to her work."

"Up to her work!"

"Yes; that's just it. Kit's lazy and cheats--buys cakes and candies; and Sal has to come down on her; it's the way, you know. If Sal didn't come down sharp on her all the while, Kit wouldn't bring her ten cents a day.

They all have to do it--so much a day or a lickin'; and a little lickin'

isn't any use--got to 'most kill some of 'em. We're used to it in here.

Hark!"

The screams of a child in pain rang out wildly, the sounds coming from across the narrow street. Quick, hard strokes of a lash were heard at the same time. Pinky turned a little pale.

"Only Mother Quig," said Norah, with an indifferent air; "she has to do it 'most every night--no getting along any other way with Tom. It beats all how much he can stand."

"Oh, Norah, won't she never stop?" cried Pinky, starting up. "I can't bear it a minute longer."

"Shut y'r ears. You've got to," answered the woman, with some impatience in her voice. "Tom has to be kept to his work as well as the rest of 'em. Half the fuss he's making is put on, anyhow; he doesn't mind a beating any more than a horse. I know his hollers. There's Flanagan's Nell getting it now," added Norah as the cries and entreaties of another child were heard. She drew herself up and listened, a slight shade of concern drifting across her face.

A long, agonizing wail shivered through the air.

"Nell's Sick, and can't do her work." The woman rose as she spoke. "I saw her goin' off to-day, and told Flanagan she'd better keep her at home."

Saying this, Norah went out quickly, Pinky following. With head erect and mouth set firmly, the queen strode across the street and a little way down the pavement, to the entrance of a cellar, from which the cries and sounds of whipping came. Down the five or six rotten and broken steps she plunged, Pinky close after her.

"Stop!" shouted Norah, in a tone of command.

Instantly the blows ceased, and the cries were hushed.

"You'll be hanged for murder if you don't take care," said Norah.

"What's Nell been doin'?"

"Doin', the s.l.u.t!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the woman, a short, bloated, revolting creature, with scarcely anything human in her face. "Doin', did ye say?

It's nothin' she's been doin', the lazy, trapsing huzzy! Who's that intrudin' herself in here?" she added fiercely, as she saw Pinky, making at the same time a movement toward the girl. "Get out o' here, or I'll spile y'r pictur'!"

"Keep quiet, will you?" said Norah, putting her hand on the woman and pushing her back as easily as if she had been a child. "Now come here, Nell, and let me look at you."

Out of the far corner of the cellar into which Flanagan had thrown her when she heard Norah's voice, and into the small circle of light made by a single tallow candle, there crept slowly the figure of a child literally clothed in rags. Norah reached out her hand to her as she came up--there was a scared look on her pinched face--and drew her close to the light.

"Gracious! your hand's like an ice-ball!" exclaimed Norah.