Cast Adrift Part 21

And we are Christians!

No. Of what followed we cannot write. Those who were near the "Hawk's Nest" heard that evening, soon after nightfall, the single wild, prolonged cry of a woman. It was so full of terror and despair that even the hardened ears that heard it felt a sudden pain. But they were used to such things in that region, and no one took the trouble to learn what it meant. Even the policeman moving on his beat stood listening for only a moment, and then pa.s.sed on.

Next day, in the local columns of a city paper, appeared the following:

"FOUL PLAY.--About eleven o'clock last night the body of a beautiful young girl, who could not have been over seventeen years of age, was discovered lying on the pavement in----street. No one knew how she came there. She was quite dead when found. There was nothing by which she could be identified. All her clothes but a single undergarment had been removed, and her hair cut off close to her head. There were marks of brutal violence on her person. The body was placed in charge of the coroner, who will investigate the matter."

On the day after, this paragraph appeared:

"SUSPICION OF FOUL PLAY.--The coroner's inquest elicited nothing in regard to the young girl mentioned yesterday as having been found dead and stripped of her clothing in----street. No one was able to identify her. A foul deed at which the heart shudders has been done; but the wretches by whom it was committed have been able to cover their tracks."

And that was the last of it. The whole nation gives a shudder of fear at the announcement of an Indian ma.s.sacre and outrage. But in all our large cities are savages more cruel and brutal in their instincts than the Comanches, and they torture and outrage and murder a hundred poor victims for every one that is exposed to Indian brutality, and there comes no succor. Is it from ignorance of the fact? No, no, no! There is not a Judge on the bench, not a lawyer at the bar, not a legislator at the State capital, not a mayor or police-officer, not a minister who preaches the gospel of Christ, who came to seek and to save, not an intelligent citizen, but knows of all this.

What then? Who is responsible? The whole nation arouses itself at news of an Indian a.s.sault upon some defenseless frontier settlement, and the general government sends troops to succor and to punish. But who takes note of the worse than Indian ma.s.sacres going on daily and nightly in the heart of our great cities? Who hunts down and punishes the human wolves in our midst whose mouths are red with the blood of innocence?

Their deeds of cruelty outnumber every year a hundred--nay, a thousand--fold the deeds of our red savages. Their haunts are known, and their work is known. They lie in wait for the unwary, they gather in the price of human souls, none hindering, at our very church doors. Is no one responsible for all this? Is there no help? Is evil stronger than good, h.e.l.l stronger than heaven? Have the churches nothing to do in this matter? Christ came to seek and to save that which was lost--came to the lowliest, the poorest and the vilest, to those over whom devils had gained power, and cast out the devils. Are those who call themselves by his name diligent in the work to which he put his blessed hands?

Millions of dollars go yearly into magnificent churches, but how little to the work of saving and succoring the weak, the helpless, the betrayed, the outcast and the dying, who lie uncared for at the mercy of human fiends, and often so near to the temples of G.o.d that their agonized appeals for help are drowned by the organ and choir!

CHAPTER IX.

_THE_ two girls, on leaving the "Hawk's Nest" with their plunder, did not pa.s.s from the narrow private alley into the small street at its termination, but hurried along the way they had come, and re-entered the restaurant by means of the gate opening into the yard. Through the back door they gained a small, dark room, from which a narrow stairway led to the second and third stories of the rear building. They seemed to be entirely familiar with the place.

On reaching the third story, Pinky gave two quick raps and then a single rap on a closed door. No movement being heard within, she rapped again, reversing the order--that is, giving one distinct rap, and then two in quick succession. At this the door came slowly open, and the two girls pa.s.sed in with their bundle of clothing and the traveling-bag.

The occupant of this room was a small, thin, well-dressed man, with cold, restless gray eyes and the air of one who was alert and suspicious. His hair was streaked with gray, as were also his full beard and moustache. A diamond pin of considerable value was in his shirt bosom. The room contained but few articles. There was a worn and faded carpet on the floor, a writing-table and two or three chairs, and a small bookcase with a few books, but no evidence whatever of business--not a box or bundle or article of merchandise was to be seen.

As the two girls entered he, shut the door noiselessly, and turned the key inside. Then his manner changed; his eyes lighted, and there was an expression of interest in his face. He looked toward the bag and bundle.

Pinky sat down upon the floor and hurriedly unlocked the traveling-bag.

Thrusting in her hand, she drew out first a muslin nightgown and threw it down, then a light shawl, a new barege dress, a pair of slippers, collars, cuffs, ribbons and a variety of underclothing, and last of all a small Bible and a prayer-book. These latter she tossed from her with a low derisive laugh, which was echoed by her companion, Miss Peter.

The bundle was next opened, and the cloth sacque, the hat, the boots and stockings and the collar and cuffs thrown upon the floor with the contents of the bag.

"How much?" asked Pinky, glancing up at the man.

They were the first words that had been spoken. At this the man knit his brows in an earnest way, and looked business. He lifted each article from the floor, examined it carefully and seemed to be making a close estimate of its value. The traveling-bag was new, and had cost probably five dollars. The cloth sacque could not have been made for less than twelve dollars. A fair valuation of the whole would have been near forty dollars.

"How much?" repeated Pinky, an impatient quiver in her voice.

"Six dollars," replied the man.

"Six devils!" exclaimed Pinky, in a loud, angry voice.

"Six devils! you old swindler!" chimed in Miss Peter.

"You can take them away. Just as you like," returned the man, with cool indifference. "Perhaps the police will give you more. It's the best I can do."

"But see here, Jerkin," said Pinky: "that sacque is worth twice the money."

"Not to me. I haven't a store up town. I can't offer it for sale in the open market. Don't you understand?"

"Say ten dollars."

"Six."

"Here's a breast-pin and a pair of ear-rings," said Miss Peter; "we'll throw them in;" and she handed Jerkin, as he was called, the bits of jewelry she had taken from the person of Flora Bond. He looked at them almost contemptuously as he replied,

"Wouldn't give you a dollar for the set."

"Say eight dollars for the whole," urged Pinky.

"Six fifty, and not a cent more," answered Jerkin.

"Hand over, then, you old cormorant!" returned the girl, fretfully.

"It's a shame to swindle us in this way."

The man took out his pocket-book and paid the money, giving half to each of the girls.

"It's just a swindle!" repeated Pinky. "You're an old hard-fisted money-grubber, and no better than a robber. Three dollars and a quarter for all that work! It doesn't pay for the trouble. We ought to have had ten apiece."

"You can make it ten or twenty, or maybe a hundred, if you will," said Jerkin, with a knowing twinkle in his eyes. He gave his thumb a little movement over his shoulder as he spoke.

"That's so!" exclaimed Pinky, her manner undergoing a change, and her face growing bright--at least as much of it as could brighten. "Look here, Nell," speaking to Miss Peter, and drawing a piece of paper from her pocket, "I've got ten rows here. f.a.n.n.y Bray gave me five dollars to go a half on each row. Meant to have gone to Sam McFaddon's last night, but got into a muss with old Sal and Norah, and was locked up."

"They make ten hits up there to one at Sam McFaddon's," said Jerkin, again twitching his thumb over his shoulder. "It's the luckiest office I ever heard of. Two or three hits every day for a week past--got a lucky streak, somehow. If you go in anywhere, take my advice and go in there,"

lifting his hand and twitching his thumb upward and over his shoulder again.

The two girls pa.s.sed from the room, and the door was shut and locked inside. No sooner had they done so than Jerkin made a new examination of the articles, and after satisfying himself as to their value proceeded to put them out of sight. Lifting aside a screen that covered the fireplace, he removed from the chimney back, just above the line of sight, a few loose bricks, and through the hole thus made thrust the articles he had bought, letting them drop into a fireplace on the other side.

On leaving the room of this professional receiver of stolen goods, Pinky and her friend descended to the second story, and by a door which had been cut through into the adjoining property pa.s.sed to the rear building of the house next door. They found themselves on a landing, or little square hall, with a stairway pa.s.sing down to the lower story and another leading to the room above. A number of persons were going up and coming down--a forlorn set, for the most part, of all s.e.xes, ages and colors.

Those who were going up appeared eager and hopeful, while those who were coming down looked disappointed, sorrowful, angry or desperate. There was a "policy shop" in one of the rooms above, and these were some of its miserable customers. It was the hour when the morning drawings of the lotteries were received at the office, or "shop," and the poor infatuated dupes who had bet on their favorite "rows" were crowding in to learn the result.

Poor old men and women in scant or wretched clothing, young girls with faces marred by evil, blotched and bloated creatures of both s.e.xes, with little that was human in their countenances, except the bare features, boys and girls not yet in their teens, but old in vice and crime, and drunkards with shaking nerves,--all these were going up in hope and coming down in disappointment. Here and there was one of a different quality, a scantily-dressed woman with a thin, wasted face and hollow eyes, who had been fighting the wolf and keeping fast hold of her integrity, or a tender, innocent-looking girl, the messenger of a weak and shiftless mother, or a pale, bright-eyed boy whose much-worn but clean and well-kept garments gave sad evidence of a home out of which prop and stay had been removed. The strong and the weak, the pure and the defiled, were there. A poor washerwoman who in a moment of weakness has p.a.w.ned the garments entrusted to her care, that she might venture upon a "row" of which she had dreamed, comes shrinking down with a pale, frightened face, and the bitterness of despair in her heart. She has lost. What then? She has no friend from whom she can borrow enough money to redeem the clothing, and if it is not taken home she may be arrested as a thief and sent to prison. She goes away, and temptation lies close at her feet. It is her extremity and the evil one's opportunity. So far she has kept herself pure, but the disgrace of a public prosecution and a sentence to prison are terrible things to contemplate. She is in peril of her soul. G.o.d help her!

Who is this dressed in rusty black garments and closely veiled, who comes up from the restaurant, one of the convenient and unsuspected entrances to this robber's den?--for a "policy-shop" is simply a robbery shop, and is so regarded by the law, which sets a penalty upon the "writer" and the "backer" as upon other criminals. But who is this veiled woman in faded mourning garments who comes gliding as noiselessly as a ghost out from one of the rooms of the restaurant, and along the narrow entry leading to the stairway, now so thronged with visitors?

Every day she comes and goes, no one seeing her face, and every day, with rare exceptions, her step is slower and her form visibly more shrunken when she goes out than when she comes in. She is a broken-down gentlewoman, the widow of an officer, who left her at his death a moderate fortune, and quite sufficient for the comfortable maintenance of herself and two nearly grown-up daughters. But she had lived at the South, and there acquired a taste for lottery gambling. During her husband's lifetime she wasted considerable money in lottery tickets, once or twice drawing small prizes, but like all lottery dupes spending a hundred dollars for one gained. The thing had become a sort of mania with her. She thought so much of prizes and drawn numbers through the day that she dreamed of them all night. She had a memorandum-book in which were all the combinations she had ever heard of as taking prizes.

It contained page after page of lucky numbers and fancy "rows," and was oftener in her hand than any other book.

There being no public sale of lottery tickets in Northern cities, this weak and infatuated woman found out where some of the "policy-shops"

were kept, and instead of buying tickets, as before, risked her money on numbers that might or might not come out of the wheel in lotteries said to be drawn in certain Southern States, but chiefly in Kentucky. The numbers rarely if ever came out. The chances were too remote. After her husband's death she began fretting over the smallness of her income. It was not sufficient to give her daughters the advantages she desired them to have, and she knew of but one way to increase it. That way was through the policy-shops. So she gave her whole mind to this business, with as much earnestness and self-absorption as a merchant gives himself to trade. She had a dream-book, gotten up especially for policy buyers, and consulted it as regularly as a merchant does his price-current or a broker the sales of stock. Every day she bet on some "row" or series of "rows," rarely venturing less than five dollars, and sometimes, when she felt more than usually confident, laying down a twenty-dollar bill, for the "hit" when made gave from fifty to two hundred dollars for each dollar put down, varying according to the nature of the combinations. So the more faith a policy buyer had in his "row," the larger the venture he would feel inclined to make.

Usually it went all one way with the infatuated lady. Day after day she ventured, and day after day she lost, until from hundreds the sums she was spending had aggregated themselves into thousands. She changed from one policy-shop to another, hoping for better luck. It was her business to find them out, and this she was able to do by questioning some of those whom she met at the shops. One of these was in a building on a princ.i.p.al street, the second story of which was occupied by a milliner.

It was visited mostly by ladies, who could pa.s.s in from the street, no one suspecting their errand. Another was in the attic of a house in which were many offices and places of business, with people going in and coming out all the while, none but the initiated being in the secret; while another was to be found in the rear of a photograph gallery. Every day and often twice a day, as punctually as any man of business, did this lady make her calls at one and another of these policy-offices to get the drawings or make new ventures. At remote intervals she would make a "hit;" once she drew twenty dollars, and once fifty. But for these small gains she had paid thousands of dollars.