* * * * *
These gates were closed and locked. The cabby, after shooting his things
off the roof of his machine into young Powell's arms, drove away leaving
him alone with his sea-chest, a sail cloth bag and a few parcels on the
pavement about his feet. It was a dark, narrow thoroughfare he told us.
A mean row of houses on the other side looked empty: there wasn't the
smallest gleam of light in them. The white-hot glare of a gin palace a
good way off made the intervening piece of the street pitch black. Some
human shapes appearing mysteriously, as if they had sprung up from the
dark ground, shunned the edge of the faint light thrown down by the
gateway lamps. These figures were wary in their movements and perfectly
silent of foot, like beasts of prey slinking about a camp fire. Powell
gathered up his belongings and hovered over them like a hen over her
brood. A gruffly insinuating voice said: "Let's carry your things in, Capt'in!
I've got my pal 'ere."
He was a tall, bony, grey-haired ruffian with a bulldog jaw, in a torn
cotton shirt and moleskin trousers. The shadow of his hobnailed boots
was enormous and coffinlike. His pal, who didn't come up much higher
than his elbow, stepping forward exhibited a pale face with a long
drooping nose and no chin to speak of. He seemed to have just scrambled
out of a dust-bin in a tam-o'shanter cap and a tattered soldier's coat
much too long for him. Being so deadly white he looked like a horrible
dirty invalid in a ragged dressing gown. The coat flapped open in front
and the rest of his apparel consisted of one brace which crossed his
naked, bony chest, and a pair of trousers. He blinked rapidly as if
dazed by the faint light, while his patron, the old bandit, glowered at
young Powell from under his beetling brow.
"Say the word, Capt'in. The bobby'll let us in all right. 'E knows both
of us."
"I didn't answer him," continued Mr. Powell. "I was listening to
footsteps on the other side of the gate, echoing between the walls of the
warehouses as if in an uninhabited town of very high buildings dark from
basement to roof. You could never have guessed that within a stone's
throw there was an open sheet of water and big ships lying afloat. The
few gas lamps showing up a bit of brick work here and there, appeared in
the blackness like penny dips in a range of cellars--and the solitary
footsteps came on, tramp, tramp. A dock policeman strode into the light
on the other side of the gate, very broad-chested and stern.