The Mark of Cain | Page 5

had better give fine gold to the waiter in exchange for bone counters,
and get to work."
Two or three of the visitors followed Cranley to the corner where the
white, dissipated-looking waiter of the card-room sat, and provided
themselves with black and red jetons (bone counters) of various values,
to be redeemed at the end of the game.
When they returned to the table the banker was just leaving his post.
"I'm cleaned out," said he, "décavé. Good-night," and he walked away.
No one seemed anxious to open a bank. The punters had been winning
all night, and did not like to desert their luck.
"Oh, this will never do," cried Cranley. "If no one else will open a bank,
I'll risk a couple of hundred, just to show you beginners how it is
done!"
Cranley sat down, lit a cigarette, and laid the smooth silver
cigarette-case before him. Then he began to deal.
Fortune at first was all on the side of the players. Again and again
Cranley chucked out the counters he had lost, which the others gathered
in, or pushed three or four bank-notes with his little rake in the
direction of a more venturesome winner. The new-comers, who were
winning, thought they had never taken part in a sport more gentlemanly
and amusing.
"I must have one shy," said Martin, one of the boys who had hitherto
stood with Barton, behind the Banker, looking on. He was a gaudy
youth with a diamond stud, rich, and not fond of losing. He staked five
pounds and won; he left the whole sum on and lost, lost again, a third
time, and then said, "May I draw a cheque?"

"Of course you may," Cranley answered. "The waiter will give you tout
ce qu'il faut pour écrire, as the stage directions say; but I don't advise
you to plunge. You've lost quite enough. Yet they say the devil favors
beginners, so you can't come to grief."
The young fellow by this time was too excited to take advice. His
cheeks had an angry flush, his hands trembled as he hastily constructed
some paper currency of considerable value. The parallel horizontal
wrinkles of the gambler were just sketched on his smooth girlish brow
as he returned with his paper. The bank had been losing, but not largely.
The luck turned again as soon as Martin threw down some of his scrip.
Thrice consecutively he lost.
"Excuse me," said Barton suddenly to Cranley, "may I help myself to
one of your cigarettes?"
He stooped as he spoke, over the table, and Cranley saw him pick up
the silver cigarette-case. It was a handsome piece of polished silver.
"Certainly; help yourself. Give me back my cigarette-case, please,
when you have done with it."
He dealt again, and lost.
"What a nice case!" said Barton, examining it closely. "There is an
Arabic word engraved on it."
"Yes, yes," said Cranley, rather impatiently, holding out his hand for
the thing, and pausing before he dealt. "The case was given me by the
late Khédive, dear old Ismail, bless him! The word is a talisman."
"I thought so. The case seemed to bring you luck," said Barton.
Cranley half turned and threw a quick look at him, as rapid and timid as
the glance of a hare in its form.
"Come, give me it back, please," he said.
"Now, just oblige me: let me try what there is in luck. Go on playing

while I rub up my Arabic, and try to read this ineffable name on the
case. Is it the word of Power of Solomon?"
Cranley glanced back again. "All right," he said, "as you are so
curious---j'en donne!"
He offered cards, and lost. Martin's face brightened up. His paper
currency was coming back to him.
"It's a shame," grumbled Cranley, "to rob a fellow of his fetich. Waiter,
a small brandy-and-soda! Confound your awkwardness! Why do you
spill it over the cards?"
By Cranley's own awkwardness, more than the waiter's, a little splash
of the liquid had fallen in front of him, on the black leather part of the
table where he dealt. He went on dealing, and his luck altered again.
The rake was stretched out over both halves of the long table; the gold
and notes and counters, with a fluttering assortment of Martin's I O U's,
were all dragged in. Martin went to the den of the money-changer
sullenly, and came back with fresh supplies.
"Banco?" he cried, meaning that he challenged Cranley for all the
money in the bank. There must have been some seven hundred pounds.
"All right," said Cranley, taking a sip of his soda water. He had dealt
two cards, when his hands were suddenly grasped as in two vices, and
cramped to the table. Barton