The Mark of Cain | Page 7

brows and lips working eagerly.
"I'll do it," he said at last, cutting the advertisement out of the paper
with a penknife. "It isn't often a man has a chance to star in this game
of existence. I've lost all my own social Lives: one in that business at
Oxford, one in the row at Ali Musjid, and the third went--to-night. But
I'll star. Every sinner should desire a new Life," he added with a
sneer.*
* "Starring" is paying for a new "Life" at Pool.
He rose, steady enough now, walked to the door, paused and listened,
heard the excited voices in the card-room still discussing him, slunk
down-stairs, took his hat and greatcoat, and swaggered past the porter.
Mechanically he felt in his pocket, as he went out of the porch, for his
cigarette-case; and he paused at the little fount of fire at the door.
He was thinking that he would never light a cigarette there again.
Presently he remembered, and swore. He had left his case on the table
of the card-room, where Barton had laid it down, and he had not the
impudence to send back for it.
"Vile damnum!" he muttered (for he had enjoyed a classical education),
and so disappeared in the frosty night.
CHAPTER II.
--In the Snow.
The foul and foggy night of early February was descending, some
weeks after the scene in the Cockpit, on the river and the town. Night
was falling from the heavens; or rather, night seemed to be rising from

the earth--steamed up, black, from the dingy trampled snow of the
streets, and from the vapors that swam above the squalid houses. There
was coal-smoke and a taste of lucifer matches in the air. In the previous
night there had been such a storm as London seldom sees; the powdery,
flying snow had been blown for many hours before a tyrannous
northeast gale, and had settled down, like dust in a neglected chamber,
over every surface of the city. Drifts and "snow-wreathes," as northern
folk say, were lying in exposed places, in squares and streets, as deep
as they lie when sheep are "smoored" on the sides of Sundhope or
Penchrist in the desolate Border-land. All day London had been
struggling under her cold winding-sheet, like a feeble, feverish patient
trying to throw off a heavy white counterpane. Now the counterpane
was dirty enough. The pavements were three inches deep in a rich
greasy deposit of mud and molten ice. Above the round glass or iron
coverings of coal-cellars the foot-passengers slipped, "ricked" their
backs, and swore as they stumbled, if they did not actually fall down, in
the filth. Those who were in haste, and could afford it, travelled, at
fancy prices, in hansoms with two horses driven tandem. The snow still
lay comparatively white on the surface of the less-frequented
thoroughfares, with straight shining black marks where wheels had cut
their way.
At intervals in the day the fog had fallen blacker than night. Down by
the waterside the roads were deep in a mixture of a weak gray-brown or
coffee color. Beside one of the bridges in Chelsea, an open slope leads
straight to the stream, and here, in the afternoon--for a late start was
made--the carts of the Vestry had been led, and loads of slush that had
choked up the streets in the more fashionable parts of the town had
been unladen into the river. This may not be the most; scientific of
sanitary modes of clearing the streets and squares, but it was the way
that recommended itself to the wisdom of the Contractor. In the early
evening the fog had lightened a little, but it fell sadly again, and grew
so thick that the bridge was lost in mist half-way across the river, like
the arches of that fatal bridge beheld by Mirza in his Vision. The masts
of the vessels moored on the near bank disappeared from view, and
only a red lamp or two shone against the blackness of the hulks. From
the public-house at the corner--the Hit or Miss--streamed a fan-shaped

flood of light, soon choked by the fog.
Out of the muddy twilight of a street that runs at right angles to the
river, a cart came crawling; its high-piled white load of snow was
faintly visible before the brown horses (they were yoked tandem) came
into view. This cart was driven down to the water-edge, and was there
upturned, with much shouting and cracking of whips on the part of the
men engaged, and with a good deal of straining, slipping, and
stumbling on the side of the horses.
One of the men jumped down, and fumbled at the iron pins which kept
the backboard of the cart in its place.
"Blarmme, Bill," he grumbled, "if