that the Rovers, after leading by a goal within twenty minutes of the end of the game, had suffered a crushing and incomprehensible defeat, that the crowd had made an infuriated attack on Harper, the goalkeeper, and in the blank space reserved for the latest news, it said that in deference to public feeling, the committee of the club had decided to hold an inquiry into his conduct.

Miss Foldal was far too discreet to refer to the match. But if ever she had seen tragedy in a human countenance, it was now visible in the face of this young man. She poured out a cup of tea for him, which he declined. Then he said, in that queer voice which did not seem to belong to him, that he would not be in need of supper.

"If you want my opinion, Mr. Harper," said Miss Foldal, "you have been working too hard. I really think the best thing for you is bed."

The young man stood white as a sheet with a face not pleasant to look upon.

"I do reelly. Go to bed now, and I'll bring you a basin of gruel with a little something in it."

A basin of gruel with a little something in it was Miss Foldal's specific for all the ills to which flesh is heir. Mention of it was clear proof that Mr. Harper's present condition gave cause for anxiety.

"I don't want nothing, miss," said the young man, in a voice quite unlike his own. "It's very kind of you, but the only thing I want just now is to be let be."

Had Mr. Jukes or any of her other lodgers made that speech it would have seemed uncivil, but Miss Foldal knew that Mr. Harper was incapable of any kind of intentional rudeness. He was as gentle as a child. Perhaps that was why the look now in his eyes hurt her so much.

Without saying anything else, the young man went up to his bedroom.

Time passed. The supper hour came and went. Mr. Jukes did not return and Mr. Harper did not come down again. But it was this latter fact that disconcerted the landlady. She could not get the look of those eyes out of her brain. Only once had she seen such a look in the eyes of any human being, and that was in those of her Uncle Frederick just before he destroyed himself.

Nine struck. There was no sound from the room above. Miss Foldal grew horribly afraid. Memories of her Uncle Frederick had descended very grimly upon her.

Perhaps Mr. Harper had gone to bed. She hoped and believed that he had. And yet she could not be sure. It was her duty to go up to his room and inquire. But it was too much for her nerves to be quite alone in the house. Ethel, the maid-servant, had gone out shopping as it was Saturday night, and Mr. Jukes had not yet come in for his supper.

Miss Foldal was not a brave woman. Her deepest instinct was against going up those stairs. It was much to her credit that she did go up at a quarter past nine. The door of Mr. Harper's room was shut, but a light was coming from under it.

She knocked so timidly that a mouse would not have heard her.

No answer.

She knocked again, a little louder, as she imagined, but no louder in reality.

Still no answer.

"It is exactly as I feared." Miss Foldal began to shake, and the spirit of her Uncle Frederick crept out from under the door.

She wanted to scream; indeed, she was about to act in this futile manner, when it suddenly occurred to her that screaming would be no use whatever. Far wiser to open the door, if only out of deference to the manes of her uncle, whose end had taught her that suicide was not such a terrible thing after all.

At last Miss Foldal opened the door of the bedroom. A great surprise was in store, but it was not of the kind that had been provided by her Uncle Frederick.

Mr. Harper, wearing his overcoat and cap, was in the act of strapping together a bag full of clothes. The relief of Miss Foldal was great; at the same time a quaver in her voice showed that she was full of anxiety.

"Why, Mr. Harper, you are never going away?"

"Yes, miss."

"Without your supper?"

"Yes, miss."

"Mr. Harper, wherever are you going to?"

"Dunno, miss." The gentle voice had a stab in it for the woman's heart of his landlady. "'Ere's my board and lodging, miss." He took a sovereign from his pocket, and put it in her hand. "I'll be very sorry to go. I'm thinking I'll never 'ave another 'ome like this."

Miss Foldal thought so too. Somehow she was not the least ashamed of the sudden tears which sprang into her eyes. There was some high instinct in her, in spite of her rather battered and war-worn appearance, which seemed to urge her to protect him.

"I cannot hear of you going away like this, Mr. Harper, not at this time of night and without your supper, I cannot reelly."

It was vain, however, of Miss Foldal to protest. Moreover, she knew it was vain. There was a look in Mr. Harper's face that all the Miss Foldals in the world could not have coped with.

"Well, I'm sorry, I'm very sorry," was all she could gasp, and then he was gone.

XXI

Bag in hand he entered the February night. As he turned up the collar of his overcoat his excitement crystallized into a definite thought. Whatever happened he must not meet Ginger.

He didn't know where he was going; he had neither purpose nor plan; his only guide was a vague desire to get a long way from Blackhampton in a short space of time.

In obedience to this instinct, he passed over the canal bridge, the main highway to the center of the city, turned down several byways in order to avoid the Crown and Cushion, threaded a path through a maze of slums and alleys, and emerged at last, almost without knowing it, within twenty yards of Blackhampton Central Station.

This seemed a special act of Providence; and subsequent events confirmed Henry Harper in that view. He walked through the station booking-hall, yet without taking a ticket, since in a dim way he felt it was not wise to do so before you have given the least thought to where you are going.

A train was standing in the station. The porters were closing the doors, the guard had taken out his whistle.

"Jump in, sir, we're off."

Henry Harper pitched head foremost into a first non-smoker, his bag was pitched in after him, the door was slammed, and the train was already passing through the long tunnel at the end of the station before he was able to realize what had happened.

An old lady was the only other occupant of the compartment. She was a stern looking dame, with a magnificent fur cloak, a dominant nose, fearless eyes, and a large black hat with plenty of trimming but without feathers.

It was clear from the demeanor of the old lady that she was inclined to regard the intruder with disfavor. However, as she was a person not without consequence in her own small world, this was her fixed attitude of mind in regard to the vast majority of her fellow creatures. But she never allowed herself to be afraid of them, partly out of pride, also because it was good for the character. All the same, a nature less powerful might easily have pulled the cord and communicated with the guard, such was the look of wildness in the eyes of her fellow traveler. Moreover, he had fallen into her lap, and had trodden on her foot rather severely, and she was not sure that he had apologized.

Between Duckingfield Junction and High Moreton she became involved in quite a train of speculations. In the first place, he was obviously not a gentleman. That was her habitual jumping-off point in her survey of the human male. In fact, she would have ignored his existence had it been possible to do so. But her foot had suffered so much from his clumsiness that she was not able to put him out of her mind. Besides, she was a sharp and quizzical old thing, and from the height of her own self-consequence she stole glances at him that were a nice mingling of caution and truculence. It was an honest, open, unusual face, there was that to be said for it. The behavior, the manner, and the portmanteau marked H.H. were unconventional, to say the least; there was an absence of gloves, but the eyes were remarkable. Probably a young poet on his way to Oxford for the week-end. Although they confessed to two of these unfortunate persons in her own family, it was an article of her faith that a poet was never a gentleman.

Somehow the young man in the corner interested the old lady so much that when the last of the tunnels was safely passed, a temperament by nature adventurous as became three grandsons in the Household Cavalry led her to study him at closer quarters.

"Do you mind having the window down a little?"

"No, lady."

He sprang to his feet and lowered the window, and the old lady, pitying herself profoundly that she could ever have thought about him at all, settled herself in her corner and was very soon asleep.

This cynical proceeding had no effect upon the young man opposite. As far as he was concerned she did not exist, any more than he now existed for her; moreover, she never had existed for him, therefore the balance of indifference was in his favor.

The Sailor's one preoccupation, as the long and slow succession of stations passed, was the face of Ginger. It was gazing through the window at him out of the intense darkness of the night. And what a face it was, with the blood streaming down it and a look in the eyes he would never forget.

Where was he going? He didn't know and he didn't care, if only it was far enough from Blackhampton. Presently he began to feel cold and hungry and horribly lonely. Now he was beginning to realize that Ginger and Miss Foldal and Dinkie and the Rovers were things of the past, his misery grew more than he could bear. His dream was shattered! He would never bring the Cup to Blackhampton. And there was the face of Ginger looking in at the window, and he nearly woke the old lady by jumping up with a cry of agony.

There was nothing left for him now but to go on into unending night. He was moving out of an unspeakable past into a future of panic and emptiness. And then he tried to sleep, but strange and awful thoughts prevented him. The old lady awoke with a start, only to find that her feet were cold in spite of their hot water bottle, which was also cold, and was great negligence on the part of the railway company. Still, she hoped to be at the end of her journey soon. In that reflection the old lady was more fortunate than her fellow traveler, who had no such hope to console him.

XXII

The train went on and on. Its stoppings and startings were endless; the night grew very cold; the old lady, gathering her fur cloak around her, resettled herself in her corner and slept again. The chill in the heart of the Sailor was now a deadly thing. Repose for him was out of the question. Red and white striped phantoms converged upon him through the gloom; tier upon tier of massed humanity rose shrieking to the sky; but there was only one face that he could recognize, and it was a face he would never forget.

At last the Sailor dozed a little. And then the train stopped once more, and an official of the railway company entered the carriage with a demand for tickets. The old lady found hers without difficulty, but the young man opposite had no ticket, it appeared. Also his behavior was so odd that at first the official seemed to think he was drunk. He had no idea of where he was going. But the next station, it seemed, was Marylebone, and that was as far as he could go.

While the old lady watched from her corner grimly, the official was able to gather that this unsatisfactory traveler had come from Blackhampton, which, as he had been so unwise as to travel first class, meant a sovereign in coin of the realm.

The traveler was able to produce a sovereign from a belt which he wore round his waist – a proceeding which seemed to stimulate the curiosity of his fellow traveler in the highest degree – and paid it over without a murmur. The official wrote out a receipt with an absurd stump of pencil.

"Thank you, mister," said the young man.

The train moved on.

A few minutes later it had come to the end of a long and wearisome journey. The old lady was the first to leave the carriage. She was assisted in doing so by the ministrations of a very tall and dignified footman.

As the Sailor stepped to the platform, bag in hand, there was a great clock straight before him pointing to the hour of midnight. Where was he? He had never heard of Marylebone. It might be England, it might be Scotland; in his present state of mind it might be anywhere.

"Keb, sir?" The inquiry surged all round him, but the Sailor did not want a cab.

His first feeling as he stood on the platform of that immense station was one of sheer bewilderment. He didn't know where he was, he had nowhere to go, he had no plans. An intense loneliness came over him again. Soon, however, it was merged in the exhilaration of the atmosphere around him. This was a different place from Blackhampton; it was larger, more vital, more mysterious.

As he walked slowly down the platform the importance of everything seemed to increase. He would have to think things out a bit, although just now any kind of thinking was torment.

He had learned much during his sixteen months at Blackhampton, not only in regard to the world in which he lived, but also – and as he moved down the platform with his bag the thought gave him a thrill of joy – to read and write. He felt these things, bought and paid for at a heavy cost, were so infinitely precious that he need not fear the future.

Straight before his eyes was the legend, "Cloak Room." Sixteen months ago it would have been High Dutch. But the new knowledge told him it was the place to leave your bag. Accordingly, he went and left it, paid his twopence, and put the ticket in exchange carefully in his belt, where nineteen sovereigns and twelve half-sovereigns were secure.

He had learned the meaning of money during his six years at sea. Perhaps it was the sight of so much and the knowledge of its value that gave him a thrill of power as he passed out of the station into the wide, peopled immensity of this unknown land. There was a policeman standing on an island in the middle of the road, and the time had long passed since those grim days when he would have been as likely to fly to the moon as to address a question to the police.

"What place is this, mister?"

"Marylebone Road."

The information did not seem very valuable. Still, the policeman's tone implied that it might be. As the Sailor stood in the middle of the road he was suddenly comforted by the sight of manna in the wilderness. Across the way was a coffee stall. Such a bright vision told him how sore was his need.

All the same he was not hungry. He drank two cups of coffee, but he was too excited to eat. That was odd, because there was nothing to excite him. But when he turned away from the stall and started to walk he didn't know where, something curious, and terrible had begun again to lay hold of his brain. Nevertheless, he went on and on through streets interminable, fully determined to free himself of that eerie, horrible feeling.

Had it not been for the face of Ginger perhaps all would have been well. But it was lurking everywhere amid the gloom and byways of the night. The place he was in was endless; it was a waste of bricks and mortar. Even Liverpool and the waterfront at Frisco could not compare with it. Then it suddenly came upon him that he was a guy. This place was London. It was the only place it could be.

There was something in the mere thought which fired the imagination of the Sailor. The Isle of Dogs had been London in a manner of speaking, but this was surely the heart of the city. He could not remember to have seen such houses as he was passing now. Liverpool and Frisco had had them no doubt. But in his present mood the mass and gloom of these great bulks addressed him strangely. This vastness immeasurable, debouching upon the lamps at the corners of the streets, was instinct with the magic of the future. It was as if this world of bricks and mortar towering to the night was girt with fabulous secret riches.

Symbols of opulence spoke to the Sailor as he walked. Somehow he felt he could claim kinship with them. He had his store of riches also. No, it was not contained in the belt around his body. That was only a very little between him and the weather; a man like Klondyke would soon have done it in. But Henry Harper could now read and write, that was the thought which nerved him to meet the future, that was his store of secret and fabulous wealth.

God knew he had paid a price for Aladdin's lamp. A week ago that night he had seen performed at the Blackhampton Lyceum the first play of his life, "Aladdin's Wonderful Lamp." He had sat in the pit, Dinkie Dawson one side of him, Ginger the other. He had now his own wonderful lamp. It was glowing and burning, a mass of dull fire, in the right-hand corner of his brain. It was a talisman which had come to him at the cost of blood and tears; a magic gift of heaven that he must guard with life itself.

On and on he went. Now and again the face of Ginger tried to overthrow him, but the presence of the talisman meant much to him now…

After weary hours his pace began to fail. There were no more houses as far as he could tell. Grass was under his feet; bushes of furze and a clean smell of earth enveloped him. The darkness was less, but everything was very still. Suddenly he felt strangely tired. And then an awful feeling crept upon him.

A low wooden seat was near, and he sat on it. It was still dark, and the weather was particularly chill February. As he drew his overcoat across his knees, he was overmastered by a sense of terror. Somehow it seemed more subtle and more deadly than all the fear he had ever known; of Auntie, of Jack the Ripper, of the Chinaman, of the Old Man, of the Island of San Pedro, of Duckingfield Britannia, of even that blood-stained visage of which he could still catch glimpses in the darkness. It was a stealthy distrust of Aladdin's lamp, the wonderful talisman glowing like a star in the right-hand corner of his brain.

Long he sat in the February small hours. He would wait for the light, having neither inclination nor strength to continue his journey into regions unknown. It grew very cold. And then a new fear crept over him. He felt he was going to become very ill.

However, he determined to use all the force of his will. This feeling was pure imagination, he was sure. He would put it out of his mind. It was a matter of life and death not to be ill now. And not for a moment must he think of dying, now a wonderful talisman had been given him which was about to unlock the doors of worlds beyond his own.

With fierce determination he rose from the seat unsteadily. And as he did so he saw the cold, cold light of the morning paling the tops of the distant trees. He began to move forward again. He would have to keep going somehow if he was not to be overtaken by darkness and eclipse. Whatever he did, he must hold on to his identity. Whatever he did, he must keep secure the treasure rare and strange that was now within himself.

Suddenly in the light of the dawn, he made out a man's figure coming towards him. It was a policeman.

"What place do they call this, mister?"

"Barnes Common."

They moved on slowly in their opposite ways.

BOOK III

BEING

Barnes Common seemed a very large place. The Sailor was afraid he would not be able to keep on much longer, but he had learned endurance in his six years before the mast. Weeks and months together he had just kept on keeping on while he had sailed the terrible seas. At that time there was no magic talisman to hold him to his course, there was neither hope nor faith of the world to be. But now it was otherwise. Surely he had no reason to give in, just as a new heaven and a new earth were opening before his eyes.

He came presently to a row of houses. A road was beyond and traffic was passing along it. The hope of a coffee stall sprang to his mind. He walked doggedly along the road, until at a point where it was merged in an important thoroughfare he came upon a cabman's shelter. And there within, in answer to his faith, were the things he sought. Through the open door was a fire, a smell of steaming fluids, of frying meats, and an honest bench on which to enjoy them.

He asked no leave, but stumbled in and at the beck of his powerfully stimulated senses ordered a kingly repast, and spread both hands before the fire. Sausages and mashed potatoes were brought to him and he sat down to eat, just as a very cheerful looking cabman entered with a face of professional red, and wearing apparel not unworthy of an arctic explorer.

The cabman ordered a cup of cocoa and a "doorstep," and that justice might be done to them sat on the bench by the young man's side. A little while they ate in silence, for both were very hungry. Then under the influence of food and a good fire the cabman talked. His sociability enabled the Sailor to ask an important question.

"Can you tell me, mister, of lodgings, clean and decent, for a single man?"

"What sort o' lodgings are you wantin', mister?" The cabman was favorably impressed by the young man's air of politeness.

"Lodgings clean and decent," said the Sailor.

"I know that," said the cabman urbanely, "but what do you want to pay fur 'em?"

The Sailor reflected. There were nineteen sovereigns and twelve half-sovereigns in his belt; all the same, he was enough of a landsman to know the value of money.

"I want to live cheap," he said, with extreme simplicity. "Just as cheap as I can, and be clean and decent, too."

The cabman let his large wise eyes flow over the Sailor, and quietly took his measure as became a veteran of the town.

"Ever tried Bowdon House?"

The Sailor shook his head.

The cabman ruminated.

"Tizzey a day fur your cubicle an' the use o' the kitchen fire."

The young man was not insulted, although the cabman feared he might have been, so good were his clothes, so gravely courteous his aspect.

"O' course," said the cabman, "it ain't Buckingham Palace, it's no use purtendin' it is."

"So long as it's clean and decent," said the Sailor.

"I give you my word for that. Never stayed there myself, but I know them as has."

The Sailor nodded.

"O' course, it ain't the Sizzle. I don't say that all on 'em moves in high circles, that would be tellin' a lie, but if you don't mind all sorts there's wuss homes, they tell me, in this metropolus, than Bowdon House."

The young man said he would try it, anyway, if it wasn't far.

"It's at the back o' Victoria," said the cabman. "Can't miss it if you go sharp to the left at the second turnin' past the station."

Henry Harper had to confess that he didn't know the way to Victoria Station.

"It's quite easy," said the cabman. "Buss 14 that goes by here will set you down at Victoria. Then do as I say, or ask a bobby to put you right."

Armed with these instructions, Henry Harper presently set out for Bowdon House. Feeling much better for a good meal and human intercourse, he found it without difficulty. Bowdon House was a large and somber building. Its exterior rather abashed the Sailor. But a sure instinct warned him that now he could not afford to be abashed by anything. Therefore he entered and boldly paid the sum of sixpence for a vacant cubicle.

The beds might not be equal to the Sizzle, but they were clean and decent undoubtedly, and not too hard for a sailor. You could have a bath for a penny, you could keep your own private frying pan, you were allowed the use of the kitchen range to cook any food you liked to buy, and a comfortable place was provided where you could sit and eat it. The company was mixed, it was true, as the cabman had said, but these were solid advantages, and the chief of them at the moment, in the opinion of Henry Harper, was that you could go to bed when you liked and stay there forever if only you continued to pay your six-pence a night.

The first thing the young man did was to have a hot bath. He then hired for a penny a nightgown, as clean and decent as his cubicle, and within a very short time was in a sleep so long and deep that it banished entirely the new fear that had crept into his brain.

About five o'clock in the evening he awoke a new man. After a toilet as careful as the absence of a razor and a hairbrush would permit, he found his way to the common room. He felt extremely hungry, but the outlay of another six-pence, brought him a pot of tea, some brown bread and butter, and a slice of meat pie.

There was only one other patron in the common room, and he at once attracted Henry Harper's curiosity. This individual was engaged in toasting a muffin at the large and clear fire, and even with the Sailor's experience of Miss Foldal in this kind, he had never seen one of these delightful articles dealt with in a manner of such sacerdotal delicacy.

A blue china plate was warming before the fire, and the muffin was presently placed on it, soaked in butter in true Miss Foldal style, and brought to table piping hot. The young man had chosen a place as near the fire as he could get, and the muffin expert took a place opposite, poured out a brew of tea from his own blue china teapot, and to the Sailor's amazement squeezed a little lemon juice into it.

This Sybarite was eating his first piece of muffin with an air of feminine elegance when he suddenly caught the young man's eye. The limpid glance seemed to stimulate his own blue orb to a mild and calm curiosity. The Sybarite looked the young man up and down, but continued to eat his muffin with a kind of apostolic pleasantness, which somehow recalled to Henry Harper the Reverend Rogers and a certain famous tea-party at the Brookfield Street Mission Hall in his distant youth.

Presently, to Henry Harper's grave surprise, the muffin eater was pleased to discourse a little of men and things.

The Sailor in his genuine modesty was flattered, moreover he was charmed. Never in all his wanderings had he heard a man discourse in this way. It might have been Klondyke himself – at times there was an odd resemblance to that immortal in the occasional grace notes of the Sybarite. Yet it was a suggestion rather than a resemblance. This was a kind of composite of Klondyke and the Reverend Rogers, a Klondyke raised to a higher intellectual power.

Of course, this was only one aspect of the Sybarite, and that the least important, because with every allowance for the sacred memory of the Reverend Rogers, the person opposite was quite the most wonderful talker Henry Harper had ever heard in his life.

Had the Sailor heard the music of Palestrina, which at that period was a pleasure to come, he might have imagined he was listening to it. The voice of the Sybarite was measured yet floating, his phrases were endless yet perfectly rounded and definite, there was a note of weariness, older than the world, yet there was a charm, a lucidity, a mellow complete