University of Virginia Library

2. CHAPTER II.
The Roulette Table, and the Inn.

The young man in the cloak passed up the room to the roulette
table, a broad, green surface, marked with numbers, and containing in
the centre a horizontal wheel of polished brass. Behind the table sat
a man about fifty, with wiry grey hair, and features upon which vice
seemed to have been engraven with a pen of iron. Before him was the
hollow wheel, which he from time to time revolved, and then snapped
into it an ivory ball. Numbers environed the rim of the wheel, and
the ball in its revolutions stopped at one or other of the figures. Upon
the table, in squares, were placed corresponding numbers. The player
placed his money upon the number on the square, and the ball upon
stopping, after its revolution within the wheel, indicated the winning
figure.

About this table stood three persons, betting upon the figures. In
front of the keeper of the table were two piles, one of silver, the other
of bank notes. In his hand he held a small ebony rake, with which he
either drew in the stakes, or pushed the winnings to the players.

To this table the young man came. The keeper glanced at him and
smiled coldly, as if he recognized him.

`All set!' he drawled out, snapping the ivory ball into the wheel
and setting it revolving.

Every eye eagerly watched the little messenger as it danced round
in the wheel. At length it stopped, and the keeper sung out, in the
same sing-song key as before,

`Double O, red!'

Upon the answering number on the table, Hastings, as the young
man had been called at the door, had laid a dollar as soon as he reached
the board. Thirty-two times the amount of his stake was coolly thrust
towards him by the banker, amid exclamations of surprise around him;
for this point rarely turned up, and when it did, won as above stated —
the other numbers winning only double the stake.

The countenance of the young man brightened, and he staked the
whole sum upon the black color. The ball revolved again, and he was
a winner twice the amount staked. He now placed the whole of his
winnings upon the OO, black. By a singular freak of fortune, he won
the color, and two thousand and forty-eight dollars were counted out to
him by the banker.

`I place one thousand dollars on the red color,' he said, staking an
eagle as the representative of that sum upon the square.

`Single O, black!' cried the banker, with more vivacity than before,
and with his rake drew towards him the stake of one thousand dollars.

`I place another thousand dollars on the red color,' repeated Hastings,
in a calm voice.

`Black wins!' drawled out the banker.

With trembling fingers the loser counted out forty-eight dollars from
the pile before him, and shoved the balance towards the bank. He had
now but fifty-one dollars. With an air of desperate decision, he placed
fifty dollars upon the black color. A dozen men's eyes eagerly watched
the rapid revolution of the ball, but he looked only upon his stake.

`Red wins!' cried the banker, extending his slender rake, and
drawing towards him the fifty dollars.

Every eye was turned upon the face of the loser. It was calm but
pale, the eye fixed and steady, and the lips compressed. In his fingers
he held a single silver dollar. He deliberated. Other players staked,
and the cry of the banker, `All set!' was just being uttered, when he
placed his dollar quietly on the red.

`Black wins!' cried the banker, as he drew the dollar towards the
pile of silver by his side.

`It is my last dollar, Jennings!' said the young man, folding his
arms in his cloak, and gazing upon the table with a look of haggard
despair.

`I 'll lend you a five on your cloak, seeing you are an old customer,'
said the banker, suspending the ivory ball on his fore finger before
snapping it into the wheel. There were four or five small stakes upon
the board, placed there by less desperate players than Hastings.

`No!' said Hastings, coloring, and folding his cloak more closely
about him.

`Very well,' responded the banker, in a tone of indifference. `All
set!'

The game went on for about five minutes, during which time Hastings
walked up and down before the table, in deep thought. At every
pause of the wheel, he would stop and see what was lost and won.
Seven times in succession he saw the red color win, and one young
man, who sat down with a dollar, have hundreds before him. This
seemed to decide him. He crossed the hall to the green room, closing
the door after him.

`Fleury,' he said, in an under but eager tone, `I am drained of
every dollar. Will you loan me ten on my cloak?'

`Let me see it,' answered Fleury, coldly.

`It is worth forty. I can't take it off, as I am in my shirt-sleeves.'

`Then how can you pawn it to me?'

`You must let me have some thin coat worth a dollar or two, that
will button to the throat, and ten dollars besides.'

`Well, I dare say I can oblige you,' answered Fleury, rising and
opening a trunk. `Here is a grey Tweed blouse that 'll fit you. It
belonged to a poor devil that left it with me for a dollar, and the next I
heard of him was that he had drowned himself.'

`I will take it; there is my cloak,' answered Hastings, throwing the
garment upon a chair, and exhibiting himself in only a pair of old
trowsers and shirt. He put on the frock coat, and buttoned it closely
to his throat. It was rather large for him; but it was in better keeping
with his trowsers, boots, and cap, than his rich cloak. With ten
dollars in hand, he now returned into the saloon, and took his way to
the roulette table.

With this fresh capital, obtained at such a sacrifice, he began to play
with caution. In twenty minutes' time, he had won and lost nine hundred
dollars. He had but five dollars, in a single eagle, left. He
seemed to deliberate whether to stake it, or go away and keep it for his
necessities. The lucky winning of a large sum upon the black color,
by one of the players, tempted him, perhaps with the hopes of being
equally successful. He placed the eagle, the last money he had in the
world, upon the red.

`Black wins!' sang the banker, raking the eagle towards the bank.

Hastings stood for a moment paralyzed. His last resource had
vanished. Slowly, penniless, and a beggar, he turned away and
crossed the hall. Despair and rage were impressed upon his wan
visage. He passed through the green room.

`Well, what luck, sir?' asked Fleury.

`All the fiends of hell seem to have conspired against me,' answered
the young man, clenching his fists convulsively.

`Courage! Better luck next time!'

`Next time!' repeated the wretched young man. `For me, there is
no next time!'

With this reply, he walked down the stairs with a slow, heavy step.
He seemed like one stupefied. As he passed through the lower apartment,
men turned and gazed upon him, and followed him with their
eyes, his looks were so wild and full of despair.

`Who is that?' inquired a young man, with a very resolute, daring
air, of one he was conversing with, as Hastings passed by.

`It is Harry Hastings, the rich young fellow that has lost so much
at play. He looks desperate now. His father left him fifty thousand
dollars not a year ago, and I was told to-day, he had nearly run
through with it.'

`What a pity; he is a good-looking fellow,' responded the seaman.

`Yes, and they say has a generous heart. But he has gone to the
devil now. I should n't wonder if he blows his brains out one of these
days, for he is high-spirited and wont brook poverty.

`Then he 'll blow his brains out pretty soon,' observed Fleury, who
that moment came down, having been relieved at his post; `he has just
pawned his cloak with me and lost the stake. He has not another soumarkee.
The coat he had on, as he went out, I gave him. He 'll
have to take to the sea again.'

`Has he been to sea?' asked the sailor-looking individual, with
sudden interest.

`Yes. He was in the navy, a mid, till his father died, when he
resigned to spend his money like a gentleman. Well, he 's had a short
cruise of it ashore.'

`Excuse me, gentlemen,' said the seaman, `I just recollect an
engagement.'

`You 'll come into the theatre by and by, Captain,' said one of the
party.

`Yes, towards the close. Good-by till then.' With these words, he
hastened from the saloon.

`What man was that you called Captain?' asked Fleury of the
person the seaman had left, who was a man about forty-five, with a red

face and a nose discolored and bloated with brandy. He was now a
well-known and rich shipping master, but fond of gaming. In the war,
he had commanded a privateer, and thus laid the basis of the wealth
which he now daily diminished at the gaming table.

`He is one of the bravest fellows in the world,' answered the ex
privateersman. `His name is Jack Marshall. He was a boy with me,
when I went a cruising. Since then he has been in the Greek service,
and then in the Buenos Ayrean, and then in the Mexican, and got
nothing, he says, but hard fighting. He is now — but I can 't tell
everything. It wont do. How is play going on up above?'

`Finely.'

`Then it is badly, for what is fine for you is not fine for me.'

`That 's true. Shant you go up to night, Mr. Burrows?'

`Well, I may by and by, after the theatre is out. I do n't feel rich
enough to-night to lose money, nor poor enough to care about winning;
but I 'll drop in upon you, during the evening.'

Thus speaking, the shipping-master stumped about, for he was lame
from a shot received in the hip in one of his sea-fights, and looked on
here and there, among the groups of men talking in the refectory, and
waiting for the hour of the theatre to come.

When Hastings passed out of the door, the young men who had
stood there when he entered, had gone. No one noticed him. He
paused an instant upon the walk, undecided what to do. Persons were
constantly hurrying by. Carriages whirled along. Lights flashed
from the windows across the streets, and all was life and activity. A
sense of chillness caused him to move on. He took the way down
Ann street, he hardly knew wherefore, but with an undefined desire to
get out of the sight of men. This street was ill lighted, and but few
passed through it at that hour. He continued on for several minutes,
dwelling upon his situation. The crisis, towards which he had been
tending with rapid descent for many weeks, had now arrived. He was
reduced to the wretched suit of clothes he had upon his back. The
pockets contained not even a penny. Had he stripped himself of
them, they would not have sold or pawned for three dollars. But he
could not spare one of the garments. They were all necessary to his
decency and comfort, for the night air was cold and chilly, and
penetrated to his bones.

He wandered on, now up this street, now down that, scarcely

conscious of moving, and brooding over, in his mind, suicide. His
course was in a direction that led him nearer and nearer the water.
At the corner of a narrow lane, he came to a sailor's tavern. It was
an ancient, half-sunken building, the door of which was a step lower
than the walk. He looked in, and saw that but one or two persons
were in the tap-room. A blazing coal fire gave a cheerful air to the
interior, and a pretty young woman, with a cheerful face, behind the
bar, seemed as if she would not object to his warming himself.

`At least,' said he, `I can only make the attempt. In this humble
place, I shall not meet those who have known me before. I will sit
down and think what is to be done. The idea of self-murder is
horrible. The world is wide, and hath a thousand other horizons than
this.'

`That is bravely and truly spoken, my friend,' said a voice close to
his ear, as he was standing with his hand upon the door of the tap-room.

A friendly hand was laid at the same time upon his shoulder. He
turned round and beheld by his side a man a little shorter than himself,
but stoutly formed, and in a seaman's round-about thickly studded with
small bright buttons. The light from the window revealed a frank,
open countenance, but sun and weather browned; a clear, blue eye,
and light, fair hair, curling about his temples.

`Who are you?' asked the young man, with surprise.

`A friend to a ship-mate in distress.'

`Do you know me?'

`I never saw you till twenty minutes ago, as you were coming out
of —'s saloon. I made sail and overhauled you, and kept you in
chase to see how you were likely to steer in the end, for you doubled
and veered like an Indiaman beating up against the trades. But you
were going in here. Let us go in together, and perhaps we may sail
in company for awhile. Never give up the ship.'