Part 14

The block in which he was now wandering was quite dark and dismal, save for a single gas-jet hanging almost hidden within a dirty globe, over some steep steps that led into a cellar. Mr. Dootleby concluded to stop there and ask his way. As he approached the cellar, he heard what seemed to be cries of distress. They grew more distinct, and accompanying them were the dull sounds of blows and the harsh accents of a man's voice, evidently permeated with rage.

Mr. Dootleby ran down the steps and flung the door open, presenting his eyes with a spectacle that made his blood run cold. The room was long and narrow. At one end and near the door was a bar fitted up with a few black bottles and broken tumblers, a keg or two of beer, and some boxes of cigars. Along the walls stood a couple of benches, and further on were half a dozen little rooms, partitioned from each other, all opening into the bar-room. On the benches six girls were lolling about, dressed in gaudy tights, and with them were three or four men. The room was hot to suffocation, and the smell from the dim and dirty lamps that stood on each end of the bar, together with the foul tobacco-smoke with which the atmosphere was saturated, combined to make the place disgusting and poisonous.

All these conditions Mr. Dootleby took in at his first glance, and his second fell upon two figures in the center of the room, from whom had proceded the noises he had heard. One was that of a girl cowering on her knees and moaning in a voice from which reason had clearly departed. A big, unconscionably brutal-looking man stood over her, holding her down by her hair, which, braided in a single plait, was wound about his hand. He had just thrown the stick upon the floor with which he had been beating her, and was drawing from the stove a red-hot poker.

Mr. Dootleby was not of an excitable temperament ordinarily, but his senses were so affected by the horrors he saw and the pestilential air he breathed that his head began to swim, and only by an especial draft upon his resolution was he able to command himself. There was a pause consequent upon his entrance, and his quick eyes made good use of it.

He saw that the girl had already been half murdered, and that her assailant was a short, thick-set old man, with the eyes of a snake and the neck of a bull. He saw that the men on the bench, all beastly specimens, were contemplating her torture with an indifference that would have shamed the grossest savage. Several of the women, too--the older ones--were looking on with scarcely the sign of a protest in their faces, and only one, a mere child, seemed to feel a genuine sense of terror and sympathy.

Mr. Dootleby threw open his coat, tightened his grasp on his walking-stick, and said, very quietly: "What are you doing?"

The fellow wheeled quickly around. He looked with intense malice at Mr. Dootleby, and then shouted at one of the women, "Why didencher lock de door like I toljer, you fool?"

Mr. Dootleby did not wait for either of these questions to be answered. He sprang into action with all the agility and ferocity of a young panther. The handle of his cane was a huge knob of carved ivory. He brought it directly on the head of the ruffian in a blow of tremendous force, and as the fellow staggered, Mr. Dootleby grasped the poker, turning it so that its heated end touched his antagonist's arm. Of course, the man loosened his hold, and in an instant more dropped upon the floor. Then Mr. Dootleby, keenly alive to the necessity of improving every second, caught the prostrate girl by the arm and threw her behind him toward the open door. "Run for your life!" he said.

But she didn't run. She couldn't run, and while she was struggling to get upon her feet, the fellow recovered himself and emitted a roar that acted on her terrified soul as if it had been a blow. She fell incontinently upon her back in a dead swoon.

Mr. Dootleby's situation was perilous. He had hoped by a sudden and overwhelming attack to stun the man and get the girl out into the street. But the man's quick recovery and the girl's exhaustion left him in almost as bad a situation as ever, and he glanced apprehensively at the party upon the benches.

They had scarcely stirred! One of the men, indeed, had risen, and was standing with his hands in his pockets and something in the nature of an amused smile upon his face. The others had so far shifted their positions as to be the better able to see whatever went on, and only one of them manifested the slightest desire to take a hand in the proceedings. This was the little girl of twelve or fourteen. She was intensely excited, and in the moment's pause that succeeded Mr. Dootleby's onslaught she dashed across the room, and lifting the head of the unconscious girl, rested it on her knee, and stroked it soothingly.

"Good for you, my child!" said Mr. Dootleby. "Try to bring her to."

The hideous old scoundrel, as he now turned again to confront Mr. Dootleby, was more hideous than ever. Blood from the wound in his head was trickling over his face, into which the fury of a legion of devils was concentrated. "Sissy!" he bellowed, "go back to yer bench!"

"Don't do it, my child," said Mr. Dootleby. "You're all right. Run outside if it gets too dangerous for you in here."

The fellow gathered himself together, evidently intending to dash past Mr. Dootleby toward the bar beyond. But Mr. Dootleby lifted the poker ominously. "Stand back!" he cried.

A slight chuckle came from the man who had risen from the bench. "Dey don't seem ter be no flies on dis party, Pete!" he said, with a broad grin.

Pete's answer was a scowl and an oath.

"W'y doncher come on, an' help me do him up?" he snorted.

"Wot ud be de use? I t'ink he kin get away wid you, Pete, an' I wanter see de fun. He's chain lightnin', ole man, an' you better be sure of yer holt."

"I'll give all dere is on him if you'll help, Dick!" said Pete.

Mr. Dootleby took his watch, his gold pencil, and a dollar or so in change from his pockets, and tossed them toward Dick.

"That's all I've got," he said. "Now, let us alone."

Dick slid the coins in his pocket and carefully examined the gold watch. "Dere's a good 'eal er sportin' blood in de old gen'l'man, Pete; a good 'eal er sportin' blood," he remarked, with the utmost cheerfulness. "Bein' a sportin' man myself I ainter goin' back on a frien'."

"You're goin' back on your word fast enough!" said Pete bitterly.

"No, I aint. I toljer I wouldn't bodder you. I didn't guarantee nobody else. You sed she was yourn, and you was goin' to make her promise to quit young Swiggsy. I offered to match you five dollars agin de gurl, an' I said if you was to win I wouldn't trouble you. You said if I winned I could have her. All right. I lost, an' I give up my good money. Den you went ter work wallopin' de gurl. You'd er kilt her if dis covey hadn't er lit in. All right, dat wasn't no fault er mine. An' fur all me, he kin stick dat blazin' iron clear down yer t'roat, an' I'll set yere an' take it in widout winkin'."

Mr. Dootleby listened intently to this speech. It afforded him an inkling of the situation.

"Is this girl your daughter?" he said.

Pete was in no humor to parley. He could only growl and swear. When he had relieved himself without, enlightening Mr. Dootleby, Dick spoke again.