ce I had
dressed myself, putting my pistols, my papers, and my money in my new
clothes; but leaving everything else in a heap on the floor.

"Dan," I said, "that Italian is going ashore, and I'm going to follow
him. No, you mustn't come, or the thing will be spoilt. Tell the
forward lookout to see nothing if the fellow passes, and get my rubber
shoes from my trunk."

Dan scratched his head again, and must have thought that I was
qualifying in lunacy; but he got the shoes, and not a moment too soon,
for, as I came on deck, I saw a shadow on the gangway. The man was
leaving the yacht at that moment, and I followed him, drawing my cap
right over my eyes, and lurking behind every inch of cover.

Once out into the city, and having turned two or three times to satisfy
himself that he had no one after him, Paolo struck for Broadway; thence
with staggering gait, the result of his weakness, he made straight for
the City Hall, at which point he turned and so got into Chatham Street
and the Bowery. At last, after a long walk, and when the man himself
was almost failing from the exertion of it, he stopped before an open
door in the dirtiest of the streets through which we had come, and
disappeared instantly. I came up to the door almost as soon as he had
passed through; and found myself before a steep flight of steps, at the
bottom of which through a glass partition I could see men smoking and
drinking, and hear them bawling uncouth songs.

It was a fearful hole, peopled by fearful men; all nations and all
sorts of villains were represented there: low Englishmen, Frenchmen,
Russians, even niggers and Chinamen; yet into that hole must I go if I
would follow Paolo to the end.

You may forgive me if I hesitated a moment; waited to balance up the
odds upon my recognition. I might have decided even then that the risk
was too great, the certainty of discovery too palpable; but at that
moment a party of six hulking seamen descended the steps before me,
and, taking advantage of the cover of their shoulders, I pulled my cap
right over my face and passed through the swinging door with them into
the most dangerous-looking place I have ever set foot in.

The room was long and narrow; banked its whole length by benches that
had once been covered with red velvet, but now showed torn patches and
the protruding wool of the stuffing. Mirrors were raised from the dado
of the ragged seats to the frieze of the smoke-blackened ceiling; but
they