lenging each other from
their kennels across the sleeping town.

A shudder of light ran across the heavens, and over against the
window Captain Barker saw the east grow pale. For some while the
stars had been blotted out and light showers had fallen at intervals.
Heavy clouds were banked across the river, behind Shotley; and the
roofs began to glisten as they took the dawn.

Footsteps sounded on the roadway outside. He pushed open the window
and looked out. Doctor Beckerleg was coming up the street, his hat
pushed back and his neckcloth loosened as he respired the morning
air.

The footsteps paused underneath, by the inn door; but the little
Captain leant back in the window-seat without making a sign. He had
seen the Doctor's face. Before the fire Captain Jemmy brooded, with
chin on breast, hands grasping the chair-rail and long legs stretched
out, one on each side of the hearth. The knocking below did not
rouse him from this posture, nor the creaking of feet on the stairs.

Doctor Beckerleg stood in the doorway and for a moment contemplated
the scene--the empty bottles, the unsnuffed candles guttering down
upon the table, and the grey faces of both drunken men. Then he
turned and whispered a word to the drawer, who had hurried out of bed
to admit him and now stood behind his shoulder. The fellow shuffled
downstairs.

Captain Barker struggled with a question that was dried up in his
throat. Before he could get it out the Doctor shook his head.

"She is dead," he announced, very gravely and simply.

The hunchback shivered. Captain Runacles neither spoke nor stirred
in his chair.

"A man-child was born at two o'clock. He is alive: his mother died
two hours later."

Captain Barker shivered again, plucked aimlessly at a rosette in the
window-cushion, and stole a quick glance at his comrade's back.
Then, putting a finger to his lip, he slid down to the floor and
lurched across to the Doctor.

"She was left penniless?" he whispered.

"That, or almost that, 'tis said," replied Dr. Beckerleg in the same
key, though the question obviously surprised him. "Her father left
his money to the town, as all know--"

"Yes, yes; I knew that. Her husband--"

"Hadn't a penny-piece, I believe: pawned her own mother's jewels and
gambled 'em away; thereupon left her, as a dog his cleaned bone."

The little man laid a hand on his collar, and as the doctor stooped
whispered low and rapidly in his ear.

Their c