eight in Alan's arms was so dull, so inert that, if violence had been
his intention, there was nothing to be feared from him now. Alan
looked up, therefore, to see if any one had come with him. The alley
and the street were clear. The snow in the area-way showed that the
man had come to the door alone and with great difficulty; he had fallen
once upon the walk. Alan dragged the man into the house and went back
and closed the door.

He returned and looked at him. The man was like, very like the one
whom Alan had followed from the house on the night when he was
attacked; certainty that this was the same man came quickly to him. He
seized the fellow again and dragged him up the stairs and to the lounge
in the library. The warmth revived him; he sat up, coughing and
breathing quickly and with a loud, rasping wheeze. The smell of liquor
was strong upon him; his clothes reeked with the unclean smell of
barrel houses.

He was, or had been, a very powerful man, broad and thick through with
overdeveloped--almost distorting--muscles in his shoulders; but his
body had become fat and soft, his face was puffed, and his eyes watery
and bright; his brown hair, which was shot all through with gray, was
dirty and matted; he had three or four days' growth of beard. He was
clothed as Alan had seen deck hands on the steamers attired; he was not
less than fifty, Alan judged, though his condition made estimate
difficult. When he sat up and looked about, it was plain that whiskey
was only one of the forces working upon him--the other was fever which
burned up and sustained him intermittently.

"'Lo!" he greeted Alan. "Where's shat damn Injin, hey? I knew Ben
Corvet was shere--knew he was shere all time. 'Course he's shere; he
got to be shere. That's shright. You go get 'im!"

"Who are you?" Alan asked.

"Say, who'r _you_? What t'hells syou doin' here? Never see you before
... go--go get Ben Corvet. Jus' say Ben Corvet, Lu--luke's shere. Ben
Corvet'll know Lu--luke all right; alwaysh, alwaysh knows me...."

"What's the matter with you?" Alan had drawn back but now went to the
man again. The first idea that this might have been merely some old
sailor who had served Benjamin Corvet or, perhaps, had been a comrade
in the earlier days, had been banished by the confident arrogance of
the man's tone--an arrogance not to be explained, entirely, by whiskey
or by the fever.

"How long have you been this way?" Alan demanded.