There it stayed and burned.

The little man shrivelled and crumpled as the dried leaf under the
glass.

Finally, the recluse slowly, deeply spoke. It was a true voice from a
cave, cold, solemn, and damp.

"It's your ante," he said.

"What?" said the little man.

The hermit tilted his beard and laughed a laugh that was either the
chatter of a banshee in a storm or the rattle of pebbles in a tin box.
His visitors' flesh seemed ready to drop from their bones.

They huddled together and cast fearful eyes over their shoulders. They
whispered.

"A vampire!" said one.

"A ghoul!" said another.

"A Druid before the sacrifice," murmured another.

"The shade of an Aztec witch doctor," said the little man.

As they looked, the inscrutable face underwent a change. It became a
livid background for his eyes, which blazed at the little man like
impassioned carbuncles. His voice arose to a howl of ferocity. "It's
your ante!" With a panther-like motion he drew a long, thin knife and
advanced, stooping. Two cadaverous hounds came from nowhere, and,
scowling and growling, made desperate feints at the little man's legs.
His quaking companions pushed him forward.

Tremblingly he put his hand to his pocket.

"How much?" he said, with a shivering look at the knife that glittered.

The carbuncles faded.

"Three dollars," said the hermit, in sepulchral tones which rang against
the walls and among the passages, awakening long-dead spirits with
voices. The shaking little man took a roll of bills from a pocket and
placed "three ones" upon the altar-like stone. The recluse looked at the
little volume with reverence in his eyes. It was a pack of playing
cards.

Under the three swinging candles, upon the altar-like stone, the grey
beard and the agonised little man played at poker. The three other men
crouched in a corner, and stared with eyes that gleamed with terror.
Before them sat the cadaverous hounds licking their red lips. The
candles burned low, and began to flicker. The fire in the corner
expired.

Finally, the game came to a point where the little man laid down his
hand and quavered: "I can't call you this time, sir. I'm dead broke."

"What?" shrieked the recluse. "Not call me! Villain! Dastard! Cur! I
have four queens, miscreant." His voice grew so mighty that it could not
fit his throat. He choked, wrestling with his lungs for a moment. Then
the power of his body was concentrated in a word: "Go!"

He pointed a qui