Page:Richard Marsh--The joss, a reversion.djvu/164

152 been owing to the action of the crowd—that it was what is commonly called a freak. Its connection with the Barnum Show at Olympia might be as remote as mine. If a mistake had been made I wondered what would happen when it was discovered. Playing the Good Samaritan in the London streets is not always a remunerative rôle for any one concerned. In my blundering haste I had probably done at least as much harm as good. I smiled, drily, at the reflection. Anyhow, I had given the cabman a liberal fare. To me, then, as now, a cab fare is a cab fare.

I had turned into Cable Street and was nearing the Tower. By now the night had fallen. In that part of the world, at that hour—I remember that a minute or two before I had heard a clock strike nine, so that either I had been longer on the road, or it had been later at the start, than I imagined—there were not many people in the streets. There seemed to be fewer the further I went. At any rate, ere long, I should have them to myself. I was, therefore, the more surprised when, as I was reaching Tower Hill, without any sort of warning, someone touched me on the shoulder from behind. I turned to see who had accosted me. It was rather dark just there, so that it was a moment or two before I perceived who it was.

It was a woman, and that was about all which, at first, I could make out. She, too, was enveloped in a cloak. It was of such ample dimensions that not only did it conceal her figure, but, drawn over her head, it almost completely concealed her features. Nearly all that I could see was a pair of what seemed unusually bright eyes, gleaming from under its folds. My impulse was to take her for a beggar, or worse, for a woman of the streets.

“What do you want?”

“Take this, it is for helping him just now.”

Before I could prevent her she had slipped some-