"The growl of some half-dozen of them brought the warning home. I laughed and got in line with the boys, grumbling aloud as I did so:
"'Then they'll make a mistake. If you are wanted by the cops, I am, too. But how about that other fellow?' I whispered, getting close to Mother Merry in the hubbub.
"She didn't hear me; she was telling how something was to be done. Then another light went out. The place now was in nearly total darkness.
"'Hush!' came from the doorway where the curtain blew in and out.
"'Hush and quick,' came in hoarse echo from Mother Merry's quivering lips.
"Suddenly the room was empty. Of the half-dozen drunken figures I had seen moving about me the minute before, not one was in sight. I heard a creak, then a scuffle, and then a bang, and the room stood empty. Only a few bottles and a pack or two of cards were left on the dirty top of the old pine table, as proof that a tough crowd had been there raising Cain. The old woman cleared the table and shoved the lot into a cupboard; then she sat down. Never have I seen a woman so steady and at the same time so frightened.
"'There is room for one more,' she quickly said, pointing to where the men had disappeared. 'It's over the water, and the floor is full of holes, but the police haven't got on to it yet. Will you go down?'
"'I wasn't with the crowd,' I told her.
"'That won't help you. You're in the house—Ah!'
"It was almost a cry she gave; the door to the upper rooms had opened and the sailor who had struck me as such a peculiar chap stood in the room before us. 'I forgot,' she wailed out. 'What am I to do with him?'