“No, the cocaine debauchee has no power to resist the drug,” he replied in a thin refined voice. “I am fairly normal to-night; it is not a case of virtuous repentance, but merely because I have no money.”
As he made this statement the despairing eyes that looked into Shafto’s were those of some famishing animal.
“You have the power to raise me from the pit,” he continued in a husky voice; “you can lift me straight into heaven!”
“Only temporarily,” brusquely rejoined Shafto.
“Even that is something when it offers peace and satisfaction to the restless human heart.”
“But surely you can free yourself and your restless heart? Why not walk out of this filthy den with us? Roscoe will help you, so will I. Come, be a man!”
“It would be impossible for me to regain the normal balance of life,” declared the victim of the drug; “also, I am no longer a man—I am a fanatical worshipper of cocaine, and only death can part us. Some day soon I shall fall out of her train, the police will find me in the gutter and take the debased body to the mortuary, whence, unclaimed and unknown, it will be carried to a pauper’s grave.”
“But can nothing be done to stop this hellish business?”
“Nothing,” replied the victim with emphasis, “nothing whatever, until sales are rendered impossible and the big men—the real smugglers who are trading in the life-blood of their brothers—are reached and scotched. As for myself, I am past praying for; but thousands of others could and ought to be saved—by drastic measures and a stern exposure. The fellows in this business are as cunning as the devil; the stuff arrives by roundabout channels and from the most surprising quarters. Now and then they allow a consignment to be seized, but as a mere blind, a sop, and trade flourishes; there is no business to touch it in the money-making line.”
He paused and met Shafto’s searching eyes, then went on: