Hawke was sitting behind a rampart of stacked checks. He had trebled and quadrupled his capital already; his stakes were scattered all over the board, and just as they came up he won again with a heavy play on the second dozen numbers. There was a high flush on his cheeks; he had laid down his cigar and forgotten it, but his face was full of the bright certainty of the gambler who is playing in luck and knows it; and he placed his stakes about the layout as unhesitatingly as a system-player.
Henninger and Elliott carefully avoided meeting his eye, and watched the spinning wheel. Click.
“The five of spades,” announced the croupier.
The number had been “hit all round.” There were checks on it full, and more on its corners, and Hawke built another tier of his rampart with the proceeds of the coup.
The atmosphere of the gaming-room is telepathic. The “crap-shooters” becoming aware that a “killing” was in progress, abandoned their game and came to look on in silence, some of them following Hawke’s ventures with small stakes.
And still the player won. He cleared the rack of white checks and bought blue ones. With the change he was met by a reverse, and lost heavily for some minutes, but the luck returned, and he seemed in a fair way to empty the rack again.
Again and again the numbers were squarely hit. When he lost he boldly doubled his stake; he plunged recklessly on the most improbable combinations, and the ivory ball, as if he had magnetized it, spun unerringly to the chosen number. Round the table no one spoke but the croupier; no one looked at anything but the board and the gaudy wheel. Even those spectators who had no stake in the game were as breathless as the rest. It was the sort of luck by which games are broken, and presently the proprietor, Nolan himself, came up and watched the struggle, silent and grave, with a slightly worried expression.
There was another ten minutes of ill-fortune which sadly reduced Hawke’s store. Henninger, anxiously following the play, wondered if the run of luck were not exhausted—whether it would not be better to leave off. But as yet scarcely four hundred dollars had been won. Win or lose, the game must go on.
Whiz—whirr-r-r—click! “It’s the ace of diamonds,” said the croupier, leaning over the wheel. There was a dollar check upon the winning square, and the croupier paid out the due thirty-five upon it. These Hawke nonchalantly allowed to remain upon the number that had just come up.
Round spun the ball for endless seconds. Click!