Cherbourg was at that time a town of mean-looking houses and narrow streets, ill-paved, ill-lighted, a rookery for blackbirds of every breed. It was a great centre for smuggling and privateering, the fleet brought many hangers-on, and the building of the great digue drew thither rough toilers who could find, or were fitted for, no other employment.
Low-class wine-shops, and their spawn of quarrellings and sudden deaths, abounded. Crime, in fact, attracted little attention so long as it held no menace to the public peace. Life had been so very cheap, and blood had flowed so freely, that the public ear had dulled to its cry.
Le Marchant led the way through the dark, ill-smelling streets to a café in the outskirts.
The Café au Diable Boiteux looked all its name and more. It was as ill-looking a place as ever I had seen. But here it was that the free-traders made their headquarters, and here, said Le Marchant, we might find men from the Islands, and possibly even from Sercq itself, and so get news from home.
The café itself opened not directly off the road, but off a large courtyard surrounded by a wall, which tended to privacy and freedom from observation.
It was quite dark when we turned in through a narrow slit of a door, in a larger door which was chained and bolted with a great cross-beam. There were doubtless other outlets known to the frequenters.
Le Marchant led the way across the dark courtyard, which was lighted only by the red-draped windows of the café, and opened a door out of which poured a volume of smoke and the hot reek of spirits, and a great clash of talk and laughter.
The room was so thick with smoke that, coming in out of the darkness, I could only blink, though there was no lack of lamps, and the walls were lined with mirrors in gilt frames which made the room look almost as large as the noise that filled it, and multiplied the lights and the smoke and the people in a bewildering fashion.
Three or four men had risen in a corner and were slowly working their way out, with back-thrown jests to those they were leaving. Following close on Le Marchant's heels, I stepped aside to let them pass, and in doing so bumped against the back of a burly man who was leaning over the table in close confidential talk with one opposite him.
"Pardon!" I said, and, looking up, saw two grim eyes scowling at me, through the smoke, out of the looking-glass in front.