The air was heavy with a peculiarly sickening odor that Alaric recognized at once. He had met it before during his travels among the health resorts of Continental Europe, in which are gathered human wrecks of every kind. Of them all none had seemed to the lad so pitiable as the wretched victims of the opium or morphine habit, which is the most degrading and deadly form of intemperance.
This boy, so ignorant of many of the commonest things of life, and yet wise far beyond his years concerning other phases, had often heard the opium habit discussed, and knew that the hateful drug was taken in many forms to banish pain, cause forgetfulness of sorrow, and produce a sleep filled with beautiful dreams. He knew, too, of the sad awakenings that followed—the dulled senses, the return, with redoubled force, of all the unhappiness that had only been driven away for a short time, and the cravings for other and yet larger doses of the deadly stuff.
He had heard his father say that opium, more than any other one thing, was the curse of China, and that one of the principal reasons why the lower grades of Chinese ought to be excluded from the United States was that they were introducing the habit of opium smoking, and spreading it abroad like a pestilence.
Knowing these things, Alaric was filled with horror at finding himself in a Chinese opium den, and wondered if Bonny realized the true character of the place. In order to find out he gained his comrade's side, and asked, in a low tone: "Do you know, Bonny, what sort of a place this is?"
"Yes, of course. It is Won Lung's joint."
"I mean, do you know what the men in those bunks are doing?"
"Certainly," replied Bonny, cheerfully. "They're hitting the pipe."
Perplexed as he was by these answers, Alaric still asked another question.
"But do you know what they are smoking in those pipes?"
"To be sure I do," answered the other, a trifle impatiently. "It's dope. Most any one would know that. Didn't you ever smell it before?"