What was the captain now to do? For a moment he thought of taking his stand on Holborn bridge, and crying "Deliver!" to the first belated person who might be supposed to carry a fat purse. But there would be danger in that course, danger to his purpose, and he dared not risk that purpose as he would risk his own neck. He bethought himself with bitterness that there was not a human being in London, or in the world, who would lend him half the needed sum, to save his soul. Nerved by the reflection, he strode forward and swaggered into a tavern on the north side of Holborn, the door of which had just opened to let out three hilarious inns-of-court men who came forth singing:
"For three merry men, and three merry men,
And three merry men we be."
He looked in at each open chamber door, and listened at each closed one. Neither eating, nor drinking, nor smoking, nor the music of begging fiddlers, had any attraction for him this time. But at last he came to a large upper room wherein money was passing, for he could hear the rattle of dice and the soft chink of gold amidst the exclamations of men, the voices of women, and the scraping of a couple of violins. Without knocking, he boldly flung open the door, and entered.
Candles were plentiful in the room, which was hung with painted cloth. On a long table were the remains of a supper; at one end of this table the cloth had been turned back, and three gentlemen were throwing dice upon the bare oak. At the other part of the table sat two women, with painted cheeks and gorgeous gowns, and a fourth gentleman. Upon the window-seat were two vagabond-looking fellows a-fiddling. The women were dividing their attention between the gamesters and a lean greyhound, for which they would toss occasionally a bit of food into the air. Before each of the women there was a little pile of gold, to which her particular gamester would add or resort, as he won or lost. All this the captain took in with sharp eyes ere any one did him the honour to challenge his entrance with a look.
"Oh, your pardon!" quoth he, when at last these people showed a kind of careless, insolent surprise at his presence. "I thought to find friends here; I have mistaken the room." But instead of withdrawing he stepped forward, his glance playing between the dice and the gold.
"Oh, Jesu!" said one of the women, a great lazy blonde, with splendid eyes, and a slow voice; "'tis that swaggering filthy rascal Ravenshaw, with his beard cut off."
"'Tis Samson shorn of his strength, then!" said the other woman, a little, Spanish-looking, brown beauty, who spoke in quick, shrill tones. She was dressed in brown velvet and scarlet satin. One of her hands lay in the ardent clasp of a large gentleman, who, with his own free hand, held the dice-box. He was handsome and simple-looking, and he now broke into loud laughter at her jest.
"'Twould have needed a handsomer Delilah than any here, to do the shearing," said the captain, rudely. Having been a hater of women, he had been wont to treat this kind with caustic raillery.