I think my companion can be understood. There seems, in fact very little mystery in his moral progress. I understood him, but did not answer. I was not anxious to keep up the ball of conversation which he had begun with a spirit so mixed up of contradictions—so earnest yet so playful. A deep sense of shame unquestionably lurked beneath his levity; and yet I make no question that he felt in truth, and for the first time, that degree of mental hardihood of which he boasted.
He advanced through the refreshment-room, to a door which led to an apartment in an adjoining tenement. It was closed, but unfastened. The sound of voices, an occasional buzz, or a slight murmur, came to our ears from within; that of rattling dice and rolling balls was more regular and more intelligible. Kingsley laid his hand upon the latch, and looked round to me. His eye was kindled with a playful sort of malicious light. A smile of pleasant bitterness was on his lips. He said to me in a whisper:—
“Stake your money slowly. A Mexican is the lowest stake. Keep to that, and lose as little as possible. You will soon see me sufficiently busy, and I will endeavor to urge my labors forward, so as to make your purgatory a short one. I shall only wait till I feel myself cheated in the game, to begin that which I came for. See that I have fair play in THAT, MON AMI, and I care very little about the other.”
He lifted the latch as he concluded, and I followed him into the apartment.
CHAPTER XXIX. — THE HELL.
The scene that opened upon us was, to me, a painfully interesting one. It was a mere hell, without any of those attractive adjuncts which, in a diseased state of popular refinement, such as exists in the fashionable atmospheres of London and Paris, provides it with decorations, and conceals its more discouraging and offensive externals. The charms of music, lovely women, gay lights, and superb drapery and furniture, were here entirely wanting. No other arts beyond the single passion for hazard, which exists, I am inclined to think, in a greater or less degree in every human breast, were here employed to beguile the young and unsuspecting mind into indulgence. The establishment into which I had fallen, seemed to presuppose an acquaintance, already formed, of the gamester with his fascinating vice. It was evidently no place to seduce the uninitiate. The passion must have been already awakened—the guardianship of the good angel lulled into indifference or slumber—before the young mind could be soon reconciled to the moral atmosphere of such a scene.
The apartment was low and dimly lighted. Groups of small tables intended for two persons were all around. In the centre of the floor were tables of larger size, which were surrounded by the followers of Pharo. Unoccupied tables, here and there, were sprinkled with cards and domino; while, as if to render the characteristics of the place complete, a vapor of smoke and a smell of beer assailed our senses as we entered.
There were not many persons present—I conjectured, at a glance, that there might be fifteen; but we heard occasional voices from an inner room, and a small door opening in the rear discovered a retreat like that we occupied, in the dim light of which I perceived moving faces and shadows, and Kingsley informed me that there were several rooms all similarly occupied with ours.