He had no time for further questions. He must see to his own line of retreat.

The Gentleman was winded, and nothing more. The opening of the drain was discovered. No matter. It had done its work, or would have when once it had seen him home.

He clambered up the bank, brushed through the tamarisk, back into the comfortable darkness.

Thank heaven! Blob, the faithful, was still there.

He marked the cheerful gleam of the lantern, a tiny red spark in the darkness.

As he shuffled rapidly along he saw the patch of light on the floor beneath the man-hole.

But—was he mistaken?—or was not that patch, dim and dappled before, bright now as the moon?

He stopped. His heart was thumping so that he almost expected the covering drain to crack, and reveal him to the world.

Suddenly the patch vanished. All was darkness save the red eye of
Blob's lantern far away.

Then that too went out.

The blackness was stifling, horrible. He opened his mouth to draw breath.

Then the light at the man-hole appeared again, shining now no longer on the floor, but on a man's head, bristling, and with huge ears.

Some one was squatting in the drain.

His heart that had been racing brought up bump.

"Any one there, Toadie?" came a voice through the man-hole.

"Only the boy," rumbled the man in the drain.

The words woke Kit to his position. With a ghastly effort he confirmed his mind and faced the situation.

There was one thing for it—to make for the opening, and trust his heels.

Better to be shot down in the open, anyway, than killed in the drain like a rabbit.

He turned round.

As he did so, a hand appeared at the opening, and swept back the tamarisk. A smiling face showed at the mouth of the drain.

"Tiger, Tiger, burning bright
In the forest of the night,"

came the voice of a playful ogre. "Did you ever hear of a man called Blake, Little Chap? One of God's own."

As he said it, a door slammed violently; a great gust of wind rushed past the boy down the drain.

Blob, the faithful, had obeyed his orders.

The boy was alone in Hell, and the Devil was stalking him.

II

Kit turned round.

Under the man-hole squatted old Toadie. The light bathed his hunched shoulders, his receding forehead, his projecting teeth.

The horror of it, the darkness, here in the bowels of the earth, hidden from sun and wind and light of heaven, undid the boy.

He tried to scream and could not. He battered madly at the bricks, caging him like an iron destiny, and only hurt his hands.

Surely, surely God would hear him!

Toadie began to hop towards him—hop—hop—hop.

The boy was breathing stertorously through his nose, almost snorting. The saliva was dribbling down his chin. He sank in a heap against the bricks and said,

"Hullo!"

"Ello!" came a deep voice. "Feel sick?"

"I don't know," giggled the boy, crouching limp on the brick-floor.

He knew now what those rabbits he and Gwen had ferreted with glee felt, old Yellow Jack worming down the burrow after them.

Yes: it was nicer to ferret than to be ferreted.

Nicest of all perhaps to be the ferret and suck blood, suck blood, suck blood, glued between the eyes of your victim.

Again the boy giggled.

The horror was passing. It was only a nightmare now, too terrible to be true, and a familiar nightmare. To be hemmed in thus in darkness, an ogre creeping in upon him, he just a throbbing heart and breathing nostrils…. Often before … in life, in death, in dreams…. He didn't know, and didn't greatly care…. Time to wake soon…. Mother or old Nan would knock in a minute…. This sort of dream always ended in that knock.

He beckoned to the hopping toad, smiling. They might just as well be friends. Mother's knock would disturb them soon enough.

A noise roused him from his waking death.

It was the shuffling of feet.

Old Toadie heard it too, and snarled across his shoulder.

"Who the hell's that?"

In the darkness there was a falling flash.

It was Blob; Blob, the brave, who had fulfilled his orders and more. Loyal to his brother-boy, he had slammed the door as bidden, and, himself, the wrong side of it, had come to Kit's assistance.

After all he was a boy, and was not the young gentleman a boy?—and is not all the world against boys?—Boys that must hold together, or they will surely all be lost. Kit heard and lived anew.

III

Before him in the darkness was a muffled tumult. Out of it came Blob's plaintive squeak,

"Give over squeegin"

And the bass reply,

_"I'll squeege your eart out !"

"Hullo! hullo! hullo!—what's forrad there?"_ came the Gentleman's echoing voice, as he crept towards them.

Kit scuffled down the drain, and tripped over a tumbling mass. It writhed; it stank; it was hot; it had two voices that growled and squeaked.

"Well done, Blob!" he panted. "Which is you?"

"Oi'm me," came a smothered treble from the heart of the tumble.

The boy's hand felt a shirt, warm and wet.

"Is that you?" prodding with his dirk.

"G-r-r, you young—"

Kit slid the dirk home. He was surprised to find how smoothly the steel ran in. It was not hard, then, to kill a man, and it was strangely pleasing.

The man shivered and relaxed.

"Is that old Toadie you've got there?" called the Gentleman, crawling leisurely along.

"It was."

"What you doing to him?"

"Killing him."

"Ah, well," said the Gentleman, "I never cared much for old. Toadie. We weren't simpatico. If you care to wait a minute I'll—"

"Can't," gasped Kit. "No time. Now, boy, hurry!"

Blob crawled out from beneath the dead man.

"Anudder pennorth for Blo-ub!" he gurgled, and added jealously, one hand on the corpse, "He's moine. Oi killed un first."

"Never mind about that! This way."

There was one chance and one only. The door blocked one end; the Gentleman the other; the only exit was the man-hole. They must risk it.

"Here, Blob!—up here!—quick now!—give us a leg!"

Blob gave him a heave. Up he went into the light, like a cork from a bottle. Staying himself on his elbows, he hung, half in the hole, half out of it, the light dazzling him.

A roar of laughter smote him in the heart.

Blinking, he looked about him.

Above waved the sycamores, breeze-stirred and dark, and walling him round, the Gap Gang.

Kit's first thought was to drop.

Two soft arms seized him from behind; a sickening breath was on his cheek; a smooth face pressed his; and a fawning treble was saying in his ear with appalling tenderness,

"Let ole George elp you, Lovey."