Drink? and who
can help drinking, with his stomach turned with such hell-broth as that--or
such a hell's blast as this air is here, ready to vomit from morning till
night with the smells? I'll show you. You shall drink a bucket full of it,
as sure as you live, you shall."
And he ran out of the back door, upon a little balcony, which hung over the
ditch.
I tried the door, but the key was gone, and the handle too. I beat
furiously on it, and called for help. Two gruff authoritative voices were
heard in the passage.
"Let us in; I'm the policeman!"
"Let me out, or mischief will happen!"
The policeman made a vigorous thrust at the crazy door; and just as it
burst open, and the light of his lantern streamed into the horrible den, a
heavy splash was heard outside.
"He has fallen into the ditch!"
"He'll be drowned, then, as sure as he's a born man," shouted one of the
crowd behind.
We rushed out on the balcony. The light of the policeman's lantern glared
over the ghastly scene--along the double row of miserable house-backs,
which lined the sides of the open tidal ditch--over strange rambling
jetties, and balconies, and sleeping-sheds, which hung on rotting piles
over the black waters, with phosphorescent scraps of rotten fish gleaming
and twinkling out of the dark hollows, like devilish grave-lights--over
bubbles of poisonous gas, and bloated carcases of dogs, and lumps of offal,
floating on the stagnant olive-green hell-broth--over the slow sullen rows
of oily ripple which were dying away into the darkness far beyond, sending
up, as they stirred, hot breaths of miasma--the only sign that a spark of
humanity, after years of foul life, had quenched itself at last in that
foul death.
Pages:
735
736
737
738
739
740
741
742
743
744
745
746
747
748
749
750
751
752
753
754
755
756
757
758
759