Stockton Herald, South Durham and Cleveland Advertiser. — 1880-07-03 (Stockton-on-Tees, Cleveland, England)

CHAPTER XXIII. RUINED.  The soi-disant Captain De Curacy, as the I ostensible guide of the party, conducted Orwell Bruce and Reuben Langton along a stone-paved passage, up a few steps, through another door, which, like the first, was opened by invisible hands at their approach, along another passage with various windizgs and 'rooms branching from it, across corridors and through ante-chambers, till at length a awing door, covered with green bale and opening on noiseless hinges, ushered them into a well-lighted, luxuriously-furnished, gaudily-gilded, and much-mirrored saloon, the innermost place of this unholy temple of Mammon. Even at that early hour of the evening a number of devotees were worshiping at the fearful shrine—gaunt, ghastly, disreputable men most of them—men who had long sinc3 lost the freshness of their complexion, and now wore on their faces, as well as on their persons, the livery of the tyrant whose pitiable slaves they had become. These were, of course, the old and inveterate gamesters. Others were there not so marked nor so fully initiated, playing with eagerness and hope or with an anxiety bordering on despair, poor men who had once been rich but had lost their all, rich men on whom the fatal passion had seized hold, young men dallying on the verge of the abyss in most imminent danger of toppling, or idle men who had come to escape ennui and kill time—a mixed mass of swindlers, blackleg, and "pigeons," 7:40 peas through within the space of one hour of '.:nitt intensely feverish existence, wrou,l a series of the fiercest fer.dings, ranging from triumph to despair, ending perchance in madness and suicide.  As a necessary adjunct to. the spirit of the place and to the exciter:Ant it produced, a long table stood at one, end in a recess, where wines and stionger 'Liquors were supplied to steady tingling rives, induce new courage, or drown reile-Aieti.  has  will  A visit" ..ma-klnia, first acquaintance with the scene . would have been struck with its strant",euess, and spent some time in taking w°%dering uote of its various features, but t:ue three who now entered the saloon had no curiosity to satisfy nor wonder to allay. With the aspect of such places they were only too familiar, and long ago they had ceased to notice or be affected by them. There were several tables, each surrounded by a group of players or onlookers, and the few sounds which broke the oppressive silence were low, as if suppressed—the rattle of dice and the clink of gold being the loudest, while whispered oaths and stifled exclamations attested the anxiety and excitement,which were that allowed to have free expression, it being, one of the most stringent rules of the place' and load talking was not to be indulged in, and toe wrangling and quarrelling were emphatically prohibited. In order to deaden all necessary sound, the floor was covered with the thickest of carpets, the chairs and lounges had the softest of cushions, and the tables were covered with thick piled velvet, while the walls underneath the mirrors were padded and hung with crimson cloth. Thus the known exigencies of the place were carefully provided for, and every means taken to prevent annoyance and unpleasant scenes within the precincts of the saloon. At one side was an alcove large enough to hold a table and its surrounding seats, and here two men were seated playing at dice so quietly that their operations were attracting little attention, though the two or three who had gathered round them were intensely interested in seeing how invariably one lost and the other wou, he that lost taking his re peated defeats quite good-humouredly, auk, paying his heavy stakes with the gayest of laughs. This unfortunate player was a tall man in military undress with dark, busby hair, large whiskers, and along moustache. The most noticeable feature in his countenance was a large hooked nose, unpleasantly suggestive of a hawk's beak. Above that prominent organ were a pair of small, dark, sharp-looking eyes, which seemed capable of sinister glances, but, being at present twinkling with real or assumed good humour, they gave an agreeable expression to his blandly smiling counte• nance. This was Count Homanoff, who gave himself out to be a Russian officer owning large territory in the Empire of the Czar, and was oonsidered to be possessed of immense wealth, lb seemed, indeed, to be so from the perfect indifference with which he met his repeated losses, and the laughing manner in which he greeted the success of his antagonist, to the admiration of observers and the increased pleasure of the recipient of these fragments of his superfluous wealth. To this table in the alcove Captain De Curacy and his companions advanced with silent steps over the well carpeted floor. This addition to the group did not seem to be noticed by the players, but by a momentary glance at the opposite mirror their entrance had been noticed by the Count, and a slight arching of his eyebrows had conveyed the 184 to his confederate in the same, who saw,