The driver leaned far down from his high box and peered into his fare's face. "Not there!" he muttered. Grayson held out a sovereign silently. The driver shook his head. "It's fair worth a man's life on a night like this." Two sovereigns gleamed in Grayson's bare outstretched palm. "I'll double it if you drive fast," he offered. "All right, sir," answered the man at length, a bit sullenly. "Jump in." He turned his horse round and drove rapidly toward the river. CHAPTER II A BUSINESS CONSULTATION The fog was still heavy and the blurred street-lamps looked ghastly in the yellow mist when the young messenger, the first half of his mission performed, struck briskly riverward to complete his business. He disposed of his violets at a corner stand, hailed a passing hansom boldly, and after a low consultation with the driver, got in. They drove steadily for an hour. The gas-lamps grew fewer, and the streets more narrow and gloomy. Suddenly the man drew up with a jerk. "Here ye be," he called huskily. The boy sprang to the ground and peered about him. "It'll do," he announced, and then briefly, "Wait 'arf an hour." He plunged down a dark and crabbed way, glancing warily behind him now and then to see if he was being followed. Here, between invisible walls, the fog hung thick and warm and sticky, crowding up close, with a kind of blowsy intimacy that whispered the atmosphere of the place. Occasionally, close to his ear, snatches of loose song burst out, or a base, coarse face loomed head-high through the reek. But the boy was upon his native heath and scuttled along, whistling softly between closed teeth, as, with a dexterity born of long practice, he skirted slush and garbage sinks, held around the blacker gulfs that denoted unguarded basement holes, and eluded the hideous shadows that lurched by in the gloom. Hugging the wall, he presently became aware of footsteps behind him. He rounded a corner, and turning swiftly collided with something which grappled him with great hands. Without hesitation, the lad leaned down and set his teeth deep into the hairy arm. The man let go with a hoarse bellow of rage, and the boy, darting across the alley, could hear him stumbling after him in blind search of the narrow way. Thin shivers of excitement rippled up and down his spine and his blood crinkled in his veins. Squatting close to the sloppy wall, he thrust out one leg and waited. He could feel the quarry come on, the big blowing body of him, the groping, outstretched arms. His leg stiffened rigid as a bar of iron. With a crash the man fell headlong across it. The boy laughed aloud and sheered aside, barely missing a knife which hurtled past and stuck quivering in the opposite wall. As he sped along, a door suddenly opened in the blank wall beside him, and a stream of ruddy light gushed out, catching him square within its radiance, mud-spattered, starry-eyed, vivid. A man stood framed in the doorway.