He reached the bottom of the stairs at last, and paused to take breath. He was as winded as a spent runner, and as white as a sheet, and trembling in every limb. The place was as black as a pocket, save for where, through a grille-door on the left-hand side of him (which was actually supposed to be her door, if he had but known it, and led through to the torture-chamber which Cleek himself had traversed), a single candle shone with a pale, sickly light, sending a tiny shaft in his direction, though, with peering through at it, he could only just see its vague outline in some room beyond. "Gawdamassy!" he ejaculated, his eyes fairly popping out of his head at this sight. "Someun's 'ere, that's a fact! And from what I knows er ghosts, they shine wiv a more unearthly light than wot comes from a candle in a bottle. Now, 'oo the dickens----" But his searchings after light on this subject were cut off short by the sound of softly speaking voices creeping to him through that grilled door, and coming from some long distance away within it. He darted back against the wall and, groping with his hands, found a cupboard door ajar, slipped into it, and drew himself up taut against the inner wall, and waited for that which might come to pass, every nerve a-tremble, his eyes fixed upon the crack of the door, which at present showed black as a pocket. The soft voices continued--men's voices, too, and one with the changing inflections of the foreigner. "Blinkin' German!" thought Dollops excitedly. "Or a Chink! Don't know the difference between their parley-vous meself, but it's orl alike wiv _foreigners_. But the other 'un--'e's English orl right. Never 'eard 'is voice before, that's certain! Gawd! they're comin' out now, an' I prays 'eaven they ain't a jossin' ter fetch nuffin' from this 'ere cupboard, or little Dollops's number'll be up with a vengeance! I don't fancy bein' done in by a blinkin' pigtail, neither! Nah!--then! Keep still, Dollops, me boy, and stop yer tremblin'. You'll 'ave the 'ouse a-shakin' in a minit, an' they'll fink it's a earfquake instead of a boy-quake--strite they will!" Having wrestled himself into some sort of quiet of heart and brain, Dollops continued to lie in wait until the strangers had come out through the grilled door, and stood a moment with the candle between them, talking in low tones, and glancing occasionally up the flight of stairs by which he had only just descended. One of them had his back to him, but the other's face was in full view. It was a dark, swarthy-skinned face, with black eyes and crisp black moustache curling upon the upper lip, the slim nose and aquiline features revealing to the watching lad the very evident fact that here was a genuine Italian.