The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. 02Stevenson, Robert Louis
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The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. 02
Stevenson, Robert Louis
English literature -- 19th century
The room was furnished with a bed, a chair, and some conveniences. The
door did not lock on the inside; and the only sign of adornment was a
couple of framed pictures, one close above the head of the bed, and the
other opposite the foot, and both curtained, as we may sometimes see
valuable water-colours, or the portraits of the dead, or works of art
more than usually skittish in the subject. It was perhaps in the hope of
finding something of this last description that M'Naughten's comrade
pulled aside the curtain of the first. He was startlingly disappointed.
There was no picture. The frame surrounded, and the curtain was designed
to hide, an oblong aperture in the partition, through which they looked
forth into the dark corridor. A person standing without could easily
take a purse from under the pillow, or even strangle a sleeper as he lay
abed. M'Naughten and his comrade stared at each other like Balboa and
his men, "with a wild surmise"; and then the latter, catching up the
lamp, ran to the other frame and roughly raised the curtain. There he
stood, petrified; and M'Naughten, who had followed, grasped him by the
wrist in terror. They could see into another room, larger in size than
that which they occupied, where three men sat crouching and silent in
the dark. For a second or so these five persons looked each other in the
eyes, then the curtain was dropped, and M'Naughten and his friend made
but one bolt of it out of the room and down the stairs. The man in the
white cap said nothing as they passed him; and they were so pleased to
be once more in the open night that they gave up all notion of a bed,
and walked the streets of Boston till the morning.
No one seemed much cast down by these stories, but all inquired after
the address of a respectable hotel; and I, for my part, put myself under
the conduct of Mr. Jones. Before noon of the second Sunday we sighted
the low shores outside of New York harbour; the steerage passengers must
remain on board to pass through Castle Garden on the following morning;
but we of the second cabin made our escape along with the lords of the
saloon; and by six o'clock Jones and I issued into West Street, sitting
on some straw in the bottom of an open baggage-waggon. It rained
miraculously; and from that moment till on the following night I left
New York, there was scarcely a lull, and no cessation of the downpour.
The roadways were flooded; a loud strident noise of falling water filled
the air; the restaurants smelt heavily of wet people and wet clothing.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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