away the revenues of the "Valkyrie." He was rolling the stone of
Sysiphus up hill now. He had forged his own ruin.

Alone in the world, a desperate Ishmael, Fritz Braun needed the
secret protection of these powerful plutocrats. Silently he had
suffered his huge losses, waiting for the luck to turn, and now, on
the eve of his great coup of criminal sagacity, he awoke at last
to his own imperiled fortunes, and yet he feared to own that he
dared not cease gambling, that he could not "throw up his hand."

And, by one of the fantastic turns of luck which haunt even
the safest "dealing" games, he had seen the tide of Fortune turn
viciously against his banking dealers several times. The "bank"
had been broken at several of his tables until he had hypothecated
all his reserve securities. Ruin stared him in the face, for it
had come at last.

Possessed of his regular passport, safe now in any voyage in Germany,
the Low Countries, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, in Russia, Fritz Braun
had long desired to break off his slavery to the "painted ladies"
of the cards.

He had always kept some jewels of great value with him as a final
reserve, and a nest-egg of a few thousands deposited in a Frankfort
banking-house, with whose New York agents he had effected many
clearings of considerable size.

Fate was now swiftly sweeping him along, he knew not whither, and
on this night of discontent he bitterly calculated the chances of
a stormy future.