vulgar footpad, who is doubting whether he should spring upon a prey?
Hostile his look, his gestures, the sudden cowering down of the strong
frame as if for a bound; but still he is irresolute. What awes him?
What awes the tiger, who would obey his blood-instinct without fear,
in his rush on the Negro, the Hindoo; but who halts and hesitates at the
sight of the white man, the lordly son of Europe? Darrell's eye was
turned towards the dark passage, towards the dark figure,--carelessly,
neither recognizing nor fearing nor defying,--carelessly, as at any
harmless object in crowded streets and at broad day. But while that
eye was on him, the tatterdemalion halted; and indeed, whatever his
hostility, or whatever his daring, the sight of Darrell took him by so
sudden a surprise that he could not at once re-collect his thoughts, and
determine how to approach the quiet unconscious man, who, in reach of his
spring, fronted his overwhelming physical strength with the habitual air
of dignified command. His first impulse was that of violence; his second
impulse curbed the first. But Darrell now turns quickly, and walks
straight on; the figure quits the mouth of the passage, and follows with
a long and noiseless stride. It has nearly gained Darrell. With what
intent? A fierce one, perhaps,--for the man's face is sinister, and his
state evidently desperate,--when there emerges unexpectedly from an ugly
looking court or cul-de-sac, just between Darrell and his pursuer, a
slim, long-backed, buttoned-up, weazel-faced policeman. The policeman
eyes the tatterdemalion instinctively, then turns his glance towards the
solitary defenceless gentleman in advance, and walks on, keeping himself
between the two. The tatterdemalion stifles an impatient curse. Be his
purpose force, be it only supplication, be it colloquy of any kind,
impossible to fulfil it while that policeman is there. True that in his
powerful hands he could have clutched that slim, long-backed officer, and
broken him in two as a willow-wand. But that officer is the Personation
of Law, and can stalk through a legion of tatterdemalions as a ferret may