Never-Fail Blake

lands and skirting mountainous cliffs, his movements seemed to take on a sense of finality. He stood at the rail, watching the hazy blue islands, the forests of fishing-boats and high-po

es penetrated his own preoccupied soul. A vague sense of

ing and detectives were coming and going, and policemen in uniform were passing up and down the great stone steps, clean-cut, ruddy-faced, strong-limbed policemen, talking and laughing as they started out on their night details. He could follow them as they went,

ng into his office and shake hands with him and smoke his cigars and ask how much he could tell them about his last haul. And h

reen and blue and white of the houses in the Portuguese quarters, guarded on one side by a lighthouse and on the other by a stolid square

re until evening. There, ignoring the rickshaw coolies who awaited him as he passed an obnoxiously officious

s and chattering coolies and oil lamps and gaming-house doors. Into one of these gaming houses he turned, passing through the blackwood sliding door and

He continued to smoke, listlessly, like a sightseer with time on his hands and in no mood for movement. The brim of his black boulder shadowed his eyes. His thumbs rested carelessly in the arm-holes of his w

ng him. Whether he was English or Portuguese, white or yellow, Blake c

h," watched him again and again as he took up his handful of coins, covered them with a brass hat while the betting began, removed the hat, and s

zled him. Yet, obtuse as he was, he felt the gulf of centuries that divided the two races. These yellow men about him seemed as far away from h

errible failure, or he would have to be hounded by a terrible fear, to live out his life so far away from his own kind. And he felt now that Binhart could never

e-filled room detached itself from its fellows. This face showed no curiosity, no haste. Bla

the enigmatic message utte

long with you?" Bl

he Chinaman. The finger again touc

he code word of "Christmas." This wa

rrower street, climbed a precipitous hill cobbled with stone, turned still again, always overshadowed and hemmed in by tall houses close together, with black-beamed lattice doors through which

ing to a closed doo

by?" he

hered from the Chinaman's motion that he was to enter. Before he could t