[Footnote 17: According to Atlantean ideas these spirits were:--Vice Elementals; Morbas (or Disease Elementals); Clanogrians (or malicious family ghosts, such as Banshees, etc.); Vampires; Barrowvians, _i.e._ a grotesque kind of phantasm that frequents places where prehistoric man or beast has been interred; Planetians, _i.e._ spirits inimical to dwellers on this earth that inhabit various of the other planets; and earthbound spirits of such dead human beings as were mad, imbecile, cruel and vicious, together with the phantasms of vicious and mad beasts, and beasts of prey.--(_Author's note_.)]

[Footnote 18: They are a literal translation of the Atlantean by Thos. Maitland, and are very nearly identified with forms of spirit invocation used in Egypt, India, Persia, Arabia, and among the Red Indians of North and South America.--(_Author's note_.)]

CHAPTER VI

THE FIRST POWER

After their rencontre with the Unknown, Hamar and his companions did not get back to their respective quarters till the sun was high in the heavens, and the streets of the city were beginning to vibrate with the rattle and clatter of traffic.

"It's all very well--this wonderful compact of ours," Curtis grumbled, "but I'm deuced hungry, and Matt and I haven't a cent between us. As we went all that way last night to oblige you, Leon, I think it is only fair you should stand us treat. I'll bet you have some nickels stowed away, somewhere, in those pockets of yours--it wouldn't be you if you hadn't! What do you say, Matt?"

"I think as you do," Kelson replied. "We've stood by Leon, he should stand by us. How much have you, Leon?"

"How much have you?" Curtis echoed, "come, out with it--no jew-jewing pals for me."

"I might manage a dollar," Hamar said ruefully, as the prospect of a good meal all to himself, at his favourite restaurant, faded away.

"Where shall we go?"

Just then, Kelson, happening to look behind him, saw a young woman of prepossessing appearance ascending the steps of a dive in Clay Street.

He was instantly attracted, as he always was attracted by a pretty woman, and something--a kind of intuition he had never had before--told him that she was a waitress; that she was discontented with her present situation; that she was engaged to be married to a pen driver at Hastings & Hastings in Sacramento Street; and that she had a mother, of over seventy, whom she kept. All this came to Kelson like a flash of lightning.

Yielding to an impulse which he did not stay to a.n.a.lyse, he gripped Hamar and Curtis, each too astonished even to remonstrate, by the arm, and, dragging them along with him, followed the girl.

The dive had only just been opened, and was being dusted and swept by two slatternly women with dago complexions, and voices like hyenas. It still reeked of stale drink and tobacco.

"What's the good of coming to a place like this?" Hamar demanded, as soon as he had freed himself from Kelson's clutches. "We can't get breakfast here."

"Matt's mad, that's what's the matter with him," Curtis added in disgust. "Let's get out."

He turned to go--then, halted--and stood still. He appeared to be listening. "What's up with you?" Hamar asked. "Both you fellows are behaving like lunatics this morning--there's not a pin to choose between you."

"They're playing cards, that's all," Curtis said. "Can't you hear them?"

Hamar shook his head. "Not a sound," he said. "Just look at Matt!"

While the other two were talking, Kelson had followed the girl to the bar, and catching her up, just as she entered it, said in a manner that was peculiar to him--a manner seldom without effect upon girls of his cla.s.s--"I beg your pardon, miss, are we too early to be served?

Jerusalem! Haven't I met you somewhere before?"

The girl looked him square in the eyes and then smiled. "As like as not," she said. "I go pretty near everywhere! What do you want?"

"Well!" Kelson soliloquized; "breakfast is what we are particularly anxious for--but I suppose that is out of the question in a dive!"

"Then why did you come here?" the girl queried.

"Because of you! Simply because of you," Kelson replied. "You hypnotized me!"

"That being so, then I reckon you can have your breakfast," the girl laughed, "though we don't provide them as a rule before nine. Indeed, the management have only just decided--this morning--on providing them at all."

"How odd!"

"Why odd?" the girl questioned, taking off her hat and arranging her curls before a mirror.

"Why, that I should have happened to strike the right moment! Had I come here yesterday it would have been useless. As I said, you hypnotized me. Evidently fate intended us to meet."

"Do you believe in fate?" the girl asked, shrugging her shoulders. "I believe in nothing--least of all in men!"

"You say so!" Kelson observed, before he knew what he was saying. "And yet you have just got engaged to one. But you've got a bad attack of the pip this morning, you have had enough of it here--you want to get another post."

The girl ceased doing her hair and eyed him in amazement. "Well!" she said. "Of all the queer men I've ever met you are the queerest. Are you a seer?"

"No!" Hamar observed, suddenly joining in. "He's only very hungry, miss. Hungry body and soul! hungry all over. And so are we."

"Well, then, go into the room over there," the girl cried, pointing in the direction of a half-open door, "and breakfast will be brought you in half a jiffy."

"Who's that playing cards?" Curtis asked.

"How do you know any one is playing cards?" the girl queried with an incredulous stare. "You can't see through walls, can you?"

"No! and I'm hanged if I can explain," Curtis said, "I seem to hear them. There are two--one is called Arnold, and the other Lemon, or some such name, and they are rehearsing certain card tricks they mean to play to-night."

"That's right," the girl said, "two men named Arnold and Lemon are here. They were playing all last night with two of the clerks in Willows Bank, in Sacramento Street, and they cleared them out of every cent. You knew it!"

"No! I didn't," Curtis growled, "I don't lie for fun, and I'm just as much in a fog, as to how I know, as you are. Let's have breakfast now, and we'll look up these two gents afterwards, if they haven't gone."

"Your friend's a brute, I don't like him," the girl whispered to Kelson. "Let him lose all he's got--you stay out here."

"Nothing I should like better," Kelson said, "it's a bargain!"

The breakfast was so good that they lingered long over it, and the bar-room had a fair sprinkling of people when they re-entered it.

Leaving Kelson to chat with the girl, Hamar and Curtis, obeying her directions, found their way to a small parlour in the rear of the building, where two men were lolling over a card table, smoking and drinking, and reading aloud extracts from a pink sporting paper.

"It's a funny thing," one of them exclaimed, "we can't be allowed to sit here in peace--when there's so much spare s.p.a.ce in the house."

"We beg your pardon for intruding," Curtis said, "but my friend and I came in here for a quiet game of cards. We're farmers down Missouri way, and don't often get the chance to run up to town."

"Farmers, are you!" the man who had not yet spoken said, eyeing them both closely. "You don't look it. My friend Lemon, here, and I were also wanting to have a game--would you care to join us?"

"By all means," Curtis at once exclaimed. "What do you play?"

"Poker!" the man said, "Nap! Don! But I'll show you something first, which, being fresh from the country, you've probably never seen before, though they do tell me people in Missouri are mighty cute." He then proceeded to show them what he called the Bull and Buffalo trick, the secret of which he offered to sell them for ten dollars.

"I wouldn't give you a cent for it!" Curtis snapped. "Any one can see how it is done."

"You can't!" the man retorted, turning red. "I'll wager twenty dollars you can't." Curtis accepted the wager, and at once did the trick. He had seen through it at a glance--there appeared no difficulty in it at all; and yet he was quite certain if he had been asked to do it the day before, he would have utterly failed.