As I groped my way down the
stairs I was conscious of an uncanny silence, a silence eloquent of a
sleep that is as death, a sleep that always ends in death. It was easy
to conceive death as a hideous personality lurking at the bottom of
those rotten stairs, waiting patiently for his victims; not
constrained to go abroad for them, knowing that they were creeping to
him, creeping and crawling, unassoiled by priest, hindered by no
physician, unredeemed by love, deaf, and blind, and dumb!
* * * * *
At the foot of the stairs was another passage, darker and filthier
than the one above; the walls were streaming with moisture, and the
atmosphere almost unendurable. At that time the traffic in opium was
receiving the serious attention of the authorities. Certain scandalous
cases of bribery at the Custom House had stirred the public mind, and
the police were instructed to raid all opium dens, and arrest
whomsoever might be found in them. The devotees of the "pipe" were
accordingly compelled to lie snug in places without the pale of police
supervision: and this awful den was one of them.
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