AT THE FALCON INN 217

sheet a day,” said he, “doth do a wonder in a year”; so
he was always at it.

Gaston Carew sat beyond, dicing with a silky rogue who
had the coldest, hardest face that Nick had ever seen. His
eyes were black and beady as a rat’s, and were circled
about by a myriad of little crowfoot lines; and his hooked
nose lay across his thin blue lips like a finger across a slit
in a dried pie. His long, slim hands were white as any
woman’s; and his fingers slipped among the laces at his
cuffs Eke a weasel in a tangle-patch.

They had been playing for an hour, and the game had
gone beyond all reason. The other players had put aside
the dice to watch the two, and the nook in which their
table stood was ringed with curious faces. A lantern had
been hung above, but Carew had had it taken down, as its
bottom made a shadow on the board. Carew’s face was
red and white by turns; but the face of the other had no
more color than candle-wax.

At the end of the arbor some one was strumming upon
a gittern. It was strung in a different key from that in
which the men were singing, and the jangle made Nick
feel all puckered up inside. By and by the playing ceased,
and the singers came to the end of their song. In the
brief hush the sharp rattle of the dice sounded like the
patter of cold hail peel the shutter m the lull of a
winter storm.

Then there came a great shouting outside, and, looking
through the arbor, Nick saw two couriers on galloway
nags come galloping over the bowling-green to the arbor-