Hark! It is a woman\'s cry
Echoing thro\' the unhallowed place:—
Forward, to her rescue, fly—
See the suffering in her face.

A piercing shriek echoed throughout the entire length and breadth of the gloomy passage, hushed as it was in the brief hour of repose that usually intervened between the vice-rampant hour of midnight and the ever reluctant dawn.

It seemed as if the very light shrank from penetrating the loathsome windings of that wretched quarter of London, and as to pure air, it simply refused to enter such illy ventilated nooks and[Pg 6] crevices, while the poisoned vapors that filled the narrow precincts were always trying to escape and failing through their own over-weight of reeking odors.

The scream of the dying woman was carried indistinctly to the ears of the sleeping inmates simply because the air was too heavy with vile tobacco and whiskey, stale beer fumes, and the exhalations of festering garbage heaps to transmit anything in other than a confused and indistinct manner.

Nevertheless there was something so extraordinarily frightful in the shriek that it did succeed in reaching the ears of nearly every habitue of the place, who, shrieking in their turn aroused the others, and one by one frowzeled heads and wrinkled faces issued from broken windows and rapidly, with shuffling footsteps, men and women crawled from innumerable dark passages and darker doorways, and with suspicious glances at each other, sneaked in and out through the slime and rubbish, in a half curious, half frightened search for a glimpse of that horrible tragedy.

I say sneaked about, and I use the word[Pg 7] advisedly as the lawyers say, inasmuch as these degraded members of the human family,—these de-humanized fag ends of the genius Homo, did not walk, run, or perform any other specified motion in their perambulations.

On the contrary, they hugged the walls and the gutters; they were distrustful of the laws of gravitation and equilibrium, preferring to lean more or less heavily on walls and other supports, with bodies bent and faces averted, while the rapidity with which they appeared and disappeared was best appreciated by the Police who were supposed to guard this particular section of Whitechapel, but who religiously confined their guardianship to the outer walls, while the denizens of the multitudinous alleys or passages were free to perpetrate their murders, ply their nefarious trades and revel and rot in the stench of their own degradations.

One by one these creatures crawled from their hiding places.

Men were seen clutching the rags of their scanty clothing while their bleared eyes scanned every inch of the broken pavements.

Women, with odd garments thrown carelessly[Pg 8] about their shoulders, joined in the search, and for a brief time no word was spoken.

Finally an old creature, dirtier if possible than the rest, bent in form, and with one long brown fang extending down over her shrunken chin, hobbled from a gloomy doorway and in a strident, nasal tone gave her opinion to these searchers of iniquity.

"Hit\'s Queen Liz thet\'s done fer, HI knowed \'er yell; You\'ll find \'er somewheres down by the Chinaman\'s shanty. HI spects \'e\'s knifed \'er."

"Good enough for \'er, the stuck hup \'uzzy," exclaimed one of the wretched beings that followed closely at the woman\'s heels.

"To think of \'er livin\' \'ere for two years hand not speakin\' to no one but that greasy yaller-skin. HI knowed \'e\'d get sick of \'er \'fore long."

"S\'pose you think hit\'s your turn next," snapped up another bedraggled female, whereupon a vicious battle ensued between the two while the men and women halted in their search to watch, what to them was the very essence of life,—a fight.

But the old crone who had first spoken crawled[Pg 9] on until she reached the Chinaman\'s quarters, and there sure enough, a Mongolian, swarthy and greasy, his beady eyes blazing with excitement, was bending over and trying with poor success to withdraw a villainous looking weapon, half knife, half dagger, from the breast of an apparently dying woman.

The victim was a familiar figure in the Alley, and her clean, handsome face with its "hands-off" expression had long since won her the name of "Queen Liz."

While her failure to mingle with the other women or receive the beastly attentions of the men had made her an object of hatred to all concerned, still she had won their respect by her evident ability to defend herself at all times and in all circumstances, while the love she plainly bore her beautiful babe, a child of about two years, was a never ceasing source of wonderment and ridicule to these hardened mortals.

It was true that Queen Liz spent much time in the quarters of this particular Mongolian while there were many more eligible parties of her own nationality in the passage, but Queen Liz was [Pg 10]evidently above her station, and as the Mongolian in question was possessed of more worldly goods than were his neighbors, it was reasonably supposed that she sought the comforts and luxuries of Chinese fans and Oolong in preference to the other shanties with their ever prevalent aroma of stale beer.

Nevertheless Queen Liz was not wholly overwhelmed by the wealth of Sam Hop Lee, because it was rumored that at certain intervals a gentleman from the outside world; a member of actual London society was seen going in and out of the narrow passage, Liz always accompanying him on these exits and entrances, for protection, it was generally supposed.

The sight of the stranger in their own lawful precincts brought always a mixture of sentiments to the thieves and sharpers who infested these gloomy byways.

Here was an excellent opportunity for operations in their own particular line of business, but here also was a woman armed with the usual weapons of the alley, ready and anxious to meet in mortal combat any and all that should dare lay hands upon herself or guest.

 
Thus Queen Liz was let pretty severely alone by all, and her life past and present was a mystery too obscure to be in any danger of being solved by the beer muddled brains of her neighbors.

But now Queen Liz was lying in the slime and mud of the alley with the deadly knife sticking firmly in her side, and as this uncanny assemblage of human scavengers drew nearer, Sam Lee gave one more vigorous pull at the weapon, and withdrawing it, turned its blade to the light of a flickering tallow dip, and instantly, in the eyes of each and every one present, he was acquitted of the horrible deed.

The knife was of a make unknown in the alley and only to be found in the possession of a man to whom money is no object and who could well afford to follow his own fancies in the design of his favorite paper cutter, for such the weapon evidently was.

Long, narrow and sharply pointed, the blade was of finest silver, handsomely engraved, and the ebony handle shone resplendent with gems, so placed as to form on the polished surface the initials M. S. in dazzling characters.