But the other had found the twine lying the length of the passage.  “Some one’s come in from the river,” he said, “and dropped all this string,”

He began to gather it in, hand over hand, paused suddenly, and then, with a kind of bravado of terrified politeness, and with a bob of his wild, dark head, exclaimed: 

“Good evening, Mr. Blizzard!”

Then the pair cowered as if they expected to be struck, and after a long while the blond one said: 

“It ain’t him.”

Then the dark one: 

“Don’t be scared of us.  We couldn’t hurt a fly if we wanted to.  Who is it?”

Now it seemed to Bubbles all of a sudden (though the mention of Blizzard’s name had once more given him the horrors) that any risk run in revealing his presence to the blind men was more than compensated by the consequent possibility of “finding out things” from them.  So he said: 

“It’s only me—­just a boy.  I found this hole swimmin’ and come in to see what it was for.”

“It’s only a boy,” said the blond man.

“He wouldn’t hurt us,” said the dark one.

“Maybe you’ll tell me what all this cellar work is for,” said Bubbles.

The dark man scratched his matted head.  “We don’t know,” he said; “we was just put in here to dig.  At first there was ten of us; but we was kep’ on to give the finishin’ touches.”

“What became of the others?”

“Oh, Mr. Blizzard, he’s got other work for them.”

“Is this place under his house?”

“No, sir, it ain’t.  But the cellar at the head of them steps is.”

“Maybe he’s hollered this out to hide things in?”

The blind men turned toward each other and nodded their heads.

“That’s just presactly what we think,” said the blond one.

“What do you do when you aren’t working?”

“Oh, we sleeps and eats in Blizzard’s cellar.”

“How long you been on the job?”

“We don’t know.  We lost track.”

“See much of Blizzard?”

“Oh, he’s in and out, just to keep things going.”

“Is the passage to the river just to get rid of the dirt?”

The dark man laughed sheepishly.  “We don’t think so,” he said—­“we gets lots of time to think.  And it ain’t always dirt that goes into the river.  Twicet it’s been men, and once it were a woman.  There was lead pipe wrapped round the bodies to make ’em sink.  And oncet Blizzard he tumbled a girl down the stairs to us.  But she weren’t dead, and me and Bill took the lead off her before we throwed her in.”

His comrade interrupted.  “She said she could swim.  She said if we’d take the lead off and untie her and give her a chanst, we could have a kiss apiece.  But we let her go fer nothin’.”

“Did she get away?” Bubbles was tremendously interested.

“No, sir.  It was dark night, and she couldn’t find a way out from under the wharf.  She just swam round and round, slower and slower, like a mouse in a wash-tub.  Then she calls out she’ll come back and we can hide her till daylight.  But she don’t make it We has to stand there and listen to her drown.”