They went down into the streets and lost themselves in the busy crowd of care-encumbered men.  Half unconscious of the throngs which jostled them, they strolled along Broadway, occasionally pausing to gaze into a shop window, to rest on a seat in a park, to listen to a street musician, or to watch some passing incident in the great panorama which is ever unrolling itself in that brilliant and fascinating avenue.

Suddenly Mantel was startled by an abrupt change in the manner of his companion, who paused and stood as if rooted to the pavement, while his great blue eyes opened beyond their natural width with a fixed stare.

Following the direction of their gaze, Mantel saw that they were fixed on a blind beggar who sat on a stool at the edge of the sidewalk, silent and motionless like an old snag on the bank of a river—­the perpetual stream of human life forever flowing by.  His head was bare; in his outstretched hand he held a tin cup which jingled now and then as some compassionate traveler dropped him a coin; by his side, looking up occasionally into his unresponsive eyes, was a little terrier, his solitary companion and guide in a world of perpetual night.

The face of the man was a remarkable one, judged by almost any standard.  It was large in size, strong in outline, and although he was a beggar, it wore an expression of power, of independence and resolution like that of another Belisarius.  But the feature which first arrested and longest held attention, was an enormous mustache.  It could not have been less than fourteen inches from tip to tip, was carefully trimmed and trained, and although the man himself was still comparatively young, was white as snow.  Occasionally he set his cup on his knee and with both hands twisted the ends into heavy ropes.

It was a striking face and exacted from every observer more than a passing look; but remarkable as it was, Mantel could not discover any reason for the strained and terrible interest of his companion, who stood staring so long and in such a noticeable way, that he was in danger of himself attracting the attention of the curious crowd.

Seeing this, Mantel took him by the arm.  “What is the matter?” he asked.

David started.  “My God,” he cried, drawing his hand over his eyes like a man awakening from a dream; “it is he!”

“It is who?  Are you mad!  Come away!  People are observing you.  If there is anything wrong, we must move or get into trouble.”

“Let me alone!” David replied, shaking off his hand.  “I would rather die than lose sight of that man.”

“Then come into this doorway where you can watch him unobserved, for you are making a spectacle of yourself.  Come, or I shall drag you.”

With his eyes still riveted on that strange countenance, David yielded to the pressure of his friend’s hand and they retired to a hallway whence he could watch the beggar unobserved.  His whole frame was quivering with excitement and he kept murmuring to himself:  “It is he.  It is he!  I cannot be mistaken!  Nature never made his double!  But how he has changed!  How old and white he is!  It cannot be his ghost, can it?  If it were night I might think so, but it is broad daylight!  This man is living flesh and blood and my hand is not, after all, the hand of a mur—­”