splendor. For more than a league's length the city offered to the eyes of the newcomers an imposing view of warehouses, markets, gables, towers and belfries, dominated by the pile of Notre Dame. This lighthouse of good advice warned the travellers against the wiles and the ambushes of perdition stretched at the foot of the cathedral as the serpent curled in the shade of the tree of life. Twilight was coloring the admirable monument with rose, glistening in the lacy stone-work, and at the same time the belfry was giving full flight to the notes of its carillon …
But the sailors on The Dolphin no longer raised their eyes to that height, nor heard the voices of the vesperal chimes. Why had the high pile not been visible from the mouth of the Scheldt, and the great bell had not been audible from Doel? The emissaries of the devil had beaten the messengers of heaven. Even when they found themselves in the presence of these good spirits they had ears only for the promises of the brokers of pleasure, and eyes only for the narrow alleys whose windows were red like signals of warning.
As soon as the sailor set foot on short the runners led him off without protest to the clandestine dispensaries where the lodging-house keeper was in partnership with the prostitute to detain him and fleece him. The one attacked his vigor, the other busied himself with his goods. The girl having worn him out, the pimp would pluck him without difficulty.
In order to deliver him bound hand and foot to their masters, the runners advanced him a part of his wages, and then made him turn over to his hosts the hand full of gold amassed at the price of a labor as painful as
