"What's that?" broke from him."What's that?"He turned and listened, feeling his heart give a quick thump.In the darkness of the utterly empty street the thing was unnatural enough to make any man jump.He had heard it between two gusts of wind, and through another he heard it again - an uncanny, awful sobbing, broken by a hopeless wail of words.
"I can't remember! I can't- remember! 0 my God !"And it was not a woman's voice or a child's; it was a man's, and there was an eerie sort of misery in it which made Tembarom feel rather sick.He had never heard a man sobbing before.He belonged to a class which had no time for sobs.This sounded ghastly.
"Good Lord!" he said, "the fellow's crying! A man!"The sound came directly behind him.There was not a human being in sight.Even policemen do not loiter in empty streets.
"Hello!" he cried."Where are you?"
But the low, horrible sound went on, and no answer came.His physical sense of the presence of the blister was blotted out by the abnormal thrill of the moment.One had to find out about a thing like that-one just had to.One could not go on and leave it behind uninvestigated in the dark and emptiness of a street no one was likely to pass through.He listened more intently.Yes, it was just behind him.
"He's in the lot behind the fence," he said."How did he get there?"He began to walk along the boarding to find a gap.A few yards farther on he came upon a broken place in the inclosure - a place where boards had sagged until they fell down, or had perhaps been pulled down by boys who wanted to get inside.He went through it, and found lie was in the usual vacant lot long given up to rubbish.When he stood still a moment he heard the sobbing again, and followed the sound to the place behind the boarding against which he had supported himself when he took off his boot.
A man was lying on the ground with his arms flung out.The street lamp outside the boarding cast light enough to reveal him.Tembarom felt as though he had suddenly found himself taking part in a melodrama,-" The Streets of New York," for choice,-though no melodrama had ever given him this slightly shaky feeling.But when a fellow looked up against it as hard as this, what you had to do was to hold your nerve and make him feel he was going to be helped.The normal human thing spoke loud in him.
"Hello, old man!" he said with cheerful awkwardness."What's hit you?"The man started and scrambled to his feet as though he were frightened.He was wet, unshaven, white and shuddering, piteous to look at.He stared with wild eyes, his chest heaving.
"What's up?" said Tembarom.
The man's breath caught itself.
"I don't remember." There was a touch of horror in his voice, though he was evidently making an effort to control him-self."I can't - Ican't remember." "What's your name? You remember that?" Tembarom put it to him.
"N-n-no !" agonizingly."If I could! If I could!""How did you get in here?"
"I came in because I saw a policeman.He wouldn't understand.He would have stopped me.I must not be stopped.I MUST not.""Where were you going? " asked Tembarom, not knowing what else to say.
"Home! My God! man, home!" and he fell to shuddering again.He put his arm against the boarding and dropped his head against it.The low, hideous sobbing tore him again.
T.Tembarom could not stand it.In his newsboy days he had never been able to stand starved dogs and homeless cats.Mrs.Bowse was taking care of a wretched dog for him at the present moment.He had not wanted the poor brute,--he was not particularly fond of dogs,-- but it had followed him home, and after he had given it a bone or so, it had licked its chops and turned up its eyes at him with such abject appeal that he had not been able to turn it into the streets again.