William Le Queux

"The Sign of the Stranger"

Chapter One.

The Advent of the Stranger.

The shabby stranger seated himself familiarly in a nook beside the wide-open chimney of the tap-room, and stretched out his long thin legs with a sigh.

“I want something to eat; a bit of cold meat, or bread and cheese—anything you have handy—and a glass of beer. I’m very tired.”

The village publican, scanning the stranger’s features keenly, moved slowly to execute the command and lingered over the cutting of the meat. The other seemed to read the signs like a flash, for he roughly drew out a handful of money, saying in his bluff outspoken way—

“Be quick, mister! Here’s money to pay for it.” The meal was very nimbly and swiftly placed before him; and then the landlord, with a glance back at me seated in his own little den beyond, turned off the suspicion with a remark about the warmth of the weather.

“Yes, it is a bit hot,” said the stranger, a tall, thin, weary-looking man of about forty, from whose frayed clothes and peaked hat I put down to be a seafarer. “Phew! I’ve felt it to-day—and I’m not so strong, either.”

“Have you come far, sir?” deferentially inquired the innkeeper who, having taken down his long clay, had also taken measure of his customer and decided that he was no ordinary tramp.

The other stopped his eating, looked Warr, the publican, full in the face in a curious, dreamy fashion, and then sighed—

“Yes, a fair distance—a matter of ten or eleven thousand miles.”

The landlord caught his breath, and I noticed that he looked still more earnestly into the stranger’s weather-beaten face.

“Ah! maybe you’ve been abroad—to America?” he remarked, striking a match and holding it in his fingers before lighting his pipe.

“I have, and a good many other places as well,” answered the tramp thoughtfully, resting and trying the point of the knife on the hard deal table before him. “I’m a 

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