The arm that held
the child grew stiff and numb with the light burden, but he took a
fierce pleasure in the pain, and became hardened to it, and at last
fell into an uneasy slumber from which he awoke to pass his hands
gently over the soft yielding body, and to draw it slowly and closer
to him. And then, from very weariness, his eyes closed and his head
fell back heavily against the wall, and the man and the child in his
arms slept peacefully in the dark corner of the deserted tenement.
The sun rose hissing out of the East River, a broad, red disc of heat.
It swept the cross-streets of the city as pitilessly as the search-
light of a man-of-war sweeps the ocean. It blazed brazenly into open
windows, and changed beds into gridirons on which the sleepers tossed
and turned and woke unrefreshed and with throats dry and parched. Its
glare awakened Rags into a startled belief that the place about him
was on fire, and he stared wildly until the child in his arms brought
him back to the knowledge of where he was. He ached in every joint and
limb, and his eyes smarted with the dry heat, but the baby concerned
him most, for she was breathing with hard, long, irregular gasps, her
mouth was open and her absurdly small fists were clenched, and around
her closed eyes were deep blue rings.
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