Stay! Is the spike so low a thing as the rusty spike on the top of a post of an old bedstead that has tumbled all awry?
Some vague period of drowsy laughter must be devoted to the consideration of this possibility.
Shaking from head to foot, the man whose scattered consciousness has thus fantastically pieced itself together, at length rises, supports his trembling frame upon his arms, and looks around.

He is in the meanest and closest of small rooms.

Through the ragged window-curtain, the light of early day steals in from a miserable court.

He lies, dressed, across a large unseemly bed, upon a bedstead that has indeed given way under the weight upon it.

Lying, also dressed and also across the bed, not longwise, are a Chinaman, a Lascar, and a haggard woman.