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Eleven Possible Cases

by Frank R. Stockton · English · Gutenberg #32117 · 344,878 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Eleven Possible Cases

Author: Frank R. Stockton
        Edgar Fawcett
        Franklin Fyles
        Anna Katharine Green
        Henry Harland
        Ingersoll Lockwood
        Joaquin Miller
        Kirk Munroe
        Brainard Gardner Smith
        Maurice Thompson
        A. C. Wheeler


        
Release date: April 24, 2010 [eBook #32117]

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/32117

Credits: Produced by Suzanne Shell, Mary Meehan and the Online
        Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
        file was produced from images generously made available
        by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ELEVEN POSSIBLE CASES ***




Produced by Suzanne Shell, Mary Meehan and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
file was produced from images generously made available
by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)









                         ELEVEN POSSIBLE CASES.


FRANK R. STOCKTON, FRANKLIN FYLES, JOAQUIN MILLER, MAURICE THOMPSON,
INGERSOLL LOCKWOOD, EDGAR FAWCETT, BRAINARD GARDNER SMITH, KIRKE MUNROE,
NYM CRINKLE, ANNA KATHERINE GREEN, AND Q.


CASSELL & COMPANY, LIMITED:
_LONDON, PARIS & MELBOURNE._
1891.

[ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.]




CONTENTS.


1. THE ONLY GIRL AT OVERLOOK, _Franklin Fyles_

2. A THING THAT GLISTENED, _Frank R. Stockton_

3. A LION AND A LIONESS, _Joaquin Miller_

4. THE CHEATED JULIET, _Q._

5. THE MYSTIC KREWE, _Maurice Thompson_

6. STRANGE ADVENTURES OF A MILLION DOLLARS, _Ingersoll Lockwood_

7. A LOST DAY, _Edgar Fawcett_

8. A TRAGEDY OF HIGH EXPLOSIVES, _Brainard Gardner Smith_

9. THE BUSHWHACKER'S GRATITUDE, _Kirke Munroe_

10. THE END OF ALL, _Nym Crinkle_

11. SHALL HE MARRY HER? _Anna Katherine Green_




THE ONLY GIRL AT OVERLOOK.

BY FRANKLIN FYLES.




CHAPTER I.


Two names were used for the only girl at Overlook. In addressing her,
the men of the place always said "Miss Warriner." In mentioning her,
they often said "Mary Mite." The reason for this distinctive difference
was revealed by the sight of Miss Mary Warriner herself, as she sat on a
high stool behind a rude desk, under a roughly-boarded shelter, and with
rapid fingers clicked the key of a telegraphic instrument. There was a
perfect poise of quiet self-possession which would have been very
impressive dignity in an older and bigger person, and which, although
here limited by eighteen years and one hundred pounds, still made a
demand for respectful treatment. Therefore the men, when in her
presence, never felt like calling her anything else than "Miss
Warriner." If she had been less like a stately damsel in miniature, and
more like such a child as she was in size only; if her employment had
been something not so near to science as that of telegraphy, and not so
far off from juvenile simplicity; if her brown hair had been loosely
curled, instead of closely coiled, and if her skirts had stopped at her
ankles instead of reaching to her feet, then she might have been
nicknamed "Mary Mite" within her own hearing, as she was beyond it, by
those who described her smallness in a sobriquet. There may have been a
variance of opinion among those dwellers at Overlook who had made any
estimate of her composure, but if there was one who believed that she
merely assumed a reserve of manner because she was among two hundred
men, he had not yet tried his chances of exceptional acquaintance.

Overlook was crude and temporary. The inhabitants were making a roadbed
for a new railway at a spot where the job was extraordinary, requiring
an uncommonly large proportion of brain to brawn in the work. Those who
were mental laborers in the remarkable feat of engineering, or were at
least bosses of the physical toil, were the ones who had errands at the
telegraphic shed, and for whom Mary sent and received messages over the
wires. The isolated colony of workers was one hundred miles deep in a
wilderness of mountain and forest, but not as many seconds distant,
measured by the time necessary for electrical communication from the
construction company's headquarters in a great city.

"Must you wait for an answer?" Mary said, as she clicked the last word
of a message. "It's an hour since your first telegram went, and they
seem in no hurry to reply."

Polite indifference, and nothing else, was in her clear, gentle voice.
There was neither boldness nor shyness in the eyes that opened wide and
blue, as she lifted them from the paper to the man whom she questioned.
There was no more of a smile than of a pout on the mouth that worded the
inquiry. She did not indicate the faintest interest as to whether he
went or stayed, although she did suggest that he might as well go.

"I'd rather lounge here, if you don't mind," was Gerald Heath's answer.

Here the alertness of the placid girl was faintly shown by a quick
glance, but it was so furtive that the subject of her wariness did not
know his face was being scrutinized; and she was quickly convinced that
she was not the cause of his remaining, for he said: "I'll tell you why
I'm anxious about the telegram, and in a hurry to get it."

Gerald Heath had been lazily leaning against the makeshift desk of the
telegrapher, as he waited, and for pastime had whittled the smooth birch
sapling that formed its outer edge. He had chipped and shaved, after the
manner of those to whom a sharp pocket knife and a piece of wood provide
a solace. There had been no conversation, except a few words concerning
the messages. But now he heightened himself to six feet by standing
erect, and took on the outlines of a magnificent physique. His
proportions had not been realized before by the girl at the other side
of the counter. She comprehended, too, that if his somewhat unkempt
condition were changed to one which included a face cleaned of stubbed
beard, a suit of modish clothes to replace the half-worn corduroys, and
the shine of a silk hat and polished boots at his now dusty extremities,
he would become a young gentleman whose disregard might be an
appreciable slight. That was the conclusion which she reached without
any visible sign that her careless eyes were conveying any sort of
impression to her mind. As it was, he looked an unusually burly specimen
of the men to whom isolation from city life had imparted an aspect of
barbarians. Before he had uttered another word she realized that he was
wholly engrossed in the matter of his telegrams, and had no thought of
the individuality of the listener. Not only was she not the thing that
made him wait, but she might as well have been old, ugly, or a man, if
only she had ears to hear.

It was a summer afternoon, and the clear, balmy weather was seasonable.
The removal of protective canvas had left the structure an open shed,
over the front of which hung the boughs of the two trees against whose
massive trunks it leaned. Gerald Heath reached up with both hands and
held the foliage aside.

"Do you get an unobstructed view?" he said. "Now, I've helped lay out
railroads through many a place, where it was a shame to let trains go
faster than a mile a day. I've surveyed routes that ought to provide
special trains for passengers with eyes in their heads--trains with
speed graduated between sixty miles an hour and sixty hours a mile. It
is an outrage on nature and art that travelers should ever be whisked
past Overlook without a good chance to see what we're looking at. That's
why I wrote to the president of the company a month ago, telling him how
a slight deviation from the surveyed line would enable passengers to get
what's in our view now. He asked how much the line would be lengthened
by my plan. 'A hundred yards,' I answered. And I submitted a map,
showing how the tracks, after coming out from the tunnel, might make a
small detour to this very spot, instead of going behind a mass of rocks
that will completely hide this----" and a comprehensive gesture of one
arm followed his sweep of vision.

Places that get their names on impulse are apt to have appropriate ones.
Camps of railway makers in a hitherto unbroken country are not often
miscalled. An ensuing town on the same site may be unmeaningly named as
a permanency, but the inspirations that afford transient nomenclature
are usually descriptive. It was so in the case of Overlook. The railway
tunneled through the mountain, and emerged at a height of 1000 feet
above a wide valley. Mary had daily, and all day long, sat overlooking
the prospect. It had astonished and enchanted her at first, but
familiarity had blunted the keenness of her appreciation. As shown to
her anew, it was like a fresh disclosure. Gerald Heath stood holding
aside the boughs, which otherwise obscured a part of the landscape, and
seemed like an exhibitor of some wondrously big and beautiful picture.
Miles away were hills rising behind one another, until they left only a
little of sky to be framed by the eave of the shed, as seen by the
telegrapher. The diversities of a wilderness, distantly strong in rugged
forms, but indistinct in details, became gradually definite and
particular as they came nearer, and were suggestive of conscious design,
where they edged a broken, tumultuous river. Overlook was shelved so
high on a precipitous mountain that, from Mary's point of vision, the
foreground almost directly underneath passed out of her sight, and it
was as though the spectator stood on a platform before a painted canvas,
too spacious for exhibition in an ordinary manner. But in this work the
shapes and the colors, the grandeur and the beauty were inconceivably
beyond human copying.

Gerald Heath appeared to feel, however, that if he was not the painter
of this enormous landscape, he at least had the proprietary interest of
a discoverer, and it was with something of the air of an art collector,
proudly extolling his choicest possession, that he turned his eyes from
it to Mary Warriner. The expression of admiration on her face, although
quiet and delicate, was quite satisfactory--for a moment only; and then
the denotement of delight passed out of her visage, as though expelled
by some physical pang. It was the suddenness of the change, for it was
of itself very slight, that made it perceptible. Gerald instinctively
turned to look for the cause.

Into the picture had come a human figure. A few yards in front of the
hut stood a man. In relation to the landscape far beyond he was
gigantic, and the shade of the trees made him devilishly black by
contrast with the sunlight of heaven that illumined the rest. He was
thus for an instant in silhouette, and it chanced that his sharp
outlines included a facial profile, with the points of a mustache and
beard giving satanic suggestion to an accidental attitude of malicious
intrusion. The illusion was almost startling, but it was momentary, and
then the form became the commonplace one of Tonio Ravelli, who walked
under the shelter.

"Do-a I eentrude?" he asked, with an Italian accent and an Italian
bearing. "I suppose no, eh? Thece ees a placa beesness."

Mary's small departure from a business-like perfunctory manner ended at
once. She took the scrap of paper which Ravelli laid on her desk, and
without a word translated its writing into telegraphic clicks. Ravelli
was a sub-contractor, and this was one of his frequent communications
with officials at the company's city office. The response was likely to
be immediate, and he waited for it.

"To get the full value of this view," Gerald Heath resumed, and now he
addressed himself to Mary directly, as though with almost a purpose of
ignoring Ravelli, to whose greeting he had barely responded, "you need
to come upon it suddenly--as I once did. We had been for months blasting
and digging through the mountain. Every day's duty in that hole was like
a spell of imprisonment in a dark, damp dungeon. And your men, Ravelli,
looked like a chain-gang of convicts."

"You woulda no dare say so mooch to their-a fa-ces," Ravelli retorted,
with an insolence that was unmistakably intentional.

"O, I didn't mean a reflection on them," said Gerald, disregarding the
other's quarrelsome aggressiveness. "We all look rascally in the mud,
drip, and grime of tunnel work. And your gang of swarthy Italians are
bound to have a demoniac aspect underground."

It was more careless than intentional that Gerald thus provoked Ravelli.
There had been dislike between them, growing out of friction between
their respective duties as a civil engineer and a sub-contractor, for
the former was necessarily a critic of the latter's work. But they had
never quarreled, and Gerald saw nothing in this occasion, as Ravelli
seemed to, for any outbreak of temper.

"Bettare be civ-vil with-a your tongue," Ravelli sneered.

"Well, I think so, too, as we are with a lady."

"Zat ees why-a I inseest you treat-a me as one gentleman."

So it seemed that he was especially regardful of how he figured in the
presence of Mary Warriner.

"Like one gentleman? Oh, I will treat you like two gentlemen--so
politely;" and Gerald began to again nonchalantly whittle the birchen
pole. "I was going to tell how, when at last we broke through the rock
at this end of the tunnel, I happened to be right there. A blast tore
out an aperture several feet wide. We saw daylight through the smoke. We
rushed pell-mell over the broken stone, and struggled with one another
to get through first. It was--why, it was you, Ravelli, wasn't it?--whom
I tussled with. Yes, we got into the breach together. You tried to push
me back. You couldn't--of course, you couldn't;" and the narrator's
reference to his own superior strength was exasperatingly accompanied by
a glance not free from contempt.

"Eet was-a all een fun," Ravelli smilingly explained to Mary, and then
his eyes turned darkly upon Gerald: "Eef eet had-a been one ear-nest
fight----," the different result was vaguely indicated by a hard clinch
of fists and a vicious crunch of teeth.

It was beyond a doubt that Ravelli could not bear to be belittled to
Mary; but she and Gerald were alike inattentive to his exhibition of
wrath.

"No prisoner was ever more exultant to escape," Heath went on, "than I
was to get out of that dark, noisome hole into clean sunlight. I ran to
this very spot, and--well, the landscape was on view, just as it is now.
It was like getting from gloom out into glory."

The young man's exuberant words were not spoken with much enthusiasm,
and yet they had sufficient earnestness to prove their sincerity. He had
stopped whittling, and his knife lay on the desk, as he turned his back
against the sapling and rested both elbows on it.

"So I've been writing to the president of the company, urging him to
deflect the route a trifle, so that passengers might come out of the
tunnel to see a landscape worth a thousand miles of special travel, and
to be had by going less than as many feet. This is the very latest day
for changing the survey. To-morrow will be too late. That is why I'm
telegraphing so urgently."

Click, click, click. Mary went to the telegraphic instrument. She
delivered the message by word of mouth, instead of taking it down in the
usual manner with a pen.

"Gerald Heath, Overlook," she translated from the metallic language of
the instrument. "Your idea is foolish. We cannot entertain it. Henry
Deckerman, president."

Gerald looked like a man receiving a jury's verdict involving great
pecuniary loss, if not one of personal condemnation, as he listened to
the telegram.

"Zat ees what-a I theenk," remarked Ravelli, with insolent elation; "you
ar-r-e one-a fool, as ze president he say."

Gerald was already angered by the dispatch. The taunting epithet was
timed to excite him to fury, which he impulsively spent upon the more
immediate provoker. He seized Ravelli by the throat, but without choking
him, and almost instantly let him go, as though ashamed of having
assailed a man of not much more than half his own strength and nearly
twice his age. With Italian quickness Ravelli grabbed Gerald's knife
from the desk, against which he was flung. He would have used it too, if
self-defense had been necessary, but he saw that he was not to be
further molested, and so he concealed the weapon under his arm, while
Gerald strode away, unaware of his escape from a stab.

"He is-a one beeg bully," said Ravelli, with forced composure. "Eef a
lady had-a not been here----"

"You tormented him," the girl interrupted. "I once saw the best-natured
mastiff in the world lose his temper and turn on a----" She stopped
before saying "cur," and added instead: "If he was foolish, you were not
very wise to tease him."

"He is-a what to you, zat you take-a hees part?"

She bit her lip in resentment, but made no reply.

"Pare-haps he is one-a lover oof you?"

Still she would not reply to his impertinence. That angered him more
than the severest rejoinder would have done.

"Oh, I am sure-a zat he ees one suitor."

She gave way at length to his provocation, and yet without any violent
words, for she simply said: "You are insulting, while he is at least
reasonably polite--when he heeds me at all, which isn't often."

"Not-a often? But some-what closely he heed-a you. See zat."

With an open palm he struck the place on the sapling where Gerald had
whittled. The spot was on the outer edge, where Mary could not see it
from her seat. She went around to the front of the primitively
constructed desk, or high counter, to gratify her curiosity. There she
saw that Gerald had carved a hand--her own hand, as she instantly
perceived. The small and shapely member was reproduced in the fresh,
pale wood with rare fidelity. She had unconsciously posed it, while
working the key of the telegraphic instrument under the jack-knife
sculptor's eyes, and there had been ample time for him to whittle a
fac-simile into the birch.

"He is almost as impertinent as you are," she said, and turned to see
how Ravelli took the comment.

But Ravelli had disappeared.

Then, being alone, she laid a hand of her own coquettishly alongside its
wooden counterpart, and critically admired the likeness.

"It was an unwarranted liberty," she said to herself, "but he did it
very well."

The delicate fiber of the wood had favored the carver's purpose. The
imitation hand bore a shade of flattery in the barely tinted birchen
white, and in the fine grained satin smoothness that the keen blade had
wrought, but this was not too much for more than a reasonable
compliment. As to the modeling, that was sincerely accurate, and the
fingers rested on the key precisely as Mary had seen them during many
hours of many days. It is an excessively vain girl who admires herself
as actually as she does a portrait, and the telegrapher really saw more
beauty in the birchen hand than she had ever observed in the live one.
As she contemplated it, Ravelli returned noiselessly behind her.

"I a-wish to say something, Mees Warriner."

The Italian accent of Ravelli grated with unnatural harshness on Mary's
ears, and if he had been an intruder upon her privacy, instead of a man
in a really public place, she would not have been surprised into a deep
flush. She snatched her hand away from its wooden counterpart, and
clasped it with its mate behind her, as she leaned her shoulder against
the carving to hide it.

"If you have a message to send," she said, "I can't get it on the wire
too soon. It's within five minutes of time to shut off."

She started to go behind the desk. He stopped her with a touch upon her
shoulder, and she shrank away reprovingly, although it was solely the
man's earnestness that had made him do it.

"No, no; it ees not words for-a ze wire zat I have-a for you," he said.
"I wish-a to tell to yourself something. Will you lees-ten?"

"Yes, if it is something that I ought to hear."

"Thees eez it. I am a-more than I seem here--deef-e-rent--so deef-e-rent
you would hardly know-a me. In zis place I am on-ly a contractor for ze
laborer. I am-a as com-mon as my gang in-a clothes--in-a manner, too,
eh? But een one hour--een one minute--I could-a con-veence you zat I
am-a something finer."

Mary did not show in her perfectly regained composure that she was so
much as puzzled by the man's enigmatic talk. She said: "I don't see how
it could be worth while, Mr. Ravelli."

"O, yes--I beg-a par-don for ze contradiction--yes, it ees worth-a
while. Away from-a here, Mary, I would-a be so deef-e-rent zat you
a-love me."

"Stop, Mr. Ravelli--stop."

The command was positive, but it was not obeyed.

"I love-a you."

He caught her by one wrist as he began. She was utterly unresistant. If
she had struggled or cried out, he would have gone on with his voluble,
excited declaration; but her placidity was incomprehensible to him.

"Mr. Ravelli," she began after a moment, "you understand English?"

"Perfectly, Mees Warriner."

"Well, here is plain English for you. I would use Italian if I could, so
that you mightn't mistake me. You are to let go of my hand."

He did it.

"You are to go away instantly, and never come here again except on
business. Go at once."

That he did not do.

"For what-a did you come here, into one camp oof men eef----"

"If I didn't expect to be unsafe? I'll tell you. It was a mistake.
Operator No. 9 was ordered to this post. No. 9 had been a man, who had
within a week been discharged, and his number given to me. By an
oversight, no alteration was made in the record to show the sex of the
new No. 9. I couldn't afford to lose the work. Besides----"

"Well-a, besides----"

"Besides, I reasoned that every man at Overlook would protect me against
all the other men--if----"

"Yes, eef----"

"Yes, if I cared absolutely nothing for any single one of them.
Therefore, I am not afraid. But you must not annoy me."

Fury flashed into the man's eyes, into his reddened face, into the
sudden tension of his gripped hands. The girl's contemptuous
indifference maddened him. She saw this, and was at once alarmed, for
she realized that here was a reckless lover--one who heated dangerously
where another would have chilled under disdain; but she maintained an
unshaken voice, as she said: "You may as well know, however, that I am
amply protected. The night watchman is ordered to include this combined
office and residence of mine in every round he makes. So I sleep quite
unconcernedly. In the daytime, too, I shall have defense, if it becomes
necessary."

"O, have-a no alarm, Mees Warriner," and the man's facial expression
softened singularly as he gazed wistfully at the girl. "I haf said I
love-a you." Then, with a startlingly quick transition, he glared
menacingly off in the direction that Gerald Heath had gone. It seemed
curious to Mary, too, that in his rage his English was clearer than
usual, as he growled: "It is your lover that should be afraid of me." He
flung out one fist in a fierce menace, and added in Italian: "Nel
vindicarvi bisogna ch'egli mi rende la sua vita."




CHAPTER II.


The full moon looked for Mary Warriner's little house that night as soon
as a clearance of the sky permitted, and then beamed down on her abode
effulgently. But it was eleven o'clock before the gusty wind blew the
thick clouds aside and let the orb illumine Overlook. Back of the shed
in which the telegrapher worked by day was a structure in which she
slept at night. It was built of slabs, with big growing trees to form
its irregular corners, and their lowest limbs contributed the rafters,
while stripped bark and evergreen boughs made the roof. The foliage
swayed above in the fitful wind, and covered the cabin and the grass
around it with commingling, separating, capering shadows of leaves, as
though a multitude of little black demons were trying to get to the
slumberer within. Their antics looked spiteful and angry at first: but
as the wind lessened to a breeze, and as the moon seemed to mollify
them, they became frolicsome without malice; and at length, when the
merest zephyrs impelled their motions, they gambolled lazily,
good-humoredly above and around the couch of Mary Mite.

It was midnight when a man shot into the open space around the cabin
like a missile. He ran first to the front of the structure, where a
tarpaulin curtained the shed for the night, and gazed for a moment
blankly at this indication that the hour was not one of business.
Tremendous haste was denoted in his every step and gesture. He plucked
twice at the canvas, as though to pull it down. Then he skurried around
to the single window of Mary's apartment, whose only door opened into
the shed, and pounded with his knuckles on the ill-fitted sash, making
it clatter loudly. Silence within followed this noise without. "Hello!
Wake up!" he cried. "Don't fool for a minute. Wake up!"

There was no response, and he skipped to and fro in his impatience. He
was an ordinary shoveler and pounder, with nothing to distinguish him
from the mass of manual laborers at Overlook, but, unlike the usual man
with an errand at the telegraphic station, flourished a scrap of paper.

"I want to telegraph," he shouted, and struck the window again. "Get up
quick! It's life and death!"

Mary Warriner was convinced that her services were urgently and properly
required. She peeped warily out to inspect the man, estimated him to be
merely a messenger, and then opened wide the sash, which swung laterally
on hinges. Her delicate face bore the same sort of calm that
characterized it in business hours, but the moon shone on it now, the
hair had got loose from the bondage of knot and pin, and for an outer
garment she was carelessly enwrapped in a white, fleecy blanket. The man
did not give her time to inquire what was wanted.

"You're the telegraph girl, ain't you?" he exclaimed. "Well, here's
something to telegraph. It's in a hurry, hurry, hurry. Don't lose a
minute."

"I couldn't send it to-night," Mary said.

"You must."

"It isn't possible. There is nobody at the other end of the line to
receive it. The wire is private--belongs to the railroad company--isn't
operated except in the daytime. You'll have to wait until to-morrow."

"To-morrow I'll be a hundred years old, or else dead," the man almost
wailed in despair.

"What?"

"I was only ten years old yesterday. To-night I'm sixty. To-morrow'll be
too late. Here--here--send it to-night, Miss. Please send it to-night."

The mystified girl mechanically took the piece of paper which he thrust
into her hands, but her eyes did not drop before they discovered the
insanity in his face, and when they did rest on the paper they saw a
scrawl of hieroglyphics. It was plain that this midnight visitor was a
maniac. She screamed for help.

A watchman responded almost instantly to her call. Upon seeing the cause
of the girl's fright, he treated the incident as a matter of course. The
lunatic wobbled like a drunken man about to collapse, as he mumbled his
request over and over again.

"Here, now, Eph," the watchman said, with as much of cajolery as
command, "you mustn't bother the young lady. Ain't you ashamed to scare
her this way? Get right out of this."

The watchman took the other by the arm, and, as they started off--one
insisting and one objecting--the official looked back to say: "He won't
hurt nobody, Miss Warriner--he's just a little cranky, that's all."

Mary watched them out of sight, and while she was doing so, Gerald Heath
approached from the contrary direction. He had heard the girl's scream.
Why he was within earshot he might not have been able to explain
satisfactorily, for it was not his habit to take midnight walks, even
when the air was so brightly moonlit and so temporarily fine; but if
cross-questioned, he would doubtless have maintained that he had sought
only to escape from the darkness and closeness of his shanty quarters.
Besides, where would he so likely wander, in quest of good sight and
breath, as to the spot whence he could view the scenery which he in vain
asked the railway company to exhibit to their passengers. As he turned
the corner of the cabin he saw Eph and the watchman departing, and
comprehended the disturbance.

"Eph has been frightening you, Miss Warriner," he said.

Mary screamed again, but this time it was a low, musical little outcry
of modesty. She had not observed Gerald's approach. She clutched the
blanket closely around her white throat, which had been almost as much
exposed as by an ordinary cut of frock, and drew under cover the
gleaming wrists which had all day been bared to a greater extent by
sleeves of handy working length. Then she reached out one taper arm, and
swung the sash around on its hinges, so its inner covering of muslin
made a screen between her and the visitor. He did not apologize for his
intrusion, and she pouted a little on her safe side of the sash, at his
failure to do so.

"I see it was Eph that alarmed you," he said. "What did he do?"

She told him, and then asked: "Who is he, and what ails him?"

"He is a common laborer with an uncommon affliction," was the reply.
"One day an excavation caved in, and for an hour he was buried. Some
timbers made a little space around his head, but the rest of him was
packed in earth. He had breathed the inclosed air two or three times
over, and was almost suffocated when we got him out. He was insensible.
He never came back to his senses. He believes he is living at the rate
of more than a year every hour. This is why he was in such a hurry with
his imaginary message."

"Poor fellow," came from the obverse side of the sash.

"Yes, poor fellow," the narrator assented. "I understood his
hallucination at once. When a man is suddenly placed in mortal peril,
his past life dashes before him. Half drowned men afterward tell of
reviewing in a minute the events of years. It is a curious mental
phenomenon. Well, this poor chap had that familiar experience, but with
a singular sequence. The impression that all his lifetime before the
accident happened in a brief time has remained in his disordered mind.
He believes that his whole earthly existence is condensed--that future
years, as well as his past ones, are compressed into days, and his days
into minutes. Nothing can disabuse him of this idea. Everything is to
him ephemeral. That's why I nicknamed him Eph--short for Ephemeral, you
see. He doesn't remember his real name, and on the roll he had only a
number. He has done his work well enough until within a few days, but
now his malady seems to have turned to the worst. He has talked wildly
of getting some physicians to check the speed of time with him, and it
may have been that he wished to telegraph to this fancied expert."

"It is singular," Mary said, "and very sad."

The midnight incident seemed to have come to a conclusion. It was a
proper time for Gerald to say good-night and go away. He still stood on
the opposite side of the half-open sash, around the edge of which
appeared a small set of finger tips, which pulled the screen a little
closer, showing that the girl was minded to shut herself in. But a hand
twice as big opposed hers, gently yet strongly, and in doing so it
touched hers; upon which she let go, and the window flew open.

"Oh, you mustn't see me," Mary exclaimed, as Gerald got a vanishing
glimpse of the white-draped figure. "Good-night."

"You will be afraid if left alone," Gerald protested; "you can't go to
sleep, nervous as you must be."

"I surely can't go to sleep talking," was her rejoinder, with the first
touch of coquetry she had indulged in at Overlook.

"I won't talk, then. I'll only keep guard out here until daylight. Eph
may return."

"But there's the watchman. It is his duty."

"It would be my delight."

That silenced the invisible inmate of the cabin. The moon shone into the
square opening, but Mary was ensconced somewhere in the darkness that
bordered the income of light.

"Should I apologize?" Gerald at length began again. "It is like this,
Miss Warriner. I used to know how to behave politely to a lady. But for
six years I've lived in wildernesses--in railroad camps--from Canada to
Mexico. We've had no ladies in these rough places--no women, except once
in a while some mannish washerwoman or cook. That's what makes you so
rare--so unexpected--that is why it would be a delight to be a patrolman
outside your quarters--that is why I don't wish to go away."

"Oh!--oh! I am interesting because I am the only specimen of my sex at
Overlook. That isn't a doubtful compliment; it is no compliment at all.
Good-night."

"You misconstrue me altogether. I mean----"

"I am sure you do not mean," and now the tone was pleadingly serious,
"to remain here at my window after I request you to go away. I am, as
you have said, the only girl at Overlook."

"If there were a thousand girls at Overlook----"

"Not one of them, I trust, would prolong a dialogue with a young
gentleman at night through the open window of her bedroom."

Half in respectful deference to Mary's unassailable statement of the
rule of propriety applicable to the situation, and half in inconsiderate
petulance at being dismissed, Gerald let go of the sash with an impulse
that almost closed it. This time two miniature hands came out under the
swinging frame. Would more than one hand have been naturally used? Was
it not an awkward method of shutting a window? And Mary Warriner was not
a clumsy creature. But there were the hands, and Gerald grasped them.
They fluttered for freedom, like birds held captive in broad palms by
completely caging fingers. Then he uncovered them, but for an instant
kept them prisoners by encircling the wrists long enough to impetuously
kiss them. Another second and they were gone, the window was closed, and
they were alone.

He walked slowly away, accusing himself of folly and ungentlemanliness,
and he felt better upon getting out of the clear, searching moonshine
into the dim, obscuring shade of rocks and trees, among which the path
wound crookedly. There rapid footsteps startled him, as though he was a
skulking evildoer, and the swift approach of a man along an intersecting
pathway, made him feel like taking to cowardly flight. But he recognized
the monomaniac, Eph, who was in a breathless tremor.

"Mr. Heath, could a man walk to Dimmersville before the telegraph
station there opens in the morning?" Eph asked, with several catches of
breath and a reeling movement of physical weakness.

"You go to bed, Eph," was the reply, meant to be soothing, "and I'll see
that your telegram goes from here the earliest thing in the morning.
That won't be more than six or seven hours from now."

"Six or seven hours," the poor fellow deploringly moaned; "I'll be a
good many years older by that time. Oh, it's awful to have your life go
whizzing away like mine does," and he clutched at Gerald with his
fidgety hands, with a vague idea of slowing himself by holding to a
normal human being.

Then he darted away, swaying from side to side with faintness, and
disappeared in the foliage which lined the path he was following.

Gerald watched him out of sight, and was about to resume his own
different way when the voice of Tonio Ravelli was heard, with its
Italian extra a to the short words and a heavy emphasis on the final
syllable of the long ones.

"Mistair Heath," he said, "I saw-a your affectionate par-ting weez Mees
Warriner."

Gerald had just then the mind of a culprit, and he began to explain
apologetically: "It was cowardly in me to insult a defenseless girl. She
didn't invite it. I am ashamed of myself."

He hardly realized to whom he was speaking. The two men were now walking
rapidly, Ravelli taking two strides to one of the bigger Gerald, in
order to keep alongside.

"You-a should be ashamed--you-a scoundrel."

As much of jealous fury and venomous malice as could be vocalized in six
words was in Ravelli's sudden outbreak. Gerald was astounded. He turned
upon his companion, caught him by both lapels of the coat, and shook him
so violently that his boot-soles pounded the ground. Ravelli staggered
back upon being loosed, and threw one arm around a tree to steady
himself.

"I didn't mean to hurt you," said Gerald, "but you shouldn't be reckless
with your language. Perhaps you don't know what scoundrel means in
English."

"I saw you-a kiss her hands."

"Did you? Well, do you know what I'd do to you, Ravelli, if I saw you
kiss her hands--as I did--without her consent? I'd wring your miserable
neck. Now, what are you going to do to me?"

"I am-a going to keel you!"

The blade of a knife flashed in Ravelli's right hand, as he made a
furious onslaught; but the stronger and quicker man gripped both of his
assailant's wrists, threw him violently to the ground, and tortured him
with wrenches and doublings until he had to drop the weapon. In the
encounter the clothes of both men were torn, and when Ravelli regained
his feet blood was dripping from his hand. The blade had cut it.

"You meant to kill me," Gerald exclaimed.

"I said-a so," was the sullen, menacing response.

"And with my own knife!" and Gerald, picking up the knife, recognized
it.

"Your own knife--ze one zat you carve-a Mary's hand with so lovingly."

Ravelli had retained it since the previous afternoon, when he had picked
it up from Mary Warriner's desk. Its blade was now red with blood, as
Gerald shut and pocketed it.

"You cowardly murderer!"

"Murderer? Not-a yet. But I meant to be."

Ravelli turned off by the cross-path, and Gerald passed on.




CHAPTER III.


The first man to go to work at Overlook in the morning was Jim Wilson,
because he had to rouse the fire under a boiler early enough to provide
steam for a score of rock drills. The night watchman awakened him at
daybreak, according to custom, and then got into a bunk as the other got
out of one.

"Everything all right?" Jim asked.

"I guess so," the other replied. "But I hain't seen your boiler sence
before midnight. Eph was disturbin' Mary Mite, and so I hung 'round her
cabin pretty much the last half of the night."

Jim went to his post at the boiler, and at an unaccustomed pace, from
the point where he first saw and heard steam hissing upward from the
safety valve. On quitting the night previous, he had banked the fire as
usual, and this morning he should have found it burning so slowly that
an hour of raking, replenishing, and open draughts would no more than
start the machinery at seven o'clock. Going nearer he found that open
dampers and a fresh supply of coal had set the furnace raging.

What was that which protruded from the open door, and so nearly filled
the aperture that the draught was not impaired?

A glance gave the answer. It was the legs and half the body of a man,
whose head and shoulders were thoroughly charred, as Jim was horrified
to see when he pulled the remains out upon the ground.

Jim ran to tell the superintendent, and within a few minutes a knot of
excited men surrounded the body. The gathering grew in numbers rapidly.
By means of the clothing the dead and partially burned man was
identified at once as Tonio Ravelli. That he had been murdered was an
equally easy conclusion. The murderer had apparently sought to cremate
the corpse. Whether he had found it physically impossible, or had been
frightened away, could only be conjectured.

"Who can have done it?" was the question asked by Superintendent
Brainerd, the autocrat of Overlook.

There was a minute of silence, with all staring intently at the body, as
though half expecting it to somehow disclose the truth. The night
watchman was first to speak.

"Eph might have done it," he said.

Then he told of the monomaniac's visit to the telegraph station, and of
the acute stage which his malady had reached. Nobody else present had
seen him since the previous evening. Superintendent Brainerd ordered a
search of the lodgings. Ten minutes were sufficient for a round of the
different quarters. Eph was in none of them. The searchers returned to
the furnace, and with them came Gerald Heath.

"I met Eph yonder where the paths cross, not a hundred yards from here,
a little past midnight," Gerald said. "He was terribly excited. That was
after he had tried in vain to telegraph a crazy message. Evidently his
delusion, that his whole life was condensed into a brief space, had
driven him to a frenzy. He spoke of walking to Dimmersville, but I tried
to quiet him, and he disappeared."

Dimmersville was a town about ten miles distant, in a direction opposite
to that from which the railroad had worked its way through the
mountains. No wire connected it with Overlook, and there was no public
road for the nearest third of the way, although a faint trail showed the
course that a few persons had taken on foot or horseback.

"Very likely Eph has gone toward Dimmersville," Brainerd argued, "and we
must try to catch him."

Before the order could be specifically given a horse and a rider arose
over the edge of the level ground and came into the midst of the
assemblage. The man in the saddle had a professional aspect, imparted
chiefly by his smoothly shaven face. In this era of mustaches a hairless
visage is apt to be assigned to a clergyman, who shaves thus from a
motive of propriety; an actor, who does it from necessity; or somebody
who aims at facial distinction without the features suitable to that
purpose. A countenance of which it can only be said that it has one
nose, one mouth, and two eyes, all placed in expressive nonentity, and
which is dominated utterly by hair on and around it, may be less lost to
individuality if entirely shaven. Of such seemed the visage of the dark
man, who calmly rode into the excitement at Overlook.

"Which way have you come?" Brainerd asked.

"From Dimmersville," was the reply.

"Did you see anybody on the way?"

"I started very early. Folks were not out of their beds in the
houses--as long as there were any houses--and that is only for five or
six miles, you know. After that--yes--I did see one man. A curiously
excited chap. He looked tired out. He asked the distance to
Dimmersville, and whether the telegraph office would be open by the time
he got there. Then he skurried on before I'd half answered him."

All that was known of the murder was told to the stranger by half a
dozen glib tongues, and it was explained to him that he had encountered
the maniacal fugitive.

"I knew there was something wrong about him," said the stranger. "It is
my business to be observant."

He dismounted and hitched his horse to a tree. The dead body was shown
to him. He examined it very thoroughly. All the particulars were related
to him over and over. Then he drew Superintendent Brainerd aside.

"My name is Terence O'Reagan," he said, and in his voice was faintly
distinguishable the brogue of the land whence the O'Reagans came. "I am
a government detective. I have been sent to work up evidence in the case
of some Italian counterfeiters. We had a clew pointing to a
sub-contractor here--the very man who lies there dead. Our information
was that he used some of the bogus bills in paying off his gang. Now, it
isn't going outside my mission to investigate his death--if you don't
object."

"I would be glad to have you take hold of it," Brainerd replied. "We
can't bring the authorities here before noon, at the earliest, and in
the mean time you can perhaps clear it all up."

The eagerly curious men had crowded close to this brief dialogue, and
had heard the latter part of it. O'Reagan became instantly an important
personage, upon whose smallest word or movement they hung expectantly,
and nobody showed a keener interest than Gerald Heath. The detective
first examined the body. The pockets of Ravelli's clothes contained a
wallet, with its money untouched, beside a gold watch.

"So robbery was not the object," said O'Reagan to Brainerd. "The motive
is the first thing to look for in a case of murder."

Next, he found blood on the waistcoat, a great deal of it, but dried by
the fire that had burned the shoulders and head; and in the baked cloth
were three cuts, under which he exposed three stab wounds. Strokes of a
knife had, it seemed, killed the victim before he was thrust partially
into the furnace.

A storm was coming to Overlook unperceived, for the men were too much
engrossed in what lay there on the ground, ghastly and horrible, to pay
any attention to the clouding sky. Gloom was so fit for the scene, too,
that nobody gave a thought from whence it came. To Gerald Heath the
going out of sunlight, and the settling down of dusky shadows seemed a
mental experience of his own. He stood bewildered, transfixed, vaguely
conscious of peril, and yet too numb to speak or stir. Detective
O'Reagan, straightening up from over the body, looked piercingly at
Gerald, and then glanced around at the rest.

"Is there anybody here who saw Tonio Ravelli last night?" he asked.

"I did," Gerald replied.

"Where and when?"

"At the same place where I met Eph, and immediately afterward."

"Ah! now we are locating Eph and Ravelli together. That looks like the
lunatic being undoubtedly the stabber."

"And we must catch him," Brainerd interposed. "I'll send riders toward
Dimmersville immediately."

"No great hurry about that," the detective remarked; "he is too crazy to
have had any clear motive or any idea of escape. It will be easy enough
to capture him." Then he turned to Gerald, and questioned with the air
of a cross-examiner: "Did the two men have any words together?"

"No," was the ready answer; "I don't know that they even saw each other
at that time. Eph went away an instant before Ravelli came."

"Did you talk with Ravelli?"

"Yes."

"About what?"

"Not about Eph at all."

"About what, then?"

Now the reply came reluctantly: "A personal matter--something that had
occurred between us--an incident at the telegraph station."

"The station where Eph had awakened the girl operator? Was it a quarrel
about her?"

"That is no concern of yours. You are impertinent."

"Well, sir, the question is pertinent--as the lawyers say--and the
answer concerns you, whether it does me or not. You and Ravelli
quarreled about the girl?"

"The young lady shall not be dragged into this. She wasn't responsible
for what happened between Ravelli and me."

"What did happen between you and Ravelli?"

The two men stood close to and facing each other. The eyes of the
detective glared gloatingly at an upward angle into the pale but still
firm face of the taller Gerald, and then dropped slowly, until they
became fixed on a red stain on the sleeve of the other's coat. Did he
possess the animal scent of a bloodhound?

"What is that?" he sharply asked. He seized the arm and smelled of the
spotted fabric. "It is blood! Let me see your knife."

Quite mechanically Gerald thrust one hand into his trousers pocket and
brought out the knife which he had taken back from Ravelli, whose blood
was on it yet.

The storm was overhead. A first peal of thunder broke loudly. It came at
the instant of the assemblage's tensest interest--at the instant when
Gerald Heath was aghast with the revelation of his awful jeopardy--at
the instant of his exposure as a murderer. It impressed them and him
with a shock of something supernatural. The reverberation rumbled into
silence, which was broken by O'Reagan:

"There'll be no need to catch Eph," he said, in a tone of professional
glee. "This man is the murderer."

Again thunder rolled and rumbled angrily above Overlook, and the party
stood aghast in the presence of the man dead and the man condemned.

"Bring him to the telegraph station," O'Reagan commanded.

Nobody disputed the detective's methods now--not even Gerald; and a
prisoner as completely as though manacled, although not touched by any
one, he went with the rest.

Mary Warriner had taken down the tarpaulin front of her shed when the
men approached. In the ordinary course of her early morning doings she
would wait an hour to dispatch and receive the first telegrams of the
day, and then go to breakfast alone at the table where the engineers and
overseers would by that time have had their meal. She was astonished to
see nearly the whole population of Overlook crowd around her quarters,
while a few entered. But she went quickly behind the desk, and took her
place on the stool. The soberness of the faces impressed her, but
nothing indicated that Gerald was in custody, and her quick thought was
that some disaster made it necessary to use the wire importantly.

"I wish to send a message," said O'Reagan, stepping forward.

The eyes of the girl rested on him inquiringly, and he palpably
flinched, but as obviously nerved himself to proceed, and when he spoke
again the Irish accent became more pronounced to hear, although not
sufficiently to be shown in the printed words: "I will dictate it
slowly, so that you can transmit it as I speak. Are you ready?"

Mary's fingers were on the key, and her bright, alert face was an answer
to the query.

"To Henry Deckerman, president," the detective slowly said, waiting for
the clicks of the instrument to put his language on the wire; "Tonio
Ravelli, a sub-contractor here, was murdered last night."

Mary's hand slid away from the key after sending that, and the always
faint tint in her cheeks faded out, and her eyes flickered up in a
scared way to the stern faces in front of her. The shock of the news
that a man had been slain, and that he was a man who, only the previous
day, had proffered his love to her, was for a moment disabling. But the
habit of her employment controlled her, and she awaited the further
dictation.

"His body was found this morning in the furnace of the steam boiler."
O'Reagan resumed deliberately, "where it had evidently been placed in a
vain attempt to destroy it."

A shudder went through Mary, and she convulsively wrung her small hands
together, as though to limber them from a cramp. But her fingers went
back to the key.

"The murderer has been discovered," the detective slowly continued, and
the operator kept along with his utterance word by word. "He killed
Ravelli for revenge. It was a love affair." Here the girl grew whiter
still, and the clicks became very slow, but they did not cease.
O'Reagan's voice was cold and ruthless: "The motive of the murderer was
revenge. His name is Gerald Heath."

All but the name flashed off on the wire. Mary Warriner's power to stir
the key stopped at that. She did not faint. She did not make any outcry.
For a moment she looked as though the soul had gone out of her body,
leaving a corpse sitting there. A grievous wail of wind came through the
trees, and a streak of lightning zig-zagged down the blue-clouded sky.

"Go on," said O'Reagan.

"I will not," was the determined response.

"Why not?"

"Because it is not so. Gerald Heath never murdered Ravelli."

Gerald had stood motionless and silent. Now he gave way to an impulse as
remarkable as his previous composure had been singular. If there had
been stagnation in his mind, it was now displaced by turbulence. He
grasped Mary's hands in a fervid grip; then dropped them and faced the
others.

"I did not kill the Italian," he said. "He attacked me with my knife
which he had stolen. In the struggle his hand was cut, but I took the
weapon away from him. He quitted me alive and unhurt. I never saw him
again. You don't believe it? Mary does, and that is more than all else."

"The circumstances don't favor you," the detective retorted, "they
convict you. You killed Ravelli because you and he were both in love
with this young lady."

"Isn't it the rejected suitor who kills the other one for spite?" This
was in Mary Warriner's voice, weak, but still steady. "Ravelli loved me,
I knew, and I drove him away. Mr. Heath loved me, I believed, and I had
not repulsed him. If I were the cause of a murder between them, it
should be Ravelli who killed Gerald."

"You detested Ravelli?" O'Reagan asked, with a strange bitterness.

"Yes."

"And you love Heath?"

The answer was no more hesitant than before; "Yes."

"Send the rest of my message," and the detective was boisterous. "Send
the name. Gerald Heath is the murderer."

He roughly seized her hand and clapped it on the key. She drew it away,
leaving his there. A blinding flash of lightning illumined the place,
and what looked like a missile of fire flew down the wire to the
instrument, where it exploded. O'Reagan fell insensible from the
powerful electrical shock. The rest did not altogether escape, and for a
minute all were dazed. The first thing that they fully comprehended was
that O'Reagan was getting unsteadily to his feet. He was bewildered.
Staggering and reeling, he began to talk.

Mary was first to perceive the import of his utterance. He was merely
going on with what he had been saying, but the manner, not the matter,
was astounding.

He spoke with an Italian accent, and made Italian gestures.

"You-a send ze mes-sage," he said; "Heath ees ze murder-are. Send-a ze
mes-sage, I say."

Tonio Ravelli had unwittingly resumed his Italian style of English.

His plenitude of hair and whiskers was gone; and in the face, thereby
uncovered, nobody could have recognized him in Detective O'Reagan but
for his lapse into the foreign accent; and he said so much before
discovering his blunder that his identification, as indeed Ravelli, was
complete.

Who, then, was the dead man? Why, he was Eph.

Nothing but the fear of being himself condemned as a murderer of the
maniac, as a part of the scheme of revenge against Gerald, induced
Ravelli to explain. He had found Eph lying dead in the path, after both
had parted from Gerald. The plot to exchange clothes with the corpse,
drag it to the furnace, burn away all possibility of recognition, and
thus make it seem to be his murdered self, was carried out with all the
hot haste of a jealous vengeance. Ravelli was not an Italian, although
very familiar with the language of Italy, and able, by a natural gift of
mimicry, to hide himself from pursuit for a previous crime. Overlook had
been a refuge until his passion for Mary Warriner led him to abandon his
disguise. Thereupon, he had turned himself into Terence O'Reagan, a
detective, whose malicious work wrought happiness for Gerald Heath and
Mary Warriner.




A THING THAT GLISTENED.

BY FRANK R. STOCKTON.


In the fall of 1888 the steamship _Sunda_, from Southampton, was running
along the southern coast of Long Island, not many hours from port, when
she was passed by one of the great British liners, outward bound. The
tide was high, and the course of both vessels was nearer the coast than
is usual--that of the _Sunda_ being inside of the other.

As the two steamers passed each other there was a great waving of hats
and handkerchiefs. Suddenly there was a scream from the _Sunda_. It came
from Signora Rochita, the prima donna of an opera troupe, which was
coming to America in that ship.

"I have lost my bracelet," she cried in Italian, and then, turning to
the passengers, she repeated the cry in very good English.

The situation was instantly comprehended by every one. It was late in
the afternoon; the captain had given a grand dinner to the passengers,
at which the prima donna had appeared in all her glories of
ornamentation, and the greatest of these glories, a magnificent diamond
bracelet, was gone from the arm with which she had been enthusiastically
waving her lace handkerchief.

The second officer, who was standing near, dashed into the captain's
office and quickly reappeared with chart and instruments, and made rapid
calculation of the position of the vessel at the time of the accident,
making an allowance for the few minutes that had passed since the first
cry of the signora. After consultation with the captain and
recalculations of the distance from land and some other points, he
announced to the weeping signora that her bracelet lay under a little
black spot he had made on the chart, and that if she chose to send a
diver for it she might get it, for the depth of water at that place was
not great.

By profession I am a diver, and the next day I was engaged to search for
the diamond bracelet of Signora Rochita. I had a copy of the chart, and,
having hired a small schooner with several men who had been my
assistants before, and taking with me all the necessary accouterments
and appliances, I set out for the spot indicated, and by afternoon we
were anchored, we believed, at or very near it. I lost no time in
descending. I wore, of course, the usual diver's suit, but I took with
me no tools nor any of the implements used by divers when examining
wrecks, but carried in my right hand a brilliant electric lamp connected
with a powerful battery on the schooner. I held this by an insulated
handle, in which there were two little knobs, by which I could light or
extinguish it.

The bottom was hard and smooth, and lighting my lamp I began to look
about me. If I approached the bracelet I ought to be able to see it
sparkle, but after wandering over considerable space, I saw no sparkles
nor anything like a bracelet. Suddenly, however, I saw something which
greatly interested me. It was a hole in the bottom of the ocean, almost
circular, and at least ten feet in diameter. I was surprised that I had
not noticed it before, for it lay not far from the stern of our vessel.

Standing near the rocky edge of the aperture, I held out my lamp and
looked down. Not far below I saw the glimmer of what seemed to be the
bottom of this subterranean well. I was seized with a desire to explore
this great hole running down under the ordinary bottom of the sea. I
signaled to be lowered, and although my comrades were much surprised at
such an order, they obeyed, and down I went to the well. The sides of
this seemed rocky and almost perpendicular, but after descending about
fifteen feet they receded on every side, and I found myself going down
into a wide cavern, the floor of which I touched in a very short time.

Holding up my lamp, and looking about me, I found myself in a sea cave,
some thirty feet in diameter, with a dome-like roof, in which, a little
to one side of the center, was the lower opening of the well. I became
very much excited; this was just the sort of place into which a bracelet
or anything else of value might be expected to have the bad luck to
drop. I walked about and gazed everywhere, but I found nothing but rocks
and water.

I was about to signal to be drawn up, when above me I saw what appeared
to be a flash of darkness coming down through the well. With a rush and
a swirl it entered the cavern, and in a moment I recognized the fact
that a great fish was swooping around and about me. Its movements were
so rapid and irregular, now circling along the outer edge of the floor
of the cavern, then mounting above me, until its back seemed to scrape
the roof, that I could not form a correct idea of the size of the
creature. It seemed to me to be at least twenty feet along. I stood
almost stupefied, keeping my eyes, as far as possible, fixed upon the
swiftly moving monster.

Sometimes he came quite near me, when I shuddered in every fiber, and
then he shot away, but ever gliding with powerful undulations of his
body and tail, around, about, and above me. I did not dare to signal to
be drawn up, for fear that the terrible creature would enter the well
hole with me. Then he would probably touch me, perhaps crush me against
the wall, but my mind was capable of forming no plans. I only hoped the
fish would ascend and disappear by the way he came.

My mind was not in its strongest condition, being much upset by a great
trouble, and I was so frightened that I really did not know what I ought
to do, but I had sense enough left to feel sure that the fish had been
attracted into the cavern by my lamp. Obviously, the right thing to do
was to extinguish it, but the very thought of this nearly drove me into
a frenzy. I could not endure to be left alone with the shark in darkness
and water. It was an insane idea, but I felt that, whatever happened, I
must keep my eyes upon him.

Now the great fish began to swoop nearer and nearer to me, and then,
suddenly changing its tactics, it receded to the most distant wall of
the cavern, where, with its head toward me, it remained, for the first
time, motionless. But this did not continue long. Gently turning over on
its side, it opened its great mouth, and in an instant, with a rush, it
came directly at me. My light shone full into its vast mouth, glistening
with teeth, and there was a violent jerk which nearly threw me from my
feet, and all was blackness. The shark had swallowed my lamp! By rare
good fortune, he did not take my hand also.

Now I frantically tugged at my signal rope. Without my lamp I had no
thought but a desire to be pulled out of the water, no matter what
happened. In a few minutes I sat, divested of my diving suit, and almost
insensible, upon the deck of the schooner. As soon as I was able to talk
I told my astonished comrades what had happened, and while we were
discussing this strange occurrence, one of them, looking over the side,
saw slowly rising to the surface the body of a dead shark.

"By George," he cried, "here is the beast. He has been killed by the
current from the battery."

We all crowded to the rail and looked down upon the monster. He was
about ten feet long, and it was plain that he had died for making
himself the connection between the poles of the battery.

"Well," said the captain pleasantly. "I suppose you are not going down
again?"

"Not I," I replied. "I give up this job."

Then suddenly I cried:

"Come boys, all of you. Make fast to that shark, and get him on board. I
want him."

Some of the men laughed, but my manner was so earnest that in a moment
they all set about to help me. A small boat was lowered, lines were made
fast to the dead fish with block and tackle, and we hauled him on deck.
I then got a butcher's knife from the cabin and began to cut him open.

"Look here, Tom!" exclaimed the captain, "that's nonsense. Your lamp's
all smashed to pieces, and if you get it out, it will never be any good
to you."

"I don't care for the lamp," I answered, working away energetically,
"but an idea has struck me. It's plain that this creature had a fancy
for shining things. If he swallowed a lamp, there is no reason why he
should not have swallowed anything else that glittered."

"Oho!" cried the captain, "you think he swallowed the bracelet, do you?"

And instantly everybody crowded more closely about me.

I got out the lamp. Its wires were severed as smoothly as if they had
been cut by shears. Then I worked on. Suddenly there was a cry from
every man. Something glimmered in the dark interior of the fish. I
grasped it and drew it out. It was not a bracelet, but a pint bottle
which glimmered like a glow-worm. With the bottle in my hand, I sat upon
the deck and gazed at it. I shook it. It shone brighter. A bit of oiled
silk was tied tightly over the cork, and it was plain to see that it was
partly filled with a light colored oil, into which a bit of phosphorous
had been dropped, which, on being agitated, filled the bottle with a dim
light.

But there was something more in the bottle than phosphorus and oil. I
could see a tin tube, corked at each end, and the exposed parts of the
corks spreading enough to prevent the tin from striking the glass. We
all knew that this was one of those bottles containing a communication
of some sort, which are often thrown into the sea, and float about until
they are picked up. The addition of the oil and phosphorus was intended
to make it visible by night as well as by day, and this was plainly the
reason why it had been swallowed by a light-loving shark.

I poured out the oil and extracted the tube. Wiping it carefully, I drew
out the corks, and then, from the little tin cylinder, I pulled a half
sheet of note paper, rolled up tightly. I unrolled it, and read these
words:

     Before I jump overboard, I want to let people know that I killed
     John Polhemus. So I have fixed up this bottle. I hope it may be
     picked up in time to keep Jim Barker from being hung. I did think
     of leaving it on the steamer, but I might change my mind about
     jumping overboard, and I guess this is the best way. The clothes I
     wore and the hatchet I did it with are under the woodshed, back of
     Polhemus's house.

     HENRY RAMSEY.

I sprang to my feet with a yell. Jim Barker was my brother, now lying in
prison under sentence of death for the murder of Polhemus; all the
circumstantial evidence, and there was no other, had been against him.
The note was dated eight months back. Oh! cruel fool of a murderer.

The shark was thrown overboard, and we made best speed to port, and
before the end of the afternoon I had put Ramsey's note into the hands
of the lawyer who had charge of my brother's case.

Fortunately he was able to identify the handwriting and signature of
Ramsey, a man who had been suspected of the crime, but against whom no
evidence could be found. The lawyer was almost as excited as I was by
the contents of this note, and early the next morning we started
together for the house of the Polhemus family. There, under the
woodshed, we found carefully buried a bloodstained shirt and vest, and
the hatchet.

My impulse was to fly to my brother, but this my lawyer forbade. He
would take charge of the affair, and no false hopes must be excited, but
he confidently assured me that my brother was as good as free.

Returning to the city, I thought I might as well make my report to
Signora Rochita. The lady was at home and saw me. She showed the most
intense interest in what I told her, and insisted upon every detail of
my experiences. As I spoke of the shark, and the subterranean cave, she
nearly fainted from excitement, and her maid had to bring her smelling
salts. When I had finished, she looked at me steadily for a moment, and
then said:

"I have something to tell you, but I hardly know how to say it. I never
lost my bracelet. I intended to wear it at the captain's dinner, but
when I went to put it on I found the clasp was broken, and, as I was
late, I hurried to the table without the bracelet, and thought of it no
more until, when we were all waving and cheering, I glanced at my wrist
and found it was not there. Then, utterly forgetting that I had not put
it on, I thought it had gone into the sea. It was only this morning
that, opening what I supposed was the empty box, I saw it. Here it is."

I never saw such gorgeous jewels.

"Madame," said I, "I am glad you thought you lost it, for I have gained
something better than all these."

"You are a good man," said she, and then she paid me liberally for my
services. When this business had been finished, she asked:

"Are you married?" I answered that I was not.

"Is there any one you intend to marry?"

"Yes," said I.

"What is her name?" she asked.

"Sarah Jane McElroy."

"Wait a minute," said she, and she retired into another room. Presently
she returned and handed me a little box.

"Give this to your ladylove," said she; "when she looks at it, she will
never forget that you are a brave man."

When Sarah Jane opened the box, there was a little pin with a diamond
head, and she gave a scream of delight. But I saw no reason for jumping
or crying out, for after having seen the Signora's bracelet, this stone
seemed like a pea in a bushel of potatoes.

"I don't need anything," she said, "to remind me that you are a brave
man. I am going to buy furniture with it."

I laughed, and remarked that "every little helps."

When I sit, with my wife by my side, before the fire in our comfortable
home, and consider that the parlor carpet, and the furniture and the
pictures, and the hall and stair carpet, and all the dining-room
furniture, with the china and the glass and the linen, and all the
kitchen utensils, and two bedroom suits on the second story, both
hardwood, and all the furniture and fittings of a very pleasant room for
a single man, the third story front, were bought with the pin that the
signora gave to Sarah Jane, I am filled with profound respect for things
that glitter. And when I look on the other side of the fire and see Jim
smoking his pipe just as happy as anybody, then I say to myself that, if
there are people who think that this story is too much out of the
common, I wish they would step in here and talk to Jim about it. There
is a fire in his eyes when he tells you how glad he is that it was the
shark instead of him, that is very convincing.




A LION AND A LIONESS

BY JOAQUIN MILLER.




CHAPTER I.


I doubt if you will find either profit or pleasure in reading this
incident of my third voyage up the Nile. It is really not worth reading.
I have written it down merely for a few friends who know something of
the facts; and also to escape the annoyance of having to tell it over as
one of the features of my four years' travel in the Orient. But to
begin. Wearying of the Levant, I was resting a time in Rome, when I was
formally invited, as well as specially urged, to witness the marriage
ceremony between the Grand Duchess Alexandria and the Duke of Edinburgh.
Let us pass over these wasteful follies, the waste of time, the waste of
sense, of soul! I have only mentioned the reason for my presence in St.
Petersburg; have only mentioned the fact of my being there, because I
saw a face in that gathering of people that could not be forgotten. It
was the face of a tall, dark, and serenely silent Dolores; a young woman
who had surely met and made the acquaintance of sorrow early in the
morning of life. I sometimes wonder if I could ever have known or cared
to know any one who had not sorrowed deeply. And yet I now know very
well that, in whatever guise that woman could have come, there could
have been no two roads for us from the day of her coming to the day of
her going.

Let me be a little confidential right here. I knew, I had always known,
I should meet this woman. I had waited for her; worked hard, built up
the battlements and the fortress of my soul so that I might receive her
into it; and defend her well against my baser self when she should come.
And now tell me--have you never had a thought, a conviction like this? A
certainty in your own heart that your other and better self would come
to you complete and entire some day, soon or late, so soon as you might
have the fortress ready? The doctors said she was dying. She had been
trying to stand between the Czar and the Jews. She may not have been of
that "peculiar people," but I think she had the money of Rothschilds and
Sir Moses Montefiore behind her.

There had been attempts at assassination, followed by executions. Some
of the condemned were women. It was as if this woman herself had been
condemned to death. I think she suffered more than all the others put
together; she was so very, very sensitive to the pain and sorrow of
others.

There are souls like that. But there is a good God. The soul that
suffers keenly can and shall enjoy keenly. You can, if you care to
persist in it, make yourself, as the centuries wheel past, more than an
entire nation in this.

We had common ground to work on in the cause of the condemned people. It
was on this ground that we first met; as two swift streams that flow in
the same direction and so finally unite forever. All that could be done
was done speedily; for "the law's delay," whatever else must be laid to
the door of Russia, is not one of her sins.

As summer took flight we went south with the birds. For she surely felt
that she was dying. Besides, she had been impressed with the idea of
restoring Jerusalem and having this homeless race re-established in the
holy city. Her religion? I think it was all religions. I saw her kneel
in the Kremlin at Moscow, cross herself in St. Peter's at Rome, and bend
low at prayer in the Synagogue at Alexandria. I think she would have
done the same in a mosque. As stated before, I had, previous to meeting
her, been all over Syria. And so, whenever she referred to her cherished
idea, as she so often did, of forming Jewish settlements in and about
Jerusalem and restoring Israel, I took occasion to explain how
impossible and impractical it all was.

I remember telling her how that in a whole day's ride from Babylon
toward Jerusalem I had seen no living thing save a single grasshopper! I
explained to her that the path of civilization had been in the track of
the setting sun ever since the dawn of history, and that it was not in
the power of man to reverse this course. I attempted to show that the
tide of population would pour upon the salubrious and fertile shores of
the farthest west till the heart of civilization would beat right there.
I explained to her that wherever the great strong heart of commerce beat
strongest, there would be found the strongest and best of these people
whom she hoped to help; while the weak and helpless of that race would
remain stranded by the waters of the Levant, as in Russia now.

"Why not, then, let us anticipate this and build the city of refuge by
your great sea in the path of this civilization which you say will so
surely come?"

Like the golden doors of dawn was the great earnest idea to me as she
spoke. But of course I know, as I said before, that the "peculiar
people" could not be induced to brave the desert. They do not seek rest,
but action--employment in the marts. They would rest but a single night
even by the sweet waters of Jacob's well.




CHAPTER II.


As winter came on and Egypt began to be oppressively full of tourists,
it was decided that we should make our escape up the Nile and haunt the
ruin of Kamak and other places until the outgoing tide set in. Once
fairly on our way, it did not take long to persuade me that she was not
only gaining strength each day in body but in soul. We had been more
than a month on the Nile; a tattered palm tree here tossing in the wind
and sand; a gaunt, clay-colored camel yonder, all legs and hair;
beggars, disease, despair all around us; a land to fly from, fit place
for tombs, jackals, and famishing lions!

But she was stronger, there were roses in her face. Her glorious black
hair had not the dampness of death in it now, but was luxuriously
sensate with renewed life and health and possible happiness.

One warm sunset, as the boat lay with its prow in the yellow sand that
seemed to stretch away into infinity, she proposed that she and I should
ascend to the top of the tall ruins on a hill a little distance back
from the river, and there wait and watch and listen for the coming day.

It was a dreadful place. I had already walked a little way out, but on
seeing a shriveled black hand stretching up from the sand, I had turned
back; only to stumble over the head of a mummy which I had afterward
seen one of our servants gather up and take to his Arab camp for
firewood. Still, we had been pent up in the boat much; and then would
not she be with me?

Two Arabs were taken with us to carry a bottle of water and the rugs and
robes. The hill was steeper than it at first seemed; and the ascent
through the sand heavy. I was having an opportunity to test her strength
and endurance. I might also have an occasion to test her courage before
the break of morning, for as we entered between two towering columns of
red granite, one of the Arabs dropped on a knee and spread his hand as
wide as he could in the sand. But wide as he spread it, he could not
more than half cover the fresh foot-print of a huge lion.

The clamber to the top was steep and hard. Yet it was not nearly so
steep and hard as I could have wished it, when I reflected that very
likely before midnight a lion might pass that way.

We found that these wonderful columns of granite were coped with great
slabs of granite. These granite slabs were of astonishing breadth and
thickness. This temple, as it is called, had probably been a tomb. I
took good care to see that there was no other means of ascent to the
place where we had chosen to spend the night than the one by which we
had ascended. And I remember how eagerly I wished for a crowbar in order
that I might break down a little of the _débris_, so that the ascent
might be less easy for prowling beasts.

But as there was nothing of the sort at hand, I dismissed the two Arabs
and resolved to be as brave, if possible, as the singularly brave and
beautiful woman who had come here to hear the voices of desolation.

The sky was rimmed with yellow; yellow to the east, yellow to the west;
a world of soft and restful yellow that melted away by gradations as the
eye ascended from the desert. It was like melody in its serene harmonies
and awful glory.

And she at my side partook of it all; she breathed it, absorbed it,
literally became a part of it. I saw her grow and glow. Soul and body I
saw her dilate and expand till she was in absolute harmony with the awe
and splendor that encompassed us. I felt that she had been in the midst
of, even a part of, this tawny desolation ages and ages before. Perhaps
her soul had been born here, born before the pyramids.




CHAPTER III.


With my own hands I spread her couch of skins and rugs in the remotest
corner of a great stone slab that still lifted its unbroken front, in
defiance of time, high above the tawny sands of the desert. The night
was very sultry, even here on this high and roomy summit. The broad,
deep slab of granite was still warm with sunshine gone away, and gave
out heat like a dying furnace. The steep and arduous ascent had taxed
her strength, and unloosing her robe as I turned to examine more
minutely our strange quarters on the top of this lofty tomb, or temple,
she sank to rest, half reclining on her arm, her chin in her upturned
palm, her face lifted away toward the rising moon.

Half a dozen paces to the right I saw two tall and ponderous columns of
granite standing in line with those that supported the great slab on
which she rested. Evidently these grand and solitary columns had also
once been topped by granite slabs. But these had fallen to the ground
under the leveling feet of many centuries, and now lay almost swallowed
up in the sea of yellow sands below. I put out my foot carefully, trying
to reach the broad top of the nearest column of granite, but it was
beyond me. Stepping back a couple of paces and quietly removing my
boots, I gathered up my strength and made a leap, landing almost in the
center of the column's top. A half step backward, another leap--who
could resist the challenge of that lone and kingly column that remained?
I landed securely as before, then turned about. Her face had not lifted
an instant from the awful majesty of the Orient.

Slowly, wearily, the immense moon came shouldering up through the seas
of yellow sand. These billows of sand seemed to breathe and move. The
expiring heat of the departed sun made them scintillate and shimmer in a
soft and undulating light. And yet it was not light; only the lone and
solemn ghost of a departed day. Yellow and huge and startling stood the
moon at last, full grown and fearful in its nearness and immensity on
the topmost lift of yellow sands in the yellow seas before us. Distance
seemed to be annihilated. The moon seemed to have forgotten her place
and all proportion. Looking down into the sullen Nile, it seemed a black
and bottomless chasm. And it seemed so far away! And the moon so very
near.

Black as blackest Egypt rolled the somber Nile down and on and on
through this world of yellow light; this light that was not light.
Silence, desolation, death lay on all things below, about, above. The
west was molten yellow gold, faint and fading, it is true: but where the
yellow sands left off and the yellow skies began no man could say or
guess, save by the yellow stars that studded the west with an intense
yellow.

Yellow to the right and yellow to the left, yellow overhead and yellow
underfoot; with only this endless chasm of Erebus cleaving the yellow
earth in halves with its bottomless pit of endless and indissoluble
blackness.

After a time--and all the world still one sea of softened yellow, torn
in two by Charon's chasm of black waters--I silently leaped back,
replaced my boots on my feet and then held my breath. For I had seen, or
perhaps felt, an object move on the lifted levels of sand between us and
the moon.

Cautiously I sank down on my breast and peered low and long up the
horizon. I saw, heard nothing. Glancing around to where my companion
lay, I saw that she still had not stirred from the half reclining
position she had first taken, with half lifted face in her upturned
palm.

Then she had seen nothing, heard nothing. This, however, did not argue
much. Her life had not been of the desert. She had spent her years in
the study of men and women. I had spent mine with wild beasts. I could
trust her to detect motives in men, give the warning note of danger from
dangerous men; but the wild beasts and wilder men of the border were
mine to watch and battle with, not hers.

She had seen nothing; evidently she feared nothing, and so was resting,
resting in mind as in body. And as I glanced again over my shoulder and
saw how entirely content she seemed, I was glad. Surely she depended
entirely on me; on my watchfulness and my courage. And this made me more
watchful and more resolute and stout of heart. A man likes to be
trusted. A true man likes a true woman's trust, much indeed. A strong
man likes to be leaned upon. It makes him stronger, braver, better. Let
women never forget this. Admit that she, too, has her days of strength
and endurance; and admit that she, too, has her peculiar fortress of
strength and courage, and these also man respects and regards with
piteous tenderness. But man, incapable of her finer and loftier courage
and endurance, resents her invasion of his prerogative.

It is only a womanly man who can really love a manly woman. But to
continue: Looking up a third time to this woman at my side, I saw that
she had let her head sink low on her leaning arm. She was surely
sleeping. How I liked her trust and her faith in me? And how I liked her
courage, too, and her high quality of endurance. It was her courage that
had brought me up here this night to the contemplation of awful and
all-glorious Africa. Silently and without lifting a finger, she had
shown me a world of burnished gold. I had surely seen God through her.
We stood nearer together now than ever before. This single hour of
indescribable glory should forever stand as an altar in the desert. Our
souls had melted and flown and tided on, intermingled like molten gold
in the golden atmosphere and the yellow scene that wrapped us round
about, and no word had been said. When God speaks so audibly let man be
silent.

I must have looked longer on the sleeping and trustful woman at my side
than I ought to have looked, for on turning my eyes again to the
horizon, there distinctly on the yellow sand and under the yellow moon
moved, stealthily as a cat, yet graceful and grand, the most kingly
beast I ever beheld. He did not look right nor left, but moved along
with huge head in the air, slow and stately, and triumphant in his
fearful symmetry and strength.




CHAPTER IV.


I half arose and felt for a trusty six-shooter. This pistol was not one
that had been purchased for this or any other occasion, as the worthless
pistols of the time are usually purchased, but it had been my companion
from boyhood.

As I half arose the lion suddenly halted. He lifted his proud head
higher still in the air, and to my consternation half turned about and
looked straight in my direction. Then a sidewise and circuitous step or
two with his long reach of hinder leg, his wide and deep and flexible
flank; slow and kingly; splendid to see!

I sank down again, quite willing to let him interview the land of Arabs
in the black chasm below. They had spears and guns and everything down
there, everything but courage to face a lion with; and I was not going
to interfere with a fight which at the first had promised to be entirely
their own.

But this new movement of mine only accentuated his graceful motion. The
head now turned in the air, like the head of a man. I had time to note,
and I record it with certainty, that the massive head and the tumbled
mane towered straight above the shoulder. In fact, the lower parts of
the long mane looked most like the long shaggy beard of a man falling
down upon his broad breast. This I noted as he still kept on in his
sidewise circuit above us and around us on the yellow sand and under the
yellow moon. At times he was almost indistinct. But the carriage of that
head! There was a fine fascination in the lift and the movement and the
turn of that stately head that must ever be remembered, but can never be
described.

As he came nearer--for his sidewise walk was mainly in our direction--I
saw that he, too, was yellow, as if born of this yellow world in this
yellow night; but his was a more ponderous yellow; the yellow of red and
rusty old gold. At times he seemed almost black; and all the time
terrible.

In half a minute more he would be too close for comfort, and I decided
to arouse my companion. She wakened fully awake, if I may be allowed to
express a fact so awkwardly. You may know that there are people like
that.

"What is it?"

"A lion."

"Are you sure?"

"Certain."

"Where?"

"Right before your eyes."

"Why, I see nothing."

She had looked and was still looking far out against the yellow horizon
where her eyes had rested when she fell asleep. And as she looked, or
rather before I ventured to point her to the spot almost under the tomb
where the lion strode, he passed on and was by this time perhaps almost
quite under the great slab of granite where we rested.

I was about to whisper the fact in her ear when I fancied I felt the
whole tomb tremble! Then it seemed to shake, or rather rumble again.
Then again it rumbled. Then again! Then there was a roar that literally
shook the sand. I heard the sand sift and rattle down like drops of rain
from where it lay in the crevices as I listened to find whether or not
he was moving forward toward the place by which we had ascended. He was
surely moving forward. I felt rather than heard him move. I assert--and
I must content myself for the present with merely asserting--that you
can _feel_ the movements of an animal under such circumstances. And I
assert further that an animal, especially a wild beast, can _feel_ your
movements under almost any circumstances. The undeveloped senses deserve
a book by themselves. But just now, with the largest lion I ever saw
coming straight upon me, is hardly the time or place to write such a
treatise.

Pistol in hand I sprang to the steep and rugged passage. And not a
second too soon. His mighty head was almost on a level with the granite
slab. And he was half crouching for a bound and a spring upward, which
would perhaps land him in our faces. I could see--or did I feel--that
his huge hinder feet were spread wide out and sunken in the sand with
preparation to bend all their force toward bearing him upward in one
mighty bound.

I fired! fired right into his big red mouth, between two hideous pickets
of ugly yellow teeth. He fell back, and then, gathering his ferocious
strength, he bounded up and forward again; this time striking his left
shoulder heavily against a projecting corner of the granite slab.
Fortunately the ascent was slightly curving, so that the distance could
not be made at a single bound without collision, else had we both surely
been destroyed.

Again the supple and comely beast, disdaining to creep or crawl, made a
mighty leap upward. But only to strike the rounding corner of the great
granite slab and fall back as before.

But I knew he would reach us in time! And if ever man did wish for
fitting arms to fight with and defend woman it was I at that time. True,
I had five shots left; but what were they in the face of this furious
king of beasts? I began to fear that they would only serve to enrage
him.

Still, he should have all I had to give. Death is, has been, and will
be. The best we can make of it all is to try and see that we shall not
die ingloriously.

The woman had been by my side all this time. And now, as the lion paused
as if to gather up the broken thunderbolts of his strength, she laid a
hand on my arm, never so gently, and said: "Let me go down and meet him
face to face. I think he will not harm me."

"Madam," I exclaimed impetuously, "you will meet him up here, and face
to face, soon enough, I think."

"No, that will not do. You must trust the lion; as Daniel did."

I pushed her back, as she tried to pass down, almost violently.

"There!" I cried as I wheeled about and forced her before me for an
instant, "if you have real courage leap to the head of yonder column,
then on to the next! Quick! be brave enough to save yourself and----"

"No! I will not run away and leave you to die."

"For God's sake you will run away and save me."

"Why? How?"

"I will join you there, go! Quick, or it will be too late!"

Another leap of the lion! Bang! Bang!

This time he did not fall back, but held on by sheer force of his
powerful arms; his terrible claws tearing at the granite slab as they
hung and hooked over its outer edge.

Bang! Bang! Bang! The last shot. I hurled my revolver in his face, for
he had not flinched or given back a single grain. His breath and my
breath were mingled there in the smoke of my pistol. I heard--or did I
feel--his great hinder feet fastening in the steep earth under him for
his final struggle to the top?

I turned, saw that she had reached the farther column; and with three
leaps and a bound I had crossed the granite slabs and stood erect on the
nearer one! Not a moment had I left. The lion, with great noise of claws
on the granite, came tearing to the surface. I crouched down out of
breath on the outer edge of my column, so as to be surely out of reach
of his ponderous paws. I expected him to decide the matter at once, to
reach us or give it up instantly. But he seemed in no haste now. He
scarcely advanced at all, for what seemed to me to be a long time.
Finally, jerking his tail like the swift movement of a serpent, he
strode along the farthest edge of the granite slab and seemed to take no
notice of us whatever. Blood was dripping from his mouth, but he did not
seem to heed it.

Once more he strode with his old majesty, and seemed ashamed that he
should have descended to the indignity of a struggle to gain the place
where he now stood sullen and triumphant. Enraged? He was choking, dying
with rage; and yet this kingly creature would not even condescend to
look in our direction.

Why, I could feel his fearful rage as he now walked on and around the
edge of that granite slab. At length he came opposite to where I lay
crouching on the farther edge of my column. He passed on without so much
as turning his eyes in my direction. And yet I felt, I felt and knew, as
distinctly as if he could have talked and told me, that he was carefully
measuring the distance.

When the lion, in his stately round, came to the narrow pass by which he
had ascended he paused an instant, and half lowered his head.

Ah, how devoutly I did pray that he would be generous enough to descend
to the sands and gracefully present us with his absence.

But no! Lifting his huge head even higher in the air than before, he now
passed on hurriedly, came on around to where in his stately majesty he
stood with quivering flank and flashing eye almost within reach of me.
Yet he still disdained to even so much as look at me. His head was far
above me as I crouched there on the farther edge of my column; his
flashing eyes were lifted and looking far above me and beyond me. Maybe
he was on the lookout over the desert for the coming of his companion.

Soon, however, he set his huge paws on the very edge of the great slab
on which he stood, and then suddenly threw his right paw out toward me
and against the edge of my column with the force and velocity of a
catapult!

I heard the sharp, keen claws strike and scrape on the granite as if
they had been hooks of steel.

Then he threw himself on his breast, and hitching himself a little to
one side, he threw his right paw so far that it landed full in the
center of my column's top and tore a bit of my coat sleeve. Then he
hitched his huge body a little farther on over the edge and again threw
his huge paw right at my face. It fell short of its mark only a few
inches, as it seemed to me. But, having hastily gathered in my garments,
his claws did not find anything to fasten on and they drew back empty.

At this point three dusky etchings stood out against the golden east on
the yellow sands, and looked intently at us with their enormous heads
high in the air. And now the beast slowly arose and moved on. A lion's
head seems always disproportionately large, but when he is exercising
for an appetite to eat you it looks large indeed.

The monster who was occupying the platform with us surely saw his
followers; indeed, he must have seen them long before; but his unbending
dignity seemed to forbid that he should take any heed of them.

The new-born hope that he would descend and join his followers died as
he came on around.

And now something strange and notable transpired. This one incident is
my excuse for thus elaborating this otherwise passive and tediously dull
sketch of this night. I had risen to my feet, and as the lion came on
around, this woman, with a force that was irresistible, sprang to my
side, thrust me behind her, and stepping forward with a single spring,
she stood on the edge of the column nearest to the lion.

I would have followed, but that same force, which I can now understand
was a mental force and not at all a physical force, held me hard and
fast to where I stood.

She had let her robe fall as she sprang forward and now stood only as
the hand of God had fashioned her; a snow-white silhouette of perfect
comeliness against the terrible and bloody mouth and tossing mane of the
lion. She leaned forward as he came on around and close to the edge of
his slab. She looked him firmly and steadily in the face, her wondrous
eyes, her midnight eyes of all Israel, the child of the wilderness, had
once more met the lion of the desert as of old.

Who was this woman here who stepped between death and me and stood
looking a wounded lion in the face? Was this Judith again incarnate? Or
was this something more than Judith? Was it the Priestess and the
Prophetess Miriam, back once more to the banks of the Nile? Was it the
old and forgotten mastery of all things animate which Moses and his
sister knew that gave her dominion over the king of the desert? Or was
her name Mary? "That other Mary," if you will, who won all things to her
side, God in heaven, God upon earth, by the sad, sweet pity of her face,
and the story of holy love that was written there? The lion's head for a
moment forgot its lofty defiance as she leaned a little forward. Then
the tossed and troubled mane rose up and rolled forward like an
inflowing sea. It never seemed so terrible. He was surely about to
spring! And she, too! Her right foot settled solidly back, her left knee
bent like a bow, her shapely and snowy shoulders, under their glory of
black hair, bowed low. Her dauntless and defiant spirit had already
precipitated itself forward and was smiting the imperious beast full in
his blazing eyes. I knew that her body would follow her spirit in an
instant more.

Face to face! Spirit to spirit! Soul to soul! A second only the combat
lasted. The awful ferocity and force of the brute was beaten down,
melted like lofty battlements of snow before the burning arrows of the
sun, and he slowly, surlily, shrank in size, in spirit, in space. A paw
drew back from the edge of the block, the eyes drooped, the head dropped
a little, and the terrible mane seemed terrible no more, as slowly,
doggedly, mightily, aye doggedly and majestically, too, at the same
time, this noble creature forced himself sidewise and back a little.

Then he hesitated. Rebellion was in his mighty heart. He turned suddenly
and looked her full in the face once more. All the beast that was in him
rose up. The terrible mane now seemed more terrible than before. With
great head tossed, tail whipped back, and teeth in the air, talons
unsheathed and legs gathered under him, he was about to bound forward.

But the woman was before him! With eyes still fastened on his face, she
with one long leap forward drove not only her shining soul but her snowy
body right against his teeth. Or rather, she had surely done so had not
the lion, half turned about, shrank back as she leaped forward. Then
slowly, looking back with his blazing but cowering eyes, feeling back
with his spirit still defiant, if but to see whether her courage failed
her in the least or her mighty spirit was still in battle armor; and
then he passed. His companions had drawn back and into a depression in
the desert where he slowly and sullenly joined them.

One, two, three, four dim yet distinct black silhouettes against the
yellow east; then but a single confused black etching; away, away,
smaller and smaller, gone!

I gathered up her robe, crossed over, and letting it fall on her
shoulders where she still stood, looking down and after the beast. I
picked up my pistol from where it had fallen, a few feet below, and as
she turned about, carefully reloaded it from cartridges by chance in my
vest pocket.

Returning to the summit, I found her again resting on her couch at the
corner of the huge slab, tranquilly as if we had not been disturbed. I
did not speak. Not a single word had been uttered all this time.

I sat down at the feet of this woman--not at her side, as before--and
let my own feet dangle down over the edge on the side farthest away from
the isolated columns. Neither of us spoke; nor did she move hand or foot
till morning.




THE CHEATED JULIET.

BY Q.

_Extracted from the Memoirs of a Retired Burglar._


The house in question was what Peter the Scholar (who corrects my
proof-sheets) calls one of the rusinurby sort--the front facing a street
and the back looking over a turfed garden with a lime tree or two, a
laburnum, and a lawn-tennis court marked out, its white lines plain to
see in the starlight. At the end of the garden a door, painted dark
green, led into a narrow lane between high walls, where, if two persons
met, one had to turn sideways to let the other pass. The entrance to
this lane was cut in two by a wooden post about the height of your hip,
and just beyond this, in the high road, George was waiting for us with
the dog-cart.

We had picked the usual time--the dinner-hour. It had just turned dark,
and the church-clock, two streets away, was chiming the quarter after
eight, when Peter and I let ourselves in by the green door I spoke of
and felt along the wall for the gardener's ladder that we knew was
hanging there. A simpler job there never was. The bedroom window we had
marked on the first-floor stood right open to the night air; and inside
there was the light of a candle or two flickering, just as a careless
maid will leave them after her mistress has gone down to dinner. To be
sure there was a chance of her coming back to put them out; but we could
hear her voice going in the servants' hall as we lifted the ladder and
rested it against the sill.

"She's good for half a hour yet," Peter whispered, holding the ladder
while I began to climb; "but if I hear her voice stop, I'll give the
signal to be cautious."

I went up softly, pushed my head gently above the level of the sill, and
looked in.

It was a roomy place with a great half-tester bed, hung with curtains,
standing out from the wall on my right. The curtains were of chintz, a
dark background with flaming red poppies sprawling over it; and the
further curtain hid the dressing-table, and the candles upon it and the
jewel-case that I confidently hoped to stand upon it also. A bright
Brussels carpet covered the floor, and the wall-paper, I
remember--though for the life of me I can't tell why--was a pale grey
ground, worked up to imitate watered silk, with sprigs of gilt
honeysuckle upon it.

I looked round and listened for half a minute. The house was still as
death up here--not a sound in the room or in the passages beyond. With a
nod to Peter to hold the ladder firm I lifted one leg over the sill,
then the other, dropped my feet carefully upon the thick carpet and went
quickly round the bed to the dressing-table.

But at the corner, and as soon as ever I saw round the chintz curtain,
my knees gave way, and I put out a hand towards the bed-post.

Before the dressing-table, and in front of the big glass, in which she
could see my white face, was an old lady seated.

She wore a blaze of jewels and a low gown out of which rose the
scraggiest neck and shoulders I have ever looked on. Her hair was thick
with black dye and fastened with a diamond star. The powder between the
two candles showed on her cheek-bones like flour on a miller's coat.
Chin on hand, she was gazing steadily into the mirror before her, and
even in my fright I had time to note that a glass of sherry and a plate
of rice and curry stood at her elbow, among the rouge-pots and
powder-puffs.

While I stood stock still and pretty well scared out of my wits, she
rose, still staring at my image in the glass, folded her hands modestly
over her bosom, and spoke in a deep tragical voice--

"The Prince!"

Then, facing sharply round, she held out her thin arms.

"You have come--at last?"

There wasn't much to say to this except that I had. So I confessed it.
Even with the candles behind her I could see her eyes glowing like a
dog's, and an uglier poor creature this world could scarcely show.

"Is the ladder set against the window?"

"Since you seem to know, ma'am," said I, "it is."

"Ah, Romeo! Your cheeks are ruddy--your poppies are too red."

"Then I'm glad my colour's come back; for, to tell the truth, you did
give me a turn, just at first. You were looking out for me, no
doubt----"

"My Prince!"--She stretched out her arms again, and being pretty well at
my wits' end I let her embrace me. "It has been so long," she said. "Oh,
the weary while! And they ill-treat me here. Where have you been, all
this tedious time?"

I wasn't going to answer _that_, you may be sure. It appeared to me that
'twas my right to ask questions rather than stand there answering them.

"If they've been ill-treating you, ma'am," said I, "they shall answer
for it."

"My love!"

"Yes, ma'am. Would it be taking a liberty if I asked their names?"

"There is Gertrude--"

"Gertrude's hash is as good as settled, ma'am."

I checked Gertrude off on my thumb.

"--that's my niece."

For a moment I feared I'd been a little too prompt. But she went on----

"And next there's Henry; and the children--who have more than once made
faces at me; and Phipson."

"Phipson's in it too?"

"You know her?"

"Don't I?" It surprised me a trifle to find that Phipson was a female.

"Three times to-night she pulled my hair, and the rice she brought
me--look at it! all stuck together and sodden."

"Phipson shall pay for it with her blood."

"My hero--my darling! Don't spare Phipson. She screams bitterly if a pin
is stuck into her. I did it once. Stick her all over with pins."

By this I'd begun to guess what was pretty near the truth--that I was
talking with a mad aunt of the family below, and that the game was in my
hands if I played it with decent care. So I brought her to face the
important question.

"Look here," I said, "all this shall be done when you are out of their
hands. At present I'm running a considerable risk in braving these
persecutors of yourn. Dearest madam, the ladder's outside and the
carriage waiting. Hadn't we better elope at once?"

She gave a sob, and fell on my shoulders.

"Oh, is it true--is it true? Pinch me, that I may awake if this is but a
happy dream!"

"You are ready?"

"This moment."

"There's just one other little matter, ma'am--your jewels. You won't
leave them to your enemies, I suppose?"

This was the dangerous moment, and I felt a twitch of the nerves as I
watched her face to see how she would take the suggestion. But the poor
silly soul turned up her eyes to mine, all full of tears and confidence.

"Dearest, I am old, old. Had you come earlier, my beauty had not wanted
jewels to set it off. But now I must wear them to look my best--as your
bride."

She hid her face in her hands for a second, then turned to the
dressing-table, lifted her jewel-case and put it into my hands.

"I am ready," she repeated: "let us be quick and stealthy as death."

She followed me to the window and looking out, drew back.

"What horrible, black depths!"

"It's as easy," said I, "as pie. You could do it on your head; look
here----," I climbed out first and helped her, setting her feet on the
rungs.

We went down in silence, I choking with laughter all the way at the
sight of Peter below, who was looking with his mouth open and his lips
too weak to meet on the curses and wonderment that rose up from the
depths of him. When I touched turf and handed him the jewel-case, he
took it like a man in a trance.

We put the ladder back into its place and stole over the turf together.
But outside the garden-door Peter could stand no more of it--

"I've a fire-arm in my pocket," whispered he, pulling up, "and I'm going
to fire it off to relieve my feelings if you don't explain here and now.
Who, in pity's name, is _she_?"

"You mug--she's the Original Sleeping Beauty. I'm eloping with her, and
you've got her jewels."

"Pardon me, Jem," he says in his gentlemanly way, "if I don't quite see.
Are you taking her off to melt her or marry her? For how to get rid of
her else----"

The poor old creature had halted, too, three paces ahead of us, and
waited while we whispered, with the moonlight, that slanted down into
the lane, whitening her bare neck and flashing in her jewels.

"One moment," I said, and stepped forward to her. "You had better take
off those ornaments here, my dear, and give them to my servant to take
care of. There's a carriage waiting for us at the end of the lane, and
when he has stowed them under the seat we can climb in and drive
off----"

"To the end of the world--to the very rim of it, my hero."

She pulled the gems from her ears, hair, and bosom, and handed them to
Peter, who received them with a bow. Next she searched in her pocket and
drew out a tiny key. Peter unlocked the case, and having carefully
stowed the diamonds inside, locked it again, handed back the key,
touched his hat, and walked off towards the dog-cart.

"My dearest lady," I began, as soon as we were alone between the high
walls, "if the devotion of a life----"

Her bare arm crept into mine. "There is but a little time left for us in
which to be happy. Year after year I have marked off the almanack: day
by day I have watched the dial. I saw my sisters married, and my
sisters' daughters; and still I waited. Each had a man to love her and
tend her, but none had such a man as I would have chosen. There were
none like you, my Prince."

"No, I daresay not."

"Oh, but my heart is not so old! Take my hand--it is firm and strong;
touch my lips--they are burning----"

A low whistle sounded at the top of the lane. As I took her hands I
pushed her back, and turning, ran for my life. I suppose that, as I ran,
I counted forty before her scream came, and then the sound of her feet
pattering after me.

       *       *       *       *       *

She must have run like a demon; for I was less than ten yards ahead when
Peter caught my wrist and pulled me up on to the back-seat of the
dog-cart. And before George could set the horse going her hand clutched
at the flap on which my feet rested. It missed its grasp, and she never
got near enough again. But for half a minute I looked into that horrible
face following us and working with silent rage; and for half a mile at
least I heard the patter of her feet in the darkness behind. Indeed, I
can hear it now.




THE MYSTIC KREWE.

BY MAURICE THOMPSON.




CHAPTER I.


About seventy years ago a young man of strong physique and prepossessing
appearance arrived at New Orleans. He had come from New York, of which
city he was a native, and had brought with him a considerable sum of
money, supplemented by a letter of introduction to Judge Favart de
Caumartin, who was then at the flood tide of his fame.

It would not be fair to call our young man ("our hero" would be the good
old phrase) an adventurer, without taking pains to qualify the
impression that might be produced. Hepworth Coleman had his own way of
looking at life. Fifty years later he would have been a
tragedian--probably a famous one, but the conditions were not favorable
to awakening histrionic ambition at the time when his character, his
tastes, his ambition should have been forming. What he saw that was most
fascinating to him had no distinct form; it lay along the south-western
horizon, a dreamy, mist-covered something not unlike the confines of
romance.

Hepworth Coleman was rich, and what was, perhaps, a greater misfortune,
he had no living kinsfolk for whom he cared or who cared for him.
Practically speaking, he was alone in the world: moreover, he had an
imagination. Scott's novels, Byron's poetry, the French romances, and I
know not what else of the sort, had been his chief reading. For physical
recreation he had turned to fencing and pistol practice. When I add that
he was but twenty-two and unmarried, the rest might be guessed, but
Coleman was not a young man of the world in the worst sense--he had not
turned to evil sources of dissipation. Healthy, vigorous, full of
spirit, he nevertheless had sentimental longings as indefinite as they
were persistent.

Youth is the spring time when "Longen folk to gon on pilgrimages," as
old Chaucer words it, and it would be hard to find the young man who has
not felt the vaguely outlined yet irresistible desire to wander, to go
over the horizon into a strange, new world. Hepworth Coleman, when he
was taken with this longing, felt no restraint cast around him. He was
absolutely free, had all the means necessary--why should he not go where
he pleased? If it seems strange that he should have been attracted to
New Orleans rather than to the Old World, we must remember what New
Orleans was in 1820. No other city, not even Paris, could at that time
compare with it as a center of genuine romance, nor was this romance
unmixed with lawlessness of the most picturesque kind. Money poured into
it from a hundred sources more or less illegitimate, besides the streams
of wealth produced by cotton, sugar, and rice industries. Gambling was
indeed a fine art, duelling appeared more a pastime than anything else,
and what went on in the gilded halls and melody-filled salles may be
imagined, I suppose, though, I do not care to cast a glance that way.

Hepworth Coleman had heard much of the gay city, of its warm, odorous
atmosphere, its hospitality, its social charm, the smack of reckless
romance in all its ways. Somehow the desire to go there got hold of his
imagination and he went.

The letter to Judge Favart de Caumartin was given to Coleman by his
banker, who in handing it to him said:

"I don't know the Judge personally, never saw him; but he has done a lot
of business through us. He is very rich, evidently very influential, and
certainly will be of use to you. I feel that I can take the liberty of
sending you to him, because--well, he is under many obligations to the
bank, and is likely to want many more large favors. I fancy that you'll
find him a trifle eccentric, but enthusiastically hospitable. A creole
of the creoles I judge him to be, and a representative of the nabobs."

Young Coleman considered himself lucky to carry with him a document that
would give him introduction to a person so renowned as Judge Favart de
Caumartin, of whom he had been recently reading a good deal owing to a
duel fought between the Judge and one Colonel Sam Smith, of the United
States army, in which the latter had been killed. The duel had brought
out history from which it appeared that Judge Favart de Caumartin had
fought before, not once only, but many times, and always to the death of
his antagonist. Along with these facts were disclosed numerous
picturesque details of the Judge's past life, with more than hints that
in his young days he had been a pirate or something of the sort. The
account also made the most of his wealth, his almost reckless
liberality, his eccentricity, and, most of all, the air of mystery which
still hung over his business operations.

All this was rich food for an imagination already thoroughly saturated
with the spirit of romantic adventure, and during the voyage from New
York to New Orleans Hepworth Coleman found deep satisfaction in
anticipating what he felt was in store for him. In every fiber of his
frame he felt the assurance that he was on the way to new and strange
experiences.

His banker had sent a letter to precede his arrival by a few days,
asking a friend to secure suitable apartments for Mr. Hepworth Coleman,
gentleman, the consequence being that a dark young man, small but
well-built and handsome, met him at the landing to conduct him to his
suit of elegant rooms on Royal Street.

"Is you Meestu Coleman, sah?" inquired this young stranger in a musical
and respectful tone of voice. "I look fo' zat ma' at prayson."

"Yes, sir, that is my name," said Coleman briskly, at the same time he
showed by his look that he would like to know whom he was meeting.

"Varee glad you come, Meestu Coleman; varee glad, sah, indeed. Got your
rooms all prepare fo' you, sah. Yes, sah, zey is beautifu' an' sharming
rooms."

"Thank you; I am much indebted. Are you the gentleman to whom Mr.
Cartwright, the banker, wrote in my behalf?"

"Nah, sah, not any banker write to me; I been told to meet you at zis
place at prayson. Happy to see you. Mist Coleman; varee happy."

There was an elegant carriage at hand waiting for our friend. A negro
driver in livery and a small black footman stood by.

Coleman entered the vehicle, followed closely by the young creole who
had met him on the landing. He saw his baggage hoisted into a little
wagon to come after the carriage.

For some reason not exactly explained this whole proceeding affected
Coleman peculiarly; he felt a sort of vague uneasiness, as if he were
passing into an atmosphere of mystery, if not of danger.

As he was whirled through the narrow streets he caught glimpses of queer
tile-covered houses with curious hanging galleries. High walls and
gloomy courts flanked these, and here and there a dusky palm or a bright
orange tree flung up its foliage. Blooming magnolia clumps filled the
air with a heavy, languid odor.

But what most attracted the attention of Coleman was a company of four
or five young men dressed like dandies, swaggering along on one of the
_banquettes_ (sidewalks) and singing a drinking song at the top of their
voices. One of these hilarious fellows made a lasting impression on our
young friend's imagination. He was a tall, olive-skinned, handsome man,
apparently about twenty-five, strikingly dressed in a plaid coat, a vest
of red and black velvet, gray trousers, and a profusely ruffled shirt.
Evidently he was the leading spirit of the party. At all events he was
somewhat in front, with his black cap set well back on his shapely head,
while his jet black hair fell in shining curls over his strong
shoulders. He was shouting forth the French drinking carol in a voice as
sweet as it was loud, and at the same time waving in the air a small
cane. The entire group looked the worse for wine, their faces flushed
and their eyes brilliant.

"Who is that strange-looking man in front?" inquired Coleman of his
creole companion, as they passed them by.

"Zat ge'man ees ze goozh Favart de Caumartin," was the answer that
fairly startled the interrogator.

Coleman actually grew red in the face and exclaimed:

"_That_ Judge Favart de Caumartin! Surely, sir, you are mistaken."

"Beg pahdon, sah, zat ees Monsieur le Juge Favart de Caumartin. I him
know varee well myself at prayson."

Coleman turned and stared back through the window at the strutting
youthful figure leading the noisy rout.

How could that be the celebrated duellist, the guardian pirate!

"It cannot be," he muttered aloud. "It is impossible."

"Varee well, Meestu Coleman," said the young Creole dryly; "but I mus'
inqui yo' pahdon, sah. Monsieur le Juge Favart de Caumartin ees to me
well acquainted. I wemark to you, sah, zat zare ees not any mistake."

"Oh certainly, sir; I beg a thousand pardons!" exclaimed Coleman,
pulling himself together and seeing his breach of etiquette. "Of course
you were right; but I was so surprised to see the Judge looking so
young. I had supposed he was an aged man. I am astonished."

"Oh, Monsieur le Juge ees not so young--not so varee--hees hair not much
gray." While they were still discussing this matter the carriage stopped
in front of a square, heavy-looking house, which, painted a dull red and
projecting its upper gallery over the _banquette_, flung out on either
side a heavy brick wall on whose top was a jagged dressing of broken
bottles and jags. It looked more like a convent than like an
apartment-house.

Hepworth Coleman found his suit of rooms admirable in every respect,
large, airy, luxuriously furnished. His creole conductor parted with him
at the door without giving his name or address and without any
explanation whatever of his connection with the matter of securing these
elegant apartments or with making his arrival easy and pleasant.

Some silent and obsequious negro servants were at hand to do his
bidding; but he soon dismissed them; while he flung himself upon a sofa
and lit his pipe. Altogether incomprehensible to him were the
suggestions of secrecy and mystery connected with his reception;
scarcely less so was the youthful, nay, boyish appearance of Judge
Favart de Caumartin.

As if the mysterious atmosphere meant to continue growing denser, it was
while he lay along the luxuriant scarlet sofa, smoking, resting, and
meditating, that a beautiful girl came and stood for a moment in the
doorway of his chamber. She blushed sweetly at sight of him, recoiled
violently, and then slipped swiftly away, leaving behind her a rustle of
fine stuff, a sparkle of rare jewels, and a lingering bouquet of violets
and roses.

Coleman felt the delicious shock of her magnetic beauty thrill through
him. A sort of shimmering outline of her body wavered or appeared to
waver in the door after she had gone, so dazzling had been the effect of
her fresh, pure, flower-like, yet intensely human, beauty. He heard her
feet tap swiftly and lightly along the hall. Involuntarily and with
unpardonable curiosity he sprang up and, hurrying to the door, looked
out, but she was not in sight. For the first time in his life, he felt
his heart beating unnaturally.




CHAPTER II.


Evening was drawing on, sending a soft twilight into the room, when
Coleman's dinner was brought in by a shy and silent old colored woman.
He had not ordered the meal, nor had he felt the need of it. Doubtless
the stimulus afforded by the unusual character of his surroundings held
his sense of hunger in abeyance.

The old woman retired as soon as she had arranged the repast on a round
mahogany table. Coleman found the oysters, the wine, the broiled fish,
the French bread, and the black coffee excellent to such a degree that
he ate almost everything before him; then leaning far back in his chair
he began to study the silver set from which all those good things had
been taken. The platter was in the form of a flounder, the sugar bowl
was a frog, the cream pitcher a heron, the coffee-pot a pelican. These
curious pieces were exquisitely carved, and on each was cut the name
Favart de Caumartin in plain, bold letters. Even on the five-armed
silver candle-stick in which burned fragrant myrtle wax tapers appeared
that striking inscription. He surveyed the room now with a more critical
eye, discovering at once that the pictures, the curtains, the carpets,
and indeed all the articles of furniture were costly and beautiful
beyond anything he had ever seen before. Evidently he was in Judge
Favart de Caumartin's house.

The moon was shining brilliantly when Coleman went forth for a short
walk in the street. Not many people were abroad, it being the
dinner-hour, but certain cafés were crowded with men and women who were
drinking champagne and discussing the dishes on well-spread tables.

At the door of one these gorgeous rooms Coleman met the young man whom a
few hours before he had seen leading the singers in the street. It
occurred to him that now was as good as any time to present his letter
to the Judge, so he forthwith stepped near him and said, lifting his
hat:

"I believe I have the honor of meeting Judge Favart de Caumartin?"

The gentleman stared at him a moment very deliberately, then, with just
a suspicion of a smile and with a courteous dignity wholly inimitable
and indescribable, doffed his queer little black cap as he spoke:

"And who does me the honor of addressing me?"

"I am Hepworth Coleman of New York?"

"Ah!"

"I hold a letter to you from Mr. Phineas Cartwright, of the firm of
Cartwright & Vanderveer, bankers."

"Indeed! I feel honored."

Coleman produced the letter and tendered it: but not without a vague
feeling of insecurity of some sort. He had not expected this peculiar
reserve and caution on the part of the Judge. Could it be that he was to
be treated as an infliction to be borne for mere policy's sake. His
distrust and doubt, however, were of short duration, for the Judge had
no sooner read the epistle, which was much longer than any mere letter
of introduction, than his whole manner changed. He held out his hand.

"I am charmed, delighted, sir," he said, with a slight creole accent
that made his voice very pleasing. "I am proud to see you. I hope you
find your rooms agreeable."

Coleman clasped his hand and felt that measure of relief which comes
when one is suddenly lifted out of a very awkward situation.

The Judge read the banker's letter over again with great deliberation
and apparently with much concentration of mind, while Coleman, who could
not remove his eyes from his fascinating dark face, stood waiting for an
opportunity to say:

"You do me infinite honor, Judge, in quartering me in your own house. I
had not expected and could not expect such hospitality."

The Judge hesitated, then with a calm smile remarked that whatever he
could do for so distinguished a visitor would be but a small expression
of the greater hospitality that he would like to bestow were he able.

"And now," he presently continued, "come with me to my own private
apartments, where we can have some quiet conversation and a smoke."

Coleman could not fail to see that the Judge was still somewhat touched
with wine, though the mood of wild hilarity had passed off.

They passed along the street until they reached a narrow blind alley
into which the moonlight fell but dimly between dusky walls.

To Coleman's surprise the Judge led the way into this, then up a flight
of winding and rather rickety stairs to a dark hall, along which they
passed to what seemed a great distance. At the end the Judge fumbled for
some time, and by some means opened a low, heavy door leading into a
room that reeked with the odor of tobacco and the fumes of wine. Passing
across this by the light of a dim dormer window they reached a close
passageway which led to another prison-like door, which the Judge
managed to open after a great deal of trouble. The room that they now
entered was exceedingly small--a mere cell in extent, as Coleman felt
rather than saw, the walls, damp and grimy, being almost within reach on
either hand.

"Stand here for one moment, please," said the Judge, touching Coleman's
arm, "until I call a servant."

Then he stepped briskly back through the doorway and drew the solid
shutter to with a hollow clang. Some strange echoes went wandering away
as if from distance to distance, above, below, around, followed by
absolute silence. A faint flicker of light came from above, but it
seemed a reflection rather than a direct beam from the moon, and the air
was close, heavy, atrociously bad.

Coleman stood amazed for a few moments before going to the door, which
he found immovable. He groped around the wall only to discover that
there was no other outlet.




CHAPTER III.


Judge Favart de Caumartin's residence was a large, rambling structure,
more like a hotel than like a private house. Considering that his wife
was dead and that he had but one living child, a daughter of seventeen,
it was strange that he kept up such an extensive establishment, in
which, perhaps, twenty rooms stood richly furnished but unoccupied. It
was his pleasure, however, and his pleasure was law.

Mlle. Olympe de Caumartin was greatly surprised when by merest chance
she discovered Hepworth Coleman making himself quite at home in a remote
room of the house. We have seen how she showed her confusion as she
stepped into the doorway and found herself face to face with the young
man. The glance that passed between them wrought a wonder in the heart
of each. I shall not say that they fell in love at first sight. Love
cannot be so accurately traced that its origin can be exactly found out
in any particular case. It is enough to record that Mlle. Olympe de
Caumartin caught something new, something sweet from that momentary
gaze, and shut it up in her heart involuntarily, with a thrill that
never again quite left her breast. She was back through halls and rooms
to her own boudoir, her cheeks and lips rosy with excitement, and a
gentle tremor in her limbs.

That evening in the library the Judge told his daughter that he had
given a suit of rooms in the farthest wing of the mansion to a wealthy
young gentleman from New York.

"I have had letters from Mr. Cartwright, my banker there, asking me to
take care of him, and this seemed the best I could do under the
circumstances. I did not see my way to bringing him any nearer to us. We
don't care to have another member added to our family, eh, Olympe,
dear?"

Mlle. de Caumartin blushed. She may have felt a touch of guilt because
she could not muster courage to tell her father that she had already
visited Mr. Coleman.

"I have not seen him yet," continued the Judge; "I thought it best to
let him have some rest before calling upon him. Cartwright advises me
that he is of an excellent family--a man to be given the greatest
attention, and for my banker's sake, if for nothing else, I must meet
the demand upon my hospitality. He came a fortnight earlier than I
expected; but I had Jules watching for him, and you know Jules never
fails."

"But you should have told me before, father dear," said Mlle. Olympe.
"Only a while ago, while wandering through the distant wing of the
house, I invaded this young gentleman's apartment. It surprised him
evidently as much as it abashed me."

"The obvious moral of which is," replied the Judge quickly, "that you
are hereafter to be more careful about what rooms you are stumbling
into." As he spoke his dark oval face, with its fine, grave smile, was
almost like a boy's. The flush that lay under the skin shone through
with a suggestion of some repressed stimulus, as if a great passion had
forced it up. In his eyes an underglow, so to call it, smoldered with
fascinating vagueness.

Mlle. Olympe sat for a moment on his knee and stroked his long black
hair.

"You will stay with me to-night, father, dear," she presently murmured,
coaxingly; "you will not go out to-night."

"I must be gone a little while," he said, rising at once, "but just a
little while."

She clung close to him.

"Not this night, please," she urged, with a touching tremor in her
voice. "Oh! you remember this night a year ago you had that dreadful
adventure in the dark room. You must not go out; please, for my sake, do
not."

An expert observer could have seen while this was going on a strange,
half-worried, almost fiercely concentrated expression in the Judge's
eyes. It was as if he mightily wished to remain with his child, but
could not by any effort resist some powerful temptation tugging at him
and drawing him away.

He kissed her tenderly, pushed her gently from him and went out.

The girl cast herself upon a sofa and buried her face in her hands, as a
vision of that night one year before came up before her eyes.

Some strange masked men had brought her father home far in the night,
white as a ghost, helpless, speechless, apparently dead. They put him
down there in the room and vanished.

He had no wound, no bruise, no mark of any violence. But he recovered
very slowly, and he never told what had befallen him.

Mlle. Olympe knew of her father's frequent duels, and if he had been
brought in dead or badly off on account of pistol ball or rapier thrust
she would not have been surprised beyond measure, but this mysterious
performance of the masked men and the unaccountable condition of the
Judge were taken hold upon by her imagination and raised to the highest
power of romantic meaning.

A year had passed, and she might not have recalled the exact anniversary
but for the prattle of an old servant to the effect that she had seen
her master, the Judge, marching at the head of a company of masked men,
himself wearing an "invisible" mask and a queer black velvet cap.

Mlle. Olympe observed that her father was flushed as if with wine, and
his bearing was indicative of some subtile and indescribable excitement
within him. When he went away she felt that something startling was
going to happen soon.




CHAPTER IV.


When Hepworth Coleman suddenly found himself a prisoner in that close,
dark room, he did not at first suspect any treachery on the part of
Judge Favart de Caumartin. He expected that gentleman to return in the
course of a few minutes, but this favorable impression was soon removed
by certain startling events that crowded one upon another.

First a low, rumbling, clanging sound, like the beating of metallic
gongs in the distance, came through the walls and filled the cell. Then
as this died away to utter silence he heard tumultuous whispering all
around, above, below. The thousand voices all seemed to be saying the
same thing, which presently he made out to be the words: "The Krewe is
coming; make ready for the Krewe!" When the whispering ended little
purple lights began to flash here and there, but so mysteriously glinted
that he could not locate them, and these were followed by phantom faces,
wan, waxen, faintly luminous, appearing and fading instantly, succeeded
by intense darkness.

Now, Hepworth Coleman was a man of iron nerve, an athlete in body and
spirit, who, although full of romantic and poetic impulses, was at the
base of his character as brave and steadfast as a lion. Still, even the
best courage has its moment of faltering, and just at the point when one
whole wall of his cell was withdrawn, so that he stood in the full glare
of twenty brilliant chandeliers that lighted a large, gorgeously
decorated hall, he felt the blood grow stiflingly heavy on his heart.
Before him stood a file of fantastic figures, men oddly clad and
strangely armed, who clashed their brazen shields together and pointed
their swords at his breast. On the walls of the spacious room hung
weird-looking trophies, skulls, pictures of dead men, ghastly and livid,
pistols, swords, and strange banners. The floor was carpeted with heavy
Persian tapestry, thickly padded underneath.

Coleman stood gazing while the file of armed men--perhaps platoon would
be more correct--went through some silent but intricate evolutions after
beating their shields together and threatening him with their swords.
When the movements were ended one of the masters came up to him and
struck him lightly with the flat of his weapon across the cheek, saying
in a loud whisper:

"Beware! you are in imminent danger."

Coleman took him at his word and instantly let go a blow from the
shoulder. His close-set fist met the masker's jaw with a sound of
crushing pasteboard, and down went the man outstretched at full length
on the floor, his shield and sword giving forth a muffled clang as they
crossed upon the soft carpet.

Quick as a cat Coleman leaped forward and picked up the sword, a
beautiful rapier, and, assuming a defensive attitude, cried out boldly:

"Come one at a time and I will fight you all!"

The fantastic figures looked at one another with evident questioning,
though not a word was said.

Meantime the fallen one scrambled to his feet and swore two or three
bitter French oaths. The leader rebuked him with gestures.

"Come one at a time, you cowardly villains," repeated Coleman, "and I'll
soon finish you all. Come on, the first one, if you dare meet a man!"

He was terribly angry, but his voice was steady and even.

There was a space of silence. Then the leader said something to one of
the men, who immediately cast aside his shield and advanced with his
rapier.

It was a short conflict. Coleman disarmed his antagonist with ease in
less than a minute.

Another man came on and shared the same fate, with the addition of a
prick through the wrist of the sword-arm.

This was exhilarating to Coleman in his exasperation at being made the
butt of some mysterious trick.

"Come next," he cried; "I want the best of you--and the best is a
coward. Come on!"

Evidently the mystic band now felt the gravity that the occasion was
assuming. The maskers looked to their leader.

"Don't stand there afraid," sneered Coleman; "come on and get your turn.
Who's next?"

One after another responded, only to fare badly. As yet, however, all
had escaped without deadly hurt, when the leader himself made ready to
fight. Those who had come to grief were quietly cared for by others, and
all seemed to treat the proceedings as by no means startling or even
unusual.

When the leader threw aside his shield and took off his tall
plume-covered hat, Coleman was able to recognize Judge Favart de
Caumartin, more by his form and bearing than by any disclosure of his
features.

As the Judge handled his rapier, all the company of maskers, even the
sorely-wounded ones, came forward to look on with eager expectation. His
was steel that never yet had failed to find the vitals of his opponent.
But, on the other hand, there stood Coleman, steadfast and alert, the
very picture of strength and will, and the embodiment of quickness and
certainty, his sword bearing at its point a tiny red clot of blood.

They looked with straining eyes and did not feel sure of the result even
with their captain as their champion.

"Come on, sir, and take your punishment, you cowardly leader of
cowards!" exclaimed Coleman in a most exasperating tone. "Don't stand
there dreading it. Pluck up a little nerve and come on!"

It is useless to say that Judge Favart de Caumartin needed no bullying
of this sort to urge him into combat. With beautiful swiftness and grace
he sprang forward and at once took the offensive. Then followed sword
play that was amazing to look at. Each combatant showed that mastery of
the fencing art which makes the weapon appear to be a part of the man.
So swiftly leaped the shining shafts of steel that the eye saw only fine
symmetrical figures shimmering between the fighters, while spangles of
fire leaped from the crossing edges. Coleman felt at once that he had
met his match; the Judge tingled with the discovery that here at last
was a master.

From the first it was a fight to the death if possible. Neither could
hope to disarm the other, nor was there probability of any mere
disablement ending the contest. The watchers, looking on in breathless
suspense, heard with intensely straining ears the almost magically rapid
clinking of the blades.

Coleman fought as if with the energy of all the accumulated romance of
his recent experiences, half recognizing, as he parried and thrust and
feinted and recovered guard, the vivid picturesqueness, the melodramatic
unreality, and yet the deadly intensity of the situation. He did not
know where he was or why he had been brought there. The whole affair had
mystery enough in it to have destroyed the will power of any weaker man;
but to him, while the strangeness affected his imagination, there was
nothing in the matter to make him falter or to weaken the force of his
arm. A fine glow of enthusiasm flashed indeed into his blood, and with
it an access of cunning grace and swift certainty of hand and eye. The
feeling prevailed that he had in some strange way stepped out of the
real world into the world of romance, and as he fought, the charm of
heroism fell upon him, and, like the knights of old, he felt the
strength of a glorious desperation. All round him the vague spirit of
dreamland seemed to hover, though the hideous pictures of skeletons and
cadavers gleamed real enough in the glare of the chandeliers. What
inspired him most, however, was the knowledge that he was trying his
force with that of the greatest duellist in the world, and one who had
always killed his man.

There was something more that gave spirit and courage to Coleman: he was
in some indirect way remembering the beautiful girl who had appeared at
the door of his room, and he half imagined that he was doing battle for
the right to know more of her. Youth is a mystery in itself, and love
knows no law of origin or of progress. By some cerebral slight, some
trick of thinking under a thought, so to say, Coleman was making a love
dream keep time to the ringing strokes of his sword. A girl whose name
he did not know, whose voice he had never heard, was inspiring him as he
strained every nerve.

As the combat proceeded, the lookers-on saw that Coleman's play was new
to the Judge, who found great difficulty in meeting and parrying certain
eccentric movements that invariably ended in a thrust of lightning
quickness. Presently the Judge tore off his mask with his left hand. He
had to do this at the risk of his life, for he could not breath freely
with it on. But his great skill saved him even then; nay, more, it came
near giving him the victory. As Coleman lunged, the agile creole leaped
aside and returned quickly with a wicked thrust that barely reached his
adversary's breast, piercing it to the depth of a half inch.

Now the fight took on more of passion and less of grace, as if the men
felt that it was to be a test of strength at last. Round and round, back
and forth, this way and that, they leaped, and recoiled, and advanced;
their faces--one dark and beautiful as a southern night, the other fair
and magnetic as a New England June day--fixed and staring, the white
froth gathering on their lips.

When the end came it was like nothing ever before witnessed in a New
Orleans duel. How it happened not one of the observers could tell; but
the two men appeared to rush into each other's arms, and then it was
seen that each had run the other through.

That broke the charm. The masked men sprang forward and separated the
combatants, and all began to speak at once.




CHAPTER V.


Judge Favart de Caumartin and Hepworth Coleman were, by order of the
Judge himself, taken to the Judge's mansion, where their wounds were
examined by physicians and surgeons quickly summoned.

Mlle. Olympe de Caumartin found herself nursing two almost dying
patients at the same time. Although she suspected that this was the
result of a duel between her father and the young stranger, she was not
told the secret of the affair until long afterward.

Strange to say, although the Judge was much the older man, and was
wounded much nearer the heart, he recovered and was walking about in his
house before Coleman had even taken a turn for the better. The first
thing he did was to order his daughter to cease her nursing of the young
man.

"It is not proper," he said, "for a young girl to be the nurse of a man
who is a stranger."

Mlle. Olympe blushed scarlet, and was so much confused that she could
not find a word to say. It had been a great pleasure to her to wait upon
Coleman, who, though for the greater part of the time quite insensible
of her presence, seemed to respond better to her care than to the
treatment of the doctors. She had been having her sweet dream, was in
love with him, indeed, and the command of her father struck her like a
blow.

Judge Favart de Caumartin suspected the truth about his daughter, and
was not slow in making up his mind in the matter. He gave strict orders
that the hall between Coleman's rooms and the rest of the mansion should
be kept at all times locked and barred.

Love laughs at such precautions. Hepworth Coleman, during his
convalescence, lay on his back and thought of nobody but Mlle. Olympe,
and when at last he was able to get up he sent for her. It so chanced
that the Judge, having got well in a measure, was gone up to Natchez on
business.

Mlle. Olympe did not go to see the young man; but she wrote him a note
explaining her father's wishes.

"But he has never forbidden you to come to see me when you are able to
walk so far as to the library," she added very frankly, "and I see no
reason why you should stay away."

When the Judge returned it was too late to interfere, as he soon
discovered, and he had to bow to the inevitable.

The mystery of the adventure with the masked men in that secret _salle_
has never been further explained. Judge Favart de Caumartin would not
consent to his daughter's marriage until he had exacted a promise from
Coleman that he would never divulge what he knew.

The truth was that Coleman knew very little. He tried to discover the
blind alley into which the Judge had led him on that eventful evening,
but there was no such alley to discover. The whereabouts of the
mysterious hall cannot be pointed out to-day, although from that
memorable Tuesday in the spring of 1820 up to the Mardi-Gras of 1891,
every anniversary of the Mystic Krewe has been duly celebrated by a
fantastic band that at a certain hour of the night parades the streets
of New Orleans. I do not refer to the regular carnival societies. These
are but playful imitations of mystery. The genuine Krewe, as weirdly,
strange and mysterious as ever, may be seen only on Royal Street, a
small band headed by a tall, slender, dark man, who wears an invisible
mask and a quaint black velvet cap. Where they come from nobody has ever
been able to discover. Who they are is not known even to the great Rex,
the king of the Carnival.

Hepworth Coleman and Mlle. Olympe de Caumartin were married in due time
and lived on Royal Street all their lives. Every year on the evening of
Mardi-Gras, they were called upon to give dinner to the Mystic Krewe,
thirteen in number, who ate in silence with their masks on. The last of
these dinners was in 1860. That year saw the twain, who for forty years
had been happy together, laid in their tomb side by side.

Strangely enough there is no record whatever of Judge Favart de
Caumartin's death; indeed, there is a tradition to the effect that he it
is who still leads the Mystic Krewe.




STRANGE ADVENTURES OF A MILLION DOLLARS.

BY INGERSOLL LOCKWOOD.


Old New Yorkers may remember Dingee's famous Club House in lower Greene
Street. From 1800 to 1850 it was the most fashionable gambling house in
the metropolis, its founder, Alphonse Dingee, having been the first to
introduce _roulette_ and _rouge et noir_ into the new world. It was in
1850 or a little later that ill health obliged his son Cyrill to sell
the business out. He retired to his country seat at Bricksburg, quite a
palatial residence for those days, where he died shortly after, leaving
a round million dollars and one child, a daughter, Daisy. Spite of the
fact that she was popularly known throughout the country as the
"gambler's daughter," there were several respectable young men in the
place who would have been only too happy to administer an estate worth a
round million with Daisy thrown in for better or worse.

But Daisy Dingee knew what she wanted, and it was nothing more nor less
than an alliance with the most aristocratic family in the country, to
wit: the Delurys, whose large white mansion at the other end of the town
was as tumble-down and shabby looking as Daisy's was neat, fresh, and
well kept. Miss Dingee, therefore, proceeded to throw herself at the
head of one Monmouth Delury, mentally and physically a colorless sort of
an individual, who, for want of sufficient intellect to make an honest
living, passed his time going to seed with the thousand or so acres of
land belonging to him and his maiden sisters, Hetty, Prudence, and
Martha, three women who walked as stiff as they talked, although they
never were known to discuss any subject other than the Delury family.

When Daisy's proposition was made known to them they tried to faint, but
were too stiff to fall over, and were obliged to content themselves with
gasping out:

"What! Daisy Dingee marry our brother, the head of the Delury family!"

But it was the first idea that had ever entered the brother's head, and
he clung to it with a parent's affection for his first born. In a few
months Mr. and Mrs. Monmouth Delury set out for Paris with that
proverbial speed with which Americans betake themselves to the French
capital when occasion offers. They found it a much pleasanter place than
Bricksburg. Delury improved rapidly and Daisy fell quite in love with
him, made her will in his favor, contracted the typhoid fever and died.

Whereupon the really disconsolate widower sent for his three sisters to
join him. They had but one objection to going, that was to part company
with the dear old homestead, but they overcame it the day after
receiving Monmouth's letter, which happened to be a Friday, and took the
Saturday's steamer.

To confess the truth, the Delurys had been so land-poor that their spare
aristocratic figures were rather the result of necessity than
inclination. Six months of Paris life under the benign protection of
Dingee's round million made different women of them. It was wonderful
what a metamorphosis Parisian dressmakers and restaurateurs effected in
their figures. They became round and plump. They stopped talking about
Bricksburg, signed themselves the Misses Delury of New York, enrolled
themselves as patrons of art, gave elegant dinners, and in a very short
time set up pretensions to being the leaders of the American colony.

But remorseless fate was at their heels. _Figaro_ unearthed the secret
of old Dingee's million, and the Delurys suddenly found themselves the
sensation of Paris, the butt of ridicule in the comic papers. Monmouth
had been in poor health for several months, and this killed him.

Dingee's million was now in the eye of the law divided up among his
three sisters, but fate willed it otherwise, for the following year
Hetty, the eldest, died of Roman fever, and six months later Prudence
fell a victim to rat poison in a small hotel at Grasse, City of
Delightful Odors, in the south of France, whither she had gone in search
of balmy air for her sister Martha, who had suddenly developed symptoms
of consumption.

Left thus alone in the world with old Dingee's million and an incurable
ailment, Martha's only ambition was to reach Bricksburg and die in the
old white Delury mansion. It seemed to her that its great spacious rooms
would enable her to breathe more easily and to fight death off for
possibly another year.

But it was not to be. She got as far as Paris when old Dingee's million
again changed hands, going this time by will to Martha's only relatives,
twin brothers, John and William Winkletip, produce dealers in Washington
street, New York.

The will was a peculiar one, as was to be expected:

     I give, devise, and bequeath all the property popularly known as
     the "Dingee Million" to my cousins John and William Winkletip,
     produce dealers of New York, as joint tenants for their lives and
     the life of each of them, with remainder over to the eldest son of
     the survivor, his heirs and assigns forever; provided, that said
     remainder man shall be of full age at the time of his father's
     decease, and shall thereupon enter the ministry of the Methodist
     Episcopal Church and devote his life and the income of this estate
     to the encouragement of legislative enactment throughout the United
     States for the suppression of gambling and wager laying.

In default of such male heir, the Dingee million was to be divided up
among certain religious and eleemosynary institutions.

When the cablegram from Paris informing them of their extraordinary luck
reached the Winkletip Brothers, they were down in the cellar of the old
tenement which served as their place of business, with their long jean
coats on, busily engaged in sorting onions. As the Winkletips were only
a little past fifty, and as strong as hickory knobs, their families were
quite satisfied to get only a life estate in the Dingee million, for,
barring accidents, the brothers had twenty-five or thirty years to live
yet.

True, Brother John had a son, Cyrus, who would soon be of age, but he
was a worthless wight, whose normal condition was alcoholic stupor,
barely characterized with sufficient lucidity to enable him to
distinguish rotten vegetables from sound.

"He will die years before his father," every one remarked, "and then the
gambler's money will go where it ought to go."

There had been a fire next door to the Winkletips about the time the
good news had arrived from Paris; a huge warehouse had burned down,
leaving a brick wall towering sixty feet above the old wooden tenement
in which the brothers did business. They had given notice to the
authorities; but the inspectors had pronounced the wall perfectly safe.
So the two brothers continued to come and go, in their best Sunday
clothes, however, for they were only engaged in settling up the old
business.

Suddenly, without the slightest warning, the huge wall fell with a
terrific crash upon the wooden tenement, crushing it like an egg-shell.
When the two brothers were taken out from the ruins, John was pronounced
dead and a coroner's permit was given to remove him to a neighboring
undertaker's establishment. William lived six hours, conscious to the
last and grateful to an all-wise Providence that his worthless nephew
would now be excluded from any control over the Dingee million.

John Winkletip was a grass widower, his wife, an Englishwoman, having
abandoned him and returned to England, and for many years he had made
his home with his only other child, a widowed daughter, Mrs. Timmins,
who was openly opposed to many of her father's peculiar notions, as she
termed them, one of which was his strong advocacy of cremation; he being
one of the original stockholders and at the time of his death a director
of the Long Island Cremation Society.

Consequently Mrs. Timmins gave orders that immediately after the
coroner's inquest, her father's body should be removed to her residence
in Harlem, but as the officers of the Cremation Society held the
solemnly executed direction and authorization of their late friend and
associate to incinerate his remains, they were advised by the counsel of
their corporation that such an instrument would justify them in taking
possession of the remains at the very earliest moment possible and
removing it to the crematory.

Warned by the undertakers of Mrs. Timmins' threatened interference, they
resolved not to risk even the delay necessary to procure a burial
casket; in fact it would be a useless expense, anyway, and consequently
John Winkletip began his last ride on earth lying in the cool depths of
the undertaker's ice box.

As Mrs. Timmins's cab turned into Washington Street she met a hearse,
but not until she had reached the undertaker's establishment was her
suspicion transformed into certainty by being told that her father's
body was already on its way to the crematory.

Mrs. Timmins was a long-headed woman. She knew the uncertainties of cab
transportation through the crowded streets below Canal, and dismissing
her cab at the Chambers Street station of the Third Avenue Elevated, she
was soon speeding on her way to the Long Island City ferry.

This she reached just as a boat was leaving the slip. Misfortune number
one. When she finally reached the Long Island side, she threw herself
into the carriage nearest at hand, crying out:

"To the crematory! Five dollars extra if you get me there in time!"

It was not many minutes before Mrs. Timmins became aware of the fact
that the horse was next to worthless, and could scarcely be lashed into
a respectable trot. Mrs. Timmins was nearly frantic. Every minute her
head was thrust out of the window to urge the hackman to greater speed.
There was but one consoling thought--the hearse itself might get blocked
or might have missed a boat!

As again and again her head was thrust out of the carriage window her
hair became disheveled, for she had removed her hat, and the
superstitious Hibernian on the box was upon the point of abandoning his
post at sight of the wild and crazed look presented by Mrs. Timmins. Was
she not some one's ghost, making this wild and mysterious ride?

But the promise of an extra five dollars kept the man at his post.

Suddenly a cry of joy escaped Mrs. Timmins's lips. The hearse was just
ahead of them; but its driver had the better horses, and half suspecting
that something was wrong, he whipped up vigorously and disappeared in a
cloud of dust. Mrs. Timmins's horse was now as wet as if he had been
dipped into the river, and she expected every minute to see him give
out; but, strange to say, he had warmed up to his work, and now, in
response to the driver's urging, broke into a run.

Again Mrs. Timmins caught a glimpse of the black coach of death in the
dust clouds ahead of her. The race became every instant more exciting.
It was a strange sight, and instinctively the farmers, in their
returning vegetable wagons, drew aside to let them pass. Once more the
hearse disappeared in the dust clouds. This was the last Mrs. Timmins
saw of it until she drew up in front of the crematorium. There it stood,
with its black doors thrown wide open. She had come too late! Her
father's body had already been thrust into the fiery furnace.

The antagonism of Winkletip's family to his views concerning the
cremation of the dead was an open secret with every attaché of the
society, and the men in charge were determined that the society should
come out the winner. They were on the lookout for the body. Everything,
to the minutest detail, was in readiness. The furnace had been pushed to
its greatest destroying power, and hence was it that haste overcame
dignity when the foam-flecked and panting horses of the undertaker drew
up in front of the entrance of the crematory.

The ice-chest was snatched from the hearse, borne hurriedly into the
furnace-room, set upon the iron platform, wheeled into the very center
of the white flames, whose waving, curling, twisting tongues seemed
reaching out to their fullest length, impatient for their prey, and the
iron doors slammed shut with a loud, resounding clangor.

At that instant a woman, hatless and breathless, with disheveled hair,
burst into the furnace-room.

"Hold! Hold!" she shrieked, and then her hands flew to her face, and
staggering backward and striking heavily against the wall, she sank,
limp and lifeless, in a heap on the stone floor of the furnace-room.

But the two men in charge had neither eyes nor ears for Mrs. Timmins. As
the doors closed they sprang to their posts of observation, in front of
the two peep-holes, and stood watching the effect of the flames upon the
huge ice-chest.

Its wooden covering parted here and there with a loud crack, laying bare
the metal case, from the seams of which burst fitful puffs of steam. Now
came a sight so strange and curious that the two men held their breath
as they gazed upon it! By the vaporizing of the water from the melted
ice the flames were pushed back from the chest, and it lay there for an
instant, as if protected by some miraculous aura.

Then happened something which caused the men to reel and stagger as if
their limbs were paralyzed by drink, and which painted their faces with
as deep a pallor as death's own hand could have laid upon them.

From the furnace depths came forth a dull, muffled cry of "Help! Help!"

Making a desperate effort, the men tore open first the outer and then
the inner doors of the fire chamber. As the air rushed in, the lid of
the metal chest burst silently open. Again the cry of "Help!" rang out,
and two hands quivered for an instant above the edge of the chest, then
with a loud and defiant roar the flames closed in upon it, and began to
lick it up ravenously. The doors were banged shut, and John Winkletip
had his way.

But the Dingee million seemed to draw back instinctively from the touch
of the worthless Cy Winkletip.

With loud cries of joy, the various beneficiaries under Martha Delury's
will now discovered that Cyrus Winkletip was born on the 11th day of
August, and that as his father had departed this life on the 10th day of
August, the son was not of full age when his father died. But the law
put an end to this short-lived joy by making known one of its curious
bits of logic, which so often startle the layman.

It was this: The law takes no note of parts of a day, and therefore as
Cyrus Winkletip was of age on the first minute of his twenty-first
birthday, he was also of age on the last minute of the day
before--consequently on the first minute of the day before he was
twenty-one!

This gave the Dingee million to Cy Winkletip!

Under constant and stringent surveillance and tutelage, Cy Winkletip
was, after several years of as close application as was deemed safe in
view of his weak mental condition, admitted to the ministry in
accordance with the provisions of Miss Delury's will.

At last the wicked Dingee million seemed safely launched upon its task
of undoing the wrong it had done; but Cy Winkletip's mind ran completely
down in five years and he died a wretched slavering, idiot.

Mrs. Timmins was inclined to warn off the Dingee million with a gesture
of horror; but, yielding to the solicitation of her friends, she
consented to take title in order that she might create a trust with it
for some good and noble purpose. To this end, by a last will and
testament she created and endowed the American Society for the
Suppression of Gambling and Wager-laying, and then died.

The trustees at once began to erect the buildings called for, but before
the society had had an opportunity to suppress a single gaming
establishment, the lawyers, at the prayer of Mrs. John Winkletip, Mrs.
Timmin's mother, fell tooth and nail upon the trust, which was declared
too "vague, shadowy, and indefinite to be executed," and the Dingee
million, its roundness now sadly shrunken, made its way across the ocean
to Mrs. John Winkletip, of Clapham Common, London.

She died last year and with her the wanderings of the Dingee million
came to an end. She willed it to trustees for building and maintaining a
Hospital for Stray Dogs and Homeless Cats, and those learned in the law
say that the trust will stand.




A LOST DAY.

BY EDGAR FAWCETT.


"My Family," John Dalrymple would say, "have the strange failing (that
is, nearly all of them except myself, on the paternal side) of----"

And then somebody would always try to interrupt him. At the Gramercy,
the small but charming club of which he had been for years an honored
member, they made a point of interrupting him when he began on his
family failing. Not a few of them held to the belief that it was a myth
of Dalrymple's imagination. Still, others argued, all of the clan except
John himself had been a queer lot; there was no real certainty that they
had not done extraordinary acts. Meanwhile, apart from his desire to
delve among ancestral records and repeat tales which had been told many
times before, he was a genuine favorite with his friends. But that
series of family anecdotes remained a standing joke.

They all pitied him when it became known that his engagement to the
pretty winsome widow, Mrs. Carrington, was definitely broken. He was
past forty now, and had not been known to pay serious court to any woman
before in at least ten years. Of course Mrs. Carrington was rich. But
then her money could not have attracted Dalrymple, for he was rich
himself, in spite of his plain way of living there in that small
Twenty-second Street basement house.

But the widow's money had doubtless lured to her side the gentleman who
had cut poor Dalrymple out. A number of years ago, when this little
occurrence which we are chronicling took place, it was not so easy as it
is now to make sure of a foreigner's credentials and antecedents. The
Count de Pommereul, a reputed French nobleman of high position, had
managed to get into the Gramercy as a six-months' member, and had
managed also to cross the thresholds of numerous select New York
drawing-rooms. At the very period of his introduction to Mrs. Carrington
her engagement with Dalrymple had already become publicly announced.
Then, in a few weeks, society received a shock. Dalrymple was thrown
over, and it transpired that the brilliant young widow was betrothed to
the Count.

Dalrymple, calm and self-contained, had nothing to say on the subject of
why he had received such shabby treatment, and nobody ventured to
interrogate him. Some people believed in the Count, others thought that
there was a ring of falsity about him, for all his frame was so
elegantly slender and supple, for all his mustache was so glossily dark,
and his eyes so richly lustrous. Dalrymple meanwhile hid his wound, met
the Count constantly at the Club, though no longer even exchanging bows
with him, and--worked at his revenge in secret as a beaver works at the
building of his winter ranch. He succeeded, too, in getting superb
materials for that revenge. They surprised even himself when a few
relatives and friends in Paris mailed him appalling documentary evidence
as to what sort of a character this Count really was. There is no doubt
that he now held in his hand a thunderbolt, and had only to hurl it when
he pleased.

He did not tell a single soul what he had learned. The thought of just
how he should act haunted him for several days. One evening he went home
from the club a little earlier than usual, and tossed restlessly for a
good while after going to bed. When sleep came it found him still
irresolute as to what course he should take.

It seemed to him that he had now a succession of dreams, but he could
recall none of them on awaking. And he awoke in a peculiar way. There
was yet no hint of dawn in the room, and only the light from his gas,
turned down to a very dim star. He was sitting bolt upright in bed, and
feverish, fatigued sensations oppressed him. "What have I been
dreaming?" he asked himself again and again. But as only a confused
jumble of memories answered him, he sank back upon the pillows, and was
soon buried in slumber.

It was past nine o'clock in the morning when he next awoke. He felt
decidedly better. Both the feverishness and the fatigue had left him. He
went to the club and breakfasted there. It was almost empty of members,
as small clubs are apt to be at that hour of the morning. But in the
hall he met his old friend Langworth and bowed to him. Langworth, who
was rather near-sighted, gave a sudden start and a stare. "How odd,"
thought Dalrymple, as he passed on into the reading-room, "I hope
there's nothing unexpected about my personal appearance." Just at the
doorway of the room he met another old friend, Summerson, a man
extremely strict about all matters of propriety. Summerson saw him and
then plainly made believe that he had not seen. As they moved by one
another Dalrymple said lightly, "Good-morning, old chap. How's your
gout?"

Summerson, who was very tall and excessively dignified, gave a comic
squirm. Then his eyelids fluttered and with the tips of his lips he
murmured, "Better," as he glided along.

"Pooh," said Dalrymple to himself. "Getting touchy, I suppose, in his
old age. How longevity disagrees with some of us mortals."

He nearly always took a bottle of seltzer before breakfast, and this
morning old Andrew (a servant who had been in the club many years)
poured it out for him.

"I hope you're all right again this mornin', sorr," said Andrew with his
Celtic accent and in an affable half whisper.

"All right, Andrew," was the reply. "Why, you must be thinking of some
one else. I haven't been ill. My health has been excellent for a long
time past."

"Yes, sorr," said Andrew, lowering his eyes and respectfully retiring.

That last "Yes, sorr," had a dubious note about its delivery that almost
made Dalrymple call the faithful old fellow back and further question
him. "All right again?" As if he had ever been all wrong! Oh, well, poor
Andrew was ageing; others had remarked that fact months ago.

A different servant came to announce breakfast. There were only about
five men in the dining-room as Dalrymple entered it. All of them gazed
at him in an unusual way, or had late events led him to think that they
did so? At the table nearest him sat Everdell, one of the jolliest men
in the club, a person whose face was nearly always wreathed in smiles.

"Good-morning!" said Dalrymple, as he caught Everdell's eye!

"Good-morning!" The tones were replete with mild consternation, and the
look that went with them was smileless to the degree of actual gloom.
Then Everdell, who had just finished his breakfast, rose and drew near
to Dalrymple.

"'Pon my word," he said, "I'm delighted to see you all right again so
soon."

"All right again so soon?" was the reply. "What in mercy's name do you
mean?"

"Oh, my dear old fellow," began Everdell, fumbling with his watch-chain,
"it was pretty bad, you know, yesterday."

"Pretty--bad--yesterday?"

"I saw you in the morning, and for an hour or so in the afternoon.
Perhaps no one would have noticed it if you hadn't stayed here all day,
and poured those confidences into people's ears about De Pommereul. You
didn't appear to have drank a drop in the club; there's the funny part
of it. You went out several times, though, and came back again. All that
you had to drink (except some wine here at dinner, you remember) you
must have got outside. I wasn't here at ten o'clock when De Pommereul
came in. I'm glad I wasn't. You must have been dreadful. If Summerson
and Joyce hadn't rushed in between you and the Count, heaven knows what
would have happened. As it is----"

At this point Dalrymple broke in with cold harshness: "Look here,
Everdell, I always disliked practical jokes, and I've known for a number
of years that you're given to them. You've never attempted to make me
your butt before, however, and you'll have the kindness to discontinue
any such proceeding now."

Everdell drew back for a moment, frowned, shrugged his shoulders, and
then muttering, "Oh, if you're going to put it in that way," strode
quickly out of the dining-room.

Dalrymple scarcely ate a morsel of breakfast. After he had gulped down
some hot coffee he repaired to the reading-room. As he re-entered it a
waiter handed him several letters. One, which he opened first, was
marked "immediate," and had been sent him from his own house by an
intelligent and devoted woman servant there, who had been for a long
period in his employ. This letter made poor Dalrymple's head swim as he
read it. Written and signed by Mr. Summerson himself, as chairman of the
house committee of the club, it ordered him to appear that same evening
before a meeting of the governors and answer to a charge of disorderly
conduct on the previous night. Then it went on to state that he
(Dalrymple) had been seen throughout the previous day at the club in a
state of evident intoxication, and had, finally, between the hours of 10
and 11 P. M., accosted and grossly insulted the Count de Pommereul in
the main drawing-room of the Gramercy.

"Disorderly conduct," "evident intoxication," "grossly insulted the
Count de Pommereul." These words were trembling on Dalrymple's lips as
he presently approached Summerson himself, the very gentleman who had
signed the letter, and who stood in the hall, arrayed for the street.

"What--what does it all mean?" gasped Dalrymple. "I--I never was
intoxicated in my life, Lawrence Summerson; you ought to know that! I
played euchre last night, up in the card-room, from nine o'clock till
twelve, with Ogden and Folsom and yourself. If there's any practical
joke being got up against me, for God's sake----"

"Wait a minute, please," said Summerson. He went back into the
coat-room, disarrayed himself of his street wraps, and finally joined
Dalrymple. His first words, low and grave, ran thus: "Can it be possible
you don't recollect that our game of euchre was played the night before
last and not last night?" Then he went with Dalrymple into a corner of
the reading room, and they talked together for a good while.

Dalrymple went back to his home that day in a mental whirl. It still
wanted a number of hours before the Governing Committee would meet. He
had lost a day out of his life--there could be no doubt of that. If he
had moved about the Club at all yesterday with a drunken manner,
reviling De Pommereul to everybody who would lend him an ear--if he had
afterward met De Pommereul in the Club and directed toward him in loud
and furious tones a perfect torrent of accusation--he himself was
completely, blankly ignorant.

For a good while he sat quite still and thought. Then he summoned Ann,
the elderly and very trustworthy Ann, who had been his dear mother's
maid, and was now his housekeeper. He questioned Ann, and after
dismissing her he pondered her answers. Three times yesterday she had
seen him, and regarding his appearance Ann had her distinct opinions.

Suddenly a light flashed upon Dalrymple while he sat alone and brooded.
He sprang up and a cry, half of awe, half of gladness, left his lips.
The baffling problem had been solved!

That evening he presented himself before the Governing Committee. All
assembled were sorry for him. Of course, punishment must be dealt, but
for an old and popular member like Dalrymple it must not be expulsion.
The general feeling of the Club had indeed already been gauged, and it
was in favor of suspension for six months or a year at the farthest.

Dalrymple, however, was determined that he should be visited with no
punishment at all. And he meant to state why.

The judges, as he faced them, all looked politely grim. The President,
after a few suave preliminaries, asked Dalrymple if he had anything to
say concerning the charges preferred against him. Dalrymple then
proceeded to speak with a clear voice and composed demeanor.

His first sentences electrified his hearers. "I have no possible
recollection of yesterday," he began, "and it is precisely as much of a
lost day to me as though I had lain chloroformed for twenty-four hours.
On Wednesday night I returned home from this club and went to rest. I
never really woke until Friday, possibly a little while after midnight,
and then within my own bed. On Thursday morning I must have risen in a
state of somnambulism, hypnotism, mental aberration, whatever you
please, and not come to myself until Thursday had passed, and I had once
more retired. Of what yesterday occurred I therefore claim to have been
the irresponsible agent, and to have become so through no fault of my
own. I am completely innocent of the misdemeanors charged against me,
and I now solemnly swear this, on my word of honor as a gentleman."

Here Dalrymple paused. The members of the committee interchanged glances
amid profound silence. On some faces doubt could be read, but on others
its veriest opposite. The intense stillness had become painful when
Dalrymple spoke again.

"I had hoped that I should escape throughout my own lifetime all
visitations of this distressing kind. My grandfather and two of my
uncles not only walked in their sleep to an alarming degree, but were
each subject to strange conditions of mind, in which acts were performed
by them that they could not possibly remember afterward." Here the
speaker paused, soon continuing, however, in a lower and more reflective
tone:

"Yes, my family have had the strange failing (that is, nearly all of
them except myself, on the paternal side) of----"

But he said no more. The tension was loosened, and a great roar of
laughter rose from the whole committee. How often every man there had
joked him about that marvelous budget of stories which he infallibly
began one way and one way only! And when the familiar formula sounded
forth, it was all the funnier to those who heard it because of the
solemn, judicial circumstances in which it again met their hearing.

The plaintiff was honorably acquitted. As for De Pommereul, as every
word that Dalrymple had said concerning his past life in France happened
to be perfectly true, the Count never reappeared at the Gramercy. His
engagement with Mrs. Carrington was soon afterward broken off by the
lady herself, and for a good while it was rumored that this lady had
repentantly made it optional with Dalrymple whether he should once more
become her accepted sweetheart.

But Dalrymple remained a bachelor. He is quite an old man now, yet he
may be found in the card-room of the Gramercy nearly every evening. He
is very willing to tell you the story of his "lost day" if you ask him
courteously for it, and not in any strain of fun-poking; but he attempts
no more voluntary recitals on the subject of his "family's" maladies or
mishaps.




A TRAGEDY OF HIGH EXPLOSIVES.

BY BRAINARD GARDNER SMITH.




I.

In the course of my work last year I had occasion to go over a file of
old Liverpool newspapers, and thus came upon a remarkable paragraph in
the ship news. Translated out of the language of commerce, it was to the
effect that the good ship _Empress_, just arrived from Australia,
reported that while rounding the Cape of Good Hope she had been driven
southward far out of her course by a storm; and that away down in the
Southern Atlantic had sighted a vessel drifting aimlessly about. The
first mate boarded her, and, returning, reported that the derelict was
the ship _Albatross_. That she had been abandoned was plain, for all the
boats were gone, and so were the log and the ship's instruments. On the
deck, close by the companion hatch, lay two bodies, or rather skeletons,
clad in weather-rotted garments, that showed them to have been man and
woman. These bodies were headless, but the heads were nowhere to be
found on the deserted deck. The mate found on the cabin table an open
book, with writing on its pages. A pen lay on the table, and a small
inkstand, in which the ink had evidently long since dried. The book was
evidently a journal or diary, so the mate reported, and he put it in his
pocket, meaning to carry it aboard the _Empress_; but when he was
getting down into his small boat the book slipped from his pocket,
dropped into the water and sunk. The _Albatross_ was badly water-logged,
and, he thought, could not have floated much longer. To this report the
editor of the paper added a note saying that the readers would all
doubtless remember that the _Albatross_ had sailed from Liverpool
several years before, bound for Australia, and it was thought to have
gone down with all on board, as no news of her had since been received.

That was the substance of the remarkable paragraph. What was almost as
remarkable to me, a newspaper man, was that the Liverpool paper had
evidently made no effort to learn the owners of the _Albatross_, the
name of her captain and crew, or whether or not she carried any
passengers. I carefully searched files to see if there was any further
reference to the case. There was none. After the manner of his kind, the
editor of the paper had, so it seemed, taken it for granted that his
intelligent readers "would remember" all the particulars that they
wanted to know.

I was much impressed by the paragraph. My professional instinct told me
that there was a good newspaper story there, and I was disgusted that
any editor could let it go untold. I also experienced more than usual
curiosity to know how those headless bodies came there, or rather, why
they should lie there on the deck headless. Then there was that journal
that had been found lying open on the cabin table, as though the writer
had been interrupted in the writing which had never been finished. What
light might that little book not throw on the mystery? And now it was
lying fathoms deep in the Southern Atlantic. Of what use to speculate
over the matter. Thanks to the careless mate and the stupid editor, that
mystery would remain forever unsolved. But in spite of reason I did
speculate considerably over the matter, and, try as I did, could not
banish the story from my mind.

A few weeks after that I went into Northern Vermont to report the Benton
murder trial, which was attracting much more than local attention. I was
pleased to find that the prosecuting attorney was an old classmate of
mine, George Judson. I had known him pretty well as a hard-working and
remarkably bright man, with a curious streak in his mental make-up that
led him to investigate every new "ism" that appeared. We used to call
him a Spiritualist, and, had the word been in use, I am sure would have
called him a crank. He was five years older than I, had married
immediately after graduating, had prospered as a lawyer, and now had a
good home for his wife and two children. He seemed much pleased to renew
the acquaintance of college days, and insisted that I should make his
house my home during my stay in the town.

One Saturday evening as we sat in his comfortable library smoking after
dinner, Judson said, with some apparent hesitation:

"There's going to be a show here this evening that may interest you."

"Yes?"

"Yes. There's a woman living here who does some remarkable things when
in a trance. There are a few of us who are curious about such things,
and I've asked her and them here to my house this evening."

"What is it?" I asked lightly; "the cabinet act?"

Judson looked a trifle hurt. "Yes," he answered, slowly, "she's a
medium, and you newspaper men have said that she's a fraud. But I've
seen manifestations that I can't explain on any theory other than that
they were the work of higher powers, and I'm going to look into it
further."

The same old Judson, I thought. He was evidently more in earnest than
his assumed indifference indicated. I marveled that the shrewd,
successful lawyer could be so easily deluded, for I was sure that he was
deluded. I had attended many a séance, and had helped to expose more
than one medium, and knew that the whole matter of manifestations was
nothing but a more or less clumsy juggle. But I kept my thoughts to
myself--experience had taught me that when it was known that there was
present at a séance a pronounced unbeliever in that phase of
Spiritualism, the "conditions" were usually "unfavorable" for a
"manifestation." So I said that I should be glad to see the "show," as
he called it. Then I encouraged Judson to talk, and he talked well. From
mediums and cabinets, and manifestations and the ways of spirits
generally, our conversation drifted to the marvelous and the mysterious,
and finally I told the story of the _Albatross_ and the headless
skeletons. Judson was much impressed by the story. He joined me in
anathematizing the careless mate of the _Empress_ and the stupid editor
of the Liverpool paper. His lifelong habit of seeking to know the
unknowable, re-enforced by the detective instinct that is developed in
every good lawyer as well as newspaper man, made him unnaturally anxious
to solve the mystery. The thought came to me just then that if
Spiritualism was good for anything it would be in such a case. What I
said was, "I have often wondered whether the peculiar power of the
trance medium might not be employed in such cases. Now, is it impossible
that that journal found on the _Albatross_, and which I believe contains
the solution of our mystery, should be materialized for us here?"

Judson jumped at the idea. "Yes, yes," he said hurriedly, "it shall
be--it must be. How fortunate!" He spoke with such earnestness and
confidence that I showed my surprise in my face. I also voiced it.

"You talk as though the thing were already accomplished. My experience
with mediums has led me to consider them a trifle unreliable, but you
seem to be sure of this one."

"Not of the medium but of myself. I had better tell you now what but one
other living person knows--that I have a very peculiar power. I don't
attempt to explain it, but it is no less a fact. I seem to be able, by
mere force of will, to control certain persons. This medium is one of
them. I have never been able to produce any results unaided, but more
than once have I thought into visible form those who had long before
died."

The same old story you see. Judson was apparently an out-and-out
Spiritualist, ready to be humbugged by the first shrewd trickster that
came along. He went on:

"Now, this evening you will see a remarkable woman; I have been able to
control her in a remarkable way. I confess that I had never thought of
seeking the materialization of an inanimate object. But I believe that
it can be done. It shall be done. We shall have that journal this
night."

I was almost convinced by my friend's absolute confidence; then saddened
by the thought that this usually hard-headed, keen young lawyer had such
a weak spot in his brain. He was the last man you would expect to be
deluded by the tricks of the medium. At the same time I found myself, in
spite of my skepticism, wondering what would come of it all. That
evening I was seated in Judson's large parlor, one of about twenty
persons of the sort usually seen at such séances; the Spiritualists of
the place, I thought. The room had been arranged after the fashion
customary. There was an improvised cabinet in one corner, chairs in a
semi-circle in front of it, not too near. Judson seemed a sort of master
of ceremonies, passing in and out, greeting newcomers, whispering a word
here and there. He was pale, I thought, and seemed rather pre-occupied.
We waited perhaps a quarter of an hour, and then Judson ushered into the
room a tall, slender woman, middle-aged, gray-haired, with rather
strongly marked features and dark eyes that had a tired look. She seemed
a person of nerves. A trifle above the average medium in appearance of
intelligence and refinement, and with rather less of the self-assertive
boldness usually displayed by the women who make a business of communing
with spirits. There was no preliminary nonsense. She entered the cabinet
in a business-like way. Judson turned the gas down low, so that we were
in the dimmest sort of a dim religious light--just the light, I have
always observed, that seemed most congenial to spirits, or, rather, that
aided most effectually in the tricks played by the mediums. Then he sat
down by my side and said: "Let us all clasp hands."

I grasped with my left the fat hand of a large woman next to me, and
Judson seized my right with his left hand. It was quite cold, and I
thought trembled a little. He leaned over me and whispered in my ear: "I
am determined to see that journal to-night. If will can do it, it shall
be done. Join your will with mine. You are a man of will. Let us force
the powers to yield to our combined wills."

I was startled by the intensity of his manner more than by the words. In
spite of my half disgust at the whole proceedings, that were such an
exact repetition of more than one humbugging séance, I was forced into a
respectful attitude of mind, and at once became an interested assistant,
where a moment before I had been an unbelieving, critical observer. I
nodded my head, and Judson's grasp of my hand became firm.

Then there was complete silence for many moments. I bent all my mind to
the one thought that I would see that journal wherever in the large
world it might be. At first my thoughts would wander, but then it seemed
to me that Judson's grasp tightened and drew the desultory thought back
to the one subject of his own thoughts. I have considered this a good
deal since and conclude that Judson did, for the time at least, possess
some extraordinary power, possibly pure force of will. At all events, I
grew more and more determined to have my will done. Then there came a
calm voice from behind the curtain of the cabinet.

"What is your wish?"

No one spoke for a moment, and then a weak voice at my left said
something about a desire to see a child that had died, and another voice
expressed the wish to look upon the form of a departed husband. I was
too much occupied with my own thoughts to notice then that this was the
same old scene, enacted as at all the other séances. Again there was
perfect silence; it seemed interminable. I could hear the breathing of
the fat woman on my left. I could hear my watch ticking in my pocket. I
thought that I could hear my heart beat, but all the time there was the
firm pressure of the cold hand of my friend, and the constant thought,
now shaped into words and the words into a sentence, and that sentence
continually repeating itself until I seemed to hear that too: "I will
see that journal to-night."

And still that strange silence. The air in the room became close. Every
door and window had been carefully closed, and the breathing of twenty
or more persons had made large drafts on the oxygen. Suddenly a breath
fanned my cheek, then a stronger draught, and then a steady current of
air set against my face. I felt it move my hair, and it smelled of the
sea. It was salty. Yes, undoubtedly a strong, steady sea breeze was in
that room, and it brought with it the smell of a ship, tar and oakum and
pitch--the odor that arises when the sun beats hotly down upon the
unprotected deck and the boards shrink and the great pine masts feel the
fierce heat. But there was no heat; only at first that cool sea breeze
and then the patter of rain, seemingly on the floor of the room in which
we sat.

Then a low moan came from behind the curtains of the cabinet, and then
the sound of a heavy fall. At this some of the women shrieked weakly.
There was a general letting go of hands, and Judson sprang to the
cabinet and disappeared behind its folds. After an instant of silence we
heard his voice: "More light." I hastened to turn on the gas. Judson
pulled aside the curtains, and we saw that the woman was lying
outstretched on the floor.

"She has fainted," said Judson, calmly. "That is all. I believe that she
is subject to such attacks. I doubt, my friends, if we shall have any
manifestations to-night. May I ask you all to consider the meeting
adjourned? I will give our friend here all medical attention."

He spoke so calmly and with such authority that without a word the
little company passed out of the room and out of the house. Judson and I
raised the woman to a couch, and he brought water and bathed her face.
She opened her eyes, sighed deeply, and then sat up. There was a strange
scared look on her face.

"Where is it?" she asked faintly.

"Here," said Judson, and he drew from beneath his coat a small book and
handed it to her. She turned away with a shudder.

"No, no. Take it away. Take it away."

Judson handed it to me. "Will you kindly take this book to the library,"
said he; "I will join you in a moment."

I obeyed mechanically. Before going into the library I stepped to the
broad piazza and looked out into the night. The snow lay white on the
ground, stars twinkled in the frosty sky, it was very cold, and I could
hear the snow creak under the feet of passers-by, and yet I had felt
that sea breeze and heard the patter of rain. What did it mean? I
shivered, entered the warm house, turned the light high in the library,
shut the door, and not till then looked at the book in my hand. It was a
small blankbook about six inches long and four inches wide, well bound
in leather and thoroughly water-soaked. I opened it. The leaves were wet
and discolored, and I could see that the pages were covered with
writing. I turned to the fly-leaf and there read these words:

"Arthur Hartley's journal. Begun on board the ship _Albatross_, March 7,
1851."

I stood in a daze, glaring at the written words, utterly confounded. The
door opened and Judson entered hurriedly. His cheeks were now flushed,
his eyes fairly blazed with light, his face was bright with a smile of
triumph. "I knew it! I knew it!" he said loudly. "What a victory! What a
victory! Even Nature yields to the power of Will!"

He paced back and forth rapidly, showing no desire to see the book that
had come to us so strangely. Then he threw himself into a big chair,
lighted a cigar, puffed at it vigorously a moment, then became quiet,
looked intently at the glowing coals in the grate, and said calmly:

"Well, let's see what Mr. Hartley has to say for himself. Read the
journal, please."

I had been standing all this time by the table, with the little damp
book in my hand, and watching Judson curiously. I drew up a chair,
opened to the first page and began to read.




II.


March 7.--I begin this journal for two reasons. First, my dear mother
asked me to keep a record of my voyage and of my life, that she might
read it when I got back home. She thinks that I am coming home again. I
promised her to do so, but I shall never see England again. I hope the
day may come when I can take my dear mother to my Australian home, but I
shall never set foot on the island that holds the woman I hate, and that
holds so many women like her. In the second place, I want to write down
not only my impressions in this new experience, but my thoughts. I have
many of them. I want to see them spread out before me. We are now well
started on the voyage, five days out from Liverpool. Uncle John is still
ill enough, and says that he wants to die. Captain Raymond laughs at
him, and says that a little sea-sickness will do him good. I like
Captain Raymond. He is big and burly, and has a deep voice, and a heavy
brown beard. He's just the typical sea captain, an interesting person to
a man who saw the sea for the first time six days ago. I'm glad to find
that I'm a good sailor, and can thoroughly enjoy the new experiences
that present themselves in the beginning of the long voyage we have
started upon. I have written the word "enjoy"; let it stand. I thought I
never should have known enjoyment again, but I do. There's enjoyment in
the knowledge that each hour puts miles of ocean between me and the
woman that has spoiled my life. No, I won't admit that. She shan't have
the satisfaction of spoiling my life. She tried hard enough, God knows.
She played with my heart, much as though it were a mouse and she a cat.
She is a cat. A sleek, soft, purring cat, and with claws. I could eat
out my own heart when I think how she played with it. I was fair game
for this experienced coquette, and now I suppose she is boasting of
another conquest, telling of her victory over the simple country lad.
Well, let her enjoy her conquest while she may. The country boy will one
day come back with money enough to buy her and her purse-proud heart.
Yes, I will go back to England and I'll humble her at my feet. What rot
I'm writing. Mother, if you ever see these pages, read these words with
sympathy, as the idle ravings of a man well-nigh gone mad over a woman's
false beauty. I never told the story, even to you, my dear mother. I
dare say you guessed much of it. You know how Helen Rankine came down
from London to our quiet country home. You know how beautiful and
gracious she was. How kind and loving to you; how apparently frank and
friendly with me. She was the first woman I ever saw to whom I gave a
second thought, save you, dear mother. We rode and drove and chatted
together. She drew my very heart from me. I told her all my plans and
hopes and aspirations; of my love of the art to which I had devoted my
life; that I hoped to go to London and study, and then to Rome; that I
wanted to become a great painter. She was so full of hearty sympathy, so
kind, so womanly, that before I knew it she had me enslaved. For all the
graciousness and frankness and sympathy were but the means she used in
her heartlessness to enslave me. Then came a day, a day to be
remembered; a day like that when, beguiled by another beautiful fiend in
woman form, our first father, poor, foolish man, ate of the fruit of the
tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and so lost his paradise. I told
Helen of my love; and how I did love that woman! And she put on an
appearance of surprise, and squeezed a cold tear or two from her
beautiful eyes, and said that she thought I knew and understood. And
when half dazed I asked her what she meant, what it was that I was
thought to have known, she had to blush, and said that she had long been
engaged to her cousin, John Bruce, who was now with his regiment in
India, and that when he came home they were to be married. And then she
said something about my being so young and having a great career before
me, and that she should always be my friend and pray for my success. And
she stretched out her hand toward me. I think she must have seen the
hate in my face, for my great love turned to great hate even while she
spoke, and all the wholesome currents of my being seemed poisoned by the
supreme passion, and she turned pale, and her hand dropped, and I cursed
her.

March 10.--A call from Uncle John interrupted me the other day, and I
have had no heart to write since. My moods shame me. I wrote those words
with burning cheek and throbbing heart. I have just read them without an
emotion. Why can't I be a man, and not a silly, raving boy? Not that the
hate that burns in my heart is abating. It can never abate. It will grow
and grow, and keep me true to my purpose. No more mooning over art and
the hope of a great name; but hard work and money-making. Uncle John
promises us both fortunes. He feels confident that his explosive will
work such wonders in Australian mines that within ten years we can go
back to England rich beyond the dreams of avarice. But I shall never see
England again. No matter what I may have written here. Never shall I set
foot on the land that rears such women as the one I hate. Captain
Raymond was almost angry when he learned that in Uncle John's
innocent-looking boxes was a compound powerful enough to blow us all out
of the water. But he was somewhat reassured when uncle insisted that as
long as the _Albatross_ floated she and we were safe; for he says that
the explosive is only an explosive when wet. Captain Raymond said that
he'd try and keep it dry then, and he sent men into the hole where the
boxes were stored, and had them placed carefully in an unused cabin. We
are the only passengers. I made sure that no woman was to be on board
during the long voyage. I came near being disappointed in this, for
Captain Raymond tells me that his wife was to sail with him, and had
made all preparations, even to sending some boxes of clothing aboard,
when the sudden death of her father prevented her from going. I'm sure
I'm sorry that Mrs. Raymond's father is dead, but I'm very glad that
Mrs. Raymond is not on this ship. I don't want to look on woman's face,
nor hear woman's voice. There's but one woman to me in the wide world,
and, dear mother, forgive me if sometimes I cannot thank her for
bringing me into the world. You understand me, mother. You know what I
have suffered. You can sympathize with me when I say that I exult at the
thought that leagues of ocean lie between me and that other woman,
who----

March 12.--A strange thing has happened since I last wrote in this book.
As I was writing I heard quite a commotion on deck--cries of the
sailors, sharp orders from officers, and the tramping of feet. I rushed
on deck. Uncle John and the captain were standing on the poop, looking
intently across the water; the first mate was shouting orders that I
couldn't understand, and the crew were lowering the long boat.

"What's the matter?" I asked, joining uncle and the captain.

"There's a little boat adrift out yonder," answered Uncle John pointing,
"and the lookout says that there are a couple of bodies lying in it.
There, do you see it, on the top of that wave!"

I saw it; a mere shell it seemed, poised for a moment on the top of a
swell, and then sliding down into the trough of the sea, quite out of
sight. The long boat was soon lowered, and, guided by the cries of the
lookout, made straight for the little boat. It seemed very long before
it was reached, and then we saw the sailors make it fast to the long
boat and begin to pull slowly back toward the _Albatross_. It was slow
and hard work towing that boat, small as it seemed, through the rather
heavy sea. There was no sign of life in her. What was behind those low
gunwales? What were the men bringing to us? At length they came
alongside, and then we saw that there were two bodies lying there.

"A man and a woman, sir," called up the mate. "There's life in 'em both,
but precious little."

It was nice work getting the two boats alongside and the bodies out of
them and up to the deck; but it was done by the aid of slings, the woman
being brought up first. Uncle John, by virtue of his profession, gave
directions as to placing her on the deck, and then knelt by her side. I
stood aloof. Why had that woman come to us in mid-ocean! Why was it?
Fate?

"She is alive," cried Uncle John. "Captain, we must get her below at
once."

I glanced at the woman. Thick locks of matted black hair lay around a
face on which the sun and wind and the salt sea-water had done fearful
work. And yet those blackened and blistered features somehow had a
familiar look. Where had I seen them? I could not tell. Four sailors
carried her below and I turned to look at her companion, who had been
laid on the deck. Uncle John just took time to grasp his wrist and said,
"He's alive, too"; then he dropped the limp hand and hurried below.
Always the way. Women first. This dying man might get what attention he
could. The woman must be nursed back to life to deceive the first fool
that takes her fancy. I turned to the man, a common sailor evidently,
brawny and bearded. The mate was by his side, and together we did what
we could to nourish the spark of life that kept the pulse feebly
fluttering in the big brown wrist. It was afternoon when these two waifs
were found, and all night we fought with death. Now Uncle John says that
he thinks that they will live. Neither of them has spoken, but each has
taken a little nourishment and the pulse shows gaining strength. Captain
Raymond has turned his cabin over to the woman, and as I write uncle is
sitting by her side. For the time he has forgotten his wonderful
explosive. The old professional air has come back, and he is like the
Dr. Hartley of the days before he gave up medicine for chemical
investigation. The question continually repeats itself to me, What has
brought this woman here? Reason as I may, I feel, I know, that she has
come to me; to me who was happy in the

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