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Revenge!

by Robert Barr · English · Gutenberg #8668 · 463,162 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Revenge!

Author: Robert Barr


        
Release date: November 20, 2004 [eBook #8668]
                Most recently updated: January 2, 2021

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/8668

Credits: E-text prepared by Lee Dawei, David Moynihan, Michelle Shephard, Charles Franks, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK REVENGE! ***




E-text prepared by Lee Dawei, David Moynihan, Michelle Shephard, Charles
Franks, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team



REVENGE!

BY

ROBERT BARR







TO

JAMES SAMSON, M.D.


[Illustration: "I HAD THE SAFE BLOWN OPEN"]




CONTENTS.


AN ALPINE DIVORCE
WHICH WAS THE MURDERER?
A DYNAMITE EXPLOSION
AN ELECTRICAL SLIP
THE VENGEANCE OF THE DEAD
OVER THE STELVIO PASS
THE HOUR AND THE MAN
"AND THE RIGOUR OF THE GAME"
THE BROMLEY GIBBERTS STORY
NOT ACCORDING TO THE CODE
A MODERN SAMSON
A DEAL ON 'CHANGE
TRANSFORMATION
THE SHADOW OF THE GREENBACK
THE UNDERSTUDY
"OUT OF THUN"
A DRAMATIC POINT
TWO FLORENTINE BALCONIES
THE EXPOSURE OF LORD STANSFORD
PURIFICATION




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.


"I HAD THE SAFE BLOWN OPEN"
THE CORD DANGLED ABOUT A FOOT ABOVE THE POLICEMAN'S HEAD
DUPRÉ LAUNCHED HIS BOMB OUT INTO THE NIGHT
"DO NOT PROCEED FURTHER WITH EXECUTION"
HIS FIRST ACT WAS TO DISCHARGE EVERY SERVANT
"WHEN YOU PRESS THE IVORY BUTTON, I FIRE"
WIPING ITS BLADE ON THE CLOTHES OF THE PROSTRATE MAN
"I WILL DRAW A PLAN"
HE THREW ASIDE BUSHES, BRAMBLES AND LOGS
"WHAT HAS HAPPENED?"
SAM LOOKED SAVAGELY AROUND HIM
"MY GOD, YOU WERE RIGHT AFTER ALL!"




REVENGE!

AN ALPINE DIVORCE.


In some natures there are no half-tones; nothing but raw primary
colours. John Bodman was a man who was always at one extreme or the
other. This probably would have mattered little had he not married a
wife whose nature was an exact duplicate of his own.

Doubtless there exists in this world precisely the right woman for any
given man to marry and _vice versâ_; but when you consider that a
human being has the opportunity of being acquainted with only a few
hundred people, and out of the few hundred that there are but a dozen
or less whom he knows intimately, and out of the dozen, one or two
friends at most, it will easily be seen, when we remember the number of
millions who inhabit this world, that probably, since the earth was
created, the right man has never yet met the right woman. The
mathematical chances are all against such a meeting, and this is the
reason that divorce courts exist. Marriage at best is but a compromise,
and if two people happen to be united who are of an uncompromising
nature there is trouble.

In the lives of these two young people there was no middle distance.
The result was bound to be either love or hate, and in the case of Mr.
and Mrs. Bodman it was hate of the most bitter and arrogant kind.

In some parts of the world incompatibility of temper is considered a
just cause for obtaining a divorce, but in England no such subtle
distinction is made, and so until the wife became criminal, or the man
became both criminal and cruel, these two were linked together by a
bond that only death could sever. Nothing can be worse than this state
of things, and the matter was only made the more hopeless by the fact
that Mrs. Bodman lived a blameless life, and her husband was no worse,
but rather better, than the majority of men. Perhaps, however, that
statement held only up to a certain point, for John Bodman had reached
a state of mind in which he resolved to get rid of his wife at all
hazards. If he had been a poor man he would probably have deserted her,
but he was rich, and a man cannot freely leave a prospering business
because his domestic life happens not to be happy.

When a man's mind dwells too much on any one subject, no one can tell
just how far he will go. The mind is a delicate instrument, and even
the law recognises that it is easily thrown from its balance. Bodman's
friends--for he had friends--claim that his mind was unhinged; but
neither his friends nor his enemies suspected the truth of the episode,
which turned out to be the most important, as it was the most ominous,
event in his life.

Whether John Bodman was sane or insane at the time he made up his mind
to murder his wife, will never be known, but there was certainly
craftiness in the method he devised to make the crime appear the result
of an accident. Nevertheless, cunning is often a quality in a mind that
has gone wrong.

Mrs. Bodman well knew how much her presence afflicted her husband, but
her nature was as relentless as his, and her hatred of him was, if
possible, more bitter than his hatred of her. Wherever he went she
accompanied him, and perhaps the idea of murder would never have
occurred to him if she had not been so persistent in forcing her
presence upon him at all times and on all occasions. So, when he
announced to her that he intended to spend the month of July in
Switzerland, she said nothing, but made her preparations for the
journey. On this occasion he did not protest, as was usual with him,
and so to Switzerland this silent couple departed.

There is an hotel near the mountain-tops which stands on a ledge over
one of the great glaciers. It is a mile and a half above the level of
the sea, and it stands alone, reached by a toilsome road that zigzags
up the mountain for six miles. There is a wonderful view of snow-peaks
and glaciers from the verandahs of this hotel, and in the neighbourhood
are many picturesque walks to points more or less dangerous.

John Bodman knew the hotel well, and in happier days he had been
intimately acquainted with the vicinity. Now that the thought of murder
arose in his mind, a certain spot two miles distant from this inn
continually haunted him. It was a point of view overlooking everything,
and its extremity was protected by a low and crumbling wall. He arose
one morning at four o'clock, slipped unnoticed out of the hotel, and
went to this point, which was locally named the Hanging Outlook. His
memory had served him well. It was exactly the spot, he said to
himself. The mountain which rose up behind it was wild and precipitous.
There were no inhabitants near to overlook the place. The distant hotel
was hidden by a shoulder of rock. The mountains on the other side of
the valley were too far away to make it possible for any casual tourist
or native to see what was going on on the Hanging Outlook. Far down in
the valley the only town in view seemed like a collection of little toy
houses.

One glance over the crumbling wall at the edge was generally sufficient
for a visitor of even the strongest nerves. There was a sheer drop of
more than a mile straight down, and at the distant bottom were jagged
rocks and stunted trees that looked, in the blue haze, like shrubbery.

"This is the spot," said the man to himself, "and to-morrow morning is
the time."

John Bodman had planned his crime as grimly and relentlessly, and as
coolly, as ever he had concocted a deal on the Stock Exchange. There
was no thought in his mind of mercy for his unconscious victim. His
hatred had carried him far.

The next morning after breakfast, he said to his wife: "I intend to
take a walk in the mountains. Do you wish to come with me?"

"Yes," she answered briefly.

"Very well, then," he said; "I shall be ready at nine o'clock."

"I shall be ready at nine o'clock," she repeated after him.

At that hour they left the hotel together, to which he was shortly to
return alone. The spoke no word to each other on their way to the
Hanging Outlook. The path was practically level, skirting the
mountains, for the Hanging Outlook was not much higher above the sea
than the hotel.

John Bodman had formed no fixed plan for his procedure when the place
was reached. He resolved to be guided by circumstances. Now and then a
strange fear arose in his mind that she might cling to him and possibly
drag him over the precipice with her. He found himself wondering
whether she had any premonition of her fate, and one of his reasons for
not speaking was the fear that a tremor in his voice might possibly
arouse her suspicions. He resolved that his action should be sharp and
sudden, that she might have no chance either to help herself or to drag
him with her. Of her screams in that desolate region he had no fear. No
one could reach the spot except from the hotel, and no one that morning
had left the house, even for an expedition to the glacier--one of the
easiest and most popular trips from the place.

Curiously enough, when they came within sight of the Hanging Outlook,
Mrs. Bodman stopped and shuddered. Bodman looked at her through the
narrow slits of his veiled eyes, and wondered again if she had any
suspicion. No one can tell, when two people walk closely together, what
unconscious communication one mind may have with another.

"What is the matter?" he asked gruffly. "Are you tired?"

"John," she cried, with a gasp in her voice, calling him by his
Christian name for the first time in years, "don't you think that if
you had been kinder to me at first, things might have been different?"

"It seems to me," he answered, not looking at her, "that it is rather
late in the day for discussing that question."

"I have much to regret," she said quaveringly. "Have you nothing?"

"No," he answered.

"Very well," replied his wife, with the usual hardness returning to her
voice. "I was merely giving you a chance. Remember that."

Her husband looked at her suspiciously.

"What do you mean?" he asked, "giving me a chance? I want no chance nor
anything else from you. A man accepts nothing from one he hates. My
feeling towards you is, I imagine, no secret to you. We are tied
together, and you have done your best to make the bondage
insupportable."

"Yes," she answered, with her eyes on the ground, "we are tied
together--we are tied together!"

She repeated these words under her breath as they walked the few
remaining steps to the Outlook. Bodman sat down upon the crumbling
wall. The woman dropped her alpenstock on the rock, and walked
nervously to and fro, clasping and unclasping her hands. Her husband
caught his breath as the terrible moment drew near.

"Why do you walk about like a wild animal?" he cried. "Come here and
sit down beside me, and be still."

She faced him with a light he had never before seen in her eyes--a
light of insanity and of hatred.

"I walk like a wild animal," she said, "because I am one. You spoke a
moment ago of your hatred of me; but you are a man, and your hatred is
nothing to mine. Bad as you are, much as you wish to break the bond
which ties us together, there are still things which I know you would
not stoop to. I know there is no thought of murder in your heart, but
there is in mine. I will show you, John Bodman, how much I hate you."

The man nervously clutched the stone beside him, and gave a guilty
start as she mentioned murder.

"Yes," she continued, "I have told all my friends in England that I
believed you intended to murder me in Switzerland."

"Good God!" he cried. "How could you say such a thing?"

"I say it to show how much I hate you--how much I am prepared to give
for revenge. I have warned the people at the hotel, and when we left
two men followed us. The proprietor tried to persuade me not to
accompany you. In a few moments those two men will come in sight of the
Outlook. Tell them, if you think they will believe you, that it was an
accident."

The mad woman tore from the front of her dress shreds of lace and
scattered them around. Bodman started up to his feet, crying, "What are
you about?" But before he could move toward her she precipitated
herself over the wall, and went shrieking and whirling down the awful
abyss.

The next moment two men came hurriedly round the edge of the rock, and
found the man standing alone. Even in his bewilderment he realised that
if he told the truth he would not be believed.




WHICH WAS THE MURDERER?


Mrs. John Forder had no premonition of evil. When she heard the hall
clock strike nine she was blithely singing about the house as she
attended to her morning duties, and she little imagined that she was
entering the darkest hour of her life, and that before the clock struck
again overwhelming disaster would have fallen upon her. Her young
husband was working in the garden, as was his habit each morning before
going to his office. She expected him in every moment to make ready for
his departure down town. She heard the click of the front gate, and a
moment later some angry words. Alarmed, she was about to look through
the parted curtains of the bay-window in front when the sharp crack of
a revolver rang out, and she hastened to the door with a vague sinking
fear at her heart. As she flung open the door she saw two things--
first, her husband lying face downwards on the grass motionless, his
right arm doubled under him; second, a man trying frantically to undo
the fastening of the front gate, with a smoking pistol still in his
hand.

Human lives often hang on trivialities. The murderer in his anxiety to
be undisturbed had closed the front gate tightly. The wall was so high
as to shut out observation from the street, but the height that made it
difficult for an outsider to see over it also rendered escape
impossible. If the man had left the gate open he might have got away
unnoticed, but, as it was, Mrs. Forder's screams aroused the
neighbourhood, and before the murderer succeeded in undoing the
fastening, a crowd had collected with a policeman in its centre, and
escape was out of the question. Only one shot had been fired, but at
such close quarters that the bullet went through the body. John Forder
was not dead, but lay on the grass insensible. He was carried into the
house and the family physician summoned. The doctor sent for a
specialist to assist him, and the two men consulted together. To the
distracted woman they were able to give small comfort. The case at best
was a doubtful one. There was some hope of ultimate recovery, but very
little.

Meanwhile the murderer lay in custody, his own fate depending much on
the fate of his victim. If Forder died, bail would be refused; if he
showed signs of recovering, his assailant had a chance for, at least,
temporary liberty. No one in the city, unless it were the wife herself,
was more anxious for Forder's recovery than the man who had shot him.

The crime had its origin in a miserable political quarrel--mere wrangle
about offices. Walter Radnor, the assassin, had 'claims' upon an
office, and, rightly or wrongly, he attributed his defeat to the secret
machinations of John Forder. He doubtless did not intend to murder his
enemy that morning when he left home, but heated words had speedily
followed the meeting, and the revolver was handy in his hip pocket.

Radnor had a strong, political backing, and, even after he stretched
his victim on the grass, he had not expected to be so completely
deserted when the news spread through the city. Life was not then so
well protected as it has since become, and many a man who walked the
streets free had, before that time, shot his victim. But in this case
the code of assassination had been violated. Radnor had shot down an
unarmed man in his own front garden and almost in sight of his wife. He
gave his victim no chance. If Forder had had even an unloaded revolver
in any of his pockets, things would not have looked so black for
Radnor, because his friends could have held that he had fired in self-
defence, as they would doubtless claim that the dying man had been the
first to show a weapon. So Radnor, in the city prison, found that even
the papers of his own political party were against him, and that the
town was horrified at what it considered a cold-blooded crime.

As time went on Radnor and his few friends began once more to hope.
Forder still lingered between life and death. That he would ultimately
die from his wound was regarded as certain, but the law required that a
man should die within a stated time after the assault had been
committed upon him, otherwise the assailant could not be tried for
murder. The limit provided by the law was almost reached and Forder
still lived. Time also worked in Radnor's favour in another direction.
The sharp indignation that had followed the crime had become dulled.
Other startling events occurred which usurped the place held by the
Forder tragedy, and Radnor's friends received more and more
encouragement.

Mrs. Forder nursed her husband assiduously, hoping against hope. They
had been married less than a year, and their love for each other had
increased as time went on. Her devotion to her husband had now become
almost fanatical, and the physicians were afraid to tell her how
utterly hopeless the case was, fearing that if the truth became known
to her, she would break down both mentally and physically. Her hatred
of the man who had wrought this misery was so deep and intense that
once when she spoke of him to her brother, who was a leading lawyer in
the place, he saw, with grave apprehension, the light of insanity in
her eyes. Fearful for a breakdown in health, the physicians insisted
that she should walk for a certain time each day, and as she refused to
go outside of the gate, she took her lonely promenade up and down a
long path in the deserted garden. One day she heard a conversation on
the other side of the wall that startled her.

"That is the house," said a voice, "where Forder lives, who was shot by
Walter Radnor. The murder took place just behind this wall."

"Did it really?" queried a second voice. "I suppose Radnor is rather an
anxious man this week."

"Oh," said the first, "he has doubtless been anxious enough all along."

"True. But still if Forder lives the week out, Radnor will escape the
gallows. If Forder were to die this week it would be rather rough on
his murderer, for his case would come up before Judge Brent, who is
known all over the State as a hanging judge. He has no patience with
crimes growing out of politics, and he is certain to charge dead
against Radnor, and carry the jury with him. I tell you that the man in
jail will be the most joyous person in this city on Sunday morning if
Forder is still alive, and I understand his friends have bail ready,
and that he will be out of jail first thing Monday morning."

The two unseen persons, having now satisfied their curiosity by their
scrutiny of the house, passed on and left Mrs. Forder standing looking
into space, with her nervous hands clasped tightly together.

Coming to herself she walked quickly to the house and sent a messenger
for her brother. He found her pacing up and down the room.

"How is John to-day?" he said.

"Still the same, still the same," was the answer. "It seems to me he is
getting weaker and weaker. He does not recognise me any more."

"What do the doctors say?"

"Oh, how can I tell you? I don't suppose they speak the truth to me,
but when they come again I shall insist upon knowing just what they
think. But tell me this: is it true that if John lives through the week
his murderer will escape?"

"How do you mean, escape?"

"Is it the law of the State that if my husband lives till the end of
this week, the man who shot him will not be tried for murder?"

"He will not be tried for murder," said the lawyer, "but he may not be
tried for murder even if John were to die now. His friends will
doubtless try to make it out a case of manslaughter as it is; or
perhaps they will try to get him off on the ground of self-defence.
Still, I don't think they would have much of a chance, especially as
his case will come before Judge Brent; but if John lives past twelve
o'clock on Saturday night, it is the law of the State that Radnor
cannot be tried for murder. Then, at most, he will get a term of years
in a state prison, but that will not bother him to any great extent. He
has a strong political backing, and if his party wins the next state
election, which seems likely, the governor will doubtless pardon him
out before a year is over."

"Is it possible," cried the wife, "that such an enormous miscarriage of
justice can take place in a State that pretends to be civilised?"

The lawyer shrugged his shoulders. "I don't bank much on our
civilisation," he said. "Such things occur every year, and many times a
year."

The wife walked up and down the room, while her brother tried to calm
and soothe her.

"It is terrible--it is awful!" she cried, "that such a dastardly crime
may go unavenged!"

"My dear sister," said the lawyer, "do not let your mind dwell so much
on vengeance. Remember that whatever happens to the villain who caused
all this misery, it can neither help nor injure your husband."

"Revenge!" cried the woman, suddenly turning upon her brother; "I swear
before God that if that man escapes, I will kill him with my own hand!"

The lawyer was too wise to say anything to his sister in her present
frame of mind, and after doing what he could to comfort her he
departed.

On Saturday morning Mrs. Forder confronted the physicians.

"I want to know," she said, "and I want to know definitely, whether
there is the slightest chance of my husband's recovery or not. This
suspense is slowly killing me, and I must know the truth, and I must
know it now."

The physicians looked one at the other. "I think," said the elder,
"that it is useless to keep you longer in suspense. There is not the
slightest hope of your husband's recovery. He may live for a week or
for a month perhaps, or he may die at any moment."

"I thank you, gentlemen," said Mrs. Forder, with a calmness that
astonished the two men, who knew the state of excitement she had
laboured under for a long time past. "I thank you. I think it is better
that I should know."

All the afternoon she sat by the bedside of her insensible and scarcely
breathing husband. His face was wasted to a shadow from his long
contest with death. The nurse begged permission to leave the room for a
few minutes, and the wife, who had been waiting for this, silently
assented. When the woman had gone, Mrs. Forder, with tears streaming
from her eyes, kissed her husband.

"John," she whispered, "you know and you will understand." She pressed
his face to her bosom, and when his head fell back on the pillow her
husband was smothered.

Mrs. Forder called for the nurse and sent for the doctors, but that
which had happened was only what they had all expected.

      *      *      *      *      *

To a man in the city jail the news of Forder's death brought a wild
thrill of fear. The terrible and deadly charge of Judge Brent against
the murderer doomed the victim, as every listener in the courthouse
realised as soon as it was finished. The jury were absent but ten
minutes, and the hanging of Walter Radnor did more perhaps than
anything that ever happened in the State to make life within that
commonwealth more secure than it had been before.




A DYNAMITE EXPLOSION


Dupré sat at one of the round tables in the Café Vernon, with a glass
of absinthe before him, which he sipped every now and again. He looked
through the open door, out to the Boulevard, and saw passing back and
forth with the regularity of a pendulum, a uniformed policeman. Dupré
laughed silently as he noticed this evidence of law and order. The Café
Vernon was under the protection of the Government. The class to which
Dupré belonged had sworn that it would blow the café into the next
world, therefore the military-looking policeman walked to and fro on
the pavement to prevent this being done, so that all honest citizens
might see that the Government protects its own. People were arrested
now and then for lingering around the café: they were innocent, of
course, and by-and-by the Government found that out and let them go.
The real criminal seldom acts suspiciously. Most of the arrested
persons were merely attracted by curiosity. "There," said one to
another, "the notorious Hertzog was arrested."

The real criminal goes quietly into the café, and orders his absinthe,
as Dupré had done. And the policeman marches up and down keeping an eye
on the guiltless. So runs the world.

There were few customers in the café, for people feared the vengeance
of Hertzog's friends. They expected some fine day that the café would
be blown to atoms, and they preferred to be taking their coffee and
cognac somewhere else when that time came. It was evident that M.
Sonne, the proprietor of the café, had done a poor stroke of business
for himself when he gave information to the police regarding the
whereabouts of Hertzog, notwithstanding the fact that his café became
suddenly the most noted one in the city, and that it now enjoyed the
protection of the Government.

Dupré seldom looked at the proprietor, who sat at the desk, nor at the
waiter, who had helped the week before to overpower Hertzog. He seemed
more intent on watching the minion of the law who paced back and forth
in front of the door, although he once glanced at the other minion who
sat almost out of sight at the back of the café, scrutinising all who
came in, especially those who had parcels of any kind. The café was
well guarded, and M. Sonne, at the desk, appeared to be satisfied with
the protection he was receiving.

When customers did come in they seldom sat at the round metal tables,
but went direct to the zinc-covered bar, ordered their fluid and drank
it standing, seeming in a hurry to get away. They nodded to M. Sonne
and were evidently old frequenters of the café who did not wish him to
think they had deserted him in this crisis, nevertheless they all had
engagements that made prompt departure necessary. Dupré smiled grimly
when he noticed this. He was the only man sitting at a table. He had no
fears of being blown up. He knew that his comrades were more given to
big talk than to action. He had not attended the last meeting, for he
more than suspected the police had agents among them; besides, his
friend and leader, Hertzog, had never attended meetings. That was why
the police had had such difficulty in finding him. Hertzog had been a
man of deeds not words. He had said to Dupré once, that a single
determined man who kept his mouth shut, could do more against society
than all the secret associations ever formed, and his own lurid career
had proved the truth of this. But now he was in prison, and it was the
treachery of M. Sonne that had sent him there. As he thought of this,
Dupré cast a glance at the proprietor and gritted his teeth.

The policeman at the back of the hall, feeling lonely perhaps, walked
to the door and nodded to his parading comrade. The other paused for a
moment on his beat, and they spoke to each other. As the policeman
returned to his place, Dupré said to him--

"Have a sip with me."

"Not while on duty," replied the officer with a wink.

"_Garçon_," said Dupré quietly, "bring me a caraffe of brandy.
_Fin champagne_."

The _garçon_ placed the little marked decanter on the table with
two glasses. Dupré filled them both. The policeman, with a rapid glance
over his shoulder, tossed one off, and smacked his lips. Dupré slowly
sipped the other while he asked--

"Do you anticipate any trouble here?"

"Not in the least," answered the officer confidently. "Talk, that's
all."

"I thought so," said Dupré.

"They had a meeting the other night--a secret meeting;" the policeman
smiled a little as he said this. "They talked a good deal. They are
going to do wonderful things. A man was detailed to carry out this
job."

"And have you arrested him?" questioned Dupré.

"Oh dear, no. We watch him merely. He is the most frightened man in the
city to-night. We expect him to come and tell us all about it, but we
hope he won't. We know more about it than he does."

"I dare say; still it must have hurt M. Sonne's business a good deal."

"It has killed it for the present. People are such cowards. But the
Government will make it all right with him out of the secret fund. He
won't lose anything."

"Does he own the whole house, or only the café?"

"The whole house. He lets the upper rooms, but nearly all the tenants
have left. Yet I call it the safest place in the city. They are all
poltroons, the dynamiters, and they are certain to strike at some place
not so well guarded. They are all well known to us, and the moment one
is caught prowling about here he will be arrested. They are too
cowardly to risk their liberty by coming near this place. It's a
different thing from leaving a tin can and fuse in some dark corner
when nobody is looking. Any fool can do that."

"Then you think this would be a good time to take a room here? I am
looking for one in this neighbourhood," said Dupré.

"You couldn't do better than arrange with M. Sonne. You could make a
good bargain with him now, and you would be perfectly safe."

"I am glad that you mentioned it; I will speak to M. Sonne to-night,
and see the rooms to-morrow. Have another sip of brandy?"

"No, thank you, I must be getting back to my place. Just tell M. Sonne,
if you take a room, that I spoke to you about it."

"I will. Good-night."

Dupré paid his bill and tipped the _garçon_ liberally. The
proprietor was glad to hear of any one wanting rooms. It showed the
tide was turning, and an appointment was made for next day.

Dupré kept his appointment, and the _concierge_ showed him over
the house. The back rooms were too dark, the windows being but a few
feet from the opposite wall. The lower front rooms were too noisy.
Dupré said that he liked quiet, being a student. A front room on the
third floor, however, pleased him, and he took it. He well knew the
necessity of being on good terms with the _concierge_, who would
spy on him anyhow, so he paid just a trifle more than requisite to that
functionary, but not enough to arouse suspicion. Too much is as bad as
too little, a fact that Dupré was well aware of.

He had taken pains to see that his window was directly over the front
door of the café, but now that he was alone and the door locked, he
scrutinised the position more closely. There was an awning over the
front of the café that shut off his view of the pavement and the
policeman marching below. That complicated matters. Still he remembered
that when the sun went down the awning was rolled up. His first idea
when he took the room was to drop the dynamite from the third story
window to the pavement below, but the more he thought of that plan the
less he liked it. It was the sort of thing any fool could do, as the
policeman had said. It would take some thinking over. Besides, dynamite
dropped on the pavement would, at most, but blow in the front of the
shop, kill the perambulating policeman perhaps, or some innocent
passer-by, but it would not hurt old Sonne nor yet the _garçon_
who had made himself so active in arresting Hertzog.

Dupré was a methodical man. He spoke quite truly when he said he was a
student. He now turned his student training on the case as if it were a
problem in mathematics.

First, the dynamite must be exploded inside the café. Second, the thing
must be done so deftly that no suspicion could fall on the perpetrator.
Third, revenge was no revenge when it (A) killed the man who fired the
mine, or (B) left a trail that would lead to his arrest.

Dupré sat down at his table, thrust his hands in his pockets, stretched
out his legs, knit his brows, and set himself to solve the conundrum.
He could easily take a handbag filled with explosive material into the
café. He was known there, but not as a friend of Hertzog's. He was a
customer and a tenant, therefore doubly safe. But he could not leave
the bag there, and if he stayed with it his revenge would rebound on
himself. He could hand the bag to the waiter saying he would call for
it again, but the waiter would naturally wonder why he did not give it
to the _concierge_, and have it sent to his rooms; besides, the
_garçon_ was wildly suspicious. The waiter felt his unfortunate
position. He dare not leave the Café Vernon, for he now knew that he
was a marked man. At the Vernon he had police protection, while if he
went anywhere else he would have no more safeguard than any other
citizen; so he stayed on at the Vernon, such a course being, he
thought, the least of two evils. But he watched every incomer much more
sharply than did the policeman.

Dupré also realised that there was another difficulty about the handbag
scheme. The dynamite must be set off either by a fuse or by clockwork
machinery. A fuse caused smoke, and the moment a man touched a bag
containing clockwork his hand felt the thrill of moving machinery. A
man who hears for the first time the buzz of the rattlesnake's signal,
like the shaking of dry peas in a pod, springs instinctively aside,
even though he knows nothing of snakes. How much more, therefore, would
a suspicious waiter, whose nerves were all alert for the soft, deadly
purr of dynamite mechanism, spoil everything the moment his hand
touched the bag? Yes, Dupré reluctantly admitted to himself, the
handbag theory was not practical. It led to either self-destruction or
prison.

What then was the next thing, as fuse or mechanism were unavailable?
There was the bomb that exploded when it struck, and Dupré had himself
made several. A man might stand in the middle of the street and shy it
in through the open door. But then he might miss the doorway. Also
until the hour the café closed the street was as light as day. Then the
policeman was all alert for people in the middle of the street. His own
safety depended upon it too. How was the man in the street to be
dispensed with, yet the result attained? If the Boulevard was not so
wide, a person on the opposite side in a front room might fire a
dynamite bomb across, as they do from dynamite guns, but then there
was--

"By God!" cried Dupré, "I have it!"

He drew in his outstretched legs, went to the window and threw it open,
gazing down for a moment at the pavement below. He must measure the
distance at night--and late at night too--he said to himself. He bought
a ball of cord, as nearly the colour of the front of the building as
possible. He left his window open, and after midnight ran the cord out
till he estimated that it about reached the top of the café door. He
stole quietly down and let himself out, leaving the door unlatched. The
door to the apartments was at the extreme edge of the building, while
the café doors were in the middle, with large windows on each side. As
he came round to the front, his heart almost ceased to beat when a
voice from the café door said--

"What do you want? What are you doing here at this hour?"

The policeman had become so much a part of the pavement in Dupré's mind
that he had actually forgotten the officer was there night and day.
Dupré allowed himself the luxury of one silent gasp, then his heart
took up its work again.

"I was looking for you," he said quietly. By straining his eyes he
noticed at the same moment that the cord dangled about a foot above the
policeman's head, as he stood in the dark doorway.

[Illustration: THE CORD DANGLED ABOUT A FOOT ABOVE THE POLICEMAN'S
HEAD]

"I was looking for you. I suppose you don't know of any--any chemist's
shop open so late as this? I have a raging toothache and can't sleep,
and I want to get something for it."

"Oh, the chemist's at the corner is open all night. Ring the bell at
the right hand."

"I hate to disturb them for such a trifle."

"That's what they're there for," said the officer philosophically.

"Would you mind standing at the other door till I get back? I'll be as
quick as I can. I don't wish to leave it open unprotected, and I don't
want to close it, for the _concierge_ knows I'm in and he is
afraid to open it when any one rings late. You know me, of course; I'm
in No. 16."

"Yes, I recognise you now, though I didn't at first. I will stand by
the door until you return."

Dupré went to the corner shop and bought a bottle of toothache drops
from the sleepy youth behind the counter. He roused him up however, and
made him explain how the remedy was to be applied. He thanked the
policeman, closed the door, and went up to his room. A second later the
cord was cut at the window and quietly pulled in.

Dupré sat down and breathed hard for a few moments.

"You fool!" he said to himself; "a mistake or two like that and you are
doomed. That's what comes of thinking too much on one branch of your
subject. Another two feet and the string would have been down on his
nose. I am certain he did not see it; I could hardly see it myself,
looking for it. The guarding of the side door was an inspiration. But
I must think well over every phase of the subject before acting again.
This is a lesson."

As he went on with his preparations it astonished him to find how many
various things had to be thought of in connexion with an apparently
simple scheme, the neglect of any one of which would endanger the whole
enterprise. His plan was a most uncomplicated one. All he had to do was
to tie a canister of dynamite at the end of a string of suitable
length, and at night, before the café doors were closed, fling it from
his window so that the package would sweep in by the open door, strike
against the ceiling of the café, and explode. First he thought of
holding the end of the cord in his hand at the open window, but
reflection showed him that if, in the natural excitement of the moment,
he drew back or leant too far forward the package might strike the
front of the house above the door, or perhaps hit the pavement. He
therefore drove a stout nail in the window-sill and attached the end of
the cord to that. Again, he had to render his canister of explosive so
sensitive to any shock that he realised if he tied the cord around it
and flung it out into the night the can might go off when the string
was jerked tight and the explosion take place in mid-air above the
street. So he arranged a spiral spring between can and cord to take up
harmlessly the shock caused by the momentum of the package when the
string became suddenly taut. He saw that the weak part of his project
was the fact that everything would depend on his own nerve and accuracy
of aim at the critical moment, and that a slight miscalculation to the
right or to the left would cause the bomb, when falling down and in, to
miss the door altogether. He would have but one chance, and there was
no opportunity of practising. However, Dupré, who was a philosophical
man, said to himself that if people allowed small technical
difficulties to trouble them too much, nothing really worth doing would
be accomplished in this world. He felt sure he was going to make some
little mistake that would ruin all his plans, but he resolved to do
the best he could and accept the consequences with all the composure at
his command.

As he stood by the window on the fatal night with the canister in his
hand he tried to recollect if there was anything left undone or any
tracks remaining uncovered. There was no light in his room, but a fire
burned in the grate, throwing flickering reflections on the opposite
wall.

"There are four things I must do," he murmured: "first, pull up the
string; second, throw it in the fire; third, draw out the nail; fourth,
close the window."

He was pleased to notice that his heart was not beating faster than
usual. "I think I have myself well in hand, yet I must not be too cool
when I get downstairs. There are so many things to think of all at one
time," he said to himself with a sigh. He looked up and down the
street. The pavement was clear. He waited until the policeman had
passed the door. He would take ten steps before he turned on his beat.
When his back was towards the café door Dupré launched his bomb out
into the night.

[Illustration: DUPRÉ LAUNCHED HIS BOMB OUT INTO THE NIGHT]

He drew back instantly and watched the nail. It held when the jerk
came. A moment later the whole building lurched like a drunken man,
heaving its shoulders as it were. Dupré was startled by a great square
of plaster coming down on his table with a crash. Below, there was a
roar of muffled thunder. The floor trembled under him after the heave.
The glass in the window clattered down, and he felt the air smite him
on the breast as if some one had struck him a blow.

He looked out for a moment. The concussion had extinguished the street
lamps opposite. All was dark in front of the café where a moment before
the Boulevard was flooded with light. A cloud of smoke was rolling out
from the lower part of the house.

"Four things," said Dupré, as he rapidly pulled in the cord. It was
shrivelled at the end. Dupré did the other three things quickly.

Everything was strangely silent, although the deadened roar of the
explosion still sounded dully in his ears. His boots crunched on the
plaster as he walked across the room and groped for the door. He had
some trouble in pulling it open. It stuck so fast that he thought it
was locked; then he remembered with a cold shiver of fear that the door
had been unlocked all the time he had stood at the window with the
canister in his hand.

"I have certainly done some careless thing like that which will
betray me yet; I wonder what it is?"

He wrenched the door open at last. The lights in the hall were out; he
struck a match, and made his way down. He thought he heard groans. As
he went down, he found it was the _concierge_ huddled in a corner.

"What is the matter?" he asked.

"Oh, my God, my God!" cried the _concierge_, "I knew they would do
it. We are all blown to atoms!"

"Get up," said Dupré, "you're not hurt; come with me and see if we can
be of any use."

"I'm afraid of another explosion," groaned the _concierge_.

"Nonsense! There's never a second. Come along."

They found some difficulty in getting outside, and then it was through
a hole in the wall and not through the door. The lower hall was
wrecked.

Dupré expected to find a crowd, but there was no one there. He did not
realise how short a time had elapsed since the disaster. The policeman
was on his hands and knees in the street, slowly getting up, like a man
in a dream. Dupré ran to him, and helped him on his feet.

"Are you hurt?" he asked.

"I don't know," said the policeman, rubbing his head in his
bewilderment.

"How was it done?"

"Oh, don't ask me. All at once there was a clap of thunder, and the
next thing I was on my face in the street."

"Is your comrade inside?"

"Yes; he and M. Sonne and two customers."

"And the _garçon_, wasn't he there?" cried Dupré, with a note of
disappointment in his voice.

The policeman didn't notice the disappointed tone, but answered--

"Oh, the _garçon_, of course."

"Ah," said Dupré, in a satisfied voice, "let us go in, and help them."
Now the people had begun to gather in crowds, but kept at some distance
from the café. "Dynamite! dynamite!" they said, in awed voices among
themselves.

A detachment of police came mysteriously from somewhere. They drove the
crowd still further back.

"What is this man doing here?" asked the Chief.

The policeman answered, "He's a friend of ours; he lives in the house."

"Oh," said the Chief.

"I was going in," said Dupré, "to find my friend, the officer, on duty
in the café."

"Very well, come with us."

They found the policeman insensible under the _débris_, with a leg
and both arms broken. Dupré helped to carry him out to the ambulance.
M. Sonne was breathing when they found him, but died on the way to the
hospital. The _garçon_ had been blown to pieces.

The Chief thanked Dupré for his assistance.

They arrested many persons, but never discovered who blew up the Café
Vernon, although it was surmised that some miscreant had left a bag
containing an infernal machine with either the waiter or the
proprietor.




AN ELECTRICAL SLIP.


Public opinion had been triumphantly vindicated. The insanity plea had
broken down, and Albert Prior was sentenced to be hanged by the neck
until he was dead, and might the Lord have mercy on his soul. Everybody
agreed that it was a righteous verdict, but now that he was sentenced
they added, "Poor fellow!"

Albert Prior was a young man who had had more of his own way than was
good for him. His own family--father, mother, brother, and sisters--had
given way to him so much, that he appeared to think the world at large
should do the same. The world differed with him. Unfortunately, the
first to oppose his violent will was a woman--a girl almost. She would
have nothing to do with him, and told him so. He stormed, of course,
but did not look upon her opposition as serious. No girl in her senses
could continue to refuse a young man with his prospects in life. But
when he heard that she had become engaged to young Bowen, the telegraph
operator, Prior's rage passed all bounds. He determined to frighten
Bowen out of the place, and called at the telegraph office for that
laudable purpose; but Bowen was the night operator, and was absent. The
day man, with a smile, not knowing what he did, said Bowen would likely
be found at the Parker Place, where Miss Johnson lived with her aunt,
her parents being dead.

Prior ground his teeth and departed. He found Miss Johnson at home, but
alone. There was a stormy scene, ending with the tragedy. He fired four
times at her, keeping the other two bullets for himself. But he was a
coward and a cur at heart, and when it came to the point of putting the
two bullets in himself he quailed, and thought it best to escape. Then
electricity did him its first dis-service. It sent his description far
and wide, capturing him twenty-five miles from his home. He was taken
back to the county town where he lived, and lodged in gaol.

Public opinion, ever right and all-powerful, now asserted itself. The
outward and visible sign of its action was an ominous gathering of
dark-browed citizens outside the gaol. There were determined mutterings
among the crowd rather than outspoken anger, but the mob was the more
dangerous on that account. One man in its midst thrust his closed hand
towards the sky, and from his fist dangled a rope. A cry like the
growling of a pack of wolves went up as the mob saw the rope, and they
clamoured at the gates of the gaol. "Lynch him! Gaoler, give up the
keys!" was the cry.

The agitated sheriff knew his duty, but he hesitated to perform it.
Technically, this was a mob--a mob of outlaws; but in reality it was
composed of his fellow-townsmen, his neighbours, his friends--justly
indignant at the commission of an atrocious crime. He might order them
to be fired upon, and the order perhaps would be obeyed. One, two, a
dozen might be killed, and technically again they would have deserved
their fate; yet all that perfectly legal slaughter would be--for what?
To save, for a time only, the worthless life of a wretch who rightly
merited any doom the future might have in store for him. So the sheriff
wrung his hands, bewailed the fact that such a crisis should have
arisen during his term of office, and did nothing; while the clamours
of the mob grew so loud that the trembling prisoner in his cell heard
it, and broke out into a cold sweat when he quickly realised what it
meant. He was to have a dose of justice in the raw.

"What shall I do?" asked the gaoler. "Give up the keys?"

"I don't know what to do," cried the sheriff, despairingly. "Would
there be any use in speaking to them, do you think?"

"Not the slightest."

"I ought to call on them to disperse, and if they refused I suppose I
should have them fired on."

"That is the law," answered the gaoler, grimly.

"What would you do if you were in my place?" appealed the sheriff. It
was evident the stern Roman Father was not elected by popular vote in
_that_ county.

"Me?" said the gaoler. "Oh, I'd give 'em the keys, and let 'em hang
him. It'll save you the trouble. If you have 'em fired on, you're sure
to kill the very men who are at this moment urging 'em to go home.
There's always an innocent man in a mob, and he's the one to get hurt
every time."

"Well then, Perkins, you give them the keys; but for Heaven's sake
don't say I told you. They'll be sorry for this to-morrow. You know I'm
elected, but you're appointed, so you don't need to mind what people
say."

"That's all right," said the gaoler, "I'll stand the brunt."

But the keys were not given up. The clamour had ceased. A young man
with pale face and red eyes stood on the top of the stone wall that
surrounded the gaol. He held up his hand and there was instant silence.
They all recognised him as Bowen, the night operator, to whom
_she_ had been engaged.

"Gentlemen," he cried--and his clear voice reached the outskirts of the
crowd--"don't do it. Don't put an everlasting stain on the fair name of
our town. No one has ever been lynched in this county and none in this
State, so far as I know. Don't let us begin it. If I thought the
miserable scoundrel inside would escape--if I thought his money would
buy him off--I'd be the man to lead you to batter down those doors and
hang him on the nearest tree--and you know it." There were cheers at
this. "But he won't escape. His money can't buy him off. He will be
hanged by the law. Don't think it's mercy I'm preaching; it's
vengeance!" Bowen shook his clenched fist at the gaol. "That wretch
there has been in hell ever since he heard your shouts. He'll be in
hell, for he's a dastard, until the time his trembling legs carry him
to the scaffold. I want him to _stay_ in this hell till he drops
through into the other, if there is one. I want him to suffer some of
the misery he has caused. Lynching is over in a moment. I want that
murderer to die by the slow merciless cruelty of the law."

Even the worst in the crowd shuddered as they heard these words and
realised as they looked at Bowen's face, almost inhuman in its rage,
that his thirst for revenge made their own seem almost innocent. The
speech broke up the crowd. The man with the rope threw it over into the
gaol-yard, shouting to the sheriff, "Take care of it, old man, you'll
need it."

The crowd dispersed, and the sheriff, overtaking Bowen, brought his
hand down affectionately on his shoulder.

"Bowen, my boy," he said, "you're a brick. I'm everlastingly obliged to
you. You got me out of an awful hole. If you ever get into a tight
place, Bowen, come to me, and if money or influence will help you, you
can have all I've got of either."

"Thanks," said Bowen, shortly. He was not in a mood for
congratulations.

And so it came about, just as Bowen knew it would, that all the money
and influence of the Prior family could not help the murderer, and he
was sentenced to be hanged on September 21, at 6 A.M. And thus public
opinion was satisfied.

But the moment the sentence was announced, and the fate of the young
man settled, a curious change began to be noticed in public opinion. It
seemed to have veered round. There was much sympathy for the family of
course. Then there came to be much sympathy for the criminal himself.
People quoted the phrase about the worst use a man can be put to.
Ladies sent flowers to the condemned man's cell. After all, hanging
him, poor fellow, would not bring Miss Johnson back to life. However,
few spoke of Miss Johnson, she was forgotten by all but one man, who
ground his teeth when he realised the instability of public opinion.

Petitions were got up, headed by the local clergy. Women begged for
signatures, and got them. Every man and woman signed them. All except
one; and even he was urged to sign by a tearful lady, who asked him to
remember that vengeance was the Lord's.

"But the Lord has his instruments," said Bowen, grimly; "and I swear to
you, madam, that if you succeed in getting that murderer reprieved, I
will be the instrument of the Lord's vengeance."

"Oh, don't say that," pleaded the lady. "Your signature would have
_such_ an effect. You were noble once and saved him from lynching;
be noble again and save him from the gallows."

"I shall certainly not sign. It is, if you will pardon me, an insult to
ask me. If you reprieve him you will make a murderer of me, for I will
kill him when he comes out, if it is twenty years from now. You talk of
lynching; it is such work as you are doing that makes lynching
possible. The people seem all with you now, more shame to them, but the
next murder that is committed will be followed by a lynching just
because you are successful to-day."

The lady left Bowen with a sigh, depressed because of the depravity of
human nature; as indeed she had every right to be.

The Prior family was a rich and influential one. The person who is
alive has many to help; the one in the grave has few to cry for
justice. Petitions calling for mercy poured in on the governor from all
parts of the State. The good man, whose eye was entirely on his own re-
election, did not know what to do. If any one could have shown him
mathematically that this action or the other would gain or lose him
exactly so many votes, his course would have been clear, but his own
advisers were uncertain about the matter. A mistake in a little thing
like this might easily lose him the election. Sometimes it was rumoured
that the governor was going to commute the sentence to imprisonment for
life; then the rumour was contradicted.

People claimed, apparently with justice, that surely imprisonment for
life was a sufficient punishment for a young man; but every one knew in
his own heart that the commutation was only the beginning of the fight,
and that a future governor would have sufficient pressure brought to
bear upon him to let the young man go.

Up to September 20 the governor made no sign. When Bowen went to his
duties on the night of the 20th he met the sheriff.

"Has any reprieve arrived yet?" asked Bowen. The sheriff shook his head
sadly. He had never yet hanged a man, and did not wish to begin.

"No," said the sheriff. "And from what I heard this afternoon none is
likely to arrive. The governor has made up his mind at last that the
law must take its course."

"I'm glad of that," said Bowen.

"Well, I'm not."

After nine o'clock messages almost ceased coming in, and Bowen sat
reading the evening paper. Suddenly there came a call for the office,
and the operator answered. As the message came over the wire, Bowen
wrote it down mechanically from the clicking instrument, not
understanding its purport; but when he read it, he jumped to his feet,
with an oath. He looked wildly around the room, then realised with a
sigh of relief that he was alone, except for the messenger boy who sat
dozing in a corner, with his cap over his eyes. He took up the telegram
again, and read it with set teeth.

                  "_Sheriff of Brenting County, Brentingville_.

"Do not proceed further with execution of Prior. Sentence commuted.
Documents sent off by to-night's mail registered. Answer that you
understand this message.

                  "JOHN DAY, _Governor_."

[Illustration: "DO NOT PROCEED FURTHER WITH EXECUTION"]

Bowen walked up and down the room with knitted brow. He was in no doubt
as to what he would do, but he wanted to think over it. The telegraph
instrument called to him and he turned to it, giving the answering
click. The message was to himself from the operator at the capital, and
it told him he was to forward the sheriff's telegram without delay, and
report to the office at the capital--a man's life depended on it, the
message concluded. Bowen answered that the telegram to the sheriff
would be immediately sent.

Taking another telegraph blank, he wrote:--

                  "_Sheriff of Brenting County, Brentingville_.

"Proceed with execution of Prior. No reprieve will be sent. Reply if
you understand this message.

                  "JOHN DAY, _Governor_."

It is a pity it cannot be written that Bowen felt some compunction at
what he was doing. We like to think that, when a man deliberately
commits a crime, he should hesitate and pay enough deference to the
proprieties as to feel at least a temporary regret, even if he goes on
with his crime afterward. Bowen's thoughts were upon the dead girl, not
on the living man. He roused the dozing telegraph messenger.

"Here," he said, "take this to the gaol and find the sheriff. If he is
not there, go to his residence. If he is asleep, wake him up. Tell him
this wants an answer. Give him a blank, and when he has filled it up,
bring it to me; give the message to no one else, mind."

The boy said "Yes, sir," and departed into the night. He returned so
quickly that Bowen knew without asking that he had found the sleepless
sheriff at the gaol. The message to the governor, written in a
trembling hand by the sheriff, was: "I understand that the execution is
to take place. If you should change your mind, for God's sake telegraph
as soon as possible. I shall delay execution until last moment allowed
by law."

Bowen did not send that message, but another. He laughed--and then
checked himself in alarm, for his laugh sounded strange. "I wonder if I
am quite sane," he said to himself. "I doubt it."

The night wore slowly on. A man representing a Press association came
in after twelve and sent a long dispatch. Bowen telegraphed it, taking
the chances that the receiver would not communicate with the sender of
the reprieve at the capital. He knew how mechanically news of the
greatest importance was taken off the wire by men who have
automatically been doing that for years. Anyhow all the copper and zinc
in the world could not get a message into Brentingville, except through
him, until the day operator came on, and then it would be too late.

The newspaper man, lingering, asked if there would be only one
telegrapher on hand after the execution.

"I shall have a lot of stuff to send over and I want it rushed. Some of
the papers may get out specials. I would have brought an operator with
me but we thought there was going to be a reprieve--although the
sheriff didn't seem to think so," he added.

"The day operator will be here at six, I will return as soon as I have
had a cup of coffee, and we'll handle all you can write," answered
Bowen, without looking up from his instrument.

"Thanks. Grim business, isn't it?"

"It is."

"I thought the governor would cave; didn't you?"

"I didn't know."

"He's a shrewd old villain. He'd have lost next election if he'd
reprieved this man. People don't want to see lynching introduced, and a
weak-kneed governor is Judge Lynch's friend. Well, good-night, see you
in the morning."

"Good-night," said Bowen.

Daylight gradually dimmed the lamps in the telegraph room, and Bowen
started and caught his breath as the church bell began to toll.

It was ten minutes after six when Bowen's partner, the day man, came
in.

"Well, they've hanged him," he said.

Bowen was fumbling among some papers on his table. He folded two of
them and put them in his inside pocket. Then he spoke:

"There will be a newspaper man here in a few moments with a good deal
of copy to telegraph. Rush it off as fast as you can and I'll be back
to help before you are tired."

As Bowen walked towards the gaol he met the scattered group of those
who had been privileged to see the execution. They were discussing
capital punishment, and some were yawningly complaining about the
unearthly hour chosen for the function they had just beheld. Between
the outside gate and the gaol door Bowen met the sheriff, who was
looking ghastly and sallow in the fresh morning light.

"I have come to give myself up," said Bowen, before the official could
greet him.

"To give yourself up? What for?"

"For murder, I suppose."

"This is no time for joking, young man," said the sheriff, severely.

"Do I look like a humourist? Read that."

First incredulity, then horror, overspread the haggard face of the
sheriff as he read and re-read the dispatch. He staggered back against
the wall, putting up his arm to keep himself from falling.

"Bowen," he gasped: "Do you--do you mean to--to tell me--that this
message came for me last night?"

"I do."

"And you--you suppressed it?"

"I did--and sent you a false one."

"And I have hanged--a reprieved man?"

"You have hanged a murderer--yes."

"My God! My God!" cried the sheriff. He turned his face on his arm
against the wall and wept. His nerves were gone. He had been up all
night and had never hanged a man before.

Bowen stood there until the spasm was over. The sheriff turned
indignantly to him, trying to hide the feeling of shame he felt at
giving way, in anger at the witness of it.

"And you come to me, you villain, because I said I would help you if
you ever got into a tight place?"

"Damn your tight place," cried the young man, "I come to you to give
myself up. I stand by what I do. I don't squeal. There will be no
petitions got up for _me_. What are you going to do with me?"

"I don't know, Bowen, I don't know," faltered the official, on the
point of breaking down again. He did not wish to have to hang another
man, and a friend at that. "I'll have to see the governor. I'll leave
by the first train. I don't suppose you'll try to escape."

"I'll be here when you want me."

So Bowen went back to help the day operator, and the sheriff left by
the first train for the capital.

Now a strange thing happened. For the first time within human
recollection the newspapers were unanimous in commending the conduct of
the head of the State, the organs of the governor's own party lavishly
praising him; the opposition sheets grudgingly admitting that he had
more backbone than they had given him credit for. Public opinion, like
the cat of the simile, had jumped, and that unmistakably.

"In the name of all that's wonderful, sheriff," said the bewildered
governor, "who signed all those petitions? If the papers wanted the man
hanged, why, in the fiend's name, did they not say so before, and save
me all this worry? Now how many know of this suppressed dispatch?"

"Well, there's you and your subordinates here and----"

"_We'll_ say nothing about it."

"And then there is me and Bowen in Brentingville. That's all."

"Well, Bowen will keep quiet for his own sake, and you won't mention
it."

"Certainly not."

"Then let's _all_ keep quiet. The thing's safe if some of those
newspaper fellows don't get after it. It's not on record in the books,
and I'll burn all the documents."

And thus it was. Public opinion was once more vindicated. The governor
was triumphantly re-elected as a man with some stamina about him.




THE VENGEANCE OF THE DEAD.


It is a bad thing for a man to die with an unsatisfied thirst for
revenge parching his soul. David Allen died, cursing Bernard Heaton and
lawyer Grey; hating the lawyer who had won the case even more than the
man who was to gain by the winning. Yet if cursing were to be done,
David should rather have cursed his own stubbornness and stupidity.

To go back for some years, this is what had happened. Squire Heaton's
only son went wrong. The Squire raged, as was natural. He was one of a
long line of hard-drinking, hard-riding, hard-swearing squires, and it
was maddening to think that his only son should deliberately take to
books and cold water, when there was manly sport on the country side
and old wine in the cellar. Yet before now such blows have descended
upon deserving men, and they have to be borne as best they may. Squire
Heaton bore it badly, and when his son went off on a government
scientific expedition around the world the Squire drank harder, and
swore harder than ever, but never mentioned the boy's name.

Two years after, young Heaton returned, but the doors of the Hall were
closed against him. He had no mother to plead for him, although it was
not likely that would have made any difference, for the Squire was not
a man to be appealed to and swayed this way or that. He took his
hedges, his drinks, and his course in life straight. The young man went
to India, where he was drowned. As there is no mystery in this matter,
it may as well be stated here that young Heaton ultimately returned to
England, as drowned men have ever been in the habit of doing, when
their return will mightily inconvenience innocent persons who have
taken their places. It is a disputed question whether the sudden
disappearance of a man, or his reappearance after a lapse of years, is
the more annoying.

If the old Squire felt remorse at the supposed death of his only son he
did not show it. The hatred which had been directed against his
unnatural offspring re-doubled itself and was bestowed on his nephew
David Allen, who was now the legal heir to the estate and its income.
Allen was the impecunious son of the Squire's sister who had married
badly. It is hard to starve when one is heir to a fine property, but
that is what David did, and it soured him. The Jews would not lend on
the security--the son might return--so David Allen waited for a dead
man's shoes, impoverished and embittered.

At last the shoes were ready for him to step into. The old Squire died
as a gentleman should, of apoplexy, in his armchair, with a decanter at
his elbow. David Allen entered into his belated inheritance, and his
first act was to discharge every servant, male and female, about the
place and engage others who owed their situations to him alone. Then
were the Jews sorry they had not trusted him.

[Illustration: HIS FIRST ACT WAS TO DISCHARGE EVERY SERVANT]

He was now rich but broken in health, with bent shoulders, without a
friend on the earth. He was a man suspicious of all the world, and he
had a furtive look over his shoulder as if he expected Fate to deal him
a sudden blow--as indeed it did.

It was a beautiful June day, when there passed the porter's lodge and
walked up the avenue to the main entrance of the Hall a man whose face
was bronzed by a torrid sun. He requested speech with the master and
was asked into a room to wait.

At length David Allen shuffled in, with his bent shoulders, glaring at
the intruder from under his bushy eyebrows. The stranger rose as he
entered and extended his hand.

"You don't know me, of course. I believe we have never met before. I am
your cousin."

Allen ignored the outstretched hand.

"I have no cousin," he said.

"I am Bernard Heaton, the son of your uncle."

"Bernard Heaton is dead."

"I beg your pardon, he is not. I ought to know, for I tell you I am
he."

"You lie!"

Heaton, who had been standing since his cousin's entrance, now sat down
again, Allen remaining on his feet.

"Look here," said the new-comer. "Civility costs nothing and----"

"I cannot be civil to an impostor."

"Quite so. It _is_ difficult. Still, if I am an impostor, civility
can do no harm, while if it should turn out that I am not an impostor,
then your present tone may make after arrangements all the harder upon
you. Now will you oblige me by sitting down? I dislike, while sitting
myself, talking to a standing man."

"Will you oblige me by stating what you want before I order my servants
to turn you out?"

"I see you are going to be hard on yourself. I will endeavour to keep
my temper, and if I succeed it will be a triumph for a member of our
family. I am to state what I want? I will. I want as my own the three
rooms on the first floor of the south wing--the rooms communicating
with each other. You perceive I at least know the house. I want my
meals served there, and I wish to be undisturbed at all hours. Next I
desire that you settle upon me say five hundred a year--or six hundred
--out of the revenues of the estate. I am engaged in scientific research
of a peculiar kind. I can make money, of course, but I wish my mind
left entirely free from financial worry. I shall not interfere with
your enjoyment of the estate in the least."

"I'll wager you will not. So you think I am fool enough to harbour and
feed the first idle vagabond that comes along and claims to be my dead
cousin. Go to the courts with your story and be imprisoned as similar
perjurers have been."

"Of course I don't expect you to take my word for it. If you were any
judge of human nature you would see I am not a vagabond. Still that's
neither here nor there. Choose three of your own friends. I will lay my
proofs before them and abide by their decision. Come, nothing could be
fairer than that, now could it?"

"Go to the courts, I tell you."

"Oh, certainly. But only as a last resort. No wise man goes to law if
there is another course open. But what is the use of taking such an
absurd position? You _know_ I'm your cousin. I'll take you
blindfold into every room in the place."

"Any discharged servant could do that. I have had enough of you. I am
not a man to be black-mailed. Will you leave the house yourself, or
shall I call the servants to put you out?"

"I should be sorry to trouble you," said Heaton, rising. "That is your
last word, I take it?"

"Absolutely."

"Then good-bye. We shall meet at Philippi."

Allen watched him disappear down the avenue, and it dimly occurred to
him that he had not acted diplomatically.

Heaton went directly to lawyer Grey, and laid the case before him. He
told the lawyer what his modest demands were, and gave instructions
that if, at any time before the suit came off, his cousin would
compromise, an arrangement avoiding publicity should be arrived at.

"Excuse me for saying that looks like weakness," remarked the lawyer.

"I know it does," answered Heaton. "But my case is so strong that I can
afford to have it appear weak."

The lawyer shook his head. He knew how uncertain the law was. But he
soon discovered that no compromise was possible.

The case came to trial, and the verdict was entirely in favour of
Bernard Heaton.

The pallor of death spread over the sallow face of David Allen, as he
realised that he was once again a man without a penny or a foot of
land. He left the court with bowed head, speaking no word to those who
had defended him. Heaton hurried after him, overtaking him on the
pavement.

"I knew this had to be the result," he said to the defeated man. "No
other outcome was possible. I have no desire to cast you penniless into
the street. What you refused to me I shall be glad to offer you. I will
make the annuity a thousand pounds."

Allen, trembling, darted one look of malignant hate at his cousin.

"You successful scoundrel!" he cried. "You and your villainous
confederate Grey. I tell you----"

The blood rushed to his mouth; he fell upon the pavement and died. One
and the same day had robbed him of his land and his life.

Bernard Heaton deeply regretted the tragic issue, but went on with his
researches at the Hall, keeping much to himself. Lawyer Grey, who had
won renown by his conduct of the celebrated case, was almost his only
friend. To him Heaton partially disclosed his hopes, told what he had
learned during those years he had been lost to the world in India, and
claimed that if he succeeded in combining the occultism of the East
with the science of the West, he would make for himself a name of
imperishable renown.

The lawyer, a practical man of the world, tried to persuade Heaton to
abandon his particular line of research, but without success.

"No good can come of it," said Grey. "India has spoiled you. Men who
dabble too much in that sort of thing go mad. The brain is a delicate
instrument. Do not trifle with it."

"Nevertheless," persisted Heaton, "the great discoveries of the
twentieth century are going to be in that line, just as the great
discoveries of the nineteenth century have been in the direction of
electricity."

"The cases are not parallel. Electricity is a tangible substance."

"Is it? Then tell me what it is composed of? We all know how it is
generated, and we know partly what it will do, but what _is_ it?"

"I shall have to charge you six-and-eightpence for answering that
question," the lawyer had said with a laugh. "At any rate there is a
good deal to be discovered about electricity yet. Turn your attention
to that and leave this Indian nonsense alone."

Yet, astonishing as it may seem, Bernard Heaton, to his undoing,
succeeded, after many futile attempts, several times narrowly escaping
death. Inventors and discoverers have to risk their lives as often as
soldiers, with less chance of worldly glory.

First his invisible excursions were confined to the house and his own
grounds, then he went further afield, and to his intense astonishment
one day he met the spirit of the man who hated him.

"Ah," said David Allen, "you did not live long to enjoy your ill-gotten
gains."

"You are as wrong in this sphere of existence as you were in the other.
I am not dead."

"Then why are you here and in this shape?"

"I suppose there is no harm in telling _you_. What I wanted to
discover, at the time you would not give me a hearing, was how to
separate the spirit from its servant, the body--that is, temporarily
and not finally. My body is at this moment lying apparently asleep in a
locked room in my house--one of the rooms I begged from you. In an hour
or two I shall return and take possession of it."

"And how do you take possession of it and quit it?"

Heaton, pleased to notice the absence of that rancour which had
formerly been Allen's most prominent characteristic, and feeling that
any information given to a disembodied spirit was safe as far as the
world was concerned, launched out on the subject that possessed his
whole mind.

"It is very interesting," said Allen, when he had finished.

And so they parted.

David Allen at once proceeded to the Hall, which he had not seen since
the day he left it to attend the trial. He passed quickly through the
familiar apartments until he entered the locked room on the first floor
of the south wing. There on the bed lay the body of Heaton, most of the
colour gone from the face, but breathing regularly, if almost
imperceptibly, like a mechanical wax-figure.

If a watcher had been in the room, he would have seen the colour slowly
return to the face and the sleeper gradually awaken, at last rising
from the bed.

Allen, in the body of Heaton, at first felt very uncomfortable, as a
man does who puts on an ill-fitting suit of clothes. The limitations
caused by the wearing of a body also discommoded him. He looked
carefully around the room. It was plainly furnished. A desk in the
corner he found contained the MS. of a book prepared for the printer,
all executed with the neat accuracy of a scientific man. Above the
desk, pasted against the wall, was a sheet of paper headed:

"What to do if I am found here apparently dead." Underneath were
plainly written instructions. It was evident that Heaton had taken no
one into his confidence.

It is well if you go in for revenge to make it as complete as possible.
Allen gathered up the MS., placed it in the grate, and set a match to
it. Thus he at once destroyed his enemy's chances of posthumous renown,
and also removed evidence that might, in certain contingencies, prove
Heaton's insanity.

Unlocking the door, he proceeded down the stairs, where he met a
servant who told him luncheon was ready. He noticed that the servant
was one whom he had discharged, so he came to the conclusion that
Heaton had taken back all the old retainers who had applied to him when
the result of the trial became public. Before lunch was over he saw
that some of his own servants were also there still.

"Send the gamekeeper to me," said Allen to the servant.

Brown came in, who had been on the estate for twenty years
continuously, with the exception of the few months after Allen had
packed him off.

"What pistols have I, Brown?"

"Well, sir, there's the old Squire's duelling pistols, rather out of
date, sir; then your own pair and that American revolver."

"Is the revolver in working order?"

"Oh yes, sir."

"Then bring it to me and some cartridges."

When Brown returned with the revolver his master took it and examined
it.

"Be careful, sir," said Brown, anxiously. "You know it's a self-cocker,
sir."

"A what?"

"A self-cocking revolver, sir"--trying to repress his astonishment at
the question his master asked about a weapon with which he should have
been familiar.

"Show me what you mean," said Allen, handing back the revolver.

Brown explained that the mere pulling of the trigger fired the weapon.

"Now shoot at the end window--never mind the glass. Don't stand gaping
at me, do as I tell you."

Brown fired the revolver, and a diamond pane snapped out of the window.

"How many times will that shoot without reloading?"

"Seven times, sir."

"Very good. Put in a cartridge for the one you fired and leave the
revolver with me. Find out when there is a train to town, and let me
know."

It will be remembered that the dining-room incident was used at the
trial, but without effect, as going to show that Bernard Heaton was
insane. Brown also testified that there was something queer about his
master that day.

David Allen found all the money he needed in the pockets of Bernard
Heaton. He caught his train, and took a cab from the station directly
to the law offices of Messrs. Grey, Leason and Grey, anxious to catch
the lawyer before he left for the day.

The clerk sent up word that Mr. Heaton wished to see the senior Mr.
Grey for a few moments. Allen was asked to walk up.

"You know the way, sir," said the clerk.

Allen hesitated.

"Announce me, if you please."

The clerk, being well trained, showed no surprise, but led the visitor
to Mr. Grey's door.

"How are you, Heaton?" said the lawyer, cordially. "Take a chair. Where
have you been keeping yourself this long time? How are the Indian
experiments coming on?"

"Admirably, admirably," answered Allen.

At the sound of his voice the lawyer looked up quickly, then apparently
reassured he said--

"You're not looking quite the same. Been keeping yourself too much
indoors, I imagine. You ought to quit research and do some shooting
this autumn."

"I intend to, and I hope then to have your company."

"I shall be pleased to run down, although I am no great hand at a gun."

"I want to speak with you a few moments in private. Would you mind
locking the door so that we may not be interrupted?"

"We are quite safe from interruption here," said the lawyer, as he
turned the key in the lock; then resuming his seat he added, "Nothing
serious, I hope?"

"It is rather serious. Do you mind my sitting here?" asked Allen, as he
drew up his chair so that he was between Grey and the door, with the
table separating them. The lawyer was watching him with anxious face,
but without, as yet, serious apprehension.

"Now," said Allen, "will you answer me a simple question? To whom are
you talking?"

"To whom--?" The lawyer in his amazement could get no further.

"Yes. To whom are you talking? Name him."

"Heaton, what is the matter with you? Are you ill?"

"Well, you have mentioned a name, but, being a villain and a lawyer,
you cannot give a direct answer to a very simple question. You think
you are talking to that poor fool Bernard Heaton. It is true that the
body you are staring at is Heaton's body, but the man you are talking
to is--David Allen--the man you swindled and then murdered. Sit down.
If you move you are a dead man. Don't try to edge to the door. There
are seven deaths in this revolver and the whole seven can be let loose
in less than that many seconds, for this is a self-cocking instrument.
Now it will take you at least ten seconds to get to the door, so remain
exactly where you are. That advice will strike you as wise, even if, as
you think, you have to do with a madman. You asked me a minute ago how
the Indian experiments were coming on, and I answered admirably.
Bernard Heaton left his body this morning, and I, David Allen, am now
in possession of it. Do you understand? I admit it is a little
difficult for the legal mind to grasp such a situation."

"Ah, not at all," said Grey, airily. "I comprehend it perfectly. The
man I see before me is the spirit, life, soul, whatever you like to
call it--of David Allen in the body of my friend Bernard Heaton. The--
ah--essence of my friend is at this moment fruitlessly searching for
his missing body. Perhaps he is in this room now, not knowing how to
get out a spiritual writ of ejectment against you."

"You show more quickness than I expected of you," said Allen.

"Thanks," rejoined Grey, although he said to himself, "Heaton has gone
mad! stark staring mad, as I expected he would. He is armed. The
situation is becoming dangerous. I must humour him."

"Thanks. And now may I ask what you propose to do? You have not come
here for legal advice. You never, unluckily for me, were a client of
mine."

"No. I did not come either to give or take advice. I am here, alone
with you--you gave orders that we were not to be disturbed, remember--
for the sole purpose of revenging myself on you and on Heaton. Now
listen, for the scheme will commend itself to your ingenious mind. I
shall murder you in this room. I shall then give myself up. I shall
vacate this body in Newgate prison and your friend may then resume his
tenancy or not as he chooses. He may allow the unoccupied body to die
in the cell or he may take possession of it and be hanged for murder.
Do you appreciate the completeness of my vengeance on you both? Do you
think your friend will care to put on his body again?"

[Illustration: "WHEN YOU PRESS THE IVORY BUTTON, I FIRE"]

"It is a nice question," said the lawyer, as he edged his chair
imperceptibly along and tried to grope behind himself, unperceived by
his visitor, for the electric button, placed against the wall. "It is a
nice question, and I would like to have time to consider it in all its
bearings before I gave an answer."

"You shall have all the time you care to allow yourself. I am in no
hurry, and I wish you to realise your situation as completely as
possible. Allow me to say that the electric button is a little to the
left and slightly above where you are feeling for it. I merely mention
this because I must add, in fairness to you, that the moment you touch
it, time ends as far as you are concerned. When you press the ivory
button, I fire."

The lawyer rested his arms on the table before him, and for the first
time a hunted look of alarm came into his eyes, which died out of them
when, after a moment or two of intense fear, he regained possession of
himself.

"I would like to ask you a question or two," he said at last.

"As many as you choose. I am in no hurry, as I said before."

"I am thankful for your reiteration of that. The first question is
then: has a temporary residence in another sphere interfered in any way
with your reasoning powers?"

"I think not."

"Ah, I had hoped that your appreciation of logic might have improved
during your--well, let us say absence; you were not very logical--not
very amenable to reason, formerly."

"I know you thought so."

"I did; so did your own legal adviser, by the way. Well, now let me ask
why you are so bitter against me? Why not murder the judge who charged
against you, or the jury that unanimously gave a verdict in our favour?
I was merely an instrument, as were they."

"It was your devilish trickiness that won the case."

"That statement is flattering but untrue. The case was its own best
advocate. But you haven't answered the question. Why not murder judge
and jury?"

"I would gladly do so if I had them in my power. You see, I am
perfectly logical."

"Quite, quite," said the lawyer. "I am encouraged to proceed. Now of
what did my devilish trickiness rob you?"

"Of my property, and then of my life."

"I deny both allegations, but will for the sake of the argument admit
them for the moment. First, as to your property. It was a possession
that might at any moment be jeopardised by the return of Bernard
Heaton."

"By the _real_ Bernard Heaton--yes."

"Very well then. As you are now repossessed of the property, and as you
have the outward semblance of Heaton, your rights cannot be questioned.
As far as property is concerned you are now in an unassailable position
where formerly you were in an assailable one. Do you follow me?"

"Perfectly."

"We come (second) to the question of life. You then occupied a body
frail, bent, and diseased, a body which, as events showed, gave way
under exceptional excitement. You are now in a body strong and healthy,
with apparently a long life before it. You admit the truth of all I
have said on these two points?"

"I quite admit it."

"Then to sum up, you are now in a better position--infinitely--both as
regards life and property, than the one from which my malignity--
ingenuity I think was your word--ah, yes--trickiness--thanks--removed
you. Now why cut your career short? Why murder _me?_ Why not live
out your life, under better conditions, in luxury and health, and thus
be completely revenged on Bernard Heaton? If you are logical, now is
the time to show it."

Allen rose slowly, holding the pistol in his right hand.

"You miserable scoundrel!" he cried. "You pettifogging lawyer--tricky
to the last! How gladly you would throw over your friend to prolong
your own wretched existence! Do you think you are now talking to a
biased judge and a susceptible, brainless jury? Revenged on Heaton? I
_am_ revenged on him already. But part of my vengeance involves
your death. Are you ready for it?"

Allen pointed the revolver at Grey, who had now also risen, his face
ashen. He kept his eyes fastened on the man he believed to be mad. His
hand crept along the wall. There was intense silence between them.
Allen did not fire. Slowly the lawyer's hand moved towards the electric
button. At last he felt the ebony rim and his fingers quickly covered
it. In the stillness, the vibrating ring of an electric bell somewhere
below was audible. Then the sharp crack of the revolver suddenly split
the silence. The lawyer dropped on one knee, holding his arm in the air
as if to ward off attack. Again the revolver rang out, and Grey plunged
forward on his face. The other five shots struck a lifeless body.

A stratum of blue smoke hung breast high in the room as if it were the
departing soul of the man who lay motionless on the floor. Outside were
excited voices, and some one flung himself ineffectually against the
stout locked door.

Allen crossed the room and, turning the key, flung open the door. "I
have murdered your master," he said, handing the revolver butt forward
to the nearest man. "I give myself up. Go and get an officer."




OVER THE STELVIO PASS.


There is no question about it, Tina Lenz was a flirt, as she had a
perfect right to be, living as she did on the romantic shores of Como,
celebrated in song, story, and drama as the lover's blue lake. Tina had
many admirers, and it was just like her perversity to favor the one to
whom her father most objected. Pietro, as the father truly said, was a
beggarly Italian driver, glad of the few francs he got from the
travellers he took over the humble Maloga to the Engadine, or over the
elevated Stelvio to the Tyrol, the lowest and the highest passes in
Europe. It was a sad blow to the hopes as well as the family pride of
old Lenz when Tina defiantly announced her preference for the driver of
the Zweispanner. Old Lenz came of a long and distinguished line of
Swiss hotel-keepers, noted for the success with which they squeezed the
last attainable centime from the reluctant traveller. It was bad enough
that he had no son to inherit his justly celebrated hotel
(_pension_ rates for a stay of not less than eight days), but he
hoped for a son-in-law, preferably of Swiss extraction, to whom he
might, in his old age, hand over the lucrative profession of
deferentially skinning the wealthy Englishman. And now Tina had
deliberately chosen a reckless, unstable Italian who would, in a short
time, scatter to the winds the careful accumulation of years.

"Pietro, the scoundrel, will not have one piastra of my money," cried
the old man wrathfully, dropping into Italian as he was speaking about
a native of Italy.

"No, I shall see that he doesn't," said the girl. "I shall hold the
purse, and he must earn what he spends."

"But if you marry him, you will not have any of it."

"Oh yes, I shall, papa," said Tina confidently; "you have no one else
to leave it to. Besides, you are not old, and you will be reconciled to
our marriage long before there is any question of leaving money."

"Don't be so sure of that," returned the hotel-keeper, much mollified,
because he was old and corpulent, and red in the face.

He felt that he was no match for his daughter, and that she would
likely have her own way in the long run, but he groaned when he thought
of Pietro as proprietor of the prosperous _pension_. Tina insisted
that she would manage the hotel on the strictest principles of her
ancestors, and that she would keep Pietro lounging about the place as a
picturesque ornament to attract sentimental visitors, who seemed to see
some unaccountable beauty about the lake and its surroundings.

Meanwhile Landlord Lenz promptly discharged Pietro, and cursed the day
and hour he had first engaged him. He informed the picturesque young
man that if he caught him talking to his daughter he would promptly
have him arrested for some little thefts from travellers of which he
had been guilty, although the landlord had condoned them at the time of
discovery, probably because he had a fellow-feeling in the matter, and
saw the making of a successful hotel proprietor in the Zweispanner
driver. Pietro, on his part, to make things pleasant all round, swore
that on the first favourable opportunity he would run six inches of
knife into the extensive corporation of the landlord, hoping in that
length of steel to reach a vital spot. The ruddy face of old Lenz paled
at this threat, for the Swiss are a peace-loving people, and he told
his daughter sadly that she was going to bring her father's grey hairs
in sorrow to the grave through the medium of her lover's stiletto. This
feat, however, would have been difficult to perform, as the girl
flippantly pointed out to him, for the old man was as bald as the
smooth round top of the Ortler; nevertheless, she spoke to her lover
about it, and told him frankly that if there was any knife practice in
that vicinity he need never come to see her again. So the young man
with the curly black hair and the face of an angel, swallowed his
resentment against his desired father-in-law, and promised to behave
himself. He secured a position as driver at another hotel, for the
season was brisk, and he met Tina when he could, at the bottom of the
garden overlooking the placid lake, he on one side of the stone wall,
she on the other.

If Landlord Lenz knew of these meetings he did not interfere; perhaps
he was frightened of Pietro's stiletto, or perhaps he feared his
daughter's tongue; nevertheless, the stars in their courses were
fighting for the old man. Tina was naturally of a changeable
disposition, and now that all opposition had vanished, she began to
lose interest in Pietro. He could talk of little else than horses, and
interesting as such conversation undoubtedly is, it palls upon a girl
of eighteen leaning over a stone wall in the golden evening light that
hovers above Como. There are other subjects, but that is neither here
nor there, as Pietro did not recognise the fact, and, unfortunately for
him, there happened to come along a member of the great army of the
unemployed who did.

He came that way just in the nick of time, and proud as old Lenz was of
his _pension_ and its situation, it was not the unrivalled
prospect (as stated in the hotel advertisements) that stopped him. It
was the sight of a most lovely girl leaning over the stone wall at the
foot of the garden, gazing down at the lake and singing softly to
herself.

"By Jove!" said young Standish, "she looks as if she were waiting for
her lover." Which, indeed, was exactly what Tina was doing, and it
augured ill for the missing man that she was not the least impatient
at his delay.

"The missing lover is a defect in the landscape which ought to be
supplied," murmured young Standish as he unslung his knapsack, which,
like that of the late John Brown, was strapped upon his back. He
entered the _pension_ and inquired the rates. Old Lenz took one
glance at the knickerbockers, and at once asked twice as much as he
would have charged a native. Standish agreed to the terms with that
financial recklessness characteristic of his island, and the old man
regretted he had not asked a third more.

"But never mind," he said to himself as the newly arrived guest
disappeared to his room, "I shall make it up on the extras."

With deep regret it must be here admitted that young Standish was an
artist. Artists are met with so often in fiction that it is a matter of
genuine grief to have to deal with one in a narrative of fact, but it
must be remembered that artists flock as naturally to the lake of Como
as stock-brokers to the Exchange, and in setting down an actual
statement of occurrences in that locality the unfortunate writer finds
himself confronted with artists at every turn. Standish was an artist
in water-colours, but whether that is a mitigation or an aggravation of
the original offense the relater knoweth not. He speedily took to
painting Tina amidst various combinations of lake and mountain scenery.
Tina over the garden wall as he first saw her; Tina under an arch of
roses; Tina in one of the clumsy but picturesque lake boats. He did his
work very well, too. Old Landlord Lenz had the utmost contempt for this
occupation, as a practical man should, but he was astonished one day
when a passing traveller offered an incredible sum for one of the
pictures that stood on the hall table. Standish was not to be found,
but the old man, quite willing to do his guest a good turn, sold the
picture. The young man, instead of being overjoyed at his luck, told
the landlord, with the calm cheek of an artist, that he would overlook
the matter this time, but it must not occur again. He had sold the
picture, added Standish, for about one-third its real value. There was
something in the quiet assurance of the youth that more than his words
convinced old Lenz of the truth of his statement. Manner has much to do
with getting a well-told lie believed. The inn-keeper's respect for the
young man went up to the highest attainable point, and he had seen so
many artists, too. But if such prices were obtained for a picture
dashed off in a few hours, the hotel business wasn't in it as a money-
making venture.

It must be confessed that it was a great shock to young Standish when
he found that the fairy-like Tina was the daughter of the gross old
stupid keeper of the inn. It would have been so nice if she had
happened to be a princess, and the fact would have worked in well with
the marble terrace overlooking the lake. It seemed out of keeping
entirely that she should be any relation to old money-making Lenz. Of
course he had no more idea of marrying the girl than he had of buying
the lake of Como and draining it; still, it was such a pity that she
was not a countess at least; there were so many of them in Italy too,
surely one might have been spared for that _pension_ when a man
had to stay eight days to get the lowest rates. Nevertheless, Tina did
make a pretty water-colour sketch. But a man who begins sliding down a
hill such as there is around Como, never can tell exactly where he is
going to bring up. He may stop halfway, or he may go head first into
the lake. If it were to be set down here that within a certain space of
time Standish did not care one continental objurgation whether Tina was
a princess or a char-woman, the statement would simply not be believed,
because we all know that Englishmen are a cold, calculating race of
men, with long side whiskers and a veil round their hats when they
travel.

It is serious when a young fellow sketches in water-colours a charming
sylph-like girl in various entrancing attitudes; it is disastrous when
she teaches him a soft flowing language like the Italian; but it is
absolute destruction when he teaches her the English tongue and watches
her pretty lips strive to surround words never intended for the vocal
resources of a foreigner. As all these influences were brought to bear
on Walter Standish, what chance did the young fellow have? Absolutely
as little as has the un-roped man who misses his footing on the
Matterhorn.

And Tina? Poor little girl, she was getting paid back with a vengeance
for all the heart-aches she had caused--Italian, German, or Swiss
variety. She fell helplessly in love with the stalwart Englishman, and
realised that she had never known before what the word meant. Bitterly
did she regret the sham battles of the heart that she had hitherto
engaged in. Standish took it so entirely for granted that he was the
first to touch her lips (in fact she admitted as much herself) that she
was in daily, hourly terror lest he should learn the truth. Meanwhile
Pietro unburdened his neglected soul of strange oily imprecations that
might have sounded to the uneducated ear of Standish like mellifluous
benedictions, notwithstanding the progress he was making in Italian
under Tina's tuition. However, Pietro had one panacea for all his woes,
and that he proceeded to sharpen carefully.

One evening Standish was floating dreamily through the purple haze,
thinking about Tina of course, and wondering how her piquant archness
and Southern beauty would strike his sober people at home. Tina was
very quick and adaptable, and he had no doubt she could act to
perfection any part he assigned to her, so he was in doubt whether to
introduce her as a remote connexion of the reigning family of Italy, or
merely as a countess in her own right. It would be quite easy to
ennoble the long line of hotel-keepers by the addition of "di" or "de"
or some such syllable to the family name. He must look up the right
combination of letters; he knew it began with "d." Then the
_pension_ could become dimly "A castle on the Italian lakes, you
know"; in fact, he would close up the _pension_ as soon as he had
the power, or change it to a palace. He knew that most of the castles
in the Tyrol and many of the palaces of Italy had become boarding-
houses, so why not reverse the process? He was sure that certain
furnishing houses in London could do it, probably on the hire system.
He knew a fashionable morning paper that was in the habit of publishing
personal items at so much a line, and he thought the following would
read well and be worth its cost:--

"Mr. Walter Standish, of St. John's Wood, and his wife, the Comtessa di
Lenza, are spending the summer in the lady's ancestral home, the
Palazzio di Lenza, on the lake of Como."

This bright vision pleased him for a moment, until he thought it would
be just his luck for some acquaintance to happen along who remembered
the Palazzio Lenza when it was the Pension Lenz--rates on application.
He wished a landslide would carry buildings, grounds, and everything
else away to some unrecognisable spot a few hundred feet down the
mountain.

Thus it was that young Standish floated along with his head in the
clouds, swinging his cane in the air, when suddenly he was brought
sharply down to earth again. A figure darted out from behind a tree, an
instinct rather than reason caused the artist to guard himself by
throwing up his left arm. He caught the knife thrust in the fleshy part
of it, and the pain was like the red-hot sting of a gigantic wasp. It
flashed through his brain then that the term cold steel was a misnomer.
The next moment his right hand had brought down the heavy knob of his
stout stick on the curly head of the Italian, and Pietro fell like a
log at his feet. Standish set his teeth, and as gently as possible drew
the stiletto from his arm, wiping its blade on the clothes of the
prostrate man. He thought it better to soil Pietro's suit than his own,
which was newer and cleaner; besides, he held, perhaps with justice,
that the Italian being the aggressor should bear any disadvantages
arising from the attack. Finally, feeling wet at the elbow, he put the
stiletto in his pocket and hurried off to the hotel.

[Illustration: WIPING ITS BLADE ON THE CLOTHES OF THE PROSTRATE MAN]

Tina fell back against the wall with a cry at the sight of the blood.
She would have fainted, but something told her that she would be well
advised to keep her senses about her at that moment.

"I can't imagine why he should attack me," said Standish, as he bared
his arm to be bandaged. "I never saw him before, and I have had no
quarrel with any one. It could not have been robbery, for I was too
near the hotel. I cannot understand it."

"Oh," began old Lenz, "it's easy enough to account for it. He----"

Tina darted one look at her father that went through him as the blade
had gone through the outstretched arm. His mouth closed like a steel
trap.

"Please go for Doctor Zandorf, papa," she said sweetly, and the old man
went. "These Italians," she continued to Standish, "are always
quarrelling. The villain mistook you for some one else in the dusk."

"Ah, that's it, very likely. If the rascal has returned to his senses,
he probably regrets having waked up the wrong passenger."

When the authorities searched for Pietro they found that he had
disappeared as absolutely as though Standish had knocked him through
into China. When he came to himself and rubbed his head, he saw the
blood on the road, and he knew his stroke had gone home somewhere. The
missing knife would be evidence against him, so he thought it safer to
get on the Austrian side of the fence. Thus he vanished over the
Stelvio pass, and found horses to drive on the other side.

The period during which Standish loafed around that lovely garden with
his arm in a sling, waited upon assiduously and tenderly by Tina, will
always be one of the golden remembrances of the Englishman's life. It
was too good to last for ever, and so they were married when it came to
an end. The old man would still have preferred a Swiss innkeeper for a
son-in-law, yet the Englishman was better than the beggarly Italian,
and possibly better than the German who had occupied a place in Tina's
regards before the son of sunny Italy appeared on the scene. That is
one trouble in the continental hotel business; there is such a
bewildering mixture of nationalities.

Standish thought it best not to go back to England at once, as he had
not quite settled to his own satisfaction how the _pension_ was to
be eliminated from the affair and transformed into a palace. He knew a
lovely and elevated castle in the Tyrol near Meran where they accepted
passers-by in an unobtrusive sort of way, and there, he resolved, they
would make their plans. So the old man gave them a great set-out with
which to go over the pass, privately charging the driver to endeavour
to get a return fare from Meran so as to, partly at least, cover the
outlay. The carriage was drawn by five horses, one on each side of the
pole and three in front. They rested the first night at Bormeo, and
started early next day for over the pass, expecting to dine at
Franzenshöhe within sight of the snowy Ortler.

It was late in the season and the weather was slightly uncertain, but
they had a lovely Italian forenoon for going up the wonderful, zigzag
road on the western side of the pass. At the top there was a slight
sprinkling of snow, and clouds hung over the lofty Ortler group of
peaks. As they got lower down a steady persistent rain set in, and they
were glad to get to the shelter and warmth of the oblong stone inn at
Franzenshöhe, where a good dinner awaited them. After dinner the
weather cleared somewhat, but the clouds still obscured the tops of the
mountains, and the roads were slippery. Standish regretted this, for he
wanted to show his bride the splendid scenery of the next five miles
where the road zigzags down to Trefoi, each elbow of the dizzy
thoroughfare overhanging the most awful precipices. It was a dangerous
bit of road, and even with only two horses, requires a cool and
courageous driver with a steady head. They were the sole guests at the
inn, and it needed no practised eye to see that they were a newly
married couple. The news spread abroad, and every lounger about the
place watched them get into their carriage and drive away, one hind
wheel of the carriage sliding on its skid, and all breaks on.

At the first turning Standish started, for the carriage went around it
with dangerous speed. The whip cracked, too, like a succession of
pistol shots, which was unusual going down the mountain. He said
nothing to alarm his bride, but thought that the driver had taken on
more wine than was good for him at the inn. At the second turn the
wheel actually slid against and bumped the stone post that was the sole
guard from the fearful precipice below. The sound and shock sent a cold
chill up the back of Standish, for he knew the road well and there were
worse places to come. His arm was around his wife, and he withdrew it
gently so as not to alarm her. As he did so she looked up and shrieked.
Following her glance to the front window of their closed carriage,
where the back of the driver is usually to be seen, he saw pressed
against the glass the distorted face of a demon. The driver was
kneeling on his seat instead of sitting on it, and was peering in at
them, the reins drawn over his shoulder, and his back to the horses. It
seemed to Standish that the light of insanity gleamed from his eyes,
but Tina saw in them the revengeful glare of the _vendetti_; the
rage of the disappointed lover.

"My God! that's not our driver," cried Standish, who did not recognise
the man who had once endeavoured to kill him. He sprang up and tried to
open the front window, but the driver yelled out--

"Open that window if you dare, and I'll drive you over here before you
get halfway down. Sit still, and I take you as far as the Weisse Knott.
That's where you are going over. There you'll have a drop of a mile
(_un miglio_)."

"Turn to your horses, you scoundrel," shouted Standish, "or I'll break
every bone in your body!"

"The horses know the way, Signor Inglese, and all our bones are going
to be broken, yours and your sweet bride's as well as mine."

The driver took the whip and fired off a fusilade of cracks overhead,
beside them, and under them. The horses dashed madly down the slope,
almost sending the carriage over at the next turn. Standish looked at
his wife. She had apparently fainted, but in reality had merely closed
her eyes to shut out the horrible sight of Pietro's face. Standish
thrust his arm out of the open window, unfastened the door, and at the
risk of his neck jumped out. Tina shrieked when she opened her eyes and
found herself alone. Pietro now pushed in the frame of the front window
and it dropped out of sight, leaving him face to face with her, with no
glass between them. "Now that your fine Inglese is gone, Tina, we are
going to be married; you promised it, you know."

"You coward," she hissed; "I'd rather die his wife than live yours."

"You're plucky, little Tina, you always were. But he left you. I
wouldn't have left you. I won't leave you. We'll be married at the
chapel of the Three Holy Springs, a mile below the Weisse Knott; we'll
fly through the air to it, Tina, and our bed will be at the foot of
the Madatseh Glacier. We will go over together near where the man threw
his wife down. They have marked the spot with a marble slab, but they
will put a bigger one for us, Tina, for there's two of us."

Tina crouched in the corner of the carriage and watched the face of the
Italian as if she were fascinated. She wanted to jump out as her
husband had done, but she was afraid to move, feeling certain that if
she attempted to escape Pietro would pounce down upon her. He looked
like some wild beast crouching for a spring. All at once she saw
something drop from the sky on the footboard of the carriage. Then she
heard her husband's voice ring out--

"Here, you young fool, we've had enough of this nonsense."

The next moment Pietro fell to the road, propelled by a vigorous kick.
His position lent itself to treatment of that kind. The carriage gave a
bump as it passed over Pietro's leg, and then Tina thinks that she
fainted in earnest, for the next thing she knew the carriage was
standing still, and Standish was rubbing her hands and calling her
pleasant names. She smiled wanly at him.

"How in the world did you catch up to the carriage and it going so
fast?" she asked, a woman's curiosity prompting her first words.

"Oh, the villain forgot about the short cuts. As I warned him, he ought
to have paid more attention to what was going on outside. I'm going
back now to have a talk with him. He's lying on the road at the upper
end of this slope."

Tina was instantly herself again.

"No, dearest," she said caressingly; "you mustn't go back. He probably
has a knife."

"I'm not afraid."

"No, but I am, and you mustn't leave me."

"I would like to tie him up in a hard knot and take him down to
civilisation bumping behind the carriage as luggage. I think he's the
fellow who knifed me, and I want to find out what his game is."

Here Tina unfortunately began to faint again. She asked for wine in a
far-off voice, and Standish at once forgot all about the demon driver.
He mounted the box and took the reins himself. He got wine at the
little cabin of the Weisse Knott, a mile or two farther down. Tina, who
had revived amazingly, probably on account of the motion of the
carriage, shuddered as she looked into the awful gulf and saw five tiny
toy houses in the gloom nearly a mile below.

"That," said Standish, "is the chapel of the Three Holy Springs. We
will go there to-night, if you like, from Trefoi."

"No, no!" cried Tina, shivering. "Let us get out of the mountains at
once."

At Trefoi they found their own driver awaiting them.

"What the devil are you doing here, and how did you get here?" hotly
inquired Standish.

"By the short cuts," replied the bewildered man. "Pietro, one of
master's old drivers, wanted--I don't know why--to drive you as far as
Trefoi. Where is he, sir?"

"I don't know," said Standish. "We saw nothing of him. He must have
been pushed off the box by the madman. Here, jump up and let us get
on."

Tina breathed again. That crisis was over.

They live very happily together, for Tina is a very tactful little
woman.




THE HOUR AND THE MAN.


Prince Lotarno rose slowly to his feet, casting one malignant glance at
the prisoner before him.

"You have heard," he said, "what is alleged against you. Have you
anything to say in your defence?"

The captured brigand laughed.

"The time for talk is past," he cried. "This has been a fine farce of a
fair trial. You need not have wasted so much time over what you call
evidence. I knew my doom when I fell into your hands. I killed your
brother; you will kill me. You have proven that I am a murderer and a
robber; I could prove the same of you if you were bound hand and foot
in my camp as I am bound in your castle. It is useless for me to tell
you that I did not know he was your brother, else it would not have
happened, for the small robber always respects the larger and more
powerful thief. When a wolf is down, the other wolves devour him. I am
down, and you will have my head cut off, or my body drawn asunder in
your courtyard, whichever pleases your Excellency best. It is the
fortune of war, and I do not complain. When I say that I am sorry I
killed your brother, I merely mean I am sorry you were not the man who
stood in his shoes when the shot was fired. You, having more men than I
had, have scattered my followers and captured me. You may do with me
what you please. My consolation is that the killing me will not bring
to life the man who is shot, therefore conclude the farce that has
dragged through so many weary hours. Pronounce my sentence. I am
ready."

There was a moment's silence after the brigand had ceased speaking.
Then the Prince said, in low tones, but in a voice that made itself
heard in every part of the judgment-hall--

"Your sentence is that on the fifteenth of January you shall be taken
from your cell at four o'clock, conducted to the room of execution, and
there beheaded."

The Prince hesitated for a moment as he concluded the sentence, and
seemed about to add something more, but apparently he remembered that a
report of the trial was to go before the King, whose representative was
present, and he was particularly desirous that nothing should go on the
records which savoured of old-time malignity; for it was well known
that his Majesty had a particular aversion to the ancient forms of
torture that had obtained heretofore in his kingdom. Recollecting this,
the Prince sat down.

The brigand laughed again. His sentence was evidently not so gruesome
as he had expected. He was a man who had lived all his life in the
mountains, and he had had no means of knowing that more merciful
measures had been introduced into the policy of the Government.

"I will keep the appointment," he said jauntily, "unless I have a more
pressing engagement."

The brigand was led away to his cell. "I hope," said the Prince, "that
you noted the defiant attitude of the prisoner."

"I have not failed to do so, your Excellency," replied the ambassador.

"I think," said the Prince, "that under the circumstances, his
treatment has been most merciful."

"I am certain, your Excellency," said the ambassador, "that his Majesty
will be of the same opinion. For such a miscreant, beheading is too
easy a death."

The Prince was pleased to know that the opinion of the ambassador
coincided so entirely with his own.

The brigand Toza was taken to a cell in the northern tower, where, by
climbing on a bench, he could get a view of the profound valley at the
mouth of which the castle was situated. He well knew its impregnable
position, commanding as it did, the entrance to the valley. He knew
also that if he succeeded in escaping from the castle he was hemmed in
by mountains practically unscalable, while the mouth of the gorge was
so well guarded by the castle that it was impossible to get to the
outer world through that gateway. Although he knew the mountains well,
he realised that, with his band scattered, many killed, and the others
fugitives, he would have a better chance of starving to death in the
valley than of escaping out of it. He sat on the bench and thought over
the situation. Why had the Prince been so merciful? He had expected
torture, whereas he was to meet the easiest death that a man could die.
He felt satisfied there was something in this that he could not
understand. Perhaps they intended to starve him to death, now that the
appearance of a fair trial was over. Things could be done in the
dungeon of a castle that the outside world knew nothing of. His fears
of starvation were speedily put to an end by the appearance of his
gaoler with a better meal than he had had for some time; for during the
last week he had wandered a fugitive in the mountains until captured by
the Prince's men, who evidently had orders to bring him in alive. Why
then were they so anxious not to kill him in a fair fight if he were
now to be merely beheaded?

"What is your name?" asked Toza of his gaoler.

"I am called Paulo," was the answer.

"Do you know that I am to be beheaded on the fifteenth of the month?"

"I have heard so," answered the man.

"And do you attend me until that time?"

"I attend you while I am ordered to do so. If you talk much I may be
replaced."

"That, then, is a tip for silence, good Paulo," said the brigand. "I
always treat well those who serve me well; I regret, therefore, that I
have no money with me, and so cannot recompense you for good service."

"That is not necessary," answered Paulo. "I receive my recompense from
the steward."

"Ah, but the recompense of the steward and the recompense of a brigand
chief are two very different things. Are there so many pickings in your
position that you are rich, Paulo?"

"No; I am a poor man."

"Well, under certain circumstances, I could make you rich."

Paulo's eyes glistened, but he made no direct reply. Finally he said,
in a frightened whisper, "I have tarried too long, I am watched. By-
and-by the vigilance will be relaxed, and then we may perhaps talk of
riches."

With that the gaoler took his departure. The brigand laughed softly to
himself. "Evidently," he said, "Paulo is not above the reach of a
bribe. We will have further talk on the subject when the watchfulness
is relaxed."

And so it grew to be a question of which should trust the other. The
brigand asserted that hidden in the mountains he had gold and jewels,
and these he would give to Paulo if he could contrive his escape from
the castle.

"Once free of the castle, I can soon make my way out of the valley,"
said the brigand.

"I am not so sure of that," answered Paulo. "The castle is well
guarded, and when it is discovered that you have escaped, the alarm-
bell will be rung, and after that not a mouse can leave the valley
without the soldiers knowing it."

The brigand pondered on the situation for some time, and at last said,
"I know the mountains well."

"Yes;" said Paulo, "but you are one man, and the soldiers of the Prince
are many. Perhaps," he added, "if it were made worth my while, I could
show you that I know the mountains even better than you do."

"What do you mean?" asked the brigand, in an excited whisper.

"Do you know the tunnel?" inquired Paulo, with an anxious glance
towards the door.

"What tunnel? I never heard of any."

"But it exists, nevertheless; a tunnel through the mountains to the
world outside."

"A tunnel through the mountains? Nonsense!" cried the brigand. "I
should have known of it if one existed. The work would be too great to
accomplish."

"It was made long before your day, or mine either. If the castle had
fallen, then those who were inside could escape through the tunnel. Few
know of the entrance; it is near the waterfall up the valley, and is
covered with brushwood. What will you give me to place you at the
entrance of that tunnel?"

The brigand looked at Paulo sternly for a few moments, then he answered
slowly, "Everything I possess."

"And how much is that?" asked Paulo.

"It is more than you will ever earn by serving the Prince."

"Will you tell me where it is before I help you to escape from the
castle and lead you to the tunnel?"

"Yes," said Toza.

"Will you tell me now?"

"No; bring me a paper to-morrow, and I will draw a plan showing you how
to get it."

[Illustration: "I WILL DRAW A PLAN"]

When his gaoler appeared, the day after Toza had given the plan, the
brigand asked eagerly, "Did you find the treasure?"

"I did," said Paulo quietly.

"And will you keep your word?--will you get me out of the castle?"

"I will get you out of the castle and lead you to the entrance of the
tunnel, but after that you must look to yourself."

"Certainly," said Toza, "that was the bargain. Once out of this
accursed valley, I can defy all the princes in Christendom. Have you a
rope?"

"We shall need none," said the gaoler. "I will come for you at
midnight, and take you out of the castle by the secret passage; then
your escape will not be noticed until morning."

At midnight his gaoler came and led Toza through many a tortuous
passage, the two men pausing now and then, holding their breaths
anxiously as they came to an open court through which a guard paced. At
last they were outside of the castle at one hour past midnight.

The brigand drew a long breath of relief when he was once again out in
the free air.

"Where is your tunnel?" he asked, in a somewhat distrustful whisper of
his guide.

"Hush!" was the low answer. "It is only a short distance from the
castle, but every inch is guarded, and we cannot go direct; we must
make for the other side of the valley and come to it from the north."

"What!" cried Toza in amazement, "traverse the whole valley for a
tunnel a few yards away?"

"It is the only safe plan," said Paulo. "If you wish to go by the
direct way, I must leave you to your own devices."

"I am in your hands," said the brigand with a sigh. "Take me where you
will, so long as you lead me to the entrance of the tunnel."

They passed down and down around the heights on which the castle stood,
and crossed the purling little river by means of stepping-stones. Once
Toza fell into the water, but was rescued by his guide. There was still
no alarm from the castle as daylight began to break. As it grew more
light they both crawled into a cave which had a low opening difficult
to find, and there Paulo gave the brigand his breakfast, which he took
from a little bag slung by a strap across his shoulder.

"What are we going to do for food if we are to be days between here and
the tunnel?" asked Toza.

"Oh, I have arranged for that, and a quantity of food has been placed
where we are most likely to want it. I will get it while you sleep."

"But if you are captured, what am I to do?" asked Toza. "Can you not
tell me now how to find the tunnel, as I told you how to find the
treasure?"

Paulo pondered over this for a moment, and then said, "Yes; I think it
would be the safer way. You must follow the stream until you reach the
place where the torrent from the east joins it. Among the hills there
is a waterfall, and halfway up the precipice on a shelf of rock there
are sticks and bushes. Clear them away, and you will find the entrance
to the tunnel. Go through the tunnel until you come to a door, which is
bolted on this side. When you have passed through, you will see the end
of your journey."

Shortly after daybreak the big bell of the castle began to toll, and
before noon the soldiers were beating the bushes all around them. They
were so close that the two men could hear their voices from their
hiding-place, where they lay in their wet clothes, breathlessly
expecting every moment to be discovered.

The conversation of two soldiers, who were nearest them, nearly caused
the hearts of the hiding listeners to stop beating.

"Is there not a cave near here?" asked one. "Let us search for it!"

"Nonsense," said the other. "I tell you that they could not have come
this far already."

"Why could they not have escaped when the guard changed at midnight?"
insisted the first speaker.

"Because Paulo was seen crossing the courtyard at midnight, and they
could have had no other chance of getting away until just before
daybreak."

This answer seemed to satisfy his comrade, and the search was given up
just as they were about to come upon the fugitives. It was a narrow
escape, and, brave as the robber was, he looked pale, while Paulo was
in a state of collapse.

Many times during the nights and days that followed, the brigand and
his guide almost fell into the hands of the minions of the Prince.
Exposure, privation, semi-starvation, and, worse than all, the
alternate wrenchings of hope and fear, began to tell upon the stalwart
frame of the brigand. Some days and nights of cold winter rain added to
their misery. They dare not seek shelter, for every habitable place was
watched.

When daylight overtook them on their last night's crawl through the
valley, they were within a short distance of the waterfall, whose low
roar now came soothingly down to them.

"Never mind the daylight," said Toza; "let us push on and reach the
tunnel."

"I can go no farther," moaned Paulo; "I am exhausted."

"Nonsense," cried Toza; "it is but a short distance."

"The distance is greater than you think; besides, we are in full view
of the castle. Would you risk everything now that the game is nearly
won? You must not forget that the stake is your head; and remember what
day this is."

"What day is it?" asked the brigand, turning on his guide.

"It is the fifteenth of January, the day on which you were to be
executed."

Toza caught his breath sharply. Danger and want had made a coward of
him and he shuddered now, which he had not done when he was on his
trial and condemned to death.

"How do you know it is the fifteenth?" he asked at last.

Paulo held up his stick, notched after the method of Robinson Crusoe.

"I am not so strong as you are, and if you will let me rest here until
the afternoon, I am willing to make a last effort, and try to reach the
entrance of the tunnel."

"Very well," said Toza shortly.

As they lay there that forenoon neither could sleep. The noise of the
waterfall was music to the ears of both; their long toilsome journey
was almost over.

[Illustration: HE THREW ASIDE BUSHES, BRAMBLES AND LOGS]

"What did you do with the gold that you found in the mountains?" asked
Toza suddenly.

Paulo was taken unawares, and answered, without thinking, "I left it
where it was. I will get it after."

The brigand said nothing, but that remark condemned Paulo to death.
Toza resolved to murder him as soon as they were well out of the
tunnel, and get the gold himself.

They left their hiding-place shortly before twelve o'clock, but their
progress was so slow, crawling, as they had to do, up the steep side of
the mountain, under cover of bushes and trees, that it was well after
three when they came to the waterfall, which they crossed, as best they
could, on stones and logs.

"There," said Toza, shaking himself, "that is our last wetting. Now for
the tunnel!"

The rocky sides of the waterfall hid them from view of the castle, but
Paulo called the brigand's attention to the fact that they could be
easily seen from the other side of the valley.

"It doesn't matter now," said Toza; "lead the way as quickly as you can
to the mouth of the cavern."

Paulo scrambled on until he reached a shelf about halfway up the
cataract; he threw aside bushes, brambles, and logs, speedily
disclosing a hole large enough to admit a man.

"You go first," said Paulo, standing aside.

"No," answered Toza; "you know the way, and must go first. You cannot
think that I wish to harm you--I am completely unarmed.

"Nevertheless," said Paulo, "I shall not go first. I did not like the
way you looked at me when I told you the gold was still in the hills. I
admit that I distrust you."

"Oh, very well," laughed Toza, "it doesn't really matter." And he
crawled into the hole in the rock, Paulo following him.

Before long the tunnel enlarged so that a man could stand upright.

"Stop!" said Paulo; "there is the door near here."

"Yes," said the robber, "I remember that you spoke of a door," adding,
however, "What is it for, and why is it locked?"

"It is bolted on this side," answered Paulo, "and we shall have no
difficulty in opening it."

"What is it for?" repeated the brigand.

"It is to prevent the current of air running through the tunnel and
blowing away the obstruction at this end," said the guide.

"Here it is," said Toza, as he felt down its edge for the bolt.

The bolt drew back easily, and the door opened. The next instant the
brigand was pushed rudely into a room, and he heard the bolt thrust
back into its place almost simultaneously with the noise of the closing
door. For a moment his eyes were dazzled by the light. He was in an
apartment blazing with torches held by a dozen men standing about.

In the centre of the room was a block covered with black cloth, and
beside it stood a masked executioner resting the corner of a gleaming
axe on the black draped block, with his hands crossed over the end of
the axe's handle.

The Prince stood there surrounded by his ministers. Above his head was
a clock, with the minute hand pointed to the hour of four.

"You are just in time!" said the Prince grimly; "we are waiting for
you!"




"AND THE RIGOUR OF THE GAME."


Old Mr. Saunders went home with bowed head and angry brow. He had not
known that Dick was in the habit of coming in late, but he had now no
doubt of the fact. He himself went to bed early and slept soundly, as a
man with a good conscience is entitled to do. But the boy's mother must
have known the hours he kept, yet she had said nothing; this made the
matter all the blacker. The father felt that mother and son were
leagued against him. He had been too lenient; now he would go to the
root of things. The young man would speedily change his ways or take
the consequences. There would be no half measures.

Poor old Mrs. Saunders saw, the moment her husband came in, that there
was a storm brewing, and a wild fear arose in her heart that her boy
was the cause. The first words of the old man settled the question.

"What time did Richard come in last night?"

"I--I don't know," she hesitated. "Shuffling" her husband always called
it. She had been a buffer between father and son since Dick was a
child.

"Why don't you know? Who let him in?"

She sighed. The secret had long weighed upon her, and she felt it would
come out at some hapless moment.

"He has a key," she said at last.

The old man glared in speechless amazement. In his angriest mood he had
never suspected anything so bad as this.

"A key! How long has he had a key?"

"About six months. He did not want to disturb us."

"He is very thoughtful! Where does he spend his nights?"

"I don't know. He told me he belongs to a club, where he takes some
kind of exercise."

"Did he tell you he exercised with cards? Did he say it was a gambling
club?"

"I don't believe it is; I am sure Dick doesn't gamble. Dick is a good
boy, father."

"A precious lot you know about it, evidently. Do you think his
employer, banker Hammond, has any idea his clerk belongs to a gambling
club?"

"I am sure I don't know. Is there any thing wrong? Has any one been
speaking to you about Dick?"

"Yes; and not to his credit."

"Oh dear!" cried the mother in anguish. "Was it Mr. Hammond?"

"I have never spoken to Hammond in my life," said the old man,
relenting a little when he saw how troubled his wife was. "No, I
propose to stop this club business before it gets to the banker's ears
that one of his clerks is a nightly attendant there. You will see
Richard when he comes home this evening; tell him I wish to have a word
or two with him to-night. He is to wait for me here. I will be in
shortly after he has had his supper."

"You will not be harsh with him, father. Remember, he is a young man
now, so please advise and do not threaten. Angry words can do no good."

"I will do my duty," said the old man, uncompromisingly.

Gentle Mrs. Saunders sighed--for she well knew the phrase about duty.
It was a sure prelude to domestic trouble. When the old gentleman
undertook to do his duty, he nailed his flag to the mast.

"See that he waits for me to-night," was the parting shot as the old
man closed the door behind him.

Mrs. Saunders had had her share of trouble in this world, as every
woman must who lives with a cantankerous man. When she could save her
son a harsh word, or even a blow, she was content to take either
uncomplainingly. The old man's severity had put him out of touch with
his son. Dick sullenly resented his boyhood of continual fear. During
recent years, when fear had gradually diminished and finally
disappeared, he was somewhat troubled to find that the natural
affection, which a son should have for his father, had vanished with
it. He had, on several occasions, made half-hearted attempts at a
better understanding, but these attempts had unfortunately fallen on
inopportune moments, when the old man was not particularly gracious
toward the world in general, and latterly there had been silence
between the two. The young man avoided his father as much as possible;
he would not have remained at home, had it not been for his mother. Her
steady, unwavering affection for him, her belief in him, and the
remembrance of how she had stood up for him, especially when he was in
the wrong, had bound her to him with bonds soft as silk and strong as
steel. He often felt it would be a pleasure to go wrong, merely to
refute his father's ideas regarding the way a child should be brought
up. Yet Dick had a sort of admiration for the old man, whose many good
qualities were somewhat overshadowed by his brutal temper.

When Richard came home that evening he had his supper alone, as was
usual with him. Mrs. Saunders drew her chair near the table, and while
the meal went on she talked of many things, but avoided the subject
uppermost in her mind, which she postponed until the last moment.
Perhaps after all she would not need to ask him to stay; he might
remain of his own accord. She watched him narrowly as she talked, and
saw with alarm that there was anxiety in his face. Some care was
worrying him, and she yearned to have him confide his trouble to her.
And yet she talked and talked of other things. She noticed that he made
but a poor pretence of eating, and that he allowed her to talk while he
made few replies, and those absent-mindedly. At last he pushed back his
chair with a laugh that sounded forced.

"Well, mother," he said, "what is it? Is there a row on, or is it
merely looming in the horizon? Has the Lord of Creation----"

"Hush, Dick, you mustn't talk in that way. There is nothing much the
matter, I hope? I want to speak with you about your club."

Dick looked sharply at his mother for a moment, then he said: "Well,
what does father want to know about the club? Does he wish to join?"

"I didn't say your father----"

"No, you didn't say it; but, my dear mother, you are as transparent as
glass. I can see right through you and away beyond. Now, somebody has
been talking to father about the club, and he is on the war-path. Well,
what does he want to know?"

"He said it was a gambling club."

"Right for once."

"Oh, Dick, is it?"

"Certainly it is. Most clubs are gambling clubs and drinking clubs. I
don't suppose the True Blues gamble more than others, but I'll bet they
don't gamble any less."

"Oh, Dick, Dick, I'm sorry to hear that. And, Dick, my darling boy, do
you----"

"Do I gamble, mother? No, I don't. I know you'll believe me, though the
old man won't. But it's true, nevertheless. I can't afford it, for it
takes money to gamble, and I'm not as rich as old Hammond yet."

"Oh yes, Dick dear, and that reminds me. Another thing your father
feared was that Mr. Hammond might come to know you were a member of the
club. It might hurt your prospects in the bank," she added, not wishing
to frighten the boy with the threat of the dismissal she felt sure
would follow the revelation.

Dick threw back his head and roared. For the first time that evening
the lines of care left his brow. Then seeing his mother's look of
incomprehension, he sobered down, repressing his mirth with some
difficulty.

"Mother," he said at last, "things have changed since father was a boy;
I'm afraid he hardly appreciates how much. The old terrifying relations
between employer and employee do not exist now--at least, that is my
experience."

"Still if Mr. Hammond came to know that you spent your evenings at----"

"Mother, listen to me a moment. Mr. Julius Hammond proposed me for
membership in the club--my employer! I should never have thought of
joining if it hadn't been for him. You remember my last raise in
salary? You thought it was for merit, of course, and father thought it
was luck. Well, it was neither--or both, perhaps. Now, this is
confidential and to yourself only. I wouldn't tell it to any one else.
Hammond called me into his private office one afternoon when the bank
was closed, and said, 'Saunders, I want you to join the Athletic Club;
I'll propose you.' I was amazed and told him I couldn't afford it.
'Yes, you can,' he answered. 'I'm going to raise your salary double the
amount of entrance fee and annual. If you don't join I'll cut it down.'
So I joined. I think I should have been a fool if I hadn't."

"Dick, I never heard of such a thing! What in the world did he want you
to join for?"

"Well, mother," said Dick, looking at his watch, "that's a long story.
I'll tell it to you some other evening. I haven't time to-night. I must
be off."

"Oh, Dick, don't go to-night. Please stay at home, for my sake."

Dick smoothed his mother's grey hair and kissed her on the forehead.
Then he said: "Won't to-morrow night do as well, mother? I can't stay
to-night. I have an appointment at the club."

"Telegraph to them and put it off. Stay for my sake to-night, Dick. I
never asked you before."

The look of anxiety came into his face again.

"Mother, it is impossible, really it is. Please don't ask me again.
Anyhow, I know it is father who wants me to stay, not you. I presume
he's on the duty tack. I think what he has to say will keep till to-
morrow night. If he must work off some of his sentiments on gambling,
let him place his efforts where they are needed--let him tackle Jule
Hammond, but not during business hours."

"You surely don't mean to say that a respected business man--a banker
like Mr. Hammond--gambles?"

"Don't I? Why, Hammond's a plunger from Plungerville, if you know what
that means. From nine to three he is the strictest and best business
man in the city. If you spoke to him then of the True Blue Athletic
Club he wouldn't know what you were talking about. But after three
o'clock he'll take any odds you like to offer, from matching pennies to
backing an unknown horse."

Mrs. Saunders sighed. It was a wicked world into which her boy had to
go to earn his living, evidently.

"And now, mother, I really must be off. I'll stay at home to-morrow
night and take my scolding like a man. Good-night."

He kissed her and hurried away before she could say anything more,
leaving her sitting there with folded hands to await, with her
customary patience and just a trifle of apprehension, the coming of her
husband. There was no mistaking the heavy footfall. Mrs. Saunders
smiled sadly as she heard it, remembering that Dick had said once that,
even if he were safe within the gates of Paradise, the sound of his
father's footsteps would make the chills run up his backbone. She had
reproved the levity of the remark at the time, but she often thought of
it, especially when she knew there was trouble ahead--as there usually
was.

"Where's Richard? Isn't he home yet?" were the old man's first words.

"He has been home, but he had to go out again. He had an appointment."

"Did you tell him I wanted to speak with him?"

"Yes, and he said he would stay home to-morrow night."

"Did he know what I said to-night?"

"I'm not sure that I told him you----"

"Don't shuffle now. He either knew or he did not. Which is it?"

"Yes, he knew, but he thought it might not be urgent, and he----"

"That will do. Where is his appointment?"

"At the club, I think."

"Ah-h-h!" The old man dwelt on the exclamation as if he had at last
drawn out the reluctant worst. "Did he say when he would be home?"

"No."

"Very well. I will wait half-an-hour for him, and if he is not in by
that time I will go to his club and have my talk with him there."

Old Mr. Saunders sat grimly down with his hat still on, and crossed his
hands over the knob of his stout walking-stick, watching the clock that
ticked slowly against the wall. Under these distressing circumstances
the old woman lost her presence of mind and did the very thing she
should not have done. She should have agreed with him, but instead of
that she opposed the plan and so made it inevitable. It would be a
cruel thing, she said, to shame their son before his friends, to make
him a laughing-stock among his acquaintances. Whatever was to be said
could be said as well to-morrow night as to-night, and that in their
own home, where, at least, no stranger would overhear. As the old man
made no answer but silently watched the clock, she became almost
indignant with him. She felt she was culpable in entertaining even the
suspicion of such a feeling against her lawful husband, but it did seem
to her that he was not acting judiciously towards Dick. She hoped to
turn his resentment from their son to herself, and would have welcomed
any outburst directed against her alone. In this excited state, being
brought, as it were, to bay, she had the temerity to say--

"You are wrong about one thing, and you may also be wrong in thinking
Dick--in--in what you think about Dick."

The old man darted one lowering look at her, and though she trembled,
she welcomed the glance as indicating the success of her red herring.

"What was I wrong about?"

"You were wrong--Mr. Hammond knows Dick is a member of the club. He is
a member himself and he insisted Dick should join. That's why he raised
his salary."

"A likely story! Who told you that?"

"Dick told me himself."

"And you believed it, of course!" Saunders laughed in a sneering, cynical
sort of way and resumed his scrutiny of the clock. The old woman gave up
the fight and began to weep silently, hoping, but in vain, to hear the
light step of her son approaching the door. The clock struck the hour;
the old man rose without a word, drew his hat further over his brow,
and left the house.

Up to the last moment Mrs. Saunders hardly believed her husband would
carry out his threat. Now, when she realised he was determined, she had
one wild thought of flying to the club and warning her son. A moment's
consideration put that idea out of the question. She called the
serving-maid, who came, as it seemed to the anxious woman, with
exasperating deliberation.

"Jane," she cried, "do you know where the Athletic Club is? Do you know
where Centre Street is?"

Jane knew neither club nor locality.

"I want a message taken there to Dick, and it must go quickly. Don't
you think you could run there----"

"It would be quicker to telegraph, ma'am," said Jane, who was not
anxious to run anywhere. "There's telegraph paper in Mr. Richard's
room, and the office is just round the corner."

"That's it, Jane; I'm glad you thought of it. Get me a telegraph form.
Do make haste."

She wrote with a trembling hand, as plainly as she could, so that her
son might have no difficulty in reading:--

"_Richard Saunders, Athletic Club, Centre Street_.

"Your father is coming to see you. He will be at the club before
half-an-hour."

"There is no need to sign it; he will know his mother's writing," said
Mrs. Saunders, as she handed the message and the money to Jane; and
Jane made no comment, for she knew as little of telegraphing as did her
mistress. Then the old woman, having done her best, prayed that the
telegram might arrive before her husband; and her prayer was answered,
for electricity is more speedy than an old man's legs.

Meanwhile Mr. Saunders strode along from the suburb to the city. His
stout stick struck the stone pavement with a sharp click that sounded
in the still, frosty, night air almost like a pistol shot. He would
show both his wife and his son that he was not too old to be master in
his own house. He talked angrily to himself as he went along, and was
wroth to find his anger lessening as he neared his destination. Anger
must be very just to hold its own during a brisk walk in evening air
that is cool and sweet.

Mr. Saunders was somewhat abashed to find the club building a much more
imposing edifice than he had expected. There was no low, groggy
appearance about the True Blue Athletic Club. It was brilliantly lit
from basement to attic. A group of men, with hands in pockets, stood on
the kerb as if waiting for something. There was an air of occasion
about the place. The old man inquired of one of the loafers if that was
the Athletic Club.

"Yes, it is," was the answer; "are you going in?"

"I intend to."

"Are you a member?"

"No."

"Got an invitation?"

"No."

"Then I suspect you won't go in. We've tried every dodge ourselves."

The possibility of not getting in had never occurred to the old
gentleman, and the thought that his son, safe within the sacred
precincts of a club, might defy him, flogged his flagging anger and
aroused his dogged determination.

"I'll try, at least," he said, going up the stone steps.

The men watched him with a smile on their lips. They saw him push the
electric button, whereupon the door opened slightly. There was a brief,
unheard parley; then the door swung wide open, and, when Mr. Saunders
entered, it shut again.

"Well, I'm blest!" said the man on the kerb; "I wonder how the old
duffer worked it. I wish I had asked him." None of the rest made any
comment; they were struck dumb with amazement at the success of the old
gentleman, who had even to ask if that were the club.

When the porter opened the door he repeated one of the questions asked
a moment before by the man on the kerb.

"Have you an invitation, sir?"

"No," answered the old man, deftly placing his stick so that the barely
opened door could not be closed until it was withdrawn. "No! I want to
see my son, Richard Saunders. Is he inside?"

The porter instantly threw open the door.

"Yes, sir," he said. "They're expecting you, sir. Kindly come this way,
sir."

The old man followed, wondering at the cordiality of his reception.
There must be some mistake. Expecting him? How could that be! He was
led into a most sumptuous parlour where a cluster of electric lamps in
the ceiling threw a soft radiance around the room.

"Be seated, sir. I will tell Mr. Hammond that you are here."

"But--stop a moment. I don't want to see Mr. Hammond. I have nothing to
do with Mr. Hammond. I want to see my son. Is it Mr. Hammond the
banker?"

"Yes, sir. He told me to bring you in here when you came and to let him
know at once."

The old man drew his hand across his brow, and ere he could reply the
porter had disappeared. He sat down in one of the exceedingly easy
leather chairs and gazed in bewilderment around the room. The fine
pictures on the wall related exclusively to sporting subjects. A trim
yacht, with its tall, slim masts and towering cloud of canvas at an
apparently dangerous angle, seemed sailing directly at the spectator.
Pugilists, naked to the waists, held their clinched fists in menacing
attitudes. Race-horses, in states of activity and at rest, were
interspersed here and there. In the centre of the room stood a pedestal
of black marble, and upon it rested a huge silver vase encrusted with
ornamentation. The old man did not know that this elaborate specimen of
the silversmith's art was referred to as the "Cup." Some one had hung a
placard on it, bearing, in crudely scrawled letters the words:--

               "Fare thee well, and if for ever
                Still for ever Fare thee well."

While the old man was wondering what all this meant, the curtain
suddenly parted and there entered an elderly gentleman somewhat
jauntily attired in evening dress with a rose at his buttonhole.
Saunders instantly recognised him as the banker, and he felt a
resentment at what he considered his foppish appearance, realising
almost at the same moment the rustiness of his own clothes, an everyday
suit, not too expensive even when new.

"How are you, Mr. Saunders?" cried the banker, cordially extending his
hand. "I am very pleased indeed to meet you. We got your telegram, but
thought it best not to give it to Dick. I took the liberty of opening
it myself. You see we can't be too careful about these little details.
I told the porter to look after you and let me know the moment you
came. Of course you are very anxious about your boy."

"I am," said the old man firmly. "That's why I'm here."

"Certainly, certainly. So are we all, and I presume I'm the most
anxious man of the lot. Now what you want to know is how he is getting
along?"

"Yes; I want to know the truth."

"Well, unfortunately, the truth is about as gloomy as it can be. He's
been going from bad to worse, and no man is more sorry than I am."

"Do you mean to tell me so?"

"Yes. There is no use deluding ourselves. Frankly, I have no hope for
him. There is not one chance in ten thousand of his recovering his lost
ground."

The old man caught his breath, and leaned on his cane for support. He
realised now the hollowness of his previous anger. He had never for a
moment believed the boy was going to the bad. Down underneath his
crustiness was a deep love for his son and a strong faith in him. He
had allowed his old habit of domineering to get the better of him, and
now in searching after a phantom he had suddenly come upon a ghastly
reality.

"Look here," said the banker, noticing his agitation, "have a drink of
our Special Scotch with me. It is the best there is to be had for
money. We always take off our hats when we speak of the Special in this
club. Then we'll go and see how things are moving."

As he turned to order the liquor he noticed for the first time the
placard on the cup.

"Now, who the dickens put that there?" he cried angrily. "There's no
use in giving up before you're thrashed." Saying which, he took off the
placard, tore it up, and threw it into the waste basket.

"Does Richard drink?" asked the old man huskily, remembering the eulogy
on the Special.

"Bless you, no. Nor smoke either. No, nor gamble, which is more
extraordinary. No, it's all right for old fellows like you and me to
indulge in the Special--bless it--but a young man who needs to keep his
nerves in order, has to live like a monk. I imagine it's a love affair.
Of course, there's no use asking you: you would be the last one to
know. When he came in to-night I saw he was worried over something. I
asked him what it was, but he declared there was nothing wrong. Here's
the liquor. You'll find that it reaches the spot."

The old man gulped down some of the celebrated "Special," then he said--

"Is it true that you induced my son to join this club?"

"Certainly. I heard what he could do from a man I had confidence in,
and I said to myself, We must have young Saunders for a member."

"Then don't you think you are largely to blame?"

"Oh, if you like to put it that way; yes. Still I'm the chief loser. I
lose ten thousand by him."

"Good God!" cried the stricken father.

The banker looked at the old man a little nervously, as if he feared
his head was not exactly right. Then he said: "Of course you will be
anxious to see how the thing ends. Come in with me, but be careful the
boy doesn't catch sight of you. It might rattle him. I'll get you a
place at the back, where you can see without being seen."

They rose, and the banker led the way on tiptoe between the curtains
into a large room filled with silent men earnestly watching a player at
a billiard table in the centre of the apartment. Temporary seats had
been built around the walls, tier above tier, and every place was
taken. Saunders noticed his son standing near the table in his shirt-
sleeves, with his cue butt downward on the ground. His face was pale
and his lips compressed as he watched his opponent's play like a man
fascinated. Evidently his back was against the wall, and he was
fighting a hopeless fight, but was grit to the last.

Old Saunders only faintly understood the situation, but his whole
sympathy went out to his boy, and he felt an instinctive hatred of the
confident opponent who was knocking the balls about with a reckless
accuracy which was evidently bringing dismay to the hearts of at least
half the onlookers.

All at once there was a burst of applause, and the player stood up
straight with a laugh.

"By Jove!" cried the banker, "he's missed. Didn't put enough stick
behind it. That comes of being too blamed sure. Shouldn't wonder but
there is going to be a turn of luck. Perhaps you'll prove a mascot, Mr.
Saunders."

He placed the old man on an elevated seat at the back. There was a buzz
of talk as young Saunders stood there chalking his cue, apparently loth
to begin.

Hammond mixed among the crowd, and spoke eagerly now to one, now to
another. Old Saunders said to the man next him--

"What is it all about? Is this an important match?"

"Important! You bet it is. I suppose there's more money on this game
than was ever put on a billiard match before. Why, Jule Hammond alone
has ten thousand on Saunders."

The old man gave a quivering sigh of relief. He was beginning to
understand. The ten thousand, then, was not the figures of a
defalcation.

"Yes," continued the other, "it's the great match for the cup. There's
been a series of games, and this is the culminating one. Prognor has
won one, and Saunders one; now this game settles it. Prognor is the man
of the High Fliers' Club. He's a good one. Saunders won the cup for
this club last year, so they can't kick much if they lose it now.
They've never had a man to touch Saunders in this club since it began.
I doubt if there's another amateur like him in this country. He's a man
to be proud of, although he seemed to go to pieces to-night. They'll
all be down on him to-morrow if they lose their money, although he
don't make anything one way or another. I believe it's the high betting
that's made him so anxious and spoiled his play."

"Hush, hush!" was whispered around the room. Young Saunders had begun
to play. Prognor stood by with a superior smile on his lips. He was
certain to go out when his turn came again.

Saunders played very carefully, taking no risks, and his father watched
him with absorbed, breathless interest. Though he knew nothing of the
game he soon began to see how points were made. The boy never looked up
from the green cloth and the balls. He stepped around the table to his
different positions without hurry, and yet without undue tardiness. All
eyes were fastened on his play, and there was not a sound in the large
room but the ever-recurring click-click of the balls. The father
marvelled at the almost magical command the player had over the ivory
spheres. They came and went, rebounded and struck, seemingly because he
willed this result or that. There was a dexterity of touch, and
accurate measurement of force, a correct estimate of angles, a truth of
the eye, and a muscular control that left the old man amazed that the
combination of all these delicate niceties were concentrated in one
person, and that person his own son.

At last two of the balls lay close together, and the young man, playing
very deftly, appeared to be able to keep them in that position as if he
might go on scoring indefinitely. He went on in this way for some time,
when suddenly the silence was broken by Prognor crying out--

"I don't call that billiards. It's baby play."

Instantly there was an uproar. Saunders grounded his cue on the floor
and stood calmly amidst the storm, his eyes fixed on the green cloth.
There were shouts of "You were not interrupted," "That's for the umpire
to decide," "Play your game, Saunders," "Don't be bluffed." The old man
stood up with the rest, and his natural combativeness urged him to take
part in the fray and call for fair play. The umpire rose and demanded
order. When the tumult had subsided, he sat down. Some of the High
Fliers, however, cried, "Decision! Decision!"

"There is nothing to decide," said the umpire, severely. "Go on with
your play, Mr. Saunders."

Then young Saunders did a thing that took away the breath of his
friends. He deliberately struck the balls with his cue ball and
scattered them far and wide. A simultaneous sigh seemed to rise from
the breasts of the True Blues.

"That is magnificent, but it is not war," said the man beside old
Saunders. "He has no right to throw away a single chance when he is so
far behind."

"Oh, he's not so far behind. Look at the score," put in a man on the
right.

Saunders carefully nursed the balls up together once more, scored off
them for a while, and again he struck them far apart. This he did three
times. He apparently seemed bent on showing how completely he had the
table under his control. Suddenly a great cheer broke out, and young
Saunders rested as before without taking his eyes from the cloth.

"What does that mean?" cried the old man excitedly, with dry lips.

"Why, don't you see? He's tied the score. I imagine this is almost an
unprecedented run. I believe he's got Prognor on toast, if you ask me."

Hammond came up with flushed face, and grasped the old man by the arm
with a vigour that made him wince.

"Did you ever see anything grander than that?" he said, under cover of
the momentary applause. "I'm willing to lose my ten thousand now
without a murmur. You see, you are a mascot after all."

The old man was too much excited to speak, but he hoped the boy would
take no more chances. Again came the click-click of the balls. The
father was pleased to see that Dick played now with all the care and
caution he had observed at first. The silence became intense, almost
painful. Every man leaned forward and scarcely breathed.

All at once Prognor strode down to the billiard-table and stretched his
hand across it. A cheer shook the ceiling. The cup would remain on its
black marble pedestal. Saunders had won. He took the outstretched hand
of his defeated opponent, and the building rang again.

Banker Hammond pushed his way through the congratulating crowd and
smote the winner cordially on the shoulder.

"That was a great run, Dick, my boy. The old man was your mascot. Your
luck changed the moment he came in. Your father had his eye on you all
the time."

"What!" cried Dick, with a jump.

A flush came over his pale face as he caught his father's eye, although
the old man's glance was kindly enough.

"I'm very proud of you, my son," said his father, when at last he
reached him. "It takes skill and pluck and nerve to win a contest like
that. I'm off now; I want to tell your mother about it."

"Wait a moment, father, and we'll walk home together," said Dick.




THE BROMLEY GIBBERTS STORY.


The room in which John Shorely edited the _Weekly Sponge_ was not
luxuriously furnished, but it was comfortable. A few pictures decorated
the walls, mostly black and white drawings by artists who were so
unfortunate as to be compelled to work for the _Sponge_ on the
cheap. Magazines and papers were littered all about, chiefly American
in their origin, for Shorely had been brought up in the editorial
school which teaches that it is cheaper to steal from a foreign
publication than waste good money on original contributions. You
clipped out the story; changed New York to London; Boston or
Philadelphia to Manchester or Liverpool, and there you were.

Shorely's theory was that the public was a fool, and didn't know the
difference. Some of the greatest journalistic successes in London
proved the fact, he claimed, yet the _Sponge_ frequently bought
stories from well-known authors, and bragged greatly about it.

Shorely's table was littered with manuscripts, but the attention of the
great editor was not upon them. He sat in his wooden armchair, with his
gaze on the fire and a frown on his brow. The _Sponge_ was not
going well, and he feared he would have to adopt some of the many prize
schemes that were such a help to pure literature elsewhere, or offer a
thousand pounds insurance, tied up in such a way that it would look
lavishly generous to the constant reader, and yet be impossible to
collect if a disaster really occurred.

In the midst of his meditations a clerk entered and announced--"Mr.
Bromley Gibberts."

"Tell him I'm busy just now--tell him I'm engaged," said the editor,
while the perplexed frown deepened on his brow.

The clerk's conscience; however, was never burdened with that message,
for Gibberts entered, with a long ulster coat flapping about his heels.

"That's all right," said Gibberts, waving his hand at the boy, who
stood with open mouth, appalled at the intrusion. "You heard what Mr.
Shorely said. He's engaged. Therefore let no one enter. Get out."

The boy departed, closing the door after him. Gibberts turned the key
in the lock, and then sat down.

"There," he said; "now we can talk unmolested, Shorely. I should think
you would be pestered to death by all manner of idiots who come in and
interrupt you."

"I am," said the editor, shortly.

"Then take my plan, and lock your door. Communicate with the outer
office through a speaking-tube. I see you are down-hearted, so I have
come to cheer you up. I've brought you a story, my boy."

Shorely groaned.

"My dear Gibberts," he said, "we have now----"

"Oh yes, I know all about that. You have matter enough on hand to run
the paper for the next fifteen years. If this is a comic story, you
are buying only serious stuff. If this be tragic, humour is what you
need. Of course, the up-and-down truth is that you are short of money,
and can't pay my price. The _Sponge_ is failing--everybody knows
that. Why can't you speak the truth, Shorely, to me, at least? If you
practiced an hour a day, and took lessons--from me, for instance--you
would be able in a month to speak several truthful sentences one after
the other."

The editor laughed bitterly.

"You are complimentary," he said.

"I'm not. Try again, Shorely. Say I'm a boorish ass."

"Well, you are."

"There, you see how easy it is! Practice is everything. Now, about this
story, will you----"

"I will not. As you are not an advertiser, I don't mind admitting to
you that the paper is going down. You see it comes to the same thing.
We haven't the money as you say, so what's the use of talking?"

Gibberts hitched his chair closer to the editor, and placed his hand on
the other's knee. He went on earnestly--

"Now is the time to talk, Shorely. In a little while it will be too
late. You will have thrown up the _Sponge_. Your great mistake is
trying to ride two horses, each facing a different direction. It can't
be done, my boy. Make up your mind whether you are going to be a thief
or an honest man. That's the first step."

"What do you mean?"

"You know what I mean. Go in for a paper that will be entirely stolen
property, or for one made up of purely original matter."

"We have a great deal of original matter in the _Sponge_."

"Yes, and that's what I object to. Have it all original, or have it all
stolen. Be fish or fowl. At least one hundred men a week see a stolen
article in the _Sponge_ which they have read elsewhere. They then
believe it is all stolen, and you lose them. That isn't business, so I
want to sell you one original tale, which will prove to be the most
remarkable story written in England this year."

"Oh, they all are," said Shorely, wearily. "Every story sent to me is a
most remarkable story, in the author's opinion."

"Look here, Shorely," cried Gibberts, angrily, "you mustn't talk to me
like that. I'm no unknown author, a fact of which you are very well
aware. I don't need to peddle my goods."

"Then why do you come here lecturing me?"

"For your own good, Shorely, my boy," said Gibberts, calming down as
rapidly as he had flared up. He was a most uncertain man. "For your own
good, and if you don't take this story, some one else will. It will
make the fortune of the paper that secures it. Now, you read it while I
wait. Here it is, typewritten, at one-and-three a thousand words, all
to save your blessed eyesight."

Shorely took the manuscript and lit the gas, for it was getting dark.
Gibberts sat down awhile, but soon began to pace the room, much to
Shorely's manifest annoyance. Not content with this, he picked up the
poker and noisily stirred the fire. "For Heaven's sake, sit down,
Gibberts, and be quiet!" cried Shorely, at last.

Gibberts seized the poker as if it had been a weapon, and glared at the
editor.

"I won't sit down, and I will make just as much noise as I want to," he
roared. As he stood there defiantly, Shorely saw a gleam of insanity in
his eyes.

"Oh, very well, then," said Shorely, continuing to read the story.

For a moment Gibberts stood grasping the poker by the middle, then he
flung it with a clatter on the fender, and, sitting down, gazed moodily
into the fire, without moving, until Shorely had turned the last page.

"Well," said Gibberts, rousing from his reverie, "what do you think of
it?"

"It's a good story, Gibberts. All your stories are good," said the
editor, carelessly.

Gibberts started to his feet, and swore.

"Do you mean to say," he thundered, "that you see nothing in that story
different from any I or any one else ever wrote? Hang it, Shorely, you
wouldn't know a good story if you met it coming up Fleet Street! Can't
you see that story is written with a man's heart's blood?"

Shorely stretched out his legs and thrust his hands far down in his
trousers' pockets.

"It may have been written as you say, although I thought you called my
attention a moment ago to its type-written character."

"Don't be flippant, Shorely," said Gibberts, relapsing again into
melancholy. "You don't like the story, then? You didn't see anything
unusual in it--purpose, force, passion, life, death, nothing?"

"There is death enough at the end. My objection is that there is too
much blood and thunder in it. Such a tragedy could never happen. No man
could go to a country house and slaughter every one in it. It's
absurd."

Gibberts sprang from his seat and began to pace the room excitedly.
Suddenly he stopped before his friend, towering over him, his long
ulster making him look taller than he really was.

"Did I ever tell you the tragedy of my life? How the property that
would have kept me from want has----"

"Of course you have, Gibberts. Sit down. You've told it to everybody.
To me several times."

"How my cousin cheated me out of----"

"Certainly. Out of land and the woman you loved."

"Oh! I told you that, did I?" said Gibberts, apparently abashed at the
other's familiarity with the circumstances. He sat down, and rested his
head in his hands. There was a long silence between the two, which was
finally broken by Gibberts saying--

"So you don't care about the story?"

"Oh, I don't say that. I can see it is the story of your own life, with
an imaginary and sanguinary ending."

"Oh, you saw that, did you?"

"Yes. How much do you want for it?"

"£50."

"What?"

"£50, I tell you. Are you deaf? And I want the money now."

"Bless your innocent heart, I can buy a longer story than that from the
greatest author living for less than £50. Gibberts, you're crazy."

Gibberts looked up suddenly and inquiringly, as if that thought had
never occurred to him before. He seemed rather taken with the idea. It
would explain many things which had puzzled both himself and his
friends. He meditated upon the matter for a few moments, but at last
shook his head.

"No, Shorely," he said, with a sigh. "I'm not insane, though, goodness
knows, I've had enough to drive me mad. I don't seem to have the luck
of some people. I haven't the talent for going crazy. But to return to
the story. You think £50 too much for it. It will make the fortune of
the paper that publishes it. Let me see. I had it a moment ago, but the
point has escaped my memory. What was it you objected to as unnatural?"

"The tragedy. There is too much wholesale murder at the end."

"Ah! now I have it! Now I recollect!"

Gibberts began energetically to pace the room again, smiting his hands
together. His face was in a glow of excitement.

"Yes, I have it now. The tragedy. Granting a murder like that, one man
a dead shot, killing all the people in a country house; imagine it
actually taking place. Wouldn't all England ring with it?"

"Naturally."

"Of course it would. Now, you listen to me. I'm going to commit that
so-called crime. One week after you publish the story, I'm going down
to that country house, Channor Chase. It is my house, if there was
justice and right in England, and I'm going to slaughter every one in
it. I will leave a letter, saying the story in the _Sponge_ is the
true story of what led to the tragedy. Your paper in a week will be the
most-talked-of journal in England--in the world. It will leap
instantaneously into a circulation such as no weekly on earth ever
before attained. Look here, Shorely, that story is worth £50,000 rather
than £50, and if you don't buy it at once, some one else will. Now,
what do you say?"

"I say you are joking, or else, as I said just now, you are as mad as a
hatter."

"Admitting I am mad, will you take the story?"

"No, but I'll prevent you committing the crime."

"How?"

"By giving you in charge. By informing on you."

"You can't do it. Until such a crime is committed, no one would believe
it could be committed. You have no witnesses to our conversation here,
and I will deny every assertion you make. My word, at present, is as
good as yours. All you can do is to ruin your chance of fortune, which
knocks at every man's door. When I came in, you were wondering what you
could do to put the _Sponge_ on its feet. I saw it in your
attitude. Now, what do you say?"

"I'll give you £25 for the story on its own merits, although it is a
big price, and you need not commit the crime."

"Done! That is the sum I wanted, but I knew if I asked it, you would
offer me £12 10_s_. Will you publish it within the month?"

"Yes."

"Very well. Write out the cheque. Don't cross it. I've no bank
account."

When the cheque was handed to him, Gibberts thrust it into the ticket-
pocket of his ulster, turned abruptly, and unlocked the door. "Good-
bye," he said.

As he disappeared, Shorely noticed how long his ulster was, and how it
flapped about his heels. The next time he saw the novelist was under
circumstances that could never be effaced from his memory.

The _Sponge_ was a sixteen-page paper, with a blue cover, and the
week Gibberts' story appeared, it occupied the first seven pages. As
Shorely ran it over in the paper, it impressed him more than it had
done in manuscript. A story always seems more convincing in type.

Shorely met several men at the Club, who spoke highly of the story, and
at last he began to believe it was a good one himself. Johnson was
particularly enthusiastic, and every one in the Club knew Johnson's
opinion was infallible.

"How did _you_ come to get hold of it?" he said to Shorely, with
unnecessary emphasis on the personal pronoun.

"Don't you think I know a good story when I see it?" asked the editor,
indignantly.

"It isn't the general belief of the Club," replied Johnson, airily;
"but then, all the members have sent you contributions, so perhaps that
accounts for it. By the way, have you seen Gibberts lately?"

"No; why do you ask?"

"Well, it strikes me he is acting rather queerly. If you asked me, I
don't think he is quite sane. He has something on his mind."

"He told me," said the new member, with some hesitation--"but really I
don't think I'm justified in mentioning it, although he did not tell it
in confidence--that he was the rightful heir to a property in----"

"Oh, we all know that story!" cried the Club, unanimously.

"I think it's the Club whiskey," said one of the oldest members. "I
say, it's the worst in London."

"Verbal complaints not received. Write to the Committee," put in
Johnson. "If Gibberts has a friend in the Club, which I doubt, that
friend should look after him. I believe he will commit suicide yet."

These sayings troubled Shorely as he walked back to his office. He sat
down to write a note, asking Gibberts to call. As he was writing,
McCabe, the business manager of the _Sponge_, came in.

"What's the matter with the old sheet this week?" he asked.

"Matter? I don't understand you."

"Well, I have just sent an order to the printer to run off an extra ten
thousand, and here comes a demand from Smith's for the whole lot. The
extra ten thousand were to go to different newsagents all over the
country who have sent repeat orders, so I have told the printer now to
run off at least twenty-five thousand, and to keep the plates on the
press. I never read the _Sponge_ myself, so I thought I would drop
in and ask you what the attraction was. This rush is unnatural.

"Better read the paper and find out," said Shorely.

"I would, if there wasn't so much of your stuff in it," retorted
McCabe.

Next day McCabe reported an almost bewildering increase in orders. He
had a jubilant "we've-done-it-at-last" air that exasperated Shorely,
who felt that he alone should have the credit. There had come no answer
to the note he had sent Gibberts, so he went to the Club, in the hope
of meeting him. He found Johnson, whom he asked if Gibberts were there.

"He's not been here to-day," said Johnson; "but I saw him yesterday,
and what do you think he was doing? He was in a gun-shop in the Strand,
buying cartridges for that villainous-looking seven-shooter of his. I
asked him what he was going to do with a revolver in London, and he
told me, shortly, that it was none of my business, which struck me as
so accurate a summing-up of the situation, that I came away without
making further remark. If you want any more stories by Gibberts, you
should look after him."

Shorely found himself rapidly verging into a state of nervousness
regarding Gibberts. He was actually beginning to believe the novelist
meditated some wild action, which might involve others in a
disagreeable complication. Shorely had no desire to be accessory either
before or after the fact. He hurried back to the office, and there
found Gibberts' belated reply to his note. He hastily tore it open, and
the reading of it completely banished what little self-control he had
left.

"Dear Shorely,--I know why you want to see me, but I have so many
affairs to settle, that it is impossible for me to call upon you.
However, have no fears; I shall stand to my bargain, without any
goading from you. Only a few days have elapsed since the publication of
the story, and I did not promise the tragedy before the week was out. I
leave for Channor Chase this afternoon. You shall have your pound of
flesh, and more.--Yours,

                            "BROMLEY GIBBERTS."

Shorely was somewhat pale about the lips when he had finished this
scrawl. He flung on his coat, and rushed into the street. Calling a
hansom, he said--

"Drive to Kidner's Inn as quickly as you can. No. 15."

Once there, he sprang up the steps two at a time, and knocked at
Gibberts' door. The novelist allowed himself the luxury of a "man," and
it was the "man" who answered Shorely's imperious knock.

"Where's Gibberts?"

"He's just gone, sir."

"Gone where?"

"To Euston Station, I believe, sir; and he took a hansom. He's going
into the country for a week, sir, and I wasn't to forward his letters,
so I haven't his address."

"Have you an 'ABC'?"

"Yes, sir; step inside, sir. Mr. Gibberts was just looking up trains in
it, sir, before he left."

Shorely saw it was open at C, and, looking down the column to Channor,
he found that a train left in about twenty minutes. Without a word, he
dashed down the stairs again. The "man" did not seem astonished. Queer
fish sometimes came to see his master.

"Can you get me to Euston Station in twenty minutes?"

The cabman shook his head, as he said--

"I'll do my best, sir, but we ought to have a good half-hour."

The driver did his best, and landed Shorely on the departure platform
two minutes after the train had gone.

"When is the next train to Channor?" demanded Shorely of a porter.

"Just left, sir."

"The next train hasn't just left, you fool. Answer my question."

"Two hours and twenty minutes, sir," replied the porter, in a huff.

Shorely thought of engaging a special, but realised he hadn't money
enough. Perhaps he could telegraph and warn the people of Channor
Chase, but he did not know to whom to telegraph. Or, again, he thought
he might have Gibberts arrested on some charge or other at Channor
Station. That, he concluded, was the way out--dangerous, but feasible.

By this time, however, the porter had recovered his equanimity. Porters
cannot afford to cherish resentment, and this particular porter saw
half a crown in the air.

"Did you wish to reach Channor before the train that's just gone, sir?"

"Yes. Can it be done?"

"It might be done, sir," said the porter, hesitatingly, as if he were
on the verge of divulging a State secret which would cost him his
situation. He wanted the half-crown to become visible before he
committed himself further.

"Here's half a sovereign, if you tell me how it can be done, short of
hiring a special."

"Well, sir, you could take the express that leaves at the half-hour. It
will carry you fifteen miles beyond Channor, to Buley Junction, then in
seventeen minutes you can get a local back to Channor, which is due
three minutes before the down train reaches there--if the local is in
time," he added, when the gold piece was safe stowed in his pocket.

While waiting for the express, Shorely bought a copy of the
_Sponge_, and once more he read Gibberts' story on the way down.
The third reading appalled him. He was amazed he had not noticed before
the deadly earnestness of its tone. We are apt to underrate or overrate
the work of a man with whom we are personally familiar.

Now, for the first time, Shorely seemed to get the proper perspective.
The reading left him in a state of nervous collapse. He tried to
remember whether or not he had burned Gibberts' letter. If he had left
it on his table, anything might happen. It was incriminating evidence.

The local was five minutes late at the Junction, and it crawled over
the fifteen miles back to Channor in the most exasperating way, losing
time with every mile. At Channor he found the London train had come and
gone.

"Did a man in a long ulster get off, and----"

"For Channor Chase, sir?"

"Yes. Has he gone?"

"Oh yes, sir! The dog-cart from the Chase was here to meet him, sir."

"How far is it?"

"About five miles by road, if you mean the Chase, sir."

"Can I get a conveyance?"

"I don't think so, sir. They didn't know you were coming, I suppose, or
they would have waited; but if you take the road down by the church,
you can get there before the cart, sir. It isn't more than two miles
from the church. You'll find the path a bit dirty, I'm afraid, sir, but
not worse than the road. You can't miss the way, and you can send for
your luggage."

It had been raining, and was still drizzling. A strange path is
sometimes difficult to follow, even in broad daylight, but a wet, dark
evening adds tremendously to the problem. Shorely was a city man, and
quite unused to the eccentricities of country lanes and paths.

He first mistook the gleaming surface of a ditch for the footpath, and
only found his mistake when he was up to his waist in water. The rain
came on heavily again, and added to his troubles. After wandering
through muddy fields for some time, he came to a cottage, where he
succeeded in securing a guide to Channor Chase.

The time he had lost wandering in the fields would, Shorely thought,
allow the dog-cart to arrive before him, and such he found to be the
case. The man who answered Shorely's imperious summons to the door was
surprised to find a wild-eyed, unkempt, bedraggled individual, who
looked like a lunatic or a tramp.

"Has Mr. Bromley Gibberts arrived yet?" he asked, without preliminary
talk.

"Yes, sir," answered the man.

"Is he in his room?"

"No, sir. He has just come down, after dressing, and is in the drawing-
room.

"I must see him at once," gasped Shorely. "It is a matter of life and
death. Take me to the drawing-room."

The man, in some bewilderment, led him to the door of the drawing-room,
and Shorely heard the sound of laughter from within. Thus ever are
comedy and tragedy mingled. The man threw the door open, and Shorely
entered. The sight he beheld at first dazzled him, for the room was
brilliantly lighted. He saw a number of people, ladies and gentlemen,
all in evening dress, and all looking towards the door, with
astonishment in their eyes. Several of them, he noticed, had copies of
the _Sponge_ in their hands. Bromley Gibberts stood before the
fire, and was very evidently interrupted in the middle of a narration.

"I assure you," he was saying, "that is the only way by which a story
of the highest class can be sold to a London editor."

He stopped as he said this, and turned to look at the intruder. It was
a moment or two before he recognised the dapper editor in the
bedraggled individual who stood, abashed, at the door.

"By the gods!" he exclaimed, waving his hands. "Speak of the editor,
and he appears. In the name of all that's wonderful, Shorely, how did
you come here? Have your deeds at last found you out? Have they ducked
you in a horse-pond? I have just been telling my friends here how I
sold you that story, which is making the fortune of the _Sponge_.
Come forward, and show yourself, Shorely, my boy."

"I would like a word with you," stammered Shorely.

"Then, have it here," said the novelist. "They all understand the
circumstances. Come and tell them your side of the story."

"I warn you," said Shorely, pulling himself together, and addressing
the company, "that this man contemplates a dreadful crime, and I have
come here to prevent it."

Gibberts threw back his head, and laughed loudly.

"Search me," he cried. "I am entirely unarmed, and, as every one here
knows, among my best friends."

"Goodness!" said one old lady. "You don't mean to say that Channor
Chase is the scene of your story, and where the tragedy was to take
place?"

"Of course it is," cried Gibberts, gleefully. "Didn't you recognise the
local colour? I thought I described Channor Chase down to the ground,
and did I not tell you you were all my victims? I always forget some
important detail when telling a story. Don't go yet," he said, as
Shorely turned away; "but tell your story, then we will have each man's
narrative, after the style of Wilkie Collins."

But Shorely had had enough, and, in spite of pressing invitations to
remain, he departed out into the night, cursing the eccentricities of
literary men.




NOT ACCORDING TO THE CODE.


Even a stranger to the big town walking for the first time through
London, sees on the sides of the houses many names with which he has
long been familiar. His precognition has cost the firms those names
represent much money in advertising. The stranger has had the names
before him for years in newspapers and magazines, on the hoardings and
boards by the railway side, paying little heed to them at the time; yet
they have been indelibly impressed on his brain, and when he wishes
soap or pills his lips almost automatically frame the words most
familiar to them. Thus are the lavish sums spent in advertising
justified, and thus are many excellent publications made possible.

When you come to ponder over the matter, it seems strange that there
should ever be any real man behind the names so lavishly advertised;
that there should be a genuine Smith or Jones whose justly celebrated
medicines work such wonders, or whose soap will clean even a guilty
conscience. Granting the actual existence of these persons and probing
still further into the mystery, can any one imagine that the excellent
Smith to whom thousands of former sufferers send entirely unsolicited
testimonials, or the admirable Jones whom _prima donnas_ love
because his soap preserves their dainty complexions--can any one credit
the fact that Smith and Jones have passions like other men, have
hatreds, likes and dislikes?

Such a condition of things, incredible as it may appear, exists in
London. There are men in the metropolis, utterly unknown personally,
whose names are more widely spread over the earth than the names of the
greatest novelists, living or dead, and these men have feeling and form
like unto ourselves.

There was the firm of Danby and Strong for instance. The name may mean
nothing to any reader of these pages, but there was a time when it was
well-known and widely advertised, not only in England but over the
greater part of the world as well. They did a great business, as every
firm that spends a fortune every year in advertising is bound to do. It
was in the old paper-collar days. There actually was a time when the
majority of men wore paper collars, and, when you come to think of it,
the wonder is that the paper-collar trade ever fell away as it did,
when you consider with what vile laundries London is and always has
been cursed. Take the Danby and Strong collars for instance, advertised
as being so similar to linen that only an expert could tell the
difference. That was Strong's invention. Before he invented the
Piccadilly collar so-called, paper collars had a brilliant glaze that
would not have deceived the most recent arrival from the most remote
shire in the country. Strong devised some method by which a slight
linen film was put on the paper, adding strength to the collar and
giving it the appearance of the genuine article. You bought a
pasteboard box containing a dozen of these collars for something like
the price you paid for the washing of half a dozen linen ones. The
Danby and Strong Piccadilly collar jumped at once into great
popularity, and the wonder is that the linen collar ever recovered from
the blow dealt it by this ingenious invention.

Curiously enough, during the time the firm was struggling to establish
itself, the two members of it were the best of friends, but when
prosperity came to them, causes of difference arose, and their
relations, as the papers say of warlike nations, became strained.
Whether the fault lay with John Danby or with William Strong no one has
ever been able to find out. They had mutual friends who claimed that
each one of them was a good fellow, but those friends always added that
Strong and Danby did not "hit it off."

Strong was a bitter man when aroused, and could generally be counted
upon to use harsh language. Danby was quieter, but there was a sullen
streak of stubbornness in him that did not tend to the making up of a
quarrel. They had been past the speaking point for more than a year,
when there came a crisis in their relations with each other, that ended
in disaster to the business carried on under the title of Danby and
Strong. Neither man would budge, and between them the business sunk to
ruin. Where competition is fierce no firm can stand against it if there
is internal dissension. Danby held his ground quietly but firmly,
Strong raged and cursed, but was equally steadfast in not yielding a
point. Each hated the other so bitterly that each was willing to lose
his own share in a profitable business, if by doing so he could bring
ruin on his partner.

We are all rather prone to be misled by appearances. As one walks down
Piccadilly, or the Strand, or Fleet Street and meets numerous
irreproachably dressed men with glossy tall hats and polished boots,
with affable manners and a courteous way of deporting themselves toward
their fellows, we are apt to fall into the fallacy of believing that
these gentlemen are civilised. We fail to realise that if you probe in
the right direction you will come upon possibilities of savagery that
would draw forth the warmest commendation from a Pawnee Indian. There
are reputable business men in London who would, if they dared, tie an
enemy to a stake and roast him over a slow fire, and these men have
succeeded so well, not only in deceiving their neighbours, but also
themselves, that they would actually be offended if you told them so.
If law were suspended in London for one day, during which time none of
us would be held answerable for any deed then done, how many of us
would be alive next morning? Most of us would go out to pot some
favourite enemy, and would doubtless be potted ourselves before we got
safely home again.

The law, however, is a great restrainer, and helps to keep the death-
rate from reaching excessive proportions. One department of the law
crushed out the remnant of the business of Messrs. Danby and Strong,
leaving the firm bankrupt, while another department of the law
prevented either of the partners taking the life of the other.

When Strong found himself penniless, he cursed, as was his habit, and
wrote to a friend in Texas asking if he could get anything to do over
there. He was tired of a country of law and order, he said, which was
not as complimentary to Texas as it might have been. But his remark
only goes to show what extraordinary ideas Englishmen have of foreign
parts. The friend's answer was not very encouraging, but, nevertheless,
Strong got himself out there somehow, and in course of time became a
cowboy. He grew reasonably expert with his revolver and rode a mustang
as well as could be expected, considering that he had never seen such
an animal in London, even at the Zoo. The life of a cowboy on a Texas
ranch leads to the forgetting of such things as linen shirts and paper
collars.

Strong's hatred of Danby never ceased, but he began to think of him
less often.

One day, when he least expected it, the subject was brought to his mind
in a manner that startled him. He was in Galveston ordering supplies
for the ranch, when in passing a shop which he would have called a
draper's, but which was there designated as dealing in dry goods, he
was amazed to see the name "Danby and Strong" in big letters at the
bottom of a huge pile of small cardboard boxes that filled the whole
window. At first the name merely struck him as familiar, and he came
near asking himself "Where have I seen that before?" It was some
moments before he realised that the Strong stood for the man gazing
stupidly in at the plate-glass window. Then he noticed that the boxes
were all guaranteed to contain the famous Piccadilly collar. He read in
a dazed manner a large printed bill which stood beside the pile of
boxes. These collars it seemed, were warranted to be the genuine Danby
and Strong collar, and the public was warned against imitations. They
were asserted to be London made and linen faced, and the gratifying
information was added that once a person wore the D. and S. collar he
never afterwards relapsed into wearing any inferior brand. The price of
each box was fifteen cents, or two boxes for a quarter. Strong found
himself making a mental calculation which resulted in turning this
notation into English money.

As he stood there a new interest began to fill his mind. Was the firm
being carried on under the old name by some one else, or did this lot
of collars represent part of the old stock? He had had no news from
home since he left, and the bitter thought occurred to him that perhaps
Danby had got somebody with capital to aid him in resuscitating the
business. He resolved to go inside and get some information.

"You seem to have a very large stock of those collars on hand," he said
to the man who was evidently the proprietor.

"Yes," was the answer. "You see, we are the State agents for this make.
We supply the country dealers."

"Oh, do you? Is the firm of Danby and Strong still in existence? I
understood it had suspended."

"I guess not," said the man. "They supply us all right enough. Still, I
really know nothing about the firm, except that they turn out a first-
class article. We're not in any way responsible for Danby and Strong;
we're merely agents for the State of Texas, you know," the man added,
with sudden caution.

"I have nothing against the firm," said Strong. "I asked because I once
knew some members of it, and was wondering how it was getting along."

"Well, in that case you ought to see the American representative. He
was here this week ... that's why we make such a display in the window,
it always pleases the agent ... he's now working up the State and will
be back in Galveston before the month is out."

"What's his name? Do you remember?"

"Danby. George Danby, I think. Here's his card. No, John Danby is the
name. I thought it was George. Most Englishmen are George, you know."

Strong looked at the card, but the lettering seemed to waver before his
eyes. He made out, however, that Mr. John Danby had an address in New
York, and that he was the American representative of the firm of Danby
and Strong, London. Strong placed the card on the counter before him.

"I used to know Mr. Danby, and I would like to meet him. Where do you
think I could find him?"

"Well, as I said before, you could see him right here in Galveston if
you wait a month, but if you are in a hurry you might catch him at
Broncho Junction on Thursday night."

"He is travelling by rail then?"

"No, he is not. He went by rail as far as Felixopolis. There he takes a
horse, and goes across the prairies to Broncho Junction; a three days'
journey. I told him he wouldn't do much business on that route, but he
said he was going partly for his health, and partly to see the country.
He expected to reach Broncho Thursday night." The dry goods merchant
laughed as one who suddenly remembers a pleasant circumstance. "You're
an Englishman, I take it."

Strong nodded.

"Well, I must say you folks have queer notions about this country.
Danby, who was going for a three days' journey across the plains,
bought himself two Colts revolvers, and a knife half as long as my arm.
Now I've travelled all over this State, and never carried a gun, but I
couldn't get Danby to believe his route was as safe as a church. Of
course, now and then in Texas a cowboy shoots off his gun, but it's
more often his mouth, and I don't believe there's more killing done in
Texas than in any other bit of land the same size. But you can't get an
Englishman to believe that. You folks are an awful law-abiding crowd.
For my part I would sooner stand my chance with a revolver than a
lawsuit any day." Then the good-natured Texan told the story of the
pistol in Texas; of the general lack of demand for it, but the great
necessity of having it handy when it was called for.

A man with murder in his heart should not hold a conversation like
this, but William Strong was too full of one idea to think of prudence.
Such a talk sets the hounds of justice on the right trail, with
unpleasant results for the criminal.

On Thursday morning Strong set out on horse-back from Broncho Junction
with his face towards Felixopolis. By noon he said to himself he ought
to meet his former partner with nothing but the horizon around them.
Besides the revolvers in his belt, Strong had a Winchester rifle in
front of him. He did not know but he might have to shoot at long range,
and it was always well to prepare for eventualities. Twelve o'clock
came, but he met no one, and there was nothing in sight around the
empty circle of the horizon. It was nearly two before he saw a moving
dot ahead of him. Danby was evidently unused to riding and had come
leisurely. Some time before they met, Strong recognised his former
partner and he got his rifle ready.

"Throw up your hands!" he shouted, bringing his rifle butt to his
shoulder.

Danby instantly raised his hands above his head. "I have no money on
me," he cried, evidently not recognising his opponent. "You may search
me if you like."

"Get down off your horse; don't lower your hands, or I fire."

Danby got down, as well as he could, with his hands above his head.
Strong had thrown his right leg over to the left side of the horse,
and, as his enemy got down, he also slid to the ground, keeping Danby
covered with the rifle.

"I assure you I have only a few dollars with me, which you are quite
welcome to," said Danby.

Strong did not answer. Seeing that the firing was to be at short range,
he took a six-shooter from his belt, and, cocking it, covered his man,
throwing the rifle on the grass. He walked up to his enemy, placed the
muzzle of the revolver against his rapidly beating heart, and leisurely
disarmed him, throwing Danby's weapons on the ground out of reach. Then
he stood back a few paces and looked at the trembling man. His face
seemed to have already taken on the hue of death and his lips were
bloodless.

"I see you recognise me at last, Mr. Danby. This is an unexpected
meeting, is it not? You realise, I hope, that there are here no judges,
juries, nor lawyers, no _mandamuses_ and no appeals. Nothing but a
writ of ejectment from the barrel of a pistol and no legal way of
staying the proceedings. In other words, no cursed quibbles and no
damned law."

Danby, after several times moistening his pallid lips, found his voice.

"Do you mean to give me a chance, or are you going to murder me?"

"I am going to murder you."

Danby closed his eyes, let his hands drop to his sides, and swayed
gently from side to side as a man does on the scaffold just before the
bolt is drawn. Strong lowered his revolver and fired, shattering one
knee of the doomed man. Danby dropped with a cry that was drowned by
the second report. The second bullet put out his left eye, and the
murdered man lay with his mutilated face turned up to the blue sky.

A revolver report on the prairies is short, sharp, and echoless. The
silence that followed seemed intense and boundless, as if nowhere on
earth there was such a thing as sound. The man on his back gave an
awesome touch of the eternal to the stillness.

Strong, now that it was all over, began to realise his position. Texas,
perhaps, paid too little heed to life lost in fair fight, but she had
an uncomfortable habit of putting a rope round the neck of a cowardly
murderer. Strong was an inventor by nature. He proceeded to invent his
justification. He took one of Danby's revolvers and fired two shots out
of it into the empty air. This would show that the dead man had
defended himself at least, and it would be difficult to prove that he
had not been the first to fire. He placed the other pistol and the
knife in their places in Danby's belt. He took Danby's right hand while
it was still warm and closed the fingers around the butt of the
revolver from which he had fired, placing the forefinger on the trigger
of the cocked six-shooter. To give effect and naturalness to the
tableau he was arranging for the benefit of the next traveller by that
trail, he drew up the right knee and put revolver and closed hand on it
as if Danby had been killed while just about to fire his third shot.

Strong, with the pride of a true artist in his work, stepped back a
pace or two for the purpose of seeing the effect of his work as a
whole. As Danby fell, the back of his head had struck a lump of soil or
a tuft of grass which threw the chin forward on the breast. As Strong
looked at his victim his heart jumped, and a sort of hypnotic fear took
possession of him and paralysed action at its source. Danby was not yet
dead. His right eye was open, and it glared at Strong with a malice and
hatred that mesmerised the murderer and held him there, although he
felt rather than knew he was covered by the cocked revolver he had
placed in what he thought was a dead hand. Danby's lips moved but no
sound came from them. Strong could not take his fascinated gaze from
the open eye. He knew he was a dead man if Danby had strength to crook
his finger, yet he could not take the leap that would bring him out of
range. The fifth pistol-shot rang out and Strong pitched forward on his
face.

The firm of Danby and Strong was dissolved.




A MODERN SAMSON.

A little more and Jean Rasteaux would have been a giant. Brittany men
are small as a rule, but Jean was an exception. He was a powerful young
fellow who, up to the time he was compelled to enter the army, had
spent his life in dragging heavy nets over the sides of a boat. He knew
the Brittany coast, rugged and indented as it is, as well as he knew
the road from the little café on the square to the dwelling of his
father on the hillside overlooking the sea. Never before had he been
out of sound of the waves. He was a man who, like Hervé Riel, might
have saved the fleet, but France, with the usual good sense of
officialism, sent this man of the coast into the mountains, and Jean
Rasteaux became a soldier in the Alpine Corps. If he stood on the
highest mountain peak, Jean might look over illimitable wastes of snow,
but he could catch neither sound nor sight of the sea.

Men who mix with mountains become as rough and rugged as the rocks, and
the Alpine Corps was a wild body, harsh and brutal. Punishment in the
ranks

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