Past Masters 12
Author: Various
Date: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00
Description: Twenty-five Public Domain (Life +70) short stories collected from magazines and newspapers: 1: Martin Guerre / Anonymous 2: The Mirror of Nature / Cosmo Hamilton 3: The Fifth Domino / John Morris (Aidan de Brune) 4: Hunks / John Strange Winter 5: Galleon Gold / Frederic Reddale 6: A Fearful Night / John Bickerdyke 7: By a Miscalculation / Anonymous 8: The Anticipator / Morley Roberts 9: The Arbitrator / Morley Roberts 10: An Edited Story / Morley Roberts 11: The Figure-head of the "White Prince" / Morley Roberts 12: The Judgment of Paris / Morley Roberts 13: A Man's Death / Morley Roberts 14:

PAST MASTERS

TWELVE

Edited by "Pulpmeister"

(Terry Walker)

2020

Contents

1: Martin Guerre / Anonymous

2: The Mirror of Nature / Cosmo Hamilton

3: The Fifth Domino / John Morris (Aidan de Brune)

4: Hunks / John Strange Winter

5: Galleon Gold / Frederic Reddale

6: A Fearful Night / John Bickerdyke

7: By a Miscalculation / Anonymous

8: The Anticipator / Morley Roberts

9: The Arbitrator / Morley Roberts

10: An Edited Story / Morley Roberts

11: The Figure-head of the "White Prince" / Morley Roberts

12: The Judgment of Paris / Morley Roberts

13: A Man's Death / Morley Roberts

14: A Pawned Kingdom / Morley Roberts

15: Two Men and a River / Morley Roberts

16: Round the World in a Hurry / Morley Roberts

17: The Wedding Eve / Morley Roberts

18: The Anarchist / Morley Roberts

19: The “Smuggler’s Daughter”—Five Reels / Perley Poore Sheehan

20: The Hands of Killian / Perley Poore Sheehan

21: A Detective's Story / Anonymous

22: Corporal Bob / Frank L Packard

23: Reward of Revenge / Guy Thorne

24: When the World Screamed / Arthur Conan Doyle

25: Stopping an Execution / Victor L. Whitechurch

Cumulative Index to Vol 12

__________________

1: Martin Guerre

Anonymous

Empire (Sydney) 16 October 1867

IN THE LITTLE TOWN of Artigues, in the district of Rieux, there lived, about the middle of the sixteenth century, a young couple, about whom the neighbours whispered most wonderful stories. Bertrande Rois, a girl of great beauty, had been married, at the early age of little more than ten years (as was customary in those parts) to Martin Guerre, who was not much older. No children resulted from the marriage for some years, and it was universally believed, that the young people had been bewitched. Their friends and relations advised all sorts of things to deliver them from the charm under which they were supposed to be suffering. But, in despite of consecrated cakes, masses, and holy wafers, held and given by the priests of the district, the enchantment continued. Bertrande's relations and friends strongly, advised her to sue for a divorce and marry some one else. But the young wife was as virtuous as she was beautiful, was devotedly attached to her husband, and would not hear of a separation.

At last after eight or nine years, when the young couple were about twenty, Bertrande gave birth to a boy, who was christened Sanxi. Shortly after the birth of the child, Martin Guerre was induced to misappropriate some corn belonging to his father, who, though of Biscayne origin, farmed lands in Artigues. The robbery was discovered, and Martin, fearing his father's anger, left the place. No one, not even his wife, could find out whither he had gone.

For eight years no tidings were heard of him. Meantime, his father died, apparently, without any ill-feeling against his absent son, for he did not disinherit him. Peter Guerre, brother of the deceased, managed the property left to Martin, and drew the rents.

Bertrande during these eight years lived in strict retirement. Suddenly the news was spread that Martin Guerre had returned. The fact was not to be denied...

One day Martin, who was certainly somewhat changed during the eight years he had been absent, appeared by the side of his delighted wife, and was warmly welcomed by the neighbours; they all recognised him by his features and stature. He gossiped about old times, on adventures which had befallen himself, and on many of his old freaks when a boy. Martin Guerre s four sisters hailed, him as their brother, and Uncle Peter acknowledged him to be his nephew. He took possession of Bertrande's house, where he installed himself as Bertrande's husband. Two children were born to them, one of whom died an infant.

Who could entertain a doubt that the new comer was the real Martin Guerre? Yet a most extraordinary report was spread in Artigues. A soldier from Rochefort, who by chance visited Artigues, publicly declared that the real Martin Guerre, with whom he was well acquainted; was in Flanders; at St. Laurent he had lost his leg by a cannon ball, and had a wooden one; consequently the man with two sound legs must be an impostor. Yet who had the right, on the simple word of an unknown soldier, to question tho identity of a man whom both wife and relations had acknowledged; this stroller might. have an ulterior object in view, in spreading such a report, and his statements must be fabulous. For, if Martin Guerre were elsewhere, why did he not claim his inheritance? Some sensation was, however, created when it was found that Bertrande had sent for a solicitor to take down the soldier's statement.

Another circumstance shortly afterwards attracted the attention of the neighbours to the Guerre family. Between Uncle Peter and his nephew there were violent disputes. It is true, Uncle Peter had handed over his nephews property to him, but; he postponed from day to day the rendering an, account of his trusteeship. Martin pressed him hard; he brought an action against him, and they became inveterate enemies. The uncle was even accused of having attempted Martin's life; in a fit of anger one day, he knocked him down, and was about to hit him with an iron bar, when Bertrande rushed forward and preserved her husband. Peter now thought only of revenge.

A dispute with one Jean of Escarbeouf led to Martin's imprisonment. The uncle took advantage of the opportunity to endeavour to persuade Bertrande to leave her husband. He said he was an imposter, whom she ought to turn out of doors; he even threatened to have them both turned out of house and home, if she lived with him any longer. But the wife was not to be intimidated, and firmly declared that no one could know her husband better than herself. If he were not her husband, he was the devil in her husband's skin. The exasperated uncle had no better success with the other relations. Jean Loze, a man of considerable property, and consul at Palhos― to whom Peter applied for a loan of money to institute proceedings against the presumed impostor― declared that he recognised Martin, and declined to advance any money to do him harm; if he did advance money, it would be to defend him against his calumniators.

The uncle's attempts seemed to have failed completely, and Martin having been released from his short incarceration, was received back with open arms by his wife. To the astonishment of every one, on the following morning Martin was forcibly taken from his house by the uncle and his four sons-in-law, all armed, and was lodged in the prison at Rieux. The report accredited was  that this was done at the request of Bertrande herself, who had at last found out that her supposed husband was an impostor.

Respecting Bertrande's own feelings and belief, the greatest uncertainty prevailed. She now seemed tortured with doubt about Martin's identity, but more inclined towards him than otherwise. She had given her uncle the authority to take the step he had taken, but probably in consequence of his threats of what he would do if she refused; for, scarcely had Martin been lodged in prison, when she sent him clothes, clean linen, and money.

This extraordinary trial came off before the Court of Justice at Rieux.

The plaintiffs pleaded that the accused was not the missing Martin Guerre, but was a certain Arnold Tilh, commonly called Pansette, born at Sagina. They denounced him as an impostor amenable to all the rigours of the law.

Martin's defence was simple and natural. Having left his father's house in consequence of having offended him he had wandered about from place to place; and he mentioned by name many persons in whose society he had been. He had enlisted, and served in the French army nearly eight years; had then deserted to Spain; and, having heard he could return home without danger, had done so. On reaching Artigues, he was immediately recognised by the inhabitants, who, with rejoicing, accompanied him to his wife's house. His wife had received him without the slightest doubt or hesitation. His relations and friends, including his four sisters, threw themselves into his arms, and embraced him with tears, before he had narrated his adventures. If his wife now, apparently, were among his accusers, after living three years with him without the slightest compunction, it was clear that this could not be an act of her own free will, but must be the result of threats and intimidations on the part of the uncle and his partisans. The motives were revenge and self-interest.  The well-known violent disputes between him and his wicked relatives offered him the best means of defence. He therefore prayed that Bertrande should be released from the power exercised over her by her uncle, and that, to shield her against his malicious influence, she should be placed under the care of some disinterested persons. This was granted. A species of clerical edict was issued, threatening excommunication against all persons cognisant of the affair who did not come forward and tell the truth.

Every investigation made by the authorities tended to corroborate the statements of the accused as to the towns he had visited and the persons he had mixed with. In cross-examination, his replies were quite satisfactory. He talked without any hesitation of his native place, his father, his mother his marriage, the priest who had married him to Bertrande; he even remembered how some of the guests at the marriage were dressed. On the marriage night, some of the young men of this place had given him a serenade. He mentioned their names.

Bertrande corroborated every circumstance. There was only one important point upon which Martin had been silent― the story that they were bewitched. On being pressed, Martin related every circumstance connected with that rumour, almost in the very words in which Bertrande had already stated them on paper.

No less than one hundred and fifty witnesses were examined as to whether they recognised the accused as Martin Guerre, or Arnold Tilh. Sixty of those witnesses declared that the resemblance between these two men was so extraordinary, that they could not make a solemn declaration either way. Thirty or forty declared that they unhesitating believed the accuse-to be Martin Guerre, whom they had known from his boyhood. They recognised him by certain marks upon his person, as well as by his face and figure. Fifty witnesses declared that tho accused was Arnold Tilh, of Sagias, whom they had known from a child!

Martin's son, young Sanxi, was confronted with the accused; there was no resemblance between them. On the other hand, the four sisters Guerre were as like him as one egg is to another.

The judge of Rieux pronounced that the accused was convicted of imposture, and sentenced him to be executed and quartered. The accused appealed to a higher tribunal and the High Court of Justice of Toulouse ordered a new trial.

Investigations were now set on foot respecting Bertrande's character, with a view to induce her to make a full declaration of everything within her knowledge. They were all in her favour. Every witness bore testimony to her high moral character and virtuous conduct. It seemed impossible that so innocent a woman could have lived for three years with a man as his wife, unless she was firmly convinced that he was her husband. For eight years, in the full bloom of youth and beauty, she had patiently waited, had declined every inducement to sever the already half-broken band of matrimony and contract a second marriage, had remained faithful to her absent husband. On being confronted with the accused, she became confused. In a cheerful voice he asked her to tell the truth; she must swear whether he was or was not her real husband: if she denied him, life had no longer any charm for him. Bertrande could only reply that she could not swear it.

The view taken by the new judge of this reply was favourable to the accused. Bertrande had been so importuned and frightened that sho had reluctantly given her adhesion to the accusation of her uncle; she had committed an error from fear and weakness; and now, fear of punishment prevented her from retracting, Moreover, the open countenance of the accused, and his calm and collected replies when confronted with Bertrande and her uncle― who trembled and were greatly discomposed had a powerful effect upon the jury, who fancied they saw evidence of falsehood in the demeanour of Peter Guerre.

Thirty witnesses were again examined, some swore to the identity of Martin Guerre others to the identity of Arnold Tilh.

According to the depositions of all who had known this Arnold Tilh, he was a wild young fellow, a gambler, blasphemer, thief, and clever swindler. Witnesses beyond suspicion, owned that the resemblance between him and Martin Guerre was extraordinary, and that a casual observer could not distinguish one from the other. Martin Guerre was, however, somewhat taller and darker, and had a scooping gait. Arnold Tilh was of stronger build, and held his head upright The latter description was in keeping with the personal appearance of the accused at the bar. But he also had, as advanced by Martin's witnesses, the mark of a swelling on his face and a scar over the right eyebrow. The evidence as to the marks was, however, contradictory. Some said the left eyebrow, others declared that the mark on Martin's face was larger; some that it was less. No two witnesses could agree.

Among the accusations brought against the prisoner was one of witchcraft; and the High Court of Toulouse, and its Councillor Corat, who belonged to the Reformed Church, laid stress upon it. By the black art the accused had acquired the knowledge of every circumstance connected with Martin Guerra's history

Bertrande was not for a moment suspected of complicity with the imposition, or of having been bewitched by him. Her conduct throughout proved that she was an amiable timid woman, incapable of forming any strong resolution to do harm to any one. It was considered that it required an immense effort on the part of a virtuous women to declare publicly that she had mistaken her husband's identity; such a declaration would imply the illegitimacy of her children. This was taken as an explanation of her half retraction and anxiety Among the witnesses who solemnly declared the accused to be Arnold Tilh, some had had dealings with him, or had acted as witnesses to transactions with him. They showed documents bearing his signature, but these were no proofs against a man who disowned them. On the other hand, an innkeeper of a town in the vicinity deposed, that under the seal of confidence, the prisoner had confessed to him that he was Arnold Tilh, but that Martin Guerre had made him his heir. Two other witnesses stated that when they wished to speak to him he made them a sign to be silent, and that one of them had received a present from him. It was further stated that Martin Guerre was originally from Biscaya. The accused was ignorant of the Basque dialect, except a few words which he occasionally introduced into his conversation. The shoemaker formally employed by Martin Guerre swore that the number of his last was twelve while that of the prisoner was nine, and that within his whole experience he had never known the feet of a healthy grown up man to increase in size.

An uncle of Tilh's by the maternal side at once recognised the accused as his nephew. He burst into tears when he saw his nephew in chains. The judges attached great weight to this involuntary confession. Had there been no counter-witnesses, their positive declarations might have been conclusive against the accused. But the witnesses in his favour remained unshaken; they again and again declared that he was Martin Guerre. What gave more importance to their declarations was, that they had known Martin Guerre since he was a child, whilst tho former witnesses had simply had dealings with him. As to what had become of Arnold Tilh, no trace could be found.

The four witnesses for the accused had at once recognised him as their brother. No cross-examination could shake their belief. Could it be supposed that all four were deceived with a resemblance? If it had even been so at first, the present trial must have drawn all their attention to the man anew. Should even sisterly affection have deceived them, was it likely that the husbands of two of them should be equally deceived? They also recognised the accused as their brother-in-law.

Uncle Peter Guerre, the chief accuser, was unwittingly an indirect witness in favour of the prisoner. He himself had at once recognised him as his nephew, had handed him over his inheritance without hesitation, and it was only when a dispute about the trustee-ship arose that he challenged his identity. It was presumed that from revenge, he had got up several plots against Martin. Were not, then, his motives to ruin him self-evident?

Bertrande's whole conduct was surely in the prisoner's favour. On his return he addressed all his former friends by their Christian names. Was it possible for the most skilful impostor not to have betrayed himself? What study such an impostor must have previously undergone! And who could have helped him? If not Bertrande― who was above all suspicion― it could only have been Martin Guerre. The number of years of absence explained a certain change of aspect. The boy had filled out, had become stouter, had served in the army, drill had made him more erect― he had grown a beard, and it made some alteration in his face. Martin Guerre had, firstly, two double teeth in the upper jaw; secondly, a scar on the forehead; thirdly, a misshapen nail on the forefinger of his right hand; fourthly, three warts on the same hand, and one on the little finger; fifthly, a mole over the left eye. All these marks were on the accused. That the boy Sanxi should not resemble him, was of no account; taking into consideration the striking resemblance of the four sisters,

That he did not understand the Basque dialect proved nothing. He was only two years old when he left that district, and no one could prove that he spoke the dialect in the days before his flight. Even Arnold Tilh's disreputable character was in favour of the accused. During the three years he had lived with Bertrande he had appreciated the love of an amiable woman, and had given no cause for complaint. Was it possible that the natural inclinations of a desperate man could be so suddenly changed?

The judges were in the greatest perplexity. A favourable verdict was expected. A contrary verdict would involve the destruction of a happy home, and the illegitimacy of a child.

But now, a new witness suddenly made his appearance― a far more important witness than any of the others― a witness against the accused, and at the same time an accuser― a man with a wooden leg, calling himself Martin Guerre the real, the only Martin Guerre of Artigues, the husband of Bertrande of Bois.

The first suspected-to-be-false Martin Guerre had already given the judges so much trouble and anxiety that they received the second pretender with extreme disgust, and ordered him to be arrested. The suspicion against him was in some measure justified. The declaration of the soldier, and the step taken by Bertrande, had become public. According to the soldier's statement the real Martin Guerre had a wooden leg. Not a bad inducement to an adventurer with a wooden leg, to try for the disputed place, in which another had already succeeded so well. It was even assumed that Uncle Peter might have set up this new Martin Guerre. Moreover, the wooden legged man, instead of going first to the town, had presented himself at once in court, with a document in his hand, in which he set forth all his civil claims, and demanded his restitution, in his former position, and in all his rights. This smacked of a conspiracy, to entangle the case still more. The replies of the wooden-legged, man did not weaken the suspicions against him. They were, certainly, precise and minute; but they agreed exactly with what the first claimant had declared.

Before the witnesses were called, the two Martins Guerre were confronted. The first did not for a moment lose his presence of mind. He maintained that the new claimant was an impostor, suborned by his supposed uncle, and that he knew nothing at all about him. With the confidence of a man conscious of being in the right, he declared that he was ready to suffer the most ignominious death if he did not succeed in convincing the judges of the conspiracy against him. A violent altercation ensued between the two. Though the wooden-legged man was never in want of a reply, he at times lost his presence of mind and firmness, whereas the other remained perfectly calm and collected. New witnesses were sought out. Arnold Tilh had brothers, they were cited to appear, but neither promises nor threats could induce them to do so. The judges did not press them further, as the life of a brother might be at stake.

The next step was to confront the new comer with the Guerre family. The elder sister was admitted first. She looked for some time steadily at the newcomer. She then threw herself on his breast, sobbing and kissing him; called him by his name, and entreated his forgiveness. She had been deceived. Her brother was equally moved, kissed her, and forgave her. A similar scene occurred with the three other sisters. The witnesses gradually agreed that their judgment had been misled, and that this was the real Martin Guerre.

All that now remained was to confront Bertrande with the new claimant. She stopped at the threshold as soon as she saw the unexpected man, and evinced sudden and powerful emotion. She burst into tears, threw herself at his feet, stretched out her arms, and, sobbing loudly, she begged his forgiveness. He was her lost husband, the real Martin Guerre.

No more evidence was required. The mystery was held to be solved. Even the impostor saw that the game was up, and, without being put to the torture, made full confession of his guilt.

On the 12th of September, 1560, the High Court of Toulouse passed sentence on Arnold Tilh. The sentence of the court of Rieux was quashed, as execution with the sword had been decreed, which was not adjudged to low criminals. Arnold Tilh was sentenced― because he had assumed the name, rank, and person, of Martin Guerre, claimed his wife, appropriated and spent her property, and contaminated her marriage― to go on his knees from the church door of Artigues, in his shirt, with uncovered head and bare feet, a rope round his neck, and a burning taper in his hand, asking pardon of God, the king, the authorities, Martin Guerre, and Bertrande of Rois; then to be led through all the streets of the town, and, finally, to be hanged and strangled in front of Martin Guerre's house, and his body then to be publicly burnt. The sentence vas carried out on the 16th of September. Under the gallows erected in front of Martin Guerra's house, Arnold Tilh implored the forgiveness of Martin and of his wife.

According to Arnold Tilh's statement made before his death, he and Martin Guerre had served together in the army, sharing the same tent. Martin had repeatedly related all his affairs to him, and every circumstance connected with his parents, his home, his wife, his friends, his flight; in a drunken fit he had even told him the various circumstances of his marriage. On his return home Tilh had been repeatedly addressed as Martin Guerre. He had at first treated it as a joke, but afterwards resolved to turn it to account. He made a study of it, and, thus prepared, came to Artigues.

________________

2: The Mirror Of Nature

Cosmo Hamilton

1870-1942

Australian Women's Weekly 9 Sep 1933

THE instinct of self-preservation made the man draw back. The taxicab, unconscious of his escape, cut experimentally through the thick yellow fog. He laughed as he felt his way to the embankment above the sullen Thames. That movement into safety on the part of one who was on his way to commit suicide was comic in its irony, it seemed to him. He faced the city over whose hard pavements he had trod hungrily and shabbily in search of bread, and waved his hat. Big Ben struck twelve, and its muffled reverberations were like the voice of a chaplain to a man on the edge of death. He put his hands on the stonework so that he might vault into peace, and fetched them back with a jerk. One of them pressed against some-thing that was warm and soft.

"What is it? What do you want?" There was fright in the woman's voice. "Go away. I want to be alone."

He was accustomed to be ordered about, but pity and curiosity held him to that place. He could see the blurred outline of a well-dressed woman who was about to make a spring. "Oh, don't do that," he said.

There was no anger in the voice this time. Only weariness and appeal. "Oh, do go away. I'm not interfering with you."

"Well, as a matter of fact, you are. It's difficult to work oneself to the necessary pitch again, and I've been looking over this place every night for weeks."

"Oh, then you... That's funny," she said. "Odd that we should have chosen the same spot at the same moment, don't you think? I made up my mind to do this thing half an hour ago."

"But I haven't got your pluck."

"Pluck? I need more pluck to go on living than to end my life to-night."

"Oh, I see," he said. "But then I'm  fond of life, and if some beneficent person gave me a helping hand —"

THE woman moved closer and peered into his face. But the fog hung like a pall between them and frustrated her morbid desire to see what he was like.

"Come with me," she said, seized by a new idea. "We may be able to shed a little mutual philosophy on the question of Life and Death. I live quite close to this place. In Adam Street, in fact. We shall have to grope our way through the fog."

And this they did, arm in arm. His hungry eyes had often rested on what had appeared to be an inhospitable door. She opened it with her key. The walls and staircase were panelled and so was the room on the third floor in which he found himself. It was a poignant and dramatic moment when they faced each other under the glare of a central light. A tall, well-dressed woman about whom there was an unmistakable air of breeding and intellect; a face still beautiful though lined by discontent. A man of middle age who, with a thin hand, held a worn and shabby coat together so that he might hide the fact that he was minus a waistcoat and shirt; black hair streaked with grey, which had not been cut for weeks; eyes which were almost doglike, those of a hounded dog, but which flamed with an optimism and a love of life so that they put the woman to shame.

"Follow me. brother." she said, and opened another door.

He drew up short with a cry. It was years since he had stood in a place so warm and companionable. Everything he saw there had belonged to him in his dreams.

"And you went down to the river," he said reproachfully.

"I'M thirty-six," she answered, "and I'm all alone in this place. I came from the country at twenty where all my blood had danced and my future was filled with romance and idealism and the patter of children's feet. Every day since then I've worked in the British Museum. I've kept myself from hunger by poring over old volumes in that mausoleum of death. I've been digging into deep heaps for the worms of information. For the benefit of other people, and with a metaphorical spade, I've dug in youth, looks, health, ideals and hopes of motherhood. And when a week ago I came out of a monotonous coma to find that my business enabled me to take these rooms and that my income was large enough to permit me to employ an assistant so that I could find an hour or two a day during which I could stand in the sun—"

"You went into the nearest church and thanked God on your knees."

"That's where you're wrong," she said. "I was like the man who spent his youth and strength in climbing a huge mountain so that he could feast his eyes on the view and then found that he was blind. All this is dead sea fruit. My sense of joy has been eaten by those museum worms." She covered her face with her hands.

HE watched her for several minutes with intense eagerness. On the road of his life he had been able on several occasions to help his brother tramps. Here was an unhappy woman, despoiled of joy by work, for whom he might be able to do something before he groped his way back to the river and wrote failure against his name. Here was a tired and hysterical person, temporarily devoid of sanity and courage, in whose mind it would be good to be able to plant a seed of hope, content, and gratitude before he said good-bye. She had been kind to him. At that moment he was eating her biscuits and sitting in the warmth of her fire. And so very quietly and simply he drew a relentless picture of his own far harder life and painted into its dark corners the optimism and sunniness of an unconquerable faith which had remained in his heart. If
his last act on earth were to enable this poor woman to adjust herself to fate without casting away her whole preceding life how fortunate he would be! The momentary hole that he must make in the unconscious water might then be marked by the reflection of a star.

He said, "I was born without ambition, unpractical from the start, and when the money which I had inherited had all been spent and no one would give me a job, I left the streets of the city with nothing but a song. I carried all my possessions in a bundle on my back. My only cheque-book was the joy of living, and my only bank was my heart. I made hay for honest farmers. I walked the river tow-path and pulled people's boats along. So long as summer lasted I broke my bread to the orchestra of birds and was lulled to sleep under haystacks by the quiet song of the stars. The beauty of sky and trees, the intimate friendship of beasts, the charity of men and women, made rain less wet and hunger less in-tense. In winter I returned to the city, sold papers, and ran for cabs. When permitted, I slept in doorways as I have often slept in yours. Now the time has come when exposure has made me weak. One of my lungs has gone, and one foot's in the grave. At the end of my way there is suicide because I cannot wait for death. Nor do I care for a pauper's hospital and a nameless hole in the ground. I would gladly go on living, for the world is very beautiful and one can always lend a hand."

He stopped and got up slowly, coughing a little now. The woman's eyes were on him with wonder, admiration, and pity, and a certain eagerness.

"I GO alone," he said, holding out his hand. "Go into the country when the summer comes. The stars will send you messages and all young growing things will hold up the mirror of nature and you'll begin again. Thank you and good-bye."

"No," she said, "we will only say good-night."

There was a tremble on his lips.

"I can afford an assistant," she said. "Take your place in my office. I engage you from to-night. It was God who placed your hand on mine out there in the dark. Help me to lift this fog."

He bowed, but couldn't speak. His tears fell upon the floor among the other crumbs. And when he was alone he stood up with his eyes alight in the room of which he had dreamt. The unsatisfied river moved on to the sea.

___________________

3: The Fifth Domino

John Morris

(Aidan de Brune, 1879-1946)

World's News (Sydney) 17 Feb 1932

AT THE CORNER of Spencer and Bligh Streets is a large, underground café— the Mockingbird. It is not well known to the general public, but it is very popular among journalists and press writers, for it is within a few minutes' walk of many of the newspaper offices, and Mrs. Matson, the proprietress, has no objection to any "brother of the pen" spending a morning with a cup of coffee, reading or using her glass-topped table as a writing-desk.

For many years I have been a frequenter of the Mockingbird Café. A special writer on the Telegram, I have found it a convenient and quiet place for thought and effort. Besides, Mrs. Matson has quite an uncanny knowledge of when to refill the coffee-pot invariably at my elbow.

Brothers-of-the-pen! Yet, even among journalists there are cliques. Basil Frew, Guy Neilson, and myself staked out a claim to a table in the corner at the far end of the room. One or more of us were usually in residence there, writing or fooling away time with a box of dominoes.

I liked Basil Frew— and cared little for Guy Neilson. But Basil and Guy were great chums, and, perforce, I accepted Guy for Basil's sake. Again, Guy was a great domino player— and dominoes are a craze with me. I will often neglect important work for the sake of a Titanic battle with the cards. Guy's play fascinated me. It was at once daring and cautious, often developing unexpected results.

Some two months ago I noticed a coolness had come between Guy and Basil. A little while, watching, and I discovered the inevitable lady in the case. Basil had fallen in love with Gwen Lazenby, and Guy Neilson also had directed his fickle attentions in that direction.

For some time I watched the little comedy, with rather mixed feelings. Gwen was my friend and I did not relish Guy paying her attentions. I don't say that I enjoyed watching Basil's growing infatuation— but he was, at least, honourable. I knew of too many cases where misery had resulted from a woman's— er— friendship— with Guy Neilson.

I was still pondering over tile eternal triangle when the tragedies at the Mocking-bird horrified the city. I had come down to the cafe late, to find Baal and Guy engaged in a close contest with the cards. In spite of the gallant fight the former was making, I knew the result was a foregone conclusion. Basil could not hope to defeat Guy Neilson— it was all I could do, at the top of my form.

Suddenly Basil swept the cards into a heap, with a quick motion of his hand. Guy looked up, a puzzled frown on his face.

"I don't like these cards." Basil spoke in a low, intense voice. "There is something uncanny about them."

There was significance in his words Guy Neilson sprang to his feet, his eyes blazing, his fists clenched.

"You infer I know them— that they are marked?" he asked, white with passion. "If you've got the pluck of a louse, you'll speak out and..."

"Is there any necessity to..."

"Cover your head, Basil!" I interposed, hastily. "There's nothing wrong with these cards. I've beaten Guy again and again with them. You think.... Oh, shut up!" I spoke angrily as he tried to interrupt. "Here! Let me get you a fresh box. If you beat him, Basil, the cards are crooked. If he licks you then— well, you know what to do."

Guy smiled, rather nastily, I thought, as I strode past him to the desk where the domino-boxes were stacked, and brought a fresh box to the table. In a few minutes the game was in progress. It ended, as I anticipated, in Basil's defeat. He stood up and held out his hand to his opponent, uttering a few words of apology in a sincere voice. Without waiting for a reply, he left the café.

"Have a game, Guy?" I asked, trying to cover an awkward interlude.

"May as well," he answered, indifferently. He shuffled the cards and waited for me to draw. "Matadore?"

"Of course." I drew seven cards. "Double-six?"

Guy played the double-five. For some time the game proceeded in silence. Luck was with me and I succeeded in "loading the donkey" heavily against my opponent.

"Hundred up?" inquired Guy. I nodded and drew cards. As I placed my opener on the table, Guy picked up one of the cards before him, examining it carefully.

"What's the matter?" I asked.

"Feels sticky." He wetted his handkerchief at his lips and rubbed the back of the card. "A speck of grease, I think."

That hand ended in Neilson's favour. The next draw resulted in very even cards and the hand was keenly fought. I won and Guy drew the cards together. Suddenly I placed my finger on one of them.

"That the card you said had a speck of grease on it, Neilson?" I asked quietly.

He picked up the card and looked at the face. It was the six-one— an important card in both the previous games. The back was smeared with something white, in a manner that made it easily recognisable.

"Yes," A slight flush stained the journalist's cheeks. He pulled out his handkerchief again, wetting It at his lips and scrubbing the back of the card hard. He had some trouble to get the grease off. At length, he flicked the card across the table to me. "Satisfied?"

"Perfectly." I drew cards. '"This hand should finish the game."

It did. Before half a dozen cards were on the table I had blanked both ends. Guy drew from kitty three cards and stopped. I waited, knowing that there was only one matadore in kitty and that I held the double-blank to counteract that. Even if he had the luck to draw the remaining matadore immediately, I could still force him to draw all the remaining cards.

A moment's hesitation and he picked another card. Then, more quickly, the fifth. He held this card for some time, gently rubbing it between his fingers. He had started to lay it down when a boy at his elbow spoke:

"Mr. Neilson! Mr. Fraser told me to bring you this and take back an answer."

With a word of apology Neilson slit the envelope and read the enclosure. He drew a pad of paper from his pocket and scribbled a few words. The sheets adhered tightly, and he separated them with a wetted forefinger. As he turned to hand the note to the boy he fell forward across the table.

In a moment the café was is confusion. I jumped to my feet, but before I could get round the table a man had reached the journalist's side. As he lifted the limp head I caught sight of the white face and knew that Guy Neil son was dead.

"Give me a hand here." The man spoke authoritatively. Noticing my questioning glance, he added: "I am Detective-Sergeant Blair."

We lifted Guy from his chair to the floor. Blair sent one of the girls for a constable and ordered that no one leave the café. Motioning me to return to my seat, he drew out a chair and commenced to question me. While he talked he idly stacked the dominoes into their box.

In a few minutes the café resumed its usual quiet air, although many glances were thrown at the silent figure on the floor. I told Blair all that had happened. When I spoke of the keen battle with the cards I had just played with the dead man Blair nodded understanding. I found out later that he is a brilliant domino player. The ambulance arrived, and I followed the corpse up the stairs, side by side with Blair. In the street he hesitated.

'"Suppose I should take those dominoes," he muttered.

"I'll get them." Before he could refuse I was down the stairs. To my astonishment no box of dominoes stood on the table we had just vacated. I  turned to one of the waitresses standing near.

"Nellie, where are our dominoes?"

"There." She pointed to a group preparing to commence a game. I went to them and explained matters. An exchange was quickly made, and I ran up the stairs to rejoin the detective. Ill-luck, however, dogged me. Half-way up the stairs I stumbled, and the box of dominoes rolled to the bottom of the flight, scattering the pieces in all directions. Before I had gathered them together again Blair came running down the stairs.

"What's the trouble?" he demanded. I explained my accident, and he grunted. He took the dominoes from me and ran up to the street, beckoning me to follow. At the police station he asked me to make a formal statement of the happenings. I was happy to do so; Blair seemed a very decent fellow

I have been able to detail the first coming of the "horror" to the Mockingbird Cafe so fully, through Detective Blair's kindness in allowing me access to my formal statement, and the statements made by other persons in the cafe at that time and at subsequent happenings. I may add that the autopsy was fruitless. The doctors suspected some unknown poison— possibly of South American origin— but, as they could not prove that theory, fell back on some obscure heart trouble.

Blair was evidently puzzled— as well as hampered by the verdict of the Coroner's Court. I was puzzled myself, for I had a theory and wanted to prove it. I may say here that my fall on the stairs while carrying the dominoes was not entirely accidental. In the resultant confusion I managed to abstract the six-one, substituting another. The original six-one I took to a chemist friend, asking him to analyse any substance he could obtain from its surface.

He reported he could find nothing dangerous on it.

Two days later newspaper posters announced:

SUDDEN DEATH IN CITY CAFÉ

I eagerly grabbed a paper from the stall. Under the glaring streamer a three  column heading asked: "Is It Murder?" and bold type announced:

The mystery surrounding the death of Guy Neilson at the Mocking-bird Café on Monday deepened to-day when Austin Benner, well-known 'Mirror' roundsman, dropped dead as he left the building.

Benner, who was about to go on duty, had been playing dominoes...

I read no further. Here was food for thought. Guy Neilson had played dominoes in the Mockingbird, and had dropped dead, the coroner could not tell how. Austin Benner had been playing dominoes in the same place, and had met the same fate. What would the autopsy reveal?

My theory was that the last domino Neilson handled was poisoned. Yet the domino I had extracted from the pack, that the chemist had examined, had no trace of poison. That was the piece Neilson had been handling when he died— or had I in the confusion extracted the wrong card? It caused me much thought.

The next day another man died at the table in the Mockingbird. The police appeared impotent. The newspapers demanded action.

The autopsy on Benner had been as fruitless as the first. This, the third victim of the Mockingbird, had died in the same way, while playing dominoes!

When another death occurred on the day following the thoroughly perplexed police closed the cafe, pending the completion of their  investigations.

When this move was made I placed the foregoing statement before Blair, who sent me the following notes on the case:—

I am Detective-Sergeant Blair mentioned in the foregoing statement, written by Mr. Boyd Kitson. I was in the Mockingbird Café when Mr. Guy Neilson died, and had charge of his and the subsequent deaths.

Mr. Kitson came to me yesterday and told me that he was in a position to give me the clue to the mystery. He asked that I would carefully read the above statement, and add to it anything I thought might elucidate the mystery. He had promised that if I will do this he will complete the statement, and the conclusion of the theory he is developing will reveal the name of the murderer— for he firmly believes that the mysterious deaths at the Mockingbird cafe were the result of poison.

What grounds Mr. Kitson has for such a belief I cannot understand. At the time of Mr. Neilson's death I had the dominoes he had played with carefully examined. There was no sign of poison on their surface. I had the cafe carefully searched, and could discover nothing bearing out a theory of murder. The autopsy was remarkably vague. The doctors reported that the deaths might be the result of poison, but could not name any poison likely to give the known results.

I also investigated Mr. Neilson's private life, and while discovering that lie was not generally liked— and had a most unenviable reputation regarding his dealings with women— could not discover any person who bore him any grudge of a magnitude that was likely to lead to murder.

One fact struck me as significant. While Mr. Neilson was known to be intimate with both Mr. Kitson and Mr. Frew there was evidence of bad feelings between all three men. For a time this gave rise in my mind to very strong suspicion against Mr. Kitson— but it was only suspicion and unprovable.

If these notes result in Mr. Kitson being able to solve the mysteries surrounding the Mockingbird Cafe, I take off my hat to him. I have never been engaged on a case with so little to go on— and so many clues that lead nowhere.

I gave Detective Blair this narrative with two objects. First, I hoped he would be able to add something to it that would help any reader to understand better the motives and impulses underlying the murders Blair declares to be mysteries. Secondly, I wanted to draw from him what he has confessed— that he suspected me of the murder of Guy Neilson. I do not know any of the other victims.

Neilson's death I might claim to be "The Perfect Crime." From Detective Blair's notes it is evident it is unsolvable by the police. But does that constitute a Perfect Crime? Is there such a thing?

I have promised to return this document to Detective Blair to-morrow, with such additions as will lead him to the person responsible for the deaths at the Mockingbird Café. To do this I must add one or two new points to my narrative.

The deaths following Guy Neilson astounded and perplexed me. The six-one domino which Neilson cleaned was the cause of his death. But I thought I had abstracted that from the box as I carried it up the stairs to Blair— or rather, as I gathered the dominoes from the ground after my accident.

The first death might have been a coincidence. The second one showed me that in some manner I had failed to recover the fatal fifth domino— it was still at the cafe, dealing death and destruction to all who handled it. It was for that reason I frequented the cafe— striving to trace the deadly piece. It was only following the last death that I was successful.

I have written enough to show that I murdered, wilfully, Guy Neilson— that I murdered, accidentally, the other three men. Why, you ask? Reader, there are only two causes for murder— jealousy and gain; and the greatest of these is jealousy.

Basil Frew and Guy Neilson loved Gwen Lazenby— each in his own way. I, too, loved Gwen Lazenby.

Before Basil Frew met her I thought I had a fair chance. I thought time would play into my hands— to win her. When she met Basil I knew that I had lost.

I planned the "Perfect Crime." I intended that Guy Neilson should die that Basil Frew should be suspected— and convicted— of his murder. I thought with both of them cut of the way I would again have a chance of winning Gwen.

Yesterday I was told that Gwen and Basil had been quietly married, and had left the city on a long honeymoon trip. I laughed, for what had my "Perfect Crime" gained for me? It was then I commenced this manuscript. Now— it is completed.

To-morrow these sheets will be delivered to Detective Blair. He will come to the Mockingbird Café to arrest me. He will find me there— the fifth domino in my hands.

_________________________

4: Hunks

John Strange Winter

(Henrietta Eliza Vaughan Stannard 1856–1911)

Adelaide Observer 24 Aug 1889

IN THE YEAR of grace 1856, a baronet of mature years was married with much pomp and ceremony at St. George's, Hanover Square. The marriage had been arranged a few weeks before, and had come with something of a surprise to the bridegroom's large circle of acquaintances.

"Have you heard about Stanhope!" asked one.

" No. What about him!" asked another.

"He's going to be married."

"Married! Stanhope! Never."

"Fact, I assure you."

" But to whom?"

" Oh! Some little parson's daughter out of the country nobody ever heard of before," was the reply. "She's not twenty I'm told."

"But Stanhope must be fifty."

"Eight and forty last month," said the first man casually. "I happen to know, for his age came under my notice only yesterday."

"Bless my soul—it's incredible! Stanhope going to be married to a young girl under twenty that nobody ever heard of. Really it is preposterous," and away he went to spread the news he had received with such consternation, with an even more casual air than his informant had shown about the latest bit of gossip.

And the latest bit of gossip turned out to be perfectly true.

Sir Henry Stanhope, grave and learned statesman that he was, rich, powerful, and apparently a confirmed old bachelor, who had been for years the hope and afterwards the despair of all the mothers in England who were of a class to expect to secure Cabinet Ministers as their sons-in-law, had actually gone down into the country on a visit not unconnected with politics, and had fallen a victim at eight-and-forty years old to the charms of a country parson's daughter, who had never been to London in her life, and who did not, moreover, care a button about him. But she was very pretty, very graceful, and had been what is called very well brought up; brought up, that is to say, with the strictest possible ideas of duty and obedience.

There had been in pretty Doris Kevestan's young life a certain touch of romance; some tender and altogether idyllic passages of love between her and one Norman Dare, a handsome and daring lad of little more than a year older than herself, who had come to read up for the Army with her father's curate.

Mr. Kevestan, however, was in no wise touched by the tenderness of this idyllic attachment when it came to his ears, as it very soon did, but promptly took vigorous means to put an end to it. Miss Kevestan was forbidden to leave her rooms while the dangerous young man remained in the neighbourhood. To be sure that was not very long, for the Vicar took a harried run up to town and had a short interview with Norman Dare's father; the immediate result being that that young gentleman received instructions to leave his tutor at Wetheryl and take up his quarters quite a hundred miles away.

Thus the lovers were separated. Doris never dreamed, well brought up little girl that she was, that in the matter of affection she was more vitally concerned than her father could possibly be. She received one last heart-broken letter from Norman, begging her to be faithful and true to him, and she sent him a reply by the same means as she had received his—a reply which, unfortunately, her reverend parent happened to get hold of, and which naturally never reached the destination for which it was intended. And so her girlish romance came to an end, and for years— two of them, as a matter of fact— she never heard word or sign to lead her to imagine that Norman Dare had not utterly, forgotten her.

So when she was nineteen, and the great Cabinet minister, Sir Henry Stanhope, came down from London to stay a day or two at Wetheryl Court, and, to the delight of her reverend father and the utter astonishment of the whole neighbourhood, was taken with a fancy that Miss Doris Kevestan's pretty, fine eyes were the prettiest of their kind, or for the matter of that of any other kind that he had ever seen In all his eight-and-forty years of life, no question was ever raised as to whether she should accept the brilliant marriage that was offered to her or not.

Everything was managed in quite the orthodox old-fashioned way. Sir Henry, conveyed his wishes to the reverend papa, and papa sent for Doris into his study, where she went in fear and trembling, expecting to get a wigging for some misdemeanour she had unthinkingly committed.

" I sent for you, Doris," said Mr. Kevestan, in quite a new tone, which Doris did not understand at all—a tone in which the penal severity of his parental manner was distinctly tempered by respect for the future Lady Stanhope. "But you had better sit down, my dear, sit down."

Now this was all quite new to Doris; that she, the young person in whom the old Adam was so unfortunately strong, the special trial and anxiety of her father's closing years— she who at least once in each month of the year ran a near chance of bringing his grey hairs in sorrow to the grave— that she should for no apparent reason be asked, as politely as he would ask the lady of the Court herself, to sit down In that sacred room, it was— well it took her breath away.

But she sat down on the least comfortable chair she could find and said, "Yes, papa," in a meek voice of wonder.

Papa cleared his throat by a discreet little cough.

"The fact is, Doris, my dear," he said, in a tone of much satisfaction, "the fact is I have a great piece of news for you."

"Are they going to make you a Bishop, papa!" cried Doris, responding to the kind tone as a rosebud responds to the warm sunshine.

"Not at present that I know of," returned the Vicar, not displeased that his young daughter's first thought should be of advancement for him. "No, the news entirely concerns yourself."

"Me!" cried Dora.

"Sir Henry Stanhope"—the words came out each with their full value—"has been to see me this morning, and he does us both the honour to propose for you."

"For me— to marry me?" cried Doris.

"To marry you," returned papa, in a tone so redolent of satisfaction and pride that the girl knew her fate was sealed,

She sat for a moment staring blankly at her father, blankly and blindly, for she did not see him. Instead there floated before her eyes the vision of a young boyish face, the upper lip scarcely shaded as yet, the sunny hair all in confusion, the grey eyes dancing with light and love.

"Well!" said the Vicar.

"He is very old." faltered Doris nervously.

"Not at all. He is just eight-and-forty, in the very prime of his life," returned the Vicar quickly.

Doris, as it happened, did not particularly want to marry a man in the "very prime of his life." She wanted to marry Norman Dare, but she did not venture to say so.

"But he is a great deal older than I am," she persisted.

"He will be all the better able to take care of you," said the Vicar.

"He's so stout," murmured Doris, after a pause.

"Sir Henry has a remarkably fine presence," said the Vicar, relapsing into his old manner of severity.

"But— but I don't even know him— at least, scarcely at all," she burst out with a last feeble effort to assert herself.

"That is a matter which time and Sir Henry will soon remedy," replied the Vicar, rising from his chair. "Pray, my dear, let ns have no arguments about it. You have had a great honour conferred upon you, and yon are about to make a very brilliant marriage— far more brilliant than I ever hoped you would make, or than— I do not wish to pain you, Doris, but I am in justice compelled to say that your own deceitful past deserves. You have been greatly blessed, Doris, and I trust," he went on, lapsing from the severe and worldly parent to the more pious style, which he found moat effective in the parish, "that you will be grateful to the good and all-wise Providence which has forgiven the past and cast your lines into pleasant and prosperous places. Stay here a few moments, my dear."

He went out of the room and closed the door behind him, and Doris was left to face the awful facts of her future alone. Poor child, what a mockery his last words had been to her. "Pleasant and prosperous places"— places in which there would no Norman Dare, no fun, no life, no anything but a dreadful unknown and very tiresome Sir Henry Stanhope.

And after that Sir Henry came in and drew her on to the sofa, where she sat, a poor, little, trembling, shivering slip of a girl, while he made lukewarm sort of love in a ponderous and unaccustomed way, such as brought back her brave young hot-headed sweetheart to her mind, and almost made her scream with a mingling of real agony and genuine laughter as her thoughts contrasted the two. And by-and-by her father came back again, and blessed them both, and choked a little, and dashed something away from his eyes with his hand, very much to Doris's astonishment.

Thus the engagement became an accomplished fact. The news soon spread through the neighbourhood, and the Lady of the Court came down, as she tenderly put it, to offer her help and undertake those offices which Doris's dead and gone mother would have performed had she still been living— to take the child up to Town at once, to present her at the last Drawing-room of the season— so that the following year Lady Stanhope might be presented "on her marriage," to superintend the choice of a proper and suitable trousseau for the girl-bride of a Cabinet Minister, and in short to get as much "kudos" out of Doris as if Sir Henry had been marrying her daughter instead of Doris Kevestan.

And when once matters were fairly set in train, there was bat little delay. Doris had her choice of everything— except her husband. The great Stanhope diamonds were all re-set, the little slender hands, that Norman Dare had loved and kissed two years before, were loaded now with costly jewels. She went to shops day after day with Lady Wetheryl, and spent a fortune in silks and laces and furs; day after day Sir Henry came and spent such time as he could steal from his Parliamentary duties with her, bringing great posies and baskets of flowers, and gifts of jewellery, such as she had never before dreamed of; and passed all this whirl of splendour time went swiftly and relentlessly on, and in six weeks from the time of that momentous interview In her father's study she became Sir Henry Stanhope's wife.

I do not know that after the first shock of being suddenly thrown into an entirely new life was over that she was actually unhappy, not actively so, at least.

In those days people had long honeymoons, and although Sir Henry was, owing to pressure of work, unable to remain very long in seclusion, he was yet free to take a honeymoon holiday such as now-a-days would be considered preposterous.

They had a Castle in bonnie Scotland lent to them by a noble Duke, and there they spent three weeks to themselves, and as a true and faithful chronicler I must admit that several times Sir Henry yawned wearily daring the last week, and finally, with an excuse about important papers, shut himself up in the library, leaving poor little Lady Stanhope staring out of the window, saying in her heart, "If life is going to be like this, I hope and pray it won't be long."

Well, at the end of the three weeks they went a round of country visits, and then went to Sir Henry's own place in Devonshire, where they entertained a select party, and afterwards Lady Stanhope went to Town, while Sir Henry did his turn of attendance upon his Sovereign— and from that day they never spent three weeks, ay, and hardly three days— alone together again.

They got on very well— very well, indeed. Sir Henry was much engrossed by his duties as a Cabinet Minister— Doris by hers as a woman of fashion, which, like most women who have the chance of becoming such, she very quickly became; and if ever a thought of Norman Dare came to disturb her. Sir Henry was never any the wiser for it.

And in due time there came a babe to the house—a son and heir.

"I should like him to be called Norman," said Lady Stanhope, the first time Sir Henry was allowed to enter her room.

Sir Henry looked more than doubtful.

" My dear," he said kindly, "I am sorry to seem to go against you, but I must remind you that I am the fourteenth Henry Ughtred Stanhope in the direct line, and that it will be doing the child a positive Injury if we do not make him the fifteenth."

"But I should like to call him Norman after the other two names," persisted Doris, who had become very fond of her own way since leaving the rather stiff and rigid nest at Wetheryl.

" We have always called all the children by their mother's surname, immediately before the family name," said Sir Henry. "For instance, I am Sir Henry Ughtred Power Stanhope."

"Then we will call him Henry Ughtred Norman Kevestan Stanhope," said his mother, smoothing the babe's fluffy head with her weak fingers.

So the heir of the Stanhopes was duly registered and christened "Henry Ughtred Norman Kevestan Stanhope" and the initials thereof spelt "Hunks."

Mr. Kevestan was a little curious about the matter.

"My dear," he said blandly, "the child's first and last names are intelligible enough— but why Norman?"

"I had a fancy for it," said my lady, coldly.

"Ah, I thought perhaps it was one of Sir Henry's family names," he said carelessly. "What made me ask was that the initials make such a dreadful combination."

"I don't suppose any body will ever notice the initials," said Lady Stanhope rather crossly.

But they did! When young Norman was seven years old Sir Henry died and was laid to his fathers with much pomp and ceremony. His widow was very sorry: she cried very effectively at the funeral, and wore the very deepest of crape for twelve months. After that she began to wear rich silks and a few jet ornaments, to put an edge of white in the collars and cuffs of her gowns, and to go to dinner parties and such-like quiet entertainments, only showing a little of her pretty white neck and arms. Then when that period came to an end, and Sir Henry had been dead two years, she blossomed out into delicate silver greys and soft mauves, in which she positively looked younger and much prettier than she had done as a bride ten years before; and while she was in the silver-grey and mauve period her boy showed some slight symptoms of a chest delicacy, and she promptly took him off to Italy for the winter.

At Genoa they stopped and made a long stay, partly because the climate seemed to suit young Norman, partly because two English families of title, each with a goodly allowance of boys of Norman's age were there also.

Fine fun these youngsters had together, and unending was the mischief into which they managed to get. They ran fairly wild about the old streets, and up and down the terraces and steps with which La Superba abounds. Finally, however, their pranks came to an abrupt termination, for one day young Hunks, as the boys one and all called him, either slipped or was tripped, and fell from top to bottom of a long flight of marble steps, where he lay like a log, senseless and still.

Down the steps, in an agony of fright, came the half-dozen youngsters, to find Hunks already lifted from the ground by a stranger, who had been lounging near at the time.

"He's not dead, sir, is he?" gasped the eldest of the half-dozen.

"Oh, no; a bit stunned, that's all," was the answer. "Get some water, or a lemon— anything to bring him round again.

By the help of a few drops of water the boy opened his eyes.

"Hunks, old man," said the boy who had first spoken to the stranger, "are you much hurt?"

"Not much. I've cracked my head a bit," the boy replied, "It's not bleeding, is it, sir?" to the stranger.

" A little," the stranger answered. "The best thing you can do, my friend, is to go home and lie down quietly for an hour or two. Where do you live?"

"Just up there," said one of the boys, pointing up the steps,

"Ah. Well, I'll go up with you," he said.

"And I'll go on and tell your mother, Hanks," said the eldest lad,

"All right. Don't frighten her," Hunks replied.

"Hunks! Is that your name?" asked the stranger as they went up the steps.

"My nickname, sir," said the boy, who as yet was young enough to be very proud of anything so manly as a nickname. "My own name is Stanhope— my mother is Lady Stanhope."

"Yon are Lady Stanhope's son?" the stranger cried.

"Yes, I am Sir Norman Stanhope,"

"Norman— you are called Norman― why—"

But just then Lady Stanhope herself came running along the terrace, frightened by the report of her boy's playfellows, and expecting to see him a battered corpse, or next door to it.

"Oh! you are all right," she cried joyously; then looked up at the stranger. "Why, Norman," she cried out. " Norman— Oh!"

"It's all right, mother," said Hunks, thinking she was speaking to him.

"Yes," said Lady Stanhope softly, as Norman Dare caught her hands. "Yes; it is all right now."

________________

5: Galleon  Gold

Frederic Reddale

1856-1921

Mercury (Hobart) 3 April 1901

MY NAME is Michael Fielding, at your service. By profession I am a mining engineer, educated at Columbia and at Heidelberg.

The late summer of eighteen hundred and ninety found me a physical wreck from over-work. The doctors described absolute rest for at least six months, and advised a long sea voyage,

So it was that. I went down to Front-street to see a friend in a shipping business, to whom I unfolded my tale

"Got the very thing for you'" he exclaimed. "Our barquentine Decatur sails for Buenos Aires in a week. The round trip will take about three months, und you'll have summer nearly all the time, you'll be the only passenger aft, captain and crew first rate, cabin grub ditto, and I guarantee you'll not regret it. What do you say?"

I said "Yes."

Four days out we run smack into a West Indian hurricane, which, taking us in the Gulf Stream, bowled us into the heart of the "roaring forties " The Decatur, deeply laden with a stiff and heavy cargo, made bad weather of it from the beginning. Soon after midnight on the sixth day, we were pooped and swept by a giant sea, and all three masts were ripped out of the ship.

Amid the crash of falling blocks and spars, I sprang from the cabin to the deck. Scarcely had I gained the hood of the companionway than I was knocked insensible by a blow on the head.

WHEN NEXT I opened my eyes it was in a strange interior, evidently a berth cabin in a small vessel which, from the keen sense of motion and the incessant play of sunshine through the bull's eye of the closed porthole, I judged was being driven rapidly through a lively sea while a subdued hum and the vibration which thrilled through the gamut of creaks and surgings sound like a pedal bass, told me of steam and a whirling propeller.

Scarcely had I settled these facts in my still hazy and muddled intellect, and begun to take a languid inventory of the cabin, than the door opened, and there entered my old college friend, Tom Raeburn, whom I had not seen since our Heidelberg days.

He perceived that I knew him, and a kindly smile flashed over his features.

"It's all right, old man," said Raeburn, answering the unspoken questions in my eyes. "We picked you off a sinking and deserted derelict at daylight this morning. This is the steam yacht Nina, bound south on a cruise, and I'm boss. For the present all you've got to do is eat and sleep!"

I slept through the next twenty four hours, and when I awoke felt so much stronger that I managed to rise and dress, and making my way through the saloon cabin I went on deck.

Raeburn was in a deck chair under the lee of the cabin house, fondling the silky ears of a red Irish setter, and blowing clouds from a great German student pipe, and a weather-beaten, mahogany-faced fellow, in blue flannels, gilt  braid, and brass buttons, whom I judged to be the sailing master, paced to windward amidships. As he faced aft he spied me, and called Raeburn's attention to my presence.

My old chum sprang to his feet, half dragged and half supported me to his  own chair, and at once introduced me to "Captain Bartholomew Bent, sailing master of the Nina."

Captain Bent acknowledged our introduction in shipshape fashion and added, "That was a ticklish scrape o' yours, Mr. Fielding. When we came up astern of the old Decatur her decks were awash. How'd it happen?"

In a few words I let them have the yarn.

"All's well that ends well," said Raeburn cheerfully, when I had made an end, "and I don't know a soul in the world I would have sooner picked up than this same old Mike Fielding. He may be a Godsend to us, Bent, if we have to dig for it I and we may. He's a mining engineer, you know."

This was all very mysterious, but just then the clatter of crockery and the smell of cookery brought me to the realisation that I was desperately hungry. As if Raeburn divined my feelings he rose and led the way to the cabin, saying:

"Let's see if you have the appetite of a shipwrecked man, Fielding; then we'll talk."

I fell to too heartily, yet in the pauses of the service found time to look about me, and particularly to observe Raeburn more closely. Outwardly he had changed very little; there were the same rugged Scottish cast of features, the deep-set restless eyes, the square chin, the high, speculative forehead. At Heidelberg he had been a follower of scientific fads and fancies, with a strong loaning towards occult metaphysics.

Dinner over, we went on deck. Sealed under a short awning, with a box of cigars and the materials for cooling drinks at our elbows, Raeburn, turned to mo and inquired :

"Do you feel strong enough to stand a pretty stiff yarn?"

"Fire away!" was my laconic reply.

"Then here goes," he said, "but prepare to be astonished... In the first place, we are bound round the Horn, into the heart of the Pacific― just where I can't tell you, because I don't know myself― on a hunt for buried treasure. I Thought that would fetch you," he said grimly, as I straightened up in my chair with surprise.

"That's the case in a nutshell. Now for the story in detail, and― don't interrupt."

"As long as I can remember I have possessed a strange and vivid subjective mental picture. It seemed that somewhere, somehow, in the long ago, I was one of a bond of lawless men, clad in clothes of an outlandish cut, and  participating in wild and violent adventures. All this, however, is a blurred memory.

"One episode, nevertheless, is clearly projected. I was standing on an eminence in a lonely islet in the midst of a sapphire sea― I and another man. The island was like a cup, the rim, washed by a trail of surf, enclosing a lake― what is known as an atoll, or ring island, in full. Not a soul was in sight save we two, but in the distance a ship of strange build and rig rode at anchor outside the barrier reef.

"At our foot was a pit or shallow excavation, newly dug, and in the cavity were several ironbound chests or boxes full of gold and jewels. Don't ask me how I knew that; the chests were closed, but I divined their contents. Of a sudden I felt a crashing shock, and pitched forwards heavily among the chests. There the memory ends. I see it now, as plainly as I see you before me. You've heard of such things?"

"Nearly everybody has had such dim recollections," I said, "Some call them memories of a previous existence; others doubtless have dreamt them and subsequently have thought them real."

"But it was no mere vision or dream on my part, Fielding. That thing really happened, and I was there!"

I looked at him fixedly, and his eyes met mine with a calm and cool steadfastness in which there was no hint of mental aberration,

"I say that I was there," he reiterated, as if in answer to my unspoken protect. "Naturally you ask how do I know it? I answer that in a former incarnation my ego must have inhabited the body of home poor sailor-man― a pirate or a buccaneer. I have reasoned it out, and I can come to no other conclusion. Now I am going to find the island and the treasure!"

If he had said he was going to the bank to cash a cheque he could not have been cooler or more matter-of-fact.

"'Tis a strange tale, Raeburn." I said. Contradiction, I could see, would be hopeless. "But surely you must have some other ground to go upon than so flimsy and intangible a basis? Does Captain Bent know? And what about your crew?"

"Bent knows; the crew simply signed for the cruise. Here is how I piece the thing out," he went on. "My recollection― my dream, if you like― seems to point to the Pacific. I figure that the ship at anchor was a buccaneer, one of those English bulldogs who harried the western coast of America in the 18th century. The ruffian, who stood beside me was her captain; the gold and jewels which he buried were the plunder from one of the Spanish galleons or plate-ships which sailed regularly from Acapulco to Manila. The buccaneer chief took me ashore with him to bury the treasure, and then killed me so that none but he should know the precise location of the cache. Such deeds were done in those days by men like English and Teach."

"But the island, my dear fellow― how do you expect to find that? Is it named or charted?"

"It may be," said Raeburn, "but frankly I don't know. Neither Findlay nor Hoyt mentions it. The Admiralty charts go not give it. Here is a sketch and map which I have drawn from memory, but although I have questioned scores of men who have sailed the seven seas, not one of them could give it a name."

So saying, he handed me a sheet of paper on which were pictured the salient features of an islet such as he had verbally described.

I drew a long breath. My astonishment was well-nigh too great for speech. Raeburn looked at me calmly and steadfastly, fondling the dog's ears the while.

"The Pacific is a wide ocean," I ventured. "There are thousands of islands between the Hawaiian group and, say, latitude thirty south. It strikes me that the traditional quest for a needle in a pottle of hay was, by comparison, an easy proposition."

"Not quite so bad as that," Raeburn made answer. "You see we can bring the locality down to comparatively narrow limits. Those Jack-Spaniards pursued a regular course, following the parallel of about twenty degrees north right across the ocean. They never bothered themselves hunting for a breeze; great-circle-sailing was unknown in those days; if the wind carne foul they just hove to; and they shortened sail at night as regularly as they said their prayers. My captain probably lay in wait for one of them right athwart her hawse, and, after the capture, finding the loot too heavy or too precious for his own vessel, decided to and it al the first opportunity. So we shall cruise north of the line somewhere between the parallels of ten and twenty five degrees.

"For how long. Raeburn?

"Won't know, I'm sure," was the nonchalant reply. "We shall find the spot we're looking for, never fear!"

"But, my dear fellow, with all the gratitude and friendship in the world, you can't expect me to keep on sailing forever and a day on a chase of this sort. Remember, I'm a poor man, with his pile yet to make."

"Look here, Fielding," he rejoined, "if we find this galleon gold your fortune will be made, and you can let the mining engineering business go to grass! You shall leave us at Rio if you insist, but let me tell you that I regard your happening along in the way you did as a very lucky thing for the expedition. We may have to do some pioneering or prospecting. I don't know and can't remember how deep the pit was dug; then, too, there may have been some natural convulsion― an earthquake or a landslide― which will have changed the physical conditions somewhat. In short, Fielding, I have been thinking that we may need the assistance of a practical man like yourself, and if you can see your way to join me, I'll guarantee your expenses if we go back empty-handed; if we recover the treasure you shall share with me!"

"That's very handsomely spoken, Raeburn," I said; "Give me until to-morrow to think it over."

"Right you are!" was the rejoinder. "Now come and see the ship."

Before I slept that night I decided to go to the end of this queer adventure.

We crossed the Equator, ran down our latitude, called for coal at Rio, sighted the Falklands, and on Christmas Day the Nina entered the Pacific, heading northwards. A week of steaming brought us to Valparaiso, and two weeks later we left Callao, our bunkers full and the white deck heaped with coal in bags.

It was Captain Bent's intention to cut the equator at about longitude 120 deg and thence cruise leisurely on a course nearly due west along the parallel of 10 deg. north, which would bring us into the thick of the islands.

For ten day we sighted nothing that was not charted, but we were blessed with true Pacific weather. Then we made in succession Christinas Island, Palmyra, Barber Island, San Pedro, and Wake Island. Next we headed north-east for the Marshall Group. But nothing resembling Raeburn's atoll hove in sight.

One evening a wonderful thing occurred. The sun had just set in a cloudless sky, when, right off our starboard bow, there appeared mirrored in the sky a most perfect mirage. There it hung, about mid-way between the horizon and the zenith, an inverted picture of an island, every feature showing distinctly, from the fringe of surf to the green-capped summit.

The crew were all on deck, it being the second dog-watch, gazing in awestruck silence at the strange spectacle.

The mirage lasted only three or four minutes, but before it faded. Captain Bent stepped to the binnacle and took the bearings by compass. Then, as the darkness shut down, and the crew scattered about the deck with loosened tongues, he came to where Raeburn and I were standing, and whispered hoarsely:

"Did ye see it, Mr. Raeburn? 'Tis your island, sir, as I'm a living sinner!"

"Yes," said Raeburn quietly, "I saw it, and I was wondering whether you or Fielding would notice the resemblance." He turned to me with a smile. "It was my island, Fielding, so that much is true!"

"Are you sure?" I queried. Although I clearly saw the picture in the sky, my eyes had not taken in all the details.

"Sure?" Raeburn echoed. "We'll show you the real thing in a few hours, and put you ashore there. How far off do you make it, captain?"

"Judgin' by the elevation, sir, som'ers betwixt seventy-five and a hundred mile, maybe more. Shall I keep her away, sir?"

"Certainly," said Raeburn, "and put us alongside as soon as you can. Fielding here wants to be getting home."

I believe neither Raeburn nor Captain Bent slept a wink that night, while I contented myself towards morning with a doze on the cabin sofa. Breakfast was served on deck, for the Nina was under full steam once more, and the atoll might heave in sight at any moment.

But it was nearly noon, and Bent was getting ready to take sights, when the look-out on the royal yard bawled:

"Land dead ahead!"

Whether it was the island remained to be seen. The charts showed no land within a hundred miles, but that was not surprising, for new rocks and islets are continually being discovered in that vast sea. A full hour elapsed before it could be made out from the bridge with the unaided eye, and it was eight bells― 4 o'clock― before we hove to about half a mile off shore, the dipsey lead showing no bottom.

All three of us eagerly scanned the out-lines of the speck of land, for it was nothing more. Then the screw was started again, and we slowly skirted the shore, looking for a gap in the coral barrier, on which the surf pounded with sullen roar.

"You'll find the passage in the reef to the suth'ard and west'ard," said Raeburn to Bent. The old skipper nodded, keeping his eyes glued to the binocular as we slowly opened the land on the port beam.

The atoll could not have been more than three or four miles in circumference, for we steamed slowly around it in less than half an hour. What the interior might be like we could not tell, for its shape was that of a truncated cone, the shore rising regularly from the edge of the lagoon. But sure, enough, on the south-western side we made out an inlet, no wider than the Nina's length, within which was the usual quiet lagoon.

"Shall you try to take her in?" queried Raeburn.

"Not to-night, sir," was Bent's rejoinder. "I'm afeared of horseheads. We'll lay off till morning, and send a boat to take soundings."

"You might start the fog-whistle, captain, and see if there's anybody in town," said Raeburn. So the scream of our siren woke the evening echoes again and again, but not a sign of life appeared, not so much as the flicker of a bird's wing. Even the sharks seemed shy of the spot.

All that night we lay off at the distance of about a mile, and kept the glare of our electric searchlight trained on the land until it seemed as if it must penetrate every crevice and cranny. But when morning dawned the same unbroken silence and solitude reigned all round us.

Breakfast over― and a very early breakfast it was, you may be sure― the gig's crew was piped away, and Raeburn, Bent, and I dropped into her. The skipper steered, while Raeburn took a place in the bows to con the boat. Before leaving the Nina a pick, a shovel, and a crowbar were handed down. So it was plain that Tom meant to land at once, and put his theory to the test.

We steered straight for the inlet. There was not much swell, yet a wall of surf six or eight feet high pounded on the barrier reef, the huge combers rising and falling with the regularity of a pendulum. But inside the lagoon was as still as a pond. Looking over the side, I could see far down into the marvellously clear depths, the bottom being seemingly composed of white sand of extreme smoothness. There were no horseheads, those coral humps which rip the bottom out of a ship as easy as splitting kindlings. Not a sign of shoaling appeared until we were a boat's length from the shore, and when our keel grated on the beach we found, not sand, but  a soft, lava-like rock, not much harder than dried mud.

Raeburn leaped out and carried the painter ashore. I handed him the tools and followed with Captain Bent. The men were told to keep the boat off with the oars until our return, and we immediately set our faces inland.

On this side the cone seemed to have been broken away, and for about half of its height there was a deep gash in its side. The tropic sun and rain had everywhere veined and furrowed the surface, and in those numberless crevices a coarse glass grew very luxuriantly, and gave the islet its greenish appearance from the sea. Of trees, strange to say, there were none, not so much as a bush or the ever-present palm.

Raeburn at once began the ascent, keeping a little to the right of the gully. It was like walking along the bank of a dried-up mountain torrent. He never faltered or hesitated, going as straight as the rugged incline and the slippery grass would let him. After climbing in this way for about a mile we came to the summit level, and this is what we saw:

The interior of the island was simply a cup, of which the place where we stood was part of the rim, the latter very nearly circular. Filling the cup half-full was a lake, placid and shadowless, mirroring the cloudless Pacific blue overhead. Raeburn's map was well-nigh as faithful to detail as a photograph!

But the desolation of it! Not a bird, not an insect, darted over its bosom, not a fin cut its polished surface.

"Evidently an extinct volcano," I remarked, "and yonder is where the lava last spouted into the sea," pointing to the gash in the rim of the cup.

Raeburn merely nodded. Captain Bent, using his glass, was slowly scanning the opposite rim of the cone, which was about half a mile across. Almost at our feet lay the Nina, heeling to the run of the swell, and looking like a boy's model yacht.

Slowly gazing around, Raeburn seemed to be getting his bearings: he walked to and fro on the narrow edge of the old crater. Here on the summit the porous lava was more loose and friable, and a few thrusts of the crowbar which I carried told me that the stuff would be not much harder to work than stiff clay.

While I was prodding aimlessly here and there, Raeburn wandered a hundred paces ahead to the northward. Suddenly he stopped and help up his hand. In silence we floundered to his side, and found him standing on the brink of a shallow, open excavation, from the edges of which there waved like a fringe some tufts of the coarse green grass.

It was a weird and gruesome sight that met our gaze. The trench was paved with stout boxes, about two feet square, the iron clamps on the corners and the heavy iron bands with which they were strapped showing red with rust against the bleached and weathered grey of the wood. There were twenty of these chests by actual count, five one way and four another, their tops fairly level.

But there was something else which chained our gaze and chilled our blood, even under the glorious warm sunshine and the blue dome of heaven.

There, stretched on its back, upon the iron-bound chests, with grinning jaws, and with arms outstretched in the form of a rude cross, the sightless eye-sockets looking stonily upwards, lay the whitened bones of a skeleton!

Here, then, was the verity behind Raeburn's strange freak of memory! Standing beside the open grave of the murdered seaman, with the gold of the galleon at our feet, and with Tom's narrative in mind, it was easy to picture the old-time tragedy in all its cruel and vivid ferocity.

In the presence of that grim and silent witness no denial was possible, neither did any congratulations over the successful outcome of our search seem suitable to the occasion. Just as the silence was becoming painfully oppressive it was broken by the chief actor:

"Well," said Raeburn, with a grim chuckle, "I fancy this is the first time that a man ever gazed upon his own skeleton!"

AND I HAVE let the mining-engineering business go to grass.

_____________________

6: A Fearful Night

John Bickerdyke

(Charles Henry Cook, 1858-1933)

Sydney Mail   22 Dec 1894

MY GREAT-UNCLE, Charles Bickerdyke, had one good after-dinner tale. Like most old gentlemen, he told his tale rather frequently, and I fear the members of his family were wont to listen to it a little impatiently. On Christmas Eve we always had it at considerable length, and some of his nieces, who sadly lacked the reverence due to age, declared that each year the old gentleman unconsciously varied certain material details. But this, as I used to point out, gave the slight variety without which the frequent repetition would have been rather wearying.  Most of us knew the tale by heart; in committing it to writing it must lose much, for a story cannot be written as it is told by a good storyteller.

My great-uncle used to be very fine when describing how he flung the robber from the window, and the cheeks of the younger members of our Christmas party always blanched with terror while listening to that exciting incident.

But to commence. It is now a good many years since my great-uncle was an undergraduate at Cambridge, where, for reasons which I never knew, my great-grandfather, an old Oxford man, had sent him to finish his education. Towards the end of his last term my great-uncle took advantage of his father being in London to invite him to Cambridge, which place he had never yet visited. The old gentleman accepted the invitation, and it was arranged that after he had spent a couple of days seeing the colleges and other places of interest, he and his son should journey together to Yorkshire, in which county at that time lived the Bickerdyke family.

One winter's day, not far off Christmas, my great-uncle shouldered his way through the numerous stable-keepers, porters, and other 'hangers-on', and stood before the Bull Inn. In a few minutes the 'Meteor', drawn by four powerful greys, dashed up a quarter of a minute later than the advertised time, owing to the snowy state of the roads.

On the coach, to Charles Bickerdyke's surprise and delight, he saw, sitting on one side of his father, no less a person than the lovely Millicia Majoribanks (afterwards my great-aunt), and, on the other side, her mother, an old Yorkshire friend of the family. Mr. Bickerdyke, senior, had met them in London, and, finding they intended soon returning to Yorkshire, had insisted on bringing them to Cambridge to see 'the boy', and afterwards taking charge of them for the greater part of the journey home. With this arrangement both Mrs. Majoribanks and Millicia had expressed themselves to be delighted.

My great-uncle easily procured rooms for his father and the ladies at the Bull Inn, and supped with them. They passed a pleasant evening chatting round the fire, during which old Mr. Bickerdyke made a laughing allusion to the capacity of the Cambridge undergraduates who could use such glasses as he saw on the shelf over the fireplace. These were some 2 ft. in height, and very narrow, not more than 3 in. wide at the mouth, and tapering away till they joined a short stem— an exaggerated champagne glass of ancient fashion.

'Many a wager has been lost and won over those glasses,' said my great uncle, and he proceeded to explain that it was a matter of the greatest difficulty to drink out of them, owing to their depth, and the consequent rush with which the wine flowed to the mouth of the drinker.

'There was never a glass yet made out of which I could not drink,' said my great-grandfather, who, I have heard, was a four-bottle man, like most country gentlemen of that period.

'I will wager either of these will be too much for you,' answered his son, smiling. The old gentleman's reply was to commence ladling some of the punch on which they were regaling themselves into one of the tall glasses. He looked a little serious when he saw the number of ladlefuls necessary to only half fill it.

'I can't manage a full one tonight,' he said.

'I doubt if you will be able to drink the little you have in it,' remarked my great-uncle, quietly.

'Pshaw! Nonsense!' exclaimed the old gentleman, irritably; 'you lads think your fathers can do nothing.'

He then placed the glass to his lips, and very cautiously raised the lower end. As the glass approached the horizontal the punch flowed at first slowly, and afterwards quicker, until, by the time it reached his mouth, it came with such speed and force as to be far beyond the capacity of his swallow ; the result being a general overflow, a fit of choking, and a ruined neckcloth— neckcloths were neckcloths in those days.

The old gentleman was a little irritable after his failure, but was soothed by Mrs. Majoribanks, who said she was sure that but for a sneeze, which evidently came upon him as he was about to drink, he would have succeeded— he so rarely failed in anything he attempted. Mrs. Majoribanks was a widow, and my great uncle never failed to remark at this portion of the tale that it was generally supposed she would not have been unwilling to have become a second Mrs. Bickerdyke.

The following morning the Vice Chancellor conferred the degree of Bachelor of Arts upon my great-uncle. Old Mr. Bickerdyke, Mrs. Majoribanks, and Millicia, of course, were in the Senate House, in the body of the hall, and were greatly amused at the personal pleasantries indulged in by the undergraduates in the gallery at the expense of the 'dons' and college authorities. Charles Bickerdyke was a general favourite, and had many friends.

As he walked down the centre of the Senate House, after having knelt before the Vice -Chancellor and had the mystic words spoken over him— in other words, having done 'homage,' a relic of feudal times— from the undergraduates' gallery there came a round of cheers, which caused Millicia to blush with pleasure. Old Mr. Bickerdyke's eyes sparkled with pride, and his mind went back to a similar scene in which he had taken part years before at the sister university.

The rest of the day was spent in sightseeing, the newly made Bachelor of Arts, in his long gown with flowing strings, conducting the party. Several times they passed gangs of noisy, drunken women, hurrying from one beer house to another. These were the 'bedmakers', who, in those days, had the privilege, nay, the right, of placing the hoods on their masters' shoulders as they entered the Senate House. For this service they always received a fee, varying from one to several guineas. These bedmakers were alchemists in their way, quickly changing the precious metal into ardent liquor.

This being Charles Bickerdyke's last night at Cambridge, he deserted the ladies about 5 o'clock, and spent a jovial evening, giving a farewell 'wine' to a number of his friends, where, doubtless, the proceedings were not only convivial, but of somewhat a boisterous nature.

The following morning, as the Yorkshire coach did not leave till late in the day, Charles drove his father and the ladies to see the Fenmen skating, a performance remarkable only for speed. Putting up their horse and carriage in the little village of Swavesy, they walked to the Fens hard by. Thousands of acres were under ice, as, previous to the frost, a portion of the banks of the River Ouse had given way, the water flooding the country for miles. As far as the eye could see was ice, upon which the Fenmen darted about. In the distance, where the mist seemed to mingle with the grey surface of the country, they seemed almost to be flitting through the air. It was a merry scene, for every face bore that look of good-humour always brought by healthy out-door exercise of a pleasant kind.

Charles, who was provided with skates, soon had them on, and gained great praise from Millicia for his subsequent feats of adroitness. Even his father caught the infection, and borrowed a pair of irons from a Fenman. The old gentleman struck out bravely, but, not succeeding well, soon rejoined the ladies, whereupon Mrs. Majoribanks assured him that he and his son were two of the finest skaters there.

'But, "The Fearful Night", when shall we come to that?' some fair reader who has perused these pages so far may ask. I crave forgiveness if I have unduly tried any fair lady's patience. I must confess to having lingered on the way; but no one who reads to the end will blame me for having hesitated before committing to writing such thrilling and blood-curdling events as will hereafter appear. But I must delay no longer; only, let the nervous and hysterical reader be content, and read no further.

The coach by which my ancestors and their friends were to make the first stage of their journey to Foxbridge Hall, Yorkshire, was timed to leave the Bull Inn at 4 o'clock in the evening. At 2 o'clock the little party dined, after which, the afternoon being very fine, with no air stirring, my great-grandfather suggested to Charles that they should set out walking along the coach road, joining the coach on its overtaking them.

'But think of the footpads!' exclaimed Mrs. Majoribanks.

'And the highwaymen!' added Millicia.

'We fear neither,' replied the old gentleman; 'have I not my sturdy son by my side?'

'Who carries a stout blackthorn,' continued my great-uncle; so Mrs. Majoribanks and Millicia' s fears were scorned— alack the day!

The jolly landlord of the 'Bull' having promised to see that the ladies and all the baggage were safely placed on the coach, my two ancestors started on their way. This was the first time since their meeting that father and son had been alone together, and they, doubtless, took advantage of the opportunity to talk over the latter's future prospects, including, I expect, some mention of the fair Millicia. Pleasantly chatting, they strolled along enjoying the crisp, frosty, exhilarating air, and taking little or no notice of the time. Warned at last by the closing day and some feelings of fatigue, they consulted their watches and found they had been walking for over an hour.

'It is curious the coach has not yet caught us up, for it is nearly half-past four,' remarked Mr. Bickerdyke.

'Oh, they have very likely been delayed in starting, and they cannot travel so fast this frosty weather,' replied the son. 'We may as well go on slowly, for they must soon overtake us.'

They walked on, and the night continued to close in. Vainly they listened for approaching wheels, but no sound was to be heard. Mr. Bickerdyke began to get very nervous.

'This is most unpleasant; I never intended to have been walking after dark,' he muttered, half to himself. 'What sort of a reputation has this road, Charles?'

Well, not the best, I must confess,' answered my great-uncle ; and the two paced on for some time in an uneasy silence.

Almost simultaneously it dawned upon them that they might have mistaken the way, and, after some consideration, they came to the conclusion that such most be the case. Meeting a labourer returning borne after his day's work, they made inquiries as to their whereabouts. From him they learnt that they were some distance on the road to the North; but he cheered them with the information that, by following a certain short cut which could be found without difficulty, go he said, they could regain the coach road, and possibly get in advance of the coach by a few minutes.

'Yeou moun go on till yeou come to the third geate in the hedge, and go over the field, and across the stream; then threu the wood by the farm ; pass Deadman's Bottom, which is a place where was an awful murder; then threu another wood, and yeou will, if yeou be sharp, just catch the coach.'

'Thank you, my man; here's a shilling, to drink our healths,' said Mr. Bickerdyke. 'Come, Charles, we have no time to lose,' and they hurried on.

'I think this must be the gate,' presently said my great uncle, stopping.

'No ; it must be that one on the other side of the road,' was his father's reply; 'he said it was in a hedge.'

'But so is this one.'

'Which side of the road did he say?'

'He only said the third gate.'

'And these two are both third gates, for they are exactly opposite one another. Confound him!'

'Well, I think the coach road must be to the left, so let us take the left gate.'

To this Mr. Bickerdyke agreed; and they stumbled on through the increasing darkness, over a heavy clay field.

'I believe that fellow directed us here to rob us,' said my great-grandfather, nervously.

'I will try the strength of his skull with my blackthorn first,' answered his son.

'No, Charles ; no violence, I command you. The villain may have companions who would overpower you, and murder us both. We must let them have the little we carry about us, it is not— gracious heavens! what is that?'

A dark form loomed before them, seeming almost to rise from the ground, so suddenly did it make its appearance out of the mist and darkness. The old gentleman tremblingly sought his pockets, and in a second was holding out in one hand a purse, in the other his watch and seals. My great-uncle acted differently. A well-aimed blow of his blackthorn was returned by a furious kick— fortunately not so well aimed— from the dark form, which then rushed away. It was some poor tinker's donkey, stealing for himself and master a feed of roots from a stack of those luscious vegetables.

After stumbling about in the darkness for some hours the unfortunate gentlemen found themselves in a narrow, muddy lane. This they walked up for about a mile, when they came before a small, low house. Between the chinks of the shutters which covered one of the ground-floor windows a few gleams of light could be seen, and from the inside came the occasional murmur of voices. On one side of the house was a gloomy-looking pond, and behind it three or four funereal-looking poplars, through which the wind was soughing weirdly.

'What a horrible-looking place! We can't seek shelter here,' whispered my great-grandfather to his son.

The latter, however— who had been making a careful survey— noticed a battered old signboard swinging over the door, which pointed to the fact that accommodation of some kind or other was offered for man and beast. After further consultation with his father, he knocked at the door with his blackthorn, and, a trifle nervously, they awaited the result. At the end of a few seconds the door was opened a foot or so, a rough, shaggy head was thrust out, the owner of which demanded in a surly tone of voice what they wanted, and, on their answering 'Shelter for the night,' told them he didn't think they had come to the right shop for that; but they might come in, and he would see what he could do for them.

With grave feelings of mistrust my unfortunate ancestors entered the house, and immediately found themselves in a low, dirty room, reeking with tobacco-smoke, around which, drinking and smoking, sat a dozen savage and desperate-looking men. The man who had let them in— a repulsive fellow, with a huge crop of coarse black hair and shaggy eyebrows, from under which gleamed a pair of reddish, bleared eyes— introduced the company with a wave of his hand, and the words:

'A few boon companions, gentlemen— all good fellows of the right sort, and jovial ones.'

'And none so jovial as the landlord of the Deadman's Arms,' croaked out a little misshapen man from the corner of the room.

Mr. Bickerdyke turned pale.

'The Deadman's Arms! 'he ejaculated; 'that's a strange name for an inn.'

' Not so strange either,' said the landlord, with a harsh laugh; 'for many's the deadman that has rolled under this table.'

My great-grandfather's pallor increased, and, probably, the same thought ran through his and his son's minds— 'could the landlord refer to empty bottles, or did lie speak literally?'

'Put a bold face on it,' whispered Charles in his father's ear.

'It is too late to retreat,' and he repeated his request for a bed for the night, to which old Mr. Bickerdyke was careful to add that, though they wished for accommodation, they could pay but little for it, as nearly all their valuables had gone on by the coach.

'If I can make them believe we carry nothing of value,' thought the old gentleman, 'they may not think it worth the risk of murdering us;' and he felt much more comfortable after having made the remark.

With regard to a bed, the landlord declared at first that the best he could do was to let them— after the company had departed— sleep on the floor or table of the room they were then in. However, on the offer of a sovereign from Mr. Bickerdyke (who was fearful of an attack of rheumatism or gout if he slept in his damp clothes), he said he would see his daughter about it, and went outside the room. His voice was soon heard talking to a woman, at first in a whisper, but afterwards in a loud, angry tone, and, from the few words my great-uncle could catch, it seemed that he was insisting on something to which she strongly objected.

In a few minutes he returned and said his daughter, who could sleep at the cottage of a relative close by, would give up her bed to them, if that would suit. The two gentlemen would gladly have gone elsewhere if they could have found the way or dared to have left the house, but were fain to say they were delighted with the arrangement, and asked to be shown to their room as soon as possible.

'Glasses round first,' croaked out the little hunchback from the corner, and Mr. Bickerdyke, whilst boiling over with indignation at the position in which he was placed— he, a magistrate for the county, hobnobbing with persons who bare a most suspicious resemblance to footpads and highwaymen— ordered in drink for the company, and scorched his throat with some most ardent spirit, all there declaring that water, which he asked for, never came into that room.

Charles Bickerdyke, on the contrary, entered more into the humour of the thing— at least, so he always declared— and before he and his father retired . to rest about an hour later the company declared he ' was a jolly good fellow, and that it was a great pity he was not 'one of them.'

In the excitement attending the orgie of the boon companions below, the anxieties of my two ancestors had to a great extent been forgotten; but, on entering a gloomy bedroom, barely lighted by the rushlight held in the hand of the landlord, who preceded them, they returned in full force. The room was small, and uncarpeted, the ceiling devoid of lath and plaster, and among the rafters generations of spiders had woven their webs. The furniture consisted of one rickety chair and a tumble-down washstand. Looking out of the window, after the landlord had left them, the unfortunate gentlemen saw, gleaming in the light of the moon which had not long risen, the still waters of the pond.

Charles Bickerdyke was rather puzzled why this pond was not frozen over, all the other pieces of water about Cambridge being covered with a thick coating of ice. He heard afterwards that it was one of the natural curiosities of the neighbourhood, being fed by hot springs and, consequently, never freezing.

The landlord had placed in their room some bread, cheese, and beer. Of the two former they ate sparingly, but the latter they determined not to taste, thinking it was probably drugged. Thus, for drink, they were forced to content themselves with a draught from the water-jug, which tasted unpleasantly like water from a mineral spring, and  probably had come from the pond.

'If ever we get away from here alive,' said Mr. Bickerdyke, earnestly, 'I will have that pond dragged; it may be the means of bringing to light some horrible murder. It may contain the bodies of a dozen or more travellers who have been slaughtered in this very room and cast out through the window. Lock the door at ones, Charles.'

But there was no key, and, the bed being the only piece of furniture possessing any weight, it was placed against the door, which opened inwards. That done, a careful examination of the room was made for trapdoors or other means of ingress for midnight marauders, but none were found. There was no fastening to the window, but, being some distance from the ground, and affording a means of escape should the door be broken in, no trouble was taken to fix it— an omission afterwards bitterly regretted.

On the washstand, which served also as a dressing-table, stood two very tall iron candlesticks, such as are rarely seen in the present day. In one of these the landlord had placed the rushlight, which by this time had nearly burnt out. Seeing what excellent weapons these candlesticks were, my great-grandfather placed the empty one ready to hand by his bedside; his son taking care to have the blackthorn stick well within reach.

Having made these arrangements, they retired to rest. It might well be supposed that in so dangerous a position sleep would have been long in coming to them, but such was not the case. Wearied by their long walk, tendered drowsy by the spirits they had been obliged .to swallow to keep on terms with the rough crew downstairs, and, probably, also, a reaction following after the excitement under which they had been labouring, they , had not been between the sheets ten minutes before both were calmly sleeping, forgetful of robbers and cutthroats.

It was a lovely night. In through the latticed window came streaming the calm, peaceful beams of the moon. The wind had died away and no sound was heard save occasional cries of the coots, water-hens, and dabchicks, feeding by the reedy margin of the pond. Could evil-minded men be intent on deeds of murder and rapacity on such a night as this? Side by side in the moonbeam-flooded room father and son slept peacefully, but not for long.

About an hour after midnight Charles Bickerdyke was awakened by a noise at the window as if something I had been thrown against it. Rousing his father they sat up and listened. Both could see two dark blotches against the lower panes. My great-uncle at once sprang from the bed, and, I looking out, saw, standing on the path beneath the window, a man dressed in a cloak and slouched hat. The blotches were the ends of a ladder which the man had planted there with the apparent intention of reaching their room. It happened to be a little long, and consequently reached above the sill; this the villain had evidently noticed, for, as Charles Bickerdyke looked out he could see he was endeavouring to plant it on the extreme edge of the pond, so that its upper end might rest below the windowsill. My two ancestors held a hurried consultation.

'There seems to be only one man,' said Charles.

'You may depend upon it,' replied the father, 'there are others intending to enter by the door, and the one below our window is only stationed there to prevent our escape.'

'Well, must we trust to the bedstead to keep the door,' said my great- uncle, taking a firmer grip of the stick, and a look of determination coming over his face. 'I will be answerable for that ruffian with the ladder.'

'But no violence, Charles; no violence, I command you. Intimidate him if you can, and two of I us ought to be able to do that,' said the old gentleman, whose face was ashy pale, and whose teeth I chattered— with cold— let us say.

The last words had hardly passed out of my great-grandfather's mouth when the head of the rascal outside was seen slowly mounting above the window-ledge. My great uncle attempted to bound forward I stick in hand, to attack him; but old Mr. Bickerdyke I pulled him back.

'Hush! be quiet, Charles; the ruffian may not mean to enter the room; let us watch his movements a moment. Do nothing rash, or we may bring the I whole crew down upon us.'

Mr. Bickerdyke in his shirt, his grey hair thrown back, the massive iron candlestick clutched by the thin end in his hand, was a fine and striking picture. By his side stood my great-uncle, clasping his stout blackthorn nervously. Both withdrew into a dark recess there anxiously to await events.

The man
outside had by this time mounted on the ladder as high as was necessary, and stood gazing into the room, but could not see its occupants, who were in the shadow. After a few seconds he gave a gentle tap, and then appeared to listen attentively.

'Do you hear that?' said my great-grandfather in a whisper. 'He evidently thinks his associates are already in the room, and that is the signal to let them know he is at his post.'

'I am surprised we hear no noise at the door,' whispered his son.

The man at the end of about a minute gave another light tap on the window-pane, and then a third. After that he very coolly, though with great care and but little noise, opened the window and thrust his head and shoulders into the room. Mr. Bickerdyke now perceived that the time for action , had arrived. Having whispered a second warning into his son's ear— to fight, or intimidate if possible, and only use force as a last resource— he strode out from the dark corner into the centre of the room, where the moonlight fell upon him, and placing his candlestick against his shoulder, to make it represent a blunderbuss as much as possible, called out in a loud voice:

'You are discovered, villain ! Retreat or I will shoot.'

The intruder uttered an exclamation of surprise, and my great-uncle, who could contain himself no longer, rushed to the window and, dealing the man a mighty blow with his blackthorn, dashed him from the ladder to the pond beneath.

'Good God ! Charles, you may have killed him; and perhaps the poor man only came to give us a friendly warning, after all,' said old Mr. Bickerdyke, aghast at what had taken place.

'Friendly warnings do not usually come in that way,' answered his son, panting with excitement, 'See! the villain is scrambling out of the pond. I wish I had hit him harder; but, never fear, he will not return to the attack.'

The ill-used would-be robber lay for a few seconds on the edge of the pond in a dazed condition; then, having sufficiently recovered himself, shouldered the ladder, and went off at a rapid pace.

My ancestors saw him no more. Having hastily dressed, they spent the remainder of the night in watching, expecting every moment that an attempt would be made to break in the door; but apparently too sharp a lesson had been given, and they were left in peace.

About seven o'clock next morning, a rap came at the door, and, on their demanding who was there, a woman's voice answered rather sharply that breakfast was ready for them, and that, if they wished to catch the coach, they had better come down at once and partake of it. With much trepidation and many misgivings, they removed the bed from the door, and made their way downstairs. In the room in which the party had been drinking the previous evening they found breakfast prepared. In the open fireplace crackled cheerfully a wood fire, over which the landlord's daughter was broiling a chicken and some thin slices of bacon— the one keeping the other moist. A snowy cloth was spread over the table, on which stood a jug of ale, a loaf of bread, and a few tasty little pats of butter.

My ancestors were lost in amazement at this unexpected display of good things, but more so at the comeliness of the damsel, for the landlord's daughter was an exceedingly pretty girl, and of a style of beauty rare among English peasantry. Her hands, though showing slightly the marks of household work, were fairly white, with long tapering fingers. Her figure, hardly yet properly developed, was graceful: her height about the average or a little over; and her face was chiefly remarkable for a pair of very large, deep brown, velvety eyes; looking at her one was apt to see her eyes and naught else. For her description, as, of course, for all other details, my great-uncle is responsible. If I had seen her I might have been able to write more about her. Whether she was loving, tender, and amiable, I know not; but some slight idea on these points may possibly be gathered from the following conversation:—

'I see you can give one a good breakfast at the Deadman's Arms,' said my great-grandfather, speaking more cheerfully than he had done since they had missed the coach.

'Deadman's Arms!' said the girl. 'This isn't the Deadman's Arms. Why, what put that into your head ?'

'We were told that was its name by some one down here last night,' replied Mr. Bickerdyke, mildly.

'By that croaking old fool, Skillick, I suppose. He always calls it so, because we are so near Deadman's Bottom. No, the "Pike and Eel" is the name of this house, and Lord knows there's enough of them in the pond.'

____________________

7: By a Miscalculation

Anonymous

Inverell Argus (NSW) 24 Sep 1904

DR. RAYMOND SYKES, aged 42, looked grim as he sat in the gloomy panelled room of the Grange, which quite lately he had chosen for his study. He looked anxious, too. The light of a single candle in a heavy old silver stick cast ugly shadows on his face as he turned this now towards the window and now towards the bizarre and staring scarlet cabinet-cupboard, in the corner between the fireplace and the inner wall of the room.

"Supposing he should not come?" he whispered, as if to the wick of the candle. And then he looked grimmer than before, and his shoulders quivered. He did not like to face that supposition, But even while he was contemplating it, in a mood of desperation, which had loaded pistols and poison mixed up with it, he heard a faint footfall on the gravel outside. Then in an instant all his grimness left him, and an eager flashlight seemed to come into his eyes. He smiled triumphantly, glanced once more at the scarlet thing in the corner with the black lacing of lines and circles which gave it an old Etruscan air, and stood to receive his guest and cousin.

The heavy crimson curtains which had been drawn across the open French window were parted, and Cecil Taverner, poor fellow, came into the room.

"How are you, Raymond?" he said, with unsuspicious confidence.

The cousins shook hands.

"I'm all right," said Dr. Sykes. "I thought you were never coming.' "Couldn't get away before. Result of being a county person, I suppose. Our friends in Whippon made a point of my staying for the banquet— they called it that. I had to speech a bit as well. I think you're a Mason yourself."

"No, I'm not."

"No? Well, I'm an enlightened man now on that mysterious subject. By the way, you're a trifle sombre in here. Poverty hasn't reduced you to a single dip, I hope ?"

Dr. Sykes laughed quietly.

"Well, not quite," he said. "The fact is my eyes are troubling me. We'll soon remedy it. Do you mind if I carry this off for a minute?"

"Not in the least."

Dr. Sykes took the candle and went towards the scarlet cabinet-cupboard in the corner. It reached from the floor to the panelled ceiling. At first sight one would have been puzzled to say if it were a fixture or movable.

"By the way, Cecil," said Dr. Sykes, "you haven't been in this room before. This Middle Age freak of furniture will interest you. It's a secret way into the library. Rather a unique thing, fancy. The Jesuits used it a good deal in Elizabeth's time and later."

"You don't say!" said Cecil Taverner, following his cousin. The latter opened the cupboard, exposing a space some ten feet high, eight feet in length, and four in breadth. An inner door was visible, connecting the cupboard with the room beyond— the library of Starling Grange.

"Of course," said the doctor, "certain of the maskings have been improved away since the blessed days of persecution for conscience sake, and that sort of thing. But one can see the idea. There is a staircase in the side there, leading to the roofs. That's blocked up. This road to the books wasn't so obvious than either. There were other petty details but we won't bother about them."

"Caesar! what a rat-run of a place!" commented poor Cecil Taverner. "I'm glad Westbeck Hall's a nineteenth-century house, of the plain but honest period."

Dr. Sykes laughed again.

"Well, perhaps so!" he said. Then he turned the handle of that inner door, and stepped into a room the obscurity of which was but dimly broken by the flickering candle in his hand. He was very quick about it. Before his cousin could move to follow him, he had touched a spring with his foot just inside the library.

"Hullo, I'm—?"

Poor Cecil Taverner didn't finish his ejaculation. There was a thud: another and another: and then, having paused for several seconds, with the candle on the tilt in his shaking hand, illuminating the fierce and merciless light in his eyes, Dr. Raymond Sykes bent forward and peered into the black pit which yawned where the four-foot breadth of flooring, had been inside the terrible scarlet cupboard.

He could see nothing but blackness. Nor could he hear anything now, except a sort of echo of that last thud in the horrible well bored sheer down into the sandstone rock of the Grange's foundations twenty perpendicular yards.

For the next few minutes he was busy. Now that the deed was done, he was as cool and measured In his movements as at an operation in a London hospital, with great men and students marking his every action. There was another lever to find which thrust a still solid oak partition across the aperture beneath that fatal cupboard, seven feet only from the level. That made a mere hiding-place for a proscribed person— not well ventilated, to be sure, but snug, and otherwise far from alarming to a Jesuit or a traitor in peril of being dismembered at Tyburn. This done, he shot the ordinary floor also had its place, closed the library division, and returned to the room with the open window. He shut this window stealthily, and then looked about him with an air of evil satisfaction.

There was whisky on the table by the book he had pretended to read. He poured out a strong draught of it and drank it almost raw. This did all for him that he seemed to require. He nodded to himself and rubbed his hands.

"Now, my poor Cecil," he said, with ironical tenderness, "we will see how I can play up to the dignity you have been forced, alas, to surrender. I'm sorry I had to do it but life is a brutal business. Westbeck will suit me better than this haunted hole— very much haunted, in fact, now. That second trap is a secret between me and the late owner of the Grange. Every trace of it shall be obliterated, to make sure. And then, my Gladys of the pretty smile and the desirable fortune, we'll see if Fortune still pats me on the back."

Dr. Raymond Sykes went to bed towards one o'clock with no active scruples of conscience about the murder he had committed.

ii

CECIL TAVERNER was not missed for quite a week. He had been a rackety young man even before he inherited the Westbeck property from the Uncle Amos who was Raymond Sykes's uncle also— here, there, and everywhere, without word to anyone.

Dr. Sykes waited three days for the inquiries which did not come. By then he was more than content. The traces of that lower trap in the scarlet cupboard were completely disguised now. And he was ready to leave England for that tour round the world of which he had spoken, craftily, these six weeks.

Ere going he wrote to Cecil at Westbeck. That too, was a crafty letter, Informing him that he was afraid he would not be back to help him to shoot his covers that year. He wrote also to his solicitors. He didn't expect to be in the way of letters for a couple of months. They might cable to Dunedin, New Zealand, if anything important happened. And when he left the Thames in the steamer Hot Springs, bound direct for the Antipodes, he was prepared for the kind of telegram which would be awaiting him at the Dunedin post office.

Gladys Hartley was the only person he wanted to see ere setting out. But she and her mother had gone to Florence. He wrote also to her, however, yet a third crafty letter, declaring his love and his journey.

"Ah! (he wrote in that letter), "if only I were in a better position, I would dare to ask you if you could love me a little In return. But I will not think of asking the woman I love best in the world to share the comparative poverty, of only sight hundred a year. Believe me, I love you too well to wish you anything but certain comfort and happiness all your days."

Starling Grange was not altogether closed in his absence. Deaf Mrs. Humphreys and her inoffensive little daughter Mary Anne were left in charge. Certain of the rooms were locked up, the library and the room of the scarlet cupboard among them. Dr. Sykes took the keys with him. All things considered, he felt that he might try to enjoy his voyage. And he was sufficiently a rascal to succeed fairly.

At Dunedin he found two telegrams awaiting him. "Your cousin Taverner feared dead," said the earlier telegram.

The second was a month later. "Return at once," it said. "No news of Taverner."

"Bless my soul!" exclaimed Dr. Sykes aloud, when he had read these messages.

Captain Hamp, of the Hot Springs was with him, and be fully explained to the captain why he was thus agitated.

"Well, doctor," said the skipper genially, "I reckon I'll venture to congratulate you on your inheritance. A cousin's not much to wail about, and £6,000 a year is a first-class consolation stakes, anyhow!"

Dr. Sykes seemed to think so, too.

"I must get back to the gallop," he said. "If the poor chap is dead, it does, as you say, make all the difference to me."

iii

SEVEN WEEKS later Dr. Sykes landed at Plymouth and hurried away to Worcestershire. He was excited, of course, but did not show it. In his absence he had grown a beard. That was just a whim, but he meant to call on Gladys and her mother at the Leasowes, Whippon, before he shaved it off. Women are so queer, he argued; she might like him better in a beard. Without the beard he would certainly have been recognised at the Whippon railway station. He nodded to the station-master, who scratched his head afterwards and asked himself who the gentleman was. As for his luggage, that was to follow him.

It was three o'clock when he walked down the wooded drive, at the end of which he hoped to meet his heart's desire. What, he wondered, would her eyes tell him when they shook hands. He believed she was about as worldly as the average woman, and would thus think much more highly of him than before he left England.

He rang the bell and assumed a cheerful air. Harris, that sly old man-servant, would no doubt greet him cordially as usual. Not, perhaps, at first; the beard would bother him. But afterwards, certainly. Many a half-crown had he insinuated into Harris's ready palm.

"Miss Hartley in?" he asked abruptly— for the small jest' s sake.

"No, sir. They're— Good Heavens! sir, is it Mr. Sykes?" The man seemed stupefied.

"How are you, Harris? Thought I should take you in. The ladies out, you say?"

"Yes, sir!" whispered Harris, still shocked; furtive also, it seemed.

"That's annoying. I'm hot-foot from the other side of the world. Only landed this morning!"

"Indeed, sir! Seen no newspapers perhaps, while you've been away?" suggested Harris.

"None, except to-day's."

Harris's chest swelled. An intense eagerness showed in his eyes. "I wonder, sir, if you'd like to wait a bit? They're visiting," he said faintly. He pocketed one of the familiar half-crowns as Dr. Sykes passed into the drawing-room.

And there, in less than a quarter of an hour, two of the Whippon police had the pleasure of making an arrest upon instructions from Mr. Harris.

No one belonging to the shire was more wanted by the police just then. For, some three weeks previously, Starling Grange had been burned down through the gross carelessness of little Mary Ann Humphreys, and that infernal cavity under the scarlet cupboard (a mere cinder itself) had given up its terrible secret.

Mr. Harris had earned £100 as well as half-a-crown by Dr. Raymond Sykes's afternoon call that day.

__________________

8: The Anticipator

Morley Roberts

1857-1942

In: The Keeper of the Waters, Skeffington & Son 1898

"OF COURSE, I admit it isn't plagiarism." said Carter Esplan, savagely; "it's fate, it's the devil, but is it the less irritating on that account? No, no!"

And he ran his hand through his hair till it stood on end. He shook with febrile excitement, a red spot burned on either cheek, and his bitten lip quivered.

"Confound Burford and his parents and his ancestors! The tools to him that can handle them," he added after a pause, during which his friend Vincent curiously considered him.

"It's your own fault, my dear wild man," said he; "you are too lazy. Besides, remember these things— these notions, motives— are in the air. Originality is only the art of catching early worms. Why don't you do the things as soon as you invent them?"

"Now you talk like a bourgeois, like a commercial traveller," returned Esplan, angrily. "Why doesn't an apple-tree yield apples when the blossoms are fertilized? Why wait for summer, and the influences of wind and sky? Why don't live chickens burst new-laid eggs? Shall parturition tread sudden on conception? Didn't the mountain labour to bring forth a mouse? And shall―"

"Your works of genius not require a portion of the eternity to which they are destined?"

"Stuff!" snarled Esplan; "but you know my method. I catch the suggestion, the floating thistledown of thought, the title, maybe; and then I leave it, perhaps without a note, to the brain, to the subliminal consciousness, the sub-conscious self. The story grows in the dark of the inner, perpetual, sleepless soul. It may be rejected by the artistic tribunal sitting there; it may be bidden to stand aside. I, the outer I, the husk-case of heredities, know nothing of it, but one day I take the pen and the hand writes it. This is the automatism of art, and I— I am nothing, the last only of the concealed individualities within me. Perhaps a dumb ancestor attains speech, and yet the Complex Ego Esplan must be anticipated in this way!"

He rose and paced the lonely club-smoking-room with irregular steps. His nerves were evidently quivering, his brain was wild. But Vincent, who was a physician, saw deeper. For Esplan's speech was jerky, at times he missed the right word; the speech centres were not under control.

"What of morphine?" he thought. "I wonder if he's at it again, and is to-day without his quantum." But Esplan burst out once more.

"I should not care so much if Burford did them well, but he doesn't know how to write a story. Look at this last thing of mine— of his. I saw it leaping and alive; it rang and sang, a very Maenad; it had red blood. With him it wasn't even born dead; it squeaks puppetry, and leaks sawdust, and moves like a lay figure, and smells of most manifest manufacture. But I can't do it now. He has spoilt it for ever. It's the third time. Curse him, and my luck! I work when I must."

"Your calling is very serious to you," said Vincent, lazily.

"After all, what does it matter? What are stories? Are they not opiates for cowards' lives? I would rather invent some little instrument, or build a plank bridge across a muddy stream, than write the best of them."

Esplan turned on him.

"Well, well," he almost shouted; "the man who invented chloroform was great, and the makers of it are useful. Call stories chloral, morphia, bromides, if you will, but we give ease."

"When it might be better to use blisters."

"Rot!" answered Esplan, rudely. "In any case, your talk is idle. I am I, writers are writers— small, if you will, but a result and a force. Give me a rest. Don't talk ideal poppycock!"

He ordered liqueur brandy. After drinking it his aspect changed a little, and he smiled.

"Perhaps it won't occur again. If it does, I shall feel that Burford is very much in my way. I shall have to―"

"Remove him?" asked Vincent.

"No, but work quicker. I have something to write soon. It would just suit him to spoil."

The talk changed, and soon afterwards the friends parted. Esplan went to his chambers in Bloomsbury. He paced his sitting-room idly for a few minutes, but after a while he began to feel the impulse in his brain; his fingers itched, the semi-automatic mood came on. He sat down and wrote, at first slowly, then quicker, and at last furiously.

It was three in the afternoon when he commenced work. At ten o'clock he was still at his desk, and the big table on which it stood was strewn with tobacco-ashes and many pipes. His hair again stood on end, for at intervals he ran his damp hands through it. His eyes altered like opals; at times they sparkled and almost blazed, and then grew dim. He changed at each sentence; he mouthed his written talk audibly; each thought was reflected in his pale mobile face. He laughed and then groaned; at the crisis, tears ran down and blurred the already undecipherable script. But at eleven he rose, stiff in every limb, and staggering. With difficulty he picked the unpaged leaves from the floor, and sorted them in due order. He fell into his chair.

"It's good, it's good!" he said, chuckling; "what a queer devil I am.' My dumb ancestors pipe oddly in me. It's strange, devilish strange; man's but a mouthpiece, and crazy at that. How long has this last thing been hatching? The story is old, yet new. Gibbon shall have it. It will just suit him. Little beast, little horror, little hog, with a divine gold ring of appreciation in his grubbing snout."

He drank half a tumbler of whisky, and tumbled into bed. His mind ran riot.

"Any ego's a bit fissured," he said. "I ought to be careful." And ere he fell asleep he talked conscious nonsense. Incongruous ideas linked themselves together; he sneered at his brain's folly, and yet he was afraid. He used morphine at last in such a big dose that it touched the optic centre and subjective lightnings flashed in his dark room. He dreamed of an "At Home," where he met big, brutal Burford wearing a great diamond in his shirt-front.

"Bought by my conveyed thoughts," he said. But looking down he perceived that he had yet a greater jewel of his own, and soon his soul melted in the contemplation of its rays, till his consciousness was dissipated by a divine absorption into the very Nirvana of Light.

When he woke the next day, it was already late in the afternoon. He was overcome by yesterday's labour, and, though much less irritable, he walked feebly. The trouble of posting his story to Gibbon seemed almost too much for him; but he sent it, and took a cab to his club, where he sat almost comatose for many hours. Two days afterwards he received a note from the editor, returning his story. It was good, but―

"Burford sent me a tale with the same motive weeks ago, and I accepted it."

Esplan smashed his thin white hand on his mantelpiece, and made it bleed. That night he got drunk on champagne, and the brilliant wine seemed to nip and bite and twist every nerve and brain cell. His irritability grew so extreme that he lay in wait for subtle, unconceived insults, and meditated morbidly on the aspect of innocent strangers. He gave the waiter double what was necessary, not because it was particularly deserved, but because he felt that the slightest sign of discontent on the man's part might lead to an uncontrollable outburst of anger on his own.

Next day, he met Burford in Piccadilly, and cut him dead with a bitter sneer.

"I daren't speak to him— I daren't!" he muttered.

And Burford, who could not quite understand, felt outraged. He himself hated Esplan with the hatred of an outpaced, out-sailed rival. He knew his own work lacked the diabolical certainty of Esplan's— it wanted the fine phrase, the right red word of colour, the rush and onward march to due finality, the bitter, exact conviction, the knowledge of humanity that lies in inheritance, the exalted experience that proves received intuitions. He was, he knew, a successful failure, and his ambition was greater even than Esplan's.

For he was greedy, grasping, esurient, and his hollowness was obvious even before Esplan proved it with his ringing touch.

"He takes what I have done, and does it better. It's malice, malice," he urged to himself.

And when Esplan placed his last story, and the world remembered, only to forget in its white-hot brilliance, the cold paste of Burford's Paris jewel, he felt hell surge within him. But he beat his thoughts down for a while, and went on his little, laboured way. The success of the story and Burford's bitter eclipse helped Esplan greatly, and he might have got saner if other influences working for misery in his life had not hurt him. For a certain woman died, one whom none knew to be his friend, and he clung to morphine, which, in its increase, helped to throw him later. And at last the crash did come, for Burford had two stories, better far than his usual work, in a magazine that Esplan looked on as his own. They were on Esplan's very motives; he had them almost ready to write. The sting of this last bitter blow drove him off his tottering balance; he conceived murder, and plotted it brutally, and then subtly, and became dominated by it, till his life was the flower of the insane motive. It altered nothing that a reviewer pointed out the close resemblance between the two men's work, and, exalting Esplan's genius, placed one writer beyond all cavil, the other below all place.

But that drove Burford crazy. It was so bitterly true. He ground his teeth, and hating his own work, hated worse the man who destroyed his own conceit. He wanted to do harm. How should he do it?

Esplan had long since gone under. He was a homicidal maniac, with one man before him. He conceived and wrote schemes. His stories ran to murder. He read and imagined means. At times he was in danger of believing he had already done the deed. One wild day he almost gave himself up for this proleptic death. Thus his imagination burnt and flamed before his conceived path.

"I'll do it, I'll do it," he muttered; and at the club the men talked about him.

"To-morrow," he said, and then he put it off. He must consider the art of it. He left it to bourgeon in his fertile brain. And at last, just as he wrote, action, lighted up by strange circumstances, began to loom big before him. Such a murder would wake a vivid world, and be an epoch in crime. If the red earth were convulsed in war, even then would it stay to hear that incredible, true story, and, soliciting deeper knowledge, seek out the method and growth of means and motive. He chuckled audibly in the street, and laughed thin laughter in his room of fleeting visions. At night he walked the lonely streets near at hand, considering eagerly the rush of his own divided thoughts, and leaning against the railings of the leafy gardens, he saw ghosts in the moon shadows and beckoned them to converse. He became a nightbird and was rarely seen.

"To-morrow," he said at last. To-morrow he would really take the first step. He rubbed his hands and laughed as he pondered near home, in his own lonely square, the finer last details which his imagination multiplied.

"Stay, enough, enough!" he cried to his separate mad mind; "it is already done."

And the shadows were very dark about him. He turned to go home.

Then came immortality to him in strange shape. For it seemed as though his ardent and confined soul burst out of his narrow brain and sparkled marvellously. Lights showered about him, and from a rose sky lightnings flashed, and he heard awful thunder. The heavens opened in a white blaze, and he saw unimaginable things. He reeled, put his hand to his stricken head, and fell heavily in a pool of his own blood.

And the Anticipator, horribly afraid, ran down a by-street.

___________________

9: The Arbitrator

Morley Roberts

English Illustrated Oct 1895

"VERY well, I'll do it for you," said Gurdon. "I'd just as soon you should have it as Parsons, for he is always kicking about prices."

"All right, then," said Fredericks in a preoccupied way; "let me see it as soon as you have it done, or you might send in part."

And as he turned to his desk Gurdon nodded, shoved a half-burnt cigar between his big teeth, and went out to his club in the purlieus of St. James's. He chuckled joyfully as he went.

"Landed my fish rather neatly that time," he said as he stayed at a corner and struck a match on a much scratched brick.

"I might have had more trouble in placing it. But now I must do it. Six weeks' hard labour, and, I suppose, one hundred pounds. That was the implied price."

He went into the club familiarly known as the Paste and Scissors Arms; and ordering a large gin-and-bitters, sat down to consider matters and methods. But presently Rivers came in. He was the very antithesis of Gurdon, who bulked large and red and fiery, and could look murderous after three drinks, for Rivers was thin and dark and small, and deliberate with the choicest Oxford deliberation, and by no means given to any form of violence. It was reported that he understood the Alps, and a rumour once gained considerable credence that after a late supper in his rooms he undertook to demonstrate the glissade by tobogganing in a tea-tray down the stairs. But this may have been invention, for Rivers denied it consistently, and he might well have forgotten what none of his guests were in any state to remember.

"Is there anything new, Gurdon?" asked Rivers, as he sat down.

"Tea-trays are at a discount," said Gurdon gravely, "but embrocations are firm."

Rivers smiled wearily.

"That is not new, Gurdon. Have you done any work lately?"

"I never work," said Gurdon. "Work as I take it is a reasonable and regular application of one's energies to definite ends, and I only go in for unreasonable and irregular bursts of chaotic mental activity. Now, I understand you work. I often hear you say you are going to do so. Believing that you speak the truth, I respect your industry, and mourn my own incapacity for continued exertion."

"You are cheerful this morning," said Rivers, "and keep up your pose. But what do you do when you disappear for three months at a time?"

"I consider the lilies," said Gurdon gravely, "until I am in immediate danger of starvation. Then I work for a week fifteen hours a day and smoke fifteen cigars and some pipes, and drink a bucket of tea and a bottle of whisky. And I come back to town with fifty thousand words of miscellaneous matter, which I dispose of during the next three months. I have no nerves left, and am a perfect wreck, an empty bottle, a stove-in cask, a dried-up spring, the shadow of my full self. I am amorphous, blotched, bleared, gibbous, gastado, wasted. Then I come and look at you, and sit here and grow again. I am nearly ready now "

"I see the energy coming up in you," said Rivers. "But you are a full-sized idiot to work like that."

"Every man to his method," cried Gurdon, touching the bell. "Have a gin-and-bitters, Rivers?"

They drank together, and Gurdon expanded: his red beard glowed.

"I'm going to do a good month's work for Fredericks," said he.

"Mind what you are doing," said Rivers.

"What do you mean?"

"Stamp his letters."

"It's a verbal agreement."

"Then you'll quarrel, and he'll do you."

Gurdon looked ugly.

"I'll bash his brains out if he tries. But he won't. It is too clear for him to get out of it."

"What are you doing for him?" asked Rivers.

"Seven long articles on Seven Popular Asses," said Gurdon indiscreetly. "But I have liberty to serve them as if I were an intoxicated humorist of a costermonger knocking his donkey in the Old Kent Road. He will edit the libellous matter with a Big Blue Pencil."

"Give it them," said Rivers. "I wish I was in a position to be one of them."

"So do I," said Gurdon softly, as a gentle prospect of n per cent, on xn copies opened out to him. "For I would sling journalism—yea, and all writing—and go out into the unsophisticated universe and be a man. I must have another drink."

"With me," said Rivers.

He ordered it, and Gurdon continued.

"What luck a man has! I should have made a most sweet pirate— an amiable and intelligent filibuster. And here I am leading forlorn hopes against the Seven Champions of Bourgeoisdom. Good-bye. I'm off."

He departed swiftly, and for a long month was not seen of men.

But in five weeks a gaunt wreck swung into the Harbour of Refuge, and went ashore heavily in a big arm-chair.

"Bring me a gin-and-bitters," said the wreck. "And have you seen Mr. Rivers to-day?"

"He's usually in to lunch, Sir," replied the waiter. Sure enough Rivers came in at half-past one.

"The devil!" said he, when he caught sight of Gurdon, "so you're back. Glad to see you! Have you smitten the Seven Asses?"

Gurdon groaned.

"I've done it, man, finished last night. And to think of all the rot I've read in order to get through. I've been at it seven to ten hours a day for a month. I stayed at a little inn down at Shoreham, but I don't think I wandered further than the bar. Yes, I once went to the stables with a drunken visitor to inspect a horse. I've had a deuce of a time."

"So I should think." said Rivers seriously, "and doesn't it ever occur to you that it's suicide to go on like that?"

Gurdon grunted.

"What's the odds? Now I've to badger Fredericks. It's a new form of hard labour."

"Let me hear how you get on," said Rivers. "I'm curious to know if he pays up."

"He'll pay," said Gurdon. "I shall write every other day till he does."

But he wrote every other day for a week, and then every day for another week before a cheque came.

That night Rivers met Gurdon coming west down the Strand like a fire-ship in a tideway. He loomed gigantic, and his ragged red beard looked like flame; women stared at him and laughed half nervously when he had passed, but men got out of his way, and nothing less than a City policeman, used to regulating traffic, would have stopped him. His eyes glittered, and he was cursing in a thick dry whisper. He saw Rivers, and halting, laid his big paw on his shoulder and swept him off down the street.

"What the devil's gone wrong?" asked Rivers calmly.

"He sent me fifty pounds," said Gurdon in a voice that would have split a fog like a gunshot. "Now what I want is advice, my boy— nice cool, wise advice, with an iceberg of due deliberation in it. Shall I catch him and sweep the Strand with him, or shall I wreck his office and set it on fire, or shall I wring his neck and plead public benefit, or what shall I do?"

Rivers gave him a slight sheer which sent him out of the Strand into King William Street, and they drifted past Toole's Theatre like a big blundering barge and little river tug.

"You will do none of these things, Gurdon," he said quietly. "I should recommend your calmly pointing out to him that he has only sent half, and then, if he doesn't cash up, sue him."

"Sue him?" roared Gurdon. "Can I catch his sweet breath of a month ago and pay the penalty and stick a sixpenny stamp on it? If he's a mean hound, why he is, and verbal agreements without witnesses don't count for much. He would set up custom and common rates, and I should get County Court justice, and have to pay costs. No, no; I'll catch him, and knock the stuffing out of him."

"He's as big and strong as you are," said Rivers, "and you might get the worst of it, and go to jail too."

Gurdon stopped.

"I tell you, Rivers, I could lick a church full of such. I could; you bet I could."

And letting out suddenly he hit a shop shutter such a crack with his huge fist that the street resounded.

"Don't." said Rivers; "come up to my rooms and we'll talk it over."

And about two o'clock in the morning he put an intoxicated but mollified giant into a stray hansom, and sent him home.

But Gurdon did no other work than write letters to Fredericks. He kept up a continual bombardment of them till the editor grew sick and angry. He wanted to punch his contributor's head just as much as the contributor desired to punch his. But public opinion on one side and Rivers on the other kept them both from an open scandal.

"What am I to do with this fellow?" he asked his chief clerk in' despair. The clerk might have suggested "Pay him," but did not. He was quite accustomed to Fredericks' getting something for nothing or much for a little. So, at last, he thought of arbitration.

"If he sues me he's certain not to get a full verdict, but he'll be nasty," said Fredericks, "and, besides, the advertisement would be worth the money to him. If I get Harden, or Siblock, or Grayson to arbitrate, they'll see how absurd the price is. They wouldn't get more themselves than what I sent him."

So he wrote and suggested that as the matter in dispute was so small, arbitration would be a good way to settle it. Gurdon pondered over the letter, and took Rivers' advice again.

"Take him on," said Rivers; "you're sure to land something."

Gurdon brought his fist down on the table.

"If I didn't believe I should get the full amount, I wouldn't arbitrate!" he roared. "He's a swindler, a ruffian, a mean, sneaking, crawling, beastly journalistic parasite."

"If you think that way you shouldn't arbitrate," suggested Rivers. But Gurdon was torrential, blind, blundering, and would not listen. He wrote and asked who was to act as arbitrator.

Fredericks suggested Grayson, a very popular man of letters, who, having come into considerable money, rarely did any work.

"He's the very man," said Rivers when he heard of it.

"But I don't know him," said Gurdon; "and he's such a general favourite, I know I sha'n't like him. And if I don't like him, and he goes against me, I shall carry on most shamefully."

Rivers rebuked him.

"Of all the absurd, impossible creatures I ever saw, Gurdon," he said severely, "you are the most absurd and impossible."

So he calmed Gurdon down, and got him to accept Grayson as arbitrator. And that night Gurdon spent ten pounds of the full fifty which he was to get, as he firmly believed. And Fredericks gambled away the best part of the fifty which he believed he had saved. His losses made him smart, and he lost his temper and swore in the card-room. A man who was no friend of his threatened to report him to the committee, and this set Fredericks on a regular tear. He was as much given to that kind of thing as Gurdon, and he was to the full as reckless a fool. It was good luck they did not meet that night, or there would have been flaring head-lines for the evening papers the next day.

In the afternoon Grayson came to see Gurdon at his chambers, and the journalist found him very pleasant and genial, and quite as clever as his reputation would have led him to suppose. He listened to Gurdon's wild denunciations of his editor, and to his theory of the agreement.

"I'm sorry I undertook this, Mr. Gurdon," said Grayson gloomily, "it looks as if I had to believe that either you or Fredericks must be a liar."

Gurdon intimated cheerfully that he hadn't the least objection to his thinking as badly as he liked of Fredericks. But that did not quite settle it.

"I don't see that I can take either your account or his into consideration," said Grayson; "if I fix a price it must be on the general grounds of fair journalistic prices for such signed work."

So Gurdon grunted and they shook hands, and Grayson went to inspect the seven articles on the Seven Asses.

He reported to Fredericks that he considered a fair price would be another twenty-five pounds— making in all seventy-five. He sent a note to this effect to Gurdon as well, and washed his hands of the matter with a resolution never to act as arbitrator again.

He pleased neither; indeed, both were furious.

For this call of another twenty-five pounds struck Fredericks in a tender spot. His account was overdrawn, and his magazine was moribund, or, at the least, very sadly ailing. Work of all kinds had driven him half crazy, and now his overcharged nerves went off in an explosion.

As for Gurdon, who was relying on that fatal fifty pounds to pay his rent and his club subscription, he fairly tore his hair and beard. But all his wrath was now directed against the unfortunate arbitrator.

"He evidently thought I was the liar," he said, "for how could any man not see that my tale was the only credible one?"

He went out and started drinking at a terrible rate. And when he drank fast he never became obviously intoxicated. His appearance was that of a madman. It was a pity that Rivers wasn't at hand with his nice deliberate manner and as carefully enunciated common wisdom to drop a little cold water into this bubbling, boiling pot. But Rivers was at work. If he had guessed what was happening he would have left a chapter unfinished and have come down to look after this gunpowder barge once more adrift in the fairway. However, he knew nothing, and he could not stop or order differently the course of coming events.

By eleven o'clock that night Fredericks, too, had drunk sufficient champagne and mixed liquors to lose what was left of his discretion, never at any time over-much.

"Confound Grayson!" he swore to himself. "I wonder if he has told Gurdon? Isn't there anything which I forgot, anything I ought to have let him know? I'll go and see the cursed fool! I wish I had never let it go to arbitration!"

He stood in the hall of the club pondering. The porter came up to him.

"Was it you ordered a hansom, Sir?"

That decided Fredericks.

"Yes," he declared, and getting in, he drove off to Grayson's rooms.

The night was fine and brilliant, the streets crowded. But there was just that touch of cold in it which catches a man who has not been over-careful in his dinner and after-dinner drinks. He entered the cab passably sober, and came out intoxicated. He quarrelled with the cabman; he returned abuse with abuse, and finally offered to fight the man.

"You're three stone over my weight," said the driver, "and I should get hauled up and lose my license. You're no gentleman, that's what you ain't."

And Fredericks went up the stairs in a towering rage. He put it all down to Grayson, and cursed him in the common language understanded of the people. He found the arbitrator's oak unsported, and he knocked loudly and knocked again.

Then he listened, and was answered with a snore. He turned the handle and went in, to find the room in utter darkness.

"Grayson, is that you?" he said. Advancing a step, he tripped up, and in an instant was locked in a strong embrace.

"Let go!" he shouted; and the next moment he was loosed, and got a crack which half stunned him. His self-restraint was gone. He went for his opponent, whose figure he now saw dimly by the gas-light outside the opened door, and pounded for all he was worth. He never gave Grayson so much credit for being a fighter. "I'll murder you!" he muttered. "You immortal idiot, I'll arbitrate you!"

And grappling with him, they reeled over the room, capsizing chairs and table, and generally reducing the whole place to a perfect wreck. But suddenly they fell across the sofa, and he got such a blow on the side of his head that he lost consciousness.

The room was still dark when he came to, and he found himself lying on top of his opponent, whose breathing he could scarcely discern. He was now a bit sobered.

"By Jove! I hope I haven't killed him," he said, and getting clear of the sofa he took a match from his pocket and lighted the gas. As he turned round he saw Grayson in front of him, looking perfectly thunderstruck. The arbitrator was so neat and in such good trim that Fredericks for a moment felt that it was all a dream.

"I thought I'd killed you," said he.

"What have you been doing to the room?" said the arbitrator.

"What did you strike me for?" said Fredericks, plucking up a bit.

"You're mad," said Grayson, "what do you mean?"

Fredericks shrugged his shoulders.

"I've been punching you for this last ten minutes," he muttered.

"Confound you!" said the arbitrator angrily; "you have smashed a hundred pounds' worth of china and furniture; you're drunk, Sir. This comes of doing something to oblige you. Get out of this."

And poor Fredericks, who was still stupid with the blow which made him insensible, obeyed like a child. Grayson saw him off, and sported his oak. Coming back, he looked ruefully at the mischief which had been done, and tried to arbitrate on that. He cursed as he went into his bed-room; but he heard a noise behind him and came back. Gurdon was standing in the middle of the room looking absolutely ghastly, with blood running down his face from a cut in head.

"What the blazes are you in my in room for?" said Grayson, who began to believe he was dreaming.

"What did you strike me for and kick me?" said Gurdon in a confused and foolish voice. "I was quiet enough till you did that. I only just wanted to talk to you. I thought I had killed you."

Grayson sat down and whistled.

"When did you come here?"

"I don't know," said Gurdon plaintively.

"How did you get in?"

"I knocked and came in and sat down to wait a bit for you. And then you struck me."

Grayson laughed scornfully.

"No, I didn't; it was Fredericks, and a pretty mess you've made of him," said he. "He won't be able to show up for a month."

Gurdon wiped his face with a handkerchief and looked happier.

"Then I'm all right," said he. "I was afraid it was you. And I'm afraid we've hurt your furniture. I'm very sorry, Grayson."

"Who's going to pay for this?" said Grayson. "My place is wrecked."

"You will have to settle it with me and that beast Fredericks," suggested Gurdon dolefully, who began to see that a cheque for twenty-five pounds would look very small against so much damage.

But Grayson smiled, and rising, unlocked his door in a very suggestive way.

"What!" said he, "settle anything with money in it between you and Fredericks? Not very much. Good-night, Mr. Gurdon."

________________________

10: An Edited Story

Morley Roberts

The English Illustrated, Vol 14, pp. 541-546

"I HAVE a rather singular story here," said the editor-in-chief as he lay back in his chair and picked his teeth with a new quill.

"Yes?" said the sub-editor absently. He was uncommonly busy just then, for it was already the sixteenth of the month, and only things in type interested him in the least.

"It is singular," said the editor, this time half to himself; "there's a touch of genius in it, and yet the end is not done right. It wants a touch, just a touch, and then I think it would do."

He turned over the typewritten copy, and finally slung it across to the sub.

"Read it when you get time, Jevons, and say if you don't think it a bit out of the way."

And Jevons jammed the script into a pigeon-hole

"I think I'll clear out now," said the editor, rolling a cigarette slowly.

"For the Lord's sake do," cried the sub to himself, "and then I may get done."

And as Whittaker Ellis rubbed his hat on his sleeve, preparatory to departure, he muttered again, "Yes, it is damned singular. Damned singular is what it is.

He shook his head and sauntered into the Strand. Getting into a Piccadilly 'bus he disappeared into club-land. But Jevons, whom he had left, pulled out the script and read part of it. Every now and again the sub-editor burst into a shout of laughter, which made the big bare room ring. Yet he went on slaving like a lunatic, even as he grinned.

"Not at all singular, but damned funny," said Jevons. "By the Lord, but it is funny."

When he put his hat on he mimicked Whittaker Ellis, and stalked out of the room.

"Yes, it is damned funny, damned funny is what it is," he said in Ellis's very voice

And instead of eating he went, like a worn-out fool, and took the bitter edge off his appetite with an abnormal amount of whisky. But the liquor smoothed an odd little tremor out of his face and his hands, and made him go easier and feel less keenly.

His club was a tavern in the Shaftesbury Avenue, haunted by a peculiar set of rank failures. They were the quality of literary diamond that gets put to cutting and polishing instead of being itself polished and set; and many of them had a diseased opinion of their own powers. But some were sombre, abject, down-trodden, and half-crown-seeking men of letters. Once and again was found there a real man of genius gone to hell, and among them such a one looked like a wrecked and sunken ship, full of beautiful dead human thoughts. But mostly they were mere decadents decayed, and Henry Jevons was the man among them yet. For he had steady employment still, and his vices left him squeezable of odd silver. He would praise produced sonnets, and kindly lament that he was but sub-editor. They swore he ought to be editor—nay, better, sought by editors—and they told newcomers loud enough for Jevons to hear that he was a man of rare and neglected talents.

"Sometimes he is enormous," said one. "But I fear he drinks too much to write now or even to talk as he can talk."

For some of them praised him truthfully and without the incentive of possible whisky.

He was in no form this night to be brilliant; but he was oddly and unusually good tempered. He laughed easily.

"What luck, Jevons?" said the Poet of the establishment, whose hair and trousers were ragged. "What luck have you had to make you so jolly?"

"Nothing much, Gray," answered Jevons; "but it's funny when you feel that way. And I just feel funny. Singular—damned singular, ain't it!"

And there was such an odd look in his quick, unnaturally bright eye that the Poet felt uncomfortable, and retreated a pace. If he had been leading up to a drink or sixpence he had no chance to renew his attack, for Cator, who was Jevons's chief friend there, came in and monopolised him.

"How goes it?" said Cator.

"So so," he said, shrugging his shoulders.

"And is there any chance of a better thing yet? How's Ellis go on?"

Jevons looked down and drew odd figures and mystic Mason signs on the bar counter as he puffed hard at his pipe.

"A beast as usual, and out of beasts comes beastliness," he said; "he has little devilish ways of annoying me, and he looks at me insultingly, and often when I am turned round he laughs. I don't say anything about his being selfish. He knows he gets more work out of me than he would out of a fresh-run German whose English was still Ollendorf; and yet he keeps me on the same pay. No; I say nothing of that; but he's a devil, and makes faces and jeers in a polite, gentlemanly way till he fills me with fury.

"Yes," said Cator rather absently, for to tell the truth he often found Jevons on Ellis a trifle heavier than Byles on Bills. And as a discounter's clerk he often had to look up Byles. "I daresay he's a hard 'un. But, then, he's the oof bird as far as you are concerned, so stick to him while you can."

Jevons nodded, and then laid his hand on Cator's arm.

"You remember that damned wet night up at Billy's?" he asked mysteriously in a half whisper.

"Um," assented Cator.

"And the story I told him and you—that he took down?"

"Why, of course," said Cator with a little shiver. "It was a wild, whacky, flabby, devilish odd story, and it gave me the shivers just as if I'd waked and found a cross between a live cuttle-fish and a dead flounder on my chest. Did you ever finish it?"

"No, no," said Jevons, whose mind seemed to have run off the rails; "no, I never finished it. I think I shall, though, some day."

"Well, what of it?" asked Cator. "You asked if I remembered it."

Jevons looked at him half suspiciously, and winked, and laid his finger to his nose.

"It's a damned singular story. Damned singular is the word."

"I believe you," said Cator; "but what of it?"

Jevons looked round,

"I believe I've sold it," he said with a grim chuckle,

Cator slapped him on the back.

"Good old man: if you'd only really follow up your bent you'd be a genius yet. And well paid geniuses are nowadays. Lord, how the bird lays for 'em! But I suppose you'll take the money you get and bust it here in threes of whisky for a crowd like this—not worth a protested bill accepted by a dead policeman."

And one part of Jevons's mind went on in futile talk with a thick-brained, good-natured ass, while another part slaved over piles of futile manuscripts, and another part strove curiously to finish the story of which he had spoken to Cator.

"Have another!" said the Public-House Jevons thickly.

"Still a stack of rotten idiocy," groaned the sub-editorial Jevons. "I shall be dreaming of it to-night."

"Which the devil shall I kill, and how in the name of the Devil of True Art am I to end it?" said the wrecked Genius Jevons down among the dead men of the slums of art.

And the three men of a split Ego went out at last visibly drunk, and to men were as one man. But the Genius saw himself on the left as a goat, and on the right as a sheep. He went arm-in-arm with two persons to his chambers, and consulted with them over the true end of his singular story. And they quarrelled foolishly and made it up more foolishly, and, embracing, fell in a heap. And when the daylight came Jevons was patched up for a bit, and went to work just as though the Genius did not live at all. Hut when Ellis came down to the office at half-past eleven he shook his head.

"I'm sadly afraid that Jevons is going to the deuce very fast," he said. "I've given him many a hint. I wonder how the poor chap would take a straight talking to?"

From one or two rather acid remarks of his sub-editor, Ellis came to the conclusion that he had better leave him alone.

"For if he were to turn nasty I should have to give him the sack," said Ellis, "and he'd never get another job in London, or, for that matter, anywhere else."

He spoke truly, for Jevons had been out of any kind of employment for nearly a year when this last editor gave him another chance. And his soaked wits could not produce even an eighteenpenny paragraph. Ellis saved him for the time, at any rate. And perhaps One of Jevons was not ungrateful.

The morning wore away pretty easily. But when Jevons came in from lunch Ellis remembered the story he had given him the night before.

"Did you read that story, Jevons?" he asked.

Jevons started and clutched his desk till the muscles in his hands stood up. He waited so long before he answered that Ellis half turned round.

"Yes, I read it," said Jevons nervously, as if he did not like to meet the editor's eye.

"And what did you think of it? Isn't it a singular story?"

"Yes," said Jevons, after another pause. "It is rather odd perhaps."

"Gruesome," said Ellis.

"Perhaps gruesome," said Jevons.

Ellis drummed with his blue pencil on his blotting-pad.

"Do you know the name of the writer?" he asked.

"I never saw it except on the copy," said Jevons.

"He's clever, and I daresay hard up, and very likely a bit off," said Ellis, half to himself. "But what did you think of the end?" he added, turning to his assistant.

"It's not an end," said Jevons, looking at the window.

"To be sure it isn't," said Ellis; "that's what makes me say he must be a bit cracked, even if the story itself didn't give him away. And yet it's really too good to be lost. You had better send it back to him, suggesting that he should finish it one way or another. Offer him five pounds for it."

"It's a long story," said Jevons.

"Five pounds is quite enough," answered the editor. "I must keep expenses down."

Jevons, while the editor talked almost automatically, made a shorthand note of what he said. For that was part of his work.

"And if he won't alter it?" he suggested.

"Let him keep it," said Ellis, a little crossly. "But he'll do it fast enough. An unknown man doesn't get a chance in my magazine every day."

Jevons grinned savagely, and then laughed a little dry crackle of a laugh.

"Yes?" said Ellis, half absently.

"Nothing," replied Jevons. And then he wrote in the editor's name to the author of that very singular story.

THAT NIGHT, after Jevons left the Decadents and the Bill Discounter, with whom he had had a grand evening, he went home to his lonely chambers. He lighted his lamp and sat down on his chair, from which he presently slipped to the floor. Then the three Jevons held a consultation together with the Devil, and talked for many hours. A square spirit-bottle was umpire.

"No, thank you," said the Devil, very politely. "I don't drink, it's against my principles and the doctor's orders. A warm climate, you know, plays the very—I mean, it renders one's liver touchy. But pray don't let me interfere with any of the other gentlemen."

"Very good of you, I'm sure," said the Genius, who had far too good manners to press any friend to drink.

"All the more for me," said the Sub-Editor, who was naturally not strong in courtesy.

"And me," said the Sot, clawing rudely at the Umpire.

"But let us get to business," said the Devil. "What about the matter in hand?"

"Yes," said the Genius, "that is what I was thinking of."

"Kill him," said the Devil.

"It's crude," objected the Genius.

"My dear Sir, it all depends on how it is done," replied the Devil.

"I object to bloodshed," said the Sot. "Make him rot like me."

But the Sub-Editor voted thickly for murder, and there was a long argument without any conclusion.

"To-night," said the Genius, "I am the chief person to be considered, and as the Umpire has no vote I do not think we can decide it. I shall let the man decide it himself. That is the true artistic way to look at it."

And the Sub-Editor growled, but, staggering to a type-writer, he clicked off a letter. The Sot went out to post it, and when he came back he swore horribly to find the Umpire played out. He was lying on the hearthrug, and no persuasion could get anything out of him.

THE NEXT MORNING Jevons woke as if he had never been asleep. He trembled, and yet was very keen, and when the tremor went away he was strung to an extreme and peculiar tension. But he went to the office as usual, and did all that came to his hands with unusual care. About eleven o'clock Whittaker Ellis came in smiling. He hung up his hat—his respectable hat—by Jevons's, which was not respectable, and it seemed to Jevons that he had done it to make his own shinier by comparison. But Ellis was very jolly. However, he came to business at last, and Jevons went through the letters with him.

"Here's an answer from Mr. Grimshaw," he said.

"Grimshaw, Grimshaw, who's he?" asked Ellis. "Oh, yes, I remember. He's answered quickly enough. And what has he to say?"

"He says that he can't find an end; that the story ends there."

"Nonsense," said Ellis. "There's surely a limit to this artistic-end business. Some of them will finish by not beginning soon."

"But he says," added Jevons, "that you can edit the story if you like, and that if you can suggest an end he'll take your suggestion."

Ellis nodded.

"Come now, that's reasonable. He's not so mad, after all," he said cheerfully.

And Jevons, going back to his desk, took up his heavy ebony ruler and made round marks with its carved end in the leather of his writing slope.

"As I said," went on Ellis, "it's too good a story to be lost, even if we have to do a bit to it."

"Why should you say the writer is mad?" asked Jevons.

"Only from the tone," said Ellis; "but anyhow, that doesn't matter. What end do you think would be the best? Only a line or two is wanted."

"What do you think is wanted?" asked Jevons.

"It's obviously either suicide or a murder. One of them must go," said Ellis, rubbing his chin.

"Do you think suicide then?" asked Jevons, putting down the ruler and picking up his penknife.

Ellis pondered for a minute.

"I don't think a madman of the type he draws would commit suicide," said he, looking up inquiringly.

"Perhaps not," said Jevons hoarsely. He put the knife down and opened and shut his big hands with a nervous motion. "Then it must be—murder."

"I suppose so—I suppose so," said Ellis pondering. "It certainly seems the logical end, doesn't it?"

Jevons laughed.

"So far as I can see," he answered, and his face twitched. He made a step towards Ellis, but the sunlight came in and brightened up the dull room. Jevons saw the glow upon a green branch of the one tree outside.

"No," he said, almost pleadingly. "Don't let it be that. Don't you—don't you think you are too fond of having murders? There was one in the May number."

"That doesn't matter," said Ellis. "It can't go in just yet. We're full up till August. We can smash all the Ten Commandments before then. A good murder will come in quite fresh."

"Yes," said Jevons as the sun died out behind a cloud. He went to the window and saw the futile mass of humanity in the ugly street. The golden branch of that tree was, after all, nothing beautiful. There were almost as many leaves on the gallows. He turned away, and stopping behind Ellis, grinned queerly.

"No, no," he said in a thin, hard voice, "don't let it be a murder. I—I—"

"I say it must be one!" cried Ellis cheerfully. "What other end is possible? Now, just think."

And he recapitulated the logical points, marking them with a pencil on his blotting-pad. But Jevons's face was dreadful to behold.

"What kind of a murder?" he asked thickly.

"Strangling," said Ellis.

"Yes?"

"Strangling," repeated the editor.

And turning, the smile died out of him, for he saw Jevons close. The man's face was ashy, but a red blaze burnt in either cheek, and the eyes were live coals.

"Ah!" said Ellis, but that moment Jevons caught him by the plump white throat.

"I wrote it," said Jevons.

_____________________

11: The Figure-head of the "White Prince"

Morley Roberts

The English Illustrated, Vol 14, pp. 243-249

THE look-out on board the White Prince had but little to do, for the sky was clear and the trade wind steady in a pleasant vacant sea. So that he stayed upon the top-gallant fo'c's'le with his dark figure sometimes visible to the officer of the watch; all was well. He knew how unlikely it was that he would be troubled by any ship rising phantom-like out of the ocean, or gliding blackly out of a blacker squall. He had all those two midnight hours in which to dream according to his nature, and might, if he desired it, recall visions from the past, or imagine visions of the time to come. And Nicholas Tarvin, who held his lonely and silent watch there, saw very strange visions indeed in that calm and lonely night. For some of them were of the East, and some of the West, and some like a foul and poisonous vapour rising from the pit.

As he stayed in his walk and looked far away, his eyes grew and dilated like a cat's; but when he paused again and looked aft, clenching his hands, they narrowed with their wrinkled brown eyelids to a mere slit of malice, and the man was as hideous as some old fakir. Sometimes he gesticulated, and sometimes he clutched the hilt of his sheath-knife at his hip with a quick and venomous action. And every now and again he muttered dark words like a wizard's formula, unintelligible, but in intention deadly.

"I hate him!" he said aloud, and then, startled by the sound of his voice, he looked about him sharply. He laughed, and chuckled in his withered throat. "I will slay him day by day; and blast his life. This they taught me in the East. It is but wood for wax. I shall see him wither like a blighted leaf."

When two bells was struck lightly aft, and repeated loudly behind him, he called "All's well," and was answered from the dark poop. As the half-melancholy sound of his own voice died out of his ears he went towards the starboard rail and sat down upon the anchor. Lest he should be taken unawares, he faced aft, and drawing a sharp Oriental dagger from his bosom, he bared his thin, muscular arm, and stabbed it an inch deep in some old scars. Taking the knife in his teeth, he went over the vessel's head, and was absent from the deck two minutes. When he returned, he bound up his arm and wiped some blood-spots from the deck very carefully. He resumed his intermittent march, and at four bells was relieved and went below. As he entered the fo'c's'le he saw some of his watch sitting yarning on the spare topmast by the galley. He spat towards them and grinned.

"If they only knew my power!" he said.

For over the bows the figure of the White Prince had a little triangular stab above the heart, while some drops of thick blood dried below the wound.

And night by night Black Tarvin slipped secretly over the head to torture the imagined counterfeit of him who named the ship, and do it deadly harm. For the son of the man who had carved was the Captain, and the father had taken his only son as a model, making it strangely like, and doing his best. But Tarvin hated him; they came from the same town, from the same school, and now he sailed before the mast in the vessel that Robert Saltwood commanded. Yet Tarvin was the elder, and had sailed his own ship trading in Eastern islands. But some devilish vice of a precious drug had dragged him down and held him. He imagined strange and powerful knowledge, he repeated peculiar incantations in malignant envy that esteemed himself scorned. The little blood he shed, according to a dreadful ritual, should drain Saltwood's red heart: the man should be as white wax in the flame of hate, and the old carver should repent his love for the vulnerable creature that Tarvin stained with blood and gnashed his teeth at.

After a little while, in the tropic heat of a long unusual calm, Tarvin imagined that he saw the Captain fail. Was he as strong, as brown, as bright, as eager? Or was the thought of evil success a delusion? Tarvin crept over the bows when the south-east trade wind blew, and hung to the stays contemplating the White Prince, whose pure robes were stained here and there as with reddish rust. He muttered to himself, and at last spoke to the white fetish.

"You pale beast, how is it with you?" he asked jeering. "Do you feel the magic work? Split and rot and warp i' the sun; ache under your eyes and in your heart. Big beast, you are quiet; but you go, you go! And when you and he are rotten dust, I shall thrive and sing and sail in my Eastern seas."

He thrust his hand into his breast, and drew out a little box covered with snake-skin, and from it he took something the size and shape of a big bean. He swallowed it and went on talking.

"Aye, aye, to hear the surf beneath the palms, and to see the sea leap the breakwaters, and to lie and sweat in the sun! And out and beyond to the big brown rivers and the brown, brown girls. Oh—ah, and the Lascars singing in the heavy heat."

He intoned in a low voice the melancholy changeless Lascar chant: 'Allah, illah, allah— ay— lah," with its sudden drop of a fifth on the last note, and then was silent for a while as the water leapt under the vessel's fore-foot and she smote the smooth sea asunder with a gurgle and a low hiss. He spat down into the little white sea-flower of jutting water that grows for ever at the flat edge of a vessel's stem as she goes.

"Hiss, hiss, little serpent of the sea's green fields! Hiss under him, and when he sleeps in the moon leap up and strike till he swells and bursts like a dead beast in the sun. And I will go softly and sweet in white robes and be chosen king of an Eastern island where the coral grows and the calm reef holds strange fish in its green waters, and outside the big blue sea tumbles for ever. Hark! hark! I hear strange music."

He bent his head, and with uplifted hand listened; for the drug worked in him through the lovely night, and it crowned him king, and clothed him beautifully, and set no bounds to his freed will in a land where he was priest and magician as well. Looking up triumphantly and unafraid, he saw the thin crescent moon grow monstrously and arch the intense sky like a rainbow, and the stars were awful lamps, and the sound of the swift ship dividing the wonderful air was as thunder, and his low voice was lord of the thunder. He seemed to hear his very breathing echo from the sails and again reverberate in their darkened curves, and die far off like a passing storm. And lying far out upon the jutting boom over the hollow sea, he turned to the White Prince, who gleamed bright against the dark bows, and he saw his magic working. For the Prince was wan, and his cheeks thin and pale. Looking still, he saw the blood drip down into the sea; it rotted in his veins; he grew limp and withered, and at last hung to the ship's bows like a dried robber crucified. But Tarvin laughed and crowed like an elfin child well pleased at dark tricks that mocked some human vain endeavour. And then, as the hours passed, and the drug died, he crawled inboard, and was mean and a slave once more.

But— and how he laughed to note it, believing in his moonlight incantations and the spells he cast— the Captain of the ship was not what he had been. Some evil in his blood or nature, or some ancient harm flowering anew in a fit season, or some poison-like malaria that slays the red blood, had hold of his strength now. He was dying as a tree might die if an enemy bored out its heart and poured in vitriol.

"It works, true, it works true," said Tarvin, as he watched the sick man, who knew not of his insane hostility. "And when it is done I shall be free."

He rolled delighted in his miserable bunk and clutched his blankets to him in a very orgasm of unnatural joy. The mean bed was a couch for an emperor; the common talk of his mates was applause and triumphant shouting. What mattered if they cursed him and said that he was mad when the drug's strength was at nadir? When it lifted him on clouds of glory and was in its zenith they were his warriors and his slaves. They brought him tribute: gold and wine and women.

Yet now the little serpent lying hissing in the white foam-flower under the flowing robes of the rotting Prince at times half scared him. Sometimes he saw its eyes flash fire and its fangs gleam as though they threatened him. Unless the spell worked truly he himself might be its victim. And the carven image was not yet overcome at its heart. He hung over the bows that hot night and pricked it deep.

Next day they said that for certain the Captain could not live, and men went solemnly in the ship. But Black Tarvin hugged himself in dark places and chuckled villainously, for his time was at hand.

And one night when the vessel went plunging in golden fire, and shook ten thousand green stars in flame from the blown crest of a curving wave, he went out and slid down the dipping martingale, and sat to look up at the Dead that was a prophecy against one still living. But in the golden foam-flowers hissed many sea-snakes, and they swam swiftly in and out, weaving a sea-shroud for a sea-prince. And when Tarvin looked up from their enchanted embroidery fringed with deep and heavy blue, the pale light from the living water touched the Prince strangely. For ever before his eyes had been cast down as in contemplation: but now the white lids seemed to lift a little heavily, like those of a waking man: and the lips too looked ruddy and half-parted. He made Tarvin angry, and, fearful of the portent, he asked that night how it was with the Captain. They told him that the man was dying, and he went away with a twisted mouth that it was difficult to keep from laughter.

That night, when he went out to the White Fetich, he had changed terribly. He looked straight at his destroyer, and his eves were opened, and his mouth held an unspoken word. And though Tarvin saw now that as the Captain died his life went into his image, yet he was full of the drug and not afraid.

"White Prince of a fallen house, it is well with me, but not well with thee. Oho! but it is well with me, and I smell the East."

He mocked the living figure bending deep-eyed over a still heavy sea of lazy oil, in which the curve of the cutwater and the keel was a band of light such as a man sees in a cat's-eye of great value. But as he went in past and over the Prince it seemed to him that his garment was plucked lightly, and he heard a voice.

"Who spoke?" he cried in fear.

And he was answered from the deck.

"The Captain is dead, you black beast," said one of those who hated him, but whom he held as slaves in his mind.

But Tarvin knew then that he who had spoken to him was one clothed in white drapery, whose eyes were opened, and whose lips were unsealed.

That night, for the little box ran low, he was in great terror, and begged one of his mates to change bunks with him, for his was right in the eyes of the ship, close behind where the live white beast was hanging with its eyes open. And as the man would not, Tarvin groaned and took more of his drug, and passed the middle watch below, sitting on his chest, wondering if the White Thing would be loosed to chase him when the Captain's body was cast into the sea. He heard how it laughed outside in the foam of a clean, fresh breeze after days of oily calm. Then suddenly he dropped upon his knees in terror, and he saw the bows open, and the huge figure unfold its arms and scoop up the sea in a great hand. Then there was but heavy timber, black and sweating, between him and It. But again he looked and saw white fingers trying to work the hawse-pipe plug free, and the hand came in and grasped emptily at the close and fetid air. Tarvin screamed thickly from a dry throat, and choked and fell. When he came to he was out on deck in the moonlight among the men, and he was soaked through and through.

They said that they had cast water on him to revive him; but Tarvin knew better than that, and looked askance at them. The Prince had caught him and plunged him in the sea. He felt like a little man in the paws of a great white tiger out of the jungle, a magic beast, charmed and incapable of any propitiation.

They buried the Captain that very dawn, and as his draped coffin slid from the soaped plank into the sea, the practiser of black arts heard a voice call "Tarvin," that he could not resist. He went forward and climbed down upon the martingale stays till he was face to face with the Captain, clothed in white samite and very wonderful. But Tarvin knew that the Prince was as Robert Saltwood would have been without a soul, and he looked cruel and inexorable. And until the seaman had dipped trembling into his little box, and taken the last three beans and swallowed them, he was too afraid to look into the eyes that searched his heart. But then all sounds were very far off, and the vessel was uplifted over hollow depths as deep as the pit, and she rode lightly through thunder in which a whisper could be heard. So Tarvin spoke with the Captain for a long hour, and when he entered the ship again his hair was as white as snow, and his skin wrinkled like an old man's.

And each night he spoke with the Captain, till the boldest of his fellows feared him.

He left the white curse at last in a far western port, and sailed hurriedly in a steamer to England. But his vessel foundered as suddenly as if someone had plucked her bottom out, and the ship that picked up the one boat was called the White Prince. And once each night the Captain called to Tarvin, who came with him to Calcutta. As he hurried across the burning continent to Bombay the voice that summoned him grew fainter; and with more courage he came home at last. Hut there he lay ill in a port where few large ships were ever entered, and after months as he looked sickly out of his window he saw the White Prince lying at a near wharf. As the Captain called he rose and went forth, and the crowd jeered him and called him madman. He fled from them to the country, and at last was passed as a pauper from hand to hand till he reached his own parish, to which the White Prince belonged. He found her there, and, escaping, took ship upon the sea, which he could not leave, for Moulmein. But the White Prince pursued him even there, and in the balmy-scented East the Captain spoke with him again.

Now neither any sound of tumbling water nor colour of close seas could delight him, and brown women were as white women, and white women as the dead. The surf under palms upon the shore was full of sea-snakes, such as hissed under the robes of the White Prince or thrust their jewelled and armed heads out of the curl of the sea under the vessel's forefoot; and there was no pleasure in an imagined kingship, the gift of drugs. For now the little snake-skin box, that had held surcease from pain, and had given him strength to stand face to face with the Quick and Dead in one, kept nothing for him but things which were horrible. As he strove onward, and was chased through strange seas by the white ship, he began to lose hope in his one hope that she would drive upon a reef, or name some unnamed rock in a deep sea. How, how could he hope that, when the figure with eyes held watch and ward over her safety, and piloted her through narrow channels?

Yet the time came when hope rose again, like some sudden gorgeous flower, a night's growth in a hot forest, for he read that the White Prince had at last been cast ashore and would be a wreck. He was in London then, living close to the river, for by river or sea he had to stay. That was part of his compact with the White Thing when it held him in its finger and thumb over the sea, and if ever he drifted from navigable waters terror increased upon him and he saw the Captain walking by night.

But now his broken mind worked strangely. He was pitifully sure that the news which had come to him must be true, and fear left him for a while and he went like a free man. He drank and took the drug again, and for a time his soul flowered in vain desire which mocked him. Visions of the East rose like smoke, and were puffed away. He went home at last to his little dock-side den, whose mean and narrow casement looked over a gate, which led into a great enclosure partly filled and emptied by the flood and ebb. In it were piles of broken spars, and rusted anchors, and old anchor-stocks, and capstans, and heaps of worthless chain-cable. But Tarvin groped his way in the dark to his bed, and lay all ashake, staring out into the dim sky, in which rose one tall shaft, belching black clouds into the calm air, whose few stars it obscured. He heard the Captain call, but he muffled his ears, and pleased himself with visions of the White Prince buried in sand, sucked down at last out of sight. He fell asleep for an hour, and in the early dawn awoke.

As he lay in his foul little bed, and his mind came back out of the drift of night, he presently wondered at the changed aspect of things. For now, instead of the chimney across the river, a vessel's spars and the innumerable lines of her rigging obscured his dim prospect.

He lay and thought for a while, and then dropped his eyes a little lower. He sat up in bed, and the cold sweat ran down his dark face, and his trembling shook the mean and miserable bed. What was that? Yes, yes, what was it, indeed? He screamed a little choked scream and leapt upon the floor.

For a moment he stood, and then he choked again and put his hands to his throat as though to tear away something that had hold of him. And than he fell on his knees and got up as though he was dragged, and his eyes started from his head. He fell against the window, and its crazy frame went clash down upon the narrow uneven pavement. Then one who was there and saw said that he rose upon the window-sill, and leaping out, fell heavily upon the hard road and broke his neck.

But the dead man, whose throat was bruised, knew that at last the White Thing had taken him, crushed him, and thrown him down.

And high above the Dry Dock Gate, and above those who picked up Black Tarvin, rose the magnificent and calm figure of the White Prince.

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12: The Judgment of Paris

Morley Roberts

To-day Magazine, 1902-03, pp. 33-34.

IT HAD BEEN DONE in a thousand ways a thousand times before, but then, his name being Tarrant, it began, like Titian and Tintoretto, with a T. "All great colourists' names begin with a T," said Will Tarrant, and he sneered at Rubens, as he mentally contemplated his vast project on a blank canvas. He was going to paint the Judgment of Paris over again, and his heart did not fail him till he tried to get three really suitable models. Then he cursed his lot, and the absurdly small number of beautiful women.

"There isn't such a thing, I declare!" said the painter; "it's purely a sexual delusion! Sometimes one does see a beautiful man, but a woman is bound to be imperfect."

He hunted for the three appropriate lovelinesses for many months, but in vain. Yet he wouldn't work piece-meal.

"You can't sort the bits of a dozen women properly," was his argument; "your bones never come right, and your planes get mixed, and the whole thing has the pale cast of woolliness over it. If I can't get a whole Venus, and a complete Juno, and thorough Minerva, I'll chuck the thing!"

Then he found the Juno. She was a splendidly tall and majestic woman, who wanted at least two-and-sixpence an hour, even for a very Jupiter of the brush. It required uncommon courage to request her to keep one position, but Tarrant was brave, or he would never have started his picture. He paid Milly Juno Thomson a large retaining fee, or, rather, bound her over to come up for Judgment when called upon.

Then he renewed his search for Minerva and Venus. Minerva came eventually out of a bonnet and mantle shop. Her name was Smith, and she was as big a fool as could be discovered among forty millions. But she looked as if she knew everything, and was rather sad about it. So Tarrant bound her over too.

His last find was the Venus.

That nearly finished him. If he hadn't been rich enough to know better than paint he would have given it up. For he had to import Aphrodite from Paris. She wept so at leaving the artistic centre of all Phenomena that she nearly ended— unlike her prototype— in going back in a shell instead of coming in one.

Then the picture and the real trouble began, for Juno soon lost her haughty superiority. Just as Tarrant had chosen a delightful expression of entire and goddess-like disdain, she began to look human and appreciative. He gave her a rest and tried the Minerva. Here again his path was not peace. Miss Smith's real character started to peep out. She looked an unutterable idiot, and uttered many idiotic things.

Tarrant was in despair, for he could by no means understand it. He was only conceited about his painting. That was really bad. About his own looks he thought nothing. They were really very good, for he was as handsome as the God of Song.

These two goddesses had fallen in love with him.

He began to paint the Venus. Then came the finishing touch. He fell in love with her, and soon let her see and hear it. He got more true colour into his words than into his picture. But Sophie was obdurate, and flouted him. Instead of looking languishing and softly sweet in every curve, she scorned him as though she were a cross between the real Juno and Minerva. For she had a lover in Paris— an insignificant fellow who had succeeded in making her suffer very much. Therefore she was fond of him, and very faithful.

In spite of his passion, Tarrant was still faithful to his project. He offered to marry Sophie, in bad French—and in a church, too. She would have none of him. Though he would not allow her to break her signed and sealed contract; he gave her a rest and tried Juno again.

But Juno was more in love with him than ever, and told him so, indirectly. How could he paint the domineering Queen of Olympus when she melted visibly, and shot at him glances of the tenderest meaning? He tried all methods in vain, until at last he thought of praising Minerva to her. It answered for a sitting, but no more— for Juno had brains, and saw through his trick.

He sent for Minerva. She made stupid but obvious love to him. He fairly raved about Juno to her, and the wise goddess burst into tears. Tarrant tore his hair, and cursed himself, and woman, and love, and all the goddesses, especially those who twist and twine and sever human lives.

"I'll paint the Furies next," he said, "or Hecate."

He became irritable, and told poor Juno that painting was a business, and that he wanted one expression, not twenty.

"D'ye think I could paint dawn at midday, or night! I want you to look haughty and disdainful. Just fancy you have got someone you hate and despise to look at."

"But I haven't!" said Juno; and, having gone far by this, she added, "you know I like you very much!"

"It's not business! it's not business!" said Tarrant. But he felt, "I'll have you hate me yet, Miss Thomson. I'm only a selfish brute— that's all!"

With Minerva he tried other tactics.

"It's no good falling in love with me," he urged pathetically. "Lots of women do, and I can't help it. If you will only be what you ought to be for half-an-hour, you shall stop and have tea with me, and I'll be cross to every other woman for three days." But Minerva knew the Venus was coming after that. When Sophie did turn up Tarrant had some news for her. "Your lover is not the man you thought, Sophie. I have sent over to Paris."

And he told her about an old rival of hers. Sophie flew in a rage, swore it was false, resumed all her attire, and rushed for Charing Cross. On the third day she returned. "It's best to know the truth, after all," she admitted, a week later.

And when Juno and Minerva heard that Tarrant was going to marry Venus, they did very well as models. For Juno never spoke to him, and even poor foolish Minerva had some pride in her tender heart. So the picture was finished.

______________________

13: A Man's Death

Morley Roberts

English Illustrated, vol. 18, 1897, pp. 241-248

"OUR mate was a man, any way," cried Hillyard.

"What d' yer mean?" said Luker, sullenly; "he wiped me over the eye with a stopper and nigh blinded me. If I 'adn't bin a poor man, I'd 'ave 'ad the law on 'im."

"You'd have 'ad thunder," said Hillyard; and he turned to the others. They were sitting in the smoking-room of the Sailors' Home at Hull, chewing tobacco and the cud of dismal reflection such as comes up when times are hard and the weather beastly. For outside, Salthouse Lane was ankle-deep in slush, while rain and bitter sleet mingled upon an easterly wind fresh from the North Sea.

"Bah, shut the bloomin' door, can't yer?" said Hillyard impatiently, as a new-comer came in.

"I was shuttin' of it," said the other man. "Do you want me to shut it when I'm only 'arf in, or outside, mate?"

"No, but it's that cold, it would freeze the toes off of a North Sea pilot, and I'm just out of the Mediterranean," said Hillyard, more good-temperedly than he had yet spoken; for he was evidently the boss of the crowd by right of strength and a certain savage temper. He spoke with decision, and there was the salt of the seven seas on his tanned face. Not a craft afloat but he knew her; the paint and the funnel of a tramp were common inevitable knowledge to him.

"But I was tellin' you," he went on, "about Gordon, our mate in the Japan, when we went to Reval with a mixed cargo, what Eyetalians calls a fritter mister, and come back with rickers. He was a man. Now, wasn't Gordon a man, you Thompson?"

And Thompson nodded.

"You see what Thompson thinks," said Hillyard to Luker, "and what 'e says goes with me. I don't care if 'e did bung up your eye. If so be 'e'd bunged up mine, I'd say the same. 'Cause I knowed him long afore I ever clapped eyes on the Japan, with her bloomin' old eight-ton-a-day and eight-knot-an-hour steady crawl. I knew 'im in the W. H. Smith, out of 'Frisco for Ilo-Ilo. And 'e was afore the stick with me ('e 'adn't no second greaser's ticket' then), and I'm telling you it wouldn't 'ave bin 'Tom's bound to Hilo' with us if it 'adn't bin for 'im. I own that as a man in the fo'c'sle he was a bit of a sea-lawyer; but then, 'e 'ad eddication. I seed his sisters' photos, and the girls was daisies—quite the lady.

"But, as I was a sayin', 'e was a sea-lawyer, and when he shipped in the W. H. Smith he took it into 'is 'ead as she warn't seaworthy, and was too deep, and he tried to get us to skin out.

"Oh, but if Gordon 'ad the 'eavy 'and (when it was wanted, Luker) 'e 'ad a tongue, and he could make up any kind of a yarn as easy as make sennit, and 'e'd work round of a man before 'e knowed it, and 'e'd enough brass about 'im to sheet a cruising frigate with.

"Says 'e, one day, as we squatted in the fo'c'sle of the W. H. Smith, for we went aboard that time three days afore she sailed, hell itself not being fuller of devils than 'Frisco was of sailors, and the skipper being noways scared of our skipping; says he—Gordon I mean—'This bloomin' old hooker is a doomed craft, mates.'

"‘'Ows that?' I arsts 'im, for 'e spoke serious, and serious 'e looked.

"‘She is,' says 'e; 'she's that deep, and they've got her by the 'ead now. And at this season we shall get it stiff from the north-east, and the seas out yonder, when it do blow, why, they're short and steep, and she'll dive, and, what's more, she'll never come up no more.'

"‘You believe it?' says a Dutchman.

"‘I do, solemn,' says Gordon. 'I met a man as was shipmates in her on'y yesterday; and I says to 'im, "I'm in the W. H. Smith," and 'e says, "Do you know her?" And of course I answers, "No, what's wrong?" He screws his face up and says, "Well, she's rather a wet ship." "Wet, is that all?" I answers, and then he says, "She's worse than the Leander as washed over and killed more than seventy men in five years." And, what's more, I believe 'im, and I'm going to sling it, and if you bloomin' fools likes to go on a survey of the North Pacific deepwater soundings, you may.'

"That was the way Gordon slung it at us. And next day he gives us more. When I'd got to know 'im I believed as the man 'e'd met was never signed on no ship's papers. For the matter of that, I reckon he never met no one, nor ever 'eerd tell of the nature of the old hooker.

"But, Lord, how he did pile it on, and before we know'd it we'd all got a scare, and we funked the very notion of going to sea in her. You know, you chaps, 'ow it is with men. After all, we're on'y like sheep, that's my notion; and I've worked with sheep in Chile up beyond Santa Rosa de los Andes, where you started in my time for the Cumbre Pass over into the Plate.

"So there we was in a panic, so to speak, and when Gordon says, 'skip,' one night, why we was like kids at school, and over the side we tumbled.

"And who d'ye think we jostled agin but the skipper?

"‘What's all this?' 'e roars, for 'e 'ad a voice, though not so bad in 'is nature for an American shipmaster.

"And we shoves Gordon in front, and 'e lets out as we weren't on, and the skipper gets mad, and says, 'Oh, you ain't, ain't you?' And away 'e goes, and we goes into Brown's on the Front for a drink. And when we'd 'ad about three a policeman comes in, and then more; and the end of it was about twenty took us off to the ‘'Ouse of Correction,' where they corrected us on plank beds and skilly and cocoa for forty-eight hours. And they takes us on board with the irons on our 'ands, Mr. Billy Gordon among us.

"Laugh, you bet we laughed. It was a mighty fine joke, and Gordon, 'e goes at the 'ead of the percession, walking very proud, but making the bobbies die of laughing. 'E was a joker, and didn't mind it a bit.

"So we came on board, and the skipper, in his shore-going toggery and an 'igh 'at, gives us what-for in the perlitest way, making as if we was saloon passengers. And Gordon says, 'Much obliged,' just as a gentleman might. For, as I said, he was eddicated, and his sisters was good to look at—quite the lady, both of them.

"And out to sea we goes.

"‘You mind your bloomin' stops,' says the old man, 'and bygones is bygones. You was all skippers a while back, but I'm skipper now, and I'll skip you if you ain't good and smart. So now then, my bullies, you can turn to. Calashee watch till we gets outside the Gate.' For we lay off Goat Island another forty-eight hours.

"You'd 'ave thought Gordon would 'ave took it bad, being so euchred. But no, 'e didn't. I don't take no back seat when sailorising is on, not with no man, bar that I'm not so quick as I was; but Gordon—Billy we called 'im then—was up to my mark at everything, and over it on navigation, for that I know'd nothing of. And 'e was as quick as any cat, I'll say that; aloft as in jaw. And no man could best 'im with his tongue.

"Howsoever, we 'ad a good time for about three weeks, though the wind was light; and then it breezed up from the nor'-nor'-east and it began to look bad. She steered like a 'bus on a greasy road, and never a man but funked his trick at the wheel, till one day—and it was bad that day—Billy Gordon was takin' her, and I had the lee wheel.

"‘Steer small,' says the mate, a bit of a hard nut, and Billy answers 'im—

"‘If any man can steer small with 'er before the wind, I'd like to meet 'im. Sir,' says 'e, quite civil and anxious.

"‘Don't give me any back talk, sonny,' says the mate; and then the old man comes up.

"‘What's that, Gordon?' 'e arsts.

"‘I said. Sir, as no man could steer 'er small before the wind and a 'eavy followin' sea.'

"‘I can,' says the old man, for 'e'd bin 'aving 'is morning, and was feelin' good.

"And with that Gordon steps out a bit perlitely, and the skipper takes 'er from 'im; and Yates, the mate, lookin' as black as the nor'-east quarter, took the lee wheel.

"Gordon comes and stands by me, and 'e damns my eyes quiet for smilin'.

"‘Look solemn, you bloomin' idiot,' says 'e.

"And solemn I looked, though the old man was giving her twice the wheel that Billy give 'er. And though he got 'er at last fair in 'and, 'e 'ad two points off each way, and no nearer for his life could 'e get her, though 'e fair sweated.

"Presently 'e turned to Yates.

"‘Would you like to try, Mr. Yates?' says 'e civil. But Yates was quite sober, and 'e was riled at the skipper givin' 'imself away, and 'adn't no notion of doing it 'imself.

"‘Thank you, but no, Captain Greer,' says 'e, and with that the old man gives the wheel up to Billy, who got her a deal closer than 'e 'ad.

"And that night it blew a snorter that lasted full thirty-six hours. Some of you chaps know what it was like, and some of you don't. But the truth is, she was deep and a bit by the 'ead, and when she plunged there was the same 'eavy feelin' as a ship with half-a-dozen feet of water in her.

"The second night was worse than the first, and never a man turned in. Leastways, no man took more 'n 'is boots off. Though what good, I dunno. If so be she 'ad done an Atalanta we'd 'ave been left, for nothin' could 'ave lived in the sea. It was get through or bust, and it looked more like busting, I must say. For when they could 'ave 'ove her to, they didn't.

"Billy and me stood most of the night just aft of the deck-house, and with us was the bo'sun's mate. I never seed anyone so 'appy as Billy was, for the worse it got, the more 'e cheered up.

"‘Let 'er rip,' says 'e, 'there ain't nothin' like excitement. It'll be the death o' me one of these days. What cheer! go it, my beauty!'

"‘Oh, dry up,' says the bo'sun's mate, who 'ad the fear of God in 'is 'eart. 'She'll go, she'll go. And this time. Oh, Lord!'

"And down went the W. H. Smith with a plunge that made me a bit sick. And she took it in over the 'ead, solid green it was, and it came over from the top-gallant fo'c'sle two foot deep, roaring like a cataract.

"The skipper yelled out from the break of the poop, and the bo'sun crawled aft, hanging on to the rail.

"‘Get a couple of canvas bags and oil,' says the old man, ' and sling them over forward from the catheads.'

"‘Yes, Sir,' says the bo'sun's mate. And me and Billy helps him.

"‘Who's going to bell the cat'ead?' says Billy. 'For the man as goes on the fo'c'sle 'ead takes 'is blooming' life in 'is 'and.'

"‘Yes, that's it,' says the other chap, lookin' pea-green by the light of the lamp in the bo'sun's locker.

"And Billy laughs.

"‘I'll do one,' says 'e.

"And 'e looks at me.

"He forced my 'and, mates. And though I felt sick enough to believe that even a sailor-man's life was worth livin', I says, 'I'm on for the other.' And then the bo'sun's mate looked a bit easier, and not so much like a Calashee in cold weather.

"But I'm tell in' you, it was a pretty job. It came out all right for me, for we waited for a smooth, and, though it was as black as the Earl of Hell's riding-boots, I nipped up quick and got the bag fast, with no more than one small sea over me. But the way she felt, and the wind and the blackness, rather cooled me down. And though I knew Billy was close 'andy on the starboard side, I couldn't see my 'and before my face. And the roar of her when she rose was deafenin'. But at last, back I come. I found the bo'sun's mate peepin' round the deck-'ouse, and when I grabbed 'old of the rail there, says 'e—

"‘Where's Gordon?'

"And just then she yawed and caught a heavy one right on the port bow, and she rolled to port and then right over again. And near six foot of green water came over the starboard rail amidships and filled 'er up to the top-gallant rail, and as she rolled again it went over the port side. I 'ung on the 'and-rail aft of the deck-'ouse, and of a sudden I was caught round the waist by the bo'sun's mate, as I thinks, and then, though I did feel as if the W. H. Smith was a clean goner, she began to recover, and got on an even keel, and rose again. I catches hold of the man as held me, and sets 'im on his legs.

"‘Oh, Billy's gone!' I cries out. 'He's gone, he's gone!'

"And the chap gasps. And then I seed it wasn't the bo'sun's mate at all. It was Billy. He'd been washed overboard right at the cathead, and washed aboard again when the big sea came over the starboard rail.

"He tells me quick in my ear.

"‘And where's Higgins?'

"‘Where?' says I.

"But we never seed 'im again. The sea as put Billy on board took the bo'sun's mate over. And 'e wasn't the only man, for the cook's mate went too, either then or later, and the mate 'ad 'is leg busted agin the signal-box.

"The oil for'ard did but little good. It made a bit of a smooth between the whiskers and the foremast, but not enough to stop the sea comin' in further aft thick and 'eavy. And the sea got worse and worse.

" 'Them little bags is just like spitting on a burnin' kerosene-cask to put it out,' says Billy. 'I'm goin' to get the two five-gallon cans with the taps, and set 'em goin' for'ard.'

" 'How get 'em?' I arsts. For Higgins 'ad took the keys with 'im.

" 'Very careless of Higgins,' says Billy. But he burst open the locker with a big splice-bar, and he got out the cans and shoved 'em in for'ard, in what Eyetalians calls retreaters, and turned on the taps at a fair, good, steady trickle.

"Now I'd 'eard tell often of oil, and what it does, but I never believed it before. After Billy 'ad set it flowin' we never took a drop abroad, and the quarter-deck fair dried up. I went aft and stood under the poop-ladder, and presently the second mate comes down.

" 'That scheme of them oil-bags works, don't it?' says 'e. 'I believe it was just touch-and-go when we put 'em over.'

" 'Yes, Sir,' says I. But I never told 'im about Billy, and I 'alf forgot to tell 'im 'ow Higgins was gone.

"And about four bells in the morning watch we was quite through with the thick of it, and the sea went down with the rain which come on then.

"But the bo'sun was mad when he found his locker burst open and the oil-cans gone.

"He went aft flying, and makes a compliant to the skipper.

" 'Who done it.' " says the old man. And Billy, being then at the wheel, speaks—

" 'I done it, Sir.'

" 'Then, by the tail of the sacred tail, you— saved the bloomin' ship,' says the old man. 'I thought it was them bags.'

"But the bags alone wouldn't 'ave fetched us into Ilo, for the difference them tanks made was enough to make a man believe as a 'ogs'ead of oil would smooth all that lies between the Cape and the South Pole.

"At Ilo-Ilo, Billy skipped out, and he hooked it off into New Guinea, and 'ad three years foolin' round. I met 'im again right 'ere in Hull, and then 'e 'ad his second-mate's ticket. We went one trip together, me bein' bo'sun, to St. Petersburg and back. And two years later 'e was mate of the Japan, and a thunderin' good man as mate 'e was.

"Work was what 'e loved, and when out of a job 'e was sick. At sea 'e was merry but not to be played with by no means. Between this time and his last trip with me 'e was in several lines, mostly in the Baltic, Mediterranean, and Black Sea trades. 'E was in every port in the Mediterranean, and to Batoum and Poti and Kertch, and Novorosisk and Sulina and Galatz, and Ibrail. But what I started out to tell you chaps was our trip to Reval this last time.

"We left this 'ere place just in about time to get there when the ice broke up and there was still plenty of it round. But the old Japan was built for such work, and she ploughed through ice that would have stove the guts out of a common Mediterranean fair-weather tramp. She came back right enough, or mebbe I would not be talkin' here. But just as we came away from Reval most everyone on board was queer. For that rotten disease they calls influenza was layin' 'em out in Russia like the cholera. Before we'd been three days at sea the old man, a thick-headed old snorter he was, was down with it, hollerin' like a man with delirious trimmings, and the third mate (she was a good boat for the officers, and 'ad three watches) he went down too. Criminy! they was bad. I 'ad a touch of it. And for three days I wanted to die and get out of such a black world. I 'adn't no more 'ope in me than if I was in 'ell on a grid. Frying it was, and 'elpless as a kid. Why, man alive, I cried! And then the second mate 'e goes under, fair knocked out; a rag of a man 'e was at 'is best, but no more in 'im when 'e 'urt himself than in an old soup and bully tin. So poor Billy Gordon 'ad it all to 'imself.

"You chaps, for all you're mostly chaps as never saw real tall water, knows what a blasted 'ole the Baltic is when it is bad weather. It was bitter then, and a north-easter as sharp as a razor, that went through a man. There was ice about even then, ice in bergs, and small floes drifted out of rivers. And it blew at least three-quarters of a gale all the time.

"So you may guess that poor Gordon 'ad an 'ell of a time on the bridge. What could 'e do with all the rest down? Why nothin', as 'e said to me, but stick it out. And 'e stuck it out like a man, as 'e was, and as I told you.

"Says I to him, 'For Gawd's sake, sling it, Mr. Gordon!' For I could see 'e was sickenin' for the flu. But he answers angry.

" 'And who'll be in charge of her?' says 'e.

"That night the fever got 'im. After 'e'd bin six-and-thirty hours on the bridge, with hardly a get-off for ten minutes all the while, he calls me.

" 'I've got it at last,' he said; 'now look you 'ere, Tom, I'm not going off. They're all down, and none of you knows nothing.'

" 'I knows the rule of the road,' I told 'im. And he laughed.

" 'You think so, sonny, but wait till you get into the thick of it, and red lights and green lights as thick as a chemist's shop, and your head 'll go. And so will the old Japan.'

"And 'e stuck on the bridge till 'e just couldn't stand. All the time the skipper was as weak as a kid, and would weep if the steward said a word to him 'e didn't like. And the second and third were real bad too. But I've my doubts if they was as bad as Gordon.

"For now 'e was lyin' on that freezing cold bridge, wrapped up in blankets, aching in every limb, and just 'orrid to look at. But 'e said, 'Don't you touch me. Just you tell me what's ahead.' I stood there most of the time watching 'im and lookin' out. And according as I told 'im what lights there was, so 'e said, 'Port, or starboard;' and then I saw as my rule of the road would sometimes 'ave cured 'im and me and the others of the flu, and any other troubles, too, for that matter.

"And now we was getting down to London River, where we was bound. But sometimes I did think as Billy would go out before we ever got in sight of the Nore. For he couldn't hardly speak, and he looked just pitiful and like a ghost. But he was true grit, and never even moaned, unless 'e slept for a few minutes. And all the time 'e should 'ave bin in 'is blankets, and even then it was a chance for 'im. And at last he fainted dead away, but not till I told 'im there was a pilot boat nigh handy. The old man was a river pilot, and so they didn't look for us to take one. But Billy says, 'Signal for one,' and he fainted as I rung the telegraph for them to ease 'er down.

"When the pilot came on board I took Billy in my arms—a skeleton 'e was—and carried 'im down below. I knew 'e'd never get over it; and 'e never did. 'E died inside of a week or so: one of his sisters wrote and told me. She was a regular lady, and I kept 'er letter by me a long time, until I got drunk and lost it. But if I did it couldn't be 'elped, and she sent me Billy's likeness. He was what I call a man, and not a thing in the shape of a man. 'E could 'it 'ard, and swear 'ard, and, at the right time, drink 'ard; but 'e knowed 'is work as few blooming officers knows theirs. And, when ninety-nine men out of a 'undred would 'ave caved in, 'e stuck there and done 'is duty; knowin', if a man could know, as it would be 'is death. A man, I say, he was. And if 'e did wipe you over the 'ead with a stopper, I dessay you desarved it, Luker."

"I dessay, too," said Luker. "I never said as 'e wasn't a good man. It takes a good man to 'it me."

"I done it myself," said Hillyard.

"Well, did I hever say you didn't?" asked Luker. "But there ain' no other bloomin' swine in this room as can say the same."

As they were all sober, and mostly Dutchmen, nothing came of the challenge.

"Hark! don't it blow?" said one. And the deadly north-easter roared down the dismal street.

_____________________

14: A Pawned Kingdom

Morley Roberts

English Illustrated magazine, Vol. 18, 1897, pp. 14-26.

JIM IVETT took up the land, and his brother Harry came up country to him later. For Jim clawed out east and west and south and into the unknown north, and took out block after block in a Government map of part of New South Wales which was barren of printer's ink except for the phrase, "No permanent water." On the south he was bounded by the stations on the meandering river Lachlan; on the north-west he almost reached the Darling; then he stretched out east nearly to the Bogan. Cotton bush and salt bush he measured in tens of thousands of acres; he held sixty thousand square miles of what the unenterprising called "desert." But Jim was a speculator to the tips of his nails, and his head was screwed on right, if he did take long odds.

"We are bossing over thirty million acres," said Jim to his brother; and Harry gasped as he verified the arithmetic with a pencil on a stump.

The rent due to the Government as Landlord was two thousand pounds per annum, at sixty acres for a penny a year. They held enough money at command to pay this for two years, to get some store sheep and cattle on it, and to pay a few men's wages in cash and tucker.

At first they lived in tents near Booligal, and afterwards moved up beyond Mossgiel, across the Willandra, where they built a "tin hut." Their few men occupied a tent on the sand dune under the biggest pine. The horses were hobbled at night till they got time to fence in a horse paddock. The sheep were shepherded, but the cattle ran free between the rivers; their brand sometimes turned up a thousand miles away.

"If we can put in five years we shall be golden kings," said Jim.

"We can't," cried Harry.

They were on horseback by the banks of the Willandra Billabong, up to the horses' withers in a cane-brake.

Jim was a long, thin, wire-built man, with a big hand, and he reached it out and clawed Harry by the shoulder-blade and clavicle. The youngster felt his bones crack, but he said nothing. Jim's mind was spread out over the plain, he was thinking at large in millions, and he never knew what a vice he set to work on the shoulder next him. His blue eyes dilated: the pupils darkened them, he pulled his big hat down against the sun.

"I see all this white with cotton-bush, and it shall be white with jumbucks to eat it down. My boy, look at the salt-bush! thick, oh! thick and fat, and what matters grass? We have all this and the world. It only means digging our nails in deep enough to hold on."

They were running the billabong up towards the river. A billabong is an outlet from a river, a creek from it, not into it. There are few or none elsewhere than in Australia. When the Lachlan flooded and roared "a banker" some of its waters ran three hundred miles into the Ivetts' county. But they had not seen it yet: they doubted the word of the Conoble black fellows. Perhaps it never came down.

A good season preceded their squatting, and the remains of past rain lay in some water-holes still. There was even bright green grass in patches in the billabong bed. Standing high in their stirrups they could see the dry creek's course snake it across the plain to the river two hundred miles away.

"Shall we ever see the Willandra full?" asked Harry.

He was not yet used to the great plain; and coming out of the Murray Hills, delicious with bright waters and the scent of wattles and big gums and messmates, was like tumbling adrift in a salt sea a thousand miles from land.

He believed nothing. Yet he believed Jim, who had burnt his skin black by ten years of the great plains. What Jim said ought to be true. But of a surety the plain and the barren bush and that staring sun were big things to work with and against. When the sun rose it rose at once, and shot level and hot over the flat earth; the day was full-born at sight, and no western mountains shortened the torrid hours. It took him a long time to come to his bearings; even yet Harry and his mountain-bred horses wondered at the almighty flattening of space.

"Yes, we'll see it full," cried Jim.

But even now he was holding on and sliding off; for digging his nails into a kingdom in a dry season with a mortgagee pulling behind was no easy task. He had hard work to hope sometimes; for he wanted it all, all— he felt he could not spare an acre. He was the first man to see the possibilities of the earth: they had called it a desert; he would breed the world's stock there.

Against the drought he dug wells with borrowed money. At eighty feet they struck brackish water that would support life but tasted foul. It held the ancient soakings of that world, and though sheep could drink it and the crows came for it, it sickened men. They began to dig huge tanks, and caught some sweet rain-water. Work hummed in the land: the track to Booligal and Hay deepened and widened with Ivett's hired wagons. Far off swagmen heard talk of work at Ivett's, and some faced the strange barren wilderness of One Tree Plain with courage; they even left the Lachlan, though many hearts failed at the waterless look ahead of them, and ran the long river up to Forbes.

Down in town men talked of Ivett; they envied, admired, abused, and ridiculed him. His chums told the truth, but not unadorned.

"Three good seasons and he'll have his teeth into it," they swore, "and in twenty years he'll buy out Melbourne."

There was enough truth in it to make a coward or a failure wince. He went Out Back alone, believing that grit, graft, and a lucky season would let him ride success to a finish. He sold a station in Victoria, and they said he was as silly as a "morepork." He sold a share in a Riverina station, and he was an obvious ass. But then they lent him money on his interest in the world beyond the Lachlan, for they saw wool come down, and his sheep thrived and were fat. Only water was needed, and with money man could wipe out that legend on the map and write another, printed in wells and tanks and dams.

Yet the good season passed and a bad one followed, and the tanks were unfinished for lack of money. The world was dust; dust devils danced and stalked across a fiery plain; the heat burnt up hope and courage. All the courage in that place was in Jim Ivett. He fought the seasons, and a thunderstorm saved him.

But now, after two bad seasons, a storm could not save him; it must be more than that. He was at his last fifty pounds, and the sky was brass and the forehead of the chief mortgagee was brass too.

The rainy season of the southern world had never come to Ivett; if it damped a dry skin on a fence it was all it did. Skins on dead sheep crackled; the live ones bored up against a hot breeze, nosing for water. But the tanks were empty and the wells about dried; the air was aflame; night was like day for incredible heat.

A month was yet to run before the mortgagees could foreclose, and Ivett had run it fine for his last chance. He called Harry up at midnight.

"Look you, my boy, I'm going to Melbourne," he said; "that greedy land-grabber shan't chase me out of this if I can help it. I leave you and Smith in charge. Save what you can. I shall be back in ten days."

He ran his horses up by moonlight, and saddled his favourite—a big brown.

"I'll be in Booligal by sunrise," he cried; and facing south, he went in a canter towards the far little town sixty miles away.

The big western moon was like a lamp in a lucid sky, and her shadows were black on the silver sand and dust. The beaten road ran winding, and sometimes Jim cut straight across a long curve. The air was still hot, though it was past midnight; it blew from the torrid north, but he made a southern wind as he went, dropping the long miles behind him.

He watered the brown at a tank twenty miles from his house, and taking off saddle and saddle-cloth he scraped away the sweat and foam from the blanket and the horse's back. He replaced the saddle and entered the second stage of his sixty miles. But now the moon verged on the horizon, and the western world was ghostly silver haze, while the low morning star gleamed like a rising steamer's headlight on the unseen tide of day.

Jim rode centaur-like, wrapped in dream, looking through the night into the whirl of town. His own greed for untouched land seemed natural, but the beasts of town, usurious, esurient, and spiderlike, were abhorrent lo him. He had borrowed so much and was behind with the interest, but he had proved the worth of a desert. Why not give a man some more time? he asked. A second mortgage had failed. No one would touch it, so his solicitors said. He would try that himself, he swore, as the star of dawn was blown out by the upper limb of the hot sun, biting the eastern rim of the world. The light tide swept across the plain, rare birds and plenteous cicada awoke as the breeze died in dust.

He rode into Booligal at six and roused out the one inhabitant of what was one day to be a town. At seven he was on another horse, and the One Tree Plain lay before him, fifty miles of heat. The big tree showed baseless in the distance; he strove towards it under a burning sun; it rose and rose, and he saw its trunk—it was a tower, a tree, a shadow under which he pulled up for water, and then it stood behind him, over his shoulder, dwindling, dwindling still as he rode into Hay. The coach went at seven so he washed and ate, but evening the Old Man Plain was to the north of him and he was in Echuca. And at last he came to Melbourne after five years' absence.

He slept three hours, and was out in the world of little townsmen. He swept, a very tornado, into his lawyer's office and danced among the paper men like a whirlwind.

"Then if you can't and won't, tell me someone who might!" he roared, and his hand flattened a bag of pears that the junior partner had concealed on his desk for lunch time.

Jim didn't apologise— but wiped his hand.

"Try Salmon," the young lawyer suggested, piping feebly.

"I might eat him with cucumber," said Jim, "but can I get money out of him?"

"He used to have enterprise, and he still loves twenty per cent."

"Is he in with Main at all?"

For Main was the mortgagee Jim wanted to escape from.

"Hates him, I should say."

Jim was about to strike the desk again, but the mess of squashed pears stayed him.

"Give me his address. Beg pardon about the pears. If I can hook this Jew fish I'll pay for them in golden pippins," said Jim laughing, as he ripped out into the glare of the street.

Salmon lived in a house facing the old Fitzroy Gardens, and was old enough to looutbve his ease, for he rounded wonderfully like a rock melon, and was as yellow as one. He was a fat spider with beady eyes.

Jim descended on him and explained with point and brevity what he wanted.

"I'm Jim Ivett, and I hold sixty thousand square miles in the Back Blocks and between the two rivers. They call it desert. I have proved it can run year in and year out a sheep to four acres. And what I hold is over thirty million acres. I borrowed ten thousand and another five to make wells and dams and tanks, but I'm behind with the interest and Main is to foreclose in a month. If it rains I could get what I wanted, but it looks like a long drought, and the summer's coming on again."

"If it rains," said Salmon, "ah, yes; but it won't rain."

"It may."

"What do you want with me?" asked Salmon rather pettishly.

"I can make you a millionaire," said Jim.

"No," said Salmon, "but you might unmake me."

"Ah," cried Jim, "then I can double it. Main will boss New South Wales if he has the head to hold on. Why let him? Pay off this mortgage and the interest; lend me twice as much more, giving me ten years or to my death, and you can have what you like to ask."

Salmon took a new cigar and lighted it carefully, not letting the old one touch the new. He heated it up gradually by near contact. He saw Jim watching him.

"That's the right way to light a cigar," he said; "never spoil a good cigar with a match."

Ivett desired to kick Salmon and jump on his cigar too. But he had some policy.

"I never saw that done before. I'll try it."

"Try it now, Mr. Ivett," said the Jew, and he gave him a smoke. "I import 'em for myself and my friends."

"Am I in the crowd?" cried Jim quickly. "For if so, help me against mine enemy."

"Who are your lawyers?"

Ivett told him.

"Call on me to-morrow, and in the meantime I'll make some inquiries. But it's probable I shan't play," said Salmon.

"You never held such a hand. It's a hand for kings to hold."

He went into the street exhausted. Better far to light the sun with a drying river behind than to face these folks of finance, these dragons sitting on gold. He found a chum at the club and flopped into an arm-chair, and was comforted with a soda-and-whisky.

"How goes it?" asked an old friend.

Ivett whispered, "In a month I'm a swagman, or I'll have a contempt for Croesus. Wasn't he the chap with a big pile?"

"Yes, he was a Jew millionaire," said his friend, "a German."

He was not chaffing, and Jim knew no better. Such knowledge was not his line. He was deep in the older classics of Earth lore, the circumventing of the sun and the stars, of heat and the influences of the moon. Such wisdom had the ancient shepherds under Canopus and the Dog Star.

He saw Salmon again the next day.

"I don't know about this, Mr. Ivett," said the old fellow. "Of course, I believe you're all right, and folks say you'll come out and be well in one of these days. But nobody knows the country up there."

"Main knows, and put fifteen thousand in it."

"Has he been up country to your place?"

Ivett smiled.

"Do you think Billy Main scatters sugar as he ladles it, Mr. Salmon? Have you never had a turn up with him?"

Salmon's face darkened.

"I had Main up there," said Jim; "and he rode himself sore, and had the sheep up to feel their tails to see if they were fat. Come up yourself."

"I'm an old man, Mr. Ivett."

"None too old to make money and do your old enemy in the eye."

"So you knew we were against each other over that mine?"

"Who doesn't?" asked Ivett. "And I'll tell you another thing. Main is coming up on the fifteenth of October to say whether he'll foreclose or not. But he means to, anyway. Be up there before he comes. You'll never have so good a chance. He'll have an upper lip the length of his nose when he sees you."

And Salmon's eyes twinkled. He looked at Ivett almost comically. At last he lay back in his chair and fairly chuckled.

"What will you say of me when I foreclose ten years hence?" he asked.

"You'll get no chance, Mr. Salmon."

"Then what am I to have out of it?"

"You are to pay off about £18,000, and lend me as much more. If I fail at it you have the land and the stock. If I succeed ten per cent. on your money and an eighth share."

"No, no," said Salmon, "if I come in it will be after looking at it. With all that land you can do nothing with a few thousands, and well Main knew that. He thought it a good speculation to see if you could work it at all, but he knew you could not last at it. I'll stock the land with sheep and be your partner."

"I've a partner, my brother. You can have a third."

They fought and squabbled for an hour, and for two. Then Salmon sent for his clerk to draw out a rough basis for an agreement.

"But nothing goes till I come up," said Salmon. "And I'm an old man. Is it a very bad road?"

"You shall have it more comfortable than any man ever had it," swore Ivett, who was hugely delighted. "Start on the first of October; you can coach it up to Deniliquin; at Echuca I'll have a buggy and pair for you and a light wagon with a tent, and so on. I'll have you up to my desert dry and comfortable and sweet."

"Very well, Ivett," said Salmon, dropping the Mister, "I'll do it. But I dare say it'll be my death."

"It will finish Main," cried Jim. So they shook hands, and Ivett went to his lawyer's.

"If you pull through he'll be well paid," said the junior. "But if you don't—"

"He'll be paid much better. Come and have lunch. I'm off up country to-night."

And he swept the town between three and eight, and was a mad companion for that legal limb.

"I've got a character—"

"But not one to keep!" shouted Ivett. "But if you wish, come and see me off. And send me letters. Tell me that my dear old fish of finance is not hooked by death. Oh, if I could only insure his life for this fortnight!"

"You can," said the lawyer; "you have an obvious interest in his life. I'll find you someone to do it."

So Ivett bolted up country again, as happy as a wether in good grass. He could have jumped and bucked about as they do when their skins arc tight with food and their tails are fat. He faced the plains, and even the heat of them, with an equal mind. He saw with his mind's eye the mighty Main go out in a mean ebb with his little bit of principal and interest.

"And I shall proceed to wallow in gold," cried Jim.

He found them in perilous state in the camp when he got there. Grass there was none; the salt-bush and cotton-bush were but barren sticks; the sheep made a living there, but the water was almost done. There were no dews as compensation: the whole world was dry. It was then the twentieth of September, and summer followed hard on a rainless winter. Their one good well was threatening to stop supplies, and some of the timbering in it looked like giving way, for it had been put in not too well seasoned.

"Pluck up," said the elder man to his anxious brother, and he told him the story of Melbourne. "Pray only for rain— just a good shower to brighten things up and put guts into my Salmon. But rain or no rain, we must keep some sheep fat to show him."

But they had no water for all of them.

"We must," said Jim, and his heart ached. They killed and skinned five hundred too weak to travel, and all but three hundred he sent down to travel up the Lachlan. It was murder, grim and great and terrible: the most brutal of their hands flinched.

"There was no other way," said Jim, almost crying. He dreamt of the crime and laid it on the eager soul of the mortgagee, to whom he might have to account for it.

The weather showed no signs of a break; it assumed an air of inevitability; the days were an open furnace, the nights a close one. Night, indeed, seemed but an eclipse: the sun was hidden behind something that stopped its light but not its heat. Dust in a rut was like ashes from a fire; the leaves of trees, children of that soil, were withered untimely.

But, on the fifth of the month, three days after the buggy and wagon went down to Echuca, clouds rose and were dissipated; there seemed at least a possibility of a storm. They had no barometer at Ivett's, and the thermometer stayed at a hundred and ten in the shade. If it shifted it was to rise. But Ivett's heart was in his mouth: he sat watching the blurred horizon and the dancing heat mists. That night was a little hotter than ever before. He rose and found the thermometer standing at a hundred and fifteen.

The morning was clear, but clouds came again, and revolved and opened and shut and were no more. Noon was a brass cover over the cooking world. But again at night was a cloud dance and a breath of coolness.

Salmon was due on the tenth if he made no particular hurry. He was to camp at the Halfway House on the Old Man Plain, and to stay a night in Hay. He might cross the One Tree Plain in a single drive or not. Then the road being bad up to Ivett's, he would have to camp once between there and Booligal. That would bring him up on the tenth or eleventh. And Main was coming on the ninth, so his last letter said. He wanted a good look round before making his decision. But Ivett made no preparation for him.

He turned up on the tenth. A plain business man he was. He told the world so, and the world saw no reason to doubt him. He was plain and was a business man. He got his first start by accident: he saw a chance to do his partner, and he took it without hesitation. But he was not generally disliked by any means.

He found Ivett at the hut, and was treated with common civility.

"Things look bad," he said crossly.

"Damn bad," Jim answered, and he called a rouseabout to take Main's horses. Main looked at the Billabong bed he had just come over.

"I thought you said water came down here?"

"It will one day."

"Next century," grumbled Main, following his host into the shanty. "You've no comfort here yet."

"When I'm rich, come again," said Ivett satirically.

Harry came in, and they ate mutton and bread and tea on a bare table. After grubbing, they talked.

"I suppose you can't pay up?" Main asked.

"This season has done me," answered Tim. "Unless a man I've been negotiating with comes up with the sugar, you'll have to take it over."

"Little chance of his turning up, I should say."

"If it rained would you give me time?"

"I'd rather do it as it stands," said Main. "It doesn't look as if I should ever see anything back."

Jim shrugged his shoulders.

"You know better than that, Main."

Main did know better, but he would not acknowledge it.

"I shall split it up and let my boy have the best blocks; I'll hold on myself to the rest."

"Humph," said Jim, and he went out to stare at the weather quarter.

"To-morrow, Salmon should be up. How will Main like it?"

He burst into laughter just as Main came out.

"What's the joke?" he asked suspiciously.

"I was thinking what your face would be like if I could pay up after all."

The man's jaw dropped.

"I shouldn't give a damn!" he swore, and stuck to it. But he changed the talk.

"Will it rain, or shall we have to face the summer without any?"

"I pray for rain," said Jim.

"That's good of you," sneered Main.

But Jim fired up.

"If it rains you'll have to go, Main. You'll get the cash and your walking ticket. Oh no, it's not good of me. I'm not praying for you."

"What's up? what game's on?" asked Main.

"Find out," cried Jim sullenly. "’Tis I have proved the Back Block's worth money, and you want to grab it. Bah!"

But the next night passed and Salmon did not come. On the morning of the eleventh Jim sent Harry down to Booligal.

"Go through to Hay and wire if he's not there," he said. "If he's not here before noon on the fifteenth— that's Thursday— we're done. And by the Lord, I feel as if I could make mutton of Main."

So Harry went the same road as Jim had done, but being lighter he rode faster, and came to Booligal like a bird on the wing.

At the station Main and Jim spoke but little. For Jim told the stockrider to show him round. He wouldn't do it himself.

"Show him the worst," said Jim. And that Gregson did, but without much effect on Main, who knew a hawk from a hand-saw, whichever way the wind blew.

The weather was still in its devil's dance. It sometimes splattered a pearl or two of fizzling rain in the whipped dust, but again the lurid sky cracked into blue gaps and dark and silver clouds melted in the sun's crucible. The nights were cooler and the wind was uncertain, sometimes east and sometimes west, but it was never more than a breeze; it hardly stirred the dust, a leaf hanging by a thread might have a long spell there before it flew.

The twelfth passed, and Jim spent it frying on a fence looking south. Main chuckled to see him, but dared not chuckle openly, for the elder Ivett was getting tortured, and the weight of heavy expectation lay on him. Only once did he make any remark that Jim could lake crookedly, and it was after sundown, when they were at supper.

"I'll give you a job if you like, Ivett!" said he. And as Jim leant on the table his hands were a tangle of sinew, they were ready to clutch Main of themselves. But Jim recovered himself and walked to the door. He called Main in a thick voice.

"Look across the Billabong."

And looking, Main saw many small eyes of fire.

"There's a corrobboree on, and the black fellows are a bit wild. Yet they'd do anything I asked them. I've half a mind to give one of them a hint to spear you, Main."

And Main's spine was melting ice. He apologised and went to his bunk.

On the night of the thirteenth there was still no Salmon, and now Jim wished he had gone after the man himself. Harry was probably wasting time at Hay.

"I should have had time to go down and grab him, and carry him up here," moaned Jim. "I'm done, I'm done!"

He yearned for Main to be insolent now that he was meek: he grew sullen.

He turned into his bunk that night hopeless for his man, hopeless of rain. The clouds had filled the sky, but before sundown they melted again; and the heat grew like a gourd. He lay fretting, and could not rest; at any moment he might hear the tramp of horses and Harry's voice. He lay naked and broiling.

But at midnight, without knowing it, he pulled the blankets over him. Then he dreamed of being on a seashore. A gale was blowing, and the sound of the sea was without pause, wind and the fall of waves were one. He was deafened and overwhelmed.

He woke suddenly and cried out. But the sound of his voice was nothing in the elemental uproar, and the plunge of the rain on his iron roof. He sprang to the door, and his bare feet dipped into puddles, encroaching on the beaten earth inside. The sky was utterly black, and the wind in the south-west. It seemed as though it might rain for ever.

Then Main woke.

"Ah, rain!" he said joyfully.

"Yes!" cried Jim. "But it mayn't please you yet!"

They could hardly hear themselves speak, and their voices jarred in the great tone of the fall of the rain. Jim lighted a lamp, and the flame wavered: the air was suddenly so chilly that he flung a handful of leaves and sticks in the big fireplace and set them blazing. A flood soaked the chimney and caked the old white ashes.

"Was this good or not?" Jim wondered, and could not tell. If Salmon had not left town he was too late. If he had left it, where was he now, and what was the old money-grubber's endurance when a tent must be a vain thing, and the thickest blanket but a wet pack?

He sat open-eyed through the night wondering whether to curse or bless the open heavens. But his stockman's heart could not but rejoice at the full prospect of sweet water and grass. Had he been but free his voice would have been a part in Nature's hymn that hour.

When the dawn came the sky was grey, and the land was a flood. Great deep pools stood in the Billabong bed, and the clay pans among the salt-bush were shallow lakes. Jim wondered whether this was universal. Was it to the east, among the head waters of the Lachlan? And if so, would the Willandra come down and show the white men that the blacks knew what they talked about? Oh, what fat years the next would be!

Jim almost spoke to threaten Main then. But he did not, for he feared losing his self-control and committing murder. He was torn and jagged with anxiety: he was not safe to be with. But Main saw nothing, he sat on a bench and fidgeted all the day; he smoked, and suggested cribbage.

"Cribbage!" said Ivett, and he walked into the flood.

He saddled his horse and rode south.

It was obvious that no buggy could make its way far in such soil after so great a downpour. Much of the land was that strange red land of the Australian plains that turns into a bog after rain, though before it is solid and firm. Once or twice Jim found his horse plunging in it over the knees. A buggy would be bogged at once, even in the grey soil.

It was ten o'clock when Jim started. It was eight when he came to the heavier timber about the creeks nine miles north of Booligal. He had been ten hours doing fifty miles, and his horse was almost done. It was now dark, and the rain lost nothing of its fervour; he wondered whether he could pass the creeks and get into Booligal. He doubted it much; even by day the creeks running full must be dangerous. And just then his horse whinnied, and he saw a fire leap redly through some thin pine scrub. In two minutes he was shaking hands with Harry. But where was Salmon, or had the buggy returned empty?

"He is in the tent," said Harry.

"Doing what?"

"Cursing."

"Where did you find him?"

"I went to Echuca and wired time after time," said Harry. "Then he came, and it was fine till we reached the One Tree. We came from there to-day."

"How did you cross the creeks?" asked Jim, exultant.

"I nearly drowned him and myself."

"Good boy. By the Lord, you're among the chosen, and— my brother. Let's see him."

They went to the tent. It was covered with a fly, and over the fly was a macintosh cloth. Salmon was laid out on a pile of carriage cushions, some sacks half full of grain, and some rugs. The floor of the tent was mud; the walls dropped and ran down.

"How are you, Mr. Salmon?" asked Jim.

"I'm an old man and I'm dying," said Salmon, who was in a rage with Nature and men. "That young blackguard has dragged me through rivers and driven me through mud as if I hadn't a penny in the world. I want to go back."

"You can't," said Jim. "It's impossible. The creeks are roaring. Hear them!"

"I shall have rheumatism," said Salmon. "Oh, Mr. Ivett, take me in out of the wet."

Jim could have roared with laughter, but he held himself in.

"It's fifty miles to shelter; but you must get there by morning."

Salmon sobbed.

"Why did I come?" he asked.

"To make money."

"But I shall die."

"No, no," cried Jim. "This rain is worth tens of thousands of pounds to us. Every drop is a shilling. Main is up at my place chuckling. He knows what it's worth."

Salmon perked up, his eyes lost their utter misery, and even sparkled.

"Does he know I'm coming?"

"No. I've not told him."

Salmon sat up and reached out for his boots.

"Can we get there in time?"

"Not in the dark, Mr. Salmon." said Jim. "But will you start at dawn? We should do it."

"Yes," said Salmon, and he tried to cover himself up. Jim tucked him in, and he lay like a Dutch cheese under a duster—rotund and bulging.

They harnessed up before dawn and waited only for the faintest light.

"Empty the buggy of everything but a cushion and a rug for Mr. Salmon," said Jim, and they dumped all unnecessary truck under a tree. "This rain will pay us for waste."

It was nearly six when they left the camp, and to do it they must go more than eight miles an hour. The first hour they did no more than seven, but then the road was a little better and the horses were warm.

At ten o'clock they were still nearly eighteen miles from the hut the other side of the Willandra.

"Can you ride?" said Jim.

"What, me?" asked Salmon.

"Yes."

"No, no," cried the financier.

"You must," said Jim desperately, "or it will all be for nothing, and Main will tell it in town."

Salmon swore and kicked, but at last was persuaded. They hoisted him on Jim's big horse, and Jim and Harry rode the buggy horses bareback.

"I shall fall off!" shrieked Salmon.

"If you do I'll kill you," said Jim.

And they plunged through the wet earth till they saw the distant roof of their mean house. Jim rode on ahead and suddenly stopped and threw up his arms.

"Great God, the Willandra's down, and we can't get there!"

For between them and the hut was a silver band of slow-moving foam. The river had sent its gift into the heart of the land. The black fellows were right, but their prophecy, too soon fulfilled, looked like destroying Jim Ivett at the end of the eleventh hour.

They stayed at the verge.

"We must get across. Can he swim it on horseback?"

"No, he can't," said Salmon; and then a man came out of the hut.

"That's Main! that's Main! d'ye see him?" cried Jim. "Will you let him do you? Give me the cash and I'll swim over.

Salmon looked pale, but shook his head.

"I'll not part with it! Isn't there a ford?"

Harry spoke. "More than a mile away—"

"And there's not time," said Jim. "I can swim, Mr. Salmon, and if you fall off I'll save you."

"Come," said Salmon, and he drove at the water, leading the way.

"Tie your bag to the saddle first, you old fool," cried Harry, and he did it for him. Then Salmon took to the Billabong, and the horse sank with him till the poor old boy was up to his neck.

"Oh!" he said. And once he went under. But as he choked the horse touched bottom, and with a flounder got all feet on the earth, throwing him off. The others were with him, and Main came out to meet them as they dragged their man ashore.

"Too late," said he.

"No," cried Jim. And Salmon rose to his feet.

"You!" said Main.

"Yes," cried Salmon, "deal with me. And I've done you this time."

They were in the hut before the time was up, and Salmon paid Main in silence.

"Perhaps you'd like to go now," said Jim, as he tore the mortgage in two.

"When you wanted money I was welcome," said Main. "Now I can go, I suppose."

"Wait till it dries up," said Harry.

"Do," said Salmon; "we're square now, Mr. Main." So Main stayed.

"I told you the Willandra would come down," said Jim. And Harry made some idiotic remark about Salmon-fishing.

"Young man," said the old boy, "you treated me very badly yesterday. But I'll forgive you nearly drowning me if you'll leave my name alone."

"Yes, dry up, Harry!" said his brother, who had been lost in a reverie of countless sheep feeding on an endless plain.

_____________________________

15: Two Men and a River

Morley Roberts

English Illustrated magazine, Vol. 15, 1896, pp. 449-456.

SUCH a man as Simon Gardiner, who held more land than any other squatter on the Murrumbidgee, is often fairly popular. For he was civil to all whom he fancied might help or hinder him, and servile in an offhand kind of way to such as could do both. His servility said bluffly, "Now with any other man I should be on equal terms, but I frankly acknowledge that it is a different matter with you." So the men who had more sheep in the present, or who possessed greater credit as the beautiful result of sheep in the past, were inclined to think Gardiner a good sort, even if his grandfather had come out to New South Wales in a ship with soldiers. For that is the satiric colonial euphemism for a convict.

But, all the same, he was a beast, and as mean as mud to those who were down, who couldn't get up, or who were obviously of no use to him.

He had no traveller's hut on his station, and travellers— that is, men looking for a job— fared badly at his hands.

"Save this bag of weevilly flour for swagsmen," he said to his storekeeper. "Let them cook it at night and think it's seed-cake."

That was his humour.

He always paid the lowest wages, and often screwed a week's work out of a man down on his luck for ten shillings and bad tucker.

That was his economy.

He starved out a free selector, and then bought the man up at a ridiculous price, when the poor devil had been drowning his troubles at a bush grog-shanty.

This he called generosity.

So the men did not love him, and when they left his employment often said so in the frankest, freest, and most delightfully adjectival manner. Every time he sacked a hand the bush reeked with long-suppressed opinions, which were obviously earnest and probably true.

But this Gardiner could never understand. He continued to believe in his own comparative goodness, perhaps by dint of imagining how much worse he could be if he dared. He said he held strong political views, and any form of meanness looks better when it poses as stemming the flood of democratic progress. To give sufficient sugar in a pannikin of good tea was to pander to the multitude. They wanted too much.

But then Gardiner had not enough, and meant having a good deal more.

His great grief was that his station boundaries did not include the land occupied by Jimmy Morgan, who was in many ways Simon Gardiner's absolute antithesis. They mixed like oil and vinegar, only in this case the vinegar was on the top. Yet nothing, not even financial stress, could induce Morgan to part with his place, not even an entirely inadequate price, which Gardiner swore was ruinously generous when he offered it.

And just then the Great Flood happened, which solved the problem in its own way.

At Grong Grong and thereabouts— that is, let us say, from fifty miles south of the Murrumbidgee to fifty miles north of it— the country is as flat as a flapjack. It is true there are a few pieces of rising ground known to the innocents born in the locality as hills. If a station happens to be reasonably free of scrub and oak-belts, such may be easily discerned at a mile and a half; indeed, anything noticeable at a further distance would be called a range, and be looked on as a notable obstacle to intercourse. And yet over all this country there must be a tilt somewhere, for the river really does run south-west. But not when a flood comes. Then the slope of drainage is manifestly inadequate. The water rises incredibly until there is a Deluge.

When Morgan first took up his land it had just been surveyed. When the black fellows were asked how high the waters ever rose, those simple and dirty children of nature declared with naïveté that it sometimes got halfway up the riverside trees. The surveyors laughed, and told them plainly, in idiomatic English, that they lied. As an Australian aboriginal has no fine objection to mere good-natured abuse, the tribe merely shook their foul heads and departed, curiously wondering what the white fools were doing with a long chain and painted sticks. But ten years later came a convincing rain, sufficient to wash an unwilling black fellow and make it not unpleasant to stand on the lee side of him.

"There will be a flood— a bit of a flood," said Simon Gardiner, chuckling. "And if there's any spot where it's likely to run deep, it will be at Morgan's."

He rubbed his hard and bony hands in keen anticipation. For—"If he's flooded out, and his old gunyah tumbled down about his ears, and his wife and kids washed out, he'll be glad to sell," said Simon. "And I'll buy at my own price."

But Morgan never thought about a flood. He was just delighted with the rain. His wife and the girls were glad too, for they knew what a narrow shave it had been with them in the past hot summer.

"The oaks pretty near came to an end, didn't they, Nellie?" said Edith, the younger of the two, "and then we should have been out of it— and the jumbucks would have died."

For at the end of the summer Morgan only kept his sheep alive by felling trees for them to browse on.

So they gladly put up with ceaseless rain and muck inside and out, and when the inside of their house got mildew they bore with it for the grass outside, and one good year at the very least, and probably two or three. That meant Melbourne for a long visit, and new dresses and gay times. In spite of living in the bush, they were just getting to feel that new frocks meant a good deal to them; for there were many young men about, entirely ineligible and very interesting, who found Grong Grong a short cut whichever way their business led them.

But they did not reckon on the flood— neither, we are told, did Noah's neighbours; and Simon Gardiner looked on himself as a wiser Noah. He was quite ready to take his neighbours in, yet he was taken unawares in spite of his foresight.

The ancient quiet Murrumbidgee was now running a banker and still rising. It carried down many horses, cattle, and sheep that it had picked up on the way, and they drifted huggermugger with unnumbered trifles from a thousand miles of deep-cut banks. Logs from some low-lying huts went to swell the sordid trash; and perhaps if one could have sorted out all the corpses that went down the red drift, some human bodies might have been found among them; for men will get drunk and lie round careless of the River Serpent which lifts his head in a dark night and crawls glittering on the flat and sucks them down. And if Gardiner could have had his way he would have presented the River Snake with Morgan's body most cheerfully, or his wife's and daughters' too, if need be.

And now the sky was for ever dark and low and heavy; it rained unceasingly, and with an awe-inspiring most perpetual steadiness. The few aboriginals preserved, by the belated care of a Government on which they had been fathered, from poison and shot, hugged their kangaroo robes and retreated carefully to higher ground. But before they cleared out a Mirrool black fellow came to Morgan.

"Missa Morgan," said he, standing bare-shanked in mud, "you mucha budgeree to poor black fellow. Bimeby allasame as creek evlywhere. You sendee jumbucks to Arria, and bimeby you give King Moses some bacca."

But Morgan gave him at once a pound of twist strong enough to make a dead man cough, for the half-intelligible tip, and sent the sheep off after him. They got through Mirrool Creek just in time, and reached Arria's rocky hill after going through miles of water a foot deep. They were even then hardly beyond the jurisdiction of the river, and soon every yellow creek yielded its identity in the turbid universal deluge.

Gardiner, in his pleasing anticipations of the flood's work, had made one error at least, and Destiny, if it was hard on Morgan, was harder on him. When the flood was a foot deep at Grong Grong it was two feet deep at the other station, and the waters drowned ten thousand sheep of Gardiner's the very day they spoke clearly as to what the distant hills meant and the rains of the hills portended. Who could believe these things in that bare, brown land of almost perpetual drought, where any rain was rare that did more than give the grasses' roots a chance to perpetuate their difficult lineage? Yet day by day half-drowned men brought in the news of heavier floods in the cast and an unceasing downpour. The night the sheep were drowned it rose three feet on the level. The Murray joined hands with the Murrumbidgee, and the Murrumbidgee acknowledged its kinship with the roaring Lachlan, and the triple flood mowed a heavy swathe in a submerged land.

The same midnight that Morgan hitched up his scared team to escape out of the plain, old Gardiner desperately harnessed his, and they went towards the dry land that was left; but as Morgan drove through the glimmering waste with his wife and children there was ringing in his cars something out of his childhood's days in England when he sat and listened to the clergyman—

"And he said, Go up and say unto Ahab, Prepare thy chariot and get thee down, that the rain stop thee not."

So he drove furiously in his mind, but had to let the horses go slow; for the water was to their knees and they trembled and were afraid.

His wife sat beside him, and the two girls behind them clung to each other fearfully. Don, the best beloved of their dogs, crouched under the seat. The other dog was at Arria. But Don whined pitifully. To him this universe of pale dark water was something even more incredible than it was to the others. They had heard of strange and awful floods, but for him, pupped in a drought and trained in a thirsty land of dust, it was a nightmare that made him tremble. But the poor girls encouraged him, and warmed his cold paws in shaking hands.

"I am afraid we shall never get through, Mary," said Morgan in a low voice to his wife. She clutched his left arm.

"Don't despair, Jim," she said softly.

"We get deeper now," he said after a few minutes as they entered a dark, bull-oak forest. "But we must go deeper yet."

The water lapped about their feet and the horses lifted their heads; and Don sprang up between the girls as though the water had bitten him and left him no courage.

"It's deeper than I reckoned on," said Morgan, "and I believe it rises every minute. We must go for the Pine scrub. It's our only chance."

For where a thin patch of pine grew was the highest land about them. But it was a mile's drive, and the waters rose and rose.

In that strange and awful midnight everything seemed unreal and ghastly. There were odd and pitiful cries from the sunk bush. In the dark glimmer of the moving water they sometimes saw a white patch that marked a dead floating sheep; once they heard the roar of a terrified bull and the low of a swimming cow. They knew that the snakes were swimming loo, and the girls created out of their minds innumerable serpents gliding like eels for the buggy as a refuge. A lizard that had taken shelter under the seat made Nellie scream. Then Don barked and gave a mournful howl which echoed dully in the moving bush.

And now the horses almost swam. They snorted and stopped. Morgan urged them, and at last, with a plunge that nearly upset the huggy, they went in, and the water rose a foot. Then it gradually grew shallower, and the pines showed above the water. They had just entered the patch of scrub when the near-side horse neighed loudly.

"What did he do that for?" asked Nellie, and the answer was given by an answering neigh from the far side of the pines, among which were a few loftier box-trees.

"Is there anyone else here?" said Mrs. Morgan, who hoped for succour where none could be.

"It looks like it," answered Morgan; "for if the other horse was loose, he would most likely come to ours."

"Cooey!" said his wife; and Morgan cooeyed. His cry was returned from near at hand, and they heard other horses splashing within a hundred yards.

"Who is it?" shouted Morgan.

"Simon Gardiner," replied a quavering voice; and Nellie made a mouth. "Who are you?"

"Morgan and the whole family," answered Morgan with a cheerfulness which surprised himself; for the presence of another human being inspirited him, even if it was Gardiner. "What do you think of it?"

"I don't know what to think," said Gardiner; "but if it rises much we shall all be drowned."

He had to speak loudly to be heard, and he found it difficult to make his voice sound as bad-tempered as he felt, for it is not easy to shout sulkily.

"This is the only chance," said Morgan. "Are you by yourself?"

It appeared that Gardiner was. His men had taken themselves off on his horses, which he denied them permission to do, as soon as things began to look really serious, even leaving him to harness his own buggy. He meant to make it warm for them when the waters went down and they came in for their cheques. They would get none, and if they went to court he would fight them while he had a pound of wool left to raise money on.

He told the Morgans so in a high, querulous voice. But they were thinking of other things. For the water still rose.

"Kitty," said Morgan, "this is the highest ground I know of for miles round. If it rises more we shall have to take to the tree here. I'm going to get out and cut the horses adrift and give them a chance. Any moment they might take fright and upset us."

He opened his knife and slipped quietly into the water, which reached his chest. What he could not loose he cut. He noticed with apprehension that as soon as they were free they moved off to the northwards and were soon swimming. It was as if they knew they could not stay there long. Yet they would have to swim five miles at least for much higher ground. Morgan called to Gardiner—

"You'd better let your horses go." And Gardiner, seeing the necessity, loosed them, though he swore horribly at having to get into the water. When his pair were free they followed Morgan's, and two black hours slowly passed.

As the night began to wane hope grew once more in the hearts of all. It seemed impossible that such a flood could last. They could have prayed with Ajax to be destroyed in the light. But when the dim dawn broke there was no mitigation in the remorseless downpour. And the flood still crept up inch by inch, when every visible increase seemed a new and worse disaster.

An hour after dawn the buggy was no longer possible, and Morgan, crouching against the near tree, made Nellie climb upon his shoulders, and get to the lowest big branch. She was followed by her sister, and with great labour Mrs. Morgan took her place by them. Morgan tried his best, but was unable to raise himself. Though strong he was a heavy man of his years. But if he could not climb the waters could.

"Don't trouble about me," he said. "If it rises much more I can swim to an easier tree. I wonder how Gardiner is doing."

But Gardiner had had a bit of better luck than they. He was on a spot at least two feet higher. His buggy, too, was bigger. But when he was sitting down the water reached his waist.

Even as he sat there in the lukewarm, turbid flood which moved sluggishly about him, though he knew that his flat world was underwater, he still ached for the possession of Naboth's vineyard. Not even the terror which walks by night nor the ghosts that moved upon the face of the flood could scare the greediness out of him.

And besides, he said, it was a chance—a good chance. Though the waters receded Morgan's house would be ruined, his flocks destroyed. He might sell now.

At the thought Gardiner rose. He drank out of a bottle and called to Morgan.

"Morgan," he said, "how goes it?"

"It rises still," answered Morgan, who was standing on the buggy seat with his back against the tree on which his wretched family sat.

"Will it ever go down?"

Morgan did not answer, and Gardiner drank again.

"Will you sell out now, Morgan?" he cried.

Morgan looked across to him in surprise.

Who was this, ready to huxter in the face of death?

"No," he said.

But Gardiner persisted.

"Take my last offer," he cried again.

Morgan shook his head.

"This is no time to buy and sell. We may be dead before the morning."

Gardiner laughed, and sat down, but rose again choking. The water was over his lips. He looked at the tree under which he stood. But he was sixty years of age, and he knew that ten feet of smooth trunk would beat him, if, indeed, the flood could rise so far as to make him try it. He stood on the seat and cursed the warm treacherous liquid covered with dead leaves and pine-needles. It made no noise, and did what it had to do very quietly. The only sound was the sound of the Great Rain, though every now and again a stick loosed out of mud rose like a fish leaping for a fly. Yet he heard Morgan's dog howl.

For Don was standing on the seat with his fore-paws against the tree. He looked pleadingly at the girls above him.

"Couldn't we lift poor Don up, papa?" asked Nellie. But Morgan shook his head.

"Before this is over you may have enough to do to hold on, my child," he answered. And then Don had a fit; he fell back, and went under and kicked dreadfully. The girls screamed, and covered their eyes. But presently Don recovered and regained his old position. He suffered terribly, and several times seemed like to die.

And so they passed the whole silent day—the sombre, black-skied day. They could not talk, and only once did Gardiner speak. His voice sounded very odd and thick to the Morgans.

"Won't you sell out now?" he cried; and he laughed terribly. They heard him chuckling when the night fell once more.

By midnight the women had been twenty-four hours in the tree. They had eaten nothing, and had drunk the flood-water out of Morgan's hat. Presently Mrs. Morgan moaned and fainted. But her husband could do nothing. He had nothing to give her, and he might not even take her in his arms. Then he heard old Gardiner talking to himself or to the River and the Flood.

"Gardiner!" he called.

"Ha! you'll sell now, will you?" cried Gardiner.

"Have you any brandy, Gardiner? My wife is ill."

Simon laughed.

"More than a bottle," he cried.

"Thank God!" cried Morgan; and, kicking off his boots and hanging his coat on a knot in his tree, he swam out through the darkness. He came at last to the buggy, and was trying to climb the seat when Gardiner shouted angrily to him—

"Keep off!" he cried; "don't you come close!"

And Morgan laid hold of a pine sapling. He could see the old man's head and shoulders out of the water.

"Will you sell out now, Morgan?" said Gardiner.

"No," said Morgan.

"Then go back to your perch," answered Gardiner, supping brandy.

"I'll give you ten pounds for it," said Morgan.

And Gardiner jeered him till Morgan loosed his hold of the pine and swam towards him.

"Keep off!" cried the old man thickly, "or I'll brain you and break the bottle at the same time!"

So Morgan swam back again to the sapling and heard Gardiner still pulling at the bottle. What could he do to get the brandy from a drunken old man doomed surely by his own folly? How could he circumvent him? At last he loosed his sapling and swam towards his own tree. But when he was halfway he turned quietly to the right and, swimming right round a thick piece of scrub, came up behind Gardiner, paddling very softly. If he could but swim in close enough to grip hold of him before he was himself seen! And just as he was within four yards, Gardiner turned. He threw the empty bottle which was floating by him very viciously at Morgan. But the swimmer ducked, and the missile struck the water harmlessly.

"You would, would you?" said Gardiner. "I thought as much."

But Morgan was about done for.

"Give me the brandy, and I'll sell out," he cried.

"I'll not trust you."

"For God's sake, Gardiner," said Morgan, "give me the brandy and come down to Grong Grong when the flood's done and name your price."

"Swear on your honour," said Gardiner, "and then I'll trust you." And Morgan swore.

"And if you go back on it," said Gardiner, "I'll track and hunt you out of the country if it cost me my last pound. And I'll never let up on you till I'm dead."

So Morgan got the brandy.

"Bring back a little," said Gardiner, quite cheerfully.

But Morgan did not answer, and swam on. If he had had the breath to spare he would have laughed.

When he reached the tree he found his wife half-conscious and moaning. He gave the bottle to Nellie and cursed himself that he could not reach them.

And presently Gardiner cried in a loud voice, "Remember, you've sold out, Morgan."

A little while after he spoke again.

"Give me the brandy, Morgan; I'm cold, and the water's over my heart."

But Morgan laughed and gave him no answer. He heard the old man crying at intervals, and the terrified girls asked him what it meant; for in such a night to hear that cold, deathly voice was horrible, most horrible.

But Morgan only said the man was drunk. Who could help him in any way?

"The waters are to my chin, Morgan," he cried again; "they are to my chin! Help! help!"

They were at Morgan's lips, and had not a log floated near him he would have had to swim. He called to Nellie, who held out her hand. Her father sprang from the sunken buggy seat, and, scrambling on the log, laid hold of his child's wrist and a branch. He was soon sitting in the cramped tree-fork with his wife's head upon his breast. And Gardiner cried—

"They are to my lips— to my lips."

But Morgan did not answer. For the horror of it came over him, and he could see the old man choke.

Once more he cried in a very lamentable voice for help. Then he laughed a harsh, crackling laugh, and spoke for the last time.

"I've sold out," was all he said.

And then the River took him, and floating him out over the land which he had so yearned for, rolled him in the mud, to let him taste its very savour. He went down the slow current which led towards Morgan's homestead with the bodies of dead sheep which had once been his own. And now the waters stayed, for they had come to their most ancient marks, and were slowly subsiding. The rain ceased upon the plain as it had ceased before upon the hills, and the day broke very wonderful in a golden dawn.

When at last the Morgans descended from their tree of refuge upon the desolation which was the cause of many fat years, they went back to a ruined home. But they were not the first there. They found Gardiner trying to grasp his own by the wrecked gate.

____________________________

16: Round the World in a Hurry

Morley Roberts

Idler, Vol. 8, 1895-96; pp. 320-328.

WHEN I went to New York in the spring I meant going on farther whether I could or not. Australia and home again was in my mind, and in New York slang I swore there should be "blood on the face of the moon" if I did not get through inside of four months. Now this is not record time by any means, and it is not difficult to do it in much less, provided one spends enough money; but I was at that time in no position to sling dollars about, and, besides, I wanted some of the English rust knocked off me. Living in England ends in making a man poor of resource. I hardly knew an ordinary Londoner who would not shiver at the notion of being "dead broke" in any foreign city, to say nothing of on the other side of the world; and though it is not a pleasant experience it has some charms and many uses. It wakes a man up, shows him the real world again, and makes him know his own value once more. So I started for New York in rather a devil-may-care spirit, without the slightest chance of doing the business in comfort. And my misfortunes began at once in that city.

To save time and money I went in the first quiet vessel that crossed— the Lucania; and I went second-class. It was an experience to run twenty-two knots an hour; but it has made me greedy since. I want to do any future journeys in a torpedo-boat. As to the second-class crowd, they were, as they always are on board Western ocean boats, a set of hogs. The difference between first and second-class passengers is one of knowing when and where to spit, to put no fine point on it. I was glad when we reached New York on that account.

I meant to stay there three days, but my business took me a fortnight, and money flowed like water. It soaked up dollars like a new gold mine, and I saw what I meant for the Eastern journey sink like water in sand. But I had to get to San Francisco. I took that journey in sections. All my trouble in New York was to get across the continent. I let the Pacific take care of itself, being sure I could conquer that difficulty when the time came. I recommend this frame of mind to all travellers. I acquired the habit myself in the States when I jumped freight trains instead of paying my fare. It is most useful to think of no more than the matter in hand, then we can use one's whole faculties at one time. Too much forethought is fatal to progress, and if I had really considered difficulties I could have stayed in England and written a story instead, a most loathsome pis aller.

I do not mean to say that I was without money. All I do mean is that I had less than half that I should have had, unless I meant to cross the continent as a tramp in a "side-door Pullman," as the tramping fraternity call a box car, and the Pacific in the steerage. As a matter of fact, I proposed to do neither. I wanted a free pass over one of the American railroads, and if there had been time I should have got it I tackled the agents, and "struck" them for a pass. I assured them that I was a person of illimitable influence, and that if I rode over their system, and simply mentioned the fact casually on my return, all Europe would follow me. I insinuated that their traffic returns would rise to heights unheard of; that their rivals would smash and go into the hands of receivers. It was indeed a beautiful, beautiful game, and reminded one of poker, but the railroad birds sat on the bough, and wouldn't come down. They are not so easy as they used to be, and I had so little time to work it. Then the last of the cheap trains to the San Francisco Midwater Fair were running, and if I played too long for a pass and got euchred after all, I should have to pay ninety dollars instead of forty-five. Then I should be the very sickest sort of traveller that ever was. In the end I bought a cheap ticket on the very last cheap train. By the very next post I got a pass over one of the lines. It made me very mad, and if I had been wise I should have sold it. I am very glad to say I withstood the temptation, and kept the pass as a warning not to hurry in future. I started out of New York with twenty-two pounds in my pocket. For I had found a beautiful, truthful New Yorker, who cashed me a cheque for fifteen pounds with a child-like and simple faith which was not unrewarded in the end.

My affairs stood thus. I had to stay in San Francisco for a fortnight till the next steamer, and as I have said even a steerage fare to Sydney was twenty pounds. I had two pounds to see me through the transcontinental journey of nearly five days, and the time in the city of the Pacific slope. I looked for hard times and some rustling to get through it all. I had to rustle.

As a beginning of high times, I could not afford to take a sleeper. I was on the fast West-bound express, and the emigrant sleepers are on the slow train which takes nearly two days more. The high-toned Pullman was quite beyond me, so I stuck to the ordinary cars and put in a mighty rough time. After twenty-four hours of the Lehigh Valley Road, which runs into Canada, I came to Chicago. There I had to do a shift from one station to another, and after half-an-hour's jolting I was landed at the depot of the Chicago and North-Western Railroad. I hated Chicago always; I had starved in it once, and slept in a box car in the old days. And now I didn't love it. I tried to get a wash at the station, for I was like a buried city with dust and cinders.

"There used to be a wash-place here a year or two back," said a friendly porter, "but it didn't pay and was abolished."

Of course they only cared about the money. The comfort of passengers mattered little. This porter took me down into a rat and beetle haunted basement, and gave me soap and a clean towel. I shined off the mud and discovered some- body underneath that at any rate reminded me of myself, and hunted for the porter to hand him twenty-five cents. But he had gone, and the train was ready. I had to save the money and run.

From thence on I had no good sleep. I huddled up in the narrow seats with no room to stretch or lie down. Once I tried to take up the cushions and put them crossways, but I found them fixed, and the conductor grinning.

"You can't do it now; they're fixed different," he said.

So I grunted, and was twisted and racked and contorted. In the morning I knew well that I was no longer twenty-five. Twelve years ago it wouldn't have mattered, I could have hung it out on a fence rail, but when one nears forty, one tries a bit after ordinary comforts, and pays for such a racket in aches and pains and a temper with a wire edge on it. But I chummed in after Ogden with a young school ma'am from Wisconsin who was going out to Los Angeles, and we had quite a good time. She assured me I must be lying when I said I was an Englishman, because I did not drop my H's. All the Englishmen she ever met had apparently known as much about the aspirate as the later Greeks did of the Dynamite. This cheered me up greatly, and we were firm friends. In fact, I woke up in the sierras, and found her fast asleep with her head on my shoulder. It was an odd picture that swaying car at midnight in the lofty hills. Most of the passengers were sleeping uneasily in constrained attitudes, but some sat at the open windows staring at the moon-lit mountains and forests. The dull oil lights in the car were dim, so dim that I could see white sleeping faces hanging over the seats disconnected from any discoverable body. Some looked like death masks, and then next to them would be the elevated bodies of some far-stretching person who had tried all ways for ease. It was a blessing to come to the divide and run down into the daylight and the plains. Yet even there, there was something ghastly with us. At Reno a young fellow, trying to beat his way, had jumped for the brake-beam under our car and been cut to pieces. He died silently, and few knew it. I was glad to get to San Francisco. I went to a third-class hotel on Ellis Street, and had a bath, which I most sorely needed. I went out to inspect the city.

It looked the same as when I knew it, and yet it was altered. The gigantic architectural horrors of New York and Chicago had leapt to the Pacific, and here and there ten or twelve-storied buildings thrust their monotonous ugliness into the sky.

In this city I had starved for three solid months, picking up a meal where I could find it. I had been without a bed for three weeks. I had shared begged food with beggars. Now I came back to it under far different circumstances. I walked in the afternoon to some of my old haunts, and, coming to the hideous den of a common lodging-house where I had once lived, my flesh crept. I remembered that once the agent for a directory had put down "Charles Roberts, labourer," as living there, and I tried to get back into my old skin. For a while I succeeded, but the experiment was horrible, and I was glad to drop the dead past and leave the grimy water front where I had looked and looked in vain for work.

For a week I stayed in San Francisco. Then I had an experience which falls to few men, for I went to stay as a visitor at Los Guilieros, where I had once been a stableman. The situation was interesting, for there were still many men in the ranch who had worked with me; even the Chinese cook was there. In the old days he had often appealed to me for more wood to give his devouring dragon of a stove. But things were altered now. On the first morning of my stay I saw the wood pile and could not help taking my coat off and lighting into it with the axe. The Chinaman came running out with uplifted hands.

"Oh, Mr. Loberts, Mr. Loberts, you no splittee me wood, you too much welly kind gentleman, you no splittee me wood!"

So things change, but I split him a barrow load all the same.

I was sorry to leave the ranch and go back to San Francisco, where nine men out of ten in all degrees of society are much too disagreeable for words. The only really decent fellows I met there were a Frenchman and a young mining engineer named Brandt, son of Dr. Brandt, at Rozat, who was once R. L. Stevenson's physician; and above all an Irish surveyor and architect, the most charming and genial of men. The Californians themselves are less worth knowing as they appear to have money; the moment they begin to fancy themselves a cut above the vulgar, their vulgarity is their chief feature, stupendous as the Rocky Mountains, as obvious as the Grand Duke of Johannisberg's nose. But I had other things to think of than the social parodies of the Slope.

I found at the Poste Restante a letter from my agent, which was a frank statement of misfortune and ill-luck. There was not a red cent in it, and I had only a hundred dollars left. This was just enough to pay my steerage fare to Sydney, but I had still some days to put in and there was my hotel bill. I concluded I had to make money somehow. I tried one of the papers, but though the editor willingly agreed to accept a long article from me, dealing with my old life in San Francisco from my new standpoint, his best scale of pay was so poor that I frankly declined to wet a pen for it. Journalistic rates in the East seem about three times as high as in the West.

I went to a man in the town who was under considerable obligations to me for holding my tongue about a certain transaction, and asked him to cash a cheque for a hundred dollars. He refused point-blank. I never regretted so in my life that there are things one can't do and still retain one's self-respect. I could, I know, have sold some information to his greatest enemy for a very considerable sum. I was, indeed, approached on the point. However, I couldn't do it, worse luck, so I washed my hands of this gentleman, and went to a comparatively poor man, who helped me over the fence. Even if I had no luck I could still go steerage. But I meant going first-class. And I did. If I had put up my ante I meant staying with the game.

For a day after my agent's letter came a letter from a shipping friend in Liverpool. I had been "previous" enough to write him from New York for a good introduction in San Francisco. He sent me a letter to an old friend of his who occupied a pretty important post in the city, one as important, let us say, as that of a Chief of Customs. I laughed when I saw the letter, for I knew if I could make myself solid with this gentleman I had the San Franciscan folks where the hair was short. It's a case of give or take there, sell or be sold, commercial honesty is good as long as it pays. I whistled and sang, and took a cocktail on the strength of it.

In these little commonplace adventures I had some luck. That I have written many articles on steamships has often helped me in travel, and it helped me now. It was an unexpected stroke of fortune that the gentleman to whom I took the letter was not only an extremely good sort, but when I learnt that he knew my name, and had seen some of my work, I found it was all right. I was not only all right, for inside of an hour I had a first-class ticket to Sydney, with a deck cabin thrown in, for the very reasonable sum of one hundred dollars. I have a suspicion that I might have got it for nothing, but I have found it a good business rule never to lose a good thing by trying for a better. I had accommodation equal to two hundred and twenty-five dollars. Of course, I regretted I dare not ask them one hundred dollars for condescending to go in their boat. If I had been full of money 1 might have tried it. However, I was quite happy and satisfied. That I might land in Sydney with nothing did not trouble me. Three days after I went on board the steamer, and was seen off by my friend the Irishman and one other.

I had never sailed on the Pacific, or at least that part of it, before, and its wonders were strange to me. I had not seen coral islands, nor cocoanuts growing. It grieved me that I could not afford to stay in Honolulu and visit Kilanca. I only remained some hours, which I spent in prowling about the town, which is like a tenth-rate city in America. And the business American has his claw into it for good. The Hawaiians, in truth, seem to care little. They go blithely in the streets, crowned and garlanded with flowers, and even the leprosy that strikes one now and again with worse than living death seems far away.

On board the Monowai most comfortable of ships, commanded by Captain Carey, best of skippers, life was easy and delightful. Our one romance was between San Francisco and the Islands, for an individual, with most incredible cheek, managed to go first-class from California almost to Honolulu without a ticket. Two days from the Islands he was bowled out, and set to shovel coals. We left him in gaol at Honolulu, and steamed south of Samoa.

It was good to be at last in the tropics, deep into them, and to wear white all day and feel the heat tempered by the Trades. We played games and sang and lazed and loafed, and life had no troubles. Why should I think of future difficulties when there were none at hand, and the weather was lovely? We ran at last into Apia, the harbour of Upolu, the island where the late Robert Louis Stevenson lived. I rushed ashore, met him, spent three more than pleasant hours with him, and away again round the island reefs with our noses pointed for Auckland.

Some of our passengers had left us at Honolulu, others dropped off at Samoa, but after Auckland, when the weather grew quite cold, we were a thin little band, and our spirits oozed away. We could not keep things lively, the decks seemed empty. I was glad to run into Sydney harbour. I found I had just enough money to get to Melbourne if I went at once, so I caught the mail train and soon smelt the Australian bush that I had left in 1878. On reaching Melbourne at midday I had fifteen shillings left. Dumping my baggage at the station, I hunted up my chief friend, a journalist. The very first thing he handed me was a cablegram demanding my instant return to England. My rage can be imagined; it would take strong language to describe it, for I had meant to stay in Australia for a year, and write a book about it from another standpoint than Land Travel and Seafaring.

I hadn't even enough money to live anywhere. I couldn't cable for any, for if my instructions had been obeyed, all available cash was now on its way to me, when I couldn't wait for it. I talked it over with my friend.

"Have you no money?" I asked, but then I knew he had none.

"Nobody has any money in Australia," he answered. "If it is known you have a sovereign in cash, you will be pestered in Collins Square by millionaires, whose wealth is locked up in moribund banks, for mere half-crowns as a temporary accommodation."

I pondered a while.

"I have a plan whereby we may get a trifle in the meantime. You can write a long interview with me and I will take the money. Sit down and don't move."

He remonstrated feebly.

"My dear fellow, why not do it yourself?"

"It would be taking a mean advantage of other writers," I said. "Besides, I'm in no mood to write."

Overcome by my generosity, he at last wrote a column and a half. I shall always treasure that interview, for when he tired I dictated some of it myself. The only thing I really objected to was his determination not to let me say what I meant to say about the Australian financial outlook. Under the circumstance of the failure of credit, the matter touched me deeply, and was a personal grievance. But he persisted that if I were too pessimistic the article would never see type, and I couldn't have the money. I gave way, and condescended to have hopes about Australia. But even when I got his cheque I was not much further forward.

I went to my banker's agents and asked them to cash a cheque. Would I pay for a cable home and out? No I would not, because I didn't know whether my account was overdrawn or not. All I knew was that if they would cash a cheque I would telegraph from Port Said or Naples and see it was sent. So that failed. I tried Cook's, who had cashed cheques for me on the Continent. They also spoke of cabling. I explained matters, but they had no faith. Nobody had.

I began to think I would have to work my passage, for I was determined to get away inside of two weeks or perish. I looked up the vessels in port in case I might know some of them. They were all strangers. In such cases unless one is in a hurry such as I was, for my return was urgent, it is best to tackle some cargo boat. It is often possible to get a passage for a quarter the mail-boat fare, for the tramp steamer's captain looks on the fare as his own and never mentions passengers to the owner. But I couldn't wait for a good old tramp, and at last, in despair, my friend and a friend of his and I clubbed everything together that was valuable and raised a fare to Naples on the proceeds. I left Melbourne after ten days' stay there. We lay at Adelaide two days, and got to Albany in a hurling gale of wind. Leaving it we got a worse snorter round Cape Leeuwin. But after that things improved till we caught the south-west monsoon, which blew half a gale, and was like the breath of a furnace. We reached Colombo, and I had no money to spend. I raised five on a cheque with the steward, and spent the whole of it in rickshaws and carriages. I saw what one could in the time, for I breakfasted at one place, lunched at another, dined at a third. I mean one of these days to spend a week or two at the Galle Face Hotel, Colombo. At Mount Lavinia I got the one dinner of my life. I cordially recommend the cooking.

We ran to Cape Guardafui in a gale, a sticky hot gale which made life unendurable. The Red Sea was a relief and not too hot, but how we pitied the poor devils quartered at Perim, and the lighthouses seen at the Two Brothers. I would as soon camp for ever on the lee side of Tophet. But my first trip through the Canal was charming. At night, when the vessel's search-light threw its glare on the banks, the white sand looked like snow-drifts. In the day the far-off deserts were a dream of red sands, and red sand mingled with the horizon. At last we came to the Mediterranean and I landed at Naples. The driver of my carrozzella took my last money, so I put up at a good hotel and wired to England at the hotel-keeper's expense. I went overland to London, and was back there in four days under four months from the time I started from New York.

There are scores of people—I meet them every day—who are in a constant state of yearn to do a bit of travelling. They say they envy me. But it is not money they want, it is courage. It will interest some of them to know what it can be done for. I will put down what it usually costs. A first-class ticket from London via New York, San Francisco, Sydney, Melbourne, Colombo, the Suez, Naples, Gibraltar, and Plymouth will run to £125, without including the cost of sleeping-car accommodation and food in the American transcontinental journey. If he stays anywhere it is a mighty knowing and economical traveller who gets off under £200 or £250 by the time he turns up in London.

Now as to what it cost me when I meant doing it moderately. It cost £8 to New York. Owing to business in New York, I stayed there a fortnight, and it cost me $4 a day, say £11. The journey to San Francisco ran to £12 including provisions. The Pacific voyage was £22 in all. The fare from Sydney to Melbourne for ocean passengers is £2 1s. 6d. To Naples I paid £32. Another £12 brought me to London. This runs up to £99.

If I had not been in a hurry I could have done the homeward part for less. If I had been twenty-five I would have gone steerage. But with time to spare for looking up a tramp I might have easily got to London as the only passenger for £20. If I had not stayed in New York and had had the time I could have cut expenses to £70.

But any young man, writer or not, who wants to see a bit of the world, can do it on that if he has the grit to rough it. He can cut the Atlantic journey to £3, and learn some things he never knew while doing it. I can put anyone up to crossing America for £15 at any time. But if he spends £20 he can see Niagara, the work of God, and Chicago, the chef d'œuvre of the Devil. The Pacific can be done for £20 steerage; and he can stay in America a month for £10, and a year for £20 if he knows what I know. The steerage fare home is £16. I fancy it would be the best investment that any young fellow could make. He would learn more of what life is than the world of London would teach him in the ordinary grooves in ten years.

________________________

17: The Wedding Eve

Morley Roberts

Idler magazine, vol. 9, 1896; pp. 620-623.

"I SHALL be only gone two months, dear, and then—"

She lowered her eyes so that he could not see her face. But he kissed the back of her neck which was tinted just then with rose.

"And two months is sixty days— Ethel, how many hours?"

"Dear, the hours will be long. You will write often?"

"Always, dear."

"And you won't be able to get my letters travelling so fast and going to so many places. I wish there was no such thing as business."

"You can write every day, and I will read them all when I come back. You can give me one every morning of our honeymoon. But I shan't read them. I shall only kiss you. Dear, it grows late, it must be good-bye."

She rose from her chair and laid her head on his shoulder.

"Teddie, dear, you won't see any beautiful Spanish or Italian woman you will like better?"

"Dear child, I haven't seen any woman at all since I loved you. Good-bye. Good-bye."

And Teddie Lane broke away, and went out half blind. In an hour he was in the night mail for Paris. He buried himself in his corner, and wrapped himself in his rug, and thought of Ethel until the dawn. It was only two months, and he loved her greatly; and she loved him. And she had blood in her veins. He knew that. God bless her warm heart, and might he deserve her.

HE TRANSACTED some business at Paris and then went to Marseilles.

Ethel wrote to him, and missed him every time. Only once he got a letter at Naples dated a fortnight after his departure. Then he went into Greece, and depending on telegrams for his instructions he had such a time that he never even looked for a letter, knowing she could not tell where he was. His route lay from Greece to Malta and Tripoli, Tangiers, and home through Spain. He knew as he entered France again that he had done good work and justified the opinion that those who were his employers, and would be his partners, had always held of him.

From Madrid, being then two days under two months from home, he took a through ticket to London and crawled in a continental express to Paris, That seemed so near London, that his heart beat and passion flushed up in him eagerly He was strong, and brave, and happy. It was blowing worse than a gale at Calais, and the boat was delayed. He swore and fumed, and fretted, and wished he could swim the most accursed silver streak. He would have voted for a Channel Tunnel against his most patriotic convictions. But at last, at last, he reached London. It was ten in the morning when he arrived at Victoria, and the skies outside made him wonder how people could live there. Only Ethel could reconcile him to the reeky abominations of a commonly good day after the sunshine of the Peninsula and the Continent. But after all, what did it matter? for this day was his wedding eve; he should sing instead of being depressed.

So his cab rattled towards Kensington. Go to the office at once? No, not for his perpetual choice of climates. He had heard nothing from England for a whole month. Even his firm had not known his address during the last three weeks.

He would go to Addison Gardens first, or die upon the way.

It was curious, he said, how slow London cabs were. Yet his horse passed many others. He had a great hatred of whipping the poor animals, but he never lifted the trap to remonstrate with this driver. He had a notion that driving was a waste or time. He could have walked as fast.

As he got away from Victoria and into the Hammersmith Road the day cleared a little and the sun shone, dropping splashes of gold upon the wet and muddy way. The people seemed more cheerful: his own spirits rose again. Everything was beautiful, the whole world was glad, and he went round into Addison Road.

Suddenly, without any reason save that his heart was beating so that he could hear it above the rattle of the cab, he changed his directions and ordered the man to drive to his own rooms near Addison Road Station. He would walk the rest of the way. He was too agitated to meet Ethel. The half-mile walk would do him good.

So at half-past ten he got into her street. At the end of it he saw a line of carriages heading the other way. At first he thought it was a wedding but then he noticed that in front of the procession was a more melancholy vehicle.

Some poor chap was dead, said the lover. Or some woman. And here he was, full of health, and strength, and hope. He was very sorry for anyone who was dead and unable to love or be loved, past the joy of life, even past the struggle by which comes victory, and so he walked slower and slower yet.

The funeral procession began to move off before he came within fifty yards. When he saw it move, another thought came to him. Whose house was it? It must, yes it must, be one of three. And one of the three belonged to Ethel's father. To-morrow it would cease to be Ethel's. He quickened his pace for a moment, and then suddenly stopped. He turned very pale. It would cease to be Ethel's home to-morrow. He repeated that twice. For he knew now which house it was. The last carriage was just ahead of that one house. The door was open and inside were the servants dressed in black. He stopped again and caught hold of the railings.

But surely, he said, he was a fool. There was Ethel's father, and her mother, and her brothers, and her younger sisters to die. So he plucked up heart, and ran into the house door. One of the girls there knew him, and screamed.

"Good God! Mr. Lane!" she said and the others fell back.

"Who's dead?" asked Ted, with dry lips and an ashy face. And they did not answer. He prayed it might be all the world but one.

"Who's dead, damn you?" said he, and caught the servant by the wrist.

And he knew before she answered.

"Oh sir, sir, it's poor Miss Ethel." And he ran out into the road after the funeral procession.

He came up ahead of the hearse and dropped in the muddy road insensible. They took him back into the house, which had ceased to be his love's home five bitter days before this home-coming.

And all that he had of her was a pile of letters. The last was only two words. "Good-bye, my dear, my dear." It was scrawled an hour before she died.

____________________________

18: The Anarchist

Morley Roberts

Tasmanian News (Hobart) 12 January 1894

Louis Souchet hated society, and society cared nothing at all for Louis Souchet till he was 20 and a few months more. For till the year 1880 he starved and worked patiently, did his duty in the station to which Plutus had called him, and he had a kind of dog-like submission about him very fitting for a man of no parts. But dogs under certain conditions go mad; and so do human beings. Rabies may be stamped out by muzzles, but muzzling revolt cannot cure the rabies of men. Louis Souchet got bitten by a bad Anarchist, who has since disappeared from society, having been buried in two pieces. He bequeathed to Paris Souchet deeply inoculated.

Louis was thin and spare, and a trifle misshapen. Society had been unkind to him even before he was born, so he said. His doctrine, derived from his departed leader, averred that every disease, every malformation, every kink in every twisted brain, was due to society. The quietest dog when rabid may be as bad as a savage one by nature, and Louis was sufficiently fierce to be very dangerous. His clever friends knew he was a possible tool, who might in some  circumstances be induced to blow himself up, if that were the only way of getting rid of certain other indicated persons as well.

So far he was valuable. Now the fundamental basis of scientific and philosophic Anarchism is that if everybody were allowed to do exactly as he wants, after a few generations no one would want to do anything at variance with the interests of the great mass of humanity. There is possibly something in this, but Anarchists know it by intuition. Consequently the secondary or practical part of this allow every anarchist to do exactly as he please in his or her private affairs This is usually acted on by those outside the red ring, but it is not subscribed to publicly.

Consequently, to come to actual facts, when Louis Souchet married, both Louis and Marie Marmier held it as a high doctrine that both were at liberty to leave the common ménage when it occurred to them to do so. This was the basis of the entire arrangement.

But the leaders of his particular branch were not pleased with Souchet for entering into any quasi-matrimonial links. They feared that it might make him averse from sacrificing himself when Anarchism called for him. Experience had taught them so much. And just when he was wanted Louis showed the white feather. He was very fond of Marie. As it is not reckoned want of courage for the leader or leaders of an army to avoid the actual hot fighting, it need not be esteemed cowardly conduct if Souchet’s leaders had a wise disinclination to take his place in the arranged programme.

So they argued with him.

"Just now I am too content," said Louis. Then they cut off his supplies, or at any rate reduced them to the level of the Parisian water supply in a hot and choleraic summer. Then they argued with him again. He was thin, but still content.

Marie, however, was not content. She went away, and took her bonnet and cloak to show that it was a divorce. Then Louis lost his content. He argued with her and with one of his leaders.

“It is necessary to live,” said Marie "That's what I argued just lately,” answered Louis.

But the leader said that though such a statement was a part of Anarchistic philosophy, it formed no part of its present practice.

“Then blow the company up yourself," retorted Louis. But the leader fell back upon his supporters, and declared he hadn't received orders to that effect from any superior.

Louis, after an unsuccessful attack on Marie, retired to starve and think. He came to the conclusion that he could not go back on his old teacher’s doctrine. It was wrong to coerce Marie. If she had loved him she would have stayed. As she had not stayed she did not love him, and he had no ground to go on. But he thought it very hard in spite of the consolations of his philosophy.

In the end he was ready to obey his directions. And they gave him general and particular orders and a detonating bomb.

He took the bomb home with him to his desolate apartment, and slept with it on chair by the head of his bed. It a poor substitute for human companionship, but it contained possibilities. He felt curiously powerful. At one blow he might destroy a dozen. He saw clearly how the social force had created the love of force and of power, The possession of this power almost demoralised him in a night. There arose within him a great moral conflict. He could obey orders and destroy those who were aiding and abetting the abasement of those who worked. He could destroy a whole branch of his own society. He could destroy one of its leaders, and Marie, whose objection to starving had led her to rob that nail in the door of her long cloak. He might do none of these things, but use the bomb in another way.

When morning came he arose and patted the bomb affectionately. He looked at the detonator, and then stared out of his garret window at the desolate dawn, crawling like a grey cat across the tiles. Smoke began to puff out of the chimneys, like the beginning of a conflagration struggling through the cracks of a prison roof. He heard the clock of Notre Dame strike four. Why did they put clocks that told the world work had begun on churches? If religion had been right, they should only strike there at the times when the slaves were set free. The only hours should sound from banks and prisons and Government offices and the houses of the rich. These were his opinions.

When he got into the street carrying his bomb in a workman's bag, he first walked past the office of the doomed company. A wretched looking cat was seated on the steps.

“You wouldn't mind," said Louis; and the cat rose up gauntly and rubbed against his leg. He went on past Marie’s new domicile, and he stayed there longer with a look of sombre doubt upon his face. But there were more than cats in that great building. Somehow the one little break of pleasure and of home in his hard heart had touched him. He turned away and walked to the Bois de Boulogne. It did not take him long to find a quiet place, and he put his bag down. The rain that had threatened from a grey sky now came down heavily from a black one. He was soaked through as he sat on the ground.

“Why should I do anything for anybody?” he said bitterly, and his uneven, ugly face twitched. But a tear ran down his check, and he took out the bomb and put it beside him on the grass. There was not a soul in sight, and not a break in the sky. He was only wanted for one thing in the whole wide world. And those who wanted him had taken Marie away.

He rose and hunted for a stone. Coming back he looked at the black bomb with an odd kind of reverence— for it was power and strength and peace.

He smote the detonator sharply!

______________________

19: The “Smuggler’s Daughter”—Five Reels

Perley Poore Sheehan

Argosy April 1916

“THERE are accidents in our business,” said Calvin Moore, “just as there are accidents in every other business. Some of them are happy, and some of them are otherwise. I feel terribly bad about it when I’ve crippled a man.”

If Cal wasn’t so modest, he would need no introduction here, as they say at the banquet. For Cal Moore, in the world of moving pictures, is regarded as one of the best directors who ever came out of the West, where so many of the big men crop up. And, incidentally, a director is the main brace of the whole moving picture trade. He is the Czar. He is the man who keeps his hat on and chews a dry cigar while talking to the president of the corporation.

You can’t blame a director if he sometimes features his own name at the expense of the author’s. Human nature; that’s all!

But Cal wasn’t that kind. He looked like Dustin Farnum. And he could act, too. Every now and then, in a tight pinch, he would jump into the “picture” and tighten up a big scene.

Still, both his name and his face were as unfamiliar to the millions who annually laughed and wept over the productions of the Daguerre Motion Picture Corporation as the names and faces of said millions were unknown to Cal. And, at that, he was as apt as not to be one of the millions himself. In his off-hours, which weren’t many, he was as much of a moving picture fan as any one.

“A lot of my own success— I’m speaking about the financial end of it— were pure accidents,” Cal went on. “Any director, if he’s honest, will tell you the same thing. In the first place, we are working with the subtlest, cussedest, most contrary, most inspiring and most changeable tools in the world— the more or less human beings known as moving picture actors. Then, there are all the tricks and uncertainties of photography. Some mighty queer things happen inside of the camera. Some mighty queer spots and flashes come out when the films are developed.

“I could tell you of a case that happened once out in California While I was still new to the business. Right in the middle of a big scene, when the film came out of the dark room, we found a girl’s face like a vision. The girl was beautiful. None of us had ever seen her. How she got into the film was a mystery until—

“But that wasn't the accident that I was going to tell you about.”

Cal also chewed on a dry cigar. Mrs. Cal came in— as pretty as a picture. She begged pardon for the interruption.

“I just wanted to tell you, dear,” she said, “that I’ve looked over the boudoir-set for the ‘Princess Incognito’ feature. I think you have a find in that new technical man. The set was perfect— simple, good taste, very rich.”

“Great!” exclaimed Cal; “we might to be able to get to work on that scene early to morrow morning. Tell Levine to notify the studio and get the people there at eight-thirty sharp.”

Mrs. Cal was gone.

“One of the happiest accidents of all,” said Cal with a glint of sentiment in the depths of his steel-blue eyes. “I don’t know exactly where I’d be to-day if it wasn’t for her— still out on the coast most likely, wearing chaps and doing Indian stuff. That’s the way I got my start.

“I was unmarried when I came East. That was five years ago when the Daguerre Corporation was a struggling infant, a sort of adopted child. President Arnitz had just taken hold of it. He had come on from Chicago with good backing and plenty of ideas.

“He found the Daguerre fighting for life. The studio was an old stable up a back alley. There was one director and cameraman. They were both the same person, and his early training had been chiefly acquired by taking tintypes through the Middle West.

“But the Daguerre already had a reputation. When moving pictures were still a scientific curiosity the Daguerre was filming street-scenes and county fairs. You remember, every one else at that time was doing fairy-tales and costume-stuff.

“Arnitz began right away to dig into that financial backing. The way he spent money made a record that the trade has been trying to keep up with ever since. It was fine. It was stirring. Only, in a short time, he discovered that he wasn’t getting his money back.

“The people behind him started to squeal. They began to have their doubts. They began to think that it might be better, after all, to play the game safe and sure.

“ ‘Look here,’ said Arnitz; ‘we’re in the biggest business in the world, and to get anywhere we’ve got to be big ourselves. This thing’s a baby. It costs something to bring a baby up, and no baby can be expected to be a big revenue producer before it’s out of the cradle. But this baby will surprise you, ff you’ll only help it to live” and a lot more just like that.

“He was making the fight of his life. It was at that time that he called me in. I had been making the fight of my life, too. I guess it was the fact that we got together at a time like that that has kept me with the Daguerre ever since.

“I had never been East. All my work up to that time had been in Santa Barbara. You can do some great stuff in California with very little money, if the luck runs your way and you are willing to work twenty hours a day.

“Out there we never had a dark studio. That’s what they call a studio where artificial light is needed. Out there, all you have to do to get all the light you want is just to build your drawing-room set under the open sky. I saw a fellow in evening- dress playing the part of an English lord, in what was supposed to be the king’s palace, step on a live snake, once. We cut out that part of the film and used it in a feature entitled ‘The Curse of Drink.’

“Arnitz didn’t know anything about me except that I was supposed to be a director, and he was going after directors like a robin after worms.

“It’s always like that when a company is new— or old, for that matter. 'We’re flooded with manuscripts, and if I came into our office and didn’t find a hundred actors there crazy for a job I’d think there had been a panic or something.

“But there never has been enough directors. There never will be. The work’s too hard. You’ve got to know too much. And— this above all— the luck just must run in your direction; the majority of accidents have got to be with you and not against you.

“I wasn’t so sure of this in those days as I am now; but the rough and tumble way of doing things out West had taught me a lot; so had the awful howls that went up every time I wanted to spend a dollar. And I was good and ready for a change, didn’t have any strings tied to me. I came East feeling that I had the punch.

“I didn’t keep the feeling very long.

“About the first night that I was in New York I felt as if I’d like to take one of the old property Colts out of my trunk and shoot somebody.

“I’d had a date to see President Arnitz at nine o’clock in the morning. I’d gone around to his office all spruced up. I meant to make a good impression on him. I had it all doped out to get the jump on him from the start.

“ ‘Where are you stopping, Mr. Moore?’ he would ask.

“ ‘Oh, I have taken a small suite for the time being at the Pazzaza,’ I’d tell him.

“And of course he would see right away that I was a top-notcher. The Pazzaza wasn’t the name of the hotel, but its prices were so fancy you might have called it that. It was almost the best hotel in town.

“All dressed up, I mosied around to President Arnitz’s office promptly at nine o’clock, with my smile all ready for him. Perhaps you remember.

“In those days the outer office of the Daguerre was about as big as a hall bedroom. In one corner of it there was a telephone switchboard with a small boy in charge, and this boy held people up while he telephoned back into the rest of the establishment to find out whether the visitors were welcome or not.

“I told him who I was and whom I wished to see. I was feeling pretty chesty, although I confess that the sight of that outer office had given me something of a shock. It wasn’t precisely what I had expected.

“All the way from Sacramento I had been talking to myself and imagining things about that million-dollar corporation and the luxurious East and the palatial offices of President Arnitz. You know how a young fellow lets himself go when he starts out on his first rainbow trail.

“The kid telephoned to some place or other back of the board partition and told me: ‘President Arnitz says that he’s busy and if you’ll sit down for a while.’ I sat down. There was one other chair in the place besides the one that the boy occupied.

“There was a dollar alarm clock on top of the switchboard, and I watched the hands. I watched them for seven minutes, and each second of those seven minutes I was expecting President Arnitz to come out of the door in the board partition and apologize for keeping me waiting.

“Then an old woman came in. I recognized the type. She was seedy. Her nose was red and her skirt dragged, but she was an actress. The good Lord only knows where a lot of these poor old has-beens earned anything at all before the movies gave them a chance to pick up a dollar now and then.

“She waited. I gave her my chair. About a minute later an Indian chief came in. He had his long hair tucked up into an imitation Stetson, but otherwise he was dressed like a white man. He grunted something; the boy telephoned, and Deerfoot decided to wait.

“After that they began arriving thick and fast— women with babies, old men, young men with velour hats and too much hair, young girls and then girls who tried to look young. And all this time no sign of Mr. Arnitz.

“I was pretty sore. I had about decided to be a little offish when Arnitz finally did begin to apologize. Still, I kept my temper and went on waiting— I don’t know for how long. I was hot, but I had plenty to look at.

“I had never seen so many girls in my life with curly hair. They all had curly hair, except the blondes; and they were all wearing it Mary Pickford style down their backs. There had always been plenty of girls hanging around the studios out in Santa Barbara, but here the types were different, and I was wondering if they were going to be as hard to manage.

“Finally, the crowd got so big that it was filling up the hall outside and part of the stairway. For the last half-hour I had been getting a cramp in one leg and another in my disposition. Just along about the time that I had decided to start something rough, the crowd pressed back to leave an open passage, and a gorgeous bird-of-paradise actress came sweeping in.

“She had on so much make-up that she could have gone on in almost any scene just as she was. She would have registered Queen Elizabeth if she hadn’t been-dressed for the title role of ‘The Heiress to Millions.’ The worst of it was she was only about twenty years did and had been spoiled for life.

“I didn’t recognize her. To show you how ignorant I was I didn’t even recognize her when some one whispered it:

“ ‘There goes Lollie Goodelle! ’

“She swept right past everybody, as haughty as Hortense. She didn’t take the trouble to have herself announced. The kid at the switchboard jumped right over and opened the inner door for her. She sailed on in without even thanking him.

“I didn’t get a line on her until I began to hear other things that the crowd let drop as soon as she was out of hearing. Then I remembered. She was one of the leading lights of Broadway, all right— one of those flivver-lights that flash right up for a couple of months and then go out forever.

“Her name had come up with a rich man’s son. She was jest getting all the advertising in the world. But she was no actress and never would be.

“I think that it was the thing that the girl stood for, more than anything else, that just sort of crumpled me up.

“You see, I love the stage, always have loved it. And I’ve always stood for the dignity and honor of it. I can tell the difference between a ham and an actor a mile away. And I’ve always hated more than anything else what Lollie Goodelle stood for. I got it from my father.

“So I walked right out of the office of the Daguerre Corporation before the crowd could properly tighen up again. I did leave a message. I told the boy at the switchboard where I was stopping. I also told him that if Arnitz— leaving out the mister— wanted to see me he could come and took for me there, and that maybe I’d be in and maybe I wouldn’t.

“The room in die Pazzaza was costing me ten dollars a day. I’ve often paid big money for misery and discomfort since then, but never anything quite like that.

“I sat there looking at the red wall-paper and imitation onyx for the rest of the morning and all afternoon. I didn’t have much more money than enough to keep me more than a week or so at this rate. I had left California with a splurge.

“In New York I had no friends. I knew well enough that I was unknown to the trade. The thought of going around and waiting in other offices as I had waited that morning in the office of the Daguerre gave me chills and fever. If the Daguerre had kept me waiting among the misfits and the mavericks, I could well imagine the sort of welcome I was likely to get from the other companies. But I wasn’t going back to California— not after the send-off I had had from my friends out there.

“About seven o’clock that evening the telephone bell rang, and some one was asking if this was Mr. Moore. It was a woman’s voice. She was giving me an address over on West Forty-third street, where some one wanted to see me. Then the wires got tangled or something, and we were cut off.

“I didn’t get the name, but I had the address, all right. Some one had seen my name on the register. That was the way I figured it out. I was that mean and sad and homesick that I would have welcomed the attention of a yellow dog.

“The address turned out to be that of a boarding-house. It was a theatrical boarding-house of the very cheapest, dingiest kind. You know the sort— handkerchiefs ironed on the window-panes, beer by the bucket, sausage frizzled over the gas-jet, small-time people practising their turns on every floor.

“It was the landlady who opened the door. I could tell it by her looks. They all look alike.

“ ‘I am Mr. Moore,’ I began.

“ ‘Second-floor-front,’ she said; and that was all I got from her, except a stare and a smell of cheap perfume.

“The tenant of the second-floor-front was a man. I confess that that was the first thing I noticed; also that he was a perfect stranger; also that he was in his shirt sleeves and appeared to be busy with a lot of papers and things.

“It was a second or two before he turned around, although he had told me to come in. He made up for his delay, though, the moment he did turn. He came striding toward me across the room with his hand out.

“He was about my age. Only he looked run-down and overworked. He had a big mop of crinkly hair that stuck up straight from the top of his high forehead. Otherwise he was sort of bald.

“I didn’t know him from Adam, but— do you know— all of a sudden I was liking him and feeling sorry for him. I could see just how ambitious he was, what sort of a dreamer he must be.

“ ‘Hello,’ I said, sort of dazed; ‘I am Mr. Moore.’

“ ‘Hello,’ he said, as he shook hands, and I could see all the little wrinkles of worry and thought and humor around his eyes.

“ ‘I’m sorry to have missed you,’ he said; ‘sorry to have kept you waiting.’ He must have seen that I was puzzled, for he introduced himself. ‘I’m Arnitz.’

“Talk about the punch!

“ ‘I can see that you are flabbergasted,’ Arnitz went on, ‘to find me in a dump like this; and the contrast must indeed be striking to one fresh from the Pazzaza. But, you see,’ he explained, ‘ I’ve done some of the hardest work of my life and had all my biggest dreams in a place like this. There were eight of us children, and my mother kept a boarding-house for theatrical folks out in Chicago.’

“Well, I wasn’t mad at Mr. Arnitz any more. I still may have been a little sore; but by the time he had finished his story I was with him heart and soul. It appears that he had been tied up all day with his financial backers, and then with Lollie Goodelle, and then with all of them together, plus Lollie’s lawyer, her author and her press agent.

“Here was what he was up against.

“In the first flush days of the company, while every one was feeling as if he had all the money in the world, a gentleman named Harris— since out of the company— had signed up Lollie Goodelle as a star to appear in six five-reel features at fifteen thousand dollars a production. Just that! Lollie and Harris had been the best of playfellows at that time. They weren’t any more. But the contract stood— cast-iron, unbreakable except by Lollie herself.

“The thing wouldn’t have been so bad if Lollie herself had been any good, but she wasn’t.

“Like a whole lot of girls who can look perfectly stunning in musical comedy when they’re dressed right and don’t have to move around too much or say anything, she was absolutely impossible in front of a camera. The worst of it was, she was crazy to appear on the films.

“That was about the time that Sarah Bernhardt and a lot of other great ones had taken up the silent drama, and Lollie was progressive if she wasn’t anything else. She had a good press-agent, too, and the newspapers had stood for a lot of dope about what she was going to do, and the way that ‘this new field of art’ appealed to her, and all that sort of stuff.

“There was a time-clause in her contract, moreover, so there seemed to be no way to get rid of her by just stalling.

“Thus far, she had spoiled about ninety thousand feet of perfectly good film, which was serious enough for a company beginning to hedge on expense. Then there was the loss in time and money so far as the rest of the cast was concerned.

“The loss was even greater in the matter of directors. The Daguerre had started out with at least three decent ones. Lollie had put them all into the scrap-heap. They could drill her for a week, after a fashion, although she wasn’t the sort to take orders from people she considered beneath her. Then she’d come on in a scene and plop her eyes straight into the camera.

“She just couldn’t keep her eyes off the camera any more than a sparrow could keep its eyes off of a black snake.

“Arnitz was almost crying by the time he got through telling me about it. Once free of Lollie Goodelle, he said, and he could make the Daguerre Corporation the biggest thing of its kind in the world— the biggest and the most artistic.

“That was the thing that appealed to him, and to me— Art, spelled with a capital— the newest and latest and perhaps the last great art-form the world is ever to have.

“It was up to me to break Lollie or make her. That was what it amounted to. I could see that it wasn’t going to be any cinch. That one look I had had at her in the morning would have been enough even if I hadn’t heard a word. The only kind of man that could have handled her efficiently would be a cave-man with a good heavy club.

“Then, I had an inspiration. I thought of Jim Welcher, who had been my chief assistant out on the Coast. He was a caveman, all right, and I knew that he’d come on the jump if I raised my finger.”

Moore paused in his story and looked up. Mrs. Moore was standing at the door waiting for a chance to speak. She was as pretty as a picture, standing there. She begged pardon for the interruption.

“Jim wants to know if the carpenter is to begin work on the church-set or the opium-joint.”

“Tell Jim to step in here for a moment,” said Cal.

At the door through which Mrs. Cal had just gone there appeared a stout man with glasses on the end of his nose and a stubble on his chin. He was neither very well dressed nor strikingly clean. But he had the unruffled poise of a hippopotamus.

He received his instructions without a word.

“That’s Jim,” said Cal, when the apparition was gone.

He resumed the story where he had left off.

“Arnitz and I put our heads together, and Arnitz agreed with me. He would have agreed with anything, just then. It was a case of getting the Lollie Goodelle business straightened out or going out of business altogether.

“We telegraphed a hurry-call to Jim. He was with us inside of a week, and we got ready to take up the work where the last director had left it off.

“I had hopes at first that we could salve something of those ninety thousand feet which had already been taken with Lollie doing her Hortense right through the middle of them. I went over most of those films myself with a magnifying glass.

“I never got so sick of a girl’s face in my life. Lollie simply would not register. Some faces are like that. It’s a matter of the eyes, principally, and a lot of other things.

“Than I went over the scripts that had been written for her. There was some fool clause in her contract which even regulated that. Lollie was not to appear in a production unless she had approved the scenario. You can imagine what that meant.

“They were all alike. You know— Cinderella stuff! Girl starts out poor and sweet and innocent and winds up wearing diamonds! It was to groan! When Lollie was in calico she looked about as innocent as the Rube in a burlesque show. When she had her jewels on she looked like herself, and that was even worse.

“The best of the scripts— and they were all rotten— was entitled ‘The Maid from Afar.’ She told me so ha-self. This was her favorite. And do you know why? Because she liked the sound of that damfool title when it was attached to her name: ‘Lollie Goodelle in The Maid from Afar.’

“I had Jim Welcher there to help me, at any rate. I didn’t mince matters with Jim, I had been stalling along with Lollie waiting for Jim to get there, and I told Jim so.

“ ‘Jim,’ I said, ‘you’ve got to do it. Until we’ve put over at least one of these productions,’ I said, ‘you’re the director and I’m your assistant— that is,’ I was careful to add, ‘whenever we’re working Lollie. You’re a two-handed man,’ I reminded him, ‘and you can handle a woman like that where she’d make me look like thirty cents.’

“Personally, I had discovered during those first few days before Jim came that I could never have been able to handle the job alone. I was sensitive. Women always had frightened me. It must have been the cowboy in me.

“Fellows who have ridden around on the plains a lot with nothing but steers and their memories to look at are apt to get that way— thinking women are supernatural, a little higher than the angels, a sort of cross between your own mother and the girl on the cover of a last year’s magazine.

“But Jim had never been troubled with imagination— except once. And he had had a lot of experience with women, too; I always left it to him to tell a girl that she' wouldn’t do, out there in Santa Barbara; when, as often as not, they had come from Denver or Kansas City to get a job.

"There was something final about Jim. No girl ever thought of crying to him, or pleading with him, or hoping he’d change his mind, any more than if he had been a thunderstorm or a chunk of beef.

“Jim had been a horse wrangler in his early days. Even yet, down there in Broadway, whenever a horse goes past those Indian eyes of his light up, and if he cared to he could tell you all about that horse— its disposition, its likes and dislikes, whether it was happy or not, and the right way to handle it.

“He doesn’t look the part, but he’s always been like that with women, too.

“He says it himself: ‘Wrangle horses, you can wrangle women.’

“I saw that same sort of a look in his eyes the first time that I pointed Lollie out to him. She was all powdered mid painted up, and she was wearing clothes and things that made all the women within a block turn and stare. Jim himself was staring at her as if she were some new sort of mustang.

“Jim hardly had anything to say. I don’t blame him very much. Speech seems to be an effort to him, his voice is so heavy; and he’s always hoarse.

“Well, he sort of heaved himself up.

“ ‘I don’t know how to direct,’ he said.

“ ‘I know you don’t,’ I replied, ‘but you know how to take orders, and you’ve always been a wonder when it came to wrangling that sort of stock.’

“Jim sort of grunted. The race was on.

“I'll never forget the first time that Jim and Lollie got acquainted. I was the official introducer. I had got Jim fixed up somewhat for the occasion— a fresh shave, lots of bay rum, a red necktie, the biggest pair of patent-leather shoes in New York. I got him to keep his glasses in his pocket.

“I hauled one of the throne-chairs out of the property room and installed Jim in it in a corner of my office. I had just given him his final instructions when Lollie breezed in.

“I had been feeding her up quite a little with the kind of talk she liked— all about her temperament, and exactly why the public was crazy about her, and how jealous the other girls in the studio were every time she showed up.

“I was getting her ready for the jolt that meeting Jim was bound to give her. She got the jolt, all right.

“ ‘Oh, Miss Goodelle,’ I said, ‘this is Mr. Welcher, your new director. He’s the one who discovered Pavlowa and also Mary Garden. Griffith is a pupil of his. Daniel Frohman wanted him, but when he found out that you were to be the star—’

“She was looking at Jim without any great enthusiasm, but with interest enough, as if he had been some sort of a wild animal. Jim broke in on me.

“ ‘What’d you say her name was?’ he asked, in that deep, hoarse voice of his.

“That’s the way it began. And when I went out of the office and left them together I sort of had the feeling that the affairs of the Daguerre Moving Picture Corporation were not as black as they had been before Jim came on.

“There were still enough hopeless features of the case, though, to drive any one to the verge of insanity.

“Lollie could be tamed, all right, but no power on earth could make an actress of her. No power on earth could make those shifty eyes of hers register. She looked like sin.

“We were still wasting good material. We were as far from turning ‘The Maid from Afar’ into a successful feature as ever. Some pretty rotten films get over in the course of the year, take it by and large, but I knew where the limit was. And, besides, I wasn’t looking for that sort of a limit either.

“I was thinking of Arnitz, and I was thinking of my own future. Likewise, I was thinking of the Daguerre. If there ever was a producing corporation in need of a success it was the Daguerre just then.

“Jim did a lot of thinking and grunting; but, as usual, he had nothing to say, not even when I jumped on him. My conscience hurt me whenever I did jump on him, too; for Jim was doing his best. Not only that. He was taking all sorts of punishment from Lollie Goodelle herself.

“You never saw a lady in a temper unless you saw Lollie in one of her favorite moods. She shied a property-rock at Jim one day and came within an ace of braining him.

“Great comedy stuff, if we could only have got it; but it was just like Lollie to pull all this up in the office, or while the camera-man had his back turned, or was changing films. She was that kind.

“Jim worked several innovations in the directing profession which I have never seen tried elsewhere.

“We can use only two walls of a set in a dark studio. That’s why you often see such a breeze blowing the tablecloth around in a kitchen scene or the papers blowing off of the desk when the desperate broker commits suicide. It isn’t because the window is open. It’s because the two walls of the room you don’t see aren’t there at all, their place being required for the lights and the camera.

“Jim’s first innovation was to have that throne-chair installed in every set; only, it was out of the picture and for him to use. He’d sit there, silent and glum, making Lollie pose for him. It was just her vanity that made her do it at first, but I guess that by the time she wanted to cut it out she had already lost something of her independence.

“It was when Jim tried to get her to do real work that the excitement got tense.

“The first time that Lollie went through a whole scene and discovered that there hadn’t been any camera there she began to pick at her spangles and twitch and hiss. It was the signal for Jim to spring his second innovation.

“This was a Chinese gong, about a yard in diameter. A couple of carpenters rolled it up to where Jim sat. He hit it a blow and it let out a roar like a lion. After that he gave all his signals with it and all his criticisms.

“One bang meant to stop the action; two to start over again, and the long roll, which sounded like election night on Broadway, meant that the business was rotten.

“It was on the second gong day that Lollie threw the rock at Jim. I think she’d have chucked the job right then, but it seems that her lawyer had warned her to stick it out.

“We had a pretty big studio by that time. Some days we were working as many as five companies at once. And it got so that we had to put up notices in all the dressing-rooms that any one stopping work or running to see what it was about when that gong sounded would be fined.

“Everybody connected with the Daguerre knew all about Jim and Lollie by now, and there wasn’t one of them who Lollie hadn’t insulted in some way or other. If we’d have let them, they’d have been there all day— Jim sitting there in the throne chair tapping on the gong, while Lollie tore her hair and called him names.

“Arnitz himself was there two or three times.

“ ‘How do you think it’s coming out?’ he asked.

“ ‘Great,’ I told him.

“ ‘But she can go into court,’ he said, ‘and show how much work she’s done, and the chances are that we’ll have to come across with half of that eighty thousand, if not all of it.’

“To tell the truth, I have been worried about that part of the deal myself. Several times I had broached the matter to Jim. ‘I’ll fix her,’ he’d say, and that was all I could get out of him.

“I went it blind. I said to Arnitz: ‘You leave it to Jim, he’ll fix her.’ Arnitz was game. Besides, Jim had become his only hope as well as mine.

“Shall I confess it? I believe that secretly I was hoping that Lollie would get sick— or something like that. No danger, though!

“I had found out a lot about her. She had a father still working somewhere in a boiler factory. His name was Snugger, or Smugger— I forget which. Her mother still took in washing over in the old home-flat on Eleventh Avenue, where Lollie had been brought up to the music of the freight trains.

“The funny part of it is that Jim never protested. He took everything that she handed him and never made a chirp. But he was like a bulldog. That was the nature of him. He never let up in a scrap. That was why I had been so sure of him.

“And something else. I could see that, in spite of all her display of cussedness and temper, he was getting some sort of a hold over Lollie. I couldn’t understand it. But there are so many things that a director never understands where the women of his company are concerned that this phase of the question scarcely came into my mind until a little later on.

“At any rate, Jim was using his gong less and less.

“One day Jim came to me and proposed that we go out on location. In this picture, that meant over to the Jersey shore under the Palisades. It was a location that Jim and I had picked out the Sunday before.

“That, by the way, is a part of the director’s work that the fans seldom think about. They see some ‘beloved idol of the silent drama’ take a tumble over a cliff. They don’t stop to remember that Mr. Idol has a safe and solid stirrup of leather and piano wire around his ankle to hold him safe, and that long before he took the fall some lonely director poked around that cliff to get the location and then went through the act himself three or four times to show how it ought to be done.

“I did have hopes of this scene. The camera was to be placed well up on a shelf of the cliff which had to be reached by a rope and ladder. From there we could shoot the river bank down below with a telescopic lens.

“I had it figured out that even the unspeakable Lollie would be presentable at that distance. All that she had to do, moreover, was to ‘walk through’ a few times dressed in a sort of nightgown and gazing pensively up at the sea-gulls.

“ ‘It’s a fine day,’ said Jim. ‘Better get this exterior filmed while it’s clear. Well take care of the interiors later on when the little lady has more confidence.’

“I looked at him with a smile. That ‘little-lady’ stuff where Lollie Goodelle was concerned was some joke.

“We arranged our schedule. Lollie had a limousine that somebody had given her. It was big enough for a dressing-room, and that’s what she used it for the few times that she had thus far been out with us.

“It was agreed that she and Jim should be on the river shore by eleven-thirty. At that time the sun would be just right, sprinkling ripples all over the surface of the Hudson and casting no awkward shadows. Also, it would give Connie Luft, my camera-man, and me time to go around by the top of the cliff and climb down to the shelf from which we were to shoot.

“You know what the country is like over there. There are places where you could toss a cracker to some one down on the shore, but it would take a five-mile detour to get to where the other fellow is without breaking you neck.

“Connie Luft and I were in the little runabout we use when we’re out on location. Lollie and Jim were in the big limousine. We parted at the Hoboken Ferry, for they were to take the shore road and we were to go up the hill.

“I remember yet how Lollie looked, all dressed up as if she were going to a reception, sort of grinning, her wicked eyes glittering. And I was mighty glad that I didn’t have Jim’s place there at the side of her.

“But Jim didn’t seem to mind it. He was all dressed up too. That had become a habit of his since he got promoted to a full-blown directorship with a star on his hands. He was leaning back in the upholstery with one of his chins on his bosom and his small eyes closed.

“It seems now that I must have experienced some sort of a shiver when I saw them there together, that I must have had some premonition that the day wasn’t going to turn out according to schedule. I know this— that it did recall another time when I saw Jim sitting down with his eyes closed, comfortable, as if he had been asleep.

“I was only a boy then, and Jim was at the height of his horse-wrangling days. My father was on the road with a stock company, and he had sent me to the ranch where Jim worked. That’s where we got acquainted.

“On the very first day I had seen a big, dark man taking a nap in the horse-corral. There was only one horse in the corral, and it was showing the whites of its eyes. I found out afterward the horse was a man-killer—just naturally went out of its way to get hold of people.

“It came sneaking up on this man, more like a wolf than a bronk. It was almost on him, when the man opened his eyes. The man never budged, but the broncho gave a snicker and began to run. The man was Jim.

“ ‘Good-by, Jim,’ I called, as he sat there in the big auto.

“I was feeling sorry for him. Afterward I was glad that I did. That little touch of sympathy was to wipe many a sharp word from my conscience, as I went over and over our long acquaintance in the days that followed.

“But, as I said, Jim didn’t seem to think there was any occasion for sympathy. I don’t believe he even opened his eyes. At any rate, he didn’t say anything. The big limousine was still standing there outside the ferry-house, as the runabout with Connie and me in it began to climb the hill. The road turned. The limousine was out of sight, and I was thinking of business again.

“A wild country it was, after a while— woods, wide pasture, rocks, hardly any houses.

“Jim and Lollie had had plenty of time. So had Connie and I. We were in place and had the camera sighted by eleven.

“It was a little pocket scooped right out of the face of the Palisades, and both Connie and I had almost broken our backs getting down to it. I still had both eyes so full of dust that I was half blind. But there was the camera, safe and sound, with a thousand feet of fresh film in its in’ards. The light was perfect.

“So much, and then I was getting the surprise of my life. Was I seeing things? I gouged at my eyes, but what with tears and sand, that merely made matters worse.

“ ‘Shoot! Shoot!’ I ordered, and Connie, with his head under the hood, began to turn the crank.

“Lollie had come running into the location marks down on the shore as pretty and graceful as an escaped leopard. She was dressed for the part as I had dreamed of her being dressed— simple little frock, hair down her back, old shoes.

“That was just the impression I got. But even with my eyes more or less out of commission it was the gracefulness of her and her real acting that was making ’em dizzy.

“Connie tried to talk to me from under his black cloth. I told him that if he stopped turning that crank or let the girl down there get out of the picture, I’d maim him for life. I think I told him something like that. Anyway, he did what I told him.

“He was winding off the stuff as if his arm was part of a clock, and I could tell by the way his big, fat muscles tightened up that he was on the job for keeps.

“I was thinking of a whole lot of things— of how Arnitz looked that first night we met in the actors’ boarding-house, of how all of us had been brought to the edge of ruination by Lollie Goodelle. And I was thinking a lot of old Jim Welcher, too, who was saving all our lives, and how I had cussed poor old Jim out while I should have been buying him flowers.

“The scene was going great. It was going even greater than I could have hoped. The girl down on the shore was putting in a lot of business that we had never talked about. I was telling myself that Jim had hypnotized her. She had cast a look about her, as if to see that the coast was quite clear.

“She did a sort of dance— Greek stuff, like Isadora Duncan— her arms up and her head down. Her loose hair was fluttering in the breeze and the sunshine. Then she stood still for a while with her hands out, as if she were calling some one, and I’ll be switched if a flock of gulls didn’t come circling around her, closer and closer, looking for something to eat.

“I wondered where Lollie had ever learned that trick, and I was thinking of Jim again. There are some mighty queer things in human nature— none of them queerer than what some men can do with some women.

“ ‘Get it,’ I kept telling Connie.

“Suddenly, those gulls began to squeak and back-water, and they were gone. I saw the reason for it. A big, husky man came running up.

“ ‘That’s Jim,’ I said, and I was so crazy-mad at him for dashing into the picture like that that I forgot all about the nice things I had just been telling myself about him. I was so mad that I couldn’t say a word.

“I couldn’t shout to him. I couldn’t tell Connie to cut it. I just stood there as if I’d got a blow on the head.

“But it wasn’t very long before I noticed something else. Jim also was in makeup. That’s the way I figured it out— that in that silent, meditative way of his he had doped out a lot of stuff not in the scenario. Whatever it was, it was great.

“It was Connie Luft that brought me to life. He hadn’t stopped turning the crank, not even when he worked his head out of the black cloth.

“ ‘But that ain’t Lollie,’ he said; ‘it can’t be. That ain’t Lollie. This girl is pretty, and she knows how to act. ' We’re takin’ somebody else’s stuff,’ said Connie.

“I believe that if he hadn’t been following orders in the matter of keeping the crank of his camera going around I would have carried out that threat of mine and brained him or something. He saw the way I looked, and he ducked back under the camera-cloth like a fat ostrich looking for cover.

“But from then on right to the end I could hear him sort of sobbing, every now and then: ‘It ain’t in the script! It ain’t in the script!’

“I’m not like some directors, who never let any but their own fair eyes see the manuscript of a scenario. I had talked so much with Connie about ‘The Maid from Afar,’ and we had been working on it so long that Connie knew that cursed script as well I did myself.

“I didn’t need him to tell me, though, that what was going on down there on the beach was not according to the script.

“Lollie had seen to that. A lot of posing, some emotional stuff with the eyes, no action— that was her ideal of a scenario. She wasn’t altogether a fool. She must have known, down deep in her heart, that she couldn’t act. And she must have been surer yet that she didn’t care for any rough action with a big husky man to play opposite.

“But there was action enough for any one in what was going on under the cliff, and we were getting all of it.

“The big man who might have been Jim— who must be Jim— had come running forward until he was well within the location marks.

“The girl registered perfect dismay. She started to run. She thought better of it. She turned around and faced him. He halted a moment. He was on his guard— great acting, too.

“Both of them were keeping right in the centre of the location-mark. I could see that some sort of a fight was coming off. There was.

“The girl picked up a piece of rock. That must have been suggested, I thought, by the scrap that Jim and Lollie had had in the studio. She picked up the rock. He tried to parley with her for a while— she holding him off. Then he made a sudden plunge and grabbed a piece of drift-wood.

“Bing!

“She had basted him with the rock. It must have hurt him too. I could tell the way he cringed. But it didn’t stop him.

“All crouched up, like a charging rhinoceros, he was making for her. She was game. Instead of going backward, which might have taken her out of the picture, she jumped forward and made a grab for the stick. She got hold of it. Then began a fight that would have made Carmen jealous.

“It was like a hound and a bear, or a ferret and big fat rabbit. All this, with the sparkling river for a background. That fight went by rounds. There wasn’t a thing in it that even the Ohio censors would object to, and yet it was all action, and all different sorts of action.

“Just about the time I thought that the thing was going too far, what happens but that a big steam launch, of the picturesque, old-fashioned sort, should come puffing in from the open river. There were a lot of laborers in it, bound for one of the quarries up the river, no doubt.

“While the boat was still twenty feet or so away from the shore, a young fellow jumped out of it. He made a fine splash, for he landed in water up to his waist; and the white foam was getting the sunlit.

“I could just see how it was all going to come out on the screen. So could Connie, I guess; for I could hear him heaving while he worked, not talking any more. He was an artist too.

“There was a great rescue scene. The young fellow had butted in right away, and then he was getting help from the other fellows who had followed him out of the boat— a tough-looking crew, and every one of them acting in a way that would have done credit to Ed Sothern. Oh, I knew it was too good to last.

“Suddenly, Connie came up gasping from under his camera-cloth.

“ ‘I got to change the film,’ he said. He was almost crying.

“It was true. He had run out his full thousand feet of it. What is more, every foot of that thousand turned out perfect, too. How perfect, no one knows better than myself, for it was to become a part of the greatest money-maker that the Daguerre or any other company ever produced.

“It’s running yet— Spain, Portugal, East Africa, and elsewhere. It’s good for another year still, and longer. For we took the whole of that magnificent first thousand we got on the river-shore, cut it up and made it the basis of a five-reel drama.

“No; we didn’t call it ‘The Maid from Afar.’ We called it ‘The Smuggler’s Daughter.’ I don’t know why, but the world loves a smuggler— so long as the smuggler doesn’t use an ocean-liner in his trade.

“I see you’ve guessed that, too. You’re right. It wasn’t Lollie and Jim down there on the shore. As a matter of fact, I wasn’t to see Jim again for another six months. That was when he came back to look for a job. Lollie, I was never to see again.

“I heard the other day that she had taken another husband— a Swedish masseur who claims to be a count— so she must have got a divorce. But she had broken her own contract. The Daguerre was free and flourishing.”

At this point in Cal’s narrative, President Arnitz of the Daguerre Corporation came into the room. He still looked young. His crinkly hair still stood up straight from his high forehead, and he was otherwise a little bald. But he looked anything else than run-down and overworked.

“Hello, Cal,” he said, at sight of his favorite director.

“Hello, Ben,” said Cal; “I was just telling the boys about Lollie Goodelle.

“And about the wonderful woman who took her place,” put in President Arnitz.

He straddled a chair and slowly lit a banded cigar. He squinted reflectively through the blue smoke with an air of contentment as he listened to the end of the story.

“You see,” Cal went on, “as soon as Connie told me that he had used up his film and I saw that my presence where I was could do no more good, I started down the cliff. Most of the way I was sliding on my face.

“I felt as if I had been both skinned and undressed by the time I got there. Maybe I looked it. The big man who had been fighting with the girl broke loose and ran the minute he saw me.

“That settled it so far as he was concerned. It wasn’t Jim.

“As for the girl, I don’t know how I ever could have taken her for Lollie, except that, when we are waiting for and expecting some one, especially some woman, every one who comes along looks like the person we want to see. But this girl was younger. The only make-up she had on was what good health and excitement had put there.

“Along about this time, a whistle blew; and the men from the steam-launch said that they had to go. I told them to go ahead, that the girl was safe. She seemed to know that she was, too, for she smiled at me, then smiled at them and thanked them for taking her part.

“She told me all about the fellow she had fought, as soon as we were alone. It was her step-father, no less, who had a habit of showing up every now and then and trying to get even with her because she had insisted that her mother get rid of him when he turned out to be a bad egg.

“She took me up to see her mother, in a little cottage around a shoulder of the cliff. ‘And, madam,’ I said— I could see that they were as poor as church-mice— ‘if you’d like to have your daughter earn good money as a moving picture actress, I think I could get her a start.’

“But first let me finish with Lollie and Jim.

“It was just six months before Jim showed up again. That was the day that he came around to the studio and asked me if I thought I’d give him his job back. Give him his job back! I could have hugged him.

“Lollie’s contract was definitely broken. She had broken it herself. We didn’t owe her a cent. The Daguerre was starting in on a boom that hasn’t let up since.

“ ‘Jim,’ I said, ‘first tell me what you did with Lollie.’

“ ‘I found I couldn’t do anything with her,’ he said, in that hoarse whisper of his. ‘I told you I couldn’t direct.’

“ ‘But you made her break her contract,’ I reminded him, ‘and that’s worth a thousand. How did you manage it?’

“ ‘It was a fine day,’ Jim whispered. ‘We was over in Jersey. I got a feelin’ sorry for you and Mr. Arnitz. I seen that there was only one thing to do; so I—’

“ ‘You!’

“ ‘Yep,’ said Jim; ‘I married her.’

“She had run off and left him, after those six months— or less. Jim didn’t seem to mind it. He wasn’t looking for sympathy. We gave him none. But we gave him the thousand.”

“Tell them about the little lady who had the step-father,” suggested President Arnitz, contentedly.

“The strange thing about her was that she couldn’t act either,” said Cal. “That wasn’t acting, down there on the shore. It was real. It was earnest. It was life. That’s why the film made such a strong appeal to the public. You can trust the public’s judgment as to genuine and counterfeit. The girl was as pretty as a picture—”

“And was to make a wonderful assistant-director,” droned President Arnitz.

He paused and snatched his cigar from his mouth. Both he and Cal were looking toward the door. Mrs. Cal stood there, young, smiling, as pretty as a picture in very truth.

“We were just telling them,” said Cal, “about your accidental debut in photoplay.”

_________________________

20: The Hands of Killian

Perley Poore Sheehan

Liberty July 11, 1925

IN THOSE days there was a poker room above Jo Eddington’s saloon, and those of us who used to sit in did so chiefly because it was Cornelius Quirk who was in charge of the kitty. Anyway, after Cornelius left Hamilton the game languished, then died.

With the poker room accumulating dust, a young lawyer moved into town from Seven Mile and rented the place as an office. He cleaned it up and kept the shutters open. Then, partly through force of habit and partly because the new tenant was almost as interesting as Cornelius had been, the old crowd began to drift back again, and talk.

The lawyer had never seen Cornelius, but he must have learned a lot about him. Finally he moved away— became a rich and famous judge.

Then, far away from the old town and after the lapse of years, he and Cornelius met. It’s often like that— a story of the great world with its beginnings in some obscure and all but forgotten Hamilton.

There’s a woman in the story, too, and an element of music. Judge and gambler, a beautiful woman, music....

Essentially, though, this is a story about hands.

We used to watch Cornelius’ hands— and
listen to them— when Cornelius himself was thinking of something else or was just plain absent-minded. His fingers would close over a stack of chips, then play the chips up and down with a tinkle of sheer, unadulterated music.

It was the same thing when he shuffled the cards. He’d split the deck— or his hands would— and spring the cards together again with a note you’d try to remember. It seemed as if he— or his hands— could get music out of anything: the rattle of a dice box, the tapping of ice in a pitcher; but always, you might say, unawares. And the reason for putting it this way is that Cornelius himself wasn’t musical at all. Music jarred on him ; it made him peevish. His musical sense was in his hands only; and he and his hands were, in some way, opposed to each other, almost at war.

They have a pair of hands in the Vatican Library in Rome— plaster casts made more than a thousand years ago; and they say that the originals belonged to a certain master-harper who wandered down into Italy from old Erin. The myth and tradition of those hands may have been faked; not their beauty. Just to look at them— supple, sagacious, angelic— is to hear again the music they made and to know that their music could have cured folks of the palsy or broken a woman’s heart.

Cornelius’ hands were like that.

So Sylvia Bonner said. And she should have known. She was to observe Cornelius’ hands as much as anyone, and she’d spent several years abroad.

Sylvia was the daughter of old Jake Bonner, the county’s foremost maltster. It was Jake’s idea to marry Sylvia off to one of the Mulhauser boys, who had inherited the brewery where Jake had begun his career as a keg washer. And we were all inclined to feel sorry for Sylvia, in spite of her money. She was a slim, pale blonde— as pretty as the girl in a fairy tale— but with something that was silent and wistful about her. She didn’t have any mother, and she’d been to so many private schools she’d never even had a regular chum.

Then, one day, there she was— walking down High Street and over the bridge, and the whole town looking on— with Cornelius Quirk at her side.

It had begun in front of the post office, where Sylvia had dropped some envelopes. Cornelius, being the only one near, had picked them up for her.

Sylvia held him. She thanked him. The postmaster saw her blush and smile. She had a request to make.

Would Mr. Quirk mind coming over to the house some time? She had something, there she wanted to show him.

“Now’s as good a time as any,” Cornelius answered, with his gambler’s nerve.

Cornelius had never heard about that stream of singers and wise men who had once flowed out of Ireland as missionaries to the rest of the world, but he looked with interest at the plaster casts Sylvia wanted him to see. They were replicas of the hands in the Vatican.

“The hands of Killian the Harper,” she told him; and she recited the legend that went with them— how Killian had fallen in love with a vestal virgin, and, how, to punish him, the pagan Romans had cut off those wonderful hands of his.

Cornelius fondled the plaster casts. His hands did. His hands looked as the plaster images might have looked had they come to life.

“And they were doomed to return to earth again,” said Sylvia, who was the girl to believe in things like that. “They were cursed.”

“ My hands are cursed,” Cornelius told her, putting the relics back into the curio cabinet with a little shudder. “ They’ve played tricks on me ever since I was a child,” he said. “ Sometimes they do what I want them to, and again it’s as if they had a will of their own.” He held out his hands and looked at them— they were always clean and beautifully kept— but there was no admiration in the look. “They sure have kept me poor,” he said.

“Why not lift the curse?” smiled Sylvia. “ You know— there’s always a way— with kind deeds and useful work.”

Cornelius came through with a confession. Work, he told her. put too much temptation in his way. It irked him, and when he was sufficiently irked about all that he could think of was how easy it would be for those hands of his to imitate a signature, or open a safe. He could open any safe— and we’ve seen him do it— just by the feel of the tumblers, and him making music of it while he twirled the knob. There was something else that Cornelius could do with his hands, if his hands were willing. Maybe he mentioned this, too. He had been picked up as a kid and educated, partly, by one of the world’s greatest experts with the engraving tools.

But Sylvia encouraged him. She was that kind— taught in the Lutheran Sunday School and played the organ in church.

Sylvia was seated in the dark church one evening, all alone, going over some new music for next Sunday’s service, when she saw the reflection of someone back of her in the little looking glass above the music rack. It was Cornelius. He had sneaked in through the side door— probably the first time he had ever been in a church in his life. She made him feel welcome, invited him to come up inside the railing.

“Do you like music?” she asked.

“Not so you’d notice it,” he told her. He was tone deaf— couldn’t tell one note from another. He said he’d never been able to make out what it was all about.

“It’s melody and harmony and rhythm,” she explained. “ It’s one of the ways men have of expressing— well, what the ocean expresses in a greater way, or the stars in a greater way still.”

Cornelius watched and listened. Presently he began to be nervous. Sylvia held a chord while he showed her his hands. She saw them tremble.

“Music affects you after all, Cornelius.”

“Not me,” he answered; “but my hands. And laugh, if you want to, but it’s as if they wanted to play.”

She didn’t laugh. “Then let them play, Cornelius,” she told him. She slid along the bench to give him room.

His hands reached out for the keys.

He was like a man who does something in his sleep. He had the look in his face of a man who is hypnotized. His fingers had found a chord. It was a feeble chord at first, but a strange one. Then it developed into something else, and Cornelius— or his hands— began to weave a variation that turned into the beginning of a song.

“That was lovely,” said Sylvia, with tears in her eyes.

It was the first of many such lessons.

All that Hamilton got out of this was the makings of a first-class scandal. In the Hamilton of that time everyone knew everyone else; and there was, strictly speaking, no such thing as a private affair. Sylvia and Cornelius were up for public debate. In whispers mostly. But Sylvia’s father didn’t whisper.

“You wait. I’ll learn that dirty bum.”

There was still a good deal of the keg washer about old Jake Bonner. There wasn’t a man in town that wouldn’t be afraid of him in a stand-up fight. Only it looked as if there wasn’t going to be any stand-up fight. Cornelius had taken to packing a gun.

We waited.

Some of us were taking a snack in Jo Eddington’s one night— a drizzly night and pretty late, with no one there but the faithful— when Cornelius sneaked in, and we saw that the thing had happened. He was bruised and muddy. He couldn’t talk. He was on the verge of a nervous collapse.

We were feeling sorry for Cornelius. We gathered around him and did what we could. And one of the boys took Cornelius’ gun away from him. There was no telling when the cops might come, and evidence was evidence. Only when Jo Eddington opened the gun we saw that it had never been fired.

“I couldn’t make ’em work,” said Cornelius, looking at his hands. “I tried to shoot,” he said, “but my hands went back on me.”

While we were still working on him old Diddely-Eye Dowd, the singer, came in with his accordion under his arm. Diddely unshipped the oil cloth cover. He began to play. We saw a change come over Cornelius. He was like a man under a spell. He went over to Diddely and took the accordion.

It was the first time that any of us had ever heard him play.

It was the first time most of us had ever guessed what music might be.

We weren’t critics. It may have been rotten; and probably was, considering the instrument. But, somehow, we forgot all about this being Jo Eddington’s saloon and a drizzly night in Hamilton. The world was young again and broad and valiant— wild young dreamers going forth alone to the conquest of pagan empires. Dowd’s blind eye was shedding tears.

Then, suddenly, Cornelius had come to himself, stone sober. He looked at the accordion as if he was surprised to find it in his hands. He passed it back, and we saw that he was trembling. He left us there. Next day we learned that he was gone.

ii

THAT young lawyer who rented the former poker room had some curious theories in connection with the case.

For example, wasn’t it possible that a man’s hands— or his feet or the lobes of his brain— should have, so to speak, an individuality, a personality, all their own? At first such a question sounded like a joke; but the more we thought about it the more logical it seemed.

Consider the heart of a man. Didn’t it often play queer tricks on him? It might even stop when everything else about him was eager to go on.

We got into it deeper yet. The lawyer posed a hypothetical question. It was something like this:

Suppose that we admit— what a certain portion of the world’s population has always claimed— that personalities come back to earth; that it’s true what the fortune tellers say about the world being full of reincarnated Caesars, Mark Antonies, and Cleopatras; then— admitting also that a pair of hands could have a personality of their own— couldn’t we concede to them a similar and independent reincarnation?

We began to feel that we had seen and touched and heard the hands of Killian the Harper. Perhaps we were wondering if, after all, Sylvia Bonner wasn’t that Roman vestal come back to earth.

The lawyer was seeing quite a good deal of Sylvia those days following the disappearance of Cornelius. He was even taking on quite a bit of legal work from old man Bonner.

But for all that, Jake hadn't abandoned his idea of marrying Sylvia to one of the Mulhauser boys. This time, though, he was up against a will as strong as his own— Sylvia’s— and Sylvia had decided, apparently, that if she couldn’t marry Cornelius Quirk she wouldn’t marry anyone.

The Mulhauser boys stopped calling. The lawyer went East. And finally old Jake died, leaving Sylvia his fortune and a father’s curse. Sylvia gave the money to the Orphans’ Home and sort of dropped out of sight.

The last we heard of her for a long time was that she was a clerk in Washington. It was a job that had been procured for her by our rich and powerful judge.

We'll call him Judge Daniel.

He had become too big a man for his own name to be used— outside of Hamilton. In Hamilton they were still talking of how the judge never did get over his love for Sylvia and that that is why he never married.

Those who had seen Sylvia in Washington said she was as beautiful as ever— blonde and slender still, with an eternal hint about her of banked fires.

We were feeling sorry for Sylvia again, especially after Jo Eddington came home from his California trip and told us about the Judge’s winter home, where he had been a guest: like an old Mexican ranch house, but up to the minute— swimming pool, kennels, a fifty-thousand-dollar pipe organ.

The Judge always had been a friend of dogs— and musicians.

It may have been this musical slant of his that kept him so steadily on the trail of Cornelius Quirk.

There for a while, it seemed, Cornelius had gone pretty steadily from bad to worse and never had quite come back again. We heard about it when he was wanted for killing a man on a Mississippi packet. They said he had shot another gambler through the back, but most of us refused to believe this, knowing what we did about his encounter with Jake Bonner. For all that, there was an indictment found against him, and it was this indictment that had eventually driven Cornelius across the border into Mexico.

He was down there, in Tijuana, running a shoddy little dice game in Mahogany Trench’s big resort, when a party of distinguished sight-seers dropped in one day. Cornelius paid no attention to the visitors until he heard a strange voice calling him by name.

“Pardon me; but aren’t you Mr. Cornelius Quirk?”

He raised his eyes for a slant, but kept the game going like well-oiled machinery. He had never seen the man before— American, distinguished, soberly dressed.

“What can I do for you? ” Cornelius asked.

“I am Judge Daniel,” said the stranger, “ and I should like to speak to you in private.”

Judge Daniel and Cornelius had dinner together that night at the Foreign Club. Possibly the Judge was testing Cornelius out before going too far. Cornelius looked all right— poor, but as clean as ever; and the climate had taken care of his health. But the Judge was too old a bird to be taken in by appearances only. He had an inquiring mind. When he re-crossed the border, late that night, Cornelius went with him.

“The first time— the first time I’ve dared to do this,” said Cornelius, “ in a dozen years.”

“You mean on account of that old indictment?” said the Judge. “That’s been quashed. You never killed a man.”

“I never did,” Cornelius replied. “But I couldn’t prove it, and days in jail are long.”

The road was dark. They were in the Judge’s big car, headed north. The air seemed sweeter every mile.

“Why didn’t you let her know?” the Judge was asking him.

“I wasn’t good enough,” Cornelius answered. “I wanted her to forget.”

“There are women who won’t forget.”

“For a time it was just that,” Cornelius said, “that I was counting on.”

He told the story of a losing fight. For almost a year after leaving Hamilton he had tried one thing after another— real estate salesman, shipping clerk, book agent, even to washing cars in a service station. But against this last sort of work his hands revolted with a kind of paralysis.

“So, at last,” he told the Judge, “I got to thinking of that old
trade of mine.”

“Gambling? ”

Cornelius shook his head. He needed money and he couldn’t get it fast enough by gambling, for every time he wanted to pull a crooked deal his hands would go back on him. No, it wasn’t gambling.

“You mean―”

“Engraving,” Cornelius nodded. “A call for some new currency down in Ecuador. I’d almost finished a perfect plate— fifty pesos. I’d been at it for twenty-four hours straight. I dozed. When I woke up the plate was scratched. My hands had done it while I slept.”

“Counterfeiting,” said the Judge.

“Counterfeiting,” said Cornelius. “ That was to help the old man who taught me the trade. But now he’s dead. I’m free. I was about ready to make a try at something― music, maybe. We change. I’ve had queer dreams. Could you imagine a man’s own hands making him afraid of them?”

“I might,” said the Judge.

“There’ve been times,” Cornelius explained, “when I woke up in the dark and found them reaching for my throat.”

iii

THEY were seated together one evening in the Judge’s office— a small room that opened off the concert room— and they had been talking about Cornelius’ future and things in general. Some of the Judge’s friends, it seemed,
had financed a factory for the making of musical instruments somewhere farther up the State and they needed a man there with hands like Cornelius’— or Killian’s— and Cornelius was going to take the job.

“We’re none of us so good,” the Judge was saying; “just earth, mostly, with a touch of the divine— a fleck of gold in the quartz. But we’re alchemists, Cornelius— or the Sylvias of the world are alchemists. They can take that fleck of gold and make it grow— grow, until with patience and— and―”

“Luck,” said Cornelius.

“Not luck, but love, Cornelius,” the Judge came back. “ And Sylvia loves you. She’s loved you all the time. I didn’t want to tell you— I couldn’t tell you— until I was pretty sure. And when I was sure I was to give you this.”

He went over to the safe beyond his desk and opened it. He brought back an oblong box that was rather heavy, sealed and carefully wrapped. He turned this over to Cornelius.

They were the hands of Killian.

Cornelius took them from their tissue paper wrappings, and his face was white. He must have been thinking of that first day that he and Sylvia Bonner had ever talked to each other. He saw that there was a card in the box. He picked this up and read:

To CORNELIUS QUIRK

This Symbol from His Friend

Sylvia Bonner

Symbol of what?— of what else than all the things that he and the Judge had Been talking about?— the spirit of a man and the love of a woman!

Cornelius touched the hands of Killian to his face. Then he set them carefully down. He was like a man who has come under a spell. He got up. He walked from the office into the concert room, which was like the chapel of a California mission. He climbed to the bench of the big new organ and turned on the air pressure as one who knows all about such things. He wasn’t hurried. He wasn’t nervous. He sat there for a while and listened to the hum and the throb of the thing: The organ was like something alive and breathing but captive, waiting for the touch that would set it free.

The Judge had a brilliant young niece who was staying with him in the house. She had studied music in Boston and Paris. She had crept into the concert room at the first sound of the organ.

“Like Saint-Saens,” she breathed.

Cornelius was a changed man when he returned to Tijuana. He had come, as he said, to settle up his estate— say good-by to his old associates, pay off a few small debts. And almost the first thing that he heard was that Mahogany Trench, the gambling boss, was looking for him and wanted to see him right away. So he went around back of the Yankee Doodle Bar to the secret door he knew about and climbed the hidden stairs to the room where the big boss transacted most of his private business.

“You’ve got a nice place here, Mr. Trench,” said Cornelius by way of getting the business started— and over with.

“ Yeh,” said Mahogany, with his eyes on the floor. He was a big man, cold and thoughtful. “I got a little job for you.”

“Thanks,” Cornelius came back. “ I’ve already got one— straight— over the border.”

“This is over the border, too,” Mahogany replied, taking his time. “I want you to open a safe.”

Cornelius kept still. There was no use rushing things.

Mahogany’s secretary came in— an ex-heavyweight with a crooked record.

“Eddie, here, will go with you,” the gambling boss went on. “He’ll do the heavy. All you’ll have to do is to twist the knob. It’s the matter of some papers that would be better off in my keeping than in the hands of him that’s got them.”

“Who’s that?” Cornelius asked. Not that it mattered very much. He was stalling. But Mahogany’s answer made him pant;

“The man you’ve been visiting, Judge Daniel.”

For the first time since the talk began, Trench was looking at him out of the corners of his eyes. Eddie also was looking at him— with his sleeves rolled up and his fists on his knees.

After a while Cornelius spoke. “The Judge is a friend of mine.”

Mahogany played his words like blue chips in a game of stud. “So was I.”

He didn’t have to say much more than that. Once, not so very long ago, in exchange for a favour that Trench had done him, Cornelius had given a promise that if the big boss ever needed him this side of murder— you know how it is. Cornelius never was a welsher, and Mahogany knew it.

“Go and get us an absinthe special,” Trench told his secretary, and Eddie padded out.

“He’s no gerver,” the boss went on, meaning that Eddie was no safeblower, “or I wouldn’t have bothered you. But you and he are the only ones I can trust.”

“Are you sure that you can trust me?” Cornelius asked.

The boss studied the situation for a long
time before answering. He was also giving Cornelius time to think.

“Well, I’ll tell you, Cornelius,” he said at last. “Once I’ve told you what it’s all about I’ll trust you all the way. These papers we want may send a certain lady friend of mine over the road for life. I happen to know she’s innocent. But I can’t prove it. Neither can she. It’s going to save me a lot of grief, and her— and you, and your friend, the Judge.”

“Suppose I went to the Judge and explained,” Cornelius began.

And got no farther. A feeling in the back of his neck told him that Eddie had returned and was standing there just back of him. There was another angle. Whom would Mahogany send out to get the papers if he, Cornelius, refused? He thought of some of the human rats he had seen since coming to Tijuana. He thought of the Judge and the Judge’s niece.

It wasn’t that Cornelius was afraid for himself. As a matter of fact, the thing that he was least afraid of just then was a crack over the head that would have ended it all. He was trying to get things straight in his mind— that’s all.

The fear didn’t get to him until late that night— almost dawn— when he and Eddie were on the last leg of their trip to the big house back beyond San Diego. The sky was full of stars, and every star was Sylvia.

He watched Eddie, the ex-heavyweight, open a window of the concert room, where all was easy. It was like breaking into a church. Then Eddie waved Cornelius through. It may have meant nothing in particular, but it was Eddie only who was armed. They were just inside the window when they both stopped short to listen, and Eddie drew his gun. They both had heard it— something that wasn’t quite right. It was like a very faint sigh, a rustling breath, so long and soft that they almost stifled themselves waiting to hear it again.

Eddie raised his gun. There was no doubt about it. There was a breathing over there. But Cornelius signalled him to remain quiet and went ahead to investigate. He was eager merely to finish this game he had started out to play— open the safe where the Judge had kept the hands, then get away. He could call for a fresh deal afterward. There should be no murder. And suddenly he could explain the sound that he and Eddie had heard. It came from the organ. Someone— most likely the Judge’s niece— had been playing and had left the air pressure on. The control was on the far side from where he stood, and he reached for it, groping a little. He was hurt— feeling again that the organ was a thing alive, a friend of his, waiting for the touch that would set it free. And then, without warning, he found himself enveloped in thunder.

His hands had done it. They had asserted themselves. They were clamped to the keys, wringing out a chord that shook the house.

For a long time Cornelius hovered between life and death there in a pleasant room where the Judge himself had carried him. Eddie had shot him twice, both bullets grooving the skull. But Cornelius was gradually coming from under. He had the best of help. Sylvia Bonner was there to nurse him.

About the first thing that Cornelius did, though, as soon as he was strong enough to whisper, was to send Sylvia out of the room and to call for the Judge. He had another confession to make. He came through clean.

The Judge gave him a kind look.

“I’m glad you told me, Cornelius,” he said. He had known all about it. The federal officers had nabbed Eddie on the road to the border, and Eddie had told all he knew.

“And Mahogany Trench?” Cornelius asked.

“Gone,” said the Judge. Forever, it developed.

A week or so later, just able to walk, Cornelius got Sylvia to help him down to the organ. He had a queer feeling that he had died and had been born again into a new but familiar personality. His white hands kissed the keys and brought such medicine out of them as would make him— and the old world— well.

“Hereafter,” he said, “they’ll be my guide— old Killian the Harper, his hands— and you.”

The Judge was leaving for the East, so he married them— the Harper and the Vestal— and left them in charge of the house.

___________________

21: A Detective's Story

Anonymous

Daily Northern Argus, Qld. 6-7 Sep 1894

YES, SIR, circumstantial evidence is a queer thing to handle. I'll tell you a very remarkable instance of it. One morning we got an intimation at Scotland Yard that a young woman named Sarah Rodney had been found in a house at Stangate, Lambeth, with her throat cut. She had been to Kempton Park on the previous day and came home late with a swellish young fellow, who had disappeared, and who, therefore, it was thought must be the murderer.

The case was given to me, and in searching the room I found underneath the murdered woman's pillow a pair of gloves with the initials R. J., traced in marking ink inside them. This seemed to me to be a very important discovery, as I believed they must have belonged to the murderer. I took them to a friend of mine, who was a dealer in these articles, and he at once said that they had been cleaned, and that probably it was the cleaner who had traced the letter.

My friend then gave me the addresses of all the people he knew in the business, for if I could discover the person who had cleaned those gloves I might most probably be able to ascertain to whom they belonged.

I called upon every name that had been given me, but no one had any recollection of my particular pair having passed through his hands. Well I was completely baffled and had almost given up all hopes of finding a trace in that direction, when one evening I dropped into the Adelphi pit to while away an hour or two. There was a very poor house, and I sat next to a young man who, between the acts entered into conversation about the actors and different plays he had soon, and presently, I hardly know how, he happened to mention he was a glove cleaner.

Lord! my heart looped into my mouth, and it was as much as I could do to restrain my eagerness. When the piece was over I invited him to have a glass with me, and we adjourned to the "Nell Gwynne". As soon as we were seated in a quiet corner, with our glasses before us and our pipes alight, I took the gloves out of my pocket and said:—

'I'm going to ask you a rum question, but did you ever happen to clean this pair of gloves! It's just to settle a bet I made the other day. Half a dozen of us were dining together at a tavern over in Lambeth, and when they'd all gone except me and another I picked up a pair of gloves and began wondering who they belonged to. My friend, who was a great betting man, and always ready on the least provocation for a flutter, says, I'll bet you a quid you don't find out who they belong to in a week.'

'Done,' I says. 'You see, I was three sheets in the wind or I would not have made such a silly wager, for I can't afford to chuck my quids about in that fashion. The only way I could think of finding out the owner was to try and drop across anybody  as had cleaned them, for I'd discovered from a hosier and glover that they had been cleaned and I've looked up lots of people in your business, but never hit upon the right one, and to-morrow the time's up, and I shall have to part.'

While I was rolling off this rigmarole my new-made friend was examining the gloves, and as his eyes fell upon the initials, he said, 'I know that mark. I've had many pairs through my hands bearing it, and, if I ain't mistaken, this very pair.'

'You don't say so!' I cried. 'Then you know the name of the owner.'

'No,' he answered; 'I don't, but I've no doubt father does.'

'Could you find that out for me tonight?'

He hesitated a little.

'It's rather too late,' he said, 'but I daresay father's up and at work, for we're very busy just now.'

Well to make a long story short, after we'd drunk up and finished our pipes, I induced my young friend to take me home with him; it wasn't very far, just up in Soho. It was a little old shop in one of the narrow streets, and a light was shining through the hole in the shutter.

My companion's knock was answered by an elderly man in his shirt sleeves, and we entered a low-ceiled shop redolent with chemical odours, and with a great number of pairs of gloves, cleaned and dirty, lying about. The son had suggested that I should not say anything about a wager and merely explain that I wanted to restore the gloves to the rightful owner.

The old man didn't look very well pleased at his son for bringing home a stranger at close upon midnight, and regarded me with a suspicious air as he said, rather sarcastically,

'You must be very particular, sir, to take so much trouble over an old pair of gloves that would hardly pay for the cleaning. I can't tell you any more about them than that I occasionally have pairs with those initials to clean from Mr Cook, the hosier and glover in ―― street. So I'll wish you good night.'

I didn't mind the least being thus civilly kicked out, having obtained the long sought for clue, though I've no doubt my young friend got a good jacketing for picking me up.

As soon as the shops were open next morning I was in ―― street. Mr Cook was at breakfast when I got there, and I had to wait for half an hour while he discussed his coffee and bacon. As soon as the gentleman appeared I handed him the gloves and told him I had been directed there by Mr Wivart— that was the name of the Soho cleaner— as the person to whom they belonged. Being a dealer in such wares Mr Cook naturally regarded with a look of contempt the shabby articles I placed upon the counter.

'I believe,' he said superciliously, 'they belong to Mr Craston, the tailor over the way, but I do not think he will be very grateful to you for restoring those things.'

'Perhaps not,' I said emphatically.

You may conceive the state of excitement I was in, for I had not the slightest doubt that I had run my fox to earth.

Mr Craston, a portly, elderly man of the real old-fashioned type, was in the shop, talking with a customer. He did not look much like a murderer; indeed, he was about the last person in the world that ordinary observer would have taken for a criminal of any kind; but we detectives never take any heed of appearances. As soon as he was disengaged I went up to him; and, showing him the gloves, asked if they were his.

'No,' he answered, promptly; 'they are my son's. What of them?'

'His son's? Ha, ha,' I thought, 'now I am right.'

'Can I see your son privately?' I asked.

I saw the old gentleman change countenance, perhaps it was my manner,

'Yes,' he said, 'if you wish it I'll send him to you,' and he showed me into the fitting-out room and left me. About three minutes afterwards a smart looking young fellow came into the room.

'You want to see me,' he said.

'Yes, please close the door. Are these your gloves?'

'Yes, I believe they are,' he said after glancing at them.

'Do you know where you left them or lost them?'

'I haven't the least idea,' he answered readily, 'unless it wasn't Kempton Park.' I could see he had blurted out those words unintentionally, for his face coloured and he looked confused. As for me, I thought the chain of evidence was now complete.

'Well it's no use beating about the bush; I'm a detective from Scotland Yard,' I said. 'These gloves were found under Sarah Rodney's pillow— the woman who was found four days ago, with her throat cut in Stangate, you know.'

He turned as white as death, and dropped into a chair, muttering 'My God.'

'It's my painful duty to arrest you on a charge of murder.'

'I swear to you,' he cried, 'that I am innocent, that I know nothing of this awful crime, that I never saw the woman in my life, though I have heard of her.'

'We are all innocent in the eyes of the law until we're proved guilty,' I said drily. '

'I can prove my innocence for I can prove an alibi,' he answered.

Well, I got him away with me without the father knowing anything about my business. But it's no use spinning my story out, so, as the fellows say in the play, 'I'll come to Hecuba.'

Young Craston easily proved an alibi; fortunately for himself he could account for every moment of his time on the night of the murder.

Then what about the gloves? you will ask. The fact was young Craston was intimate with a girl who was a relation of Sarah Rodney's and had left the gloves at her place. A day or two before the murder Sarah paid her a visit, and seeing the gloves lying about said:

'Give me those, they'll just do for me to clean about with,' and took them away there and then.

Why they were put under her pillow, of course nobody knows, nor ever will know, but that was their true story. If young Craston, however, hadn't been able to prove an alibi he might have swung for it; many a man has been hanged on evidence not a bit stronger than those gloves.

'Was the real murderer ever discovered? Never.'

____________________

22: Corporal Bob

Frank L Packard

1877-1942

Australian Women's Weekly 14 April 1934

CORPORAL BOB MARSTON, North-West Mounted Police, shuffled the greasy cards wearily and laid them perfunctorily in little piles on the table before him. Then he swept them petulantly into a confused heap.

He had played solitaire for two weeks, and the diversion had lost its attraction. The strain of the situation was getting on his nerves.

He pushed back his chair and walked to the single window that the hut boasted. From the lean-to behind the little shanty came the mournful whine of the sledge dogs. He gazed drearily out on the endless plain of white. As far as his eyes could reach there was nothing to vary the monotonous miles of snow, save here and there a cluster of gaunt, naked trees.

"Bob!"

Marston turned from the window to the corner where Jack Evans lay tossing restlessly on his bunk. He raised the sufferer's head awkwardly, and poured a few drops of water between the parched lips.

"Well, old chap?" he asked.

Evans' eyes opened to rest curiously for a moment on Bob's face, then he whispered feebly:

"Been pretty bad, ain't I?"

Bob nodded.

"Yep," he said tersely. "Better now, though."

Evans closed his eyes an instant; the light hurt them.

"How's the grub?" he asked suddenly.

"Grub? Grub's all right— lots of it," replied Bob shortly turning his back to Evans under pretence of lighting his pipe. Conscious that the sick man's eyes were on him, Bob crossed the room and began to poke the pitifully inadequate fire into a cheerier blaze.

"That," said Evans, slowly and deliberately, "is a darned lie!"

The stick in Bob's hand dropped with a crash to the floor.

"It ain't no use," continued Evans "tryin' ter bluff me. Ye're a good feller, Bob, an' white clean through; but I ain't been so sick but what I know it's two weeks er more I been on this here bunk, an' the day afore I was taken down we was plannin' ter strike fer the fort. 'Cause why? 'Cause thar warn't only a week's grub left. That's why!"

Corporal Marston squinted at him a minute through the immense puffs of smoke he was emitting.

"You know too blamed much for your own good, you do," he growled.

"Thet ain't all, neither," resumed the sick man, nervously plucking the fluff of the coarse blanket.

"The heavy storms air a-comin' on wuss'n the one thet ketched us. 'Twouldn't hev been no easy job ter make the fort a week ago. Every day makes it wuss, dogs gettin' weaker an weaker, an'—

"Shut up!" snarled Bob. Every nerve in his body seemed to jangle discordantly. He passed his hands over his eyes in an effort to still the violent throbbing in his head. Desperately he pulled himself together, knocked the ashes from his pipe, placed it carefully in his pocket, and marched over to the bed.

"You shut up!" he repeated peremptorily, his hands stuck deep in his trousers pockets. "I'm in command of this expedition. All you've got to do is obey orders."

A little red flush of resentment tinged the pale drawn features.

"I'm no chicken at this business," said Evans querulously. "Ten years I've been on duty in this God-forsaken country. Yer talk's jest baby talk, so it is. Don't ye think I know!" he cried, his voice rising stronger in emotion, "that it's sure death ter stay another day? I can't go, so I got ter cash in; but yer stayin' don't help none. You hike out fer the fort while you got the strength left. What's the use uv yer goin' down in' out jest 'cause I hev ter?"

Bob's lips twitched nervously.

"I ought to feel like smashing you for that," he said with painful slowness, "only you're sick— an'— somehow, I guess I'm kind of out of sorts."

Neither of the men spoke for a time that seemed ages to them both. Finally, Evans raised himself painfully on his elbow.

"I'm in dead earnest, Bob, an' I'm goin' ter hev my say. I seen you kiss that photograph last night when you thought I was asleep. I ain't got a soul in all the world what cares a cuss about me. I ain't sayin' but it's my own fault; thet's neither 'ere ner thar. 'Tain't fittin' fer you ter stay. It's murder, that's what it is— jest murder! An' I ain't a-goin' ter hev it on my conscience. An', so help me God," he finished solemnly, "ye're a-goin' ter make tracks!"

Bob moistened his lips with his tongue as he leaned over the bunk.

"There'll be a search party after us in a day or so," he said, thickly.

"Search party nothin'—"

But Bob's hand closed over the other's mouth. He turned Evans over with his face to the wall, and drew the coverings up around him.

"Go to sleep," he commanded sharply. "Maybe I'll go out by and by and try for a shot."

He took his gun from  the corner, drew the chair up to the table, and began to polish an already spotless barrel. After a time his exertions relaxed, and the gun was allowed to slip gradually to the ground. He leaned forward with the elbows on his knees, his chin resting in his hands, his eye staring hard before him.

Once or twice he moved, shifting his position restlessly. He groaned aloud in anguish, then started with a guilty glance towards the corner. The figure on the bed was motionless.

Bob hitched his chair around until he faced the door with his back to the bunk. His hand stole into his pocket. He took out a photograph and laid it reverently on his knee. The eyes that looked into his seemed pleading with him to come back. He shook his head sadly as he lifted the picture to his lips.

"Oh, Mary!" The words welled up from the heart of the man with its immensity of yearning; the lips that scarcely moved to form them trembled piteously. His head sank down again between bowed shoulders. "My Mary!"

Suddenly he straightened up, his hands clenched tight in fierce resentment—and how chimerical! Everything was chimerical!

He drew his hand peevishly over his face; the photograph fell unheeded to the floor. His bloodshot eyes fastened themselves on the fur mat that hung before the little doorway leading to the dogs' quarters. Slowly he rose to his feet, and on tiptoe began to cross the room towards it, his hands stretched out before him like one groping in the dark. His face, sullenly averted from the sick man's corner, was drawn and haggard, ashy white, with the workings of his reeling brain. Trembling as with the ague, he pushed aside the mat and let it fall behind him; then he paused to wipe the great beads of sweat from his forehead.

"What's wrong with me?" he muttered plaintively. "It's a square deal. The fool suggested it himself; I'd never have thought of it if he hadn't. Lie down, confound you!" he snarled, with a vicious kick at the dogs that whined around him.

They huddled back into the corner, crouching in fear before this new master whom they did not know. Bob stooped and hauled the sled into the middle of the shed. He began to fumble with the gear.

"There's more harness than I want," he babbled, with a curious chuckle. "Didn't bring any spare ones, either; there must be more dogs somewhere." He commenced to count them. "One-two-three-four; where's the others? Dead. Of course they're dead! Knew it before, only I must have forgotten."

He sat down on the sled and began to tell off the details on his fingers."

"Four dogs— two hundred miles— no rations— Mary?"

There was a note of interrogation in the last word. Who was Mary? Yes, he remembered now— there had been a picture, hadn't there? He felt in his pockets. Well, it didn't matter, he must have lost it. Nothing mattered! He was going away from this hell of torment, away from—

He bounded to his feet, shivering in every limb. What was that?

Stealthily he edged towards the doorway, and cautiously lifted a corner of the rug to peer through into the room beyond. His eyes mechanically followed Evans' movements, as from the floor, where he had fallen in an effort to leave his bunk, the sick man slowly and painfully pulled himself to his feet, swaying to and fro as he clutched desperately for support.

There was a moment's quiet as Evans steadied himself; then Bob started nervously. The slow, faltering words seemed to reach him from some great distance.

The sick man slowly and painfully pulled himself to his feet.

"I ain't never prayed afore, God," was the piteous confession, "an' I ain't no kind uv right ter now; but seems 's if I'd orter. You know how 'tis, God, an' how on account uv me Bob's figurin' ter stick it out. 'Tain't fit ner proper fer me what has nary chick ner child ter stand atween him an' her. Oh, God! I don't know how ter pray, but thar ain't no call fer Bob ter die!"

Evans' voice broke with a half sob as he fumbled for his words. Bob stirred uneasily. A faint glimmer of reason had come to him, and he understood that Evans was praying that he, Bob, shouldn't die. Well, he wasn't going to die. He was going away. He'd almost forgotten that. He was going away.

Evans' voice was firmer as he continued :

"An' so, God, thar ain't no other thing for me ter do." His hand groped beneath the blanket. "Jest make me man enough ter—"

Like a flash Bob's awakening came in all its bitterness. With a cry he dashed across the room and knocked up Evans' hand. The bullet buried itself harmlessly in the rafters above their heads.

Evans staggered slowly to his feet. Between them, on the floor, lay the still smoking revolver. The sick man's glance, half defiant, half wistful, rested for an instant on Bob's face, thence he pitched forward in a death-like swoon.

Bob caught him as he fell, and lifted him tenderly back into the bunk. The room seemed stifling hot. He staggered blindly to the door, wrenched it open, and sank bareheaded upon his knees in the snow.

For a moment he stayed there motionless; then, sobbing like a little child, he poured forth the bitter weight of shame that bowed him down. And as he prayed, in the distance, faintly borne to him by the wind, came the yelping of a pack of dogs— the crack of whips— the sound of a human voice.

___________________

23: Reward of Revenge

Guy Thorne

1875-1923

Daily News (Perth) 21 Sep 1911

IN THAT great red temple of sorrow and succour, St. Thomas's Hospital, on the banks of the Thames, two young medical students were talking about half-past one on a Friday afternoon. John Dalton and Arthur Mew had passed down almost half a mile of echoing stone corridors, and crossed a neat gravel square with grass growing in the middle, from where one can see a wonderful view of the façade of the Houses of Parliament and into the  museum of the hospital. Their inspection finished, the two strolled away, into one of the main corridors of the hospital.

'What are you going to do this afternoon?' Mew said.

'I am due in theatre No. 8,' Dalton replied. 'M'Alister is operating. It is a very interesting case of crushed and severed tendons— a chauffeur in a motor smash.'

The other nodded, 'I will come too,' he said. 'There really is nothing more stimulating than to see M'Alister operating. They say he makes £30,000 a year in his private practice, but he loves to come to the hospital when there is anything very dangerous and difficult which other men will not attempt. It is a good thing the patients cannot sep him, though, when he Is at work.'

'Why?' asked Dalton. 'I have never seen him at work, you know.'

'If you had, you would know,' Mew replied. 'He is an extraordinary looking man, to begin with; but during the last year, by all account he has changed considerably. His face, never mobile and flexible, has now become almost frozen into a grim mask. He goes about his work like an automaton. His marvellous dexterity of touch and manipulation is not reflected in his face in the very least. The man might be carved out of marble.'

'Really,' Dalton replied, 'That makes me more Interested than ever from a psychological point of view. Is there not some story about him?'

Mew nodded.

'Yes,' he said, 'though, of, course, I don't know whether it is really true. These big men are always being talked about; but the story goes that a year back or so his only daughter, an awfully pretty girl, eloped with the footman, or the chauffeur, or something, and that M'Alister has never been able to find her. On the other, hand, I don't see why the fact, if that it is, should have affected him so much as it appears to have done. Dr. Milford told me that M'Alister is about one of the hardest men going. He used to lead the poor girl a dreadful life— he did not bully her, of course, actually, but ..was so cold, and stern and unresponsive, that she was crushed, and he would never, let her have any companions of her own age either. She just had to be mistress of that dark old house In Harley-street, give him his dinner when he came home, and so on. And I understand he was a man of frantic temper also when he was roused. From the butler downwards, the servants trembled before him. He used to lead this particular Johnnie, who eventually ran away with Miss M'Alister— footman, or whatever he was—a dog's life, and pay him double wages to endure It.

That is M'Alister, my boy, and the greatest living surgeon without a doubt. Sir Frederick and the rest of them cannot hold a candle to him, and he makes more money than any of them. He will indubitably take the court post in a year or so, England, in fact, can't do without him. He almost brings people back to life under his knife,'

The two men had come to tho door of the operating theatre No, 8, and entered It together. The students' portion of the place was simply a tier of marble seats, like steps, rising from within a yard of the floor of the ' theatre towards the roof at the back. Two heavy rails of copper separated spectators from the theatre Itself, The students found a seat in the front row,., and sat watching the preparations immediately below them.

The room beyond the rails was lofty and lighted entirely from the top, The walls were wholly of white gleaming tiles, like the walls of a bathroom. On one side of the long place was a row of marble basins, with gleaming hot and cold water taps of copper. There were strange copper cupboards and receptacles, where all that was necessary for the operation was being sterilised. A little jet of steam escaped quietly here and there, and the place resembled nothing so much as a vast modern kitchen where everything was scrupulously clean, bright, and well kept.

Two or three sisters, in their neat uniforms, stood at one end of the long marble counter doing mysterious things to towels and bunches of cotton wool, opening copper doors and closing them gently, talking in subdued voices one to another. All of them looked beautiful in this strange place. One of them, perhaps, alone was really pretty, but the costume of mercy and the extraordinary sense of capability and quiet power they diffused gave the calm young faces a radiance of its own that is only soon upon the faces of ministering women.

At the wash-hand basins two doctors were standing and washing their hands in steaming water, using large square cakes of pale fawn-coloured soap. As they did so they were laughing and talking to each other. The clothing they wore enormously accentuated the likeness of the whole place to a gigantic kitchen. They were dressed entirely in white linen, with round white linen caps like  those of a French chef. One might Imagine them about to make an omelette or prepare a soup. This washing of the hands, however, continued for full five minutes, until wrists and fingers, upon which the life of the coming patients might depend, were absolutely germ proof and sterilised. When they had finished, the sisters handed them sterilised towels, and then each took a sterilised half-mask of white linen, and fixed it just above the nose and below the eyes, covering the whole bottom part of the face. Garbed thus, only the eyes were seen, and no breath from mouth to nostril might fall upon an open wound.

Almost immediately afterwards a tall, clean shaven man, dressed as the others were, walked, with short, noiseless steps into the theatre. It was the famous M'Alister. With a curt nod to the other doctors, he also went through the hand washing process, and donned the curiously disfiguring mask of white. The students whispered and nodded to each other as the great man stood ready.

There was the faint sound of a descending lift, the murmur of voices, and a long table, mounted on indiarubber covered wheels was pushed into the room by sisters and a student; behind them followed the doctor, who had administered the anaesthetic to the rigid form upon the table. He also was garbed like the rest.

Without the slightest fuss or hurry, in absolute silence, and with a precision, mechanical in its regularity and order, the sisters took up their stations. The moving table stopped. The young masked doctor sat at the head of it, and by his side, upon a small table, which was immediately wheeled up to him, was a glass stoppered bottle of chloroform, and pads of cotton wool. He sat down and pulled out one eyelid of the rigid head in front of him; then he felt the patient's pulse. The patient stirred and moaned a little, and very quietly the doctor poured a little chloroform on to a pad with one hand, and held It gently over the wax-like face. Once more there was no movement from tho long white-robed figure prone upon the table.

M'Alister had come up to the patient upon his left side, and was bent over an outstretched arm horribly crushed and mangled, which had been bared by one of the sisters. Close to the great surgeon's head was a little table covered with cloth upon which was an array of gleaming instruments. His inspection concluded, M'Alister nodded to one of tho assistant doctors, who passed him a small ebony-handled knife.

M'Alister took it up calmly and quietly, and made a long incision m the bare arm. Immediately one of the waiting sisters passed over a pad of sterilised wool with a pair of slender forceps. When the wool in a second or two was removed from the wound, and taken in the forceps by a sister on the other side of the table. It was stained a dark crimson. The operation had begun.

The students watched the great man's fingers with breathless interest; saw his quiet, methodical movements, and the silent pantomime of the others with a keen technical pleasure, and to one, of them at least an artistic wonder at this swift, quiet, and almost dreamlike scene. The motionless doctor, sitting at the patient's head— he had never turned his eyes towards the great surgeon and his assistants, who were operating upon the arm— pulled up the eyelid once more and gazed earnestly at the white and rigid ball beneath. He poured a little more chloroform on to his pad, and his gold-rimmed spectacles above his mask gleamed in the light as he did so. The operation was now in full swing, and the students saw exactly as it is here described, though, as a matter of fact, they saw nothing at all of its real import.

The great surgeon had come down from the room placed at his disposal In the hospital to conduct a difficult and delicate operation, for which his aid had been specially sought by the hospital authorities. All the morning he had remained in his house in Harley-street. There had been engagements proffered some days before, but he had refused them all.

This particular day was somewhat of an anniversary in his life and he desired to spend it alone in grim, hard solitude. It was tho day upon which, just a year ago, the daughter whom he had loved passionately, both for herself and for the memory of her mother, had left him silently and mysteriously, with a note saying that she was seeking a rest and peace that she could never find with him.

He had failed to trace her absolutely despite the most frantic efforts and all the mechanism of detection which his great wealth was able to employ. She had gone. She had never known how he had loved her, how savagely and almost passionately he had kept her from the world, to be his and his only. She had never realised how, beneath the sinister and dark exterior of the man, the fires of affection and love burnt in his heart. She had gone, and this was the anniversary of her going.

But when the request from St. Thomas's had come, the great man had acceded to it at once. He who might have made two hundred guineas for a like operation upon some wealthy patient curtly Intimated his. readiness to perform it upon some unknown man for nothing at all. The pride of his work and giant skill animated him, and perhaps in all his bitterness and loneliness they was some thought that, on this dark day his charity of almost superhuman skill might be well disposed to form, being little expiation for the ineradicable sternness of a nature which had loved but not known how to express its love, and which, now realised the dreadful results of personal pride, a rigid nature, and a tongue that was inarticulate.

The great surgeon began the operation which the students were watching upon the other side of the bars. But even as he began it he knew that the long, prone form, with the man beneath his scalpel was that of the chauffeur in his service who had disappeared upon the same day as Jeannie, and who had taken her to shame most probably, or at any rate, to misery and social degradation. He had known it In a moment, as he made the first clean and swift incision. Within his brain a wild riot of hate, long suppressed, but never cooled, had sounded like gongs. The blood in his veins had turned to ice, and then to flame. His mouth had become parched and dry, little knives— little knives like the knives he was handling— seemed to be hacking and tearing at the back of his eyes,

There was a drumming in his ears like the rapid taps of a woodpecker. His feet grew icy cold; an unseen flame seemed to shoot arrow-like from his heart to the slowly-beating organ of the half-dead thing below. But his hand was as skilful as over, his movements, controlled by an iron will and the mechanical habit of long years, as deft and dexterous as they had ever been.

He pursued the operation, watched with an almost awestruck interest in his students. He pursued it to a certain point, and then he found something which he knew was to be not only the crux of the operation, not only the opportunity of revenge as cruel and complete as his grim hate, had ever desired, but also the crux of his own stern and hitherto honest and honourable life. His trained intelligence saw that it rested with him— It rested with one tiny movement of his long white fingers, whether the betrayer of his daughter should be returned to health and material usefulness, or whether for ever he should be a miserable and crippled man, dragging out a hopeless life.

Here was a revenge at last— just that little white nerve, that bared tendon, white-blue like the albumen of a plover's egg— that movement— None of the gentle sisters with their swift movements, none of the watching students, neither of the two doctors, could see the infinitesimal pause as the great decision waited on his pleasure. It was made in the fraction of a second as far as material time is concerned. But material time— the way we measure the movements of the sun by clocks and formulae— has nothing whatever to do with the spiritual time of the brain. In that fraction of a second, which nobody perceived, M'Alister lived a whole long year of hatred, of sorrow, of misery. The brain is ever the battlefield of life— all great events take place in the mind.

It was a long, long night, a fight of hours, ere the knife descended once more, and with unerring skill did the work it had to do. M'Alister had decided. The man should live. On the battlefield of his soul the forces arrayed in white had won the victory.

'A marvellous operation,' said young Mr. Mew to his friend Dalton, as they clattered out into the corridor. 'Isn't M'Alister fine! That chap will get quite well now in a month or two; won't know he's been hurt, in fact; and I don't believe there is another surgeon in Europe who could have done It.'

IT WAS about ten o'clock at night.

In the big, sombre library of Harley-street the gaunt, clean-shaven man sat alone by the side of a dying fire. As usual, he was scrupulously dressed in evening clothes, as carefully as if he had been entertaining a great party. At a little table by his side the old butler had placed his post-prandial glass of port, and the bottle itself reposed in a long wicker cradle. M'Alister was smoking the single cigar he allowed himself in the day.

The electric light gleamed upon the great medical tomes which ran round the room on shelves of curved mahogany. It fell upon the heavy Persian carpet of peacock-blue and dull brick colour. It showed the massive crimson padded furniture, and gave a sombre dignity to the scene. Here was a great and eminent man sitting alone, after saving a man's health, perhaps a man's life, sitting alone, taking his glass of ruby-coloured wine as he often sat alone, after saving many lives, as for a whole year he had sat alone. It was a picture of dignity and appropriateness, just the sort of picture which outsiders not privileged to know anything of M'Alister's life might well have imagined for themselves. Sombre, dignified, complete. And yet it would have again been only a visual and exterior picture. The spectator— had there been one there— would have known no more of what was really happening In that magnificent and quiet room than the light-hearted students in the gloaming white-tiled theatre at the hospital.

All great events take place in the brain; in this man's brain to-night great things were happening. The hardness and bitterness against the daughter he loved had vanished, the hate for the man whom he believed to have been her ruin had rolled up as a curtain of mist over the sea rolls up when the sun sounds his morning trumpet. M'Alister's mind was empty of hate, empty of bitterness; it was full of sorrow and yearning, full of tenderness, and yet with a deep substratum of hopelessness, because he felt that never more would Jeannie's bright presence come into his life. She was lost; lost absolutely and utterly― all his efforts had failed.

His outward calm vanished; he rose from his seat, and begun to pace the room with long, quiet stops. No. He would find her. He would find her wherever she was, with forgiveness and healing. If his dove was wounded, he would heal her sorrow, as he had healed the sinews and tendons of the man this afternoon. He was not unconscious of the fact, being a man of acute intellect and brilliancy, that he had won a great and almost unparalleled victory over self that afternoon. He did not minimise the effort that It had cost him, nor did he minimise the victory and what it was meaning to him now in peace of soul and quietness of conscience. Yet, as he thought of those things  it was with no spiritual or mental pride, but humbly, and with gratitude that at the last moment God prevailed, and he had done his duty. The door opened suddenly. Old Ballantrae, panting with agitation, startled eyes and tremulous lips, looking almost drunk, staggered into the room.

'M'Alister,' he stuttered in broad Scots.. 'M'Alister. The lassie, the lassie. She's—'

Then he stopped, leaning against the lintel of the door, panting with agitation. A tall, slim girl, in the dress of an Anglican sisterhood, glided into the room. She ran at M'Alister with a little sob and cry, 'Oh, father,' she said, 'I have come back; I have come back, dearest. I couldn't stay from you any longer.'

'Lassie, whaur ha'e ye been?' he said, his arms were round her, and hers round his neck, both of them babbling tenderness in the sweet familiar dialect of their country.

'You were so cauld and hard, father, so I just slipped off and joined the sisterhood way down at Cluer. But I cou'd no' stay. I want to be back, father. I am longing to be wi' ye, father.'

'But I thought— I thought ye'd went awa' wi' the motor-car mun.'

She started back from him in wild surprise, sweet, slim, and young in her sister's garb.

'Ye thought that, father? Ye thought that?'

The big man caught her to him again.

'I was a fule,' he said, with the tears rolling down his cheeks. 'I was a dour old' fule.'

'Ye were, father mine,' she answered clinging to him, 'but I am home now!'

Ballantrae, the butler, advanced quietly towards the pair in his usual ponderous and polite manner. With a great effort he suppressed the Scots.

'I think, sir,' he said, 'it would be best that Miss Jeannie should go to her room now. It will be ready for her. I will speak to cook, and some supper will be ready in a few minutes.'

The girl, her eyes shining, her cheeks a lovely rose, hurried out of the library. Master and man, trembling, stood looking at each other. Once more the butler, unable to control his emotion, broke out into the tongue beyond the Tweed.

'M'Alister,' he said, 'sair hae ye been and sair hae all of us been. Dinna swear at your servants any more; and dinna be cauld to your dochter. Your motor messing mun went away because ye gave him sao much of yer temper; and missie, she went away—'

'That will do, Ballantrae,' said the great surgeon. 'You go below and get  supper on the table for myself and Miss Jane.'

'Certainly, sir,' said the butler, in the correctest English.

____________________

24: When the World Screamed

Arthur Conan Doyle

Liberty 25 Feb-3 March 1928.

I HAD A vague recollection of having heard my friend Edward Malone, of the Gazette, speak of Professor Challenger, with whom he had been associated in some remarkable adventures. I am so busy, however, with my own profession, and my firm has been so overtaxed with orders, that I know little of what is going on in the world outside my own special interests. My general recollection was that Challenger has been depicted as a wild genius of a violent and intolerant disposition. I was greatly surprised to receive a business communication from him which was in the following terms:

14 (Bis), Enmore Gardens, Kensington.

Sir,—

I have occasion to engage the services of an expert in Artesian borings. I will not conceal from you that my opinion of experts is not a high one, and that I have usually found that a man who, like myself, has a well-equipped brain can take a sounder and broader view than the man who professes a special knowledge (which, alas, is so often a mere profession), and is therefore limited in his outlook. None the less, I am disposed to give you a trial. Looking down the list of Artesian authorities, a certain oddity— I had almost written absurdity— in your name attracted my attention, and I found upon inquiry that my young friend, Mr. Edward Malone, was actually acquainted with you. I am therefore writing to say that I should be glad to have an interview with you, and that if you satisfy my requirements, and my standard is no mean one, I may be inclined to put a most important matter into your hands. I can say no more at present as the matter is of extreme secrecy, which can only be discussed by word of mouth. I beg, therefore, that you will at once cancel any engagement which you may happen to have, and that you will call upon me at the above address at 10.30 in the morning of next Friday. There is a scraper as well as a mat, and Mrs. Challenger is most particular.

I remain, Sir, as I began,

George Edward Challenger.

I handed this letter to my chief clerk to answer, and he informed the Professor that Mr. Peerless Jones would be glad to keep the appointment as arranged. It was a perfectly civil business note, but it began with the phrase: ‘Your letter (undated) has been received.’

This drew a second epistle from the Professor:

‘Sir,’ he said and his writing looked like a barbed wire fence—

I observe that you animadvert upon the trifle that my letter was undated. Might I draw your attention to the fact that, as some return for a monstrous taxation, our Government is in the habit of affixing a small circular sign or stamp upon the outside on the envelope which notifies the date of posting? Should this sign be missing or illegible your remedy lies with the proper postal authorities. Meanwhile, I would ask you to confine your observations to matters which concern the business over which I consult you, and to cease to comment upon the form which my own letters may assume.

It was clear to me that I was dealing with a lunatic, so I thought it well before I went any further in the matter to call upon my friend Malone, whom I had known since the old days when we both played Rugger for Richmond. I found him the same jolly Irishman as ever, and much amused at my first brush with Challenger.

‘That’s nothing, my boy,’ said he. ‘You’ll feel as if you had been skinned alive when you have been with him five minutes. He beats the world for offensiveness.’

‘But why should the world put up with it?’

‘They don’t. If you collected all the libel actions and all the rows and all the police-court assaults—’

‘Assaults!’

‘Bless you, he would think nothing of throwing you downstairs if you have a disagreement. He is a primitive cave-man in a lounge suit. I can see him with a club in one hand and a jagged bit of flint in the other. Some people are born out of their proper century, but he is born out of his millennium. He belongs to the early neolithic or thereabouts.’

‘And he a professor!’

‘There is the wonder of it! It’s the greatest brain in Europe, with a driving force behind it that can turn all his dreams into facts. They do all they can to hold him back for his colleagues hate him like poison, but a lot of trawlers might as well try to hold back the Berengaria. He simply ignores them and steams on his way.’

‘Well,’ said I, ‘one thing is clear. I don’t want to have anything to do with him. I’ll cancel that appointment.’

‘Not a bit of it. You will keep it to the minute— and mind that it is to the minute or you will hear of it.’

‘Why should I?’

‘Well, I’ll tell you. First of all, don’t take too seriously what I have said about old Challenger. Everyone who gets close to him learns to love him. There is no real harm in the old bear. Why, I remember how he carried an Indian baby with the smallpox on his back for a hundred miles from the back country down to the Madeira river. He is big every way. He won’t hurt if you get right with him.’

‘I won’t give him the chance.’

‘You will be a fool if you don’t. Have you ever heard of the Hengist Down Mystery— the shaft-sinking on the South Coast?’

‘Some secret coal-mining exploration, I understand.’

Malone winked. ‘Well, you can put it down as that if you like. You see, I am in the old man’s confidence, and I can’t say anything until he gives the word. But I may tell you this, for it has been in the Press. A man, Betterton, who made his money in rubber, left his whole estate to Challenger some years ago, with the provision that it should be used in the interests of science. It proved to be an enormous sum— several millions. Challenger then bought a property at Hengist Down, in Sussex. It was worthless land on the north edge of the chalk country, and he got a large tract of it, which he wired off. There was a deep gully in the middle of it. Here he began to make an excavation. He announced’— here Malone winked again —‘that there was petroleum in England and that he meant to prove it. He built a little model village with a colony of well-paid workers who are all sworn to keep their mouths shut. The gully is wired off as well as the estate, and the place is guarded by bloodhounds. Several pressmen have nearly lost their lives, to say nothing of the seats of their trousers, from these creatures. It’s a big operation, and Sir Thomas Morden’s firm has it in hand, but they also are sworn to secrecy. Clearly the time has come when Artesian help is needed. Now, would you not be foolish to refuse such a job as that, with all the interest and experience and a big fat cheque at the end of it— to say nothing of rubbing shoulders with the most wonderful man you have ever met or are ever likely to meet?’

Malone’s arguments prevailed, and Friday morning found me on my way to Enmore Gardens, I took such particular care to be in time that I found myself at the door twenty minutes too soon. I was waiting in the street when it struck me that I recognized the Rolls— Royce with the silver arrow mascot at the door. It was certainly that of Jack Devonshire, the junior partner of the great Morden firm. I had always known him as the most urbane of men, so that it was rather a shock to me when he suddenly appeared, and standing outside the door he raised both his hands, to heaven and said with great fervour:

‘Damn him! Oh, damn him!’

‘What is up, Jack? You seem peeved this morning.’

‘Hullo, Peerless! Are you in on this job, too?’

‘There seems a chance of it.’

‘Well, you find it chastening to the temper.’

‘Rather more so than yours can stand, apparently.’

‘Well, I should say so. The butler’s message to me was: “The Professor desired me to say, sir, that he was rather busy at present eating an egg, and that if you would call at some more convenient time he would very likely see you.” That was the message delivered by a servant. I may add that I had called to collect forty-two thousand pounds that he owes us.’

I whistled.

‘You can’t get your money?’

‘Oh, yes, he is all right about money. I’ll do the old gorilla the justice to say that he is open— handed with money. But he pays when he likes and how he likes, and he cares for nobody. However, you go and try your luck and see how you like it.’ With that he flung himself into his motor and was off.

I waited with occasional glances at my watch until the zero hour should arrive. I am, if I may say so, a fairly hefty individual, and a runner-up for the Belsize Boxing Club middle-weights, but I have never faced an interview with such trepidation as this. It was not physical, for I was confident I could hold my own if this inspired lunatic should attack me, but it was a mixture of feelings in which fear of some public scandal and dread of losing a lucrative contract were mingled. However, things are always easier when imagination ceases and action begins. I snapped up my watch and made for the door.

It was opened by an old wooden-faced butler, a man who bore an expression, or an absence of expression, which gave the impression that he was so inured to shocks that nothing on earth would surprise him.

‘By appointment, sir?’ he asked.

‘Certainly.’

He glanced at a list in his hand.

‘Your name, sir?... Quite so, Mr. Peerless Jones.... Ten-thirty. Everything is in order. We have to be careful, Mr. Jones, for we are much annoyed by journalists. The Professor, as you may be aware, does not approve of the Press. This way, sir. Professor Challenger is now receiving.’

The next instant I found myself in the presence. I believe that my friend, Ted Malone, has described the man in his ‘Lost World’ yarn better than I can hope to do, so I’ll leave it at that. All I was aware of was a huge trunk of a man behind a mahogany desk, with a great spade-shaped black beard and two large grey eyes half covered with insolent drooping eyelids. His big head sloped back, his beard bristled forward, and his whole appearance conveyed one single impression of arrogant intolerance. ‘Well, what the devil do you want?’ was written all over him. I laid my card on the table.

‘Ah yes,’ he said, picking it up and handling it as if he disliked the smell of it. ‘Of course. You are the expert so-called. Mr. Jones— Mr. Peerless Jones. You may thank your godfather, Mr. Jones, for it was this ludicrous prefix which first drew my attention to you.’

‘I am here, Professor Challenger, for a business interview and not to discuss my own name,’ said I, with all the dignity I could master.

‘Dear me, you seem to be a very touchy person, Mr. Jones. Your nerves are in a highly irritable condition. We must walk warily in dealing with you, Mr. Jones. Pray sit down and compose yourself. I have been reading your little brochure upon the reclaiming of the Sinai Peninsula. Did you write it yourself?’

‘Naturally, sir. My name is on it.’

‘Quite so! Quite so! But it does not always follow, does it? However, I am prepared to accept your assertion. The book is not without merit of a sort. Beneath the dullness of the diction one gets glimpses of an occasional idea. There are germs of thought here and there. Are you a married man?’

‘No, sir. I am not. ’

‘Then there is some chance of your keeping a secret. ’

‘If I promised to do so, I would certainly keep my promise. ‘So you say. My young friend, Malone’— he spoke as if Ted were ten years of age —‘has a good opinion of you. He says that I may trust you. This trust is a very great one, for I am engaged just now in one of the greatest experiments— I may even say the greatest experiment— in the history of the world. I ask for your participation.’

‘I shall be honoured.’

‘It is indeed an honour. I will admit that I should have shared my labours with no one were it not that the gigantic nature of the undertaking calls for the highest technical skill. Now, Mr. Jones, having obtained your promise of inviolable secrecy, I come down to the essential point. It is this— that the world upon which we live is itself a living organism, endowed, as I believe, with a circulation, a respiration, and a nervous system of its own.’ Clearly the man was a lunatic.

‘Your brain, I observe,’ he continued, ‘fails to register. But it will gradually absorb the idea. You will recall how a moor or heath resembles the hairy side of a giant animal. A certain analogy runs through all nature. You will then consider the secular rise and fall of land, which indicates the slow respiration of the creature. Finally, you will note the fidgetings and scratchings which appear to our Lilliputian perceptions as earthquakes and convulsions.’

‘What about volcanoes?’ I asked.

‘Tut, tut! They correspond to the heat spots upon our own bodies.’

My brain whirled as I tried to find some answer to these monstrous contentions.

‘The temperature!’ I cried. ‘Is it not a fact that it rises rapidly as one descends, and that the centre of the earth is liquid heat?’

He waved my assertion aside.

‘You are probably aware, sir, since Council schools are now compulsory, that the earth is flattened at the poles. This means that the pole is nearer to the centre than any other point and would therefore be most affected by this heat of which you spoke. It is notorious, of course, that the conditions of the poles are tropical, is it not?’

‘The whole idea is utterly new to me.’

‘Of course it is. It is the privilege of the original thinker to put forward ideas which are new and usually unwelcome to the common clay. Now, sir, what is this?’ He held up a small object which he had picked from the table.

‘I should say it is a sea-urchin.’

‘Exactly!’ he cried, with an air of exaggerated surprise, as when an infant has done something clever. ‘It is a sea-urchin— a common echinus. Nature repeats itself in many forms regardless of the size. This echinus is a model, a prototype, of the world. You perceive that it is roughly circular, but flattened at the poles. Let us then regard the world as a huge echinus. What are your objections?’

My chief objection was that the thing was too absurd for argument, but I did not dare to say so. I fished around for some less sweeping assertion.

‘A living creature needs food,’ I said. ‘Where could the world sustain its huge bulk?’

‘An excellent point— excellent!’ said the Professor, with a huge air of patronage. ‘You have a quick eye for the obvious, though you are slow in realizing the more subtle implications. How does the world get nourishment? Again we turn to our little friend the echinus. The water which surrounds it flows through the tubes of this small creature and provides its nutrition.’

‘Then you think that the water —’

‘No, sir. The ether. The earth browses upon a circular path in the fields of space, and as it moves the ether is continually pouring through it and providing its vitality. Quite a flock of other little world-echini are doing the same thing, Venus, Mars, and the rest, each with its own field for grazing.’

The man was clearly mad, but there was no arguing with him. He accepted my silence as agreement and smiled at me in most beneficent fashion.

‘We are coming on, I perceive,’ said he. ‘Light is beginning to break in. A little dazzling at first, no doubt, but we will soon get used to it. Pray give me your attention while I found one or two more observations upon this little creature in my hand.

‘We will suppose that on this outer hard rind there were certain infinitely small insects which crawled upon the surface. Would the echinus ever be aware of their existence?’

‘I should say not.’

‘You can well imagine then, that the earth has not the least idea of the way in which it is utilized by the human race. It is quite unaware of this fungus growth of vegetation and evolution of tiny animalcules which has collected upon it during its travels round the sun as barnacles gather upon the ancient vessel. That is the present state of affairs, and that is what I propose to alter.’

I stared in amazement. ‘You propose to alter it?’

‘I propose to let the earth know that there is at least one person, George Edward Challenger, who calls for attention— who, indeed, insists upon attention. It is certainly the first intimation it has ever had of the sort.’

‘And how, sir, will you do this?’

‘Ah, there we get down to business. You have touched the spot. I will again call your attention to this interesting little creature which I hold in my hand. It is all nerves and sensibility beneath that protective crust. Is it not evident that if a parasitic animalcule desired to call its attention it would sink a hole in its shell and so stimulate its sensory apparatus?’

‘Certainly.’

‘Or, again, we will take the case of the homely flea or a mosquito which explores the surface of the human body. We may be unaware of its presence. But presently, when it sinks its proboscis through the skin, which is our crust, we are disagreeably reminded that we are not altogether alone. My plans now will no doubt begin to dawn upon you. Light breaks in the darkness.’

‘Good heavens! You propose to sink a shaft through the earth’s crust?’

He closed his eyes with ineffable complacency.

‘You see before you,’ he said, ‘the first who will ever pierce that horny hide. I may even put it in the present tense and say who has pierced it.’

‘You have done it!’

‘With the very efficient aid of Morden and think I may say that I have done it. Several years of constant work which has been carried on night and day, and conducted by every known species of drill, borer, crusher, and explosive, has at last brought us to our goal.’

‘You don’t mean to say you are through the crust!’

‘If your expressions denote bewilderment they may pass. If they denote incredulity —’

‘No, sir, nothing of the kind.’

‘You will accept my statement without question. We are through the crust. It was exactly fourteen thousand four hundred and forty-two yards thick, or roughly eight miles. In the course of our sinking it may interest you to know that we have exposed a fortune in the matter of coal-beds which would probably in the long run defray the cost of the enterprise. Our chief difficulty has been the springs of water in the lower chalk and Hastings sands, but these we have overcome. The last stage has now been reached— and the last stage is none other than Mr. Peerless Jones. You, sir, represent the mosquito. Your Artesian borer takes the place of the stinging proboscis. The brain has done its work. Exit the thinker. Enter the mechanical one, the peerless one, with his rod of metal. Do I make myself clear?’

‘You talk of eight miles!’ I cried. ‘Are you aware, sir, that five thousand feet is considered nearly the limit for Artesian borings? I am acquainted with one in upper Silesia which is six thousand two hundred feet deep, but it is looked upon as a wonder.’

‘You misunderstand me, Mr. Peerless. Either my explanation or your brain is at fault, and I will not insist upon which. I am well aware of the limits of Artesian borings, and it is not likely that I would have spent millions of pounds upon my colossal tunnel if a six-inch boring would have met my needs. All that I ask you is to have a drill ready which shall be as sharp as possible, not more than a hundred feet in length, and operated by an electric motor. An ordinary percussion drill driven home by a weight will meet every requirement.

‘Why by an electric motor?’

‘I am here, Mr. Jones, to give orders, not reasons. Before we finish it may happen— it may, I say, happen— that your very life may depend upon this drill being started from a distance by electricity. It can, I presume, be done?’

‘Certainly it can be done.’

‘Then prepare to do it. The matter is not yet ready for your actual presence, but your preparations may now be made. I have nothing more to say.’

‘But it is essential,’ I expostulated, ‘that you should let me know what soil the drill is to penetrate. Sand, or clay, or chalk would each need different treatment.’

‘Let us say jelly,’ said Challenger. ‘Yes, we will for the present suppose that you have to sink your drill into jelly. And now, Mr. Jones, I have matters of some importance to engage my mind, so I will wish you good morning. You can draw up a formal contract with mention of your charges for my Head of Works.’

I bowed and turned, but before I reached the door my curiosity overcame me. He was already writing furiously with a quill pen screeching over the paper, and he looked up angrily at my interruption.

‘Well, sir, what now? I had hoped you were gone.

‘I only wished to ask you, sir, what the object of so extraordinary an experiment can be?’

‘Away, sir, away!’ he cried, angrily. ‘Raise your mind above the base mercantile and utilitarian needs of commerce. Shake off your paltry standards of business. Science seeks knowledge. Let the knowledge lead us where it will, we still must seek it. To know once for all what we are, why we are, where we are, is that not in itself the greatest of all human aspirations? Away, sir, away!’

His great black head was bowed over his papers once more and blended with his beard. The quill pen screeched more shrilly than ever. So I left him, this extraordinary man, with my head in a whirl at the thought of the strange business in which I now found myself to be his partner.

When I got back to my office I found Ted Malone waiting with a broad grin upon his face to know the result of my interview.

‘Well!’ he cried. ‘None the worse? No case of assault and battery? You must have handled him very tactfully. What do you think of the old boy?’

‘The most aggravating, insolent, intolerant, self-opinionated man I have ever met, but —’

‘Exactly!’ cried Malone. ‘We all come to that “but.” Of course, he is all you say and a lot more, but one feels that so big a man is not to be measured in our scale, and that we can endure from him what we would not stand from any other living mortal. Is that not so?’

‘Well, I don’t know him well enough yet to say, but I will admit that if he is not a mere bullying megalomaniac, and if what he says is true, then he certainly is in a class by himself. But is it true?’

‘Of course it is true. Challenger always delivers the goods. Now, where are you exactly in the matter? Has he told you about Hengist Down?’

‘Yes, in a sketchy sort of way.’

‘Well, you may take it from me that the whole thing is colossal; colossal in conception and colossal in execution. He hates pressmen, but I am in his confidence, for he knows that I will publish no more than he authorizes. Therefore I have his plans, or some of his plans. He is such a deep old bird that one never is sure if one has really touched bottom. Anyhow, I know enough to assure you that Hengist Down is a practical proposition and nearly completed. My advice to you now is simply to await events, and meanwhile to get your gear all ready. You’ll hear soon enough either from him or from me.’

As it happened, it was from Malone himself that I heard. He came round quite early to my office some weeks later, as the bearer of a message.

‘I’ve come from Challenger’ said he.

‘You are like the pilot fish to the shark.’

‘I’m proud to be anything to him. He really is a wonder. He has done it all right. It’s your turn now, and then he is ready to ring up the curtain.’

‘Well, I can’t believe it until I see it, but I have everything ready and loaded on a lorry. I could start it off at any moment.’

‘Then do so at once. I’ve given you a tremendous character for energy and punctuality, so mind you don’t let me down. In the meantime, come down with me by rail and I will give you an idea of what has to be done.’

It was a lovely spring morning— May 22nd, to be exact— when we made that fateful journey which brought me on to a stage which is destined to be historical. On the way Malone handed me a note from Challenger which I was to accept as my instructions.

Sir, (it ran)—

Upon arriving at Hengist Down you will put yourself at the disposal of Mr. Barforth, the Chief Engineer, who is in possession of my plans. My young friend, Malone, the bearer of this, is also in touch with me and may protect me from any personal contact. We have now experienced certain phenomena in the shaft at and below the fourteen thousand-foot level which fully bear out my views as to the nature of a planetary body, but some more sensational proof is needed before I can hope to make an impression upon the torpid intelligence of the modern scientific world. That proof you are destined to afford, and they to witness. As you descend in the lifts you will observe, presuming that you have the rare quality of observation, that you pass in succession the secondary chalk beds, the coal measures, some Devonian and Cambrian indications, and finally the granite, through which the greater part of our tunnel is conducted. The bottom is now covered with tarpaulin, which I order you not to tamper with, as any clumsy handling of the sensitive inner cuticle of the earth might bring about premature results. At my instruction, two strong beams have been laid across the shaft twenty feet above the bottom, with a space between them. This space will act as a clip to hold up your Artesian tube. Fifty feet of drill will suffice, twenty of which will project below the beams, so that the point of the drill comes nearly down to the tarpaulin. As you value your life do not let it go further. Thirty feet will then project upwards in the shaft, and when you have released it we may assume that not less than forty feet of drill will bury itself in the earth’s substance. As this substance is very soft I find that you will probably need no driving power, and that simply a release of the tube will suffice by its own weight to drive it into the layer which we have uncovered. These instructions would seem to be sufficient for any ordinary intelligence, but I have little doubt that you will need more, which can be referred to me through our young friend, Malone.

GEORGE EDWARD CHALLENGER.

It can be imagined that when we arrived at the station of Storrington, near the northern foot of the South Downs, I was in a state of considerable nervous tension. A weather-worn Vauxhall thirty landaulette was awaiting us, and bumped us for six or seven miles over by-paths and lanes which, in spite of their natural seclusion, were deeply rutted and showed every sign of heavy traffic. A broken lorry lying in the grass at one point showed that others had found it rough going as well as we. Once a huge piece of machinery which seemed to be the valves and piston of a hydraulic pump projected itself, all rusted, from a clump of furze.

‘That’s Challenger’s doing,’ said Malone, grinning.

‘Said it was one-tenth of an inch out of estimate, so he simply chucked it by the wayside.’

‘With a lawsuit to follow, no doubt.’

‘A lawsuit! My dear chap, we should have a court of our own. We have enough to keep a judge busy for a year. Government too. The old devil cares for no one. Rex v. George Challenger and George Challenger v. Rex. A nice devil’s dance the two will have from one court to another. Well, here we are. All right, Jenkins, you can let us in!’

A huge man with a notable cauliflower ear was peering into the car, a scowl of suspicion upon his face. He relaxed and saluted as he recognized my companion.

‘All right, Mr. Malone. I thought it was the American Associated Press.’

‘Oh, they are on the track, are they?’

‘They today, and The Times yesterday. Oh, they are buzzing round proper. Look at that!’ He indicated a distant dot upon the sky-line.

‘See that glint! That’s the telescope of the Chicago Daily News. Yes, they are fair after us now. I’ve seen ’em in rows, same as the crows, along the Beacon yonder.’

‘Poor old Press gang!’ said Malone, as we entered a gate in a formidable barbed wire fence. ‘I am one of them myself, and I know how it feels.

At this moment we heard a plaintive bleat behind us of ‘Malone! Ted Malone!’ It came from a fat little man who had just arrived upon a motor-bike and was at present struggling in the Herculean grasp of the gatekeeper.

‘Here, let me go!’ he sputtered. ‘Keep your hands off! Malone, call off this gorilla of yours.’

‘Let him go, Jenkins! He’s a friend of mine!’ cried Malone. ‘Well, old bean, what is it? What are you after in these parts? Fleet Street is your stamping ground— not the wilds of Sussex.’

‘You know what I am after perfectly well,’ said our visitor. ‘I’ve got the assignment to write a story about Hengist Down and I can’t go home without the copy.’

‘Sorry, Roy, but you can’t get anything here. You’ll have to stay on that side of the wire. If you want more you must go and see Professor Challenger and get his leave.’

‘I’ve been,’ said the journalist, ruefully. ‘I went this morning.’

‘Well, what did he say?’

‘He said he would put me through the window.’

Malone laughed.

‘And what did you say?’

‘I said, “What’s wrong with the door?” and I skipped through it just to show there was nothing wrong with it. It was no time for argument. I just went. What with that bearded Assyrian bull in London, and this Thug down here, who has ruined my clean celluloid, you seem to be keeping queer company, Ted Malone.’

‘I can’t help you, Roy; I would if I could. They say in Fleet Street that you have never been beaten, but you are up against it this time. Get back to the office, and if you just wait a few days I’ll give you the news as soon as the old man allows.’

‘No chance of getting in?’

‘Not an earthly.’

‘Money no object?’

‘You should know better than to say that.’

‘They tell me it’s a short cut to New Zealand.’

‘It will be a short cut to the hospital if you butt in here, Roy. Good-bye, now. We have some work to do of our own.

‘That’s Roy Perkins, the war correspondent,’ said Malone as we walked across the compound. ‘We’ve broken his record, for he is supposed to be undefeatable. It’s his fat, little innocent face that carries him through everything. We were on the same staff once. Now there’— he pointed to a cluster of pleasant red-roofed bungalows —‘are the quarters of the men. They are a splendid lot of picked workers who are paid far above ordinary rates. They have to be bachelors and teetotallers, and under oath of secrecy. I don’t think there has been any leakage up to now. That field is their football ground and the detached house is their library and recreation room. The old man is some organizer, I can assure you. This is Mr. Barforth, the head engineer-in charge.’

A long, thin, melancholy man with deep lines of anxiety upon his face had appeared before us. ‘I expect you are the Artesian engineer,’ said he, in a gloomy voice. ‘I was told to expect you. I am glad you’ve come, for I don’t mind telling you that the responsibility of this thing is getting on my nerves. We work away, and I never know if it’s a gush of chalk water, or a seam of coal, or a squirt of petroleum, or maybe a touch of hell fire that is coming next. We’ve been spared the last up to now, but you may make the connection for all I know.’

‘Is it so hot down there?’

‘Well, it’s hot. There’s no denying it. And yet maybe it is not hotter than the barometric pressure and the confined space might account for. Of course, the ventilation is awful. We pump the air down, but two-hour shifts are the most the men can do— and they are willing lads too. The Professor was down yesterday, and he was very pleased with it all. You had best join us at lunch, and then you will see it for yourself.’

After a hurried and frugal meal we were introduced with loving assiduity upon the part of the manager to the contents of his engine-house, and to the miscellaneous scrapheap of disused implements with which the grass was littered. On one side was a huge dismantled Arrol hydraulic shovel, with which the first excavations had been rapidly made. Beside it was a great engine which worked a continuous steel rope on which the skips were fastened which drew up the debris by successive stages from the bottom of the shaft. In the power-house were several Escher Wyss turbines of great horse-power running at one hundred and forty revolutions a minute and governing hydraulic accumulators which evolved a pressure of fourteen hundred pounds per square inch, passing in three-inch pipes down the shaft and operating four rock drills with hollow cutters of the Brandt type. Abutting upon the engine-house was the electric house supplying power for a very large lighting instalment, and next to that again was an extra turbine of two hundred horse-power, which drove a ten-foot fan forcing air down a twelve-inch pipe to the bottom of the workings. All these wonders were shown with many technical explanations by their proud operator, who was well on his way to boring me stiff, as I may in turn have done my reader. There came a welcome interruption, however, when I heard the roar of wheels and rejoiced to see my Leyland three-tonner come rolling and heaving over the grass, heaped up with tools and sections of tubing, and bearing my foreman, Peters, and a very grimy assistant in front. The two of them set to work at once to unload my stuff and to carry it in. Leaving them at their work, the manager, with Malone and myself, approached the shaft.

It was a wondrous place, on a very much larger scale than I had imagined. The spoil banks, which represented the thousands of tons removed, had been built up into a great horseshoe around it, which now made a considerable hill. In the concavity of this horseshoe, composed of chalk, clay, coal, and granite, there rose up a bristle of iron pillars and wheels from which the pumps and the lifts were operated. They connected with the brick power building which filled up the gap in the horseshoe. Beyond it lay the open mouth of the shaft, a huge yawning pit, some thirty or forty feet in diameter, lined and topped with brick and cement. As I craned my neck over the side and gazed down into the dreadful abyss, which I had been assured was eight miles deep, my brain reeled at the thought of what it represented. The sunlight struck the mouth of it diagonally, and I could only see some hundreds of yards of dirty white chalk, bricked here and there where the surface had seemed unstable. Even as I looked, however, I saw, far, far down in the darkness, a tiny speck of light, the smallest possible dot, but clear and steady against the inky background.

‘What is that light?’ I asked.

Malone bent over the parapet beside me.

‘That’s one of the cages coming up,’ said he. ‘Rather wonderful, is it not? That is a mile or more from us, and that little gleam is a powerful arc lamp. It travels quickly, and will be here in a few minutes.’

Sure enough the pin-point of light came larger and larger, until it flooded the tube with its silvery radiance, and I had to turn away my eyes from its blinding glare. A moment later the iron cage clashed up to the landing stage, and four men crawled out of it and passed on to the entrance.

‘Nearly all in,’ said Malone. ‘It is no joke to do a two-hour shift at that depth. Well, some of your stuff is ready to hand here. I suppose the best thing we can do is to go down. Then you will be able to judge the situation for yourself.’

There was an annexe to the engine-house into which he led me. A number of baggy suits of the lightest tussore material were hanging from the wall. Following Malone’s example I took off every stitch of my clothes, and put on one of these suits, together with a pair of rubber-soled slippers. Malone finished before I did and left the dressing-room. A moment later I heard a noise like ten dog-fights rolled into one, and rushing out I found my friend rolling on the ground with his arms round the workman who was helping to stack my artesian tubing. He was endeavouring to tear something from him to which the other was most desperately clinging. But Malone was too strong for him, tore the object out of his grasp, and danced upon it until it was shattered to pieces. Only then did I recognize that it was a photographic camera. My grimy-faced artisan rose ruefully from the floor.

‘Confound you, Ted Malone!’ said he. ‘That was a new ten-guinea machine.’

‘Can’t help it, Roy. I saw you take the snap, and there was only one thing to do.’

‘How the devil did you get mixed up with my outfit?’ I asked, with righteous indignation.

The rascal winked and grinned. ‘There are always and means,’ said he.

‘But don’t blame your foreman. He thought it was just a rag. I swapped clothes with his assistant, and in I came.’

‘And out you go,’ said Malone. ‘No use arguing, Roy. If Challenger were here he would set the dogs on you. I’ve been in a hole myself so I won’t be hard, but I am watch-dog here, and I can bite as well as bark. Come on! Out you march!’

So our enterprising visitor was marched by two grinning workmen out of the compound. So now the public will at last understand the genesis of that wonderful four-column article headed ‘Mad Dream of a Scientist’ with the subtitle. ‘A Bee-line to Australia,’ which appeared in The Adviser some days later and brought Challenger to the verge of apoplexy, and the editor of The Adviser to the most disagreeable and dangerous interview of his lifetime. The article was a highly coloured and exaggerated account of the adventure of Roy Perkins, ‘our experienced war correspondent’ and it contained such purple passages as ‘this hirsute bully of Enmore Gardens,’ ‘a compound guarded by barbed wire, plug-uglies, and bloodhounds,’ and finally, ‘I was dragged from the edge of the Anglo-Australian tunnel by two ruffians, the more savage being a jack-of-all trades whom I had previously known by sight as a hanger-on of the journalistic profession, while the other, a sinister figure in a strange tropical garb, was posing as an Artesian engineer, though his appearance was more reminiscent of Whitechapel.’ Having ticked us off in this way, the rascal had an elaborate description of rails at the pit mouth, and of a zigzag excavation by which funicular trains were to burrow into the earth.

The only practical inconvenience arising from the article was that it notably increased that line of loafers who sat upon the South Downs waiting for something to happen. The day came when it did happen and when they wished themselves elsewhere.

My foreman with his faked assistant had littered the place with all my apparatus, my bellbox, my crowsfoot, the V-drills, the rods, and the weight, but Malone insisted that we disregard all that and descend ourselves to the lowest level. To this end we entered the cage, which was of latticed steel, and in the company of the chief engineer we shot down into the bowels of the earth. There were a series of automatic lifts, each with its own operating station hollowed out in the side of the excavation. They operated with great speed, and the experience was more like a vertical railway journey than the deliberate fall which we associate with the British lift.

Since the cage was latticed and brightly illuminated, we had a clear view of the strata which we passed. I was conscious of each of them as we flashed past. There were the sallow lower chalk, the coffee-coloured Hastings beds, the lighter Ashburnham beds, the dark carboniferous clays, and then, gleaming in the electric light, band after band of jet-black, sparkling coal alternating with the rings of clay. Here and there brickwork had been inserted, but as a rule the shaft was self-supported, and one could but marvel at the immense labour and mechanical skill which it represented. Beneath the coal-beds I was conscious of jumbled strata of a concrete-like appearance, and then we shot down into the primitive granite, where the quartz crystals gleamed and twinkled as if the dark walls were sown with the dust of diamonds. Down we went and ever down— lower now than ever mortals had ever before penetrated. The archaic rocks varied wonderfully in colour, and I can never forget one broad belt of rose-coloured feldspar, which shone with an unearthly beauty before our powerful lamps. Stage after stage, and lift after lift, the air getting ever closer and hotter until even the light tussore garments were intolerable and the sweat was pouring down into those rubber-soled slippers. At last, just as I was thinking that I could stand it no more, the last lift came to a stand and we stepped out upon a circular platform which had been cut in the rock. I noticed that Malone gave a curiously suspicious glance round at the walls as he did so. If I did not know him to be amongst the bravest of men, I should say that he was exceedingly nervous.

‘Funny-looking stuff,’ said the chief engineer, passing his hand over the nearest section of rock. He held it to the light and showed that it was glistening with a curious slimy scum. ‘There have been shiverings and tremblings down here. I don’t know what we are dealing with. The Professor seems pleased with it, but it’s all new to me.’

‘I am bound to say I’ve seen that wall fairly shake itself,’ said Malone. ‘Last time I was down here we fixed those two cross-beams for your drill, and when we cut into it for the supports it winced at every stroke. The old man’s theory seemed absurd in solid old London town, but down here, eight miles under the surface, I am not so sure about it.’

‘If you saw what was under that tarpaulin you would be even less sure,’ said the engineer. ‘All this lower rock cut like cheese, and when we were through it we came on a new formation like nothing on earth. “Cover it up! Don’t touch it!” said the Professor. So we tarpaulined it according to his instructions, and there it lies.

‘Could we not have a look?’

A frightened expression came over the engineer’s lugubrious countenance.

‘It’s no joke disobeying the Professor,’ said he. ‘He is so damn cunning, too, that you never know what check he has set on you. However, we’ll have a peep and chance it.’

He turned down our reflector lamp so that the light gleamed upon the black tarpaulin. Then he stooped and, seizing a rope which connected up with the corner of the covering, he disclosed half-a-dozen square yards of the surface beneath it.

It was a most extraordinary and terrifying sight. The floor consisted of some greyish material, glazed and shiny, which rose and fell in slow palpitation. The throbs were not direct, but gave the impression of a gentle ripple or rhythm, which ran across the surface. This surface itself was not entirely homogeneous, but beneath it, seen as through ground glass, there were dim whitish patches or vacuoles, which varied constantly in shape and size. We stood all three gazing spell-bound at this extraordinary sight.

‘Does look rather like a skinned animal,’ said Malone, in an awed whisper. ‘The old man may not be so far out with his blessed echinus.’

‘Good Lord!’ I cried. ‘And am I to plunge a harpoon into that beast!’

‘That’s your privilege, my son,’ said Malone, ‘and, sad to relate, unless I give it a miss in baulk, I shall have to be at your side when you do it.’

‘Well, I won’t,’ said the head engineer, with decision.

‘I was never clearer on anything than I am on that. If the old man insists, then I resign my portfolio. Good Lord, look at that!’

The grey surface gave a sudden heave upwards, welling towards us as a wave does when you look down from the bulwarks. Then it subsided and the dim beatings and throbbings continued as before. Barforth lowered the rope and replaced the tarpaulin.

‘Seemed almost as if it knew we were here,’ said he.

‘Why should it swell up towards us like that? I expect the light had some sort of effect upon it.’

‘What am I expected to do now?’ I asked. Mr. Barforth pointed to two beams which lay across the pit just under the stopping place of the lift. There was an interval of about nine inches between them.

‘That was the old man’s idea,’ said he. ‘I think I could have fixed it better, but you might as well try to argue with a mad buffalo. It is easier and safer just to do whatever he says. His idea is that you should use your six-inch bore and fasten it in some way between these supports. ’

‘Well, I don’t think there would be much difficulty about that,’ I answered. ‘I’ll take the job over as from today.’

It was, as one might imagine, the strangest experience of my very varied life which has included well-sinking in every continent upon earth. As Professor Challenger was so insistent that the operation should be started from a distance, and as I began to see a good deal of sense in his contention, I had to plan some method of electric control, which was easy enough as the pit was wired from top to bottom. With infinite care my foreman, Peters, and I brought down our lengths of tubing and stacked them on the rocky ledge. Then we raised the stage of the lowest lift so as to give ourselves room. As we proposed to use the percussion system, for it would not do to trust entirely to gravity, we hung our hundred-pound weight over a pulley beneath the lift, and ran our tubes down beneath it with a V-shaped terminal. Finally, the rope which held the weight was secured to the side of the shaft in such a way that an electrical discharge would release it. It was delicate and difficult work done in a more than tropical heat, and with the ever-present feeling that a slip of a foot or the dropping of a tool upon the tarpaulin beneath us might bring about some inconceivable catastrophe. We were awed, too, by our surroundings. Again and again I have seen a strange quiver and shiver pass down the walls, and have even felt a dull throb against my hands as I touched them. Neither Peters nor I were very sorry when we signalled for the last time that we were ready for the surface, and were able to report to Mr. Barforth that Professor Challenger could make his experiment as soon as he chose.

And it was not long that we had to wait. Only three days after my date of completion my notice arrived.

It was an ordinary invitation card such as one uses for ‘at homes,’ and it ran thus:

PROFESSOR G. E. CHALLENGER,

F.R.S. MD., D.Sc., etc.

(late President Zoological Institute and holder of so many honorary degrees and appointments that they overtax the capacity of this card)

requests the attendance of

MR. JONES (no lady)

at 11.30 a.m. of Tuesday, June 21st, to witness a
remarkable triumph of mind over matter
at

HENGIST DOWN, SUSSEX.

Special train Victoria 10.5. Passengers pay their own fares. Lunch after the experiment or not— according to circumstances. Station, Storrington.

R.S.V.P. (and at once with name in block letters), 14 (Bis), Enmore Gardens, S.W.

I found that Malone had just received a similar missive over which he was chuckling.

‘It is mere swank sending it to us,’ said he. ‘We have to be there whatever happens, as the hangman said to the murderer. But I tell you this has set all London buzzing. The old man is where he likes to be, with a pin-point limelight right on his hairy old head.’

And so at last the great day came. Personally I thought it well to go down the night before so as to be sure that everything was in order. Our borer was fixed in position, the weight was adjusted, the electric contacts could be easily switched on, and I was satisfied that my own part in this strange experiment would be carried out without a hitch. The electric controls were operated at a point some five hundred yards from the mouth of the shaft, to minimize any personal danger. When on the fateful morning, an ideal English summer day, I came to the surface with my mind assured, I climbed half-way up the slope of the Down in order to have a general view of the proceedings.

All the world seemed to be coming to Hengist Down. As far as we could see the roads were dotted with people. Motor-cars came bumping and swaying down the lanes, and discharged their passengers at the gate of the compound. This was in most cases the end of their progress. A powerful band of janitors waited at the entrance, and no promises or bribes, but only the production of the coveted buff tickets, could get them any farther. They dispersed therefore and joined the vast crowd which was already assembling on the side of the hill and covering the ridge with a dense mass of spectators. The place was like Epsom Downs on the Derby Day. Inside the compound certain areas had been wired-off, and the various privileged people were conducted to the particular pen to which they had been allotted. There was one for peers, one for members of the House of Commons, and one for the heads of learned societies and the men of fame in the scientific world, including Le Pellier of the Sorbonne and Dr. Driesinger of the Berlin Academy. A special reserved enclosure with sandbags and a corrugated iron roof was set aside for three members of the Royal Family.

At a quarter past eleven a succession of chars-a-bancs brought up specially-invited guests from the station and I went down into the compound to assist at the reception. Professor Challenger stood by the select enclosure, resplendent in frock-coat, white waistcoat, and burnished top-hat, his expression a blend of overpowering and almost offensive benevolence, mixed with most portentous self-importance.

‘Clearly a typical victim of the Jehovah complex,’ as one of his critics described him. He assisted in conducting and occasionally in propelling his guests into their proper places, and then, having gathered the elite of the company around him, he took his station upon the top of a convenient hillock and looked around him with the air of the chairman who expects some welcoming applause. As none was forthcoming, he plunged at once into his subject, his voice booming to the farthest extremities of the enclosure.

‘Gentlemen,’ he roared, ‘upon this occasion I have no need to include the ladies. If I have not invited them to be present with us this morning it is not, I can assure you, for want of appreciation, for I may say’— with elephantine humour and mock modesty —‘that the relations between us upon both sides have always been excellent, and indeed intimate. The real reason is that some small element of danger is involved in our experiment, though it is not sufficient to justify the discomposure which I see upon many of your faces. It will interest the members of the Press to know that I have reserved very special seats for them upon the spoil banks which immediately overlook the scene of the operation. They have shown an interest which is sometimes indistinguishable from impertinence in my affairs, so that on this occasion at least they cannot complain that I have been remiss in studying their convenience. If nothing happens, which is always possible, I have at least done my best for them. If, on the other hand, something does happen, they will be in an excellent position to experience and record it, should they ultimately feel equal to the task.

‘It is, as you will readily understand, impossible for a man of science to explain to what I may describe, without undue disrespect, as the common herd, the various reasons for his conclusions or his actions. I hear some unmannerly interruptions, and I will ask the gentleman with the horn spectacles to cease waving his umbrella. (A voice: “Your description of your guests, sir, is most offensive.”) Possibly it is my phrase, “the common herd,” which has ruffled the gentleman. Let us say, then, that my listeners are a most uncommon herd. We will not quibble over phrases. I was about to say, before I was interrupted by this unseemly remark, that the whole matter is very fully and lucidly discussed in my forthcoming volume upon the earth, which I may describe with all due modesty as one of the epoch-making books of the world’s history. (General interruption and cries of “Get down to the facts!” “What are we here for?” “Is this a practical joke?”) I was about to make the matter clear, and if I have any further interruption I shall be compelled to take means to preserve decency and order, the lack of which is so painfully obvious. The position is, then, that I have sunk a shaft through the crust of the earth and that I am about to try the effect of a vigorous stimulation of its sensory cortex, a delicate operation which will be carried out by my subordinates, Mr. Peerless Jones, a self-styled expert in Artesian borings, and Mr. Edward Malone, who represents myself upon this occasion. The exposed and sensitive substance will be pricked, and how it will react is a matter for conjecture. If you will now kindly take your seats these two gentlemen will descend into the pit and make the final adjustments. I will then press the electric button upon this table and the experiment will be complete.’

An audience after one of Challenger’s harangues usually felt as if, like the earth, its protective epidermis had been pierced and its nerves laid bare. This assembly was no exception, and there was a dull murmur of criticism and resentment as they returned to their places.

Challenger sat alone on the top of the mound, a small table beside him, his black mane and beard vibrating with excitement, a most portentous figure. Neither Malone nor I could admire the scene, however, for we hurried off upon our extraordinary errand. Twenty minutes later we were at the bottom of the shaft, and had pulled the tarpaulin from the exposed surface.

It was an amazing sight which lay before us. By some strange cosmic telepathy the old planet seemed to know that an unheard-of liberty was about to be attempted. The exposed surface was like a boiling pot. Great grey bubbles rose and burst with a crackling report. The air-spaces and vacuoles below the skin separated and coalesced in an agitated activity. The transverse ripples were stronger and faster in their rhythm than before. A dark purple fluid appeared to pulse in the tortuous anastomoses of channels which lay under the surface. The throb of life was in it all. A heavy smell made the air hardly fit for human lungs.

My gaze was fixed upon this strange spectacle when Malone at my elbow gave a sudden gasp of alarm. ‘My God, Jones!’ he cried. ‘Look there!’

I gave one glance, and the next instant I released the electric connection and I sprang into the lift. ‘Come on!’ I cried. ‘It may be a race for life!’

What we had seen was indeed alarming. The whole lower shaft, it would seem, had shared in the increased activity which we had observed below, and the walls were throbbing and pulsing in sympathy. This movement had reacted upon the holes in which the beams rested, and it was clear that a very little further retraction— a matter of inches— the beams would fall. If they did so then the sharp end of my rod would, of course, penetrate the earth quite independently of the electric release. Before that happened it was vital that Malone and I should be out of the shaft. To be eight miles down in the earth with the chance any instant of some extraordinary convulsion taking place was a terrible prospect. We fled wildly for the surface.

Shall either of us ever forget that nightmare journey? The lifts whizzed and buzzed and yet the minutes seemed to be hours. As we reached each stage we sprang out, jumped into the next lift, touched the release and flew onwards. Through the steel latticed roof we could see far away the little circle of light which marked the mouth of the shaft. Now it grew wider and wider, until it came full circle and our glad eyes rested upon the brickwork of the opening. Up we shot, and up— and then at last in a glad moment of joy and thankfulness we sprang out of our prison and had our feet upon the green sward once more. But it was touch and go. We had not gone thirty paces from the shaft when far down in the depths my iron dart shot into the nerve ganglion of old Mother Earth and the great moment had arrived.

What was it happened? Neither Malone nor I was in a position to say, for both of us were swept off our feet as by a cyclone and swirled along the grass, revolving round and round like two curling stones upon an ice rink. At the same time our ears were assailed by the most horrible yell that ever yet was heard. Who is there of all the hundreds who have attempted it who has ever yet described adequately that terrible cry? It was a howl in which pain, anger, menace, and the outraged majesty of Nature all blended into one hideous shriek. For a full minute it lasted, a thousand sirens in one, paralysing all the great multitude with its fierce insistence, and floating away through the still summer air until it went echoing along the whole South Coast and even reached our French neighbours across the Channel. No sound in history has ever equalled the cry of the injured Earth.

Dazed and deafened, Malone and I were aware of the shock and of the sound, but it is from the narrative of others that we learned the other details of that extraordinary scene.

The first emergence from the bowels of the earth consisted of the lift cages. The other machinery being against the walls escaped the blast, but the solid floors of the cages took the full force of the upward current. When several separate pellets are placed in a blow-pipe they still shoot forth in their order and separately from each other. So the fourteen lift cages appeared one after the other in the air, each soaring after the other, and describing a glorious parabola which landed one of them in the sea near Worthing pier, and a second one in a field not far from Chichester. Spectators have averred that of all the strange sights that they had ever seen nothing could exceed that of the fourteen lift cages sailing serenely through the blue heavens.

Then came the geyser. It was an enormous spout of vile treacly substance of the consistence of tar, which shot up into the air to a height which has been computed at two thousand feet. An inquisitive aeroplane, which had been hovering over the scene, was picked off as by an Archie and made a forced landing, man and machine buried in filth. This horrible stuff, which had a most penetrating and nauseous odour, may have represented the life blood of the planet, or it may be, as Professor Driesinger and the Berlin School maintain, that it is a protective secretion, analogous to that of the skunk, which Nature has provided in order to defend Mother Earth from intrusive Challengers. If that were so the prime offender, seated on his throne upon the hillock, escaped untarnished, while the unfortunate Press were so soaked and saturated, being in the direct line of fire, that none of them was capable of entering decent society for many weeks. This gush of putridity was blown southwards by the breeze, and descended upon the unhappy crowd who had waited so long and so patiently upon the crest of the Downs to see what would happen. There were no casualties. No home was left desolate, but many were made odoriferous, and still carry within their walls some souvenir of that great occasion.

And then came the closing of the pit. As Nature slowly closes a wound from below upwards, so does the Earth with extreme rapidity mend any rent which is made in its vital substance. There was a prolonged high-pitched crash as the sides of the shaft came together, the sound, reverberating from the depths and then rising higher and higher until with a deafening bang the brick circle at the orifice flattened out and clashed together, while a tremor like a small earthquake shook down the spoil banks and piled a pyramid fifty feet high of debris and broken iron over the spot where the hole had been. Professor Challenger’s experiment was not only finished, it was buried from human sight for ever. If it were not for the obelisk which has now been erected by the Royal Society it is doubtful if our descendants would ever know the exact site of that remarkable occurrence.

And then came the grand finale. For a long period after these successive phenomena there was a hush and a tense stillness as folk reassembled their wits and tried to realize exactly what had occurred and how it had come about. And then suddenly the mighty achievement, the huge sweep of the conception, the genius and wonder of the execution, broke upon their minds. With one impulse they turned upon Challenger. From every part of the field there came the cries of admiration, and from his hillock he could look down upon the lake of upturned faces broken only by the rise and fall of the waving handkerchiefs. As I look back I see him best as I saw him then. He rose from his chair, his eyes half closed, a smile of conscious merit upon his face, his left hand upon his hip, his right buried in the breast of his frock-coat. Surely that picture will be fixed for ever, for I heard the cameras clicking round me like crickets in a field.

The June sun shone golden upon him as he turned gravely bowing to each quarter of the compass. Challenger the super scientist, Challenger the arch-pioneer, Challenger the first man of all men whom Mother Earth had been compelled to recognize.

ONLY A WORD by way of epilogue. It is of course well known that the effect of the experiment was a world-wide one. It is true that nowhere did the injured planet emit such a howl as at the actual point of penetration, but she showed that she was indeed one entity by her conduct elsewhere. Through every vent and every volcano she voiced her indignation. Hecla bellowed until the Icelanders feared a cataclysm. Vesuvius blew its head off. Etna spewed up a quantity of lava, and a suit of half-a-million lira damages has been decided against Challenger in the Italian Courts for the destruction of vineyards. Even in Mexico and in the belt of Central America there were signs of intense Plutonic indignation, and the howls of Stromboli filled the whole Eastern Mediterranean. It has been the common ambition of mankind to set the whole world talking. To set the whole world screaming was the privilege of Challenger alone.

____________________

25: Stopping an Execution

Victor L. Whitechurch

1868-1933

Western Star and Roma Advertiser 6 April 1895

AT THE TIME of which I am writing I was living in seclusion in a small town about thirty-five miles north of London. I was engaged in rather a large literary undertaking; in fact, I was writing a novel. I had engaged myself to get the work in question completed by a certain date, and in order to do so I found myself compelled to throw over all other occupation for the time being. I knew very few people in the town where I was living, and for five or six weeks had scarcely seen anyone to speak to.

So engrossed was I with my task that I had no time to read even the newspaper, and was quite ignorant of what was going on in the world. The only relaxation I allowed myself was a good brisk walk in the country every afternoon. With this exception I had hardly stirred from my house, except to run up to London once or twice for the purpose of visiting the docks, and making certain technical investigations concerning them. This I did, as a good portion of the novel I was working at was about the life of dock surroundings in the vicinity of Rotherhithe.

It was a little after eight o'clock one evening in April, that I finished the second volume of my work. It was with great satisfaction that I wrote, and with a considerable flourish, too, the words: "End of Volume the Second."

I generally worked up till ten or eleven, but it was useless doing any more that night; so I put on my hat and coat; and started off for an evening stroll. I had no sooner stepped into the street, than a boy accosted me with a bundle of papers under his arm, and the request: 'Buy an evening paper, sir?'

I bought one, put it in my pocket, and resumed my walk.

It was a fine night, and I went some little distance, reaching home a little after half-past nine. My landlady had brought in my supper, and as my walk had given me an appetite, it was with no small pleasure that I viewed a goodly joint of cold beef awaiting my attack. I took-off my boots and put on my slippers. Then I sat down and did ample justice to my cold repast.

I had laid down the newspaper on the table when entering the room, intending to read it during supper, but my appetite had got the better of my craving for intelligence, so it was not till I had lit a pipe and subsided into a cosy arm-chair by the fire that I unfolded the sheet of printed matter.

Now, reader, I daresay you know the sensation of reading a paper for the first time after having neglected doing so for some weeks. You don't rush at it at all; in fact, you are very chary of beginning, because such thoughts come into your head as: 'I don't expect I shall enjoy the 'leaders,' because I don't know what has led up to them.' 'Sure to be some thing about a big trial of which I haven't heard the beginning;' 'Forgotten entirely all about our foreign policy.' 'Let me see, is the same Ministry still in?'

Therefore I opened my paper leisurely— nay, lazily. I looked at the 'leader.' Something about a new 'Greek Loan.' That didn't interest me. I skipped through the little items of news and hurried jottings, and summaries peculiar to our evening papers. Presently my eye was caught with the following paragraph heading

'IMPENDING EXECUTION OF

THE CLINFOLD MURDERER.'

There is a morbid fascination for most people in an execution, and so, yielding to this feeling, I proceeded to read the paragraph.

'The murderer of the unfortunate James Renfrew will be hanged to-morrow morning at eight o'clock. The wretched man, whose name— Charles Fenthurst—is now in everybody's mouth, still persists in his plea of innocence.'

Here I became deeply interested. The name of Fenthurst was most familiar to me. I had formed a deep friendship with a man of that name. He was a good fifteen years my senior, and had died about two years previously. I knew he had a son named Charles, a young fellow, who had emigrated to South Africa early in life, and who was generally supposed to be working at the diamond mines. Could this be the same man? I read on.

'It will be remembered that at the trial the strongest circumstantial evidence was brought to bear upon Fenthurst. The murder took place in a house on the out skirts of the small town of Clinfold. It was proved that Fenthurst was in the habit of frequenting Renfrew's premises, and that apparently he was expected there on the evening in question. He was seen near the place soon after the crime was committed, and several other proofs, of a strongly condemnatory character, were also laid against him. He persisted from the first, however, in maintaining that he was absent from Clinfold at the very time the murder took place. This was about seven o'clock in the evening. At that hour, he says, he was returning from London, where he had been spending part of the day; only one witness, he says, could prove this, and that is an individual who travelled with him as far as P—— and entered into conversation with him. Advertisements have been inserted in all the papers by Fenthurst's legal advisers, for the purpose of discovering the individual in question, but as no answer has been forthcoming, it is generally believed that the whole story is a myth. At any rate, there seems but small chance of the alibi being proved at the last moment. The murder was com mitted on February 6th. Since his condemnation the murderer has been con fined in Silkminster Gaol, where his execution will take place.'

Astonishment and dismay confronted me as I laid the paper down. I was the missing witness they had so vainly sought. I distinctly remembered, early in February, running up to town rather late in the afternoon, spending just half an hour there, and returning by the first train I could catch. My landlady didn't even know but that I had been for rather a longer walk than usual. I had entered into conversation on the return journey with the only other occupant of my compartment, a young man with a small black bag, on which were painted the letters " C. F." I remember all this distinctly. In order to make sure I snatched up my diary, and quickly turned to the date of the murder, February 6th. There was the entry:

'Ran up to town in afternoon. Inquired concerning material for Chap. vii. Saw B—— for half-hour. Returned by 6.42 train.'

The horror of the situation now flashed upon me. A man's life— the life of my old friend's son— depended upon me. I looked at my watch. It was just eleven o'clock. Hurriedly I dragged on my boots, thinking the while what I should do. My first impulse was to rush to the telegraph office. Then, with dismay, I remembered that it was shut for the night after eight o'clock, and that the post master took the 8.30 train to the large town of F—, about five miles off, where he lived, leaving the office for the night in the charge of a caretaker, and returning by an early train next morning.

It was impossible to telegraph. Then I thought of going to the police (there were just two constables and a sergeant in our little town), but what could they do more than I? Country police are proverbial for the leisurely 'routine' manner in which they set about any inquiry, and it would never do to trust them. I was in despair.

Madly I threw on my hat and rushed out. I ran in a mechanical way to the post-office. Of course it was shut— and if I had aroused the caretaker, he couldn't have wired; besides, all our wires went first to F—, and, as I have said, all communication was shut off after eight o'clock. Then I started for the railway station. This was about half a mile from the post-office, and well outside the town. As I hurried along I thought, with fresh dismay, that this would also prove a fruitless errand, for the last train to Silk minster was the 8.30 p.m., by which I have mentioned, the postmaster always travelled. Silkminster, I must mention, was nearly 156 miles down the line.

Should I wait till the morning and telegraph? I remembered that the office did not open till eight o'clock! I had, by this, time, reached the station. Of course, it was all shut up and all the lights were out, except those for the signal lamps for the night expresses. It was now past half-past eleven. Was there no hope?

Yes!

At this moment my eye caught a light in the signal-box, about a quarter of a mile up the line. I could see the signal-man in his box, the outline of his figure standing out against the light within. I looked at my watch: the down express from London was almost due. I would make a rush for that signal-box, and compel the occupant to put the signal against the train and stop it. It was a desperate game ; but only get that train to stop for an instant, and all would be right. By getting into it I could reach Silkminster in the early morning, and what cared I for any action the company might take if I saved my friend's son? If the signal man refused to put back the levers, the strength born of desperation would enable me to master him, and relax them myself. All this flashed across me in an instant, and I clambered over the railings on the side of the station, and found myself on the line.

Even as I reached the rails, a semaphore signal that was near me let fall its arm, and the red light changed into a brilliant green. The express was signalled! Would there be time? I dashed along over the rough sleepers towards the signal box. It was very dark, and I stumbled over and over again. I had cleared about half the distance, when I heard the ominous roar ahead, and in a few seconds could distinguish the distant glitter of the engine's head-lamp bearing towards me. The train was just over a mile from me, rushing on at express speed. With a groan I ejaculated, "Too late!"

At that instant my eye fell upon a ghastly-looking structure by the side of the track, looming grimly through the darkness. It resembled a one-armed gallows with a man hanging from it! For a moment I thought it must have been a fearful fancy conjured up by the thought of Fenthurst's dreadful fate, but immediately I remembered that this strange-looking apparition was none other than a mail-bag suspended from a post— in fact, part of the apparatus by which a train going at full speed picks up the mails. The express train that was coming had a postal car attached to it. From the side of the car a strong rope net would be laid out, catching the bag I saw suspended before me.

As a bag would be deposited from the train in a somewhat similar manner, there ought to have been a man on guard. I afterwards found he had left his post and gone to have a chat with his friend in the cheery signal-box.

A mad and desperate idea took posses-ion of me. The train that was beating down, and would reach me in one minute, should pick me up with the mails ! I grasped the idea of the thing in a second. If I could hang on to that bag so it came between me and the net, it would break the force of the shock, and the net would receive me as well as the bag. Fortunately I am a small man. The bag hung just over my head. I jumped at it, seized it, drew myself up parallel with it, held it firmly at the top, where it swung by a hook, and drew my legs up so as to present as small a compass as possible. It did not take me half a minute to do all this. Then I waited. It was but a few seconds, but it seemed hours. I heard the roar of the approaching train. Then the engine dashed past me. I shall never forget the row of lighted carriages passing about a foot away from me—closer even than that, I suppose—and I hanging and waiting for the crash to come.

And it came. There was a dull thud— a whirr and a rush, and all was dark.

When I came to my senses I was lying on the floor of the postal van. Two men in their shirt-sleeves were busily engaged in sorting letters at a rack. I felt bruised and stiff all over, and I found that my left arm was bound in a sling made out of a handkerchief.

'Where are we ?' I asked. They turned round.

'Oh, you've come to, have you?' said one of them. 'Now, perhaps, you'll give an account of yourself. It's precious lucky you're here at all, let me tell you, for if you had been a taller man we should only have got part of you in the net. As it is, you've got your collar-bone broken. We've tied it up a bit. Now, perhaps, you'll speak out; and look here, if we find you've been dodging the police, don't you go thinking you'll give 'em the slip any further. The mail van ain't a refuge of that sort.'

I told them the motive that had prompted me to take the desperate step I had done. They wouldn't believe it at first. Luckily, though, I had the evening paper and my diary in my pocket, so I showed them the paragraph and the entry. They were civil enough then.

'Well, sir, we shall be in Silkminster about three, or a little after. I hope you'll be able to save the poor beggar. You must excuse our turning to work again, and the best thing for you will be to rest yourself.'

They piled a quantity of empty mail bags oh the floor and made me a rough shake-down. Before he went to his work again the other one said:—

'What a pity, you never thought of a better way out of the difficulty than coming in here so sudden like.'

'There was no other way.'

'Yes there was, sir.'

'What was that?'

'Why, you should have got the signal-man to telegraph to Silkminster; he could have done it all right.'

What an idiot I had been, after all! However, I should be in time to stop the execution.

A little after three we drew up at Silk minster station. There was a policeman on the platform, and I at once told my story to him, the result being, that we drove round to the gaol and insisted upon seeing the governor. Of course he was deeply interested in what I had to tell him, and at once made arrangements to stop the execution. The Home Secretary was communicated with by means of special wire. Fortunately he happened to be in town, and after a couple of hours of anxious suspense, a reprieve was received from him,

'Well,' said the governor, I don't know which I ought to congratulate most, Mr. Fenthurst or yourself, for you have both had a most narrow escape.'

Little remains to be told. I soon identified the condemned man as the person whom I had met in the train. He also turned out to be the son of my old friend, as I had fully expected. After the due formalities he was discharged. Suspicion having strongly attached itself to his name, however, he was very miserable, until about a fortnight afterwards the real murderer was discovered and captured. Charles Fenthurst and myself became fast friends, and although I was fearfully shaken and upset for some weeks after this adventure, I never regretted the night on which I was picked up with the mails.

End

THE PAST MASTERS  ANTHOLOGY SERIES

CUMULATIVE INDEX

To Past Masters Twelve

The PAST MASTERS series began as a one-off; to my surprise, I found some more stories, which became MORE PAST MASTERS; since then the number of PAST MASTERS anthologies has kept rising.

This index of authors is to help me avoid duplication (although it has already happened) and to help any future searchers after PD L+70 short stories not otherwise easily found.  I have chosen to use common pseudonyms (e.g. Sapper, Saki) rather than formal names, and if it starts with "de"  or "le" it is a "D" or "L"  in the index, e.g. de Brune, le Queux.  Conan Doyle is under C (the surname was legally double-barrelled, but without a hyphen.) If there is more than one story, the stories are in alphabetical order ignoring "a" or "the".

"Pulpmeister"

(Terry Walker)

The code is:  P= Past Masters; M= More Past Masters; then, logically, 3, 4 etc.

Cleve F. Adams

Flowers For Violet 4

Forty Pains 4

A.J. Alan

The Diver 5

My Adventure at Chislehurst 5

The Hair 5

H2, etc. 5

My Adventure In Norfolk  5

Grant Allen

The Conscientious Burglar P

Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews:

The Butler 6

Anonymous

Adventure of the Rubber Pipe 11

By a Miscalculation 12

A Detective's Story 12

Martin Guerre 12

Alice and Claude Askew:

Aylmer Vance and the Vampire M

The Empty Chair  8

Francis Henry Atkins

The Broken Sword  9

The Third Figure 10

Stacy Aumonier

George M

A Source of Irritation 7

Where Was Wych Street?  8

F Britten Austin

An Affair Of Honour 5

Buried Treasure 5

Diamond Cut Diamond 11

The Fourth Degree 5

The Inca's Treasure 5

The Other Side 5

Well Lost?  11

W. E. Aytoun

The Glenmutchkin Railway M

John Kendrick Bangs

Mr. Homes Shatters an Alibi  8

Robert Barr

The Great Pegram Mystery M

H Bedford-Jones

The Four Red Circles 4

Gallegher of Beaver 4

The Luck of a Cowboy 4

John Bickerdyke

A Fearful Night 12

Earl Derr Biggers

Volcano-Mad 3

Harold Bindloss

The Evicting of Grainger 9

The Tempter 6

Ottwell Binns

The Prodigal Son, V.C. 11

M. McDonnell Bodkin

A Bolt from the Blue 7

Diamond Cut Diamond 9

A Drop of Blood 9

Find the Forger  8

Hide And Seek 9

The Matchmaker 6

Murder by Proxy 7

Only a Voice 8

Over-Ruled  8

Safe Bind, Safe Find

The Slump In Silver 9

The Torpedo 8

Under His Own Hand  9

A Wrong Turning  8

Rolfe Boldrewood

Five Men's Lives for One Horse 8

The Mailman's Yarn  8

Charles G. Booth

Stag Party 11

Guy Boothby

The Family Honour 10

The Great Dives Elopement 10

A Strange Goldfield 10

Max Brand:

The Silent Witness P and 7

Percy James Brebner

The Cobbler 6

The Lady's Glove 6

The Man with the Carnation 6

The Missing Signorina 6

Thomas Charles Bridges

Wingfield's White Elephant 10

Ellis Parker Butler

The Detective Club 7

Geoffrey's Panklaggephone 6

Christopher Caudwell

Four Friends and Death 5

Arthur Conan Doyle:

The Disintegration Machine 10

The New Catacomb P

When the World Screamed 12

Richard Connell

Flash!  7

Loser Wins All 9

Man of a Few Words 9

One-Trip Darling 5

The Solid Gold Article 9

Mrs. George Corbett

Spoofing a Detective 7

Colonel Henry Curties

A Summer Night's Weird 6

Richard Harding Davis

In the Fog  9

Aidan de Brune

The Empty Match Box P

The Fifth Domino (as by John Morris) 12

The Gift to See Ourselves as Others See Us  8

George Allan England

Arson in the Jungle 10

Glyn Evans

"The Man Who Was—" 5

J S Fletcher

Comedy of the Grand Canal 8

The Cracksman's Catspaw 7

The Yellow Dog P

R Austin Freeman

The Great Portrait Mystery P

Tom Gallon

The Vengeance of Adam Rook  11

John Galsworthy:

Acme 3

Cosmo Hamilton:

Proofs of  Guilt 10

The Mirror of Nature 12

The Silent Witness 5

Headon Hill

The Sapient Monkey  9

Robert J Horton:

The Ninety-Ninth Proposal 4

C J Cutcliffe Hyne

The Anarchist's Scheme 6

Anchored 10

Beauty and the Beast 4

Confounded 3

Gregory Of Byzantium 3

Guaranteed Countess  8

A Lottery Duel 3

A Marriage of Convenience 3

The Men in Stone 3

Mrs. Seal McIntosh 3

Paradise Coal Boat 3

The Perfumer 3

A QC's Confession 3

The Ransom 4

The Settler-ess 3

The Ship-Breaker's Yard 3

The Tragedy of a Third Smoker P

The Traitor: 3

The Trinidad Treasure 3

A. A. Irvine:

The Fountain of Light 5

Edgar Jepson and Robert Eustace:

Mr. Belton's Immunity 7

The Tea-Leaf P

Otis Adelbert Kline:

The Phantom Wolf-Hound 4

Stephen Leacock:

The Prince of Wurttenburg P

William Le Queux:

The Open Eye 11

Sheer Profit P

William J. Makin

Flight From Teheran 8

Four Guests 7

The Horror of the Loch 7

Murder off the Map 7

Supper at Midnight 5

A E W Mason

The Affair at the Semiramis Hotel P

The Ginger King P

L T Meade

Warned by a Mouse 10

L. T. Meade and Clifford Halifax

A Doctor's Dilemma  11

A Race with the Sun 10

L. T. Meade and Robert Eustace

The Arrest of Captain Vandaleur 10

The Dead Hand 3

The Face in the Dark 7

Finger Tips 3

The Secret of Emu Plain 10

Sir Penn Carlyll's Engagement 3

The Yellow Flag 10

Lucy Gertrude Moberly

Black Paws 6

Talbot Mundy

Making £10,000 3

Edith Nesbit

The Mystery of the Semi-Detached M

William Edward Norris

The Willingham Van Dyke 6

David Wright O'Brien

The Money Machine M

Rats in the Belfry 9

Owen Oliver

Her Account  6

The Last Laugh 6

A Rapid Conveyance  7

The Specialist 6

E. Phillips Oppenheim

The Lady of the Morass 9

Mr. Senn's Past P

A Royal Dilemma 3

The Tower Ghost 8

Frank L Packard

Corporal Bob  12

Barry Pain

Albert Theodore Parish 11

Amphistamium Formosum  10

Clubs and Hearts  7

The Dog's Understudy 11

Hasheesh 11

Some Imitations 6

Twelve Minutes 6

Marjorie Pickthall

Mannering's Men 6

Mabel Quiller-Couch

A Condoned Crime 11

Frederic Reddale

Galleon Gold 12

C E Bechhofer Roberts:

The English Filter 7

The Last Lap 8

The Man Who Lost His Memory 7

Mrs Carnaby's Dairies 8

Murder of a Matchmaker 8

The Mystery of the Chaffeur's Suicide 7

The Radium Robbery 8

Virgin Snow 7

Morley Roberts

The Anarchist 12

The Anticipator 12

The Arbitrator 12

An Edited Story 12

The Figure-head of the "White Prince" 12

The Judgment Of Paris 12

A Man's Death 12

Her Memory 7

A Pawned Kingdom 12

The Pedestal 6

Round the World in a Hurry 12

Two Men and a River 12

The Wedding Eve 12

Theodore Roosevelt

The Wendigo M

Anthony M. Rud

Ooze 7

Damon Runyon

Tobias the Terrible P

Charles  ('Chic') Sale:

The Specialist M

"Sapper" (H C McNeile):

Will You Walk Into My Parlour? P

Perley Poore Sheehan

The Hands of Killian 12

The Murdered Wife 11

Spider Tong  M

The “Smuggler’s Daughter”—Five Reels 12

Tiger Trail 4

Adam Hull Shirk

Osiris 4

George R. Sims

Lance Warrener's Crime 11

Thorne Smith

Yonder's Henry! M

John Philip Sousa

The Conspirators M

Andrew Soutar

The Doctor Takes a Hand 6

F St Mars

There and Back  8

Sir Basil Thomson

The Vanishing of Mrs. Fraser P

Guy Thorne

The Flirt 10

Puzzle Phyllis 6

Reward of Revenge 12

Unforeseen 5

E. Charles Vivian

Locked In P

Other Gods 6

Edgar Wallace

Bill of Scotland Yard  4

Christmas Eve at the China Dog M

A Present for Evans M

The Slane Mystery P

"Waif Wander"

The Phantom Hearse 10

The Spirits of the Tower 10

Henry Brereton Marriott Watson

The Devil of the Marsh M

F A M Webster

No Leopards in Surbiton 5

The Schimmel Sets the Pace 6

The Secret of the Singular Cipher 6

Ethel Lina White

Cheese P

Wax Works 7

Fred M. White

According to the Statute M

The Azoff Diamonds P

Victor L. Whitechurch

Stopping an Execution 12

Oscar Wilde

The Canterville Ghost  8

Valentine Williams

Blind Guess M

C N and A M Williamson

The Dazzle Plot  8

John Strange Winter

Hunks 12

P. C. Wren

Simple 6

Arthur Leo Zagat

Beyond the Spectrum M

Israel Zangwill

Cheating the Gallows  9

_____________________

Table of Contents

- 1: Martin Guerre / Anonymous

- 2: The Mirror of Nature / Cosmo Hamilton

- 3: The Fifth Domino / John Morris (Aidan de Brune)

- 4: Hunks / John Strange Winter
- 5: Galleon Gold / Frederic Reddale
- 6: A Fearful Night / John Bickerdyke
- 7: By a Miscalculation / Anonymous
- 8: The Anticipator / Morley Roberts
- 9: The Arbitrator / Morley Roberts
- 10: An Edited Story / Morley Roberts

- 11: The Figure-head of the "White Prince" / Morley Roberts

- 12: The Judgment of Paris / Morley Roberts
- 13: A Man's Death / Morley Roberts
- 14: A Pawned Kingdom / Morley Roberts
- 15: Two Men and a River / Morley Roberts

- 16: Round the World in a Hurry / Morley Roberts

- 17: The Wedding Eve / Morley Roberts

- 18: The Anarchist / Morley Roberts

- 19: The “Smuggler’s Daughter”—Five Reels / Perley Poore Sheehan

- 20: The Hands of Killian / Perley Poore Sheehan

- 21: A Detective's Story / Anonymous
- 22: Corporal Bob / Frank L Packard
- 23: Reward of Revenge / Guy Thorne

- 24: When the World Screamed / Arthur Conan Doyle

- 25: Stopping an Execution / Victor L. Whitechurch

- Cumulative Index to Vol 12