Past Masters Eighty One
Author: Various
Date: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00
Description: A mixed bag, with several long short stories; a mix of humour, romance, horror and weird concluding with hard-boiled private eye story by Cleve F Adams, a stalwart of Black Mask magazine. All stories are in the Life+70 years public domain. 1: A Feminine Stand / Owen Oliver 2: Morrell's Memoriser / Anna Steese Richardson 3: The Pass of Nolan's Welcome / Richard Dowling 4: Tricky Tonnage / Malcolm Jameson 5: The Master Ants / Francis Flagg 6: By the Hands of the Dead / Francis Flagg 7: The Spy / George A. Birmingham 8: Ribbon of Fate / George Allan England 9: A Question of Salvage / George Allan

PAST MASTERS

EIGHTY-ONE

6 June 2022

Produced by Terry Walker

("Pulpmeister")

Contents

1: A Feminine Stand / Owen Oliver

2: Morrell's Memoriser / Anna Steese Richardson

3: The Pass of Nolan's Welcome / Richard Dowling

4: Tricky Tonnage / Malcolm Jameson

5: The Master Ants / Francis Flagg

6: By the Hands of the Dead / Francis Flagg

7: The Spy / George A. Birmingham

8: Ribbon of Fate / George Allan England

9: A Question of Salvage / George Allan England

10: The Snake Strikes / Lieutenant Edgar Gardiner

11: The Lizard God / Charles J. Finger

12: The Shame of Gold / Charles J. Finger

13: The Colour out of Space / H. P. Lovecraft

14: Default With Doom / Cleve F. Adams

Cumulative Index  #61-81

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1: A Feminine Stand

Owen Oliver

1863-1933

The Cosmopolitan June 1904

"Owen Oliver" was the pseudonym of a British civil servant, later knighted as Sir Joshua Albert Flynn, KCB, who concluded a long and varied official career as Director General of Finance at the Ministry of Pensions. He was a prolific author of genre short fiction for magazines, and also wrote a number of novels, some with romantic or fantasy themes.

ONE judges a woman by a feminine standard.  Cousin Frances— otherwise "Dr. Frank Holland, M.D., B.S."— insisted on being masculine. That was why I did not altogether approve of her.

Despite my partial disapproval, we were very good friends. There was a time when I harbored a doubtful idea that we might be something more; but she gave me to understand that there was to be "no man and woman nonsense" between us.

After she had practised for two or three years with marked success, the family came to accept her masculinity. Uncle William alone persisted in regarding her as a girl. He was a gentle old creature, born centuries after his time. He would have made an admirable medieval saint. As a modern man of business he was not a great success. He made a certain amount of money, it is true, but he gave it all away. Except Frances, he had helped all the family in turn; and we all looked up to him— except Frances. She described him as "a silly old man," and declared that she had no patience with him. There were many things that she hadn't patience with.

Just before Christmas, 1902, when I was abroad, Uncle William had a severe attack of influenza. His managing clerk, whom he had befriended against all advice, took the opportunity to disappear. The year's profits disappeared with him, and the accounts were left in a horrible mess. I came back directly I heard of it, and spent my evenings for a month getting things straight; but I found the business practically ruined. The liabilities exceeded the assets by some five hundred pounds, and there was not enough coming in to keep him decently. So I paid off the creditors and added a trifle to the incomings. Nobody suspected me but Frances. She was very clever— too clever for a woman. She was also very blunt— too blunt for a man!

"It is a fool who helps a fool," she said.

"There is honor among fools," I told her. "He would have helped me any time."

"Honor begins at home," she retorted. "You know you can't afford it."

I shrugged my shoulders.

"It's entirely his own fault." I shrugged them again.

"People should mind their own business."

I took my hat. "You'd better do so," I recommended.

Then I declined her offer to show me some new specimens in pickle, and departed in a bad temper. I did not mind her thinking badly of me so much as I minded her making me think badly of her.

The next evening, when I paid my usual visit to Uncle William, I found Frances there. She was sounding him, and she looked very professional.

"There's nothing organically wrong with you," she pronounced, curtly. "It's merely weakness, aggravated by worrying yourself. If you stop worrying, you'll get well. If you don't, you won't."

"I don't worry about myself, Frankie dear," he protested. "It's my poor people. I haven't been able to do much for them, but there were a few little things that I know I could do. They— they're so helpless."

"The usual result of indiscriminate charity," she observed.

"Some people have such bad luck, my dear," he apologized— "such hard lives. When you go among them and see—"

"I go among them— and see idleness and drink, that's what's the matter with them. Well, I've told you. If you want to kill yourself, you can. Good night."

"Good night, my dear." He sank back on his pillow with a sigh. "It was kind of you to come and see me."

I saw her to the front door. When she held out her hand, I put mine behind me.

"Don't come here any more," I said, sharply, and closed the door. I wished for the moment that she were a man.

"You mustn't take any notice of her," I told him. "She's growing a cross-grained old maid."

"No, no,'' he pleaded. "She's only twenty-seven. She— she means well." He drew a deep, slow breath. "She was very gentle when she sounded me, very gentle. It's right, too, in a way, what she says. If I'd been more prudent, I shouldn't be a burden to other people. I— I must be a great anxiety to you, my boy. It won't be for long."

"Say ten years," I suggested, cheerfully. "Come, you must make the effort and get well, if it's only for the sake of your poor clients. You'll be able to do all sorts of things for them when you get the business in order again."

"Yes, yes!" he smiled immediately. "When I get the business in order again I suppose there isn't any money to spare just now? Say a few pounds?"

"No," I said; "there isn't."

"Ah!" he said. "I was afraid not. I have so many expensive things just now. I could cut my expenditure down if—"

"If I would let you," I interrupted. "But, you see, I won't."

He was always wanting to go without things to apply the savings to some one else.

"If I were well, I was going to say—"

"Exactly," I agreed. "You've only got to get well."

For a couple of days, he seemed improving. Then the housekeeper let old Mrs. Murphy and lame Jones in to see him. He gave them all the loose silver he had, and wished to dine on biscuits and milk to retrieve the expenditure. I gave strict instructions that no more poor people were to be admitted to see him; but the idea that his pensioners were starving took firm hold of him, and troubled him.

I met Frances in the street one morning, and as she asked me about him, I told her. She went on to see him; and then she came straight to me.

"He's insane upon the subject of charity," she declared. "There's only one way of saving him from himself. You must tell him that you're paying the allowances that he makes them. I'll give you a doctor's absolution."

"I can't tell lies—" I began.

"George Washington!" she exclaimed, scornfully.

"To Uncle William," I finished. "There are some people you can tell lies to; and some that you can't."

''Umph!" she grumbled. "I can."

When I called in the evening, I found him in unusual spirits.

"You are not often wrong, John," he remarked, with amiable triumph, "but you're wrong about Frankie. What do you think she has done?"

"She has been to see you?" I asked.

"Twice to-day!" he chuckled feebly. "She's coming again this evening." He rubbed his hands delightedly. "This morning she brought me those grapes." He stopped with his arm half extended toward the empty plate. "I ate a great many myself," he protested, "before I— I thought that old Mrs. Brown didn't get many comforts, and so— You won't mention it to Frankie, will you? It might hurt her feelings to think that I gave some away. Women are so— so feminine.''

"I don't think you can accuse Frances of that," I said, grimly.

"You don't do her justice, John; really you don't. If you had heard her talking to me—  She has a pleasant voice, a very pleasant voice."

"I have noticed it," I owned. Her voice is delightfully rich and rounded. She cultivated it as part of her professional stock-in-trade, she once told me.

"She asked about all my poor friends very kindly. She was wonderfully patient with me. Do you know, she reminded me of her poor mother. She is a good girl, John."

"One hardly thinks of her as a girl," I said, bitterly.

I was not accustomed to speak hardly of Frances; but when I thought of her using her discarded feminine graces to deceive him, I felt— well, I think I felt more hurt than anything.

"I was going to tell you about this afternoon," he continued, at length. "She said that she came to bring me this little ash-tray. It's silver, John." His face beamed. "Fancy her thinking of me like that! I could see she'd come for some- thing else, too. So presently I took her hands and said, 'Well, dear child, what is it?' And then—" His voice quavered excitedly. "She's going to pay all the little allowances that I used to give to people— every one of them! 'You used to call me your best niece when I was a little mite, don't you remember, uncle?' she said. 'I must do something to justify the title.' Now what do you think of her, my boy?"

''She is— different from what I expected," I told him.

I looked at the fire for a long time, till the red glow seemed lost in a damp mist. There are idols that we do not know we have set up till they are fallen. I had not known before this, all that I had once thought of Frances.

I went down to the dining-room when I heard her carriage. I did not want to see her; but she came in to see me as she left. She was a trifle flushed, and less composed than usual.

"I suppose," she said, "you misjudge me?"

"Heaven knows! I wish I could think so."

"You always do," she cried, with a passion unusual to her. "You always will. You judge me by a wrong standard."

"I have tried to judge you by the standard you set up for yourself: the standard of an honorable man. Perhaps the motive excuses what you have done, but nothing can excuse the way you have done it." My voice suddenly rose. "You did it as a woman. You used all your feminine graces and wiles. I must judge you by a feminine standard. Frances, you have acted as a good woman would not have done."

She clenched her hands, and her teeth made a little chattering sound two or three times. Then she turned and walked out of the room. We did not speak for a month, except when we met in Uncle William's room. He made very little improvement, and she attended him regularly. Sometimes she sat up with him.

One evening, she asked for a few words with me.

"I can't pull him through,'' she said, in her steady, level voice. "I have done my best. You won't misjudge me in that."

"No," I said, huskily. ''No doctor could have done more."

She did not move for a long time, and, sitting with my head on my hand, I thought that she had gone; but when I lifted my head she was still looking at me. Her face was white and weary. She had sat up with him the night before, and her professional duties were heavy.

"You have done your best, Frances," I said, "in every way."

She nodded quietly.

"Yes," she said, "I have done my best. Even when— Well, you have judged me. Good night, John.''

"Good night." I held out my hand; but she shook her head. "I can't," she said.

Then she left the room.

There was a look in her eyes that lingered with me; a look that reminded me of the days when I thought of her as a man thinks of a woman— one woman. I listened at the window for the sound of her voice when she spoke to the coachman.

I caught the same look again the next evening, when uncle was asking her about his poor people.

"They are all paid," she said, steadily. "Every one. They are not so bad as I thought. At any rate, they are grateful. You should hear how they speak of you. I shall always take interest in them now."

"After I am gone?" he asked, eagerly.

She looked at me for a moment.

"After you are gone," she said. "Uncle— dear." She bent suddenly and kissed him, and left the room. I did not speak for a few minutes. Neither did he.

"John," he said at last, "my dear boy— May I speak to you about some- thing?"

"Not Frances?" I entreated.

"It is about Frances."

I made an impatient movement. It was right that he should think well of her. She had been devoted to him lately; and she had always liked him really, I think; but it hurt me to hear him speak of her charity to his poor.

"I would rather you didn't, uncle,'' I said, slowly. He looked at me pleadingly. "Very well."

"It is about you, too, John,'' he said. "I— I used to think that you were in love with her; that you would some time marry her."

I toyed with my watch-chain.

"It takes two to make a marriage," I reminded him.

"I thought— John, I still think— that she cares for you."

I shook my head. "Did you ever ask her?"

"No. She gave me clearly to understand that I was to treat her as— as I would treat a man."

He laughed feebly.

"Shall I tell you the reason?" he asked. "Because she thought you did not approve of her as a woman; because she wanted your friendship on terms that would not hurt her pride. My dear boy, it is you who have made her masculine."

I smiled wearily.

"You think every one is as soft-hearted and sentimental as yourself, my dear old uncle. Frances is not like that."

"She is," he declared. "John, she is a very loyal friend to you. Do you know what she did this afternoon? She thought I might wonder why you had not done what she has done for me in helping these poor people of mine. I never wondered, my boy. I knew that every penny you could spare, and more, was spent for me. I didn't say 'Don't do it,' because you wouldn't be you if you didn't. But she feared that I might misjudge you. So she told me."

I tried to speak, but something seemed to choke in my throat.

"Haven't you a word of praise for her? Something has come between you, John? Can't you tell me what it is?"

"No," I said, "I can't tell you."

He looked at me wistfully.

"I can't tell you," I repeated. "You won't press me any more, uncle. You know that I wouldn't willingly refuse a request of yours."

He nodded.

"I understand. You think the fault is hers, and you are loyal to her.''

We sat in silence for a quarter of an hour. Then she came in. He beckoned to her, and she went and sat close beside him, and he stroked her hair.

"Frankie," he said, softly, "I haven't much time now to learn things, and there is something that I want to know. I have asked you, and you could not tell me, because you were loyal to John. I have asked John, and he could not tell me, because he is loyal to you. Now you are both together, one of you can tell me without disloyalty to the other; but I don't know which to ask. There are some things that a man can say, and a woman can't; and some that a man can't, and a woman can. I don't think of you as a great doctor, with a man's intellect and a man's ways, my dear, but just as a little girl."

She put her arm under his head gently.

"Just a little girl," she said. "Just a loving little girl to you."

She smiled up at him. I had never seen her look so beautiful before, or heard her voice so sweet.

"Then, little girl, I will ask you. What has come between you and John?"

She glanced at me. There was the same hurt look in her eves that I had seen before. I leaned suddenly toward her and held out my hand; and she put hers in it.

"Why!" she said, in a queer, half-laughing, half-crying way. "There is nothing— now. It was a mistake. I let John think that I was only pretending to pay your poor people; and he took my word against myself."

"You paid them!" I cried. "Frances! I shall never forgive myself. Have I always misjudged you?"

"Perhaps; but it has been my own fault." She looked down at the carpet. "You see— I told you to judge me as a man— and—" She looked up at me with her eyes wet and smiling, and full of unspeakable things. "I am a woman, John!"

The world seemed to whirl around, and my words were slow in coming. When they came, they sounded a long way off.

"And you will be my wife?" I asked.

"And I will be your wife," she said.

We forgot Uncle William till we heard him laughing as he had not laughed for months before.

"And I will dance at your wedding," he vowed; and he did.

The family say that it was "Doctor Frank" who cured him; and I say that it was his "best niece"; but she smiles and shakes her pretty head.

"It was love," she says, softly, "love that cures everything."

But nowadays she judges things by a very feminine standard!

__________________

2: Morrell's Memoriser

Anna Steese Richardson

1865-1949

World's News (Sydney) 30 Sep 1905

American author and magazine editor, born in Iowa.

"PERHAPS you are afraid," remarked Morrell quietly, and just for a second an odd smile curved the thin lips above his pointed, reddish beard.

A dull flush suffused Harry Duane's pallid face, and he rubbed his hand fretfully through his hair.

"Don't be a fool, Jean! You know I'm no coward. If you were a nerve specialist, now, but—"

"A nerve specialist!" interrupted Morrell impatiently. "Man alive, if I'm not that, then what am I? Do you remember the play we parted at college, you facing toward Wall-street and I toward Paris? Well, from that hour to this I've done nothing but study nerves, and that's why, buried in Ivanowski's black hole of a laboratory, I've worked out this invention. I know it's perfect, but I've never had just the right subject on whom to test its full power. Now, you—"

He broke off abruptly and picked up from a morocco case on the table a 15-inch band composed of fine copper wires, held together by an oblong piece of dark leather not unlike the scapula worn by Romanists on a ribbon or leather thong.

"Just to prove that it cannot possibly hurt you, I will put it on "

He raised his hand as if to bare his throat, but Duane sprang to bis feet.

"Give me the blamed thing! I know it can't do me any harm, but it seems so— so damned uncanny!"

As he spoke he untied his cravat, and jerked off his collar. Again Morrell smiled, but differently. He opened the copper band and deftly slipped it around Duane's throat until the leather pad rested at the base of his brain. There was a sharp, metallic click. Mrs. Duane, sitting just beyond the circle of light which fell from the great library lamp, caught her breath sharply. Her gold cigarette case fell to the floor with a faint clatter. Morrell turned quickly to pick it up and offered it to her, open. With a trembling hand she drew forth a cigarette and Morrell, with a perfectly steady hand, lighted it for her. As he stepped aside, she saw that her husband had dropped back in his big armchair and was gazing dreamily into the fire.

Morrell seated himself opposite his host and began to chat of Paris, the decline of the Quartier Latin, the rise in social power of the American colony and kindred topics, but even as he gossipped lightly his mind reviewed ex-ultantly the events of the afternoon.

He was back in Duane's Broad-street office. His host was nervously ransacking pockets and pigeon holes for his engagement book. Finally he reached for his telephone extension.

"Hello, hello, hello, central! Are you asleep? No? Well, never mind! Give me 7898 River— Hello, hello, hello! That you, Meta? Yes, this is Harry! Say, have we anything on for to-night— anybody coming for dinner? All right. No, nothing; I just want to bring an old friend, Jean Morrel, up for dinner! All right. Good-bye."

Duane swung back to his caller with an expression almost shamefaced.

"My memory's all to the bad. This hasn't been the happiest year for us men on the street, and Meta's been putting me through some pretty hard social paces. You know, she was always ambitious, and I am proud of her. I guess we'll make for the South of France in a few weeks. I need a rest."

"Well, rather," Morrell returned drily.

"Make yourself at home," Duane said, whirling back in his desk. "I'll be through in about half an hour."

For a time Morrell sat watching his friend in silence; then he pulled out a pocket textbook and settled down to reading. Half an hour passed, an hour, and ten minutes more. Harry Duane drove steadily ahead, apparently oblivious to the presence of his guest. He answered telephone calls, dictated letters and telegrams, and issued quick, concise orders to his subordinates. Then with a sharp click he slammed down his desk lid and started to his feet.

"Hello, Morrell, you still here?" He passed his hand wearily in front of his eyes. "Let's see, we were going somewhere, weren't we?"

"Rather," replied Morrell, drily. "I was laboring under the impression that we were dining at your house to-night."

Duane flushed and laughed uneasily.

"Oh, I say, that was a bit raw! But it's just as I told you. My nerves are on edge, and I can't remember. I wish to thunder some one would invent a memoriser of some sort that a tired man could attach to his coat or stick into his pocket— one that would go off like an alarm clock at the right minute."

Morrell remembered the thrill these words had caused. But he had not spoken— then. He had merely turned with an odd little laugh:

"Don't forget your overcoat, old man. It's turning cold."

Duane stirred in the depths of his easy chair. Then he sat up, an expression of annoyance on his face.

"By George, I forgot to write Ainsley about that Chicago property. I must make a note and see to it the first thing in the morning." He hunted through the library drawer until he found a pad, then he made a memo upon it, and leaned back in his chair.

Morrell turned the conversation toward the Riviera, but a moment later Duane again reached for the pad. "One of my bookkeepers is sick and I forgot to give orders for some one to go down and see whether he needs anything."

Morrell turned upon his host sharply. "Where were you last night? At the theatre?"

"Sure!" replied Duane, with unusual promptness. "At the Criterion with the Delafields."

"You don't happen to recall Sir Charles Wyndham's speech in the climax of the second act, do you?"

"Well, I should say so," replied Duane, with enthusiasm. "Wasn't that a hummer?" And without hesitation he rattled off the lines, word for word.

Mrs. Duane leaned forward, anxiety clearly written in her eyes. Morrell raised his hand in warning gesture, and she dropped back in her chair.

"Much work on hand for to-morrow?" inquired Morrell, lightly, as he once more faced Duane.

"Yes, quite a little. Why?"

"Oh, I'd like you and Mrs. Duane to lunch with me at the St. Regis at one  o'clock. Can you make it?"

Duane seemed to be running over his appointments in his mind, and in a minute he turned briskly. "Nothing on for one o'clock."

"Are you sure about that?" persisted Morrell. "Certainly! Don't you suppose I know where I'm going to-morrow?"

"That's all I wanted to know. The memoriser is working. It has stood a pretty hard test."

Duane laughed almost boyishly, and touched the copper band around his throat.

"This thing— you mean— why, I say, that's so! I can think clearly and remember the smallest details of what happened to-day. Well, I'll be—"

"No, you won't," interrupted Morrell, with a sigh of relief. "You'll be cured. Take this off to-night, as it stimulates your brain."

"You bet it does," replied Duane, sitting up energetically. "I could go back to the office now and do another day's work."

"But you won't. You're going to bed to sleep as you haven't slept for weeks. Take the memoriser off— so. And to-morrow morning, as soon as you've bathed, slip it on again. It won't interfere with your collar, nor your collar with the action of the memoriser. I'll see you at lunch time."

Mrs. Duane rose suddenly and stepped into the circle of light. She was a pretty woman, well coiffed and smartly gowned, but Morrell, catching a glimpse of her face in the full glare of the powerful lamp, realised that she looked haggard and blasé.

"Why can't I try the wonderful effect of your invention?" she asked in her rich, well modulated tones. "I am not afraid."

"Afraid," laughed Duane. "Why, there's nothing but a slight sensation of fine needles pricking your neck. That lasts about a minute, then your nerves begin to quiet down. Somehow you find yourself relaxing and then your brain begins to clear— and then things come to you."

Morrell was listening to Duane's crisp, enthusiastic words, but he was watching Mrs. Duane's face and the wistful droop of her pretty mouth.

Suddenly he turned, strode out into the hall and came back carrying a second morocco bound case.

"Don't put it on to-night," he said to the woman, who watched him examine the copper bands he lifted from the case. "You need rest, not stimulation. To-morrow morning is time enough for you to experiment. And now, good night to you both."

"YOU MAY go, Thompkins," said Mrs. Duane the next morning at breakfast, when the butler had placed the shirred eggs before his master.

The well-trained man could hardly suppress a look of surprise. He had often been dismissed with the last course at dinner, but in the morning, before the mall had come—. He strode from the room, head high. Mrs. Duane shot a glance across the table at her husband. And they both laughed guiltily.

"Feel all right?" inquired Duane, his hand travelling instinctively to the back of his neck. His wife smoothed the Dresden ribbons which swathed her throat and said:—

"Yes, the pricking is stopped, my headache is gone— but I do feel funny with my head dressed high for breakfast. I miss my neglige!"

From somewhere in'the distance came the long, vibrant stroke of a clock. Mrs Duane sprang to her feet. "Excuse me, dear, it's half-past 8; I must be going."

She planted at birdlike kiss on her husband's forehead and almost ran from the room. He picked up his paper and strolled in leisurely fashion to the library. Fifteen minutes later he heard the front door bang violently, and, hurrying to the drawing-room window, he caught a glimpse of his wife scurrying off toward the subway station. With a peculiar feeling that somehow things were amiss, he climbed the stairs and found himself standing before the door of his wife's morning-room. After a moment's hesitation, he entered and seated himself at her desk, with its absurd marquetry, tiny pigeonholes, and distinctly ornamental fittings. He was idly twiddling a nouveau art penholder in his big, strong fingers, when there came a tap at the door.

"Come in," he shouted, and turned to face Thompkins, who paused in the doorway, red of face and clearly disturbed in bearing.

"Well, what do you want?" demanded Duane, sharply.

Thompkins coughed discreetly.

"I came to receive Mrs. Duane's orders for the day. She said something yesterday about having a few friends for dinner to-night."

"Oh, yes," replied Duane, briskly, and his hand reached for a certain pigeonhole. Without hesitation he drew forth a card bearing a list of names. "There will be Mr. and Mrs. Norman Winters, the Delafields, the Cuscadens, Miss Branscomb, and young Douglas. I've ordered tulips for the table, and I'd wish you'd tell Jane to be careful about that mousse. The last was very bad. Here's the menu." Again instinctively his hand reached for the right pigeon-hole and the carefully-written menu. Thompkins came forward for the lists.

"What the devil makes you look at me like that?" demanded Duane irritably, and the man turned to leave the room.

"All right, sir," he finally said from the door-way. "I'll tell Jane, sir."

Duane flung himself into the highest cretonne-covered chair in the room, and opened the morning paper at a page completely covered with the advertisement of a large departmental store. Twice he swung over to the financial column, but each time he found his curiosity about the prices at Bings and Jones getting the better of his business instinct. The latest news from the seat of war bored him, and he found himself yawning over a three-column article on the gas merger. Then he flung down the paper, and hunted up his wife's manicuring outfit. By Jove, but his hands were in bad shape! Deciding to hunt up a new manicurist, he strolled into his dressing-room, and laid forth, his best grey trousers, waistcoat, and frock coat. As he adjusted his collar his hand touched the bit of leather at the base of his brain, and he smiled at the placid face reflected in the mirror. By George, this was life worth living! Where was the tension of yesterday? Thanks to the blessed memoriser, his brain, was clear, and from his shoulders had fallen all the business cares and anxieties of yesterday and a hundred days before. The all-important question in his mind at this moment was whether his waistcoat and scarf were of the same tone of grey? Ten minutes later he went downstairs, his faultless morning attire topped by a silk hat. Thompkins, with an extremely red face, opened the door for him.

"I shan't be home to lunch," said Duane, as he passed the man.

"Yes, sir," replied Thompkins, choking oddly, and closing the door suddenly.

Duane stepped into the waiting brougham. The horses clattered noisily down the avenue, and in due time drew the vehicle up before the Waldorf-Astoria. Duane entered the great ball-room alone, but in a moment he was captured by Mrs. Delafield, looking very impressible in a velvet redingote and white fox furs.

"Why, I didn't know you went in for the Bagby musicales," she remarked. Duane winked rapidly as his glance swept the great, room. It seemed to him that there were a million women and a dozen men.

"No, I don't usually," he replied in helpless fashion, "but I wanted to see Grant Ford. Ah! there he is," and without further conversation he drifted away from the astonished Mrs. Delafield toward a fine-looking man who had just entered the roam. Mrs. Delafield gasped, and then clutched the arm of Mrs. Winters.

"He's come to meet Grant Ford! What do you make of that? Do you think there will be a scene when— when his wife arrives?"

Mrs. Winters promptly hedged.

"Well, so far as I am concerned, I always thought the gossip about Meta Duane and Grant Ford was ridiculous.  I am sure I never saw any thing out of the way, and a woman has a right to a man friend, or two when her husband is eternally absorbed in business."

"Well, you cannot deny that Grant looks knocked out just at this minute." Mrs. Winters turned to watch the meeting of the two men. So did some hundred and one other women. Fold turned a bit white as he saw Duane making straight for his post of vantage near the door. Then he pulled himself together and stretched out a firm hand to meet the one Duane extended.

"Awfully glad to see you, old chap," Duane was saying. "I've missed you lately when you've been to the house. Come on out of the crush. I want to chat with you."

There was music that morning at the Waldorf Astoria— Bagby at his best— but two men in irreproachable attire held the centre of the stage, and one of them knew it. That was why he felt a mighty wave of relief sweep over his whole being when Duane remarked cordially:—

"Awfully sorry, Ford, we cannot lunch to-gether, but I have a date at the St. Regis with Morrell. You remember Morrell, of our class? Just home from Paris. Well, good-bye. Come up to dinner on Sunday."

And at precisely the same moment that Grant Ford and Harry Duane met at the portals of the Bagby musicale Mrs. Duane plunged somewhat precipitously into her brother's offices in Liberty-street.

"Jimmy, what does it mean to freeze a man out?"

"Out of what?" demanded her brother, as he drew forward a chair and looked with amusement at her flushed face.

"That's just what I don't know," she answered rapidly. "I was down in Harry's office, and that typewriter of his— the one who takes his personal dictation— do you think her hair is really-chestnut colored? I think it looks like henna—"

Young Densmore tried not to seem impatient, but he felt the imperative need of further enlightenment.

"What has her hair to do with the story?"

"Everything. I never trust a woman who 'colors' her hair badly or uses eau d'espagne. Well, anyhow, she acted very strangely when I came down this morning. Really, you'd have thought I had no right in my husband's office, and when I began to open his mail and dictate to her she was positively insulting. She asked me where Mr. Duane was, and I told her he would not be down to-day. From that moment she acted worse than ever, and by-and-by she had a spell of coughing that I knew was altogether assumed, and when she said she must have a drink of water I had my suspicions. I watched her sneak into the telephone booth—"

"And then " prompted Jimmy Densmore, with eyes dancing.

"Well," replied Mrs. Duane, smoothing her gloves, "I slipped behind Harry's desk and very, very gently lifted off his telephone receiver. You know you can do it without making a sound if you know how."

The amusement had died in her brother's eyes.

"Well," he said shortly, and under his breath be added softly: "I wonder if Harry has been foolish enough "

"That's when she said it."

"Said what?" Densmore asked sharply.

"Told Brandon and Furniss— isn't that their name?" Densmore nodded. "Told them that Mr. Duane was away, something was wrong. He had acted queerly the day before— perhaps be had gone away. Anyhow, this was their chance to freeze him out!"

"God! his M., T. and K. preferred. I remember now that girl came from Brandon's office. And Jerry Brandon has been laying for Harry for 10 years." He called over the 'phone for Duane's broker, then, with his hand over the transmitter, he asked harshly:—

"Where is Harry now? What in time— Hello! yes, this is Densmore. Say, Dave, is that you? Well, come over here quick. This isn't the sort of thing to talk over the 'phone. Yes, in my office. All right."

He hung up the receiver and leaned back in his chair.

"I don't understand all this, and I have no time to ask questions; but where in time do you suppose Harry Duane is at this moment?"

Mrs. Duane passed her hand wearily over her forehead.

"I'm sure I don't know, but I do know that he is to meet me at the St. Regis at one o'clock. We are to lunch with Mr. Morrell."

"One o'clock," repeated Densmore. "Why, they can raise Ned with him before that time! I guess I will have to play this little game alone. And now, if you have nothing more to tell me I think you had better go back to Harry's office and watch the lady with the chestnut-colored hair. But I don't mind telling you that there will be no lunch at the St. Regis for you to-day."

AT THREE O'CLOCK on the same afternoon, Jimmy Densmore, with a splitting headache, sat in his brother-in-law's office. The great fight for supremacy in the M.T. and K. was over. A young woman with chestnut-colored hair was looking for a new position as private secretary to a man of affairs. And Mrs. Duane, with heightened color and bright eyes, was listening to her brother's cross-examination of her husband.

"And will you kindly explain why you took a morning off to hear a Bagby musicale with the market as shaky as it has been for the last four days?"

"Give it up," responded Duane, helplessly. "All I know was that I had an engagement to meet Grant Ford there this morning."

"Oh!" came a faint gasp from the corner where Mrs. Duane sat, and the color faded from her face. The two men did not notice her exclamation, because just at that moment an office-boy announced that Mr. Morrell wished to see Mr. Duane.

"By Jove!" exclaimed Duane, irritably, "I forgot to leave word at the St Regis for Morrell. Your message knocked me clean out, and I'll wager he's been waiting there for the last two hours. Send him in," This to the office-boy, who scurried away. Morrell closed the door behind him and looked from Duane to his wife. "Awfully sorry," murmured Duane, apologetically.

"So the memoriser didn't work!" exclaimed Morrell, his eyes unnaturally bright.

Simultaneously Mr. and Mrs. Duane capped their hands to their throats.

"You didn't come to lunch," persisted Morrell, harshly.

"No; but we didn't forget. Something— er— happened," replied Duane.

Very superficially he sketched the events of the day, and as he finished, Morrell, white and dizzy, leaned against the wall.

"It was too highly sensitised," he murmured, brokenly. "Will I ever get it right?" Then suddenly his mood changed. The humor of the situation overcame his disappointment in his own work. "Are you sure you had on the memoriser you wore last night?" he demanded of Duane.

"No," said Duane, lightly. "We changed this morning. Meta tried hers on and said it was a bit too loose. And so I—"

"Offered her yours, and incidentally turned over to her all your engagements for the day. You had intended to go to the Waldorf— eh, Mrs. Duane?"

Meta flushed, then paled and said, quietly, "Yes, I had that engagement—"

"To meet—" began Duane. Then, after a glance at her face, his lips closed firmly. He raised his hand, and, opening his collar, jerked off the memoriser.

"It's a wonder, Morrell, only it's just a bit too wonderful. It ought to make your fortune. It saved mine to-day. It was only a question of time till that stenographer would have got in her work. She was put here for that purpose by Brandon and Furniss. If you hadn't given Mrs. Duane the memoriser and she hadn't come to the office and lifted that telephone receiver—"

"Don't! Don't! Harry! I feel as if I was in the very centre of a commercial house that Jack built, and I'm very tired."

She had risen, and now she swayed toward her husband. He caught her in his arms and carried her into the private room adjoining his office. When she opened her eyes they were alone.

"What— what did you say to Grant Ford?" she asked, faintly.

Duane smiled, and held her hand tightly.

"I believe we both agreed that morning musicales were bores, and that the Prince Wilhelm was a very poor cigar, and that the House Committee at the club needed revision."

"Harry," she whispered, with her lips very close to his ear, "you are awfully good."

"Am I? Well, that's one thing more we owe Morrell's memoriser!"

_________________

3: The Pass of Nolan's Welcome

Richard Dowling

1846-1898

W.A. Record (Perth) 30 April 1898

Irish novelist and short story writer

THE ARDGHEA Mountains run north and south in Wicklow. They are broken and precipitous. For mounted men there is no way through them, except a long, narrow-winding opening, once called Ardghea Pass.

Because of something which occurred in Ardghea Pass last '98, the people re-named it the Pass of Nolan's Welcome. By that name it is known to-day, and by that name it will continue to be known until the spirit of Wicklow farmers and peasants becomes alien to the soil; until the farmers and peasants forget the history of their country.

East of the mountains stretches to the sea the wide, fertile plain of Clashmore, sprinkled plentifully with farm houses, and here and there dotted with modest little villages. It is one of the most quiet and secluded districts of the county, for not only is it cut off from the inner land by the mountains, but the north and south of it are fenced in by hills.

The remoteness of the place and the absence of disorders or suspicious gatherings within its limits protected it from free quarters and fire and sword in the early days of the struggle. It is not to be supposed that the men of Clashmore were indifferent to the system that was draining the life-blood of their country, but there were no big assemblages of them on the plain, and they went to meetings and to musters on the Ardghea mountains.

Five miles by many a winding vale from the western end of the pass stands the small town of Knockfin. It bore its share, and more than its share, of injury in the rebellion; a fourth of it was burnt down, and scores of its old men and women and children were killed. It had been little heard of before the insurrection; it was not much heard of during '98, and it has since fallen back into its pristine silence.

No engagement of consequence was fought in Knockfin. There a little skirmish took place between Captain Brown's troop of yeomanry and a troop of rebels on their way south. Eight of the rebels were killed, thirteen were wounded, twelve fell alive into the hands of the yeomen. The wounded were carried off by the insurgents. The prisoners were marched into the town pound, and shot by order of Captain Brown. Owing to the defect in the wall of the pound, the discharge which killed twelve rebels killed also a poor cow in the field beyond. In the brush with the rebels none of the yeomen were killed. The insurgents had no fire-arms, and succeeded in getting at close quarters for only a moment, in which three of the yeomen were wounded.

After the action Captain Brown complimented his troopers, and told the men who had received pike-thrusts that they ought to be proud of wounds gained in the service of their king, etc.; that for his part he envied them, and would gladly bear their hurts if he might wear their honour.

It was a pretty speech, and took the sting out of the men's cuts almost as effectively as balsam of the forest. But this shooting of the cow later in the day was a serious affair, for she belonged to crusty, grasping old William Phillips, the attorney, whose loyalty was above suspicion, and who, because of large sums of money advanced to Brown on the Milbrook property, held the gallant captain in the hollow of his hand. Notwithstanding martial law and the absolute power which Brown held, or presumed he held, as magistrate and captain, and notwithstanding the absolving merit of shooting rebel prisoners, he knew old Phillips would make him pay for the loss of that beast, and pay dearly too.

It was abominable— intolerable! And who was to blame ? Not he, Stephen Brown, certainly, but the lazy, disloyal scoundrels of Knockfin who allowed the wall of their accursed pound to get into such a state of dilapidation that a man could not shoot a parcel of rascally rebels against it without losing money! It was infamous; and it would be no more than serving the miscreants of Knockfin right if he burnt down their infernal town over their infernal heads!

Millbrook House, Captain Brown's home, stood a short two miles from the town. The day of the skirmish Captain Brown sat alone after dinner with a tumbler of punch at his elbow. He was a bachelor of forty-five— a big, bloated, heavy-eyed man six feet in height. He had always been solitary and morose, and although never touching liquor in the daytime, for years he had drunk heavily after his five o'clock dinner.

This was a memorable day in his life; he had encountered armed rebels for the first time; his men had met with resistance; his own sword had drunk blood for the first time; the captive rebels had been promptly sent to their doom, and he had done his most signal service yet to King and Constitution.

It was true Knockfin was not likely to look on him with favour for a long time. The only occasion on which the pikemen charged home was in one of the narrowest streets of the town. He was at the head of his troop; a pikeman thrust at him; he parried the thrust, got inside the pikeman's guard and ran him through the body. That thrust and the shooting of the prisoners would be remembered in Knockfin to his dying day.

The killing of the rebels by his troopers in the fight might, in time, be forgiven by the townspeople, more than nine-tenths of whom were rebels in heart, but they would never forgive that thrust of his own sword, or the shooting of the men in the pound.

Millbrook would be no place for him when the rebellion was over, and even if the townfolk did not make it dangerous, old Phillips would make it impossible.

He had already provoked the usurer's wrath by refusing to visit with fire and sword the Caseys of Two Mile Bridge, old enemies of "William Phillips, and now here was the accursed shooting of that accursed cow! Nothing in the world would convince Phillips that the beast had not been killed deliberately in spite.

Captain Brown refilled his glass, drank the contents in one gulp, and dropping his chin on his chest, plunged again into profound cogitation. It needed some courage to come to the decision he saw flickering before him, and it was only under the influence of the bottle that he became a man of courage. Some might say that deep potations did not make him so much.courageous as reckless and savage.

Long he brooded over his affairs, pausing now and again to replenish his glass, until he finally made up his mind to follow the course which had been glimmering in his eyes all the evening. Up to this day, as a captain of yeomanry, he had not distinguished himself. He had been no more than a perfunctory officer. He had not burnt half enough of homes, or shot and sabred half enough of people, to bring him under the favourable notice of the authorities. And he had now no future before him but such as the Government might provide. He could not be sure of obtaining a good position far away from Knockfin when the rising was suppressed, but if zeal and vigour counted he would deserve one.

Hitherto he had not "suspected" the townsfolk or the people in the neighbourhood freely. He had acted only when action could not well be avoided. Henceforth his energy should be notorious from Antrim to Cape Clear. He would "suspect" every house in the valley of which he was not sure; ay, every house in the town which had not openly declared for the King. The incursion of the rebels that day would be an excellent excuse for increased vigilance and activity. Indeed, the incursion of the rebels that day might in the end prove to him an unmixed blessing; for would it not occasion the outbreak of his enthusiastic zeal— enthusiastic zeal to be rewarded later with high place and rich emoluments?

Now that he had resolved upon his course for the future, no time could be more apposite than the present, than this very night. He would drink success to his scheme, then call up his men and set out for Knockfin on his new career, which was to land him in dignities and affluence.

When his men had assembled it was dark. He addressed them briefly. He said this day Knockfin had been invaded by a band of armed rebels, invited thither by disloyal people in the town, with the object of surprising and murdering in cold blood the gallant and faithful men he had the honor of commanding.

[The invitation of the townsfolk and the intention of the insurgents to massacre the yeomen were inventions of the speaker. The rebels had been erroneously informed that Captain Brown and his men had gone on an expedition towards Kildare, and that the road from Knockfin to the south was clear.]

He knew that nine houses out of ten in the town were aiding the rebels in one way or another, and his sense of duty and of the gravity of the responsibilities which rested upon him obliged him to adopt strong measures for weeding out treason. He intended that night to visit many houses in Knockfin, and on each house where an adult male of the family could not be satisfactorily accounted for justice would fall; the roof-tree would be given to the flames and the secret rebels to the sword. The yeomen howled with joy. This was better than even free quarters; it meant blood without strife or danger, and spoils without the dispute of war.

That night things were done in Knockfin which cried to heaven for vengeance. That night things were done in Knockfin which cannot be set down here; which could not be set down anywhere by a man with a heart of common feeling, things which to hear of is to shudder and to beg of God for forgetfulness.

It was daylight before the work of the yeomen was done, and it was done because the men were worn out with firing houses and killing old men and women and children— babies in arms and very old women they had found out were the easiest to kill. Besides, the men were impeded and bowed down with plunder, and most of them were too drunk to take intelligent pleasure in further work of the kind, and one so far forgot himself as to turn sick, and say he had tasted enough of the sport for one night.

Through the pale, gentle dawn which broadened over the kingdom of Ireland that morning the blood-boltered and spoil-laden yeomanry of the King mustered in the square of Knockfin. A fourth of the little town lay in ashes, scores of its peaceful people lay in death.

Captain Brown was in the best of humour. He had found it advisable to keep up his courage throughout the busy night, and now he could hardly sit his horse. He was in a genial mind, and spoke playfully to troopers about their loads of booty. He felt he ought to make a speech; but prudence told him to forbear. So he led the troops out of the square towards Millbrook without a word.

The men were too tired to sing as they rode along the highway. They did not indulge in much talk. They had little in their bemused minds which they cared to speak out. It was more than doubtful if the events of that night would ever form a source of pleasant conversation to them. There was some cursing under breath at horse or bridle or saddle or weapon, or load of plunder; but no attempt at a joke or pleasantry. The calvacade looked more like a procession of damned souls on the march to their final quarters than a body of victorious horsemen crowned with victory.

All at once a loud guffaw burst upon the ears and startled the yeomen into sharper wakefulness than a volley from hostile barrels. This sound, so horribly out of keeping with the feelings of the little column, had come from its head. On the head of the column all eyes were fixed; some eyes in curiosity, some in amazement, most in anger. Was there among them a miscreant so fiendish that he could laugh aloud after such a night? The guffaw was followed by a long, roar of laughter from the same point of the little column. The men howled with rage.

"Stop that!" yelled one fiercely.

"Who is it?" cried another.

"Shoot the in the back!" screamed a third.

"Hoorah! Shoot him!" shouted many voices.

Thomas Wright, second in command, was riding behind Brown. Wright, who was only half drunk, turned round in his saddle, and, raising his right hand to attract the attention of the men, pointed with his left to their leader. Those who could see Brown observed that he had dropped the bridle on his horse's neck, was holding both his sides, and shaking and rolling in his saddle, so that every time he swayed from left to right, or from right to left, he seemed on the point of tumbling into the road.

"It's the Captain himself," whispered the men who could see.

"The Captain himself," echoed the others, in astonishment and dissatisfaction.

Although nearly full daylight, laughter now was so hideous an outrage udod the unresisting dead that it called up visions of ghosts of praying women struck headless, of smiling babes impaled. A suppressed groan went from van to rear. He who possessed flask or bottle took a big swig and passed on flask or bottle to him who had neither.

It is not always that things appear in the morning as they appeared at night. Sometimes it requires more courage to look behind you on the way you have come than to plunge into the battle-smoke in front. When the paroxysm of laughter left Brown, and he had recovered his breath, he wiped the tears from his face and eyes with the back of his hand, looked over his shoulder, and motioned Wright to ride level with him.

"Did you notice anything particular in what took place in the Square— I mean with respect to the burning in it?" asked Brown.

"No, except that you burnt down Peter Quirke's house, and made short work of the people in it because they could not account for young Quirke, and that you burnt down Tim O' Byrne's house, second next door, although all his family was in it."

"But I didn't execute the extreme penalty of the law on the O'Byrne or his family."

"No you didn't, but you nearly might as well. Now, I wonder why you burnt O'Byrne's down."

"Why, man, don't you know whose house was between the two? Our friend, old Phillips's, the moneylender and bloodsucker!"

"And his house, although he is a loyal subject, was burned down between the two, by accident."

"By accident!" cried Brown with pointed scorn.

"And old Phillips was within an ace of being burnt too."

"Yes, yes," laughed Brown boisterously. "Don't you see, if I set fire to Quirke's without setting fire to O'Byrne's I couldn't be sure of old Phillips's burning properly, and what did it matter about a house, more or less when my hand was in? And if Phillips's didn't catch properly I'd not have seen the best thing I ever saw in all my life, old Phillips at the window in his nightshirt screeching out that he'd bring down the soldiers and the yeomanry on the insurgents who set fire to his house; and then, when he saw we were there, calling on us in the King's name to shoot the incendiary rebels. Oh, 'twas the most comic thing I ever saw!" cried Brown, whose speech had from time to time been interrupted by loud laughter, and who now paused to brush the tears off his face and out of his eyes.

"But," he went on, "good as that may have been, 'twasn't half as comic as when he felt the boards roasting his old toes; he tore out of the room and down the stairs and out through the burning hall into the Square, with his nightshirt flying in flaming flitterjibs about his bony old arms and legs. Oh, 'twas past everything!" and he burst into another long, loud roar of laughter.

When Brown's laughter had died away, Wright said gravely (Wright was only half drunk): "If I were you, Captain, I would not say a word of this to anyone. It's a million of times worse than the affair of the cow; and if old Phillips hears of it there's no saying what he'll do, only you may be sure he'll have the worst vengeance that can be got by hook or by crook."

"I don't care a d—n about old Phillips, or any one else in Knockfin, or the next town to it either. Last night I began my active part in putting down the rebellion. I'll take my orders from Dublin Castle, and I'll get my rewards there. When I'm done with this district there won't be many rebels or the makings of many rebels left in them, and then I'll go away from here for ever off to Dublin, and ride into the Castle Yard, and tell them who I am and what I've done, and they'll be bound to treat me fair, make a lord of me, even if it was only a lord bishop."

He had been full, very full, of courage all the night, and he was full, very full, of courage this morning!

CAPTAIN BROWN rested a couple of days after the night visit to the little town. But he did not mean to let the grass grow under his feet. There was danger in delay. Some of the half-hearted, white-livered loyalists of the district might think his measures in Knockfin had been too vigorous, and try to interfere with him. There was no large body of insurgents in the immediate neighbourhood, but if he made himself prominently obnoxious to the disaffected for a considerable time an overwhelming force of them might swoop down on him from the hills.

No doubt, he could get help if he applied for it. But help was the thing he dreaded most, for he wanted to do the work he had cut out for himself single-handed. As he saw it there was not much danger so long as it were done quickly: the rewards ought to be splendid, and he did not mean to share them with anyone. He should deserve all, he should get all, and he should keep all.

On the third day he and his gallant men sallied forth. The terror of his acts in Knockfin had gone before him, and he found everywhere nothing but pale, terrified submission, where he did not find deserted homes ready for pillage and the torch. He "suspected" all houses which had not, in one way or another, given proofs of hostages to the Government, and few houses "suspected" and visited by him remained scatheless.

For miles round Millbrook his name became more terrible than the name of Cromwell had ever been, more terrible than the forces of nature; more terrible than famine, more terrible than pestilence, more terrible than all put together. The people called him the Devil's Right Hand, and women prayed night and morning and all day long that their dear ones might be spared his fatal touch, and men cursed him and prayed for vengeance on him, as they had never cursed and prayed before. Some said he was always drunk, some said he had lost his reason— did he not laugh aloud during the most heart-quaking scenes?— some said that he was possessed of a devil, and that Satan had been seen riding behind him on his horse.

But belief in the statement last spoken of was refused by most; for, they said, even the awful curse which lay on Satan did not oblige him to associate with so hideously polluted a soul as Brown's, and the Prince of Darkness would not touch him with anything but the bitterest flames of the Pit.

At length all that could be done had been accomplished by Capt. Brown and his gallant yeomen in the district of Knockfin. His zeal had devoted a hundred homes to the flames and unnumbered defenceless men, women, and children to the sword. People said that now when there were no more "suspected" houses to burn, no more "suspected" old men and women and children to kill, the burning and killing must be at an end, must stop for want of material on which to operate.

Although Captain Brown still kept up his hilarity and his courage, he was not in the best of humours. He had done his part in a workmanlike and thorough manner. He felt sure no captain of yeomanry in Ireland could compare with him in zeal and effectiveness, considering the time he had employed himself lustily in the service of his country. Yet no word of thanks or of encouragement had reached him from headquarters, and he had reason to believe there were faint-hearted and white-livered loyalists who held that his measures had been more severe, than the district required.

Curse the cowardly praters who would not raise a hand against the traitors for their King! Besides, what did these gabblers know about the desperate condition of his private affairs? It was neck or nothing with him now.

Fools thought that because the district around Knockfin had been cleared of "suspected" characters, and the haunts of "suspected" characters had been destroyed, there was no more scope for his activity. But these fools were mistaken. But they did not know everything. They might guess that his position at Millbrook became daily more difficult, owing to the growing hatred of the people. But they did not know that he had reason to fear old Phillips suspected his real motive in burning down Quirke's house and O'Byrne's, and that the old usurer was biding his time to strike at his liberty, if not at his life itself.

It was one thing to stand before a parcel of women and children and order his men to kill them, and maybe, if he were in good condition, take a hand himself. But to spend his life in captivity, or to be marched out on a platform and dropped through a hole with a rope round his neck was quite a different affair.

He did not mean that either of these painful fates should overtake him. He must oblige the Castle to take prompt and favourable notice of him. Then he should be able to defy old Phillips and Knockfin and all the country round. Meantime he must above all things keep up his courage.

In a few days a rumour went through the vales round the town and pierced Ardghea Pass to the effect that Captain Stephen Brown intended making an expedition beyond the mountains into the peaceful and prosperous plains of Clashmore.

The people of the plain were filled with quaking horror. They knew what to expect. Their fate was as plain before them as though it were already accomplished, and they were looking at their ruined homes, and their own dear dead ones out of their dead eyes.

Just at the end of the pass on the Clashmore side stood the house of Michael Nolan. It would be the first habitation encountered by Brown and his troop. No one could doubt what would befal that house and everyone in it; for not only were two of Nolan's sons away with the insurgents, but the two young men were known to have been among the rebels who skirmished with the yeomen in Knockfin.

Michael Nolan's youngest son Jim, twenty years of age, was at home with his father and mother when news of Brown's intention reached them. He disappeared within an hour.

A whole week went by between the coming of the news and the appearance of Brown at the head of his men at the western end of the pass. When the cavalcade had ridden about half way through, and the way had grown narrow and the sides jagged, precipitous, overhanging, they came upon a young man leaning against the steep wall of the defile.

"How far are we from the other end of this accursed place?" roared Brown.

"A short mile," said the young man, drawing hard at his pipe, and then, taking the pipe out of his mouth. "My name is Nolan. I live in the first house beyond the pass, and I came half way to give you Nolan's welcome."

With that he struck his pipe against the rock at his back.

Instantly there was a terrific explosion. The wall of rock behind fell forward, and a hundred tons of overhanging rock smashed down into the cleft. Young Nolan, Captain Brown Brown, and half the yeomen were killed, and from that day the place has been known as the Pass of Nolan's Welcome.

__________________

4: Tricky Tonnage

Malcolm Jameson

1891-1945

Astounding Science Fiction, Dec 1944

WHEN you've lived across the fence from an amateur inventor, you come to expect anything. When the wind was right we used to get some of the awfullest chemical stinks from the Nicklheim barn, and we got so used to hearing explosions that they didn't bother us any more than automobile backfires. We just took it for granted when we'd see Elmer, the boy next door, walking around with his eyebrows singed off and the rest of him wrapped up in bandage.

When Elmer was a little tad, he was a great enthusiast for scientific fiction. You hardly ever saw him unless he was lugging some Jules Vernian opus around, and he ate up all he read with dead earnestness. With that yen for science it might have been expected that he would shine at school, but it did not work out that way. He wouldn't go along in the rut laid out for the run-of-the-mine student. The physics prof finally had him kicked out for some crazy stunt he pulled with the school's equipment. Elmer hooked it all together in a very unorthodox way, and the resulting fireworks was quite a show.

Being barred from school did not faze Elmer. He rigged up his own lab in the barn, buying the stuff from mail order houses with money he made doing odd jobs. Some of the people in the town thought the boy might go places; most simply thought he was a nut. I belonged to the former group, and sometimes helped the kid with small loans. Not many of his inventions panned out, but he did sell one gadget useful in television to a big company. In a way it proved to be a bad thing he did. The company bought the idea outright and paid promptly, but afterwards for reasons of its own it suppressed the invention— an act that irked Elmer exceedingly. It prejudiced him violently against big corporations as such and the whole patent set-up in general. He swore that after that he would keep all his discoveries secret.

About that time his father died, and it looked as if Elmer had finished with his scientific dabbling phase. Overnight he seemed to mature, and after that he was seldom seen pottering around his barn. He was busy about town, carrying on the little one-horse trucking business bequeathed him by the old man. His truck was one of those vintage rattletraps that appear to be always threatening a make the legend of the one hoss shay come true, but Elmer was a fair mechanic and somehow kept the old crate going. Not only that, but to the astonishment of the citizenry, he seemed to be making money at it, and that at a time when rate competition was keen and gas expensive and hard to get. I was beginning to think we had witnessed the end of a budding scientist and the birth of an up and coming young business man. It was Elmer himself who disabused me of that notion.

One morning he stopped his truck at my gate and came up onto the porch. He pulled out a wad of bills and peeled off a couple of twenties.

"Thanks," he said. "It was a big help, but I'm O.K. now."

"Oh, that's all right," I said. "There was no hurry about paying it back. But I'm glad to see you're doing well in the hauling game. It may not be as distinguished as getting to be known as a big shot scientist, but at least you eat."

He gave me a funny look and sort of smiled.

"Hauling game, huh?" he sniffed. "I'd never thought of it that way. I don't cart stuff around for the fun of it, or the money either. That's incidental. What I'm doing is testing out a theory I thought up."

"What's that one, Elmer?" I asked. I had heard a lot of his theories, first and last, and seen most of them go flop. Elmer had a very screwy approach to the mysteries of nature.

"It's about gravity. I've found out what it is, which is more than anybody else since Newton has done. It's really very simple once you know what makes it."

"Yes," I agreed. "That is what Einstein says, except that he hasn't finished his universal field formula. So you've beat him to it?"

"Yes. I've been running my truck by gravity for the last three months."

That didn't quite make sense to me. The country round about was hilly and a lot of coasting was possible. But still a vehicle couldn't coast up hill. Elmer was studying me uncertainly, and I realized he wanted to talk to somebody, but he was always so cagey about his projects that I hesitated to come right out and ask.

"I've discovered something big," he said, soberly. "So big I don't know what to do with it. I'd like to show it to somebody, only—"

"Only what?"

"Oh, a lot of reasons. I don't mind being laughed at, but I'd like to keep this secret for awhile. If the other truckers found out how I'm doing what I do, they might gang up on me, smash the truck, and all that. Then again there's no telling what somebody else might do with my idea if they got hold of it before all the theory is worked out."

"I can keep a secret," I told him.

"All right," he said. "Come along and I'll show you something."

I GOT IN THE TRUCK with him. He stepped on the starter and the cranky old engine finally got going, though I thought it would shake us to pieces before it made up its mind whether to run or not. Then we lurched off down the road, rattling and banging like a string of cans tied to a mongrel's tail.

"Where does the gravity come in?" I asked.

"I don't use it in town," he said. "People might get wise to me."

We went on down to the oil company's bulk station. It had been raining off and on all week and there was a good deal of mud, but Elmer skirted the worst puddles and we got up to the loading platform all right. It was there I got my first surprise. A couple of huskies started loading up that truck, and when they were through I would have bet my last simoleon Elmer would not get two miles with it. There were six big barrels of grease, weighing four hundred pounds each, a half dozen drums of oil, and some package goods. The truck kept creaking and groaning, and by the time the last piece was on, its springs were mashed out flat as pancakes. It was bad enough to have that overload, but the stuff was for Peavy's store out at Breedville— forty miles away over as sketchy a bit of so-called highway as can be found anywhere in America.

"You'll never get over Five Mile Hill with that," I warned Elmer, but he just grinned and pocketed the invoices. The oil company agent was looking on in a kind of puzzled wonder. He had used Elmer's delivery service before, but it was clear that he didn't believe his eyes. Meanwhile Elmer got the motor going and we backed out of the yard. There was a good deal of bucking and backfiring and shimmying, but pretty soon we were rolling along toward the edge of town.

Just beyond the last house the Breedville road turns sharp to the right into some trees, and Elmer stopped at a secluded place where there was an outcropping of bedrock alongside the road proper. He killed the engine and got a cable-like affair out of his tool box.

"The first step," he said, "is to lighten the load."

He hooked one end of the cable against the side of a grease barrel and the other he led to the bare bedrock and attached it there. The cable terminated in what appeared to be rubber-suction cups. It looked as if it were made of braided asbestos rope, threaded with copper wire, and near one end it spread out in a flattened place like the hood of a cobra. There was a small dial and some buttons set in that. Elmer set the dial and punched a button. Instantly there was a popping sound as the truck bed stirred, and I saw that it jumped up about a quarter or half an inch.

"Now heft that barrel," said Elmer.

I did. If there hadn't been another one right behind me, I would have gone overboard backward. I got hold of the top of the cask and gave it a tug, not dreaming I could budge four hundred pounds of heavy grease. But it came away with about the same resistance that an empty cardboard carton would have had.

"What makes weight," explained Elmer, "is gravitons. All molecular matter contains them in various degree. Up to now nobody knew how to extract them. You could only manipulate weight by moving the matter itself. I simply drain most of the gravitons off into the bedrock where it will be out of the way. It's easy because there is a gravitic gradient in that direction."

As an explanation it was a long way from being satisfactory. But there was the barrel, plainly stencilled with its gross weight, and it was now practically weightless. The weight had left as abruptly as a short-circuited electric charge. Moreover, Elmer was shifting his cable from one drum to another, and as he touched each one the truck rose another notch. By the time he was through it rode as high as if there was no load at all.

"I'll use the last one of these drums for power," said Elmer, coiling up his cable and putting it away. Then I saw that he was making a short jumper connection between it and another cable running down under the cab to the hood. He lifted that up and showed me an attachment on the shaft behind the motor. It was a bulbous affair of metal and there were two leads to it. One was the connection to the drum, the other was a short piece of cable that dangled to the ground.

"I call that my Kineticizer," said Elmer. "It is really a gravity motor. It works on exactly the same principle as a water turbine except that it doesn't require the actual presence of the water. The upper cable has more gravitic resistance than the one I use to dump the load. It feeds a slow stream of gravitons to the upper vanes of a steel rotor. They become heavy and start to fall, exerting torque. At the bottom they wipe the ground cable and the moving gravitons simply waste away into the road. Four hundred pounds falling four feet gives a lot of power— especially when you use it all. See?"

Did I? I don't know. It sounded plausible, and anyway Elmer banged down the hood and we climbed back into the cab. That time we started off like a zephyr. There was smooth, silent, resistless power, and the truck being lightened of its load, leaped like a jack rabbit. The gasoline motor was idle. The only noise was the rattling of the fenders and the swish of the air. Breedville began to look more attainable.

AFTER WE STRAIGHTENED out on the road, Elmer began to tell me about gravities.

"It was Ehrenhaft's work with magnetics that got me to thinking about it. Since he was already doing magnetolysis I didn't bother to go along that line. What interested me was the evident kinship on the one hand between electric and magnetic phenomena in general, and between the strong magnetism of electric fields and iron and the relatively weak magnetism of all other substances."

I kept on listening. Elmer's whole theory of gravities was pretty involved, and in some spots downright screwy. But on the whole it hung together, and there I was riding along on a stream of moving gravitons to prove it. According to the Elmerian doctrine, in the beginning there was chaos and all matter was highly magnetic. It therefore tended to coalesce into nebulae, and thence into stars.

There the fierce pressures and temperatures tended to strip the basic matter of its more volatile outer shells and hurl them outward in the form of radiant energy. Atomic stresses yielded enormous quantities of light and heat and great streams of magnetons and electrons. In the end there is only ash—the cold inert rocks of the planetary bodies. With the exception of the ferric metals none of that ash retains more than a bare fragment of its original magnetic power. Yet even rock when in massive concentration has strong attractive power. The earth is such a concentration, and its pull on the apple was what woke Newton up.

From that concept Elmer dug into the apple itself and into the atoms that compose it. Mass, he claimed, in so far as what we call weight is concerned, is simply a matter of gravitonic coefficient, a graviton being the lowest unit— one more aspect of the atom. It is the nucleus of a magneton, what is left after the outer shells have been stripped away. The graviton is utterly inert and heretofore locked inseparably in the atoms of the substance to which it originally belonged. If only they could be induced to move, their departure would rob the parent substance of nothing except weight, and by moving pure essence of weight potential energy could be turned into kinetic with the minimum of loss.

"It was finding a suitable conductor that stumped me longest," Elmer confessed, "and I'm not telling yet what that is. But as soon as I found it I built this motor. You see for yourself how beautifully it works."

I did, and I saw a myriad of rosy dreams as well. We took Five Mile Hill like a breeze, almost floating over, thanks not only to the silent drive but to the weightlessness of the cargo. I thought of all the massive mountain ranges just sitting in their grandeur with billions and billions of foot-tons of locked up energy awaiting release. I could envisage hundreds of kineticizer plants around their slopes sending out an abundance of free power. What it did not occur to me to think of was what would happen when those mountains eventually became weightless. What worried me most just then was how the other properties of materials would be affected with alteration of its natural weight.

"Oh, not much," said Elmer. "The relative weights of duraluminum, steel and lead have nothing whatever to do with their tensile strength. I drained off most of the weight of a pan of mercury and tested it. I found that it got a lot more viscous when it was light, a characteristic that is overcome by its normal heaviness. But otherwise it was still mercury. There is an anvil in my barn that weighs less than a toy balloon. If it wasn't kept clamped to the block it sits on, it would soar and bump against the rafters, but as long as I keep it from doing that I can still hammer iron out on it."

We were nearly to Breedville when it began to rain again. Elmer put up the storm curtains, and I asked him about how Mr. Peavy was going to react at getting barrels of grease that were lighter than whipped cream.

"I'm going to take care of that before we get there," said Elmer.

I found out what he meant when he pulled up under a railroad underpass about a mile this side of Peavy's store. He got out and produced his cable again. This time he attached it to the face of one of the concrete abutments that held up the girders carrying the track. One by one he reloaded the barrels by dead weight sucked out of the abutment and let it run into the containers on the truck. Again the truck body settled groaning on its springs.

"I'm working on a way to meter this flow more accurately," said Elmer with a grin. "The last load out here Peavy squawked like everything because the stuff was light. This time I'll give him good measure. Nobody ever kicks at getting more pounds than he paid for."

WELL, THERE it was— Elmer's stunt full cycle. No wonder his gas and tire costs were less than anybody else's in the business, or that he could set out on a long trip with an impossible load. He had only to reduce the load to zero, using part of it for power, and replenish it at the other end of the line.

We went on to Peavy's, using the wheezy gasoline motor again. No one at the store saw anything amiss when we drove up, and though Peavy was careful to roll each box and drum onto the scale, he made no comment when he found them markedly overweight. He probably figured it was only justice, from the short-changing he had had on the delivery before, and on which the oil company had been adamant as to adjustment. Elmer then picked up some empty drums and we started back.

The rain was coming down hard by then, and when we got to the underpass there were several inches of water in it. Elmer stopped long enough to draw off a few more hundred pounds of avoirdupois into one of the empty drums so as to have power for the trip home. He said it was the best place along his route to get needed weight in a hurry.

We started up, but had not gone more than about a hundred yards when we heard a terrific swoosh behind us, and on the heels of it a resounding metallic crash and the scream of shearing metal. The ground shook, and a wave of muddy water swept along the road from behind and passed us, gurgling among the wheel spokes.

"What on Earth?" yelled Elmer, and stopped the car.

What was behind us was not pretty to see. The concrete abutment we had just left had slid from its foundation straight across the road until it almost impinged on its opposite mate. What had been the earth fill behind it was a mass of sprawling semiliquid mud. Sodden by days of rain and heavy with water, the fill had come to act like water behind a dam and simply pushed along the line of least resistance. The now practically weightless retaining wall gave way, since there was only friction to hold it where it should be. The two great black steel-girders that it supported lay at an awkward angle half in the pit where the underpass had been, half sticking up into the air.

"Gosh," said Elmer, gazing at the spectacle. "Do you suppose I did that?"

"I'm afraid you did," I said. "Maybe concrete don't need weight for strength, but it has to have something to hold it down."

Well, the damage was done, and Elmer was scared. A train was due soon and something had to be done about it. So we drove on to the first farmhouse that had a phone and sent in word about a washout. After that we went on home, Elmer being pretty chastened.

THE DAYS that followed were quite hectic. The more the railroad and public utility commission engineers studied the retaining wall's failure, the more baffled they became. The abutment itself was unmarred in the least degree. There was not a crack in it, and only a few chipped places where the falling girders had knocked corners off. Experts chiseled chunks of it and took them to dozens of engineering labs. The records of the contracting firm that built it were overhauled. The wall was up to specifications and had been thoroughly inspected at the time of construction. The fragments subjected to strains and stresses reacted as they should, having exactly the tensile and compression strength it should have. The mix was right, the ingredients without flaw. The hitch was that the stuff under examination had about the same weight as an equal volume of balsa wood!

Learned treatises began to appear in the engineering journals under such titles as, "Weight Loss in Mature Concretes," "Extraordinary Deterioration Noted in Failure of Concrete Railway Abutment," and so on. Throughout the whole strange controversy Elmer never peeped, and neither did I. I kept silent for several reasons, and only one of them was the fact that I had given Elmer my pledge not to divulge his invention before he gave the word. Mainly I felt that whatever I might tell them would be received as too ridiculous to be believed. After all, people just don't go around sapping idle weight from stationary objects.

The sequel to the incident has to remain obscure. The very ride that let me into the secret proved also to be the cause of my being excluded from it thereafter. I caught a cold that day, and before long it turned into pneumonia. Complications followed, and there were some months when I was confined to a hospital bed. When I was out again and around, my neighbor Elmer had gone, presumably in search of wider fields.

It is a pity that Elmer's unfortunate experience with his earlier invention soured him on the usual channels of development, for I think what happened to him later was that he got into the hands of unscrupulous promoters. For quite a long time after the collapse of the railroad crossing I heard nothing of Elmer himself or his world-shaking discovery. But little bits of news kept cropping up that indicated to me that while Elmer's secret was being kept, it was not getting rusty from disuse, though he lacked the necessary business imagination ever to put it to its best uses.

There was the phenomenal success of Trans-America Trucking, for example. It was significant to me that the Eastern terminus of its main haul was laid out in the bottom of an abandoned rock quarry and its Pacific end in a deep canyon. I thought I knew where the power came from, especially when an oil salesman told me he had tried hard to get the Trans-America contract. They not only refused to buy from him, but he could not find out what company, if any, was supplying them. I also noted that Trans-America was continually embroiled in law suits arising from discrepancies in weights. I knew from that that Elmer had not yet solved the problem of metering his weight siphons.

There were other straws that pointed to Elmer's fine hand. Highway engineers along the routes traversed chiefly by his trucks discovered after a time that even the dirt roads over which the trucks ran needed little or no binder. The surface soil was found to be incredibly heavy, like powdered lead, and therefore did not dust away under high-speed traffic. In the course of time it became as hard and compact as the floor of a machine shop where iron chips form the soil.

But eventually there was trouble. Disloyal employees must have stolen lengths of Elmer's mysterious graviton conductor, for there was a story told in some glee of a policeman giving chase to a fleeing man who had a big iron safe on his shoulders! The burglar got away, so for a time Elmer's secret was comparatively safe. And then there was the exposure of what was later known as the spud racket.

ONE OF Trans-America's ex-truckmen, being aware that potatoes were sold by the pound, saw opportunity. He absconded with a length of Elmer's cable and set himself up in the potato business. He was modest at first. The spuds he handled were overweight, but not too much too heavy when he resold them. The dieticians in the big institutions were the first to notice something wrong, for they had analysts to interpret the figures. But greed got the best of the gangster truckman. Not content with his initial ten or twenty percent boosts in weight, he poured on the avoirdupois thicker and thicker. The average housewife began to complain that big potatoes required all her strength to lift.

The day the market inspectors raided the man's storehouse the cat was out of the bag. They uncovered an endless stream of potatoes on a conveyor belt that ran by a bin filled with scrap iron. As each spud passed a certain point it was wiped by a wisp of mineral wool, whereupon the belt beneath sagged deeply and spilled the potatoes onto the floor. Cranes scooped them up and carried them to the packing department.

The subsequent prosecution ran into a myriad legal difficulties. There was ample precedent for dealing with short weights, but none for artificially added surplus weight. Chemists sought to prove, once they tumbled to the concept of movable gravitons, that the introduction of ferrous gravitons into a food product constituted a willful adulteration. They failed. The composition of the potatoes was no more altered than is that of iron when temporarily magnetized. In the end the case was thrown out of court, much to the anger of some theologians who had also developed an interest in the case.

That there was at once a spate of laws forbidding the alteration of natural weights was inevitable. State after state enacted them, and the Interstate Commerce Commission began an investigation of Trans-America Trucking, damaging admissions having been made by the potato racketeer. It was the collapse of one of the cliffs at the western terminus of that company that was the straw to break the camel's back. Weight shifting became a federal offense with drastic penalties.

Perhaps collapse is a badly chosen word. The cliff disintegrated, but it did not fall. It soared.

It happened late one afternoon shortly after a heavy convoy arrived from the east. Thousands of tons of weight had to be made up, and the power units of the incoming trucks recharged with still more weight. The already lightened cliff yielded up its last pounds, for it had been drawn upon heavily for a long time. Its stone, being loosely stratified, lacked cohesion, so with sound effects rivaling those of the siege of Stalingrad, it fell apart— upward— in a cloud of dust and boulders. The fragments, though stone, weighed virtually nothing, rose like balloons and were soon dispersed by the winds.

Unfortunately the canyon was not far from the most traveled transcontinental air route. Within an hour pilots were reporting seeing what they described as inert bodies floating in the upper air. One of them ran into a stone no bigger than his fist, but since he was making several hundred miles an hour at the time, it neatly demolished one of his wings. That night two stratoliners were brought down, both riddled with imponderable gravel. The debris while lighter than air, still had some residual weight and unimpaired tensile strength.

Congress intervened. Trans-America's charter was voided and its equipment confiscated and destroyed. Elmer was forbidden to resume business except in orthodox lines. There was no place in the United States for his invention.

THAT SHOULD HAVE been the end of the Theory of Gravities and its unhappy applications. But it was not. For Elmer had associates by that time who had tasted the luxury of sure and easy profits, and they were not to be denied. Rumor had it that it was his shady partners who took over the financial end and relegated him to his lab again to hunt for other means of utilizing his kineticizer. However that may be, the next stage was several years in incubation. For a time gravitons ceased to be news except in scientific circles where controversies pro and con still raged. People had already begun to forget when Caribbean Power announced itself to the world.

It started operating from a tiny island republic known as Cangrejo Key. Through oversight, or because it was a worthless patch of coral sand frequently swept by hurricanes, mention of it was omitted in the treaty between the United States and Spain at the end of the war of 1898. It was still Spanish until the graviton syndicate bought it from an impoverished Franco for a few millions in real gold. Whereupon the Cangrejo Commonwealth was set up as an independent state and a law to itself.

By then they had one valuable addition to their bag of tricks— Elmer's third great invention. It was a transmitter of beamed radio electric power, and they promptly entered into contracts with large industries in nearby America for the sale of unlimited broadcast power at ridiculously low rates. At first the great maritime powers protested, suspecting what was afoot and fearing the incalculable effects on shipping if Caribbean Power meant to rob the sea of its weight. But the storm subsided when the new republic assured them sea water would not be touched. They pledged themselves to draw only from the potential energy of the island they owned. So the world settled down and forgot its fears. No matter what happened to Cangrejo Key, there was the promise of abundant cheap power, and at the worst one coral islet more or less did not matter. Even if its sands did float off into the sky as had the canyon wall on the Pacific Coast they could do little harm, the Key being well off the air lanes.

It was a premature hope, for they reckoned without the ingenuity of the men behind the scheme. Soon great derricks reared themselves on the Key and drills began biting their way into the earth. By the time the holes reached eight miles depth the transmission towers were built and ready. Then came the flow of power, immense and seemingly inexhaustible. A battery of kineticizer-dynamos commenced operating, suspended by cables deep into the bowels of the planet, converting the weight that was overhead into kilowatts which were sent up to the surface through copper wires. There it was converted into radio power waves and broadcast out to the customers. It was good, clean power. Industry was grateful.

How deep the syndicate eventually sunk its shafts no one ever knew. Nor how many millions of tons of earth weight were converted into electric energy and spewed out to the factories of the world. But it took only a few years for the project to revolutionize modern economics. With power literally as cheap as air, coal holdings became worthless and petroleum nearly so. In the heyday of the power boom cities like New York went so far as to install outdoor heating units so that in the coldest of cold waves its citizens could still stroll about without overcoats. There was no point in conservation any more. Old Terra Firma had gravitons to burn.

The beginning of the payoff came with the Nassau disaster. The town was flattened by a mighty earthquake, and the attendant tidal wave, left little of the Florida coastal cities. When the tremors died down the British Empire found it had added another island of near continental size to its realm. The Bahama Bank had risen above water and then stood from ten to fifty feet above sea level throughout. But there was a rider attached to that dubious blessing. The bed of the Florida Straits had risen correspondingly and the current of the Gulf Stream diminished. Europeans began to worry about the effect of that upon their climate.

Isostatic adjustment was responsible, sober geologists warned darkly. Let the Caribbean Power gang continue to rob that region of its proper weight there would be nothing to hold it down. Adjacent geographical masses would push in to fill the vacuum, just as the underlying, restless, semifluid magma would push up. The time would soon come when mountains rivaling the Himalayas would rear loftily where the Bahama Bank had been and when that day came the other islands about it and the nearby continental areas might well be only shoal spots in a shallowing sea. The Republic of Cangrejo had to go. It was a matter for the new United Nations Court to decide.

Well, that's the story of Elmer Nicklheim's kineticizer as I know it. I am still wondering whether he was with the gang the day the bombers came over and blasted Caribbean Power off the map. If he was, I think he must have been a prisoner, for the gang he at last teamed up with turned out to be an arrogant, greedy lot.

_________________

5: The Master Ants

Francis Flagg

(George Henry Weiss 1898-1946)

Amazing Stories May 1928

Another pre-Golden Age science fiction tale from the Hugo Gernsback edited Amazing Stories. The author was an Canadian-born American poet and novelist who used the "Flagg" pseudonym for his fiction and poetry.

A Strange Disappearance

"THE thing is a hoax."

"Palpably a hoax."

"And yet the handwriting is theirs."

"Or a forgery."

"A clever forgery then. Schultz is a handwriting expert, you know, and he declares the signatures to be genuine."

"But the thing is incredible!"

The two men looked at each other helplessly. One was a Doctor of Science; the other a nationally-known criminal lawyer. Several days before, a strange thing had happened. The nationally-known lawyer had been dining with his family in his home on Tanglewood Road, Berkeley, California, when what was at first taken to be an infernal machine of some sort dropped in the midst of the dinner table with a crash, upsetting the table and narrowly missing injuring the diners with its flying wreckage. Yet, as it was the rainy season and the evening was damp and raw, no windows had been open; nor did investigation show any of the panes or sashes to have been broken, as would have been the case had the machine been hurled through them. In short, save for some spatters of food and a few dents in the walls made by the flying metal, the room was intact. Only one door had been open at the time, the door leading into the kitchen; and the kitchen had been occupied by the cook, a middle-aged lady who had been in the employ of the lawyer for five years. Seemingly, the infernal contraption had materialized out of thin air. As if this were not startling enough, there was the manuscript.

"I found it," said the lawyer, "in the midst of the wreckage."

The third member of the party, an ordinary practising M.D., examined the manuscript with curiosity. Ift had evidently been tightly rolled and was yellow, as if with age.

"You say," he said, "that this purports to be a message from two men who dropped out of existence some twelve months ago. As I am only visiting in the East Bay for a few weeks, I am not acquainted with the facts of their disappearance. If it wouldn't be too much trouble..."

"Not at all," replied the Doctor of Science. "John Reubens was a fellow professor of mine at the University and held the chair of Physics. Raymond Bent was a student, working his way through college by doing secretarial work for him. Reubens was a man of about forty-odd, well-known in scientific circles as a brilliant, if somewhat eccentric, physicist. In fact, he had studied under, and once collaborated with, Jacques Loeb, before the death of that great mechanist. He lived with his widowed sister in a large, old-fashioned house on Panoramic Way, and had a splendidly equipped laboratory there in which he carried out strange experiments of his own. I will frankly confess that while we acknowledged him to be a brilliant man in some respects, the majority of other professors thought him a nut because of wild theories he was wont to voice in relation to time. On the other hand, he made no secret of regarding us as so many 'Dumb Doras' without vision enough to see beyond the tips of our noses. That's the best picture I can give you of the man who went into his laboratory with his secretary on the 14th of October, 1926, and never came out again ! But let his sister give you her version of the affair. I clipped this interview with her out of the San Francisco Examiner and saved it."

The M.D. took and read the proffered piece of paper.

"At four o'clock Raymond Bent came and I let him in by way of the side door. He chatted with me a few minutes before going to the laboratory, where my brother was. The laboratory is on the second floor and I had occasion to pass it several times on my way to and from my bedroom. My brother never told me about his experiments, and it was understood I was never to enter his work-room. One time the door was ajar and I saw the two of them standing by some sort of a machine. That is all, except at about four-thirty, when I was passing the laboratory door on my way downstairs, I heard a terrible crash. I guess it was a pretty bad one, because all the plaster was knocked off the ceiling in the room below. When my brother didn't answer my call, I got frightened and went in. Things were upset— you know, basins and things— but neither Bent nor my brother was there."

The article went on to state that Reuben's sister admitted that the machine had also disappeared. "Some bright reporters," remarked the Doctor of Science, "got to speculating if the professor hadn't hopped off in some sort of an airship he had built; but the theory wouldn't sfewid up against the fact that while one end, of the laboratory was all glass, and the great door-like windows swung wide open, a crow could hardly have winged its way through the iron grilling, which protected them on the outside."

"Wasn't there talk of missing money in connection with the affair?" asked the M.D. "Seems to me, now, that I do recall reading of the case. Only..."

The nationally-known lawyer nodded. "Unfortunately, yes. At the time of his disappearance, the professor had drawn twenty thousand dollars of his sister's money from the hank for reinvestment. The money had been issued to him in Treasury notes of one thousand dollars each. Some people were uncharitable enough to find in this fact full explanation of his disappearance. However, notes bearing the serial numbers of those issued .to him have never appeared on the market, as far as is known."

At this juncture the doorbell rang and a few minutes later the president of the university and two members of the faculty were ushered in. When they were seated, the lawyer addressed the gathering.

"I take it that everyone of you is aware of why I have asked you here tonight." He held up the manuscript. "My letters, I believe, explained adequately how this document came into my possession. It only remains for me to say that I have submitted it, with specimens of the handwritings of Professor Reubens and Raymond Bent, to Herman Schultz, the chirographist, and he pronounces the writing and signatures in the manuscript to be identical with that of the specimens submitted."

The president of the university nodded. "I believe that is clear to all of us. The manuscript is held to have been written in the hand of Raymond Bent, and bears both his signature and that of Professor Reubens. Very well, then. We are acquainted with the peculiar manner in which you received it, but as yet are unaware of its contents. If you would kindly read the communication to us..."

Thus bidden, the lawyer cleared his throat and read what is probably the strangest document ever penned by human hand:

The Document

WHETHER any human eye, in the age I have left behind me forever, may chance to read this writing, I do not know. I can only trust to Providence and send what I have written into the past with the fervent prayer that it will fall into the hands of intelligent people and be made known to the American public.

When I came into the Professor's laboratory on the afternoon of October 14, 1926, I had not the slightest inkling of the terrible fate that was so soon to befall me. If I had, I would probably have fled in horror from the place. The Professor was so absorbed in tinkering with the' mechanism of the machine which had engrossed his interest for nearly two years, that he did not at first notice my entrance. I picked up a book lying open on a stand to one side of him. It was H. G. Wells' The Time Machine. I smiled at the absurdity of a great professor being interested in such truck. The Professor turned and caught me smiling. "Impossible fiction," I remarked, with what, God help me, was an ill-concealed sneer.

"Fiction, yes," replied the Professor, "but why impossible?"

"Surely you don't think there is anything possible about this?" I exclaimed.

"Yes, I do."

"But to travel in something that has no reality!"

"What is reality? The earth on which we stand? The sea on which we sail? The air through which we fly? Have they any existence outside of the attributes with which our senses endow them?"

"But I can touch the earth," I protested, "I can feel the sea, but I cannot touch or handle time."

"Neither can you touch or handle space," said the Professor dryly, "but you move in it: and if you were to move, through space, say from this spot to the City Hall in Oakland, you would probably calculate the journey took you fifty minutes of time. In that sense time would have a very real significance for you, and you would have moved in it to the extent of fifty minutes. But if I ask you why it isn't possible to move ahead in time not fifty minutes, but fifty centuries, you consider me insane. Your trouble is that of most people, my boy; the lack of enough imagination to lift your brains out of the accustomed rut."

"Perhaps so," I replied, reddening angrily; "but, save in fiction, who has ever invented a time machine?"

"I have," answered the professor. He smiled at my look of disbelief. "Now this thing," he added, patting the mechanical creation affectionately, "is a Time Machine."

It was the first time he had ever told me what his invention was supposed to be.

"You mean it will travel into the future?" I asked skeptically.

"If my calculations are correct— and I have every reason to believe they are— then this machine will take us into the future."

"Us!" I echoed.

He walked over and shut the door with a bang. "Have you any objections to taking such a trip?"

"None at ail," I lied, thinking the chances of doing so were very remote.

"That is splendid. Then there is nothing to prevent our giving the machine a trial this afternoon."

The machine had two seats, with backs probably two feet high. The Professor seated me in one of them, while he occupied the other. "Just as a precaution to keep you from falling out," he smiled, buckling me in with a broad leather belt. In front of himself he swung a shelf-like section of the apparatus on which was arranged a number of dials and clock-like instruments. In some respects— save for the clocks— the shelf resembled the surface of a radio board. Whatever cogs and wheels there might be were hidden in the body of the machine, under our feet.

"That," said the Professor, indicating a dial, registers the years and centuries ; the one next to it, the weeks, days and hours; and this handle," he touched a projecting lever, "controls the machine." Before sitting down, he had lifted the bottom from his seat and revealed below it a hollow space filled with tools and provisions. "It is the same with your chair," he said with satisfaction, "and if you examine the leather belt, which holds you in, you will discover that it also acts as the holster for a Colt automatic and a box of spare cartridges." He settled himself comfortably in his seat and grasped the lever. "Are you ready, my boy?"

So business-like was his manner, so self-assured, that for a moment a qualm of doubt assailed me. What if the confounded thing were to work! Then my commonsense got the upper hand again. Of course it wouldn't ! Already I began to feel sorry for the professor. At my nod of assent, he pressed down on the lever. The machine shook; there was a purring noise; hut that was all. I smiled, partly with relief, partly with derision. "What's the matter?" I asked ; and even as I spoke the whole room spun like a giddy top and dissolved into blackness. The roaring of a million cataracts dazed and stunned me. There was an awful sensation of turning inside out, a terrible jolt, and then it was all over and I was lying sprawled out and half senseless in a wreck of disintegrating iron and steel. My hrst thought, of course, was that we were still in the laboratory. The machine had turned over, or exploded, and nearly killed me. That's what came of listening to bughouse professors and their crazy inventions! I felt my head and limbs blindly. Sound enough, I seemed, save for a few scratches and bruises. I struggled to sit up ; as I did so, I came face to face with an old man with a tangled mane of gray hair and an unkempt beard. It was several minutes before I realized that I was looking at the professor. Even as I did so, I became conscious of the fact that black whiskers hung down on my own breast and that the top of my head was as bald as a billiard ball. I looked around and saw that we were lying on a prairie-like expanse of country. Some trees were far off to one side and the immediate plain was covered with stunted bushes and tufts of grass. Anything more different from the laboratory could not well be imagined. As I stared stupefied, not yet realizing the awful truth, the Professor, gave a deprecating cough.

"I'm afraid," he said in a voice that was his, yet curiously changed, "I'm afraid I overlooked a very vital thing." He shook his head. "How I was so stupid as not to think of it, I can't understand."

"Think of what?" I mumbled.

"Of the almost elementary fact that as we journeyed into the future our bodies would age."

HIS words brought me to my senses. Incredible as it seemed, this was the future. At least we had come to rest on some other spot than that of the laboratory. And undoubtedly physical changes had taken place in the Professor and myself.

"We must return at once!" I cried.

"Of course," replied the Professor, "at once. But how?"

I looked at him dumbly.

"As you see," he remarked, picking up a piece of rusted, crumbling metal, "the machine just kept going until it was so old it fell to pieces. My boy, we have had a lucky escape."

"A lucky escape!" I echoed.

"Yes; for if the machine had not worn out when it did we would have gone on until we perished from old age."

"But I thought you told me once that old age was not caused by the passing of time."

"I did ; but you can readily understand that in our journey through time we encountered more or less friction from environment. Of course the faster we traveled through a century, say, the less action of environment on our bodies there would be in a given period of time. But still there would be enough to age us after awhile. At least, such seems to have been the case."

"How far have we come?" I asked.

"I don't know. All my instruments are destroyed. As you see, the machine is junk,"

"But we can build another."

"What with?"

I groaned. Machine, tools, weapons, all were gone. God knows how many centuries in the future, we stood on a bleak prairie, middle-aged and old, the rotting clothes falling from our backs, with only our bare hands to protect us from whatever dangers might lurk for us in this new and unknown age. With despairing eyes I stood up and scanned the horizon. "Look, professor, look!" I cried, seizing him by the shoulder. "Aren't those men running towards us?"

The professor focussed his eyes in the direction my finger pointed. Perhaps a half mile away, having seemingly just topped a rise, was a body of what appeared to be men. Even at that distance something about them looked peculiar; and when they came nearer we saw that they were running with bowed backs, their heads jutting at almost right angles with their bodies, and their arms dangling loosely in front of them.

"Those are the queerest looking men I've ever seen," I said in alarm, looking around for a weapon to defend myself with in case of attack, and plucking up the only thing available, a piece of rusted iron. The professor did likewise. Thus armed, we stood up to await their approach, for there was no place to hide and nothing behind which we could find shelter. Perhaps three hundred yards away the odd men spread out into a semi-circle. There were probably twenty-five or thirty of them, naked, with not even a breach-clout, shaggy of hair and beard, and with hair almost as heavy as fur running down their hacks and on the weather sides of their arms and legs. They continued coming at a fast gallop ; but just when it seemed they would run on and over us, they reared back— much as do horses when reined in— and came to an abrupt stop, shaking their heavy manes, and pawing at the ground with their feet,

"Very peculiar; very peculiar indeed," said the Professor thoughtfully. "Except for the clearly defined features of their faces and the general structure of their bodies, one would not take them for men at all."

"They seem more like apes," I retorted. "I hope they're not as savage as they look. Speak to them, Professor, before they start something, and see if they can't talk."

The Professor held up one hand in a peaceful gesture and took a step forward. He raised his voice so as to make it carry across the thirty or forty feet which still separated the shaggy men from us.

"We are American travelers!" he shouted. "Is there any among you who can talk English?"

The only response to this was a snorting and a rearing, accompanied by a rustling sound which affected the nerves disagreeably. Several of the shaggy men broke from the circle, doing a great deal of plunging and rearing before reluctantly coming back into formation again.

"By God, Professor," I said fervently, the goose-flesh appearing on my body, "I don't like this at all."

The Professor repeated his question in French, Spanish, Italian ; he asked it in Portuguese, and in what he later told me were several Indian dialects; but all to no purpose. Only every time he paused to catch his breath, there came that dry rustling as of the rasping of metal on metal. Suddenly he stepped back and caught me by the shoulder.

"Those creatures," he whispered, gesturing towards the shaggy men, "are controlled."

"Controlled!" I exclaimed. "What do you mean?"

"That there is something on their shoulders."

I thought the Professor was taking leave of his senses. "What could it possibly be," I began, then stopped, for the shaggy men were in motion. They divided, one group going to the right of us and the other to the left. In our rear they joined ranks and made us retreat before them. It was then I caught my first glimpse of the unbelievable riders that perched on their shoulders and rode them, much as human beings ride horses. Long antennae reached down on either side of the shaggy men's faces, gripping the corners of their mouths and serving to guide them as with bit and bridle. Other antennae waved in the air, or rubbed one on the other, producing the rasping noise which had so grated on ray nerves. The bodies to which these antennae were attached were about a foot in length.

"In the name of God, what are they, Professor?"

I screamed, half raising my piece of iron as if to throw it at the slowly advancing horrors. But the Professor gripped my arm. "Don't start fighting," he warned sternly, "unless you have to. As to what they are, I'm not certain, but I helieve them to be some sort of ant-like insects."

We retreated, slowly at first, then at a brisk walk, finally at a trot. When we moved in a given direction the insects were content to keep their steeds at a distance; but when we veered from it they urged on the shaggy men to head us off.

"I believe those insects are driving us in front of them as men herd cattle," gasped the Professor.

We topped a rise and saw stretching away before us a level plain. Far out on this plain— several miles away, perhaps— were numerous mounds, and it did not take us long to suspect that they were our destination. Several times the Professor sank to the earth, utterly winded, unable to- run another step. At such times. I stood over his body with my iron club, determined to sell our lives dearly, but' there was no need to fight. The shaggy men were brought to a halt and their uncanny riders waited patiently until the Professor could regain his feet, when we were once more urged ahead at a brisk pace.

Night had fallen and it was almost too dark to see when we finally staggered through a narrow gap into a large enclosure and were left to our own devices. The splash of water led us to a stream, where we slaked our thirst and bathed our sore and swollen feet; and then, too miserable and tired to care what further happened to us, we huddled together for warmth and fell asleep.

The Master Ants

SEVERAL hours later, the Professor and I awoke, chilled to the bone. And no wonder! For we were practically naked, only shreds of cloth clinging to our backs. The moon was riding high overhead, making the enclosure as light as day. Now and then the silence would be broken with a shrill scream or a heavy snort. Once or twice we heard the metallic slithering of antennae; and once, in looking up, I saw an insect crawling on top of a mound, its sinuous body etched sharply against the sky. I shivered with more than the cold.

"Professor," I whispered, "is this a nightmare or am I really awake?"

"I'm very much afraid that both of us are wide awake," said the Professor with a sigh.

"But it doesn't seem possible," I exclaimed. "Those bugs... My God, Professor, what has happened to the world !"

The Professor pulled thoughtfully at his unkempt beard. "I don't know. In our day there were scientists who held insects to be a growing menace to man's rule. Perhaps...But you could see for yourself that those ants rode men!"

"Were they men?"

"Yes; I believe they were."

"But their hair?"

"Could be accounted for by the fact that they were exposed, naked, to all kinds of weather. The fit. in this case, the strong, hairy ones, would survive and breed. A few centuries of such breeding could possibly produce the type we saw."

The thought of a world in which insects were the dominant species and men subject to them as beasts of burden, filled me with horror. If such were the case, what would our fate be? In spite of the chill night wind, in spite of the fact that we were cold and hungry, I dreaded the morning. But daylight came at last, and then we were better able to examine our surroundings. The enclosure was probably a half mile square and fenced in with an irregular line of mounds anywhere from ten to twenty feet high. Across the stream from us, bedded against the walls of a mound, were several hundred of the shaggy men. Soon after daylight they were afoot and came down to the stream to drink, wading into the water, in some cases, up to the waist, and drinking with an animal-like abandonment that filled me with disgust. It couldn't be passible that those creatures had once been human beings like the professor and myself. No, no! It seemed incredible that mankind could ever have fallen so low.

Some of the shaggy men crossed the stream to view us more closely. Most of these were females, stooping forward as they walked. One of them came quite dose to us, uttering plaintive cries, and the Professor stepped forward in an attempt to speak to her. At this a great hulking bull of a fellow, with fiery red hair that glinted in the sun, and who would have stood well over six feet if he had straightened up, rushed at the Professor with a roar. The latter retreated hastily; whereupon the leader of the herd— for you could have called the gathering of shaggy men nothing else than a herd, and the red-haired giant the leader of it— turned upon the females, and with blows of his fists and sundry kicks of his splay feet, drove them back across the stream where they all, men, women and children, took to grubbing in the ground for some sort of roots.

"And you call them human," I said to the Professor.

"They once were."

I shook my head. "Those creatures are bent almost double. Even the children are so formed, and the posture seems a natural one to them."

"Perhaps they were bred for that characteristic."

"Bred!"

"Why not ? If things are as I suspect, then those men have become the domestic animals of the insects. In the beginning they were probably bent double by bearing the weight of their riders. Acquired characteristics are, of course, generally conceded to be uninheritable, but little is known of the possibilities of variation— what effects the constant doing of a thing may have on the germ-plasm. It is possible that mutations with certain peculiarities of structure were born and men, such as you see, bred from them."

Before I could make reply, we had our first leisurely view of one of the ant-like insects. It suddenly appeared on top of a ten-foot mound a few yards from where we stood. Its body was in three segments of an almost metallic blackness, being raised, on stilted feet, about eight inches from the ground. Four feelers, or antennae, waved in the air or rasped one on the other, and were- attached to a mobile head. There was no 'indication of eyes, yet the weird thing paused in one spot for all of five minutes, as if intently regarding us, and I, for one, believed that it could see. Other insects appeared on the mounds, and soon the air was full of metallic slithering. At the sound, the males of the shaggy herd pricked up their ears, stamped the ground with their feet, and then continued feeding. On the other hand, the females ran towards the mounds, stretching up their hands to the insects on top of them, and calling out with imploring cries. Then we witnessed a strange sight. The ants crawled down the wall in one stream, paused beside a female for a moment or two, and then crawled up the wall again in another. It was a few minutes before the reason for this dawned on me.

"Good Lord, Professor!" I exclaimed suddenly, "they're milking them!"

It was true. The females of the shaggy men were so many cows being milked. Again the horror of our position came over me. We were castaway in a future age where man no longer was lord and master. Instead, he was a beast to he driven like a horse, milked like a cow, and— since ants ate meat, or used to— slaughtered like an ox. I wiped the cold sweat from my forehead.

"Professor," I said, "we must escape from here."

"Of course," replied the Professor; "but how— and where to?"

There was no answer to make. The mounds hemmed us in ; and even if we could get beyond them and away from our present captors, there were doubtless other mounds and other insects who would capture us. If the world was really in the hands of ants, then we were animals to be hunted down, tamed or killed. This age into which we had blundered was not safe for man— at least, not for civilized man. I closed my eyes to shut out the horrible sight of crawling insects. I tried to shut my ears to the sound of insane slithering, but heard readily enough when the Professor said somewhat nervously, "My boy, I believe they're coming over here." Three of the ants had mounted on the backs of shaggy men and were trotting them towards us. I looked desperately around for my piece of iron. It was gone. So was the Professor's. Someone or something had removed them while we slept. Nor was there anything else that could be used as a weapon. In this dilemma we turned and ran, but were soon overtaken. Two of the shaggy men closed in on me, while the third held the Professor powerless. I fought like a fiend ; but the four hands of the shaggy men were like iron bands, the grip of their fingers like vises. In a few minutes I was helpless. Then came the crowning horror. One of the insects dismounted from the hack of its steed and climbed on mine. At the feel of its suction-like legs on my flesh I went crazy. The muscles writhed in horrified protest under my skin. I bit and screamed and lashed out with my feet. All to no avail. Relentlessly, the loathsome thing clambered upwards until it had settled itself; firmly on neck and shoulders. Two antennae reached down my cheeks, gripping the corners of my mouth and clamping themselves there. Almost at the same instant the shaggy men loosed their grip of me and I was free. For a moment I stood still, dazed and trembling; then the antennae gave a pull at my mouth, wrenching the head back with a cruel jerk. With a scream of pure terror, I plunged forward in a mad leap, clawing upwards with my hands at the awful incubus on my shoulders, tearing futilely at the antennae which gripped my mouth. And as I fought to unseat the inhuman rider perched on my shoulders, I knew what I was: I was a horse being broken, a wild mustang, knowing for the first time the torture of bit and saddle, of spur and quirt; I was an inferior animal being conquered, beaten, trained by a superior one. The blind, unreasoning fear I felt, a thousand wild horses being brought under the yoke of all-powerful man must have felt. I ran— it seemed for ages— goaded, spurred, until I could run no more. My gait slackened, became a trot, a walk. Finally I stood still, frothing blood and saliva at the mouth, gulping painfully for air, trembling in every limb. The incredible insect breathed me for a few minutes before again urging me into a trot. I made no protest. I was beaten, cowed. The antenna on the left pulled; I went to the left. The one to the right tugged; I went to the right. My rider drove me past mounds where ants perched watching, much as cowboys of the past were wont to straddle corral fences and observe one of their number perform. They slithered what was undoubtedly their applause. For about twenty minutes I was put through my paces; made to walk, canter, circle, wheel and stop at command. Finally the insect slid from my shoulders and I sank to the ground, too miserable and distraught to care whether I lived or died. I flinched and closed my eyes when it patted me with its antennae and slithered soothingly, much as a man might pat a horse and at the time say, "There, there, old boy, don't be afraid." Afterwards a quantity of raw vegetables and what appeared to be coarse grain cakes were tossed to me and the insect went away. I lay there for a long time, hardly stirring a finger, when the Professor came up and sat down beside me.

"No," he said, "they didn't ride me. Too old, perhaps."

He picked up a grain cake and gnawed at it hungrily.

"Try one, my boy, they're not half bad. Besides you'll feel better if you eat something."

I suppose it seems queer to tell it, but we sat there on the rough grass, with the slithering ants coming and going about their business, and ate those cakes. Neither one of us had tasted food since the day before— or was it several centuries before?— and were half starved. Only hunger could make eating at all bearable with my sore and lacerated , mouth. Suddenly the Professor spoke to me in an odd tone.

"My dear boy, I don't like to arouse any false hopes, but will you take a look at that thing in the air and tell me what you think it is."

I glanced up apathetically enough; then at sight of what I saw I leaped to my feet with a wild cry; for, soaring through the air at a height of about seventy feet from the ground was a craft of shining metal.

"An airship!" I shouted deliriously. "An airship !"

2450 A.D.

YES, it was an airship. There could be no doubt of that. And where there was an airship, there must be human beings, men.

"Then civilized people are still living on the earth," cried the Professor exultantly. "Quick, my boy, shout and attract the driver's attention."

He had no need to urge me. Pain, weariness and despair were forgotten as I waved madly. "Help!" I shouted, dancing up and down. "Help!"

The strange craft jerked to a pause in mid-air, hung motionless for a moment, then sank directly earthwards for what must have been forty feet or more. Over the side looked a girt, her beautiful face wearing a look of amazement.

"For God's sake, help us!" I shouted again, "or the ants..."

I got no further, fear throttling my voice, for the ants were coming. Thousands of them suddenly appeared in sight, literally covering the tops and sides of the mounds. They saw the airship; there could be no doubt of that. A half million antennae reached threateningly heavenwards, and the angry slithering of them appalled the ears. The woman shouted something, what I could not hear, and waved her hand. Even as some of the insects surged down from the mounds and made for us, the airship dropped. It was a close thing. We leaped and clutched the metal sides, hanging on with the grin of desperation, as the strange craft brushed the earth like a feather and soared aloft again. I felt the sucking claws of an insect fasten to one leg and kicked out in a vain endeavor to rid myself of it. Suddenly a withering ray flashed from a cone in the girl's hand and played on the insect. There was an acrid smell of burning, a little flash of light, and the grip on my leg relaxed. With a sob of relief, I stumbled over the side of the car and fell in a heap on the floor. "Safe, my boy, safe!" exulted the Professor, who had preceded me then, turning to the girl, who was regarding us with wide-eyed wonder, he asked. "What year is this?"

"2450," she answered in perfect English.

"A.D.?"

"Yes."

"Hum," muttered the Professor, making a quick mental calculation. "Five hundred and twenty-five years in the future."

But I was too busy adjusting myself to this sudden change in our fortunes to give him much heed Far below us the earth was unrolling like a checkered carpet, mounds, hillocks, trees sweeping by at considerable speed. What power was driving the airship. I wondered. There was no sign of a propeller; neither did the craft possess wings and a rudder; nor any of the other properties associated in my mind with flying machines. Only the girl stood in front of a square box and-now and then shifted a small lever. She was, I judged, twenty-one or two, with red-gold hair, eyes like slanted almonds, and skin of yellow ivory. Her lithe body was of medium height and clad in a loose-flowing robe of some scarlet-colored material.

"Where are we going?" I asked her.

"To the Castle," she answered.

As she regarded me, I realized for the first time that I was naked; but the Professor seemed blissfully unconscious of the lack of any clothes.

"We have to thank you for rescuing us from a very dangerous and awkward position," he said courteously.

"I took you for beast men at first," she replied, "and if you hadn't called out in English, I shouldn't have stopped. Tell me, where do you come from and how did you fall into the hands of the Master Ants?"

"We came from the past," replied the Professor, "and landed on the plain about seven miles from where you picked us up. The insects— what you call Master Ants— captured us there."

"The past?" questioned the girl. "Where is that? Over the sea?"

"No," answered the Professor. "In another age. an earlier one than this. Out of the past, you know."

The girl didn't know. She stared at the Professor as if she thought the hardships we had undergone had unbalanced his mind. As for me, I was content to sink into a seat and wonder what kind of place was this Castle she was taking us to, and what manner of people were they who inhabited it in the year of our Lord, 2450. I had not long to wonder.

About an hour's flight brought us in sight of a vast structure which crowned the top of a high hill. Its walls glittered like dull silver under the rays of the afternoon sun, and its roof seemed to be one large garden or park. Never had I seen anvthing more beautiful or bizarre. Here and there domes of silver towered among swaying palm trees, spruce and live oak. The car swooped down like a homing bird and came gently to rest on a wide plaza and was immediately surrounded by a crowd of curious people of all ages and both sexes. The women were clad in gay-colored dresses; the men wearing white trousers, with soft linen tunics. Both men and women went bareheaded and barefooted, and the men were clean-shaven. At sight of us, the women and children fell back with cries of alarm, and some of the men made as if they would attack us forthwith; but the girl cried out that we were not beast men, but English-speaking travelers whom she had rescued from the Master Ants. At this announcement hostility ceased, but the amazement with which we were regarded deepened.

"How is this possible?" said one handsome young fellow. "Save for ourselves, there are no English-speaking people left alive in the two Americas, and for three hundred years no word has come from Europe. The Master Ants rule this country, and perhaps the world. Where, then, could these men have come from unless it be from the ranks of the beast men?"

"We are Time Travelers," began the Professor; "we come from..."

But a tall, commanding man of about sixty interrupted him.

"Our guests are worn and weary. Time enough for questions after they have bathed and fed and rested. Come, come! Are we of Science Castle so inhospitable as to leave two wayfarers to faint at our very door?"

At these words, the young fellow fell back abashed and willing hands lifted lis from the aircraft. It is hard to tell of the exquisite enjoyment of the next few hours. We were led into a central roof building of dull silver and bathed and washed. Soothing lotions were applied to ray wounds. Our bodies were anointed with refreshing balms and swathed in soft robes. Tangled beards were clipped to the skin and our faces shaved. After all these ministrations, I glanced in a mirror and saw the reflected features of a man of about forty-odd, bald of head, yet not entirely unreminiscent of the youth I once had been. Food was served to us as we lay on soft couches. First a thick broth, aromatic, satisfying; then various dishes whose names I did not know; but all were palatable. After eating, we fell asleep and slept, we discovered later, until eight o'clock of the next morning.

Science Castle

WITHOUT a doubt, our couches had been enclosed by four walls when we fell asleep. What miracle was this? We were lying in an open space with only some green shrubbery between us and the wide plaza on one side, and walks and gardens on the other three. Children were romping in the plaza, evidently laughing and shouting, yet their voices came to us but faintly.

"I suppose we're not dreaming," said the Professor. He got up and took a few steps forward; then came to an abrupt halt. "This is very odd," he said ; and even as he spoke, the four walls magically enclosed us, the Professor standing with his face against one of them.

"Good morning," said a laughing voice. I forgot your room was to be left opaque and turned on the ray."

It was the handsome youth who had questioned us the day before.

"The ray?" asked the Professor.

"Oh, I forgot!" exclaimed the youth. "Everything is probably strange to you. The ray is what makes the walls transparent, so that one can look through them."

"But what is it?"

The youth looked puzzled. "Why I don't know that I can tell you, offhand." He scratched his head in perplexity. "I guess it's like electricity used to be. Thousands of people turned it on every day, but nobodv could tell yon what it was."

We dressed ourselves in white trousers and soft tunics of a fair fit and followed him to a central dining room. It was strange to walk through what was undoubtedly the corridor of a large building and yet never be certain whether one were indoors or out. Two or three hundred people were breakfasting in this central room and I noticed that they seemed to be a mingling of all races. There were some with the slanted eyes and yellow skin of the Chinese; others, plainly, had more than a drop of negro blood in their veins; yet all were mingling with their white companions 'on terms of perfect equality. In Science Castle, I was to learn later, no distinction was made as to race or color. Among the early inhabitants had been numbered Japanese, Negroes, and Chinese, as well as whites. A common foe, a common vital danger had served to weld the various strains together. "Race and color antagonisms," a Scientian told us, "would have proved fatal to the small community. Of necessity a mingling of races took place. My grandfather was a negro. The girl who rescued you has Chinese blood in her veins. Whatever differences existed among our people in the early days has been ironed out by centuries of a common culture and environment." But I am anticipating.

Breakfast consisted of fruit, cereal, scrambled eggs, and milk, and we served ourselves cafeteria fashion. After eating, we repaired to the plaza where several hundred people were gathered, seated on the grass or on rustic benches. Seats were given us on what was evidently the raised platform of a speaker's rostrum. The tall, elderly man who had spoken for our welfare the night before, received us kindly.

"My name," he said, "is Soltano, Director of Science in Science Castle. I am speaking for my companions as well as for myself when I assure you that you are welcome to our home and refuge, and need fear no harm. However, you must realize that it has been centuries since strangers like yourselves have entered Science Castle, and understand that your rescue and coming has caused us untold amazement. Now that you are clothed and shaved, we readily perceive you to be, not beast men, but civilized beings like ourselves. Yet are we puzzled as to whence you could have come."

The Professor replied courteously: "My companion and myself thank you for your kindnesses to us and gratefully receive your assurances of future asylum and safety. A little of your curiosity, I can understand, and shall do my best to satisfy it."

He had raised his voice so that the words might carry to the people below.

"There is no need to pitch your voice above its ordinary key," explained Soltano. "This rostrum is really an instrument which broadcasts and magnifies it. Everyone— even those of us who are employed elsewhere— will pick up what you say by means of ear-phones."

I noticed, then, that the attentive people in the plaza were holding round devices to their ears and ceased wondering how some of them, leaning on the parapet two hundred yards away, expected to hear. "Splendid," said the Professor. "Some sort of an amplifying, radio machine, I see." He beamed on Soltano. "I merely talk to you, is that it? and all will hear." For a moment I thought he was going to interrupt the interview long enough to examine the platform ; but if he wanted to do so, he conquered the temptation. "My name," be said, "is John Reubens, late Professor of Physics at the University of California, and this lad here is Raymond Bent, my secretary. We are Time Travellers."

"Time Travellers!" echoed Soltano.

"Yes," replied the Professor, "from the year 1926. This means, of course, that we have come five centuries and a quarter out of the past."

There was a stir in the crowd below. Soltano looked amazed, as well he might. "This is a strange thing you are telling us. John Reubens," he said at last, "and well-nigh incredible. Much simpler would it be to believe that you had managed to come over the sea from Europe or from Asia. Never have we listened to such a tale before."

"Nor anybody else," replied the Professor with dignity, "as we are the first human beings ever to make such a trip."

"And how did you come?"

"By means of a Time Machine, the remains of which lie rotting on the spot where the Master Ants discovered us." He then proceeded to tell of the building of the Time Machine, of our incredible rush through space and of our awakening in another age. Then he told of our subsequent capture by, and experiences with, the insects. When he had finished, excited talking and gesturing broke out among the people below. Evidently there were doubting Thomases among them, who discounted our story. But the Professor was not disturbed.

"If you are amazed at what I have told you," he said, "how much more amazed are my companion and myself to find ourselves in a future where ants ride men as steeds and human beings live penned in such a castle as this. Such a state of affairs was not even dreamed of when we left our own day and age. Naturally we are curious to learn how it has come about."

"OUR historians are not quite clear as to that," replied Soltano. "If you came through time from 1926, then you left your period nine years before the ants began their attack on mankind. It was in 1935 that the papers printed news of a queer happening in South America. Natives came fleeing from the jungles with stories of how the white ants were eating everything up in the forests— even men! In the United States no one paid much attention to the news. The world, at that time, was in a state of political unrest and the government and people were watching Europe and building up a great air force, they were too busy to give heed to preposterous yarns emanating from Latin America. A year later the newspapers again flamed into headlines with news from Argentina, Peru, and Brazil. Small towns in the interior of these countries were being devastated. It had always been known that termites would destroy things carelessly left exposed in the fields or jungles; hut now they were eating up brick and stone. Buildings collapsed at the touch of a hand. Men woke and turned to wake a sleeping companion who dissolved into dust at a pressure. Sunday supplements carried lurid stories and sensational pictures for the edification of their readers. Then all such nonsense was swept into oblivion by the fact that Poland declared war on Lithuania, Russia moved to intervene, and Italy and France came to death-grips for five bloody years. In the United States ensued what were called prosperous times. Munition factories provided well-paid work for thousands of workers and made millions of dollars for hundreds of millionaires. Everybody was busily employed and had no time to think of crazy happenings reported from crazier spiggoty republics. Only a few scientists from the Smithsonian and other institutes went down to South America to investigate and wrote back long reports which were read with foreboding by a few learned men and ignored by everybody else. The papers they wrote — the records of these days.' — are preserved in our library."

"But the Master Ants," asked the Professor, "where did they come from, and how did they overwhelm the United States?"

Soltano waved his hand. "I am coming to that. The Master Ants were first noticed six years after the depredations of the white ants commenced. How they came nobody knows. Only in the nests of the termites, m the little galleries and chambers underground, something stupendous was taking place, something fraught with disaster for the human race. During thousands of years the white ants had undoubtedly been changing, evolving, acquiring, God only knows, what knowledge. It is all speculation, of course, but you doubtless recollect how the bees, by feeding their larvae different foods, will produce at Will a queen, a drone, or a worker. Well, the white ants had discovered how to make such food — and to feed it to their larvae. At any rate, the Master Ants appeared. No one had ever seen them before. They swarmed down from the jungles by the hundreds of thousands, and wherever they went the people were stricken and fell in the fields and the streets We now know that the termites bit them, injecting a subtle poison into their systems which induced a species of paralysis; but at the time it was only known that of every three that fell, two were devoured, and that the third one recovered, stupid, beast-like, to become the creature of the Master Ants. In vain the southern republics sent their soldiers to battle the insects. Guns crumbled to pieces in their hands. Armies lay on the ground to bivouac and only one soldier out of every three ever rose again— and he rose to bear an ant on his shoulders and chase his fleeing countrymen. Panic spread. Natives fled to the seashore and put to sea in all kinds of unseaworthy crafts— only to drown by the thousands. When the Master Ants finally occupied the crumbling ruins of Rio de Janeiro, the whole world was forced to realize that something terrible was happening in South America; and when fifteen years later, all South America having come under their sway, the termites were reported to be making inroads on the Canal Zone, a feeling of uneasiness swept through the people of the United States. Still it seemed impossible thai the mighty northern nation could be invaded and flouted by such an insignificant thing as an ant. Newspapers ran articles written by government experts, pointing out how absurd it was to even entertain the thought. South America had succumbed, said the experts, because she had been a tropical wilderness without proper chemical defense. Elaborate plans were drawn up, showing how the border states were protected from invasion by systems of pipes and sprays; showing how fleets of airship were prepared to drop tons of chemicals and explosives. Only the scientists who had studied the tactics and methods of the ants knew how futile these preparations were; but they and their suggestions were ignored by the petty politicians and nincompoops who were directing itie affairs of the country."

Soltano paused. I stared at him, wide-eyed.

"And the ants came," breathed the Professor.

"Yes, the ants came. Millions of them were killed with explosives, with gases and poisonous chemicals, but their numbers seemed as exhaustless as the sands on the seashore. In the space of a year they ate up the pipes and put the sprays out of commission. But you will have to read the history of those times for a more detailed account. Then you will learn how the United States soldiers marched against the invaders and met the same fate as had previously befallen the armed forces of South America and Mexico. The scientists had suggested that the soldiers go mailed in a composite metal they had made from the blend of three other metals, comprehensive experiments having shown it to be the only substance the ants could nor devour. Guns, pipes, everything possible, they said, should he protected with a casing of this metal. No one paid any attention to them. Rebuffed, a group of them interested financial backing and retired to this hill. Here they congregated machines and Workers and started building the castle you now see. It was intended at first for an observation base, merely; an outpost, as it were, from which to spy on arid study the habits of the insects. But as the years passed, and it become increasingly clear that the country was doomed, the place became thought of as a permanent home and refuge. Commenced in 1955, it was not finished until the year 2000. For some reason the ants were, comparatively speaking, slow in infesting North America. Perhaps the cooler climate had something to do with this. For instance, they swept through south Texas and all of the southern states before they fared further north. When their coming finally drove the inhabitants of this vicinity panic stricken before them, the scientists— those of them who still lived— entered the Castle, accompained by the workers and their families, and we, whom you see today, are their descendents."

"But the rest of the people!" cried the Professor. "What became of them?"

"They went crazy with fear," replied Soltano. "For fifty years the United States was increasingly the habitat of terrified mobs. The economic life of the country became disrupted. Citizens, white and black, fled from the southern states and added to the congested panic of northern cities. Famine raised its gaunt head ; crime became prevalent. Hundreds of thousands died of hunger, of disease epidemics. Those who could beg, borrow or steal a passage abroad, fled to Europe, to Asia. Out of what was estimated to be a population of a hundred and twenty millions in 1935, only seven millions were living in America when the ants turned north."

"And now?" asked the Professor.

"In the whole western hemisphere there are probably a few hundred thousand beast men bred by the Master Ants for food and transportation."

I stared at the Professor with horror. Only yesterday, it seemed, we had left a populous, thriving America. Great industrial cities had sent their smoke and ash into the sky; giant locomotives had carried thousands of people on two ribbons of steel over thousands of miles of country; and now... now ... it was all as if it had never been. Could it be possible that five hundred years had dissipated an empire? Five hundred years!

"Come," said Soltano; "enough of such matters for the nonce. You will learn more of us as the days pass, as you become better acquainted with us individually."

He led the way down into the plaza where we were immediately surrounded by the crowd and warmly greeted.

Soltano Tells of the Progress and Danger of the Age

WHEN I stepped down from the rostrum on that first day in Science Castle, it was to meet the girl who had rescued the Professor and myself from the Master Ants. Her name was Theda. If anything, she looked move beautiful than she did the day before.

"You have gone through much danger, Raymond," she said shyly.

"It was worth it, if it brought me to you," I replied; and meant it.

She did not seem displeased.

"It is the hour for bathing. Let us go to the pool."

I looked around for the Professor; but he was walking away with a group of elderly Scientians, who were evidently bent on entertaining him. "Very well," I said.

The pool was an artificial pond perhaps fifty yards square. I plunged after her into the pool. When I drew myself, panting, out of the water at the other end of the pond, it was to find myself sprawling beside the handsome lad who had called me to breakfast. His name, I learned, was Servus, and he was Theda's twin brother. Their parents, he informed me, were both dead. Theda and he were enthralled with my accounts of the life and customs of 1926. By the time we were ready to dress far lunch, the three of us were firm friends.

In the days that followed, I learned a great deal about Science Castle and its inhabitants. With Theda and Servus I walked the parapets which circled the roof of the Castle and looked down the steep sides that fell a sheer eight hundred feet before they touched earth. From the foot of the Castle, the hill sloped away. To the east, as far as the eve could see, stretched a level waste; and to the northwest lay a range of somber hills. On the plain, twenty-five hundred feet below, grew nothing green. The sight reminded me of something about which I had wondered more than once.

"How do you get water ?" I asked Servus. "In the early days," he replied, "we relied on wells, boring as deep as four thousand feet; but two hundred years ago they began to fail us. There was a terrible time, I believe, when we were faced with a water famine. Efforts were made to bring water from distant lakes, but without success. Then just in time, our chemists discovered how to make water."

"Make water!" I exclaimed.

"Yes, from hydrogen and oxygen, you know. Now all the water we use is manufactured and stored in great tanks far down in the depths of the Castle, from whence it is raised by means of force pumps."

"Wonderful," I said, marveling at such ingenuity.

But wonderful things were what one learned to expect at Science Castle. For instance, the Professor and I were invited one day to be present at a history review to be given to the children of the Castle. The walls of the classrooms were made transparent by means of the ray and there was all the illusion of being outdoors. Highly perfected projecting devices showed moving pictures depicting the building of the Castle. It made me gasp with awe when I realized that the opening reels of this stupendous picture had been taken five hundred and fifteen years before. One saw the motor caravan of scientists and workers coming to the hill and watched breathlessly as the earth was broken by great steam-shovels. One saw the vast walls of the Castle growing upward foot by foot, and finally the finished structure heing furnished and stored with all the myriad inventions and devices of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. In the same manner we were shown how the Castle was enlarged in 2075. Workers sheathed in protecting metal armor labored to raise walls When these walls were finished and floors installed, they were scoured with flaming rays which hardened the metal and destroyed whatever insect life might have gotten inside them. So inch by inch we watched the pictured story of how the Castle had grown to its present proportions.

"Some moving picture," I breathed to the Professor. "What a knockout that would be for Cecil B. DeMille! Did you notice the scene where the panic stricken people rushed by pursued by the ants ?" I shuddered. "And the one where the scientists and workers were hoisted up the walls into the Castle ? What I can't understand is why the ants couldn't have swarmed over the walls and wiped everyone of them out."

Soltano overheard me. "Because," he replied, "the walls were electrified. Nothing could have lived on them after the current was turned on."

About a week after this the Professor and I were taken into the body of the Castle proper. Far down under the fairy-like buildings and blooming gardens on its roof, were the machine-shops, the laboratories which made possible the pulsing life above. Here we saw great dynamos and whirring machines at whose functions I could not even guess. In one vast room men were putting the finishing touches to what were evidently a number of airships; in another, workers were manufacturing crude oils and thick greases. Whole floors were given over to experimental and research work of too complicated a nature for me to attempt to describe. The Professor was enthralled. He was in his element here and hated to go on.

"What do you do for metal ?" he asked suddenly. "Iron, tin, zinc?"

''Hemmed in as we are," replied Soltano, "sufficient metal has always been difficult to obtain. However, we have managed it. A great deal of our tanks, wheels, shafts, and so forth, are made from ptilp, from trees grown in the gardens above, and even from vegetable tops, leaves and vines which, treated by a chemical process we have discovered, serve our purpose very well. Iron is the one metal, however, for which we must mine. In those hills north-west of us are old mines which we still work when ore is needed. The work is hard and dangerous ; The men engaged at it must go clothed in protecting metal and be constantly protected with flaming rays. However, some day when ore is needed, you may go with us in the airships and see the whole process for yourself."

He dismissed the subject hastily, evidently having something of further interest to show us.

"That," he said, pointing to great metal tanks and a mass of complicated pipes and whirring wheels, "is where the water is made."

He pressed a button. The walls surrounding us became transparent, and looking out we could see the brown slope of the hill. Suddenly I focussed my gaze. About twenty feet from where we stood was a small mound. Something behind it stirred. I caught a glimpse of a metallic body, of waving antennae. "Yes," said Soltano. "it is a Master Ant; they are all around us. But I did not bring you down to show you them; I am going to show you something far more deadly." He guided us into a large lift. "Under us. the foundations of the Castle sink into the ground for a hundred feet. It is where we manufacture the composite metal when needed." The Hit sank silently into blackness; the noise of clanging machinery above grew fainter, seemed farther away, almost ceased. We stepped forth into a wilderness of massive columns. Soltano pressed the now familiar button and the walls faded. We could see the black earth beyond them, and even, it seemed, a foot or two into it. Something gray out there was moving and turning along little runways and tunnels. Millions and millions of tiny things were ceaselessly burrowing and gnawing. For a moment I did not understand, then Soltano spoke and enlightenment came to me. There were the termites— the white ants.

"BEHOLD the enemies we fight," said Soltano solemnly. "The insects out there are far more dangerous to us than the Master Ants, whose creators they are. Those termites are seeking to demolish the very foundations on which the castle rests by eating away the earth from under them."

I felt the gooseflesh rise on my skin.

"Three times in the last one hundred years have we had to sink our foundations further into the earth. Originally, this basement was only fifty feet deep. Now it is a hundred. In a few years it will be more than that."

"But good God!" I cried; "can't you do something to stop them ?"

He shrugged his shoulders. "So far— no ! However, our chemists, our various scientists, are busy experimenting night and day. It is hoped that we may perfect a poison, a ray that will kill them off, prevent them from coming near the castle walls."

"And if you cannot?" asked the Professor.

"It we cannot," replied Soltano; "then some day..." He made a fatal gesture with his hand.

I thought of the busy, joyful life far above, of the green gardens and the laughing women and children. I thought of Thcda, and I suddenly realized how much she had grown to mean to me.

"Professor," I said that night when we had retired to our room, "with all those machines and tools at your command, couldn't you make another Time Machine?"

"I possibly could," replied the Professor.

"Then why don't you?"

"Perhaps I shall. Soltano has promised to put a laboratory at my disposal, you know."

Much relieved, I turned away. Here was a way out for Theda and myself. I fell asleep and dreamed I had taken her back on a time machine to 1926 and was showing her the University campus and pointing out the tune on the campanile clock. At breakfast Theda stood behind the counter and filled my tray with cereal, fruit, toast and eggs. That was one thing I had early noticed: there were no idlers tolerated in Science Castle. All worked at something useful. One week Servus, for instance, washed dishes three hours a day; the next he would be tending to the vegetable gardens; bringing in the fresh heads of cabbage and lettuce, gathering the firm, red carrots, or digging potatoes. At my own request, I was given such work. I was amazed at the fertility of those gardens, amazed that fruit trees would grow at all under such conditions.

"Is the soil renewed very often?" I asked Servus.

He shook his head. "It is never renewed."

"Then you must have good fertilizers?"

'We have— electricity."

"Electricity !" I exclaimed.

"Why, yes. Taken from the air by means of magnetism. But you shouldn't marvel at that so much. Didn't a German engineer do as much in your day? But whereas he got two crops from sandy soil, we get seven."

So it went. I had noticed no animals of any sort in Science Castle, not even cows, yet there was no lack or eggs, butter, milk or meat. Servus again explained the mystery. "Milk is made from turnips and potatoes." he explained. "I believed a man named Ford did that in 1926. Eggs and meat are manufactured synthetically." He went into technical details which there is no need to set down here.

Truly a wonderful place, this Science Castle. It was difficult to realize that its brilliant inhabitants were chained to a hill-top by insects which for centuries had been man's hopeless inferiors. But were they so chained! Hadn't Theda rescued the Professor and me by means of an aircraft? And hadn't Soltano shown us others in the process of being built? And hadn't we been invited to take trips in them? One night while I sat with her on the parapet in the moonlight, I asked Theda about it. "Yes," she replied, "we have air vessels; but save for mining ore they do not do us much good."

"Why not?" I asked.

"Because outside of Science Castle there is hardly a spot they dare land."

"But there is Europe and Asia," I exclaimed. "Perhaps the ants do not control there."

"On the average of once in every ten years," she replied, "expeditions have left here for over the seas— and never returned. My father commanded the last aircraft to attempt the flight. That was five years ago," she added softly. I pressed her hand.

"But they seem to be wonderfully well-controlled machines," I said. "What drives them?"

"Radio power. Waves are sent from a controlling center in the Castle here and received by a device incorporated in the airships themselves. Complete control of the machine is invested in the driver by means of a lever which oprates a very simple mechanical arrangement. For a radius of several hundred miles, and in fair weather, the aircrafts are absolutely safe and easily handled. Many of tis use them for pleasure rides. But beyond that—" She shook her head. "Perhaps atmospheric conditions interfere with the waves when sent over too great a distance; perhaps the receiving apparatus fails to operate beyond a certain point, though theoretically they should pick up power waves four thousand miles from the sending station. All we know, however, is that those who venture too far— vanish. Perhaps they fall into the sea and are drowned. Or worse still, on the plains, and the Master Ants..." Her voice shivered to silence. For comfort against a black spectre which took on the hideous form of an insect, we drew together.

"Theda," I said unsteadily. "O Theda! Would you... will you..."

In answer she kissed me.

The Master Ants Take to the Air

UNDER the thin metal roof which is all that shuts away from us the hordes of conquering ants, I am seated, putting the finishing touches to this manuscript. Of the terrible catastrophe which has occurred. I can hardly write. We were standing one day by the parapet when a young Scientian who had gone on a pleasure spin, planed down from the sky and landed on the plaza. His face was ashen-grey.

"What is it?" demanded Soltano sharply.

"The ants!" gasped the breathless youth. "The ants have taken to the air!"

"To the air! What do you mean ?"

"That they have mounted the backs of insects, of wasps a yard long, and are flying!"

Instantly the Castle was in an uproar. From every direction the Scientians came rushing; from the depths of the Castle, from the gardens and the pool. They assembled irf the plaza and listened to the tale the youth had to tell. Attracted by strange activities among the mounds, he had flown nearer the ground than usual, when great insects had spread gossamer wings and pursued him. Fortunately, the speed of the airship had outdistanced them, though at first it had been a close chase! When he finished speaking, Soltano mounted the rostrum and addressed the gathering.

"Fellow Scientians," he said, "if what we have just heard be true, then Science Castle is in immediate and grave danger. You will remember that we have often discussed the possibility of an alliance between the Master Ants and other insects. Now it seems they have enslaved or enlisted a winged insect, probably of the bee family. Not only that, they have evidently fed them with special foods until monsters, capable of bearing a Master Ant aloft have been produced. Sooner or later we shall he attacked. The great cone must be manned at once; the chemical pumps made ready. Let everyone hasten to his post, for we are facing the gravest crisis in our history."

I stared at the Professor with fear. He stared back at me grimly.

"What do you think ?" I asked with dry lips.

"That the situation is desperate."

"But the ray cones, the acids!"

"My boy," he said solemnly, "if those insects have really taken to the air, then God help us !"

I sank nervelessly into a seat; then sprang up again as the remembrance of something sent a thrill of hope through my heart.

"The Time Machine!" I cried. "Surely you have finished it by this time!"

The Professor nodded. "Yes," he said, "it is ready."

"Then we can make our escape by means of it."

He looked at me pityingly. "I'm afraid not."

"What's the matter with it?"

"Nothing. Only you forget something."

"Forget what?"

"How we aged when we travelled in it before."

"Well!"

"Don't you see? It would have the same effect on us again."

For a moment I did not understand ; then the appalling truth staggered me like a bolt from the blue. The Professor read the dawning comprehension on my face.

"Yes," he said slowly, "yes. If age is caused by the action of environment, then the same friction would be encountered by the body whether it traveled forward in time or backward. In returning to 1926, we would be subjected to the same resistance, the same wear and tear, as we were in coming from it. That would mean annihilation for me, death. For yourself and Theda, would it be much better? You could expect to find yourself an old man of eighty or ninety, penniless, unknown, in charge of a middle- aged woman. What good would that do either you or Theda? Besides, there is something else to consider. Do you realize that it was only by a miracle we escaped death when our Time Machine fell to pieces on the plain out there? Yet there is no way—"

"Look!" cried a woman's shrill voice. "Look!"

Far out on the plain had risen what seemed an eddying cloud. Even as we gazed, petrified, there rose another, and yet another, until the sky was black with them. The Master Ants were coming to the attack!

Of the ghastly fight which look place on the roof, there is little to say. The millions of insects, with their winged steeds, simply fell upon the giant ray cone and smothered it to ineffectiveness with their charred bodies. Nearly two hundred of the Scientians fell in hattle, stung to death by the sword-like stings of the flying insects. The remainder fled panic-stricken from the roof into the interior of the Castle and sealed up the entrance with impregnable composite metal.

By means of the transparent ray it is possible to look through the walls and ceiling. The once fair garden is being eaten and destroyed. The fruit trees are crumbling into dust. All that is vulnerable is a decaying wreck.  As I look at the scene of unutterable desolation, despair grips my heart, and a wild desire to strap myself into the Time Machine and quit this terrible future for the past. But that is impossible. There is nothing to do but stay and face whatever the future holds in store for us. Soltana maintains that our situation is not yet hopeless. Those Scientians amaze me. Their courage and optimism in the face of disaster are wonderful. Now I know what their religion is: It is an abiding faith in the power of their science to aid and uphold them.

The Professor tells me of an intricate arrangement for supplying us with air; I do not understand it yet very well, but it is made clear to me that we can live in the interior of the Castle indefinitely. Water and synthetic foods can be made. Meantime, in the splendidly equipped laboratories and machine shops, the scientsts and inventors are rushing forward experiments which may release, they say, the energy in the atom and give us possession of weapons which will destroy the ants and return the lordship of America to man. But as to this, I do not know; I hardly dare hope. Theda leans over me and presses her soft cheek against mine, and though I do not feel at all heroic, I am comforted and made stronger by her love.

Escape or help seems impossible. Nevertheless, I am going to tie this manuscript in the Time Machine, which stands ready at my side, and send it back to the period I have left forever. I repeat my hope that it will fall into the hands of intelligent people and that its contents will be made known to the public. It may he that we shall overcome the ants in the inevitable final conflict between men and insects. In that case we will try to communicate with the twentieth century again. If not, then we bid a final farewell to the people of 1926.

Signed:

Professor John Reubens,

Raymond Bent.

What Is To Be Done with the Document?

THE nationally known lawyer laid down the incredible document. For a moment there was complete silence in the room. Finally the President of the University spoke.

"I suppose you wish our advice as to what disposition to make of this... this...."

"Exactly," returned the lawyer. "I am positive it is a hoax; and yet...."

"And yet," finished the Doctor of Science, " 'there are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy!' as Hamlet said!"

The ordinary M. D. coughed. "There is something fishy ahout this whole affair." he said, "casting no reflections on our host, whose account of how the manuscript came into his possession I believe absolutely. Perhaps someone is trying to cover up the fact that twenty thousand dollars disappeared. But that doesn't sound plausible either. My advice is to lock the manuscript up in a safe. Time enough to publish its contents to the world if any queer happenings should occur— in South America, for instance."

The five other men gave hearty approval to this plan, and there the matter rests, except that there are at least three men in Berkeley, California, who carefully scan the press every day for any strange news from Latin America.

___________________

6: By the Hands of the Dead

Francis Flagg

Strange Tales of Mystery and Terror March 1932

"I BELIEVE," said Porter Norton to me, "that you should tell the story as a warning to those dreamers and madmen who would dare to knock at the very portals of death and question the grim guardian of the beyond."

Perhaps Norton is right. Perhaps the terrible fate of Peter Strong was incurred because he came near to rending the veil betwixt life and death, and no man can do that and live. But I do not quite believe this. I believe....

But let me tell the story; let me put the weird, incredible facts on paper and in the end you shall know what I believe.

Norton and I met Peter Strong at one of Mrs. Tibbet's Sunday night gatherings. Mrs. Tibbet was a charming old lady who believed in spiritualism.

A spiritualist society held weekly meetings at her parlors and one saw some inexplicable things there. One night a medium— a big, fleshy woman who resembled pictures of Madame Blavatzky— gave a rather disturbing performance. The room was darkened as usual, but a veiled globe threw a faint light upon an area of floor in our midst.

We sat in a half circle, facing the cabinet, and holding hands. Suddenly the curtains of the cabinet parted and something came into the room, something abnormally broad and squat. All this time the sound of heavy breathing and occasional cries as if of pain, came from the cabinet. The thing which now undulated across the floor could not possibly be the medium, and I watched with a prickling sensation of the scalp until it reached the illuminated area. In the blacker portions of the room it had been distinguishable only as a luminous mass; but now it showed like white smoke, wreathing and churning. I felt Norton, who sat next to me, stiffen in his chair, and at that moment a woman screamed and someone snapped on the lights. The smoke vanished:

"Fake, of course," I said with a nervous laugh.

NORTON nodded his head doubtfully; but the gentleman who had sat on my right, a man I had seen at the meetings for the first time, shook his head.

"No," he said quietly, "that wasn't a fake, that was one of the odd times when Mrs. Powers had enough psychic units of electricity focused in herself to allow the materialization of matter plain enough to be seen."

I looked at the man with interest. He was of average height, slim and precise looking. His face was clean shaven, that of an ascetic, a scholar; he had a high forehead and wide gray eyes—the eyes of a mystic.

His age I judged to be fifty-five or sixty.

At that moment Mrs. Tibbet bustled up. "This," she said, putting her arm around the shoulders of the man, "is a very dear friend of mine, and I want you to meet him. His name is Strong— Peter Strong."

We shook hands. "You mustn't judge spiritualism," he said with a smile, "by its religious or fortune-telling aspects. As a matter of fact, the science of spiritualism has nothing to do with religion."

"The science?" said Norton.

"Yes, the science. Nothing is more exact than astronomy to-day, yet it had its roots in astrology. What you see in the spiritualist societies throughout the world, the mediums and their like, is but the primitive foundations of scientific spiritualism. It is full of quackery and fraud, just as astrology was and still is full of quackery and fraud."

He gave us his card. "If you should ever care to call on me," he said, "I would be delighted to discuss the subject further."

SEVERAL months passed, however, before we took advantage of that invitation. Mrs. Tibbet went to White Horse Canyon for the summer, and the meetings at her parlors discontinued; but except for week-end trips to Oracle, Norton and I were confined to the city. Norton as city editor of the Gazette, and I as its circulation manager, had enough to keep us busy.

One hot August afternoon when the mercury registered a hundred-four in the shade and the office was a sizzling furnace, Norton poked his head into my sanctum and waved a sticky proof. "Read this," he commanded.

I took the strip listlessly. "Tucson inventor makes machine for raising spirits," I read. "Peter Strong, local scholar and psychic research worker, announces...."

I looked up at Norton with quickened interest. "Why, this must be the fellow we met at Mrs. Tibbet's."

"I am sure it is. What do you say if we run around and see him after dinner? Might be a story in it for the paper."

I assented; and that was how we came to meet Peter Strong again and to undergo the harrowing experiences set down here.

The house was an old one, set in the southwest part of town, a two-story rambling pile built of adobe and surrounded by overgrown gardens and a stone fence. The immediate neighborhood was given over to other large houses and substantial estates; yet we approached it through the squalid Mexican quarter where dark-skinned, exotic-looking men and women gossiped or smoked in doorways, and dirty ragged children with vivid eyes and shrill cries rolled on the sidewalks and in the gutters.

As he carefully piloted the Ford, Norton told me something of Peter Strong. "I looked him up in our private morgue," he said, "and questioned the managing editor. Strong belongs to one of the oldest families in these parts. His grandfather was United States marshal hereabouts in the old days when Tucson was nothing but a cow town; and his father used to be mayor about twenty years back, before his death. Quite wealthy, I understand, but most of the family fortune was lost in the 1913-14 business slump. At that, the present Strong, the one we're going to see, isn't poverty-stricken. Lives very quietly, though, and seldom goes into society. Lived abroad for years. Wife dead. Is considered an authority on psychical phenomena and generally held to be a bit queer."

AS everyone who has lived in Tucson knows, the street lights are sparsely scattered. With some difficulty we located the desired estate and drove up a wide drive through a thick row of pepper and palm trees. The wide veranda was deserted, but the heavy front door was open, and even the screen door was flung back to admit more readily the faintly stirring evening breeze.

As Norton raised his hand to sound the brass knocker, a woman came down the stairs from the upper part of the house. She came from obscurity into the rather faint light cast by an overhead bulb in a colored shade, and I could not see her distinctly save to note the fact that she was tall and slender and clad in a skirt that reached to the floor. The woman paused at seeing us.

We both doffed our hats. "Is Mr. Strong in?" asked Norton. She did not reply, but instead beckoned us forward, and glided down the long hall, glancing over her shoulder to see if we followed. We started to do so, but at that moment a door at the end of the corridor opened, flooding it with light, and an elderly man in the quiet garb of a gentleman's servant faced us. The woman, we were both surprised to observe, had disappeared. "I beg your pardon," said Norton, in answer to the servant's suspicious looks, "but we are here to see Mr. Strong. We would have sounded the knocker, of course, but the lady—"

"The lady!" said the man, his expression subtly altering.

"Why, yes," replied Norton. "She invited us in. We would scarcely have entered otherwise. I don't know where," he said, looking about perplexedly, "she could have gone to."

The man made no reply but went to announce our presence to his master, and in a few minutes Peter Strong greeted us warmly. "This basement room," he said, leading the way to it, "is my study and workroom."

IT was a large place, and despite its cement floor, was comfortably enough furnished with rugs, easy-chairs and pictures, the one incongruous note being a work-bench set against the rear wall on which a variety of tools, odds and ends of wire, and other articles lay scattered.

"Yes," said Peter Strong, "I recollect meeting you at Mrs. Tibbet's very well. Michael," he called to the servant, "bring us something cooling to drink, will you? It's only an iced fruit beverage," he apologized, "but I never drink wine."

We sipped our glasses appreciatively. The kitchen door opened off the room in which we sat, and through the open door I could see the servant moving silently about. Twice I surprised him casting furtive glances over his shoulder. What could be agitating the man, I wondered.

"Yes," Peter Strong was saying, "I am at work on a psychic machine. There it is near the bench." He pointed to a contrivance I had mistaken for a radio. "But your reporter wrongly quoted what I said at the luncheon today. I did not say the machine was yet completed. As a matter of fact, I am waiting for a specially made transformer to arrive from the east before testing it out."

"But you believe it will work?" His fine gray eyes, eyes that stirred me in spite of myself, lit up with enthusiasm. "I have every reason to believe that it will. This isn't my first machine; it is the culmination of a dozen machines. For fifteen years I have been building, experimenting. And there have been results. Yes," he said softly, almost to himself, "there have been results."

HIS eyes stared fixedly beyond me, and, following the direction of their gaze, I saw the door through which we had entered quietly open, and the woman of the hallway stand glancing in. Then she withdrew, the door quietly closed, and Peter Strong glanced back at us, a flush on his usually pale face. "Let me show you something." He took from a chest of drawers a number of cabinet size pictures. "With photographic devices in the machine preceding this one, I snapped these."

Norton and I regarded the pictures curiously. They showed vague, spiral-like bodies rising out of masses of vapor. The outlines resembled heads and shoulders as much as anything else, and in one or two profiles were clearly defined. Of course we had read about faked spiritualist pictures, but to suspect Peter Strong of knowingly perpetrating a fraud was impossible.

"With my earlier machines I received messages," Strong continued. "But I wanted more than messages. I wanted to materialize a spirit. And I wanted to materialize it under perfectly scientific conditions." He paused and regarded us tensely. The servant came in and removed the glasses and empty pitcher. "Yes," he said, "spiritualism is a scientific proposition. Not the spiritualism of the churches. Scientific spiritualism has no need of religion; no need of God. I don't," he said gently, "believe in God."

"Don't believe in God?"

"No."

"But," protested Norton, mopping his face, "something must be responsible for the world and the universe."

The servant returned with a full pitcher and clean glasses. It was very warm in the room despite the electric fan and the faint breeze blowing through the windows set high in the walls. I was conscious of the servant like a dark shadow going to and fro across the doorway. "Damn the man," I thought; "what is he so nervous about?"

PETER STRONG filled his glass. "Something is responsible, of course, and that something is pulsations of magnetism from indivisible prime units of matter."

"And the prime units," queried Norton, "what created them?" "They were never created." "Being the 'causeless cause' of some of the metaphysicians," I murmured.

"But," argued Norton, ignoring my interjection, "why can't the uncreated be God?"

"The very idea of God is unscientific."

"And yet you believe in a future life?"

"Not in a future life," corrected Peter Strong, "but in the continuity of life. And I don't believe; I know."

"But," I exclaimed, "that is the stock statement of all mystics and religionists: they all claim to know."

"Yes," he admitted with a smile. "But they claim to know through faith, while I know through knowledge. Not through the knowledge of ancient mystical lore, but through knowledge of more recent discoveries in science. And," he added softly, "through a channel more intimate... more dear."

We sipped our beverage in silence. A shadow loomed in the kitchen doorway, the silent figure of the servant. "Consider this," said Peter Strong after awhile. "I have already told you that all life and mass owes its existence to pulsations of magnetism. Science calls this pulsation chemical affinity. But here is a copy of my theory; I typed it to read at the luncheon to-day." He passed Norton a piece of paper. We read it with care.

"So you see," said Peter Strong, "that earth life is of one electronic density and spirit life of another. When a man dies, he is just as alive as he ever was, only his ego has a body invisible to us. But if a number of people physically en rapport form a circle, or if a vital medium goes into a trance, sufficient prime units of electricity may be generated for the spirits to build bodies dense enough to be seen. Those bodies will be no denser than the amount of prime units allows them to be. That explains why most spirit bodies and photographs of them are vaporous, unformed. However, the circle or human medium as methods of materializing the dead are primitive, uncertain, and open to all kinds of fraud and quackery. It is my aim, through the machine, to put spiritualism on a scientific basis."

ON our way home that evening, Norton and I discussed our visit.

"An interesting old chap, all right," said Norton; "and he certainly can make it sound plausible; but for all that I don't believe the dead can come back."

"Neither do I. They say Edison once tried to invent a psychic machine but gave it up."

Just before Norton dropped me at my door J. mentioned what had been milling around in my mind all the time. "Damn funny about that woman," I said.

"Oh, I don't know. A maid, perhaps."

"But where did she go to?"

"Popped through some door, I expect; there was one across from us, you know."

"But it was closed, and we never heard it open or shut."

Norton grinned. "I guess our hearts were thumping too hard for us to hear anything."

"But the servant's face! You must have seen the way he looked when you mentioned seeing a lady."

"Scared," said Norton. "Yes, I noticed. But maybe he had a woman in the house unbeknown to his boss."

"No," I said. "Strong knew the woman." And I told him about his looking at her in the basement doorway. Norton had been glancing elsewhere at the time and hadn't noticed.

"Well," he said reflectively, "it's none of our business what women the old fellow has hanging around. But then again, she wasn't dressed as a maid, if that's anything."

"And that servant was stiff with fright," I said. "I was sitting where I could watch him, and the way he'd look over his shoulder...

IT was about five weeks after the above conversation that Peter Strong invited us to be present at a demonstration of his machine. Besides ourselves and several people whom we did not know, there were present two gentlemen, both members of the society for psychic research. One was Doctor Bryson, a middle-aged man of commanding height and presence, head of a local sanitarium; the other was a professor of science at the University, Woodbridge by name, rather short and taciturn. Neither of them, it was plain to be seen, placed much stock in Peter Strong's invention. The doctor, though an interested investigator of psychic phenomena, did not believe in spiritualism. He professed to be a rank materialist.

"No one denies there are some things we cannot understand," he said, "but some day science will prove them to be but extensions of our physical powers haphazardly used."

The professor said nothing. "Conan Doyle—" began Norton.

"Doyle!" snorted the doctor. "Doyle was the most gullible man on God's earth. Why, he writes of a personal experience in London being told him through a certain medium miles away before the occurrence had time to be broadcasted. He naively asks how the medium could possibly have heard of it save through spirits. Evidently he forgot about telephones and telegrams, and the fact that most professional mediums belong to secret information bureaus with agents everywhere!"

We were sitting in what evidently had once been the main parlor, a large room almost devoid of furniture. Michael, I noticed, was the only servant visible. Indeed, discreet inquiries had elicited the information that the only other servant was a cook who came in by the day: a personable enough woman neither tall nor slim.

THE night was unbearably hot, though it had rained throughout the afternoon and was threatening to do so again. The windows were all ajar. Attracted by the glare of the lights, I could see gnats and moths fluttering against the screen. Michael brought us iced drinks. "Mr. Strong will be here in a few minutes," he announced. We sat and chatted, and everything seemed very ordinary and unimpressive. Then Peter Strong entered the room and the atmosphere subtly altered.

"Gentlemen," he said, "all of you here to-night are disbelievers in spiritualism; that is why I invited you. I do not wish believers to witness this experiment, but skeptics." He flung off a large covering from what I had supposed to be a table in the center of the room and exposed his machine to view. It resembled, as I have said before, a radio. On the face of it was set a clock-like dial. Inside the box was a heavy, finely wrapped coil of wire. I am no electrician. I can only say that the box was intricately wired in accord with some principle evolved by its inventor; that there were two odd transformers. The Whole affair rather disappointed me.

"What you are looking at," said Peter Strong, "is a mechanical medium. Connected with an electric-light socket by means of this cord extension, it is supposed to generate sufficient prime units to make materializations possible." He made the connection as he talked, but did not turn on the current. "As you all know, certain vibrations are sensitive to light, therefore the room shall be darkened. Michael, will you turn off all but the colored cluster of globes?"

"But, Mr. Strong—"

"Please, Michael!"

THE servant, whose white, agitated face I had observed hovering in the background, did so with obvious unwillingness. The room was now in a red haze. Objects blurred into almost indistinguishable masses. I heard the snap of the switch as Peter Strong turned on the current. The room became very still. The droning of the machine and the loud beating of my own heart were all I could hear.

There is a curious thing about silence and gloom. They have a ghostly effect on the nerves. Or perhaps I am more sensitive to them than are others. I felt an almost irresistible impulse to speak, to move; and in fact I did fidget. Someone coughed; I coughed. There was an epidemic of clearing throats. A chair scraped the floor. Then again everything was preternaturally still and the buzzing of the machine filled the room with a steady monotonous noise that was itself a form of silence. So we sat, for perhaps five minutes, without a thing happening. Then:

"Look!" someone whispered.

Over the machine broke a fanfare of sparks. A murmur ran through the room. "Silence!" commanded the voice of Peter Strong. The sparks grew in intensity and from them swirled a luminous smoke. I felt the hair rise on my scalp, a chill tremor sweep up my back. It was not the sight of what I saw, no; but the sense of something evil, something inimical that brought me to my feet, tense, staring.

The sliding of chairs, the stamping of feet, apprised me that others, too, had risen. Someone's fingers bit convulsively into my arm, someone's hoarse breathing was next my ear. The luminous smoke eddied and whirled, and then suddenly it was pouring not up but down, and in the midst of it a dark shape etched itself against the luminous glow, a shape that seemed to take on form and substance even as we watched, a shape that seemed to suck into itself the pouring smoke and flashing sparks— a human shape! For a pregnant moment I saw a half-visible face leer out of the mist.

"God!" screamed someone hysterically, and then it happened.

OUT of the luminous mist lunged the human shape, menacing, deadly. Chairs crashed as terrified men surged backward, stumbling, falling. "Miranda!" cried the voice of Peter Strong, something of horror and yet of entreaty in its note. Then, through the red gloom of that room, rang a noise that chilled the blood in our veins. Up, up, went a ghastly peal of eldritch laughter, the laughter of something insane, uncanny.

"Miran—" The voice of Peter Strong wavered, broke, into a horrible gurgle. There were sounds of a terrible struggle, of the mad threshing of forms. "For God's sake," cried someone, "turn on the lights!"

"The lights! the lights!" babbled another.

After a moment of bedlam, the lights flashed up. The room was a wreck, the machine overturned. All this we perceived in a glance. And then we saw the body of Peter Strong stretched inertly on the floor, his face horribly congested, his tongue protruding. But not that alone. For crouching over him like something vampirish and predatory, was the slender figure of a woman, her fingers fastened on his throat, throttling him to death; and ever as she throttled him, pouring forth a blood-chilling stream of uncanny laughter.

Like men in a dream, a nightmare, we stood; like figures caught on a mimic stage by the glare of a spotlight. For perhaps a dozen seconds we stood, unmoving. Then we were roused into action by the voice of the servant, Michael. "O, my God," he cried, "she's killing him! Killing him!" And whirling up a chair he sprang forward with an oath and brought it down with a thud upon the woman's head.

It was Norton who, with some difficulty, tore the stiffening fingers from Peter Strong's throat. Together we turned over the lifeless body of the woman, and then, at sight of the staring, implacable countenance, started back with a cry of amazement; for the features upon which we gazed were those of the lady we had seen coming down the stairs on our first visit to Peter Strong!

THE servant knelt by the body of his master, tears streaming down his face. "Oh, I warned him to be careful," he cried brokenly, "but he wouldn't listen to me; he wouldn't listen."

The doctor made a hurried examination. "Both of them are dead," he announced. There was a moment's silence.

"Who is this woman?" questioned Norton.

"His wife," replied Michael.

"His wife!" exclaimed the professor. "But I thought his wife died years ago?"

"So she did," answered Michael.

"Then he remarried again?"

"No, no," mumbled the servant. "You don't understand. This is his wife... the one who died."

We stared at him. The same thought was in all our minds. Evidently horror and grief had deprived him of his wits. But he read our thoughts.

"No," he said sadly, calming himself with an effort, "I am not mad. This is the only wife my master ever had; she who was Miranda Smythe, and who died in Paris... twenty years ago."

"But, good God, man!" exclaimed the professor. "Do you realize what you are saying? How can this woman here—"

"Sir," said Michael, standing up, "there is no rational explanation to give. My master married this woman when she was young and fair to look upon, but if ever there was a devil in human shape she was one. For ten years she made his life a hell. I know. I was with him through it all... more friend than servant... and many a time.... But enough! She was unfaithful ; she blackened his name; she tortured him in ways too vile and unspeakable to mention. And yet his love persisted.... And one day in a jealous rage he struck her here"—the servant laid his hand on his breast— "and from the effects of that blow she died. But not before she cursed him, and threatened to reach back... from beyond the grave... and kill...."

HE paused. The silence in the room was like a deep noise.

"The affair was hushed up; but the grief of my master was terrible. It was then he took to spiritualism and was soon in communication with a spirit claiming to be his wife. Sir, there is more to this spiritualism than quackery. With my own eyes and ears I have heard and seen.... But enough! She claimed that in passing over she had won virtue and understanding, that she forgave. 'Oh, how I love you now and wish I could be with you again!' was her constant refrain. But I never believed her; one doesn't change so readily; besides there was something mocking in her tones, and several times I saw.... 'Be careful,' I warned my master. Oh, I constantly warned him. But he was adamant, sir, blinded with love and remorse, and when he discovered I was mediumistic...."

Again Michael paused. "I couldn't refuse him, of course, and it was through me— me who dreaded and hated her so— that she gave him the idea of this infernal machine." He pointed at the overturned mechanism. "You know the theory of its working. To generate enough prime units of electricity so that a spirit can build up a fleshy body with which to function on earth again. Oh, it's incredible, I know!" he cried, "but that is just what my master did. But his early machines were weak and she would wander through the house like a wraith— those gentlemen can tell you; they saw her one night in the hallway! She would wander sometimes for a week, until her electrical body dissipated, unable to harm any one, though she tried...  Oh, sir, I'm telling you that she tried hard enough! But my poor deluded master never saw. She smiled at him and melted in his arms, and he only dreamed and worked for the time when....

"And that time came," said Michael tensely. "To-night she had sufficient prime units for a complete materialization. Yes, she built herself a body of actual flesh and blood and with it reached back from beyond the grave to wreak vengeance on the man whose life she ruined, reached back with the hands of hate to strangle, to slay, to... He pointed blindly at the body of Peter Strong and collapsed into a chair, burying his head in both hands.

WE stared at one another with pallid faces, at the bodies on the floor, at the bowed figure of the old servant. The doctor was the first to recover, though he, too, was still dazed.

"Nonsense," he muttered uncertainly. "Nonsense. Spirits be damned. This is a case for the police. Perhaps... " he glared suspiciously at the servant.

Norton and I quickly glanced at each other. The suggestion that Michael had had anything to do with the tragedy struck us both as preposterous.

"There is a phone in the hall out there," said the professor. "One of you had better call the police station. I'm sure the authorities will clear up the mystery."

But they never did!

This much only is known: That the body of the dead woman was never properly identified; that her face certainly bore a strong resemblance to early photographs of Peter Strong's wife. But of course it was impossible for a matter-of- fact police department to admit that the dead return, and that a woman twenty years a moldering corpse could commit murder. So, after a few weeks of investigation and grilling, they closed the case by entering in their files that one Peter Strong had come to his death, through strangulation, at the hands of a crazy woman, name and antecedents unknown. The machine was broken up.

And there the matter rests.

_________________

7: The Spy

George A. Birmingham

(James Owen Hannay, 1865-1950)

Princess Mary's Gift Book (undated, W.W.1)

OUR VILLAGE used to be one of the quietest in England. We prided ourselves that nothing ever happened there to excite or worry us in any way. Colonel Challenger, of the Royal Engineers, retired, often congratulated the vicar, who is upwards of sixty-five years of age, on the unbroken peace which we enjoyed. The vicar used to remind me, once a fortnight or so, that we owed our happiness largely to the fact that we were eight miles from a railway station. When I met Hankly, a retired Indian judge, in the post office I invariably pointed out to him that our lot would be much less pleasant if we lived in a neighbourhood where tennis parties were rife or among people who expected us to turn out in the evenings after dinner to play cards. Lord Manby, who owns the village and all the country round it, used to pay a visit to his home every year and ask us each to lunch with him once. We all accepted these invitations, but we told each other that they were a horrible nuisance and a most disagreeable break in the monotony of our lives. I think we were all quite honest and really believed that we were perfectly happy.

Then Mrs. Clegg C. Mimms rented the Manor House from Lord Manby, and all peace came to an end for us. She described herself on her visiting cards as "the Honourable Mrs. Mimms," and that disturbed us to begin with. We had to meet each other pretty frequently to discuss how she could be the Honourable Mrs. anything. She was plainly and unmistakably an American, and the vicar was of opinion that, since there are no titles in the American Republic, neither Mrs. Mimms nor her late husband could be the descendant of a lord. Hankly, who has seen a great deal of the world, told us that American ambassadors are styled the Right Honourable, and that Mrs. Mimms's husband might have been an ambassador. The Colonel maintained that ambassadors are like bishops and cannot share their official titles with their wives, particularly after they are dead. My own view was that if Mrs. Mimms wanted to be styled "the Honourable" it would be discourteous to deny her the title.

We had hardly settled down again after deciding this point when Mrs. Mimms upset us still more seriously. She gave a Christmas Tree to the village children. At first we thought that this would not matter to any one except the vicar. We were mistaken about that. Mrs. Mimms made us all help. The Colonel and I spent a long afternoon on a step-ladder sticking candles on the branches. Hankly, who is a lean, yellow little man, was made to dress himself up as "Father Christmas." We got no dinner on the evening of the party, and very nearly had to dance with the children afterwards. The presents which Mrs. Mimms distributed to the children were of the most gorgeous and expensive kind. We all agreed that she must be enormously rich, and the Colonel said that she would demoralise the whole village.

She certainly demoralised us. We found ourselves invited to dinner at the Manor House twice, sometimes three times, a week, and had a standing invitation to supper every Sunday night. It was no use refusing the invitations. I tried that twice; but Mrs. Mimms simply came round to my house in her motor and fetched me. The Colonel complained bitterly. He has been writing a book on Chhota Nagpur ever since I knew him, and he said that he hated being interrupted in the evenings. He only dined with Mrs. Mimms in order to avoid unpleasantness with his wife, who wanted to go. Hankly said plainly that Mrs. Mimms had a very good cook, and we all came in the end to accept that as our excuse for dining with her.

It is, I know, scarcely credible, but last Easter she dragged us into private theatricals. By that time we had agreed that Mrs. Mimms, in spite of her annoying lack of repose, was a very kind-hearted woman, and we did not wish to snub her in any way. My own part in the play let me in for a love scene with Mrs. Challenger, the most grotesquely absurd thing imaginable, for the lady is sixty at least and enormously fat. I should never have agreed to do it, however good-hearted Mrs. Mimms might be, if Hankly had not been cast for the part of an heroic Christian curate, and I knew he would look even more foolish than I did when I kissed Mrs. Challenger's left ear. Hankly hated being an heroic Christian curate and did not do the part at all well. We got through the theatricals in June, and after that, except for a couple of picnics every week, we had a comparatively quiet time until the war broke out. Mrs. Mimms broke out at the same time. All festivities, even picnics, stopped at once, of course, and we all began to take life very strenuously. Mrs. Mimms outdid us easily in every form of activity.

She began by erecting a flag-staff at the Manor House gates and hoisting an enormous American flag on it, the largest American flag I have ever seen. The Colonel, who had his motor decorated with a French and a Belgian flag as well as a Union Jack, said that Mrs. Mimms's Stars and Stripes were, under the circumstances, rather bad form. Hankly and I agreed with him, and we made the vicar speak to her about it. She explained to him that she had hoisted it entirely for our good. It was, so she told the vicar, and he told us, the only flag in the world which the Germans would respect, and that when the Uhlans entered our village we could all congregate in perfect safety under its folds. The Colonel was furious— we were all rather angry— at the idea that the Germans would ever set foot in England; but there was no denying that Mrs. Mimms meant to be kind when she hoisted the flag. Besides, she is a difficult woman to argue with, and we did not quite see how we could make her take the thing down.

Hankly and I more or less forgave her, though, as it appeared, the Colonel did not, when she came forward at a meeting summoned by the vicar and offered to turn the Manor House into a hospital for wounded soldiers. The generosity of her proposal actually staggered us. She intended, so she said— and I quite believe it— to turn out all the existing furniture of the house, fit the place up with the latest sanitary devices, hire two surgeons and a competent staff of nurses who should be under her own personal supervision. We at once wired to the War Office and expected to be thanked gratefully. As a matter of fact we never got any official acknowledgment of the offer at all. What we did get— or rather what Mrs. Mimms got— was a letter from Lord Manby's solicitor pointing out that the agreement under which she had taken the Manor House did not allow of her getting rid of the furniture or using the place in any way except as an ordinary dwelling.

I thought that Lord Manby was a little unsympathetic, and that the War Office might very well have replied to our telegram, but the Colonel took quite a different line. He said that Mrs. Mimms was an interfering old woman who deserved to be snubbed. We all hoped that after this set-back she would be a little subdued and allow us to manage our own war in our own way.

For a time she kept tolerably quiet. She contented herself with making shirts and subscribing to various funds like any ordinary woman. She was, so my wife told me, an amazingly rapid worker, and could turn out three shirts while any other woman in the village was making two. Her subscriptions were very generous. Gradually the whole activities of our village centred in the Manor House. Mrs. Mimms put up another flag-staff and flew a large Red Cross from it. Working parties went on in her dining-room from morning to night, and hardly a day passed without a committee meeting. The vicar, Colonel Challenger, Hankly, and I were the committee, and we met whenever Mrs. Mimms summoned us. The vicar was supposed to preside, but it was Mrs. Mimms who suggested the things we did. The Colonel objected, in private, to every suggestion she made, but he never succeeded in carrying a point against her. Once or twice she got us into trouble. There was, for instance, a lot of ill feeling when we sealed up the village pump and set my chauffeur to keep guard over it with a gun, only allowing people to draw water for an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening. Mrs. Mimms had a theory that a German might come in an aeroplane and poison our water supply. That would have been a horrible thing: but the people in the village made a fuss about not being able to get at the pump. Tompkins, the innkeeper, who was particularly objectionable, said that he only used the water for washing and would rather have it poisoned than do without it.

We all began to get rather tired of being rushed into doing things we didn't want to do; but we were none of us able to withstand Mrs. Mimms. The Colonel said that we ought to drive her out of the village altogether, but he never succeeded in suggesting any practical way of doing it.

Fortunately she got tired of making shirts and holding committee meetings after about a month. Then she said she was going up to London to get a few families of Belgian refugees. We were all greatly pleased, for we felt that her energies might be turned into a channel which would save us from making fools of ourselves. I saw her off at the station, and we waited with the greatest curiosity to see what would happen. I suppose the Belgian Consul felt doubtful about Mrs. Mimms when he met her. At all events she came back without a single refugee. Most women would have been a little disappointed at a failure like that, but Mrs. Mimms was as full of energy as ever. She had, it appeared, called at several public offices in London and had been immensely impressed by the Boy Scouts whom she saw waiting about the doors.

We sealed up the village pump and set my chauffeur to keep guard

"They're the cutest things I've seen in England," she said, "and their bare knees are just sweet. I could kiss them all day. I simply must have a couple to stand on guard while the working parties are going on."

I talked to the vicar, Hankly, and the Colonel about this. I did not see how we could possibly provide Mrs. Mimms with Boy Scouts, for there were none in the parish. The vicar said he was sorry that he had not started the organisation long ago, but supposed it was too late to do so now. To my surprise the Colonel, who up to that time had been getting angrier and angrier with Mrs. Mimms, took her side and said that if she wanted Boy Scouts she ought to have them. He proposed that we should enrol four choir boys at once, and offered to buy uniforms for them himself. The vicar was a little doubtful, but Hankly and I backed up the Colonel. We were very tired of the constant committee meetings, and we hoped that if Mrs. Mimms got really interested in Boy Scouts she might let us alone. We acted promptly, and in a week had four boys ready to stand on guard at the doors of the Manor House.

The Colonel gave them a talking to at their first parade. He impressed on them the fact that discipline and strict obedience to orders are the essence of a military manhood. He quoted Tennyson, and made the boys repeat the lines after him:

"Theirs not to make reply,

Theirs not to reason why."

He succeeded in inspiring them with a tremendous sense of their own importance. My idea was that he was trying to prepare them for having their knees kissed by Mrs. Mimms.

For a time everything went well. The boys got off going to school and were immensely pleased. Mrs. Mimms fed them with dainties at odd hours of the day, and always had a basket of apples in the porch from which they could help themselves. So far as I knew she never attempted to kiss either their knees or any other part of them. The Colonel kept on exhorting them. He paid them a visit every morning, and insisted on their reporting themselves at his house when they went off duty in the evening.

About a fortnight after the boys first went on guard Mrs. Mimms complained to the vicar that she had found one of them concealed under the dining-room table while she was at luncheon. She said that she did not like the feeling that she might kick a boy every time she stretched her leg while she was at meals. The vicar, of course, promised to speak to the boy.

The next day Mrs. Mimms made another complaint. One of the
boys had climbed up by some creepers, and was found by her maid sitting on the window-sill of a bedroom early in the morning. It was not Mrs. Mimms's bedroom, but, as she explained, it might have been. She had no particular objection, so she told the vicar, to a Boy Scout in her bedroom at any reasonable hour, but she did not want the child to break his neck.

Then the postmaster gave me a hint that Mrs. Mimms's letters, which were posted every day by one of the Scouts, showed signs of having been opened and closed again before they came into his hands. He said that if this was being done by the Colonel's orders it was all right, but he thought he ought to tell me about it. I met the vicar in the street immediately afterwards and said I thought the Scouts were getting out of hand and ought to be disbanded at once. He agreed with me.

While we were discussing the matter Hankly came up to us and said he heard that Mrs. Mimms was to be arrested at once as a German spy.

"Tompkins," he said, "is going about the village saying that she ought to be shot."

Tompkins always blamed Mrs. Mimms for the sealing up of the village pump, and had never spoken a good word about her since. The vicar was greatly put out.

"Tut— tut!" he said; "arrested! shot! Nonsense. Mrs. Mimms is a most estimable lady."

"I'm not so sure about that," said Hankly. "Those boys have been watching her lately, and there are several things which look suspicious."

I suppose the vicar and I showed our surprise. Hankly went on to explain.

"She gives the boys peaches and grapes," he said, "and cakes and meringues. Now I put it to you— the apples of course I understand. I might give a boy an apple myself, but I put it to you, vicar, would anybody give boys like that hothouse grapes and peaches unless— well, unless there was something to conceal. It's not a natural thing to do."

"Now I come to think of it," said the vicar, "I did meet one of them yesterday with a peach in his fist."

"There you are," said Hankly triumphantly, "and, anyhow, the police inspector is coming over to-day to look into the matter."

Mrs. Mimms was not actually arrested. The police inspector— acting on information received from the Boy Scouts, Tompkins, and indeed almost every one in the village— made a lot of inquiries about her. He did not succeed in finding out why she called herself "the Honourable," but the questions he asked her made her so angry that she packed up her trunks and left the village at once.

I met the Colonel the day after she left, and told him I was afraid we should all miss her. The Colonel chuckled in a self-satisfied way.

"I told you we ought to get rid of her," he said, "and we have."

"You don't mean to say you think she was really a spy?" I said.

"She was a good deal worse," said the Colonel; "she was a public nuisance."

Later on the Colonel took a kindlier view of Mrs. Mimms.

"Only for her," he said to me a week ago, "we shouldn't have had Boy Scouts here. We have quite a good company now. She did us that much good, anyhow."

The Colonel did her no more than bare justice. Our Scouts, though they have caught no more spies, have improved the general tone of the village. The Colonel is their commanding officer, and, though I do not say so in public, they have done him a lot of good.

________________

8: Ribbon of Fate

George Allan England

1877-1936

The Cavalier July 1911

1: Orders.

"WHAT?" gasped the assistant secretary of the navy.

Had one of the prospective enemy's maximite bombs let go under his swivel-chair the shock could have been no greater.

"What? What's that you say?" he blurted, starting up. He leaned across the broad mahogany desk, staring. One of his great hands, fingers wide-spread, plowed through the sheaves of paper there. His black eyes widened with horror. Reddening dully, then all at once going a trifle gray about the chin, he stood there staring at young Darrow, who quietly returned the gaze.

"You— you mean to tell me this?" exclaimed the secretary. "You, a mere oil-checker in the lighthouse establishment? You dare— dare hint this to me? To me? About a— a—"

He suddenly stammered and became quite inarticulate. Darrow marveled at the stupendous effect his few simple words had produced. Yet, after all, why should they have not? On the eve of war the mere mention of such a contingency was enough to have convulsed the nation.

The secretary turned, walked over to the window, and for a moment stood there, looking out over the budding greenery of Lafayette Square. His tall, square-shouldered figure seemed to fill the space. Darrow peered at him with eyes which burned eagerly in his thin, flushed face. Astride the clerk's hawk-nose, a pair of round, black-rimmed glasses gave him an owlish look.

The secretary wheeled about. Calmer he  seemed now— much calmer. His evidently was a nerve of steel.

"What proofs have you got?" snapped he. ''Whom do you suspect, if anybody?"

"Proofs?" repeated Darrow, his lips trembling a little as he tried to moisten them with a dry tongue. "Proofs? Well, sir, to be frank, I haven't got much yet. Just a scrap or two of torn paper, and one or two actions I've noticed the past few days. But—"

"Paper? Where is it? Got it? If so, give it to me at once."

"Can't, sir," the clerk replied, shaking  his head. "Sorry, but it's not here. It's in my desk, down in the lighthouse office."

"I must have it. Where did you find it?"

"Well, sir— that's telling."

The secretary squinted at him a second. Then he stepped to the door that led into the outer office and quietly opened it. He peered through. Nobody there. The desks, chairs, and typewriters all stood deserted, for the hour was four-thirty.

Back came the secretary, having closed the door, a strange, inscrutable expression on his rather heavy features.

"You mean to say you won't tell?" snapped he, still unnaturally pale.

"Why, sir, it's this way. If I tell you where I found this paper, and show it to you, and let you have it, I might be doing the ad— that is, I might be working an injustice on a high official, such as could never be undone. I'd be letting this thing get out of my hands even before I was sure of it myself. Pardon me for saying it, sir, but it will be impossible for anybody to extort either the information or the data from me until I know a little more."

The secretary frowned blackly.

"Do you know what you're saying?" exclaimed he. "This is a matter for the secret service, not for underclerks or civilians. Do you realize anything of the risk you're running in thus assuming a role outside your own activities?"

"Yes, sir, I do. But I've got to do it, just the same. Any true American would. I wouldn't be risking my position, my whole future in the department to have— well, butted in here and told you what I have, sir, if I hadn't felt there was something serious in it. I'm not courting martyrdom. But at a time like this— you understand."

"Of course— of course," the secretary hastened to reply. He jerked out his handkerchief; and now, a little recovered from his first emotion, wiped his bald brow. "But do you, can you realize the danger of all this to you? Even to have your name breathed in connection with an affair like this, now— an affair such as you claim to have grounds for suspecting is shaping up in your department—"

"Pardon me, sir, I never said it was in my department. I named no one."

"No, but I can read you better than you know. In your department, I repeat. Even to be an innocent participant in such an affair may be fatal. High treason with a war impending is no joke. It's—it's death."

His voice sank almost to a whisper.

Straight in Darrow's blinking eyes he peered. The young clerk felt a deadly, sinking sensation. In a flash he realized what manner of thing he had done even to breathe his suspicions to this man high in authority.

For a moment he seemed to behold Captain Dreyfus, the perjured witnesses, Devil's Island; to realize how unspeakably perilous it was even to become entangled in the remotest outer tentacles of such a case. But now retreat was too late. He had spoken; he must go on. Nor could he let those precious scraps of paper, idly picked up in the corridor outside Admiral Burke's door— just little charred bits, hidden in a dark corner, as though they had been blown there by the spring wind—nor could he let these now pass from his hands.

His only safety now lay in retaining them, in learning more, in clinching the case. Retreat meant ruin. He must go ahead.

"Do you realize what you're doing?" asked the secretary again, his voice incisive as a blade.

"Yes, sir. But— well, I can't help it."

"You speak of papers? Where do you think they came from?"

"I don't know. If somebody had torn up something of that sort and thrown it into an open fire, fragments might possibly have gone up the chimney and been blown about."

"Are there open fireplaces in your department offices?"

"Of course, sir."

"In the chief's office?"

"Yes, sir."

"Do you wish to state now that in your opinion—"

"Excuse me, sir, but I state nothing."

The secretary's black eyes shot sudden rage. Here evidently was a hard nut in the person of this young and obstinate oil-checker. True, the clerk could be annihilated by virtue of the secretary's superior power, but what would that profit? Clearly the secretary understood that to force the issue now would involve publicity and unforeseen complications. So, with a grumble of anger, a vow of vengeance, he exclaimed:

"Listen, now!"

"Yes, sir."

"If you are determined not to put this into my hands, or— that is, not to make any accusations I can work on till you have  some further facts— why have you come to  me with it at all?"

"I wanted to put you, too, on the lookout, sir, so that from your office here another line of investigation could be going on. Then, when I—"

"Oh, very well. You mean to dictate to me, what?" And the secretary's face grew hard as adamant. 'Now, then, here are my terms. You've got to prove this."

"Prove— prove it?"

"Yes, and quickly, too."

" But—"

"No if, and, or but about it. You've begun; you've got to finish. With a suspicion like this horrible one corroding your mind, sooner or later, voluntarily or not, you're bound to let it slip. No, no; there's no such thing as burying a secret like that in your own heart. This thing, if true, means that on the very eve of war some high official is planning to deliver Pearl Harbor, and with it Hawaii, to the enemy for a staggering  price. It means national catastrophe. What?  And you, once engaged in this suspicion,  now want to withdraw from the search? Impossible."

"But, sir," stammered Darrow, "my idea is merely to work; this thing out a little more, and then submit it to you to be handled by the secret service. I— I'm no detective. How can J prove anything like this?"

"No, no, you can't evade the issue that way," the secretary headed him off. "This is no matter to be let out into other channels where perhaps we cannot circumscribe it. Here you come to me, you, an unknown clerk, with a wild-goose tale such as on the face of it is perfectly preposterous.

"All based on what? A few scraps of paper, a few trifling indications such as might mean a thousand other things than this. Heaven alone knows how much damage your suspicions may not have done already. If, as is quite possible," and the secretary fixed keen, unfriendly eyes upon him, "if you have mentioned this to anybody else than me—"

"Not a word, sir. Not a word. And I swear it."

"Very well, that remains to be seen. You'd better not, that's all I say to you. Remember! Even so, if this proves false, this suspicion of yours; if you have chosen in mere idle curiosity to spy and peek and magnify these trifles; if you have vainly sought to question the integrity of some superior as yet unidentified—then, sir, you will regret it. Mark my words. You will regret it, if you can't prove it."

At Darrow he shook a menacing finger as he sat down ponderously at the great desk. The clerk paled still more.

"You— you mean, sir," he began, "that I've got to— to furnish absolute proof? To identify the suspect?"

"Just that. And soon! Hark, now! This is no matter susceptible of delays. Inside of twenty-four hours you bring me proof, proof, do you understand? Or by the eternal you'll discover what it means to impugn the honor and the integrity of the service."

"But— Listen, sir—"

"Not another word." Again the secretary smote his desk. A mere civilian underling. Darrow knew only too well the futility of argument.

"Go!" cried the secretary. "And remember I give you twenty-four hours, not one minute longer. If by then you can't substantiate these accusations—well, Heaven help you, that's all! Now, go!"

2: A Vain Search

SICK TERROR numbing his very soul, his mind a daze, the lighthouse board clerk heard the door of the naval secretary's office boom shut behind him like the crack of doom.

Too stunned even to realize the unexpected turn of events, the crushing menace that now overhung him, too beaten down for a thorough understanding of just what he must do to save himself, he stumbled down the hallway, hat in hand.

Subconsciously he felt a tiny spark of gratitude for the lateness of the hour, which spared him the probability of meeting anybody in the corridors. Yet how infinitesimal a comfort this compared with the catastrophe that had smitten him. For a moment he paused at one of the half-open windows to catch his breath, a little to compose himself, before returning to his office.

A glint of gray-green from the Potomac, shimmering under the late afternoon sun, caught his eye. The tall, accusing finger of the monument set him shuddering.

"Can't I get away from it anywhere?" he rebelled. "Must everything remind me of lighthouses, and—and that? Good Heavens, what a fool I've been! If I hadn't seen beyond my routine reports, checkings, filings, and entries; if I hadn't thought of anything but so many cases of such-and- such test oil at so much per case, I wouldn't ha' got into this."

Then, shaking his head, weak  with sickening apprehension, he started slowly toward the lighthouse offices once more.

As he went, he mentally reviewed the evidence.

"First," thought he, "those scraps of paper. After all, what do they prove? Mere jottings. Even the character or two on the back— do they constitute proof? And next, the fact that Burke has been at the office three evenings in the last ten days, is that anything? Mightn't a rear-admiral in charge of the Twelfth District, which contains Hawaii, have extra work on his hands without that necessarily being in any way connected with those scraps of typewriting? What real grounds have I for suspecting what I do?

"True enough, Burke's been hard hit the last year by that Carnegie Trust Company smash-up and by his son's losses. I suppose a father would do about anything to keep a young fellow like that from behind bars. But— wouldn't all this have made him extra careful? Inasmuch as everybody knows his salary's only about a tenth of what he needs, wouldn't that put him on his guard against even the suspicion of evil? The more so as he does have charge of the Pearl Harbor district? Hanged if I can see my way clear, one way or the other. Can't make head or tail out of it, worse luck. Fool that I was, not to have chucked the whole infernal business and forgotten it. Fool to have sprung it, half cocked, on the secretary, and now be forced to make good inside a single day, or— or— get ruined."

Thus moodily thinking, with keen anxiety preying on his distressed mind, he stood there pondering.

Ten minutes later he was at his desk again. Save for himself and old Danny Hayes, the negro sweeper, the long, many-windowed room was empty. Dan, busy with brush and sawdust and obnoxious clouds of official dust, paid no heed to the clerk, other than to glance at him with a kind of mild, bovine astonishment. Clerks who came back after hours were rare.

Darrow unlocked his desk-top and slid it up. Then suddenly he uttered a cry of sharp surprise.

The desk had been hastily searched. One glance showed him the disorder, the eager raffling-over of his papers, the displacement of all his things.

"What?" cried he. Then, quickly realizing the necessity for strategy, he grew outwardly calm again.

"Oh, Dan! I say, Dan, there!" he cried.

"Wha'? Wha' yo'-all want, Mist' Darrer?" answered the black, pausing in his task.

"What d'you mean by trying to straighten up my things this way? How many times d'you need to be told I don't want it and won't have it? Well?"

"Me, sah? Ah ain't tetch nothin'."

"Now, now! Don't tell me that, you!" the clerk retorted angrily. "How could anybody else but you do it? Who else would have a pass-key?"

Dan, the whites showing all the way around his eyes, flapped slowly down the room, dragging his brush behind him.

"Deed I dunno, sah! " he protested. "Tain't me, nohow!"

"You been here all closing?"

"Yassah. Heah an' in de odder room. De a'miral, he had me sweep in dere, a few minutes. Say de dus' done make his asthma wuss."

"The admiral? Was he in here?"

"Why, yassah. Heah, an' in his office, sah."

"Is he there now?"

"Ah dunno, sah. Why?"

"How long were you in the other room?"

"Oh, mebbe five minutes, sah. Mebbe ten. Ah ain't know 'zackly. Whaffor you'-all wanter know?"

"Oh, nothing, Dan, but I'm kind of fussy. Thought somebody'd been borrowing my fountain-pen ink again, that's all. Well, go along now, get busy! I've got some work to finish. Don't stand there staring at me like a joss!"

" All— all right, sah! Ah shorely is sorry ef yo' ink am gone, but Ah ain't know one blessed t''ing about it, no sah, not one blessed t'ing!"

Darrow ignored him, and the aged negro, grumbling, took himself back to his sawdust-pile.

Picking up a Commerce and Labor report, the clerk walked down the room to the admiral's private office. He knocked. No answer. He tried the door. It was locked.

"Dan! Dan!'"

"Yas, boss?"

"Just let me in here, a minute. I forgot to leave something for the chief. Something he may need, to-night, if he comes down."

"All right, sah!" And Dan, shaking his woolly old head with irritation, hobbled to do the young man's bidding.

Once in the inner office, Darrow laid the report in a disused corner of the book-shelf, where out-of-date matter was stored and where it would attract no attention. Then he came out, and Dan once more locked the door behind him. But in that brief moment he had seen and smelled a good deal.

"Chief hasn't been gone more than five minutes, I reckon," thought Darrow. " And what's more, he went out through the hall door, not through the outer office."

Then, smiling a little to himself, he went back to his desk. "Whoever it was that searched my desk, I don't know," thought he, "but they got left a-plenty, anyhow!"

When Dan was out of sight again, Darrow opened his little pencil drawer. He removed it entirely. Then, reaching far into the little hiding-place, he extracted a yellow official envelope.

"Lucky I didn't leave that lying 'round loose!" said he to himself, as he ripped it open and peeked inside. "Yes, they're all safe and sound. Safe as can be!"

Out on the desk he shook them— three small, charred bits of a thin sleazy paper.

As he arranged them side by side, certain letters became visible. These letters, typewritten with blue ink and in a script font, seemed to spell nothing but the most baffling nonsense.

Several of the fragments of words were not even English in appearance. But Darrow seemed to guess a little of their significance. And quickly he placed them in what he judged to have been something like their original position, before the sheet on which they had been written had been torn to bits, and— so it seemed— flung into a fire of some sort.

"Lots of open fireplaces in all these buildings," mused Darrow, as he worked. "That proves nothing. But if I get these things into proper shape maybe I can figure 'em out, in time. Maybe? Got to!"

He took up one of the fragments.

"Now this," he commented, "evidently goes at the left hand side. The bit of margin, here, proves that all right enough."

Quickly he affixed the bits of this stupendously important puzzle to a sheet of fresh white paper. They read:

Part of the third fragment he left ungummed, so that it could be turned back like a flap.

"Got to be sure and have this free to show," he judged, as he made sure that on the back of the free portion the little pothooks of India ink were quite visible— the marks which had first excited his suspicions and which, in all probability, could have originated nowhere else than from an oriental writing-brush.

"Now," said he decisively, "to work!"

3: Hot On The Trail

A MOMENT he puzzled over the fragments, with knit brows. Then he nodded with satisfaction.

"Yes," thought he, "that 'Pea' means ' Pearl Harbor,' for sure! And 'Isla' 'Oa' means Island of Oahu!"

Quickly he reached for the 1911 annual report of the lighthouse board. In a moment he had found map 12.

"Let's see!" he murmured, as with his pencil he began exploring the large scale- map of Honolulu and vicinity. "Here we are; Pearl Harbor, the strategic keystone of the whole group. 'Puu'? What's that? Ah-ha! Puuloa! Puuloa or Pearl River entrance to the harbor! Sure as guns— that's it! 'Bet' means ' Between'! 'Ar' must be ' March'!"

On another sheet of paper he quickly copied out the fragments, and began filling in the connecting words as fast as he could locate them. The inscription now read:

Eyes gleaming with excitement, lips compressed to a tight, thin line, two pink spots beginning to burn on his hollow cheeks, Darrow worked on and on.

"Come on, now! Come on!" he breathed eagerly to himself, as though he had been beside a race-track, encouraging his choice. And with intense eagerness he scrutinized the large scale-map of the harbor. His pencil traced lines here and there, paused, darted, and made black jabs.

" 'Ua'?" he exclaimed. "That might mean anything! 'There's a little million of 'em, there! But—let's see, now—" And, laying one end of his pencil on the Puuloa entrance, he swung the other slowly round.

"Oh!" he ejaculated, as the answer fairly leaped up at him from the map. In a direct line, across the harbor to the southeast by east, with the city itself forming the third point of a flat triangle, he saw the words:

"Kapua entrance. Diamond Hill."

"That's it, sure!" he exulted; and now the puzzle said:

"Now," Darrow rejoiced, "all I've got to do is frame out that first line, and I've got it—got at least the clue to work from. After that—"

"Yo'-all a gwine home right soon, boss?" sounded Dan's deep voice from the other end of the long room. The clerk started guiltily. He had forgotten Dan, the office, everything, even to the lateness of the hour, in that exciting search.

But now, as he looked up, as he peered with those owlish spectacles of his over the desk-top at the negro, he realized all at once that the western light was fading, that shadows were beginning to creep from the corners, that he could stay no longer. And with a grimace of displeasure, he made answer:

"All right, uncle, lock up. I'm off!"

For, much as he should have liked to remain, well he knew the danger of exciting Dan's suspicions. The old negro, garrulous like all his kind, might in a moment wreck all Darrow's plans. Much depended on a semblance of casuality.

So, gathering up some papers and slamming them into drawers, the clerk acted the part of finishing an unusually long day's work, The vital paper, however, the white sheet with the three fragments gummed to it, he did not leave.

Instead, he carefully placed it, with the partial solution, in his bill-fold, which he buttoned up securely in his inside coat-pocket.

Then, locking his desk and giving Dan a hearty "Good night," he took his leave. His mind, as he left the building, swarmed with theories, perplexities, hopes, fears, and feverish desires.

Why had the secretary grown so angry at the news of this suspicious occurrence? Why had Admiral Burke been acting so suspiciously of late? Who had known that he, Darrow, had in his possession, in his desk, these fragments of paper? And who had seized the opportunity of his absence from that desk, of Dan's absence from the room, to make that hasty, futile search? These and a score of other vital questions whirled and seethed within his bewildered brain.

Like one tranced, he went down the broad steps and turned toward New York Avenue. Vaguely, like moving mists within a blurred crystal, he seemed to perceive vast, shifting forces whereof he could have no definite knowledge, no sure information. To him it seemed as though he were entangled, against his will, in some inexorable machinery of fate; as though a tide, a river of destiny were bearing him along, the sport and puppet of its vast, impersonal will.

"I am caught in—in something, Heaven knows what!" he realized, as he swung into the street and started toward the corner where he usually got his car for Bright- wood. "Why should I, a mere nobody, just a cog in this enormous machinery, get mixed up in things this way? I'd give a year's salary to be out of it!"

But his mood could not endure. The early April warmth and perfume, the scent of new grass, the soft breeze from the river, soothed and comforted him. At first, seeming to feel that every passer-by, white or black, must fathom and divine his secret. he presently gained self-confidence once more. Even a pride, a sense of power now began to grow in him.

That he, just one of the army of underlings in a minor office, should by chance hold in his hands—skilled only to the typewriter and the reporter's pencil— secrets of state, perhaps, matters of life, death, national fate, the destiny of nations, thrilled him with a sudden flare of joy.

And, his head once more held high, fists hard-clenched, he strode along unmindful now of all the personal menace, peril, or prospects of tremendous evil.

"I will run this thing to earth, and do it quick!" he swore. "I may not be Sherlock Holmes. My name may be only James B. Darrow, oil-checker, Class 2B, age 21, but —well—wait! Wait, that's all!"

He hastened his pace now eager to get home, to reach his third-floor room in Mrs. Sagg's third-rate boarding-house on Myrtle Street. It seemed to him that if he could only sit there at the window, in the dusk, looking out over Rock Creek at the dim leaf-masses of the national park, the solution of that all-important first line would come to him. What might it not reveal? He felt a thrill of eagerness, of burning impatience to begin the vital problem.

Then all at once he stopped, struck by a sudden idea.

"Gee!" he ejaculated. "That never occurred to me! And it's maybe the most important thing of all!"

As a man will, when trying to readjust his mental processes, Darrow clasped his hands behind him, bent his head, and strolled along a little way, oblivious to all about him. Little he knew that, half a block behind, a husky individual in a gray suit and Panama, with bristly, close-cropped yellow mustache, had slacked his pace at the same moment, and now with sudden interest was studying the shop-window signs, as though looking for some very special place.

Unconscious of all this, Darrow suddenly raised his head again. Then, with a new set to his jaw, and new light in his eye, he turned and struck out rapidly for Twelfth Street.

The gray-suited man, imperturbable, presently ceased his inspection of the windows and seemed to come to the conclusion that he, too, had business in that section.

Darrow never stopped his rapid walk till he had reached the Universal Typewriter Exchange, at Twelfth and J. In he strode. The time was now 5.42.

"If I'm going to pull this off," thought he, "I've got to go some!"

Then, to a clerk who was just covering a machine with a rubber cloth: "Is Haskins here yet?"

"Hallo! That you, Jim?" sounded a voice from the repair-room, at the back. "Come on in!"

Darrow tramped into the back room. There sat Haskins in his shirt-sleeves at the bench. On his hands lay coats of grease, some of which had been transferred to his nose. Never minding it, Darrow shook with him.

"Where you been, this month o' Sundays?" he exclaimed. "Haven't seen you since that I.W.W. ball. Dead? Married? What?"

"Oh, nothin'," replied the repair-man, reaching for his corn-cob. 'Seems like you ain't been over-friendly."

"Busy as Hades, that's all," hedged Darrow. "How's your job panning out?"

"Fine, fine. Typewriters is where I live. That's me, every time. Anythin' you wanted in my line?"

"Well, I don't know. Maybe. I've been thinking for a day or two I might rent a machine to take home with me and work nights, a little. Fact is, Hasky, I've got the story-bug. Want to write a detective yarn for the—"

Haskins interrupted with a derisive snicker.

"You, kid?" he jibed.

"Yes, me! Why not?"

"Aw, ferget it!"

"I do, I tell you."

"Fine detective-story you'd write! Say, kid, you couldn't detect the Capitol on a clear day! Now—"

"Do you want to talk machines, or don't you?"

"Mean it? Mean biz?"

"That's what I said. Here, can you give me a machine with that kind of type? If you can, trot her out, p. d. q., and take her for a month."

Speaking, the drew out his bill-book. From it he extracted the sheet of paper with the three fragments pasted thereon. This sheet he folded so as to show only the third bit of writing.

"There!" he exclaimed, exhibiting this specimen to Hasky, "there's the type that takes my bun! Come along now, give us that machine, and I'm on!"

"That?" sniffed the typewriter-man, lighting his pipe. He held the blazing match close to the paper—for already in the little back shop the light was failing fast— and earnestly inspected the writing for a minute. Then he shook his head.

"Naw!" exclaimed he, scornfully, " you don't want that.' Why, that's a Redmond! One o' them sewin'-machine things, with spools an' bobbins, an' God knows what, in 'em. They're tied to the post, kid, believe me. What you want is—"

And like a rapid-fire gun he clacked off the names and virtues, selling - points and excellences of a dozen machines; all the kinds, in fact, carried by the Universal Exchange.

"So you don't think this is a good machine for me?" queried Darrow, as though half-convinced. "Strikes me, as a change from the regulation cut-and-dried thing, it's rather neat. You know I use the Jones Special, at the office. I want something different; want to try a new one. How about it?"

"Well," declared Hasky, blowing fumes, "that may all be, but you don't want this. Why, only ministers and spring poets use it. If you want to bury your work and double-cross it from the go-off, get one. Otherwise, nix! If there was any demand for it, don't you s'pose we'd list it? 'Stead o' that, nobody in town will even handle the darn thing. Come off! Get wise, kid; get wise!"

"Nobody in town handles 'em?" queried Darrow, as he once more pocketed his sample. A sudden sinking oppressed his heart. He felt as though the staging of all his plans had instantly been kicked away, leaving them to crumble into ruin. Had not the shop been so dark, Haskins must have noticed his expression; but as it was, the dim light shielded him from observation.

"Nobody has 'em you say?" repeated he.

"Why, nobody J know of, unless that little jerk Eye-talian place over on K Street. That 'fence,' I call it."

"What name?"

Hasky eyed his friend suspiciously a moment, then replied:

"Oh, pshaw! How do I know? Macaroni di Spagett, I guess. Bughouse, you? If you want an A1 machine, now, up to the minute, and a lallapalooza every way, I'm your huckleberry. But for the love o' Lou, cut out the coke-talk, the punk brands, and all such—"

"Good-by; see you later!" interrupted Darrow, glancing ostentatiously at his watch. "Got just five minutes to get my car, or have to wait half an hour. We'll have it out to-morrow. Ta-ta!"

And, leaving Haskins big-eyed with wonder, he vanished from the shop.

"Sure nutty!" muttered the repair-man, picking up his screwdriver again. "With a big, big N! Story-writin'?! On a Redmond! Now, what d'ye think o' that?"

Darrow, meanwhile, was making rapid tracks toward K street. The gray-suited man, a considerable distance in the rear, also decided that K Street was really the object of his rather dilatory search.

4: Browbeating Buccamano

AS Darrow hurried on the trail of the unknown, his plans as yet merely vague, he felt a subtle fire of excitement beginning to consume his patience.

Now that he had definitely entered this race with fate, which in a way had been forced upon him, he swore with firm-set jaw that he would see it through, would win at any cost, however high the stake, or go down in disgrace, defeat, and infamy. Less than twenty-four hours before, he had been only an ordinary, every-day young clerk, thinking few thoughts outside the narrow ruts of business, baseball, and Louis Carr (back home from Indiana). To-day, what destiny of nations might not rest upon his shoulders? To-morrow, what would be the issue? Weal or woe?"

"Search me!" he panted, a trifle winded with the rapid gait he had struck. "Don't know, can't see. But by the great jumping jew's-harp, I'm in this till the finish!"

Again he looked at his watch.

"Five-forty-seven," he noted. He had stayed with Haskins only five minutes. "I've got just thirteen minutes to locate a place I never saw, don't know the name of, and never even heard of till just now. Say, is this some stunting, or ain't it?"

And, breathless, he swung along as fast as he dared risk. To attract attention, at this particular time, he felt to be highly imprudent.

Now, were my story dealing with matters of less import, I might write a page or two concerning the desperate hunt for what Hasky had named "the little jerk Eyetalian place over on K street." But since, after all, that hunt consisted of only a quick walk down the street, with eyes peeled for a window containing typewriters, plus an Italian sign; and, secondly, since any such description would delay far other and more vital things, I pass it all with this brief summary, viz., that Darrow really did run it to earth at precisely three minutes after six.

His heart bounded as he caught the words in gilt letters:

P. BUCCAMANO & CO.,

Typewriters to Sell and Rent.

Maaquine da Scrivere a Fittare ed a Vendere.

Across the street he dove.

Rattle! Rattle Rattle! went the locked door, under his hasty shaking.

"Too late?" he wondered, with unspeakable dread.

No, there at the rear, he could dimly see a figure moving. Then came a voice, surly, suspicious:

" All-a close' for-a business!"

Darrow's only answer was to rattle the catch more vigorously than ever. The proprietor, after a moment's silence, came forward heavily. A key turned. The door opened.

"Well, w'at-a you want?" demanded P. Buccamano & Co., compounded of fat and curls, a greasy mustache, an odor of garlic, and a general shirt-sleeve effect. From the rear room Darrow heard an infant's wail, then the tones of a woman soothing it with the "La-la-la-la!" which speaks a universal tongue.

"W'at-a you want, eh? No open for a biz, dis evening."

"Got any machines to let?" demanded Darrow, walking in. The best way to meet Buccamano's argument seemed to be to ignore it.

"Machine? Yes, but we not-a open for—"

"What kinds you got? What price per week, and month?" Already Darrow was inspecting the meager stock ranged on shelves constructed by the very simple means of setting packing-cases side by side and one on top of the other, with the open tops toward the shop.

"All-a kind, mista, but—"

"Got any Redmonds?"

"Da Red-o-monda? Yes, yes: t'ree, four. But—"

"How much a week?"

"Oh-a, sometime-a get dollar. Sometime-a—"

"How about seventy-five cents a week? Three dollars a month?"

"All-a right. You take-a one?"

"Let me look at 'em first,'' commanded Darrow. " All you've got. Every one. I've got a rush piece of work to do, and I can't use any other machine but the Redmond. Mighty particular piece of work. Got to have a good machine. Let me look at 'em— all!"

Buccamano & Co., grumbling, struck a match and lighted a flaring jet. Though it was still daytime outside, yet through the dusty, musty pane seeped only a dim light.

As the jet blazed, and Buccamano started down the shop to bring a machine, the gray-suited man with the Panama slid into a doorway across the street.

The Italian deposited the Redmond in front of Darrow, on a rough bench covered with a disorder of paper and fly-specked stationer's supplies.

The machine, Darrow saw at a glance, was not the one on which the specimens in his pocket had been written, for the type was script instead of nonpareil. Nevertheless he picked up a sheet of yellow paper, slid it between the rollers and quickly delivered himself of the original and highly entertaining sentiment:

"Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the party."

"Nope! Won't do!" he exclaimed in a tone of disappointment. 'See this 'e' here, and this 'k'? Rotten! Bring another!"

The next one made his heart jump. One squint at the type-basket showed him the sought-for kind of letter. But disappoint- ment followed close upon elation. For, having quickly written out a seemingly meaningless jumble of letters, containing, however, the well remembered fragments: "Di, Bet, Puu, Oa, Min, ua, Pea, ar. 12-27, 19, ill, a, Isla," his trained eye, long used to every minute point of typewriter lore, detected hopeless discrepancies between the alinement and spacing of the copy before him and the original in his pocket.

"Come on! Come on!" he exclaimed impatiently. "Let's have another!"

"W'at-a da matter-a you?" growled Buccamano & Co., eying his customer with irritation. "One-a machine just so good-a than de odders!"

"If you want to rent me a machine," answered Darrow, with asperity, "you show me the goods, see? If not, I take my money somewhere else and get the kind of a Redmond I want. Are you on?"

He made a move as though to rise. The Italian only grinned at him, ill-naturedly, and shook his head so hard that the brass earrings flailed.

"No, no, you not-a do it!" he retorted. "Not get-a Red-o-monda anywhere else-a da city! Sole agenta, me, Buccamano!"

And with a kind of primitive malice he whacked his adipose breast.

Darrow felt a stab of secret satisfaction.

"By the Lord Harry," thought he, "I am on the track, all right, all right! Now if I could only just get the right machine, the rest would be lead pipe."

To the Italian he added in a more wheedling tone:

"Come, come, now; do me a favor, won't you? I'm a government employee, understand? In the stationery department of the pension office. You use me right, and maybe I can throw some biz your way— big money, what? Trot out all the Redmonds you've got, and let me look at 'em. Fact is," he rattled on, quick invention supplying him with copious falsehoods, "fact is, I'm a government typewriter inspector."

He turned back his lapel, and showed a nickel badge which, had the Italian examined it, he would have seen certified to all and sundry that bearer was number 43,257, in the Foresight Accident Company; please notify home office, etc., etc.

The badge went. Buccamano grew respectful.

"Yes," continued Darrow, "I'm an inspector. If these machines look good to me, you never can tell what mightn't happen. Trot out the others."

Buccamano needed no second bidding. He hardly more than half believed his customer; yet, on the other hand, it might be true, after all. "Better be on the safe side," thought he, hauling down the remaining two machines of the desired make.

One of these machines Darrow saw at once, was not what he was after at all. Nevertheless he pounded off a classic sentiment about a "quick black fox" and pretended to scrutinize it carefully under the gaslight.

The other looked more promising, at first.

Knowing full well the instinct of everybody when trying a machine, to write his own name, he whacked out " John J. Burley, 3016 N. St., N. W.," several times, then on another sheet tried the fragmentary words again. The former sheet, with the name, he left on the bench. In case of inquiry later, it might prove very useful in side-tracking investigators. As for the sheet with the cabala on it, he examined that with intense earnestness.

But though for a moment he believed, with fast-beating heart, that at last his search was ended, he was presently forced to admit, against his will, that certain fatal discrepancies showed themselves.

"Great Heavens, where is the right machine?" thought he to himself, despairingly. 'Somewhere in this city it certainly must exist. If I could only find it—"

Up he looked at the proprietor.

"Here, I'll take this one," said he. "I'll try it a week, anyhow. Reserve it for me, will you?" And he laid a hand on the last machine.

"All-a right. You make-a da deposit now?"

"I'll pay you in advance. That's better. Send it up to my address, to-morrow forenoon sure!" He indicated the name he had written.

Slowly he counted out seventy-five cents into Buccamano's fat palm. "Gee!" thought he, "that means I go mighty shy on lunches till pay-day. It comes high, this detective-story of mine, but I must have it!"

Then straight into the Italian's eyes he peered.

"You've got another of these machines?"  asked he.

"One more, yes, meester. But it's no here-a. I rent-a heem, las' wik."

"Who's got it?"

Darrow's heart leaped madly as he fired this master-questicn at the greasy fellow. He tried to hold his voice steady; yet in spite of himself he felt it must be trembling. The Italian, now thoroughly suspicious, squinted at him with puckered eyes. Under the crude gas-flare, the young clerk could detect a glitter of dawning hostility in the black optics.

"Who—who's got it, please?" repeated he, suavely.

"W'at-a for you want-a know it?"

Darrow made a quick change of front.

"See here, you!" he exclaimed, pointing a lean forefinger right into the man's face, while his own eyes began to blaze behind the goggles. "I've had enough o' this: I'm not going to waste any more time chewing the rag with you! Two minutes I give you to tell me where that other machine is, or by thunder, I'll make it hot for you! Just 'round the corner, yonder," he jerked his thumb over his 'shoulder, "I've got two plain-clothes men waiting.

Want 'em in here? In my pocket I've got a warrant!" This was perfectly true; only it was a warrant for payment of an oil-bill. "Want me to serve it on you? Now, come across! "

Buccamano started back. His yellow complexion became a pale olive. Darrow had taken a long chance; but the shaft had struck home. The Italian weakened instantly before the minatory gaze of the young clerk.

" All—all-a right, meester!" he exclaimed, spreading his hands, fingers wide and palms vertical, toward Darrow, in a gesture of repellence. '"All-a right! You no call-a da cop! I—I tell-a you all— everyt'ing-a!"

"Quick!"

"Dis-a minute! Yes, yes! Right away!"

And, turning, he started to shuffle off toward the back of the shop.

"Wait-a one minute! I getta da book!" said he.

"No, you don't!" shouted Darrow. "You don't get out o' my sight! No gunplay in this!" He reached back toward his own hip-pocket, where lay a small pocket-dictionary.

"Come back, there! Come back! What name, now? What address?"

Buccamano halted. He began to sweat and tremble. Despite his avoirdupois, his heart was thimble-size.

"No shoot-a! No shoot!" he pleaded, secretly cursing the luck that his own gun was lying on a shelf in the back room. "I tell-a you, queeck! Yes, yes! I give-a you all you want-a!"

"Go on! Who's got it?"

"Globe Laundry— he got it! Las' wik, so help-a—" and he raised his hands on high.

"Globe Laundry? Where's that?"

"How I remember all-a address? So  many da machine!"

"Where is it?" Again Darrow's hand crept back toward the dictionary.

"Two hundr' five, A, Nort' Twenty-Fourt' Street!" whined Buccamano. "But you no—"

"Thanks," said Darrow, cold as steel. "Now, that's all from you, see? The best thing you can do is to keep your mouth sewed right up tight! Zitto! Are you wise? Good night!"

And, taking good care not to turn his back toward the Italian, he retreated in good order from the dingy little shop.

The door slammed. Once more he stood in the street.

"Now for it!" he exclaimed.

5: Baffled

PLANS all unformulated, knowing neither what he should encounter nor how to meet it, yet driven forward by the hot tides of determination that now coursed through every fiber, the clerk laid his course westward for the address that the Italian had been forced to give him.

As he went— all unconscious of the surveillance of the man in gray, who still dogged his tracks— he tried to analyze the situation, size it up, and make some definite campaign of action; yet, try as he would, only one fact seemed to stand out clearly as a beacon-guide through the morass of difficulties. This: that he must, at all hazards, lay hands on the typewriter whereon the original message had been written. This: with that machine under observation, he might be able to determine who had written those words, and when, and— How thin a spider's web of hope! Yet it was all he had. And to it with a bulldog grip he hung.

By a process of elimination he reasoned, as he strode along in the approaching twilight.

"It was certainly written on a Redmond. That's sure. The only Redmonds in this town are handled by that crafty dago. I've seen 'em all but one. I haven't found the one I want. Therefore—the one that's out now is the one I'm after!"

Yet, though according to all rules of logic this proposition worked to a satisfactory proof, it left him with an anxious dread, a doubt, a sinking uncertainty. What if, after all, it didn't turn out so? What if, to-morrow, he had no data for the secretary?

"Gad!" he murmured in alarm, quickening his pace, "that'll be my finish, all right, all right, more ways than one!"

Twenty minutes brought him to his destination; but now that he was near the place, his courage— till now adequate— began to ooze. He had had no supper, for one thing. The emptiness of his stomach reacted on his nerve. Dyspeptic always, he had little reserve force. He longed for the strength of a Hackenschmidt, to grapple with this problem, throw it, and hold 't down. Half consciously he sneered at his own weakness, his sedentary ineptitude for the hard hand-grapple with virile strife.

"I am a dope, that's a fact!" thought he, as he turned off K into Twenty - Fourth Street, and with blinking eyes began to seek the house numbers. "Gee whiz! What a mutt I was to tackle a thing one hundred sizes too big for me!"

But he did not withdraw. No, something in the clamp of that thin lantern-jaw be- spoke a will which could not retreat; which could only go on, on, on, till something broke.

"Two hundred and five, A," he repeated to himself, scanning the numbers. "That's an odd number. I'm on the same side. Guess I'd better cross over."

He did so, and continued down the street. Now he had reached 150— 175— 200.

"Ah!" he exclaimed. Across the street from him, its lights yellowing the sidewalk, he perceived the place.

"What? A Chink joint?" And he stopped in amazement. This contingency had not been thought of. The idea of any Chinaman hiring a typewriter was too bizarre to have occurred to him. Yet such was the case.

For, in big red letters on the glass, he read the words:

CHARLEY YUN LEE

and hanging from an iron rod at right angles to the building depended a red sign:

Globe Laundry

For a minute or two Darrow was at a loss. He had expected to find a regular American laundry, with an office into which, on a pretext of inspecting the gas mantles or something of that sort, he could gain access. Once there, he had counted on a quick wit and on circumstances to enable him to find out something about the machine. Maybe he might, in the first place, blunder right in and ask to see it— though, in view of the circumstances, this might prove unwise. At any rate, he had thought only of dealing with Americans. But now, facing the problem of tackling Chinamen, he felt a sudden chill. The astute, slant-eyed men he could not understand; they baffled him. In common with all white men, he felt the impossibility of ever getting beneath the yellow exterior, into the psychology of the Oriental.

So, horribly chagrined, he stopped a moment to consider.

Yet, even in his surprise and disappointment, he felt a thrill of exultation. For this circumstance certainly lent color to his theory. Now he began to see light.

"That India-ink mark on the back of my fragments—yes, it was a character of some sort or other!" thought he. "I'm on the trail, all right enough. Only, how the deuce am I going to follow it now?"

Vaguely, with nebulous outlines and vast, unknown proportions, he began to see something taking shape. What, he knew not; but the ghostly figure of some huge, sinister plot began to grow faintly visible. He wiped his forehead, where the sweat was pricking out, and drew a deep breath.

"Gosh!" he ejaculated.

Then, slowly, he walked past the laundry, on the other side of the street.

For a moment he had the idea of going over and entering. But what reason could he give? He had no soiled linen to leave, no washing to call for. At once he felt the impossibility of visiting that place without at least running the risk of arousing fatal suspicions.

"No," said he, strolling along, hands clasped behind him, head bowed in thought —"no, I've got to get at it some other way. My great Scott, what wouldn't I give to have an X-ray eye for just about ten minutes!"

At the next corner he crossed the street, then came back along the sidewalk that led directly past the laundry. Loitering, he drew near. His heart thumped disagreeably, and he noticed a shortage of breath as he came abreast of the Globe. But he kept on.

Now he was right in front of it.

In he peered, staring eagerly through those round, black-rimmed goggles of his.

"Bah!" thought he. "Nothing doing!"

For, after all his hopes, nothing could be seen— nothing of the slightest moment. The interior was absolutely innocent-appearing. In the window, bundles of washing. At one side of the shop, an ironing-table, before which a couple of blue-clad, pigtailed men industriously plied their irons. At the other, a stove, with more irons. On the walls, long red scrolls with sprawling characters; a gaudy print or two; a Chinese calendar. The shop was one of ten thousand, all alike.

Keenly disappointed, he passed on. All  at once he felt very shaky, tired, lonesome, and helpless. He, a rather anemic young lighthouse establishment clerk, trying to run down an intangible clue with no slightest assistance; he, all alone, against the unknown—what hope?

And now plunged into the black abyss of despair, facing denunciation from his superior, discharge, loss of his only source of livelihood, he began to tremble with sickening apprehension.

Thus for the moment utterly overthrown, he blundered up the street in the evening gloom. A quick-lunch room attracted his attention, inviting him to rest and think. Into it he turned.

"Egg-sandwich and," he ordered, sitting on one of the high revolving stools. But when the stale egg, dripping grease from between the soggy rolls, and the strong, muddy coffee were slapped down on the shiny counter, he found no appetite, He could not force himself to take more than a single bite and drink half the anemic coffee. Dejectedly he paid, from a diminished purse. The cash-register rang, and once more he found himself out on the sidewalk, wound in a web of difficulties that ever an amateur detective encountered.

All at once he felt a strong imperative for solitude— for a chance to rest, to think, to puzzle out this thing apart from the jostling contact of humanity. His mind turned toward the new park down by the tidal reservoir along the banks of the Potomac. And thither, with a real relief, he now betook himself.

He found a bench not far from the water's edge. A certain peace descended on him, thus to leave the city behind, even though it was but a few hundred paces in the rear. The calm of evening soothed him. The slow, even current seemed as though it bore away the troubles and hot vexations of his spirit. In midstream the island loomed vaguely comforting. Over beyond Analostan a twinkling light or two betrayed the location of Rosslyn. Darrow's thoughts turned to the country, the grass and fields over on the Virginia shore, the dark outlines of the trees, half-glimpsed, and, above, the big and quiet stars.

Once more he seemed to see home, the old farm back in Mount Sterling, Indiana. Just so, from the big barn, he had once been used to look across the flood of the Ohio, at the lights of Warsaw, in the Blue Grass State.

"Say, I was the champ boob ever to leave it!" murmured he; and a mist formed upon his glasses. He blinked hard, gulped, and, burying his aching head in both hands, tried to think. All he could see was the face of Louise Carr. Then, instantly, lightning seemed to strike him.

A sheaf of brilliant fires burst in his brain. He felt himself hurled from the bench to the gravel walk.

He tried to cry out; but iron hands were at his throat. A knee was on his chest, there in the gloom.

"Uh! Uh!" was all the sound he could bring forth, even with the most horrible exertion.

Vainly he tried to strike. His arms were pinioned. He heard panting breath.

Then he sensed a hard, quick hand ripping his coat open. Out it tore the bill-fold, after which came a foul curse, and once more a smashing blow cracked on his skull.

Still struggling, though but weakly now, he felt himself lifted.

Some one, enormously strong, was carrying him like a child.

"Uh! Wa! Wa-a-ah!" he groaned.

A heave, a swing!

Out through the air he whirled.

A deafening splash, a gurgling fight for breath, and then—

6: 205-A Twenty-Fourth Street

SOMETIMES an inch more or less, a bit of mud, the fraction of a second, or the merest accident, change the course of history.

Had James Macdonnel not blundered with the lock at the famous Hugomont gate, Waterloo might have had a different ending, and the tragedy of St. Helena might have never been.

Thus, now, in the career of James B. Darrow, and in the vital issues at present therewith connected, a half-rotten old plank altered the nation's record-scroll. Whence had it come, that plank? Far down the river, maybe, there to lodge against the mud, and wait, and idle, till all at once a human being— destined for one big human event— found himself clinging to its farther end with the grip of half-drowned desperation.

Without that plank at hand, Darrow's life would have ended in the Potomac, at that very place and moment. With it— but this story will presently inform you.

At first, able only to cling, to catch his gasping breath, he did no more than crawl a little up the bank, and lie there in the dark— muddy, drenched, and in a daze. But gradually he recovered some measure of sense and reason; slowly he pulled himself together, spat out the mud and water, looked about him, found himself still alive, and— save for an aching head and a blood-oozing cut on the scalp— comparatively intact.

Then, a few minutes later, having washed off the worst of the filth and blood, he dragged himself up the bank again, and so reached the path and the bench once more.

Vaguely seen, a few couples were strolling in the vicinity. On the next bench but one sat a youth and maiden; but they appeared oblivious. The city lights cast dim rays. Darrow thanked Heaven for the darkness. If anybody noticed him at all, it was no doubt only to mistake him for a harmless tramp.

Darrow noticed that his hat was gone.

He felt around the bench. On the grass he found it. This gave him a grain of comfort. Nothing is more forlorn than your civilized man without a hat. The hat was dry, too; and that was something. He put it on his wounded head, and felt a tiny flicker of hope revive. A great weariness oppressed him; but he dared not sit down again in the park, to think. His wet, clinging clothes, too, urged him to be moving. Even though his billfold was now gone, and with it the precious scraps of paper, apparently his only clue, he could not feel that everything was lost. Still, in his mind he bore the image of those disjointed words, those letters. So long as life remained in him, nobody could take those away!

"I guess," thought he, "the best thing I can do is hike along and think this out. It's check, all right, but not mate! Not mate, yet— by a long shot!"

Lamely, with aching head, he limped along. As he went, he raised a tremulous fist.

"Do I quit now?" quoth he. "I guess so— nix!"

The oblivious couple ceased for a second in their whispering of sweet nothings, to wonder dimly at this hobo person. But only for a second. Into the gloom Darrow vanished.

Suddenly a great longing seized him, wet and chilly and all but lost in the maze of ever-increasing difficulties.

"Gee! If I could only get a cigarette!" said he.

He felt in his pocket. Yes, there was a little loose change still left. Off to the left, half-glimpsed through the park trees, glimmered a brace of lights, red and green, like a liner head-on. Darrow bore a straight course for those beacons. The prospect of a drug-store was infinitely comforting.

With diffidence he approached. But, save for a mild stare, the drug clerk showed no very great concern. Drug clerks get used to everything. That a man should be wet and muddy cannot excite them.

"Took a nap down on the bank, there, and fell in," Darrow felt constrained to volunteer. "Say, I'll take a penny box of matches, too."

He lit up the cheap cigarette and felt better at once.

Two cigarettes set him thinking again. By the time he was ready to light the third, he felt reviving courage as he paced the park, waiting to dry off in the warm spring air.

"Quit, now?" he repeated, with something savage in his intonation. "When I'm on the track? When if— if I don't make good, I get the ax? Forget it!"

Vanished, now, the originally high patriotic motives which had at first inspired him to report his suspicions to the secretary. Vanished all altruism. In their place, a very human, personal fear of losing his job; anger at all the labor and abuse he had already endured as a result of his quest; a burning desire to get even with somebody, he knew not whom— to make good— to batter down, in spite of all his weakness, the vast powers which seemed to have been set in motion to crush him.

And, shaking his bony fist at the perfectly indifferent stars, he swore. Then, with the speed of light, an idea occurred to him. He could feel its sudden entrance from his subconscious into his objective mind, as though it had broken free from moorings and swung into the mental stream.

"Got it!" cried he, exultant. "Got it —if the luck turns!"

Waiting no longer, he once more set off in the direction of the Globe laundry. Forgotten, now, the fact that he was still wet and untidy, that hunger was assailing him, that his head ached madly with the clout he had received at the hands of some person unknown.

Forgotten his angry wonder as to that assailant and as to the manner wherein anybody could have learned that on his person he had borne those scraps of paper. Forgotten the chagrin of their loss. A new idea possessed him. And, strong in hope renewed, he strode along.

He kept to alleyways and small back streets.. The avenues and larger streets he shunned, for there, among the bright lights, his drabbled wetness would surely attract attention, which was the one thing he must now at all hazards avoid.

Though he was by no means over-familiar with this part of the city, down along the river, yet he found no very serious difficulty in working his way, hobo-fashion, toward the desired spot. Night covers, even more than charity, a multitude of shortcomings.

On the way, he passed an open-fronted hardware-shop where, on benches, all manner of tools and ironware lay displayed in little boxes.

Here he stopped a minute. He counted out the last of his money. One dime, two nickels, seven pennies. By dint of haggling, he got a thirty-five-cent chisel, somewhat rusty, for these twenty-seven cents.

Absolutely broke, yet rich in expectations, he pocketed this bit of steel, and once more pushed along.

"Maybe this," thought he, "will answer questions even better than old Macaroni di Spagett, back there!"

Arriving again in the vicinity of the Globe, he paused. From the distance of a block away, he reconnoitered. Still shone the lights in the laundry window. Though the hour was now past ten, the Orientals were at work, he judged.

"So much the better," he assured himself, casually walking nearer. Yes, he could see both men toiling over their irons in the front room. "Good!" said Darrow.

He turned back, took J Street, and, arriving at the alley that ran parallel to Twenty-Fourth, entered it. Here, save for a rare gaslight, was welcome darkness. Silent and furtive, he slipped along. As he went, he scrutinized the backyard fences and gates, most of which were numbered to correspond with the buildings in front.

In less than five minutes he had located the back gate of the laundry. Even had not the number, 205A, been painted there, he could have told the place; for, peeking through a knot-hole in the fence, he made out dim, ghostly lines of washing hanging in the yard.

"Here's where I get busy!" said Darrow to himself, pausing a moment to make sure no eye beheld him. A sudden sputter and yowl down the alley startled him almost out of his damp skin. Then he grinned with relief.

"Huh! Only a couple o' cats!"

Once more he turned to the gate. Cautiously he tried the latch. It did not yield.

"Locked," said he. "Come on, chisel, get busy!"

Quietly, yet strongly, he applied it. With a snap of broken cast iron, the gate swung. inward. Darrow's long neck stretched as his owlish visage peered through the opening, this way, then that. The yard was deserted.

A moment later Darrow was inside, the gate shut after him; and, creeping down the brick walk between the rows of wind-swayed linen, he approached the back porch of 205A.

A lattice-work protected it on two sides. On the third, six steps led up. To the right, Darrow could vaguely distinguish two windows, tight-shuttered.

"What next?" wondered he, pausing at the foot of the steps. Now that he was actually on the field of action, nothing very definite occurred to him. To make a plan, at a distance, is a very different thing from executing it in detail.

"Hang it!" he thought, "I've got to do something, anyhow! Can't risk loafing 'round here for long, that's certain!" And, daring hardly to breathe, he turned from the walk and approached the nearer of the two windows.

"Too high," he judged, with disappointment. He could, in fact, just touch the sill with his raised hand. No chance of peeking in, even had the shutter been open.

About him he peered in the dark, straining his eyes for some means of climbing up.

"Ah! A box!" said he to himself, much relieved. Beside the porch stood an empty soap-box. He was just on the point of reclaiming this, when—what? There at the rear gate, a creak of hinges! A rattle of the broken latch!

Darrow realized that somebody was entering the yard!

A wild fear shot through him. To be detected spying there meant ruin, or a charge of attempted larceny, that much was certain. Assault, he might encounter; perhaps murder! He began to tremble violently. Down he crouched in the dark corner where the porch joined the house. He held his breath. The pounding of his heart seemed certain to betray him. There in an abject, cringing heap he obliterated himself.

None too soon, for already the unknown person was cautiously coming down the walk. Darrow could hear his breathing; the wheeze of it indicated a bulky individual. At the bottom of the steps the man paused an instant. Against the pallid dark of the sky, Darrow perceived a black blotch, which was the newcomer's head.

It moved. Footsteps sounded on wood. Then the porch-boards creaked.

Darrow, all ears, waited in a cold tremor of excitement.

Tap-tap-tap! Tap-tap! came a-knocking. Three raps, then two. The signal was repeated. With a kind of desperate summing-up of the will, Darrow craned his neck. His eyes came to the level of the porch-floor. Through the lattice he, all unseen, found he could get a line of vision on the door. Yes, there stood a vague, black figure, motionless.

Tap-tap-tap! Tap-tap!

All at once came a little click. A slide had been opened in the door. A round, white beam of light spouted out upon the caller's face. Darrow knew a pocket electric flash-lamp was being directed through the hole.

Only an instant the light lasted; yet in that instant the young clerk got sight of a bristly, close-cropped yellow mustache and a beefy face surmounted by a Panama. Then darkness fell again, blacker than ever by contrast with the light.

A voice from within:

"Got it?"

"Yes, sir."

"Any trouble?"

"No, sir. No fight in him. Weak! Harmless!"

"Where is he?"

"Safe. I fixed him."

"Good! Give it to me!"

Came a slight rustle of paper in the dark. Then the inner voice spoke again— and Darrow knew it was no foreign voice, either, but a straight-out American one— a voice familiar, despite its muffled dulness:

"Here's the cipher. He may have talked. Cable this at once. To-night! Immediately! Understand?"

"Yes, sir."

"Here!"

Another sound of paper.

"Why didn't you come sooner?"

"Went up to the other place. Thought you'd be there, sir."

"Of course. I ought to be, now. Hold on; I'll go with you now!"

Click! The slide was closed.

Darrow held his breath till he thought he must burst. At last, having either to breathe or die, he took a little air through wide-open lips, soundlessly.

The wait seemed an hour. Really it was but five minutes. Then a key grated and the door swung open. Another dark figure joined the other, which all this time had stood there motionless.

"They'll work late in the front room tonight," whispered the man who had come out— seemingly a tall, square-shouldered person. "Everything's ready, except just to give the word. You cable, while I go— you know!"

"Yes, sir!"

No further speech passed between them. Together they went down the steps and along the bricks to the gate. There they paused a moment. Though Darrow could now no longer see even the dimmest shadow of them, he sensed that this momentary delay was for the purpose of reconnoissance before venturing into the alley.

A voice from the gate, a voice he could have sworn he recognized: "What's the matter with this catch?"

"Anything? I don't know, sir."

"I'll have to get after Katsu about such carelessness. It's broken!"

"No matter. After to-night— well—"

The gate closed after the two men. Silence fell. But for a long time Darrow still crouched in obscurity. Who could tell? They might be coming back!

If he thought of it once, he did a hundred times, the lure of safe retreat while vet he was alive and sound. His head ached brutally, now that the first flush of excitement had passed. It was gummed and sticky with dried blood. Warm though the night was, a chill was in his bones. His damp clothing clung about him in soggy and depressing heaviness. And, more than all, the colloquy he had overheard filled him with shrinking, sinister apprehensions.

"Cipher! Cable?" thought he. "To- night! All over but that? My Heaven! What am I up against!"

Almost on the point of creeping toward the gate in retreat was he. But, as he stirred, he felt the chisel in his pocket. And, like a powder-train, the sequence of determinations flared up in him again.

"Quit? Without even a look-in? all I've been through? Huh!"

And now with most minute caution, yet filled once more with revivified pluck, he reached for the soap-box again. Under the window he placed it, making sure by jiggling it steady with his hands that it was firmly planted.

Upon it he mounted.

Noiselessly he applied one of his goggled eyes to a thin crack between the blinds.

"What?" he gasped, astonished despite himself into a whispered voicing of his surprise.

7: The Fight in the Back Room

THE room into which he now found himself peering was lighted by a Welsbach. This in itself might have seemed strange for the rear room of a Chinese laundry; but stranger still were the other appointments.

For instead of tubs, clothes-horses, shelves full of washing-powder, and a stove, Darrow beheld a comfortably furnished apartment with a revolving book-case, a Morris chair, and other chairs well upholstered, a smoking-table whereon lay debris of cigars, and— most important of all— a broad desk with a typewriter.

Unable to believe his senses, Darrow for a moment felt that he must be in error. Perhaps, after all, this room was not a part of the laundry. Perhaps it belonged to the adjoining house. Darrow visualized this possibility very distinctly; so distinctly that already a sense of huge disappointment was beginning to steal over him, when it was instantly dispelled by the sight, there on the wall, of a red, character-covered scroll.

On the table, too, he now observed a carven ivory netsuke. And, lying open on the desk, with a paper-knife across its leaves to hold it in position, a book such as never was made on this side of the Pacific.

Then, eagerly realizing that now his search was almost at an end, he scrutinized the typewriter.

"A Redmond, for sure!" exulted he. "The Redmond! The very identical one, so help me, that wrote the message I'm after!"

And, giving a great leap, his heart began to thrash with the excitement of a chase all but completed, with the foreknowledge that, in the next few minutes, destiny was making, life and death were being weighed, the balances of fate about to tip!

Yet now, even though his goal was in plain sight, the young chap knew not how to proceed. It is one thing to contemplate, from a safe distance, breaking into a conspirators' den with the aid of a chisel; another thing to execute that coup.

How could he tell what situation might face him there? How know the number of plotters in the house, masked by the laundry in front? How hope anything but this— that at the first suspicious sound that door across the room would burst open and death leap on him in the guise of steel or lead?

"G-g-gosh!" chattered Darrow weakly in the face of such contingencies. "If I— if I had a machine-gun, or something, or a— a squad of cops— maybe I might butt in there. But this way! Plain suicide."

Why not retreat now, lay the case on the desk of the nearest police station, and let authority run the game to bay? Surely he had followed the spoor far enough! What could be gained now by crawling into the very lair of the beast? But even before he had thought it out in logical sequence Darrow knew it was to be that way or no way at all.

To report this thing, to stir up city-wide, nation-wide excitement, maybe, and then after all to run the risk that nothing would develop, nothing be found, would inevitably ruin him.

Then, too, he feared lest, by giving his secret to others, the prey might escape him, the plot go through to its infernal success. Now that this very night was destined for the crisis, now that every minute perhaps might be vital, he dared not leave his vantage-post.

"No, no!" thought he. "Lone hand! Whole game or nothing this deal."

Then, before he rightly realized what he was doing, he had the chisel in hand once more, and with trembling yet steel-strong hands was prying at the catch. It strained, creaked, then, with a sharp ping burst in halves. Darrow, breathing hard, waited in the thick dark, standing on the soap-box.

A moment thus he remained there, every nerve a-tingle, listening, peering for his very life. Nothing! He seemed to have excited no suspicion in the other occupants of the house. A hissing sputter and yowl betrayed the presence of feline combatants again on the alley fence. From the street corner, half a block up, jangled a trolley-gong. The even hum of the city's life, dull, monotonous, far, droned on and on. "Yet
to Darrow it seemed that he alone of all those thousands was really living— really infused with the inner, vital knowledge of the overshadowing tragedy about to consummate itself.

"The window, now!" thought he. And, noiselessly opening one of the shutters, he thrust his chisel under the lower sash.

Now very great grew his risk of detection. For the light inside, streaming out, bathed him in a soft, white radiance. Instantly he realized that, standing thus, it would be ten chances to one somebody would very soon discover him and raise an outcry.

"In I go now," he grunted, "or it's all off."

He threw his full strength on the chisel.

Snap!

He almost fell off the box with the recoil of the breaking blade. In burning haste he jerked the broken half of the chisel out from under the sash and jammed in the stouter part, next the handle.

Again he pried. This time something gave above. The window rose half an inch.

Frenzied, he hung his weight upon the handle. With a jangle of wrecked metal, the window yielded. Next moment Darrow had raised it, and, flinging a leg over the sill, had clambered into the mysterious chamber.

Like an instantaneous photograph the topography of the room printed itself upon his fevered brain. Here the table, there the typewriter, yonder the single door leading into the front part of the house— into the "laundry."

With quick sagacity, he tiptoed, panting, to that door. A second, and the key was turned, the door securely locked.

"That'll hold 'em a few seconds, anyhow," grunted Darrow.

He wheeled, and, with a single gesture, turned off the gas.

"No rubbering from outside, now!"

Then he turned to the typewriter-desk. Even though the quick transition from light to dark practically blinded him, he knew just where to lay hands on that all-precious thing.

"Give me one minute, now, and I'll have it out o' here and away!" he exulted, his heart thrashing so it nearly choked him.

But even as he laid hands on it came a running of soft-shod feet in a hallway beyond the door. Then cries burst forth— two voices sounded, chattering unintelligibly yet with accents of wild fear.

And, hurling themselves against the panels, clattering the knob, then pounding again in frenzy, Darrow heard the laundrymen fighting savagely for admission.

"Stand back!" he roared. "The first man through that door I'll blow his yellow head off!" This, though his only weapon was a broken, blunted fragment of a thirty-five-cent chisel.

A moment's pause. Darrow seized the typewriter. Then along the bottom of the door a bright streak appeared in the dark. They had made a light. And, almost instantly, with a thunderous crash, some heavy thing shivered against the panels near the lock.

Toward the window Darrow started with the machine. But he had not made two steps when— smash went the door again.

Darrow saw a jagged, uneven spangle of light appear in the panel.

Snarling, high-pitched cries rose from the hall. Then through the splintered hole catapulted a flat-iron. And right after it a long, thin, saffron- yellow arm was thrust. The corded hand, claw-like and lean, twisted up, around, grasping for the key on the inside of the door.

"Here, you, stop that!" screamed Darrow in a frenzy of sudden rage— red rage, so wild that it banished fear and waked the till-then-unknown killing lust in him. "Cut that out, you murderous Chinks!"

Down he flung the typewriter onto the table. Out he flashed his chisel; and, like a tiger flinging himself upon that hand, struck at it with a madman's strength.

Rose a horrid, wild-pitched shriek in the hallway. The arm and hand jerked back. And Darrow, still clutching the chisel, ran once more for the machine.

But now the sounds of an ax at work on the lock outside gave unmistakable warning that scant time remained.

"They'll get me sure!" thought Darrow. "Sure as shootin', if I try to lug it off! How far ahead of 'em could I keep, with a fifty-pound handicap?"

Something else would have to be done. Some other method thought of to tear from that piece of mechanism its secret! Some other way beside stealing it and running. But what? How?

For, smashing against the lock, the heavy, shattering blows resounded.

Howls and imprecations in a strange tongue filled the hallway. Darrow cringed an instant, his hawk-face pale as milk, eyes blazing, mouth agape.

Then, with a cry, "By gad! Got it!" his brain riven with inspiration, he snatched at the ribbon of the machine.

Years of work with typewriters had taught him more than mere accuracy and speed.

"This! This! Got to have it!" he panted.

Both hands grabbing, he hauled the ribbon out in great, yard-long loops and coils. The ribbon-spools spun round like mad. Their tiny ratchets buzzed.

"Quick! The ribbon!"

With a last desperate jerk he ripped it away. One of the spools flew jingling to the floor.

But now, as in exultation he crammed the long blue tape into a mass and shoved it into a pocket, the door burst inward.

By the light in the hall he saw two savage, snarling, pig-tailed men in flapping denim, cascade through the wreckage.

Up whirled the arm of one as Darrow turned to leap through the window. The ax swirled, gyrating wildly through the air.

Darrow crouched.

Crash! The glass was gone. All over and about him rained down splinters of it.

Then, shouting something incoherent, the young clerk jumped and straddled the sill. But before he could leap down yellow hands were clutching at his shoulder, grappling for his throat. A chair banged over in the room.

Full into a snarling face he drove his fist, laying his knuckles open against teeth.

A grunt. A swaying, tugging, straining wrench. Darrow felt his coat rip. Blindly he grappled. His fingers closed on something— a heavy braid of hair.

He caught a glint of a razor-like blade.

Then he plunged out in a half leap.

Down he crashed through the flimsy soap-box. He arose, staggered, half fell, then straightened, and broke into a dazed run for the gate.

A door jerked open. Thudded some heavy body on the earth behind him. Like a shot Darrow bounded down the walk. An instant later he was racing along the alley toward the bright lights on J Street. Only when he reached the corner did he slacken to glance round.

Nothing.

"They've quit!" he gasped. "What's this I've got?"

He stood there, staring at a long pendulous object in his hand—a thing which until that instant he knew not that he had.

"Holy cats! A pigtail? What the—" A pigtail it certainly was, with a false scalp affixed thereto.

"What? Not Chinks at all? why then— Japes?"

And Darrow, his brain reeling with the horror, the reaction of the past few minutes, the unspeakable astonishment of this discovery, leaned weakly up against the alley fence, shaken all over, sick, broken. He had just sense enough left to cram the pig-tail into his breast-pocket. Then everything whirled round.

He knew that he was fainting.

"Gee! Why—"

8: The Trail Ends

HE revived, to find himself lying in the mud, a little knot of curious, sympathetic, half-suspicious persons, black and white, surrounding him. Instantly he understood the prime importance of creating no scene and of forestalling any police interference. So, struggling weakly to a sitting posture, he managed to articulate:

"All— all right now. Fits. Go home all right. No, not drunk. Epilepsy— that's all."

So they helped him to his feet and brushed him off; and somebody gave him a good nip from a pocket-flask; and thus, in a very few minutes, he was headed for home.

All the way out to Brightwood he stayed on the front platform of the electric, thus escaping the scrutiny of even the few late suburbanites. Unseen, shockingly disreputable, bruised, torn, and filthy, he let himself into Mrs. Sagg's third-rate boarding-house. And so once more, close to mid-night, he regained his room.

Being by nature methodical, the first thing he did was to strip and take a good, warm bath. Then he washed and bandaged his scalp wound, got into pajamas and dressing-gown, polished up his goggles, flung the ruck of dirty clothes into a closet— after having first hauled out the typewriter-ribbon and laid it on his table— and lighted his student-lamp.

"Now," he said at last, getting down his tripod microscope from the shelf— "now, here's where I grow busy!"

In a fresh, well-inked ribbon the metal types as they strike leave an impression which sometimes you can make out with the naked eye. Under the microscope it becomes quite clear.

Even when a ribbon has been written two or three times over, something of the last impression can be read. The great difficulty is this: that the ribbon moves very slowly, and that therefore the letters are crowded uneven and irregular, overlapping one another and forming the most puzzling combinations.

None the less, with patience, good eyesight, and a fair lens, plus the right ingredient of luck and quick-witted imagination to fill gaps, you can really read a ribbon. Try it yourself some time, when you have a whole long night to spare, and see.

Darrow had the night, the time, the patience, and all the other requisites. Also, the ribbon had been written over only once, for more than three-quarters of its length. As he pored over it, moving it by sixteenths of inches under his microscope, he made notes.

Here, there, he jotted down a letter on a pad beside him. His breathing came irregularly. On his thin cheeks the spots of color glowed. Yet hour by hour he toiled, pausing only from time to time for a few whiffs of tobacco, a few turns up and down the dingy room.

Thus all night long he labored; and dawn found him spent and fevered, weak, and with an aching head, a body bruised, yet a mind keenly exultant, a soul thrilled with the poignant joys of victory.

"Made good, have I?" he spoke at last in a kind of tremulous whisper, flinging down his pencil. "Well, some!"

To the very butt he smoked his last cigarette. When it was gone, he sat a moment in deep meditation. Then he whistled softly.

"Gee!" he exclaimed.

Page after page of elaborately detailed report he wrote. He read it over, corrected it, signed it "John Doe," and sealed it carefully in, a big envelope which he directed to the President of the United States, with "urgent" underscored in the lower left-hand corner. Ten minutes later he had mailed this in the box at the adjacent corner, first collection 6 A.M.

Then he went back, locked his door, set the catch on his alarm-clock so that it could not by any possibility go off, and turned in.

AT QUARTER to eight a rapping on his door awakened him.

"Come in!"

Entered a large gentleman, very pale, with glasses, and with an unnecessary muffler high about his mouth. He closed the door with care.

"Good morning, sir," said Darrow. "Please excuse my not getting up. I was out late last night on the case you set me at. It's good of you to have come, sir, but you needn't have. I was going to report just as soon as I could get pulled together. Fierce headache I've got. You gave me twenty-four hours, you remember?"

"Darn you!" he croaked. "I could shoot you dead, there, where you sit and mock me!"

"Oh, no, you couldn't, sir," replied Darrow sweetly, "because, you see, I've got you covered now, right under the sheet. Just start to pull that right hand out of that pocket, and I plunk you, sure. Through the abdomen, sir; it's a lingering death, they say, and very painful. Now, please, what do you want of me?"

"You scum! You've proved nothing!"

"So? How about the Diagram of Mines planted March 12-27, between Kapua Entrance and Pearl River, Island of Oahu? How about the laundry? Who's Katsu? Why did a man about your size give orders last night at ten-thirty to cable the cipher. How about—"

"Stop! Stop!"

"Chinamen with fake queues? And—"

"Wait a minute!" The man's voice grew savage in its fear. "Wait! What's your price?"

"My— how's that?"

"Your figure! It just comes to this: do you prefer to press this thing, prove nothing after all, and be broken— utterly ruined, or call a halt now, and—"

"Sell out, you mean?"

"Name your own figure!" whispered the man, coming close to the bed. "Name it! You'll get it, blast you, every penny!"

"Please get back a little— so, that's right," directed Darrow. Under the sheet his hand moved, as he kept the muzzle of the automatic trained on his caller. "No, I'm sorry, but there's nothing doing. Your whole biz has gone to smash. Burke's cleared. It's all off. Too late. That ribbon did it," and he nodded at the table, where still lay the coils of blue.

"You mean—"

"I mailed a full report to the President this morning at five-thirty. Naming names, too. In a little while now you'll be it! Are you on?"

"What?" gasped the man. "Oh, Merciful Heaven! Then— then—"

His voice tailed off into a husky squeak. He swayed and took a step to keep from falling.

"Yes, I guess that's about right," judged Darrow coldly. '"There's just about one answer. They say hydrocyanic acid gas is the easiest way. Quickest— only takes a second. Now, please go away. I'm sleepy. Good-by."

Like a somnambulist the man staggered out. Darrow listened for the street door to close.

Then he went out in the hall.

"Mrs. Sagg!" he hailed. "Oh, Mrs. Sagg!"

"Yes, sir?" came a voice from below.

"If you let anybody else disturb me to-day, on any pretext whatever, I'll leave! I want to sleep. I'm going to! Understand?"

He went back, bolted his door, washed down another headache-powder with a glass of water, and, pulling the bedclothes up about his ears, snuggled down for a long sleep.

He yawned, stretched, and turned over.

After a pause: "I've jolted Uncle Sam good and plenty. I've wised him O. K. The rest's up to him. I'm done!"

Another pause; then two disconnected thoughts: "Wish't I could apologize to old Burke, but I can't. And—wish't I knew what Louise would think. Louise—"

A minute later, indifferent alike to wars and rumors of wars, secrets of state, high treason, and sudden death, James B. Darrow, oil-checker, Class 2B and highly obscure, was snoring with vigorous cadences.

______________________

9: A Question of Salvage

George Allan England

McClure's Magazine Sept 1909

"DOWN! Down!" bawled Juozas Barthkus. On hands and knees— raw with the cutting of the jagged slate dislodged from the mine roof— he crawled along the gangway in the sudden, shrouding dark. Naked he was to the waist, round which a broad red sash was knotted in the manner of many a Lithuanian miner. On his forehead still smoldered the Wolf lamp, extinguished by the roaring shock of the explosion. His ears still rang with the splitting thunders of it; and all about him he still heard junks of coal and sandstone splintering down in the gallery, but he paid no heed.

"Down! Gat down!" he yelled. "You lis'n vat I says to tell you! Atsigulk! De gaas— de fire— he mebbe coom back! Gat—!"

One of his mangled hands touched something that lay inert across the twisted tram-rail, something big and soft and terribly still.

"Antan, mine buddy!" groaned he, shaking the senseless form. "Antanai! You dead? Vake oop! Ve must to gat out off here, hey vat? De fire — he mebbe come back, now. Antanai!"

With all the strength that the catastrophe had left in him he shook his "buddy," but to no avail. Antan would not rouse. Juozas in the drowning blackness passed his hands over the lad's head.

It was wet— wet with a horrible warm wetness.

"Blood!" groaned the Litvak with stifling lungs. "Blood. Ach! I makes me 'fraid from such a beesness!"

He struggled to think. Thinking was harder labor for Juozas than cutting coal, at any time. Now it was doubly hard, with the resistless stupor of the after-damp numbing his brain. Still, he managed to get some connected idea of what had happened.

The New East workings, he knew, had "let go." And why? The incautious striking of a match, maybe; an overheated lamp; a blown-out shot; any one of a dozen mishaps— who could tell? New East, he understood, had been making gas very badly for some weeks. He himself had spoken about it to MacTavish, the fire-boss, but MacTavish had only cursed him and called him a "Hunkie." Mac's pet aversions were sobriety and East Europeans. Juozas had not answered. Who was he, a Lithuanian cutter, to question Authority? The more so as Katré and the little Domukas had always to be fed and clad, and the sliding scale seemed never to slide up, but always down, down, down.

No, Juozas had not answered. He had simply kept on toiling with Antan; and now— a spark, something,— the inevitable.

"Teip , istiesu ," he murmured dully. "Yas, sure. He gat to happen sometam. Dat so! He gat to!" Thus he felt resigned. Ages of fatalism in his blood asserted themselves. He sat down on the track and waited.

What, he wondered, had befallen the rest of Cumberland? How big had the explosion been? How far had the gases penetrated? Who, if anybody, was still living in the gallery? Juozas could not even guess. But in his dull, slow way, one concept at a time, he concluded that all the pit-men between the main shaft and the Old Sump, where he now was, must either have escaped by now or else be dead. That anybody except himself could still remain alive there he thought impossible. That explosion— ach! what an explosion it had been!

With painful mental gropings he got a vision of the pit-mouth: the huddle of dust-grimed buildings; the huge, lop-sided, roaring breakers; the reeking, ever-smoking culm-banks, and the high board fence topped by its trocha of barb-wire; and outside that fence— the women! The women and the children, wailing in long, shrill, minor cries, or mayhap stricken into dumbness. The women, with their broad, flat, pale faces underneath their shawls. The crowding, jostling, agonizing women! Katré, he well knew, was there among them now, gripping the little Domukas by his thin paw.

And at thought of that, Juozas burst into long and hoarse howls, inchoate, horrible.

No answer! No call, no word of comradeship; nothing but the drip-drip-drip of the mine-water, somewhere, and the slide and rattle of still falling slate. No lights, no voices— nothing!

Once more the Litvak yelled. The stifled echoes died, leaving him all, all alone in that abyss of night.

Alone? No, he had forgotten Antan. There lay the boy, still prone across the rails. Juozas lowered his head, listening intently. A faint wheezing murmur reached his ears.

"He livin', hey vat?" panted the miner.

A moment his mind cleared, despite the dead air, foul with choke-damp. He realized that there might still be some small chance for safety. But where? Up along the gallery, toward the main shaft? That was a good three quarters of a mile distant, the shaft was, and the gallery reeked with strangling gases. Even were it not choked by falls and menaced by fire, Juozas understood he never could win through. And the boy? Could he leave him, in search of safety elsewhere? He had to choose!

"If I stay, I mebbe to die," reflected the imprisoned man, with painful care. "If I go, he die, teip!" His mind sluggishly pondered the choice. To save Antan at all, he understood, he must in some way manage to drag him down along the gangway and into a "room" or working-chamber which opened off to the left, three hundred yards farther toward the heading.

This room, lower than the bottom of the cut, was joined to it by a narrowish neck hewn through the living coal. There, if anywhere, they might escape the fire, should the fire come— provided only that Juozas had sufficient strength left to get the boy thither in time. Only in that refuge could they find air enough to last till help should come.

Juozas felt absolutely certain that help would come! He had seen other explosions. He had helped dig out five buried Polacks, last year. He had witnessed their wild greeting just outside the colliery fence. He, too, he and Antan, would surely be saved and greeted thus— if only they could keep alive till some rescue gang found them!

"Dey von't to leave us die here, ne! Ne!" said Juozas very slowly to himself in the close stillness. "Niekada! Dey vill not neffer do it! I makes me to go in de chamber now, me an' mine buddy."

With huge exertion— for he felt strangely weak— he got to his knees, then stood upright. His head struck a jagged rift of rock. His eyes dazzled with sparks, but he cared not for the pain.

"De roof!" his only thought was. "She been low. She mebbe to fall, hey vat? I been 'fraid from it, de roof, sure. Ve must gat avay, now, quick!"

He bent over the unconscious Antan. A sort of stolid rage welled up in him at so much darkness. If only he had a light, now, he might see what hurt the boy had taken; he might spy out the way and see what obstacles opposed. But there was no light. His lamp was smashed and dead; and to strike a match, he knew, might fire the whole cutting.

No matter. He would fight the dark just as he would fight the choke-damp, and the rock-falls, and the whole of Cumberland Mine, if that were necessary. He got a hand-grip on the buddy's coarse woolen shirt. Stumbling forward along the tramway ties, he half dragged, half carried Antan down along the gallery.

Once he fell, the lad with him, inert as a bag of slack. But again he found his hold, and sweated on. The footing was uncertain. His mine-boots slipped on the wet rubbish of the road-bed, slid on rucks of greasy slate and small loose coal. Fallen props tripped him. His breath, too, hampered him. It seemed hardly to penetrate his lungs at all, but merely to strain in his contracted throat. His head ached bitterly; his ears sang with buzzing diapasons, but he would not give in. Now and again he laid the boy down and explored forward on hands and knees, feeling always on the left wall for the chamber-mouth.

"Here she been!" he choked at last, and dragged Antan down the slope into the room.

The air, it seemed, was fresher here, damp and cool with the moisture of this lowest working of the Cumberland. Juozas felt a little strength return. On to the end of the chamber he drudged, right down to the "face," where the spur of the tram-line terminated.

There, with Antan's head upon his knees, he settled down for the long wait— the wait till help should come.

ii

HOW LONG he sat there, who could tell? Time there seems none where there is neither light nor sound. The drowsiness that grappled him he fought off with a dogged patience. To yield— well, Juozas knew what that would mean!

After a time a slow thought was born in the Litvak's mind. He took off his crimson sash, tore it into strips, and clumsily bound up Antan's head.

"Mebbe he vake op, so. Hey vat?" he reflected. "It don't to be so lonesome if he vake op!"

He talked to the unconscious boy. "I like it you vake op!" said he, with mild persistence.

"But mebbe it been better for you if you ain't— not till de help coom!"

His thoughts trailed out, long, ponderous, unafraid. Now that the first instinctive fear had died in him, no other took its place. Rescue, he believed, was only a matter of time. Men could live long, he knew, without eating. And as for drinking, was there not ditch-water, if it came to that? There might be much suffering, yes — but Juozas shrugged his massive naked shoulders in the dark.

"I go, myself, pretty soon," said he. "I go, ven I been sure de damp been clear out, an' see where de gallery she been block op. But if I go, if I stay, no metter. Dey safe us, annyho!"

That thought never left him: Authority, up yonder at the pit-mouth, would save!— Authority, stern to repress, yet strong to rescue. So Juozas, leaning stolidly on perfect confidence, Waited— waited — waited. Is there anywhere on earth or under earth any other patience like the dumb, slow, fatalistic patience of the Slav?

After a long time, very, very long, Juozas seemed to perceive a dull, vague blur against the black— just the ghost of a ruddy smudge.

"Mine eye she been bad," he told himself, and winked to drive away the blur; but it persisted. He decided it was not a trick of his vision, wrought by the foul, gas-laden air.

"De mine she been to burn, somewhere," he decided. "I guess so; I go see it."

He put the still unconscious boy down from off his knees and stumbled out once more to the gallery. Fear he had none. A fire? They would put it out! Smoke? They would draw it up with fans! They would do everything, even unto saving Antan the Polander and Juozas the Litvak.

Out in the gallery, when he had groped his way thither, he saw dim reflections from far off toward the main shaft. Fitful gleams played over the black walls and roof.

"I t'ink so, she burn," he remarked simply. "No metter. Before she burn here, help coom. Hey vat? Sure, istiesu! It coom— if dey knows ve here!..."

The new concept spoke itself almost without his owm volition. If they know!

But do they know'? Or do they think both he and Antan are either dead or else out of the workings by this time? Has any count been taken? Do they know?

He pondered all this slowly, calmly, for a while, despite the strange pain that ringed his brows, despite the droning in his ears.

At last, "I mak' dem to know!" said he.

Bending, he groped in the road-bed, found a lhmp of slate, and with it squatted beside the tramway. He began to hammer on the twisted rail— Tunk! Tunk! Tunk-tunk-tunk!

A long time he hammered, with steady cadences. The light of the fire kept growing ever brighter, stronger. A scent of acrid, biting smoke began to drift dow n the gallery, mingling with the lethal air, making it still more deadly. Juozas's pain and lassitude increased. The work of signaling got very hard. The man's big bare arms rose and fell more slowly; they seemed to weigh a ton. A great weariness was rising up about him, as the tide rises about a castaway on a splinter of deserted rock. Exhaustion was engulfing him. His whole body seemed leaden. Moment bv moment, his eyes kept sagging shut. He crouched there by the tramway, still hammering on the rail by sheer brutal, bulldog stubbornness. The time of rescue, he thought vaguely, was very long— much longer than he had expected.

"I must mak' dem to know!" he still repeated to himself, swaying at his task like a man blind-drunk. "Mak' dem know. Dey coom. Dey safe us, teip , me an' mine buddy!"

Tunk!.. Tunk!.. Tunk-tunk-tunk!

iii

MACTAVISH, the fire-boss, his square face grimed with sweat and coal-dust, burst open the door of Cumberland Pit office and stumbled in.

With him there entered, bellying along the floor, a roll of bitter smoke, which blent and mingled with the already smoky air of the room.

"Feckless lunacy!" MacTavish bellowed with hoarse rage. "New East's all blazin'— Old Sump's like t' go next, an' then—! Arrrh, these eejit Hunkies, ram-stam spooies out o' hell, t' burrn old Cumberland on me so! To go an'—"

" There, now, Mack, that's enough!" Con- nover snapped him short. Connover, the superintendent, was used to obedience or else fist-play; a lover of few words. This brawling fire-boss, mouthy, irate, alcoholic, was a red rag to him at any time, now trebly red.

''That's enough!" the "super" shouted. "Shut that there door, you! Want to smoke us all out, here?"

MacTavish obeyed, chopfallen. Connover's scorn of him he paid back with bitter interest of hate— the hate of a small mind, a tyrant mind, for a large and vigorous soul which dominates, yet which is just.

"Come here!"

The Scotchman came. Blinking with smoke-rheumed eyes, he perceived another figure than Connover's, sitting across the table from the superintendent; a small figure, dry, wizened, keen-sighted.

"Eh? Why, 'twull be Maister Vandenburgh, sir?" he faltered, tugging off his cap.

Vandenburgh never so much as looked his way. With Cumberland ablaze, Cumberland, in which he held nine shares of every ten, he had no breath for fire-bosses.

"Drinkin' again, you?" Connover's voice rose sharp above the blur of tangled sounds that beat in from the colliery inclosure— sounds of creaking cables, hoarse coughing of exhaust-pipes, shouts, whistles, pandemonium from which he and Vandenburgh had shut themselves away in the office, to think, to plan what must be done. "MacTavish, you fool, you've been at th' booze again!"

"Na, na, mun, only a wee drappie," hiccoughed the Scot. "Juist a nip, sir, 'gainst fire an' water an' such-likes. Ye wadna blame me, sir?" His eyes were red and sullen as he gestured with great, dirty paws at his scorched hair and dripping clothes.

"Come here an' report. You ain't much, that's a fact, but you're somethin'. How's she stand now, down below? Out with it!"

"I'm sore afeared—"

"Cut that! Give us th' facts!"

"A-weel, New East's guid as gone, an' only sax hours after blawin', at that." The intonation of the fire-boss was ugly. "Old Sump's like t' go, I tolt ye a'ready. An' after that—"

"I know!" interrupted Connover sharply. "We got to stop this thing, an' stop it quick. Once she gets goin', she'll maybe take weeks to put out."

"Months!" roared MacTavish. He slapped one hand on Connover's desk and smeared the other over his red jowls, lining them with dirty marks. "Months? Years, mayhap, wi' the richness o' it— like Baker's Creek Number Five, ye'll mind?"

Vandenburgh stood up and made as though to speak, but changed his mind and closed his traplike jaws with a click. He turned and walked over to the office window, stood there, and gazed out; a little round-shouldered, un¬ gainly creature, flint-faced, with gray, impenetrable eyes.

"Years!" the Scot reiterated fiercely. "Spite o' vent-holes an' brattices, spite o' wallin' up wi' masonry, spite o' hell! Once she gets her head—"

Vandenburgh seemed not to listen. He seemed only to gaze out across the smoky inclosure, with hard eyes. In his heart blazed a fire of rage and hate hotter than the coal fire down there, very deep down, two thousand feet below him— rage at the inanimate, cursed, fiery nature of the Pit— hate of the dumb stupidity of what to him were jabbering, flat-faced, foreign beasts, the toilers in his mine.

His glance swept over the darkening place, with bonfires blazing here and there and smoke rising contorted from the headgear of the shaft. It took in the decrepit tipple on its gaunt, high stilts; the cables, runs, and wheels standing up in fantastic skeleton outline against the menace of the November sky.

Powdered with jetty dust was everything above; slimed with a greasy, sticky mud everything below. The mine-owner noted with supreme contempt his workmen clotted in a shifting group about the hoisting-lift— the figures wallowing hither or yon through the mud, all blurred, all made unreal and grotesque by the drifting smoke-clouds wherein the arcs winked feebly.

Beyond the engine-house, he knew, beyond the pump-house and the colliery fence, outside the restraining barb-wire, a great mob was swarming with frantic, ant-hill eagerness— a mob waiting its cheap dead. He heard the tumult of that mob, did Vandenburgh, but his lip only curled.

As he looked, he listened too. He harkened every word that Connover and the fire-boss were saying. That was a favorite trick of Vandenburgh's. It had gained him much, the ability (when vital things were forward) to slip indifference on as one puts on a coat. No word escaped him.

"An' so ye'll see, sir," MacTavish was saying, "ye'll see we've done a' we can do, save juist that. I've even got a gang o' fufty, in ten-minute shifts, wi' hose on th' breast o' Lower Seven. But 'tis no guid, in my opeenion, She's gainin' steady, worrkin' deeper—"

"The men are all out, you say?"

"Ou aye— that is, sir, sax-an'-forty o' th' staumrel knurls was doon, ye'll onderstand. Weel, thirty-two's came up alive, in th' cage. Nine's deid. That'll mak' one-an'-forty, eh? Five unaccounted for. There'll be three o' them in Eight, I'm thinkin', an' twa in Sump. But, do ye no see?" and MacTavish rapped impatiently on the table with his filthy nail. "Do ye no onderstand? Th' three wull be dead lang syne. Whoosh, mun! 'Tis fair a furrnace the noo, I'm tellin' ye!"

"Yes, yes. But how about the two in Sump?"

"Oh, them? You mean that Ba'thkus eejit, I'm thinkin', and Antan What's-his Nameo-vitch. A weel, seems like they'll be deid, too. Must be, eh?"

"How so?"

MacTavish leered and steadied himself against the table.

"They'll be deid th' noo!" he declared stubbornly.

"Are they?"

"Ou aye. They— "

"You're a damned liar! I know by th' way you answer, you!"

"Na, na, Maister Connover, sir! Deid? Why, for sure— or, if they ain't, forby, there'll be no whit's th' dufference!"

Connover shot a piercing glance at the fireboss. MacTavish could not meet the look. His bleary eyes shifted, and he stammered into incoherence.

"You lie, Mack, an' you know it! There's a lot you ain't tellin' me. Come, spit it out!"

"Hunkies!" bellowed the Scot, with sudden blind rage. "Damn, chancy, jabberin' brutes, th' lot!" A withering fury blazed up in his drunken soul. " Hunkovitches! Likes o' them as sets off mines wi' their everlastin' nonsense! No safety-lamp but they can start a blaze wi'! No rules that they ll gie heed to!..."

His fists were swinging now; the eyes were rolling in his head.

"Likes o' them as burrns up coal by million dollars' worth— ties up th' pits— throws white men oot frae warkin', by th' thousan'! Alive, them twa? Aye, damn their Rooshian bones, alive— which they'd nae been, by God, no, not one, if I'd my way wi' 'em! Alive, doon in Old Sump, an' rap-rap- rappin' on th ' rail, though I misdoot if any leevin' soul has heerd 'em but juist mysel', an' me th' lunatic t' tell it! Rap-rap- rappin'— for why? For men like us, white men, t' risk guid lives—"

"MacTavish!"

Connover sprang up and faced the fire-boss. His chair clattered backward. The Scot remained open-mouthed, panting with the lust of murder.

"Mack, that's enough! You skunk! Say, for two cents I'd— I'd—"

"Hold on there, Mr. Connover," said a voice, a dry, sharp, colorless voice. The superintendent found himself facing Vandenburgh.

"You mean?"

"I mean this, Mr. Connover, that every ques- tion has two sides. Look at both, in this one, if you please." The mine-owner's courtesy was pungent. " I mean this, that we know now just where we stand and just how to choose our course—"

"Choose? You — there's a— choice what to do?"

"Of course. From what MacTavish here says, we've got to act quick or the whole of Cumberland's likely to go up in smoke. If we take this thing in hand at once, if we flood the lower levels now—"

"But, my God! There's men down in Old Sump— living men!"

"Only two. Only one, maybe. They can't be saved, anyhow, with the fire all ahead of them as it is in New East."

"Can't? How about Number Nine manway? Put on a big gang there, cut through from the adit to the old showdown tunnel, and then—"

"How long would that take?"

"Only till to-morrow morning!"

"By which time we'd have lost thousands of tons, and the fire would have gained such headway— you see? No, decidedly not. MacTavish here is right, for once. You're wrong."

Vandenburgh smiled. It was a dry slit of a smile, cracking his beardless face into myriad puckers.

"You're wrong, Mr. Connover. Good intentions, and all, but bad judgment, very. Flood the mine, by all means. Yes, call up O'Donnell, please. Have the pumps started. Then—"

"Living men!"

"See here, Connover." The mine-owner's voice got fine and cold as a razor-edge. "See here, don't be Utopian. We're all practical men here, I hope. Don't be a fool! Why, man, if you were down there, trapped, and those beasts were up here, and if by flooding the mine they could put ten cents a day more onto their cards, d'you suppose they'd hesitate? Not much!"

"Living men, I tell you!" Connover's protest rose harsh, unyielding. "Idiot! How about all these other thousands of living men, eh? these other thousands that'll be thrown out of work, that'll starve, if this thing goes on? How about my duty to them? How about my duty to my stock-holders? To Christ Church, with its five hundred and sixty shares in Cumberland? How about the widows and children that look to Cumberland for their living from the dividends? We've got to choose, I tell you, and choose quick! If the mine burns out and the midwinter dividends are passed, what'll I have to meet them with?"

Vandenburgh came close up to the desk. He had a pencil in his hand. He rapped with it upon the desk, as though to drive his meaning into Connover's skull.

"Meet them?" asked Connover, in a daze.

"Yes, meet them! What'll I have to meet my duty with? My duty as one of the men into whose hands God has given the property interests of this country? What, eh? Words, just words! Words won't pay dividends! Words won't—"

"By the living Lord!" cried Connover, and his clenched fist rose in air. "By the living Lord, so long's I'm superintendent of Cumberland there'll be no men drowned for dividends! Once the men are all out, all right, start the pumps. But out they're cornin' first! I'll put two hundred men to work, three hundred—"

"Rot! Those pumps, I've got to start at once; you hear? Call up O'Donnell; call him quick!"

"What?"

"You don't understand English, eh?" sneered Vandenburgh. "I said, start those pumps!"

"No, by Jesus!"

The mine-owner laughed outright. "Oh, yes, you will," he mocked. "You will! I just crook my finger, here, and things are done."

"This won't be done!"

"And why not, please?" His voice grew soft again, and fine.

" Because— because when O'Donnell knows— when the men know—"

"Oh, but they aren't going to know, you see. Who'll tell them?"

"Who? Well, James R. Connover, that's who!"

"Ha, ha! Hardly! You won't leave this office till it's all over. And then what? Who's to prove it? Who's to believe it or even listen to such a story? You know! Nobody! It'll be your word against mine, here, and MacTavish's. Why, man, it's preposterous. Don't be a driveling fool!"

Vandenburgh leaned across the table and picked up a burnt match in his sleek fingers.

"Don't you realize," he gibed, "don't you know that I can break you like that?" He snapped the bit of wood. "Don't you know that if I say so—"

Connover glanced round like a trapped lion. His eyes, wide with horror, felt on the telephone. Useless to try for that, he knew; insane even to think of it. He looked at the door, gaging its distance.

Vandenburgh saw the look.

"Now, now!" he shrilled, his mask of self-restraint slitting and tearing away in rags of passion. "Now, there, no foolishness!"

But already Connover was round the table, rushing for the door.

"Stop that lunatic!" screamed the magnate.

Up in front of Connover rose Burr MacTavish, his brute face empurpled with drink, with fury, with race-hatred and the long-pent bitterness of spite. Connover lashed out at him, but the man dodged. Then, suddenly, something that crushed, something that annihilated, smote Connover on the head.

Shrieking, he flung up both his arms, and fell.

Vandenburgh, laughing, dropped the pipe-wrench he had struck with, and reached for the telephone.

iv

THE FLOOD from the gigantic over-driven bull-pumps caught Juozas (screeching with sudden agonies of horror) right at the face of the chamber. It caught Antan, too, but that did not matter, for Antan had been dead an hour.

But Juozas the Litvak, husband of the flat-faced Katre, father of the little Domukas, had to die as a rat dies when its trap is soused beneath the water in a tub, with stones laid on to keep the creature down. You have seen that, eh? The rat swimming, swimming under water, with a fine silvery line of bubbles pouring from its nose and mouth as the bursting lungs refuse to hold? Then, kicking, writhing, palpitating, growing still, with glazed eyes and upturned lip that shows the fangs? Only a rat! A beast! Juozas had to die a rat's death.

He made a game fight of it, though, Juozas did; very game, considering his weakness and exhaustion— astonishingly game! When the loud waters first began pouring in, before the main flood burst upon him, he gathered up the body of Antan and tried to struggle up the sloping fore-breast. In some vague and stupid way of his own he thought maybe to save the body till "they" should come— for would "they" not come before it was too late?

Not for long, though, he held the body. In roared the deluge, frothing, leaping, crushing down roof-props, twisting tram-rails like bits of string. In it lashed, hurling forward on its lip a mass of timbers, ties, all manner of debris— a black, cold, foul, irresistible torrent, whipped to frenzy by its long fall, by its repulse at the heading of the cut, by its swirl through the gangway into the chamber. Round and round it boiled. From Juozas' clutch it dragged the body of the Polish boy.

Up in front of Connover rose Burr MacTavish, his brute face empurpled with drink, with fury, with race-hatred and the long-pent bitterness of spite. Connover lashed out at him, but the man dodged. Then, suddenly, something that crushed, something that annihilated, smote Connover on the head.

Shrieking, he flung up both his arms, and fell.

Vandenburgh, laughing, dropped the pipe-wrench he had struck with, and reached for the telephone.

iv

THE FLOOD from the gigantic over-driven bull- pumps caught Juozas (screeching with sudden agonies of horror) right at the face of the chamber. It caught Antan, too, but that did not matter, for Antan had been dead an hour.

But Juozas the Litvak, husband of the flat-faced Katré, father of the little Domukas, had to die as a rat dies when its trap is soused beneath the water in a tub, with stones laid on to keep the creature down. You have seen that, eh? The rat swimming, swimming under water, with a fine silvery line of bubbles pouring from its nose and mouth as the bursting lungs refuse to hold? Then, kicking, writhing, palpitating, growing still, with glazed eyes and upturned lip that shows the fangs? Only a rat! A beast! Juozas had to die a rat's death.

He made a game fight of it, though, Juozas did; very game, considering his weakness and exhaustion — astonishingly game! When the loud waters first began pouring in, before the main flood burst upon him, he gathered up the body of Antan and tried to struggle up the sloping fore-breast. In some vague and stupid way of his own he thought maybe to save the body till "they" should come— for would "they" not come before it was too late?

Not for long, though, he held the body. In roared the deluge, frothing, leaping, crushing down roof-props, twisting tram-rails like bits of string. In it lashed, hurling forward on its lip a mass of timbers, ties, all manner of debris— a black, cold, foul, irresistible torrent, whipped to frenzy by its long fall, by its repulse at the heading of the cut, by its swirl through the gangway into the chamber. Round and round it boiled. From Juozas' clutch it dragged the body of the Polish boy.

Then higher up climbed Juozas, and higher still in the black dark, up the loose coal, with the loud waters at his heels, the thunder of its tumult in his ears. A handhold broke. He plunged backward. His screams became only a bubbling in the maelstrom as he, too, swept round and round the chamber, together with the body and the other refuse, in a cold, black, hideous dance of death.

It was a dream, then, to Juozas; just a wild nightmare, mercifully short, from which the miner knew there never would be any more awakening; a nightmare, monstrous, unreal, yet flashed through here and there by some coherent thought, some perception— as of Katré and the little Domukas standing in the rain and the sticky mud outside the colliery gate, waiting, watching with the others in that big crowd as things were carried out under blankets, things that had been men, husbands, fathers. He saw it all quite clearly for a second; then it faded and the kinetoscope-film of his mind grew dim and blurred, till up flashed a scrap of prayer in his own Lithuanian tongue, "Oh, Dieve!..." and after that a wild, terrible, agonizing lust for life, for a sight once more of the sun, which set him fighting starkly, thrashing with supreme abandon as he whirled. Then that left him, and he sank, passive, swirled to the surface, sank again.

What was this torturing thought, this wild wonder? He knew; it was, Why had "they" failed to come, to save?... Juozas' last upgathering of reason flung itself upon that problem. Suddenly he knew! They had not heard his knocking on the rail!

"Dey not hear me!... Nobody hear— God!— nobody, only You! You hears me— even ven I don't to knock!..."

A whirling beam hit Juozas on the head. All thought ceased, all consciousness, all fear, all pain. Juozas ceased absolutely. Even the bubbles of his last breath, silvery bubbles in the black waters, made no sound above the droning roar of the great flood.

But for a long, long time his body, Antan's body, the shoring-timbers, tramway-ties, and all the other worn-out, broken, useless, unproductive rubbish whirled round and round and round together in the dark.

________________

10: The Snake Strikes

Lieutenant Edgar Gardiner

Oriental Stories, Winter 1932

The author contributed a small number of stories to Oriental Stories Magazine and Weird Tales, 1929-1932. Nothing else can be found.

TROWBRIDGE sahib stamped up and down the sultry Thana room and cursed, while the panting village chowkidar leaned against the doorway watching listlessly. Truly, these sahibs of the Thana [police station] were not as other men: why should the news of a dacoity [robbery] so enrage this one? True, in the village he had left at dawn were five newly dead, and the dacoits had retreated beyond the river with much gold and silver and jewels. What of that?

Old Aghad Khan had more than enough and to spare— that is, he did have before the dacoits had extracted from him the secret of the hiding-place of his wealth by the simple expedient of roasting the soles of his feet over a small fire. Those bobs had plucked him as clean as a crow. But Aghad Khan needed that wealth no more, for when the chowkidar had last glimpsed old Aghad he had been quite thoroughly dead if the hillman were any judge— the strangling silken cord of Thugee drawn tight about his skinny neck or the dagger protruding from between his lean ribs had either of them been quite enough to assure such a state. And now Aghad Khan's soul roasted in the fires of Jehanum quite as his feet had roasted in the dacoits tongue-loosening flames. Again the chowkidar spat languidly into the dust without.

"Bahadur!" the reader of the vernacular, crouched upon his mat with the litter of papers disorderly over its entire surface, dared to interrupt the mighty sahib's explosive wrath: "Bahadur [son of a king], a letter to the Inspector-General will bring a troop of sowars—"

"Curse the Inspector-General!" And again Trowbridge sahib was off in a more fiery display of verbal pyrotechnics than ever. Fresh fuel was added to that tirade because Trowbridge knew that such a letter should have been written days ago when the outrages first began, instead of trying to cope with the situation single-handed, aided only by the scant dozen of native policemen under him.

Each sultry day brought the news of a fresh outrage against the majesty of the British Raj; of new robberies in some lonely village far away from the one where his men had expected it and where they had lain in wait. Each day brought fresh ridings of violent death while the villages of the district seethed with mutinous unrest.

Trowbridge sahib looked past the listless chowkidar, and through the open doorway at the thread of shining river shimmering in the heat waves, a mere thread of a stream now, in wider wastes of shifting sand. A mere thread, that grew daily more shallow until it might now be forded in a dozen spots, while all up and down its length boats could be requisitioned on either bank to convey a party across—and his policemen be none the wiser.

He looked across at that native state lying on the other shore, where hill-men swarmed under a petty native's rule, where trouble and thieves bred like rabbits, keeping the British Raj awake of nights and making his own life an intolerable burden.

It was Trowbridge sahib's first setback in all his brilliant administrative career and he was properly explosive. Curses on the dacoits! Curses on a native buffer state whose every inhabitant was a potential trouble-maker, a thief if but given a chance, who had only to recross the river borderline and secure complete immunity! It looked almost as though the robbers were watching the Thana with eagle eyes. It seemed they were quite able to anticipate his moves— or there was a traitor among his own small force who was aiding them!

At that paralyzing thought Inspector Trowbridge stopped short. In his mind he ran over the few natives under his orders. Not one but whom he would trust with life itself. Not one but had been with him for years, following him from one district to another as he was shifted from post to post, each more difficult and trying than the last, until his superiors had sent him to this lonely hill district where so many had failed. And now, was he, too, doomed to failure here? Must he now call for the assistance of a troop of sowars; he who always before had been so self-sufficient? He stopped short and his face grew haggard.

As he pondered over that arresting thought there was a stir in the sultry heat without. Trowbridge heard the sharp orders of dismissal, heard the men scattering to their quarters behind the Thana. It was Mahbub Ali and his four men just returning from their fruitless night watch at the ford by the village of Bakhadur, where they had lain all the night in the darkness because Mahbub had been certain that the dacoits would pass that way. Instead, they had made the night hideous in another village a dozen miles away.

And Mahbub had been so certain of his information, gathered in the devious ways that only he could have told had he been willing to do so. He had promised the Sikar Bahadur that this time they would not fail; promised it with a flash of white teeth through black beard! And Mahbub above all his men was fitted to know. In that damnable, trouble-breeding state beyond the river he had been born and reared. There he numbered friends and relatives by the score— Trowbridge's mouth dropped open. Was Mahbub Ali the traitor? Impossible! And yet—

The doorway darkened suddenly.

Mahbub Ali strode in, shouldering the village watchman carelessly out of his way, saluting his superior smartly. Between these two lay long years of close association, of innumerable problems solved by the native's sharp wits and his superior's unquestioning faith and prompt, efficient backing. Between them lay the ceremony of blood brotherhood. No! By all the gods of Hind! It was not Mahbub Ali who was a traitorous dog! Trowbridge sahib returned the salute and smiled grimly.

"Again the trap failed, Sikar Bahadur!" Mahbub's voice was weary and disappointed.

"And again the wolves struck, and far away!'' Trowbridge retorted. In swift words he told of this latest indignity. He watched Mahbub's rage rise in gathering blackness.

"We be watched! Day and night some one spies upon us, oh my friend!" Mahbub growled the words. He grew tense and grim with sudden resolve. "Have I the permission of the Presence to depart?" he asked softly.

Trowbridge considered.

"Surely, you would not leave me now, Mahbub!'' he said at last.

"The Presence knows what is in my mind," Mahbub went on simply. "Mabbub Ali will go, nor will any of the servants of the British Raj see him soon again. He would go to visit in the hills where he was born."

"But, damme, man! You can't Leave me like this! We've got to stamp out these dacoities, and at once! Already they have gone on too long. Already the might of the Raj is a jest among these hill people. Soon they will rise against it— refuse to pay their taxes— the red flame of open rebellion will flare along the border— troops will pour in, leaving waste and ruin wherever they go! My service, all my work, will be undone! And what of your own long years under the Raj? What of the inspectorship that is almost within your hands? Mahbub, by God! You can't do it!"

Mahbub cast a single significant look at the open-mouthed reader of the vernacular crouched upon his mat, a glance that took in the languidly insolent hillman chowkidar, the village watchman, and abruptly Trowbridge sahib calmed.

"Very well, then! Come into my office!" he growled.

Mahbub dosed the door softly behind him and waited a moment with his ear pressed closely against its panels.

"Nay! Oh, Trowbridge sahib, it is no jest! Mahbub Ali the sub-inspector goes on leave and none knows whither!" He held up a hand, arresting his superior's wrathful utterance.

"There be spies!" he whispered. "I know not if they be among these dogs of the villages, or among our own men," he hurried on. "Therefore Mahbub Ali goes. But in his stead—"

"You are right, Mahbub." Trowbridge raised his head, his eyes hopeful again. "But something must happen very soon. If another outrage occurs I must call in other help. Perhaps it's too late already— God! Man, we can't fail now! At all costs we must stamp this out. Revolt! And that's just what that damned snake across the border wants! Open revolt! Unlimited raids! Right now he is accepting foreign gold to start trouble along this border!"

At the words Mahbub Ali seemed to change.

"I go— and at once, Trowbridge sahib!" he said insolently. "It is not for you to ask the reason. I am a free man! I do not choose to stay! Pay me now and have done!" He leaned across the flat-topped desk, a boastful insolent Afghan in every line of him.

Trowbridge gasped at his sudden change— gasped, and cursed viciously.

"All right!" he gritted. Hastily he signed an order, filled it out with brief references to the Thana records, and thrust it into the outstretched hand that waited to receive it. "And don't ever let me see your filthy carcass around here again," he finished.

Without a word Mahbub took the order, but every line of his departing figure was eloquent of wordless insult as he shouldered past the reader and the village headman of Bakhadar who were entering, who must have heard every word that had just passed between them!

Open revolt was very near. The Inspector knew it from the almost contemptuous and unreasonable demands of the headman, no less than from the changed bearing of his reader. One more raid from across the border— his brow grew moist as he thought of such an end to all his hopes and plans. Ruin, complete and devastating! He damned the bobs of that buffer state; he damned Mahbub Ali, root and branch— Mahbub Ali, his trusted friend and subordinate, who had failed him now in his hour of need. What had gotten into the man, anyhow? His action was quite likely to be the last straw — the spark that would start all that hill country to blazing with the horrors of a border war!

Mahbub Ali packed his few belongings swiftly and with care, mounted his horse and departed toward that ford from which he had so lately come. Behind him he heard the stifled whispers of his astounded fellows, knew that already the entire village had been apprised of what had taken place. He smiled grimly into his black beard as, head high, he rode swaggeringly away. Sudden as had been his plans, all had gone without a hitch. Yet Mahbub Ali, sub-Inspector, trusted right hand to Trowbridge sahib, never reached the ford.

Instead, there came a very holy man indeed, one almost naked and exceedingly filthy, one quite as insolent as any hill-man, who squatted close beside the crossing and mutely held out his begging-bowl to every traveler. Even to the police who came at dusk to guard the crossing, he held out the bowl and took with wordless disdain the pice they carelessly condescended to drop therein before he hobbled toward the village.

Though he was not there, yet he knew when those troopers were withdrawn upon swift, sudden orders from Trowbridge sahib, knew by morning light how the whole Thana force had prevented by the barest of margins a recurrence of the events of the night before at another village only a few miles away.

With unheeding ears he heard the buzz of gossip in the village over the event, saw the watchful wariness when one of the hated policemen strode arrogantly through the shops with a wave of swift silence preceding and following his passage.

At midday he begged his way across the river to the other bank when Mahmoud Khan crossed it hurriedly. Though Mahmoud was a land-owner and quite the richest man of those parts, the bowl remained empty as the beggar held it out to him, nor would Mahmoud pay for the holy one's passage among his own few servants before he hurried away on his own affairs. And that unregenerate one grew loud and wrathful when the holy man would follow in the dust of the road asking shrilly for largess, until the land-owner ordered one of his shrinking servants to beat the holy man.

None among them dared so affront the Gods, however, and Mahmoud and his party disappeared in a cloud of dust toward the nearest village, leaving the beggar to pursue his aimless way in peace.

Dusk was falling swiftly when the holy one came to the village. Another such would have made haste to fill his bowl at the tables of the villagers who wished to acquire merit, for the evening meal was being eaten. Yet this yogi preferred to mortify his flesh, or perhaps he was doing penance for some sin and durst not eat. He carelessly passed the hovels, he skirted the inn, making his way through the blackness now as chough he knew just what he was about.

Like a monstrous snake he crawled upon his belly to the flimsy wall of a hut set some distance beyond the others, before whose door horses stamped and snapped under the care of a single syce. Mahmoud's horse was there, and others; yet the holy one had no eyes for them.

In the black shadow of the wall he lay with his ear pressed against the frail barrier. He stiffened as he heard Mahmoud's voice.

"Mahbub Ali is gone and in disgrace. This very day he went toward the hills where he was born and the white sahib spoke many bitter curses against him!"

Another voice broke in but the listener could not distinguish the words.

"That could not have been the work of Mahbub, may the Djinns fly away with him! I tell you Mahbub is gone and none knows where. But the Inspector-sahib was most bitter!" It was Mahmoud again.

The listener smiled fleetingly.

"Tomorrow, then? It is agreed?" Mahmoud speaking once more. "But who shall tell the Inspector-sahib at the Thana?"

"Who but thyself, Mahmoud?" The owner of that coarse voice must have moved closer, for the words came clearly to the listening ears.

And now Mahmoud was protesting; he seemed fearful lest his traitorous hand show too clearly when all was over.

"Who but thyself, indeed?" Again that unknown voice. "As you are to profit, why should you not also share in the danger? You say your note is due at the money-lender's and you beg of me to destroy it!" The holy man stiffened expectantly. "And therefore, you yourself shall send the Inspector-sabib the message that will hurry his men far away. Or go with it yourself, for all I care!"

Again Mahmoud protested vehemently.

"Enough!" the other rasped. "That you must do; but, stay— Many years have I known you! Once you were wealthy. You owned much land. Bit by bit it has gone, swallowed up by your careless squanderings. Now nothing is left. In all your house is now not enough to tempt a chupperbund across the river. You shall do as I say or we come to the village not at all. Then how will you satisfy the money-lender when he seeks an accounting? But before we go on to the money-lender's house we will even stop with you. We will batter down your door, and what tale you shall tell the Inspector-sabib afterward is no concern of mine. But how shall he suspect Mahmoud then, who also suffered the loss of all his valuables because the men of the Raj were far away?" The voice ended in a sneering chuckle.

The holy man waited to hear no more. Like a shadow he was gone, past the snorting horses, past the village settling down to rest. Unseen, he crossed the ford with strange agility and strength for such a holy one. And in the early watches of the morning the Inspector-sahib was awakened by a stone tossed within his sleeping-room.

IT was a sultry noontide when Mahmoud dismounted before the Thana door and tossed his reins carelessly to a waiting servant. Trowbridge sahib, pale and frowning, pacing restlessly to and fro, greeted him shortly, and listened to his story.

"That bears out what I heard this morning, Mahmoud," he said. "I shall send one of my men to the ford and order chose six men to where you have told me they will prove more useful. But wait! You are returning now to Bakhadar? By your hand I shall send that message— will you do this thing for me, Mahmoud?"

The land-owner nodded slowly, veiling his eyes lest the Inspector-sahib see the eagerness reflected there. What fools were these white sahibs after all! Not at all shrewd as was—

He stopped. What if that other failed to keep his promise? But almost at once he reassured himself. After all, what did it matter? Mahmoud would send away all his servants for the night. There was a marriage feast in that village across the river, he recollected— it would afford a capital excuse.

If the chupperbunds passed him by, he could himself hack open his own door! Who would be there then to tell just what men had done the deed or what they had taken? And now this foolish white one was sending by Mahmoud's own hand the order that would profit Mahmoud so greatly! He salaamed low and hastened away on galloping hoofs, leaving Trowbridge to resume his restless pacing, and he quite failed to see that other messenger who followed Mahmoud's course shortly after him.

Dusk fell and deepened swiftly into night. The ford was deserted. The six policemen on guard there had left hurriedly shortly after Mahmoud had delivered Trowbridge's written message to them, making for the next ford six miles farther down the stream—six, no, seven mounted men. Another had joined them as they left the village of Bakhadar behind.

The last of Mahmoud's servants had gone away, rejoicing at such unexpected generosity; his big house was deserted and forlorn. Only Mahmoud sat alone in the great audience chamber amid the frayed and tarnished furniture. He smoked and brooded glumly as the hours dragged, from time to time glancing anxiously behind him as though he sensed another's presence.

But that could not be; the women's wing was deserted— none had lived there since his aged mother had sickened and died. Mahmoud had never taken to himself a wife, preferring to sip of the pleasures of many wells instead.

That stealthy rustle was only a mongoose after a snake; those creaking noises were only aged boards settling into new places as the old building shifted wearily into new disintegration.

What if, after all this careful planning, those dacoits did not come? Or, coming, what if they failed to gather up, among other things, his notes at the money-lender, now past due, and for which Mohammed Singh was even now pressing him? What if they took them and held them over his head to enforce ever-growing fresh demands?

Mahmoud tortured himself into a sweat of cold fear as he sat and waited. He lit the great round-wicked lamp, set so incongruously among all that Oriental setting under its ugly red shade.

He should have assured himself of the blessings of the Gods on these affairs! He should have given alms— a few— to that holy man the day before instead of ordering his servants to flog him!

A loud groan startled him— Mahmoud jumped. His eyes, wide with fear, looked everywhere about. He saw nothing unusual, nothing out of place. Again that groan, eerily dismal.

On the door without, a swift knocking, loud and imperious. It stilled suddenly as Mahmoud sat in frozen torpor. The sound of sharp blows—the flimsy boards were splintering under the onslaught of those keen blades— the bars gave way suddenly. Into the room poured a dozen fierce bearded forms— a hoarse voice shouted in Mahmoud's ear:

"Mahmoud! We have come even as I promised. The ford was unguarded. My men saw the Thana servants leave before the dusk. We go now to the money-lender's—"

The speaker's eyes took one glance into Mahmoud's fear-convulsed features.

"Nay! We harm thee not!... What is it, then? Speak, dog!"

A single shot rang out and the great lamp shattered into nothingness, the flame flickered and expired in one last gasp.

"Police!" a strange voice cried. At once it was answered in chorus by the bearded ruffians crowding around Mahmoud. Like frightened rats they blundered about in the blackness of the room, their weapons drawn, stumbling against the crowded furniture. As flesh touched flesh they stabbed viciously, and now groans were added to their curses and the din they made amid the smashing furniture. They found the yawning blackness of the open door at last. Stabbing and slashing, they fought their way clear. In their fright they forgot their horses tethered a little space away in an alley. As fast as they could run they hurried for the ford.

"THE ford of Bakhadar at last," Trowbridge sahib muttered to his six followers... "And it lacks a few minutes of midnight," he added as he squinted at the illuminated dial of his watch. "We are just about on time as that note suggested. Now keep a close watch on both banks, my children. Fire at once on any men, mounted or on foot, who seek to cross— though I'm blessed If I know what it's all about," he muttered to himself. "Perhaps I'm a blasted fool to pay any attention at all to an unsigned note... But, damme! Mahmoud came to me as the note said he would— and he told me exactly what the note led me to expect.... I've a hunch that it is the read goods! But what the devil is in the wind, anyhow?"

From the silent village came a confused chorus of wild shouts, the sound of swiftly running feet, drawing momentarily nearer. Among the troopers at his side sounded the click of weapons being cocked, as forms loomed through the thick dusk, their faces turned fearsomely behind them.

The orange flames of the rifles' discharge stabbed through the darkness; followed shrieks, groans; a body plumped to the ground almost at Trowbridge sahib's feet. The white glow of his flashlight burst full upon a bearded figure.

"By the Lord Harry! A hill-man! A raider from across the border! God! It's the Snake himself!"

In the village a glow rose swiftly above the huddled huts; leaping flames roared skyward, bathing all the country in their ruddy glow. Showers of sparks swirled upward into the billowing smoke clouds.

"Hell!" Trowbridge's voice was violent. "That's Mahmoud's house!"

By the sinister glow of the flames his troopers were bending over four huddled forms that would never move again— hill-men all— raiders from that buffer state beyond the thread-like river. Among themselves they were calling off names as they recognized one after another of those dead— not one but was a desperate character— not one but was wanted by the British Raj for dark lawless deeds.

A naked man came slowly toward Trowbridge sahib from the direction of the fire that was now sinking again almost as fast as it had arisen, having thoroughly gutted that old ruin. The roof crashed in with another shower of dancing sparks and another glowing burst of dazzling golden flames. In the light of that glowing burst the naked man bent briefly over the dead bodies, and now Trowbridge sahib saw that it was a yogi, incredibly filthy, and therefore doubly holy.

"The Snake!" that holy one shouted. "And three others! Allah be praised! We have them all!" The holy one turned to the astounded Inspector. Smartly he saluted.

"No more need Trowbridge sahib fear the coming of the night and the dacoits together! Here are the last of them— and their leader! A dozen there were. Now we have them all!"

"Mahbub!" Trowbridge shouted. "Mahbub Ali!... Twelve, you said? You killed eight of them? Alone and single-handed?" Awe was in his tones.

Mahbub Ali smiled, a curiously changed and altered Mahbub. Gone was the silky black beard of which he had always been so proud. Gone, too, was the spick and span uniform, the snowy turban. Here was only a fildiy beggar whose wild locks straggled out from under a dirty rag.

"Aye, Trowbridge sahib, it is I. I, who left the Presence to seek my kindred of the hills!" He smiled briefly. "Nor were they so hard to find. But I slew none— not one of those eight who perished with Mahmoud in his blazing house! In Mahmoud's deserted, rat-infested zenana I lay hidden. And when the chupperbunds appeared before him as their leader had promised I shot out the light. I called 'Police!' in a loud voice."

He chuckled softly as he remembered that wild death scramble of the dacoits.

"Then Siva, the Destroyer, worked her bloody will! In the sudden blackness those bobs thought all the hosts of the Raj had appeared against them. They thought each whom they brushed against was an enemy and all their knives were turned against their fellows. But four reached the door alive, of whom their leader was one, while the lamp that I had broken was now roaring and crackling amid Mahmoud's things that they had broken in their wild scramble. A roaring, crackling hell yawned behind them as they ran into your ready rifles at the ford and so to their death. No more shall these chupperbunds steal across the border in the black night, mocking the might of the Raj and the Presence. Soon all the border will be peaceful again. When the headmen of the villages shall learn of this feat of thine they shall fear the Raj and the Presence as never before!"

"Forgive me, Mahbub!" Trowbridge sahib's voice was husky, his outstretched hand shook. "I shall not forget. Forgive my hasty words—"

"They are already forgotten, oh my friend," Mahbub said softly. "What, then, is there to forgive?"

"I shall not forget," Trowbridge repeated softly. "In the morning I will write to the Inspector-General. Perhaps when I hear from him again you will no longer be sub-inspector—"

Mahbub swung about to the gaping policemen.

"By the beard of my father!" he roared loudly. "By all the Blessed Imams! Is this the way you cows keep watch?" He rushed at the six burly forms before them. "But no, my children! The need for that is past! Go you quickly and help the villagers! And drag those dead crows from where they roast in the flames, that the Presence may learn who they be and what manner of men are foolish enough to stand against him and the mighty Raj!"

____________________

11: The Lizard God

Charles J. Finger

1869-1941

All’s Well, or The Mirror Repolished Dec 1920

British-born American author of numerous books and stories. He lived for a time in Argentina prospecting for gold, and managing a sheep ranch.Then he settled in the USA as a writer.

IT IS NOT pleasant to have one's convictions disturbed, and that is why I wish I had never seen that man Rounds. He seems to have crossed my path only to shake my self-confidence. The little conversation we had has left me dissatisfied. I look upon my collection with less interest than I did. I am not as pleased with the result of my investigations as they appear in my monograph on "The Saurian Family of Equatorial America." Doubtless the mood that now possesses me will pass away, and I shall recover my equanimity. His story would have upset most men. Worse still was his unpleasant habit of interjecting strange opinions. Judge for yourself.

It was when passing through the Reptile room on my way to the study that I first saw him. I took him to be a mere common working man passing away an idle hour; one of the ordinary Museum visitors. Two hours later, I noticed that he was closely examining the lizard cases. Then later, he seemed interested in my collection of prints illustrating the living world of the ante-diluvian period. It was then that I approached him, and, finding him apparently intelligent, with, as it seemed, a bent towards lizards, and further, discovering that he had traveled in Peru and Colombia, took him to the study.

The man had some unusual habits. He was absolutely lacking in that sense of respect, as I may term it, usually accorded to one in my position. One who is a professor and curator becomes accustomed to a certain amount of, well, diffidence in laymen. The attitude is entirely natural. It is a tribute. But Rounds was not that way. He was perfectly at ease. He had an air of quiet self-possession. He refused the chair I indicated, the chair set for visitors and students, and instead, walked to the window and threw up the lower sash, taking a seat on the sill, with one foot resting on the floor and the other swinging. Thus, he looked as though he were prepared to leap, or to jump or run. He gave me the impression of being on the alert. Without asking permission, he filled and lit his pipe, taking his tobacco from a queerly made pouch, and using but one hand in the process.

"What I was looking for," he said, "is a kind of lizard. Yet it is not a lizard. It is too hard and thin in the body to be that. It runs on its hind legs. It is white. Its bite is poisonous. It lives in the equatorial districts of Colombia."

"Have you seen one?" I asked.

"No," was the reply. Then after a moment he asked, "Why?"

"Because there is no such living creature," I said.

"How do you know?" he said abruptly.

"The lizard group is thoroughly classified," I said. "There is nothing answering to that description. In the first place—"

"Does that make it non-existent? Your classification of what you know?" he interrupted.

"I have made a study of the Saurians," I said.

"No you haven't," he said. "You have read what other men have written and that is not the same thing."

"Really," I began, but he broke in.

"I mean to say that you have never been in any new equatorial country," he said. "Your manner shows that. You are too quiet. Too easy. Too sedentary. You would have been killed because of your lack of vigilance."

That is, as nearly as I can repeat and remember, the opening of the conversation. There was an air of challenge about the man that I found unpleasant. Of course I admitted the fact that I was not an explorer myself, and that mine was the humbler if more tedious task of collecting and arranging data. At that he said that in his opinion, organized expeditions were little more than pleasure jaunts taken at the public expense. His viewpoint was most extraordinary.

"Such an expedition," he said, "must fail in its main purpose because its very unwieldiness destroys or disperses the very things it was organized to study. It cannot penetrate the wilds; it cannot get into the dry lands. The very needs of the men and horses and dogs prevent that. It must keep to beaten tracks and in touch with the edge of civilization. The members of such an expedition are mere killers on a large scale, and to kill or to hunt a thing is to not know it at all. Further, the men in such expeditions are not hunters even. They are destroyers who destroy while keeping themselves in safety. They have their beaters. Their paid natives. Humbug! That's the only word to describe that kind of thing. Staged effects they have. Then they come back here to pose as heroes before a crowd of gaping city clerks."

I mentioned the remarkable results obtained by the Peary and Roosevelt expeditions and pointed to the fact that the specimens brought back and properly set up by efficient taxidermists, did, in fact, give the common people some notion of the wonders of animal life.

"Nothing of the kind," he said. "Look at that boa-constrictor you have out there. It is stuffed and in a glass case. Don't you know that in its natural surroundings you yourself would come mighty near stepping on one without seeing it? You would. If you had that thing set up as it should be, these museum visitors of yours would pass the case believing it was a mere collection of foliage. They wouldn't see the snake itself. See what I mean? Set up as they are in real life they'd come near being invisible."

The man walked up and down the study floor for half a minute or so, then paused at the desk and said:

"Don't let us get to entertaining one another though. But remember this, you only get knowledge at a cost. I mean to say that the man that would know something, can only get the knowledge at first hand. The people who wander around this junk shop that you call a museum, go out as empty headed as they came in. Consider. Say a Fiji islander came here and took back with him from the United States an electric light bulb, a stuffed possum, an old hat, a stalactite from the Mammoth cave, a sackful of pecan nuts, a pair of handcuffs, half a dozen photographs and a dozen packing cases full of things gathered from here and there, and then set the whole junk pile up under a roof in the Fiji Islands, what would his fellow Fijians know from that of the social life of this country. Eh? Tell me that?"

"You exaggerate," I protested. "You take an extreme point of view."

"I don't," he said.

His contradictions would have made me angry, perhaps, were they not made in such a quiet tone of voice.

"Take anything from its natural surroundings," he went on, "and it is meaningless. The dull-eyed men and women that wander through this Museum of yours are just killing time. There's no education in that kind of thing. Besides, what they see are dead things, anyway, and you can't study human nature in a morgue."

He resumed his seat on the window sill, then took from an inner pocket a leather wallet, and drew from that a photograph which he tossed across so that it fell on the desk before me. I examined it carefully. It had been badly developed and badly printed, and what was worse, roughly handled. But still, one could distinguish certain features.

It pictured the interior of a building. It was roofless, and above the rear wall was what I recognized as tropical vegetation, mainly by its wild luxuriance. In the center of the rear wall was what seemed to be a giant stone lizard, standing on its hind legs. The one foreleg that showed was disproportionately short. The body, too, was more attenuated than that of any lizard. The thing was headless and the statue, idol or whatever it was, stood on a pedestal, and before that again, seemed to be a slab of stone. Then my attention was caught by the head of the thing, which was to be seen in a corner. It was shaped roughly triangular. The jaws were broad at the base and the thing had, even in the photograph, something of the same repulsive appearance as the head of a vampire bat.

"It is the result of the imagination of some Indian," I said. "No post-diluvian Saurian ever existed of that size."

"Good God, man, you jump to conclusions," he said. "This is only a representation of the thing itself. Made in heroic size, so to say. But see here!"

He leaned over my shoulder and pointed to a kind of border that ran along the base of the pedestal. Examining closely, I made out a series of lizards running on their hind legs.

"They," he explained, "are cut into the stone. It is a sort of red sandstone. They are a little bigger than the thing itself as it is living. But look at this."

The particular spot to which he pointed was blurred and dirty, as though many fingers had pointed to it and I took the magnifying glass for closer inspection. Even then I only saw dimly as something that bore a resemblance to the carved figures.

"That," he said, "is as near as ever I came to seeing one of the little devils. I think it was one of them though I am not sure. I caught sight of it flashing across like a swiftly blown leaf. We took the picture by flashlight you see, so I'm not sure. Somerfield, of course, was too busy attending to his camera. He saw nothing."

"We might have another picture made," I said. "It would be interesting."

"D'ye think I'd be able to carry plunder around traveling as I was then?" he asked. "You see, I went down there for the Company I'm working for. I was looking out for rubber and hard woods. I'd worked from Buenaventura. From Buenaventura down to the Rio Caqueta and then followed that stream up to the water head, and then down the Codajaz. If you look at the map, you'll see it's no easy trip. No chance to pack much. All I wanted to carry was information. And there was only Somerfield along."

"But Somerfield— he, as I take it, was the photographer, was he not? Did he not take care of the negatives? It would not have been much for him to take care of."

"Well you see, he did take care of his negatives. But circumstances were different at the time. He had laid them away somewhere. After I killed him, I just brought away the camera and that was all."

Positively, I gasped at the audacity of the man. He said the words "I killed him," so quietly, in so matter of fact a way, that for the moment I was breathless. Like most other men, I had never sat face to face with one who had taken the life of another. Even soldiers, though they, we suppose, kill men, do it in a machine-like way. The killing is impersonal. The soldier handles the machine and it is the machine that kills. The individual soldier does not know whether he kills or not. That is why we are able to make much of the soldier, perhaps, I have thought since, though it never appeared to me in that light before I met Rounds. Actually, we are repelled at the thought of a man who kills another deliberately. If it were not so, as Rounds pointed out, we would make a hero of the public executioner. He should be as heroic a figure as a general. But as I tell you, at the moment, when Rounds said, "when I killed him," I was shocked. I had never before realized how violence was a thing apart from my life. I had looked at the representation of murder on the stage. I had read novels with murder as the mainspring. I had seen shootings and stabbings in moving pictures. Yet, not until that moment had I any suspicion that violence was so rare a thing and that most of our lives are far, far removed from it. Actually, I have never struck a man, nor has any man ever lifted his hand against me in anger.

It was, therefore, a startling thing to hear Rounds confess to having killed a fellow man. It was awesome. And yet, let me say, that at once I was possessed of a great desire to learn all about it, and down in my heart I feared that he would decide he had said something that he should not have said, and would either deny his statement or modify it in some way. I wanted to hear all the details. I was hugely interested. Was it morbidity? Then I came to myself after what was a shock, and awoke to the fact that he was talking in his quiet, even way.

"But those Tlingas held the belief, and that was all there was to it," he was saying.

I came to attention and said, "Of course. It is natural," for I feared to have him know that I was inattentive even for that short space, and waited for elucidations.

"It seems," he went on, "that the tribe was dying out. Helm, who first told me something of it at Buenaventura, was one of those scientists who have to invent a new theory for every new thing they were told of. He said it was either because of eating too much meat, or not enough. I forget which. There had been a falling off in the birth rate. The Tocalinian who had lived with them, and who joined us at the headwaters of the Codajaz, maintained that there had been too much inbreeding. So there was some arrangement by means of which they invited immigrants, as it were. Men from other neighboring tribes were encouraged to join the Tlingas. And they did. The Tlingas had a fat land and welcomed the immigrants. The immigrants on their part expected to have an easy time."

"That would make for racial improvement," I hazarded.

"Why?" he asked.

"The best from other lands would tend to improve their race. That was my idea when I spoke," I said.

He laughed quietly. "Something of the same idea that you foster here," he said. "I've laughed at that many's the time. America is this, that and the other; its people are inventive, intelligent, original, free, independent and all the rest of it because it is a result of the best blood of other lands. Eh? Lord, man, how you fool yourself! Can't you see that you would have a far better case if you deplored the fact that we are a result of the worse? All the fugitives, the poor, the ill-educated, the unfortunate, the ne'er-do-wells have been swarming here from Europe for two centuries. Can't you see that no man who could fight successfully against odds in his own country would emigrate? Can't you see that? If you said that we are a people that will allow any active minority to put anything over on us, because we are the result of generations of poor-spirited fugitives who couldn't fight for their personal freedom, you would be nearer the mark."

His argument of course was absurd, and at the moment I had no answer ready, though since I have thought of the thing I should have said. As Rounds talked, he grew quieter in his tone. He moved from his place on the window sill and sat on the corner of my desk. I had forgotten my uneasiness at being in the presence of one who had taken his fellow's life. He went on:

"When there's a falling birth rate, things change. There are manners and customs evolved that would seem strange to you. There come laws and religions, all made to match current requirements. Celibacy and sterility become a crime. Virginity becomes a disgrace, a something to be ridiculed."

"It seems impossible," I said.

"No," he said. "You have that in part. You ridicule what you call old maids, don't you?"

Again I was too slow with my reply. If I ever meet him again, I shall show him the fallacy of many of his arguments.

"Men with most children had the most to say. The childless were penalized, were punished. The sterile were put to death. There grew up a religion and a priesthood, ceremonials, sacrifices and rituals. And they had their god, in the shape of this lizard thing. Of course, like most other gods, it was more of a malevolent creature than anything else. Gods generally are if you will consider a little. I don't care what creed or religion gets the upper hand, it's Fear that becomes the power. Look around and see if I'm not right.

"Well, Somerfield and I walked into that kind of thing. Now like me, he had worked for the Exploration Company a good few years and had been to all kinds of places prospecting. Torres Straits, the Gold Coast, Madagascar, Patagonia. We prospectors have to get around in queer corners and the life's a dull one. All monotony. But Somerfield had queer notions. He worked at the job because he could make more money than at anything else and that gave him a chance to keep his family in Ohio in comfort. He was mighty fond of his family. Besides, the job gave him more time with the wife and kids than the average man gets. When he was at home, he was at home three months on end at times. That's better than the ordinary man. A man in a city, for example, leaves home early and gets home late, and then he's too grouchy what with the close air and one thing and another to find the children anything but an infernal nuisance. Now a man away from his home for a long spell on end really enjoys the company when he does get home, and they enjoy his company, too. Then, too, he does not get to messing into the affairs of the family. He's not the Lord Almighty and Supreme Court Judge all the time. Besides that, the wife and children get a kind of independence.

"Now this being so, Somerfield was what he was. He had ideas about religion. He was full of the notion that things are arranged so that if you live up to a certain code, you'll get a reward. 'Do right, and you'll come out right,' was one of his sayings. 'The wages of sin is death,' was another. Point out to him that virtue got paid in the same coin, and he'd argue. No use. In a way he was like a man who wouldn't walk under a ladder or spill salt. You know.

"Naturally, for him things were awkward at the Tlinga village. We stayed there quite a while, I should say. He lived in his own shack, cooking for himself and all that. He was full of ideas of duty to his wife and so on. I fell in with the local customs and took up with a sweetheart, and handled things so well that there was one of their ceremonials pretty soon in which I was central figure. Ista, it seems, made a public announcement. That would be natural enough with a tribe so concerned about the family birth rate. But it made me sorter mad to hear the natives everlastingly accusing Somerfield of being an undesirable. But they never let up trying to educate him and make him a Tlinga citizen. They were patient and persistent enough. On the other hand, I was looked on as a model young man, and received into the best society.

"About the time we were ready to strike west, Ista, that was my girl, told me that there would have to be a new ceremonial. She took my going in good part, for there was nothing more I could do. They were sensible enough to know that man was only an instrument in the great game as they understood it. Ista had led me out to a quiet place to put me next. I remember that vividly because of a little thing that happened that doesn't mean anything. I often wonder why resultless things sometimes stick in the mind. We were sitting at the base of a tall tree and there was a certain bush close by with bright red berries when they were unripe. They look good to eat. But when they ripened, they grew fat and juicy, the size of a grape, and of a liverish color. I thought that one of them had fallen on my left forearm and went to flick it off. Instead of being that, the thing burst into a blood splotch as soon as I hit it. That was the first time I had been bitten by one of those bugs. They are about the size of a sheep tick when empty, but they get on you and suck and suck, till they are full of your blood and size of a grape. Queer things, but ugly. Ista laughed as you would laugh if you saw a nigger afraid of a harmless snake. It's queer that it should be considered a joke when one fears something that another does not.

"But that has nothing to do with the story. What has, is that Ista wanted to tell me about the ceremonial. She did not believe in it at all. Privately, she was a kind of atheist among her people, but kept her opinions to herself. You must not think that because you see, hear or read of savage rites, that all the savages believe in those things. No sir. There is as much disbelief amongst them as with us. Perhaps more. They think things out. I might say that in a way they think more than the average civilized man. You see, a civilized child thinks for itself up until it is six or seven or so, and then the schools get hold of it, and from then on, it's tradition and believing what it's told to believe. That goes on through school life. Then at work, the man who would dare to vary on his own account is not wanted. So independent thought is not possible there. Work finished, it's the evening paper and editorial opinions. So really, man does not get much of a chance to think straight at any time. I guess if he did, the whole scheme would fall to pieces. That's why I say civilized man does not only not think, but perhaps can't think. His brains are not trained to it. Give the average man something with real, straight, original, first-hand thought in it, and he's simply unable to tackle it. His brain has not been cultivated. He wilts mentally. It's like putting the work of a man on a boy. Catch what I mean? Now a savage gets more of a chance. It was that way with Ista. She had thought out things for herself and had her own beliefs, but they were not the beliefs the Tlingas were supposed to hold. But after all she did not tell me much besides her own disbeliefs. When you think of it, no one can tell another much. What you know you have to discover alone. All she told me was what was going to be done, and that was about as disappointing as the information you might get about what would take place in initiation in a secret society. Some was lost in transmission.

"Well, at last the ceremonial started up with a great banging of drums and all that. It was a great scene, let me tell you, with the tumbled vegetation, glaringly colored as if a scene painter had gone crazy. There were the flashing birds— blood-colored and orange scarlet and yellow, gold and green. Butterflies, too,— great gaudy things that looked like moving flowers. And the noise and chatterings and whistlings in the trees of birds and insects. There were flowers and fruits, and eatings and speech-makings. As far as I could gather, the chief speakers were congratulating the hearers upon their luck in belonging to the Tlingas, which was the greatest tribe on earth and the favorite of Naol, the lizard god. We capered round the tribal pole, I capering with the rest of them of course. Somerfield took a picture of it. Then there was a procession of prospective mothers with Ista among them. Rotten, I thought it. Don't imagine female beauty, by the way, as some of the writers on savage life would have you imagine it. Nothing of the kind. White, black or yellow, I never saw a stark woman that looked beautiful yet. That's all bunk. Muscular and strong, yes. That's a kind of beauty in its way. True as God, I believe that one of the causes of unhappy marriages among white folk is that the lads are fed upon false notions about womanly beauty, and when they get the reality they think that they've captured a lemon.

"Presently the crowd quieted down and the men were set around in a semicircle with me and Somerfield at the end. Then a red-eyed old hag tottered out and began cursing Somerfield. She spat in his face and called him all outrageous names that came to her vindictive tongue. Luckily it was that he had been put next, and so, fore-warned, was able to grin and bear it. But Lord, how she did tongue-lash him. Then she took a flat piece of wood, shaped like a laurel leaf, which was fastened to a thin strip of hide, and showed him that. It was a kind of charm, and on it was cut one of the running lizards. She wanted him to rub it on his forehead. Of course with his notions of religion he wouldn't do it. That's natural. When she passed it to me, I did what she wanted done. I never was particular that way. Symbols mean nothing anyway and if fools are in the majority, it's no use stirring up trouble. It's playing a lie of course, but then that's the part of wisdom it seems to me, sometimes. It's in a line with protective coloring. You remember what I said about the proper mounting of your specimens don't you? Well, it's like that. That's why persecutions have never stamped out opinions nor prohibitions appetites. The wisest keep their counsel and go on as usual. The martyrs are the weak fools. But let's see. Where was I? Oh, yes. The old woman and the piece of wood.

"She began running from this one to that, kind of working herself up into a frenzy. Then she started to chant some old nonsense. There was a rhythm to it. She sang:

'Nao calls for the useless.'

"Then the rest of them would shout

'Nao calls. Nao calls.'

"There was a terrible lot of it. The main purport was that this Nao was the ruling devil or god of the place. It called for the sacrifice of the useless. Many men were needed so that the one should be born who would lead the Tlingas to victory. That was the tone of it, and at the end of every line she sang, the crowd joined in with the refrain.

'Nao calls. Nao calls.'

"Of course they became worked up. She handled them pretty much the same as a skillful speaker does things at a political meeting or an evangelist at a revival. The same spirit was there. Instead of a flag, there was the tribal pole. There was the old gag of their nation or tribe being the chosen one. I don't care where you go, there is always the same thing. Every tribe and nation is cock-sure that theirs is the best. They have the bravest and the wisest men and the best women. But I kept nudging Somerfield. It was hard on him. He was the Judas and the traitor and all that. 'Damn-fool superstition,' he muttered to me time and again. But of course he was a bit nervous, and so was I. Being in the minority is awkward. The human brain simply isn't strong enough to encounter organized opposition. It wears. You spend too much energy being on the defensive.

"After a time, when the song was done, the old hag seemed pretty well played out. Then she passed the piece of wood I told you of to a big buck, and he started to whirling it round and round. He was a skillful chap at the trick, and in a little had it whirling and screaming. Then presently some of the birds fell to noise making just as you will hear canaries sing when some one whistles, or women talk when a piano commences to play. I saw something of the same down in Torres Straits. They call it the Twanyirika there. In the Malay Peninsula they use something of the kind to scare the elephants out of the plantations. They've got it on the Gold Coast as well. It's called the Oro there. Really it's all over the world. I've seen Scotch herd boys use something like it to scare the cattle, and Mexican sheep herders in Texas to make the sheep run together when they scatter too far. Of course there's really nothing to be scared of, but when it comes near you, you feel inclined to duck. To me, it was the feeling that the flat piece of wood would fly off and hit me. You always duck when you hear a whizzing. Still, the priests or medicine men trade on the head-ducking tendency. So, somehow, in the course of time, it gets so that those that listen have to bow down. Oh, yes! You say it's ridiculous and fanciful and all that sort of thing. I know. I have heard others say the same. It's only a noise and nothing to be scared of. But then, when you come to think of it, most men are scared of noise. They're like animals in that respect. What is a curse but a noise? Yet most men are secretly afraid of curses. They're uneasy under them. Yet they know it's only noise. Then look at thunderings from the pulpit. Look at excommunications. Look at denunciations. All noises to be sure. But there's the threat of force behind some of them. The blow may come and again it may not.

"As I said, every one bowed down and of course so did I, on general principles. Somerfield didn't and the old buck whirled that bull-roarer over him ever so long, and the red-eyed hag cursed and spat at him, but he never budged. That sort of conduct is damned foolishness according to my notion. But then, you see, in a kind of a way he was backing his prejudices against theirs and prejudices are pretty solid things when you consider. Still, he took a hell of a chance.

"On the trail next day, for we left the following morning, I argued with him about that, but he couldn't be budged. He said he stood for truth and all that kind of thing. I put it to him that he would expect any foreigner to conform to his national customs. He'd expect a Turk to give up his polygamy, I said, no matter what heart-breakings it cost some of the family. But he had a kink in his thinking, holding that his people had the whole, solid, unchanging truth. Of course, the argument came down with a crash then, for it worked around to a question of what is truth. There you are. There was the limit. So we quit. As I tell you, the human brain is not constituted to do much thinking. It's been crippled by lack of use. We are mentally stunted in growth. I remember that I began to say something about the possibility of there being several gods, meaning that some time or other men with imagination had defied some natural thing, but it came to me that I was talking nonsense, so I quit. Yet I know right well that many tribes have made gods of things of which they were afraid. But it's small profit to theorize.

"It was near sundown when we came to that building shown in that photograph. The vegetation was so thick thereabouts that the temple, for I suppose it was that, appeared before us suddenly. One moment we were crawling like insects between the trunks of great jungle trees that shot upwards seventy feet or more without a branch, as if they were racing for dear life skyward, and then everything fell away and there was the old building. It startled the both of us. We got the sensation that you get when you see a really good play. You forget your bodily presence and you are only a bundle of nerves. You walk or sit or stand, but without any effort or knowledge that you are doing it. We had been talking, and the sight of that building, so unexpected, startled us into silence. It would any one. Believe me, your imperturbable man with perfect, cool, self-possession does not exist. Man's a jumpy thing, given to nerves. You may deny it and talk about the unexcitability of the American citizen and all that bunk, but let me tell you that your journalists and moving picture producers and preachers and politicians have caught on to the fact that man is jumpy, and they trade on their discovery, believe me. They've got man on the hop every which way and keep him going.

"There had been a gateway there once, but for some reason or other it had become blocked with a rank vegetation. The old gap was chocked full with a thorny, flower-bearing bush so thick that a cat could not have passed through. Somerfield switched on one of his theories as soon as he got over his first surprise. Worshipers, he held, had brought flowers there and the seeds that had dropped had sprouted. It looked reasonable.

"Above the lintel was carved one of those running lizards. That you noticed early. You can't see that in the picture because we took that from the edge of a broken wall. You see, all the walls stood except that to the left of this doorway and that had partly fallen and what was left was chin high. We saw at a glance that the people who had built that temple were handy with tools. The stones of the wall were quite big— two feet or more square, and fitted closely. There was no mortar to hold them but the ends had been made with alternate grooves and projections that fitted well. The stone was a kind of red sandstone. But I told you that before.

"When we looked over the broken wall and saw that stone lizard, we had another shock. I don't care how you school yourself, there's a scare in every man. That's what annoys me, to see men posing and letting themselves be written up and speechified over as fearless. Fearless General this and Admiral that. Our fearless boys in the trenches. It sickens me. Why the whole race has been fed up on fear for ages. Fearlessness is impossible. Hell-fire, boogermen, devils, witches, the wrath of God— it's all been fear. Things that we know nothing of and have no proof of have been added to things that we do know of that will hurt, and, on top of that there has been the everlasting 'cuidado' lest you say a word that will run foul of current opinion— so what wonder that man is scary? It's a wonder that he's sane.

"After we took that picture we debated for the first time where we should camp that night. A new scare possessed us. In the end, we decided to camp inside the temple because of the greater security afforded by the walls. The truth is that some half fear of a giant lizard had gotten hold of us. So, as it was the lizard that scared us, we decided to stay in the lizard temple. Man's built that way. He likes to keep close to the thing that he fears. I heard a man who was a banker once say that he always mistrusted the man who would not take a vacation. As I take it, his idea was that the man who knew some danger was nigh, wanted to be around where he could catch the first intimation of a crash. But then, too, besides that, there is a sense of comfort in being within walls, especially with a floor paved as this one was. Besides, it was a change from the trees with their wild-tangled vines and their snake-like lianas. So we decided on the temple.

"That night I was a long time getting to sleep. The memory of the old hag and the bull-roarer was in my mind. I kept thinking of Ista, too. It was a warmer night than usual, and, after the moon dropped, pitchy dark. I slept stripped as I generally do, with a light blanket across my legs so that I could find it if needed without waking up.

"I awoke presently, feeling something run lightly and swiftly across my face. I thought it was a spider. It seemed to run in a zig-zag. Then feeling nothing more I set it down to fancy and dropped off to sleep again, face turned towards that idol. Later, I felt the same kind of thing run across my neck. I knew it was no fancy then, and my scare vanished because here was something to do. So I waited with my right hand poised to grab. I waited a long time, too, but I have lots of patience. Presently it ran down my body starting at my left shoulder and I brought down my hand at a venture, claw fashion, and caught the thing on the blanket. I felt the blanket raise and then fall again, just a little, of course, as I lifted my hand with the thing in it, and by that knew that it had claws. Yet bet I held tight. It seemed to be hard and smooth. It was a wiry, wriggling thing, somewhat like a lizard. But it was much more vigorous than any lizard. I tried to crush it, but could not. As to thickness, it seemed to be about the diameter of one of those lead pencils. It was like this I had it."

Rounds picked up a couple of lead pencils from the desk and took my hand in his. He told me to close my fist and then placed one pencil lengthwise so that an end of it was between my first and second finger and the rubber-tipped end lay across my wrist. The other pencil he thrust crosswise so that the pointed end stuck out between the second and third finger and the blunt end between the index finger and thumb.

"There you have it," he said. "That's how I held the little devil. Now grip hard and try to crush the pencils and you'll have something of the same sensation as I had. Holding it thus, I could feel its head jerking this way and that, violently, and its tail, long and lithe, lashing at my wrist. The little claws were trying to tear, but they were evidently softish. I could hear, or thought I could, the snap of its little jaws. It was about the nastiest sensation that I ever experienced. I don't know why I thought that it was venomous, but I did. I tried to smash the thing in my hand— tried again and again, and I have a good grip— but might just as well have tried to crush a piece of wire. There was no give to it. It tried to wriggle backwards but I had it under its jaws. So there we were: it wriggling, writhing and lashing and me laying there holding it at arms length. I felt the sweat start on me and the hair at the nap of my neck raise up, and I did some quick and complicated thinking. Of course, I dared not throw it away, but I got to my feet and as I did so, tried to bend its head backwards against the stone floor. But the head slipped sideways. I called on Somerfield for a light then, and he struck one hurriedly and it went out immediately. All that I saw was that the thing was white and had a triangular shaped head.

"Somehow I ran against Somerfield before he got another match struck and he swore at me, saying that I had cut him. I knew that I had touched him with my outstretched hand that held the beast. I drew back my hand a little and remembered afterwards that I then felt a slight, elastic resistance as if the thing that I held had caught on to something, as it had before to my blanket. Afterwards I found that the thing had gotten Somerfield's neck. As he struck another match, I saw the low place in the wall and flung the thing away with a quick jerk. You know the kind of a motion you'd make getting rid of some unseen noxious thing like that. That's how I never really saw the beast and can only conjecture what it was like from the feel of it.

"On Somerfield's neck, just below the angle of the jaw, was a clean-cut little oval place about half an inch in length. It did not bleed much, but it seemed to pain him a lot. He maintained that the thing was some kind of rodent. Anyway we put a little chewed tobacco on the place and, after awhile, tried to sleep again. We didn't do much good at it, neither of us. He was tossing and grumbling like a man with the toothache.

"Next morning the bitten place had swollen up to the size of an apple and was a greenish yellow color. He was feeling sick and a bit feverish, so I made him comfortable after looking around to see whether there was anything to harm him in the courtyard, and went to hunt water. I remember that I gave the head of the idol a kick with the flat of my foot for spite, as I passed it. Like a kid, that was, wasn't it? Now I was running back and forth all the morning with the canteen, for he drank a terrible quantity. His eyes grew bright, too, and his skin flushed. Towards noon, he began to talk wild, imagining that he was at home. Then I judged it best to let him stay there in the temple where he was, so to speak, corraled. Coming back shortly after from one water-hunting trip, I heard singing, and, looking over the wall, saw him sitting on the slab in front of the idol. He must have fancied that he had his kids before him for he was beating time with his hands and snapping his fingers and thumbs and singing:

'London bridge is fallen down,

Fallen down, fallen down.'

"It was rotten to hear that out there, but I was halfway glad to see him that way, knowing that he wasn't miserable. After a little, he quit babbling and took more water; emptied the canteen, in fact, so back I had to start for more.

"Returning, I found things changed. He was going around, crouched like a hunting Indian, peering here and there, behind the idol then across to the head as if seeking some one. He had the facon in his hand. 'Rounds stabbed me,' he was saying. 'It was Rounds, damn him, that killed me.' Over and over again he said that. He was talking to invisible people, creatures of his mad brain. One would have thought, if one had not seen, that the temple court was crowded with spectators. Then he rose to his feet and, with the knife held close to his breast, began walking round and round as if seeking an outlet. He passed me once, he on one side of the wall and I on the other, and he looked me square in the eye, but never saw me. So round and round he went with long strides, knees bent and heels never touching the ground. He eyes were fixed and staring and his teeth clenched. Now and then he made long, slashing stabs in the air with the facon.

"Suddenly he saw me, and there was a change. The blood lust was in his eyes. He was standing on the slab in front of the idol, then made a great leap and started for the broken wall where I was. I saw then that the lump on his neck had swollen to the size of a big goitre. His whole body was a-quiver. There was an animal-like celerity in his movements that made me shudder. Then I knew that I dared not let him get on the same side of the wall as me. But he leaped at the gap from a distance that I would have thought no human could compass, and hung on to the wall with one arm over. He snarled like an animal. Then I smashed him over the head with the canteen, gripping the strap with my right hand. He fell back with the force of the blow, but immediately came at the gap again, then changed his mind and went to tearing around the chamber with great leaps. He was a panther newly caged. He sprang on to the head of the idol and from that to the pedestal, and then to the slab in front of it. Then he went across and across the floor, sometimes screaming and yelling, and then again moaning and groaning. One side of his face was all bloody where I had smashed it with the canteen. Seeing him so, a thing not human, but with all the furtive quickness of an animal and its strength, too, I felt sorry no more. I hated him with a wild hate. He was dangerous to me and I had to conquer him. That's fundamental. So I stood, gripping the strap of the canteen, watching, waiting. He came at me again, striding and leaping. That time he got one leg over with both hands gripping the top stones. The facon he dropped on my side of the wall, but I had no time to stoop for it just then. There were other things to do. He was getting over. It took some frantic beating with the canteen and he seemed to recover from the blows quicker than I could get the swing to strike again. But I beat him down at last, though I saw that he had lots more life in him than I, with that devil of madness filling him. So, when I saw him stumble, then recover and begin that running again, I picked up the knife and leaped over the wall to settle the matter once and for all. It was an ugly thing to do, but it had to be done and done quickly. At the root of things it's life against life."

Rounds ceased and fell to filling his pipe. I waited for him to recommence, but he made as if to leave, but paused a moment at my desk to pick up and examine a piece of malachite. I felt it incumbent upon me to say something to relieve the tension that I felt.

"I understand," said I. "It was a horrible necessity. It is a terrible thing to have to kill a fellow creature."

"That wasn't a fellow creature," he said. "What I killed was not the partner I knew. Don't you understand?"

"Yes, I understand," I replied. Then I asked, "Did you bury him?"

"Bury him? What for? How?" Rounds seemed indignant. "How could I bury him in a stone-paved court? How could I lift a dead man over a wall chin high?"

"Of course. Of course," I said. "I had forgotten that. But to us who lead quiet lives, it seems terrible to leave a dead man unburied."

"Do you feel that way about that mummy you have out there?" he asked, indicating the museum with his thumb. "If not, why not? But if you want the story to the bitter end, I dragged him to the only clean spot in the place, which was that slab in front of the idol. There I left him, or it. But things take odd turns. By the time I got back to the Tlinga village, they knew all about it and the priests used the affair to their own advantage. Mine was incidental. Yet I did reap some benefit. According to the priests, I had accepted the whole blessed lizard theory, or religion or whatever it was, and had sacrificed the unbeliever to the lizard god. Ista helped things along, I suspect, for with me as a former mate, there was some fame for her. Anyway, they met and hailed me as a hero and brought tribute to me. Gold dust. I wanted them to quit their damned foolishness and tried to explain, but it was no use. You can't teach a mob to have sense. Well, adios. But remember this: Don't be too cocksure."

__________________

12: The Shame of Gold

Charles J. Finger

The Century Magazine March 1922

"INTRANSIGANT" recently printed a short account of the failure of the Franco-Brazilian ornithological expedition. Reading, you may have caught a hint of tragedy in it; but it may have escaped you, because our papers barely noticed the matter. I was specially interested because of a conversation I had had with a stranger who knew Brazil in a peculiar way.

Knowing Columbus, Ohio, you cannot fail to remember the place where the C. D. & M. Traction crosses the main business street. It is crowded at the corner, for a newspaper office is there, and bulletins of the world happenings are posted every hour or so. On the day that I have in mind, Hall and I paused there for a moment. A new bulletin was being put up, which read:

Franco-Brazilian expedition formed to explore upper Amazon territory.

Hall made a remark laughingly as to new markets to ex- ploit, and hurried on his way to meet his investment broker; but I, gazing upward, unaware of his disappearance, said:

"Yes, there are still spots on this little world untrodden by the foot of man."

Turning, I discovered his absence, while from another man who stood where he had been came the words, very decidedly:

"I doubt it."

"But why?" I asked, mildly interested.

"Good reason," he replied, with a little shrug of his shoulders. There was a moment of hesitation, then, simultaneously, we both started off in the same direction, and for half a block walked almost side by side. At a word it transpired that we were both bound for the depot, for the Cincinnati train.

Later, on the train, he resumed the subject. "I know Brazil a little," he said, "and far out of the beaten track, but I know it superficially. Others have been there— many others, and their lines are crossed and crisscrossed."

"White men?" I asked.

"Certainly, white men. That's how I was surprised into the remark I made there at the bulletin-board. Men poke everywhere about the world." The man sketched out roughly on the palm of his hand, and with his pipe-stem, an imaginary map. "You recall the outline of South America," he went on, "nearly pear-shaped, an elongated pear. Now, here is Peru, a little above the base of my thumb. Over here, under the little finger, is Cape St. Roque. I have been here. Cut across like this." He drew a bold stroke entirely across his hand. "That means Callao, into the Andes, and so north. North to strike the head-waters of the Amazon, and then trouble, fever and hunger. Wealth, too, in a way."

"Love of adventure?" I hazarded.

He regarded me intently for a moment. I noticed his iron-gray hair and queerly wrinkled face. He was not yet middle-aged.

"No. I never tried to analyze. I don't know. I'm not really adventurous. I like to be alone. Also, I drift, perhaps. When in a crowd, nothing seems to be worth while, and one is an ant in a hurrying mass. Alone, thoughts come with force. They strike one as bluntly as seen things impress themselves. I can't explain."

I was unwilling to press him with questions. He was not the kind of man that could be drawn out. When he spoke again there was a note of quiet, pleasant excitement.

"By the way, in Prescott's 'Peru' there is a passage somewhere telling of one party of Spaniards crossing the Andes and discovering silver. Then, being unable to get back, they built a boat and floated down the Amazon, and presently turned up in Cuba again. It's there somewhere. Or in Irving. In Prescott, I think."

I told him that I had a faint recollection of something like that.

"Well," he continued, paying little heed, "that was, roughly, four hundred years ago. No modern things to use, no chart, no map, no compass, no tools, or camp paraphernalia; just plain, dogged go-at-it and keep on. Keep in one direction, and you get somewhere. That's how Magellan felt his way, and Columbus his. Then the old Norsemen in open boats. It excites me thinking of that. It was always that way, one man pushing on."

Again he lapsed into one of his ruminating moods.

"But about Prescott— Once I was nearly all in. Over the Andes I'd gone, and if I didn't hit the trail of the Pizarro men, I'm crazy. I never saw a helmet in my life until then, and I came across one under an overhanging rock. A mighty thing it was— the rock I mean— a kind of excavation under it that formed a cave.

"The helmet was there, and a few pieces of steel— short pieces; a broken sword, perhaps. I took the helmet and carried it for days, then threw it away. A man can't be burdened with plunder like that.

"You see, I'd been on the trail for more than three months that time. Now and then I caught sight of an Indian, and once I got an arrow through my left shoulder. There were days and weeks in which I saw no sign of human life, but, by George! there was plenty of good company. Insects, you know, great glorious things. Butterflies, too— butterflies that run and make a little noise like a rattle when they fly away. It's laughable. Living things are great fun to watch. And then the concerts at evening at sunset, crickets and things. I don't know their names. Magnify insects, and I reckon you'd have a fantastic world.

"When I did see a human face again, it gave me a start. I'd found a good spot in the jungle to rest in. The stream ran clear there, this stream I'd been following, and the bottom of it was sandy. One does not often find a place like that. Thinking of an ideal spot, you imagine a stream in the shade of a tree, with grass all about. But when you get your stream, there is often mud, and where there is shade there is no grass. Here there was everything; a pleasant kind of spot, and I didn't move all day. I just rested and smoked and bathed my feet and watched the insects. It was quiet, too, still as midnight, and the sun never pierced the leafy roof. It was just a great, green arch like a cathedral, with smooth, lofty tree-trunks, chamber after chamber of green, and, what was specially fine, the place was clear of lianas. So I rested there and read an old newspaper I had picked up in Callao and brought along. I'd read it before dozens of times. Then my eyes would tire of the print, and I'd doze off. I did that dozens of times. The peace of the place was too much for me— too much both ways. The perfectness of it overcame me, and drove me to the little thing, the silly newspaper.

"Once I woke with the notion that some one was watch- ing me. What I saw gave me a shiver. There was a big flowering-bush not ten yards away. They were great red flowers, meat color, like raw beef, and right between two of the flowers, as if it was stuck in a cleft, was a man's face, snag-toothed, red-bearded, shock-haired. It might have been a great ape. The eyes stared straight at me. Remember, I'd seen no natives for a long while, nor was there a settlement near, and it was a region as big as the State of Illinois, and no white man, I thought, had ever set foot there. Yet here was a face, and it was not the face of a native. I knew enough to keep still, and only peered through the narrowest slits I could make with my eyelids, so I judged that the face in the flower would think I slept. Believe me, I watched closely.

"It moved my way, but cautiously as a snake, and I saw a hairy chest, a hairy human being, and stark. He came on hands and toes, and I knew that he was a fellow used to the jungle and no native. Noiselessly he came, not stirring leaf or blade, hardly. The smell of his body assailed me unpleasantly, for there were sweetly smelling spice-trees, and the human smell was rank as poison.

"I sat up suddenly when the fellow was not more than five yards away. He stopped, rigid, expectant. Fear was in his eyes. Perhaps he saw it in mine. In such cases men hate each other. Each resents the presence of the other where white men should not be. Then he rose to his feet, turned without a word, his feet making no sound, and made for the flowering-bush again. I knew in a moment, somehow, that he was ashamed of his nakedness in the presence of another of his race. So I hailed him. At that he stood, regarding me with doubt.

"Well, he was one of those queer fish found everywhere. He told me his tale that night. Of months and of years he had long lost count, and he wanted to know of things strange to me. Queer things he had been interested in, it seemed— a Londoner I guess, with the peculiar sharpness of interest in political things that they have. It must have been meat and drink to him, his interest in public affairs. He talked of Gladstone and wanted to know whether some fellow named O'Donnell who had killed some informer was hanged or not. From such things we located the date when he left as about 1883. So he had been there nearly thirty-five years. Think of it!

"But as to the unbelief of people who are credulous on some things — tell people that for that length of time a white man, an Englishman, had lived with savages, and every single one would jump to the conclusion that he was chief among them. Naturally. On the general principle, I suppose, that it is better to reign in hell than to serve in heaven. But was he king? Boss? Chief? Not by a long chalk. And naturally. The man from civilization was the servitor. The savages were the superiors. Such things as he once knew were useless in the wilds. Mind you, in civilization machinery is master, and man the servant of the machine. Take him away from the mechanical things and cast him on his own resources, and ninety-nine cases out of a hundred he starves. He can't make a fire, catch his food, build his shelter. He is afraid to test things as to their edibility. He cannot run, fight or climb. Among animals he is a weakling. Face to face with nature he despairs. His education he finds to be ignorance. His over- powering fear is that he may be hurt. You see, in civilization man is protected, he does not have to struggle. All that he needs to do is to sell himself, his time, his life, for the best price he can command. So he becomes soft. He is unfit for liberty. Turn him loose, and he is as useless as a canary-bird or a common hen turned adrift. So was it with this fellow, Elfner. The savages were his superiors, and he was the servitor. He had ceased to concern himself about anything more than the needs of the body; and his brain had gone. Once, I gathered, he had told them tales of the city life, but the things he tried to picture they could not conceive; so he was lowered still further in their estimation and set down as a liar.

"From this Elfner I learned of the Chequa tribe. He warned me against them as a vicious people that had no dealings with other tribes, and indicated their valley as farther east. That I was not to be led to his tribe was made very clear. Obviously, he was ashamed of his degradation. But really it was not degradation in one way of looking at it. There are almost no men who would not rapidly find their level in a savage tribe, and that level would be below its general average, because of the new valuations that the man from civilization cannot compass.

"There was a stranger tale he began to tell me— a tale of a swamp-land to the southeast and of monstrous, yellow earth creatures that heaved themselves out of the mire. Then I was sure he was crazed. I knew of the giant armadillos and great sloths, but it was none of these. He was loath to continue, and parried my questions. He wanted to know of things in the world that he would never again see. He wanted to tell me of John L. Sullivan and of Jake Kilrain, or of sordid crimes that had interested him. Above all he wanted to talk of eating, of ham and eggs, of bread and cheese and beer. Once, for instance, when he had begun to tell me something of the Chequas, he broke off quite unexpectedly, and apropos of nothing went into a little rhapsody. 'Say,' he said, 'this 'ere is a dull place. I often think of colors, and there's a bird all colors, and I always think of when you hold a glass of whiskey up to the light. Lord! Lord!' At that he fell into a reverie and sat hunched, his chin on clenched fist. Then he grew melancholy. 'These 'ere fellers in my tribe, they got me goin', they 'ave. It's work, work, work. An' if I don't, it's punishment tied up to a ant's nest.'

"His talk was jumbled, disjointed, and I had much ado to get something from him relative to the country. Very little I got, after all. We had talked for perhaps a couple of hours when a ululation filled the air. 'It's them blacks callin' me,' he said, leaping to his feet. Now, while I was not anxious for his company, I felt an urge to invite him to go with me; but, to my relief, he refused on the ground that his masters would follow, capture and kill him. When the ululation was again heard, he seemed panic-stricken, stood a moment irresolute, then turned and fled into the bush as a dog would on hearing the insistent call."

The man stopped, and I hazarded the remark that it was strange to meet a white man thus, because the chances against an encounter were slight.

"That's so," he said.

"And the reference to those strange earth creatures. Didn't you learn anything further?"

He looked at me and shook his head doubtfully, and a little puzzled frown appeared and disappeared.

"No. But I may have seen one, too. I don't know."

"May I hear?" I asked.

"There's nothing to tell, because I'm not sure. And yet—" He passed his hand over his brow. "I may have been mistaken. It was after I had left the gentle people, and I was not myself then. I was worried, grieved, half- starved. It is all muddled.

"You see, after Elfner left I decided to find the valley he had told me of, and I did find it without any particular difficulty. It was a bird that attracted me, a quetzal. If I had not gone toward it, I might have missed the place. But I never could resist watching a quetzal, for it is the most wonderful thing that God has made, the most exquisite thing in creation. To see it, a living thing of metallic green— gold-green and scarlet-breasted, with tail-feathers of jet and ivory— is an experience. You watch it and lose yourself in admiration. Nothing else is so gorgeous. I have watched as the light struck them, and have seen them change from violet to steel-blue, but colors that live. Then the bird moves slightly, and the blue is blue-green, then again gold-green, and there are crimson flashes and purple. And there was the valley, and it was the valley of quetzals  and butterflies, and in it lived the gentle people. I stayed there many months, peaceful months, only to leave in sorrow. A gentle people, indeed! Never did I hear a harsh word or see an ungentle thing. I do not think that they knew of war or of violence. To live was sweet in that valley of flowers and birds. There were sounds of living things as sweet as the musical ripples of a little brook, and the breeze was soft and laden with perfume. So I came to love the gentle people and their land.

"It may seem odd to tell you this, but I have told you much, and the mood is on me, and the place in which I tell it to you is odd, here where there is the noise of people and of the moving train and where there is glaring light or sooty smoke, and where every one is burdened with the stern anxiety of duty. And yet it all comes to me as the memory of a summer day may come to some poor fellow in prison— the memory of that spot where existence is facile and where trifles give joy and where people live as birds live. While there I knew a fresh vigor of soul. I always seemed to be on the point of grasping and under- standing things, and the thought lived in me always that I should never do a thing to bring the sorrow of the outside world among this people. The memory is strong upon me now, and it came to me as a dull blow when I read the bulletin uptown. I felt as the prisoner might when the judge said the death sentence. It seemed to mean that, you know."

The man paused and relit his pipe. He gave a puff or two and laid it aside again. Then he leaned back in his seat, folded his arms and dropped his chin on his chest.

"All this noise about us must make what I tell you seem unreal. I appreciate that fully. Sometimes I think that out there I lost something well worth the losing, and found instead a precious thing. Looking back, I seemed to have touched the supernatural. I wonder if you understand. What I lost enriched me, and I seemed to have lost forever my own people and the sins of avarice and anger and pettiness. It was no illusion. There was the valley of peace. There is the valley of peace. But I fear the ravening hand now stretched out.

"There was a child there, a thing of beauty, who led me about at times after I had been accepted as a visitor. Endol was her name, and she was a dancing creature, who weaved circlets of flowers and often brought to me, laughingly, water to drink, bearing it in a flattish shell which held only a taste. I see her now, a bright fairy, dancing and chasing the cloud shadows on the green, playing with the birds, clapping her hands as she ran after butterflies, but never trying to catch them. Do you know, at such times the memory of my own land was as a dark and fearful dream. I remembered slum children. The memory of the things that clatter about us in houses and in cities, and the fret and the evil and the filth and the sickness— these things bore upon me and oppressed my spirit. Now, sitting here, remembering that valley of joy, it is as if I were in hell, and it is from that hell that I am trying to escape, for all has been dark and ugly since I left.

"One day Endol brought me a golden-colored flower, a new one to me. I saw that she bore a shell in her left hand. When I made a motion to take it she prevented me. Playfully, I held her, and as I did so, she chanced to tip the shell, and a yellowish sand poured forth and lay lightly on a large leaf. Looking, I saw that it was gold dust. At that Endol laughed, stooped, scattered the gold, and, gathering the grains that lay on the leaf, threw them afar.

"That naturally set me to wondering as well as wandering, for thus far I had confined my walks to the upper end of the valley. As it fell out, the next day I came upon a flat rock at the foot of a vine-hung tree, and there in plain view was a shell, much larger than that which Endol had had. It held gold dust, and a few nuggets, the best of them not larger than a small pea. The shell had appar- ently been set there and forgotten with the carelessness of a child tired of a plaything. The gold was not free from iron dust, but I saw at a glance that the vein from which it had been taken was extraordinarily rich. So it came to me to think that this people knew nothing of the value of gold and perhaps used it as a plaything. I suppose I should have left it there, but I did not. Few men living as you and I have lived in a workaday world could resist the temptation to bear it away. So I took it to the bower in which I slept.

"Now, Endol and another child met me on the way and, chattering and laughing, reached for the shell. I handed it to them. Their actions astonished me. They drew slightly aside; their merriment fell from them, and they held a rapid, whispered conference. Endol's friend, the older of the two, seemed the most urgent, and her counsel apparently prevailed, for they set off running down the valley with the gold. They seemed possessed of a new fear, one that I could not understand.

"Soon after they returned with others, men and women, and I could see that there was consternation. I was reminded of a crowd I once saw running to the pit-mouth when the news of trouble came.

"Sima, a handsome youth with a splendid head ornament of quetzal feathers, addressed me. He was gentle, almost persuasive. At first I could not understand what he was driving at. There were evidently references to a people and the setting sun, and in the midst of his discourse others came up and now and again tried to aid him in making me understand, as people will do all over the world when a foreigner is dense. Presently Sima ceased, and another, an older man, took up the parable. He grew excited in the telling of the tale and, as I gathered, was eager to impress upon me that there was an evil time when hate and murder and greed, until then unknown, had come into the land. But it was not until he roughly fashioned a cross with a couple of sticks and broke it to pieces that a light dawned on me. Then when he told me of white men from the north, it dawned upon me with clearness that here was a tribal memory of the coming of Pizarro into the land of the Incas. Understanding that, I could piece things together, the ancient wrong done to a gentle people in the name of the cross, the white man's greed for gold, which had been a specific cause of strife and disorder, the hopeless resistance of an unarmed people, and the cruel acts of retaliation. From another point of view I saw what the lust of empire meant, and I saw how those who preached civilization, philanthropy and religion came burning, shooting, destroying and subjugating the weak, the simple, the harmless. The forefathers of this people had escaped. What wonder, then, that to them gold stood as an evil, something to hide and thrust away as unclean lest its glitter again attract these who bear death in their hands.

"I saw all that in a flash, and I understood the vague sense of imminent chaos that must have possessed the simple, happy folk when they pondered on what might happen if gold-mad white men again came ravening. The wonder was that they did not slay me when first I came.

"The gold-bearing sand was exceptionally rich in the little river. Grubbing about, I found pockets in the bed-rock full of gold. I even amused myself for a time extracting some of it and piling it in little heaps here and there on stones, and once I dammed up a section of the stream, turning the current so as to expose the river-bed, thus laying bare a new and unexpected vein. But it meant nothing to me then, for I still enjoyed the sighing of the wind through the silky grass, the sweetness of the day, and the fullness of the earth. The water that dripped sparkling from my finger-tips was finer to me than the sifting gold.

"One day I found the cave. I had not found it before simply because I had not sought it. There was no attempt on the part of the folk to conceal its location, nor was there displayed any desire to keep me from it.

"It was an opening in a hillside almost six feet long and four high, a square, natural gap, and the chamber within was at least thirty by thirty. The rays of the western sun flooded the place. For over three hundred years, perhaps, the people had hidden their gold there. From that you may have some idea how things were. The stuff lay scattered over the floor of the cave. I worked my fingers through the gold near the opening, and it was knuckle-deep before I touched the rock. In the farther corner was a sloping heap of the stuff, and it had been there so long that the iron dust had blown away. It shone dully as the sun touched it. Here and there were small nuggets, some as large as a cherry. Leaving the cave, I found a pile of them, oddly shaped, laid along a large, flat rock. They were evidently the playthings of children. I remember noticing one, flattish and almost heart-shaped. It had a hole through it, and I strung it and hung it round my neck. Look at this."

As he spoke he fumbled at his soft shirt-collar and pulled up a little nugget, which he handed to me.

"It's all I have to show," he said as he returned it to its place. "That night I did not sleep. Strangely enough, my mind took a twist. The life I was living fell behind me, as it were, and I was filled with a new desire. It was not really a desire for wealth, but rather a desire for power. That was it, a desire for power. That old newspaper I told you of came to my mind, with all that it stood for. I began to dream of walking into my native town, into Hillsboro, and showing off. Crazy, isn't it? But it was so. They were day-dreams that might have pleased a boy, and it is almost too banal to tell, the rapid succumbing to temptation. I had a vision of becoming the local 'big man' of buying out the banker, of building a fine house, of owning a splendid automobile, of servants, and all that kind of thing. Things! things! things! The pageantry of wealth! So dreaming, the quiet of the valley and the peace of it became a hateful thing, and I longed for the sound of a thousand footsteps and a thousand wheels, for the noise of streets, and the haste and the clatter and the excitement. Gradually the idea took possession of me that the gold was mine and that it was a weak sentimentality which would prevent a capable white race from using that which a brown-skinned folk knew not how to use. I planned and dreamed, planned and dreamed. The poison was at work.

"Weeks and weeks it took me to carry the gold to the hidden canoe. I thought at the time that I was unwatched, but I do not think so now. Some of the stuff I loaded direct from the river sand, but by far the greater part I bore from the cave. Of course there were days when I hesitated, half repenting. But, on the whole, greed had me.

"One day I saw Sima and Capaca, standing side by side, looking at me, and I was suddenly overcome with shame. There fell away from me my desire to leave. The glamor aded. It was as if I had been discovered handling filth by those whose good opinion I valued, and the hot blood rushed tingling to my cheeks. I wanted to make my peace with the people again, but knew that to do so was hopeless now. So I stood irresolutely by my canoe, and I hated myself for my insincerity.

"Sima came down to me. He said no word, but, with a look half pity, half contempt, handed me his spear, and with a gesture dismissed me and turned his back. For a moment I wished that he had thrust the spear through me.

"So it was that I came to leave the valley where I had known peace, and from then time was for me little but physical weariness. There were days when I lay half-dead in the canoe on my bed of gold, tortured by flies and things that bit and stung— days and days of misery when I wished myself dead. Once, it seemed ages, a hovering cloud of insects followed me, sometimes settling on me so thickly that my arms were black. My bodily suffering was great, but greater still the suffering within.

"I think that day after day in that jungle drove me mad, and there were times when I was aware of nothing in the world but the rank smell of decaying vegetation and a black strip of water winding, winding, winding through a canon of dark brown earth through which great roots thrust themselves like snakes. Days of impenetrable gloom there were, and there were days when all about me there seemed to be hushings, then hissing whisperings and pointing fingers and peering eyes. Again there was a sensation that music was about me, and I seemed to hear at a distance the opening chords of a brass band. I knew that I was fever-stricken.

"Once I dared to land at a place where the virgin forest seemed to end. There was a great green, open space, a mighty clearing, and a fringe of trees between that and the river. I was the victim of a strange hallucination, and it was as if the whole world were moving swiftly to the right, swiftly, horribly swiftly, and I alone stood still. I fought against it, fought myself. Do you understand? It changed to a sensation of rushing backward. So dizzy I became that I was constrained to squat at the foot of a tree, pushing against it hard with my back, and press my temples until I felt the pain of it. Then I heard a sound and looked up. I saw, or thought I saw, something. The earth seemed to tremble and heave. Out from it came swiftly a hideous thing, clay-colored and huge, a mighty mass of living flesh. The mud fell from it to right and left. I was breathless and unable to stir. The thing pushed upward and forward with clumsy, lumbering movements, side to side, extricating itself, growing huger each moment. Then I realized that what I saw was only the head and shoulders. The head turned slightly, so that I saw the upper part of it, blunt and triangular beyond the shoulder. The heavy-lidded eyes I saw. Then I noticed the mud dripping heavily, and part of the fore leg coming from the slime. My God! Send that there are no such things on earth and that I was really mad!

"I remember rolling down the steep bank and falling into the river, so shaded and still, and then there was an awe-inspiring roar, dreadful to hear. I swam. I do not know. I cannot talk of it."

The man sighed deeply. It was almost a stifled sob. He was ashen-faced. When he spoke again, his voice was perceptibly huskier.

"There is no more to tell," he said. "There were weeks and weeks of misery in that jungle, and wanderings that I forget— wanderings in the swamp lands, and most wonderfully I came to Mannos and, in time, to Para, where the consul was good to me."

He ceased suddenly and fell to smoking. It was a long time before I dared to speak, but said at last:

"And you propose to return?"

"I want to get back to the people, to where the superstition of gold is absent," he said. "Only there is the world sane. Only there do people enjoy their days and love the earth and know the beauty of life. Gold blinds all others. So I must go to the gentle people again. That is, if they will have me. Then there's this expedition."

His voice was tense now.

"Suppose. You see, once I might have been a traitor to them. I dreamed of something of the sort, a betrayal to my own people. If this expedition is a success— Well, where white people go and where there is gold, sorrow and disease and death follow. The consul at Para knew something of my story. Would it not be a good thing to save a race, a gentle people, from destruction?"

The man's story stayed with me. And, as I said, since learning of the failure of the expedition, I have wondered much.

__________________

13: The Colour out of Space

H. P. Lovecraft

1890-1937

Amazing Stories Sep 1927

Justly celebrated horror story by the master of creepy and sinister. This story is not hard to find elsewhere, but I thought to have it here as well.

WEST OF ARKHAM the hills rise wild, and there are valleys with deep woods that no axe has ever cut. There are dark narrow glens where the trees slope fantastically, and where thin brooklets trickle without ever having caught the glint of sunlight. On the gentler slopes there are farms, ancient and rocky, with squat, moss-coated cottages brooding eternally over old New England secrets in the lee of great ledges; but these are all vacant now, the wide chimneys crumbling and the shingled sides bulging perilously beneath low gambrel roofs.

The old folk have gone away, and foreigners do not like to live there. French-Canadians have tried it, Italians have tried it, and the Poles have come and departed. It is not because of anything that can be seen or heard or handled, but because of something that is imagined. The place is not good for imagination, and does not bring restful dreams at night. It must be this which keeps the foreigners away, for old Ammi Pierce has never told them of anything he recalls from the strange days. Ammi, whose head has been a little queer for years, is the only one who still remains, or who ever talks of the strange days; and he dares to do this because his house is so near the open fields and the travelled roads around Arkham.

There was once a road over the hills and through the valleys, that ran straight where the blasted heath is now; but people ceased to use it and a new road was laid curving far toward the south. Traces of the old one can still be found amidst the weeds of a returning wilderness, and some of them will doubtless linger even when half the hollows are flooded for the new reservoir. Then the dark woods will be cut down and the blasted heath will slumber far below blue waters whose surface will mirror the sky and ripple in the sun. And the secrets of the strange days will be one with the deep's secrets; one with the hidden lore of old ocean, and all the mystery of primal earth.

When I went into the hills and vales to survey for the new reservoir they told me the place was evil. They told me this in Arkham, and because that is a very old town full of witch legends I thought the evil must be something which grandmas had whispered to children through centuries. The name "blasted heath" seemed to me very odd and theatrical, and I wondered how it had come into the folklore of a Puritan people. Then I saw that dark westward tangle of glens and slopes for myself, and ceased to wonder at anything besides its own elder mystery. It was morning when I saw it, but shadow lurked always there. The trees grew too thickly, and their trunks were too big for any healthy New England wood. There was too much silence in the dim alleys between them, and the floor was too soft with the dank moss and mattings of infinite years of decay.

In the open spaces, mostly along the line of the old road, there were little hillside farms; sometimes with all the buildings standing, sometimes with only one or two, and sometimes with only a lone chimney or fast-filling cellar. Weeds and briers reigned, and furtive wild things rustled in the undergrowth. Upon everything was a haze of restlessness and oppression; a touch of the unreal and the grotesque, as if some vital element of perspective or chiaroscuro were awry. I did not wonder that the foreigners would not stay, for this was no region to sleep in. It was too much like a landscape of Salvator Rosa; too much like some forbidden woodcut in a tale of terror.

But even all this was not so bad as the blasted heath. I knew it the moment I came upon it at the bottom of a spacious valley; for no other name could fit such thing, or any other thing fit such a name. It was as if the poet had coined the phrase from having seen this one particular region. It must, I thought as I viewed it, be the outcome of a fire; but why had nothing new ever grown over those five acres of grey desolation that sprawled open to the sky like a great spot eaten by acid in the woods and fields? It lay largely to the north of the ancient road line, but encroached a little on the other side. I felt an odd reluctance about approaching, and did so at last only because my business took me through and past it. There was no vegetation of any kind on that broad expanse, but only a fine grey dust or ash which no wind seemed ever to blow about. The trees near it were sickly and stunted, and many dead trunks stood or lay rotting at the rim. As I walked hurriedly by I saw the tumbled bricks and stones of an old chimney and cellar on my right, and the yawning black maw of an abandoned well whose stagnant vapours played strange tricks with the hues of the sunlight. Even the long, dark woodland climb beyond seemed welcome in contrast, and I marvelled no more at the frightened whispers of Arkham people. There had been no house or ruin near; even in the old days the place must have been lonely and remote. And at twilight, dreading to repass that ominous spot, I walked circuitously back to the town by the curving road on the south. I vaguely wished some clouds would gather, for an odd timidity about the deep skyey voids above had crept into my soul.

In the evening I asked old people in Arkham about the blasted heath, and what was meant by that phrase "strange days" which so many evasively muttered. I could not, however, get any good answers, except that all the mystery was much more recent than I had dreamed. It was not a matter of old legendry at all, but something within the lifetime of those who spoke. It had happened in the 'eighties, and a family had disappeared or was killed. Speakers would not be exact; and because they all told me to pay no attention to old Ammi Pierce's crazy tales, I sought him out the next morning, having heard that he lived alone in the ancient tottering cottage where the trees first begin to get very thick. It was a fearsomely ancient place, and had begun to exude the faint miasmal odour which clings about houses that have stood too long. Only with persistent knocking could I rouse the aged man, and when he shuffled timidly to the door I could tell he was not glad to see me. He was not so feeble as I had expected; but his eyes drooped in a curious way, and his unkempt clothing and white beard made him seem very worn and dismal.

Not knowing just how he could best be launched on his tales, I feigned a matter of business; told him of my surveying, and asked vague questions about the district. He was far brighter and more educated than I had been led to think, and before I knew it had grasped quite as much of the subject as any man I had talked with in Arkham. He was not like other rustics I had known in the sections where reservoirs were to be. From him there were no protests at the miles of old wood and farmland to be blotted out, though perhaps there would have been had not his home lain outside the bounds of the future lake. Relief was all that he showed; relief at the doom of the dark ancient valleys through which he had roamed all his life. They were better under water now—better under water since the strange days. And with this opening his husky voice sank low, while his body leaned forward and his right forefinger began to point shakily and impressively.

IT WAS THEN that I heard the story, and as the rambling voice scraped and whispered on I shivered again and again despite the summer day. Often I had to recall the speaker from ramblings, piece out scientific points which he knew only by a fading parrot memory of professors' talk, or bridge over gaps, where his sense of logic and continuity broke down. When he was done I did not wonder that his mind had snapped a trifle, or that the folk of Arkham would not speak much of the blasted heath. I hurried back before sunset to my hotel, unwilling to have the stars come out above me in the open; and the next day returned to Boston to give up my position. I could not go into that dim chaos of old forest and slope again, or face another time that grey blasted heath where the black well yawned deep beside the tumbled bricks and stones. The reservoir will soon be built now, and all those elder secrets will lie safe forever under watery fathoms. But even then I do not believe I would like to visit that country by night— at least not when the sinister stars are out; and nothing could bribe me to drink the new city water of Arkham.

It all began, old Ammi said, with the meteorite. Before that time there had been no wild legends at all since the witch trials, and even then these western woods were not feared half so much as the small island in the Miskatonic where the devil held court beside a curious stone altar older than the Indians. These were not haunted woods, and their fantastic dusk was never terrible till the strange days. Then there had come that white noontide cloud, that string of explosions in the air, and that pillar of smoke from the valley far in the wood. And by night all Arkham had heard of the great rock that fell out of the sky and bedded itself in the ground beside the well at the Nahum Gardner place. That was the house which had stood where the blasted heath was to come— the trim white Nahum Gardner house amidst its fertile gardens and orchards.

Nahum had come to town to tell people about the stone, and had dropped in at Ammi Pierce's on the way. Ammi was forty then, and all the queer things were fixed very strongly in his mind. He and his wife had gone with the three professors from Miskatonic University who hastened out the next morning to see the weird visitor from unknown stellar space, and had wondered why Nahum had called it so large the day before. It had shrunk, Nahum said as he pointed out the big brownish mound above the ripped earth and charred grass near the archaic well-sweep in his front yard; but the wise men answered that stones do not shrink. Its heat lingered persistently, and Nahum declared it had glowed faintly in the night. The professors tried it with a geologist's hammer and found it was oddly soft. It was, in truth, so soft as to be almost plastic; and they gouged rather than chipped a specimen to take back to the college for testing. They took it in an old pail borrowed from Nahum's kitchen, for even the small piece refused to grow cool. On the trip back they stopped at Ammi's to rest, and seemed thoughtful when Mrs. Pierce remarked that the fragment was growing smaller and burning the bottom of the pail. Truly, it was not large, but perhaps they had taken less than they thought.

The day after that— all this was in June of '82— the professors had trooped out again in a great excitement. As they passed Ammi's they told him what queer things the specimen had done, and how it had faded wholly away when they put it in a glass beaker. The beaker had gone, too, and the wise men talked of the strange stone's affinity for silicon. It had acted quite unbelievably in that well-ordered laboratory; doing nothing at all and showing no occluded gases when heated on charcoal, being wholly negative in the borax bead, and soon proving itself absolutely non-volatile at any producible temperature, including that of the oxy-hydrogen blowpipe. On an anvil it appeared highly malleable, and in the dark its luminosity was very marked. Stubbornly refusing to grow cool, it soon had the college in a state of real excitement; and when upon heating before the spectroscope it displayed shining bands unlike any known colours of the normal spectrum there was much breathless talk of new elements, bizarre optical properties, and other things which puzzled men of science are wont to say when faced by the unknown.

Hot as it was, they tested it in a crucible with all the proper reagents. Water did nothing. Hydrochloric acid was the same. Nitric acid and even aqua regia merely hissed and spattered against its torrid invulnerability. Ammi had difficulty in recalling all these things, but recognized some solvents as I mentioned them in the usual order of use. There were ammonia and caustic soda, alcohol and ether, nauseous carbon disulphide and a dozen others; but although the weight grew steadily less as time passed, and the fragment seemed to be slightly cooling, there was no change in the solvents to show that they had attacked the substance at all. It was a metal, though, beyond a doubt. It was magnetic, for one thing; and after its immersion in the acid solvents there seemed to be faint traces of the Widmänstätten figures found on meteoric iron. When the cooling had grown very considerable, the testing was carried on in glass; and it was in a glass beaker that they left all the chips made of the original fragment during the work. The next morning both chips and beaker were gone without trace, and only a charred spot marked the place on the wooden shelf where they had been.

All this the professors told Ammi as they paused at his door, and once more he went with them to see the stony messenger from the stars, though this time his wife did not accompany him. It had now most certainly shrunk, and even the sober professors could not doubt the truth of what they saw. All around the dwindling brown lump near the well was a vacant space, except where the earth had caved in; and whereas it had been a good seven feet across the day before, it was now scarcely five. It was still hot, and the sages studied its surface curiously as they detached another and larger piece with hammer and chisel. They gouged deeply this time, and as they pried away the smaller mass they saw that the core of the thing was not quite homogeneous.

THEY HAD uncovered what seemed to be the side of a large coloured globule embedded in the substance. The colour, which resembled some of the bands in the meteor's strange spectrum, was almost impossible to describe; and it was only by analogy that they called it colour at all. Its texture was glossy, and upon tapping it appeared to promise both brittleness and hollowness. One of the professors gave it a smart blow with a hammer, and it burst with a nervous little pop. Nothing was emitted, and all trace of the thing vanished with the puncturing. It left behind a hollow spherical space about three inches across, and all thought it probable that others would be discovered as the enclosing substance wasted away.

Conjecture was vain; so after a futile attempt to find additional globules by drilling, the seekers left again with their new specimen—which proved, however, as baffling in the laboratory as its predecessor. Aside from being almost plastic, having heat, magnetism, and slight luminosity, cooling slightly in powerful acids, possessing an unknown spectrum, wasting away in air, and attacking silicon compounds with mutual destruction as a result, it presented no identifying features whatsoever; and at the end of the tests the college scientists were forced to own that they could not place it. It was nothing of this earth, but a piece of the great outside; and as such dowered with outside properties and obedient to outside laws.

That night there was a thunderstorm, and when the professors went out to Nahum's the next day they met with a bitter disappointment. The stone, magnetic as it had been, must have had some peculiar electrical property; for it had "drawn the lightning," as Nahum said, with a singular persistence. Six times within an hour the farmer saw the lightning strike the furrow in the front yard, and when the storm was over nothing remained but a ragged pit by the ancient well-sweep, half-chocked with caved-in earth. Digging had borne no fruit, and the scientists verified the fact of the utter vanishment. The failure was total; so that nothing was left to do but go back to the laboratory and test again the disappearing fragment left carefully cased in lead. That fragment lasted a week, at the end of which nothing of value had been learned of it. When it had gone, no residue was left behind, and in time the professors felt scarcely sure they had indeed seen with waking eyes that cryptic vestige of the fathomless gulfs outside; that lone, weird message from other universes and other realms of matter, force, and entity.

As was natural, the Arkham papers made much of the incident with its collegiate sponsoring, and sent reporters to talk with Nahum Gardner and his family. At least one Boston daily also sent a scribe, and Nahum quickly became a kind of local celebrity. He was a lean, genial person of about fifty, living with his wife and three sons on the pleasant farmstead in the valley. He and Ammi exchanged visits frequently, as did their wives; and Ammi had nothing but praise for him after all these years. He seemed slightly proud of the notice his place had attracted, and talked often of the meteorite in the succeeding weeks. That July and August were hot; and Nahum worked hard at his haying in the ten-acre pasture across Chapman's Brook; his rattling wain wearing deep ruts in the shadowy lanes between. The labour tired him more than it had in other years, and he felt that age was beginning to tell on him.

Then fell the time of fruit and harvest. The pears and apples slowly ripened, and Nahum vowed that his orchards were prospering as never before. The fruit was growing to phenomenal size and unwonted gloss, and in such abundance that extra barrels were ordered to handle the future crop. But with the ripening came sore disappointment, for of all that gorgeous array of specious lusciousness not one single jot was fit to eat. Into the fine flavour of the pears and apples had crept a stealthy bitterness and sickishness, so that even the smallest of bites induced a lasting disgust. It was the same with the melons and tomatoes, and Nahum sadly saw that his entire crop was lost. Quick to connect events, he declared that the meteorite had poisoned the soil, and thanked Heaven that most of the other crops were in the upland lot along the road.

WINTER CAME early, and was very cold. Ammi saw Nahum less often than usual, and observed that he had begun to look worried. The rest of his family too, seemed to have grown taciturn; and were far from steady in their churchgoing or their attendance at the various social events of the countryside. For this reserve or melancholy no cause could be found, though all the household confessed now and then to poorer health and a feeling of vague disquiet. Nahum himself gave the most definite statement of anyone when he said he was disturbed about certain footprints in the snow. They were the usual winter prints of red squirrels, white rabbits, and foxes, but the brooding farmer professed to see something not quite right about their nature and arrangement. He was never specific, but appeared to think that they were not as characteristic of the anatomy and habits of squirrels and rabbits and foxes as they ought to be. Ammi listened without interest to this talk until one night when he drove past Nahum's house in his sleigh on the way back from Clark's Corners. There had been a moon, and a rabbit had run across the road; and the leaps of that rabbit were longer than either Ammi or his horse liked. The latter, indeed, had almost run away when brought up by a firm rein. Thereafter Ammi gave Nahum's tales more respect, and wondered why the Gardner dogs seemed so cowed and quivering every morning. They had, it developed, nearly lost the spirit to bark.

In February the McGregor boys from Meadow Hill were out shooting woodchucks, and not far from the Gardner place bagged a very peculiar specimen. The proportions of its body seemed slightly altered in a queer way impossible to describe, while its face had taken on an expression which no one ever saw in a woodchuck before. The boys were genuinely frightened, and threw the thing away at once, so that only their grotesque tales of it ever reached the people of the countryside. But the shying of horses near Nahum's house had now become an acknowledged thing, and all the basis for a cycle of whispered legend was fast taking form.

People vowed that the snow melted faster around Nahum's than it did anywhere else, and early in March there was an awed discussion in Potter's general store at Clark's Corners. Stephen Rice had driven past Gardner's in the morning, and had noticed the skunk-cabbages coming up through the mud by the woods across the road. Never were things of such size seen before, and they held strange colours that could not be put into any words. Their shapes were monstrous, and the horse had snorted at an odour which struck Stephen as wholly unprecedented. That afternoon several persons drove past to see the abnormal growth, and all agreed that plants of that kind ought never to sprout in a healthy world. The bad fruit of the fall before was freely mentioned, and it went from mouth to mouth that there was poison in Nahum's ground. Of course it was the meteorite; and remembering how strange the men from the college had found that stone to be, several farmers spoke about the matter to them.

One day they paid Nahum a visit; but having no love of wild tales and folklore were very conservative in what they inferred. The plants were certainly odd, but all skunk-cabbages are more or less odd in shape and hue. Perhaps some mineral element from the stone had entered the soil, but it would soon be washed away. And as for the footprints and frightened horses—of course this was mere country talk which such a phenomenon as the aerolite would be certain to start. There was really nothing for serious men to do in cases of wild gossip, for superstitious rustics will say and believe anything. And so all through the strange days the professors stayed away in contempt. Only one of them, when given two phials of dust for analysis in a police job over a year and a half later, recalled that the queer colour of that skunk-cabbage had been very like one of the anomalous bands of light shown by the meteor fragment in the college spectroscope, and like the brittle globule found imbedded in the stone from the abyss. The samples in this analysis case gave the same odd bands at first, though later they lost the property.

The trees budded prematurely around Nahum's, and at night they swayed ominously in the wind. Nahum's second son Thaddeus, a lad of fifteen, swore that they swayed also when there was no wind; but even the gossips would not credit this. Certainly, however, restlessness was in the air. The entire Gardner family developed the habit of stealthy listening, though not for any sound which they could consciously name. The listening was, indeed, rather a product of moments when consciousness seemed half to slip away. Unfortunately such moments increased week by week, till it became common speech that "something was wrong with all Nahum's folks." When the early saxifrage came out it had another strange colour; not quite like that of the skunk-cabbage, but plainly related and equally unknown to anyone who saw it. Nahum took some blossoms to Arkham and showed them to the editor of the Gazette, but that dignitary did no more than write a humorous article about them, in which the dark fears of rustics were held up to polite ridicule. It was a mistake of Nahum's to tell a stolid city man about the way the great, overgrown mourning-cloak butterflies behaved in connection with these saxifrages.

April brought a kind of madness to the country folk, and began that disuse of the road past Nahum's which led to its ultimate abandonment. It was next the vegetation. All the orchard trees blossomed forth in strange colours, and through the stony soil of the yard and adjacent pasturage there sprang up a bizarre growth which only a botanist could connect with the proper flora of the region. No sane wholesome colours were anywhere to be seen except in the green grass and leafage; but everywhere were those hectic and prismatic variants of some diseased, underlying primary tone without a place among the known tints of earth. The "Dutchman's breeches" became a thing of sinister menace, and the bloodroots grew insolent in their chromatic perversion. Ammi and the Gardners thought that most of the colours had a sort of haunting familiarity, and decided that they reminded one of the brittle globule in the meteor. Nahum ploughed and sowed the ten-acre pasture and the upland lot, but did nothing with the land around the house. He knew it would be of no use, and hoped that the summer's strange growths would draw all the poison from the soil. He was prepared for almost anything now, and had grown used to the sense of something near him waiting to be heard. The shunning of his house by neighbours told on him, of course; but it told on his wife more. The boys were better off, being at school each day; but they could not help being frightened by the gossip. Thaddeus, an especially sensitive youth, suffered the most.

IN MAY the insects came, and Nahum's place became a nightmare of buzzing and crawling. Most of the creatures seemed not quite usual in their aspects and motions, and their nocturnal habits contradicted all former experience. The Gardners took to watching at night— watching in all directions at random for something they could not tell what. It was then that they all owned that Thaddeus had been right about the trees. Mrs. Gardner was the next to see it from the window as she watched the swollen boughs of a maple against a moonlit sky. The boughs surely moved, and there was no wind. It must be the sap. Strangeness had come into everything growing now. Yet it was none of Nahum's family at all who made the next discovery. Familiarity had dulled them, and what they could not see was glimpsed by a timid windmill salesman from Bolton who drove by one night in ignorance of the country legends. What he told in Arkham was given a short paragraph in the Gazette; and it was there that all the farmers, Nahum included, saw it first. The night had been dark and the buggy-lamps faint, but around a farm in the valley which everyone knew from the account must be Nahum's, the darkness had been less thick. A dim though distinct luminosity seemed to inhere in all the vegetation, grass, leaves, and blossoms alike, while at one moment a detached piece of the phosphorescence appeared to stir furtively in the yard near the barn.

The grass had so far seemed untouched, and the cows were freely pastured in the lot near the house, but toward the end of May the milk began to be bad. Then Nahum had the cows driven to the uplands, after which this trouble ceased. Not long after this the change in grass and leaves became apparent to the eye. All the verdure was going grey, and was developing a highly singular quality of brittleness. Ammi was now the only person who ever visited the place, and his visits were becoming fewer and fewer. When school closed the Gardners were virtually cut off from the world, and sometimes let Ammi do their errands in town. They were failing curiously both physically and mentally, and no one was surprised when the news of Mrs. Gardner's madness stole around.

It happened in June, about the anniversary of the meteor's fall, and the poor woman screamed about things in the air which she could not describe. In her raving there was not a single specific noun, but only verbs and pronouns. Things moved and changed and fluttered, and ears tingled to impulses which were not wholly sounds. Something was taken away— she was being drained of something— something was fastening itself on her that ought not to be—someone must make it keep off— nothing was ever still in the night—the walls and windows shifted. Nahum did not send her to the county asylum, but let her wander about the house as long as she was harmless to herself and others. Even when her expression changed he did nothing. But when the boys grew afraid of her, and Thaddeus nearly fainted at the way she made faces at him, he decided to keep her locked in the attic. By July she had ceased to speak and crawled on all fours, and before that month was over Nahum got the mad notion that she was slightly luminous in the dark, as he now clearly saw was the case with the nearby vegetation.

It was a little before this that the horses had stampeded. Something had aroused them in the night, and their neighing and kicking in their stalls had been terrible. There seemed virtually nothing to do to calm them, and when Nahum opened the stable door they all bolted out like frightened woodland deer. It took a week to track all four, and when found they were seen to be quite useless and unmanageable. Something had snapped in their brains, and each one had to be shot for its own good. Nahum borrowed a horse from Ammi for his haying, but found it would not approach the barn. It shied, balked, and whinnied, and in the end he could do nothing but drive it into the yard while the men used their own strength to get the heavy wagon near enough the hayloft for convenient pitching. And all the while the vegetation was turning grey and brittle. Even the flowers whose hues had been so strange were graying now, and the fruit was coming out grey and dwarfed and tasteless. The asters and goldenrod bloomed grey and distorted, and the roses and zinnias and hollyhocks in the front yard were such blasphemous-looking things that Nahum's oldest boy Zenas cut them down. The strangely puffed insects died about that time, even the bees that had left their hives and taken to the woods.

By September all the vegetation was fast crumbling to a greyish powder, and Nahum feared that the trees would die before the poison was out of the soil. His wife now had spells of terrific screaming, and he and the boys were in a constant state of nervous tension. They shunned people now, and when school opened the boys did not go. But it was Ammi, on one of his rare visits, who first realized that the well water was no longer good. It had an evil taste that was not exactly fetid nor exactly salty, and Ammi advised his friend to dig another well on higher ground to use till the soil was good again. Nahum, however, ignored the warning, for he had by that time become calloused to strange and unpleasant things. He and the boys continued to use the tainted supply, drinking it as listlessly and mechanically as they ate their meagre and ill-cooked meals and did their thankless and monotonous chores through the aimless days. There was something of stolid resignation about them all, as if they walked half in another world between lines of nameless guards to a certain and familiar doom.

Thaddeus went mad in September after a visit to the well. He had gone with a pail and had come back empty-handed, shrieking and waving his arms, and sometimes lapsing into an inane titter or a whisper about "the moving colours down there." Two in one family was pretty bad, but Nahum was very brave about it. He let the boy run about for a week until he began stumbling and hurting himself, and then he shut him in an attic room across the hall from his mother's. The way they screamed at each other from behind their locked doors was very terrible, especially to little Merwin, who fancied they talked in some terrible language that was not of earth. Merwin was getting frightfully imaginative, and his restlessness was worse after the shutting away of the brother who had been his greatest playmate.

Almost at the same time the mortality among the livestock commenced. Poultry turned greyish and died very quickly, their meat being found dry and noisome upon cutting. Hogs grew inordinately fat, then suddenly began to undergo loathsome changes which no one could explain. Their meat was of course useless, and Nahum was at his wit's end. No rural veterinary would approach his place, and the city veterinary from Arkham was openly baffled. The swine began growing grey and brittle and falling to pieces before they died, and their eyes and muzzles developed singular alterations. It was very inexplicable, for they had never been fed from the tainted vegetation. Then something struck the cows. Certain areas or sometimes the whole body would be uncannily shrivelled or compressed, and atrocious collapses or disintegrations were common. In the last stages— and death was always the result— there would be a greying and turning brittle like that which beset the hogs. There could be no question of poison, for all the cases occurred in a locked and undisturbed barn. No bites of prowling things could have brought the virus, for what live beast of earth can pass through solid obstacles? It must be only natural disease—yet what disease could wreak such results was beyond any mind's guessing. When the harvest came there was not an animal surviving on the place, for the stock and poultry were dead and the dogs had run away. These dogs, three in number, had all vanished one night and were never heard of again. The five cats had left some time before, but their going was scarcely noticed since there now seemed to be no mice, and only Mrs. Gardner had made pets of the graceful felines.

ON THE nineteenth of October Nahum staggered into Ammi's house with hideous news. The death had come to poor Thaddeus in his attic room, and it had come in a way which could not be told. Nahum had dug a grave in the railed family plot behind the farm, and had put therein what he found. There could have been nothing from outside, for the small barred window and locked door were intact; but it was much as it had been in the barn. Ammi and his wife consoled the stricken man as best they could, but shuddered as they did so. Stark terror seemed to cling round the Gardners and all they touched, and the very presence of one in the house was a breath from regions unnamed and unnameable. Ammi accompanied Nahum home with the greatest reluctance, and did what he might to calm the hysterical sobbing of little Merwin. Zenas needed no calming. He had come of late to do nothing but stare into space and obey what his father told him; and Ammi thought that his fate was very merciful. Now and then Merwin's screams were answered faintly from the attic, and in response to an inquiring look Nahum said that his wife was getting very feeble. When night approached, Ammi managed to get away; for not even friendship could make him stay in that spot when the faint glow of the vegetation began and the trees may or may not have swayed without wind. It was really lucky for Ammi that he was not more imaginative. Even as things were, his mind was bent ever so slightly; but had he been able to connect and reflect upon all the portents around him he must inevitably have turned a total maniac. In the twilight he hastened home, the screams of the mad woman and the nervous child ringing horrible in his ears.

Three days later Nahum burst into Ammi's kitchen in the early morning, and in the absence of his host stammered out a desperate tale once more, while Mrs. Pierce listened in a clutching fright. It was little Merwin this time. He was gone. He had gone out late at night with a lantern and pail for water, and had never come back. He'd been going to pieces for days, and hardly knew what he was about. Screamed at everything. There had been a frantic shriek from the yard then, but before the father could get to the door the boy was gone. There was no glow from the lantern he had taken, and of the child himself no trace. At the time Nahum thought the lantern and pail were gone too; but when dawn came, and the man had plodded back from his all-night search of the woods and fields, he had found some very curious things near the well. There was a crushed and apparently somewhat melted mass of iron which had certainly been the lantern; while a bent pail and twisted iron hoops beside it, both half-fused, seemed to hint at the remnants of the pail. That was all. Nahum was past imagining, Mrs. Pierce was blank, and Ammi, when he had reached home and heard the tale, could give no guess. Merwin was gone, and there would be no use in telling the people around, who shunned all Gardners now. No use, either, in telling the city people at Arkham who laughed at everything. Thad was gone, and now Merwin was gone. Something was creeping and creeping and waiting to be seen and heard. Nahum would go soon, and he wanted Ammi to look after his wife and Zenas if they survived him. It must all be a judgment of some sort; though he could not fancy what for, since he had always walked uprightly in the Lord's ways so far as he knew.

For over two weeks Ammi saw nothing of Nahum; and then, worried about what might have happened, he overcame his fears and paid the Gardner place a visit. There was no smoke from the great chimney, and for a moment the visitor was apprehensive of the worst. The aspect of the whole farm was shocking— greyish withered grass and leaves on the ground, vines falling in brittle wreckage from archaic walls and gables, and great bare trees clawing up at the grey November sky with a studied malevolence which Ammi could not but feel had come from some subtle change in the tilt of the branches. But Nahum was alive, after all. He was weak, and lying in a couch in the low-ceiled kitchen, but perfectly conscious and able to give simple orders to Zenas. The room was deadly cold; and as Ammi visibly shivered, the host shouted huskily to Zenas for more wood. Wood, indeed, was sorely needed; since the cavernous fireplace was unlit and empty, with a cloud of soot blowing about in the chill wind that came down the chimney. Presently Nahum asked him if the extra wood had made him any more comfortable, and then Ammi saw what had happened. The stoutest cord had broken at last, and the hapless farmer's mind was proof against more sorrow.

Questioning tactfully, Ammi could get no clear data at all about the missing Zenas. "In the well— he lives in the well—" was all that the clouded father would say. Then there flashed across the visitor's mind a sudden thought of the mad wife, and he changed his line of inquiry. "Nabby? Why, here she is!" was the surprised response of poor Nahum, and Ammi soon saw that he must search for himself. Leaving the harmless babbler on the couch, he took the keys from their nail beside the door and climbed the creaking stairs to the attic. It was very close and noisome up there, and no sound could be heard from any direction. Of the four doors in sight, only one was locked, and on this he tried various keys on the ring he had taken. The third key proved the right one, and after some fumbling Ammi threw open the low white door.

It was quite dark inside, for the window was small and half-obscured by the crude wooden bars; and Ammi could see nothing at all on the wide-planked floor. The stench was beyond enduring, and before proceeding further he had to retreat to another room and return with his lungs filled with breathable air. When he did enter he saw something dark in the corner, and upon seeing it more clearly he screamed outright. While he screamed he thought a momentary cloud eclipsed the window, and a second later he felt himself brushed as if by some hateful current of vapour. Strange colours danced before his eyes; and had not a present horror numbed him he would have thought of the globule in the meteor that the geologist's hammer had shattered, and of the morbid vegetation that had sprouted in the spring. As it was he thought only of the blasphemous monstrosity which confronted him, and which all too clearly had shared the nameless fate of young Thaddeus and the livestock. But the terrible thing about the horror was that it very slowly and perceptibly moved as it continued to crumble.

AMMI would give me no added particulars of this scene, but the shape in the corners does not re-appear in his tale as a moving object. There are things which cannot be mentioned, and what is done in common humanity is sometimes cruelly judged by the law. I gathered that no moving thing was left in that attic room, and that to leave anything capable of motion there would have been a deed so monstrous as to damn any accountable being to eternal torment. Anyone but a stolid farmer would have fainted or gone mad, but Ammi walked conscious through that low doorway and locked the accursed secret behind him. There would be Nahum to deal with now; he must be fed and tended, and removed to some place where he could be cared for.

Commencing his descent of the dark stairs, Ammi heard a thud below him. He even thought a scream had been suddenly choked off, and recalled nervously the clammy vapour which had brushed by him in that frightful room above. What presence had his cry and entry started up? Halted by some vague fear, he heard still further sounds below. Indubitably there was a sort of heavy dragging, and a most detestably sticky noise as of some fiendish and unclean species of suction. With an associative sense goaded to feverish heights, he thought unaccountably of what he had seen upstairs. Good God! What eldritch dream-world was this into which he had blundered? He dared move neither backward nor forward, but stood there trembling at the black curve of the boxed-in staircase. Every trifle of the scene burned itself into his brain. The sounds, the sense of dread expectancy, the darkness, the steepness of the narrow steps— and merciful Heaven!— the faint but unmistakable luminosity of all the woodwork in sight; steps, sides, exposed laths, and beams alike.

Then there burst forth a frantic whinny from Ammi's horse outside, followed at once by a clatter which told of a frenzied runaway. In another moment horse and buggy had gone beyond earshot, leaving the frightened man on the dark stairs to guess what had sent them. But that was not all. There had been another sound out there. A sort of liquid splash—water—it must have been the well. He had left Hero untied near it, and a buggy-wheel must have brushed the coping and knocked in a stone. And still the pale phosphorescense glowed in that detestably ancient woodwork. God! how old the house was! Most of it built before 1700.

A feeble scratching on the floor downstairs now sounded distinctly, and Ammi's grip tightened on a heavy stick he had picked up in the attic for some purpose. Slowly nerving himself, he finished his descent and walked boldly toward the kitchen. But he did not complete the walk, because what he sought was no longer there. It had come to meet him, and it was still alive after a fashion. Whether it had crawled or whether it had been dragged by any external forces, Ammi could not say; but the death had been at it. Everything had happened in the last half-hour, but collapse, greying, and disintegration were already far advanced. There was a horrible brittleness, and dry fragments were scaling off. Ammi could not touch it, but looked horrifiedly into the distorted parody that had been a face. "What was it, Nahum—what was it?" He whispered, and the cleft, bulging lips were just able to crackle out a final answer.

"Nothin'... nothin'... the colour... it burns... cold an' wet, but it burns... it lived in the well.... I seen it ... a kind o' smoke ... jest like the flowers last spring... the well shone at night.... Thad an' Merwin an' Zenas... everything alive... suckin' the life out of everything... in that stone... it must o' come in that stone... pizened the whole place... dun't know what it wants... that round thing them men from the college dug outen the stone... they smashed it... it was that same colour... jest the same, like the flowers an' plants... must a' ben more of 'em... seeds... seeds... they growed... I seen it the fust time this week... must a' got strong on Zenas... he was a big boy, full o' life... it beats down your mind an' then gits ye... burns ye up... in the well water... you was right about that... evil water... Zenas never come back from the well... can't git away... draws ye... ye know summ'at's comin', but 'tain't no use... I seen it time an' agin Zenas was took... whar's Nabby, Ammi?... my head's no good... dun't know how long sence I fed her... it'll git her ef we ain't keerful... jest a colour... her face is gittin' to hev that colour sometimes towards night ... an' it burns an' sucks... it come from some place whar things ain't as they is here... one o' them professors said so... he was right... look out, Ammi, it'll do suthin' more... sucks the life out...."

But that was all. That which spoke could speak no more because it had completely caved in. Ammi laid a red checked tablecloth over what was left and reeled out the back door into the fields. He climbed the slope to the ten-acre pasture and stumbled home by the north road and the woods. He could not pass that well from which his horses had run away. He had looked at it through the window, and had seen that no stone was missing from the rim. Then the lurching buggy had not dislodged anything after all— the splash had been something else— something which went into the well after it had done with poor Nahum....

When Ammi reached his house the horses and buggy had arrived before him and thrown his wife into fits of anxiety. Reassuring her without explanations, he set out at once for Arkham and notified the authorities that the Gardner family was no more. He indulged in no details, but merely told of the deaths of Nahum and Nabby, that of Thaddeus being already known, and mentioned that the cause seemed to be the same strange ailment which had killed the livestock. He also stated that Merwin and Zenas had disappeared. There was considerable questioning at the police station, and in the end Ammi was compelled to take three officers to the Gardner farm, together with the coroner, the medical examiner, and the veterinary who had treated the diseased animals. He went much against his will, for the afternoon was advancing and he feared the fall of night over that accursed place, but it was some comfort to have so many people with him.

The six men drove out in a democrat-wagon, following Ammi's buggy, and arrived at the pest-ridden farmhouse about four o'clock. Used as the officers were to gruesome experiences, not one remained unmoved at what was found in the attic and under the red checked tablecloth on the floor below. The whole aspect of the farm with its grey desolation was terrible enough, but those two crumbling objects were beyond all bounds. No one could look long at them, and even the medical examiner admitted that there was very little to examine. Specimens could be analysed, of course, so he busied himself in obtaining them— and here it develops that a very puzzling aftermath occurred at the college laboratory where the two phials of dust were finally taken. Under the spectroscope both samples gave off an unknown spectrum, in which many of the baffling bands were precisely like those which the strange meteor had yielded in the previous year. The property of emitting this spectrum vanished in a month, the dust thereafter consisting mainly of alkaline phosphates and carbonates.

AMMI WOULD not have told the men about the well if he had thought they meant to do anything then and there. It was getting toward sunset, and he was anxious to be away. But he could not help glancing nervously at the stony curb by the great sweep, and when a detective questioned him he admitted that Nahum had feared something down there— so much so that he had never even thought of searching it for Merwin or Zenas. After that nothing would do but that they empty and explore the well immediately, so Ammi had to wait trembling while pail after pail of rank water was hauled up and splashed on the soaking ground outside. The men sniffed in disgust at the fluid, and toward the last held their noses against the foetor they were uncovering. It was not so long a job as they had feared it would be, since the water was phenomenally low. There is no need to speak too exactly of what they found. Merwin and Zenas were both there, in part, though the vestiges were mainly skeletal. There were also a small deer and a large dog in about the same state, and a number of bones of smaller animals. The ooze and slime at the bottom seemed inexplicably porous and bubbling, and a man who descended on hand-holds with a long pole found that he could sink the wooden shaft to any depth in the mud of the floor without meeting any solid obstruction.

Twilight had now fallen, and lanterns were brought from the house. Then, when it was seen that nothing further could be gained from the well, everyone went indoors and conferred in the ancient sitting-room while the intermittent light of a spectral half-moon played wanly on the grey desolation outside. The men were frankly nonplussed by the entire case, and could find no convincing common element to link the strange vegetable conditions, the unknown disease of livestock and humans, and the unaccountable deaths of Merwin and Zenas in the tainted well. They had heard the common country talk, it is true; but could not believe that anything contrary to natural law had occurred. No doubt the meteor had poisoned the soil, but the illness of person and animals who had eaten nothing grown in that soil was another matter. Was it the well water? Very possibly. It might be a good idea to analyse it. But what peculiar madness could have made both boys jump into the well? Their deeds were so similar— and the fragments showed that they had both suffered from the grey brittle death. Why was everything so grey and brittle?

It was the coroner, seated near a window overlooking the yard, who first noticed the glow about the well. Night had fully set in, and all the abhorrent grounds seemed faintly luminous with more than the fitful moonbeams; but this new glow was something definite and distinct, and appeared to shoot up from the black pit like a softened ray from a searchlight, giving dull reflections in the little ground pools where the water had been emptied. It had a very queer colour, and as all the men clustered round the window Ammi gave a violent start. For this strange beam of ghastly miasma was to him of no unfamiliar hue. He had seen that colour before, and feared to think what it might mean. He had seen it in the nasty brittle globule in that aerolite two summers ago, had seen it in the crazy vegetation of the springtime, and had thought he had seen it for an instant that very morning against the small barred window of that terrible attic room where nameless things had happened. It had flashed there a second, and a clammy and hateful current of vapour had brushed past him— and then poor Nahum had been taken by something of that colour. He had said so at the last— said it was like the globule and the plants. After that had come the runaway in the yard and the splash in the well— and now that well was belching forth to the night a pale insidious beam of the same demoniac tint.

It does credit to the alertness of Ammi's mind that he puzzled even at that tense moment over a point which was essentially scientific. He could not but wonder at his gleaning of the same impression from a vapour glimpsed in the daytime, against a window opening in the morning sky, and from a nocturnal exhalation seen as a phosphorescent mist against the black and blasted landscape. It wasn't right— it was against Nature—and he thought of those terrible last words of his stricken friend, "It come from some place whar things ain't as they is here... one o' them professors said so...."

All three horses outside, tied to a pair of shrivelled saplings by the road, were now neighing and pawing frantically. The wagon driver started for the door to do something, but Ammi laid a shaky hand on his shoulder. "Dun't go out thar," he whispered. "They's more to this nor what we know. Nahum said somethin' lived in the well that sucks your life out. He said it must be some'at growed from a round ball like one we all seen in the meteor stone that fell a year ago June. Sucks an' burns, he said, an' is jest a cloud of colour like that light out thar now, that ye can hardly see an' can't tell what it is. Nahum thought it feeds on everything livin' an' gits stronger all the time. He said he seen it this last week. It must be somethin' from away off in the sky like the men from the college last year says the meteor stone was. The way it's made an' the way it works ain't like no way o' God's world. It's some'at from beyond."

So the men paused indecisively as the light from the well grew stronger and the hitched horses pawed and whinnied in increasing frenzy. It was truly an awful moment; with terror in that ancient and accursed house itself, four monstrous sets of fragments— two from the house and two from the well— in the woodshed behind, and that shaft of unknown and unholy iridescence from the slimy depths in front. Ammi had restrained the driver on impulse, forgetting how uninjured he himself was after the clammy brushing of that coloured vapour in the attic room, but perhaps it is just as well that he acted as he did. No one will ever know what was abroad that night; and though the blasphemy from beyond had not so far hurt any human of unweakened mind, there is no telling what it might not have done at that last moment, and with its seemingly increased strength and the special signs of purpose it was soon to display beneath the half-clouded moonlit sky.

ALL AT ONCE one of the detectives at the window gave a short, sharp gasp. The others looked at him, and then quickly followed his own gaze upward to the point at which its idle straying had been suddenly arrested. There was no need for words. What had been disputed in country gossip was disputable no longer, and it is because of the thing which every man of that party agreed in whispering later on, that strange days are never talked about in Arkham. It is necessary to premise that there was no wind at that hour of the evening. One did arise not long afterward, but there was absolutely none then. Even the dry tips of the lingering hedge-mustard, grey and blighted, and the fringe on the roof of the standing democrat-wagon were unstirred. And yet amid that tense, godless calm the high bare boughs of all the trees in the yard were moving. They were twitching morbidly and spasmodically, clawing in convulsive and epileptic madness at the moonlit clouds; scratching impotently in the noxious air as if jerked by some allied and bodiless line of linkage with sub-terrene horrors writhing and struggling below the black roots.

Not a man breathed for several seconds. Then a cloud of darker depth passed over the moon, and the silhouette of clutching branches faded out momentarily. At this there was a general cry; muffled with awe, but husky and almost identical from every throat. For the terror had not faded with the silhouette, and in a fearsome instant of deeper darkness the watchers saw wriggling at the treetop height a thousand tiny points of faint and unhallowed radiance, tipping each bough like the fire of St. Elmo or the flames that come down on the apostles' heads at Pentecost. It was a monstrous constellation of unnatural light, like a glutted swarm of corpse-fed fireflies dancing hellish sarabands over an accursed marsh; and its colour was that same nameless intrusion which Ammi had come to recognise and dread. All the while the shaft of phosphorescence from the well was getting brighter and brighter, bringing to the minds of the huddled men, a sense of doom and abnormality which far outraced any image their conscious minds could form. It was no longer shining out; it was pouring out; and as the shapeless stream of unplaceable colour left the well it seemed to flow directly into the sky.

The veterinary shivered, and walked to the front door to drop the heavy extra bar across it. Ammi shook no less, and had to tug and point for lack of a controllable voice when he wished to draw notice to the growing luminosity of the trees. The neighing and stamping of the horses had become utterly frightful, but not a soul of that group in the old house would have ventured forth for any earthly reward. With the moments the shining of the trees increased, while their restless branches seemed to strain more and more toward verticality. The wood of the well-sweep was shining now, and presently a policeman dumbly pointed to some wooden sheds and beehives near the stone wall on the west. They were commencing to shine, too, though the tethered vehicles of the visitors seemed so far unaffected. Then there was a wild commotion and clopping in the road, and as Ammi quenched the lamp for better seeing they realized that the span of frantic grays had broken their sapling and run off with the democrat-wagon.

The shock served to loosen several tongues, and embarrassed whispers were exchanged. "It spreads on everything organic that's been around here," muttered the medical examiner. No one replied, but the man who had been in the well gave a hint that his long pole must have stirred up something intangible. "It was awful," he added. "There was no bottom at all. Just ooze and bubbles and the feeling of something lurking under there." Ammi's horse still pawed and screamed deafeningly in the road outside, and nearly drowned its owner's faint quaver as he mumbled his formless reflections. "It come from that stone— it growed down thar— it got everything livin'— it fed itself on 'em, mind and body—Thad an' Merwin, Zenas an' Nabby— Nahum was the last— they all drunk the water— it got strong on 'em— it come from beyond, whar things ain't like they be here— now it's goin' home—"

At this point, as the column of unknown colour flared suddenly stronger and began to weave itself into fantastic suggestions of shape which each spectator later described differently, there came from poor tethered Hero such a sound as no man before or since ever heard from a horse. Every person in that low-pitched sitting-room stopped his ears, and Ammi turned away from the window in horror and nausea. Words could not convey it— when Ammi looked out again the hapless beast lay huddled inert on the moonlit ground between the splintered shafts of the buggy. That was the last of Hero till they buried him next day. But the present was no time to mourn, for almost at this instant a detective silently called attention to something terrible in the very room with them. In the absence of the lamplight it was clear that a faint phosphorescence had begun to pervade the entire apartment. It glowed on the broad-planked floor where the rag carpet left it bare, and shimmered over the sashes of the small-paned windows. It ran up and down the exposed corner-posts, coruscated about the shelf and mantel, and infected the very doors and furniture. Each minute saw it strengthen, and at last it was very plain that healthy living things must leave that house.

Ammi showed them the back door and the path up through the fields to the ten-acre pasture. They walked and stumbled as in a dream, and did not dare look back till they were far away on the high ground. They were glad of the path, for they could not have gone the front way, by that well. It was bad enough passing the glowing barn and sheds, and those shining orchard trees with their gnarled, fiendish contours; but thank Heaven the branches did their worst twisting high up. The moon went under some very black clouds as they crossed the rustic bridge over Chapman's Brook, and it was blind groping from there to the open meadows.

WHEN THEY LOOKED back toward the valley and the distant Gardner place at the bottom they saw a fearsome sight. All the farm was shining with the hideous unknown blend of colour; trees, buildings, and even such grass and herbage as had not been wholly changed to lethal grey brittleness. The boughs were all straining skyward, tipped with tongues of foul flame, and lambent tricklings of the same monstrous fire were creeping about the ridgepoles of the house, barn and sheds. It was a scene from a vision of Fuseli, and over all the rest reigned that riot of luminous amorphousness, that alien and undimensioned rainbow of cryptic poison from the well— seething, feeling, lapping, reaching, scintillating, straining, and malignly bubbling in its cosmic and unrecognizable chromaticism.

Then without warning the hideous thing shot vertically up toward the sky like a rocket or meteor, leaving behind no trail and disappearing through a round and curiously regular hole in the clouds before any man could gasp or cry out. No watcher can ever forget that sight, and Ammi stared blankly at the stars of Cygnus, Deneb twinkling above the others, where the unknown colour had melted into the Milky Way. But his gaze was the next moment called swiftly to earth by the crackling in the valley. It was just that. Only a wooden ripping and crackling, and not an explosion, as so many others of the party vowed. Yet the outcome was the same, for in one feverish kaleidoscopic instant there burst up from that doomed and accursed farm a gleamingly eruptive cataclysm of unnatural sparks and substance; blurring the glance of the few who saw it, and sending forth to the zenith a bombarding cloudburst of such coloured and fantastic fragments as our universe must needs disown. Through quickly re-closing vapours they followed the great morbidity that had vanished, and in another second they had vanished too. Behind and below was only a darkness to which the men dared not return, and all about was a mounting wind which seemed to sweep down in black, frore gusts from interstellar space. It shrieked and howled, and lashed the fields and distorted woods in a mad cosmic frenzy, till soon the trembling party realized it would be no use waiting for the moon to show what was left down there at Nahum's.

Too awed even to hint theories, the seven shaking men trudged back toward Arkham by the north road. Ammi was worse than his fellows, and begged them to see him inside his own kitchen, instead of keeping straight on to town. He did not wish to cross the blighted, wind-whipped woods alone to his home on the main road. For he had had an added shock that the others were spared, and was crushed for ever with a brooding fear he dared not even mention for many years to come. As the rest of the watchers on that tempestuous hill had stolidly set their faces toward the road, Ammi had looked back an instant at the shadowed valley of desolation so lately sheltering his ill-starred friend. And from that stricken, far-away spot he had seen something feebly rise, only to sink down again upon the place from which the great shapeless horror had shot into the sky. It was just a colour— but not any colour of our earth or heavens. And because Ammi recognized that colour, and knew that this last faint remnant must still lurk down there in the well, he has never been quite right since.

Ammi would never go near the place again. It is forty-four years now since the horror happened, but he has never been there, and will be glad when the new reservoir blots it out. I shall be glad, too, for I do not like the way the sunlight changed colour around the mouth of that abandoned well I passed. I hope the water will always be very deep— but even so, I shall never drink it. I do not think I shall visit the Arkham country hereafter. Three of the men who had been with Ammi returned the next morning to see the ruins by daylight, but there were not any real ruins. Only the bricks of the chimney, the stones of the cellar, some mineral and metallic litter here and there, and the rim of that nefandous well. Save for Ammi's dead horse, which they towed away and buried, and the buggy which they shortly returned to him, everything that had ever been living had gone. Five eldritch acres of dusty grey desert remained, nor has anything ever grown there since. To this day it sprawls open to the sky like a great spot eaten by acid in the woods and fields, and the few who have ever dared glimpse it in spite of the rural tales have named it "the blasted heath."

THE RURAL TALES are queer. They might be even queerer if city men and college chemists could be interested enough to analyze the water from that disused well, or the grey dust that no wind seems ever to disperse. Botanists, too, ought to study the stunted flora on the borders of that spot, for they might shed light on the country notion that the blight is spreading— little by little, perhaps an inch a year. People say the colour of the neighboring herbage is not quite right in the spring, and that wild things leave queer prints in the light winter snow. Snow never seems quite so heavy on the blasted heath as it is elsewhere. Horses— the few that are left in this motor age— grow skittish in the silent valley; and hunters cannot depend on their dogs too near the splotch of greyish dust.

They say the mental influences are very bad, too; numbers went queer in the years after Nahum's taking, and always they lacked the power to get away. Then the stronger-minded folk all left the region, and only the foreigners tried to live in the crumbling old homesteads. They could not stay, though; and one sometimes wonders what insight beyond ours their wild, weird stories of whispered magic have given them. Their dreams at night, they protest, are very horrible in that grotesque country; and surely the very look of the dark realm is enough to stir a morbid fancy. No traveler has ever escaped a sense of strangeness in those deep ravines, and artists shiver as they paint thick woods whose mystery is as much of the spirits as of the eye. I myself am curious about the sensation I derived from my one lone walk before Ammi told me his tale. When twilight came I had vaguely wished some clouds would gather, for odd timidity about the deep skyey voids above had crept into my soul.

Do not ask me for my opinion. I do not know— that is all. There was no one but Ammi to question; for Arkham people will not talk about the strange days, and all three professors who saw the aerolite and its coloured globule are dead. There were other globules— depend upon that. One must have fed itself and escaped, and probably there was another which was too late. No doubt it is still down the well— I know there was something wrong with the sunlight I saw above that miasmal brink. The rustics say the blight creeps an inch a year, so perhaps there is a kind of growth or nourishment even now. But whatever demon hatchling is there, it must be tethered to something or else it would quickly spread. Is it fastened to the roots of those trees that claw the air? One of the current Arkham tales is about fat oaks that shine and move as they ought not to do at night.

What it is, only God knows. In terms of matter I suppose the thing Ammi described would be called a gas, but this gas obeyed laws that are not of our cosmos. This was no fruit of such worlds and suns as shine on the telescopes and photographic plates of our observatories. This was no breath from the skies whose motions and dimensions our astronomers measure or deem too vast to measure. It was just a colour out of space— a frightful messenger from unformed realms of infinity beyond all Nature as we know it; from realms whose mere existence stuns the brain and numbs us with the black extra-cosmic gulfs it throws open before our frenzied eyes.

I doubt very much if Ammi consciously lied to me, and I do not think his tale was all a freak of madness as the townsfolk had forewarned. Something terrible came to the hills and valleys on that meteor, and something terrible—though I know not in what proportion— still remains. I shall be glad to see the water come. Meanwhile I hope nothing will happen to Ammi. He saw so much of the thing— and its influence was so insidious. Why has he never been able to move away? How clearly he recalled those dying words of Nahum's— "can't git away— draws ye— ye know summ'at's comin', but 'tain't no use—" Ammi is such a good old man—when the reservoir gang gets to work I must write the chief engineer to keep a sharp watch on him. I would hate to think of him as the grey, twisted, brittle monstrosity which persists more and more in troubling my sleep.

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14: Default With Doom

Cleve F. Adams

1895-1949)

Ten Detective Aces April 1937

SHANE had no business mixing in the case. He knew that, even as he cut the radio and spun the coupe around in the middle of Hollywood Boulevard. They could kill all the columnists in the world, and it would be okay with Shane; he wouldn't lift a finger, only— well, there was Martha. She was this d'Arcy mug's secretary. D'Arcy's murder might just happen to spell trouble for Martha.

Shane stopped and fortified himself with a couple of slugs of rye against seeing Martha. The six months weren't up, but what the hell? Maybe she wouldn't mind. Maybe she'd even be glad to see him, and, anyway, there was the murder.

It was raining a little, not hard, when he jack-knifed his long legs under the wheel again. The tires made sucking sounds and the asphalt felt slippery, greasy. The Legion fights were just letting out. Must be after eleven, Shane guessed. He didn't know for sure because he never bothered to wind the clock on the dash. His strap watch wasn't running, either.

He swung left on La Brea, right again onto Sunset. Presently he parked across from the big house on Wedgewood Terrace. There were a lot of cars around, police cars mostly, and an ambulance. The driver and a white-coated interne sat on the lip of a marble fountain in the middle of the lawn, apparently oblivious to the rain. They could have sat in the ambulance just as well.

Shane mentioned this to them as he went by. They said they liked to sit in the rain. He pumped long legs up the drive and onto the veranda. Five legmen on the police beat surrounded him. He was a head taller than any of them and they had to lean backward to see his face. They seemed to feel pretty bad about Guy d'Arcy. A newspaperman, one of their own brothers, that sort of thing.

Shane grinned. Not a man there was making forty a week; d'Arcy's take had run into the thousands. Shane's grin was a little lop-sided, the wide mouth turning up at one side only. His big nose was put on crooked too; waggishly, with a distinct cant toward the more optimistic side of his mouth. His eyes were very tired. He told the boys he didn't know anything, went inside. Cops were everywhere, but nobody tried to stop him so he went down the long hall to a lighted door at the rear.

A girl came out of the door, stumbling a little, with her hands pushed out in front of her as if she couldn't see very well and was feeling her way. She had been crying. She was tall, for a girl. The top of her head fitted nicely under Shane's chin when her arms caved against his chest. She pushed at him, and when he didn't move, she stepped back, peered up at his face.

"Hello, Michael," she said without inflection.

He said, very low: "Martha, honey, I had to come. What've they been doing to you?"

"Accusing me of murder, mostly," she said. "Give me a handkerchief, Michael."

He fished one from the pocket of the shabby trench coat, held it out awkwardly. She dabbed at her eyes, blew her nose quite loudly, almost like a man. That was one of the things Shane liked about Martha Young. No hysterics, lots of character. He said again: "I had to come, Martha. You don't mind?"

She looked at him. "What? Oh, no, I don't mind, Michael, only the answer is still the same.'' She suddenly made up her mind about something. "Michael, do you suppose you could find Jim?"

"Jim?"

"Jim d'Arcy, Guy's son."

SOMETHING went out of Shane's eyes. He said, "Oh," rather absently, took off his hat and shook rain from it. "So he ran out on you. Left you holding the sack."

She clutched his arms fiercely, "Shane, it isn't what you think. He didn't do it, I tell you. I had to admit that he had a quarrel with his father— the housekeeper would have told them, anway— but he didn't kill him. He couldn't have."

Shane said: "No, of course not, Martha," but his voice was flat, without conviction. He put on his hat again, said: "Well, I'll tell 'em it wasn't you, anyway." He left her there, went into the room, ducking his head a little because he rarely found a door that was high enough.

The men in the room all looked at him. All except Guy d'Arcy. He was staring at the ceiling, not seeing it. They'd taken the knife out of his heart now. It lay on the desk, matching the blotter and the rest of the set. The blood on the blade was turning brown, ugly.

Captain Udell said: "Hello, shamus. Who let you in?" He was a beefy man with tiny ruptured veins in his cheeks and nose. He had a short, gray-brown mustache that bristled when he talked, and amber eyes, like a cat's. He didn't like Shane very well. That made them even.

Shane's eyes looked sleepy. "I'm a friend of the family, sort of. I'm supposed to tell you that neither the girl nor Jim d'Arcy did the job."

Udell snarled. "Oh, yeah? Well, it'll take more than your tell, shamus. Might help some if you could turn up this d'Arcy mug, though." His pale eyes roved over the roomful of dicks. "He seems to be missing, don't he, boys? Missing right after a fight with his old man. Funny, hunh?"

Nobody laughed, though. Shane said: "What's so funny about it?"

Udell chuckled nastily. "We just found the will. The old man left most of his dough to the kid, but a nice slice goes to Martha Young, too. Plenty of motive for either of 'em right there. Besides, the girl was playin' both ends against the middle. The old man was making passes at her and so was the son. I understand that's what the quarrel was about."

Shane folded slowly into a chair. He looked tired all over now; tired and very thin. Even the faded trench coat, cinched tight about his middle, didn't make him look any thicker.

Udell stood over him suddenly, menacingly: "Where's Jim d'Arcy, Shane?"

"I wouldn't know, skipper, and that's a fact." Shane looked at Guy d'Arcy. He was a little disappointed in d'Arcy, even as a corpse. He watched them take the body out; watched the pudgy little deputy examiner put his things away, and the photographers and the print men and precinct dicks. Udell kept shooting glances at him from under beetling brows, but didn't say anything. He would later, though. Shane knew Udell.

There was a dictaphone beside the desk. Shane looked at it, saw that it contained no record. A quizzical wrinkle gathered between his eyes, Slowly he got to his feet, ambled across the room, stepped into the little office where Martha worked,

The wrinkle dissolved from Shane's brow as he closed the door softly behind him. In two lazy strides he was at Martha's desk, bending over the duplicate dictaphone. This one had a record in it.

He put on the headset, played the record back— d' Arcy's column for tomorrow, evidently. The needle came to a paragraph more outspoken than any of the others. Shane's eyes got sleepier than ever.

He took off the headphones, got up. Lazily, he walked out of the little room.

OUT in the hall he found Martha trying to soothe the housekeeper. The housekeeper had been crying, too. Udell couldn't seem to convict anybody of murder unless he made them cry first. It was sort of a routine with Udell.

Shane said: "Could I talk to you a minute, Martha?"

She'd got control of herself now. She gave the woman a last pat on the shoulder, led the way into the living room.

Shane said: "Tell me about it." He had to bend a little, at the knees, to look deep into her eyes.

"There isn't much to tell," she said wearily. "They found my fingerprints on the knife, and Jim's too, by comparison with some of his personal things. His not being here makes him the logical suspect, though they haven't quite given me up. Seems the— killer held the knife thumb forward or something and I didn't do it to suit them."

"No," said Shane, "you wouldn't. Only experienced hands know how to hold a knife. This Jim fella— he ever fool around with knives much?"

She looked startled. Sudden fear crept into her eyes, but she answered honestly enough. "I think so, Michael. That is, he used to when he was younger. Did tricks with them, and— and things."

Shane said, "Ummmm," and wandered about the room.

She came to him then, stood very close.

The perfume from her hair was like incense. "Michael, you must find him. Help him get away. If you need money—"

He pushed her from him roughly. "There isn't that much money, Martha. I don't like the guy, anyway. Killing the old man is bad enough, but leaving you to take the rap is worse."

She said, low: "If the answer was 'yes,' Michael? Would you then?"

Slow red crept into his cheeks, "Like that, hunh? Martyred for love. Well, the hell with it. I don't want any part of it."

He swung toward the door, halted as Udell came in.

Udell said: "What goes on here?"

Shane said: "By me, skipper."

"Well, keep it that way," said Udell nastily. He jabbed a thick finger at the girl. "And don't you go gettin' any funny ideas, either. You're not in the clear by a long shot, but I'm not taking you in till we pick up your boss's son. I'll just leave a man to kind of keep an eye on you." He followed Shane down the long hall. "Friend of the family, eh? So what?"

"So I think I'll go out and lift a few," said Shane. "Nice night for it." He shivered a little, turned his coat collar up. It was raining harder now. The ambulance and the white-coated interne were gone, and so were a lot of the cops. Shane got in the coupe.

HE stopped at the first night spot he came to, had a couple more ryes. They didn't help much. It was pretty cold, or maybe it was the look in Martha's eyes when he left. In Marchetti's club, a half hour later, some perverse humor made him remember the record he'd heard back there in Guy d'Arcy's office. He climbed carpeted stairs to the mezzanine, knocked on a door marked "Private."

Marchetti himself opened the door. "Oh, you!"

"In person," said Shane amiably, and wandered in. He hummed a little, slightly off key, added lyrics of his own to a few bars: "Is it true what they say about Gino?"

Marchetti was a round man. Everything about him looked round and his tailor hadn't been able to do much about it. His face looked like pie dough with a couple of raisins stuck in it for eyes. You weren't conscious of his mouth, it was so small.

He said: "Well, w'at do they say about me?"

Shane took his time. He swung a long leg over a corner of the desk, helped himself to a cigarette. He was ready for a fight with some one, and it might as well be Gino Marchetti. Besides, he was curious.

"They say that you and Mrs. Wentworth Lowden are just like that." He held up two fingers. "They say, in fact, that it isn't really Gino who makes the rackets go round and round, but a well-known society dowager."

"Who says that?" The raisin eyes glowed a little; otherwise, the face remained the same. "Who you theenk would say things like those?"

"I dunno," said Shane carelessly. "Be interesting to look into the rumor, though, if a guy had time." He listened to the music floating up from the supper room below.

Marchetti didn't say anything for a while. Short legs carried him around the black and chromium office. He took things up with his fat, pudgy hands, put them down again. Presently he wound up at Shane's side. The raisin eyes and tiny, pursed mouth looked a little anxious.

"Shane," he said without a trace of his affected accent, "Shane, you look kind of seedy. You wouldn't be needing money, would you?"

Shane's eyes got crinkly. "There isn't that much money, Gino. Not if I was interested and had the time."

"But you haven't the time?"

"No," said Shane, making up his mind that he'd been a heel about Martha. And, anyway, it wasn't any fun baiting Marchetti. "No, Gino, I haven't the time. I gotta find a guy named d'Arcy. You haven't seen him tonight, have you?"

"Guy d'Arcy, the columnist?"

"No, his son Jim."

Marchetti said no, he hadn't seen Jim d'Arcy. "He comes in here once in a while, though. Quite a boy, I hear." He poured two drinks, a long one for Shane, a shorter one for himself. "Well, here's a long and useful life, copper."

"For both of us," said Shane, wiping his lips. "Goodnight, Gino." He went down the carpeted stairs and out to his battered coupe. There was a clock on the ornamental light post on the corner. It said twelve forty.

SHANE had been in nine more places by one thirty. Nine places meant nine drinks to Shane, but it hadn't even begun to show. It never did. People wondered about that; the same people who liked him but said he was a hard guy to figure. In the last place, Pop Haggerty's, he got word of Jim d'Arcy.

D'Arcy had come in around eleven, Pop said. Looked all hotted up over something. Had three or four quick ones and then went out again. It was about this time that Shane realized he was being tailed. He'd been seeing that same face in nearly all the mirrors. He went along the bar, very steadily, to the guy the face belonged to.

"Do I know you, Dark and Handsome?"

The guy was dark, but he wasn't handsome. Plenty big, though. Almost as tall as Shane and three times as wide. He was drinking ginger ale, straight, and he had a gold tooth which gleamed at Shane through the pale liquid. He put his glass down.

"No, you don't know me, fella. You don't know me and you don't wanna know me. I'm poison to some guys."

Shane looked at the ginger ale bottle. He said, "Punk," with a sort of hopeful expression, but the guy didn't want to make anything out of it, so Shane went out into the rain again.

There wasn't any attendant in the lot next door, not many cars. Shane went crunching over wet gravel, counting the cars subconsciously, Seemed like too many ears for the number of customers in Pop's, even if they were all singles. He peered into a couple of the cars, not looking for anything in particular, but just because he liked to know things, especially when mildly drunk.

He had to light a match to look into the fifth car, because the dashlight wouldn't turn on. Something wet and shiny was smeared on the rim of the steering wheel. Shane touched his finger to it, smelled the finger. The shiny stuff was blood. He lit another match and jooked at the registration. It was Jim d'Arcy's car.

Gravel rattled behind him, and he spun, going for the gun under his arm.

The gorilla with the gold tooth chopped downward. Shane hadn't seen the gun in the guy's hand, but he felt it. His hat might as well have been tissue paper for all the good it did: He tried to grapple, but his arms couldn't find anything to hold on to, and then the guy hit him again. He folded slowly, sort of in sections, before he finally sprawled out, full length, on the gravel.

By and by it seemed he was riding on a camel, or maybe it was one of the old Catalina boats with the channel rougher than usual. He opened his eyes and discovered he wasn't riding at all. He was in a car, but the car wasn't going anywhere. What was making his head bob like that was a guy shaking him by the shoulders. He looked at the guy and it wasn't the ginger-ale guzzler with the gold tooth. It was somebody else; somebody Shane had never seen before; a little mug with a screwed-up weasel face and hard little shoe-button eyes.

Shane coughed, "All right, you can stop now," and then he gagged a little, and Weasel-face yelped, "Eey, not in here!" and dragged Shane out of the car like a wet hawser.

AFTER a while Shane felt a little better. It was very dark, but it had stopped raining. There was a monotonous creaking and groaning going on and at first Shane thought it was his own head. Then he smelled the oil. This was a section of the old La Brea field and a few antiquated pumpers were still grinding it out. Off to his left shone the lights of Wilshire's Miracle Mile. He could see these even though he was flat on the ground. He could also see the little guy's feet, only they weren't close enough for him to reach,

Weasel-face said, very bored: "Okay, lug, if you're all through. You showed signs of comin' to life, and I didn't have nothing to tie you with, so I thought I'd better stop. You'll hafta do the drivin'."

"Don't apologize," Shane said. "It's quite all right."' He rolled over in the mud, felt for his gun. It was gone. The little guy had one, though. He prodded hane into the car with it, slid in after him, and the gun buried itself in Shane's ribs as if it had found a permanent home. Shane switched the lights on. It was still Jim d'Arcy's car.

"Where to, maestro?"

"Just drive," said the little guy. "I'll tell you as we go along."

Shane went over to Wilshire. "Left," said the little guy. Shane turned left. He thought of asking what it was all about, decided it wouldn't do much good. This mug looked as if he might have a sense of humor, but it might be the wrong kind, and Shane's head was still kind of woozy. He wondered why he was still alive, why the little guy hadn't drilled him back there in the La Brea field. That would have been a nice quiet place.

So the answer was that somebody didn't want him dead. At least, not right away. Now, why do you suppose that was? Because Shane had something that somebody else wanted? He couldn't think of anything. Fact, it was pretty hard to think at all. He took a chance on the little guy's sense of humor. "What happened to the heavy with the gold head-light?"

"He had a date, copper." This very wearily, but the gun in Shane's ribs wasn't weary.

Shane studied the little guy obliquely. "I could stand a smoke, fella. Mind?"

"Not if you got one of your own. I need my hands, and speakin' of hands, you better keep at least one on the wheel where I can see it."

Shane fumbled a soggy cigarette from his right pocket, stuck it in his mouth and pretended he couldn't find a match. There was a lighter on the dash, so Shane leaned over the little guy's lap and got the lighter. His bent head snapped back, caught the little guy under the chin. The gun went off. Flame streaked along Shane's belly and the left hand window dissolved. Shane's head had had about all it could stand for awhile, though. It swelled up till the car wasn't big enough to hold it, and then it and the car and the whole world exploded together.

It seemed there were two cars and two light standards and two streets, and they were all painted red. No, that wasn't right. It was blood running down over Shane's eyes that made everything look red. He wiped the blood away with a sleeve of the trench coat. The two cars, etc., became one car and one light pole, but they weren't separate. It would take a wrecking truck to separate them.

Shane looked at the little guy. His head looked funny, as though it had been put on crooked. Shane tried to straighten it, and it wobbled loosely. The little guy wouldn't be using his head any more.

There were a couple of cars slowing up on the other side of the street, and down the boulevard a ways the ruby eye of a prowl car made a path for the siren. Shane went through the hood's pocket, picking up the gun on the seat and faded down an alley. Somebody yelled at him to stop, and a woman screamed shrilly, but Shane didn't wait. His legs felt rubbery, boneless, but he kept lifting his feet and putting them down again till he made it across to Pico. He sat down on the curb and waited for a cruising Yellow to show. One did, finally, and he got in, giving the address of his apartment.

HE found the lobby empty and he was glad of that, because if he looked half as bad as he felt, he wouldn't want even the clerk to see him. The automatic lift carried him up to the fourth, and he fitted his key into the lock without too much trouble; but before he twisted it, he took the little guy's gun out of his pocket and bent an ear to the door panel. He couldn't hear anything. Standing to one side, he pushed the door inward. Nothing happened. He reached in and switched the lights on.

Captain Udell was sitting in Shane's favorite chair. He had a police positive trained on Shane's flat middle and the look in his blood-shot eyes said he was aching to use it. There was another guy behind the door. Shane could hear him breathing.

Udell said: "Put the rod away, Shane. Put it away and come in. We've been waiting a long time for you."

Shane put the gun in the pocket of the trench coat. The guy behind the door closed it. He was a Hollywood dick, big, carefully dressed. He had a slight cast in one eye, and it gave him a sort of waggish look. Shane went over to the bar against the wall and studied his face in the mirror while he poured himself a drink. They must have kicked him around a little after conking him back there at Pop's Place. He still didn't know why.

The drink made him shudder. He must have left the lining of his stomach back there in the oil field.

Udell got up and came over and took the gun out of Shane's pocket. He looked at it, tossed it to the other dick. "Same caliber, Whitey."

Whitey said, yes, it was the same caliber, and stared hard at Shane who asked, quite casually: "Well, what am I supposed to have done now?"

Udell lifted a huge fist, thought better of it. "Nope, I haven't the heart, even on a cop killer. Clean yourself up, shamus, and then we're taking a ride."

"So l'm a cop killer. Life's fondest ambition realized at last." Shane wondered which cop he was supposed to have killed. "Well, well, that calls for a bath." He wobbled into the bathroom, and the dick, Whitey, came and watched him run water into the tub. "Such privacy," Shane said. He pointed to the one small window. "Look, copper, I'm practically a shadow of my former self, but I'm not that thin. Would you mind very much getting the hell out of here?"

He closed the door, sat on the edge of the tub while he took off his shoes, The hot water helped a lot. Towelling, he thought of the stuff from the little guy's pockets, and got it out of the trench coat. Nothing that told him anything there.

He got into fresh underwear, shirt and socks, but he had to go through the living room to find another suit. Neither Udell nor Whitey said anything, just watched him climb into his trousers as if he were some new kind of worm. Shane was knotting his tie when the telephone rang.

Udell said: "Never mind, I'll take it," and lifted the phone. He listened without saying much, and Shane knew the call was from headquarters.

Shane said: "Nice of me to let you use my place for an office." Udell got up and came over. He was shaking, holding himself in with an effort. The little ruptured veins in his nose and cheeks were purple instead of red, and his small eyes were congested.

"Shane, the department has let you horse around pretty much as you pleased. I don't know why. But you're through now, washed up, you hear me? You're sweet on this Martha Young dame. You were out to the house tonight, found her in a jam. You couldn't get her away while we were there, but you came back later and took a chance with the guard I left. He tried to stop you, and you let him have it. All right, we've got you, but that doesn't solve the d'Arcy kill. We want Jim d'Arcy and the girl."

SHANE put his glass down very carefully. "I see. It wouldn't do any good if I told you I didn't kill the cop; that I don't know where either the girl or d'Arcy are?"

"Not a damned bit of good!" Udell brandished a meaty fist under Shane's nose. "That call I just got was about a guy with a broken neck in a car that belongs to Jim d'Arcy. The guy was only a cheap hood. Maybe he's responsible for the way your face looks, maybe it was the cop, but we've got you tied in with that car. Couple of witnesses saw you lamming."

"All right," Shane said, "I admit I was in the car. I even admit I broke the guy's neck. He and a big mug with a gold head-light started pushing me around, I don't know why."

Udell cursed him. "By damn, I've a notion to beat it out of you right here!" He measured Shane's length, nodded at the dick. Shane was pretty sure he couldn't take them both; not after the shellacking he'd already had. He sidled toward the bathroom door as the two started closing in.

He said, "Now, wait a minute. I gotta get some tape on my chin," and got inside. Udell came in right on his heels, and Shane dropped to his knees, got the skipper by the legs and tossed him over his shoulder into the tub. There was a tremendous splash. Water hit the ceiling, showered down on Shane. Udell wallowed over on his back, bellowing. The other dick stuck his head through the door. Shane hit the head with a soggy bath towel. His feet slipped on the wet tile and he fell flat as the dick got the towel out of his eyes. The dick was still holding the little hood's gun. He lifted it, squeezed the trigger just as Shane yanked his legs out from under him.

The slug crashed the ceiling light. The guy's head bounced up and Shane pushed it down again, hard, got the gun, rolled over. Udell, coming out of the tub like a water buffalo, missed him and sprawled flat on top of the dick. Shane tapped him, just once, with the gun. Udell and the dick were both out cold.

It was quite a job to slide them both into the bathroom, but he got it done finally and, reversing the key, locked the door. After that he went to a closet and got another trench coat, exactly like the first, just as shabby, only it didn't have any mud on it. He put this on, found another hat down among the shoes and put that on. Udell and Whitey were making quite a racket in the bath now.

Shane went out into the hall and closed the door. The two old maids who lived across the hall were shrieking bloody murder. He could still hear them when he got down to the alley. It was raining again. He had to walk four blocks before he found a box to phone for a taxi. Waiting there in the shadows, he watched three prowl cars converge on the apartment house, go away again. The taxi came and he gave the man the address of Pop's Place on Sunset. Inside, he lifted his feet to the seat, folded long arms around bony knees and tried to concentrate. It was pretty hard, concentrating, when you didn't know exactly what to concentrate on, and when your head ached like seven elephants had stepped on it, and your stomach was sandpapered raw inside. Not to mention the bullet furrow on the outside from the little guy's gun.

Let's see, now. Young Jim d'Arcy knifed his old man; he was a wiz with a knife and the guy that did the job had certainly known what it was all about.

Thumb forward along the half and jab upward. Martha, or somebody who didn't have the savvy, would have held it thumb backward and struck down. Okay, so Jim d'Arcy did it. The gal knew he did it. She'd stayed, though, hoping to cover him.

But she didn't know where he had lammed to. Otherwise, she wouldn't have asked Shane to find him. Shane sat up at the thought. Of course! He, Shane, had said he wouldn't help; wouldn't have any part of it. So Martha had tried to find Jim d'Arcy, herself. The cop on guard had tried to stop her and she'd—

Shane cursed. He could see Martha, intent on doing something, pretty worried, and some big flat-foot trying to give her an argument. Hell of a mess, this. The fact that there was more than likely a general alarm out for Shane himself didn't worry him much. He grinned a little, thinking of Captain Udell having apoplexy back there in the bathroom. And that brought him to the little guy with the big gun, and the beppo with the gold headlight. They didn't fit, somehow. Shane floundered around in a mental fog, trying to make them fit, and finally arrived at a very funny conclusion. It was so funny that he chuckled aloud, and the driver turned around and scowled at him for putting his feet on the upholstery.

THEY pulled up in front of Pop's Place, and it was still open, but there weren't any customers. "Drive on by," Shane said. He looked over the parking lot as they went past, saw his own car and another, probably the bartender's. He got out, paid off, and walked back on the opposite side of the street. The barkeep was beginning to turn off the lights. That meant three o'clock.

Shane crossed over, opened the door. "Wait a minute, Jerry. I want to use the phone. And mix me up something hot, something with a coupla eggs in it, hunh?"

Jerry's eyes popped. "Jeez, Shane! Jeez, don't you know you're hot? Cops've been drillin' around ever since you left. They're lookin' for you, fella."

Shane said: "Thanks. Put plenty of bourbon in it, Jerry." He folded himself into the booth, closed the door, and dialed the Tribune. The paper had been on the streets for hours, but this was quicker. When he came out of the booth he was whistling between his teeth. Not because he was particularly happy, but because certain things like the little guy and the big guy and the dead copper and so on were beginning to fit. He held the steaming mug in both hands so they'd get warm, too.

Jerry kept looking at him, and looking out of the window, and muttering to himself.

Shane said: "The big yegg that drinks his ginger ale straight. Know him, Jerry?"

Jerry didn't, He went on mopping up behind the bar and wishing Shane would get the hell out. A car nosed into the curb. Shane saw the insignia on the door panel and went out the back way just as the two harness bulls came in the front. He could hear Jerry trying to stall them. He must remember to do something nice for Jerry sometime. Loping around the corner of the building, he got his car started and away before the cops found out they were being stalled.

THE d'Arcy house looked about the same. You'd never know that a great columnist and a not-so-great. dick had met death there in the last three or four hours. The street lights only made the shadows seem blacker, and giant pepper trees had dripped rain and berries till the pavement was slushy under the trees. Shane drove around the block, looking for a possible stake-out. There wasn't any. He parked under a tree, mounted the porch and rang the bell. He didn't
have to wait long. The porch light winked on, and the housekeeper opened the door on a chain. She looked lumpy in a too big flannel robe, and her eyes were puffy-red.

Shane took off his hat so she could see him better. "I'm Shane," he said. "You remember me?" She looked at him dully, as if she didn't, and he added: "I'm Martha's friend, and Jim d'Arcy's. I was here last night."

She bobbed her head. "I remember, but they're not here. Nobody's here but me."

He tried again: "Look, you'd like to help Martha and Jim, wouldn't you?"

Something flickered in the dull eyes. He couldn't tell what it was, but decided he might as well call it hope as anything. He had to get inside and he couldn't very well just barge in, not while the chain was on the door, so he said: "Well, that's just fine then. You want to help them, I want to help them. Two of the world's greatest little helpers, working together for the commonweal." She didn't think he was funny, so he scowled at her. "How's about undoing that chain?"

"You mean you want in?"

"That's the general idea, lady. I've got to have a look at one or two items in d'Arcy's office, and maybe Martha's, before I know just how helpful you and I are going to be."

She undid the chain, fastened it very carefully again, and then padded felt-soled slippers down the hall after him. He went into d'Arcy's office, looked all through the desk without finding what he was after, went down the hall to Martha's more business-like office. There was a steel filing cabinet against the wall, another smaller one on Martha's desk. Invariably, down in the lower left hand corner of the carbons, he found Martha's initials bracketed with Guy d'Arcy's. But again he didn't find what he was looking for. Maybe the Tribune had been right, after all, and that thought was discouraging.

So, being Shane, he grinned cheerfully, if somewhat lopsidedly, and went back to d'Arcy's study. Funny, he'd left the lights on in there and now they were off. The air was fresher, too. Thinking the house-keeper had doused the lights, he reached in for the switch. Flame laced the darkness and something hot plucked at an ear lobe. He sprawled flat as gun-roar caromed crazily around the room. He got out the little guy's gun and squeezed lead out of it. There was a yelp, a couple more shots. Shane squeezed more lead at the flashes. Glass tinkled behind drawn drapes. It was darker than the inside of a whale in the room, light out in the hall, and Shane knew if he stood up he'd make a swell target. Still, he wasn't getting anywhere this way. He wondered where the housekeeper was. By rights, she ought to be yelping her head off, and he hadn't heard a peep out of her.

He tilted his gun up from the floor, held it wide, and took another shot, sort of exploring the unknown. There wasn't any answer, so he wiggled along on his belly till he was all in the room, doubled over and reached for the wall switch. The lights came on. Save for himself, the room was empty. The drapes over the windows billowed gently and he went over and whipped them apart. The guy, whoever he was, was gone. There was only a little spatter of blood on the sill to show that he'd ever been there.

SHANE went looking for the housekeeper. She was a huddle of blue flannel on the polished floor of the hall, and Shane thought at first that she'd only fainted. Then he saw the slowly-spreading stain up near the top of the bathrobe and was afraid she'd stopped one of the slugs meant for him. Then he saw that her slippers were wet, and lifting his eyes, found the door chain hanging straight down. There was a gun in the pocket of the blue flannel robe. It was still hot and there were three empty shells.

So there hadn't been any guy. The woman had let him go down the hall alone, had then gone out the front door and around to the windows so she could pot him from darkness while he was out-lined against the light. That way, she'd have an alibi in case she missed. Not very confident with a gun, apparently, and shy of tackling him inside with the breaks even. Funny, maybe this dumpy old woman had even knifed d'Arcy.

Shane found her pulse strong. He pulled the robe down from her shoulder. The wound was clean, high up. Shane decided it was shock, mostly, that had keeled her over as she got back inside the hall. He felt kind of quivery, looking at her. He had never shot a woman before.

He sat there, hunkered down on his haunches, wondering what to do about her. He could wait and take a chance on making her talk, or he could leave and check on his hunch. The hunch was stronger than ever now. With all this killing going on, and seemingly everybody in town hooked into it, time was apt to be pretty important. Besides, some of the neighbors would have called the law by now. Shane didn't want any cops underfoot. He reached for his gun, and somebody said: "Leave it lay, mug!"

The big guy with the gold head-light was standing in the front door. He had two guns. Shane looked at him, looked at the dumpy woman on the floor beside him. Except for the gold tooth there was quite a resemblance. The guy came down the hall and kicked Shane in the side and stood glooming down at the woman.

Shane grunted from the kick, but the phenomenon was so amazing that he had to say, "Your mother, hunh?" and that brought on another kick. The big guy had pale eyes, and Shane thought of a leopard he'd once shot, only this time it was the leopard who was going to do the shooting. The guy was trying to make up his mind. Wrinkles of indecision creased his low forehead, and Shane could almost approximate the mental processes. Would there be time to lug both Shane and the old lady out? There wouldn't. The two guns cut down on Shane. His own was at least three feet away. He couldn't make it, and he knew he couldn't, and then the acute discomfort under his hip resolved itself into the woman's gun.

He flattened and rolled as the two guns blasted above him. A slug meant for his chest, caught him in the shoulder and then, somehow, his fingers hooked the gun under him. He fired, and the flame of his own shot seared his lean belly. He squeezed the trigger again and nothing happened. The rod was empty. Well, this is it, he thought, and looked up to face it.

Surprised, he saw the two guns falling out of the big guy's hands. He couldn't have done all that with one slug. And then the guy's knees started buckling and, looking higher, Shane saw the hole in the mug's jaw. There didn't seem to be any top to the head, though, and on account of the blood Shane couldn't even see the gold tooth any more.

It was a very messy job frisking the guy, and when he got all through Shane didn't know any more than he'd known before. The woman slept through it all. He got up and wobbled out the front door as the first siren swung into the street. A man across the way was leaning out of a second story window. He had a night-cap on, and he kept yelling: "Halt, there! Halt, or I'll fire!"

Shane couldn't see that the guy had anything to fire with; both the flailing fists were empty, so he didn't halt. The guy changed the record to: "There he goes! There he goes!"

Shane slammed the coupe door, cursing guys who didn't mind their own business. Especially guys that wore night-caps. Driving one-handed because his left arm was numb and so was most of his left side, he tore down the: street. The siren couldn't make up its mind whether to stop at the house or chase Shane. It finally came on, and Shane wasted a perfectly good fifteen minutes losing it. He then went to an all-night drug store, looked up an address in the phone book, bought a roll of bandage and a quart bottle of rye. The label said it was good stuff. He drove on till he found a nice comfortable shadow, drank some of the whiskey, poured some on a wad of gauze and plugged up the hole in his shoulder. When he got through with that his teeth ached from biting down so hard.

He took another drink, for luck, and stoppered the bottle very carefully. Mustn't lose any. The way he felt, he could tell he was going to need every drop.

He drove out to the address on Carthay Circle, and it was one of those places they call town estates. It occupied most of a city block. A high iron fence surrounded acres of heavily-shrubbed, terraced lawn; and there was a swimming pool and a tennis court. Ornamental lights, placed strategically about the grounds, told Shane all this, but for the moment he was more interested in the gates.

They weren't locked, so he opened them and drove up the curving drive till he was under the porte cochere. Even the coupe lowered its throaty rumble as though shrinking in upon itself amid such splendor. None of the windows showed light; there was none behind the ground glass door panel, either. That meant that every-body was in for the night.

Shane pushed the button, leaning on it heavily and keeping his finger there till the door glowed yellow. The door opened on a chain, and a voice, dead with sleep and just a trifle irritated, said:

"Who is it, please?"

Shane said: "Telegram."

The guy unhooked the chain, and Shane kneed the door inward. He closed the door behind him. The butler was on the floor where the door had hurled him, both hands nursing a bumped nose. He eyed the gun in Shane's fist, opened his mouth, like a fish.

Shane made a suggestive gesture. "If you're thinking about yelling, I wouldn't."

The man closed his mouth, opened it again immediately, but he didn't yell He mumbled, sort of piteously, "This— this is most unusual!" There was outraged dignity and righteous indignation and horrible fear all mixed up in his voice. He got to his feet. He'd pulled on trousers over his pajamas, but the braces were hanging about his hips and it kept both hands busy holding the trousers up. He mumbled again: "Most unusual!"

"I know," Shane said sympathetically. "Like our California weather, Now, look, fella, I'm sorry about the nose, and I don't want to hurt you any more if I can help it. See what I mean?"

The guy was smart. He got the idea right away.

Shane said: "Swell. Now which is Mrs. Lowden's suite?"

Fish-face opened his mouth, wide this time, and there was stark horror in the bulgy eyes. "You— you're not going to harm the mistress!"

"I may." Shane was getting pretty tired now. He couldn't waste much more time on this mug. "I asked you which room?"

"S-s-second floor, front, right!"

"Thank you," Shane said. "Now turn around and go right on holding your pants up till you're inside that coat closet under the stairs." He stuck the gun in the butler's back and marched him into the closet. "Now," he said, "just make yourself at home, and don't yell, and maybe somebody will come and let you out after a while." He shut the door and locked it. There wasn't a sound anywhere in the house.

THICK carpet muffled his steps as he climbed. He had to put his gun in his pocket, and hold on to the bannister with his good hand to make it, though. In spite of the plug, the blood kept trickling down his left leg and was slowly filling his shoe. He opened the door of the front room, A woman's voice asked: "Is that you, Jessup? Who was at the door?" A night light glowed.

Shane reached in, found the wall switch. The great crystal chandelier in the ceiling burst into scintillating light. He stood there in the doorway, swaying slightly. "No," he said, "it isn't Jessup."

The woman in the bed gave a little choked scream, and Shane took out his gun unhurriedly and pointed it at her. It was a big bed, with a white satin canopy over it. The whole room was done in white and off-shades of white, and the white rug was so deep you felt like you were sinking to your ankles. Shane hoped he wouldn't get any blood on it.

The woman just lay back against the pillows, mouth open slightly, but not saying anything, watching Shane and the gun with a sort of unbelieving fascination. She had a chin strap on and the flesh bulged around it, like wattles, but her hair was still black. Dyed, maybe. The jewels on her fingers caught the light from the chandelier in a million refractions.

Shane went over to the great bed, sat on the edge of it. He laid the hand with the gun on top of the satin coverlet so that the muzzle pointed at her fat throat. He could hold it steadier that way. There was a little blood on the hand. The woman's eyes rolled up in her head when she saw the blood.

He said: "I'm Shane. Maybe that doesn't mean anything to you, though. Does it?"

Her whisper, no, barely reached him. The wattles quivered like jelly.

He said: "Mrs. Lowden, I haven't much time, so you must pay very careful attention to what I say, believing that I mean every word. There have been several men killed tonight over a matter which seems rather silly. The matter originally concerned yourself and Gino Marchetti. It now concerns me, and is no longer silly. I intend to kill you, here and now, unless you can stop Gino."

She got her voice back then, "I don't know what you mean."

Shane said: "I'm pretty sure you do know what I mean, but if you don't, I'll just have to kill you anyway."

She must have believed him then. Perhaps he believed himself. The veil of cunning dropped from her eyes for an instant and stark fear showed. Fat, beringed fists clutching her throat, she gasped, "What do you want me to do?"

"Call Gino Marchetti."

She reached for the white phone on the night stand, jerked the tasselled bell-cord instead. Far below a bell jangled.

SHANE didn't move. He said: "The butler can't come, Mrs. Lowden." She spat at him. And then, very slowly, hoping against hope that he was wrong, she began dialing a number. The bell rang for a long time at the other end. Shane could hear it. Presently the bell stopped ringing and a voice answered.

"Marchetti!" she tittered. "Marchetti, there is a man here who is going to kill me if I don't stop you. Stop you what? What have you been doing?" The voice rattled, and she said: "Shane, I think. Of course he means it, you fool! He looks like he's already killed a dozen!" She looked at Shane. "What do you want?" Shane said: "Ask him if d'Arcy and the girl are still alive. Tell him that if they aren't, I'll look him up after I finish you." The gun in his hand kept jumping nervously, making little satin waves in the shimmering satin. He couldn't seem to control it.

The woman shivered. She spoke into the phone again, listened, relayed the message to Shane. D'Arcy and the girl were still alive. "What do you want done with them?"

Shane thought: I can't make it with her, and even if I did, Marchetti would find some way to cross me. He said: "Tell him to put d'Arcy and Martha in a cab and send them here. He can tell the girl I'm waiting for her. As soon as I know they're safe, you and he can take a powder, or do anything else you want. Is it a deal?"

"It's a deal," said Mrs. Lowden. She spoke into the phone, crisply now. "I've made a deal, Marchetti. Turn them loose."

After that, they just sat and watched each other while the gun kept doing tricks on the counterpane. Out in the street, a car door slammed, and feet came up the drive, a man's and a girl's. To the woman in the bed Shane said: "I'm going to get up now, but I'm not leaving the room, Slide down under the covers please."

"You're— you won't shoot me if I do?"

"I won't shoot you if you do."

Her eyes hated him, but she believed. She disappeared, like a turtle, and Shane piled pillows on top of her. He backed to the windows, swept the hangings aside and called out: "Upstairs, Martha. Where you see the lights."

"Coming, Michael!' Lots of character in that voice, Shane thought. No silly questions, just: "Coming, Michael!" Lots of character in the girl, too. Shane wished he had a little. He watched the lump in the middle of the great bed. It didn't move till Martha and d'Arcy came in.

Martha flew to Shane. "Michael, you're hurt!"

"A little," he admitted. "Nothing serious, Martha." He pushed her from him, looked at d'Arcy. "Anybody follow you here?"

D'Arcy said no, they hadn't been followed, and Gino Marchetti said, "You're mistaken," and fired from the doorway. The slug took Shane's hat off. He sat down, quite suddenly, as if he had been pushed, and propped his gun on a knee. Marchetti dodged behind Martha, and d'Arcy, unarmed, made a flying tackle for Marchetti's legs.

He got them. Marchetti belted him on the head with the gun, and the gun was all Shane could see beyond Martha, so he shot at that. The gun went flying, and Martha dropped to the floor. Shane got up, started for Marchetti, and the round man's hand flashed up and around to the back of his neck. It came out with a knife. The blade twinkled reflections from the crystal chandelier, twinkled its flight clear across the room.

Shane fell down again, and the woman in the bed stopped screaming. Shane pumped slugs at Marchetti till there weren't any more, and Gino Marchetti lay like a great round ball on the white rug. Too bad about the rug, Shane thought. It was going to get stained, after all.

GRINNING shame-facedly, d'Arcy got up. "Stout fella, Shane. You, I mean, not Marchetti." He bent over Martha, and Shane wobbled up to see why Mrs. Wentworth Lowden had stopped screaming. The knife in her breast winked at Shane. Mrs. Lowden didn't know the knife was in her breast. She never would, now.

There was a lot of noise out in the hall, and Shane got a dizzy, panoramic view of white faces and nighties and things, and then they all melted away to make room for Captain Udell. He puffed in as if he'd run all the way from Hollywood, and the veins in his nose and cheeks were a sort of magenta, now. He came and stood spraddle-legged over Shane in the white chair.

"Okay, shamus, spill it fast before I forget how sick you look.'

"I'll make a deal," said Shane. "You tell me first."

He thought Udell was going to have a stroke. So did Martha. She came and stood beside Shane, protectively, but she didn't say anything. Udell growled: "Okay, okay. We got to d'Arcy's house-keeper, and when she found her so-and-so of a son was dead, she broke down and admitted he worked for Marchetti. I beat it out to Gino's, saw him sneaking out, and tailed him here."

Shane smiled. "All right, it's all yours, copper. You can have all the glory, if any. I've got what I want. Seems Guy d'Arcy stumbled into a connection between the lady over there in the bed, and Gino Marchetti. They were partners. They owned a string of big-time gambling houses. Really big. She knew everybody, went everywhere, and I can see where her position in society would make her invaluable to a smart guy like Gino. She shilled the rich suckers in and Gino fleeced them. Only thing is, her value would cease the minute a breath of suspicion touched her. People would begin to remember how she'd suggested a friendly fling at roulette several times. And they'd also remember losing several nice chunks of cash.

"Well, d'Arcy was going to put more than a breath of suspicion in his column. He knew, and Marchetti knew that he knew, so Gino had to stop him. Gino got out to the house just in time to hear the last of the quarrel between father and son. When young d'Arcy beat it, Marchetti went in, probably through the windows, though the housekeeper may have let him in. D'Arcy had the column transcription and the carbon on his desk. And that column spilled the works.

"Marchetti jabbed d'Arcy with the paper knife, lammed with the script. Then he got to thinking it would be a swell idea to pick up young d'Arcy. It was possible he, too, might know what was in the script, and even if he didn't, his absence would point him out as the killer."

Jim d'Arcy nodded. "All straight, so far. I was wild when I left dad, started out on a bender. They knocked me on the head as I was leaving Pop's Place. I don't know what became of my car, though."

Shane said: "Your car won't be much good any more. I wrecked it for you. Last I saw of it, it was all mixed up with a lamp post."

Udell snorted. "Save it, save it."

Shane could see the skipper was still sore, so he said, "Unh, well, I'm sorry about the bath tub and all, but when you told me they'd got Martha— well, you see how it is, hunh?"

Udell made sour noises in his throat.

Shane said: "Yes. Well, guys had been pushing me around all night, and I couldn't see why until they grabbed Martha. I wasn't sure she'd been grabbed, of course. She might have run out. But I remembered mentioning to Marchetti that I'd heard about him and Mrs. Wentworth Lowden; also that I was looking for Jim d'Arcy. Maybe that was the reason I'd been tailed. I called the Tribune, and they said they'd never got the script from d'Arcy; said he'd been killed before he wrote it, which wasn't possible because I'd heard the stuff on his dictaphone."

Udell said: "His dictaphone was empty."

"His was," Shane said, "but the duplicate machine in Martha's office held a record of the column."

"Why you—"

"Now, skipper," Shane said, wagging a long finger, "let's not start bickering again."

MARTHA smiled down at Shane. "Smart boy, Michael. I typed that column, put it on his desk before ten o'clock, but I kind of forgot it after that."

Shane went on in a weary voice. He was tired— so tired he could have keeled over right there. "Gino thought he had everything till he discovered Martha's initials down at the bottom of the pages. Then he knew the stuff had been dictated. He sent the guy with the gold headlight after Martha, and it would have been all right, seeing the guy's mother was the housekeeper, only he ran into the dick. Goldie let the dick have it.

"So they got Martha. I imagine she told them the stuff was on a record, too, so back came Goldie after the record, Meantime, his old lady knew I was working for d'Arcy and Martha, and that meant I was inimical to her darling son's interests, so damned if even she didn't take a shot at me."

Udell's mustache bristled, but he wasn't mad any more. Only interested in the clean-up now. "Okay, okay," he said briskly, "but why come after the Lowden dame?"

"Because I figured her as the head; because I didn't think I was big enough to take Gino and all his little playmates in his own territory. This way, I could make a deal, and I did." He bobbed his head, carefully, toward the dowager in the white satin bed. " 'It's a deal,' she said, and I think she meant it, only she was trying to deal for Marchetti too, and that's the thanks he gave her. It was meant for me, but her luck must have run out."

Shane grinned his crooked grin at Udell, and tried to keep his eyes away from Martha and d'Arcy. He wished Martha had looked at him like that, just once. And then she was looking at Shane, and it was a different look, but clear-eyed, unafraid. She was coming over to him now, ready to pay off as she'd said she would, and he liked her for that. Lots of character.

She helped him get to his feet, steadied him with her hands. "It's a deal, Michael. The answer is yes."

He pushed her away and nearly fell down. D'Arcy came over then, and Shane executed a swell grin for them both, "It's a deal, yes, but it's between you and d'Arcy, Martha. If I remember rightly, I said the hell with it." His voice sounded kind of mushy and it felt like there was a frog in his throat, so he sneered at Marchetti, way down there on the white rug, and went down the stairs into the rain. Seemed like the damn' rain would never stop, but there was enough rye left in the bottle to wash the lump out of his throat, anyway.

___________________

Index to Past Masters Nos 61-81

The "Author Index" to Issues 1-60 has been uploaded separately.

Achmed Abdullah

The Mystery of the Talking Idols 63

Cleve F. Adams

Default With Doom  81

George Ade

Making the Grade 78

"A. E. P."

The End of Sherlock Holmes  67

Achmed Abdullah

Framed at the Benefactors' Club 73

W. L. Alden

After the Comet 67

Foote's Catorium 70

How the Fat Woman Eloped 68

The St. Bernard Myth 68

A Scientific Balloon 72

Silver Plated   67

The Wild Man of Borneo 67

Mark Allerton

A Christmas Mix-Up 70

The Stanhope Scandal 70

Anonymous

Armistice  78

A Barrack Ghost Story 76

Beauty in Flight 76

Chinese Murder  80

A Detective Adventure  80

The Diamond Necklace 62

The Great Auk's Egg Affair 61

Fool Proof  75

The Hat Trick 71

Haunted  78

Jacobs and Gale, Tobacconists 70

Local Color 75

An Old Norman-French Story 76

A Railway Murder 70

Remorse 76

Retribution 74

Revenge 74

The Ruins of the Abbey of Fitz-Martin 64

The Skipper's Scheme 73

The Stamp Thief 71

The Thriller 71

A Solicitor's Story (as by "S.S.")  75

F. Anstey

Taken By Surprise  66

Francis Henry Atkins

The Lay Figure  63

Edouard A. Aujard

The Flood 75

The Swing of Sentiment  75

Stacy Aumonier

A Source of Irritation 73

Straight Griggs 78

F. Britten Austin

Into the Blue 79

Irving Bacheller

Holy Poker 71

The Prodigal Village 71

Robert Barr

The Last Straw 72

J. M. Barrie

The Adventure of the Two Collaborators 75

My Brother Henry 72

John Arthur Barry

Baleston's Secret Reef 72

The Mystery of the "Mountain Maid"  64

Frederick R. Bechdolt

Before Michael Came  63

The Lie-Detector 73

L. Adams Beck

The Interpreter (novelette) 62

H. Bedford-Jones

The Artificial Honeymoon 66

Breakfast at the Savoy 79

Death Gave Him His Chance  63

Not Upon the Sleeve  79

J. J. Bell

The Lovely Little Dinner 70

The Price of a House  63

"Sir William"  61

E. F. Benson

Negotium Perambulans  64

The Terrace 69

J. D. Beresford

The Hidden Beast 75

Harold Bindloss

Trooper Jenkins 68

Ottwell Binns

The Britisher 73

Dixon's Romance 75

George A. Birmingham

Jimmy Cassidy's Picture  80

The Spy 81

Algernon Blackwood

The Kit-Bag 76

M. McDonnell Bodkin

The Will and the Man 79

Christopher B. Booth

"Doc" Meets the Train (as by John Jay Chichester)  72

Mr Clackworthy Collects 63

Mr Clackworthy Gets His Tonic 64

Mr Clackworthy Sells Short  63

Mr Clackworthy Stakes a Friend 70

Solly's Last Forgery 64

When Mr. Clackworthy Needed a Bracer 64

Guy Boothby

By Right Of Conquest 72

B. M. Bower

The Ghost in the Red Shirt  63

Jack Boyle

The Beauty-Fountain 70

A Woman Without Fear 70

Mary Elizabeth Braddon

Good Lady Ducayne  71

Max Brand

Five Minutes to Twelve 61

Honor Bright 64

Lion Heart 61

Percy James Brebner

Cat or Devil 65

The Corner of John Street 80

Her Ransom 80

The Ghost of the Cabinet 80

Lady Langton's Jewels 80

A Literary Secret  66

Scarsley Moor Mystery  66

Coutts Brisbane

Without Fear 76

George Bronson-Howard

The Prophetic War Correspondent 79

K. R. G. Browne

On the 6.15  80

Two Women in the Case   80

Thomas Burke

The Bloomsbury Wonder 61

The Horrible God 62

Laughing Lillian 62

The Yellow Imps 62

Edgar Rice Burroughs

Who Murdered Mr. Thomas? 68

Ellis Parker Butler

The Inexorable Tooth 79

Just Like a Cat 71

Mr. Wellaway's Host 77

The Ninety And Nine  69

Something for the Kid 77

Blackmail Broadcast, Unlimited  80

Thomas Byrne

Prima Donna's Diamonds  80

Sir Gilbert Campbell

The Mystery of the Essex Stairs 62

Scott Campbell

In the Powder-Box 80

The Point of Contact 70

The Price of Perfidy 78

A Study in Green 73

Under the Crown 70

Without Air 73

Reginald Campbell

The Howling Of Dogs 80

Agnes and Egerton Castle

The Great Todescan's Secret Thrust 70

Robert W. Chambers

The Princess Zimbazim 79

Mark Channing

Intrigue 74

Anna Alice Chapin

Through the Dragon's Valley  63

The Scales of Time 63

G.K. Chesterton

The Sword of Wood 65

Peter Cheyney

Christmas With a Punch 75

Cocktail For Cupid 65

Dance Without Music  64

Irvin S. Cobb

The Eminent Dr. Deeves 72

Faith, Hope And Charity 71

The Thirteenth Degree 72

Sylvanus Cobb, Jun.

The Bottomless Jug  64

J. J. Connington

After Death the Doctor 63

Dorothea Conyers

Meave's Ride  69

Captain Henry Curties

Redeeming Flames 79

Norbert Davis

You Bet Your Life 77

E. M. Delafield

The Luggage in the Hall  66

Charles Caldwell Dobie

The Open Window 71

Sir Geo. Douglas, Bart.

Unconscious Interloper 69

L C Douthwaite

The London Guillotine 66

Prospector 75

Richard Dowling

The Going Out of Alessandro Pozzone 62

The Pass of Nolan's Welcome 81

Edward Dyson

A Golden Shanty 65

The Third Chair 65

Fred Engelhardt

Heritage of Osiris 75

George Allan England

Drops of Death  68

A Question of Salvage 81

Ribbon of Fate 81

Charles J. Finger

The Lizard God 81

The Shame of Gold 81

Howard Fitzalan

The Red Hand 78

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Three Hours Between Planes 65

Francis Flagg

By the Hands of the Dead 81

The Master Ants 81

The Superman of Dr Jukes  72

Mrs. May Agnes Fleming

How The Lone Star Went Down  68

J. S. Fletcher

Ex-Officio 76

Homer Eon Flint

The Planeteer  77

Ford Madox Ford

Riesenberg 61

Andrew Forrester Jr.

Arrested on Suspicion 61

Robert Edward Francillon

A Circumstantial Puzzle 62

R. Austin Freeman & Clifford Piers

By the Black Deep  64

Ltnt Edgar Gardiner

The Snake Strikes 81

Up Irrawaddy Way 74

Arthur Gask

Rejuvenation 66

Strychnine for Village Dogs 62

Theophile Gautier

The Mummy's Foot 62

George Gilbert

In Maulmain Fever-Ward  63

Lady Gilbert

Aurora's Treasure  75

Charlotte Perkins Gilman

The Yellow Wallpaper  64

Why I wrote "The Yellow Wallpaper" 64

Guy Gilpatric

The Artful Mr. Glencannon 70

Crocodile Tears 68

The Glasgow Phantom 66

The Homestretch 61

The Masked Monster 72

Where Early Fa's the Dew 65

Susan Glaspell

A Jury of Her Peers 67

F. A. J. Godfrey

Not Proven 76

Dahlia Graham

Her Fatal Gift 79

Frederick Graves

White Flame  62

Fred V Green

Markham's New Partner 65

A. S. Gregory

The Death Window 68

Valentine Gregory

Third Time Unlucky 71

While on Remand 71

James Norman Hall

Death on an Atoll 72

Fame For Mr. Beatty 75

Uncle Ned's Teeth 76

Julian Hawthorne

Calbot's Rival 67

Nathaniel Hawthorne

The Great Stone Face 66

Miles Henslow

Mystery Flight 75

Kenneth Herford

An Echo of the Quarter 73

Smiley's Scoop 73

Beatrice Heron-Maxwell

The Act of God 74

The Outcast 65

Headon Hill

The "Artemis" Mystery 65

The Bank Clerk's Love Story 65

The Dining-Car Clue 65

Limping Justice 65

Roy L. Hinds

The Murder Master 80

Roy W. Hinds

What He Taught Best  80

S. B. H. Hurst

The Ball of Fire  74

The Receipt 74

W. W. Jacobs

Captain Rogers 71

A Love Knot 70

Malcolm Jameson

The Anarch  69

Tricky Tonnage 81

Val Jameson

"Burglin' ain't the game it was" 61

Edgar Jepson

The Infernal Machine 79

Madderson's Mascot 79

A Troublesome Widow 79

Jerome K. Jerome

The Dancing Partner 74

Rudyard Kipling

The Phantom Rickshaw 73

Otis Adelbert Kline

The Dragoman's Secret 74

Stolen Centuries 65

Thomas H. Knight

The Man Who Was Dead 61

Edmund Leamy

My First Case 74

Henry Leverage

Black Light 66

The Crimp 66

Crooked Charity 67

R. C. Lehmann

The Umbrosa Burglary 67

Henry Leverage

Over the Wall   76

Sinclair Lewis

The Cat of the Stars 68

Seven Million Dollars 68

The Willow Walk 61

H.P. Lovecraft

The Colour out of Space 81

Obit: Henry St. Clair Whitehead 71

Marie Belloc Lowndes

An Unrecorded Instance 61

Richard Mace

The Emerald Beetle  62

Arthur Machen

The Shining Pyramid 71

Fred MacIsaac

The Abominable Test 76

William J. Makin

The Death Barge 73

The Planes that Never Returned 73

Julia Magruder

The Secret of the White Castle 65

Don Marquis

Accursed Hat! 70

Richard Marsh

A Silent Witness  77

Huan Mee

The Russian Cipher 65

J. J. Meehan

The Squirrel Motor 69

Abraham Merritt

The Woman of the Wood 72

William Henry Moberley

The Great Valdez Sapphire 63

C. S. Montanye

Old King's Coal   72

F. Frankfort Moore

Joan Dark 65

Ainsworth Morgan

Lady in Lower 11   72

Ward Muir

Detective Tempest Faces the Music  80

Talbot Mundy

Bengal Rebellion 69

Edith M Nesbit

In the Dark 64

Man-Size in Marble  65

Number 17    61

Clarence Herbert New

The Passing of an Angel 79

Where There Ain't No Ten Commandments ("Culpeper Zandtt") 79

Douglas Newton

Straight Enough 73

David Wright O'Brien

Hokum Hotel  68

Fitz-James O'Brien

The Wondersmith  64

Owen Oliver

The Awakening  74

A Feminine Stand 81

Vincent O'Sullivan

The Business of Madame Jahn  64

Thomas Nelson Page

What was the Lady's Choice? 62

Miles  Overholt

Wrong Number 75

Sir Gilbert Parker

At the Sign of the Eagle  70

Max Pemberton

The Devil To Pay 63

The Dumb Avenger 75

G. G. Pendarves

The Black Camel  65

The Sin-Eater 74

The Withered Heart  74

Hugh Pendexter

Lyacus Whittle— Globetrotter 70

Ernest M Poate

A Person from the Police 63

The Cotton Stopper 79

Doctor Grimes Awaits Probate (as by Arthur Mallory)  73

Expert Testimony 74

Inside the Limousine 78

To Professional Services— $100,000   70

Melville Davisson Post

The Laughing Woman 79

William Le Queux

The Baron's Snapdragon 68

The Faith of Men 62

The Mystery Man 68

The Mystery of the Third Thumb 68

The Story of the Chief of Police 61

The Third Cracker 68

The Velvet Hand  68

The Woman Who Hated London 68

The Yellow Jasmine 68

Anna Steese Richardson

Morrell's Memoriser 81

Edith Rickert

The Chair That Smiled 74

W. Pett Ridge

The Fixing of Mrs. Farwell  80

Walter Ripperger

The Cardboard Clue 62

School For Murder 69

Morley Roberts

The Egregious Goat 73

Arthur Somers Roche (novelette)

In the Money 67

Michael Romain

Genesis   76

Anthony M Rud

The Invisible "Blinker" 73

Duncan Campbell Scott

The Witching of Elspie 78

J. Johnston Smith

Queen Of Diamonds  75

Thorne Smith

Birthday Present 66

Andrew Soutar

Bluebeard 63

D. H. Souter

Conroy 74

Charles B. Stilson

Dr. Martone's Microscope 72

The Sky Woman 67

The Soul Trap 72

Halliwell Sutcliffe

Handsome Jack  67

Miss Phyllis Brown 67

Murgatroyd's Wife  67

Georges Surdez

Charles the Bold 76

Spite Corner 76

Carl N. Taylor

The Opium Smugglers  80

Emile C Tepperman

Coffin Cache 63

E. Temple Thurston

A Cameo 69

Roger Torrey

Black Murder 78

Dice and No Dice 77

Murder By Accident 77

Ticket to Death (as by John Ryan)  77

Edward W Townsend

A Deal in Mines and Morals 77

H. D. Umbstaetter (as by Barnes MacGreggor)

The Great Star Ruby  80

E Charles Vivian

How the Girl Came to Bentley's 62

Cyril G. Wates

The Visitation 76

Edgar Wallace

The New Doctor  76

R. A. J. Walling

A Chat With William Le Queux 68

Mrs. Rooth's "Murder" 61

The Spook of Cornelius 61

"Wanderer"

Waif of the Bush 74

Stanley G Weinbaum

The Red Peri  69

Albert Richard Wetjen

The Chief of the Loch McCree 61

Raid on Jigger's Reef 76

Harvey Wickham

The Man With the Painted Nose 75

Ethel Lina White

An Unlocked Window  78

Fred Merrick White

Early Closing Day  64

Gentlemen of the Jury  65

The Missing Blade 75

The Purple Terror 66

Victor L. Whitechurch

The Convict's Revenge  61

How the Captain Tracked a German Spy 61

In a Tight Fix 61

Henry S. Whitehead

Bothon 78

The Chadbourne Episode 75

The Door 71

Passing of a God 75

The People of Pan 77

Sea-Tiger  78

The Shut Room 75

Sweet Grass 76

The Wonderful Thing  70

Raoul Whitfield

The Great Black 65

The Next-to-Last Laugh 79

H. C. Witwer

Money to Burns 71

Mary E Wilkins

The Shadows on the Wall  64

Edward Woodward

Clarence 75

Arthur Leo Zagat

Coward's Kill (novelette)  69

E. F. Ziska

Man of Ages 78

_______________

Table of Contents

- 1: A Feminine Stand / Owen Oliver

- 2: Morrell's Memoriser / Anna Steese Richardson

- 3: The Pass of Nolan's Welcome / Richard Dowling

- 4: Tricky Tonnage / Malcolm Jameson
- 5: The Master Ants / Francis Flagg
- 6: By the Hands of the Dead / Francis Flagg
- 7: The Spy / George A. Birmingham
- 8: Ribbon of Fate / George Allan England

- 9: A Question of Salvage / George Allan England

- 10: The Snake Strikes / Lieutenant Edgar Gardiner

- 11: The Lizard God / Charles J. Finger

- 12: The Shame of Gold / Charles J. Finger

- 13: The Colour out of Space / H. P. Lovecraft

- 14: Default With Doom / Cleve F. Adams

- Cumulative Index  #61-81