PAST MASTERS

EIGHTY-SEVEN

Produced by Terry Walker

("Pulpmeister")

19 July 2022

Contents

1: The Christmas in the Fog / Frances Hodgson Burnett

2: Sargasso / Ward Muir

3: Kerfol / Edith Wharton

4: A Blind Man's Home-Coming / Ward Muir

5: Europe is Wonderful / Ward Muir

6: The Court of the Wicked Queen / Marion Shaler

7: Satan's Scalpel / Arthur Leo Zagat

8: The Looking Glass / J.D. Beresford

9: The Bat And Belfry Inn / Alan Graham

10: The Crock / F. Frankfort Moore

11: "Sycamore": A Ghost Story / Cy Warman

12: The Haunted "Smoker" / Edwin L. Arnold

13: Bertie and the Doorstep / John Worne

14: The Brink of Destruction / John Worne

15: The Haunted Picture / Tom Gallon

16: The Wrong Number / Louis Tracy

17: A Diabolical Experiment / Percy J. Brebner

18: The Soul of a Ship / Beatrice Heron-Maxwell

19: Lettice Langworthy's Prince / Katharine Tynan

Cumulative Index #61 to 87

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1: The Christmas in the Fog

Frances Hodgson Burnett

1849–1924

Good Housekeeping, Dec 1914

THE LEAST imaginative of persons, being impressed even to the verge of stimulation by long reiterated quotation, will admit, though it may be with reluctance, that Truth is Stranger than Fiction. There is to such individuals a suggestion of bold flight and daring in the statement, made with whatsoever of conservativeness of mental reservation. The suggestion, however, that Truth is as a rule more entertaining, more delightfully coloured, more varied than Fiction, not having as yet been generally accepted as a point of view assuming the aspect of a proverb, might, by the inelastic mind, be regarded with distrust. Yet this is the suggestion which I have the courage to offer.

I was about to say that I offer it quite unreservedly, but for a moment I pause to reflect. Do incidents marked by all the picturesqueness, the colour and character-revealing quality, usually regarded as being the attributes of mere fiction, occur continually to every human being? That is what I ask myself. After the pause for reflection I decide that it is more than probable that they do. Because they are things which merely happen as part of the day's work, and are not incidents recorded on a printed page, they are passed by comparatively little noticed, except by the born romancer— of whom there are many who have written no line of fiction in their lives.

This aspect of affairs renders the Book of Life enthralling. It is crowded with the fantastic, the unexpected, the pathetic, the alluring. Each individual hour is "To be continued in our next." There is a certain exhilaration in realizing that if one sat down today to read a realistic history— thoroughly well done with actual atmosphere and feeling— of all that oneself would do and think and see during the next week, or all that one's nextdoor neighbour thought and felt and saw two weeks ago, one would read entranced until the story was finished, and rise enchanted, murmuring, "How delightful! How human!" With a stimulating recognition of this fact in view I have been lured by a fancy for telling little stories— or rather making sketches of Things which Happened.

When I say they "happened" I mean literally what I write. They are not invented, they are not elaborated, they are simply recorded as they occurred. Mere episodes they are, not stories with a beginning, a middle, and an end; not even adventures— mere episodes whose chief interest may perhaps lie in the fact that they are, as I have said, Things which Happened.

The fact is that when even comparatively trivial incidents taking place in the everyday life of a person who has the mental trick of seeing things as stories— dramas— pictures, if he or she has also the constitutional story-teller's habit of presenting them vividly in casual conversation to friends, when these incidents are narrated, audiences have also a trick of exclaiming— after laughter, derision, or temporary emotion are at an end— "Why don't you make that into a story?" "Why doesn't somebody write that?" And after these things have been said persistently enough, and the reply, "Oh! There isn't enough in it," has been sufficiently often protested against, somebody almost inevitably does end by writing them. And there you are!— to quote Henry James.

It was, in fact, after this manner that these odds and ends of records came into written existence.

To begin with. They occurred in the ordinary day's work of a person known ironically to herself and to me as "The Romantick Lady"— a name which the bearer of it owns she privately bestowed upon herself after having studied her own case for half a lifetime. She found it, she says, useful when arguing with herself on the subject of her own peculiarities.

"It seems rather to excuse and modify them a little," was her explanation. "A discerning friend— or enemy— might have chosen the name of The Slightly Mad Lady— The Fantastic Lady— The Fools-Rush-in Lady— or The Sentimental Lady, and far be it from me to say that there might not have been fittingness in any one of them. That is what I myself don't know. But 'The Romantick Lady' is more palliative. And you may be sure that if I choose a name for myself I shall choose one which cheers if it does not inebriate. But you must always spell it with a 'k' at the end, as it is spelled in those nice old worn leather-bound books with yellowed pages and f's for s's— The Romantick Lady."

I have known her for some twenty years, and during that time have each year recognized more fully the entire fitness of the name it pleased her to decide upon. It is used between us only when she makes a little sketch for me of some of the occasions on which she has suddenly found herself irresistibly impelled to do a thing which at the moment seems the one and only right thing in the world to be done, but of whose ultimate results she finds herself entirely uncertain when the flaring glow of the impelling moment has died down, and leaves her gazing with wistful curiosity at her work and wondering— wondering.

"Perhaps I am really an interfering person. I have told myself that sometimes." She said this speculatively, in one of her analytical moods, superinduced by an occasion on which she felt it probable that she had made a frightful though well-meaning idiot of herself, and probably wrecked dynasties, so to speak. "I do interfere. I see something which I feel must be helped— some trouble, some awful lack— and I dash in— because it seems the Law of the Jungle. It may be right, it may be wrong, but suppose it is interfering! who knows!"

Some time ago she made me a confession.

"Once," she said, "I think I committed a crime. I can never be sure whether it was one or not, but I can never forget it. Perhaps I was mistaken. Perhaps it was only a little thing— but perhaps it was immense. No number of years makes any difference in the anguish of fear and doubt which fills me each time the memory comes back to me.

"This was what happened. One morning I was walking in a crowded street in London. You know what that means, and how people hurry by. Suddenly I looked ahead of me and saw a little boy of about seven or eight hurrying with the rest. He was only a few yards away, and he did not see me— he did not see any one— he saw only the cruel, the hopelessly cruel or heartbreaking or terrifying thing he was thinking of— facing— possibly going to meet and suffer. At least that was the thought which suddenly gripped at my heart. He was a shabby little boy, carrying a small bundle, and sobbing low and breathlessly as he went. His face was white, and his eyes had that horribly bewept, almost blinded look one shudders before when one sees it in an older person. That a child's face and eyes should look so was inhuman— unnatural."

"You spoke to him?" I suggested.

"That was my crime. I didn't." She answered. "The first moment there seemed only one thing to do— to stop him— to kneel down before him if need be so that he would know one was close to him— to put both hands on his poor little shoulders and say: 'Look here! Tell me! Tell me what it is. I can help you. I can! If any one has hurt you or frightened you they shall not dare to do it again! I can prevent them. I can make them afraid.' At times like that something leaps up in me which makes me know I could make lions and tigers afraid. I don't know what it is. I had an appalling vision of some brute and devil who had either hideously beaten or ill-treated him— or had sworn to do it, when he reached his destination with his little bundle. I saw it all, and knew his heart-broken, abject, child terror and helplessness before his fate. What can a child do?— And yet, with that in my mind I found myself suddenly overwhelmed with a sort of shyness. Even as he came nearer I realized certain things I know about boys— how they hate being made conspicuous, how they shrink from public emotions, how they abhor being meddled with when they do not want to own that they are crying. I thought a thousand things in one minute. It might make a sort of scene for him— "

"If you had knelt on the pavement to put your hands on his shoulders and pour out your soul," I interposed, with firmness and logic, "that entire hurrying crowd would have stopped, and formed a mob in five seconds. You would have impeded traffic, and a policeman would have ordered you to move on or taken you and your boy in charge."

"In that one minute I saw all that," she made swift, uneasy answer. "But it ought not to have mattered. Nothing ought to have mattered. I said to myself: 'I must stop him! I will. I can't let him pass! I dare not.' And because I was a hesitating coward— it was all over in two minutes I suppose— I let the crowd sweep him past me and swallow him up— his little awful, bewept face and eyes, his breathless sobs and tiny bundle, were gone! Yes, I did that. I, your friend, did that! And I shall never know what I allowed to pass me by, and to what woe it went its piteous helpless little way, when I might have stepped in between. Being the kind of person I am— whatsoever kind that may be— my brain has a trick of making absolutely real pictures for me. I wish it hadn't. I shall not tell you all the things it showed me which might have happened that day to that one small sobbing boy. I made a new prayer that night— something like this: 'Whatsoever You let me do, never— never let me pass any one by.'"

I, for one, realized fully that the unforgettable memory of this possible crime had formed a background for many things. It had made her afraid.

"It may seem rather insane to do it," I have heard her say half to herself, "but suppose it was a thing one ought not to pass by? Suppose it was!"

Her being is the screen upon which the cinematograph of Life throws human pictures. They leap unbidden into existence before her and will not be denied. She sees the Story. To her, not so much the "stranger than fiction," but the "more entertaining than fiction," occurs with delightful continuity.

"The interestingness of things— the absorbingness, the picturesqueness," she exclaims, "of things which really happen in the most casual and everyday way! As if they were nothing, you know!"

Her Romantick mistakes assume naturally now and then the proportions of her Romantick visions. It is, of course, a mere trivial detail that she gives of her substance to dramatic beggars in defiance of all laws of political economy; it is also a detail, though perhaps less trivial, that she also gives of it to persons not beggars who do not in the least deserve it. But for a certain grim little sense of humour she would probably die of grief at times, but she fortunately sees in herself quite as much reason for ironic laughter as others do, and finds in her own entity an object for impersonal analysis and detachedly logical contemplation. In each experience she saw her Vision and obeyed it.

"And sometimes things come right," she says, totally without prejudice. "Everything is a sort of experiment. To live is an experiment— though one did not undertake it deliberately."

This slight summing up may explain her, and in a measure make clear such brief episodes as I may record.

"You may tell them if you like," she says. "None of them matters to any one. And I shall only be the shadow of a Romantick Lady. And I might also be either a sort of warning— or a sort of encouragement."

There is no warning in the incident of The Christmas in the Fog; there is, in fact, little in it but the lights and shades of a curious picture.

After a year or so of wandering in various countries she took passage for New York in one of the huge liners which was to sail two days before Christmas. The day before she left London a great fog had descended and enfolded the city in a yellow blanket so thick that traffic had gradually become dangerous and at last almost impossible. It was a fog to be remembered. People lost themselves and wandered helplessly about for hours, garnering material for thrilling anecdote which enlivened many dull evenings during the remainder of the winter. It was a fog which lasted for several days.

A fog in London, however, does not always presuppose a fog in the country. One may leave the Strand groping in the darkness of the Last Day, take a train at Charing Cross or Waterloo, and after a few miles of uncertain and slow journeying through various degrees of eerie yellowness, gradually emerge through thinning veils of mist into clear air— sometimes into sunshine.

This is what the Romantick Lady anticipated when she settled herself into the corner of her railway carriage lighted by a lamp the fog dimmed, and peered out of the window trying to follow the shadowy figures whose outlines were lost in the gloom at a yard's distance and less.

"We shall be out of it in half an hour at most," she thought. "We may sail out of the Mersey in a glittering sun."

But there was a character of pertinacity about the thing. The train moved slowly, explosions of fog-signals were heard along the line, the platforms of stations were mere dull orange glimmers of light in an orange-brown darkness through which muffled voices shouted, and uncertain ghosts of would-be passengers were bundled into first-, second,- or third-class carriages by assisting ghosts of porters who banged doors or said hoarsely, "Than 'y, Sir," for tips. All the world seemed muffled and mysterious and hoarse. Ordinary existence was temporarily suspended, or performed its functions after the manner of a sort of Blind Man's Buff. That it was weird and interesting could not be denied— neither could it be denied that it was dangerous.

The yellow blanket spread its heavy folds farther beyond London than was usual; even when it began to attenuate itself a little, its thinning to a semi-obscurity took a long time. Even after that had happened it trailed along, and here and there seemed to thicken in certain places. It hung over towns which were not accustomed to it, and it lay heavily in hollows and fields. The Romantick Lady began to watch it, looking backward, as the train pushed ahead.

"It is an eerie thing to look at. It is like an unescapable Giant Wraith who is following us," she thought. "I hope it will not be able to keep up."

To face the prospect of steaming out into the Mersey crowded with craft of all sizes, from huge ocean-liners to tugs and fishing-boats, all blinded in the swathing of this enfolding, light-and-sound-deadening yellow gloom, was not cheering.

Just before reaching Liverpool the Wraith seemed to have failed to keep up speed. There was a dimness in the air, but one could see where one was going. There were no actual difficulties in the way of descending from the train, of securing porters and one's belongings, of making way through the steamer-bound crowd, and of climbing the gangway and getting on board in the old familiar fashion with which half the world has become so intimate during the last twenty years. It was just as always, but that few people had come to see their friends "off." The weather had been too dire. The boarding crowd, however, was in rather good spirits, congratulating itself that the Wraith had been left behind. A breath of fresh sea air would be good to inhale, people said, after those last two suffocating, throat-stinging days in London.

The gang-plank was withdrawn, the last good-byes were shouted across the widening gap between the steamer and the wharf, the great liner swung out slowly, while the band played something joyous and promising. The usual people went up and down the stairways to look at the saloon, the library, the drawing-room; the rest either wandered about passages searching for their staterooms or stewards, or, having found their special apartments, occupied themselves with the arrangement of their belongings and the opening of packages and letters.

The Romantick Lady was never able to tell me how many letters and packages she opened, and how many of her steamer books she dipped into— how long it was, in fact, before she became conscious that she could not see clearly— that she could scarcely see at all— that she was actually in need of a light. She dropped her book and looked about her stateroom. Even the gay chintz of the hangings of her berth had faded into indistinctness; a thick yellow curtain had been drawn across the window.

"What has happened?" she said. "We sailed at three o'clock. I have not been here more than an hour, surely."

She had been so absorbed that she knew she could not be sure of her own estimate of time; also she had not been conscious that the steamer had been moving very slowly. She became aware now that it was scarcely moving at all— and there broke forth in the dimness a wild and hollow booming roar such as a Megatherium, as it rooted up and trampled down great trees in a primeval forest in darkest ages, might have bellowed in his lonely rage. She knew it well. What ocean traveller does not? It was the fog-horn!

"Woo— oo— oo— ooh!"

"It has followed us," she said, sitting down among her belongings. "It has got us. It has shut us in."

Then the steamer shuddered a little, went more slowly— more slowly still— stopped!

"And here we are," thought the Romantick Lady. "A thousand or so of us. I wonder how many are in the steerage?"

That was the opening of the little episode. The Giant Wraith had fallen behind merely to gather strength and volume. Upon the river crowded with shipping— with great and small craft, most of them making their way toward its mouth, either to pass in or out of the open sea— it had dropped its heaviest mantle, and shut out all chance of safety in movement. To move was almost certain disaster. Who would be mad enough to do it? Not the guider of a giant liner with the lives of more than a thousand souls in the hollow of his hand.

"The fact that it is rather awesome does not make it any less one of the most weird and nerve-thrilling of adventures." This was the mental attitude of the Romantick Lady. "An adventure it is. I must go out and inquire into detail."

Others had left their staterooms for the same purpose. In the corridors several somewhat anxious-looking women were standing at doors, or were just emerging from them. There were excitedly curious faces and some excitedly alarmed ones. Male relatives were being questioned or were being dispatched to investigate. "We've stopped! What is the matter? How dark it is! It is the fog. It came on all at once. I rang for the steward. It is like the Day of Judgment!" Several people had rung for steward or stewardess, who presented themselves with uncertain but determinedly reassuring aspects. On the stairs and in the companionway were groups of talking passengers. It was not difficult to hear the facts of the situation. There was no reason for concealment. The captain had hoped to be able to steam out of the pursuing fog, but it had descended upon and surrounded its prey with extraordinary suddenness, thickening as it closed in. There was no possibility of safe movement, however slow. The obviously discreet course was to light warning lights, blow warning fog-horns, and wait until the fog lifted— which might happen at any time.

Other craft had decided upon the same action, it became evident. Out of the muffling yellowness were to be heard at intervals from one point and another hollow roars, hollow toots, shrill terrified little whistles, and big demoniac warning ones. One immense incoming liner was due at the very time of peril. It was somewhere not far away. Its awful fog-horn bellowed forth the fact from the fog's thickest enclosing. But it had also ceased moving. No doubt its lights of warning were in proportion to its size, but only those near enough could suspect their presence. "They say everything has stopped. You can't see a yard ahead. It is quite awful. Nothing dare stir. It can't last long. It may lift in about half an hour. We are hanging in a thick murk. It's like the Inferno."

Those exclamatory remarks the Romantick Lady heard with many others from the different groups. She also gathered much doubtless wholly incorrect information connected with fogs and captains and disasters. The general opinion was that the fog would lift in an hour at most— in half an hour, perhaps. It was not possible for people who had just begun a journey to regard it as credible that they were to be absurdly stopped at its outset. A touch of wind would blow the yellow curtain aside, and the way would be clear. If nothing moved— incoming or outgoing steamers or sailing vessels large and small, safety was at least secured, and those who wished might occupy themselves and settle down as they chose, endeavouring to possess their souls in patience. So the groups gradually melted away to staterooms, or the smoking-room, or to the library, where letters might be begun depicting dramatically the singular situation. There would be a satisfactory amount of colour in any first letter from a voyager which was headed, "In a Fog in the Middle of the Mersey."

In half an hour the gloom had not disappeared, in an hour it had become even heavier and deeper, and the steamer did not move. To the Romantick Lady there presented itself the alluring idea that to mount to the deck might be to make a mental record of a unique order of picture.

It was unique enough. When she found herself outside she stood still to make the most— for her own peculiar pleasure— of the mysterious unearthliness of it. The great ship hung enclosed as though in opaque yellow walls. The fog of which they were built covered the decks, as it covered land and sea. But for the dimmed orange glow of numerous lamps it would have been impossible to guess where one was moving. And but for the ship's rail an explorer might easily have walked overboard.

The Romantick Lady began to make her way slowly. At intervals the booming roar of the fog-horn prolonged itself in the midst of the stillness, and the incoming liner who had also lost her way seemed to respond, while smaller hollow or shrill sounds added their protesting warning.

"Don't move! Don't move! It's death to stir. Here I stand motionless— here— here!" the Leviathans bellowed as the Romantick Lady translated them. And the smaller craft shrieked in terror: "And here am I— here-here— here! If you move you may sweep me to the sea's bottom!"

No one seemed to be on deck. To the Romantick Lady the deck appeared her sole demesne. The remoteness, the sense of being at once shut in and shut out from the world, from life itself, was an uncanny and spectral thing. A new-born ghost wandering in ghostly spaces as yet unknown, might have felt it. When, as she made her second round of the deck, there loomed up out of the mystery a few feet ahead of her a tramping male passenger. He was but another disembodied creature, who silently drew near and passed through the non-obstructing wall which closed behind him. He made her feel more ghost-like than before. Round the deck he went apparently as she was going, but in the opposite direction. As they went round they passed each other again— emerging from the veil, nearing, silently passing, and swallowed up in its swathing folds. Again and again they passed each other, but always as shadows and ghosts. Neither really saw the other, and throughout the voyage which followed neither recognized in the body the disembodied thing which had touched its sphere in its ghostly wanderings.

At length the Romantick Lady paused at the rail at one end of the deck, and leaned against it to look down. It was not that she anticipated seeing anything, but a Romantick thought had suddenly appeared upon her mental horizon. She began to think of the steerage passengers. How many were there? Of what nationalities were they? How many men— how many women— how many children? They would most of them be uneducated peasants. How many of them would know anything about a London fog— particularly a London fog which, escaping its lawful boundaries, had journeyed to Liverpool and settled upon the shipping in the Mersey.

She began to see pictures, and deplore that first-class passengers were forbidden to go down into the steerage. It was a rule hygienically sound, no doubt, and highly creditable to the sagacity of the Health Officers, but it placed an obstacle in the way of Adventurous Romance. What might not a Romantick Lady find among Goths and Huns and Russian Jews journeying in the steerage of a great steamer to a new land and life and fortune?

There was a deadened sound of footsteps which came to a stop in the pit of dimness just below her. There was the shuffling sound of more than one man making himself comfortable, sitting down on something— a coil of rope perhaps. There were evidently two of them, and their voices came up to her rather mumblingly at first. Whosoever they were, they had come to look at the fog as she had— or had braved it because a foggy deck was more desirable than the depths of a foggy steerage. And out of the indistinctness of the mumbling she heard this:

"A bit thick, ain't it?" in a hoarse Cockney voice. "No wonder they're frightened 'arf out of their senses. Lot of Russian Jews and Italians and Poles. Eight hundred of 'em got to be kept quiet."

The Vision rose before her, and she leaned farther over the rail and dropped a question down into the pit, forgetting that a disembodied voice might seem a startling thing. She thought only of what she wanted to know.

"How many children are there?"

The detached voice plainly was sufficiently startling. She heard quick movement, and there was a pause in which there was evident listening.

"How many children?" she dropped down again. Something like suppressed laughter, and then a disembodied voice came up to her.

"I can't see yer, laidy!"

"I can't see you either, but we can hear each other. How many children are there?"

More suppressed chuckling and a mumbled interchange of words. Then the answer ascended, "About a hundred and fifty— laidy— most of 'em squealin'."

"Thank you."

That was all. She went away and resumed her walk, and while she walked she saw pictures of the fog which had crept down into the steerage, of the Poles and Italians and Russian Jews, and the hundred and fifty children on their way to America to begin again— to begin differently. They gave her plenty to think of, and from this visionary figure and that branched stories of all shades.

SEVERAL TIMES in her talk with me of this incident she has wondered curiously how many of the passengers have remembered it, how many of them felt the three days of fog to be weird enchantment, how many felt them merely draggingly dull.

For three days it actually lasted— for three days they were held motionless by the soft but impenetrable gloom. There must have been deep sleeping through the silence of that first night. In many cases there was late waking after it, because the night and the morning were as one, and there were no sounds of working engines when consciousness came back.

The most mysteriously interesting of human characteristics is human adaptability to circumstances, which, indeed, seems almost automatic in its action. After the first hours of amazement, nervousness, and talk, the entire passenger-list began to adapt itself to lamplight and yellow mist in staterooms, corridors, and saloons, and more or less resignedly settled down. Men began to play cards and talk over their cigars in the smoking-room, women began to read, and write letters, and chat in the library and sitting-room. Gradually people appeared on deck, and made themselves comfortable with furs and rugs in steamer-chairs under the dulled yellow glow of the many lights.

Lying in her berth before she breakfasted, the Romantick Lady had entertained herself by evolving a seasonable little plan. She had asked questions of her stewardess, who was an intelligent person. She had verified the statements of the detached male voice which had answered her out of the pit. There were eight hundred Russians, Poles, Italians, etc., in the steerage. They carried among their bags and bundles a hundred and fifty children of all shapes and sizes. They were all going to make their fortunes in America. There was also another interesting detail. The Romantick Lady evolved therefrom her little seasonable plan.

"Tomorrow is Christmas Day." She thought it out with her usual joy in the small drama. "One hundred and fifty little pairs of hands are going empty— quite empty— into America. How nice— how cheerful— to put something into every one of them— just something, even if it is not much— so that they will not go in quite empty. And why not do it on Christmas Day?"

After this she thought further, and through the depths of a fog a point of light gleamed.

"I am not a good beggar," she mentally proceeded. "I am too conceited and too cowardly. But any one would give you a penny— if you asked for no more. I shall therefore get up and dress myself, take my bag in my hand, and go over this entire ship— except of course the steerage— and ask everybody for a penny. A steward could give you a penny, so could a stewardess (out of the sovereigns you tip them with)— a sailor could give you one— but I shall not ask sailors, because they won't have purses in their pockets."

Later in the day, at an hour when no one could be remaining in bed, and therefore every one was to be found in one quarter or another, the passenger in the first chair of the first row on deck— a large, businesslike, middled-aged man folded comfortably in a most desirable travelling-rug— was roused from a dozing reverie on fogs by the sound of a voice speaking at his side.

"If you please, will you give me a penny?" it said.

He roused himself with a start and pushed back his cap, which had been pulled down over his eyes.

"Eh! What? Beg pardon!" he stammered.

It is not an infrequent experience of the Romantick Lady's, she tells me, that she is conscious that there are occasions when the first impression she produces upon really intelligent persons is that she is slightly mad— not very mad really, but the harmless victim of hallucinations. That a practically minded first-class passenger on a voyage across the Atlantic should find himself suddenly addressed by a comfortably clothed and furred woman who rises out of the fog to hold out her hand and ask him for a penny, might be regarded as an incident a trifle startling and unexplainable.

"Would you mind giving me a penny?" she said again.

And again he stammered, "I beg— I beg your pardon. I don't quite understand!"

"Tomorrow is Christmas Day," explained the Romantick Lady. "I want it for the children in the steerage. There are a hundred and fifty of them. I am going to ask every one for a penny. Any one will give a penny. And it will mount up. If it is not enough I shall add something myself. I want every child to have something in its hand when it lands in America."

The end passenger probably still held— in the back of his mind— the idea of harmless hallucinations, but he was a lenient and generous person. He fumbled in his pocket, murmuring something civil as he searched for his pocketbook. When he found it he handed her a five-dollar bill.

"That is two hundred and fifty pennies, I believe," said the Romantick Lady. "Oh, I am grateful to you!"

"Not at all! Not at all!" answered the end passenger, replacing his pocketbook.

By this time the next passenger was awake, and the next, and the next, until as the Romantick Lady passed slowly on her way, a mendicant ghost in the orange-brown mist, one by one the whole row of chairs was aroused, and asked questions as she approached, and dived into pockets or opened bags and made ready for her.

"Will you give me a penny?" she asked— never for any more, and she could not easily have asked for less. "Will you give me a penny?"

But nobody gave her a penny. Some gave her sovereigns, some half-sovereigns, some dollars or two dollars, or even again sumptuous flve-dollar bills, some gave half-crowns or florins, and children proudly forced upon her sixpences or shillings. She asked stewards, she asked officers, she let nobody escape, and it was apparent that nobody wished to elude her. Everybody was interested as well as amused, and every one was kind. People who were beginning to feel apathetic and bored were not in the mood to refuse, finding themselves provided with an incident to talk over. Between ourselves we have often since then laughed at the odd humour of the scene— the fog-enveloped decks, the bundled ghosts of passengers in their steamer chairs under the luridly smoky lights, and the Mendicant Shadow looming out of the mist, extending a hand, and uttering her mysterious appeal, "Please, will you give me a penny?"

She had not gone far on her round before there sprang out of a dark corner chair a tall and cheerful boyish young man who had sat near her at table the night before.

"Let me go with you and carry the bag," he said. "I can take you into the smoking-room. Most of the men are there. May I come?"

With her he went, and when they had made their tour of the decks they invaded the smoking-room. It was more than usually well filled, and the smoke of cigars and cigarettes added to the floating fog made greater mystery. Men were playing cards, men were smoking, with whiskey and sodas before them, some were dozing on chairs, and some were talking. Enter a Mendicant with extended hand and attended by a squire of dames. All who were near enough to see her turned quickly round. Had she mistaken her way? What was going to happen?

"Please, will you give me a penny?" she said. "Tomorrow will be Christmas Day, and there are a hundred and fifty emigrant children in the steerage, etc., etc."

That most of them stared, is not to be denied; that the theory of the harmless hallucination occurred to several, the Romantick Lady was quite aware. They had not lain in their berths and thought out the picturesque emotional features of the case. There were those who for a few moments looked rather stupefied, and as if they could not quite understand. To these she endeavoured in a few words to make clear the picture of the small empty hands. Her hearers no doubt did not see the thing quite as she did, most of them being hard-driven business men for whom emigrants created no particular Vision. But they were all good natured and generous. The little bag gradually filled itself, and she began to stuff bills and pieces of gold and silver into the pocket of her fur coat. The number of pennies bestowed by the Smoking-Room made an appreciable addition to the fortunes of the one hundred and fifty.

When she returned to her stateroom and poured out her garnerings on the couch, there lay before her a most respectable pile.

Here perhaps it would be illuminating to pause and make a certain note— illuminating as to the characteristics of the Romantick Lady.

"How much had they given you?" I not unnaturally asked when I first heard the story.

She was in the midst of the glow of it, laughing here and there at herself, and touched and warmed by the humanness of the bundled-up passenger wraiths. She stopped and reflected, she looked down at the carpet and thought deeply, then she looked up with a puzzled expression.

"It was quite a lot," she said slowly, "but I can't remember how much. I actually can't remember."

"You wouldn't, you Romantick thing," I answered resignedly. "One needn't expect it of you."

"But what does it matter? The children got it," she triumphed. "It was distributed the next day after their Christmas dinner. Of course they did not understand where it came from. They probably thought it was an agreeable American custom to serve money as one of the courses. My stewardess told me all about it. She also said that after some of the children had been given their share, their fathers shuffled them to the front again, and pretended that they had been overlooked and had had nothing."

In the afternoon of Christmas Day the fog lifted, and the ship went on its way.

"But," said the Romantick Lady, "as we swung past the Statue of Liberty in the harbour, and I went to lean over the rail again and looked down at the crowd standing about or sitting huddled among its bundles on the steerage deck, I was suddenly beset by the usual question. Perhaps my Romantic moment had really resulted in one of my fell deeds. Perhaps I had firmly imbedded in the minds of the hundred and fifty the seed of pauperism, and they would sail in with their hands held out for charity and not for work. How can one know?"

_____________

2: Sargasso

Ward Muir

Wardrop Openshaw Muir, 1878–1927

Pearson’s Magazine Oct 1908

The Sargasso Sea has been a thing of both myth and scientific investigation since Colombus's day, and many fantastic stories have been woven around it.  A seaweed called Sargassum is often found floating in streamers in the area, leading to horror stories such as this one. The theme was very popular at the time this story was written.

Wardrop Openshaw Muir is largely forgotten today, except for his book "Observations of an Orderly", a non-fiction account of his time as a War hospital orderly in England during WW1. He was a photographer, and author of numerous books and stories.

AT THE END of September the tramp steamer Wellington was posted "Missing," and a number of placid persons in Cardiff and Liverpool and elsewhere, having speculated in insuring her when she became "overdue," became appreciably richer without any special effort, beyond that of enduring a temporary anxiety. The insurance company paid the Wellington's owners without the slightest fuss. The said owners made preparations to buy a new steamer. Two or three small milliners earned a trifling profit on selling black attire to the wives of various officers and sailors, and thus the matter ended. Cash changed hands, and here and there a heart was broken and a few families orphaned. That was all.

The Wellington had sailed from Cardiff for Trinidad— and vanished. The southern wastes of the North Atlantic had swallowed her up, and told no tale of her vanishing. No storms had been recorded; there were no rocks or shoals uncharted on her route; no derelicts, upon which she might have struck and done herself injury, had been reported. Obviously, she had sunk. There was no other explanation to offer. She could not have taken to herself wings and flown into the heavens; she could not have evaporated, she could not have blown herself to bits so small that none had floated and been recovered. Undoubtedly she had sunk. But what had caused her to sink? And why, when she sunk, had not the crew taken to the boats? Here was a mystery. The sea holds many similar mysteries— and holds them tight.

To this day the riddle of the Wellington might have remained unsolved (such unsolved riddles brood over innumerable homes in every seaport) had not the Pennsylvania happened to cruise across a certain patch of ocean on a certain day four years later. The Pennsylvania, belonging to the United States Navy, was on a scientific mission, looking for new kinds of fish, or new kinds of algae, or new kinds of something else— it does not concern us to inquire what it was looking for. Learned professors, with microscopes and dredging apparatus, were on board; and the learned professors were certainly not looking for the Wellington. Nevertheless, they found her; found her riding calmly on a silver sea, intact from her keel to the top of her masts, her engines apparently undamaged, her cargo untouched and perfect, but for some slight decay, her boats whole and sound, and her cabin— well, there were things (or the remains of things) in her cabin, which we need not dwell upon. To put the matter gently, the one passenger on board the Wellington was— Death.

"Extraordinary!" said the lieutenant commanding the exploring party which went aboard the derelict.

The Pennsylvania's doctor was set to work to examine the things in the cabin, and he pronounced a remarkable verdict. "Died of starvation," he said. "No disease otherwise, as far as I can see."

An engineer, who was sent below to look at the silent and rusted engines, said that with a little tinkering they could be put into good enough order to take the Wellington home. "Nothing wrong with the engines," he remarked, "except, maybe, a bit of strain. There's tons of coal in the bunkers."

Then came a professor, who had been employing the time paddling about the ship in the dinghy. "See this?" he said. He held up a string of weed. "I've been bathing, while you fellows made your examination. Dived and had a look at the screw. Found this."

"The screw's gone, I suppose?" asked the lieutenant. "The loss of the screw is the only thing that could have stopped them. Though why they didn't take to the boats or set sails, when they shed their screw, goodness only knows."

The Professor was grave. "The screw's all right; but there was some of this wrapped round it." Again he held up the dripping trail of weed.

"Naturally she's got weedy, drifting like this for goodness knows how long."

"Maybe." The Professor flung the weed on the deck, and took out a cigar. "Ever hear of Sargasso weed?" he asked, as he struck a match. Then he began to smoke, thoughtfully.

"It's only a guess," he went on. "Sargasso could have done it; and unless you people find a better explanation, mine is the best so far. Yes— Sargasso— that's my contribution to the problem. Sargasso's my guess."

The doctor returned from the cabin where the things were, carrying a little bundle of sheets of paper. "No need to argue," he said. "Here's the whole story. It seems there was a journalist on board, taking a voyage for his health. He's written it all down— at least, nearly all. The end wouldn't bear writing, I reckon."

This was what the journalist wrote in his diary:

***

Sunday Morning

A curious thing has happened, and in order that I may keep the details clear in my mind, so as to be able to send an account to my paper when we reach Trinidad, I am writing a condensed description now. Last night, as we were steaming full speed ahead as usual, and I was below, lying on the cabin sofa reading a novel, I suddenly felt the ship give a most peculiar movement. The sensation of motion forwards is so permanently present in one's mind when one is travelling on board a vessel in mid-ocean that one forgets it. At this moment I suddenly, even violently, became aware not of this sensation, but of its stoppage.

The stoppage was not a sharp one; it did not feel as though we had, say, run on a rock, with a bump. There was no bump. Nevertheless, I was nearly rolled off the sofa, and only saved myself by a clutch at its back. The ship had, as it were, taken a dive backward instead of a dive forward. It had not done so with a jar. On the contrary, it had done so smoothly, and with a slur, much as a locomotive does when it glides, very gently, against a spring buffer. The only effect in the cabin beyond my own experience was that a bottle of sarsaparilla which stood on the table fell over, and rolled off it.

I sat up and listened. The screw was still going, and the ship was vibrating a good deal; but somehow I had lost the sensation of moving forward which one always feels when one listens to the screw. An instant later the captain, who had been in his berth, came running out in his trousers and shirt sleeves. "Stop the engines, Mr. Bunce!" I heard him yell to the mate as he ran on deck.

A second later the telegraph tinkled, and the engines slowed down and stopped. There was silence.

I followed the captain on deck. He was on the bridge now. I could see his face by the light of a lamp which hung there. He looked bewildered.

I joined him. "What's up?" I asked.

"Blowed if I know," he said, "If there were any sandbanks hereabouts— sandbanks in mid-Atlantic! Pshaw!" He stared into the darkness ahead.

The night was black. There should have been a moon, but it was hidden behind thick clouds. Now that the ship had stopped, one realized that the heat was considerable. Not a breath of wind stirred the air.

"Must have the arc," said the captain.

The masthead arc-light, which is used when the ship is loading in port, sputtered, and then blazed. Its pallid rays shot forth on every side, and illuminated the sea.

The sea? Was it the sea?

Ahead of us lay a vast and stolid tract of something, motionless and sinister. Mud? No, not mud. It was less motionless than I had thought. It moved slightly now and then with the swell. Its surface was not water, at any rate. It glistened, but it did not glitter as water does. And it was wrinkled here and there with solid yet sinuous markings. Certainly it was not water.

"Weed, by Jove!" muttered the captain. "Yards of it— hundreds of yards of it for aught I know. I've heard of gulf weed, but never seen anything like this. Too much trouble trying to plough through it. We'll back out, wait for the dawn, and then shape a course round the edge of it. Weed's no joke when there's such a lot of it. Full speed astern, Mr. Bunce, please!"

The mate signalled to the engine-room, and a hollow rumble rose from below. The ship trembled.

For a minute we stood. Then the captain sprang to the telegraph and swung round its handle to "Stop."

"Must have a look astern first," he said. "Weed's in the propeller, I fancy. May have to clean it out to be safe." He spoke jerkily.

I went with him to the poop, and we let down a lantern over the rudder.

There was weed there too; not much— a foot or two, maybe, crawling round our stern. The ship had swung, and instead of backing straight out of the weed, it was forcing its way into it in a path parallel with its margin. The margin was plainly visible; nice clean sea gleamed quite close to us.

"Awkward," said the captain gruffly. "Difficult to get steerage way on her. Must try, though." He went back to the bridge leaving the mate as lookout astern.

Again the engines rumbled, this time a shade more noisily than before, and one felt the ship straining to be free of its entanglement.

It heaved slightly and rocked; as it did so, a faint and not unpleasant odour rose from the weed overboard.

The captain wiped his brow. "No go," he said at last, and signalled afresh to the engineers to stop. "Must put out a boat astern to cut the weed. It's getting round our screw."

He thought for a while and then added, "Better wait till daylight, though."

We waited, and at last the dawn came, grey, from the east. The clouds furled like canopies, and when the sun rose the sky was clear and blue.

There was something cheerful about that blue sky, and I think it raised our spirits, although day showed us a grim prospect ahead. As far as the eye could reach the weed lay, thick matted, bubbling and blistering in the sun, and heaving oilily in the unseen swell. "It must be miles across," said the captain, after he had inspected it through a telescope from the masthead. "Miles, by Jove! Never heard of such a thing in my life. Chunks of weed a few yards square— yes, you meet them anywhere. Even in the blooming Mediterranean I've seen them. And there are islands of weed in the Pacific. But this isn't an island, it's a continent. Well, the sooner we're quit of the continent the better."

The space of weed which divided us off from the friendly ocean behind had grown a little wider, I thought, during the hours of the night; but a boat let down could clear a path through it without difficulty, and we could then back out and proceed on our way— and I should have a fine story for the newspapers.

The boat was lowered and sank squelching into the surface of the weed. Bubbles rose round it, and burst, giving off that peculiar smell which I had noticed before, and which I now began to dislike. Some of the crew— a queer set of ragamuffins of all nations from Cardiff— got down into the boat. It rode buoyantly on, or in, the weed. The crew got out the oars.

Then came the first hint of alarm. The boat would not budge.

The oars made no impression on the weed. They merely scooped it up in strings and skeins. The boat nosed the weed and moved elastically to and fro in it at each stroke of the oars. But not an inch forward did it travel. The men sweated at their oars and cursed. But their labours were utterly in vain.

The captain swore softly. "Vast there!" he called at length. The men stopped rowing. "Mr. Bunce, you must climb over the stern and find out whether we can do anything with knives. We'll swing you down on a rope."

Knives were useless. Mr. Bunce cut and slashed at the weed, lifted shovelfuls of it out of the water, and made no difference. Even if he had been able to clear a patch of water, fresh weed would have flowed in instantly and filled it up. But he had not even the momentary encouragement of making any clearance whatever. The weed was feet thick— fathoms thick, perhaps. A pole, pushed down into it, resisted the push to its full length. Somewhere beneath there must be open water, just as beneath the thickest ice there is open water. How deep beneath? It was impossible to tell.

The engines were set going again, furiously battling with this implacably enveloping monster. The ship trembled and swayed, pushed its stern perhaps a yard back, and then rebounded a yard forward again. Result: nil.

"We're stuck," said the captain.

And stuck we were.

Presently someone noticed that the boat, which had been put overside, was not so near as it had been. Exploring tendrils of weed had come between the Wellington and it. We were drifting apart, silently, hardly perceptibly.

A rope was thrown to the boat and it was hauled in, very, very slowly, and with an enormous effort. Our respect for the weed deepened as we saw how tenaciously it resisted the passage of the boat, and clung to its keel, as though with suckers.

The boat was hoisted aboard again, and the crew went to their midday meal.

Monday Morning

We are still embedded in the weed, and the open sea is further astern. All yesterday, and all last night, the engines were kept going, intermittently, without the slightest appreciable effect. This is terrible. A lookout is kept at the masthead, in case some passing vessel could be hailed. If we could get a rope to a steamer in the open sea, she might tow us out. If no steamer comes—

The captain has declined to say what will happen if no steamer comes.

And every hour the strip of weed which divides us from the sea grows an inch or so wider. Either it is actually growing, and that at an amazing pace, or else the Wellington is being absorbed by some curious power into the centre of this slimy continent.

Tuesday

The hands are beginning to murmur. They want to abandon the ship. The captain is loath to do so, as long as there is coal in the bunkers and the engines can continue to make efforts to free us.

(Later.)— As I wrote the above, the engines broke down. Cables of weeds have enveloped the propeller, and the engines, though not actually injured, have sustained a severe strain, and have had to be stopped for repair.

Wednesday

The open sea is now a good hundred feet distant. On every side of us stretches this desert of oozy weed. It is horrible, and its stench is beginning to affect our health. Much of it appears to be dead matter, and undoubtedly is decaying. Possibly fish have got enmeshed in the weed and killed. Perhaps there are even embedded in it the carcases of whales.

Thursday

The crew are now openly revolting, and the captain has consented to make an attempt to abandon the Wellington. To leave her in boats is plainly impossible. No power on earth could drive the boats through the slough of the weed. The carpenter has suggested that boards could be laid down on the surface of the weed. They cannot sink. It may be feasible to make a sort of pathway or elongated raft of lashed boards, and walk along it, carrying a boat, till the edge of the weed-mass is reached. A party are to try the experiment this afternoon. Meanwhile, the boards are being prepared.

(Later.)— Horrible! Horrible!

The boards were let down overside, and sure enough they lay on the weed with reasonable firmness. Men got down on to them, and began cautiously to throw out other boards, which were lashed to the first lot, and so on. The pathway grew. It heaved up and down slightly, but otherwise gave a fair foothold. The men hardly got their boots wet walking on it.

It was an extraordinary sight. The men worked rapidly, even feverishly, and the odd path of wood grew longer and longer. At last the final planks were laid, their ends touching the verge of the weed. The men at the end of the path cheered wildly, and I don't wonder. The mere sniff of open water must have been exhilarating.

They came back to the ship, and a boat— the smallest we have— was let down. Under its weight the boards sank a little— really wonderfully little. Weed lapped up over the boards, but that was of no consequence.

The gang of men lifted the boat, and very slowly and with the utmost care carried it seaward.

It was now sundown, but already the moon had risen, and there was plenty of light. Those who were left on board watched the progress of the boat-carriers with intense excitement.

They were perhaps halfway towards the sea when an awful thing happened.

Words fail to describe it. It was an upheaval of the most terrible description. For a second or two I positively thought that some vast monster underneath the weed had lifted itself or rolled over. At any rate, what occurred was this.

A mighty billow, a giant undulation, suddenly arose in the weed, and swept across it. We on board the Wellington had to hold on for our lives. The ship literally stood on end. For one instant her stern was high in the air. The next her prow was high, and the stern fathoms beneath us.

We clung, I say, for we had seen the wave coming— if wave it could be called: a sprayless, solid, treacle-like mountain range.

The next instant the wave had reached the men who were on the plank pathway.

The pathway rose skyward and writhed…

There was a long cry of fear, and all was over. Men and boat and pathway had all vanished into the morass. They went down into its sticky depths, and their cries were drowned, smothered…

Friday

The captain says that the upheaval was due to a submarine volcanic eruption. No one particularly cares what the explanation might be. All we know is that for an hour or so after the upheaval the weed in our neighbourhood was thinner. It had got broken and disintegrated, and, by a supreme effort, we might have forced our way out of it. But the engines were useless! The irony of it!

Such wind as there is seems to blow persistently towards the centre of the continent of weed, otherwise we should set sails and try what drifting can do to save us. We are, of course, preparing to make another wooden pathway— alas, now far lengthier than the first one. The end of the first pathway was roped to the ship, but we cannot draw it in. The weed hangs to it immovably, and is a dead drag on it.

Saturday

The second pathway was begun this morning, and when half made turned traitor. Its far end began to be crawled over by weed; then more weed, and then still more…

The pathways are useless.

Sunday

We have been a week in the weed, and now, except from the masthead, the open sea is no longer visible. Are we really doomed? It is difficult to believe that we are. There is plenty of food on board, plenty of coal in the bunkers—

But of what use are food and coal?

Monday

Still no hope. The engines are working again. They produce no effect whatsoever.

Tuesday

Our position is getting on our nerves. An Italian, one of the crew, swears that in the night he saw an immense creature come out of the weed and try to crawl on deck. Pressed to describe the creature, he said it was like a stupendous lizard, with luminous eyes. Nonsense, of course; but I don't wonder at the fellow's alarm. This is an eerie place.

Wednesday

We are on short rations. It is common-sense; but the crew are grumbling.

Thursday

The accumulators have given out, and we can only get our electric light at night by gearing straight on to the dynamos. The captain is looking queer. It seems that he was on deck last night, and he, too, confesses that he thought he saw something— some living thing— in the weed. He refuses to describe it, but says it had an audible voice.

Friday

Are there creatures? Last night I took a watch on deck. The moon is now waning, but there is still enough light to see the gloomy floor of motionlessness around us. Sometimes it bubbles a little, sometimes it seems to writhe and always it glistens— glistens iridescently.

In the middle of the night I heard a far-off sound. I gazed in the direction whence it came, and I seemed to see— to see something— a something which swept across the melancholy wastes towards the ship like a bird, and yet not a bird. It was too large to be a bird. And then, as it came nearer, I saw that it was not flying, as I had thought. It was really in the weed, but its head (if it was a head) towered above the weed at a height of several feet on top of a comparatively thin neck. The neck ploughed through the weed, hissing and gurgling, and the head came nearer and nearer…

It sank, and vanished. The weed closed over it with a swirl…

Had there really been anything there? Now that I think the thing over in the cold light of day I believe the whole vision was imaginary. But if this is the sort of vision we are to suffer from— well, we had better abandon our night watches on deck, or we shall have insanity to battle with as well as weed.

Saturday

The crew have mutinied. They want to get at the stores, and particularly at the liquor. The captain, the mate, and the two engineers, and myself, have barricaded ourselves in the cabin.

Sunday

A fortnight gone!

Monday

We have parleyed with the men. No use.

Tuesday

Yes, there certainly are creatures in this horrible weed-desert.

Last night, as we lay in the cabin, a something scraped against the side of the ship. A dark mass went across the porthole and momentarily blotted out the moonlight. Then there was silence. We saw no more, and we dared not go on deck, for fear of the crew, who have a revolver, and have threatened to shoot at sight.

Wednesday

Are our brains becoming unhinged? Last night we all four woke at the sound of a bellowing, whistling noise, beside the ship. From the portholes nothing was visible. The origin of the sound was further forward.

Then came a scraping noise, like that we heard on Tuesday night, but lighter; more like the sound of gentle touching— the touching of a tentacle, whereas the previous sound was like the dragging of a heavy hawser.

The tentacle— if tentacle it was— withdrew after a while. Dawn came; and nothing was to be seen from the portholes but the old pavement of weed, empty and devoid of life.

Thursday

Last night the scraping came again, and this time the creature, whatever it was, dragged up on to the deck (at least, so it seemed) and swept to and fro for awhile, knocking things about. Before dawn it withdrew.

Friday

It came again last night, and hardly had it reached the deck, when there was an awful cry from for'ard.

Saturday

The crew have joined us— in view of the fighting of a common foe. What the foe is none of us know. All we know is that the boatswain was on deck, and was carried off by the creature, shrieking.

Sunday

Three weeks gone now.

Thanks to the truce which has been called with the crew, we are now able to go on deck as much as we like. In the shelter of the chart-house we lay in wait for the coming of the creature last night; but it did not appear.

The captain thinks that we must now be more than a mile deep in the weed. It is plain that he has abandoned all hope of escape.

Monday

Tragedy to-day. The captain blew out his brains with his revolver.

Was he wise, I wonder? May it not be better to embrace death promptly than to wait, and wait, and wait— till some horrible slow torture kills one inch by inch, or till madness comes?

Tuesday

Some of the crew have got at the liquor.

Reasoning logically, I begin to perceive that they are no more foolish than the captain.

Wednesday

The junior engineer to-day fixed wide slabs of wood to his boots, and essayed to walk on the surface of the weed. What he expected to be able to do, even if he reached the open sea, I don't know. The experiment failed immediately. He capsized… and the weed swallowed him.

Thursday

The creature came again last night, and we all saw it… Heaven help us!

Friday

The mate has gone mad.

(Later.)— The mate had to be shot, in self-defence.

Saturday

The ship's carpenter came to me to-day, and begged me to shoot him. "I haven't the pluck, sir, myself…"

Horrible! Of course, I could not do it.

Sunday

Four weeks!

The ship's carpenter had more pluck than he gave himself credit for…

I am now alone in the cabin, with the remaining members of the crew, all raving drunk.

To-night, if the creature comes again, I shall go out to meet it…

***

THE DIARY ended here.

"Then it was Sargasso weed after all," said the lieutenant slowly. "You were right, Professor; but how the deuce did the ship get out of it in the end?"

"Another volcanic upheaval, only this time a real big one," said the Professor. "The weed is known to gather like that. It grows amazingly fast— a foot or more in an hour, I've heard say— and it dies quickly, too, and sinks like lead; but once it had got as thick as this poor chap describes— well, nothing but a volcanic upheaval would disperse it. I guess there was a grand bust up; the weed was shredded right and left; then there came, maybe, a stunning storm, and here we find the Wellington in clear ocean, practically none the worse."

The lieutenant chewed at his cigar. "And the— the creatures, to which the writer refers?" he queried tentatively.

The Professor shrugged his shoulders. "'There are more things in heaven or earth,'" he quoted.

"You think it really existed?"

The Professor held out his hand, the palm open. "Ever see a scale like that?" he asked.

The lieutenant gazed at the open hand. A large, scale— the scale apparently of an enormous fish— lay there, shining dully in the sun.

"Where did you find that? It's a darned big scale, by gosh! Two inches across, at least, and as firm as steel."

"That scale," said the Professor, carefully putting it into his pocket-book, "belongs to no fish, crustacean, or mammal, or reptile, or anything else that I've ever heard of. That's all I can tell you, except that I found it fixed— glued by its own slime— to the side of the wheel-house."

The lieutenant and the Professor looked at each other. Then the doctor, who had been listening, spoke.

"I thank my stars I wasn't on board the Wellington, anyway," he said.

________________

3: Kerfol

Edith Wharton

1862-1937

Scribner's Magazine March 1916

'YOU OUGHT TO buy it,' said my host; 'it's just the place for a solitary-minded devil like you. And it would be rather worthwhile to own the most romantic house in Brittany. The present people are dead broke, and it's going for a song— you ought to buy it.'

It was not with the least idea of living up to the character my friend Lanrivain ascribed to me (as a matter of fact, under my unsociable exterior I have always had secret yearnings for domesticity) that I took his hint one autumn afternoon and went to Kerfol. My friend was motoring over to Quimper on business: he dropped me on the way, at a cross-road on a heath, and said: 'First turn to the right and second to the left. Then straight ahead till you see an avenue. If you meet any peasants, don't ask your way. They don't understand French, and they would pretend they did and mix you up. I'll be back for you here by sunset— and don't forget the tombs in the chapel.'

I followed Lanrivain's directions with the hesitation occasioned by the usual difficulty of remembering whether he had said the first turn to the right and second to the left, or the contrary. If I had met a peasant I should certainly have asked, and probably been sent astray; but I had the desert landscape to myself, and so stumbled on the right turn and walked across the heath till I came to an avenue. It was so unlike any other avenue I have ever seen that I instantly knew it must be the avenue. The grey-trunked trees sprang up straight to a great height and then interwove their pale-grey branches in a long tunnel through which the autumn light fell faintly. I know most trees by name, but I haven't to this day been able to decide what those trees were. They had the tall curve of elms, the tenuity of poplars, the ashen colour of olives under a rainy sky; and they stretched ahead of me for half a mile or more without a break in their arch. If ever I saw an avenue that unmistakably led to something, it was the avenue at Kerfol. My heart beat a little as I began to walk down it.

Presently the trees ended and I came to a fortified gate in a long wall. Between me and the wall was an open space of grass, with other grey avenues radiating from it. Behind the wall were tall slate roofs mossed with silver, a chapel belfry, the top of a keep. A moat filled with wild shrubs and brambles surrounded the place; the drawbridge had been replaced by a stone arch, and the portcullis by an iron gate. I stood for a long time on the hither side of the moat, gazing about me, and letting the influence of the place sink in. I said to myself: 'If I wait long enough, the guardian will turn up and show me the tombs—' and I rather hoped he wouldn't turn up too soon.

I sat down on a stone and lit a cigarette. As soon as I had done it, it struck me as a puerile and portentous thing to do, with that great blind house looking down at me, and all the empty avenues converging on me. It may have been the depth of the silence that made me so conscious of my gesture. The squeak of my match sounded as loud as the scraping of a brake, and I almost fancied I heard it fall when I tossed it onto the grass. But there was more than that: a sense of irrelevance, of littleness, of futile bravado, in sitting there puffing my cigarette-smoke into the face of such a past.

I knew nothing of the history of Kerfol— I was new to Brittany, and Lanrivain had never mentioned the name to me till the day before— but one couldn't as much as glance at that pile without feeling in it a long accumulation of history. What kind of history I was not prepared to guess: perhaps only that sheer weight of many associated lives and deaths which gives a majesty to all old houses. But the aspect of Kerfol suggested something more— a perspective of stern and cruel memories stretching away, like its own grey avenues, into a blur of darkness.

Certainly no house had ever more completely and finally broken with the present. As it stood there, lifting its proud roofs and gables to the sky, it might have been its own funeral monument. 'Tombs in the chapel? The whole place is a tomb!' I reflected. I hoped more and more that the guardian would not come. The details of the place, however striking, would seem trivial compared with its collective impressiveness; and I wanted only to sit there and be penetrated by the weight of its silence.

'It's the very place for you!' Lanrivain had said; and I was overcome by the almost blasphemous frivolity of suggesting to any living being that Kerfol was the place for him. 'Is it possible that anyone could not see –?' I wondered. I did not finish the thought: what I meant was undefinable. I stood up and wandered toward the gate. I was beginning to want to know more; not to see more— I was by now so sure it was not a question of seeing— but to feel more: feel all the place had to communicate. 'But to get in one will have to rout out the keeper,' I thought reluctantly, and hesitated. Finally I crossed the bridge and tried the iron gate. It yielded, and I walked through the tunnel formed by the thickness of the chemin de ronde. At the farther end, a wooden barricade had been laid across the entrance, and beyond it was a court enclosed in noble architecture. The main building faced me; and I now saw that one half was a mere ruined front, with gaping windows through which the wild growths of the moat and the trees of the park were visible. The rest of the house was still in its robust beauty. One end abutted on the round tower, the other on the small traceried chapel, and in an angle of the building stood a graceful well-head crowned with mossy urns. A few roses grew against the walls, and on an upper window-sill I remember noticing a pot of fuchsias.

My sense of the pressure of the invisible began to yield to my architectural interest. The building was so fine that I felt a desire to explore it for its own sake. I looked about the court, wondering in which corner the guardian lodged. Then I pushed open the barrier and went in. As I did so, a dog barred my way. He was such a remarkably beautiful little dog that for a moment he made me forget the splendid place he was defending. I was not sure of his breed at the time, but have since learned that it was Chinese, and that he was of a rare variety called the 'Sleeve-dog'. He was very small and golden brown, with large brown eyes and a ruffled throat: he looked like a large tawny chrysanthemum. I said to myself: 'These little beasts always snap and scream, and somebody will be out in a minute.'

The little animal stood before me, forbidding, almost menacing: there was anger in his large brown eyes. But he made no sound, he came no nearer. Instead, as I advanced, he gradually fell back, and I noticed that another dog, a vague rough brindled thing, had limped up on a lame leg. 'There'll be a hubbub now,' I thought; for at the same moment a third dog, a long-haired white mongrel, slipped out of a doorway and joined the others. All three stood looking at me with grave eyes; but not a sound came from them. As I advanced they continued to fall back on muffled paws, still watching me. 'At a given point, they'll all charge at my ankles: it's one of the jokes that dogs who live together put up on one,' I thought. I was not alarmed, for they were neither large nor formidable. But they let me wander about the court as I pleased, following me at a little distance— always the same distance— and always keeping their eyes on me. Presently I looked across at the ruined facade, and saw that in one of its empty window-frames another dog stood: a white pointer with one brown ear. He was an old grave dog, much more experienced than the others; and he seemed to be observing me with a deeper intentness.

'I'll hear from him,' I said to myself; but he stood in the window-frame, against the trees of the park, and continued to watch me without moving. I stared back at him for a time, to see if the sense that he was being watched would not rouse him. Half the width of the court lay between us, and we gazed at each other silently across it. But he did not stir, and at last I turned away. Behind me I found the rest of the pack, with a newcomer added: a small black greyhound with pale agate-coloured eyes. He was shivering a little, and his expression was more timid than that of the others. I noticed that he kept a little behind them. And still there was not a sound.

I stood there for fully five minutes, the circle about me— waiting, as they seemed to be waiting. At last I went up to the little golden-brown dog and stooped to pat him. As I did so, I heard myself give a nervous laugh. The little dog did not start, or growl, or take his eyes from me— he simply slipped back about a yard, and then paused and continued to look at me. 'Oh, hang it!' I exclaimed, and walked across the court toward the well.

As I advanced, the dogs separated and slid away into different corners of the court. I examined the urns on the well, tried a locked door or two, and looked up and down the dumb facade; then I faced about toward the chapel. When I turned I perceived that all the dogs had disappeared except the old pointer, who still watched me from the window. It was rather a relief to be rid of that cloud of witnesses; and I began to look about me for a way to the back of the house. 'Perhaps there'll be somebody in the garden,' I thought. I found a way across the moat, scrambled over a wall smothered in brambles, and got into the garden. A few lean hydrangeas and geraniums pined in the flower-beds, and the ancient house looked down on them indifferently. Its garden side was plainer and severer than the other: the long granite front, with its few windows and steep roof, looked like a fortress-prison. I walked around the farther wing, went up some disjointed steps, and entered the deep twilight of a narrow and incredibly old box-walk. The walk was just wide enough for one person to slip through, and its branches met overhead. It was like the ghost of a box-walk, its lustrous green all turning to the shadowy greyness of the avenues. I walked on and on, the branches hitting me in the face and springing back with a dry rattle; and at length I came out on the grassy top of the chemin de ronde. I walked along it to the gate-tower, looking down into the court, which was just below me. Not a human being was in sight; and neither were the dogs. I found a flight of steps in the thickness of the wall and went down them; and when I emerged again into the court, there stood the circle of dogs, the golden-brown one a little ahead of the others, the black greyhound shivering in the rear.

'Oh, hang it— you uncomfortable beasts, you!' I exclaimed, my voice startling me with a sudden echo. The dogs stood motionless, watching me. I knew by this time that they would not try to prevent my approaching the house, and the knowledge left me free to examine them. I had a feeling that they must be horribly cowed to be so silent and inert. Yet they did not look hungry or ill-treated. Their coats were smooth and they were not thin, except the shivering greyhound. It was more as if they had lived a long time with people who never spoke to them or looked at them: as though the silence of the place had gradually benumbed their busy inquisitive natures. And this strange passivity, this almost human lassitude, seemed to me sadder than the misery of starved and beaten animals. I should have liked to rouse them for a minute, to coax them into a game or a scamper; but the longer I looked into their fixed and weary eyes the more preposterous the idea became. With the windows of that house looking down on us, how could I have imagined such a thing? The dogs knew better: they knew what the house would tolerate and what it would not. I even fancied that they knew what was passing through my mind, and pitied me for my frivolity. But even that feeling probably reached them through a thick fog of listlessness. I had an idea that their distance from me was as nothing to my remoteness from them. The impression they produced was that of having in common one memory so deep and dark that nothing that had happened since was worth either a growl or a wag.

'I say,' I broke out abruptly, addressing myself to the dumb circle, 'do you know what you look like, the whole lot of you? You look as if you'd seen a ghost— that's how you look! I wonder if there is a ghost here, and nobody but you left for it to appear to?' The dogs continued to gaze at me without moving…

It was dark when I saw Lanrivain's motor lamps at the cross-roads— and I wasn't exactly sorry to see them. I had the sense of having escaped from the loneliest place in the whole world, and of not liking loneliness— to that degree— as much as I had imagined I should. My friend had brought his solicitor back from Quimper for the night, and seated beside a fat and affable stranger I felt no inclination to talk of Kerfol…

But that evening, when Lanrivain and the solicitor were closeted in the study, Madame de Lanrivain began to question me in the drawing-room.

'Well— are you going to buy Kerfol?' she asked, tilting up her gay chin from her embroidery.

'I haven't decided yet. The fact is, I couldn't get into the house,' I said, as if I had simply postponed my decision, and meant to go back for another look.

'You couldn't get in? Why, what happened? The family are mad to sell the place, and the old guardian has orders—'

'Very likely. But the old guardian wasn't there.'

'What a pity! He must have gone to market. But his daughter—?'

'There was nobody about. At least I saw no one.'

'How extraordinary! Literally nobody?'

'Nobody but a lot of dogs— a whole pack of them— who seemed to have the place to themselves.'

Madame de Lanrivain let the embroidery slip to her knee and folded her hands on it. For several minutes she looked at me thoughtfully.

'A pack of dogs— you saw them?'

'Saw them? I saw nothing else!'

'How many?' She dropped her voice a little. 'I've always wondered—'

I looked at her with surprise: I had supposed the place to be familiar to her. 'Have you never been to Kerfol?' I asked.

'Oh, yes: often. But never on that day.'

'What day?'

'I'd quite forgotten— and so had Hervé, I'm sure. If we'd remembered, we never should have sent you to-day— but then, after all, one doesn't half believe that sort of thing, does one?'

'What sort of thing?' I asked, involuntarily sinking my voice to the level of hers. Inwardly I was thinking: 'I knew there was something …'

Madame de Lanrivain cleared her throat and produced a reassuring smile. 'Didn't Hervé tell you the story of Kerfol? An ancestor of his was mixed up in it. You know every Breton house has its ghost-story; and some of them are rather unpleasant.'

'Yes— but those dogs?'

'Well, those dogs are the ghosts of Kerfol. At least, the peasants say there's one day in the year when a lot of dogs appear there; and that day the keeper and his daughter go off to Morlaix and get drunk. The women in Brittany drink dreadfully.' She stooped to match a silk; then she lifted her charming inquisitive Parisian face. 'Did you really see a lot of dogs? There isn't one at Kerfol,' she said.

ii

LANRIVAIN, the next day, hunted out a shabby calf volume from the back of an upper shelf of his library.

'Yes— here it is. What does it call itself? A History of the Assizes of the Duchy of Brittany. Quimper, 1702. The book was written about a hundred years later than the Kerfol affair; but I believe the account is transcribed pretty literally from the judicial records. Anyhow, it's queer reading. And there's a Hervé de Lanrivain mixed up in it— not exactly my style, as you'll see. But then he's only a collateral. Here, take the book up to bed with you. I don't exactly remember the details; but after you've read it I'll bet anything you'll leave your light burning all night!'

I left my light burning all night, as he had predicted; but it was chiefly because, till near dawn, I was absorbed in my reading. The account of the trial of Anne de Cornault, wife of the lord of Kerfol, was long and closely printed. It was, as my friend had said, probably an almost literal transcription of what took place in the court-room; and the trial lasted nearly a month. Besides, the type of the book was very bad…

At first I thought of translating the old record. But it is full of wearisome repetitions, and the main lines of the story are forever straying off into side issues. So I have tried to disentangle it, and give it here in a simpler form. At times, however, I have reverted to the text because no other words could have conveyed so exactly the sense of what I felt at Kerfol; and nowhere have I added anything of my own.

iii

IT WAS in the year 16— that Yves de Cornault, lord of the domain of Kerfol, went to the pardon of Locronan to perform his religious duties. He was a rich and powerful noble, then in his sixty-second year, but hale and sturdy, a great horseman and hunter and a pious man. So all his neighbours attested. In appearance he was short and broad, with a swarthy face, legs slightly bowed from the saddle, a hanging nose and broad hands with black hairs on them. He had married young and lost his wife and son soon after, and since then had lived alone at Kerfol. Twice a year he went to Morlaix, where he had a handsome house by the river, and spent a week or ten days there; and occasionally he rode to Rennes on business. Witnesses were found to declare that during these absences he led a life different from the one he was known to lead at Kerfol, where he busied himself with his estate, attended mass daily, and found his only amusement in hunting the wild boar and water-fowl. But these rumours are not particularly relevant, and it is certain that among people of his own class in the neighbourhood he passed for a stern and even austere man, observant of his religious obligations, and keeping strictly to himself. There was no talk of any familiarity with the women on his estate, though at that time the nobility were very free with their peasants. Some people said he had never looked at a woman since his wife's death; but such things are hard to prove, and the evidence on this point was not worth much.

Well, in his sixty-second year, Yves de Cornault went to the pardon at Locronan, and saw there a young lady of Douarnenez, who had ridden over pillion behind her father to do her duty to the saint. Her name was Anne de Barrigan, and she came of good old Breton stock, but much less great and powerful than that of Yves de Cornault; and her father had squandered his fortune at cards, and lived almost like a peasant in his little granite manor on the moors … I have said I would add nothing of my own to this bald statement of a strange case; but I must interrupt myself here to describe the young lady who rode up to the lych-gate of Locronan at the very moment when the Baron de Cornault was also dismounting there. I take my description from a faded drawing in red crayon, sober and truthful enough to be by a late pupil of the Clouets, which hangs in Lanrivain's study, and is said to be a portrait of Anne de Barrigan. It is unsigned and has no mark of identity but the initials A B, and the date 16—, the year after her marriage. It represents a young woman with a small oval face, almost pointed, yet wide enough for a full mouth with a tender depression at the corners. The nose is small, and the eyebrows are set rather high, far apart, and as lightly pencilled as the eyebrows in a Chinese painting. The forehead is high and serious, and the hair, which one feels to be fine and thick and fair, is drawn off it and lies close like a cap. The eyes are neither large nor small, hazel probably, with a look at once shy and steady. A pair of beautiful long hands are crossed below the lady's breast …

The chaplain of Kerfol, and other witnesses, averred that when the Baron came back from Locronan he jumped from his horse, ordered another to be instantly saddled, called to a young page to come with him, and rode away that same evening to the south. His steward followed the next morning with coffers laden on a pair of pack mules. The following week Yves de Cornault rode back to Kerfol, sent for his vassals and tenants, and told them he was to be married at All Saints to Anne de Barrigan of Douarnenez. And on All Saints' Day the marriage took place.

As to the next few years, the evidence on both sides seems to show that they passed happily for the couple. No one was found to say that Yves de Cornault had been unkind to his wife, and it was plain to all that he was content with his bargain. Indeed, it was admitted by the chaplain and other witnesses for the prosecution that the young lady had a softening influence on her husband, and that he became less exacting with his tenants, less harsh to peasants and dependents, and less subject to the fits of gloomy silence which had darkened his widowhood. As to his wife, the only grievance her champions could call up in her behalf was that Kerfol was a lonely place, and that when her husband was away on business at Rennes or Morlaix— whither she was never taken— she was not allowed so much as to walk in the park unaccompanied. But no one asserted that she was unhappy, though one servant-woman said she had surprised her crying, and had heard her say that she was a woman accursed to have no child, and nothing in life to call her own. But that was a natural enough feeling in a wife attached to her husband; and certainly it must have been a great grief to Yves de Cornault that she bore no son. Yet he never made her feel her childlessness as a reproach— she admits this in her evidence— but seemed to try to make her forget it by showering gifts and favours on her. Rich though he was, he had never been openhanded; but nothing was too fine for his wife, in the way of silks or gems or linen, or whatever else she fancied. Every wandering merchant was welcome at Kerfol, and when the master was called away he never came back without bringing his wife a handsome present— something curious and particular— from Morlaix or Rennes or Quimper. One of the waiting-women gave, in cross-examination, an interesting list of one year's gifts, which I copy. From Morlaix, a carved ivory junk, with Chinamen at the oars, that a strange sailor had brought back as a votive offering for Notre Dame de la Clarté, above Ploumanac'h; from Quimper, an embroidered gown, worked by the nuns of the Assumption; from Rennes, a silver rose that opened and showed an amber Virgin with a crown of garnets; from Morlaix, again, a length of Damascus velvet shot with gold, bought of a Jew from Syria; and for Michaelmas that same year, from Rennes, a necklet or bracelet of round stones— emeralds and pearls and rubies— strung like beads on a fine gold chain. This was the present that pleased the lady best, the woman said. Later on, as it happened, it was produced at the trial, and appears to have struck the Judges and the public as a curious and valuable jewel.

The very same winter, the Baron absented himself again, this time as far as Bordeaux, and on his return he brought his wife something even odder and prettier than the bracelet. It was a winter evening when he rode up to Kerfol and, walking into the hall, found her sitting by the hearth, her chin on her hand, looking into the fire. He carried a velvet box in his hand and, setting it down, lifted the lid and let out a little golden-brown dog.

Anne de Cornault exclaimed with pleasure as the little creature bounded toward her. 'Oh, it looks like a bird or a butterfly!' she cried as she picked it up; and the dog put its paws on her shoulders and looked at her with eyes 'like a Christian's'. After that she would never have it out of her sight, and petted and talked to it as if it had been a child— as indeed it was the nearest thing to a child she was to know. Yves de Cornault was much pleased with his purchase. The dog had been brought to him by a sailor from an East India merchantman, and the sailor had bought it of a pilgrim in a bazaar at Jaffa, who had stolen it from a nobleman's wife in China: a perfectly permissible thing to do, since the pilgrim was a Christian and the nobleman a heathen doomed to hell-fire. Yves de Cornault had paid a long price for the dog, for they were beginning to be in demand at the French court, and the sailor knew he had got hold of a good thing; but Anne's pleasure was so great that, to see her laugh and play with the little animal, her husband would doubtless have given twice the sum.

So far, all the evidence is at one, and the narrative plain sailing; but now the steering becomes difficult. I will try to keep as nearly as possible to Anne's own statements; though toward the end, poor thing …

Well, to go back. The very year after the little brown dog was brought to Kerfol, Yves de Cornault, one winter night, was found dead at the head of a narrow flight of stairs leading down from his wife's rooms to a door opening on the court. It was his wife who found him and gave the alarm, so distracted, poor wretch, with fear and horror— for his blood was all over her— that at first the roused household could not make out what she was saying, and thought she had suddenly gone mad. But there, sure enough, at the top of the stairs lay her husband, stone dead, and head foremost, the blood from his wounds dripping down to the steps below him. He had been dreadfully scratched and gashed about the face and throat, as if with curious pointed weapons; and one of his legs had a deep tear in it which had cut an artery, and probably caused his death. But how did he come there, and who had murdered him?

His wife declared that she had been asleep in her bed, and hearing his cry had rushed out to find him lying on the stairs; but this was immediately questioned. In the first place, it was proved that from her room she could not have heard the struggle on the stairs, owing to the thickness of the walls and the length of the intervening passage; then it was evident that she had not been in bed and asleep, since she was dressed when she roused the house, and her bed had not been slept in. Moreover, the door at the bottom of the stairs was ajar, and it was noticed by the chaplain (an observant man) that the dress she wore was stained with blood about the knees, and that there were traces of small blood-stained hands low down on the staircase walls, so that it was conjectured that she had really been at the postern-door when her husband fell and, feeling her way up to him in the darkness on her hands and knees, had been stained by his blood dripping down on her. Of course it was argued on the other side that the blood-marks on her dress might have been caused by her kneeling down by her husband when she rushed out of her room; but there was the open door below, and the fact that the finger-marks in the staircase all pointed upward.

The accused held to her statement for the first two days, in spite of its improbability; but on the third day word was brought to her that Hervé de Lanrivain, a young nobleman of the neighbourhood, had been arrested for complicity in the crime. Two or three witnesses thereupon came forward to say that it was known throughout the country that Lanrivain had formerly been on good terms with the lady of Cornault; but that he had been absent from Brittany for over a year, and people had ceased to associate their names. The witnesses who made this statement were not of a very reputable sort. One was an old herb-gatherer suspected of witchcraft, another a drunken clerk from a neighbouring parish, the third a half-witted shepherd who could be made to say anything; and it was clear that the prosecution was not satisfied with its case, and would have liked to find more definite proof of Lanrivain's complicity than the statement of the herb-gatherer, who swore to having seen him climbing the wall of the park on the night of the murder. One way of patching out incomplete proofs in those days was to put some sort of pressure, moral or physical, on the accused person. It is not clear what pressure was put on Anne de Cornault; but on the third day, when she was brought in court, she 'appeared weak and wandering', and after being encouraged to collect herself and speak the truth, on her honour and the wounds of her Blessed Redeemer, she confessed that she had in fact gone down the stairs to speak with Hervé de Lanrivain (who denied everything), and had been surprised there by the sound of her husband's fall. That was better; and the prosecution rubbed its hands with satisfaction. The satisfaction increased when various dependents living at Kerfol were induced to say— with apparent sincerity— that during the year or two preceding his death their master had once more grown uncertain and irascible, and subject to the fits of brooding silence which his household had learned to dread before his second marriage. This seemed to show that things had not been going well at Kerfol; though no one could be found to say that there had been any signs of open disagreement between husband and wife.

Anne de Cornault, when questioned as to her reason for going down at night to open the door to Hervé de Lanrivain, made an answer which must have sent a smile around the court. She said it was because she was lonely and wanted to talk with the young man. Was this the only reason? she was asked; and replied: 'Yes, by the Cross over your Lordships' heads.' 'But why at midnight?' the court asked. 'Because I could see him in no other way.' I can see the exchange of glances across the ermine collars under the Crucifix.

Anne de Cornault, further questioned, said that her married life had been extremely lonely: 'desolate' was the word she used. It was true that her husband seldom spoke harshly to her; but there were days when he did not speak at all. It was true that he had never struck or threatened her; but he kept her like a prisoner at Kerfol, and when he rode away to Morlaix or Quimper or Rennes he set so close a watch on her that she could not pick a flower in the garden without having a waiting-woman at her heels. 'I am no Queen, to need such honours,' she once said to him; and he had answered that a man who has a treasure does not leave the key in the lock when he goes out. 'Then take me with you,' she urged; but to this he said that towns were pernicious places, and young wives better off at their own firesides.

'But what did you want to say to Hervé de Lanrivain?' the court asked; and she answered: 'To ask him to take me away.'

'Ah— you confess that you went down to him with adulterous thoughts?'

'No.'

'Then why did you want him to take you away?'

'Because I was afraid for my life.'

'Of whom were you afraid?'

'Of my husband.'

'Why were you afraid of your husband?'

'Because he had strangled my little dog.'

Another smile must have passed around the courtroom: in days when any nobleman had a right to hang his peasants— and most of them exercised it— pinching a pet animal's wind-pipe was nothing to make a fuss about.

At this point one of the Judges, who appears to have had a certain sympathy for the accused, suggested that she should be allowed to explain herself in her own way; and she thereupon made the following statement.

The first years of her marriage had been lonely; but her husband had not been unkind to her. If she had had a child she would not have been unhappy; but the days were long, and it rained too much.

It was true that her husband, whenever he went away and left her, brought her a handsome present on his return; but this did not make up for the loneliness. At least nothing had, till he brought her the little brown dog from the East: after that she was much less unhappy. Her husband seemed pleased that she was so fond of the dog; he gave her leave to put her jewelled bracelet around its neck, and to keep it always with her.

One day she had fallen asleep in her room, with the dog at her feet, as his habit was. Her feet were bare and resting on his back. Suddenly she was waked by her husband: he stood beside her, smiling not unkindly.

'You look like my great-grandmother, Juliane de Cornault, lying in the chapel with her feet on a little dog,' he said.

The analogy sent a chill through her, but she laughed and answered: 'Well, when I am dead you must put me beside her, carved in marble, with my dog at my feet.'

'Oho— we'll wait and see,' he said, laughing also, but with his black brows close together. 'The dog is the emblem of fidelity.'

'And do you doubt my right to lie with mine at my feet?'

'When I'm in doubt I find out,' he answered. 'I am an old man,' he added, 'and people say I make you lead a lonely life. But I swear you shall have your monument if you earn it.'

'And I swear to be faithful,' she returned, 'if only for the sake of having my little dog at my feet.'

Not long afterward he went on business to the Quimper Assizes; and while he was away his aunt, the widow of a great nobleman of the duchy, came to spend a night at Kerfol on her way to the pardon of Ste Barbe. She was a woman of piety and consequence, and much respected by Yves de Cornault, and when she proposed to Anne to go with her to Ste Barbe no one could object, and even the chaplain declared himself in favour of the pilgrimage. So Anne set out for Ste Barbe, and there for the first time she talked with Hervé de Lanrivain. He had come once or twice to Kerfol with his father, but she had never before exchanged a dozen words with him. They did not talk for more than five minutes now: it was under the chestnuts, as the procession was coming out of the chapel. He said: 'I pity you', and she was surprised, for she had not supposed that anyone thought her an object of pity. He added: 'Call for me when you need me,' and she smiled a little, but was glad afterward, and thought often of the meeting.

She confessed to having seen him three times afterward: not more. How or where she would not say— one had the impression that she feared to implicate someone. Their meetings had been rare and brief; and at the last he had told her that he was starting the next day for a foreign country, on a mission which was not without peril and might keep him for many months absent. He asked her for a remembrance, and she had none to give him but the collar about the little dog's neck. She was sorry afterward that she had given it, but he was so unhappy at going that she had not had the courage to refuse.

Her husband was away at the time. When he returned a few days later he picked up the animal to pet it, and noticed that its collar was missing. His wife told him that the dog had lost it in the undergrowth of the park, and that she and her maids had hunted a whole day for it. It was true, she explained to the court, that she had made the maids search for the necklet— they all believed the dog had lost it in the park…

Her husband made no comment, and that evening at supper he was in his usual mood, between good and bad: you could never tell which. He talked a good deal, describing what he had seen and done at Rennes; but now and then he stopped and looked hard at her, and when she went to bed she found her little dog strangled on her pillow. The little thing was dead, but still warm; she stooped to lift it, and her distress turned to horror when she discovered that it had been strangled by twisting twice round its throat the necklet she had given to Lanrivain.

The next morning at dawn she buried the dog in the garden, and hid the necklet in her breast. She said nothing to her husband, then or later, and he said nothing to her; but that day he had a peasant hanged for stealing a faggot in the park, and the next day he nearly beat to death a young horse he was breaking.

Winter set in, and the short days passed, and the long nights, one by one; and she heard nothing of Hervé de Lanrivain. It might be that her husband had killed him; or merely that he had been robbed of the necklet. Day after day by the hearth among the spinning maids, night after night alone on her bed, she wondered and trembled. Sometimes at table her husband looked across at her and smiled; and then she felt sure that Lanrivain was dead. She dared not try to get news of him, for she was sure her husband would find out if she did: she had an idea that he could find out anything. Even when a witch-woman who was a noted seer, and could show you the whole world in her crystal, came to the castle for a night's shelter, and the maids flocked to her, Anne held back.

The winter was long and black and rainy. One day, in Yves de Cornault's absence, some gypsies came to Kerfol with a troop of performing dogs. Anne bought the smallest and cleverest, a white dog with a feathery coat and one blue and one brown eye. It seemed to have been ill-treated by the gypsies, and clung to her plaintively when she took it from them. That evening her husband came back, and when she went to bed she found the dog strangled on her pillow.

After that she said to herself that she would never have another dog; but one bitter cold evening a poor lean greyhound was found whining at the castle-gate, and she took him in and forbade the maids to speak of him to her husband. She hid him in a room that no one went to, smuggled food to him from her own plate, made him a warm bed to lie on and petted him like a child.

Yves de Cornault came home, and the next day she found the greyhound strangled on her pillow. She wept in secret, but said nothing, and resolved that even if she met a dog dying of hunger she would never bring him into the castle; but one day she found a young sheepdog, a brindled puppy with good blue eyes, lying with a broken leg in the snow of the park. Yves de Cornault was at Rennes, and she brought the dog in, warmed and fed it, tied up its leg and hid it in the castle till her husband's return. The day before, she gave it to a peasant woman who lived a long way off, and paid her handsomely to care for it and say nothing; but that night she heard a whining and scratching at her door, and when she opened it the lame puppy, drenched and shivering, jumped up on her with little sobbing barks. She hid him in her bed, and the next morning was about to have him taken back to the peasant woman when she heard her husband ride into the court. She shut the dog in a chest, and went down to receive him. An hour or two later, when she returned to her room, the puppy lay strangled on her pillow…

After that she dared not make a pet of any other dog; and her loneliness became almost unendurable. Sometimes, when she crossed the court of the castle, and thought no one was looking, she stopped to pat the old pointer at the gate. But one day as she was caressing him her husband came out of the chapel; and the next day the old dog was gone…

This curious narrative was not told in one sitting of the court, or received without impatience and incredulous comment. It was plain that the Judges were surprised by its puerility, and that it did not help the accused in the eyes of the public. It was an odd tale, certainly; but what did it prove? That Yves de Cornault disliked dogs, and that his wife, to gratify her own fancy, persistently ignored this dislike. As for pleading this trivial disagreement as an excuse for her relations— whatever their nature— with her supposed accomplice, the argument was so absurd that her own lawyer manifestly regretted having let her make use of it, and tried several times to cut short her story. But she went on to the end, with a kind of hypnotized insistence, as though the scenes she evoked were so real to her that she had forgotten where she was and imagined herself to be re-living them.

At length the Judge who had previously shown a certain kindness to her said (leaning forward a little, one may suppose, from his row of dozing colleagues): 'Then you would have us believe that you murdered your husband because he would not let you keep a pet dog?'

'I did not murder my husband.'

'Who did, then? Hervé de Lanrivain?'

'No.'

'Who then? Can you tell us?'

'Yes, I can tell you. The dogs—' At that point she was carried out of the court in a swoon.

IT WAS EVIDENT that her lawyer tried to get her to abandon this line of defence. Possibly her explanation, whatever it was, had seemed convincing when she poured it out to him in the heat of their first private colloquy; but now that it was exposed to the cold daylight of judicial scrutiny, and the banter of the town, he was thoroughly ashamed of it, and would have sacrificed her without a scruple to save his professional reputation. But the obstinate Judge— who perhaps, after all, was more inquisitive than kindly— evidently wanted to hear the story out, and she was ordered, the next day, to continue her deposition.

She said that after the disappearance of the old watchdog nothing particular happened for a month or two. Her husband was much as usual: she did not remember any special incident. But one evening a pedlar woman came to the castle and was selling trinkets to the maids. She had no heart for trinkets, but she stood looking on while the women made their choice. And then, she did not know how, but the pedlar coaxed her into buying for herself a pear-shaped pomander with a strong scent in it— she had once seen something of the kind on a gypsy woman. She had no desire for the pomander, and did not know why she had bought it. The pedlar said that whoever wore it had the power to read the future; but she did not really believe that, or care much either. However, she bought the thing and took it up to her room, where she sat turning it about in her hand. Then the strange scent attracted her and she began to wonder what kind of spice was in the box. She opened it and found a grey bean rolled in a strip of paper; and on the paper she saw a sign she knew, and a message from Hervé de Lanrivain, saying that he was at home again and would be at the door in the court that night after the moon had set…

She burned the paper and sat down to think. It was nightfall, and her husband was at home… She had no way of warning Lanrivain, and there was nothing to do but to wait…

At this point I fancy the drowsy court-room beginning to wake up. Even to the oldest hand on the bench there must have been a certain relish in picturing the feelings of a woman on receiving such a message at nightfall from a man living twenty miles away, to whom she had no means of sending a warning …

She was not a clever woman, I imagine; and as the first result of her cogitation she appears to have made the mistake of being, that evening, too kind to her husband. She could not ply him with wine, according to the traditional expedient, for though he drank heavily at times he had a strong head; and when he drank beyond its strength it was because he chose to, and not because a woman coaxed him. Not his wife, at any rate— she was an old story by now. As I read the case, I fancy there was no feeling for her left in him but the hatred occasioned by his supposed dishonour.

At any rate, she tried to call up her old graces; but early in the evening he complained of pains and fever, and left the hall to go up to the closet where he sometimes slept. His servant carried him a cup of hot wine, and brought back word that he was sleeping and not to be disturbed; and an hour later, when Anne lifted the tapestry and listened at his door, she heard his loud regular breathing. She thought it might be a feint, and stayed a long time barefooted in the passage, her ear to the crack; but the breathing went on too steadily and naturally to be other than that of a man in a sound sleep. She crept back to her room reassured, and stood in the window watching the moon set through the trees of the park. The sky was misty and starless, and after the moon went down the night was black as pitch. She knew the time had come, and stole along the passage, past her husband's door— where she stopped again to listen to his breathing— to the top of the stairs. There she paused a moment, and assured herself that no one was following her; then she began to go down the stairs in the darkness. They were so steep and winding that she had to go very slowly, for fear of stumbling. Her one thought was to get the door unbolted, tell Lanrivain to make his escape, and hasten back to her room. She had tried the bolt earlier in the evening, and managed to put a little grease on it; but nevertheless, when she drew it, it gave a squeak... not loud, but it made her heart stop; and the next minute, overhead, she heard a noise…

'What noise?' the prosecution interposed.

'My husband's voice calling out my name and cursing me.'

'What did you hear after that?'

'A terrible scream and a fall.'

'Where was Hervé de Lanrivain at this time?'

'He was standing outside in the court. I just made him out in the darkness. I told him for God's sake to go, and then I pushed the door shut.'

'What did you do next?'

'I stood at the foot of the stairs and listened.'

'What did you hear?'

'I heard dogs snarling and panting.' (Visible discouragement of the bench, boredom of the public, and exasperation of the lawyer for the defense. Dogs again—! But the inquisitive Judge insisted.)

'What dogs?'

She bent her head and spoke so low that she had to be told to repeat her answer: 'I don't know.'

'How do you mean— you don't know?'

'I don't know what dogs...'

The Judge again intervened: 'Try to tell us exactly what happened. How long did you remain at the foot of the stairs?'

'Only a few minutes.'

'And what was going on meanwhile overhead?'

'The dogs kept on snarling and panting. Once or twice he cried out. I think he moaned once. Then he was quiet.'

'Then what happened?'

'Then I heard a sound like the noise of a pack when the wolf is thrown to them— gulping and lapping.'

(There was a groan of disgust and repulsion through the court, and another attempted intervention by the distracted lawyer. But the inquisitive Judge was still inquisitive.)

'And all the while you did not go up?'

'Yes— I went up then— to drive them off.'

'The dogs?'

'Yes.'

'Well –?'

'When I got there it was quite dark. I found my husband's flint and steel and struck a spark. I saw him lying there. He was dead.'

'And the dogs?'

'The dogs were gone.'

'Gone— where to?'

'I don't know. There was no way out— and there were no dogs at Kerfol.'

She straightened herself to her full height, threw her arms above her head, and fell down on the stone floor with a long scream. There was a moment of confusion in the court-room. Someone on the bench was heard to say: 'This is clearly a case for the ecclesiastical authorities'— and the prisoner's lawyer doubtless jumped at the suggestion.

After this, the trial loses itself in a maze of cross-questioning and squabbling. Every witness who was called corroborated Anne de Cornault's statement that there were no dogs at Kerfol: had been none for several months. The master of the house had taken a dislike to dogs, there was no denying it. But, on the other hand, at the inquest, there had been long and bitter discussions as to the nature of the dead man's wounds. One of the surgeons called in had spoken of marks that looked like bites. The suggestion of witchcraft was revived, and the opposing lawyers hurled tomes of necromancy at each other.

At last Anne de Cornault was brought back into court— at the instance of the same Judge— and asked if she knew where the dogs she spoke of could have come from. On the body of her Redeemer she swore that she did not. Then the Judge put his final question: 'If the dogs you think you heard had been known to you, do you think you would have recognized them by their barking?'

'Yes.'

'Did you recognize them?'

'Yes.'

'What dogs do you take them to have been?'

'My dead dogs,' she said in a whisper… She was taken out of court, not to reappear there again. There was some kind of ecclesiastical investigation, and the end of the business was that the Judges disagreed with each other, and with the ecclesiastical committee, and that Anne de Cornault was finally handed over to the keeping of her husband's family, who shut her up in the keep of Kerfol, where she is said to have died many years later, a harmless mad-woman.

SO ENDS her story. As for that of Hervé de Lanrivain, I had only to apply to his collateral descendant for its subsequent details. The evidence against the young man being insufficient, and his family influence in the duchy considerable, he was set free, and left soon afterward for Paris. He was probably in no mood for a worldly life, and he appears to have come almost immediately under the influence of the famous M Arnauld d'Andilly and the gentlemen of Port Royal. A year or two later he was received into their Order, and without achieving any particular distinction he followed its good and evil fortunes till his death some twenty years later. Lanrivain showed me a portrait of him by a pupil of Philippe de Champaigne: sad eyes, an impulsive mouth and a narrow brow. Poor Hervé de Lanrivain: it was a grey ending. Yet as I looked at his stiff and sallow effigy, in the dark dress of the Jansenists, I almost found myself envying his fate. After all, in the course of his life two great things had happened to him: he had loved romantically, and he must have talked with Pascal…

____________________

4: A Blind Man's Home-Coming

Ward Muir

New Statesman, 2 Jun 1917

IN my boyhood I had the ambition— it was one of several ambitions— to become a courier. The Morning Post advertisements of couriers who professed to be fluent in a number of languages and were at the disposal of invalid aristocrats desiring to take extensive trips abroad, aroused the most romantic visions in my mind. I saw myself whirling all over Europe— with my distinguished invalid— in sleeping-cars de luxe. Anon we were crossing the Atlantic or lolling in punkah-induced breezes on the verandahs of Far Eastern hotels. It was a great profession, that of the experienced and successful courier.

I have never been a courier in quite this picturesque acceptation; and yet, in a humbler sense, I have perhaps (to my own surprise) earned the title. As an R.A.M.C. orderly I have more than once officiated as travelling courier— yes, and to distinguished, if far from affluent, invalids. They ought, at least, to rank as distinguished; for the reason they needed a courier was because they had given their health, or limbs, or eyesight, in defence of their country.

It happens only too often that when a patient is discharged from hospital he is not fit to make his journey home alone, an orderly is detailed to accompany him. Sometimes the lot has fallen on me. Generally the trip is a short one, to some outlying suburb of London or to some town or villages in the home counties. But sometimes my flights have been further afield, to Ireland, or Wales; and once I went to Yorkshire with a blind man.

That Yorkshire expedition was singularly lacking in drama and in surface pathos, yet its details remain with great clearness. The piece of damaged goods which, being of no further fighting use, was being returned with thanks to the hearthside from whence it came, was an individual answering to the unheroic cognomen of Briggs. A high-explosive shell had been sent by the gods to alter the current of Briggs's career. Briggs came through all that part of the war which concerned him without a scratch upon his person— only after the arrival in his immediate vicinity of the high-explosive shell he was unfortunately unable to see. Never again would Briggs be of the slightest value either as a soldier or in his civilian trade, which was that of driver of ponies in a coal mine. Consequently, as a distinguished invalid (with the sum of one pound in his pocket to comfort him until such time as his pension should materialise) Mister— no longer Private— Briggs for the first and presumably the last time in his existence, went travelling with a courier.

A car supplied by the National Motor Volunteer Service awaited Briggs and his courier at the hospital entrance Here the introduction between Briggs and his courier took place. Ours is a large hospital, and I had never to my knowledge encountered Briggs before that moment. I beheld a young fellow (he was only 23) with a stout, healthy visage which wore a pleasant smile and would have been describable as roguish, only— well, the eyes of a blind man, whatever else they are, are not conducive to a roguish mien. They were eyes not visibly damaged: nice blue eyes. And they stared at nothingness. I was in the presence of a stripling who, a few weeks ago, must have owned a mobile face, and was in rapid process of developing a quite different face, a face which still might— it certainly did— grin and laugh, but which would gradually gain, had already begun to gain, a set expressionlessness that overlaid and strangely neutralised its grins and its laughter.

Blind men's faces may have beauty, even vivacity, or a heightened intelligence and fire; but there is a something hard to define, of which they are sadly devoid. The face nevitably changes. And if even I, who knew not Briggs, could perceive that Briggs's face must thus have changed Jiow much more conspicuous would the change be to the partner whom Briggs had left seven months before and to whom I was now leading him back— his wife ?

Briggs, a civilian once more, sported reach-me-down gar ments which fitted him surprisingly— our Clothing Store sergeant is the kindest of souls and expends infinite patience on doing his best, with Government-contract tailoring, to suit all our discharges. His overcoat, which might have been called a Chesterfield in Shoreditch, pleased Briggs, as he told me in the car : he drew my attention to its texture and warmth, he admiringly fingered it.

"I might ha' paid thirty bob for that there top-coat," he surmised. "A collar an' a tie an' all, too ! Them boots ain't so dusty, neither ; they fit me a treat. Goin' 'ome to my missus in Sunday clobber, I am."

You would have said that he thought he had emerged from his hazards with rather a good bargain. A jumble of ready-made clothes— and a pension! The visible world gone for ever! These were his souvenirs of the great war.

And, "Ah!" he said, when I ventured on some allusion to his blindness, "it might ha' bin worse. I don' know what I'd ha' done if I'd lost a leg, same as some of them other poor jossers in th' hospital!"

(And this, marvellous though it sounds, is the standpoint of no small number in the legion of our Briggses.)

The motor ride was another source of gratification to Briggs. Seated beside me, the wind beating on his sightless orbs, he discoursed of the wonders of petrol. "Proper to take you about, them cars. Were are we now ? 'Ave we far to run, like?" I told him we were traversing Battersea Park and that our destination was St. Pancras. It transpired that he was a stranger to London. This drive through London was, as it were, an item in his collection of experiences, to be preserved with the cross-channel voyage and the vigils in the trenches.

"Shall we go by Buckingham Palace?"

I told him we shouldn't; then, observing that he was disappointed, I asked the driver to make the detour. So at last I was able to inform Briggs that we were passing Buckingham Palace. I turned his head so that he looked straight towards that architectural phenomenon. It was, of course, invisible to him. No matter. He wished to be able to boast to his wife that he had seen (he used that verb) the house where the King lived.

His wife— he married a month before he enlisted— had been notified of his return; but I suggested that at St. Pancras we might telegraph to her the actual hour of the train's arrivial, in case she should desire to meet it. The idea commended itself to Briggs; he had not thought of such a thing. Telegraphing had perhaps hardly come within his purview; at least so I surmised when, the telegraph form before me, I asked him what he wished to write. He began cheerily, as though dictating a letter of gossip:—

"My dear wife—"

Economy necessitated a taboo of this otherwise charming method of communication.

"Arriving Bradford five-thirty— Tom," was the result of final boilings-down, which took so long that we nearly achieved the anti-climax of missing our train altogether.

Now at Bradford (at the end of one of the chattiest five hours I ever spent in my life) no Mrs. Briggs was perceptible. I kept my patient on the platform until every other passenger had gone. Each time I caught sight of a woman who looked a possible Mrs. Briggs I steered my charge into her vicinity. In spite of a piece of information which Briggs had imparted to me on the journey— namely, that he expected soon to become a father— I was surprised that his wife had not come to the station to welcome him. However, it was plain that Briggs himself was not particularly surprised, nor, what was more important, disappointed. Nothing could damp his eternal placidity and good humour. He proposed that from this point onward he should pursue his journey alone.

"Nowt to do but git on th' tram," he said. "It's a fair step from 'ere, but I knows every inch of t' way."

At all events (as of course I could not allow this) he would now act as my guide. And he did.

"First to the right.... Now we're goin' by a big watchmaker's-and-jeweller's... Now cross t' street... Now on th' corner over there by t' Sinnemer is w'ere we git our tram."

The tram in due course appeared, and we boarded it.

"Tha mun pay thrippence only, mind," he warned me when the conductor came round. "It's a rare long ride for thrippence."

So it proved to be— through wildernesses which were half meadow and half slum, my cicerone at every hundred yards pointing out the notable features of the landscape. On our left I ought to see the so-and-so public-house; on our right the football ground— I should know it by the grand stand jutting above the palings; further on were brickworks; further still a factory which, my nose would have told me even if Mr. Briggs had not, dealt with chemicals; then, on the skyline, a pithead; then another; then a mining village with three different kinds of Methodist church and two picture palaces; then a gap of dreary, dirty fields. And then, nearing dusk, the village where my friend lived, and where also was the terminus of the tram route.

We quitted the tram and walked down a street of those squalid brick tenements which coalmining seems to germinate like a rash upon the earth's surface.

The debris and the scaffoldings of pits were dotted about the adjacent countryside. Sooty cabbage-patches occupied the occasional inter- spaces in the ranks of houses. Briggs directed me across a cinder path in one of these cabbage-patches.

"See them three 'ouses at the bottom of the 'ill ? The end one's mine."

We approached. No sign of the wife. Surely she would be on the look-out for her husband? Also there was a sister, and a brother-in-law— the latter in a prosperous way of business as a grocer near by: Briggs had told me of them. Would not they be watching for him ?

I began to be anxious. Still, as we came nearer, I saw nobody at the cottage door.

"Is th' door open?" asked Briggs.

Yes, it was open. When we were at the end of the cabbage-patch, and I could discern the interior of the cottage parlour (into which the door opened direct) it became clear that three persons were there. One of them, a man, obviously the brother-in-law, came and peeped out of the window at us, and turned and spoke to his companions. Of these two, both women, one rose from her chair and the other remained seated. But none of the three came to the door.

I have met northern dourness and the inarticulate manner which is such a contrast to the gushing and noisy effusion of the south. By a paradox it is not inconsistent with the familiar conversationalism to wvhich Briggs had treated me, a stranger. But I admit I found Briggs's family circle a little embarrassing. They were respectable people; the cottage was neat and decently furnished; its occupants were sprucely dressed. I fancy they were in their best clothes; certainly their demeanour— and the aspect of the table in their midst— denoted a great occasion.

This table, as I saw when I assisted Briggs up the steps into the room, had indeed borne a well-spread tea. No very acute powers of deduction were required to decide, from the crumbs on the white cloth and on the dishes, that there had been bread and butter and jam and cake. Of these not a vestige (except the crumbs) remained.

Briggs and I were an hour behind-hand, and the relatives who awaited the wanderer had eaten the banquet laid to welcome him, or so it appeared. I have no doubt that all sorts of delicacies were in the cupboard ; the kettle on the hob was probably on the boil ; perhaps buttered toast was in the oven. The fact remains that devastation was on the table.

However, Briggs did not see the table, and the table's state occupied me only for a fraction of a second. I was more concerned with the three people in the parlowr and with their reception of my patient. The pale woman in the chair by the fire was evidently Briggs's wife. She stared at us, as we entered, but said absolutelly nothing. Nor did the other and slightly younger woman, his sister, say anything. She too stared. And the man stared, and said nothing.

"Well, here we are," I announced— an imbecile assertion, but I produced it as cheerfully and matter-of-factly as I knew how. I unhooked my arm from Briggs's, and made as though to push him forward into the family group.

"Nay! " said Briggs. " I mun take my top coat off first."

I helped him off with his coat. Not one of the three members of his family had either moved or spoken— beyond one faint murmur, not an actual word, in response to my "Here we are." But Briggs seemed to know that his folk were in the room with him, and he neither accosted them, expressed any curiosity about them, or betrayed any astonishment at their silence.

When he had got his coat off I expected him to move forward into the room. A mistake. Mine must be a hasty temperament. They don't do things like that in Yorkshire, not even when they have come home blinded from the wars. Briggs put out his hand, felt for the cottage door, half-closed it, felt for a nail on the inner side of it, and carefully hung his coat thereon.

Now I could usher him into the waiting family circle. No. I was wrong.

Briggs calmly divested himself of his jacket. He then felt for another door, a door which opened on to a stair leading to the upper storey. On a nail in this door he hung his jacket. And then, in his shirt-sleeves, he was ready. Shirt-sleeves were symbolical. He was home at last, and prepared to sit down with his people.

Of the actual reunon I saw nothing, for I promptly said I must go. It was imperative for me to hurry back, or I should miss my train.

"You'll stay an' take a sup of tea with us," said Briggs.

I couldn't, though I should have liked to do so, in some ways, and in others should have hardly dared to be an intruder on such a meeting. I shook hands with my patient. Looking back as I went out of the door I saw Briggs's wife still seated, motionless, in her chair. She had not opened her lips. It was impossible to divine what were her emotions. She was very pale. There were no tears in her eyes as she stared at her yoimg blind husband. But I think there were tears waiting to be shed.

I looked back again when I reached the end of the path across the cabbage-patch. The cottage door was still open.

Ir the aperture stood the younger of the two women, Briggs's sister. She waved to me and smiled. It was evident that it had struck her that I ought to have been thanked for my services, and she was expressing this, cordially if belatedly. I waved my hand in return, and hastened up the street towards the tram.

My hurry was fruitless. I missed my train in Bradford, and stayed the night at a hotel, thus (with appropriate but improper extravagance) concluding this particular performance in the role of travelling courier to a distinguished invalid. As I sat over a sumptuous table d'hote— this was long before the submarine blockade and the food restrictions— I wondered what Briggs's wife said to Briggs; and I made up a story about it. But what I have written above is not a story; it is the unadorned truth, which I could not have invented and which is perhaps better than the story. In his courier's presence Briggs addressed not one word to his wife, and his wfe addressed not one word to him; nor did his sister or his brother-in-law. Nor did any of this trio address one word to me.

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5: Europe is Wonderful

Ward Muir

The Cavalier July 1911

"EUROPE is wonderful," said Mitchael.

"All Americans say that," I ventured.

"It's a mere phrase with most of us," he retorted. "We generally cap it by an assertion that America is more wonderful still."

"What made you discover wonderfulness?" I asked.

"Asia," he answered strangely. I looked at Mitchael as he lay back in the club chair and drew at a cigar. He was still young; he represented, immensely, the American type; but there lurked in his eyes a kind of smoldering knowledge of things. How to describe him? I cannot. Yet he was worth describing, this master of a vast fortune and of an intricate business. New York respected in him the sole chief of "the Mitchael firm," as it was generally called— an exceedingly old banking, money-lending association, originally Jewish, now Americanized.

Mitchael's grandfather had had Hebrew blood in his veins. Mitchael's father betrayed it less markedly; Mitchael himself not at all. He was an American to his finger-tips— I, who am an Englishman, can but vaguely define what I imply by "American," though its outward seeming is plain enough to me— and had begun his business career in the office in Broadway. He had not liked it. There was a streak of the artist in him. He read poetry, he admired pictures— he was, in short, by no means the normal business man.

So he had fretted, chained to his desk. But his grandfather— his father died young— only shrugged his shoulders.

"You will grow accustomed to it, John," he reiterated. "Give yourself a year or two; and if at the end of that time you still want to leave the firm, I will let you off, and find another successor."

John Mitchael agreed to the bargain, and studied hard at economics— the economics of the commercial world. His grand-father always spoke of "Finance," and one felt that he used a capital F for the word. Grandfather Mitchael made no "corners" in anything; he had never wrecked a rail-road or created a trust. His transactions were far subtler than those of the "magnates" whose exploits flared daily in the press.

He negotiated important loans, moved stupendous sums of money, like chessmen, about the globe, from Japan to Russia, from Russia to Japan, and then back to Belgium or Peru. This was the trade to which he wished to train young John Mitchael, his grandson.

The latter, in the end, had taken to it with zest. What was the cause of his change?

"Europe," said John Mitchael. In the New York club lounge, over a cigar and a cocktail, he told me the following story:

"THERE WAS no romance in business, I thought," young Mitchael began. "The alleged romance which I read about in the sensational papers nauseated me— the romance of preposterous fortunes made by gambling or by what was little better than robbery and fraud. My grandfather's business differed, it is true, from these, but it did not appeal to me. Still, when he said that he proposed to send me to his London office for a year, I was pleased. I had never been in England before, though I had visited Italy.

"An antique Scotchman, MacBrayne by name, ruled the London office; the shrewdest man I think I have ever met. He was kind to me; took me into companionship immediately, with a disarming frankness. He may have been acting on instructions from my grandfather. At any rate, I was flattered and grateful.

"He knew everybody worth knowing in the City of London— not the little people, but the big ones, the really tremendous men whose names were a byword throughout the world. MacBrayne stood on friendly terms with them all; he lunched daily with millionaires— and not the sort of millionaires with whom one can lunch— but with whom one doesn't in the least want to lunch—in New York. MacBrayne took me with him, often, to his club.

"It was on one of these occasions that we met Salmon.

"He came along the aisle between the tables— a tall, thin man, with a neatly trimmed brown beard, streaked with gray— beautifully dressed, in a frock coat, and carrying a silk-hat.

"MacBrayne beckoned to him, and he nodded and joined us at our table. Having given his hat to a waiter, he shook hands, and sat down. I was introduced.

" 'So you're Mitchael's grandson?' he said. 'Welcome to London.'

"He had turned to the menu and now ordered a very frugal meal.

" 'You have already entered your grandfather's business?' he continued, addressing me. 'It is a fine business— oh, a fine business.'

"Only then did I notice that his English was not that of an Englishman. What his nationality was, I did not then know. His face told no tale. It was sallow, a shade Jewish-looking, perhaps; the eyes were large and dark and their pupils tinged with blue. He talked easily and well, was particularly gracious to me, and invited me when at leisure to call at his house in Bayswater.

"I went, and spent several quiet, but indefinably agreeable evenings with him. Seemingly he was not married; no wife or child appeared on these occasions. But he 'did me well,' as you say, and after dinner we had a game of billiards and smoked the finest cigars I have ever met. On one occasion he took me to the opera, where he rented a box. On another we went to a music hall. And I met him almost daily in the city.

"Picture to yourself this man, please; a tall, well-dressed financier of the city of London; coming from Bayswater to the bank in his automobile, dining at his club, spending the evening at his theater. Outwardly orthodox, except for this distinctive touch of foreignness; a man you might see hundreds to match in Lombard Street tomorrow.

"MacBrayne, plied with questions by me, could tell me little about him. 'A big man, Salmon,' was all he said. 'Has Eastern interests. Is worth a million at least. A Jew? I don't think so, Armenian, perhaps.'

"The summer was passing, and on the whole I was happy enough in London. It was two months since I had left New York. Already I had begun to catch a faint inkling of the meaning of Europe, the profound difference there lies between, for instance, London and New York. But business was not interesting me much, and MacBrayne, for all his trouble, could not rouse my enthusiasm. I followed politics, and the money market, closely, and fairly conscientiously; but my heart was not in it.

"Until one day there arose the important question of the Asia Minor Development Syndicate.

"MacBrayne was intensely occupied with the details of this project. German money was in it— that was the cant phrase; but to people like nry grandfather and MacBrayne there is no nationality in money— no German money any more than there is Ameri can money— there is only money itself, and the raising of it. We might, or might not, be involved in the Asia Minor syndicate. It behooved MacBrayne to study the situation very closely and cunningly.

"Presently it appeared— at least, so he told me— that the value or otherwise of the scheme turned entirely on the length of the projected railroad. Some of it was already built; some more was planned; but unless the railroad was carried on to an inland town called Schief, its value, according to MacBrayne, would be negligible.

" 'Why shouldn't they continue it to Schief, if they can get the money?' I asked.

" 'Because between Schief and Benra lies the Holy City of Kem,' said Mac- Brayne.

" 'Holy City?'

" 'There are more holy cities in the Near East than Mecca and Medina,' explained MacBrayne. 'The fanatics may think it a defilement to have the railroad carried past Kem. If they do, there'll be trouble. If we could find out definitely whether the road can be carried on—well, it would make a lot of difference in the firm's policy toward the Asia Minor syndicate.'

"He reflected for a space.

" 'Salmon knows,' he said at last.

" 'How do you know he knows?'

" 'He's sure to know. He has Asia Minor in his pocket, has Salmon. If I could only, find out what his opinion is—"

"Rather idiotically I said: 'Why not ask him?'

"MacBrayne looked at me hard. Suddenly he slapped his thigh. ' Why not ask him?' he shouted. 'After all, why not? Laddie, you have a genius for simplicity. Go and ask him yourself. Never mind whether he tells you the truth or no'— just ask him, and as you value your life, remember precisely what he says in reply, and come and repeat it to me.'

"I was amused. It did not seem to me a very difficult task to go and ask Salmon whether the railroad would be continued to Schief or would stop off at Benra. I put on my hat and went out into the city, to Salmon's office.

"I remember noticing anew the little difference between London and New York, and thinking: 'After all, New York is better. I am beginning to tire of London.' Then I thought of my lunch, and where I would go for it, and wondered how long Salmon would keep me. 'In half an hour I shall be back with MacBrayne,' I thought.

"But it was almost a month before I saw MacBrayne again.

"Salmon was not at his office.

"His chief clerk saw me. 'Mr. Salmon has gone to Constantinople,' he said. 'We do not know the date of his return.'

"To Constantinople! The name was delicious. Imagine going to Constanti- nople! I felt almost inclined to laugh outright.

" 'We have a branch at Constantinople,' the clerk went on, 'and Mr. Salmon has a private residence there.'

"A private residence at Constantinople! I thought of Salmon's private residence at Bayswater— and vaguely pictured it planted down on the shores of the Bosporus.

" 'He will probably remain in Constantinople several weeks,' said the clerk politely.

"I thanked him, and moved out into the roaring street. And suddenly I chuckled. I stepped into the nearest telephone call- box and rang up MacBrayne.

" 'Salmon's gone to Constantinople,' I said. 'Shall I follow him?'

"I heard MacBrayne snicker. 'All right.'

"If he had been there I could have fallen on his neck and kissed him.

" 'Catch the 2.20 Folkestone train,' I heard him saying. 'You can get the Orient express at Paris. Don't book direct to Constantinople; go to Kustendji, on the Black Sea, and thence by the mail-boat. I've always found it saved several hours.'

"So MacBrayne had been in Constantinople? Funny that I never realized that he must have traveled.

" 'I'll send down some money to the train,' his voice went on. 'If you want more, go to Metaltopos in Constantinople; he'll supply you. But don't come back till you've seen Salmon.'

"He rang off. I sprang into a cab and drove round to my rooms to pack a bag. At two o'clock I was at Charing Cross.

"It was great fun to be going to Constantinople.

"Four days later I was looking down on Constantinople from the Pera Palace hotel. A fabulous sight. Here was something really new, something that America could not show. The East! We have our Chinatowns, our Asiatic quarters— they are mere squalid adaptations of America. This was the real thing— and four days from Lombard Street! Europe is wonderful, I said to myself.

"What a city! What a devil of a mess of a place! And what a mystery, to Western eyes! I came back to that, again and again— what a mystery!

"Behind those crumbling walls, those secretive windows—what was going on? Did human beings live within? Of course; but what had they in common with John Mitchael of New York and London? Look at the streets— their squalor, their dust and dogs and sunshine and smells— is this street, is the Galata Bridge, on the same planet as Broadway, or the Strand? Incredible!

"The heat was tremendous. Boyishly I rejoiced in it, and having changed my clothes, went forth accompanied by an in- dividual who had been provided as my guide by the hotel proprietor. My ' dragoman,' I ought to say. ' Dragoman!' a fine word, to be sure! My guide's— no, my dragoman's— name was Ali. He was a magnificent rogue, and faithful withal. "Salmon's place of business, surround- ing a cool courtyard and quaintly different from his London office, was soon found. Another chief clerk received me, most courteously. Mr. Salmon had gone.

"Where?

"He had gone to Damascus.

"I nearly guffawed. To think of anybody going to Damascus! In biblical days— yes; but in the days of telegraphs and. the turbine— oh, it was great. Damascus! I rolled the name on my tongue.

"Would Mr. Salmon make a long stay in Damascus?

" 'Probably,' said the clerk. 'Mr. Salmon generally went to Damascus at this time of year. Mr. Salmon has a house at Damascus.'

"I withdrew.

" 'Ali," I said to my guide— no, my dragoman— 'Ali, I want to go to Damas- cus. At once.'

"Ver? good, sir,' said Ali. 'Steamer to Beyrut leaves this afternoon. From Beyrut on horseback. I will come.'

"I struck a bargain with him. A few hours later we were passing the Dardanelles in an excessively uncomfortable steamer. Ali was visibly swollen with his own idea of grandeur.

"At Beyrut we bought a pair of ordinary horses, and plunged inland on the great caravan track which— before the railroad— joined that seaport with Damascus. And as we trotted, I could have sung. This was the East— this was, too, in a sense, Lombard Street and the Mitchael firm. We stretch long tentacles, we Mitchaels. I had never realized it definitely before. A train of camels passed us, padding along, rolling like ships, chewing crisscross with their monstrous lips, and carrying swollen loads of merchandise. Now that I came to think of it, those camels might belong to Mitchaels, through some series of obscure and rcundabout mortgages and loans. Odd! I rode, most of the time, in a state approaching stupor.

"At last, here was Damascus, spread out, a tangle of little flat roofs, of minarets, and mosque-domes.

"Exquisite! It was a dream to me. We rode soon into outrageously narrow and tortuous streets, thronged with impossible people, sellers of everything which one did not want, buyers of things no Westerner could even recognize. And the numerous smells!—

"Behold, when a kindly consul had guided me to the vast and inscrutable mansion of Salmon (it was here that I began to gather that to half the world his name was Suleyman) he was not at home. He had gone, it seemed, to El Alad, a village some hundred miles south, where he owned what appeared to be a country residence. He generally spent a few weeks of the autumn at El Alad, we learned.

"The consul pressed me to stay. He would show me Damascus. I declined. I was on my mettle now. I would find Salmon or die in the attempt. Before dawn next morning Ali and I were riding out of Damascus and on to the desert under a velvet heaven of stars. The scene was very impressive.

"Never, to the end of my life, shall I savor another experience so fresh, so poignant as that. The journey— it took two davs— was a revelation. I felt as though I were off the planet. The world simply could not contain New York and this. I am a business man, not a poet; I cannot attempt to describe to you that absorbing journey. It had its small discomforts, its small unpleasant mishaps. To me it was one long, delightful thrill. And when, finally, topping a ridge, we looked down, across the stony sands, to an oasis of palms where nestled a village, and I was told that this was El Alad, I could have shouted for sheer joy, not at having found my goal, but at having seen so unbelievable a spectacle. I had been to Rome, to Florence, to other show-places— they had not moved me as that dirty oasis-village moved me.

"A large house, white and windowless on its outer walls, stood at the outskirts of the village. It was Salmon's. In a very short time Ali, the dragoman, brought me to it, and formally intimated my arrival to the doorkeeper.

"We were taken in, and passed through a lovely quadrangle, in which pomegranates and oranges hung their shining fruits over a fountain-basin. A moment later I was being announced at an inner apartment.

"I moved forward into a rather dim light, and found myself in a spacious room. Round the walls were cushions, on which squatted a dirty regiment of Syrians; at their head, on a larger cushion, sat a finer figure.

"I was stunned when I saw him. Somehow I had never expected this. There he sat, or rather crouched, the mouthpiece of a hooka— a narghile— a hubble-bubble— I don't know its proper name— between his lips. His attire was loose and flowing. On his head was a turban. His feet were in loose slippers.

" 'Salmon— the man I had seen in London wearing a frock coat and top hat! This crouching creature was the same Salmon!

"I blinked, then pulled myself together, and advanced, bowing with as much ceremony as I could compass. I felt that some ceremony was right, but precisely how I ought to behave I knew not. I felt foolish and absurd, in my tailor-made clothes, in the midst of these stately gowned elders. I felt mean and anachronistic. However, I walked forward, and greeted Salmon as best I could.

"His eyes brightened; he held out his hand to me, then waved me to a seat at his side. This I did, but I crouched uncomfortably.

"Salmon called aloud, in a foreign tongue, and immediately two negroes appeared, carrying trays. I was offered unnamable sweetmeats, sherbet, coffee. I took the last.

"The men round the room regarded me with polite interest, and kept silence. Salmon said something to them at length, and they rose, and with innumerable bowings to each of us, quitted the room.

" 'Well?' said Salmon in English, turning to me.

" 'You must pardon this intrusion," said I. It was banal, and I felt it.

" 'I am joyful to see you,' he returned. 'This house is yours as long as you care to stay.'

" 'It is kind of you to say so,' I replied. 'In common decency, I must explain the object of my visit. I come to ask you whether the Asia Minor syndicate's rail will be continued as far as Schief.'

"He laughed gently. 'You are Western,' was all he said.

"I felt crushed; and it was only later that I found that he meant the remark sincerely as a compliment.

" 'Come with me,' he went on, and rose. 'I will show you your apartments,' starting in that direction.

"I followed him.

" 'This is my native village,' he explained. 'I left it when a boy, and it was always my desire to come back here and build a house in which to take rest. I realized my ambition some years ago. I come here often now. I am the greatest man in my village.' He spoke quite un boastfully. 'It gives me pleasure to see the surrounding sheiks come in to drink coffee.'

"He led me to the roof of his dwelling, and then I saw how large it was— and how clandestine. Courtyard after courtyard gaped beneath us, each with its fountain-basin and its foliage and luscious fruit. Exquisitely carved windows opened on to the largest of these courts.

" 'That is the harem!' he said, pointing.

"Odd! Imagine Salmon, of the city of London, possessing a harem! This business man, with his top hat and frock coat, owned a harem in Syria! Perhaps a harem at Constantinople, too! And at Damascus! Even at Bayswater! And he spoke of his harem as he might have spoken of his potato-patch or his grand piano. 'That's the harem,' he said; and as I followed his out- stretched finger I seemed to see veiled and voluptuous figures behind the lattice, peeping out on me; soulless, lovely houris, with languishing eyes, tended by maidens who played on curious and mournful instruments, and by eunuchs who brought in sherbet on beaten-brass trays.

"Comic! But I did not grin; though, vulgarly, I felt very much inclined to grin.

"Salmon showed me the rest of his house in detail— a strange and beautiful place, cool in the blazing sun by day, and looked down on at night by a moon of glittering gold.

"I was free of his house, he indicated. Servants— slaves, I guessed them to be— would attend to my wants, under the direction of my own dragoman. In the meantime I was invited to repose.

"I did repose— for many hours, wakening only to hug myself, from time to time, and gloat gleefully on this bizarre escapade.

"Next day I once again joined Salmon at his audience with the local sheiks, and there was much coffee-drinking and many exchanges of wearisome courtesies. When the sheiks had retired Salmon took me for a ride in the desert, upon magnificent Arab horses. As I watched him flying across the burning sands I again had a vision of Lombard Street and his top hat. Amazing!

"That evening I insisted on broaching, once more, the subject of the Schief railway. I told Salmon that I could not lin-

ger. MacBrayne would be wondering what had become of me.

"Salmon stroked his beard.

"At last he spoke. 'I will tell you confidentially. The railway will be extended to Schief.'

"That was all he would say.

"I thanked him for the information, privately made a note of his exact words, and, a day later, started back for Damascus and London."

MITCHAEL paused, and drew forth a fresh cigar.

"So now you see what converted me to business," he said. "Its romance was taught me by that fantastic journey. Salmon in his top hat contrasted with Suleyman Effendi in his flowing robes— they impressed me enormously. I was only a youth, of course, but—it was fine, somehow—" he hesitated.

"Europe," he went on, "is wonderful, and you Europeans don't know it. The air of the East blows across Europe. That's the explanation in a nutshell. The East tinges Europe. You do not see it; I never saw it until then. Salmon opened my eyes. I went back to business a new man. If this was business, it was also poetry, it was art.  For it had precisely that quality which I imagined business lacked— it had mystery."

I watched Mitchael light his cigar; and I reflected that I was looking at one of the most influential men in the world— a man without whom armies or governments could do little or nothing. And naturally I was moved to ask:

"What came of the Asia Minor syndicate? Was the railway extended to Schief?"

Mitchael grinned.

"I think that was what finished my conversion to a life of business," he said. "As soon as I got back to London MacBrayne asked me what Salmon had said; and when I told him he at once wrote a cable to my grandfather. It was a code cable, of course, but the gist of it was this: 'Don't have anything to do with the Asia Minor rail.' And MacBrayne was right. It was never extended to Schief. It never will."

"Salmon had lied to you, then?" I queried.

"Well," Mitchael demurred, "he had said in El Alad what he would never have said in London. He knew that the rail wouldn't reach Schief. But— well— at El Alad he couldn't say that outright. So he said the opposite. It sounds queer, to us; but really it is absolutely trite. MacBrayne spotted this. He knew that Salmon would prevaricate, at El Alad; he knew that Salmon was the soul of honor at Bayswater. Oh, MacBrayne converted me to the beauty of our business nearly as much as the journey did. We saved a million or more by not going into the Asia Minor thing. And, as MacBrayne said, it was all thanks to me. Just my simple suggestion: 'Why not ask Salmon?' and the journey afterward—  and then carefully believing precisely the reverse of what Salmon said. Simple— yes— when you know how!"

Mitchael puffed a circum-ambient cloud to the ceiling.

"Europe is wonderful," he continued murmuring.

_________________

6: The Court of the Wicked Queen

Marion Shaler

10 Story Book August, 1937

The only Marion Shaler I could find after diligent search was a Pennylvania male, died in 1943 aged 82, and is unlikely to be the author of this story. This fable is the only work I can find written by "Marion Shaler".

DAME YOLANDE was unhappy because Lord Raoul de Trentanaye, her son, was showing symptoms of the old restlessness of the young. She held his tutor in conference in the hedged gardens of the chateau.

"Why is he not as he used to be, Monsieur duVal?"

"Madame and my liege, he is nineteen."

But to Dame Yolande that was no reason why he should be changed— sad and then satiric and always restless, restless. "You do not press him too much at his work?"

"Madame, no. And up till now he needed no pressing. He was eager and avid for learning. Now— it seems all indifferent to him."

"Have you not noticed— does he not sometimes— lack in respect for sacred things?"

"He asked— pardon, madame— if I supposed God were in love with the Virgin Mary, and where Joseph would come in in Heaven in that case."

Dame Yolande betrayed no emotion except in the slight movement of her eyebrows as she said, "Lord Raoul loves his jest."

"No, madame, I do not think he was jesting. He is intensely awake to humanity, and even in sacred things it is only the human aspect that interests him."

How much justice Dame Yolande saw in the explanation was not easy to perceive, but she was not to be contradicted.

"Lord Raoul loves his jest," she repeated.

"Yes, madame," said Monsieur du Val, learning his lesson.

His submission softened his lady.

"Monsieur du Val, I cannot endure it to see Raoul sitting silent, abstracted, looking off at nothing, and thinking— of something. What does he think of?"

"Madame, how can I tell? Unless it is of adventure or—"

"Yes, M. du Val?"

"Or love—"

Dame Yolande frowned. "Is he not satisfied with the Lady Fleur, who will make him an excellent wife?"

"Perhaps it is of her he thinks—"

But the lady's response was unhesitant.

"No, oh, no."

"Oh, if madame says it is not."

The subtle M. du Val! Dame Yolande's pride was yielding before her bitter distress.

"M. du Val, you do not think that his thoughts go in the direction of Amaria?"

"What! The Court of Amaris! The Court of the Wicked Queen!"

Dame Yolande sighed and looked away, blushing at the necessity that made her talk of Amaris, here in the company of a man not even of her family.

And then she saw the myrtle bushes begin to wave violently and unnaturally within a certain restricted radius, and a long figure rise as though conjured up by a word.

"Raoul!"

"My lady— mother—"

"Raoul, you should not lie on the ground at this season of the year."

"But I like to, my lady-mother. Besides, it is merely a superstition of our ancestors that one should not lie on the ground before mid-summer. And it gives me pleasure to disprove their prognostications. Mother, will you not accord me the same privilege as M. du Val? I would talk with you—"

Du Val bowed and withdrew. But now Raoul flung himself on the bench and fell to denuding the myrtle bushes of their April leaves, seeming now loath to talk.

"Were you— asleep— there on the ground?" his mother asked.

"Oh, yes, I was asleep," yet there was that in his tone which did not quite convince the mother that he had not heard their conversation He said irrelevantly, "The garden is far advanced for April, is it not, lady-mother?"

"Yes, Raoul, and do you like the gardens as they are? Are there any changes that you would have— you who are Lord here?"

It seemed that the only change Raoul would have would be to have the myrtle bushes entirely bare of leaves. He was strewing them in a little mound.

"No, no, mother, they are well enough— for what they are. It is only that I am longing for something other— something entirely different."

Dame Yolande grew a little white with terror.

"For what, Raoul?"

"I've been a long time not knowing, waking every day to the bewildered asking, and at night unsatisfied—. But now I know—, and you must not be pained, mother—, I would go to Amaria."

Then the horror was true. And one could not imagine anything more terrible than what could actually be.

"Oh my son! Why can you not be contented here?"

"I am not sure that I wish to be contented, mother."

"In Heaven's name— what do you wish?"

"To feel— and know— and so to live completely."

"But is it not enough to feel and know what is good?"

Raoul rose and strode a few steps to the side of a sculptured Pan. Then he said: "I would not pain you, mother, but it is not enough. I must feel and know evil, too—"

He saw her bend her head and he rushed on in justification: "You do not know— how sick I am of all the things I have known! How unsatisfying they are! Father Anselm's ceremonies, M. du Val's dialectics— Abstractions, and I am so hungry for reality!"

She raised her heavy head. "It has such a bitter taste, Raoul. We older ones would drink anything to purge our mouths of it."

"But I must make myself ill on the same draught. I can not endure these unbiting, insipid liquids you would feed me. I want to grow drunk on what is crude and intense and most concentrated— and if I die of it, mother— why, I will die without it."

Behind him the little Pan grimaced, crude and pagan, unmoral and beautiful as nature— an eternal denial that right and wrong are at the root of things. And Dame Yolande felt the memory of old desires for what was unrestrained and perilous. But she knew that such desires menaced what was most dear to her.

"The drink you want will not satisfy!— Only burn and tantalize and pervert— Oh, it is true, Raoul!"

"Will ordinary spring water satisfy?"

It would have been well if Dame Yolande could have lied to him then. She moaned: "Oh, no, it will not satisfy, either. And that is what is sad—  yet it leaves the least of regrets."

Raoul's face was dark like Lucifer's.

"Then it is not enough. There is insufficient for man in what is allowed, so I must taste of what is forbidden."

His mother moaned in the grass at his feet, but he had no pity for her.

"We are allowed to say over our Credos by rote; I would dare to disbelieve. We are allowed to rearrange in new syllogisms the world's old knowledge; I would push back the boundaries of human thinking! We are allowed to be a little happy; I would know ecstasy!— To be a saint who scourges himself for a voluptuous rapture, a libertine who wrecks his body for the uttermost stimulation of his sense!— Oh, I will die of this diluted living!"

Dame Yolande heard the panting of his fevered breathing. "If life is as you say— is good not good?"

Raoul had grown calmer. He sat down again beside her— sober when he felt the trembling of her body. Pitifully she challenged him:

"Is good not good?" And Raoul nodded. "Yes, it is good. And in the end, perhaps, I will come back to it after adventuring.... Only now I am so full of the desperate need for what has nothing to do with it— just as this April day has nothing to do with it—"

His mother held his hand. "Then you will not stay?"

He only sat quite silent, because the gentleness of his nature forbade him to say no and the bitter necessity of his youth forbade him to say yes, but Dame Yolande knew the answer.

SHAPED like a huge animal, the Amarian Isle lay half submerged in the shallow waters of the lake, accessible to boats on only one side, where its crocodile head faced boldly out to the open waters, its rear sunk in the stagnant corruption of the marshes, where a weird phosphorescence played at night and the odors of putrescence rose like a heavy perfume that worked on the senses with a strange delight.

Barges that were gorgeous with colors came and went, and from them figures like wraiths went up the paths to the enchanted court of Amaris, who was called "The Wicked Queen." A

mong them Raoul wandered with a woman who was provocative and beautiful, but not beautiful at all after the manner of the Lady Fleur or anything that was simple and natural. For her hair was dyed delicately green like the hybrid growths in the marshland, and her lips were encarnadined to the color of blood that is spilled and not the blood that flows normally under the skin. And her flesh inspired a desire that exceeded all normal desire as the exhilaration of wine exceeds the exhilaration of health.

For days Raoul had been wild with love for this handmaiden of Amaris, who led him through the perfumed temples of Sense and taught him strange new rites in the service of Passion. Yet now his words to her were beginning to savor of weariness and disillusions.

"Can you not talk about anything, Elethea?"

And Elethea would seize his hand and draw him off to some bower lovelier than the last, where orchids leaned above their couch, palely glowing in the unnatural light that bathed all Amaria. And he would abandon himself to her beauty— but Elethea could not talk to him. And he was beginning to grow tired of the shape of her beautiful torso.

It was then that he began to notice another figure that moved about the Court of Amaris. Robed in scarlet and coifed with hair purple like a nightmare, Fornarea had eyes that were bleary with unnatural dreams. She was as hideous as fungus, and her body was mottled with strange colors as of disease.

But to Raoul mere beauty was growing insipid, and he felt a new and keener stimulation in the ugliness of Fornarea. There was a decadent paradoxical pleasure in extracting bliss of the senses from the natural abhorrence of the senses.

Fornarea taught him much that was vile and much that was fascinating. Her supreme hour came at night when a ghostly moon swooned in the embrace of the fierce clouds, who took her and eclipsed her and tossed her back to another as a maiden strumpeted among soldiers. Then Fornarea celebrated strange orgies and offered strange sacrifices to a demoniac god. She built fires of the dung of the sea-birds and over them brewed strange potions, pungent with the ammonia of the excretion, and acrid with an acridity that made all other food seem tasteless.

Nor was she always yielding as Elethea had been. Sometimes, when he would embrace her, she rode off on a broom-stick, or she struck him with searing whips or bit him like a vampire. And she embraced others before his very eyes and took as lovers dark creatures that lived in the foul exhalations of the bog.

Raoul was very unhappy, yet he pitied everyone who had never loved a witch. It was a wild, unrestful life; yet Raoul sometimes fell to pondering the old questions to which he had found no answer in the books of the schoolman. Sometimes he tried to stop a demon or djinn that fluttered blackly around Fornarea's incantations, and ask him what was the meaning of life and what its destiny. But they all only looked at him with that supercilious air peculiar to demons or mortals who pretend to despise the question whose answer they do not know.

For days Fornarea had been unusually captious. She fled him through the rank growth of the marshes, and his hands that clutched for her clutched oozy mosses or the cold coils of reptiles; till at last he caught her— faint as he was with the exquisite torture of pursuit— and thrilled to bruise her body and stop off her breath with brutal domination. Then he knew that the only thing he wanted of her was knowledge— not sensation, but an answer to the riddle of living. And so as he held her gripped in fingers that exulted in inflicting pain, he asked his questions.

Her provocative defiance melted; she seemed to fade and crumple, as she said: "I have no more to give you. You are ready for Amaris."

Raoul felt no qualms at faithlessness to her who was faithlessness itself. He went to seek Amaris, who was greater than all her handmaidens. He carefully prepared his petition, and her great Majordomo, dressed not in the guise of a monk but of Mefistofeles disguised as a monk, conducted him through the long corridors of the palace. And as he penetrated inward the yellow colorings of Amaris's palace grew not more vivid and golden, but ever paler and more ambiguous, till at length in the inmost chamber there was almost a negation of color, or such a faint, shadowy, indeterminate shade as partook of all colors by phases.

Another change, too, was observed in progress from the golden outer corridors to the inlying rooms; less and less of voluptuous luxury attended that progress, till at length, in the final chamber was only an airy bareness around the unglittering throne of Amaris.

But Raoul knelt, strangely awed by this negation of all splendors, and did not dare to raise his eyes till a voice bade him rise, as though it were weary of all bidding.

Then he beheld Amaris, who was the soul and genius of this wicked place. She was robed in the strange, ambiguous yellow of the room; her hair the selfsame color, and her eyes no less indeterminate in shade. Thin almost to meagerness, Amaris was not beautiful like Elethea nor gaudy and outrageous after the manner of Fornarea. But her great indeterminate colored eyes held one like fate, and even in the first moment of seeing, one abandoned will and desired to be her creature.

And Raoul, who had not lost selfpossession before the mad transports to which his first mistresses introduced him, quite lost it before her immense indifference.

He only stammered the questions he had thought to ask her on the meaning of life and its destiny. But she seemed to divine through his broken utterance. And then she smiled with a smile as unlike the laughter of natural creatures as the music of the most sophisticated and complex souled composer to the unconscious utterance of a brook.

And she told him, "You would be answered? Then know that there is no answer. The enigma has no solution, the game no prizes after all. Yet must you ever spend your life seeking, sadly and funnily, and when at length you resign yourself to never finding, that will be the saddest and funniest of all."

And through the days Raoul went to the school of Amaris. He went far on the roads of all philosophies, even some which had not yet been dreamed of in the world, and the magic bareness of her chamber made the process of thought swift and sure as the lightning, so that in one flash he saw more than men had taken years to devise.

And at the end of every road he found the ambiguously yellow wall of utter nescience. And bit by bit he grew to understand more clearly the mind of Amaris who had tested all things and denied all things, not as the mystic denies them to assert some higher value, but absolutely, because they were not good enough. Nothing was ignored by her; no category of thought or experience possible to mortality that did not have its suggestion in some word or glance or movement of her body. Even flashes of pity and tenderness and love that was maternal emanated from her, as the ambiguous yellow of her robe took on varying nuances in the light. Emotions of evil as well as of good passed cloud-like over her aspect— for to her all preferences were illusions— but seldom was any emotion or idea deeply enough received for translation into action. The deep center of her being was unmoved, and whether at that center was simply inertia or chaos or deep, almost inhuman fortitude was something Raoul never could discover.

Sometimes he almost suspected that it was the last, most extravagant degree of humor, being an imperfected sympathy with everything that was. But if it were humor it had lost all its jubilance, like a musical string that has been strung too tightly, that gives out sweet vibrations until, dawn to its extreme tautness, it is silent. The only facts whose claim she seemed to acknowledge were bodily needs, not even bodily indulgences. As she lay with Raoul for the satisfaction of the wants of his body, she was strange or cool or ironic.

One day he said to her, "You have inoculated me with your worldweariness, Amaris. The edges of all things blur off into unreality, and a doubt robs every sensation of sweetness as of bitterness. I will be weary of everything, save only of you, Amaris."

But she smiled at his vain hope.

"You will be weary of me with every breath you draw. You will have only the hope that some day you may forget me and live thoughtlessly and believingly as other men. But you will never be able to forget me—  and there will be times when it will seem to constitute all your glory to have known me so well."

"And what is the end of your votaries, goddess? Do you kill us with your indifferent hand?"

"Some die from having known me; some plunge in the abyss of mortal extinction; but most live on, and do the normal things, but with less heart than the normal, and guard always a memory of a dark principle of negation at the root of mortal things."

DAME Yolande's favorite seat in the chateau Trentanaye commanded a view of the drawbridge and portcullis through which Raoul must enter. She used to sit for hours with her work in her hand, watching for some glimpse of a plumed chevalier, who should be returning to her. Sometimes she talked to M. du Val, because she had to talk to someone.

"Oh, he will come back, M. du Val. One can not live forever with Amaris; such is not in mortal possibilities. Yet he can live there long enough to imbibe that which shall ruin all other living. Oh, why does he not come back?"

M. du Val frowned slightly, being not at all eager for the return of his erstwhile charge— for if he loved Raoul little, he loved his mother's estate very much.

"What said he in that last conversation?"

"Oh, much of discontent and desire. I could not argue with him. He was very eloquent— and I was only right. Yet he spoke only as one who is weary of goodness and courts sin for the moment's novelty, out of avidness for seeing the other face of things. Yet always did he acknowledge that it was sin. There lies my hope. Did he begin to question such distinctions, I would really fear. To be intentionally perverse is not to be perverted."

So spoke Dame Yolande, with wistful eyes upon the ribbon of road. But Raoul did not come at any time they were talking thus of him, nor at any of those times when a hopeful premonition made his mother spread out banners for his coming and on some pretence bring Lady Fleur to Trentanaye from her neighboring estate. He came, instead, on the day when his mother had at last decided to marry Monsieur du Val.

She had not ceased to want Raoul to return, but that want— from being the aching center of her life— had become only an incident. She thought of him as worse than dead, yet somehow that thought did not prevent her from being very much interested in the embroidering of the pearls upon her wedding dress. The warder with his orders would have stopped Raoul at the gate.

"Ho! you go not within, my gallant. There is to be a wedding then."

Then, in recognition, "Lord Raoul!"

"Yes, it is I. And who is being married within?"

"Lord, it is your Lady Mother who weds your one time tutor."

But if the warder had expected to see his young Lord wrathful, he was disappointed.

"So! My mother is wise to take her fill of living and loving while there is time. And for that purpose a tutor is surely as good as a lord."

So he went within and found his mother in the hands of her tiring women. She would have given over the wedding, but he would not have it so.

"My son, I had hoped to see another wedding ere this. But I suppose your heart is quite gone from the Lady Fleur?"

"I am not sure, mother. There has been nothing in my experience to make impossible a marriage de convenience, which I believe turns out as well as any other kind."

And in his heart he thought if this project would make his mother happy he scarcely cared enough to resist— though there could be no forgetting for him who had loved Elethea, burned for Fornarea, and found in Amaris the ultimate principle of the universe.

"And what did you at Amaria?" said his mother, who hoped that his answer would not be too frank.

"I felt to the limits of all feeling— and thought to the ends of all thinking, indulged every natural desire to the utmost of satisfaction and then created new desires artificially. And life was full of brilliant colors, yet all merged at last into a sort of ambiguous yellow which was like watery sunlight on a day of rain— or the bewilderment and the satire at the root of all things."

But such talk was puzzling to Dame Yolande on the day of her second marriage, which she hoped would turn out better than her first.

"But saw you Amaris?"

"Yes, mother, and see her always— in you and my thoughts of the Lady Fleur and in all things."

"What can you mean, Raoul? For while, perhaps, in appearance no woman would be grieved to hear that she resembled Amaris, surely she is the very spirit of wickedness on this earth."

But Raoul smiled in the tolerance which he had acquired, as though he found the expression naive.

"No, I do not think she is very wicked, mother."

___________________

7: Satan's Scalpel

Arthur Leo Zagat

1895-1949

Terror Tales Oct 1935

1: Ape Attack

INTO the side-show tent the strident blare of a calliope filtered, a barker's raucous shouts, the crack of rifles from a shooting gallery— all the surging, happy tumult of Cranport's annual gala night. It was spring. Salburn's Super Shows once more were starting out on the road, and the factory town was getting a preview of its refurbished marvels.

The simple people of the community were also getting, all unknowingly, a preview of the horror that was to come before the gaudy caravan returned to its winter quarters— horror that would paint faces now ruddy under the flare of carnival torches with the grey of grisly dread; that would make screams of terror tear through throats now chortling with laughter and replace gayety with the desolation of fear-bred madness.

"Hot! Hot! Get 'em while they're red hot," a weenie vendor bawled, and from the Thriller Ride shrilled the mirthful shrieks of its tumbled patrons.

But within the canvas walls of Zortal's tent the clamor was muted by a strained, taut hush. The terraced bleachers were in shadow, so that from Dan King's front row seat the packed benches were only a mounting bank of pallid, blurred ovals. But he knew that their occupants were hunched forward, silently, almost grimly intent on the huge ape in the central arena— staring at the ape and the stocky, swart-visaged human in close- fitting tights of green silk who stood to one side, glowering and quite motionless.

Gasoline flares, high on poles, stabbed down at the hard-packed earth, filled the ring with a dancing, fitful glare. The long black lash of a cruel whip hung down along Zortal's leg and coiled at his feet, but neither by word nor sign was he giving any direction to the shaggy, lumbering primate in its incredible routine.

Naida Stone's little hand crept into King's protective one. It was icy, quivering. "I don't like it," she whispered, tremulously. "There's something wrong about it, something dreadfully wrong." A shudder ran through her slender body, so tinglingly close against his own.

"The brute is better trained than most, that's all," the young automotive engineer rumbled. But even as he said it, chill prickles scampered up and down his spine and he was conscious of a faint quiver at the pit of his stomach.

Was it some atavistic fear that crawled sluggishly in his blood, some ancestral memory of the days when Man first moved into caves and the Tree People still stalked him through steamy jungle aisles? But he had seen great apes before and felt nothing but a mild interest. In the hulking chimpanzee padding noiselessly out there, there was some eerie, too-human quality. Vaguely he, too, sensed that it had passed through some strange metamorphosis into a being neither beast nor man, into an entity beyond the pale of familiar things.

The gigantic beast, bent-kneed, long-armed, blackly hirsute, shuffled to a large mound in the center of the ring and jerked a tarpaulin from it. A stripped automobile chassis stood revealed— with bare framework— and beside it a helter-skelter pile of gears, steel rods, castings, all the multifarious parts of a car's power plant. Ranged on a canvas strip were wrenches, spanners and other implements. The polished tools splintered light into darting gleams...

Muscles tightened along the ridge of Dan King's square jaw. A murmur ran through the crowd, almost a moan. Nearly all of them workers in Cranport's two automobile factories— every man in the gasping audience had often seen just such piles of jumbled parts. King, himself part owner and engineer, of the Mayflower plant had arranged more than one such display for speed tests between crews of expert assemblers. Good Lord! Was the ape...?

The astounding speculation became actuality. The primate snatched up tools, fell on the tumbled mass of fabricated metal. With incredible swiftness it changed— with unbelievable speed a motor grew on the chassis, a crankshaft clanged into place, connecting rods were fitted to their bearings. Muscles swelled under the shaggy hide, the tremendous chest heaved as weights ordinarily handled by clanking cranes yielded to the chimpanzee's gigantic strength, were lifted and dropped meticulously into their beds. Grotesque black paws darted in intricate manipulations with a deftness, a dexterity no human laborer could surpass.

"No! No!" Naida whimpered. "It isn't doing it. It can't be. It isn't possible."

She was warm, palpitant within the curve of Dan King's arm— but in that moment he did not wonder at his daring, at her acquiescence. His throat was dry, his brain throbbed with an astoundment that was almost pain. He pulled his gaze from the fantastic performance, sought saner things for assurance of his own sanity.

Across the ring, nearly opposite, Ned Salburn leaned forward, his heavy-jowled face rubicund, his jaws working on his eternal tobacco cud. Further along was Warren Fenton, superintendent for United Motors of their Hiawatha factory, Mayflower's bitterest rival. Fenton's fox-like countenance was livid, his eyes almost popping from his head.

The emerald-clad man in the arena was somehow more erect. There was a swagger in the tilt of his, Zortal's, shoulders, in the poise of his head, as though he were saying, with gloating triumph, "I have done this. I, Zortal the Great."

From somewhere high up a hoarse voice boomed: "Come out from under that mask Pat Cooney. We know you. Come out!"

Tension broke as boisterous, almost hysteric laughter swept the big tent. The great ape dropped its wrench, twisted around to face the jester— and King's scalp tightened as he saw in the beast's russet fur a bald spot crowning its brow-less skull that had a gargoylesque resemblance to the popular foreman who had quit the factory without notice about a month before. Then the similitude was gone, the ape was altogether bestial as it loped forward, its curved knuckles brushing the ground. Light struck across its snouted, leathery countenance and the bridgeless spread of its flat nose, while the grotesque visage worked with some obscure emotion.

"Get back! Get back there," Zortal shouted, coming alive. "Get back!" He was moving to intercept the chimpanzee's path, his long, wicked lash lifting in his sinewy hand.

The ape came on, ignoring its master, thick lips snarling away from yellow fangs as it came straight for King, and he half-lifted from his seat with some dim notion of fending the brute off from Naida. Suddenly it was very near, and Dan saw its look...

His skin was suddenly a tight sheath for his quivering body, his palms were wet with cold sweat. Good God! Those were not the eyes of an animal. A soul looked out from those eyes, a tortured human soul, and in their blue depths fear crawled in a suffering terrible appeal!

Something flashed across King's vision, and there was the crack of a gun shot. No — ! It was Zortal's whip as it lashed across the ape's hairy back, lifted, writhed, and bit savagely again and again into brute flesh.

"Back to your work. Back, I say!"

Clamor beat about Dan. Shouts, a woman's scream, were suddenly swallowed, blotted out, by an abysmal, thunderous roar that filled the tent with sound almost tangible, that blasted its hearers with devastating terror. The ape whirled on its tormentor. The out lash of its colossal arm was the lightning strike of a rattlesnake, and Zortal's whip was in the grip of a black, gnarled paw— was wrenched from the trainer's grip. The beast crouched, pounced. Zortal went down under a grunting, snarling tornado of hairy fury, and the flash of green silk was gone.

Dan King was somehow in the ring. He was tugging frantically at a pole at the top of which a torch flared. A shriek burbled in his ears, a shriek of purest agony. The rod came away in King's hands and he whirled, threw himself at the monstrous, snarling simian. His extemporary weapon pounded down and flame splashed on tossing, red-brown shagginess. Burned hair, frying flesh, stung its nostrils.

The chimpanzee surged erect, twisting. King leaped far back. The enraged beast loomed over him, tremendous. Its brutish mouth yawned cavernous and its bellow was about him like a black flood. Fetid breath gusted over him.

For an appalling instant fear ran icy in the engineer's veins. Monstrous arms flailed, and the giant ape sprang still roaring, to tear him apart. King's muscles exploded into swift movement, and he lunged forward to meet that cataclysmic rush, thrust the blazing flare squarely into the brute's face. The creature screamed and the man leaped back out of its reach, lithely. The flame-pot rolled across the ground, vomiting flame and black smoke.

The chimpanzee thudded to a halt. It clawed at its cooked face with huge hands, and he saw that in the deep-sunk sockets under the overhang of its forehead there were blackened cinders where eyes should be.

Naida was suddenly beside King— clutching his arm. "Dan!" the girl shrilled. "Dan! Come back. He'll kill you!"

The ape whirled to the sound, lurched blindly toward it, great paws sweeping out to clutch Naida, to rend. In a single flash of action Dan hurled the girl aside, lanced the stake at the cyclonic onrush of the maddened brute, jabbed its pointed ferrule into the ape's gaping mouth. The impact threw King backward, sprawling upon the ground; but the beast's own terrific momentum impaled it, drove the pole out through the back of its neck. Blood-rush choked off the nerve-shattering roar, and the gigantic animal pounded down, was a threshing, gory horror.

King rolled over and scrambled to his feet, frantically seeking Naida. He fought nausea that retched bitterness into his mouth.

Figures were all about him, blocking vision. Someone grabbed his hand, pulled him around. A crowd ringed him in, white-faced, spewing oaths. It split apart and Zortal came through, his green suit ripped, one arm dangling limply, shoulder askew.

King stared at him, stupid with amazement. The man's face was contorted with rage, his eyes black with fury. "Damn you," he squealed, rage thinning his voice. "You've killed him! Murderer!" The fellow's good hand came up, fisting. Dan's muscles knotted, but pudgy fingers, Ned Salburn's, grabbed Zortal's wrist.

"Stop it, you fool!" the showman roared. "Stop it. He saved your life. You'd be in little pieces now if it wasn't for him. The rest of us were paralyzed."

The trainer's thin mouth twitched. His stocky frame quivered as he visibly fought to gain control. "But— " he husked. "But he's ruined the work of years. The greatest attraction..."

"The devil with that!" Salburn came back. "You'll get another chimp, train it. I'll keep you on the payroll and next year..."

"Next year hell!" Wrath seemed to have drained out of the man, but his countenance was still livid, tiny fires still smoldered in his eyes. "I'll have another one for you in two weeks. A better one. I know how now."

Disbelief showed in the carnival proprietor's expression. "All right then. Two weeks. But come away. Come out of here— and let's get your arm fixed."

"Dan! Dan darling. Are you hurt? Are you all right?"

King wheeled to Naida. Her white frock was dirt-smeared and there was a brown splotch across her cheek. But something in her eyes sent a thrill through him, surging warmly in his veins.

"Naida!" He reached for her. "Naida! Let's get out of this." Words were on his tongue that for months he had choked down, had hardly dared to think. "Let's get out."

The crowd parted for them. They went past Zortal, and the man lipped, "I won't forget you, Mr. King. I won't forget this." It might have been thanks, but somehow the man's green costume seemed to make him oddly reptilian, poisonous. His black, cold eyes flickered from Dan to the girl his arm encircled, and little lights crawled in them, little lascivious lights.

There was a crowd outside too, and more coming on the run, brought by swift rumor. "What happened, Mr. King?" someone called, reaching out to stop them. Dan scarcely heard, did not answer. They were in his Mayflower Eight and were roaring away, out of the Fair Grounds, out along the car tracks of the Shore Road to where the Big House stood, set far back from the road.

As a shoeless kid he had long ago brought the laundry to the back door of that house. The small girl in crisp organdie whom he would see on the lawn— black ringlets curling about her tiny, piquant face, fat little legs twinkling— had made him poignantly conscious of his tattered clothes, of the tumble-down shack in Frog Hollow that was his home. Once she had smiled at him and he had run away.

He thought he had forgotten her in the long years between, years filled with days of grueling labor, with nights of more grueling study. His inventions, his genius for the management of labor, had multiplied the production, the profits of the Mayflower plant. Even when Roger Stone had recognized his ability, had given him greater and greater responsibility, had last year taken him into partnership, Dan King had remained the kid from Frog Hollow, and the Big House a palace, with the girl who lived there unapproachable as royalty itself.

She had come into the office more and more frequently. He had been wordless in her presence, awkward, had found duties to take him out into the plant. But increasingly she had haunted his dreams, and, when her father had asked him today to take her to the carnival he had trembled inwardly...

He braked the car at the big stone gate, turned to her. "Naida," he murmured. "Naida. I love you. I have always loved you."

2: The headless Corpse

THE rush of night air about him could not quench the tingle of Naida's parting kiss on Dan King's lips. A vast exhilaration possessed him, joy pulsed in his big body. He wanted to shout, to trumpet it triumphantly to sleeping Cranport. "Naida is mine, all mine. She loves me. Do you hear that? She is going to be my wife!"

Trees gave way to flatlands, and the dark loom of the Mayflower plant's low buildings was unreeling to his right. Yellow oblongs showed windows still lighted in the administration building. Roger Stone was still there, then. King's sedan nosed into the cinder driveway, skidded to a stop.

The broad-shouldered man with hair that was black as Naida's save for greying temples looked up from a desk spread with blueprints and sheets of typed manuscript. Dan halted inside the office door that for the first time he had flung open without the formality of knocking, and tried to find words to tell Naida's father of that which had happened.

There was a smile of approval on the older man's aristocratic countenance "Dan, my boy," Stone said, "you've done it again. This new car will cut the feet out from under the Hiawatha Company. We'll be able to undersell them by two hundred dollars and deliver a better job for the money. I've already had Johnson send off the patent applications to Washington, and we'll be able to start production in a month. Congratulations..."

"Thanks." King brushed aside the phrases that this afternoon would have meant so much to him. "Glad you like it. But I've got something to tell you about Naida?"

The other came up out of his chair. "Naida! Something happened...?"

"No, sir. That is, nothing bad." Dan was stammering like a schoolboy. "She— I— that is... She's promised to be my wife."

Stone was a graven image, standing behind his desk. The office was deathly still. Papers crackled under his blue-veined hands as he pressed down on them.

"She's promised... to be... your wife." The words dribbled from lips that were white under his grey mustache, and there was something in the way he said them, something in his eyes, that brought a hot flush to King's cheeks. "I picked you out of the stink and filth of Frog Hollow to make a man of you, and this is how you thank me. You," contempt was a knife-edge in his tone, "the son of a drunkard who died in the gutter, of a washwoman who scrubbed my drawers, are going to give me my grandchildren. No!"

Slow anger mounted in Dan. His great hands knotted, nails digging into their palms. But he managed to hold himself in leash. "You did not make a man of me, Mr. Stone. Whatever I am, whatever I possess, I have earned. Fenton would have had you down long ago if it weren't for me. If you wish, you can have it all back, my job, my partnership in the firm. United Motors has been after me for years. I can go to them tomorrow and they will be glad to have me. You can have the new car whose plans lie on your table. I'll give them a better one. And Naida will go with me. You can't stop her. She loves me and you can't hold her."

Silence again clotted in the room. The two men faced each other, their stares clashing, indomitable, their wills wrestling in a wordless combat. Then, quite suddenly, Dan realized that Stone was an old, broken man whose hand abruptly gestured in a curious, almost pathetic movement.

"No. I can't hold her. I've never been able to do anything with her— not since her mother died, so long ago. And I need you. I need you, Dan. Just give me a chance. Let me take her away on— on a trip somewhere. She's so young. She may not know her own mind. And I am tired, sick. I need a rest. If she still wants you three months from now you can have her. And we'll go on as before."

King sucked breath in between cold lips. She was necessary to him now, part of him. Not to see her for three long months...

"You're not afraid, are you? If she loves you as she says, three months absence will make no difference. And if it should— you have no right to her. No right!"

It was a challenge he could not evade. "All right." He did not want to say it but he had to. God help him, he had to. "All right. Go ahead."

Its motor purring sweet rhythm that should have been music to Dan King's ears, the Mayflower Eight poured itself down Railroad Street. The engine sound should have been music, and the far-off hoot of a locomotive whistle wailing down the night wind should have set pulses leaping in his wrists; for Naida Stone was on that train, bringing her back to Cranport and to Dan after the three long months when he hadn't heard from her, when he hadn't even known where she was— the girl he loved better than life itself.

God! If only he had been able to wire her, to tell her to stay away. To stay far away from Cranport, from the fear-cursed town where terror ran rampant. But he hadn't known how to reach her, until the telegram had come, a half-hour ago, to say that she was on the Cannonball Express. Then it was too late— except to jump into the sedan and send it rocketing to the station so that he could catch her there, make her stay on the train, send her away.

Old Pete Foley had goggled at him, swinging back the big gate so that he could go through the high, barbed-wire fence. One of the guards had come running, the floodlights glinting on his sawed-off shotgun, to shout incoherently at him. They had been afraid for him, and he was afraid, too. With hammering trepidation running like a cold flame through his veins, he feared that which was loose in the factory town. For a weird menace had made beleaguered fortresses of the Mayflower Factory, and of the Hiawatha Motor Works on the other side of town.

The wind of his own speed stung his red-rimmed eyeballs sharply. He squinted through the windshield. Look! Even downtown here, even here in the heart of Cranport where the terror had not yet struck, where men were not yet mysteriously, awesomely missing from their homes, fear was a dark river inside shuttered, door-barred houses.

It was early, it was only eight o'clock— but the only moving figures to be seen were two patrolmen, coupled for protection, with their guns in their hands as they walked down the center of the roadway, away from shadowy alleys, from the lightless nooks that might be ambush for whatever it was that snatched men out of life into some unnamable fate. Stores were tight shut. The station plaza, as he rounded into it, was a broad, deserted expanse, its asphalt somehow gleaming ghastly under light filtering down from ornamental lampposts.

King brought his car to a squealing, skidding halt. He flung out of it, thumped stiff-legged across the sidewalk, shoved a shoulder against a swinging door. He was inside the waiting-room, was pounding between a long row of benches toward the exits to the tracks. His footfalls echoed hollowly under the high-domed roof. The place was empty of life, was filled with brooding, breathless dread. The blind was down over the ticket agent's wicket; there was no gate-man...

Dan stopped short, his skin crawling. What was that on the floor, sticking out from under the bench? A shoe—  a foot! He knelt down, got his hand on it. His other hand, supporting him on the floor; found something wet, warm, sticky. The body at whose foot he tugged came sliding out, spreading a pool of its own blood.

God! The corpse hadn't any head— only a shapeless mess of pulped flesh and smashed bone where it ought to have a head. What was once a uniform was shredded grey rags, matted with clotted blood...

The oncoming train whistled again, nearer. Outside, rails hummed. Through King's retching nausea an alarm blared, and he twisted, stood up— started to run. But a tremendous form, black, grotesque, avalanched down upon him from over the top of the bench.

3: Terror at the Crossroads

DUCKING to avoid the attack, Dan King's feet skidded out from under him on the blood-wet tiles and he went down flat, half-rolling. The pouncing, shaggy thing missed, thudded alongside him. King realized he was under the bench, and kept on rolling. A hairy arm darted after him. A huge paw, black-taloned, snatching for him, caught the hem of his coat. He tore the cloth away, came out into the aisle on the other side. He got his knees under him, shoved with his hands, leaped up. Two huge apes had come from hiding in the deserted waiting room of the station!

A gigantic beast loomed in front of him. Its big-thewed arms went around him, hugging him against stiff bristles that rasped his face, grated his lips as his mouth came open for a yell that the hairy hide stifled. The beast's circling hold constricted, making breath wheeze from King's lungs under the irresistible pressure. Excruciating pain seared his back, his chest, as the steel-trap squeeze caved his ribs. His fists beat a futile tattoo on the brute's sides. A yellow-toothed grin between thick black lips blurred in his burning, bleared vision.

Dan's knee jerked spasmodically up, found softness, drove into it The ape squealed agony and his grip relaxed, slightly— enough for King, desperation exploding into momentarily redoubled strength, to jerk free, staggering backward. The further bench caught him, held him upright. He sucked sobbing breath into collapsed lungs, had a fleeting glimpse of the primate doubling up, and kicked savagely at its agonized groin.

A shadow fell across him. He wheeled to see the other ape towering over him, its splayed feet groping for a prehensile grip on the top of the bench separating them, its columnar legs haunching to pounce.

Terror pronged King's breast. The jungle denizen launched a ferocious swoop and Dan's heels drove into the tiles, catapulting him forward and under the down-circling arc of the hairy monster's leap. His out-flung hands clutched the bench-top the beast had just left, gave him a hold sufficient to vault the high-backed furniture. He pounded down, just missing the sprawled corpse of the murdered gateman he had discovered. He hurdled the gory cadaver, pelted toward the track exits. Padding footfalls behind told him the brutes were on his trail. Almost he could feel their hot breaths on his neck.

The eerie, macabre silence that had shrouded the incredible struggle was shattered by a sudden high, wild shriek from outside. It crescendoed to a wailing, ear-piercing scream. Then there was the pound and hiss of a locomotive driving past, the screech of jamming brakes. From somewhere a thin whistle shrilled. King lurched between out-jutting brass rails, crashed against a door that did not swing open, that was appallingly immovable, locked.

His last hope of escape collapsed like a bursting balloon. He was penned in, utterly lost. Panic and despair twisted at the pit of his stomach, and he whirled to face the oncoming, bestial doom. He gasped, stung by the discovery that the savage primates were no longer intent upon him, but were surging out through the street entrance.

He reeled, snatching at the short, curved rail-lengths that had made a standing place for the guard who would never stand again. Half stunned, he fought for breath, fought to still the pound of an over-taxed heart hammering against the walls of his aching chest. Through vertiginous darkness swirling inside his skull, dim realization came that the fearful messengers of an awful death had been scared off by the sound of the arriving train.

The train! Naida! He pushed himself away from the rails to which he clung, threw himself around the barrier, thrust at the next door. That too was locked, mocked his efforts. Oh God! He had to get out there, had to warn her.

"All ab-o-o-ard," a far-off voice intoned. "All ab-o-oard." King was running wildly along the line of rail-guarded doors, was frantically trying each one. The very last swung open. Yellow light-squares were already sliding over the platform as the express crashed away. He shoved through, saw Naida peering about her, far down, a bag alongside her.

"Naida," Dan shouted, sprinting toward her. "Naida!" She came to meet him, was in his arms. His lips, that had thirsted so long, were crushed against hers in a long embrace. She was warm, dear, in his arms. "Darling," he murmured. "It's good, so good to have you back."

Then momentarily forgotten terror was back, cold at the base of his brain, and he pulled away. Chaotic words rose to his throat. He swallowed them as he remembered that the train was gone, that there was not to be another till morning. His plan to send her away was blotted out. He must think, must find a way to safeguard her. Meantime no use in frightening her...

"Dan. I've longed for you so. If Dad had been with me I would have found a way to write you. But he put me on my honor before he went away..."

"Away! Wasn't he with you in...?" Dan stopped short, sparred for time, tried to think.

"Florida. No. He took me to Miami and left the next day. Said he had wanted a long fishing trip all his life— that I wouldn't enjoy it."

King scarcely heard. They were alone on the platform. The apes might be back. The apes... Good Lord! What did the attack in the station mean? Were they the prowling menace terrorizing Cranport? Had they marked him for their next victim?

"Come on," he blurted, picking up the girl's bags, taking her arm with his free hand. "Come on, let's get going. Let's get away from here." He started off, his glance furtively, fearfully searching the shadows. He was fairly dragging her, half-running.

"But Dan," Naida protested, "why are you going around outside. It's shorter through the waiting room."

"Yes, but there's a— someone I want to avoid is waiting for me. We'll go this way." The gateman's body was still in there; she must not see it. "Look, here we are! How do you like the new car? Isn't it a beauty?" He must let the police know about the dead man. But not now, not till he had Naida indoors, safe...

"Oh, it is. It is. I must drive it!" She pulled away from him, had the door open and had slid under the wheel.

A flicker of movement, seen out of the corner of his eye, twisted King around. Shadows at the end of station seemed to be taking on rounded form, seemed to be coming alive. He twisted back, flung Naida's bag into the sedan, jumped in. "Get started," he yelled. "Quick!"

The starter whirred as he clicked-over the ignition key and the girl's small foot went down on the button. Motor roared, gears clashed, and the car jumped forward like an unleashed greyhound. Wind beat in under the lifted windshield. Darkened houses flicked past.

"What was it?" Naida flung at him, her eyes steady on the road. "You sounded so scared."

A pulse thumped in his temples, dull pain throbbed in his chest. Every breath was stabbing torture, he was corseted with agony. The battering he had sustained, the terrible squeezing, anesthetized at first by excitement, by the thrill of his sweetheart's return, were showing their effect now. He couldn't— think straight.

But he must not scare her—  let the sharp-clawed fear tear at her that was slicing his own brain. He had to get her to safety, behind barbed wire, under the protection of armed guards.

"Accident— at the plant," he answered. So hard to talk, each word searing his lungs with new pain. "Got to get— back there quick. Hurry!" Once there, once safe, he could tell her.

"An accident! You're hurt, Dan. Your face..."

"No. Not hurt. Working hard— day, night. Drive fast. Tell you when— get there. Don't talk— now. Hurry!"

Working hard? Oh God! As the car hurtled through the night the torturesome weeks of which this was the culmination reeled through Dan King's throbbing mind, a motion-picture film edged with corroding acid. The days of feverish preparation for the new model. The start of production and the great ads flowering in newspapers all over the nation. Then came crashing catastrophe!

On that very same day other ads had appeared, proclaiming in staring black type cuts in Hiawatha's prices that made Mayflower's drastically lowered ones seem extortionate. Devastating cuts. Investigation had driven into King's being the certitude that Warren Fenton must have had a spy in his designing room. For the patent application had scarcely had time to reach Washington when a high board fence had gone up around the Hiawatha area, and the workers there had not been permitted to leave it Hiawatha must have made changes too...

But what changes? King had purchased his competitor's product, had torn it down and analyzed every bit of its fabric. There was no cheapening in material, in design. The only saving could be in labor.

He had met Fenton's cut with another, only to find his rival going under his price again. King was selling at cost now, but Hiawatha cars sold far below— unbelievably cheaper. Even if the unions would have stood for it, there was absolutely no room for any wages to the workers. How were they doing it?

Mayflower was equal to the new reduction. But it was suicidal. Bankruptcy stared at Dan King, swept down upon him.

He had been a very vortex of energy. He had been everywhere in the plant, cutting down every least waste, speeding up, exhorting, driving his men till they were strained to the very last pitch of exhaustion. Years of cooperation, of good treatment, had their reward. The beleaguered manufacturer had begun to see light.

Then the terror had begun. One by one his workers had vanished, gone into some eerie limbo of oblivion. At first he had thought Fenton was raiding him, but, even admitting disloyalty, if Hiawatha had won away the missing laborers with higher pay, where was his rival's saving? Even United Motors' great treasury could not stand such a drain.

Desperately King had fought on. He had put up a barbed wire barricade of his own, flood-lighted and patrolled by armed guards. He had set up cots for his men, had forbidden them to leave the place. The assembly line was moving again, was speeding up. All day long autos were spewed out of the two great plants— roared away in long motorcades to a public that was making Saturnalia of the weird battle. While the night shift labored, gates were closed, barred, sentinelled.

The conflict was at a stalemate. Battling alone, Dan King had been a staggering Atlas, carrying the enterprise on his stalwart shoulders. With the period of Roger Stone's self-exile ended, with him returning, the scales might yet turn...

Good Lord! A grisly speculation trailed across his mind. Was that the reason for the attack upon him? Was there some macabre connection between...?

He jerked upright. The road ahead curved, dipped to a fork whose right branch went toward the Mayflower works, whose left was the Shore Road passing Naida's home, going on to the Hiawatha plant. Just as his car's headlights scythed through blackness to impinge on the intersection they caught a black, huge form that had leaped back into shrubbery with the ungainly, yet swift gait of the apes he had just been battling. An ambush...!

"Stop!" he yelled, snatching for the emergency brake. "Turn back?"

Motor-sound cut off, the sedan lurched, skidded, slewed half around. Its front wheels went into a ditch, there was a rending, tearing sound, the crack of fractured metal. His auto-seat dropped sickeningly beneath King and Naida lurched against him.

"Axle smashed," he grunted, icy with realization that escape in the sedan was impossible. Darkness blotted the road now, but senses sharpened by fear brought intimations to him of a black mass moving along it toward them. The skewed headlamp beam showed a wilted, straggly garden and an unpainted, low shack. Frail as it looked, it was the only shelter— better at least than the smashed car. He tugged at the door handle of the car, knew a moment of sinking despair as it resisted his efforts. He pounded his shoulder against it and it gave.

Sprawling out, King surged to his feet. Naida was staring at him from the car, white-faced, and now the pad of oncoming footfalls thudded menacingly against his ears. He mouthed some unintelligible exclamation, dragged the girl out, was pounding toward the lightless house.

"Dan!" the girl gasped in amazement as he pulled her roughly along. "Have you gone mad?"

King pulled in a sobbing breath as his feet pounded on a creaking porch. A door faced him in the drab wall and he snatched at its knob, praying that it was not locked. It went inward to his thrust. He pulled Naida inside, slammed the door shut, leaned against it.

"No," he lipped. "I'm not crazy, the world is." Naida was a pallid spectre in darkness. "Tried to keep it from you, but horrible things are loose in Cranport." His searching fingers, fumbling for a key or a bolt, felt splintered metal of a smashed lock. Furniture bulked vaguely in the gloom, he lurched for the largest, got hands on a heavy table, tried to drag it toward the door. "Help me."

Naida sprang to his assistance. The table moved, smashed against the portal just as unshod feet thumped on the porch beyond and a body thudded against the door. The whole structure shook to the impact. The girl screamed once and clung to King. Then a snuffling, animal sound came from outside, and at the same time— in the very room with them— they heard the slither of stealthy movement! The rustle of fabric scraping against the floor! Something was creeping craftily toward them...

4. Sean O'Flaherty's Doom

THE menace outside, the menace within, clutched King's throat with choking fear. Of the two the mysterious, crawling threat inside was the more imminent, the more appalling. The ape would be held back for a moment at least by the hasty barrier. Naida came up against him, he could feel her trembling, could hear her choked whimper. He got a hand into the pocket of his jacket, found wood matches. Got one out, scraped a thumb-nail across its head.

Murk fled when the match flared. A shabby, drab room sprang into flickering existence... a doorway in a scabrous wall. A hand, grey, skeleton-like, grasped its sash, low-down. A fleshless, cadaverous countenance hitched into view, almost level with the floor. Mad eyes glared at King from sunken, dark sockets and the barrel of a shotgun shoved out, lifted with snouting menace.

King leaped catapulting across the chamber. He had his fingers on the gun-barrel. It came away easily, too easily.

Naida shrieked, and the scrape of the barricading table cut across her scream. "I can't hold it," she screamed. "He's coming in." King whirled. The dark wall was slitted by white light from his wrecked car's headlights. The slit widened, was jogged by the table, by Naida's shoulder, was blotched by a silhouette beyond the door— by the tall black outline of a shaggy ape-flank.

The gun-butt jarred against his shoulder. "Get away," he yelled. "Get away, Naida!" The girl's white form swept aside, out of the line of fire. Gun-roar blasted, thunderous in the confined space. There was suddenly a jagged-edged, gaping hole in the door. A howl of rage and pain shrieked through the night.

King fired the other barrel and the roar of his shot was deafening. When the ringing in his ears faded, he heard a thin whistle and receding thumping sounds that quickly faded out to silence. He got to the door, scrambled over the table, peered out through the gap he had made. Vague, lurching shapes were just vanishing into night-invested shrubbery.

He wheeled. "They're gone," he gasped, shaking. "They're gone, Naida."

"Light. Make a light, Dan." The girl's tone was stifled, taut. A moan sounded, not from her.

King got out another match, snapped it into flame. Naida looked fearfully toward the doorway at the form that lay there. Dan King found an oil lamp and got it lit.

The figure at which Naida stared, wide-eyed, was a flaccid, deflated old man. Sparse, white wisps of hair barely covered his scalp, his skull was visible through the tight, almost transparent skin on his age-yellowed visage and wrinkled lids drooped over bulging eyeballs.

King went and looked down at the scrawny, half-clothed form. The thin back lifted and fell with shallow, labored breathing, but King's spine prickled as he saw the ancient's trailing legs, saw that they were horribly twisted, broken as a wanton child would break a despised doll.

Recognition palpitated in the aching throb of Dan's brain. This was Sean O'Flaherty, pensioned off by Roger Stone two years ago. This afternoon his son Francis had begged for leave to visit the ailing father, had not returned by nightfall. Now King knew he would never return. This was not the first visit the apes had made here tonight...

There was a sudden rattle in the old man's throat, the frail, tortured body arced, blood gushed from between thin lips. Then Sean O'Flaherty fell back, was still.

"A fighter to the last," King muttered. Evidently the old man had been aroused from a numbed coma by the noise of his and Naida's entrance, had thought them the simian marauders returning, had dragged himself along the floor on a mission of vengeance.

"Dan. Oh Dan," Naida quavered, shuddering. "What is going on here? What awful thing is going on?"

King got his arm around her, held her close. "I thought I could keep it from you— but listen..." Rapidly, concisely, he told her of those past terrible weeks. "That's why I was in such a rush to get to the plant, you'd be safe there. Now— with the car wrecked—  I don't know what we're going to do."

"They're afraid of the gun, Dan. They ran away when you fired."

He shook his head. "I've got a hunch they'll be back, Naida. There's something peculiar about those apes, about the whole thing— the grim, purposeful way they fight, the peculiar whistle that controls them... I have a queer feeling that a human is behind their activities, some human fiend..."

He broke off. The thrum of an approaching car came clearly in, rose to a roar, cut off. King wheeled to the door as footsteps thudded, lifted his shotgun. "Hello there," someone called. "Hello inside. Anything wrong?"

"Who's there?" King challenged. "Who is it?"

"That you, King...? Thought I recognized your car. This is Fenton— Warren Fenton of Hiawatha."

"Wait." King reached the door, pulled aside the table. Fenton came in, slim, dapper, his sharp face anxious.

"What— " he began. "Oh, hello, Miss Stone. I didn't know you were..." Then his expression changed as he saw King's weapon, as his eyes darted to the corpse on the floor. "Great Jupiter! What's happened?"

"Plenty," King snapped. "The damn beasts that've been raising hell around the country got one of my best men here—  killed this poor old man, almost got us. Apes, Fenton, great apes running wild!"

"I'll be damned. Apes!" Astonishment was vivid in the man's face. Was it acting or... King quenched the half-formed thought. Nonsense. He couldn't have anything to do with them. "Have you notified the police?" Fenton finished.

"The police! I've been trying to get Miss Stone to a place of safety. Take us to Mayflower, will you Fenton? I think we can get through now."

"Can't. I'm sorry. I've got to get back to the plant right away on the hop. But I pass the Stone place, I'll drop you off. You can 'phone the cops from there and I'll chase some of my guards over to help you till they come."

"Take us to your plant. I'm afraid..." King checked at Fenton's narrowed eyes, at the suspicion flaring in them. "Oh all right," he said wearily. "I understand. You're afraid I'll see your secrets."

The inside of the Big House was musty-smelling, fetid with the dust of disuse. Dan King locked the tall entrance door as Naida switched on light. He turned. "Where's the 'phone?"

Naida's hand came up to her throat. "Dan! I forgot! It's no good. We had it disconnected when we left."

A pulse throbbed in King's temple, but he managed a grin. "Never mind. Fenton's guards will be here soon. You go and wash those smudges off your sweet face. I'll stay on watch down here with this gun, but I don't think there's any real danger any more. We're too close to Hiawatha for them to attack us." He knew there was neither rhyme nor reason in the words, but he had to say something to quiet the girl's apprehension, to dim the little fires of terrible fear in her eyes.

"I— I had rather stay down here with you, Dan. I'm afraid. I'm deathly afraid."

The man made his tone firm. "Now do as I say. What kind of wife are you going to make if you're going to argue every time I tell you to do something?"

Naida smiled wanly. "Wife. How good that sounds! All right, dear. I'll obey." She turned from him, climbed tiredly upward.

King's tortured gaze followed her till she was out of sight on the landing above. Her small feet pattered along the upstairs hall. From outside leaves rustled, somehow ominously. Was it the wind soughing through the foliage or...? Apprehension swelled within him, tightened a squeezing hand to his heart. Then sudden anger brought a pulsing, red mist before his eyes. He wouldn't cringe here, waiting for an attack. He would go out, drive them away. He shot back the door-bolt, was outside.

Night shrouded the landscaped grounds, lay like a silent death-shroud over the lawn. The thick bole of an ancient locust blocked his vision and he strode a pace or two forward to get beyond the obstruction. A huge shadow dropped out of its foliage, hurtled down on him. The back of his head crashed against the tree-trunk and the World exploded into whirling, coruscating nothingness...

5: Flight Through The Trees

PAIN was a dark sea on which Dan King floated, slowly lifting, slowly sinking to the long roll of its slow tide. Now it changed to meshed network clothing his body, constricting, relaxing, tightening again with a leisurely, demoniac pulse. Pain throbbed in his every cell, his every sinew. It bathed him, seeped through him— a dull, queasy agony as though molten, hot quicksilver had replaced his life-fluids.

Light beat against his closed lids, searing his eyeballs, pressing against them like gouging thumbs. King moaned. Dim thought crawled within him and summoned up a nightmare memory of whispering voices, vague forms moving in a blaze of white light, piercing black eyes set in a swarthy face the lower half of which was grotesquely obliterated by white blankness. There had been a horrific black countenance, too, somewhere in the seething, vertiginous phantasmagoria— a dark browless visage that had been primitive evil incarnate... Steel had flashed, sharp steel descending toward him...

There was a stiffened silence about his torment, and the feeling of walls closing him in, and a sense of utter helplessness. Where was he, what had happened to him? What had happened to Naida whom his carelessness had betrayed? Had the apes...? Naida! The name was a tortured shriek in his blurred consciousness...

He was on his feet, staring about him wild-eyed, reeling with vertigo engendered by pain. He was in a small, white-walled room. The bed on which he had been lying was its only furnishing. There was an open window high up over the bed— but it was steel-barred.

King staggered to the door of the cell-like room. It was locked. He backed away, hunching a shoulder, crouching for a battering rush at it.

Sounds came from beyond the door, the padding movements of some ponderous body. Something brushed against the panel like bristles of a hairbrush scraping across it. Hair lifted at the back of King's neck and his lips snarled back from his teeth. A key clicked over and a throaty voice rumbled, outside.

Fear exploded in Dan King's soul, fear of that which was outside, of that which was coming in. He whirled, leaped to the bed. Reached high, grasping the bars, and pulled himself up to the sill, crouched in the window embrasure. Behind him hinges squealed, and an animal fetor, a bestial miasma, tainted the air.

He dared not look back, down. His hands folded around the bars, wrenched. Incredibly the steel rods were bending, were twisting. Strength surged up in him. He felt muscles bulging across his back, felt his upper arms swell, his neck cording. Stone split with a sharp report and the bars were lose in his hands. He lurched out through the opening, toes gripping the framework.

His legs straightened, catapulting him out from the sill, hurling him in a long arc out through darkness. Foliage was a rustling, blacker silhouette against a black sky and his arms flung out ahead of him, fingers curling. Leaves whipped across his face, twigs lashed him, and his clutching hands closed on rough bark of a limb that bent, dipped under the sudden weight of his body, but held. He pendulumed, threshing through the treetop. He let go of the branch he held, was falling, falling— had caught a still thicker branch where it forked out of the trunk.

His heels dug, rasping, into the bole; his knees clutched it. He was immobile, frozen against the friendly tree. He looked back, peering squint-eyed. Leaves, branches, were blackly laced across a white square that stared at him out of a dark wall. Great God! It was yards away from the nearest bough that could have supported him. He couldn't have jumped that distance! No man could have, impelled by whatever panic, by whatever terror.

But he had done it, amazingly he had done it and he was free. For the moment at least. From somewhere below shouts came, and a lane of light lay suddenly across greensward. Shadows cut it, the shadows of running men, of beings formed like man. King chuckled, was on the move. Some instinct told him how to do it, how to use his new found strength, his new dexterity in swinging through these treetops, in walking surefooted along bending limbs. He made no more noise through the leaves than the light breeze.

The sounds of the hunt travelled off, the hunters at fault. He would have liked to see them— known who it was that had taken him captive. The mystery of the terror, he knew, lay there for him to fathom. But a greater need drove him, a greater emergency. He must get away from here. He must get to the Big House on the Shore Road and find out if Naida were safe.

Dan King's nostrils flared. He had never before noticed how the damp night emphasized odors. He could distinguish the fresh green aroma of growing plants, other smells, staler, that reminded him of a zoo. From his right came a mixed odor of road-tar, gasoline, oil, a smell that could be made by nothing else but a highway. That was where he must go, then, to the right.

The clump of trees which was an easy path to his uncanny skill petered out. But the last branch arched over a high wall, and from beyond that the road-smell came very strong. Dan King worked out along the bough, hand over hand, till it dipped beyond the barrier. The highway was fully fifteen feet below, but, not stopping to think, King let go his hold.

He swopped downward, landed on all fours. Bent arms and legs took the shock like springs. He was scarcely shaken. He rose, threw an apprehensive glance about him. The sky was overcast and it was very dark, but somehow his sight, like his sense of smell, had grown keener, more acute. He made out the high lift of the wall over which he had come, its crenellated top, running off into the distance. There was only one wall like that near Cranport, the one bounding the old Fosdick Estate where the Salburn Shows wintered. The Salburn Shows... Speculation stirred within him, eluded him...

The physical prowess, the sense of well-being that filled him despite the still throbbing ache to which he had awakened seemed to be matched by a corresponding mental sluggishness. What was the urgency beating at him, the dread that blanketed him? Oh yes! Naida! He must get to Naida's home, must find out whether she was there, whether— they had taken her, too.

They... The thought made him afraid again, dreadfully afraid. He was loping down the dark road. He stooped over, his arms hanging loosely in front of him, his hands curled. He could run faster that way. He came out into a broader boulevard. An orange light hung over the intersection from a wire running across between two tall poles. This was Shore Road, the Big House stood a mile to the left.

King started to turn in that direction. Sudden light blazed all about him. He whirled, saw an interurban trolley driving down upon him. It meant help, help to get quickly to Naida, human aid to battle the menace of the apes so mysteriously ravaging the countryside. He lifted his arm in signal. Brakes grated, the trolley was slowing. It loomed over him, the motorman peering out. The man's face went suddenly livid, incredulous terror flared into his eyes. And the car picked up speed, thundered past, careened down the road.

King stared after it, stunned. The fear of death had been in that florid countenance. What was there about himself to...?

He shrugged away dazed speculation. He had no time for pondering, no time to fathom the car-man's startling behavior. He must get to the Big House, must get to Naida. He was loping, bent-legged, shambling-footed along concrete hot with the August sun that burned his feet. He swerved to grass plots at the sidewalk's edge, found the footing firmer, easier. He sprinted past widely separated dwellings that were lightless, blind. Nobody lived out here any longer, they had moved into the center of the town to huddle for mutual protection against the frightful creatures that came by night to carry people off from their very beds. He'd been a fool, a witless dunce to have let Fenton persuade him to take Naida to the Big House.

Oh God! Was she there? Was she in the grim structure, back there in the woods, suffering Satan alone knew what tortures? He stopped stark-still, paralyzed by sudden indecision. Should he go on? Perhaps he should go back for help...

A siren wailed in the distance, the siren of a police cruiser! It screamed nearer, coming fast. Thank God! Oh, thank God! He would stop them, tell them what he knew! Here was help! The car rushed nearer, its headlights two green spots in the darkness. King jumped out in the road, waving his arms above his head, shouting.

The siren cut off. An orange spark flashed among the dark bulks of the hurtling car's occupants. Another. Dust spat from the concrete in front of him, a car track clanged, and tardily the double crack of rifle shots reached Dart King. They were shooting at him! At him! Gun-flare spat again, and something zoomed past King's ear, like a buzzing, virulent bee.

He spun around, a black mass of trees looming at the roadside. He leaped for them, was in among them, was scrambling up a shag-barked trunk. The police car squealed to a stop, through the leaves he saw men spraying out of it, rifles like sticks in their hands. They were in under him.

"We've got the damn devil!" someone shouted. "He's in here somewhere. Anyone sees him, shoot to kill!"

Underbrush threshed as heavy, sweating men ploughed through it. The sharp odor of their bodies stung King's nostrils. He could tell where each one was by the hiss of his breathing, by his aroma. He slipped silently through the arborage, working west, toward the Big House. He was quivering within. He was a hunted beast, an outcast. By some strange trick of fate every man's hand was against him, to capture, to slay.

6: Man Into Beast

THE trees along the route he took were evenly spaced in long rows that spread away from him on either side. The tang of rotted, fermenting apples was acrid. This was an old orchard, abandoned, run wild. Recollection stirred. There was just such an orchard alongside the Stone mansion. Was this it? Was he so near, so very near? So near, and so damnably far— with armed men below him, eager to blast him with their bullets, to make carrion of him...

Foliage thinned. He was at the end of the grove. He lay along a bough of the last tree and squinted out. A pulse thumped in his temple. There it was, the place that was called the Big House, majestic against the lowering heavens. The roof over the kitchen-addition jutted out at him from the high blackness of a windowless wall; ended below him, thirty feet away.

Man-smell was pungent in King's nostrils. His hackles rose, and he peered down into the murk of the cleared space between. A still, shadowy figure was down there, tense. Light from somewhere glinted on metal, the barrel of a rifle!

Dan's neck swelled. Small muscles in his face knotted, tightening his upper lip in a soundless snarl. Saliva drooled from the corners of his mouth. This was one of the men who had shot at him, who were hunting him down. He was waiting there, waiting to kill Dan King, to keep him from his mate. Hate was a dark flood in his brain, hardening into sly craftiness.

King gathered his legs and arms under him, slowly, carefully, so as to make no warning sound. He was crouching now on the bough, his sinews quivering with leashed eagerness.

Now! He dropped, fierce hands outstretched, down on his enemy. A white face flashed up at him, and he pounded down on the man. His fingers flashed to a soft throat, dug in. The body under him arched. Hands tore at his strong arms that were like columns of steel. Eyes stared into his own out of a purpling face, eyes black with agony and incredulous terror.

King's blood ran riot with triumph. In savage longing he wanted to tear, rend this weakling he had so easily conquered. Wild laughter rattled in his chest. His knees crunched into a soft belly. He gouged viciously...

The eyes into which he glared glazed over. The man was struggling no longer, was limp. Suddenly Dan King retched. Realization swept him with a sick nausea, and his throttling claws opened. Good Lord! What was it he was doing? What in God's name was this ferocity that boiled turbulently within him, this clamor to kill, to destroy, to sink his teeth into warm flesh? He rolled away, rose, stood trembling, shivering with a grisly dread.

A whistle shrilled. Others answered, one by one, from every point of the compass. A long quiver ran through the flaccid figure on the ground, and pulled-in breath squeeched.

"Who's missing?" a distant voice said. "Someone didn't answer." Then, "Jack'." Alarm was a knife edge in the bawled call. "Jack Parker! Where are you?"

"The other side of the orchard!" another voice. "Hell! Maybe the blasted thing got him." Running sounds came nearer, fear-shot curses. "Jack! Jack!"

Panic blazed in Dan. He whirled away, leaped the steps of the kitchen, twisted its door knob. The portal resisted him; he crashed a huge fist at the dull gleam of the key-plate. Metal snapped, and the door flew open.

He was inside, had shut the door behind him, was crouched against it. Muffled voices came through. "Here he is! Gees! He's only half alive." "We'll never get the... now; he's out in the fields." "The house...? "Naw, it's locked up, the Stones have been away for months. Come on guys, we've got to get Jack to a hospital, quick." Voices hushed by dread, by a queasy terror of something their owners did not understand. Sounds of thudding feet, going away, of a whimpering moan. Sounds of a car rushing away, police siren screaming its melancholy, fearful wail. Then quiet...

Silence, and the musty smell of old meals in Dan King's nostrils, of cold stove-metal. Darkness, and the feel of being enclosed, the stifling sensation of being shut in— a sensing of eerie shapes bulking about him, prickling his spine, bristling the hairs at the back of his neck with taut fear.

He battled down frantic desire to get out of here— out into the open. The house was so silent, so dreadfully still. Naida! Oh God— they had taken Naida! She was gone! She was back there in the place from which he had escaped and filthy, lascivious paws were mishandling her palpitant body— leathery black paws dripping with the blood of their victims.

He sprang erect, unaware that his knuckles had been resting on the floor, and thumped across a cold stone-place, out through a doorway. He was at the rear of the wide entrance foyer, and stairs lifted beside him, slanting up out of darkness into darkness. His throat worked, whimpering. Her name blasted out of his heaving chest.

"Naida," he shouted, despairingly, not daring to hope for an answer. "Naida!"

Small thumps struck the ceiling over him. A pale shape showed above him, wraithlike, a shape he could just see through the stair-rails. Then his heart leaped to a startled, fear-thinned cry.

"Dan! Oh, Dan dear!"

"Naida! Are you all right? Are you...?"

She was coming down. "I've been so frightened, Dan. You were gone when I looked for you, and Mr. Fenton's men never came. I've been hiding up here in the dark, so terribly afraid. What happened? Why did you go away?"

A switch clicked. Light sprang into being. The jetty cascade of her hair framed her dear face, her curving, red lips. Luminance struck through the sheer silk of her nightgown, limning the luscious curves of her body. Hot desire swept Dan like an up-surging wave, choked him. He wanted her, wanted... He came out into the light.

Naida's mouth jerked open, and a scream knifed out of it. Her eyes were wide, terrified. She spun around, dove for the great front door beyond, her shriek ripping the dusty air. King sprang after her—  and something leaped at him, out of a doorway to his left.

He whirled to it, met the glare of a horrific visage— a brutish, hairy countenance. A pallid arm flailed out at him. He crouched, then leaped to meet the Thing's leap. He crashed into glass! Glass shattered about him, the shards ripped him.

The Thing was gone. No! It had never been there. Dan King stared, incredulous, at the ruined remnants of a tall mirror! In jagged fragments of glass still jutting from the frame, he saw broken reflections of a white, unclothed torso, of a bristle-blackened jaw.

Realization exploded in his reeling brain. The Thing he had thought about to attack him had been his own reflection. It was he! He was no longer Dan King. He was something half ape, half man. He was a grotesque, loathsome freak, a thing of soul-shattering horror, of terror unspeakable.

No wonder the motorman had been all but paralyzed with fear at the sight of him! No wonder the police squad had come screaming out to shoot him down like some unspeakable foulness! No wonder Naida had plunged out...

Naida! He spun to the open door through which she had gone. There she was, a white figure running across the lawn, running toward a high hedge that half-screened the pale ribbon of the highway. She screamed...

Two huge, black forms surged out of the greenery. Naida twisted, shrieking, but they had her. She was thrown over the shoulder of one, and the couple vaulted the hedge. A horn hooted, beyond, and a car motor roared into action.

King catapulted out of the door, down the steps, hurtled across the lawn, crashed through brambles. He was out in the road, racing after the rushing sound of the auto. A red tail light winked at him, mocking, dwindled to a point, vanished.

Oh God! Oh merciless God! She was in their clutches! His Naida was in the power of those who had made him the unspeakable monstrosity he was!

Scarlet rage shook Dan King, horror unspeakable gibbered at him from rustling darkness. The terror-beasts had swooped upon Naida. She was in the hands of grisly, cruel monsters who were all the more terrible because of a mysterious, human intelligence that seemed to direct them, control their outrages with a cunning uncannily not brutish. Naida was in their hands, and he himself was stamped with the mark of the beast, was an outcast against whom every man's hand was turned. He was a changeling, besweared, transformed by some evil metamorphosis, a leprous monster every man must flee from in terror, or fight to kill. Naida was in desperate danger, and he was powerless to help her, powerless to summon aid— alone, weaponless, naked...

Naked! Clothed, hatted, he might not be so terrifying an apparition. His awesome appearance masked, he might get close enough to someone to explain himself, to tell his unbelievable tale, get help to Naida before it was everlastingly too late. Wait! The glimmerings of a plan began to form in his aching, tortured brain. His own plant was miles away, far to the other side of Cranport. But Fenton's was nearby, just over the ridge to which the road began to mount. Men with guns were there, autos...

He wheeled, sprinted for the open door of the Big House. Some of Stone's clothes would surely be there! The need for haste screamed at him. A terrible urgency hammered in his racked soul. Hurry! Before the fiends had time to set to work on Naida! Hurry! Before the man with the half-face and the piercing eyes could consummate that awful change in her. Hurry! Please God, let him be in time!

King lurched wearily along the ten-foot fence surrounding the Hiawatha plant. He hadn't been able to button the trousers he had found. Stone's shoes didn't fit him and he was still barefoot. But the borrowed topcoat, tight across his shoulders hid his nakedness and a broad-brimmed hat was pulled low down over his face. If he could have shaved...

A five hundred watt lamp, ahead, spilled light in front of a high gate. King got to the circle of glare, pounded on the barrier. A small door in it opened, a man slouched out, short-barreled rifle lying across his palms, finger on the trigger.

"What the hell?" he demanded, leering at King out of beady eyes in a pinched, pasty-complexioned face. "What d'yer want?"

"Get Fenton! Get the other guards, rifles, cars. I've located the terror hideout and it's got Naida Stone," Dan King shouted. No! Oh God! He couldn't make his tongue form another single human word! All that came out was a chattering roar, an animal cry, wordless, unmeaning. His skin was a cold sheath for his body, ice-crystals formed in his veins, damming the blood-rush. The change was still going on, he was more nearly an ape now, a beast. He had lost the faculty of human speech! He could no longer tell this man, tell anyone, what he wanted, what was happening to Naida, how to find her!

The man's gun jerked up, snouted at Dan's chest. "Come out o' there," he growled. "Come out before I blow yer guts t'rough yer backbone." Amazingly there was no surprise in his tone, no fear. Only gruff command.

King jerked his arms up over his head. His hand touched the brim of his hat in passing, knocked it off. The guard grunted.

"Hey Harry, Gyp," he bawled, not turning, keeping his weapon rock-steady on King. "Cm out here. Look what I got. One o' the monks dressed up, walkin' around saucy as ye please an' bawlin' at me."

Two other low-browed, high cheek-boned roustabouts ran out into the light. "Hell," one yawned. "Yuh're drunk, Baldy. It's— " He saw King, stopped. "By Gawd, so it is. Someone's goin' ter get the works fer this funny business."

Their talk, their acceptance of his unholy appearance, trailed an impossible speculation across the dizzy chaos of King's mind. But what mattered now was that he had to make them understand, had to get help to Naida. He licked his lips, tried again. All he could manage was senseless chatter.

"Bring it inside." The one called Harry seemed of a slightly higher caliber, was not quite as uncouth, as gangster-like, as the others. There was something vaguely familiar about his broad features, his narrow, agate-hard eyes. "March it over to the barracks. I'll 'phone up you're comin'."

Then King remembered that face— pictured under flaring headlines. "Bollinger Leads Jail-Break. Public Enemy No. 1 and a Dozen Lifers Shoot Way to Freedom!"

"Christmas!" Gyp mouthed. "There's goin' ter be hell ter pay over this. The boss is goin' ter want ter know how it got out, an' why. I vote fer bumping it off an' ditchin' it in th' swamp. That way, the boss won't know nothin' about it."

King shook his head, trying to clear it. Dread closed in about him once more. These men would kill him out of hand, and then Naida was lost, irretrievably lost.

"You was on the wall this evenin', wasn't you, Gyp?" Bollinger said softly, meaningfully. "Or was you in th' guardhouse playin' poker when you ought to have been on the wall, watchin' that none o' them got out?"

"Hell!" Gyp swung around on him. "What's it to you where I was." He reached under his left arm-pit, cursing. An automatic was suddenly in Bollinger's hand. Baldy's gaze shifted to the byplay.

King saw his chance. He leaped, lashing at Baldy's gun. Somehow it was in his hand. It was a club he swung full-force against the man's head. It landed, crunched sickeningly. There was no longer a face where it had struck—  just a puffy, blood-covered place. He was past Baldy's falling body, had smashed a devastating fist against Bollinger's jaw, had whirled to the other man. That one gaped, his eyes goggling, his mouth open. King left the ground in a long leap. As he came down his hand clamped on the wrist of a hand which was rising with a black automatic in it.

He twisted. Bone cracked and the man screamed, piteously. King's other hand, the clubbed gun somehow jolted from it, found the fellow's throat. He felt gristle scrape under his powerful constriction, saw blood gush from the fellow's mouth. Wild triumph surged in him... Then the roar of a gun blasted from the ground behind him.

A red hot iron seared across King's scalp, darkness exploded inside his skull. He slid down into a sick blackness...

7: The Hell-Surgeon's Lust

THE crash of a stamping machine, the scream of a power- lathe, seeped into Dan King's sodden sleep. For weeks, for months, those sounds had pounded their infernal obbligato into the cat-naps he had snatched wherever outraged nature had finally asserted itself. The crash of machinery, the strain under which he was working, the grisly, mysterious menace of the terror outside, had given birth to weird nightmares, troubling even the sleep of utter exhaustion. This last one had been a beauty...

King forced his leaden lids open. He was lying on the floor of the assembling-room balcony, was faced so he could look down on its floor. He blinked, dazedly. Queer! Was he still dreaming? Those weren't men posted along the moving conveyor. Not men tightening bolts, fitting in gears, bearings, building cars as they moved past. They were apes, huge black apes, brute-visaged, hairy, their grotesque hands flashing with uncanny skill like— like the chimpanzee he had killed at the Salburn Shows, that memorable night.

Realization blasted through him. No! It wasn't a dream. Would to heaven that it were! Great Lord above! These weren't his own works! This was the Hiawatha plant. Those were great apes working down there, dexterously, with a deftness no human could surpass. They were apes! No wonder Fenton could cut under his price, cut it down to where there was no possible leeway for paying labor. He didn't pay labor?!

Fenton had been at the show that night, had seen the miracle Zortal's eerie genius had accomplished, the training of a brute to do everything a man could do. He had made a dicker with the trainer, had gotten him to train hundreds of the animals...

To train! Good Lord, where could they have gotten so many, trained them all in so short a time? Full understanding swept on King like a dark avalanche. They didn't train them! They made them! They took humans and by some Satanic alchemy turned them into chimpanzees, set them to work with escaped convicts— killers— as guards over them. As guards, not to keep out the terror that had devastated Cranport— to keep it in! Fenton, Zortal, were the prime movers of the frightful scene— the demons behind it! It was they who had desolated Cranport's homes, shucked them like crackling nuts to extract the kernels that were food for their greed! That demoniac chemistry was at work in his own blood, was making an ape of him, was turning him into one of these brutish monstrosities...

It was no dream. Oh God! It had been no dream. His long odyssey of terror, the weird alternation of man and beast within him— now one, now the other ascendant— had been no nightmare. He had not dreamed the hunt through the orchard, and Naida's capture.

Naida, his Naida was in their hands, they were at work on her. They were making an ape of Naida! Dan leaped to his feet, tried to leap. Cords cut into his arms, his legs. Cords gashed him, held him immovable. He was bound, helpless to save himself, to save Naida...

He groaned, rolled over. Feet thudded, and Bollinger's narrowed, murderous gaze looked down at him. A livid bruise decorated the gangster's jaw; there was clotted blood on his lips.

"So you're awake, you...!" The epithet dripped foulness. "I've got a mind to smash your brains out like you did poor Baldy's."

King stared up at him. Even this killer, this calloused spawn of the underworld, would help Naida if he knew what was being done to her. He must tell him about Naida!

"Woof, waroo," he chattered. "Grrumph."

Horror, despair, twisted his vitals. Intelligible speech was gone from him forever, speech and the last glimmering chance of aid for Naida.

"Cripes," Bollinger gritted. "I don't know why Zortal says you got to go back so he can finish you up. Your face looks like a monk's now, even if you ain't got no hair on your chest, and you sure talk like one. Here, see how you like this."

He stooped, swiped vindictively at King's head with his open palm. There was the glint of metal in it, then the flat of an automatic crashed against King's temple. Pain split through his head. He arched up, throwing himself at his tormentor, fell back as thongs cut into his arms, his legs. Bollinger rained blows upon him, snarling, eyes slitted and gleaming sadistically. King's head was ringing. Dizzy black clouds were swirling before his sight, through the agony of the terrible beating. He writhed... was dimly aware that the blows had stopped. He clung to shreds of consciousness desperately and heard another voice above him: "Harry, you fool, quit that. Zortal will tear your liver out for it."

"The hell with Zortal. Nobody cracks Harry Bollinger an' gets away with it. If Zortal— "

"Shut up, you ass. Here he comes."

King couldn't get his eyes open, couldn't think. He lay in his welter of agony and heard approaching feet click, heard an eager voice snap. "Where is he? Where's the rat that escaped?"

"Right here, Mr. Zortal. Here on the floor."

Through his nausea, through the black clouds swirling about him, drawing him down into their oblivion, King was conscious of someone standing above him, of an inimical, hating gaze beating down on him.

"Who did that? Who beat him up like that?"

Bollinger replied, "I did. He sloughed me an' I took it out o' him. What do you say to that."

There was the sudden sharp sound of an open hand slapping flesh. "This," Zortal snapped. "This."

A howl of rage and the sound of a scuffle followed. A soothing voice spoke: "Hold it, Harry. Y'gotta take it an' like it. They've got us dead to rights, remember. If they turn us in we burn."

King lost his slender hold on awareness and went down, down into a miasmic darkness, into a stupor that was not quite wholly unconsciousness, so that vague intimations reached him of his being lifted and carried off, of the rattle and sway of a moving auto, of his being carried again. He was viciously thrown down on some hard footing, the shock of the impact brought merciful oblivion...

When consciousness drifted back, a fetid, animal odor, assailed King's nostrils. He forced his heavy-lids open to darkness that pressed in on his eyeballs. He lifted instinctively; dazedly unsurprised that he was no longer bound. Dread sucked at him like the stinking mire of a bog and red sparks drifted in the blackness. Spots of red-glowing fire came menacingly toward him. Fear flared within him, and even in that moment of overpowering terror and awful despair, plucked at the very vitals of his being, as the thought of Naida seared across his pulsing brain. Then something growled in the sightlessness, and, black against black, he was aware of a plunging, gigantic bulk.

Sudden light sprayed in and Zortal stood framed in a doorway. The illumination showed Zortal, showed a huge ape leaping at King. Zortal's arm was uplifted, a lash hissed from its quick down-flick, writhed around the beast's belly, flung it backward.

King crouched, leaped at Zortal. The whip caught him with a fiery sting, stopping his rush. It jerked away, struck again, cutting into him, wrung a squeal of agony from his hoarse throat. He slammed to the ground, groveled, his arms covering his head, his body quivering to the virulent, merciless torture of the lash.

It stopped at last, leaving him a broken, bleeding thing. "That's your lesson, King," the man snarled. "You'll behave, now, till I come back for you." He laughed, gloatingly, humorlessly, and there was grisly threat in the weird cachinnation.

He turned to the ape that had been attacking King, and his whiplash flicked out, driving the brute before him, driving the lumbering anthropoid out of the doorway. King saw a passageway beyond, then the door slammed shut, cutting off light.

He lay prostrate, whimpering, beaten, heedless to the rustling sound of another simian coming toward him. Death would be welcome now, death would release him from the torturing thought of his loved one helpless in the hands of the sadistic demon. But a rough tongue licked his wounds, warm spittle drooled along his aching flank. A shudder of revulsion shook him. He rolled away...

Above him a square of light, crossed by a close pattern of black bars, flared into existence. King rolled to it, struggled upright, reached hands up to its sill. He pulled himself up, looked through... Horror burst upon him— soul-shaking horror...

NAIDA STONE came awake to the terror of the dark room where she had been imprisoned, to the terror of wall-muffled, bestial roaring. Her bare feet thudded as she leaped from the bed, her heart pounding, fear clutching her throat. She crouched, staring into darkness. The ferocious sounds suddenly ceased, after one wild, high shriek of an animal in torment. But the silence that followed seemed alive with furtive movement.

The outlines of her cell became vaguely visible— the glimmer of walls, the darker outlines of a door. Naida bit her lip, forced her cold limbs into motion. She reached the door, found the knob. But there was no use; it was still locked as it had been when first she had recovered consciousness and had battled for release, only to sink at last into a stupor of exhaustion.

A sob formed in her chest, welled out from between her writhing lips. What was happening out there? What had happened? Were the monsters whose prisoner she was battling for her, for possession of her? Had one conquered, was he even now coming for her? Footfalls thumped beyond the door, came nearer. A scream contorted her vocal cords, then aborted in a soundless rasp. The knob twisted in her hand that still held it and a key clicked.

Naida's shoulder was against the panel, her legs were stiff, her feet gripped the floor. The door moved in, slowly, inexorably. A slit of light at its edge increased as the girl's bulging eyes watched it, widened—  and she could not stop it. A black hand showed, jogging the light, closed on the door-edge. With the additional leverage the barrier swung more rapidly inward. Naida's legs buckled, and she slid to the floor, lay there quivering.

Shoes tramped in along the path of light. Shoes! Relief flared in Naida, and she rolled over, looked along trousered legs, along a white robe, seamless, to stocky shoulders of a white-gowned man looking down at her, his face swarthy, glowering.

The man was Zortal, the animal trainer she had seen at the carnival so long ago! Understanding flashed through Naida's dizzy brain, release from nightmare horror. In his absence some of his apes had escaped, had carried her off. He had returned, punished them, come to release her.

"Oh," she gasped. "Oh, I am so glad you are here. So glad..."

She stopped, her scalp tightening. Why did he smile so grimly, so menacingly, why did his black, piercing eyes fix upon her unclothed form so hotly?

"You are glad," slow words dropped down to her. "That makes me happy. I had not anticipated such a reception."

Her lips were icy. "What— what do you mean?" she managed to ask. "What do you mean?"

His smouldering look was a lewd caress. He gestured. "What could I mean, gazing at a body so beautiful, so divine. The actuality is even lovelier, more enticing than the promise I discerned when I first saw you. Do you remember, that night at the circus when your lover killed my clever creature, the first reward of my researches, and incurred my undying hatred? I have not forgotten, I hated him for that, and I hated him even more because you were his. I promised him a special fate, but I promised myself— you!"

Naida twisted, was on her feet. "No," she choked. "No! You beast, you filthy beast! I'd die before I let you touch me!"

Zortal's lids narrowed. Through their slits his eyes were somehow reptilian, and there was a hiss in his accents. "You disdain me?" He shrugged, and his smile was an obscene grin twisting across his face. "You refuse Zortal the Great? Well, Zortal shall not force you, but he shall have you. Willingly he shall have you. Come."

8:  Death And Horror Blended

TO Naida's agonized comprehension it was clear only that he had retreated from his monstrous proposition, that he was motioning her to the door. She went past him, out into a lighted corridor.

"To the right," Zortal called. "The door to the right."

The girl whirled, snatched at the door she saw before her. It opened, she plunged through, stopped, aghast. This was not the way out! It was another room. A table flashed before her vision, its top a white slab at the sides of which angle-irons rose, centered by open metal cuffs. Near the table a great ape squatted, its handcuffed wrists chained to the arms of the chair in which it sat. Over the huge, hairy animal, steel bars were fitted vertically across a great square opening in the wall...

She spun about. Zortal was in the doorway, coming in, grinning evilly, triumphantly. She sprang at him, clawing for his lascivious eyes. He seized her wrist with one rubber gloved hand, held her off, ripped her nightgown from her with his other. Even in her terror, her outrage, a hot flush burned her cheeks as she knew that she was naked before him.

He pulled her to him, his fiery breath gusting over her face. His burning lips slobbered on hers. She flailed at him with her free hand, with ripping nails.

He lifted her, insensible to her cries, her flailing nails, the kick of her naked foot. He threw her on the table, and magically her wrists were in the metal bracelets that he snapped closed. Springing to the foot of the table, Zortal grasped her flailing feet, forced them down, and cold metal clamped around her ankles, held her helpless.

Naida's screams rasped into voicelessness, into terror-numbed quiet. Zortal chuckled, threw a white sheet over her so that only her heaving chest, her head were exposed. "I shall not share the sight of your beautiful curves with another," he lipped, "just yet."

The girl lay gasping, exhausted. Fear crawled gelid in her veins, squeezed her pulsing brain. A hospital odor was acrid in the thick air about her, blending with the fetid stench of the ape. She turned her head to the brute, seeking its snouted, black face rather than the evil, leering countenance of the man. Movement above pulled her gaze to the cage-front.

Hands gripped the vertical bars, a face came into sight, a hairy face. Oh God! A monstrous creature, ape-faced, man-bodied, hung in the barred aperture, leering out at her, pounding at the steel. It was the appalling beast from which she had fled when Dan's call had brought her downstairs.

Dan! Mother of Mercy! Her soul was pronged with recollection of the man she loved, with fear for him. This caged thing must have struck him down, must have killed him even in the moment he had called to her. Its mouth worked, hideously, stark madness glared at her out of its eyes in which there was a shuddersome, almost human semblance. Its long white arm reached out to her...

"Antonio," Zortal called from the doorway. "Antonio, I am ready." A surgeon's mask of white gauze was over the lower part of his swarthy face, making him gargoylesque, somehow weird. Another man came into the room. This one was also gowned in a half-sleeved robe of white, was also masked with white gauze. A white turban covered his skull, came low down on his brow, so that all that could be seen of his face was agate-hard, merciless eyes and thin nose.

"Who are you," Zortal spoke sharply. "You are not my assistant..."

"No." The second man answered, hoarsely. "I'm Crandall, one o' the guards. Antonio got sick and he knew I once studied medicine, so he 'phoned up to the plant for me to come and help you. He said for me to tell you that I wouldn't squeal— that you can trust me."

Zortal appeared doubtful. "Can you give an anesthetic?" he inquired.

"Ether or gas?"

"Ether, on a cone."

"Sure thing."

"We shall go to work, then. The woman, first."

"She don't look sick."

Zortal laughed, shortly, gruesomely. "No, Crandall, she is not sick. You are about to see such an operation as none of your professors would believe possible. Only the great Zortal knows the secret of it— and it shall die with Zortal. But this much I can tell you, so that you may help me intelligently. I am about to excise a certain gland from this chimpanzee and transplant it in a new place, in the body of this woman— " Zortal broke off. "There's the ether can, on the shelf behind you, also the cone."

Crandall picked the things up, started dripping ether on the mask that was to go over Naida's face. From a sterilizer Zortal lifted a scalpel, came toward her. His eyes were wide now, staring.

"Go on," Crandall muttered. "What's this gland business for?"

Zortal's chuckle was the evil chortle of a madman—  or a fiend. "You shall see. In half an hour her human attributes will fade. Her features will coarsen. She will chatter instead of speaking. She will— "

"A monk! D'you mean that's how...?"

"That is how I make the apes you have seen," explained Zortal, nodding toward the ape-man shackled near the table. But Naida heard no more.

"No," she screamed. "No! You can't do that to me. You can't — !" Her body arched, straining against the metal that gripped her wrists, her ankles. "Kill me—  but don't do that to me. Don't, don't, don't!"

Zortal bent over her, the keen scalpel poised. "You had your chance. You refused me. Now you shall be unable to refuse. Before the change is completed I shall possess you, and then I shall give you to the others. You shall have the honor of proving whether they can breed...!"

"Hey! Leggo!" Zortal whirled to Crandall's sudden shout. The assistant's mask was ripped away by the clutch of the ape-man's hand that had suddenly reached through the bars. The creature's other long arm was clawing out for him, and he was snarling, growling bestial fury. Crandall jumped forward, out of reach.

"Bollinger!" Zortal yelled. "You are Bollinger, not Crandall."

There was suddenly a black automatic in the other man's fist. "Yeah," he lipped. "Bollinger. D'ye think you were going to get away with slapping me. Me!"

The ape-man behind the caged aperture roared with rage, his bellow shaking the room, rattling the instruments within it. Naida's screams added to the pandemonium, while the howls of another simian that had come up beside the ape-man rent the air as it aided him in shaking the bars, in tugging at them with a violence, a fury, that seemed to be bending them.

But through the tumult Bollinger's shouted words impacted on Naida's ears. "I conked Antonio and then I got into his clothes thinkin' maybe I could muscle in on your racket before I put you away. That's no good, but this still is." Gun-bark detonated suddenly through the riot— then again and again. Orange flame streaked at Zortal. On his white gown a red splotch showed. Like a ripped meal-sack he crumpled to the floor.

The shock of it momentarily stilled the pandemonium. Naida's screams choked off, the caged animals, the shackled beast-thing in the room, were silent. Bollinger came slowly around to the girl, advanced slowly to her side.

"Now, my pretty," Bollinger lipped, "let's look you over." With his unoccupied hand he twitched away the sheet with which Zortal had covered her. "Mmmm," he breathed, licking his lips. "Ni-i-ce!"

Feet pounded outside, the door crashed open. "Zortal!" Naida's father's voice sounded incredibly. "Have you heard anything of Naida...?" He stopped abruptly, stood stark-still in the doorway, his eyes on the girl. "Oh God! Naida!"

"Stone," Bollinger gasped. "What the hell are you after?"

The older man twisted to him. "Bollinger," he shouted. "You've got a hand in this! I'll turn you over to— " Flat gun-report stopped him, he swayed, his face suddenly greyed. He grabbed at the table-end for support.

"Squeal on me, will you?" Bollinger gritted. "That'll shut your trap."

"Murderer!" Naida shrieked. "You've killed him...!"

The ape in the chair lurched. His heavy seat toppled against Bollinger, and the slayer stumbled backward, against the wall-cage. Clutching, reaching out between the bars, the man-ape had him. Strong fingers were about his neck, were digging in. The man's eyes popped from their sockets, blood vomited from his mouth. Then he hung, a limp, bedraggled, lifeless thing, from the grip of the monster that had avenged Naida's father.

"Daddy," the girl yelled, futilely straining to get to him. "Dad! Are you hurt?"

Roger Stone's tortured countenance turned to her. "Yes," he gasped. His hand was clutched to his breast and wet redness dripped through his fingers. "Yes. He— he got me. Can you— forgive me, Naida— before I die?"

"Forgive you? For what?"

"For— all this. I— was the cause of it— all. I couldn't— see you married to washwoman's son. I had— bought Hiawatha that day from— United Motors. King— didn't know it."

Color was draining out of his face, but somehow his voice had grown stronger. "I planned to ruin Mayflower and King with Hiawatha's competition, prevent your marriage that way. I motored back here from Florida, by night, meaning to give Hiawatha the new— car. It would take six months to adapt their plant. Too long. Fenton told me about Zortal's miraculous act at the carnival— and I got... idea. I sent for Zortal and he told me what he could do. I was desperate— offered him Mayflower when it failed— could be bought in for a song. He accepted."

"But what did he do, Father? What was it he did for you?"

"Made apes of men so that we could have their work for nothing. They kept only memory enough to be able to go on with their usual work. It—  " Stone gurgled, blood bubbled at his lips, he lurched, dropped...

"Naida!" Dan's voice, hoarse, rumbling, sounded in the murder chamber. "Naida!" The girl twisted. Her name was coming from the lips of the being that had been in the cage! The being— it was Dan. Dan! "Naida! Oh God! I can talk again. I can talk!"

With the help of the other beast-thing he had pulled some of the bars out— escaped from the cage!

She fought the manacles chaining her to the table, surged fruitlessly against them. "Dan! What have they done to you?"

"Not— changed yet!" came a new voice. A shirtless, staggering man clung to the door-jamb, his hands clutching it, blood streaming down his white, pain-twisted face, from a wound in his scalp. "Not all changed. Started to, but not time for transfusion— treatment to complete... job. Zortal hadn't made transfusion yet. Gland alone— not enough, is being absorbed. Man again— soon."

Antonio— it must be Zortal's assistant— pitched forward, thudded down atop her father's sprawled legs.

"Thank God," Naida gasped. "Oh thank— " Running feet pounded outside, a policeman barged in, a rifle coming up to his shoulder. "What's all the shoot-in'...?" He stopped, gaped unbelievingly at what the room held.

Naida's mouth twitched. "I... oh— " with a convulsive shudder she fainted in the arms of Dan King, who could talk again— who was slowly becoming a man once more!

________________________

8: The Looking Glass

J.D. Beresford

1873-1947

The Cornhill Magazine Aug 1921

THIS WAS the first communication that had come from her aunt in Rachel's lifetime.

"I think your aunt has forgiven me, at last," her father said as he passed the letter across the table.

Rachel looked first at the signature. It seemed strange to see her own name there. It was as if her individuality, her very identity, was impugned by the fact that there should be two Rachel Deanes. Moreover there was a likeness between her aunt's autograph and her own, a characteristic turn in the looping of the letters, a hint of the same decisiveness and precision. If Rachel had been educated fifty years earlier, she might have written her name in just that manner.

"You're very like her in some ways," her father said, as she still stared at the signature.

Rachel's eyelids drooped and her expression indicated a faint, suppressed intolerance of her father's remark. He said the same things so often, and in so precisely the same tone, that she had formed a habit of automatically rejecting the truth of certain of his statements. He had always appeared to her as senile. He had been over fifty when she was born, and ever since she could remember she had doubted the correctness of his information. She was, she had often told herself, "a born sceptic; an ultra-modern." She had a certain veneration for the more distant past, but none for her father's period. "Victorianism" was to her a term of abuse. She had long since condemned alike the ethic and the aesthetic of the nineteenth century as represented by her father's opinions; so, that, even now, when his familiar comment coincided so queerly with her own thought, she instinctively disbelieved him. Yet, as always, she was gentle in her answer. She condescended from the heights of her youth and vigour to pity him.

"I should think you must almost have forgotten what Aunt Rachel was like, dear," she said. "How many years is it since you've seen her?"

"More than forty; more than forty," her father said, ruminating profoundly. "We disagreed, we invariably disagreed. Rachel always prided herself on being so modern. She read Huxley and Darwin and things like that. Altogether beyond me, I admit. Still, it seems to me that the old truths have endured, and will— in spite of all— in spite of all."

Rachel straightened her shoulders and lifted her head; there was disdain in her face, but none in her voice as she replied:

"And so it seems that she wants to see me."

She was excited at the thought of meeting this traditional, this almost mythical aunt whom she had so often heard about. Sometimes she had wondered if the personality of this remarkable relative had not been a figment of her father's imagination, long pondered, and reconstructed out of half-forgotten material. But this letter of hers that now lay on the breakfast table was admirable in character. There was something of condescension and intolerance expressed in the very restraint of its tone. She had written a kindly letter, but the kindliness had an air of pity. It was all consistent enough with what her father had told her.

Mr. Deane came out of his reminiscences with a sigh.

"Yes, yes; she wants to see you, my dear," he said. "I think you had better accept this invitation to stay with her. She— she is rich, almost wealthy; and I, as you know, have practically nothing to leave you— practically nothing. If she took a fancy to you...."

He sighed again, and Rachel knew that for the hundredth time he was regretting his own past weakness. He had been so foolish in money matters, frittering away his once considerable capital in aimless speculations. He and his sister had shared equally under their father's will, but while he had been at last compelled to sink the greater part of what was left to him in an annuity, she had probably increased her original inheritance.

"I'll certainly go, if you can spare me for a whole fortnight," Rachel said. "I'm all curiosity to see this remarkable aunt. By the way, how old is she?"

"There were only fifteen months between us," Mr. Deane said, "so she must be,— dear me, yes;— she must be seventy-three. Dear, dear. Fancy Rachel being seventy-three! I always think of her as being about your age. It seems so absurd to think of her as old...."

He continued his reflections, but Rachel was not listening. He was asking for the understanding of the young; quite unaware of his senility, reaching out over half a century to try to touch the comprehension and sympathy of his daughter. But she was already bent on her own adventure, looking forward eagerly to a visit to London that promised delights other than the inspection of the mysterious, traditional aunt whom she had so long known by report.

For this invitation had come very aptly. Rachel pondered that, later in the morning, with a glow of ecstatic resignation to her charming fate. She found the guiding hand of a romantic inevitability in the fact that she and Adrian Flemming were to meet so soon. It had seemed so unlikely that they would see each other again for many months. They had only met three times; but they knew, although their friendship had been too green for either of them to admit the knowledge before he had gone back to town. He had, indeed, hinted far more in his two letters than he had ever dared to say. He was sensitive, he lacked self-confidence; but Rachel adored him for just those failings she criticised so hardly in her father. She took out her letters and re-read them, thrilling with the realisation that in her answer she would have such a perfectly amazing surprise for him. She would refer to it quite casually, somewhere near the end. She would write: "By the way, it's just possible that we may meet again before long as I am going to stay with my aunt, Miss Deane, in Tavistock Square." He would understand all that lay behind such an apparently careless reference, for she had told him that she "never went to London," had only once in her life ever been there.

She was in her own room, and she stood, now, before the cheval glass and studied herself; raising her chin and slightly pursing her lips, staring superciliously at her own image under half-lowered eyelids. Candidly, she admired herself; but she could not help that assumption of a disdainful criticism. It seemed to give her confidence in her own integrity; hiding that annoying shadow of doubt which sometimes fell upon her when she caught sight of her reflection by chance and unexpectedly.

But no thought of doubt flawed her satisfaction this morning. A sense of power came to her, a tranquil realisation that she could charm Adrian as she would. With a graceful, habitual gesture she put up her hand and lightly touched her cheek with a soft, caressing movement of her finger-tips.

ii

THE elderly parlour-maid showed Rachel straight to her bedroom when she arrived at Tavistock Square, indicating on the way the extensive-looking first-floor drawing-room, in which tea and her first sight of the wonderful aunt would await Rachel in half an hour. She had been eager and excited. The air and promise of London had thrilled her, but she found some influence in the atmosphere of the big house that was vaguely repellent, almost sinister.

Her bedroom was expensively furnished and beautifully kept; some of the pieces were, she supposed, genuine antiques, perhaps immensely valuable. But how could she ever feel at home there? She was hampered by the necessity for moving circumspectly among this aged delicate stuff; so wonderfully preserved and yet surely fragile and decrepit at the heart. That spindling escritoire, for instance, and that mincing Louis Quinze settee, ought to be taking their well-earned leisure in some museum. It would be indecent to write at the one or sit on the other. They were relics of the past, foolishly pretending an ability for service when their life had been sapped by dry-rot and their original functions outlived.

"Well, if ever I have a house of my own," Rachel thought regarding these ancient splendours, "I'll furnish it with something I shan't be afraid of."

With a gesture of dismissal she turned and looked out of the window. From the square came the sounds of a motor drawing up at a neighbouring house; she heard the throbbing of the engine, the slam of the door, and then the strong, sonorous tones of a man's voice. That was her proper milieu, she reflected, among the strong vital things. Even after twenty minutes in that bedroom she had begun to feel enervated, as if she herself were also beginning to suffer from dry-rot....

She was anxious and uneasy as she went slowly downstairs to the drawing-room. Her anticipations of this meeting with her intimidating, wealthy aunt had changed within the last half-hour. Her first idea of Miss Deane had been of a robust, stout woman, frank in her speech and inclined to be very critical of the newly found niece whom she had chosen to inspect. Now, she was prepared rather to expect a fragile, rather querulous old lady, older even than her years; an aunt to be talked to in a lowered voice and treated with the same delicate care that must be extended to her furniture

Rachel paused with her hand on the drawing-room door, and sighed at the thought of all the repressions and nervous strains that this visit might have in store for her.

She entered the room almost on tiptoe, and then stood stock-still, suddenly shocked and bewildered with surprise. Whatever she had expected, it was not this. For a moment she was unable to believe that the sprightly, painted and bedizened figure before her could possibly be that of her aunt. Her head was crowned with an exuberant brown wig, her heavy eyebrows were grotesquely blackened, her hollow cheeks stiff with powder, her lips brightened to a fantastic scarlet. And she was posed there, standing before the tea-table with her head a little back, looking at her niece with a tolerant condescension, with the air of a superb young beauty, self-conscious and proud of her charms.

"Hm! So you're my semi-mythical niece," she said, putting up her lorgnette. "I'm glad at any rate to find that you're not, after all, a fabulous creature." She spoke in a high, rather thin voice that produced an effect of effort, as if she were playing on the top octave of a flute.

Rachel had never in her life felt so gauche and awkward.

"Yes— I— you know, aunt, I had begun to wonder if you were not fabulous, too," she tried, desperately anxious to seem at ease. She was afraid to look at that, to her, grotesque figure, afraid to show by some unconscious reflex her dislike for its ugliness. As she took the bony, ring-bedecked hand that was held out to her, she kept her eyes away from her aunt's face.

Miss Deane, however, would not permit that evasion.

"Hold your head up, my dear, I want to look at you," she said, and when Rachel reluctantly obeyed, continued, "Yes, you're more like my father than your own, which means that you're like me, for I took after him, too, so every one said."

Rachel drew in her breath with a little gasp. Was it possible that her aunt could imagine for one instant that there was any likeness between them?

"Our— our names are the same," she said nervously.

Miss Deane nodded. "There's more in it than that," she said with a touch of complacence; "and there's no reason why there shouldn't be. It's good Mendelism that you should take after an aunt rather than either of your parents."

"And you really think that we are alike?" Rachel asked feebly, looking in vain for any sign of a quizzical humour in her aunt's face.

Miss Deane looked down under her half-lowered eyelids with a proud air of tolerance. "Ah, well, a little without doubt," she said, as though the advantages of the difference were on her own side. "Now sit down and have your tea, my dear."

Rachel obeyed with a vague wonder in her mind as to why that look of tolerance should be so familiar. It seemed to her as if it was something she had felt rather than seen; and as tea progressed she found herself half furtively studying the raddled ugliness of her aunt's face in the search for possible relics of a beautiful youth.

"Ah, I think you're beginning to see it, too," Miss Deane said, marking her niece's scrutiny. "It grows on one, doesn't it?"

Rachel shivered slightly. "Yes, it does," she said experimentally, watching her aunt's face for some indication of a malicious teasing humour. It seemed to her so incredible that this hideous parody of her own youth could honestly believe that any physical likeness still existed.

Miss Deane, however, was faintly simpering. "I have been told that I've changed very little," she said; and Rachel suppressed a sigh of impatience at the reflection that she was expected to play up to this absurd fantasy.

"Of course, I can't judge of that," she said, "as we met for the first time five minutes ago."

"No, no, you can't judge of that," her aunt replied, with the half-bashful emphasis of one who awaits a compliment.

Rachel decided to plunge. "But you do look extraordinarily young for your age still," she lied desperately.

Miss Deane straightened her back and toyed with a teaspoon. "I have always taken great care of myself," she said.

Unquestionably she believed it, Rachel decided. This was no pose, but a horrible piece of self-deception. This raddled, repulsive creature had actually persuaded herself into the delusion that she still had the appearance of a young girl. Heaven help her if that delusion were ever shattered!

Yet outside this one obsession Miss Deane, as Rachel soon discovered, had a clear and well-balanced mind. For, now that she had received her desired assurance from this new quarter, she began to talk of other things. Her boasted "modernism," it is true, had a smack of the stiff, broadcloth savour of the eighties, but she had a point of view that coincided far more nearly with Rachel's own than did that of her father. Her aunt, at least, had outlived the worst superstitions and inanities of the mid-Victorians.

Indeed, by the time tea was finished Rachel's spirits were beginning to revive. She would have to be very careful in her treatment of her aunt, but on the whole it would not perhaps be so bad; and presently she would see Adrian again. She would almost certainly get a letter from him by the last post, making some appointment to meet her, and after that she would introduce him to Miss Deane. She had a feeling that Miss Deane would not raise any objection; that she might even welcome the visit of a young man to her house.

The time was passing so easily that Rachel was surprised when she heard the gong sound.

"Does that mean it's time to dress already?" she asked.

Miss Deane nodded. "You've an hour before dinner," she said, "but I'll go up now. I like to be leisurely over my toilet."

She rose as she spoke, but as she crossed the room, she paused with what seemed to be a little jerk of surprise as she caught sight of her own reflection in a tall mirror above one of the gilt-legged console tables against the wall. Then she deliberately stopped, turned and surveyed herself, half contemptuously, under lowered eyelids, with a set of her head and back that belied plainly enough the pout of her critical lips. And having admired that haggard image, she lifted her wasted hand and delicately touched her whitened, hollow cheeks with the tips of her heavily jewelled fingers.

Rachel stared in horror. It seemed to her just then as if the reflection of her aunt in the mirror was indeed that of herself grown instantly and mysteriously old. For now, whether because the reversal of the image by the mirror or because of that perfect duplication of her own characteristic pose and gesture, the likeness had flashed out clear and unmistakable. She saw that her father had been right. Once, incalculable ages ago, this repulsive old woman might have been very like herself.

She slipped quickly out of the room and ran upstairs. She felt that she must instantly put that question to the test; search herself for the signs of coming age as she had so recently searched her aunt's face for the indications of her former youth.

But when, with an effect of challenge, she scrutinised her reflection in the tall cheval glass, the likeness appeared to have vanished. She saw her head thrust a little forward, her arms stiff, and in her whole pose an air of vigorous defiance. She was prepared to admit that she was ugly at that moment, if the ugliness was of another kind than that she had seen downstairs. No! She drew herself up, more than a little relieved by the result of her test. The likeness was all a fancy, the result of suggestions, first by her father and then by Miss Deane herself. And she need at least have no fear that she was ugly. Why....

She paused suddenly, and the light died out of her face. Her image was looking back at her stiffly, superciliously, with, so it seemed to her, the contemptible simper of one who still fatuously admires the thing that has long since lost its charm. She caught her breath and clenched her hands, drawing down her rather heavy eyebrows in an expression of angry scorn. "Oh! never, never, never again, will I look at myself like that," Rachel vowed fiercely.

She was to find, however, before this first evening was over, that the mere avoidance of that one pose before the mirror would not suffice to lay the ghost of the suspicion that was beginning to haunt her.

At the very outset a new version of the likeness was presented to her when, during the first course of dinner, Miss Deane, with a lowering frown of her blackened eyebrows, found occasion to reprimand the elderly parlour-maid. For a moment Rachel was again puzzled by the intriguing sense of the familiar, before she remembered her own scowl at the looking-glass an hour before. "Do I really frown like that?" she thought. And on the instant found herself feeling like her aunt.

That, indeed, was the horror that, despite every effort of resistance, deepened steadily as the evening wore on. Miss Deane had, without question, lost every trace of her beauty; but her character, her spirit was unchanged, and it was, so Rachel increasingly believed, the very spit and replica of her own.

They had the same characteristic gestures and expressions; the look of kindly tolerance with which her aunt regarded Rachel was precisely the same as that with which Rachel regarded her father. When her aunt's voice dropped in speaking from the rather shrill, strained tone that was obviously not natural to her, Rachel heard the inflexions of her own voice. And as her knowledge of Miss Deane grew, so, also, did that haunting unpleasant feeling of looking and speaking in precisely the same manner. It seemed to her as if she were being invaded by an alien personality; as if the character she had known and cherished all her life were no longer her own, but merely a casual inheritance from some unknown ancestor. Her very integrity was threatened by her consciousness of that likeness, her pride of individuality. She was not, after all, a unique personality, but merely another version— if she were even that?— of a Miss Rachel Deane born in the middle of the previous century.

Moreover, with that growing recognition of likeness in character, there came the thought that she in time might look even as her aunt looked at this present moment. She also would lose her beauty, until no facial resemblance could be traced between the hag she was and the beauty she had once been. For, through all her torment, Rachel proudly clung to the certainty that, physically at least, there was no sort of likeness between her aunt and herself.

Miss Deane's belief in that matter, however, was soon proved to be otherwise; for when they were alone together in the drawing-room after dinner, and the topic so inevitably present to both their minds came to the surface of conversation, she unexpectedly said: "But we're evidently the poles apart in character and manner, my dear."

"Oh! do you think so?" Rachel exclaimed. "I— it's a queer thing to say perhaps— but I curiously feel like you, aunt; when you speak sometimes and— and when I watch the way you do things."

Miss Deane shook her head. "I admit the physical resemblance," she said; "otherwise, my dear, we are utterly different."

Did she too, Rachel wondered, resent the aspersion of her integrity?

By the last post Rachel received her expected letter from Adrian Flemming. Her aunt separated it from the others brought in by her maid and passed it across to her niece with a slight hint of displeasure in her face. "Miss Rachel Deane, junior," she said. "Really, it hadn't occurred to me how difficult it will be to distinguish our letters. I hope my friends won't take to addressing me as Miss Deane, senior. Properly, of course, I am Miss Deane, and you Miss Rachel, but I'll admit there's sure to be some confusion. Now, my dear, I expect you're tired. You'd better run up to bed."

Rachel was willing enough to go. She was glad to have an opportunity to read her letter in solitude; she was even more glad to get away from the company of this living echo of herself. "I believe I should go mad if I had to live with her," she reflected. "I should get into the way of copying her. I should begin to grow old before my time."

When she reached her bedroom, she put down her letter unopened on the toilet-table and once more stared searchingly at her own reflection in the mirror. Was there any least trace of a physical likeness, she asked herself; and began in imagination to follow the possible stages of the change that time would inevitably work upon her. She shrugged her shoulders. If there were indeed any sort of facial resemblance between herself and her aunt, no one would ever see it except in Miss Deane, and she was obsessed with a senile vanity. Yet was it, after all, Rachel began to wonder, an unnatural obsession? Might she not in time suffer from it herself? The change would be so slow, so infinitely gradual; and always one would be cherishing the old, loved image of youth and beauty, falling in love with it, like a deluded Hyacinth, and coming to be deceived by the fantasy of an unchanging appearance of youth. Looking always for the desired thing, she would suffer from the hallucination that the thing existed in fact, and imagine that the only artifice needed to perfect the illusion was a touch of paint and powder. No doubt her aunt— perhaps searching her own image in the mirror at this moment— saw not herself but a picture of her niece. She was hypnotised by the suggestion of a pose and the desire of her own mind. In time, Rachel herself might also become the victim of a similar illusion!

Oh! it was horrible! With a shudder, she picked up her letter and turned away from the looking-glass. She would forget that ghastly warning in the thought of the joys proper to her youth. She would think of Adrian and of her next meeting with him. She opened her letter to find that he had, rather timorously, suggested that she should meet him the next afternoon— at the Marble Arch at three o'clock, if he heard nothing from her in the meantime.

For a few minutes she lost herself in delighted anticipation, and then slowly, insidiously, a new speculation crept into her mind. What would be the effect upon Adrian if he saw her and her aunt together? Would he recognise the likeness and, anticipating the movement of more than half a century, see her in one amazing moment as she would presently become? And, in any case, what a terrible train of suggestion might not be started in his mind by the impression left upon him by the old woman? Once he had seen Miss Deane, Rachel's every gesture would serve to remind him of that repulsive image of raddled, deluded age. It might well be that, in time, he would come to see Rachel as she would presently be rather than as she was. It would be a hideous reversal of the old romance; instead of seeing the girl in the old woman, he would foresee the harridan in the girl!

That picture presented itself to Rachel with a quite appalling effect of conviction. She suddenly remembered a case she had known that had remarkable points of resemblance— the case of a rather pretty girl with an unpleasant younger brother who, so she had heard it said, "put men off his sister" because of the facial likeness between them. She was pretty and he was ugly, but they were unmistakably brother and sister.

Oh! it would be nothing less than folly to let Adrian and her aunt meet, Rachel decided. In imagination, she could follow the process of his growing dismay; she could see his puzzled stare as he watched Miss Deane, and struggled to fix that tantalising suggestion of likeness to some one he knew; his flash of illumination as he solved the puzzle and turned with that gentle, winning smile of his to herself; and then the progress of his disillusionment as, day by day, he realised more plainly the intriguing similarities of expression and gesture, until he felt that he was making love to the spirit of an aged spinster temporarily disguised behind the appearance of beauty.

iii

RACHEL had believed on the first night of her arrival in Tavistock Square that, so far as her love affair was concerned, she would be able to avoid all danger by keeping her lover and her aunt unknown to each other. She very soon found, however, that the spell Miss Deane seemed to have put upon her was not to be laid by any effect of mere distance.

She and Adrian met rather shyly at their first appointment. Both of them were a little conscious of having been overbold, one for having suggested, and the other for having agreed to so significant an assignation. And for the first few minutes their talk was nothing but a quick, nervous reminiscence of their earlier meetings. They had to recover the lost ground on which they had parted before they could go on to any more intimate knowledge of each other. But for some reason she had not yet realised, Rachel found it very difficult to recover that lost ground. She knew that she was being unnecessarily distant and cold, and though she inwardly accused herself of "putting on absurd airs," her manner, as she was uncomfortably aware, remained at once stilted and detached.

"I suppose it's because I'm self-conscious before all these people," she thought, and, indeed, Hyde Park was very full that afternoon.

And it was Adrian who first, a little desperately, tried to reach across the barrier that was dividing them.

"You're different, rather, in town," he began shyly. "Is it the effect of your aunt's grandeurs?"

"Am I different? I feel exactly the same," Rachel replied mechanically.

"You didn't think it was rather impudent of me to ask you to meet me here, did you?" he went on anxiously.

She shook her head emphatically. "Oh! no, it wasn't that," she said.

"But then you admit that it was— something?" he pleaded.

"The people, perhaps," she admitted. "I— I feel so exposed to the public view."

"We might walk across the Park if you preferred it," he suggested; "and have tea at that place in Kensington Gardens? It would be quieter there."

She agreed to that willingly. She wanted to be alone with him. The crowd made her nervous and self-conscious this afternoon. Always before, she had delighted in moving among a crowd, appreciating and enjoying the casual glances of admiration she received. Today she was afraid of being noticed. She had a queer feeling that these smart, clever people in the Park might see through her, if they stared too closely. Just what they would discover she did not know; but she suffered a disquieting qualm of uneasiness whenever she saw any one observing her with attention.

They cut across the grass and, leaving the Serpentine on their left, found two chairs in a quiet spot under the trees. Here, at least, they were quite unwatched, but still Rachel found it impossible to regain the relations that had existed between her and Adrian when they had parted a month earlier. And Adrian, too, it seemed, was staring at her with a new, inquisitive scrutiny.

"Why do you look at me like that?" she broke out at last. "Do you notice any difference in me, or what? You— you've been staring so!"

"Difference!" he repeated. "Well, I told you just now, didn't I, that you were different this afternoon?"

"Yes, but in what way?" she asked. "Do I— do I look different?"

He paused a little judiciously over his answer. "N— no," he hesitated. "There's something, though. Don't be offended, will you, if I say that you don't seem to be quite yourself to-day; not quite natural. I miss a rather characteristic expression of yours. You've never once looked at me with that rather tolerating air you used to put on."

"It was a horrid air," she said sharply. "I've made up my mind to cure myself of it."

"Oh! no, don't," he protested. "It wasn't at all horrid. It was— don't think I'm trying to pay you a compliment— it was, well, charming. I've missed it dreadfully."

She turned and looked at him, determined to try an experiment. "This sort of air, do you mean?" she asked, and with a sickening sensation of presenting the very gestures and appearance of her aunt, she regarded him under lowered eyelids with an expression of faintly supercilious approval.

His smile at once thanked and answered her.

"But it's an abominable look," she exclaimed. "The look of an old, old, painted woman, vain, ridiculous."

He stared at her in amazement. "How absurd!" he protested. "Why, it's you; and you're certainly not old or painted nor unduly vain, and no one could say you were ridiculous."

"And you want me to look like that?" she asked.

"It's— it's so you," he said shyly.

"But, just suppose," she cried, "that I went on looking like that after I'd grown old and ugly. Think how hateful it would be to see a hideous old woman posturing and pretending and making eyes. And, you see, if one gets a habit, it's so hard to get rid of it. Think of me at seventy, all painted and powdered, trying to seem as if I hadn't altered and really believing that I hadn't."

He laughed that pleasant, kind laugh of his which had been one of the first things in him that had so attracted her.

"Oh! I'll chance the future," he said. "Besides if— if it could ever happen that— that your growing old came to me gradually, that I should be seeing you every day, I mean, I shouldn't notice it. I should be old too; and I should think you hadn't altered either." He was afraid, as yet, to be too plain spoken, but his tone made it quite clear that he asked for no greater happiness than that of seeing her grow old beside him.

She did not pretend to misunderstand him. "Would you? Perhaps you would," she said. "But, all the same, I don't think you need insist on that particular— pose."

He passed that by, too eager at the moment to claim the concession she had offered him. "Is there any hope that I may be allowed to— to watch you growing old?" he asked.

"Perhaps— if you'll let me do it in my own way," Rachel said.

Adrian shyly took her hand. "You mean that you will— that you don't mind?" He put the question as if he had no doubt of its intelligibility— to her.

She nodded.

"When did you begin to know?" he asked, awed by the wonder of this stupendous thing that had happened to him.

"From the beginning, I think," Rachel murmured.

"So did I, from the very beginning— " he agreed, and from that they dropped into sacred reminiscences and comparisons concerning the innumerable things they had adoringly seen in each other and had had as yet no opportunity to glory in.

And in the midst of all these new and bewildering, embarrassing, delightful revelations and discoveries, Rachel completely forgot the shadow that was haunting her, forgot how she looked or felt or acted, forgot that there was or had ever been a terrible old woman who lived in Tavistock Square and whose hold on life was maintained by her horrible mimicry of youth. And then, in a moment, she was lifted out of her dream and cruelly set down on the hard, unsympathetic earth by the sound of her lover's voice.

"I suppose I'll have to meet your aunt?" he was saying. "Shall we go back there now, and tell her?"

Rachel flushed, as if he had suggested some startling invasion of her secret life. "Oh! no," she ejaculated impulsively.

Adrian looked his surprise. "But why not?" he asked. "I'm— I'm a perfectly respectable, eligible party."

"I wasn't thinking of that," Rachel said.

"Is she a terrible dragon?" he inquired with a smile.

Rachel shook her head, rejecting the excuse offered in favour of a more probable modification. "She's odd rather. She might prefer my giving her some kind of notice," she said.

He accepted that without hesitation. "Will you warn her then?" he replied. "And I'll come and do my duty to-morrow. I understand she's a lady to be propitiated."

"Not to-morrow," Rachel said.

The irk and disgust of it all had returned to her with renewed force at the first mention of her aunt's name. The thought of Miss Deane had revived the repulsive sense of acting, speaking, looking like that aged caricature of herself. Yet she wanted strangely enough, to get back to Tavistock Square; for only there, it seemed to her, was she safe from the examination of an inquisitive stare that might at any moment penetrate her secret and reveal her as a posturing hag masquerading in the alluring freshness of a young girl.

"I ought to be going back to her now," she said.

"But you promised that we should have tea together," Adrian remonstrated.

"Yes, I know; but please don't pester me. I'll see you again to-morrow," Rachel returned with a touch of elderly hauteur. And, despite all his entreaties, she would not be persuaded to change her mind. Already he was looking at her with a touch of suspicion, she thought; and as she checked his remonstrances, she was aware of doing it with the air, the tone, the very look that were her inheritance from endless generations of precisely similar ancestors.

iv

IF SHE could but have lived a double life, Rachel thought, her present position might have been endurable, and then, in a few months or even weeks, the problem would be solved for ever by her marriage with Adrian and the final obliteration of Miss Deane from her memory. But she could not live a double life. Day by day, as her intimacy with her aunt increased, Rachel found it more difficult to forget her when she was away from Tavistock Square. In the deepest and most beautiful moments of her intercourse with Adrian, she was aware now of practising upon him a subtle deception, of pretending that she was other than she was in reality— an awareness that was constantly pricked and stimulated by the continually growing consciousness of her likeness to Miss Deane.

Miss Deane on her part evidently took a great pleasure in her niece's society. The fortnight of her original invitation had already been exceeded, but she would not hear of Rachel's return to Devonshire.

"Why should you go back?" she demanded scornfully. "Your father doesn't want you— Richard is one of those slip-shod people who prefer to live alone. I used to try to stir him up, and he ran away from me. He'll run away from you, my dear, in a few years' time. He hasn't the courage to stand up to women like us."

Miss Deane unquestionably wanted her niece to stay with her. She was even beginning to hint at the desirability of making the present arrangement a permanent one.

Rachel, however, was not flattered by this display of pleasure in her society. She knew that it was due to no individual charm of her own, but to the fact that she had become her aunt's mirror. For Miss Deane no longer, in Rachel's presence at least, gazed at herself in the looking-glass; she gazed at her niece instead. And as Rachel endured the posings and simperings, the alternate adoration and fond contempt with which her aunt regarded her, she was unable to resist the impulse to reflect them. Every day she fell a little lower in that weakness, and however slight the likeness had once been, she knew that now it must be patent to every observer. She copied her aunt, mimicked, duplicated her. It was easier to do that than fight the resemblance, against her aunt's determination; and so, by unnoticed degrees, she had permitted herself to become a lay figure upon which was dressed the image of Miss Deane's youth. She had even come to desire the look of almost sensual gratification on her aunt's face when she saw her niece so perfectly reflecting her own well-remembered airs.

And Rachel, too, had come to avoid the looking-glass, dreading to see there the poses and gesticulations of the old, repulsive woman whose every feature and expression had become so sickeningly familiar.

And, in all that time, Adrian had not once been to the house in Tavistock Square. Rachel had kept him away by what she felt had become all too transparent excuses. That terror, at least, she felt must be kept at bay. For she could not conceive it possible that, once he had seen her and her aunt together, he could retain one spark of his admiration. He would, he must, see her then as she was, see that her contemptible vanity was the essential enduring thing, all that would remain when time had stripped her of youth's allurement.

Nevertheless, the day came when Rachel could no longer endure to deceive him. He had challenged her, at last, with hiding something from him. Inevitably, he had become increasingly curious about her strange reticences concerning the Miss Deane whom he, in turn, had grown to regard as almost mythical; and all his suppressed suspicions had suddenly found expression in a question.

"What are you hiding? Do you really live with your aunt in Tavistock Square?" he had asked that day, with all the fierce intensity of a jealous lover.

Rachel had been stirred to a quick response. "Oh, if you don't believe me, you'd better come and see for yourself," she had said. "Come this afternoon— to tea." And afterwards, even when Adrian had humbly sought to make amends for his unwarrantable jealousy, she had stuck to that invitation. The moment that she had issued it, she had had a sense of relief, a sense of having gratefully confessed her weakness. Adrian's visit would consummate that confession, and thereafter she would have no further secrets from him. And if he found that he could no longer love her after he had seen her as she was, well, it would be better in the end than that he should marry a simulacrum and make the discovery by slow degrees.

"Yes, come this afternoon. We'll expect you about four" had been her last words to him. And, now, she had to tell her aunt, who was still unaware that such a person as Adrian Flemming existed. Rachel postponed the telling until after lunch. Her knowledge of Miss Deane, though in some respects it equalled her knowledge of her own mind, did not tell her how her aunt would take this particular piece of news. She might possibly, Rachel thought, be annoyed, fearful lest her beloved looking-glass should be stolen from her. But she could wait no longer. In half an hour Miss Deane would go upstairs to rest, and Adrian himself would be in the house before she appeared again.

"I've something to tell you, aunt," Rachel began abruptly.

Miss Deane put up her lorgnette and surveyed her lovely portrait with an interested air.

"Aunt— I've never told you and I know I ought to have," Rachel blurted out. "But I'm— I'm engaged to a Mr. Adrian Flemming, and he's coming here to call on you— to call on us, this afternoon at four o'clock."

Miss Deane closed her eyes and gave a little sigh.

"You might have given me rather longer notice, dear," she said.

"It isn't two yet," Rachel replied. "There are more than two hours to get ready for him."

Miss Deane bridled slightly. "I must have my rest before he comes," she said, and added: "I suppose you've told him about us, dear?"

"About you?" Rachel asked.

Miss Deane nodded, complacently.

"Well, not very much," Rachel admitted.

Miss Dean's look, as she playfully threatened Rachel with her long-handled lorgnette, was distinctly sly.

"Then he doesn't know yet that there are two of us?" she simpered. "Won't it be just a little bit of a shock to him, my dear?"

Rachel drew a long breath and leaned back in her chair. "Yes," she said curtly, "I expect it will."

Never before had the realisation of that strange likeness seemed so intolerable as at that moment. Even now her aunt was looking at her with the very air and gesture which had once charmed her in her own reflection, and that she knew still charmed and fascinated her lover. It was an air and gesture of which she could never break herself. It was natural to her, a true expression of something ineradicable in her being. Indeed, one of the worst penalties imposed upon her during the past month had been the omission of those pleasant ceremonies before the mirror. She had somehow missed herself, lost the sweetest and most adorable of companions!

Miss Deane got up, and holding herself very erect, moved with a little mincing step towards the tall mirror over the console table. Rachel held her breath. She saw that her aunt, suddenly aroused by this thought of the coming lover, was returning mechanically to her old habit of self-admiration. Was it possible, Rachel wondered, that the sight of the image she would see in the looking-glass, contrasted now with the memories of the living reflection she had so intimately studied for the past four weeks, might shock her into a realisation of the starkly hideous truth?

But it seemed that the aged woman must be blind. She gave no start of surprise as she paused before the glass; she showed no sign of anxiety concerning the vision she saw there. Her left hand, in which she held her lorgnette, had fallen to her side, and with the finger-tips of her right she daintily caressed the hollows of her sunken cheeks. She stayed there until Rachel, unable to endure the sight any longer, and with some vague purpose of defiance in her mind, jumped to her feet, crossed the room and stood shoulder by shoulder with her aunt staring into the glass.

For a moment Miss Deane did not move; then, with a queer hesitation, she dropped her right hand and slowly lifted her lorgnette.

Rachel felt a cold chill of horror invading her. Something fearful and terrible was happening before her eyes; her aunt was shrinking, withering, growing old in a moment. The stiffness had gone out of her pose, her head had begun to droop; the proud contempt in her face was giving way to the moping, resentful reminiscence of the aged. She still held up her lorgnette, still stared half fearfully at the glaring contrast that was presented to her, but her hand and arm had begun to tremble under the strain, and, instant by, instant, all life and vigour seemed to be draining away from her.

Then, suddenly, with a fierce effort she turned away her head, straightened herself, and walked over to the door, passing out with a high, thin cackle of laughter that had in it the suggestion of a vehement, petulant derision; of a bitterness outmastering control.

Rachel shivered, but held her ground before the mirror. She had nothing to fear from that contemplation. As for her aunt, she had had her day. It was time she knew the truth.

"She had to know," Rachel repeated, addressing the dear likeness that so proudly reflected her.

v

SHE FOUND consolation in that thought. Her aunt had to know and Rachel herself was only the chance instrument of the revelation. She had not meant, so she persisted, to do more than vindicate her own integrity.

Nevertheless, her own passionate problem was not yet solved. Her aunt would not, so Rachel believed, give way without a struggle. Had she not made a gallant effort at recovery even as she left the room, and would she not make a still greater effort while Adrian was there; assert her rivalry if only in revenge?

She must meet that, Rachel decided, by presenting a contrast. She would be meek and humble in her aunt's presence. Adrian might recognise the admired airs and gestures in those of the old woman, but he should at least have no opportunity to compare them

And it was with this thought and intention in her mind that Rachel received him, when he arrived with a lover's promptness a little before four o'clock.

"Are you so dreadfully nervous?" he asked her, when they were alone together in the drawing-room. "You're like you were the first day we met in town— different from your usual self."

"Oh! What a memory you have for my looks and behaviour," she replied pettishly. "Of course, I'm nervous."

He tried to argue with her, questioning her as to Miss Deane's probable reception of him, but she refused to answer. "You'll see for yourself in a few minutes," she said; but the minutes passed and still Miss Deane did not come.

At a quarter to five the elderly parlour-maid brought in tea. "Miss Deane said you were not to wait for her, Miss Rachel," was the message she delivered. "She'll be down presently, I was to say."

Rachel could not suppress a scornful twist of her mouth. She had no doubt that her aunt was taking very special pains with her toilet; trying to obliterate, perhaps, her recent vision before the console glass. Rachel saw her entrance in imagination, stiff-necked and proud, defying the criticisms of youth and the suggestions of age.

"Oh! why doesn't she come and let me get it over?" she passionately demanded, and even as she spoke she heard the sounds of some one coming down the stairs, not the accustomed sounds of her aunt's finicking, high-heeled steps, but a shuffling and creaking, accompanied by the murmurs of a weak, protesting voice.

Rachel jumped to her feet. She knew everything then— before the door opened, and she saw first of all the shocked, scared face of the elderly parlour-maid who supported the crumpled, palsied figure of the old, old woman who, three hours before, had been so miraculously young, magically upheld and supported then by the omnipotent strength of an idea.

She only stayed in the drawing-room for five minutes; a querulous, resentful old lady, malignantly jealous, so it seemed, of their vigour and impatient of their sympathy.

When the parlour-maid had been sent for and Miss Deane had gone, Rachel stood up and looked down at Adrian with all her old hauteur.

"Can you realise," she asked, "that once my aunt was supposed to be very, very like me?"

He smiled and shook his head, as if the possibility was too absurd to contemplate.

Rachel turned and looked at herself in the glass, raising her chin and slightly pursing her lips, staring superciliously at her own image under half-lowered eyelids.

"Some day I may be as she is now," she said, with the superb contemptuous arrogance of youth.

Adrian was watching her with adoration. "You will never grow old," he said.

"So long as one does not get the idea of growing old into one's head," Rachel began speculatively....

BUT MISS DEANE had got the idea so strongly now that she died that night.

Rachel was with her at the last.

The old woman was trying to mouth a text from the Bible.

"What did you say, dear?" Rachel murmured, bending over her, and caught enough of the answer to guess that Miss Deane was mumbling again and again: "Now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face."

_______________

9: The Bat And Belfry Inn

Alan Graham

[Alexander Cathie McKissock, 1879-1942]

The Story-teller May 1922

IT WAS THE MADDEST and most picturesque hotel at which we have ever stopped. Tony and I were touring North Wales. We had left Llandudno that morning in the two-seater, lunched at Festiniog, and late in the afternoon were trundling down a charming valley with the reluctant assistance of a road whose surface, if it ever had possessed such an asset, had long since vanished. On rounding one of the innumerable hairpin bends on our road, there burst upon us the most gorgeous miniature scene that we had ever encountered. I stopped the car almost automatically.

"Oh, George, what a charming hotel!" exclaimed Tony. "Let's stop and have tea."

Tony, I should mention, is my wife. She is intensely practical.

I had not noticed the hotel, for before us the valley opened out into a perfect stage setting. From the road the land fell sharply a hundred feet to a rocky mountain stream, the rustle of whose water came up to us faintly like the music heard in a sea-shell. Beyond rose hills— hill upon hill lit patchily by the sun, so that their contours were a mingling of brilliant purple heather, red-brown bracken, and indigo shadow. Far down the valley the stream glinted, mirror-like, through a veil of trees.

And Tony spoke of tea!

I dragged my eyes from the magnet of the view and found that I had stopped the car within a few yards of a little hotel that must have been planted there originally by someone with a soul. It lay by the open roadside five miles from anywhere. It was built of the rough grey-green stone of the district, but it was rescued from the commonplace by its leaded windows, the big old beams that angled across its white plastered gables, and by the clematis and late tea roses that clung about its porch.

I could hardly blame Tony for her materialism. The hotel blended admirably with its surroundings. There was nothing about it of the beerhouse-on-the-mountain-top so dear to the German mind. It looked quiet, refined and restful, and one felt instinctively that it would be managed in a fashion in keeping with all about it.

"By Jove, Tony!" I said, as I drew up to the clematis-covered porch, "we might do worse than stop here for a day or two."

"We'll have tea anyhow, and see what we think of it." I clattered over the red-tiled floor, and when my eyes had grown accustomed to the dim light that contrasted so well with the sunshine without, found myself in a small sunshiny room, with a low ceiling, oak-rafted, some comfortable chairs, an old eight-day clock stopped at ten-thirty-five, and a man.

He was a long thin man, clean-shaven, wearing an old shooting coat and a pair of shabby grey flannel trousers. He smoked a pipe and read in a book. At my entrance he did not look up, and I set him down as a guest in the hotel.

One side of the room was built of obscured glass panes, with an open square in the middle and a ledge upon which rested several suggestive empty glasses, so I crossed to this hospitable-looking gap, and tapped upon the ledge. Several repetitions bringing no response, I turned to the only living creature who appeared to be available.

"Can you tell me, sir, if we can have tea in the hotel," I asked.

The long man started, looked up, closed his book, and jumped to his feet as if galvanized to life.

"Of course, of course, of course," he cried hastily, and added, as by an afterthought, "of course."

I may have shown a natural surprise at this almost choral response, for he pulled himself together and became something more explicit.

"I'll see to it at once," he said hurriedly. "I'm— I'm the proprietor, you know. You won't mind if we're— if we're a little upset. You see, I— I've just moved in. Left me by an uncle, you know, an uncle in Australia. I'll see to it at once. Anything you would like— specially fancy? Bread and butter now, or cake perhaps? Will you take a seat— two seats." (Tony had followed me in). "And look at yesterday's paper. Oh yes, you can have tea— of course, of course, of course. Of— "

His words petered out, as he clattered off down a like-flagged passage. I looked at Tony and raised my eyebrows.

"Seems a trifle mad," I said.

"How delightfully cool," said she, looking round the old-fashioned room appraisingly, "and so clean! I think we'll stop."

"Let's have tea before we decide," I suggested. "The proprietor is distinctly eccentric, to say the least of it."

"He looked quite a superior man. I thought," said Tony. "Not the least like a Welshman."

Tony herself comes from far north of the Tweed.

The hotel was small, and the kitchen, apparently, not far away, for we could not avoid hearing sounds of what appeared to be a heated argument coming from the direction in which mine host had vanished. We were used to heated arguments in the hotels at which we had put up, but they had invariably taken place in Welsh, whereas this one was undoubtedly in English. Snatches of it reached our ears.

"... haven't the pluck of a rabbit, Bill."

"... all very well, but— "

"I'm not afraid, I'll— "

Then our host returned.

"It's coming, it's coming, it's coming," he said, his hands thrust deep in his trousers pockets, jingling loose change in a manner that suggested agitation.

He stood looking down at us as though we were something he didn't quite know what to do with, and then an idea seemed to strike him, and be vanished for a moment to reappear almost immediately in the square gap of the bar window.

"Have a drink while you're waiting?" he asked, much more naturally.

I looked at my watch. It was half-past four. Very free-and-easy with the licensing laws, I thought.

"I thought six o'clock was opening time?" I said.

The thin man was overcome with confusion. His face flushed red, he shut the window down with a bang, and a moment after came round to us again.

"Awfully sorry," he stammered apologetically. "Might get the house a bad name. Deuced inconsiderate of— of my uncle not to leave me a book of the rules. Very bad break, that— what?"

Evidently Tony was not so much impressed by the eccentricities of our host as was I. She approved of the hotel and its situation, and had made up her mind to stop. I could tell it by her face as she addressed the proprietor.

"Have you accommodation if we should make up our minds to stay here for a few days?" she asked.

"Stay here? You want to stay?" he repeated, consternation written large all over his face. "Good G— — I mean certainly, of course, of course."

He bolted down the passage like a rabbit, and we heard hoarse whispering from the direction in which he had gone.

"Dotty?" I suggested.

"Not a bit of it," retorted Tony. "Nervous because he is new to his job, but very anxious to be obliging. We shall do splendidly here."

I shrugged my shoulders and said no more, because I know Tony. I have been married to her for years and years.

Light steps upon the tiles heralded something new— different, but equally surprising.

"Tea is served, madam, if you will step this way."

She was the apotheosis of all waitresses. Her frock was black, but it was of silk and finely cut. Her apron, of coarse white cotton, was grotesque against it. She had neat little feet encased in high-heeled shoes, and her stockings were of silk. Her common cap that she wore sat coquettishly on her dark curls, and her face was charming, though petrified in that unnatural expression of distance which, as a rule, only the very best menials can attain.

There were no other guests in the coffee-room, and this marvel of maids devoted the whole of her attention to us, standing over us like a column of ice which thawed only to attend upon our wants. There was no getting past her veil of reticence. Tony tried her with questions, but "Yes, madam," "No, madam," and "Certainly, madam," appeared the sum of her vocabulary. Yet when we sent her to the kitchen for more hot water, we were conscious of a whispering and giggling which assured us that off the stage she could thaw.

"We must stay a day or two," said Tony. "I'm dying to paidle in that burn."

"My dear, how often have you promised me that you would never subject me to Scotch after we were married!" I protested.

"When I see a burn I e'en must juist paidle in it," retorted Tony, deliberately forswearing herself. "So we'll book that room."

At that moment the celestial waitress returned with the hot water, and Tony made known her determination. I drive the car, but Tony supplies the driving-power.

"Certainly, madam. I shall speak to Mr. Gunthorpe." Quickly she returned.

"Number ten is vacant. The boots and chambermaid are both away at a sheep-trial, but we expect them back any moment. I shall show you the room, madam, and if you will leave the car, sir, until the boots returns— "

"That will be all right. No hurry, no hurry."

While we were examining our bedroom and finding it all that could be desired, I heard a car draw up before the hotel, and the sound of voices in conversation. A few minutes later, on going downstairs, I made the acquaintance of the boots. He was obviously awaiting me by my car, and touched his forelock in a manner rarely seen off the stage. He wore khaki cord breeches with leather leggings, a striped shirt open at the neck, and chewed a straw desperately. In no other respect did he resemble the boots of an out-of-the-way hotel.

"Garage round this way, sir," he said, guiding me to my destination, which, I found, already contained a two-seater of the same make as my own.

"Ripping little car, eh?" said the boots, chewing vigorously at his straw as he stood, his hands deep in what are graphically known as "go-to-hell" pockets and his legs well straddled. "Hop over anything, what? Topping weather we're having— been like this for weeks. If you don't mind, old chap, you might wiggle her over this way a bit. Something else might blow in, eh?"

I looked at this latest manifestation with undisguised astonishment, but he was imperturbable, and merely chewed his straw with renewed energy.

"That's the stuff, old lad," he said, as I laid the car in position. "What now? Shall I give you a hand up with the trunk, or will you hump it yourself? Don't mind me a bit. I'm ready for anything."

He looked genial, but I found him familiar, so with a curt:

"Take it to number ten," I strode off to overtake Tony, whom I saw half-way down a rough path that led to her beloved "burn."

"I've seen the chambermaid," she said, when I overtook her. "Such a pretty girl, but very shy and unsophisticated. Quite a girl, but wears a wedding-ring."

I watched Tony "paidling" for some time, but as the amusement consisted mainly of getting her under-apparel wet, I grew tired of it, and climbed back to the hotel.

The bar-window was open once more in the little lounge, and Mr. Gunthorpe was behind, his arms resting upon the ledge.

"Have a drink?" he said, as I entered. "It's all right now. The balloon's gone up."

I looked at my watch. It was after six o'clock.

"I'll have a small Scotch and soda," I decided.

"This is on the house," said the eccentric landlord.

He produced two glasses and filled them, and I noticed that he took money from his pocket and placed it in the till.

"Well, success to the new management!" I said, raising my glass to his.

"Cheerio, and thank you," said he, smiling genially upon me.

He seemed to me more self-possessed and less eccentric than he had appeared upon our arrival. I determined to draw him out.

"It's funny that an Australian should have owned an hotel away up in the Welsh hills," I hazarded. "Did he die recently?"

"Australia? You must have misunderstood me," said Mr. Gunthorpe with a hunted look in his eyes. "Very likely— very likely I said Ostend."

"Ostend? Well, possibly I did," I agreed, feeling certain that I had made no mistake. "Had he a hotel there as well?"

"Yes, yes. Of course, of course, of course," agreed the landlord, largely redundant.

"And are you running that as well?"

"Heaven forbid!" he exclaimed, with a shudder. "You see ... this— this is just a small legacy. It'll be all right by and by. All right, all right. Let's have another drink."

"With me," I insisted.

"Not at all, not at all. On the house. All for the good of the house. Come along, Bob, have a drink!"

It was the boots who had now entered, and he strolled up to the bar with all the self-possession of a welcome guest.

"Just a spot of Scotch, old thing!" he said brightly. "It's a hard life. Shaking down good and comfy, laddie?"— this last to me. "Ask for anything you fancy. It doesn't follow you'll get it, but if we have it, it's yours. Tinkle, tinkle; crash, crash!" With this unusual toast he raised his glass and drained it.

"Have another," he said. "Three Scotches, Boniface."

I protested. This was too hot and fast for me altogether. Besides, I did not fancy being indebted to this somewhat overwhelming boots. My protest was of no avail. The glasses were filled while yet the words were upon my lips. I thought of Tony, and trembled. Common decency would force me to stand still another round before I could cry a halt.

"All well in the buttery?" asked the boots, in a confidential tone of the landlord.

"The banquet is in preparation," replied the latter. "Everything is in train."

"Heaven grant that it comes out of train reasonably, laddie," said boots fervently. "But you know Molly. I wouldn't trust an ostrich to her cooking. Here's hoping for the best."

He drained his glass again, and this time I managed to get a show. "Three more whiskies, please landlord," and Tony in clear view cut up into nice squares by the little leaded panes. I got mine absorbed just in time, and was on the doorstep to meet her, draggle-skirted and untidy, but enthusiastic about her "burn." She broke her vows three times on the way up to number ten, and excused her lapses on the ground that the "burn" was the perfect image of one near a place she called "Pairth."

When she rang for hot water to wash away the traces of her ablutions in the burn, I had my first view of the chambermaid. I found her even more ravishing than the waitress downstairs, and with the additional advantage that she was not stand-offish— indeed, she was a giggler. She giggled at my slightest word, and Tony altered her first impression and dubbed her a forward hussy. Personally, I liked the girl, though she broke all precedent by attending upon us in a silk blouse and a tailor-made tweed skirt.

When I wandered downstairs before dinner I came upon her again, this time unmistakably in the arms of the ubiquitous boots. I had walked innocently into a small sitting-room where a lamp already shone, and I came upon the romantic picture unexpectedly. With a murmured word of inarticulate apology I made to retire.

"It's all right, old fruit, don't hurry away," said boots affably. "Awfully sorry, and all that. Quite forgot it was a public room, don't you know."

The chambermaid giggled once more and bolted, straightening her cap as she went.

"You don't mind, do you?" continued boots, making a clumsy show of trimming the lamp. "Warm is the greeting when seas have rolled between us. Perhaps not quite that, but you see the idea, eh?"

He would doubtless have said more, being evidently of a cheery nature, had not the waitress of the afternoon appeared in the doorway, her face as frozen as a mask of ice.

"Bob— kennel!" she said sharply, and held the door wide.

The cheeriness vanished and the boots followed it through the open doorway.

"I trust you will excuse him, sir," said the waitress deferentially. "He is just a little deranged, but quite harmless. We employ him out of charity, sir."

I may have been mistaken, but a sound uncommonly like the chambermaid's giggle came to me from the passage without.

The sound of a car stopping outside the hotel drew me to the window as the waitress left me, and I was in time to see an old gentleman with a long white beard step from the interior of a Daimler landaulette, the door of which was held open by a dignified chauffeur, whose attire seemed to consist mainly of brass buttons.

A consultation evidently took place in the smoking-room or bar between this patriarch and the proprietor, and then I heard agitated voices in the passage without.

"It's a blinking invasion," said Mr. Gunthorpe. "I tell you we can't do it. Good heavens, they threaten to stop a month if they are comfortable."

"Don't worry then, old bean. They won't stop long." This in the voice of boots.

"And they want special diet. Old girl can't eat meat. Suffers from a duodenal ulcer. I tell you, we got quick intimate! We can't do it, Molly."

"Fathead, of course we can. I'll concoct her something the like of which her what-you-may-call-it has never before tackled. Run along, Bill, and be affable."

"Shall I stand them a drink?"— Mr. Gunthorpe again.

"Do, old bean. I'll come and have one, too," said boots.

"You won't, Bob. You'll see to the chauffeur and the car, and the luggage."

"Hang the luggage! I'll stand the chauffeur a drink."

Then the female voice spoke warningly.

"You've had enough drinks already, both of you," it said. "You ought to bear in mind that you're not running the hotel just for your two selves."

"It's all right, old girl. There's plenty for everybody. Cellar's full of it."

The voices died away, and I strolled out into the bar once more. Mr. Gunthorpe was being affable, according to instructions, to the old gentleman, while an old lady in a bonnet looked on piercingly.

"Quite all right about the diet," the landlord was saying as I entered. "We make a specialty of special diets. In fact, our ordinary diet is a special diet. Certainly, of course. We've got mulligatawny soup, sardines, roast beef, trifle and gorgonzola cheese. Perhaps you'll have a drink while you wait?"

"Certainly not, sir," replied the old gentleman testily. "You seem to be unable to comprehend. My wife has a duodenal ulcer, sir. Had it for fourteen years in September, and you talk to me of mulligatawny soup."

"I quite understand, of course, of course," replied Mr. Gunthorpe urbanely. "Everything of a— an irritating character will be left out of the— "

"Then it won't be mulligatawny soup, you fool!" exploded the old lady, whose pressure I had seen rising for some time.

"Certainly not, madam. Of course, indubitably. We'll call it beef-tea, and it will never know."

"What will never know?" asked the old gentleman, with an air of puzzlement.

"Madam's duodenal ulcer, sir," replied the landlord, with a deferential bow, dedicated, doubtless, to that organ.

Each separate hair in the old gentleman's beard began to curl and coil with the electricity of exasperation, and at every moment I expected to see sparks fly out from it. The old lady folded her hands across her treasure, and looked daggers at the landlord.

"How far is it to the nearest hotel, John?" she demanded acidly.

"Too far to go to-night, Mary. I'm afraid we must put up with this— this sanatorium," replied her husband.

As a diversion I demanded an appetizer— a gin and bitters.

Mr. Gunthorpe's face lit up and he bolted behind the bar.

"Certainly, of course. Have it with me!" he exclaimed eagerly, his eyes full of gratitude for the diversion.

I had the greatest difficulty in paying for our two drinks, for of course Mr. Gunthorpe would not let me drink alone, and I was equally insistent that the house had done enough for me.

"Then we must have another," he declared, as the only way out of the difficulty.

Fortunately for me, Tony appeared on the scene, clothed and in her right mind, speaking once more the English language, and I contrived to avoid further stimulation. Mr. Gunthorpe looked at me reproachfully as I moved off with my wife. I could see that he dreaded further interrogation on the subject of diets.

Nothing further of moment occurred before dinner. Tony and I went out and admired the wonderful view in the dim half-light, and just as the midges got the better of us— even my foul old pipe did not give us the victory— the gong sounded for dinner and covered our retreat.

It was the maddest dinner in which I have ever participated. Three tables were laid in the little coffee-room, and, as Tony and I were the first to put in an appearance, I had the curiosity to look at the bill of fare at the first table I came to.

"This way, sir, if you please," said the chilling voice of our exemplary waitress.

Already I had deciphered "beef-tea" and "steamed sole" on the card, and concluded that the table was reserved for the duodenal ulcer. At the table to which we were conducted I found "mulligatawny soup" figuring on the menu, and I wondered.

The old lady and gentleman were ushered to their seats by the boots, now smartly dressed in striped trousers and black coat and waistcoat. I say "smartly," because the clothes were of good material, and the wearer looked easily the best-clad man in the hotel.

The two places laid at the third table were taken by a boy and girl of such youthful appearance that both Tony and I were astonished to find them living alone in an hotel. The boy might have been fifteen and the girl twelve at the most; but that they were overwhelmingly at home in their surroundings was quickly manifest, as was the fact that they were brother and sister. This latter fact was evidenced by the manner in which the boy bullied the girl, and contradicted her at every opportunity.

There was something of a strained wait when all of us had taken our places. I saw the old gentleman, eye-glasses on the tip of his nose, studying the bill of fare intently. Then he turned to his wife.

"Minced chicken and rice— peptonized," he said suspiciously. "Did you ever hear of such a dish, Mary?"

"Never. But nothing would surprise me in this place," replied his wife, looking round the room with a censorious eye that even included the innocent Tony and myself.

The two children chuckled. They wore an air of expectancy such as I have noticed in my nephews and nieces when I have been inveigled into taking them to Maskelyne's show. They seemed on very intimate terms with the waitress, and the mere sight of the boots sent them into fits of suppressed chuckling. He, standing by the sideboard, napkin over arm, added to their hilarity by winking violently at regular intervals. Catching my eye upon him, he crossed to our table.

"Everything all right, eh?" he said, glancing over the lay-out of our table.

"Everything— except that so far we have had no food," I replied.

"It's the soup," he said, leaning confidentially to my ear. "The cat fell into it, and they're combing it out of her fur. Have a drink while you wait? No! All right, old thing. I dare say you know best when you've had enough. Shut up, you kids! Don't you see you're irritating the old boy."

This in a hoarse aside to the children at the next table. It made them giggle the more.

"Surely they are very young to be stopping here alone!" said Tony, with a touch of her national inquisitiveness.

"Very sad case, madam," replied the boots. "We found them here when we came. You know— wrapped in a blanket on the doorstep. Not quite, perhaps, but you see the idea. Sort of wards of the hotel."

He was interrupted by the entrance of the waitress with soup. She gave him a frozen glance and a jerk of the head, and he vanished to the kitchen, to return with more soup, and at last we got a start on our meal. The soup was good notwithstanding the story of the cat. It really was mulligatawny. There was no doubt about that.

The old couple were not so well satisfied. They sipped a little, had a whispered consultation, and beckoned the boots.

"Waiter, why do you call this beef-tea?" demanded the old gentleman.

"You can't have me there, my lad," retorted boots cheerily. "From the Latin beef, beef and tea, tea— beef-tea. Take a spoonful of tea and a lump of beef, shake well together, simmer gently till ready, and serve with a ham-frill."

The old gentleman's face showed deep purple against his white whiskers, and the waitress left our table hurriedly, hustled the boots from the room, and crossed to the old couple. I could not hear all she said, but I understood that the boots was liable to slight delusions, but quite harmless. The beef-tea was the best that could be prepared on such short notice, and so on.

It was the main course of the meal that brought the climax. It was roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, excellently cooked, and, so far as we were concerned, efficiently served. The irrepressible boots had, however, by this time drifted back to duty. I saw him bear plates to the old people's table containing a pale mess which I rightly concluded was the "minced chicken and rice— peptonized," already referred to by the old gentleman. The couple eyed it suspiciously while their attendant hovered near, apparently awaiting the congratulations which were bound to follow the consumption of the dish.

"John, it's beef!" screamed the old lady, starting to her feet and spluttering.

"Damme, so it is!" confirmed her husband, after a bare mouthful. "Hi, you— scoundrel, poisoner, assassin— send the manager here at once."

He waved his napkin in fury, and boots cocked an eye at him curiously.

"Won't you have another try?" he urged. "Be sporty about it. Hang it, it looks like chopped chicken, and it is chopped. I chopped it myself. Have another try. You'll believe it in time if you persevere. It's the first step that counts, you know. I used to be able to say that in French, but— "

He only got so far because the old gentleman had been inarticulate with rage.

"Fetch the manager, and don't dare utter another word, confound you!" he shouted.

A few moments later our friend Mr. Gunthorpe entered. His eyes were bright, and a satisfied smile rested on his lips.

"Good evening, sir," he began affably. "I believe you sent for me. I hope everything is to your taste?"

"Everything is nothing of the sort, sir!" retorted the old gentleman. "You have attempted a gross fraud upon us, sir. I find on the menu, chicken, and it is nothing more nor less than chopped beef. And 'peptonized'— peptonized be hanged, sir! It's no more peptonized than my hat!"

"Well, sir, as for your hat I can say nothing, but— "

"None of your insolence, sir. I insist on having this— filth taken away and something suitable put before us. My wife has possessed a duodenal ulcer for fourteen years come September, and— "

"Be hanged to your duodenal ulcer! As this isn't its birthday, why should it have a blinking banquet. Let it take pot-luck with the rest of us."

A sudden burst of uncontrollable laughter made me turn sharply, to find that the reserve had fallen from our chilly waitress, who was vainly endeavouring to smother her laughter in her professional napkin.

"Oh, Bill!" she cried, "you've done it now. The game's up."

The old lady and gentleman arose in outraged dignity and started to leave the room, when a diversion was caused by the entrance of a pleasant-faced lady in hat and cloak. I had been semi-conscious for some moments of a motor-engine running at the hotel door.

"Oh, Mr. Gunthorpe, what luck!" cried the newcomer. "I've collected a full staff, and brought them all up from Dolgelly with me, look you."

"Thank heaven!" exclaimed the proprietor. "As soon as your barmaid is on her job we'll drink all their healths. I hope you won't be annoyed, Miss Jones, but I fear, I very greatly fear, you will lose a couple of likely customers at dawn or soon after. Here they are. Perhaps you can still pacify them. I can't."

Miss Jones turned to the old couple, who were waiting for the doorway to clear, with a disarming and conciliatory smile.

"I hope you will make allowances," she said, with a musical Welsh intonation. "I am the manageress, and everything is at sixes and sevens, look you. This morning I had trouble with the staff, and just to annoy me they all cleared off together. I had to leave the hotel to see what I could find in Dolgelly. Mr. Gunthorpe and the other guests in the hotel very kindly offered to see to things while I was away, and I'm sure they have done their best, indeed."

"Done their best to poison us, certainly," growled the old gentleman. "My wife has a duo— "

"That's all right, old chap," interrupted Mr. Gunthorpe. "Miss Jones is an expert in those things. She'll feed it the proper tack, believe me. Give her a chance, and don't blame her for our shortcomings."

By this time the whole mock staff had taken the stage— waitress, boots, chambermaid, and a pleasant-faced lady of matronly appearance who, I learnt, was Mrs. Gunthorpe and the mother of the two children of whom we had been told such a harrowing history.

"And just think, dear," said Tony, smiling at me across the table. "The boots and the chambermaid are on their honeymoon. He is a journalist."

"How do you know all this?" I demanded suspiciously.

"I wormed the whole thing out of the chambermaid at the very beginning," said Tony. "I didn't tell you because I thought it would be more fun."

Miss Jones succeeded in pacifying the old couple somehow— mainly, I think, by promises of a new regime— and we left them in the coffee-room looking almost cheerful.

Tony and I went out to talk in the moonlight, while I smoked an after-dinner cigar. We were gone for some time, and on our return decided to go straight upstairs to bed. I noticed that lights still burned in the coffee-room, and heard the sound of voices from that direction. Thinking that some late guests had arrived during our absence, I had the curiosity to glance round the door. The whole of our late staff sat round a table, on which were arrayed much food and several gilt-topped bottles.

"Come along. Do join us!" cried Mr. Gunthorpe, sighting us at once.

"Come and celebrate the end of this bat in the belfry sort of management," added boots, holding high a sparkling glass.

It ended in Tony and I being dragged into the celebration, and that ended in quite a late sitting.

Tony and I lingered on for over a week at the Bat and Belfry Inn, as we all called it, and so, strange to say, did the duodenal couple, whom, indeed, we left there, special-dieting to their hearts' content.

______________

10: The Crock

F. Frankfort Moore

1855-1931

World's News (Sydney) 30 Oct 1915

WHEN Dr. Colman prescribed "equestrian exercise" for the Reverend Septimus Maltby, curate of Butterham, he was actuated by the best intentions.

He knew that Mr. Maltby's ideal lay somewhere between those two eminent ecclesiastics, St. Simeon Stylites and Savonarola— that he was as careless of the claims of his own meal hours as ever St. Simeon was of his. and that he was as intolerant of the gaieties of Butterham as ever Savonarola was of those of Florence. He denied himself the necessaries of life simply for the sake of doing so, and (as Dr. Colman thought, though he had never said so) of being pointed to as a pattern ascetic; and he had endeavored to organise an anti-golf league, but failing, had printed at his own expense the course of sermons that he had preached against the racecourse, with a supplement dealing with football, cricket, and lawn-tennis. It was with a full knowledge of his dossier since his arrival at Butterham that Dr. Colman had prescribed for the Reverend Septimus Maltby "a course of equestrian exercise."

The doctor disliked greatly the cold smile with which Mr. Maltby received his ultimatum.

"Do you mean to convey to me your belief that unless I take equestrian exercise the consequences may be serious?" he said.

"That's exactly what I mean to convey, my friend," replied the doctor. "If you don't take my advice, look out for squalls, only don't come to me when they begin to blow. Now, good morning; I have something more serious to tackle than a parson with a pain."

Though Mr. Maltby could not at that moment imagine anything more serious than a parson with a pain, he did not remain to reason out the matter with the doctor. He knew that the doctor was aware of his un-popularity in Butterham, where he was a curate. He meant well, his rector assured those people who objected to his lecturing them about the evil of the racecourse and the snare of the lawn-tennis net; but the rector himself never ventured to deny that his curate was a bit of a prig— the bishop affirmed that he was a whole one; but that was when Mr. Maltby had preached with quite unnecessary fervor, his lordship thought, against the introduction of the feeding-bottle into the nursery, thereby "familiarising children with the handling of a medium which was structurally identical with the symbol of inebriety."

"Prig!" was the word which sprang to the lips of the bishop when the phrase "symbol of inebriety" fell upon his ears; but "puppy" was the word that he found necessary to employ when talking over the sermon with his wife.

But the Reverend Septimus Maltby accepted his unpopularity in the light of a compliment; he even accepted his dyspepsia as a tribute to his asceticism; but if he tried to mortify the flesh, the flesh made a bold attempt to return the compliment; for on the evening after his consultation, when he was about to read the second lesson in the church, he found the print in the sacred volume on the lectern flying about like a swarm of bees under his eyes, so that he could not make out a solitary word on the page. His head be-gan to reel, and he put out an uncertain hand to steady himself, but, missing the carved end of the lectern, he staggered for support in a way that, slightly altering his own phrase, was structurally identical with the stagger of inebriety— and he knew it.

But he would not give in. He pulled himself together, and began:— "Here beginneth—"

But he could not go on; the words became mosquitoes this time, preventing him from being able to say what was beginning. It was in vain that he passed his hand across his eyes, the words would not curtail a single figure of the dance which they had started under his gaze.

It was a humiliating moment. The rector hastened from his stall, and whispered a word or two to a couple of the basses in the third row of the choir, and they went to the curate's assistance, while the rector covered their retreat to the vestry by reading the "Lesson for the day."

He was very nice to Mr. Maltby afterwards.

"Do not be distressed," he said. "Although it must be admitted that your involuntary movements suggested a condition that— that— I shrink from defining, yet I am convinced that all who know you will take the most charitable view of the incident. Vertigo—a sudden vertigo may easily be mistaken for— for the other. But you really must put yourself in Dr. Colman's hands— you really must."

"I consulted him yesterday," said the curate, "and he recommended equestrian exercise." He said the words clearly and without falter- ing, and the feat was absolutely convincing to the rector.

"Then, you must get a horse," he said definitely. "I cannot run the chance of so painful an incident as this being repeated. You must get a horse."

"Where?—where?" inquired the sufferer, looking pathetically at the untouched glass of brandy which one of the churchwardens, whose wife had something the matter with her heart, had been able to procure for him— a second churchwarden had been ungenerous enough to whisper something to his colleague about "a hair of the dog that bit him."

"Leave the where to me," said the rector, "I can easily borrow a horse for you— some sort of a horse. I know several people who have a stable full, and so would never miss one or two for a while."

"One would do for me," murmured the curate.

And it did. The rector, living ascertained that Mr. Maltby was no great horseman, wrote to his cousin, Sir Everard Lyle, who had a large and varied stable, stating some of the facts of the case, and asking him in the name of charity to let the curate have something in the way of a horse to allow of his following the prescription of his medical adviser for a few months.

He sent off this letter, and within twenty-four hours he had received a telegram from his kinsman:—

"Having nothing of kind in my stable, have arranged Simpson send right article to-morrow.—Lyle."

He hastened to make Mr. Maltby aware of his good luck— his cousin had, he said, just the horse to suit the needs of a dyspeptic clergyman who was taking equestrian exercise according to a doctor's prescription, not because of any liking on his part for riding a horse; and the animal would probably be ready to administer the first dose to him the next day.

Mr. Maltby's face wore the espression habitual to the schoolboy who is informed by the matron that his Gregory's powder is now ready.

"I am much obliged to you," he said mournfully. "I hope that the animal is not what is called spirited, Mr. Mason— not being accustomed to—"

"You may make your mind easy on that point," said Mr. Mason. "I explained to my cousin that you wanted a medicinal mount— to be taken with a teaspoonful of spirits only. If the thing has any spirits you may rely on their being so diluted as to be well within the teetotal limit. But how about your dress— you haven't gaiters, I suppose?"

Mr. Maltby shook his head. Wanting the faith of the Napoleonic soldier who had a field-marshal's baton at the bottom of his knapsack, the curate had not in his wardrobe the gaiters of the prelate. He shook his head.

"Would it be quite seemly?" he began; but the rector cut him short.

"No, it would not be quite seemly for you to appear in the saddle with the ends of your trousers curled about your knees. We cannot afford to run any more risks, I tell you again. I will see that you are properly rigged out."

"Clerically, let me beg, Mr. Mason," said the curate persuasively.

"What do you take me for?" said the rector indignantly.

"The question is what will strangers take me for," said Mr. Maltby, with a sad smile. "I should be reluctant to have people fancy that I was an habitual horseman."

"You make your mind easy on that point; take my word for it," laughed the rector.

The result of this conference was the arrival at Mr. Maltby's lodgings of a check riding suit in a very fair state of repair. The pattern was undoubtedly a check; but it had by long wear become quite unobtrusive; even to the most imaginative of men, it could not for many years past have suggested the offering of alluring odds on a racecourse,

"It'll go well with the crock," was the comment made upon it by Mr. Mason, when he shook it out from the bottom of an old portmanteau— a relic of his undergraduate days. The moths had had a mouthful or two of it, but these depredations were fortunately in such a part of the breeches as prevented them from being at all conspicuous when the wearer was in the saddle.

That night Mr. Maltby had a dress rehearsal in front of a mirror. It did not last long, He gave a cry of horror the moment he saw himself in the glass. It was as though he had repeated the experience of the man in the German legend, who, standing in front of a looking-glass, saw not himself but a horrible demon instead. He could not have believed that so great a transformation could be effected by a change of garments. He found himself face to face, not with the ascetic churchman whom he had been accustomed to meet in this way on the friendliest terms, but a vulgar, raffish, lean-faced sharper, with a knowing expression and a fleshly leer.

He tore off the dreadful disguise— he took it for granted that it was a disguise and not a revelation— and flung it into a corner of the room; no matter what Mr. Mason might say, he would never subject himself to the humiliation of seeing again that dreadful figure that had confronted him in the glass. He sobbed himself asleep.

But the rector, with the satisfaction of feeling that he had done his duty and more than his duty in respect of his curate, passed an excellent night, and descended to his breakfast-room to read the letter which had come by the morning post from his cousin, and which he now found brought him the news that Simpson, the well-known horse-dealer of Diddleham, would send him in a horse-box by rail an animal which he could confidently recommend as highly medicinal.

I have seen the creature myself,  (wrote Sir Everard Lyle,) and I honestly believe him to be all that Simpson said, and rather more— in fact, I don't think I ever saw a horse that more strongly suggested physic. The stable tradition is that he was the favorite charger of William the Conqueror; but I think that this is an exaggeration; I don't believe that his memory would take him back further than Henry VIII. I fancy that he may have been ridden by Queen Elizabeth at Tilbury, and, as be began to get on in years, the irre-sponsible gossip of the stable associated him with the other incident. In fact, I was told by an eminent dealer in old furniture and bric-a-brac, who is supposed to be a judge of such things, that although the cabriole legs suggest the Chippendale period, he honestly believes that the thing is early Tudor, with here and there a strong Gothic tendency. But it is really quite a speculative piece, and the bold carving plainly visible on the tonneau would be highly esteemed at South Kensington or Berlin, where there is a constant demand for such articles. Indeed, my friend says it has only to be seen by Dr. Bode in order to be added to the treasures of the National Museum. Of course, on this point I am unable to offer my opinion; I have only looked at it from the standpoint of the medical pre-scription; and you may depend on it so far.

"Simpson hopes that with a small tip to a porter he may evade the special railway rate for crockery, under which heading it would naturally be included; but as the dis-tance is not great this is an unimportant detail; but you know what these horse-dealers, are. He is insuring the animal en route for £3 (three pounds). I remonstrated with him on account of the extravagant amount, but he says it is well to be on the safe side. In reply to my direct question he said he really saw no reason why it should not sur-vive this week— ay, and with luck, well on into the next, so there you are. Simpson is a horse-dealer, but from what I know of him I think he may be trusted to do his best for anyone who wants a really mature animal, free from all skittish tricks, and may be ridden on a snaffle. He told me to mention that the deep depression in the back is where the saddle goes, and that if, in tightening the girths, you hear a slight creaking sound from the interior, that tells you that you have gone far enough.

Let me know how your friend gets on— Simpson recommends a spring-board. With love to Nora and the kiddies; I suppose Tom is quite a big chap now.

Ever yours affectionately,

Everard Ponsonby Lyle."

P.S. The horse's name is Benvenuto Cellini; but he has had many aliases— Ben for short. Don't bother yourself looking him up in the stud-book. Simpson bought him without a pedigree, though the gipsy from whom he had him, affirmed that his great-grandfather had won the Derby in his time. I don't believe there were any Derbies in those days. Be sure you let me know how your friend gets on.

"Gets off, he means," said the rector. "I'm not quite sure that this is exactly the sort off thing we want for Maltby."

"It's a step in the right direction at any rate," said Mrs. Mason.

The rector had to attend a presentation of colors at Melanborough, a town some distance away, so he would be unable to be present in person to receive the horse. He acquainted Mr. Maltby with the fact, and told him that he would arrange with the railway company to deliver the horse to his own man— a general utility person, who, in addition to looking after the family pony, worked in the garden, and cleaned boots, and knives, and things of that sort in his spare time. He advised Mr. Maltby to make friends with the animal early— in fact, he thought that his best plan would be to mount at the railway station and ride quietly to the village— Butterham was a little over a mile from the station.

Mr. Maltby agreed to do so, and joined the rector's man at the station to await the arrival of the train with the horse-box. When the animal made his appearance, with a porter at one side and the rector's man at the other, he seemed to Mr. Maltby to be a very showy animal; but he was certainly cool and collected in spite of his railway journey. But Mr. Maltby was no great judge of the points of a horse, and when the porter and the rector's man said a word or two in its praise he did not even venture to back them up for fear of making a mistake. He watched the men throw the saddle on him— he had al-ready a bridle in addition to the halter— and then they led him to a convenient place.

Now Mr. Maltby had occasionally ridden a horse, though without making much progress in the science of equestration, and he remembered quite enough of the preliminary details to know that he was to mount by putting his left foot in the left-hand stirrup, looking forward; and after no more than two abortive attempts, he found himself in the saddle, while a man at each side shortened the stirrups, and gave a sharp pull to each leg of his trousers, for he was clerically at-tired, and the act of mounting had exposed rather more of his socks than the men thought seemly.

It only required a friendly chirrup and a twitch of the rein to put the horae in motion, and before he had got out of sight of the station Mr. Maltby was experiencing something of the exhilaration of the practised horseman. His mount was going easily, showing no tendency to break either into a canter or a trot; so pleasant was the experience that Mr. Maltby thought that he could not do better than make a circuit of the country before heading him for Butterham. He would turn aside from the road at Newleigh Common, and ride across country to the border of Fringley Woods and then on the roadside again— a nice round of about five miles it would be— just long enough to make a beginning and establish a rapprochement between himself and his horse.

The first part of his intention was carried out without difficulty. He turned off the highway that skirted Newleigh Common; but the momenthis mount got upon the turf he seemed to think that he was expected to canter. This somewhat startled the rider, but the motion of the canter was so easy, that he settled down to it after a feeble attempt to check the animal. It was heading for the stream known as Newleigh Brook, and as it was eight feet wide and the bridge was quite a mile to the west it would be bound to receive a check, he thought.

But what was his horror when he felt the canter change to a rush the moment the horse sighted the stream— a crescendo rush— a sailing through the air a good yard off the saddle, and then a bump that might have been serious if be had not, kept a firm hold upon the saddle in two places— he was on the other side of the stream and the horse had resumed its canter as if nothing had happened!

Mr. Maltby felt that he had been miraculously preserved from dislocation, and perhaps dissolution as well. But one experience of that sort was, he rather fancied, enough for the time being, so he persuaded his horse to edge off a little—the animal would make no further com- promise—toward where there was a bridge; he had no interest in the jumping powers of the thing, nor could he honestly believe that Dr. Colman's prescription included this type of equestration. A few timely blandishments might induce it to go gently across the space that lay between the little stream and the high road to Butterham. To his delight he found that it was quite amenable to reins and reason, and he believed that he had quite mastered it by the suaviter in modo, when, after crossing the common, and skirting a little wood, known as Four Oak Knoll, a slight dip in the landscape brought him close to where, to his surprise, a small crowd had assembled, with several horses.

He wondered what this could mean— a crowd mostly of well-dressed people, ladies and gentlemen, assembling in the open country. He could not remember having seen any announcement of a public meeting to be held at this place; and he naturally became interested in an occurrence that struck him as needing an explanation. He rode close to where people were grouped about some horses, and inquired of a couple of young men with notebooks, whom he recognised as reporters on the "Gazette" and the "Weekly News,'' what was going on.

"Why, the East Dunton's Point to Point," one of them replied.

"Point to Point—what does Point to Point mean?" he asked, more puzzled than ever. "Point to Point races— we'll not fail to include your name among those present, Mr. Maltby," said the other pressman with a bland smile. Mr. Maltby almost fell from his saddle.

"Please— I must beg of you to do nothing of the kind," he cried in dismay. "I had no idea— I am here by the merest chance."

"Duty is duty," said the "Gazette" man, who knew about Mr. Maltby's sermons against every form of sport. "We cannot neglect to record an incident of so great interest to our readers."

"But I have seen no race— I do not desire to see any race," cried Mr. Maltby.

"It looks very like as if you meant to take part in one, mounted as you are upon Major Carberry's Lancewood," said the reporter.

"I don't understand your allusion, sir," said Mr. Maltby. "I assure you I don't want to see any race."

"You had better hurry away then, for the horses will be off in a minute," said the "Weekly News" man, and he and his colleague moved towards the starting point.

"I assure you I don't desire to see any race," cried Mr. Maltby.

"It looks as if your horse did," said the "Gazette" man.

And he certainly seemed to speak the truth; for the animal appeared to have recognised a friend or two among the horses that were pre-paring to start. His head was high in the air, and his ears thrown forward. Mr. Maltby tugged at the reins as severely as was consistent with the excellent rapprochement that he had established between his horse and himself, but he paid no attention to the remonstrance; to his rider's horror he was making straight for the starting-post. Mr. Maltby tugged and tugged, but all to no purpose. He was not a dozen yards behind the seven starters when the signal was given end off they went.

And off Mr. Maltby's horse went after them.

There was a shout of remonstrance— a yell of laughter— horrid words were flying through the air, and so was the Reverend Septimus Maltby— he was soon happily beyond those voices. He had ceased to tug at the reins. He was giving all his attention to maintaining his seat; for he saw that the three horses ahead of him— he had passed the others with the greatest ease— had jumped a hedge with a ditch on the other side, and he was going straight for it. He clung to the saddle, and once more his sensation of flying was followed by a bump, and his hat vanished like a feather in the wind. On went the horse at that frightful gallop, his head stretched forward, and ventre a terre— on be went, and soon overhauled Sir William Collingham's celebrated Porcupine— on still to where a deep drain full of slimy water and about ten feet wide gleamed straight ahead— over It sailed the two horses in front, and over it sailed Mr. Maltby not a yard to the rear of the hindmost. On the slight rise beyond he lost ground, but he more than made up for it when they got upon the flat further on— he shot ahead, and running neck and neck with the foremost— Mr. Marsden's Nebuchadnezzar, for the big jump— a gate of five bars leading into a rough field surrounded by an irregular bank topped with a thick hedge. Nebuchadnezzar made no mistake; he was over the gate, apparently without an effort; but Mr. Maltby's mount had to make an effort, and of this fact Mr. Maltby was fully aware— he shut his eyes as he felt the animal pulling himself together— almost pulling his rider asunder— for the jump. Mr. Maltby was embracing his neck in affection-ate appreciation of the performance at the close, but in spite of his unconventional attitude he was well aware of the fact that there was no horse in the field ahead of him; he had passed Nebuchadnezzar, and was making for a point in the surrounding bank where the hedge seemed least thick. The rise for the bank threw Mr. Maltby back into his saddle once more, and he had a fine view of the ad-joining country for a second as the cunning steeplechaser changed his feet on the top and crashed his way through and alighted daintily in a broad and shallow ditch on the other side.

And now for the first time the horse seemed uncertain of what was expected of him. Previously he had simply followed his leaders, but now he was the leading horse, and though open to any suggestion he was receiving none. He was compelled to act on his own initiative; and he believed that he was acting for the best in galloping across the next field, clambering up a high bank, and dropping into a very pleasant country lane on the other side, where he thought he had done all that was expected of him— as a matter of fact he had done a good deal more than Mr. Maltby at least had expected of him— and so fell into a pleasant trot, taking the air into his lungs.

Mr. Maltby felt more than thankful— he was actually elated— he had the very carnal sensation of having won a race; and he could not help leaning forward and patting the sleek. neck of his horse. He did not know in what direction the lane led, but he had an instinct that as hitherto he had been guided by his horse he could not do better than leave the question of route to be decided by him.

The result was that, after proceeding along the lane for a couple of miles, cross-roads were reached, with a finger-post indicating on one arm, "To Butterham, 7 miles," and on another, "To Melanborough, 4 miles." He tried to turn the horse toward Butterham; and the horse showed signs of being quite amenable to any suggestion, but at the critical moment an open carriage with a fine pair of horses came up, and Mr. Maltby saw with deep regret that the occupants were his bishop and his bishop's wife.

He was painfully conscious of his own appearance— hatless, his clerical collar burst at one end from the restriction of its stud, and his legs— he knew it— bare almost up to his knees! He tugged at the reins, but all to no purpose. He saw the look that came into his lordship's face when he recognised him, and the look that came into the lady's face when she had raised her double glasses while the carriage was in the act of passing. He knew that never again would the bishop or his wife look on him in the usual way; he would ever, be a marked man in their eyes.

But he had soon something else to think of, for his horse wheeled half-way round, and complacently trotted alongside the carriage, keeping pace with it with mechanical precision,

Once more the occupants eyed him— the bishop more severely than before; but no word came from either of them until they had kept company for a full mile. Then the bishop shifted his place and, turning to him, said in his most commanding voice:—

"I must request, sir, that you will not ride in such close proximity to my carriage."

"I cannot help it, my lord; it is all my horse," replied Mr. Maltby.

"Then pull up your horse, sir," said his lordship.

"That is beyond my skill, my lord," said Mr. Maltby.

"Then we shall stop and allow you to proceed," said his lordship, prompted by his wife.

The carriage was stopped, and with it the curate's horse stopped; but the moment the carriage went on the horse went on in spite of the almost superhuman efforts its rider to restrain it.

The bishop was rapidly becoming very angry. At the outskirts of Melanborough, he addressed Mr. Maltby once more.

"This will not do, sir," he cried sternly; "We cannot appear at the presentation of colors in this style. You are making us appear supremely ridiculous, sir; it is not seemly."

"I will do anything you suggest, my lord," said the curate. "The animal is headstrong; it has well-nigh pulled my arms out of their sockets."

The bishop gave an exclamation of impatience— such an expression as a bishop may occasionally use— too feeble for a layman— and on the procession went— the stately episcopal equipage, with its mounted escort in what seemed a travesty of clerical costume. The people in the streets of Melanborough stood still to gaze. They did not know what to make of it. More than once a policeman was about to take action; but apparently coming to the conclusion that the group was symbolic, refrained; and so through the gates of the Park where the presentation of colors to a Territorial regiment was to take place, the carriage went with its strange escort. But the moment that the bend in the drive disclosed its long double line of infantry standing at attention, the mounted escort left the side of the carriage, and trotted to the front of the lines, then wheeled and stood as rigid as an equestrian statue, facing the spectators, and quite undeterred by the roar of laughter that greeted this performance. The ends of the rider's trousers had by this time worked their way upward on each leg, and their perseverance was rewarded by the disclosure of a bare knee clinging to each side of the saddle.

But there came another roar— it came from the colonel this time, and its purport was:—

"Take your horse out of that, sir."

"I can't, sir," said the curate meekly.

"Take your horse out of that, sir," shouted the adjutant, waving his sword.

"Can't you see that it's out of my power?" cried Mr. Maltby piteously.

The spectators were roaring once again, and they roared still louder when a couple of the men who were keeping the ground advanced officiously upon the mounted curate, and made an honorable but vain attempt to get their hands on his horse's reins. The animal backed and evaded them quite easily, then trotted pleasantly to the end of the lines, and, wheeling once more, "took his call" from the delighted crowds.

For several minutes the comedy went on, and it only came to a close when an officer in the uniform of the Household Cavalry galloped up, and shouted:—

"How do you come to be mounted on my charger, sir? I insist on an explanation or I shall have you arrested. Steady, Lancewood!"

The curate's mount stood steadily enough, after he had sent his whinny of recognition into the air.

"If he is your horse you're welcome to him— whether he is yours or anybody else's, you're welcome to him," murmured Mr. Maltby.

"Clear the ground, for heaven's sake, Her Royal Highness is signalled," cried the colonel.

The Guardsman lifted the curate with the utmost tenderness out of the saddle, and dropped him lightly on the ground, with the collar stud that had come off in his hand, and then throwing the reins of the horse to one of the men, galloped off to meet the Royal Princess who was to present the colors.

It was his rector who hurried Mr. Maltby off the ground by a back way. Mr. Maltby was now weeping.

He tried to narrate some of his experiences of the previous hour and a half; but he was not very successful.

"It was a cruel joke for my cousin to play," said Mr. Mason; but when a railway official met him and put a telegram into his hand from Simpson, the horse-dealer of Diddleham, be learned that the joke had been an involuntary cue. It appeared that Simpson had two horses to send by rail that,day, and one was the celebrated charger Lancewood belonging to Major Carberry, of the Life Guards, which he had been keeping for the previous week— an animal that had won many steeplechases, and was worth something like £400. The other was the quadruped which he meant to send to Mr. Mason, and which he had over-insured at £3. The duty of labelling the horse-boxes had been carelessly performed, so that Major Carberry found himself staring, at the quadruped, while the Reverend Septimus Maltby was winning the Point to Point race, and then doing involuntary escort duty to his bishop.

When Mr. Maltby read the graphic two columns which appeared in the "Gazette" under the heading, "Strange Conduct of a Clergyman," and the column and a half in the "Weekly News" headed, "A Parson Wins the East Dunton Point to Point," he took the next train to the Shetland Islands. He never returned to Butterham; but the people who have not lost sight of him say that he is far more tolerant than he used to be, and is even contemplating taking up croquet.

___________

11: "Sycamore": A Ghost Story

Cy Warman

1855-1914

World's News (Sydney) 7 May 1904

Cyrus Warman, American journalist and author

SOMETHING his host said at dinner— some passing reference to the meteoric rise of J. Spencer Atwood from law to literature— had set that prosperous young author thinking on the not very remote yesterday of his life.

He might have hailed a hansom; indeed, he could well afford a carriage and pair of his own, but this night he preferred to walk home. In a narrow lane just off the Strand he found himself at the street door of a dingy brick building. Coming out of his reverie, he laughed a noiseless little laugh, and stood for a moment looking up at a window which for years, had been his one opening to the world. How many cigars had he smoked, how many air castles had he builded with one elbow on the ledge of that lonely look-out!

While, as a matter of fact, he had not foreseen this fame which was come to him, he had, in some vague way, felt it, and had experienced no great surprise at its coming.

It was pleasant, after years of absence from the little lane, to stand there in the midnight silence and look up at the window where he had dreamed some of the rosiest dreams of his life.

A year ago he lived there. Yesterday be lunched with the Lord Chief Justice. To-day he dined with Gladstone. To-morrow he would sail for America. He was stealing quietly away, for he hated noise and notoriety. He was going to visit and to rest.

"Good-bye, dear old stepstone, goodbye," he quoted, and turned away.

As he walked slowly to his luxurious apartments, Atwood began to ask himself why he had come back to the old place at midnight and alone. Was it Mr. Gladstone's reference to the old days? Or Mr. Gladstone's old port? Or was he losing himself in his work?

Anyway, he was glad that his stout limbs had carried him back that he might take leave of his bachelor home before his departure for America.

As he walked away with elevated chin his foot struck a stone. He paused and looked down. He had stumbled over the slab that covered Goldsmith's grave.

"What a narrow swath I shall be cutting a hundred years hence!" said Atwood, hurrying on.

Sycamore, always attractive, was never more so than now. Touhey, the old gardener, was arranging the rustic seats under the great trees where the robins were rioting, when a carriage swung in at the lower gate and rolled leisurely along the gravelled driveway arched over by drooping bows of ancient forest trees.

Atwood was charmed with the place. He had come to Canada expecting to find only new crude things, and was agreeably surprised.

He saw, too, that the welcome accorded him was genuine. The hostess, Mrs. Deering, was sister to his mother, sweet soul, who had gone from him when he was but a boy.

He admired her sons, sturdy young fellows just merging into manhood and taking their places in the work of the world. He was charmed by his beautiful cousin, Helen, and greatly amused and entertained by his maiden aunt, Phoebe, who seemed ever to be in the act of side-stepping some sudden calamity, or shying at an imaginary menace.

Atwood was not only clever, but handsome as well, and from the day of his arrival the staid old country seat took on holiday airs. Almost immediately telegrams began to pour in from leading publishers, followed by letters inviting the visiting author to contribute to the magazines, while special writers and artists from the big dailies began to break a trail from the big towns to the northern shrine. At the end of a week all roads seemed to lead to Sycamore.

To be sure, Atwood knew his coming would make some noise, but he had not expected it would be as loud as this. The space writer and the kodaker had established a peaceful blockade of Sycamore.

If he showed his head someone took a shot at him. One persistent picture-maker, having stolen into the grounds by night, hid under a big birch and actually photographed the author in the swimming pool, taking a morning plunge.

It was probably this crowning audacity more than anything else that caused Atwood to accept an assignment to do a short story in the vein originated, developed, and made famous by him, for the foremost magazine in America. The price fixed by the publisher was fabulous, and in the event of the author finishing the story in a fortnight there was to be an honorarium which, if it had come to him in the form of a retainer when he was a struggling barrister, would have taken his breath.

His aunt, by this time quite ready for a few days' rest, he took into his confidence. He was to have his meals in his apartments, and be left alone.

It worked beautifully, for Mrs. Deering, being a woman, was an artist in the art of making you understand without saying so in so many words. It was as easy as being out when she was in, or in when she had just been out.

In a few days everyone in the little city knew that Mr. Atwood was indisposed. Nothing serious, however— probably out in a week or two at most.

Jeanette, the parlormaid, always wore a look of distress when a caller asked after the author, but brightened when assuring the visitor that he would be out soon. Sarah, the house-maid, tiptoed past his door. Mary, the cook, would have killed him with delicacies if he had eaten all she sent up. Touhey, the gardener, was grieved because of Atwood's illness, but glad of the opportunity to drive the kodakers away.

ONE NIGHT Mrs. Deering was awakened by the low mutterings of distant thunder. She fell asleep again, only to be awakened by the same ominous noise.

She was one of those women who can face any amount of real danger, but who tremble in the awful presence of the incomprehensible. She got up and stood at the window.

Away in the western sky the storm king was shaking his golden chains on a background of dead black. Without, the night was noiseless. Not a leaf was moving.

Mrs. Deering threw a shawl about her shoulders and sat down to watch the storm. The leaves began to nod and sway in the rising breeze.

Suddenly the great trees seemed to shudder. A chain of lightning leaped from the black sky and darted, smokelike, among the trees, leaving the darkness deeper than before. Immediately following this ferret-like flash, a snow-white figure emerged from the shadows of the great birch, passed up over the shoulder of the hill, and disappeared down the steep bluff in the direction of the river.

A new, strange terror sat upon the soul of the lone watcher at the window. Shuddering, she rose and stepped into the hall. The transom was dark over Atwood's door. He had retired, though he had been in the habit of writing long after midnight.

Off in another wing of the big house the boys were sleeping. She stole softly into her sister's room, which faced the west, and to her surprise found Aunt Phoebe sitting at her window.

She, too, was nervous and unusually distressed. The two women camped together that night. In their conversation, the little that passed, each blamed the storm for her nervousness.

Aunt Phoebe was up early the following day, and began to investigate what she called the scandalous conduct of some of the female helps. She went after Jeanette first, but the fiery little French-Canadian parlormaid soon convinced the self-appointed superintending housekeeper that she had not been out in her robe de nuit.

Then Aunt Phoebe stood Sarah up, and Sarah indignantly denied having left her room during the night, and promptly handed in her notice.

It took time, even for Aunt Phoebe, to nerve herself to move on Mary, the cook. In two minutes it was all over, and Mary was packing up.

"I've given notice," said Sarah, as Mary, red and perspiring, stamped up the back stair.

"I've given them a chance to fill me place," said Mary.

Aunt Phoebe, baffled and alarmed, called Mrs. Deering, who, after much diplomacy, succeeded in establishing a truce between her sister and the servants.

"It's all very well for them to deny it," said Aunt Phoebe, when her sister chided her; "but I saw a hussy come up the river path and pass around to the rear of the house just as you entered my room last night."

Mrs. Deering stared at her sister.

It was Sarah's night out that night, and with the consent of Mrs. Deering Jeanette went with her.

It was midnight when the two girls entered the lower gate and hurried along the driveway.

"There's where the dreadful man hid," said Jeanette, "to photograph Mr. Atwood in the swimming pool. Isn't Mr. At—"

Jeanette stopped short, grasped Sarah's arm, and stared in the direction of the pool. Out of the shadow of the big birch a white figure fared, crossed an open, star-lit space, and disappeared over the shoulder of the hill in the direction of the river.

The girls caught hands and raced for the house.

A few nights after, Louis, the elder of the Deering boys, returned late from a banquet. While he was hunting the keyhole he heard footsteps as of a man running along the driveway.

Turning, he saw a woman running straight for the front door. As she came near she fell forward, and he caught her in his arms.

As he lifted the falling woman he saw a white figure pass under a tulip tree on the brow of the hill and then drop suddenly behind the bluff.

Young Deering, not wishing to alarm the household, drew his find to the front of the verandah and held her face to the starlight and began to look her over.

It was Mary, the cook. He laid her gently down on the door-mat, plucked a bunch of dew-wet leaves from a tulip tree, and fanned her face.

"Please, sur," said Mary, "would you be so kind as to see me to the rear of the house?"

"Yes, yes, Mary," said Deering; "you'll be all right now."

As they passed around to the west side of the house Mary kept glancing back toward the big birch from whose dark shadows she could have sworn she had seen a ghost appear.

This thing went on until one by one almost every member of the household had seen the white-robed figure emerge from the shadows down by the swimming-pool, pass over the hill, and fade in the forest that fringed the river's rim.

They set a watch in Mrs. Deering's room, which overlooked the grounds to the south, and the river to the west, but the apparition failed to appear. They watched again on the following night. Midnight, and nothing came.

Just as they were breaking up the watch Aunt Phoebe, who had been sitting by a west window, called excitedly:

"Look! Look!"

One of the young men sprang to the window. He could see nothing, but Aunt Phoebe declared that she had seen the white thing leap into the shadow just beyond the tulip tree.

The whole household was by this time becoming so demoralised by the constant dread of some dire calamity that Mrs. Deering determined to take Atwood into her confidence.

The author laughed at first, but, seeing how his aunt was distressed, he promised to make the ghost's acquaintance at the earliest possible moment. That night he joined the watchers, but the ghost refused to walk. Another night was equally disappointing.

On the following night Mrs. Deering saw it, and told Atwood so.

"I have a plan," said the author. "You take my room, I'll take yours, and when half-past eleven strikes I'll put my work aside and watch for your ghost."

For three nights he worked and watched and waited, but had nothing of interest to tell his hostess when the next day dawned.

Mrs. Deering returned to her apartment and Atwood to his.

That very night she saw the sprite. Aunt Phoebe saw it, too, and took to her bed.

The servants had ceased to take their nights out. "Sycamore" was a good imitation of a madhouse. Young Deering wired Chicago for the best detective that could be had.

"Who has seen this thing?" was the detective's first question.

"Everybody about the place but Touhey and the author."

The detective examined the ground, and discovered that the dirt had been spaded up under the big birch. There was fresh dirt on a spade near the lodge, though Touhey said he had not used it for a week.

That night the detective sat with his back to a big tree immediately in front of the gardener's lodge, but Touhey slept like a log until the sun came in at his window.

That day the detective slept. The next night he sat in a dark closet at the end of a dimly-lighted hallway, at the other end of which was the entrance to Atwood's room. Near midnight the light went out, but the door never opened during the night.

Young Deering kept watch in his mother's room. He owned that he had nodded, but was positive he had seen a white object for a brief moment on the brow of the hill.

Atwood announced that his story would be completed and in the mail on the morrow— in time to win the honorarium.

Mrs. Deering, who was almost the only person permitted to see him, heard this with a great sigh of relief, for Atwood's condition was beginning to alarm her. He was not eating, his eyes had a stony stare, the color had left his cheeks. At times he moved and spoke like one half asleep. His voice sounded as if it came from a distance.

'Poor boy," said Mrs. Deering; "It's the ghost that's wearing on him."

For his third night's work the detective planned a blockade of the big birch. Two of the Deering boys and a couple of their friends were to assist him, while the third Deering was to remain with Mrs. Deering and Helen, Aunt Phoebe was out of it altogether, keeping her room day and night.

Promptly at eleven o'clock the watchers took their places under the great trees, completely surrounding the mysterious birch. The detective, having placed his men, took up a post between the pool and the point of the hill over which the ghost was said to have passed upon more than one occasion.

Nobody had ever seen the ghost coming in, but the detective took it for granted that it would enter by the same trail used when departing.

They had scarcely stationed themselves when the low-hanging boughs of the big birch parted and the white thing strode out in full view.

The two women at the window gave a low cry, clutching at young Deering, who hushed them. Every man among the trees stood still, awed by the awful apparition. Only the detective kept a grip on his courage.

He stepped out from the shadow of the tulip tree and stood in the ghost's path, The watchers at the window held their breath.

Inspired suddenly by the great courage of their leader, the sentinels, one after the other, left their posts and hurried to his aid. The detective put up his hand as if to hold them back. The little company paused.

The detective stepped to one side, and the white thing passed on, disappearing among the trees. The detective, silhouetted against the star-studded sky, beckoned, and the other men hurried up to the level of the lawn. He put up his hand, and they all stopped short.

At that moment the white object, emerging from the shrubs, crossed an open space and passed out of view at the rear of the building. The detective signalled again, and the others followed him to the front of the house. The watchers within joined them.

Up over the roof of the summer kitchen came the ghost. Helen hid her face and shuddered. Along the eave trough the white-robed object hurried toward the front of the house.

"Hus-s-h," said the detective; "it's Atwood, If you wake him, he'll fall."

At the end of the roof the ghost sat down, took hold of the cornice, lowered himself by one hand, and dropped lightly to the porch roof and stepped in through an open window to Mr. Atwood's room.

The detective signalled, and they followed him into the drawingroom.

IN AN HOUR they were all comparatively calm.

The detective, who had been upstairs, reported Mr, Atwood sleeping like a tired child. A heap of manuscript lay upon his table with the word "Finis" written on the bottom of the last page.

By this time the "family doctor, who had been called by telephone, arrived.

"Let him sleep," said the doctor, when he had heard the story and looked the patient over.

Just as he was about to leave the room the doctor noticed the stack of manuscript, turned it over and read the title of the tale that Atwood had been living for a fortnight— "The Ghost of a Miser."

____________________

12: The Haunted "Smoker"

Edwin L. Arnold

1857-1935

World's News (Sydney) 1 Feb 1908

British author of "Phra the Phoenician", "The Story of Ulla", and "Gullivar of Mars" among others.  This story is not in "The Story of Ulla", his only collection of short stories.

I DOUBT if I have ever been in a more antiquated compartment of a railway carriage than that which was coupled on to the "down express'' at little Mudhorgh Junction on the night of this story, with myself in sole possession of its dim interior. Nominally a first-class, a slight, stale odor about the cushions would have suggested mildew to to me nostrils and tobacco to others. Indifferently padded, lit with a dim oil-lamp in the centre of the roof, an indefinable air of age pervaded its narrow windows, low-arched ceiling, and badly fitting doors. This coach, as our grandfathers would hare called it, had brought myself up from the far byways of a Midland shire; and for some unknown reason the authorities at Mudburgh, instead of making me change into the big London express which came flashing and roaring into the junction a few minutes after us, hitched my decrepit old conveyance on to the fast train; and through the black hours that followed we clattered and rattled south, every spring and joint in the "smoker" seeming to bemoan the swiftness of modern travel.

Still, the carriage was good enough as long as it held together during the journey; and it was pleasant, as an Englishman always thinks, to be alone. So I snuggled into my corner on starting, with my wraps well tucked in against a cold and chilly night, though a dry one; and even before we left the junction was dozing off into a half-sleep, across which moving lights and sounds outside merely seemed like parts of an indistinct dream.

Whether it was the stale pork-pie— that horrible confection dear to refreshment contractors— I had eaten half-an-hour before, or what else, I know not; but it is certain that my dreams gradually grew more and more sombre, till to my fancies the bath-buns in their bag by my side turned to gold. And as I put my hand over them, in uneasy avarice, all the air seemed full of hungry eyes, and the darkness, which the flickering lamp did so little to dispel, deepened round a form from which a ghostly hand came forth and gripped me by the throat, while the night turned cold and heavy with that presence; and, wrestling with the invisible thing, with a cry and a start I awoke gladly to find myself alone again.

But was I alone? As I roused and stretched, cursing as I did so the man who first packed stale pork into staler pie-crust for the ruin of human sleep, I looked round, and was startled to see another, passenger in the carriage— a man with his chin sunk upon his chest, and occupying the opposite far-corner seat. His entrance had been quite unobserved, and my first thought took the form of a hope that I had not been making a fool of myself. It flashed upon me that indigestion promotes snoring. Perhaps I had been kicking or talking foolishly as I dozed! What a bore he must have thought me!

With an apologetic cough to imply I, the sleeper, was awake, and would be more careful in future, I reached out for an illustrated magazine, meaning to offer it to the new-comer, and at the same time taking another glance at him. He was a curious-looking individual; and a vague, unaccountable feeling of chilly alarm crept over me as I gazed awhile. There was an indescribable appearance of limpness in his every limb; his hands lay palm upwards at his sides; his hair hung in dank, wet tags across a face that looked extraordinarily pallid in the oil-light; and he was dressed— that was the strangest thing of all— in tight trousers, under a blue cloth coat with gold buttons, such as old men still sometimes wore in the middle of last century! Yes, he was miserably, horribly limp; he looked as a drowned man might who had been propped up there upon the cushions, and I stared with still increasing apprehension while the black night whirled by outside, and the wind whistled through the ill-made window-framing like a gale in the shrouds of a ship. And as I stared like that, mile after mile, I remembered with a foolish, growing terror that an hour would elapse, before we reached our next stoppingplace, and that that wretched old carriage had been built in the days before communication with the guard was thought of.

At last I could bear it no longer. The air of the compartment seemed absolutely freezing, and the silence of the uncanny, hatless individual opposite was horrible.

"Sir," I said, desperately holding out a late edition, "would you care to see a paper— or a magazine, perhaps? I have several here."

And then my tongue forgot its office, and I shrank into my corner; for, as though roused from lethargy by a familiar sound, the being suddenly tossed his arms aloft in a fierce pantomime of despair, and went— there in his corner, all by himself, in grim, dreadful silence— through all the choking struggles and contortions of a man who drowns.

Then he started to his feet, and I saw he was wet, dripping wet, while a faint odor of seaweed and slime from a sea-bottom appeared to emanate from him. But all this was as nothing compared to the shock which followed when in a moment that midnight passenger turned upon me a face handsome in its way, but ghost-white and dead— obviously, palpably dead— a dreadful face of contending emotion, amongst which fear and rage predominated, with two eyes shining in it that burned with a light utterly out of keeping with the pallor of lips and cheek.

I scarcely think I was frightened— the feeling was more of intense fascination; and when the presence— looking over and through me as though I were the immaterial essence and did not exist to its perception— commenced to move hastily up and down the footway of the carriage, I drew in my knees and made myself as small as I presume any one would have done in like circumstances. To and fro that grim passenger went, his bygone clothing clinging to him in sodden dampness, chattering as he moved, and carrying here and there a horrible chilliness which was not of the night outside, and a rank, fishy smell infinitely appalling. Then presently he stopped with a jerk at the far window, which happened to be half-open, and put his head out. I shall never forget the expression that shone under the water-soaked pallor of that face as the light of a chance wayside station flashed upon it. Then in he came again; and now, after appearing to ponder a minute, during which the evil-smelling water collected in a pool about his feet, he began feeling over the stuffed backs of the seats first on one side and then on the other, down to where I was sitting. It was with a faint, shrinking feeling I saw those dead, outstretched fingers coming slowly but steadily my way, and then they were close by— only a foot from my face. The curious thing, however, was that their owner did not see me; I felt it then instinctively, and I am equally sure of it now. Thus, when those clammy hands were just about to touch me I did the most natural thing under the circumstances: throwing away my wraps, I dodged down, and slipped on to the opposite seat, whence— with a beating heart, I confess— a retreat was effected to the opposite corner of the carriage. Then happened a singular incident. After regarding intently the very corner where I had only a moment before been sitting, the stranger suddenly pulled away the lining in the upper corner, and exposed behind it another and far older quilting, threadbare and yellow with age. Of this, too, he tore down a foot or so, and with extraordinary eagerness thrust his right arm into the dark recess in the backing of the seat. What would he draw out? His own eagerness infected me, and I craned anxiously forward, clutching the arm-rests, as slowly the ghost-hand came back from the hollow and dragged with it into the yellow light an odd, faded leather wallet!

There was something of the fond mother dandling a recovered child, and something of the hungry wolf gloating over a prey, in the way the shadow fondled that faded leather! He played with, hugged, and chuckled over it in choking ecstasy, minute following minute in swift sequence till I thought he would never have done. How long he might have gone on gloating and fingering the wallet it is impossible to say; but suddenly the apparition raised his head, listening eagerly for a moment; then up he sprang, thrust the wallet back into the recess, closed the opening by some unearthly jugglery, and with a horrible, wailing, spluttering cry that rings in my ear to this moment, swung round and sank down and down, struggling and choking, through the green water that swept before my vision; down until I saw him at my feet on a sea-bottom writhing helplessly; saw the life-breath leave him in an ascending string of silver bubbles; saw the little crabs run across the smooth bottom, and the deep sea-sand spurt and smoke as his convulsive fingers clutched wildly into it. Then everything became hazy. With a shudder I hid my eyes in my hand, and remained in dreadful thought till a gruff but friendly voice exclaimed in my ear, "Tickets, please! Sorry to wake you, sir; hut I must see your ticket!"

PERHAPS I need not say I changed carriage with promptitude and decision at that welcome stopping-place; and there, I thought at the moment, the matter would end. But more was still to come. At the terminal station next morning I made a note of the number of the haunted compartment as a matter of curiosity, and then in the vortex of London existence tried to forget all about the matter. Yet it would not leave me; and a month afterwards, happening to be at the station on my way north again for two days, I spoke to the chief superintendent— a good fellow, as most of them are— and telling him part of my story, at which he, of course, laughed, got him to look up the history of that ancient "smoker" in his ledgers. We traced it back and back through an illimitable series of small repairs into the dawn of railway enterprise.

"Well," said the inspector, as he turned the last folio, "nothing here, you see! Yes, though, there is— a pencilled note entered soon after the first running of the carriage." And, cleaning this glasses, he tilted the book and read out.

This was the compartment in which Mr. Beamish was murdered in 1850; but no official entry of the fact is to be made.—By Order.

"Where is the carriage now?" I asked after a moment's expressive pause.

"Working on the east branch line, I fancy, sir," answered the official, looking at me with a new but dubious kind of respect.

"Can you have it brought down here by the time I return— in two days?" I asked.

"Yes," he answered, becoming more and more astonished as he thought the matter over. "Against regulations, perhaps, sir, to order rolling stock about for private passengers, but this is curious— most curious. The compartment will be here awaiting you when you return."

Need I say that if I had before failed to shake off the remembrance of that strange evening, it held me with a grip of iron now? In the big town to which I went, directly a spare moment came I drove to a library and had down a hound volume of "The Times" for the year in which that faded, pencilled note had said the crime was committed. And Fate itself seemed hurrying me to a solution of my speculations. On the opening page a paragraph caught and riveted my attention instantly. It was a short one, but how strangely it fitted in with the rent of the chapter!—

Murder of Mr. Beamish.

A singular sequel has occurred to this now famous crime in the death by drowning of the undoubted assassin. The victim, a diamond merchant, was, as fully reported in these columns at the time, done to death nearly a month ago in a first-class compartment of a main-line train, and the valuables he had with him, amounting to nearly £60,000 presumably, carried off by the murderer. The latter made good his escape at the moment, but last week it was ascertained that he was leaving England by the French packet. On the detectives attempting to arrest him just as the vessel was starting, the villain— who was a young; and active man— broke away and leapt overboard with the apparent intention of swimming ashore. A considerable sea was running, however; and, even before a boat could be launched, he was seen to throw up his arms and sink. Not a trace of the stolen property was found amongst his baggage, and its hiding-place is, and may remain for ever, a complete mystery.

Then back south a few hours later, to find my friend the superintendent almost am interested as myself, and No. B, 8492, its last journey done, awaiting examinations in the neighboring engine-sheds. To the official I showed a copy of the paragraph from "The Times" and told the whole of my story. An hour later, with the stationmaster, a gentleman from Scotland Yard, and a carpenter, we went to the sheds.

The mere sight and musty smell of the old carriage brought up the recollection of that midnight ride so clearly that it was only, with hesitation I could bring myself to enter. But presently we scrambled in, and I told them just what I had seen, and the strange corroboration their own books and the newspaper file had lent me.

"Quick," I said to the carpenter; "down with the lining here in this corner, and you will find another yellowish one under it."

Down came the padding amid clouds of dust, and there, sure enough, was the faded backing I had seen before.

"Down with that next, man," I cried; "there is a hollow behind!"

The frieze was torn aside, and there was the hollow at last, black and plain. "Now, sir," I said to the stationmaster, "put your hand into that recess, and if you do not find something there I am a dreamer, and will never touch pork-pie again."

Very slowly and cautiously the head official thrust down his arm and felt about. We watched his face with desperate interest, saw its doubt change to interest, the interest to hesitation, and hesitation to sudden satisfaction, and the next minute, with an exclamation of wonder, he dragged into daylight the long hidden wallet, bearing its burden of notes and gems which I had been the means of so strangely recovering long after its story and that of the crime it was associated with had passed out of living memory.

___________________

13: Bertie and the Doorstep

John Worne

World's News (Sydney) 13 Feb 1904

(Frank Leslie’s Popular Monthly Jan 1904)

Published a number of short stories around 1903-1910, including several featuring the bumpy relationship of Bertie Pilkinghame and Eva Rowen. Otherwise nothing is known.

THERE WAS a rather stormy scene. It was not the first time there had been a stormy scene, for Eva, though a dear thing, was a little apt to give way to temper and Bertie certainly was lax in his view of the duties of a fiancé. But not nearly half the things that people said of him were true; in this case, for instance, it really was his cousin with whom he had been seen at a theatre the evening before. But Eva didn't believe him for one moment. And what's more, she fully intended not to believe him so long as he kept up that irritating "don't care" manner as if he ran no risk of losing that priceless jewel, her love. She meant to show him this time that he was playing with the edge of a precipice.

She had just denounced him hotly at some length, making it clear that henceforth their paths lay far asunder. "Well, I suppose that's all we need say about that," he said cheerfully. "I see what you mean. Let's talk of something more pleasant."

"Never speak to me again," she replied haughtily, "and kindly leave the house!"

"I was talking this afternoon," he said, with an exasperating drawl, "with the man you were engaged to the season before last." This was a shaft he found useful whenever they parted for ever. "Not Mappam, you know—the other one." She tossed her head indignantly.

"I've often tried to find out from him," he went on, "whether you left him or he left you, don't you know—" This was more than anybody could bear; she was accustomed to his frankness; it was one of his charms; but this—!

She hurried to the door.

"Are you going?" he said. "I suppose I shall find you at the Wardlaw's to-night? I shall call again to-morrow afternoon."

"You shall never come into this house again," she said fiercely.

"Then I shall do something that will make you sorry."

"What will you do?" she asked.

" 'Build me a willow cabin at your gate. And call upon my soul within the house.' They do that in Shakespeare."

She turned contemptuously and left the room, and finding it dull alone, he went too.

At the Wardlaw's that evening when he came up for his usual six dances she was coldly unaware that she had ever been introduced to him. He apologised and brought Mrs. Wardlaw who, though she had known them both since childhood, performed the necessary ceremony. Then he discovered that she was sorry, but hadn't a spare dance on her programme. He offered to get her another one, a nice clean one, and write on it himself. She declined, so he danced seven times obtrusively with Maude Noreham, whom she hated, coming up at intervals to inform her that she had dropped her programme and handing her a new one each time, all beautifully filled up, with his own initials and the various pet names he enjoyed in happier times. But it was all of no use.

Next day he appeared at the door at 4 o'clock and rang.

The footman had had strict orders.

"Miss Rowen at home?"

"No, sir."

"Mrs. Rowen?"

"No, sir."

"Mr. Rowen?"

"No, sir."

"Any of the little Rowens?"

"No, sir."

"The nurse, perhaps?"

"No, sir."

"Ah!"

"Shall I say you called, sir?"

"Oh, no; I'm expected. Didn't they tell you?"

"Very good, sir."

With difficulty the footman repressed a smile. As Bertie showed no signs of going he was puzzled. The situation was new. What does a well-trained servant do when a popular guest, not a tramp, refuses to leave the doorstep?

"Don't keep the door open," said Bertie, "there's a draught."

"Very good, sir." The footman put his hand over his mouth and was about to close the door.

"Oh, by the way, John!"

"Yes, sir."

"You might just mention that I'm here."

"Very good, sir." And he went to the drawing-room. It was Mrs. Rowen's at-home day, a fact which Bertie knew. Eva was entertaining two early arrivals. At least, it wasn't really entertaining, but that is what it is called. Solemnly John announced: "Mr. Bertie Pilkinghame is on the doorstep."

Eva bit her lip. '"'You told him Mr. Rowen was not at home?"

"Yes, miss."

"That will do." John retired solemnly, and Eva congratulated herself on her happy idea of pretending that he came to see her father. It saved awkward explanations. Bertie stood outside and studied the beautiful brass knocker. A carriage drove up, and two ladies got out. He knew them, shook hands and rang the bell. John appeared. The elder of the two asked if

Mrs Rowen was at home. John looked at Bertie, hesitated for a fraction of a second, and said: "Yes, ma'am."

The two stepped inside, expecting Bertie to follow. But he only said: "Is Mrs. Rowen at home?"

John coughed, and said: "No, sir.'

"Miss Rowen?"

"No, sir."

"Mr. Rowen?"

"No, sir."

"Any of the little Rowens?"

"No, sir."

"The nurse, perhaps?"

"No, sir."

"Very well; shut the door, there's a draught," he sighed.

And in the drawing-room Eva had to invent elaborate explanations on the spur of the moment of the unhappy position of dear Mr. Pilkinghame.

"He came to see papa." was no good at all, for they had distinctly heard him ask for everybody, including the nurse. Eva was very hot and red, and changed the subject.

John announced Mrs. Wardlaw and Miss Wardlaw.

"How do you do, my dear?" said Mrs. Wardlaw. "Why on earth is poor Mr. Pilkinghame sitting on the doorstep? Such a funny thing to do on the Avenue."

Eva began all over again, and they all helped to explain, and Mrs. Rowen joined in, and there was general rejoicing at having something to discuss. The poor girl was furious, and, after repeated and violent efforts, had just succeeded in turning the conversation when John announced Lord Bobby Dalmainham (pronounced "Dam"), a recent importation of Bertie's.

"How do you do?" said Lord Bobby. "I say, you know, Miss Rowen, what have you been doing to your young man? I had to step over him, and he only wagged his head and said: 'This is what they do in Shakespeare?' Do they?"

So Eva, feeling an almost irresistible impulse to hurl things about, began again the same poor, threadbare explanation, and, glancing by chance out of the window, she saw small boys collecting, and a policeman looking on suspiciously from the opposite side of the road. It was a most uncomfortable afternoon. The next visitor who arrived looked deeply concerned, and wanted to know if Mr. Pilkinghame, having lost his fortune, had become a gentleman cab-runner; and yet another who, with much delicacy, had said nothing, openly retired with a cup of tea into a corner and inquired of a friend whether Eva's cruelty had driven the poor young man out of his mind. It was obvious to all that the subject was a sore one, so they discussed it under their breath in little groups. There was a general impression that Eva had no doubt been behaving badly, and an anxiety to discover whether the engagement was at an end and who was to blame, and wherever Eva came the conversation changed suddenly, and became commonplace and strained.

"You had better let him in," whispered her mother hurriedly.

"Never!" she said, clenching her fists, and with difficulty keeping back tears of rage.

And through it all she had to smile and smile, and be cheerful and witty. Oh, why didn't those awful people go?"

John came in. She looked at him with apprehension. This time he carried a tea-tray. It ought to be mentioned that he had just been presented with a five-dollar bill, and a promise of immediate employment in case of dismissal. He came up to the tea-table, and held out the tray.

"Well?" asked Eva. He replied audibly, "Mr. Pilkinghame says, miss, that he will have his tea very nicely on the doorstep."

There was a pause in the conversation, and all eyes were turned on her with interest. She gulped down her wrath, tried to laugh lightly, and with trembling hands poured out a cup of tea for him. It would look too absurd to say "No," or tell the man to send him away, and he certainly should never, never, never be allowed to come in.

"Two lumps he usually takes, miss."

She put the sugar in, and John went out with the tray and a cake-basket. As he reached the door he turned and said, "And I was to say, miss, that as it is just beginning to rain, have you got such a thing as an awning?"

"Take him— take him— an umbrella," she stammered, too miserable now even to care what all the people were thinking. Oh, wouldn't she like to have a firm grip of that young man by the ears!

It was some little time before the conversation broke out freely again.

"Shall I take him some hot toast?" asked

Lord Bobby mischievously. She pretended not to have heard the question, so he went out. He was back in a minute, and the plate he carried was empty.

"He says they don't have hot toast in Shakespeare," he remarked solemnly, "so he was grateful, but gave it all to the policeman, who put some in his pocket for the little ones at home."

Eva tried to say something about the affectionate nature of the police, and somebody else suggested that car conductors ran them close. But nobody knew much about car conductors except from what appeared in the newspapers.

There was some desultory criticism of lightning conductors, and somebody rose to go. Eva sighed with relief, but it was a long time yet before the trial was over. Each visitor on departing found a most elegant young man, beautifully dressed, sitting, with legs crossed, under an umbrella just outside the door. He was cheerful, but would give no explanations. He promised to call soon on all those he knew, provided they would let him in.

"I wouldn't care to do this sort of thing often, you know. Excuse my not getting up, won't you? I've got a nice dry paving-stone at present, and it will get wet if I do.

"Wet paving stones are so uncomfortable, aren't they? Yes, indeed. Good-bye."

"Feeling comfy, old chap?" said Lord Bobby. "Glad to see you've taken a little nourishment. Been sitting on a volcano inside all the afternoon. How's old Shakespeare?"

"You run away," said Bertie, "there's a police-force watching you. Ta, ta!" ''

As a matter of fact, that poor policeman had been in difficulty, too. There was a rapidly growing crowd of errand boys gazing at a respectful distance, and the situation was so unprecedented. How could he move on a loafer who was on such intimate terms with everybody in the house, and had tea brought out to him by the footman? He had indeed suggested that he might be creating an obstruction, but Bertie was so genial about it, and the hot buttered toast was so uncommonly good.

As the last guest went, John was hastily summoned to the drawing-room, where Eva was looking out of the window in fury after an outburst of tears.

"Why do you allow that person to annoy us like this all the afternoon?" she said angrily, turning round.

"He wouldn't go, miss. I told him you were all out every time anybody came. It didn't seem to make no difference."

"Why don't you send him away?" She stamped her foot.

"He don't seem to listen to what I say, miss. I thought you wouldn't be wanting us to have a disturbance by using force, miss—in fact, I didn't quite know what you would want me to do, miss."

"Oh, dear! Oh, dear!" she wailed. "But, at any rate, he can't stay there much longer."

"He has just sent in, miss, to borrow a rug in case the weather should turn chilly in the early hours of the morning."

"But— but— he can't do it!" she gasped.

"He slept out all through the war, miss."

"Oh, dear! And all those people coming to dinner to-night!" she cried in despair. "What are we to do? Can't the police do anything?"

"Well, miss, they would remove him if they knew you wanted it."

"Want it? Of course we want it! Tell them to send him away at once!" she said hastily, even as Elizabeth signed the death warrant of Essex. She was too angry to think.

"Very good, miss," said John. He went to the door. The shades of evening were falling and the crowd was getting larger, noisier and less respectful. There were three policemen near at hand in earnest deliberation, with note-books. Eva watched the proceedings from behind the curtains.

"I am afraid you must go, sir," said John. "I'm very sorry."

"Not at all," said Bertie. "Who says so?"

"Miss Rowen, sir."

"I thought you said she was out."

John coughed. "Yessir, so she was— in a manner of speaking."

"Who's to send me away?" said Bertie, looking thoughtfully up into the umbrella.

"Miss Rowen has told me to tell the police, sir."

"She told you to tell the police?" he said, in heart-broken accents. "Then is all indeed over!"

"Are you going, sir?" said John, gently.

"No," he replied, with determination. "I'm here to stay! Ruat coelum, fiat justitia!"

John beckoned sorrowfully to the policemen, who approached in solid formation. The crowd cheered.

"Kindly remove this gentleman, who is trespassing.

The policeman who had the buttered toast touched Bertie on the arm. His voice was gruff, but tinged with compassion.

"You can't stay here, sir," he said.

"Why not?" said Bertie, sweetly.

"I should be so much obliged if you would go quietly, sir."

"I would do anything to please you," said Bertie, "but do be reasonable."

"If you would be so kind as to get up and go 'ome, sir; our orders are—"

"Home," said Bertie, pathetically. "Ah, if you knew how cold and cheerless is the home you would drive me to! All alone, with only two men to tend my—"

"Can't stay talking 'ere, sir. Are you goin'?"

"No."

"Then I'm afraid we must take you to the station, sir."

The other two policemen came near, and the crowd pressed round and chuckled.

"Ha!" said Bertie, "you use force! Very well, give me your hand."

With their help he hoisted himself up and stretched his legs. Then he patted the knees of his trousers and put his hat straight. Incidentally he glanced at the drawing-room window and saw the corner of Eva's elbow. "Mind, I'm only coming by force. Where are the handcuffs?" He held out his hands.

"I don't know as there'll be need for that, sir."

"Put 'em on," said Bertie, "at once, or I shall attempt to escape."

"Well, sir," said the policeman, "it ain't a usual request "

"Never mind; oblige me."

So they put them on. Eva saw it and felt a twinge of remorse. The party moved off with the rabble at their heels.

"One moment," said Bertie. He stopped just in front of the drawing-room and for some seconds cast up at the window which he knew to belong to Eva's room a glance containing a most effective mixture of pathos, passion, regret, forgiveness, and despair. Then he passed with bowed head into the gathering darkness, and Eva sank down torn with anguish at what she had done.

An hour or so later a policeman called with a ragged and dirty scrap of blue paper folded and addressed to Miss Rowen. It contained in shaky writing, done with some red substance which might have been blood, but was probably ink and embellished with many blots and splutters which were caused possibly by emotion, but probably by a police station pen, the following words:—

My heart is broken. You may have forgotten my very name. I do not blame you. I am sitting on a very hard bench. Next to me is a very old lady. She is very drunk. Her head is on my shoulder as I write. I have no right to write, but I cannot go without one last word to one who deigned to love me once. The very old lady has awakened. Darling, I cannot speak of her language. I am a leaky boat adrift on the ocean of lite. I badly want bailing out. I call you darling; I have no right to call you darling, darling. Oh, this bench is hard. Not so hard as the Bench will be tomorrow morning unless some responsible householder comes round to-night and explains that it is a mistake. But I have no one in my extremity, or, indeed, anywhere.  I ask no mercy. I deserve all I get. Few men can say that. I think my mind is wandering. Farewell; may you be happy. Think of me sometimes in my lonely cell. Oh, my broken heart! Farewell for ever.

Bertie.

P.S.—Any time will do, of course, but get Mr. Rowen to come round as soon as you can, dear.

She read this pathetic document twice through her tears, and then, though it was nearly time to dress for dinner, she hurried on her hat and coat. All the blots on his noble nature were erased, and he shone forth a martyr to her hasty temper. What was all that behaviour during the afternoon which seemed curious at the time, but a proof of the untamable ardor of his love? How he must have suffered for her on the doorstep! And now! She pictured him in chains, with cropped hair and stamped all over with horrid arrows. Oh, why did she ever speak harshly to him? She hurried down to her father, who had just come in, and explained that Bertie had been wrongfully imprisoned through her fault, and he must come round and get him out now at once, without waiting for the carriage; one never knew what a wasted minute would mean in dealing with the swift and relentless fury of the law.

Mr. Rowen was sceptical, but, as everybody assured him that Bertie had undoubtedly been marched off, he consented to go, and Eva insisted on going, too. It was the least she could do in reparation. On the way she had appalling visions of the hard bench, drunken criminals, bread and water, the treadmill, oakum picking, degradation, and penal servitude; and it was she who had given the order which had brought it all on!

They drove in a hansom to the dingy police station. A policeman said, yes, there was a young gent, who had been brought in that afternoon— for forgery, he thought; but on looking up a large book he found it was only for loitering. Then he remembered; yes, of course, the sergeant had declined to take the charge, and had simply detained the man pending inquiries at the house he was alleged to have annoyed.

Eva shuddered at hearing Bertie coldly referred to as "the man." Then she heard voices from the next room. Somebody— was it Bertie?— yes, it was Bertie— cried "Misery!"

Somebody else with a brutal laugh said "Double you!"

Horror! was this some torture! She clung to her father, "Misery on that hand!" said the other voice— the brutal one, with a fiendish chuckle. Was it thumbscrews?

"I'll tell 'im you're 'ere, sir," said the policeman. He opened the door and looked into the room where Bertie in an armchair with a cigar in his mouth was playing pinochle with the sergeant.

"Somebody to see you, sir."

"Right," said Bertie, and came out. "Hullo, Eva!"

"Bertie!" She rushed into his arms.  "Darling, how you must have suffered."

He sighed. "It is all over now, dear; let us forgive and forget. I was not altogether without blame myself."

___________________

14: The Brink of Destruction

John Worne

World's News (Sydney) 19 May 1906

American Illustrated Magazine, March 1906

HE LIT another pipe.

It was the same pipe. But he had filled it with different tobacco. He returned to his old position, on his back, with his head propped against a mound of grass and studied the western sky.

It promised to be a glorious sunset.

"In about 20 minutes," he said to himself, "the rays will get right under that black mass of cloud and set it on fire, and it will split up Iinto blazing purple shreds and each shred will float away and turn pink on a background of blue and green, and the one thing wanting will be a girl, to whom I can explain it as I hold her hand."

Be had always felt that about sunsets. It is a pardonable weakness among young men, particularly with this young American, acquiring a rather painful amount of education at an English university.

This particular sunset promised to be particularly glorious— especially as it would be reflected in the river.

The river ran within two feet of his two feet. Occasionally May flies flicked its surface and gave shivers to the reflection of the trees. So did occasional small fishes, at the May flies' invitation.

He closed his eyes for a minute and guessed which cloud the sun had reached by the time he opened them. He tried this several times and came to the conclusion that the sun's movements were too erratic for him to have any chance of success.

And each time he shut his eyes the interval before they opened became longer. They had been closed for quite five minutes when a new and strange sound disturbed the peaceful glory of the scene. It was not a distant cow, nor the splash of a water-rat, nor the twitter of a dissatisfied bird, nor the sound of the setting sun, so he opened one eye to look. It was the sound of a maiden struggling with a punt. He opened the other eye, sat up, and watched. She was dressed in something white and subtle and simple, with dark braid round the edge, and the punt was going sideways with uncomfortable rapidity. At intervals she made frantic dives with the pole and seemed to be searching vainly for the bottom of the river. At irregular intervals she found it, but the only result was that the punt turned round the pole and proceeded on its other side, chafing at the unnecessary delay. At last she got a firm grip of something solid and brought the vessel round in a circle three times. Tiring of this, it advanced once more, and a look of horror came into her face. The alternatives were pole or punt; she preferred the punt after a short, sharp struggle and the pole remained behind. She recovered her balance and stood glaring wildly at the legend on a board on the bank, "Beware of the Dam! Danger!!" He had read it unmoved, now it seemed to take on a new meaning. The sun continued to set in indescribable splendor.

The punt and the girl floated down past him and he roused himself to action.

"Can I do anything to help?" he asked in a gentle voice.

She turned sad him for the first time. "The dam!" she cried. "I've lost the pole! Help me! Quick!"

His own boat was moored a few yards away. He got in and rowed up to the punt. Just before reaching it he stopped and rested on his oars. "Quick," she said, "the dam is just down there."

Her face was hot and red and she was struggling to reduce her hair to order. He did not move. They floated down with the stream together.

"Quick!" she said again. "The current is awfully strong."

"Admit that you were flirting with Charles," he said.

A look of alarm and indignation came over her face.

"Don't sit arguing there! Can't you see I shall be over the dam—"

"Admit that you were flirting with Charles." She stamped her foot.

"Don't be silly. Here, take this rope and tie it to your boat."

She stood holding the painter in her outstretched hand. He looked at it calmly and without interest.

"Admit that you were flirting with Charles." She looked round with horror. The "danger" board was now behind them, and the voice of the dam was heard rumbling in the middle distance.

"Harry, don't be idiotic!" she screamed. "If you let me get drowned I'll— I'll—"

She seemed uncertain what she would do in that event.

"Admit that you were flirting with Charles." She looked at him for a couple of seconds in silence, with a twitching mouth and tears coming to her eyes. Then she turned away, arranged the cushions and sat down in the bottom of the punt, apparently resigned to death.

"I never flirt," she said.

There was a silence, and the sun was near the earth in a bed of fiery clouds. And still they floated on. The rambling of the weir grew more aggressive, and the speed of the boat and punt increased.

His eye had been determined and calm; it now seemed to grow a little anxious.

"Admit that you were flirting with Charles," he said in rather a loader voice, but she made no reply. She seemed to have observed for the first time the glory of the sunset. She was drinking it in with rapt admiration.

"You know perfectly well," he said, "that your behavior with Charles was disgusting."

She turned quickly toward him, leaving the sun to set alone.

"I beg your pardon," she said, apologetically yet casually, "I wasn't listening Did you say something?"

"I said that you knew perfectly well that your behavior with Charles was disgusting."

She turned back to the sun, which, having languished for a moment, basked once more in the brilliance of her eyes.

They floated on more rapidly. The dam was roaring hungrily just round the next bend of the river.

"Look here" he was becoming exasperated. "Are you going to admit that you were flirting with Charles?"

"No."

"Then our engagement is to be off?"

"Certainly. What a lovely sunset!" she sighed as she rested her delicious chin on her adorable hands and her gaze was far away across the ends of earth among the pink and purple clouds.

He looked at her in doubt. She was a fascinating study at any time. In this light she was irresistible. He pulled two strokes and caught hold of the punt.

"Get in," he said abruptly.

She gave a little gasp of relief. It had been a struggle to appear unconcerned, and she was not sorry Iit was over.

She got into the boat with dignity and took her seat in the stern.

"What about the punt?" she asked as she leaned back to arrange the rudder lines. "Quick, or we shall be too late!"

Instead of remaining at the oars he stepped into the punt and pushed the boat away. "What are you doing?" she cried.

"Now you can row home," he said, settling down among the cushions and turning his face to the sun.

She looked at him in blank astonishment as the vessels drifted apart.

"Harry, what on earth do you mean?"

Hurriedly she scrambled forward and took up the oars.

"Admit that you were flirting with Charles?"

"Certainly not!"

She pulled up to the punt.

"Harry! Get in here at once! What are you doing?"

"Don't know," he drawled, "and don't care. You will find me lower down— if you drag the river. By George! it is a pretty sunset."

The dam was in sight and roaring like anything.

She clutched the punt with one hand and backing with the other, tried to cheek its course. But the stream was too strong for her.

"Harry, don't be foolish!"

"Admit that you were flirting with Charles?" he murmured with closed eyes.

"No!" she said fiercely, battling with the elements.

"Then it's no good arguing, let me drown in peace." She lost her hold of the punt and it slipped away. The dam was only fifty yards off. Pride, wrath and terror struggled in her breast.

It required all her strength to check the way of the boat.

"Harry!" she shouted in despair.

The noise of rushing water drowned all but three words of his reply.

"—flirting with Charles," was what she heard and her heart hardened even to the point of murder. It seemed like murder, to leave him in that punt.

She pulled the boat round towards the bank. It was too late to follow him and even if she did she could not see how she was to help. She ran hard for the shore and the murderous desires vanished.

The sun was dipping behind the hills, but she had forgotten its existence. Her heart was in her mouth. She leaped out and with an oar in one hand and a piece of rope from the rudder in the other hurried along the bank, struggling through long grass to the pool below the dam.

The oar and the rope were for rescue.

How they were to do it was not clear in her mind. Nothing was clear except that she would admit anything even that she had flirted with Charles. That she would do fully, frankly and without reserve, except that it wasn't true. The way was short but the minutes seemed like hours till she emerged from the trees by the calm, deceitful pool.

She looked all round in agony. "Harry! Harry!"

But there was no punt bottom upwards, nor yet no hat floating grimly on the waters. "Harry!"

"Hullo!"

The punt had drifted sideways and was held at the top of the cataract by two posts sticking up and designed, no doubt, for this very purpose.

His legs, crossed, were all that she could see. She breathed again. Then she called out:

"Harry, are you—are you safe?"

"Pretty well, thank you."

"Can you get the punt to the shore?"

"Not without the pole. Bring the boat, you can get her here all right it you're careful and keep her head up stream."

"I see," she said, "that will be simple. Admit that I wasn't flirting with Charles."

"Rot. I saw it with my own eyes."

"You're a horrid cad and you may stay where you are."

He paid no attention. Slowly she strolled back to the boat and pushed off.

The sun had almost disappeared. The water of the stream was all a fiery red with the reflection of the clouds, and the trees wore that mysterious air of unearthliness and unreality and indescribable beauty which they take on in the glow of a summer evening.

But it was all lost on her. She paddled gently towards the dam, whose voice seemed to have abated its ferocity. Even the current seemed less violent and the awful strain of the last quarter of an hour had given way to a most delicious calm of body and of mind.

Within sight of the punt she held the boat up and watched. For a moment Harry's head appeared in the place where, from the attitude of the legs, it was expected. Than it disappeared again.

"Admit that I was not flirting with Charles," she cried.

"Hold her steadily and let her stern drift down here." said a voice from the punt.

"Admit that I wasn't flirting with Charles."

No answer. She drew away a few yards.

"Shall I say you may be late for dinner?"

No answer.

"If I tell them to bring dinner for you here, it will be cold, won't it?"

"Can't stand hot things on a warm evening."

She moved a little further off.

"Good-night," she called.

"Gooooo-ooo-ni-i-i-i-i—"

"Very well," she said to herself in exasperation, "he can stay there, I don't care."

She worked hard for a minute and brought the boat in under the bank. There she repented— within limits—and stopped and watched out of sight.

She had not been watching long when there was a movement in the punt. He sat up and looked around. She could not make out clearly what he was doing, but he seemed to be filling his pipe. There was a pause. Something had gone wrong.

A horrid word floated across the waters. He got up and shook himself. Then he crawled on his knees from one end of the punt to the other. He was looking for something. Then he stood up again and pushing one of the poets tried to alter the position of the punt. Apparently that did not work for there was a swish of water and he clutched the post and poshed himself back again. Then he looked round once more and the same horrid word thrilled the peaceful air.

She emerged into full view and rowed steadily up the stream. He saw her and waved a white handkerchief frantically. She stopped and rested on the oars. He put his hands to his mouth and bellowed:

"Your behaviour with Charles was absolutely irreproachable."

She backed down with a grin of triumph. "Apologise?" she said. "I apologise."

"Say you behaved like a cad in suspecting me."

"I behaved like a cad in suspecting you."

"Say I gave you no cause at all for thinking anything of the kind."

"Hang it, do be reasonable? You must admit—" She pulled away again.

"Hi! All right! You gave no no cause." She backed towards him.

"Go on your knees and say you'll never do it again."

He collected the cushions and obeyed.

She was satisfied, following his directions she let the boat drift gently against the punt.

He fastened the two together, got in, took the oars and pulled both in a few minutes to a place of safety.

They looked at each other and frowned. "You've had a narrow escape," she said.

"Not a bit. The edge of the dam is the place I always go to, to get away from the crowd. It is the nicest-mannered dam I know."

"But you wouldn't have liked spending the night there."

"Shouldn't mind, it's quite warm."

"Then why did you give in?"

"Ah!" He looked at her and smiled.

"I think I know," she said.

He ran the boat against the land and sat by her side in the stern.

"What was the reason," she whispered.

"I found that when I came out to rescue you—"

"Well?"

"I left my matches on the bank."

"Oh, then I don't mind admitting that Charlie and I had a jolly good time this morning."

But then the moon rose— and it is against nature to quarrel any more when the moon is round and bright and large

_______________

15: The Haunted Picture

Tom Gallon

Thomas Henry Gallon 1866-1914

World's News (Sydney) 2 Dec 1905

British playwright and novelist

WE FIRST went down into Lincolnshire— Voyce and I— on behalf of a certain illustrated paper; yet, curiously enough, and for a reason you shall learn, the article containing the photographs was never published. Therefore, I would beg of you not to search for it. Starting, as wo did, in the most innocent and prosaic fashion, it is the more remarkable that so tragic an adventure should have sprung upon us, as it were, unawares.

Hancorne Manor lies among the Fens. Flat, level roads lead to it; a dank breath from the marshes comes up all about it. It is, I verily believe, one of the loneliest spots in the three kingdoms. It dates back heaven, and the chronicles only know how many centuries; and it is crammed with treasures, chiefly in the shape ot statuary and pictures. It was the pictures that took Enoch Voyce and myself down to Hancorne.

A certain Sir Owen Fishlock— the last of a long line that had owned the manor— was the proprietor of the place, and he had been approached by the editor of that particular illustrated paper with a view to certain treasures of art being reproduced for the benefit of the public. There had, I believe, been some little delay and some reluctance on his part to give to the world even reproductions ot the treasures he had so jealously guarded; but the negotiations were brought to a successful issue, with the result that I went down, as I have stated, into Lincolnshire, accompanied by Enoch Voyce, who posed for the time being as my assistant.

The place cast a chill over me from the first. Half of it seemed to be shut up; the stables were almost empty, and I saw few servants, considering the size of the house. And even the servants were elderly and sour looking, and seemed to resent the presence of a stranger. In the village, when I strolled through it once and got into conversation with some of the people, it was freely stated the old house was haunted. It was suggested that wild and unearthly cries had been heard at night; that daring servants who had ventured into the shut up parts of the building had heard the pattering of feet and the rustling of garments, and so had wisely left at once. I put down these tales to the situation of the house and the desolate surroundings.

Sir Owen Fishlock was a man of some 50 years of age— lean and dark, with a swarthy skin and sullen, black eyes. He was courteous enough, I am bound to admit, and had made arrangements for us to be well looked after during the few days it would be necessary for us to be at work. For the rest, we saw but little of him. Once, I remember, I met him wandering forlornly in the neglected grounds with his chin sunk upon his breast. He did not see me, as I stood aside until he had passed.

The rooms were so old and so dingy, and the light was let into them so sparingly, that the work of photographing the various pictures took a long time. In one or two instances it was necessary that I should give three or four hours' exposure in order to get a proper effect. However, I was extremely lortunate with the work, and had every reason to congratulate myself on the results.

Enoch Voyce had been wandering about the house on his own account and making observations for himself. I have never been able to understand whether or not my little old friend had a sixth sense, not ordinarily given to mortals; but certainly he seemed to discover things that another would have passed by, and that in the most extraordinary fashion. And on this occasion he seemed to be fascinated by that closed wing of the house. For my part, I had enough to do with the various treasures I had discovered, and the closed part of Hancorne Manor did not interest me. Enoch Voyce, on the other hand, could not let it alone. He actually informed me he had tried already to get into it, but found all doors locked against him. His manner became so persistent at last that I own I was almost equally excited. At first it dawned upon me that some other treasures might be shut away there in the disused rooms; but Enoch Voyce, although he said nothinor beyond expressing his desire to see the rooms, seemed to have some other object in view. And at last one day he came to me with a beaming face and informed me that he had received permission for us both to visit that closed wing.

"He wanted a deal of talking over, I assure you," said Enoch, referring to Sir Owen. "Remarkably suspicious as to why I wanted to go admitted, however, that there were pictures there— some, I understand, wall paintings. He seems to think they'll be a bit spoilt by neglect."

"I'm glad you've managed to talk him over," I said, laughing. "Does he give us free leave to. wander where we like?"

"Oh, dear, no," replied Enoch, shaking his head. "He will go with us and will point out the really valuable things. I tried to discover how it was that part of the house was locked up. He merely suggested that the place was too big for him, and so he had determined to economise— in space and servants."

The following morning the oldest of the servants— a crabbed, bent old fellow, who was called Simon— presented himself to us, armed with a large bunch of keys. Sir Owen was waiting to go with us to the old rooms. Simon would act as warder. We were to have permission to photograph certain pictures, to be selected by sir Owen himself. Therefore I took my materials.

From the first I noticed the extraordinary suspicion with which the man watched us. Did we pause for a moment to admire any particular thing and to whisper together concerning it Sir Owen had an ear cocked to listen; did we linger behind for a moment be lingered also. Coming at last to the door which led into that particular wing old Simon, at a nod from his master, opened it, and we went in. The place was musty and damp; our footsteps seemed to echo through its corridors and darkened rooms. In one or two instances the shutters were opened by the old servant in order that we might view the pictures; but there seemed to be nothing of any great value there. At last, as we seemed almost to have exhausted the place, Enoch Voyce stopped and made a suggestion.

"I understand there was a painting on a wall," he said. "If we might see that—"

I saw Simon turn quickly and glance at his master. I saw also an impatient frown gather on the brows of Sir Owen.

"It's quite valueless." he said, after a pause; "but you may see it."

It proved to be in a room in a tower at the extreme end of the building. This part was evidently the oldest of the manor; the deep windows and the uneven stairs and floorings proved that. The curious thing was, too, that other doors had to be unlocked in order to reach it, although, as a matter of fact, that first door through which we had passed secured the whole wing from intrusion. We must have reached the highest room in that tower before we faced the picture at all.

It was not a good picture by any means, and the damp of the wall had crept into it and blotched and stained it. It was the rather stiff portrait of a woman of about the 16th century, standing upright and fondling the head of a dog. It was of full life size. The only light came from a high, deep window at one side of the room; and the light, although not good, was fair. The picture, however, seemed to me to possess so little interest that I was turning away disappointedly when the voice of Enoch arrested me.

"We should like to take the portrait," he was saying. "The picture is old, and is more curious because it is apparently painted on the wall itself."

"You'll want a long exposure," said Sir Owen.

"An extremely long one," I broke in. "But I can fix the camera in position and leave it. I shall be able to guess the time wanted."

So it was arranged, and I set about my preparations at once. I determined that I would come back early in the afternoon and take away the camera. In the meantime I was not sufficiently interested in the room to wish to remain there. Enoch Voyce seemed, however, to be strangely attracted by the picture. He went near to it, and actually touched it. The voice of Sir Owen broke in sharply.

"Don't touch that picture!" he cried, striding a step towards it.

"I sha'n't hurt it," said Voyce, a little sulkily, and came away.

Old Simon carefully let us out of that wing and locked the outer door. I noticed, however, that the other doors were not locked, in all probability because we should be returning to that tower room within a short, time. And, in the afternoon be took us back again, only on that occasion Sir Owen did not put in an appearance.

There was something peculiar about the plate, I found, when I came to develop it. For a long time I could not make out what it was. Then, to my astonishment, I discovered that by some extraordinary freak of the camera the picture was not there at all. In the midst of my work I was joined by Enoch, who looked over my shoulder without speaking.

When at last he broke the silence it was with a note of deep satisfaction in his voice.

"So there was some thing behind that picture, after all," he said. I was too much occupied with the plate to notice him. For the picture on the wall had in the photograph entirely disappeared, leaving a square cut aperture. And in that aperture, with a broad band of light falling right across it, stood a figure, peering into the room— a figure so wild and awful and unearthly that I shuddered as I looked at it.

It was the figure of a man, with wild, ragged white hair falling about his face, and clad in rags— a stooping, horrible, decrepit thing, like some large monkey. I looked round at Enoch Voyce, and his face was serious. Bending over the plate together, we looked at it while Enoch spoke.

"This is the unravelling of a secret that has hung about this place like an unholy cloud for years," he said at last. "I have heard a word here and a word there. I have put the little bits together, until it only needed this to complete the puzzle. Listen a moment and I'll explain what that figure means."

I watched the old man in silence. I saw by his compressed lips and the hard glitter in his eyes that there was here some tale of wrong, or tragedy out of the common.

"Eighteen or twenty years ago this Sir Owen Fishlock was a young man of some 30 years of age. and he was a pretty bad lot. This place saw but little of him; it was in London that he had his haunts. And among his companions in London was a certain young man— a mere boy— Lieut. Arthur Dorgan. He was wild and he was weak, and he was completely under the sway of the elder man. Yet the note of tragedy was only struck when the inevitable woman came into their lives, and both loved her."

I was still at a loss to understand what this had to do with the extraordinary figure in the photograph; but I waited in patience. Grimly enough Enoch Voyce continued:

"Her name was Deborah Hayes, and she chose the boy. Sir Owen apparently accepted his dismissal calmly enough; in secret, it seems, he brooded over it. There was more than one quarrel between the men; but those quarrels were patched up again. Then at last it came about that in a brawl in a gaming house a man was killed, and the boy, half dazed with drink, was found alone with the body. And that was the last ever seen of him."

"What became of him?" I asked.

"No one knows. He was smuggled out of the way, chiefly through the instrumentality of Sir Owen Fishlock. There was a hue and cry after him, but he was never found. It was believed that he had succeeded in getting away from England, and was living under, another name at the other side of the world. Sir Owen had the coast clear as regarded the girl, only to discover, to his chagrin, that she was foolishly faithful to her lover, and refused steadily to have anything to do with his friend. Her history ends with her death— of a broken heart, people said— some two years after the disappearance or the boy."

In his excitement Enoch Voyce was pacing about the room. He came back to me and lowered his voice when he began speaking again.

"The disused wing of the house was shut up at the time young Lieut. Dorgan disappeared; it has been kept shut up ever since. Two people only have ever entered it— Sir Owen and the old servant Simon. For 18 or 20 years no one else has been allowed to enter it but ourselves, and wild cries— mark you, Rattenbury, wild cries"— the old man tapped me on the breast to emphasize the words— "have been heard proceeding from it."

"My God!" I cried. "You don't mean to suggest—"

"While we were in that room I distinctly heard the light patter of feet above our heads. When I stood near the picture I heard, faintly through the thickness of the wall, a sound likethe breathing or the sighing of some animal.

"And look at that!"

He pointed as he spoke to that dimly outlined, ragged figure in the place of where the picture should have been. I felt my hair rise.

"When I touched the picture to-day," he went on, in a low tone, "I found that a jewel painted on the hand of the woman was raised above the apparent stonework of the wall. I pressed it and felt the thing move slightly. When I was called away by Sir Owen I left it in that condition."

"And whoever was behind the picture was able to open it still further?" I whispered.

"Exactly," he replied. "The light in the room was dim but when this poor prisoner thrust open the door— for the first time of his own accord in all those years— he stood for a moment in the full sunlight streaming from some place outside in which he lives; that blinding light secured the photograph. Then, terrified, he must have closed the door again and crept away,"

There was a long pause, while we looked at each other.

"What are we to do?" I asked at last, feebly. "Find an excuse and go back to the room," was his prompt reply. "The plate has been spoiled; we must take another."

"But if Sir Owen suspects?"

"Then we'll try rougher methods and force him to let us and others in," said Enoch sternly.

"If, however, we are careful, he may not suspect anything. If he finds, as he thinks, that one visit has shown us nothing, he may be more careless regarding another."

And that was exactly how it turned out. Enoch Voyce was so apologetic, but so determined to have a proper photograph of the picture now that we had begun, that he was not to be denied. Sir Owen laughingly gave consent. I have thought since that in all probability he felt that the showing of that photograph of the picture might seal forever that door behind which his prisoner lived. Be that as it may, we were actually admitted into the wing, unaccompanied by either Sir Owen or the servant.

We came into the room and faced the picture, listened carefully for any sound that might come from below, and then began to talk in ordinary tones. The moment our voices ceased I heard above me that light, quick tread of some animal. The next moment the room was flooded with light, as Enoch Voyce pressed hard upon the spring, and the picture swung open like a door. And there, sure enough, crouching in the doorway, was something— whether human or not I could not see in that flash of time— something that gibbered at us, and beat us off with clawlike hands and darted away.

We both sprang through the hole at once; we ran; stumbling against each other, up a narrow stone staircase of a dozen steps; we both stumbled out together on to some leads at the top— the roof of the tower— and we looked round about us at the prison of the poor creature that crouched in a corner and glared at us.

The prison first. It was formed of the actual roof of the tower, which had encircling it a wall some six or seven feet high. From the top of this wall, springing upwards and meeting in one common knot in the centre, were stout iron bars, evidently old, and built in that way to form a sort of cupola. This had been the wretched creature's prison. Here, with the roof and that short staircase for his sole apartments, he had crouched in every sort of weather —blistered by the sun and soaked by the rain of many years, and utterly unable to make his presence known to any one outside. Doubtless, when first he came there, he was glad enough with that terrible charge hanging over him, to find so safe a refuge, but the man who had got him in his power like that was not the man to let him go.

I found it hard to believe at first that this thing— so horrible, with long matted hair falling about it, and with gleaming teeth and clawlike hands— could once have been the bright boy loved long since by the girl who now lay in her grave. The creature limped and jumped round its cage, always watching us. Enoch's voice arrested it for a moment.

"Arthur Dorgan," said Enoch,quietly, "we're not here to hurt you. Stand up man."

Some long dormant memory was stirred in the creature. He stopped and stared at us; and brushed aside the heavy masses of white hair from his forehead. It struck me then as horrible that he could not be quite so much as 40 years of age, yet he might have been more than a hundred to look at him. He made some inarticulate sounds; but when we attempted to approach him he backed away into a corner and showed such savage fight that we desisted.

"Now that we know," whispered Enoch, "we'd better go down and face his keeper. He won't defy two of us."

We went down Into the room and softly pushed the picture back into place, without closing it, however. I gathered my materials together and, preceded by Enoch, went towards the outer door of that wing. As I reached it I saw Enoch fumbling with the handle. He looked around at me quietly as I approached.

"Locked!" he said.

Evidently Sir Owen had discovered what we had done; we were trapped, I wondered a little whether he meant to leave the place and to leave us there, or what the game was. We waited quietly at least a couple of hours before we were permitted to know.

Evidently, however, it was merely his purpose to show his power and to show us that he knew that we had discovered the secret of the picture, for after our long wait a key turned in the lock, and Sir Owen came through. He carried the keys jangling in his hand and sternly motioned us to go before him. And in that order we came back to that topmost room in the tower. There he faced us, insolently enough.

"Well, gentlemen," he said, "so you have discovered my madman— eh? I do not like being spied upon— I resent that sort of thing bitterly— but let us know what else has been discovered?"

"We know exactly who this unfortunate creature is; we know him to be the missing Lieut. Arthur Dorgan," I said. "We know why you kept him caged here like a wild beast for all these years; we know that it was because he stood in the way with a woman you loved."

"You have the story pretty pat," he said, moodily. "I did love her. I thought that with him out of the way— disgraced and dead, for all that she knew to the contrary— she would turn to me. She didn't do that. Dying she breathed his name. Dead—wore a smile on her face, for love of him."

He had seated himself on a table with his back to the picture, and it was then that I saw the picture begin to move. I could not have cried out if I had wished to do so. I was fascinated. A clawlike hand held the frame of the picture and was thrusting it slowly open.

"That madman there"— he jerked his head upward to denote the root of the tower— "believes that she lives still; babbles her name whenever he sees me. I've kept him there— fed him, as they feed beasts; some day he'll die there. He doesn't know she's dead."

I saw that curious door open a little wider. I saw the wild face staring in.

As Sir Owen went on speaking again the figure glided through the opening and dropped with a little soft thud to the floor.

Sir Owen did not look round.

"Dead— sweet little Deborah Hayes— dead these many years." said the man, with a laugh. "Now, what are you going to do about my madman?"

It was not for us to do anything. Even while the man sitting on the table spoke I had seen that wild creature behind him stoop and snatch something from a table that stood against the wall— something that gleamed bright in the semi-darkened room. As the man mentioned the name of the girl I saw the face of poor Dorgan light up; perhaps in that moment he understood all that had happened. A wild scream rang through the room, and, as Fishlock swung around the creature sprang upon him and burled the weapon twice like lightning in his breast. They went down together, locked hideously, overturning the table as they fell.

When at last we forced them apart Sir Owen was stone dead. We looked to Dorgan, who lay limp in our arms; a little trickle of blood crept down and mingled with the ragged white beard. He looked at us with a faraway look for a moment or two, then turned, and sobbed once, with a sob that seemed to rend him and died.

________________

16: The Wrong Number

Louis Tracy

Patrick Louis Tracy, 1863-1928

Australian Town and Country Journal 27 March 1912

MR. CHARLES Jordison Brooke leaned back in his chair, yawned long and loudly, there being no other, person present, and rolled a cigarette.

"Rotten!" he growled, eyeing with active animosity a typewritten brief, whose big, thick pages sprawled across the table in front of him. "The fellow hasn't a ghost of a chance. Here's a credible witness who saw him coming out of Lady Porthcawl's room, and the theft was discovered five minutes later. And look at his record! Three times hard labor— once penal servitude! Verdict, 'guilty;' sentence, 'seven penal and three supervision;' for the defence, 'Mr. Charles Jordison Brooke.'  Nice thing to go to Newcastle for in the dog days! The only thing that puzzles me is how any sane person could be induced to put up twenty guineas for my valuable services. Some poor fool of a woman, I suppose."

That final thought softened his mood. He blew a jet of smoke from between tightly-compressed lips, rose and strolled to the window, where he stood a minute more, looking out over the Temple Gardens and along the gracious vista of the Victoria Embankment, where the towers and spires of the Houses of Parliament shone in a blue haze beyond the splendidly strong lines of Waterloo Bridge.

"Some woman who loves him," he mused. "Probably, my fee and the solicitors' costs may take her last penny, for Mowlem and Wrench would make sure that the money was available before they moved a clerk's eyelid. A stupid case! Little in it for me, and extinction for him, poor devil!"

He returned to the table, sat down again, and read the concluding lines of the brief.

"It will be difficult, almost impossible, to shake individual testimony. We recommend a determined effort to convince the jury that the whole body of evidence is insufficient."

"Do you?" snapped Brooke. "I can see old Mowlem adjusting his gold eye-glasses carefully before he wrote those words of wisdom with his hest quill pen. Seven plus three is ten for the prisoner; multiplied by two, Mowlem and Wrench, the product is twenty for me."

Charles Jordison Brooke was known to a limited section of the public as a rising young barrister, to a few solicitors as a smart youngster, and to Mr. Jecks, the eminent K.C., as a reliable junior. He was clever, ambitious, and keen in his profession, and the solitary brief that demanded his presence at the North-Eastern Assizes at Newcastle four days later provided just one of those negative cases which he disliked. Nevertheless, youthful members of the Inns of Court cannot afford to pick and choose, when a notable firm of solicitors seek their advocacy, and the gleam of sentiment aroused by the notion of a mother, or wife, or some woman even more to be pitied, pawning her belongings to defend a rascal, yielded to the agreeable reflection that Mowlem and Wrench had applied to Mr. Brooke, and not to one other of the legal luminaries twinkling in every set of chambers within the square of the Temple.

He wrote a brief note to his clerk, glanced at a clock on the mantelpiece, and was pondering no more important question than the choice of a restaurant, for lunch, when the telephone bell rang.

"Jecks, for a pony!" he muttered. "Wants me to devil all the afternoon— will explain points while we sandwich and beer at the Law Courts. Now. why wasn't I out?" He lifted the receiver.

"Hello!" he said. "Is Mr. Brooke in?" came the query, clear, and sweet, in tones as far removed from Mr. Jeck's Olympian accents as the murmur of a rivulet from the rumbling thunder.

"Yes," he said. "May I speak to him?"

"I am Mr. Brooke."

"How silly of you, Charlie! Why didn't you say so at once? Surely you knew my voice!"

"Charlie" was taken aback. Two ladies in London, his mother and his aunt, were entitled to address him in that style, and the speaker was neither of them.

Five minutes earlier, while immersed in the brief, he would have sought a direct explanation; now he temporised.

"I think I would know it among ten thousand," he said.

"Is that really you, Charlie?" This a little doubtfully. "Of course it is. I shall be asking who you are next."

"I'm Meg, of course. But— I don't often use a telephone— no matter— can you get off this afternoon?"

"Delighted! Where are we going?"

Mr. Brooke winked solemnly at the clock because of the success of his ruse in extracting the lady's name, in part, at any rate.

"You don't mean to say you have forgotten?"

"My dear Meg, consider how busy I have been all the morning!"

"You surprise me! What microbe of industry has wrought such a change?"

The pleasant raillery of the question suggested many possibilities. Brooke caught at the likeliest one.

"A fellow must make a show sometimes," he said. "I'll tell your aunt," laughed the unknown.

"Please don't!" he gasped.

"But why not? She will be pleased."

"I'd prefer you to discuss this afternoon's arrangements," he said.

"Well I suppose it is too far for you to call here?" .

"Such a waste of a lovely day. Let us bask in the sunshine!"

He was acutely aware of the unseen speaker's momentary bewilderment; then she explained the pause.

"I cannot understand your complete forgetfulness," she said. "Anyhow, we can leave that till we meet. Where do you suggest? I don't know London very well."

"What about Charing Cross— under the clock?" he gurgled.

"Is that near the Tate Gallery?"

"No, oh, no! Shall we say the bookstall in Victoria Station, Brighton line?"

"Charlie, you puzzle me. Perhaps it is the telephone, and my fingers are tired. Very well, the bookstall at Victoria, at two."

"Make it 2.30." He spoke without reflecting. For a blissful instant he fancied the appointment was a real one, and he must eat.

"All right."

"Brighton line?"

"Yes, yes. Who would ever confuse it with the South-Eastern?"

"But I say, Meg."

"What is it now?"

"How will you be dressed?"

"In my blue, with a sweet pea hat. Why ever do you ask?"

"Because I might get confused, and address the wrong girl— that is, I mean some other girl."

"Charlie, how can you be so ridiculous?"

"The fact is, Meg, I have a confession to make " he began.

"And I shall be late for luncheon." she cried, and, to his real dismay, he heard the, replacing of the receiver on its rests at the other end of the line. He called up the exchange in a flurry.

"Get me that number which was connected here a moment ago. Don't fail, for goodness sake!" he appealed.

After some delay, he was switched on to a West End call office, and a Cockney boy assured him that the lydy was a strynge lydy— deponent knew not 'oo the lydy was. or where she kem from.

"Was she a young lady"

"Yus, not more'n twenty."

"Tall?"

"Middlin'."

"Slightly built and good-looking?"

"Ra-ther! But look 'ere mister, we ain't allowed to talk about custimers."

"You must answer, or I shall report you. Did—"

Silence. There is no wall more impenetrable than the dead negation of a sulky telephone.

There followed a furious demand by Brooke for the clerk in charge of the local exchange, and, after more delay, a courteous official explanation was forthcoming that a young lady, unknown, had asked for and obtained a number which was registered in the book at the call office as his Brooke's— 889, Temple.

At half-past one, therefore, hungry but well dressed, he was an interested student of the novels and periodicals displayed on the chief bookstall in Victoria Station.

To his consternation, he saw two ladies wearing blue dresses and sweet pea hats; yet neither seemed capable of arousing the enthusiasm of a callow youth in a telephone call-office.

One, the younger, though not so young, was obviously waiting for someone, and Brooke was noting, with no little dismay, that she looked a rather strong-minded person, when his doubts were resolved by the sudden appearance of a young lady, whose comeliness was all, and mere than all, his imagination had painted "Meg," and whose blue costume was crowned by a superb mass of sweet peas.

She was walking rapidly, taking quick, firm strides, with the ease and sureness of one of those maids of Capri who climb and descend rocky paths while balancing water-urns on their heads; she gave one swift glance around the interior of the station, at the bookstall in particular, and then consulted the clock.

The man who prided himself on having no nerves now felt horribly nervous, but there was only one thing to be done, and he did it. He went straight up to the girl, raised his hat, and said— "May I ask if you are expecting to meet a Mr. Charles Brooks?"

She looked at him in surprise, and he knew then he had never before seen violet eyes.

"Yes," she said. "Will you allow me to explain why he is not here?"

"Certainly. Did he send you as his deputy? How did you recognise me?"

"You told me about your dress and the sweet pea hat, you know."

"What is that? I told you?"

In his relief at finding that the unknown Meg would probably accept his explanation without calling for a policeman, Brooke had broken out into a violent perspiration, and he was more confused now than ever. He clenched his hands in a fierce physical effort to regain self-control, and one of his gloves split across the knuckles with a loud noise. Even in the hubbub of the station, both of them heard the rip, and Brooke involuntarily raised his hand to find out what had happened.

The girl tittered, and the sound of her laugh added the last straw to the barrister's discomfiture.

"Would you mind walking out into the fresh air with me?" he said, speaking with the coldness of despair. "I have a good deal to say, and you ought to listen, if only in justice to the other Mr. Brooke. That is— I mean— really, I have made such an ass of myself that if I remain here trying idiotically to collect my senses, I shall scream, or assault a railway porter."

The girl looked at him wonderingly, though her lips still curved in a smile. "If you foci ill, why not sit down on that seat over there?" she said, pointing to an unoccupied bench.

"No, please. The station square— Buckingham Palace road — anywhere outside— if you don't object. There are hundreds of people about, and—"

"You need not be so concerned. It is not so very dreadful to have to tell me why my cousin should fail to turn up. Let us leave the station at once, if you wish it."

Her cool demeanour was a tonic. How he thanked her for it!

They walked together through the outer hall, and he tore off the offending glove. He was aware that the girl stole a shy peep or two at him, but a drop of perspiration blinded his eye on her side, and he dived for a pocket handkerchief. Then yielding frankly to necessity, he mopped his face.

At the exit she halted. "You must talk some time," she said gently. "Why not here?"

He pointed across the enclosure, with its omnibuses and cabs.

"If you are going to the Tate Gallery, that is your way. May I accompany you a few yards?" he asked.

"I prefer to remain here," she said, stiffening perceptibly.

"Very well. I think I can talk lucidly now. Please don't condemn me until you have heard the whole story."

He began, and the girl listened. More than once she laughed, a reassuring sign. He grew more confident, and his eloquence was convincing when he depicted his frantic efforts to retrieve the original mistake.

"Of course, it is evident you were given the wrong number," he concluded.

"But I spoke plainly. I told the boy to put me on to eight, ought, nine. Temple," said the girl.

"Oh, you gave the figures in that way?"

"Yes. I should have said, 'naught,' but I have the incurable trick of saying 'ought.' Does that matter?"

"Did the boy repeat the number?"

"Yes."

"And he said, 'Ite, Ite, nine.' " She smiled. "He certainly spoke with a Cockney accent."

"That solves the riddle, though it does not absolve me. In future you must always style the cypher Oh."

"Oh!"

"Yes."

"I meant another sort of 'Oh!' Well, thank you, Mr. Brooke, for the trouble you have taken."

"But the thing cannot end in that way. There is a telephone in the station. Let us ring up 809. and get hold of the right Charles Brooke."

"It is absolutely useless. He has forgotten our engagement, and he is seldom in his office after lunch. When I asked if he could get off to-day it was a polite way of suggesting that billiards or cards at his club might be deferred for once. And that is why you— er— surprised me, Mr. Brooke, not only by your voice but by your professed devotion to work."

"Then I have spoiled your afternoon mot effectually?"

"Hardly that. The pictures remain."

"Now, Miss— Miss Meg— don't be angry if I suggest something. You know who I am. Let me take you to the Tate Gallery. May I offer the additional atonement of tea al Rumpelmayer's?"

To his intense gratification, the girl showed her commonsense by considering the notion. She nodded towards a distant clock.

"Isn't it rather late for the Gallery?" she enquired. "Candidly, I fear it is. But we might stroll across the park, and be among the first arrivals at the tea-shop."

She blushed prettily, but the spirit of adventure danced in her eyes— such eyes— deep blue stars they were now in the strong light.

Thus it came about that several people in Rumpelmayer's wondered who the girl could be to whom Mr. Charles Jordison Brooke was so attentive, and that an angry-looking young man and a perturbed elderly lady who arrived at Victoria in a taxi-cab not many minutes after "Meg" and her escort had entered Buckingham Palace-road failed to find a young person in a blue coat and skirt, and wearing a sweet pea hat, though they searched the station like detectives, and literally ran through the long corridors of the Tate Gallery.

But "Meg" was deaf to hints, and quite as obdurate to pleading, when her cavalier wanted to discover her name and address. At the last moment, when her foot was on the step of a taxi-cab, and she was instructing the driver to take her to South Kensington station, she became emphatic.

"No, Mr. Brooke," she said. "We part here and now. The only excuse for to-day's unconventionality is that it should reach a decisive end."

"But this ending is quite indecisive," he urged.

"Not to me."

"Then you remain a dream "

"And you a voice. Good-bye."

Brooke watched the cab speeding uphill to Piccadilly. He had lounged miserably as far as the Circus when he awoke to the fact that he had sustained a vigorous frame since breakfast on a cup of tea, a slice of thin bread and butter, and an éclair. So he sought a restaurant, and mourned while he ate.

Next morning, he called up No. 809, Temple, and was answered, much to his surprise, by an old established firm of solicitors whose offices were in Pump Court. Not wishing to explain his business to a clerk, he made some excuse, and rang off, promising himself an early visit; for if ever a man suffered from the assault of love at first sight it was he.

Then Jecks, K.C., took a hand in the game, and commandeered him for long hours each day, and he only escaped in time to catch a night train from King's Cross to the North.

ON THE criminal side of the Assize Court on that stuffy July day, the professionals were bored, from the Judge down to the assistant gaoler. Even the criminals were languid. They showed some flicker of excitement as they heard verdict and sentence, but promptly grew dazed again, and disappeared from public view for a period fixed by statute, but occasionally varied by aggravating circumstances or the Judge's leniency. There was, however, a slight stir when the usher announced "King versus Pewler— all witnesses out of court."

Brooke, listening to an eloquent dissertation on the law as to manorial nights in another court, was just able to hurry in and announce, with a bob, "I appear for the prisoner, m'lud" before counsel for the Crown began to show, briefly and lucidly, that Jonas Pewler, the gentleman in the dock, had undoubtedly stolen Lady Porthcawl's jewels from a room in the local hotel which her ladyship patronised while visiting Newcastle for the purpose of christening a ship built and launched by a company of which her husband was a director. Lady Porthcawl, aristocratic and imposing, was pleased to be sarcastic when judge and counsel eagerly stopped her from theorising. All she knew was that her jewel-case was in her room at 3.45 p.m. on a certain date, but was not there at 4 p.m.

Of course, being ready to tell the jury much more, she bridled when informed that she must not repeat things she had heard from other people.

"Really," she snapped, "if you want to hear no more from me I might as well have remained in town."

"You have given us the vital information hat certain trinkets which you owned were stolen, said the judge blandly.

"I might make the equally vital deduction that the prisoner has been too smart for the local police, as I shall never see my trinkets again," said Lady Porthcawl, dwelling severely on the word "trinkets," and surveying the judge and the pallid Pewler with calm disapproval.

His lordship sighed. The Clerk of Arraigns heard him mutter: "Of course, she has had the last word," and cheered him up by the whispered information that the favorite had won the Stewards' Cup at Goodwood.

"I have no questions to ask this witness, m'lud, said Brooke, and he, in turn, received a quelling glance from Lady Porthcawl.

"Miss Marguerite Spenser," was called. Brooke's vision suddenly grew blurred when the "Meg" of many dreams and of one memorable afternoon appeared in the witness-box!

She was pale, but quite collected in manner, and, though Brooke's heart drummed alarmingly, and some mad tumult of emotion sang in his ears, he realised sub-consciously that sue was the chief, and most convincing, though somewhat reluctant witness against the prisoner. She told her story simply and plainly, and it was quite evident that she had not recognised the pale-faced man in wig and gown who sat at the barristers' table and was now glowering at her with eyes that almost flamed in their passionate amazement.

On the day of the robbery she was coming down the stairs, her room being on the floor above, when she saw the prisoner closing the door of Lady Porthcawl's room. He was bare-headed, and looked like an under-manager or some minor official of the hotel; he behaved so nonchalantly that she did no think there was anything suspicious in his conduct.

Still, when she found that Lady Porthcawl was not in the room, she hurried downstairs, saw the same man donning a hat and overcoat, and entering a cab containing a portmanteau, and learnt that her ladyship was writing letters in the drawing-room.

A hasty rush upstairs again revealed the robbery, and a smart hall-porter brought about the prisoner's arrest at the Central Station, where Pewler was seated in a train bound for the south.

Brooke, of course, had read Miss Spenser's evidence in his brief, and it was borne in on him now, while that sweet, clear voice came to his ears, just as it had reached him along the telephone wire, that if he might serve the unhappy wretch whose wife, as he had already ascertained, placed such trust in his (Brooke's) prowess as an advocate, he must break down this girl's direct testimony.

He thought he saw a way. It was hard, but duty must come before love.

While the opposing counsel was taking the witness through her "proof." Brooke rose, bent over the rail of the dock and beckoned to the prisoner. His big, brilliant eyes pierced the very soul of the degenerate.

"Now, mark my words carefully Pewler," he whispered. "You stole those jewels, and passed them to a confederate, and if the experiment I am about to try fails you will be sentenced to a long term of penal servitude. Do you agree?"

"I suppose so," came the whimper, for the man's nerve was broken.

"Very well. I shall endeavor to save you, on one condition. Write down on a sheet of paper the means whereby the stolen articles can be recovered. If you are convicted, I tear up the paper unread. If I succeed, I shall have you detained, on some pretext until I am sure you have not deceived me.  Yes or no — quick!"

"Yes." The man tried to write, but his hand shook too greatly. He touched Brooke's shoulder, and their heads almost met again. "I trust your word, sir," he breathed. My wife has them... Means to give them up, anyhow.... Reduction of sentence, you know."

When counsel for the defence stood up to cross-examine, everyone in court noticed the extraordinary confusion that overwhelmed the pretty witness. She reddened, she blanched, her eyes dilated, her curved lips trembled.  And counsel's questions followed a curious line.

"Are you a relation of Lady Porthcawl's Miss Spenser?" he asked, and his voice, which nearly cracked with excitement, seemed to betoken that the answer would be crushing for the Crown.

"Yes, her niece," murmured the witness, and people breathed freely again.

A niece! Not so very awful.

"Are you aware that the prisoner occupied the room next to Lady Porthcawl's?"

"I— I have been told so."

"The fact will be proved. Her ladyship's room was number 201?"

"Y-yes."

"And the prisoner's number 200?"

"I sup-pup-pose so."

"Now this is a serious matter— is it possible that you were mistaken in the numbers of the rooms?— that you saw the opened door in the wrong number, in fact?"

"Oh. I don't know what to say— yes— it is possible."

"Thank you M'lud, I respectfully submit that there is no case against the prisoner."

"The jury will decide," came the dry rejoinder.

Counsel for the prosecution tried vainly to re-establish the confident certainty of the young lady whose alert wits had brought about the arrest of Pewler. He stormed, and raged, but all to no purpose; he nearly blurted out the prisoner's record before a stern reminder came from the Bench. Apart from Miss Spenser's identification of the man in the dock, there was no evidence against him.

The Judge, with an occasional grim glance at the list of previous convictions lying on his desk, was scrupulously fair in his summing up, and the jury, with no knowledge of Pewler's record, found him "Not guilty."

By the miraculous intervention of a lawyer's clerk and the post office, Lady Porthcawl received her "trinkets" intact that evening. The other Mr. Charles Brooke turned out to be a lively young spark who was articled to a solicitor as an indispensable preliminary to taking charge of his uncle's business, and the end of the affair was evidently close at hand when one of Marguerite Spenser's girl friends wrote to another:

"Meg's engagement ring is lovely, and her fiancé also gave her a diamond brooch with the figures 889. I wonder why? I asked her what the number meant, but she wouldn't tell."

________________

17: A Diabolical Experiment

Percy J. Brebner

writing as "Christian Lys"

1864-1922

Australian Town and Country Journal, 27 July 1910

A MILE out of Thorpe, on the old coaching road, stood Thorpe Hall, a gabled, ivy-covered house, and any time during the last two hundred years a man would have been known as a stranger in the neighborhood had he inquired who lived there. The Askews were well known and respected. Equally well known were the Kenricks of The Tower, a house about a mile and a half further along the road, but, in spite of the fact that they possessed at least a sovereign for every penny owned by the Askews, they were not so well liked. For some obscure reason there had always been a feud between the two families, and the quarrel became acute when my grandfather and his contemporary, Matthew Kenrick, both young men at the time, fell in love with the same woman, who became my grandmother.

My father, who, by-the-way, had made a love match himself, always insisted that I should marry money, and retrieve the fallen fortunes of the family. When he died and left me, his only son, in possession, it seemed that my only chance of remaining at The Hall was to follow his advice, but fate conspired against this way out of my difficulties, and at the same time added fuel to the Kenrick quarrel. I loved Lena Carrisford, the daughter of a doctor in Thorpe, and she was engaged to George Kenrick, nephew of Jasper Kenrick, of The Tower— old miser Kenrick, as he was called.

Lena had become engaged suddenly and unexpectedly. I had no suspicion that George Kenrick was my rival, and would not believe the news until I had confirmation from Lena herself. Something in her manner convinced me that she was not happy in her engagement, that some pressure had been brought to bear upon her. I could not give up hope of winning her, and so it was that I took no steps to follow my father's advice. Meanwhile my financial affairs were in a parlous condition.

One afternoon I was trying to , make up my mind to let The Hall and cut down expenses, when, to my astonishment, I saw old Jasper Kenrick coming up the drive.

To my knowledge he had never been inside The Hall, but I determined to meet him in a friendly spirit, and when he was shown into my room I held out my hand in welcome. He took it after a moment's hesitation, and his hard, wrinkled face was drawn into a grim smile.

"We have been taught to hate each other?" he said.

"I have not troubled to learn the lesson." I answered.

"Doubly strange since a woman again exists to make trouble."

"Mr. Kenrick, I—"

"Oh. I didn't come to discuss her, but, to talk of bur quarrel. It should come to an end. You must grant me the privilege of my years and allow me to be impertinent. Your father left you a poor man; it is desperately hard to be poor when there is a tradition to maintain."

"That is true."

"And I am rich," he went on, "a miser for whose death my heir is anxiously waiting. Do you know my nephew George?"

"Slightly."

"Ah, the successful rival," he chuckled. "Don't mind me, Mr. Askew. With age men grow cynical, and I have lived long enough to consider love a much over-rated thing. I do not fancy either you or George will marry Lena Carrisford, but let that pass. I came about ending this quarrel of ours. If my method is eccentric, why not? I can afford to do as I like."

"Certainly," I answered as he paused to give me an opportunity of arguing the point.

"I want you to take charge of this letter," he said, slowly drawing a sealed envelope from his pocket. "It is not to be opened until after my death, but as soon as you know I am dead, follow the instructions contained in this letter and you will be a rich man. Whether it is doing a fellow creature -a service to make him a rich man is another matter. Will you take the letter?"

"There are conditions, I suppose; if they concerns Lena Carrisford, I—"

"There are no conditions to trouble you. To obtain wealth you must follow exactly the instructions given. If, when you open this, you elect not to benefit by my generosity, all I ask is that you will destroy the letter, and never mention its contents to anyone."

"I will take it, and thank you."

"Don't thank me," he answered. "You may hate wealth once, it is within your grasp. If you should, you may .find consolation in the fact that you are not the first man who has found money a curse. Don't thank me, for not until you come to die will you be able to fully appreciate whether I have done you good or evil."

I locked up the envelope carefully, and wondered what the nature of its contents could be. Years might elapse before I was free to open it, and I saw no help out of my present difficulties; yet the possession of the envelope had one effect. I determined to think no more of letting The Hall just now, and to continue the struggle which somehow seemed more hopeful than formerly.

Jasper Kenrick's conviction that Lena Carrisford would marry neither his nephew nor me was strange. Evidently he had some good reason for saying so, and I was more than ever certain there was some mystery underlying Lena's engagement to George Kenrick.

A few days after Jasper Kenrick's visit, I happened to be in Thorpe on a market day, and went into the Dolphin for lunch. It was an old-fashioned inn, the dining-room being apportioned into compartments with an idea of giving privacy. I had nearly finished my lunch when George Kenrick came in with two or three companions, and entered the compartment next to mine.

He was excited, and distinctly the worse for liquor, which surprised me, since I had. never heard that he drank. They did not notice me.

"How's the old man, George?" asked one man.

"Going fast," Kenrick answered. "He'll go, suddenly, and then—"

"Then you'll come into your own, George, eh? Well, you can do with it, and the world hasn't much use for old Kenrick."

I had not heard 'that Jasper Kenrick was ill, and remembering the letter, the temptation to remain quiet and listen was too great for me. They were talking loudly in a public place, so my conscience did not trouble me much.

"I've got a little, tired of playing the hypocrite, and he's wanted a deal of humoring lately," said Kenrick. "He's quite capable of leaving his money to charity if I didn't watch him carefully."

"And I suppose you'll soon be marrying pretty Lena Carrisford."

"That depends upon circumstances and wants thinking over," Kenrick answered. "She's no great catch for a man in my position, but I don't mean her to marry that fellow Askew, as she would like to do. She's got to do as I choose."

"Why?"

"I can stand a lot more liquor before I give away , secrets like that," Kenrick laughed.

My blood boiled to hear Lena spoken or like this, but I did not move until I could do so without being seen. I had learned one thing, Lena cared for me, and I would do my best to save her from such a man as Kenrick.

I crossed the market-place to Dr. Carrisford's house, determined to make Lena tell me the truth if I could. I found her alone. She was surprised to see me, and a little nervous I thought. Her attempts to be natural, and to treat me in the old friendly spirit, were not very successful.

"You are not happy, Lena," I said abruptly. "You may think I have no right to say so, but I know there is something behind your engagement to George Kenrick. You are being forced to marry him that some secret, may be kept."

"You know!" she exclaimed, and her face paled suddenly. She looked frightened.

"I do not know what the secret is, I only know there is one. Lena, is the sacrifice you are making necessary?"

"It is necessary," and then she went on rather recklessly, "What does it matter? If I am the price of silence, who cares?"

"I do."

I had never told her that I loved her, and she looked at me in a startled fashion, straight into my eyes for a moment, and then turned from me with a sob.

"Don't you understand?" I whispered. "Your engagement was altogether unexpected. and then my lips were closed. Only the knowledge that you are unhappy makes it. possible for me to speak now. I love you, Lena. I have always loved you. Cannot I share the secret as well as George Kenrick?"

"No. Frank, no; with all my heart I wish you could. Don't speak to me — please don't, I cannot, bear it. Let me go, Frank, and please do not. come near me until I am married, until all love between us is impossible."

I caught her hand, and kissed it. I don't know what I said beyond making a fierce declaration that I would save her.

For days afterwards I hardly went outside The Hall. Somehow I must force the secret from Kenrick, and I made vague plans to invite him to The Hall, ply him with some of the generous wine which still remained in the cellars, and when he was drunk surprise him into a confession.

Indeed, I feel sure I should have attempted to carry out this plan but for the sudden death of Jasper Kenrick.

He had died suddenly in the night, my servant told me, and during the morning I went to The Tower to make sure that the news was true.

"Yes, he's dead," said the rather ghoulish-looking woman who came to the door. "Mr. George had been sent for, but hasn't arrived yet. Would you like to see the corpse?"

I was about to say "No," when I thought of the sealed envelope, and remembered that I had been instructed to make certain of Jasper Kenrick's death before opening it, so I replied in the affirmative.

The old man lay in a small, sparsely-furnished room, and looked rather sordid and terrible. Death had set a sinister expression on his features, a malignant grin, which made one shudder. I was glad to get into the open air again.

On returning to The Hall I opened the sealed envelope, and read the following statement, for it was not a letter, and was not signed:

By the old tower is a shed filled with rubbish. In the far right-hand corner as you stand looking in the doorway you will find a disused well covered by a stout lid. Remove the lid, and under the rim of the opening you will feel a rope ladder. It is securely fixed. Let it hang down, and descend until you come to an opening in the wall of the well. This is the entrance to a passage, follow it until you come to a floor. Find the keyhole, then in a line with it to the left along the wall measure four feet and downwards two feet; there is a loose stone, and behind it a key. Enter the treasure house— its wealth is yours. Go at once after dark and confide in no one. Be careful to replace the lid of the well so that no one will be likely to follow you, and be sure and take the key out of the lock and carry it with you into the room.

Believing that Jasper Kenrick was a miser, and knowing him to be eccentric, I was hardly surprised that he had made use of the old tower from which the house took its name. This tower, standing at some little distance from the side of the house, was all that remained of a stronghold which had formerly been there, and, of course, was haunted according to popular superstition. Some people declared they had seen the ghost, and it was quite possible that the old man had been noticed as he went to and from his treasure chamber.

Had money been my only consideration, I am not sure that I should have followed these instructions. Involuntarily I recoiled from the task— it may be that a little fear touched me; but there was more than money at stake— there was Lena's happiness. If I did not discover George Kenrick's secret power over her, with money I might buy his silence.

So that night I went to the tower, taking a lantern with me, telling no one where I was going. I would follow the old man's instructions to the letter. There were no lights in the house, and as I went towards the shed I wondered whether George Kenrick had yet arrived.

I entered and closed the door, then I lighted the lantern. The well was easily found and the rope ladder. I became rather excited as I let it fall to hang down into the blackness of the circular hole, and if I shrank from the journey before me, I had no idea of turning back.

But I was careful. I tested the security of the ladder before trusting my weight upon it, and then I had to gather myself together and get rid of a giddy, sickening sensation before descending.

A considerable effort of will was required to draw the lid over the opening,  but I did it, and went down ten, twenty, perhaps thirty feet, the lantern, which I had fastened round my wrist, shedding a weird light about me. I came opposite the opening in the wall, to find that a rail fixed there made it easy to climb into it from the ladder.

The passage was soon barred by a stout door, but I found the loose stone and the key without difficulty. The lock turned easily, and taking the key out of it I opened the door, and stood, with the lantern raised above my head, upon the threshold of a fair-sized chamber.

A table, with a chair beside it, occupied the centre, and near it was a heavy oak chest. Hanging on the back of the chair was an old coat and a velvet skull-cap, such as I had seen Jasper Kenrick wear, and then the heavy door swung to behind me and closed, thrusting me into the room. It startled me, but I had the key.

I placed the lantern on the table, and saw there an envelope addressed to me. It contained three envelopes, marked in the order in which they were to be opened. The first contained a duly executed will, by which George Kenrick inherited the estate and all the' lands and moneys belonging thereto, but which put me in possessions all this chamber contained, the result of years of hoarding, the will said. In the second envelope were two or three keys, with instructions to me to view my wealth at once.

The chest contained some papers, chiefly securities, and two deed boxes. In one was a large packet of bank notes, a paper attached had "£30,000" written upon it, and there was also a canvas bag containing gold.

The contents of the other box flashed in the I light of the lantern, and my eyes stared at a I heap of precious stones worth a king's ransom. Then, according to instructions, I opened the third envelope. It held only a sheet of paper, on which was written:—

My friend, enjoy your wealth, and let the feud end. You wanted to thank me; do so now if you can. I lie dead awaiting burial; you are locked in the old dungeon of the tower awaiting death.

Awaiting death! I sprang to the door, and I in a moment had the key in the lock. The key turned round and round in it, accomplishing nothing. The door had a double mechanism, and the key of the inside lock I was not in my possession! I had been trapped I deliberately. What I did next I do not know.

I Hope there was none. I had fallen completely into Kenrick's devilish scheme, had I obeyed his instructions so assiduously that I had cut myself off from all chance of help.

When I was missed the very last place in I the world where they would look for me would I be the tower. In my despair I cursed Kenrick, I cursed my own folly, and for a time I was probably like a raving madman.

Then I grew calmer. The air in the chamber was fresh. That must mean an opening somewhere, and I set myself to examine my surroundings, only to be convinced at the last that there was no way of escape. I shouted for help. What cry could reach I the other world from that deeply buried tomb? Money! Jewels! Of what use I were they to me? Presently I should be I willing to barter them all for a crust of I bread and a draught of water.

I sat down I to try and think, to try and plan some way I out of my terrible position, only to be gripped by despair, and to let my head fall with I a sob on my arm stretched out across the table.

Time loses all meaning to a man in such a predicament as I was. I slept, and when I awoke my lantern had burnt out and my watch had stopped. I was in pitch darkness. Whether it was day or night I could I not tell. My senses seemed dead, but the dull thudding of my heart was terribly loud in the pervading silence.

Mechanically I struck a match to look at my watch, and to make sure that the lantern was burnt out, and had not blown out. The air in the chamber was still fresh, and in a half-dazed condition I groped my way round my prison, seeking again to find how the air entered, and then— then I started, and I think I laughed.

It was not the beating of my heart I had I heard, but a heavy knocking at the wall, the sound deadened by the thickness of the masonry. Someone had guessed where I was and was working for my release. Perhaps I shouted to encourage them, I do not know, but I began feeling about the floor for some tool with which I might also work on my side.

I stumbled against the table, and my outstretched hand touched the jewels in the deed box. The sudden contact with my wealth made me pause. What if those who came were robbers? The instinct to defend my own leapt up within me.

I filled my pockets with the stones, and the notes, and the gold. They were all mine, no one should take them from me. Possibly this effort to recapture the reality of things was followed by a period of unconsciousness or semi-consciousness, for when I roused myself again the blows upon the wall were quite close. I sprang to my feet. They might murder me for my wealth, and I had no weapon with which to defend myself.

My hand on the back of the chair touched the velvet skull cap, and in a moment I had pressed it on my head.

These robbers must know something of Jasper Kenrick. The unexpected sight of me might frighten them, and I bent myself to be nearer the old man's stature.

How long I waited I cannot tell, only a few minutes, perhaps, but it may have been hours. Masonry was falling close to me, and the glimmer of a light suddenly hurt my eyes. I drew back into the darkness. A man came out of the wall and raised a lantern above his head. It was George Kenrick.

He stepped further into the room, and the light fell on me. For an instant our eyes met, then the light went clattering to the floor, and a shriek cut the air like the sudden rip of torn calico.

It was pitch dark again.

I did not speak, to escape was all my brain was capable of thinking about, and I went forwards, my hands feeling before me. They touched the wall, a jagged edge of wall, and I was stumbling along a rough passage which presently became smooth. A light was in front of me. I was in another chamber, a cellar, steps leading up out of it.

It was the cellar of the house, although I did not fully realise it then. I suppose I walked out of the house by the front door, and that no one saw me. I know it was cold in the air, and remember that it was dusk as I entered The Hall.

I do not remember anything else for a long time. I was dreaming, surely. I was lying in my own room, familiar objects were about me, but beside my bed stood Lena Carrisford.

"Frank," she whispered, after looking at me for a few moments, "Frank, do you know me?"

"Know you, Lena!"

"Hush, you must not talk." Then a man came into the room— a doctor— but not Dr. Carrisford. He would not let me talk either, and for some time afterwards Lena was not beside me but another woman— a nurse.

Then Lena came again, and silence was no longer imperative. I had been ill for more than a month, and how much she had to tell me. Poor girl, how much!

When I returned home after nearly two days' absence was delirious. Dr. Carrisford had been suddenly taken ill, so another doctor had been sent for. The jewels and money were found in my pockets, and I talked incoherently of the tower, the well, the cellars, and of George Kenrick.

My ravings caused a search to be made. A passage was found from the cellar of the house to the dungeon, the end of which had evidently been blocked up until George Kenrick had broken through. He was found in the dungeon— not dead, but in a dying condition. He must have fallen, like a log upon the edge of the oak chest when he had shrieked with fright at the sight of me.

He was removed to the house, and died the following afternoon, but regained consciousness before he died. He had always known of the passage from the cellar, and by something his uncle had said quite recently thought that the dungeon had been used as a treasure chamber. He did not know how it was entered, and so had broken into it, to find, as he supposed, his uncle there. The shock was more terrible to him than the seeing of a ghost of a dead man, for, anxious to inherit his uncle's wealth, he had tampered with his medicine one evening, and Jasper Kenrick had died suddenly in the night.

George Kenrick had reason to believe that the hoardings of years had not been left to him, but he intended to get possession of them at any cost. He had broken into the treasure chamber only to find the man he had murdered guarding his wealth!

No wonder I had frightened him! And Lena told me the secret of her engagement. Some years ago Dr. Carrisford had committed a forgery. He had repented, and I had repaid the money, but somehow George Kenrick had discovered what he had done, and had made Lena the price of his silence. I

Only when George Kenrick had asked her to marry him, and she had refused, had she been told her father's secret. Dr. Carrisford had not recovered from his illness, and had died a fortnight ago.

Jasper Kenrick's wealth had brought him little blessing, and some people declared that such ill-gotten money must always carry a curse with it. Miser the old man certainly was, villain he certainly was when he endeavored to bring a terrible death to me, but I have never discovered that his wealth was obtained in any worse manner than are most large fortunes. It was, no doubt, the result of hard dealing, but not of actual cheating, and my wife and I are doing our best to administer it well and generously.

Why did Jasper Kenrick attempt to bury me alive? I do not know. Personally, I had never done him any harm, and I do not think the fierceness of the old feud was in his heart. No, I fancy, the possibility of such a death must have preyed upon his mind as he sat there alone with his treasure, that he was fascinated into trying the diabolical experiment. At any rate, since I have profited by it, I like to believe that the old man was mad.

_________________

18: The Soul of a Ship

Beatrice Heron-Maxwell

(neé Beatrice Maude Emelia Eastwick, 1859-1927)

Australian Town and Country Journal, 21 Oct 1914

1:  The Two Christines.

THE PHOTOGRAPH of the Christine, in a carved wood frame made from a fragment of the foremast, hangs before me as I write, and shows a brig of 750 tons, trim and clean from stem to stern, lying in the harbor of Mobile, ready to make her maiden voyage with the break of day.

Beside is another picture— the picture of a girl, whose beauty lies, not so much in features and coloring, though both are full of charm, as in a certain spirituality of expression that Characterises it; with the raised letters of her name, Christine, on a gilt oval mount. The wonderful eyes, golden brown, with velvet depths in them, like pansies glowing in the bun, look into space as though they saw, and, seeing, took command of, a shadowy world of infinite possibilities. And the story of the two Christines, twin namesakes and sisters as they were, both being the offspring of Christopher Hansen, Canadian merchant, of Mobile, is told in the human documents, enclosed in a locked case beneath them

2: Pages from Christine's Diary.

TO-DAY has been the strangest and the happiest and the saddest of my life! For I have gained and lost what I have never had before a companion, a sister, a being whose life belongs to me, who shares with me my father's love, his hopes, his ambitions, his very heartstrings, and whom I am to lose with the dawn of to-morrow, the second day of her independent separate existence!

Ever since I was quite a little child my father has always said: "When the Christine is built," just as other people say: "When my ship comes home;" and when he asked me what should be my present from him on my twenty-first birthday, I said quickly; "Give me the Christine— build her for me."

Father smiled and said: "It is less than five months to your birthday, and we have the winter to face, which is not good for such work; but a woman-child only wants the possible when it is impossible, and if the Christine could but spring into being at this moment you would no longer desire her."

I clasped my arms round his neck and I said: "Try me."

But he only smoothed my cheek and put me gently by, and presently went away to his office and his work.

Yet from that day I felt that something was coming to me from the Unknown, some gifts of Fate or Fortune, some heritage of Chance or Destiny, that drew nearer with each passing-hour, and must inevitably arrive.

This morning when I awoke and realised that it was my birthday, I felt that the prelude was over, and that what I waited for was close at hand. There were two voices in the morning-room when I came down to breakfast, my father's and another, which I recognised as that of Captain Brunswick, of the Merchant Service.

We have known him for some time. They were talking earnestly, but they stopped when I came in, and, smilingly drew asunder; and then I saw what they were looking at, and forgot everything in the sudden gladness of the Sight. For on the table was a perfect model of a ship with my name painted round her bows, and by its side a card inscribed: "To be christened and launched to-day at one o'clock by the owner, Christine Hansen."

I took it in my hands and pressed my lips to it, and then I turned to father and said:

"The impossible made possible. Father you have given me my heart's desire."

I knew that the tears were in my eyes, and I wished Captain Brunswick had not been there to see them; but father, patting my shoulder, made me look at him, for he said:

"The Captain has consented to take your ship to Queenstown, Christine, with a load of pitch and pine,  and if all goes well they start to-morrow."

I had to shake hands with the captain, and listen to his congratulations and compliments, impatient as I was, and always have been, of them.

And then he went away, and father told me what they had been talking of before I came.

It seems that Captain Brunswick wants to marry me and that father has set his heart on my doing so.  I am to wait to give my answer, if I wish, until he returns from Queenstown.

The thought would have distressed me— since I do not love Captain Brunswick nor wish to marry anyone— but that there was no room in my mind for anything but my ship, the realisation of my dreams.

When I had put on my white cloth dress and white furs, we drove, father and I, to the dock, and there in her cradle was my new-born sister, my Christine.

How beautiful she was! how pure, and spotless, and delicate and strong! like a sea-bird whose wings could spread and bear her swiftly against wind or water to the haven where she would be.

The time drew near for the christening, her led me to the little platform with its crimson rail that hung over the edge of the dock, and showed me the lever that would the draw the cork of the champagne to baptise her and the handle I should turn to release her from the bonds, and give her the power to live and move and have her being.

Father himself stood on my right, and on my left was Captain Brunswick, and beyond again, the crew of the Christine, and then a host of people— many friends and many strangers.

But one face only stood out from the throng; a dark, strong face, grave and keen, with eyes that seemed to leap to mine and hold them captive. We stood, gazing at one another, this dark tall young stranger and I, until my father, following the direction of my eyes with his own, perceived whom I was looking at.

Then he beckoned, saying to me: "This is Mr. Roger Iselin, first mate of the Christine. He was in the English navy, but left the service. I knew his father long ago at school."

Then he added, as Mr. Iselin, in answer to his invitation, joined us: "I should like you two to be friends."

"Friends!"

Are we friends? Is this new feeling of unrest, of happy pain and doubting gladness, friendship? If so, then I have never known what friendship was before, and I am Roger Iselin's friend, and all other friends are strangers to me.

As he held my hand and looked again with those deep earnest eyes into mine, I felt that he could read my heart like a book if he chose; and that the sound of his voice had woven a spell round me which only he could break. I was conscious of his presence, of the nearness of it, all through the time that followed.

It seemed as though I dedicated the Christine to him when I gave her her name, and freed her from her chains. As she moved towards the harbor and glided into the water with gracious gentleness, Mr. Iselin came a step nearer to me and took my hand.

"Let me be the first to congratulate you," he said, "and wish you and your namesake prosperity and success."

IT WAS no surprise to me to find him in the drawing-room this evening at dinner-time. I felt sure we should meet again before he went away in my ship. Captain Brunswick dined with us also, and it seemed to me that there was some strong antagonism between him and Roger, and that it was of sudden growth, for their acquaintanceship had evidently been friendly up till now.

After dinner Captain Brunswick stayed— unwillingly I fancied— to smoke a cigar and talk with father, but Roger asked if he might come with me. I sang to him at his wish, in the drawing-room, and then we sat by the fire and talked, and he told me all about himself. He was in the Navy, and getting on well, but his father died, and his mother, who was devoted to Roger, would not rest until he resigned his commission and returned home to live with her. He was her only child, and though he loved his profession dearly he would not oppose his mother's wish. They were very well off, and she said she required him to look after the estate.

Then came one of those terrible bank smashes in which people lose their whole fortunes in one day; and the Iselins, like many hundreds of others, were ruined. Lady Iselin died, broken-hearted, and Roger dropped his title, and went back to earn his living as plain Roger Iselin again.

All the time he was talking I could feel he was weaving the spell faster and firmer until it seemed as though an invisible coil bound me, and the other Christine, and Roger, all together, and left everyone else outside.

It was just before the others joined me that he leant across to me and took my hand.

"I am going away to-morrow," he said, "taking one Christine with me, and leaving the other here. It is myself that goes; my heart that remains. And you?"

For a moment I could not speak, and then, as his fingers closed round mine, I stammered: "It is my heart that goes; myself that remains."

He lifted my hand to his lips, and with their touch I felt a thrill, both new and sweet, go through me.

"If your heart comes with us," he said, "it will be in safe keeping, and should guard us from all harm. Night and day my thoughts will be of you. Will you give me one outward and visible sign that you go with us on our journey— a portrait of yourself."

I was powerless to resist. I gave him a photograph of myself that was taken the other day at father's wish. He had just put it in his pocket when father and Captain Brunswick came in.

Roger said good-bye before very long, and the pressure of his hand as he clasped mine seemed to be a promise and a vow, while the look in his eyes was a caress.

When for a few moments I was alone with Captain Brunswick he said to me: "You know what my dearest wish is? Your father's coincides with it. May I hope that on my return you will let me claim you as my wife?"

I shook my head— I hardly knew what to say, for the word that was clamoring at my lips was "No."

"But," he said, '"your father assured me that I might feel confident as to my answer."

I was still silent, and he paused for a moment and then suddenly broke out- vehemently:— "If it is Iselin who has come between us—"

Then I stopped him.

"There has never been anything between you and me," I said steadily; "there never will be. I am grateful to you for the honor you have done me— that is all."

"That is not all," he said, but his voice was level again. "Unless you give up all thought of Iselin from this moment, he shall never return to you."

"Who is to prevent him returning?" I asked scornfully; but there was a little creeping fear at my heart.

"One of us has got to make room for the other," he answered; "it is not likely I shall be the one."

"You threaten him," I said, "but he is a strong man. It will not be so easy to harm him as you think."

"Nothing Is easy that is worth doing," Captain Brunswick said. "I made no threat of violence, but certain things will happen."

"They shall not happen," I said. "It is a question of my will and his against yours. I shall warn him about you."

"And make bad blood between us at the start," he replied. "That will help my plan. I am his superior officer, you see."

I did not answer; in imagination I was on the Christine side by side with Roger Iselin— we two against Captain Brunswick.

"My heart and soul are in my ship," I said to him. "She will reach her journey's end, I know."

And then I left him, so that my father should not find us together and think all was well with us.

THREE WEEKS GONE— and no news of the Christine. Father looks anxious, though he says nothing, and I— I dare not speak to him lest he should confirm my fears or I should deepen his.

Captain Brunswick's words, branded into my heart, start out in letters of living flame when, in the dead of night, I try to pierce the darkness, and to see the Christine on the waste of waters that divide her from me. But it is only in dreams that I find her, and these I know are troubled, for I wake from them in tears; yet in the waking they are gone and the echo of an appealing voice is all that remains— a voice that begs me to wait and trust.

IT IS the fifth week past and over, and still no news. I have told my father my fears and the reason for them, and he says that my imagination has run away with me. Captain Brunswick, is, he assures, me, incapable of betraying his trust in any way; and I have mistaken an impulsive outburst of jealousy, natural in the circumstances, if or a real determination.

ALL HOPE is over. There is no news of the Christine at Queenstown, and a vessel, that was bound for the same port, came across, on April 5, a deserted ship, without spars or sails, that was right in the path of other vessels. The Captain ordered her to be set on fire in order to sink her and remove this danger to navigation; but though her masts and cabins and all above deck were destroyed the fire only burned down to the water's edge, and she drifted away, invisible in the darkness of night, more dangerous than before.' It is believed that ship was the Christine.

Where then is Roger? My heart calls to him through the silence, and no answer comes except in dreams, when still I wander over grey water towards a grey distance, and still I hear, just before I wake, the voice that wove so close a spell around me.

Father is grieved for our loss; but he does not know how waste and desolate my life is laid, nor does he believe for a moment that Captain Brunswick is in any way responsible for the wrecking of my ship, whilst I am sure that her worst danger came from him, and that he has kept his threat, made on that last night.

"One of us," he said, "has got to make room for the other. It is not likely I shall be the one."

I say this softly to myself many times a day, and I add that if the sea should give up her dead and Captain Brunswick should return, I shall know that he is Roger's murderer. There can no longer be any doubt that the Christine was wrecked in the awful storm of February; and that it is she who was set fire to in April by the Siberia, in whose course she lay.

OTHER SHIPS have come across her, always in the path of navigation, and one tried to blow her up, but the attempt was a failure. She drifted on, without spars or sails or anything above deck, Invisible at night and a danger to all other ships. So I have lost all— Christine and Roger— and there is nothing left for me to live for.

3: Extracts from Roger Iselin's Journal.

I BEGIN to distrust Brunswick, and for a reason that I cannot define. He is scrupulously polite, but he watches me, and once when he came suddenly into my cabin and surprised me looking at Christine's photograph I saw his hand clench itself quickly, and he said something under his breath that sounded queer. Yet he regained his self-control so quickly that I almost persuaded myself it was a trick of my imagination.

A fortnight to-day since we left Mobile. There are signs of bad weather, and I think we are in for a gale. The skipper seems bent on taking us into the teeth of it— unnecessarily, since our more direct course would keep us well to the windward.

I ventured a suggestion, but he cut me short and gave me an order that took me below. I do not understand him.

Some of the men have spoken to me about Brunswick. We are having nasty weather, and we are out of our course; they are very discontented, and want me to remonstrate with him. It is as much as my billet is worth in the mood he is in now.

The worst has happened. The men mutinied to-day without the slightest warning. I heard a sudden tumult and ran on deck. They had taken Brunswick unawares, and I found them in a ring with him helpless and lashed to the mast in their midst.

"This is your doing," he said. "You have set them on to this."

For answer I cut the rope round his arms and took my stand beside him.   The men were like devils let loose.

"He's sailing us to our death," they shouted. "We'll drown you both and take the brig to Queenstown ourselves."

We had a sharp set-to. They wanted me to take their part, put the Captain in irons, and step into, his place. He fought more like a savage animal than a man, and I am afraid he is more than half madman. We cowed the men at last, and drove them back to their work.

Then I went down to Brunswick and spoke to him, as carefully as possible. I told him we were taking unnecessary risks, and that if he wanted to keep the men obedient he had better take the safe course. He fiaf.rod >m at once, called mo an insubordinate dog, and repeated that I had started the mutiny.

Then he suddenly flung out of the cabin, and bolted me in.

Here I am, shut up, a useless prisoner in his cabin, and the hurricane has burst right over our heads. The noise is tremendous, and I shall be surprised if the Christine lives through such a sea. I have been looking at Christine's picture; drinking in— for the last time I expect— the perfection of her face. No woman has ever been anything to me before in all my life. Christine is my friend, my sweetheart, my all. Somehow her eyes seem to command hope and courage; her lips, seem to say: "My heart and soul are with you, and will bring you safely to me once morn."

God! What is that? Are we struck. What is happening? They are letting down the boat— they are going to desert the ship. The cowards! I never thought it would end like this. I would like to have fought with the winds and waves for the Christine, and if I couldn't have saved her, to have gone down with her in the open— not shut in here. Good-bye, Christine— my only love— good-bye. You will never read this but it calms me to write it down— it keeps me sane. I don't want to die mad— I want to keep my mind clear, and go down in your ship with your name on my lips. Christine— my Christine, "

4: Christine's Diary Continued.

THREE WHOLE MONTHS to-day since my birthday. I have sounded the depths of hell on earth and learnt what it can be since then.

We said to each other:

"They are all lost together, the Christine and her crew." And to myself I said: "I have lost my sister and my lover— and for me life holds nothing further."

There was a night when I dreamed that Roger was in some deadly peril from which I could not save him. There was a waking moment of torture so great that it nearly unhinged my brain, while the dream stayed with me and I believed it true.

But after that came a merciful numbness in which my suffering seemed deadened into apathy. They say that joy never kills. That may be, but it goes very near it sometimes. When father brought the cable, and I knew that Roger was safe, I seemed to go over the borderland, and for many days they thought that I would die.

Then came Roger himself, and his voice and hand seemed to draw me back again to consciousness and full understanding, and at last to that blest hour when he told me all.

Holding me in his arms with my face buried in his shoulder, he whispered to me of that awful time when he was shut in, as helpless as the Christine was herself in the grip of the storm.

It was at the last moment that the cabin door was unbolted and flung open, and Captain Brunswick staggered in.

He seized Roger's arm, and pushed him out of the cabin.

"Go up," he shouted; "get to the boat. The ship can't live in this— we must leave her."

"But you are coming, too, sir," Roger called back, for he was lingering. "I won't leave you here and go by myself."

He was holding my photograph still in his hand; the Captain clutched it from him.

"She saved you," he cried. "She wouldn't let me do as I meant to do— send you down with the ship. Go on up— I'll follow— there's no time to lose."

Roger ran up, and could just distinguish the boat and hear the men shouting for him to come. He looked round for Captain Brunswick—  there was no sign of him. Then as he dashed back, they met face to face.

"Come on, sir," Roger cried, and seized the Captain in his arms, trying to drag him towards the boat. They wrestled together, and then Captain Brunswick flung him off.

"Obey my orders," he called out, "or I'll shoot you like a dog."

He pulled out his revolver and fired at Roger, who fell wounded on the deck.

One of the sailors gripped Roger and pulled him into the boat, and the men let her go, and in a moment she was carried away on the waves.

Roger was insensible for many hours, and knew nothing more until after they had been picked up and rescued by the Titania the following morning.

So that Captain Brunswick must have remained on the Christine and there waited for his death. The last chapter of the Christine's life is written, and I am going to close and put away for ever that part of my life.

WE HAVE HAD news from Queenstown that the wreck of my ship has drifted into harbor there— a hundred and sixteen days after she left Mobile!  Little was standing beside the stump of the foremast, but when they searched below they found what had once been Captain Brunswick, shut into his cabin.

They have put up a cross, made from the ship, to his memory at Queenstown, and they speak of him there as the gallant captain who stuck to his ship until the end.

Poor fellow! Poor, poor fellow! May he rest in peace.

But though we take our happiness— Roger and I— with reverent trembling hands, since it has come to us through such a sea of sorrow and despair, we take it fearlessly, knowing that strength of love and singleness of heart and will, can weather any storm, that life may bring.

It is our marriage day, and my father's present to us is a new Christine in which we are to go for our wedding journey. So, while I say farewell to the old Christine,  I stretch out my hands in welcome to a new one, and feel how near Life is to Death and Death to Life.

_________________

19: Lettice Langworthy's Prince

Katharine Tynan

1859-1931

Western Mail (Perth, West Aust) 12 Sept 1929

THE KEY was turned sharply in the lot and Letty Langworthy heard the returning footsteps of her Aunt Matilda go down the stairs. It was a relief to her alone even though she was a prisoner. The sunset danced in the room and outside was the green wood. She could see the rabbits playing in and out through the boles of the trees, and the robins would come to her call. A whole row of them sat on the rail at the foot of her bed when she awoke of mornings. She loved her little room for all its bareness. Aunt Matilda had often spoken of putting Letty into the little dark room at the head of the stairs, looking into a nettle-patch in the shade of gloomy trees.

Fortunately, it had not happened, and that was due to Elspeth, the elderly Scottish maid, the only person Miss Matilda Langworthy ever listened to.

"Hoots!'' Elspeth had said, "put a wee lassie in yon black bole. Why she'd perish for want of the sun."

Elspeth was the one redeeming feature in Letty's lonely life. She was thirteen when she came to her father's step-sister, her parents having died in India with a very short time of each other. She had been at school then and she had loved her school, but her aunt had decreed that she should give up her schooling. She herself would undertake her niece's education.

It had been a Spartan rule, an education to the accompaniment of tears very often, but it was an education. Letty was quite an accomplished young lady by the time her aunt had done with her, but as Miss Matilda often complained. Lettice was childish for her years, which was now nineteen.

"Ye keep her a bairn," said Elspeth, "Let her see others of her age; what twa old bodies the likes o' you an' n for a child like her?"

Miss Matilda always waved away Elspeth when the discussion reached such a point, but Elspeth took her own way with Letty if she could not procure help she wanted. Miss Matilda had ordered bread and water for Letty. Presently the door would be unlocked and Elspeth would come in with a dainty tray holding just the nice things to eat that a young girl likes. Miss Matilda was quite well aware of this flagrant disobedience her orders, but she could not do without Elspeth and perhaps she did not mean the order to be obeyed literally.

This time it was about the Reverend Ebenezer Jones, under whom Miss Langworthy had sat for many years. Mr. Jones had cast his eye on Letty and had asked her hand in marriage and Letty, according to her aunt, had behaved scandalously to the minister. She had, in fact, smacked his face when he wished to kiss her and had fled from the room, shaking like leaf.

Mr. Jones had been furious and had visited his indignation on Miss Matilda shaking the dust of Owl's Croft off his feet for ever as be departed, slamming the door behind him. For once Miss Matilda had been in tears.

"Hoots!" said Elspeth, "whaur wad he gang for his Sabbath dinner? Ye'd better marry him yersel' and let the young be for the young."

Letty looked out of the window. She did not know how long she was going to be a prisoner this time. She wanted to be out in the sun. It was a lonely life she led, never seeing anyone. There was only Elspeth and Geordie for alleviation of her life; and Geordie not always, He was her aunt's poodle and he some times growled at her when her aunt was angry with her, coming slyly afterward to lick her hand. She never saw anybody except that horrid Mr. Jones, who ate so enormously when he came to meals Owl's Croft was in the middle of the forest and no one ever passed that way.

She had nothing to do. Aunt Matilda had taken away her paint box and her despatch case. She had an incurably idle habit, according to Miss Matilda, of writing verses, and her aunt had. guarded against that. There were a few musty books of sermons in the cupboard and there was a heap of sewing— coarse flannel for the poor, the touch of which set Letty's teeth on edge.

She glanced at it distastefully. There would be more trouble if she left it undone. Perhaps when Elspeth came she would bundle it up and take it away to do herself, and give her her writing materials— perhaps.

Under her window ran a forest ride, smooth and untrampled. No one ever came that way. No one had ever come since Letty had been at Owl's Croft. How she envied the rabbits and the birds!

Far down a glade of the forest a slender, young deer halted for a second, sniffed the air and went off. She wondered what could have startled him in that quiet place.

She wished she had Geordie for company. Geordie could forget his years and obesity when he was from under his mistress's eye. He could really be quite a dear dog when he liked. There was the little slipper he loved to run away with and hide when he had a frolic with Letty. It was a pretty slipper of pale yellow satin with a jewelled buckle.

Letty had had the slippers for a long time. She had never worn them in her aunt's view. They were of the pretty things which had been in Letty's wardrobe when she came to Owl's Croft. Her young mother had loved pretty things and loved to dress her little daughter daintily, but Miss Matilda had disapproved.  After Letty's mourning was over, she had wished to dress her in dull and sober garments. But for Elspeth, Letty would hare been dressed as a replica of her aunt, but Elspeth had put her foot down. She was a clever needlewoman and she loved to dress Letty. Since the materials were cheap and the work done for nothing Miss Matilda had no real grounds for complaint.

Letty had an idea. She would dress up. She often dressed up, making a world of make-believe for herself in which she was no longer Letty Langworthy, shut up in Owl s Croft away from the world. She had loved her schooldays and the games and the jolly comradeship. There had been long, long lonely years since then. But somehow, she. was not unhappy. There was an invisible sunshine about her. She was not really unhappy even about Mr. Jones. If the worst came to the worst she could run away, and she had a strong helper in Elspeth.

In a cupboard of the room there hung a number of old-fashioned dresses, which had belonged to a frivolous young sister of Miss Matilda's, who had died young. There was a picture of her over the mantelpiece— badly painted but delicious all the same. A clear little profile, and ringlets bunched about the little ears— a dress of the most beautiful blue.

That dress hung now in the wardrobe; It was silk, very old and frail. Letty put it on gingerly. She put on silk stockings and the satin shoes. Lastly she let  down her hair. It was brown hair with little red sparks in it; and it curled deliciously.

She was pirouetting before the glass when she heard a sound-an amazing sound-a horse's feet on the soft turf. Such a thing had never happened before. She flew to the window. A horse and rider were just passing below; a moment and they would be out of sight.

Some mad impulse seized her. She was not Letty Langworthy and a prisoner. She was someone she had read about in a story.

Off came the little shoe. "Good luck to your riding," she said, but in a whisper, and flung the shoe.

She never meant it to reach the horse or rider. As it was the shoe struck the horse on the flank. It curvetted and the rider turned about and looked. He was a beautiful young man, Letty thought, and he had such gay laughing blue eyes. Letty was paralysed for a moment. Then and he had such gay laughing blue eyes, her face childishly against the wall.

She heard hie voice under the window.

"Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair."

She had forgotten about her hair. How silly and how untidy she must have looked with her curls tumbling about her shoulders and what a forward girl he must have thought her, flinging the shoe like that!

She stood trembling, half in delight, half in fear, till she heard the horse go off. But it was quite a long time before she dared look out of the window.

There was no trace of him. She might have dreamt it all, or made it up for herself as she often made things up. But there were the tracks of the horse on the soft turf and the little shoe was gone.

She did not dare to tell even Elspeth her adventure. She felt too shy about it. She did tell Geordie when he came up presently with Elspeth, whispering into his ear and that was a relief, and Geordie licking her cheek, seemed quite to understand.

She had a second day's imprisonment despite Elspeth's disapproval. Mr. Jones had been very angry about having his face smacked and had taken it out of Miss Matilda. Since Letty would not promise to apologise, she must keep her room until she came to her senses.

But now Letty had something to think of.  She could really make-believe, and it was not so bad sitting looking out at the forest and smiling to herself over her dreams, in a way that had often brought her aunt's wrath upon her.

But by evening she was very weary of the confinement and the inaction. A longing came upon her, which she could not fight against, to be out in the golden sun-set, which was flooding all the forest. She never thought of her aunt's wrath if she should discover her absence. Probably she would not discover it, since Elspeth usually attended Letty's room and did not bear interference even from Miss Matilda. Letty wrote a tiny note in case Elspeth should come.

"I had to drop out of the window and run in the forest," she wrote. "Do not let my aunt know if you should come while I am gone."

She had escaped more than once before by way of the window when she had been under her aunt's displeasure and a prisoner.

The forest was suffused with golden light. The birds were all singing and at the doors of their little green houses, the rabbits were sitting washing their faces in the dew. They did not flee before Letty's footstep. They were accustomed to her. She flew away down the golden glades of the forest. It was lovely to be in the open air after the two long days within doors.

Suddenly she heard a tiny shrieking  which made her blood run cold. She  guessed what it was at once. It must be a rabbit caught in a trap. Someone had set a terrible iron gin and had caught one of the soft, harmless little creatures. At first, in the undergrowth. Letty could not see where the rabbit was. She ran hither and thither distractedly, crying out, "Oh, I am coming. I am coming."

At last she found the thing she sought, but what help could she give? The soft little furry leg of the rabbit was caught between the dreadful teeth of the trap. She went down on her knees beside it.

"Oh, be quiet, be quiet," she cried out. "I am doing my best to help."

The rabbit cried like a baby in pain. There were tears in the large eyes that were turned to her in terror. It was horrible. Kneeling there she strove with all her might and main to draw the teeth of the trap apart. It was a horrible old rusted trap and her strength was not equal to it. The crying of the rabbit seemed to drive her wild. She would never be able to do it, never!

Suddenly she cried out to the forest, ! where there were only the birds and the squirrels and. the rabbits to listed. She cried out to the sky above her. Would someone not send help?

Then a shadow fell over the sunlit path. Someone had sent help.

"What is the matter?" asked a very pleasant voice. Letty looked up through her tears. It was surely the young man she had seen yesterday, after whom she had thrown her shoe.

"Stand up!" he said very gently. "Whoever has set this trap shall be punished. Go a little way off, and I shall see to this. And please don't look."

She went obediently. The crying of the rabbit had ceased. Her tears were flowing now. She could not stop them. And then the pleasant voice was at her ear.

"You were very brave and very good," said the young man. "The little creature has been put out of pain. It was hurt, beyond help." Then he saw her tears.

"You poor little thing!" he said. "I am so sorry. It must have been horrible not to be able to help. I know how a rabbit cries in a trap."

Letty pulled out a mere wisp of a handkerchief and mopped at her eyes.

"You will never dry them with that," he said, and taking .out his own hand-kerchief he dried her eyes tenderly and carefully.

"Now, don't cry any more," he said. "This will not happen again. I shall take care of that. And now— I saw you yesterday, when you threw your shoe."

"Oh!" said Letty, forgetting her grief. "It was dreadful of me to throw it. I did not mean to do it! But I had been having such a dull time shut up in my room.

"I have just passed under your window," he said. "I looked up, and the window was wide open. I knew at once that the bird had flown. But why were you shut up in your room?"

"Because Aunt Matilda was angry with me," said Letty, and became very red.

"Why was she angry with you?" the young man asked.

"I was very rude to a friend of hers," said Letty.

"Perhaps he deserved it," said the young man.

Letty wondered how he could, have known that the person was masculine.

"Aunt Matilda says he meant to be very kind," she said, and then would say no more. But perhaps the young man understood something, for he said grimly: "You were the best judge of that."

"And now," he went on, "how do you propose to get back into your room?"

"I have only to knock at the side door," said Letty, "and Elspeth will hear me and let me in."

"Who is Elspeth?" he asked. He was very curious, this young man.

"She is Aunt Matilda's maid, and she is very fond of me," said Letty, "it would be much worse without Elspeth. She is the only person that Aunt Matilda is afraid of."

"I am coming to call on your aunt to-morrow," he said. "But I should like to see you in."

Elspeth opened the door and looked from Letty to the young man.

"Who is this fine young man you've brought home, Letty?" she asked. "Your aunt would be in a lint taking if she knew you were out of doors. And she very near found your wee bit letter instead of me. Your Mr. Jones has come back. He's in the garden with her, having tea."

"This gentleman," said Letty, "has been so good. He has taken a poor little rabbit out of a trap in the wood."

"He looks kind," said Elspeth. "Your aunt wants you in the parlour. But you needn't go if you don't like. You can lock your door and I'll stand by you."

The young man laughed, such a pleasant laugh. "I am Lord Forest. I have come back to live in my own house, and tomorrow I shall come and call on Miss Langworthy. She is one of my tenants."

He lifted his hat and went off. Later Letty, having successfully resisted her aunt's endeavour to get her to go down-stairs, looking from the window in the dusk, thought she saw the tall figure of Lord Forest down one of the glades of the wood. She did not know why he should have been there. Could he be watching her window? She was sure she was not mistaken, because as she looked she saw the flame of a match and then the little red front of a cigarette showed in the darkness. She knew there would be a very bad tussle with her aunt. She had never been so openly rebellious before. But Elspeth was there to shield her.

It was to be a third day of imprisonment. Elspeth brought her word that Mr. Jones had said lie would not return until tho damsel was brought to her right mind.

But some time during the golden afternoon in came Elspeth like a whirlwind.

The Lord of the Forest had come himself. All the country was agog about it, but, of course, they had never heard of it at Owl's Croft.

"Your young man's got a way with him," said Elspeth; "your aunt's forgotten Mr. Jones."

He was young and bonny and rich; and he was sitting down in the parlour talking, to Miss Matilda, and he had brought Letty's little shoe, which he had found when he had ridden by the house a day or two ago.

"I'm thinking it will be Cinderella and the Prince," Elspeth said to herself, but not to Letty lest the Prince should pass away.

She was dressing Letty in her prettiest frock of pale green and fastening up her hair with little jewelled pins which had belonged to the frivolous young aunt of long ago.

Letty went down trembling to the parlour, and could hardly lift her eyes as Miss Matilda made the introduction to Lord Forest.

The parlour seemed oddly changed in that space of time. A fire had been lit. It was a dark room with a northern aspect; Miss Matilda's best china and her finest damask cloth were on the table. And she was actually smiling.

"I brought your little shoe," said the young man. "I found it as I rode under your window the other day."

"She is a careless child," said Miss Matilda in a voice she had never used before in speaking of Letty. "She must have dropped it out of the window."

"It was fortunate," said Lord Forest, "since it gave me a reason for coming so soon."

Letty scarcely dared lift her eyes. There was such a strange light in the young man's blue eyes as they rested on her. There was no more imprisonment for her. Every day the Prince came. Poor Mr. Ebenezer Jones, having had some words about it with Miss Matilda, went off in high dudgeon and came no more.

The wooing was not long a-doing. Letty became a great lady and the happiest of princesses, and if her happy fortune made her some enemies to begin with she soon, by her gentleness and generosity, turned them into friends.

So that was Letty's fairy-story come true— Fairy Prince and all.

________________

Index to Past Masters Nos 61-87

The "Author Index" to Issues 1-60 has been uploaded separately at MobileRead

Achmed Abdullah

Grafter and Master Grafter 84

The Fetish of Remorse 83

Framed at the Benefactors' Club 73

Interlude 84

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

W. L. Alden

After the Comet 67

A Case of Dual Consciousness 84

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

A Tricycle Made For Two 82

Mark Allerton

A Christmas Mix-Up 70

The Stanhope Scandal 70

Harley S. Aldinger

The Green Intelligence 85

Frederick Irving Anderson

The Signed Masterpiece  82

Anonymous

Armistice  78

A Barrack Ghost Story 76

Beauty in Flight 76

A Chance Meeting 84

Chinese Murder  80

A Detective Adventure  80

The Diamond Necklace 62

The Great Auk's Egg Affair 61

Fool Proof  75

The Hachma Ruby 86

The Hat Trick 71

Haunted  78

Jacobs and Gale, Tobacconists 70

John Sherlock's Alibi 86

Local Color 75

An Old Norman-French Story 76

The Petrie Plan 83

A Railway Murder 70

Remorse 76

Retribution 74

Revenge 74

Rogue's Room 86

The Ruins of the Abbey of Fitz-Martin 64

The Skipper's Scheme 73

A Solicitor's Story (as by "S.S.")  75

The Stamp Thief 71

The Thriller 71

The Two Chignons 85

F. Anstey

Taken By Surprise  66

Edwin L. Arnold

The Haunted "Smoker" 87

Alice and Claude Askew

Heritage of Lucille Rivers 82

Francis Henry Atkins

The Lay Figure  63

Edouard A. Aujard

The Flood 75

The Swing of Sentiment  75

Laola of the Isles 85

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

Mrs. Baillie-Saunders

The Wrong Reception  83

James Barr

The Man in Moccasins  82

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

Bradford's P-Luck 83

Breakfast at the Savoy 79

The Coral of Idris 83

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

The Looking Glass 87

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

Edward Boltwood

Foghorn Fernando 86

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

A Diabolical Experiment 87

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

The Green-eyed Remedy  82

Two Women in the Case   80

Thomas Burke

The Bloomsbury Wonder 61

The Horrible God 62

Laughing Lillian 62

The Yellow Imps 62

Frances Hodgson Burnett

The Christmas in the Fog 87

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 Man and the Motive 83

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

Stephen Chalmers

The Great God Ananzi  86

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

Mayfair Melody 86

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

Anne Crawford

A Mystery of the Campagna  85

Captain Henry Curties

Redeeming Flames 79

Norbert Davis

You Bet Your Life 77

E. M. Delafield

The Luggage in the Hall  66

Donald Devereux

Mr. Keeble's Funny Story 83

Charles Caldwell Dobie

The Open Window 71

Douglas M Dold

A Creeping Terror 84

Laurence Donovan

Death Makes a Man Mad 84

He Gave Him a Gun 84

Whispering Death 84

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

J. Allan Dunn

The Screaming Skull 85

Edward Dyson

A Golden Shanty 65

The Third Chair 65

Charlton L. Edholm

Gorilla Girl 84

Red Evidence 84

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

Hulbert Footner

Assorted Chips 86

Ford Madox Ford

Riesenberg 61

Andrew Forrester Jr.

Arrested on Suspicion 61

Robert Edward Francillon

A Circumstantial Puzzle 62

Ralph Franklin

Reward in Hell 86

R. Austin Freeman & Clifford Piers

By the Black Deep  64

Tom Gallon

The Haunted Picture 87

Ltnt Edgar Gardiner

The Cruise of the Vega  82

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

J. U. Giesy

Not Down on the Bill  82

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

Alan Graham

The Bat And Belfry Inn 87

Dahlia Graham

Her Fatal Gift 79

Gordon Graham

The Great George Mystery 85

Frederick Graves

White Flame  62

Evelyn Everett Green

The First Class Passenger 82

The Grey Lady of Lakeside 82

Intimate Enemies 82

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

The Soul of a Ship 87

Robert Hichens

The Nomad 85

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

Washington Irving

The Adventure of the German Student 86

W. W. Jacobs

Captain Rogers 71

A Love Knot 70

M. R. James

Canon Alberic's Scrap Book  82

Malcolm Jameson

The Anarch  69

Doubled and Redoubled 85

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

A. W. Kapfer

The Phantom Drug 82

Robert Keene

The Dangerous Day 86

A Hand-Bag Too Many 86

The Vanishing of Benjamin Vex 86

Otis Adelbert Kline

The Dragoman's Secret 74

Stolen Centuries 65

Thomas H. Knight

The Man Who Was Dead 61

Alexander Kuprin

Menagerie 83

Edmund Leamy

My First Case 74

R. C. Lehmann

The Umbrosa Burglary 67

H. Field Leslie

The Winged Ones 86

Henry Leverage

The Absconder 83

Black Light 66

The Crimp 66

Crooked Charity 67

Over the Wall   76

$-Rays 84

Lazar Levi

Mistress of the Undead

Sinclair Lewis

The Cat of the Stars 68

Seven Million Dollars 68

The Willow Walk 61

Sumner Locke

A Question of Rights 82

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

Julia Magruder

The Secret of the White Castle 65

William J. Makin

The Death Barge 73

The Planes that Never Returned 73

Charles J. Mansford

The Brigand of Kairouin the Holy  82

The City of the Scarlet Scarabeus  82

Francis Marlowe

Hostile Witness 83

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

Robert Duncan Milne

Ten Thousand Years in Ice 85

William Henry Moberley

The Great Valdez Sapphire 63

C. S. Montanye

Old King's Coal   72

One Hour Back 85

That Finished Product 85

Thieves Three 84

To Skid or Not to Skid 85

White as Snow 85

F. Frankfort Moore

The Crock 87

Joan Dark 65

Ainsworth Morgan

Lady in Lower 11   72

Ward Muir

A Blind Man's Home-Coming 87

Detective Tempest Faces the Music  80

Europe is Wonderful 87

Sargasso 86

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

The Warburton Mystery 82

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

K. R. Patterson

Conscience 83

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

Muriel A. Pollexfen

The Conjurer of the Clouds 83

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

A. T. Quiller-Couch

Our Lady of Gwithian 83

Allan Ramsay

The Adventure of the Table Foot 86

Anna Steese Richardson

Morrell's Memoriser 81

Edith Rickert

The Chair That Smiled 74

W. Pett Ridge

The Fixing of Mrs. Farwell  80

Expert Interference  82

Walter Ripperger

The Cardboard Clue 62

School For Murder 69

Morley Roberts

The Egregious Goat 73

Arthur Somers Roche

A Cancelled Sale 82

In the Money (novelette) 67

Michael Romain

Genesis   76

David C. Roose

Dobson's Plots 86

Anthony M Rud

The Invisible "Blinker" 73

Rafael Sabatini

Intelligence 84

G. Morris Sand

Carnival Killer 84

Duncan Campbell Scott

The Witching of Elspie 78

Chris Sewell

The Intruder 82

Marion Shaler

The Court of the Wicked Queen 87

J. Johnston Smith

Queen Of Diamonds  75

Thorne Smith

Birthday Present 66

Raymond S. Spears

The Cruise of the Cadis  84

Andrew Soutar

Bluebeard 63

D. H. Souter

Conroy 74

F. St. Mars

Another Pawn of Fate 84

Charles B. Stilson

Dr. Martone's Microscope 72

The Pipe of Death 85

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

Annie S. Swan

Concession 85

Dead Men's Shoes 86

The Diplomat 86

The Mystery of the Old Tin Box 86

Carl N. Taylor

The Opium Smugglers  80

Emile C Tepperman

Coffin Cache 63

Basil Thomson

The Burglary in Middlesex Street 86

E. Temple Thurston

A Cameo 69

Roger Torrey

Black Murder 78

Dice and No Dice 77

The Frankie and  Johnny Murder 83

Justice Borrows Bullets 85

The Missing Mr. Link 83

Murder Backstage 83

Murder By Accident 77

One Escort— Missing or Dead 85

Three Dead Men 83

Ticket to Death (as by John Ryan)  77

Two Little Men 84

Edward W Townsend

A Deal in Mines and Morals 77

Louis Tracy

The Wrong Number 87

Katharine Tynan

Lettice Langworthy's Prince 87

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

Hugh Walpole

The Tarn 86

The Twisted Inn  86

"Wanderer"

Waif of the Bush 74

Harold Ward

"Great Minds Run—"

Cy Warman

"Sycamore": A Ghost Story  87

Stanley G Weinbaum

The Red Peri  69

Albert Richard Wetjen

The Chief of the Loch McCree 61

The Devils Ransom 82

Raid on Jigger's Reef 76

The Ship of Silence 86

Harvey Wickham

The Man With the Painted Nose 75

Edith Wharton

Kerfol  87

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

When Sky Crooks Fall Out 84

H. C. Witwer

Money to Burns 71

Mary E Wilkins

The Shadows on the Wall  64

Edward Woodward

Clarence 75

John Worne

The Brink of Destruction 87

Bertie and the Doorstep 87

May Wynne

Cornflower Blue 86

Leroy Yerxa

O'Sheen's Photo Finish 85

O'Sheen's Sweet Tooth 85

Arthur Leo Zagat

Coward's Kill (novelette)  69

The Little Walking Corpses 86

Satan's Scalpel 878

E. F. Ziska

Man of Ages 78

________________

Table of Contents

1: The Christmas in the Fog / Frances Hodgson Burnett

2: Sargasso / Ward Muir

3: Kerfol / Edith Wharton

4: A Blind Man's Home-Coming / Ward Muir

5: Europe is Wonderful / Ward Muir

6: The Court of the Wicked Queen / Marion Shaler

7: Satan's Scalpel / Arthur Leo Zagat

8: The Looking Glass / J.D. Beresford

9: The Bat And Belfry Inn / Alan Graham

10: The Crock / F. Frankfort Moore

11: "Sycamore": A Ghost Story / Cy Warman

12: The Haunted "Smoker" / Edwin L. Arnold

13: Bertie and the Doorstep / John Worne

14: The Brink of Destruction / John Worne

15: The Haunted Picture / Tom Gallon

16: The Wrong Number / Louis Tracy

17: A Diabolical Experiment / Percy J. Brebner

18: The Soul of a Ship / Beatrice Heron-Maxwell

19: Lettice Langworthy's Prince / Katharine Tynan

Cumulative Index #61 to 87