Past Masters Eighty-Eight
Author: Various
Date: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00
Description: An anthology of 21 short stories, horror, humour, weird, crime, etc, collected from newspapers and magazines, man of which have not been reprinted since they first appeared. All are in the Life + 70 years public domain. 1: The Mask / Richard Marsh 2: A Ship's Bell / W. E. Cule 3: The Allard Burglars / George Hibbard 4: The Wake / Donn Byrne 5: The Weaver who Clad the Summer / Harris Merton Lyon 6: The Pretty Passenger / Anonymous 7: Bullion! / William Hope Hodgson 8: An Idyll of the Hills / Louis Tracy 9: The Pool of Secrets / Gwyn Evans 10: Ely’s Automatic Housemaid / Elizabeth W. Bellamy 11:

PAST MASTERS

EIGHTY-EIGHT

Produced by Terry Walker

("Pulpmeister")

28 July 2022

Contents

1: The Mask / Richard Marsh

2: A Ship's Bell / W. E. Cule

3: The Allard Burglars / George Hibbard

4: The Wake / Donn Byrne

5: The Weaver who Clad the Summer / Harris Merton Lyon

6: The Pretty Passenger / Anonymous

7: Bullion! / William Hope Hodgson

8: An Idyll of the Hills / Louis Tracy

9: The Pool of Secrets / Gwyn Evans

10: Ely’s Automatic Housemaid / Elizabeth W. Bellamy

11: The Third Drug / Edith Nesbit

12: The Sculptor's Angel / Marie Corelli

13: Somebody's Sons / Annie S. Swan

14: The Tudor Cup / Neil Munro

15: "Owing to the War" / Barry Pain

16: His Reward / Hume Nisbet

17: No Greater Love / Michael Bittner

18: The Queen's Emerald / Lee Willenborg

19: A Pearl of Price / Raymond S. Spears

20: Soft-Paw Ignorance / Raymond S. Spears

21: Mississippi Medicine / Raymond S. Spears

Cumulative Index # 61-88

_____________________

1: The Mask

Richard Marsh

Richard Bernard Heldmann, 1857-1915

From Marvels and Mysteries, 1900

1: What Happened in the Train

"WIGMAKERS have brought their art to such perfection that it is difficult to detect false hair from real. Why should not the same skill be shown in the manufacture of a mask? Our faces, in one sense, are nothing but masks. Why should not the imitation be as good as the reality? Why, for instance, should not this face of mine, as you see it, be nothing but a mask— a something which I can take off and on?"

She laid her two hands softly against her cheeks. There was a ring of laughter in her voice.

"Such a mask would not only be, in the highest sense, a work of art, but it would also be a thing of beauty— a joy for ever.

"You think that I am beautiful?"

I could not doubt it with her velvet skin just tinted with the bloom of health, her little dimpled chin, her ripe red lips, her flashing teeth, her great, inscrutable dark eyes, her wealth of hair which gleamed in the sunlight. I told her so.

"So you think that I am beautiful? How odd— how very odd!"

I could not tell if she was in jest or earnest. Her lips were parted by a smile. But it did not seem to me that it was laughter which was in her eyes.

"And you have only seen me, for the first time, a few hours ago?"

"Such has been my ill-fortune."

She rose. She stood for a moment looking down at me.

"And you think there is nothing in my theory about— a mask?"

"On the contrary, I think there is a great deal in any theory you may advance."

A waiter brought me a card on a salver.

"Gentleman wishes to see you, sir."

I glanced at the card. On it was printed, "George Davis, Scotland Yard." As I was looking at the piece of pasteboard, she passed behind me.

"Perhaps I shall see you again, when we will continue our discussion about— a mask."

I rose and bowed. She went from the verandah down the steps into the garden. I turned to the waiter. "Who is that lady?"

"I don't know her name, sir. She came in last night. She has a private sitting-room at No. 22." He hesitated. Then he added, "I'm not sure, sir, but I think the lady's name is Jaynes— Mrs. Jaynes."

"Where is Mr. Davis? Show him into my room."

I went to my room and awaited him. Mr. Davis proved to be a short, spare man, with iron-grey whiskers and a quiet, unassuming manner.

"You had my telegram, Mr. Davis?"

"We had, sir."

"I believe you are not unacquainted with my name?"

"Know it very well, sir."

"The circumstances of my case are so peculiar, Mr. Davis, that, instead of going to the local police, I thought it better to at once place myself in communication with headquarters." Mr. Davis bowed. "I came down yesterday afternoon by the express from Paddington. I was alone in a first-class carriage. At Swindon a young gentleman got in. He seemed to me to be about twenty-three or four years of age, and unmistakably a gentleman. We had some conversation together. At Bath he offered me a drink out of his flask. It was getting evening then. I have been hard at it for the last few weeks. I was tired. I suppose I fell asleep. In my sleep I dreamed."

"You dreamed?"

"I dreamed that I was being robbed." The detective smiled. "As you surmise, I woke up to find that my dream was real. But the curious part of the matter is that I am unable to tell you where my dream ended, and where my wakefulness began. I dreamed that something was leaning over me, rifling my person— some hideous, gasping thing which, in its eagerness, kept emitting short cries which were of the nature of barks. Although I say I dreamed this, I am not at all sure I did not actually see it taking place. The purse was drawn from my trousers pocket; something was taken out of it. I distinctly heard the chink of money, and then the purse was returned to where it was before. My watch and chain were taken, the studs out of my shirt, the links out of my wrist-bands. My pocketbook was treated as my purse had been— something was taken out of it and the book returned. My keys were taken. My dressing bag was taken from the rack, opened, and articles were taken out of it, though I could not see what articles they were. The bag was replaced on the rack, the keys in my pocket."

"Didn't you see the face of the person who did all this?"

"That was the curious part of it. I tried to, but I failed. It seemed to me that the face was hidden by a veil."

"The thing was simple enough. We shall have to look for your young gentleman friend."

"Wait till I have finished. The thing— I say the thing because, in my dream, I was strongly, nay, horribly under the impression that I was at the mercy of some sort of animal, some creature of the ape or monkey tribe."

"There, certainly, you dreamed."

"You think so? Still, wait a moment. The thing, whatever it was, when it had robbed me, opened my shirt at the breast, and, deliberately tearing my skin with what seemed to me to be talons, put its mouth to the wound, and, gathering my flesh between its teeth, bit me to the bone. Here is sufficient evidence to prove that then, at least, I did not dream."

Unbuttoning my shirt I showed Mr. Davis the open cicatrice.

"The pain was so intense that it awoke me. I sprang to my feet. I saw the thing."

"You saw it?"

"I saw it. It was crouching at the other end of the carriage. The door was open. I saw it for an instant as it leaped into the night."

"At what rate do you suppose the train was travelling?"

"The carriage blinds were drawn. The train had just left Newton Abbot. The creature must have been biting me when the train was actually drawn up at the platform. It leaped out of the carriage as the train was re-starting."

"And did you see the face?"

"I did. It was the face of a devil."

"Excuse me, Mr. Fountain, but you're not trying on me the plot of your next novel— just to see how it goes?"

"I wish I were, my lad, but I am not. It was the face of a devil— so hideous a face that the only detail I was able to grasp was that it had a pair of eyes which gleamed at me like burning coals."

"Where was the young gentleman?"

"He had disappeared."

"Precisely. And I suppose you did not only dream you had been robbed?"

"I had been robbed of everything which was of the slightest value, except eighteen shillings. Exactly that sum had been left in my purse."

"Now perhaps you will give me a description of the young gentleman and his flask."

"I swear it was not he who robbed me."

"The possibility is that he was disguised. To my eye it seems unreasonable to suppose that he should have removed his disguise while engaged in the very act of robbing you. Anyhow, you give me his description, and I shouldn't be surprised if I was able to lay my finger on him on the spot."

I described him— the well-knit young man, with his merry eyes, his slight moustache, his graceful manners.

"If he was a thief, then I am no judge of character. There was something about him which, to my eyes, marked him as emphatically a gentleman."

The detective only smiled,

"The first thing I shall have to do will be to telegraph all over the country a list of the stolen property. Then I may possibly treat myself to a little private think. Your story is rather a curious one, Mr. Fountain. And then later in the day I may want to say a word or two with you again. I shall find you here?"

I said that he would. When he had gone I sat down and wrote a letter. When I had finished the letter I went along the corridor towards the front door of the hotel. As I was going I saw in front of me a figure— the figure of a man. He was standing still, and his back was turned my way. But something about him struck me with such a sudden force of recognition that, stopping short, I stared. I suppose I must, unconsciously, have uttered some sort of exclamation, because the instant I stopped short, with a quick movement, he wheeled right round. We faced each other.

"You!" I exclaimed.

I hurried forward with a cry of recognition. He advanced, as I thought, to greet me. But he had only taken a step or two in my direction when he turned into a room upon his right, and, shutting the door behind him, disappeared.

"The man in the train!" I told myself.

If I had had any doubt upon the subject his sudden disappearance would have cleared my doubt away. If he was anxious to avoid a meeting with me, all the more reason why I should seek an interview with him. I went to the door of the room which he had entered and, without the slightest hesitation, I turned the handle. The room was empty— there could be no doubt of that. It was an ordinary hotel sitting-room, own brother to the one which I occupied myself, and, as I saw at a glance, contained no article of furniture behind which a person could be concealed. But at the other side of the room was another door.

"My gentleman," I said, "has gone through that."

Crossing the room again I turned the handle. This time without result— the door was locked. I rapped against the panels. Instantly someone addressed me from within.

"Who's that?"

The voice, to my surprise, and also somewhat to my discomfiture, was a woman's.

"Excuse me, but might I say one word to the gentleman who has just entered the room?"

"What's that? Who are you?"

"I'm the gentleman who came down with him in the train."

"What?"

The door opened. A woman appeared— the lady whom the waiter had said he believed was a Mrs. Jaynes, and who had advanced that curious story about a mask being made to imitate the human face. She had a dressing jacket on, and her glorious hair was flowing loose over her shoulders. I was so surprised to see her that for a moment I was tongue-tied. The surprise seemed to be mutual, for, with a pretty air of bewilderment, stepping back into the room she partially closed the door.

"I thought it was the waiter. May I ask, sir, what it is you want?"

"I beg ten thousand pardons; but might I just have one word with your husband?"

"With whom, sir?"

"Your husband."

"My husband?"

Again throwing the door wide open she stood and stared at me.

"I refer, madam, to the gentleman whom I just saw enter the room."

"I don't know if you intend an impertinence, sir, or merely a jest."

Her lip curled, her eyes flashed— it was plain she was offended.

"I just saw, madam, in the corridor a gentleman with whom I travelled yesterday from London. I advanced to meet him. As I did so he turned into your sitting-room. When I followed him I found it empty, so I took it for granted he had come in here."

"You are mistaken, sir. I know no gentleman in the hotel. As for my husband, my husband has been dead three years."

I could not contradict her, yet it was certain I had seen the stranger turn into the outer room. I told her so.

"If any man entered my sitting-room— which was an unwarrantable liberty to take— he must be in it now. Except yourself, no one has come near my bedroom. I have had the door locked, and, as you see, I have been dressing. Are you sure you have not been dreaming?"

If I had been dreaming, I had been dreaming with my eyes open; and yet, if I had seen the man enter the room— and I could have sworn I had— where was he now? She offered, with scathing irony, to let me examine her own apartment. Indeed, she opened the door so wide that I could see all over it from where I stood. It was plain enough that, with the exception of herself, it had no occupant.

And yet, I asked myself, as I retreated with my tail a little between my legs, how could I have been mistaken? The only hypothesis I could hit upon was, that my thoughts had been so deeply engaged upon the matter that they had made me the victim of hallucination. Perhaps my nervous system had temporarily been disorganised by my misadventures of the day before. And yet— and this was the final conclusion to which I came upon the matter— if I had not seen my fellow-passenger standing in front of me, a creature of flesh and blood, I would never trust the evidence of my eyes again. The most ardent ghost-seer never saw a ghost in the middle of the day.

I went for a walk towards Babbicombe. My nerves might be a little out of order— though not to the extent of seeing things which were non-existent, and it was quite possible that fresh air and exercise might do them good. I lunched at Babbicombe, spending the afternoon, as the weather was so fine, upon the seashore, in company with my thoughts, my pipe, and a book. But as the day wore on, a sea mist stole over the land, and as I returned Torquaywards it was already growing dusk. I went back by way of the sea-front. As I was passing Hesketh Crescent I stood for a moment looking out into the gloom which was gathering over the sea. As I looked I heard, or I thought that I heard, a sound just behind me. As I heard it the blood seemed to run cold in my veins, and I had to clutch at the coping of the sea-wall to prevent my knees from giving way under me. It was the sound which I had heard in my dream in the train, and which had seemed to come from the creature which was robbing me: the cry or bark of some wild beast. It came once, one short, quick, gasping bark, then all was still.

I looked round, fearing to see I know not what. Nothing was in sight. Yet, although nothing could be seen, I felt that there was something there. But, as the silence continued, I began to laugh at myself beneath my breath. I had not supposed that I was such a coward as to be frightened at less than a shadow! Moving away from the walk, I was about to resume my walk, when it came again— the choking, breathless bark— so close to me that I seemed to feel the warm breath upon my cheek. Looking swiftly round, I saw, almost touching mine, the face of the creature which I had seen, but only for an instant, in the train.

2: Mary Brooker

"ARE YOU ill?"

"I am a little tired."

"You look as though you had seen a ghost. I am sure you are not well."

I did not feel well. I felt as though I had seen a ghost, and something worse than a ghost! I had found my way back to the hotel— how, I scarcely knew. The first person I met was Mrs. Jaynes. She was in the garden, which ran all round the building. My appearance seemed to occasion her anxiety.

"I am sure you are not well! Do sit down! Let me get you something to drink."

"Thanks; I will go to my own room. I have not been very well lately. A little upsets me."

She seemed reluctant to let me go. Her solicitude was flattering; though if there had been a little less of it I should have been equally content. She even offered me her arm. That I laughingly declined. I was not quite in such a piteous plight as to be in need of that. At last I escaped her. As I entered my sitting-room someone rose to greet me. It was Mr. Davis.

"Mr. Fountain, are you not well?"

My appearance seemed to strike him as it had struck the lady.

"I have had a shock. Will you ring the bell and order me some brandy?"

"A shock?" He looked at me curiously. "What sort of a shock?"

"I will tell you when you have ordered the brandy. I really am in need of something to revive me. I fancy my nervous system must be altogether out of order."

He rang the bell. I sank into an easy-chair, really grateful for the support which it afforded me. Although he sat still I was conscious that his eyes were on me all the time. When the waiter had brought the brandy Mr. Davis gave rein to his curiosity.

"I hope that nothing serious has happened."

"It depends upon what you call serious." I paused to allow the spirit to take effect. It did me good. "You remember what I told you about the strange sound which was uttered by the creature which robbed me in the train? I have heard that sound again."

"Indeed!" He observed me attentively. I had thought he would be sceptical; he was not. "Can you describe the sound?"

"It is difficult to describe, though when it is once heard it is impossible not to recognise it when it is heard again." I shuddered as I thought of it. "It is like the cry of some wild beast when in a state of frenzy— just a short, jerky, half-strangled yelp."

"May I ask what were the circumstances under which you heard it?"

"I was looking at the sea in front of Hesketh Crescent. I heard it close behind me, not once, but twice; and the second time I— I saw the face which I saw in the train."

I took another drink of brandy. I fancy that Mr. Davis saw how even the mere recollection affected me.

"Do you think that your assailant could by any possibility have been a woman?"

"A woman!"

"Was the face you saw anything like that?"

He produced from his pocket a pocketbook, and from the pocket-book a photograph. He handed it to me. I regarded it intently. It was not a good photograph, but it was a strange one. The more I looked at it the more it grew upon me that there was a likeness— a dim and fugitive likeness, but still a likeness, to the face which had glared at me only half an hour before.

"But surely this is not a woman?"

"Tell me, first of all, if you trace in it any resemblance."

"I do, and I don't. In the portrait the face, as I know it, is grossly, flattered; and yet in the portrait it is sufficiently hideous."

Mr. Davis stood up. He seemed a little excited.

"I believe I have hit it!"

"You have hit it?"

"The portrait which you hold in your hand is the portrait of a criminal lunatic who escaped last week from Broadmoor."

"A criminal lunatic!"

As I looked at the portrait I perceived that it was the face of a lunatic.

"The woman— for it is a woman— is a perfect devil as artful as she is wicked. She was there during Her Majesty's pleasure for a murder which was attended with details of horrible cruelty. She was more than suspected of having had a hand in other crimes. Since that portrait was taken she has deliberately burnt her face with a red-hot poker, disfiguring herself almost beyond recognition."

"There is another circumstance which I should mention, Mr. Davis. Do you know that this morning I saw the young gentleman too?"

The detective stared.

"What young gentleman?"

"The young fellow who got into the train at Swindon, and who offered me his flask."

"You saw him! Where?"

"Here, in the hotel."

"The devil you did! And you spoke to him?"

"I tried to."

"And he hooked it?"

"That is the odd part of the thing. You will say there is something odd about everything I tell you; and I must confess there is. When you left me this morning I wrote a letter; when I had written it I left the room. As I was going along the corridor I saw, in front of me, the young man who was with me in the train."

"You are sure it was he?"

"Certain. When first I saw him he had his back to me. I suppose he heard me coming. Anyhow, he turned, and we were face to face. The recognition, I believe, was mutual, because as I advanced—"

"He cut his lucky?"

"He turned into a room upon his right."

"Of course you followed him?"

"I did. I made no bones about it. I was not three seconds after him, but when I entered, the room was empty."

"Empty!"

"It was an ordinary sitting-room like this, but on the other side of it there was a door. I tried that door. It was locked. I rapped with my knuckles. A woman answered."

"A woman?"

"A woman. She not only answered, she came out."

"Was she anything like that portrait?"

I laughed. The idea of instituting any comparison between the horror in the portrait and that vision of health and loveliness was too ludicrous.

"She was a lady who is stopping in the hotel, with whom I already had had some conversation, and who is about as unlike that portrait as anything could possibly be— a Mrs. Jaynes."

"Jaynes? A Mrs. Jaynes?" The detective bit his finger-nails. He seemed to be turning something over in his mind. "And did you see the man?"

"That is where the oddness of the thing comes in. She declared that there was no man."

"What do you mean?"

"She declared that no one had been near her bedroom while she had been in it. That there was no one in it at that particular moment is beyond a doubt, because she opened the door to let me see. I am inclined to think, upon reflection, that, after all, the man may have been concealed in the outer room, that I overlooked him in my haste, and that he made good his escape while I was knocking at the lady's door."

"But if he had a finger in the pie, that knocks the other theory upon the head." He nodded towards the portrait which I still was holding in my hand. "A man like that would scarcely have such a pal as Mary Brooker."

"I confess, Mr. Davis, that the whole affair is a mystery to me. I suppose that your theory is that the flask out of which I drank was drugged?"

"I should say upon the face of it that there can't be two doubts about that." The detective stood reflecting. "I should like to have a look at this Mrs. Jaynes. I will have a look at her. I'll go down to the office here, and I think it's just possible that I may be treated to a peep at her room."

When he had gone I was haunted by the thought of that criminal lunatic, who was at least so far sane that she had been able to make good her escape from Broadmoor. It was only when Mr. Davis had left me that I discovered that he had left the portrait behind him. I looked at it. What a face it was!

"Think," I said to myself, "of being left at the mercy of such a woman as that!"

The words had scarcely left my lips when, without any warning, the door of my room opened, and, just as I was taking it for granted that it was Mr. Davis come back for the portrait, in walked the young man with whom I had travelled in the train! He was dressed exactly as he had been yesterday, and wore the same indefinable but unmistakable something which denotes good breeding.

"Excuse me," he observed, as he stood with the handle of the door in one hand and his hat in the other, "but I believe you are the gentleman with whom I travelled yesterday from Swindon?" In my surprise I was for a moment tongue-tied. "I do not think I have made a mistake."

"No," I said, or rather stammered, "you have not made a mistake."

"It is only by a fortunate accident that I have just learnt that you are staying in the hotel. Pardon my intrusion, but when I changed carriages at Exeter I left behind me a cigar-case."

"A cigar-case?"

"Did you notice it? I thought it might have caught your eye. It was a present to me, and one I greatly valued. It matched this flask."

Coming a step or two towards me he held out a flask the identical flask from which I had drunk! I stared alternately at him and at his flask.

"I was not aware that you changed carriages at Exeter."

"I wondered if you noticed it. I fancy you were asleep."

"A singular thing happened to me before I reached my journey's end— a singular and a disagreeable thing."

"How do you mean?"

"I was robbed."

"Robbed?"

"Did you notice anybody get into the carriage when you, as you say, got out?"

"Not that I am aware of. You know it was pretty dark. Why, good gracious! is it possible that after all it wasn't my imagination?"

"What wasn't your imagination?"

He came closer to me— so close that he touched my sleeve with his gloved hand.

"Do you know why I left the carriage when I did? I left it because I was bothered by the thought that there was someone in it besides us two."

"Someone in it besides us two?"

"Someone underneath the seat. I was dozing off as you were doing. More than once I woke up under the impression that someone was twitching my legs beneath the seat; pinching them— even pricking them."

"Did you not look to see if anyone was there?"

"You will laugh at me, but— I suppose I was silly— something restrained me. I preferred to make a bolt of it, and become the victim of my own imagination."

"You left me to become the victim of something besides your imagination, if what you say is correct."

All at once the stranger made a dart at the table. I suppose he had seen the portrait lying there, because, without any sort of ceremony, he picked it up and stared at it. As I observed him, commenting inwardly about the fellow's coolness, I distinctly saw a shudder pass all over him. Possibly it was a shudder of aversion, because, when he had stared his fill, he turned to me and asked—

"Who, may I ask, is this hideous-looking creature?"

"That is a criminal lunatic who has escaped from Broadmoor— one Mary Brooker."

"Mary Brooker! Mary Brooker! Mary Brooker's face will haunt me for many a day."

He laid the portrait down hesitatingly, as if it had for him some dreadful fascination which made him reluctant to let it go. Wholly at a loss what to say or do, whether to detain the man or to permit him to depart, I turned away and moved across the room. The instant I did so I heard behind me the sharp, frenzied yelp which I had heard in the train, and which I had heard again when I had been looking at the sea in front of Hesketh Crescent. I turned as on a pivot. The young man was staring at me.

"Did you hear that?" he said.

"Hear it! Of course I heard it."

"Good God!" He was shuddering so that it seemed to me that he could scarcely stand. "Do you know that it was that sound, coming from underneath the seat in the carriage, which made me make a bolt of it? I— I'm afraid you must excuse me. There there's my card. I'm staying at the Royal. I will perhaps look you up again to-morrow."

Before I had recovered my presence of mind sufficiently to interfere he had moved to the door and was out of the room. As he went out Mr. Davis entered; they must have brushed each other as they passed.

"I forgot the portrait of that Brooker woman," Mr. Davis began.

"Why didn't you stop him?" I exclaimed.

"Stop whom?"

"Didn't you see him— the man who just went out?"

"Why should I stop him? Isn't he a friend of yours?"

"He's the man who travelled in the carriage with me from Swindon."

Davis was out of the room like a flash of lightning. When he returned he returned alone.

"Where is he?" I demanded.

"That's what I should like to know." Mr. Davis wiped his brow. "He must have travelled at the rate of about sixty miles an hour— he's nowhere to be seen. Whatever made you let him go?"

"He has left his card." I took it up. It was inscribed "George Etherege, Coliseum Club." "He says he is staying at the Royal Hotel. I don't believe he had anything to do with the robbery. He came to me in the most natural manner possible to inquire for a cigar-case which he left behind him in the carriage. He says that while I was sleeping he changed carriages at Exeter because he suspected that someone was underneath the seat."

"Did he, indeed?"

"He says that he did not look to see if anybody was actually there because— well, something restrained him."

"I should like to have a little conversation with that young gentleman."

"I believe he speaks the truth, for this reason. While he was talking there came the sound which I have described to you before."

"The sort of bark?"

"The sort of bark. There was nothing to show from whence it came. I declare to you that it seemed to me that it came out of space. I never saw a man so frightened as he was. As he stood trembling, just where you are standing now, he stammered out that it was because he had heard that sound come from underneath the seat in the carriage that he had decided that discretion was the better part of valour, and, instead of gratifying his curiosity, had chosen to retreat."

3: The Secret of the Mask

TABLE d'hôte had commenced when I sat down. My right-hand neighbour was Mrs. Jaynes. She asked me if I still suffered any ill effects from my fatigue.

"I suppose," she said, when I assured her that all ill effects had passed away, "that you have not thought anything of what I said to you this morning— about my theory of the mask?"

I confessed that I had not.

"You should. It is a subject which is a crotchet of mine, and to which I have devoted many years— many curious years of my life."

"I own that, personally, I do not see exactly where the interest comes in."

"No? Do me a favour. Come to my sitting-room after dinner, and I will show you where the interest comes in."

"How do you mean?"

"Come and see."

She amused me. I went and saw. Dinner being finished, her proceedings, when together we entered her apartment— that apartment which in the morning I thought I had seen entered by my fellow-passenger— took me a little by surprise.

"Now I am going to make you my confidant— you, an entire stranger— you, whom I never saw in my life before this morning. I am a judge of character, and in you I feel that I may place implicit confidence. I am going to show you all my secrets; I am going to induct you into the hidden mysteries; I am going to lay bare before you the mind of an inventor. But it doesn't follow because I have confidence in you that I have confidence in all the world besides, so, before we begin, if you please, I will lock the door."

As she was suiting the action to the word I ventured to remonstrate.

"But, my dear madam, don't you think—"

"I think nothing. I know that I don't wish to be taken unawares, and to have published what I have devoted the better portion of my life to keeping secret."

"But if these matters are of such a confidential nature, I assure you—"

"My good sir, I lock the door."

She did. I was sorry that I had accepted so hastily her invitation, but I yielded. The door was locked. Going to the fireplace she leaned her arm upon the mantel-shelf.

"Did it ever occur to you," she asked, "what possibilities might be open to us if, for instance, Smith could temporarily become Jones?"

"I don't quite follow you," I said. I did not.

"Suppose that you could at will become another person, and in the character of that other person could move about unrecognised among your friends, what lessons you might learn!"

"I suspect," I murmured, "that they would for the most part be lessons of a decidedly unpleasant kind."

"Carry the idea a step further. Think of the possibilities of a dual existence. Think of living two distinct and separate lives. Think of doing as Robinson what you condemn as Brown. Think of doubling the parts and hiding within your own breast the secret of the double; think of leading a triple life; think of leading many lives in one— of being the old man and the young, the husband and the wife, the father and the son."

"Think, in other words, of the unattainable."

"Not unattainable!" Moving away from the mantel-shelf she raised her hand above her head with a gesture which was all at once dramatic. "I have attained!"

"You have attained? To what?"

"To the multiple existence. It is the secret of the mask. I told myself some years ago that it ought to be possible to make a mask which should in every respect so closely resemble the human countenance that it would be difficult, if not impossible, even under the most trying conditions, to tell the false face from the real. I made experiments. I succeeded. I learnt the secret of the mask. Look at that."

She took a leather case from her pocket. Abstracting its contents, she handed them to me. I was holding in my hand what seemed to me to be a preparation of some sort of skin— gold-beater's skin, it might have been. On one side it was curiously, and even delicately, painted. On the other side there were fastened to the skin some oddly-shaped bosses or pads. The whole affair, I suppose, did not weigh half an ounce. While I was examining it Mrs. Jaynes stood looking down at me.

"You hold in your hand," she said, "the secret of the mask. Give it to me."

I gave it to her. With it in her hand she disappeared into the room beyond. Hardly had she vanished than the bedroom door reopened, and an old lady came out.

"My daughter begs you will excuse her." She was a quaint old lady, about sixty years of age, with silver hair, and the corkscrew ringlets of a bygone day. "My daughter is not very ceremonious, and is so wrapt up in what she calls her experiments that I sometimes tell her she is wanting in consideration. While she is making her preparations, perhaps you will allow me to offer you a cup of tea."

The old lady carried a canister in her hand, which, apparently, contained tea. A tea-service was standing on a little side-table; a kettle was singing on the hob. The old lady began to measure out the tea into the teapot.

"We always carry our tea with us. Neither my daughter nor I care for the tea which they give you in hotels."

I meekly acquiesced. To tell the truth, I was a trifle bewildered. I had had no idea that Mrs. Jaynes was accompanied by her mother. Had not the old lady come out of the room immediately after the young one had gone into it I should have suspected a trick— that I was being made the subject of experiment with the mysterious "mask."

As it was, I was more than half inclined to ask her if she was really what she seemed to be. But I decided— as it turned out most unfortunately— to keep my own counsel and to watch the sequence of events. Pouring me out a cup of tea, the old lady seated herself on a low chair in front of the fire.

"My daughter thinks a great deal of her experiments. I hope you will not encourage her. She quite frightens me at times; she says such dreadful things."

I sipped my tea and smiled.

"I don't think there is much cause for fear."

"No cause for fear when she tells one that she might commit a murder; that a hundred thousand people might see her do it, and that not by any possibility could the crime be brought home to her!"

"Perhaps she exaggerates a little."

"Do you think that she can hear?"

The old lady glanced round in the direction of the bedroom door.

"You should know better than I. Perhaps it would be as well to say nothing which you would not like her to hear."

"But I must tell someone. It frightens me. She says it is a dream she had."

"I don't think, if I were you, I would pay much attention to a dream."

The old lady rose from her seat. I did not altogether like her manner. She came and stood in front of me, rubbing her hands, nervously, one over the other. She certainly seemed considerably disturbed.

"She came down yesterday from London, and she says she dreamed that she tried one of her experiments— in the train."

"In the train!"

"And in order that her experiment might be thorough she robbed a man."

"She robbed a man!"

"And in her pocket I found this."

The old lady held out my watch and chain! It was unmistakable. The watch was a hunter. I could see that my crest and monogram were engraved upon the case. I stood up. The strangest part of the affair was that when I gained my feet it seemed as though something had happened to my legs— I could not move them. Probably something in my demeanour struck the old lady as strange. She smiled at me.

"What is the matter with you? Why do you look so funny?" she exclaimed.

"That is my watch and chain."

"Your watch and chain— yours! Then why don't you take them?"

She held them out to me in her extended palm. She was not six feet from where I stood, yet I could not reach them. My feet seemed glued to the floor.

"I— I cannot move. Something has happened to my legs."

"Perhaps it is the tea. I will go and tell my daughter."

Before I could say a word to stop her she was gone. I was fastened like a post to the ground. What had happened to me was more than I could say. It had all come in an instant. I felt as I had felt in the railway carriage the day before— as though I were in a dream. I looked around me. I saw the teacup on the little table at my side, I saw the flickering fire, I saw the shaded lamps; I was conscious of the presence of all these things, but I saw them as if I saw them in a dream. A sense of nausea was stealing over me— a sense of horror. I was afraid of I knew not what. I was unable to ward off or to control my fear.

I cannot say how long I stood there— certainly some minutes— helpless, struggling against the pressure which seemed to weigh upon my brain. Suddenly, without any sort of warning, the bedroom door opened, and there walked into the room the young man who, before dinner, had visited me in my own apartment, and who yesterday had travelled with me in the train. He came straight across the room, and, with the most perfect coolness, stood right in front of me. I could see that in his shirt-front were my studs. When he raised his hands I could see that in his wristbands were my links. I could see that he was wearing my watch and chain. He was actually holding my watch in his hand when he addressed me.

"I have only half a minute to spare, but I wanted to speak to you about— Mary Brooker. I saw her portrait in your room— you remember? She's what is called a criminal lunatic, and she's escaped from Broadmoor. Let me see, I think it was a week to-day, and just about this time— no, it's now a quarter to nine; it was just after nine." He slipped my watch into his waistcoat-pocket. "She's still at large, you know. They're on the look-out for her all over England, but she's still at large. They say she's a lunatic. There are lunatics at Broadmoor, but she's not one. She's no more a lunatic than you or I."

He touched me lightly on the chest; such was my extreme disgust at being brought into physical contact with him that even before the slight pressure of his fingers my legs gave way under me, and I sank back into my chair.

"You're not asleep?"

"No," I said, "I'm not asleep."

Even in my stupefied condition I was conscious of a desire to leap up and take him by the throat. Nothing of this, however, was portrayed upon my face, or, at any rate, he showed no sign of being struck by it.

"She's a misunderstood genius, that's what Mary Brooker is. She has her tastes and people do not understand them; she likes to kill— to kill! One of these days she means to kill herself, but in the meantime she takes pleasure in killing others."

Seating himself on a corner of the table at my side, allowing one foot to rest upon the ground, he swung the other in the air.

"She's a bit of an actress too. She wanted to go upon the stage, but they said that she was mad. They were jealous, that's what it was. She's the finest actress in the world. Her acting would deceive the devil himself— they allowed that even at Broadmoor— but she only uses her powers for acting to gratify her taste— for killing. It was only the other day she bought this knife."

He took, apparently out of the bosom of his vest, a long, glittering, cruel-looking knife.

"It's sharp. Feel the point— and the edge."

He held it out towards me. I did not attempt to touch it; it is probable that I should not have succeeded even if I had attempted.

"You won't? Well, perhaps you're right. It's not much fun killing people with a knife. A knife's all very well for cutting them up afterwards, but she likes to do the actual killing with her own hands and nails. I shouldn't be surprised if, one of these days, she were to kill you— perhaps to-night. It is a long time since she killed anyone, and she is hungry. Sorry I can't stay; but this day week she escaped from Broadmoor as the clock had finished striking nine, and it only wants ten minutes, you see."

He looked at my watch, even holding it out for me to see.

"Good-night."

With a careless nod he moved across the room, holding the glittering knife in his hand. When he reached the bedroom door he turned and smiled, Raising the knife he waved it towards me in the air; then he disappeared into the inner room.

I was again alone— possibly for a minute or more; but this time it seemed to me that my solitude continued only for a few fleeting seconds. Perhaps the time went faster because I felt, or thought I felt, that the pressure on my brain was giving way, that I only had to make an effort of sufficient force to be myself again and free. The power of making such an effort was temporarily absent, but something within seemed to tell me that at any moment it might return. The bedroom door— that door which, even as I look back, seems to have been really and truly a door in some unpleasant dream— re-opened. Mrs. Jaynes came in; with rapid strides she swept across the room; she had something in her right hand, which she threw upon the table.

"Well," she cried, "what do you think of the secret of the mask?"

"The secret of the mask?"

Although my limbs were powerless throughout it all I retained, to a certain extent, the control of my own voice.

"See here, it is such a little thing." She picked up the two objects which she had thrown upon the table. One of them was the preparation of some sort of skin which she had shown to me before. "These are the masks. You would not think that they were perfect representations of the human face— that masterpiece of creative art— and yet they are. All the world would be deceived by them as you have been. This is an old woman's face, this is the face of a young man." As she held them up I could see, though still a little dimly, that the objects which she dangled before my eyes were, as she said, veritable masks. "So perfect are they, they might have been skinned from the fronts of living creatures. They are such little things, yet I have made them with what toil! They have been the work of years, these two, and just one other. You see nothing satisfied me but perfection; I have made hundreds to make these two. People could not make out what I was doing; they thought that I was making toys; I told them that I was. They smiled at me; they thought that it was a new phase of madness. If that be so, then in madness there is more cool, enduring, unconquerable resolution than in all your sanity. I meant to conquer, and I did. Failure did not dishearten me; I went straight on. I had a purpose to fulfil; I would have fulfilled it even though I should have had first to die. Well, it is fulfilled."

Turning, she flung the masks into the fire; they were immediately in flames. She pointed to them as they burned.

"The labour of years is soon consumed. But I should not have triumphed had I not been endowed with genius— the genius of the actor's art. I told myself that I would play certain parts— parts which would fit the masks— and that I would be the parts I played. Not only across the footlights, not only with a certain amount of space between my audience and me, not only for the passing hour, but, if I chose, for ever and for aye. So all through the years I rehearsed these parts when I was not engaged upon the masks. That, they thought, was madness in another phase. One of the parts"— she came closer to me; her voice became shriller— "one of the parts was that of an old woman. Have you seen her? She is in the fire." She jerked her thumb in the direction of the fireplace. "Her part is played— she had to see that the tea was drunk. Another of the parts was that of a young gentleman. Think of my playing the man! Absurd. For there is that about a woman which is not to be disguised. She always reveals her sex when she puts on men's clothes. You noticed it, did you not— when, before dinner, he came to you; when you saw him in the corridor this morning; when yesterday he spent an hour with you in the train? I know you noticed it because of these."

She drew out of her pocket a handful of things. There were my links, my studs, my watch and chain, and other properties of mine. Although the influence of the drug which had been administered to me in the tea was passing off, I felt, even more than ever, as though I were an actor in a dream.

"The third part which I chose to play was the part of— Mrs. Jaynes!"

Clasping her hands behind her back, she posed in front of me in an attitude which was essentially dramatic.

"Look at me well. Scan all my points. Appraise me. You say that I am beautiful. I saw that you admired my hair, which flows loose upon my shoulders,"— she unloosed the fastenings of her hair so that it did flow loose upon her shoulders— "the bloom upon my cheeks, the dimple in my chin, my face in its entirety. It is the secret of the mask, my friend, the secret of the mask! You ask me why I have watched, and toiled, and schemed to make the secret mine."

She stretched out her hand with an uncanny gesture. "Because I wished to gratify my taste for killing. Yesterday I might have killed you; to-night I will."

She did something to her head and dress. There was a rustle of drapery. It was like a conjurer's change. Mrs. Jaynes had gone, and instead there stood before me the creature with, as I had described it to Davis, the face of a devil— the face I had seen in the train. The transformation in its entirety was wonderful. Mrs. Jaynes was a fine, stately woman with a swelling bust and in the prime of life. This was a lank, scraggy creature, with short, grey hair fifty if a day. The change extended even to the voice. Mrs. Jaynes had the soft, cultivated accents of a lady. This creature shrieked rather than spoke.

"I," she screamed, "am Mary Brooker. It is a week to-day since I won freedom. The bloodhounds are everywhere upon my track. They are drawing near. But they shall not have me till I have first of all had you."

She came closer, crouching forward, glaring at me with a maniac's eyes. From her lips there came that hideous cry, half gasp, half yelp, which had haunted me since the day before, when I heard it in my stupor in the train.

"I scratched you yesterday. I bit you. I sucked your blood. Now I will suck it dry, for you are mine."

She reckoned without her host. I had only sipped the tea. I had not, as I had doubtless been intended to do, emptied the cup. I was again master of myself; I was only awaiting a favourable opportunity to close. I meant to fight for life.

She came nearer to me and nearer, uttering all the time that blood-curdling sound which was so like the frenzied cry of some maddened animal. When her extended hands were all but touching me I rose up and took her by the throat. She had evidently supposed that I was still under the influence of the drug, because when I seized her she gave a shriek of astonished rage. I had taken her unawares. I had her over on her back. But I soon found that I had undertaken more than I could carry through. She had not only the face of a devil, she had the strength of one. She flung me off as easily as though I were a child. In her turn she had me down upon my back. Her fingers closed about my neck. I could not shake her off. She was strangling me.

She would have strangled me— she nearly did. When, attracted by the creature's hideous cries, which were heard from without, they forced their way into the room, they found me lying unconscious, and, as they thought, dead, upon the floor. For days I hung between life and death. When life did come back again Mary Brooker was once more an inmate of Her Majesty's house of detention at Broadmoor.

______________________

2: A Ship's Bell

W. E. Cule

1870-1944

World's News (Sydney) 23 Nov 1907

WITHIN two days of her destination, the steamship Northgate, of the Jellocoe Line— Captain Pritchard— Liverpool to Halifax, ran into bad weather. The wind went dead east, blowing hard and attended by the thick fog and sleet which invariably accompany easterly gales in that chilly latitude. The ship crept along at half-speed, feeling her troubled way with consummate care and with frequently repeated mournful echoes from her siren. But the fog hung before her like a curtain, stifling the warning screams and muffling every sound aboard.

The captain and the second officer were on the bridge, chilly in their oilskins, and silen. There was nothing more to be said about the weather, and there was no cheerful influence to encourage conversation. Suddenly, however, an invisible sailor below struck an invisible ship's bell, whose notes broke the silence sullenly and briefly.

A moment later Captain Pritchard turned to-wards his subordinate. Tired of the weather before, he was now weary of the silence, and the voice of the bell had suggested a theme.

"I never hear a bell," he said abruptly, "without remembering something that happened when I was a child. Were you always normal Gibbs?"

"Normal, sir?" asked Gibbs, an unimaginative young man from Newcastle.

"Yes, normal— ordinary, and not extraordinary."

The captain did not express himself happily. Apparently becoming conscious of this, he passed on.

"For my own part," he said, "I believe I was The wind went dead east, blowing hard member some of those fancies even now. That affair of the bell, however, was not exactly a fancy; it might rather be called a curious experience. It did not trouble my parents much, so they must have explained it in some satisfactory way. I was too young then to be given the scientific explanation, and I have never troubled to get one since. Probably any doctor could give me one at five minutes' notice."

What was all this leading to? The mate stood and listened very respectfully. It was sufficient for him that the captain was in a particularly good humor. Things might so easily have been worse.

The captain yawned as he proceeded.

"To come to the point," he said. "Two or three times during my childhood, before I was five years old, I suffered severe frights through hearing a bell ring when there was no bell near me, and when no one else heard it. It was either a hallucination or it was a disease; something due, I mean, to some defect in my auditory organs. But I certainly heard a bell ring on several occasions when no bell rang, and was extremely frightened in consequence."

"Enough to send any youngster into fits," ventured the mate, not a little impressed.

"Quite so! quite so! But I was, no doubt, a fairly healthy child in other ways. Now, I distinctly remember the last occasion, and the way in which I sobbed in my amazement and alarm. It made such an impression upon my mind that I can recall every detail."

He moved to the end of the bridge and came back, staring intently but hopelessly into the white shroud on every side. The Northgate's siren gave a long, melancholy wall, and then dead silence fell.

"We lived in a country cottage, semi-detached." said the captain carefully, "and an old lady who lived next door was a great friend of ours. On this particular day my parents were sitting at a little round table in the cottage of this next-door neighbor, an old woman of eighty. She, too, was sitting at the table, knitting, and I was sitting idly on my father's knee listening to their talk. I was a rather quiet child, and loved the company of my eiders. I cannot remember the talk, but I recall the scene very distinctly. I was not facing the table my-self, but sitting sideways to it. I can even remember a point like that. Suddenly, it seemed to me, a very awkward and somewhat startling thing happened. The old lady, who was knitting, had her wools upon the little table. As she moved her arm she happened to bring it into contact with a small hand-bell standing near her, and swept it clean off the table, it fell with a sharp double-clang upon the stone floor, and there lay still. That, of course, was to me simply an accident. I had no doubt that the thing had occurred, that such an accident had happened. Under that impression, I turned half-round, waiting to see the old lady stoop from her rocking-chair, pick up the bell, and replace it upon the table. I was simply interested, and on the alert to handle a new toy. Most children, as you may know, enjoy playing with a bell. To my astonishment, however, neither of the others present paid the slightest attention to the accident. The conversation went on without a break, and neither the old lady nor my parents so much as glanced at the floor. I was surprised. After that came the sensation. I wanted to see for myself what had become of the bell, and in my movement to do so attracted my father's attention. He asked me what I wanted, and I told him I was looking for the bell which the old lady had knocked down from the table. They were so astonished that I had to repeat my explanation, and that more than once. Then I became alarmed, for I saw them look meaningly at one another; and my alarm developed into terror as I realised the truth. They had heard no bell fall, because no bell had fallen. There had been no such article on the table; there was no such article in the house!"

The captain paused, and the second officer pursed his lips in an expressive whistle. He felt that the shrouding fog gave a particularly uncanny cast to a story which was sufficiently mysterious without such a ghostly accessory. He also felt that henceforth the ship's bell, so ordinary a signal under the hands of the thoughtless apprentice, might have a new significance for him.

Captain Pritchard had finished his story, and was satisfied with its effects. "Well," he concluded, as he took another turn, "you can imagine how such an incident would influence a rather shy, quiet child of four or five. It simply terrified me, and It was a long time before I could be soothed. I can even remember the assurances which my parents used, backed by the grandmotherly consolation of our old neighbor. There was nothing wrong, they said, nothing to be afraid of. There was really no hell, and the noise I had heard was caused by nothing more than a little trouble in my ears. Many people had had the same experience, and I would soon grow out of it."

There was a pause. "I've heard, sir, of people suffering from fancies of that kind," said the mate reflectively. "But I never heard a case given with so much detail, and so altogether remarkable. Were you ever troubled again in the same way?"

"Never that I know of," said the captain. "Apparently I grew out of it, as my parents expected. The experience, however, made a deep and lasting impression, and I often recall it when I hear a ship's bell struck. Another result is a certain consideration which I feel for the sometimes unreasonable, or apparently unreasonable, fancies of children."

The captain was a family man, a master-mariner of the best modern British type, with a skill in chess that almost equalled his love for the game, and with several good shelves in his cabin piled with the best writers in colonial and other editions. So the Northgate was a good and comfortable ship, and one of the best of a popular line.

"And that's a very good result, sir," agreed the second mate. "But have you ever told your story to a medical man?"

"No," answered Captain Pritchard, "I haven't. "Somehow, the opportunity hasn't turned up, or if it has, I have been reluctant to relate what, after all, may he a very simple and easily explained affair. Indeed, I hardly know why I've told the yarn to you to-day. As far as I can recollect, I've never told it to any one else."

The mate felt not a little flattered, but Captain Pritchard at once tried to cover the compliment with reservations. "It is the weather, perhaps," he said. "It is bad enough to account for anything. Six times I've sailed this course before, but never have I seen it so thick— not even in January. One needs to feel sure that there's two hundred miles of blue water straight ahead still."

"Yes sir. But I think it won't last much longer. I notice the wind's going round a bit south."

"Let's hope so. And now, Mr. Gibbs, I leave you on the bridge for a few minutes. I'm going to get a cup of coffee."

So, after another unsatisfactory look round, the captain departed, and Mr. Gibbs roused himself to the responsibilities of his position. The Northgate was doing rather less than half her speed, and screaming at every step; but the fact remained that she was plunging along her course with little more than her own length clear before her. Her signals could be heard for perhaps a quarter of a mile, but still there was the element of risk and uncertainty. He stared straight ahead into the dense white wall, and in two minutes had succeeded in forgetting the captain's curious narrative. Almost immediately afterwards, considerably to his surprise, his chief once more mounted to the bridge and joined him.

"Almost as thick as ever," he said grimly. "Eh?"

"Yes, sir," answered Gibbs. "One might just as well stare straight into a marble mantel-piece."

Captain Pritchard made no reply. He glanced at the compass, noted what speed the ship was making, and walked to the end of the bridge and back. Apparently he was uneasy, and he had certainly lost that pleasant communicativeness of the last half-hour.

"He's a bit rawed," thought the mate. "In ten minutes, unless it clears a little, he'll put us on quarter-speed. And I sha'n't be the one to blame him."

With that he descended the ladder, leaving the master alone. He had remembered something that wanted seeing to, and it was plain that Captain Pritchard was inclined to silence. Moreover, one man on the bridge was as good as two, and only half as useless.

When he readied the deck he went forward to speak to Collinson, a seaman who was standing in the bows. As he went he noticed that in all there were about half-a-dozen men on deck, one of them being the third engineer, then off duty. Afterwards he remembered precisely what men these were.

The second officer did not reach Collinson just then, for the incident of the voyage took place while he was yet three yards off. Suddenly and urgently tinkled out the engine-room bell, clear above the churning of the engines. At the same instant there was a hoarse shout from the bridge.

The bell had rung out "Shut off steam!" but in an instant tinkled again "Full steam astern." After a long and fearful pause there was a sudden silence as the machinery halted in its motion; but the Northgate surged helplessly on through the white seas. Another instant and she seemed to be struggling with herself as her huge bulk answered to the engines.

A second afterwards the mate gave a cry. Out off the white wall before him loomed an al-most formless mass, a vast black body pricked out in fog and snow. Another breathing-space, and they were on it, the Northgate's bows striking with a shock that threw the men off their feet. The bowplates crashed in, and there was a sickening notes of rending woodwork. The great ship stood still and shivered as if she had received a fatal blow; but in a moment more her bows were clear, and the hulking death in her course was drifting away into the mist from which it had emerged. When the first man from below came tumbling on deck there was nothing in eight to explain the disaster which had taken place.

II.

For a few seconds there were signs of panic, but it did not spread. The engines were still, and the Northgate rode shivering in the grey and silent sea. Then the captain's orders rang out front the bridge in straight, plain terms that gave no suggestion of danger, and immediately everything was done in the best order. All hands were on deck in three minutes as a matter of course, and it took no more than five to prove that the ship had suffered little damage. Several plates had been started, but there was no injury that threatened her safety. Just in time the captain had given his saving signal. Otherwise—

"Otherwise," said Mr. Gibbs under his breath, "it would have been a hole in our bows big enough to build a house in, and about an hour to take to the boats. Captain Pritchard, I'll drink your health. You're the finest man in the North Atlantic to-day."

"A derelict, I guess," said the third engineer blankly.

"A Canadian timber-ship," answered Mr. Gibbs, "waterlogged. Been drifting in these seas since the days of the Flying Dutchman, waiting for you and me. And we came."

Then he turned to stare out into the blank wall of fog which had swallowed up the enemy. "But it beats me," he said slowly— "it beats me how the old man could have seen her!"

He put the question aside for more pressing matters during the next half-hour, but it was to come up again in a most bewildering form. That was when things had been made good as far as possible, and the first officer reported the Northgate ready to resume her voyage. It was then that Captain Pritchard laid bare the secret of his action in a somewhat astonishing declaration.

"Confound it, Mr. Bruce," he cried angrily, "do you think I'm going to steam away and leave the poor fellow to his fate? What do you take me for?"

The first officer's bewilderment was extreme.

"We're going to stand by," declared the captain, "till the weather clears a bit. That won't be more than an hour or two; but if it was a week it would be all the same. That man saved my ship, and I'm going to pick him off before I stir a yard."

The first officer was a long-headed, cold-humored Scot, who never lost his temper or his reason. While all the others stared at one an-other, convinced that Captain Pritchard's brain had been turned by the recent shock, be began to make inquiries.

"I beg your pardon, sir," he said calmly; "what man do you mean?"

"Why, the man on the derelict," answered Captain Pritchard. "The one who gave us warning of its whereabouts by striking the bell."

Again the clustered members of the crew glanced at each other for light. The first officer simply looked thoughtful, and preserved a discreet silence; but the captain, who knew these signs, waxed impatient.

"You were below, of course," he said; "but every one on deck can tell you all about It. If it hadn't been for that bell sir, you'd be in command of the lifeboat by this time, with the Northgate settling by the head. That's all!"

But that was not all. A dead silence followed the speech, instead of the chorus of as-surance and declaration which might have been expected from the watch on deck. It lasted so long that the captain was struck by its significance.

"What in thunder is the matter with you all?" he rasped angrily. "Where's the second officer?— Mr. Gibbs, you were on deck; you heard the bell?"

"Very sorry, sir," said the second officer, "I don't remember it. I didn't hear a sound. I only saw the hulk crowding over our bows."

There was a pause. Every one began now to realise that there was a sensation afoot. Captain Pritchard turned to the third engineer.

"You heard it, Mr. Knight?" he asked.

"I heard your bell ring in the engine-room, sir," answered Knight. "That was the first and only bell for me."

The captain stared from face to face. Not one of the other few men of the watch came to his aid, and he realised what this meant.

"Very well," he said grimly; "but it was a good thing for all of us that I heard it, anyway. And well just stand by, Mr. Bruce!"

Imagine, then, the Northgate, with her voyage suspended, drifting before the wind at the rate the vanished derelict had been seen to drift, waiting for the leisurely clearing of the weather. Imagine the captain, solitary and grim, on the bridge with his still useless telescope, the first and second officers conversing in low tones now and again, and the men attending to their appointed tasks with sly glances at one another that spoke louder than words. And under these strained conditions glances were certainly safer.

The point of it was that they were all dead against their shipmaster. Those who had seen the derelict were unanimous in their decision that then could have been as one on board; and Collinson, an experienced seaman, who had had the best view, was prepared to wager his last half-ounce of tobacco that she had been a sea-washed wreck for at least a year. As for the bell—

The man who thought most and said least was the second officer. He had something to think of, and his paucity of speech was due as much to his good feeling as to his good sense. He realised that the captain's story was really something confidential, and that he must not impart it to any one else. In this be was undoubtedly right, and his conduct gained its acknowledgment.

That was late in the afternoon, when the sensation was over. Meantime the new south wind gradually thinned the curtain of fog until the telescope could resume its ordinary functions with a good face. Then expectation became keen, every glass was brought into use, and every acre of the tumultuous northern seas was eagerly scanned. And more than a mile to leeward a black spot appeared and disappeared, looking like anything but a ship in the utterness of its ruin. But the engine-room bell tinkled again, and the Northgate steamed triumphantly on her mission of rescue.

Dating the next half-hour a curious silence held almost every one. They were in the grip of a mystery, but the circumstances were not of a character to encourage free comment or audible speculation, it lay between the cap-tain on the bridge and the derelict on the water; and while no one expected the captain to win, it would not be politic to say so aloud. Indeed, the silence became even more general when they drew nearer, and were able to ex-amine at leisure the helpless hulk which had so nearly proved their ruin.

Once she had been a ship of some two thou-sand tons, but it was generally agreed that Collinson's estimate had been over-modest. Of course it was impossible to say when her ruin had come, but she had certainly been the sport and butt of the storms for a long cycle of months. There was no lift in her ghastly hull, but she lay like a log, with the seas breaking over her and their waters streaming through the gaps in her shattered bulwarks. Long ago the last fragment of her deck-houses had been swept away, but the stumps of three lost masts and a bowsprit still reared themselves in tragic mockery out of the ruck of disaster.

There was no sign of a name on her paint-less timbers, no hint of life from stem to stern. For many minutes the glasses searched her in vain, and then, at a signal from the bridge, three shrill screams from the Northgate echoed over the water. After that a strained silence fell once more.

In response to another command from the captain, the Northgate moved round to leeward of the wreck, whose hulk was listed over to starboard. Then at two hundred yards they got a square view of her sloping deck, and there was no further question. No human being could by any possibility have lived there. As she lay, her whole deck was naked to the seas, and in scores of gales the thundering billows of the wild North Atlantic had hurled themselves upon it and climbed in triumph over it. Every fragment of furnishing had long been swept away, and she lay so deep that water could be seen welling from her gaping hatches as she rolled. There was no shelter on that hull for anything larger than a bird, no resting-place for any creature without wings wherewith to fly.

The men glanced at one another cautiously. Only one or two could see the tragic side of the situation, while its absurdity was apparent to all.

Suddenly the captain spoke. "Mr. Gibbs, come up here."

"Yes, sir," said the second officer; and when he readied the bridge he found Captain Pritchard ready to speak.

"Mr. Gibbs," he said curtly, "I was convinced that this morning I heard a signal from that hulk yonder—a bell. As a matter of fact, it is to that warning that we owe our escape. You follow me?"

"Certainly, sir."

"Well, Mr. Gibbs; I have eyes, and can see what is before me. But you know as much as I do, and I want your confirmation. After looking at that wreck, do you agree with my conclusion that the thing is impossible?"

For an instant they stood eye to eye. Than the second officer touched his cap.

"Nothing but a bird could live there, sir," he said emphatically. "It's out of the question."

"Thank you," answered the captain in the same curt manner. "That will do."

The mate turned and retired. The bell rang again in the engine-room, and instantly the propeller began to lash the grey water. But no man smiled as the Northgate resumed her voyage. That dismal spectre of loss and ruin, drifting upon a still and barren sea, had crept upon their spirits, and they turned their backs upon it with a great relief.

A SIMPLE entry in the Northgate's log gave particulars of an encounter with a derelict in a certain latitude and longitude during a fog, and described somewhat minutely the damage to the steamer's bowplates. The entry did not sug-gest that the escape was miraculous, and there was no mention at the hell mystery. The derelict, however, was duly reported on their arrival at Halifax, and was subsequently sought out and destroyed by a British gunboat.

The second officer went ashore, and one night told his story to a medical acquaintance in the port over a pipe and a glass. This auditor enjoyed the yarn greatly, and was ready with a practical explanation.

"Ringing noises in the head, of course, are no great mystery," he said, and forthwith ex-plained their origin and peculiarities. "Nevertheless, I don't believe Captain Pritchard suffered in this way on this particular occasion. He simply imagined it. His early experience was upon his mind, and he was nervously anxious. He was listening, too, with all his ears, and possibly some kind of sound did come to him through the fog. And it adapted itself to his nervous condition of mind— to the peculiar trend of his senses. Indeed, with such a man in such a state of mind the experience is hardly outside the range of natural phenomena."

"But," said Mr. Gibbs, "there's the result of it! It saved the Northgate and perhaps every man-Jack aboard her."

"Ah," said the medico reflectively, "now you are going farther afield. What men call Providence— let us put it like this— what men call Providence has a curious knack of using human sensations— or perhaps we may say the human senses— for the good of the human, and in ways that can only make us wonder and admire. And if you want anything more direct than that, Mr. Gibbs, you will probably get it from the first parson you care to apply to. It's their business to put these matters very plainly."

The mate, however, was satisfied, and presently returned to the harbor and the North-gate. He sailed two more voyages with Captain Pritchard, but neither of them ever mentioned the mystery of the bell. It was just a trifle out of the normal, and could only be explained by a curious conglomeration of science and the supernatural. And as some plain men have an abhorrence of such phenomena, they were probably wise in refusing to discuss the matter at all.

______________________

3: The Allard Burglars

George Hibbard

1858-1928

World's News (Sydney) 14 April 1906

[Munsey’s Magazine March 1906]

I HAD BEEN staying for some time at the Allards'. I did not remain there because I was enjoying myself. In fact, I cannot recollect having ever made such another stupid visit. The house was the quietest of the quiet, and everything in it the stiffest of the stiff. Adele's father had died some years before, and her mother lived in the greatest seclusion. Everyone called her "Mme. Allard," and indeed she was like a stately old French marquise. I do not mean the gay kind, but one of those haughty old grandes dames of the Faubourg St. Germain. She had married M. Victor Allard when he was not yet 20, and had lived in France all her life, so that she was virtually a Frenchwoman. She had come back to America to bring out Adele in her own country, and had taken a large house on the outskirts of Morristown.

The fact that Adele was engaged to George Leroy did nothing to add to the liveliness of the place. I did not understand how the girl could have managed it. As a matter of fact, she hadn't. The Leroys are an old Louisiana family with exactly the same foreign ideas as Mme. Allard's.

Thank goodness, I am a free American maiden. Not even living in a "moated grange" would repay me for being an English miss, who is not expected to open her mouth in society. Not even having a Crusader for an ancestor would compensate for having to have a chaperon every time one went into the street, as would be the case if I were a demoiselle of France. And as for getting married! Nothing could make up for being just a plain— I don't mean "not pretty"— young American, with the chance to choose for myself and the power to do it in my own way. I am never more patriotic than when I think of all the fun that I have had as an American girl, and all I am going to have as an American woman.

George's father and Adele's mother simply arranged the whole thing. Fortunately, the young people had fallen in love at first sight; but as for the very best part of being engaged, the walking and riding and driving together— not at all! Sitting out on the verandah in the moon-light— never! Mme. Allard simply would have expired with horror at the very idea of each proceedings. Me for the good old United States way— hanging on the front gate and buggy-riding ad libitum.

I was going to be first bridesmaid, and I had promised to see Adele, who was a dear, through all of it. In the morning we sewed with Mme. Allard. In the afternoon we drove in the big victoria with her. In the evening I played piquet with her. while George, who was allowed to come to dinner, eat within earshot and tried to make conversation with Adele.

Naturally, with this dearth of occupation and lack of interest, my mind was unusually busy. I had practised myself in detecting any unwonted manifestation. Unavoidably, therefore, when I observed a singular-looking man pass and re-pass twice through the little lane at the back of the house and across the gardens, on which my bedroom window looked, I began to sit up and take notice. He was a stout, strong looking, fresh-faced, youngish individual, and what first attracted my attention was the unusual loudness at his attire. Nowhere, except on a tesselated pavement, have I seen such enormous checks or squares as were exhibited in the pattern of his clothes.

His necktie was a flaming green, and in it he wore a large yellow stone. But what chiefly caused me to notice him was his conscious manner. I could not say precisely how he showed his nervousness; but something about the hang of his head, the way in which he shuffled his feet, the furtive fashion in which he glanced out from under his curly brimmed hat, convinced me that something was amiss. He had perfectly the air of having eaten the canary.

I do not mean to say that to the ordinary person his aspect and conduct might not have appeared usual and natural; but I was not deceived. The lane did not lead anywhere. I did not believe that such a being could be found walking in the country merely for his health, much less to enjoy the beauties of nature.

After seeing him twice, I placed myself on watch at the hour at which he passed. Would he appear again? At that time I did not have the confidence in myself which I have since attained. Only with the remarkable events through which I have passed have I learned to put trust in my own conclusions, deductions— yes, and intuitions. When I was at the Allards' I had not a series of successes to give me self-reliance. He came. From behind the certain I saw him stand at the end of the path and glance up and down; next he skulked doubtfully forward. I never beheld a more hangdog creature in my life. If he had not some concealed purpose in his head, then no detective story of them all was worth anything as a precedent. He walked, or rather stole, along. Having advanced for some distance, he leaned against the opposite fence and proceeded to gaze about with a great assumption at abstraction, at the same time darting quick glances at the house.

At once all my interest was aroused. Here was unmistakably a mystery before my very eyes. I determined then and there to probe it to its depths. How was this to be accomplished? I tried to think of all that those whom I had read would do. Undoubtedly I had called somewhere. Any one of them would already have seen a clue; but all that I could do was to watch, and I blamed myself for utter stupidity. Finally, as if satisfied, the man began to move away, with the same guilty air which had marked his every motion. Suddenly I had an inspiration. I would go down and look. I should assuredly find something to throw light on the affair. I reflected that criminals never did anything without some trace remaining by which all might be read if search was made in the right way. Let the true detective appear, and there was something— a matchbox, a shred of cloth, a blot of ink— something that would reveal everything. That the tell-tale sign was there I could not doubt. I had only to find it. At once I hurried down-stairs and out of the house. I fairly ran across the garden path. I was in such a hurry that then and there I nearly missed my clue. Indeed, I leaned at that moment that never for an instant should one allow one's attention to relax— that one must be continually on the alert. I do not know how I happened to do it, but as I tripped along I noticed what looked like a blotch of light yellow on a big tree near the high wall. My roving glance was at once arrested and held. Looking closer, I saw that a stout limb had been torn away, leaving a place where the fresh wood showed through the bark. How had the limb been broken? Certainly there was no one in our household gives to climbing large trees— or little ones, either. I drew nearer, and discovered that I was not mistaken. I stood gazing up in perplexity, and them I happened to look down.

I will confess that I could hardly trust my senses. I know that I gave a great start. They were there— of all things— footprints. They were just what detectives always found, and here was I discovering them the very first thing. I could scarcely believe that all this was actually happening to me exactly as I had read that such things happened.

I realised at once that I most be calm and collected. That was the way in which the stars of my profession always behaved. I most not let my judgment be disturbed by excitement.

I most approach the problem with a perfectly clear mind. Hastily I plumped down on my knees. Intently I examined my discovery. A garden bed ran along the wall. The plants had been taken from this, leaving it bare and ready for the next season. In the soft mould the marks were distinctly visible. That they were made by a man's shoe I learned at once— a large shoe, or two large ones, such as the person I had watched on the lawn might wear. But—

I thrilled with excitement. Each moment the mystery grew deeper. As I studied the confused prints I became more and more certain that the traces had not an been left there by one pair of feet Two people had been there! The other impressions were smaller, but still too large to be left by a woman's sole and heel.

Two men had crossed the wall! The Individual who had just gone had a confederate, or else, as was more probable, he was the confederate of the other.

I stood up to meditate. I remembered that on the other side of the wall a farm waggon had been ran up against it. By mounting into it, climbing to the wall, and swinging down by the tree, I found that access to the grounds was extremely easy. Two men had entered is that way— but why?

The prints continued across the garden beds. I must follow them and see where they led. Diligently I set out on the trail. I lost it once in a tangle of weeds. I picked it up again, Once mere I thought myself completely at fault at a gravel path and a patch of smooth grass. I hunted along the house. I reached another bed under the dining-room window, and found the smaller prints once mere. There were a great many of them, one over another, as if the man had stood there for some time and had moved about restlessly. The larger prints did not appear at all; but searching still further, I discovered them in a muddy place in the path that led toward the back of the house.

I sank down on a garden bench. I saw it all! A bank of robbers was preparing to break into the place. They had come to make investiga-tion. The man in the lane was a spy; they would return at the proper time and "crack the crib."

My first impulse, naturally, was to give warning. I think I started up to do so, and then sat down. I could not convince myself yet that all was as I believed. Mme. Allard was such a serious, matter-of-fact person that I did not like to go to her with my story. Even Adele, I feared, might laugh at me if I told her anything.

I knew of a girl who was staying at a country house and thought she heard a burglar in her room. She woke up everybody, and there was nothing there. They made such fun of her that she did not have any peace. The result was that when she actually saw a robber, she thought she was dreaming, and went off to sleep again. In the morning they found that all her jewels and the family silver were gone. I wanted to be absolutely sure of my burglar first. As I cogitated. I saw Adele come tearing out of the house. From the way she flew,
from the fashion in which she panted, I knew that something remarkable had taken place.

"Oh, what is it?" I exclaimed, springing forward.

Discovering me, she sped toward me.

"Cynthia," she cried, "I'm running to the stable to send a groom for Dr. Stibbs. Fanfare—"

"What is the matter with him?" I demanded. imagining the consternation that must reign indoors if anything had gone wrong with Mme. Allard's brown poodle, the privileged and cherished pet of the establishment.

"He's been taken violently ill, and there to no time to he lost. Mama is distracted!"

As she sped away, I thought rapidly. The first thing thieves did was to get rid of any dog. Poor Fanfare, in spite of his pampered existence, had all his senses, and would have given instant warning of any unusual noise after nightfall. Proof seemed to be piling upon proof.

Still I did not speak. The commotion and dismay which I found in the house had something to do with it. With Fanfare in such a state, I do not believe that Mme. Allard would have paid any attention if I had told her that the Forty Thieves were hammering at the door. Besides, I reflected that If I watched, nothing could happen, for if the burglars came I could give warning in time. Furthermore, there was something attractive about the idea of acting independently. That, I believe, was the way in which all the famous detectives would have met the crisis.

Poor Fanfare was very ill indeed. Everyone was running about and a fuss that any thought of other things was quite impossible. Presently the doctor hurried in, thinking from the wild alarm that Mme. Allard herself was at death's door. I do not fancy he was very well pleased in being called to treat a dog, but he understood Fanfare's position in the house, and soon got over his indignation.

At dinner we talked of nothing else but Fan-fare's seizure, which had now pretty nearly passed off. When George Leroy came in the evening, he had to be told all about it to the last particular. Then madame and I settled down to piquet— and how the minutes dragged! I thought the hands of the clock, which I watched eagerly, would never reach half past ten— at which time precisely George Leroy was always sent away from the house.

Finally, however, I found myself in my room. My window commanded the point in the wall where the marauders had crossed before, and I concluded that the same method of entry would boe used again. I sat down in the dark, dressed just as I was, and prepared for a long vigil. I remembered from my reading that such attempts were never made until the small hours of the morning, when all was the quietest.

The place was so still that if they were going to undertake the desperate deed, I thought they might as well do it then as at any other time. The house was sunk in perfect rest. Outside, in the faint, clouded moonlight, not a thing stirred. The darkness and the absolute quietude began to affect me. I realised that my pulse was beating quickly—that my nerves were all at tension.

Presently I perceived a head bob up over the wall. In an instant a body followed. A man climbed over the opening, and swung himself by the branches down to the ground. My first feeling was one of exultation that I had not been mistaken. Here was a burglar, sure enough! Next I reached the conclusion that the moment had come for me to act.

Mme. Allard's room was down the corridor and across the big gallery. In an instant I was at her door. Knocking tempestuously, I awakened her at once.

"What is it?" she demanded sleepily.

"Burglars!" I answered thrillingly.

"Nonsense, my dear," she responded placidly.

"I saw a man climb over the wall and steal up to the house!"

"I'll be with you in a moment," she replied.

She was as good as her word, and a few seconds later she stood beside me, an impressing figure. She would have intimidat-ed any burglar by her stately appearance; nor did she seem at all frightened.

"Of course you dreamed it all," she declared. That was exactly what the other people said. "Girls are always having panics about burglars. However, just to convince you, we will look."

"Aren't you afraid?" I gasped.

"They will not hurt two women."

We advanced down the darkened stairs. I was more terrified than I would acknowledge as I followed her.

"If they heard us coming, they would simply run away," she said to reassure me. "However, if you screamed, it might have a good effect."

I found a great satisfaction in obeying her. I have been told that my voice is low and soft, but the screech that rent the night would have been worthy of any heroine of lurid fiction. At the same instant Mme. Allard touched the but-ton, and the lower hall was flooded with light. We peered eagerly and a little fearfully about, but saw nothing.

"I think, indeed, you must be mistaken," madame observed. "We will, however, investigate further."

"The dining-room!" I ejaculated. "The tracks were under the window. The safe is there!"

"We proceed there at once," she announced with her usual grand manner.

As I stood before the dining-room door, I felt as I had never felt before. My knees fairly trembled under me. What might await us on other side on the panels? What might happen when the dark and heavy barrier was swung back? I was soon to know, for Mme. Allard turned the knob. "I know they are there!" I murmured. "Oh, be careful!"

Complete darkness met our gaze, but as the door opened we heard a startled exclamation, and there was a movement in the impenetrable blackness.

"Oh, they are there!" I cried.

Then Mme. Allard screamed herself. She screamed quite as loudly as I had, and this testified me even more. At the same time every electric light in the room suddenly glowed into radiance. I think she turned on the switch instinctively, in her nervousness and consternation. And then I opened my eyes, and my mouth too, and stared and stared. There, seated on the table, was George Leroy, with his arm above Adele, who sat beside him. Each had in one hand a large piece of cake.

With a slight shriek Adele slid to her feet. George let himself down more slowly.

"What—" stammered Mme. Allard. For once in her life her self-possession had com-pletely deserted her. But before anything further could be said or done, the most remarkable thing happened. The pantry door crashed open. With a rush which knocked down the screen, the strange man whom I had seen in the lane, followed by Matilda, the cook, sprang into the room. Before I had time to think, before I had even time to see perfectly what was going on, he had seized George Leroy.

"Got you, have I?" the newcomer exclaimed. They straggled violently. Finally, with a des-perate effort— for both were very strong— George threw him off.

"What's the meaning of this?" he demanded.

"Meaning yourself?" retorted the stranger hotly.

"Oh, what is it?" demanded Mme. Allard, just as agitated and trembling as anyone else.

"Why," declared the intruder indignantly, as he wiped his hot, red face with a spotted blue handkerchief, "I heard a scream. I started to find out what was wrong. Comin' in quick through that there door I catched this man standin' here and lookin' guilty, and as there wasn't anyone else I grabs him for a burglar."

"And pray," asked Mme. Allard, recovering herself somewhat, "who are you?"

"I am Samuel Gullidge, the batcher, ma'am," he answered a good deal more deferentially. "What are you doing here at this hour?"

The man hesitated. "I'll tell you, ma'am," said Matilda, speaking up briskly. "Sam was here to see me. What with the strict ways o' this house there was nothing else to he done, except do it unbeknownst to you—"

"Silence!" commanded Mme. Allard. "And you?" she said, turning to George Leroy. He stood speechless for an instant.

"Why," said Adele suddenly and desperately, "I never had a chance to see George alone. With this foreign idea of an engagement I was just like a prisoner. I was determined to have the fun that other girls have; so every evening George would say good night, and then, after everyone had gone upstairs. I slipped down here, opened the dining-room window, and he came in to say good night to me all over again."

"I never heard of anything like—" Mme. Allard commenced; then she paused.

"I'm sorry, ma'am," continued Matilda, beginning to sob into her apron. "I'm sorry to have you think I'd have such underhand ways. An' I'm sorry, ma'am, I give the leavin's of the lobster Newburgh to Fanfare. That's what made him sick, I'm thinkin'."

"I have no doubt of it,'' Mme. Allard commented briefly.

"I am sorry, too. Mme. Allard," said George Leroy, stepping forward. "I should not have done it, but never to see Adele for a moment except with people was maddening. In an American engagement—"

"Yes," said Mme. Allard, as he paused. "I understand. When one is in Rome it's better to be— an American. In future you and Adele shall have the drawing-room to yourselves, and Cynthia and I will play piquet in the library. And, Matilda, you may receive Mr. Samuel Gullidge, who so bravely came to what he supposed our rescue, in the servants' sitting-room on Wednesday and Saturday evenings."

Really, in view of what I did for Adele— and for Matilda—think I am fully justified in considering the adventure of the Allard burglar a triumph.

___________________

4: The Wake

Donn Byrne

[Bryan Oswald Donn-Byrne, 1889-1928]

Harper’s Magazine Oct 1915

AT TIMES the muffled conversation in the kitchen resembled the resonant humming of bees, and again, when it became animated, it sounded like the distant cackling of geese. Then there would come a pause; and it would begin again with sibilant whispers, and end in a chorus of dry laughter that somehow suggested the crackling of burning logs.

Occasionally a figure would open the bedroom door, pass the old man as he sat huddled in his chair, never throwing a glance at him, and go and kneel by the side of the bed where the body was. They usually prayed for two or three minutes, then rose and walked on tiptoe to the kitchen, where they joined the company. Sometimes they came in twos, less often in threes, but they did precisely the same thing— prayed for precisely the same time, and left the room on tiptoe with the same creak of shoe and rustle of clothes that sounded so intensely loud throughout the room. They might have been following instructions laid down in a ritual.

The old man wished to heaven they would stay away. He had been sitting in his chair for hours, thinking, until his head was in a whirl. He wanted to concentrate his thoughts, but somehow he felt that the mourners were preventing him.

The five candles at the head of the bed distracted him. He was glad when the figure of one of the mourners shut off the glare for a few minutes. He was also distracted by the five chairs standing around the room like sentries on post and the little table by the window with its crucifix and holy-water font. He wanted to keep thinking of "herself," as he called her, lost in the immensity of the oaken bed. He had been looking at the pinched face with its faint suspicion of blue since early that morning. He was very much awed by the nun's hood that concealed the back of the head, and the stiffly posed arms and the small hands in their white-cotton gloves moved him to a deep pity.

Somebody touched him on the shoulder. "Michael James."

It was big Dan Murray, a gaunt red farmer, who had been best man at his wedding.

"Michael James."

"What is it?"

"I hear young Kennedy's in the village."

"What of that?"

"I thought it was best for you to know."

Murray waited a moment, then he went out, on tiptoe, as everybody did, his movements resembling the stilted gestures of a mechanical toy.

Down the drive Michael heard steps coming. Then a struggle and a shrill giggle. Some young people were coming to the wake, and he knew a boy had tried to kiss a girl in the dark. He felt a dull surge of resentment.

She was nineteen when he married her; he was sixty-three. Because he had over two hundred acres of land and many head of milch and grazing cattle and a huge house that rambled like a barrack, her father had given her to him; and young Kennedy, who had been her father's steward for years, and had been saving to buy a house for her, was thrown over like a bale of mildewed hay.

Kennedy had made several violent scenes. Michael James remembered the morning of the wedding. Kennedy waylaid the bridal-party coming out of the church. He was drunk. "Mark me," he had said, very quietly for a drunken man— "mark me. If anything ever happens to that girl at your side, Michael James, I'll murder you. I'll murder you in cold blood. Do you understand?"

Michael James could be forgiving that morning. "Run away and sober up, lad," he had said, "and come up to the house and dance."

Kennedy had gone around the countryside for weeks, drunk every night, making threats against the old farmer. And then a wily sergeant of the Connaught Rangers had trapped him and taken him off to Aldershot.

Now he was home on furlough, and something had happened to her, and he was coming up to make good his threat.

What had happened to her? Michael James didn't understand. He had given her everything he could. She had taken it all with a demure thanks, but he had never had anything of her but apathy. She had gone around the house apathetically, growing a little thinner every day, and then a few days ago she had lain down, and last night she had died, apathetically.

And young Kennedy was coming up for an accounting to-night. "Well," thought Michael James, "let him come!"

Silence suddenly fell over the company in the kitchen. Then a loud scraping as they stood up, and a harsher grating as chairs were pushed back. The door of the bedroom opened and the red flare from the fire and lamps of the kitchen blended into the sickly yellow candle-light of the bedroom.

The parish priest walked in. His closely cropped white hair, strong, ruddy face, and erect back gave him more the appearance of a soldier than a clergyman. He looked at the bed a moment, and then at Michael James.

"Oh, you mustn't take it like that, man," he said. "You mustn't take it like that. You must bear up." He was the only one who spoke in his natural voice.

He turned to a lumbering farmer's wife who had followed him in, and asked about the hour of the funeral. She answered in a hoarse whisper, dropping a courtesy.

"You ought to go out and take a walk," he told Michael James. "You oughtn't to stay in here all the time." And he left the room.

Michael James paid no attention. His mind was wandering to strange fantasies he could not keep out of his head. Pictures crept in and out of his brain, joined as by some thin filament. He thought somehow of her soul, and then wondered what a soul was like. And then he thought of a dove, and then of a bat fluttering through the dark, and then of a bird lost at twilight. He thought of it as some lonely flying thing with a long journey before it and no place to rest. He could imagine it uttering the vibrant, plaintive cry of a peewit. And then it struck him with a great sense of pity that the night was cold.

In the kitchen they were having tea. The rattle of the crockery sounded very distinctly. He could distinguish the sharp, staccato ring when a cup was laid in a saucer, and the nervous rattle when cup and saucer were passed from one hand to the other. Spoons struck china with a faint metallic tinkle. He felt as if all the sounds were made at the back of his neck, and the crash seemed to burst in his head.

Dan Murray creaked into the room. "Michael James," he whispered, "you ought to take something. Have a bite to eat. Take a cup of tea. I'll bring it in to you."

"Oh, let me alone, Daniel," he answered. He felt he would like to kick him and curse him while doing so.

"You must take something." Murray's voice rose from a whisper to a low, argumentative sing-song. "You know it's not natural. You've got to eat."

"No, thank you, Daniel," he answered. It was as if he were talking to a boy who was good-natured but tiresome. "I don't feel like eating. Maybe afterward I will."

"Michael James," Murray continued.

"Well, what is it, Daniel?"

"Don't you think I'd better go down and see young Kennedy and tell him how foolish it would be of him to come up here and start fighting? You know it isn't right. Hadn't I better go down? He's at home now."

"Let that alone, Daniel, I tell you." The thought of Murray breaking into the matter that was between himself and the young man filled him with a sense of injured delicacy.

"I know he's going to make trouble."

"Let me handle that, like a good fellow, and leave me by myself, Daniel, if you don't mind."

"Ah well, sure. You know best." And Murray crept out of the room.

As the door opened Michael could hear some one singing in a subdued voice and many feet tapping like drums in time with the music. They had to pass the night outside, and it was the custom, but the singing irritated him. He could fancy heads nodding and bodies swaying from side to side with the rhythm. He recognized the tune, and it began to run through his head, and he could not put it out of it. The lilt of it captured him, and suddenly he began thinking of the wonderful brain that musicians must have to compose music. And then his thoughts switched to a picture he had seen of a man in a garret with a fiddle beneath his chin.

He straightened himself up a little, for sitting crouched forward as he was put a strain on his back, and he unconsciously sat upright to ease himself. And as he sat up he caught a glimpse of the cotton gloves on the bed, and it burst in on him that the first time he had seen her she was walking along the road with young Kennedy one Sunday afternoon, and they were holding hands. When they saw him they let go suddenly, and grew very red, giggling in a half-hearted way to hide their embarrassment. And he remembered that he had passed them by without saying anything, but with a good-humored, sly smile on his face, and a mellow feeling within him, and a sage reflection to himself that young folks will be young folks, and what harm was there in courting a little on a Sunday afternoon when the week's work had been done?

And he remembered other days on which he had met her and Kennedy; and then how the conviction had come into his mind that here was a girl for him to marry; and then how, quietly and equably, he had gone about getting her and marrying her, as he would go about buying a team of horses or make arrangements for cutting the hay.

Until the day he married her he felt as a driver feels who has his team under perfect control, and who knows every bend and curve of the road he is taking. But since that day he had been thinking about her and worrying and wondering exactly where he stood, until everything in the day was just the puzzle of her, and he was like a driver with a restive pair of horses who knows his way no farther than the next bend. And then he knew she was the biggest thing in his life.

The situation as it appeared to him he had worked out with difficulty, for he was not a thinking man. What thinking he did dealt with the price of harvest machinery and the best time of the year for buying and selling. He worked it out this way: here was this girl dead, whom he had married, and who should have married another man, who was coming to-night to kill him. To-night sometime the world would stop for him. He felt no longer a personal entity— he was merely part of a situation. It was as if he were a piece in a chess problem— any moment the player might move and solve the play by taking a pawn.

Realities had taken on a dim, unearthly quality. Occasionally a sound from the kitchen would strike him like an unexpected note in a harmony; the whiteness of the bed would flash out like a piece of color in a subdued painting.

There was a shuffling in the kitchen and the sound of feet going toward the door. The latch lifted with a rasp. He could hear the hoarse, deep tones of a few boys, and the high-pitched sing-song intonations of girls. He knew they were going for a few miles' walk along the roads. He went over and raised the blind on the window. Overhead the moon showed like a spot of bright saffron. A sort of misty haze seemed to cling around the bushes and trees. The out-houses stood out white, like buildings in a mysterious city. Somewhere there was the metallic whir of a grasshopper, and in the distance a loon boomed again and again.

The little company passed down the yard. There was the sound of a smothered titter, then a playful resounding slap, and a gurgling laugh from one of the boys.

As he stood by the window he heard some one open the door and stand on the threshold.

"Are you coming, Alice?" some one asked.

Michael James listened for the answer. He was taking in eagerly all outside things. He wanted something to pass the time of waiting, as a traveler in a railway station reads trivial notices carefully while waiting for a train that may take him to the ends of the earth.

"Alice, are you coming?" was asked again.

There was no answer.

"Well, you needn't if you don't want to," he heard in an irritated tone, and the speaker tramped down toward the road in a dudgeon. He recognized the figure of Flanagan, the football-player, who was always having little spats with the girl he was going to marry. He discovered with a sort of shock that he was slightly amused at this incident.

From the road there came the shrill scream of one of the girls who had gone out, and then a chorus of laughter. And against the background of the figure behind him and of young Kennedy he began wondering at the relationship of man and woman. He had no word for it, for "love" was a term he thought should be confined to story-books, a word to be suspicious of as sounding affected, a word to be scoffed at. But of this relationship he had a vague understanding. He thought of it as a criss-cross of threads binding one person to the other, or as a web which might be light and easily broken, or which might have the strength of steel cables and which might work into knots here and there and become a tangle that could crush those caught in it.

It puzzled him how a thing of indefinable grace, of soft words on June nights, of vague stirrings under moonlight, of embarrassing hand-clasps and fearful glances, might become, as it had become in the case of himself, Kennedy, and what was behind him, a thing of blind, malevolent force, a thing of sinister silence, a shadow that crushed.

And then it struck him with a sense of guilt that his mind was wandering from her, and he turned away from the window. He thought how much more peaceful it would be for a body to lie out in the moonlight than on a somber oak bedstead in a shadowy room with yellow, guttering candle-light and five solemn-looking chairs. And he thought again how strange it was that on a night like this Kennedy should come as an avenger seeking to kill rather than as a lover with high hope in his breast.

Murray slipped into the room again. There was a frown on his face and his tone was aggressive.

"I tell you, Michael James, we'll have to do something about it." There was a truculent note in his whisper.

The farmer did not answer.

"Will you let me go down for the police? A few words to the sergeant will keep him quiet."

Michael James felt a pity for Murray. The idea of pitting a sergeant of police against the tragedy that was coming seemed ludicrous to him. It was like pitting a school-boy against a hurricane.

"Listen to me, Dan," he replied. "How do you know Kennedy is coming up at all?"

"Flanagan, the football-player, met him and talked to him. He said that Kennedy was clean mad."

"Do they know about it in the kitchen?"

"Not a word." There was a pause.

"Well, listen here, now. Go right back there and don't say a word about it. Wouldn't it be foolish if you went down to the police and he didn't come at all? And if he does come I can manage him. And if I can't I'll call you. Does that satisfy you?" And he sent Murray out, grumbling.

As the door closed he felt that the last refuge had been abandoned. He was to wrestle with destiny alone. He had no doubt that Kennedy would make good his vow, and he felt a sort of curiosity as to how it would be done. Would it be with hands, or with a gun, or some other weapon? He hoped it would be the gun. The idea of coming to hand-grips with the boy filled him with a strange terror.

The thought that within ten minutes or a half-hour or an hour he would be dead did not come home to him. It was the physical act that frightened him. He felt as if he were terribly alone and a cold wind were blowing about him and penetrating every pore of his body. There was a contraction around his breast-bone and a shiver in his shoulders.

His idea of death was that he would pitch headlong, as from a high tower, into a bottomless dark space.

He went over to the window again and looked out toward the barn. From a chink in one of the shutters there was a thread of yellow candle-light. He knew there were men there playing cards to pass the time.

Then terror came on him. The noise in the kitchen was subdued. Most of the mourners had gone home, and those who were staying the night were drowsy and were dozing over the fire. He felt he wanted to rush among them and to cry to them to protect him, and to cower behind them and to close them around him in a solid circle. He felt that eyes were upon him, looking at his back from the bed, and he was afraid to turn around because he might look into the eyes.

She had always respected him, he remembered, and he did not want to lose her respect now; and the fear that he would lose it set his shoulders back and steadied the grip of his feet on the floor.

And then there flashed before him the thought of people who kill, of lines of soldiery rushing on trenches, of a stealthy, cowering man who slips through a jail door at dawn, and of a figure he had read of in books— a sinister figure with an ax and a red cloak.

As he looked down the yard he saw a figure turn in the gate and come toward the house. It seemed to walk slowly and heavily, as if tired. He knew it was Kennedy. He opened the kitchen door and slipped outside.

The figure coming up the pathway seemed to swim toward him. Then it would blur and disappear and then appear again vaguely. The beating of his heart was like the regular sound of a ticking clock. Space narrowed until he felt he could not breathe. He went forward a few paces. The light from the bedroom window streamed forward in a broad, yellow beam. He stepped into it as into a river.

"She's dead," he heard himself saying. "She's dead." And then he knew that Kennedy was standing in front of him.

The flap of the boy's hat threw a heavy shadow over his face, his shoulders were braced, and his right hand, the farmer could see, was thrust deeply into his coat pocket.

"Aye, she's dead," Michael James repeated. "You knew that, didn't you?" It was all he could think of saying. "You'll come in and see her, won't you?" He had forgotten what Kennedy had come for. He was dazed. He didn't know what to say.

Kennedy moved a little. The light from the window struck him full in the face, and Michael James realized with a shock that it was as grim and thin-lipped as he had pictured it. A prayer rose in his throat, and then fear seemed to leave him all at once. He raised his head. The right hand had left the pocket now. And then suddenly he saw that Kennedy was looking into the room, and he knew he could see, through the little panes of glass, the huge bedstead and the body on it. And he felt a desire to throw himself between Kennedy and it, as he might jump between a child and a threatening danger.

He turned away his head, instinctively— why, he could not understand, but he felt that he should not look at Kennedy's face.

Over in the barn voices rose suddenly. They were disputing over the cards. There was some one complaining feverishly and some one arguing truculently, and another voice striving to make peace. They died away in a dull hum, and Michael James heard the boy sobbing.

"You mustn't do that," he said. "You mustn't do that." And he patted him on the shoulders. He felt as if something unspeakably tense had relaxed and as if life were swinging back into balance. His voice shook and he continued patting. "You'll come in now, and I'll leave you alone there." He took him under the arm.

He felt the pity he had for the body on the bed envelop Kennedy, too, and a sense of peace came over him. It was as though a son of his had been hurt and had come to him for comfort, and he was going to comfort him. In some vague way he thought of Easter-time.

He stopped at the door for a moment.

"It's all right, laddie," he said. "It's all right," and he lifted the latch.

As they went in he felt somehow as if high walls had crumbled and the three of them had stepped into the light of day.

____________________

5: The Weaver who Clad the Summer

Harris Merton Lyon

1881-1916

Illustrated Sunday Magazine 8 August 1915

American short story writer; he prematurely died from kidney failure

I HAD ALWAYS felt vaguely that there must be at times an intense pathos which overcame the master-worker in perishable materials— the actor in his supreme moment; the singer, the musician— I thought— must feel a bitter regret that his glory cannot live but must die, in articulo gloriæ, with the sound, the effect he has created. Bernhardt seemed to me to have that in the back of her mind when she exulted over her appearance in the moving pictures. "I am immortal," she cried, dramatically— always dramatic, that old lady— "I am a film." So thin a bridge to immortality!

The actor, the singer, the musician; struggling through years and over obstacles to attain perfection— and then what? A brief triumph in a perishable art; a transient, fugitive gracing of a day, an hour, a moment ... and then another forgotten mortal artist. I remembered Gautier's decision, "The coin outlasts Tiberius." Paint, chisel, then, or write if you wish your work to endure.

No doubt here was wisdom in a little box; and I fell to wondering stupidly what there could possibly be in being a worker at the other, the evanescent thing. I remembered a certain kind of moth that dies soon after it is born. Are these people moths?

And then one night a ragtag ghost came and answered me.

i

IT WAS eleven o'clock. Outside it was snowing, and so I remained in Pigalle's, loath to leave, and killing the time with a book. Pigalle's was one of those basement eating places in New York's West Thirties, a comfy, tight, cosy sort of a cellar. An Italian table d'hôte, of course, though not like the usual; it had more character and less popularity. You seldom saw a blond skin there, the place being unknown to the night-tramping hordes of avid New Yorkers who crowd into all the "foreign" places and devour all the foreign food they can find. Mostly the habitués were French and Italian, gentle, noisy people who did, in their way, slight damage to the fine arts. By nine-thirty, they were done eating and gone; almost all the lights were turned out and chairs were piled up on the tables, out of the way of the early morning mop. By ten Pigalle and his wife and several others, mostly sculptors, scene painters and musicians, were gathered beneath the light at the main table and had begun their nightly game of poker. From then on it was slim gambling and loud, staccato chatter in French and Italian.

At eleven, then, this night, the cautious door-bell tinkled. Some kind of a world knocking at mine and wanting to get in, I thought. Some kind of an adventure out there, demanding to be encountered; some kind of a soul pounding at the walls of my soul. Every time the doorbell tinkles, whoever has this Show is setting a new scene. Or, no. The wall opens and the genie slips through, spreads his rug on the ground and begins to make new magic before your very eyes. Never a doorbell rang yet, I thought, that didn't bring a bit of heaven or hell— or mere purgatory— with it.

At eleven the doorbell tinkled and the fat little waitress-maid-scrubwoman-second cook, a Lombard wench by the name, the sweet ineffable name of Philomène, waddled over and opened the door a tiny space. Pigalle occasionally sold liquor without a license; hence his caution as to visitors. She let in an odd apparition; with doubts, I thought; certainly with mutterings and rolling of her black eyes. At any rate she knew him, whether for well or ill.

The man cast his eyes around, saw that the only open table save the poker table was the one I held, and came and sat down opposite me. With a slightly insolent motion he dragged his chair around sidewise, turned his shoulder to me and stared across the room at a gaudy lithograph of the good ship Isabella bound for Naples, eighty-five dollars first class. Philomène, with a porky look, asked him what he wished.

He announced in French that he desired of all things to "strangle a parrokeet." This was some absurd slang for saying he wanted an absinthe.

He was a gaunt, tall, round-shouldered, queer old fellow with a gray beard and a matted moustache, colored with the brown stain of cigarette smoke. As ugly, I thought, as ugly as— oh, Socrates. And yet with something lovable about him. And his combination of dress was certainly odd enough: a frayed, cutaway coat with extremely long tails, dripping wet and dangling cylindrically like sections of melted stovepipe; mussy, baggy old gray trousers; a blue plush waistcoat; a black, but clean muffler pinned tight up under his chin with a safety pin of the brassiest; and a broad-brimmed black slouch hat, so broad of brim that he walked forever in its shadow. This hat he kept on all the time. His hands were long and clean and white— the virile, sensitive hands of a poet, I thought. The eyes were the fascinating feature of the man. I said to myself right away, "This man is a mystic." Though they burned brightly in their sockets, they had a trick of turning abruptly dim; a sort of film or veil, closed over them. "Druid or old Celt," I murmured. "Give him a bit of mistletoe and he'd call his gods right down into my demi-tasse and scare the poker game into fits."

He swallowed his whole glass of absinthe in five gulps— a performance that it would make a cow shudder to watch— threw back his head, and, with a hoarse burr, called for another. This time he spoke English; but the burr was decidedly Scotch. Pigalle now looked around at him— gross, pleasant, Provençal Pigalle— and nodded; then went on placidly shuffling the tiny cards in his great fat hands.

When the second absinthe came the old man took it slowly; settled himself back on his shoulder-blades and the tail of his spine, and pulled his hat down level with his eyes, as if he intended to spend a considerable time with us. He called for a package of French cigarettes— cigarettes jaunes— and proceeded to color his moustache a riper brown. "Now my adventure has knocked and come in," I thought. "If he is my adventure, I cannot help him— nor can I keep him off. He is the primum mobile. It is up to him."

Suddenly my ears were shocked with a sharp argument between two young fellows at the poker table. No, it was not about the game. One said something; the other shrieked his answer; the first shouted back; the second in a violent burst that had a finality about it slammed down his cards and said something curt, with a solemn rolling of his eyes.

To my amazement, the odd old fish across from me boomed out with equal violence: "Ben trovato!" None of them paid any attention to him.

I may have shown some of my surprise at his action, for he turned suddenly to me, and asked: "Did you understand what he said?"

I replied that I did not.

"He said, roughly translated: 'Sufficient unto eternity is the glory of the hour.' Yes. And it is true. Sufficient unto eternity is the glory of the hour, young man. There's many an artist who must— " he stopped short and began biting his finger ends.

My mind reverted to Bernhardt's film and the question about the moth. "Who must— what?" I prodded. "Content himself with this catch phrase?"

"Content himself? Damnation, no! Must feel the keener triumph in a piece of work, young man, just because it is perishable." He thumped the table and breathed hard. I got the full paregoric reek of his drink. "What is this stork-legged Verlaine going to say?" I thought to myself. But he contented himself with breathing for a few moments and that odd film dropped over his eyes. "Just because the thing is ended, and dies out of men's minds almost as soon as it is ended"— he seemed to be feeling slowly for the words— "if the work was right, was masterly done, there's a sort of higher joy in knowing that it triumphed— and was suddenly gone— like a sunset, like a light on the water, like a summer." He asked abruptly: "You think I have 'spiders on my ceiling'— you think I am crazy?"

"On the contrary. Can you make this clearer to me, this— ?"

"My agreement that sufficient unto eternity is the glory of the hour?" He sipped his absinthe. "With your patience. Let me see. I can give you a favorite example of mine, about a friend of mine named Andy Gordon— something like a story?" Now in his eyes there was an eager shine.

"Go on."

"You know, my friend, I am Highland Scotch." (He pronounced it Heeland.) "I may be queer. That all depends. But don't be alarmed at the way I put things. I am not out of my head. Now this yarn about Andy Gordon. Remember," said he, tapping the table with his long white finger, and smiling at me in a charming manner, "sufficient unto eternity is the glory of the hour. By the way, that young fellow over there who said that is a violoncellist. 'Grand ducal 'cello to the imperial violin,' you know."

I reconsidered him in the wink of an eye. He is not Socrates and he is not Verlaine, I said to myself. This old lovable scarecrow is the Ancient Mariner, and he is going to hold me with his glittering eye and I am going to listen like a three years' child. The very fellow: the "skinny hand," the "long gray beard"— and doubtless, too, the true Ancient Mariner smelled of tobacco and drink. Certainly he talked poetry. And so did my old man, miraculously, almost without effort. So I sat back and listened, while he told his story.

ii

ANDY Gordon was for all his years a weaver in the mills at Glastonbury; just an ordinary human stick or stone, as you might call it, doing his mechanical work at the machine like a machine— until one day he drew his pay, before you could say Jack Robinson, and started off walking anywhere. He did it of a sudden and without seeming cause, but inwardly there was a pressing retraction upon his soul that told him to get away from the mechanical actualities.

He was feeling himself tired to death that day he drew his money; and, of course, he was still young. And when a young man really wants very much to die, he always comes out of that valley (at any rate, so people say) with something new in his heart. Andy walked off anywhere, just so he got to the hills.

And when he arrived at the hills, it was all very, very sweet. They were just coming light yellow and the bluebirds were there before him, touring the air just for the fun of it. And he made right away a queer discovery— he knew for the first time that New Year's is not the first day of January, at all. It's the first day of spring. Men are right silly, Andy thought, calling some dead and sodden day in mid-winter by the fancy, saucy name of New. The thing that is New, of course, is the Green. The New Year is the Green Year.

Well, he had a hunk of bread in his pocket and some onions, and a man can walk a long way upon the strength of that; so he went along up a road when he felt like it and over a hill when he felt like that. But most of the time his heart was very sad in his body and his mind took no pleasure of the bluebirds. For he was thinking that his life wasn't very much. He could see nothing in working year after year at the mill. And yet that was all he was good for (so he thought).

On and on and on walked Andy. There were parts of those hills where he walked that probably nobody, not even the Indian, ever traversed. Anything could happen there— where the woods are dark with pine or sunny with birch, and where echoes are the only memory (and they never last long). It was so far away, up in through there; as I've said, anything could happen there and we would never hear of it. All day long the cold brooks run down, brown from the juices of the hemlock bark, over browned stones— but of course they never talk and tell anything.

About noon, Andy found himself upon an old disused and overgrown road, that for years had been traveled only by rabbits and skunks and woodchucks and deer. And in a clearing at one side he saw an old log cabin which had not been lived in for years and years. There was a bit of brook at the back and an old wind-break of pine trees.

"Now I will eat a snack here," Andy said to himself, "and afterward, may God have mercy on my soul, I will lie down and nap under the pine and try to sleep off whatever it is that is bothering me."

And he did so, lying down beneath the pine—

He closed one eye gently and slowly (like letting a lid down on a box of playthings) and then he closed the other eye the same way; and then he knew nothing at all until suddenly a Voice came clap out of the blue sky, calling his name, "Andy Gordon, man! Andy Gordon!" over the hills and far.

Andy was amazed, of course, and said: "Here I am," with all his might, but without making a bit of sound (just as we all do in dreams).

"The thing the matter with you," went on the great Voice, without any introduction or anything of the sort but coming from everywhere and nowhere at once, "is that you need Work. You are tired to death with work; work-with-a-little-'w' is killing the soul out of you, Andy; work-with-a-little-'w' always does that to men, if you give it the whole chance. But that can't be helped. You're bound to have a whole lot of it in your life But— if you don't mix some Big-'W' Work in with it, then indeed and indeed your life will be disastrous and your days will be dead."

Andy did not know but what he was a-dreaming, though his eyes were now wide open and he could see a robin hopping on the sod. "What is it you mean by Big-'W' Work?" he asked.

"Of course, that's the Work you love for the Work's sake. It's Work you do because you love the thing itself you're working for."

"You make that hard to understand," said Andy.

"Well, and it will be hard for people to understand you when you're at that sort of Work. They know well enough what you're about as long as you turn 'em out yards of flannel down at Glastonbury, don't they?"

"Oh, yes, indeed," said Andy.

"And it would be the same way if you were a smith and turned 'em out horse shoes, or a bill clerk and turned 'em out bills. They'd understand that."

"Oh, yes, indeed," said Andy.

"But the trouble with that work-with-a-little-'w' is that you do it only for the pay there is in it— never for the love of it— that's why it seems to you a shame to waste your whole life at it, you know."

"Indeed it does, and that's why I'm here away from it all," said Andy.

"All very well for a while," said the Voice. "But you'll have to keep on at it somewhat— say, half your life at work-with-a-little-'w,' sitting at your machine down yonder at the mill, turning 'em out the stuff they know to be useful."

At that Andy fell silent and was sad again. Where would he find a beginning at the Big-"W" Work? he asked himself.

But the Voice seemed to know what was in his mind, and answered him: "I can give you that sort of Work. But it will take the best there is in you to do that sort of Work; and the Work will surely die as soon as you've accomplished it. And there will be no money in it for you, at all, and a great deal of pain, care and weariness. But you will find great love in your Work, and for your Work; and though it all vanishes at once you will experience so wonderful a joy that it will seem as if, night and day, God is whispering the secrets of life in your ear."

"What is the Work like?" asked Andy.

"Would you be willing to try it? Remember, it is difficult and wearying and is dead as soon as it is born."

"Yes, by glory, I would," shouted Andy.

"Then dress this maid until you die!" commanded the Voice.

At the words, my friend, there was music of a million armies of all sorts of birds, whistling and whirring over the green earth; and the echoes of their tremendous singing shook all the trillions of tiny new leaves and made the waves of air to dance— how shall I say?— like the waves of a sea of music running out forever.

And there, on the grass, sure enough, was a little naked baby girl just able to stand.

Very quiet, she was, and she looked up at Andy with eyes of a fairy blue— as if they'd been colored by that very same fairy that goes about with a brush coloring all the violets we ever see. (The ones we never see, you know, are never colored.)

"We-e-ell!" cried Andy, puckering up his lips and squinting up his eye-lids. "And who are you?"

"I'm early Summer," she lisped. "And I'm in a dreadful hurry. I'd like some lemon-colored silk— for a mantle, you know?— And some apple-green tassels for my hair. And please do be quick about it. I'm due, you see. So I'll be ever so much obliged if you'll only hurry."

Andy whistled ruefully. "Now, that would take some weaving, miss." He hesitated. "I don't think I'm that skillful."

The little goddess looked hurriedly away over her shoulder as if she were about to depart.

"And then," Andy continued, "I have no loom up here; and no warp; and no filling. Nothing at all to work with, you see. I— "

But while he was stumbling about with his excuses, he saw the little one actually fading away before his eyes; and a pain most bitter caught at his heart, as if he were losing all his life. So he cried out:

"But I'll try miss. Give me a little time, miss. Oh, please, my wee bairn. I have an old handloom of my grandfather's; and I can go and hurry and fetch all the stuff up here somehow and I'll work as fast as I can. Indeed, I'll try my best."

Whereat, you see, the babe came back to him, smiling as sweetly as early Summer ever smiled. "There really isn't such an awful hurry," she said. "We can always have Weather, you know, and hold these things back a bit."

That was the beginning of it.

Andy was about twenty-eight years old then, and he really had an awful time of it at first trying to work out by hand the wonderful stuffs and colors. There was the fern-design, spangled with Sweet William, for instance. It was only to be the edging on a shawl for her, but he spent three days and two nights on it; and then she asked him to make it over with jack-in-the-pulpit inset, because she was sure to grow tired very soon of Sweet William; then she changed her mind about jack-in-the-pulpit and decided on wintergreen berries. This is just a sample of one teeny bit of what she demanded. And Andy was very awkward; so naturally he began complaining of his shuttles being too clumsy for such fine work and the cobwebby filling getting tangled up in his thumbs and after a bit of chewing his nails in despair he swore the thing never could be done by hand.

No sooner had he got that out, than he heard the Voice roar loud like an emperor's voice and say:

"The Big-'W' Work you love to do must be done by hand. It can't be done any other way. That is why you were given thumbs, when the other beasts got none."

So Andy found it was no use quarreling with the tools. He looked at his hands, holding them up before him, and he thought: "Well, the Voice is right. My hands wouldn't be any good without my thumbs. I have hands and thumbs both and surely they were given me for the reason the Voice mentions. At any rate, I know no better."

That made Andy set to work all the harder, for the idea of Thumb-and-Craft was new to him; and that made his craft very interesting to him, so that he became determined to stick to it until he got the beauty out of it. (All the same, it was a frightfully backward Summer that year; and nobody— except Andy— thought very well of her.)

He found indeed that he would have to work as fast as his fingers could go. For the little Summer grew big and bigger in an amazingly short time; and she kept throwing things away as fast as she put them on just as the Voice had foretold.

Her days, though, went happily along, all full of sweet smells out of cups and umbels of flowers and from the liquor of the leaves as they steeped in the hot sun; and Andy himself felt quite happy (when he wasn't terribly interested in his Work, and then he paid attention to nothing at all save what was between his thumb and forefinger). But while he worked and the Summer danced or dozed and grew before him, he noticed something he had never noticed until then— As the Summer grew older, she kept asking him for darker blues. While she was little she had liked light greens, but week by week as time went on she insisted more and more that he put in plenty of blue.

"Bluer and bluer," muttered Andy, and a wee shot of pain hit his heart. "Yes, it's bluer and bluer, all right, I know. And finally some day 'twill all be steel-blue everywhere— in the snow-drifts and in the skies— and neither the lass nor I will be here then."

Well may you believe that the departing of that first Summer was a sad matter to him. He had done his best, you see, and a whole new world of trying had been thrown open to him. And really he was beginning to get the knack of that kind of weaving. And she was a fine big apple-cheeked woman now, and—

"Well, if I do say it myself," growled Andy, "she looks very handsome in those dresses; and for the first time in my life I take a Pride in my Work."

But in spite of all that the Voice came, you must know, and told him this little dream-girl must die, and there would be another, a different little girl next year; and all the weaving must be gone through with again.

"Shall I be weaving this lass her shroud?" asked Andy of the Voice.

But the Voice did not answer him.

When Andy told all this to her, his first Summer cried for a whole week in amongst the trees and over the pastures and meadows—

And then one morning, she was no longer there.

Andy sat in the doorway of the cabin and stared across the hills. He saw pine trees, ever green, and he made up his mind she had not died but had gone into one of them so as to live forever. And then he fell to thinking how there were so many millions of pine trees, and he guessed to himself how each of the millions of Summers we have had must have gone into one of those trees so as never to die but to be always of the Green Folk, ever green. Well, he rocked back and forth keening soft to himself, when he happened to hear the Voice again and the Voice said:

"You must see by now, Andy, it's just as I told you. You've no money now, have you? You have spent it all, buying stuff to weave her garments from. And she has worn the garments and has thrown them away; so there is nothing left. Nothing left except the joy of good work well done, and the feeling that God has really whispered in your ear. Now you'll have to go back down to Glastonbury and the work with-the-little-'w.' You'll have to stay there through the winter, Andy, and save your pay. But when the time comes again, I'll call you."

So Andy put a padlock on the old log cabin where his loom was set up and went back down to the mill-town. And being as he was a clever man, he was put back on his job right away. And the gray mists of winter packed down on the gray town and on the little gray people in the town. And Andy worked at his machine.

The next spring he got the call, just as the Voice had said he would. He drew his pay and, now that he knew a bit of what was required of him, he laid in a fair supply of what he should need. Then he was off into the hills. And one day there came the birds riding up on the winds like cavaliers with feathers dancing about; and when they began their keen bugling it pierced here and there and everywhere and made the walls of Winter to tumble down the same as Jericho's did. And sure enough, there a new babe teetered on her toes in the midst of the grass. Naked as a flower she was, and she smiled up at him.

So he wove for her with the lightest heart you can ever imagine. But, afterward, she went away in tears, the same as the other had done and as all Summers do; and Andy picked out a new pine tree and guessed she was keeping it green.

"Shall I be weaving this lass her shroud?" he had asked again. But again the Voice had made no answer.

So, naturally, the Summers came and came; and Andy wove and Worked and clad them. In time he became, as you may well believe, the finest hand-weaver (of Summer things, I mean) that was on earth in his day. He became so good at his hand-work that in winter, at the mill, he was actually clumsy at his machine! So it was just 'tother way round, as you see, from what it was when he started. He was so clumsy then with his hands that he thought everything had to be done by machine you remember. But now he could outdo with his mortal hands anything that was ever done by machine.

And another queer thing happened to him; he got so he had a totally different idea of what work was. For his mates down in Glastonbury told him, "You work only during the winter, don't you?"

Whereas, he found himself answering: "Why, no. 'Tis just the other way around. I can work only during the summer. I can't work at all during the winter. I'm dead all winter long— like all the Green Things." Then his comrades spoke wildly of him and touched their heads. They had learned the American idea, you see. Andy was crazy and he was lazy; and he didn't know when he had a good job; and there was no money in loafing. And all that sort of thing.

Now, I could keep you here all night telling you what all went on with Summer after Summer, and Summer after Summer, and Summer after Summer; until Andy grew old and wrinkled and ugly and very sweet in his mind and cleverer and defter and finer in his finger-weaving. But the main carry of it all is just as I've been telling you— So we have him coming along, year after year, loving his little lasses and his blues and greens and yellows and the way he could put 'em together and make Beauty.

That was the way he lived. And now this is the way he died.

Always, I think I told you, Andy asked the question: "And shall I be weaving this lass a shroud?"

And never had the Voice answered him.

Well, came one Summer that lived a long, long time and ran and tried to hide in far places when told she had to die; and to Andy it seemed he loved that Summer so fond and fair, more than any and all. Andy was sixty-eight then and for full forty years had done his winter stint and his Big 'W' Work in the hills. But he did not feel tired that year. No; he simply felt odd-like, as if it might be something unforeseen was going to happen to him and it would not tell its name to him first. (You know how you feel that way sometimes— as if wings were flying over your head and you think you see their shadows on the grass; but you look up and see no wings at all in the sky. Then you say: "Isn't the sky a queer color to-day?" and you feel uneasy.)

So it came about that while that Summer lingered and hid and ran, Andy again asked the old, old question he had always asked and to which he had never received an answer:

"Shall I be weaving this lass her shroud?"

And, lo and behold, the Voice, very soft and full of kindness, said: "If 'twill please you, you might as well, Andy. Your Work is done. But— a question first. Have you ever once regretted the labor and the loss I have put upon you?"

Andy said to himself, "I am about to die." In a loud, clear tone though he answered: "Not once, O Voice! The joy I felt, the triumph I felt as I handed her a bit of master-work and she flung it to the idle winds was in itself enough. As I look back at it, there has been no labor and there has been no loss. I have heard God's whisper in my ears, and that will be sufficient for me until the end of eternity."

So the Voice said: "You know all there is to know. Weave the shroud."

Andy took steel-blue floss and at right angles he shot it with white; and he made it so thin and fine that a million miles of it would not weigh a hundred pounds. And he said to himself, "I will weave a hundred pounds of it; and I'll wrap her in it myself, all softly, around and around, like as if she was a dead bride of the Green Folk's king, I will."

So Andy set to work, grim as Death himself. He bit his lip hard, and a queer shine came into his eyes; and he worked day and night, fast and faster, eating nothing and sleeping not at all— smoking away like a demon on his pipe and weaving miles and miles to his heart's desire.

"It shall be my master-bit," he told himself.

He never even looked out the window, so close was he on the heel of his work. "It shall be my master-bit," he kept saying to himself. The light got poorer and dimmer and there was a shorter lasting of it. Less light meant longer work; so it was thirty days and thirty nights before he got it anywhere near finished. No, it wasn't fully done. How could it be? The Summer Fellows never finished anything complete, you know.

But 'twas beautiful, just the same, all shimmering cold blue, and white like apple blossoms that have blanched and are ready to fall. And there was mile upon mile of it. It was wondrously fine, finer than anything Andy had done until then. It was really his master-bit, as he had said it would be. And he would have kept on and woven more, but—

He looked of a sudden out his window, one morning, in the gray, and he could not see that Summer anywhere!

He went to the door and shaded his eyes with his hands and peered over miles and miles of hills; and far down one gusset of valley he saw her dull-green robes a-trailing. He cried for joy. (You know— when you have lost a thing that you loved and found it again.)

Famished and weak he was, but he gathered the miles and pounds of that shroud in his arms and started down the roads and over the hills after her, calling till his heart would break and his voice went dry:

"Wait for me, lass. I've woven your shroud! Wait for me, lass. I'm coming! I've your beautiful, downy shroud here— "

And he would stumble along, so weak the sweat broke out on him and he scarce could lift a leg. But with the shroud over his arm, he went on and on and on as best he could; his long, ragged gray hair a-flying and a wild glare in his eyes and those eyes fast fixed on the Summer as she slipped away.

'Twas in this fashion he came to the summit of a foothill and could go no further. The cold had smitten to his bones, though the sweat still stood on his skin. He dropped down on the ground and slept a bit— but not sound asleep, and in his sleep he had awful dreams which made him wake.

He started up, crying weakly: "I have your shroud, lass. Wait for me!"

And then he noticed— It was snowing!

The soft white flakes he saw, dropping upon the earth like light years, my boy, years that themselves will be dropping and dropping forever and ever by tens of hundreds of thousands of millions and covering everything, all we do, all we are or were, far and wide with a white sameness— a big mound here where a Hero Worked, a flatness there where a zero worked— but all white, and all the same.

Andy put his hand to his forehead as if in a dream, and then— let me see; what did he do?— he wrung his hands and he cried out:

"Look yonder, look yonder! Oh, now I see why the Voice never answered me when I asked about the shroud! Now I see. I see my presumption, and I understand the silence— 'tis God Himself who weaves the shroud for every Summer. Look yonder at the snowflakes a-coming down! I can see God's shuttle weaving in and out amongst them. In and out amongst the years of snowflakes I can see God's hand, pushing the shuttle and weaving the shroud that will wrap the Summers and all and all— And I was so bold with my poor little shroud here, my master-bit of weaving— "

And he broke down and began sobbing and threw himself face down upon the ground, wiping away at his tears with the wonderful weft he had made.

Then the great Voice came out of the wind and the darkening sky, sturdy as a great captain's, and shouted aloud through the thick of the flakes:

"Pray, but regret not, Andy. You did the Work of your Hand!"

So he died in the snow on the top of that hill, the contented artist of a perished dream, the master worker in a fabric that immediately dissolved. What he had told the Voice was true; the triumph he felt as he handed over to the Summer a bit of his best and she threw it away to the drifting winds like a bit of dying music— the joy he felt then was enough to last him till eternity ended. He had heard God's whisper in his ear; and he never would have heard it if he had stayed in the mill. He had done what God wanted him to do, a beautiful thing as beautifully as he knew how— and he felt at last that the beauty of it was somehow not lost at all.

iii

ABRUPTLY the old man left and went out into the snowy night. For there were tears in his eyes.

iv

THE poker game was finished. Pigalle sauntered slowly over to my table.

"You know Handy?" he asked, slowly, in his broken English.

"Who's that?"

"The hole man that ees just go out. 'Is name ees Handy Gor-don." He rolled his great expressive eyes. "'E's cra-zee man. Also wot you call loafer: 'e do not work wen 'e wish not to. But, mon Dieu, 'ow 'e can play, that man!" He made a suave, swelling gesture with his hands and arms and heaved up his great bulk gracefully. "'Ow 'e can play! 'Ow 'e can play!"

"He is Andy Gordon!" I exclaimed. "What is he? A weaver?"

"Comment?"

"A weaver? Makes cloth— like this?" I held up the corner of the tablespread.

"Corpo, no!" ejaculated the astonished Pigalle. "Handy ees violinist-a."

_____________________

6: The Pretty Passenger

Anonymous

Armidale Express 9 Oct 1888

THE steamer Etruria, from Liverpool to New York, sailing on a certain 10th of October a few years ago, carried an unusual number of pretty women among her passengers, so the ship's surgeon said, and a ship's surgeon is generally an authority on the question of beauty. But Mrs. Cuthbert, as he declared in the smoking-room, was far away the prettiest of them all.

"Mrs. Cuthbert and maid," said the passenger list.

"A rich widow from Baltimore, one of the first families in Maryland," said the ship's gossip.

The first gentleman who succeeded in establishing confidential relations with the lady was Mr. Peter Grunnell, a Chicago railway magnate who occupied the Captain's room, and kept champagne corks popping with magnificent liberality. He first "braced" Mrs. Cuthbert, as he described the process of making her acquaintance, as the Etruria entered the Queenstown harbour. The mail was late, and when the passengers went ashore to spend three hours on Irish soil, he engaged the best jaunting car to be had in Queenstown, and prevailed on the widow to have a drive with him.

When they returned on board he escorted her to her state-room, parted from her with a ponderous and respectful courtesy quite alien to his nature, and declined to give any account of his drive to the other men.

"Mrs. Cuthbert," said Mr. Grunnell, "is a lady who deserves the utmost politeness from every man here. I thought she was a flirt, but she is a lady, gentlemen, and a lady whose widowed position demands an amount of consideration which I shall make it my business to see that she receives. I trust that no gentleman here will be ill-advised enough to jest about her in my presence."

This utterance created a decided impression.

"Grunnell is tremendously hit by the widow," said the ship's gossip that night.

When Mrs. Cuthbert appeared on deck the next morning, charmingly dressed in a dove-coloured poplin, and, nestled gracefully among the furs disposed upon her steamer chair by the assiduous maid, everyone looked to see Mr. Grunnell move his chair to her side. But Mr. Grunnell said "good morning" with marked deference, and then settled himself next to Miss Gussie Pigott, a lively young lady from San Francisco.

He was obviously not out of temper with the widow, and it was as easily to be seen that the widow was not out of temper with him. But he had evidently resigned whatever intention he might have formed of making play with the lady.

After luncheon, Mr. Otis Denning, a young Bostonian of great calibre as a swell, had a long interview with the surgeon in the latter's room, at the end of which the surgeon approached Mrs. Cuthbert and asked her permission to present Mr. Denning to her.

She assented, and Mr. Denning was presented. He was a bashful youth, and made but little headway that day. But on the evening of the third day out from Queenstown he managed to promenade the deck with the widow all the evening, and Mr. Grunnell watched the incipient flirtation with a paternal air, as if to say: "Go it, my boy; she is merely amusing herself with you, but I— I have her confidence; I am solid with her."

The morning of the fourth day was wet and disagreeable, and Mrs. Cuthbert spent it in her state-room, but in the afternoon she again occupied her chair, fairly radiant with smiles and beauty.

Mr. Grunnell played cards in the Captain's room, and Mr. Denning played backgammon with a fat, jolly little Italian wine merchant.

"Both men sick of her already," said the ship's gossip.

But when Mr. Denning happened to meet her in the gangway later in the afternoon he was positively effusive in his salutations.

"Can't make it out," said the ship's gossip; and when the ship's gossip makes that admission it may fairly be assumed that the mystery in question is a deep one.

"Steward!" called Mrs. Cuthbert.

" Yes, ma'am."

"Call my maid, will you, please?"

"Yes, ma'am."

The maid appeared with a little smile on her pretty French face, which might have been thought to indicate that the steward had not performed his task in a merely peremptory manner.

"Bring me my little vinaigrette— the round one, Marie."

"Oui, madame," and a moment later Mrs. Cuthbert was watching the horizon again, with a dainty little silver bottle pressed against her soft white chin.

The steamer gave a little lurch, and the vinaigrette dropped from Mrs. Cuthbert's hand, zigzagged down the sloping deck, and, with a malicious rattle of its chain and pendants, rolled into the lee scuppers. A tall, fair-haired young fellow was leaning against the rail, and the toy almost struck his foot as it rolled. He picked it up, and turned to where Mrs. Cuthbert sat, with a pretty little agitation, her hand extended towards the bottle. He was a handsome fellow, and wore his Norfolk blouse, and his belt hung with a cigarette case and match box and silver knife as if the accoutrements of fashion were habitual with him.

Mrs. Cuthbert smiled— apologetically, he thought, invitingly, Miss Pigott declared that night at dinner: and Lord Roland Moline became the third of her shipboard knights.

He was, as Miss Gussie assured Mr. Grunnell, a bigger swell than either of his predecessors, and it may have been for this reason that his term of office was longer. He was in constant attendance upon Mrs. Cuthbert from that moment until the night before the American coast was expected to be "made," and that night was so lovely that the young fellow may be pardoned if he urged Mrs. Cuthbert to protract her moonlight deck-pacing until an unconscionable hour. At last the widow said it was really growing too late, and she must say good-night.

Lord Ronald looked down at her with all his rather feeble heart in her eyes. "The moon's really more than jolly, yon know, Mrs. Cuthbert, and when's a fellow going to see you again, anyhow?"

Mrs. Cuthbert turned the full light of her great eyes on him, and his own looked like match ends beside them.

"Lord Ronald, you are an Englishman; I am a woman in need of a friendly service. May I trust you?"

"With anything, Mrs. Cuthbert"

"Listen to me, then. I am, as you know, a Southerner. My father owned an extensive cotton plantation. During the war of the rebellion, his plantation was visited by Northern troops, his horses seized and his cotton burned, although he was himself loyal to the Federal cause. He died and left to me a claim for nearly a million dollars against the United States Government. This claim was a just one, but in the course of the protracted contest before the Court of Claims, certain documents necessary to the substantiation of its validity disappeared. I gave it up and went abroad. My lawyers told me that unless these papers could be recovered the claim was hopeless. A devoted friend of mine— of my family, I should rather say— who resides in Washington, is indeed in the public service there. He made it his special task to unravel the mystery connected with the disappearance of those papers, and, after a long investigation, discovered that they had been secreted by a Government official of high standing in the department of State in order to cover op the misconduct of his brother, who had, in fact, appropriated a large sum of money which should have been paid to my father. This friend of mine finally obtained possession, not only of the lost documents in the case, but also of a packet of letters which proved that this official had stolen the papers. All this matter he sent by a friend who was coming to Paris, and I am now returning to America to re-open my case, and to have that man tried as a common thief, as he is."

Mrs. Cuthbert's eye glittered ominously, and Lord Ronald felt glad he was not in that official's place.

"And bow can I serve you in this case, my dear Mrs. Cuthbert?" said be. "I have absolutely no influence at Washington."

"You can help me, Lord Ronald. I am afraid, foolishly afraid, perhaps, that when I land to-morrow mi attempt will be made to take these papers from me."

"What, forcibly?" exclaimed Lord Ronald.

"Yes, forcibly. See how easy it would be. The man who fears these papers as he fears death has paramount influence with the custom-house. What could be easier than for some unscrupulous customs officer, acting under his orders, to have me searched as a common smuggler, and to have these papers taken from my person. I thought of asking Mr. Grunnell or Mr. Denning to carry them ashore for me; they have both been very kind and attentive, but Mr. Grunnell may have I know not what pressing engagements, and Mr. Denning is a mere boy. Will you carry the packet ashore for me, Lord Ronald?"

"Will I? Of course I will," he answered heartily.

Mrs. Cuthbert disappeared into her state-room for a moment, and returned with a long envelope, carefully sealed.

"Have yon a pencil ?" she asked her knight.

"I have," he said with alacrity.

"Write your name and the word 'private' on the envelope," she said, "and then who would dare touch it?"

Lord Ronald complied.

"Now," she said, "keep that constantly in your pocket until after we land, I and bring it to me at the Hotel Brunswick in the morning."

"And will you let me kiss you hand like a courtly knight when I have performed my task," asked Lord Ronald, between jest and earnest.

"Nous rerrons," answered Mrs. Cuthbert, "and now, good night; you are a true representative of English chivalry, and I thank you a thousand times in advance."

Lord Ronald looked after her eagerly as she passed through the saloon gangway, and then gave the bulky packet in the breast pocket of his coat a resounding thump.

"They'll do jolly well if they get the papers from me," said he, and went off to his berth, presumably to dream of Mrs. Cuthbert and the insolence of customs officers.

The Etruria's engines stopped as she entered the Narrows, and a revenue cutter made fast to her side. The custom house officers boarded her, and with them a burly little man with close cropped hair and a dyed moustache, who dived hastily into the saloon and into one of the staterooms, where he had five minutes' conversation with the prettiest woman on board.

Then he looked along the line of passengers who stood waiting to make their custom's house declaration, until he saw Mr. Grunnell.

"Is this Mr. Peter Grunnell?" he asked.

"That's my name, sir," said the millionaire.

"May I see you in your state-room for a moment after you have made your declaration? Important business, Mr. Grunnell."

"You'll find me in the captain's room," said Grunnell.

The stranger then went up on deck, and there found Lord Ronald Moline.

"Lord Ronald Moline?"

"Yes."

"May I see you for a moment In your state-room, sir? Private business."

"I suppose so," and Lord Ronald led the way to his room. ".What is it?" he asked, when the door was closed.

"It's very unpleasant business, but there isn't any time to waste. I'm a detective, Lord Moline. Pre just arrested a woman on board of this ship, and she is now in custody of one of my men down below. I have reason to believe that you have some connection with her— keep your temper, sir, I don't mind having a scandal on board this ship, but you do. Now, you've got some 10,000 dollars in counterfeit greenbacks in your pocket. I want 'em!"

" My good man," said Lord Ronald, "I know what I have in my pocket, and yon won't get what I have there. Go and tell your dastardly employer so, with Lord Ronald Moline's compliments."

" Look here, Lord Moline I don't want any bother. Just you cut a hole as big as the top of my pencil in that their big envelope and see if it isn't greenbacks."

"I must see Mrs. Cuthbert at once," said Lord Ronald.

" Yon can't; she's not going to see any one till she's brought up for preliminary examination. Why, man alive, she's the downiest bird in the business; we have to look after her like she was a treasure. Look for yourself."

Lord Ronald hesitated, and looked. The package contained no papers at all, nothing but greenbacks and the cheerful detective pointed out to him the difference between these and genuine notes— a small but still perceptible difference.

"Surely you don't suspect me," said he, drawing himself up very proudly.

"Well," said the detective, "I don't say that, but it's awkward; your name and all, in your own writing, too, isn't it? looks like a signature."

"Yes," said Lord Ronald, "but I was most infamously taken in by the deceitful—"

"Go slow, you will have to sleep in gaol to-night unless you can get anyone in New York to go bail for you, and then you can give your little song and dance to the judge in the morning. Of course if you're a real lord, I don't doubt you've been kind of worked. She's a bird, she is. Got a cigar?"

Lord Ronald flung him a cigar and the packet of notes, and sat down to think.

"Now, my man," said he, a moment later, "you don't believe I knew what was in that packet, do you?"

"Personally, no," said the detective, "but professionally I must say it looks suspicious. I do hate to lock you up, though."

Lord Ronald drew out his note case and took from it a clean, crisp Bank of England note for £100.

"Will that compensate you for the risk you run of getting into trouble through not arresting a man you know to be innocent?" he asked.

"It's a big risk," said the detective thoughtfully.

"If I give you another one will you keep my name out of the affair altogether?"

"Yes I will," said the man. "I know you were only taken in. Well, I must be off. Don't come near her. Get away from the boat quietly and leave well alone."

Lord Ronald did so.

The stranger alike interviewed Mr. Grunnell and Mr. Denning. Each had a similar packet with his name written on it. Mr. Grunnell surrendered £60 with his packet, and Mr. Denning £75 with his.

After all three gentlemen had carried their chagrin ashore, Mrs. Cuthbert emerged from her state-room, and the detective put her into a carriage. He drove her to a quiet little hotel in the upper part of the city, but she was not handcuffed.

She was never tried. It may even be doubted whether the detective was a real detective. A hardy imagination might indeed suppose that a clever rogue and a pretty woman had very neatly done Lord Ronald Moline, Mr. Grunnell, and Mr. Denning, and that the counterfeiter's arrest was as fictitious as Mrs. Cuthbert's claim against the United States Government.

_________________

7: Bullion!

‌William Hope Hodgson

1877–1918

Everybody's Weekly, 11 March 1911

THIS IS A most peculiar yarn. It was a pitchy night in the South Pacific. I was the second mate of one of the fast clipper-ships running between London and Melbourne at the time of the big gold finds up at Bendigo. There was a fresh breeze blowing, and I was walking hard up and down the weather side of the poop-deck, to keep myself warm, when the captain came out of the companionway and joined me.

'Mr James, do you believe in ghosts?' he asked suddenly, after several minutes of silence.

'Well, sir,' I replied, 'I always keep an open mind; so I can't say I'm a proper disbeliever, though I think most ghost yarns can be explained.'

'Well,' he said in a queer voice, 'someone keeps whispering in my cabin at nights. It's making me feel funny to be there.'

'How do you mean whispering, sir?' I asked.

'Just that,' he said. 'Someone whispering about my cabin. Sometimes it's quite close to my head, other times it's here and there and everywhere—in the air.'

Then, abruptly, he stopped in his walk and faced me, as if determined to say the thing that was on his mind.

'What did Captain Avery die of on the passage out?' he asked quick and blunt.

'None of us knew, sir,' I told him. 'He just seemed to sicken and go off.'

'Well,' he said, 'I'm not going to sleep in his cabin any longer. I've no special fancy for just sickening and going off. If you like I'll change places with you.'

'Certainly, sir,' I answered, half pleased and half sorry. For whilst I had a feeling that there was nothing really to bother about in the captain's fancies yet— though he had only taken command in Melbourne to bring the ship home— I had found already that he was not one of the soft kind by any means. And, so, as you will understand, I had vague feelings of uneasiness to set against my curiosity to find out what it was that had given Captain Reynolds a fit of the nerves.

'Would you like me to sleep in your place tonight, sir?' I asked.

'Well,' he said with a little laugh 'when you get below you'll find me in your bunk, so it'll be a case of my cabin or the saloon table.' And with that it was settled.

'I shall lock the door,' I added. 'I'm not going to have anyone fooling me. I suppose I may search?'

'Do what you like,' was all he replied.

About an hour later the captain left me, and went below. When the mate came up to relieve me at eight bells I told him I was promoted to the captain's cabin and the reason why. To my surprise, he said that he wouldn't sleep there for all the gold that was in the ship; so that I finished by telling him he was a superstitious old shellback.

When I got down to my new cabin I found that the captain had made the steward shift my gear in already, so that I had nothing to do but turn in, which I did after a good look round and locking the door.

I left the lamp turned about half up, and meant to lie awake a while listening; but I was asleep before I knew, and only waked to hear the 'prentice knocking on my door to tell me it was one bell.

For three nights I slept thus in comfort, and jested once or twice with the captain that I was getting the best of the bargain.

Then, just as you might expect, on the fourth night something happened. I had gone below for the middle watch, and had fallen asleep as usual, almost so soon as my head was on the pillow. I was wakened suddenly by some curious sound apparently quite near me. I lay there without moving and listened, my heart beating a little rapidly; but otherwise I was cool and alert. Then I heard the thing quite plainly with my waking senses— a vague, uncertain whispering, seeming to me as if someone or something bent over me from behind, and whispered some unintelligible thing close to my ear. I rolled over, and stared around the cabin; but the whole place was empty.

Then I sat still, and listened again. For several minutes there was an absolute silence, and then abruptly I heard the vague, uncomfortable whispering again, seeming to come from the middle of the cabin. I sat there, feeling distinctly nervous; then I jumped quietly from my bunk, and slipped silently to the door. I stopped, and listened at the keyhole, but there was no one there. I ran across then to the ventilators, and shut them; also I made sure that the ports were screwed up, so that there was now absolutely no place through which anyone could send his voice, even supposing that anyone was idiot enough to want to play such an unmeaning trick.

For a while after I had taken these precautions I stood silent; and twice I heard the whispering, going vaguely now in this and now in that part of the air of the cabin, as if some unseen spirit wandered about, trying to make itself heard.

As you may suppose, this was getting more than I cared to tackle, for I had searched the cabin every watch, and it seemed to me that there was truly something unnatural in the thing I heard. I began to get my clothes and dress, for, after this, I felt inclined to adopt the captain's suggestion of the saloon table for a bunk. You see, I had got to have my sleep, but I could not fancy lying unconscious in that cabin, with that strange sound wandering about; though awake, I think I can say truthfully I should not really have feared it. But to lie defenceless in sleep with that uncanniness near me was more than I could bear.

And then, you know, a sudden thought came blinding through my brain. The bullion! We were bringing some thirty thousand ounces of gold in sealed bullion chests, and these were in a specially erected wooden compartment, standing all by itself in the centre of the lazarette, just below the captain's cabin. What if some attempt were being made secretly on the treasure, and we all the time idiotically thinking of ghosts, when perhaps the vague sounds we had heard were conducted in some way from below! You can conceive how the thought set me tingling, so that I did not stop to realise how improbable it was, but took my lamp and went immediately to the captain.

He woke in a moment, and when he had heard my suggestion he told me that the thing was practically impossible; yet the very idea made him sufficiently uneasy to determine him on going down with me into the lazarette, to look at the seals on the door of the temporary bullion-room.

He did not stop to dress, but, reaching the lamp from me, led the way. The entrance to the lazarette was through a trapdoor under the saloon table, and this was kept locked. When this was opened the captain went down with the lamp, and I followed noiselessly. At the bottom of the ladder the captain held the lamp high, and looked round. Then he went over to where the square bulk of the bullion-room stood alone in the centre of the place, and together we examined the seals on the door; but of course they were untouched, and I began to realise now that my idea had been nothing more than unreasoned suggestion. And then, you know, as we stood there silent, amid the various creaks and groans of the working bulkheads, we both heard the sound— a whispering somewhere near to us, that came and went oddly, being lost in the noise of the creaking woodwork, and again coming plain, seeming now to be in this place, and now in that.

I had an extraordinary feeling of superstitious fear; but the captain was unaffected. He muttered in a low voice that there was someone inside the bullion-room, and began quickly and coolly to break the sealed tapes. Then telling me to hold the lamp high, he threw the door wide open. But the place was empty, save for the neat range of bullion-boxes, bound sealed, and numbered, that occupied half the floor.

'Nothing here!' said the captain, and took the lamp from my hand. He held it low down over the rows of little chests.

'The thirteenth!' he said, with a little gasp. 'Where's the thirteenth— No. 13?'

He was right. The bullion-chest which should have stood between No. 12 and No. 14 was gone. We set to and counted every chest, verifying the numbers. They were all there, numbered up to 60, except for the gap of the thirteenth. Somehow, in some way, a thousand ounces of gold had been removed from out of the sealed room. In a very agitated but thorough manner the captain and I made a close examination of the room; but it was plain that any entry that had been made could only have been through the sealed doorway. Then he led the way out, and having tried the lock several times, and found it showed no signs of having been tampered with, he locked and sealed up the door again, sealing the tape also right across the keyhole. Then, as a thought came to him, he told me to stay by the door whilst he went up into the saloon.

In a few minutes he returned with the purser, both armed and carrying lamps. They came very quietly, and paused with me outside the door, and examined the old seals and the door itself. Then, at the purser's request, the captain removed the new seals, and unlocked the door.

As he opened it the purser turned suddenly and looked behind him. I heard it also— a vague whispering, seeming to be in the air, then it was drowned and lost in the creaking of the timbers. The captain had heard the sound, and was standing in the doorway holding his lamp high and looking in, pistol ready in his right hand, for to him it had seemed to come from within the bullion-room. Yet the place was as empty as we had left it but a few minutes before— as, indeed, it was bound to be— of any living creature. The captain went to where the bullion-chest was missing, and stooped to point out the gap to the purser.

A queer exclamation came from him, and he remained stooping, whilst the purser and I pressed forward to find what new thing had happened now. When I saw what the captain was staring at, you will understand that I felt simply dazed, for there right before his face, in its proper place, was the thirteenth bullion-chest, as, indeed, it must have been all the while.

'You've been dreaming,' said the purser, with a burst of relieved laughter. 'My goodness, but you did give me a fright!'

The captain and I stared at the rematerialised treasure-chest, and then at one another.

'That chest was not there a few minutes ago!' the captain said at length. Then he brushed the hair off his forehead, and looked again at the chest. 'Are we dreaming?' he said at last, and looked at me. He touched the chest with his foot, and I did the same with my hand; but it was no illusion, and we could only suppose that we had made some extraordinary mistake.

I turned to the purser.

'But the whispering!' I said. 'You heard the whispering!'

'Yes,' said the captain. 'What was that? I tell you there's something queer knocking about, or else we're all mad.'

The purser stared, puzzled and nodding his head.

'I heard something,' he said. 'The chief thing is, the stuff is there all right. I suppose you'll put a watch over it?'

'By Moses! Yes!' said the captain. 'The mates and I'll sleep with that blessed gold until we hand it ashore in London!'

And so it was arranged. We three officers took it in turn to sleep actually inside the bullion-room itself, being sealed and locked in with the treasure. In addition to this, the captain made the petty officers keep watch and watch with him and the purser, through the whole of each twenty-four hours, trapesing round and round that wretched bullion-room until not a mouse could have gone in or out without being seen. In addition, he had the deck above and below thoroughly examined by the carpenter once in every twenty-four hours, so that never was a treasure so scrupulously guarded.

For our part, we officers began to grow pretty sick of the job, once the touch of excitement connected with the thought of robbery had worn off. And when, as sometimes happened, we were aware of that extraordinary whispering, it was only the captain's determination and authority which made us submit to the constant discomfort and breaking of our sleep; for every hour the watchman on the outside of the bullion-room would knock twice on the boards of the room, and the sleeping officer within would have to rouse, take a look round and knock back twice, to signify that all was well.

Sometimes I could almost think that we got into the way of doing this in our sleep, for I have been roused to my watch on deck, with no memory of having answered the watchman's knock, though a cautious inquiry showed me that I had done so.

Then, one night when I was sleeping in the bullion-room, a rather queer thing happened. Something must have roused me between the times of the watchman's knocks, for I wakened suddenly and half sat up, with a feeling that something was wrong somewhere. As in a dream, I looked round, and all the time fighting against my sleepiness. Everything seemed normal; but when I looked at the tiers of bullion-chests I saw that there was a gap among them. Some of the chests had surely gone.

I stared in a stupid, nerveless way, as a man full of sleep sometimes will do, without rousing himself to realise the actuality of the things he looks at. And even as I stared I dozed over and fell back, but seemed to waken almost immediately and look again at the chests. Yet it was plain that I must have seen dazedly and half-dreaming, for not a bullion-chest was missing, and I sank back again thankfully to my slumber.

Yet when at the end of my 'treasure watch' (as we had grown to call our watch below) I reported my queer half-dream to the captain, he came down himself and made a thorough examination of the bullion-room, also questioning the sail-maker, who had been the watchman outside. But he said there had been nothing unusual, only that once he had thought he heard the curious whispering going about in the air of the lazarette.

And so that queer voyage went on, with over us all the time a sense of peculiar mystery, vague and indefinable; so that one thought a thousand strange weird thoughts which one lacked the courage to put into words. And the other times there was only a sense of utter weariness of it all, and the one desire to get to port and be shut of it and go back to a normal life in some other vessel. Even the passengers— many of whom were returning diggers— were infected by the strange atmosphere and of uncertainty that prompted our constant guarding of the bullion, for it had got known among them that a special guard was being kept, and that certain inexplicable things had happened. But the captain refused their offers of help, preferring to keep his own men about the gold, as you may suppose.

At last we reached London and docked; and now occurred the strangest thing of all. When the bank officials came aboard to take over the gold, the captain took them down to the bullion-room, where the carpenter was walking round as outside watchman, and the first mate was sealed inside, as usual.

The captain explained that we were taking unusual precautions, and broke the seals. When, however, they unlocked and opened the door, the mate did not answer to the captain's call, but was seen to be lying quiet beside the gold. Examination showed that he was quite dead; but there was nowhere any mark or sign to show that his death was unnatural. As the captain said to me afterwards, 'Another case of "just sickening and going off." I wouldn't sail again in this packet for anything the owners liked to offer me!'

The officials examined the boxes, and, finding all in order had them taken ashore up to the bank, and very thankful I was to see the last of it. Yet this is where I was mistaken, for about an hour later, as I was superintending the slinging out of some heavy cargo, there came a message from the bank to the effect that every one of the bullion-chests was a dummy filled with lead, and that no one be allowed to leave the ship until an inquiry and search had been made.

This was carried out rigorously, so that not a cabin or a scrap of personal luggage was left unexamined, and afterwards the ship herself was searched, but nowhere was there any signs of the gold; yet as there must have been something like a ton of it, it was not a thing that could have been easily hidden.

Permission was now given to all that they might go ashore, and I proceeded once more to supervise the slinging out of heavy stuff that I had been 'bossing' when the order came from the bank. And all the time, as I gave my orders, I felt in a daze. How could nearly seventeen hundredweight of gold have been removed out of that guarded bullion-room? I remembered all the curious things that had been heard and seen and half-felt. Was there something queer about the ship? But my reason objected: there was surely some explanation of the mystery.

Abruptly I came out of my thoughts, for the man on the shore-gear had just let a heavy case down rather roughly, and a dandy-looking person was cursing him for his clumsiness. It was then that a possible explanation of the mystery came to me, and I determined to take the risk of testing it. I jumped ashore and swore at the man who was handling the gear, telling him to slack away more carefully, to which he replied, 'Ay, ay, sir.' Then, under my breath, I said:

'Take no notice of the hard talk, Jimmy. Let the next one come down good and solid. I'll take the responsibility if it smashes.'

Then I stood back and let Jimmy have his chance. The next case went well up to the block before Jimmy took a turn and signalled to the winch to vast heaving.

'Slack away handsome!' yelled Jimmy and he let his own rope smoke round the bollard. The case came down, crashing from a height of thirty feet, and burst on the quay. As the dust cleared I heard the dandy cursing at the top of his voice.

I did not bother about him. What was attracting my attention was the fact that among the heavy timbers of the big case was a number of the missing bullion-chests. I seized my whistle and blew it for one of the 'prentices. When he came I told him to run up the quay for a policeman. Then I turned to the captain and the third mate, who had come running ashore, and explained. They ran to the lorry on which the other cases had been placed, and with the help of some of the men pulled them down again on to the quay. But when they came to search for the swell stranger, who had been looking after the unloading of the stolen gold, he was nowhere to be found; so that, after all, the policeman had nothing to do when he arrived but mount guard over the recovered bullion, of which, I am glad to say, not a case was missing.

LATER, a more intelligent examination into things revealed how the robbery had been effected. When we took down the temporary bullion-room we found that a very cleverly concealed sliding panel had been fitted into the end opposite to the door. This gave us the idea to examine a wooden ventilator which came up through the deck near by from the lower hold. And now we held the key to the whole mystery.

Evidently there had been quite a gang of thieves aboard the ship. They had built the cases ashore, and packed them with loaded dummy bullion-chests, sealed and banded exactly like the originals. These had been placed in the hold at Melbourne as freight, under the name of 'specimens.' In the meanwhile some of the band must have got our carpenter, who had built the bullion-room, and promised him a share of the gold if he would build the secret panel into one end. Then, when we got to sea, the thieves got down into the lower hold through one of the forrard hatches, and, having opened one of the cases, began to exchange the dummies for the real chests, by climbing up inside the wooden ventilator shaft, which the carpenter had managed to fit with a couple of boards that slid to one side, just opposite to the secret panel in the wooden bullion-room.

It must have been very slow work, and their whispering to one another had been carried up the ventilator shaft, which passed right through the captain's cabin, under the appearance of a large ornamental strut, or upright, supporting the arm-racks. It was this unexpected carrying of the sound which had brought the captain and me down unexpectedly, and nearly discovered them; so that they had not even had time to replace the thirteenth chest with its prepared dummy.

I don't think there is much more to explain. There is very little doubt in my mind that the captain's extraordinary precautions must have made things difficult for the robbers, and that they could only get to work then when the carpenter happened to be the outside watchman. It is also obvious to me that some drug which threw off narcotic fumes must have been injected into the bullion-room, to ensure the officer not waking at inconvenient moments, so that the time that I did waken, and felt so muddled I must have been in a half-stupefied condition, and did really see that some of the chests were gone; but these were replaced so soon as I fell back asleep. The first mate must have died from an over-prolonged inhalation of the drug.

I think that is all that has to do with this incident. Perhaps, though, you may be pleased to hear that I was both handsomely rewarded for having solved the mystery. So that, altogether, I was very well satisfied.

___________________

8: An Idyll of the Hills

Louis Tracy

1863-1928

Los Angeles Herald Sunday Magazine 22 Nov 1908

CAPT. ARTHUR CALDECOTT, captain in the Royal Bengal Lancers, sat in his darkened bungalow at 4 o'clock one afternoon in June, sipped a cup of tea, smoked a Burma cheroot, and tried to read. His costume was most unlancerlike, consisting mainly of the lack of it, though he might be excused on the score of propriety seeing that his only companion was a fox terrier, that the thermometer stood at 114 degrees, and that he was about to dress and ride to the club. But the book, considering his environment, was the most amazing item in that bizarre abode of bachelordom. since it was actually a charmingly bound copy of Tennyson's poems, which Caldecott's mother had sent him as a birthday present. He found it on his table when he came in from the orderly room, and, like a dutiful son. sat down instantly to ex- amine it. By chance, he had opened the volume at the "Idylls of the King," and he read:

And Arthur yet had done no deed of arms,

But heard the call, and came; and Guinevere

Stood by the castle walls to watch him pass;

But since he neither wore on helm or shield

The golden symbol of his kinghood,

But rode a simple knight among his knights,

And many of these in richer arms than he,
the saw him not, or mark'd not, if she saw,

One among many....

"That's me, pup," said he to the dog. "No deed of arms, no golden symbol— not many silver ones if it comes to that— and not even a wink from Gwinny. In fact, we don't know the lady, do we, you small sinner?"

Guinevere was waiting, nevertheless, and Arthur Caldecott was destined to meet her ere he was many days older. For behold, his application for leave was unexpectedly granted, and within forty-eight hours he was one of two men seated in the Calcutta mail as it sped northward across the Punjab desert, and who kept themselves alive by tying iced towels round their heads and imbibing fabulous quantities of liquid.

"Colonel," said Caldecott, "did you ever know a hotter day than this?"

The veteran he appealed to a military engineer of twenty years' service on state railways, seemed to think the question worthy of serious consideration.

"Well," he said at length. "I can't say it was hotter when we made the final inspection of the Sibi extension, but the results were worse. The ice machine in Lahore had broken down, so we drank tepid water before the trip ended, and three fellows died from heat apoplexy. You'd better give that dog another dose."

This seemingly irrelevant remark applied to Huz, who was accompanying his master, and whose exuberant vitality had yielded to the effects of a two days' journey in the train. He was now lying on a seat, panting with painful rapidity, and his tongue was stretched out as though he had run ten miles after a galloping horse. The water in the reservoir overhead was not available, being nearly at boiling point. Before it could be borne on the face or hands a large lump of ice had to be melted in it. So Caldecott opened a bottle of iced soda and douched the dog with it. This treatment had been effectual thus far in keeping the unfortunate Huz alive, and now he revived sufficiently to wag his tail. A very feeble wag, certainly, but still a distinct indication of a desire to survive and fight many other dogs before the end came.

"I am sorry I brought him." said Arthur, pityingly.

"Oh. he will be all right. He was a perky enough imp when he came aboard, and he will be the happiest dog as soon as he smells the pines this afternoon."

Shortly before midday the travelers reached the end of their railway journey, and Huz deluded himself into the joyous belief that his troubles were over. He even forgot himself so far as to bark furiously at a pariah who skulked up to the carriage on the chance of picking something out of an unguarded tiffin basket. But when he was unceremoniously bundled into a tonga, and the vehicle commenced its forty miles' jog to the foot of the hills, he resigned himself to repose on his master's knee.

THERE was not much talk during the drive. The lancer had seen his fellow voyageur's rank and name— Col. H. S. Mortimer, R. E.— on his luggage, and knew, therefore, that he was a great man in Calcutta society, but he had not met him previously.

At last the tonga stopped for the seventh time, and Arthur thought it was only to change the ponies. But Col. Mortimer jumped down, exclaiming:

"Here we are! Now for a cup of tea before we ride up."

Caldecott looked around.

"Why," he yelled delightedly, "the sky is blue!"

The other smiled at his enthusiasm. If people in England knew what it meant to see a blue sky after many weary months of existence under a dome of burnished brass, they would understand the joy of that exclamation. The blue sky over the hills is a thing to be remembered long after the Indian heat has died out of the bones.

Oddly enough, Caldecott had never before been to a hill station. His earlier periods of leave had been spent in tiger shooting and pig sticking, varied by one memorable run home. So, after ten years' soldiering in India, he was a very boy in his glee at the wonders around him, and his enthusiasm made the grizzled veteran by his side feel more kindly disposed toward him than would otherwise be the case after the brief acquaintance of a journey.

Huz, having been swindled once, did not believe his ears when the rustling of leaves and the plash of tumbling rivulets reached him. But a monkey swinging across a low, overhanging branch was too much for him, or, indeed, for any animal worthy of the name or fox terrier. His mad rush to the foot of the tree and three feet up its side sent Jacko flying up the trunk, and thenceforth Huz was a glad dog. He drank much milk at the half-way rest house, and nearly murdered Mrs. Gen. Tompkins's pet poodle in the porch of the hotel.

When Caldecott entered the dining room at 8 o'clock he saw a pretty, golden-haired girl, with the profile of a Greek goddess, and eyes of myosotis blue, talking to Col. Mortimer, her hand resting on his shoulder, and implying by this familiar act that she was his daughter Thereupon the lancer softly called himself a dunder-headed fool for not having made himself particularly civil to his former companion. Of course, this was the Sybil Mortimer of whom the papers were talking so much when the Calcutta amateurs performed "La Mascotte" last cold weather. She played the title role, and enchanted everybody with her grace and beauty, not to speak of her powers as an actress and singer. Ye gods! He had let the old man cut his own ice, and lose the toss for drinks at Lahore!

He was stalking off to a distant table when Col. Mortimer called to him: "Here, Caldecott, won't you come and sit near us? Let me introduce you to my daughter, Sybil— Capt. Caldecott, of the Royal Lancers."

That was how it commenced; the finish was different.

"How many ponies have you brought up?" said Miss Mortimer, after the incidents of the journey had been duly glorified.

"None. I have leased my team to a civilian. I mean to try and buy a local tat as soon as possible."

"Ah!" commented the lady, "he is poor." Then aloud: "I suppose you felt it awfully dull down on the plains?"

" 'Dull' is not the word for it. The only break in the monotony is an occasional day's pigsticking, and my mother's weekly letter."

"Unmarried," thought Miss Mortimer, "and free. Boys who are in love don't enthuse about their mater. He will do."

In other words, he would make a nice addition to her jungle teas and tennis parties, take her out for a ride on a spare day, and generally fetch and carry, as all well-behaved British officers under thirty are supposed to do when on leave in a hill station.

"You have never been here before?" she said.

"No. and I don't think I shall want to go away."

"Good gracious! It is not so charming as all that; besides, you haven't seen the place yet."

Arthur was about to say that one glimpse of the inhabitants had been sufficient to cause him to form an opinion; but, although habituated to "flying" obstacles, he realized that he was doing very well— the joint had not yet appeared— so he contented himself with murmuring rather awkwardly that even during the brief ride up he had gained a very favorable impression of Gharial.

Miss Sybil had noted his pause. She knew that he was mentally switching off on to another line, and could have told him exactly what was in his wind.

"Dear me," she thought, "this young man wants to flirt. He shall get it."

Wherein this beautiful witch was quite mistaken. Arthur Caldecott, the liveliest man at mess and the hardest rider of his regiment, took two things seriously— his profession and his love. The native troopers used to say that Kalkit Sahib (a native never pronounces your name correctly) when in command of his troop always had the enemy in front of him, which was their way of conveying the idea that he was a careful, painstaking officer. As for his affections, they had never been lavished on any other object than his mother, to whom he would ever remain the bright, curly haired boy who was her only solace when her husband fell at the head of his regiment during the second Afghan war. It were an ill deed for any woman to smash up Arthur Caldecott's idylls both in love and war, yet that is what Sybil Mortimer very nearly succeeded in accomplishing.

THE next three months opened up a new life to the lancer. Lawn tennis possessed a hitherto undiscovered charm if Sybil were his partner, and galloping on the verge of precipitous paths was the finest thing on earth if only his hardly Kabuli pony were exerting itself manfully to keep up with the easy strides of Miss Mortimer's Arab. The handsome bay mare in question was,  however, the first cause of annoyance to Arthur. He discovered that she was a present from Mr. Commissioner Wragg to Sybil— "an old schoolfellow of dad's, you know," she explained— and Wragg was a bachelor, with a certain chief secretaryship and a possible knighthood looming in the distance.

Wragg was over forty, and looked older, but with ladies he was essentially an homme galant. Arthur would often have liked to kick him soundly for his obtrusive attentions to Sybil, but that young lady did not seem to favor any such drastic treatment of "dad's old schoolfellow"— who, by the way, had three thousand rupees a month. To think of him as a rival was, of course, impossible. By this time, it need hardly be said that the young captain was over head and ears in love. His mother sighed deeply when she read his extravagant praises of Sybil Mortimer. No girl could be too good for her son, and she prayed even night that he might be happy in his choice, as happy as she was long years ago when she said "Yes" to a gallant dragoon who picturesquely suggested that they should drive tandem for the rest ot their lives, with herself as the leader.

Mrs. Caldecott wrote long letters telling Arthur what a true and faithful wife should be, and, though he could not honestly say that Sybil's characteristics were those depicted by his mother, yet she was only nineteen. Besides. if mother could but lee his sweetheart, she would be sure to love her. as everybody else did.

Some of the ladies in the hotel did not share this opinion. Mrs. Gen. Tompkins, who, when Huz had been whipped into a silent but unconquerable aversion to the poodle, liked Arthur for his manly, straightforward qualities, took it upon herself to warn him against the dangers of flirtation if carried to extreme lengths. But a stern expression came into his face which caused her to pull up short. As she afterward confessed to a friend: "I dared not say any more, for he looked just like the poor dear general (departed) did when I said he was podgy on horseback. There are some things a man won't listen to from a woman, my dear."

So it came to pass that one night Arthur and Sybil were standing together at the extreme end of the veranda, well screened from observation by the twining creepers which twisted in profusion around the wooden pillars, and drooped in graceful festoons from the eaves. All day long the rain had lashed the hillsides in pitiless torrents; but now the storm had passed, and the awful solitudes of the Himalayas lay in vast expanse before them, bathed in a glorious sea of moonlight.

They were both rather silent. Caldecott had made up his mind to learn his fate that night. He left early next morning to rejoin his regiment, as there was a chance of being ordered on active service. He had just communicated the fact to Miss Mortimer, and she made no reply. That encouraged him.

At last the situation became irksome, and she felt obliged to say something.

"What a nuisance that the rain should keep on so long, and spoil our last ride together!"

Then Arthur knew that his time had come.

"No, Sybil," he said, with calm desperation, "for heaven's sake don't say that! Not our last."

"Oh!" she replied, ignoring the use of her Christian name. "I did not mean anything serious. Of course. I hope we shall meet again." Even her well-preserved heart was now beginning to beat a little faster than usual.

"Sybil," he said, coming nearer to her  and she did not shrink away— "I love you, and I want to ask you to be my wife. I cannot offer you much save my love, yet if you will accept that I will try to make you happy. Can you care for me a little bit?"

It was very nice, this lovemaking in the moonlight, so Sybil allowed her head to droop on his shoulder, and Huz, who was watching the scene carefully, with cocked ears and head a little on one side, now had his attention diverted by the fact that an ant thought the black spot in the center of his back was a nice cozy place to sleep in for the night. So Huz turned his head to interview the ant, and there were no other spectators.

Anyhow, Arthur felt absurdly happy, and Sybil thought that she really loved him. She knows now that she will never love any other man; but enlightenment came late.

Next morning, at daybreak, Caldecott rode after his baggage down to the tonga station. Aroused by the unusual commotion, Mrs. Gen. Tompkins's poodle came out to see what the row was about. Huz knew he was going from this pleasant land of mutton bones and pie crust, yet his mortal enemy dared to put in an appearance, to crow over him to speak. Gadzooks! Was a woolly Pomeranian to sneer at a true-bred British terrier? Never! That poodle required nursing and combing for a week before he was pronounced convalescent. So master and dog left Gharial in a fairly contented frame of mind.

THAT was the end of September. On the closing day of December, a date when most people, at anv rate in the civilized world, are looking forward to a "bright and prosperous New Year," as the season's cards put it, Capt. Arthur Caldecott was in as tight a place as the fiercest of fire-eaters could desire. The expedition had come off. A tribal section of the great Waziri community was tired of being good and sought a little diversion by way of being bad. Now, a bad Afghan is a most objectionable person. He kills people, and likes doing it, but the government of India is extremely averse to such behavior— in an unauthorized way, that is. It was all right to kill Waziris when they were troublesome, but the Waziris must not carve anybody else. As a rule, the hill men take their slaughter nicely. They rush on, with fine contempt for lead traveling 2,000 feet per second, into the teeth of a hurricane of missiles from Lee-Metfords, Maxims, mountain batteries and other pleasant devices provided for their benefit by a far-seeing government. When they are mowed down sufficiently they retire, send in hostages, are lectured by the political officer, and become good again for a time. But a periodical blood-letting they are determined to have, and they get it.

On this occasion, however, they did not quite meet the views of the sahibs. They actually chose their own time and place for the fight, and it really seemed during one portion of the fray "as it the beggars thought they were going to lick us." At least, that is what the senior staff officer said, and it was deemed to be very funny by those who heard him. Perhaps one might not see the humor of it, but it is always advisable to laugh at anything the senior staff officer says, if he means it as a joke. For goodness' sake do not laugh at his other remarks, or there will be serious trouble.

The fact of the matter was that the British force had been cleverly decoyed into a nasty position, where they had to form an irregular square, and only one-fourth of their fire was available against the enemy's main attack. W ith less-seasoned tfoops, or against a civilized enemy, the little brigade would have been swept away in a very few minutes; but as every native soldier had invincible confidence in the sahibs, and as each British officer and private felt cocksure of winning ultimately, there was no desperation or nervousness, although certainly there was some disorder.

The only man who seemed to be really anxious was the commander in chief. He knew quite well that things were not as they should be, and his heart ached a little when he saw that a lull in the attack was only the prelude to another and more spirited onset in a very short space of time. The respite was used to good effect, however. The Maxims were wheeled into a better position, the horses of the cavalry were ranged in greater uniformity, and the mules were placed among the commissariat bullocks, where their plunging, if hit, caused less confusion.

Arthur Caldecott was standing by his troop, waiting eagerly for the order to ride forth and cut up the retreating tribesmen. He, like the other British officers, was mounted; the men stood at their horses' heads. His thoughts reverted to Sybil for a moment. He had sent her an engagement ring, which cost him three polo ponies. He wrote to her regularly, and though he had not heard from her of late, this, no doubt, was owing to the difficulty experienced in reaching the field post-office. When the expedition ended he would interview her father, and make arrangements for the marriage. Needless to mention, the faithful Huz was sitting on his tail at the horse's forefeet, and taking a keen interest in life. This sort of fun was almost equal to meeting another terrier of choleric habit.

During the lull in the attack a subaltern attached to the mountain battery offered Caldecott a cigarette, first lighting it for him.

"By the way. old chap," he said, "you knew the Mortimer girl at Gharial. didn't you?"

"Yes," replied Arthur, smiling at the unconscious thought-reader.

"Well, she's gone and married old Wragg. Beastly shame, isn't it, for an old buffer like that to hook off with one of our best girls. She took him for his dibs, I suppose."

For a moment Caldecott thought he had been struck by a bullet, but his horse moved owing to the involuntary tightening of his bridle hand, and this slight thing brought him back to a dulled sense of his surroundings.

"How do you know?" he asked. And his listener did not notice the change in his voice.

"Saw the wedding in the papers. They were married in the cathedral at Calcutta. The viceroy was there, and no end of bigwigs. It's tommy-rot, all the same, that a chap like Wragg—"

Here the subaltern used a few earnest words, for his helmet had been knocked off by a marble fired from a jezail. He picked up his damaged topi and hurried away to his guns, as the attack was recommencing.

WHY Caldecott went mad he himself does not know now but during the next few minutes he was a sheer lunatic. Sybil married! Sybil false to him! Sybil, who had twined her arms around him, and in wnose eyes shone love if ever it did in woman's! Then there must be an end to this farce of life. There was no further place for him in this world. And right in front lay the way out. The wild tribesmen are making their last desperate attack, and, though they are falling in scores, the Tommies and sepoys are dropping too. Already there is a gap which is but loosely filled up. Have at them, then, Arthur, old fellow, and die sword in hand! Perhaps, when she hears of it she will know the reason. Pray now, fond mother in far-off Devon— there is dire need for your intercession, most desperate need. Already Caldecott has dismounted, in strict defiance of orders, whereat his subadar gazes in silent amazement, but remains passive, for the sahib can do no wrong. But he has run out from the shattered square into the midst of the enemy, and perhaps it is too late for prayers. Well, not quite! That time never arrives while a man lives.

Though determined to commit suicide, our lancer meant to go to the next world, if not in good company, at least not alone. So he killed one Ghazi with a cut, and thrust another through the mouth so strongly that the sword stuck in the Pathan's skull. Before he could withdraw the weapon a stalwart tribesman cut straight at him with a keen and heavy tulwar. Involuntarily, he raised his left arm to ward off the blow, and the stroke was so hard and true that it almost severed his hand at the wrist. Another tulwar flashed in the air. and Caldecott's time-glass would have run out had not Huz made his teeth meet in the Afghan's bare leg. The unexpected assault in a most vulnerable part disconcerted the native's aim, and is descending weapon only served to turn aside a spear-thrust intended for the infidel's heart. The next instant Arthur struck him in the mouth with his sound fist. So clean was the punch that when the Waziri's corpse was examined afterward it was found that all his upper front teeth were dislodged

Meanwhile, a strange thing had happened. A section of a British company, when they saw an officer knocking over the enemy like ninepins, "couldn't stick it," as they remarked subsequently, and rushed at the enemy like one man. They were followed by the rest of the company, who did not know what the trouble was, but wanted to be in it. The Sepoys were tired of standing still, so, with a wild yell, they broke and joined in the scrimmage on their own account. The result, a few seconds later, was that the cavalry were in their saddles and mercilessly cutting down the retreating enemy, and the artillery were shelling groups of fugitives where mounted pursuit was impossible.

As the senior staff officer put it: "The psychological moment, which must always be reckoned with in strategy, had been seized at the precise period when the defense should be converted into the attack." He was very scientific, and he delivered a beautiful lecture on the question at the Simla United Service club during the next hot weather.

The comander in chief took off his helmet, wiped his face, which was pale and streaming with perspiration, and muttered: "Caldecott ought to be cashiered for what he did, but if he is alive I must get him the V.C. I don't think we could have stood five minutes longer, and that unexpected counter-attack saved us."

The surgeon who was the first to attend to Arthur heard him say, when he opened his eyes, "I am sorry, Sybil, dear, but I meant to die."

FIuz came out of the conflict minus an ear, a fact which gives him a peculiarly bloodthirsty appearance when on the warpath. At other times he looks rather comical, and sympathizes with his master's plaint: "I lost the use of a hand, and you lost an ear over a woman who wasn't worth it, didn't we, Huz?"

Whereupon Huz wags his tail until his tail almost wags him, for he knows the whole story.

People are saying that Major Caldecott. V.C., and the sister of the junior captain, who housekeeps for her brother, will be married soon. Evelyn Millar is certainly a charming woman, whom Arthur's mother had known and appreciated in England. But nobody can say anything definite on the point except they themselves— and Huz. If the latter is interrogated, he cocks his remaining ear.

__________________

9: The Pool of Secrets

Gwyn Evans

1898-1938

Detective Weekly, 23 Feb 1935

British author of many Sexton Blake stories as well as a large number of non-Blake stories such as this one.

'AY, THERE SURELY be strange goings-on up at the 'All nowadays.'

Old Gorble shook his head dubiously, and gazed ruminatively at his half-empty tankard, and then at the other occupant of the cosy tap-room of the village inn.

'Enough to make poor Sir 'Umphrey turn in his grave,' he added.

The stranger— a tall, distinguished-looking man, clad in comfortable tweeds— smiled pleasantly at the ancient and signalled to the attentive landlord to replenish their tankards.

'So the village doesn't like the change, eh?' he queried.

Old Gorble shook his head emphatically.

'That we don't, sir,' he answered. 'Mind ye, I ain't got nothink to say about the new squire. 'E's open-'anded and pleasant enough, but I don't 'old with these new-fangled ideas of 'is. Bathing beauties, 'ikers and such like,' he added darkly, with a nod of thanks to the landlord, who refilled their china mugs with old ale. ''Ere's your very good health, sir,' said the old man.

His weather-beaten face was seamed and lined, and his gnarled fingers crippled with rheumatism, but his vivid blue eyes twinkled humorously beneath his shaggy white eyebrows.

The stranger stretched out his lean, well-manicured hands towards the comfortable blaze that crackled in the wide old grate.

It was a crisp February afternoon, and the traveller had finished his lunch and had been lured to linger in the cosy bar parlour before setting off again from the quiet Hertfordshire village for London.

'Ay, it'll make a deal of difference to Lyveden village, I reckon,' said Gorble.

He winked shrewdly towards the landlord— a solid, lethargic man, and lowered his voice confidentially.

'Old Smithers 'ere will 'ave it that squire's going to open one of those noodist colonies on the estate, come warmer weather.'

He chuckled as he refilled his clay pipe.

'I wonder what the Silver Bride'd 'ave to say to that?'

'The Silver Bride?' echoed the stranger. 'Who's she?'

Old Gorble leant forward.

'Ain't you 'eard o' the Silver Bride o' Cheriton 'All, sir,' he queried.

The other shook his head. His shrewd, clean-shaven face kindled with interest, and he absently smoothed his iron-grey hair, one lock of which lay in a Napoleonic curl that hid the disfigurement on his wide, smooth forehead.

It was not often that Quentin Drex, that aloof and secretive man, exchanged tap-room gossip with village yokels, but business had taken him into Hertfordshire that morning, and he had been attracted by the old-world charm of the Cheriton Arms.

'She's very famous in these parts, sir,' said Gorble. 'I can't say I've zackly seen 'er meself, but me father 'as— ay, an' me granfer, too! She'm the family ghost o' the Cheritons,' he added. 'I believe the landlord 'ere 'as a cutting in the paper about it.'

He turned to that worthy, who nodded as he produced from his pocket a fat wallet and extracted a newspaper cutting.

Quentin Drex smiled as he took the proffered clipping, and his deep-set eyes grew abstracted as he scanned the headlines of the local paper.

RANCHER BARONET RETURNS

SIR CHARLES CHERITON'S ROMANTIC STORY

The Silver Bride Again

The romantic homecoming of the heir to the Cheriton estate recalls once more the legend of the Silver Bride, the apparition which is said to haunt the lake of Cheriton Hall.

It will be recalled that the new heir is known as the Cowboy Baronet, having lived most of his life on a ranch in Canada, and unaware of his inheritance until the death of his uncle, Sir Hugo Cheriton, two years ago.

It was thought that the estate would revert to a distant cousin of the late baronet, Mr Stephen Hawksbee, the well-known explorer and antiquary, but a world-wide search by the solicitors resulted in the romantic homecoming of the Cowboy Baronet, and a Cheriton once more is the Lord of the Manor of Lyveden.

The new baronet is unmarried, tall, a keen athlete, and has already entered into ambitious plans for the development of the estate and the restoration of the old manor house. He is accompanied by his younger brother, Tony Cheriton, who is destined for Oxford next year.

In an interview Sir Charles states that he intends to remodel the estate on modern lines and to convert the Hall into a luxurious country club with up-to-date sporting amenities, including a swimming pool and a miniature golf course.

'The upkeep of the estate is far too expensive, even for a confirmed bachelor,' said Sir Charles to our representative, and proceeded to outline his plans.

Recalling the family legend of the Silver Bride, whose tragic ghost is said to haunt the ornamental lake in the beautiful grounds of Cheriton, the Cowboy Baronet said lightly: 'I don't believe in ghosts. In any case, a phantom bride would be out of place in a modern swimming pool into which I intend to convert the lake.'

The legend of the Silver Bride is well known and strangely credited in the district, however. Many people claim to have seen the apparition of the unfortunate bride of the third baronet, Sir Nigel Cheriton, when she committed suicide on her wedding eve by drowning herself in the lake.

Her ghost, arrayed in a silver wedding dress and bridal veil, is said to haunt the grounds when the moon is full, and if seen by a Cheriton to presage disaster and death.'

Quentin Drex folded the clipping and handed it back to the landlord.

'Very interesting,' he commented. 'The new baronet seems to have a mind of his own.'

'He has that, sir. You should see the alterations 'e's 'ad done. Warm water in the swimming-pool, a proper London dance floor, a gymnasium, an' I don't know what else.'

'And noodists!' broke in old Gorble, with a sly wink at the detective. 'We shan't know the village when they starts goin' proper at the 'All. They say as Mr 'Awksbee, Sir Charles' cousin, is fair wild about it, 'im bein' a scholard and sich. Tho' if you ask me, it's only jealousy,' he added.

Quentin Drex rose leisurely to his feet and seized his broad-rimmed hat.

Suddenly the tap-room door burst open and a burly, thick-set figure lurched up to the counter.

'Quick! Give me a brandy, for mercy's sake!' he gasped.

The landlord frowned.

'What's the matter with you, Jem Walker?' he said heavily. 'Bargin' in like this.'

Drex's keen eyes turned towards the newcomer. The man's pale lips twitched and his face was a ghastly grey. His fingers shook as he fumbled in the pockets of his dungarees for the money, and there was fear— deathly fear— in his little close-set eyes.

'What's to do now?' said old Gorble. 'You look as if you've seen a ghost!'

'I 'ave!' replied Walker, with a shudder. 'I've just seen 'er— the Silver Bride!'

'Don't be a fool, man!' snapped the landlord. 'You're drunk, that's what, Jem Walker.'

'S'welp me, I ain't!' he said shakily. 'There she was, in the lake, 'er face all gashly and 'er dress silver. And she killed me dog—sucked 'is blood like the vampire she is!'

'You're crazy!' said the landlord. 'Git out of 'ere, Jem Walker, afore I calls the police!'

'Call 'em!' said the other, with a bitter laugh. 'It's gospel truth, if I drop dead this minute!'

Quentin Drex flung a coin on the counter.

'Give him his brandy!' he said, with quiet authority. 'The man's had a shock, obviously.'

Walker raised his glass to his twitching lips, and the wildness died out of his crafty eyes as he drank.

'Thank 'ee kindly, sir!' he muttered. 'I needed that! My pore l'il dog, Trimmer— dead! Bes' pal I ever 'ad!'

'How did it happen?' queried Drex soothingly.

'Well, sir, I was walkin' past the lake with my dog— a retriever, it were— an' just to amuse 'im like, I flung me stick into the water. He were after it like a flash, and then— the poor beast gave a dreadful howl, and— and I saw 'er with 'er white face and long silver veil streaming behind 'er! She gave a gashly laugh— an' the nex' I see is me dog gorn, and a pool o' red blood in the water!'

Quentin Drex pursed his lips thoughtfully.

'Queer!' he murmured. 'Sounds as if your dog had been attacked by a pike.'

'A pike!' said the other scornfully. 'There ain't no pikes in the lake, sir. There's nowt for 'em to feed on. It's only stagnant water, and shallow at that. Besides, I seed the Silver Bride with me own eyes!' he added obstinately.

Old Gorble shot a significant glance at the landlord.

The dusk had fallen and the short winter day was drawing to its close. The firelight flung fantastic shadows on the ancient rafters of the inn as Quentin Drex turned to the door.

'Interesting, very,' murmured Drex. 'Fill them up again, landlord. I must leave for London before dark!'

He brushed back his long hair from his forehead before donning his hat, revealing for a split second the hideous insignia that marred his brow— the Sign of the Scarlet Skull.

The Steel Man

THE GROTESQUE and the bizarre in life never failed to appeal to the complex character of Quentin Drex.

In one way, the skull tattooed on his forehead was symbolic of the strangeness of the man and his love for the fantastic. It was a relic of one of his exploits as a Secret Service man in China, and had been burnt into the skin by a vindictive mandarin, subsequently executed by a rival war lord.

Quentin Ellery Drex's mode of life was as fantastic as his personal character was monastic in tendency. A curious paradox not unfamiliar with men of action. His attitude to humanity in general consisted of the impersonal detachment of a scientist to a problem. A multi-millionaire— owner of London's most luxurious hotel, the Cliffstone— he lived in hermit-like seclusion in a modest suite near the roof of that dominant building above the Thames Embankment.

It was some weeks after Drex's visit to the Cheriton Arms at Lyveden that events occurred which were to recall vividly to his mind the queer story of the Silver Bride and Jem Walker's unfortunate dog.

Things had been quiet of late in the world of crime. Hardly a ripple stirred the unsavoury waters of the underworld, and Drex had devoted himself to a project that satisfied not only his love of the fantastic, but his scientific bent.

He returned one morning to the Hotel Cliffstone after an enlightening call at the Science Museum at Kensington. He avoided the grandiloquent main entrance of the vast hotel and let himself in by his own private lift in a side turning.

He entered the austerely furnished sitting-room, and, taking off his coat, lit one of the Malayan, black rice-paper cigarettes he affected. The door of the adjacent laboratory was ajar, and he pressed an ivory bell-push. There was no sound, but instantly in response to its silent summons a glittering figure glided into the room.

Its height was roughly six feet, and it was clad in a plain serviceable uniform of khaki drill.

Its construction had occupied most of Drex's leisure moments, and combined perfectly his love of the bizarre and the scientific.

The automaton was a triumph of applied mechanism and Drex's scientific genius— a super Robot of shining chromium steel— that responded to every whim of its creator.

In a whimsical moment, Drex had christened his automatic assistant Alpha, for it was the first of its kind. It was uncannily efficient, and save for its blank, expressionless steel face, almost human in its action and response.

Its answer to the silent summons seemed to border on the miraculous, but, in reality, it was Drex's application of wavelength and dynamics that was responsible.

Within the automaton's complex interior, an electric cell, in response to a short wavelength, set its locomotive machinery into action. The delicate mechanism was attuned even to the pitch of the detective's voice, and responded instantly at command.

'Well, Alpha,' said Drex quietly, 'anything to report?'

There came a faint whirring sound as the machinery controlling a wax record was set in action by the timbre of the detective's voice.

'Yes, sir. Phone call from Morgan at ten-twenty-seven a.m. Speaking from Lyveden,' replied the automaton, in a flat metallic voice that was nevertheless perfectly clear and intelligible.

Quentin Drex chuckled.

His bizarre sense of humour had evolved the seeming miracle of making a Robot speak. Actually the phenomenon was simplicity itself.

One of the controls within the Robot's interior was attuned to the exact timbre of a telephone bell— a private 'phone for Drex's exclusive use. In response to the 'phone summons, the Robot automatically lifted the receiver and the wax gramophone disc within its steel skull was set in motion and recorded the voice at the other end of the wire.

It was an ingenious piece of mechanism, but as simple of comprehension as the principles of the dictaphone. Alpha merely repeated mechanically the dictated message.

Drex drew out his notebook and listened intently as the metallic voice continued:

'Morgan speaking, chief. I've kept observation, and there's no doubt there's some funny business happening here. The man Jem Walker seems to have vanished completely since his quarrel with Sir Charles about the dog. The villagers are hinting that there is some sort of foul play going on, and that either Walker, the ghost, or both are at the bottom of it. Two more people claim to have seen the Silver Bride in the past week, and the village is full of rumours.

'The Country Club opens tonight, and there's great excitement locally. I'm standing by until further orders at the Cheriton Arms. Message ends.'

There was a click, and Drex tapped thoughtfully with his pencil on his strong, white teeth.

The Robot stood, motionless as a statue, its steel arms rigid at its sides.

Quentin Drex turned over the pages of his notebook, an abstracted look in his keen eyes.

In his neat, microscopic shorthand he had tabulated the sequel to his visit to Lyveden some weeks before. He refreshed his memory by re-reading a cutting from a local paper reporting a case in which Jem Walker had been charged with assault.

From the evidence, it appeared that the man had repeatedly threatened to molest the cowboy baronet, Sir Charles, unless he was compensated for the loss of his dog. The magistrate pointed out that Walker had already accepted five pounds and that he was trespassing in the first place.

His conduct was aggravated by the assault and he was sentenced to fourteen days.

A curious feature of the evidence, Drex reflected, was that the skeleton of the dog, the bones picked clean, had been found in the lake after it had been drained to make a site for the swimming pool.

And now, after serving his sentence, Jem Walker had disappeared. His wife feared foul play, as he was last seen by a gamekeeper at an early hour in the morning on the Cheriton estate.

Walker had been missing for three weeks now, and Drex had dispatched his outside assistant to investigate the matter. He frowned thoughtfully as he scanned Morgan's report.

What was the mystery of Jem Walker's disappearance? What was the secret of the Silver Bride? That Walker's dog had been killed there was no shadow of doubt, and Drex was sure that the man had not been lying as he spoke of the terror in the lake.

He decided that Cheriton Hall would be worth a visit, especially as it was a full moon that evening, a propitious night for the Silver Bride to walk.

The usually sleepy Herts village was agog with excitement, for tonight the new-fangled wonders of Cheriton Hall were to be opened to the public. The landlord of the Cheriton Arms did a brisk business, and his courtyard was packed with cars belonging to the 'Lunnon' folk.

All sorts of rumours were afoot regarding the novelties and sensations in store for the fortunate guests of the new Country Club.

Quentin Drex reached the inn shortly after eight p.m. and, dodging the garrulous and slightly bibulous Mr Gorble, he held a hurried conference with Morgan.

'Looks like being a success, sir,' the other informed him. 'Sir Charles is certainly a go-getter. They've hired Al Jelks' band for the night, and I'm told there's pretty high stakes in the card-room.'

Quentin Drex pursed his lips thoughtfully.

'Heard nothing further about Walker, I suppose?'

Morgan shook his head.

'No, sir. He seems to have vanished completely, and no one but his poor wife seems to regret it. He was a bit of a bad character, by all accounts.'

'I see. Well, stand by until further orders,' said Drex.

He parked his car at the inn and resolved to walk to the manor house. It was a beautiful moonlit night, but with a chill nip in the air.

Cheriton Hall, a magnificent Tudor mansion, stood in the centre of a rolling deer park, perfect in its seclusion, yet on the main London road.

Drex had easily secured a ticket of admission from Torino, his invaluable mâitre d'hôtel, and though he seldom indulged in Society functions, he was pleasurably anticipating a novel evening in its sylvan setting.

He made a handsome, distinguished figure as he stepped briskly up the long carriage driveway towards the manor. It was a fine old house, well built of creeper-clad brick, and with yellow, friendly lights shining behind the leaded panes of the old mullioned windows.

A butler took his invitation card in the hallway and a moment later he faced his host.

Sir Charles was a lean, tanned young man, with a sharp, hooked nose, high cheekbones, and an air of alert wiry fitness that spoke of the open prairies.

He greeted Drex with breezy cordiality, but it was obvious that he had little idea of his identity.

'Come right in, sir. Let's go to the bar and be friendly,' he said.

Drex glanced appreciatively at the fine oak panelling of the manor as his host led him through the thronged corridor.

It was about nine p.m., and Drex recognised the usual fashionable crowd who frequent first-night functions.

'Looks pretty good, eh?' said Sir Charles complacently. 'A change from a prairie shack.'

Drex smiled.

'I hear you have made many innovations.'

'You bet I have!' said the baronet. 'My uncle only bothered about old parchments and armour— but me, I'm all for the modern stuff. Take a slant at that, sir.'

He waved his hand towards the open door of the conservatory which led to the spacious gardens of the manor. Hundreds of coloured lights glittered like some strange exotic fruits in the trees, and the scene looked ethereally beautiful in the moonlight.

'So that's the famous swimming pool,' said Drex, as he gazed across a velvet lawn to where a silver sheet of water glittered in the moonlight.

The baronet glanced at him sharply.

'Yes, but I'm afraid it's not quite complete yet. In any case, we don't expect bathers tonight. It's too darned chilly.'

He shivered slightly, and excused himself to greet other guests.

Drex strolled through the grounds and studied the decorations. The outlay had evidently been costly, but it seemed worth it. He heard the subdued hum of voices and a gay lilt of laughter from the arbours beneath the trees that surrounded the swimming pool.

The latter was nearly two hundred yards in length and built of green-veined marble. It had two diving-boards, and dominating the deep end was a bronze statue of a Grecian beauty blowing a shell horn.

Drex lit a cigarette and heard a burst of hilarious laughter from a near-by shrubbery. He drew back in the shadows as he saw three young men in evening dress swaying rather uncertainly to the rhythm of the music.

Drex recognised the Hon. Jimmy Welbank, a young racing motorist, and his crony Gillie Fletcher, a wealthy and dissipated young clubman.

He smiled cynically. Judging by their unsteady movements they were evidently enjoying themselves.

'Lesh go and 'ave a swim!' said Fletcher. 'Lesh play mermaids.'

'Not on your life!' echoed his companions. 'Too darn cold. Besides, what about the Silver Bride? The jolly old ghost!'

'Don' marrer! I love ghosts,' hiccoughed Fletcher.

Drex shrugged his shoulders and drew aside as they lurched towards the swimming pool.

Suddenly he heard a loud splash and a gout of silver water jetted skywards.

It was followed instantly by a shrill cackle of drunken laughter, and Drex smiled grimly as the floundering figure of Gillie Fletcher spluttered in the water of the pool.

'Kish the ghost for me!' chuckled Welbank as Fletcher, snorting like a grampus, threshed the water.

He looked a hideous sight in his evening dress and his vacuous, fish-like face spluttered indignantly.

'Drunken young fools!' said Drex impatiently, then suddenly stopped dead.

A shrill scream of terror rang out from the pool, an ear-splitting shriek of mortal agony— a threshing of water, then silence.

Quentin Drex raced towards the pool, his handsome face grim and set.

The two young men, momentarily sobered, were staring in an attitude of frozen terror at the quivering, silver-green water.

'He— he fell in!' gasped one thickly. 'An' the ghos' got him. I— I saw her!'

Drex turned impatiently.

'Nonsense!' he snapped.

'Look there, then!' babbled Welbank.

Drex stared into the pool and saw a shimmering silver radiance that moved like the gauze bridal veil of a woman.

His keen eyes narrowed as he glimpsed a greenish phosphorescent glow from the depth of the pool. For an instant it stayed there and he could have sworn he saw a silvery bridal dress gliding through the water as if a woman were floating there.

Drex peeled off his faultless dress coat.

'Lend a hand with the lifebelt!' he snapped, pointing to a cork buoy on the edge of the pool.

'Look! Blood!' screamed Welbank as Drex poised for a dive on the springboard.

Quentin Drex stared down into the depths of the moonlit pool and, iron-nerved though he was, he gave a shiver of revulsion at the horror that lay in the bottom of the pool.

It was the body of a man in dress clothes, and where the face should have been was the grinning, fleshless bones of a skull.

The Silver Bride had claimed another victim.

Shimmering Death

DETECTIVE-INSPECTOR Blacklock of Scotland Yard frowned gloomily at his colleague, Superintendent Baines of the Hertfordshire Police.

The C.I.D. man's pleasant, oddly boyish face had worn that frown of perplexity for at least a week now since the adjourned inquest on Gillie Fletcher.

'It's moon madness. Stark, raving lunacy, super!' he said. 'This chap Fletcher, for a drunken frolic, dives into a brand-new pool. This fellow Drex turns up to rescue him a few minutes later— and finds Fletcher's skeleton, the bones picked clean and his dress-suit lacerated to ribbons. It's— it's— fantastic— it couldn't have happened!'

The superintendent calmly shrugged his burly shoulders.

'Well, how d'you account for it?' he queried. 'There's no doubt that the skeleton is that of Fletcher. There was enough flesh left for the medical evidence to verify that, to say nothing of the clothes and the contents of the pocket.'

'Yes, and a lot of good the medical evidence is,' growled the C.I.D. man. 'The pool was drained immediately and there was no sign of any of those "sharp instruments" the doctor was so vague about. I tell you this case is getting on my nerves. The man's flesh was lacerated to ribbons and the bathing pool is as smooth as glass. We've searched every inch of it and found nothing.'

The superintendent refilled his pipe.

The two colleagues were sitting in the local police court after the inquest had been adjourned.

A week had elapsed since the Fantastic Horror of Cheriton Hall, as the newspapers described it, and, despite the most rigorous police inquiries, no explanation of the mystery was forthcoming.

The little Hertfordshire village, thanks to the horde of news-hungry pressmen, had provided all England with a nine days' thrill of horror and wonder.

The strange disappearance of Jem Walker was recalled, together with the still unexplained mystery of the Silver Bride.

All sorts of theories were advanced by Press and public alike, ranging from vampires to vultures, to account for Fletcher's dreadful death. The one person who remained aloof from the case was Quentin Drex. He stated exactly what happened and refused to formulate any theory whatsoever without further evidence.

The coroner had no alternative, therefore, but to adjourn the inquest, and Blacklock, after the most exhaustive investigations in the district, felt up against a blank wall.

'Queer chap that Drex,' said the super.

The C.I.D. man smiled bitterly.

'Queer? I'd give a lot to know what he suspects. He's got an ice-cold brain, that man. Lives all alone at the Cliffstone Hotel. Must be lousy with money, too. Nobody seems to know much about him. Pleasant enough, but too reticent for my taste.'

The super puffed his briar reflectively.

'Well, it's up to you now, Nick. If we could only find Jem Walker. He might be able to tell us something. His dog was killed in the same way, too, and he swore to old Gorble that the Silver Bride did it.'

'How's Sir Charles taking it all?' queried Nick.

'Pretty bad,' said the super. 'He must have spent a tidy penny on the new alterations to the hall and this scandal's fairly ruined him, they say. Nobody feels like bathing in the pool after what's happened.'

'I don't blame 'em!' said Nick succinctly. 'By the way, what sort of a chap is this cousin of Cheriton's? There's a bit of bad blood between 'em, isn't there?'

The super grunted.

'Well, Captain Hawksbee's naturally a bit sore at the long-lost heir turning up from nowhere when he'd set his heart on living at the manor. You can't blame him, really. He's a quiet, studious fellow, and he's furious about all this country club nonsense.'

'There won't be much future for the club after this, I'm thinking,' commented the Yard man.

The 'phone bell shrilled suddenly and, with a grunt, the superintendent lifted the receiver.

'Hallo! Yes! Speaking!' he barked, then suddenly his manner changed and he became deferential.

'Oh, it's you, Sir Charles!'

He paused and glanced meaningly at Blacklock as he listened.

Suddenly his face became grave, and he gave a soft, astonished whistle.

'What's that, sir? Half an hour ago? But this is dreadful! I'll be along right away, and bring the inspector with me.'

Slowly he replaced the receiver and turned weightily to the Yard man.

'Another of 'em!' he said, in an awe-stricken voice. 'They found the skeleton of Captain Hawksbee at the bottom of the Bride's pool half an hour ago!'

'What?' ejaculated Nick incredulously.

'Gospel truth! That was the squire speaking. He's almost off his rocker— and I don't blame him!'

'Come on!' said Nick Blacklock, grimly. 'Let's go. This devilish business has got to stop, or it'll drive me mad!'

In his private suite at the Cliffstone Hotel, Drex sat back in his shining chromium chair, a black Malayan cigarette between his lips.

Opposite sat Morgan, his confidential agent.

On the floor were littered the latest evening papers, where flaring headlines announced:

NEW HERTFORD HORROR!

CHERITON VAMPIRE AGAIN.

'This is a ghastly business, chief,' announced Morgan. 'I'm beginning to believe in the supernatural. The whole thing is uncanny. Not a vestige of a clue.'

'On the contrary,' interposed Quentin Drex, 'the problem bristles with clues. The more bizarre and strange a crime appears to be, the easier it is to elucidate. It's your common, featureless murder that is so difficult to solve.'

Morgan sighed.

'Maybe you're right, chief, but this beats me. There's the devil to pay in the village. The folks are scared stiff.'

Drex blew a smoke wreath ceilingwards.

'I presume there's no doubt about the body being Hawksbee's,' he said.

'No doubt at all. Though there wasn't a scrap of flesh on the bones, his sister, poor thing, identified the remains and the clothes as his. There were plenty of papers and personal property on the clothes to make it certain.'

'H'm!' said Drex. 'And Blacklock, I suppose, is still in charge?'

Morgan grinned faintly.

'He is, sir— and you never saw a more worried-looking man.'

'You'd better get back to the Cheriton Arms,' said Drex. 'I'll be along later this evening.'

'You ought to see Sir Charles,' said Morgan. 'He's like a walking ghost!'

'The only ghost I want to see walking is the Silver Bride,' said Drex, with a grim smile. 'By the way, I shall have a companion with me tonight,' he said. 'A new assistant.'

Morgan looked surprised.

'A new assistant, sir?' he queried.

'Yes. Nice fellow. Name of Alpha. You'll like him,' said Drex, with a chuckle.

The wind soughed mournfully in the trees, and a solitary oblong of lemon light shone in the mullioned window of Cheriton Hall.

It was 10 p.m., and the village pub was closed and shuttered for the night, for since the horror of the Shimmering Death, as some papers called it, not even the bravest would have ventured forth at night.

The latest tragedy of the pool had paralysed the village with terror. True, Captain Hawksbee was not very popular, as he seldom took part in parochial affairs, but he was respected as a scholar and a gentleman.

He lived in a huge, rambling house close to the Cheriton Estate, and had spent a good many years abroad as an explorer.

He was a silent, taciturn man, who lived with his widowed sister, and had been a favourite of old Sir Humphrey, the former baronet.

Inspector Blacklock had returned to Scotland Yard after the formal identification of the body by the sister, then to take conference with his superior at police H.Q. The pool of death had again been drained and subjected to a rigorous search, with no result, and by Blacklock's orders refilled again.

It shimmered now in the watery rays of the moon, a greenish-silver menace in the dark shadows of the ancient elms.

Quentin Drex, at the controls of his ghostly grey gyroplane, hovered like a hawk over the manor grounds, and his shrewd, intellectual face was grim and unsmiling.

For fully ten minutes he reconnoitred the panorama of the Cheriton Estate, then dropped soundlessly to earth on a grassy plain.

From the pockets of his leather flying-jacket he withdrew a small cylindrical package, and from beneath the seat took out a wire cage in which something stirred and wriggled.

A motionless, grotesque figure sat in the cockpit beside him, and with a sibilant whisper Drex turned to it.

Soundless the robot's steel limbs stirred into activity, and, guided by the detective, emerged from the cockpit.

An owl hooted mournfully from a near-by tree, and the thing in the cage gave a squeak of terror.

Drex smiled grimly.

He thrust the cage into a pocket set in the side of the automaton, and then, soundless as shadows, the two emerged from the clearing to a path that led to the spectral swimming pool.

On the right, near a shrubbery, loomed the ghostly shape of a stone summer-house, or arbour, built as a replica of a Greek temple. Drex softly skirted this, and, guiding the robot with his lean hand, directed it to the marble path that gave access to the pool. Straight ahead the steel figure moved, veering not an inch to right or left.

Quentin Drex stopped suddenly and crouched in the shadow of the bronze figure at the head of the pool.

His agate grey eyes glinted with excitement as he heard a faint stirring from the direction of the Greek temple.

The wind whirred eerily in the trees and the water shimmered with a baleful glitter in the rays of the wan moon. Ahead loomed the bulk of the old manor-house, with one window alight, like a yellow eye bright in the darkness and gloom.

Quentin Drex watched tensely as the steel figure of the automaton lowered itself deliberately into the sinister pool.

Crouched in the shadow Drex waited.

Not a sound save for the rustling wind in the trees and the sluggish lap of water. A vein throbbed in his temple as the moments passed. The scar of his maimed forehead glowed dully, as it did in moments of excitement.

From his hiding-place he peered down into the water, then stiffened suddenly. He saw a moving, shimmering phosphorescence in its depths and the vague outline of a cold, deathly face. The silver shimmer was like a bridal veil, and Drex smiled mirthlessly as his hand snaked to his pocket. From it he withdrew the glass cylinder and hurled it against the side of the pool.

Crash!

It scattered into a myriad fragments, and Quentin Drex straightened. Hell itself seemed let loose from the darkness. He heard a demoniacal laugh, and then he was fighting for his life. His fists lashed out, and he felt his knuckles collide with flesh and bone. He chuckled exultantly. This was no phantom. It was something tangible, real.

He felt the bone give beneath the savage ferocity of his blows. His feet moved in the darkness with the poise and surety of a ballet dancer. He was a master-fighter, even in the dark. His keen ears gauged distance merely by the sobbing breathing of his foe.

Something hot slanted along his side, ripping his leather coat, jacket, and shirt to ribbons as a knife blade slashed down. His hands started out, caught the knife-hand as it was raised to strike again. As the weapon fell to the ground, he yanked the man towards him and drove a fist to where he judged his assailant's face was.

He had the satisfaction of feeling his bunched knuckles strike home full and true to his enemy's jaw.

The man wilted in his hands, and at that moment the moon emerged from behind the clouds.

'I thought so!' said Drex, savagely, as he saw that hate-contorted face and recognised it.

The other snarled an oath and again lunged with his knife.

Drex gritted his teeth, exerted all his force, and slammed in his left. It collided with the other's chin with battering-ram force and the man tottered for a split second on the edge of the pool— then toppled with a mighty splash into the dark and ill-omened depths. With his breathing scarcely accelerated, Quentin Drex straightened, then raced for the brass valve which controlled the inflow and outlet of the water.

With a jerk he twisted the lever, but no movement came from the limp figure of his assailant, which had sunk like a stone.

A grim and mirthless smile twisted the features of the Man with the Scarlet Skull.

'Of course,' he murmured. 'The cyanide. It's saved the hangman a job, at least. The end was swifter than he deserved.'

With a gurgle and a roar the water rushed through the waste pipes.

'Come, Alpha!' said Quentin Drex. 'Thank goodness neither prussic acid nor water can harm you!'

Slowly the automaton's steel figure came into motion in response to its master's voice.

The water had no effect on its amazing mechanism, and it was quite impervious even to the shimmering death of the pool.

As it lumbered towards him, Drex stepped forward to the head of the steps.

He placed his hand in the robot's pocket and pulled out the steel cage.

He flashed his torch on to it. Inside was the skeleton of a rat.

From the distance a clock struck eleven.

'Time to get back, Alpha!' said Quentin Drex quietly.

CONSTABLE BERRY stifled a yawn as he stood on duty beneath the arched portico of that red brick building in Whitehall which houses the C.I.D. of Scotland Yard. He glanced up at the dial of Big Ben, opposite.

It was nearly three a.m., and he sighed regretfully as he resumed his beat of the quadrangle.

'There might have been a chance of a smoke if it wasn't for the conference— confound it!'— he mused with another upward glance at the lighted window, behind which the Big Five were in conclave.

Nocturnal conferences were fairly unusual at Scotland Yard, but the circumstances were exceptional this time.

Berry cursed his superiors heartily as he resumed his measured beat, and he dwelt with gloomy satisfaction on their failure to cope with the notorious 'Hertford Horror.'

'Be another Jack the Ripper case I expect!' he murmured. 'Old Blacklock won't 'arf go wild if it is. 'Nother unsolved mystery—'

He broke off suddenly as something fell with a metallic rattle almost at his feet.

'Hallo! What's this?' he demanded, staring wrathfully upwards. Far above him hovered a motionless object, like an enormous grey hawk. For a moment it hung there, then with a low hum of its almost soundless engines, vanished.

'Gosh!' said the constable indignantly. 'Might have brained me.'

He stooped down and picked up a small steel container with a label addressed to Detective-Inspector Blacklock and marked 'Urgent.'

'Strewth!' said Constable Berry, and two minutes later burst into the august presence of the Big Five with his story.

Blacklock stared incredulously at his subordinate and at his chiefs.

'Extraordinary!' said the Assistant Commissioner. 'Careful how you handle that, Blacklock! It might be a bomb!'

'It is!' said the Yard man, as he opened the parcel and scanned its contents— two sheets of notepaper in a familiar handwriting.

'Excuse me a moment, sir,' he added, 'but I fancy the Cheriton Case is solved.'

In dead silence he proceeded to read the following missive:

My Dear Blacklock,

Having the utmost confidence in your intelligence, I append the following facts for your guidance and necessary action. I am afraid the murderer of poor Gillie Fletcher and the unfortunate Jem Walker will never be arrested, however.

His body will be found in the swimming pool, together with certain interesting piscatorial fauna, both killed by cyanide of potassium.

Walker's body will be found in Lyveden Mortuary. The basic facts of the case are comparatively simple, and I am afraid you have allowed village gossip and the spectacular setting of the crime to obscure the issue.

Briefly, my investigations have shown that Gillie Fletcher was murdered by accident, and that Jem Walker was murdered deliberately.

The murderer is, of course, Captain Stephen Hawksbee; the motive throughout was his greed and jealousy of his cousin, Sir Charles Cheriton.

The man was undoubtedly a monomaniac, and bitterly resented being deprived of what he considered to be his rightful inheritance.

As an explorer and big game hunter in South America he was also a keen naturalist, and it was undoubtedly on the Amazon that he first met what the papers picturesquely call the Shimmering Death.

Actually you will find hundreds of specimens of this most ferocious of all fish in the swimming pool, but I have taken the precaution of killing them by cyanide.

Unfortunately Hawksbee also accidentally fell into the poisoned water.

Why the man bred these terrible creatures I cannot conjecture. The fish infest certain regions of Brazil and Paraguay, and in appearance are the size of a very small herring.

It is known as the Pirhana, or Tiger fish, and invariably swims in shoals. It is so ferocious that it can strip the flesh off a horse or an ox in a few minutes, and is the most dreaded of all jungle perils by the natives.

Perhaps some perverse instinct caused Hawksbee to spawn his devil fish, or perhaps he deliberately cultivated it as a murder weapon. We can never know for certain.

One thing, however, is sure, he took advantage of the old legend of the Silver Bride, and might have succeeded in his ambition of murdering Sir Charles and his brother and inheriting the manor.

Incidentally, young Tony Cheriton is safe. I rescued him tonight. He was held prisoner in the Greek Temple where Hawksbee had the hiding-place of his terrible pets in a large tank connected with the feed pipe of the pool.

The Pirhana are hardly ever satiated, and can sense the presence of flesh at a long distance. Hawksbee used to tempt the shoal back to their tank by raw meat, and it was discreet inquiries at the local tradesmen that first put me on to the solution of the problem.

Ostensibly Hawksbee obtained raw meat for his dogs, but I learned later that he had got rid of them months ago.

Poor Walker's dog was the first victim— and then Walker himself, who must have stumbled across the devilish aquarium by accident.

He was murdered because he knew too much, and Hawksbee then devised the ingenious idea of arraying Walker's skeleton in his own clothes so that he should be immune from suspicion.

As for poor Fletcher's tragic end to a drunken frolic, I suspect that the hidden assassin mistook him for Sir Charles. Fletcher and the baronet were both of the same build.

I fancy I have disposed of all the Pirhana, but I should make sure, my dear fellow, as I had no time to investigate Hawksbee's house.

His sister is quite innocent of complicity in the crimes. She is, I should say, feeble-minded. Undoubtedly there is insanity in the Hawksbee family, and I do not think he would have ever faced the scaffold.

One last point; even I was momentarily deceived by the Silver Bride, but on investigation I discovered it was an optical illusion.

The lights from the decorated Chinese lanterns on the trees reflected on water play strange tricks, especially accompanied by the shimmer of a shoal of Pirhana. It gives the impression of a silver bridal dress.

A vivid imagination is useful, my dear Blacklock, but is apt to confuse the issue in the science of pure ratiocination and deduction.

Yours sincerely,

Q. E. D.

'And who the devil is Q. E. D.?' asked the Assistant Commissioner later, knowing nothing of Quentin Ellery Drex.

'Euclid!' said Nick Blacklock, with a rueful grin. 'I always hated him at school. The blighter was always right!'

____________________

10: Ely’s Automatic Housemaid

Elizabeth W. Bellamy

1837–1900

The Black Cat, Dec 1899

IN ORDER FOR a man to have faith in such an invention, he would have to know Harrison Ely. For Harrison Ely was a genius. I had known him in college, a man amazingly dull in Latin and Greek and even in English, but with ideas of his own that could not be expressed in language. His bent was purely mechanical, and found expression in innumerable ingenious contrivances to facilitate the study to which he had no inclination. His self-acting lexicon-holder was a matter of admiring wonder to his classmates, but it did not serve to increase the tenacity of his mental grasp upon the contents of the volume, and so did little to recommend him to the faculty. And his self-feeding safety student-lamp admirably illuminated everything for him save the true and only path to an honorable degree.

It had been years since I had seen him or thought of him, but the memory is tenacious of small things, and the big yellow envelope which I found one morning awaiting me upon my breakfast-table brought his eccentric personality back to me with a rush. It was addressed to me in the Archimedean script always so characteristic of him, combining, as it seemed to do, the principles of the screw and of the inclined plane, and in its superscription Harrison Ely stood unmistakably revealed.

It was the first morning of a new cook, the latest potentate of a dynasty of ten who had briefly ruled in turn over our kitchen and ourselves during the preceding three months, and successively abdicated in favor of one another under the compelling influences of popular clamor, and in the face of such a political crisis my classmate’s letter failed to receive immediate attention. Unfortunately but not unexpectedly the latest occupant of our culinary throne began her reign with no conspicuous reforms, and we received in gloomy silence her preliminary enactments in the way of greasy omelette and turbid and flavorless coffee, the yellow screed of Harrison Ely looking on the while with bilious sympathy as it leaned unopened against the water-bottle beside me.

As I drained the last medicinal drop of coffee my eye fell upon it, and needing a vicarious outlet for my feelings toward the cook, I seized it and tore it viciously open. It contained a letter from my classmate and half a dozen printed circulars. I spread open the former, and my eye fastened at once upon this sympathetic exordium:

“Doubtless, my dear friend, you have known what discomfort it is to be at the mercy of incompetent domestics—”

But my attention was distracted at this point by one of the circulars, which displayed an array of startling, cheering, alluring words, followed by plentiful exclamation points, that, like a bunch of keys, opened to my enraptured vision the gates of a terrestrial Paradise, where Bridgets should be no more, and where ill-cooked meals should become a mechanical impossibility. The boon we had been sighing for now presented itself for my acceptance, an accomplished fact. Harrison Ely had invented “An Automatic Household Beneficent Genius.— A Practical Realization of the Fabled Familiar of the Middle Ages.” So the circular set forth.

Returning to the letter, I read that Harrison Ely, having exhausted his means in working out his invention, was unable to manufacture his “machine” in quantity as yet; but that he had just two on hand which he would sell in order to raise some ready money. He hoped that I would buy one of his automatons, and aid him to sell the other.

Never did a request come at a more propitious moment. I had always entertained a kindness for Harrison Ely, and now such was my disgust at the incompetence of Bridget and Juliana and their predecessors that I was eager to stake the price of a “Household Beneficent Genius” on the success of my friend’s invention.

So, having grasped the purport of the circulars and letter, I broke forth to my wife:

“My dear, you’ve heard me speak of Harrison Ely—”

“That man who is always so near doing something great, and never has done anything?” said she.

“He has done it at last!” I declared. “Harrison Ely is one of the greatest geniuses the world has ever seen. He has invented an ‘Automatic-Electric Machine-Servant.’ ”

My wife said, “Oh!”

There was not an atom of enthusiasm in that “Oh!” but I was not to be daunted.

“I am ready,” I resumed, “to invest my bottom dollar in two of Harrison Ely’s machine-servants.”

Her eyes were fixed upon me as if they would read my very soul. “What do they cost?” she mildly asked.

“In comparison with the benefits to be derived, little enough. Listen!” I seized a circular at random, and began to read:

“The Automatic Household Genius, a veritable Domestic Fairy, swift, silent, sure; a Permanent, Inalienable, First-class Servant, warranted to give Satisfaction.”

“Ah!” said my wife; and the enthusiasm that was lacking in the “Oh!” made itself eloquent in that “Ah!” “What is the price?” she asked again.

“The price is all right, and we are going to try the experiment.”

“Are we though?” said she, between doubt and desire.

“Most assuredly; it will be a saving in the end. I shall write to Harrison Ely this very night.”

The return mail brought me a reply stating that two Electric-Automatic Household Beneficent Geniuses had been shipped me by express. The letter enclosed a pamphlet that gave a more particular account of the E. A. H. B. G. than the circulars contained. My friend’s invention was shaped in the likeness of the human figure, with body, head, arms, legs, hands and feet. It was clad in waterproof cloth, with a hood of the same to protect the head, and was shod with felt. The trunk contained the wheels and springs, and in the head was fixed the electric battery. The face, of bisque, was described as possessing “a very natural and pleasing expression.”

Just at dusk an oblong box arrived by express and was duly delivered in our hall, but at my wife’s urgent entreaty I consented not to unpack the machines until next day.

“If we should not get the knack of managing them, they might give us trouble,” said this wise wife of mine.

I agreed to this, and having sent away Bridget with a week’s wages, to the satisfaction of all parties, we went to bed in high hopes.

Early next morning we were astir.

“My dear,” I said, “do not give yourself the least concern about breakfast; I am determined that Harrison’s invention shall have fair play.”

“Very well,” my wife assented; but she prudently administered bread and butter to her offspring.

I opened the oblong box, where lay the automatons side by side, their hands placidly folded upon their waterproof breasts, and their eyes looking placidly expectant from under their waterproof hoods.

I confess the sight gave me a shock. Anna Maria turned pale; the children hid their faces in her skirts.

“Once out of the box,” I said to myself, “and the horror will be over.”

The machines stood on their feet admirably, but the horror was not materially lessened by this change of position. However, I assumed a bold front, and said, jocosely:

“Now, which is Bridget, and which is Juliana— which the cook, and which the housemaid?”

This distinction was made clear by dial-plates and indicators, set conspicuously between the shoulders, an opening being cut in the waterproof for that purpose. The housemaid’s dial-plate was stamped around the circumference with the words: Bed, Broom, Duster, Door-bell, Dining-room Service, Parlor Service, etc. In like manner, the cook’s dial-plate bore the words that pertained to her department. I gave myself first to “setting” the housemaid, as being the simpler of the two.

“Now, my dear,” said I, confidently, “we shall see how this Juliana can make the beds.”

I proceeded, according to the pamphlet’s directions, to point the indicator to the word “Bed.” Next, as there were three beds to be made, I pushed in three of the five little red points surrounding the word. Then I set the “clock” connected with the indicator, for a thirty minutes’ job, thinking it might take about ten minutes to a bed. I did not consult my wife, for women do not understand machinery, and any suggestion of hesitancy on my part would have demoralized her.

The last thing to be done was to connect the indicator with the battery, a simple enough performance in itself, but the pamphlet of directions gave a repeated and red-lettered “CAUTION,” never to interfere with the machine while it was at work! I therefore issued the command, “Non-combatants to the rear!” and was promptly obeyed.

What happened next I do not pretend to account for. By what subtle and mysterious action of electricity, by what unerring affinity, working through a marvellous mechanism, that Electric-Automatic Household Beneficent Genius, whom— or which, for short— we called Juliana, sought its appropriate task, is the inventor’s secret. I don’t undertake to explain, I merely narrate. With a “click” the connection was made, and the new Juliana went up-stairs at a brisk and business-like pace.

We followed in breathless amazement. In less than five minutes, bed number one was made, and in a twinkling the second was taken in hand, and number three also was fairly accomplished, long before the allotted thirty minutes had expired. By this time, familiarity had somewhat dulled that awe and wonder with which we had gaped upon the first performance, and I beheld a smile of hopeful satisfaction on my wife’s anxious countenance.

Our youngest, a boy aged three, was quick to feel the genial influence of this smile, and encouraged thereby, he bounced into the middle of the first bed. Hardly had he alighted there, when our automaton, having finished making the third bed, returned to her first job, and, before we could imagine mischief, the mattresses were jerked about, and the child was tumbled, headforemost on the floor!

Had the flesh-and-blood Juliana been guilty of such an act, she should have been dismissed on the spot; but, as it was, no one of us ventured so much as a remonstrance. My wife lifted the screaming child, and the imperturbable machine went on to readjust the bed with mechanical exactitude.

At this point a wild shout of mingled exultation, amazement and terror arose from below, and we hastened down-stairs to find our son John hugging his elbows and capering frantically in front of the kitchen-door, where the electric cook was stirring empty nothing in a pan, with a zeal worthy a dozen eggs.

My eldest hopeful, impelled by that spirit of enterprise and audacity characteristic of nine-year-old boys, had ventured to experiment with the kitchen automaton, and by sheer accident had effected a working connection between the battery and the indicator, and the machine, in “going off,” had given the boy a blow that made him feel, as he expressed it, “like a funny-bone all over.”

“And served you right!” cried I. The thing was set for an hour and a half of work, according to the showing of the dial-plate, and no chance to stop it before I must leave for my office. Had the materials been supplied, we might have had breakfast; but, remembering the red-lettered “caution,” we dared not supply materials while that indefatigable spoon was gyrating in the empty pan. For my distraction, Kitty, my daughter of seven years, now called to me from up-stairs:

“Papa, you better come, quick! It’s a-tearin’ up these beds!”

“My dear,” I sighed, “there’s no way to stop it. We’ll have to wait for the works to run down. I must call Harrison’s attention to this defect. He ought to provide some sort of brake.”

We went up-stairs again. The B. G. Juliana stood beside the bed which she had just torn up for the sixth or seventh time, when suddenly she became, so to speak, paralyzed; her arms, in the act of spreading the sheets, dropped by her sides, her back stiffened, and she stood absolutely motionless, leaving her job unfinished— the B. G. would move no more until duly “set” again.

I now discovered that I was hungry. “If that Fiend in the kitchen were only at work about something substantial, instead of whipping the air into imaginary omelettes!” I groaned.

“Never mind,” said my wife; “I’ve a pot of coffee on the kerosene stove.”

Bless her! She was worth a thousand Beneficent Geniuses, and so I told her.

I did not return until late, but I was in good spirits, and I greeted my wife gayly:

“Well, how do they work?”

“Like fiends!” my usually placid helpmeet replied, so vehemently that I was alarmed. “They flagged at first,” she proceeded, excitedly, “and I oiled them, which I am not going to do, ever again. According to the directions, I poured the oil down their throats. It was horrible! They seemed to me to drink it greedily.”

“Nonsense! That’s your imagination.”

“Very well,” said Anna Maria. “You can do the oiling in future. They took a good deal this morning; it wasn’t easy to stop pouring it down. And they worked— obstreperously. That Fiend in the kitchen has cooked all the provisions I am going to supply this day, but still she goes on, and it’s no use to say a word.”

“Don’t be absurd,” I remonstrated. “The thing is only a machine.”

“I’m not so sure about that!” she retorted. “As for the other one— I set it sweeping, and it is sweeping still!”

We ate the dinner prepared by the kitchen Fiend, and really, I was tempted to compliment the cook in a set speech, but recollected myself in time to spare Anna Maria the triumph of saying, “I told you so!”

Now, that John of mine, still in pursuit of knowledge, had spent the day studying Harrison Ely’s pamphlet, and he learned that the machines could be set, like an alarm-clock, for any given hour. Therefore, as soon as the Juliana had collapsed over a pile of dust in the middle of the hall, John, unknown to us, set her indicator to the broom-handle for seven o’clock the following morning. When the Fiend in the kitchen ran down, leaving everything in confusion, my much-tried wife persuaded me to give my exclusive attention to that machine, and the Juliana was put safely in a corner. Thus it happened that John’s interference escaped detection. I set Bridget’s indicator for kitchen-cleaning at seven-thirty the next morning.

“When we understand them better,” I said to my wife, “we will set their morning tasks for an earlier hour, but we won’t put it too early now, since we must first learn their ways.”

“That’s the trouble with all new servants,” said Anna Maria. The next morning at seven-thirty, precisely, we were awakened by a commotion in the kitchen.

“By George Washington!” I exclaimed. “The Thing’s on time!” I needed no urging to make me forsake my pillow, but Anna Maria was ahead of me.

“Now, my dear, don’t get excited,” I exhorted, but in vain. “Don’t you hear?” she whispered, in terror. “The other one— swe— eep— ing!” And she darted from the room.

I paused to listen, and heard the patter of three pairs of little bare feet across the hall up-stairs. The children were following their mother. The next sound I heard was like the dragging of a rug along the floor. I recognized this peculiar sound as the footsteps of the B. G. Then came a dull thud, mingled with a shout from Johnnie, a scream from my wife, and the terrified cries of the two younger children. I rushed out just in time to see John, in his night-clothes, with his hair on end, tear down-stairs like a streak of lightning. My little Kitty and the three-year-old baby stood clasped in each other’s arms at the head of the stairs, sobbing in terror, and, half-way down, was my wife, leaning over the railing, with ashen face and rigid body, her fascinated gaze fixed upon a dark and struggling mass in the hall below.

John, when he reached the bottom of the stairs, began capering like a goat gone mad, digging the floor with his bare heels, clapping his hands with an awful glee, and shouting:

“Bet your bottom dollar on the one that whips!”

The Juliana and the Bridget were fighting for the broom!

I comprehended the situation intuitively. The kitchen-cleaning, for which the Fiend had been “set,” had reached a point that demanded the broom, and that subtle, attractive affinity, which my friend’s genius had known how to produce, but had not learned to regulate, impelled the unerring automaton towards the only broom in the house, which was now in the hands of its fellow-automaton, and a struggle was inevitable. What I could not understand— Johnnie having kept his own counsel— was this uncontrollable sweeping impulse that possessed the Juliana.

However, this was no time for investigating the exact cause of the terrific row now going on in our front hall. The Beneficent Geniuses had each a firm grip of the broom-handle, and they might have performed the sweeping very amicably together, could they but have agreed as to the field of labor, but their conflicting tendencies on this point brought about a rotary motion that sent them spinning around the hall, and kept them alternately cracking each other’s head with a violence that ought to have drawn blood. Considering their life-likeness, we should hardly have thought it strange if blood had flowed, and it would have been a relief had the combatants but called each other names, so much did their dumbness intensify the horror of a struggle, in the midst of which the waterproof hoods fell off, revealing their startlingly human countenances, not distorted by angry passions, but resolute, inexorable, calm, as though each was sustained in the contest by a lofty sense of duty.

“They’re alive! Kill ’em! Kill ’em quick!” shrieked my wife, as the gyrating couple moved towards the stair-case.

“Let ’em alone,” said Johnnie— his sporting blood, which he inherits from his father, thoroughly roused— dancing about the automatic pugilists in delight, and alternately encouraging the one or the other to increased efforts.

Thus the fight went on with appalling energy and reckless courage on both sides, my wife wringing her hands upon the staircase, our infants wailing in terror upon the landing above, and I wavering between an honest desire to see fair play and an apprehensive dread of consequences which was not unjustified.

In one of their frantic gyrations the figures struck the hat-rack and promptly converted it into a mass of splinters. In a minute more they became involved with a rubber plant—the pride of my wife’s heart— and distributed it impartially all over the premises. From this they caromed against the front door, wrecking both its stained-glass panes, and then down the length of the hall they sped again, fighting fiercely and dealing one another’s imperturbable countenances ringing blows with the disputed broom.

We became aware through Johnnie’s excited comments, that Juliana had lost an ear in the fray, and presently it was discernible that a fractured nose had somewhat modified the set geniality of expression that had distinguished Bridget’s face in its prime.

How this fierce and equal combat would have culminated if further prolonged no one but Harrison Ely can conjecture, but it came to an abrupt termination as the parlor clock chimed eight, the hour when the two automatons should have completed their appointed tasks.

Though quite late at my office that morning, I wired Ely before attending to business. Long-haired, gaunt and haggard, but cheerful as ever, he arrived next day, on fire with enthusiasm. He could hardly be persuaded to refresh himself with a cup of coffee before he took his two recalcitrant Geniuses in hand. It was curious to see him examine each machine, much as a physician would examine a patient. Finally his brow cleared, he gave a little puff of satisfaction, and exclaimed:

“Why, man alive, there’s nothing the matter— not a thing! What you consider a defect is really a merit— merely a surplus of mental energy. They’ve had too big a dose of oil. Few housekeepers have any idea about proper lubrication,” and he emitted another little snort, at which my wife colored guiltily.

“I see just what’s wanted,” he resumed. “The will-power generated and not immediately expended becomes cumulative and gets beyond control. I’ll introduce a little compensator, to take up the excess and regulate the flow. Then a child can operate them.”

It was now Johnnie’s turn to blush.

“Ship ’em right back to the factory, and we’ll have ’em all right in a few days. I see where the mechanism can be greatly improved, and when you get ’em again I know you’ll never consent to part with ’em!”

That was four months ago. The “Domestic Fairies” have not yet been returned from Harrison’s laboratory, but I am confidently looking for the familiar oblong packing case, and expect any day to see in the papers the prospectus of the syndicate which Ely informs me is being “promoted” to manufacture his automatic housemaid.

_________________

11: The Third Drug

Edith Nesbit

1858–1924

The Strand Magazine, Feb 1908

Best known for "The Railway Children", Edith Nesbit was a prolific and versatile writer for adults and children alike, and her output includes some science fiction, such as this story.

ROGER WROXHAM looked round his studio before he blew out the candle, and wondered whether, perhaps, he looked for the last time. It was large and empty, yet his trouble had filled it, and, pressing against him in the prison of those four walls, forced him out into the world, where lights and voices and the presence of other men should give him room to draw back, to set a space between it and him, to decide whether he would ever face it again— he and it alone together. The nature of his trouble is not germane to this story. There was a woman in it, of course, and money, and a friend, and regrets and embarrassments— and all of these reached out tendrils that wove and interwove till they made a puzzle-problem of which heart and brain were now weary. It was as though his life depended on his deciphering the straggling characters traced by some spider who, having fallen into the ink-well, had dragged clogged legs in a black zig-zag across his map of the world.

He blew out the candle and went quietly downstairs. It was nine at night, a soft night of May in Paris. Where should he go? He thought of the Seine, and took— an omnibus. The chestnut trees of the Boulevards brushed against the sides of the one that he boarded blindly in the first light street. He did not know where the omnibus was going. It did not matter. When at last it stopped he got off, and so strange was the place to him that for an instant it almost seemed as though the trouble itself had been left behind. He did not feel it in the length of three or four streets that he traversed slowly. But in the open space, very light and lively, where he recognised the Taverne de Paris and knew himself in Montmartre, the trouble set its teeth in his heart again, and he broke away from the lamps and the talk to struggle with it in the dark quiet streets beyond.

A man braced for such a fight has little thought to spare for the details of his surroundings. The next thing that Wroxham knew of the outside world was the fact that he had known for some time that he was not alone in the street. There was someone on the other side of the road keeping pace with him— yes, certainly keeping pace, for, as he slackened his own, the feet on the other pavement also went more slowly. And now they were four feet, not two. Where had the other man sprung from? He had not been there a moment ago. And now, from an archway a little ahead of him, a third man came.

Wroxham stopped. Then three men converged upon him, and, like a sudden magic-lantern picture on a sheet prepared, there came to him all that he had heard and read of Montmartre— dark archways, knives, Apaches, and men who went away from homes where they were beloved and never again returned. He, too—  well, if he never returned again, it would be quicker than the Seine, and, in the event of ultramundane possibilities, safer.

He stood still and laughed in the face of the man who first reached him.

"Well, my friend?" said he, and at that the other two drew close.

"Monsieur walks late," said the first, a little confused, as it seemed, by that laugh.

"And will walk still later, if it pleases him," said Roger. "Good-night, my friends."

"Ah!" said the second, "friends do not say adieu so quickly. Monsieur will tell us the hour."

"I have not a watch," said Roger, quite truthfully.

"I will assist you to search for it," said the third man, and laid a hand on his arm.

Roger threw it off. That was instinctive. One may be resigned to a man's knife between one's ribs, but not to his hands pawing one's shoulders. The man with the hand staggered back.

"The knife searches more surely," said the second.

"No, no," said the third quickly, "he is too heavy. I for one will not carry him afterwards."

They closed round him, hustling him between them. Their pale, degenerate faces spun and swung round him in the struggle. For there was a struggle. He had not meant that there should be a struggle. Someone would hear— someone would come.

But if any heard, none came. The street retained its empty silence, the houses, masked in close shutters, kept their reserve. The four were wrestling, all pressed close together in a writhing bunch, drawing breath hardly through set teeth, their feet slipping, and not slipping, on the rounded cobble-stones.

The contact with these creatures, the smell of them, the warm, greasy texture of their flesh as, in the conflict, his face or neck met neck or face of theirs— Roger felt a cold rage possess him. He wrung two clammy hands apart and threw something off— something that staggered back clattering, fell in the gutter, and lay there.

It was then that Roger felt the knife. Its point glanced off the cigarette-case in his breast pocket and bit sharply at his inner arm. And at the sting of it Roger knew that he did not desire to die. He feigned a reeling weakness, relaxed his grip, swayed sideways, and then suddenly caught the other two in a new grip, crushed their faces together, flung them off, and ran. It was but for an instant that his feet were the only ones that echoed in the street. Then he knew that the others too were running.

It was like one of those nightmares wherein one runs for ever, leaden-footed, through a city of the dead. Roger turned sharply to the right. The sound of the other footsteps told that the pursuers also had turned that corner. Here was another street— a steep ascent. He ran more swiftly— he was running now for his life— the life that he held so cheap three minutes before. And all the streets were empty— empty like dream-streets, with all their windows dark and unhelpful, their doors fast closed against his need.

Far away down the street and across steep roofs lay Paris, poured out like a pool of light in the mist of the valley. But Roger was running with his head down— he saw nothing but the round heads of the cobble stones. Only now and again he glanced to the right or left, if perchance some window might show light to justify a cry for help, some door advance the welcome of an open inch.

There was at last such a door. He did not see it till it was almost behind him. Then there was the drag of the sudden stop— the eternal instant of indecision. Was there time? There must be. He dashed his fingers through the inch-crack, grazing the backs of them, leapt within, drew the door after him, felt madly for a lock or bolt, found a key, and, hanging his whole weight on it, strove to get the door home. The key turned. His left hand, by which he braced himself against the door-jamb, found a hook and pulled on it. Door and door-post met— the latch clicked— with a spring as it seemed. He turned the key, leaning against the door, which shook to the deep sobbing breaths that shook him, and to the panting bodies that pressed a moment without. Then someone cursed breathlessly outside; there was the sound of feet that went away.

Roger was alone in the strange darkness of an arched carriage-way, through the far end of which showed the fainter darkness of a courtyard, with black shapes of little formal tubbed orange trees. There was no sound at all there but the sound of his own desperate breathing; and, as he stood, the slow, warm blood crept down his wrist, to make a little pool in the hollow of his hanging, half-clenched hand. Suddenly he felt sick.

This house, of which he knew nothing, held for him no terrors. To him at that moment there were but three murderers in all the world, and where they were not, there safety was. But the spacious silence that soothed at first, presently clawed at the set, vibrating nerves already overstrained. He found himself listening, listening, and there was nothing to hear but the silence, and once, before he thought to twist his handkerchief round it, the drip of blood from his hand.

By and by, he knew that he was not alone in this house, for from far away there came the faint sound of a footstep, and, quite near, the faint answering echo of it. And at a window, high up on the other side of the courtyard, a light showed. Light and sound and echo intensified, and light passing window after window, till at last it moved across the courtyard, and the little trees threw back shifting shadows as it came towards him— a lamp in the hand of a man.

It was a short, bald man, with pointed beard and bright, friendly eyes. He held the lamp high as he came, and when he saw Roger, he drew his breath in an inspiration that spoke of surprise, sympathy, and pity.

"Hold! hold!" he said, in a singularly pleasant voice, "there has been a misfortune? You are wounded, monsieur?"

"Apaches," said Roger, and was surprised at the weakness of his own voice.

"Your hand?"

"My arm," said Roger.

"Fortunately," said the other, "I am a surgeon. Allow me."

He set the lamp on the step of a closed door, took off Roger's coat, and quickly tied his own handkerchief round the wounded arm.

"Now," he said, "courage! I am alone in the house. No one comes here but me. If you can walk up to my rooms, you will save us both much trouble. If you cannot, sit here and I will fetch you a cordial. But I advise you to try and walk. That porte cochère is, unfortunately, not very strong, and the lock is a common spring lock, and your friends may return with their friends; whereas the door across the courtyard is heavy and the bolts are new."

Roger moved towards the heavy door whose bolts were new. The stairs seemed to go on for ever. The doctor lent his arm, but the carved bannisters and their lively shadows whirled before Roger's eyes. Also, he seemed to be shod with lead, and to have in his legs bones that were red-hot. Then the stairs ceased, and there was light, and a cessation of the dragging of those leaden feet. He was on a couch, and his eyes might close. There was no need to move any more, nor to look, nor to listen.

When next he saw and heard, he was lying at ease, the close intimacy of a bandage clasping his arm, and in his mouth the vivid taste of some cordial.

The doctor was sitting in an armchair near a table, looking benevolent through gold-rimmed pince-nez.

"Better?" he said. "No, lie still, you'll be a new man soon."

"I am desolated," said Roger, "to have occasioned you all this trouble."

"Not at all," said the doctor. "We live to heal, and it is a nasty cut, that in your arm. If you are wise, you will rest at present. I shall be honoured if you will be my guest for the night."

Roger again murmured something about trouble.

"In a big house like this," said the doctor, as it seemed a little sadly, "there are many empty rooms, and some rooms which are not empty. There is a bed altogether at your service, monsieur, and I counsel you not to delay in seeking it. You can walk?"

Wroxham stood up. "Why, yes," he said, stretching himself. "I feel, as you say, a new man."

A narrow bed and rush-bottomed chair showed like doll's-house furniture in the large, high, gaunt room to which the doctor led him.

"You are too tired to undress yourself," said the doctor, "rest—  only rest," and covered him with a rug, roundly tucked him up, and left him.

"I leave the door open," he said, "in case you have any fever. Good night. Do not torment yourself. All goes well."

Then he took away the lamp, and Wroxham lay on his back and saw the shadows of the window-frames cast on the wall by the moon now risen. His eyes, growing accustomed to the darkness, perceived the carving of the white panelled walls and mantelpiece. There was a door in the room, another door from the one which the doctor had left open. Roger did not like open doors. The other door, however, was closed. He wondered where it led, and whether it were locked. Presently he got up to see. It was locked. He lay down again.

His arm gave him no pain, and the night's adventure did not seem to have overset his nerves. He felt, on the contrary, calm, confident, extraordinarily at east, and master of himself. The trouble— how could that ever have seemed important? This calmness—  it felt like the calmness that precedes sleep. Yet sleep was far from him. What was it that kept sleep away? The bed was comfortable—  the pillows soft. What was it? It came to him presently that it was the scent which distracted him, worrying him with a memory that he could not define. A faint scent of— what was it? Perfumery? Yes— and camphor— and something else— something vaguely disquieting. He had not noticed it before he had risen and tried the handle of that other door. But now— —  He covered his face with the sheet, but through the sheet he smelt it still. He rose and threw back one of the long French windows. It opened with a click and a jar, and he looked across the dark well of the courtyard. He leaned out, breathing the chill, pure air of the May night, but when he withdrew his head, the scent was there again. Camphor—  perfume— and something else. What was it that it reminded him of ? He had his knee on the bed-edge when the answer came to that question. It was the scent that had struck at him from a darkened room when, a child, clutching at a grown-up hand, he had been led to the bed where, amid flowers, something white lay under a sheet— his mother they had told him. It was the scent of death, disguised with drugs and perfumes.

He stood up and went, with carefully controlled swiftness, towards the open door. He wanted light and a human voice. The doctor was in the room upstairs; he—

The doctor was face to face with him on the landing, not a yard away, moving towards him quietly in shoeless feet.

"I can't sleep," said Wroxham, a little wildly, "it's too dark—"

"Come upstairs," said the doctor, and Wroxham went.

There was comfort in the large, lighted room, with its shelves and shelves full of well-bound books, its tables heaped with papers and pamphlets— its air of natural everyday work. There was a warmth of red curtain at the windows. On the window ledge a plant in a pot, its leaves like red misshapen hearts. A green-shaded lamp stood on the table. A peaceful, pleasant interior.

"What's behind that door," said Wroxham, abruptly— "that door downstairs?"

"Specimens," the doctor answered "preserved specimens. My line is physiological research. You understand?"

So that was it.

"I feel quite well, you know," said Wroxham, laboriously explaining— "fit as any man— only I can't sleep."

"I see," said the doctor.

"It's the scent from your specimens, I think," Wroxham went on; "there's something about that scent—"

"Yes," said the doctor.

"It's very odd." Wroxham was leaning his elbow on his knee and his chin on his hand. "I feel so frightfully well— and yet—  there's a strange feeling—"

"Yes," said the doctor. "Yes, tell me exactly what you feel."

"I feel," said Wroxham, slowly, "like a man on the crest of a wave." The doctor stood up.

"You feel well, happy, full of life and energy— as though you could walk to the world's end, and yet—"

"And yet," said Roger, "as though my next step might be my last— as though I might step into my grave."

He shuddered.

"Do you," asked the doctor, anxiously— "do you feel thrills of pleasure— something like the first waves of chloroform— thrills running from your hair to your feet?"

"I felt all that," said Roger, slowly, "downstairs before I opened the window."

The doctor looked at his watch, frowned and got up quickly. "There is very little time," he said.

Suddenly Roger felt an unexplained opposition stiffen his mind. The doctor went to a long laboratory bench with bottle-filled shelves above it, and on it crucibles and retorts, test tubes, beakers— all a chemist's apparatus— reached a bottle from a shelf, and measured out certain drops into a graduated glass, added water, and stirred it with a glass rod.

"Drink that," he said.

"No," said Roger, and as he spoke a thrill like the first thrill of the first chloroform wave swept through him, and it was a thrill, not of pleasure, but of pain. "No," he said, and "Ah!" for the pain was sharp.

"If you don't drink," said the doctor, carefully, "you are a dead man."

"You may be giving me poison," Roger gasped, his hands at his heart.

"I may," said the doctor. "What do you suppose poison makes you feel like? What do you feel like now?"

"I feel," said Roger, "like death."

Every nerve, every muscle thrilled to a pain not too intense to be underlined by a shuddering nausea.

"Then drink," cried the doctor, in tones of such cordial entreaty, such evident anxiety, that Wroxham half held his hand out for the glass. "Drink! Believe me, it is your only chance."

Again the pain swept through him like an electric current. The beads of sweat sprang out on his forehead.

"That wound," the doctor pleaded, standing over him with the glass held out. "For God's sake, drink! Don't you understand, man? You are poisoned. Your wound—"

"The knife?" Wroxham murmured, and as he spoke, his eyes seemed to swell in his head, and his head itself to grow enormous. "Do you know the poison— and its antidote?"

"I know all." The doctor soothed him. "Drink, then, my friend." As the pain caught him again in a clasp more close than any lover's he clutched at the glass and drank. The drug met the pain and mastered it. Roger, in the ecstasy of pain's cessation, saw the world fade and go out in a haze of vivid violet.

ii

FAINT FILMS of lassitude, shot with contentment, wrapped him round. He lay passive, as a man lies in the convalescence that follows a long fight with Death. Fold on fold of white peace lay all about him.

"I'm better now," he said, in a voice that was a whisper— tried to raise his hand from where it lay helpless in his sight, failed, and lay looking at it in confident repose— "much better."

"Yes," said the doctor, and his pleasant, soft voice had grown softer, pleasanter. "You are now in the second stage. An interval is necessary before you can pass to the third. I will enliven the interval by conversation. Is there anything you would like to know?"

"Nothing," said Roger; "I am quite contented."

"This is very interesting," said the doctor. "Tell me exactly how you feel."

Roger faintly and slowly told him.

"Ah!" the doctor said, "I have not before heard this. You are the only one of them all who ever passed the first stage. The others— "

"The others? said Roger, but he did not care much about the others.

"The others," said the doctor frowning, "were unsound. Decadent students, degenerates, Apaches. You are highly trained—  in fine physical condition. And your brain! God be good to the Apaches, who so delicately excited it to just the degree of activity needed for my purpose."

"The others?" Wroxham insisted.

"The others? They are in the room whose door was locked. Look— you should be able to see them. The second drug should lay your consciousness before me, like a sheet of white paper on which I can write what I choose. If I choose that you should see my specimens— Allons donc. I have no secrets from you now. Look— look— strain your eyes. In theory, I know all that you can do and feel and see in this second stage. But practically— enlighten me— look— shut your eyes and look!"

Roger closed his eyes and looked. He saw the gaunt, uncarpeted staircase, the open doors of the big rooms, passed to the locked door, and it opened at his touch. The room inside was like the others, spacious and panelled. A lighted lamp with a blue shade hung from the ceiling, and below it an effect of spread whiteness. Roger looked. There were things to be seen.

With a shudder he opened his eyes on the doctor's delightful room, the doctor's intent face.

"What did you see?" the doctor asked. "Tell me!"

"Did you kill them all?" Roger asked back.

"They died— of their own inherent weakness," the doctor said. "And you saw them?"

"I saw," said Roger, "the quiet people lying all along the floor in their death clothes— the people who have come in at that door of yours that is a trap— for robbery, or curiosity, or shelter, and never gone out any more."

"Right," said the doctor. "Right. My theory is proved at every point. You can see what I choose you to see. Yes, decadents all. It was in embalming that I was a specialist before I began these other investigations."

"What," Roger whispered— "what is it all for?"

"To make the superman," said the doctor. "I will tell you."

He told. It was a long story— the story of a man's life, a man's work, a man's dreams, hopes, ambitions.

"The secret of life," the doctor ended. "This is what all the alchemists sought. They sought it where Fate pleased. I sought it where I have found it— in death."

Roger thought of the room behind the locked door.

"And the secret is?" he asked.

"I have told you," said the doctor impatiently; "it is in the third drug that life— splendid, superhuman life— is found. I have tried it on animals. Always they became perfect, all that an animal should be. And more, too— much more. They were too perfect, too near humanity. They looked at me with human eyes. I could not let them live. Such animals it is not necessary to embalm. I had a laboratory in those days— and assistants. They called me the Prince of Vivisectors."

The man on the sofa shuddered.

"I am naturally," the doctor went on, "a tender-hearted man. You see it in my face; my voice proclaims it. Think what I have suffered in the sufferings of these poor beasts who never injured me. My God! Bear witness that I have not buried my talent. I have been faithful. I have laid down all— love, and joy, and pity, and the little beautiful things of life— all, all, on the altar of science, and seen them consume away. I deserve my heaven, if ever man did. And now by all the saints in heaven I am near it!"

"What is the third drug?" Roger asked, lying limp and flat on his couch.

"It is the Elixir of Life," said the doctor. "I am not its discoverer; the old alchemists knew it well, but they failed because they sought to apply the elixir to a normal— that is, a diseased and faulty—  body. I knew better. One must have first a body abnormally healthy, abnormally strong. Then, not the elixir, but the two drugs that prepare. The first excites prematurely the natural conflict between the principles of life and death, and then, just at the point where Death is about to win his victory, the second drug intensifies life so that it conquers— intensifies, and yet chastens. Then the whole life of the subject, risen to an ecstasy, falls prone in an almost voluntary submission to the coming super-life. Submission— submission! The garrison must surrender before the splendid conqueror can enter and make the citadel his own. Do you understand? Do you submit?"

"I submit," said Roger, for, indeed, he did. "But— soon— quite soon— I will not submit."

He was too weak to be wise, or those words had remained unspoken.

The doctor sprang to his feet.

"It works too quickly!" he cried. "Everything works too quickly with you. Your condition is too perfect. So now I bind you."

From a drawer beneath the bench where the bottles gleamed, the doctor drew rolls of bandages— violet, like the haze that had drowned, at the urgence of the second drug, the consciousness of Roger. He moved, faintly resistant, on his couch. The doctor's hands, most gently, most irresistibly, controlled his movement.

"Lie still," said the gentle, charming voice. "Lie still; all is well." The clever, soft hands were unrolling the bandages— passing them round arms and throat— under and over the soft narrow couch. "I cannot risk your life, my poor boy. The least movement of yours might ruin everything. The third drug, like the first, must be offered directly to the blood which absorbs it. I bound the first drug as an unguent upon your knife-wound."

The swift hands, the soft bandages, passed back and forth, over and under— flashes of violet passed to and fro in the air, like the shuttle of a weaver through his warp. As the bandages clasped his knees, Roger moved.

"For God's sake, no!" the doctor cried; "the time is so near. If you cease to submit it is death."

With an incredible, accelerated swiftness he swept the bandages round and round knees and ankles, drew a deep breath— stood upright.

"I must make an incision," he said— "in the head this time. It will not hurt. See! I spray it with the Constantia Nepenthe; that also I discovered. My boy, in a moment you know all things— you are as God. For God's sake, be patient. Preserve your submission."

And Roger, with life and will resurgent hammering at his heart, preserved it.

He did not feel the knife that made the cross-cut on his temple, but he felt the hot spurt of blood that followed the cut; he felt the cool flap of a plaster, spread with some sweet, clean-smelling unguent that met the blood and stanched it. There was a moment— or was it hours?— of nothingness. Then from that cut on his forehead there seemed to radiate threads of infinite length, and of a strength that one could trust to— threads that linked one to all knowledge past and present. He felt that he controlled all wisdom, as a driver controls his four-in-hand. Knowledge, he perceived, belonged to him, as the air belongs to the eagle. He swam in it, as a great fish in a limitless ocean.

He opened his eyes and met those of the doctor, who sighed as one to whom breath has grown difficult.

"Ah, all goes well. Oh, my boy, was it not worth it? What do you feel?"

"I. Know. Everything," said Roger, with full stops between the words.

"Everything? The future?"

"No. I know all that man has ever known."

"Look back— into the past. See someone. See Pharaoh. You see him— on his throne?"

"Not on his throne. He is whispering in a corner of his great gardens to a girl, who is the daughter of a water-carrier."

"Bah! Any poet of my dozen decadents, who lie so still could have told me that. Tell me secrets— the Masque de Fer."

The other told a tale, wild and incredible, but it satisfied the teller.

"That too— it might be imagination. Tell me the name of the woman I loved and—"

The echo of the name of the anæsthetic came to Roger; "Constantia," said he, in an even voice.

"Ah," the doctor cried, "now I see you know all things. It was not murder. I hoped to dower her with all the splendours of the superlife."

"Her bones lie under the lilacs, where you used to kiss her in the spring," said Roger, quite without knowing what it was that he was going to say.

"It is enough," the doctor cried. He sprang up, ranged certain bottles and glasses on a table convenient to his chair. "You know all things. It is not a dream, this, the dream of my life. It is true. It is a fact accomplished. Now I, too, will know all things. I will be as the gods."

He sought among leather cases on a far table, and came back swiftly into the circle of light that lay below the green-shaded lamp.

Roger, floating contentedly on the new sea of knowledge that seemed to support him, turned eyes on the trouble that had driven him out of that large, empty studio so long ago, so far away. His new-found wisdom laughed at that problem, laughed and solved it. "To end that trouble I must do so-and-so, say such-and-such," Roger told himself again and again.

And now the doctor, standing by the table, laid on it his pale, plump hand outspread. He drew a knife from a case— a long, shiny knife— and scored his hand across and across its back, as a cook scores pork for cooking. The slow blood followed the cuts in beads and lines.

Into the cuts he dropped a green liquid from a little bottle, replaced its stopper, bound up his hand and sat down.

"The beginning of the first stage," he said; "almost at once I shall begin to be a new man. It will work quickly. My body, like yours, is sane and healthy."

There was a long silence.

"Oh, but this is good," the doctor broke it to say. "I feel the hand of Life sweeping my nerves like harp-strings."

Roger had been thinking, the old common sense that guides an ordinary man breaking through this consciousness of illimitable wisdom. "You had better," he said, "unbind me; when the hand of Death sweeps your nerves you may need help."

"No," the doctor said, "and no, and no, and no many times. I am afraid of you. You know all things, and even in your body you are stronger than I. When I, too, am a god, and filled with the wine of knowledge, I will loose you, and together we will drink of the fourth drug— the mordant that shall fix the others and set us eternally on a level with the immortals."

"Just as you like, of course," said Roger, with a conscious effort after commonplace. Then suddenly, not commonplace any more—

"Loose me!" he cried; "loose me, I tell you! I am wiser than you." "You are also stronger," said the doctor, and then suddenly and irresistibly the pain caught him. Roger saw his face contorted with agony, his hands clench on the arm of his chair; and it seemed that, either this man was less able to bear pain than he, or that the pain was much more violent than had been his own. Between the grippings of the anguish the doctor dragged on his watch-chain; the watch leapt from his pocket, and rattled as his trembling hand laid it on the table.

"Not yet," he said, when he had looked at its face, "not yet, not yet, not yet." It seemed to Roger, lying there bound, that the other man repeated those words for long days and weeks. And the plump, pale hand, writhing and distorted by anguish, again and again drew near to take the glass that stood ready on the table, and with convulsive self-restraint again and again drew back without it.

The short May night was waning— the shiver of dawn rustled the leaves of the plant whose leaves were like red misshaped hearts.

"Now!" The doctor screamed the word, grasped the glass, drained it and sank back in his chair. His hand struck the table beside him. Looking at his limp body and head thrown back, one could almost see the cessation of pain, the coming of kind oblivion.

iii

THE DAWN had grown to daylight, a poor, gray, rain-stained daylight, not strong enough to pierce the curtains and persiennes, and yet not so weak but that it could mock the lamp, now burnt low and smelling vilely.

Roger lay very still on his couch, a man wounded, anxious, and extravagantly tired. In those hours of long, slow dawning, face to face with the unconscious figure in the chair, he had felt, slowly and little by little, the recession of that sea of knowledge on which he had felt himself float in such content. The sea had withdrawn itself, leaving him high and dry on the shore of the normal. The only relic that he had clung to and that he still grasped was the answer to the problem of the trouble— the only wisdom that he had put into words. These words remained to him, and he knew that they held wisdom— very simple wisdom, too.

"To end the trouble, I must do so-and-so and say such- and-such."

But of all that had seemed to set him on a pinnacle, had evened him with the immortals, nothing else was left. He was just Roger Wroxham— wounded, and bound, in a locked house, one of whose rooms was full of very quiet people, and in another room himself and a dead man. For now it was so long since the doctor had moved that it seemed he must be dead. He had got to know every line of that room, every fold of drapery, every flower on the wall-paper, the number of the books, the shapes and sizes of things. Now he could no longer look at these. He looked at the other man.

Slowly a dampness spread itself over Wroxham's forehead and tingled among the roots of his hair. He writhed in his bonds. They held fast. He could not move hand or foot. Only his head could turn a little, so that he could at will see the doctor or not see him. A shaft of desolate light pierced the persienne at its hinge and rested on the table, where an overturned glass lay.

Wroxham thrilled from head to foot. The body in the chair stirred— hardly stirred— shivered rather— and a very faint, faraway voice said:—

"Now the third— give me the third."

"What?" said Roger, stupidly; and he had to clear his throat twice before he could say even that.

"The moment is now," said the doctor. "I remember all. I made you a god. Give me the third drug."

"Where is it?" Roger asked.

"It is at my elbow," the doctor murmured. "I submit— I submit. Give me the third drug, and let me be as you are."

"As I am?" said Roger. "You forget. I am bound."

"Break your bonds," the doctor urged, in a quick, small voice. "I trust you now. You are stronger than all men, as you are wiser. Stretch your muscles, and the bandages will fall asunder like snow-wreaths."

"It is too late," Wroxham said, and laughed; "all that is over. I am not wise any more, and I have only the strength of a man. I am tired and wounded. I cannot break your bonds— I cannot help you!"

"But if you cannot help me— it is death," said the doctor.

"It is death," said Roger. "Do you feel it coming on you?"

"I feel life returning," said the doctor; "it is now the moment— the one possible moment. And I cannot reach it. Oh, give it me— give it me!"

Then Roger cried out suddenly, in a loud voice: "Now, by God in heaven, you damned decadent, I am glad that I cannot give it. Yes, if it costs me my life, it's worth it, you madman, so that your life ends too. Now be silent, and die like a man, if you have it in you."

Only one word seemed to reach the man in the chair.

"A decadent!" he repeated. "I? But no, I am like you— I see what I will. I close my eyes, and I see— no— not that— ah!— not that!" He writhed faintly in his chair, and to Roger it seemed that for that writhing figure there would be no return of power and life and will.

"Not that," he moaned. "Not that," and writhed in a gasping anguish that bore no more words.

Roger lay and watched him, and presently he writhed from the chair to the floor, tearing feebly at it with his fingers, moaned, shuddered, and lay very still.

Of all that befell Roger in that house, the worst was now. For now he knew that he was alone with the dead, and between him and death stretched certain hours and days. For the porte cochère was locked; the doors of the house itself were locked— heavy doors and the locks new.

"I am alone in the house," the doctor had said. "No one comes here but me."

No one would come. He would die there— he, Roger Wroxham— "poor old Roger Wroxham, who was no one's enemy but his own." Tears pricked his eyes. He shook his head impatiently and they fell from his lashes.

"You fool," he said, "can't you die like a man either?"

Then he set his teeth and made himself lie still. It seemed to him that now Despair laid her hand on his heart. But, to speak truth, it was Hope whose hand lay there. This was so much more than a man should be called on to bear— it could not be true. It was an evil dream. He would wake presently. Or if it were, indeed, real—  then someone would come, someone must come. God could not let nobody come to save him.

And late at night, when heart and brain had been stretched to the point where both break and let in the sea of madness, someone came.

The interminable day had worn itself out. Roger had screamed, yelled, shouted till his throat was dried up, his lips baked and cracked. No one heard. How should they? The twilight had thickened and thickened, till at last it made a shroud for the dead man on the floor by the chair. And there were other dead men in that house; and as Roger ceased to see the one he saw the others— the quiet, awful faces, the lean hands, the straight, stiff limbs laid out one beyond another in the room of death. They at least were not bound. If they should rise in their white wrappings and, crossing that empty sleeping chamber very softly, come slowly up the stairs—

A stair creaked.

His ears, strained with hours of listening, thought themselves befooled. But his cowering heart knew better.

Again a stair creaked. There was a hand on the door.

"Then it is all over," said Roger in the darkness, "and I am mad."

The door opened very slowly, very cautiously. There was no light. Only the sound of soft feet and draperies that rustled.

Then suddenly a match spurted— light struck at his eyes; a flicker of lit candle-wick steadying to flame. And the things that had come were not those quiet people creeping up to match their death with his death in life, but human creatures, alive, breathing, with eyes that moved and glittered, lips that breathed and spoke.

"He must be here," one said. "Lisette watched all day; he never came out. He must be here— there is nowhere else."

Then they set up the candle-end on the table, and he saw their faces. They were the Apaches who had set on him in that lonely street, and who had sought him here— to set on him again.

He sucked his dry tongue, licked his dry lips, and cried aloud:—  "Here I am! Oh, kill me! For the love of God, brothers, kill me now!"

And even before they spoke, they had seen him, and seen what lay on the floor.

"He died this morning. I am bound. Kill me, brothers; I cannot die slowly here alone. Oh, kill me, for Christ's sake!"

But already the three were pressing on each other at the doorway suddenly grown too narrow. They could kill a living man, but they could not face death, quiet, enthroned.

"For the love of Christ," Roger screamed, "have pity! Kill me outright! Come back— come back!"

And then, since even Apaches are human, one of them did come back. It was the one he had flung into the gutter. The feet of the others sounded on the stairs as he caught up the candle and bent over Roger, knife in hand.

"Make sure," said Roger, through set teeth.

"Nom d'un nom," said the Apache, with worse words, and cut the bandages here, and here, and here again, and there, and lower, to the very feet.

Then this good Samaritan helped Roger to rise, and when he could not stand, the Samaritan half pulled, half carried him down those many steps, till they came upon the others putting on their boots at the stair-foot.

Then between them the three men who could walk carried the other out and slammed the outer door, and presently set him against a gate-post in another street, and went their wicked ways.

And after a time, a girl with furtive eyes brought brandy and hoarse, muttered kindnesses, and slid away in the shadows.

Against that gate-post the police came upon him. They took him to the address they found on him. When they came to question him he said, "Apaches," and his late variations on that theme were deemed sufficient, though not one of them touched truth or spoke of the third drug.

There has never been anything in the papers about that house. I think it is still closed, and inside it still lie in the locked room the very quiet people; and above, there is the room with the narrow couch and the scattered, cut, violet bandages, and the thing on the floor by the chair, under the lamp that burned itself out in that May dawning.

_______________

12: The Sculptor's Angel

Marie Corelli

Mary Mackay, 1855–1924

Nash's Magazine, Dec 1913

A huge best-seller in her day, her sensational novels are today practically unreadable. However, some of her short stories can give the flavour of her work and still be enjoyed.

"YOU ARE a great artist, my son," said the Abbot, with a favouring smile, "and, what is far better, you are noble and pure-hearted. And to you we entrust the high task of filling the vacant niche in our church with an Angel of Peace and Blessing. We will give you all possible freedom and leisure for the work, so that you may complete it before Christmas. On the Feast of the Nativity of our Blessed Lord we shall hope, God willing, to see your Angel in the chancel."

He, the renowned and well-nigh saintly Head of one of the most famous among England's early monasteries, spoke with an authoritative dignity which gave his words, though gently uttered, the weight of a command, and the monk Anselmus whom he addressed heard him in submissive silence. They were standing together in one of the side chapels of a magnificent Abbey Church— the creation of devout and prayerful men who gave their highest thought and most fervent toil to the service and praise of their Maker, and the days were those when implicit belief in a Divine Power, strong to guard and to defend the right, was the chief saving grace of the nation. The blind and unruly passions of that age were held in salutary check by the spiritual force and sanctity of the Church— and neither priest nor layman then foresaw the coming time of terror when desecrating hands should violate and pillage the holy shrines so patiently upbuilt to the honour and glory of God, leaving of them nothing but the ruins of their grandeur— the melancholy emblems of a faith more ruined even than they.

"You will," continued the Abbot, "have your time to yourself— that is, of course, such time as is not occupied by the holy services, and we will take good care that nothing shall disturb the flow of what must be a truly divine inspiration. Yes, my son, all labour is divine, and our best thoughts come from God alone, so that we of ourselves dare claim no merit. In the making of an Angel's likeness, angels must surely guide the sculptor's hand, and bring his work to ultimate perfection! Is this not so? You hear me? You understand?"

Anselmus had remained mute, but now he raised his bent head. He was not a young man— youth seemed to have passed him by in haste and left him old before his time. His face was worn and thin, and showed deep furrows of pain and sorrow— only his eyes, sunken, yet bright and almost feverish in their lustre, flashed with the smouldering fires of suppressed and dying energy.

"I hear— and I understand," he answered, slowly. "But why not choose a better man— a better sculptor? I am not worthy."

The Abbot laid a kindly hand upon his arm.

"Who among us is more worthy!" he said. "Have you not bestowed upon us the treasures of your genius, and do we not owe much of the greatest beauty of our Abbey Church to your designs? Good son, humility is becoming in you as in us all— each one of us is indeed unworthy so far as he himself is concerned— but your gift of art is from God, and therefore of its worthiness neither you nor I must presume to doubt! It is a gift that you are bound to use for highest purpose. Need I say more? You accept the task?"

"Father, when you command I must obey," replied the monk. "Nevertheless, I say I am not worthy of so much as the passing dream of an Angel!— but to satisfy you and our brethren I will do my best."

"That best will be sufficient for us," said the Abbot. "And while you work, you must relax a little in the rigorous discipline to which you so constantly submit yourself by your own choice. You fast too long and sleep too lightly— take more food and rest, Anselmus! — or the spirit will chafe the flesh with so much sharpness that the end will be disaster to both brain and body. Ease and freedom are as air and light to the artist— we give you both, my son, as far as may be given without trespass against our rules. Work at your own time and pleasure, and we will make it a sacred charge to ourselves and our brethren not to break in upon the solitude of your studio— we will leave you alone with your Angel!"

He nodded, smiling graciously, and, making the sign of the cross in air, paced slowly out of the chapel into the nave, and out of the nave again into the cloisters beyond, where among the many arches his tall and stately figure in its flowing robes disappeared.

The monk Anselmus stood for a few moments gazing after him, then with a deep sigh that was almost a groan, turned back into the deeper and more shadowed seclusion of the chapel, where, with a movement of utter abandonment and despair, he threw himself on his knees before the great Crucifix which had lately been sent as a gift to the monastery from the Holy Father in Rome.

"O God, God!" he prayed, under his breath. "Have mercy upon me, Thy wicked and treacherous servant! Lift from my soul the heavy burden of its secret sin! Teach me the way to win Thy pardon and recover the peace that I have lost! Lighten my darkness, for the shadow of my crime is ever black before my eyes! Spare me, O Redeemer of souls! for my remorse is greater than I can bear!"

He covered his face with his hands, and crouched rather than knelt before the sculptured figure of the crucified Christ, shuddering with the suppressed agony which seemed to rack his body with positive physical pain. His own thoughts whipped him as with a million lashes— they drove him through every memory of the past, sparing no detail, as they had driven him remorselessly over and over again till at times he had felt himself almost on the verge of madness. He looked back to his early days of boyhood and manhood in Rome, when as a young and ardent student of art, working under one of the master sculptors of that period, he had hewn life out of senseless marble with a power and perfection which had astonished his fellows in the school; he remembered how just when the wreath of fame seemed his to win and to hold he had suddenly become possessed and inspired by an enthusiastic faith and exaltation toward the highest things— a faith and exaltation which had moved him to consecrate his life and genius to the Church— and how, convinced of his vocation, he had voluntarily severed all ties of natural affection, leaving father, mother, and home to take the monastic vows and devote himself to the service of God, and how, when this was done, he had gladly joined a band of earnest and devoted brethren who were sent from Rome to England to assist by their labours the completion and perfecting of one of the greatest abbeys ever founded in Britain. And then he recalled the almost passionate love of his work which had filled his brain and strengthened his hands when he first saw the splendid church and monastery, a vision of architectural magnificence and purity, lifting its towers heavenward in the midst of a landscape so peaceful and fair, so set about with noble trees and broad green fields and crystal streams that it seemed like an earthly realization of the dream of Paradise. And he had laboured so lovingly and patiently, and done so much to adorn and beautify the sacred shrine that he had endeared himself greatly to the Abbot, who knew that in Anselmus he had a sculptor of rare genius— one who, if he had chosen to follow a worldly career rather than embrace the religious life, would have made a name not easily forgotten. As it was, however, he seemed entirely content— he was as careful in his religious rule as in his art labours— and the wonderful chancel screen which he, alone and unaided, had wrought out of the native stone of which the monastery itself was built, was not more perfect than the discipline and obedience to which he had submitted himself for many peaceful years. Then, all suddenly, the great test presented itself— the fiery trial from which he did not come out unscathed. And thus it happened:

Among his many duties he was sent out from the monastery twice every week among the scattered villages lying about the church lands to inquire into the needs of the sick and the poor, and on one of these occasions he met the fate that befalls all men sooner or later— love. A mere glance, a touch of hands, and the whole bulwark of a life can be swept away by the storm of a sudden, irresistible passion— and so, unhappily, it chanced to the monk Anselmus. And yet it was only a very loving, foolish, trusting little maid who had in all ignorance and innocence beguiled him from his monastic vows— a little peasant, with cheeks like the wild rose and eyes blue as the summer sea, whom he had found tending, unaided, upon an aged and sick woman, her grandmother, working for her uncomplainingly, and keeping the poor cottage in which they lived clean and sweet as a lady's bower though there was hardly any food to share between them. Touched to the heart by the sight of so young and fair a creature bearing her daily lot of hard privation with such gentle patience and content, Anselmus brought much-needed relief from the monastery— medicines and wine for the aged sufferer, and supplies of bread and new milk and eggs and fowls for the better help and sustenance of the girl, who, however, asked for no assistance, and could hardly be induced to accept it even from the bounty of Mother Church. And Anselmus saw her again and yet again— together they talked of many things, and often at the monk's request she would walk with him from her cottage door through the long, deeply shaded avenue of thickly branched trees that led to the gates of the monastery— till at last one fateful evening, when she had accompanied him thus and was about to turn back alone, his long-suppressed man's heart arose within him, and yielding to a reckless impulse, he caught her in his arms. Their lips met, and as he felt the tender, clinging warmth of that first kiss of love he suddenly experienced a sense of happiness he had never yet known, an ecstasy so intense that it seemed to lift him to a heaven far beyond even that of which he had dreamed in long nightly vigils of prayer.

This was the beginning of many secret meetings— meetings fraught with fear and joy. He, the ascetic monk, scholar, and rigid disciplinarian in all the duties of an exacting religious Order became an ardent, passionate, and selfish lover— while she, poor child, overcome and carried away by the burning warmth of his eager caresses and words of endearment, asked nothing better than to be loved by him, and in return loved him herself with all the strength and devotion of her fond little heart and soul. Their dream-like idyll of forbidden love was brief; Anselmus, like the rest of his sex, soon tired of what he had too easily obtained, and in order to escape from the tender tie he had so willingly fastened upon himself began, somewhat late in the day, to consider the dangers he ran by his unlawful conduct. His own safety and convenience now seemed to him of far greater importance than the peace or the happiness of the loving soul he had set himself to conquer and contaminate, and the more he dwelt upon his position the more irksome and unbearable it proved. One day, goaded beyond endurance by her gentle solicitude and wonderment at his altered manner, he harshly told her that they must meet no more.

"I have," he said, "committed an unpardonable sin in allowing myself to be entangled by your company. I must do penance for it with many years of fasting and of prayer. You tempted me!— it was not I— you, with your appealing eyes and smile— you led me from the path of purity and honour; surely God knows it was more your fault than mine! I am sorry for you, poor child!"— here his accents were softer and almost paternal— "Forgive me for any wrong I have done you, and forget me! You are young— you will be happy yet!"

And then, having spoken as he thought reasonably and sensibly, and being too hardened to realize that his words were as death-blows dealt brutally on the tender heart of the girl who loved him, he waited for tears, reproaches, the bitter abandonment of grief and despair. But she gave him no trouble or pain of this kind. All she did was to raise her pretty sea-blue eyes to his face with a look in them which he never forgot— a look of sorrow, pity, and pardon, then she caught his hand, kissed it, and turned away.

"Stay! Are you going?" he called. "Without one word?"

She made no reply. On she went, steadily— a little figure, glimmering whitely through the shadows of the bending trees, and without giving him so much as a backward glance, she disappeared.

He never saw her again. But that same week, when he went on his usual rounds of charity through the district, he learned that she had been found drowned among the reeds of the slowly flowing river that wound its clear ribbon of liquid light through the monastery lands. And the old grandmother she had so loyally cared for, and to whom she was more than the sunshine itself, hearing she was dead, would not believe it, and sat chattering stupidly all day about the hour when she would return to prepare the food for supper — and even when the small, frail corpse was brought into the cottage dripping with its weight of water and clinging weed, she would not look at it nor accept it as the body of her grandchild, but merely said— "No, no! It is not she— God gave her to me and He is good!— He would not rob me of her in my age— He would remember how much I need her!"

And the monk Anselmus, proffering spiritual consolation, trembled within himself, knowing the guilt of his own conscience which branded him as the murderer of the dead girl. But he kept his secret and betrayed no sign of his inward torment. And so, like all things sad or pleasant, humorous or pathetic, the little tragedy of a lost life was soon forgotten. No one ever knew that the poor drowned child had had a lover, and certainly no one in their wildest conjectures would have suspected that a monk could be that lover— a monk of austere reputation, who was sometimes called by his brethren "our heavenly sculptor, Anselmus."

Years passed— and his sin had never found him out, save in secret hours when the remembrance of his little dead love's last look haunted him with a kind of ghostly terror, and he could feel her last kiss upon his hand like a scorching coal of fire. Just in these latter days the thought of her had been so prominent in his brain as to leave him no peace. There was no especial reason why he should perpetually dwell upon the recollection of her sea-blue eyes and child's smile, yet somehow he could not shut her memory from his mind. And it was because of this constant, remorseful impression and the knowledge of the irreparable wrong he had wrought upon her that he had almost involuntarily told the Abbot that he was unworthy to perform the task for which he was commissioned, namely, to fill the last remaining empty niche in the chancel with the statue of an Angel. Burdened with the hidden weight of his sin, and feeling that even in his most rigorous fastings and penances he was nothing more than a hypocrite in the sight of the All-Knowing God, he wrestled with himself in prayer, and with tears, but all in vain. And even now, abased in supplication before the crucifix, he felt no answering thrill of hope or consolation, so that when he rose from his knees it was with a kind of desperate resignation to the inevitable— a resolve to do the work he was set to do, not with pride or gladness, but by way of punishment. In this spirit— so far removed from the joyous elation of an artist who knows that his hand can accomplish what his brain conceives— he began his labours. Carefully taking the exact measurement of the niche to be filled, he made a similarly sized one of rough wood and set it up in his own workshop or studio, so that he might study its height and breadth and try to realize within his mind the attitude and appearance the "Angel" should assume. Sitting opposite to it, and looking attentively at its interior vacancy, he saw that the figure would have to be life-size, and he presently began to draw on paper in charcoal the suggestion of a form and face, but without success or satisfaction in any actual conception.

"It is not for me to see divine things!" he said, bitterly. "Such inspiration as I once had is killed at its very source by sin! Shame on my weak soul that it should be trapped by a woman's eyes! If she had not looked at me— if her smile had not been so sweet! — if she had resisted my passion she might have saved herself and me!"

So he argued— as Adam argued before him— "The woman tempted me." So will men, in their pitiless egotism, argue in their own defence till time shall be no more.

All that first afternoon of attempted "work" he sat, weary and puzzled, alternately gazing at the empty niche and at the paper on his drawing-board, where as yet he had only traced a few unmeaning lines. The sun began to sink, and through the broad mullioned windows of his monastic studio he saw the western sky glowing like melted rubies in a belt of sapphire blue. The bright glow flared dazzlingly upon his eyes and made them ache— he covered them with one hand for a minute's space. Then, uncovering them again, he looked away from the sunset light toward the niche he had been studying all day, and— looking— uttered a smothered cry of mingled terror and rapture and fell on his knees! For the niche was no longer empty— an Angel stood within it!— a Figure delicate, brilliant, and surpassingly beautiful, with folded wings like rays of light on either side, and a Face fair, radiant, and full of an exquisite tenderness such as is never seen on any features of mere mortality. Awed and overwhelmed beyond all power of speech, Anselmus, kneeling, gazed upward at the ravishing Vision which bent its star-like eyes upon him with a look of divine and affectionate compassion. The red glow of the sunset deepened, and within the studio all the lights of heaven seemed transfused, circling gloriously around the one white uplifted Wonder that shone forth from the niche like a lily illumined with some pale hidden fire— then, almost mechanically, Anselmus groped for his pencil and his drawing-board, and trembling with fear, essayed to make a hasty similitude of the gracious Loveliness which, like a beautiful dream, confronted him. But, gradually as the sunset light faded into grey shadow, the vision faded also, and by the time darkness began to steal slowly over all visible things, it had vanished! In a kind of mingled ecstasy and anguish, Anselmus rose slowly from his kneeling attitude— the Angelus was ringing— it was time for him to leave his work for the day and betake himself to prayer and vigil. Like a man too suddenly awakened from deep sleep he walked slowly, absorbed in thought, and the brethren who watched him enter his choir-stall to join them in the singing of the vespers glanced at each other with meaning in their looks, one or two murmuring to each other, "Our Anselmus is at work! He has the air of one inspired by Heaven!"

The next morning dawned fair and bright, and as soon as the light had fully come Anselmus hastened to his studio. Full of an almost feverish haste and eagerness he caught up the drawing he had attempted— the picture of the visionary Angel— but alas! there was nothing suggestive enough for any attempt at further elaboration or completion, and he flung it aside with a sigh of bitter disappointment. The sun peeped sparkling through the windows, shooting rays of light along the stone floor— and Anselmus, seating himself in his accustomed working place, slowly and half-fearfully raised his eyes toward the niche which on the previous night had held, as he now thought, a dream of his own brain. Then he caught his breath and remained still, not daring to move— for there again— there stood the Angel! In full daylight, and whiter than the whitest cloud tipped by the sun— there, with folded wings and divine, inscrutable smile it waited, as though it sought to be commanded, its delicate hands outstretched in an attitude of mingled protection and blessing! And now Anselmus did not kneel, for, more than ever convinced that this miraculous sight was the chimera of his own mind, he resolved to turn it to use.

"It is my own creation!" he said. "A vision evoked from my own thoughts, and from my desire to fulfil the task our father Abbot has set upon me. Let me, therefore, work while it is day—" And he did not finish the sentence, "For the night cometh when no man can work."

He began to draw, and everything came to him easily as in the former days of his early skill and power— with light and facile touch he soon completed a rough outline of the form and luminous drapery of his heavenly visitant, and then— then, when he attempted to get some idea of the divinely fair face and features his hand trembled— he looked again and again and his heart suddenly failed him! For surely he had seen those eyes before!— that wistful child's smile! Shuddering as with icy cold he murmured:

"God have mercy upon me! Spare me my brain, O Lord! Let me not go mad until my work is done! Is this Thy punishment?— and can the dead arise before Thy Judgment Day? It is not yet the time!— not yet!"

His eyes smarted with the pain of unshed tears as he lifted them to the Angel in the niche— a Vision silent as the light itself, but expressive of all sweetness, all patience. Seeing that it did not move, but remained quite still as though it were in very truth a model, posed for his study and treatment, he fell to work again with a sort of passion that consumed his energies as though with a devouring fire.

Day after day he toiled unceasingly, giving himself scarcely any leisure for food or sleep, and for the first time in his life almost grudging the hours he was compelled to pass in the duties of his religious Order. Day after day, with miraculous fidelity, the Angel stood in the niche confronting him, and never stirred! Treating the vision as a delusion or imaginary creation of his own brain, he worked from it steadily, knowing that it was a perfect presentment of the ideal "Angel" he sought to create— and very soon after his drawings were made he began to mould the figure in clay. Slowly, but surely, it grew up in his hands toward a beautiful completeness, and still the Angel stayed with him, apparently watching with steadfast, sweet eyes the modelling of its own likeness.

More than a month passed in this way, and the Angel in the niche became so much a part of the life and work of Anselmus that he could not imagine himself able to accomplish any good thing without the influence of its shining presence. The autumn deepened into winter— the withered leaves fell in rustling heaps on the gravel-paths and disfigured the smooth green grass-walks round the monastery, and bitter winds blew from the northeast, bringing sudden gusts of sleet and snow. The bare room or studio where Anselmus worked became very cold— sometimes he felt a chill as of death upon him while modelling the figure of his "Angel" in the damp clay. Yet from the niche, where the heavenly Vision faithfully remained, streamed an unearthly light that was almost warmth, and Anselmus would have died rather than have left the spot for a better room in the monastery, which the Abbot had offered him in kindly solicitude for his health.

"We do not seek to know what you are doing," he said, "nor would we look upon your work till you yourself summon us to see it finished. But you appear to suffer— you are worn to the merest shadow of a man! Let me entreat you, my son, to take more care and rest— or cease work for a while— "

"No, no!" interrupted Anselmus, excitedly. "I cannot cease work, or I must cease to live! I am well — quite well! Have no trouble concerning me— let me finish my task, or else the Angel"— here he smiled a strange, bewildered smile— "Yes, the Angel may leave me!"

The Abbot was puzzled by his manner, but forbore to press any further advice upon him, though both he and all the brethren of the Abbey noticed with deep and regretful concern that their "heavenly sculptor" seemed stricken with some strange mortal illness which, though he did not complain of any ailment, was visibly breaking him down.

Things went better for him, and he appeared to suffer less, when, having finished his model in the clay, he began to hew out his "Angel" in stone. He was an adept at this kind of hard work, and the physical exertion needed for it did him good and restored to him something of his old vigour and elasticity. From dawn to dusk every day he worked steadily and ardently, and from dawn to dusk every day the radiant Vision filled the niche and adorned it with rays of light more brilliant than the sunbeams. From dawn to dusk the sweet, mysterious Angel-eyes watched him as he hammered and carved the rigid stone, forming it into an apparently pliable grace and beauty, till at last the day came when, having spent all his thought and energy on the last few fine perfecting touches— looking every moment at the delicate features, the eyes, and divine smile of his visionary model, and making sure that he had rendered them as faithfully as only a great artist can, he realized that his task was done. Throwing down his tools, he fell on his knees, stretching out his hands in an agony of appeal. For there was now no longer any need to try and deceive himself, or to feign to his own accusing conscience that he had not recognized the face he had sculptured, the sweet lips he had so tenderly chiselled, the dimple in the soft cheek, the drooping eyelids— he knew it well!— it was the face of an Angel truly or the face of a Vision— but more than all it was the face of the little dead girl who had loved him and given him all her life.

"Angel of my soul!" he murmured. "Angel of my dreams! Spirit of my work! Speak to me! Oh, speak, and tell me why you are here!— why you have stayed so patiently and long!— you, who are the heavenly likeness of one whom I wronged!— why have you come to me?"

There followed a moment's silence— a silence so tense and deep as to be fraught with ineffable torment to the mind of the suffering man. Then the answer came— in a voice sweeter than the sound of a crystal bell:

"Because I love you!"

Thrilled by these words, and gazing upward, he met the sea-blue radiance of those angelic eyes in mingled fear and rapture.

"Because I love you!" repeated the Voice. "Because I have always loved you!"

He heard— incredulous.

"I am mad!— or dreaming!" he whispered, tremulously. "This Miracle speaks as She would have spoken!"

"Love is the only miracle!" went on the Voice. "It cannot die— it is immortal! Oh, my Beloved! Your sin before God was not the breaking of a religious vow but the breaking of a human heart— the ruin of a human life!— a heart that trusted you!— a life that gave itself to you!"

The unhappy monk wrung his hands in despair.

"Punish me!" he cried. "Wreak lightning vengeance now upon me, O Angel of the Most High! Slay me with one look of those sweet eyes, O spirit of my murdered love! Let me not live to lose the memory of this day!"

The figure of the Angel stirred— its folded wings quivered and began to expand slowly like great fans of light on either side.

"Love has no vengeance in its hands!" said the Voice, in accents surpassingly tender. "All is pardoned, my Beloved!— all is finished save the story of our joy which no mortal shall ever know!— a joy beginning but never ending! Out of my death I give you life, and for the wrong you wrought upon my soul, I bring you, in the Name of God, pardon and peace! Beloved, your work is done!"

And now the radiant Form rose slowly, like a fine mist coloured through by the rays of the sun— it floated out of the niche where it had stood so long and patiently, and soaring upward, upward, melted away on a flashing stream of light into vaporous air.

Late that evening, as Anselmus did not appear in his place at vespers, some of the brethren sought the Abbot's permission to go to his studio and see if anything ailed him. The Abbot himself readily accompanied them, and by the light of a pale moon they found their "heavenly sculptor" lying unconscious before the empty niche, while standing on a rough pedestal was the completed statue of an angel, more angelic in form and feature than any they had ever yet seen. Full of wonder and compassion, they raised the sculptor's senseless body and bore him to his cell, where after some hours he revived sufficiently to recognize his surroundings and to express with pathetic humility his gratitude for the Abbot's fatherly solicitude and the brethren's anxious care. He was too feeble and ill to suffer much converse, therefore they humoured him in his evident desire to be spared all praise for the noble work of art he had achieved. All he would say when the Abbot expressed his admiration and reverence for what he justly considered the most perfect statue of an angel that had ever adorned any church was:

"God made it— not I!"

And he lay quiet for many days, without the strength to move— till at last the hours wore peacefully on to the blessed time of Christ's Nativity. Anselmus, brooding on this, began to rouse himself from his painful torpor and feebleness— nothing should prevent him, he said, with gentle, smiling earnestness, from standing in the choir with his "Angel" on Christmas Day!

So when the glorious morning came he went to Mass, supported by two of the brethren, one on each side to guide his faltering steps, and took his own place, his stall being immediately opposite the niche where his sculptured Angel was now set up in all its glory— a beauteous figure so instinct with genius as to be almost living, stretching out its hands in Peace and Blessing. White, worn, and weary, Anselmus was the centre of sorrowful interest among all the brethren who looked upon him— his thin, intellectual face and great burning eyes suggested some haunting tragedy in his brain— and they watched him in a kind of fear, feeling that he had about him the sense of something supernatural and strange.

The music surged around him, and the chanting voices of the monks made a deep, rhythmic wave of melody upon the air; the light through the stained-glass windows glittered and glowed, throwing long rays of purple and emerald, rose and blue across the steps of the altar, and Anselmus listened, looking at all things vaguely as one far off may look from some great height at the little plots of land and houses spread below— wondering within himself at the curious impression he had of unreality in all these sights and sounds, and more conscious of the statue of his Angel opposite to him than of anything else. The stately ritual went on till it reached the supreme moment of the oblation of the Host, when all were seated with heads bent in profound meditation and prayer. The bell rang, and the resonant voices of the brethren chanted solemnly— "Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus! Dominus Deus Sabaoth! Plein sunt cœli et terra gloria tua!"— when Anselmus, suddenly looking up, was struck across the eyes, as it were, by lightning. Thrilled by the shock, he sprang to his feet. There, on a shaft of dazzling luminance far brighter than the day, and poised on radiant wings between him and the statue he had wrought, was the Angel of his vision!— the Angel with the face of the little maiden he had wronged— the Angel of his inspiration— the Angel of his finished work! Ah, what tenderness now in the sea-blue eyes!— what sweetness in the divine smile!— what heavenly welcome in the outstretched arms and beckoning white hands!

"Beloved!— Beloved!" he cried, then with a choking sound in his throat he staggered and fell forward. The chanting ceased— the Abbot at the altar paused, with the sacred chalice in his hand— the brethren gathered hastily round the prone figure in consternation and sorrow— but all was over. Anselmus was dead.

A cloud swept across the sun, and for a moment the chancel was darkened, then, while two of the monks knelt by the fallen man and gently covered his face, the Abbot, with tears rising thickly in his eyes, again lifted the chalice. The sun came out anew, shining brilliantly through the chancel and lighting up the Angel-statue with a sudden whiteness as of snow, and with trembling voices the brethren resumed the interrupted service, making the arches of the noble Abbey resound and respond to a mystic Truth which the world is slow to recognize—

Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini!

______________________

13: Somebody's Sons

Annie S. Swan

1859-1943

Australian Town and Country Journal 13 May 1914

THEY HAD BEEN playing dummy whist for four mortal hours in the shack, and the game had begun to pall. The big Scotsman looked ineffably bored, the Hon. Wally was yawning openly, while Terry O'Shane, generally the liveliest of the trio, had relapsed into a most unusual silence. Suddenly in the middle of the game he threw his card J on the floor, and drew his chair with a scraping noise towards the stove, which he replenished by a fresh log.

"I'm deadly sick of it. Let's have a last draw, boys, and turn in."

His rich voice had the rolling Irish brogue, and his face was typically Irish, too, broad and good-natured, and irresistible, when the black eyes of him twinkled, but there was not a twinkle in them to-night, only something moist and stinging, dangerously akin to tears.

"What's up, Terry?" asked big Mac, touching the boy's shoulder kindly, as he passed by to his own corner of the rough wooden settle he had fashioned with his own bands.

"It's deadly sick of me life, I am, Mac. What are you and Wally thinking on? Don't you remember that day after to-morrow it's Christmas?"

They had both remembered, but there are some things better forgo Lien or at least not mentioned in a lumber camp at the back if beyond.

Nine long months had these three been together, representing the different arms of the United Kingdom, and never a word or a brawl had there been between them.

What had brought them there, to the sheer labor and loneliness of a Columbian lumber camp, when each looked as if he had the power and grit to have done well at home? A lumber camp, like a mining one, is often the last stand of all sorts and conditions of men. Most of its denizens are derelicts of sorts who somehow or another have missed the way. Some of them doubtless had left their country for their country's good.

The Hon. Wally had been a lieutenant in the Navy, and was a cadet of a noble house. Donald Maclean, the big Scotsman with a powerful, loosely-knit frame, and a big-featured, preternaturally serious face, might have sat for the portrait of an old Covenanter; while Terry, considered by the camp the pick of the bunch, had all the happy-go-lucky waywardness of his race.

But all were in the same boat, living from hand to mouth in a lumber camp, sharing its sordid misery, and apparently finding something in the life which allured and kept them. But why were they there? They had never even told one another, though certain elementary facts had trickled through the natural reserve. It was known that the Hon. Wally had had to leave the Navy, and had been shipped out of England by his irate relatives, yet he had a face like a cherub, and engaging ways to correspond. Terry had been a medical student at the University of Dublin, and had never been known to pass a single exam., so he too had been shipped. What Mac himself had been nobody knew. He was older, and from his grip of things he might have been a great employer of labor, or a college professor, or anything which required courage and intellect and resource. But there he was, there they all wore, a pitiful little trio, with the memories of home pursuing them at the back of beyond.

"The colonies would be all right for chaps if they had no memories," I once heard an exile say, and that was what Terry was feeling at the moment.

"Not even a bloomin' bit of plum duff," he said gloomily. "We'll just need to get drunk, Wally, you and me, and Mac can celebrate the day by kicking us sober."

Mac smiled a trifle grimly, and the silence grew. He broke it at last.

"Say, boys?"

"Yes, old man," said the Hon. Wally, while Terry cocked an intelligent eye and waited with ears alert.

"I hear there's a new sky pilot over at Tuke's Bar, and that he's going uncommonly strong. We'll go over and sample him on Christmas Day."

He spoke quite seriously, and after they had winked at one another, Wally and Terry ventured to laugh.

"The Gospel mill on Christmas Day," quoth the lad. "Well, it might be worth while if there was anything to give thanks for— a good dinner, for instance, after service."

"Well, there might be that even. I'm taking you to Tuke's Bar, lads, and it's up you get sharp at five o'clock for the trail on Christmas morning."

"What is it we are to get for it, Mac?" asked Terry, as be sat forward.

"Christmas service first, Christmas dinner after. I know a Scotswoman at the Bar that will make it. I've written to her; it's all arranged."

"Gosh!" said Terry, while the Hon. Wally ejaculated "Gee whiz!"

"And if it's raining cats and dogs like it is to-night, do we still make the trail?"

"We do," answered Map tranquilly. "Five o'clock sharp."

"Any biled rags required?" inquired the Hon. Wally. "Because I ain't got one, and there won't be time to-morrow to get them ready."

"I guess the biled rags won't matter. I shall go decent, however."

"Say, Mac, what are you doin' it for?"

Mac shook his head. "Ask me another. I was in camp, not this one, last Christmas, and I suppose the nightmare isn't off my chest yet. Anyway, I'm going, and I'll promise the free feed if you'll go to the service first. It won't be a right Christmas without it."

"Plenty of whisky to wash the taste out after."

"No whisky at all. We're going to quit being hogs for one day, that's all."

"Heads or tails, Terry," observed the Hon. Wally, extracting a dime from his pocket. But for once the Irish boy had no answer ready. He picked himself up heavily, and clambered into his bunk, and nobody knew that his pillow was wet with tears.

On Christmas Eve there was a jollification of sorts in camp, and neither Terry nor the Hon. Wally turned up at the shack till the small hours of the morning. When the Scotsman, who had gone to bed at midnight perfectly sober— for in a place where drink was the only form of amusement, he seldom overstepped the boundaries— got out of his bunk in the morning, one was on the settle and one on the floor. He stepped over Wally carefully, and opened the door to look out upon the Christmas morning. It was glorious. The rain had spent itself in the night, there never is any frost to speak of before Christmas on the Sagansa River, and the sky was studded with a million stars. It was just on five o'clock, and Mac had slept heavily, not even having been disturbed by the arrival of his comrades about two. He felt himself perfectly fit to make the trail. He knew that it would be useless to awaken them, though be was tempted to try the effect of a pan of cold water on their faces. But even if he could arouse them, they would be in no trim for a nine mile walk.

He broke up the fire, put on some twigs to boil the pannikin for his tea, and began to make his toilet.

The grey dawn broke upon him, enlightening his solitary way. And as its miracle arose purely, in the clear sky, it was as if all the misery, of the past had been washed away from him, and he stood a clean and free man again under the pitying skies of Heaven.

He knew that he had made the trail for the last time. He had no reason for this belief, except that strange inner consciousness which sometimes assures us beforehand of happenings that seem out of the ordinary course of things. He had to climb high, for those who made the early trails seldom or never took the roundabout or easy road to the place they wished to reach. To shorten the distance had always been the first aim, and astonishingly few mistakes were ever made.

The trail from South Fork to Tuke's Bar was straight as the crow flies, and just before nine Maclean, who had been walking easily, came to a clearing in the trees from which he could obtain a view of the plain beneath. The day was now clear and fine with a mounting sun in the heavens and the soft Columbian air enveloping him like a pure mantle to cover his sins.

Tuke's Bar, once a mere stopping place for those making the trail further west, was now quite a respectable township, with a railway, electric light, and tramcars. It had no great industry, being surrounded almost entirely by the orchards of the fruit farmers. It was a pretty spot, embowered in trees, set like a gem in a fertile plain, the snow-capped mountains surrounding it sheltering it from every kind of wind that blew. It was one of the beauty spots of the far west, to which the attention of all tourists was directed as an object-lesson of what the new country has to offer those who entrust themselves to her. The smoke of the morning fires was ascending cheerfully to the clear sky, and presently the stillness was broken by the joyous riot of the Christmas bells.

Now in certain moods of a man, there is nothing that will play havoc with his emotions more effectively than the tinkle of a church bell heard across country spaces. It can play upon the whole gamut of his feelings like wind upon the harp. Mac gripped himself tight, and hastened his steps, not so much that he feared to be late for service, as he feared to find himself too soft-hearted to go on. He had a stout crook he had cut from a thorn tree at home, and which had certain names and dates notched upon it, and had followed him through all his wanderings, and with long swift swinging strides descended the hill and came into the town.

Business was suspended there, and the people, well dressed, happy, many of them in family groups, were hurrying to the various places of worship to give thanks for the Gift of the Christ Child. Maclean, although his inner man clamored for a meal, fell into train with them, and came just on the stroke of ten to the Presbyterian Church, a noble structure where his countrymen and women gathered to worship the God of their fathers, and to be brought in memory near to the old land where most of them left their hearts.

There was nothing about the big Scotsman to attract the smallest attention, and certainly nobody could have guessed from his quite orthodox exterior from what strange haunt of forgotten men he had come. He slipped into a pew near the door, just as the first psalm was begun, and the organ was pealing out the familiar Old Hundredth. It was sung with might and main, though just now and again a voice would falter, and a surreptitious moisture would be hastily wiped away, as if it was a thing to be ashamed of and hidden at any price.

Maclean stood erect and tall and immovable, not opening his lips, and his eyes saw nothing. Nay, I am wrong, they saw something, a far-away Scottish glen shut in by the hills of home, a little grey church and Manse with the school-house close by, the burn wimpling past the cottage doors, crying on the stones in the night time, when the rain had fallen and run down from the hills to swell its modest volume.

All that he saw, but presently it was blotted out by the sharp outline of the preacher's face. For unless his eyes deceived him it was his own cousin Hector Maclean who stood there, ready with his message for the folk.

Mac crouched in his corner and ever and again put his big hand to cover his face, lest by any chance the piercing eyes of the preacher should wander to it, and there should be instant and painful recognition. But the, preacher, wholly possessed by his theme, had no eyes for the face of his cousin Donald, though he had often said he would give ten years of his life cheerfully if he could find him.

He gave out his message with the ringing clearness of the man who believes, and it sank deep and awakened response, and he held the full church in the hollow of his hand. Many new vows were taken in those pews that morning, but Donald Maclean made no vows save one, and when the service was over he went to redeem it. Several desired speech with the minister but Mac was in no hurry. He could bide his time.

The minister was just about to leave the vestry, having some calls to pay before he should go to eat his Christmas dinner by invitation at the house of a friend, when turning round from the table he beheld an apparition in the doorway.

He gasped and steadied himself by the table.

"Donald, is it you, or your wraith?"

"It's me, Hector, right enough. How are you?" said Mac simply, and they shook hands in the orthodox way, a poignant moment being relieved by one of the ordinary courtesies of life.

"I came in to hear the new sky-pilot, not dreaming it was you."

"Came in from where?" asked the minister sharply, and at the same time his eyes devoured his cousin's looks. He was very thin and haggard, his face deeply lined, but there was nothing either to haunt or to depress.

"Oh, from the place where I live," he answered vaguely. "It was the name that brought me. But, of course, there might be many Macleans. How have you come here? What brought you to Canada?"

"I came to search for you, Mac, and I've only been here for three months."

"Well, you've got on the trail pretty soon," said Mac, with his big slow smile. "And what did you want me for?"

A visible excitement now began to get the minister in grips.

"Want you for! Man, how can you stand there and ask what I want you for? Doesn't the glen at home and the whole of Scotland want you?"

"Do they? Have they got tired of slinging mud at my name?"

The minister took hold of his cousin's shoulder with a grip which hurt. It is astonishing the strength a small man can have in his fingers when there are forces within working him up.

"It's all been cleared up, Mac. It was that hound Jock Malcolm , that did it for his own vile ends. God forgive me for speaking so of a dead man."

"Maybe, but the folk were quick to believe the worst of me," said Mac, not bitterly, only slowly and steadily. "And what has Jock got for his pains? Did you say?"

"Jock's dead, Donald, he died last Martinmas, and confessed everything on his deathbed to Sheila. She's been seeking you ever since, to make amends."

"There are things that can't be mended, Hector; my life is one. Well, will you come and eat with me at the hotel, before I make the trail again, that is, if you have the time to spare for a crack with me for auld lang syne? But I'm not needing to go back on the old time, Hector. I mean the time that drove me out. I'll go further back if you like to Sneckey's school, and our tussles with the Ishmaelites. Will you come?"

The minister took swift counsel with himself. He was a small man, but full of a kind of holy guile, and he was keen for the souls of men. He had no intention of letting his precious find slip from his grasp now, there was too much at stake. His eyes burned with an intense fire, even while he laughed happily as if he had not a care in the world.

"Of course I'll eat with you anywhere, though I'm due at the house of some Scottish folk at one o'clock for their Christmas dinner. Will you come there and pay a call with me, till I see whether I can get off? Then I'll go to the hotel with you, and we'll resurrect Snecky."

Mac made no demur.

"If you don't expect me to go in and jaw. I'll come, Hector. Anyway, I'll walk as far as the place you want to go to. I want to hear how you ever lit on Tuke's Bar. It's the queerest thing in the world."

"Oh life is full of queerer things than that," said the little minister joyously, for he was very near the summit of his hopes, but was grasping them fearfully, not yet sure of his ground. There was a terrible deep strength about his cousin Donald, and he had the. look of a man who had been fighting with Titans. But in the fight he had overcome, for his eye was clear and his face, though lined, had none of the marks of the Beast upon it.

So praying hard within, even while without he babbled cheerfully of trivial things, the minister bore away his prey.

They walked through the principal streets, and came to the leafy avenues of what is known as the best residential part, and so to seme big iron gates worked with the thistle upon them, and bearing on the side-post the name Glen Affery. If Mac observed this name, he made no sign, though just within the gates he stopped dead.

"I'll take a dander down the road while you're trying to get away from the folk, and if you don't come out in twenty minutes' time, I'll go and feed myself for I've got a vacuum inside of me that's got to be filled soon."

"You'd better come in, Mac, for you see, maybe they wouldn't believe you had really come. They're only plain Scottish folks anyway. He made his pile at Nelson, and now he potters about a fancy farm he has here. Come on "

Mac being in a plastic mood, and suspecting no underhand work, succumbed and presently found himself in a pleasant family room full of flowers and books and all the cheerful attributes of the home-life from which he had been cut off for so long.

"I'll just see where all the folks have gone," said the minister who seemed to be amazingly at home in the house. Again Mac made no demur, and made a bee line for the books, like a man who has been long hungered. So absorbed was be that he was unconscious of the opening of the door, and it was the soft rustle of a woman's gown which broke the spell. When he turned his head swiftly, the color left his face under its healthy tan, and made it strangely wan and blue.

"My God, Sheila Brayne, where have you come from? Are you living or dead?"

"Not dead at all; living, Mac, every inch of me.".

And to make sure, her arms were about his neck, warm and kind arms of a living woman, and her cheek soft as thistledown nestled to his own.

"Oh my dear, my own man, my Mac, thank God, thank God! I've found you at last."

After that, what was to be said? Why, nothing. Does a hungry man or a thirsty one pause to appraise or analyse the meat and drink that are going to save him from despair?

"So it was you that was waiting for me, my dear, at the end of the trail," he said, and his voice vibrated with his deep content.

IN THE SHACK at South Bar two penitent boys, with splitting heads, awoke to the dismal fact that he whom their souls loved had left them and made the Christmas trail alone. And they were further conscious, and this almost finished them, that he never would come back.

And they were right. Love had lifted Mac up to the highest heights, lured him back to his rightful place in the world of men, cleared up all the black shadows of the most. bitter past. But he did not forget. In his great happiness he had thought for somebody's sons, and rested not until he had lured them away from their slough of despond, and started them afresh on the highway of hope.

_________________

14: The Tudor Cup

Neil Munro

1864-1930

Australian Town and Country Journal, 1 July 1914

Neil Munro was a Scottish author of serious novels and humorous short stories, many originally writen as by "Hugh Foulis".

WHEN THE Tudor Cup was sold at Sotheby's in the year 18— for the sum of £7,000, the fall of the auctioneer's hammer echoed found the world, at all events round the world of men who gathered bibelots. There were only three such treasures in existence— the one now destined for America, which was understood to have come from Holland, another in the national collection in Paris, and a third in Scotland, the property of Sir Gilbert Quair, whose ancestor had acquired it one hundred and fifty years before by winning a game of cards in a London coffee-house.

Among those people who were profoundly moved by this record price for a quite unimpressive-looking battered silver tankard was the firm of Harris and Hirsch, the Bond-street art dealers, and two days after the sale in London, Mr. Harris hastened up to Scotland; quartered himself at an inn in Peebles, and pushed some discreet inquiries.

Sir Gilbert Quair, he discovered, was in a state approaching penury, living an almost hermit life in the House of Quair beside the Tweed, with a deaf old housekeeper, a half-daft maid who never came out of doors, and an equally recluse man whose duty it was to act as guide to the numerous tourists.

Harris, the Bond-street dealer, modestly bent on hiding his own importance in the commercial world of art, for the nonce a simple English gentleman with a taste for miniatures, called next day at the House of Quair, whose crenelated tower looked arrogantly over ancient woods and fields where lambs were bleating piteously, and men were walking along the furrows scattering seed.

The avenue of yews, which led from the highway into Peebles through neglected, and dishevelled grounds, brought the Bond-street dealer to the forlorn facade of the mansion and the great main door. He rapped upon the iron knocker; the sound reverberated as through a vault, with hollow echoes such as come from vacant chambers. Far back in the dwelling's core there was a clatter of something fallen, but no one answered to the summons of the visitor, and having rapped in vain again, he returned round the westward wing to find himself confronted by a door on the side of which was hung the evidence that this was properly his entrance. It was a painted board with the legend

QUAIR COLLECTION

Open to the Public

Tuesdays and Thursdays

Admission One Shilling.

Now this was neither a Tuesday nor a Thursday, and Harris swore softly. He was just on the point of making his retreat when a footstep sounded on the gravel of a little walk that led to a bower upon the terrace, and turning he found himself face to face with Sir Gilbert Quair.

"The collection is not on view to-day, sir," said the baronet, an elderly, thick-set gentleman wearing a shabby suit of tweed. Mr. Harris took off his hat, not to the wearer of the shabby tweed suit but to the owner of the Tudor Cup. He passed the baronet his card to which the name of a well-known London club contributed the proper degree of uncommercial importance.

Sir Gilbert turned it over in his fingers with a little hesitation; shot a shy glance of the keenest scrutiny from under his bushy eyebrows at the visitor.

"In the circumstances—" he began, and taking, a key from his pocket unlocked the door which led to the collection, but before he let his visitor through he held out to him a little wooden box with a slit in the lid of it.

"In the absence of the usual guide," said he, "I'll collect your shilling for him, Mr. Harris."

Five minutes later Harris was manifesting the most rapturous appreciation of Sir Gilbert's miniatures, which in truth were nothing wonderful, but at every opportunity, when unobserved by his host, his eyes went ranging in search of the Tudor Cup. It was his host who finally called attention to it under glass in a corner cupboard.

"If you had been interested in old English silver, Mr. Harris, this piece might have had some attraction," said Sir Gilbert, drenching his flaring nostrils with a pinch of snuff from a tiny ivory spoon. "I'm no great judge, myself, but my father highly prized it."

The Bond-street dealer with a thudding heart peered through the glass at the very counterpart of that tarnished goblet which had fetched £7,000 in Sotheby's. He was wondering if the dry old shabby gentleman looking over his shoulder and odorous with maccoboy was aware that this was a Tudor Cup, or if he had read the newspapers carefully, and knew what Tudor Cups were worth in Sotheby's.

"BUT HIMMEL! did you not make him an offer?" demanded Hirsch next day in the Bond-street shop— they call it gallery— to which his partner had returned from Tweedside with the profound depression a man I might have who had for a fleeting moment I seen the only woman he could ever love and I then had lost her in a panic.

Offer, Joel!" he replied in accents of despair. "I offered him five thousand and he only chuckled. He would not even take it from the cupboard. 'No, no,' Mr. Harris,' I he said with his head to the side, flicking up I his abominable snuff, 'it is an heirloom older than any here, and I am not selling.' And the galling thing is that he doesn't even know he has a Tudor Cup, nor what a Tudor Cup can fetch in Sotheby's."

"Ah, you should have had the money with you, Harris," said his partner. "Always show the money, I say; it talks for you through a speaking-trumpet. By heavens I will go myself to Scotland and have that Tudor Cup if I have to steal it!"

IT WAS Thursday afternoon. Hirsch stepped in at the door which led to the Quair collection, to find the man in charge of it had all the customary cicerone's dull loquacity. He dribbled dates and gushed details of family history as if he were a gargoyle who had never got refreshment from the currents pouring through him.

"You do not appear to have many visitors to-day," said the picture-dealer, having looked perfunctorily at dingy tapestry and pictures, and now with eyes, in which the fires of covetousness were with difficulty restrained, upon the tarnished Tudor Cup in its corner cupboard.

"Ye're the first this week," said the guide with acerbity, as if the shilling fees were a more personal matter than the gossips of the country-side believed, and Hirsch the dealer, rubbing his hook-nose to conceal the tremulous avidity of his mouth, saw that disappointed avarice was in this creature's eyes.

"I should like, a little later on, to see Sir Gilbert," said the dealer, who had five thousand pounds, in his pocket, and a Jew's conviction that an impecunious Scot could never resist the delicious crackle of English notes.

"Ye canna; he's from home," explained the guide. "He's awa' to Edinburgh for a month."

A thought came there and then to the dealer which made him pale. Avarice and cunning were in the old man's face; his shillings plainly meant a lot to him; his clothing was in poor accord with the guardianship of treasures. "Look here," said Hirsch, in a confidential whisper.

"If your master is to be away for a month, there is no reason why the matter I meant to arrange with him should not be arranged with you and put a handsome sum of money in your pocket. I have taken a fancy to this silver jug, and though I know Sir Gilbert will not part with it, I thought he might at least agree to let me have it copied. It's a thing that is often done. Mr.—"

"Meldrum," said the guide, with a promising air of equanimity.

"In two or three, weeks I could have my copy made in Paris, and this cup returned to you in safety, and no one else except ourselves. nfeed be a bit the. wiser, Mr. Meldrum."

The guide gave a laugh that was half a sneer, and checked it suddenly with a hand upon his mouth. "It's a maist singular proposition," he remarked reflectively. "In the four-and-twenty years I have been showin' folk the Quair Collection I havena heard the like of it. And it comes from a total stranger!"

"I represent one of the most reputable firms in London," Hirsch hastened to explain, with the simultaneous production of his business card.

Meldrum looked at it with interest.

"Harris and Hirsch. I take it that you are Mr. Hirsch? There was a Mr. Harris calling on Sir Gilbert, I was tell't, some days ago."

"Exactly," answered Hirsch. "My partner. He had almost completed negotiations for the loan of the cup for the purpose I have mentioned. But really there seems no need for us to be troubling Sir Gilbert. The cup will be back before his return from Edinburgh and—"

"Just that!" said Meldrum dryly. "And what about my security?"

Delighted with such apparent pliability, Hirsch produced his English notes which brought a very passion of greed to Meldrum's eyes.

"Let us not be calling it security, Mr. Meldrum," he remarked insidiously. "If a hundred pounds."

Again the guide ironically chuckled. "If I could trust ye for a hundred pounds, Mr. Hirsch, I could trust ye mair for ten times that," he said. "I take your word for't that we needna ca't security, if I'm to risk my job and my reputation, the cost of three weeks loan o' that siller tankard is exactly a thousand pounds!"

Three weeks later, the Quair Cup and its duplicate came back from Tregastel of Paris, so much alike that Hirsch would have been beat to see a difference had it not been that, he found on one a private microscopic mark he had put on it himself. But it was not the cup so marked that he returned to the accommodating Meldrum.

TWO MONTHS more, and the curio world was shaken once again by the intimation of another Tudor Cup for sale at Sotheby's.

Amongst the host of possible bidders who examined the precious piece of tarnished metal taken, out impressively from Sotheby's strongest safe some days before the sale, was Barraclough, the expert who had bought its fellow earlier in the season for his client in America.

"A brilliant forgery," he exclaimed on careful scrutiny. "One of Jules Tregastel's charming reproductions," and departed.

Harris and Hirsch were sent for by the auctioneer.

"Nonsense!" they protested, and Hirsch satisfied himself again that the microscopic mark of the veritable cup from Quair was there. "Tregastel never had a tool on it."

"Hadn't you better ask?" said the auctioneer, and they asked by telegram, with astounding consequences.

"The cup you sent was a copy made a year ago by myself for another client. I thought you knew," replied Tregastel.

"Mein Gott!" cried Harris, appalled. "Tregastel has made so cunning a job of it he has even copied your private mark, and you have sent the original back to Quair."

"I will not believe it! I will not believe it!" said his partner, almost weeping with chagrin.

THAT NIGHT the two of them went to Scotland, and in the morning Harris went out from Peebles to the House of Quair to see Sir Gilbert.

"Might I have another look at the cup?" he asked without periphrasis, and the baronet snuffed and chuckled.

"It seems to have wonderfully taken your fancy; Mr. Harris," he remarked with an ironic cough. "Again you are unfortunate in the day you call, for this is Wednesday. And in any case I thought I made it clear that the cup was bound-to stay here in spite of your most tempting offers."

"I know," replied the dealer, "but I should like to see it; that is all."

"Ah! you mad collectors!" said Sir Gilbert humorously. "Ye can be as crazy over a bashed old siller cup as I might have been myself at one time over a bonnie lassie! Well, come your ways in and you shall see it! It is aye another shillin'!"

Harris not only saw the cup but this time got it into his hands. In a fever of apprehension he turned it up and down and sought, for a microscopic mark like that which Hirsch had pointed out upon the other— it was not there!

At the sight of the blank look on his face Sir Gilbert chuckled and took snuff.

"I see you have discovered, Mr. Harris," he remarked with his eyebrows twitching. "You connoisseurs are not to be deceived so easily!"

"Then— then you know it is a forgery!" cried Harris with amazement.

"I would not use that word for it exactly, Mr. Harris," said the baronet with a gesture of distaste. "A copy— and a wonderful copy too, by Tregastel, of Paris. The truth is I sold the original some months, ago in London, having first had this one made. You see my possession of a Tudor Cup is notorious and if it got about that the Quair Collection was being in any way depleted, where would our shiillin's come from, Mr. Harris?" and he jocosely poked his visitor in the ribs.

Harris flew back to the inn at Peebles, an object of unutterable despair.

"Mein Gott! these Scotch!" cried Hirsch, wringing his hands. "But I will have my money back from that Meldrum man if I have to take him to the courts."

"Harris and Hirsch would cut a funny figure in the courts in the circumstances, Joel," said his partner. "It is better that we go out together to-morrow, when your Meldrum's place is open, and compromise."

The entrance to the Quair Collection had been hardly opened on the morrow when the dealers tried to push their way within. Harris was perturbed when he saw who checked them on the threshold— Sir Gilbert Quair himself, who greeted him with a crafty smile, only a little shabbier in dress then when he had seen him hitherto, and with the box for the admission shillings hanging round his neck.

"I want a word or two with you," said Mr. Hirsch peremptorily, finding the old man barred their further passage. "Did you know that cup you lent me was an imitation?"

"I could hardly fail to be aware of it," said the baronet. "You surely didna think a paltry thousand pounds would be security for a genuine Tudor Cup, and a' the world sae keen on them at Sotheby's."

"I have been deceived; I must have my money back!" said Hirsch, and the old man shrugged his shoulders and took snuff.

"Na, na!" he said. "A bargain's aye a bargain, and ye canna get your money back. The best I can dae for ye is to swop the cup ye sent for the one I lent ye."

"Look here, Meldrum—" Hirsch began, and Harris, with surprise, corrected him.

"Not Meldrum," he remarked. "Sir Gilbert Quair."

"Ye're both, of ye right, and ye're both of ye wrang," said the old man, with a chuckle. "For twa years back I've been guide to my own collection; it's the only way to keep an eye upon the shillin's."

"You d——d old rogue!" exclaimed the partners simultaneously, and he grinned at them, with his stout old breast across the doorway like a cliff. For a little he gloated on their fury, then took them by the arms and led them out upon the terrace.

"You see this land," he said, and indicated all the hills and valleys, verdant woods and furrowed fields, and the river sounding at the bend below the mansion. "The greed of English thieves brought them here marauding for good six hundred years, and it seems ye're no' done yet! My forefolk fought you with the sword, but Gilbert Meldrum Quair must fight you with his wits!"

"But Gott im Himmel! We are not English; we are Hebrews!" protested Hirsch with his hands palm upwards and his neck contracted.

"That is worse," replied Sir Gilbert, making for his door. "We Scots are still at feud wi' the Jews for what they did out yonder in Jerusalem."

__________________

15: "Owing to the War"

Barry Pain

1864-1928

Australian Town and Country Journal, 21 March 1917

[The Strand Magazine Jan 1917]

IT WAS a smart shop, selling high-priced luxuries for our personal adornment and convenience. You could buy quite a nice dressing-case there for eighty guineas, if you did not care to pay more. Behind its counter there was as a rule, a row of suave and elegant young men, with a priceless gift of hypnotising people into buying what they had never meant to buy for prices which they could not afford in an attempt— which always failed— to avoid the polite contempt of the salesman.

But these strenuous times had made a change. The suave and elegant young men were far away, and doing far more useful work, and in their place behind the counter there were but two men. One of them was wildly above the military age. The other was young enough, but he suffered from flat-foot, varicose veins, housemaid's knee, chronic asthma, neurasthenia, and blindness of the right eye. These things did not show when he was behind the counter, but they had prevented the acquisition of him by the War Office. As, however, the shop was at present resting on its laurels and doing little or no business, this depleted staff sufficed for normal occasions.

But the girl who was at present looking at the gold cigarette-cases in the window was not perhaps quite normal. Several people had expressed with great fervor the opinion that she ought not to have been at large. She was perhaps fifteen years of age, and she was pretty. She had dark hair and grey eyes, and when she spoke an expert could detect a slight Irish accent. Her usual expression was one of sweet, simple seriousness.

As she looked into the window she had a glimpse of the elderly and gentlemanly dodderer behind the counter. For one moment she compressed her lips, and a twinkle came into her eyes and vanished again as swiftly as sheet-lightning. She gave a little sigh and walked into the shop. As she climbed up on to a chair by the counter she looked a little awe-struck and timorous.

The elderly assistant bustled forward at once, alert and deferential.

"Good morning, miss. Your pleasure."

"It's not pleasure exactly," said the girl shyly. "It's more duty. I want a birthday present for my grandmamma."

"I see. Precisely. If I might suggest— er— perhaps something in tortoiseshell?"

The girl seemed perplexed, swung her shapely black legs, and looked down at her pretty shoes.

"But," she said, "there isn't anything in the tortoiseshell, except, of course, the tortoise, and grandmamma doesn't care for pets. Never has done since the canary died. And you don't keep birds."

The elderly assistant smiled indulgently.

"I'm afraid, miss, you didn't quite grasp my meaning. What I wished to imply was objects made of tortoiseshell— hair-combs, card-cases, and such-like. We have them in great variety, and find that they always please. I may say," he added, confidentially, "that at the present moment any purchase of tortoise shell is a splendid investment. Its value may increase 25 per cent, in a month— owing to the war, of course."

"Owing to the war," the girl repeated, doubtfully. And then a swift gleam of intelligence passed over her face. "Oh, I see! All the tortoises are sending their shells to the Front."

So far the young assistant with the many complaints had listened with gravity, what time he passed a languid wash-leather over the gold tops of the smelling-bottles. At this moment he suddenly submerged his periscope below counter-level, and made a noise like soda-water. As he reappeared the elderly assistant turned on him a little irritably.

"You needn't wait, Mr. Evans. It's after your usual time."

Never did Mr. Evans go to his dinner so reluctantly.

The elderly man turned again to his customer.

"Owing to the war," he continued, patiently, but with rather a nervous look in his eyes— "owing to the war, the supply of tortoiseshell has ceased. None is being imported, so the price is bound to rise. I am speaking, of course, of the real tortoiseshell. If you wish for something less expensive, we also carry a stock of the imitation— haircombs, card-cases, and such-like."

"I hardly know what to say," said the girl, thoughtfully. "I should like to give grandmamma a present, but just now—"

"Oh, quite so. We find that many of our most distinguished customers have to consider the money question nowadays— owing to the war, of course."

"I suppose," said the girl, "it wouldn t be possible to get something medium. Real tortoise and imitation shell, I mean, or the other way round— imitation tortoise but real shell."

The assistant looked distinctly worried. "Clearly not, miss," he said. "The actual tortoise could not be imitation."

"No?" said the girl. "You can get mock turtle. But I dare say you know best."

"And," the assistant went on, "a real tortoise would necessarily have a real shell."

"But real people can have false teeth, the girl. "However you're sure to be right. I suppose it's owing to the war. Then it must be real tortoiseshell."

"I see, miss. Hair-combs?"

"Not hair-combs, I think. You see, it rather difficult to explain. Grandmamma hasn't got any hair."

"Quite so, quite so. A tasteful little card—"

"Grandmamma has given up playing bridge owing to the war. I think that what she would really like would be a cigarette-case. Yes, of course she ought not. But— well, she's like that."

The assistant visibly brightened. Actual business seemed to be now in sight. He produced four cigarette-cases in the most genuine tortoiseshell. They were all expensive enough to frighten you, and the girl went without hesitation to the most expensive of the lot. She asked the price, and never flinched when it was disclosed.

"I'm sure," she said, "that is the one which grandmamma would prefer."

"It would make a quite important and very distinctive present," said the assistant encouragingly.

"That's just what I feel about it myself," said the girl, fervently. "And I suppose you could engrave the coat-of-arms on it?"

"Naturally. We are constantly executing work of this kind."

"And let me have it by three this afternoon?"

"I couldn't promise it," said the assistant candidly. "It might be ready and it might not. I shouldn't like to disappoint you. In the ordinary way, we have a large expert staff to deal with this class of work. But owing to the war—"

"Yes, of course," said the girl, sympathetically; "I quite understand that."

"What I would suggest is that you should offer this— er— this little offering on her ladyship's birthday, and have the engraving work executed subsequently. Needless to say, we shouId not detain the case one minute longer than was absolutely necessary for her ladyship's satisfaction. But all heraldic work demands the utmost accuracy in detail, and we have not our usual number of first-class workmen— owing to the war."

"Never mind," said the girl. "I should like that case."

"Very good, miss. And would you wish to pay for it or to have it entered?"

"I should prefer to have it entered."

"Certainly, miss. No doubt, your family deals with us. Otherwise we should, as a purely formal matter, require one or two references."

The girl said that she had no family, except grandmamma, who never went out. But she offered, rather glibly, a list of references. They included the Bank of England, the Bishop of London, and Mr. Gordon Selfridge.

"Would these do?" she asked.

"Absolutely. More than sufficient. May I trouble you for the address to which the case should be sent?"

He folded back a leaf of his notebook, and touched his pencil-point with his tongue.

"Just one moment," said the girl. "If I pay for it, it will be paid."

"Precisely."

"But if I have it entered it will be owing."

"Quite so."

"Well, put it down as owing— owing to the war. Good morning."

She paused a second as she went out, and suddenly assumed the voice with which we have become familiar over the telephone.

"Sorry you've been troubled," she added. And she never stopped laughing till she got to South Kensington.

_________________

16: His Reward

Hume Nisbet

1849-1921

Brunswick and Coburg Leader, 20 Dec 1918

Scottish author and artist who spent seven years in Australia, from age 16 to 23, and visited again in 1886 and 1895.

1: The Shadow of a Great Rock

VICIOUS waves of heat swept down the gully, into which the sun had poured its burning rays all day.

This fiery waft seemed puffed out from the red-faced sun as it hung for a moment above the distant desert. From the dried-up bed of the stream a small patch of a treeless desert could be seen, and above this patch the setting sun hung exaggerated and inflamed, as if swollen with anger, against the stricken earth whose substance he had devoured.

It was a cheerless spot for humanity to sojourn in, this little gully, which was at the best only an earthquake split in the granite mound, that crouched like a monster lion in the midst of a desert of sand.

"A great rock in a weary land," but it held out no promise of rest or comfort, for it was bare, hard and inhospitable. Not a blade of grass found a home on those iron ledges, no water-pool nor oasis broke up its purple shadow, it was utterly void of vegetable life.

In the gully, however, life existed in its most objectionable form. Scorpions, centipedes and deadly snakes swarmed under the stones and in the crevices, mosquitoes by the countless legions thronged the space both day and night, humming viciously, biting venomously, striped like tigers and as voracious. The sand seemed a moving mass of stinging insects— ants, fleas and flies, all venomous blood-suckers; although how they existed on ordinary occasions, when humanity was absent, was one of the mysteries of animated Nature.

Occasionally a tribe of blackfellows paused under the shadow of that rock, or prowled through the gully seeking for snakes and lizards; but their visits were so few and far between, as well as so short, that this could not be the nutriment provided by Nature for those hungry and thirsty legions of crawlers, jumpers and fliers. They must have fought and lived upon each other during the frequent and prolonged periods of scarcity.

For the past ten months, however, food had been vouchsafed to them in the persons of two unfortunate fossickers or prospectors, who with a sad-eyed and long-suffering dromedary had pitched their camp within the afternoon shadow of this huge rock. They were seventy miles from the nearest mining settlement, and were forced to go that distance for every article they required; for their stores of food and provender for the dromedary. Even the condensed water had to be brought and carried from there and hoarded jealously, as the lack of it meant death in its most terrible form.

Once a week that patient dromedary took the journey from this lonely Mount Lion to the mining centre, going lightly enough weighted, as it only carried one of the prospectors with what gold dust and nuggets they had gathered during the week, and returning laden with the purchases. Once a week this dromedary got a thorough good drink and square feed, on the memory of which he seemed to live until the next visit.

They were brothers. the owners of this dromedary and holders of this mound of sterile rock; brothers who had come to West Australia seeking for fortune. For ten months they had honeycombed the gully, searching for gold with but indifferent success. The gold was there, otherwise they would not have stayed so long; enough gold to keep them in provisions and water, but not enough to enable them to send any money home to those for whom they were toiling so hard and suffering such privations and torments.

When the goldseeker finds his fortune he is apt to forget the wretched months or year he endured before, as the sailor forgets his voyage round Cape Horn when he gets into the Tropics.

John Graham and his young brother Arthur were the sons of a squatter of Victoria, whom the great land boom had ruined and killed. The squatter died broken-hearted, leaving his wife and family penniless to face the world as best they could. The mother, too old and frail to work, found a shelter with some charitable friends. One sister went on the stage as a ballet girl, and while waiting to be entrusted with a part, managed to exist on a modest salary. The other two sisters went out, one as a lady help and the other as a hospital nurse. They, likewise, managed to exist after a style.

Jack Graham, as he was called by his friends, went with his brother to the goldfields. He had made up his mind to retrieve the family fortunes or perish in the attempt.

Australians have their vanities, and possibly also their vices, like the rest of frail humanity; but lack of pluck and resolve are not among their usual failings. When a Colonial has lost his money, the only factor of Australian caste, there are not any dangers or privations that he will not brave to recover his lost estate. Jack Graham was resolute as the rest of his countrymen, but he had the extra inducement of a sweetheart to urge him on to exertion. Eugenia Gilman had given him her promise before the days of ruin came upon the family, and, as he fondly believed, also her heart. When the calamity overtook them she had still shown herself faithful and fond, and although the engagement was now likely to be a long one she still promised to keep true to her word, and saw him depart with hopeful tears and loving wishes.

Fourteen months had passed since they parted; still her affectionate and trusting letters reached him regularly. They were his joy and comfort, for they breathed of hope and happiness; nor did she ever complain of the delay which sometimes drove him nearly mad, as each blazing sun set and he flung himself by the side of his brother and the dromedary, worn out in mind and body, to suffer another night of torment from those desert marauders.

He had been called "Handsome Jack" in the old days. He was handsome still after a wild fashion, with his long sand clogged beard and hair, even although he had not washed himself for the past nine months Water was too costly a luxury to be wasted outwardly at Mount Lion, and without water soap was a superfluity. In the mornings when the brothers roused up at dawn for the long day of work, each dipped a finger into their drinking pannikin and wiped the sand and sleep out of their eyes. That constituted their bath; the result of which ablution was curious, for while the rest of their faces was the colour of tanned leather, a small circle round each eye looked startlingly white, from which the bloodshot eyeballs glared in a ferocious manner. This took considerably from their personal beauty, but it added to their formidable appearance, and made them respected by both natives and stray fossickers who chanced that way, and might otherwise have been disposed to "jump " their claim.

They were both tall and fine young men, whom the past months of hard labour had a developed into muscle. Thin and lanky, they looked in their dilapidated and much-patched shirts and pants, for they had not a an ounce of fat left to cumber them. Their arms were like iron, and their palms like horn; altogether they were as unlike the soft smooth-skinned young gentlemen who had left Melbourne as they could possibly be.

Arthur was twenty-one and Jack twenty-five.; both dark, with ebony hair and jet black eyes. Arthur was the more cheerful of the pair, for Jack had heavy fits of depression at times, when he brooded on the months that were passed while Fortune mocked them with her tardy gifts, and the girl he loved so passionately was forced to wait. He would groan in very bitterness of soul as he tied up the few specks each week-end in the chamois bag, and weighed its lightness despairingly in his hand.

"Cheer up, old fellow," Arthur would say at such gloomy moments. "We are getting gold, so it must be there, in some pocket rich enough, and we'll strike it some fine day."

"But when, Arthur, when?" Jack would ask, bitterly.

"Perhaps after months, perhaps after years when we and our sisters are past enjoying it, our mother dead, and Eugenia tired out."

"No, it will come sooner, Jack, than that— perhaps to-morrow."

They would eat their damper, and sparingly moisten their lips from the billy of tea, and then stretch themselves under their tent to snatch a few hours of sleep. Next morning they would start again, either at the old hole, or, if that seam was played out, to dig a new one, with the fever of expectancy nerving them on to a long day of ceaseless labour.

They took turn by turn with the pickaxe and spade, worming their way into the earth like moles; the one down below filled the bucket, which the other pulled up and spread out for the sun to pulverize. After a sufficient quantity had been excavated both would set to work, sifting the debris through the hands and watching the dust as it filtered for the coveted speck.

Some days their hopes would be raised by finding in an hour almost enough to keep them for a week; at other times days would pass with hardly a speck to reward them. These lucky hours kept them chained to Mount Lion. The unlucky days made them meditate on suicide. They had purchased the mining rights of the whole mountain; for they were of opinion that gold would be found amongst the quartz if they only could get enough out of the soil to pay for blasting and crushing. One lucky find would give the place notoriety and enable them to float a company, and this was what they were working and hoping for. As yet, they had only done a very little blasting, for the specimens they took to the crushing mill, although showing slight indications of gold, had been of too poor quality to encourage speculation.

Experienced miners who had visited them were of opinion that they were wasting their time, and that the miserable returns were all they could ever expect. These opinions, while they depressed the brothers, did not influence them enough to make them abandon their claim. It was neck or nothing now with them both. They had some to the goldfields almost penniless; indeed, they had been forced to borrow enough cash to bring them over.

For the first five months they both worked for wages until they had saved enough to repay their loan, purchase stock, provisions, and the strictly needful dromedary; then they started as their own masters. For nine months they had made much less than they would have earned on the fields as employees, but this solitary rock, with its narrow gully and its possible chances, were theirs to live or die for, and doggedly they stuck to their sterile property, poorly as it had rewarded them.

Half-starved, thirsty, blistered; and stung by day, they worked savagely at their self-imposed slavery. The gully like an oven, with the heat of a furnace concentrated within its narrow, rugged, and snake-infested walls, hungry, thirsty, and bitten all through the night by those hordes of torturing insects, use only, with utter fatigue, making them sleep in spite of a thousand discomforts— thus had they existed for nine months, in a hell of despair, alternated by fevered moments of delusive hope, enduring what no convict, even in the worst days of colonial convictism, could have endured.

The gully was a cul-de-sac— that is, it had but one entrance-and after winding about zig-zag for some distance it gradually narrowed until it became a mere crack in the cliffs. At the entrance it was broad enough for a couple of carts to have entered abreast, and showed unmistakeable signs of being the bed of a torrent in the wet season, as it would become with those sloping sides.

This appearance had made the brothers begin their prospecting at the entrance, where it was natural to suppose the gold dust would be driven. No rain had fallen during the time they had owned the claim, and they had worked up towards the narrower portion. Occasionally, however, they had sunk holes in different parts of the gully, keeping always as much as possible to the centre of the stream, and at depressions where there was most likelihood of finding pockets.

For a week past they had been working a hole that at first gave them a fair show, but which during the last two days gave nothing for their labour. Both had worked away grimly and silently during that fiercely blazing afternoon. As the angry-looking sun went down behind the flat horizon, Jack, who had been digging, scrambled out of the hole, with his spade and pick, and, flinging down the spade, he leaned his weight against the pickaxe and regarded his brother gloomily.

The tender but evanescent twilight was settling softly upon the earth, and already making objects a little vague.

"It's no good, Arthur, my boy, Fate is against us making our pile here."

Arthur folded his arms and looked steadily at the opalescent sky. He tried, but he could not find the usual hopeful words. It did seem foolish to persist in sticking to this kind of luck.

Jack went on with a mirthless laugh:

"We must shift our tent and try some other spot, or else go back to our old job on the fields. I am convinced at last that we have as much prospect of finding a nugget sticking to the end of the pick by jabbing it in there as to hope for one by digging anywhere in this gully."

As he spoke he made a random and savage dig at a sand-filled crevice in the cliff that was nearest him. The pick point sank into the soil a good way with the force of the stroke, and it stuck firmly, resisting his first attempt to pull it out again.

Arthur was looking still at the distant sky, while Jack with an impatient  exclamation put his whole strength into the drawing out of the pickaxe. It came out, bringing along with it a perfect avalanche of debris— loose stones, sand, earth, also several of the poisonous denizens of the crevice.

Jack trod rapidly on the head of a snake, and crushed the reptile, whilst scorpions and centipedes dashed off into the gathering darkness.

"By Jove!"

Arthur started from his meditations and looked in the direction of his brother at that cry. Something shapeless was sticking to the pick-point and weighing it down. In a moment both young men were on their knees, like heathens before a god, rubbing at that shapeless lump with their hands.

"Found! Found! The lucky nugget at last. Surely it must be gold, Arthur."

"It both feels and weighs like gold, and if my senses don't deceive me it's a thirty-pounder."

The brothers rolled on the ground, embracing each other and the gold lump alternately. They shouted and sang and wept like madmen, kissing the rock in their passion of joy, while the scorpions and centipedes scurried out of their road to find fresh lodgings.

"Fetch the lamp, Arthur. Where this comes from there may be more. I'm not a bit tired. Let us pass the night fossicking. Oh, my darling, you shall not have to wait long now.'

Until his brother rejoined him, Jack Graham sat on the sand, and fondled that heavy lump of ore with the tenderness that a mother might bestow upon her first baby. It was the first-born of his future a fortune— the bright object of his waking and sleeping dreams— the thing for which he had suffered all those dreary months of privation come to bless him at last and restore happiness to him and to those whom he loved.

In his past life— that is, in his former careless days, while his father was alive and seemingly wealthy— John Graham had not paid much attention to religious matters. Of course, as a respectable member of society, he had not neglected his social duties of attending church and that sort of s thing, but be had rested satisfied with these outward observances. On the diggings, while working for wages and mixing with the wild and reckless spirits to be a found there, he had cast aside those early observances, along with his high hat and black coat, and lived as the others did.

During these long months of disappointment and tormenting suspense, however, when with his brother he had lived in this solitude, to pray had come natural to these two men in their despair. In the; darkness of the night they had both often lain silently, with their yearning eyes cast towards the brilliant stars, and prayed with a savage earnestness for mercy and help, as the Psalmist cried out in his despair. Night after night those prayers had gone, up to a seemingly pitiless heaven— to a God who did not answer if He heard.

Now, as the strong man fondled his found treasure and rubbed the clinging dirt from it tenderly, the knowledge came upon him that heaven had not been pitiless, nor God deaf to his supplication, but rather had delayed His reply for some wise purpose.

As this conviction struck him with overpowering force, he fell upon his knees, and, folding his hands over the precious nugget, he began to thank God with passionate and humble fervour. Arthur came at this moment with their  lantern, and, seeing what his brother was doing, he likewise knelt beside him and joined, as he had done in early childhood, in that prayer of gratitude. Silently the pair knelt for some moments, with the light from the lantern shining out between them and the stars, clustering thickly overhead.

A quiet and solemn scene it was, from which they rose with moistened eyes and the fever of that former paroxysm of madness stilled in their hearts. They felt refreshed and ready for a night of work, but there was no longer a dread of their losing their senses, as many successful goldfinders have done. That mutual prayer had saved their reason. It was a big nugget, and a careful examination put their minds at rest as to its quality. It was of pure virgin gold; fat, greasy in its feel, and like an immense potato, all lumpy and nobbled.

With a sob of the most intense rapture the brothers laid it reverently on the ground, and proceeded to investigate the pocket which had held it. The noxious reptiles and insects had a disturbing time of it that night; with that lantern shining in upon their lairs and the pick disturbing the peace of ages. No privacy was sacred from these invaders so long-settled homesteads. The scorpions and centipedes that had nestled all their lives in those comfortable hollows had to trek off to other quarters while the secrets of the past were dragged out to the open.

When the moon rose over the back of the mount, and shone in all her silvery lustre from a sullen sky down into that gully bed, her rays cast shadows from several soft-shaped lumps lying together beside that large nugget, for all the world like an arrangement of various-sized potatoes.

2: His Reward

GEOLOGISTS and mining experts may lay down fixed laws for the finding of gold and in theory they may be correct. But often where it has been discovered, throughout the different portions of Australia and elsewhere, experts have to admit that, according to their knowledge of signs, it should not have been. The brothers ought to have discovered that nugget in the bed of the stream if anywhere, yet there was no reason why it should not have found a resting-place in that intersection.

Ages before, when the volcanoes of Australia were vomiting out their flames, lava and red-hot cinders, and the earthquakes were tearing asunder those quartz masses that spotted the land, this lion-shaped mound had been partly ripped open, and the treasures of the earth cast up from its bosom, as the cinders were from the volcanoes. The heavy ore would not leap up so high nor scatter so wide its the lighter debris. Much fell back into the chasm and sank deep before the soil closed round it again, yet some pieces would find pockets for themselves amongst the cracks.

The brothers now had reason to congratulate themselves on their site when chance put the key of the locked-up secret into their hands.  That first nugget was the largest they got, for when weighed it was found to be the largest yet discovered in West Australia. It weighed 543 ounces.

All that night and the next day they worked gaily and without resting. They felt no fatigue, for the excitement sustained them. They were now sure about their future.

Jack went with the dromedary on its next journey, taking with him only a few of the smaller nuggets, and resolved to keep their find for the present a close secret. He realised £60 on these small nuggets, and with the money hired another dromedary and an extra stock of provisions and some charges of dynamite.

The miners congratulated them on this little bit of extra luck, which was not enough yet to raise their greed. So the brothers were left alone to do their work.

Before returning to Mount Lion, Jack wrote short and cautious letters to his mother, sisters, and sweetheart from the hotel.

He knew how needful it was to be most careful and not reveal the secret  too quickly, even to those he most trusted, with the chances of a letter being opened "by mistake." In gold-seeking, as with love, some consider all expedients of getting early news fair, and this kind of gambling teaches men reticence, as the game of poker does.

Jack wrote what all the gold-seekers knew already, that he had done fairly well that past week, and trusted to give them better news shortly. As a proof of this he enclosed postal orders to his sisters and mother, and a tiny nugget to Eugenia to keep up their hopes.

So elated was he with the good fortune. and so eager to get back to work, that he only experienced a slight pang of disappointment at there being no letter that week from his sweetheart. In her last one she had mentioned that she was about to visit some friends in Geelong, therefore he put her missing the post down to that visit. People do not always have the same leisure when staying with friends that they have at home.

This lucky nugget was the turning point in the brothers' career. In a fortnight's time they collected over 3,000 ounces of gold from different deposits, besides blasting several places which showed, when bared, clustering  specks and promising looking veins in the quartz.

Satisfied with what they had found, and what the rocks revealed, they considered the time had come for them to give publicity to their discovery, and take in partners; so Jack, one more leaving his brother in charge of the claims, packed up his gold and quartz specimens, and took them down to the mining centre. Here he announced the great news and made the anticipated sensation. Mount Lion became famous, with the discoverers. The telegraph wires spread the tidings round the world, and the brothers John and Arthur Graham became capitalists.

Experts thrashed out and confirmed the truth and bona, fides of the claim, and in an incredibly short time the company had been formed. Jack and Arthur, keeping one-sixth share each, sold the other portions for £100,000, and with this money in the bank they turned their backs upon Mount Lion and their long-suffering dromedaries, and set out to enjoy their much-needed holiday.

Down to the nearest railway terminus they travelled as fast as horse and trap could take them, and from there to Albany by rail, without stopping at Perth. At Albany they caught the P. and O. mail steamer bound far Melbourne, and here, for the first time for fourteen months, they enjoyed the luxuries of civilisation— a close crop, a clean shave, a comfortable bath, and epicurean diet.

Jack had received another letter from his sweetheart. It was short, and full of apologies for her negligence and brevity. She was well, and enjoying herself, but evidently had not received his letters since his luck had turned, for she made no mention of them This annoyed him slightly, but it did not disturb him. He would himself take down the pleasant surprise, as soon as he had seen his mother and sisters, and made them happy.

Three days after this the family reunion took place, and the mother and sisters knew that never again need they regard the future with that heart-aching and acute suspense, which is the purgatory of the poor; never again think morbidly upon their growing debts, or pray half-doubtingly for their daily bread to be assured. Smiles ,of content rippled over their lips, and happy lights gleamed in their eyes, the result of that magic, beauty and youth restorer— gold.

Only. one small cloud marred the otherwise cloudless horizon of that happy meeting. Helen Graham, the actress sister, had always been a bit of a Cassandra to the family, and she took Jack aside, when he announced that he was going down by the afternoon train to Geelong to see Eugenia.

"I wouldn't go to-day, if I were you, Jack," said Helen. "I'd write to her first, and await her reply."

"Why, Nell?"

"Fifteen months is a long time-for a girl of Eugenia's disposition to wait on as uncertainty."

"But she has written to me constantly during that time."

"I dare say; but I also know that she has had other strings to her bow during that time."

These words fell on Jack with a strange effect. He could. not think his sister would tell a deliberate untruth, yet he could not but hope she was mistaken. A girl might be lively and gay without being false, and no man could reasonably expect his sweetheart to shut herself up during his absence like a nun.

Yet he felt as if his sister had robbed him of half his vitality by the words she had uttered. He felt old, cold, and dreary all of a sudden, as he had done just before he found the nugget. Rousing himself by an effort, he said roughly:

"I'll go down all the same and try her."

It was about nine o'clock when he reached Geelong, and a bright moonlight night, so that he had no difficulty in finding his way to the, address that Eugenia had put on her last letter. A house standing in its own grounds, with an easily-opened gate. Between the house and the gate, the drooping trees, and shrubs grew thickly, and cast dark shadows, so that by walking on the grass, and keeping close to the shrubs, he was able to approach the veranda without being heard or seen.

As he drew near to the veranda he saw that it was occupied by two people, who stood close together with the clear white beams shining full upon them. He recognised Eugenia whom the fourteen months had not changed, and beside her a young man. His arm was round her waist and her head leaned lightly on his shoulder, while her eyes looked up at the eyes above her with the same tender glances that she had so often bestowed upon him.

Jack stood as if transfixed to stone in the shadow of a trumpet tree, whose heavy scented white flowers-loomed gray, as did the face of the successful gold-finder. The pair were whispering, and he could hear the words, softly as they were uttered, for the stillness was unbroken, save for the soft sighing of the faint night air. How deadly those trumpet flowers smelt, making his sickened heart quiver as he watched the picture and heard the whispers which proved her utter duplicity.

They were speaking about him and his fortune, and planning out their own future after she had married the fortune. He heard it all, and for a moment felt savage that he had left his revolver behind in Melbourne, for he would like to have shot them both. A little longer, however, and he was glad that he had left it behind, for a mighty contempt swept over him which killed his love as lightning destroys a green tree. He heard it all; then, as the young man raised her face to kiss her, John Graham stepped from the shadow and looked at them.

"Jack!'' she shrieked, as she slid from her companion's arms and fell a huddled heap to the ground.

Then Jack turned without a word, and, crunching down the gravelled walk, took his way back to the station. He was satisfied, and wanted no more. He had been rewarded for those long months of waiting, longing, and suffering.

PEOPLE who had known of the engagement between Eugenia Gilman and John Graham were disposed to pity her as a very ill-used young lady, and look upon him as a heartless scoundrel, when they saw how he behaved towards her after his return to Victoria. She did her utmost to foster and keep up this general opinion by going about with the pIaintive and pathetic expression of a suffering woman enduring her wrongs silently and heroically, and thereby gained great and universal sympathy.

With the springy buoyancy of youth and the happy conceit of a shallow-minded and conscience proof coquette who imagines her beauty to be all-powerful, and that love once won is a breakless mesh, she tried to win back the prize her folly had lost. She waited for a few days until her offence had passed from her own light memory, and then sought him out.

The result of that interview was that she grew spiteful, and threatened a breach of promise. This completely cured John of even the sorrow he had suffered over his shattered idol. He referred her to his lawyers, which quickly brought the young lady to her senses, and soothed her with a very small plum out of the pudding which she might have had all to herself only for her stupidity.

Afterwards, when John met her, the discontented wife of a city clerk, and compared her with the true, beautiful woman whom he had since found, he had to own that the granting of man's impatient and first desires are not always the best reward that heaven can give..

_____________

17: No Greater Love

Michael Bittner

Harlem Stories, May 1932

The only known story by this writer. No other information is available. The magazine, a "girlie" pulp, lasted just two issues.

THEY named her Ivy when she was born, and she grew up to be poison to all men. That is, all men except the one. But that is way ahead of the story.

At one time Ivy danced and sang in Lafayette's in the heart of Harlem. And at other times Ivy had trouped around the whole country showing the south, the west, the east and the north the magic and song madness of Harlem.

And now, back again in her dressing room in the Harlem show house she heard a sudden rapping upon the door. She quickly picked up a robe and wrapped it about her undressed self. And then she invited the caller in.

Into the room stepped Baby Lou. And about Baby Lou we must also pause and say a word. Baby Lou was one of those flashes that spring out of Harlem every so often and grip Broadway and the world, and scintillate like a meteor for a while. And, then without any given reason, they suddenly disappear, no one speaks of them— they go back to Harlem and are swallowed up by the turn of events.

Baby Lou had a chassis. Baby Lou was eighteen. Baby Lou sang and danced like a house on fire. Petite and pretty, with a smile that killed them in the nightclubs, she was predicted as the coming Broadway great. People spoke of Ethel Waters, Florence Mills, Ada Brown and the others in the same breath as the Baby. And all this time, the phenomenal brown dandy had not so much as gotten near Broadway. But great things were expected. Ivy, to get on with the story, smiled and spoke.

"Hello, Baby... what's on your mind?"

The young one seemed all excited, and standing there with the shimmering rhinestones covering the smaller parts of her figure, she was a sight for sore Harlem eyes.

"Ivy, I want to talk to you about Joey Williams..."

"Oh," the wise one arched an eyebrow, "I thought I told you to give that rat a clear steer before he gives you a bum steer."

"But, Ivy, I don't think you know Joey well... he... he..."

"I don't know him well," the older dancer smiled and then turned her memory back to months before. "That's funny, the way you say that, Baby Lou. But go on with his story. What has Joey offered you now?"

"He hasn't offered me anything," Baby Lou seemed offended, "he was just..."

"Written a song for me to sing," Ivy finished suddenly.

And the young one stared, her mouth agape.

"How did you know?" she asked, incredulously.

Ivy smiled. Hard, calloused woman of the world who knew the men of the show world and what they wanted, she pursed her lips and said:

"Was the song called, 'You Are My Own'?"

Baby Lou was more surprised than ever. "How did you know?" And Ivy put all the poison she could into her voice.

"Because he wrote that song for me months ago. And before me there were others. That rat has used that song to lure more women to his apartment than you can count."

"I don't like you calling him a rat," Baby Lou offered angrily, "he's a friend of mine..."

"I get it," Ivy answered quickly, "but answer me, did he ask you to his apartment to rehearse?"

"What if he did...?"

THERE was such outward juvenile resentment in the Baby's attitude that Ivy knew that she could gain nothing by being nasty. And liking the kid as she did, and knowing what was in store, she reached out and pulled her toward her. Then, staring into the depths of her eyes, the old trouper spoke softly.

"Listen, Baby, I'm your friend. I'd do anything for you. You're the first kid that has come my way and attracted me. I want to help you— I want you to reach the top. And you've got it in you. But believe me, I know Harlem— I know the show world. And I know Williams..."

"You make me think he's a monster and he... he's not!"

"Listen, dearest," Ivy pleaded, "you've got your name all set for the bright lights. You'll go to new heights if you walk carefully. But Joey Williams will pull you down—he'll pull you down. He's a rat..."

"How dare you..."

"Please, listen, Baby... I've had my affair with Joey..."

"You're jealous— that's it. You're trying to spoil it for me. Joey Williams is a gentleman and I know it." By now Baby Lou had gone off into something that resembled a rage, and looking hatefully at Ivy who remained calm, she moved toward the door and shouted: "Don't go saying anything about Joey— just because you happen to be that way yourself." She slammed the door and went out. Ivy sat down. She bit her lip. And buried her head in her hands. The door opened. Ivy looked up. It was Walton, the company manager.

"Hello, Ivy. Blue again?"

"Just a little."

"Anything wrong. You broke?"

"Not that..."

"Well, you got nothing to worry about, Ivy. With Baby Lou heading our show we'll play every night in the year."

Ivy nodded. She looked up at Walton and then spoke.

"And what if you lost Baby Lou?"

"Oh, don't say that— that little kid is headed for big time or I'm crazy. If Harlem thinks she's hot, what will Broadway think..."

"I see... "

"Oh, it was a lucky day for us when you picked that kid up, Ivy. Where was it, in Cincinnati?"

Ivy, belabored with her worries, reflected. It all came back to her.

"It was Kansas, Walt," she was saying, "and only two years ago. I saw the Baby in an orphanage and took her along. Listen Walt," she suddenly leaped to her feet, "I... I..."

"For Pete's sake, Ivy, what's wrong?" the manager asked. "You never looked so strange. Is there anything...?"

"Listen, Walt, I can't make the opening number of this show—you won't mind if I skip out. It's important as hell..."

"What... what's..."

"Listen, Walt, if I don't see someone, things will be bad for all of us. Now, get out while I put some clothes on..."

"I don't like you missing part of the matinee," Walton remarked, "but, gee, you got me scared."

He backed out of the door as he spoke, and Ivy let the robe fall from her body. She stood momentarily in front of a large mirror and then quickly pulled some clothing over her. She tucked her hair under a hat and put on a coat. And, locking the door of her dressing room, she dashed out. She raced to the corner and into a phone booth.

"Hello... hello... Mr. Williams... hello... Joey."

"Who is this?" came the voice over the wire.

"This is Ivy..."

"Oh, well, what do you want?" very annoyedly. "I want to talk to you...""I thought we were quits." "It's not me, Joey Williams. I don't want any part of you. But it's a kid named Baby Lou..."

"How's that your business?"

"Listen, Joey, I forgave you for what you did to me. But if you pull that kid down, if you lay your dirty hands on her, I'll give your family plenty to be sorry about..."

"You threatened me before, Poison, and here I am hale and hearty."

"You heard what I said, Williams. Take it or leave it."

The receiver clicked. The first act was over. The drama of Baby Lou was in the making.

ii

TWO weeks had gone by. On Thursday night Walton rushed madly about the stage. Baby Lou had not shown up. The same thing happened Friday night. The management made apologies for this and that. He told them Baby Lou was sick. But at heart he was sick. What could have happened and where was the missing trouper?

On Saturday, right before the matinee, he broke into Ivy's room, without any warning. He was too excited to think about her being undressed; his breath coming in short gasps almost choked him in the effort to speak.

"Ivy, the Baby's back..."

The old trouper looked up. She pulled a robe toward her and waited. "She just went into her dressing room. Oh, she's looking like hell, Ivy. Drunk and— all shot to pieces."

Ivy remained staring silently at the nothingness before her and her silence irked the nervous manager. He swore under his breath and then demanded an answer.

"For God's sake, say something, Ivy. What's up... is it... is it?"

And the wise one nodded.

"Walton," she said, slowly, "it's a... a guy..."

"Is he... is he doing her wrong?" the expression sounded naive but it was the only way of asking it. And Ivy disregarded it and went on. "I always feared it—I knew the Baby would go off for a sucker. Only I know this one— that makes it hard to swallow." She finished with such hatred in her voice that Walton flared up furiously.

"Who is it, Ivy? I'll fix the dirty..."

"No, you won't," Ivy smiled calmly, "you've got a wife and a child, Walt. Never forget that. I may try..."

"It's no time for thinking about it, kid. We've got to do something. The Baby isn't herself. I heard her crying when I pressed against the door..."

"I guessed so much," there was hidden fury in Ivy's voice. She got up, put her hands on her hips and looked at Walton. Then she went out without saying a word and walked down the corridor to a door. She turned the knob quickly and walked in.

Baby Lou, disheveled and with tear-stained cheeks looked up.

"You... you... what do you want in here?"

"Hello, Baby..."

"Oh, let me alone..."

"I've missed you, dear. Where were you?"

"None of your damned business."

"You've been drinking."

"That's none of your business, either."

"You've been seeing Williams..."

"Oh, get the hell out."

"Listen, you," Ivy leaped forward and grabbed the smaller woman by the shoulders and shook her like a poodle. "I've got this to say to you and you better listen. If I catch you drinking again, missing a show or seeing Williams, I'll break your neck..."

"Let me go... let me go... you can't talk that way to me... who do you think I am... you dirty—"

The hand of Ivy rose and fell. It slapped the Baby so violently that it toppled her from her stool and sent her sprawling against the floor. Dazed and in agony, she lay like a frightened house pet. Ivy, crouched over her like a wounded leopard, raised her hand again to strike, her eyes ablaze with fury. And Baby Lou pleaded for mercy.

"Help... help... stop... do you hear?"

But Ivy had long taken the law into her hands. "Shut your mug before I crush it. You little whimpering devil. You move and you'll never see light again. I told you I want you to stay away from Williams..."

"You can't tell me..."

"No?" Ivy raised her hand again. "I'm telling you, get me? Joey Williams is mine, and if you try playing around you've got me to deal with..."

"That's a lie... that's a lie," Baby Lou screamed, "you're not his. He told me you were nothing but a dirty old..."

Before she could finish, Ivy had slapped her again; and, inwardly aware of what Joey had told the youngster, she was about to turn and leave to square things forever with Williams, when Walton and most of the cast broke into the room.

"For Pete's sake," Walton took the scene in at once, tearing Ivy away from the Baby who lay crying upon the floor of the dressing room, "what are you doing, Ivy?"

THE young whimpering kid cried aloud her sorrow. She told how Ivy had beat her because Williams had preferred her to the older girl and she repeated every word Williams had said about Ivy.

Finishing she cried: "So she beat me— she beat me because she is jealous."

And while all eyes fastened themselves upon her, Ivy went cold inside. She almost reeled; dizzily she saw Walton look scornfully at her. And into her heart a murderous urge raced; it found no peace. It left her no moment of rest. And thus sacrificed to both the cause of Baby Lou and exposed to the scorn of the troupe, Ivy sank to lowest depths.

And Walton, taking a hand in the matter, spoke his mind.

"Ivy, you're through. You can't strike a show girl and get away with it in my shows. And you, Baby Lou, get up."

While Ivy sulked in the corner near the door Walton tore into the kid. "You know you missed two shows. And you've been drinking?"

"I wasn't feeling well," Baby Lou sobbed, "and that devil beat me... she almost killed me. And me so sick..."

She cried so talentedly that the tears melted themselves into the heart of all who heard. And having discounted Ivy's story, Walton turned to Baby Lou and told her to get ready for the next show. And then he turned to his assistant manager.

"Evans, call up the agency and get another dancer for the dressing room down the hall."

And so saying, everyone understood. Ivy, not hearing any longer, blinded by her hatred for the man who had besmirched her, and drugged by her love for the little actress, reached for the doorknob. While all watched her, she turned, went over to Walton and fighting to hide her tears, placed her hands on his lapels.

"Walt," she bit her lips to remain composed, "you've been so good to me. I'll never stop trying to show you how much I appreciate it. On the level—you're an ace."

She dropped her head, looked bravely at all about her in a silence that was tense, and avoiding the sight of Baby Lou she trouped out of her old dressing room.

She rushed quickly back to her own, spilled everything on the floor in her hurry. Dressing in civilian clothes, she heard the overture strike up and a mad desire to rush out on the stage gripped her. It was all so strange— not going on at the sound of the music. But no longer master of her destiny, Ivy Lee tore out of the dressing room, concealed a long blade under her coat and rushed out of the theatre.

Coming through the stage door she said a final farewell to the doorman and as the fresh air met her nostrils, it failed to dislodge her original intention— her promise to get Williams for all time.

And so determined, she went to her apartment. She smoked and smoked. She took an opiate for her nerves, a harmless tablet that sobered her jumping nerves, and paced the hours away in her apartment. Night fall and the hours stealing toward midnight...

Toward midnight.

And the final act in the tragedy of Baby Lou about to be written. For at the hour of midnight, strange things are known to happen, but none so strange as those which happen in Harlem.

iii

IVY LEE, her face concealed in a heavy fur collar, stole softly up the steps in the direction of the apartment of Joey Williams. Months before, she reflected as she went softly up the stairs, she had come to see Joey in an entirely different mission. She remembered his warm, intoxicating embrace, the lies and the vulture-like heart of the man. His dark ebony skin—his thin moustache, his villainous yet irresistible smile. And she thought of the lies he had told her, of how he had betrayed her. And then she thought of Baby Lou... of the lies he had told her. Of the tragedy that was sure to come.

And onward she went. Tired, finding no peace in a world that had never given her a break— that was Ivy Lee. Game old trouper to the end. She stole softly out on the fire-escape and looked down through a small transom. Below she could see the window of Joey's apartment— she could see his robed figure lying upon a chaise longue.

Breathlessly, the long cruel knife in her hand, she waited. The figure stirred; she could almost discern the smile upon the face of the devil. She strained her eyes. From out of the further corner of the room something staggered.

Ivy stared; her eyes rolled for an instant. And then, when the sheer negligee of a woman made itself plain, something in Ivy went hot. It was maddening. The sight of this woman. And the knowledge that Joey had not only betrayed her, but Baby Lou as well. And how many others?

Softly, slowly, entrancedly, like a long distance movie, she watched the procedure. Greedily, she saw Williams arise from his chaise longue, lift the young creature into his arms and lay her down upon something near the lounge. Breathlessly, she saw the young girl struggle from his embrace; the look of disappointment that crept over his features was almost visible where she stood. And at one time she almost caught a sound of his rowdy voice. And successfully hating him, she waited. She would give them leeway. She would let them know the bliss of each other and then surprise them. She would avenge herself and— she had almost forgotten Baby Lou.

And so waiting, she saw Williams chase the fleeing figure about the room. Twice he toppled and fell, once as his arms encircled the fleeing figure.

Ivy leaped to new activity. The blood raced madly in her veins. Impatiently she watched— watched and waited. The drama must soon reach its climax. Once again she saw the chase and the result. Williams, staggering about, lunged across the room. He seized the frail figure in his arms, lifted her high. And a soft protest, high and shrill reached the very height of the fire-escape. It came through the transom and maddened Ivy. She watched—

THE conquest complete. Williams, drunk with power and desire, had clasped his arms in a vice about the lithe figure of the girl. And slowly but determinedly, his strength was bending her will and her resistance. And then, as she stared wide-eyed almost expecting the ghoulish climax, Ivy gaped. Something unknown— some quick motion which she had not seen, occurred. She knew only, by the terrible, blood-curdling scream that had taken place that something had happened.

She stared, unbelievingly, and the form of Williams fell to the floor with a dull thud. And Ivy Lee, blade in hand raced toward his door. She flung it open with a savage lunge and coming into the room she almost knocked over the unclad figure of the trembling girl.

Her throat constricted— her eyes blazed; she trembled from head to foot...

"Baby Lou," she gasped. Crying, sobbing, panicky with fear, the showgirl from Kansas, the new toast of Harlem, fell crying to the floor.

"Ivy... Ivy... save me. I had to... I had to... He was driving me out of my mind... oh, save me..."

Hysterically rolling about the floor, the spectacle of her deed almost at her fingertips, Baby Lou implored for a mercy that only a love greater than any could give. And Ivy Lee, hurt anew by the turn of events, looked in momentary horror at the turn of events. There was Williams— there was Baby Lou... Baby Lou, where she herself might have been had it not been for Williams dragging her down. Wasn't it enough that she had suffered— was it to be the fate of this child?

No, no... she remembered her promise to herself. A mysterious love for the youngster warmed in her anew— she quickly lifted her to her feet and dressed the sobbing girl. And quickly pushing her toward the door, while tears streaked down her eyes, Ivy stopped.

She pulled Baby Lou to her bosom. "Go, dearest, out of Harlem. Away... anywhere. Then come back... you will find the world waiting..."

"But, but," Baby Lou was sobbing, "what about you... what about..."she glared uneasily at the corpse at her feet and sobbed anew, "the police will get you..."Ivy Lee smiled. Her eyes no longer seemed uneasy—her glance was pure and calm and resolved.

"Go, my dear, and don't worry about me. Only, remember what I have said. Come back some day. Harlem will welcome you. But you must be careful who you welcome in Harlem..."

She pressed the younger girl close to her bosom; the tears streaked endlessly down her cheeks. The heart of Ivy Lee had gone out to this waif whom she had recruited for the stage months and months before. And now, suddenly aware that the police would arrive at any moment, she bade Baby Lou a final farewell, kissed the weeping girl and led her out of the apartment. The night was still.

Ivy Lee was strangely at peace. She went over to the phone. She lifted the receiver. She said, very steadily. "Headquarters—I have murdered Joey Williams. I am at his apartment."

She hung up. She went over to the closet in which Joey kept his collection of sheer negligees for his lady guests. Quickly but calmly she undressed. Smiling at the prone figure upon the floor, she gazed at the negligee. Joey had bought it for their first meeting. She then slipped it on and glanced at the lounge upon which she had first come to know the man now upon the floor. And, wrapping the negligee about her and lighting a cigarette, Ivy Lee stretched, took the bloodstained knife from the body of Joey Williams and held it in her hand. And so arranged, she remained calmly watching the door before her.

Outside the lights of Harlem twinkled brightly.

_____________

18: The Queen's Emerald

Lee Willenborg

Man Stories, May 1931

The author published twenty or so pulp stories in the 1920s and early 1930s, but like so many pulp writers of the era,  which was rife with house names and pen names, little is known of him.

THE rattle of the anchor chain thru the hawse-pipe came across the water of Nangu harbor, and caused Tondo Sam to glance up from his glass with a look of surprise. It was second drink time. He lurched to his feet with more ease than his huge bulk would lead one to expect. The windows gave out over the harbor; but Sam could not read the name of the strange vessel thru the mosquito netting. He went behind the bar and got a field glass. Horace Manly followed him out upon the veranda; and, while Sam gazed and gave utterance to an occasional grunt, Horace stroked his walrus-like mustache, and waited.

Horace was used to waiting; not the waiting that is a part of strategy; but the waiting of failure and futility. Life had not been kind to him. Nor— it might be truthfully said— had he done particularly well with Life. It had painted a record of, hopelessness on the wrinkled brow, and the leathery pouches under the eyes. The only thing Horace didn't wait for was the chance to buy rum or gin when his quarterly remittance came. And his next remittance wasn't due for six weeks; therefore, his waiting this morning had a tinge of chronic boredom in it.

"It's Ben Curry's old hooker, Sea Queen," Sam vouchsafed finally. "Tricked out in white paint, huh! I'll bet she still stinks of shell and copra. What the hell is Ben up to now, I wonder."

"She's an awkward old tub, spite of enamel and brass trimmings," said Horace.

"Yeh," Sam answered, "and she's been in plenty awkward situations, if you ask me."

A LIFE boat with a crew of five Kanakas and two white men lowered smoothly from the davits. The crew caught the water like a racing eight, and came toward the wharf of the South Sea Trading Company, Inc.

Sam remained on the veranda long enough to convince himself that one of the white men was a stranger, and the other one was Captain Ben Curry.

Then he went inside. Horace followed; he could wait in Sam's tap-room as easily as anywhere. Five minutes later, Captain Ben entered.

"This," said he, "is Mr. Roper." Mr. Roper shook hands with Sam and Horace in turn. "What's the idear of the white paint and fixin's on the old Sea Queen, Ben?" Sam demanded.

Ben laughed. "She don't belong to me no more," he explained. "Syndicate of Australian money took her over and remodeled her for passenger service."

Sam snorted contemptuously. "Passenger service! In this outa-the-way corner of the world? Huh! I reckon you have the pick of the women passengers set at your table, eh? Well, you could tell 'em some things that would make 'em go pale clear thru the paint on their cheeks, and no need to stretch the facts."

"Stow that!" the captain ordered. His tone was low, but deadly; his eyes gleamed like amber ice.

"Did you get my letter?" Sam demanded.

"I'm here, ain't I?"

"Yeh, tricked out in a fancy rigged boat, with captain's papers, and all that!" Sam sneered. "I don't like it!"

"You damned dumb land-lubber!" the captain retorted. "I been in a dozen deals with you, and you never yet showed a spark of sense. You said, in your letter, that this job meant some travelling, didn't you?"

"Yeh."

"Well, there's your transportation," Captain Ben answered, with a gesture toward the anchored Sea Queen. "And be damned thankful she's a seaworthy old hooker in spite of her white paint."

"But your friend here?"

"He's going on to Friday Island," Ben explained. "I gave him a lift this far. If your business takes us to Friday, I'll carry him there. Now, let's get all the facts of this here venture of yours."

"That's for me and you only, Ben," Sam said evenly.

"Nix!" Captain Ben retorted. "Horace here is in on it; that would make you two to one. That's why I brought Roper along."

"I don't know Roper, nor nothing about him."

"You don't need to know," Captain Ben replied. "I vouch for him; if that ain't enough, we'll be on our way."

"I could get any one of a half dozen reliable men that I know."

"Get 'em, then."

"Oh, all right!" Sam said wearily. "Horace, broach a bottle of rum from the ice chest, and a coupla clean glasses."

He led the way to a tiny cubicle of a room with two windows six feet above the floor. A thousand cock-roaches walked hither and yon over the scarred paint of the woodwork; and a coconut palm scratched its fronds irritatingly against one of the windows. In the subdued light, Sam seemed a grosser organism. His bulk was the heritage of a Polynesian mother; his bullet head and pig eyes, he got from his father, a beach louse of somewhat scrambled white blood.

Captain Ben, a smooth and jolly villain, black haired, swarthy skinned, was a man of great physical power. The chest and neck of a wrestler; the legs of a runner. But, to Sam, the stranger, Roper, was the focal point of interest. His weedy body was common enough in the tropics; but the pale skin above the sandy beard was not. His eyes were cold blue, and, so far, no flicker of interest had showed in them during the interview between Sam and Captain Ben.

"Some three weeks ago," Sam began, "we buried a feller here. He had a touch of black water fever, I guess; but he was sane, all right, before he checked out. He came here to my hotel; no baggage; no anything. Nothing but the rags he stood in, and they were filthy. He had a few pounds in good notes. He drunk that up in two days. Two days more, and he was dead. Off and on, he'd ask about Lonely Island. How to get there, and how far it was, and things like that. One day, I asked what was the idear, getting to Lonely Island. He said he's seen a emerald there bigger than a pigeon's egg. It belonged to old Queen Mahar. Well, I figgered it was moonshine, this stranger's talk. They ain't a beach comber from here to New Guinea that ain't heard of old Mahar's emerald. She's about the last of them old line Polynesians that used to lord it over the whole South Seas. She set more store by this bleedin' emerald than her right eye. And, if it was as big and pure first water as reports said, I ain't blaming her much. This here stranger's talk, though, had a little different slant to it. She'd lost it; and he was there when it happened. He said there was a hell of a rumpus when the loss was discovered.

" 'Sam,' he says to me, 'I'm done for, and I haven't a cent to pay my bed and board. But you been good to me, and I give you this tip. That emerald is in the skull of a red haired man in the canoe house on Lonely. It's a well-cured head. No wrinkles. Red hair and beard. You couldn't mistake it. You know how those head hunters can cure 'em. I seen Barung, old Mahar's medicine man, place it there. He stole it from the Queen. He got the head from the hunters over at Mahatta; how, God knows! That's why I wanted to get back to Lonely Island. That emerald is worth a king's ransom.'

"WELL, there was a lot more. What he would do with the stone; fix up some poor relations, and build a hospital, and all that. I asked him how come he left Lonely in the first place. Simple enough. He was the only white man on Mahar's island at the time the emerald was missed. Suspicion was on him from the first, so he beat it. I guess he got into the jungle back beyond old Mahar's settlement and got himself plenty lost. Between starvation and mosquitoes, he damn near died. He lost track of the days, and wandered thru that moist, steaming hell of a jungle until he came out on the north shore. A trading schooner picked him up. There was a doctor on board, and he shot this poor devil full of quinine. He recovered some; and they put him ashore down at Billow Island. He'd heard of me, and beat it up here—to die."

Tondo Sam gulped a swallow of rum and looked questioningly at Captain Ben. But the Captain remained impassive.

"Now, my idear," Sam went on, "is to get a flock of the usual trade junk aboard, and set sail for Lonely. Give old Mahar a line about hearing that her emerald was lost and how she was advertising a reward for its return. You, Ben, can tell her you have come to help her find it. I'll take care of this medicine man; he won't have any chance to change hiding places. Then we find the real stone; substitute a phony one and claim the reward. She'll tumble at once that it's phony. Well, we blame the medicine man because we find it in his particular lair. That will settle him, and the secret dies with him, see?"

"What was the beach comber's name that gave you this tale, Sam?" Captain Ben asked.

"He called himself Randall," Sam answered. "That don't mean nothing; them kind are always changing their monikers. Why?"

"Nothing particular," said Captain Ben. "You say he left nothing, no clothes or letters or pictures?"

"Yeh," Sam replied, "there was a handful of letters, all water soaked; and a picture of a handsome gal. A rusty jack knife, and odds and ends like that. All junk and not worth a damn."

"H'm," said Captain Ben. "We're playing for a big stake. This emerald is a whopper; I've seen it myself. It's a first water stone, you can lay to that."

His eyes flashed in the dim-lit room.

Roper passed his tongue over his lips; and Horace's face took on a sudden wolfish look. Tondo Sam made a queer noise in his throat; a noise like a swine makes at feeding time. Sam watched Roper; Horace watched Captain Ben; Roper looked straight ahead.

Captain Ben's glance swept from face to face, and he laughed sardonically. "Plenty of time to think of knifin' each other when we've landed the swag," he said, and got to his feet. "But your plan about using a lot of trading junk on the old Queen is no good. You'll get a heap further with a case of champagne. She likes it; gets drunk on it whenever she can. Well?"

"Me to furnish the champagne, eh?" Sam questioned.

"Sure; I'm furnishing transportation, ain't I?" Captain Ben countered.

"Well," said Sam, "we might as well get down to how we split. I want a third; you birds can fix the balance any way you like."

"A third suits me," Captain Ben answered.

"I want none of it," said Roper, the first words he had spoken. His voice was cold, repelling.

"Too lily white, eh?" Sam sneered. "That changes the cut. Suppose we split it half and half, Ben?"

"How about Horace, here?" Captain Ben asked with an insolent grin.

Horace was used to that. Most white men sneered at him; he didn't mind— much.

"He'll take what I give him," Sam growled.

Captain Ben laughed. "Mebbe he'll slit your throat for that, Sam, and serve you right," he said. "Be ready in an hour; I'll send the boat. And, if you don't have the champagne with you, I'll go on to Lonely and lift the bloomin' emerald myself."

Fifteen minutes later, Sam found Horace rooting about in a junk pile behind the house.

"What you doing there?" he demanded. "Captain Ben said something about this Randall chap's effects," Horace mumbled. "Keen fellow, Ben, what?"

"I get your drift," Sam said. "Mebbe Randall had the emerald hidden somewhere about, eh? Well, I went thru what little he left with a fine toothed comb."

Horace rolled and lighted a cigarette with the expert dexterity of long practice.

"Roper refusing a share in this venture struck me as being a bit odd," he said.

"He looks like a bleedin' missionary to me," Sam replied, dismissing the subject. "Lend a hand with this champagne."

BUT Horace's hint about Roper stuck in Sam's thoughts; and sinister ideas were taking shape in his mongrel, crossbred mind. This thought had many ramifications. A loose tackle-block swaying in the wind might connect with Captain Ben's head. Or a slight push might easily heave him overboard. The sharks would have him quickly; and that would be that. Sam was not subtle. Plots were not his forté. He could execute, with a sort of brutish efficiency; but strategy in him was only the embryo of low cunning. Being all animal, he reacted to Ben's suggestions as a beast to a master. He felt Ben's power, but resented his own respect for it. The thought of the emerald bit into his brutish imagination like acid. Visions of himself in every conceivable bestial indulgence, sated with pleasure, filled his consciousness like a foul serum. He scarcely heard Captain Ben's discussion of the emerald.

The four of them sat under a gay striped awning on the aft deck; it was a gorgeous bluegold day. A turquoise sky flecked with tiny clouds, white as cotton wool. The Sea Queen lumbered over a sea shot with amethyst, and topaz and unbelievable green-blue. Wind hummed in the rigging; the queer, alluring smell of the South Seas bit pleasantly into their nostrils. But none of this riot of beauty entered their souls; unless it was Roper's. He sat with averted eyes sipping a brandy and soda and taking no part in the discussion between Horace and Captain Ben.

"It's Amsterdam cut, this emerald," said the Captain. "A jewel sharp told me that years ago. How old it is, and how and where old Mahar got it, God only knows."

"Where would we sell it?" Horace asked.

"There's a chap in Melbourne, personal friend of mine, would buy it like a shot," Captain Ben replied.

"Queer no one thought of lifting it before," said Horace. "They have; plenty," said Captain Ben. "This Randall that Sam told about was one. You know his finish. It's no easy trick we're at, son. Getting on to Lonely is easy; getting off— with the emerald— is damned hard."

He turned to Sam, suddenly. "How about it?"

"Yeh," Sam admitted, rousing himself from his pleasantly vicious day dream. "I been waitin' ten years for this chance. Stealing it was no good. Them damn soldiers of Mahar's would track you to hell. But a lost emerald is something else."

Captain Ben took a sandlewood box from his jacket and dumped its contents upon the table. Fake jewels of all kinds and sizes glowed weakly in the half-tempered light.

"The trade junk," he explained to Roper, who nodded absently. "Pretty clever fakes," he said.

"Fair enough," said Sam. "Wouldn't fool old Mahar for a minute; but it'll fix the medicine man, and he's the bird we got to get," and he selected a green "gem" from the lot.

"This looks about the size and weight."

"All right," Captain Ben said. "Now pick out three more like it."

"Three more?" Sam asked stupidly.

"Sure; one for each of us," said Captain Ben. "Any one of us may get a chance at that red haired skull, and we've got to be ready to make the exchange on the second."

"Clever— what?" said Horace, smiling wolfishly. And Roper looked off across the lovely, treacherous sea with tired eyes. The wind eased as the sun sank; it was almost a dead calm when a great orange-colored moon marched up over the horizon. Then the wind quickened, and the Sea Queen slapped along at a good seven knots— a fast clip— for her.

"We ought to make Lonely about daybreak at this pace," Captain Ben remarked. No one ventured a reply.

Sam, heavy with food and his normal sullenness, reinforced by a pint of rum, stirred in his deck chair, and turned toward Horace. Horace returned his belligerent stare with a mild look of innocence. Captain Ben shrugged; he knew the murderous moods rum worked in Sam.

Horace upset things by rising and stalking off with a brief, mumbled good night.

"Some day, Sam, you'll go a step too far with Horace," Captain Ben said softly.

"Bah!" Sam spat over the rail. "He's a rat!"

"Sure," the captain agreed, "but rats fight when they're cornered."

Day broke in a clear glory of perfect weather. Dead ahead lay Lonely, looking for all the world like a profile of a partly submerged whale except for its color— a lavendar blue. As the Sea Queen neared the island, a coral reef disclosed itself, marked by a thin line of surf-rip. Beyond lay a lagoon, still as glass; beyond that, a strip of milkwhite beach bent like a crescent. The Kanaka crew, nimble as monkeys, had the Sea Queen's canvas close-reefed in a few seconds under the urge of Captain Ben's clipped orders. But, before the anchor had paid out, Lonely Islanders in out-rigger canoes were swarming across the lagoon toward the Sea Queen.

A GALLEY boy lugged a box or two of trade junk— knives, beads, plug tobacco, gay colored cloths— up to the forward deck. The four white men retired to their favorite spot— under the aft deck awnings— where the Chink cook served them with breakfast.

The clever boatsman-ship of the canoemen climbing the reef-breakers was old stuff. Nor did they show any interest in the bickering forward, in which the Kanaka mate was accumulating piles of plantains, nuts, bananas, and bread-fruit in exchange for the trade junk. But, when a villainous-looking islander came padding toward them, their interest leaped to activity.

"The medicine man!" Sam muttered. "We're in luck!"

In elaborate language, he invited the strangers to visit Queen Mahar's island, grinning viciously between sentences, and showing teeth stained tar black from betel chewing.

Captain Ben answered in bech de mer; but Barung understood, and nodded solemnly. The Captain rose to extend the island salute. Then suddenly his iron-hard fist shot out and caught Barung a terrible blow on the jaw. The medicine man collapsed upon the breakfast table, rolled half over, and fell unconscious to the deck.

"You've killed him!" said Horace, and giggled mirthlessly. No one paid any attention to his hysteria.

"Some twine and a bit of canvas, Sam," Captain Ben ordered. "Look over the side, Roper, and see if there's a much painted canoe with a single paddler in it."

"The canoe is there," said Roper, "but it's empty."

"Good!" said the captain. "We're getting the breaks."

In a few minutes, Barung was tied and gagged and covered with a tarpaulin.

"Get him into my cabin, Sam."

To search thru Barung's scanty and grotesque clothing— if one might call it such— was the work of a few seconds. Very deftly— and unnoticed by the rest— Roper picked up a small ball of twine. It was a light-weight fish-line, and rolled from a greasy leather pouch which hung from Barung's belt. Roper stuffed it into his own trousers with a quick gesture.

"H'm," Captain Ben grunted, "I guess we're licked."

"How so?" Sam demanded.

"Do you figure Barung has left the emerald in that red bearded skull Randall babbled about?" the captain countered. "Word got back to him that Randall was alive; and Barung guessed that Randall knew of the hiding place. This Barung is clever; he's fooled old Mahar for years."

Sam spat coarsely and rapped out an oath.

"You been acting queer thru this whole damn business," he said. "But I didn't reckon you'd show yellow. This here partnership is off. I tell you straight, I'm gonna lift that emerald myself unless you beat me to it."

"Go ahead," Captain Ben urged. "You'll get no opposition from me; I know when I'm licked."

Sam and Horace went ashore, the case of champagne between them. From the deck, Roper and the captain watched them land and disappear among the leaning palm trunks beyond the sliver of milk-white beach.

"How long shall you wait for them?" Roper asked as they turned from the rail.

"Oh, three, mebbe four hours," Captain Ben replied. "By that time, Mahar should be drunk; tho what good that would do Sam is past me. She may spill something, of course. But it's a thousand to one shot she won't. This Barung is the problem. Sam may want to torture the medicine man to make him disgorge; he's a cruel brute, this Sam. As I think it over, I was a good deal of a fool to come on this errand. And more so, to drag you along."

Roper looked away across the lonely flashing tropic sea. But he said nothing.

It was near noon when Sam and his jackal, Horace, returned, a little the worse for champagne. Sam, sullen as usual in drink, grunted in response to Captain Ben's questions. Horace giggled fatuously.

Luncheon was nearly over before Sam spoke his mind. "You was right, Ben," he growled, between puffs of a long cheroot. "Horace drank with the old hag, Mahar, until I got a chance at that head with the red beard. The skull was empty."

"Might as well heave anchor, in that case," Captain Ben observed; "and turn loose old Barung."

Roper followed the captain into the cabin. He pressed something into the medicine man's hand; something that caused Barung to gaze at Roper with incredulous joy. Then he broke into a flood of Polynesian.

Captain Ben looked at Roper questioningly; Roper shook his head.

"We might have sweated that old fakir," said Sam, as Barring paddled off in his much-painted canoe. "But I guess he'd have lied to us."

The sails filled, and the Sea Queen moved off awkwardly. Roper laid a glowing jewel on the deck table.

"The Queen's Emerald," he announced soberly. "It was in that innocent-looking fish-line Barung carried. I unwound it, took out the real stone and substituted one of those phony bits of glass. He'll never know the difference."

Captain Ben gave Roper a sharp glance.

"Damned clever of you, Roper," he said.

SAM stared at the jewel for a moment. Then he leaped forward, a fat hand extended to clutch it. But a lean, yellow one was a shade quicker. Horace tore loose from Sam's grip, and backed off a pace.

"Not so fast, old thing," he said, in a high, cracked voice. Sam's rush was immediate. At the last split second, Horace shuffled awkwardly aside and drew a blunt, wicked-looking automatic.

Sam never had a chance. He staggered when the first shot took him, fear blanching his purple-blotched face. He fell at the second shot. Horace fired twice more into the prostrate carcass of Tondo Sam. Then he turned to Ben and Roper.

"You fellows don't care to take it up, what?" he said.

"Put up your gun, Horace," Captain Ben advised in a cool voice; "unless you mean to shoot Roper and me as well."

Horace giggled. "Not till you fellows give me your word you don't ask a share," he replied. "I'm going to my cabin, and if either of you fellows try to lift the emerald—" he shrugged, and glanced down at Sam, grosser in death than he'd ever been alive.

"You got my word we'll stay off, Horace," said Captain Ben.

Roper nodded agreement.

And Horace shuffled off toward the cabins, trembling a little as the first reaction of his desperate act began to take him.

"He'll be dead drunk in another hour," Ben prophesied. "Then I'll lock him in. Meantime, I got to give old Sam the last rites."

Roper watched the ship's sail-maker sew Sam neatly within a rusty length of canvas, and lash weights to his feet.

Captain Ben came back as this service was completed. He had a written report of the late murder; he handed it to Roper, together with a fountain pen.

"You were the only witness," he said, "so sign up, and we'll give old Sam to the sea. I can't find anything in his effects that mentions an heir to his property; but that's government business."

Captain Ben repeated such snatches of the Burial at Sea service as he could remember. They were few, and pathetically brief. Sam's shrouded body slid into the sea with a sharp splash.

Roper leaned over the rail. He saw long, sinister shapes dart at the sinking bulk. He turned away from the rail a little sick. Captain Ben smiled and sent the galley boy after a bottle of rum.

"Don't worry about Tondo Sam," he said. "He was a cheap louse and got nothing but his due from Horace."

He poured a drink and took a swallow of it. "Far as Horace is concerned," he went on, "there's plenty of time to clear up his little problem later. And that brings us up to you."

"To me?" Roper repeated stupidly.

"Sure," Captain Ben agreed. "You didn't think I was dumb enough to take that silly piece of glass Horace killed Sam over as the Queen's emerald, did you?"

Roper wet his lips with a nervous tongue; he made no answer.

The crew of Kanakas were singing, a dull, monotonous chant that fretted Roper's nerves. He poured out a measure of rum and gulped it wolfishly. Then he said:

"Well, what's your proposition?"

"I have none," Captain Ben replied. "You've got the emerald, I suspect. You won it because you had the quickest eye and the coolest head. You can declare me, and that poor sot, Horace, out of it if you like. But I don't think you will."

Roper laughed, a bitter mirthless cackle.

"Funny thing," he said slowly. "I came down here to find Horace. He's likely in a title by now. His uncle, Lord Thorpe, was near his end when I left London six weeks ago. Horace won't need any part of the emerald. Old Lord Thorpe is a very wealthy man. Made a pile in beer."

"Your idea being to make known your errand to Horace, and send him back home, with his precious bit of green glass. Then you and me divide the loot, eh?" Captain Ben asked.

Roper nodded. The captain got to his feet.

"I'll have Horace up at once," he said. "I'm kind of curious to see how this news hits him."

Horace blinked as he stood in the reflected light under the aft deck awning. He took Roper's announcement of his succession to the name and fortune of Lord Thorpe stupidly. As if he heard the words but was too little interested to even try to guess their import.

He made no answer to Roper's inquiry as to when he would start for London. Roper repeated it.

"I'd like to wire my firm of your plans, sir," he urged. "They would want someone to meet you, of course."

"I'm not going to London," Horace snarled with sudden heat, "nor to that damned stuffy old castle of Thorpe's. I've no friends in London, nor anywhere else."

He turned to Captain Ben. "I was kicked out of England for stealing a handful of pearls from a silly old swine called the Duchess of M—. I suppose you will give me up to the government, at the first port of call, for shooting Sam, what?"

"Well," said Captain Ben, "that depends. I've got the authority for that. But I'm not obliged to do it, unless I see fit."

"Meaning what?"

"Meaning that old Lord Thorpe's estate will set you up handsome without this emerald you shot Sam for," Captain Ben explained. "Me and Roper mean to split the emerald's price without you. You don't need a cut of it, Horace; you're heir to a good deal more cash than the stone'll bring. Give up the emerald and Sam's death will be set down as an accident."

"And if I don't?" Horace asked.

"Then it goes down as murder," said Captain Ben. "Suit yourself."

Horace helped himself liberally to the rum. With the bottle still in his hand, he started back to his cabin.

"Let you know in an hour," he said.

"Did you know him in England?" Captain Ben asked, when Horace disappeared.

"Not personally," Roper answered. "I used to see him now and again. He ran with a fast set, and it did for him. He told the truth about being kicked out of England. That was ten years ago. He's only forty now; but he looks sixty."

"Yeh," Captain Ben agreed, "that's what the tropics do to you. Take yourself, for instance. Six weeks ago, a respectable barrister in London. Today, conniving in a jewel robbery. Yeh; you got to have plenty moral guts to live under the equator and stay straight."

THE sun sank in an unbelievable glory of crimson and violet and topaz. The sea grew suddenly dark and sinister-looking. The swift tropic twilight deepened into a velvety, soft darkness; and presently a great full moon shouldered up above the east rim of the sea. Roper 8 still lingered under the aft awnings with Captain Ben, waiting for Horace. A galley boy set up a dinner table, furnishing it with linen and plated silver that gleamed wanly in the thin moonlight. Captain Ben sent him to call Horace to dinner.

He returned with the news that Horace was not in his cabin.

"Wandering about drunk somewhere," the captain growled. "We might as well eat, Roper; no use waiting for him."

They were well along with dinner when Horace lurched toward them from the shadowy deck.

"Little late," he mumbled. "Sorry."

He laid a jewel on the cloth. Roper picked it up.

"So this is the famous emerald of Queen Mahar, eh?" he sneered. With a quick motion, he flipped it overboard. But his scornful laugh died suddenly. He found himself looking into that blunt, ugly pistol that had done for Tondo Sam. And the hand that held it was not the hand of a maudlin drunkard; it was steady, steady as death.

"Search him, captain," Horace ordered in a cool voice. In another moment, the real jewel lay under the deck-lights, flashing with subtle fire.

Captain Ben sucked in his breath at the sheer beauty of it; but Horace's pale eyes never left Roper.

"The irons for this lying swine, Captain Ben," he went on.

The captain took one look at Horace; he was crazed with drink, no doubt. And dangerous. He sent for the irons. The mate led Roper off, cursing bitterly.

Captain Ben breathed easier when Horace pocketed his gun. For a long time, silence lay upon the deck. Except for the gentle drone of the night wind in the rigging and the soft gurgle of the tiller wake, there was no sound.

"Roper!" Horace said at last, and spat over the rail. "I wonder how many aliases he's had in the last ten years?"

"You knew him, then, back in England?" Captain Ben asked.

"Too well," Horace answered, "and I knew him here. He knew me, too. He lied that pearl necklace thing on me. I could have cleared myself; but there was a girl. Roper's sister. She was all white. God, it's funny how he could be her brother! What a silly fool I've been, I know well enough. Well, that's past. How he knew about Tondo Sam's scheme is a mystery; we'll probably never know the truth about that. I wasn't fooled by that piece of glass he laid down this morning. But Sam was; and I saw my chance to even up a long score there. I've no regrets. Sam was a filthy, treacherous rat. That talk about Lord Thorpe decided me that Roper was trying to cross you up. I'm kin to Thorpe. But he isn't ill; nor very old; nor like to die soon. I heard from him less than a month ago. I was a fairly decent sort ten years back, Captain. Before rum and the tropics got me. Why didn't he make known his errand at once? Why did he wait till I'd killed Sam? Because he had no errand. But, with Sam's killing on me, he could bleed me white, d'you see?"

Captain Ben nodded.

"What are you going to do about me for sending Sam over?" Horace demanded suddenly.

"I guess it's up to you," the captain said, at last. "You've fallen pretty damned low. I don't know whether you can climb back But I'll give you a chance. This boat need a purser. Do you want the job?"

"Yes, sir," said Horace promptly. "I'll do my best, which isn't very good. If I pull up to a decent place, I'll thank you. If not— well, I'm no worse off."

"Then to Australia to market the emerald, I suppose?" said Horace later, glancing at the green, flashing jewel that still lay upon the table.

The captain picked it up, turning it slowly in his hand.

"A lovely thing, eh?" he said, staring at Horace. For a second, Horace gazed wistfully at the emerald. Then he turned and walked to the rail.

Presently the captain slipped the jewel into his pocket and moved up beside Horace.

"We ain't going to Australia, purser," he said gruffly. "We're going back to Lonely and give old Mahar her blinkin' jewel!"

______________

19: A Pearl of Price

Raymond S. Spears

1876-1950

Munsey's Magazine, July, 1908

FRED MEALIN was tonging for button-shells at the Wittsburg Ford, on the St. Francis River, when he raked up a shell of large size and unusual shape. It was light in color, with something of the shape of a butterfly-wing, and weighing about seventeen ounces. The fisher turned it over in his hands, and tossed it into the stern of his scow for later examination. Then he continued his tonging, little thinking that the shell which he handled so carelessly held within it a whole Pandora's box of trouble.

Singing as he worked, Mealin gathered in his stint of fifteen hundredweight of mussel-shells, and then hoisted his anchors to let the green current carry him down stream to his boiling-pan and tent. At the landing he shoveled the shells into the pan, built a fire under it, and then built another fire in his cook-stove. At this point he recalled the butterfly-shell, and brought it up to the tent, where a minute's contact with the stove opened wide the bivalve's shell. Within was a pale meat. The pearler poked into the mass with his knife, and far under it, next to the hinge of the shell, he found something hard and movable.

"A slug, I reckon!" he muttered.

Wrenching open the shell, he plucked out the meat, and found, beneath it, what made him spring to his feet and gasp. It was a round pearl, as large as the end of his thumb. He seized it between thumb and finger, sprang to the tent-flap, and let the sun shine upon the jewel. It was the color of a rose, and within was a tiny flame of fire, which played from side to side as he rolled it across his palm, looking fearfully for the flaw that makes the difference between slugs and pearls of great price.

"My lan'! My lan'!" he gasped to himself. "I never yearn of sech a trick as that! Two thousan' dollars!"

He shrank back into the tent, lest the forest of gum and cypress on the opposite side of the river might have prying eyes in it. He tied down the flap of his tent, drew his rusty revolver from his old trunk, and turned the cylinder to see that it would still shoot. He looked for a place to put the pearl, but neither the trunk nor the ground nor a pocket seemed safe. He finally sewed it up in a little sack, and slung it next to his skin.

He thought of starting instantly for Memphis, to sell his find, but native thrift held him back. What could he do with his tent, which cost thirty dollars, with his pile of shells, worth forty, and with his outfit of scow, tongs, lines, and pan, worth perhaps fifteen? These he could not leave.

That afternoon he cleaned his catch of shells, and the next morning paddled down to the Long Stillwater, where the shell-buyers congregated. Here he told what he had to sell— how many tons of shells he had, and where they were. A buyer bid them in for thirty-nine dollars, and went up with a gasoline launch and shell-barge to get them. Night found the pearler sold out, shells, tent, pan, and all, for shell-buyers do a little trade in supplies on the side.

"Going out of business?" the buyer said. "Found a big un?" "No— no! " Mealin gasped, afraid some one would guess his secret. The buyer read the truth.

"Let's see it—come now!" he urged. "Mebbe I can tell you what you'd ought to git for it."

Mealin, knowing his own ignorance, saw the sense of this, and showed his pearl to the buyer.

"Gracious!" the man exclaimed, reaching toward it, but the finder slipped it back into the little pouch. "It's worth thousands!"

Mealin returned to the Stillwater, and there bought a skiff to go down the river to Helena.

While he was yet in sight of the shell-buyers' headquarters, word that he had made a find had passed to many an ear. In the twilight, two men slipped down the river in a dugout, pursuing. They had heard the pearl was worth ten thousand dollars, and they wanted it.

Bill Brones and Dan Petterson were old Mississippi "river-rats." They knew Mealin, and they believed he was more cowardly than themselves. All that afternoon and evening they drove their paddles deep into the water, in chase of him; and toward midnight, a ripple down a long eddy told them that some one was rowing there. They knew he would not stop for the night having so much in his possession.

Just ahead, the river entered a long reach of unbroken forest. Miles down in the brake they overtook the man, who had been rowing in a cold sweat, knowing that strangers were sharing the river with him. As they came alongside his boat, he spoke in a trembling voice:

"Evenin', gemmen!"

"Howdy!" they answered, and Mealin turned sharply toward the bank. "Huh! Where you-all goin'?" they demanded.

"Theh's— theh's a camp yeah!" he answered feebly.

The two knew it was a lie, and they drove their dugout rasping along the side of the skiff.

As Mealin sprang to his feet, they seized him and dragged him down. Too late he reached for his revolver— Brones had it, and smashed him in the face with the butt. They went through his pockets, and found his pocketbook with a few soft bills in it. They ran their hands over his clothes seeking the little lump— and found it over his heart. They tore open his clothes and took the treasure. Bill clutched it, and put the string over his own head, uttering a guttural cry of triumph.

They kicked in the thin sides of the skiff, reentered their dugout, and drove on down the stream.

Mealin came to at daybreak, and discovered that his pearl was gone, as well as his money. He wasted some tears and curses, and then went back to pearling and shell-fishing.

Next day, the two river-pirates hid out in a cane-brake, each watching the other— one guarding against a blow on the head, the other against desertion by his partner, who carried the gem. That night they drove down the St. Francis and entered the Mississippi. Here their dugout was but a fleck upon the vast waters, and when they were below Helena, they knew they were safe from pursuit.

"What'll we do with it?" Petterson asked, awed by the lambent flame within the tiny ball. "Hit's shore a bustin' big un!"

"Sell hit! Sell hit! Ten thousan' dollars!" Bill Brones laughed.

"But whar?" Petterson asked again.

"Vicksburg— Baton Rouge— N'Orleans—anywhar!" the bigger thief laughed, again rubbing the gem in his hands, Petterson reached to take the trinket, but Brones drew back.

"Cyar-ful!" he growled menacingly. "You mout drap hit!"

Petterson drew back, his eyes flaring. He was not strong enough to resent his partner's greed openly; but Brones saw his anger, and carefully put the pearl back in the little sack. Thereafter he did not turn his back to Petterson while paddling— in fact, he changed seats, taking the stern himself.

At Modoc Landing they bought some tobacco and food with the money they had stolen with the pearl. Then for two days they paddled and floated ceaselessly, for neither dared sleep. Finally, in Milliken's Bend, Brones perfected a little scheme.

"Hit won't be me killin' 'im!" he said to himself. "I won't be to blame if he cayn't swim out. Hit'll be jes hisn's own keerlessness if he don' git aout!"

It was starlight, and nearing midnight. Over the water a few shreds of fog rolled and flew. On the left the lumping of a caving bank sometimes broke the stillness. Far ahead, the glare of Vicksburg's electric-lights was reflected in the sky.

Brones slipped out of his coat and loosened the laces of his shoes. Then, feeling the little sack under his throat, he leaned to the left and dived slowly into the water, upsetting the canoe as he did so. He swam far under the water, and when he came to the surface at last, he listened for any sound from behind him. He heard nothing and saw nothing.

Quietly he struck across the current, and an hour later landed below the transfer-dock. Standing on the bank, he looked at the river for a long time, shivering in the coolness. He saw dark objects out on the water, and some of them seemed to have faces and eyes.

At length he turned toward the city, and on the water-front he found a welcome in a shanty-boat— Carney Hill's Klondike, already known to Brones.

Brones drank liquor to keep himself from catching cold, and the more he drank the more talkative he became. He began to boast that he was a rich man, but when Hill asked him where he got his wealth, he was shrewd enough not to say. He did say, however, that he had come out of the St. Francis. Hill guessed the rest.

When Brones was stupefied, the shanty-boater discovered the little sack and saw the gem. He cackled a queer laugh. Replacing the pearl with a musket-ball, he carried Brones up the wharf to a pile of cotton-bales, and there left him asleep.

"I'd oughter kill 'im," Hill thought to himself. "Brones'll shore be plumb mad when he finds his little hunk of sunset turned blue! But he won't know— huh!"

Hill dropped out the mouth of the Yazoo and floated on down the Mississippi. Three weeks later he landed at New Orleans, and went to a little shop up in the French quarter. Here a dapper little Creole asked what did he have to sell now— candlesticks or plate?

Hill showed the pearl, and the dealer in curios let out an involuntary cry. He touched it, smelt it, rubbed it with his tongue. He offered a hundred dollars— two hundred— five hundred; but Hill laughed easily. "I want two thousan' dollars for it!" he demanded. "No less!"

The Frenchman had long dealt with river-men. He bought anything from second-hand shanty-boats to jewelry, antiques, and old books. He laughed, gesticulated, and slowly raised his offers until, late in the day, he got up to seventeen hundred and fifty dollars.

"Na mair! Na mair!" he said. Hill protested, haggled, and threatened to go, but without avail. Finally, he accepted the money in hand, and the pearl was off the Mississippi for good.

The little Frenchman had an interest in a store on Canal Street— a store where there was a mixture of real antiques, trinkets, and curios. It had a few regular customers whom the Frenchman always kept in mind when shanty-boaters came to his other place with the treasures of the river. He thought, now, of a young New York broker, a Mardi Gras visitor, who wanted something novel, something different, every time he came.

The Frenchman had a very pretty bit of gold spinning which had come from down in Guatemala. There were some pretty stones woven into the fabric of gold threads and links, but it needed a pendant larger and better than the Indians had been able to give it. In the beautiful pearl from the St. Francis, the Frenchman had a jewel which exactly suited the strange, shell-like pattern of the gold-weavers.

With his own hands he substituted it for a cheaper gem, and one glance showed that he had done well. A few weeks later, the young man came, looking less young than before, and thinner-jawed, perhaps. The price of the pretty ornament staggered him, but he shrugged his shoulders and paid it.

For a minute, he had the supreme joy of seeing pure delight in the eyes of a beautiful girl who was with him; but glancing from the pearl to his face, she seemed to ask a question which he dared not answer.

Two months later, in the same column of a newspaper, the little Frenchman found two paragraphs of personal interest to him. One told of a fight on a shanty-boat in Putney's Bend, in which one Carney Hill, a noted riverjunker, had been killed by a river-rat named Brones. Brones, who was arrested, claimed that Hill had robbed him of a valuable pearl.

The other item was an account of the suicide of a young New York broker, owing to financial difficulties, and— so rumor said— to the fact that his fiancée had returned his gifts.

"Hehn!" the frenchman said to himself. "Ah wondair who get dat pearl now? Two good customair gone in one day! Hehn, business is bad!"

________________

20: Soft-Paw Ignorance

Raymond S. Spears

Blue Book Feb 1947

A tale of the "shanty-boats" on the Mississippi

THIS woman we heard about started down the Ohio. She was one of those intellectual town women, a real up-the- bank soft-paw, and plumb ignorant as regards shantyboating. She was just sick of being courted and talked about. In a moment of disgust and determination she went down to the shantyboat eddy above Marietta and found Mrs. Haney, who had an extra boat for sale for one hundred dollars. Though new, it wasn't furnished good, but that woman brought down plenty of outfit and gimcracks, and a small chap about five or six years old. She throwed off both lines, hauled in the gangplank and blew a contemptuous good-by kiss at the whole land area on both sides the Ohio.

She got going late in the evening. Course, old-timers like to float all night, if they don't care what happens, if anything. But this woman just didn't know any better. The first word that came down ahead was that she turned the boat loose, night and day, for come close to a week. Then all she landed in for was to go up the bank and get supplies she and her young-un had run short of. The place she landed at was a ferry settlement on the Kentucky side. She bought a lot of fruit, vegetables, meat and kerosene to run her freezer, and a few odds and ends. She had money, according to the hear-tell, but with her looks it wasn't necessary.

Up at Cincinnati she was headed for a bridge pier, but a fellow in an outboard skiff pulled her clear of that predicament. She thanked him, then kinda missed another pier, steering by her sweeps, but she pulled over right in front of a steamboat; while the pilot squawked his whistle, he had to full speed astern and swing over almost clear around, so as not to hit her boat. If she hadn't been a lady in skirts, he'd never taken all that pains. Pilots always remember it if they run down a woman.

When she got to Louisville, she was right out in the middle of the river, heading for the Falls. She hadn't been run down by steamboats nor sucked under a big tow or hit by transporters running dark at night. Well, the lifesaving crew the Government maintains at the Falls spotted her and ran out and towed her over to the north side canal chute, and she thanked them real cordial.... Strangers, soft-paws afloat, just don't seem to know nothing at all about what's liable to happen, tripping.

By the time she come opposite Cairo, a lot of us river folks had heard tell of her, and I recognized her boat by the white cabin with blue-trimmed windows and door jambs, and black- trimmed red hull. It was a thirty-foot scow hull and a twenty-foot cabin. I don't know how come Mrs. Haney took only a hundred dollars for it, unless it was getting late in the fall and winter liable to set in, freezing up before one could trip into clear.

B Y the time she reached the Ohio Forks, we knowed this lady was a widow, her name Mrs. Juno Creset. The word was she was real pretty, but just plumb disgusted with folks. One story was that her man got killed up on account of another lady. Anyhow, she was soft-paw ignorant on the river, about her only boating having been sport fishing in a skiff, and doing some mourning over in Michigan in a summer resort, retired and lone. Folks do talk!

But anyhow, she floated by Cairo with her snoot in the air, and a jab in the current took her over the jumping-off place into the Mississippi, swirling past me where I was eddied in a reverse back-set of current. She came pitching down, caught in the whirlpools where the Big Muddy sawed along the slow-going Ohio. I wasn't more'n a hundred yards or so astern, but outside the circlings.

She had had a carpenter build a collapsible fence around her stern and bow decks so as to keep that boy of hers from falling overboard. She had also picked up a pup somewhere too, to keep the youngster company. I don't know why on earth a woman wants to go shantyboating down the river with a small boy—and a dog to boot!

The way things happen down Old Mississip* is a caution. I was getting roast pork, sage dressing, mashed potatoes and so on, real busy, kind of a noonday dinner, when I heard a yell. It was just about the most melodious whoop I ever heard outside of some good singing across Old Muddy Gut, so I stuck my head out to see what she was bellyaching about. It was her, all right. That brat of hers had pulled and yanked and managed to unhook her protection fence across the bow bumper, and the section just swung down on its hooks and eyes. The boy went over, head over heels in a big splash.

Our boats had floated along, seesawing; and the way boats do, we were drifting close together. Of course, I was disgusted. I could see what was the matter; and about twenty feet from her bow, I saw something flopping and pitching around like a big fish, or a beaver in a trap. Of course, I had to do something, so I shoved over and got my boathook tangled into that kid's
rompers or overalls, whatever they call those one-piece things. And I squeezed the water out of him, gave him a small drink of wild-grape brandy off a jug I happened to have; by then she came banging and slamming into my boat, hard as she could row.

That youngster was sputtering and gasping and drizzling, getting along all right, the way I'd first-aided him. And of all the looks any woman ever gave me, she sure was primed and explosive. She todk the kid and cried and talked, while I went out and pulled over and lassoed her boat, which had bounded off and was going by its lonesome.

Generally I stop over at Putney Bend eddy, to kind of catch my breath after making the Jump-off at the Forks. But by the time I caught her boat and got it bow to bow, snug to mine, and she had that nuisance of hern stripped and wiped off and dried on my bedspread, the first thing to be grabbed, we were down past the eddy and around the bend.

She looked at me. Her eyes snapped, and her teeth came together like an otter-trap jaws. She couldn't see why I hadn't told her that brat was unhooking the deck-pen fence, in the first place, before he fell over. And then we heard a yip-yip, and when I looked out around, there was that mutt she'd picked up for company and as an alarm. He was standing almost straight up and down in the water, trying to climb out on top the water, and yelping his head off. I had to laugh, for he was an up-the-bank dog, and shore looked an awful long ways off for him, and the swirling eddies down the crossing was turning him around and around in circles; and no matter if he started to swim to us or ashore, the circling water headed him somewhere else— and was he scairt!

That woman ordered me to rescue the mutt, and she was peart because I didn't jump overboard for that darling. I had a minnow dip-net I catch bait with, and got near enough to the purp to dip him on board. I landed him on her bow deck, and he ran into the cabin, crawling back under her bed. She wrapped her brat in my bedspread and went aboard her boat. I wadded up the wet jumpers or what- you-call-'ems and pitched them after her. She come out, and tried to untie my shipshape knots, but I had to do 'it. Then we shoved each other apart, and I saw smoke in her galley- kitchen.

"You're burning something!" I told her, and went back to 'tend to my own hot-bread and pot-roast and browned gravy.

Of course, Juno Creset was just another softpaw tripping the rivers. She was nervous and fidgety and ignorant. She'd been afloat about a month, and she was getting more and more panicky. She even spanked that brat for unhooking his fence protection; two days later he had experimented with the stern fence and got it all loose and hanging by only one hook and eye. And there Cupey— she called him— was overboard again, threshing around and gurgling and blowing like a whale. This was in a big towboat mooring-eddy, with hardly any current.

I was dragging driftwood off the sandbar to my boat when L heard the yelling, and I had to swim out and drag the little cuss ashore. He wasn't in the water more than two or three minutes; when he got his breath and stopped choking, I began to holler too. "I did do! I did do!" he said, and if he'd been my brat. I'd sure spanked him.

"Sometime he'll go over and I won't be around!" I told her, and I showed her how to wire the hooks to the staples so he couldn't work any of them loose, and open up the corral fence.

Another thing, I told her how the Chinese river-trippers tie a block of wood on the back of their brats so if they fall overboard, the wood floats them till somebody has time to hook them aboard. I didn't just tell her. I had a piece of balsa wood about two foot long and off a six-by-two-inch plank.

Then I rigged a pack-harness on this, through some holes, and I tied it onto Cupey's shoulders.

"Now I'll throw him overboard, and you'll see how it works!" I told her, and I don't remember ever seeing a woman look less friendly and grateful. But I went off to my boat and emptied my wet pockets, wrung the water out of my money and pocket belt, and put on some dry clothes

There we was, twice in succession, happenstancing together.

Of all the Lower Mississippi nuisances, I don't know nothing that equals a soft-paw, especially a woman with a brat and a dog. And the way that old Muddy Gut is, if a man gets stuck with a soft-paw, seems as though that confounded river just keeps loading a man with responsibilities. Not just me alone, but ask any old-timer, and he'll say the same thing. The minute you do an ignorant soft-paw a favor or lend a hand or anything, and there you are, stuck!

Of course, I knowed what to expect, but I resented it. I waited till the eddy was all dark, quiet, and nothing but owls hooting on guard. Then I poled all clear and slid away in the night into the main current and off down the river. Personally, I don't favor night tripping. Too much can come a happening in practically no time at all. However, I got down the crossing and around the next two or three bends. I floated about four hours, and landing into a bluff reef sandbar, I didn't know where I was. It was about twenty-five miles below and across the river from the widow and Iter brat and mutt. Of course, I was sleepy, nervous and fidgety, small things upsetting more than big ones.

After two-three days I felt I was shut of that incumbrance. I dropped into a short eddy opposite Columbus hickories, which are full of long airholes and luckily aint any good for wheel-spokes or lumbering. I gathered about ten bushels of nuts, the size of hen's-eggs, killed some big red squirrels, and scurried off downstream. The sky had thickened up; the wind had quietened down; and it was sure a weather-breeder. Sure 'nough, come a swirling wind and cold weather, with a norther swinjering down the line. It brought the ducks, and I killed five canvasbacks and two young Canadian geese. I was sure sitting pretty, and just for luck I put out some traps. I caught two big otter, a buck and a doe, and that was fifty dollars cash.

A MAN never knows what kind of winter he's going to have till he has a few weeks' samplings. If he gets along smooth, casual and plumb comfy, he'd better look out. Old Mississip' soft-palavers a man, maybe half the winter, or clear over to the Spring Tide, and then, kerslam! he gets everything that can happen all at once. I got through Memphis without having anything more disagreeable happen than that widow; and down below President Island, the sun was shining and the south wind breezing balmy. And so I landed along by the Walnut Bend disturbances, tying into a nice eddy. I got some wild meat along there, and two razorbacks, about one hundred and fifty pounds of pure pork, which I smoked for bacon and hams, and the lean jowls and surplusage for sage sausage. I was sure busy for a few days, between preserving pork chops, roast pork, dressing and so on. I fairly gorged. And just when I'd settled down for peace, security and enjoyment, I heard a funny whimpering noise outside, about ten o'clock at night.

I blew my light out, and grabbed my 'lectric lantern spot to look and see. Well, I saw, sure enough! There was a human face all screwed up into shrunken and chilling misery. So I reached over with that minnow net of mine and I dipped the floater on board. Of course, the way things were, I couldn't just ignore somebody floating down into my eddy.

But there it was, that piece of balsa-wood plank, and there was that darned widow's brat, teeth chattering, chillin', whimperin'. The water was too cold for swimming, unless it was necessary, and if you want to call it good luck, that kid was roly-poly fat. Course, blubber is real good protection for anybody in cold water. You take a fat woman who falls overboard, and she floats lots longer and survives where a lean man or woman get chilled through and get sunk in hardly no time at all.

So I had a fat kid on my hands. Well suh, I had the darndest time trying to find something small enough to dress that brat! I sure did. But I had some sugar-bags and cornmeal sacking, and pieces of odds and ends, and two raccoon hides, and I did manage to patch him up. He sure looked comical, though, with two striped coon-tails dangling from his neck, because I sewed the skins upside down. It took some figuring, too, having upstairs and down garments, so's the lower part could be put on or taken off, or lowered, but I kind of did it, good enough, I guess.

It was ten o'clock, about, when I landed him. That was nearly five hours after daytime. He could talk enough so I knew he'd fallen over before dark. If he'd floated down the current all the time, that meant he'd come twenty-five or up to thirty-five miles, the current running six miles or so an hour. He said his mother was tied to the bank, but that's about all I could get out of him.

I thought probably being a widow and lonesome, she was worried, even if that brat was buoyed up by balsa wood. I'd painted the piece of plank three or four coats, so the water wouldn't soak in. I even daubed inside the bored holes for the harness. Now wouldn't a man think that kid would have gone on down and been picked up somewhere the next day? The river was rising, and so the middle was higher than the sides, and that throwed that brat right into the shoreline— and there he come for me to pick him up, to warm him up, dry him off, and feed him, and look after him. Sometimes I don't know; if shanty-boating wasn't such easy and cheap living, I'd never put up with no darned Mississippi River! I'd get up the Tennessee, or Cumberland, or back on some of those small streams like the Wabash, or Arkansas, or Yazoo. But then, of course, a man's shut in and limited, working those small backwaters.

I asked Whisky Williams, when he come down, if he'd seen that widow, but somehow he'd missed her. Some sports dropped in hunting the Dark Corner along by Walnut, but they hadn't noticed her. Course, they were up-the-bankers—soft-paws, practically, and they never notice much. I waited awhile, but she didn't show up. Of course, I advertised to anyone coming along, that I'd fished the kid out, and she could have him back any time, and the sooner the better.

Personally, I'd never gone in none for livestock aboard a boat. I'd come down the river first off, on a marrying trip. I had a real nice wife, tall and about one hundred and forty pounds, and a real good shape, able to cook cakes and pies, as well as plain victuals, and she'd been just about perfect, except she was jealous and didn't like the river; one night when I was visiting a game of poker, when I came home she'd gone up the bank. Then I tried two cats and a dog, but they were a nuisance and ate about as much as I did.

I 'VORCED Maud, and took up with a river lady, but she had her idees and I had mine, so we parted agreeably, for one boat wasn't big enough for the two of us, even when it was a sacred-concert boat ninety-foot long which we salvaged and got awarded eight hundred dollars when we turned it in. She claimed half the salvage, which was pretty liberal. She had a small but active pup— and we tried having two boats moored bow to bow, visiting back and forth, but even that twin-beds proposition didn't work. She cut loose when I kicked her dog overboard, and she caught him ten-fifteen miles down the river. Anyhow, the dog was a good riddance. Then he got fleas and sick and his hips was paralyzed and she drowned him herself. Then she come back, trying to make up for preferring a dog to me, and we visited back and forth, some, but I never cared much, one way or another. She sickened down around Plaquemine, and it cost me a good three hundred dollars, doctoring and burying her.

I figured I'd done my duty, charitying and tolerating, but that darned Old Mississip' apparently had other ideas. Anyhow, there I was, stuck with that brat. I didn't want him. I dried his clothes out, and he sure had coveralls, and some insiders, red and yeller flannels and leggings and tied-on shoes. However, he needed plenty, so I divided up what he floated in with, and made two shifts. Then I reorganized my two skins and the sugar-and meal-bags, so I had two ornery shifts, and the two coon-hides for cold weather when I turned him out on a sandbar to let him run, exercise and wear down.

I never saw anything like that darned kid, stirring around. I tried tying him up in a corner. He yelled his head off; partly he cried and partly he was just plain mad. I tried spanking him; I tried stuffing him with eats; and if I turned him loose, he just pull-hauled everything in reach. And so I tried running him loose on the sandbar. Of course, the balsa-board float was my idea, so I kept it on him; but I hung some sand on him in a bag so he'd get tired quicker. It was sure a sight, seeing him running all over two- three square miles of sand, collecting dead birds, bottles, odds and ends from the jetsam left by higher water on the bar.

He sure was the most active pet I ever had. He fairly had all the energy of dogs, cats and the up-the-bank woman I came down the river with. The river woman, while she had her health, was quite a lot like that boy, always stirring around, cooking, house-cleaning, mopping the decks, and changing things around. If she saw me sitting, reading, or thinking, she had me can steering the boat, if we was floating; or cutting stovewood if we was moored to a bar or bank. A quiet, logy, kind of settled-down woman takes a lot more waiting on and helping around. She aint so interesting and satisfactory as one of those active ones. Personally, I'd rather have one doing too much and repeating than one that loafs most of the time. Course, that's a matter of taste. But I bet I lost ten pounds, myself, lookin' after that brat that floated in.

I couldn't remember his name, though I'd heard the widow call him by it, so I called him Cupey, same as his mother, Juno Creset, did. He'd yell his head off, romping and running; but when he talked, he was real soft-voiced and gentlemanly. When he wasn't exercising, but just merely behaving, he acted real perfect and mannerly. That reminded me about how the widow, even when she sure despised and intolerated me, talked along, calm and quiet. You see, if a mother yells her head off, her brats are sure to do the same. But if she acts polite and sticks verbal butcher-knives into her man, or anybody, she sure emphasizes by what she says instead of the noise she makes.

Of course, me being a fur-trapper winters, I always make a practice of studying animals, whether to catch them for their skins or shoot them for their meats. Thataway it was kind of natural to make kind of a popular study of that boy. Excepting one time I had a half-breed Chesapeake Bay spaniel. I'd always found any dog more of a nuisance than he was worth. Any hunting-dog has to be took care of a whole year, just in order to have him for sporting, shooting rabbits or retrieving quail, or swimming out for ducks or geese shot down.

I was shooting feathers the winter I picked up that spaniel. I began to shoot the first flight down on the Missouri, and I sold fifty pillows down to K.C., and then I was taking the tail of the flight through St. Louis clear down to Louisiana. This was the year before? they rounded up the hunters at Memphis, which practically ruinated feather- and market-hunting for ducks and geese unlimited. But what I was going to say: I used that Chesapeake Bay dog only ninety-two days out of that year, and I had to support and manage even that dog 273 days to get the use of him for ninety-two days. And look what it would have cost me, if I'd been a sport, instead of a practical wild-crafterl

That darned brat I'd fished out the river wasn't any earthly use at all, that I could figure. But of course, he was an amusing little cuss. In one way, he was the most bothersome live animal I'd ever had to do with, including women. As for dogs and cats, he was lots more amusing and interesting. He swaggered and promenaded back and forth, stretching his legs and wagging his arms, looking for what else to do. He'd rattle and bang the buoy plank on his back, and two or three times I saw him run hell-bent the length of the boat and jump overboard, just to make a big splash and have me come get him, paddling my canoe or rowing my skiff. Now he knowed well enough, that water was cold, but his blubber protected him— and when I spanked him, he yelled his head off, but one time he said;

"I feel got warm again!"

I had to laugh, and he laughed, and there was my discipline al! gone to hell! He was half provoking and half funny, usually depending on how I happened to be feeling at the moment. Sometimes when he did something, I'd be mad as a wet cat. And then again, when he'd do the self-same thing, it'd be funny!

Word went up and down Old Mississip' that I'd caught the widow's brat down by Walnut Bend cut-oil. And then word went up and down the river that the widow was sick and sore, having lost her darling baby boy. She wasn't one of those women it's any gilt to comfort in their miseries. I heard that three or four detached fellows, and a couple of temporarily foot-loose- sports she hailed, asking about her baby boy, tried to take her mind off her bereavement. She was terribly active and resentful, and even if she was up- the-bank, she run those fellows off her boat; and no matter if they actually tried to stay with her, she knocked three overboard, that was known about. One couldn't swim, and he'd drowned, sure as damnation, if old Anderson hadn't thrown him a rope and caught him in the noose. And even after a month or so, that widow was hind-sighting, mourning and wailing that brat. Even the dog and a cat she had wa'n't no consolation, and she got shut of them, because they reminded her so much.

NOW aint that like Old Mississip'!

There I was wanting to get rid of that nuisance, and there she was, moaning and agroaning, because she didn't have him! Now wouldn't you think that people having what they don't want could kind of equalize with those who haven't got what they do want— the same thing? But that ain't the way down Old Mississip'. Of course, there's some equalizing, like that old story that every river-tripper has been told about:

Two fellers was married to two women. And to the wrong women, at that. I mean neither one of them got along with the woman he had, for a whoop. They had two nice shanty- boats, though, and they made their livings, ten or twelve different ways, according to the seasons, fur-trapping in the winter, drifting the high tides, fishing when the fish come up, and berrying, frogging, turtling .summers, and hunting autumns, and so on. They were real practical, all four of them; two had come down from back in Pittsburgh or Down East, somewheres; and the other two was from up around St. Paul, or anyhow Iowa or Illinois, the Middle West.

Then the way those things happen down Old Mississippi, both those boats landed in below Tower, along by Kaskaskia, or perhaps St. Genevieve. And like all along down, they got to jawing and fighting, two and two. And they heard each other and got to looking across from boat to boat. Nice, sensible people, except as regards each other, they held a session of mutual insulting, indignating and considering.

The two men were about alike, ornery, and about equally insignificant, but still pretty shrewd at that, and inclined to be fair-minded. So they calmed down and talked things over. Of course, there it was, plain as day; they weren't adapted to each other, in both couples. One of the women was about one hundred and sixty pounds and the other woman was about one hundred and forty pounds. Otherwise they were equalized, one female opposite the other, temper to temper, blue eyes to blue eyes, both pretty good cooks, and competent, river-broke and just unable to stand their husbands. So, the way it actually was, the only inequality was about twenty pounds' difference between the women. And so the feller that took the one-hundred-and-sixty- pound woman off the other husband's hands gave twenty pounds of Arkansaw turkey— you know, sowbelly bacon— to make up the discrepancy.

So they traded, and both the parties of the first and second parts were satisfied, and when they met up down below, getting $17.50 divorces and marrying in due course, they were just as peaceable, happy and contented as could be. But there was Old Mississip' taking a hand. Now wouldn't you think those women would have got the right husbands in the firstest place? But no! They had to have fighting, war and discontent— and if they hadn't had, such is human nature, the chances are the husbands they got to appreciate afterward would have been the very ones to be got rid of.

Of course, dropping down, I kinda managed to keep track of that widow. Sometimes she was away astern of me; sometimes she heard I was away down below, and she scurried along, passing me, and getting away ahead. Then she heard I didn't have her brat, but just somebody else's. Even so, she kept hoping, and so did I. But we never contacted each other till we dropped into Arkansaw Old Mouth for the Christmas-New-Year's holidays. I anchored up White River, where the Arkansaw New Mouth comes in. She was down in Old Mouth. It was a week or so before we got straightened out, and connected. Then it was in Montgomery Chute.

"My, my ba-aby!" the widow yipped, and grabbed him, coonskin coat and all. "You-u darling!"

A good riddance! It'd taken better than two months to get those two connected again, and I don't suppose Old Mississipp' ever heaved a bigger sigh of relief into anybody than he did to me. There I was rid of that brat, and for two-three days I was sure having a vacation from responsibility and kid- herding. But— I don't know. Somehow or other, my shantyboat seemed emptier and emptier. I'd wake up in the night and there wasn't any hammock swinging, and Cupey in it, wriggling or trying to sit up. And all day long I'd come to and look around, jump to look out onto the current to see if that balsa board was in sight, with a head floating up from it. I'd catch my breath, cuss a little, and turn back whatever I had been doing, recollecting I was shut of him.

This wasn't like when I lost that Chesapeake Bay dog, for fifty dollars, or either of my previous women, or the cats. Somehow, it was dif'rent. I got so I sat there cussing. I missed having to watch that darned brat, and washing his clothes, and exercising him on the sandbars, and so on. I was sitting there two days after Christmas. I'd helped the widow fix up a Christmas tree for her brat, and hung on it some odds and ends he needed to play with, and keep him busy. I felt useless, no 'count and river-ratty. Somehow, I had kind of a spell, wondering what's the use! I didn't even feel like going to the New Year's party aboard the sacred-concert boat. That's one way a man knows he's played out, not wanting to mingle with folks.

Then that widow came. She had her brat by one hand, yanking him along. She was sure thin-lipped and strutty, fire in her eyes. According to her tell, I'd completely'undisciplined and ruinated that offspring of hers, and what was I going to do about it?

I pearted right up. I told her to give him to me, for a pet. The look she gave me! I'd kept him two-three months instead of getting him right back to her, instanter. And hadn't I kidnaped him, anyhow? Well, I never knowed a man yet, that could talk to a woman, when her dander is really up. I sat and took it. She kinda run down, presently, and began to blink and sniffle. If she'd knowed what Old Mississip' was really like, she'd never in God's world started down in the first place, but she loved shantyboating —it was so snug, cozy and economical. And she just knew she couldn't ever stand it up-the-bank—never again!

And while I was consoling her, somebody yelled, "Baby overboard!" and we ran out for a look-see, and sure enough there was that brat paddling around in the red Arkansaw and green White River water, grinning and chuckling. He didn't have that balsa- wood float on either, but it didn't make no dif'rence, because he was swimming dog-strokes, and now and then overhand strokes.

"Will you look at the darling!" that widow cried to me. "Why, he can swim! Why, River Man, you've taught him to swim!"

AND she turned the most soulful l and flabbergasting glances of her eyes and looked at me. And her lips twitched, and her arms lifted out the most expressive in the world. And the next two-three minutes I was lost in oblivion and surprise. All there was to it, Juno said it was perfectly obvious, that amphibious tike of hern needed a man to help bring him up.

So there I was, and that widow grateful, admiring and just beautiful. I'd never even dreamed of her being good-natured, friendly and generous; but there she was; all we needed was a marriage certificate, which we got off the missionary boat that had come in for the Arkansaw Mouth Christmas-New-Year's holidays.

One funny thing, I have to laugh at: ev'y once in a while she takes that piece of balsa wood off the wall-hook where it thumps-thumps when the shantyboat rocks, drumming in the night. She hugs it, but she looks at me.

"Oh, you darling!" she says.

Now ain't that comical? I never did get that figured out.

_________________

21: Mississippi Medicine

Raymond S. Spears

Blue Book Aug 1941

NO one noticed Harvey till he was below the forks of the Ohio on Old Mississip', so it wasn't plain whether he came by way of Pittsburgh or from up the "main stem." He passed Putney's Bend eddy without stopping, swung around the big sand-bar and landed against a bluff reef a hundred yards or so from the Tucker boat. Dunk Tucker watched the way the stranger ran out his lines and realized he was kind of a softpaw, unfamiliar with handling a shanty-boat right, so he came over with a pint flask on his hip ready for friendship and business, both.

Harvey was blue-eyed, medium-sized, close to twenty-six years old, smooth-shaven, and he had a kind of soldierly way of standing and a precise way of moving. Dunk sized him up and down. Course, a man can't ever tell for sure, but this man looked genuinely, even pathetically innocent. In his expression was one of those hurt looks which people get to know, associating among the river people. Mostly women have it, faraway, moony and running to sorry memories. That kind don't generally care a damn about anything.

Dunk felt that here was a man who needed cheering up, so after mentioning that the duck flight wasn't good, and that lots of trippers were coming down, he casually pulled his bottle and remarked it was pure white corn, none of that dad- blasted yellow corn they make so much up in Iowa and Illinois bottoms— no, indeed !

Harvey kind of hesitated and mustered himself a bit. Dunk never thought a thing at all. Looking over the outfit of the stranger, close up, it sure seemed like a good customer might have drifted in right where Dunk was sequestering for a few days, having been crowding business pretty hard lately.

Dunk's eyes had begun to twinkle, the way this tripper was coming to it; but all of a sudden, doggoned if Harvey didn't just give Dunk a jab in the jaw, bang him in the left eye and then the right, and double him up with a solar- plexus blow, followed by an upper-cut that straightened him again, all ready to take a devil of a whack square on the point of the chin! Dunk Tucker never even got started, he was so surprised and stunned.

Dunk went over on his back and this wild man hoisted that flask on his toe for a kick that sent it clean over the eddy into the main current— a costly flask, too, with genuine silver mountings. Dunk had had lots of funny experiences, being a genuine hip-pocket two-bit and half-pint bootlegger, and having been in business down from Cincinnati and St. Louis both— but lying there all sprawled out on his back, this one sure had him guessing.

"Don't you offer me any drinks!" Dunk heard dazedly. "I'm not going to drink, understand ? Next time you meet Jud Harvey, you keep your damned booze to yourself! Get me?"

And then this tripper unties his boat and starts his outboard, heading right out into the current again. Dunk sat up and got out his automatic pistol, but by this time Harvey was too far for accurate shooting and Dunk Tucker never was a man to waste shells— no, indeed.

Dunk wabbled through the sand, back on board his boat. It was a loose, roily yellow bar— and there isn't any harder walking in the world for a man who feels weak, tired or drunk, than that loose grit. He almost fell off his gangplank getting inside and looking into his hair- parting-and-shaving glass he found he had two shiners for eyes and some of his teeth were loose. If it hadn't been for the way he felt and looked, Dunk just couldn't have believed it, being treated that-a-way just for offering a man a taste, sociable and for nothing!

Dunk never could patronize his own business moderately. He felt so rocky now that he just had to have a medicinal course, and naturally that meant he was fighting it, careless, before night come. There aint a place from Buffalo Island chute to Lake Providence reach where Dunk aint welcome sober, but feared in his cups like yellow-fever mosquitoes, account of his meanness— and mud in the muzzle of a shotgun when the trigger's pulled aint nothing to him. Thinking it over, Dunk sure is indignant.

"I don't have to take that from anybody!" Dunk says, going hunting for Jud Harvey to have it out with him.

Lots of times men and ladies, both, have come down Old Mississip' day and night, meeting calm for Sundays and drizzles for equinoctial line storms, never having no excitement from St. Paul clean down to the Passes. They sure get a funny idea about Old Mississip', that-a- way. Maybe there's somebody sunk in the next bend below— and a lady changing her man in the next bend above—and they don't have any ideas whatever of what is going on. Now probably Jud Harvey'd had that same kind of a peaceable trip himself, if he hadn't banged Dunk Tucker on the jaw....

Dunk pulls out from the eddy about two hours or so after Harvey leaves, according to Dunk's reckoning, and by that time it's dark. Dunk pulls the corks out of his repeating-rifle and his two shotguns, and makes ready for business. He swings two holsters under his arms and pulls his belt a notch tighter, and he goes tripping down looking for this fellow Jud Harvey, meaning business, and no fooling, either.

AT Fisherman Sweeney's, down below a ways, Dunk yells to ask if they have seen a twenty-four-foot shanty boat with a red hull and green cabin, the windows trimmed with white. They had,— coming down just before dark,— and it went on down with a man floating light on the roof, the outboard throbbing and echoing in the bend.

That looked like Harvey was going to trip all night, and he'd better keep right on going, clear down into the Gulf of Mexico, never stopping nowhere— with Dunk Tucker looking for him, insulted and cleared for action!

Game-fish Sweeney comes down to Columbus in the morning with a catch of fish and he told at the landing about Dunk Tucker going down after this fellow Jud Harvey. He didn't know Jud from the man in the moon, of course, and all he had to go by was what Dunk had told him while he was going by—how all he had done in God's world was offer a fellow tripper a drink of white corn, and took, consequently, the damnedest beating-up he had ever took.

"All I can think of is this fellow's a Yankee," Sweeney tried to figure it out, "and he's insulted because anybody insinuated yellow corn don't make as good liquor as white. Course, every man has a right to his own opinion—"

"You're right he has!" spoke up a quiet-looking, square-shouldered fellow who was standing around the fish-dock. "But don't make any mistake about this matter. My name is Jud Harvey. I'm saying that anyone who offers me a drink is in for it. That goes for yellow corn or white corn or any of those damned kind of things."

Everyone just looked at him. Naturally, he was a stranger there, so everyone had kind of sized him up and wondered about him. He had landed in quite a ways below town on the west side, and come over in his skiff, driven by an outboard. Dunk hadn't dreamed he'd stop within fifty or a hundred miles,— not that night, anyhow,— but here he was, big as life, not twenty miles from where he'd manhandled probably one of the highest-spirited and touchiest men anywhere on Old Mississip', below Cairo—and that means some mighty sensitive people, between the levees!

Seeing as he had handled Dunk, when he looked around just as though he was ready and more than willing to pick up then and there, why, of course it was Dunk's proposition, and everyone was just as indifferent and polite as they could be, hoping he hadn't thought anything personal so far about them. Sweeney said afterward he never had passed so dubious an examination and once-over like that Harvey gave him.

"Of course, Mr. Harvey," he said in that palavering way of his, "I was just wondering what ailed Dunk the way he was going by, talking to himself and to me, asking about a red-hulled boat with green cabin and white trimmings. You know, that's an awful conspicuous boat if anyone is looking for you. It isn't a good color to hide out in under!"

That wasn't going to help Sweeney none as regards Dunk Tucker's feelings, of course, for it put a bug in Harvey's ear. He went up to the hardware store and bought some paint. He tore off the labels and nobody knew what color it was. He toted it to his shanty-boat, and cut loose, heading off down the river. That was queer too, if he was trying to keep out of the way. He said afterward that he didn't like the looks of his boat, which was already built when he bought it up the line at Little Klondike, St. Louis. The conversation reminded him he wanted paint, and down to Hickman he remembered to get two brushes so he could cover those cabin colors with standard outdoor white, somewhere below.

EVERYBODY had to laugh. There was Dunk Tucker being liberal for once in his life, offering a man a drink offhand that-a-way, counting on making himself a good customer at small expense— and getting himself all bumped up so't it was two weeks, actually, before his blacked eyes faded out to yellowish.

With his guns ready that-a-way, hell'd sure have been popping if he'd had any luck finding Jud! Dunk had the green cabin with white trimmings on a red hull fixed in his mind. Two-three told him that Jud had painted the whole shebang over— but of course nobody could tell Dunk anything when in his high-lonesome mood. Probably it was just as well.

Dunk come right on down past where Harvey had tied in across from Hick-man, but he wasn't looking for a cream- colored cabin on a red hull with window framings same as the hull. Lots of times, when anyone is looking for a bad friend that-a-way, or a detector is hunting somebody that's been rewarded, or a husband is trying to catch up with his wife, some little paint-color quirk'll keep them from getting together all the way down for perhaps five hundred miles; and sometimes the seekers never meet, the pursuers never catch up, and the ought-to-joins never do.

At the same time Jud Harvey sure hadn't added any to his prospects of making a quiet, peaceable trip down the Lower Mississip'— no, indeed! The chances sure were favorable for experiences and excitements combined.

And as if this wasn't enough, a lady had to complicate his situation. She also was a stranger on the river, in a nice, well-found motorboat which ran aground on the Island Number Ten sand-bar above New Madrid, with the river falling and a couple of bad actors trailing along keeping track of her, but kind of hesitating to come right out and tackle her.

Harvey was more gentlemanly than discreet, as regards ladies. She was high and dry when he came along down, and she hailed him from the edge of the bar He came across the eddy, anchored off at the stern and she tied him to a snag by the bow-lines. He shoved off his gangplank and came ashore to look the boat over. The power hull was on a kind of flat, and rested on an even keel.

THERE ought to be some place where women aren't allowed and men could live without any female complications. There isn't any place in the world where men could be more contented and satisfied than down Old Mississip', if it wasn't for the way things are. A single, honorable man starts down, just minding his own business. He don't mix in socially; he ties up in lonesome bends or lands at sand-bars— shooting, fishing, maybe trapping, or just sitting by himself in a plumb peaceable way. That's the way it was with Jud Harvey.

This lady tripper was Blanche Farris, she said, a fair gray-eyed girl with a nice figure and a tongue unusually silent— brown-haired, smiling, and with just enough twitch to her shoulders when she walked, to make those two river rats that had been coming down in her wake hesitate to risk heading right in. She was a stranger on the river but she could sure shoot, and didn't make any bones about it, either. They'd come in on her eddy one misty morning when she steps out with a sixteen-gauge automatic shotgun and pops over three big canvasback ducks,— one-two-three,— a-handling that shooting-iron real embarrassing and competent. And then she had a .22 autoloader that clipped the head of a crippled duck at sixty yards, the second shot. When a lady can shoot guns like that, it stood to reason those boys didn't want to take any chances.

They saw her flag in Jud Harvey, who walked around her boat and scratched his head, figuring how to float it off. That kind of a job can be done, of course, but generally speaking a tripper might as well just wait for the tide to turn, and float off on the rise.

BUT women who come down alone are often impatient. They want to be moving up or down, getting somewhere, even if they haven't anywhere in particular to go. So when Blanche Farris, as she called herself, was afloat she'd been going uptown. When she was stuck on a sand-bar, she wanted to float off again. What a woman all lively that-a-way wants to spoil the calm down on Old Mississip' for, nobody can figure out— they just keep coming down, every once in a while one, and naturally some poor devil has to take the consequences. Jud Harvey was new and different, judging by the way he lifted Dunk Tucker from under his hat. So he ties in by this lady, opposite her boat, and if he can't slip her boat into the river, he can sort of hang around there till high water comes again, protecting her real proper, if need be.

Neither one of them knew anything about the quick drops and fast rises. They had good binoculars, both of them, and in clear weather they could see the New Madrid Gauge Board; and if they'd paid any attention they would have seen that the rivgr stage was only five feet, stationary, which meant probably they'd soon put the R out, showing the rise was coming.

Harvey goes to work. He drags over a cottonwood pole about fifty feet long, having a handy line and two-sheave tackle-blocks, for snatching. Then he brings in a long four-square beam and sets two automobile jacks under the Monk's Hood, as she calls her boat, getting the hull on skids. He did three-four days' work, like that; then even soft-paws would notice the tide was on the make, and one morning he wakes up to find the jacks are standing in five inches of water, and he has to let down the boat or he'll lose the screws. The rise was coming about eight or nine inches a day; and, when those two were well acquainted, there comes a twenty-inch jump that floated the Monk's Hood all clear.

That plaguey river seemed to have just planned that fall-drop, hanging the girl's boat on the bar and bringing Harvey along down just so's he couldn't pass her by, being accommodating— and of course he couldn't leave her once he'd come to the bank and tied in. Leastwise, not while she was in her predicament that-a-way! Lots of people say it was just a coincidence; that's when they first come onto the river. Afterward, they talk same as the old-timers, and say it was just another of those damned river's tricks.

Now of course, if they'd been ordinary, they'd have tied their boats together and drifted along down, not disputing much the way things had broke. But something ailed them; they were Yankees and instead of leaving their characteristics back home where they started from, they had to bring their ideas tripping down. If just one of them had been a practical shanty-boater, probably everything would have been satisfactory and commonplace. But Old Man River was sure cutting up that autumn, having fun with more queer notionals and the regulars, than hardly anyone ever remembered before. This lady was the most particular and circumspecting anyone could imagine; or anyhow, she claimed to be.

Not but what Jud Harvey needed to meet that kind of a lady, after beating up a man just for offering him a drink. There they were, tripping down together, going up-the-bank to shows— trading, hunting, fishing along, and behaving themselves too. Everybody was making explanations and bets, but any way it's looked at, things like that don't stand to reason. But this damned old river never is twice the same— if a scrapper comes down looking for fighting and trouble, all he can do, more than likely, is punch a bag and exercise with dumbbells. And on the other hand, if he wants to have a quiet, orderly time, off by himself, he ups and feels obliged to punch Dunk Tucker in the snoot, stocking in good and plenty come-back events and episodes for the ensuing winter!

DROPPING down the river together, the trippers landed into Caruthersville. This is one of those towns where anyone can stop and go over the levee and find what he is looking for. If he wants scrapple, sowbelly and brown sugar, there 'tis. And then again if he wants ribbon-cane molasses, Virginia ham and fresh eggs, why, there they are all ready. And socially it's about the same. I suppose a man could have a two-story house-boat on Old Mississip', same as a two-story house up the bank— rising and falling with the tides. Only the Government has quarter boats like that, and not very many— on account of the cyclone-twisters that like to flop a high boat bottom upwards.

Here come these two into Caruthersville, shopping.

Jud Harvey is wearing a corduroy tan suit with laced hunting-boots and a stiff-brimmed Army hat, besides a gray silk shirt and a clean-shaven face. He looks for all the world like a railroad or Government-works engineer and surveyor. She's dressed scrumptious too— a grayish brown skirt, laced boots, a deep purple silk waist and a jacket to match her skirt, and one of those damned little hats tipped sideways a bit, that gives the rest of her dignity kind of an uncertain and uneasy question-mark.

The two lay in probably two hundred pounds of supplies, both being low in the pantry— canned goods, cornmeal, flour, bacon, sugar, and so on, till they've a good delivery load, which is brought to the Caruthersville eddy and slid down onto his bow deck, all according. Well, there were two delivery-boys, and of course they were short eight or ten cans and a couple of packages, the way those things happen. There's the lists and there's the shortage.

JUD HARVEY takes the list up to the store they'd patronized, heads over to the clerk who had waited on them and starts right in, loud and careless. The proprietor of the store, whose name is Packerly, hears the talk and of course he knows exactly what has happened. He goes out and brings in the two delivery-boys, cuffs them up a bit, and they go out into the delivery-truck and sure enough there is all the absent things just the way Jud Harvey was claiming. The boys claimed they hadn't noticed the things rolled up under some other stuff. So they take the things down to the boat and deliver them.

Caruthersville is one of the good river landings. Shanty-boats like to stop in there. People behind the bank are just as common and nice to anyone off the river as they are to each other, and sometimes nicer, if there's been any hard feelings. Mr. Packerly realizes how his boys' mistakes might make a bad name down the river for his place— shanty-boaters talking a lot among themselves— so he pats this Jud Harvey on the shoulder and takes him into the personal office back of the cashier's den and accounts department.

They went in, closed the door and for a minute or so it is all quiet, same as was to be expected. Then the lady bookkeeper did hear a kind of slight little noise, but she didn't pay any attention. Jud Harvey appears presently, closes the door behind him, and walks out into the street. He goes down to the levee and cuts loose from the eddy with the Farris boat, dropping into Plum Point reach.

SOMETIME later, nobody ever did figure just how long, but perhaps half an hour or so, Rubin Packerly emerges through the doorway of his personal office with his jaw kind of twisted around to one side. He is stumbling and staggering, awry-eyed. He looks so difficult and fuzzled-up that they telephone for a doctor.

The last Packerly remembered he had offered this shanty-boater complainant a drink— the real stuff too, wild grape brandy of the best quality. Something hit him, he didn't know what. He just saw large red circles mixed with a lot of white, blue and other colored ones, and when he came to he was suffering from a sore jaw and a puzzled memory.

The Sheriff and City Marshal were both summoned, and they investigated. Mr. Packerly's memory was corroborated as regards the drinks. On the floor was a broken bottle. From the smell, it had probably contained wild grape brandy as he claimed. He had set out two liberal whisky-glasses, and both of these were also broken in the ruins of the bottle. Packerly admitted that he might possibly have taken a drink, and it had just knocked him endwise. The fact was— and Mr. Packerly was absolutely fair- minded in the matter— he had bought this liquor from another man and not from the bootlegger he was accustomed to patronize— Dunk Tucker not having come along for sometime back, and the bottle being empty.

"I'm afraid we haven't any case, Mr. Packerly," Sheriff Tipton said. "Some of this damned liquor we've been getting mixed in lately acts like that. If you took a drink, and flopped, perhaps you hit your chin in passing by the table or chair-bottoms— you can see how that is."

The Caruthersville Earthquake printed an account of the matter, the way Mr. Packerly told it, and some of the natives showed to shanty-boaters what the newspaper printed. None of the river people said anything. Of course, they'd heard Dunk Tucker talking about this same tripper, Jud Harvey, so it wasn't any of their business, even if it was a hell of a note. When back on the river, however, the shanty-boaters talked good and plenty.

Mr. Packerly had done the same as Dunk Tucker. He had offered a drink to Jud Harvey. Packerly couldn't recollect what had happened, the newspaper said, but the indications were plain enough to river people.

Harvey had acted insulted and almost dislocated the storekeeper's jaw. Lots of Queer Dicks have come down Old Mississip'. One can stop at any shanty-boat landing, Cairo, Putney Bend, New Madrid and so on down the line. About every so often somebody odd enough to attract attention will drop in.

As if it wasn't enough to talk about, that the indications were Harvey and this Farris lady actually behaved themselves perfectly proper, here were two cases in which Harvey banged the lights out of two men, an old river man and an up-the-banker, when they had offered him a nice friendly drink! I'll say one thing for Old Mississip'— in trippin' it, people generally act natural, absolutely.

Dunk Tucker heard about it at Caruthersville the day after the Earthquake printed the facts. He bought four or five extra copies so he could always be sure to have one. He wasn't giving any corroborative evidence in the matter, any more than other trippers. If he let on it wasn't a mystery to him, but kind of a regular thing, he knew well enough that Sheriff Tipton would probably slap a witness-bond onto him and make him testify to preliminaries, grand-jury proceedings and the petit-jury trial, to boot.

"I aint any time for that! " Dunk told himself. "And besides I don't give a whoop about Packerly, even if he is one of my clients. This Jud Harvey person is for me to manhandle without no legal interferences."

So Dunk just stocked Packerly up with a private supply, and whatever jugs of regular standards he took for ordinary. Tucker never let on that he had the same kind of jaw as Packerly, though both of them were swelled up like they'd grown hog-fat.

Over at the landing Dunk heard that Harvey was with the motorboat lady, Blanche Farris. He'd heard about the two being stranded on Island Number Ten, but had arrived there too late to do anything about Harvey. Dunk was probably the worst-provoked man down Old Mississip' in many a day. He had been bunged around before. He had been insulted, exasperated, bothered, same as men usually are. Even when he was sober, he couldn't figure any excuse for this Jud Harvey beating him that-a- way.

"I don't have to take that from any man!" he said, just like that. "The principle of it is what makes me mad!"

LOTS of times a man don't know what to make of Old Mississip'. Any time somebody nice, decent, and honorable is liable to drop down the river, same as to come to California or Florida, or anywhere. This Blanche Farris looked like quality— dignified and indifferent. She wasn't a lady a passer-by would run alongside of, free and easy. About every so often one comes down that is real tempting and dangerous, both. The way things are, on the river, unless a man's awful reckless, he's going to steer clear rather than take a chance of being shot. Circumstances don't restrain a lady's natural inclinations none, if she wants to kill a man. Of course, if it is close by to a town or in some sheriff's actual jurisdiction and he wants to make a reputation, or cover up something else, probably a killing would be investigated and advertised around according to how good-looking a lady is. But if a lady is inclined that-a-way, or feels she has stood about all she is going to, she don't have to run a bluff on a man. Plenty of .the boys has been fooled that way, thinking a woman wouldn't shoot, being tenderhearted or something.

One day a line on this Blanche Farris came down the river. Back where she came from, down East, in New England or Pennsylvania,— some place like that,— a lady had turned up missing. The newspapers printed quite a lot about her, for she was mighty pretty. Her picture was printed weekdays, and then on Sunday a life-size natural in brown ink on polished paper give her a big send-off. Funny the way things break, but Tip Ward cut out one of those pictures to tack it on a bare place in his shanty-boat. This was at Pittsburgh, on the Ohio at the upper forks. He had read some piece about her, but he didn't pay particular attention except to keep her picture. Then, one day, he thought about winter
coming on, jumped his job and headed off down for a climate to suit his feelings.

So Tip is floating down with the duck flight, killing enough birds to have pot-pies, roasts, and so on. When he reaches Centennial cut-off, he lands in to say howdy to some of the boys, hear the news and find out where everyone is hanging up for the winter. Mrs. Mahna is there with her latest husband, and she comes on board Tip's boat, looks his furniture over and the first thing, her eyes light on that half-page brown picture of a lady.

"Well, great guzzard!" She turns to Tip. "So you're travelin' with a lady's picture now, eh?"

Tip has to laugh and blush, both. He's kind of bashful around the women anyhow, and the wonder was some girl hadn't landed him before this. So he told Mrs. Mahna about how this lady had figured in a pretty prominent triangular case back East somewhere. The funny part of the case was, she had been sued for corresponding, or something like that— one of those technical legalities— with the husband with whom she had been going around.

The man was one of these smart fellows who makes a lot of money in big- time odd-jobbing, building up business and going from place to place— a handsome, polite and flannel-tongued chap with a wife back home and good company whereat he happens to be attending to his business. This last place he came to he meets this lady of the picture. She is probably the nicest proposition in all her home county, let alone her home city. She falls for him, real honorable and good society; the break sure looks like the belle of the community had to go a long way to be satisfied with her prospects— and then the wife, a divorce-lawyer, a detective and a bundle of court literature come to town, tearful, competent and outraged. Then there is hell to pay! The newspapers print it all over and even the current event radio broadcasts make the most of it.

TIP couldn't just remember the name the parties all claimed back where they had their show-down, but anyhow, Mrs. Mahna would have known Blanche Farris if she'd had a dozen aliases. Course, she had took a new name tripping the river, which is advisable if not necessary. The circumstance explained a lot that Mrs. Mahna had tumbled to here and there. Naturally, having had such an experience in being double-crossed, Blanche Farris, so-called, would just a little rather shoot a man than look at him. Mrs. Mahna agreed with her general attitude, but of course most men didn't think a woman ought to hold it up against every other man, just because she'd found a slick artist at her own first real whack.

Soon as Mrs. Mahna heard that side of it, how come Blanche Farris had turned shanty-boater, it gave her a line on the whole matter. Take a woman anywhere,— down Old Mississip', up-the-bank or off across-country,— and the average is particular and virtuous. This seems to be kind of according to their nature. Every once in a while there's kind of a break in the average, maybe down, maybe up. Nothing extraordinary about it, but just according to the way things happen, it might be said. But this Blanche Farris was just plumb indignant and rambunctious the way she looked at some ideas. And what's more, being able to shoot the way she could, and having plenty of ammunition handy for her respective firearms she had already established her record.

PUTTING this and that together, there were two fellows who drifted into Buckague Landing. They'd been shot with BB's at about thirty-five yards; the gun was strong-shooting, too. They wouldn't talk none, but it was these fellers that had been pursuing that lady's shanty-boat down the river. When they came bach afloat they told about their experience. They'd figured Blanche Farris had a nice big boat, and they could navigate it for her, keeping anything from bothering her, and so on. She told them to move, smiling while she spoke.

They mistook that smile. Sometimes youngsters think that when a lady says no and smiles, it means yes. They picked up their paddles and started toward the boat, and she let them just have it with that plaguey automatic sixteen-gauge of hers. One whack, and both those kids were topics of hospital and river-bottom conversation, sure enough!

Then there was a big fellow with kind of a buzzard-hump to his shoulders, Tockmitt, or some such name as that, a foreigner from off yonder somewhere.

He was out of the Ohio, having built him a Volga-boat and saved up some money so he could live across the country. When he gets below Louisville, he just about believes he is clear over the line on the other side in Nowhere. He kills a beef steer on a sand-bar; he picks up a hog anywhere he feels like it; he sees a lot of turkeys on a bottom and thinks they are wild, so he strips down about five to one shot, and a tall, excited woman comes r'aring at him, and he thinks she is an Indian talking broken English, so he laughs and keeps on coming down.

By the time he passes Cairo, at the Ohio forks, he sure has comical ideas about what kind of a country he is cruising in. Anyhow he sees this pretty motorboat lady darning some holes in her stockings as she sits floating in the balmy autumnal sunshine. He has some clothes that need mending too, and he has the real bright idea that if he just had this lady on-board his boat, all there would be to it was the question of finding enough to eat. This is pretty late in the afternoon. They are in one of those long wooded bends above or below Columbus, in there somewhere .... and when this big foreigner Tockmitt comes out of the reach he is lying face downward in a rigor-mortis state of astonishment. Fact! Shot right plumb through the heart! Two men hunting red fox squirrels along there in the hickories happened to see the boats coming in close together with this big dark fellow rowing enthusiastically, and the lady sewing. It was none of their business, and they went on hunting. Afterward they heard about the coroner's inquest some ninety miles below there— it was a falling river, and no wind, so the old scoundrel's boat didn't drift ashore until the breeze sprang up two days later.

Some mathematicians figured that the way Blanche Farris had happened to hang herself on Island Number Ten bar she was excited and mistook a tent-camp lantern over on the west side of Winchester chute for one of the river channel lights and so cut too short in Slough Neck bend. A lady has to have right smart of experience not to be nervous after she's had to shoot somebody, no matter if he did need killing. So Blanche had got stranded.

ONE other matter stirred up a lot of interest; this was the way she treated some night-trippers along through there somewhere. These days it wasn't anything to hear a power-boat going up or down without any running-lights, red or green— not even white. The risk is considerable, but mostly it is the travel-ers running dark that are in the biggest and most danger. The navigation laws forbid it, but lots of things are forbidden by law which are attractive, or are interferences! Well, these boys were moving fast, heading into the reverse current above Hickman to gain speed by avoiding bucking the main channel body-water. Anchored away out there in the middle of nowhere in particular is a motorboat and it hasn't any light on it. They had a cut-out wide open, saving some power, and just when they are right on top of that anchored boat they see it. The steersman puts hard over, and they just scrape by— going like the devil, too.

The next they knew five bullets come skittering at them. Before they could do a danged thing, the cased projectiles slatted into the stern, tumbled and flopped through whatever was in their way. One hit the water-pump, and busted it. One went through all clear and cut out the bow plank, making a hole about an inch long and half an inch wide that let water squirt in. Another bullet whanged through the gasoline tank and split the bottom wide open. The next bullet hit metal of some kind,— perhaps the electric system,— and the fire flew— the gasoline exploded and there was nothing to do but jump overboard, letting the boat, afire, go on up the river like a comet, until it finally sunk, over against the opposite bank.

According to all tell down the lower river if anybody is looking for more kinds of difficulties and damnations, all he has to do is get some lady real peevish, and among the cases cited is this Blanche Farris, so-called, just as though she was holding people below the Ohio forks responsible for what had happened to her over the Altoona Divide or back East in the industrial districts.

WHEN Jud Harvey and Blanche Farris drop their lines over each other's cleats and pin-heads they'd already butted in on conditions enough to make bad medicine along with plenty talk. Just how they figured out there oughtn't to be any talk about them, sure beat the arithmetic through by Plum Point reach and on Yankee bar, where they landed in to hunt wild geese, being sociable and self-sufficient.

Kind of a bad element stops in at Plum Point and on toward Fort Pillow bluffs. That place is a long ways from anywhere. Hardly anyone ever is disturbed there, unless the reward is too big on his head.

Course, now and again personal difficulties break, if bad friends meet. At the same time those two apparently believed wherever they went they had a right to carry along their own ideas, the lady as regards the attention she had a right not to expect, and Harvey as regards his not being violated in his touchy personal feelings.

Some ladies are reasonable, and being good-looking, a man naturally wonders how much they'll stand for; others are just tempery in that line. But here was Jud Harvey knocking down any one who asked him to have a drink! There was a whisky-boat in the eddy above Fort Pillow bluffs. It was Harvey's own mistake he thought it was a store-boat, selling groceries. He goes on board, and— ho law! The devil and all-get-out had joined hands!

THIS affair of the Fort Pillow eddy boat happened in the middle of the evening, about three o'clock. Jud Harvey comes along in his skiff with an outboard hanging over the stern. A commissary is on the Fort Pillow ridge and his idea is to buy some supplies there. So he sees the Huller cabin-boat, which is about forty foot long and ten foot wide, and cost seven hundred dollars if it cost a cent. Right alongside is a heavy-duty launch for towing. A gangplank is dispensed with in favor of a fast little launch about twenty feet long for bringing aboard customers.

On the side of the boat is a big black announcement— COMMISSARY.

Now, of course, Huller had been a store-boater for a long time. He has sold groceries, dry-goods, boat supplies, ammunition and those things, and when he changed his line he hadn't bothered to paint his boat over. Probably, he didn't want to advertise his new business.

Well, anyhow, this Jud Harvey comes alongside, drops a loop over a cleat and walks right in on the bow cabin of the boat. Huller had bought probably the best L-bar of its size from St. Louis to N'Orleans, fifteen foot on one side and six on the other. There aint no inlet from the front to the rear of the boat, on account of Huller discouraging intimacies of his customers with his living quarters, being strictly business that-a- way. The bar is big, substantial and apparently a genuine protection, extra-high, and bullet-proof down the whole front, on account of steel boiler plates seriated clear around inside the wainscoting.

Besides this porcupine protection Huller has distributed sufficient mallets, three shotguns, and two sawed-off scatter-guns all convenient and in arm's- length reach, ready for any business, as he believed, that might happenstance. Well, when this Jud Harvey walks in on the Huller whisky-boat layout he stands swaying like he is going to faint and he gulps and swallows. His mouth opens thirstily and his eyes begin to roll. He has all the symptoms of a man that hasn't had a drink for probably six months or so, or anyhow enough time for him to accumulate one gosh-awful demand for a genuine high-lonesome.

And then he sets himself, squints and begins to bound. Four or five ridge fellers and swamp-angels had been lined up against the bar, having a taste. They looked this fellow over, wondering. He had on one of those yellow corduroy suits and laced boots, like a Government or some kind of a civil engineer. The expression on his face to start with was familiar. Plenty of shanty-boats have been the water-wagons of drinking men trying to escape liquor by keeping away from it— some pitiful and some comical. Huller stands puzzled and dubious; he don't really want to kill a man, without it's necessary. He hesitates; this visitor comes over the bar fist-first, and Huller is knocked clean through his private exit into the back cabin of his boat. Harvey follows him clear over the bar, straightened right out, fist-first.

What follows depends on who tells it. Harvey don't say anything about it. He runs the customers over-side into the ferry-launch and they cut loose. They don't know how to navigate the motor, so they drift down ten miles or so below Chickasaw bluffs, where a fisherman comes out and runs them back up the current to the landing. When they arrive, this big whisky-boat is burning from bow to stern and the casks in the hold are exploding.

Huller, the late owner, is sitting in his heavy-duty launch floating around and around in the Fort Pillow eddy, with a dreamy look and two black eyes in his face. Away up the line toward Yankee bar is the skiff of Jud Harvey, kind of skittering along in the mirage like a water-bug, and just visible in the sunlit passing of the day. Huller never had any particular recollection of what happened. He sees a man coming at him and forgets to duck in his surprise. Them other fellows is followed out of the boat by a lot of noise and explosions. The next anybody knows the whisky-boat commissary is aflame and past hope.

IN the morning the river through from Plum Point down as far as Centennial cut-off is reasonably peaceable and balmy. News that Huller's boat had met with difficulty traveled fast. The circumstances seeped through in the rumors, and generally speaking it was agreed that Old Mississip' sure had lured a queer proposition into its bends and reaches this time! Whether the interest, novelty and amusement was worth the price, wasn't so easy to decide. Lots of people felt that this Jud Harvey was either crazy or going too far, one or the other, as regards refusing to take a drink. At the same time quite a number of women, like Mrs. Mahna, the Granie girls and so on said that considering the number of men that had been bullied and buffaloed around because they tried to refuse to take or stand a treat, Harvey was sure overdue, the way he was now handling the situation. Course, a man can't argue with women like them— and only some fool softpaw would try it. But from their favorable viewpoint, to Dunk Tucker's active indignation, indicates the wide spread of river opinion.

Down to Mendova past Lost Hope bend and into the Arkansaw Old Mouth district a lot of people buckled on guns for business that hadn't felt obliged to wear self-protectors in many a day. About every so often bad actors show up who bother trippers. Nobody was able to tell where Jud Harvey would come in next, which made some nervous. He and his lady friend was sure a problem in etiquette and commercial affairs. What folks prayed for was that them two would just pass by on yon-side the river without being sociable at all.

News that this lady Blanche Farris, so-called, had reason for being disgusted as regards the ordinary run of men was carried up and down, chiefly by transporters. Nobody could blame her for being peevish the way she'd been cheated by this married man winning her affections back home where she come from. The river ladies all argued that as far as
she was concerned, she was perfectly justified in shooting any scoundrel or other man coming in range of her rifle- sights, or anyhow in shotgun range.

"If this Jud Harvey's married, and she ever finds it out, I'd sure hate to be in his boots!" the saying went around, too.

Mutual disappointments had apparently drawn them together in sympathy. Miss Farris as much as told Mrs. Mahna so when they talked together at Friar's Point, where the two landed in after that Fort Pillow excitement. Friar's Point is so doggone dry and respectable that a vinegar-wriggler would die of thirst there, and the ladies is just all quality and absolute. Course, Mrs. Mahna minds her own business awful strict. At the same time, knowing what these two were up against as regards some of those dark bends and Arkansaw Old Mouth sentiments, she just took a chance.

"You can see how 'tis," Mrs. Mahna says. "Everybody along the river is getting so they just absolutely is scairt of their lives, about you two! You just act so awful respectable and tempery that if a man comes along by, he don't know but you'll've mistook a squint for a wink and open up on him. Down this-a-way, ladies can be respectable if it's necessary or desirable, of course, but when virtue gets so doggone aggressive, it upsets the whole river sociability and good-fellowship. It aint only dangerous, but provoking, too."

Blanche farris, she just had to laugh. She said she hadn't understood till then that every man who came along wasn't a potential cave-man, and all she had ever really tried to do was make sure not to take any chances as regards any of them. And with Jud Harvey escorting her she really had calmed down right much— not but what she still packed a gun convenient and intended to use it if somebody was disrespectful anywhere in range.

"Well, I draws limits, too," Mrs. Mahna said, and explained her ideas the way women does; and so they came to kind of a mutual understanding.

Of course, that left the problem of Jud Harvey pretty much in the air. Blanche Farris wasn't any hand to talk about the affairs of her friends, but on Harvey's coming aboard from town, Mrs. Mahna asked him if it wouldn't be just as well to explain his viewpoint as regarded his flying off the handle and hellraising the way he had done. "Well, I'll tell you, Mrs. Mahna," he said, frank and open as could be. "I was city engineer back home where I came from, in Rockton, New York. I thought I could handle liquor with anybody— drink all I wanted to and no more, take it or leave it. Then one night I went to a stag party. Sometime after midnight I was putting on a one-man parade up and down Main Street. I broke a thousand dollars' worth of plate-glass windows and cleaned up the five active members of the police force— and when I subsided I was a sleeping beauty in the Handsome Conny blind tiger. Luckily, I had influence and income to pay for the damage, and keep my job.

"I tried to lay off drink, but everywhere I went it was 'come and have a drink'— and before I knew it I found if I took a drink I'd take fifty more— and on the way through I'd fight everybody, smash everything and raise hell generally. Then I took to knocking everybody down who offered me a drink. I did that to the chairman of the board of public works and to two members of other boards, and they thought I'd gone crazy. I resigned my job and headed for the Mississippi. I thought down the river I'd be far enough from moonshine, blind tigers, bootleggers and such that I wouldn't hear, smell or see a drink. First thing I knew, a runner name of Dunk Tucker insisted I take a drink. I went hunting on the bottoms and the damned moonshiners said I'd have to buy liquor— and so I just naturally sunk 'em where I found them. Same way with a dirty scoundrel at Fort Pillow— one Huller, pretending to be a store-boat commissary, and really running a whisky-boat!

"If I've got to fight booze, I'll do it!" Jud Harvey said, and he waved a six-gun and a fist, both. "I'll fight it my way, which is sober. Anyone offers me a drink, the way I've got the habit, I've either got to drink it and raise hell— or raise hell and not drink it. That's all there is to it! "

"That's good and plenty," Mrs. Mahna said, with enthusiasm.

SO of course, when everybody down the line understood what ailed Jud Harvey and Blanche Farris, there wasn't any hard feelings at all. Even Dunk Tucker, feeling as mean as he did about taking such an awful and unexpected licking, understood and came around to apologize to Harvey.

"Why, hell, man," Dunk says, "If you'd just told me you was on the water-wagon, trippin' Old Mississip', I'd've been satisfied. If a man don't want to drink, that's his own business."

Now wasn't that comical? Come to find out, Jud Harvey was one of the nicest, peaceablest, sportiest men you ever met. All he had was just kind of an obsession as regards this here liquor problem, that's all. Outside of that he'd do anything for anybody. And same way about this Blanche Farris, so-called.

They had party after party down around Arkansaw Old Mouth— and nobody got killed up, or even the peace disturbed. Of course, if Jud was invited, anybody had better not have liquor even on his breath, on account of him not being able to stand it. And as for Miss Farris, she could dance and laugh and be sociable with anybody, as long as nobody started anything. And naturally, nobody did— knowing how she'd take it and what she'd do, flying off the handle.

And them two dropped out of Arkansaw Old Mouth into the Chaffeli' district below Natchez, hanging along together and getting so they could trust each other more and more, him getting all over his violence as regards being able to see liquor without fighting it, and she loosening up a good deal as regards her antipathy and resentment toward men. One day, they married off in kind of a hurry, and word came back up the line that when they landed at Morgan City below Grande Lake they sold out and went up the bank, both cured complete.

THAT'S all there was to it. There's hardly ever a time when there isn't something interesting, comical, pathetic or serious down Old Mississip'. Everything down this-a-way kind of runs a natural course, just like having measles or mumps— any of those things, from falling into love to having the liquor habit. Course, the way things are, folks and everything scattered out and isolated on the river, it seems like what happens is seen plainer, uncomplicated by other matters. Up-the-bank there's so many folks, ideas, habits, and businesses mixed together that they aint simplified none, and anybody looking on gets distracted every which way. At the same time, being an innocent spectator on Old Mississip' sure has its duties and exercises—yes, indeed! Some folks never do hit what they shoot at— which can be mighty rough on the spectators!

________________

Index to Past Masters Nos 61-88

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

The Pretty Passenger 88

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

Elizabeth W. Bellamy

Ely’s Automatic Housemaid 88

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

Michael Bittner

No Greater Love  88

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

Donn Byrne

The Wake 88

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

Marie Corelli

The Sculptor's Angel 88

Anne Crawford

A Mystery of the Campagna  85

W. E. Cule

A Ship's Bell 88

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

Gwyn Evans

The Pool of Secrets 88

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

George Hibbard

The Allard Burglars 88

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

William Hope Hodgson

Bullion!  88

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

Harris Merton Lyon

The Weaver who Clad the Summer 88

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

The Mask 88

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

Neil Munro

The Tudor Cup 88

Edith M Nesbit

In the Dark 64

Man-Size in Marble  65

Number 17    61

The Third Drug 88

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

Hume Nisbet

His Reward  88

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

Barry Pain

"Owing to the War" 88

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

Andrew Soutar

Bluebeard 63

D. H. Souter

Conroy 74

Raymond S. Spears

The Cruise of the Cadis  84

Mississippi Medicine 88

A Pearl of Price 88

Soft-Paw Ignorance 88

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

Somebody's Sons 88

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

An Idyll of the Hills 88

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

Lee Willenborg

The Queen's Emerald  88

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 Mask / Richard Marsh
- 2: A Ship's Bell / W. E. Cule
- 3: The Allard Burglars / George Hibbard
- 4: The Wake / Donn Byrne

- 5: The Weaver who Clad the Summer / Harris Merton Lyon

- 7: Bullion! / William Hope Hodgson
- 8: An Idyll of the Hills / Louis Tracy
- 9: The Pool of Secrets / Gwyn Evans

- 10: Ely’s Automatic Housemaid / Elizabeth W. Bellamy

- 11: The Third Drug / Edith Nesbit
- 12: The Sculptor's Angel / Marie Corelli
- 13: Somebody's Sons / Annie S. Swan
- 14: The Tudor Cup / Neil Munro
- 15: "Owing to the War" / Barry Pain
- 16: His Reward / Hume Nisbet
- 17: No Greater Love / Michael Bittner
- 18: The Queen's Emerald / Lee Willenborg
- 19: A Pearl of Price / Raymond S. Spears
- 20: Soft-Paw Ignorance / Raymond S. Spears

- 21: Mississippi Medicine / Raymond S. Spears

- Cumulative Index # 61-88