Past Masters Ninety Six
Author: Various
Date: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00
Description: A varied assortment of short stories gathered from newspapers and magazines, as diverse as Smart Set and Weird Tales, including 3 short stories by Australian poet C J Dennis. I had no idea he wrote short prose fiction! 1: From the Dead / Edith Nesbit 2: Sophy Mason Comes Back / E. M. Delafield 3: The Plot / Leslie Thomas 4: One Man from the West / Sumner Locke 5: The Green Cat / Sumner Locke 6: Assignats / Henry Leverage 7: The Devil's Cave / Anonymous 8: Marianna and the Fish Prince / R. E. Vernéde 9: The Bookworm's Arms / C. J. Dennis 10: Mrs Dumphy's Send-Off / C. J. Dennis 11: Hobbled / Ed

PAST MASTERS

NINETY-SIX

Produced and Edited by Terry Walker ("Pulpmeister") from short stories in magazines, newspapers and other sources, and all in the Life + 70 years public domain.

11 September 2022

Contents

1: From the Dead / Edith Nesbit

2: Sophy Mason Comes Back / E. M. Delafield

3: The Plot / Leslie Thomas

4: One Man from the West / Sumner Locke

5: The Green Cat / Sumner Locke

6: Assignats / Henry Leverage

7: The Devil's Cave / Anonymous

8: Marianna and the Fish Prince / R. E. Vernéde

9: The Bookworm's Arms / C. J. Dennis

10: Mrs Dumphy's Send-Off / C. J. Dennis

11: Hobbled / Edward S. Sorenson

12: The Cap-Box / Louis Joseph Vance

13: Wet Weather / Courtney Ryley Cooper

14: Spink / C. J. Dennis

15: To the Tune of a Dance / Alice and Claude Askew

16: Our Lady of the Lilies / J. S. Fletcher

17: The World  of the Vanishing Point / James Barr

18: A Diplomatic Mistake / P Treherne

19: An Officer's Patrol / Major Arthur Griffiths

20: An Unnatural Father / Barry Pain

21: The Grave / Orville R. Emerson

22: The Draw-Keeper / Wadsworth Camp

23: The Pearls of Paruki / J. Allan Dunn

24: A Fatal Gamble / Ernest Favenc

25: The Haunted Steamer / Ernest Favenc

Cumulative Index 61-96

___________________________

1: From the Dead

Edith Nesbit

1858–1924

The Illustrated London News, 3 Sept 1892

Edith Nesbit was the author of a number of much-loved childrens books under the by-line E. Nesbit, such as "The Railway Children"; was a poet; wrote other novels under by-line Fabian Bland; and also had a fine touch with supernatural and horror, usually as by Edith Nesbit.

"BUT TRUE or not true, your brother is a scoundrel. No man— no decent man— tells such things."

"He did not tell me. How dare you suppose it? I found the letter in his desk; and since she was my friend and your sweetheart, I never thought there could be any harm in my reading anything she might write to my brother. Give me back the letter. I was a fool to tell you."

Ida Helmont held out her hand for the letter.

"Not yet," I said, and I went to the window. The dull red of a London sunset burned on the paper, as I read in the pretty handwriting I knew so well, and had kissed so often:

Dear:

I do— I do love you; but it's impossible. I must marry Arthur. My honour is engaged. If he would only set me free— but he never will. He loves me foolishly.

But as for me— it is you I love— body, soul, and spirit.

There is no one in my heart but you. I think of you all day, and dream of you all night. And we must part. Goodbye— Yours, yours, yours,

Elvira

I had seen the handwriting, indeed, often enough. But the passion there was new to me. That I had not seen.

I turned from the window. My sitting-room looked strange to me. There were my books, my reading-lamp, my untasted dinner still on the table, as I had left it when I rose to dissemble my surprise at Ida Helmont's visit— Ida Helmont, who now sat looking at me quietly.

"Well— do you give me no thanks?"

"You put a knife in my heart, and then ask for thanks?"

"Pardon me," she said, throwing up her chin. "I have done nothing but show you the truth. For that one should expect no gratitude— may I ask, out of pure curiosity, what you intend to do?"

"Your brother will tell you—"

She rose suddenly, very pale, and her eyes haggard.

"You will not tell my brother?"

She came towards me— her gold hair flaming in the sunset light.

"Why are you so angry with me?" she said. "Be reasonable. What else could I do?"

"I don't know."

"Would it have been right not to tell you?"

"I don't know. I only know that you've put the sun out, and I haven't got used to the dark yet."

"Believe me," she said, coming still nearer to me, and laying her hands in the lightest touch on my shoulders, "believe me, she never loved you."

There was a softness in her tone that irritated and stimulated me. I moved gently back, and her hands fell by her sides.

"I beg your pardon," I said. "I have behaved very badly. You were quite right to come, and I am not ungrateful. Will you post a letter for me?"

I sat down and wrote:

I give you back your freedom. The only gift of mine that can please you now.

—Arthur

I held the sheet out to Miss Helmont, but she would not look at it. I folded, sealed, stamped, and addressed it.

"Goodbye," I said then, and gave her the letter. As the door closed behind her, I sank into my chair, and cried like a child, or a fool, over my lost play-thing— the little, dark-haired woman who loved someone else with "body, soul, and spirit".

I did not hear the door open or any foot on the floor, and therefore I started when a voice behind me said:

"Are you so very unhappy? Oh, Arthur, don't think I am not sorry for you!"

"I don't want anyone to be sorry for me, Miss Helmont," I said.

She was silent a moment. Then, with a quick, sudden, gentle movement she leaned down and kissed my forehead— and I heard the door softly close. Then I knew that the beautiful Miss Helmont loved me.

At first that thought only fleeted by— a light cloud against a grey sky— but the next day reason woke, and said:

"Was Miss Helmont speaking the truth? Was it possible that—"

I determined to see Elvira, to know from her own lips whether by happy fortune this blow came, not from her, but from a woman in whom love might have killed honesty.

I walked from Hampstead to Gower Street. As I trod its long length, I saw a figure in pink come out of one of the houses. It was Elvira. She walked in front of me to the corner of Store Street. There she met Oscar Helmont. They turned and met me face to face, and I saw all I needed to see. They loved each other. Ida Helmont had spoken the truth. I bowed and passed on. Before six months were gone, they were married, and before a year was over, I had married Ida Helmont.

What did it, I don't know. Whether it was remorse for having, even for half a day, dreamed that she could be so base as to forego a lie to gain a lover, or whether it was her beauty, or the sweet flattery of the preference of a woman who had half her acquaintance at her feet, I don't know; anyhow, my thoughts turned to her as to their natural home. My heart, too, took that road, and before very long I loved her as I never loved Elvira. Let no one doubt that I loved her— as I shall never love again— please God!

There never was anyone like her. She was brave and beautiful, witty and wise, and beyond all measure adorable. She was the only woman in the world. There was a frankness— a largeness of heart— about her that made all other women seem small and contemptible. She loved me and I worshipped her. I married her, I stayed with her for three golden weeks, and then I left her. Why?

Because she told me the truth. It was one night— late— we had sat all the evening in the veranda of our sea-side lodging, watching the moonlight on the water, and listening to the soft sound of the sea on the sand. I have never been so happy; I shall never be happy any more, I hope.

"My dear, my dear," she said, leaning her gold head against my shoulder, "how much do you love me?"

"How much?"

"Yes— how much? I want to know what place I hold in your heart. Am I more to you than anyone else?"

"My love!"

"More than yourself?"

"More than my life."

"I believe you," she said. Then she drew a long breath, and took my hands in hers. "It can make no difference. Nothing in heaven or earth can come between us now."

"Nothing," I said. "But, my dear one, what is it?"

For she was trembling, pale.

"I must tell you," she said; "I cannot hide anything now from you, because I am yours— body, soul, and spirit."

The phrase was an echo that stung.

The moonlight shone on her gold hair, her soft, warm, gold hair, and on her pale face.

"Arthur," she said, "you remember my coming to Hampstead with that letter."

"Yes, my sweet, and I remember how you—"

"Arthur!" she spoke fast and low— "Arthur, that letter was a forgery. She never wrote it. I—"

She stopped, for I had risen and flung her hands from me, and stood looking at her. God help me! I thought it was anger at the lie I felt. I know now it was only wounded vanity that smarted in me. That I should have been tricked, that I should have been deceived, that I should have been led on to make a fool of myself. That I should have married the woman who had befooled me. At that moment she was no longer the wife I adored—she was only a woman who had forged a letter and tricked me into marrying her.

I spoke: I denounced her; I said I would never speak to her again. I felt it was rather creditable in me to be so angry. I said I would have no more to do with a liar and a forger.

I don't know whether I expected her to creep to my knees and implore forgiveness. I think I had some vague idea that I could by-and-by consent with dignity to forgive and forget. I did not mean what I said. No, oh no, no; I did not mean a word of it. While I was saying it, I was longing for her to weep and fall at my feet, that I might raise her and hold her in my arms again.

But she did not fall at my feet; she stood quietly looking at me.

"Arthur," she said, as I paused for breath, "let me explain— she— I—"

"There is nothing to explain," I said hotly, still with that foolish sense of there being something rather noble in my indignation, the kind of thing one feels when one calls one's self a miserable sinner. "You are a liar and a forger, that is enough for me. I will never speak to you again. You have wrecked my life—"

"Do you mean that?" she said, interrupting me, and leaning forward to look at me. Tears lay on her cheeks, but she was not crying now.

I hesitated. I longed to take her in my arms and say: "What does all that old tale matter now? Lay your head here, my darling, and cry here, and know how I love you."

But instead I said nothing.

"Do you mean it?" she persisted.

Then she put her hand on my arm. I longed to clasp it and draw her to me.

Instead, I shook it off, and said:

"Mean it? Yes— of course I mean it. Don't touch me, please. You have ruined my life."

She turned away without a word, went into our room, and shut the door.

I longed to follow her, to tell her that if there was anything to forgive, I forgave it.

Instead, I went out on the beach, and walked away under the cliffs.

The moonlight and the solitude, however, presently brought me to a better mind. Whatever she had done, had been done for love of me— I knew that. I would go home and tell her so— tell her that whatever she had done, she was my dear life, my heart's one treasure. True, my ideal of her was shattered, at least I felt I ought to think that it was shattered, but, even as she was, what was the whole world of women compared to her? And to be loved like that… was that not sweet food for vanity? To be loved more than faith and fair dealing, and all the traditions of honesty and honour? I hurried back, but in my resentment and evil temper I had walked far, and the way back was very long. I had been parted from her for three hours by the time I opened the door of the little house where we lodged. The house was dark and very still. I slipped off my shoes and crept up the narrow stairs, and opened the door of our room quite softly. Perhaps she would have cried herself to sleep, and I would lean over her and waken her with my kisses, and beg her to forgive me. Yes, it had come to that now.

I went into the room— I went towards the bed. She was not there. She was not in the room, as one glance showed me. She was not in the house, as I knew in two minutes. When I had wasted a precious hour in searching the town for her, I found a note on my pillow:

"Goodbye! Make the best of what is left of your life. I will spoil it no more."

She was gone, utterly gone. I rushed to town by the earliest morning train, only to find that her people knew nothing of her. Advertisement failed. Only a tramp said he had seen a white lady on the cliff, and a fisherman brought me a handkerchief, marked with her name, which he had found on the beach.

I searched the country far and wide, but I had to go back to London at last, and the months went by. I won't say much about those months, because even the memory of that suffering turns me faint and sick at heart. The police and detectives and the Press failed me utterly. Her friends could not help me, and were, moreover, wildly indignant with me, especially her brother, now living very happily with my first love.

I don't know how I got through those long weeks and months. I tried to write; I tried to read; I tried to live the life of a reasonable human being. But it was impossible. I could not endure the companionship of my kind. Day and night I almost saw her face— almost heard her voice. I took long walks in the country, and her figure was always just round the next turn of the road—in the next glade of the wood. But I never quite saw her, never quite heard her. I believe I was not all together sane at that time. At last, one morning, as I was setting out for one of those long walks that had no goal but weariness, I met a telegraph boy, and took the red envelope from his hand.

On the pink paper inside was written:

Come to me at once I am dying you must come

IDA Apinshaw Farm Mellor Derbyshire.

There was a train at twelve to Marple, the nearest station. I took it. I tell you there are some things that cannot be written about. My life for those long months was one of them, that journey was another. What had her life been for those months? That question troubled me, as one is troubled in every nerve by the sight of a surgical operation, or a wound inflicted on a being dear to one. But the overmastering sensation was joy— intense, unspeakable joy. She was alive. I should see her again. I took out the telegram and looked at it: "I am dying." I simply did not believe it. She could not die till she had seen me. And if she had lived all these months without me, she could live now, when I was with her again, when she knew of the hell I had endured apart from her, and the heaven of our meeting. She must live; I could not let her die.

There was a long drive over bleak hills. Dark, jolting, infinitely wearisome. At last we stopped before a long, low building, where one or two lights gleamed faintly. I sprang out.

The door opened. A blaze of light made me blink and draw back. A woman was standing in the doorway.

"Art thee Arthur Marsh?" she said.

"Yes."

"Then th'art ower late. She's dead."

ii

I WENT into the house, walked to the fire, and held out my hands to it mechanically, for though the night was May, I was cold to the bone. There were some folks standing round the fire, and lights flickering. Then an old woman came forward, with the northern instinct of hospitality.

"Thou'rt tired," she said, "and mazed-like. Have a sup o' tea."

I burst out laughing. I had travelled two hundred miles to see her. And she was dead, and they offered me tea. They drew back from me as if I had been a wild beast, but I could not stop laughing. Then a hand was laid on my shoulder and someone led me into a dark room, lighted a lamp, set me in a chair, and sat down opposite me. It was a bare parlour, coldly furnished with rush chairs and much-polished tables and presses. I caught my breath, and grew suddenly grave, and looked at the woman who sat opposite me.

"I was Miss Ida's nurse," said she, "and she told me to send for you. Who are you?"

"Her husband—"

The woman looked at me with hard eyes, where intense surprise struggled with resentment.

"Then may God forgive you!" she said. "What you've done I don't know, but it'll be hard work forgivin' you, even for Him!"

"Tell me," I said, "my wife—"

"Tell you!" The bitter contempt in the woman's tone did not hurt me. What was it to the self-contempt that had gnawed my heart all these months. "Tell you! Yes, I'll tell you. Your wife was that ashamed of you she never so much as told me she was married. She let me think anything I pleased sooner than that. She just come 'ere, an' she said, 'Nurse, take care of me, for I am in mortal trouble. And don't let them know where I am,' says she. An' me being well married to an honest man, and well-to-do here, I was able to do it, by the blessing."

"Why didn't you send for me before?" It was a cry of anguish wrung from me.

"I'd never 'a sent for you. It was her doin'. Oh, to think as God A'mighty's made men able to measure out such-like pecks o' trouble for us womenfolk! Young man, I don't know what you did to 'er to make 'er leave you; but it muster bin something cruel, for she loved the ground you walked on. She useter sit day after day a-lookin' at your picture, an' talkin' to it, an' kissin' of it, when she thought I wasn't takin' no notice, and cryin' till she made me cry too. She useter cry all night 'most. An' one day, when I tells 'er to pray to God to 'elp 'er through 'er trouble, she outs with your putty face on a card, she does, an', says she, with her poor little smile, 'That's my god, Nursey,' she says."

"Don't!" I said feebly, putting out my hands to keep off the torture; "not any more. Not now."

"Don't!" she repeated. She had risen, and was walking up and down the room with clasped hands. "Don't, indeed! No, I won't; but I shan't forget you! I tell you, I've had you in my prayers time and again, when I thought you'd made a light-o'-love of my darling. I shan't drop you outer them now, when I know she was your own wedded wife, as you chucked away when you tired of her, and left 'er to eat 'er 'eart out with longin' for you. Oh! I pray to God above us to pay you scot and lot for all you done to 'er. You killed my pretty. The price will be required of you, young man, even to the uttermost farthing. Oh God in Heaven, make him suffer! Make him feel it!"

She stamped her foot as she passed me. I stood quite still. I bit my lip till I tasted the blood hot and salt on my tongue.

"She was nothing to you," cried the woman, walking faster up and down between the rush chairs and the table; "any fool can see that with half an eye. You didn't love her, so you don't feel nothin' now; but some day you'll care for someone, and then you shall know what she felt— if there's any justice in Heaven."

I, too, rose, walked across the room, and leaned against the wall. I heard her words without understanding them.

"Can't you feel nothin? Are you mader stone? Come an' look at 'er lyin' there so quiet. She don't fret arter the likes o' you no more now. She won't sit no more a-lookin' outer winder an' sayin' nothin'— only droppin' 'er tears one by one, slow, slow on 'er lap. Come an' see 'er; come an' see what you done to my pretty— an' then you can go. Nobody wants you 'ere. She don't want you now. But p'raps you'd like to see 'er safe under ground afore yer go? I'll be bound you'll put a big stone slab on 'er— to make sure she don't rise again."

I turned on her. Her thin face was white with grief and rage. Her claw-like hands were clenched.

"Woman," I said, "have mercy."

She paused and looked at me.

"Eh?" she said.

"Have mercy!" I said again.

"Mercy! You should 'a thought o' that before. You 'adn't no mercy on 'er. She loved you— she died loving you. An' if I wasn't a Christian woman, I'd kill you for it— like the rat you are! That I would, though I 'ad to swing for it afterwards."

I caught the woman's hands and held them fast, though she writhed and resisted.

"Don't you understand?" I said savagely. "We loved each other. She died loving me. I have to live loving her. And it's her you pity. I tell you it was all a mistake— a stupid, stupid mistake. Take me to her, and for pity's sake, let me be left alone with her."

She hesitated; then said, in a voice only a shade less hard: "Well, come along, then."

We moved towards the door. As she opened it, a faint, weak cry fell on my ear. My heart stood still.

"What's that?" I asked, stopping on the threshold.

"Your child," she said shortly.

That too! Oh, my love! oh, my poor love! All these long months!

"She allus said she'd send for you when she'd got over 'er trouble," the woman said, as we climbed the stairs. "'I'd like him to see his little baby, nurse,' she says; 'our little baby. It'll be all right when the baby's born,' she says. 'I know he'll come to me then. You'll see.' And I never said nothin', not thinkin' you'd come if she was your leavin's' and not dreamin' you could be 'er 'usband an' could stay away from 'er a hour— 'er bein' as she was. Hush!"

She drew a key from her pocket and fitted it to a lock. She opened the door, and I followed her in. It was a large, dark room, full of old-fashioned furniture and a smell of lavender, camphor, and narcissus.

The big four-post bed was covered with white.

"My lamb— my poor, pretty lamb!" said the woman, beginning to cry for the first time as she drew back the sheet. "Don't she look beautiful?"

I stood by the bedstead. I looked down on my wife's face. Just so I had seen it lie on the pillow beside me in the early morning, when the wind and the dawn came up from beyond the sea. She did not look like one dead. Her lips were still red, and it seemed to me that a tinge of colour lay on her cheek. It seemed to me, too, that if I kissed her she would awaken, and put her slight hand on my neck, and lay her cheek against mine— and that we should tell each other everything, and weep together, and understand, and be comforted.

So I stooped and laid my lips to hers as the old nurse stole from the room.

But the red lips were like marble, and she did not waken. She will not waken now ever any more.

I tell you again there are some things that cannot be written.

iii

I LAY that night in a big room, filled with heavy dark furniture, in a great four-poster hung with heavy, dark curtains—a bed, the counterpart of that other bed from whose side they had dragged me at last.

They fed me, I believe, and the old nurse was kind to me. I think she saw now that it is not the dead who are to be pitied most.

I lay at last in the big, roomy bed, and heard the household noises grow fewer and die out, the little wail of my child sounding latest. They had brought the child to me, and I had held it in my arms, and bowed my head over its tiny face and frail fingers. I did not love it then. I told myself it had cost me her life. But my heart told me it was I who had done that. The tall clock at the stairhead sounded the hours— eleven, twelve, one, and still I could not sleep. The room was dark and very still.

I had not yet been able to look at my life quietly. I had been full of the intoxication of grief— a real drunkenness, more merciful than the sober calm that comes afterwards.

Now I lay still as the dead woman in the next room, and looked at what was left of my life. I lay still, and thought, and thought, and thought. And in those hours I tasted the bitterness of death. It must have been about three when I first became aware of a slight sound that was not the ticking of a clock. I say I first became aware, and yet I knew perfectly that I had heard that sound more than once before, and had yet determined not to hear it, because it came from the next room— the room where the corpse lay.

And I did not wish to hear that sound, because I knew it meant that I was nervous— miserably nervous— a coward, and a brute. It meant that I, having killed my wife as surely as though I had put a knife in her breast, had now sunk so low as to be afraid of her dead body— the dead body that lay in the next room to mine. The heads of the beds were placed against the same wall: and from that wall I had fancied that I heard slight, slight, almost inaudible sounds. So that when I say I became aware of them, I mean that I, at last, heard a sound so definite as to leave no room for doubt or question. It brought me to a sitting position in the bed, and the drops of sweat gathered heavily on my forehead and fell on my cold hands, as I held my breath and listened.

I don't know how long I sat there— there was no further sound— and at last my tense muscles relaxed, and I fell back on the pillow.

"You fool!" I said to myself; "dead or alive, is she not your darling, your heart's heart? Would you not go near to die of joy, if she came back to you? Pray God to let her spirit come back and tell you she forgives you!"

"I wish she would come," myself answered in words, while every fibre of my body and mind shrank and quivered in denial.

I struck a match, lighted a candle, and breathed more freely as I looked at the polished furniture— the commonplace details of an ordinary room. Then I thought of her, lying alone so near me, so quiet under the white sheet. She was dead; she would not wake or move. But suppose she did move? Suppose she turned back the sheet and got up and walked across the floor, and turned the door-handle?

As I thought it, I heard— plainly, unmistakably heard— the door of the chamber of death open slowly. I heard slow steps in the passage, slow, heavy steps. I heard the touch of hands on my door outside, uncertain hands that felt for the latch.

Sick with terror, I lay clenching the sheet in my hands.

I knew well enough what would come in when that door opened— that door on which my eyes were fixed. I dreaded to look, yet dared not turn away my eyes. The door opened slowly, slowly, slowly, and the figure of my dead wife came in. It came straight towards the bed, and stood at the bed foot in its white grave-clothes, with the white bandage under its chin. There was a scent of lavender and camphor and white narcissus. Its eyes were wide open, and looked at me with love unspeakable.

I could have shrieked aloud.

My wife spoke. It was the same dear voice that I had loved so to hear, but it was very weak and faint now; and now I trembled as it listened.

"You aren't afraid of me, darling, are you, though I am dead? I heard all you said to me when you came, but I couldn't answer. But now I've come back from the dead to tell you. I wasn't really so bad as you thought me. Elvira had told me she loved Oscar. I only wrote the letter to make it easier for you. I was too proud to tell you when you were so angry, but I am not proud any more now. You'll love again now, won't you, now I am dead. One always forgives dead people."

The poor ghost's voice was hollow and faint. Abject terror paralysed me. I could answer nothing.

"Say you forgive me," the thin, monotonous voice went on, "say you love me again."

I had to speak. Coward as I was, I did manage to stammer:

"Yes; I love you. I have always loved you, God help me."

The sound of my own voice reassured me, and I ended more firmly than I began. The figure by the bed swayed a little, unsteadily.

"I suppose," she said wearily, "you would be afraid, now I am dead, if I came round to you and kissed you?"

She made a movement as though she would have come to me.

Then I did shriek aloud, again and again, and covered my face with all my force. There was a moment's silence. Then I heard my door close, and then a sound of feet and of voices, and I heard something heavy fall. I disentangled my head from the sheet. My room was empty. Then reason came back to me. I leaped from the bed.

"Ida, my darling, come back! I am not afraid! I love you. Come back! Come back!"

I sprang to my door and flung it open. Someone was bringing a light along the passage. On the floor, outside the door of the death chamber, was a huddled heap— the corpse, in its grave-clothes. Dead, dead, dead.

She is buried in Mellor churchyard, and there is no stone over her.

Now, whether it was catalepsy, as the doctor said, or whether my love came back, even from the dead, to me who loved her, I shall never know; but this I know, that if I had held out my arms to her as she stood at my bed-foot—if I had said, "Yes, even from the grave, my darling— from hell itself, come back, come back to me!"— if I had had room in my coward's heart for anything but the unreasoning terror that killed love in that hour, I should not now be here alone. I shrank from her— I feared her— I would not take her to my heart. And now she will not come to me anymore.

Why do I go on living?

You see, there is the child. It is four years old now, and it has never spoken and never smiled.

_______________

2: Sophy Mason Comes Back

E. M. Delafield

Edmée Elizabeth Monica Dashwood, 1890-1943

Time and Tide 1930

"HAVE you ever, actually, seen a ghost?"

It wasn't, as it is so often, a flippant enquiry. One was serious, on that particular subject, with Fenwick. He was keen on psychical research, although it was understood that he took a line of his own, and neither accepted, nor promulgated, arbitrary interpretations of any kind.

He answered cautiously:

"I've been what the French call a revenant, undoubtedly."

"Was it frightening?" asked one of the women, timidly. Fenwick shook his head.

"I wasn't frightened," he admitted. "Not by the ghost or spirit— whichever you like to call it. Still less have I been so by so-called 'haunted rooms' with mysterious noises and unexplained openings of doors, and so on. But once, in the house where I saw the revenant— I was frightened."

"Do you mean— wasn't it the ghost that frightened you, then?"

"No," said Fenwick, and his serious, clever face wore a look of gravity and horror.

We asked if he would tell us about it.

"I'll try, but I may have to tell the story backwards. You see, when I came into it, everything was over— far away in the forgotten past, not just on the other side of the war, but right back in the late eighties. You know— horse-drawn carriages, and oil-lamps, and the women wearing bonnets, and long, tight skirts, all bunched up at the back. ... In a French provincial town, naturally, things were as much behind the times then, as they are now. (This happened in France, by the way— did I tell you?) It isn't necessary to give you the name of the town. It was somewhere in the midi, where the Latins are... very Latin indeed.

"Well, there was a house— call it Les Moineaux. One of those tall, narrow French houses, white, with blue shutters, and a straight avenue of trees leading to the front steps, and a formal arrangement of standard rose-bushes on either side of the blue front-door.

"It was quite a little house, you understand— not a chateau. It had once belonged to a very small community of contemplative monks— they'd made the garden and the avenue, I believe. When the monks became so few in number that they were absorbed into another Order, the house stayed empty for a bit. Then it was bought by a wine merchant, as a gift for his wife, who used it as a country villa for herself and her children every summer. This family lived at— well, in a town about twenty kilometres away. They could either drive out to Les Moineaux, or come by the diligence , that stopped in the village about half a mile away from the house. Most of the year, the house remained empty, and no one seems to have thought that a caretaker was necessary. Either the peasants round there were very honest, or there was nothing worth taking in the house. Probably the thrifty madame of the wine-merchant brought down whatever they required for their summer visits, and took it all away again when they left. There were big cupboards in the house, too— built into the wall— and she could have locked anything away in those, and taken the key.

"The family consisted of Monsieur and Madame, three or four children, and an English girl, whom they all called 'Mees', who was supposed to look after the children, and make herself generally useful.

"Her name was Sophy Mason; she was about twenty when she came to them, and is said to have been very pretty.

"One imagines that she was kept fully occupied. Madame would certainly have seen to it that she earned her small salary, and her keep; and, as is customary in the French middle- class, each member of the household was prepared to do any job that needed doing, without reference to 'my work' or 'your work.' Sophy Mason, however, was principally engaged with the children. Quite often, in the spring and early summer, she was sent down with them to Les Moineaux for a few days' country air, while Monsieur and Madame remained with the business. They must have been go-ahead people, by the way, far in advance of their time, for 'the Mees' seems to have been allowed to keep the children out of doors, quite in accordance with the English traditions, and entirely contrary to the usual French fashion of that date and that class.

"The peasants, working in the fields, used to see the English girl, with the children, running races up and down the avenue, or going out into the woods to pick wild strawberries. Sophy Mason could speak English quite well, but she was naturally expected to talk English with the children, and, except for a word or two with the people at the farm, from which milk and butter and eggs were supplied to Les Moineaux, there was in point of fact no one for her to talk to, when Monsieur and Madame were not there.

"Until Alcide Lamotte came on the scene.

"All I can tell you about him is that he was the son of a farmer— a big, red-headed fellow, of an unusual type, and certainly possessing brains, and a compelling personality.

"When he and Sophy Mason met first, he was in the middle of his compulsory three years' military service, and home at the farm en permission.

"One can imagine it— this English girl, who'd been in France over a year without, probably, exchanging a word with anyone but her employers, their children, and perhaps an occa-sional old curé coming in for a game of cards in the evening — left to her own devices in the more or less isolated villa—  and late spring, or early summer, in the vine country. What happened was, of course, inevitable. No one knows when or how their first meetings took place, but passions move quickly in that country. By the time Monsieur and Madame did appear, to inaugurate their usual summer vie de campagne, the neighbouring peasantry were perfectly aware that le roux, as they called him, was Sophy Mason's lover.

"Whether they betrayed her to her employers or not, one doesn't know. Personally, I imagine they didn't. In that country, and to that race, neither love nor passion appears as a crime, even when marital infidelity is involved, and in this case it was merely a question, for the girl, of deceiving her mistress, and Lamotte— also a free agent— was one of themselves. Almost certainly, Madame found out for herself what was going on.

"There must have been a crisis— une scene de premiere classe. Perhaps Madame kept watch— was peeping through the crack of a door just left ajar, when 'the Mees' stole in—  noiselessly, as she hoped— from a moonlight tryst in the woods where the wild strawberries had grown a few weeks earlier.

" 'What! Depraved, deceitful creature, to whom I have entrusted my innocent children!...'

"The French are nothing if not dramatic.

"I suspect that Madame enjoyed herself, making the most of the scene, whilst poor Sophy Mason, ashamed and guilty, was frightened out of her wits. Perhaps she saw herself sent back to the Bloomsbury boarding-house of the aunt who was her only living relation, disgraced, and with no hope of ever getting another situation.

"As a matter of fact, Madame forgave her. Sophy Mason was useful, the children liked her, she was very cheap—  and perhaps, at the bottom of her heart, Madame was not very seriously shocked at Sophy's lapse from virtue.

"At all events, after extracting a promise that she would never meet Alcide again, except for one farewell interview, Madame told Sophy that she might stay.

"The farewell interview, I believe, took place in Madame's presence— she'd stipulated for that. Something— one can only guess that it may have been some pathetic, scarcely disguised hint from the girl— indicated to Madame's acute perceptions that if Alcide had proposed marriage Sophy would have been ready, and more than ready, to have him. But Alcide, of course, did nothing of the kind. He accepted his dismissal with a sulky acquiescence that he would certainly not have shown if Sophy Mason— more astute and less passionate— had not so readily yielded to him every privilege that he chose to demand.

"There was an unpleasant and humiliating moral to be drawn from his attitude, and it may safely be presumed that Madame did not hesitate to draw it, probably in forcible language. Sophy Mason, poor child, was left to her tears and her disgrace.

"But those pangs of shame and disappointment were to give place to a much more real cause for distress.

"In the autumn, Sophy Mason discovered that she was going to have a baby.

"It is, given her youth and probable upbringing, quite likely that the possibility of such a thing had never presented itself to her. But that Madame had apparently not foreseen such a contingency is much more difficult to explain.

"It may, of course, be that she attributed more sophistication to the girl than poor Sophy Mason actually possessed, and that she asked a leading question or two that Sophy answered without really understanding.

"One thing is certain: that Sophy Mason did not dare to tell her employer of her condition. She had recourse, instead, to a far more hopeless alternative.

"She appealed to her lover.

"At first, by letter. She must have written several times, if one draws the obvious inference from the only reply of his that was seen by anyone but the recipient. It is an illiterate, ugly scrawl, evidently written in haste, telling her not to write again, and concluding with a perfunctory endearment. It was probably those few, meaningless last words that gave the unfortunate Sophy courage for her final imprudence. It seems fairly certain, that she was, actually, imaginatively in love with Alcide, whereas with him, of course, the attraction had been purely sensual, and had not outlasted physical gratification. In fact, I have no doubt, personally, that the usual reaction had set in, and that the mere thought of her was probably as repellent to him as it had once been alluring. Sophy, however, could not, or would not, believe that everything was over, and that she was to be left to confront disgrace and disaster alone. Under the pretext of meeting some imaginary English friends, she obtained leave of absence from Madame, and went down to Les Moineaux on a day in late October.

"Either she had made an assignation beforehand with Alcide, or, as seems a good deal more probable, she had learnt that he was home again, on the termination of his military service, and counted on taking him by surprise. She must have made up her mind that if only she could see him again, and plead with him, he would, in the phrase of the time, 'make an honest woman of her.'

"The interview between them took place. What actually occurred can only be a matter of conjecture.

"That it took place at Les Moineaux is a proved fact, and I— who have seen the house— can visualise the setting of it They would have gone into the living-room, where only the bare minimum of furniture had been left, but from the ceiling of which dangled, magnificently, a huge candelabra of pale pink glass, swinging from gilt chains. The gaudy beauty, and tinkling light music of the candelabra have always seemed to me to add that touch of incongruity that sharpens horror to the unbearable pitch. Beneath its huddled glitter, Sophy Mason must have wept, and trembled, and pleaded, in an increasing terror and despair.

"Lamotte was a southerner, a coarse, brutal fellow, with the strong animal passions of his years, and of his race. Whether what followed then was a premeditated crime, or a sudden impulse born of violent rage and exasperation, will never be known. With apparently no other weapon than his own powerful hands, Alcide Lamotte, probably by strangulation, murdered Sophy Mason.

"When the girl failed to return home, her employer, apparently, neglected to make any serious enquiry into her fate. Madame, who had perhaps suspected her condition, affected to believe that the girl had run away to England, in spite of the fact that her few belongings had been left behind.

"Possibly they were afraid of a scandalous discovery, but more probably, with the thriftiness of their class, they dreaded being put to expense that would, they well knew, never be made good by Sophy's only relation, in distant England.

"The aunt, in point of fact, behaved quite as callously as the French couple, and with even less excuse. Sophy Mason was the illegitimate child of her dead sister, and when, eventu-ally, she learnt of the girl's disappearance, she is said to have taken up the attitude of asserting: 'Like mother, like daughter,' and declaring that Sophy had certainly gone off with a lover, like her mother before her.

"Conveniently for Madame, if she wanted to convince herself and other people of the truth of that theory, Alcide Lamotte suddenly made off, towards the end of the same month, and was reported to have gone to America. Of course, said Madame, they had gone together. Sophy had been traced as far as Les Moineaux without the slightest difficulty, and where she had spent the intervening weeks between that visit and her alleged departure to America with her lover, no one seems to have enquired.

"The only clue to the mystery was that last letter, written by Lamotte, that Sophy had left behind her, and that was found and read by her employers, and in the fact that when, in the summer following her disappearance, the wine merchant and his family went as usual to Les Moineaux, they found unmistakable evidence, that the house had been entered by a back door, of which the lock had been picked.

"Nothing else seemed to have been tampered with, or disturbed in any way, and the whole affair was allowed to drop in a fashion that, in this country and at this date, appeared almost incredible."

Fenwick paused for a while, before resuming.

"My own connection with the story, came more than forty years later. All that I have told you, was conjectured, or found out many years after it happened. I warned you that I might have to tell the story backwards.

"The wine-merchant of Sophy Mason's story was the connecting link. During the war, I came to know his son— a middle-aged man, once the youngest of the children in the avenue of Les Moineaux.

"I need not trouble you with any account of how we had come to know one another well— it was no stranger than the story of many other relationships established during the'war- years.

"We met from time to time, long after the Armistice had taken place, and in the summer of 1925, when I was in France, Amédé, my friend, invited me to pay him a visit, in the midi. He had quite recently married a girl many years younger than himself, and in accordance with French provincial custom, was living with her in the house of his parents— or rather, of his father, for the mother had been dead for some time.

"The wine-merchant himself was over seventy— a hale and hearty old man, well looked after by an unmarried daughter, and still in perfect possession of all his faculties.

"Whilst I was with them, an observation on my part as to the facility with which all the family spoke English, occasioned an allusion to Sophy Mason— the English 'Mees' of forty-five years earlier.

"The old man, I remember, referred to her mysterious disappearance, but without giving any great importance to the story, and attaching to it, as a mere matter of course, the old explanation of the flight to America with Lamotte.

"In that light one would doubtless have accepted, and then forgotten it, but for two things. One of these was something that was told me by Amédé, and the other the coincidence—  if you like to call it so— that forms the whole point of the story. Amédé's revelation, that was purposely not made in the presence of his father, was as follows:

"About fifteen years previously, shortly before the death of his mother, she had made over to him Les Moineaux, the little country villa that had belonged to her.

"Amédé was fond of the place, although he had no intention of ever living there, and long after the other brothers and sisters had scattered, when their mother was dead, and their father no longer cared to move from home, he continued to visit it periodically.

"It was, therefore, to Amédé that some peasants one day came, with an account of a gruesome discovery made in the wood near the house— that very wood where Sophy Mason used to take the children of her employers to pick wild strawberries.

"In a deep ditch, under the leaf-mould of more than a quarter of a century, had been uncovered, by the merest chance, the skeleton of a woman. Curiously enough— or perhaps not so curiously, taking into account the mentality of the uneducated— the older generation of villagers viewed the discovery with more horror than surprise, and displayed little hesitation in identifying the protagonists of the tragedy. The story of Sophy Mason's disappearance had survived the years, and Amédé's enquiries brought to light a singular piece of evidence.

"A woman was found who remembered, many years before, a revelation made by a servant-girl on her death-bed. This girl— a disreputable creature— had declared that on a certain October afternoon she had been in the wood, with her lover, and that, from their place of concealment, they had seen something terrible— a gigantic youth, with red hair, half-carrying and half-dragging the body of a woman, whom he had subsequently flung into the ditch, and covered with earth and stones from the hedge.

"Neither the girl, nor the man with her— who was, incidentally, married to another woman— had dared reveal their horrible discovery, fearing lest their own guilty connection should thereby come to light. This girl, in point of fact, died shortly afterwards, and her story, told on her deathbed, had actually been disbelieved at the time by her hearers, because the narrator was known to have the worst possible reputation and to be a notorious liar.

"The woman to whom it was told swore that she had never actually repeated the story, but that rumours of it had long been rife and that the wood, in consequence, had been shunned for years.

"The name of Alcide Lamotte, curiously enough, seems not to have been directly mentioned. The Lamotte family were the chief land-owners in the place, and were accounted rich and powerful, and le roux himself had never been heard of since his disappearance to America.

"My friend Amédé, hearing this strange echo of the past, doubted greatly what course to adopt. It is easy to say that an Englishman, in his place, would have doubted not at all. The Englishman has a natural respect for the law that is certainly lacking in the Latin. Remember, too, that it had all happened so long ago— that the only known witness of the crime was a woman of ill-repute, long since dead— that poor Sophy Mason — if it was indeed she who had been done to death— had no one to demand a tardy investigation into her fate— and finally, that by the law of France, a man cannot be brought to trial for a crime that is only discovered after the lapse of a certain number of years. Amédé, contenting himself with giving the minimum of the information in his possession— all of which, it must be taken into account, depended upon hearsay— to the authorities, saw to the burial of the unidentified remains.

"There the story would have ended, so far as such things can ever be said to end, but for the coincidence of which I spoke.

"Fifteen years later, whilst I was on my visit to Amédé's old father, and just after Amédé had told me of this strange and hidden postscript to the mystery of Sophy Mason, after an absence of close on forty-one years, Alcide Lamotte returned to the neighbourhood.

"And here, at last, is where such first-hand knowledge as I possess, begins. It is here that I, so to speak, come into the story.

"For I met Alcide Lamotte.

"He had come back— but, of course, he was not the wild, half-civilised lout— le roux— of a lifetime ago. He was actually, a naturalised American, and a rich and successful man.

"There was no one left to recognise him, and, indeed, he now even called himself by a different name, and was Al Mott, from Pittsburgh.

"You understand— I am not telling you a detective story, and trying to make a mystery. It was Alcide Lamotte, but when he came to the old wine-merchant's house, Amédé and his father didn't know it. That is to say, the old man certainly didn't— and Mr. Mott called, the first time, with a business introduction, in regard to a sale of land. Amédé, when he found that, in spite of his Americanised appearance, the visitor was not only a Frenchman, but also conversant with the immediate neighbourhood, connected him with the district of Les Moineaux, but only in that vague, unemphatic fashion that just fails to put two and two together until, or unless, something happens that produces a sudden, blinding flash of illumination.

"There was certainly nothing about A1l Mott, from Pittsburgh, to recall the half-legendary figure of le roux.

"He was a big corpulent man, perfectly bald, with a hard, heavy face, and great pouches below his eyes.

"His manners were not polished, but noisy and genial.

"Neither Amédé nor his father took a fancy to him, but they were hommes d'affaires, there was a transaction to be concluded, and one evening he was asked to supper, and came.

"It was an evening in late October.

"The old man, of course, was there, and Amédé and his young, newly married wife. The aunt— the one that lived with them— had gone away for a few days.

"The evening, from the beginning, did not go very well. Madame Amédé, the bride, was an inexperienced hostess, and the guest was not of a type to put her at her ease.

"Amédé, who was madly in love with his wife, kept on watching her.

"For my part, I felt an extraordinary uneasiness. You all know, I believe, what is usually meant by the word 'psychic' applied to an individual, and you know, too, that it has often been applied to me. I can only tell you that, in the course of that evening, I knew, beyond any possibility of doubt, certain things not conveyed to me through the normal channels of the senses. I knew that the other guest, the man sitting opposite to me, had, somehow, some intimate connection with tragedy and violence, and I knew, too, that he was evil. At the same time I was aware, more and more as the evening went on, that something which I can only describe as a wave, or vibration, of misery, was in the atmosphere and steadily increasing in intensity.

"Afterwards, Madame Amédé told me that she had felt the same thing.

"She and her husband, it is worth remembering, were in the keyed-up, highly wrought state of people still in the midst of an overwhelming emotional experience. That is equal to saying that they were far more susceptible than usual to atmospheric influence.

"The old wine-merchant, Amédé's father, was the only person beside Mott himself unaware of tension.

"He made a casual allusion to the countryside, and then to Les Moineaux— but not referring to it directly by name.

Mott replied, and the conversation went on.

"But in that instant, without any conscious process of reasoning or induction, the connection was made in my mind.

"I knew him for Alcide Lamotte, and I saw that Amédé did too. My eyes, and those of Amédé met, for one terrible second, the knowledge flashing from one to the other.

"Both of us, I know, became utterly silent from that moment. Alcide, of course, went on talking. He was very talkative, and under the influence of wine, was becoming loud and boastful. He began to tell the old man, who was alone in paying attention to him, about his early struggles in America, and then his increasing successes there.

"He spoke in French, of course, the characteristic, twanging drawl of the midi, and with, actually a queer kind of American intonation, noticeable every now and then. I can remember very vividly the effect of relentlessness that his loud tones, going on and on, made in the small room.

"He was still talking when— the thing happened.

"You can, of course, call it what you like. An apparition—  a collective hallucination— or the result produced by certain psychological conditions that are perhaps not to be found once in a hundred years— but that were present that night.

"The feeling of unease that had been with me all the evening was intensified, and then— it suddenly left me altogether, as though some expected calamity had taken place, and had proved more endurable than the suspense of awaiting it. In its place, I experienced only a feeling of profound sadness and compassion.

"I knew, with complete certainty, that some emanation of extreme unhappiness was surrounding us. The Madame Amédé, who sat next to me, spoke, just above her breath:

" What is it?"

"There were two sounds in the room... One was the excited, confident voice of Alcide, now in the midst of his triumphant story, the other was a succession of sobs and stifled, despairing wails.

"The second sound came from the comer, exactly facing the place where Lamotte was sitting.

"There was a door there, and it opened slowly. Framed in the doorway, I saw her— a young girl, in the dress of the late 'eighties, with a scared, pitiful face, sobbing and wringing her hands.

"That was my revenant— Sophy Mason come back.

"I told you, when I began the story, that the— the apparition had not frightened me. That was true.

"Perhaps it was because I knew the story of the poor betrayed girl, perhaps because I have, as you know, been interested for years in psychic manifestations of all kinds. To me, it seemed apparent, even at that moment, that the emotional vibrations of the past, sent out by an anguished spirit all those years ago, had become perceptible to us because we were momentarily attuned to receive them.

"In my own case, the attunement was so complete that, for an instant or two, I could actually catch a glimpse of the very form from which those emotional disturbances had proceeded.

"Amédé and his wife— both of them, as I said before, in an unusually receptive condition— heard what I did. Amédé, however, saw nothing— only an indistinct blur, as he afterwards described it. His wife saw the outlines of a girl's figure....

"It all happened you understand, within a few minutes. First, that sound of bitter crying, and then the apparition, and my own realisation that the Amédés were terror-struck. The old man, Amédé's father, had turned abruptly in his chair with a curious, strained look upon his face— uneasy, rather than frightened. He told us afterwards that he had seen and heard nothing, but had been suddenly conscious of tension in the room, and that then the expression on his son's face had frightened him. But he admitted, too, that sweat had broken out upon his forehead, although it was not hot in the room."

"But Alcide Lamotte?"

"Alcide Lamotte," said the narrator slowly, "went on talking loudly— without pause, without a tremor. He perceived nothing until Madame Amédé, with a groan, fell back on her chair in a dead faint. That of course, broke up the evening abruptly....

"You remember, what I told you at the beginning? It wasn't the poor little revenant that frightened me— but I was afraid, that evening. I was afraid, with the worst terror that I have ever known, of that man who had lived a crowded lifetime away from the passionate, evil episode of his youth— who had changed his very identity, and had left the past so far behind him that no echo from it could reach him. Whatever the link had been once, between him and Sophy Mason— and who can doubt that, with her, it had survived death itself— to him, it now all meant nothing— had perished beneath the weight of the years.

"It was indeed that which frightened me— not the gentle, anguished spirit of Sophy Mason— but the eyes that saw nothing, the ears that heard nothing, the loud, confident voice that, whilst those of us who had never known her were yet trembling aware of her, talked on— of success, and of money, and of life in Pittsburgh."

______________

3: The Plot

Leslie Thomas

Australian Town and Country Journal, 7 Jan 1914

This Leslie Thomas is not the Leslie Thomas who wrote "The Virgin Soldiers" (1966) and many other comic novels. This Leslie Thomas flourished in the first 20 years of the 20th century, and was a poet and short story writer. There is a brief item about him: "Popular Tale Tellers: Leslie Thomas," in The Weekly Tale-Teller, 11 March 1916, which I don't have.

"BY THE WAY, I've a plot for you, Lessing."

"Thanks. Let's hear it."

"Your tone's not very enthusiastic," George Golder remarked. "Most of the ideas people suggest to you, I suppose, are worse than useless. This ought to do, though, for one of your tales in the magazines."

"I hope it will. I shall be much obliged. But, look here, if you know the people, don't tell me any names. I might repeat them unintentionally."

"All right. We'll call the old fellow Smith. Well, his presentation gold watch, with a scroll and inscription on the back, worth fifty pounds or more, went wrong, so he left it at the maker's, a big jeweller's in Ludgate Hill, to be repaired. A few days after he called for it personally, paid, and went away with it. Follow?"

"Perfectly, up to now." George Golder struggled with a refractory grin.

"But he'd just got to the Circus when a man came running after him— one of the jeweller's assistants, apparently— a thin dark chap, without a hat.

" 'Beg pardon, sir,' he said; 'but it would be better if you didn't take your watch to-day. We haven't had time to regulate it. The manager forgot to tell you. By tomorrow, sir, you'll find it in perfect running order— or we'll send it up to your house.'

"Old Smith— aha!— of course didn't suspect anything wrong, and handed over the watch!"

Lessing nodded. "And the 'assistant'?"

"He was a well-known 'crook' who'd overheard Smith's parting words to the manager at the door. Clever trick, wasn't it? Smith was absolutely mad when he found out. He prides himself on his smartness. Rowed the jewellers like anything— as if it was their fault! When he complained to the police they recognised the thin, dark fellow's description at once. But"— Golder stopped to laugh again— "they haven't caught him yet, and I don't expect they will."

"Thanks," murmured Lessing, smiling too. "I might be able to work it in somewhere. Well, I must be off now. What did the chap do with his hat though, by the by? That was a neat touch."

"He was wearing a cap, I guess, and stuffed it into his pocket. Good-bye."

As Lessing left the restaurant he made a mental note of the episode.

A few days later, remembering this, he elaborated it, and turned it into a storeyette for a periodical to which he was a frequent contributor.

THREE weeks later he happened to be calling at Mr. James Harble's house. At least, he asked the maid if Miss Harble were in. This was a young lady in whom he took a deep and reciprocated interest.

"No, sir; put Mr. Harble would like to see you." He stepped into the library. Miss Dorothy's father, a retired banker of choleric temperament, regarded him fixedly from the farther side of the table, and did not seem to see his outstretched hand. He held out a current copy of the periodical.

"May I ask," he demanded "what's the meaning of this?" Philip Lessing following his forefinger, stared wonderingly. But before he could speak Mr. Harble continued chokingly:

"I— I consider it an ill-mannered and— impertinent proceeding! Isn't it enough that I should lose my watch, sir, without being held up as a laughing-stock to any Tom, Dick, or Harry who buys this paper? I can't think how you heard of it. I suppose it was from Britt. I'll give him another piece of my mind, by Jove! He's not fit to be a manager, if he blabs his customers' affairs—"

"One moment, sir, please. Let me tell you—"

"I don't want any explanation from you, Mr. Lessing "

"But, sir, you've just asked—"

"I wonder you can call at the house here after using my misfortune to cause a laugh and— and to earn money!"

"But I had no idea the story referred to you, sir; and I haven't mentioned your name."

"H'm! 'Smith'! Anyone can see through that. And here you are. 'Ludgate Ilill establishment'— 'presentation watch from employees'— 'scroll and inscription on the back'! It's obvious! All our friends and acquaintances will recognise that. And not only will the bank staff consider me careless of their gift, but everybody'll come round here and — and chaff me till they're tired."

"But, Mr. Harble, I've never heard even that you had such a watch. The story was told to me by a friend. If I'd known, I shouldn't have dreamed for a moment of using "

"That will do, sir. Good heavens! I shall never hear the last of this."

His pride as an acute business man was obviously severely wounded.

Philip Lessing, who would have gone to any lengths to avoid offending him, for his daughter's sake, stood hesitating, the picture of dismay.

"It's rather hard on me, sir, to—"

"That is all, Mr. Lessing."

With a snort the irate banker snatched up the paper, and, tearing it in pieces, threw them into the fireplace. "Good afternoon."

AS HE WALKED home, Leasing felt some resentment against George Golder. He was the cause of the whole affair. A day or two later they met, and Lessing upbraided him vigorously.

"But, my dear fellow—"

"It's my belief," interrupted Lessing
warmly, as a sudden suspicion came to him — "it's my belief you did it on purpose, hoping you'd get me into Mr. Harble's bad books. Oh, I know you admire Miss Harble!"

"Really!"

His amused tone provoked the journalist. "So you thought you'd try and put me out of the running, eh? Well, it wasn't a nice trick. It wasn't playing the game, Golder."

"So, that's what you think, is it? How clever of you to guess!"

Philip Lessing did not answer, but swung round and left him. He was in ill-humor with the world at large.

Mr. Harble, far from confessing that he was in the wrong, had, in spite of his daughter's entreaties, definitely forbidden Mr. Lessing the house. He was evidently ashamed of the attitude he had adopted, but could not bring himself to admit as much; and the realisation of this weakness served to increase his resentment. He could not punish himself, however, and therefore vented his annoyance on Phil Lessing.

The journalist, nevertheless, found more than one opportunity of meeting Miss Dorothy. There was a summer-house at the end of Mr. Harble's garden, which, if endowed with speech, might have told many tales.

Hither came Mr. Lessing one evening by the simple expedient of waiting until the side street was clear, and then scaling the wall in the dark. He often rejoiced that Mr. Harble's was a corner house. Miss Dorothy had promised to slip out about 11. She would retire to her room early, and afterwards come down through the conservatory. It was unconventional and rather indiscreet; she looked forward to the evenings with pleasurable excitement.

Dry twigs and leaves seemed to make an alarming noise as Mr. Lessing tiptoed across the garden. Once he tripped over some low fencing, and twice scratched his hands on rose-trees. Reaching the rendezvous at last, he glanced up at the house, which at the back was in darkness. The time passed slowly. He did not dare to light a cigarette.

All at once a faint glimmer appeared through the conservatory door. He started eagerly. Then to his horror the light went out, and there followed a series of most appalling crashes. A faint shriek sent him hurrying forward. Miss Harble, opening the door, ran apprehensively into his arms.

"Flower-pots!" she gasped. "I knocked against a shelf. One's gone through the window. Did you hear it?"

"Perhaps they were all asleep."

"Father's in the library."

"No, you're wrong there, Dorothy!" retorted a stern voice from the garden. "May I inquire the meaning of all this?"

Mr. Lessing drew himself up. His retreat was cut off. He took Miss Harble's arm.

"I'll strike a match, sir, in a moment," he remarked with as much composure as he could summon.

A flare from outside answered him. Mr. Harble loomed up behind the candle.

"Taken in the rear!" he muttered triumphantly. "H'm! Ha! And now I'll be much obliged if you'll explain."

An awkward silence followed. "You wouldn't let him come to the house," observed his daughter jerkily.

"And so he comes to the conservatory, eh?— and knocks down half my plants."

"I did that, father."

"Indeed! I presume," Mr. Harble snorted, "that this is an elopement?"

"No, sir. But we have talked about getting married at a registry office. In fact, I've inquired about a licence."

"A registry office! Ha, ha! Why not wait a bit, Dorothy, and have it in church? Much more chance for dressing up, you know." He shook a finger at them. "Go along! Go into the drawing-room. Do you know what time of night it is? Oh, I'm shocked and surprised!"

He preceded them with the candle, and lit the gas. They followed somewhat sheepishly.

"So now I understand why you went to bed so early, Dorothy. For shame! to try to deceive your poor father! If you'd waited till I got home"— mirth temporarily overcame him— "I should have been able to tell you that I'd met Mr. Golder in town to-day."

Mr. Lessing jumped up from his chair. "And — and he told you?"

"Yes; all about giving you that plot for your story."

"He heard it at the jeweller's."

"That's right. He came to me to explain. He'd no idea that you two— well— His daughter blushed.

Mr. Lessing mentally determined to seek George Golder and apologise.

"So he never guessed he'd make mischief? But you must confess it was enough to annoy anyone?"

"Certainly, sir— certainly. You had every excuse for—"

"No doubt you're now wondering why I'm acting the indulgent parent? Ha, ha! Well,"— he drew something from his pocket — "do you recognise that, by any chance?"

"Father! your watch! You've got it back!"

"Apparently so, Dorothy. But Mr. Lessing has written a lot about it already. Let him have a look at it. He ought to be interested."

He stood up suddenly frowning again. "But I can't have this. It's getting very late. Off you go, Lessing. Good-bye! Get to bed, Dorothy— really this time. Oh, yes, yes; you can let him out. But— Lessing!"

"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir, very much indeed. I'm sure I appreciate—"

"Go by the front door, please. it's safer— and more usual."

And, chuckling under his breath, Mr. Harble disappeared into the library.

_________________

4: One Man from the West

Sumner Locke

1881-1917

Weekly Times (Melbourne)  24 Jan 1914

Helena Sumner Locke,  known as Sumner Locke, was an Australian novelist, dramatist/playwright, poet and short story writer.  She was the mother of noted Australian/American playwright Sumner Locke Elliot (1917-1991), who moved to the USA in 1948.

"OF COURSE," said Mrs Honora, of Elizabeth Bay, "he will be as brown as a cocoanut, and about as coarse, after so many years in the West, but in this instance we will find it easy to overlook that."

"I adore men who put on that kind of exterior and shed their natural skin," one of the girls said. "Tell us some more about him, Hetty. What sort of plans have you regarding him? We are all convinced that you have arranged something quite out of the ordinary, seeing you got a new footman and have had the balcony turned into a hot-house. Now then, own up."

The hostess on this occasion admitted herself found out. She drew together her week-end guests, a happy, chattering crowd of girls, who ranged from brilliance and brightness to sallowness and sentimentality. The subject she spoke about was just what anyone in their sane, serious senses would have expected had they stepped into the room, A man was under discussion; a solitary man from out the west. A "back of beyond" relation of Mrs Honora, who might have sprung back to his own element had he known in time.

"You see," said the hostess, "Hilson Band has been packed away somewhere— oh, somewhere behind the scrub— for years. Been dabbling in cattle and that sort of thing. Money? Well, girls, the only reason that I have for supposing that he is up to his ears in it is the fact that every year he sends me a Christmas present worth half a year's rent. His plans, of course, I cannot speak of ;  but, I ask you— altogether, or one at a time, if you like, girls"— she laughed merrily— "would any man like that come home for a trip, even if he hadn't some special motive in his mind? Now, don't all jump to a conclusion that a woman is the special reason of his journey. I think myself that it's several women— three, four, five, six, or even twenty. He wants to see life and choose a wife. That's my idea, anyway. Now you can all— explode!"

The burst of femininity that came after this delivery was enough to bring in the roof. The most beautiful girl of the number grew flushed as the heart of a red rose.

Someone said, "How interesting," and someone else remarked with some carelessness, "Good gracious!" and the tall, slender girl tucked away in the arms of a gracious Chesterfield chair, called out in the tone a refrigerator might have used, "I don't see that any of us have a right to suppose anything at all about— Hil— er, Mr Rand."

This brought the hostess round like a spring wheel.

"Lorna— you surprise me." The little hostess was really most amazed. "Considering that you, of the whole crowd, know Hilson like a— brother almost, I can't see where you should put a damp blanket on our— our appreciation of the dear man.... Do be sensible, because all of us know that Hilson has got to marry sooner or later, and take his wife back to, to— well, his scrub home, I suppose you would call it, unless he prefers to buy a mansion a little way out of Sydney and put a man in as manager on the station. I want you all to understand fully that he's the dearest thing in cousins l have even had, and do all be peaceful and give him a chance to, well— find out for himself just— just—"

She stopped and the girl in the Chesterfield rose to the occasion again. It was like a refrigerator throwing up blocks of ice now.

"In my last from Hill," she began, and the general crowd stared amazed. "Well, perhaps it is not fair to speak of the confidence between us, because, of course, we made mud-puddings together when we were children.... and...

"Mud puddings? How delicious," shouted one of the guests.

"Oh, Lorna— it's a case of 'enough said.' If I had made mud-puddings with a man when he was a child, I'd expect to make something of that nature, only rather more tasty, when he had regulated his finances. Do tell us some more?"

But Lorna Grand rose to her feet with a yawn.

"Sorry, girls, but there is no more. Hill just mentioned coming back, and, of course, Hetty asked me, among the rest of you, to be here to make things lively. Really, it's too shockingly indecent to speak of a man in this way when he's not here— I'm going for a swim— anyone coming?"

Mrs Honora spoke to those who were not coming, for fully ten minutes afterwards.

"I can't say that I agree with Lorna at all. Hilson is a dear; but I say, girls— gather around closer. Perhaps it's true that Lorna has been contemplating things for such a long time, and she ought not to be put out of her right place. I know that Hilson has had a tremendous admiration for her ever since they, splashed in the open sea at the age of five, and I ought to have foreseen that at the time. Now, my plan is this. Suppose we give her first shot. She's the only one among the lot of you thstt has really got to look to her future seriously. She's nearly 25, and when her Uncle died it was thought that he had left her the bulk, of his fortune. Oh, What a smash was there! He left her a hundred a year, and gracious! she wears out a pair of shoes in a week, she has a face of a flower, and dare not go in the sun without a veil. Let's be fair. I think its likely that Hilson will choose her."

The girls spoke solemnly together.

"Considering the circumstance, lets give Lorna first chance," was what was agreed. "It won't do to run the poor man to earth, or he will think we are after his fortune. Besides, are there not other men to be asked, Hetty?"

"Five of them," answered Mrs Honora. "They arrive in a bunch tonight; and, I say, girls— lend me your ears again— if we stand in to allow Lorna first chance, whatever do you think we can do with that little pussy cat, Blarney?"

Furious questions then rained on the hostess.

"Blarney— you mean that little girl with the Irish eyes and the perpetual motion in her bronchial tubes?"

"Oh, my dears, I never calculated on Blarney. Now, that child is absolutely ignorant. She endeavors to learn, and arrives at what you wished her to swallow just as the trouble is over. Blarney must be kept in the background."

"But the child would never entertain any ideas of marrying anyone at her age, surely," said one of the girls.

"My dear," the hostess looked overburdened with information. "The mere fact of that, with her way, is enough to make more than one mere man want to marry her. She is like a beautiful moth fluttering round a candle; always a nuisance till you catch it, then most beautiful to handle. Now, I never thought of that when her mother sent her down to me for the week. Hilson is about nine years older, but if she does one of what you may call her 'natural turns,' he's going to book a front seat for life. What can you suggest in this circumstance? If I sent her to bed on bread and treacle she would be sure to smile, and the thing would be conspicuous by her very absence. Hilson isn't likely to look away from Lorna once he's got a start, and the child hasn't a particle of interest in her outside her quaint originality. If we could only give her some idea, some little notion that we want Lorna to— well—to..."

"It could be done quite casually," said one girl. "Blarney sits on my bed at night while she does her hair, I'll ask several of the girls to come in tonight, and we will make it a matter of ordinary conversation that Lorna is meeting her— whatever you like to call him— for the first time in years. The child is fond of Lorna, and she will be delighted to help the thing along."

"Quite a good idea," said Mrs Honora. "Do see what you can do."

And outside the restricted Blarney was making toffee with one of the maids.

HILSON RAND arrived in Elizabeth Bay with one trunk, a crushed unshapely felt hat, quite too small for him, and his mouth full of chocolate ginger. Mrs Honora ignored it all with her tender heart, and rushed to tell the girls.

"Don't believe he has even a dress suit for dinner, girls; and he's browner than mahogany, and eats chocolate all the time he is talking to you. Don't all get frightened— it's always the way with the rich cattle men. I never saw one yet who didn't resemble his own cows in something."

"But— do his cows eat chocolate?" asked Blarney, the child of original thought. This brought a laugh from the throng, and the hostess fled away to arrange her dinner party and inform the butler he was not to smile.

Hilson Rand had a dress suit, and this relieved Mrs Honora. But when she saw him closer she strangled a laugh and went feverish in the cheeks for fully an hour. Hilson, the man from behind the scrub, wore clothes of a fashion of nearly twenty years ago. He looked quite, ignorant of it too, which made it all the worse for the girl, who has been placed along side of him.

"You can do anything with money," confided Lorna to herself. "A day in the city and it won't be my fault if he isn't looking his worth." For this reason she consented to be made a fuss of by Hilson, the man who had come back into her life. After dinner he deliberately propelled the girl into the conservatory, and the rest avoided that part of the house, with a fine spirit of fraternity; or, rather, discriminating sisterhood. Blarney, finding the Society dull after a wild swimming match with a boy who did not belong to the house, and whom she had talked to in the surf for fully three days since she had arrived, went about looking for something different. Through the glass of the verandah she could see the man from behind the scrub and the beauty of the house party talking in merry tones.

"He's got the most ripping figure I've ever seen," she said, lying in the grass by the water frontage. "Must take hard work to do that sort of thing. I wish some of the men here in Sydney would get up and try it for a change. Doing hard work is better a long way than looking starched in a drawing room."

LATER on Hilson stumbled over her as he tried to find a place under the stars to stop his mentality from slipping a cog through too much pressure. His mind was full of Lorna, and he had left her to retire; and thought to find himself alone by the water. Blarney still lay curled on the grass.

"I've been watching you," said the girl when he had apologised for nearly walking over her. "It's just a treat to see Lorna's face. Oh, my Goodness! wouldn't I be glad if a young man came forty thousand miles, it is? to see me again."

Hilson looked nearer at her.

"Wait till you grow up," he answered, and went on thinking of the girl he had left.

"Of course, I'll wait. You didn't think I'd want to be married until my nose is properly formed, or directly I had met the man? I'm glad for Lorna's sake—I never knew till last night. Did you ever try to eat those mud-puddings you made with her?"

Hilson again looked close at her.

"I don't, don't remember. She has grown up into a most beautiful woman— far more beautiful than I expected, and she ought to marry— money— oh, yes, I am quite convinced of that."

"So is everybody," said Blarney. "Isn't it a good thing she waited, and didn't marry some little importer or one of the shipping clerks?"

Hilson took this seriously. He leaned right over where he sat near the girl, and spoke quietly.

"Are you sure she waited?"

"Positive.... and kissed your photograph every night. You're hot much like it now. I mean the photograph in the silver frame with the South African war medal on your coat. I've seen it on her table often."

"South African war medal?" Hilson ruffled his forehead into lines of thought. "I never was in Africa in my life. You're a bit off the track, aren't you?"

"Oh, well, it must be her brother, then, or—"

"Somebody else's," finished Hilson. This finished the conversation, for Blarney rose up. Before rushing to the house she invited him to walk the narrow wall of the baths while the tide was full in. Hilson refused on the plea that he was no acrobat, and the child hurried away to bed, thinking him no sport. She was singing at the top of her voice a snatch of that quaint ragtime measure. "I Wouldn't Leave My Little Wooden Hut for You."

The sound came, to the man as he started his pipe under the stars. Then came the girl's laugh from the balcony high above his head; then a whole lot of cold water was poured over him, and a thin-voiced apology which was in the same register as that of the song.

He went to bed confused.

A DAY or two afterwards Hilson caught Lorna near the drawing-room by herself. Somehow he had managed to find her by herself quite ten times a day. The reason was obvious, and he took the chance thrown out to him in both hands, and, striding it as he would do his horse, liiade it come round m his direction. He was manipulating chocolate ginger, with his teeth.

"It seems," he said, jerkily, "seems— as if everybody else in the house didn't want us, Lorna. I'm glad."

"How much money do you spend a day on chocolate?" was what the girl asked him as they sat down in a corner.

Hilson crunched a triangular lump and spoke quickly. "You don't get such stuff out my way once in twenty years. I suppose I spend about a shilling a. day. Sounds extravagant when you have to slog all your life to get— get anything at all. I can easily pull up when I get back to my little place."

"Oh," said Lorna, "are you talking of going back so soon?"

"Must get back within a month, you know. The boys would mutiny if the boss had too much holiday, and they were tied out there."

"You've made a small wild world, haven't you?" said Lorna, to whom the idea of the west was more of a bogie than she really cared to anticipate.

"I'll show you my photographs tonight or to-morrow," said Hilson; "it's the best little crib out our way, and I've starved to get it."

"You're wonderful," said Lorna.

"I've gone without things— for years, and now—"

"You buy chocolates instead of—"

Lorna had not meant really to infer that he had forgotten to renew his wardrobe, so she stopped and smiled at him. Hilson was quite easy over it.

"I suppose," he said, slowly, "that I've got most things a man wants out there, barring the gentle hand of a proper mate, and I've managed to keep myself pretty well in order, though I've had no reason to buy a new suit for years. For instance, look at this coat."

It was about fifteen years out of date.

"I was amazed to find that my things were so good when I went to hunt them out. Saved me no end of expense."

Lorna felt crawling microbes of nervousness run over her. She told herself that it was always the way with a man who drifted away from the world. A woman was the only person to pull him. out of the mire of sordidness and cheapness.

It was evident that he considered her the only one in the house worthy of his special attention. Certainly he had had to give occasional minutes to Blarney but then she was such a child, and everybody had had to laugh when she had invited him to give her a ride in the gardener's wheelbarrow, which had been left by mistake on the walk. Hilson Rand came , in without his coat when this drive was finished. He did not even remember leaving it on the water tap, until Blarney came into the room wearing it over her shoulders. Lorna showed her objection by going to bed with a headache but 'recovered' when she had been told that Hilson had taken himself off for a walk under the stars. Blarney had then made friends with another man, and was tearing about the morning-room in a new kind of turkey trot which the new young man was endeavouring to learn.

Hilson spoke about his feeling when he sat near Lorna at the motor picnic. The girl showed a fine young spirit at the idea of the whole thing.

"Don't you adore motoring?" she asked Hilson, and he smiled and then looked grave.

"Costs such a beastly lot of money, that's all."

"Oh, but if you've got it—" Lorna looked him right in the eyes.

"Then, I suppose, it's quite the thing," he ended, and leaned near her in the tonneau. "Lorna... seems to me there's no need to ask you if you really... care..." He stopped, because Blarney, who was sitting with the chaffeur, had suddenly taken the wheel.

"The daring of that child," he went on. "I never saw anything so vigorous before as her methods...."

"She's a madcap," said Lorna, "but she will manage it. About caring, Hilson... it depends on you, of course."

"Are you sure?" The man from the west was fighting for himself as much as the girl was battling her own inclinations forward. "There is— no one else, Lorna?" He was thinking deeply, and before the girl could recover he had continued: "I thought that there was some affair— something to do with South Africa."

Trembling white lines had started under the girl's eyes. She righted herself as the car jumped to the open throttle.

"What a rough road," she said. "South Africa, did you say? My dear Hilson... that was before you— you thought of coming back.... He couldn't afford to marry, and I had you in my thoughts. Oh, Hilson, do you care... I wonder?"

Hilson Hand looked placid. "There is a lot of something, Lorna, growing in my heart, and I'm just about getting ready to nourish it up. Caring niy way, hasn't to do with this sort of thing, you know. It's just two people and one stretch of bush."

"But you would give up everything for the woman you loved—you could afford to...?"

"I'd give up Heaven if she— was worth it," he answered. Lorna, relieved again, smiled. "And buy her chocolate ginger?"

He looked her right in the face. "Buying—hasn't anything to do with it. I'd expect her to care like— like anything, even if there wasn't bread to eat. That's loving ..."

He stopped, and Lorna touched him gently. "Don't look so serious. You make me creep. Tell, me some more about the station. ... How many rooms has the house? Is there a decent road to the place? Water laid on through the kitchens, and that sort of thing? Is it a brick frontage, or— or... "

Hilson stroked his face with two fingers. He looked as if he wanted to laugh.

"Wait till you see my photographs," was all he said, and helped her out of the car.

Several hours afterwards he went to find Blarney. Under his arm he carried his little book of snaps taken out West. The girl was standing watching a wave dip and curl, away— away right over from where she stood on the summit of a hill. Hilson spoke rather suddenly, and she turned, and he saw that her eyes were dim with tears.

"It was just like you to come and interrupt me when I was crying," she broke out.

"I'm sorry," said Hilson. "But why do you want to cry?"

"Just because I'm a girl," jerked Blarney, rudely. "If I was a man, and could do what I liked, I'd— I'd— just make other girls cry. Men do, you know— they do—quite often."

Some more bubbling tears drenched her dark eyes. Hilson thought he had better ignore them. He did not know what else to do.

"I thought that you might like to see my photographs," he said.

"So I would," said Blarney, "only— only—you'll have to lend me your handkerchief first. Mine's all over grease. Did you see me run the car into the garage? That's the sort of fun I like; not beastly women's picnics, where everybody wants to share one man."

"One man?" Hilson looked around him. "Would you mind telling me what sort of— of— creature you call those other guests wearing my sort of clothes?"

Blarney actually laughed. "I suppose you would call them men," she said; "but the girls don't seem to have any ideas about them; it's you."

"Me?" Hilson really went very uncomfortable.

"You, because you've got what they call 'gilt;' you're all stamped out like a sovereign. Your measure has been taken long ago.... It's my particular objection to you."

Hilson sat down on the cliffs and pulled the girl to his side. "Stop talking Greek to me and have a look at my album."

Blarney smudged her face with one machine-oiled hand. Then she looked towards the house party camped by the car.

"What's Lorna doing with that man? Why aren't you chasing her?"

Hilson opened his book of snaps. "Turn to me and I'll show you why."

He showed Blarney a small photograph of a rough wooden hut standing beneath some tall, dead timber. A man with an axe stood near the door lighting his pipe, and a dog sat near. There was nothing much in the picture beside a pump and a grind-stone. Blarney shouted with glee.

"What a dear little wooden hut!" she screamed. "Who is the man— you? How free one could be: never have to dress for dinner or that sort of thing. I'd just love to see it!"

"Would you? Well, Lorna wouldn't. She had ideas that I have just found out. She threw me over just now When I told her that was my home."

"Your home?" Blarney gasped again:  "No wonder you are original, and— and— not like other men."

Hilson felt the glow of a new spirit run through his veins. He turned over the pages of the album.

"There is the inside," he said... "See the log fireplace — built it myself...  and that chair made out of a tree stump— oh, the glow and the comfort in the cold nights... and the ease of the stars peering through the roof during the calmer ones.... There is Roger, my dog, again.... he can almost speak, and there is Pebble, the parrot, who wanders about loose.... Ah this motor picnic fades very much, little girl, when I think of the life and dangers out there.... it makes a man good for life and a woman... well, I've not thought about that— before... maybe it wouldn't be fair, as Lorna has showed me.'

Blarney was breathing like a runner in a race.

"I can see it all," she said, "and it does not strike me I have judged you fair... you're not all 'Gilt,' as they have made out— you're natural, and quite ragged, aren't you?"

"I'm happy..." was all Hilson said, and shut the book.

But Blarney grabbed it from him. "I want to look again," she said. "Oh, I wish it was real and not a photograph.' .

Hilson caught her by the wrist;

"Straight," he said. "You'd like to see it— a poor little hut, with the stars making holes through at nights, and that log fireplace, all to stop the wind breaking your bones in two at times."

Blarney flashed upon him. Her eyes were worlds of truth. "Sure as life I would," she said.

"Then you shall, little girl," Hilson broke out. "Come back with me... and make a mate for Roger and the parrot. I will try and make things steady up, so that there will be nothing but freedom and happiness for you.... you can have 'Monach' to ride. He will fly with you, thinking you just a beautiful bird...."

Blarney deliberately leaned against him as they sat near the edge of the cliffs. "Oh, stop, stop," she cried. "I cried because of Lorna and now I'm starting because I've got you myself."

Hilson kissed her under cover of a great grass tussock. Then he whispered in her ear.

"Lorna will never forgive you... because I told her that was my home— so it is; but it is the out-station hut, thirty miles from the head station. I live in a place with every imaginable comfort, miles from that. Now what about that little wooden hut, Miss Gadfly?"

"I'm going to ride there on Monach," said Blarney, and threw her arms round his neck in full light.

________________

5: The Green Cat

Sumner Locke

Weekly Times (Melbourne) 16 Nov 1912

WE WERE the only inmates of the sitting room, the green cat and I, and the sun had gone behind a cloud which seemed to be made of such durable material that it wasn't even vaguely showing a vestige of the light that betokens a return visit to the earth. For the green cat and me there was no sunshine anywhere about. The door of the room was shut, and had been so for at least an hour, as the landlady of the house had particularly desired the door should be closed, as it disturbed the blind when the wind blew in a frenzy, through the draught caused by the open door.

The green cat had never been noticed by me before, as I had never had reason to stay even a minute or two in the room where Mrs Keep held the traditions of her family so fast and bound that if one had lifted a book off the shelf in this, room a whole horde of dusty spirits might have flown out at one and hurled vituperative words at such inconsideration and irreverence as had been shown by the idle hand- who had touched them.

My reason for so noticing the green cat was this: I had to stay in that front room, borrowed for the occasion for the visit of a friend I had not seen for years. He ought to have come out of the greenery of the wattles and the elms outside, fully two hours ago; but as yet no sign had shown me that he was anywhere near.

The green cat was perched upon the centre of a table which had for its environs a stuffed mole-colored sofa, and a piano that was horribly out of tune. It made a very sick sort of sound when one even touched a note by mistake. On the table with the green cat were a whole army of tortoise-shell snuff boxes, some old-fashioned silver combs worn by ladies of the nobility, and not by Mrs Keep, the landlady. The green cat apparently could not bear even the sight of any of them for her head was reared like a wind tossed cone on to a pine tree, and her neck was so elongated that she overlooked the fact that she was not the only habitant of the room. I was there feeling just as the green cat did— decidedly out of place and pretty much as likely to want to get away. My face was filled with something that might have been fear, and my heart was dead —within me. Those trees outside seemed to stand in the wind and just wave cold hands at me and say, "There is nothing— nothing— here— so don't look as if you expected anything— he is not coming— go back— there is nothing here." Go back— I was many miles from home— go back— I had no money— nothing but the week's rent for the landlady— go back to nothing— the trees were mad— I must stay here— stay with the green cat.

Then I noticed something. The green cat had an expression on her face that had been there ever since she had been made. Truly the potter who had shaped her, had intended her to be a sort of joke on the surroundings she had got into. There was nothing to smile about— nothing to bring such a look into her face— nothing to make her extend spasms of laughter to the environment of the room— but it was there— this wonderful look— this marvellous glamor of "delight". I turned from watering the pines and wattles of the walk. My friend, for whom I would have waited a lifetime, had he been coming to me, was nowhere in sight, and the green cat was entertaining me like someone who had taken my hand in the dark of a strange cold place.

I looked across the room. The green cat was made of china and she had been fashioned with her neck in the absurd position that stretched rigid across the thing she sat upon. Her ears had been allowed to prick up so that anything, might not escape her apparent hearing, and her mouth was tightened across her face so that she had become stiff— with joy. Laughter was painted there and delight— strained laughter and forced delight, so hard— so distressingly blatant, and there was so much, of it that one could hardly bear to look. The green cat, painted and made of china, sitting on the table with the traditional and immortal opinions of the race laid out in rows of tortoise-shell emblems. This was what met my eyes and made me think again. The green cat could smile like that and show such awful joy that anyone coming into the room and observing it ought to roar with laughter if they were in their sane senses and. had nothing physically wrong with them. I marvelled that I had not noticed it before; but then I had gone straight to the window and stayed there; and even now as I watched the thing with eyes that nearly stared themselves out of the green china head, I could not drop my mood or laugh.  My heart was too  heavy— and there were yet a thousand leaden balls dropping— dropping into my soul. I felt one drop as I stood watching the cat— and I knew that there were another and another ready to fall into place. The place of the leaden balls seemed to be my soul.

But the green cat was smiling— with outstretched neck and protruding eyes. Her body shone like the sea, with the sun upon it, and her ears seemed straining for some sound. How like— I thought. My every sense was widened at that moment to hear, see, and believe that my friend had come through the wattles that lined the walk. There were the two of us— without utterances of what was evident, waiting, listening, and believing that things were going to be all right — presently. But the green cat had been like that for years, perhaps centuries; even though she had only been born in this world since the advent of china beasts. She had worn that insipid smile, that cap of buffoonery ever since she knew anything at all, and she was smiling on all things in the world both good and bad, sick or well, rich or poor, and she would go on smiling as if the whole earth was a huge panorama of passing mirth.

I turned away— my heart was breaking, and my mind was like the crumbling of a great cliff that would fall and fall until there was nothing but the waters of a great ocean to wash away the debris. How could I see things in the way the green cat could? She had sat there ages and eternities, laughing at fate, and at all climes of weather; and at everything that was ever sacred or blessed by human tenderness. I could have swept my hand across the table that held her small body and crashed her form to the ground and crushed her   under my heel. She seemed so full of confidence that asserts that all things are superlatively humorous and only made for sport. Her mind must have been a  continual pantomime, never changing a real thing.

I turned to the window again. A wind that was tearing the branches from their sockets split up the coming night into veins of lightning as the trees swung to right and left, and disclosed the sky rent with streaks of fire. I felt the storm coming in my blood, and I feared for my friend again.

"He will be hurt," kept ringing in my mind, and the green cat, still superior to all things and void of jocularity, sat grinning at my solitude and my fears as if it were a thing to clap one's hands over.

"Stop laughing," I shouted, like one insane. "Is it nothing to you that the man I love is out in the storm, or perhaps you are smiling because you think  you know he has forgotten. Men do forget in five years— they do forget—"

And the green cat leered in the same continuous way, and the levity of her whole attitude struck me badly across the heart.

"Lives may he lost— or finished in that last streak of lightning," I said quietly to her.

"A man might be dead— what was that?"

A dim scream came through the wattles, and I felt the hair of my head quiver like sensitised needles.

"Heavens! was it he?" I tore up the window, and put my head out into the coming night. A wave of cool air struck my temples, j and went down to my feet. I called madly— the name of my friend—  called— for comfort. But out of the trees there only came the same streaks of fire that tore the sky; and far away a crashing king of the forest went down to the gully and smashed the undergrowth like a monarch that beat his enemies underfoot. Again the dim scream— and I drew back into the room. Why did not somebody come to tell what had happened? Where was the landlady who usually bothered me with her questions?

I opened my eyes again on the green cat. Its frightful grinning countenance drove the blood into my head, and I could not breathe. "Stop!" I shouted. "Stop laughing. It's true, then — for you have laughed since ever things began and men have died and women suffered and children starved and become things of coarseness because the world is cruel— and yet you have always laughed."

I put out my hand to strike the green cat. I would hurl the thing from the presence of people who could feel every minute of a life that it strained so tightly that even to live hurts. I would finish the pantomime once and for all, and when another such as I came to stay in the place they would I not be tormented with visions of a cynical bloodless thing, that had nothing before it but the joke it alone saw in the common universe.

With my hand raised and my eyes shut I heard the woman outside talking in a loud voice. At last someone had come into the place to show me life had not stopped with the passing of a day. She was calling to someone in the yard.

"There's somebody hurt in the paddock near the railway—" hen my senses seemed to break into chaos, and all my mind was running together like mixed paint. I can just remember that I had swept past the green cat as I dashed from my room. Away with the wind and storm I went, and down to the paddock by the railway. Already a crowd of men of the country were carrying a form on a slab of bark to a hut in the forest.

"Let me near," I kept crying out as I beat the hair from my face so that I could see properly.

"He is not dead," someone shouted as they held me away. And when I went to him in the hut, I put my arms round him, for he was my dear friend whom I loved.

"Are you very unhappy?" I said, with my head close, as the people went out of the place to bring a doctor.

"Not a bit," he said, gathering me into his arms as he lay there with one leg limply disabled and torn from the fall of the tree. "You see," he continued, looking right into my eyes, "I was coming to you as the same friend, and I would never have known that you cared if it had not been for this accident. Sorrow gives us to each other quite often."

And in truth I felt I loved him more— lying there dependent on my aid and services, perhaps for the rest of his life.

"You see, dear,"— his voice was so steady though he was in great pain— "my leg may have to be taken off, and it is so much easier now that I know that you care. Thank God, I have a little money to keep us going now that I could work no longer. Dear, don't look so depressed."

My heart was down within me, though I felt that what he had said was true. Being together would compensate for the damage of the tree, but what was his life to be now? I felt glad I cared— it was so easy and grand to be able to do things for him.

"Won't you smile?" he said then, softly smoothing my hands.

"Why should I smile?" I said; "you're suffering."

"But— the suffering has brought us together," he said. "I felt that for years you had been my truest friend, but when this thing came upon me, and you rushed forward with the pain of what I was feeling in your very eyes— dear, that told me all I have waited to find out. Thank God, I am alive— it might have been worse. Can you not smile?" -But I covered his face with my caresses, and when the doctor came they carried him to the house, and to the front room where the landlady had kindly and thoughtfully made a bed for him. They carried him to the room where the green cat still sat grinning at Its own huge joke. Before I could touch the thing, or even remove it from the table, the dear man I loved called out in a most happy tone:

"Oh, I say, what a jolly cat— she makes one feel that there is a whole lot more to be thankful for— that we nearly forgot. Yes, old cat, I may have to lose my leg, but I have gained a wife, who will make up for that— see how Miss Puss understands. 'Life is full of compensations,' she says; and she has known it for years. Look at her, dear— can't you hear her saying, You're all right as long as you keep smiling.' "

And with my arms round him I laughed back in the face of the green cat.

__________________

6: Assignats

Henry Leverage

1885-1931

Adventure, 3 Dec 1919

WHEN IVAN with the long surname walked down the beach at Novgorod he found three men. These men were sitting on their haunches staring out over the Japan Sea. Ivan spoke to them in English.

"I have a ship," he said.

The first man glanced at the second; the second stared at the third. They rose from their haunches and wrapped their rags around gaunt limbs.

"A ship in this accursed port?" asked one.

"A bloody lie!" exclaimed a second castaway.

"Ah hae me doots," rasped a third derelict.

"It is a fact, gentlemen," said Ivan with the long surname. "The ship is loading between here and Vladivostok. She wants but a master, a mate and an engineer."

The three men grew sad. They had been broken on the rack of peace. They had come ashore at Novgorod in a leaking sampan. The government of Japan was at that moment interested in their whereabouts.

"Our papers were lost in a great storm at sea," said the leader of the trio, whom men called "Micky" McMasters. "You mind the vast simoon?"

Ivan, the Russian, spread out his hands. His great spade-shaped beard fluttered in the warm Japanese breeze. He thumped a be-medaled chest.

"Come with me!" he said. "Papers or no papers— it is you three who shall take the Shongpong out across the sea."

"He talks like a poet writes," whispered "Red" Landyard, a Yankee mate, to Mike Monkey, the Scotch engineer.

"Ah hae noo doot he's read a wee bit. How otherwise would he know we were on the beach at Novgorod? There is a price on our heads."

Micky McMasters edged the big Russian away from his whispering companions.

"This ship," asked the little skipper, "this boat you 'ave loading between 'ere and Vladivostok— what flag does she fly?"

"Her home flag is Chinese. Her crew are loyal Russians. Her cargo, now going aboard, is caravan tea. This tea must be taken to America where Victoria on the Island of Vancouver is. Do you know the route?"

Micky felt his heart thump like a mallet inside a cask. He had sweated and toiled and starved on the mud flats of Novgorod. He sensed the coming of a bitter Winter. And here was a hard-eyed Russian offering him and his mates a ship for the Pacific broadside, where white men walked and roses bloomed and shirts could be worn.

"I've steamed and sailed, man and boy," he explained, "going on thirty years. I'm 'Umber born— at Great Grimsby on the North Sea. My mate, the tall man with the red face, is an American out of New Bedford. My first engineer came from Tyneside— where they build good ships. We take no back-slack from nobody. Show me your ship, says I, and I'll work 'er across the Japan Sea and east by the line to Victoria."

"That is settled," said Ivan Alexandrovski. "You may come with me."

Micky McMasters gathered the tattered collar of his dungaree coat around his unshaven neck.

"One more question before it becomes a contract," he said suspiciously. "Are you loyal Russian or are you Bolshevik?"

Ivan with the long surname smiled blandly. He stroked his straggling beard. He stared down at the little castaway.

"Loyal Russian," he said. "I have a home in Vladivostok— where Allied troops are guarding."

Micky turned, jerked his head toward his mates who stood shivering in their rags, and shouted:

"The contract's signed! A fair thing for all of us. We work the Shongpong across the western Pacific."

"Ye arranged about terms?" asked Mike Monkey, siding up to the skipper and glancing at the Russian.

"Terms?"

"Bonuses and wages?"

"We'll leave that to our noble friend."

Mike gulped and spat to the mud flat.

"Last time Ah left that," he said, "Ah had nothing coming to me when Ah went ashore."

The Russian drew himself erect.

"The scale of wages," he declared, "shall be, for you three officers, one thousand rubles a week— paid at Victoria."

"How much is a ruble?" asked Mike.

"Two shillin'," hissed the cockney skipper.

"Twa shillin'? That make a hundred pun a week! Ah hae noo doot it'll be well earned before the end of the passage."

"Where's the ship?" asked Red Landyard. "Show me the Shongpong!"

The Russian led the way up the beach. Two hours stiff walking brought the castaways to a cove in which lay a rusty tramp flying the Chinese flag and swarming with coolies— like ants on a cockroach.

Mike Monkey stared at the boxes which the coolies were carrying aboard the ship.

"Tay!" he spat. "Aya, it may be tay and it may be something else. Them ain't Chinese marks on the sides."

"Russian!" explained Ivan. "Come with me aboard my ship. You can see the boxes are marked with Russian letters."

Micky McMasters jabbed the engineer in the ribs as they trailed up a shaky gangplank and sprang from the Shongpong's unpolished rail at the waist.

"Be careful!" he warned. "Don't ask no bloomin' questions. Wait till we cross the Sea o' Japan!"

Mike gulped. He eyed the decrepit back-stays and standing rigging of the tramp. He ranged a fluttering glance along the dirty planks of the freighter. He shifted his tongue in his mouth as he stared at the drunken-looking funnel, which bore evidences of poorly patched shot holes.

"A rum hooker," he told Red Landyard. "She's had her name painted out about five times. She's no more'n eight hundred tons, if she's that. She's a broodin' menace ov some kind. Ah wash my hands of this voyage."

"You're 'ands need washin'!" snapped Micky McMasters. "Drop below and look over the engines. See hif there's any coal or supplies aboard. Report to me on the bridge."

"D'ye call that a bridge?" Mike pointed forward of the tipsy funnel, which was painted light blue.

"Hit's a better bridge than the mud flats of Novgorod!" Micky said. "Get below and report. I'm skipper 'ere!"

MIKE'S REPORT, delivered between champs upon a chew of Chinese tobacco borrowed from a coolie, was tense and bitter.

"Ye hae no conception of the state of things below," he told Micky McMasters. "There's only one double-door boiler. It was made in Canton— China. The engines are cross-compound of the vintage of Isaac Watt and Robert Fulton. The coal is Japanese— twa bunkers of it. The stokehold leaks and the shaft-alley is full of bilge muck. Ah saw the stuffin'-boxes jettin' water myself. The last engineer of this packet wrote wot he thought of it on the ditty-box door. He said enough. His name was MacFarland."

"What's that got to do with hus?"

Mike walked from starboard to port of the tramp. He stared down at the line of coolies who were staggering aboard under the last of the boxes. He watched the yellow hands of the gang in the forehold reach for the cargo. He came back to Micky McMasters.

"Wot's it got to do with us?" he repeated. "It's got a lot. Ah doot if we make Japan— let alone Victoria."

"We'll try," said Micky sadly. "The Russian says we can clear at nightfall. 'E and 'is crew are coming aboard then. I tested the steering-gear. It works. Who got steam up?"

"Three coolies who are sittin' in the engine-room waiting to go ashore. Ah borrowed some cut-plug from them— enough to last the voyage— if it lasts. They can't talk anything but pidgin English. Their clothes are not worth taking— or I'd of taken them."

Micky McMasters rubbed a bristly chin reflectively. He stared at Mike Monkey's faded outfit. He swung his gaze to where Red Landyard stood on the forecastle deck, directing a gang of coolies who were clearing away wreckage which had fallen about the capstan.

"This Russian," he said with an anxious glance at the dark outlines of the shore, "this man who hired us at a thousand rubles a week is some kind of a big labor captain or prince. The coolies salute him. The two Tatars standing guard at that shed ashore bowed when he spoke to them. There's a whackin' mystery 'ere!"

"Ah thought ye would get yer foot in it when ah saw ye chinnin' with that Russian on the mud flat. He is a smuggler!"

"No! 'E don't look like one."

"Looks is only skin deep. He ought to be skinned— with his thousand rubles a week."

"'E 'as nobody to navigate the ship, and the tea 'as got to be taken hover the western Pacific."

"Tay? Ye are daft? D'ye call that tay?"

Mike Monkey pointed a scornful finger at the boxes piled around the fore-hatch. He spat to the bridge-deck.

"That ain't tay! That's opium or hashish or fireworks of some sort. Ah never saw tay boxes with Russian letters on them."

"There is good tea grown in some parts of Russia."

"It's grown! Aye, it's grown! Wot's to prove this cargo growed there. It may have been brought to this cove in a sampan— it may have been brought in a Chinese junk— it may have—"

"'Vast with your 'may-have's!' Get below to the boiler! 'Ere comes a caravan or a funeral. They're Russians of the province of the Don. See their beards and their robes. There's the big fellow who hired us. 'E's a bloomin' juke, that's wot 'e is! Kow-tow when 'e comes aboard."

"Ye told me to go below."

"'urry hup! Never mind the kowtowin'. You walk straight and take my orders until we get on the 'igh seas."

The first engineer fluttered a pair of pale lashes in the general direction of the squad of Russians who were winding around the shore shed. He climbed down the rusty bridge-ladder and glided for the engine-room companion. He went through the single grating and thrust his hands into the broken pockets of his dungaree trousers as he eyed the three coolies sitting on the crank-shaft of the cross-compound engine.

"On deck!" he roared at the chinamen. "Ye all get on deck, and don't show yer miserable faces here again. Ye're discharged! Ye built my fires in Oriental fashion— upside down with all the Japanese coal on the grates. Ye left me nothing but clinkers and salt water in the boiler and leaking gaskets and—"

The last yellow man stared down through the grating on his way to the deck and departure.

"Plenty much you learn by and by," he said softly— too softly. "Plenty much—"

Mike picked up a rusty spanner. He had drawn this back when there sounded the raucous clang of an ancient gong in the engine-room. Micky McMasters, wasting no time, had rung for quarter-speed forward before the Russian crew were well aboard.

Two men came down the engine-room ladder in awkward fashion. They blinked at Mike. They stared at the engine as if it were an idol in a temple. They stroked their whiskers.

"Are ye coal-passers?" asked Mike.

"Passengers."

"Wot?"

"We are passengers."

"Ah asked ye if ye are coal-passers?"

Mike Monkey pointed toward the low door through the bulkhead which separated the engine-room from the stoke hold.

"Get forrard!" he rasped. "D'ye know the skipper rang for a turn on the engines? D'ye know there's only thirty pounds ov steam?"

The Russians moved toward the stokehold door. Mike picked up his spanner and followed them. He spent the next lurid hour breaking in two green firemen whose manners were sullen and morose.

IT WAS after sundown when the Shongpong clamped from her anchorage in the cove and started eastward over the polished waters of the Japan Sea.

A tan-colored moon hung in the sky. A soft breeze swung out from Manchuria. The powdered stars spangled the velvet dome of heaven.

Red Landyard, Micky Masters and Mike Monkey came together on the decrepit bridge of the freighter like three men making a common report.

Ivan with the long surname and most of his following were in the lighted cabin where rose the quarter-deck of the freighter. A lone lookout stood on the forecastle head. He was smoking a long-stemmed pipe. The ashes from the bowl of this pipe made tinder of his whiskers. Now and then he pressed out the sparks and swore in Russian.

A second and sinister figure squatted on the fore-hatch. He had a rifle across his knees. The end of this rifle was tipped with a polished bayonet.

"Standin' guard," said Micky McMasters. "The grand juke put 'im there to watch the tea."

"Tay!" said Mike Monkey. "Ye still insist it is tay?"

Micky squared his jaw. "I know nothing," he said, "save that we are 'oldin' a course for 'Akodate and the Inland Sea, which we should reach this time day after tomorrow— if the steam don't die out altogether."

Red Landyard stared at the Russian on the fore-hatch. He eyed the bright point of the steel bayonet.

"They're quiet now," he drawled, "but we're hardly out of sight of land. I expect I'll have to chain a man or two before long. The forecastle is a volcano. Hear them talking? They're arguing some point in Russian."

Micky swung and eyed the break of the quarter-deck, which showed four lighted port-holes within the smudge of smoke that draped from the tipsy funnel.

"They're doing the same aft," he said. "Ivan, the grand juke, is leadin' in the prayin' or whatever it is. I never saw such a crew for talking. I don't know who are passengers and who are workin' the ship. I wish I'd studied Russian."

"Wot good would that do?" asked Mike Monkey. "They wouldn't reveal their secret plans to us. Wot did they bring the rifle aboard for? Wot's to prove we ain't shipmates with a howlin' bunch of anarchists? They're quiet now. Them twa in the stokehold only look at me and chew on their beards when Ah give orders. They're waitin' for somethin'!"

Micky strode across the bridge. He gazed sadly at the ripples that curved from the Shongpong's straight bow. He estimated the speed of the ship to be not more than seven knots an hour. There was no bridge-rail log.

He came back to Mike Monkey and Red Landyard.

"Briefly stated," ye said, "we're in the 'ands of Providence. Anything is likely to 'appen with all that talking fore and aft. The course the grand juke gave me is to the Pacific— by the nearest strait. I'm 'olding that course. That's all I know. I 'ave a wife and children at 'ome. I was thinkin' of them when I took the contract to work this ship to Victoria."

Mike studied the little skipper's dungaree jacket and unshaven face.

"How many Russians are there aboard?" he asked.

"Sixty or seventy."

"Then Ah resign if it comes to blows. Ah am weak from starving on the beach of Novgorod. All Ah have been able to find to eat on this hooker is caviar and salt fish. Ah would as soon eat clinkers."

A door slid open aft. A rolling voice struck forward. Ivan appeared, followed by two Russians. They were wrapped to the beards in great coats trimmed with fur. They climbed the bridge-ladder and stared at the binnacle.

"East she is," said Micky. "East, a quarter point north."

Ivan swept the sea with a long glance. He nodded and pointed over the freighter's stumpy jib-boom.

"Japan lays there?" he questioned Micky.

"Yes. Habout four 'undred miles."

"Have you sighted any ships?"

"None, yet."

"If you do call me on deck. Answer no signals. Keep the Chinese flag flying."

"The Union Jack would look better!"

Ivan stroked his beard.

"You take my orders," he said icily. "Avoid any suggestions. Keep away from smoke, sails and particularly gunboats of foreign powers. I'll double the thousand rubles which I have agreed to give you three officers. I'll increase it to two thousand rubles a week."

Mike gulped and drew his scrawny neck deep into his collar. He waited until Ivan and the Russians had descended the bridge-ladder and walked slowly aft to where the light streamed from the open cabin door.

"Ye heard that!" grated the engineer with scorn. "Ah thought it was possible to get a thousand rubles a week. Ah expect nothing now. It's too good to be true. Ah minds the likes o' that Russian! It was in Guatemala where I was paid three thousand pesos a month. The pesos were worth sixpence on the pound."

Micky McMasters shook his head.

"Anyway," he said, "we're on the first leg 'ome to blighty. We're gettin' a free passage. That's something!"

Mike Monkey went below to the clanking engines. Red Landyard stared forward and aft. He entered the chart-house and turned in across the single seaweed mattress it contained.

Micky stood the watch until midnight. He woke the Yankee mate, gave the course and dropped down into the engine-room. He sat with Mike until two bells. The Scotch-Irish engineer was bitter against the Russians. He rose now and then and peered through the stokehold door, where a lurid light glowed.

"Twa stokers," he said, "and no fire to speak of."

Micky glanced around in caution as the engineer came back for the third time.

"Investigate the forehold," he whispered. "Find out what is in those tea boxes. Don't let anybody see you doing it. There's a plot of some kind aboard this ship."

"They've talked enough for a revolution."

The little skipper paused on the first round of the engine-room grating.

"Get forrard when you can," he whispered. "Open one of those boxes."

Mike gulped and nodded. He drowsed out the morning hours and climbed to the deck at the first crack of dawn. He waited all the day for a chance to creep through the stokehold without being detected by the two Russian stokers. A second night came and after night the twinkling lights of the Inland Sea. No chance afforded itself in the passage between the Japanese Islands.

It was morning of the third day when Ivan with the long surname dashed thoughts of a discovery in the forehold by summoning all hands to the waist of the Shongpong.

A WILD seascape greeted Mike's eyes as he hurried up the engine-room ladder and braced his spindle legs athwart the planks.

The dusky outlines of the Japanese Coast were fast fading in the west. The wind swung out of a biting north. The sea had been stirred by the tail of a storm. The dingy freighter, with her tipsy funnel and standing rigging, rolled and tossed. She threatened to have the two masts out of her at any moment.

Micky McMasters stood the bridge with Red Landyard. Ivan and all of the Russians, including the crowd from the forecastle, were gathered beneath the shelter of the quarter-deck's lift. They glanced at Mike Monkey and started chattering in Russian. His eyes lifted over their heads. He gulped and moved his Adam's apple up and down his scrawny throat. He spat to the deck.

The Chinese flag which had been flying from the jack staff had been replaced by a red oblong. It showed baleful in the rays of the sun.

Mike turned his chin. He looked at Micky. The little skipper's jaw was square set. His shoulders were thrown back. There was a fighting fire in his eyes.

"Wot happened?" asked Mike shrilly.

"Our friends are in charge of the ship," said Micky over the bridge-rail. "Come up 'ere! They're going to take a vote for captain, mate and engineer. They say all things in their government should be settled by a vote. They're going to elect a citizen captain."

"Wot is their government?"

Micky gripped the rail.

"Bolshevik!" he snapped.

Mike steadied himself on the wet planks. He spat to the deck for a second time. His glance ranged from the little skipper to Ivan's broad face.

"Ah thought so!" he rasped. "We're deluded men!"

Ivan strode from the press of Russians beneath the break of the quarter-deck. He mounted the main-hatch. His voice rose and fell with the whine of the north wind. He spoke in gusty torrents. He pointed to the red flag aft. He turned and leveled an accusing finger at the bridge where Red Landyard and Micky stood with folded arms.

Mike squinted at the half-circle of Russians. They were being worked up to a storm by their leader. A fur cap was passed. Into this was dropped slips of paper upon which were scrawled names. A rifle's bayonet lifted above the heads of the Bolsheviki. A club swung.

Mike leaped for the bridge-ladder and climbed to the bridge like a frightened ape. He worked his lashless brows up and down. He spat through yellow teeth:

"Wot's the answer? Wot happened?"

Micky McMasters sighed. He thrust his hands in his pockets resignedly.

"Hit's hall hup!" he declared. "They're electing a citizen captain to take my place. They're voting for an engineer and mate. They say there should be equality on the sea as well as on the land. 'Ere comes hour substitutes!"

Mike glared at three Russians who had detached themselves from the others. One was a former coal-passer. Another had come aft from the forecastle. Ivan made the third.

The Russian stood beneath the rocking bridge and said sternly:

"You mutineers get below to the stokehold. We will guide the Shongpong out across the Pacific. We will make our own report without your aid. We need you on deck no longer."

Red Landyard snatched up a belaying pin from the lee rail.

"—— you!" he shouted. "I signed on as mate— and I'll be mate!"

"And I'm captain!" shrieked Micky.

The fight which followed was all one-sided. A hoarse command from Ivan was answered by a determined rush forward. The Bolshevik horde swarmed over the bridge of the wallowing freighter. Micky and Red Landyard fought them tooth and nail. They swung belaying-pins and a chart-case. They finished their end of the struggle upon their knees— to which position they were beaten by the press of numbers.

Mike, considering discretion the better part of valor, managed to creep along the weather rail and spring for the engine-room companion. He sprawled down the ladder head foremost. He rebounded at the grating. He snatched up a spanner and glared upward. He braced a foot in the pit, out of which flashed the slow-moving cranks of the cross-compound engines.

His chin described a quarter-circle. The companion-way was darkened by the form of a man. Micky, still fighting, dropped down and struck the grating. Red Landyard was hurled after the little skipper. Both seamen had been shorn of most of their clothes. Their faces were bleeding. Welts showed upon their shoulders.

"Gorblyme!" cried Micky. "Gorblyme— give me a hose! Give me hot water! Give me steam!"

"Go easy," drawled the Yankee mate, squinting at the whiskered faces which blocked the entire companion. "There's a few of them left. We didn't kill them all."

"We ought to!" spat Micky. "Bolsheviki? They're red-'anded murderers— that's wot they are!"

"That's my opinion," said Mike Monkey.

"You? You!" sputtered Micky. "Where were you when the fight started?"

"Ah came down here for a pinch bar. Ah was just going up when ye joined me— precipitously."

Micky rubbed his bleeding knuckles. He turned a cold shoulder upon the engineer, then stared upward. He made faces at the Bolsheviki and shook his broken right fist.

"I'll 'ave you know there's a law on the seas!" he snapped. "I'll report this outrage to the next British consul."

Ivan pushed away the men about the companion. He descended two rungs of the iron ladder, turned and sneered into the gloom of the engine-room.

"You are to remain below," he said coldly. "Get steam up and give us full speed. You will be thrown overboard if you do not obey my orders. The citizen captain so directs me."

"Where's me twa thousand rubles?" shouted Mike Monkey. "Coom down here— ye scum of the steepies! Coom down!"

Ivan started descending. He thought better of the action when Mike snatched up an iron bar and brandished it with agility.

"Coom down, ye Bolshevik dog! Coom down if ye dare!"

Ivan called in Russian. A ferocious face appeared over the edge of the companion. The sharp point of a bayonet extended into plain view. The muzzle of the rifle deflected until it was directly aimed at Mike. He dropped the iron bar to the grating.

He held up his hands.

"That let's me out!" he cried through chattering teeth. "Don't shoot!"

"Go forward," Ivan ordered. "You and the American go forward and put coal on the fires. You, McMasters, attend to the engines. None of you three men will be allowed on deck. You will all be shot if you do not keep the ship moving at full speed. Those are the orders of the citizen captain."

Micky picked up an oil can. He squirted a stream at the nearest crank.

"Steam on the engine!" he said to Mike and Red.

The two castaways went through the stokehold doorway. The shovels grated on the iron apron before the double fire-boxes. A biting Scotch oath rolled into the engine-room. Micky eyed the steam-gage on the main steam pipe. It was climbing. He glanced upward. The ferocious Russian was standing guard with the rifle. Ivan had disappeared.

DAYS PASSED in unending drudgery. Food was lowered down at the end of a line. The sentry was changed each watch. Ivan kept away from the companion, though his voice was heard in loud argument concerning the position of the freighter. Micky, stripped to his sweating waist and smarting from the blows he had received, grinned through the knuckle-thick bristle on his lips.

He kept the engines oiled. He saw to it that the throttle-wheel was wide open. Once he relieved Mike at passing coal. The ship made progress of a kind. It was evident that the citizen captain had headed for the center of the north Pacific. There was little danger of a lee shore.

"And may he wander like the Flyin' Dutchman!" said Mike Monkey on the sixteenth day. "Ah hope he's lost."

"No," said Red Landyard, "he's heading somewhere. The course is always east. I can tell by the sun. He hasn't changed a quarter point."

Micky McMasters glared at his two mates. They resembled stokers of Hades. Their skin was blistered. The callouses on their hands had become small cushions. The fighting fire in their eyes alone remained to remind the little cockney skipper what manner of men they were and had been.

"The plot," said Micky, "is thick and 'ard to fathom. For why are they 'eadin' to the States or Canada? No one wants them over there. They'll run their bloody 'eads hinto a noose."

Mike Monkey cocked a grease-lined ear. He blinked.

"Ye hear them chatterin'?" he asked. "They're sea lawyers! Ah hae hopes they start to massacre themselves."

Micky rubbed the bristles on his chin.

"We'll reach land in a day or two," he said. "Then we'll find out the answer for the boxes of tea and the voyage and the other questions."

"Tay!" exclaimed Mike. "Ye always said it was tay. This looks like a tay party. It— it—"

The Scotch-Irish engineer's statement was broken by the appearance of Ivan's bulky form in the companion. The Russian came down to the grating. The sentry pointed the rifle at the group. Mike dodged beneath the forward bulkhead door and waited there with bent head.

"McMasters!" called Ivan. "Come here, McMasters!"

Micky folded his arms across his hairy breast and stared at the Russian.

"What d'you want?" he asked.

Ivan peered through the engine-room gloom.

"We have decided," he said heavily, "that you can join us as a brother. We have voted on it. We will make you rich. You can be one of us."

"I'd rather be a dirty stoker than one of your breed!" replied Micky.

"We are going to give you a chance. You can help us navigate to our port of call. The citizen captain is not sure of his exact position. Assist us to obtain a reading and we will honor you by admission to the Benevolent Order of Reds. We intend to raise one billion dollars in Canada and the United States. We shall give you a share in it."

"To —— with you and your billion!"

Micky screamed, brandishing a broken fist. "Get hout of the gangway!"

"Ye did right," whispered Mike as Ivan climbed hurriedly through the engine-room companion and disappeared on deck. "Ye were not to be bribed by the scum o' Russia. Wot's the answer to the billion dollars?"

Micky stared at the point of the bayonet which crossed the sky over his head. He glanced at the flashing cranks of the cross-compound engines. He raised his voice above the noise of their wallowing passage.

"The answer is this!" he snapped. "They're going to Victoria and Canada to raise a revolution. There are a lot of Bolsheviki in 'iding— from Victoria to the Atlantic seaboard. This is a plot to start somethin' against law and order. I'll smash that big grand juke with a 'ammer the next time 'e talks to me. 'E's insulted a British seaman— 'e 'as!"

Mike shot a crafty glance at the stokehold door. He scratched his greasy neck.

"A plot?" he said. "Ah hae noo doot we can nip it in the bud. All we got to do is to open the bilge-cocks and drown the rats."

"And we go down with them?"

"Aye!"

Micky shook his head.

"We're not martyrs," he suggested cuttingly. "There may be a better way to get rid of the scum of Siberia."

"Set the hooker on fire?"

"We'll roast with it!"

"Ah'll think it over, then."

Mike Monkey disappeared through the bulkhead door. Micky watched the engines for a long minute. He raised his eyes and saw a shadow cross the companion opening. A second bayonet joined the first. Ivan had posted two guards to watch the three men between decks. The big Russian also signaled for more speed. He was answered by oaths from Mike Monkey and Red Landyard.

A LONG, hot day passed. The heat of the stokehold and engine-room was a thing to remember.

The three castaways sweated beneath the menace of the two bayonets and Ivan's brutal oaths. The sounds from the deck were those of a madhouse. It was evident that the citizen captain did not know his position on the ocean. Once the Shongpong headed due south. Her course was changed to northeast. She steadied and clamped onward, holding an uncertain path.

Night brought some relief from the heat. The Japan current was swinging along the American shore. A breeze sprang up. The ship rolled. Lurid oaths from the Russians came down the rusty ventilators. This was music to the castaways' ears.

Midnight and eight bells brought diversion. Running feet sounded on the ship's planks. A muffled cannon-shot echoed from the distance. A shell burst over the freighter's rigging.

Clanging bells for more speed drove Micky from the engine-room into the stokehold.

"A gunboat!" he exclaimed. "We're being chased!"

"Ah thought we would be!" rasped Mike Monkey. "Shall Ah draw the fires?"

The engineer's question was answered by a curdling oath from Ivan. The leader of the Bolsheviki descended to the stokehold door. He peered through the gloom.

"You heard the bells!" he snarled through his beard. "You all die if you don't keep up steam. We're going to escape from the cutter. Fortunately it is an old one."

Micky McMasters shook his head toward his two mates. He followed the Russian into the engine-room and picked up an oil can as Ivan motioned for the sentries to get on deck. A silence fell upon the brooding ocean.

Red Landyard appeared between the stokehold and the engine-room. He braced his legs and toyed with a short iron bar. Now and then he stared forward to where the crimson light glowed from the fire doors. The steam mounted in the gages. Mike Monkey worked alone. The Scotch-Irish engineer had evolved an idea out of the situation. He had sent Red to the stokehold door in order to stand guard.

"What is 'e doing?" asked Micky in a whisper.

"Sist!" said the Yankee. "Pretend to oil the engines and keep busy. Don't let the sentries suspect anything. Watch the steam. It's going up to the bursting point."

Micky watched the gage on the main steam leader. It started climbing from one hundred and seventy to one hundred and ninety. It went over the two hundred mark. It dropped and mounted again.

The little cockney skipper heard the fire doors clanging. A baleful light streamed past Red Landyard. A roar sounded in the single funnel. It was as if the ship were equipped with a double-fan forced draft. The cross-compound engine spun like a turbine.

"What's 'e putting on the fires?" questioned Micky.

"The tea!"

"The what?"

"The boxes of tea in the forehold," husked Red. "We broke through and looked the Bolshevik cargo over. It's combustible all right."

"T.N.T.?"

"Nope! Look out! That sentry is cocking his gun. Duck aft. Don't let him see you talking with me."

Micky crawled down the narrow shaft-alley. He sat on the thrust block and searched his heated brain for an answer to Mike's energy. Hours later he heard the scraping of rocks and shale under the Shongpong's keel. The ship heeled and plunged on. Her bow crashed upon a shelving beach. The Bolsheviki cursed. A mast went by the board. It splintered the deck. The funnel fell with its load of soot. The engine-room filled with choking smoke.

Mike Monkey burst through this pall. He started mounting the ladder to the companion. Red and Micky followed the engineer. They stood on deck and ranged their smarting eyes over a desperate scene.

The citizen captain of the Shongpong had found his port of call— a wooded cove on Vancouver Island. In his zeal at the discovery of the rendezvous he had neglected to stop the ship. The freighter lay with a seven-degree list to starboard. Her deck was a mass of wreckage from fallen standing rigging, mast and funnel. Above this melee of twisted lines and back-stays and smoking ventilators, towered Ivan of the long surname, his great spade-shaped beard lifted on high.

His followers swarmed around him on the tottering bridge. A red light showed through the tall stems of fir-trees. This fight moved as a signal. A score of furtive shadows flitted in the underbrush at the head of the cove. Russian faces stared out over the shoal waters of the rendezvous. A shout of brotherhood passed between ship and shore.

"Loom on," whispered Mike Monkey to Micky and the Yankee seaman. "Loom aft. They're too busy forrard to notice us. We'll lower the dinghy and escape."

The cockney skipper climbed over the deserted quarter-deck and loosened the falls. He dropped the bow of the small boat into the waves that curled astern of the grounded freighter. Red Landyard lowered the after part of the dingey. The three castaways found oars. They rowed for a dark cape that struck out into the cove. They gained the beach of this point and staggered ashore. They turned and stared at the canted freighter.

"See," said Mike Monkey. "They're opening the forehold. Ah wish them luck in wot they find beneath the hatch."

Micky squinted through the gloom. He discerned dancing figures on the deck of the Shongpong. A bloodthirsty yell of baffled rage rose to the western stars. It was echoed by the conspirators ashore.

"Ah hae noo doot," Mike Monkey rasped, "they found ah had burned all the tay. Didn't Old Whiskers ask us to keep the fires burning hot and nice? Ah kept them burning— at a price. Ah put all of the tay boxes through the fire doors. There's none left."

"What was in them?" asked Micky.

Mike closed a lashless eyelid. He drew a greasy handful of papers from beneath his shirt. He offered them to the little skipper.

"Rubles!" he said. "Bolshevik bonds and rubles! They were bringing them to Canada and the States. Ah hae an idea they were going to sell them to the Reds in both countries. All ah know to be sure is— there ain't no rubles left. Ah found them better to burn than the miserable slag called Japanese coal."

Micky saw a light. He squareset his unshaven chin and pointed south along the coast.

"We'll walk the beach," he said, "until we come to a coast guard. No doubt the cutter that chased the Bolsheviki is nosin' around. We'll show it where to go."

Mike thrust his ruble notes back within his shirt.

"Ah'll keep these!" he declared. "They ain't worth a ha'penny, but they're what we can expect to get for wages if the Reds start runnin' the governments."

____________________

7: The Devil's Cave

Anonymous

Port Adelaide News 11 Jan 1924

This story was published without a title or author's name. I made up the title.

WE'D BEEN playing cards in the mess tent and I was on the point of turning in when a figure dashed through the clearing and caught me by the arm. It was Blake, our second in command.

"Grant!" he cried. "I want to talk to you about Miss Hazlett."

I drew a deep breath and waited.

"I've been scouting," he said jerkily, "and the devil men are closing round the camp in thousands. They've got us this time, for a pinch. And then—"

"And then?" I said questioningly. "There's no escape for us as a body, but one— or two— might break through. I want you to take her, and good luck to you both."

"Why don't you take her?" I asked. "My place is with the men."

"But, perhaps, she'd rather your company, and you like her. I guess I can stand the racket as well as the rest. Don't be an ass!" he shouted. "She doesn't care for me— in that way. Besides, as a scout you've no equal, and I know you're a white man. She'll be safe with you. Shake!"

We shook hands; then we went to Hazlett. He was lying in his hammock reading. He received the news like a Briton.

"If anyone can save her, you can, and if the worst come to the worst save her from these devils!"

I bowed assent. He brought her from her tent while I made ready for flight At first she refused to go; she said she'd rather die with us.

"Grant will see you through, Elsie, if anyone can."

"And if you should fail"— she glanced at me— "then—"

"Yes," I promised.

"God help me!"

She hung round her father's neck, and then, sobbing, followed me into the darkness.

I went first, on hands and knees, my knife between my teeth; she followed some yards behind. I found one savage in our way, then another. I knifed them quick, and hoped she hadn't noticed it. We saw no more in the clearing, but I could hear them all round beyond. Then we reached the crest, and below us could spot them, dark as it was.

She crept beside me, trembling, and I pressed her little hand to steady her. She was just 21, yet I felt that she was a child compared with me. I wonder if you can understand how a rough chap feels about the woman he loves when her life is in danger? Yes, I loved her, deep down in my heart; but a girl of her stamp was too good to mate with me. Elsie Hazlett was a lady, every inch of her; and I— a white hunter, and a member of her father's expeditionary force.

We sat and viewed the camp behind us. Through the fires we could see figures flitting to and fro; there was one that she thought was her father. Well, if she was right, that was the last we ever saw of him.

She broke down and refused to go a step farther; it required a great deal of persuasion on my part so overcome her determination. "I owe to your father to try and save you," I told her, "and you owe it to me to help carry out his wishes. If we're caught, I've got to do that which will mean hell to me!"

"Dear friend," she cried, "forgive me."

Then we went on, threading our way through the prickly undergrowth till we came to the banks of a stream. For a while we halted there, and I opined that it might be best to wait until the attack on the camp began. We had not long to wait before yells and rifle reports rent the air. The attack on the camp had begun.

She was near fainting, so I took her in my arms and waded across the stream. There I set her down and bade her hasten forward. We skirted a native village, deserted save for the women in it, and they were intent on following the movements of their precious army. We passed quite close to some of the huts, and struck a path leading up the face of the mountain behind. There was little moon, and it was at that moment hidden behind the clouds.

When it came out I espied a group of savages a hundred yards ahead, plumed, painted, and armed. Elsie was on the point of screaming, but I clapped my hand over her mouth in the nick of time. We halted in the thick shadow until the moon again disappeared, and up we went, worming our way over rocks and scrubs. At length we gained a hollow, and, resting, waited for the moon to shine again.

I peered into my fair companion's face; she looked several years older, and yet, at times, she seemed naught but a child. She clung to me in child-like fashion and buried her face against my shoulder. Resting there, there fell on our ears the sound of weird singing. I had learnt enough about the customs of savage tribes to realise that it spelt victory. They had taken the camp. The singing was taken up by the savages below, and others took it up in the path ahead. Along the path we were flying for safety, and I had hoped to find it free.

We exchanged glances. Elsie and I.

"We can't stop here," I said. "We must go down by the same path. In their excitement they may fail to spot us."

We climbed down until we were no more than twenty yards from the nearest savage. There we found the hill was more easily scalable on our right. My companion was perceptibly tiring, and. my heart I sickened when I saw the torn condition of her hands.

After about ten minutes' climbing we struck an easier slope. I had great difficulty in assisting her, and twice we both fell. We succeeded at length in finding a resting place— a small cave cleft in the rocks.

"We must stay here," I said shortly. "We shall be safe here for a time, and no one can approach us unperceived. I'll remain on guard whilst you snatch some sleep."

I sat down near the entrance to the cave, a boulder of rock at my back. She lay down beside me, her lovely head pillowed on my knee.

"You are very kind and brave," she said, looking up at me from out of the corners of her eyes. Then she fell soundly asleep.

I sat with twitching, heavy-lidded eyes and watched the sun set the hills afire, and the white clouds, gossamerlike, dissolve before that great awaking light, until, presently, only blue sky remained— that, and the torrid sun overhead. In that great heat following a night of tense excitement and fatigue, I fought a battle royal against the temptation to take rest. Elsie slept on, and I shielded her as best I could from the direct glare of the sun.

It was half-past ten when she awoke and insisted upon taking my place on guard. No need to ask me twice; in a second I rolled myself over on the sand and fell into a dreamless sleep.

When I awoke I felt strangely at peace with the world, and the reason was not far to seek, for I discovered that my head had been pillowed upon my fair companion's lap.

"I have seen and heard them," she said, "just across the brow of this hill."

"And you never woke me!" I cried. "Plucky little pal!"

In the sweltering heat the very water tasted hot. Having refreshed ourselves I proposed that we should study the lay of the land. From the summit of the hill we could see the great plain stretching out below us— our path to safety— and little bands of savages were searching it as far as the eye could see.

"They are searching for us," I told her. "We acted wisely in coming up here."

I saw other sights— notably a black patch, which was once our camp. Naturally I avoided all reference to it, and I hoped that her eyes had failed to locate it.  On our right we, beheld a towering spur of rock; beyond which I felt certain the devil's cave lay. Several paths were running in that direction and it  seemed fairly easy of approach.

"Well," I exclaimed, "we'll have to remain here to-day and lie low. When the hour is favorable we must make a dash for the plain."

All that day we dozed in turns. By sundown I was nearly dead, and my companion was reduced to utter listlessness; several times that day, beneath that swelter of heat, she had fainted away. She revived a little after sundown, and as soon as it was quite dark we picked our way, going in the direction of the Devil's Mountain.

"Brave little pal," I said. "If only you can continue to hold out, we shall win through."

She thanked me and placed her little hand in mine. There, under cover of that great darkness, I felt myself grow sentimental— I, a hunter of big game, no fit companion for a girl of her refinement and charm. The temptation to take her and crush her in my arms passed as quickly as it came. Poor old Blake had called me "a white man." Yes, I would protect her to the end of the chapter.

We had stumbled along for a couple of hours, when I detected a reddish glow ahead. It grew more lurid as we approached, and at last we found a huge opening between two pillars of rock, and framed in the space a great image. At the back of his image a tunnel led through the rocks beyond. Before this hideous erection of stone some old medicine men— devils, forsooth!— were attending to a monster fire. The sight sickened me, for I knew we were about to witness human sacrifices. Ah, God, how she must have suffered! I can well remember the expression in her eyes— such eyes!—  brown and luminous, and trustful as a child's.

We saw everything— and with shuddering, yet some strange power held us fastened to that spot. Beneath the cover of the smoke, which arose like a curtain, we crawled into the tunnel in the rear, and felt tolerably safe in that inky darkness. There we slept soundly in turns, and tarried there all the day following, living on few biscuits. Water we had in  plenty near the mouth of the tunnel.

On the morning of the third day our stock of biscuits was pitifully reduced, and I decided that we had better strike for safety; death in the open was preferable to dying like rats in a trap. By this time I was greatly worried by reason of my companion's condition: she was now so weak that I had to support her with my arm; yet, withal, she was always gracious, patient. and charming. It was just hellish to have to watch her fading day by day, and to feel that I was powerless to do anything for her betterment. How I kept my sense is a mystery!

On the night of the fourth day— our third inside the tunnel— we crawled out under the open, sky. The fresh air, of which we took copious draughts, acted like a tonic on our jaded nerves.

We had succeeded in getting dear of the Devil's Cave, thank God! After a while we stood up and clasped hands.

"God, bless you for proving a true friend to me," she said tearfully.

For answer I could only bend and kiss her little hands, so profoundly was I stirred. When speech returned to me, I said: "Little pal, if we can get out of this tangle, let's try to forget it."

A thick mist blotted out the hillside as we descended. Later, I shot a low-flying bird of prey, and we fell upon it like savages. Tramping along, day after day, we discussed many things— if only I had dared to make known my love for her! There were moments when I was foolish enough to imagine she cared. She chatted about England and her old home in Devonshire, and this latter reference only tended to intensify the hunger in my heart, for I was merely a wanderer on this earth's crust.

Hungered, ragged, and with bleeding feet, at last we reached the coast— and final salvation. The Consul accorded us a great reception, and Elsie was borne in triumph to the Consulate. I was received at a hotel. Before we parted she came to see me. It was well that she did, for the next day found me in the throes of fever.

Her last words to me were, "I owe my life to you; name your reward. To-morrow I intend leaving for Durban, en route for England. Call to see me before I go."

There was a smile flickering around her pretty mouth, and a soft light shone in her eyes. I believed she guessed my secret, the little witch! For the second time in my life I kissed her dear, white hand. That was the last I saw of her. The next day the cursed fever had me in its grip, and for weeks I lay in delirium. Nothing more remains to be said.

FOR SOME minutes we remained silent; then the man who had listened to my story broke the silence.

"And the girl? Have you not written to her?"

"Yes," I said shamefacedly. "I sent her a note when consciousness returned to me. In it I declared my love for her; I also told her that I was not a fit mate for her."

"Grant, you are a white man, and a gentleman. You are also no end of an idiot. That girl would have considered herself jolly lucky to have had you for a husband."

I laughed bitterly before replying. I was anxious to change the subject.

"You have no right to discuss the girl." I said with heat.

"Every right in the world, old man!" he laughed. "For it happens that I am her brother; she sent me here to find you. Shake hands, old chap."

____________________

8: Marianna and the Fish Prince

R. E. Vernéde

1875-1917

The Strand Magazine, Feb 1902

"A Story for Children"

Robert Ernest Vernéde was an English poet and short story writer, educated at St Paul's School and at Oxford. Although over age, he joined the army in August 1914 as a second lieutenant, was wounded on the Somme in 1916, and after hospitalisation in England, returned to the front where he died in combat.

IT IS is related in the Fairy Chronicles that once upon a time Moralia was the topsy-turviest country in the world. Pigs flew about there and fishes were to be seen walking on land, and if you decided that the tree in your garden was a pear tree it was pretty certain to grow strawberries in the winter and apples in the spring. That kind of thing, of course, had happened before in other kingdoms, but in Moralia it went to extremes. Take pigs, for instance. The trouble was not to drive them to market, hut to get them to settle down when they had arrived there. Often, when a farmer thought he had his pigs fixed safely in the pig-market and was bargaining with a trader for a fair price, whir-r-r, then would be a flutter of wings, and off the pigs would sail to the highest palm tree, leaving him agape!

"What can you expect in Moralia?" the intending purchaser would say, and would betake himself to some more certain market.

Again, travllers would often find the highways blocked by a shoal of herrings that had strolled ashore, and everyone would have to turn to and salt them where they stood, and in the meantime people could only get about by way of the canals, unless those were also blocked by cats and horses swimming for their pleasure.

It was annoying, too, to order a pound of greengages and find when you opened the bag that they had turned into mangoes or some sort of fruit that you didn't like nearly so much; or to purchase periwinkles and discover that they were really only pins. You cannot eat pins, at least, very few people can, and you cannot fasten dresses with periwinkles: and, naturally enough, trade soon fell away from Moralia. For nobody ever knew what was going to be what. At school the children used to write things with their india-rubber and erase them with their pencils. The schoohnaster used to say that he wouldn't have his pupils writing copperplate. And certainly their copybooks did not resemble it.

Altogether, matters in Moralia were in a very bad way. People in other countries shook their heads over it and said that it couldn't go on like that. They said that if that was Moralia's boasted civilization they didn't think much of it. All the same, it did go on until what I have to tell had happened. And the cause of the topsy-turviness, as very few people knew, was that the King of Moralia had offended a Wizard.

It happened in this way. The King, who was the most prim and proper gentleman in the world, a little too proper and prim, perhaps, was invited to attend a banquet the Wizard was giving. He didn't like to refuse, because that sort of invitation is equivalent to a command. But at the same time he disapproved of the whole thing. He disliked the Wizard and he hated anything magical— which is a foolish thing to do. As a result, he wore a very glum face throughout. When he opened his mouth at all it was to criticise the dresses and the behaviour of the fairies present or to speak sharply to the invisible hands that waited on him.

Also, at the end of the feast, when the gnomes and trolls began to exchange cigars, and the Wizard himself, a little excited with nectar, perhaps, began to talk what seemed nonsense, the King could contain himself no longer. "I can't agree with you," he exclaimed, at last.

What about?" the Wizard inquired. He had noticed the King's frowning behaviour already, and was by no means pleased.

" That two and two make five," said the King.

"Ah, but you don't make allowances," began the Wizard, "for what we—"

"They only make four," said the King, abruptly.

Now, if there is one thing that. Wizards dislike more than being contradicted, it is being interrupted, and this one, though courteous for a Wizard, glowered.

"It seems to me," he said, very slowly and distinctly, "that you don't make allowances for what we call magic."

"No, I don't," snapped the King.

"Why not?"

"Because I think it's grossly exaggerated," said the King.

"Indeed!" There was a dead pause as the Wizard spoke, and the King became aware that the eyes of all present were fixed upon him. There were green eyes, and red eyes, and white eyes, some fiery and some dull, but they all stared at him until he felt dizzy. He almost expected to be turned into a stone or a stock-pot or a stork. But as a matter of fact nothing, as it seemed, happened at all. Only, when the King arrived back in Moralia, having slept all night on the road, the magic had taken effect and Moralia was topsy-turvy.

The King's feelings may be imagined. He had been so orderly, and now everything was so contrary. He tried to wring his hands, but found himself walking on them instead, and he had to be content with wringing his legs. Anyone who has tried the process knows that it makes things appear even more curious than they are.

For a moment the King fancied that it was only he that was bewitched, but he was mistaken. The Lord Chamberlain came in, and he was holding one arm to his side like a handle and the other curved outward like a spout.

"Is—is anything the matter with you, sire?" he asked, observing his Royal master in so unusual and undignified an attitude as is involved in trying to wring one's legs.

"No," said the King, sharply, "why should there be?"

"I don't know," said the Chamberlain, hurriedly. "But I fancied that you were ups—"

"What's the matter with you, though?" cried the King.

"Nothing," said the Chamberlain, who still held his left had in the shape of a spout. "Nothing— nothing at all— but— er— it's a curious thing— very. I feel as if I were a tea-pot."

"A tea-pot ?" repeated the King. He was about to say that, in that case, the Chamberlain had better resign his office, but, instead of doing so, he found himself crying out:—

"Hurrah! I'm a tea-pot too. Let's all be tea-pots!".

Tea-pots the King and all his Court were for the rest of the day, in so far as curving their arms and wearing a strainer on their left hands could make them so.

Next day the King suggested in a shamefaced way that they should all fly kites. And so they did, or rather the kites flew them. For the kites ran along the ground, while the King and all his Ministers perfomed the most curious gyrations in the air at the end of pieces of string, with long tails fastened on to. them. Next day they fancied they were Polar bears, and insisted on climbing up poles and having buns thrown to them. And so matters went from bad to worse.

The strange thing was that nobody laughed at them, for everyone in Moralia was afflicted with some absurd fancy or other, and though all felt ashamed and ill at ease there was no one who could see precisely what was ludicrous and extravagant.

For the King had brought up his people to be very stiff and to disbelieve in magic, and though they were now bewitched they were all as solemn as ever.  And at the end of sixteen years, when the King's daughter, the Princess Marianna, came of an age to be married, she was the most eccentric and most solemn person in the kingdom. It was natural enough that this should be so. The Queen-Mother had died when the Princess was but an infant, and Marianna had done as she pleased in the enchanted country all her days. Now she was the most beautiful Princess that has probably ever existed. Her hair was all gold and came below her knees, and her eyes were like violets, and she was lithe as a panther. The fame of her great beauty had induced many Kings and Princes to journey even to Moralia, which, for several reasons, had become one of the most perilous as well as one of the most trying places in the world to travel through. One reason was that the inhabitants would sit on the tree-tops and throw cocoa-nuts down on anyone passing; another, that the sign-posts were all put wrong, so that one wandered round and round as if in a maze, and as often as not got into some morass or fell into some hole that had been dug for an afternoon's amusement. But the chief reason was that the King had put at the head of affairs the most monstrous creature— a Sea Prince— who had come up out of the sea to make mischief in Moralia. The poor King thought he must be a genius because he was so ugly. He resembled a cod-fish with whiskers, and he walked sometimes on his fins and sometimes on his tail. And as he had determined to wed the Princess Marianna himself, despite his gruesome ugliness, he naturally encouraged her in all her eccentricities and cast every possible obstacle in the way of the Kings and Princes who came to woo her. Many of these had perished already, and it seemed likely on the day of Marianna's coming of age that no more would venture after her. Nor could her wedding be much longer delayed, since the King was getting old and must have some successor. The cod-fish sat in the Cabinet that day and chuckled and rubbed his fins.

"I shall wed Marianna to-morrow," he gurgled to himself. And he opened and shut his great slit of a mouth in a way that one might suppose would have made even the most daft Princess shudder, if she could have seen it. But, as a matter of fact, Marianna was up and away in the woods, swinging in the high boughs of an acacia. She had not permitted any of her maidens to do anything for her. She would not have her hat on nor her shoes, and only at the last moment, in a spirit of fancifulness, she had caught up her opal slippers and taken them with her. The inhabitants of Moralia had given up the pastime of throwing cocoa-nuts from the trees at wayfarers, for, truth to tell, no wayfarers came along now. But Marianna had taken the radiant slippers because they were hard and easy to throw, and if anyone happened to pass by she should have something to hurl. Now, she was swinging in the acacia tree. Blossoms of the white, sweet flower dropped in showers about her, as the boughs swayed to and fro, and the sunlight caught in her hair. And she never gave a thought to anything or anybody, least of all to the Prince who at that moment was coming on horseback through the forest towards the acacia tree.

Nor, indeed, did Prince Rideo, for that was the young man's name, gire very much thought to the Princess Marianna. He had heard vaguely of her beauty and of the topsy-turvy country where she lived. Being young and adventurous, and rashly fond of comedy, he had set out to see Moralia. That it was so perilous only added to the charm of journeying in it; and as for the Princessif she were so lovely as was reported, why, he would see her at least. He might fall in love with her, perhaps, but he doubted it.

So he rode on, laughing to himself. He had encountered many strange things already, the finger-posts that led all wrong, and some winged pigs that started away like a covey of partridges, and lizards that lay in the shade to bask, and flies catching spiders in their webs, and sheep driving a flock of shepherds to their folds. Prince Rideo was greatly amused, though he had escaped with difficulty out of a morass and had been compelled to cut to pieces with his sword a herd of geese that attacked him. But he was more greatly astonished when he rode under the acacia tree and an opal slipper, very hard and pointed, hit him on the chest. He caught it before it fell to the ground, and then looked up into the tree.

"Who's there?" he demanded.

Marianna peeped out from among the blossoms, and he thought he had never seen anyone so beautiful. She was sitting on a bough, very ft:arless, and cried out:—

"Give me back my slipper!"

"Did you drop it?" asked the Prince, smiling. Marianna opened her eyes wide to see a man smile. She had never seen anyone in Moralia smile before, for their lack of humour was what made the enchantment work so successfully.

"No; I threw it," she said.

"Then I sha'n't give it to you again," said the Prince, putting it in his pocket.

"Why not?" asked Marianna.

"You might throw it again."

"I do as I please," said Marianna, haughtily. " Give it me back at once or l shall throw the other slipper." As the Prince only laughed she threw the other.

"Now I have both," he said. "And if you are the Princess Marianna, I'll only give them back to you on your wedding·day."

He was so strange and unusual a person to see in that topsy·turvy country that the Princess, in spite of her anger, could not resist talking to him a little. She swung to a lower bough, and her hair was all about her like a cloth of gold.

"But I am to be wedded to-morrow," she said, seriously, "so that I must have my slippters."

"To whom?" asked Rideo, eagerly.

"To the Fish Prince," she said. "He is my father's councillor, and to-day my father is building the church, so that it may be readv for to-morrow."

Prince Rideo was so taken aback by this news that he hardly knew what to do. For he had fallen in love with her on the spot, and to think that Marianna should wed a Fish Prince disgusted him.

"Do you love him?" he asked her.

"Love?" Marianna repeated the word. "I don't know," she said. "I never thought of it."

"Then you shall not wed him," said the Prince, decidedly. He was laughing again now, for he was light-hearted and saw no difficulties in the way. "I shall ride straight to the King, your rather," he said, "and tell him that I love you."

"Oh," said Marianna, thoughtfully. That was all she said, for she did not understand what he meant. Everything was so topsy-turvy in Moralia that love was as unconsidered as laughter. But she did not ask for the opal slippers again, and the Prince rode on with them in his pocket to the Court of the King. He rode so fast that he came to the end of the woods in no time, and, in the open land beyond, a curious sight met his eyes.

Not only the capital city of Moralia stood there, and the great gates of entrance, and the palace, a stately mass of domes and minarets, but also the beginning of a building, such as Prince Rideo thought he had never seen before. It resembled more than anything the steeple of a church stuck the wrong way up in the ground, and all about it was a great concourse of people, working at it in a fashion quite their own. Some men stood with their tools balanced on their noses, one trying in this attitude to plane a log of wood, a second to hammer at a nail that a third was delicately balancing; others stood on their heads, mixing hods of mortar or holding buckets full of red hot coals, such as workmen use, to the sides of bel· lows, as if the buckets could make a draught and the bellows a fire. Nobody paid any attention to  Prince Rideo, until he asked:—

"Which is the King?"

Then several pointed to an elderly man, with a reddish-grey beard and thin legs, who was running aimlessly about balancing a ladder on his head. A crown, fastened to his waist by a cord, dangled at his heels. He stopped as Prince Rideo went up to him.

"What do you want?" he cried.

"The hand of your daughter," said the Prince.

"Ah!" said the King, and he looked worried. "I'm sorry you can't stop now."

" But I can," the Prince objected.

"Ah— well— I can't," said the King. "You see, I'm trying to get this ladder up."

"What for?"

The King, who had started off, paused a moment at this question and put his hand to his head.

"Why, of course," he said, at last; "it's the church, you see. I'm building a church for my daughter to be married in to-morrow. Most churches are built on a wrong principle with their steeples at the top. This one's going to have it at the bottom. It's quick work— quick work." And he began trotting round the steeple again, balancing the ladder and dragging the crown in the same absurd manner. When he completed the circuit, and saw the Prince still standing there, he cried out again:—

"What do you want?"

"The hand of your daughter."

"But she's engaged," said the King.

"She's going to be married to the Fish Prince, who is my Prime Minister, to-morrow. It's a very suitable match. I'm sorry you can't stay for the wedding. But the fact is there isn't a room in the palace to offer you. They're full up— full up."

"Full of what?" asked Prince Rideo, who knew that no strangers had come to Moralia for a long time.

"Full of water," the King explained. "It's a scheme I've got for breeding canaries under water. Quite new— quite new."

"Indeed!" said the Prince, politely.

But the King was running round the steeple again, for the ladder would not remain balanced if be stopped for any length of time. So Prince Rideo rode on, hardly knowing whether to laugh or to cry. Coming to the palace, he inquired of the janitor for the Fish Prince.

"He is in the cabinet," said the janitor. So the Prince rode on without dismounting till he came to the cabinet, and he beat on the door of it with the handle of his sword.

The Fish Prince rose in great fear and came sidling to the door on his tail, for usually no one dared to disturb him. When he saw the Prince he blinked his lidless eyes and snapped his mouth up and down.

"What do you want?" he asked, though he knew quite well what the Prince wanted.

"The hand of the Princess Marianna."

"That is impossible," gurgled the Fish Prince. "I am going to wed her to-morrow."

"You!" Prince Rideo looked at him with such scorn that the Fish Prince shook with shame, like a jelly-fish.

"The King has promised her to me," he choked out.

"Well," said Prince Rideo, "I will promise you something also. And that is, if you're not gone to the lowest ooze of the sea by to-morrow when I return, I will kill you with my own sword."

Then he turned his horse's head and rode away into the country.

How was be to keep his promise? Moralia was in so topsy-turvy a state that the Fish Prince could do as he pleased in it and no one detected his hideousness. Prince Rideo ground his teeth to think of it, and his horse took the first road that happened and carried him into a woodless country of rock and sand. Quite suddenly the vision of the foolish King, balancing the ladder on his head, came to Prince Rideo's mind and, despite his disappointment, he laughed aloud.

"Did you laugh?" An old, old man came out from behind a rock and put the question.

Prince Rideo replied courteously that he did. "Who could help it?" he added.

"And yet," said the old man, "you are the first who has laughed in Moralia for many years. Lack-a-day!"

He looked so miserable that the Prince almost laughed again, and perhaps it was as well that he did not quite laugh. For the old man was, in reality, the Wizard who had cast the spell in Moralia; and the Fish Prince, who had taken such advantage of it, was his deadliest foe. But even wizards cannot always undo their mischief when they will. And it had been ordained by the fairies that only when a man who could laugh came to Moralia and brought to it a phial of the water from the fountain that is in the middle of the sea could the land regain its former state. So the Wizard was naturally very pleased to hear the Prince laugh, and explained why.

"Will you fill the phial from the fountain?" he asked.

The Prince turned his horse's head. "I will go at once," he said.

" Ah," said the Wizard, smiling, "you are bold, Sir Prince. But remember one thing. The Fish Prince is your foe and has endless power over the sea. He will cast every ohstacle in your way—"

"Give me the phial!" said the Prince, smiling.

"Here it is," said the Wizard. "And with your permission I will shoe your horse's feet, that they may not slip in the waves."

"Make haste, then," said Prince Rideo. " For by to-morrow I must be back to give Marianna her opal slippers."

The Wizard shod the horse swiftly with enchanted shoes, and it was well that he did so, for when Prince Rideo came to the sea-shore it seemed that he could go no farther, for the deep lay all around to the horizon, and there was no boat at hand or any wood with which to build a raft. But the horse galloped, and the Prince perceived that he was on a narrow causeway of rocks that ran out seaward just under the water's surface. It was more slippery than ice, but the horse sped on, until land became dim and indistinct behind him and then faded away.

"This is easier than I imagined," said Prince Rideo.

Hardly had he spoken when the sea became black with thousands of monstrous crabs, as big as men. They had claws like pincers and their beady eyes glared venomously. The Prince struck at them with his sword bravely enough as they scuttled up the causeway; but the steel rang vainly on their backs, and the Prince would have been wrenched down and devoured had not the horse galloped like lightning along the rocks so that the crabs could not keep up with him.

"The Fish Prince can do nothing," said Prince Rideo, exhilarated wilh the speed. As he uttered this there arose a most rich and entrancing music to the left and to the right of him, and the Prince looking out in the sunset saw far off in the sea the most beautiful maidens singing to the melody of golden harps. They and their songs were so beautiful that the Prince pulled at the reins and would have ridden off the causeway to greet them; but the horse galloped on, on, on. And though the Prince was angry at first he saw later that there was good reason for it. For these were the sirens who wait for men in the sea to drag them down; and, as the sun sank on them, he saw that the maidens had sharks' tails and were a part of the Fish Prince's conspiracy.

"I had best be careful," he said. And at the words the sun went down in the sea and a great storm rose. Billows swept hundreds of feet over the causeway, and the foam seemed to lash the very sky. But the horse galloped on, and Prince Rideo clung to the saddle manfully, though he was almost suffocated with surge. Sea-snakes swam alongside in that tempest, spitting, and squids, like branching trees reached at him with their suckers, and giant rocks moved to and fro trying to clap him between them. But Prince Rideo spurred forward. And then quite suddenly the storm ceased, and the darkness was drawn apart like a curtain and the full moon came out. And there, just ahead of him, a fountain spurted out of the middle of the sea.

You may be sure that Prince Rideo filled his phial with no loss of time and set out on the return speedily. No peril threatened him now, but he had come farther than he supposed, and dawn broke before he had got to land and arrived in sight of the palace once more. A great procession was moving towards the steeple, which still remained unfinished. The crowd of people was in every conceivable attitude except that or ordinary mortals walking on their two feet, and everyone was doing something intensely absurd in the solemnest manner.

At the head of the procession the King was walking on one leg with his crown round one knee, with the Archbishop beside him trying to roll his mitre like a hoop. Behind them walked the Princess Marianna, bare-foot, leaning on the fin of the Fish Prince. She looked so lovely that Prince Rideo's wrath knew no bounds, and he thundered up with his drawn sword and broke the phial violently in the fish's face.

The effect was instantaneous. Everyone came to their feet, stared, and burst out into laughter. The Archbishop ceased rolling his mitre, and the King slipped his crown on to his head. As for the Princess, she shrank back and looked with disgust on the Fish Prince.

"Who is this monster?" she cried, and shut her eyes. In that moment, while the creature still reared and snapped, Prince Rideo ran him through with his sword, as he had promised. All the crowd cheered and laughed. But Prince Rideo held up his hand for silence.

"Moralia has been bewitched," he said, "for many years, but to-day the water of the Fountain of Laughter has broken the spell, as you all see. And now Moralia bas become itself again."

Then he turned to Marianna. "Will you wed me now?" he asked.

She smiled and blushed and looked more beautiful than ever. "I have no shoes to go to church in," she said.

Prince Rideo drew out the opal slippers from his pocket. "These will fit," he said, and she put out her foot for him to try them on.

"But— they are my own!" she exclaimed; and then it came back to her how the Prince had ridden under the acacia tree and all that had happened after, and she smiled and blushed again.

"Now you must marry me," said Prince Rideo.

"I will," said Marianna, and she did. For they went straight to one of the proper churches, with its steeple the right side up, and the Archbishop superintended the ceremony. Then the people asked the Prince to be King, and the old King asked him too. So he was given the crown and ruled wisely and well. And no country in all the world was less topsy-turvy than Moralia, and probably no country ever will be.

________________

9: The Bookworm's Arms

C. J. Dennis

1876-1938

Weekly Times (Melbourne) 14 Aug 1915

Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis ( "Clarrie" to his mates) was one of Australia's famous "larrikin" poets.  He, Banjo Patterson, and Henry Lawson popularised the use of Australian slang in literature. Besides poetry, he also wrote prose, which is remarkably hard to find now. This short story is a uniquely Aussie slant on the Bacon/Shakespeare controvery.

A TRAVELLER sat outside the small public-house in the small back-block town, up among the wooded hills of the Australian timber country, and gathered information on local topics from the oldest inhabitant.

When one says "gathered" it is not to be implied that any strenuous effort was necessary in the process; for the oldest inhabitant was so willing, not to say eager, to supply the information that the attention to small facts and wealth of wordy detail was at times almost embarrassing.

The traveller had brought it upon himself through an innocent and casual remark intended rather to open conversation than to extract any precise or deserved information; and thereafter the traveller's share of the discourse was confined mainly to nods and shakings of the head.

The simple remark that heralded the deluge had reference to the quaint name of the public-house before which they sat. The oldest inhabitant looked innocent and harmless, and the traveller being of kind heart, hazarded the remark that touched the bigger of his companion's loquacity; but, like many another before him, he did not know that it was loaded.

"Isn't that rather a queer name to give a country hotel, the 'Shakesbacon Inn'?" asked the traveller, pointing to the sign above the door. "What is it supposed to mean?"

The oldest inhabitant eyed him keenly from cut a maize of uncombed white whiskers, and shook his head sadly.

"It's a compromise; that's what it means," he said very soberly and mysteriously. "And it was that, an' nothin' else, that saved this here town from bloodshed an' sudden death."

Still the guileless traveller toyed with fate. "I don't quite understand," he said.

"O' course, you don't," replied the oldest inhabitant. "Nobody do understand till they're told. People come to this here town, an' look at that there sign, an' scratch their heads, an' all of 'em ses like you, that they don't understand. How could anyone understand a name like that, the 'Shakesbacon Inn,' 'less they was told? Now, you listen to me a bit, an' I'll tell you.'

NOW, in the first beginnin' (went on the oldest inhabitant) in the first beginnin' the name of this pub was the "Railsplitters' Retreat," an' a nice 'propriate sorter name it was, till George Tonks come on the scene an' took over the licence.

George wasn't nohow cut out for an hotelkeeper— edicated, he was, an' full up to the neck with learnin', an' big words, an' all sorts o' ologies an' 'ographies, an' sim'ler knowledge. But the pub had belonged to George's uncle, an' when he died he left the house to George on condition he looked after it himself for a year, an' give up his job at the bookshop in the city.

There was a sort of nasty spite about that ole uncle's will, because him an' George was always havin' disputes about the valyer of edication, an' books, an' them sorter things; so by makin' a publican of him he reckoned he'd cure George of his readin' an' studyin' habits. So George took over the hotel, an' began right away to study out how he could euchre the dead hand, so to speak, that had redooced him to sellin' beer.

(Just here the patient traveller tried to wedge in a remark about bedtime, but the oldest inhabitant was off and away again before the other had finished clearing his throat).

Howsomever (continued the storyteller) first thing, George ups an' changes the name of the house. I'll never fergit how the chaps stood round and stared when they first seen his noo signboard. He got it done in fancy letterin', an' hung it right across the front of the house; an' there it stayed for close on twelve months starin' us in the face ten times a day— (them that wasn't teetotallers)— an' at first none of us could make head nor tail of it—

THE BOOKWORM'S ARMS

Stan's to reason, any chap 'ud be a bit puzzled first time he bumped up agin a name like that. It was bad enough, in the first place, to call any pub be sich a name as "Bookworm"; an' I never yet heard of a bookworm, or any other worm, with arms; or laigs either, fer that matter. Howsomever—

(Again the traveller sought gently to interpose; but again the oldest inhabitant was first off the mark.)

Howsomever, that there signboard was only the first step, as you might say, in what George called his "campaign of culcher" in the district. Next thing, he turns his bagatelle room inter a li'bry, an' then his bar-parlor inter a readin'-room. There was books and papers all over the place. Even in the front bar there was shelves containin' the "Immoral Works of Shakespeare," as ole Bill Waddell called 'em, an' even on the bar counter was the "Inkline an' Fall of the Roaming Umpire," an' the "Mortal Discourses of Markis Oreelius."

I tell you, George wasn't a chap to do things by halves.

"Beer I sells," he ses, "because I got to; but books I has because I likes 'em. An' the man who comes to my house to drink my beer I expect for to read my books. Any'ow, he'll be improovin' his mind while he's roonin' his stomach, an' that's somethin'," ses George.

Howsomever, it didn't take no Sherlick Holmes to know whether the fellers liked the beer or the books best at first. It was generally one pint o' beer to three lines o' readin' matter, till George begun to threaten one or two of 'em If they didn't do a little more solid readin' an' not just lookin' over the picters he'd stop their beer.

Then, one day, somebody with an observin' mind found out that George was inclined to give more credit to the chaps that seemed to be takin' a deep interest in litrachoor. A quarter-hour's hard readin' of Markis Oreelius was generally good fer a pint on tick; an, if you knoo enough to ingage George in an interlechal argument whether 'Amlet was off his dipper or no, you could shout for the crowd, an' strap it up till pay-day.

After that a wave of high culcher seemed to come over the whole drinkin' population. You might walk into the "Bookworm's Arms" any hour of the day an' see old man Mackillican with his nose burled in a volume of "Paradise Lost;" an' the nearest thing he knew to Paradise regained standin' at his elbow in a mug— an' not paid for, either.

Then, when George got 'em fairly goin', he ups an' starts a Lit'ry Society an Debatin' Club, an' you'd be surprised how that thing caught on. Most men likes an argument; but when a man's had a couple of free drinks at the beginnin' of it, an' the prospect of a couple more at the end of it, an' one or two in between to keep him interested like, it's reely su'prisin' how worked up he gets before it's all over.

Them debatin' evenin's o' George's was a fair treat. There was old Ben Harker, who read all the driest books apurpose to work up a thirst; when he had one or two in he was always ready to emphasise his argument by aimin' the "Inkline an' Fall," one volume at a time, at the head of his opponent. He was a shinin' light o' literatoor, was old Harker.

In course o' time the boys come reely to enjoy them evenin's at George's. They took to discussin' eathen mythology instead of horseracin, an' had evenin's with Shakespeare instead of playin' cards or shakin' dice. As for George Tonks, he was so tickled with the idear that he was raisin' the moral tone of the town an' introducln' culcher to the masses, that he forgot to put down half the drinks we said we'd owe him fur. Why, I must have averaged two drinks a day meself that he fergot to charge me for. Ah, them was the good old times!

It was what you might call an ideel existence, takin' everything into consideration, an' everybody seemed quite content to let it go on for ever.

It would have g'one on, too— right up to this day, perhaps— if it hadn't been for young Peter Few, an' him fallin' desperit in love with George's sister Alice.

Peter was a chap who had some learnin' himself, an' him an' George got on very well together at first, talkin of books an' so on, until they fell out concernin' whether Dickens or Thackery was the best writer.  An' when they did fall out they fell out proper. I never saw two men so bitter agin one another. You'd think it was a horse or a dog they was rowin' about, to see the way them two went on; an' I found out after that it was about two writin' men who'd been dead for years.

Howsomever, George got his back up proper, an he wouldn't have nothin' to do with Peter, an' wouldn't let him pay no attentions to Alice. Alice was fond enough of Peter for the matter of that, but she was a dootiful girl and was fond of her brother, too.

"No, Peter," she ses to him. "I'd be I glad enough to marry you," she ses, "but I ain't goin' to leave my brother agen his will, an' I mean to go on housekeepin' for him as long as he keeps a nice quiet house, an' respectable," she ses.

That set Peter thinkin'. Most men, I would have tried to smoodge round George an' make it up for the sake of the sister. But that wasn't Pete's way. He meant to get the girl an' he meant to pay George out an' get a score in for Thackery, all the one stroke.

"Look here, Alice," he ses thoughtful-like. "If this was to turn out a rowdy house after all, with me fightin' an' goin' on, would you stay here, then, or would you come away an' marry me?"

"I wouldn't stay in such a house half an hour!" ses Alice, very firm. "When that sort of thing happens, you be ready to take me away, Peter. But," she ses, sort of half proud an half regretful, "there ain't no fear of that happenin'. Why, If It wasn't for the smell of the Iicker and the smoke, an' old Harker throwin' a book occasional," she ses, "you might take the place for a church li'bry."

"I dunno," ses Peter, shakin his head. "It mightn't be always like that. I been noticin' things lately."

"What things?" asks Alice, sharp like.

"Oh, just little things," answers Peter. "Strors shows how the wind blows." And he wouldn't say more than that; just shook his head agin, an' said he hoped for the best. Which, I suppose, he did; meanin' for himself.

Next day Peter gets old Ben Harker inter a corner be himself, an' torks to him reel earnest. He was beginnin' to spread himself, Ben was, as a leadln' authority on lit'rachoor, an' Shakespere was his strong suit; so Peter reckoned he'd be the man to serve his purpose as well as any.

"Look here, Ben," ses Peter, "I'm su'prised at a man of your common sense lettln' hisself be made a fool of by George Tonks the way you are."

"Wotcher mean?" ses Ben.

'Why," answers Peter, "who did he tell you wrote them works of Shakespere?"

"Shakespere, o' course," ses Ben. "Who yer comin' at? Ain't his name printed on the cover?"

"You're wrong, Ben," Peter' tells him, layin' his hand affectionate on his shoulder, and speakin' very serious. "Shakespere never wrote one single word o' them works; an' you been havin' your leg pulled."

"An' ut's you as is pullin' it!" ses Ben, gruff like. "If Shakespere never writ 'em, who did?"

"Bacon!" seys Peter.

"Pigs!" ses Ben.

"I ain't jokin' with you, Ben," Peter answers him very earnest. "It was Francis Bacon who writ them works o' Shakespere, an' I got a book here called "Shakespere 'Dethroned," what proves it beyond all manner o' doubt. Take it home, Ben, an' read it careful; then you'll be able to talk to them would-be scholars up at the 'Bookworms' Arms' an' show 'em you knows a bit more'n them. You wasn't born yesterday, Ben."

Ben was fair tickled to have a chance to take them other fellers down in an argument, an' show his superior learnin', so to speak. He took the book home, an' read it through from cover to cover that night; an' when he'd finished he was so savage with the way he'd been took in about them works o' Shakespere that he was ready to eat any man who said that Shakespere wrote even a copy-book headin'.

Meantime Peter had been pretty busy. He cornered old man MacKillican, an' gave him a book by a bloke named Sydney Lee, what proved, certin sure, that Shakespere's works couldn't have been writ be anyone but Shakespere.

Peter then went round to a couple o' dozen more o' the lit'ry lights, givin' one a Bacon book an' one a Shakespere, an' talkin' so fluent on both sides o' the fence that he had 'em fairly worked up about it.

Then Peter went to Joe Slinks, the coach-driver, an' told him to have a horse an' trap ready on the quiet near the "Bookworm's Arms," 'bout ten o'clock. Then he sat down to wait developments, as the sayin' is, what the night would bring forth.

Along about eight o'clock George Tonks was sittin' in his bar readin', as was his 'abit, an' waitin' for his usual readin' an' drinkin' party.

Sudden, old Ben Harker bust in on him, an', instead of arskin' fer a pint on tick on the strength o' quotin' a slab from Markis Oreellus. or O. Mark Hyam, as he generally did, he bangs his fist on the bar an' shouts

"George Tonks, tell me who writ Shakespere?"

George looks at him over his glasses in his mild way, an' ses, "Shakespere, o course. Who else?"

"Yer a liar," shouts Ben. "Shakespere never did.  It was  Bacon, an' I can prove it!"

While Ben was provin' it in a very loud voice old man Mackillican come in. He listened for two minutes, gettin' redder an' redder in the face; an' then he chips in, too.

"Yer an igerint fool, that's what you are," he ses to Ben be way of introduction An' then the two of em' went at it, hammer an' tongs.

By an by, the other members o' the readin club begun to come in by ones an' twos, an they no sooner arrived than each one took a hand in the argument, an' things begun to get pretty hot, I can tell you.

When George's sister Alice heard the noise of the lit'ry argument she popped inside the bar, an' quick pops it out agin, just in time to dodge a fat volume of the "Roaming Umpire" when Ben had fired at MacKillican, an' missed.

Then Alice went out on the verandah to get her breath, an' Peter came glidin' round the corner Before she quite knoo wot was happenin', he was holding her in his arms, an' she was sobbin' on his chest.  She was so frightened, poor girl.

Meanwhile,  inside, amongst' the lit'rv lights, things was gettin' pretty hot Old man Mackillican can lyin' on the floor, horse de combat, as they says, an' shot in the stummick be the immortal works of Milton. Pat Toomey an' Charlie Hides was standin' one each end of the bar fightin' each other with the "Complete Works o' Charles Dickens" and "Scott's Novels", respective. An' Ben Harker was standin' up on the counter, where he could reach the top bookshelf, and was bombardin' whole company with the Shakesperian Libry. An' every time he fired one o' them books,  he'd let a yell out of him.

"Bacon writ that!" he'd howl, and land Bill Waddell on top of his bald head with a copy of "As You Like it".

"An' Shakespeare never writ that!" he'd yell, and smash George Tanks's spectacles with "Much Ado about Nothink."

Outside, Alice was still sobbin' on Peter Frew's weskit.

"Oh, what shall I do, what shall I do?" says the poor girl.  "I can't stay in this house a minute longer!"

Then Peter sees his chance and begins pleadin' with her to run away with him;  an' Alice was just sayin' for the fourteenth time as how she simply couldn't do it it,  an' how she didn't dare, when "The French Revolution" comes bang through the bar window an' caught her fair on the side of the head.

It didn't take her above ten minutes to do what packin' she wanted to after that, and in a quarter of an hour hour her an' Peter was in Joe Slinks' jinker makin' for the next town at fifteen miles an hour.

Be the time when George Tonks got his lit'ry friends  quiet enough to listen to reason, you couldn't see much of the bar floor for the roons of English literatoor, an' a good part of it was soaked in whisky and rum from the broken bottles off the shelves.

When George could make himself heard at last he gets hold of old Ben Harker.

"Now tell me," ses George, "who was it told you Bacon wrote Shakespere?"

"Peter Few," ses Ben, as soon as he got his breath back. "An' he gave me a book to prove it."

Then George turns to old MacKillican.  "An' who told you Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare?"

"Peter Few," says McKillican, "an' he gave me a book to prove it."

"Where the thunder's Peter Few?" shouts George.

Just then Joe Slinks strolls into the bar.

"I think," ses Joe, "that you might find Peter, an' someone else that's missin', about five miles down the road in my jinker' lookin' for a parson."

Peter found the parson all right, an' long before peace was declared at the "Bookworm's Arms", Alice was Mrs Peter Few.

It took Geroge Tonks a good long time to patch things things up proper, because that there row Ieft a Iot bitterness in the district. One lot of fellers wouldn't go near his place unless he christened the "Shakespere Tavern" an' the other lot wouldn't patrise him unless he called the house the "Bacon Hotel."

Poor oId George was losin' custom both ways; an' at the end of the year he got discouraged an' sold out. But the next man who came was pretty cute.  He fixed up what he called a compromise, an' got all the custom back. So that's how the house comes to be called what you see it— "The Shakesbacon Inn."

"What became of Peter Few and his wife?" asked the traveller, with some show of tired interest.

"Ah!" replied the oldest inhabitant, shaking his head.  "Poor old Peter. He used to be a great reader, an' his favrit work used to be Shakespeare's 'Romeo and Julier'; but larst time I seen 'im about two years later, he was studyin' very hard outer Bacon's 'Tamin' of the Shrew'. Somethink seemed to tell me that Peter was gittin' sorry that he ever riz any doubt about who writ them Works."

________________

10: Mrs Dumphy's Send-Off

C. J. Dennis

Weekly Times (Melbourne) 12 June 1915

A second dose of the Oldest Inhabitant

"WHEN I sees a man (said the oldest inhabitant, as he opened his pocket knife and began attentively to maltreat the palm of his hand) or a woman— pertic'Ier a woman— who gets sorter generous all on a  sudden, after showin' no signs o' the milk o' huming kindness before, as the sayin' is, I begins to arst meself what, accounts for the sudden flow of milk into the cokernut. Now there was Mrs Dumphy—

The stranger, who had already listened patiently to five tales of the oldest inhabitant, mentioned casually, just here, that it was a nice cool night for sleeping.

I SAID there was Mrs Dumphy— (pursued the oldest inhabitant in a tone  that carried mild reprimand)— Nobody in this here town would ever have said, or thought that Mrs Dumphy was fair bustin' with generosity. Fer the matter o' that, seein' as how she counted the logs on her firewood heap every night in case Ben Harker, who lived next door should, borrer one or two durin' the dark hours, she didn't seem to have no strong leanin's to foolish liberality. Counted them out loud, too, so that Ben could hear her, an' made remarks that Ben took as unneighborly. As if any man mightn't run short of a bit of wood through havin' business at the Shakesbacon Hotel, and fergettin' to cut any. Howsomever, from what I'm tellin' you, you can get a sort of inklin' of the character of Mrs Dumphy.

When the news went round the town that the Dumphy family was goin' to leave, I don't know as anybody was pertickler grief-struck. It put Ben Harker in sich good an' high spirits that he went so far to arst her if she meant to take her wood heap with her.

Ben meant it sarcastic, as you might, perhaps, gather from his words; an' he was very much taken aback to have Mrs Dumphy so sweet that he said it almost made him feel bilious.

"You been a good neighbor to me, Mr Harker," she ses, "an' I'll be delighted if you'll accept of the half ton or so of wood after we're gone," she ees. "An'," she ses, "as our kitchen table is far too big an' clumsy to take away in the waggon, I'll be very pleased to make a present of it to Mrs Harker."

Ben told me afterwards that he was so took back at them words that you could have knocked him down with a meat-axe.

Howsomever, he thanked her kindly, feelin' sorter sorry for past remarks he'd seen fit to fire through the back fence, an' went in an' told his wife about the mazin' change what had come over Mrs Dumphy.

"I expect," said Ben's wife, "It's a sort of home-sickness come over her at leavin' the town where she's lived so long. Talkin' of that, I've been told, there's a subscription list goin' around to give Mrs Dumphy a send-off party and a presentation."

"I never knoo." answers Ben, "that the lady was so pop'ler in the neighborhood. By the way, she asked me to keep it quiet about her givin' us the kitchen table, an' not say nothink to nobody till after she was gone."

"I shan't say a word," Mrs Harker told him. "I'm only too pleased to get that table, seein' I've wanted one or so long. I wonder what come over the woman!"

That night Ben an' Mrs Harker had a call from old Mrs Mackillican. She said she was collectin' subscriptions for Mrs Dumphy's send-off an' present, an' would Mr Harker please to give somethin! After calkilatin' a bit Ben shelled out half-a-crown. He told his wife after that it was about half the price of the kitchen table, so they had a bit to the good after all, not to mention the firewood.

"There's no doubt Mrs Dumphy deserves some token of our regard," ses Mrs MacKillican, pocketin the half-dollar, "For a kinder woman never breathed."

"Yes, mum," ses Ben, a bit faint-like, him havin' heard Mrs Mackillican herself say that Mrs Dumphy was the meanest cat in the district.

"Kind is no name for it," ses Mrs MacKillican, "an' so thoughtful for others."

After that the old lady stayed for an hour, talkin' mostly about the kind heart of Mrs Dumphy. And, while she was there, Mrs Joe Slinks, an' Mrs Bill Waddell, an' Mrs Pat Toomey all' come in together, an' all three of 'em was just as admirin' of Mrs Dumphy's good heart as Mrs MacKillican was. They just sat an' talked about that fine generous woman for another half-hour, eyein' one another in a funny sideways sorter fashion that made Ben Harker feel quite uncomfortable.

When they was gone Ben says to his wife, "It's amazin' how all them women has fell in love with Mrs Dumphy, seein' as how they never had a good word to say of her before."

"Ah, Ben," ses Mrs Barker, sentimental-like,  "We never know how much we think  of our friends until we're goin' to lose 'em. I just been thinkin', Ben," she ses; "that that kitchen table will just fit' nicely between our dresser and the door, an' we can use our old table for the washhouse."

"So it will," answers Ben. "I'll go an' get it first thing in the mornin', after they're gone. It was kind of her to give it to us, anyway."

They'll tell you around here yet that the send-off we gave Mr an' Mrs Dumphy, an' all the little Dumphys in the Mechanics' Institoot was one of the slap-uppest affairs of its kind that was ever held in this town; an' the present they gave to Mrs Dumphy, a fine big marble clock, cost near four pounds, an' had a prescription on it sayin' what a kind heart she had, an' how sorry we all was to lose her an' Mr Dumphy an' the little Dumplin's.

The only drorback to a otherwise pleasant gatherin', as the chairman put it, was that Mr Dumphy couldn't be present, or the eldest boy Dumphy, both of 'em havin' terrible colds in the head, Mrs Dumphy explained, and wantin' to take care of 'em so they'd be well enough to do the packin' an' get away next day.

Fer all that everyone had a good time, an' Mrs Dumphy's. eyes was full o' tears when they gave her the han'some clock, which she said she'd carry to her grave; an' everybody said how touchin' it was.

Then there, was sangwidges, an' cake an' froot, an' dancin', an' a drop of licker in the back room for the men as fancied it; an' Ben Harker ain't quite sure what time he got home, they kep' it up so late.

But Ben was up pretty  early the nex' mornin', an' he ses to his wife, "I'll jist listen to hear when the Dumphy's go away, an' then I'll slip in an' get that table an' chuck the firewood over the fence. There's people in this town can't be trusted."

"Why, Ben," Mrs Harker ses to him a bit later, "I do believe the Dumphys must be gone already, it seems so quiet there. Now I come to think of it, I thought I heard a noise, before daylight this morning', like a waggon goin' down the road."

"I'll slip over an' see, anyway," ses Ben, "an' you clear them things away an' make room for the table."

Ben went round the back way an' run his eye over the firewood, an' he was just tryin' the back door, which was locked, when old man Mackillican came round the corner of the house.

"Hullo, Ben," he ses, cheerful like. "Up bright an' early, seein' what you can pick up, as usual. I don't think you'll find they've left much."

"Then what are you after?" ses Ben, rough-like, him not likin' the tone Mackillican used.

"Only somethin' that Mrs Dumphy was kind enough to give my wife before she left," ses the old man. "A kitchen table."

"A what?" ses Ben.

"A table," ses Mackillican," that she gave my wife."

"But she gave it to me!" ses Ben.

"We know all about that, Ben," laughs the old man. "She was always sich a great friend of yours, wasn't she? You don't come them sorter dodges with me, my boy."

"But she did give it to me, I tell yeh!" howled Ben.

When old man Mackillican seen Ben so set about it he began to get vexed, an' they was just enterin' into the beginning of a interestin' argument when Joe Slinks backs a dray in through the gate an' begins loading up the firewood.

"Here, drop that; it belongs to me!" yelled Ben.

But Joe Slinks was very dignified.

"Seein' as how," he says, "Mrs Dumphy was kind an' considerit enough to present the firewood to me before she departed from this town, I can only regard your behavior, Mr. Harker, as an attempt to come at your well-known practices." An' he chucks another lump o' wood into the dray.

That riled Ben so much that there might have been vi'lence there and then if Pat Toomey hadn't come on the scene an' sed he wanted a bit of help to shift a kitchen table.

Both Ben and old man Mackillican turns on him so sudden that Pat wondered if they was both gone clean off their dippers. He was gettin' ready to give 'em back a reel heart-felt answer, when his attention was distracted be Bill Waddell, who just come up an' seen Joe Slinks loadin' the firewood, an' called him a low down sneak thief, without any prelimin'ry perliteness.

It would take me hours to tell you in a proper sort of way all the things that happened, and the words that was said that mornin'.

It'll give you some sorter idear of the size of the disturbance when I tell you that before it was all over there was no less than fourteen excited men in Dumphy's back yard, some of 'em  claimin' the table, some of 'em the firewood, and some of 'em the lot.

At last, after a free fight nearly starting half a dozen times, Joe Slinks managed to got a hearin'.

"Look here, men," he ses; "let me arst you all jist one question. Would any of you here have give a subscription to Mrs Dumphy's present if she hadn't promised you the firewood or the table?"

"We would not!" ses all the others in a chorus; an' I got no doubt whatever but their hearts was in them words.

"Well," ses Joe, "it's plain to me that we've been done. Mrs Dumphy has got her clock an' her send-off, an' all we got out of it is a kitchen table an' a pile of firewood between fourteen of us. Now, it ain't no use fightin' about it. That kind-hearted lady has scored a win. Question is, what are we goin' to do?"

"We can easy divide up the firewood," ses Ben Harker, "be takin' three or four sticks apiece; but I don't see how we're goin' to whack up the table."

"Let's draw lots for it," ses someone. After a lot of barneyin' it was decided that would be the best thing to do, an Joe Slinks went over to tho hotel to borrer the dice, which was considered a more gentlemanly gamble than drorin' strors.

Joe came back with the dice, an' also with the news that the landlord up at the pub was claimin' the firewood, it bein' left him by Dumphy to pay off an old licker score.

Then someone suggested that they may as well break in the back door and get out the table to shake the dice on. After some argument, Bill Waddell put his shoulder to the door and give it a shove.

"It seems a lotter rot, goin' to all this fuss," he grumbles, as he stepped into the house, "goin' to all this fuss," he ses, "over a tup'ny ha'p'ny table," he ses. "Here, who's goin' to carry it out? Because I'm, not!" he ses.

But he needn't have troubled himself, because the table wasn't there.

__________________

11: Hobbled

Edward S. Sorenson

1869-1939

Weekly Times (Melbourne) 25 Sep 1915

"WE WERE honorary members of the Flyin' Fox Extermination Society, me an' Jim," said Murty. "I cant say as we were proud of distinction, 'taint everybody cares to have personal dealings with them critters. They're go out-an'-out obnoxious that if they just brush a peach with the tip of a wing the peach is ruined. It would float to London an' back without spillin' the effluvia; an' when you set about dispersin' a colony of 'em the smell is that mighty powerful you can almost see it. Seems they were gettin' so pestiferous there was no livin' on the river with them. So this society was formed, a secretary app'inted, proclamations issued, an' eventually the army started off for the front.

"We met 'em on the road— about forty of 'em, mostly farmers an' selectors, with a few chaps among them from Sleepy Hollow; an' they had the queerest collection of arms you ever clapped eyes on— breach-loaders an' muzzle-loaders, pistols, revolvers, pea-rifles, carbines, muskets, blunderbusses, tomahawks, spears an' boomerangs, an' other implements of warfare. Tommy Saucepan, the blackfeller, was in front, proud as a starched shirt; an' Dick Daghorn, who was the only cavalry they had, rode on the left flank, in supreme command. He was general. The rearguard was a waggonette loaded with ammunition an' the canteen. Seemed they were intendin' to make a great day of it.

" 'Tany rate, we were soon on the battlefield. The artillery spread round the trees, the detachment with clubs got underneath, an' hostilities began.

"While they kept in that position the casualties were nothing to speak of, but when the dense masses were dislodged from their barracks, an' hundreds o' wounded were flappin' low an' flappin' along the ground, the excitement got so tremendous that you couldn't turn anywhere without meetin' a flyin' waddy or a clubbed gun. An' there were collisions round bushes, sprawlin' over logs an' sticks, an' tumblin' into holes or over one another. Some o' the chaps seemed to think there was no necessity for a lot o' the knocks an' busters, an' only for the tact of the General they'd 'ave become undisciplined. In less than an hour there wasn't half a dozen o' the squadron fit for service. The others were in the hospital, or makin' for if. Didn't take much of an injury to send any of them there towards the end; the hospital was in the same place as the canteen. But the enemy was routed with great slaughter.

"When we'd refreshed ourselves liberally, Mr Bill Waggles comes up to me' an' he says: 'Murty, I've got a couple of parcels here for Mrs Grabben. Her place is just the other side o' that bit o' brush— about a mile an' half from here. I can't go down inyself in this state.' He had some of his complexion missin', an' one leg of his trousers ripped up to the knee. 'Will you an' Saucepan take them down for me?' 'Certainly,' I says; an' Kernel Saucepan bein' willin', we set off. The Kernel knew the way, so it wasn't very long before we were at the door. I hands over the despatches to Mrs Grabben, an' waits for a reply, instructed. she took them inside, an' I hears a great rustlin' o' paper for a minute or two; then a lot o' talkin' in two languages; an' presently she comes out again lookin' quite different.

"What is your name, my man?" she asks me.

" ' Brown,' I says. 'Murty Brown.'

" 'Where do you come from?'

" 'Saddler's paddock— at present.'

" 'What are you doin' there, may I ask?'

" 'Havin' a bit o' fun with the enemy— the flyin' foxes.'

" 'Oh! Is that so?' She swung round to the Kernel. 'An' who are you, pray?'

The Kernel grinned pleasantly.

" 'Me? Baal you know it me?'

" 'Indeed I don't!' coldly.

" 'Me Tommy Tsaucepan, belonga Tsandy Crick.'

"She turned to me again. 'Come inside, Mr Brown,' she says, quite affable. 'Come in, Saucepan.'

"Tommy grinned again, an' we exchanged winks. It looked as if we were right for afternoon tea.

"As soon as we're in she looks the door, an' puts the key in her pocket.

" 'You're havin' a bit o' fun with the enemy, are you?' she says, quite nasty. 'You actually have the impudence to own up to it. The brazen cheek to stand at me door to hear what I'd say! It would be your deserts if I throwed scaldin' water over the pair of you!'

"By cripes, I was knocked all of a heap. 'Excuse me,' I says, 'I don't quite get the hang of this —' She eyed me with the blackest scowl I ever saw on a human face, then turned from me in silent, witherin' scorn. I felt all shrunk up.

" 'Where are you, Cliff?' she screeches; an' a wild-lookln' person comes out of the next room with an old shot gun in his hands. 'Move a finger an'. I'll blow the black scalp off yer!' he says, presentin' it at the Kernel.

" 'Lash him up, Janet.'

" 'The Kernel's eyes bulged, an' before he hardly knew what was happenin' Janet had strapped his hands behind him, an' slipped a pair of greenhide hobbles, shortened to one link, round his ankles. Then she turns to me with a similar set o' fixings. I reckoned 'twas about time to start an argument.

" 'Mrs Grabben—'

" 'Shut up, you dog!'

" 'What's the meanin' o' this outrage?'

" 'Outrage? Ugh! You ought to talk of outrages, the pair o' you after what you did on Monday night. You scamps! As if it wasn't bad enough to hang dead flyin' foxes on my peach trees, an' pile them at my door, an' steal the best clutch of eggs I 'ad for sittin', but you must come insultin' me agin today with more of your filthy varmin. Actually presentin' 'em to me, parcelled up, an' with Mr Waggles' compliments! Loafin' Bill Waggles that never did an honest day's work in his life. I'll make you pay dear for it, you take it from me. It'll be one for the enemy.'

" 'No mistake, my hair bristled at that. I wanted to say so much that I darned near choked. If Bill Waggles 'ad been there I'd 'ave choked him—cheerfully. A man who'd put up a job like that on another, an' think it a joke, wants killin'. I don't say it was him decorated the premises with the foxes— Mother Grabben, I heard tell, 'ad a neighbor or two who wouldn't think twice o' doin' her a bad turn without expectin' any regard for it— but he was one o' the troop in the first raid an' knew all about it the mean swine had sent us to sniff up bull ants with our eyes shut.

" 'Madam,' I says, 'we've been had—'

" 'That's true,' she says, fixin' a scintillatin' eye on me; 'we have you, an' don't you rastle with me, or I'll forget what's due to me an' knock you stiff.'

"I'll stiffen him for you if there's any shinanikin," says Grabben. 'Lash him up, Janet.' He put the gun away (that was only to frighten the Kernel with), an' was makin' a great show of rollin' up his sleeves. He was a man of about 14 stone— an' Janet was no midget, either. There was no p'ints in one man settin' up a rebellion there. So pretty soon I was handcuffed an' short-hobbled like the Kernel. 'Now, go for the constable,' says Janet to her husband. 'I'll look after them till you come back.'

"Grabben was gone in a minute, full gallop. Janet stood watchin' him a bit, then bustled through the back way to hunt a fowl out, leavin' the front door open. The Kernel signalled with his head and eyes, an' we shuffled through as quiet as we could. But there was a heap o' spare hobble rings attached to us, which we couldn't muffle nohow. The clatter o' Janet an' the fowl served us at the start, but she was after us before we were off the verandah. 'Come on!' says the Kernel, an' off he goes across the paddock, Jumpin' like a kangaroo. I was shufflin' fit to disjoint myself, but it was no use. I couldn't go a mile in a week. To 'ave any hope at all, I saw I must do the kangaroo act, too. So I makes a leap— an' pretty near topples over. The loss o' my arms— or the use of 'em— was too recent yet. Old Janet closed up a lot before I could take off again, an' I made three desperate bounds without stoppin.' The first was Al, the second put a bit of a bend on me, an' the third nearly put me on my head— the consequence o' not havin' a tail to balance with. I lost precious seconds gettin' regulated again, an' had to put in some fancy work next. I'd leap sideways just as Janet would go to grab me, then make three more hops, an' after gettin' my balance spring the other way, an' bound on again. Talk about hard work! It beat all the killingest bullockin' I can think of. 'Twasn't the athletics only; those greenhide hobble-straps hadn't seen a bit of grease since they were alive, an' they gave me sore fetlocks before I'd gone twenty yards. An' hot! You could see smoke coming' out of me. An' the old girl all the while was bustlin' here, an' rushin' there, an' abusin' me something awful.

"About fifty yards from the house was a dogleg fence. The Kernel cleared it at a bound. No mistake, he was a champion in hobbles. He'd take a dozen jumps right off— quick an' high like a startled wallaby, an' cover more ground in one go than I could in two.

"When I got to that dogleg my knees were bucklin' under me. Hadn't a jump left in me. I made a desperate dive at it— took a pile of it with me, in fact, an' lost my good looks pullin' up on the other side. Lord love a duck! I was fair blown out, an' you could scarce see me for blood an' sweat.

"Janet was surroundin' me in a jiff, but she wasn't speechifyin'. Just puffin'. After a bit she hoisted me on to my knees, an' right then I grasped the great solution. If I wasn't the two ends an' the middle of the stupidest blamed ass goin', don't tell me. By just sittin' back on my heels I could undo the hobble straps with my fingers as simple as getting into trouble. I felt refreshed at once. But I wasn't done with her ladyship yet.

" 'Mrs Grabben,' I says, I'm gettin' sunstruck, which I'm subject to.' I wanted my hat, you know.

" 'Good enough for you,' she snaps.

" 'I feel like dyin'.

" 'Small loss if you did.'

" 'I was thinkin' of you,' I says. 'You'd be had up for manslaughter. See what you've done.... Will you get me a drink, an' wash this blood off?'

"She considered for a minute. Th' sight of the hurts I'd collected in my travels had a softening effect on her. An' I wasn't puttin' it on a little either. As she saw me, I was a jolted up, broken-down, haggard an' melancholy lookin' wreck.

" 'If I lengthen th' hobbles,' she says, 'will you walk back to the house?'

" 'Certanly,' I says. 'I'd sooner die in a house than in a paddock.'

" 'Twould be just like th' pestilence you are,' she says, 'to go an' die on th' place an' make more mess an' trouble for me. It's a great pity you didn't die a week ago.'

"She steered me for a cask that stood at th' back of th' skillion, an' as soon as we gets there I flops down on my knees. She shortened th' hobbles again before she give me a drink. Then she spruced me up like a mother, put ointment on my nose, an' straightened my hat. I was rested by that time. 'Thank you, Mrs Grabben,' I says, an' springin' up I cut for me natural. 'Oh, you dog, you!' she gasps. That was all I heard from her. She was too flabbergasted to say any more.

"When I got back to th' garrison, Bill Waggles was just comin' to his senses, an' the General was pourin' brandy and water down his neck. Kernel Saucepan had laid him out with a nulla.

"Cliff Grabben? He was sittin' with his back against a wheel, tryin' to pick up a box of matches he'd spilt. Th' flyin' column had blocked him, an' he was court-martialled at the canteen."

_____________________

12: The Cap-Box

Louis Joseph Vance

1879-1933

Weekly Times (Melbourne) 2 Oct 1915

Munsey’s Magazine Aug 1904

BEFORE HIM, through a fringe of beeches, loomed a gray, rock-ribbed mansion, shuttered and gloomy. To all appearances it might have been deserted for years; but across a more distant stretch of lawn Alspaugh could see a frantic negro scuttling as for dear life, his rags weirdly fluttering.

Dismounting, he marched to the kitchen door and raised his hand to knuckle a thunderous summons upon the panels. His descending fist, however, encountered nothing more substantial than air; the door had opened before him.

"Well?"

The northern soldier stared, a pleased surprise kindling in his gray eyes. His cap came off abruptly, and he bowed but mutely.

"Weil? What do you want?"

The tone was as repellent as the speaker was decidedly to the contrary. A girl stood upon the threshold; a girl, but almost a woman, dark, rebellious, and wonderful in a number of ways which Alspaugh had scarce time to enumerate; a beauty in a temper. She frowned upon him, fearless, eyes snapping a challenge beneath her level brows; and she stamped a foot which Alsplaugh thought absurdly inadequate for the purpose.

"Could I have a glass of water, if you please?" he asked finally. "I'm powerful thirsty."

Without a word she turned her back and disappeared; when she returned it was with a glass in her hand.

"There!" she said, and indicated the well.

With some trouble he managed to draw himself the drink, swallowing it with composure; the girl remaining mute and almost shamefaced after her first violent outburst. "Thank you," he said coldly, returning the glass.

She struck it from his hand, dashing it against the well-curb, to fly into a thousand fragments.

"Because a northern soldier drank from it?" asked Alsplaugh, gravely in terested.

She nodded furiously, eyes blazing, lips set and hard; perhaps she dared not trust them. Alsplaugh laughed softly, bowed, got to his horse and mounted.

"Good day," he said pleasantly, from the saddle; adding as an afterthought, as he rode away: "My, what an angry child!"

II.

The men of the detail drawn from Alspaugh's regiment, Alspaugh himself among them— came from the half-cleared swamps of the North-west, where they, even as their forebears, had hewn them their homes out of the living wilderness forests; past masters in the art of the axe were they, before whom the slender saplings were swept down like timothy before a scythe.

In time, however, he suspended operations; he was breathing fast, and the perspiration fairly ran down his cheeks.

Taking half a dozen canteens, he sauntered off to the right, in which direction he declared he was positive there must 'be a spring; and was soon lost to the view of his laughing comrades. In time, on rising ground, he came upon a patch of dewberries, and set to work upon it, oblivious to all else until— it came suddenly: "Surrender, or I'll shoot you!"

"The devil you say!"

Reaching for a particularly ripe berry, Alsplaugh tipped his face slightly and gazed Into the muzzle of a rifle. Promptly he straightened up; after which he stood at attention.

"Oh, I beg your pardon. Why, certainly!" he assured his captor.

His first definite impression was of a pair of velvety black eyes glancing purposefully down the barrel of the rifle. Then he found that they were the eyes of a girl, and at once understood that they were eyes wherein one might fall and drown— by good fortune. Afterward he recognised the girl; only a day had passed since the affair of the well-curb.

"Keep straight ahead, sir! You see that big chimney over yonder? Well, go that way; that's Lee and Gordon's mill."

"Fine mess of grist you're bringing them! I say, what are you going to do with me, anyhow?"

"Turn you over to General Forrest. Move faster!"

"Forrest!" he said to himself as he plodded. "That's bad. They say he hangs every Yankee who falls into his hands— if he doesn't eat them. I wonder If she knows that? Guess not; though that's no consolation."

Abruptly he faced about; the girl was startled, but ready.

"Don't do that!" she warned him. "I'll shoot—indeed I will1."

"Shoot, but hear me!" he said gailyi but she saw that his eyes were serious, "I want you to do me a favor; there's no telling what will happen, you know, No. I'm not going to beg off; but I've a mother living up in Ohio. Will you send her this if— if you hear of any. thing happening to me?" He held out his hand; in the palm lay a ring. The girl was relenting. He saw that; she knew that he saw it. But ere she could speak, he interposed. "It's an heirloom, she would like to have it. Just that and my name— won't you, please? It would be a small thing. to do for a dead man, wouldn't it?" He took from his pocket a battered diary and the stub of a pencil, and tore out a leaf whereon he scribbled his name and address. "You'll do it? I can trust you?"

She accepted the ring; the hostility was gone out from her face, a grave tenderness was come into her eyes. But her resolution to hand him over remained unshaken.

III.

Forrest's face was long, lean, pallid) the face of an ascetic lit by the eyes of a zealot. He was a brave, keen soldier, a very representative petal of that brilliant blossom, the flower of southern chivalry; but in his attitude, as he slouched across the table, twisting his Blender white fingers together, eying Alsplaugh, the prisoner found something suggestive of wolfislmess.

Forrest convened the court-martial without ceremony; his voice was hard and unemotional.

"Gentlemen," he said, "this morning I was called upon by a Mrs. Swain. Your neighbor, I believe, Miss Thorpe?"

"She lived two miles down the pike, sir. But—"

"Pardon me. I am coming to that. Mrs. Swain's liome was robbed and burned to the ground yesterday by & gang of bush-whackers led by this man, Alspaugh "

"A lie!" Alspaugh branded it calmly.

"Silence, sir! Mrs. Swain's description of the leader fits this hound in detail— tall, well-built, wearing a blue uniform, a man with grey eyes. The outrage was perpetrated at 11 in the forenoon "

The girl fairly Jumped with relief.

"That proves that he had no part in it," she gasped.

"Why?"

"Because the prisoner was at my home at that hour."

"Indeed?" Forrest seemed not greatly Impressed "For what purpose?"

"He— he asked for a glass of water." She flushed slowly, nor dared to meet Alspaugh's eyes. "I gave it him. He went away at once. He was very gentlemanlike, I thought. I am sure he had no part in the crime, General Forrest."

"Thank you," Alspaugh said gratefully.

"You are sure of the hour, Miss Thorpe?"

"I looked at the clock a moment of two after he left."

"In what direction did he ride?"

"Toward the south."

"He was mounted— yes? He rode away rapidly?"

"It is unnecessary to question Miss Thorpe further on that point," he volunteered. "I readily admit that I rode south— even that I was at the Swain homestead. In point of fact, I arrived in time to see it a deserted, smoking ruin. But it Is absurd to connect me "

Forrest smiled acidly.

"I hold in my hand convincing evidence of your guilt. This belt was wrested from you in your struggle with Mrs. Swain. You can't deny your property?"

It was a plain strap of worn black leather, with a brass buckle bearing the Federal "U.S." But attached to it was a cap box, and on the under side of the flap Alspaugh read his own name, In his own hand: "Adam Alspaugh, twenty-first, Ohio." He moistened the corners of his his with the tip of his tongue,

"It is my name," he said slowly. He fumbled with the cap box, stuck one finger through Its bottom. "You see?" he said. "I don't expect you to bellove me, but I threw that cap box away while we were encamped at Sandy Springs. Some camp follower must have picked it up."

Ho returned the belt, and spread out the palms of his hands helplessly.

The girl could not face him.

Forrest announce in his passionless yoice. "The case is too plain. Can Vou explain what you were doing: Within two miles of Mrs. Swain's house yesterday morning, if you are innocent of this charge?"

"I was on a reconnaissance," he said, "under orders."

"Ah! A spy?"

"If you call a man in full uniform between the lines a spy— yes."

"And may I Inquire what information you got on your expedition?"

"Certainly you may inquire," he answered cheerfully. "But you don't expect me to answer, do you? I think you may as well sentence me to be murdered and have done with this farce, gentlemen."

"Yes," agreed Forrest slowly.

The girl turned and left the room.

IV.

Upon the homeward road her horse get his own pace, a slow one, unchldden. The girl herself was scarcely conscious of her whereabouts.- She rode with a drooping head, wrapped in musings. A dying sun bathed her In a crimson splendor, and upon her hand the carnelian in the ring blazed like a drop of living, palpitating blood— upon her hand! She shuddered.

Clouds gathered, and the night's shadows closed about her swiftly. It was to be a black night, moonless; And when it had passed swiftly, as It would surely pass.

She shuddered again, and was 'shaken by a "sigh deep as a sob.

The guard tent was backed up against the edge of the woodland, Whose nocturnal stirrings made sibilant the long hours to Alspaugh. He sat In the centre of the nlot of moist earth, painfully hunched up; his wrists bound behind his back, his feet similarly secured. There was no one to talk to, not a chance for flight. His hands and feet were numb, and within the tent was black darkness.

In the dawning he was to hang. It was very unpleasant to think about. So he tried to think about the girl. He felt very sorry for her. He could imagine how the horror of it would sting her.

Once he napped lightly. But a slight rustling in the rear of the tent roused him, and he sat for what seemed like ages straining his ears to catch a repetition of the sound, which did not come. Something else did, however—  the coolness of a knife blade against his wrists. He held his breath, a cold perspiration breaking out upon his face, his heart hammering like distant thunder.

The knife sawed through strand after strand, and when it was - done the hilt was thrust into his aching palm. He grabbed it with a silent prayer of thanks, and attacked the ropes upon his ankles with desperation. In a moment he sat free. The sentry still paced up and down, to and fro, unconsciously.

Noiselessly Alspaugh turned over and iay prone, wriggling toward the spot where the canvas had been slashed. As he reached it the groping hand met his face. He seized it, and its mate pressed a revolver into his palm. They were the soft hands of a woman. He could put one and two together very satisfactorily, so he pressed her one hand to his two lips.

Stealthily as thieves In the night they made an arduous passage through the woodland. In one place they waited twenty minutes— as many years!— for a sentry to move to the further end of his beat. At length they were without the lines. Somewhere they came out upon an open road, and the starlight struck down and faintly outlined the face of the girl.

She had stopped. He saw that she was weeping, very softly but intensely. He stood speechless, amazed, until she turned upon him.

"Oh!" she cried. "Why, why did you do it?"

"But I did not do it," he expostulated. "If you believed I did, why did you come to me."

"I don't mean that!" she whispered passionately. "I know that you were innocent. But why—why did you kiss my hand? I hate you!"

"But I love you," he explained in a breath. "How could I help it? You can't blame me." He paused. "Is it the pollution of my lips? You broke the glass. Will you cut off the hand? Or will you give it to another to cleanse it of dishonor? Or"— he faltered— "can it wait? Will you keep it so, for me, until—"

Both were silent.

"I'm afraid of this country," Alspaugh laughed tenderly, after a while. "It's full of surprises. But I'm coming back to it— I'm coming back— I'm coming back!"

But the girl was gone from him, alone through the night; and on her finger the carnelian ring was like a drop of living blood.

_________________

13: Wet Weather

Courtney Ryley Cooper

1886-1940

Weekly Times (Melbourne) 16 Oct 1915

The Cavalier 2 Aug 1913

WHERE the darkness was most dense waited Murphy, of the Harrison street station, his hands deep in his pockets, his head shot forward.

He had been waiting a long time patiently, as was Murphy's habit, unmindful of the drizzle which glazed his raincoat and the breath of chill in the air.

He had been waiting a long time, starting now and then at the sound of a step on the quiet old street, slinking farther back into the shadows at the rumbling approach of the straggling cars— waiting and scowling. ,

There was something about Murphy which indicated that he was obeying orders against his will and his better judgment. "Tips" come often to police headquarters.

But, just the same, Murphy waited. Suddenly his position changed. His hands came out of the pockets and swung aimlessly for a second at his sides before they gripped. He leaned forward and listened.

It came again— a whistle, low, yet sharp. Murphy's lips puckered, and, note for note, they answered the signal. A wait. It came again.

Murphy stepped forward, crossed, the street, his head lowered, his hand  grasping something in one of his pockets. He approached the hazy form
before him.

"Hello!" he said, shortly.

The man turned and Murphy noticed ha, was young, well dressed, and apparently surprised at his voice.

"Hello!" came the reply.

"Waiting for somebody?" Murphy's head still was craning forward.

He was searching the features which showed dimly before him in a vain attempt to recognise some feature of the "mug-room." He walked a step closer.

"Waiting for somebody?" he question again. The man laughed.

"Yes— why?"

"Thought so. You'll find him at headquarters—in the captain's office."

He put a hand forth. The young man drew back just a trifle.

"I— I don't quite understand," he answered. .

"You'll understand after a while, then. Murphy's my name, from head quarters.

"A detective?"

"Yes."

"But what's that got to do with me? I'm not wanted for anything— unless waiting for a friend is something."

Murphy noticed there was a boyish something about the face when the man before him smiled. "Clark's my name. I've just been to a party over on Kalamath, and was coming home. ' There were two of us, you know— two couples. And we just decided that when wo had taken the girls home we'd meet here and go over to my house for the night. The folks are all away. But"— he laughed the least bit— "I spent a good deal of time saying good night, and I guess he went on to his home. I—"

The scowl which Murphy had worn deepened a bit.

"You don't look like a crook," he said at last. "Where do you live?"

"No. 1261 Elizabeth."

"Who's there that can identify you?"

There was a bit of an embarrassed laugh.

"Nobody right now. The folks are all away. I'm the only one home, you know. That's why I was going to have Bob stay all night with me. I—"

"Have you got the key to the house?" A listlessness had come into Murphy's voice.

"The key? Why, of course!"

"That's enough. Let's see you work it."

Ten minutes later they stood before the verandah vof a wide-fronted house five blocks away. Murphy bent as he started to ascend the steps to the verandah and felt the stone of the lower step. He looked up.

"What did you say your name was?" he asked again.

"Bert Clark," came the answer.

Murphy struck a match and peered at the carved name of the lower step.

"That's right," he admitted.

The man had stepped to the door, inserted the key, and turned the lock; Murphy grinned.

"Just a mistake; that's all. I'm sorry. A fellow will make mistakes that way, you know. I was looking for a couple of ice-box robbers that've been swiping stuff on these apartment porches. Sorry! Hope you dont' mind?"

The man on the porch laughed as he swung open the door and prepared to step inside.

"Oh, that's all right!" he called cheerily. "Good night!"

THE LYNX stood in the hall for Just a moment after he had closed the door, listening for the fading steps of the plain clothes man without, and, hear
ing them, smiled to himself. Slowly he felt for the curtains and pulled them. Then he switched on the lights.

"Jane was right," he said to himself as he looked around the hall before him. "It's all as she said. Now, if she hasn't got the wrong dope about them beating it; I'm all right." He seemed to draw his coat about him tighter, and there came a little white into his face. "That gink may be waiting outside to see if I'll light the upstairs,'" he mused. "I've— got to risk it—"

Slowly he ascended the stairs," and as silently as the animal whose name he bore. Softly he felt along the wall for the switch buttons, then hesitated. The Lynx was not in a habit of travelling under full candlepower—in other houses than his own.

Perhaps, after all, Jane's information had been wrong. Perhaps — a moment more of hesitation, then the click of the switch. With animal swiftness the eyes of the Lynx travelled here, there, through each open door as the light of the hall displayed bedroom after bedroom, quiet and destitute of humanity. The Lynx smiled.

"And that harness bull in plain clothes took me word!" he said sarcastically; "but in case he's waiting for me to go to bed—"

He walked noisily into the front room and snapped the switch. There was no need for quiet now. Jane had been right The family was gone; all was easy— and there was the little wall safe before him.

He pulled the shades one by one, and, standing in front of them, took off his coat and collar. He pulled a chair close to the window, and sat In it for a moment that his shadow might show on the shade. He listened."

He heard the steps of some one start from in front of the house and echo more and more faintly up the street. Again the Lynx smiled to himself. He lit a cigarette

He had been right then, after all. Murphy of the plain clothes squad was assured.

And it was then, as the steps faded, that the Lynx became active. A dart to the opposite wall, a click, and the room was in darkness. He raised the shade that the light of a neighboring street lamp might cast its soft glare on the wall safe before him. Then he began his work.

Quietly, quickly he turned the little knob and listened for the click of the tumblers within. Again, again, again, again— and he noted the numbers as the tumblers fell. Once more— slowly and smilingly he worked the combination; what he sought lay before him.

Not so much, it is true; but the Lynx was not a seeker of vast wealth. Solitaires are easier to dispose of than necklaces. After all, 500 dollars a night is not so bad— especially when one has a policeman to aid one.

The Lynx whistled a bit under his breath and tucked the proceeds of his work safely in his hatband. There were some papers. The Lynx passed them by. He knew there would be no money. Slowly he closed the safe and passed to the next room.

For the Lynx needed a revolver. He found it, where he had believed he would find it. under a pillow, and passed on- Quite aimlessly he wandered through the house, rifling a drawer now and then by the light of his little searchlight merely for the curiosity of it. He sought the downstairs and looked at the silverware.

It was heavy and solid. Knives and forks he tucked into the aperture in the lining of his clothing, feeling cautiously now and then to be sure that nowhere did there appear a bulge.

Ten minutes more of work, and again the Lynx laughed.

"And a fly cop takes me to the house just for the company of it," he smirked. "Jane did a good lob, she did. Jane's a good girl, Maybe some of these days, if I keep on getting dippy over her, we'll hook up— maybe."

He felt himself again. He pocketed the little searchlight and fumbled his way to the door. He opened it and stepped out on the porch— and recoiled at the touch of a human hand.

"All right, kid," came the voice of the man outside; "I thought you'd hang yourself if I gave you enough rope. You see, kid, we wasn't sure that Jane woman of yours would stick to her giveaway, so I just thought I'd be sure."

"Jane—" The Lynx trembled a bit.

"Yeh," said Murphy of the Harrison street station, "she kicked in tonight. Got conscience or something and coughed it all up about making the impression of the key and all that stuff. Hated to do it at that, but she ain't built for that sort of work, honest. That's a good kid, that Jane. I kinda like her— Raining a bit harder ain't it?"

But the Lynx did not answer.

__________________

14: Spink

C. J. Dennis

Weekly Times (Melbourne) 17 Jan 1914

MARTY SPINK is an artist— a very good artist I have heard, though I am not in a position to judge such things, being myself too busy in the city to spare much time for the study of art.

I say Spink is a good artist, because I have heard others say so— people who are judges of that sort of thing. Of his own work Spink talks very little, though I believe he does take a pride in it.

What he does talk about mostly— to me, anyhow— is business, and Spink knows about as much of business as does a cow that has never seen a milk bill. Be prides himself upon his business ability and commercial acumen, or, as he puts it himself, his "astuteness in getting inside these grasping commercial rotters who are always trying to take a man down."

Now, Spinks' "astuteness" amounts to paying eighteen-pence for an article that an ordinary business man could get for a shilling. But he always congratulates himself on the fact that he did not pay two shillings; so that, in the end, everyone is quite happy about the deal, especially the salesman.

I might also mention that my friend Spink is a man of enthusiasm— temporary, short-lived enthusiasms most of them, but while he does "enthuse," he enthuses for all it is worth, and is deeply hurt if his friends do not enthuse with him.

I  trust that, through this brief description, you have come to know Spink passing well.

It was on the day before Christmas, not so long ago, that Spink rushed into my office breathlessly.

"Such a stroke of business, sonny! he cried. (Spink, by the way, calls every one sonny. I have heard him use the term to his own father-in-law). "Such a stroke of business, sonny. I've spoiled the Egyptians this time and no mistake."

"Who's been getting at you now?" I inquired unsympathetieally.

"Getting at me!" said Spink, "I tell you, sonny, I've made the best bargain of my life. I've bought a piano— Christmas present for the wife. What do you think of it, eh?"

"Then you have sold your big picture," I remarked, having a fair idea of Spink's usual financial state.

"You think so, do you? I haven't," said he. "But I've bought a piano and paid cash on the nail. Now, how much do you think? Guess."

"Well, a piano, I should think— even a fair second-hand piano— couldn't be got for less than, say, thirty pounds," I hazarded. "But, surely, Spink—"

"Thirty pounds!" he interrupted. "Thirty grandmothers! They'd have grot thirty pounds out of me if they could, you bet. But I'm one too many for these commercial brigands. That's where my business acumen comes in. I'm astute, sonny. Savvy! Astute! Thirty pounds! Bless your little heart! A fiver, sonny, that's what I paid. Five golden sovereigns cash on the nail, and ten and I to have it carted out home. Christmas present for the wife. See?"

"Five pounds?' I gasped. "Five pounds for a piano? You must be 'taking Snink. Where?

"Auction room," said Spink. "Hook's or Crook's, or Rook's, or something. Forget the name. Fine though. Semi-upright grand, by Bubblestein and Bohrs, rosewood, iron frame, real ivory keys, two pedals and a key to lock it with, all complete, for five quid, sonny. Oh, trust me. I know my way about. Happened to just drop in; saw the piano; no reserve I risked five pounds— no other bid. Auctioneer seemed to pass it in.  I pointed out there was no icserve and my bid held good legally according to conditions ot sale. Had him there, eh? He gave in with very bad grace— wanted another two pound ten. Not me! Passed over the cash, got a receipt, all in due form, and the instrument is now being loaded ready to be taken home. Surprise for the wife. What do you think? You must come out to dinner, sonny, and witness the presentation. The little woman will be surprised. Didn't expect a piano this Christmas, I'll bet. But you mustn't say a word about it till the piano arrives. Keep it dark. Want to surprise her. I've timed the arrival for 8 o'clock, just after dinner, managed the whole affair beautifully. Wife knows nothing; van arrives; wife wonders; men descend and carry in large heavy case; I keep dark; wife still wonders. Then the case is opened and, hey! presto! piano revealed— wife delighted, and all is gentleness and peace. What do you think nt eh? You must come to dinner. Sort of acolyte attending the high priest of the presentation. You'll come?"

"Oh yes, I'll come," I said; "but— I—that  is, I hope, it will be all right."

"All right!" cried Spink. "Of course it will be all right. What can go wrong about it?  Stage-managed beautifully. The wife will give us a few tunes and a song or two after dinner. Sort of preliminary gallop for the old jigger, eh?  So long; see you at dinner. We'll crack a bottle afterward and christen the music-box. Don't be late!"

And Spink fled out ot the office in his usual breathless fashion, intent, no doubt on further bargains in view of the approaching festive season.

Now, I knew Spink's wife was musical, a very fair performer on the piano before she was married. Her chief regret since had been that they had not been able to afford an instrument. That was one of the hundred things they intended to get when Spink's "big picture" was sold. Momentous things hung on the sale of that big picture— piano, horse and trap, carpet for the drawing room, costume for the wife, sketching umbrella for Spink, and scores of other expensive items. In fact, judging by the number and cost of the things they meant to get, I should think that Spink would have to sell his picture for something like a thousand pounds.

But Spink had the piano now. Also, I had my doubts.

I arrived at Spink's house in good time for dinner. In fact, it was a little early, for my interest had been aroused in this new purchase of his, and I did not intend to miss the grand finale in case Spink's stage management went wrong and the piano arrived before the appointed time.

The dinner was good from a culinary point of view, but otherwise it Was hardly a success, for Spink was so fidgety, so distrait, when either his wife or I tried to make conversation that the talk was exceedingly jerky and spasmodic at the best; Yet all the time, I knew, he was congratulating himself on his air of perfect sangfroid, and believed himself to be quite at his ease.

"Morty, whatever is the matter with you?" asked his wife. "You're eating hardly any dinner, and you did not answer Mr. Rogers when he spoke to you just now."

Spink started guiltily, then recovered himself.

"Nothing, dear, nothing," he said. "I had a cup of tea and— some other things this afternoon.  No appetite. Excuse me, old chap; didn't hear you speak. I was just thinking out a new composition that has occurred to me. Beastly rude."

We were about in the middle of the second course when there came a violent ring at the door-bell.

"Whoever can it be at this hour?" exclaimed Mrs. Spink, rising to go to the door. The Spink income did not run to servants.

"D—n!" said Spink, as his wife left the room. "It's those beastly piano men, and I gave them particular instructions not to come before eight."

We both rose and followed Mrs. Spink to the door.

It was the piano, sure enough, with three brawny men straining beneath the weight of it.

"Where'll yer have it?" grunted one of the carters.

"Dear me!" said Mrs. Spink. "Whatever have they got? Morty, did you—"

"All right, dear; in a minute," answered her husband. "In here, men, in the dining room, Gently does it. Mind the door! That's it. Now we'll have it out of that case."

Chisel and hammer were procured, and the men proceeded to g'et the instrument out of the case.

"A piano!" cried Mrs Spink, as it was covered.

"Exactly, a piano," said her husband.

"But, Morty, where did you—"

"All in good time," he replied. "Over here against the wall, men. That's it. Mind the paint!"

"Paint?" said the man addressed. " 'Tain't paint. That's veneerin'."

"Exactly," said Spink. "That's what I meant. Good night. Here, have a drink at my expense."

The men departed, grinning, and Spink, seizing the hearthrug, flung it over the somewhat aged-looking instrument,

"We'll finish dinner first," he directed. "Etxplanations after,"

The dinner was ctold, of course; but we worried through on sweets and coffee, Spink eyeing the piano the while, and his wife watching him with surprised curiosity, not unmixed with a little touch of anxiety.

"Now!" exclaimed Spink, gulping down his coffee and moving towards the instrument.

We followed him. I admit that I felt rather nervous. I knew Spink and his wonderful bargains. Judging by its outward appearance I should have been surprised to find that piano perfectly sound in wind and, limb, so to speak; but I rather wanted to be surprised.

I think Spink must have prepared the speech,' It was a Very neat little speech and did him credit as a husband. Finally, with a very pretty peroration, he drew aside the hearthrug—unveiled the present, as it were, and, with a charming bow, handed his wife the key.

With a happy little cry she unlocked the instrument, and, sitting down, ran her fingers over the keys. Then she sat back.

"Oh! It's—it's—"

"What's up?" said Spink, and he tried the keys himself.

"Dear me," he remarked. "Some of the notes do appear to be a bit— deaf."

"Dumb," I suggested.

"Deaf and, dumb," said Spink mournfully; but the next moment he recovered himself. "I expected this," he said, looking round impressively. "I fully expected this. Pianos standing about in auction rooms are apt to get out of order; so I called at Mitchell's this afternoon, and told them to send out a tuner to-night, He'll soon fix it"

"To-night!" exclaimed his wife.

"My dear," said Spink, "I want to have that thing perfect to-morrow. It must be in tip-top order on Christmas Day."

"But, Morty, how ever did you buy a piano?"

"Ah," said he, gazing with pride at the ancient instrument, "that's it— how? A little surprise for you, my dear. A little business acumen, sufficient commercial acuteness to seize an opportunity, and, hey, presto! a piano! Don't worry dear, it's paid for— cash down— receipt in my pocket. It shows you what a man can do who—"

He was interrupted by another ring at the front door.

It was the tuner— a heavy German, with a handbag, spectacles and a large moustache.

He was a very polite German— at first— and bowed elaborately to Mrs Spink, Spink and myself in succession.

"I attend to der bi-ano," he said.

"Right, go ahead," commanded Spink. The German looked around the room. "There it is," said the proud owner. "Tune her up."

The Professor took off his spectacles, and wiped them with a large red handkerchief. Then he put them on again and gazed earnestly at Spink's piano.

"My instrooctions say der vos a grand," he announced at length.

"Well, isn't it?" said Spink.

The Professor merely glanced at him sorrowfully, and, opening the piano, ran his hands over the keys.

"Ach!" he remarked.

He tried it again, lower down. "Himmel!" he exclaimed.

Then he closed the lid with elaborate care and took up his bag.

"Dot vos not a bi-ano," he said.

"Not a piano!" exclaimed Spink. "Then what the devil is it? A jew's harp?"

"Nein," said the German, reverently. "It vos a ruin. It cost, ter do him oop, den dimes as he is vort. Dey send a pill for my exbenses to come here. Goot night."

And he let himself out.

For many minutes Spink stood gazing earnestly at his piano. His wife eyed him anxiously, her own disappointment forgotten. But there was no need for anxiety regarding Spink. There never is. You can't disappoint him for long. In a few minutes he was himself again.

"I was prepared for this," he announced. "Fully prepared for this. The jealousy that exists between these piano warehouses is something scandalous. You see. Mitchell's don't stock the Bubblestein and Bohr's make; probably some of their rivals do. Consequently, they send a man cut to say nasty things about it, refuse to tune it, and, of course, try to make out that the make is no good. Trade jealousy. Rotten trade jealousy; that's what it is. I'm sorry, my dear," he continued, turning to his wife. "We won't be able to have it in order for to-morrow, but after the holidays I'll get another tuner, an independent man, and we'll soon have her going like a good one. Rotten trade jealousy!"

I left shortly after that, and it was some weeks before I saw Spink again.

One day I met him in the street.

"Well, how's the piano?" I asked. "Tuned?"

But Spink wasn't enthusiastic— about pianos. It was book-cases.

"It's a downright shame, sonny," he said. "Do you know, there's a ring  existing amongst these piano people— a regular combine, and they've all boycotted the Bubblestein and Bohrs make— refuse to tune 'em. It's scandalous— restraint of trade— the Government ought to look into the matter."

"Dear me,'' I said. "That's unfortunate for you."

"Not a bit of it," he replied. "Not a bit of it. We're not troubling about pianos, sonny. Wife wouldn't have one. Neighbors on both sides have 'em anyhow, and they're an infernal nuisance. Besides, if she should want to play at any time she can always run out to her mother's. But, I Say, sonny, you ought to see my bookcase. I've turned that old musics-box into a book-case, and I'm going to make a frame for a sketching umbrella out of the wires. But the book-case! Real rosewood, and the quaintest, most artistic thing you ever saw. Quite aesthetic, Holds all my books, and room for more. I got a bargain there, sonny. If I could pick up another at the same price I'd turn it into a sideboard. Bargain? I tell you these commercial pirates have got to get up very early in the morning before they get the best of me. You must come out and seo it. it's the most unique decorative thing you ever set eyes on. It was an inspiration! Come out on Sunday and have a look at it, will you?"

I said I would. Spink was happy and quite satisfied about the quality of his "business acumen."

SO, I have no doubt, was the man who sold him his piano.

_________________

15: To the Tune of a Dance

Alice and Claude Askew

1874-1917 and 1865-1917

Weekly Times (Melbourne) 7 March 1914

"ISN'T the 'Eton Boating Song' a ripping waltz, Miss Cowper— the best tune in the world?"

Young Noel Harbord smiled cheerfully at his partner, the quiet little lady in grey satin with whom he had been sitting out the last waltz, for Agnes Cowper had declined to dance it. She had only come to the Midhurst Hunt Ball to chaperone her niece— pretty Molly Lester— who must have remained at home if her aunt had not volunteered to look after her. For Mrs Lester— Molly's mother— had gone to bed with a racking headache, but Miss Agnes had undertaken to convey Molly safely to the dance and bring her back again— moved to do this by the tears that had suddenly sprung into Molly's soft blue eyes when it had seemed unlikely that she would be able to go to the ball.

Miss Agnes had guessed at once why Molly was so anxious to go to this particular dance. The child was evidently hoping to meet some young man, and pretty Molly must not be disappointed, so Miss Agnes told herself— Miss Agnes, who had not been to a ball since she was twenty-six, and that would be a long ten years ago, and who had small reason— poor little lady— to care greatly for dances or dance music; for everything had gone wrong since she had last heard the "Eton Boating Song" played by throbbing violins— her love-song had ended in smoke.

She winced a little as the well-remembered melody smote on her ears— winced and fumbled nervously with her fan— and she wished the band would play any other tune. And why did this nice, pleasant boy— the boy who had so obviously come to the ball to meet Molly, just as Molly had come to meet him— ask her if she liked the. "Eton Boating Song?"

Why, the waltz was evoking such bitter-sweet memories that Miss Agnes feared every second she would burst into tears, for just ten years ago— at another Midhurst. Hunt Ball— a man, the only man Miss Agnes had ever loved, had told her he loved her whilst the band played the "Eton Boating Song," and just as Agnes, blushing as pink as her soft rose tulle gown, was admitting that she cared for Captain Preston, her mother— cloaked and shawled— appeared in the dimly-lit sitting-out room, and summoned Agnes away, but not before Captain Preston had whispered that he would drive over to the Grange next day and see her. But he never came— he never wrote— and two months later his regiment was ordered to India, and that was the end of Miss Agnes's sad little romance.

She had told no one of her disappointment— of the hopes that had come to nothing. Her blighted love-dream was her own secret; but Miss. Agnes went to no more dances. She gave her people no explanation as to why balls no longer amused her, any more than she could give a really good reason for refusing to marry a certain Sir Charles Temple, who proposed to Agnes a few weeks after the Hunt Ball. Her mother was very anxious that she should accept Sir Charles, for he owned a fine property in Surrey, and he had a very large income; but Agnes— usually so gentle and yielding— displayed sudden firmness when called upon to marry a man whom she did not love, and she stuck to her guns valiantly.

"You will die an old maid." So her mother scolded, and Agnes nodded her head, for she was quite ready to agree to this.

Now it seemed as if there was every prospect of Mrs Cowper's words coming true, for at 35 it was not very likely that Agnes would marry. Besides, she had allowed her youth to slip from her, and she was out of touch with her busy times— a gentle, somewhat pensive, lavender lady.

Noel Harboard thought her very charming, however, and he liked her quiet voice and quiet ways. He also felt astonishingly grateful to the little slim lady in the grey satin gown, for Molly had told him that if it had not been for her aunt's kindness in offering to chaperone her she could not have turned up at the dance, and Noel would have hovered restlessly about the big staircase, waiting and waiting in vain; but dear Aunt Agnes had prevented- such a terrible thing happening, so a thousand blessings on her head!

"Yes, I like the 'Eton Boating Song.' I— I think it makes a lovely waltz."

Miss Agnes spoke in low, somewhat shaky tones, then she suddenly folded up her fan and looked straight ahead— looked down a long vista of dreary, empty years— years that the locusts had eaten— and her face was quite pale when she finally glanced lip at the young man who was seated by her side.

"Do you know, it is just ten years— almost ten years to a day—since I last heard that tune played— since I last attended a dance?" She paused a second. "But I mustn't bore you with my reminiscences," she added. "You are dancing this next dance, I expect— dancing it with some pretty girl, I hope."

"I am dancing it with your niece," Noel answered, simply. He flushed a little. "I want to tell you something, Miss Cowper. I met Molly in London some, months back and fell head over ears in love with her. She was staying with some friends of my sister's, and we saw a good deal of each other; but I wasn't in a position to propose to, her just at that particular time— I wasn't quite sure of my future prospects. Still, when Molly left London to return home— well, there was a sort of understanding between us; we've had both had a peep into each other's hearts."

He paused a moment, then a bright smile lit up his handsome, boyish face.

"But everything's going to be all right now. An uncle of mine— a dear old* boy— has arranged to take me into his office. He's a well-known solicitor, and I'm to be a junior partner in the business, and that means that I shall have enough money to marry on. Yes, I shall be able to give Molly quite a comfortable little home. I thought we'd take a flat somewhere— one of those smart new flats that they're cracking up so much nowadays. I don't suppose we can run to a motor-car yet, but that will come later on. I wrote to Molly, and asked her to be sure and come to this dance, for I had something to tell her— and you bet she knows what it is."

He hesitated for a second, then he turned to Miss Agnes.

"You don't suppose Molly's father and mother will object to her getting engaged, do you? There's nothing against me— I can honestly say that— and the money is all right. Of course, I know Molly is very young— only nineteen, but still some girls marry at eighteen, don't they? and even at  seventeen, and I promise you I'll look after Molly. You don't know how dearly I love her."

"My dear boy, I am so very glad that you have spoken to me so frankly." Miss Agnes leant forward and gave Noel a sympathetic little pat upon his arm. "I have thought for a long time that there was a young man on the tapis. I knew that there was someone Molly cared for in London— I felt quite certain of it, and you may be sure that my sister and brother-in-law will give you a hearty welcome into their family. They will be glad to hear that Molly is so happily settled, for she has a sister waiting to come out, and there's another younger in the school room."

Miss Agnes opened her fan. Her hands had suddenly begun to shake a little. Her face looked very sweet and tremulous.

"I mustn't keep you from Molly," she murmured. "Go and dance with her, my dear boy— go and dance, and come to me later on when you have had your little talk together, you two, and let me be the first to congratulate you. You will find me sitting here quietly by myself. An old maid isn't wanted in the ballroom."

She leant back in her chair as she said the last words, and it suddenly struck Noel Harbord, even in the midst of his own joy, how sad and pale the little lady looked, and he realised that though Miss Agnes spoke of herself so frankly as. an old maid, she wasn't so very old after all." Why, there were heaps and heaps of women of thirty-five enjoying themselves heartily dancing every dance and being tremendously admired— so why should Miss Cowper shrink back into corners and not have a good time with the rest of the world? Why didn't she dance too? She was small and light, and if she had only worn a less sedate dress, and fluffed out her pretty soft hair, she would have looked as well as any woman in the room, for her features were small and delicate, her skin was very white, and her eyes were extraordinarily blue and limpid—but why had she got tears in them— big tears?

"Miss Cowper"— Noel bent over her chair— "I don't like to rush away and dance with Molly all the evening and leave you sitting out here by yourself. Why aren't you dancing like the rest of us? You know a heap of people."

"My dancing days are over." Miss Agnes drew a deep breath. "I only came to the Hunt Ball to-night because I knew Molly would be so disappointed if she didn't meet you. Besides, I had an idea that things might happen if I came— and they have happened."

She folded up her fan briskly. "No, you are not to worry about me. I shall be perfectly happy sitting here by myself and thinking of you and Molly— and I honestly don't want to dance. Several old friends have already asked me to dance this evening, but I declined. I wouldn't have danced with your— or, rather, sat out a waltz— if I hadn't realised that Molly was anxious that we should get better acquainted with each other." She paused, then added, slowly, reflectively: "It's the young and light-hearted who ought to trip it to the tune of the dance, I think, not women like myself, who have left their youth behind them. We must stand aside, we middle-aged spinsters, and let the girls have their turn. It's only fair— it's only just."

She gave Noel a pretty little wave of dismissal, but though the young man knew that his Molly was waiting for him, he was not to be sent away so easily. He was worrying about Miss Cowper— he was worrying horribly.

Suddenly an idea occurred to Noel. There was another lonely person present at the Hunt Ball— an uncle of his mother's brother— a soldier uncle just home from India, who, for no particular reason as far as Noel could see, had suggested coming down with him to Midhurst and attending the Hunt Ball. But for the life of him Noel could not understand why his uncle had done so, for the grey-haired soldier wasn't dancing. He was merely mooning about the ball-room, looking very melancholy and reflective, and it occurred to Noel that it wouldn't be a bad idea to introduce his uncle to Miss Cowper.

He wouldn't say a word, but would just bring the Colonel up to where Miss Cowper was keeping her solitary state, and he would tell the old boy that he wanted to introduce him to one of Molly's aunts; and then— why, then with a clear conscience Noel would feel himself free to devote the rest of his evening to Molly— this evening which, was the happiest of his life.

The young man walked away— left the little sitting-out room, with its carefully arranged screens and big palms, and the tears that had been trembling in Miss Agnes's eyes rolled slowly down her cheeks as soon as she found herself alone. But she hastened to wipe them away with a scrap of lace handkerchief, for it was too silly at her age, she told herself, to cry over a love dream that had gone wrong. But it was the tune that the band was playing— the "Eton Boating Song"— that was reviving such a host of old memories, and she asked herself once more, as she had asked herself so many hundred times before, why—oh, why!—had Captain Preston told her that he loved her ten years ago and ridden out of her life the next day? "What had been his object in doing so? Why had he been so cruel?

The portiere curtains that veiled the door of the sitting-out room suddenly parted, and Miss Agnes glanced up hurriedly to see that two men were standing in the narrow doorway. She recognised Noel Harbord at once; but who was the other taller man who stood behind him— the lean man with the grey moustache and the keen grey eyes? Was it a ghost from the past who had suddenly risen up to confront her— the ghost of dead love?

"Miss Cowper"— Noel came hastily forward—"I have brought my uncle, Colonel Preston, round. I want to introduce him to you. He tells me he was in this part of the world 10 years ago, staying with some friends in the  neighborhood, so you may have met before."

"Yes, we have met before."

Agnes rose from her chair; a curious dignity had come over her— a strange self-command. This was a big occasion; she rose to meet it unflinchingly, and she betrayed fine courage.

"I am so glad to see you again, Colonel Preston."

She held out her hand as she spoke, and her hand neither shook nor trembled. It was Colonel Preston who turned ashy pale, not the little lady in the grey satin gown. But Noel had no idea of what was happening as he turned blithely away to seek out the girl he loved. He merely reflected that it was a strange coincidence that his uncle and Miss Cowper knew each other— a lucky coincidence— for doubtless they had a heap of friends in common.

"Did my nephew make a mistake when he called you 'Miss Cowper'?"

Colonel Preston spoke in low tones, and he gazed at Miss Agnes very searchingly as he spoke. "I— I quite understood that you were married— that you had married a certain Sir Charles Temple."

He rested a hand on the big armchair in which Miss Agnes had been sitting, and his fingers trembled a little.

Miss Cowper flushed to. her forehead. "Whoever told you that I was married told you a deliberate untruth," she said, quietly, and, for her, coldly. "I was never engaged to Sir Charles Temple, far less married."

She paused a second. Her breath was coming very hard and fast, and she Wished to heaven that the music would stop, for why was the band playing the "Eton Boating Song" again just at this particular moment when she and her old love—the man who had treated her so badly— had come face to face after the lapse of so many weary years?

Oh, why was the past obtruding itself so painfully upon the present?

"It was your mother who told me, or rather wrote to me, that you were about to be married to Sir Charles Temple," Colonel Preston retorted, Sternly. "And she added in her letter— I have still got it, so I can show it to you— that you had been merely amusing yourself with me— flirting, as she feared was your habit."

"My mother wrote that to you!"  Agnes sank down limply into a chair. A startled look had come into her blue eyes. Her heart was beating violently. "I feel all in the dark about things,'' she murmured. "I don't understand this at all; but neither have I understood why you never wrote to me and never came near me after practically proposing to me at the Midhurst Hunt Ball exactly ten years ago. I waited to hear from you, and I waited in vain. I might have been a second Mariana, but day after day I promised myself that you would either call at our house or else I should hear from you. But the days passed and you never came; and when I finally heard that you and your regiment had departed to India, why, then I realised that you had merely been amusing yourself at a foolish girl's expense—saying things that you didn't mean— at the dance; only— and that was the tragedy. I— I couldn't forget you. I tried to, but I couldn't."

"Agnes, is this the truth. Colonel Preston bent over the little lady in the grey satin frock and took her hands in his. "Shall I tell you my story now?" he whispered, " and then perhaps you will realise that I am not quite the blackguard you must have thought me. Only I blame myself now, I blame myself intensely for not having insisted on seeing you, for having believed the lie I was told. And yet it was your own mother who wrote to me, and who deliberately conspired against her child's happiness and— and my happiness."

He paused a second and pulled at his moustache. The music was still going on joyfully, and hundreds of dancers were dancing to the same swinging tune, and it seemed to Agues, as she bent forward in her chair and looked into Colonel Preston's face, that it was not so many years since they had been waltzing to this tune together, and that she was younger than she had fancied— not quite so old as she had feared.

"Do you remember what happened ten years ago in this very room?" Colonel Preston began, abruptly. "I told you that I loved you, Agnes, and just as you were about to admit that you loved me, your mother came in, and appeared very annoyed at finding us together, and she insisted on carrying you off. She said that your father would be angry if the horses were kept waiting any longer. She was very stern and autocratic, and you had to obey her— you had no alternative."

He paused a second, biting at his lips.

"Well, I wrote to your mother that very night— or, rather, at early dawn, I  said in my letter that I feared she had been annoyed with you for sitting out with me, for her manner had certainly expressed extreme disapproval; and I went on to say that I had asked you to marry me, and I fancied you were not indifferent to me. I explained that I was not by any means a rich man; but I was getting on quite well in the Service, and I knew my father would make me sufficient allowance to enable me to marry if my wife would not mind accompanying me to India. I asked your mother if she would arrange with your father to see me next day, so that I could make a formal proposal and explain my circumstances, and I got a letter back which made me sit up— just a cold letter of a few lines— a letter in which your mother stated that you were practically engaged, to be married to Sir Charles Temple, that you had always been too fond of flirting to please her, and that was why she had been annoyed to find us sitting out together at the dance. She also explained that neither she nor her husband would be at all disposed to welcome me as a son-in-law, for they did not wish their daughter to marry a soldier and have to go abroad; in other words, I was abruptly dismissed."

"Oh, how cruel of mother— how very cruel!" Agnes's eyes swam with tears. "I know that she was awfully anxious that I should marry Sir Charles— terribly anxious — but I refused him when he proposed." She hesitated. "I mustn't speak unkindly of mother, for she is dead— she died three years ago. But oh, this was a grievous wrong she did me— a grievous wrong!"

"She wronged you still more bitterly," Colonel Preston interrupted. "for when I got her letter I wrote to you— a letter in which I asked you if what your mother had written was the truth, and begged you not to answer my letter if it was. But you never got my note?"

"No, I never got it," Agnes answered simply, "You see, my mother always opened the post-bag herself, and I expect she kept it back, recognising your handwriting. Anyway, it never reached me."

A long- pause followed, and the man and the woman on whom fate had played such a cruel trick— the man and the woman who had left their youth behind— gazed at each other searchingly; but it was Colonel Preston who was the first to speak.

"Dear," he whispered, and his voice was very low, very tender, "there has never been anyone else in my life— no other woman has ever taken your place in my heart. Are you still free, Agnes?"

She nodded her head, "Yes," she answered softly. "But you cannot want to marry me now. I am old— old and faded."

"That's all nonsense," he interrupted passionately. "Besides, I am older, too, if it comes to that. Agnes, don't be silly— don't be foolish. Now that we have found each other we are not going to allow anything to part us again. There are good years ahead; of course there are— glad years."

He paused a second. The dance had suddenly come to an end, and there was great clapping among the dancers— the tune had evidently been highly appreciated— such clapping that the band started playing again.

Colonel Preston smiled, then leant towards Agnes, and offered her his arm.

"We danced to the same tune ten years ago," he whispered. "We will dance to it again to-night. Come, Agnes, this is our dance— ours!"

They left the sitting-out room together, and as they waltzed into the ballroom more than one person turned to glance after the couple, for Colonel Preston looked as if he had just come into a kingdom, and Agnes's cheeks were suffused with a soft rose color, and her blue eyes shone like stars. She seemed to have regained her lost youth, just as she had regained her lost happiness.

Noel Harbord, waltzing with the other dancers, directed his Molly's attention to the pair.

"Look!" he said. "Look! My uncle and your aunt are dancing together, and, by Jove! they look happy, don't they?"

"They do, indeed," Molly answered, and she smiled at her aunt as she passed her in the merry whirl of the dance, dimly aware that they were both dancing to the same tune— the tune that Love was piping.

__________________

16: Our Lady of the Lilies

J. S. Fletcher

1863-1935

Weekly Times (Melbourne) 4 April 1914

The Great War in the opening sentence is the Franco Prussian war of 1870

IF YOU HAD known Paris in the years which immediately followed the Great War, and had gone much to the salons and ateliers, you would have seen many pictures in which figured the presentment of a young: girl who for a certain period was more sought after as a model than any of her class in the city. She had her career, this girl, but at the height of that career she vanished as suddenly as she had appeared. The artists were desolated; they sought her everywhere; she never came back. Mystery hung about her disappearance; but in truth there was no mystery— at least, none when the story is told. She had gone from whence she came— that was all.

But why that sudden, unpremeditated quitting of a career— that instant farewell to a life of gaiety, of pleasure— that deliberate turning of the back upon a circle in which she was queen, without so much as a. single word of good-bye— a tiny hint that those with whom she had made merry would never see her again? Listen then.

One springtide day in the year 1874 there came to Paris by a train which had travelled all through the night from one of the southern provinces, an old man, who in one hand carried an ancient and much-worn valise, and in the other a wicker cage in which a yellow canary clung tremblingly to its perch. He was a middle-sized old man, very thin and much bent, and his features, which wore an expression of mild benevolence, just then mingled with those of wonder and timidity, were lined and wrinkled as though he had known sorrow for a constant companion. As regards his appearance, he wore a decent suit of grey cloth; his linen was starched and clean; his hat and boots were of good quality. The hand which grasped the valise also grasped a stout, old-fashioned umbrella, large enough . to have served the occupants of a gig; the possession of it helped more than anything to denote that this was some respectable and simple old countryman who, probably for the first time, was visiting the city which was so rapidly recovering from the cruel vicissitudes of the. Siege and the Commune.

On leaving the station, the old countryman reached an open space surrounded by tall houses. He paused, set down his valise arid the wicker cage, and, after finding and putting on a pair of enormous spectacles, fumbled in his waistcoat pockets until he found a much-creased scrap of paper, which he held within an inch of his-big nose. Having read what was written on it, he looked round about him at the signs on the various houses, and suddenly he smiled with satisfaction.

"Yes," he murmured to himself. "There it is— the Hotel de Ventadour. and as the good cure said, but one minute's walk from the station. How fortunate!"

Thereupon the old man put away his scrap of paper and his spectacles, and resuming his valise and the wicker cage, made his way to the house he had been told of, a small and humble, but clean looking hotel, the front of which, painted a pink color, was ornamented with green jalousies, two miniature cypreyses, set in square boxes, and a gilt-lettered board on which were tabulated the very modest prices which guests were expected to pay.

The room into which the old man was presently shown was one which looked out upon a small courtyard, wherein a goat was tethered to a ring in the wall. Two children, a boy and a girl, played near the goat; the old man watched them wistfully from his window. But presently his wistful look changed to a triumphant one; he smiled, and, rubbing his hands together, said aloud:

"Aha I at last I am really in Paris." Then he looked about him at his new surroundings. The room had a polished floor, a chest of drawers, a washstand, a chair, a bed. Over the bed hung a religious picture. What the new occupant thought of it may be gathered from the fact that he again smiled, rubbed his hands, and "exclaimed:

"Magnificent! A room fit for an Emperor."

Then, remembering that Emperors and such-like folk were not greatly favored in France just then, he made his toilette, unpacked his valise, and, having re-filled the seed-trough in the canary's cage, took the cage in one hand and his umbrella in the other, and going downstairs bravely faced the unknown city. Some of those he encountered, and who looked at him and his canary and his cage and his umbrella, wondered why the old man smiled so much and so happily.

The happiness on the old fellow's face began to yield to a look of uneasiness. Ho had never conceived the greatness, the vastness of Paris— before he had gone very far it seemed to him that he must certainly be lost in the wilderness of houses, this maze of streets, these magnificent new thoroughfares springing up from the ruins of the past. But he gripped his umbrella more tightly, gave the canary's cage a defiant swing, and said, with resolution:

"Eh, well, then; after all, I have the address in my pocket! Houses don't run away."

In the end a policeman was invited to look at the address, and by his help and instructions the old man at last found himself in the Rue de Rivoli, searching for a certain number. He found it at last, and stood lost in amazement.

"Heavens!" he said. "How beautiful! How superb! Ah, no, there is nothing like that in Landignan, nothing! How rich these Parisians must be if their wives and daughters can afford such exquisite apparel!"

The establishment at which the old fellow gazed was that of a fashionable dressmaker, some of whose latest creations were displayed in the plate-glass windows on either side . of the door. There was much silk and satin and lace, and the waxed-faced mannequins had lovely hair and almost life-like eyes. The old man started as it he had been some poor girl who ardently desired a beautiful gown. And at last he murmured:

"Yes, Virginie was certainly right when she decided that Paris was the only place for her. There is nothing like this in our country."

Then, seeing that the door of the establishment stood wide open, he walked inside, to be immediately confronted by visions of elegance and luxury, realisations of beauty and style to which the outside show was as no thing. Clinging to his umbrella and his wicker cage he lingered on the threshold, trembling.

Now it chanced that at that moment Madame, the proprietress of the establishment, was passing through her front shop, and, seeing an obviously shy and embarrassed 9'icl countryman enter, she, being a woman of kindly feeling, immediately went to him her self.

"Monsieur," she said, "what can I for you?"

The old man made shift to get off his hat. He bowed with a quaint, old-fashioned grace.

"Madam," he said,"! want to see my daughter. I am Monsieur Martin— Louis Martin, at your service— of Landignan." And, comprehending that the handsome lady who stood before him must be the mistress, and would know everything, he added, with a confidential smile, "You have doubtless heard of me, Madame? Virginie will have spoken of me— her father."

The proprietress-gazed at M. Martin with astonishment. "But, monsieur," she "said, quietly, "I— I do not know your daughter."

M. Martin, equally astonished, gazed at the proprietress. "How, Madame'" he exclaimed. "You do not know my daughter? But she is employed here, Virginie! See, I have letters from her." He set down the wicker cage, and from an inner pocket brought out some much-worn letters tied about with a bit of ribbon. "See, here is the first, written from Paris, in which she tells me that she has secured a situation with you. And in each letter— true, she only writes once in every three months, Madame— she always says that she is still content. Oh, you must know her, Madame; it is impossible otherwise!"

The proprietress looked at M. Martin pityingly, "Ah, monsieur!" she said. "I employ at least three hundred young persons— it is scarcely possible that I can remember the names of each. But you shall be seated, and I will make inquiries if your daughter is here."

M. Martin took the chair which the proprietress handed him and sat down, feeling suddenly tired. He had believed that on his entering the Maison Berthe his daughter would recognise and run to him; it had never occurred to him that she was one of a crowd.

"Yes, yes; that is it!" he muttered as he sat there, regardless of the curious glances cast at him and his canary. "It is not to be expected that one should remember all one's employees if one has three hundred. Three hundred!— it is marvellous! Of course, Virginie is one of them."

He had regained full confidence by the time that the proprietress returned, and he smiled at her with cheerful expectancy. But the smile faded when he saw that Madame's face looked grave. He rose, trembling a little.

"Monsieur, will you step into this room?" said Madame.

M. Martin found himself in a tiny parlor. Madame looked at him with compassion.

"Monsieur." she said, "I hope that this is not bad news that I must give you. It is true that a girl named Virginie Martin was given employment here two years ago "

"Yes, yes!" he exclaimed. "That is right, Madame. Two years ago— oh, yes!"

"But she only remained in my service a few weeks," continued Madame. "She left of her own accord— suddenly."

M. Martin stood as if petrified. .Then he snatched the little packet of letters from his pocket. "But, see, see!" he cried. "She says that she is still happy in her situation. Here are her letters— one every quarter since she left home. Here is the last, written ten days ago. Madame, have pity upon me! My daughter must be here."

Madame shook her head sadly. "Alas, monsieur!" she replied. "I am sorry for you, but it is as I say. "We have seen nothing of her since the time I speak of."

M. Martin began to tremble as if he had suddenly been stricken with the palsy. He sank into a chair, and the proprietress hastened to give him cognac and to make him drink it. She seated herself at the old man's side.

"Monsieur," she said, "a thought occurs to me. Since you have corresponded with your daughter, there must be an address at which she received your letters."

"Madame," replied M. Martin, "we had a friend in Paris, a M. Gironard, who was a baker in Montmartre. As Virginie had no address when she came here, I sent her letters to the care of my friend. But my last letter was returned, Gironard is dead and the place is closed. That is why I came here, Madame, where I believed her to be employed. For now I do not know where to find her. Oh, Heaven have mercy upon me! I feel that something terrible has happened. And she is all I have left."

"Courage, monsieur," said the proprietress. "There is yet hope. Another thing occurs to me. When she spoke of being happy in her situation, your daughter may not have meant this situation, but a situation. Monsieur, as your friend is dead, she will inform you of an address. If you" are to remain in Paris send to your home for your letters— there may be one from her. And there are other means. Advertise for her in the journals, monsieur. After all, the world is small. Be of good courage."

But M. Martin, going slowly and sadly away from the grandeur and bustle of the Rue de Rivoli, felt that the world was very large indeed, and that to seek one's daughter amidst the confusing throngs of Paris was akin to distinguishing one leaf from another when they fall in Vallambrosa. He carried the canary back to his humble hotel, and arranged that the wicker cage should be hung where the landlady's cat could not frighten nor seize the occupant, and for the rest of that day he sat much alone, and was very sad and full of thought.

Next day, however, M. Martin plucked up courage, and began to take steps to find Virginie. He wrote to Landignan to ask for his letters; he inserted an advertisement in several newspapers; he went to Montmartre to find the street where Gironard had kept his shop. But at the outset he met with failure and discouragement. Gironard, it appeared, was only known as a crusty old bachelor, who had always been sharp with his neighbors and indisposed to give credit when it was wanted. Nobody round about there knew anything of anybody like Virginie visiting his place at any time. Neither did anybody know where Gironard's old housekeeper— who was, said everybody, as sour as himself, but who might have thrown some light on the matter— had disappeared to. So there was no satisfaction there, and no letters came from Landignan, and no response to the advertisements reached M. Martin, and he grew very sad, and not even the canary's singing was able to cheer him.

In these sorrowful circumstances M. Martin did what many fathers had done before him— he began to search the great city himself, in the hope that he might meet his daughter at the street corner, or at church, or in the theatre, or in one or other of the public places. Always he went about, and always his old eyes were seeking a face. The habitués of the cafes on the boulevards came to know him; some of them had still sufficient curiosity left in them to wonder what the old man sought, But the days passed, and M. Martin found nothing.

M. Martin did not spare his good money in his search. He lived very simply, but he had retired from business, and he had nothing to spend money on, except in this effort to discover his daughter. He went to the expensive and the inexpensive places in the theatres, the Opera, and the various haunts of fashionable and unfashionable society; for he argued that if you are seeking- anything- you must search in every corner. And one day he went to an exhibition of pictures— not that he had intended to do so, but because he saw a crowd of people pressing into the building, and thought that he would follow their example.

There were many rooms full of pictures and people, and M. Martin went in and out, always searching for his daughter's face. Suddenly all the blood in his poor old body rushed to his heart in one fierce flood, and he was obliged to seize hold of a chair and to lean upon it for support' while he gasped for breath. For there, beyond the crowd, looking straight into his own, were Virginie's eyes.

M. Martin recovered himself, and slowly made his way through the crowd to the picture which had brought such a tumult of recollection and tenderness to him. It was a picture of a Madonna— a very young and innocent Madonna— holding in her hand a simple bunch of white bloom. Our lady, yes: but the face, the hair, the eyes, and the mouth were those of Virginie.

The simple old man, having no knowledge of art and artists, or that painters select their models for a Venus or a St. Catherine from real life, was only struck by the resemblance, and, clasping his hands in ecstasy, murmured to himself:

"Oh, how beautiful, how beautiful she is! How like my lost child. Ah! heavens! what a. likeness, and how happy I am to see even that!"

Thereafter M. Martin spent an hour every afternoon at the exhibition of pictures. He formed a habit. On his arriving in the room in which Our Lady of the Lilies was hung, he placed a chair directly in front of it, and for an hour contemplated the picture with the wholly detached air of a devotee who prays before the statue of his patron saint. Then he would sigh deeply and go away with bent head and moist eyes.

One afternoon, when Martin rose from his chair, he became aware that he was alone in the room with a young man, who was regarding him with deep attention. The young man, who was dressed after, the fashion affected by artists (which is to say picturesquely), had an air and bearing of graveness.ana his eyes were sad, and seemed to betoken some suffering. M. Martin, seeing himself observed, made a little bow.

The young man spoke abruptly: '"You are greatly interested in that picture, monsieur," he said.

M. Martin bowed again. "Monsieur," he answered, simply, "it reminds me of my daughter. The resemblance is wonderful."

Then, recognising some sympathy in the young man's eyes and manner, the old man forgot that he addressed a stranger, and suddenly poured out his griefs. He sank into his chair before the picture.

"Ah, monsieur," he exclaimed. "If I could but find my daughter, my Virginie! I am from the South, monsieur— from Landignan; my name is Martin— Louis Martin. Yes, I was the leading grocer in Landignan until I retired from business. I married late in life, you understand, and when my wife had borne me three child she died. The children grew up. And sometimes I am tempted to wonder Heaven knows what sorrow children bring, in spite of the happiness. There was my son, Phillipe; he would go to sea, monsieur, and he was drowned in the Chinese seas on his second voyage. There was Jeanne, my eldest, she grew up to womanhood, an though a little sharp with her tongue, poor Jeanne kept house well until she died last Christmas. And so Virginie is all I have, monsieur, and she is in Paris, and I cannot find her. Look at this picture, monsieur, and you will see Virginie."

The young man, who had listened to this outpouring with close attention, looked at the picture scarcely less intently than M. Martin did, and at last turned to his new acquaintance. .

"Monsieur," he said, quietly, "I go much about Paris and see many people. It is possible I may see your daughter, since she is so like this picture. Will you not give me your address, monsieur, so that I can communicate with you?"

M. Martin named the little hotel with great joy. The young man made him a bow and went silently away. M. Martin, presently following him, found himself encountered by an attendant, who smiled and winked.

"You did not know who it was that you talked to," said the attendant. "That was M. Victor Bremont, who painted that picture you were staring at."

M. Martin gasped his astonishment. "Yes," continued the attendant, glancing carelessly at the picture. "A fine girl, she is, too, the model.  A Madonna, eh! Ha-ha! She is the fine one, that! They say—"

And, notwithstanding M. Martin's white hairs, the attendant with another wink began to narrate certain matters which the old man started at. He drew himself up.

"Monsieur!" he said, "It is impossible for any woman with such a face to be anything but good."

Then he went away, hearing the attendant's laughter, and scarcely comprehending it. Even then he did not understand that pictures are painted from models. He returned slowly to his quiet room, to listen to the canary's song, and to wonder if he would ever find his daughter.

As for Victor Bremont, he that night repaired to a certain studio, whose occupants, judging from the noise which greeted him as he reached the door, were celebrating Bacchanalian rites with much fervor. Pandemonium seemed to be reigning in the place when he entered— young men, young women, were distinguishable amidst wreaths of tobacco smoke; somebody was banging a piano, somebody was screaming a song; in one corner couples were dancing, in another a fat man was trying to stand on his head; everywhere there was noise, and there were many bottles, emptied and unemptied, to be seen. But a sudden silence fell over the room as M. Victor appeared on the threshold. Then boisterous cries broke out

"Heavens! It is Father Victor! He has come to preach to us!"

"Avaunt, long-face!"

"He will blast us with a glance of his flashing eye!"

"Let us make him drunk!"

A big, burly man— an Englishman— came forward. "Shut up, you idiotic fools! Come in, Bremont, old chap—come in and have a drink. I have sold my picture to an American Croesus, and we are rejoicing."

Victor entered, took the champagne which the Englishman handed him, and drank to his health. The company applauded.

"Bravo, Victor! See, the creature can actually drink like one of ourselves! Give him another, John Bull!"

Victor smiled and looked about him. In the smoke-wreaths he was seeing a girl's face.

"I came to find Virginie," he said. "I have a splendid commission for her."

"Throw him out— throw him out through the window! He wants to paint Virginie as a Sorrowful Lady. Fie, Father Victor!"

But Virginie came to him. They went into a corner— all around them the fun broke out again more furiously than ever.

"Virginie," said M. Victor Bremont. "if you will put on a thick veil and go to-morrow at three o'clock to the Salon, you will see an old gentleman enter, who for an hour will sit before my picture. And, Virginie, if you afterwards wish to speak to that old gentleman, he has a room at the Hotel de Ventadour, near the Gare de Lyons. His name is— Louis Martin."

Late the following night a tap came at the door of M. Victor Bremont's studio. When he opened it there stood Virginie, dressed as a young milliner might be.

"Tomorrow morning early," she said "I am leaving Paris with my father. We are going home. And I shall never come back— never! Nor say good-bye to anyone— except you. You will understand."

Victor put out his right hand. "Yes I understand," he said, gently. "But this is not good-bye, Virginie. This is au revoir. In six months I shall come to Landignan; and perhaps— perhaps I, too, shall not return to Paris."

That is why Virginie Martin was no more seen in the Quartier Latin. And it is also why, when asked, "Where, then, is Victor Bremont?" some others answered carelessly, "Bremont? Oh, he went away. He is perhaps now a Trappist. He was a serious beggar, and only fit for a monastery."

But Victor and Virginie are quite happy out of the world at Landignan where one is, of course, fifty thousand miles away from anywhere.

_________________

17: The World  of the Vanishing Point

James Barr

1862-1923

The Strand Magazine March 1922

WHEN Wilding Lear was shown in to the room he found his old friend Professor Gaylor standing with his right hand resting upon a structure the use and nature of which Lear failed to guess. In shape it was like a mammoth hour- glass, beginning with a broad foundation passing on to a wasp waist, and ending in a broad top. It stood grandfather-clock high and on either side of it was placed a tall stool.

"My good friend, I am glad you have come." There was a strange flicker in the gaze which the Professor bent on Wilding Lear. Wearily, a trifle nervously too, as one who is over-wrought, over-anxious, he drew the tips of his long fingers across his wrinkled forehead to rake aside the wisp of iron-grey hair which, dangling, overhung his left eye. When again he spoke it was as though for himself alone to hear.

"My four years' labour is ended. The mighty microscope stands finished. "

" So that's your secret!" cried Lear, excitedly. "A microscope?"

"I have not put it to the test as yet," admitted the Professor. "I— I— I— to make a clean breast of it, I have been afraid to look into the instrument till I had someone, and that someone you, with me. Old friend, from the beginning I counted on you sharing my triumph, or comforting me in my failure."

"I am proud to stand by your side when you take your first look."

"You are to do more than just stand by my side. At precisely the same instant we two look into the microscope, to see what we shall see. To this—"  he patted the top of the structure— "there are two pairs of eyepieces, two pairs of simple plano-convex lenses— one pair for you, one for me."

"Splendid! Have you charged the microscope?"

"With a tiny drop of water dipped from a halffrozen duck-pond."

"And you expect the microscope to multiply how many times?"

Professor GayIor threw aloft his hands in a gesture which said, "The answer to your question is beyond me.

"Indefinite millions of times," was his vocal reply.

Without more said the two old friends took their places each on a tall stool and, simultaneously bending their necks, applied their eyes to the eyepieces.

An ocean, as spacious as the Pacific, and as calm. No South Sea coral isles here, however, no shimmering white sands, no luxuriant frondous growth, no lagoons resplendent in Oriental dyes. Here lay a chill, stark sea, studded with icebergs which caught the sun's rays and splintered them back to the heavens like flaming sword blades of vivid, quivering colour. The ocean itself was  a dark, cold blue, and occupied the whole centre of the view. A swift general survey of this new world lying spread under their eyes showed the Professor and his friend Wilding Lear a dismal, stark land, apparently the beginning of a bleak continent blurred far to the west; to the south lay a great island, rough with outcrop of rocks, and far to the north, just before the ice-floes joined into a solid mass, was a cluster of  black shapes, contrasting strangely with the vivid white of snow and ice. It was these the scientist and his friend first scrutinized.

"Whalers, I fancy?" exclaimed Lear, inquiringly. "Whalers entangled in the ice. Hallo, what's this?"

"What's what?" asked the Professor.

"Left middle ground. Eleven o'clock. To the right of that mighty twin iceberg. A ship's boat, unless I'm mistaken. And a man, lying asleep; or— or— can he be dead?"

The two friends riveted their gaze on the tiny craft, and were able to sec into it as plainly as one who looks down from the deck of a liner into the pilot's boat alongside.

"Not dead, I think," said the Professor, confidently. "He lies too comfortably. Asleep, I judge. Shipwrecked, most likely."

As the Professor said this the sleeping man suddenly flung the blanket off him, and, jumping to his feet, stood staring in the direction of an iceberg that rode in majestic solitude a little distance off to the west. As he stood upon the thwart, rigid as a statue, the two friends scrutinized him.

"You'd swear he was a Scotch mate," vowed Lear.

The fellow's head was covered by a mass of hair in colour so violently red as to be laughable, his features were blunt, chin pronounced, mouth large but firm, his arms gorilla length and of gorilla strength, his body solid and legs violently bandy, yet giving an impression of supports worthy of the frame they carried. He slowly raised a great red freckled hairy hand, and, shading his eyes, peered keenly towards that iceberg.

"This must be an optical illusion!" muttered the Professor. "This man is surely of our own world."

"It's no illusion, no delusion, " said Lear.  "This vast ocean in here—" he drummed the tips of his fingers on the frame of the microscope— "with its fleets, its islands, its icebergs, is encompassed in one pin-point drop of frosted water lifted from a duck pond. A world reposing in the heart of an atom, verily the World of the Vanishing Point."

The sailor was all-alive now. They discovered him seated on the fore thwart, pulling with all his might at the oars, while every now and again he glanced over his shoulder to assure himself that he steered a direct course for the twin iceberg, the biggest berg afloat in that thickly be-berged ocean. Intense endeavour, strain, physical and mental, was write plain on his face, and anxiety rapidly growing into terror. The muscles of his arms, his breast, his back rippled and writhed and wove like living serpents. His teeth, bared of the lips, slashed gleaming white athwart his weatherbeaten face; gleaming white, too, the foam that shouldered away from the boat as he fiercely thrust over the water. Plain that he fled from a dread. But what?

TAYLOR and Lear, abandoning the fleeing sailor, began to search the ocean for an explanation of the man's fear. They were not long in finding it.

A little to the south of the berg from which the sailor was hurrying there suddenly bobbed up from the depths the heads of a score of creatures, something like walrus; faces hatefully human-like, fringed with long, coarse beards, and hooking from the upper jaw over the lower terrible tusk-teeth, each a sabre of ivory. The creatures had ears that unfolded, once the head emerged from the water, as the wings of a bat unfold, until they stood out like quaintly-cut sails. To each point of the compass the heads of these creatures turned; the sharp red eyes scrutinizing every ripple of the ocean round about them.

"Like bloodhounds running a fresh trail!" exclaimed the Professor in a growl. "Have they sighted the sailor?"

"Not yet, I fancy," replied Lear, his voice trembling from ill-suppressed emotion. "But it's a sure thing the sailor knows of their proximity. See! he is about to land!"

The sailor thrust his boat alongside the iceberg, jumped on to a low strand-like ridge, secured the boat by placing a lump of ice on the end of the painter, then began a frantic running about, as if in search of a place where he could hide from the long-fanged monsters. The ridge on which the sailorman stood had been scored out of the solid ice by the action of the waves during the berg's long cruise from the north, and the best refuge the fugitive could discover was a narrow cleft worn deep by a runnel which trickled from the top of the berg. Into this the sailor jammed himself till he was but indifferently visible to the two scientists, who now turned their attention to the walrus-like creatures over by the second berg.

Twenty heads were abob on the ocean. Suddenly one shot high out of the water, as a porpoise shoots, but instead of returning to the deep a wonderful thing happened . While the creature was still in the air there developed from the flapper "feet" a round balloon, perhaps once hundred feet in diameter, and this, resting on the surface of the ocean as light as a soap-bubble, balanced on its top the atrocious walrus creature as a pedestal carries a statue. A little while the creature glanced keenly about him, then, quickly lowering his shoulders, he thrust forward his ugly head and fixed his unflickering gaze on the twin iceberg. The next instant his actions caused Lear to burst into a roar of laughter. It was as if a midget stood upon a football and went bouncing ludicrously across a pond. There was wonderful resilience in that balloon substance, and the creature, by alternately crouching and heaving suddenly upright, hurtled himself across the surface of the water at an unbelievable pace, heading direct for the seaman's boat.

At his first bound his companions shot themselves out of the water, and were after their leader, each on a balloon of his own. So extraordinary an advance of creatures, acting in common accord had surely never been seen by mortal eyes! The leader, a giant among them, easily out-stripped his followers, and coming to the boat at once began to pound it to pieces.

The others, bounding to the side of their leader, joined without delay in a saturnalia of brainless fury, wrenching the planks one from the other and breaking each to splinters by grasping it between their fore flappers, heaving it high overhead, and bringing it shattering down upon the edges of the ice. When they had wrecked the last plank they stood on their floating balloons in a fierce group, grinning in savage delight at their senseless destruction. The gigantic leader, at an agile bound, leapt from the water to the strand, and the instant his balloon touched the firm foundation of ice it squelched out of existence like the snapping of a soap bubble, leaving the uncouth creature standing upright on its hind flappers. Not a moment too soon did he leave the surface of that surly sea.

Broken off by the berg's too deep-ploughing, up from depths profound, up from where in ineffable blackness and silence the blunt pronged roots of the iceberg scar and furrow the surly bed of the ocean, up and up, accumulating velocity at each foot of the thousands of feet of its course so that at last it rushed with the devastating speed of a comet— up, to burst through the ocean's surface like the explosion of a mammoth shell, came an iceberg's "calf" — five thousand tons of solid ice. Right underneath the walrus host this giant "calf" burst forth into the air, smiting the sea into a raging turmoil and flinging the cruel creatures, spreadeagled, sprawling, spiralling, up to the height of the berg's highest pinnacle; then back the "calf" fell smashing once more into the sea. The ocean by the side of the berg fell into chaotic agitation, raging, tearing, roaring, heaving like a maelstrom. Masses of ice ground and smashed one another to slush, and into this devastating turmoil the company of fierce walrus creatures fell back, to be battered to shapeless masses, some to be sucked down to depths unfathomed, others to be thrown like dead fish upon the shelving shore of the twin berg.

The giant leader, at the first upburst of the" calf," acted quick as thought. He hurled himself headlong into the sea and disappeared like a sounding whale, burying himself fathoms deep, and, swimming with all his strength, shot up to the surface two hundred yards away from the turmoil of the waters. Refilling his balloon, he stood staring towards the berg till the raging waters died down; then he bounded back. As he approached his dead followers lying on the ice a grin as of savage delight caused his face to break into an ugly ripple of wrinkles, and, acting as if he enjoyed the business, he vigorously began to kick their bodies into the sea.

"The grimness of him, the ruthlessness of him!" exclaimed Lear, throwing back his bead and blinking his eyes to rest them. "He is more callous than brute beast."

Professor Gaylor, following his friend's lead, sighed:—

"I— I had forgotten it is not real. I had forgotten I was looking into a microscope."

"There's no doubt about the reality of it," asserted Lear. "The beast is there, as that sailor will find unless I'm mightily mistaken."

Lear was not mistaken. When the two scientists again applied their eyes the creature had forgotten its slaughtered followers and stood intensely taut and intent, listening.

"Foolish fellow!" exclaimed Lear.  "Why does he not wait till the beast goes away?" The "calf's" great billow, flung sweeping along the strand of ice, had inundated the sailor's hide-hole, half drowning him, but the narrowness of the niche prevented the water from washing him out into the ocean. When the waters subsided the red-headed man scrambled to his feet, and was now furiously hacking at the face of the ice with his sheath-knife.

"The fear of the beast has shifted his mental balance," exclaimed Gaylor. "He digs his knife senselessly into the unresponding berg."

"There's method in his madness," contradicted Lear.  "Unless I'm a Dutchman, he's endeavouring to hew steps up that sloping crevice so that he may escape on to the plateau higher up the berg. What's this?'"

LEAR'S cry caused the Professor to glance at the plateau high above the one on which the sailorman and monster stood, and a wonderful sight met him. Out from a narrow flaw in the side of the berg, advancing with the utmost caution, a girl emerged, her head bare. And what a beautiful head, to he sure! Crowned by an abundance of hair that billowed and braided, tumbled and twisted in all dazzling shades of gold. hair as of spun sunshine which formed a scintillating setting for a face too dazzling for the eyes of mortal to look upon without ecstasy. The forehead was of the purest ivory, the cheeks of a delicate pink, the eyes flashed liquid fire, the teeth were like pearls. The scientists, at first glimpse of the perfect face, drew in their breath with a gasp, their hearts began to run with the rub-a-dub of a kettle-drum.

A little while the girl paused, too timorous to venture boldly out from the safety of her home in the ice; her eyes were expressive of surprise, so that the Professor and his friend believed that she, like the ugly monster, heard the "jab-jab" of the sailor's knife against the ice without being able to guess what it could be that set the noise a-wing.

At length the girl did venture fully forth, and poised a-tip-toe upon the plateau towards which the sailor hacked his way. So ethereal a creature was she that the colour-flames flung from the ice appeared to strike through her; a being as if created of gossamer, delicately. exquisitely modelled and as airy as a thistledown, a veritable nereid of the immaculate ice! The radiant girl, still a-tip-toe, ventured forward and stood quiveringly vital finger to lips, head inclined, and she listened intently. In a little while, out from the same aperture in the ice came forth, as palpitating, as hesitatingly as their leader, a troop· of girls, each one as beautiful as the first, round whom they now clustered in anxious wonderment.

The red-headed, be-freckled, coarse-handed sailorman continued viciously to stab the knife into the ice; the loathly walrus stood still in indecision as to the direction of the sounds. Presently the arms and sides of the ice nereid queen began to quiver, and, as a new-born dragon-fly first unfurls its wings, two resplendent wings of many-coloured gauze fluttered forth to shake free their outer limits, and gradually the wings grew greater and greater, until they reached from the girl's feet to quiver far above her head. With a resilient upspring she now launched herself into the air, and with her radiant wings beating at such a rate that they shone all around her, like a heat-haze of brilliant tints, she darted from the berg and out over the sea, where, poising as a humming bird poises before entering the hell of a flower, she took a keen general survey of the iceberg.

Strangely enough, perhaps because of the noise made by his knife on the  ice, it was the sailor who first attracted her notice, and, curiosity overcoming timidity, she ventured forward in tentative, tiny spurts, her whole being a-flutter from apprehension, which, however, was not strong enough to defeat the delightful inquisitiveness of her sex. Nearer and nearer she approached, all her wits centred on the strange being who, quite unaware of her presence, hacked hard at the ice.

"My girl, look out!" suddenly barked Lear, in a voice ringing with alarm and horror.  The professor's face blanched, for at Lear's cry he realized the pinch of the danger into which the timorous, delicate fairy-girl was advancing. Beneath her the gruesome walrus creature had dropped into the sea, and now crouched on his inflated balloon.

When the girl poised almost directly above him the monster bounded into the air, his face turned skyward and his sabre-teeth ready to slash. At the very instant in which the balloon was well clear of the water the girl caught a glimpse of the beast projecting himself into the air with the velocity of a flung spear straight for her. Quick as thought she acted. She was not so foolish as to try to fly higher, for to get momentum to mount takes time; she could not dart forward for fear of dashing her head against the berg; she dared not drop, for to do so would be to project herself between the horror's jaws.

Seizing her only chance, the girl began to fling herself sideways and to roll over and over, folding her wings as she went so that they might not impede her gyrations. Not a fraction of a second was lost in hesitation. Yet she could not propel herself quite out of harm's way, nor furl her wings in time.

The black beast, coming nearly on a level with the fragile girl, and seeing her all but out of his reach, slashed one swift slash on chance, and a tusk cut clean as a knife through the delicate gauze of her left wing.

A second time he slashed with fierce velocity, this time missing by the fraction of an inch. However, already the damage was done. Her right wing expanded full and a-quiver of life, but her left drooped hapless as the sail of a ship in the doldrums. The beautiful being's face, hitherto so pink and sentient went clearly pale as, in spite of the frantic beating of her uninjured wing, she began to flutter helplessly down towards the water, where already the beast, having deflated his balloon, was bobbing about, his body submerged, his head and shoulders in the air, waiting for his fragile victim to sink into his grim jaws.

PROFESSOR GAYLOR, as though stung by a hornet, jerked his head away from the microscope, and began to stride the room in anguish.

"It is beyond me to witness such a horror!" he barked. "How did I dare create this terror-revealing microscope?"

A shout from Lear, however, brought him hurrying back ; again he glued his eyes to the eyepiece, and with his heart all the while beating and bumping from excitement, he beheld a display of affection on the one side and savagery on the other the like of which mortal eyes had seldom witnessed.

The beautiful girl's companions suddenly came flying forth in a daring bunch, they surrounded their stricken leader, taking hold of her by the arms, the legs, the wings, the neck, the very hair of her golden head, and, while their wings beat the air more rapidly than ever hummingbird's vibrated, they managed, but only just, to keep the girl from sinking any lower, at the same time, little by little, inch by inch, they edged her ever nearer and nearer to the iceberg.

At the first sign of this attempted rescue the walrus beast flew into a veritable frenzy of savagery. He inflated his balloon and began to bounce furiously into the air and striking right and left at the swarm of fragile creatures that hovered just out of his reach. In his highest bound he met with luck, but only with a little, for he managed to slice a cut in the foot of one of the girls who was flying the lowest of the lot. She, plucky, pretty thing, carried on as though she were not wounded, purring her wings with the best of them, and never giving the least indication of relinquishing or desiring to relinquish her share in the saving of her leader.

"Why does not the monster bounce upon the strand?" cried the Professor. "From its elevation he could not fail to reach them."

"His balloon is too tender for the ice," replied Lear, impatiently. Frantically the walrus beast hurtled into the air, but fortune was not with him, for the girls, with a final burst of energy, shot their wounded sister on to the ledge quite out of harm's way; then all flung themselves down and writhed in the throes of utter exhaustion.

"They've saved her! "cried the Professor, as much in relief as in triumph. "Every one of them deserves the Victoria Cross."

"If only the sailorman can now hack his way to that same ledge, I'll breathe again," admitted Lear, with a sigh. The Professor and his friend glanced to see what had become of the sailor, and found his red head protruding from the crevice, his eyes staring in fear and awe at having witnessed the life-and-death struggle. Abruptly he hurried back into his niche and began to hack away with redoubled energy.

The walrus creature was paying no attention to the noise: he still continued to bound high in the air, apparently for no purpose than to catch a greedy glimpse of the girls who had escaped his murderous fangs. A little while passed before the girls one by one got upon their feet. With the utmost gentleness they assisted their leader and the other wounded one into the ice cave.

Professor Gaylor and his friend took a breather. Their eyes were strained, their brains required clarifying; their nerves, taut for minutes, needed easing up. Together they took a few turns of the room, by which time their sight and emotions had become more nearly normal. It was as well the men resumed their watch at the moment they did, for otherwise they might not have been able to understand the goings-on.

The walrus horror had ceased to bounce; once more he stood on the ice-strand, listening. The 5ailorman was driving in the blade of his knife, chipping off lumps of ice, which fell to his feet like splintered diamonds, and already he had fashioned in the ice three steps on the slope, upon the second of which he stood to carve a fourth. Presently the walrus, advancing soft of tread, passed along, scrutinizing the face of the berg until he came to the crevice wherein was the sailor. He peered in. On seeing the man his lips curled in a savage snarl, and although the place was much too narrow to admit his bulk, he wasted some little time in futile attempts to squeeze himself in.

Defeated, he raised himself to his full height, then with those strong ivory tusks of his he began to slash at the ice at a spot some distance above the sailorman's head. No one who saw him could doubt that the creature's intention was to hack out an opening, so as to cut the poor sailorman off from reaching the plateau of safety. At every slash of the tusks chunks and splinters of ice flew. The sailorman, hearing the noise, glanced up, and the sight he beheld crashed upon his brain with such force that he lost grip of fingers and toes and fell in a heap to the bottom of the crevice.

A moment only he lay, then he sprang to his feet, scaled the steps, and fell furiously to work again. Although the scientists could not hear the faintest indication of a sound, yet they did not doubt that there, in that weird world of the vanishing point, the labours of the sailor and the beast must resound with great noise, and this fact was impressed stronger on them when they beheld the troop of fairy-girls cautiously steal out from their home in the ice as if to investigate a noise.

To lend each other courage they joined hands, and tiptoeing to the edge of their plateau they peered over. When they saw the furious activity of the beast they scudded back, and stood each with her hands pressed to her bosom, staring in quick alarm the one at the other. On a sudden they all started to gesticulate— all but one. This one-she was slightly taller than her sisters— very soberly began to unfold her gossamer filament wings even while her sisters, laying gentle restraining hands on her, appeared to be imploring her not to put into action some intention she had announced to them. But the girl, gently too, lifted their hands from off her shoulders, smiled on each one of them in turn, and, spreading her wings, fluttered up and up and up until she overtopped the peak of the towering berg, when she volleyed herself with the speed of an arrow straight into the west.

The scientists followed her with their eyes until she blurred into a sort of mist. Returning to the iceberg, the men saw quite a different send-off. Another girl, one of the tiniest of the lot, was opening her wings, to the applause of her sisters, who all danced about her encouragingly. This girl did not need to beat her way up and over the berg, but flew straight out over the ocean, heading due north. The others, springing into the air, escorted her a little distance on her way, and on returning poured into their ice-home, perhaps to report to their wounded leader. A little while later this second girl blurred out of vision as the first had done, allowing the spectators to shift their eyes to the berg again.

The sailorman had just finished his fourth step and now hacked at his fifth. The walrus monster, working more furiously than ever, caused the chips and splinters of ice to fly as a planing machine flings from it the short shavings of an oak plank. Even in the short spell he had axed out a big cavity over the sailor's head.

TIME passed. Every now and again a couple of fairy-girls hand-in-hand would tip-toe out of the translucent ice for an instant or so to peer over the brink of their plateau at the man and the monster; then to scud back, as if to report progress to their queen. They were in great trepidation. Again the scientists rested their eyes.

"The sailor is a gone coon, I fear," sighed Wilding Lear. "The brute is heading him off easily. He's doomed."

"I can't bear to think of him losing," said the Professor. ·To see a living being fighting for life, and fighting a losing fight, is more than my nerves can stand. If this poor fellow is fated to lose, I would bite my thumb off rather than be a witness to his defeat."

When the two resumed their watch nothing of great moment had happened. The sailor still hacked, the monster still rended. One of the girls was just emerging from the ice; she spread her iridescent wings, mounted and spiralled up as if reconnoitring the far distance, then, fluttering down, she seemed to call in to the others. Out a bevy of them came and, launching themselves into the air, they poised like a group of glittering angels a little distance from the berg.

"What's this approaching?" sang out Lear. "There, to the west!"

A dim black blotch in the sky caught the Professor's eye. It was rapidly emerging from a nebulous to a concrete form as it hurtled more and more into focus.

"A flying thing of sorts," ejaculated Gaylor, eagerly.

The fairy-girls had fallen into extreme agitation. The smaller and more fragile of them were urged home to the iceberg, and scurried out of sight as schoolgirls run from a wolf ; the stronger spread themselves out to either hand and some mounted higher.

Soon the flying thing from the west became much more distinct, and its flight was found to be mightily erratic. It shot up, it dived down, it flung clumsy, heavy lurches to one side, then to the other, and, indeed, seemed incapable of flying straight.

" It pursues!" cried Lear, whose eyes were sharper than Gaylor's. " And, yes, the winged girl!"

She was so tiny, so indefinite compared with the big black blotch, that for a while Gaylor failed to detect her as she darted through the air. And in that air she played as eccentric as a minnow in a stream, doubling, twisting, tumbling, turning, but ever hurtling herself on towards the iceberg, towards home, towards safety: all the while closely pursued by a monster flying thing, black as a crow, with a head like a griffin and long legs ending in talons of horn to equal the walrus creature's tusks.

At every dart and twist of the girl the black vampire twisted too, uncouth but wonderfully agile, and with one or other of its talon-claws struck at the fragile, gossamer creature a stroke that. had it so much as touched her, would have impaled its victim past all escape.

But the dauntless creature of light and colour and gauze, although palpably in the pangs of terror and exhaustion, nimbly evaded each blow, if only by a hair's-breadth, and came tumbling on. Presently the whole bevy of iridescent girls poising there over the blue waters, glittering in the sun like a handful of up-flung chaff, awoke to activity, and flew sure and swift as arrows direct for the black vampire's head, cutting in between their now distressed sister and the ugly thing of prey.

This vampire darted hither and thither, bewildered by the multitude, and the girls, one by one taking the post of danger, flashed before the winged vampire's eyes erratic as a reflection flung by a shaking mirror, causing the creature to lose sight of its original quarry and at every turn to take on the new one.

Lear laughed with delight when he saw the game. The exhausted girl, now freed from pursuit, hurried direct to the iceberg and staggered panting into the icy doorway, while her sisters continued to tumble and twist and turn, now stopping dead, now spiralling, spinning, diving, glancing off as though ricocheting on the air,  all the time tempting the grizzly black thing ever on towards the twin berg.

"Now we shall see fur fly!" exclaimed Lear.  "The plucky little souls are leading one horror to combat with another."

HE spoke true. Having enticed the black winged creature immediately over the spot where the walrus quarried at the ice, the girls, in a reckless spurt, shot them selves headlong into the crevice and alighted at the very feet of the sailorman. The next instant down thundered the black vampire, out raked its terrible talons, home they struck with deadly certainty deep into the shoulders of the walrus monster; then, the huge wings laboriously, furiously flapping, up off the ice was hoisted the astonished walrus.

Taken completely by surprise, the beast hung limp for a moment, when, flying into a flurry of savagery, it began to squirm and double, lithe as an impaled otter. It threw back its ivory tusks; and struck with tremendous force straight at the breast of the vampire. When the blow hit home the vampire flung its wings wide, ceasing to beat the air, and for a second it looked as though the two were about to fall down into the ocean, but once again, and this time more frantic than ever, those huge wings of tough black hide thundered in the air. Higher and ever higher those wings careered, and all the while the vampire and the walrus monster fought with tooth, tusk, and claw. Fur was flying like chaff in a whirlwind, great tufts of it were torn off from both combatants, and patches of hide as well, for the vampire was as devoid of feather and as well clothed in fur as the walrus creature itself.

Up upon the higher plateau of the ice, to look on at the gigantic battle, now fluttered the girls, big and little, young and old, and out to stand in their midst came their beautiful queen, whose wounded wing was bound neatly to her side. Out from the crevice crept the red-headed sailorman to turn his befreckled face skyward to watch the furious battle in the air, a battle that ever receded from him higher and higher. In strength the two creatures were evenly matched; in tenacity, in savagery, in weapons of offence; but the vampire, having its adversary in an unfamiliar medium, the air, held what at first seemed an advantage.

Yet was it really an advantage? If the walrus had been on ice the vampire could have made free use of its terrible talons, to strike and to tear, but up here in the very blue of the sky it felt itself compelled to hang hold of its prey and to fight with its terrible jaws. It drove its claws deeper and deeper into the walrus creature, and struck its horny head with the crash of a steam-hammer smashing on the head of its foe, who, in his turn, stabbed and slashed with sabre-tusks, ripping a mighty gash at every blow. From each creature blood flowed freely. Plainly the fight up in the vault of heaven could not last much longer; plainly, too, it was a death-fight.

At length the altitude limit was reached. The vampire could mount no higher. The fierceness of the fight, the hurt of the wounds, the loss of blood and the weight of its burden, brought the skinny, horny, flying creature to a stop while still its leather wings furiously beat upon the air. Then suddenly the wings, which, heretofore so masterful, had buoyed up the battlers, drooped with the pathetic limpness of a cut flower that has exhausted its water, and, lurching sideways, the vampire began to fall.

The walrus, sensing victory, struck more furiously vigorous than ever before. The vampire, reviving and not to be outdone, drove its vicious jaws in deep, and renewing its strength moment by moment it began tearing out and redigging in its mighty claws. Over and over in deadly embrace the two tumbled in a wild chaotic descent, a descent that became faster and faster at every turn. The scientists, holding their breath, saw the girls dash scurrying for the protection of the ice, they saw the sailorman cower back into his crevice.

Still locked in the embrace of hate the two monsters, with the velocity of a crumpled aeroplane, hurtled through the air and in their descent first struck upon the side of the iceberg a glancing blow, then in a vast bound they shot down to the surface of the sea and there they lay, mangled, broken, their wide-open eyes filmed over in death. Only for a little while the waves toyed with them, slowly swirling them around as to the touch of a gentle maelstrom, then, with startling suddenness, engulfed them into the depths.

PROFESSOR GAYLOR jumped from the high stool to the floor, his parchment cheeks wrinkled in the first smile that had come to him since the waters of the strange ocean were spread out to his gaze. Lear followed, radiant. His delight that the girls should have risked their lives to save the life of a shipwrecked sailor was unbounded.

"Noble creatures!" he kept exclaiming as he rubbed his hands together in glee. "Noble creatures! Plucky souls, frail and beautiful as butterflies, yet lion brave. At the risk of their own lives they saved the life of a common sailor."

A full five minutes passed before the friends remounted to their high stools, and when they peered  through the eyepieces the sight that greeted them was one to warm the cockles of their heart.

The sylph girls stood together in a glittering group each in the act of shaking free her wings to hover over the berg, when to them flew the tiny sister who had sped off to the north just before the coming of the vampire. This sibyl pointed towards the quarter whence she came, and the scientists beheld a clumsy, sturdy whaling ship holding soberly over the waves, curtsying and yawing a ponderous course straight for the iceberg.

"A rescue ship!" cried Lear, in delight. "I guessed as much."

Down from their plateau on to the lower strand the fragile creatures now fluttered one by one, each a link in surely the loveliest "ladies' chain" mortal eyes had ever danced to behold, and out from his crevice they beckoned the brawny, be-freckled sailorman .

He came forth willingly. Using him as morris-dancers use a maypole the girls joined hands and began, light, nimble as fairy folk, to circle around him, slowly, sedately at first, but each succeeding encircling increased in zest and spin. Round and around they tiptoed so that the motion grew into a dizzy whirl; on and on, still faster and faster, they spun, till at length individual form became merged into a whirling band, and the red-headed sailorman, a mighty grin on his freckled face, stood encompassed, Saturn-like, by a zone of dazzling, dancing, flashing colour, a zone for ever weaving and blending in inspiring harmonies to out-bedazzle the splendour of a rainbow's proud-flung arch.

A new light now pervaded the world of the vanishing point, a light as of the aurora borealis, deep-dyed, resplendent; and this light, striking down upon the face of the waters, kindled into diamond flames each mighty berg till it glowed and scintillated with ardent fires. The vast ocean lay an enamel of dark blue studded with brilliant gems. The scientists stared, fascinated.

The old whaler came alongside the twin iceberg. The radiant dance died down; the sailorman was rowed aboard, and the girls, having waved a merry good-bye, tripped one by one into their ice palace. Darkness snuggled down upon the world of the vanishing point.

"BEFORE evaporation wrecks the wonderful world we have been permitted to peep into, let us replace the drop of water in the duck pond, " said Wilding Lear, speaking under his breath, for the awe of the infinitely large in the infinitely small lay heavy upon his soul.

Professor Gaylor, his fingers a-tremble in his eagerness not to lose a moment, handed out to Lear the glasses between which lay the tiny film of duck-pond water.

___________________

18: A Diplomatic Mistake

P Treherne

1872-1922

Weekly Times (Melbourne) 13 Jan 1906

MR EDGAR MASON was somewhat surprised when he arrived at Victoria Station by the boat train from Dover to be welcomed by three frock-coated gentlemen, their hats In their hands, bowing like Chinese mandarins.

Mason was a fairly good linguist, having travelled in the principal European countries, and he recognised that one of the three spoke German very fast and very respectfully, a tall footman with a blue and yellow cockade in his hat, seized Mason's modest dressing bag. In reply to the voluble flow of German he replied mechanically, "Ja, ja, wie gehts" and before he could enter into further conversation, found himself conducted to a smart brougham, and was presently whirled out of the station.

"They were evidently expecting me," he said, to himself. "I've never been secured so quickly, and (he glanced at the luxurious Interior of the brougham) so admirably in my life."

Mason threw himself back in the cushions and lit a cigarette. Shortly after, the brougham drew up at an imposing house in Carlton House Terrace, and Mason saw the hall door wide open and a vista of powdered footmen. In the ball a distinguished-looking man addressed him. His German was slower and easier to understand.

Mason ascertained that the Secretary for Foreign Affairs expected him to dinner that night in Grosvenor Square, where a dinner party had been arranged in his honor.

"Look here," said Mason, "if it's ail the same to you I'll talk English. I like German, but I'm used to English."

"Certainly, your Excellency," replied the distinguished person, "it is doubtless good practice. Our last chief made a point of practising French."

"Did he?" said Mason, "there's no accounting for tastes."

"With your Excellency's permission I will conduct you to your bedroom; the dinner is at eight."

"Good! I could do with a wash and a brush up; it's a fair rush this new Paris train. I hope there'll be enough to eat to-night. I've got a rare twist on."

"His lordship's chef is famous," was the reply.

The bedroom proved to be a gorgeous apartment on the second floor. The distinguished person bowed and withdrew, and. Mason examined the room. The walls were panelled in silk brocade, the bed looked as if it had once formed part of the furniture of a royal palace.

Mason looked at himself in the glass and wondered exceedingly. He was a man of forty. Though his accent proclaimed a tinge of vulgarity and doubtful origin, he was presentable enough, tall and fresh-colored, with a great black moustache and imperial, and keen grey eyes. He looked the picture of self-confidence.

There was a dressing-room opening off this apartment, and in it he found an English valet with an expectant look on his face.

"You're English, by the look of you," said Mason.

"Yes, your Excellency."

"Don't call me that— yes, sir, will do. Now will you kindly tell me where the devil I am?"

"Carlton House Terrace, your ex— I mean, my lord. This is the Iberian Embassy."

Mason looked at his watch. It was past seven.

"You want my keys, I suppose. This one belongs to the dressing-bag; the other to the portmanteau. I've got another box coming over, but it won't be here till to-morrow."

The valet bowed and took the keys. Mason's effects were unpacked with lightning celerity, and by five minutes to eight he was ready to start Mason happened to possess an order (the Zinc Cross of the second class, presented by the ruler of a small European State.) This, he considered, gave a finish to his outward appearance.

Owing to a block in Piccadilly, the carriage was delayed, and when Mason arrived at Grosvenor Square he found at least thirty guests in the red drawing-room. His host, Lord Selham, the genial Secretary for Foreign Affairs, came forward to greet him.

"I must apologise for being late," said Mason, "but the County Council are pulling up so much pavement that it was impossible to set along."

"It is of no consequence," murmured Lord Selham, and proceeded to introduce "His Excellency" to several dignitaries and their wives, including various members of the Privy Council, the Bishop of Belchester, Sir Montagu Martlet, V.C., and finally the Duchess of Cokehampton.

As in a dream, Mason gave his arm to Lady Selham, and he found himself at the dinner-table between his hostess and. the duchess. The latter, a formidable, lady who. fancied her German, opened .the . conversation in that language, and was somewhat surprised when. Mason replied in English.

"Why," she said, "you speak like an Englishman."

"You flatter me," answered Mason, "but I prefer to talk the language of, the country I happen to be in."

"A graceful compliment to our language," said the duchess.

"It is indeed," added Lady Selham.

"I suppose you will be going down to Windsor," said the duchess. "The Court moved last week."

"I've heard nothing about it," said Mason. "But bless you,, I never know where I may be summoned. I've appeared before nearly all the crowned heads."

"You must have had a wonderful experience of courts," murmured the duchess and Lady Selham in unison. "I believe you, and that's why I've always tried to pick up languages. You see this,"—and he tapped the order of the Zinc Cross. "I got that from King Othrobold for tearing up three packs of cards and the cigar-holder trick."

"I've never seen the Order before," said the duchess, pleasantly. "But it looks very nice."

"I'll show you all the cigar-holder trick after dinner. I reckon I'm the only man in Europe who can do It."

"How are the Kitteldorfs?" inquired Lady Selham.

"Oh, going strong," replied Mason. "I gave a show at their place in Vienna last year. The old man was very keen about palming coins, and I'm about the best at that game In the world, bar none. Look at this!" Mason extracted a florin from the salt cellar in front of him, then he produced some more from a silver candlestick, procured further florins from apparent space, quickly counted twenty florins, and then turned to the duchess and said in slow, vibrating tones: "We shall find these twenty florins in the pockets of the reverend gentleman on the other side of the table after dinner."

Mason's sleight of hand display caused no little stir among the guests who were able to observe him. The duchess regarded him through her lorgnettes in a deprecating way. Lady Selham blushed and bit her lip. The Bishop of Belchester's countenance displayed sorrow rather than anger, he felt nervously in his pockets to see if the florins had indeed found their way to him.

"An unusual accomplishment for an ambassador," he whispered to his neighbor, "and hardly the time or place er— hem — for such an exhibition."

His neighbor, a pretty young married woman, laughed and said, "If the ambassador's business is played out, he could always get a good screw at the halls."

"By Jove!" declared Sir Montagu Martlet, "there's only one other man in Europe who could do that trick. I saw him, what's more, it's deuced clever, eh, what?"

When the ladies retired to the drawing-room, Mason gave a further display of his skill, much to Lord Selham's annoyance, who wished to talk upon various topics of the day. He balanced wine glasses, caught cigars in a holder, retrieved twenty florins from the Bishop; to the surprise and indignation of that dignitary and the members of the Privy Council.

Mason excelled these efforts in the drawing-room, he juggled with every object that came to hand, found coins in hitherto unsuspected places, discovered a collection of foreign flags in a Chelsea vase. At last, after one particularly brilliant feat, in which a poker, a music stool, and a drawing-room lamp played an important part, Sir Montagu cried, "There is only one man in the world could do that, it's Masonetti. I'll bet any money—"

Then to the consternation of the entire party Mason replied as follows:—

" Of course I'm Masonetti in public— Edgar J. Mason in real life. To the public I'm Masonetti, the far-famed illusionist, the wizard from the old world, the greatest conjuror on earth."

Lord Selham gasped and strode up to Mason. "Do you mean to say you are not Count Falkenstein the new Iberian ambassador?"

"Not much," replied Mason.

"Then you are his living image," exclaimed Lord Selham. "I never saw such a resemblance, though I have been wondering why you spoke English so correctly."

Mason then explained how he had be on met at the station and conducted to Carlton House Terrace.

"I understood," he continued, "that somebody wanted me to give a show and had tried a new dodge to secure me. I open at the Alhambra on Saturday. I'm feeling dog-tired, so if you've seen enough, I'll go."

Mason nodded to them in a friendly way, shook hands with some, and Lord Selham accompanied him downstairs. "I'm sorry the mistake occurred," said the latter, "but your tricks were— most extraordinary."

"Oh, that's, all right," replied Mason. "My charge for to-night will be thirty guineas. Send me a cheque whenever you like."

In the hall an official from the Iberian Embassy appeared and explained with tragic gestures that Count Falkenstein had just arrived by the late train at Charing Cross, having at the last moment put off his departure. That the regrettable mistake occurred owing to the remarkable likeness between Mr Mason and the Ambassador.

"I had better fetch my luggage," said Mason.

"I have it outside on a four-wheeler," answered the official. Then Mason passed through a line of flunkeys and directed the cabman to drive to the Hotel Cecil.

_______________

19: An Officer's Patrol

Major Arthur Griffiths

Major Arthur George Frederick Griffiths,  1838-1908

Weekly Times (Melbourne) 3 Feb 1906

THE LIGHT was fast fading out of the dreary autumn landscape, and already the air struck chill with the approach of darkness as I drove my Mercedes up the steep incline. I was alone, acting as my own chauffeur, a long way from home in the heart of the enemy's country, country comparatively unknown to me, on a rugged and difficult road, constantly harassed with the fear of a puncture or a breakdown.

An officer's patrol sent out to gather information, but no luck had been mine so far. I ought to have come within sight, possibly touch, of Wood's outposts, to have learnt something of his whereabouts at least, from friendly natives, something of his strength and intentions for the morrow— whether he meant to advance or retreat, whether to attack in front or on the flank. Yet here I was at nightfall, forty miles or more from camp, involved in an intricate maze of narrow lanes, with abominable "going" under my sagging tyres.

On and on, up and up, toiling and puffing, and still hoping for the best, when suddenly the glare of my great lamp revealed to me, not far from the road, a cottage, a mere hut or hovel, "sown in a wrinkle " of the monstrous hill.

What was it, this poor ramshackle tenement, standing there lonely, dark, silent, solitary? Should I give it the go-by or explore its unpromising recesses?

The scout who neglects any, even the smallest, chance is not fit for his business, and my hesitation was short-lived. I pulled up the machine then and there, and unscrewing my lamp, crossed over to make closer examination.

There was a low fence with gate unlocked, giving upon a slip of garden, a house door closed but not secured, for when no answer came to my knock, I found it yielded to my touch, and turning the handle I walked in. Holding my light on high, I found myself in a narrow scrap of hall or entry, and saw at once that the interior belied my first impressions of the exterior. All was ruinous and deserted outside, but within the cottage showed signs of occupancy. Someone lived there, and decent folk as it seemed, for the place was tidily arranged. A coat or two hung on the pegs, a bowl, coarse enough, but filled with wild flowers, was on a common deal table, and a pair of rough gloves, neatly folded, lay alongside. Surely these were evidences of a woman's hand.

I pressed forward a little nervously now, feeling I was an intruder, and seeing a door in front of me ajar I ventured to go on, when to my surprise I entered a large room, originally no doubt a barn-like shed or annexe of the cottage. The rafters showed above, with parts of the thatch pushing through; the walls in places were plainly of rough planking.

It was the fitting and furnishing that astonished me. It was a laboratory, obviously, and strewn with all the paraphernalia of a working experimental chemist. All manner of instruments and scientific appliances stood on the wide table; jars and crucibles, a blow pipe, bottles, and large phials glass-stoppered. In one corner was a brick built furnace, and in another a couple of carboys showed their heads above the straw of a still unpacked hamper. The room was unoccupied, but it could not have been so long. There was a pair of spectacles just where they had been cast down in front of a seat in the centre of the table, and close to them a loop and a glass mask.

"Who are you, pray?"

A woman's voice, silvery but stern and indignant, recalled me to myself, and I hastily turned to apologise.

I was confronted by a tall girl, meanly dressed, but of striking appearance. Anger gleamed in her fine eyes and a threatening scowl darkened her handsome face.

"You must forgive me, but I have lost -my way," I pleaded.

"A miserable excuse," she retorted quite fiercely, "your way could not possibly have lain in here. You are a trespasser, you know that, and no doubt worse, a spy or a thief, with who can say what evil intentions."

"Are these things yours?" l asked, waving my hand towards the table.

"What if they are? What does it matter to you? Who sent you; What brought you?"

"My general sent me in the first place, and in the second my motor brought me. It's out there if you care to look."

"You are an officer— a military officer?" and the tone changed from anger to apprehension. I touched my uniform jacket, and motioned with my forage cap, which I had lifted directly she appeared.

"Go; go this instant! Lose no time or there will be trouble. He may come in at any moment, and if he finds an officer here it will— it will—"

"Only tell me where I am. How far is it to the next town or village, or anywhere?"

"This is called Muckden Hillside. We are a mile or two from Sambourne. If you have a motor you can run down to it in a few minutes, it's a straight road. Now, please, leave before he comes in. It would be terrible if he found you."

"And who might he be?" I was tempted to ask, as I glanced quickly at her left hand, seeking the tell-tale wedding-ring. "Not your husband? Surely I can easily explain my presence here."

"No, no, of course not my husband," she blushed crimson and tossed her head. "My father, I mean. He hates you—"

I stared at her blankly. "Not you personally, but all of you, all officers, all army men, and he would be furious if he found that any of you had forced your way in here."

"What extraordinary bad taste on his part!" I cried lightly. "Why, what on earth have we done to him?"

"The greatest injury, he always says. Not you, really, but the War Office and the Government, and the military authorities. He believes he has been robbed of his ideas, of his inventions, his inventions, which were to have made his fortune, and will yet, he declares, if he can only complete his experiments. But do, do go, the very sight of you will drive, him wild. There," she ended abruptly, and with a sudden cry of dismay. "Now you're too late," and answering quickly. "Yes, father, directly, father," ran out.

In a minute or two she returned, leading a strange old man, who was talking fast, half to himself, and with impassioned gestures. His snowy hair; was all dishevelled, his long and ragged; beard all awry, his frame was bent with years of deep sedentary study.

"Melita," he said with a groan, as he sank into a chair and buried his head, in his hands.lt was clear he had not noticed me as yet. "I've been' down to Sambourne to seek for that missing parcel, and I have had a terrible shock, I cannot escape them. They pursue me everywhere, those accursed military. Even here in this remote corner, where I thought to hide myself, to work on, unknown and unseen. Sambourne is full of soldiers."

I pricked up my ears. This was the sort of news I wanted.

"Horse, foot and guns. Troops on the march. Vehicles crowding every road, lines of tents in the fields, bugles braying, drums beating, all the hideous noises of soldiering."

"Whose force is it? Who is in command? Did you hear?" I broke in, unable to restrain myself, and despite the eager but silent appeal of the girl that I should remain in the background. The old man jumped to his feet, and turned on me like a tiger. He seemed to be seized with ungovernable rage; he made as though he would have clutched me by the throat.

"You!" He all but spat at me. "You, a soldier, here? Under my roof, in my most secret lair, which I desire to keep private from all the world. How dare you come? How dare you?"

"Stay, sir," I protested, anxious to calm him. "I beg you will not take this too seriously, and hold me harmless. I came only to inquire my way, and I am willing to go at once."

"Enough, enough, more than enough. I see through it all— you came here to pry and spy and steal my knowledge, my discoveries. It is abominable, disgraceful, criminal. You are a miscreant!"

He lashed himself into a perfect fury, his words failed him; and he took to ranging the room with great strides, hitting out savagely at all that came in his way, dealing havoc among the bottles and glass tubes, which were swept from the table to fall with a crash of fragments on to the floor. His daughter followed him close, striving to pacify him, vainly seeking to prevent a terrible catastrophe that seemed imminent.

It was too late. The reckless old madman, utterly unconscious of the danger of running amuk among his inflammable materials, overturned a small lamp which broke. The oil instantly took fire and blazed up with a fierceness that threatened a general conflagration.

"Quick," I cried to my companions, who now stood aghast and frightened beyond measure. "Water! sand! blankets! anything! Cover it up!" and we all three ran this way and that in frantic search for any means whereby to extinguish the flames.

Nothing was of the slightest avail, the laboratory was made to burn; its contents were so much fuel to the fire which grew in intensity with a raging,  roaring sound, giving out volumes of smoke and fierce, intolerable heat.

"Come out of this," I yelled, snatching at the old man who stood there , paralysed and helpless.

"Rouse him, make him come, you, too," I shouted to his daughter, "or you will both be burnt alive."'

With great difficulty and no little force I dragged them away from the more immediate danger, but could not persuade them for some time to leave the house. But by degrees the wooden walls of the great laboratory, the straw thatch dry as tinder, were involved, and tongues of flame, leaping and licking all that was near, soon caught the cottage itself and doomed it to inevitable destruction.

"What shall we do? Is there no help for us? Can nothing save the house?" cried the girl, wringing her hands.

We were now out in the roadway, and the dark silhouette of my Mercedes loomed close at hand.

"I could motor into the village and give the alarm, but I do not think it would be much use; nothing can save the cottage now. At least you are clear of it," and as I spoke the roof fell in with a crash and a great eruption of dazzling sparks, the sight of which the old man slipped from his daughter's arm and fell helpless and inanimate on the ground.

After a short space I suggested that as all was over, it was useless to wait longer in this bleak, exposed spot, and at length persuaded the girl to let me take them down to Sambourne and find some shelter for the night.

We lifted her father on to the motor, and I did my best to make them comfortable with such wraps and rugs as I had with me. I had no light, my motor lamp was lost in the blaze, but moving cautiously in less than half-an-hour I struck down into the town of Sambourne below where I pulled up at the door of the village hostelry, and after a brief explanation committed my charges to the people of the house.

An ostler took charge of my motor, and showed me the way to the village post-office. The old lady in charge was garrulous, and gave me great assistance, as I wired particulars of the occupation of Sambourne to the chief of the staff.

Having thus accomplished my mission there was nothing left but to make good my escape to my own side, and having, entered my motor, I was driving it carefully out of the yard when a couple of officers met me in the gateway just under the gas lamp, and one said, "Hullo, what have we here?" and both held up their hands with peremptory commands to stop.

"One of the Halberdiers? Why, you're Red. We've caught you in the very act; a spy in the camp. Come along, the general is inside, and you'll have to account for yourself."

I told my story of the burning cottage and the rescued couple whom I had brought in safety to the inn.

"Very creditable, my boy," said the general, "but you're our prisoner all the same. We'll hunt up the Umpire to put you out of action, and we'll hold you for a couple of days. Sit down now and have some dinner."

I said nothing about the warning message already despatched by wire, but , next day the general found out when his attack failed that I had been one too many for him.

_________________

20: An Unnatural Father

Barry Pain

1864-1928

Weekly Times (Melbourne) 17 Feb 1906

MR JAMES CRAY had as a boy been called James. That throws some light on his character. The days of his boy-hood were long past. He was now a good-natured methodical little man of forty-five, with a plaintive eye and no indications of any remarkable strength of personality. He could not have been a leader of men, but as Fate merely required him to be the father of a numerous family and clerk to a solicitor, this did not greatly matter. He studied politics, and in conversation it was his wont and even his pride to be caustic. He would aim now and then at a daring originality. To accuse him of audacity, would have been to give him the flattery dearest and most welcome to him.

He returned from town every night to his well-ordered suburban home. He travelled in a second-class smoking compartment, generally with friends of his who lived in the same suburb. On this occasion finding that there was but one place vacant in the carriage as he got in, he observed to the company generally, "Got room for a little one?"

This need not necessarily be taken as a specimen of his daring originality. It was big custom, the formula or shibboleth which he always pronounced on making the full complement of a railway carriage. Many men of his class suffer from it. The correct answer is an appreciative smile or personal remark of a humorous and satirical character.

On this occasion Tarraway replied that there was room for one man or for three specimens like Mr James Cray. Tarraway was a bachelor in great social request in his suburban circle; believed to be gifted with a pretty wit, but admitting at times a vein of tender sentimentality.

"That is as it may be," said Mr Cray. He found this retort useful for most purposes, and generally final. He took his seat, unfolded his paper on his knee, and addressed the carriage generally.

"What I should like," he said, "and what would do me good would be to have just six minutes' talk with Mr Chamberlain. I could say what I had to say in six minutes, and I venture to think I could point out to him a few facts that have escaped his observation. He might agree with me or he might not, but I fancy he'd be a surprised man by the time I had finished. Take for instance this use of the word Imperial."

"Drop it," said Mr Beadle, a placid and obese old gentleman. "Once you and Tarraway get on to politics, there's no peace for anybody. Just as you came in, Tarraway was telling us how much he envied you."

"Might I ask in what respect?" asked Mr Cray, almost vindictively.

"Mr Beadle," said Tarraway, "is not putting my case quite fairly. Envy, so far as I am aware, was not the word that I used. All I said was that they were happy people who had a wife and children waiting for them when they got home. Here I go back to my lonely lodgings. I may be out in the evenings more than some people, but a round of amusements doesn't make up for the want of home life. It's too late for me to talk about it now, but I ought to have had a wife and children. Blessed is the man who hath his quiver full of them."

Mr Beadle permitted himself to observe that in this country people who had their quiver full of wives generally got into serious trouble.

"You are perfectly well aware what my meaning was," said Tarraway, with dignity. "I was referring to children. I daresay many wouldn't think it, but I love children. I wish I had a dozen of them of my own."

"Do you?" said Mr Cray. "Well, you can have, any of mine you like, or all of them, if you like. If you care to buy them, I'd consider three pound ten apiece, and a fiver would make it a certainty. If you knew what children were, as I do, you wouldn't be so keen about having 'em."

"Been having any trouble with them?" asked Beadle.

"Trouble? There's always trouble and nothing but trouble. The other day their aunt, who might have known better, told Guinevere (that's the youngest girl) some fool of a story about the desert. What's the consequence? About the middle of the night I get woke up with that child crying. I go to see what's the matter. She says she wants to be a camel. Those were her very words. And you can't reason with a child. I told her she couldn't be a camel, and that she wouldn't like it if she were. I asked her how she would care to go for the best part of a fortnight with nothing to drink, which is, I believe, the case habitually with camels. The word drink reminded her that she was thirsty, and I had to go down to get her some milk. She finished that, wiped her mouth, and said, 'I want to be a camel,' and started blaring again. I was up the best part of the night with her. And what are you like next morning when that happens? You can have that lot for three pound ten, or on offer would be considered. Now, then, Mr Tarraway, what do you say to that?"

The vein of tender sentimentality was strong in Mr Tarraway that night. "That," he said, "is what might be called one side of the picture. You forget their affectionate, caressing ways, their silvery voices, their—"

"Talk about something we understand," said Mr Cray, savagely. "If you had once heard half-a-dozen of my kids roaring out a music-hall song they'd learnt from the girl, you wouldn't have any more to say about silvery voices. Silvery lunatic asylum, with the parrot-house at the Zoo on top of it. And then it's ten to one when I come to go into the thing I find that song isn't the kind of thing for children, and that means a row with the girl for having taught them it, and weeks and weeks of hard work in trying to make them forget it. The only things children pick up easily are things they oughtn't to have, such as slangy songs and measles and firearms; and they stick to them like gum. I like to hear a bachelor talk about their tender caressing ways. That's quite a general idea, that children are fragile little things, and can't hurt you. Mine get active about six in the morning. They wake me up and play at being an orchestra, and use the tenderest parts of me as a drum. They've got no sense, of course, and if you say that you'd rather they didn't jump on your face they think you're being unkind to them. If that's the kind of thing you envy, you can have it. If I were going back to smoke my pipe and read my paper in peace and quietude, same as you are, you wouldn't find me grumbling about it. If you're so keen on children, take on some of mine. Pick where you like, and we'll change all bad nuts. Let's call it three pounds for one or two for a fiver. I'll sell at that. And you can afford it."

"I expect," said Tarraway, "that if I pulled that five-pound note out of my pocket and handed it over now, you'd soon sing another tune."

"Would I?' said Cray. "Just hand it over and try me."

Mr Tarraway did not hand it over. This was partly because he rather felt that Mr Cray was speaking in earnest, and partly because he did not happen to have a five-pound note.

"I tell you," Cray went on, "I get regularly sick of 'em. As often as not it's a comfort to me to get away to my work in the morning and be quit of 'em for a bit. If you ask my opinion, the only people who want children are the people who haven't got them. That speaks for itself, and—"

The sentence was not finished, because at this moment the train reached Mr Cray's destination. He got separated from his friends in the crowd leaving the station, and in his absence Tarraway confided to Beadle his opinion that Cray was an unnatural father.

THE TWINS, Gladys and Gwendolen Cray, aged eight, stood outside the station waiting for their father. They were pretty girls, with dark hair, red tam o' shanters, and an expression of serious firmness in which their father was totally wanting. They flung themselves on him.

"Have you got them, pa?" both asked together.

Pa said he had got them. He added that it had taken him the best part of his dinner-hour to get them. He had thought there was a shop just outside Lincoln's Inn Fields, but that shop had nothing of the kind in stock, and he had been compelled to seek further. He did not say this consecutively, because he was not allowed to speak consecutively. At every three words he had to stop to answer a question from one of the twins. He then produced from his pocket two toys of a simple nature. They consisted of a mouthpiece with a balloon attachment. You first of all blew up the balloon; as it collapsed the air passing through the mouthpiece made a noise like a cat in its death agony. They were not, perhaps, suitable presents for a man to give who loved peace and quietness, but the choice had not been his.

Mr Cray now walked along with one twin on each side of him. As they went they tested their new toys and made the street hideous and caused horses to shy. Mr Cray smiled with satisfaction.

"But," he asked, in a momentary lull, "where's Hector? I thought he was coming to meet me as well to-night."

"He's ill," said Gladys. "He's been sick," said Gwendolen, giving further details, which showed her to be of a somewhat morbid disposition.

The smile of satisfaction vanished from Mr Cray's face at once, and he hurried home.

It seemed to him unfeeling that his wife should be placidly engaged in planting French beans in the strip of garden at the back.

"How's Hector?" he asked feverishly.

"He's been a bit upset," said Mrs Cray, "but he'll be all right to-night. I guessed what it would be yesterday. You can't help giving that boy anything he wants to eat, whether it's good for him or whether it's not."

"Never mind that," said Cray. "Have you had a doctor to him?"

"Doctor? No, of course not. We don't want a doctor for a simple little thing like that."

"But," objected Mr Cray, "it may not be what you think. It may be the beginning of fever or diphtheria or measles."

In his vivid imagination he already saw the boy expiring from a complication of these three complaints.

"It would ease my mind a good deal if a doctor saw him. I had meant to do a bit of gardening, but I may just as well walk round to the doctor's instead."

He walked round to the doctor's with the twins and two others. The case being represented as urgent, the doctor came at once, and found a remarkably energetic little boy in bed, afflicted with a great desire to get up and a still greater desire to eat a square meal, and with nothing else the matter with him. But the doctor was patient— doctors learn to be patient.

A day or two afterwards Cray happened to hear that Tarraway had spoken of him as being a cold-blooded brute.

Cray said he would have to have it out with Tarraway. Secretly, he was delighted.

________________

21: The Grave

Orville R. Emerson

1894-1945

Weird Tales March 1923

THE END of this story was first brought to my attention when Fromwiller returned from his trip to Mount Kemmel, with a very strange tale indeed and one extremely hard to believe.

But I believed it enough to go back to the Mount with "From" to see if we could discover anything more. And after digging for awhile at the place where "From's" story began, we made our way into an old dugout that had been caved in, or at least where all the entrances had been filled with dirt, and there we found, written on German correspondence paper, a terrible story.

We found the story on Christmas day. 1918, while making the trip in the colonel's machine from Watou, in Flanders, where our regiment was stationed. Of course, you have heard of Mount Kemmel in Flanders: more than once it figured in newspaper reports as it changed hands during some of the fiercest fighting of the war. And when the Germans were finally driven from this point of vantage, in October, 1918, a retreat was started which did not end until it became a race to see who could get into Germany first.

The advance was so fast that the victorious British and French forces had no time to bury their dead, and, terrible as it may seem to those who have not seen it, in December of that year one could see the rotting corpses of the unburied dead scattered here and there over the top of Mount Kemmel. It was a place of ghostly sights and sickening odors. And it was there that we found this tale.

With the chaplain's help, we translated the story, which follows:

FOR TWO WEEKS I have been buried alive! For two weeks I have not seen daylight, nor heard the sound of another person's voice. Unless I can find something to do, besides this everlasting digging, I shall go mad. So I shall write. As long as my candles last, I will pass part of the time each day in setting down on paper my experiences.

"Not that I need to do this in order to remember them. God knows that when I get out the first thing I shall do will be to try to forget them! But if I should not get out!...

"I am an Ober-lieutenant in the Imperial German Army. Two weeks ago my regiment was holding Mount Kemmel in Flanders. We were surrounded on three sides and subjected to a terrific artillery fire, but on account of the commanding position we were ordered to hold the Mount to the last man. Our engineers, however, had made things very comfortable. Numerous deep dugouts had been constructed, and in them we were comparatively safe from shellfire.

"Many of these had been connected by passageways so that there was a regular little underground city, and the majority of the garrison never left the protection of the dugouts. But even under these conditions our casualties were heavy. Lookouts had to be maintained above ground, and once in a while a direct hit by one of the huge railway guns would even destroy some of the dugouts.

"A little over two weeks ago— I can't be sure, because I have lost track of the exact number of days— the usual shelling was increased a hundred fold. With about twenty others, I was sleeping in one of the shallower dugouts. The tremendous increase in shelling awakened me with a start, and my first impulse was to go at once into a deeper dugout, which was connected to the one I was in by an underground passageway.

"It was a smaller dugout, built a few feet lower than the one I was in. It had been used as a sort of a storeroom and no one was supposed to sleep there. But it seemed safer to me, and, alone, I crept into it. A thousand times since I have wished I had taken another man with me. But my chances for doing it were soon gone.

"I had hardly entered the smaller dugout when there was a tremendous explosion behind me. The ground shook as if a mine had exploded below us. Whether that was indeed the case, or whether some extra large caliber explosive shell had struck the dugout behind me, I never knew.

"After the shock of the explosion, had passed I went back to the passageway. When about halfway along it, I found the timbers above had fallen, allowing the earth to settle, and my way was effectually blocked.

"So I returned to the dugout and waited alone through several hours of terrific shelling. The only other entrance to the dugout I was in was the main entrance from the trench above, and all those who had been above ground had gone into dugouts long before this. So I could not expect anyone to enter while the shelling continued; and when it ceased there would surely be an attack.

"As I did not want to be killed by a grenade thrown down the entrance; I remained awake in order to rush out at the first signs of cessation of the bombardment and join what comrades there might be left on the hill.

"After about six hours of the heavy bombardment, all sound above ground seemed to ease. Five minutes went by, then ten; surely the attack was coming. I rushed to the stairway leading out to the air. I took a couple of strides up, the stairs. There was a blinding flash and a deafening explosion.

"I felt myself falling. Then darkness swallowed everything."

HOW LONG I lay unconscious in the dugout I never knew.

"But after what seemed like a long time, I practically grew conscious of a dull ache in my left arm. I could not move it I opened my eyes and found only darkness. I felt pain and a stiffness all over my body.

"Slowly I rose, struck a match, found a candle and lit it and looked at my watch. It had stopped. I did not know how long I had remained there unconscious. All noise of bombardment had ceased. I stood and listened for some time, but could hear no sound of any kind.

"My gaze fell on the stairway entrance. I started in alarm. The end of the dugout, where the entrance was, was half filled with dirt.

"I went over and looked closer. The entrance was completely filled with dirt at the bottom, and no light of any kind could be seen from above. I went to the passageway to the other dugout, although I remembered it had caved in. I examined the fallen timbers closely. Between two of them I could feel a slight movement of air. Here was an opening to the outside world.

"I tried to move the timbers, as well as I could with one arm, only to precipitate a small avalanche of dirt which filled the crack. Quickly I dug at the dirt until again I could feel the movement of air. This might be the only place where I could obtain fresh air.

"I was convinced that it would take some little work to open up either of the passageways, and I began to feel hungry. Luckily, there was a good supply of canned foods and hard bread, for the officers had kept their rations stored in this dugout. I also found a keg of water and about a dozen bottles of wine, which I discovered to be very good. After I had relieved my appetite and finished one of the bottles of wine, I felt sleepy and, although my left arm pained me considerably, I soon dropped off to sleep.

"The time I have allowed myself for writing is up, so I will stop for today. After I have performed my daily task of digging tomorrow. I shall again write. Already my mind feels easier. Surely help will come soon. At any rate, within two more weeks I shall have liberated myself. Already I am half way up the stairs. And my rations will last that long. I have divided them so they will."

"YESTERDAY I did not feel like writing after I finished my digging. My arm pained me considerably. I guess I used it too much.

"But today I was more careful with it, and it feels better. And I am worried again. Twice today big piles of earth caved in, where the timbers above were loose, and each time as much dirt fell into the passageway as I can remove in a day. Two days more before I can count on getting out by myself.

"The rations will have to be stretched out some more. The daily amount is already pretty small. But I shall go on with my account.

"From the time I became conscious I started my watch, and since then I have kept track of the days. On the second day I took stock of the food, water, wood, matches, candles, etc., and found a plentiful supply for two weeks at least. At that time I did not look forward to a stay of more than a few days in my prison.

"Either the enemy or ourselves will occupy the hill I told myself, because it is such an important position. And whoever now holds the hill will be compelled to dig in deeply in order to hold it.

"So to my mind it was only a matter of a few days until either the entrance or the passageway would be cleared, and my only doubts were as to whether it would be friend or enemy that would discover me. My arm felt better, although I could not use it much, and so I spent the day in reading an old newspaper which I found among the food supplies, and in waiting for help to come. What a fool I was! If I had only worked from the start, I would be just that many days nearer deliverance.

"On the third day I was annoyed by water, which began dripping from the roof and seeping in at the sides of the dugout. I cursed that muddy water, then, as I have often cursed such dugout nuisances before, but it may be that I shall yet bless that water and it shall save my life.

"But it certainly made things uncomfortable; so I spent the day in moving my bunk, food and water supplies, candles, etc., up into the passageway. For a space of about ten feet it was unobstructed, and, being slightly higher than the dugout, was dryer and more comfortable. Besides, the air was much better here, as I had found that practically all my supply of fresh air came in through the crack between the timbers, and I thought maybe the rats wouldn't bother me so much at night. Again I spent the balance of the day simply in waiting for help.

"It was not until well into the fourth day that I really began to feel uneasy. It suddenly became impressed on my consciousness that I had not heard the sound of a gun, or felt the earth shake from the force of a concussion, since the fatal shell that had filled the entrance. What was the meaning of the silence? Why did I hear no sounds of fighting? It was as still as the grave.

"What a horrible death to die! Buried Alive! A panic of fear swept over me. But my will and reason reasserted itself. In time, I should be able to dig myself out by my own efforts. It would take time but it could be done.

"So, although I could not use my left arm as yet, I spent the rest of that day and all of the two following days in digging dirt from the entrance and carrying it back into the far corner of the dugout.

"On the seventh day after regaining consciousness I was tired and stiff from my unwanted exertions of the three previous days. I could see by this time that it was a matter of weeks— two or three, at least— before I could hope to liberate myself. I might be rescued at an earlier date, but, without outside aid, it would take probably three more weeks of labor before I could dig my way out.

"Already dirt had caved in from the top, where the timbers had sprung apart, and I could repair the damage to the roof of the stairway only in a crude way with one arm. But my left arm was much better. With a day's rest. I would be able to use it pretty well. Besides. I must conserve my energy. So I spent the seventh day in rest and prayer for my speedy release from a living grave.

"I also reapportioned my food on the basis of three more weeks. It made the daily portions pretty small, especially as the digging was strenuous work. There was a large supply of candles, so that I had plenty of light for any work. But the supply of water bothered me. Almost half of the small keg was gone in the first week. I decided to drink only once a day.

"The following six days were all days of feverish labor, light eating and even lighter drinking. But, despite all my efforts, only a quarter of the keg was left at the end of two weeks. And the horror of the situation grew on me. My imagination would not be quiet. I would picture to myself the agonies to come, when I would have even less food and water than at present. My mind would run on and on— to death by starvation— to the finding of my emaciated body by those who would eventually open up the dugout— even to their attempts to reconstruct the story of my end.

"And, adding to my physical discomfort, were the swarming vermin infesting the dugout and my person. A month had gone by since I had had a bath, and I could not now spare a drop of water even to wash my face. The rats had become so bold that I had to leave a candle burning all night in order to protect myself in my sleep. Partly to relieve my mind. I started to write this tale of my experiences. It did act as a relief at first, but now, as I read it over, the growing terror of this awful place grips me. I would cease writing, but some impulse urges me to write each day.

THREE WEEKS have passed since I was buried in this living tomb.

"Today I drank the last drop of water in the keg. There is a pool of stagnant water on the dugout door— dirty, slimy and olive with vermin— always standing there, fed by drippings from the roof. As yet I cannot bring myself to touch it.

"Today I divided up my food supply for another week. God knows the portions were already small enough! But there have been so many cave-ins recently that I can never finish clearing the entrance in another week.

"Sometimes I feel that I shall never clear it. But I must! I can never bear to die here. I must will myself to escape, and I shall escape!

"Did not the captain often say that the will to win was half the victory? I shall rest no more. Every waking hour must be spent in removing the treacherous dirt.

"Even my writing must cease."

"OH, GOD! I am afraid, afraid!

"I must write to relieve my mind. Last night I went to sleep at nine by my watch. At twelve I woke to find myself in the dark, frantically digging with my bare hands at the hard sides of the dugout. After some trouble I found a candle and lit it.

"The whole dugout was upset. My food supplies were lying in the mud. The box of candles had been spilled. My finger nails were broken and bloody from clawing at the ground.

"The realization dawned upon me that I had been out of my head. And then came the fear— dark, raging fear— fear of insanity. I have been drinking the stagnant water from the floor for days. I do not know how many.

"I have only about one meal left, but I must save it."

"I HAD A meal today. For three days I have been without food.

"But today I caught one of the rats that infect the place. He was a big one, too. Gave me a bad bite, but I killed him. I feel lots better today. Have had some bad dreams lately, but they don't bother me now.

"That rat was tough, though. Think I'll finish this digging and go back to my regiment in a day or two."

"HEAVEN have mercy! I must be out of my head half the time now.

"I have absolutely no recollection of having written that last entry. And I feel feverish and weak.

"If I had my strength, I think I could finish clearing the entrance in a day or two. But I can only work a short time at a stretch.

"I am beginning to give up hope."

"WILD SPELLS come on me oftener now. I awake tired out from exertions, which I cannot remember.

"Bones of rats, picked clean, are scattered about, yet I do not remember eating them. In my lucid moments I don't seem to be able to catch them, for they are too wary and I am too weak.

"I get some relief by chewing the candles, but I dare not eat them all. I am afraid of the dark, I am afraid of the rats, but worst of all is the hideous fear of myself.

"My mind is breaking down. I must escape soon or I will be little better than a wild animal. Oh, God, send help! I am going mad!"

"Terror, desperation, despair— is this the end?"

"FOR A long time I have been resting.

"I have had a brilliant idea. Rest brings back strength. The longer a person rests the stronger they should get I have been resting a long time now. Weeks or months, I don't know which. So I must be very strong. I feel strong. My fever has left me. So listen! There is only a little dirt left in the entrance way. I am going out and crawl through it. Just like a mole. Right out into the sunlight. I feel much stronger than a mole. So this is the end of my little tale. A sad tale, but one with a happy ending. Sunlight! A very happy ending."

AND THAT was the end of the manuscript There only remains to tell Fromwiller's tale.

At first I didn't believe it But now I do. I shall put it down, though, just as Fromwiller told it to me, and you can take it or leave it as you choose.

"Soon after we were billeted at Watou," said Fromwiller, I decided to go out and see Mount Kemmel. I had heard that things were rather gruesome out there, but I was really not prepared for the conditions that I found. I had seen unburied dead around Roulers and in the Argonne, but it had been almost two months since the fighting on Mount Kemmel and there were still many unburied dead. But there was another thing that I had never seen, and that was the buried living!

"As I came up to the highest point of the Mount, I was attracted by a movement of loose dirt on the edge of a huge shell hole. The dirt seemed to be falling in to a common center, as if the dirt below was being removed. As I watched, suddenly I was horrified to see a long, skinny human arm emerge from the ground.

"It disappeared, drawing back some of the earth with it There was a movement of dirt over a larger area, and the arm reappeared, together with a man's head and shoulders. He pulled himself up out of the very ground, as it seemed, shook the dirt from his body like a huge, giant dog, and stood erect. I never want to see such another creature!

"Hardly a strip of clothing was visible, and, what little there was, was so torn and dirty that it was impossible to tell what kind it had been. The skin was drawn tightly over the bones, and there was a vacant stare in the protruding eyes. It looked like a corpse that had lain in the grave a long time.

"This apparition looked directly at me, and yet did not appear to see me. He looked as if the light bothered him. I spoke, and a look of fear came over his face. He seemed filled with terror.

"I stepped toward him, shaking loose a piece of barbed wire which had caught in my puttees. Quick as a flash, he turned and started to run from me.

"For a second I was too astonished to move. Then I started to follow him. In a straight line he ran, looking neither to the right or left. Directly ahead of him was a deep and wide trench. He was running straight toward it. Suddenly it dawned on me that he did not see it.

"I called out, but it seemed to terrify him all the more, and with one last lunge he stepped into the trench and fell. I heard his body strike the other side of the trench and fell with a splash into the water at the bottom.

"I followed and looked down into the trench. There he lay, with his head bent back in such a position that I was sure his neck was broken. He was half in and half out of the water, and as I looked at him I could scarcely believe what I had seen. Surely he looked as if he had been dead as long as some of the other corpses, scattered over the hillside. I turned and left him as he was.

"Buried while living, I left him unburied when dead."

________________

22: The Draw-Keeper

Wadsworth Camp

1879-1936

The Grim Thirteen, 1917

THE RAILROAD OFFICIALS, since it was convenient, placed the blame on old Haley, yet they were more justly culpable themselves, for they should have relieved him long before the wreck. Moreover, he was mentally sound when he told his story to the division superintendent and begged him to explain its violations of human routine. Doubtless the superintendent understood, but he was a responsible servant of the road, and sympathy for the victims of one's own mistakes is not, unfortunately, an explosive virtue.

HALEY had been on the drawbridge at Bull Bluff for more than twenty years. He had brought his wife to the swamp-pressed cabin beside the track. There his son had been born, primitively, for the fifteen miles to the nearest town, the scarcity of trains, and the lack of a wagon road had made it impossible to get a doctor through in time. After that they had continued contentedly even in the crowning loneliness of that place.

To make life bearable there was, of course, their own companionship, the magic of their child's progress, and, daily, a few trains roaring by, as well as boats and log rafts, whose impatient whistling sent them to bend backs and strain muscles over the turn bar.

Eventually the steamboats were given a sinister meaning for them. When they had opened the draw and stood leaning against the supports, they would watch these busy craft glide through with misgivings. They would answer the greetings from pilot-house or forecastle with prophetic gestures that conveyed an impression of farewell.

This state of mind was forced on them tragically enough one night when the Queen of the River signaled the bridge for the last time. She was the largest boat they saw. She ran only in Winter, crowded each trip with tourists from the north whom she brought to admire and wonder at the desolate, tropical shores of this stream.

At her whistle that evening Haley and his wife ran from their cabin to the turn bar, unlocked the bridge, and began with desperate haste to swing the ponderous draw, for it seemed an honor to clear the channel for the Queen. They never failed to gape. She gave them a feeling of unworthlness, almost of shame, when her great searchlight picked them out and held them exposed to the populous, noisy decks. They experienced, too, a sense of unreality as her brilliant windows flashed by, and they caught glimpses of upholstery, mahogany, mirrors, and well-dressed men and women at unfamiliar pleasuring

That night, Haley remembered, the captain leaned from the pilot-house, waved his gold-braided cap, and shouted:

"A little slow opening, Haley."

"Have her wide open for you tomorrow night, Cap," Haley called back.

The giant was through. The water, churned by her wheels, moaned and sobbed past the piers and among the pilings. Laughter from the decks fought against it for awhile, then died away.

Haley had frequently had this fancy of the water, had more than once spoken of it to his wife. He mentioned it tonight.

"Sounds like somebody crying."

His wife shivered, for the night air was cold.

Following their custom, they stood staring after the boat until she had swung for the bend, had exposed for a moment one radiant flank before gliding, swan-like, behind the trees.

"Sometimes wish I was on her, Tom," the woman muttered.

Haley laughed a little roughly.

"Not me. If we saw people to talk to we wouldn't know how to behave."

"They're happy though," she said, "those that ride on her."

"I wonder," he mused.

The bridge lights and the tiny gleam from their cabin were depressing after the glory which a moment ago had been beside them, within hand's reach. Silently they swung the draw into place, locked it, and walked across the trestle.

Later, still wondering about those who sailed on the Queen of the River, Haley saw a pink reflection grow in the sky to the south. It puzzled him because he thought its area too limited for a forest fire. Yet there was no house for many miles in that direction. Consequently he went to bed satisfied that it could be nothing but burning trees and brushwood.

When a freight train came through the next morning he learned the undreamed of, the unbelievable. The majestic Queen of the River lay a blackened hulk on a shoal in one of the stream's widest stretches, and, what was harder to grasp, upholstery, mahogany, mirrors, and, alas, many, many well-dressed men and women would no longer be seen through her brilliant windows.

Haley took his opportunity between trains, and, leaving the draw to his wife and child, slipped down to the appalling ruin.

To hear of horrors is bad enough. To face them with one's own eyes is often demoralizing. It was years before Haley could drive the things he saw there from his mind. This healing process was unquestionably retarded by his life in the lonely cabin at the end of the bridge. For a long time that sheltered his memory of the cataclysm. Each object in its single room appeared to have allied itself with some grim, tremendous detail.

At night on the draw it was worse.

"I told him I'd have her wide open when he came back," he often whispered to his wife. "He won't come back. She was too big and pretty and— and solid. It can't be."

And sometimes when he waited for a log raft to crawl through he would stamp his foot impatiently.

"I wish I'd never thought that about the water, crying, else I wish these tugboats wouldn't kick up such a fuss."

Or, through a habit of introspection acquired during his lonely life, he would reach out vaguely with breathless, unanswerable questions.

"She used to whistle up there by the bend just about this time of night— along about half-past ten. Remember? It echoed off the trees. It was fit to wake th— the dead. It got us out, and it frightened the birds. You could hear them moving through the woods. All that noise every night! Where's it gone now?— It's so still here— don't you listen for it? And the way those people used to laugh on deck! Remember that? They laughed louder than ever that time. What's come of all that laughing? The water cries. Hear it?— cries just the same. But there ain't any more laughing."

THAT was long past, and many other and more personal changes had intervened. Haley's wife had left the swamp-pressed cabin. This time, too, when it was the saving instead of the bringing of life, it had been impossible to get a doctor through the wilderness in time. Haley's son was seventeen. While his father had clung to duty, he had stolen rides or walked the fifteen miles to town many times. Now he was ambitious to settle there and work. So it was on Haley that the loss of his wife fell with unconquerable regret. His hair and beard were gray. It was at this time that the trainmen began to call him Old Haley, yet he was scarcely forty years old.

He listened to his son's plans and watched his growing restlessness apparently without comprehension. When the boy announced his definite departure he acquiesced with indifference.

"The road will have to give me another hand," was all he said.

This, however, the road refused to do. The bridge was on a branch line. The business did not justify such extravagance. They figured for him the average number of times per month the draw was opened. He would not have believed it so few. The Queen of the River catastrophe, of course, had placed a curse on high-class passenger traffic. During the years since there had been no large boats. In addition that section was well cut out, so that log rafts were scarce now. Yet it seemed to him that his back and arms ached no less than before.

He spoke of the road's refusal to his son.

"They say I must manage with you. If I bother them again they'll throw me out and get some poor family who'll do the work."

"Don't ask," the boy said bluntly. "We'll say nothing, and I'll go just the same. Think they'll kick if they find you're here most of the time alone? Nobody'll say a word. Bridge is only a nuisance to them anyway. Haven't raised your wages in a long time, have they? It would cost them more to put a family here than they're paying you. Meantime I'll do my best to make enough to keep you when you do leave the bridge."

There was no defense against this last argument. Besides, Haley couldn't forecast a life deprived of his small wage; and a conscious, final exodus from the cabin was inconceivable.

So it was arranged, and so Old Haley was left alone at Bull Bluff.

THAT EVENING, when he had swung the draw shut after the passage of a small freighter, he seemed for the first time fully to realize his new state. The filth of the passing boat's deck had aroused his contempt, and, from habit, with a comment on his lips he had turned to where his wife had always stood. Emptiness! And it rushed in upon him now how empty his life had become, for, since she had gone, the boy had stood in her place, had veiled that emptiness.

He straightened his back slowly and looked about him with the eyes of a newcomer. The sun had just set behind the swamp. The rapidity of its descent suggested a fall. The clouds bulging upward from the trees might have been steam rising from its extinction in the muddy water, the faint colors playing over them, the reflection of its expiring fires. It seemed impossible the day should ever flame again after that immersion.

The river had an appearance of solidity. From bend to bend it was like highly polished steel. The thick swamp pushed to the water's edge on both shores, save where the railway embankment ran white and smooth from the trestle's ends. To the east the track stretched straight away, but to the west, beyond his cabin, it curved sharply off into the forest.

His eyes rested curiously on the cabin— the focus of his mature life. Its front was built against the embankment, but, so steep was that, it had been necessary to raise the rear of the little building above the swamp on high pilings. There was a window on each side. Over the door opening on the railroad hung a white sign with worn black letters: "Bull Bluff Drawbridge."

He walked slowly back, gazing with a sense of sympathy at the huge, gaunt, moss-draped frames of the cypresses— those ultimate symbols of loneliness.

After twenty years he was alone at Bull Bluff, and he faced it with the same surprise and dismay. He asked himself, as he had asked in the beginning, how "bluff" had crept into the name of such a water-logged place. Only yesterday it had seemed familiar— home. Why had it suddenly assumed a strange and repellent air? He knew why. He walked on more slowly, with bowed head until he opened the door of the cabin and entered its shadows.

When he had lighted the lamp he prepared his supper on the dwarfish stove. That task, too, had been spared him by his son. His clumsy efforts reminded him that everything— everything now depended on himself— not only his own necessities, but the necessities of the great outside world which each day trusted its swift messengers for a moment to his care. He must light and set the signal lamps on the draw. He must keep the mechanism well greased. Day or night, unaided, he must swing its great weight at the demands of traffic. This responsibility had been light when the future had cradled it. Now, grown to companionship with the present, its vast bulk for the moment crushed Haley. He began to brood upon it.

Later, after he had climbed into the bed, unnecessarily and pitifully large now, he recalled that there was no one with whom to share the anticipation of the unexpected, for the routine of railroad and river was often broken in upon without warning. So Haley lay awake most of the night, listening for a signal from train or boat, starting up more than once at the sudden, mournful cry of some nocturnal prowler in the swamp. And Haley's longing was not for his son. The boy's departure had been an incident in the day, but its train of consequences demanded the return of another figure, who had also gone ahead, but irrevocably. In his simple way he wondered if she, like his son, would try to make a home for him when he should have left the bridge forever.

The habit of insomnia grew. Many mornings he left the cabin, unsteady and half blind from lack of sleep. Yet during the first month his vigilance was rewarded only once. That once, however, Haley was on the draw with time to spare, and he felt satisfied.

At the end of the month his son returned for a few hours. He swung down from the caboose of a freight train one night.

Haley was on the open draw, gazing with a stunned expression at the headlight of the locomotive. He did not see his son at first. Suddenly bending to the turn bar, he began running with bent back and taut muscles in a narrow circle while he closed the bridge.

As the locomotive grumbled by, gathering speed, the engineer glanced at Haley, who clung to the railing of his platform.

"Must have been a fast boat you let through, Haley, else you been dozing with the draw open."

Haley stiffened with an air of pride.

"Ever know me to do that?"

"Must say I haven't," the engineer called back.

Yet Haley had for the first time done something of the sort— he didn't know just what, but he realized he had made a mistake.

He stepped back to the ties with painful care. He walked unevenly from the draw and down the trestle. His head was bowed, his forehead wrinkled. He tried to retrace his actions during the last cloudy half hour.

"Ha— ay, pop!"

The voice startled him. He passed the back of his hand over his eyes and peered ahead through the darkness.

"That you, son?"

The boy ran out on the trestle, took his arm, and led him back toward the cabin.

"Come on ninety-three, son?"

"Yes. What was the draw open for. I didn't see any boat. Listen!"

They paused for a moment.

"I don't hear anything but ninety-three. No boat been through here the last few minutes. Oughtn't to leave the draw open, pop. Some of the engineers might take it into their heads to make a fuss. Maybe you figured ninety-three would be late."

Haley didn't answer immediately. When they had reached the planking in front of the cabin he leaned against the wall and from the shadows looked at his son in the lighted doorway.

"Didn't you hear a boat whistle as you was coming through the woods?" he asked in a low, hesitant voice.

"Only whistle I heard was us blowing for the draw." Haley passed the back of his hand across his eyes again. The fingers trembled.

"Seems you ought to've heard. I was just dozing off. I heard— woke me up— wasn't very loud— more like an echo. 'Course I couldn't take chances. I tumbled out and opened the draw and watched for her to come around the bend."

Haley's voice had more life as he repeated:

"'Course I couldn't take any chances."

His son, before he spoke, filled and lighted his pipe. The match disclosed Haley's figure leaning against the cabin wall.

"And our whistle, pop?" the boy asked in a low tone.

"That's it," Haley said, his voice dead again. "I didn't hear ninety-three. Looked up, and there was her headlight blinding me from the other side of the channel. Now wasn't that curious, son?— Curious, wasn't it? Mind must have been set on that boat that didn't show up."

The boy entered the cabin. Haley followed him with an apprehensive air. He drew back timorously as the boy turned and faced him.

"Look at me, pop."

Haley fumbled with the collar of his shirt.

"Pop, you ain't well."

"Well enough."

"What's ailing you?"

"Not sleeping much. That's all. Kind of hanker after company at night on the draw. Now that's curious, ain't it?"

His son watched him closely for a moment.

"Don't blame you for getting lonely, but, whatever you do, don't come down sick."

"No fear— never been sick in my life."

The boy handed him a cigar.

"Brought you some of these."

Haley accepted it silently. He arose and crossed to the stove for a match. He walked, as he had come down the trestle, with an unevenness that was almost a lurch. Once his hand went out quickly and grasped the back of a chair. He steadied himself, then, continuing, lighted his cigar. His son studied him, clearly puzzled.

"Pop, you ain't been drinking?"

The old man swung with a flash of anger.

"On duty! I've got a record. No liquor on this bridge."

But he knew what had prompted the question. He sat down at the table, leaned his head on his hand, let his shoulders droop, and smoked reflectively while his son waited. At last he glanced up and spoke with a perplexed manner.

"Not drink. Going around with the turn bar in circles when I open and shut the draw. Ever make you feel queer, son?"

The boy shook his head.

"Nor me," Haley went on, "'til just lately. Going around in circles— circles that way— Sometimes when I come back in here this little square room— ain't much bigger than twice the turn bar— goes round and round in circles, too, 'til I can't see the corners. Now that's curious, ain't it? Clears up by and by."

He resumed his smoking in silence. The boy said nothing more until the cigar was finished. Then he urged his father to go to bed.

"You sleep tonight without worrying about anything. I'll tend to the draw. You get it off your mind for once."

Haley was grateful. For the first time in many nights he removed all his clothing before climbing into the pitifully large bed.

His son lay on his old-time folding cot in the corner.

"Don't you fret, pop," he called across the darkness. "I'm not going to miss any tricks."

But even with this release Old Haley failed to find forgetfulness. Most of the night he lay listening. For what? He couldn't say, yet he lay awake and listened, and the emptiness at his side seemed listening, too.

His son left early in the morning on the up freight. "I've got to jump her, pop," he said apologetically, "or I'll lose my job. Can't afford to do that now. You get more sleep and take some quinine. You'll be all right. I'll be back to see before long."

Haley, still in bed, pressed the boy's hand. When the rumble of the train had diminished to silence and the peace of the forest and the river was broken only by the breeze whispering in the hanging moss and the leaves, Haley raised his fingers slowly to his tired eyes. This time he found them wet. But, although his son's departure had brought the tears, it was not for the remoteness of the boy's return that he wept.

He sprang up impatiently and drew his clothes on. He stepped from the cabin. The sun had not yet vanquished the mist which hung above the water and wreathed among the trees, giving them an appearance of ghastliness. The chill in the air made him shake. He entered the cabin again and closed the door.

The trouble of which he had spoken to his son grew. Frequently after swinging the bridge he had to sit by the turn bar for some minutes before attempting the walk back across the trestle. At times the woods and the river circled about him so rapidly he could not find his cabin in the green, silver-shot confusion; could not tell which way to turn to leave the draw. He was grateful for the few revolutions it was necessary to take in the opposite direction in order to lock the bridge. But they were insufficient. His vertigo increased.

He began to resent the impatient signals from boats which sent him, forewarned, to this circular subversion of his little world. The jovial greetings of pilots and deck-hands became mockery. They angered. Supporting himself against the rail or the turn bar, he would stare morosely back without word or gesture.

Moreover his insomnia persisted, and during the nights he dwelt upon the fancied whistle that had sent him to open the draw uselessly the evening of his son's return. Always now he listened with a breathless expectancy. He listened until one night he started up at the same vague but imperative sound— the sound he had described to the boy as an echo.

He lay back. He determined he would not be deceived again. Yet the vague sound of that echo lingered in his brain. It seemed to beat against his eardrums, but from within.

Finally he drew on his boots and left the cabin. The usual fog lay upon the water. There was no boat in sight. Still, normally, one whistling for the draw, would not yet have had time to round the bend. Haley hesitated. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other until the impulse to hurry to the bridge and open it became irresistible. He swung the draw, running with extraordinary haste in his little circle about the turn bar.

When the channel was clear Haley leaned dizzily against the rail— watching. The fog thickened. Birds in the swamp made slow, flapping noises, uttered sharp cries as they rose to higher branches.

He watched until he remembered ninety-three was due. He wouldn't be caught like that a second time. So he closed the bridge. As he clung, waiting for the world to solidify again, he turned sharply. He had received an impression of some presence in the fog at his side. But the fog was very thick. He could see nothing.

He repeated this experience at irregular but shortening intervals— heard the vague, formless whistle, neglected as long as he could its command, at last ran, conquered, to his futile task. Once when he staggered back to the cabin his eyes chanced on the clock above the stove. Its hand pointed to half-past ten. After that he glanced at the clock habitually on his return from these unrewarded labors. The hands invariably made the same angle.

Certain objects in the room unexpectedly recalled old associations which he had fancied forgotten. He re-arranged these objects, even hid the smaller ones, but their appeal did not abate.

He wondered almost indifferently when his son would redeem his promise to see how he was getting on. To be sure, such a visit would be a relief from the only uniform companionship he knew— the birds and the unseen, unknown things that whispered always in the swamp.

His son returned after two weeks on a brilliant Sunday afternoon.

Haley sat on the planking in front of his cabin. His haggard eyes were fixed on the bend of the river. He shook hands with his son affectionately. In reply to the boy's questions he said he was well enough.

"Except for lack of sleep and things going round," he added. "Walk in and find you something to eat. I ain't coming. Good chance to get rid of the circles, sitting here in the sun."

He resumed his smoking placidly. Again he fixed his steady regard on the bend.

After the boy had obeyed he brought another chair and sat at his father's side, asking questions whose answers appeared to satisfy him.

With the setting of the sun and the growth of dusk, however, Haley became unquiet. He glanced frequently over his shoulder. Once or twice he started up to sink back again with a sigh.

"Ain't opening the draw any more by mistake?" his son asked.

Haley looked around for some moments. When he spoke he failed to answer the question.

"Remember the boat?"

"What boat, pop?"

"The boat that didn't come through that night."

The boy nodded.

"Wonder what that was?" Haley asked thoughtfully.

The evening deepened. The trees at the bend, to which the old man's eyes still turned, became a dim, shapeless bulk. Little by little the polish left the steel like water. The water ceased to resemble steel. It assumed the likeness of a black veil strung from the forest, whose sombre masses it still reflected formlessly.

The old man stirred. He turned to his son. He spoke with wistfulness.

"There's a boat been trying to get around that bend— some time now."

His son started.

"A boat, pop?"

"Yes— for some time now— trying awful hard to get around that bend and through the draw. It— it can't quite make it."

He gulped.

"Ain't that curious now, son?"

And after a moment:

"I wonder if it will ever get around?"

Haley's voice fell to a whisper.

"If the draw wasn't open then!"

By and by he arose and yawned. "I never kept them waiting much, did I, son? I'm sleepy tonight. Maybe if I went to bed knowing you was here, I might drop off tight."

He stepped inside, but he reappeared almost immediately and faced his son with an air of constraint.

"That's curious what I said about the boat, but don't think any more of that. That's all it is— curious."

He waited. His attitude was tense. At last he spoke with forced carelessness.

"You'll look after the bridge tonight?"

"Yes, pop. Don't you worry."

"All right," the old man answered, "only if you hear a whistle from the river, be sure you get the draw open in time. I'd hate for the draw not to be open in time, son."

He re-entered the cabin and went to bed, but he slept little. The thought that his son might not hear obsessed him.

In the morning the boy was reluctant to go.

"It's too lonesome here for you, pop; but I can't stay. Wish I could. Stick it out a little longer, and I'll fix it so I can get you up to town."

The old man leaned in the doorway.

"I ain't so sure, son," he said slowly, "that I want to go up to town."

When he was alone he set about his work dreamily. The machinery had not been greased for some days, so he went over it with minute care, for he wanted the bridge in perfect order, ready to swing quietly. Afterward he brought out a chair, and, taking his accustomed seat in front of the cabin, fixed his eyes on the bend.

His view was abruptly shut off in the middle of the afternoon. A shout brought him upright. A heavy freight locomotive was jarring violently by within four feet.

"Some sleeper, Old Haley!" the engineer called back.

Yet Haley knew he had been awake. His mind could not fathom the experience. Still sounding it uselessly, he opened the draw for a tow of logs at sunset.

"Hey!" a man called from the tug. "If you ain't careful, Haley, you'll flop into the river one of these days."

Haley slowly raised his hand in a gesture of anger. He did his best to hold the boat in his field of vision, but he was unsuccessful. It slipped before his eyes in recurrent and widening circles. His failure increased his anger. He shouted back into the green, revolving confusion:

"If you ain't careful, one of these days I won't turn the draw for you."

And from out the confusion the man's voice came back glibly.

"You'll be losing your job before you know it, Haley."

When the tow was gone Haley shook his head at the memory of his outburst. His mind shrank from the man's prophecy. To lose his job after twenty years! It was longer than usual before he could steady himself for the walk across the trestle.

During his supper and afterward those words clung and troubled. When he was in bed he kept repeating:

"You got to get the draw open in time or you'll lose your job."

Unconsciously his mind reiterated the refrain while he listened, while the emptiness at his side listened with him.

It came at last— the vague, formless whistle, like an echo entering his brain. He sprang up. He drew on his boots, chanting consciously now:

"Haley, you got to get the draw open in time."

His power to combat the signal finally demolished, he ran out to the track. The fog lay white and thick on the water. The lights of the bridge were dim, unreal.

He stumbled along the ties to the trestle. He reached the draw. He placed the bar in its socket. He commenced to turn in his narrow circle with frantic haste. If she should round the bend tonight the channel must be open.

When his task was done he hung, breathless, across the bar, while the world, white this time, and torn with reds and greens from the lamps, stormed about him.

Abruptly the world became still. Without preparation he found himself looking straight through the end of the draw at the fog which rolled between him and the bend. And in the white fog by the bend he thought something whiter grew and loomed, larger, nearer, in the soundless silence of the swamp and the river.

Exultation clutched at Haley's throat. His hand gripped the iron bar.

"She's making it," he whispered. "This trip she's making it, and the draw's open in time."

The scream of a whistle echoed through the forest.

"No need to whistle," he muttered. "Draw's wide."

He sprang to the side rail. He leaned over to watch the white shape grow. The intensity of his desire brought it swiftly, smoothly, gracefully nearer— to the end of the pilings.

He cursed the fog, for it blurred the lights. It veiled the outlines of the boat from beyond the bend.

The chalky prow divided the fog— rolled it far to either side, and the boat, its smallest line unmasked for his memory, slipped majestically into the draw.

There was no need to look for the black letters on the side. His hand tightened its grip on the damp railing. He was sure the letters were there, arresting in shape, forming four companionable yet desolate words— Queen of the River.

Higher, above the decks, he knew the captain leaned from the pilot-house window, waving his gold-braided cap.

"A little slow opening, Haley."

He did not dare look at the captain. His voice rose. It was like a sob.

"Have her wide open for you after this, cap."

Indistinctly he saw the captain wave his hand, but he would not look closer.

The white, graceful flank swept by. The cabin windows came opposite, and Haley stared once more through their remembered openings. But the fog had lingered in there. Or was it another vapor? It twisted about the upholstery, the mahogany, and the mirrors; and the well-dressed men and women he recalled at their unfamiliar pleasures were shadowed beyond definition.

He noticed now that the water did not moan and sob past the piers and among the pilings. Nor was there the accustomed laughter that had always fought that sound. But when the stern came abreast and he glanced up at the populous, silent deck, he saw the laughter there, and he shrank away. Yet he had known all along it must be like that.

Haley, following his invariable custom when the Queen went through, turned to his wife with a comment.

"Seems like the water ought to cry tonight, but it don't."

"Remember," she answered, "you never wanted to go on her?"

"Yes. See! She's clearing now."

"And remember I always said those were happy— those that rode on her?"

He nodded.

"Well—" she began.

But the Queen had cleared. He raised trembling fingers to his eyes. The lids were closed. He forced them open. The fog rolled again. The white night recommenced its incoherent revolutions. Now that his eyes were open he could no longer see his wife. He reached out for her with helpless, circular gestures. He thought he heard her reassuring voice from the fog.

A vast glare blinded him. The whistle shrieked in an agony of sound. Shouts burst at his ears. The turbulent world closed in and crushed him.

THEY FOUND Haley on the draw. He had been struck by a piece of flying wreckage. They carried him to his cabin and placed him on the pitifully large bed. They did this, cursing and none too gently, for the locomotive and two freight cars of ninety-three lay in the channel. Fortunately the engineer and the fire man had jumped in time, so that, except for the old draw-keeper, no one had been hurt. It would, however, cost the road a pretty penny to raise the submerged equipment and clear the channel. Therefore, someone must be blamed.

The engineer could testify that Haley had failed to answer his signal. He bolstered this with the assertion that his brakes had failed to hold. There was no reason for the draw to be open. Where was there any boat? So Haley was chosen for the sacrifice.

The division superintendent hurried down on a special engine. When he entered the cabin Haley opened his eyes. He told the superintendent his story, expecting comprehension; confident, one would have thought, of some explanation from so superior a fellow mortal. The superintendent could, doubtless, have satisfied him, but he wasn't ripe for the sacrifice himself.

"Can't have nightmares," he said a little hoarsely, "unless you're asleep. Asleep on your job, Haley! Might's well own up."

But Haley flung his arm over the emptiness at his side, smiled, and said nothing more.

__________________

23: The Pearls of Paruki

J. Allan Dunn

1872-1941

Adventure, mid October 1919

FLEMING STROLLED contentedly along the main street of Levuka between the flamboyant trees that strewed the white road of coral grit with scarlet blossoms and the lace-edge of the lagoon surf. There are two towns in the Fijis: Levuka, on the island of Ovelau, the capital that was, and Suva, on the isle of Viti Levu— Great Fiji— the capital, that is. To these two comes all the commerce of the group, and Fleming, whose tiny leasehold islet was nearer to Levuka, was well satisfied to have placed his vanilla crop at an average of three dollars a pound. They called it twelve shillings and sixpence in Levuka, for the government and coinage are British.

Fleming had worked like a dog with that vanilla plantation since he quit trading in copra, pearl, and turtle-shell and in trepang. The big Australian firms with their capital and steamers had, as Fleming phrased it, "knocked the tar out of the small trader." So Fleming had leased an island, sold his schooner, bought a sloop, and set out vanilla. Now he had a pound of dried beans for every cutting of Mexican vanilla that he had planted three years before. He was twenty-seven thousand dollars to the good, and his plantation was established.

Better than that to Fleming, who was as fond of money and what money would bring as the next man, he had turned the laugh on the scoffers who had predicted failure. He had raised more than a third of the previous year's export of the bean, had put Fiji on the map as a factor in the vanilla market, and had discovered, with a quiet but thorough sense of pride, that John Fleming, successful vanilla planter, was a man of vastly more importance than John Fleming, South Sea trader.

Serene in white linen and white shoes, in white silk shirt, white hose, and white sombrero of bleached hala, he turned up a lane shady with coco-palm and breadfruit, making his way up-hill to the home of the Widow Starkey. When Phil Starkey, a little more drunk, a little more reckless than usual, had gone fishing with dynamite in the tiny bay of his tiny isle of Paruki and, just to show that the devil took care of his own, insisted on crimping the primer cap with his teeth, not many people had lamented his death. Not his native boys, whom he cursed and drove to the limit. They, with all Levuka and its neighborhood, were glad for Helen Starkey, even while they mourned in Fiji style with proper appreciation of the occasion if not of the departed. If the widow shared their feelings she gave no sign but had left the island for Levuka and decorously observed the conventions.

She had been a beauty, with her blond complexion and her slim figure, when she had come out from the States at the summons of handsome Phil Starkey. She was a beauty still, though older and quieter, living on a slender income, too proud, perhaps, to go back home after her matrimonial disaster. That was two years old; and it was time, some said and others thought, that she wiped out the bitterness of failure by a second and happier marriage. Fleming was one of those who thought much along such lines but said little, save as his actions may have spoken.

He was a suitor, though whether he was favored none might say. Whatever the widow thought about a second venture she kept to herself. It looked as if she had determined upon being especially careful, particularly sure of the man. Fleming, feeling that he had proven himself, set up by his reception as a successful planter, had nerved himself to find out where he stood in the lists, for he knew that he was not the only one to aspire to possess the widow's charms.

Nervousness, coupled with a desire to appear unwilted despite the tropical heat, made him walk leisurely. But his pulses quickened as he came in sight of the gaily-variegated crotons that hedged the widow's home. Her dwelling was rather cabin than house, a bungalow of four rooms winged with wide verandas, set in a garden that was a riot of perfume, color, and verdure. The leaves of the crotons and of the climbing vines aped the flowers in their hues; the odor of ihlang-ihlang, plumaria, tuberose, and stephanotis was almost overpowering. But Fleming thought the setting just right for the widow's slender person, sure to be dressed in cool white. He figured her in the shade of the veranda, dainty, feminine, serving him citronade, listening to the tale of his victory. Her place was a little Eden, he fancied. And then he saw the snake.

Harper was a good-looking snake. Fleming did not deny that. But he knew more about Harper than a great many people, a good deal more than Fleming ever mentioned. Harper was tall and dark; and his black hair was waving, close-trimmed to his well-shaped head. He was a good conversationalist and a clever flatterer. He had a blended suggestion of laziness and deviltry that a great many women found fascinating, and at heart he was a cold-blooded blackguard. Fleming knew the sort of things that went on aboard Harper's schooner between port and port, and he had a strong belief that Harper had one woman in Sydney who believed herself to be his wife, and another in Honolulu, not to mention more elastic alliances in Tahiti and elsewhere. To see Harper lounging on the widow's veranda, very much at home, inhaling his cigarette and sipping at citronade, destroyed all of Fleming's hardly acquired equanimity. He wanted to kick the man out of the garden and read the widow a lecture on how to avoid snakes.

"And Harper's the kind that doesn't pack rattles," thought Fleming as he grimly advanced up the steps, Harper lying at ease in the long rattan chair and smiling up at him mockingly.

The widow looked a bit uncertainly from one to the other.

"You men know each other, don't you?" she asked.

"Yes," said Fleming.

"Beyond a doubt," said Harper. "A bit different from the last place we met, eh, Fleming?"

He managed to suggest an innuendo in the statement, and Fleming felt himself flush as the widow looked at him. The last time he had met Harper Fleming had yanked out of a waterside dump a young cub of a planter's son whom Harper had been trimming at poker with the help of some unsavory friends. And now, by some damnable trick of look and tone, Harper had put the shoe on Fleming's foot.

"Doing fine with your vanilla, they tell me, Fleming," drawled Harper condescendingly. "They can't say you don't know beans now, old man."

He grinned as he noticed Fleming's handshake when he took the glass the widow handed him. It was fun to bait Fleming, Harper thought, a bit dangerous but a lot of fun. He reacted beautifully.

Then the widow interfered. The evidently bad blood between her two guests she attributed partly to jealousy, and therefore it was not entirely unacceptable; but she liked Fleming and did not propose to have any of her callers made uncomfortable.

She liked Harper, too. He both attracted and repulsed her. She figured that any man who did attract her must have some good in him and vaguely wondered who was responsible for the bad, and whether the right sort of woman might not have kept it from materializing or could not now eliminate it. And Harper was decidedly good-looking. Fleming was well-featured enough, and physically he was not very far from perfect; but he was, to use the average feminine vocabulary, not so distinguished looking or so graceful or well-mannered as Billy Harper.

She's had one good-looking scamp, thought Fleming bitterly. "Don't she know enough now to sheer off when she sees another?"

Fifteen minutes Fleming endured while Harper discussed pearls and the latest fashions he had seen at Suva when the tourists came off the steamer, describing them well enough to draw compliments from the interested widow. Fleming was entirely out of it, sipping a drink that seemed too sour, though it came out of the same jug as that of the others, and resolving to have a private conversation with Harper and tell him to keep clear of the Starkey bungalow— and then realizing that a man in love can not do many things without giving rise to suspicion, slander, and surveillance.

From time to time Harper glanced at him with deliberate malice; and every time the muscles in Fleming's body tautened and his jaws clamped down, all of which seemed to cause Harper exquisite amusement. At last the latter got up.

"I have got to go," he said in a voice that suggested he was literally tearing himself away. "Got to catch the ebb. I'm sailing this afternoon. I shall hope to see you again soon, Mrs. Starkey. Now I'll leave you and Fleming to talk of less frivolous matters."

"You have been a godsend," said the widow with a light laugh as she got up and went with her visitor as far as the gate, whence he departed with a spray of stephanotis in his buttonhole and the air of an accepted gallant.

THE WIDOW came back to the veranda, and Fleming stood to meet her with a slightly conscious air and a heightened color. The knowledge that Fleming was in love with her gave the lady a proprietary feeling and manner, which she used in anticipating any remarks that he might make.

"Captain Harper has been here on business," she said. "I feel that I have done quite a good stroke."

Fleming, who had been choking down many emotions for many minutes, made an ass of himself.

"Then you'd better tell me what it is," he growled, "for I'll bet it's just as crooked as a dog's hind leg."

"My end of it, or Captain Harper's?" she asked with an acid sweetness that should have warned Fleming.

"His."

"I thought men didn't knock each other," she went on.

Fleming got crimson under his tan.

"I'm warning, not knocking," he blurted.

"Have you any proofs that Captain Harper is crooked?" she asked.

Fleming pondered for a minute or two.

"None that I could offer," he said finally.

"Ah!"

She didn't say "I thought so," but the "Ah!" was more illuminating, scorching indeed. Fleming got up to go. It was getting altogether too hot for him. The scent from the garden choked him; the blossoms were too vivid. He itched all over with a pricking sensation.

"Have you got to catch the ebb too?" she asked.

"I have business to attend to," he said.

"Don't let me detain you."

She saw by his hurt face that she had gone farther than she intended. And she had not yet made her point.

"Captain Harper has taken the lease of the island off my hands," she said. "It is very satisfactory. It was only twenty-five pounds a year, but I am very thankful. That was the business he came about."

Here was Fleming's opportunity, an explanation, almost an apology, certainly an opening. But his eyes narrowed. What game was Harper up to now? The island that the late but not lamented Starkey had leased from the government for ten years, and for seven years un-expired rent of which the widow was responsible under the lease, was not good for anything. Starkey had tried to plant coffee and then started a tea plantation, but the soil and Starkey's methods were both poor. He had got out the pearl shell from the shallower spots of the lagoon and found even that of poor quality without a pint of baroques or seeds in the whole lot.

And now Harper was pledging himself to spend one hundred and seventy-five pounds— that is, eight hundred and seventy-five dollars— on a barren islet. Was it for the widow's favor? That, Fleming was positive, would only be bestowed in a manner too honorable for Harper to understand, desire, or— considering other alliances— be able to respond to.

What was he up to? There was a joker somewhere. Harper wasn't spending nearly a thousand dollars for philanthropy or for the mere pleasure of citronade and cigarettes on Helen Starkey's veranda.

"What's the idea?" asked the widow. "Don't you approve?"

"No, I don't," he answered, flatly and foolishly.

"Why not?"

He was dumb.

"You men are all alike," she flung at him. He guessed what she meant. He was jealous, and his jealousy had tinged his judgment., But he was no pincushion, and he considered he had been pricked sufficiently.

"If it's a check he's given you," he said, "or even bank-notes, I'd advise you to change 'em."

"Thank you. And now you'll have to excuse me. Captain Harper came early, and I haven't even touched my housework. If you'll wait and make yourself comfortable?"

It was the last straw. The housework put aside for Harper, but Fleming could sit around like a house cat waiting to be noticed!

"Thanks," he said. "But I'm busy too; I just dropped in."

She smiled at him as she gave him her cool, slim hand, and he interpreted it as a laugh. He had been idiotic. The widow's house was too far out of the way for any visit not to be purposeful. He strode down the garden, unaccompanied, undecorated with stephanotis. The widow had disappeared inside before he reached the crotons. Fleming went on down the hill with clenched fists, clenched for Harper, aching for a chance to use them. He saw a trim, white whale-boat shoot out from the wharf, the four native boys stroking beautifully, Harper in the stern with the steering-oar, graceful as a gondolier, the boat speeding out to the Manuwai— Sea-bird— Harper's schooner, sweet-lined, seaworthy, and the fastest thing under canvas in the Fijis.

Fleming stood for a minute or two and mopped his forehead, noting the precision of the rowing, the snappy way in which the oars were tossed up at the schooner's side while Harper stepped on deck, the quick attachment to the falls and the up-sway of the tender. When he reached the beach the Manuwai had up-anchored and under jib, stay, and mainsail was sliding out on a reaching tack through the reef-channel, held up against wind and current by Harper at the wheel, using perfect judgment. Once more he watched with a swift envy a sweeping return of his love for the open sea and a slanting deck, regrets for his own sold schooner Tamotu. Outside the reef Harper's boys raced to sheets and halyards. Up went the foresail, the kite topsails slipped up without a hitch, setting precisely. Splintering the crisp blue seas beneath her forefoot, the Manuwai with started sheets seethed westward.

"He's all a sailor, him!" said Fleming, and he mopped his face again and went on to complete preparations for the shipment of his vanilla.

BUT THE JOY of success had died. Its grave lay up in the widow's garden. He hadn't even told her about his victory. Probably she wouldn't care to hear about it. And he wasn't going to take the chance of getting snubbed.

The widow had dismissed all the native help from the island enterprise when her husband died, paying them their back wages out of what little was salvaged from Phil Starkey's handling of affairs. One man had remained as a sort of caretaker without wages, staying on the island at his own request. This was a Fijian named Tumba, an ancient, with eyes reddened by much drinking of yanggona— kava— and memories that led back to times when the week was considered wasted that did not see human flesh served at one meal at least.

Coming out from a merchant's hot and smelly warehouse-office, Fleming saw Tumba, drunk, not with yanggona, which paralyzes the limbs, but with trade gin. His red-rimmed eyes were murderous, shifty. He was dressed only in a red sulu— kilt— and he swaggered down the sand, his old but still efficient muscles bunching as he swung his arms and moved his shoulders, chanting in Fijian:

"Eh, but I am hungry! I want to eat a man!"

He lacked only a club to look the cannibal. But he had no weapon, and nobody took any notice of him. If he left the beach and annoyed any one, he would be arrested by the member of the native constabulary who stood eying him tolerantly. But the sun and the gin would probably put him to sleep in the shade, and Tumba was allowed the uneven tenor of his way. Fleming recognized him and wondered where he had got the money to buy the gin. Harper must have dismissed him and given him a gift. But Harper had only just acquired the lease. Had he presupposed the widow's acquiescence in the deal?

It was like his infernal impudence, thought Fleming, to do a thing like that. And he had turned off Tumba because the man was too old. Fleming called to the drunkard, "Hi, there, you Tumba, you come along here!"

Tumba stood and stared. His rheumy eyes saw nothing but some vision of memory. Perhaps he really believed what he was chanting, his youth mockingly restored by the gin. Who was this white man who called? Tumba was his own master! He had money yet to spend after this drunk had worn off! Tchah!

"Eh, but I am hungry! I want to eat a man!"

Fleming let him go. There was nothing to be got out of him. Tumba might have left the little island of his own accord. There was nothing to keep him there. Fleming forgot him, worrying about some new machinery that seemed missing but which turned up at last and was shipped on his sloop, crowding both cabin and cockpit.

IT WAS the third morning before he sailed out of the harbor and started for his own holding of Tamotu— named after his schooner appropriately, for ta motu can mean "the ship" or "the island." His sloop was called Lelemotu, which means "the little ship." It sailed well enough but had no great speed.

Good enough for a planter, thought Fleming, regretful always of his well-found schooner that had once sailed the western archipelagoes. All he wanted now was a vessel big enough to convey a couple of tons of beans and some provisions back and forth. He had only one man with him, a Tanna man from the New Hebrides, a black and ugly-looking savage, but faithful, courageous, indebted to Fleming for his life when the latter had picked him up off the Tanna beach in the face of the arrow-fire of a hill tribe bent upon making boloko— human meat— out of Ngiki.

Ngiki swam like a fish and sailed by instinct. He was as good a man aboard, save for navigation, as Fleming himself. Strong as an ox and cheerful, he was the prize of all the Tanna men who helped to plant and train and weed Fleming's vanilla. The fertilizing and the scalding and the sweating in the sun, Fleming attended to himself. It was a little too much, with the necessity of constant overseeing of the men.

He had hoped— Fleming sighed a little and frowned a little as he thought of his aspirations— that he could have got a partner to fertilize the flowers. A light-handed partner, with the deftness for the pinch and the touch with the toothpick that was all the work demanded in the early morning hours of coolness. The widow— but that was over, and Fleming steered the Lelemotu between spoke and spoke while Ngiki sprawled out forward in the full blaze of the sun like a lizard, sleek with coconut oil against blistering. He was breaking in a new pipe, his tobacco box of brass stuck into the lobe of his left ear, stretched into a loop by such usage, the right lobe decorated with a small round vanity-mirror of which Ngiki was inordinately proud, using it as much as any haughty beauty of the gentler sex.

East of Ovalau the Fijis break up into scores of islets circling about the Koro Sea. Some are volcanic, most of coral formation. Many are uninhabited, visited only by some wandering schooner, blown out of its course perhaps, looking for fresh water or drinking nuts. Fleming had picked his own leasehold of Tamotu because it had water and a mountain peak that formed its core and mothered two sheltered valleys where the heat was tempered, and that by its trends thwarted the havoc of the occasional hurricanes.

The sloop took it easily, the wind holding steady, sailing on between blue and blue, the cobalt of the sky and the ultramarine of the sea with its indigo shadows. The distant islands and the mainlands showed as humps and juts of deeper blue than the horizon, with here and there a faint gleam of green, opal-wise. There was neither fleck of foam nor cloud. The Lelemotu slapped along nicely, the water chuck-chuckling to the shouldering thrust of her bows and hissing away astern with the delightful suggestion of coolness in the sound of aerated water. Ngiki finished his pipe, knocked out the ashes, cursing softly at the bite of the applewood, and went to sleep like a black cat. Fleming drowsed. He knew every fathom of the way by instinct, every shoaling of the bottom where coral atolls were slowly growing up to the surface, showing as patches of discoloration more or less distinct, according to wind and tide and submersion. The sloop almost knew its own way home. Fleming, knowing the feel of breeze and current and what the sloop could do, could have guessed his position within a quarter of a mile. He was on a long tack. With luck he would fetch Tamotu without shifting, somewhere about midnight.

NGIKI's flattened nostrils twitched in his sleep as a dog's will twitch. The Tanna-man had the full sense of smell that in most of us has atrophied so that it no more answers the purpose for which it is intended than do the eyes of an astigmatic person. When Ngiki's eyes were closed his ears and nose played sentinel, together with his sense of touch. What disturbed him now was only a hint, the suggestion of something unpleasant, not strong enough to set up the correlation between sensatory nerve and memory cell. It wasn't strong enough to mean anything to him yet. Fleming knew nothing of it at all, though he was still awake.

The sloop was sailing close-hauled on the starboard tack, and the odor was wafted over the port bow. They were heading up to it and at the same time falling off in leeway. But it got stronger. Ngiki sat up and snuffed disgustedly, angry at being awakened. Then the white man got it. Both of them knew instantly what it was.

There are several smells in the South Seas that, once inhaled, are never forgotten. The smell of a dead whale to windward, the reek of sugar in the hold, that will permeate even the shell of a hard-boiled egg, the stink of guano and— and this would make a glue factory fragrant by comparison— the stench of rotting-out pearl-shell. It will travel down the wind for miles and salute a vessel leagues away, far out of sight of the offending beach. It gets into the hair, the clothes, tobacco, food, water, everything but an unopened coconut— and that must be swallowed instanter or be tainted. It is thick and it is sticky.

"Wah!"

Ngiki spat over side. Then he looked expectantly along the deck to the cockpit, hoping that Fleming would tack, even if they did get home later. They might crisscross that stinking lane instead of sailing almost straight up it, as they were doing.

"Faugh!"

Fleming's face exhibited disgust fighting with curiosity. He stood up and gazed around him to the blue humps and specks of far and distant land, each of which he knew by name, and approximated their distance.

"No good that smell, saka [sir]," said Ngiki. "Too much big fellow stink. Better we make turn back?"

Fleming shook his head.

"You take wheel, Ngiki," he said and dived into the cabin when the Tanna man came aft.

He came out with a chart that he had compiled himself in his trading days and added to from time to time. He cocked his eyes at the angle of the sun, made a brief calculation and chucked the chart down on to the transom cushions.

"All right, Ngiki," he said. "We come about."

The one jib was self-working, on a club-boom. Ngiki took in the mainsheet smartly and hitched it once about the cleat, looking to his master to see if the sail was too taut or too slack. Fleming nodded and Ngiki completed his hitch. For a moment Ngiki was happy. Then he sensed the reason for the tack. They were to head well to windward to offset leeway when they came back once again to close-hauled sailing. For the time they would be only on the edge of the smell, but they would work back into it, nosing along it as a hound on a trail. When Fleming once more gave him the wheel and again went below Ngiki grumbled aloud and to himself.

"What name (why) Falemingi go along that big-fellow smell? My word; it make my belly too much walk about. Spoil smoke."

He eyed Fleming curiously when the latter emerged on deck with a Colt automatic, carefully cleaned and oiled it, filled the clip after one cartridge had been injected into the breech, filled up two extra clips, and tucked them away in his hip pocket.

Ngiki's eyes held anticipation and lust of battle. Through the reek of the rotting shell his mind smelled blood. It was a long time since Falemingi had been in action, a long time since Ngiki, in the too peaceful plantation life, had smelled powder. He did not know whether he would be in on the fighting or not, but the sight of the automatic, a murderous, heavy .44, was as the sight of a shotgun in the Fall to a setter.

Fleming put the pistol away in a holster attached to his belt and sat through the tack with his eyes half-closed, thinking. Some one was rotting pearl on Paruki. Paruki now belonged, under its lease, to Harper. But the lease was exchanged only three days ago, and this shell had taken time to be brought up by the divers and laid on the drying-beaches. Starkey had tried the lagoon with poor results, but Fleming remembered that Starkey, characteristically, had worked only the shallows.

The deeper stretches might have panned out rich in shell and actual gems. People didn't rot out without some prospects of success. Harper wouldn't. And this must be Harper. If so, he had practically stolen the shell before he saw the widow. If she had refused to let the lease go Harper would have been in the position of a thief. Not that that would have worried Harper overmuch. It was not the first time he had been suspected or accused of crookedness. He would wriggle out of it some way with the pearls if he was given half a chance.

Tumba? Tumba's presence on Ovalau was better explained now. The diving and spreading had started the moment Harper left the island with Tumba aboard. Tumba could not be trusted. He might spill the news at any time. So he was removed before operations began. Fleming did not think there were any natives on Paruki, outside of Harper's crew, who were Malaita boys and not divers. Harper used modern methods for getting his shell, a diving-suit with an oxygen tank, a quick clean-up and away.

That was his style, whether he held a lease and was on the windy side of the law or was pirating a lagoon. It took white men to use a suit. The natives didn't like it. There were probably four or five white men on Paruki, aside from the Solomon Islanders from Malaita.

It was big odds and necessitated careful plans, but Fleming did not hesitate. He was not going to see the widow robbed, and he intended to show up Harper. The memory of that quarter of an hour on the widow's veranda still rankled. He leaned against the weather stays, his big, athletic body pliant to the pitch and toss of the ship. The breeze was freshening a bit, and the sloop was making good time reaching. Fleming's eyes were half closed but Ngiki caught the gray gleam that shone from them, noted the vertical lines between the brows, the bossing jaw muscles, and nodded and winked to himself.

"By and by big fellow trouble he walk along," he murmured happily.

"Tend sheets, Ngiki; we're going about!" said Fleming suddenly.

Ngiki jumped and Fleming spun the wheel. Up came the sloop, catching the wind in flattened main and staysail-jib, tossed her bows, and dug into the seas, plowing on to Paruki, into the heart of the stench. Fleming got his binoculars and kept them focused for the first sight of the island peak.

Paruki boasted one cone, sloping abruptly down on one side, its ridges largely barren, denuded of soil and vegetation. Much of the islet was marsh; and the lagoon bit deeply into it, fringed by mangroves. On the northern side there were steep cliffs, part of the lone mount. The water came up close to them and landing was difficult. The cliffs mounted in sheer palis— precipices— to the serrated summit of the cone, and then the land pitched down toward the lagoon and the leeward beaches, broad stretches of sand where the shell was rotting. Fleming knew that even if there were men on the lookout by purpose or accident, he could sight the loom of the peak before they caught a glimpse of his sail, unless there was some one on the cone, which was most improbable— and had to be chanced. He intended to effect a landing and make at least a reconnaissance before sunset. Much of the pith of his plan depended upon circumstances.

But something had to be done before the shells were stripped and a clean-up of the pearls effected. And done without warning. Pearls were easy things to hide, hard to identify. A little while and no one could prove the rotting had not taken place within the term of the transferred lease. The fact that Harper had troubled to get the lease at all and to pay for it was to Fleming proof positive that the haul was likely to be so rich that Harper, discovering how the shell was running, resolved to cover himself in case of future trouble. If the news ever leaked out that he had pirated a widow's lease the Government would be after him hot foot. But he knew what he was handling before he put up his eight hundred and seventy-five dollars.

THE PEAK of Paruki swam into view on the lenses of the binoculars like a stain on a microscopic slide. It assumed form, the shape of a double-tooth turned roots up for exhibition purposes. It was right in the wind's eye, and from it poured the cloggy smell. To get to windward of it unseen, Fleming had to slant off on a long leg and fetch up to position on another. The latter would probably have to be broken into several tacks. But there was plenty of time, and the wind blew steady and true. So the sloop leaned from the breeze instead of on it and went scooting off, long before any one on the leeside Paruki could have caught sight of the tiniest fleck of canvas.

It was two hours to sunset when Fleming slipped overboard into the trailing tender and gave Ngiki his last instructions. On a lee shore, with the waves beating on the lava buttresses, Fleming dared not anchor. He took risk enough with his dingy, for the water went licking and spouting up the cliffs and roaring among the boulders and caves in a fashion far from inviting. But he could trust Ngiki to handle the sloop, to sail off and on until he came back again. And, if anything went wrong, to wing it back to Levuka and present the letter Fleming had written and left in the cabin to the merchant to whom Fleming had sold his vanilla. But not to leave until noon the next day and to keep his eyes and ears wide open for Fleming's coming.

"I may be in a big fellow hurry when I show up," said Fleming, and Ngiki grinned appreciatively.

At the last moment a treacherous undertow combined with a following wave and slammed the dingy down so hard upon a slab of lava that it smashed its bottom strakes and broke its keel. Fleming leaped as it struck and fought through the yeast of sucking water, clinging to a buttress of the cliff until the sea reluctantly subsided and left him free for another rush, a leap across a split and a swift wading, waist-deep, to the gully he had picked out from the sloop as the best chance of ascent.

To a man whose head never dizzied and whose rubber-soled feet never slipped the climb was a little better than possible. Fleming was all in when he got to the top and flung himself panting but safe upon a ledge just below a gap between two of the fanged roots of the peak. The sun was getting low back of him, and the shadow of the cone spread out over Paruki like a violet veil. In the horseshoe lagoon swam Harper's schooner, the Manuwai, at anchor. Her canvas was furled, and he could see black figures making her shipshape, shining brasses, and whitening decks. Three or four more natives were spreading out a pile of shell, handling it with five-tined forks, standing to windward for what small protection that would give them from the reek.

Fleming stood up, getting his wind. He saw a weird figure emerge from the lagoon, goggle-eyed, humpbacked beneath the oxygen tank— one of Harper's divers. Harper himself, he fancied, though all the figures were miniature, strolled down to meet the man. Behind the lagoon was the marsh through which a stream ran sluggishly. Back of the marsh the bush, and in the bush a clearing with a tiny bungalow: a wooden-walled, corrugated-iron-roofed house of two rooms with a lean-to at the back of the kitchen. Smoke came out of the roof of the lean-to. Fleming heaved a sigh of relief. The smoke meant that Harper and his companions ate ashore, probably slept there, playing cards during the evenings, smoking and drinking.

He started down, keeping to cover as best he could until he reached the bush, where concealment was easy. He had about fifteen minutes of actual daylight left when he came out of the bush to what had once been a garden of yams, taro, cane and corn. With the sinking of the sun darkness would be almost instantaneous, lasting until the stars got their power. There was no moon.

Creeping through the rank growths, Fleming heard a laugh from the house, followed by another and another. There was the clink of glasses, the scent of tobacco stealing out to him as he advanced close to lean-to, the smell of frying meat, and the rattle of pots and pans.

He crouched in the angle between lean-to and house, listening. The outer door opened, and he heard the tread of men on the veranda and their voices greeting those already in the room. There was a window whose sill he could have peered over by straightening, but he was not yet ready. The newcomers were the diver and Harper.

"Termorrer I lays off," said the diver. "I put in too much time today and the ledge is gittin' deeper. All the best-lookin' shell's comin' up from eighteen fathom. I ain't goin' to git the bends stickin' down too long. Termorrer I lays off, pearls or no pearls. We got all the time in the world, now you've fixed up the lease."

"We can finish up washing shell," suggested Harper. "The place stunk to heaven when I was coming up in the schooner. It's lucky the island's out of the way or some nosy fool would have been rubbering before we got the lease. It came easy though. She fell for the parlor stuff. But it's just as well to clean up."

Fleming appreciated the backhand slap at himself with a grin but Harper's depreciation of the widow sent his hand to the butt of his automatic.

"Pretty soft for you," said a fresh voice. "You playin' the beau to a pritty woman an' then kickin' about the stink of the stuff comin' up— your hide, we live in it. I vote for the clean up. And next time I go pearlin' I pick 'em out while they're alive. The shell can go to blazes when we got a line of pearls like we been findin'. Pickin' through the meat today, I even forgot the stink the way they stacked up. One out of every sixth shell, so help me Jimmy. No seeds. They're old stock— few baroques. Tim got one beauty. I'll bet this lagoon is virgin. Want to see what we got?"

"Let's eat first," suggested Harper.

"An' for God's sake pass the bottle," chimed in the diver. "Stayin' down's dry work. Hurry up the chuck, Fredi," he called out to the man in the lean-to.

It grew darker. The cook in the shed took in the meal, and the men scuffed their chairs about the table, and all fell to with an appetite that Fleming shared but could not relish. The cook was on equal terms with the rest, and that helped. He wanted to have them altogether. Not a Malaitan likely to tackle him in the rear. The native boys were evidently down on the beach or aboard. A lamp was lit. The bottom of the window-sash was up and covered with mosquito-netting. The great leaves of a banana, A-shaped in its length, pendent from the central rib, pressed against and across the netting, admirable screens for Fleming if.…

He felt his way through the growth noiselessly, carefully, one hand on the boards of the lean-to, which had a window on the other side, through which he peered. Then he kicked his shin against what he was looking for and picked it up, a wooden packing-box of fairly stout construction. He set this against the wall of the house under the window and stood upon it with his head tucked into the inverted V of the nearest banana banner, waving gently, like its fellows, in the land wind. Its long edges were split here and there and through these tatters, perfectly masked, Fleming looked into the room.

There were four men there besides Harper, and Fleming knew all but one of them. One was Harper's regular mate; another his supercargo. The fourth was a Suva scalawag and the fifth matched him. They were a hard-bitten, reckless lot, hawk-nosed, save for the supercargo, who had had his flattened in a forgotten fight. Harper alone showed any neatness, any attempt at ordinary cleanliness. Two wore beards of ancient growth; two more had not shaved for days. And their faces were inflamed with gross appetites long indulged, as they ate, save for Harper, like a litter of pigs at a trough.

They drank and they boasted and they told rotten stories, and Fleming kept doggo, waiting his time.

At last the dishes were shoved to one side and Harper and his mate got up. Harper took down a metal box from a shelf and unlocked it. The mate took a bag of chamois leather from inside his shirt. Harper set the box on the table unopened but the mate poured from the chamois bag on to the wood a pattering rain of pearls, highlighted in iridescent beauty by the lamp, sheeny soft in the shadow.

Fleming puckered his lips in a silent whistle. Surely such pearls had come from a virgin patch. He knew pearls, and there were one or two of the larger of these gems, being handled by grimy, callused fingers, that were worth a cool thousand apiece, traders' prices. Pearls before swine, he thought, as the gleaming globules passed from hand to hand, roughly appraised.

"A good lot," said Harper. "With what there is here in the box, boys, we've got fifty thousand dollars in plain sight. There ought to be twenty thousand more in what's left of the shell on the beach, to say nothing of what we'll bring up. Then there's the shell. Call it a hundred thousand dollars and you're below the mark rather than above it."

"Twenty thou' apiece," said the mate. "And each of us four to give Harper ten percent of our even shares for swingin' the thing, harpoonin' the widder inter shiftin' the lease, an' the use of the schooner. Not so bad!"

Fleming hunched his shoulders, his body tensing for action. But the stage was not quite set to his liking.

"Fair enough," said another, the scalawag from Suva, known to Fleming as "Bush" Dickson. "Fa-a-ir enough. How about that— Kanaka, Banjo, or Tambo, or whatever his name was? S'pose he squeals that we pulled this thing 'fore we had the right. They're kind of techy down Suva way 'bout the protection of their leases."

"You haven't got rid of the Suva jail itch yet, Bush," said Harper, and the rest laughed at the pointed jest while Dickson grinned stupidly. "Don't you worry about Tumba. I've fixed it so that Tumba draws a little money each week— only for a week or two, but he don't know that— from Mike Lamed, who runs the Ambergris Hotel and don't mind selling booze to Kanakas. I told Tumba it was a sort of pension from the widow. The point is that he has to go to Larned's to get the cash— it's seven dollars a week and Mike is to give him a dollar a day. Mike is going to see that Tumba keeps drunk into the bargain. That's an easy job so long as he shows Tumba the bottle. After two weeks, if Tumba says anything, they'll think he dreamed it. They won't believe him on dates; a Kanaka's word don't go far anyhow. So don't worry about Tumba."

"Some fox, our skipper, I'll say," said Dickson. "Let's see the rest of them pearls."

Harper assented without demur. It seemed to be a party agreement that the pearls were to be kept in plain sight and inspected upon request of any member of the gang, like the books of a stock corporation. The supercargo scooped up the loose pearls and put them into a small wooden calabash. Harper took another chamois bag from the box, and a small canvas sack.

"Baroques here," he said, tapping the canvas poke.

Then he added the contents of the chamois bag to the pearls in the bowl. The glistening heap pyramided above the rim. Fleming inched his head along the inverted trough of the banana leaf, drawing his gun from the holster. There was just one other thing.…

"That the agreement with the widder?" asked the diver, reaching for a paper. "I ain't seen that afore. How's it go?"

Harper took the document and unfolded it under the lamp. He parted his lips for speech but none ever left them.

"Hands up, the bunch of you! Ten hands! Fifty fingers! Up! And high! Up!"

Fleming was lolling in the window, his automatic shifting steadily in an arc that covered all the five.

"Get back into that corner!" he said. "Line up! That's the idea. Good evening, Harper. And keep on trying to touch the roof or you'll be scratching dirt. I mean business, you pack of thieving hounds."

Fleming was ready to shoot if need be, and they knew it. Nothing less would have kept them passive as Fleming set a knee across the sill and eased himself into the room, his gun-barrel never wavering. Their eyes glared like those of suddenly thwarted devils as he slid into his pocket the lease transfer and emptied the calabash of its pearls with one hand into his bandanna handkerchief, which he then placed in his pocket. The gums and teeth of the quintet were drawn back in wolf-snarls as Fleming backed up to the window and eased out on to his box. He had ripped away the rotten netting without a sound before he made his appearance. Once more he lolled across the sill.

"Good night, Harper," he said.

"I'll cut your heart out," said Harper, his words bitter with venom, "if I have to trail you from here to Madagascar."

"Try Levuka first, Harper," said Fleming, smiling. "More likely to find me there— or on Tamotu."

He jumped lightly from his stand, turned, and raced through the dark, deserted garden. Behind him, the room broke into an uproar. From the window came a volley of pistol shots, the bullets tearing through the leaves and stalks as Fleming, head down, broke for the bush. He could hear the five swearing among themselves.

"He's making for the mountain, God damn him!"

"Goin' to circle round to the beach!"

"Where's his Goddamned boat?"

The blundering crash of pursuit sounded in Fleming's rear. Then some one— Harper by the voice— yelled for the Malaitan boys. And then there was silence, save for the noise of Fleming's own going.

But he knew that Harper had done the right thing, had set the Malaitan boys, swift and sure as bloodhounds, on his trail. He came to the edge of the bush, where it broke up into clumps before it faded away on the hard lava of the mountain ridges. Between two of these clumps he darted and instantly a red flare stabbed the dark and a bullet went singing high and to the left.

"That is a Malaitan," Fleming decided. "They're bum shots; that's one blessing. Rifle, at that!"

His guess was proven as the man who had fired at him let out a loud "Eyah-a-ah!" giving tongue like a dog. And like a fox Fleming went up the cone in the dark, helped by the starlight, but keeping in the shadows wherever cleft or gully offered.

The gap showed above him, a cluster of stars caught in its deep cup. Then the stars were blotted out by the swift, silent passage of a shadowy, silhouetted figure— a native, naked save for a sulu cloth, bearing a rifle. The Malaitans, guessing his exit or knowing it the only one, had outstripped him on the trail and cut him off, barring him until the white men caught up.

Fleming's breath was short, his heart pounding and his lungs panting from the burst he had maintained all the way up the steep slopes. The figure had passed, merging into some rock crevice before Fleming could aim and fire.

Back of him sounded a tinkle, the fall of a scrap of weathered obsidian dislodged by a naked foot to a ledge of lava. Fleming was sandwiched. He turned to the sidewall of the cleft, feeling for a niche, hooking his fingers into it and muscling himself up until his rubbered toes caught a hold. He remembered having seen the suggestion of a ledge on this side of the pass when he had come through, and now he was forced to take the desperate chance, also to risk a fall of rock like that which had betrayed the man back of him, who even now was stealing along hoping to catch glimpses or sound or smell of Fleming.

Fleming found his ledge and crabbed along it till the sea-wind blew on his face, turned to the rock. He knew he had reached the mouth of the gap. With infinite care he faced about, fingered for and found a clutch and gazed down. Fifteen feet below him, in the saddle of the pass, his black body merged with the cliff, his head thrust forward, peering, listening, sniffing for the first sign of the fugitive white man, was a Malaitan, still as if hewn out of the solid rock. The glint of starlight on his rifle barrel first betrayed him. Inch by inch Fleming stooped and then literally swooped down upon the man, lighting on him in the perilous footing of the pass, landing between the man's shoulders and smiting with the heavy automatic. The end of the muzzle jarred against the savage's tough, thick skull behind the ear and he passed out of any control of sense or muscle.

Below, Fleming saw the sloop coming up on an inshore tack. Apparently Ngiki had heard the sound of firing. The vessel was little more than a shadow, save for the streaks of sea-fire that made up her wake. Down the steep declivity Fleming slid and leaped, expecting every moment to find himself targeted. But he was close to the bottom before a gun was fired, and that at random, for he could not be well seen from above. But presently he would be a shining mark as he swam off to the sloop. To say nothing of the sharks. A bullet thudded and flattened on the rock ledge at his feet as he ran out from the cliff face, shouting to Ngiki, thankful that the tide was at flood because of the depth it would give him for the dive, and took a header into the heart of a high comber streaked with phosphor.

Bullets spattered about him as his head came clear and he struck out hand-over-hand for the sloop. Ngiki called to him:

"Look out for s'ark! Rope at stern."

He saw the line trailing and made for it as the sloop lunged past. The flashes were coming from the cliff fast as he rolled when he caught the rope and began to haul himself in. Ngiki had to watch the wheel in those waters. But the aim from above was poor. Seemingly the white men had not come up or had gone back. He felt pretty certain that the shots that had come so close were white marksmanship.

Suddenly Fleming saw Ngiki appear above the taffrail, the wheel abandoned, reaching for the line and hauling.

"S'ark, saka, s'ark!" he gasped. "Hurry!"

Fleming hoisted himself from the water, thankful for the flat counter that gave him a temporary foothold, as Ngiki leaned far over and caught him in the hollow of one knee. Fleming managed to surmount the rail and the two men went rolling together to the wheel, where Fleming jumped to his feet and controlled the spokes just as a williwaw flurried down through the gap in the cone and almost set the sloop aback.

"Look!" said Ngiki.

A bullet skitted through the mainsail and dug itself into the deck close to Fleming, but he stared where Ngiki pointed while the sloop came up into the wind again. The high dorsal of a shark, trailing bluish-green streamers as it went, passed on its patrol. Fleming shivered a little as he headed out, Ngiki paying out the sheet. To have escaped the rifles on the cliffs only to have dived into the maw of a shark was not a pleasant thing to think of.

But they were not out of it yet. A mile from land Ngiki touched Fleming's elbow and pointed aft. Under the stars stole a shadowy shape that showed two tiny eyes, one green, one crimson. It was Harper's schooner, that could sail three knots where the sloop sailed two, coming up fast. She was plain in the night-glasses, apart from her side-lights, surely lit out of mockery, for there was little need of navigation regulations in these lonely waters of the Koro Sea. With the wind aft, Harper's schooner could make twelve knots easily; Fleming was doing well if he logged eight. The schooner would be alongside in fifteen minutes. Long before that they would commence firing with their rifles and Fleming had nothing aboard of heavier caliber and longer range than his automatic. Ngiki had no weapon save knife or belaying pin. The odds would be four or five to one.

It was impossible to shake them off. On board the schooner they could see the sloop through their glasses under the tropical starlight far too clearly for Fleming to make any attempt at a split tack. The wind was brisk, inclined to blow hard, and the seas were snappy and crisp with foam. Fleming dragged a balloon jib out of the forepeak and set it, sparring it out to port with a boat hook. He swayed out the main boom to starboard and prevented it with a line forward. The Lelemotu squatted like a duck and scudded her fastest. Somehow the schooner did not seem to gain as she ought. Fleming fancied she was foul. But the chase couldn't last long. Little by little, the red and the green lights sneaked up and spits of fire showed at the schooner's bows where they were wasting lead.

Fleming gave the wheel to Ngiki and lit the cabin lamp, digging among his charts. He found what he wanted and then turned the pages of an astronomical almanac. Coming on deck, he found that the schooner was overhauling them slowly but surely. He had brought up a lantern which he bent on to his flag halyards with marlin and hoisted, running it on the halyards to the starboard spreader and down again as if in defiance. The next time they fired from the schooner Fleming shot off his automatic three times, trusting it might be seen, though it could not be heard up-wind. Ngiki stared at him curiously but said nothing. He had learned long ago not to interfere with his white chief in emergencies. If Falemingi wanted to show exactly where they were, that was his business. Besides, he might be signaling. But he ventured a remark when Fleming came aft, leaving the lantern half-mast high:

"They got one-two reef along that schooner."

The schooner was close enough now for Fleming to see, with the night-glasses that Ngiki's savage eyes did not need, that the gaffs of both fore and main were low. Evidently the natives, when they furled, had not taken out the reef last used; and so far Harper did not bother to shake it. He very well knew the wide expanse that Fleming would have to cross before he made a landfall. With something of the cat-and-mouse attitude he deferred his certain victory and regain of the pearls. As for Ngiki and himself, Fleming never doubted what would be their probable ending if they were overhauled. Killed— at long or short distance— and sunk with the sloop! The five white men on the schooner would have committed a dozen murders apiece for the twenty thousand dollars that was their anticipated share, half of which was now in Fleming's possession.

"If he doesn't shake out those reefs in half an hour," said Fleming more to himself than Ngiki, "we've got him. Sea's rising nicely. I'm going to fix up some dynamite with short throwing fuses, Ngiki. They can't sink us by rifle-fire and if we can keep alive until they board us well scratch 'em a bit."

Ngiki nodded. He didn't think much of their chances. He knew nothing of Fleming's mission, only that their pursuers were in deadly earnest. But he puffed away at his pipe complacently, conserving for the final rally.

Twenty minutes went by with waves mounting and the wind beginning to howl through the rigging. The main boom of the sloop began to skim the crests and Fleming took it up with the topping lift, shifting his peak and throat halyards. A mishap would be fatal. The schooner was less than half a mile away and every now and then a missile would go whup through the canvas. Under starlight, in such a sea, at such a distance, close work was not possible. Only a lucky— or unlucky— chance could score a hit. The sound of the shots came down the wind.

Fleming studied his stars as he humored the sloop, head-heavy of canvas, inclined to swerve like a shying horse as she swept down the valley of the seas or struggled up the opposing slopes. Every yard might count, and he got the best out of her.

"They shake out reef," announced Ngiki.

Harper, tired of fooling, had issued the order at last before it was too late to risk it, for all signs and the barometer clearly indicated now that there was going to be a gale. But Fleming only chuckled.

"I think, Ngiki, I'll bet five to one on it, that they're going to be too late. Take the wheel. I'm going for'ard."

Ngiki, uncomprehending, watched him go into the bows with the night-glasses. Imperturbable, the native did not flinch when the bullets began to buzz like bees above his head or land with a chuck in the taffrail and the head of the companionway. Once he turned his head as a shout came from the schooner, a taunting order to come into the wind. A sniping bullet hit the bowl of his pipe and tore it from his teeth. Ngiki snarled and rubbed his aching jaw with one hand. Then Fleming came aft again, a grin on his face.

"Five minutes more, Ngiki, and we shall see what we shall see. They're coming up fast, but—" He staggered back. A bullet had clipped him in the left forearm. He slapped his hand over the wound and the blood came through the sleeve of his coat.

"No bones broken, I fancy," he muttered between set teeth. "Well, it's going to be cheap at that, if—"

The schooner was little more than two hundred yards away and coming on like a cup-winner. Her sails, out wing-and-wing, caught the faint star-shine on the rounded curves of the canvas. She seemed to soar as she lifted over the top of a wave, to come seething down its slope in a smother of spray that was thick with phosphorescence. Shot after shot came from her bows. Fleming shook his sound fist at her.

"I'll pack a rifle aboard after this," he said. "Planter or not, I'll take no chances. Wait till you get a little closer. Wait!"

But the automatic was no good for anything over fifty yards. Each wave saw the distance a little diminished. The schooner appeared bent upon running down the sloop, so true did she keep in its course, now actually entering the tail of its wake.

The color of the water alongside changed. It had been deepest blue, almost black, streaked with sea-fire. Now it became suddenly greener and every pint of it was aflame with phosphor. Also there was twice as much foam. The seas were yeasty with it and they seemed to run more tempestuously.

A megaphoned roar came from the schooner. "Heave to, Fleming, or I'll sink you!"

Fleming jumped for his own megaphone and yelled back against the wind.

"Come on and try it! Come on!"

The sloop suddenly swung off its course, threatening to jibe as Fleming's warning shout and hasty hand to the spokes showed Ngiki the danger of losing the mast. Ngiki was staring aft.

"Look, saka, look. By Goddamighty, she go ashore!"

Right in their course the schooner reared as if mounting on a giant sea. But her bowsprit remained pointing skyward; her sails shivered, and then the foremast snapped and the canvas wrinkled and bellied in a confusion of stays and halyards. She tilted slowly to one side and began to slew round with the waves breaking over her.

"She's fairly on," said Fleming. "Harper hasn't charted these seas as I have. She draws sixteen foot to our ten and she's on fair and fast. He'll be there this time tomorrow unless he tries for land in his whaleboats. We'll stick around a bit and see. Better get a watch-tackle on that mainsheet against the time we tack, Ngiki; I've only got one arm."

It was hard work to get in the balloon jib but Ngiki accomplished it and flattened the mainsail. The sloop shot off on a reaching tack and back again, saved by reason of her lesser draft and Fleming's soundings of the island-to-be, whose coral builders were still well below the surface. Fleming had led the schooner deliberately into the trap and stranded her.

As they came close they saw her hard on the reef, the wreck of her foremast dragging overside and pounding at her hull, spume flying over her. And, rowing hard against head-seas and headwind on a painful progress, two whale-boats made slow laborious work of it, bearing Harper and his discomfited comrades.

"IT IS A GOOD thing," Fleming said later to Helen Starkey, "that I've made a success of the vanilla proposition. Otherwise, now that these pearls have turned up, they might be saying that I wanted to marry you for your money."

The widow gasped a little.

"You're not very complimentary," she said.

"I never am, somehow, when I mean to be," said Fleming.

"You haven't said you did, you know," she said.

"Did what?"

"Wanted to marry me. Why?"

Fleming turned fiery red and fussed with the bandage of his wounded arm, but he got it out at last.

"Because I love you."

"If you had said that a long time ago," she said, "it would have saved a lot of time and trouble."

"But," she added the next time she spoke, which was after a considerable period during which Fleming silently lamented the luck that had deprived him of the use of one arm at a time when he most needed two, "if you had, I wouldn't have got my pearls."

Fleming had lost the connection and looked at her lovingly but blankly.

"If I had what?" he asked.

"Nothing," she answered smilingly.

"Instead of which," declared Fleming, using his one arm to the best advantage, "I have everything."

_________________

24: A Fatal Gamble

Ernest Favenc

1845-1908

Australasian (Melbourne) 4 May 1907

THE MAN in the boat stood up and looked at the shore he was slowly approaching; it appeared to be lonely and uninhabited. A sandy core, almost directly opposite, invited a landing, and that was the most hospitable thing to be seen. But the prospect seemed to please the man in the boat. He sat down and pulled wearily to the land, directing his course towards a clump of mangroves at the southern end of the little beach. The sea was calm, for the day was almost windless, and he landed without experiencing any difficulty. First, concealing the battered craft amongst the mangroves, he then hunted amongst the rocks above high-water mark till he found a little hole, still containing fresh water, left by a storm of the preceding day. Of this he drank deeply, and returning to the boat, took from the stern locker the scant materials for a meal, and sitting down devoured them ravenously.

"A wasted life," he muttered to himself when he had finished. "To think that in my despair and madness I should have urged him on to a needless death;" he arose and shook his clenched fist on high with a dramatic gesture. "But that traitor, that devil shall pay for it with his blood, I swear."

His next proceeding was to load the boat with heavy stones, push her into deep water, and sink her, so as to hide all traces of his landing. Then he lay down upon the hot sand to rest. At first he slept but little, being evidently disturbed by tormenting dreams, but exhaustion won the battle at last, and he sank into a dreamless sleep, that lasted until daylight the next morning. Then he arose, and meditating for a short time, turned his face to the south, and strode along the beach.

He knew that he was on the north coast of Queensland, but how far he would have to toil on before meeting with any help, he knew not. At last, towards noon, he espied a light-ship, moored at her anchorage no great- distance from the shore; beyond, a spur from the range ran down into the sea, and formed a jutting cape. He stopped and pondered.

"Government dogs," he said at last, talking to himself as men used to solitude do, and there was a note of hatred in his low voice. "No, I will not surrender, unless obliged. I will look over the ridge ahead first." He struggled on, although evidently wearied out, and it was a couple of hours before he stood on the crest of the cape, and was able to command an extended view to the south. As he looked he gave vent to an exclamation of satisfaction. Some miles away a lugger was anchored close to the beach.

"Trepang fishers. I can trust them," he muttered, and resumed his weary march. The sun had sunk behind the range, when, at last, completely worn out, he stood on the beach opposite the lugger, and, mustering all his remaining strength, hailed her. The hail was heard, and answered, and, after a few minutes, a man got into the dinghy that was floating alongside, and sculled to the beach. The wanderer waded in to meet him. The fisherman, a genial looking fellow, gazed knowingly at him.

"Noumea?'' he said, as a matter of course.

"Yes, Noumea, and starving;" returned the escapee in good English.

"Didn't you see the lightship as you came?"

"I did, but—" and the Frenchman gave an expressive shrug.

"Just as well, perhaps you didn't show yourself; old Brankstone puts on as much side as the captain of a man-of-war, ten chances to one the old ass would have shoved you in irons, and signalled to the first steamer."

"And you?" queried the Frenchman.

"if you're starving, jump in and come aboard, we'll give you a feed, don't matter to us "where you hail from; look as though you have had a devilish had time of it.

"Bad time, my God, no man ever went through such a time and lived."

He scrambled into the dingy, and they, were soon on board the lugger, lucre was only one more white man on board, beside the coloured crew, and he so much resembled the rescuer than it was not difficult to put them down as brothers: He  looked at his brother and said laconically

"New Caledonia?"

"Yes," assented the other, "we'll give him a feed and rest, lie's had a devil of a time, like the rest of them from there.

"I have money," urged the Frenchman, hastily.

"Oh, tommy rot. We don't take money from starving men," said the man who had I brought him on board, and whose name was Bob Davidson. "We were just going to have our chow ourselves when you came along, so sit down."

The escaped convict was soon eating voraciously a warm and plentiful meal, and that finished, he could not restrain the longing looks he cast at the pipes the others commenced smoking. Dick, the other brother, noticed the wistful glances and passed over a cake of tobacco and a knife.

"Dashed if I think we've got a spare pipe aboard, those niggers are death on pipes.

"No pipe, thank you, a little paper?" said their guest.

Dick grinned, and handed the Frenchman a piece of a "Cooktown Herald," from which the other quickly tore a slip, and made himself a cigarette.

"What is your name?" asked Bob, when this had been completed.

Their visitor held up his hand imploringly, "Ah, one moment."

The two well-fed men watched the outcast with an amused smile, while he silently luxuriated in the unwonted enjoyment of tobacco; presently he took the rude cigarette from his mouth, and spoke: "My name my friends, my very kind friends, is Louis Everard; I was sent to New Caledonia five years ago on the perjured testimony of a false friend. But, bah, you always hear that; is it not so?"

"What was the charge?" asked one.

"Embezzlement. I held a position of trust in a bank in Paris, and I frequently had occasion to go to London on confidential missions, which is the reason I speak your language."

The men accepted the statement in simple good faith; they were gifted with more than their, share of good nature, and not of suspicion. Only they were relieved to hear] that it was not a murderer they were succouring.

"What are you thinking of doing?" asked Bob.

"I seek to reach Cooktown. I have a friend, a countryman there."

"Show your face in Cooktown like you are now, and you will be arrested on suspicion at once. The police there have special orders to keep a sharp lookout for you chaps. They're not very sharp, but still! they couldn't miss you."

The man looked downcast. "Will you: help me?" he asked. "I have a little money."

"On, hang your money. Don't keep harping upon that. If you are an innocent man, we will do what we can to help you."

Everard sprang to his feet, and held his hand up. "May I be taken again, and sent back to suffer more than I have suffered already, if I have not told you the truth. I swear that I am innocent."

There was a pause. "You didn't come across alone?" said one.

"I had one companion, but be, poor fellow, died under the hardship. He lies out there," and he waved his hand towards the distant Pacific.

The conversation was carried on for some time longer, and then the men retired to rest, telling Everard that they would work out some scheme in the morning. In the morning, the two fishers said nothing until after breakfast, and then they broached the subject, and it was evident that their unexpected guest had created a favourable impression.

"Look here," said Bob, "it's no good our lending you any of our clothes, for we're nothing like a match." Everard was tall and gaunt, and the brothers were short, sturdy men. "As soon as you set foot in Cooktown, you would attract notice, and it would be all up. What we propose doing is this. We are going to our fishing station on No. 10 Island today. When we get there, Dick is going to Cooktown, to get some stores, so you can just quietly stop there at our camp until he gets back. He'll try and find out your friend, and take him a letter if you'll write to him, and get you some clothes, and get the friend to change your money, for I suppose it is French."

"And you will allow me to pay you?"

"Yes, a fair price, for we shall hare some trouble to set you ashore. If you land in broad daylight every prying Custom-house official and grass-green booby will be cross-questioning us as to how we came to pick up a fellow like you on the Barrier. No, we must manage it after dark, and Dick must have a confab with your friend."

"Where shall I find him?" asked Dick.

Everard coloured slightly,."He is but in a humble position— he is working as cook at some hotel, of which I know not the name."

"There was a Frenchman cooking at the Great Northern, the last time I was in the town, suppose it's the same."

"Most likely, if it is, be is the brother of the man who escaped with me and died.. The brother sent him the money to bribe one of the warders, but we had to start when but half prepared; that was the cause of our suffering so."

Little more was said, and the lugger was soon standing for the Great-Barrier and No. 10 island.

ii

Two men were seated is a small room in a Cooktown hotel. One was the late guest of the trepang fishers; trimmed and well-dressed, he looked a different man to the famished wanderer of the beach. He had landed, thanks to the assistance of the brothers, without molestation, and was now talking to a friend he had mentioned, who was a thickset, dark-complexioned fellow, evidently of a lower social grade than the escapee.

"I have told you all about our hurried escape—for it was -a case of now or never with us, and we went with but scanty provisions, and but little water, I will now tell you of your brother's death." Everard paused, and a look of horror shone in his eyes.

"I murdered him," he said slowly.

The other started to his feet with a gasp. "Are you mad to come to me and tell me this?" he hissed. "Do you not know how I have worked and saved for the purpose of gaining my brother's liberty? Do yon imagine that I would let his murderer go free? You are mad I say. Your sufferings have driven you crazy; it cannot be."

"Would to God it was but a dream. Read this." He banded his companion a piece of paper, and he read:—

"Everard will tell you all. It is a case of necessity; one of us must die to save the other; there is an equal chance for both. The gamble is quite fair. If it is my fate to die, give Everard the money you have saved for me. He has wealthy friends in France who will repay you on his return there. You will either see me alone, or this paper and Everard."

The recipient of this message from the dead read it over two or three times, then got up and walked about the room; the other watched hint without a word. Presently the brother of the lost man resumed his seat. "I will hear the rest now," he said.

"We put out to sea," continued Everard, "on one of the most desperate ventures that ever two men embarked on. Owing to the incompleteness of our preparations, we had a small boat instead of the larger craft we had arranged for, and, as I said before, with but scant provisions and water.

"Fate dogged us from the start. How our cockleshell lived through the storms that burst upon us I know not; but one day we found ourselves becalmed upon the bosom of the mighty Pacific, which still heaved with the past convulsions. We had hardly sufficient strength to bale the boat dry. Some rags of rail still clung to the mast, but there was no wind to stir them, and so for days we drifted on. Oh, it was awful to sit in that boat under the burning sun, our boat wallowing in the swell, but not one breath of wind. It seemed that we had but exchanged the horror of the penal settlement for the horror of such a death; can you wonder that my season gave way, and that a mad idea entered into my half dazed brain. A short and quick death seemed preferable, I said. "What food we have left may keep life in one until the Australian coast is reached: but it will not suffice for two. I am willing to take my chance which of us goes overboard.'

"Your brother lifted his head and gazed I at me. 'You mean, which of us shall die to save the life of the other.'

"I could see that he misunderstood me, and thought that I meant to suggest the roost horrible resort. 'God forbid,' I shudderingly said. 'No, no, we will not live on human flesh. The man who sacrifices his life goes overboard."

"He shuddered. 'Not overboard. I have a horror of drowning. I could not do it. Promise to kill me with your own hand if I lose, and I consent to draw lots.'

" 'I have no weapon,' I said weakly.

"Your brother was sitting in the stern. He opened a locker, and drew out a tomahawk we had. 'A man cannot well kill himself with this; but in the hands, of another it would be deadly. Promise to do your, share.'

"I hesitated; to jump into the sea was one thing; to sky a companion in cold blood was another. 'I cannot do it,' I answered

" 'Then there is no hope for either of us. For I will not undertake to jump overboard. I have such a detestation, of death by that means.'

"I pondered. After all, it was much the same thing. 'Well, then I agree/ .

"He held out his hand, and we solemnly swore to stand by our compact

" 'How shall we decide?' he asked. .

" Let us toss up a coin three times after the English fashion. Heads or tails  as they say.'

"He took out the money that you had sent the warder for us. 'To think,' he said, 'that all this cannot purchase one poor meal.'

"He selected a coin, and as the ghastly game commenced, it seemed to me that the restless ocean grew still to watch us gamble for out lives. Your brother tossed first. He spun the coin up; caught it, and covered it with his hand.

" 'Head!' I cried carelessly, for I cared nothing which way it went.

"He lifted his hand, and the coin lay with the head uppermost. I had won the first toss.

"I took the coin and spun it up in my turn. 'Head!' cried your brother, and it was again a head. We were equal, and I handed the coin back.

" 'Head!' I again called, and for the third time the head was uppermost, and I had won.

"Your brother smiled. 'I wish to write a few words first.' And he wrote the words you have there. Then he handed me the tomahawk, sat down on the after thwart, and bowed his head. 'I am ready,' he said. Twice I raised the tomahawk, and twice my hand failed. He lifted his face. 'Do not keep me waiting, remember your oath, he said,' and bowed his head once more....

"I grasped the weapon; with determination I raised it— and threw it far into the sea; my reason had returned.

" 'I cannot do it,' I cried. 'We live or die together.'

"Your brother looked at me reproachfully. 'Is this the way you keep your oath?' he exclaimed. 'It is cruel to drive me to a death I detest.'

"Before I could restrain him, he shut his eyes, and sprang over the side. Instinctively I leant over and watched for him to rise. Just at that moment a puff of wind arose, and stirred the ragged sail. I caught hold of the tiller, and then I saw some bubbles rising on the other side. I had been looking the wrong way, and the boat had drifted over him."

Everard paused, and his listener got up and took two or three turns about the room.

"You accuse yourself of murdering him. By what you tell me, it was suicide."

"I murdered him. I have more to relate."

Everard went on with his tale. "The breeze grew steady, and we were soon forging ahead through a calm sea. All night, with the great horror of loneliness on me I kept on with a fair wind astern, and in the morning, I saw a line of breakers ahead There was one open passage, and through that I steered. Land rose in sight. We had been closer to the Queensland coast than we had imagined. Soon after noon I landed with a meal of food still on board. But for my mad project, your brother would be sitting here now."

He ceased, the other man kept gloomily looking down for some time. At last he spoke. "What proof have you of this improbable story?"

"You have the message in your brother's handwriting; and I swear, on my soul, that I have told you the truth."

"Bah. You are clever. A man of education transported for forgery and embezzlement. What easier than for you to concoct such a yarn. I don't trust to it. Provisions ran short, of course, and you killed him to save them for yourself. Yes, killed a man who was sent to prison for his love of liberty, a political martyr, who strove for freedom for his fellow workmen. I do not believe you. Listen; blood must have blood; I will not slay you with my own hands, but you shall go back to lifelong hell in New Caledonia. I go now to inform the police of your presence here." He rose and put on his cap.

"Blood must have blood," repeated Everard calmly; "but I am guiltless of directly shedding your brother's, though I was unhappily the cause. I am guiltless too of the charge that sent me from France a branded felon; as guiltless as he was. Go, then; bring the police; do not fear that I shall attempt to escape. You will find me here when you return with them."

The other glanced at him, and hastily quitted the room. Everard sat still and waited. Nearly half an hour elapsed before returning footsteps were heard. The avenger entered alone.

"I have changed my mind," he said. "Go in peace, I do not say that I have overcome my doubts, but I have thought deeply. Keep the money you have for your own use. If— as my brother says, you have wealthy relatives, you can repay me. If not, why—" he stopped abruptly and spread out his hands.

"I thank you," replied Everard. gazing at him steadily; "not for my life, for that is now worthless to me, but for the chance it leaves me of revenge on the man whose perjury sent me to prison. And I will avenge your brother, for the same man betrayed him. I will come to him like a ghost from his villainous past, that he thought laid for ever. Is not his name—" and he whispered in the other's ear.

"By God, it is the man; you have told me the truth, and I believe now in all you have told me."

He held out both hands, which Everard took.

"Go," he continued, "and when you confront that Judas, then, when you strike, remember you are avenging both my brother's death, and your own betrayal."

__________________

25: The Haunted Steamer

Ernest Favenc

Australian Town and Country Journal (Sydney)  14 Dec 1901

"NOW you fellows speak of it," said the chief engineer of the S. S. Mainbrace, as he sat on his bunk, with his legs dangling over the side, addressing two passengers who had already been made free of his state, room, "the ship has been haunted ever since Jack Collins went overboard, Just twelve months ago. Naturally, we don't talk about it, but the passengers generally find it out sooner or later. We are used to him, and don't mind him."

"He was sitting on the transom in the saloon last night," said the passenger for China, who occupied the, camp stool. "I fell asleep on deck, and did not wake till everybody had turned in, and when I went below I saw him there. I thought be looked like a stranger, but before I could fix him properly he was gone."

"He was on the after hatch a night or two ago," said the pearl-sheller, who was on the settee. "I went up, meaning to speak to him, but when I got close it was the shadow of the wind sail. They play these tricks. There was a schooner up in the Straits troubled the same way."

"How did it happen? There's only the two of us here, and we're not talking men."

"He was our second officer," began the chief, "and a bright young fellow, too, just going up for his master's certificate when he reached Sydney, about a month before last Christmas. He never went up, however. When he got home he found that his wife had cleared out with someone else. Who it was she went with he did not know, and nobody else seemed to know; but she was gone right enough. I think, between ourselves, that not knowing who the man was preyed on him more than anything. If he could have got hold of the pair of them, and could have taken it out of the man and told the hussy a bit of his mind, I don't think he would have felt it as bad as he did; but, as it was, he could do nothing, and the idea of going through life not knowing but at any time he might unknowingly meet him, make friends with him, and eat and drink with him— why he told me himself that it was driving him crazy. It was on Christmas Eve that it happened. I suppose the thought of his last Christmas, when he was ashore and just married, was too much for him. Anyhow, he must have gone over the side as soon as he went off watch. He gave the man who relieved him the course, chatted a bit, as usual, then went down off the bridge, and nobody saw him again. It might have been an accident, for it was a dark night, and there was a heavy sea running."

"I expect he knows now who the other fellow was," said the sheller.

"Did the other fellow know him?" asked the China passenger.

"Possibly not. Queer arrangement, eh? However, they won't meet in this world. Poor Collins made sure of that," said the chief. "Last trip he was often up on the bridge they told me, but this trip he seems to be sticking aft. I have not seen him looking down the skylight into the engine-room, as he used to. Keep it quiet, though; some people are nervous, and don't like this sort of thing."

The curtain hanging in front of the doorway was drawn on one side, and a face looked in. The three men started, but it was not the face of the man who "walked."

"You look comfortable," said the owner of the face. "Can I come in?"

"Come in," said the chief, and the sheller shifted a little on the settee to make room for the newcomer.

It was another of the passengers— a man with a fair beard and rather large, light blue eyes. He accepted the accommodation with a nod of thanks, sat down, took out his cigar case, and offered the engineer a cigar— both the other men were smoking already. The subject of conversation changed at once. The engineer gradually glided into the inevitable yarn, and when it was finished the China passenger and the pearl sheller said good night, and left the cabin. A riding light was swinging about midway between the officers' state rooms amidships and the saloon companion-way. As they approached it, another man could be seen coming along the deck, going forward. They should have met just under the swinging lantern, but as they approached the circle of light, the figure faded out of sight.

"Collins," said one with a gasp, and clutched the other's arm.

"Yes," replied the man addressed, "I suppose we shall get used to it in time," and he gave a forced laugh.

They halted at the companion way, and looked back. A bar of light flashed for a moment across the alleyway amidships— it was the third man leaving the engineer's cabin, he could be seen coming along the deck.

"There's Collins again, standing by the skylight of the engine-room," said the pearl-sheller, whose name was Reynolds.

"Looks as though he was waiting for that fellow. Do you know him?" returned the other.

"No: he's been sea-sick, I think; only just shown up since we've been steady."

The third passenger came on. They could see the burning end of his cigar, and when he came in the beam of light he stopped and tossed the stump overboard; then, as he turned, he became conscious of the figure standing at the skylight, apparently watching him. For a moment they stood, the dumb ghost and the unconscious mortal, looking at each other, then the man came on.

"Who's that sulky beggar standing by the skylight?" he said, when he reached the others. "Said good-night to him, and he wouldn't answer me."

"His name's Collins; he's a remarkably quiet man," said the China passenger.

"Seems like it," said the other. "Wonder if the bar is still open. Have a nightcap, you chaps?"

"Not for me," said Reynolds.

"Nor me, either," replied Gibson, the China passenger.

"Well, it's a hot night, so I'll get the steward to mix me the namesake of our friend, a 'John Collins.' Wonder if his name is John? I knew a Mrs. Collins once," and with a vacant chuckle he descended the few steps that led into the saloon.

"Seems a bit of an ass. What do you think?"

"I think we ought to put the ghost in irons. I shouldn't wonder if this is the man it's looking for: I suppose you didn't do it?"

"Not quite. I've got a very good little wife of my own; but I'd rather have the ghost after me than her if I did such a thing."

"Well, I shall turn in now. I suppose our friend has finished his drink by this time," and they went to their respective berths.

"Steward," said the fair-bearded passenger to the chief steward the next morning, "somebody kept disturbing me last night by looking in my cabin. If it  was one of your boys, I wish you'd tell him to stop poking his head in at my door."

The steward made a suitable reply, but watched the other as he ascended to the deck. "Somebody looking in his cabin," he repeated. "Seem to me I have heard tales of that sort before."

It was fine weather, of the hot variety to be expected in the tropics, and was bright and clear, and for once nobody had anything to growl about, and Christmas warn rapidly approaching. The fair-bearded, passenger alone seemed unsettled in mind, now over-cheerful, and then despondent; his name was Vincent, and though some got on with him well enough, neither Reynolds nor Gibson liked him.

"Collins is very restless," said the latter one day to his friend. "Kept doing sentry-go on the after deck last night. Vincent was asleep in a chair, and suddenly woke up in a fright, and staggered over to the railing. I collared hold of him, and roused him up, and he said he'd had an awful dream. Dreamt he was in the sea on a dark night, fighting for his life, and watching the lights of the steamer disappearing. I told him he was taking too much whisky, but he went below and got another nip. Then Collins laughed."

"Here, drop that, old man; ghosts don't laugh, at least the ghosts that I know don't."

"Well, anyway there was a laugh, a very nasty laugh, somewhere about, and I had to visit the steward myself."

THE NEXT morning the steamer anchored at Rock Harbor for a few hours.

"How are you, Mr. Vincent?" said the Customs officer when he came on board. "Better for your trip?"

"Oh much, thank you; quite right now; naturally upset, you know."

"Know that man?" asked Reynolds when the Customs official had finished his conversation with the other.

"Slightly. He was up here with his wife about six months ago, on his way to England in a B. and A. boat, and a sad thing happened. They were overheard having a rather heated argument in their cabin, and then she rushed on deck, and, it is supposed, jumped overboard. She was never seen again. He was dreadfully cut up, and at Donnor's Island changed steamers, and went back again south."

"Where did this happen?"

"About halfway between here and Donner's Island. I must be off. There's the donkey engine starting, and I don't want to be carried on. Good-bye. Remember me to all up north."

About two o'clock the next morning those who slept below were roused by hot words. Mr. Vincent and the chief steward were nearly coming to blows in the saloon.

"I tell you the fellow came right into my cabin, and was bending over me when I woke up. It's an infernal shame that you can't manage your men better, and that passengers should be annoyed like that."

"It's all fancy. My men are much too tired at night, and want, to sleep, not go monkeying about looking in people's cabins. None of the other passengers have been annoyed."

Vincent turned to Reynolds, who had been roused by the discussion.

"I was dreaming that confounded dream again, and I woke up in a fright, and there was somebody in my cabin bending over my berth. I assure you there was."

The steward looked at Reynolds over Vincent's shoulder, and made the motion of drinking with his hand, and Reynolds persuaded him to go to bed again. It was blowing hard the next morning, and an unseasonable change had taken place, a reminder of the coming monsoons. The sea was getting, up, and it looked as though a stormy Christmas would set in the next day. There had been a small jollification, it being Christmas Eve, and Vincent, who had recovered his spirits, had been exceedingly light-hearted and jovial, and bad turned in early rather the worse for wear. It was eleven o'clock, and the chief engineer and the two passengers were taking a walk up and down the short poop deck; the ship was uncomfortably restless, and they stopped, and sat down for more ease.

"Who is that coming up?" asked Reynolds.

"Somebody in pyjamas, a woman and another man. Why, it's Vincent." And the three men rose.

The steamer gave a heavy roll and a dive just then, and the three figures passed aft on the opposite side of the deck as the ship took a big beam sea on board. Down she went, the screw racing like mad, and the three figures could be seen right aft; but when she straightened up again they were gone. The engineer took about three steps down on to the deck and into the saloon, and the other two made their way aft. They looked over at the bubbling wake illuminated by the light from the stern portholes, but if any man's head had been above water it would not have been seen in that seething turmoil. The alarm was given, and the usual routine gone through, as a matter of form, for there was no earthly hope of ever seeing the man again, and the steamer, after much delay, resumed her passage with the loss of a lifebuoy and a passenger.

When the chief hurried into the saloon he went straight to Vincent's cabin, and found it empty, and the steward told him that ' Mr. Vincent had just gone on deck.

"Was he alone, and in his pyjamas?"

"Yes," returned the steward to both questions. The chief went on to the deck again, now crowded and busy, and drew the two men aside.

"There were a man and a woman with Vincent?"

"Yes," they both affirmed; "they had seen the three figures distinctly."

"I don't think we'll say anything about them," said the chief. "I wonder whether Vincent saw them, too?"

"Poor devil," said Reynolds. "Dreamt he was in a big sea on a dark night fighting for his life, and watching the lights of the steamer disappearing."

_________________

Index to Past Masters Nos 61-96

The "Author Index" to Issues 1-60 has been uploaded separately at MobileRead.  A cumulative index of issues 1-100 will be posted in due course.

Achmed Abdullah

—Grafter and Master Grafter 84

—The Fetish of Remorse 83

—Framed at the Benefactors' Club 73

—A Full House 93

—Home Wind  91

—The Incubus  90

—Interlude 84

—The Mystery of the Talking Idols 63

—Poker 89

Cleve F. Adams

—Default With Doom  81

A. St. John Adcock

—Ambitious Man 89

—Polly's Favorite 91

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 House of Many Mansions 91

—The Signed Masterpiece  82

Leonid Andreyeff

—Lazarus  91

Anonymous

—Armistice  78

—A Barrack Ghost Story 76

—Beautiful Decoy 89

—Beauty in Flight 76

—A Chance Meeting 84

—Chinese Murder  80

—A Detective Adventure  80

—The Devil's Cave 96

—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

—Outwitted: A Lawyer's Story 90

—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 Short Story of Mark Hellinger 95

—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

—To the Tune of a Dance 96

Francis Henry Atkins

—The Lay Figure  63

James L. Aton

—The Box of the Ivory Dragon 90

Edouard A. Aujard

—The Flood 75

—The Swing of Sentiment  75

—Laola of the Isles 85

Stacy Aumonier

—A Source of Irritation 73

—The Bent Tree 93

—Straight Griggs 78

F. Britten Austin

—Into the Blue 79

Julia Truitt Bishop

—Auxons  95

J. F. B.

—Throne of Chaos

Irving Bacheller

—Holy Poker 71

—The Prodigal Village 71

Mrs. Baillie-Saunders

— The Wrong Reception  83

Louisa Baldwin

—The Weird of the Walfords 89

Edward Ball

—The Floating Beacon 93

James Barr

—The Man in Moccasins  82

—The World  of the Vanishing Point 96

Robert Barr

—Death Cometh Soon or Late 94

—A Dramatic Point 91

—The Great Mogul 91

—Lady Letty's Literary Lesson 91

—The Last Straw 72

—Marcella's Intervention 91

—A Sweet Thing in Trusts 91

—An Unjust Accusation 91

—The Doom of London 92

—The Understudy 94

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

George Barton

—The Burglar That Failed 91

Frederick R. Bechdolt

—Before Michael Came  63

—The Lie-Detector 73

L. Adams Beck

—The Interpreter 62

H. Bedford-Jones

—The Arizona Callahan 93

—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

—The Fifth Eye 94

—Not Upon the Sleeve  79

Francis Beeding

—Condemned 94

J. J. Bell

—The Lovely Little Dinner 70

—The Price of a House  63

—"Sir William"  61

—The Storm Centre 95

Elizabeth W. Bellamy

—Ely’s Automatic Housemaid 88

Stephen Vincent Benét

—Floor, Please 94

E. F. Benson

—Negotium Perambulans  64

—The Terrace 69

J. D. Beresford

—The Hidden Beast 75

—The Looking Glass 87

Sarah Bernhardt

—A Christmas Story 93

Harold Bindloss

—The Girl on the Platform 95

—Trooper Jenkins 68

Ottwell Binns

—The Britisher 73

— Dixon's Romance 75

George A. Birmingham

—Jimmy Cassidy's Picture  80

—A Commercial Mermaid 95

—The Spy 81

Farnham Bishop

—Ten Thousand Hectáreas  91

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

—Other People's Money 89

—Solly's Last Forgery 64

—Twice Drowned 96

—When Mr. Clackworthy Needed a Bracer 64

Guy Boothby

—By Right Of Conquest 72

—His Better Half 91

—The Treasure of Sacramento Nick 91

—Uncle Joe's Legacy 91

—Obituary: Mr. Guy Boothby (Anonymous)

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

—Hole-in-the-Wall Barrett 92

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

—The Green-eyed Remedy  82

—The Man Who Over-Reached Himself 91

—Myrtle and the Baronets 95

—On the 6.15  80

—Two Women in the Case 80

Thomas Burke

—The Bloomsbury Wonder 61

—The Horrible God 62

—Laughing Lillian 62

—The Yellow Imps 62

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

William Caine

—Bread Upon The Waters 91

Wadsworth Camp

—The Draw-Keeper 96

Sir Gilbert Campbell

—The Mystery of the Essex Stairs 62

Reginald Campbell

—The Howling Of Dogs 80

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

—The Chance Clue 94

Russ W. Carter

—The Pink Envelope  89

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

Richard Connell

—The Doctor and the Lunatic 94

—A Friend of Napoleon 95

—The Most Dangerous Game 95

—Pardon This Intrusion 95

—Tested / Richard Connell 95

J. J. Connington

—After Death the Doctor 63

Dorothea Conyers

—Meave's Ride  69

Courtney Ryley Cooper

—Wet Weather  96

Marie Corelli

—The Sculptor's Angel 88

Leo Crane

—Made in Borneo 95

Anne Crawford

—A Mystery of the Campagna  85

Deas Cromarty

—The Clutch of the Law 95

W. E. Cule

—A Ship's Bell 88

Atwater Culpepper

—Gunfire at Scarlani's 89

Captain Henry Curties

—Redeeming Flames 79

Norbert Davis

—You Bet Your Life 77

Sam Davis

—Bigler's Barometer

E. M. Delafield

—The Luggage in the Hall  66

—Sophy Mason Comes Back 96

C. J. Dennis

—The Bookworm's Arms 96

—Mrs Dumphy's Send-Off 96

—Spink 96

Donald Devereux

—Mr. Keeble's Funny Story 83

Frederic Van Rensselaer Dey

—A Witch City Mystery 95

Captain Dingle

—Javelin of Death 95

Charles Caldwell Dobie

—The Open Window 71

Douglas M Dold

—A Creeping Terror 84

Laurence Donovan

—Death Makes a Man Mad 84

—Death Rolls Its Own 90

—He Gave Him a Gun 84

—Murder Tees Off  92

—Not Quite Dead 92

—The Pin-Up Girl Murders 93

—She Loved to Murder 93

—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

—The White Lady of the Snow 92

J. Allan Dunn

—The Pearls of Paruki 96

—The Screaming Skull 85

Edward Dyson

—A Golden Shanty 65

—The Third Chair 65

Charlton L. Edholm

—Gorilla Girl 84

—The Man Marked For Slaughter 93

—The Man Who Was Damned 94

—Red Evidence 84

—Rose Window 94

Orville R. Emerson

—The Grave 96

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

Ernest Favenc

—The Murder of Tom Bates 91

—A Fatal Gamble / Ernest Favenc 96

—The Haunted Steamer / Ernest Favenc 96

—A Hypnotic Experiment 91

Thorpe Feesh

—I Married a Torso 93

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

—Our Lady of the Lilies 96

Homer Eon Flint

—The Planeteer  77

E. Florence

—The Vanished Freight 93

Elliott Flower

—The Man Who Sold His Head 95

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

Richard Garnett

—Madam Lucifer 95

Arthur Gask

—The Judge's Secret 92

—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

—Blind Man's Buff  92

—Not Down on the Bill  82

—The Wicked Flea 92

—Zapt's Repulsive Paste 90

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

—Yeggs Florentine 94

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

Druid Grayl

—His Strange Inheritance 95

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

Francis Gribble

—The Philosopher's Mistake 95

Major Arthur Griffiths

—An Officer's Patrol 96

C. Ranger Gull and Reginald Bacchus

—The Adventure of the Whisting Omelette  92

—The Automaton 93

—The Dragon of St. Paul's 92

Walter Hackett

—The Gazebrook Necklace 91

James Norman Hall

—Death on an Atoll 72

—Fame For Mr. Beatty 75

—Uncle Ned's Teeth 76

Julian Hawthorne

—Calbot's Rival 67

—An Inter-Planetary Episode 93

Nathaniel Hawthorne

—The Great Stone Face 66

—The Oubliette Cryptogram  92

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

—The Dancer's Mascot 95

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

Clifford Howard

—The Levitation of Jacob   92

S. B. H. Hurst

—The Ball of Fire  74

—The King of the Jerawahs 93

—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

Tudor Jenks

—A Supernatural Swindle 95

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

Hugh Kingsmill

—The Ruby of Khitmandu 93

Otis Adelbert Kline

—The Dragoman's Secret 74

—Stolen Centuries 65

Thomas H. Knight

—The Man Who Was Dead 61

Alexander Kuprin

— Menagerie 83

—Terror! 89

Edmund Leamy

—My First Case 74

R. C. Lehmann

—The Umbrosa Burglary 67

H. Field Leslie

—The Winged Ones 86

Bruno Lessing

—The Party Line 91

Henry Leverage

—The Absconder 83

—Assignats 96

—Black Light 66

—The Crimp 66

—Crooked Charity 67

—The Hollow Lens 94

—Over Billowing Bunkers 94

—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

—The Green Cat 96

—One Man from the West 96

—A Question of Rights 82

W. J. Locke

—The Conqueror 89

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

Herbert MacAlpine

—A Dog-House Detective 89

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

—At the Pyramid of the Sacred Bulls 93

—The Brigand of Kairouin the Holy  82

—The City of the Scarlet Scarabeus  82

Francis Marlowe

—Hostile Witness 83

Don Marquis

—Accursed Hat!  70

—Behind the Curtain 95

—Leopards 92

—The Table-Cloth Millionaire 92

H. B. Marriott-Watson

—The Devil of the Marsh 89

Richard Marsh

—The Mask 88

—A Silent Witness  77

Herman Howard Matteson

—Safety First 93

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

—It Couldn't be Done 94

—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

Cary Moran

—Murder Magic  89

Ainsworth Morgan

—Lady in Lower Eleven  72

Arthur Morrison

—Myxomycetes 90

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

—From the Dead 96

—In the Dark 64

—Man-Size in Marble  65

—Number 17— 61

—The Third Drug 88

Clarence Herbert New

—Innocent Bystander 94

—The Passing of an Angel 79

—The Warburton Mystery 82

—Where There Ain't No Ten Commandments 79

C. C. Newkirk

—The Scientific Circle  92

Douglas Newton

—Girls Don't Count 80

—Straight Enough 73

Hume Nisbet

—His Reward  88

David Wright O'Brien

—Hokum Hotel  68

Fitz-James O'Brien

—The Wondersmith  64

Seumas O'Kelly

—The Building 95

Owen Oliver

—The Awakening  74

—A Feminine Stand 81

Vincent O'Sullivan

—The Business of Madame Jahn  64

Miles Overholt

—Wrong Number 75

Thomas Nelson Page

—What was the Lady's Choice? 62

Barry Pain

—"Jadis" 94

—"Owing to the War" 88

— An Unnatural Father 96

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

Marjorie Pickthall

—Freedom 94

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

—Before and After 91

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 67

Michael Romain

—Genesis 76

David C. Roose

—Dobson's Plots 86

John E. Rosser

—Notice of Dissolution 93

Anthony M Rud

—The Invisible "Blinker" 73

Rafael Sabatini

—Intelligence 84

G. Morris Sand

—Carnival Killer 84

Frank Savile

—Burning Horseshoe 94

Duncan Campbell Scott

—The Witching of Elspie 78

Marie B. Schrader

—Stranded in a Street Car 91

Chris Sewell

—The Intruder 82

Marion Shaler

—The Court of the Wicked Queen 87

Sandy Sharp

—The Diamond Bracelet 89

Lurana W. Sheldon

12: The Ghost and the Jewels   92

Helen Simpson

—Hotel Evidence 89

—At the Mickleham Arms 92

Fred C. Smale

—Caught Out 90

—The “V” Force  90

J. Johnston Smith

—Queen Of Diamonds  75

Thorne Smith

—Birthday Present 66

Edward S. Sorenson

—Hobbled 96

Andrew Soutar

—Bluebeard 63

D. H. Souter

—Conroy 74

Raymond S. Spears

—The Cruise of the Cadis  84

—The Horse Thief Rendezvous 89

—Mississippi Medicine 88

—On the Dodge 89

—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

Bram Stoker

—Our New House 89

Halliwell Sutcliffe

—Handsome Jack  67

—Miss Phyllis Brown 67

—Murgatroyd's Wife  67

Georges Surdez

—The Baturu Mandarin 89

—Charles the Bold 76

—The Man from Nowhere 89

—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

—No Living Witness 89

Albert Payson Terhune

—The Clean-Up 94

Leslie Thomas

—The Plot 96

Basil Thomson

—The Burglary in Middlesex Street 86

E. Temple Thurston

—A Cameo 69

Roger Torrey

—Black Murder 78

—The Bookie Bets on Murder 90

—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

—Printer's Ink Runs Red 90

—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

—The Force of Circumstances 90

—(Obituary)  90

P. Treherne

— A Diplomatic Mistake 96

Katharine Tynan

—Lettice Langworthy's Prince 87

H. D. Umbstaetter (as by Barnes MacGreggor)

—The Great Star Ruby  80

Louis Joseph Vance

—The Cap-Box  96

R. E. Vernéde

—Marianna and the Fish Prince 96

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—" 93

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

—White Cap 89

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 Cult of the Skull 94

—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

John Strange Winter

—The Luck of the Trevors 95

H. C. Witwer

—Money to Burns 71

Mary E Wilkins

—The Shadows on the Wall  64

Lee Willenborg

—The Queen's Emerald  88

Mrs C. N. Williamson

—The Great Boycott at the Hotel D'Angleterre  94

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

Gordon Young

—Bogus Gems 89

Arthur Leo Zagat

—Coward's Kill    69

—The Little Walking Corpses 86

—Satan's Scalpel 878

E. F. Ziska

—Man of Ages 78

______________

Table of Contents

- 1: From the Dead / Edith Nesbit
- 2: Sophy Mason Comes Back / E. M. Delafield
- 3: The Plot / Leslie Thomas
- 4: One Man from the West / Sumner Locke
- 5: The Green Cat / Sumner Locke
- 6: Assignats / Henry Leverage
- 7: The Devil's Cave / Anonymous

- 8: Marianna and the Fish Prince / R. E. Vernéde

- 9: The Bookworm's Arms / C. J. Dennis
- 10: Mrs Dumphy's Send-Off / C. J. Dennis
- 11: Hobbled / Edward S. Sorenson
- 12: The Cap-Box / Louis Joseph Vance
- 13: Wet Weather / Courtney Ryley Cooper
- 14: Spink / C. J. Dennis

- 15: To the Tune of a Dance / Alice and Claude Askew

- 16: Our Lady of the Lilies / J. S. Fletcher

- 17: The World  of the Vanishing Point / James Barr

- 18: A Diplomatic Mistake / P Treherne

- 19: An Officer's Patrol / Major Arthur Griffiths

- 20: An Unnatural Father / Barry Pain
- 21: The Grave / Orville R. Emerson
- 22: The Draw-Keeper / Wadsworth Camp
- 23: The Pearls of Paruki / J. Allan Dunn
- 24: A Fatal Gamble / Ernest Favenc
- 25: The Haunted Steamer / Ernest Favenc
- Cumulative Index 61-96