Past Masters One Hundred
Author: Various
Date: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00
Description: A mixed bag of short stories from magazines and newspapers, all in the Life+70 years public domain. A cumulative index by author for numbers 1-100 will be posted seperately 1: United Ireland / George A. Birmingham 2: Mr. Clackworthy's Return / Christopher B. Booth 3: The Phantom Junk / Carlton Dawe 4: "Pulo Condore" / Carlton Dawe 5: Bill and Stumpy's Big Cheques / Val Jameson 6: Prospector Bill / Val Jameson 7: The Black Bag / Anonymous 8: A Blameless Afternoon / Tom Gallon 9: Sayōnara / Carlton Dawe 10: The Murder at Ozer's / "Waif Wander" 11: Timid Soul / Richard Connell 12: The Plush Strin

PAST MASTERS

ONE HUNDRED

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.

7 October 2022

Contents

1: United Ireland / George A. Birmingham

2: Mr. Clackworthy's Return / Christopher B. Booth

3: The Phantom Junk / Carlton Dawe

4: "Pulo Condore" / Carlton Dawe

5: Bill and Stumpy's Big Cheques / Val Jameson

6: Prospector Bill / Val Jameson

7: The Black Bag / Anonymous

8: A Blameless Afternoon / Tom Gallon

9: Sayōnara / Carlton Dawe

10: The Murder at Ozer's / "Waif Wander"

11: Timid Soul / Richard Connell

12: The Plush String Bean / Richard Connell

13: I've Met You Before / Richard Connell

14: On the Account / J. Allan Dunn

15: The Stolen Crime / Richard Connell

16: Let Loose / Mary Cholmondeley

17: Live Bait / Frederick Irving Anderson

18: Lobster Pots / Henry C. Rowland

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1: United Ireland

George A. Birmingham

James Owen Hannay, 1865-1930

Our Casualty and Other Stories, 1918

"I'LL say this for old MacManaway, an honester man never lived nor what he was; and I'm sorry he's gone, so I am."

The speaker was Dan Gallaher. The occasion was the morning of the auction of old MacManaway's property. The place was the yard behind the farmhouse in which MacManaway had lived, a solitary man, without wife or child, for fifty years. Dan Gallaher held the hames of a set of harness in his hand as he spoke and critically examined the leather of the traces. It was good leather, sound and well preserved. Old MacManaway while alive liked sound things and took good care of his property.

"An honester man never lived," Dan repeated. "And I'm not saying that because the old man and me agreed together, for we didn't."

"How could you agree?" said James McNiece. "It wasn't to be expected that you would agree. There wasn't a stronger Protestant nor a greater Orangeman in the whole country nor old MacManaway."

James McNiece turned from the examination of a cart as he spoke and gave his attention to the hames. His description of the dead man's religious and political convictions was just No one in all the Ulster borderland ever held the principle of the Orange Society more firmly or opposed any form of Home Rule more bitterly than old MacManaway. And Dan Gallaher was a Roman Catholic and a Nationalist of the extremest kind.

"They tell me," said Dan Gallaher, in a pleasant conversational tone, "that it's to be yourself, James McNiece, that's to be the head of the Orangemen in the parish now that MacManaway is gone."

James looked at him sideways out of the comers of his eyes. Dan spoke in a friendly tone, but it is never wise to give any information to "Papishes and rebels."

"The Colonel," he said, "is the Grand Master of the Orangemen in these parts."

Colonel Eden, a J.P., and the principal landlord in the parish, drove into the yard in his motor. A police sergeant slipped his pipe into his pocket, stepped forward and took the number of the Colonel's car. It has never been decided in Ireland whether motor cars may or may not be used, under the provisions of D.O.R.A., * for attending auctions. We know that the safety of the empire is compromised by driving to a race meeting. We know that the King and his Army are in no way injured by our driving to market. Attendance at an auction stands midway between pleasure and business; and the use of motors in such matters is debatable.

__________

* Defence of the Realm Act, a World War One measure —[Pulpmeister]

"It's the D.I.'s orders, sir," said the sergeant apologetically.

"All right,'' said the Colonel, "but if the D.I. expects me to fine myself at the next Petty Sessions he'll be disappointed."

James McNiece and Dan Gallaher touched their hats to the ColoneL

"Morning, James," said the Colonel. "Morning, Dan. Fine day for the sale, and a good gathering of people. I don't know that I ever saw a bigger crowd at an auction."

He looked round as he spoke. The whole parish and many people from outside the parish had assembled. The yard was full of men, handling and appraising the outdoor effects. Women passed in and out of the house, poked mattresses with their fingers, felt the fabrics of sheets and curtains, examined china and kitchen utensils warily.

"There's the doctor over there," said the Colonel, "looking at the stable buckets, and who's that young fellow in the yellow leggings, James?"

"I'm not rightly sure," said James McNiece, "but I'm thinking he'll be the new D.I. from Curraghfin.''

"It is him," said Dan Gallaher. "I was asking the sergeant this minute and he told me. What's more he said he was a terrible sharp young fellow."

"That won't suit you, Dan," said the Colonel. "You and your friends will have to be a bit careful before you get up another rebellion."

"It may not suit me," said Dan, "but there's others it won't suit either. Didn't I see the sergeant taking the number of your motor, Colonel, and would he be doing the like of that if the new D.I. hadn't told him?"

The Colonel laughed. As commander of a battalion of the Ulster Volunteer Force, he was fully prepared to meet Dan Gallaher on the field of battle — Dan leading the National Volunteers. He looked forward with something like pleasure to the final settlement of the Home Rule question by the ordeal of battle. In the meanwhile he and Dan Gallaher by no means hated each other, and were occasionally in full sympathy when the police or some ridiculous Government department made trouble by fussy activity.

Mr. Robinson, the auctioneer, drove up in his dogcart. He touched his hat to Colonel Eden, gave an order to his clerk and crossed the yard briskly. He twisted the cigarette he smoked into the corner of his mouth with deft movements of his lips, waved his hand to various acquaintances and looked rotmd him with quick, dieerful glances. No man in the country was quicker to appreciate the financial worth of a crowd. He knew before a single bid was made whether people were in a mood to spend lavishly. He foimd himself very well satisfied with the prospect of this particular auction. The stuff he had to sell, indoors and out, was good. The farmers were enjoying a prosperous season. They had money in their pockets which they would certainly want to spend. Mr. Robinson had visions of a percentage, his share of the proceeds, nmning into three figures.

He began work in a comer of the yard with a cross-cut saw. The bidding rose merrily to a point slightly higher than the cost of a similar saw new in a shop. At 23/6d Mr. Robinson knocked it down to a purchaser who seemed well satisfied. A number of small articles, scythes, barrows, spades, were sold rapidly, Mr. Robinson moving round the yard from outhouse to outhouse, surrounded by an eager crowd which pressed on him. His progress was not unlike that of a queen bee at swarming time. He made— as she makes— short flights, and always at the end of them found himself in the centre of a cluster of followers.

At about half-past twelve Mr. Robinson reached his most important lot He lit a fresh cigarette— his eighth — before patting up for sale a rick of hay.

"About four tons," said Mr Robinson, "new meadow hay, well saved, saved with not a drop of rain. Gentlemen, I needn't tell you that this is a rare, under existing conditions, a unique opportunity. Hay— you know this better than I do— is at present unobtainable in the ordinary market. Now, don't disappoint me, gentlemen. Let me have a reasonable offer. Thirty pounds. Did I hear some one say fifteen pounds? Less than four pounds a tonl Now, gentlemen, really?"

But the crowd in front of Mr. Robinson knew just as well as he did that four pounds a ton is not a reasonable offer. The bids succeeded each other rapidly. The original fifteen pounds changed to twenty pounds, then to twenty-five, rose a little more slowly to thirty pounds. At thirty-two pounds the bidding hesitated. Mr. Robinson, dropping his cigarette from his mouth, urged his clients on with gusts of eloquence. There was a short spurt The bids rose by five shillings at a time and finally stopped dead at thirty-four pounds. The hay was sold at a little over eight pounds a ton. Public interest, roused to boiling point by the sale of a whole rick of hay, cooled down a little when Mr. Robinson went on to the next lot on his list

"Gentlemen," he said, "I am now offering the hay stored in the loft above the stable. A small lot, gentlemen, but prime hay. I offer no guarantee as to the quantity in the loft; but I should guess it at anything between ten and fifteen hundred-weight."

Several of the more important farmers drew out of the crowd which surrounded Mr. Robinson. It was not worth while bidding for so small a quantity of hay. Other members of the crowd, feeling that a breathing space had been granted them, took packets of sandwiches from their pockets and sat down in one of the outhouses to refresh themselves. Mr. Robinson viewed the diminishing group of bidders with some disappointment He was gratified to see that the new police officer from Curraghfin, a gentleman who had not so far made a single bid, crossed the yard and took a place on the steps leading to the loft Colonel Eden, too, appeared interested in the new lot of hay. If the inspector of police and Colonel Eden began to bid against each other the hay might realize a good price.

"Now, gentlemen," said Mr. Robinson, "shall we make a start with three pounds?"

He glanced at Colonel Eden, then at the police officer. Neither gentleman made any sign of wishing to bid. It was James McNiece who made the first offer.

"Two pounds," he sad.

There was a pause.

"Two pounds," said Mr. Robinson, "two pounds. Going at two pounds. You're not going to let this hay,— more than half a ton of it— go at two pounds."

He looked appealingly at Colonel Eden and at the police ofiicer. They were entirely unresponsive.

"And at two pounds, going—" said Mr. Robinson.

"Two-ten," said Dan Gallaher, in a quiet voice.

"Two-fifteen," said James McNiece.

Dan Gallaher, still apparently bored by the proceedings, raised the price another five shillings. James McNiece went half a crown further. Dan Gallaher, becoming slightly interested, made a jump to three pounds ten. McNiece, with an air of finality, bid four pounds. The contest began to attract attention. When the price rose to five pounds interest became lively, and those who had drawn out of the group round Mr. Robinson began to dribble back. It seemed likely that the contest was one of those, not uncommon at Irish auctions, into which personal feelings enter largely and the actual value of the article sold is little considered. There was a certain piquancy about a struggle of this kind between a prominent Orangeman like James McNiece, and Dan Gallaher, whom everyone knew to be the leader of the Sinn Fein party.

Interest developed into actual excitement when the price rose to ten pounds. A half ton of hay never is and never has been worth ten pounds. But ten pounds was by no means the final bid.

"Mr. McNiece," said Mr. Robinson, "the bid is against you."

"Guineas," said McNiece.

"Eleven," said Dan Gallaher.

"Guineas," said McNiece.

The duet went on, McNiece capping Gallaher's poimds with a monotonous repetition of the word guineas until the price rose to twenty pounds. At that point McNiece faltered for a moment. The auctioneer, watching keenly, saw him turn half round and look at Colonel Eden. The Colonel nodded slightly, so slightly that no one except Mr. Robinson and McNiece himself saw the gesture.

"At twenty pounds," said Mr. Robinson, "going, and at twenty pounds—"

"Thirty," said McNiece.

The crowd of watchers gasped audibly. This was something outside of all experience. A man might willingly pay a few shillings, even a pound, too much for the sake of getting the better of an opponent; but to give thirty pounds for half a ton of hay— not even the natural enmity of an Orangeman for a Sinn Feiner would account for such recklessness.

"Guineas," said Dan Gallaher.

It was his turn to say guineas now, and he repeated the word without faltering until the price rose to fifty pounds. Mr. Robinson took off his hat and wiped the sweat from his forehead. Never in all his experience of auctions had he heard bidding like this. He lit a fresh cigarette, holding the match in fingers which trembled visibly.

"You will understand, gentlemen, that I am only selling the hay, not the barn or the stable."

"Guineas," said Dan Gallaher.

It was the last bid. As he made it Colonel Eden turned and walked out of the group round the auctioneer. James McNiece took his pipe from his pocket and filled it slowly.

"The hay is yours, Mr. Gallaher," said the auctioneer.

Dan Gallaher, having secured the hay, left the yard. He found his horse, which he had tethered to a tree, and mounted. He rode slowly down the rough lane which led from the farm. At the gate leading to the high road the police sergeant stopped him.

"If you wouldn't mind waiting a minute, Mr. Gallaher," said the sergeant, ''the D.I. would like to speak to you."

"What about? '' said Gallaher.

The sergeant winked ponderously.

"It might be," he said, "about the hay you're just after buying/'

"If he wants it," said Gallaher, "he can have it, and I'll deliver it to him at his own home at half the price I paid for it."

The District Inspector, smiling and tapping his gaiters with a riding switch, explained in a few words that he did not want the hay and did not intend to pay for it.

"I'm taking over the contents of that loft," he said, ''in the name of the Government under the provisions of D.O.R.A."

" I don't know," said Gallaher, "that you've any right to be taking over what I've bought in that kind of way, and what's more you'll not be able to do it withoqt you show me a proper order in writing, signed by a magistrate."

"If I were you," said the D.I., "I wouldn't insist on any kind of legal trial about that hay. At present there's no evidence against you, Mr. Gallaher, except that you paid a perfectly absurd price for some hay that you didn't want, and I'm not inclined to press the matter now I've got what I wanted; but if you insist on dragging the matter into Court ''

"I do not," said Gallaher.

At ten o'clock that evening Dan Gallaher and James McNiece sat together in the private room behind the bar of Sam Twining's public-house; The house was neutral ground used by Orangemen and Nationalists alike, a convenient arrangement, indeed a necessary arrangement, for there was no other public-house nearer than Curraghfin.

"Dan," said James McNiece, " I'm an Orange-man and a Protestant and a loyalist, and what I've always said about Home Rule and always will say is this:— We'll not have it and to Hell with the rebels. But I'm telling you now I'd rather you had them, papist and rebel and all as you are, than see them swept off that way by the police. And what's more, I'm not the only one says that. The Colonel was talking to me after he heard what happened, and what he said was this— 'The Government of this country,' said he, meaning the police, 'is a disgrace to civilization.' "

" Give me your hand, James McNiece." said Gallaher. "Let me shake your hand to show there's no ill feeling about the way I bid against you at the sale to-day."

McNiece laid down the glass of whisky which he was raising to his lips and stretched out his hand. Gallaher grasped it and held it.

"Tell me this now, James McNiece," he said, "for it's what I was never sure of— How many was there behind that hay?"

McNiece looked round him carefully and made sure that no third person could hear him. Neglecting no precaution he sank his voice to a whisper.

"Twenty rifles," he said, " of the latest pattern, the same as the soldiers use, and four hundred rounds of ball cartridge.''

"Gosh," said Gallaher, "but we'd have done great work with them. Either your lads or mine, James McNiece, would have done great work with them. But, sure, what's the use of talking? The police has them now."

"Damn the police," said James McNiece.

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2: Mr. Clackworthy's Return

Christopher B Booth

1889-1950

Detective Story, 14 June 1930

The infamous Wall Street Crash in November 1929 caught even Mr Clackworthy in the wallet, so he came out of retirement...

AT ten o'clock on a certain Tuesday morning in November, Mr. Amos Clackworthy was a millionaire. Before two o'clock of the same afternoon, he owed money to his brokers. Between those frantic hours, which so many thousands of people will remember with shudders as the first day of the stock- market crash, Mr. Clackworthy saw his paper profits melt and vanish, his margins swept away with such relentless swiftness that there had been no chance of salvage.

Being a philosopher and a good sport, having the nerve of the gambler who can lose his last chip without losing his serenity, the master confidence man accepted this reversal of his fortunes without lament; while others who had lost less were tragically contemplating self-destruction— and some of them making this surrender to their desperation— Mr. Clackworthy merely mixed himself a high ball, lighted one of his excellent cigars, and reached the immediate decision that it was time he got back to his business of trimming "suckers," having himself been a sucker to the tune of a cool million.

Immediate activity was necessary if he meant to remain a tenant of this exclusive Lakeshore Drive apartment, for the November rent was due and to pay it would reduce his bank account to an alarmingly small balance. It was an exceedingly satisfactory place to live, with a roof-top terrace and an unobstructed view of the lake, and he meant to keep it. But the apartment cost money, and Mr. Clackworthy's tastes were expensively in keeping with his abode. Money must be had, and quickly, too.

The door of the luxurious living room was abruptly flung open and James Early, the master confidence man's confederate in their many successful adventures, burst in stormily. But it was the storm of despair. Clutched in his hand was a crumpled copy of a Chicago afternoon newspaper, with the news of the stock-market crash screaming across the front page; upon his thin, lean, sharp- featured face was stamped an expression of dazed anguish which, however, began to relax as he saw Mr. Clackworthy sitting at ease, apparently in a cheerful and carefree mood.

"Good afternoon, James." said Mr. Clackworthy pleasantly. "You appear to be a trifle upset over something."

James Early, upon whom the police in days past had bestowed his nickname of the "Early Bird," stared searchingly at the master confidence man for another moment; a look of something akin to awe began to spread over his countenance.

"Boss!" he gasped out. "You— you got out with a whole skin, huh? This here Wall Street game didn't make a sucker outa you after all! Gee, boss, you sure outsmarted the rest of this whole cockeyed world. How'dja do it?"

"I didn't," responded Mr. Clackworthy. "No, my dear James, I certainly didn't."

The Early Bird's expanding smile began to lose radiance, but, viewing the other's calmness, he could not believe that disaster had been complete. Mr. Clackworthy, James decided, had been nicked, but not very badly.

"You're lucky at that, boss. Why, I seen guys down in the Loop that was stripped right down to their shirts. Lookit th' headlines; here's a bird that puts a hunk of lead inside the place his brains was supposed to be. Another one does a high-divin' act offn th' Monmouth Buildin'. The streets downtown is full of people talkin' to theirselves, and the nut ward at Cook County Hospital is dustin' off the old S. R. O. sign, and gettin' ready to sleep 'em three in a bed. I hears a street sweeper sayin' to th' blind dame what peddles lead pencils at the comer of Clark and Randolph that his broker had sold him out, and 'Lady Smoked Glasses' comes back that she lost five centuries in Radio. Everybody was playin' this crazy market—  everybody. Includin' you and me, worse luck."

Mr. Clackworthy chuckled, enjoying, as he always did, the Early Bird's picturesque outbursts of speech, and the chuckle further falsely reassured the Early Bird that his friend and idol had shrewdly escaped the tidal wave of liquidation.

"So, James, you've been speculating along with the rest of us?"

"Yeah, and here's a laugh; a wise bozo in LaSalle Street slips me a hot tip that Zenith Vacuum Cleaner was gonna be pushed up to a hundred and fifty. It vacuum-cleaned me, all right. I ain't got a bean left outa th' wreck, and that ain't speakin' in no figurative language neither. I'm so flat, boss, that a pancake would look like Pikes Peak." The Early Bird stripped off his nobby English overcoat and sat down expectantly.

"Aw, loosen up, boss," he pleaded. "Gimme a tell. How'dja manage to get into th' cyclone cellar before th' tornado struck? And why, oh, why, didn'tcha give me a tip-off? Mebbe I could have saved a part of my twenty-seven grand."

"You don't seem to believe that I'm cleaned out, too, James," said Mr. Clackworthy as he gently tapped an inch and a half of ash froni his cigar.

"Nix on tryin' to hand me that stuff, boss!" he exclaimed disdainfully. "Why, if you was clean, that would mean mighty near a million bucks, and no guy, not even you, can say good-by to that much dough and look like Merry Christmas. So quit kiddin' me and gimme th' low-down."

Mr. Clackworthy got up from his chair, produced another glass, and mixed two drinks.

"It pleases me to discover that I am such a game loser," he said. "The truth of the matter is, James, that market prices dropped so fast this afternoon there was no chance for any man to save himself. One stock I was in dropped thirty points in an hour and a half; the others were nearly as bad. I'm all in, down and out, James; I'm in debt to my brokers and I wouldn't be able to pay them what I owe and meet this month's rent on the apartment."

The Early Bird's mouth sagged open. For a moment, he was like a man petrified. It was extremely difficult to fit Mr. Amos Clackworthy into any picture of poverty knocking at the door, and yet he knew now that it must really be true. Mr. Clackworthy was broke, stony broke!

"A million bucks!" cried the Early Bird in a shaking whisper. "A million bucks gone— just like this." And he puffed to imitate a gust of wind. "B-but, boss, it— it can't be— as bad as that. Down to the last dollar."

The master confidence man's mouth tightened slightly. "Ah, but it is, James. I've been close to the ragged edge more than once; but never, never in my life, have I actually owed money that I couldn't pay. It puts me in a pretty bad hole."

A wabbly smile, sickly in its lack of mirth, spread over the Early Bird's face.

"For a couple of wise guys like you and me, we're certainly a fine pair of suckers. Two nice, woolly Mary's little lambs what's gone and got ourselves fleeced right down to the bare skin!" His voice had become bitter.

"We've got a lot of company," observed Mr. Clackworthy, but the Early Bird found small consolation in that. Philosophy isn't a great deal of comfort when apartment rent is due and the figures of the check-book stubs have been reduced to three figures.

"It proves," said Mr. Clackworthy as he sat down again and took a sip of his second high ball, "an old adage of mine: that the sucker is a sucker for one reason and one reason only— because he's trying to get something for nothing. We've demonstrated it many times; we've merely demonstrated it again with ourselves in the role of victims. We tried to take some easy money out of Wall Street. We were greedy, as men usually are when there's easy money in sight. With you, twenty-seven thousand wasn't enough; with me, a million wasn't enough. Both of us wanted more, and we got it—"

"We got it," the Early Bird chimed in dismally, "in the place where we're both gonna be wearin' patches on our pants."

Mr. Clackworthy finished off his high ball; perhaps, underneath his magnificent calm, his nerves needed to be bucked up. But a better tonic, undoubtedly, was the Early Bird's familiar note of pessimism. It was like old times again to hear this prediction of dire disaster which was to put them on the street in rags and tatters. The master confidence man threw back his head and laughed heartily.

"Where's all the comedy?" grunted James Early sourly.

"Really, James, I wonder if you do expect to see me in the bread line?"

"Whatcha gonna do? Answer me that!" There was a challenge in the Early Bird's voice although, of course, he didn't actually expect the master confidence man ever to be reduced to any such pitiful degree of destitution.

"Do?" murmured Mr. Clackworthy. "That, my dismal friend, is a question easily answered. You and I are going to dust off the old bag of tricks, and get back to business. To-day's stock-market debacle impresses me with the cheering thought of how many thousands of people there are who are trying to get something for nothing."

A bright sparkle lighted the Early Bird's eyes only to dim.

"There's plenty of suckers left," he muttered, "but try and find one of the poor saps who's got any jack."

Mr. Clackworthy's answer to that was to slide open a drawer of his desk and bring forth a small, card-index file which contained the names of various and sundry persons who, unknown to themselves, were candidate for election to membership in the master confidence man's own private lodge, the Ancient Order of Suckers.

From out of the little magic box, which Mr. Clackworthy called "the prospect list," there came the name of a certain Mr. Alonzo Prindivale. Upon the card devoted to Mr. Prindivale there appeared such information as the master confidence man might find useful in his particular field of endeavor. By a series of cryptograms, a great deal was contained in a small space, and Mr. Prindivale would not have felt flattered to have heard this condensed biography translated to its full meaning.

Alonzo Prindivale was a down-State banker in a town which bore the family name. It was a small town and none too prosperous. But Alonzo Prindivale was prosperous, amazingly so, considering his limited opportunities. By greedy dollar grabbing and parsimonious nickel nursing, he had become a very rich man. He owned half of Prindivale and had a mortgage on the rest.

THREE DAYS after the stock-market crash, having raised a small amount of working capital by various and sundry means, Mr. Clackworthy arrived in Prindivale on the evening train. It was raining, and this added to the dismal outlook from the railroad station platform: a block-long procession of shabby buildings across the tracks, headed by the only three-story edifice in town, the Prindivale House. There was no hotel porter on hand to look after the luggage of arriving guests. Mr. Clackworthy picked up his bag and started across the street which was poorly lighted. His foot splashed deep into a puddle of muddy water. The city fathers of the incorporated town of Prindivale were evidently not spending tax money for any such modern nonsense as pavements.

"I'll say," grunted the master confidence man, "that anybody who can make half a million dollars in a town like this is good."  He smiled grimly. "The greedier they are, the better I like to take 'em."

Like its exterior, the lobby of the Prindivale House was shabby and unpretentious. That's what lack of competition does to a business sometimes. A man behind the desk surveyed Mr. Clackworthy with a listless gaze; the lines about his face bespoke bitterness and a state of helpless rebellion. He spoke no words of cheering welcome, knowing full well that his guests came to him because it was the only place to stop and that they would depart at the earliest possible moment. Professional glad-handing would be just so much energy wasted.

Mr. Clackworthy signed the register in his crisp, compact, businesslike hand-writing.

"A room with a bath," he said, and got a quicker answer than he could have reasonably expected.

"Can't give you no room with bath, mister. Got just one, and Mrs. Prindi- vale has got that."

"Prindivale?" murmured Mr. Clackworthy. "Do you happen to mean the wife of Mr. Alonzo Prindivale?"

"Uh-huh!" Even a grunt may contain a quality of voice which gives an index to a man's feelings, and the master confidence man knew instantly that the proprietor of the Prindivale House disliked the lady in question. More importantly, however, Mr. Clackworthy was immediately concerned as to the reason why Mrs. Prindivale was living at the hotel without her husband, or. for that matter, why she was living in the' hotel at all. This didn't look so good; it offered a discouraging possibility— that Alonzo Prindivale was no longer to be listed among the living, that Mrs. Prindivale was a widow.

"And Mr. Prindivale?"

"Dead," said the hotel proprietor briefly, sourly, and thus was Mr. Clackworthy informed that he had wasted a tiresome train journey and twelve dollars in railroad fare— to say nothing of the unattractive prospect of sleeping in one of the Prindivale House beds which he was sure would be  uncomfortable.

"Well, that's that!" thought Mr. Clackworthy with the philosophical resignation with which he characteristically met such annoying adversities of circumstance. Aloud he said: "So Alonzo Prindivale has passed from your midst. Um! The community must find it a distinct loss. It will be— ah—  hard to replace such a leading and influential citizen."

The proprietor of the Prindivale House made a wry grimace. Perhaps he was unconscious of it.

"Not so hard as you'd think, mister. The only difference is that this here town of ours is bein' bossed by a skirt 'stead of a pair of pants. I guess, if th' truth was known, it's been bossed by the same skirt all the time. Anyhow, it's just the same as it was before— only more so." Again there was that note of bitterness, but he suddenly stopped talking as a half-frightened look leaped into his eyes.

From out of the dining room of the hotel strode a woman who, although he had never seen her 'before, Mr. Clackworthy knew instantly could be none other than Alonzo Prindivale's widow. She was tall, angular, and masculine. Her stride was that of a man. Her face was harsh and forbidding; her eyes were as cold as those of a dead fish, and her dominant jaw jutted out beneath a thin-slitted, tightly clamped mouth.

The proprietor of the Prindivale House smirked and bobbed his head.

"I hope you enjoyed your dinner, Mrs. Prindivale."

"The soup was cold, the beef was tough, and the coffee vile," answered Mrs. Prindivale acridly, and with that she strode her masterful way across the lobby and vanished through a door which led to the stairs.

"What a pleasant person she is to have around!" murmured Mr. Clackworthy.

"Nothing ever suits her," mourned the hotel proprietor. "She ain't happy unless she's snapping at somebody. If the soup is served hot, she reads a paper until it gets cold, just so she'll have something to kick about. I buy a special brand of coffee, sixty cents the pound, and have it made special, but she always complains about the coffee, too. She complains that seventy-five dollars a month is too much for a room with a bath and three meals a day. And then she complains because I don't meet my notes at the bank right on the scratch."

"In other words," sympathetically observed Mr. Clackworthy, "Alonzo's spirit goes marching on."

"Thunder!" burst out the hotel proprietor, unable to resist the temptation of unburdening himself with a freedom with which he would not have dared to do to any one but a stranger. "Alonzo's spirit, my eye! Everybody in this town thought it was Alonzo, but it was her all the time that made him so mean and hard with folks. Oh, it's easy enough to see that now." He drew a deep breath, leaned confidentially closer, betraying the fact that his tongue was being loosened by several drinks of strong liquor. "I'll lay a little bet, mister, that Alonzo Prindivale is doggone good and glad that he's dead."

Mr. Clackworthy encouraged further confidences regarding the Amazonian Mrs. Prindivale. He gathered that the woman's residence at the hotel was but temporary. Her home had burned down and another was being built. She not only owned the controlling stock of the Prindivale State Bank, but had elected herself to the presidency of the institution. She had stepped into her husband's shoes, and they fitted her so perfectly that every one realized that they must have been her shoes all the time. She drove the same hard bargains that Alonzo had driven— only harder. Her usurious rates of interest, disguised as bonus charges, were higher than even Alonzo's had been. She could foreclose a mortgage with a ruthlessness that would have made even Alonzo gasp.

All of this information, Mr. Clackworthy carried with him into the dining room along with his food, which was really quite excellent. Over his coffee, the master confidence man came to a decision which completely overturned his private code of ethics. Never in his life had he cheated a woman; he found that he was able to do it now without a single twinge of conscience.

IT WAS a sartorially subdued James Early who disembarked at Prindivale from the morning train and surveyed the local scene with an expression of deepest disgust upon his thin, sharp-featured face. The more he saw of the town, the less he liked it; he couldn't recall that he had ever disliked any place as he did this one. There flashed through his mind the thought that possibly he had got off at the wrong station, and heartily wished this were true, but the shabby sign over the shabby railroad station confirmed that this was Prindivale. Across the street was further proof: the "Prindivale House."

"Mebbe the Wall Street clean-out has made the boss cuckoo," muttered the Early Bird. "If there's easy dough in this burg, then there's orange groves in Alaska, and there ain't never no sunshine in Los Angeles. For two-bits I'd grab the next rattler back to Chi." Nevertheless, he picked up his cheap suit case and made his way toward the hotel.

Missing was the Early Bird's snappy English topcoat; absent was the raiment of dapper elegance which so delighted his vanity. His clothes gave him a bucolic air, the ridiculous hat, a size too small for his head, made him look like a simple-minded "hick," precisely the effect that was desired.

Half an hour later, James Early was entertaining further misgivings, inspired by his first glimpse of Mrs. Prindivale. The woman president of the Prindivale State Bank was fitting at her desk behind a railing, having it out with a borrower who couldn't meet his promise to pay. The Early Bird caught an occasional word of supplication. "Hard luck all winter; two horses died; lightning struck the barn and set fire to it; Rosie's appendix—"

The despairing tragedy of the poor fellow's face alone was enough to melt a heart of granite, but not a muscle of Mrs. Prindivale's harsh face relaxed, and her dead-fish eyes had the chill of death in them. What did she care for the misfortunes of other people other than that it usually meant a heavy profit ? Another farm to be foreclosed and bought in for half its value.

The man stopped pleading, realizing how useless it was. His hands clenched. "Curse you!" Then he remembered that he was talking to, a woman. He stumbled to his feet, fumbling with his hat with twitching fingers. They were gnarled hands that had worked hard to feed his brood of young. He was breathing heavily, his mouth sagging open; his staring eyes saw only the void of black despair.

The Early Bird witnessed this heartrending drama, suddenly stirred with the fervor of a crusader.

"Believe me, old girl," he said between his teeth, "you got a trimmin' cornin' to you, and I'm gonna do my best to see you get one."

A moment later, the Early Bird was facing the lady ogre, playing the part of a perfect "sap." He sat on the extreme edge of a chair at the end of Mrs. Prindivale's desk, looking for all the world like a flustered yokel overawed by a greatly superior person.

"Y'see ma'am," James improvised haltingly, "I come into a tidy piece of money. My aunt, Mathilda, she died and left me some of them Liberty Bonds, but, shucks, four per cent ain't nothin' to earn on money considerin' the profit what's to be got outta th' chicken business."

"So?" said Mrs. Prindivale. "The chicken business?" How well did she know the kind of fool who, with a lead pencil and a few sheets of paper, got rich in the chicken business. It's the fastest way in the world for a poor man to get rich— on paper. But she did not tell this simple-looking stranger that he was a fool. She waited to see where it would lead to.

"Yes'm," the Early Bird went on eagerly. "There's a sight of money to be made outa chickens. I got it all figured out, and there ain't no way to lose. Why, ma'am, with eggs sellin' up to seventy and eighty cents a dozen, it's a purty onery kind of a hen that won't make a clean profit of ten dollars a year. Now multiply that 'by a thousand layin' hens—"

"Do you want to borrow money?" broke in Mrs. Prindivale bluntly.

"I got money without havin' to borrow it, ma'am. Y'see I was just lookin' fer a mite of advice about buyin' a farm to raise chickens on. I thought mebbe you knowed of some place that could be got reasonable."

Mrs. Prindivale perceptibly thawed. A smile appeared upon a face that nature had not fashioned for smiling.

"Oh, yes, I see, Mr.— Mr.—"

"Early's my name, ma'am."

"Well, Mr. Early, the bank is not in the real-estate business, but upstairs is the realty office of a man I can personally recommend. Mr. Kitt undoubtedly has some bargains in farms, and he'll treat you right. Go up and see Mr. Kitt. You may place full dependence in any representation that Mr. Kitt makes to you. If you want any more advice, I'll be glad to help you."

The Early Bird got to his feet, thanking Mrs. Prindivale profusely. Hardly had he got through the railing gate than the female bank president was reaching for a private telephone which connected directly with the real-estate office of Mr. Kitt upstairs.

"Listen, Kitt," she said in her hard, metallic voice, "a man named Early is on the way up. Wants to buy a farm and raise chickens. Looks like a good chance to unload the Tuccio place. What was the figure we bought it for?"

"Fifteen hundred," answered Kitt.

"Something tells me that this man Early can be induced to pay five thousand."

Mr. Kitt gasped over the wire. Had he not been in such mortal fear of Mrs. Prindivale, he'd have told her that she was crazy to expect a price of seventy dollars an acre for the rocky, worn-out Tuccio farm. He himself hadn't as yet seen what a simple-looking sap he had to deal with.

"I'll try," promised Mr. Kitt.

"Start at six!" commanded Mrs. Prindivale who believed that a fool and his money were soon parted— and the sooner the better.

IT WOULD have been a mistake for Mr. Clackworthy to act too quickly, so, anxious as he was to recoup his finances, he quietly remained in Chicago and frequently smiled over the mental picture of the Early Bird in the role of chicken farmer, surrounded by cackling hens and crowing roosters. And the Early Bird, going right ahead with the building of poultry houses just as though he meant to stay in the chicken business all his life, with equal frequency thought of Mr. Clackworthy arising each morning amid the supercomforts of the Lake- shore Drive apartment. But James' resentment was not so great as might be imagined, for he had another picture—  that of Mrs. Prindivale putting the screws on the poor devil who couldn't meet his mortgage.

A week and some odd days after the Early Bird had purchased the Tuccio farm for three times what it was worth, the master confidence man returned to Prindivale. Towns of this size are always curious about strangers, especially those who keep their affairs strictly to themselves. Mr. Clackworthy looked important; even in Chicago people would turn and stare after him as he walked along the street.

Mr. Clackworthy made himself a man of mystery. Each morning, after breakfasting at the Prindivale House, he would go down the street to Bud Sea- brooke's auto livery and have himself driven out into the country. He would take along an empty canvas bag, always empty when he started and full when he returned. He never explained what it contained and Bud Seabrooke, extraordinarily adept at prying information out of people, went nearly crazy trying to figure it out. All he knew was that the mysterious stranger would suddenly order the car stopped with a curt "Wait here," and go striding across some farmer's field with his empty canvas bag, Mr. Clackworthy might be gone an hour; he might be gone four hours. Always, when he returned, the canvas bag dragged heavily at his arm.

"If he didn't look so sane and sensible," was all Bud could offer, "I'd say the guy was a nut."

"Maybe it's oil," suggested Elmer Robinson who worked in the Prindivale printing office. One guess seemed to be about as good as another.

Every few days, the mysterious stranger would ship a box of something to Chicago. What the boxes contained, no one knew. Mail arrived for Mr. Clackworthy, a letter a day in a long, heavily sealed envelope. But the address on the flap was annoyingly cryptic, merely "Suite 1241, Chemical Building, Chicago."

Eventually, Mrs. Prindivale herself began to share in the local curiosity, and, one evening at the hotel, she engaged Mr. Clackworthy in conversation. She found him a pleasant gentleman, willing to talk about anything save his own affairs.

While speculation was at a fever heat, Mr. Clackworthy received a telegram. Apparently, it was urgent for he packed his bags in haste and departed on the evening Chicago-bound train. He didn't say when he would return, if at all. And the town of Prindivale decided he never would, for almost a week passed and he hadn't come back. Apparently, the mystery would remain forever unsolved.

But, of course, Mr. Clackworthy did return. Another trip into the country, this time in the vicinity of the Tuccio farm, a neighborhood which he had already visited more than once. And that evening he called upon Mr. Kitt, the real-estate dealer whom Mrs. Prindivale dominated.

Mr. Kitt was a smallish man with a sharp mind and a weak chin. He had shrewdness but no courage, the sort who can never be anything other than an understrapper. Overawed by Mr. Clackworthy's magnificent presence, palpitating with an eager but timid curiosity, he waited to see what had brought the impressive and mysterious stranger to his shabby realty office.

"Mr. Kitt," the master confidence man began briskly, "I want to begin by saying that' I know how closely you are associated with Mrs. Prindivale.''

Mr. Kitt raised his hand to his throat and toyed with his protuberant Adam's apple.

"Why, I— er— that is—" Directness of speech was not his way.

"I am fully aware," went on Mr. Clackworthy, "just what that association is, and you're mighty poorly paid for what you do. I am here to offer you a chance to make a thousand dollars as my agent. Did you ever get a thousand dollars in any deal in which you represented Mrs. Prindivale? The answer. Mr. Kitt, is no."

Mr. Kitt licked his lips avidly.

"I want to buy a piece of property that belongs to Mrs. Prindivale," pursued the master confidence man. "It's an eighty acre farm legally described as the southwest half of the northeast quarter of Section 41, Range 15, East. I want to buy it without Mrs. Prindivale knowing I'm buying it."

Mr. Kitt took down the county atlas and turned the pages to Range 15, East. His eyes sought the description Mr. Clackworthy had given him. His mouth sagged open.

"Why, that," he gasped, "that's the farm—" But the next instant, his teeth had clicked together like the snap of a steel trap, and the master confidence man pretended not to notice.

"Mrs. Prindivale's money bought it in at a foreclosure sale three years ago. for fifteen hundred dollars. The title stands in the name of Oscar Biddle who, I know as well as you do, is only a dummy for Mrs. Prindivale's transactions."

Mr. Kitt thought it wise to withhold the information that the Tuccio farm had passed from Mrs. Prindivale's control. He meant to find out, if possible, what the prosperous-looking stranger wanted with a worn-out farm. Why had the local man of mystery picked out the Tuccio farm after weeks of roaming through the country? There must be money in it— big money, perhaps, for Mr. Clackworthy, one instinctively felt, wouldn't be interested in any other kind of money.

"You wasn't mebbe thinkin' of farmin' the Tuccio place?" said Mr. Kitt. "I wouldn't hardly have took you for a— er— an agriculturist."

"Never mind about that," retorted the master confidence man. "I want to buy that eighty acres. Its salable value is something like twenty-five hundred. Mrs. Prindivale ought to be satisfied with that, but probably won't be. I'm willing to give five thousand. You get it at five thousand for me and the difference is yours."

Mr. Kitt had difficulty in controlling the muscles of his face. True, a simple- minded sap by the name of Early had paid fifty-five hundred for the Tuccio place, but Mr. Clackworthy was not, by any possible stretch of the imagination, simple-minded. If this canny man of the world was willing to pay five thousand, it was worth more— undoubtedly, a good deal more. Why, why? That question shouted through Mr. Kitt's rather bewildered mind and without any answer.

"I reckon, sir," he said when he could trust himself to speak calmly, "you got land values held too cheap. Mrs. Prindivale— that is Mr. Biddle— has refused six thousand for that farm."

Mr. Clackworthy's eyes narrowed accusingly. "Are you trying to kid me. Mr. Kitt? Mrs. Prindivale refused six thousand dollars for it? Don't make me laugh!"

"Fact," declared the real-estate dealer. "Land values seem to be kind of boomin' around here lately."

"Then I'm not interested," the master confidence man said curtly and moved toward the door. When Mr. Kitt did not call him back, he paused, retracing his steps. He looked angry.

"Same old game they always play in these hick towns. Let a stranger want to buy something, and up goes the price. But I guess I can do business cheaper through you at that. Get the Tuccio farm for me at six thousand, and there's a thousand dollars in it for you."

Mr. Kitt drummed the tips of his fingers together. Here was a situation which required the use of his wits. He had to have time to think.

"I'll see what I can do," he said. "I'll let you know about it some time tomorrow."

When Mr. Clackworthy had departed, Mr. Kitt leaped to his feet and began pacing the floor. Here, he felt, was his chance to make a killing. But there were Obstacles. To begin with, the Tuccio farm had passed out of Mrs. Prindivale's hands. James Early had paid fifty-five hundred dollars for the eighty acres; he had spent some money on poultry houses and chickens. Therefore, it wasn't likely that Early would sell for six. And there was Mrs. Prindivale to be considered. Her wrath would be a terrible thing if she discovered that he, Mr. Kitt, had been trying to make some money on his own "hook." Even at the thought of it, he had a faint feeling.

"It's no use," the real-estate dealer muttered. "There ain't nothin' I can do on my own. I gotta turn this proposition over to Mrs. Prindivale."

A few minutes later, Mr. Kitt was downstairs in the bank, conferring with Mrs. Prindivale.

"Nearest I can figger out," he was saying, "this here Early yap ain't had his deed recorded yet. That's why Mr. Clackworthy thinks title's still in Oscar Biddle's name, and he knows that Oscar Biddle is really you. He's crazy to get hold of that no-good farm, and I'm half crazy myself tryin' to figger out why. What could he want it for?"

"Shut up!" rasped Mrs. Prindivale. "I'm trying to think."

Peremptorily summoned to Mrs. Prindivale's room, Luther Witherspoon, the proprietor of the Prindivale House, wondered uneasily what it would be this time. Without much doubt, it was going to be unpleasant, whatever it was. He rapped respectfully at the door of his .star guest.

"Come in!" Mrs. Prindivale's voice sounded even more forbidding than usual. She fixed Mr. Witherspoon with her dead-fish eyes, and poor Luther shuffled his feet uncomfortably. For a moment, there was silence.

"Luther!"

"Yes, Mrs. Prindivale."

"You've got a seven-hundred dollar note due at the bank next Monday morning. Can you pay it?"

A sickly pallor began spreading over the hotel proprietor's face.

"Why— why, I guess you know I can't meet that note," he stammered. "You — you've been lettin' me pay a little something on it when I could."

Having made it clear to Luther Witherspoon that she could put him out of business any time she chose and hinting that such an eventuality was 'by no means impossible, Mrs. Prindivale abruptly switched to another subject. There was no apparent relevancy between the two but, of course. Luther would not miss the point.

"Luther!"

"Yes, Mrs. Prindivale."

"This man Clackworthy— what do you know about him ?"

"No more than anybody else, ma'am, and which is next to nothing."

"I'd like to know what that man is up to, Luther."

"So would everybody else in this town, ma'am."

"I'm suspicious of the man, Luther. Honest men don't hide their business like he does. Who is he? What is he ?"

The proprietor of the Prindivale House could only reply with a baffled gesture.

"He may be a crook, Luther. Maybe he's planning to rob the bank. I think we should know something about him." Again she impaled Luther with her icy gaze. "There is one way we can. It's our duty to do it, Luther."

"Do what, ma'am?"

"This Mr. Clackworthy is downstairs having his dinner. You've got a passkey to his room. I want you to get me whatever papers he's got and bring them here to me— at once. Don't stand there gaping at me like that, you dolt. We're not going to steal anything."

"B-but," stammered Luther Witherspoon, "s-suppose he walked in and caught me goin' through his things? Why— why he could have me arrested; he might-"

"What I'm particularly interested in seeing," broke in Mrs. Prindivale, "is the contents of those important-looking envelopes that have been coming to him in the mail from Chicago." Her heavy, bulging chin thrust itself forward. "Are you going to refuse this simple request, Luther?" she demanded ominously.

Luther Witherspoon gulped. He was on the brink of dilemma; if he refused to rifle Mr. Clackworthy's luggage, she would refuse to give him another extension on his note. It meant he would lose the hotel.

"I'll do it," he capitulated with a grimace of distaste, wondering what Mrs. Prindivale's real motive was. The elegant, solid, substantial Mr. Clackworthy a bank robber? She didn't think that any more than she thought five per cent a satisfactory rate of interest.

It wasn't, after all, so difficult as Luther Witherspoon had anticipated. Mr. Clackworthy hadn't taken the precaution of locking his bags. Resting conveniently within the top of the suit case was a portfolio neatly arranged with important-looking papers.

A few minutes later, Mrs. Prindivale was discovering why Mr. Clackworthy was trying to buy the practically worthless Tuccio farm. This information, contained in a letter on the letterhead of the International Chemical Co., made Mrs. Prindivale gasp for breath and sent her pulse up to one hundred and twenty. Anybody with a fair knowledge of things knew that the International Chemical Co. was a fifty-million- dollar concern, and what the excited lady didn't know, or rather what she didn't suspect, was that anybody with a printing press could print any kind of a letterhead he chose.

One paragraph in that letter contained the gist of the whole mysterious business.

Radium is where you find it. None of us can quite recover from our surprise to find it so close and in such unprecedented quantities, but the laboratory reports speak for themselves. The rock samples labeled No. 219-B make it clear that you have discovered the richest radium deposit in the history of the chemical industry. I am recommending to the board of directors that they vote you a bonus of one hundred thousand dollars.

Fantastic? We are living in a fantastic age, an era of almost incredulous miracles. A man with a bicycle shop becomes the richest man in the world. Three brothers capture the motion-picture business of the world with a phonograph disk and a radio loud-speaker. Science is the magician which makes impossible things come true. Radium in the rocks of a worthless hillside farm? Not so fantastic, perhaps, after all, considering all of the other amazing things that are happening!

Mrs. Prindivale's hands were trembling as she gave the filched portfolio back to Luther Witherspoon. She was hardly aware that she did.

"Radium!" she whispered. "Radium! And I sold the Tuccio farm for fifty- five hundred dollars. A hundred thousand dollars— just as a bonus." That meant millions— millions! She tried to remember what radium sold for an ounce; as near as she could recall, it was something like fifty thousand dollars.

In a trance, the woman got to her feet. There was no time to be lost. Any moment Mr. Clackworthy might discover that she no longer owned the Tuccio farm, and then it would be too late. She had to buy the Tuccio place back. No matter if she did have to give the poor fool who thought there was a fortune in raising chickens a profit of two or three thousand, she had to buy it back.

Having returned to Chicago some hours ahead of the Early Bird, Mr. Amos Clackworthy was mixing himself a high ball when he heard the door of his Lakeshore Drive apartment open. The Early Bird stood in the doorway, flapping his arms and crowing like a rooster. He danced a jig, dug his hands into his pockets and, with a grand gesture, flung a fat packet of yellow bills on the table, then another, and then a third.

"There's the stuff, boss. Thirty grand— thirty thousand smackers! Who says there ain't no money in the chicken business. I wasn't called the Early Bird for nothin' huh? Never has it been such a pleasure to take money from anybody. Oh, boy, wouldn't I give somethin' to see that female Shylock's face when she gets tired of waitin' for you to come back and buy the Tuccio farm for two or three million and phones the International Chemical Co. and is told they hadn't never heard of Mr. Clackworthy and that there's about as much radium in her rocks as there is in an old shoe. Oh, ain't she gonna be one mad lady when she finds out we put the bee on her! Yeah, and how! I gotta hunch, boss, we better slide outa th' country for a while."

The master confidence man shook his head.

"You mean that Mrs. Prindivale may have us prosecuted? No, my dear James, I anticipate nothing like that. Not even for thirty thousand dollars would she let that hick town know that she's been a sucker. But tell me, James, wasn't she rather bowled over when you screwed up the figure to thirty thousand? I didn't really expect you to get more than half of that. Thinking you such a boob, I wonder that didn't make her suspicious."

"Aw, that was dead easy, boss. I kind of give her the idea that Mr. Kitt had wised me up a little."

"Ah!" murmured Mr. Clackworthy. "That's genius, James."

"Sure, boss, I let her think that Kitt was tryin' to double cross her. And then I let her think she was real good by gettin' 'me down to thirty-five thousand."

"Thirty-five is it now, James? I thought you said thirty."

"I left five grand back there in Prindivale, boss. Y'see, there was a guy that Mrs. Prindivale had put th' screws on. He'd had a lot of bad luck— two of his horses died, and his barn got struck by lightnin' and burned down, and he had a couple of sick kids. She was foreclosin' on' him, y'understand, and I kind of got soft about the poor guy. Anyhow, boss, I slipped him three grand he owed Missus Prindivale, and got his kid sent to a hospital, and did a few other little things for 'im. You ain't sore, are you, boss?"

Mr. Clackworthy laughed merrily.

"So long as you did this act of charity with Mrs. Prindivale's money, I'm not. One thing I've always liked about you, James, is that you're so human."

______________

3: The Phantom Junk

Carlton Dawe

William Carlton Lanyon Dawe, 1865-1935

From: Kakemonos: Tales of the Far East, 1897

Dawe was a prolific Australian author, producing over 70 novels, many with a East Asian setting. Born in South Australia, he travelled extensively, lived in Hong Kong for a period, and then moved to England, settling in Battersea.

OF COURSE everybody laughed at the idea: everybody naturally would. Let a thing be ever so little beyond the comprehension of the ordinary mortal, and he is sure to jeer at it. The thing is right or wrong according to the way it appeals to him, or as fashion dictates. This thing appealed to his scepticism, and he laughed. He laughed rudely at the simple tale of the sampan men, who swore by the holy ashes of their ancestors that they had seen it; he smiled superciliously at the earnest narratives of the white sailors, who, while returning to their ships, had also seen it. Everybody knows the state a white sailor is in after he has spent a few hours ashore. Really, if better evidence were not forthcoming, it would be as well to dismiss the subject at once and for ever.

And yet the thing had been seen. Those who had thought it worth their while to investigate the matter were convinced that it was no lying talk of the Chinaman, no drunken fancy of the white sailor. After all, those most intimately acquainted with sailors knew quite well that even among that benighted fraternity there were men who could go ashore and enjoy themselves rationally; while even the sailor drunk ashore is a different being from the sailor drunk aboard. Stupid he may be, but he knows his way about a ship, and can tell you which way the wind 's blowing. It was all hearsay, of course. No commission of inquiry had sat upon the matter: there was no unassailable evidence. It was merely a rumour which you might credit or discredit as you thought fit.

The rumour was this, and it arose among the sampan people who sleep on the boats, and who know everything that goes on in the harbour. They said that on more than one occasion a phantom junk had been seen to steal through the Ly-ee-moon Pass, sail steadily down the Kowloon side, and disappear southwards through the Sulphur Channel. But, as usual, the evidence was contradictory. Some said the phantom scudded along at a terrific rate, leaving on the mind an impression of a junk in full sail; others said that the sails only were luminous, while others again declared that the sails were luminous only at intervals. Out of such a web of contradiction who could be expected to find the right thread? A Chinese puzzle, indeed, over which the super- cilious sneered, the unbeliever scoffed, and the plodding star-gazer wondered.

For a long time no one but the sampan people had any cognisance of the fact, if fact it were; and even many of them were known to be incredulous : for, though absurdly childish in many things, your Chinaman, being a natural liar, is a true sceptic. Yet so many had seen the phantom, or had sworn they had, that to disbelieve altogether in its existence was next to impossible. So the story gathered and grew strong among them; but being a people apart, it was a long time before the rumour reached the ears of the white population. And then, as we have seen, it only came to be laughed at.

The officials, naturally, were the last persons to hear of it; and when they did, the official lip curled like the tongue of an ant-eater, and for several months the Phantom Junk was tabooed. No man likes to be thought an idiot, and to mention that spectral craft, except by way of ridicule, was to lay yourself open to consider- able misapprehension. But one night, or, rather, early one morning, while the com- mander of H.M.S. Awful was being conveyed to his ship, he saw, or thought he saw, the spectral junk in the offing on the Kowloon side of the Pass. Of course, it was early in the morning, when the light is uncertain, and he had been at a merry meeting in a 'piecee house allee same belong top-side'; but at the same time the word of one of her Majesty's officers is a sacred thing. No one could possibly accuse such a hero of being drunk; no one would think of hinting that he could possibly see double. Of course the smile was as supercilious as ever, but the commander of the Awful was a man to be taken seriously.

It was marvellous how he stuck to his story. They might argue and laugh and jeer till they were sick, but he knew perfectly well that he had seen something for which he could not satisfactorily account, and that something was the gleaming white sails of a junk. For a moment only they shone out, and, ere he could call the attention of his sampan coolies to the curious phenomenon, the thing had disappeared. He made the men lay on their oars and for a full quarter of an hour stand staring out in the darkness; but nothing coming of the scrutiny, he went aboard.

Now, when the Government officials heard that one of her Majesty's officers had actually seen this reprehensible phantom, they immediately began to move in the matter, and, after due deliberation, the police launch was ordered out to intercept the midnight voyager; but though, every night for a week, it hung around the entrance of the Ly-ee-moon Pass, nor left its post till the phantom-scaring day broke, it never caught sight nor sign of the spectre.

The officials naturally felt that they had been hoaxed. Of course they knew all along that there was no ghost, but they thought they might lay their hands on the rascals who had been scaring the lives out of the harbour-folk. As for the commander of the Awful— well, the less said about the state that gentleman was in the better. Responsible men who go about seeing phantom junks ought to be locked up.

But that worthy sea-dog was not to be laughed down. He stuck gallantly to his story in spite of sneers and jeers. They might say what they liked, but he would take his dying oath that he was perfectly sober on that memorable night, and that, being sober, and in full possession of what little reason God had given him (here he meant to be sarcastic), he had most certainly seen the luminous sails of a junk start, as it were, out of blackness, and almost as suddenly disappear again; and they could take it or leave it, but it was the truth, nevertheless.

All this was put down to that magnificent obstinacy of the Briton, who never admits defeat, no matter how severe the drubbing : a consoling sort of idiosyncrasy, if at times a trifle absurd. But there happened to be one man among the officials who possessed a little more imagination than his hidebound brothers, and, in the face of official feeling, he let it be known that he believed implicitly in the statement of the commander of the Awful. He had not pursued the usual high official course and let his subordinates bring him a string of nonsensical tales to be swallowed without a knowledge of their composition; but he had gone among the sampan men, carefully sifted their evidence, and eventually came to the conclusion that, phantom or no phantom, the tale told by the more intelligent of the watermen agreed in every particular with that of the commander of the Aivful. A dozen different stories he heard, all told in a dozen different ways; but the one which seemed most prevalent, and which boasted of the greatest number of adherents, was the one that told only of the luminous sails.

Now, when my friend came to me with his theory well developed, protesting against the supineness and meanness of the Government, who would not allow him to use the official launch, I immediately offered him the loan of mine, an offer at which he instantly jumped.

'My dear fellow,' he cried joyfully, 'it 's just what I wanted, only I didn't like to ask. Give me a week, just one little week; and if by then I haven't solved this mystery, I will admit to being baffled.'

Though somewhat sceptical myself, his en- thusiasm gradually crept into my blood; and when, later on, I offered to accompany him in his search for the Phantom Junk, he received the offer with every token of pleasure.

'And when shall it be?' I asked.

'We will start at eleven o'clock to-night'

'Good. I will be ready.'

'And, by the way,' he said, coming back and looking me meaningly in the eyes, 'you had better bring your revolver with you, for, unless I am much mistaken, we shall find these phantoms very human.'

A FEW minutes after eleven that night we slipped our moorings and stole quietly out towards the Pass, extinguishing our lights as soon as we had cleared the men-of-war. But though we cruised about in the darkness for a good four hours, we never caught the slightest glimpse of the Phantom Junk. The next night misfortune still attended us; and a like disappointment awaited us on our third essay. My friend Kernot began to look anxious, and I began to laugh. Our spectre, though certainly a most perverse creature, would no doubt oblige us before the week ran out. Kernot did not take my pleasantries too good-naturedly. With him it was no laughing matter. He had almost pledged his professional reputation on the authenticity of the story, and that reputa- tion was a considerable thing to him. So, though I could not refrain from having an occasional dig at the Phantom Junk, I tried to recollect what it meant to my friend, and curbed my allusions accordingly.

The sky was overcast and the rain threatened as we set out on our fourth attempt. Away across the water came the wind in savage gusts, a mournful howl seeming to tear itself out of the very bosom of the night. My flesh responded with an uncanny sort of shiver, and involuntarily I buttoned my pilot coat up round my throat. Our usual precautions were observed towards the war-ships, and not till we had them dead astern did we extinguish our lights. Then Kernot and I took up our positions well forward, the engines went slow, and the little launch crept out towards the sea.

We hugged the northern side of the Pass, thinking that in Kowloon way we might the more readily happen on the stranger; but, as usual, without success. The wind also began to blow more steadily, and when we turned for the open sea we met its full force. In an incredibly short space of time the sea rose, and as we shot along the mouth of the Pass we had a most unpleasant experience. Then began a slow roll back, for we had only to keep her straight; the tide which came swirling in did the rest.

As I now began to feel a bit nipped by the cold, I suggested a drop of grog. Pipes were strictly forbidden, and, like true heroes, we duly martyred ourselves; but grog was not. To my suggestion Kernot replied, ' Ay, ay, sir,' like the tar that he was, and I immediately dived below for some whisky. As I crept back, I made out his figure in the same position, but so absorbed seemed he in his look-out that he did not perceive my approach.

'Kernot, old man,' I said, 'grog! '

'H'sch! '

'What's the matter? Can you see anything?'

He did not reply for a moment. Then, taking the flask without looking, he said, 'I thought I saw something on the other side.'

'What was it like?'

'A white shadow passing over the sea.'

'Kernot, my dear fellow, you're dreaming. Here, take a pull. You've got this beastly spectre on the brain.'

'Perhaps not quite so bad, old chap,' he laughed, ' though I admit its influence. Yet it was most singular,' he added, as if speaking to himself.

'The flash-light of some man-of-war,' I suggested. 'You can see the reflection a deuce of a way off".'

'Yes, I know; but this was not a bit like a flash-light. It was as though a lump of light was sailing Ah, look— there— there!' I felt his hand tremble as he nervously clutched my arm.

Away on the other side of the channel, deep, it seemed, in Kowloon Bay, a curious misty light showed up. In a moment our glasses were on it, and we both uttered the same exclamation in the same breath:

'The Phantom Junk!'

Yes, there it was, with its phantom sails standing out boldly to the eye, just as the commander of the Awful had said. No other part of the ship could be seen, but we took it for granted that there was a phantom hull somewhere. For a clear space of five or six seconds the spectre showed up weirdly in the gloom, and then disappeared; swallowed up, apparently, by the sea or the black night that gave it birth.

The three men we had brought with us were fortunately fast asleep, but our steersman, who had seen the spectre, set up a horrible muttering and moaning which proclaimed the extent of his terror. Indeed, he even raised some feeble protest when he was given the order to port, which brought Kernot to his side with a bound. There was a momentary scuffle, and then the chow fell in a heap on the deck, where he lay moaning incoherently. With a quick movement of the wheel, Kernot brought the launch round, and, shouting to the engineer to go like hell, we dashed across the channel to the bay.

Making all due allowance for the pride of ownership, there wasn't a launch in Hong-Kong could beat mine for speed, and in a very few minutes I heard Kernot give the order to go slow.

'Do you see anything, Tom?' he shouted, for I was still keeping a sharp look-out well forward.

'No.'

'Can you make out the land?'

'No.'

'Damnation! '

'Port a bit. I think I hear breakers.'

' We can't be as near as that.'

'Hist! What 's that to the leeward?'

I knew by the movement of the boat that he had starboarded again. Indeed, in swinging round, we just escaped crashing into a sampan. For a moment only I saw it, and then it disappeared in the darkness.

'The dinghy of our spectre,' said Kernot. ' We must not lose him.'

I was not so sure that Kernot was right, though I deemed it highly probable. At all events, if we could speak with the sampan, it might be to our advantage.

Kernot, who knew every inch of the water thereabouts, here gave the order full speed ahead, and in a moment we were flinging the waves to right and left of us in great style; but though we circled round and round, and in so doing lost some most valuable time, we saw no more of the spectre's dinghy.

'She has given us the slip,' said my companion ruefully. 'Now we must go in pursuit of the junk.' And without more ado he put the launch about, and back towards the town we tore at top speed.

'But, my dear Kernot,' I protested, as I joined him, 'if we can't lay our hands on the dinghy,how the deuce do you expect to collar the junk? '

'Of course,' he replied, 'this junk is no more a phantom than we are. It 's a trick— a clever one, I admit, but still a trick. The reason? Well, there may be several reasons. I know of one very good one. We shall see if I am right. I only hope we manage to get through the harbour without observation. By the way, what's the time? '

'Ten past one.'

'A very safe hour. You know how the story goes? The Phantom Junk enters the harbour at the Ly-ee-moon Pass, creeps along the Kowloon side, and makes her exit through the Sulphur Channel. Well, we must reach the Channel before her.'

'She 's got a good start.'

'True, but inside she'll have to hug the shore, and then she will lose the wind. I think we have a chance.'

The harbour was dotted with the riding-lights of ships, which, acting as beacons, allowed us to pursue our way in safety; and pretty soon we found ourselves steaming down mid-channel within measurable distance of our goal. Then, bit by bit, as the shipping in shore grew less, we approached the land; and under the shadow of it we steamed slowly forward.

Arriving just off Green Island, we stopped, and with our glasses searched the shadows opposite, but there was no sign of junk or any living thing. Then the mind, not being sure of itself, began to ask itself strange questions, and to receive strange responses from the sea. What were we doing out on this absurd adventure? Had we really seen the Phantom Junk, or had our imagination been playing tricks with us? To all of which the wind gave answer with a hollow, mocking laugh, while the spray flung itself derisively in our faces.

I know I began to feel a bit weary of the business, and was about to suggest that the Phantom Junk had most unconscionably given us the slip, when, without speaking, Kernot drew my attention to the island. At first I saw nothing, but presently a darker shadow crept out from the shadow of the land and pointed down the Channel. My companion put the wheel over, and like a snake we began to glide after the shadow, which, when it encountered the full force of the wind in mid-channel, made such a good running that we had to go at full speed to gain on it. But gain we certainly did, and with the aid of our glasses we presently saw that our shadow was a junk in full sail. Not a gleam of light could be seen on her. Like ourselves she was setting at defiance the port regulations.

'There 's your ghost,' said Kernot mockingly, and yet with more excitement in his voice than he would care to admit. 'You'll see she'll turn round here by the Aberdeen Dock and signal to the people ashore.'

'Perhaps you 're right,' I answered, 'but you 're only going on supposition.'

'Anyway, Tom, send your steersman here, and, like a good fellow, go and rouse up those other three chaps.'

Having done this, he and I took up our positions in the forward part of the launch, and with glasses riveted upon the junk we watched her every movement; and, sure enough, she took the course Kernot had suggested, sweeping boldly down the little bay. We, however, crept along in the shadow of the land, and, gaining rapidly on her, were well abreast of her before she reached the dock-gates. Then with wonderful suddenness she put about. We stopped also, and a few moments of suspense followed, moments in which I heard distinctly the hard breathing of my companion. Then for a second the luminous white sails shone out: the next, everything was buried in gloom.

And now, what was to be the next move? I for one was uncertain whether to advance to the attack, or to wait and watch; though very little reflection convinced me of the wisdom of the latter course. For, after all, what were we to attack? What right had we to raid inoffensive junks on the mere supposition that they were— what?— phantoms? My companion was evidently in the same quandary, though neither by word nor movement did he let me into the secret of his thoughts. With glasses glued to his eyes he did nothing but watch the shadow opposite.

At length, after what seemed an interminable period of waiting, we distinctly, if faintly, heard the swish, swish of the long steering scull of a sampan as it was twisted through the water. I touched Kernot on the arm to let him know that I heard and understood. Every second the swishing sounded nearer.

'There are two men at the scull,' he whispered. 'It is as I supposed.'

WELL, the rest of the story is quickly told. Waiting till the sampan was hidden behind the junk, which we knew would concentrate the attention of the junk's crew to that side of their vessel, we advanced slowly out of the gloom and came up alongside the spectre just in time to catch her spectral crew handing out sundry cases of contraband opium.

Yes, they showed fight at first; but when they knew that the redoubtable Kernot was aboard them they succumbed with a perfectly angelic grace. We towed them over to the dock-gates and made ourselves as comfortable as we could till day broke. Then, when we examined our prize, we found that our phantom ship was a very ordinary junk, the sails of which had been smeared over with some luminous compound. A couple of ordinary bull's-eye lanterns did the rest. As for the phantom crew, they were subsequently identified by the authorities as gentlemen who had long been 'wanted.'

_________________

4: "Pulo Condore"

Carlton Dawe

From: Kakemonos: Tales of the Far East, 1897

"Pulo Condore" is the colonal English version of the Malay "palau kundur", which simply means Kundur Island, about 100 km east of the southern tip of Vietnam. At the time this story was written, it was a French Indo-China political prisoner island. Today it is a tourist resort island named Con Son, part of Vietnam, with the prison ruins to be visited. Dawe was well aware of "Pulo Condore" being a prison island when he chose the name of the ship in this story.

EVERYBODY has heard how the Pulo Condore went down in the China Seas with two hundred and thirty souls aboard; but everybody does not know how it happened. Oh yes, there were full particulars published in all the newspapers, and as a rule your newspaper is fairly accurate ; but in this instance it never guessed the true cause of the catastrophe, or, if it did, it very generously suppressed it. There was plenty of information about typhoons, those windy furies which are almost sure destruction to a certain class of ship ; there were thrilling accounts of the engineers striving heroically to stay the inrush of water to the engine-room, but striving vainly. Then came the vivid description of the helpless rolling in the trough of the sea and the inevitable foundering. Yes, the typhoon is a bad thing to meet, especially if you are deep-laden, or have to depend on canvas; but on this occasion the typhoon was not primarily responsible for the loss of the Pulo Condore, though one was raging in the immediate vicinity at the time. She really struck on one of the Linchoten Group of the Loo Choo Islands during the gale.

How do we know? Well, all those who have not quite forgotten the incident may remember that of the entire passengers and crew only the second mate and two firemen were saved. The latter, of course, would know nothing of the navigation of the ship, but the second mate has been whispering some strange things among his friends ; the rest of the story has been welded link by link.

The Pulo Condore was an iron screw-steamer of some three thousand tons register, and ran under the flag of the well-known 'Pulo Line,' which plies between the Chinese and Japanese ports. No smarter vessel of her class breasted those treacherous seas; nothing local could beat her in the matter of speed, and even the big mail-boats from Europe had to fire up to show her a clean pair of heels. That she was therefore a favourite on the route might go without saying, her long years of faithful service and her house-flag guaranteeing all that the ocean traveller cherishes. As a consequence she rarely left either side without a fair complement of passengers. To this fact may be set down the appalling loss of life.

Her commander was one Captain Richard Muirley, a name well known on the coast and thoroughly respected. Not loved, perhaps, because Muirley was not a lovable man, being a somewhat gloomy, morose sort of fellow; but he was a man in whose care the most nervous shipper would trust his most precious freight. It was said that he knew every inch of the China Sea— every island, every sunken rock, every sandbank. And as for typhoons, he had personally encountered more of those monsters than had any other dozen skippers lumped together. A sallow, sullen-faced man into whose yellowy-black complexion the very atmosphere of the East had entered. Stunted somewhat in growth, and thick with good living, he was not an attractive person. Off his ship you might have taken him for a superior artisan: on the bridge, however, he was not quite so contemptible; and once he looked almost great. But that is to come.

As the rules of the company forbade the captain to take his wife with him, Muirley set his better half up in a pretty little house on the Bluff at Yokohama, and there, every three weeks or so, though occasionally for longer periods, he managed to put in a few days. Then Mrs. Muirley used to go aboard nearly every day to lunch, and merry little afternoon teas were held in the captain's cabin; but they must have seemed long, lonely weeks to the wife while her husband was steaming south; and if in the society the settlement afforded she sought relaxation, who could blame her? It was what any young and pretty woman might be expected to do. And Mrs. Muirley was decidedly pretty— as fair as her husband was dark, as slender as he was thick. Indeed, some of the boldest of her admirers even went so far as to draw comparisons, and wonder: eventually she grew to wonder herself.

Muirley was not a society man, and his profession debarred him from ever aspiring to be one; but he could not with reason object to his wife's little social triumphs, though in his heart he may have viewed them with some slight misgiving. Still, they must have been long, dull weeks for her while he was away at sea; moreover, Yokohama was not a furiously fast place— at least, not in one sense. When he heard the first whispers of her popularity, he was not sure of the throb that sent his pulses forward with a giddy motion, but he afterwards convinced himself that it was one of pleasure. A man is always pleased to possess a fascinating wife. He knows how other men will envy him: he never seems to think of the danger of that envy.

Of all Mrs. Muirley's friends, male or female, the one her husband liked best was a certain Mr. Poynings, a well-to-do merchant in the settlement; and, singular as it may seem, Poynings often declared that Muirley was a man entirely after his own heart; and whenever the skipper was in port, the merchant invariably strolled round of an evening to smoke a cigar with him and retail the latest news. And there was no man who knew more of what was going on in social Yokohama than this same Mr. Poynings.

But unfortunately there were other retailers of news as well, and in the course of time it came to the captain's ears that his friend Poynings was rather more of a Lothario than a man with a pretty wife should know, especially when that pretty wife has to be left alone for weeks together.

It was strange, and of course absurd, but the more Muirley thought of his position the more unsatisfactory he found it. He half admitted to himself that, perhaps, he was hardly the man to charm a woman's heart: no man can wholly admit such a thing. Searching his conscience, he knew that he had been good to her in his own rough way: he did not quite comprehend the singular unattractiveness of his style. He always felt their parting keenly, though the knowledge that it was only for a little while tempered its severity. He admitted to the glow of pleasure which the first glance of Fuji-Yama gave him as he came up from the south. It would be folly to say he had not thought of the risk he ran in leaving his young wife so much alone; but to think ill of one's own folk is the last ignominy of the depraved mind; and whatever Muirley's faults may have been, he had his share of the sailor's generosity.

But faith does not necessarily mean blindness, and he began to doubt. Not that Poynings was not extremely circumspect; not that Mrs. Muirley forgot herself for a moment. Indeed, that little lady was the pattern of what a charming wife should be; but in a moment of sentimentality, after they had pledged each other in sundry whiskies-and-sodas, Poynings, growing confidential, assured Muirley that he thought that worthy mariner was the luckiest dog in the world; and, upon the mariner pressing for an explanation, the merchant enumerated several blessings of which he was cognisant, among the chief of which was the captain's wife. Then the detective which is in us all here began a further probing and prying; but try as he would, Muirley could get nothing more out of his friend. When they shook hands that night the merchant knew that his friend had altered.

Muirley must have thought that his wife needed a change very badly. At any rate he took her down to Hong-Kong with him, having, as a favour, obtained permission from the company. But, singular to relate, when Mr. Poynings knew that Mrs. Muirley was going to Hong-Kong, he determined to pay his long-deferred visit to that city; and on the morning that the Pulo Condore steamed out of Yokohama Bay she had on board the very man her master wished to leave behind.

The voyage down passed with little of moment. Poynings was, perhaps, somewhat attentive to the captain's wife, but it was the attention of an old friend, and as such could not, or should not, be misconstrued. Muirley may not have liked it, being in the unenviable state of doubting his best friend; but there was absolutely nothing in the acts of Poynings to which he could reasonably take exception. His wife was, if possible, more charming than ever.

After a stay of five days in Hong-Kong, the ship pointed her nose northwards once more, having on board, among other passengers, Mrs, Muirley and Mr. Poynings. Up to the last moment the merchant had not thought it possible that he would be able to get his business through in time to enable him to catch the ship, though he confessed that he should strain every nerve to do so. The captain, listening attentively, said nothing; but inwardly he prayed that Mr. Poynings might not catch the ship, that Mr. Poynings might never leave Hong-Kong, or that he might never see Japan again. Vain prayer, vain hope! Even as the Pulo Condore was preparing to slip her buoy, a sampan was seen hurriedly approaching, and, almost at the last moment, Mr. Poynings clambered aboard.

The rest had better be told in the words of the second officer:

I HAD SEEN Mr, Poynings come tumbling aboard, and felt sorry for the captain. Of course we all knew what was going on; in fact, the whole affair had been a subject of conversation among us during the voyage down. Some twitted the old man with not caring, and spoke of Mr. Poynings' great wealth; one suggested this and another suggested that, but not one of them suggested that it was driving the old man mad. He was quiet, he did not interfere in any way: therefore he was callous. But I could see the change working in him, and I feared the explosion which I knew must come. When it did, it would be the bursting of no ordinary squib.

Always a morose, sullen sort of fellow, his moroseness increased tenfold as we made our way north. He rarely spoke to a soul, and whenever he gave one of us officers an order, it was in a voice like the low growling of a bear. His eyes grew wild and bloodshot, and for hour after hour he glued himself up in the weather corner of the bridge, when for all the use he was he might just as well have been below enjoying a quiet snooze. But that was the strangest thing about him: I don't believe he slept at all during our journey northwards. I know that whenever I was about the decks, I saw him bobbing here and there like an old black cork on a stream, and the chief and the third had the same tale to tell. And all the while his face was growing more haggard, his eyes more fierce and gleaming. He ate little, but drank enormous quantities of brandy-and-soda, and smoked incessantly. But the curious thing was that he never appeared to get drunk, never even seemed in a state approaching drunkenness. Though, truth to tell, he spoke so little that it would be hard to say in what state he was, All the way up the Formosa Channel, the north-east monsoon blew furiously in our teeth, and time after time we had to slow down in the big sea. At this period the old man rarely left the bridge, but with his nose poking over the weather-screen stared steadily ahead. Sometimes I thought he was dreaming; but whenever I ventured near him and his eyes met mine, I saw that the dreams he harboured were not of the most pleasant nature.

Of Mrs. Muirley and Poynings I can say little from personal observation, as neither was seen much on deck during the bad weather; but from what I heard I can gather that the old flirtation was going on in the old way, with, perhaps, a trifle more of recklessness, till at last it got so bad that the captain had to speak. It was the first time he had spoken to his wife of this thing which had caused him so many hours of excruciating agony, but she resented it so hotly that some exceedingly bitter words passed between them.

That very night the burst-up came. It would, perhaps, be unfair to give any one of the versions which were flying about next morning; but this much may be stated with safety. The old man, visiting his wife's room in the early hours of the morning, surprised Mr. Poynings there; and had it not been for the interposition of a couple of passengers from the next cabin, he would assuredly have killed the woman and her lover.

He came up on the bridge just before I was relieved at eight bells, and asked me a lot of long, rambling questions— questions which bore little on my duties as a navigating officer; and though I was forced to note the oddness of the man, not knowing the cause of that oddness I believed the long-expected had come at last, and that he was really mad. Nor was it till some four hours later that the mate told me the whole story.

All that day he kept the bridge, taking his meals in the chart-room, or rather, I should say, having his meals brought there, for they were taken away again untouched. He did nothing but smoke and drink, smoke and drink. But there was the sickness of death in his pallid face, madness in his unsteady eyes.

At six bells that afternoon we sighted the Loo Choos, the gale still sweeping furiously down on us from the north-east ; and when I came up on the bridge and found that we were making straight for them, my surprise was great indeed; for not once during my six voyages with him had Muirley steered any other course than the usual one through the Van Diemen Strait. Still, there was no reason why he should not slip in among the islands if he liked, so I took up my position in the port corner of the bridge and watched. The old man was over on the starboard side. Now and again his voice reached me as he shouted, "port," "starboard," or "steady"; and when at last we got under the lee of a big island, which for a moment sheltered us from the horrible gale, he turned and beckoned me to him.

As I drew near I saw the mad light gleaming in his eyes, and I could not stay the look of concern which rushed to mine. He saw it and began to chuckle hideously.

"This is what they call the Linchoten Group," he said, waving towards the islands; "a hell of a place for ships. The Golconda went down here— on this point round the orner." He stretched his hand towards a reef which was now opening up about half a mile off, over which the sea dashed and foamed in horrible confusion. "Fifteen hundred people went down in her, they say. God! what a drowning! what a drowning! How many should you think we have aboard of us?"

"Between two hundred and thirty and two hundred and forty," I answered.

"Then we can give the Golconda hell?"

"We certainly have a greater responsibility."

He laughed brusquely as he turned away.

"Did you say 'port,' sir?"

We were now fast approaching the reef on which the Golconda stranded. I could distinctly see the black, jagged rocks peeping up through the white foam, and we were apparently rushing straight upon them.

"No, I didn't," he answered sharply. "Are you navigating this ship, or am I?"

He laughed maliciously as he turned away from me, while I, feeling rather snubbed, went back to my corner. At all events, it was no fault of mine. If he ran his ship ashore he would have to answer for it.

Nearer and nearer we approached the reef, and yet no sign from the old man. I watched him narrowly, anxiously, and, seeing that destruction was inevitable unless something were immediately done, I, throwing discipline and discretion to the gale, shouted excitedly to the quartermaster, "Port — hard a-port!"

"No, no!" thundered the captain, "keep her as she is!" The breakers seemed almost under our bows as he spoke.

"But, sir—" I began, our danger making me reckless of consequences.

"Damn you!" he howled, shaking his fist in my face, "interfere with me, would you, you son of a—"

The words died away on his lips, for at that moment the vessel struck hard on the outer edge of the reef. A look of devilish glee shot over the skipper's murky face. Then, turning to the man at the wheel, he said with a chuckle, "Now, quartermaster, you can port to hell if you like!"

"My God!" I cried, seizing him by the shoulder in my excitement, "you have done this purposely?"

He laughed a low, mad laugh of triumph as he shook me off, and springing towards the engine telegraph he signalled for the ship to go full speed astern.

Of the confusion that followed I need not stay to tell. As usual, the ship had not boats enough to carry all those aboard. In a few moments we knew the worst. The water was pouring into the vessel fast: she was not expected to float many minutes. Two of the lifeboats were swung out, and after considerable manoeuvring were set free well laden with passengers ; but the seas were so high that neither of them survived many moments. And all this time the vessel was rapidly sinking by the head.

The captain, leaving me in charge of the bridge, scrambled down the ladder and hurried away aft, and presently I saw him approaching, leading his wife by the hand. Mr. Poynings followed in the rear. Skilfully the old man picked his way along the crowded deck, pushing the clamouring people to right and left of him.

"This way," I heard him say as he dragged his wife up the ladder; "this is the safest place in the ship. You will be quite secure here, quite secure." And he huddled her in behind the screen on the port side, though, as the ship was now rolling broadside on, the screen offered little protection. Poynings followed and took up his position beside her. He was very pale, but beyond that seemed as much at home as if on land.

"See, the boats are putting off!" screamed the unhappy woman, her face ghastly with terror, "Why did you bring me here?"

"Because I want you to see all the fun," roared her husband; "because I want you to see all that you are going to hell to answer for!"

The woman hid her face in her hands and began to weep, but an angry look leapt to Poynings' eyes, and he clenched his teeth ominously.

"You are mad, Muirley," he cried.

"Yes, by God," bellowed the captain, "and it's you who've made me."

"I will answer to you when and where you please," shouted the lover, the wind necessitating such a manner of speech. "But the last boat is almost ready to put off. Let her go. We two can fight it out."

For answer the old man whipped a revolver out of his pocket. "If either of you moves, I shoot. Damn you!" he shouted madly, his face growing black with hate, "do you think I 've done all this for nothing? No, by God! We all go to hell together!" And as he stood there flourishing his pistol, he seemed more like a fiend than a man.

The wife, burying her white face in her hands, fell on her knees before him; and there, with the spray dashing over her hair, the ship sinking beneath her, and one and all face to face with death, she prayed piteously for forgiveness, the salt of her eyes mingling with the salt of the ocean. What she said may easily be guessed, though all I could catch was, "Dick, Dick!" and, "Pardon, pardon!"

He leant forward and seized her roughly by the hand.

"Yes, I 'll pardon you!" he shouted, laughing hoarsely; "let us see if God will!" And with a shriller, fiercer outburst of mad laughter he pointed at the seething sea which was rapidly burying the ship. Then, looking round and seeing me, he beckoned me to him.

"She'll be under in a minute," he shouted. "Run aft, lad, and jump. It's your only chance. You haven't a moment to lose."

I was slow to act upon this advice, for I did not like leaving the woman to perish; but knowing that the captain would shoot me without compunction if I offered to interfere— and, indeed, interference would now be useless— I slowly descended the ladder and made my way aft.

A last look I caught of them as I mounted the rail preparatory to flinging myself overboard. Erect in one corner, pale but defiant, stood Poynings, fearing death neither at the hands of God nor man; the woman still knelt, her face in her hands as though to shut out the view of death; while the captain, with feet firmly planted and revolver in hand, stood watching them both. Then I leapt into the sea.

When I had time to look about me, the Pulo Condore had disappeared.

_________________

5: Bill and Stumpy's Big Cheques

Val Jameson

Muswellbrook Chronicle (NSW) 28 Jan 1911

Valerie Jameson was an Australian short story writer and composer of folk songs, active from around 1900 to the mid 1920s. I have been unable to find out anything else about her.

This story was published in several Australian newspapers without a title. I have invented one.

THE PROSPECTOR'S delight on finding payable gold in his claim is only  equalled by the joy of setting forth with a substantial cheque for the city.

Prospector Bill and his mate Stumpy had disposed of their claim, and felt "passing rich" on the proceeds, which, after all expenses were paid, gave them £600 each.

They smoked contentedly in opposite corners of a first-class smoking car in a Perth-bound train.

Their business and intentions were discussed openly, regardless of the third occupant, who seemed to take a casual interest in their conversation.

Stumpy's intention was to visit a widowed sister, struggling to rear her fatherless children on a mortgaged farm at Greenbushes. After spending a week on the farm he proposed to join his mate in Perth.

The stranger, whose appearance suggested the struggling "cocky," smoked and smiled genially through the fumes. Soon he was taking part in the conversation and gleaning from Hill's eloquent lips an interesting account of the fortunes of prospectors.

In return for this information, he warned Bill to beware of confidence men in the city, whose favourite prey was the guileless and successful man from the Outlands.

"I'm from the farming district myself. Been up Kalgoorlie for a spell, but couldn't stop long enough to see much o' the mines. Take my advice, Mister—?"

Bill laughed. "Blowed if I hadn't forgotten my surname. On the fields we drop it. Got no time for it. But I wouldn't care to be Bill-ed in the city. You can call me Greatheart. Was good enough for my father, an' it's good enough for me. How'll you get on without your nickname, Stump?"

"Dunno!" said Stumpy, thoughtfully. "That part o' me'll be along of you, Bill. I'm Stee-ven in the fam'ly— Stee-ee-even. 'Steeven, you blockhead, is it deaf you are?' she'll be sayin', 'cos I'm bound to forget who Stephen is."

The stranger laughed. "Nicknames do stick. I'm Butterfax, which gives my trade away. So I reckon my ancestors have been in the dairy line from the beginning."

"When was the beginning?" queried Bill.

"Now you've got me. I'm not well up in hist'ry. Take me beyond the pyramids an' I'm bogged. But, to get back to our sheep, I was about to ask you where you're putting up in Perth."

"That's more'n I know myself," returned Bill, "till I get there."

"Don't go to any o' them hotels or' corfee-houscs. Those are the regular beat of confidence men. Get into a privato fambly where there's home comforts. I'm putting up at a nice homely place in Hay-street. They on'y take boarders by recommendation. Very pertikler, those people are. Can't blame 'em, y' know. Got to be pertikler these times. All sorts o' rotters gittin' about. But if you like I'll put in a word for you. I can always tell the decent sort. They're a real comfortable crowd up there. Good meals, good beds, and no wermin. You can't do better."

"Thanks!" said Bill. "I guess that'll suit me as well as anywhere."

The private family at 44a Hay-street were all that Butterfax described them and a lot more. Hill assured them before he was two hours domiciled under their roof that he had never felt so much at home in his life.

The family, Mr. and Mrs. Pouncewell and Molly, a daughter in the early  teens, received him on the footing of an old friend, merely on Butterfax's recommendation. "Butterfax," said the portly Pouncewell, "is one of us. We'd take anything on his recommendation."

"Even a bad half-crown," said Molly, which made everyone laugh and feel more at home.

At dinner Butterfax monopolised the conversation. He elevated the common and garden cabbage in a manner never heard before by the new boarder.

"Cabbages, says you, always is, always was, and always will be. It's to be hoped so, says I. Long live the cabbage. There may not be any sentiment about it, but none of you will deny that it's got a heart. Is there anything more invitin' to a hungry man than a dish of cabbage fathered with bacon? Yet, with the deepest ingratitude, no one has ever.subscribed a pome in honour of this useful evergreen. The very smell is catchin' an' suggestive."

"If you don't get it over the sink," interjected Pouncewell.

"I recollect once," continued Butterfax, "getting lost in the bush—Australian bush. Completely boxed my compass, an' wandered round all day lookin' for tracks. Then it got dark, an' I could see no more. I'd had no tucker sinee early morning an' was ravin' hungry. Suddenly I got a whiff of somethin' sweeter than any flower that bloometh. It made my eyes an' teeth water like the weepin rock. It wasn't on'y tho smell of that cabbage cooking for somebody's dinner; 'twas a whole box of commotions what I couldn't put into words. Thero was 'Home, Sweet Home' and the 'Heart of a "Woman,' there was 'Saved from Death' and 'Welcome Stranger' all singin' in my ears as plain as whistle when I smelt that "Wayback cabbage. Ev'ry time I see it on the table or smell it on the hatmosphere it recalls that memorial night when horspital hands pulled me over the threshold an' pushed me into a seat slap up against the mushed-up dish o' cabbage. I see again the jolly face of Boss, big brown Boss, glowing like the risin' sun over a haunch of corn beef, an' hear his hearty invitation.

" 'There's cawrn beef an' cawrn beef, stranger. What's for you?'

" 'A little of both,' I says, to fall in with the fun of it— 'an' don't forget tho cabbage.'

"Himself an' the wife an' the family all had the healthy appetites, but I ate them all to a standstill. But there was corn beef and cabbage left."

"Hooray!" applauded Bill.

After accepting another helping of cabbage, Bntterfax resumed:

"The cabbage, iny friends, is associated with my earliest memories, when I stood at my mother's knee and put the question of infantile simplicity. There was a tremendous corroborree over that cabbage business next day. 'If nippers like me grow under cabbages,' says I to myself, 'I'll go an' find one to play with.' I creeps out of my cot when no one was about, grabs the kitchen carver, and away I goes in the moonlight to the long rows of cabbages in the kitchen garden. After hacking down the whole regiment of 'em an' finding on'y nasty snails, I got back to my crib with a feeling that I had been wild and the surety of having to pay the piper in the morning."

"You can talk, Mr. Butterfax," said Bill, in honest admiration, "good enough for a politician."

"I'm one better than that," said Butterfax, and winked significantly.

But he gave no further explanation of his claim, and Bill would not push curiosity to tho vergo of impertinence.

After dinner an agreeable musical entertainment increased the domestic enjoyment of Prospector Bill, ho retired to rest with a conviction that he had fallen into pleasant pastures.

But a great black cloud loomed on tho domestic horizon next morning. Mrs. Pouneowell furtively wiped the tears from her eyes while serving Bill's breakfast. He was exceedingly distressed to see one who had been so bright on tho previous night in such doleful state.

"Is it bad news?" he enquired, sympathetically.

"It's awful— awful!" Mrs. Pouncewell dropped on a chair and mopped both eyes as if it wore a relief to confide in someone.

"Can I be of any service?" asked Bill.

"He's sitting on a cliair in the hall, and I am so afraid! Go and look at him."

A short, stout man, complacently seated by the hat-stand, stared mildly at the scrutinising face in the frameway of the door.

Bill squared his shoulders in a firm, resolute style, tucked his serviette into his pocket, and was about to peel off his coat.

"Shall I kick him out?"

Mrs. Pouncewell laid a detaining hand on his arm.

"Thanks, awfully. I wish you could. But it's impossible. He's legally on the promises. He's—oh—my husband will kill me when he gets up and finds him here, he's—a—bailiff!"

"A bailiff!" echoed Bill.

"Yes!" Mrs. PouucewelI nodded and wept afresh. "I owe some money and my husband does not know about it. So they put this man in to force me to pay. Oh, dear! I am so miserable!"

"Will this man go if tbo money's paid f"

"Yes! b— but— I've got no money!"

"How much?"

"The bill is— o— only £20," sobbed the distressed lady.

"Don't worry; I'll settle it!" said Bill. Promptly he filled in a cheque for the amount and handed Mrs. Pouncewell the bailiff's receipt in exchange, carefully escorting the intruder to the door afterwards.

When the rest of the family assembled at breakfast all trace of the transaction had disappeared, save in the radiant smiles of Mrs. Pouncewell, and those, of course, were only intelligible to Bill.

It was a day of surprises. Misfortune scorned to single out 44a Hay-street for a pack of her malignant gifts.

Butterfax, the genial farmer, was the next recipient of her ill-favours. Into the dining-room he rushed, where Bill sat tranquilly roading the paper, flourishing a telegram.

"My mother!" he exclaimed—"my pore old mother! Heaven help her. For I can't!"

"Bad news?" said Bill, gating woefully on such frantic manifestation of rrriof.

Butterfax buried his anguished face in his arms mid groaned again—"My pore old motherl"

"Can I be of any assistance?" urged Bill.

"No, no, my good friend. Thanks for your sympathy, but— My pore old mother! To fcJiiulr''— raking his hair with reckless fingers— 'I've gone an' sunk every bean I possess in the next allotment. But how was I to know? How was I to expect this?"

Mumbling over the wired message, Bill caught his agonised words.

"Operation imperative. Mother's only chance. Wire thirty pounds for doctor."

"Look here, Butterfax, if money will help you out of this difficulty I'll see you through. Buck up, man. While there's life there's hope. I'll finance the operation!"

"No, no, my good friend. I cannot trespass on your generosity. I am a stranger to you. It is impossible."

"Don't be a fool, Butterfax. You'd do the same for me if I were in the same fix, I'll bet."

Overcome by this argument, Butterfax resigned himself to the inevitable, and Bill's pen kicked and spluttered its reluctance to fill another philanthropic cheque. But the pen lacked the great soft heart of Prospector Bill.

Muttering his thanks with broken voice and wringing hand-clasp, Butterfax rushed away with the life-saving cheque in his hand, and Bill resumed his reading with the contented mind of a cheerful giver.

After lunch he was recommended by Mrs. Pouncewell to take a stroll in King's Park, and she would send Molly as pilot to join him on returning from her music-lesson.

After viewing the recommended scenic beauties of King's Park, Hill waited patiently for the volatile Molly.

Two hours of solitary rambling exhausted the charms of Nature. Molly had evidently found more attractive entertainment elsewhere. So Bill leisurely turned his steps homewards.

No response to his electric peals at the front door proclaimed an empty house. Mrs. Pouncewell had probably gone visiting.

Sealed on the front doorstep, Bill waited in patient good-humour for the return of the family.

The claims of a sharpened appetite forced him to journey to town for his evening meal. Returning late, he was surprised to find the doors still closed and the house in darkness. Just the faintest breath of suspicion ruffled the placid serenity of his mind. On enquiry a neighbour informed him that 44a Hay-street was rented furnished, and that the present tenants had only been in possession a fortnight. These facts increased Hill's uneasiness, as they were flat contradictions of Butterfax's statements. Dark suspicion pointed a jeering finger at that morning's acts of benevolence. He decided to relate his experience at the police station.

At midnight 44a Hay-street was still unresponsive to his appeals for admittance, so he was forced to pass the night in a coffee palace.

Investigation at the West Australian Bank on the following morning, in company with a detective, elicited the doleful intelligence that in each case the charitable cheques were supplemented by a numeral before presentation at the bank and successfully cashed. Bill's 'prentice hand has inadvertently allowed space before the dash. The two forgeries almost made a clean scoop of his account.

"You fell into a nest of sharks alright," said the sympathetic delective, "and the deuce knows if we'll ever lay hands on them. However, we'll do our best, you can rest assured."

Bill's mode of taking his gruel was unique. He revisited the trap, so cleverly baited as a home for weary country visitors, in company with the landlord, who suffered by the loss of a fortnight's rent and was loud in his lamentations.

Having no sense of humour, he stared in sheer amazement as the fleeced prospector sank on the hall chair and yelled with laughter at the recollection of the sham bailiff and Butterfax's "pore old mother."

"I'm laughing," he said, apologetically, "to think what a durned fool I've been; but I'd like to bang them to splinters, all the same. It won't be healthy for that fraud bailiff, and Butterfax, the cabbage merchant, if I ever lay hands on 'em."

Stumpy heard the account of Bill's undoing with grave concern.

"The city's no place for us, Bill. They must ha' known we were coming an' got their dirty maulers on the gilt before we took a thought."

Hill saw there was more than fraternal sympathy in Stumpy's face. The fellow-feeling that comes of similar experience was only too plainly expressed on that wizened countenance.

"What?" he said. "Have the land sharks robbed you, too?"

"Not exactly," replied Stumpy, unwilling to classify his sister in such opprobrious terms. "But she got me to plump my money on the mortgage, an' " —a deep sigh preceded the worst— "she's gittin' married to-morrer."

Hill expressed silent sympathy by passing his plug of tobacco. Smoke was n perpetual solace. Stumpy accepted the plug and refilled his pipe.

THE GOLDFIELDS train glided along the platform. The thought of returning to the wide sunlit plains, the tented roof and the windlass, acting like new wine in their veins. Bill leapt over his swag, startling the sedate passengers on the platform, then hoisted it to his shoulder and took possession of a second-class compartment.

"Come on, Stumpy!  Hurrah for the goldfields!"

"Hurrah!" echoed Stumpy, and kicked the dust of the city from his heels in a two-step jig at the door of the carriage.

________________

6: Prospector Bill

Val Jameson

Sydney Mail (NSW)  23 Feb 1921

Though published ten years after the previous story, this appears to be a prequel.

BILL'S prospecting career extended over a period of twenty years, yet his imagination was not dimmed, and hope still fluttered bravely above the horizon. He had explored the malarial wilds of New Guinea, the auriferous hills and gullies of New South Wales and Victoria, and could boast of eleven years experience of West Australian goldfields. Many a good find had placed wealth in his grasp, only to trickle through his fingers like sand, under the wiles of city life.

When the bank signature 'N.S.F.' graced, or disgraced, his last cheque, Bill was forced to join the ranks of wage-earners, but he consoled himself with a resolution, many times made and broken before, to save his earnings, and get on to the gold again— only once again, and then no more relapses. The Coolgardie water scheme gave him a few months employment.

While working on the pipe track he discovered Stumpy, whose tent happened to be within shouting distance of his own. Stumpy was down on his luck. He belonged to the ancient order of smithcraft, but the disqualification of age, with stiff joints and rheumatism, forced him out of employment in favour of younger and stronger men. He joined the timber-getters on the gold fields and commenced to carve out an alleged living with his axe, but when a forced spell of idleness, brought on by his old enemy, chained him to his bunk, he was in the perilous case of being without food or means.

BILL'S curiosity prompted him to visit the lonely tent, and he rescued the afflicted Stumpy from a probable death by starvation. With genial rare he fed and tended the sick man, ousted the rheumatism with a special remedy recommended by an old sailor, and finally set Stumpy on his legs again. This was the commence ment of a friendship which was strongly cemented into the higher quality of the world's freemasonry known only to those who have given of it and received— mateship.

Bill's conversation rarely strayed from the old fascinating topic of gold-mining, and Stumpy became an absorbed listener, till he, too, fell beneath the spell of the enchanter, and his soul hungered with the consuming lust for gold.

Soon the alert eye of Prospector Bill discovered a spot within a mile's walk from camp that he calculated was 'a dead cert' for deep alluvial. Each visit of in spection strengthened his conviction. Eventually he confided his suspicion of a deep lead to Stumpy, and declared his intention of chucking the water scheme to back his opinion by sinking a prospecting shaft. Stumpy joyously accepted an offer of partnership and a once commenced to build airy castles of prospective opulence.

To avoid trespassing on his own savings, Bill journeyed to Goonardi in search of 'backers.' This wise old prospector possessed the knack of imparting his enthusiasm to others. Optimism radiated from him like electric rays, and operated on cautious folk with the activity of microbe organisms.

HE appealed first to Messrs. Duncombe and Partridge, cordial manufacturers. On the asphalt floor of their office, with more than the cunning of a pavement artist, he sketched a plan of his prospecting area, tracing with a magic finger the probable— more than probable— the morally certain— course of the underground lead from the gold-bearing reefs two miles distant. Exhilarated by his glowing and thick-coming fancies, entranced by the brilliance of his geological rhetoric, Duncombe and Partridge, cynical, experienced, doubting, yet ever open to the voice of the charmer, went back on oft-renewed pledges of 'never again,' and consented to support the experiment as backers at two pounds per week each.

The chief consideration that influenced their decision, though they ostensibly scoffed at it, was Bill's positive and ingenious assurance to gain satisfaction within a period of three weeks. He scouted the suggestion of a failure, and at the same time pointed out that the finan cial risk was a mere trifle.

'It's a matter of six quid to a thousand or so,' he declared with an air of bestowing a favour on unwilling recipients. 'Where, would you get a better run for your, money?'

This argument clinched the deal. The summer cor- ' dial was livened with a dash of whisky in honour 'of the occasion, to toast success to the enterprise.

PEOPLE in gold-mining communities live under a spell. With invincible optimism, believing until seventy times seven, and with exhaustless faith, they watch for 'new finds.' A constant procession of cyclists and pedestrians visited the new claim daily. A few camped in the vicinity in anticipation of a rush.

'Let 'em all come,' said' Bill, while the shepherds encircled his dump. 'They shan't get wind of the gold afore I choose to let 'em.'

At the end of three weeks the shaft was bottomed, and the two mates journeyed to Goonardi to report results. Success was plainly written on Bill's open coun tenance. Stumpy s wizened visage shone esctatically. Words were unnecessary. The backers' hopes rose simultaneously as Bill carefully unfolded a small parcel. When divested of numerous paper wrappers a tiny glittering speck was distinctly visible to the naked eye.

'Is that all?' gasped Duncombe, as his hope-inflated chest collapsed.

'How much will it go to the ton?' asked Partridge in a mystified voice. Bill eyed them both contemptuously. 'We didn't happen to strike the gutter yet,' he said in pained remonstrance, 'but we're not far off the edge any'ow.'

His honest face was aflush with enthusiasm as he con tinued, 'The wash is dipping west, an' a few feet of driving'll bring us slap-bang on the gold. Indications are the best I've ever seen. The wash is lookin' splendid.'

'Beautiful,' endorsed Stumpy. It was his first sight of wash.

'And,' continued Bill, 'my opinion is there's a rich dose of gold within a few feet of us. But if you don't care to see it through— it only means another fortnight— please yourselves,' with regal disinterestedness, 'I'm satisfied — so's Stumpy.'

'Rather!' agreed Stumpy. He located the gold speck with difficulty, and gazed at it with an air of supreme satisfaction. It expanded before his hopeful vision into a veritable Bonanza.

'We'll see it through, of course,' said Duncombe dubiously, but loth to relinquish a chance so eloquently supported.

'How much will it go to the ton?' persisted Partridge. Duncombe laughed immoderately. 'Your question is too previous, Mr. Partridge,' said Bill, suspecting sarcasm. 'It's impossible to say till we sight payable wash. At present colours is, in my opinion, after twenty years' experience of prospecting, most satisfactory, and,' he added with diplomatic suggestion, 'much may be expected.'

'Much may be expected,' repeated Stumpy emphatically.

AFTER a soothing draught of summer cordial the two mates returned to their claim, hugely satisfied with the interview. Bill's caution as he left the office still echoed in the ears of Duncombe.

'Don't tell anyone we're on gold.'

His eyes travelled from the pathetic little speck on the office desk to his partner's befogged expression, and again his feelings found vent in laughter.

'It's not much to the ton yet, old boy.'

A doubt crept into the other's eyes, and voiced itself on his lips.

'Will it ever be anything to the ton?'

Duncombe paused to light a cigarette.

'It might,' he replied; 'just as likely it might not. It's purely a gamble, like Tattersall's sweeps. We'll give it another couple of weeks, on the off-chance. If our friend Bill can't give a satisfactory reply to your arithmetical conundrum in that, time, we'll chuck it.'

When the fortnight had elapsed the two mates returned to report progress. Their faces were as the faces of Caleb and Joshua, and shone like lanterns of hope.

The wash a sticky white clay, still guiltless of gold, clung tenaciously to their clothing.

'I'm convinced now,' said Bill, 'that the run of gold is on the other side of the shaft.'

His sublime self-confidence, supported by that natural gift of eloquence and an air of simple candour, won the backsliding backers to abandon their resolution to 'chuck it.'

AT the end of six months Bill was sinking his third shaft, assisted by Stumpy, and still enjoying the financial support of Messrs. Duncombe and Partridge. The 'willy-willies' were enjoying their annual steeple chase through the streets of Goonardi, rudely testing the roofs of the houses, tearing off insecure fixtures, and forcing fine red dust through every aperture. The sun blazed fiercely in a cloudless sky. The sea son of long thirst had commenced. The thermometer registered 110 in the shade.

'Hope it continues,' said Duncombe, mopping his face. The partners were, busily engaged bottling their patent cordial in anticipation of an increased demand. The factory door burst violently open, admitting Bill and Stumpy in the embrace of a young 'willy.'

'Phew!' gasped Duncombe. 'Shut that blooming door!'

'Eureka!' shouted Bill.

Simultaneously an explosion among the bottles betrayed the shock received by the long-expectant backers. They stared incredulously at the shining countenance of Bill and the wildly twitching features of his mate, who absent-mindedly seated himself on a heap of smashed bottles.

'How much?' commenced Partridge.

'I reckon it'll go six ounces to the ton,' said Bill, revealing a parcel of fine white dirt, penetrated with glistening specks.

'Hooray!' shouted Duncombe.

'Hooray!' echoed Partridge.

'Our fortunes are made,' said Bill, excitedly. 'You can chuck the bottle business and become politicians. Come down and see for yourselves.'

'Right-oh! Wait a second.'

A bottle of whisky was introduced to do justice to the glorious event. Summer cordial was far too mild, for the occasion.

'I can't believe it, Bill. It's too darn good to be true,' protested Duncombe, in tones that belied his words.

Bill had never known a prouder moment in his life. Those who had supported his efforts so long were about to reap the reward of their faith. Their manifestations of joy and satisfaction filled his soul with the keen delight of him who has achieved.

THE news spread with the rapidity of wireless telegraphy, and a general stampede resulted. Goonardi was emptied of her male population in the space of an hour. Mining areas were pegged for miles around the prospecting claim. The gold-permeated wash was examined by the local news corres pondents, who accepted Bill's statement of value per ton and reported accordingly.

The tumult lasted a week. Then the result of assay tests leaked out, and caused general consternation. It was flour gold, deficient both in quality and quantity. Bill's excited calculation, assisted by the mag nifying lens of hope and reported in the 'Wild Hops' column, was far in advance of real value.

Swiftly, and with much profanity, the crowd of baffled fortune seekers dispersed.

The 'Wild Hops' column climbed down and contradicted its previous report, stating that there was absolutely nothing to warrant a rush to the locality, also explaining that the previous misleading report 'was not received from 'our own correspondent,' but from a green hide newchum who had developed gold fever.

Overwhelmed with disgust, Duncombe and Partridge promptly forfeited their interests in the venture, and resolved to content themselves in future with the modest but steady profits of summer cordial manufacture.

'The next man that comes along with a thousand to six chance I'll boot him out of the office!' said Duncombe ruefully.

THE disappointment was for a moment a crushing blow to Bill's professional pride, but its effect was transi tory. His buoyant hopes till prophesied success.

'The gold's there, Stumpy,' he declared with immovable faith, 'and I mean to follow it s'long as the beans hold out. There's enough to keep us in tucker for an other couple of months, an' we'll sail into payable stuff long before then.'

Stumpy said nothing. He rarely talked. Bill talked, and he absorbed. Gratitude had drawn him to Bill. Admiration strengthened the bond. His faith was genuine, and remained unshaken in the cyclone of derision that swept over their heads from the baffled fortune-seekers of the district. The laborious work had tested his strength severely. His pain-racked body stood the strain without a murmur. At the windlass and down below, he exerted every muscle to do an equal share with Bill. Truly, his labour was lightened by the alluring song of hope. The deceitful jade had raised him to her highest pinnacle, and great was his fall. Yet no cry escaped his lips. Even Bill knew not the agony of disappointment that gnawed beneath the tattered jacket of his old mate Stumpy.

Another fortnight passed unfruitfully. The drive which they were lengthening grew moist and threacherous. Water continually oozed through the walls and settled in the pit below the shaft, whence it was drawn in buckets to the surface, a task they dared not neglect.

ONE forenoon, just after Bill had ascended, Stumpy tried to raise the bucket. He jerked awhile at the windlass, but could not succeed in freeing it from the mysterious obstruction.

'What's wrong, Bill?' hje asked. 'I can't shift the bucket.'

A ghastly expression shadowed Bill's face as he realised what had taken place in the shaft.

'Only two seconds between me an a corpse,' he explained. 'The bucket's jammed in a fall of earth. I was doubtful of that wall, but it looked firm enough to last, so I saved the timber. Now it means a month's dead work cleaning out the shaft— confound it!'

'A bad omen,' said Stumpy, shrinking back for the first- time from the dark mouth of the shaft, as though it were a living monster hungering for human food.

Bill laughed lightly. The danger had passed. He lived and could forget. He drew long breaths of the sweet sun-bright air.

'It's all in the game, Stumpy. We'll take better care next time.'

Stumpy longed in his secret soul to quit such hazardous work, but was too loyal to express his longing.

Slowly, foot by foot, they reclaimed the damaged shaft and prepared bush timber for the walls. Plank by plank they carried it from the bush half a mile beyond the claim, toiling like slaves beneath the fierce midsummer sun.

AFTER six weeks of unflagging labour the shaft was emptied and strengthened sufficiently, but at the bottom of the well a peculiar substance was found. It resembled a bread sponge, soft, unstable, and treacherous. Bill was troubled and perplexed. It was impossible to drive on such a bottom. He could escape it by driving along the top of the wash and sinking monkey shafts at intervals to test it.

So, with a courage born of desperation, Bill pursued the golden will-o'-the-wisp, facing each day a menace from the King of Terrors whom he tempted below. When Bill was safe on top Stumpy braved the same perils with quaking heart, for 'where thou goest I will go' was the text of his faith in Bill.

A quaint old couplet declares, 'There's a sweet little cherub who sits up aloft, keeping watch o'er the life of poor Jack.'

If it is applicable to the perilous life of sailors, surely over the equally hazardous ways of prospectors there are providential cherubs who exercise a protecting influence in time of danger. From his latest monkey-shaft Bill collected enough wash to test by the panning-off process, then passed out of the drive and gave the signal to 'haul up.'

Very anxiously the two mates bent over the dish as the water and loose dirt lapped gradually a way, leaving a few glistening specks behind, a lure to further effort.

'What's that?' asked Bill.

'I said nuthin',' replied Stumpy.

'Didn't you say, 'Knock off!'?'

'Never opened my lips.'

'That's strange,' muttered Bill. 'I heard them words as plain as I'm talkin' now. It's only 3 o'clock. Too early yet. If you didn't say it, nobody did.'

He walked to the shaft, lit his pipe, and prepared to descend. Stumpy stood at the windlass, ready to lower his mate.

'Right-oh!' said Bill, swinging of the side; but Stumpy gripped the handle and held it motionless.

'Bill,' he said suddenly, 'for God's sake, knock off. I didn't say it before, but I say it now.'

His face in that tense moment was ashen grey, and his lips quivered. Much concerned about Stumpy's mental condition, Bill decided to humour him by knocking off for the day. Afterwards Stumpy declared that as he was about to lower he distinctly heard a voice cry, 'Knock off!'

ON the following morning Bill had some difficulty in persuading Stumpy to allow him to go below.

'If there is anything crook,' he urged, 'it must be in the drive, as the shaft is quite secure.'

At last, when he promised to proceed with extreme caution, Stumpy reluctantly gave in.

Proceeding carefully along the drive, Bill found no cause for immediate alarm or anything to justify the morbid forebodings of his mate. The timber-sets stood firm to their task of supporting the treacherous roof. The water oozing from the sides formed into liquid mud below. Assuredly there was  grave risk attached to the work, but constant association with danger engenders the familiarity that breeds contempt; so Bill lit his pipe and commenced to extend the drive still further, in confident expectation of striking that illusive gutter.

Stumpy's mind was troubled after Bill's descent until the assuring 'Right-oh!' floated up from below.

But his fears returned two hours later, for he had received no further signs of progress. No signals from the man below to haul the usual buckets of mullock to the surface. Perhaps he was strengthening the timber; but conjecture could not banish the awful dread clutching at his heart. He called repeatedly. Silence mocked his anxious cries.

Tortured with apprehension and suspense, he sought a woodcutters' camp near by. Stumpy's white face and incoherent explanation of an accident drew the man from his midday meal to tender willing assistance. Two swagmen passing at the moment were enlisted in the task of rescuing the underground toiler from the treacherous shaft. Stumpy raced back to the mine, closely followed by the others. The swagmen took command of the windlass while Stumpy and the woodcutter went below.

When they had proceeded twenty feet along the drive Stumpy gave a groan of distress. A solid wall of earth confronted them — either a barrier or already a tomb for the plucky but too venturesome Bill.

THE wild hope that his mate was alive in beyond the blockade nerved Stumpy to herculean efforts. A human life at stake gives impetus to courage and inspires heroism. Every muscle quivers with abnormal energy, every sinew is strained to effect a rescue. Self is completely forgotten in a divine sympathy for the imperilled one. All pettiness ot human nature fades into insignificance when that one grand trait is uppermost.

So these men toiled removing foot by foot the sticky mass of earth. After two hours of unremitting labour all anxiety was ended. Bill's voice could be heard calling lustily beyond the barrier.

Another hour passed before he could be liberated; then the fervent 'Thank God!' of Stumpy was devoutly echoed by his helpers. Bill emerged from durance vile placidly smoking his pipe.

'Lucky — eh? You bet! What d'yer think of that?'

He produced a knotted handkerchief stuffed with coarse gold, tribute from the gutter that had almost cost his life. Generously he handed portion of his treasure to each of the men who assisted to unearth him, and then turned to his mate.

'Hooray, Stumpy! I've struck the gutter; it's there, all right. We'll chuck this shaft and sink another plumb on the gold.'

Stumpy, with a lump in his throat, could only express his emotion by a long wringing clasp of the hand. He could find no words to voice the admiration he felt for the man who had wrested a victory over hard luck from the very grip of death— no words till his stammering tongue released, 'Yer done it, Bill!'

_________________

7: The Black Bag

Anonymous

Mail (Adelaide) 7 Feb 1925

DIEMAR Kontorovitch was not aware that in France it is the custom to date newspapers for the day following their publication. He never dreamed that a copy of 'Le Matin' bearing the date February 18 would be in the hands of its readers on February 17. He was absolutely new to France, and not in the frame of mind to study manners and customs in a calm, unbiassed way.

By profession he was an anarchist. The destruction of the Archduke Philip was his present job. If this task was performed in an able and thorough manner he would acquire great merit. His whole professional honor was at stake. People had doubted whether he possessed sufficient nerve and presence of mind.

Diemar was a little, thin man. When the wind blew his clothes whipped round him so that there seemed nothing inside them. His face was sallow, and moist; his hair hung in ragged tresses. When he looked down there was nothing to attract attention, but when he looked up, though he never met anyone's gaze squarely, his grey eyes were seen to be blazing in a weak way. His whole appearance suggested a fire in some noisome corner— a furtive fire.

When the lot had fallen to him, he had stood up and puffed out his chest, trying to appear fierce, and fearless; but underneath, his mind had quailed miserably. Life with him had not been a success. In fact, to put the matter baldly, brutally— it had been a succession of failures.

February 17 was the date fixed for the assassination. That date was branded on his weak brain in letters of fire. The Archduke Philip would visit the Cathedral then. Among a number of people Diemar's escape became possible. A car would be waiting to whirl him away to safety. Every detail had been carefully planned.

At last the morning itself had come. Diemar had arrived overnight, and had gone direct to his murky lodgings in a low part of the town. When the light came from his window he could observe a little cafe just opposite, across the narrow street. He longed for a breath of air, end to sit among his fellow-men, even if he might not speak to them. Nothing could be more unobtrusive than his appearance; it would not attract attention. The black bag could go with him. No harm could come of a few minutes relaxation. His mind swamped with horror in his miserable attic— he must go down and ease the strain a little. Solitude had become intolerable.

So down he went. It was the stairs that were so shaky. He entered the cafe and seated himself at a table. While he waited for the attendant to come, he noticed that a man near him was drinking thin, white wine. Very weak and harmless it looked too. He would order a small bottle, and he would not drink even all that. Some would be wasted. It seemed a pity to waste good wine, but now of all days in his life he must keep alert and clear-headed. Just a little taste was what he needed.

'It will stop my heart from beating in such jerks,' he said to himself. The room was swimming slightly, and the voices of the people in the cafe sounded far off and unreal. He must have something to steady him, or he might fail in his attempt through sheer weakness ot the body. So he ordered the wine, and gulped some down feverishly— just one little glass. He felt better at once. With a brain in such excitement even a mouthful acted like magic.

A newcomer into the cafe pushed through to a seat at Diemar's table, and in doing so touched the black bag with his foot. Diemar's heart leaped nearly out of his breast. He snarled at the man, and brought up the bag on to the table beside him. Dare he open the bag a very little way, and look at the two round objects, like cricket balls within? It was better not to do so.

The newcomer evidently appeared to think it peculiar that he should be so much annoyed over a trifle.

'What have you so precious in your bag?' he asked, sneeringly.

'Only my night things' Diemar murmured. And, to propitiate the man, suggested that they should share the remains of his wine. A glassful each.

The man accepted in a surly way, and they lifted the glasses, looking over them at each other. Diemar's brain jerked. This thin, white wine was stronger than he had supposed. He, Diemar, was stronger than people supposed. They had doubted him. Now he would show them.

'It is possible to be thin and white — and yet very strong,' he murmured.

He and the stranger had both been speaking French, and on catching the last muttered word the latter said,

'Strong— no strength at all! We will have another bottle.' He still looked suspicious.

'I must appear friendly,' Diemar said to himself. ' Another bottle was ordered, and after a glass of this Diemar turned drowsy; caught himself nodding.

'This must not be,' he thought, and glancing at the clock saw that it was only 11.30.

'My appointment is not till 3— it is a long time. I must keep awake,' he reasoned.

Stretching out a hand, he picked up a crumpled newspaper from the floor. It would distract his mind, make it unnecessary to talk with the other man. A glance at the name of the paper.

'Le Matin,' showed him also the date— February 18....

He looked again in a sort of horror. What did thus mean? Perspiration ran down his forehead in drops. Why was his head so cloudy and dull? He must think... The assassination had been fixed for the 17th. The date, was branded on his brain. It was impossible that he was mistaken. What should he do now? He had evidently missed a day somehow. His chance was gone. Exhausted last night, he had slept like a log. Somehow he had missed a day— missed his chance. Leaning his head on his hands he pressed his forehead desperately.

The stranger laughed and said, 'What is it, friend?'

This man goaded him— would guess the secret. Diemar leaped up and hurried from the cafe. After taking a dozen steps he remembered his bag. Running back, he saw the waiter and the stranger leaning over it, and discussing something. They were just going to open it.

'It is my bag,' Diemar said violently.

'We do not want it,' both men answered angrily. 'Take it away. It seems to make you excited.'

Diemar snatched it, and rushed again into the street but in his excitement he caught his foot against the edge of a paving stone, tried to recover, swayed for a moment, then fell headlong with his black bag beneath him....

There was a loud roar. Shattered window glass fell into the streets, mixed with bricks. The waiter and the other man were thrown against a table. When they, too, rushed out into the street some gendarmes were coming round the corner.

The waiter said stupidly. 'Where are the gentleman and his bag?'

________________

8: A Blameless Afternoon

Tom Gallon

1866-1914

Evening Journal (Adelaide) 20 April 1907

Tom Gallon was a prolific Victorian novelist, a Londoner, producing three or four novels a year, and many short stories.

MR. AMOS YARDLEY was out of luck. He stood in the broiling sunlight of a summer afternoon in the deserted street of the village of Cottlehurst, and cursed the sky the sun and the village and everything and wondered what he was to do. He was dusty and footsore, he had not a copper his pocket, and the mention of any possible liquid refreshment would in all probability have made him faint from mere excess of joy.

Let it be stated at once that Mr. Amos Yardley, late of London, was by profession a thief in a mild way. No deeds of derring-do were his; his many troubles with the police in London had been due to a propensity to glide down into the area of dwelling to pick up anything on which his clever hands could be laid. But he had become a little too well-known in London, and had sought a retreat for a time in the innocent country. Hence he stood, this sunny afternoon, in Cottlehurst, having to that moment found that the country yielded but little to such a man as himself.

"The cottage 'omes of Hingland!" he claimed disgustedly. "Why— there ain't a tanner among the lot of 'em. Strike me pink!— larst place I went to they offered milk. Me!"

He went on a few steps further, round the corner of the road, and stopped suddenly with a gleam in his eyes. Before him stretched a neat garden wall pierced by a gate, beyond the gate a stretch of trim garden and lawn, beyond that a French window wide open, and a cool room elegantly furnished. And not a living creature to be seen anywhere.

Mr. Yardley looked, up the road and down the road, drew his hand softly across his lips, and opened the gate. No nasty dog about, nor anything to interrupt his progress. He went on tiptoe across the grass determining that, in the event of anyone putting in an unexpected and unwelcome appearance he would have a whining tale tell of an aged mother in Portsmouth keeping herself alive with the hope of seeing him.

But the aged mother was not necessary. Amos Yardley got to the French windows, and looked into the empty room, set a dusty foot upon the spotless carpet and looked round upon a room absolutely gleaming with silver and valuable things generally.

"It's Providence— just Providence," he whispered. He had his hand upon a solid silver paper weight of very beautiful design whe be stopped dead, with a dropping jaw.

Some curtains had parted at the farther end of the room, and a young girl stood there, looking at him.

"Well, she said with a smile, "I am glad you've come at last. Four o'clock was the time, and it's nearly half-past. But you're very welcome— for Gilbert's sake. Won't you sit down?"

Mr. Amos Yardley felt a cold sensation down his spine, and wondered what was going to happen.  That she was mad he was convinced, unless this was some deep and subtle game she was playing while she sent for the police. He lowered himself into a chair, keeping his eyes upon her, and nervously wiped his forehead with the lining of his cap.

"Do you know," she said, seating herself opposite him, and speaking in the friendliest manner, "you're rather worse than I thought you'd be?"

"If anybody's got anythink to' say agin me character," began Amos sternly; but she, laughingly interposed. "Not at all, Jacob— you don't mind my calling you Jacob, do you?"

"I'm in that state, miss, that you might call me anythink you liked," said Amos, with a bewildered stare. "I'd like to ask wot you are goin' to do with me?"

She laughed, and leaned back in her chair. "I'm going to ask, as you know, for your great and wonderful opinion," she said. "Gilbert believes in you as he believes in no one else in the world. If you say it's all right— if you express you approval— then I think he will fed very happy about it."

"All right, miss. It's my wish as all parties should be 'appy, I'm sure," said Mr. Yardley, beginning to understand that in some mysterious way he was taken for some one else.  "I'm sure I 'aven't no objection. There's one thing miss," he added, passing his hand thoughtfully over his lips, "I think I could consider this 'ere matter better if I 'ad wot you might call a nip—"

She looked at him in perplexity, and proceeded further to enlighten her.

"A gargle, miss. The roads is dusty— an' t' country stony 'earted. You may not know wot a thirst is yerself, miss?"

"Oh, I beg your pardon, but your way of expressing yourself is so peculiar," she said, jumping up and ringing the bell. "We'll soon put that matter right, Jacob."

"You know," she said, when Mr. Amos Yardley was at last gazing thoughtfully into a long tumbler, "I could never have consented to marry dear Gilbert if by chance you had disapproved. You have been everything to him— almost a father, in fact."

"Say a mother, miss," murmured Mr. Yardley, happily. "I certinly 'ave bin everythink to that boy."

"Therefore he said, 'I'll get Jacob to come down and talk to you; see if the dear boy likes you— and then it'll be all right. You mustn't mind what he's like, because you know what these artistes are. He dresses like a tramp, and he's got rather a rough-and-ready way with him. That's what Gilbert said— and you know you are a little bit like that," said the girl, laughing shyly. "How do you like going about the country like this?"

"Oh, you git used to it— though I'm 'appier in London— or I should be, if I  wasn't follered so much."

"Ah— as a popular man like yourself must expect to put up with that," she said, with an admiring glance at him. "Yours has been a strange, wild life—hasn't it?"

Mr. Amos Yardley thought of his many convictions, and nodded slowly.

"It 'as indeed, miss," he said with deep earnestness. "But about this young man of your— this 'ere Gilbert. I suppose you want me to say it's all right, eh?" he added slyly, and with a sentimental feeling creeping over him under these new and strange circumstances. "You want me— pore old Amos—"

"I thought your name was Jacob?" she broke in.

"Amos Jacob— so christened," said Mr. Yardley quickly. "You want pore old Jacob to tell the young man that 'e 'asn't got no objection, an' to say, 'Bless you, my dears!'— askin' your pardon, of course, miss, for the liberty."

"How funny you are," she murmured. "But it's really kind of you."

"Don't name it, miss," said Mr. Yardley. "Now," he added, quite at his ease,  "I'll just take another of the same as before, an then I'll do a toddle."

"But surely you'll wait and see Gilbert—  he'll be here almost directly," said the girl as she rang the bell. "He'll be so disappointed."

"I don't want to break in on his 'appiness," said Mr. Yardley nervously. "Never stay too long in one place, is my motter, miss. So I'll be wishin' you a good day."

"You must take some of my roses— just to remind you of our meeting," she said eagerly, as she went out into the garden.

Amos Yardley looked back at the silver, and shook his head.

"Roses!" he murmured to himself, with deep disgust. Nevertheless, he accepted a great bundle of roses presently, and went out again upon the highway. Turning, he saw the girl fluttering a handkerchef after him.

" 'Ere's a nice state o' things," he said, looking round in very real alarm. "If I do happen to meet a copper i'll be book up for stealin' 'em, sure as my name is Amos. P'raps I might sell 'em— if I 'ad a bit o' luck."

It was at that moment that be saw a tall young man striding along towards him, a handsome, bronzed young fellow with a cheerful smile.

Instantly Mr. Yardley drew to the side of the road, and touched his cap respectfully.

"Might I 'ave a word with you, guv'nor?" he asked humbly.

The young man stepped and looked at him.

"What lovely roses!" he exclaimed pleasantly.

"Yes— ain't they, guv'nor," said Amos Yardley eagerly. "Growed 'em mysel', every blessed one. I thought per'aps a young gent like yourself might like and help a pore man on 'is way; visitin' 'is pore ole mother in Portsmouth I am— she bein' 92 an' bedridden, an' askin' for me every hour of the day. They're worth more, sir; but 'alf-a-crown would be a fortune to me— an' blessin's cheerfully bestowed."

So the roses changed hands, and Mr. Amos Yardley went on his way with a light heart.

And it happened that the young gentleman turned in at the gate of which Amos Yardley had so recently come; and came straight to the girl standing there waiting for him.

"My dearest Gilbert!" she exclaimed, "you're just too late. Your friend Jacob's been, and he's such a queer old dear."

"Funny," exclaimed the young man. "I found a telegram at the post office, saying he couldn't arrive until to-morrow. However, I'm glad you've seen him, and from the look in your eyes, my dear, it's all right— eh? I'm so glad; I knew it would be. See— I got these roses for you— met a poor man on the road, who had grow them himself. Aren't they lovely?"

It was only on the morrow, of course, that they began to ask for explanations as to who that strange man could have been who had personated their friend Jacob.

But then, of course, that was not a matter that concerned Mr. Amos Yardley.

________________

9: Sayōnara

Carlton Dawe

From: Kakemonos: Tales of the Far East, 1897

A tale well-established in the Far East in the 19th Century. A year after this story was published in book form, another version of it, "Madame Butterfly", written by John Luther Long, was published and became the Opera, the Movie, the legend... and it can be found in Past Masters 14.

WHEN VERSHIEL first saw Hina-San she was romping in the garden of one of the big tea- houses of Kobe, playing, with a child of six or seven, a sort of battledore and shuttlecock. The peal upon peal of laughter which came from behind the big wistaria tree first attracted the man's attention. Wondering what could be the cause of so much merriment, he stole out into the grounds, and, behold, there was Hina-San in her white tabi,her face flushed, her eyes dancing with happiness. A pretty, plump, innocent-looking little thing, entering into the childish game with all the earnestness and energy of a child. For a few moments the man watched unobserved, watched with a cold, critical eye, letting no point of the view escape him.

Then, with a smile on his face and a clapping of hands, he advanced into view. The applause was the tribute paid to Hina San's skill and agility, and she smiled pleasantly, thinking it came from one of her companions; but when she saw the stranger advance, the flush on her face grew deeper, and she hung her head like a child caught doing a naughty thing. Vershiel, still continuing to advance, smiled encouragingly at her, and nodded for her to continue her game; but she only hung her head and began to giggle.

'Then if you won't play,' he said, 'will you bring me some tea out here in the garden?' She nodded, smiling: shuffled her feet into her straw sandals, and toddled off.

The man walked to a seat beneath the big wistaria, and, resting his face in his hands, watched the white clouds fluttering over the hill-tops. But did he see those clouds, note the sloping outline of the hills? or did he see anything but a palpitating bit of humanity in a cream kimono? As she stood before him, the little tea-tray in her hands, the warm flush filling her face with sweetness, he found himself half wondering if the scene were real. But not alone was it real—it was a charming reality.

He spoke, and she answered with a smile. He thought he had never seen such pretty teeth. The mouth too, full and red, met with his entire approval. Indeed, the more he looked the more wonderful he thought it that a native woman should be so attractive, and he found himself thinking strange things about this pretty, odd creature. A inousinee, a tea-girl — an ignorant little thing who played baby games with all the ardour of a baby. And yet a woman.

Vershiel had not been long in Japan, nor was it expected that he would make a long stay. Business alone had brought him there, and, that business accomplished, he would depart. But, for all he knew to the contrary, he might be detained in Kobe for another six months, and he had been warned to beware of promiscuous loves.

He was very careful with Hina-San at first, knowing how easily terrified these little creatures are; but in her eyes he was a godlike personage, in whose presence she was scarcely fit to breathe, and, though he remained a god to the last, he was a god to whom she had grown accustomed.

Then came the interview with her parents and considerable haggling over the sum they were willing to take for a loan of their daughter for, say, six months. Hina-San herself felt flattered and honoured: flattered that the white stranger should condescend to look upon one so insignificant and unworthy, honoured that he should esteem her so greatly as to get her to come and keep house for him.

The white stranger thought— but perhaps we had better not inquire into his thoughts. He did what every fellow who could afford it did, and, egad ! he was deuced good to her. Vershiel's nature was a purely business one, coldly calculating and extremely punctilious. A business arrangement was simply a business arrangement. If he promised to pay so many yen per month for an article, he considered that article his while he fulfilled the contract. There was no other obligation. As for sentiment— well, everybody knew that sentiment and the native women were as widely separated as the poles.

True, he had no fault to find with Hina-San. The Japanese woman seems born for housekeeping, and Vershiel's housekeeper, as a housekeeper, was perfection. When the bills for the first month came in, he was so astounded at her success that he straightway declared a dividend in favour of her and her parents. But here his interest in her ceased. As a companion she was a mere cipher— an interesting one, it is true, but a cipher nevertheless.

He did not seem to think it possible that she might grow foolishly attached to him. He recognised her obligations; but for anything else he hadn't a second thought. And yet her poor, ignorant little breast was full of love for him. If he touched her, the blood bounded through her veins with sickening rushes; if he carelessly flung an arm about her shoulders, every pulse in her body went throb, throb, till it seemed as though it would snap with the tension. Sometimes he kissed her, but not often. He admitted that he never cared for those curious-lidded dark brown eyes.

Yet had he looked, looked with the thinking eye, he would have seen devotion inexpressible, love transcending all thought of earth. He saw only the peculiar lids, the ugly slits through which the eyes shone. And she, being but an ignorant, honest girl, was only half-conscious of the great devotion that had come to her. She knew that for her there was but one god, and that Vershiel was his name. But as the devout would approach God with fear and trembling, so she approached her master; and if he read not her heart, saw not the love in those eyes, how could she tell him?

And so the weeks and the months flew by, Hina-San leading an enchanted life; for he had grown kinder to her of late— perchance for more reasons than one: but whatever his reasons were, his kindness was received as a token of the master's pleasure in his hand maiden, and she went blithely to and fro.

Then the time came when he had to break the news of his intending departure. The six months of their contract had elapsed: he was going away to Yokohama, and she must go back to her people. She listened to him like one who hears but does not comprehend. Then her face grew suddenly white, and with a little heartbroken sob she turned away. She could not have told him what she felt, even if she could have formed the words— it would have been taking too great a liberty with her honourable lord. She could only steal away and bury her face in her hands: wonder at the strange lump in her throat, the sudden chill that enwrapped her heart: marvel at the awful coldness and emptiness of the world. An hour ago the sun was shining, the world was full of light and loveliness: now the great lamp had gone out, and the winter storms were howling round the desolate dwelling.

Vershiel thought he could sever the connection as easily as he had made it. He gave her lots of money, he heaped presents upon her and her people; he did all that a generous business man could do, and marvelled much at her apathy.

He did not seem to take into account the woman's great love, her unselfish devotion, or the fact that ere long she would be a mother. Not knowing the love, he could not feel the regret : the unselfish devotion would have made him smile. How was he to know that the girl valued the money so little that she never kept a yen of it, but handed it over intact to her parents? As for the motherhood— that was a trifling inconvenience which she and her people would have to see to.

Moreover, he doubted the story, or doubted what they would have him believe. How could he credit her honesty? His friends laughed heartily at the mere suggestion. It was always the last card, they said. Everybody had had a similar experience ; but a few yen always smoothed the difficulty.

And so, despite her tears, entreaties, and the hopeless pathos of her brown eyes, he said sayonara (farewell), and went away, and by emptying his purse in her lap thought he had discharged all obligations. To be sure, there was the half-promise to come back, wrung from him in a moment of weakness to alleviate her distress; but it was a promise he had no real intention of fulfilling, and as such it sat lightly on his conscience. It mattered nothing that the poor, ignorant girl hugged it madly to her soul, that joy unspeakable darted to her pathetic eyes as she pictured the joyous home-coming: it mattered nothing, this breaking of a native woman's heart.

She went back to her people, rich, laden with presents, and was petted and made much of while the riches lasted; but the pettings of home, the love of interested parents, were probably accepted at their proper value. It all helped to make the long, dreary days pass till he returned, and to make those days pass was now her only object in life.

But day ran to week, and week to month, and yet he came not. Still she bore up bravely, believing in that promise, though her face grew paler and thinner, and the pathos in her eyes more pitiful. 'He will come,' she whispered consolingly to herself; 'he will come in time to welcome the little one—our little one. He is great, he is good, and he will not forget his Hina-San, his little Hina-San. Oh, my beloved, come, come!'

And the little plump brown hands went out entreatingly, and the brown pathetic eyes shone sadly through the blinding tears.

And so day succeeded day, and at last the little one came; and when her people saw that it was a white man's child they hated it with a mad, unreasoning hatred, bitterly censuring their daughter for her stupidity. But to her who had loved the father, the wee thing came in time to save her brain from bursting, her heart from breaking. Every drop of white blood that ran in its veins was sacred to her— a sacred link connecting her with the neverto-be-forgotten past.

But when her money was spent, and one by one her trinkets had gone, and she was once more as poor as in the days when Vershiel first saw her, then began the bitter tauntings of her people. And they said, 'Cast out the brat of this white man, this thief who leaves you both to perish. Why shouldst thou carry about this living shame, so that all who see may mock at thee and us? A curse on him and all his race! Nothing but misery have the white men brought to our land.'

And they grew wroth with her because she paid no heed to them. But to her the child was dearer, far dearer than life. For every precious drop of white blood that coursed through its tiny veins she would have died a dozen deaths. There was something more than pathos in the brown eyes now. But they were cruel days of waiting, and poor Hina-San grew pale and weary, and the child languished in consequence.

Then was it her people bade her go forth, she and her shame; and never again did they see her, or hear the voice of the white shame cry— except in their dreams. With her baby on her back she tramped to the tea-house where she had first met Vershiel, and, in consequence of good service, she was reinstalled in her old position. But it was no longer the Hina-San of old who came back, not the Hina-San who had romped childishly with the child, not the rosy-faced girl who had brought the tea to the white stranger beneath the big wistaria.

A dozen times she went over the scene. There were the seat and the table just as they had been a year ago, there was the big tree a mass of blossom. She shut her eyes and tried to fancy he was sitting there, just as he had sat that day. She brought her white shame and sat him in the seat of his father, and even as she looked her vision grew blurred, and the one word, 'Yokohama,' the word that had haunted her for months past, started to her lips.

Yes, she would go to Yokohama; she had long thought of it: now her mind was made up. It seemed a terrible journey, a fearful undertaking ; but she would go, and, when he heard her story, saw him whom her people called the white shame, he would surely take her back to him as in the old days.

So, when she had saved enough money to pay her passage to Yokohama, she went down to one of the big steamers, and they stowed her away somewhere between-decks, she and her white shame; and she knew little more till they came to tell her that the ship had arrived at Yokohama.

Yokohama! She awoke from her long dream, allowed them to lead her up the companion, and down into a small boat. Then they rowed her across the water to the hatoba, and as she walked up the steps, her white shame slung on her back, they told her that she was in Yokohama. Yokohama ! She gazed round bewildered. Yokohama at last ! The place he had come to, the place where he lived ! Now all her troubles were over: she had come to Yokohama— to him ! For hours she wandered about repeating the name 'Vershiel— Mr. Vershiel,' but all to whom she spoke stared at her with curious insolence, or laughed outright in her face. But one, more kind than the others, who saw the agony in her eyes, told her to go to the European quarter and inquire, and even took the trouble to show her the way.

There she learnt that Mr. Vershiel, who belonged to one of the biggest houses in Japan, had long since sailed for England.

England! The thought almost staggered her. England, that land beyond the sea, beyond the sun— beyond the world, it seemed. Her voice grew tremulous, her sad eyes full of agony. When had he gone? Many months ago in the s.s. Hakodate. Hakodate ha! She would remember that name. And when would the Hakodate be back?

They could not say, but probably at the end of the year.

So away she went, sore at heart and yet clinging to her last fond hope. She procured lodgings, found employment, and then set herself to keep her long vigil. The Hakodate would surely come back one day, and that day she must be there to hear the good news.

So every evening, when her work was done, she slung her white shame across her shoulders and walked from the native quarter to the English hatoba, and asked the sampan men if the Hakodate had yet arrived; and when they said no, she turned about and toddled back murmuring, 'To-morrow, to-morrow—perhaps he will come to-morrow.'

But the to-morrows came and went, the weeks ran into months, and yet the ship came not. But one evening, a cold stormy night, as she arrived pale and shivering at the hatoba, she saw a boat coming ashore from a big ship which evidently had just arrived ; and one of the sampan men called out to her— for they all knew her and her quest by this time— 'That big ship yonder is the Hakodate.'

She heard him and trembled, but it was with a joy that almost frightened her. As the boat approached the landing-stage she watched it intently, and saw that there were several white men aboard it, but her eyes grew so dim with tears that she could not make out their faces. Eagerly, but vainly, she sought to clear her eyes; nor till the men had come up the steps and were close upon her did she see that he was not there. Then she stepped forward to one, the one who had given her the information upon her first arrival in Yohohama, and cried out, 'Vershiel— Mr. Vershiel— have he no come?'

The man started; then, recognising her, said, 'No, my poor woman— Mr. Vershiel is in England.'

'But— he— will— come?' The slow, broken English was full of hesitation—of hesitation and intense pain.

'Mr. Vershiel will never come to Japan again.'

'Not come—not come?'

But the man shook his head at the pathetic little figure and marched on.

Early the next morning some fishermen discovered the bodies of a woman and a child float- ing some three miles above the settlement. The child was clasped in the woman's arms. In the bosom of the woman's kimono they found the photograph of a somewhat sinister though decidedly good-looking European. Across the back of the card was written in native characters the one word, 'Sayōnara.'

______________

10: The Murder at Ozer's

"Waif Wander"

(Mary Helena Fortune, 1833-1911)

The Australian Journal, May 1883.

One of the very long series of detective stories by this Australian author, under the the general title "The Detective's Album"

IT happened some years ago that, when my yearly allowance of holidays became due, I took it into my head to spend them at the seaside, and I chose a locality to sojourn in which, for obvious reasons, I shall not give its own name to, but call it Remona. I was recommended to put up at a boarding-house kept by a man named Ozer, as being at once the cheapest and most likely to afford me amusement in offering a frequent change of characters to study.

I need not tell you the style of people who patronized Ozer's, for they were the sort to be found in all seaside boarding places where the charge is not high. The families of tradesmen or small business folk, young women in search of health or flirtations, young men worn out by fast and low living and believing, or trying to believe, that a daily ablution in the sea would perform far more miraculous cures than the healing waters of Jordan on the leprosy of the Syrian Naaman; old women tottering down the hill of life, and finding only on the seashore sad memories of their youth, with an occasional bespattering of low larrikinism, both male and female— all were there coming and going during the time I stopped at Remona.

From the day I arrived there was a young man, of about three-and-twenty, with whom I seemed to get on better than with any of the others, perhaps because he was of a quiet manner, and did not annoy me with talk. Of all things in this sphere, I think an obtrusively talkative person is the most annoying and disgusting; but young Markham was not one of these, and he would sit and smoke or think in silence as long as silence was agreeable to his companion, yet he could talk well when occasion offered.

"What brought you down here?" I asked him once when we had become pretty well acquainted. "Was it for your health?"

"No; I am, I think, in perfect health."

"Change, then, I suppose?"

"Not exactly; I will tell you why I came. Last mail brought me intelligence that I had became heir to a large property, with papers, etc., for my signature. When I had done all that was necessary in appending my name, I left the rest in the hands of my solicitor, and ran away to be out of the road."

"What did you want to be out of the way for?" I asked, and he lifted a fine pair of eyes to mine with a smile as he answered.

"I suppose I must confess to make you understand. Well, the fact is that I could not trust myself until the excitement was over. I knew that I could have what money I wanted, and knew too that it was ten to one I should put it to a bad use in town, so I ran away from temptation."

"A sensible action on your part, but will not the danger be as great whenever you go back?"

"I hope not. The excitement will be over. I shall have had time to seriously think of my duties in life, increased as they will be by my change of position, and, according to my experience, the power of the sea as a preacher to the souls of men is unsurpassed."

I thought more of Markham than ever after this, and he seemed to place confidence in me as the days passed. He had been trying to work a small sheep station for some years past, I found, but had been hampered for want of means.

"Now, as soon as all is settled," he would say, "I shall improve my station and send for my dear mother."

"Have you only a mother?" I asked.

"Only a mother; but, surely, that is enough."

"Until you get a wife," I replied, laughing.

"I shall never get a wife," he said, with great seriousness. "I never yet met a girl I could wish to call by that name, and I do not think I ever shall."

"Nonsense! Your time will come some day. And so your mother is your only relative?"

"Not exactly. I have a cousin about my own age, who is coming out to join me even now— his ship will be due in a few days, but I suppose he will expect to find me on the station and go direct there."

"And in the meantime you are alone, and you sit by the seaside and dream of the future."

"No. I dream, but, strange to say, it is not of any future I dream. I often wonder at the strange state of mind I find myself in, for I cannot think; that is to say, I cannot think out anything. My mind floats away from it, out to sea, as it were. Floating, when I come to think of it, is the exact word, for my very thoughts are inert and dreamy as the scarce rippled surface of a summer sea."

"You describe a feeling that is not an unusual one in a holiday," I said; "but you can feel it quite as well lying on your back among the grass under a shady tree in a quiet land. I think it proceeds from the perfect enjoyment of an unusual idleness."

"I don't think in my case that that is the solution. I do not enjoy, for I do not feel as if anything exists. I cannot explain it to you, but at Remona I feel as if I had come to the end of all time."

Poor young fellow, how often I afterwards thought of that strange saying!

"What kind of fellow is this cousin of yours?" I asked one day, as we sat in a favourite seat among the rooks.

"Do you mean in appearance?"

"In every way."

He laughed his low quiet laugh as he said, "I am flattered by the interest you seem to take in my interests, for I know you are not asking me simply from an anxiety to give me pleasure."

"I am not indeed," I answered. "I feel an unusual interest in you, and in all that concerns you."

"I am glad to know and believe that. Well, Jack Markham, in appearance, greatly resembles me, only that the greater vitality he possesses gives a quick, sprightly character to both his expression and manners. Our fathers were brothers; our mothers were sisters. We were born within a month of each other, and were both christened John, but, to distinguish us, he was called Jack, a diminutive far more suited to his jolly, lively ways than the John which I retained. The uncle from whom I have inherited took a great dislike to Jack's mode of life and manners ever since he was old enough to assert himself, so that the small legacy he has left him could scarcely be a disappointment, my cousin being fully aware that uncle would leave the bulk of his wealth to me. It will revert to him, however, when I and mother die."

"Are those the terms of your uncle's will?"

"The terms are strictly that I or mine hold all only in the event of my death without will or heirs, in which case all goes to Jack."

"Without a will? Have you made your will, then?"

"I am going to do it," he said, seriously, "only I should like to see if my cousin has changed in many ways since I saw him in England. He says he has, but he was leading such a wild life that I want to know by my own experience."

"Your uncle had doubtless good cause for not leaving him wealth," I observed.

"Yes, he had; but I blamed greatly for it all the influence of a bad woman."

"Ah! That is an influence whose power no living man can fully gauge."

"She was one of the worst, I think, and was the occasion of all Jack's trouble with his family. Older than he by some years, and having a diabolical dark beauty of her own, she could twist him round her finger as easily as she would twine a ribbon. He says she has cut him since uncle entirely repudiated him, and I am thankful that it is so."

"What is this woman's name?" I asked.

"Charlotte Brayler— that is to say, if it is true, as Jack has always declared, that he has not made her his wife."

"I would make my will if I were you," I said.

He looked at me with a smile as he returned, "How seriously you speak!"

"It is a serious matter," I replied. "If anything was to happen to you, your mother would be left at the mercy of that bad woman."

"You think Jack has not dropped her then?"

"She has not dropped him; no woman such as you describe would drop any man while he has the chance of inheriting a fortune, be assured of that, and make your will."

"You are so earnest," he said, looking at me almost pleadingly. "Do you think mine is a bad life? I am in perfect health."

"That may be, but no man who has property at his disposal should let one day or hour pass without settling his affairs; it is but a just and wise precaution that he should do so."

"I think you are right," he said, after a thoughtful pause, in which his large grey eyes were looking far out to sea, "and if I could do it without a fuss, I would do it this day."

"You can do it this hour if you like," I said, "and without a soul, save I and a friend of mine, being the wiser. The form of a will is the simplest thing in the world, we can get one from any almanac."

"I know," he said, as he rose from the rock on which he had been sitting, "and I will go and do it now if you wish."

We walked along the beach, and as we walked I explained to him that within a mile there was a small police station, at which an old chum of mine, named Smith, was in charge. Still I could not help expressing my fear that my suggestion had made him doubtful and melancholy, for he was more serious and silent than usual as our steps crackled among the shells and dry seaweed of the sun-bleached beach.

"You will not die any the sooner for making a will, you know, and there is another thing to be thought of," I said. "If your cousin knows that your will is made, it would be a satisfaction to him, if he has any honourable feelings left, since he could not then be suspected of any ulterior motives in his dealings with you."

"That is true," he said in a tone of relief. "I had not thought of it in that light, and as my dear mother knows all about him and my hopes of him, Jack's interests would be safe in her hands."

We found Smith at home, and before an hour had elapsed were on our way back to Ozer's with a signed and attested will, in which he bad left everything to his mother, and alluded to his cousin Jack in a simple, kindly way, in his band; it was written on a half sheet of foolscap, and as we walked almost silently for the first half of the way, he held the paper in his hand, thinking, as it seemed, and looking at it occasionally. At last he stopped and looked straight out to sea, where, between the heads, a full rigged vessel was making her way up the Bay.

"Jack might be in that very ship," he said, pointing toward the vessel with the folded paper in his hand. "I wonder if he is changed."

"Did you like him? Was he a favourite of yours?" I asked.

"When we were boys, yes; but he got so different after. No, I cannot truthfully say that I liked poor Jack of late years, but it was all that wretched woman's fault. I am sure of that, for there was nothing originally mean or unprincipled in my cousin."

"My dear fellow, the root of evil must have been there, or no culture would have urged its growth."

He sighed, and then reached out to me the paper on which such issues unconsciously hung. "I want to give this into your charge," he said. "I somehow don't like to see it, or keep it, and it will be safe with you."

"Perfectly," I replied, as I put it carefully away. "You know I am always to be found among the D's; and when you make another on your marriage— to which you will, of course, invite me— I shall faithfully return you this."

He laughed a little, and as that was all I wanted our usual intercourse was renewed without another allusion to the will.

It was only the day following when a telegram from town reached Markham, and he came to me with his fine face lit up pleasantly.

"Jack has arrived," he said, "in the Stromboli, the very ship we saw going up yesterday, and I have sent him word to come down. He will be here by the 6.40, I expect. Do you know, I feel quite nervous and shaky over it, Sinclair."

"Have a nip of brandy," I said, with a laugh, "and I'll have another to console me for the loss of your society, for I shall not see much of you now."

"You will see as much as ever; poor Jack would not content himself at any time with my society, and there are no secrets to discuss between us. No, my dear fellow, you will not lose my society; but we can have the nip all the same, for I feel as nervous as a young lady expecting her first proposal of marriage."

"Where do young ladies feel nervous on such occasions?" I asked. "You will find it is not in Australia at all events.

"You are talking treason, Sinclair."

"I have had experience, and I have eyes and ears," I snapped, and so the hours passed until the train brought us Jack Markham.

I had felt from the first an interest for which it would be difficult to account in this young man, and when he stood before me, and held his cousin's hand, I watched him with an eagerness that might have surprised him had he observed it. Had I not known that there was so little difference between the ages of the cousins I should have taken the new arrival to be twenty eight or nine, if it was only from the savoir faire of his manner, and the haughty, self-contained eyes with which he scanned the faces around him, even while he was listening to his cousin's greeting and welcome. As I was introduced, his bold dark eyes shot a look of inquiry into mine that had an unpleasant expression of suspicion in it, a suspicion doubtless engendered by my apparent intimacy with his cousin John.

He was a far handsomer and more manly looking man than my friend. There was no denying that; yet the family likeness between them was great, but I disliked Jack Markham from the very first. He was so calm and collected, so non-impulsive and careful in his replies and conduct, that one could scarcely believe that he was but three and twenty or so, and only in a strange and interesting new world for a short twenty-four hours. I didn't like him, I have written, and I repeat it with the addition that before he was two hours at Remona I detested him.

After tea, at which made her first appearance a widow lady who had come down by the same train as Markham, John, my friend, proposed a stroll and a cigar on the beach; so, in the last light of a setting sun, we walked on the shingle toward our favourite resting-place and sat down on the rocks, John and I in our usual positions, and the cousin on a stone a little nearer to the sea. The cigars were in full play, and for a little while only the rollers at our feet broke the silence around us. At length John tossed the butt of his cigar into the sea, and exclaimed joyously—

"How beautiful and enjoyable all this is! How beautiful and enjoyable life is altogether!"

"What a discovery!" I cried. "Only yesterday you felt floating away, and had come to the end of all time, as you expressed it."

"My cousin's arrival has brought me in from sea on a springtide," he returned, laughingly. "How sorry I am that you will go away so soon, my dear Jack."

"You forget that I have been weeks— weary weeks on the sea that you so much admire," the young man who was addressed said; "and that it has tumbled and tossed and battered me until I am sick of it. It is all very well for rich fellows like you to lounge on the sands looking at the sea, but I have to work for my living, and the sooner I am at work the better."

I think there was a suspicion of being ill-used by his uncle in the matter of his legacy that wounded John Markham slightly, for his tone was greatly cooler than it had been as he replied—

"I daresay you are right, Jack; at all events, you have a right to please yourself. When do you start for the station?"

"Tomorrow; and you?"

"I shall join you as soon as ever my solicitor is done with me." There was another silence here, and I had risen to lift for examination a bunch of seaweed lying at a little distance, when John suddenly turned toward his cousin.

"I hope, Jack, that in the matter of that woman you have not deceived me. I would not have her enter my life even by name for half uncle's gold."

"If you are alluding to Charlotte Brayler, you need not name her. I have done with her forever;" but as he answered his eyes fell, and a hot flush mounted up into his averted face.

"I am more than glad, Jack. I have blamed her for all and everything of your troubles; she has been the ruin of your life."

"No more, please, the subject is quite as disagreeable to me as to you," and as he too rose and drew up his fine figure haughtily, I saw that his eyes were flashing with an angry light, and that around his lips and nostrils there was the white mark as of a frozen hand. I doubted and disliked the man from that hour.

The widow I have alluded to was my vis-à-vis at breakfast next morning, and I began my usual observation so as to know among what class of seaside visitors I should place her. She was, as the landlord informed us, a Mrs. Gerant, and her widow's cap and deep crepe told the rest. A woman of over thirty, I guessed, with an airy, vivacious manner and a decided inclination to flirting. I set her down to be a silly, useless woman, who found herself uncomfortable in her widowhood, and not disinclined to terminate it by making a favourable second marriage. She had languishing dark eyes, and a great frizz of fair hair over her low, broad forehead.

"What do you think of Mrs. Gerant?" I asked Markham after we had seen his cousin off.

"I— don't know. I caught her eyes fixed on me twice during breakfast, and I didn't like them."

"Ah, ha! making eyes at you already is she? My dear fellow, be sure you're booked for the poor departed's place." But he didn't seem to enjoy the joke, and the subject dropped.

I shall never forget that last evening we spent together on the sands, poor Markham and I, and I have recalled every word that passed between us so often that they are stereotyped in my memory.

It was an evening of threatening weather, and there was an angry sound in the breaking waves as they rolled sullenly in to the grey shore, and a pale light under the clouds on the western horizon that told of wild weather, and I have never since seen those threatening symptoms by the sea without recalling the pale, handsome face of my lost friend as he sat near me against a background of brown, damp rocks.

We had been speaking of his cousin John, and he with so much repression that I observed it.

"You are disappointed in him," I said. "I can hear that in the very sound of your words."

"Yes, I am, I do not deny it. I am sadly disappointed about him somehow. He might well say he was changed, for I never saw such a change in a human being."

"How is he changed?"

"I have tried to think, but I cannot explain, not in words. I never met his eyes once— he seemed to avoid looking at me, as if he disliked me. And then his manner was so abrupt, and his sentences so short and snappish, that I could not but notice it. I am almost sorry now that I sent for him at all."

"It was you who sent for him, then?"

"Yes; at his urgent solicitation, as soon as ever I could spare the means, I sent them to bring him out."

"Your uncle was alive, then?"

"Yes. I received a telegram stating his death about a week after Jack had sailed. I wonder why he was so very anxious to get away from me? In his place I should have enjoyed, of all things, a quiet rest after such a voyage."

"My dear Markham, you and your cousin are very differently constituted, and he will doubtless prefer spending that cheque I saw you slipping into his hand in some folly of town dissipation; but I confess to you that he impressed me very unfavourably, and I for one am rejoiced at his departure. I don't think the fair widow was though, for I saw her gazing wistfully after the train as it bore him away."

"How wild and lonely it looks on the sea tonight, Sinclair," he said, after one of our usual pauses; "as it grows darker, the waves seem to jostle one another for precedence, and roar angrily as they lash each other with broken foam. There, too, is a grand sight," and he pointed to the eastward, where, under a straight, heavy line of black clouds, the full moon was rising, round and red as a ball of blood, and laying a far stretching path of light across the rolling waters to our very feet.

"It promises to be a wild night," I returned; "and it's weird and lonely here with the seagulls and fishes. Let us go back to Ozer's, for it will be pleasant to see even lamplight on such a night as this!"

On our return we found in the sitting-room the flirty widow with the great eyes. Markham threw himself on a couch as if he was tired, while I drew a chair near that of Mrs. Gerant, who was pretending to do some frippery tatting work that resembled the web of a spider with her delicate and bejeweled fingers.

"Have you been out this beautiful evening, Mrs. Gerant?" I questioned insinuatingly, and she shot a bewitching glance from under her long lathes at me as she answered.

"No, indeed, I could not of course go alone, and I was not so fortunate as to have an escort."

"Now, that was too bad; if I had only guessed how delighted I should have been to offer you my arm."

"And leave your friend alone?"

"Under such circumstances I am sure my friend would only have been too happy to have joined us."

"Indeed? From his appearance I should guess him to be a devotee of solitude and melancholy," and she glanced up from her fingers toward Markham as she said so.

"You would be mistaken in drawing such a conclusion," I observed; yet, as I also looked at Markham, I saw that he looked more depressed than I had yet seen him. He was sitting on the couch with his elbows on his knees and his head resting in a weary attitude upon his palms.

"You are tired, old fellow?" I asked. "Would you like to turn in?"

"Yes, I do feel tired somehow, Sinclair," he replied, as he rose up and turned to the door. "I think I will go to my room, but that needn't hurry you. Give me a look in before you retire for the night;" and, slightly bowing to the lady, whose eyes were fixed upon him as he did so, Markham went out and shut the door behind him.

I was thus at liberty to flirt with the widow as much as she permitted, and I received sufficient encouragement to detain me for nearly an hour, and before we parted she had agreed to join me in an early stroll on the beach after her morning bath.

Markham's room was next to mine, and, as he wished, I went in before going to bed. To my astonishment, instead of in bed, I found him sitting upon it still dressed, and in the same attitude as he had taken on the couch.

"You are not well, I am afraid, Markham?" I asked, as I noticed the unusual pallor of his countenance as he lifted his head on hearing the door open. "What is the matter, my dear fellow?"

"I don't know, nothing bodily at all events, but I feel strangely depressed. You know how cold and wild it looked out at sea a little ago? Well I feel as if a dreary sea, covered with mist and without a ray of sunlight upon it, was lying spread out before my mental vision tonight. I feel disinclined to lie down, and almost afraid to shut my eyes, as a child who has been frightened with ghost stories. I have got the oddest idea in my head too, and have written it down on this bit of paper, but it is such a foolish one that I know you would laugh at me; so I will wait till tomorrow, when I hope I may be able to join you and laugh at myself too."

As he spoke he opened his hand and showed me, crumpled up in his palm, a scrap of paper.

"You are hipped, Markham," was what I said to him in reply. "Naturally sensitive, and inclined to melancholy, this life is too tame for you, and the approaching storm is depressing you, as it does many of a nervous temperament. Say your prayers, my dear boy, and go to bed fearless of ghosts."

"You have hit it, Sinclair!" he exclaimed, as he rose and grasped my hand. "Nothing will trouble those whom God guard. Good night, my friend, and may God bless you!"

I pressed his hand in return, and went to my room, between which and his there was but a wooden partition, so that as I undressed and lay down I could distinctly hear the murmured words in which poor Markham commended his body and spirit to the safe keeping of Him who doeth all things well; but it was long ere I slept, for over me too an uneasy shadow seemed to have fallen, and every moan of the rising wind sounded to me as a sigh or a groan from a human breast.

The sun had barely risen when, after a restless and very uncomfortable night, I rose on the following morning. All traces of the storm had passed save in the heavy swell of the sea before it surged musically on the long, bleached sands, as I went down to have my usual swim before breakfast. In this morning bath it was not the custom of Markham to join me, so I did not attempt to disturb him as I passed his door on my way out.

I had thoroughly enjoyed the fresh coolness of the waves, and, having dressed, was standing on a rock looking along toward the bathing-boxes, when I saw coming out of one of them a lady in a showy striped bathing-dress. I was not near enough to make my watch seem indelicate, so I stood and saw the unknown gambol in the waves like an amphibious creature, and float or swim as though a fish or a bird. I confess that I enjoyed the sight, and was sorry when the fair swimmer left the sea and again disappeared in the bathing-box to resume her walking attire.

Looking at my watch, I perceived that it was not far from the time Mrs. Gerant had appointed for our walk on the sands, and all at once it struck me that it might have been the widow herself whose performances in the water I had seen. Nor was I mistaken, for by the time I reached the vicinity of the boxes that lady emerged from them in a bewitching morning dress of half-mourning.

"And so it was you whom I fancied at first to be a sea-bird floating on the waves?" I said, when we had exchanged our morning greetings. "But I do not think so early a bath can agree with you, for you are pale and trembling, too."

"Yes, it was I. So you were watching me? Oh, that is nothing! The water is a little chilly, and it is some time since I have bathed. In another morning or two I shall have become more inured to it."

"Take my arm, and let us have & sharp walk to get up your circulation," I advised, as I held out my arm for acceptance.

"Nay, I will run you a race," was the laughing reply, as she started off on the hard, smooth sand, and with the activity of a deer ran on for some distance without looking back even to see if I was following her; then she stopped and turned, walking to rejoin me.

I have often wondered what feeling prompted my next action. If I had accepted her challenge and followed, I should not have seen the handkerchief that lay on the sand at my feet as she ran; and if she had not gone so far, I should not have put it in my pocket without examining it, and forgotten it after. I think I intended to run, only I saw what a start she had gained on me, and before I had decided not to do so I crammed the handkerchief into my pocket to be out of the way.

Mrs. Gerant had not seen it, nor had she missed it apparently. At all events, she made no allusion to the handkerchief, but chaffed me unmercifully on shirking the race.

"It was not fair," I cried; "you were off before I had time to think. What chance should I have had against such little winged feet?"

"Oh, flattery won't make your case more excusable, so don't try it," she retorted. "Yet, see how little good my race has done me— my hands are absolutely perishing;" and she held them out, pretty and ungloved, yet not unornamented, for upon them shone more than one rare gem.

"Let me try to warm them," I pleaded, as I took the little hands in mine and pressed them closely. "Are you not afraid to lose some of those rings in the sea? It is rather a risky thing to trust them to the waves."

My reply was a shriek, so wild, so piercing, so awful altogether, that the horror of it chilled me to the marrow.

"I have lost one. Oh! What shall I do? What shall I do?"

She had drawn her hands from me, and was staring at them with fear-distended eyes. Every vestige of colour had gone from her very lips, and I believe that if I had not put my arm around her she would have fallen on the sands at my feet.

"Calm yourself," I said. "Surely no ring can be of such value as to cause you to despair like this; and, besides, we may yet find it."

And she shrieked out, "God forbid!" and covered her face with her hands.

I couldn't understand it, and thought she must have taken leave of her senses, so when she dropped the hands and clasped them in each other with a wringing motion of utter despair, I seized them, and shook her so that her whole body swayed as I asked her, "What is the matter with you, Mrs. Gerant? Surely the temporary, or even eternal, loss of a ring cannot be a matter of such moment. Let us go and examine the beach and the bathing box— you may have dropped it as you undressed!"

"Yes, yes, it might, I had forgotten; there is a chance yet."

She said the words with a catching breath, and walked by my side as I led the way; but our search was vain, on beach or anywhere else there was no ring, and she sat down on a stone such a changed woman, gazing silently, and with an awful horror in her eyes, out over the rolling surf and the sunlit swell.

I looked at her hands as they lay supine on her knee, and I noted the rings that yet remained. On her right hand was a seal ring, with a pale sapphire in it. This ring was on her second finger, and the sight of it all at once recalled to my memory the fact that I had noticed on the first finger of the same hand at the tea-table a peculiar slender ring of plain gold with a star of the very tiniest brilliants at the back.

"Oh, I know now what ring you have lost!" I cried, as I remembered it; "it must be the star of diamonds you wore at tea last evening!"

"Oh! What am I to do?" was the returning moan.

"Do? Why get up and come back to breakfast. After a cup of tea the world may be endurable to you even though you have lost a gage d'amour."

She rose and looked me in the face with a strange searching look. I know now of what she was thinking, though I little guessed then. She was wondering if I was a man to be influenced by a bribe either of love or gold— she was gauging the depth of the evil she hoped to find in me; but she read no weakness in the eyes that met hers, and only a strange suspicion of, I did not know what, that I most undoubtedly felt as I looked at her, so she walked on toward Ozer's with me, silent, and shuddering at intervals, as if with cold or terror.

I took her into the dining-room, where breakfast was not yet laid, and I went and brought her a cup of warm tea, into which I poured a little brandy from my own private flask.

"Now drink that, and forget the ring," I said. "Why, you may even yet find it in your bedroom."

And, as if the idea gave her new life, she hastily swallowed the beverage, and, without saying even "Thank you," set down the cup, and hurried out of the room.

I followed and saw her turn into the door opposite Markham's just as I was searching in my pocket for my own key. Before I found the key, however, I lighted on Mrs. Gerant's handkerchief, which I had picked up from the sands, and, with a natural curiosity, I examined the initials in the corner. They were "C. B."

Upon what apparent trifles do the most serious events in life hinge! Had it not been that Mrs. Gerant's door had closed behind her I should undoubtedly have handed it to her; as it was, I replaced the handkerchief in my pocket, and knocked at Markham's door.

How well I remember every trifle that occurred as I stood and listened for my friend's reply! It seemed only then that I discerned the most peculiar perfume that emanated from the handkerchief for it lingered on my fingers, and, to ascertain what it was, I took the bit of cambric out once more and raised it to my face.

"Faugh!" I thought, "What a strange scent! That article would have been benefited by a bath in the sea as well as its mistress," and again I knocked at the door, to receive no reply.

I opened it, utterly unconscious of evil, and, thinking only how soundly Markham must be sleeping, as I called him twice by name, ere I advanced to the bed. The green blind was dropped, yet there was ample light to discern from where I stood the young man's form, lying on his back with one arm tossed on the pillow above his head; yet, somehow, there fell upon my senses the strangest dread of I knew not what, and I fancied that even in the room I could discern strongly the singular scent I had already inhaled from the widow's handkerchief.

"Markham, my dear fellow, the breakfast is ready! How soundly you sleep!"

Ay, he slept soundly, so soundly that nothing should ever again arouse him, but the great Trumpet of Doom! As I went and bent my face over his, I saw under the half-open blue eyelids, awful dead eyes, and as I laid my hand on the high pale forehead, it was as if I had laid it on a cold stone. My poor Markham had been dead for many hours.

I was stupid for a little. I felt as if I had received a blow on the brain. Was I dreaming or mad? It couldn't be Markham who was lying there unconscious and stone cold before me. But all at once it flashed upon me but too plainly that it was true; and I went out softly, drawing the key from the door, locking it from outside, and placing the key in my pocket.

There was no one in the passage, but Mrs. Gerant's door remained still closed. I went back to the dining room, in search of the landlord, and found him very busy in getting the tables ready for breakfast.

"Ozer," I said, "I want to speak to you instantly, and without any one observing us. Come into the private parlor," and, much wondering, the man followed me in.

"Something dreadful has occurred in your house, Ozer," I said, "and before I tell you what it is, I warn you to restrain yourself, and attend to breakfast as usual, without letting your boarders know anything about it for the present."

"What can you mean?" asked the man, stupidly.

"I mean that I have just been into Mr. Markham's room, to call him up, and I found him stark dead and cold in his bed."

"Good God! Oh, Mr. Sinclair, I hope you are mistaken. It must be a fit; let me send for a doctor!"

"It is no fit! The poor young fellow has been dead for hours," and my throat felt choking as I uttered the, to me, sad truth.

"Oh, this is dreadful! It will frighten the people awfully! What am I to do— what would you advise me to do?"

"I will tell you. Send at once to C— for a policeman. I have locked the door and have the key in my pocket. It has not been necessary for me to tell you before, but you will now be glad to hear that I am a policeman in the detective force myself, so that all is right so far. Now, then, send a messenger to C— at once, and serve the breakfast as usual!"

He went out, taking a very white face with him, and I sat down under the veranda which faced the sea and tried to think. I couldn't. I was only conscious of a whirl of dreadful feelings, in which sorrow, anger, suspicion, and determination were revolving together, without combining or remaining isolated long enough for any one to make a firm picture on my brain. I saw the families in twos and threes coming up from the sea to breakfast. I heard the voices of women and children, and the heavy steps of men as they passed me, but it was the sight of Mrs. Gerant that alone aroused me.

She stood before me in her sweeping, crêped black dress, and with the coquettish widow's head-dress as before, but she stood like a statue, and the sight of her made me my cool detective self in an instant. I rose and addressed her as lightly as if there was no dead friend lying in a near chamber, and as if no evil thoughts of her had tried for a place in my own mind a moment before.

"Have you found your ring?" I asked.

"Oh, no!"

"Nor recovered its loss either? Come, this will never do; come in to breakfast, and rather than see you so unlike yourself, I will buy you another the very first time I go up to town."

"I will never wear another ring as long as I live!" and as she said so, I looked at her band and saw that there was not a single gleam of gold or gem upon either of them.

We ate our breakfast as others will do when you and I are lying as cold as poor Markham was lying that morning. Ozer attended table like an automaton, with firmly closed lips and a rigid face, but he never once trusted himself to look at me until the last boarder left the table; then he paused and told me the boy had gone to C—.

"All right!" said I in return. "By the time the constable gets here most of your people will be out. I will wait the man's arrival on the veranda."

It seemed so strange to see and hear the ordinary life at the seaside going on around me, while I pictured that dread form in Markham's room. The chatter and bustle with which women accoutre their youngsters for some hours on the beach— the quarrel over wooden spade or bucket— the gossip of men about the morning paper or its fresh aspect of political life, all went on as if Markham was not dead, and I could have cursed the selfish lot, unheeding the fact of their ignorance of my sorrow or its cause.

In a little over an hour Senior-Constable Dunning, of C—, made his appearance, and was soon made acquainted with the sad state of affairs.

"You have made no search or examination?" he said.

"No; I waited for you, and now we will go in company— Ozer might as well accompany us as witness."

So I took the key out of my pocket, and then the touch of her handkerchief reminded me of the widow.

"Send the girl into Mrs. Gerant's room," I said; "it is just as well that we should know if she is there or not."

And we waited until Ozer told us that the widow's room was empty, then we went in, Dunning and Ozer following me when I had opened the door.

The sleeper still slept calmly and soundly, and it was with a very gentle hand that I drew up the Venetian, as if fearing to awaken him; but the first object my eyes rested on as the light fell upon the toilet was a note addressed to my own self! I was surprised, and, after showing it to my awestruck companions, I unfolded it with trembling fingers.

I had often seen Markham's writing, and had even at that moment his signature on the will in my pocket, and I did not doubt the lines I read were written by him, yet how strange they read to me!

My Dear Friend Sinclair,—

For a friend I am sure you are, though you little know, with all the confidence I place in you, what a secret sorrow is dragging me to my end. I am tired of it— even wealth will not purchase a forever-lost happiness, and I end my own sad life in hopes of a happier hereafter. May God bless you and forgive me.

John Markham.

Those were the words, and, as I handed them to Dunning for perusal, I looked at Markham's still, white face, and could not realize that he had ever even thought them. Still, as I recalled his strange, melancholy words among the rocks, and his unaccountable dread of the previous night, and the very words he said to me, I did not for one second doubt that the temptation to self-destruction was on him even as he said them.

I told the two men standing by the bed what had passed, and I repeated the words.

"'I feel strangely depressed. You know how cold and wild it looked out at sea a little ago. Well I feel as if a dreary sea, covered with mist and without a ray of sunlight upon it, was lying spread out before my mental vision tonight. I feel disinclined to lie down, and almost afraid to shut my eyes, as a child who has been frightened with ghost stories!' Ah I yes, it was a clear case of suicide."

"It must be poison, I think," observed Dunning. "Do you notice the queer smell in the room?"

"Yes, I have noticed it, and here is the cause." I had turned down the bed-clothes from poor Markham's shoulders, and picked up a little phial that might have dropped from the clenched fingers that lay upon his breast. It is the smell of bitter almonds, and there is yet enough of prussic acid in that to kill another man!"

As I said the words I was handing the phial to the constable, but my eyes were yet resting on those clenched fingers. What was that close to them gleaming on the white night-shirt? I felt every drop of blood first recede to my heart and then rush to my face, as I pointed it out to Dunning, and then lifted it and put it in my pocket. The room seemed to swim with me at first, and I sat down in silence, while Dunning examined more closely the position and surroundings of the corpse.

On a chair beside me were the clothes Markham had worn on the previous evening. Mechanically I searched the pockets and took note of the contents. The purse, notebook, handkerchief, knife, etc., I took due notes of, and in the trousers pocket was a bunch of keys and a bit of paper crushed close. All at once that reminded me that the poor fellow had showed me a bit of paper, and said something about an odd idea that he had written down upon the paper on his palm that he would not show me until morning. Had he pushed it into his pocket when I left the room, and was this it? I opened it and read in pencil—

"I can't get it out of my head, Sinclair, that this pseudo-widow, a Mrs. Gerant, is no other than my cousin Jack's wicked Charlotte Brayler."

"Charlotte Brayler!" Ah! How plain it was to me now. The initials on the handkerchief, my find near the hand of my dead friend, the woman's terrible agitation on the beach, were all as plain to me as printed words. Oh! The wretch, abandoned to the very will of the evil one, how I hated her! How I gloried in the certainty of punishing her for the cruel deed she had done, and all in vain had done, for the dead man's will was safe in my friendly pocket-book.

Our consultation was short in that sad chamber, and when we emerged and re-locked the door it was left in charge of Dunning, while I went to telegraph for Jack Markham. I was not afraid of losing the widow with whom I promised myself such cruel delight as the cat enjoys with the poor mouse within its sharp claws; and, besides, she was not far away, for, attired to kill and once more with a colour in, or on, her cheeks, Mrs. Gerant was sauntering up the grassy street.

"Are you going for a walk?" she asked, with one of her bewitching smiles.

"No; only up to the office to send a telegram."

"How odd. So am I. Let us go together."

"I shall be delighted, and all the more so as I see you have got over your loss. I suppose I cannot congratulate you on having recovered the ring?"

"Alas! no."

"Well, never mind; you know I promised you another one, and I will certainly keep my word."

"You are too kind; but I could not accept such a present from a gentleman."

"I am sure you will not refuse to accept one from me; but here we are at the office— can I send your telegram for you?"

"Oh, no thank you; I am in no hurry; it will be quite time enough when, yours is dispatched."

"Thanks."

There was a table, with forms and pen and ink for the use of the public in the passage outside the delivery-window, and on a form I wrote first a message to the coroner, and then another to our Flinders Lane office. The next I paused a little over, for it was intended to summon Jack Markham. How should I word it? "Come at once— a very serious matter," was at last all I wrote, with my own signature and the address attached. This I addressed to the hotel in town at which he had hinted a possibility of staying for a day or two before going up to Markham's station.

With the three in my hand I went, not to the window, but to a door which opened directly into the office. The young operator was sitting at his desk, coolly reading the morning paper, and he looked rather surprised as I walked so unceremoniously into his private room, but he got no time to comment ere I spoke.

"I am a detective," I said, shortly, as I laid my card on the desk before him, "and I want these three telegrams sent at once. There is a lady waiting outside also to send one, and in the interests of justice it is necessary for me to know what, and to whom, she telegraphs. Copy her message and pass it through the window to me as a receipt, but do not forward the message unless I say 'all right' as you give it me— do you understand?"

He had read my messages and looked at me, as he replied, "I quite understand. Is it murder, do you think?"

"Hush! I cannot pass an opinion now," and I went out to Mrs. Gerant.

She was leaning against the low fence, and playing idly with a spray of woodbine that clambered over it. Who ever could have supposed that the well-got-up face and form belonged to a creature whose deeds made a strong man shudder only to think of, or that under those folds of silk and crepe beat a heart that held all the unbending cruelty of a tiger? She turned with a smile as she heard me, a smile which deepened as I hoped I had not detained her too long.

"Oh, dear, no; you have not detained me at all; see, I have only to hand it in, and the matter is disposed of."

She held out a folded form as she went to the window and passed it in.

"Do you wait for a reply?" I asked.

"Oh, no. Do you?"

"No, my reply will be sent to Ozer's."

"Your receipt, sir."

It was the telegraph clerk who spoke, as he pushed me a paper. I read the words, they were simple, but damning as additional evidence against this wretch.

THE BUSINESS IS CONCLUDED— expect FURTHER NEWS.

That was all, with the address, "John Markham, Esq., Cleal's Hotel."

I lifted my eyes to the young man and said, "All right," tearing the paper into shreds as I did so, and turned away to walk again by the widow's side.

"Surely a receipt for a telegram sent is not necessary?" she said.

"Oh no, that was another matter which, in the prospect of a walk with you, I had quite forgotten,"

"How well you flatter!"

"Flattery would be impossible where Mrs. Gerant is concerned."

"If you do not talk sense, I shall not walk with you."

"Will it be considered sense if I ask you to go out boating with me? It is a charming morning, and I know you are fond of the water."

"Oh! I shall be delighted. Of all things in the world at this moment, I should enjoy going far out to sea, and leaving behind me the troubles of the hateful land!"

"Then we will go; but there are troubles we can never leave behind us, they follow and cling to us until our hearts have throbbed their last beat."

"You must mean sins, and not troubles," she said in a low tone, while she looked half fearfully in my face.

"I mean the memory of our sins; as for the sins themselves, we know that they may be forgiven us, but the memory of them can never leave us for all that."

"How strangely you talk. One would think you must have an awful bad conscience."

"My conscience is not a blank," I said; "but, thank God, there are no letters writ in blood upon it."

"You terrify me!" she cried, drawing from me in alarm. "What has got into your head this morning?"

I laughed out loud, a laugh that sounded awful in my own ears, but seemed to reassure my companion.

"The fact is, I have been reading a tragedy," I said, and it has impressed itself strongly on my mind. Come, here is a boat; step in, and I will work the abnormal gloom out of my system."

"For goodness sake do!" she exclaimed, as she stepped into the boat. "And if I was you I should cease to read sensational stories, as they affect you so. How lovely this is! How calm, and cool, and pleasant! I should like to go on and on, and never stop until there was nothing to be seen but water and sky for ever and ever."

"Talk of sensation, if that's not a strong touch of it, I give up. What? Row on and on and never stop? You could not live without food and water; besides there are such things as storms, and they are not pleasant things to encounter in a cockleshell of a boat."

"Well, one could but die."

A sigh accompanied the words, which were dreamy, and said more to herself than to me, I thought.

"True; and drowning is said not to be an unpleasant death, and, at all events, it is preferable to hanging. But look at that ship, Mrs. Gerant. If you were fortunate enough to be on board of her, you might go on and on as you wished, and with a fair chance of keeping above water."

"I would give a fortune, if I possessed it, to be a lawful passenger on board of her this moment."

I watched the wretched woman as she sat with clasped hands gazing at the fine vessel that, under a cloud of white canvas, was making her way out to the open sea. How well I guessed her feelings! Before her mental vision lay the dead face of her victim, whom she yet supposed undiscovered, yet dreaded to hear tidings of. I knew that, and was glad of it, and I knew also that she would truly give all the gold she had sinned for to be safe from justice on board that white-winged ship.

I was resting on the oars as she turned her haggard face to me and asked suddenly, "How far are we from Ozer's now!"

"Ozer's? A very short distance; why you can see its white walls distinctly— so distinctly that I can even trace the window of my friend Markham's bedroom. By-the-by, I wonder why he has not made his appearance yet?"

I was watching her closely, but she dare not lift her eyes to mine. I saw the blood recede from her lips, and her fingers clench into each other as she was saying to herself, "It is coming! For your life be calm, and do not betray yourself!"

"Is the gentleman not up yet? Lazy fellow; and at the seaside, too! I would teach him early rising if I were you."

The heartless woman! I could have throttled her as she sat smiling her false, cruel lips at me, and showing her white teeth like a treacherous dog! As it was I seized the oars and rowed hard, until the shore was so near that I could see the sand at the bottom, and the fish darting terrified away from my strokes. I saw that she was getting alarmed again, but she said no word until I had headed the boat toward the bathing-boxes.

"You cannot land there," she said, "at least without wetting your feet."

"Oh, yes, I can; by stepping on those low rocks we can land without a drop touching your shoe."

"But the boat?"

"Will be safe enough— see, there is the owner coming down from the pier to meet us."

"But why not go to the ordinary landing place?" she persisted, still looking at me with an expression of combined fear and doubt.

"Because I want to look for your ring— this is the spot where you missed it; just here. Suppose I should find it just here?"

I stared into her face as I asked the question, and I saw that she was in mortal dread. She drew back a little, and I could read her thoughts as plainly as though she had spoken them, but she said nothing.

"No, I am not mad, really; I am as sane as you."

My fingers were on the ring, and I drew it from my pocket and held it before her frightened eyes so that the sun sparkled upon the diamond cross.

"I told you I should find it. Listen! I can hear your heart beat, for you guess that I found it on the body of your victim. You are a fiend! If you had fifty lives I would hunt them down to avenge the one you slew."

"Oh God!" she chokingly gasped; "who are you?"

"I am a policeman," I cried, "and I arrest you, Charlotte Brayler, for the murder of my friend, John Markham."

She stared at me, and grew rigid, but made no single movement. Her great eyes actually seemed to lose light and grow stony and glazed. I thought the shock had killed her, and I put out my hand to prevent her from falling, but the touch seemed to bring back life and speech, for she drew a hard breath, and held out her wrists for the handcuffs.

"Now it is all over," she said, "and you can take me where you please, but from this moment to the hour of my death I will never open my lips again." You will read how she kept her word.

"You go on to Ozer's and I will follow you," I said, and she walked on stiffly, without looking to the right or left, her hands crossed over each other, and the handcuffs gleaming in the sunlight. She made no effort to cover them, nor did I even offer to do so, as I would undoubtedly have done if there had been the slightest doubt of her guilt on my mind.

Before I even came to Ozer's I could see that the awful news had leaked out, and there was quite a commotion about the premises. Men, and women too, were under the veranda, and groups here and there on the road in front of the house, and I saw the well-known uniform on two men standing at the door.

Every eye was turned upon the prisoner as I got closer to her and made straight for the house. There were muttered curses and clenched fists among the brown fishermen, and expletives uttered by motherly looking women that must have been hard to bear by the wretched murderess, but she did not seem either to see or hear, only looked once anxiously up toward the railway station and around her on the veranda. One of our men handed me two telegrams as I gave the woman in charge, so, as I read them, I knew that the denouement was not far off.

"The coroner will be down at two o'clock," I said, "so you need not remove the prisoner from the house, as the inquest will be held here. Take her inside, and do not leave her side for one moment."

"Where will we put her?" one of the constables inquired. "The man of the house has locked every private room in the place except— "

"Take her there, then. You may take off the handcuffs now that she is under cover."

My second telegram was from John Markham the living. He was coming down by the nearly due train, and I went to meet him. How would this man face the deed he had undoubtedly sanctioned? How meet the disappointment that was in store for him! My hope was to keep my suspicions of him entirely unknown to him until I was in a position to arrest him as an accessory, which I trusted to be able to do when the accomplices met.

The train duly arrived, and from a first-class smoking carriage John Markham alighted. From my chosen position at the window of the waiting room I saw how white his face was, and how his hand trembled as he tried to open the carriage door, but his face brightened a little as he saw me approaching.

"What has happened?" he asked, quickly. "Something terribly wrong; I see it in your face. It is my cousin, I know. Oh, my God, what a fool I have been!"

As he cried out these words he dropped on a seat and hid his face in both hands. What did the man mean? What dodge was he up to? What plan had he laid? I wondered all this, but I said nothing, hoping that in his impatience he would give me some clue to work upon.

"I guess only too truly," he said, again lifting his white face, "something has happened poor John; what is it?"

"How did you know anything had happened to your cousin?" I asked, with a sneering lip I could not hide. "Have you heard anything?"

"Oh, no! How could I hear anything? It is not two hours since I got your telegram; but I had an awful dream last night about poor John."

"Ay? Dreams are strange things. Your cousin is indeed dead."

"Oh dear, oh dear! Was it sudden? Was it an accident?"

"It was murder," I said, "and the murderer is arrested."

He had not expected this, and he staggered as we were leaving the station for the road.

"Murdered? Heaven above, you are not serious?"

"I am quite serious— so serious that I shall not eat or sleep in peace till I see John Markham's murderers suffer death for their crime."

"Murderers!" he gasped.

"Yes, the woman had doubtless an accomplice, whom it will be our delight to discover."

"I— I don't understand you. Why do you look at me so? You do not think that I poisoned my cousin, do you?"

Ha! He had let out his knowledge that it was poison, but I did not let on that I noticed the admission.

"I know it was not you, of course, since the woman is arrested, but you might indeed have been suspected had not this been so."

"Why!"

"Because you have so much to gain by his death."

He was beginning to suspect that I knew too much, and looked at me in awful silence.

"As yet, however, I do not think that any one is aware of that fact but me," I went on, "but of course I shall give my evidence at the inquest."

"Evidence! Not of that?"

"Not of what?"

"Of— of me being heir to my uncle's property in case of John's death?"

"Of course, why should I not? Every tithe bearing on the affair will be valuable as a due to this creature's accomplice. By-the-by, you have not yet asked who the wretch is?"

"Oh, mercy, mercy, don't speak of her, the cruel-hearted animal! Was it a love affair, or what?"

"No, it was not a love affair, from what I know it was rather an affair of hate; but they shall pay dearly for it, I swear."

I saw he could not bear much more; great drops were standing on his face, and the light bag he carried seemed a very burden to him. There was an hotel close at hand, and he paused and turned toward it.

"I am ill," he said, "I will get a glass of spirits," and I followed him to the door, for I knew he would need all the stimulant he could get to face what was before him.

"Now I feel better," he said, as he joined me again. "Tell me all about it while I can listen."

"There is little to tell. I discovered your cousin dead in bed this morning, and the woman has been arrested for the murder. The inquest is to be held in an hour, and you will hear all the evidence. Better wait till then."

"But— about me? You won't say anything about me inheriting, will you?"

"Why?"

"Don't you see how suspicious it will look? An accomplice is suspected, you say, and they might think I had some hand in it."

"How could you? You know nothing of this woman! Why, you are only in the colony a day or two, how could you know anything of her? She didn't come to Ozer's until the evening after you— how could you know her?"

"True, but I do not like my name being brought in. See!" he added, as he stopped short and looked me doubtfully in the face. "I don't know you at all, but money will hurt no man. I will give you a thousand pounds to say nothing of your knowledge about my inheriting."

"If I believed that you had any hand in the crime, tens of thousands should not seal my lips; if you are innocent, you need not fear my evidence."

"True, perhaps I am silly to think so seriously of so slight a matter. What a number of people there are about Ozer's!"

"Yes, and there is not one of them but would like to have a hand in lynching the woman you do not know."

He looked at me furtively, and I could guess what terribly opposing thoughts were battling in his brain. Why should he fear? He had no hand in the deed, and he knew that the lost woman would lay down her life for him. It was for her interest, as well as his own, that the deed was done; and if she were only true to him, all would be well.

But she was arrested, and that had never been contemplated. He was afraid to ask in what way she had allowed suspicion to fall upon her even since she had sent him the telegram so shortly before. But, anyhow, it all turned on that one thing— would she be only true to him?

I led the way to the dead man's room, and opened the door to admit Markham. He had not expected the double ordeal he had to undergo, for the prisoner was there guarded by two constables who sat beside her. The blind was down and the light was but dim, so that as we entered from the bright sunlight without objects at first were barely distinguishable.

Of course the woman was unaware of the identity of my companion, but she had the advantage over him of expecting his arrival every moment, while he naturally concluded that, as she was arrested, she was in safe custody at the police station. She knew him the moment he entered, for I watched her closely, and he saw the uniforms of our men before I had locked the door behind him.

In comparison with any man under the same circumstances, what an admirable actor is woman! As his eyes turned from the constables to her there was not a muscle of her countenance trembled, while his eyes glared and he tried to shrink back upon me. In a moment, however, he gained strength from her look and drew himself up stiffly.

"It is so dim here that I cannot see," he said, addressing me. "Where is my poor cousin?"

"Here!" I answered, as I suddenly drew up the blind, and pointed to the bed, and, as the sunlight burst in upon the pale, rigid face of the corpse, the woman covered her face, and Markham stood gazing at the awful sight with an indescribable horror in his countenance.

"For mercy sake let me out of this room," he cried, as he turned away; "it is an awful sight— I cannot bear it."

"How does she bear it who did the deed?"

"Is that the woman? Oh, woman, how could you?"

At the question she dropped her hands from her white face, and looked straight into his eyes.

"Mrs. Gerant, alias Charlotte Brayler, I am about to ask you a question— but I warn you that your reply may be used against you in evidence— do you know this man?"

She had said she would not speak, but she did not know when she said that, wretched woman that she was, that her silence might militate against the safety of him she loved. She replied promptly—

"I never saw him in my life before."

"And you? Do you recognize the woman, Mr. Markham?"

"Your question is an insult, sir," and he turned to go from the room, but his limbs trembled under him.

"Stay," I said to him, "it is time that you should know your real position. I arrest you, John Markham, as an accomplice with Charlotte Brayler in the murder of your cousin."

As the handcuffs clicked upon his wrists, the woman succumbed to the strain upon her and fainted, while I led the stunned man, now my prisoner, to another room and to the charge of another constable.

The strange circumstances which followed during the next hour have remained to this day a subject for wonder in the locality and I cannot recall them without a vivid recollection of the bitter disappointment they occasioned me. The train by which the coroner was expected was nearly due, and I went down to meet it, so that I might have an opportunity of acquainting him myself with the circumstances on our way to Ozer's. I was in a great state of excitement, and greedily anxious for the committal of the woman and her accomplice for trial, and the moments I had to wait on the platform for the train seemed to be almost hours. At last, however, it did glide in, and, to my utter disappointment, brought no coroner.

"The inquest will have to be postponed," I thought to myself, as I turned moodily back again.

Ozer's was barely ten minutes walk from the railway station and quite visible as soon as I left the station gates, and if I live my present years over again I shall not forget my consternation at the sight and sounds which awaited me as I reached the road. From back and front of Ozer's one mass of flame mingled with black smoke was bursting and roaring and cracking, and shouts of fear were plainly to be heard from the terrified persons running hither and thither in their vain efforts to stay the flames.

The prisoners were my first thought, and I ran distractedly toward the scene. Among the noise of the fire and cries of the boarders and those whom curiosity had collected to hear the result of an inquest, I heard a woman's scream, as I fancied, proceeding from the room in which the body had been, and there as I approached it I saw two of our men, covered with sweat and with singed hair, making vain efforts to drag from the blazing room the body of poor Markham.

It was a terrible sight. As the flames burst through the burning window the men had to let go of the blanket in which they had wrapped the body, and it fell back into the fire.

"Flesh and blood can do no more," said Dunning, who was one of them, and was seriously singed. "Nothing can save him now!"

"In the name of Heaven, how has this happened?" I cried; "and where are the prisoners?"

"God only knows how it happened, and the prisoners have bolted. Seton and Myers are after the woman— she has headed for the sea," Dunning replied.

"You were in the room with her and the body," I said to the other man angrily. "How in the name of wonder did you lose sight of her?"

"I don't know; I couldn't tell if I was to get my discharge through it. We were both busy throwing water on the woman to recover her from the faint she was in when you left, when all at once a blaze burst up round the bed and through the floor at our very feet. The woman was insensible as we thought, and both Myers and I rushed to save the body, but only got it as far as the window, when we saw the door open and the woman gone. We followed to find the whole house in a blaze, and the woman running for the sea."

"And John Markham, the man I left in Seton's charge?"

"Gone, too, I expect, but I know nothing about it, and I am in great pain, for my hands are badly burned."

Nothing could now exist near the burning building, which was one mass of flames. It was wood throughout, even the roof being of shingles, and in an hour there was nothing left of Ozer's save three brick chimneys, surrounded by heaps of ashes and bits of charred wood. To this day that fire has never been accounted for, but it was known that Ozer was heavily insured, and there were people ready enough to declare that the fire was arranged for and intended before the discovery of the murder. One thing is certain, I heard with my own ears Ozer remark— "The loss is not so great to me after all, and I should never have been able to do any business after that murder in the house"— a suspicions remark under the circumstances.

Every inhabitant and being in the place had collected to the scene, and as I took my bitter disappointment through the crowd a hand was laid on my shoulder. I shook it off at first, for I was in no humour to talk, but the voice of a man made me stop as if I had been shot.

"I should like to know how I stand in this matter, Mr. Detective Sinclair."

It was John Markham, as cool and delighted over the result as I was upset and distracted.

"How you stand? You stand a villain, as you always were, and always will be to the end of the chapter."

"Actionable words, I should say, but I make allowances, as you are of course disappointed, and you make your living by these sort of things. I asked how I stand, meaning as to the arrest you put me under a little ago?"

"Of course you are under it yet," I said, shortly.

"To what purpose? I was accused of being an accomplice in the murder of a man whose body is totally destroyed. As I take it, it is impossible now to even prove that a murder was ever committed nor do I believe that there was."

"Look here!" I cried, "you think you have escaped, and that your ends are secured by the murder of your cousin, whose blood is on your head as surely as though you had yourself dropped the poison on his lips; but you are mistaken. In the sun of midday, in the darkness of night, that young man's face will be before you. When you lie down and when you rise his memory will haunt and curse you, but the gold you sinned for will not purchase change of scene to make you forget your sin, thank God for that."

His face changed again, and he shrank back from me.

"What do you mean? If you are alluding to my cousin's property, I cannot help that it reverts to me on his death, however much I may grieve for it."

"You do not grieve for it, and nothing reverts to you. You hear and understand? You have committed murder for nothing. I have in my pocket at this moment a duly signed and attested will of your cousin's, in which he leaves everything to his mother. Go out of my sight, wretch that you are! If I want you I can lay my hand on you easier than you think."

I left him and went down to the shore. All my plans had been mislaid in consequence of the fire, and he was right so far as the law was concerned. I could not even prove the murder of my poor young friend, but I knew that being foiled in his object of inheriting would be perhaps a more bitter punishment to one so devoid of conscience as he.

At the end of the pier a few fishermen were collected, staring out to sea, where, at a little distance, I saw a boat being rowed in by two men. As they neared us I recognized the two constables who had gone in pursuit of Charlotte Brayler. I don't know what I expected, but I saw that they were alone in the boat, and as they stood on the landing place, I waited for them to speak.

"It's all up," said Myers, as he turned his flushed face toward me.

"Has she escaped?"

He shook his head. "No, but by all that's talked of she deserved to escape for her pluck! I never before saw a woman that could swim like that."

"Tell me the story at once. Where is the prisoner?"

"Dead," was the answer. "You see that sail boat out there? Well, she was making for it, as sure as fate, when we got the boat, and thought to overtake her easily; but she sank as we were within fifty yards of her— went down like a stone."

"What's left of her will come in with the tide some morning," one man said stolidly; and it was true. Some days after the double tragedy a mutilated woman's body was found lying on the white beach, with its awful face turned up to the red morning sun. It was Charlotte Brayler, who had gone to receive sentence at the Great Bar for the murder at Ozer's.

In seeing and settling affairs connected with poor Markham's will in his mother's favour, I had a good deal of communication with the Markhams in England, but of Jack Markham, the traitor, no word ever again reached me.

____________________

11: Timid Soul

Richard Connell

1893-1949

Smith's Weekly (Sydney) 27 Aug 1938

Collier’s July 30 1938

Richard Connell is most famous for the endlessly reprinted novelette "The Most Dangerous Game", first published in Colliers magazine in 1924. He was predominantly a short story writer and journalist, and his stories, in a wide variety of genres, appeared in the "slicks" (the high paying glossy magazines such as Saturday Evening Post and Colliers) rather than the low paying pulps. He was also a successful screen writer.

MY war ended Easter morning, 1918, in a field near Le Cateau.

"Compound fracture, left femur; third-degree burns, chest and back; possible fracture of skull," I heard the old doctor say.

The young doctor bent over me.

"Another of those forty-hour fliers," he growled. "Sending these half-trained kids up against aces is plain murder."

I did not hear anything more for a long time.

WHEN I got back home everybody said I did not look like a man who had been shot down in flames. They said I looked fine. My firm gave me back my old job. I lasted four days. Work once easy I could not do at all now. Every little sound rasped my raw nerves. For hours I would cry. In camp and at the front I had been haunted by the fear of fear. Now all the old fears came back and brought with them new ones. I was afraid to live and afraid to die. A dozen doctors, a dozen cures, did me no good. I got worse.

Finally, as a last hope, my people sent me over to Kronzak to see Dr. Isaac Israel. All that most people know about Kronzak is that it gave Dr. Israel to the world. I found it one of those tiny free states tucked away in the mountains of mid-Europe, a contented little country, just poor enough to be left alone, just rich enough to be happy. His country was proud of Dr. Israel, its world-famous son. In a drowsy rural village, which had not changed in a century, lived this man who had changed the thought of the world. To him men from many lands brought their broken minds to be made whole again. Great doctors came, too, to sit at his feet and study his method. Dr. Israel lived in a modest farmhouse his grandfather had built. He was in his fifties then, a frail man with a beard already white. Care lines were etched deep in his sensitive face as if he had made the woes of all his patients his own. He had the wisest, gentlest eyes I ever saw.

THRICE a week I spent an hour in his old-fashioned study. It was not like going to a doctor at all. It was like having a quiet talk with a father who understood your doubts and despairs because he had felt them himself. It is not easy for a man to empty out the pockets of his soul. But his compassion and tolerance made it easier. Slowly I began to find myself.

I also began to find out something about him. He was selfless in his devotion to his science, and, though never physically strong, he drove himself relentlessly in his quest for the secret springs that make some men sinners and some saints. By day he saw his patients. In the village there were always a score or more of tortured men and women who had come to him for help. By night, he worked late on one of those thin, lucid books of his, which, in a hundred pages, said more of value to humanity that most men say in a lifetime. What little time he had left for a personal life was simply spent.

He had a garden and he loved it. I remember his childish pride when a pumpkin he had raised won a prize at the local fair. His other relaxation was to play the cello in a string quartet consisting of himself, his wife, his son and the village barber.

I had been his patient for three months when Erno Grodd came to the village. He caused a minor stir because he was a rarity, a native of Kronzak who had no regular work or fixed abode. Grodd was ragged, and he was weary from much wandering. The carpenter in whose house I lodged gave him food, a place to sleep, and a job counting shingles.

FROM my window I watched Grodd at work. He was thirty, but be moved like seventy. As he did his simple task slowly and badly, he made me think of a dog I once saw, part terrier, part mastiff, a scared and spiritless thing, with a head too big and a body too small, and eyes full of memories of past kicks and fears of future. ones. Now and again I stopped to chat with him.

He cringed away at first. But in time he came to trust me enough to talk a little. I found he had education without being educated. In his years of aimless drifting about the Continent he had stuffed his head with all he had heard in public-park forums, debates in hobo jungles, and speeches by street corner statesmen. This hodgepodge of ideas, superstitions, theories, political catchwords and prejudices lay in an undigested lump in his mind.

I put Grodd down as a misfit, pulled this way and that by indefinite dreams, and too infirm of purpose to make any of them a reality; as one of those weak and worried timid souls who let their lives dribble slowly from their slack grasp.

One day he surprised me. I forget what we were talking about, but I cannot forget how he spoke with a sudden flash of passion that made him, for a moment, seem to have some inner fire and force. He saw my amazed stare, went worm again and slunk away.

Next day Grodd tried to hang himself in the woodshed. Of course he bungled the job. He did not tie the knot tight enough. He fell and bruised his face and body and I found him, sobbing impotently, on the floor. Dr. Israel heard of this, and sent for Grodd. It was like him to try to help anyone in trouble.

Aweek later, out for an evening stroll, I saw the doctor weeding his bean patch, and slopped to ask him about Grodd.

"Is he mad?" I asked.

"He is but a step from madness," Dr. Israel told me gravely. "And he may take that step soon unless I can save him from it. The poor fellow is an emotional rather than a thoughtful type, and he lives in terror of the tigers he has locked in his heart. Perhaps I can show him how to let them out, one by one, and help him find a measure of peace. It may not be easy. I have never met a man with so profound a sense of inferiority as Erno Grodd. What causes it I cannot tell. It may lake months, years, to find out. But I intend to do so. I must make him believe in himself. I must."

"I HOPE you can help Grodd," I said. "It is good of you to try when you are so very busy and he is so very poor. I'm just wondering—"

"If I'll be repaid for my work," he finished for me. "Grodd will repay me," he said. "Not in money, maybe, but in some way. If I can turn a sick tramp into a useful citizen I'll ask no further fee. And I may learn something from his case. Grodd is worth studying. He is an extremist. No golden mean for Grodd. It is not in him to be just meek; he must be utterly, I might say violently, meek. Most men have at least a little self-esteem. Grodd has none.

"Sometimes a weak man is a strong man In reverse. That may be true of Grodd. He's at the bottom now. Perhaps I can turn him round and start him toward the top. Just suppose he had as much confidence in himself as he now has distrust. Suppose he felt as superior as he now feels inferior. Why, such a man could drove through to real greatness! And how terribly the world needs great men.... I think I can start him on a new path."

"Where will it lead to?" I said.

He shrugged his slender shoulders. "Ask me twenty years from now," he said.

Two months later I said goodbye to Dr. Israel. I was well again. I said goodbye to Erno Grodd, too. He was whistling at his work. I saw a change in him. His eyes were a little less afraid, his manner a shade more assured. I left him counting shingles and whistling the national anthem of his country.

IT was Easter morning, just twenty years after my crack-up and the cure that followed. I sat down in the breakfast room and glanced af the newspaper. I read:

DRASTIC PURGE IN KRONZAK

Among those driven from their homes was seventy-four-year-old Dr. Isaac Israel, the renowned psychologist. Soldiers dragged him from his bed, beat him, and marched him to the border. There they told him to get out of the country. They were acting under orders from Dictator, Erno Grodd.

_______________

12: The Plush String Bean

Richard Connell

Australian Women's Weekly, 26 Nov 1938

Collier’s, 3 April 1937

ANYONE who knew New York types did not need to ask Miss Kay DeLane where she lived; but, if that question was put to her, she replied, with just the right note of casualness, "Park Avenue."

Now Park Avenue is more than a street. It is a symbol, a goal and a story.

Like a good story it has a begining, a middle and an end. It starts, humbly as did some of its most gilded residents, where the Bowery stops, its cradle a welter of second hand shops and dubious beaneries, and plods uptown through a commonplace commercial canyon. In these early, unpromising stages it known, bluntly, as Fourth Avenue; but at 32nd Street, again like some denizens, it changes its name and its habits, dons a top hat, and becomes a social climber. It pushes onward through the faintly fashionable Thirties.

Finding its career blocked by the bulk of the Grand Central Terminal, it knifes its way through that massive pile, and swaggers on, sleek and opulent, through an enchanted realm of palaces and platinum penthouses, all with at least nine bathrooms and a copy of the Social Register.

To adorn the ladies who dwell in this Eldorado, a million oysters have given their pearls, a million minks their pelts, and an unascertained number of men their souls. Onward it promenades with that pride which traditionally precedes a fall until at 96th Street it stubs its toe and comes a cosmic cropper.

With dramatlc abruptness it goes downhill. Physically only a few feet, socially an eon of light years. Suddenly it becomes as unexclusive as germs, as democratic as death. It here that railroad trains, like monster metal moles, dart from their burrow, and the lullaby of babes born on this part of Park Avenue is the steel song of the 9.30 express to Buffalo.

Here fire escapes, hitherto as carefully concealed as family skeletons, zig-zag unashamedly across the dingy faces of reeking tenements.

In the street there is a snarl of smells and sounds. Gone are the glory and the glamor. The crushed avenue slinks on its dark, furtive way, till at last it sticks its tired head into the Harlem River and, sans mink and money, dies alone and unwept like some faded, forgotten dandy.

Fashion artists have created a Park Avenue type of young woman. She is phenomenally long of limb and has no more hips than a pencil. There is about her a sinuous, feline grace. She slinks. Her features may vary in detail, but her expression is always the same; a touch of hauteur, a trace of boredom, a hint of amusement at the foibles of the pigmy world at her feet, and a strong suggestion that she would rather be smart than bright, kind or good, in the order named.

Nature, that old aper of Art, has produced some, though not many, copies of this ideal. One of them was Miss Kay DeLane.

As she strolled through Waxwell's-on-Fifth that bright March morning, other feminine shoppers looked after her with interest and envy. Her mink coat, worn carelessly ajar, disclosed that beige velvet dress featured in the current style magazines. Her small pointed hat, with its pompon, gave her the air of a sophisticated brownie.

As she made her reisurely way through the jewellery section, she let her eyes linger on one of the new pieces, a midget watch, hedged with dwarf diamonds and set in a ring. So she did not see the dust grey Bedlington terrier or the leash which tethered it to its owner, and, tripping over the leash, she would have sprawled on the floor had she not been caught neatly by a pair of musclar arms.

"I'm so sorry," said the young man who owned the dog. "A store is no place for a dog. I do hope you're not hurt."

"Not at all," murmured Miss DeLane. Then her eyes widened with recognition. "I should watch my step, Mr. Farwell."

He smiled.

"Now where have we met?" he asked.

"At the Capitol, the Rivoli, the Strand—"

"Ah, so you're one of my public," he said.

"I've seen some of your pictures." She started to go.

"Wait," he cried. "Aren't you going to ask me for my autograph?"

"No," said Kay DeLane, "I have one."

"Really. I don't remember—"

"Oh, I sent to your studio for it. Pictures, complete with autograph,
ten cents."

"Now you're kidding a poor ham."

"Don't you think you'd better go so that the customers can get waited on?" said Kay DeLane. "Those girls at the perfume counter are goggling their eyes out at you."

"So they are. Well, let's go."

"Us?"

"In brief, you and I. Now, don't look so snooty. It's lunch time and I hate to eat alone."

"Sorry, Mr. Farwell," said Kay DeLane, "but I couldn't really."

"Why? I don't bite. Neither does Minnie."

She looked at her watch and shook her head.

"Now, look," he said, urgently, "if it's a matter of time, we can whisk across the street to Raoul's, have a drink, a fish and a talk and part friends, all in fifty minutes flat. Will you come?"

"Thank you, but—"

"I must talk to you."

"Must. Why must you?"

He took her her arm.

"Tell you at lunch," he said.

Not angrily, but firmly, she drew her arm away.

"Really, Mr. Farwell, "this is not a movie, you know," she said. "On the screen you may be the great lover and the darling of the drawing rooms, but to me you're just a tall young man whose dog I accidentally fell over."

"Please don't be sore at me," he said, humbly. "And it wasn't an accident."

"So you go round with a trained dog tripping up people for fun."

"Not for fun," he said. "And not people. Just you. I had to do it."

"Who said you had to do it?"

"If you'll come to lunch, I'll tell you," he said.

She looked back at him with steady eyes.

"Very well," she said. "I'll meet you at Raoul's at one."

"Why not come now?"

"I can't."

"Why?"

"Oh, some shopping I must do."

"Let me do it with you!"

"No," she said, and she said lt very positively. "You wait for me at Raoul's."

"You'll surely come?"

"Yes."

"That's a promise," he said. He raised his hat and went out of the store through a gantlet of worshipping eyes.

At Raoul's the decor is modernistic and the prices are fantastic. They had one saze-rac, and were having truite bleue, and chiffonade salad.

Eric Farwell was saying, "Can I help it if I was born with this face? We all get faces handed to us, and it's up to us to make the most— or the best—of them. Me, I never wanted to be an actor. I wanted to be an engineer—"

"What stopped you?" asked Kay DeLane.

"Fate," he said. "I'm walking down Park Avenue, minding my own business, when a beady-eyed little chap stops me and says, 'You're a perfect society type.' I said, 'What does that make you?' He said. 'A talent scout for Hollywood.' Well, if they want you they get you. When I came to I was a Balkan prince in a monkey-jacket, making love to a blonde I hated in a prop gondola In a phony Venice. That was three years ago. Since then I've worn out a dozen dress suits lolling around on sofas, making love to blondes— and I hate blondes, all of 'em. I'm glad you're a chestnut."

"Thank you," Kay said. "Now do tell me about yourself, Mr. Farwell."

He grinned.

"I have been blowing the old trumpet, haven't I?" he said. "But I want you to know about me. Do your people like actors?"

"We don't know any."

"I was afraid of that," said Eric, gloomily. "Are you a snob?"

"Yes."

"Does lt make any difference that I earn twice as much as the President of the United States?"

"I don't suppose he minds, but do you?"

"Probably not. And I don't care. I haven't fallen in love with him."

"You really shouldn't give any of that away, Mr. Farwell. Save it for your next picture."

"I'm being serious."

"You're being silly."

"GUESS I don't make love very well without a script to go by," he said. "It's a cinch to be a Great Lover on the screen. You always say just the right things, and the girl always gives you just the right answers. But it isn't so easy when you find yourself up against the real thing. Look here, will you please stop watching your watch and listen to me? I'm supposed to be making love to you."

"I'm listening," said Kay. "But I must keep an eye on the time. I've an appointment at two sharp."

"I'll go with you," declared Eric.

"It's for a massage."

"I'll wait outside."

"No. You mustn't. I mean it."

"What will you be doing for dinner?"

"Eating."

"With me?"

"No. I'm dining at home," said Kay.

"Must you?"

"Yes. It's Father's birthday."

"Well, while you're nibbling squab with Papa on Park Avenue, I'll be eating my heart out at the Lambs' Club," stated Eric. "How about to-morrow night, the night after, the night after that, or—"

"I have engagements."

"Would you rather break an engagement or a heart?" he inquired.

"You'll excuse me for asking, Mr. Farwell," Kay said, "but have you a slight case of squirrels in the penthouse?"

"Oh, I'm crazy," he said. "About you."

"What do you know about me?"

"That you're beautiful and—"

"Perhaps a gangster's sweetheart or the queen of the gipsies," she finished. "We met"— Kay consulted her watch—"exactly forty-six minutes and thirty-two seconds ago."

"I've known you for forty-six centuries and thirty-two years," said Eric.

Kay clapped her hands as one applauding.

"Now the next line," she said. He regarded her blankly.

"Oh, come now, you must know it," Kay said. "You've said it often enough— in 'One Night at Newport'; in 'Love on a Liner'; in all your pictures."

"What did I say?"

"I'll prompt you," Kay said. "It's either 'You're the girl of my dreams' or 'You remind me of my mother'."

"Laugh at me if you like," said Eric, soberly, "but the fact is I was going to say that you do remind me of somebody. No, not my mother. She died when I was two and I was brought up by my Aunt Julia—"

"So I remind you of an aunt," said Kay. "That's not very romantic."

"You're not the least bit like Aunt Julia," said Eric. "It's somebody else."

"Who?"

"I don't know. I Just plain don't know," he replied. "I'm all confused and baffled about it. The instant I saw you I had a sense I'd known you sometime, somewhere. And I'd loved you then, too. Maybe it was in a dream. Or maybe I'm cuckoo."

"That's perfectly possible," said Kay. "I had a feeling I'd met you; but of course it came from seeing you on the screen. But you couldn't have seen me on the screen, or any-where else. You're mixing me up with somebody else."

He shook his head.

"I couldn't do that," he said.

"You stars must meet so many girls," said Kay. "You really should install a filing system."

"I do meet a lot of girls," he admitted. "It's all part of the game. But I never fell for any of them. I never even tottered a little. I was waiting for you."

Kay DeLane stood up suddenly.

"Stop!" she cried. Her face had gone pale and her voice was trembling.

"Why, what's the matter?" queried Eric.

"I'm going. Thank you for lunch. Good-bye."

"When am I going to see you again?"

"Not ever."

"I must."

"You mustn't."

Quickly she turned and ran from the restaurant.

KAY went into that marble and chromium temple which houses the Waxwell store, through the employees' entrance, pausing to punch the time clock. She hurried to the top floor and entered the models' dressing room. Other girls, tall, slender, pretty like her-self, were there, undressing and dressing. Mrs. Kohler, manager ol the models, flitted about like a plump black carrier pigeon that has lost its message. She flew at Kay.

"You're late, DeLane," she snapped.

"Sorry."

"Did you go to lunch in that coal and dress?" demanded Mrs. Kohler suspiciously.

"As if I would," replied Kay. "I know the rules."

She took off the fur coat and began to take off the dress.

"You're due on the third floor to model negligees," Mrs. Kohler told her. "Get a wiggle on."

"I'm hurrying," said Kay.

AT HIS window on Park Avenue an old man sat watching the trains go by. He lived on that part of Park they don't write stories about. His tenement window was not many feet from the tracks. Once he had been a giant, but now he was shrunken and bent, and the gnarled hand which had once pulled the throttle of the crack Chicago express could pull nothing now. He glanced at the watch on a peg beside his wheel chair, the thick, old-fashioned watch so prized by veteran railroad men.

"Twenty-two past six," he muttered. "No. 32 is late again."

A minute later No. 32 roared past, and the blue-denimed engineer waved his cap at old Martin Delaney, who sat all day by his window, watching the trains go by.

A sound at the door made his face brighten. His daughter came into the little flat, a big bag of groceries in her arms.

"Hello, Katie, darlin'," he called out.

"Hello, Dad. How are you feeling to-night?"

"I can't complain."

"You mean you don't complain," she said.

"Sure, a daughter like you makes rheumatism a pleasure," he said.

"I brought you a little birthday present," she said. She handed him an emerald-green necktie.

"It's beautiful," he said. "But, Katie, you shouldn't spend money on me. It's you that needs things to wear."

"Why, I have a whole storeful of the most expensive clothes to wear," she said.

"And hardly a rag you can call your own," said her father.

They ate in the neat kitchen. Few dining-rooms are found in those dreary reaches of Park, north of 96.

"They have a new engineer on No. 6," Martin Delaney said. "It's Bert Detzer that was a cub fireman in my time. Old 17 was hauling a new Pullman car, called the 'Galsworthy.' Now, where do they get those names, I wonder? I saw a robin this morning and— why, Katie dear, you're not eating. Is it sick you are?"

"I'm not hungry," she said listlessly.

"When a Delaney can't eat, that's news," observed her father. 'Tell me, now, has that fat cat of Kohler woman been faulting you?"

"No more than usual."

She heaped more cabbage onto her plate and as she did so she sighed.

"I hope he's a railroad man," said her father.

"What? Who?"

"That robin told me that spring is here," said Martin Delaney. "It's the right and proper season for a girl to fall In love."

"Who said I was in love?"

"I know the signs," he replied. "It's a day I've been dreading— and hoping for, Katie."

He set down his coffee cup.

"He'll be a decent young fellow, I know," Martin Delaney said. "You're no fool about people, having worked so long in a hard world to take care of me. Would you know now, is he making enough to get married on?"

"Three thousand a week."

Her father laughed.

"It's moonshine you're talking," he said. "Why, the president of the road doesn't make that much."

"Eric Farwell does."

"Oho, so it's him, is it?" chaaJ Martin Delaney. "Well, there's no kind of harm in that, I guess. When I was a young extra fireman I was struck on Lillian Russell, myself. I kept her picture on the wall of the cab. All Delaneys are romantic, it's  their nature. But the day I met your mother I tore that picture to bits, and you'll be doing the same, I'm thinking, when the right l comes along."

"Suppose Eric is the right man

"IT takes more supposing than I can do on a full stomach," her father replied. "Why should it be him any more than one I of those other picture lads? They're all tall and handsome, with a quick tongue in their heads and a hefty right hook when needed. To me they're as alike as so many bananas."

"Not to me," Katie said. "Eric is the one— and I don't know why. The very first time I saw him in a picture, I seemed to know he was the one. Do I sound silly?"

"You do so," said her father. "And it's not like you to talk nonsense. It's the spring in the air that makes you so. Now, eat your cabbage like a good girl. That's real. He's nothing but a spook on a sheet."

"I guess you're right," Katie said slowly. "It's a waste of time to wish for the moon."

When they had finished their supper Martin Delaney propelled his wheel-chair back to his Park Avenue window, and watched the night trains go by. Katie washed the dishes, and then did the family laundry in the bathtub.

SHE had five o'clock feet. She needed no clock to tell her that she must walk for thirty more purgatorial minutes about the sportswear department in her tight riding boots and extremely smart tan riding habit.

"Come to life, DeLane," Mrs. Kohler called out to her. "You've been moping all week. If you want to sit down, sit on the horse."

Kay climbed into the saddle of the wooden steed which stood in the corner of the sports shop, and was used to demonstrate the perfect fit of Waxwell riding breeches.

"Hello, Godiva," said a voice. It startled her almost as much as if the wooden horse had neighed. She looked down and saw Eric Farwell patting the horse's pine flank.

"Please go away," she said in a low voice.

"I will not," he said. "I've been looking for you all week. Spent a fortune in telephone calls. Tramped Park Avenue for hours. No luck— till now."

"Why did you look for me here?" Kay asked.

"I wasn't looking for you here," he replied. "I came here to buy a raincoat for Minnie."

He indicated the Bedlington which was contentedly nibbling the horse's painted hoof.

"I'd buy that habit you have on, if I were you," he said. "It fits you well, and you look lovely In it. Where do you ride?"

"England," said Kay. "I'm going there to-morrow."

"I'm going back to California to-morrow myself," he said. "There's grand riding there, too."

"So I've heard."

"Why don't you come to California?"

"Why don't you let me alone?"

"Oh, come off your high horse, literally and figuratively," he said. "Please let me talk to you."

"What do you want to say?"

"Lots of things," he answered. "But I can't shout 'em to a lady on horseback. So suppose you decide to buy that habit you have on, get dressed and meet me in the cocktail lounge at Raoul's. How does that appeal to you?"

"A splendid idea."

"I'll be waiting," he said, and turned away.

At closing time Kay took off the tan habit, escaped from the boots, and put on her old street suit. But she did not go to Raoul's. With tight lips and a set face she hurried past it, and swung aboard an up-town bus.

"And how's my Katie?" her father greeted her when she came into their flat.

"Never better," she replied.

"It's too bad you weren't here a minute ago when No. 431 went by," Martin Delaney said. "In the diner was the fattest man I ever saw, eating spaghetti. It got caught in his chins—"

"Now what on earth ls the matter with me?" broke In Katie. "I was going to get spaghetti for supper to-night and I forgot all about it."

"Ah, well," observed her father, "when the air is full of spring, young folks don't think of spaghetti."

"I'll go right out and do the marketing," she said. "You must be terribly hungry."

"Only hungry enough to eat a mess of fried coupling pins."

"I'll hurry."

Katie Delaney was hurrying out of the tenement when she bumped into a man who was hurrying in. For a moment they stood staring at each other. Then he said, excitedly:

"It's you! It really is you!"

"Yes, it's me. How did you know I lived here?"

"I didn't," said Eric Farwell. "Do you?"

"I do. And what's more, I've lived here all my life."

"Then I was right," he cried, triumphantly. "It came to me while I was waiting for you. It was only a vague hunch but I had to follow it up—"

"What on earth are you talking about?" asked Katie.

"You're Piggy," he said. "Little Piggy Delaney."

She was startled.

"Why, yes," she said, "they did call me Piggy when I was a kid. But how did you know?"

"Because," he said, "I gave you the name myself. You wore pigtails and I used to pull them. Look at me."

In the hall's dim light she studied his face.

"Look hard," he said, "and you'll know me."

In a faint voice she said: "You can't be Skinny Farrell."

"Oh, yes, I can be," he said. "I am, or at least I was, the gangling, dirty-faced kid that lived next door to you, and hero-worshipped your father and wanted to be a railroad man like him. I played in the streets with you, and we danced together to the hurdy-gurdy, and I was in love with you and I carved our initials on the door of Tony Pizzelli's coal cellar—"

"I remember."

"I cried the day I moved away," he went on. "So did you. Well, lots of things have happened to me since then, but I've never forgotten you— in my heart. That's why I knew you— and yet didn't know you— when I saw you in the store that day. My mind could not place you, but my heart remembered."

"I— I guess I have changed some since I was six," she got out.

"A little," he laughed. Then he asked, suddenly anxious, "Why is your name changed? Are you married?"

"I'm not a wife," she said. "I'm a fraud. I was out of a job, and needed one. They advertised for models at Waxwell's— only society girls need apply— and, well, somehow Kay DeLane sounded farther down Park Avenue than Katie Delaney—"

"Just as Eric Farwell suggests a society type a bit better than Eddie Farrell," he said. "At least my studio seemed to think so. I'm afraid, Katie, we're a couple of frauds, you and I."

"Snobs, too."

" 'Snobs' is the word for us," he said cheerfully.

"You're not a perfect snob."

"Why?"

"If you were," she said, "you'd never have come back to the old neighborhood."

"I'd go anywhere to find you again," he said.

"I didn't see you following me," she said.

"I didn't follow you," he said, "I followed my heart. I was sitting there in Raoul's, sipping my sidecar, and walting for you, and thinking, 'That lovely creature can't be my Piggy, and yet she looks just the way I always dreamed Piggy would look when she grew up.' Then a voice said, 'It's Piggy you've always loved—' "

"Whose voice?"

"My own. And it also said, 'Find Piggy.' So there was only one thing to do, and that was to look for her, starting at the last place I saw her, right here in this very hall. We said good-bye here. Do you remember?"

She looked away from him.

"A girl never forgets her first kiss," she said.

"Neither does a boy," he said. He took her in his arms.

"Katie," he whispered, "I love—" The thunder of a passing train filled the hallway.

"I couldn't hear a word you said," said Katie.

"But you got the general idea, didn't you?"

"Perfectly."

"What do you think of it?"

"I think I'm in love with you," she began.

Another train smothered her words; but there are times when words do not matter much, anyhow.

_____________________

13: I've Met You Before

Richard Connell

Australian Women's Weekly, 2 Feb 1935

Collier’s, 28 Oct 1933

NOW that, at last, he was alone with her, it came to young Lumsden Lambert, disconcertingly, that a cow-barn, modern and model though it may be, is not the ideal spot to propose to the most radiant and wonderful girl in the world. True, there was about the cowery at Willowmere Farm an aura of domesticity and a certain cosy privacy, but, it lacked, somehow, the romantic overtones of the orchid conservatory or the willow-fringed lotus-pond. He saw that now, too late. How dumb, he thought, and yet how like him to choose such a setting for the big scene of his life. Still, there they were, together, and the imperious moment had struck when he must tell Constance Holt in a few simple but burning phrases that his emotional state in regard to her had reached the boiling point. That, for some years now, he had been simmering, surely she must be aware, for she was accustomed to men; indeed, since her debut four years before she had compiled the best batting average in the Junior League.

A bulge of optimism made him take it as a favorable omen that Connie had let him manoeuvre her away from her other house-party guests, and had let him steer her towards the dairy. She could hardly ascribe his wish to go there to a sudden passion for cows, and she knew that already that day he had been escorted on a tour of the cowery, sheepery, piggery, duckery and stables by that ardent gentleman-farmer, her father. Shyly he stole a look at her, and he thought he saw something in her eyes, something benign and beckoning.

He decided on a gradual approach.

"Nice cow, nice cow," he murmured, patting a ruby snout.

"Look out." cried Connie. "That's Prester John."

Lumsden backed away gingerly. "A bull, I presume," he said.

"He's won tons of blue ribbons," said Connie, "but he's a vicious old rascal."

From a safe distance Lumsden said, "Nice bull, nice bull," to show her he was fond of animals.

"He's a jersey " said Connie. "Those beige babies are his wives. In the next room live the Guernseys—"

Lumsden did not relish the zoological turn the conversation was taking. He felt an exigent desire to get down to the business in hand, and he drew in his breath and gathered himself like a diver about to do a one-and-a-half from the highest springboard. Prester John gave a bovine grunt and Lumsden read contempt in his eyes. An abrupt, frigid wave of unworthiness numbed Lumsden's tongue.

Even as a drowning man is supposed to see a lightning panorama of his life, there shot, with horrid clarity, through Lumsden Lambert's mind a five-reel film in which he was hardly the hero. Light is swift, but it is a snail com-pared to thought.

In the time it took the aristocratic kine to munch thrice on their cuds, he had beheld himself groping and stumbling through twenty-six years of unadventurous existence, a weedy, gawky sort of bird, liberally eared, meagrely chinned, a duffer at sports, earning an honest if not pretty penny as a very small executive in a very large bank, of decent enough family and fairish prospects, and not a bad fish, really, but not good enough, not nearly good enough for the most marvellous girl who ever stood beside a fellow in a model cow-barn.

HE looked at her, and saw an angel, and his impulse was to grasp her and kiss her with such vigorous sincerity that no words would be necessary to convey to her the idea that their next step would involve orange blossoms and rings; but he was checked by the thought that nowadays a kiss leads nowhere. Time was when a well-placed, well-executed kiss meant an engagement. In these less formal times, he knew, it meant merely a fresh coat of lipstick. He frowned, again filled his chest with the warm, redolent air, and tensed what muscles he had.

"Why, Lummy," exclaimed Connie, "how wild and red you look!"

Her voice deflated him.

"Sorry." he gulped. "I— that is— I always look wild and red in cow barns.''

"Shall we buzz back to the house and sink a drink?" she asked.

"Oh, no. Absolutely not," he said, hastily. "I don't mind looking wild and red, that is, if you don't mind."

"I don't mind, Lummy."

"Thanks. That is, thanks."

"But I suppose I should go to the house and play the genial hostess," Connie said. "Some more guests are due from New York any minute now."

"Please, don't go," said Lummy, huskily.

"I didn't know you cared for cows," she said.

"I don't," he said earnestly. "I don't mind cows, but care for them, no. Connie, frankly, I don't want to stay here to be near the cows—"

He looked at her with eyes full of yearning and desperation. She smiled back at him and said, softly,

"Then why do you want to stay here, Lummy?"

"Something I want to talk to you about." he said.

"What?"

"You," he said, paused, and finished, "and me, too, in a sense."

Why he added "in a sense" he did not know. He was in a state where any words might happen.

"What about me?" Connie asked. "And you, too— in a sense?"

Her eyes were kind enough.

"Here's the story," he began in brisk, businesslike tones. The inspiration had come to him that he could now use his talent for selling bonds; but he caught the eye of Prester John and saw there mockery and scorn, and his selling technique got out of control and boomeranged. He found his brakeless tongue blurting:

"Oh, Connie, I'm such a boob. I'm not what I want to be at all. Some-times when I'm dreaming I see the man I'd like to be. He's tall, dark, hand-some, romantic, a fine athlete, a sports-man, a man who has done thrilling things— in fact, he's just about every-thing I'm not. I've dreamed about this imaginary me so much he's almost real. But I seem to stay the same— floppy ears, duck-fuzz for hair, comic legs, plodding along in a stuffy sort of way, just a human rabbit. I hate what I am. Even my name— Lummy— is foolish—"

"But, Lummy," said Connie, "I know all about you."

He glowered at the bull.

"Then there's no hope for me, I guess," he said.

"Hope for what?"

"Oh, Connie," he burst out, miserably, "you know."

"Tell me."

At this point he knew he should have thundered, "I love you," and gone into a cuddle, but he hesitated, and was lost. Someone was opening the barn door. It was Slater, the butler.

"Beg pardon, Miss Constance," Slater said, "but a gentleman just arrived by motor and asked me to take him to you immediately."

"What's his name?" asked Connie.

Another figure loomed in the door-way. The butler struck a professional pose.

"Captain Stephen Warrington," he announced.

An exceptionally tall, wide and elegantly attired man swooped down on Connie, took her in his arms and kissed her soundly.

"Darling," he breathed.

"Oh, Stephen darling, I'm so glad you've come," said Connie.

EVERYBODY kisses everybody else, nowadays, Lummy knew, and everybody calls everybody else "darling"; but, even so, a chill of dismay iced his blood. There was something about the way the captain kissed that was so sure and so loud.

"Stephen," said Connie, "I want you to meet Lummy Lambert."

Warrington turned. Handsome he undoubtedly was, with a strong, out-door face, blue-black hair, and clear, penetrating eyes. He gripped Lummy's fingers with a brown concrete hand at the end of a steel arm.

"How do you do, Lumber," he said. Lummy stared at him. To the Lambert features came a puzzled, almost bewildered look.

"My name is Lambert," he said, "and I think I've met you before."

"No," said Warrington. "I think not. I never forget a face."

"But, but— I feel sure," faltered Lummy— "though I can't just now think where."

"Perhaps in Singapore?"

"No. I never was in Singapore."

"Rio? Madrid? Cairo? Paris?"

"No."

"While you're playing twenty questions," put in Connie, "I'll pop up to the house and see how the drinks are flowing. Show Stephen around the ranch, will you, Lummy?"

She hurried away.

"This," started Lummy, "is the cow barn."

"Oh, really?" said Warrington.

"Yes. That big brute in the corner is a prize bull. Hey— don't go near him. He's dangerous."

But Warrington sauntered close to Prester John, bent on him a masterful look, and cuffed him familiarly on the nose. The bull quailed.

"Interesting job you have here, I daresay," remarked Warrington.

Lummy became acutely conscious of the grimy flannels in which he had been playing tennis.

"Oh, but I don't work here," he said.

"I'm— well, the fact of the matter is, I'm a banker."

Why he should have said this in a low voice, as if making a shameful confession, he did not know. There was something about Warrington that hypnotised him.

"Oh, really?" Warrington said.

"What do you do?" asked Lummy. Warrington smiled.

"You might call me an explorer," he said.

"Oh, you explore?"

"Among other things."

"Where do you explore?" queried Lummy.

"Oh, the Upper Amazon, the Lower Zambesi, the interior of Borneo, spots like that."

"And next," said Lummy, "you go to the Gobi Desert?"

"Why, yes," said Warrington, showing surprise. "But how did you know that? I haven't announced my plans."

Lummy reddened.

"I didn't exactly know," he said. "But I've always thought that if I were an explorer, that's where I'd explore."

"Oh, really?"

"Shall we go and take a peep at the pigs now?" suggested Lummy.

"Delighted," said Warrington. "Ever do any pig-sticking, Lambert?"

"I've read about it," said Lummy. "But we couldn't stick these pigs. They're pets."

"I meant wild boars," said Warrington. "One pinks them with long lances from horseback. Keen sport. I've done quite a bit of it in India. Of course, it isn't tiger shooting."

"No, of course not," agreed Lummy.

"Done any?"

"No. Always wanted to, though. Lions, too. Of course, you've shot lions."

"A goodish few." Lummy sighed.

They attained the piggery and surveyed the Holt collection of obese Berkshires. Warrington made a few terse, pointed criticisms. It transpired that he had an encyclopaedic know-ledge of livestock, flowers and bees.

"Over there," said Lummy, "are the stables."

"Any polo ponies?"

"A couple of elderly ones, I believe."

"TOO bad," said Warrington. "Should have brought some of mine. Do you play?"

"Polo? Me? No," said Lummy. "I imagine you do."

"That," said Warrington, dryly, "is why I keep a string of ponies. Of course, for the past two years I've been too busy exploring to play much. My game has fallen off shamefully. My handicap has been cut from eight goals to six."

"Tough luck," said Lummy.

"Let's go in the house now."

"Whatever you say, sir," said Lummy. He had not meant to say "sir."

They strolled towards the great colonial house. Thought crinkled Lummy's brow. His sense of recognition had grown as Warrington talked, but had not yet borne fruit. He could not remember where they had met. It was rather maddening.

"Charming girl, Connie," observed Warrington.

"What? Oh, yes, yes. Charming."

"I don't mind telling you, Lambert," Warrington said, "that I'm devilish keen on her."

"Is that a fact?" said Lummy, his heart rattling around his ankles. "Have you known her long?"

"We've played around for a couple of months," said Warrington. "Ever since I got home from the Zambesi."

"I see."

"We met," said Warrington, "under rather romantic circumstances."

"Of course," said Lummy. Warrington shot at him an interrogative stare.

"I beg your pardon, Lambert?" he said.

"I mean," said Lummy, flustered, "that Connie's romantic, and when a girl is romantic, well, I mean she is apt to meet people in a romantic way; see what I mean?"

"Yes," said Warrington, but doubtfully. "Well, last winter her father's yacht put in at Sandakan—"

"Borneo?"

"Right. I happened to be there, potting orang-utans. Connie insisted on swimming in the harbor, although—"

"It was infested with sharks or crocodiles—"

"Did Connie tell you?"

"No. Never mentioned it. I sort of surmised there would be sharks or crocodiles," Lummy said.

"Sharks," said Warrington. "And a big fellow nearly had her. I happened along and managed to get a grip on her in time."

"Hurt?"

"Sharks are not pollywogs, you know," said Warrington stiffly. "I was cut and bruised a bit."

On the broad verandah they found other guests and an array of drinks. Promptly Warrington took possession of Connie, convoyed her to a love-seat in a corner, sat her down, and engaged her in what Lummy divined, with tortured eyes, was an intimate and fascinating conversation. Lummy moped away at a porch-swing as remote as possible from the odious sight, and hunched down in a brooding silence. He felt as unwanted as a bumble-bee on a paper rose. He felt baffled, too, baffled in a most curious, almost eerie way. Where had he known Warring-ton? Known him he certainly had, sometime, somewhere, somehow; but when, where, how?

HIS ransacking of the pigeonholes of his mind was interrupted by a girl who lowered herself into the swing beside him. He saw that it was Dotty Maxwell, who was cast in a generous mould, and was a bit cumbersome, but had the high merit in Lummy's eyes of being Connie's closest friend.

"What's nibbling at your soul, Lummy?" Miss Maxwell inquired.

"I'm thinking." said Lummy. "Always look gloomy when I think."

"What are you thinking about?"

"That fellow, Warrington."

From Miss Maxwell seeped a sigh. "What a man!" she said.

"Tell me something," said Lummy. "Who is he? Or is he something out of a book?"

"He's one of the genuine, tall-hat Back Bay Warringtons." said Miss Maxwell.

"Rich, of course?"

"Dripping with wampum."

"Has he really shot lions and tigers?"

"Also buffaloes, grizzlies, gnus, gorillas—"

"Don't go on," said Lummy. "What does he do when he isn't bagging gnus, peering up the Zambesi, and wrestling sharks?"

"Has fun. Plays polo, flies hither and thither in his plane, climbs mountains goes to parties—"

"Bit of a roué, perhaps?"

"Not Stephen. My Uncle Claude, who knows all the dirt up and down Park Avenue, has never pinned a scandal on Stephen."

"Ah, a prig."

"No. He's regular. Great favorite at Newport and Southampton."

"Just a butterfly, eh?"

"He enjoys life, but he has his serious side." said Miss Maxwell.

"Rather a lightweight, mentally, though, isn't he?"

"On the contrary. He's brilliant. Led his class at Yale. Speaks four or five languages. He writes books, too. Haven't you read 'A White Man Alone on Bnung-Bnung'?"

Lummy spoke like one on the verge of a trance.

"I seem to have," he said, "and yet I haven't."

"What on earth are you gibbering about, Lummy?" demanded Miss Max-well. "Are you tight?"

"Not even dimly lit," said Lummy.

"But I'm upset."

"Too much curried chicken for lunch?"

"No. Too many curried thoughts in my head," he said. "Dotty, there's something about Warrington that's downright uncanny."

"Uncanny?" Miss Maxwell was shocked. "He seems uncommonly normal and well-balanced to me."

"Maybe I'm dizzy-beaned with the heat," said Lummy, "but when I look at him and talk to him I feel I'm looking at and talking to a ghost."

"A pretty solid, flesh-and-blood ghost, if you ask me," said Miss Maxwell. "Why don't you pinch him and find out? Here's your chance. He seems to be heading this way."

Lummy gazed hard at the approaching Warrington. A look, at first incredulous, then sure, then astounded, darted to Lummy's face. He started up as if he had sat on an electric eel.

"Tell me. Dotty," he whispered, with hoarse urgency, "was he a captain in the Foreign Legion."

"Yes."

"I've got it now," cried Lummy.

"Got what?"

"Never mind."

Arm in arm with Connie, Warrington came to them.

"Connie and I feel like a spot of tennis," he said. "I know you play, Dotty. Do you, Lambert?"

"I'm rotten." said Lummy.

"But good enough for mixed doubles, I daresay," smiled Warrington.

"Do give us a game, Lummy," said Connie. "All the others are too tired or too fried. Be useful, like a good boy."

The hope he had clung to had dwindled to a hardly perceptible shadow. However, he said, with synthetic enthusiasm:

"I'd love to play. Come on, Dotty."

"Splendid," beamed the Captain. "I'll be with you in a minute, soon as I change."

LUMMY went down to the grass court and rallied with Dotty. Actually he did not play a bad game, at least, not a very bad game. His shots were soft, and he did some-times get his feet entangled up with his racquet, but he was reasonably steady, moderately accurate, and tossed up a fairly deft lob. Miss Maxwell was the power-house type of player, stationary, but strong. Such balls as came near her she either killed 0r knocked far over the back-stop into the blue waters. As Lummy wafted practice shots to her back-hand, he said:

"They'll lick us."

"No, indeed," retorted Miss Max-well. "I'm on my game. Connie is way off hers. We can beat them."

"They will lick us," repeated Lummy, "and the scores will be 6-2, 6-0."

"Have you seen Stephen play?"

"Yes and no."

"What do you mean— yes and no?"

"I never have seen him play, in the flesh, so to speak," said Lummy slowly, "and yet I know exactly how he will play."

His manner became trance-like.

"Warrington," said Lummy, "will have a serve which will crash in with the speed of a bullet, and the twist of a wounded snake. His fore-hand will boom across the court, and flick the corners like a rawhide whip. His back-hand will flash down the sidelines like a frightened gazelle. His smashes will whizz—"

"LOOK here, Lummy, have you gone loopy?" asked Miss Max-well, anxiously. "You talk like a cock-eyed radio announcer or something. If you've never seen Steve play, how can you tell about his game? He may not be so hot."

"He will be molten," said Lummy, solemnly. "I know it."

Warrington came striding to the court, Connie with him. He was a superb figure in spotless doe-skins, and he carried four racquets under one muscular arm.

"Be patient with me," he said. "I haven't played for years. Way off my game, I daresay."

If he was off his game, Lummy wondered what he'd be like on it. Lummy and Dotty did capture the first two games by virtue of a couple of double-faults by Connie, a few fortuitous smacks by Dolly, and a pair of lucky lobs by Lummy, but once Warrington struck his stride and began to reel off whistling aces and untouchable sizzlers down the alleys, the team of Lambert and Maxwell had no more chance than sparrows have with eagles. By a fluke, Lummy and Dotty snatched a game in the second set, but the final scores were 6-2, 6-1.

Miss Maxwell looked at Lummy, and she was patently awed.

"You missed it by a single game," she said. "Are you clairvoyant?"

"Maybe. That, or something," he said.

"Let's go for a swim," called out Connie. "Last one to the bath-house is a spotted hyena."

She raced across the lawn with twinkling legs. Lummy ran after her; but he was soon passed and distanced by the fleet and graceful figure of Warrington.

He was even more impressive than usual when he emerged clad in brief red trunks. His huge body had the bronze tint of a Comanche brave, and was studded with assorted muscles of all shapes and sizes. With his every movement a new batch of sinews leaped to the gaze of Lummy. On the captain's massive chest was a pronounced but not unsightly scar. He saw Lummy staring at it.

"Shark," said Warrington.

"Scarred in her service," said Lummy almost inaudibly.

"I beg your pardon?"

LUMMY evaded an explanation by diving from the float. He landed flat, with a resounding, in-glorious splash. He came up in time to see Warrington launch himself from the apex of the diving-platform and cleave the water with barely a ripple. With sturdy and efficient crawl strokes Warrington ripped through the waves in the general direction of Ireland. Lummy paddled back to the float.

"How divinely Steve swims," said Miss Maxwell.

"Of the Olympic team, of course," said Lummy.

"Of course."

"Swam the Hellespont once?"

"Twice."

"Quite a guy, all told."

"Do you still think he's a ghost?" asked Miss Maxwell.

"Sure of it," said Lummy.

It appeared that Warrington had changed his mind about swimming to Europe, and had turned and was ploughing back towards shore.

"Connie's a lucky girl," remarked Dotty Maxwell.

Lummy, who was watching the captain's arms flailing the water like russet serpents, offered no comment.

"Oh, dear, I wish I were little and cute like her," said Miss Maxwell.

"You're all right, Dotty," said Lummy.

"Thanks. But nobody is. Everybody wants to be somebody else. I wish—"

"Wishing's no good," said Lummy, "I've tried it."

Connie, in her tight, light blue rubber bathing-suit, was being helped solicitously up on to the float by Warrington.

"Time to go in and dress for dinner," she said.

In the black glass and chromium bar the Holt guests assembled for cocktails. Lummy neglected his. Even those
pulse-quickening sidecars would not help him now, he felt. He watched Warrington, sitting on a high metal stool at the bar, talking with Connie. Lummy was not surprised to discover that the captain was the sort of man whose evening clothes fitted flawlessly, whose stiff collar did not wilt, whose shirt-bosom did not bulge, and whose tie retained its shape and virginal whiteness.

Nor was he surprised that at the dinner-table Warrington entertained Connie and her guests with well-told tales of the doings, droll and often indecorous, of the cannibals on the far-away isle of Bnung-Bnung.

"Absurd little beggars," said Warrington, dipping into the strawberry mousse. "They actually wanted me to stay among them and be their king."

"Why didn't you?" asked Connie.

"I may go back some day," smiled Warrington, "and take a queen with me."

Excellent though the dinner was, from caviare to coffee, to Lummy it tasted, when he touched it at all, like so much burlap and burdocks. He addressed Miss Maxwell, who sat on his right.

"After dinner," he said, "we will all go into the music-room and Warrington will sit down at the piano, strike a few chords, and sing a rollicking song in a fine baritone. Then he will dash off some classical stuff, and wind up with jazz."

"How do you know he plays?" asked Miss Maxwell.

"Something tells me he does," said Lummy cryptically.

They had not been in the music room five minutes when Warrington's voice rang out in that rousing ballad "Give a Man a Horse He Can Ride." Then he glided into a Chopin waltz, and a polonaise, and ultimately reached the "Rhapsody in Blue."

"I'm getting scared of you, Lummy," whispered Dotty Maxwell. "You're be-witched. Or have you gipsy blood? Or did Stephen tell you what he was going to do?"

"He didn't need to tell me," said Lummy. "I knew."

"It sounds like a gag," said Miss Maxwell, suspiciously, "but I'll fall. What is he going to do next?"

"Dance," said Lummy. "He'll do the latest rhumba, and he'll rhumba well, mark my words."

Even as he spoke, from the drawing room came the squeal of horns, the plinking of guitars, and the rhythmic swish of Cuban gourds, and past the door spun the figure of Warrington, with Connie in his arms. Dotty Maxwell cried "Wizard!" and scurried away from Lummy.

FOR a moment he watched the dancers, then stole from the house and wandered in the moon-light down to the sea. On the dock he sat, contemplating the restless, silvered water. Some thought of mingling with it entered his head; but, no, he decided he would finish out his life, a crusty bachelor, a hater of womankind. He sat there till the tide turned. At last he started for the house, and as he crossed the spacious grounds he had to pass the lotus pond. He had an inner intimation that he should avoid it, but he felt himself drawn there nevertheless. Under the willows he heard voices, a masculine rumble, the light tones of a girl's voice, and he saw on a bench Connie, in her shimmering white frock, and the darker but unmistakable contour of Captain Stephen Warrington. He would have crept away, but a sentry-like challenge from Warrington stopped him.

"Who's there?"

"Lummy Lambert."

"Why, Lummy, where have you been all the evening?" said Connie.

"Oh, here and there, amusing myself in my own quiet way," he said, and tried to say it carelessly. No need to intrude his woe on her happiness.

"Where are you going now?" asked Connie.

"Thought I'd drift down to the barn and say good-night to the cows," he said. "Well, see you in the morning. Good-night, Captain Warrington. Good-night, Connie."

He knew he could not sleep. He knew he could not bear company. He fled the hilarity in the bar and sought the seclusion of the cowery. Moon-light streamed through the windows and played on the lumps that were heifers and the mound that was Prester John. Lummy stood where he had stood that day with Connie, where he had stood so close to the bright gates of happiness, only to have them shut in his face, and suddenly his fortitude snapped and crumpled, and he threw himself full length on the straw and began to sob.

He stopped at a sound. Someone else had entered the barn.

"Lummy! Lummy! Are you here?"

It was Connie Holt's voice. He sat up and blinked.

"Yes. I'm here," he said.

"What in the world are you doing?"

"Thinking." He remembered that he was a dour bachelor, and added crossly. "If you're afraid I'll annoy the cattle, I'll go elsewhere."

She came closer to him.

"ARE you angry with me, Lummy?" she said.

"No."

"Do you want me to go away?"

"It's your barn."

"Then I'll stay."

"Suit yourself."

She sat down on the straw beside him.

"Seems to me," she said, "we didn't finish our talk in here to-day."

"He finished it for us." "Steve?"

"Yes. And I'm glad, Connie."

"Glad?"

"On your account," said Lummy. "Stephen Warrington comes as near to being good enough for you as any man could. I know you'll be happy; and that's what I want you to be, Connie."

"I expect to be happy."

He tried to be off-hand as he said: "Announcing your engagement to-morrow, I suppose?"

"Perhaps. I'm not sure."

"But he was proposing to you there by the lotus-pond, wasn't he?"

"Oh, yes. I'm often proposed to there," said Connie.

"You don't take love very seriously, seems to me," said Lummy.

"Love, yes. Proposals? Well, that depends," Connie said. "I must admit that Steve's was by far the best I've had to date. Eloquent, poetic, quite devastating in fact."

"I don't see how you can sit there and kid about it," said Lummy.

"Why not?"

"Real love is too important."

"Of course it is."

"And Stephen is a prince."

"He is," said Connie. "Why did you tell Dotty he was a ghost?"

"He's a ghost, too."

"Why do you say that, Lummy?"

"I might as well tell you," said Lummy. "Sounds crazy, I know; but I assure you I'm as sane as"— he sought a simile— "as a church mouse. Remember when I met him I said I'd met him before?"

"Yes."

"But I couldn't think where?"

"Yes."

"WELL, he talked. I listened. He did things. I watched. Everything about him seemed familiar to me in a foggy, fantastic sort of way. Where, I kept asking myself, had I met this man, who was handsome, big and strong, who did everything from tennis to music well, who had led an exciting life— playing polo, flying, exploring, hunting big-game, soldiering in the Foreign Legion— and saving you from sharks? I wondered and wondered, and then the answer hit me right between the eyes—"

"What was it?" asked Connie. "Where had you met him?"

"In my dreams," said Lummy. "Connie, to-day in the presence of these very cows and that very bull, I told you I had an ideal, an exact mental picture of the man I'd like to be if I did not have the misfortune to be myself. Well, that imaginary me came to life to-day— Warrington. Don't laugh. Why do you think I could foretell what he was going to do?"

"Dotty said you could. Why could you?"

"Because," said Lummy, "I'd seen him do everything he did before. I mean I did all those things myself when I was imagining I was a man like Warrington, and not the mishap I am. Now you can laugh. Connie."

"I'm not laughing," she said. Then, "Lummy, do you know why I refused Stephen?"

"Refused him?" Lummy cried. "But you couldn't. He's got just everything—"

"Except one thing," said Connie.

"What?"

"I'm not in love with him."

"You're not? Why aren't you?"

"I'm in love with another man."

"But how can you be?" said Lummy. "Why, Stephen Warrington is just about perfect."

"Lummy, you're a fool."

"I know that."

"And you don't know the first thing about women."

"I know that, too."

"I'm going to tell you some of the facts of life."

"I wish you would. Connie."

"One is," she said, "that girls fall in love because they fall in love. What do I care if Steve has the face and figure of a Greek god? What do I care if he can bang a tennis ball or twiddle on the piano? What do I care if he can strangle a shark with one hand and swing a tiger by the tail with the other. His parlor tricks leave me cold. Oh, he's a swell egg and a darling— but he's not my kind of darling. A girl— I mean me— loves a man perhaps because he has funny ears, perhaps because he's sweet and simple and imaginative; perhaps, because his eyes shine when he looks at her, and most of all because she feels a warm, glad feeling when, she's near him. Perhaps Steve is nearly perfect. To hell with perfection. It would bore me. I'm not perfect myself—"

"Oh, yes you are, Connie," cried Lummy.

"Then why don't you ask me to marry you?"

"What chance would a dub like me have?"

"Try it and see."

He tried it and saw.

__________________

14: On the Account

J. Allan Dunn

1872-1941

Adventure 15 Sep 1917

1: Old Providence Island

CAPTAIN BANE, gentleman of fortune, commander of the Swift Return, pushed the black bottle across the table to the little wizened man who faced him. The cabin overflowed with swaggering figures, their tarnished sea- togs enlivened with gaudy sashes and head- kerchiefs. Reckless faces peered down through the open skylight, backed by the starred sky of the tropic July night. The swinging lamp shone full on the rapacious, eager face of Bane.

It was weather-tanned to leather, save where the black beard that covered half his chest had protected it. His gaze held the fixed glare of lenses, deep lines showed between his brows, his curving nose twitched at the flanging nostrils, the bone of it pressing gray through the skin, flattened at the bridge; a fitting beak for a preying seabird.

"Come, Sawney, come Governor, down with four fingers of the stuff and out with your news! Rogers is off the bar, you say. Drink, man, and talk quickly!"

The trembling Sawney, derisively dubbed "Governor" by the pirates who had assembled upon the Island of Providence to await the king's proclamation and pardon for all freebooters surrendering their ships and arms by the last day of August, 1718, gulped down the fiery schnapps, choked till the tears ran from his red eye rims and told his news.

"Mr. Woods Rogers, Governor and Vice-Admiral of the Bahamas," he began and, warned by the blaze that shone in the captain's eyes, broke into less ceremonious speech. "The fleet came at sunset," he went on. "Richard Turnley is pilot and on his advice they lie by till morning."

"Ah!" Bane's tense features relaxed. "How know you this?"

"The Lings put off to the fleet from Harbor Island with vegetables. They came aboard the Rose man-of-war and saw the Governor and one Captain Whitney."

"The canting, favor-currying rogues. What said they?"

"They told the governor that Ben Hornygold, with Davis, Burgess, Carter, yourself and others were on shore upon Providence, in all nigh to a thousand pi—" he checked himself with a gulp of fear—"a thousand gentlemen of fortune—"

Bane smashed his fist upon the table and guffawed.

"Nay, out with it, man. Pirates! 'Tis a brave word for those that fit it. So Dick Ling told that a thousand were waiting to cringe before Rogers and kiss the king's foot and beg to be his men again. Told also, doubtless, that they were assembled about Nassau where the fort is tumbling for repair with but one nine-pounder. And the fleet lies off until tomorrow.

"Thanks, Sawney, I will remember this. Another drink and off you go. Not a word ashore that you have visited me. —— you, drink, when I offer it."

The little man swallowed perforce the tumbler that was poured out for him and stumbled up the companionway where rough hands set him into his dingey and saw him sculling drunkenly shorewards.

"A thousand pirates! A thousand lickspittles! A thousand mice-hearted cravens! exclaimed Bane. "Blood and bones! What say you, men? Are you for kissing the king's foot and going softly with sixpence in your pockets and calved in cotton, or are you for silk hose and gold guineas?"

"I was with Kidd."

The man who spoke had a face the color of a ripe mulberry, seamed like a walnut-shell. One eye was sightless, like a bruised grape, the other gleamed between lids scarlet-hawed as those of a dog. On one cheek powder had tattooed the badge of his calhng. The end of his bulbous nose had been sliced and indifferently patched.

"Hanged he was," he went on. "Strung up at Execution Dock seventeen years ago come last month. He swings in chains down the river yet with Churchill, How, Mullins, Parrot and the rest of the brave lads. Yet would I rather hang than go halting all my days at sight of a constable. A murrain on the Governor, say I."

"Kidd was a canting coward," said Bane. "What said he on the gallows? 'For my part I am the most innocent of them all, only I have been sworn against by perjured persons.' We want no Kidds nor his kind of cattle aboard, prating of chains. Silence, you dog!"

The old buccaneer was on his feet, his drink-palsied hand fumbling at his belt.

"Blood and wounds!" he cried. "No man calls me coward!"

But Bane had caught the uneasy shifting of his followers' eyes at the talk of gallows and chains. He flung the black bottle and it smashed upon the other's skull. He collapsed, blood streaming from a strip of scalp, mingling with the reek of the liquor.

"Put him in the peak!" ordered Bane, and watched while his words were obeyed, his fierce eyes challenging his men. "Hurley! Long! Take your watches and guard the boats. No man leaves this ship save on my orders."

"If they cannot cross the bar neither can we," muttered a pirate and his opinion found echoing "ayes" from many of the rest.

"Then we go in the sloop," said Bane. "What, my bullies, because Rogers has come a month too soon, are we to stay like rats in a trap and give up our freedom with our booty? Are you men or mice? Will you be governed like sneaking puppies by those who tamely submit to laws which rich men have made for their own security; for the cowardly whelps have not the courage otherwise to defend what they get with their knavery, —— them for a parcel of hen-hearted numskulls!

"They vilify us, the scoundrels, when there is only this difference, they rob the poor under cover of law, forsooth, and we plunder the rich under the protection of our own courage. I am a free prince and I have as much authority to make war on the whole world as he who has a hundred ships at sea and an army of a hundred thousand men in the field.

"Shall I submit to be kicked about a deck at the pleasure of one who fancies himself my superior? Shall I, and you, free men all, give up our delights, the clunk of guineas and the clink of glasses, the kisses of women and our fellowhip, because, forsooth, Rogers says so?

"What if we leave the Swift Return behind us? I was a lad when first I ran away from the cursed merchantman to which they had bound me 'prentice. With six brave hearts we borrowed a canoe and stole away to the Grand Camanas, to go on the account. We took a turtling sloop and joined on other bullies until we gained an Irish brigantine. From that we took a Spanish trading stoop of six guns. From that, on the coast of Virginia, a New England brigantine bound for Barbados that yielded us a vessel of ten guns.

"Now there were eighty of us aboard. From the Bahamas to Guinea Coast and back we sailed, to Madagascar and the Arabian Gulf. We traded the brigantine for a galley of twenty-four guns and at the last we took a three-decker of Portugal, outbound from Brazil. Thirty-six guns she mounted but we took her, a hundred and eighty of us hearties, ripping off her upper deck, deep-waisting her by cutting down the gunwale and so made her the Swift Return. Shall we not start again in a sloop?

"I tell you, my bullies, that my star rises. Shall I screen it with the king's parchment? Set me adrift with three logs, a palmetto sail and six good companions and within the year ye shall see me scattering gold in Puerto Rico and treading the deck of a ship that can fight and sail with any on the seas!

"Get out the pannikins and broach a keg of rum, boys. We have work before us."

While the cabin-lads, dusky Bermudian natives, set out the liquor. Bane pressed home his arguments, made more potent by the effects of the strong, raw spirits.

"We will transfer into the sloop and be through the East Passage at daybreak and leaving these whining curs to await the governor's pleasure. Follow me and I will undertake to shape a course that shall lead you to ease and plenty. Let the others lay down, they leave us the greater pickings. What is it, lads? The freedom of the seas— or will ye turn farmers?"

A red-headed rufiSan, lacking one ear, cleft by a cutlass, roared out his answer as he drained his pannikin and passed it for more. The rest joined in his resolution.

"Aye, we'll stand by you. A gold chain or a wooden leg!"

2: Through the East Passage

IT WAS within an hour of daybreak when the crew of the Swift Return sweating with their labor and the liquor freely served to them, had transferred themselves to the little sloop of fifty tons, carrying with them the possessions they most valued, and stores, with all the ammunition they could stow aboard.

The guns of the Swift Return were charged with double, round and partridge and the vessel set afire. The sloop dropped slowly down towards the East Passage, the crooked, shallow channel of which could not be attempted before dawn.

The broader harbor mouth was still blocked by the fleet though there was now sufficient water for the deepest-drafted ship to cross and it was Bane's hope that the vice-admiral would send in some ships or boats to investigate the blaze.

"If luck holds she will burn down to them," he said, "and scatter a few of them to hell. Since we can not use her, we'll sink her."

Faint shouts came from Nassau where the thousand pirates were celebrating the advent of the king's pardon. The low-lying island of Providence was a blur against the skyline. A faint breeze wafted the sloop closer to the tortuous passage that formed the backdoor of the harbor, through which Bane meant to achieve his freedom.

He had ordered lights out and silence, for fear they might be boarded, and the crew sprawled on the over-crowded decks talking in whispers, fired with excitement and Jamaica rum. Bane stood near the tiller, gazing back at the flaming Swift Return.

A cutter put out from the Rose man-of- war and was rowed swiftly toward the land with instructions to investigate the cause of the red glow that pulsed behind the headland fringed with palmetto that hid the Swift Return from the view of the fleet. The fire had reached the gun-deck and the starboard and larboard batteries were scattering shot across an area brilliantly illumined by the blaze.

Bane swore through his beard at the failure of his plan. Then he saw the cutter come into the radiance, pause and swerve widely about the Swift Return in a course that would bring them close to the sloop.

He gave a swift order and two boats bristling with men were soon in the water, making with swift, choppy, noiseless oar- strokes toward the cutter.

"We need a messenger," said Bane, with a chuckle. "We'll take the king's officer and send him back to the fleet after we clear the passage."

The cutter, making for the shore, was intercepted by the two boats that swept up, one on either side, from the darkness. The odds were fifty to ten. The lieutenant, seeing the gunwales gripped by twenty pairs of hands while a voice to right and left hoarsely demanded his surrender, disgustedly gave the word and the freebooters returned aboard trimnphantly as the sky began to gray and showed the sullen rollers slapping on the sand spits and coral bars that guarded the passage.

The breeze strengthened and the sloop, close-hauled, nosed her way through the winding channel. The sun rolled up, leaping clear from the rim of the sea and showing the fleet driving under half-sail across the bar into the harbor, nearly a mile away,

"Up with the Roger and fire a gun," shouted Bane. A black flag slipped up to the masthead and broke out its sable defiance as a twelve pounder roared, scaring the breakfast-hunting birds. The cutter trailed at the stem.

"Into her and back to the fleet with you," said the buccaneer to the sulky lieutenant. "Tell your commander and Rogers, the king's jackal, that Bane and his lads are away. If they want to test the speed of our heels or the gage of our guns, let them come after us. It is a fair wind for a race and clear weather for sighting. Cast off there, or we'll cut you loose!"

The king's men were in their craft, dragged with lifting stem behind the sloop.

"Give us our oars," called the lieutenant.

"Scramble for them and be —— to ye," cried Bane.

A cutlass-stroke severed the line as the oars were tossed into the sea and the pirates swarmed to the rail, mocking the crew of the cutter as they recovered, one at a time, their means of progress and, at last, setting a quick stroke, rowed back for the passage.

"Now lads, it's ho, for Hispaniola!" cried Bane. "It will be an hour before those lubbers get after us. With the wind abeam and the good start we can laugh at them. It will not be long before we'll take a better ship and then we'll carry out what has long been in my mind.

"Now that those curs ashore have surrendered we'll have the trade to ourselves. We'll find some place among the Keys where we'll set up a fort, some spot among the reefs that has a score of exits and but one entrance. That shall be our capital where we'll all live as kings in our own principality and be in debt to no man."

CHEER after cheer went up as the course was changed and the sloop, reaching faster and faster, headed for the Spanish Main. The gage was cast. They were outlaws now beyond redemption. Bane had voiced their prime ambition, to set up a kingdom to which they could go between raids, with loot and women, forced from prizes or picked up in Puerto Rico, hoydens as reckless as themselves.

There were plenty of towns where they would be made welcome when the coast was clear, to go swaggering, hip-booted, clad in silks and velvets, roaring out their songs, stampeding the citizens, boarding the taverns, paying freely for unhcensed privilege with broad pieces of eight, looting a quiet plantation, perhaps, and marchmg away to the crackling of the gutted buildings and the shrieks of women borne off across their shoulders. A gay life, a devil-may-care existence with hellfor the hind-most!

A short life and merry one until they danced the last jig with the hangman's knot behind their ear or went down fighting on slippery decks. There would be an end to it, of course, but, while it lasted, they would crowd it with excitement and Bane was a lucky leader and a brave one. A man of good family, it was whispered, though none dared question him. They bowed to his superior education. It was good to have a captain who could sling the lingo as he did and who was the first across the rail when they laid alongside.

The old ruflaan who had prated of Kidd had come on deck, his head bound in a bloody rag, maudlin with the rum that Bane sent him as a salve for his cracked pate. He was a favorite aboard for his tales of earlier raids and he was greeted with rough jests as he made his way aft to where Bane stood at the taffrail watching for signs of pursuit. The captain greeted him evenly.

"Well, old dog, can your tongue still wag?" The man's one bloodshot eye gleamed without resentment.

"Waste no more good liquor on the outside of my head. Captain," he said.

"I sent you a pannikin. So then, there's no ill-will. You had these fainthearts wavering with your prate of Kidd in chains. Blood and fury, man, must you conjure up a croaking vision to spoil good sport in the making?"

"I am nigher the end than you, maybe, though 'tis likely to be a short shrift for boy and graybeard in this calling. Captain. So we are to sea again, with yon poltroons in Providence on their marrows before Rogers. The sea is ours. There is but one life, look ye, and that's the life of a rover. No ill-will, Captain, that another pannikin will not soak up."

He rolled forward, growling in a husky bass a song that his fellows took up in chorus.

The Roger to the peak and the ocean to our lee.

A-sailing down the coast of the High Barbaree.

And it's ho, for the life of a rover.

The landsman lies a dying with the parson by his side

The freeman goes a sailing at the turning of the tide.

Give me a sheet that's trailing, a breeze that follows fleet.

A cutlass in my good right band, my boots upon my feet.

For that's the way to die, sirs, not with a canting sigh, sirs.

The Roger flaunting at the peak, the ocean to the lee

A-sailing down the coast of the High Barbaree.

Yo-ho for the life of a rover!

The sloop heeled to the strengthening wind with a rush of foam along her sides that seethed in at the scuppers. The low land was but a line behind them. Clouds had come scurrying up with the dawn and the sun seemed to rush through the masses of scud that promised dirty weather ahead.

A shaft shot through a rift and picked out the triangle of sail that was making its way out of the East Passage. The pursuit was on. Bane called for his glass and pulled out the long telescope.

"It's but a sloop," he announced. "She sails fast and she's a gut of men aboard. Fight or run, there's a storm brewing. Break out a keg, bullies all. The sloop's stanch, no need for a reef. Double-shot the guns in case we need 'em. Take the tarpaulin off the stern-chaser!"

A furious blast swooped down and tore the woolen cap from his head as he stood by the rail, clinging to the stays.

"Hell's loose, lads. May the devil serve us!"

3: "From the Seas!"

DULL, SUNLESS noon found the pirates' sloop in a welter of gray sea that matched the leaden scurry of the sky above them. They had long since dropped the chase and had made shift to double-reef the mainsail but they were in sorry case. The cabin accommodations were scanty and sixty of them were forced to make shift for themselves upon the spume-swept deck. The water was fairly warm but they were drenched and endeavored to offset their misery by copious drafts of rum.

As the afternoon wore on darkness came rapidly with an increasing gale and it was all they could do with tackles to the gooseneck of the tiller, two men at the wheel and two in the combination gunroom and cabin, to keep the ship's head to the sea. The waves ran riot, charging in a maelstrom. The sky turned slaty-black, illumined with sheets of lightning that lit up the seething yeast of the tortured ocean and the claps of thvmder kept up an incessant peal. On deck the men answered, the storm with blasphemies that were swept aft in a jumble of imprecation. The sloop staggered imder the blows of wind and water. In the cabin the billows pounded at her stem as if a giant beat upon a mighty drum.

The place was reeking with foul air and the lamp shone dimly through trailing tobacco smoke. At the head of the table Bane held place, having given over the deck to the quartermaster,"Scarry-Dick" Denton. His eyes were set and his beard was soaked with liquor spilled by the tossing of the sloop as he tried to quaff it.

"Sink or swim," he shouted, "we'll go through bravely. Blood and fire, listen to the thunder!"

He rose, swaying, as the cabin glared blue in the lightning that poured in through portholes and skylight, and held to the breech of a gun, securely lashed behind its closed port.

"The gods are drunk with us in their tipple and have gone together by the ears. Death and fury, an' we could, I'd run out the guns and return 'em a salute. The king's men have run for cover but we are bound for the open. Blow, —— ye, blow.

The wind's from all quarters. I'm for the deck."

He made his way over the sodden bodies of some of the crew and reached the deck as one of the short and furious seas broke upon the poop, tore away the taffrail and swept the two men from the wheel, driving them into the boarding netting that had been stretched above the coaming for safetylines. Bane jumped to the tiller and put his strength to it while the men on the watch tackles heaved with him.

A maddened gust of wind roared at the sloop and seemed for the moment to lift her clear of the seething water. Her stem crashed down, the reefed staysail broke clear and whipped out of sight like a storm-herded gull. Scarry-Dick, clinging to the netting, fought his way forward and, with three men, worked at the furl of the thrashing jib. A tiny lull saved them from the trough and the pirates managed to set enough headsail to keep the sloop from broaching to.

The carpenter clawed his way out of the cabin and clung to Bane, shouting in his ear. Water was working in, already above the line of bilge. As the quartermaster came back Bane signaled for him to take the helm and dived below, kicking the drunken men in the cabin into sensibility and buffeting them before him.

It was impossible to open the forehatch but they dragged a spare spar aft and rigged it with a funnel of canvas, striving like demons until they had got it clear of the bowsprit and dropped it into the sea as the mainsail came down on the run and was smothered by twenty men. The sea-anchor filled, the sloop swung head on, bare-poled, backing before the storm, but riding it, while the carpenter and his assistants strove to stanch the leak where the oakum had worked out of a seam.

It was the last flurry of the storm. The wind died away with howls of bafiSed rage, the sullen seas slowly subsided and, in the west, the sky lifted to a pale streak of chrome. Upon the luminous background showed the lifting topmasts of a big ship, apparently a merchantman.

"There's our next craft, lads," cried Bane. "In with the sea-anchor and up sail again. She heads this way. 'Tis two glasses yet to sunset. We'll sleep aboard of her tonight."

The merchantman came slowly on while the clouds still lifted, trailing skirts of the fast disappearing hurricane. The air was sweet, the sea, still rough and covered with catspaws, a brilliant indigo. The sloop sailed on to meet her, the crew crowding the cabin and lying flat upon the decks, covered with spare canvas. Pistols were stuck in sashes, there was a cutlass for every right hand, a keen knife ready for each left.

Bane had hauled down the shreds of his black ensign and now flew a jack at the peak, upside down in signal of distress. With her torn taffrail, the decks apparently cumbered with dismantled canvas, only three or four men visible, the sloop, going sluggishly, streams of water issuing from her pumps, gained the sympathy of the commander of the merchantman.

The pirates could see him on the poop, speaking-trumpet in hand, and Bane caught the bellow of his voice, borne down wind, shouting for the smaller vessel to come-up and stand-by for a boat.

"She's no beauty," said Bane, "but she will serve. She's gulled! She sees the jack! Not a man of ye moves till I give the word. Then aboard! We'll need no guns. Keep them hidden behind the ports."

The two craft drew nearer, the sloop, close-hauled, held too close for her point of best speed by Bane; the ship surging along with yards squared to the following breeze, her forefoot dripping with brine, rising and falling heavily to the swash.

Bane grinned as he spun the wheel, timing his maneuver so that the sloop hung clumsily in the eye of the wind, almost missed stays and came about on the crest of a long roller, forging down under the side of the merchantman, apparently in imminent danger of being crushed like an eggshell. Bane knew that the backwash from the ship would hold him ofi long enough to execute his plan.

"Easy, you lubbers," shouted the merchant-captain. "What sloop is that?"

"The Ranger From the seas!" answered Bane in the slogan of the freebooters.

At the phrase the cabin of the sloop vomited men. The loose canvas was hurled aside and sixty pirates sprang to the rail. A volley of oaths accenting his swift orders sounded through the speaking-trumpet of the ship's captain. A gun-port swung slowly open, then another, and the muzzles of carronades showed in the opening.

"Boarders away!" yelled Bane, leading his men in a spring for the rail of the merchantman as a wave lifted them to its level.

Grappling hooks were thrown and tangled in the standing-rigging, pirates swarmed through the open gun-ports and chased the panic-stricken servers. Bane's pistol fire caught the captain in his shoulder. There were a few scattering shots, a clashing grind of steel on steel, a half-hearted resistance from half-armed men and the ship was a prize. Scarry-Dick took deck-command with a dozen men while the rest of the pirates swarmed through the ship.

THE wounded captain was brought before Bane, lording it in the usurped cabin, gulping port from a decanter. His men had broached some of the cargo and, in freebooting independence, stamped into the cabin, swathed in silks, laced hats upon their headkerchiefs, a bottle in each hand, boastful, anticking like masquerading schoolboys.

Bane glanced over the manifest that a trembling purser handed him.

"The Neptune, from Bristol, England, laden with bale goods and general merchandise," he said. 'Tis a clumsy hooker, but 'twill serve our turn until a better-lined vessel comes along." He scowled at the captain, pale from loss of blood, his hands bound behind him, faint but resolute. The brave look in his eyes provoked Bane's unruly spirit to a gale of unreasoning fury.

"Well, you dog," he demanded. "Why don't you beg for your life?"

The captain smiled.

"You have already tried to take it, you murdering pirate. I ask nothing from your kind of cattle."

Bane's brows closed in a black smear of wrath.

"You swim for that, you rogue," he cried.

"You have long since been damned," said the other evenly. "And, as surely as I swim, so some day you will swing from the mast that knows no deck."

Bane's gaze could not hold the dauntless look of the prisoner. He hurled the decanter at him. It smashed against the wall as the captain swiftly moved his head and the rich perfume of the wine filled the room. Bane drew his pistol from his sash, his face convulsed with rage.

"Damned, am I? Then I will send you first to hell to greet me when I come!"

He fired pointblank in the other's face so that the powder gas scorched it and the grains blackened it about the cruel hole between the eyes. The captain spun about and fell. Bane took a step and spurned the body with his foot.

"Over with that carrion," he ordered. "It grows dark. Strip the sloop. Set those cravens aboard." He nodded toward a group of shaking passengers. "Bring in the crew."

The sailors of the Neptune vfere herded before him.

"Look ye," said Bane. "I want no forced men aboard my craft. Free men and equal are we all. Join, and, as ye prove, ye get a full share. That— or aboard the sloop with ye."

The men interchanged looks and shifted on their feet. Then one stepped forward and another until but a dozen remained, including the officers of the captured vessel.

"Good," declared Bane. "Set these stubborn fools aboard. Send me the quartermaster."

Night found the Neptune heading under the stars for Green Turtle Bay, the sea- scooped crescent of one of the smaller Bahamas, the leaking sloop far astern, the old buccaneer crooning at the wheel.

His ribs shall make a cage for fish,

His flesh a sea-snake's meal,

His eyes a mermaid's dainty dish.

His—

His voice broke off in a croak as he gazed upward. A star had fallen athwart the heavens.

"'Tis a bad omen," he muttered. "A bad omen. To kill in fight, aye, that's one thing. But to murder in cold blood spells evil. 'Twas not so in Kidd's time. A falling star is a summoned soul!"

His superstition-ridden imagination saw in the meteor the spirit of the dead captain speeding for judgment.

"Tend your course, there, you one-eyed crab!" shouted Scarry-Dick as the Neptune swung off and the clews of the topsails shivered.

"Aye, aye, sir! Crab, am I?" he said beneath his breath as the quartermaster followed up his reprimand with a string of oaths. "Yet have I claws that can nip."

He shifted the spokes, peering at the binnacle. He was the best helmsman aboard and he resented the rebuke. The shadowy sails rustled softly above him, he could hear the hiss of the wake above the songs and shouts of the carousing pirates below and presently he took up his own song again.

The broken blade that spilled his life.

Lies rusting in the ooze;

The maid that hoped he'd call her wife.

Another love must choose;

Yo-ho! Another love must choose.

Yet while he lived, his life was full,

A merry wight was he.

With ne'er a moment that was dull, A-sailing on the sea,

Yo-ho! A-sailing on the sea!

4: Todd The Turtler

TOM TODD lived on Green Key. Most of the turtlers only existed but Tom lived, for he was not alone. A maid from the Carolinas loved him well enough to consider that with Todd the lonely islet would be Paradise enow and their honeymoon on their sea-girt Eden was only three weeks old.

Todd dried the turtle flesh and stripped the shell and sometimes took a sloop-load of live tortugas to Puerto Rico or even to Jamaica for trade. The Green Key, rank with wild cabbage and palmetto, with here and there pines Wting graceful crests above the lower growth, was worthy of its name. The bill of fare of the married lovers, besides turtle steaks and fins and eggs, was varied.

There were agoutis, wild-hogs and opossum in plenty, besides the pigeons and seafood. Humming-birds and parrots supplied their aviary. The climate was equable, save in July and the rainy season, when Todd planned to take his bride back to Carolina. She was tiny and tawny-haired, golden of skin from the sun, curvingly lithesome and sweet and Todd was tall and lean, sun-dried almost to the texture and color of his strips of turtle-flesh. And they were very much in love.

The turtles only came with the tides, and, betweenwhiles, they paddled or bathed or lay in grass hammocks beneath a palmetto shelter. They lived out-of-doors night and day and were seldom out of sight of each other. She— her name was Mary— adored Todd and Tom worshiped Mary. He loved to pick her up in his arms and go striding off with her, laughing at her talk of weight.

Todd was thirty-five and Mary twenty- two. Todd knew the Bahamas as a woodsman knows his forest and Mary knew only Todd. He had given up his pilotage to turn turtler again so that he might be always with her and, in the rains, they were going to upbuild a tiny farm in Carolina for— some day. Life was all ahead of them and very pleasant.

The Key was three miles long and about half that width. Close to it were two smaller keys that could be reached by wading at the ebb. The nearer, densely wooded, was as thick with agoutis as a dog's hide with fleas and Mary made wonderful stews out of the rabbit-like flesh.

On the twenty-second day of their honeymoon— they still reckoned it diumally— they had their first quarrel. Mary pouted and Tom sulked and, by the time the quarrel was ripe, neither could remember how it started. Yet Mary held it for the joy of bringing Todd back to her repentant and he left her still pouting when he strode off, gun on shoulder, to get agoutis as a peace offering.

He did not see the kiss she blew him when she was sure he was out of sight among the palmettos and she did not hear the sigh he gave but both sensed in their hearts that the breach was only serious enough to serve for a yet stronger cementing.

Todd's stubborn mood held hard enough for him to brave the current between the two keys, already surging to the swift flood, and he waded it hip-deep between the weeded rocks and plunged into the thick scrub. Mary took their simple duck garments to the tiny spring and beat at them on a coral slab with a wooden paddle, venting her displeasure— mostly for herself— in the blows.

Up from the sea in the early afternoon came a rakish brigantine of thirty guns, outside of fore and stern chasers, and one hundred and forty men. Her hull was painted black with a narrow red streak that accented the sweetness of her lines, her masts that seemed too lofty for her build, slanted aft, her canvas, from studding-sail to main, showed snowy white, yet marred here and there with unpatched holes where round shot had torn through. She sailed fast, low of freeboard but buoyant, and her topsails rose swiftly against the sky.

Bane's luck had held. The Neptune had given place to a better ship and playing the part of merchantman, he had come close enough to a Spanish brigantine to board and take her after a desperate skirmish in which he lost nine men and the Spaniards seventeen. He had rechristened her the Venture and found her the fastest keel of his knowledge.

At fifteen knots he had outrun two sail of the vice-admiral's flotilla, especially commissioned to his capture since his escape from Providence Harbor. They had caught him between them as he had come out of an inlet and he had run their gantlet, broadside for broadside, bringing down the topmast of one and standing off the other in a running fight.

Now he was in a hurry, for the men-of- war had interrupted his taking on wood and water after careening. The wood might go, water he must have, and Scarry-Dick had promised them they would find a spring on Green Key near which the chase had led them.

"A turtler lives there, or did," said Denton. "A splint-bone by the name of Todd. I landed there three years ago and he shot pigs for us. We were lootfull  and we paid him with cloth, so he will hunt for us again with a good will."

"Aye, or a bad one, for that matter," said Bane. A bullet had bitten his forearm and he was in an ugly temper. "We have little time to spare. The king's ship may have guessed our tack. Get the water-breakers ready for a landing. I'll go ashore. For once spring-water sounds better to me than brandy. That cursed crease bums like fire.''

MARY TODD, looking up from her laundrying, gazed with delight at the picture of the brigantine, brilliantly enameled by the sunshine against the blue sky and bluer sea, rising and falling on the long billow with a grace that was all her own. Even when it was evident that the ship was heading directly for the Key she felt no alarm save a vague wish that Tom would come back before they landed.

Other ships had called there for water, Tom had told her. She held no thought of pirates. They had heard from another turtler, passing on the news, that the freebooters had all surrendered, or were about to surrender, at the Island of Old Providence. The brigantine came up into the wind, held there while two boats put off and rowed swiftly toward - shore, and then cruised off-and-on, awaiting their return.

The girl supposed that the men would know where to look for the spring. They could easily find it. Her newly-wedded shyness dominated her curiosity. She did not wish to meet them without Tom beside her. If she stayed they might give something in exchange for the water, a bolt of print-stuff, perhaps, and there might be news. She might send home her half- completed letter.

But she was Tom's wife and a delicacy she could not express held her back. She slipped off into the palmettos, unaware of the mark her lightly going figure made in its white gown against the vivid green. The boats divided, one coming straight for a landing near the spring, the other with quickened stroke, racing toward a little cape. Bane urging on the rowers.

"A partridge and a sweet one," he said to his second in command. "Ye should have seen her through the glass, man, bending over the clothes she was washing. Slender and supple as a bow. A young one and alone. 'Tis not often we see the likes of her. She'll be the turtler's woman."

He spoke the last sentence softly and his companion looked at him curiously. There
was an imspoken rule against women aboard Bane's ships. "They raised the devil among the men," he said. But a commander could break his own rules and there was a gleam in Bane's eyes and a flush in his face that showed passion long repressed by force of circumstance, suddenly aroused.

It was none of his business if the captain sought a plaything. He would break it and cast it aside presently. A discarded woman among seven score conscienceless devils would have a hard time of it but his own soul was cankered with the rest. Decency as a pirate's attribute was a thing to be mocked at.

The first boat, towing a long string of empty water-casks, touched the beach and the men sprang ashore, eager to fill and get back to the ship before the slower but heavier-metaled king's ship should appear and cut them off. The shot-holes in the sails were not the only ones the Venture had suffered. There were a dozen or more cursing, wounded men aboard, swearing at . the rude surgery, and five had "given up the keys to their lockers."

Bane's boat touched sand. He jumped into the shallows, followed by all but two of the men, who paddled the boat back to join the watermen. The pirates ran through the palmettos at an angle, eager to herd the "white doe" of the skipper's fancy. Bane was in the lead when Mary Todd caught sight of the line and sensed the nature of their quest.

Her face paled and her heart began to beat in a wild tattoo of alarm that suddenly gripped and possessed her. She turned to run deeper into the woods, seeking Tom, calling his name as she fled. A grinning ruffian rose from back of a bush, his arms outspread, giving the view-halloa! Others were closing in from right and left. Bane, his teeth showing through his beard, sprang forward to grasp her.

She doubled, frantic with fear. Where was Tom? Again she called his name, though it taxed her scanty breath, and the pirates took up the cry.

"Tom! Tom!" they yelled derisively after her until her fear included his danger. These men were pirates! There was a pistol in their little thatched hut, hidden in the trees. Perhaps she could reach it before those others by the shore noticed it.

The men ran whooping behind her, crashing through the undergrowth. She plunged into the thicket and sped through the flimsy door of their tiny house. There was no effective fastening. In one comer was her trunk that she had brought from home in Tom's sloop. The pistol was in it. She had asked Tom for it— he had a pair of them— and he had shown her how to oil and load it for their target practise at floating bottles in their playtimes.

She tossed back the hd, kneehng at the trunk, found the weapon and turned, desperate, as Bane flung back the door and entered, the leering faces of his fellows close behind him.

"No partridge, but a hawk," said Bane, panting with his run. "Nay, pretty, put up that pistol. Hell and fury—!"

The pistol roared, the tiny room was filled with the acrid gas of the discharge and Bane staggered back, a bullet in his upper arm, while the girl stood at bay against the wall.' The pirate captain lurched forward, his eyes relentless and Mary Todd struck at him wildly as he beat aside her arms with bruising blows and swept her off her feet.

"I'll tame you, my beauty," he cried. "Aye, and trim you to my liking before I'm through with you."

He heard the guffaws of his men as he roughly handled her. Her clutching hand caught his arm where she had wounded it and he swore as the imbedded bullet grated against the bone. The next second he flung her from him. She had found the knife in his belt and struck at him, the blade glancing off a rib.

She crouched in the angle of the wall, her eyes filled with the blaze of madness, her torn dress showing her heaving bosom, the knife still in her hand. As Bane, blind with pain and fury, strode toward her and the rest closed in, she clutched the handle with both hands and drove the steel into her own flesh. A gush of blood stained her gown, she gasped and wilted into a pitiful, crumpled heap.

There was a shout from outside. A man blocked the sunshine in the open doorway.

"The king's ship is in the offing," he cried.

With an oath Bane swung out of the hut. The men were gathering about the boats, rolling the filled and empty breakers. The man-of-war was coming up rapidly under press of sail. Already her topgallants and royals showed. The dull boom of a gun came faintly as she signaled to her consort that the chase was sighted. The oars of the pirate's boats bent as they raced back to the brigantine. In ten minutes they were aboard and the vessel sliding through the water, striving to gain the windward gage of the pursuit.

A few relinquished casks dotted the beach and bobbed in the shallows. An hour passed before Tom Todd came back, unconscious of what awaited him, half a dozen agoutis in one hand, his gun in another.

He stopped for a moment in a clearing, watching a brigantine that slashed through the seas at a long angle, puffs of smoke coming from the Long Tom at her stern and the after guns of her larboard battery, while a ship, smothered in canvas, replied, heading in to intercept the other. The topsails of another vessel showed on the horizon.

"Pirates," commented Tom aloud. "I thought they had all surrendered. She sails like a witch. She'll clear if nothing carries. Mary! Oh, Mary lass. Come up to me and see the fight."

There was no answer. He caught sight of the casks and trouble leaped to his eyes as he rushed down toward the hut.

Midnight found him piling the last coral slab above a mound in the clearing. The cairn was high to thwart the land-crabs and rooting beasts.

Dawn saw the turtler's sloop making across the Bahama Channel toward Cuba, Todd at the tiller with rigid face and eyes that held an introspective gaze. Once he looked back toward Green Key, an Eden no longer. Then he hauled in the sheet and brought the sloop a point closer to the wind.

5: The Inn Of The Golden Galleon

A thirsty throat, a speedy boat,

A skipper that's a-daring;

A parting glass, a loving lass,

And off we go sea-fa-a-ring.

And off we go sea-faring!

A sail in sight, a chase, a fight,

A hold with riches laden;

A speedy tack and we come back

Each to his waiting ma-a-i-den.

Each to his waiting maiden!

THE big room of the Golden Galleon at Santo Domingo, the principal port on the southern coast of the island of the same name, rang with the repeated last line of the piratical ditty. Bane's men were ashore with gold to spend and ardent appetites to be appeased. That morning they had sighted a man-of-war sailing north through the Windward Passage between Santo Domingo and Cuba, scouring the Caribbean on false information, and they were secure in their revels.

Women cajoled the freebooters, returning rough caresses with rude blows of affected coyness, there was a constant call to the uneasy landlord and his staff for more liquor, the place was foul with the reek of rum and tobacco and, as the song ceased, a discordant babble of screams and laughter, rough entreaties and shrill protestations took its place.

A fiddler was dragged forward and set in a chair upon a table. A clear space was made for unwieldy dancers. The fiddler scraped imtil his last string snapped and some one plucked the chair from under him, sending him toppling to the floor amid shrieks and guffaws as he scrambled for the broad pieces that were flung to him.

At a table by the open staircase that led to the upper story sat the one-eyed buccaneer, tankard in hand, spinning his tedious yam to a tall fellow whose dress held none of the splashes of finery distinguishing the buccaneers from the half-fearful, curious natives.

"Aye, 'tis the only life," said the freebooter. "Never have I seen the time when I could not rub one gold piece against another, and that, mark you, means everything. Show me a wench here that I can not cajole, ugly and old and lop-eyed though I be. That for the land. As for the sea, an ye are a seaman and no qualmy- stomached landsman, show me a better sport.

"Ye seem a man of mettle. Look ye, the captain runs the ship, 'tis tme, but the quartermaster, Scarry-Dick Denton, he is our tribune. The captain can imdertake nothing that we, through Denton, do not approve. Thirty shares for Bane, the rest for us, divided man for man with an extra share for Scarry-Dick. Why, lad, 'tis the life!

"I was with Kidd in the Adventure Galley, thirty guns and eighty men, when he sailed out of Plymouth in May, sixteen- ninety-six. Soon we were a hundred and fifty-five. To New York we sailed, then to Madeira and Cape Verd and so to Madagascar, Malabar and Johanna.

"Two hundred pounds apiece we got out of the Queda Merchant alone. I left him at Amboyna and so saved my neck, I grant ye, for they took him at New York and sent him back to England with his lads. But a man must take a chance and I am sixty. Aye, 'tis the life. Easy come and easy go. The lasses love ye and the rest, blast them, toady to ye. Boy! Bring more o' that rum!"

"I pay for this shot," said the other. "Nay, man, I insist. I am half-seas over now with your bounty. I like your talk." His eyes narrowed and he nudged the pirate's elbow. "Ye spoke of women, now. Do ye meet with any that are young— not these painted bawds— but fresh and dainty. Eh, tell me that?"

The one-eyed buccaneer slapped him on the back.

"Aye, 'twill be the girls for you and the gold for me. Yet one is gone as soon as the other. But with Bane 'tis business at sea and lasses left for shore. Fresh and dainty, ask ye? They come not willingly to our net which makes them the greater prizes if ye gill them.

"There was one lass on Green Key who took her own life, mark ye, rather than join and share the captain's cabin. She had a husband, she said. She could have had her choice of a dozen out of all the crew. A plucked one she was, with red-gold curls and a skin as white as foam."

He checked his drunken maundering at the quickly arrested exclamation of the other.

"What ails ye, man? Is the rum not to your liking?"

"Nay, it tastes well enough. Green Key, said ye? I know the place. I have piloted and turtled amid the Bahamas from Little Abaco to Turks Islands. I know them all. I could tell your skipper of a passage through the Jumento Cays, a passage from the northwest to a lagoon with an islet in the center. 'Twas shown to me by a Carib Indian for a turtling ground. I dare swear 'tis known to no white man but me. And, to the south and east, an outlet."

"A passage through the Jumentos from the northwest! Now, you are the lad for us! Bane drinks above with Denton and the mates. They are set in gambling but they will listen to such a tale. Will ye go, cully? Will ye join us. Will ye go on the account?"

The tall man finished his rummer and tossed the reckoning on the table.

" 'On the account', say ye? 'Tis a good phrase. Take me to Bane."

THE pirate captain lifted the leather cylinder from the dice and swept a dozen gleaming coins toward the heap in front of him before he looked up.

"Nine— and the main!" he called triumphantly. "The third nick running."

"The devil's own luck is with you tonight," grumbled Scarry-Dick. "I've thrown out every time I held the box."

He tinned and stared at the intruders. "A recruit, Cap'n," hiccuped the man who had sailed with Kidd. "One who knows the Bank from end to end and can tell of secret havens. He can show ye a passage through the Jumentos and he's keen to join us."

Bane's eyes challenged the stranger, appraising him. The man's face was burned to coffee color and deeply lined. A short, thick growth of beard stretched from his Adam's apple to his high cheek-bones and his untrimmed hair trailed on his shoulders. His eyes were bleak, almost sinister, with cold lights in them.

"What's this talk of a passage through the Jumentos?" asked Bane.

Southeast of Florida, through Florida Strait, sometimes called the New Bahama Channel, down Santaren Channel and the Old Bahama Channel, ran the broad highway between Cuba and Santo Domingo of the Greater Antilles and the Bahama Islands. It was the main road of sea commerce from the Atlantic States to the West Indies. From it, through the Windward Passage, the way led to the Caribbean, to Puerto Rico, the Leeward and Windward Islands of the Lesser Antilles, to Venezuela, to Central America and the Isthmus.

West of the scattered islands of the long chain of the Bahamas lie the reefs of the Great Bahama Bank, curbing the Santaren and Old Bahama Channels. The currents swirl perilously about the tide-washed reefs. Midway, Jumentos Cays threw a crescent to the northwest. Bane was the lone sea-highwayman of this stretch, cruising amid the smaller islands and darting out upon the merchantmen. Vice-Admiral Rogers had sworn to chase him from the seas and it was rumored that a fast corvette, or sloop-of-war, was to be specially commissioned for this purpose.

A hidden passage through the Jumentos would provide the buccaneer with a powerful reinforcement. The cord of the bow was sixty miles or more. A channel would enable him to play the arrow, flying out on his prey and slipping back to safety, if needs be, under the very nose of any king's ship. Such a game was to the supreme taste of Bane. To harry commerce and laugh at the Government, why, that was the ideal sport.

He watched the newcomer closely as he took up a tankard set aside on a smaller table, poured the dregs on the smooth mahogany and drew a map with wetted forefinger, outlining the Jumentos Crescent, the scattering Bahamas and the mainland of Cuba as he talked.

"Seventy-five-eighty west, twenty-three- ten north," he concluded, giving the approximate position of the channel. "And the bearings by the three palms, as I shall show ye."

Bane nodded approvingly.

"If ye show us aright," he said, "there shall be special reward for ye. Eh, Denton, what think ye? It suits. In the very midrib of the Bank, a rare hideout! And an isle to boot, for fort and magazine. Sixteen feet will see us clear with our shallow draft. The king's ships draw no less than twenty, even if they dared to follow without knowing the bearings. Your name, man?"

"They call me Turtler Tom."

Bane nodded. The lack of surnames was not uncommon with those who did not pretend to worry about the laws.

"So then, Tom the Turtler, you go on the account? Good! We sail at noon tomorrow, when our heads are clear. Report to Denton here. And there's a piece-of-eight to drink to the new venture."

Tom took the coin and pocketed it. His sponsor clapped him on the back once more as they went down to the common room.

"So ye are one of us. Now for a health. I warrant ye that was one of Denton's pieces the skipper tossed ye. Did ye note the glum look he cast after it?"

Above-stairs Bane looked at the evaporating map.

"A good stroke, Denton," he said. "We'll play the fox with them all with this runway. And a good man gained. A bold eye, Dickon, and a strong arm."

"A likely man enough, though I cared not for his eyes. They look too like a shark's for my taste. And I have a fancy that I have seen him before. 'Tis your nick again. Take up the box."

"I call a five," said Bane, rattling the dice. "Shell out. I shall win all your stakes yet. This is my lucky night."

Tom the Turtler glanced up at the lighted window as he left the tavern. The last round had put the old buccaneer to sleep. He walked down to the beach where the boats of the pirate lay. The brigantine was anchored in the bay.

He walked moodily along the edge of the tide, his hands deep in his pockets. Presently his fingers sought and found a coin, the piece-of-eight that Bane had given him as earnest-money. With a swift jerk he sent it skittering across the placid water, sending up tiny splashes of phosphorescence as it skipped.

" 'On the account.' 'Tis an apt phrase," he mused. "And the reckoning is a long one. But it shall be paid, to the full."

He seated himself on a rock and looked at the trim hull of the Venture for a long time, motionless. But his eyes saw no vessel, but the vision of Green Key and the coral slabs above a lonely grave where the jungle -vines had laid pitying fingers.

6: The Kissing Palms

FAR down the wind a ship blazed furiously, the flames, pale in the afternoon sun, fanned by the mounting breeze. Three miles to the south sped the Venture, her decks yet cumbered with the spoils of the prize. And, after her in swift pursuit, with all the sail that her slender spars could bear, raced H. M. Corvette Juno, overhauling the pirate fathom by fathom.

Captain Sawtrell, commander of the king's ship, walked his deck and whistled softly for a continuance of the wind. His first lieutenant saw the puckered lips and guessed their meaning with a smile. It was yet three glasses to darkness. The chart showed that the chase was heading straight for the Jumentos, less than seven sea-leagues distant. If the Juno could get within gunshot before sunset, as seemed inevitable, he had metal enough aboard— new guns out from England— to blow the brigantine out of the water.

The corvette was flush-decked and schooner rigged. She had but one tier of guns but they were handled by a picked crew. The vice-admiral had grown tired of chasing Bane with craft slower than the brigantine and he had requisitioned Sawtrell and the Juno to rid the seas of the Venture. As long as Bane was free to ravage, others were likely to emulate his example.

There were plenty of men among those recently pardoned at Providence who itched for the old life and made a hero out of Bane, laughing in their sleeves at Rogers for letting him escape from Nassau. Sawtrell's orders were explicit, he was not to return until Bane was captured, and already the end of the cruise seemed in sight.

"What's wrong with the fool?" Sawtrell asked his officer. "There's no passage through those cays?"

"None marked. The water shallows to six fathoms a league from the line of breakers. I've sailed along their front and seen naught but spouting reefs. Maybe he plans to beach her, since we have the heels of him."

"We'll pound him to pieces before he can get his men out of her, he does. We can try a shot soon. We must have caught him napping, too busy looting to keep a lookout. Better get the bow-guns ready. Hardy; we'll try for his spars. He keeps his course, the rogue."

Aboard the Venture, Bane measured the decreasing distance with an anxious eye. The brigantine was foul-bottomed and the corvette was entirely too fast to his liking. The merchantman had been richly laden and all hands had worked to transfer the cargo. The lookout had taken the corvette for a trading-schooner until she was close enough to show her white gun-ports and a tack had revealed the red ensign.

The brigantine, according to British nomenclature, was the same type as an hermaphrodite brig, square-rigged forward and schooner-rigged aft. With the wind as it was, slightly forward of the beam, sailing on a broad reach, the corvette with her fore-and-aft rig had the better of the Venture. Before the wind the craft would be on fairly equal terms; close-hauled, the corvette would still hold the advantage.

The wind was westerly. To run would bring the brigantine into the angle where the Jumentos joined Long Island on a course between the reefs and the gims of the corvette. So Bane kept on the steady line for the center of the Jumentos. He was taking a chance on Tom the Turtler, who now stood at the wheel.

They had been out from San Domingo a week. Todd had performed his duty with thoroughness. But he was not popular aboard. Bane welcomed him as a perfect helmsman as well as special pilot, a man who could get the last fraction of a knot of speed and keep his course high-pointed by the trim of the sails and the feel of the wheel. But, with the pirates, Hampton, the man who had sailed with Kidd and sponsored him, was practically his only associate.

Todd had tried to mix with the rest, pending the development of his hazy plans of revenge, but the grim determination that invested him looked out of the eyes that Denton had said were like those of a shark and the reckless pirates seemed to sense him as one even more desperate than themselves but not one of them.

There were whispers of his being a Jonah. The practical jokes that were played upon a newcomer fell flat before perpetration, checked by Todd's steady gaze. Sometimes a pirate crossed himself and muttered about the "evil-eye" when Todd looked at him.

Scarry-Dick Denton watched him with suspicion, he knew that. Any day that danger might break and the quartermaster remember him as the Turtler of Green Key who had shot hogs. Todd's vengeance had not assumed a definite plan. Circumstances perforce guided him. He found it hard to mask the hatred in his eyes when he spoke to Bane and his fingers itched to close about the pirate's throat.

Mary had not been quite dead when he reached her. She had spoken a few words, enough to let him know that Bane had been the chief aggressor but to Todd's fanatic mind, crazed with grief, the whole crew were guilty and were to be brought to the account. He could easily have killed Bane first, and after him, two or three more perhaps before they stopped him, but that was not enough to pay for the murder of his Mary, herded by the butchers to kill herself and save her honor.

He thought of blowing up the magazine at first but Bane knew his business and not only was it guarded, night and day, and during a fight, but, whenever Todd showed a disposition to go an3nvhere about the ship by himself, he found a pirate close beside
him. He shrewdly suspected that, once he had shown the passage through the Jumentos, they would gladly rid themselves of him, by fair means or foul.

The suggestion of Jonah aboard such a ship was one that would not down. And he could not change his eyes. He tried to glaze them with indifference but his hatred showed. He caught sight of himself once in a triangle of looking-glass and almost started at the malignant countenance he saw, grim, relentless.

There was one man aboard who had tried to pick a quarrel with him, a half-breed, part Carib, part Spaniard; known as "Spanish" Jack, noted for his knife-play. Denton had interfered, threatening the man with irons and Spanish Jack had slunk away. Todd guessed that the quartermaster had interfered only to preserve the holder of the reef entrance and that sooner or later he would have to deal with Spanish Jack.

NOW he held them all in the hollow of his hand. He could wreck them and the sea would do the rest. But even then he was not sure of his vengeance and physically he ached to be an active instrument, to come to grips with Bane, at least, and let the life out of him in a red tide.

"One scrape of her keel and I blow off the top of your head!"

Scarry-Dick was beside him, openly suspicious, a pistol in his hand.

Todd smiled and glanced once at the quartermaster. It was the glance of a man without fear, thought the quartermaster. The look of one who did not value his life at a groat, a menacing look that seemed to hold the smoldering flame of a threat against all the world. Something had seared all the humanity out of it. It sneered, it seemed to read his mind, to seek out the dirty corners of his soul and regard its foulness with a scantily veiled contempt. It was the gaze of a man without a soul. The gaze of a devil.

Denton's grip tightened jon his pistol-butt. For perhaps the first time in his blustering life the quartermaster was afraid.

The skipper is a fool, he thought, glancing over his shoulder at the corvette. There was a puff of white smoke from her bows that formed itself into a ring and blew away in rags to leeward. A round shot plumped into the sea, geysering up half a mile astern. The chase was closing.

Bane came up and sent a keen eye to the set of the sails, to the even wake that streamed greenish-white, like marble, behind them. The steering was perfect. The brigantine was at the limit of its speed.

"Once clear of this," he said to Denton, "and we'll careen. If we were not foul we could hold her. As it is—"

"Land ahead," came from the foremast where a man balanced himself in the topmast crosstrees. Another shot came from the corvette.

"Try her with the stem-chaser," ordered Bane. "The water should begin to shallow soon. We'll lead her on since we can not shake her off."

The missile fell short. A third shot from the king's ship, fired at extreme elevation, dropped within two hundred yards, fair in the tail of the wake.

"Zounds!" cried Bane, frowning. "They have good marksmen aboard. It's touch and go. If she can once cripple us she can hold off and hammer us with those cursed guns of hers. Try her again, gunner."

He looked doubtfully at Todd as the cannon roared out defiance.

"How close are we heading for that entrance of yours?" he asked.

"I can not tell yet. The course should bring us fairly close. There are few landmarks on this lowland and we must raise the palms before I dare shift."

"We can not risk a tack," muttered Bane. "Make no mistake, if you set any value on your life. Does the lookout know your bearings?"

"Aye. There are three palms, as I told ye. One each side of the channel with their branches bowed toward each other. The Kissing Palms, I named them. Another on the islet. We take the channel with the two in line at first. Then let them open and, when the islet palm shows even between the two, we make the final fairway."

He stood confident, his lean brown hands deftly handling the wheel, his steering hung between three spokes, easing a little to the gusts that threatened a swiftly coming gale, his feet firm to the deck as the vessel heeled, apparently unconscious of Scarry-Dick's menacing attitude.

Bane strode forward. The corvette was yawing a trifle to use her bow guns. The pyramids of water from her shot came ever closer to the counter of the brigantine. At the pirate's command a man crept bare-footed, out over the jib-boom to the flying jib-boom spar, locked his legs in the stirrup-ropes and cast his lead. Bane watched the colored rags of the marks as the line cut the water and was swept back into the hissing rush from the cutwater, listening to the drone of the leadsman.

"Eight— by the mark— eight! Seven and— a half— a quarter! Seven! She shoals! Seven it is! Seven! By the mark six and a half. It holds!"

The lookout shouted. Bane went aft to where he could catch the back-swept syllables. Palms were in sight. He took his telescope back to the bows. Presently spidery lines, tufted at the top, came into the field above a havoc of white surf-line. The brigantine fell off a little. Tom the Turtler had judged his course to a nicety. They were above the passage. There was no tack necessary.

"Six fathom," called the leadsman.

The seas were choppy. The brigantine, curbed by the exquisite humoring of the rudder by the steersman, fought with wind and wave to gain its head. A shot tore through the fore topsail, barely missing the boom, and dropped ahead. The Venture replied, almost in range. The wind increased and the masts bent like whips.

Bane snapped to his spy-glass. He had seen the bowed fronds of the Kissing Palms. If their pilot was true they would beat the corvette. Her captain could not risk his ship much longer in the shoaling sea.

THERE was a thudding crash. A shot had struck fair, just below the taffrail. The next tore through the planking of the deck within five feet of the wheel. Todd paid no attention to it. Denton's pistol was within an inch of his skull as he set his strength to the stubborn spokes.

Ahead they could catch the roar of the breakers. There seemed no break in the leaping tiunult that hid the low shore, above which the palm tops beirely showed. They were in five fathoms now, only twice the draft of the brigantine.

The corvette had come up into the wind, firing a full broadside as she hung in stays. They had given up the chase. The king's ship was deeper-keeled. Eighteen feet was her limit.

The balls hurtled over the Venture. Ropes were clipped, the topmast on the main faltered and broke, the topsail hanging as it flapped in a tangle of lines. The brigantine wavered but Todd straightened her and they rushed on toward the spouting reef.

It opened ahead, a mere break in a wall of spume and they sped down a lane of wild water, less than a fathom of freeway on either hand, urged on by great billows that mounted behind them in the narrow channel. The two palms came slowly into line and still they glided on, high-tossing seas raging over the rocks to right and left in streaming cataracts, Denton's finger on the last ounce of trigger-pull.

The palms opened again. Todd gave orders to Denton who repeated them with a roar to the expectant men. A dozen leaped for every brace and sheet and the Venture shot up into the wind. The following breakers lost their crests and volume.

Ahead, a green hummock of an island showed, one lone palm crowning it that slowly shifted until it held the center of the frame formed by the Kissing Palms while the brigantine fell slowly off and passed at last between reefs half submerged and hissing with rapids into a central lagoon of which the tiny island was the hub to a rim of strips of land, reef-tops fringed here and there with palms and scrub. Todd brought the Venture to an anchorage off a tiny cove and the chain rattled out to sand in four fathoms.

Bane smote him between the shoulders.

"Well found, lad," he cried. "Now let the king's ship play patrol, an she will. We'll stay inside till we are ready to leave, with two doors to our stable. Come below and prick it on the chart. There's a tot for ye and for all hands besides. Give the order, Denton, and join us."

Scarry-Dick cast a sour look at Todd. The man had saved them but he hked him none the better. He beckoned to Spanish Jack.

"What was your quarrel with him?" he asked, jerking his thumb at Todd.

The half-breed spilled a mouthful of ready oaths.

"A score of reasons. The man has the eyes of voodoo."

"Caught you cogging the dice, eh? Nay, frown not, man, I have no love for hiin. But ye know the rules. All quarrels must be settled on land. We stay here until tomorrow."

A crooked smile distorted the face of Spanish Jack. He tapped the hilt of the long, thin knife that he wore in his sash.

"There are other games that I can play besides dice," he said.

Denton nodded and went below. They wanted no kill-joys aboard, he told himself. The skipper had promised Todd an extra share for successful pilotage. There was none too much for sharing with the big crew.

I would that I could place the man, he thought. It is no pleasant memory he brings up, of that I'll be sworn. The man hates himself and all the world. He'll have the crew by the ears with that skull-face of his. Beshrew me, but those eyes of his hold the look of a hangman."

7: Knife-Play

THE pirates sat and squatted in a big circle where hummocks and dunes of sand formed the seats of a natural arena on the shore of the islet. The morning meal was over and the sun was well up. A man had hitched up the slender trunk of the palm and reported the topsails of the corvette showing on the horizon in the hope that the pirate would come out of his hide-out. What with the channel and the shallows they were in no fear of his guns.

For safety's sake the sails of the brigantine were close furled and the spars decked cleverly with fronds of palmetto. They could wait until the coast was clear, or, if the king's ship proved too persistent, slip out to southward. This last Bane did not want to do unless he were pressed. He had to careen and the fresh-water creek he preferred for the cleansing of the weeds and barnacles from the bottom of the brigantine was to the north and east on Great Exuma Isle.

To go south would lose him valuable time and this was the best season for his piracies. The merchantman they had just captured and fired, after putting its crew into their own longboat, had carried several butts of wine and a day's debauch was ahead. After the division of the spoils there was rare sport forward. Spanish Jack had given the new man the lie.

To refuse a challenge meant that the flincher would lead the life of the ship's cur and the recruit had taken it up. Wagers were freely offered on Spanish Jack and there were no takers. Knives were the weapons set aside for settling such affairs as providing the best spectacle and the longest fight and all knew the half-breed's especial skill.

Spanish Jack was a cheat and a bully but the other was one who held as little in common with them as oil with water, and the ship, now that he had shown them the passage, would be the happier without him. Only Hampton, the one-eyed, stood beside him.

"Look ye, lad," said Hampton. " 'Ware the sun. He will work you to it. Watch his shadow. Or he will dazzle you with his blade. 'Tis an ojd trick of his. He cheated me out of eleven guineas the other night. I have no love for him. If ye win, belike it will make ye more popular. Ye should spruce up, man. That face of yours is a spoil-sport. 'Tis a gay life we aim to lead.

"Let me see your knife. Take mine. It has a grip of sharkskin and the blade is long. He can shift to either hand or throw straight to an inch of his mark. He'll try to gut ye or slash the tendons of your wrist. Crouch and thrust. Don't slash— it shortens your reach.

"Take off your shirt, ye are to fight naked in your drawers. 'Tis the rule. The bullies like to watch the red score on the naked flesh. Soak your headkerchief, the sun will else addle your brains— and wrap your forearm in your sash. That yellow mongrel has arms like a squid but yours are full as long. I mind me when I sailed with Kidd—"

Bane, sitting with his officers upon a turf- crowned knoll, gave the word. The two advanced, crossing their blades at arms' length, right foot advanced to right foot.

Todd's lean, brown body sloped from square shoulders to narrow hips, his ribs showing clean above his muscle-ridged stomach. He was confident of the issue. A plan had come into his head. His cause was righteous and he felt that Spanish Jack was not to be the one to defeat it. That the duel was forced upon him he felt sure but he meant to use the enmity that lay back of it to his own ends.

The Spaniard was fat in comparison but he seemed made of gutta percha as he thrust swiftly and bounded back, his eyes glittering as he saw the scarlet line break out across Todd's shoulder. He circled, pumafooted, backing toward the sim. Todd saw his shadow swinging longer toward him.

The sunglare caught his eyes and he leaped to one side, drawing his belly inward to avoid the sweeping lunge and clutching for the other's knife-hand with his left. In the second they were locked, swaying. Spanish Jack saw the turtler's eyes glaring at him, malignant, assured. He suddenly dropped to his knees, pulling Todd forward, downward, with all Ms strength while the eager circle yelled.

Taken unawares, Todd lunged over the breed's shoulder, pitching heavily to the sand but whirling like a cat to regain his feet. Spanish Jack spun roimd on his buttocks, slashing as he came, and once more scoring. The point caught Todd on his hip with a squeak and the blood spurted as the blade glanced off. Spanish Jack rose effortless to his feet and flung a handful of - fine sand, rushing in as Todd lowered his head to avoid the grit.

ONCE more they came to handgrips. Todd put forth all his strength, grinding the small bones of the pirate's wrist until the sweat of agony started from Spanish Jack's eyes and he tore free. The firm sand was printed with their foot-marks as they swerved and feinted, the perspiration already streaming down them, their breath coming short and hard while the pirates leaned forward wordless and motionless from their vantage-seats and a gull screamed overhead.

Todd watched the eyes of his man. He caught a telegraphed lunge to the stomach on his own curving blade, thankful for the sickle shape of the blade and the pebbly grip of the shagreen handle. It was not the first time he had fought with knives though never before in deliberate duel, and his co-ordinating eye and wrist time after time successfully parried the blows in mid-air. He was better winded than the sleek pirate whose indulged paunch showed signs of distress. And he was watchful for more tricks.

One came at last. They had grappled and Spanish Jack swung a savage side-kick at his ankle that almost overcame Todd's balance. He stiunbled forward, throwing up the pirate's forearm with a jarring swing of his own crossed right and countered with an overhand buffet that caught the breed a blow on the side of the head and sent him staggering back, the sun full in his eyes for a second as Todd regained his balanced footing and leaped in.

Spanish Jack dropped to one knee, shaded his eyes with his left hand for an all-important heart-beat and, with a sharp snap, threw his blade, beautifully balanced for the purpose, straight to the heart. Todd caught the flash of it and shrunk sideways in mid-spring. The keen steel flayed the scant flesh of his outer ribs as he swerved and a great roar came from the crowd.

Spanish Jack had missed!

The pirate turned, dug fingers and toes in the sand and flung himself forward in a sprint with Todd at his heels. The turtler caught him at the slope and drove his knife to the guard between the shoulders. Spanish Jack plunged coughing to the ground, wrenching his body from the dripping blade to lie twitching at the feet of his comrades.

There was a sullen silence. Todd felt its omen as he turned toward Bane. If he could gain what he wished for, his plan was well forwarded. Bane beckoned to him and led him apart.

"My bullies take the loss of that runaway amiss," he said. "Yet I have but lost a coward and kept a better man. And I have need for ye. Look, ye, 'twill not be pleasant aboard for ye ere this dies down. 'Tis in my mind to build a stockade and magazine on this islet. The Venture is as foul as the beard of Poseidon. Once clean I can lead the corvette or any other keel the king sends out a merry chase. We shall sail tonight at dusk and clear him in the dark. In two weeks we will return, to come in by dawn.

"There is wood enough. If ye can swing an ax I'll leave ye here with tools and the shallop for towing. 'Tis leaky but 'twill serve. By the time we return the matter will have died down. What say ye?"

Todd's eyes held a gleam that Bane mistook for gratitude. He had gained what he had meant to ask.

"Where do ye careen?" he asked.

Bane frowned.

"I set my own courses," he said.

"I but meant to tell ye of a good place."

"I know of a dozen. So then, 'tis settled. Ye can pilot us out as the sun drops and return in the shallop. They will never see us in the shore haze until the dark covers us. There is no moon until long after midnight. And, a word in your ear.

"Cultivate a more cheerful look on that black face of yours. The men will have it ye are a Jonah. Your face would sour the water casks. Learn to smile against we get back. A good jest is the best purge for sorrow. If 'tis the matter of a faithless lass, forget it. Look not so sullen, man."

"I shall be smiling when we meet next time," said Todd.

Bane turned away then wheeled.

"Keep a good fire going tonight and a smudge by day. 'Twill serve to keep thie corvette certain that we are still within. Two days from now let it die down. That should leave the coast clear for us to put back. I have no mind to sail around the whole Jumentos."

Todd nodded. He had got the information he most wanted after all. The Venture was going north, probably to one of the Exuma group.

Just as the sun dipped and spread a sudden curtain between day and night the brigantine cleared the channel and, steering northeast, was swallowed up in the dusk. Todd, still with the gleam in his eyes that Bane had thought gratitude, rowed back to the islet with his tools and provisions and started a fire. He seemed in a hurry to commence his labors, taking up his pick after a hasty meal and commencing to dig.

8: The Account is Closed

BANE had guessed right as to the actions of the corvette. Captain Sawtrell, loath to give up the so nearly captured pirate held his ship off the Jumentos where the red glow of a fire seemed to proclaim Bane and his men reveling in their retreat behind the protecting reefs. Sawtrell thought it probable that there were other openings to the south and roundly cursed the faulty Government charts. The lookout failed to see the brigantine creeping out through the murk at sunset and the corvette held off and on till morning.

At dawn the course was set shoreward where a column of smoke showed faintly brown against the clear sky.

"We'll not round the Jumentos," declared Sawtrell. "If we do he'll come out by this entrance and at least we can keep him off the line of commerce. Hang him for a crafty dog that has a dozen kennels. But we'll take him yet. We have the speed and range of him. Next time—"

A man came aft with the news of a small shallop heading up for the corvette.

"A Carib likely," commented the captain. "We'll have him aboard if he comes near us. Perchance he may know the key to this front-door of Bane's. We'll stand as we are, Hardy, as long as the boat comes to us. No use in showing our topsails unless we have to. We were too close in last night."

An hour later Todd stood before the captain and told his tale.

"How am I to know whether this it not a trap," asked the king's officer sternly. "Ye say ye piloted them in. Ye may be a renegade."

"It is a trap," said Todd, "but it is not set for you. My God, man, do ye not believe me? Ye run no risk more than ye did the last time."

His eyes blazed with fierce exultation, his lean face lit with the prospect of revenge.

"That is true," said Sawtrell. "And ye have good cause for getting even. It is bad that ye know not for certain where he went to careen but we will cruise the line between the Exumas and the eastern horn of the Jumentos. If he sailed northeast he will cross us. Nights, we'll range closer in. Mayhap we'll catch her within range. If not we'll try your advice. And, if we turn the trick ye can name any fair and fit reward."

"Loan me shears and a razor. Give me a cutlas and pistols and appoint me with the boarding party. I have a fancy to be present in person when the account is paid."

ON THE morning of the thirteenth day Bane came on deck at a few minutes before eight bells. A crescent moon held the morning star in its embrace. The sea was motionless save for the hardly perceptible heave of the ground- swell, lifting the unruffled expanse in soundless sighs.

A slight mist, which would vanish with the sun, dimmed the moon and all the stars, gradually lifting from the water, its lower edge even with the rail of the brigantine. The canvas hung limp, the Venture rolled slightly, without steerage way.

Bane cursed the calm that held him adrift ten miles from the entrance to the channel. He was anxious to get back to the islet, finish up his stockade and magazine and be off upon the Bank once more for plunder.

He did not fear the corvette. With a clean bottom the Venture sailed like a witch. The king's men would long since have sickened of waiting and concluded that he had slipped through to the south. Perhaps they had gone in search of him.

Through the mist came the sound of a ship's bell, smartly tapped and answered, eight ringing strokes from the fog. Scarry Dick came up as Bane started at the sound,

"There's something waiting for us, Denton. If only this cursed fog would lift. Some distance off, though it's hard to guess with the mist. Get me my spyglass, will ye?"

Slowly the filmy curtain rose, the space between it and the sea clear as crystal. Bane stooped to the rail and leveled his glass, sweeping the northwestern horizon where the stars were begining to flicker. He turned to the quartermaster with a low exclamation.

"It's that —— corvette. Take the glass man. Look, there where the Big Bear swings to the sea. Now for a breeze. The sun will be up in a few minutes. We are well inshore. If the wind's easterly we'll have the weather of him and we'll play him the same trick over again. I've no fancy to get within range of those guns of his."

A quadrant of the sun suddenly appeared above the Iow line of Long Island. The mist seemed to dissolve and sop up the stars as it disappeared. Suddenly it was day. The corvette Juno stood up sharply less than two miles away. The wind had come from the eye of the sun, the placid sea was ruffled with flaws that picked up the level rays with flashes of orange and crimson.

Bane volleyed his orders and extra canvas rose smartly to the tapering spars. The Venture began to glide smooth and fast through the water. The corvette, topsails mounted, came about and stood on an inshore tack on a parallel course with the brigantine, beyond gun range and to leeward.

"We can almost make the channel on this slant," said Bane. "——her, if we could run the corvette ashore we'd pick her clean of those guns. We'll run in, finish our work and get through to the south. As long as she stays in these waters our sport is spoiled. She sticks like a limpet. 'Tis a good breeze. Watch us walk, the beauty."

The two ships were evenly matched. The water creamed from the corvette's forefoot. Through the spyglass Bane could see the men swarming on her decks, working on the sheets to get another foot of speed out of her. Mile after mile they raced toward the shore, the leeway of wind and current gradually setting the king's ship down the cays while the brigantine, with Hampton at the wheel, clawed up into the breeze to make the tack for entrance into the channel as short as possible. Four miles off shore the corvette tacked and came toward them.

"She'll pass two miles astern of us," chuckled Bane. "She's not gained a foot." The king's ship came on, close-hauled, surging through the blue water while the Venture held on for the shore. Then the corvette tacked once more but kept her fore and main sheeted in until she heeled perilously, losing the speed of the full drive of her canvas from the quartering wind.

Bane swore through his beard. It was a smart maneuver, calculated to bring the corvette within gun range and broadside to the brigantine when the latter made its inevitable tack at the channel entrance.

"They got the position down fine," he muttered. "We'll have to run the risk of a raking. Since that's the case we'll play the same game." He gave his orders and the Venture swung to a course parallel with the corvette and the cays, a little less than a mile inshore of the king's ship. They had passed from blue water to the vivid green of the shoals. The corvette could not risk approaching the land much closer. Already the leadsman was in her bows.

On the Venture the guns were loaded and run out from the open ports. The muzzles of the Juno were already peeping from her sides. Once more she smartly came about, slanting up to meet the pirate. Both broadsides roared. Clouds of white powder smoke rolled up between them. Splinters flew from the hull of the brigantine.

A round shot smote old Hampton fairly in the ribs, showering Bane with his blood, shattering the rim of the wheel and plunging through the rail. The pirate who had sailed with Kidd rolled into the scuppers, almost torn in two. Bane sprang to the shattered wheel. The rudder still answered. The helm was broken but not destroyed. The smoke cleared. White flecks on the corvette's side showed where the pirates had scored. She was firing from her stern- chaser and Bane replied.

'Round came the corv'ette again and the duel continued from their fore and aft guns. A lucky shot from the Venture smashed the Juno's bowsprit, carrying away her jibs, the staysail still keeping her steady as she dropped behind. A scattering shower of partridge scoured the length of the brigantine, the bomb of the charge exploding amidships, leaving a half-score of writhing men upon her decks.

They were off the channel. The main-sheet came home, the fore-yards were hauled and the Venture squared off for the entrance, Denton in the bows, picking out the Kissing Palms. More partridge sprayed them as they sped. Bane at the wheel, holding the palms in line as they neared the reef. He scowled as he looked at the corpse of Hampton and the dead and wounded on the smeared planks.

One parting missile jarred the brigantine as the corvette put about from the danger-line of shallows. The shot had struck fair on the waterline. A few more of that kind and the Venture would have been out of commission.

They entered the passage, with the Kissing Palms merged in one. Bane let them slowly open, watching for the islet palm to show. He was furious at the encounter which had plainly proved him no match for the metal or marksmanship of the Juno. He would go south to the Carribbean and leave these waters. They might go to Madagascar, the old cruising ground of Kidd. At all events he would get away, thanks to the secret of Tom the Turtler.

The islet palm seemed slow to appear, the surf was dangerously near his larboard quarter. It showed at last, shifting slowly to the middle of the two trunks and he breathed a sigh of relief as the Venture answered his hands.

There was a slurring, grinding jar. The bows of the brigantine lifted as she slid forward and upward. The deck planks lifted, her timbers creaked and the foremast broke off at the deck, yards and canvas falling with swinging blocks and stays torn loose from their boltings in confusion, smothering part of the startled crew who fought their way free or lay pinned and groaning under the ruin.

Bane, clinging to the wheel, stared in amazement. The islet palm was still fair between the two other stems, as he had watched it when they had passed through under Tom the Turtler's pilotage. They were hard and fast, seas were breaking above the wreck of the foremast. Denton came to him, his head bloody from a falling spar.

" 'Tis some trick," he gasped. "Some trick of that cursed, shark-eyed turtler."

"Hell's furies," cried Bane. "Up the mainmast, one of ye! If they've seen us strike they'll be after us with boarding crews. Up!"

A man sprang into the main rigging and mounted.

"They are putting off from the corvette," he shouted. "Three boats—four!"

Bane jumped into action.

"Up with the boarding-nettings," he yelled. "Clear away some of that mess for'ard. Seive out pikes and cutlases. Train the stern-chaser on the channel. Do they seem to know the passage, aloft there?"

"Making straight for it."

Bane dived below and chose his sidearms and his sword, an Arabian weapon, curved like a scimitar, of matchless steel. On deck again he brought a semblance of order out of confusion. The Venture had swung sideways with the tide, blocking the channel. The stern-chaser had burst its tackles and broken through the taffrail.

A group of pirates worked to get it into position before the king's men appeared. One trunnion had slipped its socket and the gun lay athwart its carriage. A heavy netting of rope was raised above the rail. Muskets were piled with stacks of boarding pikes and the cornered crew prepared to resist.

THE leading cutter appeared, spray flying from the spurting blades. Another followed it, the men huzzaing as they caught sight of the trapped pirate. Haul and heave as they might. Bane's men could not get the stern gun into position. All four of the king's boats, crowded with men, were now racing down the lane that was pitted with musket balls. Here and there a rower slumped but the boarding was a matter of only a hundred yards dash from the turn in the channel.

With a cheer, the cutters swept under the counter and alongside, jumping for the low freeboard, clinging to the netting while they slashed at it with cutlas and knife, tearing it loose with a grappling iron and swarming across the rail, parrying pike and blade, leaping to the decks and breaking up into a series of hand-to-hand combats, little swirls of men that engaged and broke apart leaving here and there one prone, sliced with a keen edge or shot by a pistol that singed the flesh at close quarters.

The hot sun shone down on the mélee. There was the stamp of feet, the sound of oaths, of shots, the smell of blood that stained the decks, lay in sluggish puddles or joined the dark stream in the scuppers; the taste and scent of powder gas, filrns of smoke above the struggling masses as the men from the Juno drove the pirates forward to where the fallen foremast partly blocked the deck; man to man, cursing as bullet or blade went home, gasping tffeir diminishing breath as the others trampled upon them, sliding on the canted deck, soon slippery with gore.

Todd was the second man aboard. Captain Sawtrell beat him by a split-second. A pirate thrust at him with a pike as he stood on the rail but the point wavered and fell as Todd fired full in the man's face and leaped to the deck. He had caught sight of Bane, his sword flashing as it rose and fell, his voice rising abdve the general uproar in defiant curses.'

Sawtrell pressed toward him and Todd followed, eager to reach the buccaneer captain and settle his score. Two men closed in upon them and Sawtrell turned to engage one of them, dexterously parrying the forceful but clumsy swing of the cutlas and nmning his opponent through with his sword as a cook would spit a joint.

Todd broke through the other's guard and sliced the man's upper arm. His strength seemed doubled and he strode over the fallen man in exultant fury, pressing ahead of the Juno's commander to where Bane's sword, red now, whistled above his head as he charged through the knot of sailors who siurrounded him, and led a group of pirates to the rescue of Scarry-Dick, hard-pressed by the rail.

A jumble of men, cutting and thrusting, swept Todd aside for the moment. He dropped a burly giant with the bullet from his second pistol and felled another with the butt. The fighting mob divided and he sprang through the opening. Scarry-Dick seemed to spring up through the deck before him, cutlas aloft. As the blades grated for a second he saw Denton's puzzled eyes staring at him in amazement. The quartermaster had recognized the turtler from Green Key, though, shaven clean and clipped, he did not know him for the pilot they had recruited at San Domingo until Todd shouted as he lunged.

"Ah, Shark-eyes," answered the pirate. "Have at ye, trickster!"

His arm shot up as he avoided the lunge but never descended. A shot from Hardy, first officer of the corvette, pierced his neck and he fell, grasping futilely at Todd's legs as the tmtler passed over him.

The sailor in front of Bane dropped to his knees, his skull gaping, and Todd jumped in, parrying the smashing blow the pirate swung at him. The tempered Arabian blade shore through the coarser steel and Todd found himself with a shattered weapon clutching a hilt that held only a few inches of jagged blade. Bane laughed, swinging his sword in a hissing circle.

"Come on, bullies," he cried. "Drive 'em, the dogs. Drive—"

The word died in his throat as Todd leaped, heedless of the keen edge that bit into his shoulder, sending his broken spike of steel into Bane's face, full into the bush of black beard, smashing the grinning teeth and, as Bane staggered, clutching the throat his fingers had so long itched to reach.

The pirate's eyes rolled upward, projecting from their sockets as his sword clattered to the deck and he strove to tear loose the iron claws that were compressing his windpipe. Back to the rail Todd bore him, back until he bent Bane's spine across the edge and the buccaneer's tongue protruded from his cut and swollen lips.

Todd's strength was rapidly ebbing with the stream of blood that poured from his shoulder but he knew nothing but the glut of his revenge, the sight of Bane's protuding eyes, the purpling of his face, the laxness of the body that sagged, dragging Todd with it, his fingers still sunk into the flesh and muscles about the throttled gullet.

The cheering of the king's men as they drove the pirates below, overboard, or begging quarter in herded groups, sounded to Todd like the roaring of deep seas as he sank beneath them to unconsciousness.

THE Honorable William Dummer, Esq.,Lieutenant-Governor and commander-in-chief of the province of Massachusetts Bay, President of the Special Court of the Admiralty, at the courthouse of Boston, assisted by eighteen gentlemen of the council, found Bane and the survivors of his crew guilty of murder and piracy.

"Before I sentence ye to be executed and hung in chains in Boston Harbor, regretting that such a villain has but one life to make atonement for the barbarity of which you have been found guilty," said the governor, "you are permitted to speak and say why sentence should not be passed upon ye."

"Hang me and be —— to ye all," said Bane. "I will meet many of ye sleek gentlemen in hell where I shall have the advantage of my quicker turning off. Yet I would ask one question of this witness."

He turned his baleful eyes upon Tom Todd, who had testified in secret session to the death of Mary Todd and his own adventures aboard the Venture, for which he had received full remission from the court and the promise of a substantial reward.

"Before I swing," said Bane, as the governor nodded and Todd, his eyes still holding hatred, stepped forward, "tell me the trick ye played on us in the Jumentos passage."

Todd's eyes gleamed.

" 'Twas easy to gull ye," he said. "Ye left me tools and a shallop. Before I put off to the Juno I shifted the palm on the islet five paces to the west."

The bailiffs stopped the curses of the hoodwinked pirate and Todd turned to the presiding officer.

"My lord," he said. "Ye have made mention of some reward. I ask for one favor that shall cancel all the rest."

" 'Tis granted, within reason."

"There is wide reason in the request, my lord. Grant me the hangman's office."

__________________

15: The Stolen Crime

Richard Connell

The London Magazine, July 1921

"THEY caught the fellow who robbed the Bridge City Bank last night," announced Strang, editor of the Evening Tribune, as he came into the lounge of the Clintonian Club.

Two men, sunk deep in leathern easy chairs before the log fire, looked up from an animated conversation.

"I thought they would," remarked Morton Yeager, the new district attorney of Valley county. He shot a glance at his companion; Simon Bain, cashier of the Clintonia Trust Company. "There you are, Bain," he said. "Excuse me if I exclaim loudly and vulgarly, 'I told you so.' "

Simon Bain blew smoke rings into the air and stretched his long legs.

"Wait a bit, Yeager, before you begin to cackle," he said. "Let's hear more about this. What's the man like, Strang?"

"An old-time yegg named Shanton, alias half a dozen other things." answered Strang. "Long criminal record. He was so obliging as to leave his hat behind when he fled. Also, his fingerprints all over the safe."

"Not a very intelligent sort of crook, one might say, eh?" asked Simon Bain, looking quizzically at the district attorney.

"Far from it." replied Strang. "Crude work. He said to Dace, our police reporter, 'I'm a has-been. These here thumb-prints and electric alarms and newfangled do-funnies are too much for us old-time birds.' "

"Exactly, exactly," exclaimed Simon Bain. "He's just the sort of man I thought did that clumsy job at Bridge City. Left his hat behind, did he?" Bain chuckled.

"I fail to see that that helps your case, Bain," remarked Yeager, dryly. "In fact, it seems to me to support what I have been saying— a criminal always leaves clues."

"What's all this argument about, Anyhow." demanded Strang, settling into a chair and lighting up an ancient calabash. The district attorney answered him.

"Bain here, has been contending that it is possible to commit a perfect crime— a crime so executed that no evidence is left behind to convict the perpetrator."

"Huh," exclaimed Strang, "there are plenty of perfect crimes right here in Clintonia, then. At any rate, the police don't make arrests in a good many cases."

"There haven't been very many unsolved mysteries since I took office, you'll notice," returned Yeager. "No, Bain, there isn't a case where the criminal doesn't leave good, hot clues."

"Granted," said Bain. "Because criminals are a stupid, unscientific, inefficient lot. Look at Shanton. He robs a safe and leaves his hat and thumb-prints. He uses enough nitro to blow up a courthouse, and rouses the whole town. Most crimes are committed by men like that, and planned with an equal amount of intelligence. Now, I believe that if an educated man with scientific training turned criminal he could stage thefts or even murders that would baffle Sherlock Holmes himself. Just suppose, for example, a live, modern business man gave the same amount of intelligence and study to burglary as he did to his legitimate business!"

"You think, then," queried Strang, "that it is possible for your artist in crime to sit down with pencil and paper and plan out a theft so scientifically that it is police-proof?"

Simon Bain nodded.

"By careful study of the law of averages, our scientific criminal would reduce the chances against him to a negligible minimum." he replied. "He would provide against the most remote contingencies, and would so plan his campaign that he would be prepared to meet any emergency."

District Attorney Yeager smiled a wide smile of doubt.

"Tommy rot," he said. "It's easy to sit here and theorize about your super-crook, but if you had to plan a specific crime for him, you'd soon find yourself up against all sorts of practical details."

Bain did not reply, and the three men sat listening to the crackling logs and puffing smoke rings into the air. Bain was staring at the fire, and the district attorney studied his alert, Intense face, with the bright eyes of a dreamer, and the thin-lipped, competent mouth of the doer. The banker was the first to speak.

"I'll admit," he said presently, "that sometimes I have amused myself by planning crimes that my scientific criminal might execute. These mental exercises were purely academic, of course."

"Perhaps you can give us the blue print of one of them," suggested the district attorney.

Simon Bain thought a moment.

"I'll do it," he said, "and I'll give you real names and places, too.''

HE filled his pipe again and, sinking back into the deep chair began.

"As you know, the Pioneer Mills do their banking with the Clintonia Trust Company. It's no secret that their monthly pay roll is in excess of $300,000. For the past nine years their method of getting the cash to meet the pay roll hasn't varied In the slightest degree. That is because Alec Rae, the cashier of the Pioneer Mills. is a precise, methodical man, very set in his ways.

"This is what happens. At three in the afternoon of the last day of every month Alec Rae comes to the side door of the Clintonia Trust Company, carrying an old black walrus bag. He always comes from the mills by trolley car; he wouldn't think of spending the money for a taxi to bring him to the bank.

"He knocks three times— never more, never less— and he is admitted. He comes into my office and says, in that nasal voice of his, 'Good day to you, Meester Bain, and I'll be having the cash for the Pioneer Mills, if you don't mind.'

"I have a receipt ready, which he signs. The money is waiting in the cashier's cage in hundreds, fifties, tens, fives and ones. Alec Rae moistens his thumb, sighs at the sight of so much money and carefully counts the packages, holding them an inch from his nose, for he is near-sighted. He puts the cash in the black walrus bag, locks it and goes out the side door and around to the front of the building to Market street, where he calls a taxi. He drives to the Pioneer Mills, where, l presume, he puts the money in the safe for the night. The whole process, from the time Alec Rae enters the bank till the time the money is put in the safe at the Pioneer Mills, takes about an hour."

Bain paused. Yeager was leaning forward, listening intently. Strang was sprawled back in his chair, but he was not missing a word.

"Now," continued the banker, "the problem before our super-crook is to get that black walrus bag with the cash. I have doped out a plan he might follow? I think it would work. Here it is:

"Our super-crook comes to Clintonia and gets a job with the Pioneer Mills to study the habits of Alec Rae. He finds out in a few months just how Alec Rae gets the cash for the pay roll. Then, on the night before the last day in the month, he sneaks over to Bridge City or Avalon, steals a taxicab and drives it to Clintonia. That would be easy. Then he hides the taxi until the afternoon, and when Alec Rae comes out of the Clintonia Trust Company, about twenty minutes after three, the man is waiting for him and his black bag. Rae always takes the first taxi that comes along, so he'd get in.

"Our super-crook then heads his machine down Market street at a good pace and turns up Church street, headed for the Pioneer Mills. But he does not turn along Lincoln avenue. Instead, he shoots past the cemetery and on to the covered bridge across the Rushing River. This was a short cut to the mills, but recently the bridge has been condemned and there is no traffic on it at all. The whole thing would take less than fifteen seconds. In the center of the bridge, where it is dark on the brightest day, the thief would stop his car short. Alec Rae would stick his head out of the window to see what had happened and the thief would knock him unconscious with a blackjack."

"But isn't Rae armed?" asked Yeager.

"He's supposed to be." answered Simon Bain. "But our crook would find out that Rae broke his revolver two months ago and has been too penurious to buy a new one. He carries his old one, which does not work."

"Are you sure of that?" demanded Yeager.

"Positive," replied the banker. "Our crook would have an easy time silencing Alec Rae.''

"But, even though Rae is near-sighted, he could, perhaps, see the man sufficiently well to identify him afterward." suggested the district attorney.

Bain smiled grimly.

"Our super-crook would take no chances," he said. "The Rushing river tells no tales. The unconscious man would be thrown from the bridge into the rapids. You know how seldom bodies are recovered from the Rushing river, and then they have been pounded to a pulp on the rocks. The thief and murderer would abandon the taxi and slip out of town with the black bag. There's your crime, Mr. District Attorney. How about it?"

The district attorney shrugged his shoulders.

"It's hard to tell," he admitted. "Of course, there are many snags your man might strike."

"It looks police-proof to me." said Strang, knocking the ashes out of his pipe. "Some one ought to tell Rae about it. Put him on his guard."

"Are you sure Rae'* pistol doesn't work?" asked the district attorney.

"As I said. I'm positive," answered Bain.

"By Jove," exclaimed Strang, springing up. "It's 10 o'clock. I'm due home. Good night."

The three men left the club and went their several ways.

THE next night two serious men faced each other across a narrow table in a quiet corner of the Clintonian Club. They were Simon Bain, cashier of the Clintonia Trust Company, and Morton Yeager, the district attorney of Valley county.

"You know what I am going to say. Bain," said the district attorney in a low voice, "and how much I regret to say it."

His eyes bored into those of the man across the table; the banker met the searching scrutiny with a smile.

"Well?" he said.

The district attorney leaned toward him.

"What did you do with the money, Bain?" he said.

The banker's answer was in the tone of one speaking with elaborate patience to a petulant child. "I tell you, Yeager, I did not take it." he said.

"I wish I might believe that," said Yeager, "but the evidence will not let me. And it is on the evidence that I, as a public official, must proceed. You know that, Bain."

"Yes, I know it," said  the banker, without emotion, "and that is why I have not resented your absurd charge. I am waiting to hear that evidence; I assume that it must appear conclusive, otherwise you would not dare make such a charge against me."

"You shall hear the evidence, Bain. When you see how much I know, you'll also see that there is only one course open to you— confession"

"I'm listening," was all Bain said.

"In the first place," said the district attorney, "in the presence of Strang and myself you outlined a plan of the crime that occurred today exactly as it was committed.  Also Rae called at your bank this afternoon and left with a bag containing $319,000 in cash at eighteen minutes past three. He had not been seen since. Just before four an abandoned taxi was found on the lonely covered bridge over the Rushing River. There was blood on the seat inside and signs of a struggle. A button with a fragment of overcoat sticking to it and a shattered pair of spectacles were on the floor of the taxi. The button and spectacles have been identified absolutely as belonging to Alec Rae. It is exactly as you planned it, Bain, in this very club last night."

"Man alive, do you think I'm crazy?" cried Simon Bain impatiently. "Do you think I'm an utter fool— to tell the district attorney of my plan to commit an unusual crime, and the next day commit it under his very nose?"

The district attorney shook his head.

"Come, come, Bain," he said, "you know as well as I do that that would not be the act of a fool, but of a particularly clever man. It is a daring idea; it will be hard to make the ordinary lunk-headed jury comprehend just how clever you've been."

"Well," said Bain, keeping his composure, "you've got the same amount of evidence against Strang. He heard my plan, too."

"Strang can be eliminated," rejoined the district attorney. "Strang has a perfect alibi. Half a dozen reliable witnesses can swear that he was In the office of the Evening Tribune all afternoon. His second edition goes to press at 3:30. Besides, Strang has made a barrel of money out of the Tribune; he has no financial motive for robbing anyone."

Bain made no reply.

"MOREOVER. Bain," went on Yeager, "a hasty investigation after the crime was discovered brought to light the fact that you have been playing the market, and your finances are in bad shape. There we have the motive."

Bain's eyes dropped.

"I'll admit," he said, slowly, "that I have extended myself a bit more than was prudent, lately, but I deny that my financial condition is serious. Have you any more evidence, Yeager?"

"Yes," said the district attorney. "I know that this afternoon between three and four you were not in your office In the bank. You left at half past two and did not return. Where were you about half past three, when Alec Rae was robbed and killed?"

"I was near the covered bridge over the Rushing river." Bain said.

"Now you are being sensible," cried Yeager, heartily. "Believe me, perfect frankness will pay."

"The straight story." said Bain, In that same even tone, "is that when I reached the covered bridge the crime had already been discovered by a passing workman."

The district attorney's face was stern again.

"Do you think a jury will believe that?" he asked.

"It's the truth, nevertheless." retorted Bain, calmly.

The district attorney bent forward.

"And how do you account for the fact that you left your apartment last night at eleven and did not return till after two this morning?" Yeager demanded.

He saw that the question had caught the banker by surprise.

"It happens," continued Yeager, "that the janitor can swear to the exact time you went out and the exact time you returned. A taxi was stolen last night In Bridge City. That same taxi carried Alec Rae to his death on the covered bridge today. Where were you at midnight, Bain?"

"I was in Bridge City," said Bain.

The district attorney waved his hand with a gesture of finality, signifying "Why go further?"

Neither man spoke for a time. Then Bain said In an easy voice:

"Since this is such a delightfully informal trial, I suppose the prisoner may be permitted to put a few questions to the district attorney?"

"I don't see what good It will do," answered Yeager abruptly. "I have gone further than I should, as it is. I have put my case before you. By your own admissions that case is a strong one against you. This business has been painful enough, why prolong it?"

"Come, come, Yeager," protested Bain, with a half smile. "Just one question, then? Purely informal, you understand."

"Well, what is it?"

"Yeager, what were you doing on the covered bridge over the Rushing River at two o'clock this morning?"

The district attorney, who had partly risen, dropped back Into his seat. Bain shot at him a second question:

"And what were you doing in Bridge City last night at midnight?"

Yeager faced him defiantly.

"Me? On the covered bridge? In Bridge City? Last night? You're crazy," he bristled.

"Don't try to bluff, Yeager," returned Bain. "I saw you there."

THE QUIET conviction in the banker's tone told Yeager that it was useless  to bluster. So the district attorney simply said, "Did you?" and waited.

"Yes," said Bain. "I saw you in both places. And now, since I've listened patiently to your case against me, you're going to listen to my case against you."

"Your case against me? What do you mean?" demanded Yeager.

"Listen," said Bain. "You, Yeager, were present last night when I outlined the plan of the crime that was committed today. You've eliminated Strang. That leaves you and me. I eliminate myself because I know that I did not do If. That leaves you, Yeager."

"Indeed?" said the district attorney.

"Yes," said the banker, "that leaves you. Motive, financial pressure. My bank marked two of your checks 'No funds' today. You've been living beyond your Income. Your salary as district attorney is $5,000 a year. On that you keep a car, a large house with four servants and a wife who is the best-dressed woman in Clintonia. It can't be done.

"I'm wasting time here," drawled Yeager. But Bain continued.

"Last night after I left you at the club I went home, but I could not go to sleep. There were things I had to think out. It is my custom when I have problems to solve to go for a long walk. So, as it was a fine moonlight night, I decided to walk over to Bridge City and to return by trolley car. I reached Bridge City about midnight. In Pine street I stopped to light a cigarette In a dark doorway a few doors below Jansen's all-night lunchroom. Where chauffeurs hang cut. There were four taxis in front of Jansen's; their drivers were inside the lunchroom out of sight. I saw a roughly dressed man come down Pine street, look around, pause near the last taxi and then get into the driver's seat. He sat there fully two minutes, his hand on the starter, but apparently he could not start the motor, for he suddenly leaped out of the car and hurried away. I saw his face plainly in the moonlight. That man was you, Morton Yeager. Instantly there flashed across my mind the picture of your face at the club when I was outlining the plan of the terrible crime that happened today. I remembered that you asked me twice if I was sure Alec Rae's revolver did not shoot. Why had you been so interested? Why were you in Bridge City at that hour, in rough clothes, with a cap pulled over your eyes? Why had you tried to steal a taxi? I supposed you had fled in the middle of the attempt because you saw my figure in the doorway. I followed you."

Yeager sat like one spellbound.

"I followed you." went on Simon Bain, "along Shady road, around the cemetery, past the Pioneer mills and onto the covered bridge over the Rushing River. On the bridge you stopped. With a pocket electric flashlight you made a careful examination of the interior of the old bridge. Then you turned the light upward and I heard you give a cry as if you'd seen the devil. The next second your light was out and you had dashed off the bridge and into the darkness. The moon had disappeared by this time and I could not follow you. So I went home. I had no doubt what was in your mind, and why you were examining the covered bridge. Like a prudent man, you were familiarizing yourself with the scene of your activities that afternoon."

THE district attorney listened with the look of one fascinated.

"Anything more?" he asked, hoarsely.

"My first thought," went on the banker, "was to warn Alec Rae of the danger he was in from you. When I reached the bank at ten this morning there was a telephone message waiting for me. It was from Alec Rae, who had phoned at nine-thirty that he and Reynolds, the treasurer of the Pioneer Mills, wanted to go over with me some matters relating to the finances of the mills. As this happens once or twice a year, I was not surprised. The message stated that I was to come to the office of the mills at three o'clock that afternoon, and that Rae would wait until I arrived. That meant, of course, that Rae wouldn't come down for the pay-roll cash until later, and that I'd have a chance to put him on his guard about the crime I had planned, and you had stolen."

"You're wrong, dead wrong, Bain," broke in Yeager heatedly. "I did not—"

"Hear me out, as I heard you," interrupted Bain, sternly. "I left the bank at half past two and went to the Pioneer Mills. But when I had reached them, Alec Rae had already left for the bank. He had sent me no telephone message. It was a fake. That's why I wasn't at the bank when the crime was committed. With all possible speed I hurried to the covered bridge; it was my one chance to prevent the crime you were planning. But I was too late. Poor Rae had been murdered and the money stolen when I got there. A crowd was already gathering. I called up your office, Yeager. You had not been there all afternoon."

Yeager started to speak, but Bain checked him. "One more thing," said the banker, "and I'll rest my case. This afternoon, on the bridge, I found this."

He whipped from his pocket a silver-plated pocket flashlight. It bore the initials "M. Y."

"Yours, I think," said the banker.

"Yes," said the district attorney, his voice broken and bewildered. "It's mine."

"Then," cried the banker. "I charge you with the theft of the Pioneer Mill pay roll, and the murder of Alec Rae."

The district attorney did not meet the banker's eye. He sat silent. Then he looked up and in a low voice said:

"Bain, I'm guilty— but my guilt is not the sort that a jury of twelve men can punish."

"We'll see," said the banker, grimly.

"No, I am not really guilty of robbing and killing Rae," insisted the district attorney. "I did not actually strike him down and take the black bag. But I planned to do it; and in my mind I did do it."

"In your mind?"

"Yes. When I reached home after our talk at the club, I went over my accounts and found them in worse shape even than I had thought. I was desperate, and it was night. A hellish suggestion came into my brain; I thought of your police-proof crime, and the three hundred thousand dollars in the black bag. The more I thought of it, sitting there alone in my room with the wreck of my career about me, the more sure I grew I could rob Rae and get away without leaving evidence. I did not think of killing him. I tried to fight off the idea; but it held me with a horrible fascination. I cursed you for putting such a thought into my head.

"At last, I walked over to Bridge City to take the first dishonest step of my life; I was going to steal the necessary taxi. I intended to keep it in my own garage until I needed it. for who would suspect the district attorney?

"I saw four taxis outside Jansen's, as you know. I got into one. Then something stronger than I was held my hand. You may call it cold feet, or prudence, or conscience, or whatever you like. But in that minute I sat in the seat of that taxi, I lived a dozen years. I saw what It means to have a clean record; I understood as I never understood before that honesty is more than the best policy; It's the only policy. I've been living straight for forty-two years; I simply hadn't the power to shatter the principles of a lifetime in one wild, goaded minute. I ran away. For a time, I had beaten off that devil-sent temptation."

BAIN, with intense interest, was following the earnest words of the district attorney.

"Then why did you go to the covered  bridge?"

The district attorney flushed.

"Well, I had a relapse," Yeager replied. "Once I was a safe distance from the taxi, I thought of my financial troubles again, and something kept whispering to me that I was a weakling to funk now. My mind, you see, refused to give up the miserable Idea. I kept seeing that black bag with the three hundred thousand dollars in cold cash. I thought of what the money would mean to me. I screwed up my nerve and resolved to make another go at it."

"And then?" came from Bain.

"I decided that the taxi could wait. I'd look over the covered bridge, and return later for the taxi. I reached the old bridge and with my pocket flash, which is almost worn out, I examined the rotten planking, and saw the holes through which a man's body could be slipped into the roaring rapids thirty feet below. The sight of those holes unnerved me. The job meant more than robbery. It meant murder. Murder of inoffensive Alec Rae. I thought of Rae's face, as it would look after I hit him— pale, weak, with its staring green eyes behind his thick glasses. And then, Bain. I looked up and I saw the face of Alec Rae— floating in mid-air in the center of the bridge!"

"Yeager, are you mad?"

"I was never saner in my life, Bain. I saw that pale face and those green eyes behind thick glasses as plainly as I see you this minute. But there was no body. The head was suspended in space about ten or more feet from the ground. My nerves had been under terrific strain all night, and they snapped then. I dropped my flash light and ran as if fiends were after me. I reached my home exhausted. Today I was in no shape for work; I wanted to get away from Clintonia. I wanted to forget about Alec Rae and the black bag. They'd tempted me enough. So this, afternoon I went for a long walk in the country, toward Avalon, and was five miles away from the covered bridge when Rae was killed. When I got back, it was after four, and I was Informed of Rae's death. My duty as district attorney was plain. I must secure the conviction of the murderer. Every scrap of evidence I could collect pointed at you, Bain."

"Then it was not you, Yeager, who sent me that fake telephone message this morning?" asked Bain, his brow knit in a puzzled frown.

"No."

"Then who sent the message?"

"Can you prove that it was received?"

"Yes," said Bain. "Dillon, the paying teller, took it for me. Can you prove you did not send it, Yeager?"

"I can. I can prove that I was asleep in my home till after eleven."

"Then," cried Bain, "if you are playing as fair with me as I am with you, there is something weird and terrible in this business, Yeager. Some one has stolen my crime."

"Some one? But who?"

"I think I can tell you," answered a third voice. Looking up they saw the big frame of Editor Strang.

"You, Strang? You?"

The editor laughed a short laugh.

"Oh, no, I'm not guilty," he said. "In a way I'm culpable, but I'm not guilty."

"Culpable, but not guilty?" What  do you mean?" the district attorney asked.

"I'm afraid I'm the one who made it possible for Alec Rae to steal your  crime," said Strang. "After I left you  at the club I called up Alec Rae and told him about your plan for the crime. I thought to put him on his guard. Poor, greedy little devil—"

"But Rae is dead—"

"He is not," said the editor. "He's under arrest in New York city."

"Rae alive?"

"Naturally. He was arrested half an hour ago aboard the steamer Juanita Ceballos, due to sail tomorrow morning at daybreak for Yucatan. The detectives searched outbound steamers at my suggestion."

THE editor pulled out his prehistoric calabash, stoked it up, lit it and sent up a cloud of smoke.

"But what gave you the idea it was Rae?" asked the district attorney.

"Common sense and elimination. I knew I didn't do it. I didn't think either of you would be fool enough to turn crook. That left Alec Rae. I never did like his pasty face and his sly ways, anyhow. I decided it was he who had stolen your crime, Bain, after I had handed it to him on a silver platter. But how to prove it?  Rae played the game cleverly. The bloodstains in the taxi were real  blood. The button from his coat told nothing. That left the glasses. And it was that shattered pair of spectacles in the taxi that betrayed him."

"Betrayed him! How?' the district attorney and the banker chorused.

"By the merest chance in the world," Strang answered. "It only goes to show that even perfect crimes planned by efficient business men have pinholes in them somewhere."

He bowed ironically toward Bain.

"Tell us, man; tell us!" exclaimed Bain.

"It was a wild hunch," said the editor. "Rae always wore unusually thick glasses for his near-sightedness. They were made for him by Baldwin, the optician. Baldwin identified the shattered spectacles found in the taxi as belonging to Rae. He said he could tell by the uncommonly thick lenses, the extremely narrow bridge and the cheap, heavy metal frame Rae always insisted on having. The police let it go at that. Then I remembered that Rae had been getting more and more near-sighted for the past six or eight years. So I had Baldwin compare the shattered lenses with Rae's present prescription. He had smashed a four-year-old pair of glasses and left them in the taxi because he was too miserly to ruin a new pair. Even with a fortune In his grasp, his tight nature got the better of his cleverness, and he left behind him a clue which will send him away for a good many years, I think."

The banker and the district attorney had slumped nervelessly in their chairs.

"As little a thing as that," muttered Yeager, half to himself. "As little a thing as that!"

"Yes," said the editor. "I don't think any of us, smart as we may be, would have thought that so small thing could betray us. Well, I must go; we're getting out an extra about Rae's arrest." He hurried away.

"Well, Bain," remarked the district attorney, "all we can do is say we're sorry and call it quits. It's a lesson to me. Crime Is nothing for an honest man to play with."

"Here's my hand on that," said the banker.

For many clock-ticks neither spoke. Then the district attorney said:

"That was Alec Rae's face I saw on the bridge last night. He must have climbed up in the stays when he heard me coming. Like a wise man he was going over the ground before he committed the crime."

"Like a wise man?" snorted Simon Bain. ''Wise man, huh! Only a fool thinks he can get away with a crime."

_______________

16: Let Loose

Mary Cholmondeley

1859–1925

Temple Bar, April 1890

Successful British novelist and short story writer of the Victorian era.

THE DEAD ABIDE WITH US!

THOUGH STARK AND COLD

EARTH SEEMS TO GRIP THEM,

THEY ARE WITH US STILL…

SOME YEARS AGO I took up architecture, and made a tour through Holland, studying the buildings of that interesting country. I was not then aware that it is not enough to take up art. Art must take you up, too. I never doubted but that my passing enthusiasm for her would be returned. When I discovered that she was a stern mistress, who did not immediately respond to my attentions, I naturally transferred them to another shrine. There are other things in the world besides art. I am now a landscape gardener.

But at the time of which I write I was engaged in a violent flirtation with architecture. I had one companion on this expedition, who has since become one of the leading architects of the day. He was a thin, determined-looking man with a screwed-up face and heavy jaw, slow of speech, and absorbed in his work to a degree which I quickly found tiresome. He was possessed of a certain quiet power of overcoming obstacles which I have rarely seen equalled. He has since become my brother-in-law, so I ought to know; for my parents did not like him much and opposed the marriage, and my sister did not like him at all, and refused him over and over again; but, nevertheless, he eventually married her.

I have thought since that one of his reasons for choosing me as his travelling companion on this occasion was because he was getting up steam for what he subsequently termed "an alliance with my family," but the idea never entered my head at the time. A more careless man as to dress I have rarely met, and yet, in all the heat of July in Holland, I noticed that he never appeared without a high, starched collar, which had not even fashion to commend it at that time.

I often chaffed him about his splendid collars, and asked him why he wore them, but without eliciting any response. One evening, as we were walking back to our lodgings in Middeburg, I attacked him for about the thirtieth time on the subject.

"Why on earth do you wear them?" I said.

"You have, I believe, asked me that question many times," he replied, in his slow, precise utterance; "but always on occasions when I was occupied. I am now at leisure, and I will tell you."

And he did.

I have put down what he said, as nearly in his own words as I can remember them.

TEN YEARS AGO, I was asked to read a paper on English Frescoes at the Institute of British Architects. I was determined to make the paper as good as I could, down to the slightest details, and I consulted many books on the subject, and studied every fresco I could find. My father, who had been an architect, had left me, at his death, all his papers and note-books on the subject of architecture. I searched them diligently, and found in one of them a slight unfinished sketch of nearly fifty years ago that specially interested me. Underneath was noted, in his clear, small hand— Frescoed east wall of crypt. Parish Church. Wet Waste-on-the-Wolds, Yorkshire (via Pickering).

The sketch had such a fascination for me that I decided to go there and see the fresco for myself. I had only a very vague idea as to where Wet Waste-on-the-Wolds was, but I was ambitious for the success of my paper; it was hot in London, and I set off on my long journey not without a certain degree of pleasure, with my dog Brian, a large nondescript brindled creature, as my only companion.

I reached Pickering, in Yorkshire, in the course of the afternoon, and then began a series of experiments on local lines which ended, after several hours, in my finding myself deposited at a little out-of-the-world station within nine or ten miles of Wet Waste. As no conveyance of any kind was to be had, I shouldered my portmanteau, and set out on a long white road that stretched away into the distance over the bare, treeless wold. I must have walked for several hours, over a waste of moorland patched with heather, when a doctor passed me, and gave me a lift to within a mile of my destination. The mile was a long one, and it was quite dark by the time I saw the feeble glimmer of lights in front of me, and found that I had reached Wet Waste. I had considerable difficulty in getting any one to take me in; but at last I persuaded the owner of the public-house to give me a bed, and, quite tired out, I got into it as soon as possible, for fear he should change his mind, and fell asleep to the sound of a little stream below my window.

I was up early next morning, and inquired directly after breakfast the way to the clergyman's house, which I found was close at hand. At Wet Waste everything was close at hand. The whole village seemed composed of a straggling row of one-storeyed grey stone houses, the same colour as the stone walls that separated the few fields enclosed from the surrounding waste, and as the little bridges over the beck that ran down one side of the grey wide street. Everything was grey. The church, the low tower of which I could see at a little distance, seemed to have been built of the same stone; so was the parsonage when I came up to it, accompanied on my way by a mob of rough, uncouth children, who eyed me and Brian with half-defiant curiosity.

The clergyman was at home, and after a short delay I was admitted. Leaving Brian in charge of my drawing materials, I followed the servant into a low panelled room, in which, at a latticed window, a very old man was sitting. The morning light fell on his white head bent low over a litter of papers and books.

"Mr.— er—?" he said, looking up slowly, with one finger keeping his place in a book.

"Blake."

"Blake," he repeated after me, and was silent.

I told him that I was an architect; that I had come to study a fresco in the crypt of his church, and asked for the keys.

"The crypt," he said, pushing up his spectacles and peering hard at me. "The crypt has been closed for thirty years. Ever since—" and he stopped short.

"I should be much obliged for the keys," I said again.

He shook his head. "No," he said. "No one goes in there now."

"It is a pity," I remarked, "for I have come a long way with that one object"; and I told him about the paper I had been asked to read, and the trouble I was taking with it.

He became interested. "Ah!" he said, laying down his pen, and removing his finger from the page before him, "I can understand that. I also was young once, and fired with ambition. The lines have fallen to me in somewhat lonely places, and for forty years I have held the cure of souls in this place, where, truly, I have seen but little of the world, though I myself may be not unknown in the paths of literature. Possibly you may have read a pamphlet, written by myself, on the Syrian version of the Three Authentic Epistles of Ignatius?"

"Sir," I said, "I am ashamed to confess that I have not time to read even the most celebrated books. My one object in life is my art. Ars longa, vita brevis, you know."

"You are right, my son," said the old man, evidently disappointed, but looking at me kindly. "There are diversities of gifts, and if the Lord has entrusted you with a talent, look to it. Lay it not up in a napkin."

I said I would not do so if he would lend me the keys of the crypt. He seemed startled by my recurrence to the subject and looked undecided.

"Why not?" he murmured to himself. "The youth appears a good youth. And superstition! What is it but distrust in God!"

He got up slowly, and taking a large bunch of keys out of his pocket, opened with one of them an oak cupboard in the corner of the room.

"They should be here," he muttered, peering in; "but the dust of many years deceives the eye. See, my son, if among these parchments there be two keys; one of iron and very large, and the other steel, and of a long thin appearance."

I went eagerly to help him, and presently found in a back drawer two keys tied together, which he recognised at once.

"Those are they," he said. "The long one opens the first door at the bottom of the steps which go down against the outside wall of the church yard by the sword graven in the wall. The second opens (but it is hard of opening and of shutting) the iron door within the passage leading to the crypt itself. My son, is it necessary to your treatise that you should enter this crypt?"

I replied that it was absolutely necessary.

"Then take them," he said, "and in the evening you will bring them to me again."

I said I might want to go several days running, and asked if he would not allow me to keep them till I had finished my work; but on that point he was firm.

"Likewise," he added, "be careful that you lock the first door at the foot of the steps before you unlock the second, and lock the second also while you are within. Furthermore, when you come out lock the iron inner door as well as the wooden one."

I promised I would do so, and, after thanking him, hurried away, delighted at my success in obtaining the keys. Finding Brian and my sketching materials waiting for me in the porch, I eluded the vigilance of my escort of children by taking the narrow private path between the parsonage and the church which was close at hand, standing in a quadrangle of ancient yews.

The church itself was interesting, and I noticed that it must have arisen out of the ruins of a previous building, judging from the number of fragments of stone caps and arches, bearing traces of very early carving, now built into the walls. There were incised crosses, too, in some places, and one especially caught my attention, being flanked by a large sword. It was in trying to get a nearer look at this that I stumbled, and, looking down, saw at my feet a flight of narrow stone steps green with moss and mildew. Evidently this was the entrance to the crypt. I at once descended the steps, taking care of my footing, for they were damp and slippery in the extreme. Brian accompanied me, as nothing would induce him to remain behind. By the time I had reached the bottom of the stairs, I found myself almost in darkness, and I had to strike a light before I could find the keyhole and the proper key to fit into it. The door, which was of wood, opened inwards fairly easily, although an accumulation of mould and rubbish on the ground outside showed it had not been used for many years. Having got through it, which was not altogether an easy matter, as nothing would induce it to open more than about eighteen inches, I carefully locked it behind me, although I should have preferred to leave it open, as there is to some minds an unpleasant feeling in being locked in anywhere, in case of a sudden exit seeming advisable.

I kept my candle alight with some difficulty, and after groping my way down a low and of course exceedingly dank passage, came to another door. A toad was squatting against it, who looked as if he had been sitting there about a hundred years. As I lowered the candle to the floor, he gazed at the light with unblinking eyes, and then retreated slowly into a crevice in the wall, leaving against the door a small cavity in the dry mud which had gradually silted up round his person. I noticed that this door was of iron, and had a long bolt, which, however, was broken. Without delay, I fitted the second key into the lock, and pushing the door open after considerable difficulty, I felt the cold breath of the crypt upon my face. I must own I experienced a momentary regret at locking the second door again as soon as I was well inside, but I felt it my duty to do so. Then, leaving the key in the lock, I seized my candle and looked round. I was standing in a low vaulted chamber with groined roof, cut out of the solid rock. It was difficult to see where the crypt ended, as further light thrown on any point only showed other rough archways or openings, cut in the rock, which had probably served at one time for family vaults. A peculiarity of the Wet Waste crypt, which I had not noticed in other places of that description, was the tasteful arrangement of skulls and bones which were packed about four feet high on either side. The skulls were symmetrically built up to within a few inches of the top of the low archway on my left, and the shin bones were arranged in the same manner on my right. But the fresco! I looked round for it in vain. Perceiving at the further end of the crypt a very low and very massive archway, the entrance to which was not filled up with bones, I passed under it, and found myself in a second smaller chamber. Holding my candle above my head, the first object its light fell upon was—the fresco, and at a glance I saw that it was unique. Setting down some of my things with a trembling hand on a rough stone shelf hard by, which had evidently been a credence table, I examined the work more closely. It was a reredos over what had probably been the altar at the time the priests were proscribed. The fresco belonged to the earliest part of the fifteenth century, and was so perfectly preserved that I could almost trace the limits of each day's work in the plaster, as the artist had dashed it on and smoothed it out with his trowel. The subject was the Ascension, gloriously treated. I can hardly describe my elation as I stood and looked at it, and reflected that this magnificent specimen of English fresco painting would be made known to the world by myself. Recollecting myself at last, I opened my sketching bag, and, lighting all the candles I had brought with me, set to work.

Brian walked about near me, and though I was not otherwise than glad of his company in my rather lonely position, I wished several times I had left him behind. He seemed restless, and even the sight of so many bones appeared to exercise no soothing effect upon him. At last, however, after repeated commands, he lay down, watchful but motionless, on the stone floor.

I must have worked for several hours, and I was pausing to rest my eyes and hands, when I noticed for the first time the intense stillness that surrounded me. No sound from me reached the outer world. The church clock which had clanged out so loud and ponderously as I went down the steps, had not since sent the faintest whisper of its iron tongue down to me below. All was silent as the grave. This was the grave. Those who had come here had indeed gone down into silence. I repeated the words to myself, or rather they repeated themselves to me.

Gone down into silence.

I was awakened from my reverie by a faint sound. I sat still and listened. Bats occasionally frequent vaults and underground places.

The sound continued, a faint, stealthy, rather unpleasant sound. I do not know what kinds of sounds bats make, whether pleasant or otherwise. Suddenly there was a noise as of something falling, a momentary pause and then—an almost imperceptible but distant jangle as of a key.

I had left the key in the lock after I had turned it, and I now regretted having done so. I got up, took one of the candles, and went back into the larger crypt— for though I trust I am not so effeminate as to be rendered nervous by hearing a noise for which I cannot instantly account; still, on occasions of this kind, I must honestly say I should prefer that they did not occur. As I came towards the iron door, there was another distinct (I had almost said hurried) sound. The impression on my mind was one of great haste. When I reached the door, and held the candle near the lock to take out the key, I perceived that the other one, which hung by a short string to its fellow, was vibrating slightly. I should have preferred not to find it vibrating, as there seemed no occasion for such a course; but I put them both into my pocket, and turned to go back to my work. As I turned, I saw on the ground what had occasioned the louder noise I had heard, namely, a skull which had evidently just slipped from its place on the top of one of the walls of bones, and had rolled almost to my feet. There, disclosing a few more inches of the top of an archway behind, was the place from which it had been dislodged. I stooped to pick it up, but fearing to displace any more skulls by meddling with the pile, and not liking to gather up its scattered teeth, I let it lie, and went back to my work, in which I was soon so completely absorbed that I was only roused at last by my candles beginning to burn low and go out one after another.

Then, with a sigh of regret, for I had not nearly finished, I turned to go. Poor Brian, who had never quite reconciled himself to the place, was beside himself with delight. As I opened the iron door he pushed past me, and a moment later I heard him whining and scratching, and I had almost added, beating, against the wooden one. I locked the iron door, and hurried down the passage as quickly as I could, and almost before I had got the other one ajar there seemed to be a rush past me into the open air, and Brian was bounding up the steps and out of sight. As I stopped to take out the key, I felt quite deserted and left behind. When I came out once more into the sunlight, there was a vague sensation all about me in the air of exultant freedom.

It was already late in the afternoon, and after I had sauntered back to the parsonage to give up the keys, I persuaded the people of the public-house to let me join in the family meal, which was spread out in the kitchen. The inhabitants of Wet Waste were primitive people, with the frank, unabashed manner that flourishes still in lonely places, especially in the wilds of Yorkshire; but I had no idea that in these days of penny posts and cheap newspapers such entire ignorance of the outer world could have existed in any corner, however remote, of Great Britain.

When I took one of the neighbour's children on my knee— a pretty little girl with the palest aureole of flaxen hair I had ever seen— and began to draw pictures for her of the birds and beasts of other countries, I was instantly surrounded by a crowd of children, and even grown-up people, while others came to their doorways and looked on from a distance, calling to each other in the strident unknown tongue which I have since discovered goes by the name of "Broad Yorkshire."

The following morning, as I came out of my room, I perceived that something was amiss in the village. A buzz of voices reached me as I passed the bar, and in the next house I could hear through the open window a high-pitched wail of lamentation.

The woman who brought me my breakfast was in tears, and in answer to my questions, told me that the neighbour's child, the little girl whom I had taken on my knee the evening before, had died in the night.

I felt sorry for the general grief that the little creature's death seemed to arouse, and the uncontrolled wailing of the poor mother took my appetite away.

I hurried off early to my work, calling on my way for the keys, and with Brian for my companion descended once more into the crypt, and drew and measured with an absorption that gave me no time that day to listen for sounds real or fancied. Brian, too, on this occasion seemed quite content, and slept peacefully beside me on the stone floor. When I had worked as long as I could, I put away my books with regret that even then I had not quite finished, as I had hoped to do. It would be necessary come again for a short time on the morrow. When I returned the keys late that afternoon, the old clergyman met me at the door, and asked me to come in and have tea with him.

"And has the work prospered?" he asked, as we sat down in the long, low room, into which I had just been ushered, and where he seemed to live entirely.

I told him it had, and showed it to him.

"You have seen the original, of course?" I said.

"Once," he replied, gazing fixedly at it. He evidently did not care to be communicative, so I turned the conversation to the age of the church.

"All here is old," he said. "When I was young, forty years ago, and came here because I had no means of mine own, and was much moved to marry at that time, I felt oppressed that all was so old; and that this place was so far removed from the world, for which I had at times longing grievous to be borne; but I had chosen my lot, and with it I was forced to be content. My son, marry not in youth, for love, which truly in that season is a mighty power, turns away the heart from study, and young children break the back of ambition. Neither marry in middle life, when woman is seen to be but a woman and her talk a weariness, so you will not be burdened with a wife in your old age."

I had my own views on the subject of marriage, for I am of opinion that a well-chosen companion of domestic tastes and docile and devoted temperament may be of material assistance to a professional man. But my opinions once formulated, it is not of moment to me to discuss them with others, so I changed the subject, and asked if the neighbouring villages were as antiquated as Wet Waste.

"Yes, all about here is old," he repeated. "The paved road leading to Dyke Fens is an ancient pack road, made even in the time of the Romans. Dyke Fens, which is very near here, a matter of but four or five miles, is likewise old, and forgotten by the world. The Reformation never reached it. It stopped here. And at Dyke Fens they still have a priest and a bell, and bow down before the saints. It is a damnable heresy, and weekly I expound it as such to my people, showing them true doctrines; and I have heard that this same priest has so far yielded himself to the Evil One that he has preached against me as withholding gospel truths from my flock; but I take no heed of it, neither of his pamphlet touching the Clementine Homilies, in which he vainly contradicts that which I have plainly set forth and proven beyond doubt, concerning the word Asaph."

The old man was fairly off on his favourite subject, and it was some time before I could get away. As it was, he followed me to the door, and I only escaped because the old clerk hobbled up at that moment, and claimed his attention.

The following morning I went for the keys for the third and last time. I had decided to leave early the next day. I was tired of Wet Waste, and a certain gloom seemed to my fancy to be gathering over the place. There was a sensation of trouble in the air, as if, although the day was bright and clear, a storm were coming.

This morning, to my astonishment, the keys were refused to me when I asked for them. I did not, however, take the refusal as final—I make it a rule never to take a refusal as final—and after a short delay I was shown into the room where, as usual, the clergyman was sitting, or rather, on this occasion, was walking up and down.

"My son," he said with vehemence, "I know wherefore you have come, but it is of no avail. I cannot lend the keys again."

I replied that, on the contrary, I hoped he would give them to me at once.

"It is impossible," he repeated. "I did wrong, exceeding wrong. I will never part with them again."

"Why not?"

He hesitated, and then said slowly:

"The old clerk, Abraham Kelly, died last night." He paused, and then went on: "The doctor has just been here to tell me of that which is a mystery to him. I do not wish the people of the place to know it, and only to me he has mentioned it, but he has discovered plainly on the throat of the old man, and also, but more faintly on the child's, marks as of strangulation. None but he has observed it, and he is at a loss how to account for it. I, alas! can account for it but in one way, but in one way!"

I did not see what all this had to do with the crypt, but to humour the old man, I asked what that way was.

"It is a long story, and, haply, to a stranger it may appear but foolishness, but I will even tell it; for I perceive that unless I furnish a reason for withholding the keys, you will not cease to entreat me for them.

"I told you at first when you inquired of me concerning the crypt, that it had been closed these thirty years, and so it was. Thirty years ago a certain Sir Roger Despard departed this life, even the Lord of the manor of Wet Waste and Dyke Fens, the last of his family, which is now, thank the Lord, extinct. He was a man of a vile life, neither fearing God nor regarding man, nor having compassion or innocence, and the Lord appeared to have given him over to the tormentors even in this world, for he suffered many things of his vices, more especially from drunkenness, in which seasons, and they were many, he was as one possessed by seven devils, being an abomination to his household and a root of bitterness to all, both high and low.

"And, at last, the cup of his iniquity being full to the brim, he came to die, and I went to exhort him on his death-bed; for I heard that terror had come upon him, and that evil imaginations encompassed him so thick on every side, that few of them that were with him could abide in his presence. But when I saw him I perceived that there was no place of repentance left for him, and he scoffed at me and my superstition, even as he lay dying, and swore there was no God and no angel, and all were damned even as he was. And the next day, towards evening, the pains of death came upon him, and he raved the more exceedingly, inasmuch as he said he was being strangled by the Evil One. Now on his table was his hunting knife, and with his last strength he crept and laid hold upon it, no man withstanding him, and swore a great oath that if he went down to burn in hell, he would leave one of his hands behind on earth, and that it would never rest until it had drawn blood from the throat of another and strangled him, even as he himself was being strangled. And he cut off his own right hand at the wrist, and no man dared go near him to stop him, and the blood went through the floor, even down to the ceiling of the room below, and thereupon he died.

"And they called me in the night, and told me of his oath, and I counselled that no man should speak of it, and I took the dead hand, which none had ventured to touch, and I laid it beside him in his coffin; for I thought it better he should take it with him, so that he might have it, if haply some day after much tribulation he should perchance be moved to stretch forth his hands towards God. But the story got spread about, and the people were affrighted, so, when he came to be buried in the place of his fathers, he being the last of his family, and the crypt likewise full, I had it closed, and kept the keys myself, and suffered no man to enter therein any more; for truly he was a man of an evil life, and the devil is not yet wholly overcome, nor cast chained into the lake of fire. So in time the story died out, for in thirty years much is forgotten. And when you came and asked me for the keys, I was at the first minded to withhold them; but I thought it was a vain superstition, and I perceived that you do but ask a second time for what is first refused; so I let you have them, seeing it was not an idle curiosity, but a desire to improve the talent committed to you, that led you to require them."

The old man stopped, and I remained silent, wondering what would be the best way to get them just once more.

"Surely, sir," I said at last, "one so cultivated and deeply read as yourself cannot be biased by an idle superstition."

"I trust not," he replied, "and yet— it is a strange thing that since the crypt was opened two people have died, and the mark is plain upon the throat of the old man and visible on the young child. No blood was drawn, but the second time the grip was stronger than the first. The third time, perchance—"

"Superstition such as that," I said with authority, "is an entire want of faith in God. You once said so yourself."

I took a high moral tone which is often efficacious with conscientious, humble-minded people.

He agreed, and accused himself of not having faith as a grain of mustard seed; but even when I had got him so far as that, I had a severe struggle for the keys. It was only when I finally explained to him that if any malign influence had been let loose the first day, at any rate, it was out now for good or evil, and no further going or coming of mine could make any difference, that I finally gained my point. I was young, and he was old; and, being much shaken by what had occurred, he gave way at last, and I wrested the keys from him.

I will not deny that I went down the steps that day with a vague, indefinable repugnance, which was only accentuated by the closing of the two doors behind me. I remembered then, for the first time, the faint jangling of the key and other sounds which I had noticed the first day, and how one of the skulls had fallen. I went to the place where it still lay. I have already said these walls of skulls were built up so high as to be within a few inches of the top of the low archways that led into more distant portions of the vault. The displacement of the skull in question had left a small hole just large enough for me to put my hand through. I noticed for the first time, over the archway above it, a carved coat-of-arms, and the name, now almost obliterated, of Despard. This, no doubt, was the Despard vault. I could not resist moving a few more skulls and looking in, holding my candle as near the aperture as I could. The vault was full. Piled high, one upon another, were old coffins, and remnants of coffins, and strewn bones. I attribute my present determination to be cremated to the painful impression produced on me by this spectacle. The coffin nearest the archway alone was intact, save for a large crack across the lid. I could not get a ray from my candle to fall on the brass plates, but I felt no doubt this was the coffin of the wicked Sir Roger. I put back the skulls, including the one which had rolled down, and carefully finished my work. I was not there much more than an hour, but I was glad to get away.

If I could have left Wet Waste at once I should have done so, for I had a totally unreasonable longing to leave the place; but I found that only one train stopped during the day at the station from which I had come, and that it would not be possible to be in time for it that day.

Accordingly I submitted to the inevitable, and wandered about with Brian for the remainder of the afternoon and until late in the evening, sketching and smoking. The day was oppressively hot, and even after the sun had set across the burnt stretches of the wolds, it seemed to grow very little cooler. Not a breath stirred. In the evening, when I was tired of loitering in the lanes, I went up to my own room, and after contemplating afresh my finished study of the fresco, I suddenly set to work to write the part of my paper bearing upon it. As a rule, I write with difficulty, but that evening words came to me with winged speed, and with them a hovering impression that I must make haste, that I was much pressed for time. I wrote and wrote, until my candles guttered out and left me trying to finish by the moonlight, which, until I endeavoured to write by it, seemed as clear as day.

I had to put away my MS., and, feeling it was too early to go to bed, for the church clock was just counting out ten, I sat down by the open window and leaned out to try and catch a breath of air. It was a night of exceptional beauty; and as I looked out my nervous haste and hurry of mind were allayed. The moon, a perfect circle, was— if so poetic an expression be permissible—as it were, sailing across a calm sky. Every detail of the little village was as clearly illuminated by its beams as if it were broad day; so, also, was the adjacent church with its primeval yews, while even the wolds beyond were dimly indicated, as if through tracing paper.

I sat a long time leaning against the window-sill. The heat was still intense. I am not, as a rule, easily elated or readily cast down; but as I sat that night in the lonely village on the moors, with Brian's head against my knee, how, or why, I know not, a great depression gradually came upon me.

My mind went back to the crypt and the countless dead who had been laid there. The sight of the goal to which all human life, and strength, and beauty, travel in the end, had not affected me at the time, but now the very air about me seemed heavy with death.

What was the good, I asked myself, of working and toiling, and grinding down my heart and youth in the mill of long and strenuous effort, seeing that in the grave folly and talent, idleness and labour lie together, and are alike forgotten? Labour seemed to stretch before me till my heart ached to think of it, to stretch before me even to the end of life, and then came, as the recompense of my labour— the grave. Even if I succeeded, if, after wearing my life threadbare with toil, I succeeded, what remained to me in the end? The grave. A little sooner, while the hands and eyes were still strong to labour, or a little later, when all power and vision had been taken from them; sooner or later only— the grave.

I do not apologise for the excessively morbid tenor of these reflections, as I hold that they were caused by the lunar effects which I have endeavoured to transcribe. The moon in its various quarterings has always exerted a marked influence on what I may call the sub-dominant, namely, the poetic side of my nature.

I roused myself at last, when the moon came to look in upon me where I sat, and, leaving the window open, I pulled myself together and went to bed.

I fell asleep almost immediately, but I do not fancy I could have been asleep very long when I was wakened by Brian. He was growling in a low, muffled tone, as he sometimes did in his sleep, when his nose was buried in his rug. I called out to him to shut up; and as he did not do so, turned in bed to find my match box or something to throw at him. The moonlight was still in the room, and as I looked at him I saw him raise his head and evidently wake up. I admonished him, and was just on the point of falling asleep when he began to growl again in a low, savage manner that waked me most effectually. Presently he shook himself and got up, and began prowling about the room. I sat up in bed and called to him, but he paid no attention. Suddenly I saw him stop short in the moonlight; he showed his teeth, and crouched down, his eyes following something in the air. I looked at him in horror. Was he going mad? His eyes were glaring, and his head moved slightly as if he were following the rapid movements of an enemy. Then, with a furious snarl, he suddenly sprang from the ground, and rushed in great leaps across the room towards me, dashing himself against the furniture, his eyes rolling, snatching and tearing wildly in the air with his teeth. I saw he had gone mad. I leaped out of bed, and rushing at him, caught him by the throat. The moon had gone behind a cloud; but in the darkness I felt him turn upon me, felt him rise up, and his teeth close in my throat. I was being strangled. With all the strength of despair, I kept my grip of his neck, and, dragging him across the room, tried to crush in his head against the iron rail of my bedstead. It was my only chance. I felt the blood running down my neck. I was suffocating. After one moment of frightful struggle, I beat his head against the bar and heard his skull give way. I felt him give one strong shudder, a groan, and then I fainted away.

When I came to myself I was lying on the floor, surrounded by the people of the house, my reddened hands still clutching Brian's throat. Someone was holding a candle towards me, and the draught from the window made it flare and waver. I looked at Brian. He was stone dead. The blood from his battered head was trickling slowly over my hands. His great jaw was fixed in something that— in the uncertain light— I could not see.

They turned the light a little.

"Oh, God!" I shrieked. "There! Look! Look!"

"He's off his head," said some one, and I fainted again.

I was ill for about a fortnight without regaining consciousness, a waste of time of which even now I cannot think without poignant regret. When I did recover consciousness, I found I was being carefully nursed by the old clergyman and the people of the house. I have often heard the unkindness of the world in general inveighed against, but for my part I can honestly say that I have received many more kindnesses than I have time to repay. Country people especially are remarkably attentive to strangers in illness.

I could not rest until I had seen the doctor who attended me, and had received his assurance that I should be equal to reading my paper on the appointed day. This pressing anxiety removed, I told him of what I had seen before I fainted the second time. He listened attentively, and then assured me, in a manner that was intended to be soothing, that I was suffering from an hallucination, due, no doubt, to the shock of my dog's sudden madness.

"Did you see the dog after it was dead?" I asked. He said he did. The whole jaw was covered with blood and foam; the teeth certainly seemed convulsively fixed, but the case being evidently one of extraordinarily virulent hydrophobia, owing to the intense heat, he had had the body burned immediately.

MY COMPANION stopped speaking as we reached our lodgings, and went upstairs. Then, lighting a candle, he slowly turned down his collar.

"You see I have the marks still," he said, "but I have no fear of dying of hydrophobia. I am told such peculiar scars could not have been made by the teeth of a dog. If you look closely you see the pressure of the five fingers. That is the reason why I wear high collars."

__________________

17: Live Bait

Frederick Irving Anderson

1877-1947

Popular Magazine 7 Feb 1919

MACLEOD, Janeway and Watterson occupied swivel chairs; ate their meals at table; and slept in real beds. They seldom set their feet off made roads; rarely moved more than a day's journey from the mothering care of their respective wives; and, in spite of the insignia of the general staff they wore on their collars, they punched time clocks four times a day as precept and example. Early in youth, at widely separated geographical points, each had developed an aptitude for mathematics, linguistry and history; one way and another, the trio found themselves in the same class at West Point. They had the health, nerve and brains to stick through those four years; and instead of marrying young and rich, and retiring to the engineering profession or landscape gardening, they adhered to the career for which they had been pruned and polished at great expense. War as a life work was rather a putative desultory profession at best; so each in his own way had found time for a hobby: Macleod studied alloys, particularly of tungsten and molybdenum; Jane way went in for faints and fevers; and Watterson had the technology of transportation at his fingers' end, from paper cart wheels to compound locomotives— he would have made an excellent general superintendent, or a yardmaster of merit.

When the war came, these three were in the thick of it. Not among shot and shell and gas, but in swivel chairs. It wasn't exactly their idea of practicing the art of tactics and strategy as they had absorbed it in beardless youth. It was mostly adding machine; actuaries' tables; B.T.U. of coal, and test tubes. But it was war, nevertheless; and they were hog-tied to their swivel chairs through their special gifts. No one ever suggested by any chance that they occupied bombproof jobs, or were the objects of any special favor.

Occasionally, these three classmates encountered each other in that dense-growing shrubbery called inter-department correspondence, in which they invariably had the honor, sir, to be et cetera and et cetera; and occasionally in the street or the drawing-room, where they recollected each other vaguely not as definite functionaries of the present, but for some weird characteristics they had'displayed in remote cadet days: Macleod, six feet six in his regulation socks, and with an ultramarine beard shining through his skin like gunpowder, had been known then as Bertha; little Janeway as The Insect because of his predilection for bugs and bug hunting; and the sedate Watterson as Owensboro Watt, the Ohio River Gambler, because of his habitat and his religious horror of all games of chance.

In leisure times, now filed away for reference, the big Scot dearly loved his fowling pieces; Janeway still pursued etymology; and Wattersdn was solemnly addicted to his church and family. No random chance would ever have drawn these three together as fast friends. It would have taken something cataclysmic to make them brothers.

At seven, on the morning of the thirteenth of June, Macleod, Janeway and Watterson, severally and without being aware of each other's proximity, cantered up to the gap in the hedge of the garden in Cabin John Park, tossed their reins to the hostler, slapped their shiny boots with their gauntlets through force of habit, looked around at the scene, identified a specified spot, and sat down for breakfast at the same table.

They were surprised to find one another there, and took pains not to show it. A great many men, in carload lots, took orders from these three every day. And a few men gave them orders. After all, there was nothing unusual in discovering three fellow classmen had received identical orders. They saluted each other's uniform and insignia gravely, and conversed casually on subjects in which they took no interest.

Suddenly the three, as if actuated by one spring, rose to their feet and stood stiffly at attention. The Fourth Chair was in the act of seating himself. This accomplished, the three functionaries resumed their seats, respectful and alert.

The Fourth Chair was a little man of civilian attire and manner; boyish in appearance except for his eyes, which were very old and tired. He took charge of the ceremony of breakfast, with that perfunctory ease which a public person picks up unconsciously through living his whole life among strangers. The three functionaries, following his lead in small talk, laughed at his rather pallid essays at wit, all the time gnawed with curiosity. Why were they here? What had this personage, who had the right to give them orders, during the current phase of the political moon, linked this particular trio for so awkward an occasion as breakfast at seven in the morning?

Finally, the little man pushed back his breakfast things, fixed his tired eyes on Macleod, Janeway and Watterson in turn, glanced around the park. Their table was isolated; there was no one within earshot. He lowered his voice, and said:

"What I have to say can be said very briefly. Each of you gentlemen is already in possession of one-third of the details. It is merely necessary for me to articulate the facts, so that you may fully comprehend the significance of various happenings that have come under your scrutiny in your several tasks during the last few months. I have had memos from each of you in turn, calling to my attention what seemed to be inexplicable loose ends. It is concerning these loose ends I wish to speak."

He began to talk in a droning voice, as if dictating to a stenographer. The three officers of the general staff had arranged themselves easily with their cigars. Their interest was whetted by this promise to illuminate some of the part truths of their daily harvest: buried under the detail of their individual offices, these three were cut off from perspective.

So completely did the Fourth Chair elide detail, touching only the high lights of his subject, that an eavesdropper would have been rewarded with very thin soup indeed. That his droning, unpunctuated phrases went home to his hearers, however, was evidenced by a sudden glow in the eyes of one or another, as the coordinating words of their chief made clear some blurred incident in department routine.

"Now, gentlemen, you know more of what I am talking about, why we are here, than I do myself," said the Fourth Chair, coming to an abrupt end.

The three functionaries nodded, involuntarily drew up their chairs, turned to him expectantly. He had hooked them on splendidly; a very easy, friendly feeling had miraculously replaced the stiff intercourse of their breakfast. They liked this little man; every one liked him who was privileged to come in contact with him.

"What I am about to say now is difficult," said the little man. His tired eyes searched the trees. He seemed to be trying to frame his thoughts. When he spoke, it was in the metaphor of the hunter, which is still the basis of so much of our national figure of speech.

"We have tried all kinds of bait," he began. "We have handled it with tongs; we have salted our trail; we have even fed them live stuff to catch them less wily. But"—  with an impatient gesture— "they steal our bait— grow fat on it. When I was a boy," and a glow of animation swept over his face, "we had an old fox in the woods that wouldn't eat unless he could steal his food out of a trap. He had a very lively sense of humor, that fox." He smiled thinly at the three attentive faces.

"I won't detail the steps we have taken, the methods we have pursued," he went on. "Enough that we have failed utterly. I have one card yet unturned. It concerns one of you three gentlemen. I do not know which one." His eye traveled over the three listeners. "There can be only you three to choose from."

He paused for a dramatic moment.

The three chairs scraped in unison, as the three men drew closer. Even your dried-up department specialist, who fights wars with adding machines and time-tables, nurses the spark of action. They had no idea what he was driving at. But his words suggested a surcease from swivel-chair chains— for one lucky one of them, at least.

"We prate a good deal about the thing we call honor," said the Fourth Chair. "Our phrases about it become cant. As some one has said, we carry the real thing in our hearts without thought; the thing we talk about, we carry on our sleeve.

"An officer, and a gentleman!" he went on. There was just the suggestion of irony in his tone. "It is a fine figure! A trifle threadbare in spots, maybe. Your God, your honor, and your country! That's the usual order, isn't it?" He asked the question, but did not pause for reply. "In your cadet days, you were taught that, in your careers as officers and gentlemen, you would never be asked, ordered, required, to do any act incompatible with your honor."

He looked at them sharply, forcing some response; and they nodded uneasily. What the deuce was he driving at?

"I think very few men we call dishonorable, deliberately violate their own principles of honor." The Fourth Chair was continuing. "No matter how low or vile their acts may be, some way, somehow, they manage to square them with their principles of right, to justify themselves to their conscience. When a man deliberately, and with open mind, commits a dishonorable act, I suppose he is beyond salvation. The sin is no longer venal; it is cardinal."

The three officers had let themselves slump back in their chairs again, and gave attention to their cigars.

Without changing the tempo of his words, the little man suddenly laid his last card on the table; he said:

"Gentlemen, it is my painful duty to ask one of you three to forfeit his own self-respect."

In the hush that followed, a queer, crooked smile flitted across the face of Macleod; Janeway turned ashen white; Watter- son the devout actually crossed himself. They were still struggling under the impact of the shock, when their chief followed through, quickly:

"Not his reputation, mind. That's a matter of the personal opinion of one's friends, and the world— right or wrong. There's nothing absolute about that. It is his own self-respect he must forfeit. Something he has got to live, eat his meal's with, day in and day out."

The three were staring at him nonplused.

"If we succeed— God helping us!— the end will justify the means," said the Fourth Chair sententiously.

The big Scot nodded vigorously as if this last remark squared with some line of casuistry he was running out with'his own hairsplitting intellect. The other two made no sign.

"If we fail— which God forbid!— the unlucky man— and myself— will have to live with himself for the rest of his life, and try in some small measure at least to repair the wrong he has done. Now gentlemen," he said, rising. "I leave you. You will determine the man among you in your own way. That man will be admitted without his card at my office at three this afternoon. I bid you good morning."

After a pause the three officers rose and called for their mounts. They made their way back to Washington just when the lazy, carefree world began to bestir itself for the day and take to the road. Macleod, Janeway and Watterson were constantly at salute, as the streams of magnificent motors rolled by.

"Owensboro Watt!" cried the big Scot suddenly.

"Present and voting, Bertha," responded the devout little rider, with an instinctive lapse into the argot of the good bad days of their novitiate.

"Watt, now that you are about to die, put your scruples aside and try to be human. Ever play motor poker? No? Not? Well, you are about to plunge. At the start, it may be some solace to you, to know that beginners have fool's luck. You draw your hand from the number plates of the autos as they pass. Gentlemen, the Ohio River Gambler will draw the first number plate that contains five digits. The Insect will take the second plate. Myself, the dealer, will take the third. Discard what you don't want, and fill your hand from the next three plates in the same order, drawing from left to right consecutively. Be easy about it. This is likely to cost us a tour in the guardhouse."

They rode on.

"I've got three deuces— with an eight and a six to discard," announced Janeway some time later.

"I've got a straight with a hole in the middle," said Macleod. "Watt, under the circumstances, I think I should advise you to throw away your hand and call for a new book."

These three were in the way of becoming fast friends, brothers tied by a cataclysm.

ii

ONE DAY when Farmer Marshall was moving along the blood-sweating pavement of Pennsylvania Avenue under a Sahara sun, a youth stopped him respectfully and said that the Chief would like to see the Farmer at four, if convenient.

Everybody wanted to see the Farmer, at any time. All men told the Farmer all things, in strictest confidence. In his twenty years in Washington, generals, cabinet ministers, diplomats, senators, had conveyed so many unprinted and unprintable facts to him, that he was now a walking elevator of interdicted information. The Farmer as a cache would have been priceless; and numerous gentlemen whose careers were for the most part underground, were wont to gaze longingly at his shambling figure, and yearn for some means of extracting from it secrets worth their weight in platinum. The Farmer was a Journalist, with a capital J.

Not all the news is fit to print, by any manner of means. Some of it is rank, some fragile, some virulent. Some has to be sprinkled with lime and hermetically sealed; some is as capriciously explosive as chlorate when exposed to the light. Sifting the day's run of news is a calling, a gift. And the Farmer's gift lay in knowing what not to print.

Fame travels devious paths, and stops off at unexpected tank towns. Every trade and every profession has its saint and its shrine, for the most part unsung, outside of its guild. Fame had put her finger on Farmer Marshall. Editorial adepts with paste pot and scissors clipped and pasted him every morning. His paper was a little one-horse affair two-thirds boiler plate; his town was merely a crossroads, with one wide street in which farmers' flivvers were wont to sun themselves each noon, parked herringbone fashion. There are some twenty newspapers in the United States out of the thousands that daily clog the mail, that have the right of way on the exchange table. Stir the editorials and special-news features of these twenty in a crucible each morning, and you arrive pretty nearly at the national trend of thought for that day and hour. In the constellation are one Globe, two Worlds and two Suns, three Stars, a Republican, a hyphenated Democrat, a Ledger, a State Capital, et cetera. Some of them are one- horse, patent-inside affairs, like Farmer Marshall's News; and some of them are huge dreadnoughts of the line that print, trim, fold and count their four hundred thousand before sunup every morning.

The Farmer had made his debut in this world as Enoch Marshall. But his later appellation was one of those truths which is self-evident. His sobriquet had been fastened to him during his first days in Washington; and in the course of years had assumed the dignity of a baptismal title: his dispatches were signed Farmer Marshall, and he had a son matriculated at Armour Tech, as Farmer Junior. He was a spindling man of studious aspect, with a freckled dome that bulged above the ears, with large childlike eyes behind thick glasses, and thick lips which he carried pursed as if saying prunes. His clothes, spick and span, always seemed to resent their owner. He wore from habit a gray silk four-in-hand, a boiled shirt, and a tall shiny collar so carefully fitted that it might have been sweated on by a skilled plumber each morning. He was as methodical in habit as a grandfathers' clock. Mogul publishers tried to win him away, with fatuous offers of gold; but Farmer Marshall and the News were born united, like the Siamese twins, and an operation would have been fatal. He was a De Blowitz of a later day, with no aspirations to distinction.

At four, prompt to the minute, Farmer Marshall mounted the arduous marble steps, displayed his pass to the sentry at the wicket, passed down the hollow corridor, and by due process of secretarial refining, found himself standing alone in the anteroom of the Chief. Through a half-open door he saw, seated at the broad desk within, a little man of civilian attire and mien, with a boy's face and an old man's eyes. Beside him lolling with his accustomed studied grace stood Kirke Winslow, a competent fellow craftsman of Farmer Marshall. The two men suddenly became aware of the Farmer's scrutiny. They paused, stared at him for an instant, then continued their conversation in lower tones. The Chief rose smiling, extended his hand, and led his caller to the door. Farmer Marshall caught the usual formula on the Chief's lips:

"Not for publication— merely for your own information."

The Chief turned back to his desk.

" 'Lo, Farmer," said the elegant Kirke.

The Farmer merely nodded his greeting. He didn't like this man. He didn't like his clothes. That was about as far as the shabby Farmer ever got in analyzing his antipathy for the dandy.

"I have a wire from the Big Gun," said Winslow, handing the Farmer a telegram. "He's here to-morrow— wants to see you. Has something to offer."

All the Big Guns, of all four-hundred- thousand-copy dreadnoughts, wanted to see the Farmer, had something to offer.

"Thanks. I am afraid I won't be able to arrange it." The Farmer was pushing rather awkwardly through what to him was an embarrassing situation.

"You make a mistake, Farmer. Believe me, he wants you, and he is willing to pay for you. I have already wired hiip that I will have you there at three to-morrow afternoon. Don't put me in a bad hole, Farmer."

Then Farmer Marshall became deliberately offensive.

"I will tell you, Winslow," said he slowly, "that your Big Gun has some peculiar policies with which I do not care to be associated. You may tell him that if you wish — or if he wants to come to my office, I will tell him that myself." The Farmer's furtive eye was sweeping the ceiling for cobwebs. In the end it rested full and accusing on Kirke.

Winslow was in the act of protesting, when a clerk put his head in at the door, and nodded to the Farmer; the Farmer passed on into the sanctum. At the dignitary's desk, he drew up his accustomed chair and sat down, and waited in silence. The Chief was making pothooks on a bulky envelope; he said, without looking up:

"You were in town on the eighteenth, weren't you, Farmer? Sending your usual dispatch?"

"Yes," replied Farmer Marshall, rummaging in his mind for the events of that date. Nothing had occurred, mere routine.

From the envelope the Chief produced a clipping, a newspaper column, double-leaded.

"Is this your dispatch of that day and date, Farmer?" he asked, as he passed the clipping to his visitor. The Farmer read it methodically, before responding; he said that it was.

"You were authorized to use it?" inquired the Chief.

"Yes."

"By whom?"

The Chief was now looking at him steadily.

"I cannot tell you. I am not permitted to say. You quite understand it is impossible for one to reveal the sources of one's information," said the Farmer quickly.

"Obviously," went on the Chief in a colorless voice, "your informant was some one subject to the jurisdiction of this department."

"That is a matter between you and your superiors and your subordinates."

"There was no intimation given you that the matter was confidential?"

"None whatever. In fact, I was asked to prepare the copy, and submit it to my informant for his O.K. before I wired it."

"And?"

"I did so."

"He O.K.'d it?" asked the Chief slowly.

"He did."

"In writing?"

"No; by word of mouth." The Farmer added earnestly: "I am positive my informant had no suspicion that the matter was in any way interdicted. If it is a question of any one's being disciplined for the slip, I think I am quite as much to blame as my informant. I wish you would bear that in mind, sir."

For answer, the Chief touched a bell, and glanced at a side door. A clerk appeared.

"Ask Major Janeway if I can see him for a moment."

At the sound of Janeway's name, Farmer Marshall's eyes wavered for the fraction of a second. The little bug-hunting major came trotting in. He was halfway across the big room before he noticed Farmer Marshall. He barely glanced in his direction. The Chief was stifling a yawn, and looking absent-mindedly at his watch, as if the approach of the lunch hour occupied his mind. With a listless hand he passed the clipping to the major.

"Can you help us out on this, I wonder, major?" he said.

Janeway read the clipping line by line. When he spoke it was as if he were alone with his Chief.

"I did not know that this matter had been printed, sir," he said.

"It has not been printed, except in a single isolated paper in the Middle West," said the Chief. "Did you, major, by any chance, divulge the subject of this article to any one? I ask you, because I know you were one of several who had the information."

"Yes; I told it to Farmer Marshall, for his own information."

"Without permission to print it?"

"Absolutely forbidding it, sir."

Farmer Marshall stirred in his chair; but his childlike eyes never left the major's face.

"Did you O.K. his dispatch before it was sent?" asked the Chief deliberately.

The major reddened and stuttered.

"I did not, sir— I did notl The distinct understanding was, that it was not to be made public."

"You note that it is published," remarked the Chief dryly.

While one might count ten, the scene froze into this attitude: the major stiffly erect and staring out of a window; Farmer Marshall dully regarding the head of his cane, which he twirled slowly between his fingers; the Chief tapping out the tempo of some tune on the edge of his desk. He was the first to break the spell.

"That will be all, major. Thank you very much. Please erase the incident from your mind," he said. Major Janeway walked out. Under his toe the Chief felt for a secret button. When a situation threatened to become strained, this secret button was his escape. It summoned a clerk, who had instructions to present something urgent for his Chief's decision.

The Chief abruptly turned to the clerk's papers, seeming to forget the Farmer's presence. After several seconds he looked up.

"I will have to ask you to excuse me now, Mr. Marshall," he said abstractedly; and as the clerk opened the door for the Farmer's exit, the Chief added in raised tones: "Please consider what I have told you not for publication— merely for your own information."

There was no doubt in Farmer Marshall's mind as to the extent of the catastrophe which had this day overtaken him. After twenty years of faithful service, twenty years in which he had earned a unique reputation for probity, honor and discernment, it was his portion to be demolished in a single moment by the "J'accuse" of an irresponsible petty official, whose sole excuse was to save his own hide from the consequences of some random indiscretion.

The very casualness with which the whole thing had transpired, was the more significant. Justice, blind and absolute, was personified by the little Chief, who at The moment of the crisis had seemed more concerned with the approach of his lunch hour than with the good name he was damning. His final words in the well-known formula: "This is merely for your own information—  not for publication"— in the light of events had assumed an indescribale irony.

There was no defense. In common with the priest and the physician, Farmer Marshall and the members of his craft needs must submerge their identity in their guild. They cease to exist as individuals; they be- icome integral members of an institution. But, where the arms of the church shield her vicar in keeping the secrets of the confessional inviolate, and the arbitrary law of professional ethics protects the physician from betraying his patient, the journalist is without recourse. Having no individuality, he can have no personal controversies with those dignitaries whose confidences it is his business to invite. In success he is bulwarked by his institution; in error he must stand alone. A newspaper has no place for mistakes, either in fact or opinion. There are no excuses, because whatever the extenuating circumstances, there are no ears to hear.

The steady, dependable old Farmer had watched callow officials, suddenly elevated by political fortune beyond their capacity, come and go through session after session. He had held out a hand to many of them, eased them over hard spots, edited their indiscreet utterances. Those of them who had survived had thanked him for saving them from themselves. That was the keystone of his reputation. He never made a man say anything he should not say. And now without warning he suddenly found himself forsworn.

The Farmer laboriously took to pieces the offending dispatch, trying to divine some reason for the disaster. Learned as he was in the significance of trivialities, he failed to uncover its purport. The dispatch treated of a plan for extensive maneuvers of the border patrol during the first week in October. The border, with its spasmodic guerrilla warfare, had assumed an entirely subsidiary place in the news. Those fractional divisions of raw levies who were given a stunt at patrolling the boundary as part of the elementary course in the science of war, were to be brought together on a certain day to give recent brigadiers and major generals an opportunity of handling men in the mass. The same thing was occurring in a dozen cantonments throughout the country weekly, and swivel-chair officials went to especial pains to see that the details reached newspaper correspondents. It was well known that a certain strength of men and material were maintained at all times on the border; and why the random activities of those units which' happened to be going through the parched dusty business of riding the line during October, should be regarded as interdicted information, was more than the Farmer could guess. It was only when he searched out his original copy that with a start he noticed the handwriting of the man who had vised this dispatch, in several insignificant interlineations. Methodically he erased these, reproduced them in his own cramped handwriting. Evidence was futile. It would serve only to further damn the perjurer who had already damned himself.

Then the Farmer sat down at his typewriter. And, as was his custom, religiously adhering to the touch system, regardless of the laws of time and space, he fixed his eyes on the ceiling and began to compose. It was an essay on press censorship, the burden being that the public should not be too greedy for details. The most unconsidered item, harmless in itself, might, in articulation with some similar harmless item, prove the key to a puzzle which enemy spies were at all times seeking to unravel. The essay was a classic, in the Farmer's best style. It should have been printed. But the Farmer had not set it down on paper for publication; it was merely to clarify his own thoughts. Being a writing man, he could think most clearly in print. He carefully tore the composition into bits and consigned them to the wastebasket.

One more task suggested itself. It was rather voluminous, but the Farmer had a world of patience. He waded through mountains of exchanges, seeking a recurrence of the information conveyed in his dispatch of the eighteenth. There was not a line of it. The Chief had spoken truly when he had said, with just a trace of malice in his tone, that the matter had got into print only in a single instance— that of an obscure paper in the Middle West— the Farmer's News. Even the paragraphers, and the editorial snipers who found so much meat for a day's work in the Farmer's column, had steered clear of it. The obvious reason was its triviality. The Farmer rejected this at once. Neither chance nor its insignificance could explain the fact that of all the hundreds of correspondents in Washington, and of all the thousands of newsparers in the United States, himself, and his News, were the only ones who had made use of it. However, this line of reason only availed to befuddle him more thoroughly.

The Farmer went about his daily grind without missing a beat. Days passed. At the end of the first week, a less astute man might have deluded himself into the belief that the incident was closed. The Farmer fell into no such error; he knew that sooner or later the blow would fall. He sat several times in the same chair, in the Chief's inner office; there was no hint of any change in the friendly intercourse of these two. There was never any recurrence of the subject.

At the end of the second week in July, he took an inventory of his affairs. The week had been particularly irritating. Here and there he had been kept waiting, left to cool his heels in anterooms, alongside of callow cubs, and free-lance operators. One day Kirke Winslow had paused, drawling, in front of him:

"What, Farmer! Do you mean to say this new breed of clerks has got your number? I thought you had perfected a patent box barrage, to put yourself through without delay!"

Several definite appointments had been broken. Bentley, a boyhood friend, now a major general with an army corps of adding machines and clerks as his tin soldiers, with whom Farmer Marshall was wont to dine every Tuesday, had telephoned and suggested that they put their dinners on ice for a time, at least until the stress of detail was over. The most disturbing incident of the bad week, however, was the omission of his dispatch entire from the News one day. A drunken telegraph operator seemed to explain this.

Everything that happened had a plausible explanation. A cabinet minister, a food administrator, an ordnance officer, occasionally find it necessary to erase set appointments; and a boyhood friend, who happens to be a major general, may be called upon to omit the obligations of comradeship. The methodical Farmer listed the coincidences of irritations for the past seven days. Like an echo in his mind, came the parting shot of the Chief: "This is merely for your own information."

"It would be more decent," concluded the Farmer suddenly, "if they were to hit me with an ax."

August passed. All men told the Farmer all things, in strictest confidence— after they had been well aired elsewhere. Several times he experienced that horrible sensation of the true reporter, to read news in the columns of his contemporaries. Somewhere beneath the surface, a slow disintegrating process had set in. The Farmer was losing his grip.

Meantime Janeway had been jumped over thirty numbers that outranked him, and made a full colonel. Kirke Winslow, the stormy petrel, brought this information to Farmer Marshall.

"Take my tip," pursued the gossiper. "Janeway will be given a peacock job. Something is in the wind. They have been sidetracking him lately. That's the English of it. If a man puts his foot in it, make him a knight, and put him in a glass case." He turned suddenly on the Farmer. "Did you ever hear anything against him, Farmer?"

"No; except that he was indispensable to the surgeon general."

"Wait and see," retorted Kirke. "My tip is he will join the rocking-chair fleet before many moons. He has grown too gabby about the mouth."

This conversation occurred in the Farmer's office one evening. Kirke was moving toward the door, when he paused, hesitating. He came back and drew up a chair close to the Farmer's desk. In a low tone he said:

"De Groot, of the Wendover Syndicate, tells me your people are angling for the Wendover service. What do you know about that? Are you going to retire to a chicken farm, or something, Farmer?"

There was an impudent directness about Winslow.

The Farmer pounded his typewriter with even greater violence than before, but held his peace.

"I thought you'd want to know. You'd do the same for me, wouldn't you?"

"Thanks," said the Farmer dryly. "I won't put up the umbrella until it begins to rain."

"If it does rain, Farmer— queer things do happen, you know"— persisted the other—  "my Big Gun wants you. He's willing to pay for you. He thinks you are a walking statistical abstract. It would be soft and easy, and a fat pay check. All he wants is your name. You could live here in Washington, in your carpet slippers. No leg chasing, or cooling your heels in anterooms. Just 'think' stuff. You could get the office cat to write it for you."

The Farmer lifted a quizzical eyebrow.

"Thanks, no! My personal opinion of your Big Gun is that he gets away with murder every day of his life. Now run along. I am trying to finish my story."

A week later, the Farmer's publisher, Watson, blew in unexpectedly. There was the usual conference between master and man lasting far into the night. Annually Watson and the Farmer had this confab, which had to do mostly with unprinted and unprintable news. It was the way Watson kept in touch with the significance of events.

Suddenly the publisher said, out of the air:

"The major general stopped off on his way West last week."

Major General Bentley was a native of Farmer Marshall's town, and to all denizens of that town, only one major general existed, in spite of the roster as evidence to the contrary.

"Yes?" responded the Farmer inquiringly.

"Yes; he told me about you." Watson paused and fixed a disconcerting look on the Farmer. "That's the reason I am here at this time," he went on. "I have been working you like a truck horse. I didn't know."

"I never felt better in my life," protested the Farmer. "Bentley has got it wrong. I haven't seen him for six weeks."

Watson smiled his disbelief.

"That's what they all say," he said, in the idiom of the comic page. "But I have taken the matter into my own hands. I have fixed up a nice little rest for you. You are going to run away and play."

"I don't want to run away and play, Watson. Bentley has got it wrong, I tell you. Bentley is always worrying over somebody else's liver. Mine is right side up. Where I am needed is right here. And here I stay."

"You are in the hands of your friends, Farmer," laughed the proprietor. "It's all arranged. Full pay and all that. Until you are fit again. I have contracted with the Wendover Syndicate to fill your column till you get on your feet again."

This was the final blow. The Farmer took it standing.

"Very well,", he said. "Never mind the pay. It isn't a question of money. I'd feel better about it to break clean, if you don't mind."

There would be other offers, of course, once it was noised about that the Farmer and his precious News had parted for the benefit of their respective healths. The Farmer, like others of-his craft, was a fatalist. There was no use fighting it. The conviction came to him that he was through. The process had been a little more delayed, long drawn out, more cruel than he had anticipated in the beginning. What he would avoid, above all things was the spectacle of a burned-out genius on skids, as they have the habit of saying in his world— sliding back, through one job after another, to nonentity.

The Farmer was spared annoyance. The other Big Guns did not come forward with their fatuous offers of gold. The grapevine telegraph had passed the word. In some midnight confidences, when men rake over the dead bones of their craft, it was suggested that the Farmer in these perilous times, had been guilty of some act of commission or omission— that certain personages in exalted places would be just as well pleased if the Farmer did not have a ticket to pass the sentry. In other midnight conferences it was put forward as the case of another candle that had reached the end of its wick. Paste pot and shears adepts throughout the country dug among their damp exchanges for another tin god to help them out on their paragraphing. And the Farmer, like a helpless comet, caught in the swirl of a constellation, continued to move about Washington. It was the only life he had ever known.

iii

THERE were pins and pins and pins. Of almost every conceivable color. They were stuck in a map in the style of Mercator's projection, that occupied the entire south wall of the big room.

At the head of the room sat a good-looking young man named Hurd. He spent all his days with those pins. They were moving incessantly, like ants on an ant hill. Their movement, and the infinite combinations of number, color and locality made a fascinating study— to any one acquainted with these particular pins.

These pins did not locomote by themselves. Clerks moved them. For the most part it was a brisk, elderly woman who would pop in and out of the room silently. Consulting memoranda, usually consisting of numbers that had just arrived from the four winds in the mail bag, or by wire, she would select this pin and that for a journey — or drop it in the discard. Those pins occupied the major part of her time, eight hours a day, for which she was paid eighteen dollars a week. The work was easy, and did not try the intellect; and while in the beginning she had permitted herself some curiosity as to the pin game, later it became as automatic as gum chewing.

On the second day of October, among the hundreds and thousands of varicolored pins on the map, there were, by actual count, forty-eight pins of a robin's-egg-blue color. They were scattered over the face of the map, and apparently had nothing in common except color. At ten o'clock several early callers who had been waiting in the anteroom, were dismissed by a clerk with the information that Mr. Hurd was occupied and would not be at liberty for some time. At this moment, Mr. Hurd sat back in his chair, his head pillowed in his cupped hands, smoking a big cigar.

The alert, elderly woman popped in and out, vaguely aware of the abstraction of her chief, and wondering how he got away with his big salary when he so persistently refrained from both work and fight hour after hour.

Toward eleven o'clock, there came to be a gradual waking up among these blue pins. One of them shifted from Fort Huron to Fort Wayne; another from Chatham Bars to New Bedford; a third from Omaha City to Topeka; a fourth moved from Helena to Gallatin. And so on. One by one the blue pins packed their bags, stepped aboard trains, and were en voyage. The lady clerk of course failed to note this, because she was dealing in all colors of the rainbow.

Even if an untrained observer had been told to note this spontaneous shifting of the blues, it would have been all Greek to him. They seemed to be aiming in no single general direction. That is, in the beginning. One had to be fairly familiar with mountain ranges, river courses, the valleys and the plateaus, of the continent, also with Bullinger's, and the XYZ Guide, to understand why the blues, as if actuated by a common impulse, should move in such diverse ways: some started north, some north by west, some due east, some due south. The pins continued to move like ants on an ant hill.

Hurd finished one cigar and began on another. After the lunch hour— he never lunched— he came out of the silence and put in an afternoon dictating, at a speed that satisfied even the pin lady. At noon the next day, he got out a parallel ruler and fussed with a little map he held before him. By and by he satisfied himself that an area of low pressure— as his Weather Bureau friends would say— was developing in the Southwest. At least so far as the robin's- egg-blue pins were concerned. At two in the afternoon, he was so thoroughly convinced of this, that he had almost determined the eye of the storm. He wired Stevens, in Jefferson City:

"Shipment of gills, consigned to Methodist Book Concern. Please verify manifest."

It was all very simple. Every one of those pins meant a man; and every color, every shade, every series of numbers that decorated the heads of those pins, meant some particular line of endeavor. Each of the robin's-egg-biue men was tied by the heels to a second man— who didn't know it. Every time this second man moved, a robin's-egg-blue pin moved in the same direction, telegraphing his locality and routing each day to the elderly, alert lady of the pins.

After sending his wire, Hurd took his mind off the robin's-egg-blues, as Stevens was thoroughly dependable. During the next few days he went through his usual motions, cognizant no doubt, out of the tail of his eye, of any peculiar idiosyncracies showing itself among the mauves, the champagne grays and the Alice pinks— also the robin's-egg-blues. His was a colorful life.

As for the blues, in their succeeding activities, they merely verified his wire to Stevens on the second day, and were now moving swiftly in converging lines toward the area of low pressure.

Hurd looked out of the window. On a bench in the park opposite sat an indolent figure of a man. More or less, for several weeks, this man had occupied this bench in the shade for several hours each day. The square faced the White House on one hand, and just beyond were various departments. All Washington flowed through this little square throughout the day. This man on the bench would occasionally rise briskly and be off as though on some important mission. Half an hour, or an hour later, he would come straggling back. He had a wide acquaintance, and seemed to take great pleasure from many bows from dignitaries he was able to collect in the course of a morning or afternoon.

Hurd put on his hat and went out, and crossed over te this bench.

" 'Morning, Farmer," he saluted, cheerily. He paused to mop his forehead, for the heat was excessive; then sat down, fanning himself.

"I hear you have been ill," said Hurd. "Sorry to hear that. Has it kept you out of the running altogether?"

"Oh, yes, yes," said the Farmer slowly. "Didn't you know? I thought all my friends knew. It was in the papers."

He took out an envelope and produced a clipping; the clipping was soiled and torn from many thumbs. It was the panegyric of the Farmer's News, when one day it announced, with heavy heart— in print— that its famous Washington correspondent, Farmer Marshall, had been forced to take a furlough on imperative orders from his physician. It added that the sympathy, the affection, and the concern of the newspaper-reading public, "would follow the Farmer into his enforced retirement; and it said that the loss to the man in the street was no less acute than to the News itself; it concluded with the Farmer's honorable and conspicuous services for twenty years; et cetera.

In fact it was a column brimful of that product of the editorial sanctum which newspaper men call "slush." It was slush; and the Farmer knew it. But it answered a multitude of questions for that portion of his public who did not read between the lines; and the Farmer kept it by him to spare embarrassing explanations.

"Farmer, can you see me in my office at four this afternoon?" asked the pin specialist, as he handed back the clipping.

"What? Me? Why yes— yes! Certainly, Mr. Hurd. I'll be there on the minute!"

The Farmer's embarrassing eagerness was positively painful. Hurd rose with a feeling of shame that he had thus put a fine old lion like the Farmer through his tricks.

Hurd made several calls; and shortly before four, a clerk put his head in at the door and nodded, then withdrew. Hurd caught up his hat and hurried out. He encountered as if by chance, Kirke Winslow, swinging along, bound somewhere in great haste.

Hurd put a detaining hand on his arm.

"Will you take a little walk with me?" he asked sweetly.

"Why, yes— if you are going in my direction. How far? I am in a hurry," said Kirke, looking at his watch,

"How far, Kirke?" repeated Hurd, still smiling. "That I cannot say. Possibly as far as Atlanta— or Leavenworth. I can't say."

The two men eyed each other quietly. Kirke Winslow began picking among the grass roots with the tip of his cane.

"All right," he agreed suddenly, and the two passed back toward Hurd's office.

The Farmer was prompt to the minute. He walked up through the hall into Hurd's office at a sign from the boy at the gate; inside he caught a glimpse of Hurd, and the little Chief, in close conference. He was about to. withdraw, when they saw him and hailed.

"Come in, Farmer!" bellowed Hurd. "Don't stay outside in the wet. You know the Chief here? Why, of course. Old friends—" The pin specialist took the Farmer's reluctant hand and put it in the Chief's, and beamed on the pair as they shook hands.

"This happens to be a red-letter day for us, Farmer," rumbled Hurd. "Just cast your eye on that, and tell us what you think of it!"

He pointed to his Mercator's projection. Vaguely, the Farmer examined the map. Pins, pins, pins. This meant nothing to him.

"Now," said Hurd, sotto voce, "this is strictly for your own information— purely a department matter." He took up a pointer, and indicated a covey of blue pins perched on the border line like a row of sparrows on the eaves. Directly across from them, on the Mexican side, was a covey of yellow pins.

"This map is not exactly correct— merely graphic," he explained. "These blue pins and these yellow pins seem to be separated by the border line. As a matter of fact, they are not. Not by a jugful. Not by twelve hours! At this particular moment, these yellow gentlemen are safely jailed, on the American side. And I suspect the blue gentlemen are sitting in the shade outside the jails, either knitting for the Red Cross or else writing me reports recommending themselves for promotion. Three hundred and sixty-seven yellow ones, Farmer! In twelve hours! Some bag!"

What the "yellow" ones were was perfectly apparent to the Farmer. He knew that Hurd's specialty was dealing with alien enemies in various stages of moral turpitude.

"Some bag!" repeated the Farmer, almost timidly; it was hard for him to believe that he was back in the family, even for this moment.

"We had to use live bait to bag 'em, Farmer," rattled on the pin specialist. "We happened on a good lively one. We hooked him through the dorsal fin— and let him squirm on the end of a line. Finally they rose to it. Not very agreeable for the live bait, Farmer. But when you consider we caught three hundred and sixty-seven in one bunch, I've got an idea that even the live bait would cheer up a bit, and be proud of himself. Don't you think so, Farmer?"

"Yes. Yes," repeated the Farmer vaguely. The pin specialist and the little Chief were eying each other queerly. The Farmer felt strangely uneasy.

"These three hundred and sixty-seven were a choice lot, Farmer," began the pin man, sitting down at his desk. "They were the pick of a bunch of Hun reservists that have been filtering across the line into Mexico ever since 1914. They were attending a postgraduate school over there— back in the mountains— in— well, in their particular specialty. They had things whittled down to a fine point. They had lieutenants in every State in the Union, spotting the weak points, collecting employees' passes and countersigns. The idea was to parcel out a squad of these postgraduates to each lieutenant, smuggle them across the line in one batch, get them all set, and have one grand blow-off. Same hour, same day, all over the map. Moral effect, Farmer! Quite by accident, we happened to have one or two matriculates in that same school, right here in Washington." Hurd smirked at himself comically in the mirror. "We laid traps for them over here. We left holes open for them to come through; but they were shy. They were afraid of our armed guard. Finally it narrowed down to a live-bait proposition. I don't like to use live bait, as a rule. It's a cruel, cruel sportl" He glanced at the little Chief speculatively.

"Along back in the summer, you may remember, we decided it might be a good idea to have some maneuvers on a big scale down at El Paso. You see we wanted to be obliging and remove this armed guard; and we had to have some plausible pretext to do it." He paused for a second, but the Farmer only stared. "With a ripe bunch, like these three hundred and sixty-odd schrecklichters, trying to ease across the border, you wouldn't think, offhand, any staff of idiots would call off the guard, just to give some nice old brigadiers a chance to put the boys through their paces for the benefit of the ladies of the post. But it might have been all right at that, if the news of it hadn't leaked—  got into print in an obscure paper in the Middle West. Farmer, we had to call that man a liar, discipline him, treat him rough, try to cover up a bad break."

The Farmer suddenly rose, very white.

"At the present moment, Mr. Hurd," he said, speaking with difficulty, "I have no connection with any newspaper. There is no reason why I should be given this, or any other information, either for my own use, or for publication. Sir," he said, turning to the little Chief. "I don't know why you think it necessary to rake over these coals."

Abruptly he started for the door. The two men pounced on him and dragged him back.

"Farmer, you dod-gasted old dodo! Can't you see what we are driving at?" cried the Chief. "Can't you see— the whole of this was a plant?— from the beginning. You were the live bait, Farmer. You were the poor devil we hooked on, hooked through the backbone— left dangling helpless at the end of a line. So that through your unconscious agency, we might round up this precious bunch of bomb slingers— and Kirke Winslow—"

"What?" roared the Farmer, bristling suddenly in every hair.

"Quite so," said the Chief. "He was born Kurt Weinslau. He didn't know we knew that. There were a lot of things he didn't know, Farmer." The Chief fell to chuckling. He pushed the Farmer back in his chair. "In the first place, he wouldn't believe we were idiots enough to draw off the guard for maneuvers. But he had sources of information, Farmer. We saw to that. When he found that we had quietly calletf you a liar, kicked you down the back stairs— then he began to guess again. When he saw us walking on eggs scared to death for fear some one would guess why we were turning you into a pariah— then—"

"Wait— just a moment," said the Farmer. He raised frightened eyes to the Chief. "Janeway?" he ventured hesitatingly.

"Quite so. Janeway. Poor old colonel. We pinned on him the nice little task of calling you a liar to save his own skin. For Heaven's sake, why don't you smile, Farmer? This isn't a funeral. This is a resurrection! When your friend Kirke saw you get the boot— when he saw Janeway shunted off into a nice rocking-chair job, he began to outguess himself bad. Then he knew we were going to hold the maneuvers." The Chief suddenly lowered his tone. "This is for your own information, Farmer, not for publication. We did hold the maneuvers. For the last forty-eight hours we have been secretly— oh, so secretly— drawing off company after company of the guard— heading them for El Paso. Then Herr Weinslau got into action. He tipped off his bunch that there was a hole in the border from El Paso to Fort Buchanan— and his precious postgraduate bomb slingers began to move. They found the hole all right. Not a soul to say them nay. They stepped across the line—"

"Into the arms of my nice little blue pins," interjected Hurd. He slapped Farmer Marshall on the back. "Farmer, for the love of Mike, wake up! Laugh! Cry! Cuss! Do anything! Do something! Can't you get it through your thick skull that this is a party for you— you, you live bait, that never let out a whimper, when we perjured you—  blackballed you— turned you out. Wake up, Farmer It's all a dream."

The Farmer raised his head.

"Will you give me just a moment to myself, gentlemen? Until I get my bearings. I am not as young as I used to be."

He dropped his head in his hands; the two gently slipped out of the room. Minute after minute passed. At a sound the Farmer looked up. There sat Janeway. No word passed between these two. They gripped each other's hands.

__________________

18: Lobster Pots

Henry C. Rowland

1874-1933

Popular Magazine 7 Feb 1919

WHEN Jim Stevens departed for France with the first contingent of Y.M.C.A. workers his friends and especially Katherine Blue were a little disappointed. They had all expected Jim immediately to secure a commission in the navy, the marines, perhaps, and be among the first to fight. He was thirty-two, sound of body, very rich, extremely unmarried and an experienced yachtsman. The fact that for some years he had been a strenuous Y.M.C.A. settlement worker and organizer did not entirely excuse him.

But when on his return in June he departed immediately for his bungalow on the coast of Maine with the evident intention of passing the summer there, even Katherine's faith was shaken. It had in fact been shaken a little too soon, and Jim perceived it and grew curtly reticent as to his motives. He departed with a brief remark about needing a rest and that they would meet a little later when she came down to spend August with her sister who had a summer cottage near his own. This irritated Katherine, who felt herself almost as good as engaged to Jim and quite privileged to present candidly her plans for him and the war.

In flagrant disregard of popular sentiment Jim installed himself comfortably in his luxurious bungalow with three new and unknown servants. When the colleges closed, there came to spend the summer with him a pale, spectacled young man with a slight curvature of the spine whom he casually introduced as "Professor Perkins." .Guest and host kept very much to themselves but made frequent excursions in Jim's seagoing motor boat, sometimes being absent for two or three days. This gave rise to the rumor that he was connected with the intelligence department, which was not at all the case. Timothy French and his thirteen-year-old son Lucien thought at first that Jim must have loaned the bungalow to some friend or relative. He was their nearest neighbor, situated directly opposite their island on a piney promontory about three miles across the inlet. Learning that he had indeed returned to spend the summer there Timothy raised his sandy eyebrows.

"I declare, son," said he to Lucien, "I'm plum' surprised."

Lucien's cherubic face expressed no dismay at this action on the part of a friend whom he esteemed. Once to win this boy's loyalty was to keep it through thick or thin.

"Jim must have some pow'ful good reason, dad," said he. "There ain't a grain of slacker in his stuff. Let's hop in the launch and run over and tell him howdy."

Timothy agreed, so they went down to the jetty and put off. Father and son made a curious couple. Timothy, the astute United States attorney of a Southern city; passed invariably with strangers for an artist or musician or poet by virtue of his soulful, dreamy eyes, ascetic features, black curling hair and languid manner. This was partly mask, partly the conservation of his fire for the startling effect of forensic shock when occasion required. In repose he was like a lazy hound, which animal he somewhat resembled physically as well as mentally. In action the similarity increased.

Lucien was the apt pupil of his father's painstaking lessons in criminology. The angel-faced boy was a sort of combination of Kim and Mowgli, his two childish patterns of instinct and intelligence. He had more than once actually helped his keen- sensed parent in the unraveling of some perplexing social problems, and Timothy accepted him rather as a confrere than a disciple. There was something almost pathetic in their undemonstrative devotion to each other.

Jim Stevens sighted the launch's approach and went down to receive his callers at the landing. He was a young man of small but well-rounded frame, plump in fact except for his face which was lean, alert and of kindly expression. He looked precisely what he was; an indefatigable social worker eager to do his conscientious best and ready to back his efforts with his large,-independent income. But certain nervous lines suggested a possible impatience. if his efficient plans were to meet with criticism. One did not need to be told that he was rich and used to having his own way.

"Hello, Judge— hello, Lucien," he called cheerily, and had them - out and shaking hands and the launch made fast and a sort of questionnaire of their general well-being off the reel before his visitors had time to stretch their legs. He skipped between them, hooked arms in theirs and escorted them up the stone steps to the bungalow like a busy tug with a lumber schooner on the port and a little yacht on the starboard side, hustling to get somewhere before the tide turned.

Reaching the veranda he introduced Professor Jones, then touched a bell which was answered by a flaccid-looking manservant with restless hands.

"Set four places for lunch," he said, and quickly informed his guests that they were to remain whether they felt like it or not. "Got a lot of things to tell you about our work over there," said he, "and I may not get another chance. Got such an awful lot to get through between now and autumn and-"

He shot them a keen, half-defensive look as if expecting to be asked.what he had to get through, but he was not. Timothy's dreamy eyes were resting on the door whence the butler had vanished as though his gaze having been passively led there was too inert to shift itself, while Lucien after a swift glance about the veranda, which was partly glassed-in, was looking at a blond young man with grimy hands and a chauffeur's cap who was going down the steps to the landing with a stillson wrench and a coil of copper tubing.

No, the slumbrous-eyed Southern hound and his silky, gifted pup had not the slightest desire to be told what work their host had to get through before the season's close. They knew. Timothy, in fact, had already put the matter from his mind and was reflecting on the prison pallor, restless hands, lusterless eyes and silent, shuffling gait of the butler, and from this he turned slowly to a contemplation of the flaxen hair and thick shoulders of the chauffeur, disappearing down the steps. Jim— Stevens liked to be called by his nickname on short acquaintance by those whom he approved—followed his gaze, then looked at him with a smile.

"Spotted my two jailbirds already, haven't you old sleuth?" said he, lowering his voice. "Well, why not? I got 'em from the ex-convicts aid society. That Swede boy did his time for a well-proven charge of barratry. Helped lose an ore ship he was mate of. That was three years before the war. The butler was chief steward of a royal mail ship and nabbed smuggling opium into Frisco. You know my ideas about giving a man a chance to make good— and besides this is no time to take men from useful occupations. Nobody wants these poor devils. They'd go on the bum or turn to crime again with wages at five dollars per day's unskilled labor."

Timothy draped one long leg over the other and rubbed his shaven chin. "Uhn- h'n," he assented. "There's right sma't of an idea for a solution of the male domestic servant problem. We might requisition a heap of timeservers and go their bonds, thereby savin' the gove'ment their keep. Car thieves and smugglers and fo'gers —and the like." His luminous eyes rested quizzically on Jim, who flushed a little not quite knowing whether this was irony or not. He did not pursue the topic but began to talk about the war and the great work of the Y.M.C.A. But although an interesting narrator his Southern guests were conscious that he was not absolutely at his ease. There was an accent not quite of challenge but as though he were inviting some query as to why he had returned from a field where workers were so badly needed, to summer in peace and quiet on the coast of Maine. This not being put he finally approached it of his own accord.

"Yes," said he, "we've got a splendid start, and those of us who have had the most to do with its organization now feel that what we most need is an army of men not qualified for fighters yet able to do the necessary things. The last thing we want is to steal men from the ranks."

"I reckon there ain't much danger of thet when this new draft bill goes through," said Timothy dryly.

"No, of course not," Jim answered, and seemed embarrassed for a moment. Lucien, glancing at his father whose signals he had learned to read like a book, caught the heavy droop of the eyelid which he knew to be a masked wink. His own face was guileless as a seraph's, which showed this child's extraordinary powers of self-control. He was glad when presently they said good-by and got far enough away to have his laugh out in safety.

"Jim would have busted if we'd stayed much longer, dad," said he. "So would I."

"Uhn-h'n," answered Timothy, absently. "I wonder naow if maybe I oughtn't to tell him to look aout for that daid fish of a butler."

"Forger, ain't he, dad?"

"Uhn-h'n. Might have smuggled opium, too, as a side graft. I do natchully hate buttin' into crim'nal stuff on my vacation. Say, son, it sho' needs a simon-pure honest guy like Jim to rouse suspicion in the human mudhead."

"And to see through as easy as a Georgette blouse," said Lucien.

"Listen to me, Luce," said Timothy, pursuing his line of thought and ignoring Lucien's, "inside a fortni't some o' these porch- settin' gasbags will be botherin' the bureau of public information about a young man flush with money makin' mysterious runs offshore with a professor and a German- lookin' mechanic in a speed launch. Might make Jim a sight o' nuisance."

"Then why don't he say right out what he's aimin' at, dad?"

"H'm—partly because his friends and likely that Katherine girl of his have got him riled, and partly because he's afraid he might slip up on gettin' his commission, and a man like Jim can't bear a failure. No, he cal'lates to let 'em all go the limit knockin' him fo' a slacker while he's quietly crammin' up on navigation and gunnery and memorizin' pilot charts and all the other requirements, then go up for his naval exam and tear the pants off it. He's playin' dark horse, and he figures to collar his stripes and then give 'em the Cheshire cat. That's all right, but his housing those two calaboose veterans sorta worries me. Naow, I wonder-"

He paused for so long a time that Lucien asked a little diffidently: "If he got them, dad— or they got him for some game of their own?"

"Uhn-h'n. You said it, son. We don't want to see Jim get in wrong. He did his trick in Y.M.C.A. work because it was immediately up to him and he wasn't then qualified to go after a commission. But he wanted the navy from the start, and naow he's after it tooth and nail, and he's got to go, some to beat the draft. That tutor looks like a right capable higher-mathematic wiz."

"When I looked at the table and saw that book of logarithms and the chart and parallel rulers, and then thought of them running out every day to practice triangulatin' with that Boche-lookin' barrator I could hardly keep from laughin', dad. Could a fella stage spy stuff any better if he tried? What in the nation does Jim think, anyhow?"

"It's his spotless innocence and high endeavor, son," Timothy answered, a little impatiently. "A good many such snowy birds have made unnecessary work for the intelligence department. They can't jam the odor of suspicion and themselves into the same thought. Well, let's sit tight and see what happens, just for fun. They can't do more than teach him a little something besides plain sailing." He rubbed his chin. "But I wish he hadn't complicated his case with those two felons—"

Coached by his efficient and zealous tutor, Jim pursued his intensive nautical cramming in peace for about three weeks, during which time he made quite extraordinary progress. As an experienced yachtsman he was already a good boat handler and well grounded in seamanship, which had always appealed to him. Having gone to Yale from a military school, he had also received his due amount of infantry training in so far as it went.

It was practical navigation in dangerous waters that Jim wanted more than anything else, and this he was rapidly acquiring so that he was soon to take accurate sights on the swaying deck and work out his position closely from a solar or stellar observation, verifying it with azimuth bearings on known landmarks. He showed rather more sense about these maneuvers than the shrewd Timothy had given him credit for, so that his lessons were proceeding most satisfactorily, and he was beginning to feel confidence in himself for this sort of work when interruption came from the quarter which he had rather dreaded, yet anticipated with a certain amount of eagerness. This was the arrival of Katherine Blue to spend three weeks with her sister who had a pretty summer place about half a mile from his own bungalow with its ten containing acres of rocks and pines.

Jim had first met Katherine there about four years previously and had pursued a sort of sporadic courtship of her ever since. This had been rather a perennial affair, burgeoning every summer in a season top short to bring it to maturity, like a semi-tropical tree planted in a harsh climate. They had not seen a great deal of each other in the winters, she living in Washington and he in New York. There had been some rather torrid passages between them, however, and Jim had about made up his mind that the way of happiness lay in his taking her to wife at some indefinite time. He considered her the most complete girl he had ever met, and she was indeed very lovely and desirable.

But one thing was quite certain in his mind, and that was his fixed determination not to marry until after the war. He did not indeed purpose even to become engaged until after the war. During his Y.M.C.A. service in France he had seen much of the unwisdom of these impulsive weddings and betrothals on the eve of separation. He knew Katherine to be a warm-natured girl, and ripe for matrimony as a peach which yields itself to the hand on the least pressure of its ruddy cheek, and feeling that she favored him he quite realized the danger of not being on guard.

Nevertheless, it gave him a decidedly pleasant thrill to learn that she had arrived and that there might be certain moonlight digressions from midnight oil and trigonometry. Jim had strongly resented her assumption that he had wearied of war work establishing Y.M.C.A. huts at the front, and had come home to slack down and enjoy his ease a little. But he felt quite able to forgive her that after a month of hard study and the almost exclusive society of his tutor; rather more ready in fact than was Katherine to condone his hauling off to the Maine coast to loaf about in his boat and make pretense of propaganda work when so many splendid ones not half so free to do so were cheerfully offering themselves to the sublime sacrifice.

Wherefore, through her temperament and his folly in not frankly telling of his ambition, they had rather a hot and cold monkey- and- parrot time of it for a couple of weeks during which Katherine's disposition and Jim's nautical progress suffered painful setbacks, this resulting finally in a burst of indignation on her part and the request that he return her letters and consider all which might have passed between them as null and void. Jim was for heatedly protesting this ukase, but on second thought accepted it with bitter dignity.

This had happened on a bit of neutral ground, a strip of beach and bowlders between their two places of abode and as they left it Jim thought he saw a dark figure slip from behind a big adjacent rock into the shadow of the pines. He could not be sure, however, nor could he imagine why anybody should have been spying on them, so he put the matter from his mind, and after escorting her home returned to the bungalow in a state of righteous and injured gloom. He would return her packet of letters with no further effort to see her, and a little later when she heard of his commission followed by speedy promotion to the command of a submarine chaser or destroyer or mine sweeper, she would realize her great mistake in him.

The next morning he sat down at his desk and unlocked the drawer to get the letters and send them forthwith. At sight of them a sudden tenderness possessed him. After all, no doubt she was right, thinking as she did. Still, she should-have had more faith in him. Anyhow, there was one particular letter which he felt that he would like to read again. He had in fact reread it several times, the last quite recently. But now he searched for it in vain. That charming epistle was gone, and yet he distinctly remembered having replaced it with the others and slipping the narrow rubber band around the lot. More than that— for Jim was something of a precisian— he remembered that the band was old and stretched beyond its strength and had snapped as he replaced it, and when not finding another ready, he had passed it around and tied it in a square knot.

It struck him suddenly that the band he had just removed had stretched easily and with no threat of snapping. On the contrary it looked new, a pale-gray in color and very elastic. He examined the knot and his lips tightened as he discovered it to be not a square one but a granny. Jim never tied a granny. He had not tied a granny since early boyhood when the captain of his father's schooner yacht had shown him the difference.

There was no longer any doubt. Somebody had picked the lock of the drawer and abstracted this particular letter. But why? Of what possible interest or value could that letter be to any third person? It was not a compromising letter. None of them were. Such a charming letter with its little hint of tender feeling might have been written by any well-bred girl to any young man for whom she had a little warmth of sentiment. So why steal it?

Jim was pondering the mystery, more puzzled than angry, when he heard a quick step on the veranda outside, then Lucien's voice asking for him. He remembered that he had asked the boy, of whom he was very fond, to run around to Rockland with him on the boat, Timothy being engrossed in some legal papers just received.

"Come on up, Luce," he called, and a moment later Lucien entered. Jim got up and greeted him, then closed the door. "Look here, Lucien," said he, "your dad swears that some day you are going to make Sherlock Holmes look like the village idiot, so now see what you can get out of this. Last night Katherine blew me up for being a slacker and asked me to send her letters back. Well, maybe I am and maybe I am't, but anyhow she bawled me out. Now, looking over her perfectly harmless correspondence, all or any of which might be read as models of discretion in any convent school, I find that one has been swiped. Very recently swiped, as I read it myself and put it with the others about ten days ago. More than that, there was a different band around the batch. What do you think?"

"Coarse work," said Lucien.

Jim smiled. "Granted," said he, "but that's not the point. Why any work at all? What's the good of the letter but to Katherine or me— and that's purely negative?"

Lucien opened the door, glanced out, then shut it softly.

"For a model," he answered. "You make me tired, Jim. Do you hope to get a commission in the navy with an ivory nut like that?"

Jim stared, then burst into a cackle: "Oh, so you've guessed, have you? Well, I reckon dad is right about his olive branch. Go on, my seraphic Machiavelli. Why a model, even if it is a pretty and winsome fist?"

"To copy, admiral," retorted Lucien. "To forge, crib, imitate or fake. To write you a billet-doux from your ex-inamorata and lure you off to a midnight reconciliation while your repentant sinners loot the shack and crack the crib and beat it in the boat. Are you trying for a billet on the naval intelligence, Jim, or the international naval strategy board?"

"I was," said Jim, "but I've changed my mind. Assistant barnacle scraper of the fourth class, or chain tailer's mate is about my fair rating. Oh, the vipers!"

"Any school child would pipe your butler for a writing master by his hands," said Lucien, "and if you clapped your hands behind that big manila-headed Swede he'd holler 'Kamerad.' I'll bet a prize hawg to a cootie that before we got into the war he was a motor-truck driver in the crown prince's furniture-moving corps."

"Sapristi, I believe you're right, seraph. How about my third bandit, the cook. He's a Greek named Sardanapopulous, or something of the sort."

"Is he a stone breaker, too?"

"Not to my knowledge. Just plain Greek."

"That's worse. He looks like a Gallipoli ghoul. Probably a triangle team."

"Never mind the triangle. I've been wearing it on my arm and the place is sore. What shall we do about these reformed apaches?"

Lucien reflected for a moment, when his oval face with its pure and perfect features, clear, fine skin and spiritual eyes would have led a Frenchwoman to exclaim: "Ah, le petit Jesu!"

"Better let on to fall for it like the goop they take you for, Jim, then put a signal over to dad and me. Dad sholy hates odd jobs when he's on his vacation, but it can't be he'ped. A crim'nologist is sorta like a doctor, always on the job. Dad's a roarin' lion when he takes after a crook, if he does look most times like he had to lean against the fence to bark."

"How will the trouble start, you little Alabama Kim?"

"The professor goes to bed early, don't he?" Lucien asked.

"Yes— and I follow in about six short hours."

"Well, that flat-foot steward of yours will probably bring you a note in Katherine's han'writin' sayin' she's sorry for the scrap and will you meet her down on aidge of the rocks and kiss and make up. The buzzard mus’ know you had a fallin'-out and that's why he wanted a specimen of her han'-writin'."

Jim nodded. "I thought I saw somebody sneaking off between the rocks when we left the beach," said he.

"That was your faithful felon Higgs. If it had been Jansen you would have seen his white top, and if it had been the Greek you wouldn't have seen him at all. There would only be a snake wabble in the sand. You took Katherine home and Higgs racked back here and got his specimen."

"Then you think the motive is robbery?" Jim asked. "There isn't much to steal."

Lucien looked for a moment like a meditative angel. He seemed a little loath to give his final decision.

"I don' see what else it could be, Jim," said he. "This yeah's a triflin' bunch of petty larceners and the times are hard. For one thing they know that their job with you is a'most over and like as not they count on y'-all bein' a Christian young man who will take his loss and let 'em go. Higgs prob'ly figgers like this: ' 'E's a sensitive bloke and 'as 'is pride, so. 'avin' 'ired us from the exconvicts aid 'e won't want 'is friend to 'ave the larf on 'im.' "

Jim grew rather red. "Higgsis darn near right," said he. "As a matter of fact that's just about what I would do. I signed them on with my eyes open and I'd stand the shot. There is always a bit of cash in my desk, and then I've got a few jeweled scarf-pins and some table silver and trinkets and things—"

"And some valuable nautical instruments," Lucien added. "The chronometer and binoculars and sextants and compasses, all high-priced junk jes' this moment. They must realize that you could ketch 'em up befo' they got far, but you see they count on you lettin' 'em go."

Jim nodded. "Higgs knows of course that I'm cramming hard for a commission and trying to beat the draft to it. He's banking partly on my being an easy mark and partly on my having no time to bother with a criminal suit. Then, as you say, he reckons on my not caring to advertise myself as a darn fool. Well, he's right. I don't want to shove them in again, but I would like to give them a rattling good scare. How can we manage it, Luce?"

"I reckon I'd better ask dad. The chances are they'll make sure you've gone to keep the date before startin' in to crack your little safe. Maybe I'd best lope back and tell him 'bout it now." He rose and his violet eyes flitted about the room with a sort of birdlike curiosity. A door of the big clothes closet was open and something hanging from a hook caught his attention. "What's that rubber thing?" he asked.

"That is a funk bag, old sleuth. A rubber live-saving suit guaranteed to be warm and water-tight with grub lockers and brandy flask and a whistle to show them that you are not a floating mine when they come to pick you up. We all had them going over in case of getting torped. I bought mine so that anybody else could have my place in the boat." He stepped to the closet, took the suit from its sack and spread it out. "A nice little hood to keep your permanent Marcel wave intact. Leaded soles to hold you down to your load water line. I tried it here the other day and it was a lot of fun but I have no more time for toys, and it is not a becoming costume for a prospective Farragut, so I will make you a present of it. Keep it on that badly installed speed thing of yours which is sure to get on fire some day. You and the judge might both squeeze into it at a pinch."

Lucien's eyes glistened. He was after all just a fourteen-year-old boy though small for his age and with the face which goes with ten. He was delighted with the present and desired to try it immediately in spite of Jim's warning that he had better provide .himself with an electric torch to find his way around inside it. But reflecting that priority should be given the donor's personal affairs, Lucien put the suit back into its sack, and telling Jim that he would watch for his return and run over immediately, went down to his launch and put off.

The boy was loath to disturb his father who was at work on the data of a criminal case which was the first on the autumn calendar. But Timothy heard him arrive and called out to know why he had returned.

Lucien hurried up the steep stone steps, his precious gift over his shoulder. Timothy had seen the device and asked: "Jim give you that, son?"

"Yes, sir," Lucien answered. "She's some suit, dad. You could use it for duck shootin' or to go ashore if your dinghy struck adrift, or campin' out and sleepin' in the rain—"

He suddenly bethought him of the important reason for his return. "Say, dad, Jim's buccaneers are fixin' to put one over on him and trickle away." And Lucien forthwith described the situation as he saw it, briefly and with the police-court slang so dear to his boyish heart.

Timothy hung himself in bights over his morris chair and listened, at first with an expression of sleepy, indulgent interest as one might turn from tedious application and give ear to the insistent prattle of a child, but as Lucien proceeded his attention seemed to waver and his soulful eyes which were brown and soft and slightly prominent turned frequently to the funk bag on the floor. Lucien finished and looked at him with the eager expectancy of the pup watching for some sign of action in the older dog. Timothy surveyed him with a sad and pensive air. His expression suggested philosophic disappointment.

"That all?" he asked.

Lucien squirmed uneasily. "Yes, sir, so far," he faltered.

" 'Fraid this yeah toy sorta lured you off the trail, son; like a haoun' dawg jumpin' a fox when he's runnin' a deer."

"You reckon' there's more to it, dad?"

"Uhn-h'n. A whole heap. Trewth is our theories only touch in spots, Luce. Naow stop and think. Let's go back to the start and assume that Higgs overheard the lovers' quarrel and stole the letter. He's the brains of the scheme, ain't he?"

"Yes; sir. Jansen is thick as pea soup."

"And conspicuous, especially right naow. Higgs, on the contr'y, is a right commonplace-lookin' cuss with nothin' much to distinguish himself. Would he be apt to hitch up with Jansen?"

"He'd need Jansen to run the boat or the car."

"Maybe— if he wanted the boat or the car. But if his motive is robbery, he don't need the boat or car. Jim often goes off in the boat overnight and Higgs would have all the time he needed to make his getaway."

"Of co'se, dad," murmured Lucien, "but then he wouldn't need to fo'ge a note from Katherine, either."

"Ce'tainly not. But he must be aimin' to, or he wouldn't have stolen a specimen of her handwritin'. But he has, and that shows that he wants to pull this thing off when Jim is home. Why? Because when Jim is there Jansen is there, and he needs Jansen. Why? He sho'ly ain't fool enough to try to steal the boat or the car. Then what is it he aims to steal that needs Jansen's help?"

The boy gave his father a sick look. "Jim, of course," he croaked, like a dejected little bittern. "I don't know where I been totin' my brains, dad."

"Nor I no more, son," drawled Timothy. "I declare, I'm plum' surprised. That bathe- and-keep-dry suit must have tu'ned your haid."

"Reckon so, dad. And here I've been tormentin' Jim about his ossified gray matter. Why, it's plain as plain. I never gave that old squid of a Higgs the credit for having the nerve. Of course he knows that Jim's in a desperate hurry, and every day worth a fortune if he hopes to beat the draft, now they've speeded it up. Higgs counts on his coming across first and trying to get him afterward—if he does try, which is doubtful. Jim's got a skin like a shedder crab when it comes to gettin' grilled."

"Uhn-h'n." Timothy leaned back, brought the tips of his long, slim fingers together and stared absently at a horse-mackerel harpoon which decorated the wall of the camp. "That boy ain't in a position for much roastin' just naow. For him to get kidnaped like a toddlin' baby might be as much as his chance of a commission was worth. What if they kept him so's he couldn't register? He might have a hard time putting himself right."

Lucien nodded. "They shorely could make him look plum' foolish, if not worse," he admitted. "S'ppose they claimed he was party to it? Even his friends have been hinting at his havin' a gun-shy streak. And what chance would he have with that big Scandabochian? He could shove Jim into his hip pocket and set on him. I don't like it, dad."

"Nor I, son. There are lots of lonesome places along this coast where they could stow a man away for a spell; deserted camps on wooded promontories and outlyin' islands with abandoned fishin' or lobsterin' camps." He unfolded his lank frame and rose. "I reckon I'll go over and talk to Jim a mite. In most cases I'd admire to nab those crimps in the act, but that ain't such a sight of importance here. The main thing is to get shut of them before they have a chance to start anything."

He strode to the door, then gave a snort of impatience. Picking up his glasses from the table he focused on some distant object. "There he goes naow. Full clip to the east-'ard. Reckon we could overhaul him, son?"

Lucien shook his head. " 'Fraid not, dad, with that screw of ours. One of the blades is badly bent from that wipe we gave it. I was going to take her over to the yard to get it hammered out this afternoon. Besides, we're sho't of gas and he's got too big a start. But you don't reckon there's any immediate danger, do you?"

Timothy rubbed his chin and looked at his small son under corrugated brows. "Can't always tell which way such brutes may jump, son. Naow if that Higgs got the notion Jim missed the letter and was tellin' you about it he might spring his deadfall right off. He only needed to sneak up and hear a word or two. Let's wait a shake and then spin over and see if he's there."

This they accordingly did, making with their damaged propeller about half of the swift launch's possible speed. Timothy was taciturn and laconic, but Lucien in a state of cold and nervous apprehension which increased to a dismal despair as they drew near enough to see that the windows of the bungalow were closed with the shades drawn snugly down. The place wore in fact an air of cold desertion. Many of the summer cottages had been shut up for the winter, especially where there were children in the family as the schools were about to begin— and also the 18-45 year draft! In the case of shore houses the floats and many of the boats were still in the water waiting for the local caretakers to find time to haul them out.

They made the launch fast and rapidly mounted the winding stone steps. And then as they reached the veranda Timothy stared at the front door and puckered his smooth-shaven lips with a long, low whistle. For a piece of typewriter paper was stuck against the glass inside and on this was written in a large, bold hand which much resembled, but was not that of Jim:

Gone for a short cruise. May return in ten days' time.

"Don't fret so, son," drawled Timothy. " 'Twas my fault jes' as much as yours. More, I reckon, for not startin' right over the minute I guessed what was afoot."

Poor Lucien's eyes were red-rimmed and his face haggard from worry and loss of sleep. The boy's bitter' self-reproach for his unusual bungling in this of all cases was making him positively sick. He could not touch his breakfast, but Timothy was liberally disposing of the fat salt mackerel and delicious hot bread of their able, sable cook.

"Seems like we ought to be doin' something, dad," he protested for the tenth or twentieth time.

"We're pretty apt to, soon as we go over for the mail," said Timothy. "No use messin' things up. I'm naturally the man that Jim would turn to, 'specially as he knows I'm well acquainted at the bank in Po'tland. Right pleasant day for a spin over the road. Wonder what they'll have the gall to ask for Tim?"

"What I'm wondering is where and how they'll want the money handed over," Lucien answered. "Risky job for them, dad."

"They don't think- so. But somehow I kinda look at it like you do, son."

Lucien shot him a quick glance. "If they want it left out on some offshore reef, they'll need a faster boat than Jim's to get away with it," said he. "We might get one of the patrol-fleet swifties with her three-inch gun."

"And give Jim dead away?" drawled Timothy, raising his bushy eyebrows. "He wouldn't thank us, Luce. No, I reckon we can pull it off without any he'p from the navy. Uhn-h'n." He rubbed his chin and smiled.

"Dog-gone it, dad!" Lucien burst out, "I know it's against the rules. It ain't etiquette and all that, but I'll begin to run around in circles if I don't know what's up your sleeve. My brain's been doing it all night. How the nation will they want this money paid over? Where will they want it put?"

Timothy appeared to hesitate. "Waal, son," he drawled, "of co'se I can't say for certain where they may want it put, but I'm plum' sure where' I'd want it put if I was in their shoes. That would be some nice safe place about ten miles of a line of unbroken coast so's to give me plenty of leeway. And I'd give directions to have it put there about half an hour befo' dark and the depositor to mosey off in the opposite direction, so's I could see him out of sight before venturin' to c'llect."

Lucien wrinkled his infantile nose. "But where would you find such a place? And with the big southeast swell that's been runnin' the last three days—"

"Wouldn't bother my place a mite, son. There's oodles of 'em all the way from Montauk to Sable Island inshore and offshore wherever the bottom's rocky."

"Land o' love! I declare, dad, I'm jes' like runnin' into the Bay o' Fundy; gettin' thicker and thicker every minute. Of co'se. A lobster pot—"

"There, you guessed right the very first time, Luce," said Timothy dryly. "That would be my scheme. A lobster potion a sunken ledge about ten miles aout. A lobster pot with a nice bright red buoy, the third o' the line, maybe, and not too near the aidge of the sunken reef. A nice fat roll of three figgers each in a preserve jar crammed in the way the lobster goes, and there you are. Safe, simple and easy; no resk, bother nor expense— except for Jim, and all he wants is what the whole world wants mo' than anything else jes' now: Liberty."

Lucien's face fell a little, then he glanced out of the window. "Then there's no chance— here comes the launch, dad."

A few minutes later they were speeding in after the mail, but to Lucien's distress no letter came until that of the evening, and this with a Portland postmark. There could be no doubt whatever but that it was Jim's own writing and composition, and as Timothy flicked it open there fell out a check to his order for ten thousand dollars.

"Uhn-h'n," he murmured, "about what I expected. Round and reasonable sum and no strain on Jim's cash balance. Let's see how he feels."

It read:

Dear Judge:

No doubt after what Luce has told you, this comes as no surprise. My grateful timeservers acted on the opportunity I so kindly offered to make men of themselves. The cook was not mixed up in it. Higgs had maneuvered a blackmail on him for what he had been knocking down on household bills and made him beat it while the beating was good.

Higgs overheard enough of Luce's and my talk to know that he must get busy dam quick, and did. Jansen followed me down into the cabin when I went aboard the boat and put me to sleep without rocking. Then Higgs came aboard and now we are "somewhere in America," I don't know myself just where.

Needless to say, I am in a hurry to get back and prefer to pay the fare than be indefinitely delayed. Also, I prefer not to have the story get out or risk being late for my date with the navy examining and registration board. So please follow directions implicitly with no effort to collar these birds.

This is what I must ask you to do. Cash the check as quickly as possible for nineteen five hundreds and five hundred in three one hundreds and the rest tens and twenties. Place the roll in a preserve jar and, getting in your boat alone or with Luce, go to the Moser Ledge, which, as you know, is about five miles southwest of Pemaquid Point, and nearly halfway between it and Monhegan Island. Half or three-quarters of a mile due south of the nun buoy on Moser Ledge you will find a line of lobster pots, or at least their buoys which are black with white ends, as Holstein cows. But one has a lobster pot at the other end, and that is the fourth from the ledge. The others are tied

Please go there the first clear evening at six- thirty p. m.; to-morrow if possible, weather permitting and visibility good, put the money in the lobster pot and proceed straight home. Any attempt to catch these birds might result in delay and I would rather pay the money. They will play the game and let me go as soon as they get the dough, knowing that unless I am released in the next few days I don't much care how long they keep me.

Of course, I feel no end of a fool, and don't want the story to get out, as it would make a silly goat of me and might hurt me in other ways. If there should be any wind and sea, wait until the weather moderates as the place is nasty with a sea running. Take my car to run into Portland after the money. The garage is not locked. In case of fog or thick weather please wait as you will be watched from some

Thanking you in advance and with many apologies for bothering you about the silly business, your foolish friend,

Jim.

"Golly, but he must be sore, dad," said Lucien.

"Likely to be—" Timothy glanced at the barometer. "Reckon we can manage it to-morrow evenin', son."

"Dad!" Lucien's face was pale and his eyes like sapphires.

"Waal, Luce?"

"We don't need to go to Portland."

"Jes' what I was thinkin', son."

"This stuff is no more of a roast on Jim than it is on me—"

"On us," Timothy corrected. "I went to sleep at the switch."

"We owe it to ourselves to nail those birds." Lucien's eyes strayed to the funk bag in the corner. Timothy drew down the corners of his mouth and laughed.

"Uhn-h'n. I figure to. You're improvin', son."

Lucien leaned forward with an eager face. "Dad, let me pull it off. I messed it up. Please let me, dad."

Timothy reached out a long arm and let his hand fall caressingly on the boy's curly, chestnut hair. His soulful eyes were brimming with paternal love.

"Shucks, honey, you're not big enough. You would rattle aroun' in that thing like a pea in a pod. This is more fun than I've had sence we rescued May. That May gal and Jim sho'ly need a nu'se."

He rose with surprising quickness, and deaf to Lucien's protests took out the lifesaving suit and spread it on the floor. With deep chuckles rumbling in his chest he carefully examined the hood.

"Jes' needs a black mask and a little rock- weed," he murmured. "Lordy, son, but that will sho'ly be one scandalized squarehead!" He straightened up and looked through the open door toward the float. "Let's hop in the boat and run over to taown and get us some black and white enamel quick-dryin' paint."

"Dad—"

"Yes, sonny."

"Those are powe'ful strong glasses of Jim's. This westerly weather is right clear, and if they're watchin' from Pemaquid Point or Monhegan they might smell a rat. You got to keep down on the flooring and I'm such a little tad. Seems like there ought to be two of us always in sight and one of us right tall."

Timothy rubbed his chin and stared thoughtfully at his son. "Uhn-h'n," said he. "Maybe you're right. The visibility is mighty high. But Jim is set on keepin' the business secret and you know what these fellas 'round here are like."

"Katherine Blue is right tall," said Lucien. "Got a heap of sense, too, and she means to marry Jim some day."

"H'm. Jim sho'ly needs a wife to mind him. You think she's game?"

"Sho' to be. When she learns what Jim's been up to she'll be sorry the way she flew off the handle."

Timothy indulged in one of those instantaneous reflections which occurred when his bright mind was sparking rapidly under its dull gray hood. He liked and admired Katherine Blue and considered that she would make a most desirable wife for Jim whether in peace or war.

"All right, Luce," said he. "We'll pass by there and you can invite her for an evening spin to haul fcome lobster pots. Don't tell her anything about Jim or what we aim to do. Jes' say we're goin' lobsterin' offshore and if she'll come and he'p we'll give her the biggest lobster that we catch."

Experimenting with the life-saving suit proved as Timothy had feared, that it floated him entirely too high for his masked and hooded head to pass possibly for a lobster buoy, even with its Holstein camouflage and liberally fouled with seaweed. So his fertile brain suggested a safe and practicable way to sink his shoulders awash. He bought a length of lead water pipe, and this caught about his hips gave him the proper level while if so desired he could slip it by a slight tug with both hands.

In the water thus equipped with a fringe of rockweed tied about his neck and streaming off with the tide Lucien swore that the decoy was perfect. By tilting his head to the side he could get the proper angle for a lobster-pot buoy in the current over a ledge. He purposed to moor himself with a large flat stone and a stout cod line, naturally removing the actual buoy which his well- furnished head was to impersonate. Above the leaden girdle he would wear a belt in a holster of which on either side was a .38 revolver protected from the wet by a thin sheet of dentists' rubber which could readily be ripped away. A moment's immersion could do no harm.

Having tested everything to his satisfaction, Lucien assisting with a tense and worried face, Timothy stowed the whole in the little cabin and about the middle of the afternoon they shoved off and headed across the inlet to pick up Miss Katherine Blue, which young lady, in a very low state of mind over Jim and herself, had accepted with alacrity an invitation for a spin offshore with the only male individuals of the entire summer colony for whom she possessed a liking and esteem. Both Timothy and Lucien possessed a curious fascination for most people, especially women and children, who invariably offered them immediate friendship. By strange men they were usually accorded a sort of puzzled deference. Despite his slipshod, Southern speech and quaint, flowing style of dress Timothy was immediately assayed as the real thing; an eccentric, but distinguished personality while Lucien's seraphic beauty and hard, worldly knowledge with apt slang often invented for its aplomb excited a desire to know more of the odd pair. Both had the faculty of mixing without being mixed with.

Katherine, a temperamental and eager-natured girl, was no exception to the rule. She had known them for a number of years, but never well, and desired to increase her acquaintanceship. She thought Timothy a dear and Lucien a darling, but was a bit awed by Jim's stories of their feats in the suppression of crime.  It seemed incredible that throughout the Gulf States the mere mention of Timothy French's name was enough to make the malefactor shiver in his shoes. Though actually but forty, he might have passed for any age from twenty-five to sixty-five, and one would have placed him under a flowering tree reciting an ode to the curve of his lady's lip rather than tense and magnetic in a criminal court delivering a ferocious invective which would send some bloodstained local bogie to the gibbet.

Timothy greeted and assisted her aboard with old-fashioned Southern courtliness, then rather to her surprise as the swift launch proceeded to rip a long white scratch in the polished surface of the sea, reached in the locker cabin and extricating a newfangled life-saving suit from its sack began to put it on.

"Do you always do that when you go to sea in this boat, Judge French?" she asked, thinking that if this were a token of his confidence in the craft and the dangers of the deep to be anticipated aboard it he might have taken similar precautions in behalf of a lady guest.

"Only when we go lobsterin', Miss Katherine," said Timothy suavely. "Haulin' in the catch I might fall ove'board and I can't swim a blessed stroke."

"It must be very hot," she observed.

"Yeah, these things are ce'tainly right stuffy," he admitted, "so with yore kind permission I reckon I'll lie daown here in the shade."

He stretched his inflated figure at her feet, his head pillowed on a heap of wet seaweed and it was then that Katherine noted the peculiar marking of the hood.

"Is the headpiece painted that way to attract attention?" she asked.

"Not exactly, Miss Katherine," Timothy answered. "That's jes' the latest camouflage. If Fritz was to sight it he'd take you fo' a lobster buoy struck adrift."

"How very ingenious," murmured the girl. "But that might cut both ways. What if he was fond of lobster?"

"Ah, my dear lady, but they can't cook on U-boats. Luce, give Miss Katherine an oilskin ove'coat and a sou'wester. The spray is goin' to fly when we raoun' the p'int."

"Oh, thanks, but I have my raincoat," said the girl.

"No, I must insist," said Timothy with such finality that her gray eyes opened a little wider. He gave her his benevolent smile, and she wondered why his slumbrous orbs twinkled that way at the corners. "Lobsterin' is dreadful messy, Miss Katherine; mud and slime and putrid bait—and you know we caount on you to he'p."

She made no more demur but slipped on the garments Lucien offered for her, when being a tall and slenderly rounded girl of twenty-four she would have passed readily at five-mile range through a strong glass for Timothy.

"I see that Jim Stevens' boat is gone," said she, looking back toward the bungalow. Her positive, pretty face burned with a sudden flush. "Off for another little cruise, I suppose." She knit her straight brows and stared down at the recumbent Timothy. "You are an authority on human motive, judge. I wish you would tell me how it is that Jim can come here and fool around all summer at such a crisis in the world's history, and America's."

"Why don't you try to study it out fo' yourse'f, Miss Kath'rine?" was the unexpected answer.

"What? But I have. I can't—"

"Maybe you started with a preformed theory and tried to make things fit to it," Timothy suggested.

"I don't believe I understand," said the girl, a little stiffly.

"Of co'se you don't. You haven't tried to understand." A certain austerity infused the drawling voice. "You preferred to take it fo' granted that Jim was a slacker, and then set to work to find out why he was a slacker. Yore procedure was European, Miss Kath'rine, in assumin' that the accused was guilty and requirin' him to prove his innocence. We don't do it that way in America."

"But how could I assume anything else under the circumstances?" she demanded hotly.

"Just as we do in a co't of law when tryin' a criminal case. Examine the previous record of the accused. Is there anything in your knowledge of Jim's record that would warrant your assumption that he is unpatriotic or a coward, or cares mo' for his personal comfort than fo' his honor and the Cause of Humanity?"

There was nothing somnolent about Timothy now, either in his eyes, voice or attitude. Neither was he severe. He was merely examining.

"Why— no," Katherine faltered. "That's what makes his behavior so incomprehensible."

"Then why do you try to comprehend something that you admit there is no reason to assume exists? You pronounce him guilty because you find him too proud or too indifferent to prove his innocence, and in the same breath you admit that you know of nothing in his character or past life to justify a conviction."

Katherine's eyes flashed. "Isn't his being here dawdling about on his boat proof enough that he's a slacker?" she demanded.

"Of co'se it isn't. I'm heah, and for all you know dawdlin' about on my boat but that doesn't prove me a slacker. I brought my work here with me. How do you know that Jim has not done the same? I'm only fo'ty, physically sound, of independent fo'tune and a native-bawn American, a widower with an only child whose future is amply provided for. Do you consider me a slacker?"

"Of course not. Your work is to suppress crime here while our soldiers and sailors suppress it over there. We can't leave our country at the mercy of lawbreakers."

"But you happen to know what my work is." Timothy's tone fairly reeked with a suggestion, but it was lost on this arbitrary beauty.

"Well," said she, "until I know that Jim's is something more patriotically strenuous than writing his war memoirs, the chances are I'll feel the same about him, and that isn't feeling very much."

The luster seemed to fade in Timothy's eyes leaving them dreamy again. "Uhn-h'n. Well, maybe after all that's better, Miss Kath'rine." And he began to discuss the merits of the new draft.

They had brought their supper with them, and presently Lucien who had grown very quiet as they sped along, gave the wheel to Katherine and proceeded to lay out a repast which the food administration might have disapproved, but could not have censured, all of its directions being duly observed. It takes more than scant material to dismay an Alabama cook, and the absence of meat, sugar and flour are the very least of his cares. There were big, deviled crabs and a chicken salad and several varieties of hot breads light as toy balloons, from the boat's fireless cooker, and golden honey with the bees' hive tag on it. Timothy and Lucien were what a New England housewife of the grease-and-sinker school would have called "finicky feeders."

Lucien had no intention whatever that his beloved parent should commit his body to the deep ballasted amidships with no more than a lead pipe, and Katherine was equally amazed at the tender solicitude with which the boy plied him with food, and Timothy's liberal imbibing of hot tea while incased in an air-tight life-saving suit. In fact the girl was rather bewildered with the whole picnic. It struck her as decidedly uncommon to be lectured on the error of jumping to conclusions by a distinguished Southern United States attorney baled up in a rubber suit with a freshly painted hood while tearing miles and miles to sea in quest of lobster. She could not understand why it was necessary to burn so much gasoline in pursuit of this most edible scavenger, and presently said so.

"Why are we going so far?" she inquired. "We've been passing lobster pots ever since we left."

"Ah, Miss Kath'rine," said Timothy, "but we're not after the common, ordinary little ol' lobster. The kind we want is right sca'ce jes' now and we have to go 'way out to get him."

"Don't you find it rather stupid lying there in the bottom of the boat, judge?" She then asked: "Why don't you get up and look around?"

Timothy, who was raised on one elbow munching corn biscuits and honey, shook his head. "I'm a powerful bad sailor, Miss Kath'rine," said he, "and this long swell is mighty disturbin'. Sighted the buoy, son?" For Lucien had picked up his glasses.

"Dead ahead about two miles, dad," the boy answered, and Katherine wondered at his pale and anxious look. She had never heard that lobstering was a dangerous sport except in the careless handling of the game.

The maneuvers which then began made her wonder if she was herself quite sane or had possibly been enticed upon an outing by two members of a family afflicted with periodical lunacy. Lucien asked her to take the wheel and steer for the speck ahead, then proceeded to festoon the neck and shoulders of his parent with masses of rock-weed which he secured with fishline. This done he took from the cabin a circle of lead pipe which Timothy clasped about his waist. A leather belt from which hung what appeared to be two cracked-ice bags was adjusted above it.

Timothy then fitted the black-and-white hood snugly over his head, keeping all the time below the coaming of the launch. But when Lucien produced a black made with two slits for the eyes and strings at the four corners and began to tie this on his father's face, the young girl could no longer contain her fears.

"Merciful Heaven!" she breathed. "Do you intend to haul your lobsters up or go down after them?"

"This kind takes a heap of careful stalkin', Miss Kath'rine," mumbled Timothy.

"But you haven't any mask— I mean helmet." Katherine's head was beginning to spin. "You'll drown!"

"I don't figure to go plum' to bottom," Timothy answered. "Eve'ybody has his own method, and mine is to bob 'round on the surface and sing. The lobster leads a lonely life and has a shy but sociable nature. Professor Agassiz demonstrated that he was a true music lover. Better slow daown, Luce, and get that mooring stone ready to slide over."

"Aye, aye, sir."

"Spotted the fourth buoy?"

"Almost up to it, dad." Lucien released the Qlutch and slowed the motor. Katherine, now convinced from the expression of the boy's face that they were about some purposeful and deadly serious business, invited no more mocking answers but stood by to lend a hand if required.

The launch glided slowly up to a lobster buoy painted precisely like Timothy's hooded head and the girl's heart gave a sudden flutter. So this was the game; spy hunting; communication between the shore and an enemy submarine! Her eyes flashed down at Timothy, and suddenly reaching out her hand she laid it against one of the rubber sacks and felt the butt of the revolver within.

"I see—" she whispered. "You are a wonder, judge."

"Now don't jump at conclusions, Miss Kath'rine," Timothy answered in a muffled drawl. "We haven't caught our lobster yet."

Lucien hooked up the buoy and drew it inboard. "You two haul the boat across the coamin' thwartships," directed Timothy, "then as the la'nch drifts fore and aft to Pemaquid Point and Monhegan, I'll slip over behind it. Here she comes— keep between me and Monhegan, Miss Kath'rine."

The lath trap with its ballast of stones came to the surface presently and was hauled over the side. Timothy, keeping low and between the "pot" and Katherine wormed over the side and into the water. Lucien lowered the mooring stone after him and Timothy gathering in the line caught a turn of it in his belt. "All right," said he, "let her go and beat it, son. Jim and I will follow sho'tly."

"Jiml" cried Katherine, wildly. "Jim Stevens a spy— impossible-"

"Naow there you go beatin' the pistol again, Miss Kath'rine," said Timothy. "Ain't it jes' as possible as Jim's bein' a slacker? I declare, young lady, I'm afraid yo're goin' to be awfully disappointed about your lobster. Unhook her, son."

Lucien's face had the bleak, strained look of a thirteen-year-old boy who is exerting all of his will power to obey with military promptness and fight back the tears. His adored father had always seemed invulnerable to him so far as mere men were concerned, but that which took the limit of the little fellow's nerve was to leave him thus alone suspended over the abyss. What if the rubber suit were to spring a leak or a big cruising shark to pass that way and scent meat inside that inhuman-looking object? Local fishermen had told him that a person in the water falling foul of a school of dogfish would probably be cut to pieces and devoured. There was a distinctly blubberish look to the bloated contraption, and Lucien's heart was fathoms deep.

But the boy had been trained by love to unquestioning obedience and knew that one infraction of this would mean future exclusion from his father's man hunts. Timothy had indeed told him as much. So with white, tense features and a curt "good luck, dad," he reached for his controls and a moment later the launch was tearing away over the long, glassy undulations.

Timothy watched it out of sight which did not take long, his horizon being the minimum except when slowly raised on the great ground swell. He found a curious interest in his peculiar situation and speculated on the emotions of a man thus struck adrift on the sinking of his ship in mid-ocean. It struck him the Almighty had grievously hampered the human creature in not providing it with wings, and he watched enviously the little terns which were circling about attracted by the brine stirred up from the thrash of the boat's propeller.

One of these presently fluttered down to light upon his head, where it perched investigating the seaweed trailing from his shoulders as though foul of the buoy line. Timothy was greatly pleased at this proof of the efficiency of his camouflage and reflected that if he could fool a seabird he had little need to fear detection from a Swede. He was in no way anxious over the outcome of his stratagem or the position in which he found himself, neither did Lucien's shark reflections disturb'him. He reasoned that such a marauder would appear upon the surface to investigate before venturing to attack, and that a bullet through the dorsal fin and with the concussion close to the water would discourage molestation. As one would naturally expect of a Gulf State United States prosecuting attorney, Timothy was an expert with firearms and had yet to meet his equal in fancy shooting. The practice was in fact one of his favorite recreations.

The launch dissolved into the void and the afterglow faded slowly in the depths of limitless space. It seemed to Timothy that he was the most minute particle of indivisible matter, an atom which it needed but a drop to dissolve. He decided that after all it would not be very painful to perish under similar circumstances, one being so overwhelmed with a sense of insignificance.

This dwindling impression was suddenly arrested by a throbbing against his ears, the rubber covering of which acted as a tympanum. Timothy was quick to recognize the staccato thump of a "make-and-break" gas engine of the sort in general use on fishing boats. The sound appeared to come from directly underneath him and Timothy chuckled at the fantastic idea of being suddenly boosted in air astride a periscope. He thought of what a joke it would be to get behind the opening hatch and hold up the outfit like a lonely sea highwayman.

Then in the growing gloom he suddenly sighted on the crest of a moving, burnished hill a small object which he correctly guessed to be a fisherman's motor dory. It was almost in line with the end of Pemaquid Point, which did not surprise Timothy as he had thought of the wooded banks along the John's River with their widely separated camps, now unoccupied owing to the war, as an excellent place to hold a prisoner for a few days.

The big dory rapidly approached and Timothy discovered it to contain two figures, one leaning over either side. He chuckled to himself and decided that there was in this case probably also a third; that of Jim. Neither kidnaper would trust the other to go for the ransom alone and the chances therefore were that they would have brought their victim with them, no doubt secured against the possibility of mischief in the bottom of the boat.

The dory came surging noisily up and in the gathering murk—for they had timed their coming just as darkness fell—Timothy through the slits in his mask saw Higgs and Jansen staring eagerly over the bows. Within fifty feet the current was switched off and then as the boat drifted down upon him the prodigy occurred.

Jansen was leaning far over the gunnel to grasp the buoy when Timothy loosed the lead pipe and let it sink. The result of this jettisoning was that he bobbed up suddenly chest-high, his head actually coming in contact with that of the Swede. Timothy let out a rebel yell which was drowned in that of Jansen and poorly echoed by the terrified Higgs in a sort of quavering bleat.

It must indeed be painfully upsetting to reach over for the buoy of a lobster pot presumably containing a liberal stake and in the act of so doing have a bloated, streaming, black and faceless creature leap at you from the depths. In fact it came very near upsetting the dory, both the big Swede and the bulbous Higgs going over backward so violently that if Timothy had not flung his arms over the gunnel the boat might have capsized. Observing the morale of his coup de theatre, he let out another and more bloodcurdling catamount screech, and at this horror the blond viking utterly collapsed. He floundered in the bottom of the boat in an absolute convulsion of terror. And Higgs was not much better off. Even Jim in the stern sheets, hand bound behind his back and secured to a ringbolt, was petrified with shock and dread.

"Eeeee-yaow-w-w-w-w!" screeched Timothy a third time with the fearful Louisiana Tiger yell, and getting nothing but squawks and burbles in reply began to change his note. He screamed with laughter and as this outrageous mirth trickled through the auditory nerves of the kidnapers Jansen's big arms came slowly down from before his face and he stared with growing infinite relief into the muzzle of a .38. This slowly reassured him. It percolated to his brain that the monster was not the Old Man of the Sea or the revivified corpse of a submarined sailor come to get him, but merely a creature of flesh and blood who had managed somehow to pop up out of the water for the purpose of marching him back to prison.

If Timothy could have swarmed into the dory unassisted he would not have needed any weapon at all. Even as it was, it took some time for the blasted nerves of his captives to respond to stimulus. Higgs was the first to recover sufficiently to obey the drawling admonitions delivered him with the sting of a black-snake whip.

"Tu'n yore master loose, yo' putty-faced fool," requested Timothy. "Get a move on, naow, before I put a leak in yo'. Crawl aft you Scandahoovian or I'll crease yore hide. Git aft, dog-gone ye— yo' hear me talkin'?"

"Oh, sir!" panted Higgs. "You give us such a turn, sir. One minute, sir." And wabbling to the stern his trembling fingers found a knife and cut Jim's bonds.

"Kick that Swede aft, Jim, and he'p me aboard," said Timothy. "It's gettin' late and Lucien's shore to be plum' anxious."

"One minute, judge," Jim answered. "Give me a second to make up my mind whether I'm going to laugh or cry."

The ancient 5-HP motor pounded the big dory along at a good clip and the night was still young when they chugged past the bell buoy off The Hypocrites. Jim looked at the drooping figures in the bow and laughed.

"Let's let 'em go, judge," said Jim. "If they got half the scare I did when you bobbed up over the side and cut loose that rebel yell they've been punished enough. Besides, we've got something to laugh at for the rest of our lives."

Higgs stirred in the bow and looked aft appealingly. "Thank you, sir," said he. "I assure you, sir, my 'eart will never be the syme again, sir."

"How about you, Jansen?" Jim asked.

The big Swede gave a deep sigh. "I ban scairt to death, zir," he answered. "Yo— I still feel pretty bad."

"Well, cheer up, then," said Jim. He reflected for an instant. "What will you do if we let you off?" he asked.

"I do what you say, zir," Jansen answered, promptly.

"All right. That's a bargain." He turned to Timothy. "Say, judge, what did you think about while you were anchored out there?"

The lawyer hunched his shoulders a little higher. He had taken off the rubber suit and there was a chill in the night air.

"I was thinkin' about Lucien," he answered, "and how sometimes he was the image of his ma."

__________________

Table of Contents

- 1: United Ireland / George A. Birmingham

- 2: Mr. Clackworthy's Return / Christopher B. Booth

- 3: The Phantom Junk / Carlton Dawe

- 4: "Pulo Condore" / Carlton Dawe

- 5: Bill and Stumpy's Big Cheques / Val Jameson

- 6: Prospector Bill / Val Jameson
- 7: The Black Bag / Anonymous
- 8: A Blameless Afternoon / Tom Gallon
- 9: Sayōnara / Carlton Dawe
- 10: The Murder at Ozer's / "Waif Wander"
- 11: Timid Soul / Richard Connell
- 12: The Plush String Bean / Richard Connell
- 13: I've Met You Before / Richard Connell
- 14: On the Account / J. Allan Dunn
- 15: The Stolen Crime / Richard Connell
- 16: Let Loose / Mary Cholmondeley
- 17: Live Bait / Frederick Irving Anderson
- 18: Lobster Pots / Henry C. Rowland