Author: Various
Date: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00
Description: Thi issue includes "The Forty-Seven Ronin", the famous Japanese story (and a true story!) as by Bertram Mitford (Lord Redesdale, grandfather of the famous Mitford Sisters), who was resident in Japan for a number of years with the British Legation. There's another Christmas Ghost story by Dickens; Jeffrey Farnol, king of historical romance, tackles a modern-day story; two antique science fiction stories one by the unknown J Aton, the other by the only slightly less unknown Mearle Prout; and sundry others. 1: The Terror of the Pond / Alick Munro 2: Birth of a Hero / Alice Duerr Miller 3: The For

PAST MASTERS 121

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.

27 March 2023

Contents

1: The Terror of the Pond / Alick Munro

2: Birth of a Hero / Alice Duerr Miller

3: The Forty-Seven Rônin / Bertram Mitford

4: Aunt Joanna / Sabine Baring‑Gould

5: On the Plymouth Express / Frank Conly

6: $100 / Richard Connell

7: Creatures of the Ray / J. L. Aton

8: The Man in the Bell / William  Maginn

9: The New Sun / J. S. Fletcher

10: Who Killed Castelvetri? / Gilbert Frankau

11: Black Coffee / Jeffery Farnol

12: The Black Ferry / John Galt

13: The Old Man of the Desert / Roy O'Toole

14: To Be Taken with a Grain of Salt / Charles Dickens

15: Circumstantial Evidence / Harold Mercer

16: Guarded / Mearle Prout

17: The Virus of Hell / William H. Pope

18: The Adventure of the Voodoo Moon / Eugene Thomas

_____________________

1: The Terror of the Pond

Alick Munro
fl 1900s (Possibly Alexander Richard Munro, 1871-1935)

The English Illustrated Magazine Aug 1899

"SEE those hills over there?" said the doctor, with a jerk of his head. "Strike you as looking at all eerie?"

"H'm, yes; a bit ghostly, perhaps, in this light." I admitted. "Cintra, isn't it?"

The doctor nodded, and puffed meditatively at his pipe for a minute without speaking. A mood of quiet seemed to be upon him, and I, having known him intimately for rather more than three weeks, marvelled at the phenomenon. The hills we were speaking about stood out as black jags against the north, and as the doctor kept his gaze fixed on them, I distinctly saw him shiver. It was early September, and we had just finished dinner. He could not possibly be cold.

We were on the promenade deck of the R.M.S. Orinoco, watching the pilot work her out of the Tagus, homeward bound. Behind us was the bride-cake city of Lisbon, whose windows the evening sun had half an hour ago turned into flashing mirrors of glory. But the gloaming falls quickly in Portugal, and already the street lamps were picking the city out into a bewildering pattern of criss-cross, while right over our stern a few stars had risen above the mists of the up-river marshes. Ahead of us, beyond the winking red and white eye of the Bugio lighthouse, the horizon of sea and sky was still blurred by the purple of the dying sunset; and straight over the starboard deck-rail, against which the doctor and I were leaning, were the hills of Cintra, looking like ragged notches of black velvet against the blue-metal sheen of the north. It was all very much like a brightly coloured oleograph; but it was pretty, and— yes, perhaps, just a little bit unreal.

"You think it's the light that makes the hills look eerie?" said the doctor presently. "Dare say you 're right. To me, though, they'd be ghostly in bright sunlight. Sounds absurd, doesn't it? But it's the truth."

I held my peace, for I am a journalist, and I scented a story. I waited for him to go on unprompted.

"Should you say I was a chap who would be easily scared?" he asked after a pause of a minute— "blue funk, you know, and that sort of thing?"

For answer I quizzed him up and down. He stood over six feet, and I knew he had been a Rugby forward "blue" at Cambridge. Moreover, I'd myself seen him tackle three drunken coal-trimmers at once, in the harbour at Pernambuco. And the coal-trimmers had had the worst of it.

"I'd trust you to hold your end up in a pother," said I judicially.

"You wouldn't call me a nervous man, either," he went on.

I had watched him playing poker in the smoking-room, when the luck was going queerly.

"I wouldn't call you a nervous man, either," I answered with conviction.

The doctor laughed. "Well," said he, " all the same, I got a scare among those hills there which put me off my corn for a week, and I can't tell you now what it was that frightened me."

"Try," I murmured, and dropped my gaze with elaborate carelessness upon the swishing water below us.

The doctor shook his head and laughed again—a curious little laugh, that had no suggestion of mirth in it.

"I can't tell you," he replied presently, "simply because I don't know. I haven't even a theory about it that you wouldn't pity me for. But I see what you mean, of course: you want the yarn."

He looked at me sideways, out of the comer of his eyes; and I thought that he was doubtful about trusting me.

"All right," he said after a minute. "I'll tell you. Come down to my cabin; somebody is sure to interrupt us if we stay up here. I don't ask you to believe the yarn, mind, unless you like; but I do stipulate that you shall believe that I believe it. It's an experience which I don't often tell, because— well, to put it plainly, because I don't care about being called a liar."

He spoke quickly, and finished with another laugh; but I saw that he was nervous. I gave the required promise readily enough; for, in addition to the fact that— I admit it shamelessly— I wanted copy, I have lived in this world long enough to have learned the lesson that there is sometimes wisdom in believing in the things which men call impossible.

"I have mentioned Jack Merrick's name to you, I think," began the doctor when our pipes and glasses were charged. "I was staying with him at his quinta in the Cintra hills, when—"

"Hold on!" I interrupted. "We'd better start fair, I think. You have not mentioned Jack Merrick's name to me. You have spoken of a Miss Merrick to me, and confided to me, more than once, that you 're going to be married after two more trips in the Orinoco. But I never heard of Jack."

"He's Norah's brother. Thought I'd told you," explained the doctor innocently. "It was just after Norah and I became engaged— about two years, that is, before I signed on as doctor of the Orinoco. Jack was something unromantic in the Lisbon trade: cork and sardines, I think, but I'm not sure; and Norah was keeping house for him. He'd bought a quinta at Cintra, with a very fair house on it, which had been untenanted for half-a-dozen years. It had the reputation of being haunted, and the two previous owners had both come to their death there— nobody quite knew how; so Jack got the property cheap. Now, of course, as soon as I heard this. I was as keen as mustard on having a snv at tne ghost, and I got my first surprise when I found that Jack objected strongly to my doing anything of the sort. I thought at first he was joking, and he had to lose his temper before I would believe he was in earnest.

" 'Didn't think you were superstitious, Jack,' I grumbled, with some chagrin.

" 'I'm not,' he retorted hotly. 'There's no more of that sort of foolishness in me than there is in you, that I'm aware of.' Then he hesitated. Then he went on in a musing sort of way, like a man speaking to himself: 'But— I haven't yet found out what killed my two predecessors in this property,' he said.

"Well, of course, I didn't understand him, and I told him so, but he showed me plainly, and with some little temper, that he didn't mean to explain. So we fell to discussing the weather, which, so far as I remember, was in no way worthy of discussion just then.

"Next morning, the first strange thing happened. You've never been in Cintra? Then you may not know that the lemon- groves there are mostly worked by irrigation, and nearly every little quinta has its own water-tank somewhere about it; cement-lined ponds mostly, fifteen or twenty feet deep and anything from ten to thirty or forty yards long. Grand places they are for a morning swim, too; clear and deep, and not too warm to be pleasant. The one in Merrick's quinta was a bit different from the general run of them; it was bigger, and there was no cement about it. The sides of it were built up of big stones, more or less squared, and laid in courses one above the other, not unlike an old-fashioned quay-side in very bad repair. It was supposed to be the oldest tank in the district, and lady antiquaries, who came down for the Cintra season, amused themselves by making shots at its history, and gave themselves the most delicious thrills by half believing the mysteries which they invented about it. It was really an eerie spot, you know; black, gloomy-looking water, with an old-world suggestion of the moated grange about it; and, unlike every other tank in Cintra, its waters were never brightened by the red flash of a turning goldfish. But, though there were no goldfish, there were water-snakes; and, if local belief went for anything, enough of them to throw the surface into ripples, when they all started frolicking at once.

However, every Cintra pond has some of these green-and- white chaps, and they aren't poisonous; so people who are not nervous don't let them interfere with the morning dip.

"I had put on a dressing-gown over my bathing-suit and come downstairs, feeling, I remember, particularly cheerful that morning, for, among other things, it was going to be a lovely day. As soon as I got outside the door I was nearly bowled over by a small boy who cannoned into me with a plump. He was a youth whom I'd noticed about the house, cleaning knives and bicycles and that sort of thing. He took me fairly in the middle, head down; and before I'd recovered my wind enough to cuff him, he took my breath away in another sense, by starting off into a regular gale of chatter and gesticulation. It was extraordinary': a sort of paroxysm of talking, it seemed to me, and I began to wonder if it had black, gloomv-looking water, with an old- world suggestion of the moated grange about it; and, unlike every other tank in Cintra, its waters were never brightened by the red flash of a turning goldfish. But, though there were no goldfish, there were water-snakes; and, if local belief went for anything, enough of them to throw the surface into ripples, when they all started frolicking at once.

However, every Cintra pond has some of these green-and- white chaps, and they aren't poisonous; so people who are not nervous don't let them interfere with the morning dip.

"I had put on a dressing-gown over my bathing-suit and come downstairs, feeling, I remember, particularly cheerful that morning, for, among other things, it was going to be a lovely day. As soon as I got outside the door I was nearly bowled over by a small boy who cannoned into me with a plump. He was a youth whom I'd noticed about the house, cleaning knives and bicycles and that sort of thing. He took me fairly in the middle, head down; and before I'd recovered my wind enough to cuff him, he took my breath away in another sense, by starting off into a regular gale of chatter and gesticulation. It was extraordinary: a sort of paroxysm of talking, it seemed to me, and I began to wonder if it had that something unusual was up, so I shouted for Jack to come and see what the bother was. The kid, however, was acute enough to see that I didn't understand, and, apparently, he thought there wasn't time to wait for an interpreter. Anyway, he stopped the speed record business, and said distinctly enough, three or four times. 'Menina Norah,' and pointed vigorously in the direction of the pond.

" 'What d'you want with Menina Norah?' I demanded.

" 'Menina Norah— Menina Norah,' he repeated impatiently, running a few steps up the path to the pond and then stopping to wait for me. 'Menina Norah. Vamos, Senhor!'

"I knew enough to understand what that meant.

" 'All right, young shaver,' said I, 'I 'll come.' And I shouted to Jack that I was going up to the tank.

" 'Anything wrong?' asked Jack, putting his head out of the window. 'I'm just finishing dressing.'

" 'Don't know,' I shouted back. 'Better follow me as soon as you can.'

"I was half-way to the tank by this time, and another twenty yards brought me within view of it. What I saw then made me do the last bit at a sprint. And when I stopped, my heart was thumping harder than the mere physical exercise warranted.

"Norah was lying on the ground, near one corner of the tank, where a flight of stone steps led down into the water. She seemed to have fainted. I gave a yell for Jack, and bent down anxiously to try her pulse. I felt it flicker, and at the same time she moved slightly. I wasn't a fully qualified medico at that time, you know, but I knew enough to recognise thankfully that it was only a faint, after all. Then I began to speculate.

"She had been in the water I saw, for the bathing-suit which she was wearing was wet. I noticed, too, that the edge of the tank was pretty well splashed, and I took that to mean that she had been amusing herself by diving. All this I saw at the first glance, and at the second I saw something else, which, however, was not so easy to read. A grey fur cloak, which I knew Norah used for running out from the house to the tank and back again, had been drawn over her as she lay on the ground. And here was the thing which I could in no ways understand— though everything else about her was wet, sopping wet in fact, this cloak was perfectly dry. I ran my hand along its edge; there were not even any traces of where her wet hands must have touched it in drawing it up.

"By the time I'd made quite sure of this, Jack was beside me. He lifted Norah up in his arms like a child of ten, and carried her into the house; and I followed at his heels. Now, of course, Norah's faint had given me a bit of a scare, for I knew well enough that she was not the sort of girl who would go off if a mouse squeaked; but when I caught sight of the look on Jack's face, and saw his staring eyes, and the grey terror which was drawing the muscles of his face and twitching in spasms round his mouth, something impelled me to keep quiet about my own misgivings. Terror is infectious, they say. Be that as it may, I tell you the simple truth when I say that at that moment I dared not ask him what it w as that he feared.

"He carried Norah to her room, shouting on the way for some of the Portuguese maids to come and put her to bed. Then he got his bicycle, and waited at the front door with me. We neither of us said a word until the message was brought to us that Menina Norah had come to herself again, but— there was no need for the Senhores to be alarmed— she was just a little bit hysterical. Jack received this news with a nod, and put his foot on the step of his bicycle.

" 'I'll fetch the doctor,' he said to me. ' I don't suppose it's necessary, really, but-'

" 'You'd better,' I agreed. ' One never knows; and it's safer, anyway. Meanwhile, I'll go and have a look round that tank.'

"Jack was on his machine by this time, but almost before I got the words out, he had dismounted again.

" 'Don't do anything of the sort!' he commanded.

"I saw his knuckles whiten as he clutched his handle-bars. I positively- gaped at him in amazement.

" 'Why on earth not?' I asked. 'Nonsense, Jack! Of course I will. Can't you see, man? I want to find out who threw that cloak over Norah after she fainted. Some low blackguard must have frightened her, of course, and he may have left tracks behind him.'

" 'I tell you I won't allow it,' persisted Jack stubbornly, and then I noted with astonishment the shiver which ran across his shoulders and cut his next words short.

It struck me that the movement was like that of a man who shrinks from the touch of something foul; and, seeing it, I wondered uncomprchendingly.

" 'Oh, all right,' he said wearily, 'do as you like. But for God's sake be careful!'

"And before 1 could ask him what he meant, he jumped on to his machine and was off down the road to the village.

"Now this behaviour of Jack's piqued me, scared me a little, but more than anything, made me curious. I didn't understand it, you see, and if it had been anybody but lack, I think I should have been just a little bit suspicious. Why should he want me to keep away from the pond? I thought for a bit, and I couldn't see any reason; so, like a conceited idiot, I decided that there was no reason, and that a bee had somehow made its way into my friend Jack's bonnet. I was a cock-sure young fool in those days, you 'll observe.

"When I got back to the tank again, I set about a brisk hunt for traces of the man who had drawn the cloak over Norah. It occurred to me once that it might have been the boy; but that was too simple an explanation for me to accept in my present frame of mind. Besides, it wasn't the sort of thing that a boy would be likely to do in any case, and this kid obviously had been thoroughly frightened, and had run helter-skelter for assistance. No, there had been someone else on the spot when Norah fainted, I was sure.

" A ripple on the pond caught my eye. The dead surface was momentarily ruffled, as though a light cat's-paw of air had touched it. But as I looked it struck me that this was not quite like a wind-ripple either; for it travelled slowly across one corner of the tank, and then returned steadily over its own path without any diminution of volume; besides, it had not, so far as I could judge, reached to within two feet of the wall of the tank before turning back on itself in this curious way. It was just as though some great submerged hand had waved a branch once back and fore, near the surface but without breaking it. I remembered the pond's reputation. A water-snake on the prowl, I decided, and turned to continue my search.

"Now I don't know what I expected to find; in fact, I don't know that I really expected to find anything, but, all the same, I did pick up what I thought was a trail.

"You know what grass looks like in the cobweb season, before the sun has been up long enough to evaporate the dew which makes the delicate gossamers visible. And you know that if a man walked through a patch of such grass, his path would be marked by the destruction of myriads of these little dew-gems. Well, that's exactly what I saw, and I followed up the track for over a hundred yards without a check. Then I came to an oxcart road. I stopped and debated about going further. I didn't like throwing up a hot scent like this, but then I didn't know where the ox-road led to. Quite conceivably it might lead to civilisation, and I wasn't in civilised attire. I decided, therefore, to go and dress, and then to bring Jack and show him what I had found.

"I really began to like my theory that sonic scoundrel had frightened Norah while she was bathing.

"When I came to the pond again, the shadows were lying on it motionless once more; the water-snake, or whatever it was that had caused the ripples, had gone home. Now you know the temptation of a quiet, deep pool; and besides, I was in my bathing-suit, and Jack couldn't possibly have returned yet. I would have just one plunge.

"I threw off my dressing-gown and dived. I rose to the surface shaking the hair out of my eyes, and laughing aloud in pure joy of the cold water. I swam once round the tank, and then threw myself on to my back for a moment, and kicked wantonly like a babe. I tell you this because I wish to emphasise the fact that I was in perfect bodily health and spirits, and therefore, one would think, not in the least likely to be affected by morbid fancies.

"But as I lay there and splashed, a sudden feeling of vague, indefinable discomfort took hold of me; I had a sense of danger near at hand, but I did not know in what direction to look for it. It you've never experienced that feeling, pray that you never may. As a child I never knew myself what it was to have nerves, so I can't speak from experience; but I should imagine that what I felt then was very like the physical shrinking which a nervous child feels in the presence of the big. unknown dark. I tell you it was horrible.

"Next I became conscious of a faint, disagreeable smell. It was a smell which somehow it seemed to me that I knew, but at the moment I could not put a name to it. It grew stronger, and filled my nostrils, and a rush of nausea came over me. I shivered heavily, and began to cough and spit, as though I had swallowed something vile.

"Then came the terror—suddenly, uncontrollably; and with a jerk I threw myself over on to my side, and swam h r the landing-steps, yelling with the full power of my lungs. Just as I reached the edge I felt something touch me on the arm, and I struggled up the steps and fell in a heap upon my dressing-gown, where I lay, sobbing hysterically, and shuddering in the warm sunshine like a man in an ague.

"It was a good five minutes before I recovered enough strength of mind to be ashamed of myself. I was shivering till my teeth rattled, and that, too, on a July morning in Portugal. And yet I was not cold. I was warmer than I am now in this stuffy cabin, and I could feel the perspiration starting hot all over me—but still I shivered. I was scared, scared as a child is in a dark wood when a rabbit stamps in the silence. It was cowardly— it was unreasonable. I told myself angrily that it was positively disgraceful.. For I had seen nothing; I had heard nothing; and it was broad, staring daylight. I had not even the child's excuse of the big dark. And yet I went on shivering.

"But that thing that had touched me— that sickly and yet familiar smell, which I could not name— that terror of death, and worse than death— what were they? I swore at myself for a fool, and rose unsteadily to my feet, and put on my dressing-gown. I started to walk back to the house; and my feet planted themselves with a jerky uncertainty as I walked, for I was shivering heavily still.

" I gave a glance back at the water. The commotion of my frenzied swim was dying away in long, glistening undulations; but the surface was oily and dead. I looked for the ripple in the comer. It was not there.

"I thought I had regained control over myself by the time I reached the house, but my appearance must have told something of the horror which I had gone through. Jack was standing at the door. He gave one look at my face, and then his eyebrows went up, and he cried in a low, rapid voice—

" 'You've felt it too? My God! My God!'

" 'I've felt it too,' I answered wearily. 'But what have I felt, Jack? What's the awful thing in the water up there?'

" 'The Terror of the Pond,' he answered, and repeated three or four times in a strange, frightened whisper, 'The Terror of the Pond!'

"I shot a quick look at him, and I didn't like what I saw. His fingers were clasping and unclasping themselves nervously, and his mouth had begun to mumble.

" 'How's Norah?' I asked sharply.

" He gave his shoulders a shake, and seemed to pull himself together with a jerk. 'Better,' he answered. 'Oh yes, she's better. She's asleep. The doctor says she'll be all right when she wakes. She's only had a fright, you know.' Then he turned to me with a queer smile. ' You know what that means. You've had a fright yourself, haven't you?'

" 'Yes,' I said with a shudder, 'I have. Look here, Jack, I've something to tell you. But I'll go and dress first. Where shall I find you?'

" 'In the library. I've something to tell you too.'

" 'I 'll be ready in ten minutes,' I promised.

" 'All right,' said Jack. 'Don't make a noise upstairs. Let Norah have her sleep out.'

" 'Of course!' I answered somewhat indignantly; but I was pleased that he had thought of it.

"When I came downstairs I found Jack sitting at his library table, examining an old parchment which he had in his hand. The uncomfortable helplessness of his manner of ten minutes ago had left him, and instead he was alert, wide awake, and businesslike. I was glad to see the change, and, judging by my own past sensations, I appreciated the effort of will which had brought it about.

" 'You're feeling all right now, Jack,' I said cheerily.

"'Yes,' he answered. 'I'm all right. And you? Are you all right? Are you game for a fight ? A stiff fight, you know— with, maybe, an awful danger in it? This thing has got to come to an end.'

"I nodded.

" 'Good,' said he. 'Then we 'll see it through together.'

" 'I'd like to know what I'm fighting, though,' I explained.

" 'You can't,'said Jack shortly. 'At least, I can't tell you. If a name will satisfy you, I can give you that; it's the Terror of the Pond; but what the thing is which causes that terror— well, that's what we've got to find out.'

" 'The Terror of the Pond,' I repeated. 'You've used those words before. Why do you call it that ? '

"He pointed to the yellow parchment in front of him.

" 'That's what it's called in this,' he said, ' and I fancy the writer of it knew. It's old Portuguese : I 'll translate.'

" 'Wait a minute,' I interrupted. 'I'll tell you my part first. Where does the ox-road on the north of the pond lead to?'

" 'To Colares— eventually.'

" 'That's the wine place, isn't it?' I asked.

" 'Yes. Why?'

" 'It's four miles off,' I said. 'Are there any houses on the way?'

" 'Only one, and that a mere hovel. An old woman lives in it who makes a living by selling roast chestnuts. But what's your idea?'

"I told him about the cloak which had been drawn by dry hands over Norah as she lay on the ground, and about the path which I had tracked through the grass by the destruction of the dew-drops. The old chestnut-roaster did not seem to fit in very well with my theory that Norah had been frightened by some prowling blackguard; but, in spite of that, I clung obstinately to the theory. For the truth was that I shrank with a heavy loathing from believing that Norah had experienced that same awful terror of the water which had set me howling like a hysterical child. Jack saw what I meant, but he shook his head.

" 'It was the old chestnut-woman,' he said. 'She came and told me about it while you were upstairs. She was passing along the ox-road, it seems, and heard a cry from the pond. She hurried up to the place, and was just in time to see Norah fall. The boy who met you at the door had heard the cry too, and came running up to see what was the matter. The chestnut-woman sent him for assistance, and then threw the cloak over Norah. After that— well, she admits that she went off at once as fast as her tottering old legs would carry her.'

" 'Why on earth didn't she wait till some of us came?' I asked indignantly.

"Jack gave me a quick look.

" 'I don't know,' said he quietly. 'She doesn't seem to know either. She says she was afraid. Perhaps you and I can understand that.'

"I shuddered. I could not help it. 'Fire ahead with your manuscript,' I said.

"Now, I'm not going to bore you by repeating that old document to you by heart. I could do it; because afterwards I got Jack to write out an English translation of it for me, and I've pored over that so long and so often that I believe I know the exact place on the pages where every sentence begins.

"It was the diary of one Antonio da Costa, from April 4, 1546. till some time in November of 1549—just about the period, you may remember, when the Portuguese Empire in India was at the top of its tide. Antonio da Costa dipped his finger pretty deeply into the political pie out there during those three and a half years; and by his own showing he managed, too, to extract a goodly number of the plums. In one place he gives a sort of balance-sheet of the 'gifts' which he had received from the Rajah of This and the Ranee of That: and the total was a large one, even for those days of princely brigandage. But Antonio da Costa was a mystic as well as a robber, and by far the greater part of his diary is taken up with his dealings with those whom he frankly speaks of as 'the Devil's children.' One of these, a fakir for whom he prophesies a particularly hot end hereafter, he brought home with him to Portugal, and the last entry in the diary tells of a service which the fakir did him. I haven't got Jack's translation on board to show you, but I know that my memory of it is literally correct. It ran thus—

" 'To-day the Fakir (whom hereafter the Devil shall surely burn with Fires of sevenfold Heat) did, on a promise that he should be returned to his native land, perform forme here in Cintrathat Wonder which he hath already ofttimes, and not without Revilings, denied me. Praise be to the Holy Virgin, who hath bowed the stubborn will of the Child of Satan, and caused him to sell his magic unto me, Antonio da Costa, a devout and humble Son of the Church, our Mother. The Fakir (whom the Evil One shall burn) hath bound to my service the Dread Thing that is in the waters. Now, indeed, let my enemies take heed to their Health. For the smell of the mice shall be in their nostrils; the fear of the Pit shall be in their hearts, and they shall die. And no man of them shall know what slayeth him, for verily it is the Terror of the Pond.'

"I remember that when Jack got to this point, he pulled at the front of his collar as though something were choking him, and I saw a big bead of perspiration drop from his brow, roll down his nose, and fall with a sharp pat on the old parchment. I remember, too, that though I had watched it fall, the sound made me start back with a sudden sucking in of the breath. Ridiculous, wasn't it? But the fact was that it was all I could do to hold myself in hand at all. 'The smell of the mice shall be in their nostrils.' That was the phrase which struck me like a blow, for it came upon me with a flash that that was the smell which had been in my nostrils half an hour before.

" 'The smell of the mice,' I muttered, in a voice which I hardly recognised as mv own. 'Yes, it was that! '

" Jack glanced up at me, nodded, and gave a queer little laugh.

" 'The old boy knew what he was describing,' he commented lightly.

" 'Don't!' I cried in a kind of horror.

'I can smell it now. But go on! The rest?'

" 'There's no more,' answered Jack. 'That's the end— except for a pen picture of Antonio da Costa himself. Like to look at it?'

" I held out my hand for the manuscript, and as I took it the dry parchment rustled in my shaking fingers.

" 'Steady, old man, steady!' whispered Jack huskily. 'I know what you're feeling. I've been through it myself. But we've got to keep our nerve, you know, you and I, if we mean to see the thing through. Pull yourself together, old chap.'

"The picture was that of a tall man in full armour, all but the head. Now I 'll admit I was not in a proper condition of mind to judge fairly, but it struck me that the dark, big-jawed face which looked at me out of that old parchment was the most fiendish I had ever seen. It was a fat, sanctimonious face, you know, with the cruelty of devils shining through every sleek line of it.

I daresay you know the type— it's a nasty one. The armour was, I believe, of the ordinary pattern of the period— except in one thing: the breastplate seemed to be meant to represent some sort of devil-fish, and the tentacles of the brute were carried over on to the rest of the armour to complete the design; two on each side clasped the man's body in a hugging embrace round the ribs, one ran down each leg, and one up each arm. If the device was Antonio da Costa's own, it certainly revealed a pretty taste in horrors. At the time I thought it merely horrible. Afterwards— but we 'll come to that later.

"I handed the parchment across to Jack, and pushed my chair back. I hail a feeling as though I must act— now, at once! I must do something violent to work off the tension of my feelings. I wanted to set my teeth and fight, or— to run away at the top of my speed.

" 'Well?' asked Jack. 'What do you make of it?'

" 'Nothing,' I said. 'That manuscript is four centuries old. It's absurd.'

" 'Ay,' said Jack quietly, 'it's that, and more; nearly four and a half centuries, to be exact. But the smell of the mice, the terror of the Pit: they 're things of to-day. I've had that smell in my nostrils, and I have felt that terror. So have you. 'So has—'

" 'She hasn't!' I interrupted wildly. 'Norah was frightened by some man! The cloak—' I stopped, for I remembered that that had been explained by the chestnut-woman.

" 'Jack, Jack, it's horrible!' I cried desperately. 'But you seem to hint that you see an explanation. What is it?'

" 'Just this,' he said earnestly. 'I believe that Antonio da Costa tells the plain truth in this diary of his.'

" 'But, but—' I stammered. ' How— can—' And here I stopped.

"Jack waited for me. 'Well, what?' he asked.

" 'Oh, I don't know. Nothing. Go on.'

" 'I say I believe,' continued Jack steadily, 'that da Costa's fakir laid some sort of a spell, some sort of a curse perhaps, upon the pond. Such things are done by fakirs in India even at the present day, you know; for these men have powers about which we know nothing, and it is only a fool that will read the evidence and deny that it is so. That terror of death, which both you and I have felt, is real. That horrible smell is, in a way, real too.'

" 'In a way!' I cried. 'Stop! What do you mean by that?'

" 'I mean, putting it in terms of philosophy, that though it is real enough subjectively, it may not be real objectively. It may be imagination. It may be merely the working of the curse which makes the victim imagine that he smells mice. You see I don't know that there is of necessity any horrible thing in that pond at all; there is a horrible font, and the rest follows from that. If I am right, the difficulty of the four and a half centuries is nothing; but also, unfortunately, if I am right, I don't see what we are to do; for we have nothing tangible to fight against. Why, what on earth are you doing?'

"I had taken off my coat, and was rolling up my shirt-sleeve. I held out my bare arm for him to see. Just above the elbow there was an angry red mark, as though the blood had been sucked through the skin by a cupping-glass.

" 'That's something tangible, anyway,' I said.

" 'How did you get it?' cried Jack with a strange eagerness— almost, it seemed to me, as though the sight of that fiery blotch on my arm pleased him.

"I told him of the touch I had felt when I scrambled screaming from the water. That red mark was the result. Proof enough that there was something more than imagination in the Terror of the Pond, I thought.

" 'Yes,' said Jack, 'it's proof. Thank Heaven, it's proof. If there's a thing in the pond which can touch, there's a thing which can be touched— a thing which can be killed. Are you ready to try?'

" 'When?' I asked.

" 'Now.'

"I hesitated. A thing which could be killed might also kill.

" 'I'd lika to see Norah first,' I said.

" 'You won't tell her ? No use in that, is there?'

" 'No, I won't tell her. But I'd like to see her first,' I insisted steadily.

" 'All right,' said Jack. ' I understand u'hat you mean, old chap. Then, if she comes down to lunch, we 'll say this afternoon. If she doesn't—to-morrow. I've some preparations to make in the meantime. Will that do?'

" 'Yes,' I said, 'that will do.'

" 'Now, looking at the thing dispassionately and from a distance both of space and time, I'm afraid there can be no question but that both Jack and I were fools, and, of the two, that I was perhaps rather the bigger fool. I daresay, moreover, that you've come to that conclusion some time ago; so, if it's any satisfaction to you, I plead guilty here and now. But don't misunderstand me. I don't in the least admit that I was a fool for being afraid; on the contrary, I claim that my funk was wholly reasonable. But I was a fool for not yielding to that funk; I was a fool for not refusing point-blank to go near that cursed pond again. I— a young man, not quite twenty-three— engaged, with all my life lying fair with the promise of happiness before me, was actually preparing to walk straight into the jaws of a danger of which I knew nothing— a danger which might be death. I didn't pretend that I wasn't afraid; I had manliness enough not to do that. But I hadn't manliness enough to refuse to be led blindfold into danger, when another man, as foolish as myself, showed me the way. There, I've cleared the air a bit by that confession. Fill up your glass. You know now exactly what I think of myself.

"Norah did come down to lunch. She had got over her fright— better, indeed, than either Jack or I had; but then she didn't know as much as we did. She tried to make light of it, and laughed at herself for her 'silly attack of nerves'; but she didn't do it very well, and it was obvious enough to us what the effort cost her. Of course we pretended not to see anything amiss, and chaffed her with a heartiness which, on Jack's part at any rate, was inartistically exaggerated. She'd have seen through it at any other time, easily; but, on that day, it passed muster. She didn't even notice anything unusual in the way I said good-bye to her, before I went to join Jack in the tool-shed. Poor Norah! She too was suffering from the Terror of the Pond.

"I didn't understand Jack's preparations when I saw them. But he was in command; so I did as I tvas told.

" 'You see,' he explained, 'we don't quite know what we 're fighting— in fact, we don't know at all; so there's no harm in being prepared in as many ways as we can. Better carry this old cavalry sword in your right hand. I've had it sharpened up. The revolver— seven shots, remember— in your left; and the bicycle lamp can be strung through the belt of your Norfolk. I'll rig myself out in the same way.'

" 'What's the lamp for?' I asked. 'It won't be dark for hours yet.'

" 'Never mind; light it up. You 'll see why, presently. Ready? Then come on."

"He led me out by the back way— so that Norah shouldn't see us— round the house and through the lemon-grove to a boulder-strewn spot, about twenty yards to the east of the pond. There he stopped.

"Somewhere down in the valley an oxcart was toiling painfully along a rough road, and the shrieks and groans of the labouring axles floated up to us through the stillness of the afternoon. The country people say that the noise encourages the oxen, and so, except where inexorable town regulations ordain otherwise, they will not grease the wheels. At other times, I confess that I have found something soothing in the slow, long-drawn sound, but just now it rang through my brain like the wailing of a thing in pain. I turned impatiently to Jack, and asked what he was stopping for.

" 'This is the place.' he said.

'' 'This? Why, the water's twenty yards off,' I objected.

" 'No,' said Jack, 'not so much as that. I don't quite know how much, but not so much as that. Look under that flat boulder there, on the left.'

"I did so, and gave a whistle of astonishment at what I saw. There was an opening, hidden under the overhanging stone, two yards wide by a yard high. I looked up at Jack with a question.

" 'A cave?' I asked. I understood now what the lamps were for.

"'Well, I don't know about a cave exactly,' said Jack. 'Anyway, there's a big hole, and I'm told the pond water runs underground for some distance in this direction. I don't know how far, but I expect if we go down there we shall find out.'

" 'If we go down there,' I muttered.

'You mean that you are going down ? '

" 'Yes,' said Jack quietly, 'I am going down. Aren't you?'

"For a moment I did not answer.

" 'You needn't, of course,' said Jack. 'I'll go, and you can wait for me here.'

"Still I hesitated. The ox-cart in the valley below was plodding steadily on, and I thought that the dry wooden axles shrieked at me like devils laughing.

"Then I turned and swung myself into the hole.

" 'Wait for me when you're inside,' shouted Jack. 'And have your sword handy.'

"Almost as he spoke he dropped down beside me. We tightened up our belts, so that the lamps should throw their light straight ahead, and then we went slowly forward, with our revolvers and swords ready. I remember that it struck me, incongruously enough in such a place, that in our slow, stealthy advance, we must have looked ludicrously like a parody on the Lisbon patrol, as one meets them crawling along the streets in couples when the city is, or ought to be, asleep. Strange, isn't it, how one always thinks of such things at a time when even' faculty ought to be concentrated on the business in hand ?

"It was a real cave, after all, and it opened out as we advanced. We could not see more than a dozen yards ahead, because at that point it took a sharp turn to the right. We had expected that, however, because its original direction, if it had been continued, would have brought the cave a little to the left of the pond. As yet there was no sign of water, but I noticed that the path trended steadily downwards; probably we should come to the water when we rounded the angle.

"A sudden exclamation from Jack interrupted my speculations. He was focussing the light of his lamp on to a spot close to the base of the wall on his side of the cave. There was a little heap of something there, with a grey fur of fungus growing on it in patches.

" 'What is it?' I whispered; but I think that even as I spoke I knew what it was.

" 'Looks like old clothes, doesn't it?' muttered Jack. 'Uncommonly mouldy old clothes, too.'

"He poked the heap with his sword.

The sharp steel grated against something hard. He drew his arm back with a jerk.

" 'That,' he said deliberately, 'is, I think we may take it, all that is left of one of my predecessors in this desirable country property. Poor devil! He hadn't much of a funeral. Like us, he was probably inquisitive.'

"Jack said these words in a whisper; somehow it seemed natural, in all this eeriness, to speak in a whisper. But I do not think he was afraid. I've told you of his terror earlier in the day; it was real enough then, in all conscience. But— you can explain it as you please— from the moment when I showed him that red mark on my arm, I believe that his fear entirely left him, and didn't come back either, though goodness knows it got an urgent enough call before we found ourselves on the outside of that cave again. Funny thing, courage. I don't think Jack Merrick would be afraid of the Devil himself, if only the Devil had the consideration to come wearing a body solid enough to put a bullet into.

"I'm not made like that, though; and I confess that the sound of the steel grating on the bones in that heap of rags sent cold thrills through me. I was sweating with horror, and I was in an uncommon hurry to get the job over, one way or the other.

" 'Come on, for Heaven's sake!" I whispered huskily.

"We turned the corner, and there at our feet was the water. The rays from our two lamps made splashes of light on its surface. Our eyes were dazzled, and the darkness which fringed the circles of light became, in consequence, darker still. It seemed as though, outside in the pond, there must be something disturbing the water; for a gentle ripple made the light-splashes dance, and then rolled up and broke on the black, slimy beach at our feet. For a minute we stood there in silence, and then the blood ran to my head; my brain felt tight beneath the bones, and I swayed with a sudden rush of deadly sickness.

"For the smell of mice was in the air— faint as yet, but growing stronger every second!

"I began to spit and cough, and the sword fell from my fingers and clattered on the stones. As I stooped to pick it up I looked at Jack. He was peering eagerly into a spot of light which he was guiding in slow circles over the whole surface of the water; but his face was screwed up into a tight pucker of loathing.

"Then it seemed to me that a thing like a black rope rose out of the light, and swung in a long curve towards me. With a yell I slashed at it, and felt that I had cut through something soft. The smell became a stench; there was a sudden churning of the water where the black rope had disappeared; and in a frenzy of terror I hurled my sword at the place. I raised my revolver and fired once, twice, seven times into the water; and when I had done that, I flung the revolver after the sword. Then I turned and fled shrieking up the cave and out on to the grass above, where I lay and breathed the pure air of heaven in big, panting gasps.

"Then I remembered Jack. I had left him down there with that long, black, writhing horror! I must go back.

"The sound of a shot came from below. I waited, with my hands ready on the overhanging stone. If he was shooting, the chances were that he was all right. Five seconds passed. Another shot. Five more. A shot again. Heavens! the man was shooting steadily! Think of it. Shooting steadily, down there!— in the presence of that thing!— watching the effect of each shot, perhaps, before firing the next!

"The six shots rang out thus at regular intervals, and then stopped. I remembered that Jack's revolver had one barrel fewer than mine. Was he coming? Yes, I heard him ! I drew back from the hole, and he scrambled out, with positively the ghost of a grin struggling through the heavy puckers of disgust. He was a little bit breathless, for when his revolver was once emptied, he had not stood upon the order of his going any more than I had.

" 'What an infernal smoke you made, old chap,' was his first remark, 'firing off your gun like that. I had to wait for nearly half a minute before I could see where to shoot. That's the worst of black powder cartridges; I ought to have thought of it, and put in the other kind. But that smell! Let's be off. I want a big drink of something to put the taste away.'

" 'You saw where to shoot!' I cried. 'What did—'

" 'Come down to the house and I 'll tell you,' he interrupted. 'I must have that drink.'

" 'What was it you saw ? ' I repeated, when we had each of us drained about half a litre of Colares.

" 'Not much, really,' said Jack. 'That smoke of yours was too thick. Ever seen a seine-net being drawn in, with six kicking salmon in the end of it ? Well, it was something like that. I fired into the liveliest place, and I think I did damage. Faugh ! that beastly smell; I can't get rid of it; we 'll have another bottle. Shall it be "fizz?" Because, d'you know, I fancy we've scored off the Terror of the Pond this time?'

" Next day I was in bed, bowled over by what the Portuguese doctor said was an acute attack of 'nerves,' in the feminine sense. The smell of mice seemed to me to be everywhere— in the food I ate, in the wine I drank, and in the air I breathed. The day after that I was better, and came downstairs. Still the same horrible smell. I wondered if it could by any chance be fancy, and I asked Jack whether he noticed it.

" 'Notice it? I should think so,' he answered with a laugh. 'It's strong enough. You see, as the wind sets just now, we 're on the lee side of the pond, unfortunately. That perfume has a range of a quarter of a mile, my boy. It 'll pass away, though, no fear.'

"But it didn't pass away. It grew worse; and about the fifth day it began to change, and became rottenness.

"Then Jack decided that he would have the pond drained, and went down to the village to see about getting men. Not a man would do it, and so— there was nothing else for it— we had to turn to ourselves, he and I. Well, I suppose the thing had to be done by somebody; but if it had been as sweet a job as picking violets, I'd have funked it. Pass me the whisky. I get the taste in my mouth merely by thinking about it."

THE DOCTOR stopped. I handed the whisky to him and waited. I noticed that he spilt some of it as he poured it out; and when he lit his pipe, the flame of the match was jerked all round the bow l by the shaking of his fingers.

"Well?" I said, after a sufficient pause. "You found—?"

He put me off.

"Let's go on deck," he answered. "There's pure air up there, and I want a big mouthful of it. We should be somewhere near the Berlengas by this time."

I followed him up on deck, and on the way he answered my question.

"We found a shapeless mass of blackness, a great homy thing like a bird's beak, and nothing more," he said. "I told you in the beginning that I didn't know what the Terror really was. I've given you the facts as I know them You can work out a theory for yourself, if you care to; I have mine, and if you know anything of the anatomy of devil-fishes, the horny beak will give you the clue. Yes, though, I beg your pardon— we did find one thing more. Care to guess? It was a suit of old rusted armour, and the device on the breast-plate was the device I have told you of."

"Antonio da Costa's?" I cried.

"Antonio da Costa's," said the doctor. "There were the remains of a skeleton inside the armour. Antonio da Costa's, too, I hope."

He broke off sharply, and pointed forward. "There's the light on the Berlengas," he said. "See it? Over the port bow. The old man's taking us inside, as it's a clear night."

But I was not looking over the port bow- just then. I was looking back, towards the hills of Cintra. But I could not see them; for a land mist had sprung up, and was lying over them in a black cloud.

Presently I heard the doctor's voice again.

"I had a letter from Norah when we got into Lisbon to-day," he was sating. "We're a couple of days behind time this trip, you know, and she wrote to sav that she couldn't come over from Cintra to see me, because she'd arranged some swimming races for to-day. She has got up a ladies' water-polo club down there; but some of the girls don't like playing in the big tank, because there are such a lot of goldfish in it now."

_________________

2: Birth of a Hero

Alice Duerr Miller

1874-1942

Cosmopolitan June 1939

"LAND SAKES," said Miss Otway, "machine guns and electric alarms for a little country bank like this! I never heard of such a thing."

"You don't approve, Kate?" asked Mr. Mullins coldly.

"I certainly do not. In the first place, it will cost a lot of money. In the second, the first thing you know, you boys will get hysterical and begin firing at each other."

Mr. Mullins, who took his position as president of the First National Bank of Red Bridge seriously, did not enjoy hearing himself called a boy by his assistant cashier. He explained stiffly that a bank in the neighboring town had been held up in broad daylight and that a mysterious sedan had been reported in Red Bridge, as if they, too, were under observation.

"I bet I'd have time to run down and slam the vaults shut while you were all reaching for your guns," said Miss Otway.

"I don't doubt that you would perform prodigies of valor," replied the president icily, "but I feel it my duty to take further precautions."

Strictly speaking, it was not the business of the assistant cashier to decide what equipment the bank should install, but Miss Otway was something more than her office. She was small, blackeyed, gray-haired, and much better-looking at fifty-five than she had ever been before. She was also incredibly efficient and quite capable of running the bank singlehanded, as the president, vice president, loan officer and cashier all knew only too well. Worse than this, the bank had originally been her idea, and most of them owed their positions to her.

She had begun life as the private secretary of the great Martin Robbins, when he lived at Red Bridge— or, rather, she had begun as that little local girl who came in to take dictation when the regular secretaries were overworked. But soon she was his head secretary, and then she was running not only his business but 'his household, and pointing out to him that it would be convenient to have a bank in the town where he lived, and that Jim Mullins would make a good president.

Mullins longed for the day when she should retire on a pension. She was the major problem of his business life. She contradicted him openly and undermined his influence over his employees by usually being right.

Lately, she had developed a fiercely maternal streak toward the personnel of the bank— including himself. She would stop him and urge him not to forget his overshoes. As Mullins said, he got quite enough of that sort of thing at home from his wife.

He had gone so far as to consult their local doctor. Bertram Ayres and Miss Otway were dear friends, although he was almost young enough to be her son. The misfortunes and illnesses of the village gave them a common field of interest which they approached from opposite directions— he with all the psychological sophistication of the modern practitioner; she with the kindheartedness of old-fashioned charity. Still, they were affectionate allies.

To Ayres, Mullins suggested that it would be better for Miss Otway herself if she retired at her age— nearing sixty, Mullins called it. But the doctor only laughed. "Kate Otway will see you buried, Jim, and choose your successor— and his successor, too, maybe. You'll never get her out of the bank, so give the whole thing up."

Mullins explained that he had only been thinking of what would be best for Miss Otway.

One afternoon in late March, Miss Otway was tidying her desk before leaving— if it is possible to tidy something already incredibly neat— when Sickles, the cashier, approached her with the keys to the vault in his hand.

"You'll have to open up in the morning, Miss Otway," he said. "I've just had a telephone call from home. I'm driving the wife to Stonehaven to the hospital, and I don't suppose I'll get back before noon— if then."

Miss Otway's wrinkled little face broke into smiles. "I've got my blanket almost done," she said, nodding at him. "Don't you hurry back. This time I hope it's a boy."

Outside, she found Seth Means the husky young watchman looking everything over. He coughed as Miss Otway passed him, and she turned in her tracks.

"Seth Means, what are you doing for that cough?"

"Well, what can you do for a cough?"

She couldn't have been more pleased if he had given her a handsome present. She gave him a short lecture on curing his cough— a wet rag wound round the throat, covered by a nice dry towel...

As she walked briskly down the village street, she was still thinking of him. The poor boy! Louisa Means is about as fit to be a mother... Doesn't know the first thing about nursing.

Miss Otway lived on the outskirts of the town in a house which had once been the lodge of the great Robbins place. The big house, now sold to a convent, was built in the classic style of the early nineteenth century, with a great columned portico running up two stories.

The lodge had been built as like the house as a kitten is like a cat. It consisted of four rooms and was built all on one floor. In front, there was a sitting room and a bedroom; at the back, a kitchen and dining room with a bathroom between. The front rooms had their normal supply of windows, but in order to keep the unbroken walls of a temple the two back rooms had no proper windows at all— only slits two feet high just below the roof.

To be candid, Miss Otway did not consider this a defect. She liked the feeling of being comfortably unobserved in her kitchen— and of course the advantages for a bathroom were obvious.

Miss Otway let herself in with a latchkey, turned on the lights, started the kettle, and began to undress, moving in and out of the kitchen to arrange her evening meal. She was a delicate but selective eater— a cup of soup, cold chicken salad and some apple pie heated up. She ate it with relish, washed the dishes, and then sat rocking in her sitting room reading her favorite literature— a novel of solid English society by Mrs. Humphry Ward.

She was going to bed about half past nine when she remembered she would need to make an early start in the morning if she were to open the vaults. She went back to the kitchen and had begun to make arrangements for breakfast when she heard a ring at the bell.

Miss Otway was not at all alarmed. She was always hoping that a neighbor in distress would call upon her for some heroic deed of wisdom or sacrifice. She hurried to her front door.

"For the land sakes," said Miss Otway, for as she opened the door a man stepped inside.

His face was covered with a black cloth, and he held a revolver in his right hand. He stepped in and shut the door behind him and motioned her to go down the little hallway to the kitchen.

"What in the world do you want?" said Miss Otway, but it was a rhetorical question. She knew what he wanted— the keys to the vault, reposing safely in her pocketbook in her upper bureau drawer.

She was not exactly frightened; she kept asking herself if it was her duty to die to save those keys, but the shrewd practical sense that had guided her all her life told her that, duty or not, she wasn't going to do it— not if she had a choice. No, she said to herself, she might be old and she might be selfish, but she preferred to ruin the bank rather than cease to be.

She went loping down the hall to the kitchen, with the masked figure following her, and when they got inside, he attempted to lock the door.

"That door never locked yet," said Miss Otway, with a sense of triumph.

The man didn't speak, but catching up the ice pick, he slipped it through the handle of the large old-fashioned key, and under this leverage presently the key turned.

"Now, you," he said, "sit down and keep still.

I won't hurt you if you do as I tell you."

Miss Otway sat down and stared at him. The voice was young. The man's eyes shone through the mask, but she could get no impression of his features.

"You ought to be ashamed of yourself," she began.

"Shut your trap," he said, "if you don't want me to shut it for you. I'll tell you what you're to do . .

Once shut into the kitchen, Miss Otway gave up all idea of screaming. No scream from the kitchen with its high small windows would penetrate far, and as a matter of fact, the old lodge was far enough out of town to minimize the likelihood of passers-by.

She sat down on a painted kitchen chair and looked at her visitor. She could not see the shape of his head, for his full cap came well down over his ears, but she got a glimpse of smooth brown hair. His clothes were gray, shabby, and cut with a cheap effort at fashion; his shoes were yellow, and the soles were worn at the toe. His hands, which were uncovered, were short, small and ugly.

He did not sit down; he stood. "Now, I'll tell you what to do," he said. "You and I will stay here until morning. Then when you go to open the vaults of the bank I'll go along. See? If there is any trouble with anyone, like the watchman, you'll explain that I'm coming in to cash a check.

You'll get me into the bank— and that's all you have to worry about."

"And suppose I refuse?" asked Miss Otway.

"Then I drill you and get the keys out of your pocketbook from the top drawer."

"Have you been spying on me?" she demanded.

"I'll go down and bump off the watchman and go in as the doors open, but I'd rather do it the other way."

Miss Otway was not exactly frightened. She could not really believe that anyone meant her ill. She gave a slight toss to her head. "Land sakes," she said, "how did you ever take to such a way of life, an able-bodied young fellow like you? You ought "

"Oh, cut it out," said her visitor. "Shut your face, won't you?"

And here he made a psychological error. If he had allowed Miss Otway to talk, if he had allowed her to suggest that what he needed was a little care, if he had let her sew a button on his coat and prepare an evening meal, she would easily have persuaded herself that she was leading him to a better path, and she wouldn't have had time to think about thwarting his evil designs. But the rebuff— the rudeness, as she put it to herself— made her more definitely his enemy than any threat to her life. She thought to herself, Oh, very well, if you're going to be like that!

She sat stiffly on her chair, but her mind was working like lightning. She knew her village well, and first she considered all the possibilities of summoning aid. The telephone wasn't in the kitchen but beside her bed, where she had always supposed it would be most necessary in any night catastrophe. There was no hope of reaching that.

Suppose she threw something heavy through the window? No. In the first place, she wasn't a very good pitcher; in the second, the chances were a hundred to one that no one would hear he noise of breaking glass or be on hand to see it. Besides, she would still be left locked in with an irate captor.

As she usually did in a crisis, she thought what Martin Robbins— the only great man she had ever known— would have done in such a situation; and, as usual, she found herself unable to imagine. There was no police force in the village of Red Bridge, and the sheriff, who lived at the other end of the street, was an exceedingly sound sleeper.

And of course she thought of the morning. She saw herself walking down the village street toward the bank, nodding to other early risers just as she always did— only this morning it would be different. This morning she would have a companion.

Young Means would be at the bank before her. unlocking the front door, changing the calendars and the pens. He would say a pleasant good morning, would glance curiously at her companion— or perhaps he wouldn't. Miss Otway had a good many young friends who came to her for help.

That would be the moment to do something heroic— to scream and get shot and save the bank. She thought of Mr. Mullins' icy words: "Doubtless you would perform prodigies of valor." If she did nothing, how he would sneer at her— he and the other men— intimating that women in crises of this kind... that nowadays banking...

She might even be obliged to resign. Miss Otway knew very well that Mullins would like to get her out. It would almost be worth while to be killed in order to prove Mullins in the wrong, but young Means would be killed, too.

She thought of Louisa, his mother, a poor nurse, but a devoted heart. No, she knew very well she wouldn't scream; she would go meekly down the stairway leading to the vault, and in a few minutes the robber would clear out the cash and securities and be off in some hidden car before the president had finished his breakfast.

She felt humiliated rather than afraid, for she wanted to be a heroine and she was not without heroic stuff in her; only she wanted to be the kind of heroine who survives to be praised and honored. If only some middle way could occur to her— some plan by which she could get the better of this sinister figure without giving her life in the attempt.

Hour after hour her practical mind worked at this problem, and just before dawn she had an idea.

The village had no police force, but it was proud of its fire fighters. If, Miss Otway thought, she could only contrive to set the house on fire, assistance would eventually come to her. The fire brigade would come shouting and clanging down the street, and what could the robber do but run away? Miss Otway loved her tiny house and many of her possessions, but she was willing to make this sacrifice— to save the bank, to triumph over the villain, and to prove to Jim Mullins that unarmed women could dominate a situation.

It was about five when she said briskly, "Would your High and Mightiness object if I made myself a cup of tea?"

"No. But don't try any tricks."

Miss Otway whisked about the kitchen, keeping always in front of him. She got out the teapot from a lower shelf, and as she did this, she slid the white shelf paper to the floor, where it lay unobserved on the matting. In one corner was a can of kerosene, for the lighting plant of Red Bridge was apt to break down at times, and Miss Otway always kept two lamps ready for use.

She stooped and took the cover off this can. The young man seemed to see nothing suspicious in this action. She went back to the stove, lighted it, set the kettle to boil, and then, crossing to the can, with a quick gesture she kicked it over and dropped her still-lighted match into the liquid that began to flow across the matting. In an instant the floor was blazing.

"Now, young fellow," said Miss Otway, "open that door if you don't want to be burned to death."

He had sprung to the door almost before she spoke, but the lock, stiff to turn, now remained immovable. And then Miss Otway screamed in earnest. She hadn't thought of being locked in; of burning to death. The flames spread fast.

The young man sprang to the kitchen table and, reaching up with his revolver, broke the narrow window. Then as Miss Otway screamed again, he yanked her up beside him. She looked at the window, and as she looked, the table collapsed. They were both down in the flames.

Then she felt herself raised— raised high. She was standing on the young man's hands. He was raising her to the window. She seized the ledge; she wriggled and struggled and was out— out of that horror of flame and smoke.

There were no fire-alarm boxes in Red Bridge, but there was an iron circle to beat upon, and Miss Otway ran to it and began beating the alarm, with such effect that presently a window opened and the head of Ben Peters, the captain of the fire company, appeared.

"You come down, Ben, and break in my door!" Miss Otway shouted. "There's a man burning to death in my kitchen!"

Ben Peters weighed nearly three hundred pounds. He came running out of his house in his flannel pajamas, and under Miss Otway's direction hurled his great bulk against the kitchen door, which splintered from its hinges at the first impact. The young man was clinging to the window ledge, with the flames leaping up toward his knees. They dragged him out, and Ben laid him on Miss Otway's bed just as the fire engine arrived.

The lodge had been well built. When the matting and the curtains had been consumed, the fire was easily extinguished. By this time most of the population was congregated in cr about the house, and among them was Doctor Ayres.

Miss Otway took him straight to her bedroom. "I guess he's pretty badly burnt," she said, and left the room.

The doctor sent for his assistant and his office nurse, and all three worked over the tortured figure on Miss Otway's bed.

It was not until the fire engine had departed that Miss Otway returned to her room, for she was obliged to get the keys of the vault out of her top drawer.

She was startled at seeing two men in masks— white ones this time— Ayres and his assistant. The patient was breathing heavily under an anesthetic. She looked at him. It seemed impossible that he had ever been a menace— he was so young and white and weak.

Doctor Ayres took off his mask. "Well, Katie," he said, "who is this boy, and what do you want done with him?"

Miss Otway looked down at him. "Is he very bad?" she asked.

"He'll live, but he'll never walk again."

Miss Otway's hand went to her mouth. "Land sakes!" she said. "He saved my life."

"What do you want done with him?" asked the doctor again.

Miss Otway tried to steel her heart. "Well," she said. "I guess he'd be better off in a hospital, wouldn't he?"

"That depends. If he has enough money for a private room, he would, but I wouldn't put a dog in the wards of that infernal pesthouse at Stonehaven."

"Well, I've got to run along to the bank," said Miss Otway. "Let him be for the present."

She hurried away, avoiding the issue. What did she want done with him? How much did the doctor know? What ought she to do? She felt reluctant to turn the young man over to the police. After all, he had saved her life.

At the bank Seth Means was opening the front door, quite unconscious that his own life had recently hung in the balance. "Well, Miss Otway," he said, "I hear you had a big fire at your place last night. I hope..."

She did not linger for conversation, but went on past him, answering as she went. "Nothing to worry about— a lick of paint and a new floor in the kitchen."

Seth followed her. "But say, who was that young feller who nearly got burnt to death? Ben Peters said he had a black mask on his face, and "

Miss Otway cut him short. "What a story to start ! Don't you know better than to believe what Ben Peters says? Haven't you ever heard of people tying handkerchiefs over their faces to keep the smoke out?"

Before Seth could question her further, she pattered downstairs to open the vaults— alone and unmenaced. But she knew she had only put off the evil day. As a matter of fact, she was hardly back inside the cage when she received a summons to the office of Mr. Mullins.

He was all solicitude. "I hope you're none the worse for your experiences."

"Not a mite, not a mite."

"I understand you are well insured."

"Oh, yes," said Miss Otway. "I took out insurance the day they made Ben Peters head of the fire company. Now, Jim, we're busy in the cage today "

"Just one moment," said Mr. Mullins. "Who was the mysterious young man who was nearly burnt to death in your kitchen? Ben tells me he had a mask over his face."

"That's just Ben's story, Jim. A mask, indeed! He must have tied a handkerchief over his face to. keep the smoke out."

"Ben said it was a black mask."

"Maybe it was— by the time Ben got there." She had never lied before, and she was exhilarated, almost intoxicated, at finding she could do it so well. But Mullins seemed not quite convinced.

"Ben thought he was the man who has been holding up the banks around here— a gangster. Ben said he thought it was a pity he hadn't let him burn."

It was this piece of intolerance that turned the scale. "Let him burn!" cried Miss Otway. "What's the matter with Ben Peters? That's my cousin's son from Vermont."

"I didn't know you had cousins in Vermont, Kate. What's his name?"

"Donald Davis," said Miss Otway. She had realized just an instant before that the young man must have a name. Donald had come from her deep subconscious., In her younger days she had intended to have a son called Donald; and Davis was the stationer's name on the calendar hanging over her desk.

"Your cousin's son?" repeated Mr. Mullins. "Well, I am delighted to hear that— and relieved. I had doped it out that he was a gangster who wanted you to open the bank for him, and that you had been so clever that you set fire to your house rather than let him rob us, and I was calculating how large a reward we could afford to pay you, Kate. Well, for the sake of the bank I'm glad that I was mistaken."

A shade crossed Miss Otway's face; she was not mercenary, but she would have liked to be a heroine. She gave a shrill laugh. "Oh. no, nothing like that, Jim," she answered. "I just upset a can of kerosene, and my cousin was smoking, and that old door of mine stuck, as it always does. I'd have been burnt to death, I guess, if he hadn't held me up to the window. That's how he got hurt."

"He held you up to the window? Why, that was the action of a hero."

"Well, I guess none of the Davises were ever cowards," Miss Otway replied, and went back to the cage.

The exhilaration had passed. She felt disturbed by what she had done. Suppose it came out that she had been lying and harboring a robber, what would the village think of her? She would certainly be obliged to resign from the bank. She was safe as long as her guest remained under the anesthetic, but when he came out, what might he not confess!

She decided to ask for a three weeks' holiday and go home and stay there.

Arriving at her house, she found the patient still asleep, and Doctor Ayres' office nurse in charge and anxious to get away. Miss Otway sent her back to her regular duties and began organizing her own life for something she described as "a long spell of sickness." But before she started, she made a thorough search for the gun and the mask. They were nowhere to be found, and she could only hope that the young man himself had had the sense to drop them through the boards of the burning floor.

For a week or so nothing happened— except that she and the doctor worked over their patient. Once Miss Otway murmured to him, "Look at here, don't you tell anyone who you are."

"Okay, lady," he answered. "That's my long suit." But the rest was silence.

He lay day after day staring at the wall and doing as he was told. He didn't ask any questions about his condition or what she intended to do with him. Once when some neighbors came to inquire about him, he did speak to her when she returned to his bedside.

"Cops?" he asked.

"Lands, no," she answered, almost crossly, and there the matter had rested.

She feared that Doctor Ayres knew or suspected something but he did not embarrass her with questions.

The last day before she went back to work, she hitched her chair near her patient's bed. "Young man, it's time you and me had a talk. Maybe you guess I haven't told anyone what you were up to— maybe I should have, but I didn't. You saved my life, and I just couldn't turn you over to the police and a prison hospital. You may as well know that I said you were my cousin from Vermont— Donald Davis, I said your name was. But now I've got to go back to work, and you had better send for your family to take you away."

He continued silent, and she asked sharply, "Haven't you got any family?" He shook his head. "Haven't you got any friends?"

"Not to notice."

Miss Otway had never thought of this complication. "Well, then, I guess you've got to go to the State Home."

He smiled faintly and said, "Okay, lady."

She felt very uncomfortable and didn't sleep that night. If he had pleaded with her to keep him, she would have yielded, for of course in the long process of nursing she had grown fond of him.

Still, she kept repeating to herself, there wasn't anything else to do. I can't keep a crook like that. If he were a decent young man . . . Besides, there was no room in the house. She herself was sleeping on a sofa in her dining room.

She received an ovation on her return to the bank. Public opinion haa been moving— and not in the direction she feared.

Mullins sent for her immediately. "Tell me, Kate," he said, "what are you planning to do with your cousin? Ayres tells me that he can never walk again."

"I'm planning to send him to the State Home," said Miss Otway firmly.

Mr. Mullins looked shocked. "Oh, you can't do that, Kate!" he said. "I know there isn't much room in your house but the young man crippled himself saving your life. Let me tell you what we have all been thinking."

What the village had been thinking was that they would raise a fund to pension Miss Otway's rescuer. And not the village only; near-by towns joined in the movement. The Stonehaven Gazette had a stirring editorial describing his action as being "as deserving of a medal as that of any war veteran." The committee of which Mr. Mullins was chairman felt confident that they would raise enough to allow her to build an addition to her house. She could invest the remainder in an annuity that would yield a sum sufficient to feed and clothe her guest.

Miss Otway's favorite dream was that she would be able to build an addition; yet she hesitated. Wouldn't it be a fraud to accept that money?

If she had meant to refuse, she should have said so then. The next day it was too late. The village plunged with enthusiasm into the undertaking.

And the next thing that happened was that a broadcasting artist with a soul inflammable to all deeds of heroism and a tongue capable of stirring others to action happened to read the Stonehaven Gazette. The following day, he rolled into Red Bridge in his car, hot to get the facts in the case at first hand.

He got them— without a dissenting voice— and the following Sunday night his devoted audience was deeply moved by another of his great narratives.

If you have ever burnt your fingers with a match and in the intolerable agony flung away the box of matches, you can imagine what those moments were to this boy— standing in a flaming inferno so that a little lady, still incredibly pretty at fifty-five, might clamber to safety on his shoulders.

Well, that's the story— except for a tag line. As I left, I observed to Miss Otway that if we did not raise enough of a fund to keep her and her cousin in luxury for the rest of their lives I should feel ashamed of that unlikely biological accident, the human species. And she answered with a piece of salty New England philosophy that I shall long remember. 'Young man,' she said, 'don't  ever feel ashamed of anything that you didn't do yourself.'

After this, of course, the money poured in— twenty, thirty, forty thousand dollars— and the final mass meeting at Stonehaven was still ahead.

Spring was coming on now, and every I morning before she went to the bank. Miss Otway would wheel her patient out to the front yard— the chair was a gift from the great broadcaster— and the whole village would stop one by one to have a word with the hero.

On the night of the mass meeting— of which a bishop was chairman, and a state senator the principal speaker— Miss Otway drove to Stonehaven with Doctor Ayres. The state senator was sending a larger and more comfortable car for the hero. Miss Otway still felt nervous with the doctor, feeling that he knew more than she wished him to know; but he said nothing to alarm her. She had resigned her position at the bank, and it was of her resignation that they spoke.

"I suppose you'll miss the bank, Kate," he  said. "It was really your child. But now you've got another."

She nodded. "It was Donald made me do it," she said. "He thought it wasn't fair for me to be holding a salaried job with all this money coming in."

The doctor answered gravely that he was sure Donald was a good judge of fairness.

Doctor Ayres had been asked to speak at the meeting and had declined, but toward the end of the evening he consented to say a few words. No one understood them, but then, no one ever understood the doctor. He said that he had been present at a great many births and had seen a fair number of heroes, but that he had never before been present at the birth of a hero and he found it an interesting and instructive experience. The audience clapped in a perfunctory way.

The hero himself was there on the platform in his wheel chair. When the whole audience rose, as much in tribute to him as to the national anthem, he was observed to weep. Tears? Not unmanly in a hero of nineteen who would never walk again. Presently everyone was crowding about his chair.

The doctor and Miss Otway drove away in silence. She had not been among those who had failed to understand the doctor's speech. She knew perfectly what he meant— knew that the moment for explanation had come.

"Well, Bert," she said, as his small car bounded away from the town hall, "are you going to give me away?"

"I, Kate? Of course not. I am delighted with the results. You get an income and an occupation, he gets a good home, and I get a neat black revolver."

"Oh, so it was you who took the gun! '

"And the mask— though I doubt if I ever use it. I thought that was what you wanted me to do."

"I suppose you think I'm a wicked old woman."

"On the contrary, I think you're a genius. You have done what prison associations and charitable institutions have been trying to do for years— you have really reformed a criminal; and you have done it by the only method, probably, by which it can be done. You have made him believe that he is actually made of heroic stuff, as perhaps he is."

Miss Otway said: "Do you think I'm going to be murdered in my bed some fine night?"

"Murdered? Of course not! The young man worships you. Didn't you know that? Your trouble is going to be very different. You are going to have a hard time living up to the high moral standards he will set for you. I shall be disappointed if some day he doesn't reproach you for having stooped to tell a lie in order to save him from the police."

"How do you mean, he worships me?"

The doctor laughed. "Do you want me to tell you what he really said?"

Of course she wanted him to tell her. All her life everyone had taken her kind deeds as a matter of course, hardly saying thank you. All her life she had been starved for praise.

"What did he say?"

"He said that he never thought such an old moll could be so stepped up."

Miss Otway's face broke into the sweet irrepressible smile of a young girl. It was exactly what she needed. Her whole ego blossomed. "An old moll!" she said. "Land sakes, what a way to talk!"

________________

3: The Forty-Seven Rônin

Bertram Mitford (1st Baron Redesdale)

1837-1916

Tales of Old Japan, 1871

One of the most widely known English language tellings of famous true events in the early 1700s, though told by Mitford in his own words in the Japanese style. He was for some years attached to the British Legation in Japan. He was the grandfather of the famous Mitford sisters.

AT THE BEGINNING of the eighteenth century there lived a daimio, called Asano Takumi no Kami, the Lord of the castle of Aké, in the province of Harima. Now it happened that an Imperial ambassador from the Court of the Mikado, having been sent to the Shogun at Yedo, Takumi no Kami and another noble called Kamei Sama were appointed to receive and feast the envoy; and a high official, named Kira Kôtsuké no Suké, was named to teach them the proper ceremonies to be observed upon the occasion. The two nobles were accordingly forced to go daily to the castle to listen to the instructions of Kôtsuké no Suké. But this Kôtsuké no Suké was a man greedy of money; and as he deemed that the presents which the two daimios, according to time-honoured custom, had brought him in return for his instruction, were mean and unworthy, he conceived a great hatred against them, and took no pains in teaching them, but on the contrary rather sought to make laughing-stocks of them. Takumi no Kami, restrained by a stern sense of duty, bore his insults with patience; but Kamei Sama, who had less control over his temper, was violently incensed, and determined to kill Kôtsuké no Suké.

One night when his duties at the castle were ended, Kamei Sama returned to his own palace, and having summoned his councillors to a secret conference, said to them: "Kôtsuké no Suké has insulted Takumi no Kami and myself during our service in attendance on the Imperial envoy. This is against all decency, and I was minded to kill him on the spot; but I bethought me that if I did such a deed within the precincts of the castle, not only would my own life be forfeit, but my family and vassals would be ruined: so I stayed my hand. Still the life of such a wretch is a sorrow to the people, and to-morrow when I go to Court I will slay him: my mind is made up, and I will listen to no remonstrance." And as he spoke his face became livid with rage.

Now one of Kamei Sama's councillors was a man of great judgment, and when he saw from his lord's manner that remonstrance would be useless, he said: "Your lordship's words are law; your servant will make all preparations accordingly; and to-morrow, when your lordship goes to Court, if this Kôtsuké no Suké should again be insolent, let him die the death." And his lord was pleased at this speech, and waited with impatience for the day to break, that he might return to Court and kill his enemy.

But the councillor went home, and was sorely troubled, and thought anxiously about what his prince had said. And as he reflected, it occurred to him that since Kôtsuké no Suké had the reputation of being a miser he would certainly be open to a bribe, and that it was better to pay any sum, no matter how great, than that his lord and his house should be ruined. So he collected all the money he could, and, giving it to his servants to carry, rode off in the night to Kôtsuké no Suké 's palace, and said to his retainers: "My master, who is now in attendance upon the Imperial envoy, owes much thanks to my Lord Kôtsuké no Suké, who has been at so great pains to teach him the proper ceremonies to be observed during the reception of the Imperial envoy. This is but a shabby present which he has sent by me, but he hopes that his lordship wili condescend to accept it, and commends himself to his lordship's favour."

And, with these words, he produced a thousand ounces of silver Ibr Kôtsuké no Suké, and a hundred ounces to be distributed among his retainers.

When the latter saw the money, their eyes sparkled with pleasure, and they were profuse in their thanks; and begging the councillor to wait a little, they went and told their master of the lordly present which had arrived with a polite message from Kamei Sama. Kôtsuké no Suké in eager delight sent for the councillor into an inner chamber, and, after thanking him, promised on the morrow to instruct his master carefully in all the different points of etiquette. So the councillor, seeing the miser's glee, rejoiced at the success of his plan; and having taken his leave returned home in high spirits. But Kamei Sama, little thinking how his vassal had propitiated his enemy, lay brooding over his vengeance, and on the following morning at daybreak went to Court in solemn procession.

When Kôtsuké no Suké met him, his manner had completely changed, and nothing could exceed his courtesy.

"You have come early to Court this morning, my Lord Kamei," said he. "I cannot sufficiently admire your zeal. I shall have the honour to, call your attention to several points of etiquette to-day. I must beg your lordship to excuse my previous conduct, which must have seemed very rude; but I am naturally of a cross-grained disposition, so I pray you to forgive me." And as he kept on humbling himself and making fair speeches, the heart of Kamei Sama was gradually softened, and he renounced his intention of killing him. Thus by the cleverness of his councillor, was Kamei Sama, with all his house, saved from ruin.

Shortly after this, Takumi no Kami, who had sent no present, arrived at the castle, and Kôtsuké no Suké turned him into ridicule even more than before, provoking him with sneers and covert insults; but Takumi no Kami affected to ignore all this, and submitted himself patiently to Kôtsuké no Suké 's orders.

This conduct, so far from producing a good effect, only made Kôtsuké no Suké despise him the more, until at last he said haughtily:

"Here, my Lord of Takumi, the ribbon of my sock has come untied; be so good as to tie it up for me."

Takumi no Kami, although burning with rage at the affront, still thought that as he was on duty he was bound to obey, and tied up the ribbon of the sock. Then Kôtsuké no Suké, turning from him, petulantly exclaimed : " Why, how clumsy you are! You cannot so much as tie up the ribbon of a sock properly! Any one can see that you are a boor from the country, and know nothing of the manners of Yedo." And with a scornful laugh he moved towards an inner room.

But the patience of Takumi no Kami was exhausted; this last insult was more than he could bear.

"Stop a moment, my lord," cried he.

"Well, what is it?" replied the other. And, as he turned round, Takumi no Kami drew his dirk, and aimed a blow at his head; but Kôtsuké no Suké, being protected by the Court cap which he wore, the wound was but a scratch, so he ran away; and Takumi no Kami, pursuing him, tried a second time to cut him down, but, missing his aim, struck his dirk into a pillar. At this moment an officer, named Kajikawa Yosobei, seeing the affray, rushed up, and holding back the infuriated noble, gave Kôtsuké no Suké time to make good his escape.

Then there arose a great uproar and confusion, and Takumi no Kami was arrested and disarmed, and confined in one of the apartments of the palace under the care of the censors. A council was held, and the prisoner was given over to the safeguard of a daimio, called Tamura Ukiyo no Daibu, who kept him in close custody in his own house, to the great grief of his wife and of his retainers; and when the deliberations of the council were completed, it was decided that, as he had committed an outrage and attacked another man within the precincts of the palace, he must perform hara kiri,— that is, commit suicide by disembowelling; his goods must be confiscated, and his family ruined. Such was the law. So Takumi no Kami performed hara kiri, his castle of Ako was confiscated, and his retainers having become Rônins. Some of them took service with other daimios, and others became merchants.

Now amongst these retainers was his principal councillor; a man called Oishi Kuranosuké, who, with forty-six other faithful dependants, formed a league to avenge their master's death by killing Kôtsuké no Suké. This Oishi Kuranosuké was absent at the castle of Ako at the time of the affray, which, had he been with his prince, would never liave occurred; for, being a wise man, he would not have failed to propitiate Kôtsuké no Suké by sending him suitable presents; while the councillor who was in attendance on the prince at Yedo was a dullard, who neglected this precaution, and so caused the death of his master and the ruin of his house.

So Oishi Kuranosuké and his forty-six companions began to lay their plans of vengeance against Kôtsuké no Suké; but the latter was so well guarded by a body of men lent to him by a daimio called Uyésugi Sama, whose daughter he had married, that they saw that the only way of attaining their end would be to throw their enemy off his guard. With this object they separated and disguised themselves, some as carpenters or craftsmen, others as merchants; and their chief, Kuranosuké, went to Kioto, and built a house in the quarter called Yamashina, where he took to frequenting houses of the worst repute, and gave himself up to drunkenness and debauchery, as if nothing were further from his mind than revenge. Kôtsuké no Suké in the meanwhile, suspecting that Takumi no Kami's former retainers would be scheming against his life, secretly sent spies to Kioto, and caused a faithful account to be kept of all that Kuranosuké did. The latter, however, determined thoroughly to delude the enemy into a false security, went on leading a dissolute life with harlots and winebibbers. One day, as he was returning home drunk from some low haunt, he fell down in the street and went to sleep, and all the passers-by laughed him to scorn. It happened that a Satsuma man saw this, and said: "Is not this Oishi Kuranosuké who was a councillor of Asano Takumi no Kami, and who, not having the heart to avenge his lord, gives himself up to women and wine? See how he lies drunk in the public street! Faithless beast ! Fool and craven! Unworthy the name of a Samurai!"

And he trod on Kuranosuké's face as he slept, and spat upon him; but when Kôtsuké no Suké's spies reported all this at Yedo, he was greatly relieved at the news, and felt secure from danger.

One day Kuranosuké's wife, who was bitterly grieved to see her husband lead this abandoned life, went to him and said: "My lord, you told me at first that your debauchery was but a trick to make your enemy relax in watchfulness. But indeed, indeed, this has gone too far. I pray and beseech you to put some restraint upon yourself."

"Trouble me not," replied Kuranosuké, " for I will not listen to your whining. Since my way of life is displeasing to you, I will divorce you, and you may go about your business; and I will buy some pretty young girl from one of the public-houses, and marry her for my pleasure. I am sick of the sight of an old woman like you about the house, so get you gone— the sooner the better."

So saying, he flew into a violent rage, and his wife, terror-stricken, pleaded piteously for mercy.

"Oh, my lord! unsay those terrible words ! I have been your faithful wife for twenty years, and have borne you three children; in sickness and in sorrow I have been with you; you cannot be so cruel as to turn me out of doors now. Have pity! have pity!"

"Cease this useless wailing. My mind is made up, and you must go; and as the children are in my way also, you are welcome to take them with you."

When she heard her husband speak thus, in her grief she sought her eldest son, Oishi Chikara, and begged him to plead for her, and pray that she might be pardoned. But nothing would turn Kuranosuké from his purpose, so his wife was sent away, with the two younger children, and went back to her native place. But Oishi Chikara remained with his father.

The spies commnnicated all this without fail to Kôtsuké no Suké, and he, when he heard how Kuranosuké, having turned his wife and children out of doors and bought a concubine, was grovelling in a life of drunkenness and lust, began to think that he had no longer anything to fear from the retainers of Takumi no Kami, who must be cowards, without the courage to avenge their lord. So by degrees he began to keep a less strict watch, and sent back half of the guard which had been lent to him by his father-in-law, Uyésugi Sama. Little did he think how he was falling into the trap laid for him by Kuranosuké, who, in his zeal to slay his lord's enemy, thought nothing of divorcing his wife and sending away his children! Admirable and faithful man !

In this way Kuranosuké continued to throw dust in the eyes of his foe, by persisting in his apparently shameless conduct; but his associates all went to Yedo, and, having in their several capacities as workmen and pedlars con- trived to gain access to Kôtsuké no Suké 's house, made themselves familiar with the plan of the building and the arrangement of the different rooms, and ascertained the character of the inmates, who were brave and loyal men, and who were cowards; upon all of which matters they sent regular reports to Kuranosuké. And when at last it became evident from the letters which arrived from Yedo that Kôtsuké no Suké was thoroughly off his guard, Kuranosuké rejoiced that the day of vengeance was at hand; and, having appointed a trysting-place at Yedo, he fled secretly from Kioto, eluding the vigilance of his enemy's spies. Then the forty-seven men, having laid all their plans, bided their time patiently.

It was now mid-winter, the twelfth month of the year, and the cold was bitter. One night, during a heavy fall of snow, when the whole world was hushed, and peaceful men were stretched in sleep upon the mats, the Rônins determined that no more favourable opportunity could occur for canying out their purpose. So they took counsel together, and, having divided their band into two parties, assigned to each man his post. One band, led by Oishi Kuranosukf^, was to attack the front gate, and the other, under his son Oishi Chikara, was to attack the postern of Kôtsuké no Suké 's house; but as Chikara was only sixteen years of age, Yoshida Chiuzayémon was appointed to act as his guardian. Further it was arranged that a drum, beaten at the order of Kuranosuké should be the signal for the simultaneous attack; and that if any one slew Kôtsuké no Suké and cut off his head he should blow a shrill whistle, as a signal to his comrades, who would hurry to the spot, and, having identified the head, carry it off to the temple called Sengakuji, and lay it as an offering be- fore the tomb of their dead lord. Then they must report their deed to the Government, and await the sentence of death which would surely be passed upon them. To this the Rônins one and all pledged themselves. Midnight was fixed upon as the hour, and the forty-seven comrailes, having made all ready for the attack, partook of a last farewell feast together, for on the morrow they must die. Then Oishi Kuranosuké addressed the band, and said:—

"To-night we shall attack our enemy in his palace; his retainers will certainly resist us, and we shall be obliged to kill them. But to slay old men and women and children is a pitiful thing; therefore, I pray you each one to take great heed lest you kill a single helpless person." His com- rades all applauded this speech, and so they remained, wait- ing for the hour of midnight to arrive.

When the appointed hour came, the Rônins set forth. The wind howled furiously, and the driving snow beat in their faces; but little cared they for wind or snow as they hurried on their road, eager for revenge. At last they reached Kôtsuké no Suké 's house, and divided themselves into two bands; and Chikara, with twenty-three men, went round to the back gate. Then four men, by means of a ladder of ropes which they hung on to the roof of the porch, effected an entry into the courtyard; and, as they saw signs that all the inmates of the house were asleep, they went into the porter's lodge where the guard slept, and, before the latter had time to recover from their astonishment, bound them. The terrified guard prayed hard for mercy, that their lives might be spared; and to this the Rônins agreed on condition that the keys of the gate should be given up; but the others tremblingly said that the keys were kept in the house of one of their officers, and that they had no means of obtaining them. Then the Rônins lost patience, and with a hammer dashed in pieces the big wooden bolt which secured the gate, and the doors flew open to the right and to the left. At the same time Chikara and his party broke in by the back gate.

Then Oishi Kuranosuke sent a messenger to the neighbouring houses, bearing the following message:— "We, the Rônins who were formerly in the service of Asano Takumi no Kami, are this night about to break into the palace of Kôtsuké no Suké to avenge our lord. As we are neither night robbers nor ruffians, no hurt will be done to the neighbouring houses. We pray you to set your minds at rest." And as Kôtsuké no Suké was hated by his neighbours for his covetousness, they did not unite their forces to assist him. Another precaution was yet taken. Lest any of the people inside should run out to call the relations of the family to the rescue, and these coming in force should in- terfere with the plans of the Rônins, Kuranosuké stationed ten of his men armed with bows on the roof of the four sides of the courtyard, with orders to shoot any retainers who might attempt to leave the place. Having thus laid aU his plans and posted his men, Kuranosuké with his own hand beat the drum and gave the signal for attack.

Ten of Kôtsuké no Suké's retainers, hearing the noise, woke up; and, drawing their swords, rushed into the front room to defend their master. At this moment the Rônins, who had burst open the door of the front hall, entered the same room. Then arose a furious fight between the two parties, in the midst of which Chikara, leading his men through the garden, broke into the back of the house; and Kôtsuké no Suké in terror of his life, took refuge, with his wife and female servants, in a closet in the verandah; while the rest of his retainers, who slept in the barrack outside the house, made ready to go to the rescue. But the Rônins who had come in by the front door, and were fighting with the ten retainers, ended by overpowering and slaying the latter without losing one of their own number; after which, forcing their way bravely towards the back rooms, they were joined by Chikara and his men, and the two bands were united in one.

By this time the remainder of Kôtsuké no Sukés men had come in, and the fight became general; and Kuranosuké, sitting on a camp-stool, gave his orders and directed the Rônins. Soon the inmates of the house perceived that they were no match for their enemy, so they tried to send out intelligence of their plight to Uyésugi Sama, their lord's father-in-law, begging him to come to the rescue with all the force at his command. But the messengers were shot down by the archers whom Kuranosuké had posted on the roof. So no help coming, they fought on in despair. Then Kuranosuké cried out with a loud voice: "Kôtsuké no Suké alone is our enemy; let some one go inside and bring him forth dead or alive!"

Now in front of Kôtsuké no Sukés's private room stood three brave retainers with drawn swords. The first was Kobayashi Hébachi, the second was Waku Handaiyu, and the third was Shimidzu Ikkaku, all good men and true, and expert swordsmen. So stoutly did these men lay about them that for a while they kept the whole of the Rônins at bay, and at one moment even forced them back. When Oishi Kuranosuké saw this, he ground his teeth with rage, and shouted to his men: "What! did not every man of you swear to lay down his life in avenging his lord, and now are you driven back by three men? Cowards, not fit to be spoken to to die fighting in a master's cause should be the noblest ambition of a retainer!" Then turning to his own son Chikara, he said, "Here, boy engage those men, and if they are too strong for you, die!"

Spurred by these words, Chikara seized a spear and gave battle to Waku Handaiyu, but could not hold his ground, and backing by degrees, was driven out into the garden, where he missed his footing and slipped into a pond; but as Handaiyu, thinking to kill him, looked down into the pond, Chikara cut his enemy in the leg and caused him to fall, and then crawling out of the water despatched him. In the meanwhile Kobayashi Hébachi and Shimidzu Ikkaku had been killed by the other Rônins, and of all Kôtsuké no Suké's retainers not one fighting man remained. Chikara, seeing this, went with his bloody sword in his hand into a back room to search for Kôtsuké no Suké, but he only found the son of the latter, a young lord named Kira Sahioyé, who, carrying a halberd, attacked him, but was soon wounded and fled. Thus the whole of Kôtsuké no Suké's men having been killed, there was an end of the fighting; but as yet there was no trace of Kôtsuké no Suké to be found.

Then Kuranosuké divided his men into several parties and searched the whole house, but all in vain; women and children weeping were alone to be seen. At this the forty- seven men began to lose heart in regret, that after all their toil they had allowed their enemy to escape them, and there was a moment when in their despair they agreed to commit suicide together upon the spot; but they determined to make one more effort. So Kuranosuké went into Kôtsuké no Suké's sleeping-room, and touching the quilt with his hands, exclaimed, "I have just felt the bed-clothes and they are yet warm, and so methinks that our enemy is not far off. He must certainly be hidden somewhere in the house." Greatly excited by this, the Rônins renewed their search. Now in the raised part of the room, near the place of honour, there was a picture hanging; taking down this picture, they saw that there was a large hole in the plastered wall, and on thrusting a spear in they could feel nothing beyond it. So one of the Rônins, called Yazama Jiutaro, got into the hole, and found that on the other side there was a little courtyard, in which there stood an outhouse for holding charcoal and fire- wood. Looking into the outhouse, he spied something white at the further end, at which he struck with his spear, when two armed men sprang out upon him and tried to cut him down, but he kept them back until one of his comrades came up and killed one of the two men and engaged the other, while Jiutaro entered the outhouse and felt about with his spear. Again seeing something white, he struck it with his lance, when a cry of pain betrayed that it was a man; so he rushed up, and the man in white clothes, who had been wounded in the thigh, drew a dirk and aimed a blow at him. But Jiutaro wrested the dirk from him, and clutching him by the collar, dragged him out of the outhouse. Then the other Rônin came up, and they examined the prisoner attentively, and saw that he was a noble-looking man, some sixty years of age, dressed in a white satin sleeping-robe, which was stained by the blood from the thigh-wound which Jiutaro had inflicted. The two men felt convinced that this was no other than Kôtsuké no Suké, and they asked him his name, but he gave no answer, so they gave the signal whistle, and all their comrades collected together at the call; then Oishi Kuranosuké, bringing a lantern, scanned the old man's features, and it was indeed Kôtsuké no Suké; and if further proof were wanting, he still bore a scar on his forehead where their master, Asano Takumi no Kami, had wounded him during the affray in the castle. There being no possibility of mistake, therefore, Oishi Kuranosukd went down on his knees, and addressing the old man very respectfully, said :

"My lord, we are the retainers of Asano Takumi no Kami. Last year your lordship and our master quarrelled in the palace, and our master was sentenced to hara kiri, and his family was ruined. We have come to-night to avenge him, as is the duty of faithful and loyal men. I pray your lordship to acknowledge the justice of our purpose. And now, my lord, we beseech you to perform hara kiri. I myself shall have the honour to act as your second, and when, with all humility, I shall have received your lordship's head, it is my intention to lay it as an offering upon the grave of Asano Takumi no Kami."

Thus, in consideration of the high rank of Kôtsuké no Suké the Rônins treated him with the greatest courtesy, and over and over again entreated him to perform hara kiri. But he crouched speechless and trembling. At last Kuranosuké, seeing that it was vain to urge him to die the death of a nobleman, forced him down, and cut off his head with the same dirk with which Asano Takumi no Kami had killed himself. Then the forty-seven comrades, elated at having accomplished their design, placed the head in a bucket, and prepared to depart; but before leaving the house they carefully extinguished all the lights and fires in the place, lest by any accident a fire should break out and the neighbours suffer.

As they were on their way to Takanawa, the suburb in which the temple called Sengakuji stands, the day broke; and the people flocked out to see the forty-seven men, who, with their clothes and arms all blood-stained, presented a terrible appearance; and every one praised them, wondering at their valour and faithfulness. But they expected every moment that Kôtsuké no Suké 's father-in-law would attack them and carry off the head, and made ready to die bravely sword in hand. However, they reached Takanawa in safety, for Matsudaira Aki no Kami, one of the eighteen chief daimios of Japan, of whose house Asano Takumi no Kami had been a cadet, had been highly pleased when he heard of the last night's work, and he had made ready to assist the Rônins in case they were attacked. So Kôtsuké no Suké's father-in-law dared not pursue them.

At about seven in the morning they came opposite to the palace of Matsudaira Mutsu no Kami, the Prince of Sendai, and the Prince, hearing of it, sent for one of his councillors and said: "The retainers of Takumi no Kami have slain their lord's enemy, and are passing this way; I cannot sufficiently admire their devotion, so, as they must be tired and hungry after their night's work, do you go and invite them to come in here, and set some gruel and a cup of wine before them."

So the councillor went out and said to Oishi Kuranosuké: "Sir, I am a councillor of the Prince of Sendai, and my master bids me beg you, as you must be worn out after all you have undergone, to come in and partake of such poor refreshment as, we can offer you. This is my message to you from my lord."

"I thank you, sir," replied Kuranosuké. " It is very good of his lordship to trouble himself to think of us. We shall accept his kindness gratefully."

So the forty-seven Rônins went into the palace, and were feasted with gruel and wine, and all the retainers of the Prince of Sendai came and praised them.

Then Kuranosuké turned to the councillor and said, " Sir, we are truly indebted to you for this kind hospitality; but as we have still to hurry to Sengakuji, we must needs humbly take our leave." And, after returning many thanks to their hosts, they left the palace of the Prince of Sendai and hastened to Sengakuji, where they were met by the abbot of the monastery, who went to the front gate to receive them, and led them to the tomb of Takumi no Kami.

And when they came to their lord's grave, they took the head of Kôtsuké no Suké, and having washed it clean in a well hard by, laid it as an offering before the tomb. When they had done this, they engaged the priests of the temple to come and read prayers while they burnt incense: first Oishi Kuranosuké burnt incense, and then his son Oishi Chikara, and after them the other forty-five men performed the same ceremony. Then Kuranosuké, having given all the money that he had by him to the abbot, said:—

"When we forty-seven men shall have performed hara kiri, I beg you to bury us decently. I rely upon your kindness. This is but a trifle that I have to offer; such as it is, let it be spent in masses for our souls!"

And the abbot, marvelling at the faithful courage of the men, with tears in his eyes pledged himself to fulfil their wishes. So the forty-seven Rônins, with their minds at rest, waited patiently until they should receive the orders of the Government.

At last they were summoned to the Supreme Court, where the governors of Yedo and the public censors had assembled; and the sentence passed upon them was as follows:

"Whereas, neither respecting the dignity of the city nor fearing the Government, having leagued yourselves together to slay your enemy, you violently broke into the house of Kira Kôtsuké no Suké by night and murdered him, the sentence of the Court is, that, for this audacious conduct, you perform hara kiri."

When the sentence had been read, the forty-seven Eonins were divided into four parties, and handed over to the safe keeping of four different daimios; and sheriffs were sent to the palaces of those daimios in whose presence the Eonins were made to perform Kara kiri. But, as from the very beginning they had all made up their minds that to this end they must come, they met their death nobly; and their corpses were carried to Sengakuji, and buried in front of the tomb of their master, Asano Takumi no Kami. And when the fame of this became noised abroad, the people flocked to pray at the graves of these faithful men.

Among those who came to pray was a Satsuma man, who, prostrating himself before the grave of Oishi Kuranosuké, said:

"When I saw you lying drunk by the road-side at Yamashina, in Kioto, I knew not that you were plotting to avenge your lord; and, thinking you to be a faithless man, I trampled on you and spat in your face as I passed. And now I have come to ask pardon and offer atonement for the insult of last year."

With those words he prostrated himself again before the grave, and, drawing a dirk from his girdle, stabbed himself in the belly and died. And the chief priest of the temple, taking pity upon him buried him by the side of the Rônins; and his tomb still remains to be seen with those of the forty-seven comrades.

_________________

4: Aunt Joanna

Sabine Baring‑Gould

1834-1924

A Book of Ghosts, Methuen, 1904

IN THE Land's End district is the little church‑town of Zennor. There is no village to speak of— a few scattered farms, and here and there a cluster of cottages. The district is bleak, the soil does not lie deep over granite that peers through the surface on exposed spots, where the furious gales from the ocean sweep the land. If trees ever existed there, they have been swept away by the blast, but the golden furze or gorse defies all winds, and clothes the moorland with a robe of splendour, and the heather flushes the slopes with crimson towards the decline of summer, and mantles them in soft, warm brown in winter, like the fur of an animal.

In Zennor is a little church, built of granite, rude and simple of construction, crouching low, to avoid the gales, but with a tower that has defied the winds and the lashing rains, because wholly devoid of sculptured detail, which would have afforded the blasts something to lay hold of and eat away. In Zennor parish is one of the finest cromlechs in Cornwall, a huge slab of unwrought stone like a table, poised on the points of standing upright blocks as rude as the mass they sustain.

Near this monument of a hoar and indeed unknown antiquity lived an old woman by herself, in a small cottage of one story in height, built of moor stones set in earth, and pointed only with lime. It was thatched with heather, and possessed but a single chimney that rose but little above the apex of the roof, and had two slates set on the top to protect the rising smoke from being blown down the chimney into the cottage when the wind was from the west or from the east. When, however, it drove from north or south, then the smoke must take care of itself. On such occasions it was wont to find its way out of the door, and little or none went up the chimney.

The only fuel burnt in this cottage was peat— not the solid black peat from deep, bogs, but turf of only a spade graft, taken from the surface, and composed of undissolved roots. Such fuel gives flame, which the other does not; but, on the other hand, it does not throw out the same amount of heat, nor does it last one half the time.

The woman who lived in the cottage was called by the people of the neighbourhood Aunt Joanna. What her family name was but few remembered, nor did it concern herself much. She had no relations at all, with the exception of a grand‑niece, who was married to a small tradesman, a wheelwright near the church. But Joanna and her great‑niece were not on speaking terms. The girl had mortally offended the old woman by going to a dance at St. Ives , against her express orders. It was at this dance that she had met the wheelwright, and this meeting, and the treatment the girl had met with from her aunt for having gone to it, had led to the marriage. For Aunt Joanna was very strict in her Wesleyanism, and bitterly hostile to all such carnal amusements as dancing and play‑acting. Of the latter there was none in that wild west Cornish district, and no temptation ever afforded by a strolling company setting up its booth within reach of Zennor. But dancing, though denounced, still drew the more independent spirits together. Rose Penaluna had been with her great‑aunt after her mother's death. She was a lively girl, and when she heard of a dance at St. Ives, and had been asked to go to it, although forbidden by Aunt Joanna, she stole from the cottage at night, and found her way to St. Ives.

Her conduct was reprehensible certainly. But that of Aunt Joanna was even more so, for when she discovered that the girl had left the house she barred her door, and refused to allow Rose to re‑enter it. The poor girl had been obliged to take refuge the same night at the nearest farm and sleep in an outhouse, and next morning to go into St. Ives and entreat an acquaintance to take her in till she could enter into service. Into service she did not go, for when Abraham Hext, the carpenter, heard how she had been treated, he at once proposed, and in three weeks married her. Since then no communication had taken place between the old woman and her grand‑niece. As Rose knew, Joanna was implacable in her resentments, and considered that she had been acting aright in what she had done.

The nearest farm to Aunt Joanna's cottage was occupied by the Hockins. One day Elizabeth, the farmer's wife, saw the old woman outside the cottage as she was herself returning from market; and, noticing how bent and feeble Joanna was, she halted, and talked to her, and gave her good advice.

'See you now, auntie, you'm gettin' old and crimmed wi' rheumatics. How can you get about? An' there's no knowin' but you might be took bad in the night. You ought to have some little lass wi' you to mind you.'

'I don't want nobody, thank the Lord.'

'Not just now, auntie, but suppose any chance ill‑luck were to come on you. And then, in the bad weather, you'm not fit to go abroad after the turves, and you can't get all you want— tay and sugar and milk for yourself now. It would be handy to have a little maid by you.'

'Who should I have?' asked Joanna. 'Well, now, you couldn't do better than take little Mary, Rose Hext's eldest girl. She's a handy maid, and bright and pleasant to speak to.'

'No,' answered the old woman, 'I'll have none o' they Hexts, not I. The Lord is agin Rose and all her family, I know it. I'll have none of them.'

'But, auntie, you must be nigh on ninety.'

'I be ower that. But what o' that? Didn't Sarah , the wife of Abraham , live to an hundred and seven and twenty years, and that in spite of him worritin' of her wi' that owdacious maid of hem, Hagar? If it hadn't been for their goings on, of Abraham and Hagar , it's my belief that she'd ha' held on to a hundred and fifty‑seven. I thank the Lord I've never had no man to worrit me. So why I shouldn't equal Sarah's life I don't see.'

Then she went indoors and shut the door.

After that a week elapsed without Mrs. Hockin seeing the old woman. She passed the cottage, but no Joanna was about. The door was not open, and usually it was. Elizabeth spoke about this to her husband. 'Jabez,' said she, 'I don't like the looks o' this; I've kept my eye open, and there be no Auntie Joanna hoppin' about. Whativer can be up? It's my opinion us ought to go and see.'

'Well, I've naught on my hands now,' said the farmer, 'so I reckon we will go.' The two walked together to the cottage. No smoke issued from the chimney, and the door was shut. Jabez knocked, but there came no answer; so he entered, followed by his wife.

There was in the cottage but the kitchen, with one bedroom at the side. The hearth was cold. 'There's some'ut up,' said Mrs. Hockin.

'I reckon it's the old lady be down,' replied her husband, and, throwing open the bedroom door, he said: 'Sure enough, and no mistake— there her be, dead as a dried pilchard.'

And in fact Auntie Joanna had died in the night, after having so confidently affirmed her conviction that she would live to the age of a hundred and twenty‑seven.

'Whativer shall we do?' asked Mrs. Hockin. 'I reckon,' said her husband, 'us had better take an inventory of what is here, lest wicked rascals come in and steal anything and everything.'

'Folks bain't so bad as that, and a corpse in the house,' observed Mrs. Hockin. 'Don't be sure o' that— these be terrible wicked times,' said the husband. 'And I sez, sez I, no harm is done in seein' what the old creetur had got.'

'Well, surely,' acquiesced Elizabeth, 'there is no harm in that.' In the bedroom was an old oak chest, and this the farmer and his wife opened. To their surprise they found in it a silver teapot, and half a dozen silver spoons.

'Well, now,' exclaimed Elizabeth Hockin, 'fancy her havin' these— and me only Britannia metal .'

'I reckon she came of a good family,' said Jabez. 'Leastwise, I've heard as how she were once well off.'

'And look here!' exclaimed Elizabeth, 'there's fine and beautiful linen underneath— sheets and pillow‑cases.'

'But look here!' cried Jabez, 'blessed if the taypot bain't chock‑full o' money! Whereiver did she get it from?'

'Her's been in the way of showing folk the Zennor Quoit, visitors from St. Ives and Penzance , and she's had scores o' shillings that way.'

'Lord!' exclaimed Jabez. 'I wish she'd left it to me, and I could buy a cow; I want another cruel bad.'

'Ay, we do, terrible,' said Elizabeth. 'But just look to her bed, what torn and wretched linen be on that— and here these fine bedclothes all in the chest.'

'Who'll get the silver taypot and spoons, and the money?' inquired Jabez.

'Her had no kin— none but Rose Hext, and her couldn't abide her. Last words her said to me was that she'd 'have never naught to do wi' the Hexts, they and all their belongings.'

'That was her last words?'

'The very last words her spoke to me— or to anyone.'

'Then,' said Jabez, 'I'll tell ye what, Elizabeth, it's our moral dooty to abide by the wishes of Aunt Joanna. It never does to go agin what is might. And as hem expressed herself that strong, why us, as honest folks, must carry out her wishes, and see that none of all her savings go to them darned and dratted Hexts.'

'But who be they to go to, then?'

'Well— we'll see. Fust us will have her removed, and provide that her be daycent buried. Them Hexts be in a poor way, and couldn't afford the expense, and it do seem to me, Elizabeth, as it would be a liberal and a kindly act in us to take all the charges on ourselves. Us is the closest neighbours.'

'Ay— and her have had milk of me these ten or twelve years, and I've never charged her a penny, thinking her couldn't afford it. But her could, her were a‑hoardin' of hem money— and not paying me. That were not honest, and what I say is, that I have a right to some of her savin's, to pay the milk bill— and it's butter I've let her have now and then in a liberal way.'

'Very well, Elizabeth. Fust of all, we'll take the silver taypot and the spoons wi' us, to get 'em out of harm's way.'

'And I'll carry the linen sheets and pillow‑cases. My word I— why didn't she use 'em, instead of them rags?'

All Zennor declared that the Hockins were a most neighbourly and generous couple, when it was known that they took upon themselves to defray the funeral expenses.

Mrs. Hext came to the farm, and said that she was willing to do what she could, but Mrs. Hockin replied:

'My good Rose, it's no good. I seed your aunt when her was ailin', and nigh on death, and her laid it on me solemn as could be that we was to bury her, and that she'd have nothin' to do wi' the Hexts at no price.'

Rose sighed, and went away.

Rose had not expected to receive anything from her aunt. She had never been allowed to look at the treasures in the oak chest. As far as she had been aware, Aunt Joanna had been extremely poor. But she remembered that the old woman had at one time befriended her, and she was ready to forgive the harsh treatment to which she had finally been subjected. In fact, she had repeatedly made overtures to her great‑aunt to be reconciled, but these overtures had been always rejected. She was, accordingly, not surprised to learn from Mrs. Hockin that the old woman's last words had been as reported.

But, although disowned and disinherited, Rose, her husband, and children dressed in black, and were chief mourners at the funeral. Now it had so happened that when it came to the laying out of Aunt Joanna, Mrs. Hockin had looked at the beautiful linen sheets she had found in the oak chest, with the object of furnishing the corpse with one as a winding‑sheet. But— she said to herself— it would really be a shame to spoil a pair, and where else could she get such fine and beautiful old linen as was this? So she put the sheets away and furnished for the purpose a clean but coarse and ragged sheet such as Aunt Joanna had in common use. That was good enough to moulder in the grave. It would be positively sinful, because wasteful, to give up to corruption and the worm such fine white linen as Aunt Joanna had hoarded. The funeral was conducted, otherwise, liberally. Aunt Joanna was given an elm, and not a mean deal board coffin, such as is provided for paupers; and a handsome escutcheon of white metal was put on the lid.

Moreover, plenty of gin was drunk, and cake and cheese eaten at the house, all at the expense of the Hockins. And the conversation among those who attended, and ate and drank, and wiped their eyes, was rather anent the generosity of the Hockins than of the virtues of the departed.

Mr. and Mrs. Hockin heard this, and their hearts swelled within them. Nothing so swells the heart as the consciousness of virtue being recognised. Jabez in an undertone informed a neighbour that he were'nt goin' to stick at the funeral expenses, not he; he'd have a neat stone erected above the grave with work on it, at twopence a letter. The name and the date of departure of Aunt Joanna, and her age, and two lines of a favourite hymn of his, all about earth being no dwelling‑place, heaven being properly her home.

It was not often that Elizabeth Hockin cried, but she did this day; she wept tears of sympathy with the deceased, and happiness at the ovation accorded to herself and her husband. At length, as the short winter day closed in, the last of those who had attended the funeral, and had returned to the farm to recruit and regale after it, departed, and the Hockins were left to themselves.

'It were a beautiful day,' said Jabez.

'Ay,' responded Elizabeth, 'and what a sight o' people came here.'

'This here buryin' of Aunt Joanna have set us up tremendous in the estimation of the neighbours.'

'I'd like to know who else would ha' done it for a poor old creetur as is no relation; ay— and one as owed a purty long bill to me for milk and butter through ten or twelve years.'

'Well,' said Jabez, 'I've allus heard say that a good deed brings its own reward wi' it— and it's a fine proverb. I feels it in my insides.'

'P'raps it's the gin, Jabez.'

'No— it's virtue. It's warmer nor gin a long sight. Gin gives a smouldering spark, but a good conscience is a blaze of furze.'

The farm of the Hockins was small, and Hockin looked after his cattle himself. One maid was kept, but no man in the house. All were wont to retire early to bed; neither Hockin nor his wife had literary tastes, and were not disposed to consume much oil, so as to read at night.

During the night, at what time she did not know, Mrs. Hockin awoke with a start, and found that her husband was sitting up in bed listening. There was a moon that night, and no clouds in the sky. The room was full of silver light. Elizabeth Hockin heard a sound of feet in the kitchen, which was immediately under the bedroom of the couple.

'There's someone about,” she whispered; “go down, Jabez.'

'I wonder, now, who it be. P'raps its Sally.'

'It can't be Sally— how can it, when she can't get out o' hem room wi'out passin' through ours?'

'Run down, Elizabeth, and see.'

'It's your place to go, Jabez.'

'But if it was a woman— and me in my night‑shirt?'

'And, Jabez, if it was a man, a robber— and me in my night‑shirt? It 'ud be shameful.'

'I reckon us had best go down together.'

'We'll do so— but I hope it's not–'

'What?'

Mrs. Hockin did not answer. She and her husband crept from bed, and, treading on tiptoe across the room, descended the stair.

There was no door at the bottom, but the staircase was boarded up at the side; it opened into the kitchen.

They descended very softly and cautiously, holding each other, and when they reached the bottom, peered timorously into the apartment that served many purposes— kitchen, sitting‑room, and dining‑place. The moonlight poured in through the broad, low window.

By it they saw a figure. There could be no mistaking it— it was that of Aunt Joanna, clothed in the tattered sheet that Elizabeth Hockin had allowed for her grave‑clothes. The old woman had taken one of the fine linen sheets out of the cupboard in which it had been placed, and had spread it over the long table, and was smoothing it down with her bony hands.

The Hockins trembled, not with cold, though it was mid‑winter, but with terror. They dared not advance, and they felt powerless to retreat.

Then they saw Aunt Joanna go to the cupboard, open it, and return with the silver spoons; she placed all six on the sheet, and with a lean finger counted them.

She turned her face towards those who were watching her proceedings, but it was in shadow, and they could not distinguish the features nor note the expression with which she regarded them.

Presently she went back to the cupboard, and returned with the silver teapot. She stood at one end of the table, and now the reflection of the moon on the linen sheet was cast upon her face, and they saw that she was moving her lips— but no sound issued from them.

She thrust her hand into the teapot and drew forth the coins, one by one, and rolled them along the table. The Hockins saw the glint of the metal, and the shadow cast by each piece of money as it rolled. The first coin lodged at the further left‑hand corner and the second rested near it; and so on, the pieces were rolled, and ranged themselves in order, ten in a row. Then the next ten were run across the white cloth in the same manner, and dropped over on their sides below the first row; thus also the third ten. And all the time the dead woman was mouthing, as though counting, but still inaudibly.

The couple stood motionless observing proceedings, till suddenly a cloud passed before the face of the moon, so dense as to eclipse the light.

Then in a paroxysm of terror both turned and fled up the stairs, bolted their bedroom door, and jumped into bed.

There was no sleep for them that night. In the gloom when the moon was concealed, in the glare when it shone forth, it was the same, they could hear the light rolling of the coins along the table, and the click as they fell over. Was the supply inexhaustible? It was not so, but apparently the dead woman did not weary of counting the coins. When all had been ranged, she could be heard moving to the further end of the table, and there re‑commencing the same proceeding of coin‑rolling.

Not till near daybreak did this sound cease, and not till the maid, Sally, had begun to stir in the inner bedchamber did Hockin and his wife venture to rise. Neither would suffer the servant girl to descend till they had been down to see in what condition the kitchen was. They found that the table had been cleared, the coins were all back in the teapot, and that and the spoons were where they had themselves placed them. The sheet, moreover, was neatly folded, and replaced where it had been before.

The Hockins did not speak to one another of their experiences during the past night, so long as they were in the house, but when Jabez was in the field, Elizabeth went to him and said: 'Husband, what about Aunt Joanna?'

'I don't know— maybe it were a dream.'

'Curious us should ha' dreamed alike.'

'I don't know that; 'twere the gin made us dream, and us both had gin, so us dreamed the same thing.'

' 'Twere more like real truth than dream,' observed Elizabeth. 'We'll take it as dream,' said Jabez. 'Mebbe it won't happen again.'

But precisely the same sounds were heard on the following night. The moon was obscured by thick clouds, and neither of the two had the courage to descend to the kitchen. But they could hear the patter of feet, and then the roll and click of the coins. Again sleep was impossible.

'Whatever shall we do?' asked Elizabeth Hockin next morning of her husband. “Us can't go on like this wi' the dead woman about our house nightly. There's no tellin' she might take it into her head to come upstairs and pull the sheets off us. As we took hers, she may think it fair to carry off ours.”

'I think,' said Jabez sorrowfully, 'we'll have to return 'em.'

'But how?'

After some consultation the couple resolved on conveying all the deceased woman's goods to the churchyard, by night, and placing them on her grave.

'I reckon,' said Hockin, 'we'll bide in the porch and watch what happens. If they be left there till mornin', why we may carry 'em back wi' an easy conscience. We've spent some pounds over her buryin'.'

'What have it come to?'

'Three pounds five and fourpence, as I make it out.'

'Well,' said Elizabeth, 'we must risk it.'

When night had fallen murk, the farmer and his wife crept from their house, carrying the linen sheets, the teapot, and the silver spoons. They did not start till late, for fear of encountering any villagers on the way, and not till after the maid, Sally, had gone to bed.

They fastened the farm door behind them. The night was dark and stormy, with scudding clouds, so dense as to make deep night, when they did not part and allow the moon to peer forth.

They walked timorously, and side by side, looking about them as they proceeded, and on reaching the churchyard gate they halted to pluck up courage before opening and venturing within. Jabez had furnished himself with a bottle of gin, to give courage to himself and his wife.

Together they heaped the articles that had belonged to Aunt Joanna upon the fresh grave, but as they did so the wind caught the linen and unfurled and flapped it, and they were forced to place stones upon it to hold it down. Then, quaking with fear, they retreated to the church porch, and Jabez, uncorking the bottle, first took a long pull himself, and then presented it to his wife.

And now down came a tearing rain, driven by a blast from the Atlantic, howling among the gravestones, and screaming in the battlements of the tower and its bell‑chamber windows. The night was so dark, and the rain fell so heavily, that they could see nothing for full half an hour. But then the clouds were rent asunder, and the moon glared white and ghastly over the churchyard.

Elizabeth caught her husband by the arm and pointed. There was, however, no need for her to indicate that on which his eyes were fixed already.

Both saw a lean hand come up out of the grave, and lay hold of one of the fine linen sheets and drag at it. They saw it drag the sheet by one corner, and then it went down underground, and the sheet followed, as though sucked down in a vortex; fold on fold it descended, till the entire sheet had disappeared.

'Her have taken it for her windin' sheet,' whispered Elizabeth. 'Whativer will her do wi' the rest?'

'Have a drop o' gin; this be terrible tryin',' said Jabez in an undertone; and again the couple put their lips to the bottle, which came away considerably lighter after the draughts.

'Look!' gasped Elizabeth.

Again the lean hand with long fingers appeared above the soil, and this was seen groping about the grass till it laid hold of the teapot. Then it groped again, and gathered up the spoons, that flashed in the moonbeams. Next, up came the second hand, and a long arm that stretched along the grave till it reached the other sheets. At once, on being raised, these sheets were caught by the wind, and flapped and fluttered like half‑hoisted sails. The hands retained them for a while till they bellied with the wind, and then let them go, and they were swept away by the blast across the churchyard, over the wall, and lodged in the carpenter's yard that adjoined, among his timber.

'She have sent 'em to the Hexts,' whispered Elizabeth. Next the hands began to trifle with the teapot, and to shake out some of the coins.

In a minute some silver pieces were flung with so true an aim that they fell clinking down on the floor of the porch.

How many coins, how much money was cast, the couple were in no mood to estimate. Then they saw the hands collect the pillow‑cases, and proceed to roll up the teapot and silver spoons in them, and, that done, the white bundle was cast into the air, and caught by the wind and carried over the churchyard wall into the wheelwright's yard.

At once a curtain of vapour rushed across the face of the moon, and again the graveyard was buried in darkness. Half an hour elapsed before the moon shone out again. Then the Hockins saw that nothing was stirring in the cemetery.

'I reckon us may go now,' said Jabez.

'Let us gather up what she chucked to us,' advised Elizabeth. So the couple felt about the floor, and collected a number of coins. What they were they could not tell till they reached their home, and had lighted a candle.

'How much be it?' asked Elizabeth.

'Three pound five and fourpence, exact,' answered Jabez.

________________

5: On the Plymouth Express

Frank Conly
fl. 1912-1924

Argosy, Dec 1912

"PHEW! A hundred thousand pounds! Say, have you seen this? Rothwell, the Chicago millionaire, traveling down to Torquay from London with Mrs. Rothwell, makes up with a gentlemanly stranger— invites him to their reserved compartment for a talk— stranger holds 'em up at the point of a revolver, collars the lady's jewel-case containing the famous pearl necklace and other jewelry worth half a million dollars, and jumps the train. And this is England— well!"

Colonel Tomlinson, an American of distinguished appearance, hadn't been half an hour in the smoking-lounge of the Wellington Hotel at Plymouth, but already he had made himself agreeable to a group of the hotel guests, and indeed had more or less occupied the attention of the entire room. He was talkative and typically American. Extra editions of the evening papers had just been brought in, and there had been a pause in the conversation in consequence. An extra edition is not an every-day occurrence in Plymouth, and every one was curious to see the news that had justified this one. Colonel Tomlinson's exclamation started a discussion of the affair.

"Must put you in mind of home," suggested an alert individual in a characteristic English drawl. The colonel laughed easily.

"Why, now, that's knocking us sort of hard; but the remark isn't altogether unjustified. We certainly do have some daring hold-ups over on the other side; but not often a one-man job like this. You see, we haven't the apartment-cars in America. The cars are open all the way through, and it takes a gang to do a job like this; they've got to hold up the entire train, you see."

While Tomlinson was talking a plump little man of ruddy complexion entered the smoking-room. Just inside the door he paused uncertainly and eyed the back of the speaker, which was toward him. Then, unobtrusively, he walked toward the group, edging around so as to obtain a view of the man's face. From this position he regarded the speaker fixedly. The colonel caught his eye and addressed him directly:

"We're just discussing the Rothwell hold-up. Have you seen the news? Mrs. Rothwell's half-million-dollar jewels stolen—" The plump man's face was working violently. Tomlinson paused in alarm.

"What's the matter, sir? Are you ill?"  he asked solicitously.

Then the plump man exploded. "You're talking about Rothwell, of Chicago— well, that's me."

There was a gasp from the bystanders. Rothwell half turned toward them. "You've heard I've been robbed? Then," dramatically pointing a fat finger at Colonel Tomlinson, "that's the man who turned the trick. Hold 'im till I fetch the police."

"Why, what nonsense! "

"Impossible! "

"Come, now, how absurd! "

Mingled consternation and incredulity greeted the charge. Colonel Tomlinson, however, remained cool.

"Our friend is a practital joker," he remarked, with a good-natured smile. "That's the man, I tell you," roared Rothwell, going purple in the face with excess of anger.

"The crook has shaved off his mustache and parted his hair on the other side; but I tell you it's he. Collar him, boys; don't let him escape. You— you— " He shook his fist impotently in the face of the man he accused.

"Really, friend, your joke has gone far enough, don't you think?"  said Tomlinson quietly, a steely glitter coming into his eyes.

ii

I HAPPENED to be in Plymouth awaiting the arrival of the New York boat. We had got information at Scotland Yard that two men, who were badly wanted by the Manhattan police, were on board, and I had a couple of plain-clothes men with me, besides two of the local police, as a committee of welcome.

At an urgent request from Hopkins, chief of the Plymouth force, I left my subordinates on the pier to meet the tender from the steamer, and joined that official in the manager's room at the Wellington. I soon had an outline of the affair that had just taken place there.

Rothwell was as mad as a hatter at first, and insisted that Tomlinson should be arrested; but the manager had quietly telephoned Hopkins, and between them they had persuaded him at last to permit them to make a few inquiries first. The colonel, on his part, readily consented to undergo a private examination, or, indeed, to do anything that might be required of him. I couldn't but admire his patient reasonableness.

I listened to Rothwell's story with deep interest. The man he had taken up with in the dining saloon of the Lpndon-to-Plymouth Express, had called himself Badstock, and was, to all appearances, an aristocratic Englishman, But Rothwell assured me he was quite certain that Colonel Tomlinson was the same man. He and Mrs. Rothwell had found Badstock an exceptionally agreeable companion, and on their new acquaintance offering to introduce them to some of the best London society on their return trip to the metropolis from Torquay, they invited him to their reserved compartment to continue their chat.

Darkness had fallen. Basingstoke had been left far behind, and talk was beginning to lag. Salisbury was passed, and the lights of that town were well in the rear when Badstock rose.

The rhythm of the running wheels had reduced the Chicago millionaire and Mrs. Rothwell to a comfortable lassitude. Before they were more than dimly aware of what was happening, Badstock had raised his hand and severed the emergency connection. Then they found themselves covered with a revolver, and a tense voice commanded them to be quiet, at the peril of their lives.

Before they had recovered from the shock, the robber had seized the jewel-case lying on the seat by the lady's side, and swung open the door. For a moment he hung almost horizontal, with his feet forward toward the locomotive; then he dropped off.

Mrs. Rothwell fainted. Rothwell himself recovered his presence of mind, rang for the attendant, and, bursting into the next compartment, violently jerked the emergency cord. That stopped the train; but some three miles from the place where Badstock had skilfully dropped off.

Of course there was great excitement and a lot of time lost; but at the next signal-box word was flashed by telegraph and telephone all along the line, and the train resumed its journey. Colonel Tomlinson listened to this narrative with concentrated attention.

"Amazing!" was his comment.

The fat little millionaire glared as though he'd like to eat him.

"If you don't mind, Colonel Tomlinson," I said, "perhaps you will tell us your story."

"Why— yes," he immediately responded. "I've been touring Europe, and, finding Chester a delightful little city, I decided to stay there a week.

"As I wanted to see some of the country around here, and had already seen London, the people advised me to take the West of England route. It's slower, but the scenery makes it more than worth while. What more is there to say? The hotel people know that I came in by the West of England route; the train must have arrived nearly half an hour before the London train by which Mr. Rothwell traveled."

"Gee!" ejaculated the millionaire. "Say, if that's so, I'm plumb sorry; but—"

Words failed him.

"I think that ends the whole matter, Ferguson," said Hopkins with decision; and I agreed. Colonel Tomlinson, however, was not satisfied.

"This has been rather an unpleasant experience, Mr. Ferguson," he said, addressing himself to me as representing headquarters. "I'm mighty glad that the circumstances clear me so easily. All the same, I want to clear things up thoroughly. The manager, on my behalf, has telegraphed the Royal Hotel at Chester, and has sent for the conductor of the train I came in on. If you have no objection, we'll wait for corroborative evidence from these sources."

"That is quite unnecessary," I hastened to assure him; "but if it will add to your peace of mind, we are all quite agreeable."

The manager ordered in some refreshments, and we were all chatting together like old friends, when the guard— or conductor, as Tomlinson called him— was brought in. He readily identified the colonel.

"Yes, sir," he said, in answer to my questions. "I knows the gen'l'man orl-right. I took partic'lar stock of 'im. He'd a lot of luggage an' was pretty liberal. He gave me a half-sovereign at Manchester, an' told me to take care of his traps— of course, I'd 'ave done my dooty, anyway. An' then he gave me another half-sovereign when we got in. Oh, I knows'm orl-right."

The evidence was conclusive, and when the telegram came from the Royal Hotel at Chester it clenched things. It described Colonel Tomlinson pretty accurately— hotel managers are used to that sort of thing, you know— and the description fitted the man before us exactly. The alibi was complete.

Rothwell apologized with elaborate profuseness. I assured him that everything possible would be done to recover his wife's jewels, and, professing himself entirely satisfied, he went off to join that lady, who was still suffering from the shock of the unpleasant experience she had undergone.

iii

THE first inkling I had that the Chicago pork-packer was not entirely convinced of his error, was when I entered the railway station next day to return to London. My detectives had nabbed their men all right, and we had handed them over to the local authorities to await the extradition hearings. Our work was done. As I was crossing the platform to take the London train, whom should I run into but Norman Harley.

"Hello, Harley!" I exclaimed, in surprise; "what on earth are you doing down here?"

"Ferguson, by Jove!" he replied, heartily shaking hands. "Glad to see you. Somebody by the name of Rothwell sent for me. He's lost jewels worth a hundred thousand pounds— or his wife has. Rather a remarkable case; but, of course, you must have heard of it."

"Better go back home, Harley," I said, rather sourly, I'll admit, for Rothwell's sending for a private detective annoyed me.

We don't favor private detectives so much in England as you do in America; though Harley was an exception, too. He was an amateur who never accepted a fee. Crime detection was his hobby.

He often helped us at the yard, as I mentioned in a previous reminiscence, and never claimed credit for his work. That came to us officials. It wasn't Harley I was annoyed at; but at the Chicago millionaire.

I watched my train steam out while I went over the case in detail. I decided I could very well take the next train, and perhaps I should have the pleasure of carrying Harley along with me. But he insisted upon seeing Rothwell first.

I wasn't present at that interview. After it, and when he had talked with Hopkins and the hotel manager, he was inclined to admit that we were right and the millionaire pork-packer wrong. Only Harley was always chary of committing himself.

In the afternoon he went out walking with the Rothwells, who had decided to postpone their visit to Torquay indefinitely. He came back from that walk all excitement.

"Ferguson," he began at once, "trust a woman to note insignificant details. I've got an important clue from Mrs. Rothwell. Just take a run up to Chester and make a few inquiries about Colonel Tomlinson. Take your time over it, and— let me see, this is Tuesday— on Friday, persuade a couple of the friends he met at the Royal to come down here. You await my telegram."

"You go to thunder, Harley!" said I promptly. "I'm not going away up there on any wild-goose chase. Women notice details— fiddlesticks! They'll see details that don't exist."

"Well, please yourself, Ferguson. You've ten minutes to catch your train, if you're going. Rothwell's offering one thousand pounds reward for the recovery of his wife's jewels." Well, I knew Harley of old. He was generally to be depended on, and— there was the reward. I went to Chester and made inquiries. As I had expected, everything I heard fitted in exactly with Tomlinson's story. I chafed under the irksome situation, and secretly cursed Harley for a blunderer. Then I had this telegram from him:

Arrest Colonel Tomlinson at Liverpool. Probably sailing Saturday by Mauretania. Disguised, particularly as to voice. Assumed name.

I got my man all right. He was dressed in a suit of rough tweed, with cap to match, and had booked a secondclass passage. He spoke like a well-bred Englishman, and protested violently, denying his identity, and that he had ever seen me before; but I took a chance. When I joined Harley in London, I got a surprise. He had another Tomlinson under arrest. The two were as like as two peas, and when I had recovered from the shock I got the full story as Harley had unraveled it.

"I've often told you, Ferguson," he said, "that a mystery is the best thing that can happen in a big case. It's in the mystery that the clue lies. You know from your own experiences that it is the apparently simple cases that so often prove most baffling— the cases where there is no element of mystery."

"Go on; I know," I said impatiently.

"Well, it struck me at once that Rothwell must be pretty sure of his man to remain so stubborn in his identification, even after he had, for policy's sake, pretended to be convinced he was wrong. I must say I admire that fat little millionaire's shrewdness. He'd have made a fine detective."

"If he was right," I argued.

"Then came that walk with the Rothwells. We met Tomlinson— or Badstock— which is which, and what their real names are, we'll find out in due course. It was the first time Mrs. Rothwell had seen him since he dropped off the train about ten miles from Salisbury. "Immediately we passed him, she clutched my arm and whispered excitedly: 'That's the man.' She had heard all about Colonel Tomlinson, and I laughingly assured her she was mistaken, but she persisted. 'I know it is the man,' she said; 'he has a mole on the left side of his neck, just under the angle of the jaw.'

"I had noted that mole, Ferguson, and you know what I said about women observing details. Mrs. Rothwell's remark convinced me there was a mystery, and that gave me my clue. The rest was fairly easy.

"To begin with, we have an educated crook dropping from a train. That man knew what he was doing, too, for the way he jumped with feet out, horizontal toward the engine, there was little danger; taking into consideration the nature of the ground. Thick grass up to the top of the grading, and clumps of yielding bushes all the way along, to stop him from rolling to the bottom. But he wouldn't have chosen that spot if he hadn't some means of getting away. The telegraph would soon be working, and he would certainly be caught in a closely populated country like England.

"Well, taking into consideration that he got to Plymouth on the express from Exeter— something over seventy miles away— there was only one explanation."

"Oh, what was that?" I interrupted in wonderment.

"An aeroplane— and he must have made it zip, for he had to make seven minutes' better time than the London express schedule to catch the West of England train at Exeter, and enough over to house the plane and get to the station. The distance would be about seventy miles, as the crow flies.

"I soon found out that a man answering his description had brought an aeroplane to Salisbury for the meet there; but— he didn't enter it for any of the contests.

"Not far from the point where Badstock left the train I found a farmer who had lent the use of his barn to house an aeroplane which, according to the aviator's story, had been giving engine trouble. That was two days before the robbery.

"The evening of the day after he arrived, the flying man left on his machine again. But that was only a bluff. The barn in question being in a field, five hundred yards from the house, and not in use at the time, it was easy to return later in the night and put his machine under shelter again. The little son of the house had slipped down to the barn the following day and saw the machine. He had been ordered not to go near the barn, so said nothing at home, till I questioned him."

After listening to Harley's recital, I saw that the case was fairly clear.

"And the man who established the alibi at Chester got off at Exeter, I suppose?" I said.

"Yes, got off dressed in the tweed suit and cap you found him in. He was a bit of a fool, for he claimed the aeroplane two days later, from the livery man on the outskirts of the city. By that time I had seen the machine. In a locker under the seat I found a safety-razor with the hair of Badstock's mustache still on it, and part of the clothing he had worn when he left London.

"The two men you sent from Chester— men who had been friends of Tomlinson at the Royal Hotel there— I took in and introduced to him. He was perfectly unconscious of ever having met them before. At first they were sure of their identification, but when they heard the man talk they assured me he was not the Colonel Tomlinson they had known.

"I had our man arrested as he was stepping on to the steamer gangway at Plymouth."

"Why didn't he make his escape at once, after he had cleared himself?" I put the question up to Norman Harley.

"Why, man! Don't you see the cleverness of his scheme? He probably guessed, or knew from his own lips, that Rothwell would put up at the Wellington. Well, he might have gone in any direction he chose, with his aeroplane. He was careful to plan the whole affair so as to stand the test of an informal inquiry right away. Afterward, he considered himself immune from arrest.

"All the same, if he had sailed right away, suspicion might have been aroused, and it would have been easy to get him through the use of the cable and wireless services.

"Oh, the man's plan was a bold one all right; and he had the nerve to carry it out, too."

Harley's story made me do some thinking.

"That was a clever dodge, tipping the guard twice to insure his identification," I muttered.

__________________

6: $100

Richard Connell

1893-1949

Cosmopolitan Aug 1928

XC999,877 LAY AWAITING Fate. In the dark, warm till of New York's most beautiful bank— an exact marble replica of the Acropolis—it lay, immaculate and crisp from the mint, bearing on its orange-yellow back an eagle, and on its front a picture of a sad-looking gentleman named Benton, and the promise that the Treasury of the United States would pay the bearer one hundred dollars in gold coin.

Mr. Theodore Kramer stepped out of his apartment-house into the bracing air of a December morning. He was bound for his office in Thirty-ninth Street, a spacious room rendered elegant by authentic Fragonards, a Gobelin tapestry of yellow men spearing green stags, a suit of armor, and a massive oaken table— Flemish fifteenth century— which served Mr. Kramer as a desk.

Having read that the desk of a really big man is never cluttered up with papers— sign of a disorderly mind— but bears on its bosom simply a blotter and a rose, Mr. Kramer ordained that his desk should have on it not even a blotter, but only a handsome vase into which, each morning, a secretary put a dozen large white roses. Mr. Kramer was, indisputably, a big man. He would leave no less than twenty-two million dollars behind him when he died.

Physically, he was tall and wide, with graying hair, a big bland face tinted brownish red, decisive lips, wise eyes and plenty of chin.

That day he was wearing a tan felt hat ($20); an overcoat of natural camel's hair ($185); and a new, London-tailored suit of nut-brown tweed. He carried in his pockets a thin platinum watch and chain, with cigar lighter attached ($785); a check- book (free); and a Venetian leather wallet ($28), containing ten calling-cards, a license to operate a motor vehicle in the State of New York, a clipping from a newspaper referring to himself as "the financier with the Midas touch," nine cards admitting him to nine more or less private houses where an unpopular law was violated, two keys, a twenty-dollar bill, three fives and two ones.

As Mr. Kramer approached the most beautiful bank, he beamed fondly. He entered its lofty vaulted room, approached an onyx table, made out a check, and presented it at one of the marked "PAYING."

A serious-faced young man behind the grille said, "Good morning Mr. Kramer," with a mixture of cordiality and deference, and, "How will you have it?"

"Good morning," said Mr. Kramer. "Hundreds."

The teller moistened his thumb on a sponge in a porcelain dish and counted off five virgin one- hundred- dollar bills. The last one was XC999,877.

"Cold day, isn't it?"' said the young man.

"Yes," agreed Mr. Kramer. "It is."

He put the roll of bills in an inside coat pocket and continued on his way to his office. He reached there at six minutes to ten.

AT ten-fifteen Mr. J. Reese Ransome, stout and spruce, was shown into Mr. Kramer's office. Mr. Kramer bounced up and greeted Mr. Ransome with that warmth which is only inspired by love or a desire to make a sale. Mr. Ransome was a millionaire in a modest way. His will would probably dispose of not more than two or three million dollars.

"Glad you dropped in, Jack," said Mr. Kramer. ''How's your golf?"

"Shot an eighty-eight at Palm Beach last week," said Mr. Ransome.

"Well, well, well," caroled Mr. Kramer. "Swell shooting! Me,  I seldom break a hundred."

Mr. Ransome looked pleased. "My putting is improving," he said.

"Mine's terrible," said Mr. Kramer. 'And I practise half an hour a day, too."

"Where?"

"Right here on the rug. Use a glass for the hole."

"Let's see your stick," said Mr. Ransome. "I'll give you a tip."

From a closet Mr. Kramer produced a putter, a ball, a glass. A secretary entered on silent feet.

"Mr. Fordyce is here to see you, sir," she said. "And Mr. Bentley and Mr. Lavigne—"

"Tell 'em I'm busy," said Mr. Kramer.

"I can sink four out of five at ten feet,' said Mr. Ransome.

"I'll bet you can't," said Mr. Kramer.

"'What'll you bet?"

"A hundred."

"Done," said Mr. Ransome.

After much tentative wagging of his stick, he tapped the ball. He missed the first shot, but the next four tinkled into the glass.

Smiling, Mr. Kramer peeled a bill off the roll in his pocket and handed it to Mr. Ransome. It was XC999,877. Mr. Ransome put it in his-pocketbook.

"Anything new?" asked Mr. Ransome.

"Krayko Radio," said Mr. Kramer. "New company I'm putting over."

"Good?"

"A1. Bob Gridley just took a hundred-thousand-dollar piece. George Southgate took fifty."

"Put me down for twenty-five," said Mr. Ransome. "It ought to be good. You certainly are a magnate when it comes to attracting coin, Ted."

Mr. Kramer chuckled modestly. "Show me once more how you grip your putter," he said.

"Like this,"' said Mr. Ransome.

The secretary reappeared. "Mr. Fordyce is anxious to see you, sir,' she said. "So are Mr. Bentley and Mr Lavigne and Mr. Marvin—"

"Tell 'em to come back after lunch," said Mr. Kramer.

MRS RANSOME was taking a nap. Mrs. Ransome was dressing to go out. She was blond, opulently made, and she divided her time equally between bridge, being massaged and shopping.

"I'm going shopping," said Mrs. Ransome. Mr. Ransome made no reply.

"I'll need some cash," said Mrs. Ransome, raising her voice.

Mr. Ransome remained dormant.

"I'll— need— some— cash," repeated Mrs. Ransome, this time very loudly.

Mr. Ransome opened one eye. "Pocket," he said, and closed it again.

Mrs. Ransome took the wallet from Mr. Ransome's coat, which hung on a chair, and took out all the money it contained, including XC999,877, and put it in her smart hand-bag of python skin.

She walked down Fifth Avenue, looking into the shop-windows. She found it tiresome because she didn't see anything she didn't already have.

At the corner of Forty-seventh Street she nodded to a vaguely familiar face belonging to a thin, worried-looking man who somehow contrived to look like a gentleman even though he was wearing a no longer new suit of summer-weight gray flannel, and was shivering a bit as the sharp wind nipped at him. He raised his hat.

"How do you do, Mrs. Ransome,"' he said.

"How do you do— er— er— Major Dale," Mrs. Ransome said. Then, "Oh, what a handsome dog!"

Major Dale had a Sealyham on a leash.

"My best friend," said Major Dale. "I've had him since he was a pup."

"I like dogs," said Mrs. Ransome.

"So do I. They stick to you, no matter what happens."

"He's a dear," Mrs. Ransome said. "I've always wanted a dog like that." Her eyes rested on the major's worn shoes. "Would you consider selling him?"

"Wouldn't think of it," said the major promptly.

"Oh, dear," said Mrs. Ransome. "He's such a beauty. I could give him a fine home."

"Sorry. I'm very attached to Mickey."

Mrs. Ransome's eyes ranged from the dog to the major's shabby suit.

"I'll give you a hundred dollars for him," she said.

Major Dale did not at once reply. His face had grown hard. Then he said, suddenly, his voice breaking to a harsh note, "I'll let you have him."

Mrs. Ransome took from her snake-skin bag XC999,877. The major's hand closed on it. He handed the leash to her. He stooped over and patted the dog quickly, almost fiercely.

"Good-by, old boy," he said. He straightened up. "Be good to him," he said, and walked away rapidly, not looking back.

ON THIRD AVENUE, in the gloom of the El, above a dingy photographer's shop, with its windows full of pictures of wall-eyed brides, was the office of Mr. Benjamin Gordon small and dirty, but not as small and dirty as Mr. Gordon.

Major Dale pushed open the door. Mr. Gordon, bending over papers at his desk, grunted.

"Here's your interest," said Major Dale.

Mr. Gordon put XC999,877 into a large black imitation-leather pocketbook. He handed back to Major Dale five greasy one-dollar bills.

"See you again next month," said Mr. Gordon, "I hope."

Major Dale turned and went cut. He half ran across the street to a cheap restaurant. "Double order of steak, beans, mashed potatoes, coffee," he said, "and hurry it along, please."

"Golly, mister," said the waiter, as he brought the second order, "you sure have a grand appetite. You eat like you ain't et for a week."

"Maybe I haven't," said Major Dale.

MR BENJAMIN GORDON looked up and observed that a man had entered his office, a thick-set, untidy man with a blue-black stubble of beard.

"What you want now, Rath?" asked Mr. Gordon.

"I need a grand," said Mr. Rath.

"Poker?"

"Horses."

"You're a fool, Rath."

"Anyhow," said Mr. Rath, "I need cash. I got orders down at the shop, but I can't keep it running on hot air. I've stalled off some of the girls for a month as it is. Well?"

Mr. Gordon scratched with a pen on a legal-looking sheet of paper. "I'll let you have nine hundred," he said. "You pay me back a thousand one month from date."

"That's usury," said Mr. Rath.

"Yes," said Mr. Gordon, "it is. But am I trying to force the money on you, Rath? Am I begging you to borrow it, Rath? Am I—"

"Aw, give me the money," said Mr. Rath. "Where do I sign?"

Mr. Gordon counted out nine one-hundred-dollar bills into Mr. Rath's palm.

Mr. Rath's office was a fenced-off corner of the basement shop in Delancey Street where a dozen girls worked for him, making artificial flowers.

He looked up from the sheet of paper on which he had been making figures. "Rosie Vanna," he called out.

A pretty girl, slender and very dark, came to his desk.

"Let's see now," he said. "You ain't been paid for a month. With overtime and all, it figures out an even hundred—"

"Yes, Mr. Rath, and I got to have it. I can't wait no longer. I got to have it, Mr. Rath. "Today I spent my last dime for lunch," said Rosie.

"Well, who's asking you to wait? Here!" Mr. Rath pushed XC999,877 toward her.

"Gee! Is it good?" she exclaimed.

"Sure, it's good."

"I ain't never seen one before."

"That's your fault, kid."

She looked at him scornfully. "I told you to cut out that kinda talk, Mr. Rath," she said. "I don't have to work here."

"Oh, no," said Mr. Rath. '"You're one of them sassiety girls, workin' for the fun of it, I suppose."

"I ain't said I am. I gotta work, all right, if I want to eat; but this ain't the only place in town. I don't have to stay here and listen to fresh talk."

"Aw, who's talkin' fresh? Be your age. I ain't bothered you none, have I? I've just tried to talk sense, that's all. You're a mighty cute little kid and there's plenty of men I know— big spenders, too— who'd be glad to take you 'round and do a lot for you. F'rinstance, Jake Harmon— a perfect gent and rolling in jack. Say, girlie, he's nuts about you."

"Yeah?" said Rosie Vanna. "I went out with him once. Just once. Perfect gent? H-m-m. I had to call a cop."

"Well, suit yourself, kid."

"That's what I'm doin'."

AT SIX, Rosie rushed for the subway. She was carried along like a chip on rapid water, and wedged in a corner of an uptown express. Her eyes were bright with plans. She'd cook a swell supper for herself and Gina, her sister, who was plump and plain and not bright enough to hold a job long. They'd have pork- chops, and potato salad and chocolate cake— and Mrs. Lasker, the landlady, mollified by the payment of two weeks' back rent, wouldn't, probably, call them down for cooking in their room. Afterwards, she and Gina would go to the Bijou-Star on Second Avenue and see "The Sin of Love." A big night. For in the pocket of Rosie's blue serge coat was XC999,877, securely fastened with a very large safety-pin. And there would be a new winter coat for Gina— that warm-looking red one she'd seen in the window— and ten dollars, at least, for the savings-bank.

"They overcrowd these trains something terrible." The voice that said it was pleasant.

Rosie looked up. The ribs she was jammed against belonged to a nice-looking young man, wearing a new green hat and a well- cut blue overcoat. Rosie decided he was a young broker, on his way home from Wall Street. She did not, however, answer. When you're nineteen and pretty, it isn't wise to strike up an acquaintance with a stranger, no matter how nice he looks, Rosie had found. So she looked straight ahead, and swayed with the train, and was jostled and crushed as more passengers were packed aboard at Fourteenth Street.

At Forty-second Street the man in the green hat got off.

Rosie got out at Eighty-sixth Street, and hurried, with little skipping steps of anticipation, toward Emil's Delicatessen on Second Avenue. She mustn't forget chewing-gum. Gina liked it.

Under his sign EMIL'S HIGH CLASS DELICATESSEN NO CREDIT Emil Bressler beamed upon her, a pink cherub in a white apron  "Four pork-chops," said Rosie breathlessly, "and make 'em big ones—and a pound of potato salad—and one of those little chocolate cakes and five packs of gum."

Emil wrapped them up. "Here y'are, Miss Rosie," he said.

She reached into her pocket. Her eyes went wide. She gave a little cry. Fear, terror, was in her face. She pawed frantically at her pocket. She turned it inside out. The safety-pin was there, still fastened, but the hundred- dollar bill was gone. Rosie Vanna began to weep hysterically.

"Oh, what am I goin' to do now? What am I goin' to do now?"

"Aw, don't worry. It'll turn up. Take the stuff. Pay me next time. Don't worry. You'll find the money," said Emil.

She took the package and went out, walking slowly and sobbing as she went.

A NICE-LOOKING young man, with the alert, prosperous air of a Wall Street man and wearing a new green hat, was sitting at a table in a back room on West Forty-ninth Street, within ear-shot of Broadway, trying a new drink called a "side-car." In the front room, behind the double doors, the faint click of ivory chips could be heard. Another young man entered. He, too, was well-dressed, but not very nice-looking, for his complexion was pasty, his eyes small, and somebody, years before, had tried to widen his slit of mouth with a knife.

" 'Lo, Jake," said the man with the green hat.

"'How's tricks, Steve?" said the second man.

"Fair to middlin'! Have a shot with me?"

"What you drinkin'?"

"Rum, cointreau and a dash of lemon."

"Ugh! A lizzy drink. Make mine straight rye. I need it."

"What' s the matter?"

"I'm flat. Say, Steve, how about stakin' me to a piece of change till tomorrow? I got my eye on a job uptown. One-man store. Cinch. Steve, you oughta get in my game."

"Risky," said Steve. "My racket is safe and sure."

"Small pickings, though, Steve," said Jake Harmon.

"Yeah. But reg'lar. Take today. I'm makin' the rush-hour express uptown as usual. A neat little jane gets jammed right against me. Just for practise I give her a frisk. A bill in one pocket. I think it ain't more'n a ten-spot but when I get out at Grand Central and have a chance to lamp it, strike me pink if it ain't a century."

"Some sugar daddy's baby," said Jake.

"Prob'ly. I lifted a watch, too, off'n a paunchy egg, but all Sam would give me on it was forty bucks."

"I could use that coin tonight, Steve."

"Yeah, on some broad, I'll bet."

"Wise guy, ain't you?"

"I know my Jake Harmon. Well, here you are. Meet me in here tomorrow night. I'll want the jack then, and I don't mean maybe."

Among the bills which Steve handed to Jake Harmon was XC999,877.

ROSIE VANNA was sobbing on the bed in her furnished room. Her sister was making clumsy efforts to comfort her. On a plate the pork-chops and salad lay untasted.

"We'll get put outa here," wailed Rosie.

A knock sounded on the door.

"Hide them plates, Gina, quick. It's Mrs. Lasker, wantin' her rent."

Gina hastily shoved the supper dishes under the bed and went to the door.

"Hey, Rosie," she called back. "It's Mr. Harmon and he wants to know would you like to go out to a show or sumpin' with him?"

Rosie Vanna stopped sobbing. A look of sullen despair marred her prettiness.

"Tell him I'll be down in ten minutes," she said.

THE alarm-clock in the room occupied by Rosie and her sister went off at half past six. Gina stirred her sister, deep in sleep in the ramshackle brass bed beside her.

"Hey, Rosie. Wake up. There goes the alarm."

"I heard it."

"Ain't you goin' to get up? Rath will dock you if you're late."

"I ain't goin' to work "

"What?"

"You heard me."

"You ain't sick, Rosie?"

"No."

Gina stared at her. "Rosie," she began.

"Oh, what is it?"

"You been cryin'."

"Well, that's my business," said Rosie.

"You was out late last night.

"There ain't... ain't anything wrong, is th'?"

"Oh, let me alone, Gina."

Gina began to sniffle. "There ain't nothin' for breakfast," she said.

"Go out and buy something."

"What with?"

"Look in my bag."

Gina looked. "Gee, Rosie," she cried. "You found it! Ain't that lucky. Where did you find it?"

"Oh, for cat's sake, Gina, let me sleep."

"You'll lose your job."

"To the devil with the job. I got another one."

EMIL BRESSLER went to the door of his delicatessen store the better to see, by the morning light, the hundred-dollar bill Gina had given him.

"It's a good one, all right," he announced. "Let's see now— the stuff Miss Rosie had last night come to one sixty-five, and you want some coffee and milk and two doughnuts and two eggs..."

Steve and Jake were talking in the back room on West Forty- ninth Street. Steve's manner indicated discouragement.

"Guess you're right, Jake," he said. "Being a dip is small- time stuff these days. I lifted a nifty brooch off'n a dolled-up mama today and when I took it to Sam, he laughed in my face. It was phony. Worth six berries wholesale. All the dames is wearing phony junk these days. Its a shame. A guy can't make a living on two-dollar strings of pearls. Have another drink?"

"Yeah. Rye."

"Where's my dough?"

"Blew it last night," said Jake. "But, listen, Steve, I'll get it back inside an hour."

"How come?"

"That job I spoke of. Only I got to have help. I can handle the inside work but it calls for a lookout."

"Yeah?"

"Listen, Steve, it'll be like findin' six or seven hundred."

"Yeah— and maybe gettin' a slug in the pump."

"Listen, Steve, if there's any gat work done, I do it. All you do is hang around outside keeping your eyes open for bulls. Well, what do you say?"

"I'm with you," said Steve. "Let's go."

A TEN O'CLOCK Emil Bressler began to close his store for the night. He was grinning, well pleased, as he bent over his cash-register and examined his receipts for the past three days. Then his heart gave a short, violent hop.

"Stick 'em up, Dutchy, and keep 'em up." The voice was low, hard, businesslike. "Now walk to the back of the store and play dead, or you'll be dead."

Trembling, Emil Bressler obeyed.

He heard his door slam, and then the muffled thunder of a starting taxicab. He ran to the door, bawling, "Police! Police!"

THEY were in the back room on Forty-ninth Street, Jake and Steve, both drunk. The room was deserted.

"Come across, Jake. I want my bit."

"Aw, hold your horses. You're goin' to get it."

Jake counted out three ten-dollar bills, two fives, three ones and shoved them across the table.

Steve stared down at the money.

"Say," he demanded, "what's the idea? Forty-three bucks! I got more than that comin' to me, Jake."

"How do you figure that? There was less dough than I expected in the till. I'm givin' you your half. What you yellin' about?"

Steve's face grew black and menacing. "Say, Harmon, what you tryin' to pull? What sorta sap do you take me for? You'll get fat, tryin' to hold out on me, you dirty double-crosser."

'Keep your shirt on, Steve," growled Jake. "I went inside and took all the chances, but just the same I'm goin' fifty-fifty with you."

"You're a liar, Harmon. I was watchin' through the window. I can see a century note three blocks away. You got one— and more— and I want my share—"'

"Don't try to get tough with me, you cheap dip. I'm warnin' you—"

"You'll come across. Get that?"

Steve stood-up and came round the table, his fists clenched. Harmon leaped to his feet and backed away. His right hand slid round toward his hip pocket. Steve darted in. There was a short, fierce struggle, then a shot. Jake Harmon crumpled down to the floor.

With swift, expert hands Steve dived into the other man's pockets, then turned and ran; just as the men from the front room dashed in.

NATURE had favored Barney Zimmerman with a long, dirty-white patriarchal beard and two watery blue eyes, which looked out from gaunt cheeks in a beseeching, helpless way. That beard and those eyes were Mr. Zimmerman's stock in trade. He took them every evening to a corner on upper Fifth Avenue where he sat on a box, huddled a threadbare ulster about him, and displayed on his knees a box of pencils and a large tin cup. That snowy night business was bad, very bad.

Steve, entirely sober now, walked hurriedly up Fifth Avenue. He was trying to get away from Jake Harmon's face, staring up at the ceiling with vacant eyes. He felt sick inside. He'd go West, change his name and start a new sort of life. The money burned in his pocket. Blood money. A curse was on it.

He heard a thin voice droning, "Help an old man, sir. Help an old man.'

Steve plunged a hand into his pocket. "Here y'are, pop." He tossed a bill into the tin cup.

"God bless you, sir. God bless you."

Steve strode on. A sudden great sense of relief rushed over him.

The venerable Barney Zimmerman hobbled into an office-building in Thirty-ninth Street. To a man behind a grille he said:

"I want to make a little investment. I been reading in the papers that this radio stock you're selling is good."

"A splendid investment, sir," said the bespectacled man. "Eight percent on the preferred stock. Ninety-eight a share. How much will you want?"

"One," said Barney Zimmerman. He passed through the window XC999,877.

MR. THEODORE KRAMER, being hungry, decided to go out to luncheon. He emerged from his private office, nodded benignly to a battery of vice-presidents behind their desks, and strolled to the cashier's cage.

"Anderson," he said to a bespectacled man, "let me have some cash."

"Yes, Mr. Kramer. How much, sir?"

"Oh, a hundred will do."

"Here you are, sir."

"Charge it to overhead," said Mr. Kramer. He picked up XC999,877, tucked it in his wallet, and went out to luncheon.

___________________

7: Creatures of the Ray

J. L. Aton
fl. 1920s

Argosy Allstory Weekly 10 Oct 1925

James L Aton published a handful of stories in 1925-6; nothing else is known.

THE true story of the tragedy at Coatsville hasn't yet been printed. Indeed no one knows the truth save me— and I've been keeping still. Our Chicago dailies have headlined the lists of dead and missing, of buildings burned, of heaps of human bones— but no reporter has come within a mile of guessing how it all came to pass.

As for evidence, when the rescuers reached the place, every trace of the Things that caused the rumpus had been destroyed— I saw to that, you know. Most people think that a scientific madman named Gilreath burned up the town and then killed himself. There are plenty of wild tales, of course. The popular version for the Sunday Supplement is that there was an invasion of Martians— who came, destroyed, disappeared. Then there's the theory that Gilreath was experimenting with a synthetic man who ran amuck, a sort of mechanical Mr. Hyde. But as for the truth—

It's time it was told; so here it is:

Thinking people must be made to realize the danger we're in, must put a muzzle on our scientific investigators, before some wild one mixes the wrong blends of atoms in his laboratory and blows up the earth. I'm only a newspaper reporter, so I'll not attempt a scientific treatise.

My tale begins one morning last July, when I was summoned to conference with my chief— Gregor of the Chicago World.

"You're to get an interview with Professor Gilreath," he said.

"Gilreath?" I repeated puzzled. "I don't recall the name."

"He's a scientist," explained the chief. "One of the narrow-minded sort who go in for pure science. You know what I mean— a chap who'll spend a lifetime counting the atoms in a grain of salt without ever thinking ahead as to the possible scientific revolution that may follow his finished work."

"The country's full of them," I nodded. "It's those painstaking boys who are making the big discoveries of the day."

"That's my point," said the chief. "That's the very reason I'm giving you this new assignment. From now on you're to watch for these scientific discoveries; get them the day before they're announced. It's a bigger scoop these days to cover a cancer cure than a double murder. But now about this man Gilreath— there have been rumors for a long time that he's on the trail of something big. The Hearst papers have had two men trying to interview him— one of the two is in the hospital— the professor smashed his jaw. He's the sort who dislikes publicity."

"Oh!" I meditated.

"He's been doing radium research," went on Gregor. "He's had one or two dry articles in the scientific journals. One was entitled 'Radium in Evolution,' whatever that may mean. Last year he fell heir to a slice of money and has used it to build an isolated laboratory in a cow pasture down near Coatsville in Jefferson County."

"That's a funny place for a laboratory," I put in.

"I'd think—"

"I'm talking!" said the chief shortly; he likes to make long speeches, does Gregor, but can't endure them from any one else. "Gilreath has kept his laboratory a mystery," he went on. "No one but himself ever sets foot in it. He stays there night and day; has his meals brought to the door. And there have been rumors of strange rays coming from his window at night. One cow has been killed supposedly by these rays. You can imagine how curious those small town hicks must be to have something like that going on in their midst."

"I can," I agreed briefly as Gregor paused. "Where did you get all this dope?"

"From last week's Coatsville Independent," answered the chief. "Here's the article. Charley had it clipped to put in his funny column, and I happened to spot it. It looks like something big. I want you to go— now— and don't come back till you get the story."

He swung around to his desk and forgot me.

I went.

I stepped off the train at Coatsville late the next afternoon.

"Hotel?" asked the lank driver of the bus; it was an old time bus with horses such as I hadn't seen for years— "Jefferson House" painted on the sides. I handed him my suit case.

"Where is Professor Gilreath's place?" I asked.

"Up top of that hill," the bus driver pointed away from town. "On beyond Warren's big farmhouse. Mrs. Warren does his washing and takes him in his meals."

I knew I should have taken time to pump the bus driver for a story; but it was getting toward night, and I had it in mind to have a look at the professor before dark.

"Take my grip to the hotel," I ordered. "I'll be back," and started.

As I went across the track, I heard the bus driver speak to the loafers who were holding up the station.

"Another newspaper man," he said. "I reckon we'd better go over there after awhile and pick up what's left of the poor cuss."

"This interview calls for diplomacy," I said to myself.

On my way up the long hill I tried to think of how I should approach Gilreath to save myself from a bust on the jaw. A scheme that I had used one time before with success came into my mind; I decided to give it a try.

Mrs. Warren was opening the mail box at the roadside as I came along. She was a buxom countrywoman with a pleasant face, and she looked at me with friendly curiosity.

"How do you do?" I said. "I'm looking for Professor Gilreath's place."

"Right through that lane," she pointed. "There on top of that hill in the cow pasture."

"That round thing?" I asked.

"That's it," she answered. "Looks like a cheese box— just beyond all those cows."

"I thought he killed a cow," I remarked.

"He did," she confirmed. "Since then half the folks in town have brought their cows out to my pasture."

I looked my uncomprehension.

"He paid for the cow," she explained. "Three times what it was worth. He's got lots of money. Everybody's praying his cow will be struck next. They're paying me two dollars a month apiece for the use of my pasture."

"How did it happen?" I asked.

"I don't know," she replied. "Some kind of ray— in the night. The cow was like ashes."

"Doesn't it make folks mad?" I quizzed her, thinking of the write-up in the Coatesville paper, "having him do things like that? Aren't they apt to run him out of town?"

"Why should they?" she retorted. "He's a nice man, and he minds his own business. Of course, everybody's curious. But they all like the way he handled them pesky newspaper men. You'd better take my advice and stay away—you're a newspaper man, ain't you?"

"I'm a brother scientist," I evaded, and left her.

At the head of the lane I turned and looked back. She was still standing by the mail box looking after me. I fancied that there was pity in her face. Could I have dreamed of how I was to see her again, the pity would have been in my face for her.

I took notice, too, of the Warren house; an immense three-story farmhouse of thirty rooms, big enough for an army. Then I swung round and footed it briskly up the lane. Gilreath's building reminded me of a picture in my old school history— the round turret of the monitor. It was built of square blocks of concrete, squatting atop the hill, solid and flat as if built to stand the shock of ages.

I went up toward it warily, not really afraid, but nervous, apprehending the onslaught of some mystic ray. All was peaceful and still, like a great round tombstone standing impassive upon the eternal hills. I walked half around it before I came to the door. There were deep-set, tiny, round windows, like the portholes of a ship. The interior, as I found later, was lighted largely by skylights.

The oaken door was fast shut. I rang the bell vigorously. The door slid open on noiseless bearings. I stood confronting the professor. I've interviewed more than one of our modem ultra-scientists, and I've found the top-notchers either as hairy as gorillas or else as bald as pumpkins. The gorillas are fiery but sympathetic; the pumpkins are cold and unpitying. Gilreath was neither, yet his light blue eyes were as hard as steel and his face was like flint. He was dressed all in laboratory white, impersonally professional.

"Yes?" he snapped. "I have come to see Dr. Gilreath," I answered, putting on my most scientific air.

"Speaking!" he said shortly. I had read up on the man in Who's Who before leaving Chicago, so I felt that my fiction was safe. "You're invited to honorary membership in the Royal Academy of Science of Copenhagen," I told him.

He stood back and let me enter. The tiny room was like a physician's waiting room; the laboratory lay beyond.

"Sit down! " he motioned me to a chair.

"Your name, please?"

"Jonas Olson," I answered. I have yellow hair and felt that I could pass off as a Dane.

"What is the occasion of this invitation?" he quizzed standing before me.

"Your article on 'Radium in Evolution.' "

"You have read it?" he asked; there was a suggestion of wistfulness in his voice.

"Not I!" I answered, playing safe. "We Danes don't take time to read outside our own subject. However, the members of our radium division have read—"

"Your subject?" he broke in.

"Insects." There I felt that I was on safe ground. Gilreath, wrapped up in radium, would surely know nothing about insects. "My specialty is the thought-life of the ant. Perhaps you read my article in the July number of the—"

"No!" he interrupted. "I did not. I am inclined to think that you are an impostor."

"Say—" I stuttered, not knowing what to tell him next.

"That does not matter," he went on ignoring my confusion. "I am now about to undertake the crowning experiment of my work, and I was wishing for a witness when you rang. Whether you are scientist or reporter does not matter— I am glad you are here."

"Is this an experiment with radium?" I asked eagerly, forgetting all my pose.

"No, Mr. Newspaper Man," he sneered. "It is not. I have a new ray— ten thousand times more powerful than radium. You shall see in good season. Are you willing to spend the night?"

"Yes!"

"This way!" he ushered me into an immaculate bathroom.

"Clean yourself thoroughly and put on this white coat before you come into the laboratory."

I made haste to obey, exultant at thought of the scoop I was getting for the World. After two Hearst men had failed. This was a trip worth while.

"AND so—" It was an hour later and Gilreath was coming to the end of a wearisome lecture on radium. Lord only knows how many long-named authorities he had quoted; the whole talk went over my head till it came to his summing up.

"Practically every ray-therapeutist agrees that radium, properly applied, should manifest potential constructive force, that its rays have the power to stimulate growth as regards size, speed and quality."

"Yes," I chipped in as he paused for breath. "That's what Brisbane says."

"I don't know the name!" he snapped. "Who is he?" then went on without waiting for an answer:

"Against this accepted theory we must set the fact that such lifegiving qualities have never yet been adequately demonstrated— that the sole use made of radium to-day is destructive— in burning away superficial malignant growths such as cancer, and that even there its value is debatable. As far as doing with radium the thing that we say that it can do, we have not even made a start."

"But," I began, "I thought—"

"I isolated myself here for one purpose and only one," he drove right on. "That was to develop a controlled, constructive, beneficial radium ray. Until a month ago such was my sole direction of research. And then of a sudden I made a great new discovery— that the feeble emanations of radium— its beta and gamma rays— were but suggestions of a great, new, all-penetrating, all-powerful, yet perfectly controllable force or ray; and I discovered, overnight almost, the source of this new force, a source as exhaustless and as universal as sunlight I am endeavoring to put this in plain unscientific language; do you follow me?"

"You mean that you have perfected a controlled radium ray," I answered. "Was that what killed Mrs. Warren's cow?"

"My ray is not radium," he said, ignoring my question about the cow. "It does all that radium can ever do and infinitely more. I have named it Ray GL. For the purpose that I have in mind it is perfected and controlled; and to-night will see its first demonstration. Scientist though I am, I have not outgrown certain primitive emotions; among them is the human longing for comradeship in a supreme hour. I am yielding to that emotion. I welcome your companionship in this, the great hour of my life. I am glad that you have come."

His tone was as cold as ice; but I fancy his speech of welcome was as warm as any pumpkin scientist could make under the most emotional circumstances on earth. Our universities have been breeding coldbloods who look on love and friendship as anomalies to be teased under the microscope. Anyway, this was better than being banged on the jaw and thrown off the place.

I stood about in the way for an hour and watched while the professor made final inspection of his ray machine— a great many-tubed affair of copper like an x-ray apparatus. It was mounted on a wheeled stand and had an adjustable nozzle like the mouth of a camera. I took good care not to get in front of the nozzle; despite my curiosity I had no desire to be cremated along with Mrs. Warren's cow.

"I'll not attempt to explain this to you," said Gilreath shortly. "You could not understand its technicalities. As I have told you, it generates a new ray more powerful than radium. For demonstration I have only to turn it on any organic substance for a stated period and-await results. At the strength to which I am adjusting it, I estimate that ten hours will be necessary for it to produce perceptible consequences. The accident with the cow happened when I first assembled the machine.

"It is possible, you understand, to generate rays strong enough to consume everything under heaven. I have set the dial, as you will note, at AR, and at that strength its force should be wholly beneficial. Turn it to BZ, and I could burn up the whole town of Coatesville in two minutes."

"How far will it shoot?" I asked.

"Its radius is not less than ten miles," he answered. "For to-night—" by now it was dusk— "we will focus it through this window upon the vegetation beneath."

He wheeled it to one of the narrow portholes in his laboratory. "This first demonstration will have to do with the common grasses of the field."

"What do you predict will happen?"

"Predictions are silly things," he answered shortly, "fit only for newspaper reporters and politicians. It is enough to know that the ray has begun its work. Tomorrow at daybreak we shall see what we shall see."

I must say that my next hours with the professor bored me unutterably. Our modern scientist who knows only one thing is dreary at the best, and Gilreath was discourteous as well as dreary. I did my best to make talk— about airplanes, about politics, about art.

"I'm not interested," was his stock answer; his tone was that of a misanthrope who soured on the human race. He'd have been at least humanly endurable if he had shown a human interest in the doings of his ray which was beating with invisible force upon a twelve-inch circle of grass just outside the window. For here surely was the creature of his dreams. Had he been human enough to run often to the window and peep out eager for results, I could have understood and sympathized. But instead he ignored it. He had put it to work, and, like the scientist that he was, he was content to wait.

He sat through the evening as cold as ice and as taciturn as a crab. I hated him before our simple supper was half through, and I yawned off to bed at the earliest excuse. He gave me his own bed in a little room on beyond the lab. I suspect that he sat up through the long night waiting— coldly, unemotionally waiting.

Could I have guessed the coming horror of the morrow, I'd have been sleepless as well, instead of dropping off as I did and snoring all night long.

ii

I WAS in the war zone facing a cloud of poisonous gas. The acrid, musky fumes filled my throat; I coughed, choked, gagged, sickened. The smell woke me up.

I was not in the war zone, I was in Gilreath's bed. But the odor was real, a sickening musky stench that made me gag. It had been daylight for an hour. I hopped out of bed and began to dress.

"Wonder what dose he's mixing up now?" was my thought; I supposed, of course, that the smell came from some experiment in the lab.

There was one of the deep twelve-inch portholes just opposite my bed. I strolled across to take a peep out while I was buttoning my pants. The Warren farmhouse stood outlined afar off against the sunrise like a painting in a round frame. Pretty! There are many such pretty homes in rural Illinois. I pulled the round window open on its hinge and stuck my head through to peer at the pasture outside— to see what the professor's ray had done.

"It's done it all right!" I gaped amazement. "Too strong— always will be!"

The green of the pasture was gone—  turned overnight into a plowed and furrowed field. Not plowed, either. I don't mean that. There was a ridge of dirt, a great towering ridge ten feet across, six feet high, running past my window over across the field in a great arc. It had not been thrown up by any conceivable digging tool of man; it was built of symmetrical balls of earth as large as basket balls, fashioned with perfect evenness, stacked high with sloping regularity. Beyond the ridge was but bare earth; no touch of green.

There was something about it all that was sinister and ugly, as desolate as a field in hell.

"God!" I muttered. "He'll have to be stopped; that machine will burn up the earth!"

The smell came stronger on the morning breeze. It seemed to come from the great curving ridge of earth balls. I tried to identify it with the smell of burning, but could not; there was no scorching to this odor; it was simply an abominable, nasty, musky stench.

I turned back to finish dressing, sat down on the edge of my bed and laced my shoes. It stuck in my mind that I had glimpsed something shining white on the ground just beneath my window. I got up, curious to see what it was, stuck my head far through the window and looked down at the ground beneath.

Bones! The skeleton of a quadruped— one of the cows that had been turned sacrificially into the pasture. The bones were as clean as if they had bleached for a year in the Sahara. I peeped farther along the wall— another skeleton and another, lying desolate on the barren earth.

"He'll have some cows to pay for," I thought, and leaned forward looking at them in puzzlement. Why hadn't the all-consuming ray destroyed the bones? I got a horried throatful of the musky odor; I choked and coughed.

A Thing— a Creature— appeared of a sudden on the ridge of earth not ten feet from my head. It was as if he had leaped up out of the ground. That was what he had done, I concluded later— come up out of the ground through an opening invisible from my window. A gas-mask— that was my first impression of the Thing. A face, and yet not a face; a shining, mouthless, noseless expanse of head, two long, snaky, waving arms in the place where should have been his eyes— octupus-like arms longer than my own, damnably threatening.

I drew back in horror, still coughing. The Thing was at me like a bullet; the legs behind the gas-mask hurled him through the air at my window like the lunge of a rattlesnake. If I hadn't been already drawn in before he struck, he would have had me; my bones would have bleached beside those of Mrs. Warren's cows.

He was too big to get in through my porthole; his head was fifteen inches high at the least; but his legs reached through— not one of his waving arms which I later saw were antennae— the front pair of his six long legs which had thrown him at me across the ten-foot space.

Mechanical things, those legs! Jointed like a ship crane's handy steel arm, and yet an unclean brown, covered with a growth that was neither feathers nor hair, an evil growth that exuded sticky, grasping drops of nastiness. The legs went into my porthole, moved about mechanically, seeking me, came within a foot of my head.

Fear gave me resource; I grasped the copper-framed plate-glass window, evading the blind legs, and slammed it shut. It closed on one of the legs. I pushed with all my strength; the copper frame of the window cut through the leg like the stalk of a peony; the lower joint fell at my feet.

The Thing stood on his five sound legs outside the closed window, studying the smooth glass with his quivering antennae while I locked it firmly shut. He had a great wide mouth, I saw then, a beak, rather, that snapped savagely below his smooth, gas-mask face. His body— six feet long it was, built in segments like three tinker-toys on a string— pulsated with life, gave forth a drumming sound like a partridge.

Other evil Things answered his signal, a dozen of them; they gathered outside, feeling ominously of the concrete blocks of Gilreath's laboratory. The severed leg at my feet had hold of me, had the calf of my leg, gripped me.

I grabbed Gilreath's umbrella and struck at it viciously, struck it loose and away. It lay quivering on the floor; there was a nasty stickiness on my sock that made me sick.

"How now, Mr. Newspaper Man?" Gilreath stood in the doorway. There was repressed triumph in his voice. His hand was pointing at the pawing creatures outside the window.

"What are they?" I demanded hoarsely.

"What are they?" He repeated my question as too simple to need a reply.

"Lord, yes!" I cried excitedly. "What are they? Martians? Devils? What? They're like nothing ever seen on earthI They're awful impossibilities."

"Like nothing ever seen on earth," he said my words over, rolling them on his tongue as if they held hidden meaning.

"Confound you!" I shouted. "Can't you talk? We'll have to do something; get away from here and give the alarm. Stop your yapping and get down to facts."

"It is obvious that you lack the scientific mind," he was ignoring the Things outside and studying me as one might a unique specimen. "If you will discontinue your wild shouting for a few moments and concentrate on these phenomena which excite you, the solution will become quickly evident."

I gaped at him angrily.

"You fool!" There was no passion in his voice; only cold judgment. He had hold of my arm, and he was as strong as a horse. "Get into the laboratory here, sit down and keep still. I'll see if I can lecture a little sense into your undeveloped brain."

Four chairs stood in a row on the far side of the lab— observation seats in an experiment station. The professor shoved me forcibly into one of these chairs, then sat down beside me.

"This is a more favorable position from which to observe developments," he said.

I sat looking into a great ten-foot mirror. By some trick of reflection the mirror showed the field just outside the wall— the great, curving ridge of dirt balls, the dozen Things still feeling about my closed window, the white skeletons of the defunct cows. Beyond the ridge was a wide gaping hole in the ground.

As I watched, one of the horrid, six legged Things shot up out of this hole and made off with incredible rapidity across the field. Another followed him, and another— perhaps twenty or thirty in all. They sped off the mirror out of sight.

"We watch Earth's new masters going to their first conquests," said Gilreath sententiously.

The Things outside my window gave over their investigations and ran down into the hole out of sight. We sat gazing at a barren, grassless field, as desolate as an ash heap.

"What are they?" I asked in agony of mind.

"Visualize, if you will, what took place in the night under my ray," suggested the professor leisurely. "Visualize the grasses springing up to the height of bamboos— an inch in a minute, five feet in an hour, Visualize other things that lived among the grasses growing up likewise."

"The grass has been burned up," I objected.

"The grass has been devoured," he said with quiet positiveness. "Devoured by growing creatures— creatures forced into sudden phenomenal growth by my ray— creatures ravenous for nourishment, devouring the grasses, root and branch, turning carnivorous as they grew and attacking other insects, and then the cows— and still, I fancy, seeking a field for further food."

My imagination struggled at impossibilities. I dared not think,

"Six-legged insects," went on the professor as quietly as if describing a bit of cloth. "Six-legged insects who dig hills in the ground and live in communism, touched in a night into gianthood under my marvelous ray."

"Ants!" I whispered in awe. "Ants! Great Heaven! "

"Ants!" agreed Gilreath. "Long praised by philosophers as the most moral and in telligent of all creatures. And consider this: that with growth in size will follow corresponding growth in intellect. Man has tried and failed— now, under my ray, a new master has risen up to recreate the earth. I wait to—"

That scream! It will ring in my ears forever! Shriek after shriek of frightened  madness, blood-curdling, hideous!

I leaped to my feet!

"Ha!" said the professor with cold interest, and leaned forward to watch the mirror.

Came into view two of the hideous gas-mask ants, dragging between them, her face bloody, her clothing rent, her arms half torn from their sockets, her shrieks of madness rending the air, the woman who had fetched us our supper the night before— Mrs. Warren!

"As I thought," approved Gilreath unperturbed.

"Stop them!" I cried; I grasped his ray machine and gave it a pull. "Turn on your rays, burn them up! They'll get us all!"

"If they are more fit than man to prevail—" he began sternly. I made at him in fury. But he was ready for me. His hand went up, holding a rubber sack. Choking fumes filled my face. I staggered back, down into unconsciousness.

One last glimpse I had ere I fainted of the mirror— a great mass of brown and horrid Things— squirming, fighting for blood!

iii

ONE moment I was lying with my eyes open at Gilreath's back, too drowsy even to think; the next moment memory burned, and I was wide awake. But my strength was missing— the dose he had shot into my lungs had made me as weak as a baby. I could move my head, and think, and observe, but I could not lift my arm or my leg.

Gilreath stood with his hands behind his back meditatively studying the great mirror. My eyes followed his to its panorama-like display. A pair of the horrid giant ants were smelling idly about at the yawning mouth of their nest; save for them the field was deserted and dead. I saw at my first look a change: for now there were piles of skeletons lying about the mouth of the pit— human skeletons, fifty of them— grown men mostly, but some little children— a great charnel-house of death.

I groaned, deadly sick.

"Ah!" said the professor coldly. "I see you're coming round. You've had a bit of rest— twenty-four hours. Maybe now you can show some sense."

"I can't move," I replied. "I'm sick."

"That will pass soon enough," he said without sympathy.

I jerked my head toward the mirror.

"Couldn't you stop them?" I asked.

"I had no desire to stop them," answered Gilreath. "I have been studying, observing, thinking, visualizing the future of the world."

"They're cannibals," I pleaded.

"They are not," he said crisply. "You are mistaken in your term. They devour men, but they are not cannibals, they do not devour one another."

"You saw them do it!" I accused. My voice was hoarse.

"It was worth seeing," he said unfeelingly. "Last evening the men of New Galilee organized a punitive expedition against the ants. They were armed with guns and clubs, the ants had only their legs. It was a good fight; I was proud of my insect proteges. They won in a walk; teamwork, cooperation, added to their incredible speed."

"They'll bring troops," I reasoned.

"The troops will not come for a few days," he retorted. "Before then we'll be ready for them. My immediate problem is to get into intelligent communication with the ants that I may prepare them for the fight. They'll have the use of my Ray GL— it will wipe out any troops that come within ten miles."

"My God!" I cried angrily. "You— you—"

"Silence! " he broke in sternly. "I have no use for your silly sentiment. You are a worshiper of man as the supreme being. Silly! Man has made a failure with the earth: turned it into a shambles, destroyed all life that he could not enslave; worse than that, lifted his hand against his own brother in endless war. Wherever two men meet there is discord, strife, murder. With such a race progress is impossible."

He gestured wildly as he spoke; there was a burning, dancing madness in his light blue eyes. I began to understand— the man was a maniac, yet a maniac with wit and intelligence to make his distorted dreams come true. I grew sick at the thought— man's beautiful world turned into a great stinking ant-hill.

"This, my new creation—" the professor motioned toward the mirror. "Behold him! Intelligence greater already than our own and growing apace. I have been studying them from afar through the window. This first day, of course, their need of food has rendered them ravenous, unreasoning. But that stage is passing; they are beginning thoughtfully to adjust themselves to their new environment. Already they have taken possession of the Warren house, their eggs and pups are in every room. To-day I saw two of them turning the wheels of a lumber wagon, grasping the lesson of transportation.

"They open and close the doors and windows of the house. Presently they, too, will begin to build, or rather their men slaves will build under their guidance. The Warren barn is full of their captives. This morning for the first time they did not devour them bodily; instead they drew a measure of blood from each one, then stanched the bleeding, reserving them alive for future use. So you see—"

"The women!" I broke in; it was useless to plead, but I could not be silent.  "For God's sake, think of the women!"

My words threw the professor into a frothing fit of rage.

"Woman!" he cried bitterly, standing above me with waving fists. "Woman! What is she? The crowning failure of civilization, flaunting the secrets of sex in the market-place! Calling to all the lower passions of man, violating all the purposes of creation. Prating of love—and when true man offers her true love, casting him aside for a pot of gold!"

"You fool!" I cried angrily; I had grown reckless of life, if I might but sting this madman into sanity. "You're cheap. Because you've been jilted, taking it out on the whole human race. For shame!"

"If I have had an unfortunate personal experience," his tone grew suddenly cold and deliberate, his cold blue eyes ate into my own, "it has but served to open my eyes to the wider truth. All the more reason that I should lend myself as servants to these—" he motioned toward the mirror— "to these wonderful creatures who exalt and glorify the majesty of sex."

My very soul fainted within me. It was  all so incredible, preposterous—this scientific madman lending all his intellect to destroy the human race. I closed my eyes, in bitterness of spirit.

"I shall take the first steps to-day to establish communications," his voice came  to my ears, as he paced thoughtfully back and forth.

"As soon as you get up a bit more strength, I shall send you out as my ambassador— to try out the methods that I have planned before I risk myself. I I on must make them see that my service to of them is to be that of the intellect, to aid them in their climb toward civilization. I'll make them see it, never fear. They have wonderful sense, none of man's silly conflicts and warfare, only peaceful communism and cooperation— a oneness of mind and soul that will make war forever impossible."

My eyes opened to the realization that the great mirror was alive with life. A thousand great, horse-size, octopus-armed ants were struggling for place; and I saw that part were brown like those I had seen first; and the rest were red, slightly smaller than their cousins, but fiercer and nakeder looking, and that the browns and the reds were locked in fiery conflict.

"They're fighting now!" I cried.

He swung about and looked in amazement at the mirror, then ran across to his in radium machine and inspected it hurriedly.

"It's been shifted," I heard him mutter, "It's been sighting at the hill across the a river— this is another tribe grown up. I mustn't let them fight; it will upset all—"

He dashed from the room. I heard the creak of an opening door,

I saw him rush into sight on the mirror into the midst of the great army of struggling ants.

"Don't fight!" I heard him shout; he was crazy, you know, as wild as a loon. "Don't fight! Cooperate! Wait! I'll tell you how!"

They didn't listen, didn't wait. He went down under a great rushing horde. The  last I saw of him was his arm, ripped like a morsel of cloth from his body, gripped in a gas-mask jaw.

My strength came back all at once to meet the crisis. I leaped to my feet. I've been panicky sometimes in my life, but in that supreme hour my mind was as clear as a bell, my self-control perfect

I ran across to the ray machine, sighted it through the window— remembering Gilreath's instructions— and turned its dial to the maximum force of BZ.

Death leaped from its nozzle like a flame. The ants whom it struck disappeared on the instant, burned into nothingness. Calmly, coolly, deliberately, I swung the nozzle back and forth, up and down. In thirty seconds the field was won— burned into desolate blackness of ashes. I swung it across at the great Warren farmhouse which leaped on the touch into flames, swung it across the valley at the breeding place of the red ants, then paused and looked through Gilreath's glasses to make sure that my work was complete.

There were ants in the streets of Coatsville, and I trained my rays on them. I saw a trail of red ants along the riverbank, and as I burned them, the rays struck the water and threw it up in a hissing cloud of steam. I clenched my teeth and swore and stayed on the job; I made sure that Jefferson County was thoroughly sterilized before at last I smashed the machine.

iv

IT WAS only two days ago that they let me out of Augustana Hospital.

Gregor had me sent there when I got back to Chicago— wide-eyed, trembling. For six weeks they had me strapped to my bed. I think that Gregor told them I had been drinking bad hooch. He came to my bedside once a week; and when I tried to report on my assignment, a fresh young interne came along and put a hypodermic into my arm. Perhaps his method as well as his intention was all right; I was crazy, I know, and I came near staying so.

"Shut up!" was what the chief said yesterday when I went up to the office and started to talk. "If you don't, I'll send you back to the hospital. You may be telling the truth, but you can't stand the strain of talking about it. Rest up for a week, and I'll assign you to police court."

I was digging through the files reading the bunk that had been printed about Coatsville when Bill Marvin came past.

"I'm off for Ann Arbor," he said. "Some professor in the college there claims he has a radium ray that will make things grow. I've got to get him."

"Go to it!" I growled. "Get him! Get him with a gun!"

And that's pretty close to what I meant. We've got to begin to put a check on these scientific investigators— before some wild bird hits on the ultimate secret in his laboratory and blows up the Earth.

___________________

8: The Man in the Bell

William  Maginn

1793-1842

Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine Nov 1821, uncredited.

Sometimes incorrectly attributed to W. E. Aytoun.

IN my younger days bell-ringing was much more in fashion among the young men of —— than it is now. Nobody, I believe, practises it there at present except the servants of the church, and the melody has been much injured in consequence. Some fifty years ago about twenty of us who dwelt in the vicinity of the cathedral formed a club, which used to ring every peal that was called for; and from continual practice and a rivalry which arose between us and a club attached to another steeple, and which tended considerably to sharpen our zeal, we became very Mozarts on our favourite instruments. But my bell-ringing practice was shortened by a singular accident, which not only stopped my performance, but made even the sound of a bell terrible to my ears.

One Sunday I went with another into the belfry to ring for noon prayers, but the second stroke we had pulled showed us that the clapper of the bell we were at was muffled. Some one had been buried that morning, and it had been prepared, of course, to ring a mournful note. We did not know of this, but the remedy was easy.

"Jack," said my companion, "step up to the loft and cut off the hat;" for the way we had of muffling was by tying a piece of an old hat, or of cloth (the former was preferred), to one side of the clapper, which deadened every second toll.

I complied, and mounting into the belfry, crept as usual into the bell, where I began to cut away. The hat had been tied on in some more complicated manner than usual, and I was perhaps three or four minutes in getting it off, during which time my companion below was hastily called away, by a message from his sweetheart, I believe; but that is not material to my story. The person who called him was a brother of the club, who, knowing that the time had come for ringing for service, and not thinking that any one was above, began to pull. At this moment I was just getting out, when I felt the bell moving; I guessed the reason at once— it was a moment of terror; but by a hasty, and almost convulsive effort, I succeeded in jumping down, and throwing myself on the flat of my back under the bell.

The room in which it was was little more than sufficient to contain it, the bottom of the bell coming within a couple of feet of the floor of lath. At that time I certainly was not so bulky as I am now, but as I lay it was within an inch of my face. I had not laid myself down a second when the ringing began. It was a dreadful situation. Over me swung an immense mass of metal, one touch of which would have crushed me to pieces; the floor under me was principally composed of crazy laths, and if they gave way, I was precipitated to the distance of about fifty feet upon a loft, which would, in all probability, have sunk under the impulse of my fall, and sent me to be dashed to atoms upon the marble floor of the chancel, a hundred feet below.

I remembered— for fear is quick in recollection— how a common clock-wright, about a month before, had fallen, and bursting through the floors of the steeple, driven in the ceilings of the porch, and even broken into the marble tombstone of a bishop who slept beneath. This was my first terror, but the ringing had not continued a minute before a more awful and immediate dread came on me. The deafening sound of the bell smote into my ears with a thunder which made me fear their drums would crack. There was not a fibre of my body it did not thrill through; it entered my very soul; thought and reflection were almost utterly banished; I only retained the sensation of agonising terror.

Every moment I saw the bell sweep within an inch of my face; and my eyes— I could not close them, though to look at the object was hitter as death— followed it instinctively in its oscillating progress until it came back again. It was in vain I said to myself that it could come no nearer at any future swing than it did at first; every time it descended I endeavoured to shrink into the very floor to avoid being buried under the downsweeping mass; and then reflecting on the danger of pressing too weightily on my frail support, would cower up again as far as I dared.

At first my fears were mere matter of fact. I was afraid the pulleys above would give way and let the bell plunge on me. At another time the possibility of the clapper being shot out in some sweep, and dashing through my body, as I had seen a ramrod glide through a door, flitted across my mind. The dread also, as I have already mentioned, of the crazy floor, tormented me; but these soon gave way to fears not more unfounded, but more visionary, and of course more tremendous. The roaring of the bell confused my intellect, and my fancy soon began to teem with all sorts of strange and terrifying ideas. The bell pealing above, and opening its jaws with a hideous clamour, seemed to me at one time a ravening monster, raging to devour me; at another, a whirlpool ready to suck me into its bellowing abyss.

As I gazed on it, it assumed all shapes; it was a flying eagle, or rather a roc of the Arabian story-tellers, clapping its wings and screaming over me. As I looked upwards into it, it would appear sometimes to lengthen into indefinite extent, or to be twisted at the end into the spiral folds of the tail of a flying-dragon. Nor was the flaming breath, or fiery glance of that fabled animal, wanting to complete the picture. My eyes, inflamed, bloodshot, and glaring, invested the supposed monster with a full proportion of unholy light.

It would be endless were I to merely hint at all the fancies that possessed my mind. Every object that was hideous and roaring presented itself to my imagination. I often thought that I was in a hurricane at sea, and that the vessel in which I was embarked tossed under me with the most furious vehemence. The air, set in motion by the swinging of the bell, blew over me, nearly with the violence, and more than the thunder of a tempest; and the floor seemed to reel under me, as under a drunken man.

But the most awful of all the ideas that seized on me were drawn from the supernatural. In the vast cavern of the bell hideous faces appeared, and glared down on me with terrifying frowns, or with grinning mockery, still more appalling. At last the devil himself, accoutred, as in the common description of the evil spirit, with hoof, horn and tail, and eyes of infernal lustre, made his appearance, and called on me to curse God and worship him, who was powerful to save me. This dread suggestion he uttered with the full-toned clangour of the bell. I had him within an inch of me and I thought on the fate of the Santon Barsisa. Strenuously and desperately I defied him, and bade him begone.

Reason then, for a moment, resumed her sway, but it was only to fill me with fresh terror, just as the lightning dispels the gloom that surrounds the benighted mariner, but to show him that his vessel is driving on a rock, where she must inevitably be dashed to pieces. I found I was becoming delirious, and trembled lest reason should utterly desert me. This is at all times an agonising thought, but it smote me then with tenfold agony. I feared lest, when utterly deprived of my senses, I should rise, to do which I was every moment tempted by that strange feeling which calls on a man, whose head is dizzy from standing on the batdement of a lofty castle, to precipitate himself from it, and then death would be instant and tremendous.

When I thought of this I became desperate. I caught the floor with a grasp which drove the blood from my nails; and I yelled with the cry of despair. I called for help, I prayed, I shouted, but all the efforts of my voice were, of course, drowned in the bell. As it passed over my mouth it occasionally echoed my cries, which mixed not with its own sound, but preserved their distinct character. Perhaps this was but fancy. To me, I know, they then sounded as if they were the shouting, howling, or laughing of the fiends with which my imagination had peopled the gloomy cave which swung over me.

You may accuse me of exaggerating my feelings; but I am not. Many a scene of dread have I since passed through, but they are nothing to the self-inflicted terrors of this half-hour. The ancients have doomed one of the damned in their Tartarus to lie under a rock, which every moment seems to be descending to annihilate him— and an awful punishment it would be. But if to this you add a clamour as loud as if ten thousand furies were howling about you— a deafening uproar banishing reason, and driving you to madness, you must allow that the bitterness of the pang was rendered more terrible. There is no man, firm as his nerves may be, who could retain his courage in this situation.

In twenty minutes the ringing was done. Half of that time passed over me without power of computation— the other half appeared an age. When it ceased, I became gradually more quiet, but a new fear retained me. I knew that five minutes would elapse without ringing, but at the end of that short time the bell would be rung a second time, for five minutes more. I could not calculate time. A minute and an hour were of equal duration. I feared to rise, lest the five minutes should have elapsed, and the ringing be again commenced, in which case I should be crushed, before I could escape, against the walls or framework of the bell. I therefore still continued to lie down, cautiously shifting myself, however, with a careful gliding, so that my eye no longer looked into the hollow.

This was of itself a considerable relief. The cessation of the noise had, in a great measure, the effect of stupefying me, for my attention, being no longer occupied by the chimeras I had conjured up, began to flag. All that now distressed me was the constant expectation of the second ringing, for which, however, I settled myself with a kind of stupid resolution. I closed my eyes, and clenched my teeth as firmly as if they were screwed in a vice. At last the dreaded moment came, and the first swing of the bell extorted a groan from me, as they say the most resolute victim screams at the sight of the rack, to which he is for a second time destined. After this, however, I lay silent and lethargic, without a thought. Wrapped in the defensive armour of stupidity,

I defied the bell and its intonations. When it ceased, I was roused a little by the hope of escape. I did not, however, decide on this step hastily, but, putting up my hand with the utmost caution, I touched the rim.

Though the ringing had ceased, it still was tremulous from the sound, and shook under my hand, which instantly recoiled as from an electric jar. A quarter of an hour probably elapsed before I again dared to make the experiment, and then I found it at rest. I determined to lose no time, fearing that I might have delayed already too long, and that the bell for evening service would catch me. This dread stimulated me, and I slipped out with the utmost rapidity and arose. I stood, I suppose, for a minute, looking with silly wonder on the place of my imprisonment, penetrated with joy of escaping, but then rushed down the stony and irregular stair with the velocity of lightning and arrived in the bell-ringer’s room. This was the last act I had power to accomplish. I leaned against the wall, motionless and deprived of thought, in which posture my companions found me, when in the course of a couple of hours, they returned to their occupation.

They were shocked, as well they might, at the figure before them. The wind of the bell had excoriated my face, and my dim and stupefied eyes were fixed with a lack-lustre gaze in my law eyelids. My hands were torn and bleeding, my hair dishevelled, and my clothes tattered. They spoke to me, but I gave no answer. They shook me, but I remained insensible. They then became alarmed, and hastened to remove me. He who had first gone up with me in the forenoon met them as they carried me through the churchyard, and through him, who was shocked at having, in some measure, occasioned the accident, the cause of my misfortune was discovered. I was put to bed at home, and remained for three days delirious, but gradually recovered my senses.

You may be sure the bell formed a prominent topic of my ravings, and if I heard a peal, they were instantly increased to the utmost violence. Even when the delirium abated, my sleep was continually disturbed by imagined ringings, and my dreams were haunted by the fancies which almost maddened me while in the steeple. My friends removed me to a house in the country, which was sufficiently distant from any place of worship to save me from the apprehensions of hearing the churchgoing bell; for what Alexander Selkirk, in Cowper’s poem, complained of as a misfortune, was then to me as a blessing.

Here I recovered; but, even long after recovery, if a gale wafted the notes of a peal towards me, I started with nervous apprehension. I felt a Mahometan hatred to all the bell tribe, and envied the subjects of the Commander of the Faithful the sonorous voice of their Muezzin. Time cured this, as it does the most of our follies; but, even at the present day, if, by chance, my nerves be unstrung, some particular tones of the cathedral bell have power to surprise me into a momentary start.

________________

9: The New Sun

J. S. Fletcher

1863-1935

The Red Magazine, 1 July 1913

Although J. S. Fletcher is best known for his detective novels, he was also a prolific short story writer.

FROM the time that he had taken up the study of astronomy as a pleasant means of spending his newly acquired leisure, and had built himself a small but well-equipped observatory as an adjunct to his house, which stood on one of the highest slopes of Leith Hill, Mequillen had formed the habit of rising from his bed every two or three hours of a cloudy night to see if the sky had cleared. To some men such a habit would have been highly inconvenient, for many obvious reasons. But Mequillen was in a lucky position. He was unmarried; he possessed much more than ample means; he had therefore no business or profession to attend to, and accordingly no train to catch of a morning in order to keep office hours. He could sleep at any time of the day he chose; and if he did jump out of bed at two o'clock in the morning, to find that the sky was still cloudy, he could jump back and go to sleep again on the instant. And he was, moreover, an enthusiast of the first order.

On a certain night in the February of 19—, Mequillen, who had gone to bed at ten o'clock, suddenly awoke, switched on the electric light at the side of his bed, and, seeing that it was then ten minutes past twelve, sprang out, shuffled himself into his thickly padded dressing-gown, and hurried up the winding stair which led to the observatory. One glance into the night showed him a perfectly clear sky. From the vast dome of heaven, wondrously blue, the stars shone out like points of fire. And Mequillen, with a sigh of satisfaction, began his work at the telescope, comparing the sky, field by field, with his star chart, on the chance of finding new variable stars. After his usual fashion, he was immediately absorbed, and the sky remaining clear, he went on working, unconscious of time, until a deep- toned clock in the room beneath struck the hour of three. Then Mequillen started, and realised that he had been so absorbed that he had not noticed the striking of one or two, and he leaned back from the telescope in a suddenly assumed attitude of relaxation, stretching his arms, and casting up his eyes to the still clear vault above him. The next instant he became rigid; the next he began to tremble with excitement; the next he could have shouted for joy. For there, in the constellation which astronomers have named Andromeda, Mequillen detected a new star!

He knew as he gazed and gazed, intoxicated with the delight and wonder of his discovery, that the burning and glittering object at which he was looking had never shown its light to man before. There was no need to turn to his star charts. Mequillen, being a rich man, was always equipped with the latest information from all the great observatories of the world. That star, burning with such magnificence, was on no chart. Nay, he himself had taken a photograph of that particular field in the heavens only twenty-four hours previously, wherein were stars to the twelfth magnitude; but the star at which he gazed was not amongst them. It had suddenly blazed up and as he watched he saw it visibly, plainly, increase in brightness and magnitude.

"A new star!" he murmured mechanically. "A new star! I wonder who else has seen it?"

Mequillen continued to watch until, as the February dawn drew near, the clouds spread great curtains between him and the heavens, and sky and stars were blotted out. Then he went to his bed, and, in spite of his excitement, he slept soundly until ten o'clock in the morning.

When Mequillen woke and looked out across the Surrey hills and vales, the entire landscape was being rapidly blotted out by a curious mist, or fog, which seemed to come from nowhere. A vast, mighty blanket of yellow seemed to be dropped between him and everything as he looked. At one moment he saw the summit of a hill many miles away; the next he could not even see his own garden beneath his windows. And when he went downstairs, half an hour later, the fog had become of the colour of grey ash, and the house was full of it, and the electric light was turned on everywhere, and to little effect.

Mequillen's sister, Adela, who kept house for him— with the assistance of a housekeeper and several female servants— came to him in his study, looking scared.

"Dan," she said, "isn't there something queer about this fog? It's— it's getting worse."

Mequillen laid down a bundle of letters which he had just taken up, and walked out to the front door and into the garden. He looked all around him, and he sniffed.

"H'm! It certainly does seem queer, Addie," he said. "We've certainly never had a fog like this in these parts since we knew them."

The girl sniffed too.

"Dan," she said, "it's like as if it were the very finest dust. And— look there!"

She had been wiping her hand with a tiny wisp of a handkerchief as she spoke, and now she held the handkerchief out to Mequillen.

"Look!" she repeated.

Mequillen looked down, and saw a curious stain— a species of smudge or smear of a faint grey colour. Without making any remark he ran the tip of his finger along the nearest object, an espalier. The same smudge or smear appeared on his finger.

"It's on everything," whispered the girl. "See, it's on my cheek! It is some sort of dust, Dan. What's the matter?"

But Mequillen made no answer. He asked for breakfast, and they went in together. By that time the interior of die house was as full of the fog as the exterior was hidden by it, and everything that they touched— plate, china, linen— gave off the grey smear. And by noon everything was wrapped in an ashen-grey atmosphere, and the electrical lights had no power beyond a very limited compass.

"This is vexatious," said Mequillen. "I was going to have the motor out and take you across to Greenwich. I wanted to make an inquiry at the Observatory. Do you know, Addie, I found a new star last night!"

"A new star!" she said wonderingly. "But you won't go, Dan?"

"Won't go?" he said, laughing. "I should like to see anybody go anywhere in this, though it may be only local. By George! Weren't the Cockerlynes coming out to dine and sleep to-night?"

Addie nodded.

"Well, I hope they won't run into this," continued Mequillen. "Ah! I'll ring Dick Cockerlyne up, and ask him what the weather's like in town. And then I'll ring up the Observatory."

He went off to the small room in which the telephone was placed. His sister followed him, and as they passed close beneath the cluster of lights in the hall Mequillen saw that the girl's face was drawn and pallid. He stopped sharply.

"Why, Addie," he said; "frightened?"

She laid her hand on his arm, and he felt it trembling.

"Dan," she whispered. "I'm— I'm horribly frightened! What— what is this? You know, there's never been anything like this before— in our time. What's happened?"

Mequillen laughed, and patted the hand that lay on his arm.

"Come, come, Addie!" he said soothingly. "This isn't like you. I think this fog is uncommon, and I can't account for it, but I've no doubt it can be accounted for. Now, let me ring up Cockerlyne. I've a notion we shall hear they've got a bright morning there in London."

The girl shook her head, made as if she would follow him to the telephone, and then suddenly turned away. In the silence a woman's shrill scream rang out.

"That's cook— in hysterics," said Addie. "I shall have to be brave for the sake of the servants, Dan. They're all as frightened as— as I am."

Nearly an hour later Mequillen came out of the little room, and called his sister into the study. He closed the door, and beckoned her into the arc of the electric light.

"This is queer!" he said, in a whisper. "I've been talking to Cockerlyne and to the Observatory. Dick says this fog struck London at ten o'clock. It's just there as it is here, and everything's at a standstill. Dick hasn't the remotest notion how he's going to get away from the city. But—that's nothing. Addie, it's all over Europe."

The girl made a little inarticulate sound of horror in her throat, and her face whitened.

"All over Europe, so they say at Greenwich," continued Mequillen. "From Lisbon to Moscow, and from Inverness to Constantinople! Land and sea— it's everywhere. It— well, it's something unexplainable. Such a thing has never been known before. But it's no use getting frightened, Addie; you must be brave. It's no doubt some natural phenomena that will be accounted for. And— phew, how very hot this room is!"

The girl went close to her brother, and laid her hand on his Arm.

"Dan," she said, "it isn't the room. See, the fire's very low, and the ventilating fan's working. It's the same everywhere. Come into the garden."

Mequillen followed her out of the house, knitting his brows, and snapping his fingers, after his wont when he was puzzled. For several days the weather had been unusually cold for the time of year. Released now from the preoccupation of the last few hours, he suddenly realised that the day was as hot as a July day should be under normal conditions. He turned to an outdoor thermometer.

"Why— why," he exclaimed, "it's over seventy now! Seventy in February! Addie, something's happened to this old world of ours. That's certain. Look there!"

As they watched the mercury rose one, two, three figures. The brother and sister stared at each other. And Mequillen suddenly dropped his hand with a gesture of helplessness.

"Well," he said, "there's nothing to be done but to wait. I— I don't understand it."

They went back into the house together, and into Mequillen's study, only to stand and stare at each other in silence. Then Addie made a sudden effort at conversation.

"Tell me about the new star, Dan," she said.

Mequillen started.

"The new star!" he exclaimed. "The new star! My God, I wonder if that has anything to do with this? If—"

The parlourmaid, white and scared, came noiselessly into the circle of electric light within which the brother and sister were standing.

"You are wanted at the telephone, sir," she said.

Mequillen went off. In a few minutes he came back, shaking his head.

"That was the Observatory," he said quietly. "This fog, or whatever it is, is all over the world—"over South Africa, North and South America, India, Australia, anyway. And the heat's increasing."

"And— the reason?" whispered Addie.

Mequillen sat down, and dropped his head in his hands.

"There's no man can tell the reason," he answered. "He can't even make a guess at it. Something's happened, that's all. We must wait— wait."

And he took up the letters which had remained unopened on his desk and began to sort them out and to read them.

"Let us go on with our ordinary routine," he said. "That will be best."

The girl left the room, jangling a bunch of keys. But within half an hour she was back, accompanied by the housekeeper.

"Dan," she said quietly, "the servants want to go. They think the end of the world's come, and they want to get to their own homes."

"How do they propose to reach them?" asked Mequillen. "They can't see a yard before them."

"I told them that, Mr. Mequillen," said the housekeeper, "but it was of no use. You see, sir, they all live pretty close to here, and they say they can find their way blindfolded. They'd better go, sir, or we shall have more hysterics."

"Give me some money for them, Dan," said Addie.

Mequillen rose, and, unlocking a drawer, handed a cash- box to his sister.

"I don't see what good money can do them if the world's coming to an end," he said, with a laugh. "Well, let them do what they like."

When the two women had left him, Mequillen went outside again, and looked at the thermometer hanging on the wall.

"My God," he said, "eighty already! What can it mean?"

And then, standing there in the strange all-wrapping fog in his quiet garden on the slope of the peaceful Surrey hills, Mequillen's thoughts turned to the great city lying only a few miles away. What was happening in London? He saw, with small exercise of imagination, the congested traffic, the discomfort, the inconvenience, the upsetting of all arrangement and order in an ordinary fog. What, then, must be the effect of this extraordinary one? For Mequillen was sufficiently versed in science to know that the world had never— never, at any rate, since historical records of it began— known such a day as this. And supposing it lasted, supposing-

And then he interrupted his train of thought to glance once more at the thermometer.

"Yes, yes!" he muttered to himself. "Yes, but supposing the heat goes on increasing, increasing as it's increased during the last few hours? My God, it's awful to contemplate!"

The house was very quiet when the frightened servants had left it. Mequillen and his sister made some attempt to eat the lunch which the housekeeper prepared; but the attempt was a farce, and presently they found themselves pacing up and down, from room to room, from house to garden, waiting for they knew not what. There was no change in the atmosphere, so far as the fog was concerned, but the thermometer rose steadily, until at six o'clock at night it was at ninety, and they were feeling as if they must soon gasp for breath. And, unknown to Addie, Mequillen went to the telephone, and eventually got into communication with Dick Cockerlyne, who was still at his city office.

"Dick!" he said as steadily as he could. “Are you still there?"

"I am," came back the answer, in tones that Mequillen could scarcely recognise.

"How is it with you there?"

One word came along. Mequillen felt it to be the only word that could come.

"Hell!"

Mequillen shivered, and again spoke.

"Dick, what is happening? What-"

And then he was sharply rung off. From that moment he had no further communication with the outer world. Once— twice— thrice he tried the telephone again before midnight; no response was given. And all around the house a silence reigned which was like the silence of a deserted ocean. Nothing but the fog was there— not a voice, even of fear or terror, came up from the valley. And the heat went on steadily increasing.

There was no sleep for Mequillen or his sister or the housekeeper that night. They had all changed into the lightest summer garments they could find, by the middle of the night the two women were lying prostrate with exhaustion, and the thermometer was a long way over one hundred degrees. Mequillen did all that knowledge could suggest to him to obtain relief and coolness for them, but there was no air— the atmosphere was still, lifeless, leaden. And when the morning came the all- enveloping fog was still there, and the heat was still increasing.

How they got through that second day Mequillen never knew. He had visions of what might be going on in places where the water supply was bad. He, fortunately, was in command of a splendid and probably inexhaustible supply; he had, too, a well-stocked larder and a well-provided cellar of good wine. Only just able to crawl about, he looked to the two women— the housekeeper, a woman of full habit, was more than once on the verge of collapse; Addie's wiriness and excellent physique kept her going. But as it grew to the second midnight they were all gasping for breath, and Mequillen, making brave efforts to keep the women alive, knew that before many hours were over all would be over with them too. And then, as he lay stretched out in a lounging-chair, anxiously watching his sister who lay on a sofa close by, the door was pushed open, and Dick Cockerlyne, reeling like a drunken man, staggered in, and dropped headlong at Mequillen's side.

2: The Refugee

MEQUILLEN summoned up what strength remained in him, and set himself with clenched teeth and fierce resolution to bring Gockerlyne round. Cockerlyne was a big man, a fellow of brawn and muscle, that in ordinary times would have thought nothing of walking fifty miles on end, if need arose; now, looking at his great limbs, scarcely hidden by the thin silk shirt and flannel trousers which clothed them, Mequillen saw that he was wasted as if he had undergone starvation. His face had aged by ten years, and there was a look of horror in its lines and in his half-open eyes which told of human fear and terror. And once more Mequillen wondered what was going on in London.

As he poured liquid— a weak mixture of brandy-and-seltzer— down the fallen man's throat, Mequillen glanced at his sister. She had paid no attention whatever to Cockerlyne's entrance; she lay motionless, her hands clasped across her bosom, slowly and regularly gasping for breath. But Mequillen knew what would rouse her, for she and Cockerlyne had been engaged for the past six months, and were about to be married, and one great source of her anxiety during the past two days had been in her fears for his safety. And as he saw Cockerlyne returning to consciousness, he turned to her.

"Addie!" he whispered. "Here is Dick!"

The girl slowly opened her eyes and turned her head, and a faint flush came into her white cheeks. Mequillen reached across, and handed her a glass out of which he had been giving her liquid food at intervals during the past hour.

"Drink that, and then get up and help me with him," he said.

Cockerlyne opened his eyes to the full at last, and saw the brother and sister, and he struggled up from the floor.

"I got through, anyway," he said. "I thought that if we— are all going to— to die, eh?— I'd see Addie first. I— have I been fainting, Dan?"

"Lie down again, Addie, this instant!" commanded Mequillen sharply. “Now then, Dick, drink the rest of that brandy- and-seltzer, and then you shall have some of this concentrated meat extract. No nonsense, now. What we've all got to do is to keep up strength till this— passes. I'm off to our housekeeper. I forbid you two to move or to speak until I come back."

When he returned Mequillen found his sister staring at Cockerlyne, and Cockerlyne staring at her, as if they were looking their last at each other.

"Come, come!" he said, with the best imitation of a laugh that he could raise. "We're not at that stage yet. Now, then, obey your doctor."

And he fed them both as if they were children, and presently had the gratification of seeing the colour come back to Cocker- lyne's face, and a new light into his eyes. The big man suddenly rose, and shook his limbs, and smiled grimly. There were sandwiches on the table, and he reached over and took one in each hand, and began to eat voraciously.

"Chuck the nursing, Dan," he growled. "I'm all right. I said I'd get it done, and I've done it. I'm here!"

Mequillen saw with thankfulness that Cockerlyne was going to be something to stand by. He nodded with assumed coolness.

"All right, old chap," he said. "And— how did you get here?"

Cockerlyne moistened his tongue.

"Fought through it," he said grimly. "I've been thirty hours at it— thirty hours!"

"Yes?" said Mequillen.

"You know," continued Cockerlyne, "you know when you telephoned to me at six last night? After that I think I went mad for a while. Then I got out of the office, and somehow got to the Bank station of the South London— the Tube trains ran now and then. I don't know how I did it, but I travelled that way as far as the train ran— Clapham, or somewhere. And then —well, I just made along this way. Of course, I knew every bit of the road. It was like sleep-walking."

Mequillen nodded, and, picking up a fan, resumed his occupation of trying to agitate the air about his sister's face.

"Well, you're here, Dick," he said. "But— London?"

Cockerlyne shivered.

"London is— oh, I don't know what London is!" he answered. "I think half the people are dead, and the other half mad. Once or twice I went out into the streets. One man you met was on his knees, praying aloud; the next was— oh, I don't know! It seemed that hell was let loose; and yet the churches were crammed to the doors. And people were fighting for the liquor in the dram-shops and the public-houses. I— I don't seem to remember much; perhaps I'm mad myself now. How long will it be, Dan?"

"How long will what be?" asked Mequillen.

"The— the end? I expect this is the end, isn't it?" said Cockerlyne. "What else can it be?"

"Don't talk rot!" said Mequillen sharply. "I thought you'd come round again. Here, pour some of the stuff out of that bottle into that glass, and carry it to the housekeeper in the next room. Pull yourself together, man!"

"Sorry," said Cockerlyne, and rose to carry out Mequillen's commands. "I— I'm light-headed, perhaps. Don't ask me any more about what I saw. It sends me off."

He went away to the housekeeper, and Mequillen heard him speaking to her in the dry, croaking tones in which they all spoke. And presently Cockerlyne came hurriedly back, and, standing at the open door, beckoned to him with a shaking hand. Mequillen rose, and shambled across to him, looking an interrogation.

"Come out to the garden!" whispered Cockerlyne, and led the way to the front door. "Listen!" he said. "I caught the sound in there! Listen!"

Mequillen grasped one of the pillars of the porch and strained his ears. And somewhere, so far off that it might have been thousands of miles away, he heard what he knew to be the coming of a mighty wind, and instinctively he tightened his grip on the pillar.

“It's a cyclone coming, Cockerlyne!" he shouted, though all around them was still and quiet. "It'll sweep all before it— house, everything! Quick— the two women!"

But before either man could turn to the open door the great fog was swept away before their eyes as if it had been literally snatched from them by some gigantic hand from heaven, and where it had been was a burning and a dazzling light of such power that in an instant they were grovelling on the ground before it with their eyes pressed instinctively into the crooks of their quivering elbows.

3: Out of the Illimitable

OF THE two men, Mequillen was the first to comprehend what had happened, and with his comprehension came coolness and resource. Never had he thought so quickly in his life.

"Dick," he whispered, "keep your eyes shut tightly, and turn and creep back into the hall. I'm doing the same thing. You know the little room on the left? Don't open your eyes until you get in there. Now, then," he continued, with a gasp, as the two men reached the room and stood upright, "you can open them here, for the shutters are up. Ah! And yet, you see, although this room should be quite dark, it's almost as light as a normal winter morning."

Cockerlyne stared stupidly about him.

"For God's sake, Dan, what's happened?" he exclaimed.

Mequillen was fumbling in a drawer. He brought out two silk mufflers, and passed one to his friend.

"I have a very good idea as to what's happened," he answered gravely. "And I'll tell you in a few minutes. But first muffle your eyes— there, you'll see through two thicknesses of the silk. Now for the women. Fortunately, the curtains are closely drawn in both rooms, or I should have feared for their eyesight in that sudden rush of light— light, Dick, such as this globe has never seen before! Dick, we've got to blindfold them, and then get them into the darkest place in this house. There's an underground room— not a cellar— which I've sometimes used for experiments. We must get them downstairs."

It was easy to see, in spite of the mufflers, that the light in the hall was blinding, and in the curtained study as bright as on an open sea on a cloudless day in summer. And Addie was lying on her sofa with her arms crossed over her forehead and eyes, obviously surprised and distressed by the sudden glare.

"Don't move your arms!" exclaimed Mequillen sharply. "Keep your eyes shut as tight as you can."

"What is it?" she asked. "Has the fog gone, and the sun come?"

"The fog has gone, and a sun has come," replied Mequillen. "And its light is unbearable— just yet. Now, Addie, I am going to blindfold you and take you and Mrs. Jepson down to the underground room. We shall all have to get used to the light by degrees, do just what I tell you, and Dick and I will make you comfortable."

But when the two women were safely disposed of in a room into which scarcely any light ever penetrated in an ordinary way, but which was then as light as noontide, Mequillen drew Cockerlyne into the study, and, groping his way to the windows, closed the shutters and drew the curtains over them.

"Now you can take off your muffler," he said quietly. "There, you see it's light enough even now, to read print and to see the time. And— you perceive the time? Half-past twelve, midnight!"

Cockerlyne's face blanched. He swallowed something, and straightened himself.

"What is this, Mequillen?" he asked quietly. "Do you know?"

Mequillen shook his head.

"Not with certainty, he answered. "But I think I know. Forty-eight hours ago I discovered a new star, which increased in magnitude at a surprising rate even while I watched it. Now I think that it is a new sun."

"A— new— sun!" exclaimed Cockerlyne. "Impossible!"

"Call it what you will," said Mequillen. "It is, I am certain, at any rate, a vast heavenly body of fire, which was travelling towards this part of space at an inconceivable rate when I first saw it, and is probably at this moment nearer to us than our sun is. Do you feel that the heat is increasing?"

"Yes," replied Cockerlyne; "but it is different in character."

"It is different in character because the wrapping of infinitely fine dust which has been round us has been drawn away," said Mequillen. "But it will increase in intensity."

Cockerlyne gripped the table.

"And?" he whispered.

"In an hour or two we shall be shrivelled up, consumed, like shreds of wool thrown into a furnace!" answered Mequillen.

Cockerlyne straightened himself.

"All right, Dan," he said quietly. "I'm glad I came here. What's to be done now?"

Mequillen had turned to a nest of drawers in one of the recesses of his study. He brought out some spectacles fitted with lenses of very dark glass, and handed one to Cockerlyne.

"We will make an attempt to see this new sun," he said. "Put these spectacles on, and for the present fold that muffler about your eyes again once. You'll see through both muffler and spectacles. And now come up to the observatory."

In the observatory, Cockerlyne understood little or nothing of the preparations which Mequillen made. Conscious only of the terrible heat, he stood waiting and thinking of the fate which was about to befall them; and suddenly a terrible impatience seized upon him. If there was but an hour or so to live, his place was with the woman he loved.

"Look here, Dan!" he exclaimed. "I'm going down! If the end's coming, then—"

But Mequillen laid a hand on his arm and drew him forward, at the same time removing the muffler from his head.

"We will go down soon, Cockerlyne," he said. "We must, for we shall have to tell them. But first— look! You can look with safety now."

And then Cockerlyne, following his friend's instruction^ looked, and saw widespread above him the dome of the heavens. But never had he so seen it in all his life. From north to south, from east to west, it glowed with the effulgence of shining brass; and in the north-east hung a great globe of fiery red, vaster in dimension than the sun which the world had known till then, and, even when seen through the protections which Mequillen had prepared, coruscating and glittering with darting and leaping flame.

"My God!" said Cockerlyne, in a hushed voice. "My God! Dan, is that— It?"

"That is It," answered Mequillen quietly. "It is now nearly twice the magnitude of our sun, and it is coming nearer. This is no time to make calculations, or even speculations; but I believe it is, at any rate, as near to us as our sun is. Come away, Cockerlyne; I want to look out on the world. Hold my hand and follow me."

And he dragged Cockerlyne away through a trap-door and into a dark passage, and then into a darker room.

"Keep your hands over your spectacles for a while, and get accustomed to the light by degrees," he said. "I am going to open an observation shutter here, through which we can see a vast stretch of country to the north. It will be a surprise to me if much of it is not already in flames. Now, if you are ready."

Cockerlyne covered his eyes as he heard the click of the observation shutter. Even then, and through the thick black glasses which he was wearing, he felt the extraordinary glare of the light which entered. Presently Mequillen touched his arm.

“You can look now," he said. "See, it's just as I thought! The land's on fire!"

Cockerlyne looked out upon the great sweep of hill and valley, wood and common which stretches across the fairest part of Surrey from the heights above Shere and Albury to those beyond Reigate. He saw the little villages, with their spires and towers and red roofs and tall grey gables; he saw the isolated farms, the stretches of wood, the hillside coppices, the patches of heath and the expanses of green which indicated land untouched by spade or plough.

It was a scene with which he had been familiar from boyhood. Of late he had explored every nook and corner of it with Addie Mcquillen, and at all times of the year it had seemed beautiful to him. But under the glare and brilliance of this extraordinary light everything seemed changed. All over that vast prospect great pillars of smoke and flame were rising to the sky. From the valley beneath them came the shrieks and cries of men and women, and as the two men watched they saw the evergreens in Mequillen's garden suddenly turn to the whiteness of paper, and shrivel and disappear in fine ashes.

"Look there!" whispered Mequillen, pointing a shaking finger. "There— Dorking's on fire! And yonder, Reigate, too!"

Cockerlyne tried to speak, but his tongue rattled in his mouth like a dry pea, in a drier pod. He touched Mequillen's arm and pointed downward, and Mequillen nodded.

"Yes," he said. "We had better go down to them; they've got to know."

He took Cockerlyne by the hand and led him back to the observatory, which, in spite of the fact that all its shutters were drawn, was full of light. And as they stepped into it a spark of white flame suddenly appeared in the woodwork, and ran like lightning round the rim of the dome.

"On fire!" said Mequillen quietly. "It's no good, Cockerlyne; we can't do anything. The end's come! We— oh, my God, what's this? What is this? Cockerlyne— Cockerlyne, where are you?"

For just as suddenly as they had seen the greyness of the great fog snatched away from the earth, so now they saw the extraordinary light which had succeeded it snatched away. It was gone in the flash of an eye, with the speed of lightning, and as it went they felt the earth move and shudder, and all around them fell a blackness such as they had never known. And as the two men gripped each other in their terror there suddenly burst upon the dome of the observatory a storm of what seemed to be bullets— fierce, insistent, incessant. The serpent-like trail of fire in the woodwork quivered once and died out. And Mequillen, trembling in every limb, released his hold on Cockerlyne, and staggered against the nearest wall.

"Rain!" he said. "Rain!"

In the darkness, Mequillen heard Cockerlyne first stumble about, and then fall heavily. Then he knew that Cockerlyne had fainted, and he made his way to a switch and turned on the electric light, and got water to bring him round. But when he came round, Cockerlyne for some minutes croaked and gabbled incessantly, and it was not until Mequillen had hurried down to the dining-room for brandy for him that he regained his senses and was able to sit up, gasping and staring about him. He pointed a shaking finger to the aperture in the dome, through which the rain was pouring, unheeded by Mequillen, in a ceaseless cascade.

"Where is— It?" he gasped. "What— what's come of It?"

Mequillen shook him to his feet, and made him swallow more brandy.

"Pull yourself together, Cockerlyne!" he said. "This is no time to talk science; this is a time to act. Come down, man; we must see to the women! We've just escaped from fire; now we're likely to meet our deaths by water. Listen to that rain. Here, help me to close that shutter. Now, downstairs! It's lucky we're on a hillside, Cockerlyne! But the people in the valleys! Come on!"

And, leaving Cockerlyne to follow him, Mequillen ran down through the house, to find his sister and the housekeeper in the hall. As he saw them, he knew that they had realised what he now had time to realise— that the terrible heat was dying away, and that it was becoming easier and easier to breathe. As he passed it he glanced at a hanging thermometer, and saw the mercury falling in a steady, swift descent.

Mequillen caught his sister in his arms and pressed her to him. She looked anxiously into his face.

"Dick?" she said.

"He's safe— he's coming," said Mequillen.

Addie suddenly collapsed, and hid her face in her hands. The housekeeper was already in a heap in the nearest chair, sobbing and moaning. And as Cockerlyne came slowly down the stairs, Mequillen saw that, strong man as he was, his nerves had been shaken so much that he was trembling like a leaf. Once more Mequillen had to summon all his energies together in the task of bringing his companions round, and as he moved about from one to the other his quick ear heard the never-ceasing rattle of the rain, which was heavier than any tropical rain that ever fell. And presendy he caught the sound of newly forming cascades and waterfalls, cutting new ways from the hilltops to the level lands of the valleys. Now the normal coolness of middle winter was coming back. The women picked up the wraps they had thrown aside; the men hurried into greatcoats. And as the February dawn came grey and slow across the hills, Mequillen and Cockerlyne went up to the observatory, and into the little look-out turret from which they had seen the spirals of smoke and flame rising from the land only a few hours before.

The rain was still falling, but with no more violence than that of a tropical rainstorm. But the air was throbbing, pulsating, humming with the noise of falling waters. A hundred yards away from the house a churning and seething mass of yellow foam was tearing a path, wide and deep, through a copse of young pine; down in the valley immediately beneath them lay a newly formed lake. In the valleys on every side, as far as the eye could reach, lay patches of silvery hue, which they knew to be great sheets of water; and now the air was cool, and the hitherto tortured lungs could breathe it in comfort.

"Mequillen," said Cockerlyne, after a long silence, "what happened?"

But Mequillen shook his head.

"I am as a child standing at the edge of a great ocean," he answered. "I cannot say definitely. I think that the great star which we saw, rushing upon us, was suddenly arrested, split into fragments, when that darkness fell, and that we were saved. Once more, Cockerlyne, the old world, a speck in space, will move on. For look there!"

And Cockerlyne turned as Mequillen pointed, and saw, slowly rising over the Surrey hills, the kindly sun of a grey February morning.

______________

10: Who Killed Castelvetri?

Gilbert Frankau

1884-1952

The Strand Magazine, March 1928

HER name is Kyra Sokratesco. She is a Roumanian— petite, and rather lovely. And unkind people on the Côte des Maures, which lies west of the more civilised French Riviera, are apt to call her "Gilbert's girl friend."

The Chief of the Secret Police of Toulon, however, knows better; and it was at his instigation, with my wife's full cognisance, that Kyra and I spent a day and a night in our Local Assize Town— and disagreed all the time.

"Camille Oustric is innocent," began I, as soon as we reached Draguignan. "He acted in self-defence."

"Camille Oustric is a hired bully and a cold-blooded assassin," began she. "If this were England he, and others with him, would hang."

Our friend of the Secret Police of Toulon said, I feel with you, mademoiselle. But where is there proof for a court?"

The court at Draguignan is not impressive— bare walls, bare wood, a dais for the Procureur de la Rdpublique and the three judges, a box with twelve arm-chairs for the jury, a banc and a barreau for the witnesses, another banc for the accused.

When Kyra and I entered the Court-room, the accused was already seated between two gendarmes. He resembled his pictures in the newspapers— a powerfully-built man in his forties, sailorish, with a high dome of bald forehead, big cheekbones, and an immense brown moustache.

"His eyebrows twitch," observed Kyra, as we took our places in the Press-box. "He is frightened."

"So would you be," I retorted. "Twenty years' penal servitude in French Guiana is worse than death."

We continued sparring— while Counsel for the Defence, little and moustachioed, shook hands with his client; while Counsel for the Partie Civile (the relatives of the victim, who claim damages for his murder) big and bearded, was arranging his dossier; and while the Greffier called over the jury-roll. Even the tinny bell and the "Messieurs, la Cour," which heralded the entrance of the red-robed "Monsieur le President," his two brother judges, and the Procureur de la Republique, bald and clean-shaven, only reduced us to whispers, until the jury had been sworn.

For our disagreement had been of long standing— ever since the first report of the case.

THE CASE, as the jury now heard it from the charge-sheet, was rather sordid, but seemed of the simplest.

Camille Oustric, owner of a grocer's shop, had shot his brother-in-law, Josef Castelvetri, a sous-officier in the French Navy, on the night of the eleventh September at the Villa Fleurie in Toulon. Two witnesses— Oustric's sister, and his sister's fifteen-year-old boy— had witnessed the whole of the shooting. His sister's lover, who owned the villa, had seen the beginning of it. Oustric himself confessed to it— pleading, a plea confirmed by all three witnesses, Self-Defence.

"Tell your story," said the President, after the charge had been read over; "and please speak up."

"It was like this," said Oustric, rising, and his robust voice carried conviction. "On the night he died my brother-in-law should have come to us before dinner. We waited until nine o'clock for him— his wife, my sister; his son Jacques; Monsieur de Borneville, and I. At nine we dined on the veranda. At ten there came a loud knocking on the outside door. I told Jacques to answer the door. He went. A moment later he staggered back, bleeding from a blow on the forehead. 'Papa has killed me,' he cried. My brother-in-law followed. He had a pistol in his hand. 'Woman, I will stand this dishonour no longer,' he shouted. Then he fired twice. My sister fell wounded. Monsieur de Borneville jumped from the veranda. Thinking he would fire again, I rushed at Josef; I caught his wrists. 'For God's sake!' I implored. But he was mad, Monsieur. He fired again— at me; and the bullet pierced the ceiling. I remembered, then, that my sister had a pistol. It was in a drawer of her writing-table. Before he could fire a fourth shot I was at the writingtable. I wrenched the drawer open. I seized my sister's pistol. I emptied it at him. God forgive me for doing it— but Josef would have killed her. What else could I do?"

"And do you believe that rigmarole," whispered Kyra.

"I do," said I. "Or at any rate the essentials of it. The woman was in danger of her life. He defended her."

To which Kyra retorted with the Roumanian equivalent of "Pah!"

The President, however, though he examined at great length, did not succeed in shaking the prisoner's testimony.

"Yes," said Oustric in effect, "I admit that I knew of my sister's relations with Monsieur de Borneville; I admit that Monsieur de Borneville took me to the villa that evening; I admit that I went there to protect my sister should her husband become violent. But I was unarmed. I had no intention of killing. And the thing happened exactly as I have said."

"You say you were unarmed?" was the President's last question.

"Yet it has been proved that you possessed a pistol."

"Not a pistol, Monsieur. Only a very old revolver, which Monsieur le Chef de la Sûreté found where I told him he would find it, under the counter of my shop."

When Oustric sat down on his banc, while a doctor, pure Dickens from the cut of his old-fashioned coat to the set of his old-fashioned spectacles, came pawkily to the wooden rail of the witnesses, I couldn't help being a little sorry for the Chef de la Surete. And the medical evidence made me sorrier still. For after describing Castelvetri's three wounds at length, our Dickensian doctor detailed his examination of Madame Castelvetri, who had been shot, "In the right thigh, gentlemen of the jury; a clean wound at close range; the bullet entering five centimetres higher than its point of exit"— a fact which had hitherto been in dispute.

"Tu entends, ma chère," I whispered, "that blows our friend's theory of her having been hit by a ricochet to atoms."

"I admit it," whispered back Kyra. "But his theory is not mine."

The next evidence, read by the Procureur de la République, was new to both of us— but failed, in my opinion, to throw much light on the case. An architect named Meyrowkz, whose house was eighty yards away from the villa, had heard the shooting— first one shot; then, after a short interval, a second; then a positive fusillade. This witness had also heard de Borneville run past his window, and a woman's voice calling after him, "Marcel! Marcel! Come back."

Kyra, I may say, seemed to think this deposition of some importance. She smiled to herself as she made a note of it; and nodded to our friend the Chef de la Sûreté just before he took oath at the bar.

"At five-thirty a.m. on the morning of the eleventh September," said our friend, "I was called to the Toulon Hospital. A man had been shot. He wished to make a special deposition. So I went at once. When I got there the man, Josef Castelvetri, was on the point of death. He signed his deposition, however, which is as follows: 'It was my fault. I was mad. I wounded her. Then Camille shot me.' "

"And after that?" prompted the President.

"After that I rang up the City Police, and told them to make full inquiries at the Villa Fleurie, from which— the ambulance driver told me— the man had been brought in."

"The City Police will tell us the rest, I presume?"

"Oui, Monsieur le President, oui."

Our friend, who never appears personally either for or against a prisoner unless, as in this case, circumstances force him to, retired without glancing at us; and a rather foolish-looking City policeman took his place.

The police, it appeared, had gone to the Villa Fleurie immediately on receipt of our friend's telephone message— but not alone. With them had gone the accused, who had already given himself up and made his confession, and the three principal witnesses, who had reported at the police-station at the same time. At the villa, everything— including a bullet-hole in the ceiling— had confirmed the accused's statement. Both pistols had been left on the dining-table.

"Both of them were seven-shot Brownings," said the City policeman. "Six-point-thirty-five millimetres. Both had been recently fired. One, manufactured at Herbstahl in Belgium, contained three cartridges in the magazine and one in the chamber. This, I was told, had belonged to the victim. The other, marked M.A.B., of French make, belonged, as she admitted, to the woman, and was empty. That is all I know."

But a second policeman, carrying the tale a step further, brought out the one point which— as I had always admitted— was against the accused.

"Acting on instruction," said this second policeman, "I proceeded to the hospital and examined the clothes of the victim. In the pockets I found twenty-nine francs and a few centimes, a watch, a pocket-handkerchief, seventeen six-pointthirty-five millimetre cartridges, and a magazine for a Browning pistol."

"And the mark on that magazine?" asked the Procureur de la République, who had hitherto foregone his right to examine.

"The mark on the magazine, Monsieur, was M.A.B."

SINCE my acquaintance with Kyra and her friend of the Sûreté, who has particularly requested that I should not describe him, I have witnessed many "scenes" in French Law Courts. But rarely such a one as now occurred between Monsieur le Procureur and Counsel for the Defence.

"I protest," screamed Counsel for the Defence, rising. "And I shall continue to protest. This evidence is trivial. It can have no bearing on the issue. The Herbstahl and the M.A.B. pistol are absolutely identical. The same magazines, the same cartridges fit either of them."

"Quite so," screamed back the Procureur. "We admit it. That, we say, is how your client made his mistake."

"Mistake! But it is you, Monsieur le Procureur, who make a mistake when you try, as the Juge d'instruction tried, to prejudice an innocent man, my unfortunate client—"

"Gentlemen," interrupted the President, "gentlemen—"

But the President's interruption went unheeded— till his bell rang for the "suspension of debates."

During this suspension Kyra fell into one of those moods which I can only describe as "Kyraish," her lovely eyes halfclosed, her lips pursed, one thin little hand drawing idle designs in her notebook— and I, still more or less convinced of Oustric's innocence, went out to have a cigarette. Our friend of the Sûreté was outside; and I condoled with him a little.

He replied, "If Mademoiselle does not aid us, I fear this villain, and also his accomplices, will go free."

When I came back, the Court seemed much fuller; Messieurs les Avocats had apparently made up their differences; and a third policeman, a Commissioner, stood at the bar saying:

"Yes, Monsieur. When the accused came to my office on the morning of the twelfth September, I took all four statements separately. I noticed nothing peculiar about any of the four people except that Monsieur de Bonneville had a bruise, caused, as he said, by striking himself against the hood of his motor-car, on the bridge of his nose."

Two gunsmiths, contradicting one another, as all expert witnesses in all countries, followed the Commissioner. Both, however, questioned by the Defence, "If a customer purchases a six-point-thirty-five millimetre Herbstahl pistol and asks for a spare magazine with it, is he not as liable to be supplied with an M.A.B. magazine as a Herbstahl?" answered, "Yes. That is so. The magazines are interchangeable."

At which Kyra frowned.

ii

KYRA was still frowning while we took our luncheon; and with her, too, I condoled a little, for being over-imaginative— as indeed she is. "

There is no mystery in this case," I told her. "It is all perfectly straightforward." She said, quietly, "My friend, no case with a strong sex motive behind it is absolutely straightforward. I am a woman— and I know."

At twenty minutes past two the judges' guard of soldiers came marching by us; by half-past we were again in Court. The Court was fuller than ever. Looking back over my shoulder at the crowd pressing to the rails behind us, I was reminded of the French Revolution— as reconstructed by the American film. But the crowd stood orderly, and only the tiniest shiver of anticipation ran through it when de Borneville, giving Kyra a glance as he passed the Press-box, came to the bar. A highly-strung little man, I judged de Borneville. He had the long nose of the aristocrat, the "tooth-brush" moustache of an English officer, and curiously soft, rather imaginative brown eyes.

He gave his age as thirty-nine, unmarried; his profession as "landowner"; took the oath calmly, and turned to the jury at once.

"Before I make my deposition," he began, "I want to assure you, gendemen of the jury, of my deep regret at having been the unwilling cause of this tragedy. Also of my determination— once I am assured that Camille Oustric is found innocent— of compensating the Castelvetri family for the bereavement which they have suffered—as, indeed, I would have done already had they not brought suit against the accused."

"Quelle blague," whispered Kyra. But I could see that de Borneville had impressed the jury; and the favourable impression deepened as he went calmly on. His relations with the woman he admitted frankly, making no excuse for himself.

"What would you? We are all human. Despite the difference in our position, I loved her. I still love her. We should have married had not her husband been an ardent Catholic; had he not refused to grant her, as most men would have done, a divorce."

"During the two years you and his wife lived together," interrupted the President, "you had often asked Castelvetri to divorce her?"

"Yes, often. Whenever he came home from a cruise."

"He came home from a cruise on the tenth of September, and the purpose of your meeting on the night of the eleventh was to discuss the same topic?"

"Precisely."

"And because you were afraid Castelvetri might become violent, you took Oustric with you?"

"That is so. I am, as you will see, by no means a Hercules." And de Borneville looked towards the foreman of the jury, who smiled.

After that he described the start of the actual shooting, telling the same story as Oustric, quietly, but this time making an excuse for himself.

"I ran away after the first shot," he admitted. "It looks cowardly, I know, but I fancied that Castelvetri would follow— that I would draw his fire."

"You ran for help?" suggested the President. "That hardly bears out what you have just told us."

"I only ran for help after I heard the fusillade, after I guessed that a tragedy must have happened. It seemed to me that the sooner I got some independent witness the better. As soon as I had secured that witness, I jumped into my car; I drove for the doctor, for the ambulance. At six o'clock I reported myself to the police."

De Borneville, under the President's examination, under that of the Partie Civile and the Procureur, remained imperturbable. The impression he continued to give was that of a man in the most cruel of difficulties, behaving in the correctest way.

When asked, "Was Oustric armed when you took him to the villa?" he retorted instantly: "Had I thought arms necessary, there would have been no need for Oustric. In the war I was not quite unused to firearms. I could have carried a pistol myself."

Only once, or so it seemed to me, did he display any hesitancy, and that at the Procureur's question:

"We have been told that Castelvetri, just before he fired, shouted: 'Woman, I will stand this dishonour no longer.' Do you confirm that, or not?"

"It may have been so," said de Borneville then. " He certainly said something. But of the actual words I have no recollection. And I do not think he shouted. I would rather describe it that he hissed."

Asked, "Were you not amazed that Castelvetri should have struck his own son?" he answered:

"No. The son had always sided with his mother, you see"; and shortly after retired to the banc.

"The clever devil!" whispered Kyra, watching him; and in a minute or so the woman stood at the bar. She was dressed in black, fairly fashionably. A tall creature, dark-haired and slim of figure, with long, expressive hands. Her eyes were big, and held something of fear in them. But her voice, as she gave her age, "Thirty-seven," sounded clear, self-certain, and somehow sweet.

"As the victim's widow," explained the President, " this woman cannot give sworn testimony. But she has volunteered a statement, and she can be interrogated on it. Madame, you may now proceed."

THE WIDOW'S statement tallied, to a nicety, with Oustric's and de Borneville's. Examination revealed no flaws in it. Only at the end were the spectators— Kyra and I, of course, were prepared for it— treated to a surprise.

"In view of what you have just told us," said the President, "how comes it that you told one witness, 'I did it. I killed my husband'? And how comes it that your son told the same witness almost the same thing?"

" I can explain that very easily," the woman answered. "Indeed, I have done so twice already. As the moral culprit, it was my intention to take this crime on my own shoulders. I wanted to save my brother. Therefore, I told my son—"

"To lie, madame?"

"To lie in what I thought a good cause, Monsieur le President."

"But your son had seen everything?"

"Oui."

"You persist in that? It is claimed, you know, that he told another witness, at his father's funeral, 'I saw nothing. I was not in the veranda. I was outside the door.' "

"Jacques saw everything," asseverated the woman. "The suggestion that he was not in the veranda is mere gossip."

"That," retorted the President, "we shall see."

A little later, after only one admission, secured by the Partie Civile, "Yes. I called at my brother's shop to buy my usual provisions on the morning of the eleventh," that seemed to me in any way pertinent, the woman joined her lover on the bench of the witnesses, and her son, Castelvetri's orphan, came in.

"He, too," said the President, "cannot give sworn testimony."

And I saw Kyra's eyebrows go up as the boy began. The boy, very strong, dark-haired, stocky of figure, dark-eyed, but not, or so I thought, over-intelligent, made his deposition stoutly. His father had hit him with his pistol-butt. He had seen his father shoot at his mother: seen his uncle struggling with his father; seen his uncle snatch the pistol from the drawer. When he had finished this deposition the President again "suspended the debates."

"Very unusual before his own examination," I commented to Kyra.

"Very," admitted Kyra. "I suspect our friend's hand in it. However, we shall see."

We saw our friend's hand, and could not help chuckling a little at the subtlety of him, when the bell rang, and the President, full of apologies, turned to the jury saying, "Gentlemen, I am very sorry. I made a mistake. A dead man's son or daughter can give sworn testimony, either for or against his murderer. I am therefore going to ask this witness to repeat what he has just told you. But this time on oath."

And when Jacques Castelvetri repeated his second deposition on oath, it tallied— word for word, as a hidden shorthand writer proved to us that evening— with his first!

"Tu entends, man cher," whispered Kyra triumphandy; and I, "Supposing he did learn his statement by heart, it proves nothing."

Nor did the threefold examination prove very much more.

"I said mother had done it because mother told me to," admitted Jacques Castelvetri.

"Then you lied?"

"Yes. To save uncle."

"And there is a witness who maintains you told him, 'I saw nothing.' "

"Never, Monsieur le Procureur."

"You are on your oath."

"On my oath, Monsieur."

"You maintain that?"

"Absolutely."

"Very well."

The boy, his tale told, went to his mother. He took her hand; held it. The woman was crying a little. He tried to comfort her. De Borneville moved along the bench towards them, thought better of it, moved away. I called Kyra's attention to the humanity of the picture they made. She whispered, "Yes. They are great actors," as the next, perhaps the all-important, witness came in.

"My name is Henri Piquart, and I am in the Octroi," said that witness, a hefty, clean-shaven youngster, with the manner of the minor French official. "The Octroi (Town Customs) Station is about a quarter of a mile from the Villa Fleurie. At about ten-fifteen on the night of September the eleventh Monsieur de Borneville, who was unknown to me, rushed in. There had been une  bagarre, he told me. He could find no policeman; would I come at once? I went with Monsieur de Borneville, but only after he had proved his identity to me. When we reached his villa, a boy ran out to us, crying, 'He is dead. Mother has killed him.' De Borneville said, 'Not your mother. Surely not your mother.' The boy answered, 'Yes. Yes. Mother.' Then we went in." The man from the Octroi described the scene— Castelvetri on his back, his wife bleeding, Oustric with a bandage, trying to stanch her wound.

"We saw that the man was not yet dead," he went on. "De Borneville, who seemed very frightened, said, 'I have my car here. I will go for the doctor, for the ambulance.' He took the boy with him. And I remained."

"At de Borneville's suggestion?" interrupted the President.

"Yes. After he had gone, Castelvetri seemed about to recover consciousness. I sent Camille Oustric to get water for him. While he was away, the woman said to me, 'I will tell you how it happened. I shot him. It was an accident. All the shots in the pistol seemed to go off at once.' Castelvetri was muttering something then; and Oustric had come back with the water. Oustric said, 'Do not believe her. I did it.' When I gave Castelvetri the water, he opened his eyes and muttered, 'Camille, you have killed me.' Castelvetri seemed in great pain. I did what I could for him. But it was difficult, because of the woman. She seemed quite beside herself. I gathered that there must have been some terrible quarrel. She kept on flinging herself down by her husband, and reproaching him— about some other woman. This went on all the time till de Borneville returned with the doctor. I was very tired by then. I thought I had done my duty. And after giving my name to de Borneville, I went away."

iii

"IF that is the whole case for the prosecution," said I, some hours later, " it fails."

We were sitting, I must admit, in Kyra's bedroom— she on the edge of the bed, legs crossed, a cigarette between her fingers; I close to her, a brandy-and-soda at my side. Unfortunately for the unkind ones, however, there was a third party present— our friend of the Secret Police.

"We have other evidence for to-morrow," said he. "But only circumstantial. Our main witness, the one who overheard the boy say, 'I saw nothing,' has sent a doctor's certificate to say he is not well enough to attend. All we can actually prove is that Oustric occasionally carried a pistol."

"A pistol," interrupted Kyra, "or a revolver?"

"Among the lower orders in France, mademoiselle, the terms are unfortunately synonymous."

"I know. It is a pity. And de Borneville's payments to Oustric?"

"He has always admitted that he financed Oustric's grocery shop."

"He admits everything, that devil."

"Except his complicity in the death of Castelvetri."

"His complicity. And the woman's. She visited her brother that morning. Obviously to arrange the crime."

"But if it was no crime? " I interrupted. "If it all happened as they say it did?"

"In that case," Kyra flashed at me, "the wrong magazine would not have been in the dead man's pocket; there would have been no statement, 'I shot him; it was an accident,' from the woman; there would have been no bruise on de Borneville's nose; the boy's evidence would not have been word-perfect— and de Borneville would have been at the police-station several hours, three at any rate, before six o'clock.

"And besides," she went on, "their story, though plausible, is slightly ridiculous. How could Oustric have wrenched the drawer open to get at the pistol? The moment he let go of Castelvetri he would have been shot down. And then there is Meyrowitz, who heard the woman cry, 'Marcel, come back'; but never heard the loud knock or the boy's 'Papa has killed me,' or Castelvetri's 'Woman, I will stand this dishonour no longer.'

"And what of Castelvetri's mental state before he went to the villa?" She turned to our friend. "Have you no evidence on that point? Somebody must have seen him, spoken with him?"

"Only his father. And his father is the Partie Civile. He can give no evidence. Castelvetri, it appears, was always very reticent about the whole position."

"Didn't he say anything to his father?"

"Nothing of importance— except that he had an appointment with de Borneville, who was still bothering him about the divorce."

"Castelvetri did not mean to grant the divorce, then?"

"No, mademoiselle. He was far too devout. And, as you know, the last man in the world to contemplate violence—"

"Yet he shot his wife in the leg," I interrupted.

"I refuse to believe it," snapped Kyra.

"Then who did shoot her? De Borneville? Oustric? Her own son, perhaps? Dash it all, her husband himself admitted, on his death-bed, and to our friend here—"

" Castelvetri's deposition," said Kyra, "merely proves him a gentleman— and that he died loving his wife."

In all the detective stories I have ever read— and I have read many, mostly to please her, since my acquaintance with Kyra— the narrator is made out a half-wit. And as such I, of all people, was treated during the next half-hour. Kyra and her pet policeman simply left me out of their discussion— while they pored over plans and photographs of the veranda diningroom, over the two pistols and the ten used cartridge cases, and the whole common-or-garden paraphernalia of their trade.

"You're wasting your time," I said at last— and, I fear, irritably. "Granted all the flaws in the story— and I can see them as well as you can— it will be good enough for the jury. The woman's evidence is unshaken; the boy's also. And your Juge d'lnstruction, when he made his original inquiry, must have been a perfect fool."

"In what way? "queried our friend, with his usual politeness.

"Eh bien," said I; " Jacques says, they all say, that his father hit him with his pistol-butt; that he staggered in bleeding. A blow like that would have left a scar—"

"It did," retorted our friend. "The Juge d'Instruction had it examined by a doctor. It was a superficial head wound, not serious, but such as might easily cause profuse bleeding—"

" And such as might have been inflicted by a pistol-butt? "

" Quite possibly. Since it was under the hair."

A silence followed; and in that silence I looked at Kyra, still smoking, legs crossed, on her bed.

"You're very clever, Gilbert," she said at last. " Almost as clever as de Borneville. But you can't get over the fact that he had eight hours to concoct this story— and that it was supremely in the interest of all of them that Castelvetri should die."

"Not in the boy's," I protested. "Not in Oustric's."

"In theirs too. Financially. De Borneville is a rich man, remember."

"You make the boy out a monster, Kyra."

"The boy still thinks his mother did it. He thinks he is lying to save both her and his uncle. That is why he lies so well."

Another silence followed— with our friend fingering his copy of the dossier, and Kyra at her most Kyraish, a picture of applied concentration, cigarette extinguished, eyes closed.

"De Borneville's war record?" she asked, when her eyes opened. "You say it is a good one. About how good? Was he ever wounded? "

"Never." Our friend's eyes were on the dossier. "Towards the end he had a touch of shell-shock, and got three months' leave for it. But he returned to duty and was promoted Major for conspicuous coolness and ingenuity during a night raid, almost single-handed, into the enemy's lines."

"H'm!" said Kyra. "That helps." She closed her eyes again, and sat back for a long time, apparently dreaming. Then she said, "Shell-shock! That explains his bolting. He must have got his nerve back rather quickly. Yet he lost it again, according to Piquart, when the boy said, 'Mother has killed him.' She lost her nerve, too. And so did Oustric. There was no need to empty the whole pistol. Or to plant all those cartridges. I wonder if we dare try it? One could in Roumania. But here! Here! "

iv

BOTH as a law-abiding English citizen and as a friend of France, whose justice in the main is also equitable, I experience a certain diffidence in relating the events of the next hour. Our friend, when Kyra first broached her plan to him, would have none of it.

"It is impossible," he said. "Impossible. Even by the Sûreté, it could not be done."

"But he is sleeping in this very hotel," protested Kyra. " I have only to send a note along the corridor."

"He will not come for your note."

"He will—if he is guilty."

And in the end, after long argument, Kyra got her way. She showed us her note before she rang for the waiter; and though my sense of fair-play revolted, I had to admit the thing a masterpiece.

" All is known," it read. " To-morrow, when the Court opens, you and she will be arrested. The Sûreté is watching. Do not try to find me. Be careful.— A FRIEND. "

Before she rang for the waiter, too, she made us hide ourselves; so that it was half-stifled in a slip of a bathroom that I heard her say:

"For the gentleman in twenty-eight, garçon. You are to wait until you see him open it. If he asks you from whom it comes, you are to say nothing. When you have delivered the letter, return here."

"Subtle," whispered our friend. "It is a thousand to one he will follow the waiter."

And a moment later Kyra turned out her bedroom light. We waited breathless— and both nervous. We heard the waiter come back; heard Kyra say, sleepily, "Merci. C'est bon. My petit dejeuner at eight-thirty, please," and about five minutes later, a cautious knock.

Kyra did not answer that knock; and after an interval it repeated itself. At the third repetition she called out, as one startled: "Who is it? Who is it?" and we heard her run to the door. She gave a tiny cry as she opened the door; and presently we heard her say, "But this is madness. Madness. They are watching you."

Then the door closed, and we knew that de Borneville was inside the darkened room.

"Who are you?" he asked, and from the tone his teeth must have been chattering.

"A friend. I told you. But it is folly— folly what you have just done."

"Folly or not, I am here. All is known, you wrote. What is known? Tell me. I insist."

"Enough is known. You are betrayed. The Sûreté has evidence that Oustric habitually carried a pistol, not a revolver. They have evidence, too, that the old revolver under the shop counter was not his, but yours."

I am, as I protest, no half-wit. Nor did it take me more than a few seconds to follow the line Kyra was adopting for her totally illegal experiment in the Third Degree, if the revolver was de Borneville's, and the woman admitted owning one pistol, and Oustric could be proved to have been in the habit of carrying another...

Yet, even so, I was not prepared for de Borneville's gasp.

He gasped, after Kyra had spoken those two deadly sentences, exactly as I once heard a man gasp when the point of a bayonet took him in the vitals, "Ah! Ah!" with a gurgle in the throat. Imaginatively I saw him sway— and in a second Kyra drove at him again.

"They can prove Castelvetri was unarmed," she drove at him.

"Ah!" Again the gurgle.

"And that the three of you had planned to murder him. They know the truth about Jacques's wound, and about hers, and about Castelvetri's dying deposition. They know everything, Monsieur de Borneville."

And with her man still gasping, Kyra clicked on the light. It was our friend's signal to go in; and he went in, his hand on the weapon in his jacket pocket, very quickly, yet not, as it seemed to me, watching the scene through the bathroom doorway, quite quickly enough.

De Borneville, as I had imagined him, was still swaying where he stood under the chandelier in the centre of the bedroom. His complexion might have been white cheese. Sweat soaked his forehead. The clipped hair on his upper lip twitched like a dog's ear. But his brown eyes were unwinking as they looked on Kyra— and it seemed to me— in fact, I was certain of it— that he must have recognised her, in the second the light went up, for the woman he had glanced at in the Press-box on his way to the bar.

He did not gasp again when our friend came in and past him. But the key, turning in the lock, sent a galvanic shiver through his slight body, and I, who have been through shell-shock, knew that he was suffering that peculiar torment which must have been inflicted in other days by the rack.

Our friend, his pistol drawn now, was standing at the locked door. I saw de Borneville's unwinking eyes turn over shoulder at him. Then they switched back to Kyra, who spoke slowly, emphasising every word.

"There is no need to confess," said Kyra. "Unless you feel that a confession may save your mistress by proving that she acted under your instigation. Everything is known. When Castelvetri came to the door of your villa, unarmed, you sent Jacques to open it. You had given Jacques his orders— to come back with his father. You knew, when you gave those orders, that the boy's father would not permit him to be present at your discussion. And you calculated that his father would keep the boy out of the veranda long enough for the three of you to do your murder, though possibly not on the struggle that ended in Castelvetri's flinging the boy from him, or the boy's head being struck as he fell.

"Yes. You calculated on being able to kill him before Jacques got back on to the veranda," repeated Kyra; and I realised, from the pause she made, that she must be expecting an answer. But no answer came from de Borneville, and presently she went on.

"When Castelvetri entered the veranda," went on Kyra, while de Borneville's lips still twitched at her, "he did not see Oustric, or his wife either. He only saw you. You were standing where it had been planned that you should. You had calculated on telling him to approach. As he approached, it was your plan that his wife, who was behind him, should have fired one shot— wide and high. Then Oustric, hidden behind you, could have fired the second shot— to kill. After that, it would have been easy enough to place Oustric's pistol by the dead man's side, to plant the correct magazine in his pocket— and there would have been two of you to swear that a woman, always easy to defend before a French jury, had shot her husband in fear of her own life.

"That was your plan."

Again Kyra had paused. Again de Borneville had made no answer.

"But you had reckoned without your victim's anger. His struggle with his son had enraged him. He sprang straight at you, his fists clenched. He struck you. The bruise on your nose proves it. And as he struck, your mistress— fearful for your life— fired one shot.

"She fired," repeated Kyra, "and missed. But Oustric didn't dare to fire. Castelvetri had been too quick for him. Castelvetri had turned. He had caught his wife's wrist. As they struggled the pistol went off, muzzle downwards, wounding her thigh. Castelvetri tore the pistol away. When you saw him with it in his hand, your nerve cracked. You bolted. Oustric's nerve had cracked too. He fired in a panic, seven times. Castelvetri returned that-fire— once, with the tenth cartridge, as he was shot down."

Kyra's voice stopped, on a silence such as follows machine-gun fire at night over No Man's Land when a raider is alone. And perhaps de Borneville relived such a moment, for as our friend moved, and the hand of the law rested on his shoulder, his mouth fell open and through thirty dreadful seconds it seemed to me that he must confess.

"It will be better for her if you admit everything," said our friend.

"I—" he began. But on that, abruptly, another shiver galvanised the slight body; the feet steadied; the teeth snapped together; the lips ceased their twitching, and I— who have been through shellshock— knew that, for the moment at any rate, de Borneville was past his crisis, keyed up to that tension which makes a man's body more dangerous than magazine-pistols to handle, and his wits sharper than knives.

"Du bluff," he said to the Chief. "You know nothing. Release me, Monsieur." And to Kyra: "A pretty trap. A pretty theory."

Our friend, being a man, knew— as he told us later— from the very stiffening of de Borneville's shoulder-muscles that he and Kyra were already beaten. But Kyra, being a woman, for all her cleverness, didn't. Also, or so it seemed to me, she lost her temper a little. For, though our friend's hand released de Bornville, her attack went on.

"Theory!" she shot at him. "It is the truth. You cannot deny it."

"I do deny it. You cannot get over the evidence."

"Whose evidence?"

"Castelvetri's dying deposition."

"Begged of him by his wife, under cover of those reproaches heard by the witness Piquart— after his muttering, 'Camille, you have killed me,'— had made even the fool Oustric, who planted the wrong magazine, realise that your story of crime passionnelle must be altered— before you, Monsieur de Borneville, had time to consult with your accomplices, to invent a fresh story—"

But de Bornville, still keyed, by his love for the woman perhaps, to that pitch of emotional tension when a man, for good or ill, can accomplish miracles, interrupted, grinning, "Your story is certainly the more ingenious, mademoiselle. It might even be the correct version. Yet the law is the law; and I wager my neck that our twelve honest citizens will find mine the more credible one."

AND though Kyra still maintains, and our friend with her, that hers is the only possible answer to the question: "Who killed Castelvetri?" those twelve honest citizens did!

_______________

11: Black Coffee

Jeffery Farnol

1878-1952

The Shadow and Other Stories, 1929

PROFESSOR JARVIS sat among piles of reference-books, and stacks of notes and jottings, the silence about him unbroken save for the ceaseless scratching of his pen. Professor Jarvis hated bustle and noise of all sorts, for they destroyed that continuity of thought, that following out of proved facts to their primary hypotheses, which was to him the chief end and aim of existence; therefore he inhabited the thirtieth storey.

He had seen none but John, his valet, for nearly a month, sitting night after night, perched high above the great city, busied upon the work of which he had dreamed for years, his treatise upon "The Higher Ethics of Philosophy," and already it neared completion. A spirit of work had come upon him these last few weeks, a spirit that was a devil, cruel, relentless, allowing of no respite from the strain of intricate thought and nerveracking effort; hence the Professor sat writing night after night, and had of late done with little sleep and much black coffee.

To-night, however, he felt strangely tired, he laid down his pen, and, resting his throbbing temples between his hands, stared down vacantly at the sheets of manuscript before him.

As he leaned thus, striving against a feeling of nausea that had recurred frequently the last few days, the long, closewritten lines became to him "things" endowed with sinuous life, that moved, squirming a thousand legs across the white paper.

Professor Jarvis closed his eyes and sighed wearily.

"I really must get some sleep," he said to himself, "I wonder when it was I slept last?"

As he spoke he tried unsuccessfully to yawn and stretch himself. His glance, wandering aimlessly, paused at the lamp upon the desk before him, and as he stared at it, he noticed that the "things" had got from the paper and were writhing and creeping up the green shade. He sighed again, and his fingers fumbled among the papers beside him for the electric bell.

Almost immediately, it seemed to him, he heard John's voice rather faint and faraway, responding from the shadow that lay beyond the light of the lamp.

"John, if you are really there, be so good as to switch on the light," said the Professor.

"John," he continued, blinking at his valet in the sudden glare, "when did I sleep last ? "

"Why, sir, you haven't rightly slept for a week now, just a doze now and then on the couch, sir, but that's nothing; if you'll allow me to advise you, sir, the best thing you could do would be to go to bed at once."

"Humph!" said the Professor. "Thank you, John, but your advice, though excellent, is impracticable. I am engaged upon my last chapter, and sleep is impossible until it is finished."

"Begging your pardon, sir," began John, "but if you were to try undressing and going to bed properly—"

"Don't be a fool, John!" cried the Professor, with a sudden access of anger that was strangely at variance with his usual placid manner, "do you think I wouldn't sleep if I could ? Can't you see I'm sick for sleep? I tell you I'd sleep if I could, but I can't— there can be no rest for me I know now, until I've finished my book, and that will be somewhere about dawn," and the Professor glared up at John, his thick brows twitching, and his eyes glowing within the pale oval of his face with an unpleasant light.

"If you would only give up drinking so much black coffee, sir; they do say it's very bad for the nerves—"

"And I think they are right," put in the Professor, and his voice was as gentle as ever. "Yes, I think they are right. For instance, John, at this precise moment I have a feeling that there is a hand groping behind the curtains yonder. Yet this mental attitude harmonises in a manner with the subject of this last chapter, which deals with the psychic forces of nature. I allude, John, more especially to the following passage:

" 'That mysterious power which some call the soul, if sufficiently educated, may cast off for a time this bodily flesh, and precipitate itself into illimitable spaces, riding upon the winds, walking upon the beds of seas and rivers, and indeed may even re-inhabit the bodies of those that have been long dead, provided they could be kept from corruption.' "

The Professor leaned back in his chair, and continued in the voice of one thinking aloud: "All this was known centuries ago, notably to the priests of Isis and the early Chaldeans, and is practised to-day in some small part by the fakirs of India and the lamas of Tibet, and yet is looked upon by the ignorant world as little more than cheap trickery. By the way," he broke off, becoming suddenly aware of John's presence, "didn't you ask for leave of absence until to-morrow?"

" Well, yes, sir, I did," admitted John, "but I thought I'd put it off, seeing you are so—so busy, sir."

"Nonsense, John, don't waste the evening, it must be getting late, just brew some more coffee in the samovar, and then you can go."

John hesitated, but meeting the Professor's eye, obeyed; and having set the steaming samovar on a small table at his master's elbow and put the room in order, he turned to the door.

"I shall be back in the morning at eight o'clock, sir."

"Very good, John," said the Professor, sipping his coffee. "ood-night, John."

"Good-night, sir," returned John, and, closing the door behind him, stood for a moment to shake his head. "He isn't fit to be left alone," he muttered, "but I'll get back before eight to-morrow morning, yes, I'll take good care to be back before eight."

So saying, he turned, and went softly along the passage.

ii

FOR a long time the Professor had sat crouched above his desk, yet in the last half-hour he had not added a single word to the page before him, for somewhere beneath his brain a small hammer seemed tap-tapping, soft and slow and regular, rendering the stillness about him but the more profound. Slowly and gradually a feeling of expectation grew upon him, a foolishly persistent expectation of something that was drawing near and nearer to him with every stroke of the hammer— something that he could neither guess at, nor hope to arrest, only, he knew that it was coming, coming, and he waited with straining ears, listening for the unknown.

Suddenly, from somewhere in the world far below, a clock chimed midnight, and as the last strokes died there was a hurry of footsteps along the corridor without, a knock, and a fumbling at the handle. As the Professor rose, the door opened, and a shortish, stoutish individual, chiefly remarkable for a round, red face, and a brisde of grey hair, trotted in, and was shaking him by the hand— talking meanwhile in that quick jerky style that was characteristic of Magnus McManus, whose researches in Lower Egypt and along the Nile during the last ten years had made his name famous.

"My dear Dick," he began, "good God, how ill you look!— frightful— overwork as usual, eh?"

"Why, Magnus!" exclaimed the Professor, "I thought you were in Egypt?"

" Exactly— so I was— came back last week with a specimen —been in New York three days— must get back to the Nile at once— booked passage yesterday— sail to-morrow— noon. You see, Dick," continued Magnus, trotting up and down the room, " I received a cable from Tarrant— overseer of the excavations, you know— to say they've come upon a monolith— Coptic inscriptions— curious— may be important— very."

"Yes," nodded the Professor.

"So just looked you up, Dick— to ask you to take charge of this specimen I brought over— thought you wouldn't mind keeping it until I got back."

"Certainly, of course," said the Professor rather absendy.

"Undoubtedly the greatest find of the age," pursued Magnus, " stupendous— will throw a new light on Egyptian history— there is not in the whole world, so far as is known, such another mummy."

"A what?" exclaimed the Professor, "did you say 'mummy'?"

"To be sure," nodded Magnus, "though the term is inapt— this is something more than your ordinary dried-up mummy."

"And have you—have you brought it with you, Magnus?"

"Certainly—it's waiting outside in the corridor."

For no apparent reason the Professor shivered violently, and the nausea came upon him again.

"The deuce of a time getting it here— awkward to handle, you know," and as he spoke Magnus turned and trotted from the room.

There came a murmur of voices outside, a shuffle and stagger of approaching footsteps as of men who bore a heavy burden, and above all the excited tones of Magnus.

"Easy there— mind that corner— steady, steady, don't jar it ; now, gently— so."

And Magnus reappeared, followed by four men who bent beneath something in shape between a packing-case and a coffin, which by the direction of Magnus they sat carefully down in a convenient corner.

"Now," cried he, as soon as they were alone, drawing a small screwdriver from his pocket,"I'm going to show you something that will make you doubt the evidence of your eyes— as I did myself at first— a wonder, Dick— that will set all the societies gaping— open-mouthed— like fools."

One by one Magnus extracted the screws that held down the lid, while the Professor watched, wide-eyed, waiting— waiting.

"This specimen will be a revelation on the art of embalming," continued Magnus, busy upon the last screw. "Here is no stuffed and withered, dried-up wisp of humanity. Whoever did this was a genius— positively— there has been no disembowelling here— deuce take this screw— body is as perfect as when life first left it— and mark me, Dick— it can't be less than six thousand years old at the very least— probably older. I tell you it's beyond all wonder, but there— judge for yourself!" and with these words, Magnus laid down the screwdriver, lifted off the heavy lid and stood aside.

The Professor drew a deep breath, his fingers clutching convulsively at his chair-arms, as he stared at that which lay, or rather stood, within the glass-fronted shell or coffin. And what he saw was an oval face framed in black hair, a face full and unshrunken, yet of a hideous ashen-grey, a high, thin, aquiline nose with delicate proud-curving nostrils, and below, a mouth, blue-lipped, yet in whose full, cruel lines lurked a ghasdy mockery that carried with it a nameless horror.

"Must have been handsome at one time," said Magnus. "Very much so indeed— regular features and all that— pure Egyptian type, but "

"It's— the— the face of a devil," muttered the Professor thickly. "I wonder what—what lies behind those eyelids, they seem as if they might lift at any moment, and if they did Oh, I tell you it is horrible."

Magnus laughed. "Thought she'd astonish you— will knock science deaf and dumb— not a doubt. The setting of these stones," he continued with a complacent air, "round her neck— uncut emeralds they are—dates quite back to the Fifth Dynasty— yet that scarab on her breast seems even earlier still— the gold embroidery on her gown beats me— quite— and the thumb-ring by its shape would almost seem to belong to the Fifteenth Dynasty. Altogether she's a puzzle. Another peculiar thing was that— mouth and nostrils had been— plugged by a kind of cement— deuce of a time getting it out.

"The inscription upon her sarcophagus," he ran on, "describes her as: 'Ahasuera, Princess of the House of Ra, in the reign of Raman Kau Ra,' possibly another title for Seti the Second. I also came upon a papyrus— very important— and three tablets, have only had time to dip into them hastily— but from what I gather, Ahasuera appears to have been of a very evil reputation— combination of Semiramis, Cleopatra, and Messalina, multiplied by three! One of her lovers was a certain Ptomes, High Priest of the Temple of Osiris, who is spoken of as one greatly versed in the arts and mysteries of Isis and the high Gods.' When I first opened her sarcophagus, from the strange disorder of the wrappings— almost seemed as if she must have moved— also the golden death-mask that had covered her face had fallen off— which was curious— very. Upon examining this mask— found an inscription across the forehead— puzzled me for days— meaning came to me all at once—in bed—might be translated by a line of doggerel verse something like this:

'Isis awhile hath stayed my breath,

Whoso wakes me shall find death,'

which is also curious, eh? Why, Great heavens, man! What ails you?" Magnus broke off, for he had turned and looked at his friend for the first time.

"Nothing," returned the Professor in the same thick voice. "Nothing— only cover it up— cover it up in God's name."

"Certainly— to be sure," said Magnus, staring. "Had no idea it would affect you like that, nerves must be at sixes and sevens, should take more care of yourself, Dick, and stop that confounded black coffee."

As the last screw was driven home, the Professor laughed, a little wildly.

"There are eighteen screws, about two and a half inches long, eh, Magnus?"

"Yes," said Magnus and turned to stare again.

"Good," the Professor rejoined with the same strange laugh. Magnus forced a smile.

"Why, Dick," he began, "you almost talk as though you imagined—"

"Those eyes," the Professor broke in, "they haunt me, they are the eyes of one who waits to take you unawares, they are eyes that watch and follow you behind your back—"

"Pooh! nonsense, Dick," cried Magnus, rather hastily. "This is nothing but imagination— sheer imagination. You ought to take a holiday or you will be suffering from hallucinations next."

"Sit still and listen," said the Professor, and he began to read from the manuscript before him:

" 'That mysterious power which some call the soul, if sufficiently educated, may cast off for a time this bodily flesh and precipitate itself into illimitable spaces, riding upon the winds, walking upon the beds of seas and rivers, and indeed may even re-inhabit the bodies of those that have been long dead, provided that body could be kept free from corruption.' "

"Humph!" said Magnus, crossing his legs.

"Well?"

" 'Provided that body could be kept free from corruption,' " repeated the Professor, then, raising his arm with a sudden gesture, he pointed at the thing in the corner: "That is not death," he said. Magnus leaped to his feet.

"Man, are you mad," he cried, "what do you mean?"

"Suspended animation!" said the Professor. For a long moment there was silence, during which the two men stared into each other's eyes; the face of Magnus had lost some of its colour, and the Professor's fingers moved nervously upon his chair-arms.

Suddenly Magnus laughed, though perhaps a trifle too boisterously.

"Bosh!" he exclaimed, "what folly are you talking, Dick ? What you require is a good stiff glass of brandy and bed afterwards," and with the knowledge and freedom of an old friend, he crossed to a corner cabinet, and took thence a decanter and glasses, pouring out a stiff peg into each.

"So you don't agree with me, Magnus?"

"Agree, no," said Magnus, swallowing his brandy at a gulp, "it's all nerves— damn 'em."

The Professor shook his head. "There are more things in heaven and earth—"

"Yes— yes, I know— I have cursed Shakespeare frequently for that same quotation."

"But you yourself wrote a paper, Magnus, only a few years ago, on the hypnotic trances practised by the Egyptians."

"Now, Dick," expostulated Magnus, "be reasonable, for heaven's sake! Is it possible that any trance could extend into six or seven thousand years? Preposterous, utterly. Come, get to bed, man, like a sensible chap— where's John?"

"I gave him leave of absence until to-morrow."

" The deuce you did?" exclaimed Magnus, glancing round the room with an uneasy feeling. "Well, I'll take his place— see you into bed and all that."

"Thanks, Magnus, but it's no good," returned the Professor, shaking his head. "I couldn't sleep until I've finished this last chapter, and it won't take long."

"One o'clock, by Gad!" exclaimed Magnus, glancing at his watch. " Must hurry off, Dick— hotel— sail to-morrow, you know."

The Professor shivered, and rose to his feet.

"Good-bye, Magnus," he said as they shook hands. "I hope your monolith will turn out a good find. Good-bye!"

"Thanks, old fellow," said Magnus, returning the pressure. "Now, no more poisonous coffee, mind." So saying he trotted to the door, nodded, and was gone. The Professor sat for a moment with puckered brows, then, rising hastily, crossed to the door, turned the handle, and peered out into the dim light of the corridor.

"Magnus," he called in a hoarse whisper. "Magnus."

"Well?" came the answer. "Then you don't think It will open Its eyes, do you, Magnus?"

"Good God— no!"

"Ah!" said the Professor, and closed the door.

iii

"I WISH," said the Professor, as he took up his pen, "I wish that I had not let John go, I feel strangely lonely to-night, and John is so very matter of fact," so saying he bent to his writing again. His brain had grown singularly bright and clear, all his faculties seemed strung to their highest pitch, a feeling of exaltation had taken possession of him. His ideas grew luminous, intricate thoughts became coherent, the words shaping themselves beneath his pen with a subtle power and eloquence.

Yet all at once, and for no apparent reason, in the very middle of a sentence, a desire seized upon him to turn his head and look back over his shoulder at that which stood in the corner. He checked it with an effort, and his pen resumed its scratching; though all the time he was conscious that the desire was growing, and that sooner or later it would master him. Not that he expected to see anything unusual, that was absurd, of course. He began trying to remember how many screws there were holding down the lid upon that Thing, whose lips had mocked at God and man through centuries and whose eyes— ah, whose eyes—

The Professor turned suddenly, and with his pen extended before him, began counting the glinting screw-heads to himself in an undertone.

"One, two three, four, five, six— six along each side, and three along the top and bottom— eighteen in all. And they were steel screws, too, a quarter of an inch thick, and two and a half inches in length; they ought to be strong enough, and yet eighteen after all was not many; why hasn't Magnus used more of them, it would have been so much—"

The Professor checked himself, and turned back to his work; but he tried vainly to write, for now the impulse held him without respite, growing more insistent each moment, an impulse that had fear beneath it, fear born of things that move behind one.

"Ah, yes, behind one—why had he let It be placed in the corner that was directly behind his chair?"

He rose and began pulling and dragging at his desk, but it was heavy, and defied his efforts; yet the physical exertion, futile though it was, seemed to calm him, but though he bent resolutely above his task— the finishing of his great book— his mind was absent, and the pen between his fingers traced idle patterns and meaningless scribbles upon the sheet before him, so he tossed it aside, and buried his face in his hands.

Could it be possible that in the darkness behind the lid with the eighteen screws the eyes were still shut, or were they—? The Professor shivered. Ah, if he could but know, if he could only be certain— he wished John was here—  John was so very matter of fact—he might have sat and watched It— yes, he had been foolish to let John go. The Professor sighed, and, opening his eyes, remained motionless— staring down at the sheet of foolscap before him— staring at the two uneven lines scrawled across it in ragged capitals that were none of his:

"Isis awhile hath stayed my breath,

Whoso wakes me shall find death."

A sudden piping, high-pitched laugh startled him—

"Could it really be issuing from his own lips?" he asked himself, and indeed he knew it must be so. He sat with every nerve tingling— hoping, praying for something to break the heavy silence— the creak of a footstep— a shout— a scream— anything rather than that horrible laugh; and as he waited it came again, louder, wilder than before. And now he felt it quivering between his teeth, rattling in his throat, shaking him to and fro in its grip, then, swift as it had come it was gone, and the Professor was looking down at a litter of torn paper at his feet.

He reached out a trembling hand to the rack upon his desk and taking down a pipe already filled, lighted it. The tobacco seemed to soothe him, and he inhaled it deeply, watching it rise in blue, curling spirals above his head, watched it roll in thin clouds across the room, until he noticed that it always drifted in the same direction, to hang like a curtain above one point, an ever-moving curtain behind which were shadowy "somethings" that moved and writhed.

The Professor got unsteadily to his legs.

"Magnus was right," he muttered, "I am ill, I must try to sleep— I must— I must."

But as he stood there, leaning his shaking hands upon the table-edge, the blind fear, the unreasoning dread against which he had battled so vainly all night swept over him in an irresistible wave ; his breath choked, a loathing horror shook him from head to foot, yet all the time his gaze never left the great white box, with its narrow screw-heads that stared at him like little searching eyes.

Something glittered upon the floor beside it, and almost before he knew he had snatched up the screwdriver. He worked feverishly until but one screw remained, and as he stopped to wipe the sweat from his cheek he was surprised to find himself singing a song he had heard at a music-hall years before, in his college days; then he held his breath as the last screw gave....

The oval face framed in a mist of black hair, the long voluptuous eyes with their heavy lids, the aquiline nose, the cruel curve of the nostrils, and the full-lipped sensual mouth, with its everlasting mockery; he had seen it all before, and yet as he gazed he was conscious of a change, subtle and horrible, a change that he could not define, yet which held him as one entranced. With an effort he turned away his eyes, and tried to replace the lid, but could not; he looked about him wildly, then snatching up a heavily fringed rug, covered the horror from sight.

"Magnus was right," he repeated, "I must sleep," and crossing to the couch, he sank upon it and hid his face among the cushions.

A long time he lay there, but sleep was impossible, for the sound of the hammers was in his ears again, but louder now and seeming to beat upon his very brain. What was that other sound— that came to him beneath the hammer-strokes— could it be a footstep?

He sat up listening, and then he noticed that the fringe upon the rug was moving. He rubbed his eyes, disbelieving, until all at once it was shaken by another movement that ran up it with a strange rippling motion. He rose, trembling, and creeping forward, tore away the rug.

Then he saw and understood the change that had baffled him before; and with the knowledge, the might of his learning, the strength of his manhood, deserted him, and covering his face, Professor Jarvis rocked his body to and fro making a strange whimpering noise, like a little child; for the ashen grey was gone from the face, and the lips which had been black were blood-red. For a while the Professor continued to rock to and fro, whimpering behind his hands, till with a sudden gesture, wild and passionate, he tossed his arms above his head.

"My God!" he cried, "I'm going mad— I am mad, oh, anything but that— not mad, no, not mad— I am not mad— no."

Chancing to catch sight of himself in a mirror, he shook his head and chuckled.

"Not mad," he whispered to his reflection, "oh, no," then he turned to the case once more, and began patting and stroking the glass.

"Oh, Eyes of Death, lift thy lashes, for I am fain to know the mystery beyond. What though I be the Priest Ptomes, even he that put this magic upon thee, yet am I come back to thee, Beloved, and my soul calleth unto thine even as in Thebes of old. Oh, Eyes of Death, lift thy lashes, for I am fain to know the mystery beyond. While thy soul slept, mine hath hungered for thee through coundess ages, and now is the time of waiting accomplished. Oh, Eyes of Death, lift thy lashes, for I am fain to know the mystery beyond. Ah, God," he broke out suddenly, "she will not wake— I cannot wake her."

And he writhed his fingers together. All at once his aspect changed, his mouth curved with a smile of cunning, he crept to where a small mirror hung upon the wall, and, with a swift movement, hid it beneath his coat, and, crossing to his desk, propped it up before him.

"They will not open while I look and wait for it," he said, nodding and smiling to himself. "They are the eyes of one who waits to take you unawares, that watch and follow you behind your back, yet I shall see them, yes, I shall gee them."

From the world below came the long-drawn tooting of a steamer on. the river, and with the sound, faint and far-away though it was, reason reasserted itself.

"Good heavens!" he exclaimed, trying to laugh. "What a fool I am to let a pitiful bit of dead humanity drive me halfwild with fear, and in New York too, it seems inconceivable."

So saying the Professor crossed to the brandy, and, with his back turned resolutely, slowly drained his glass, yer even then he was vaguely conscious of eyes that watched him, followed his every movement, and with difficulty he forbore from swinging round on his heel.

With the same iron will crushing down his rebellious nerves, he arranged his papers and took up his pen. The human body after all has certain attributes of the cur, for let that master, the mind, chastise it, and it will cringe, let him command and it will obey.

So the Professor sat, his eye clear, his hand firm, scarcely noticing the mirror beside him, even when he paused to take a fresh sheet. The sickly grey of dawn was at the windows as he paused to glance at his watch.

"Another half-hour," he muttered, "and my work is done, ended, fin—"

The word died upon his lips, for his glance by accident had fallen upon the mirror, and the eyes were wide open. For a long moment they looked into his ere their lids fluttered and fell.

"I am suffering from hallucinations," he groaned. "It is one of the results of loss of sleep, but I wish John was back, John is such a matter-of-fact—"

There was a sound behind him, a sound soft and gentle like the whisper of wind in trees, or the brushing of drapery against a wall— and it was moving across the floor behind him. A chill as of death shuddered through him, and he knew the terror that is dumb.

Scarcely daring to look, full of a dread of expectation, he lifted his eyes to the mirror. The case behind him was empty; he turned swiftly, and there, so close that he might almost touch it was, the "Thing" he had called a pitiful bit of dead humanity. Slowly, inch by inch, it moved towards him, with a scrape and rustle of stiff draperies:

"Isis awhile hath stayed my breath,

Whoso wakes me, shall find— death!"

With a cry that was something between a scream and a laugh he leaped to his feet and hurled himself upon It; there was the sound of a dull blow, a gasp, and Professor Jarvis was lying upon the floor, his arms wide-tossed, and his face hidden in the folds of a rug.

NEXT DAY there was a paragraph in the papers, which read as follows:

STRANGE DEATH.

Yesterday at his chambers in —— Street, Professor Jarvis, the famous Scientist, was found dead, presumably of heart-failure. A curious feature of the case was that a mummy which had stood in a rough travelling-case in a corner on the opposite side of the room was found lying across the Professor's dead body.

_________________

12: The Black Ferry

John Galt

1779-1839

First published in The Club Book, 1831, as "The Book of Life". Usually reprinted since as "The Black Ferry".

I WAS then returning from my first session at college. The weather had for some time been uncommonly wet, every brook and stream was swollen far beyond its banks, the meadows were flooded, and the river itself was increased to a raging Hellespont, insomuch that the ferry was only practicable for an hour before and after high tide.

The day was showery and stormy, by which I was detained at the inn until late in the afternoon, so that it was dark before I reached the ferry-house, and the tide did not serve for safe crossing until midnight. I was therefore obliged to sit by the fire and wait the time, a circumstance which gave me some uneasiness, for the ferryman was old and infirm, and Dick his son, who usually attended the boat during the night, happened to be then absent, the day having been such that it was not expected any travellers would seek to pass over that night.

The presence of Dick was not, however, absolutely necessary, for the boat swung from side to side by a rope anchored in the middle of the stream, and, on account of the strong current, another rope had been stretched across by which passengers could draw themselves over without assistance, an easy task to those who had the sleight of it, but it was not so to me, who still wore my arm in a sling. While sitting at the fireside conversing with the ferryman and his wife, a smart, good-looking country lad, with a recruit's cockade in his hat, came in, accompanied by a young woman who was far advanced in pregnancy. They were told the state of the ferry, and that unless the recruit undertook to conduct the boat himself, they must wait the return of Dick.

They had been only that day married, and were on their way to join a detachment of the regiment in which Ralph Nocton, as the recruit was called, had that evening enlisted, the parish officers having obliged him to marry the girl. Whatever might have been their former love and intimacy, they were not many minutes in the house when he became sullen and morose towards her ; nor was she more amiable towards him. He said litde, but he often looked at her with an indignant eye, as she reproached him for having so rashly enlisted, to abandon her and his unborn baby, assuring him that she would never part from him while life and power lasted.

Though it could not be denied that she possessed both beauty and an attractive person, there was yet a silly vixen humour about her ill calculated to conciliate. I did not therefore wonder to hear that Nocton had married her with reluctance; I only regretted that the parish officers were so inaccessible to commiseration, and so void of conscience as to be guilty of rendering the poor fellow miserable for life to avert the hazard of the child becoming a burden on the parish.

The ferryman and his wife endeavoured to reconcile them to their lot; and the recruit, who appeared to be naturally reckless and generous, seemed willing to be appeased; but his weak companion was capricious and pettish. On one occasion, when a sudden shower beat hard against the window, she cried out, with little regard to decorum, that she would go no farther that night.

"You may do as you please, Mary Blake," said Nocton, "but go I must, for the detachment marches to-morrow morning. It was only to give you time to prepare to come with me that the Captain consented to let me remain so late in the town."

She, however, only remonstrated bitterly at his cruelty in forcing her to travel, in her condition, and in such weather. Nocton refused to listen to her, but told her somewhat doggedly, more so than was consistent with the habitual cheerful cast of his physiognomy, "that although he had already been ruined by her, he trusted she had not yet the power to make him a deserter."

He then went out, and remained some time alone. When he returned, his appearance was surprisingly changed; his face was of an ashy paleness; his eyes bright, febrile and eager, and his lip quivered as he said:

"Come, Mary, I can wait no longer; the boat is ready, the river is not so wild, and the rain is over."

In vain she protested; he was firm; and she had no option but either to go or to be left behind. The old ferryman accompanied them to the boat, saw them embark, and gave the recruit some instruction how to manage the ropes, as it was still rather early in the tide. On returning into the house, he remarked facetiously to his wife:

"I can never see why young men should be always blamed, and all pity reserved for the damsels."

At this moment a rattling shower of rain and hail burst like a platoon of small shot on the window, and a flash of vivid lightning was followed by one of the most tremendous peals of thunder I have ever heard.

"Hark!" cried the old woman, starting, "was not that a shriek?"

We listened, but the cry was not repeated ; we rushed to the door, but no other sound was heard than the raging of the river, and the roar of the sea-waves breaking on the bar. Dick soon after came home, and the boat having swung back to her station, I embarked with him, and reached the opposite inn, where I soon went to bed.

Scarcely had I laid my head on the pillow when a sudden inexplicable terror fell upon me; I shook with an unknown horror; I was, as it were, conscious that some invisible being was hovering beside me, and could hardly muster fortitude enough to refrain from rousing the home.

At last I fell asleep; it was perturbed and unsound; strange dreams and vague fears scared me awake, and in them were dreadful images of a soldier murdering a female, and open graves, and gibbet-irons swinging in the wind. My remembrance has no parallel to such another night.

In the morning the cloud on my spirit was gone, and I rose at my accustomed hour, and cheerily resumed my journey. It was a bright morning, all things were glittering and fresh in the rising sun, the recruit and his damsel were entirely forgotten, and I thought no more of them. But when the night returned next year, I was seized with an unaccountable dejection ; it weighed me down; I tried to shake it off, but was unable; the mind was diseased, and could no more by resolution shake off its discomfort, than the body by activity can expel a fever.

I retired to my bed greatly depressed, but nevertheless I fell asleep. At midnight, however, I was summoned to awake by a hideous and undefinable terror; it was the same vague consciousness of some invisible visitor being near that I had once before experienced, as I have described, and I again recollected Nocton and Mary Blake in the same instant; I saw— for I cannot now believe that it was less than apparitional— the unhappy pair reproaching one another.

As I looked, questioning the integrity of my sight, the wretched bride turned round and looked at me. How shall I express my horror, when, for the ruddy beauty which she once possessed, I beheld the charnel visage of a skull; I started up and cried aloud with such alarming vehemence that the whole inmates of the house, with lights in their hands, were instantly in the room— shame would not let me tell what I had seen, and, endeavouring to laugh, I accused the nightmare of the disturbance.

This happened while I was at a watering-place on the west coast. I was living in a boarding-house with several strangers; among them was a tall pale German gentleman, of a grave impressive physiognomy. He was the most intelligent and shrewdest observer I have ever met with, and he had to a singular degree the gift of a discerning spirit.

In the morning when we rose from the breakfast-table, he took me by the arm, and led me out upon the lawn in front of the house ; and when we were at some distance from the rest of the company, said:

"Excuse me, sir, for I must ask an impertinent question. Was it indeed the dream of the nightmare that alarmed you last night?"

"I have no objection to answer you freely; but tell me first why you ask such a question?"

"It is but reasonable. I had a friend who was a painter; none ever possessed an imagination which discerned better how nature in her mysteries should appear. One of his pictures was the scene of Brutus when his evil genius summoned him to Philippi, and strange to tell, you bear some resemblance to the painted Brutus. When, with the others, I broke into your room last night, you looked so like the Brutus in his picture that I could have sworn you were amazed with the vision of a ghost."

I related to him what I have done to you.

"It is wonderful," said he, "what inconceivable sympathy hath linked you to the fate of these unhappy persons. There is something more in this renewed visitation than the phantasma of a dream."

The remark smote me with an uncomfortable sensation of dread, and for a short time my flesh crawled as it were upon my bones. But the impression soon wore off, and was again entirely forgotten. When the anniversary again returned, I was seized with the same heaviness and objectless horror of mind ; it hung upon me with bodings and auguries until I went to bed, and then after my first sleep I was a third time roused by another fit of the same inscrutable panic.

On this occasion, however, the vision was different. I beheld only Nocton, pale and wounded, stretched on a bed, and on the coverlet lay a pair of new epaulettes, as if just unfolded from a paper. For seven years I was thus annually afflicted. The vision in each was different, but I saw no more of Mary Blake.

On the fourth occasion, I beheld Nocton sitting in the uniform of an aide-de-camp at a table, with the customary tokens of conviviality before him; it was only part of a scene, such as one beholds in a mirror.

On the fifth occasion, he appeared to be ascending, sword in hand, the rampart of a battery; the sun was setting behind him, and the shadows and forms of a strange land, with the domes and pagodas of an oriental country, lay in wide extent around: it was a picture, but far more vivid than painting can exhibit.

On the sixth time, he appeared again stretched upon a couch; his complexion was sullen, not from wounds, but disease, and there appeared at his bedside the figure of a general officer, with a star on his breast, with whose conversation he appeared pleased, though languid.

But on the seventh and last occasion on which the horrors of the visions were repeated, I saw him on horseback in a field of battle ; and while I looked at him, he was struck on the face by a sabre, and the blood flowed down upon his regimentals.

YEARS PASSED after this, during which I had none of these dismal exhibitions. My mind and memory resumed their healthful tone. I recollected, without these intervening years of oblivion, Nocton and Mary Blake, occasionally, as one thinks of things past, and I told my friends of the curious periodical returns of the visitations to me as remarkable metaphysical phenomena.

By an odd coincidence, it so happened that my German friend was always present when I related my dreams. He in the intervals sometimes spoke to me of them, but my answers were vague, for my reminiscences were imperfect. It was not so with him. All I told he distinctly recorded and preserved in a book wherein he wrote down the minutest thing that I had witnessed in my visions. I do not mention his name, because he is a modest and retiring man, in bad health, and who has long sequestered himself from company. His rank, however, is so distinguished that his name could not be stated without the hazard of exposing him to impertinent curiosity.

But to proceed. Exacdy fourteen years—twice seven it was—I remember well, because for the first seven I had been haunted as I have described, and for the other seven I had been placid in my living.

At the end of that period of fourteen years, my German friend paid me a visit here. He came in the forenoon, and we spent an agreeable day together, for he was a man of much recondite knowledge. I have seen none so wonderfully possessed of all sorts of occult learning. He was an astrologer of the true kind, for in him it was not a pretence but a science ; he scorned horoscopes and fortunetellers with the just derision of a philosopher, but he had a beautiful conception of the reciprocal dependencies of nature. He affected not to penetrate to causes, but he spoke of effects with a luminous and religious eloquence.

He described to me how the tides followed the phases of the moon; but he denied the Newtonian notion that they were caused by the procession of the lunar changes. He explained to me that when the sun entered Aries, and the other signs of the zodiac, how his progression could be traced on this earth by the development of plants and flowers, and the passions, diseases, and affections of animals and man; but that the stars were more than the celestial signs of these terrestrial phenomena he ridiculed as the conceptions of the insane theory.

His learning in the curious art of alchymy was equally sublime. He laughed at the fancy of an immortal elixir, and his notion of the mythology of the philosopher's stone was the very essence and spirituality of ethics. The elixir of immortality he described to me as an allegory, which, from its component parts, emblems of talents and virtues, only showed that perseverance, industry, goodwill, and a gift from God were the requisite ingredients necessary to attain renown.

His knowledge of the philosopher's stone was still more beautiful. He referred to the writings of the Rosicrucians, whose secrets were couched in artificial symbols, to prove that the sages of that sect were not the fools that the lesser wise of later days would represent them. The self-denial, the patience, the humility, the trusting in God, the treasuring of time by lamp and calculation which the venerable alchymists recommended, he used to say, were only the elements which constitute the conduct of the youth that would attain to riches and honour; and these different stages which are illuminated in the alchymical volumes as descriptive of stages in the process of making the stone were but hieroglyphical devices to explain the effects of well-applied human virtue and industry.

To me it was amazing to what clear simplicity he reduced all things, and on what a variety of subjects his bright and splendid fancy threw a fair and effecting light. All those demi-sciences— physiognomy— palmistry— scaileology, etc., even magic and witchcraft, obtained from his interpretations a philosophical credibility.

In disquisitions on these subjects we spent the anniversary. He had by them enlarged the periphery of my comprehension; he had added to my knowledge, and inspired me with a profounder respect for himself. He was an accomplished musician, in the remotest, if I may use the expression, depths of the art. His performance on the pianoforte was simple, heavy, and seemingly the labour of an unpractised hand, but his expression was beyond all epithet exquisite and solemn; his airs were grave, devotional, and pathetic, consisting of the simplest harmonic combinations; but they were wonderful; every note was a portion of an invocation; every melody the voice of a passion or a feeling supplied with elocution.

We had spent the day in the fields, where he illustrated his astrological opinions by appeals to plants, and leaves, and flowers, and other attributes of the season, with such delightful perspicuity that no time can efface from the registers of my memory the substance of his discourses.

In the evening he delighted me with his miraculous music, and, as the night advanced, I was almost persuaded that he was one of those extraordinary men who are said sometimes to acquire communion with spirits and dominion over demons. Just as we were about to sit down to our frugal supper, literally or philosophically so, as if it had been served for Zeno himself, Dick, the son of the old ferryman, who by this time was some years dead, came to the door, and requested to speak with me in private.

Of course I obeyed, when he informed me that he had brought across the ferry that night a gentleman officer, from a far country, who was in bad health, and whom he could not accommodate properly in the ferry-house.

"The inn," said Dick, "is too far off, for he is lame, and has an open wound in the thigh. I have therefore ventured to bring him here, sure that you will be glad to give him a bed for the night. His servant tells me that he was esteemed the bravest officer in all the service in the Mysore of India."

It was impossible to resist this appeal. I went to the door where the gentleman was waiting, and with true-heartedness expressed how great my satisfaction would be if my house could afford him any comfort. I took him in with me to the room where my German friend was sitting. I was much pleased with the gentleness and unaffected simplicity of his manners. He was a handsome middle-aged man— his person was robust and well formed— his features had been originally handsome, but they were disfigured by a scar, which had materially changed their symmetry.

His conversation was not distinguished by any remarkable intelligence, but after the high intellectual excitement which I had enjoyed all day with my philosophical companion, it was agreeable and gentlemanly. Several times during supper, something came across my mind as if I had seen him before, but I could neither recollect when nor where; and I observed that more than once he looked at me as if under the influence of some research in his memory. At last, I observed that his eyes were dimmed with tears, which assured me that he then recollected me. But I considered it a duty of hospitality not to inquire aught concerning him more than he was pleased to tell himself.

In the meantime, my German friend, I perceived, was watching us both, but suddenly he ceased to be interested, and appeared absorbed in thought, while good manners required me to make some efforts to entertain my guest. This led on to some inquiry concerning the scene of his services, and he told us that he had been many years in India.

"On this day eight years ago," said he, "I was in the battle of Borupknow, where I received the wound which has so disfigured me in the face."

At that moment I accidentally threw my eyes upon my German friend— the look which he gave me in answer caused me to shudder from head to foot, and I began to ruminate of Nocton the recruit, and Mary Blake, while my friend continued the conversation in a light desultory manner, as it would have seemed to any stranger, but to me it was awful and oracular.

He spoke to the stranger on all manner of topics, but ever and anon he brought him back, as if without design, to speak of the accidents of fortune which had befallen him on the anniversary of that day, giving it as a reason for his curious remarks that most men observed anniversaries, time and experience having taught them to notice that there were curious coincidences with respect to times, and places, and individuals— things which of themselves form part of the great demonstration of the wisdom and skill displayed in the construction, not only of the mechanical, but the mortal world, showing that each was a portion of one and the same thing.

"I have been," said he to the stranger, "an observer and recorder of such things. I have my book, of registration here in this house; I will fetch it from my bed-chamber, and we shall see in what other things, as far as your fortunes have been concerned, how it corresponds with the accidents of your life on this anniversary."

I observed that the stranger paled a little at this proposal, and said, with an affectation of carelessness while he was evidently disturbed, that he would see it in the morning. But the philosopher was too intent upon his purpose to forbear.

I know not what came upon me, but I urged him to bring the book. This visibly disconcerted the stranger still more, and his emotion became, as it were, a motive which induced me, in a peremptory manner, to require the production of the book, for I felt that strange horror, so often experienced, returning upon me; and was constrained, by an irresistible impulse, to seek an explanation of the circumstances by which I had for so many years suffered such an eclipse of mind.

The stranger seeing how intent both of us were, desisted from his wish to procrastinate the curious disclosure which my friend said he could make; but it was evident he was not at ease. Indeed he was so much the reverse, that when the German went for his book, he again proposed to retire, and only consented to abide at my jocular entreaty, until he should learn what his future fortunes were to be, by the truth of what would be told him of the past.

My friend soon returned with the book. It was a remarkable volume, covered with vellum, shut with three brazen clasps, secured by a lock of curious construction. Altogether it was a strange, antique, and necromantic-looking volume. The corner was studded with knobs of brass, with a small mirror in the centre, round which were inscribed in Teutonic characters words to the effect, "I Will Show Thee Thyself."

Before unlocking the clasp, my friend gave the book to the stranger, explained some of the emblematic devices which adorned the cover, and particularly the words of the motto that surrounded the little mirror. Whether it was from design, or that the symbols required it, the explanations of my friend were mystical and abstruse; and I could see that they produced an effect on the stranger, so strong that it was evident he could with difficulty maintain his self-possession. The colour entirely faded from his countenance; he became wan and cadaverous, and his hand shook violently as he returned the volume to the philosopher, who, on receiving it back, said:

"There are things in this volume which may not be revealed to every eye, yet to those who may not discover to what they relate, they will seem trivial notations."

He then applied the key to the lock, and unclosed the volume. My stranger guest began to breathe hard and audibly. The German turned over the vellum leaves searchingly and carefully. At last he found the record and description of my last vision, which he read aloud. It was not only minute in the main circumstances in which I had seen Nocton, but it contained an account of many things, the still life, as it is called, of the picture, which I had forgotten, and among other particulars a picturesque account of the old General whom I saw standing at the bedside.

"By all that's holy," cried the stranger, "it is old Cripplington himself— the queue of his hair was, as you say, always crooked, owing to a habit he had of pulling it when vexed— where could you find the description of all this?"

I was petrified; I sat motionless as a statue, but a fearful vibration thrilled through my whole frame. My friend looked back in his book, and found the description of my sixth vision. It contained the particulars of the crisis of battle in which, as the stranger described, he had received the wound in his face. It affected him less than the other, but still the effect upon him was impressive.

The record of the fifth vision produced a more visible alarm. The description was vivid to an extreme degree— the appearance of Nocton, sword in hand, on the rampart— the animation of the assault, and the gorgeous landscape of domes and pagodas, was limned with words as vividly as a painter could have made the scene. The stranger seemed to forget his anxiety, and was delighted with the reminiscences which the description recalled.

But when the record of the fourth vision was read, wherein Nocton was described as sitting in the regimentals of an aide-de-camp, at a convivial table, he exclaimed, as if unconscious of his words:

"It was on that night I had first the honour of dining with the German general."

The inexorable philosopher proceeded, and read what I had told him of Nocton, stretched pale and wounded on a bed, with new epaulettes spread on the coverlet, as if just unfolded from a paper. The stranger started from his seat, and cried with a hollow and fearful voice:

"This is the book of life."

The German turned over to the second vision, which he read slowly and mournfully, especially the description of my own feelings, when I beheld the charnel visage of Mary Blake. The stranger, who had risen from his seat, and was panting with horror, cried out with a shrill howl, as it were:

"On that night as I was sitting in my tent, methought her spirit came and reproached me."

I could not speak, but my German friend rose from his seat, and holding the volume in his left hand, touched it with his right, and looking sternly at the stranger, said:

"In this volume, and in your own conscience, are the evidences which prove that you are Ralph Nocton, and that on this night, twice seven years ago, you murdered Mary Blake."

The miserable stranger lost all self-command, and cried in consternation:

"It is true, the waters raged; the rain and the hail came; she bitterly upbraided me; I flung her from the boat; the lightning flashed, and the thunder— Oh! it was not so dreadful as her drowning execrations."

Before any answer could be given to this confession, he staggered from the spot, and almost in the same instant fell dead upon the floor.

___________________

13: The Old Man of the Desert

Roy O'Toole
fl. 1912

The Railroad Man’s Magazine, Oct 1912

O'Toole published a very small number of stories, all in this magazine, all in 1912. Nothing else is known.

THE telegraph-operator at Cactus Siding sat in the economical shadow cast by the 'dobe shack which served as a station, and soaked up the humid heat from the surrounding sands. All about him, as far as the eye could reach, waving billows of white intermingled with the occasional green of the cactus, greeted his vision until the monotonous landscape was lost in the misty heat waves rising from the desert.

High up toward the cerulean blue a vulture circled lazily, but the hum of insect life, which rules when vegetation adorns the wilds, was absent. The stern, palpable silence of the desert reigned supreme, and so it had been for days and weeks and months.

Jack Lowden had been the lone inhabitant of Cactus Siding for nearly two years, with the exception of a short vacation taken the summer previous, and the solitude of the desert had not failed to leave its mark upon him.

Train-crews stopping infrequently for water or orders at the siding, remarked his growing indisposition to exchange even passing pleasantries. His speech was halting and his manner almost forbidding.

"He's forgettin' how to talk," said Conductor Johnson one day. "He'll be gettin' dotty pretty soon if he don't ask for a change of venue. They can't any of them buck the desert very long and get away with it."

As it happened, a few days later. Johnson's train was obliged to wait at the siding for the west-bound passenger, and the conductor dropped off at the station and greeted the operator cheerfully :

"Hello, Jack!" he said, " 'bout time for your summer vacation, ain't it?"

"Not this year," wearily replied that somber-looking individual. "I'm going to fight it out here until October, then I'll have enough in the bank-roll to buy that cottage back in Ohio that I've been telling you about. It'll be me for God's country and the green fields after that."

"So Myrtle is still waiting for you, is she Jack?"

"If she wasn't, this hole wouldn't hold me a minute. Her letters and my dreams of that vine-covered home of the future are all that's kept me in my right mind out here and. at that. I think I feel myself slipping sometimes."

"When you begin to lose your grip on things, it's time to go, boy," said the conductor warningly. "I've seen 'em stay too long out here."

"I'll stick until October," said Jack, waving his hand listlessly as the conductor climbed aboard the caboose and signaled to proceed.

After reporting the trains, Jack indifferently set about preparing a lunch from his store of canned goods. Cans were in evidence everywhere, canned corned beef, canned sardines, condensed milk— everything in cans, and the thousands of empty cans scattered about and partly visible in the sand of the desert gave an illuminating idea of the perpetual bill of fare at Cactus Siding.

Jack Lowden, however, in his desperate loneliness, had hit upon a scheme to enliven the miserable and irregular meal-hours and rob them to some extent of their monotony.

Chairs and tin dishes were placed on the rickety table to accommodate two, and Jack, after sitting down at the banquet board, religiously served the plate in front of the empty chair before helping himself.

"Have some chicken. Myrtle dear. ' he said tenderly, as he served the corned beef. "And a taste of this brook trout." as he selected a couple of fat sardines and placed them beside the corned beef— and so he continued throughout the meal.

It was a harmless little deceit he was practising on himself when he imagined that Myrtle was partaking of his unlovely bill of fare.

"Foolish," he muttered. " but it helps some."

Then he wrote and told her all about her place at the table.

He received a loving, tear-stained letter in reply.

"You dear, lonesome boy," she wrote, " my heart aches for you in that awful place. Why can't you come back at once, even if we do have to wait a while longer for our home. I am so unhappy thinking of you out there on that miserable desert that my heart is almost broken."

The temptation to fly from the nauseating monotony and discomforts of Cactus Siding to the green fields of Ohio and the waiting arms of his boyhood's sweetheart was strong; but he shut his teeth firmly and put the alluring desire from his thoughts.

"It'd be like throwing up the sponge before the fight was over," he said. "I'd be a rank quitter to drop out now."

So he continued to hang on. counting the days and accumulating a hank-roll in hopeful anticipation, hearing frequentlv and cheerfully from Myrtle but. nevertheless, paying unconsciously the toll of the desert and solitude.

The despatcher at Vigo was enjoying the fragrance of an excellent Havana and gazing idly at his almost empty train-sheet.

"Sure 'tis quiet along the pike tonight," he confided to the chief. "Nothing on the division but a couple of drags. I'll get mine pretty easy for one shift, if it never happens again."

The chief grinned amiably.

"Pretty soft for you fellows out here. Nothing to do but smoke good cigars and sign pay-checks," he said. "How's that fellow Lowden getting along at Cactus? Will he want a vacation this summer, to go back east and see his girl?"

"Don't think so." replied the despatcher. "I'll ask him."

Reaching to the key, he languidly repeated the office-call for Cactus a number of times, but got no reply. Later he tried again and was more successful.

"What's the excitement down there to-night?" he asked jocularly, as Cactus answered. "You don't seem to have time to answer the wire. Must be a political meeting or circus in town! "

"Nothing like that," replied Lowden. "I'm entertaining a visitor."

"Cactus always was quite a social center," replied the despatcher. "Who is the distinguished party; some bo who fell off the freight ? "

"He hasn't presented his card yet, so I don't know. He called this evening while I was taking my constitutional. I found him sitting here in the dark when I came back; but he's not a bo, he's a prospector and has located a rich placer diggin's somewhere near here. He's camping at the spring."

"Spring," ejaculated the despatcher. "There's no spring nearer Cactus than Alkali Basin, and that's forty miles north as the crow flies. He's not camping there and visiting at Cactus?"

The metallic sounder was silent for a moment and then Lowden replied:

"He says it's about three miles south, just over the big sand ridge. He's going to show it to me to-morrow. He needs a partner, and I think I'll sign up with him."

"Bully for you," replied the despatcher. "I suppose you'll go back east to see Myrtle in a special train this trip, eh?"

"Can't tell," answered Lowden. "The old man says there's oceans of free gold out there. If that's right, a special won't be any too good for me. I'll tell you all about it to-morrow night."

"I wish you would," replied the despatcher. " and if you need any more partners in the firm, let me know. I'm ready to quit railroading at a moment's notice."

"All right," answered Lowden — and the subject was dropped for the night as far as the wire was concerned.

As the desert is .known to contain many rich placer deposits, the news of Lowden'S visitor at Cactus spread rapidly about Vigo. Speculation was aroused as to the probable area of the deposit. Interest in the matter grew hourly, and early next morning Lowden was eagerly interrogated on the wire for information, not only by the despatcher's office at Vigo, but by the other telegraphers on the line. His replies to all, however, were extremely disappointing.

" The old man pulled his freight while I was asleep," he told them, *' and I haven't been able to figure out which way he went. I turned the bunk-room over to him last night and this morning it was empty and the bunk didn't look like anybody had slept in it. I guess he didn't turn in at all, just drifted after I went to sleep."

That evening, however, interest was again awakened when Lowden called the despatcher on the wire and informed him that his visitor of the night before had returned.

"Found him here in the dark, same's I did last night," said Lowden, but he brought a sack of gold with him this trip. It's the real yellow, all right."

"You're a lucky boy. Jack." assured the despatcher. "Where'd he go last night?"

"Back to camp. I suppose. I didn't ask him. He's not strong on conversation, and as I'm only the junior partner in the firm. I'm not asking too many questions. He looks like he'd rile easy."

"Handle him with gloves, by all means, Jack," advised the despatcher. "Jolly him along, but don't let him get away from you again like he did last night."

"Looks like he thinks I'm trying to get away from him," replied the operator. "He's sitting across the table and hasn't said a word nor taken his eyes off me for thirty minutes, and I'm beginning to get nervous. He's got a snaky pair of lamps."

"Don't let a little thing like that worry you," said the despatcher. "You're just a trifle excited over that sack of gold dust. I'd feel nervous, too. if I were in your shoes, but it wouldn't be about his lamps, it'd be from wondering how many double eagles I was going to get out of the sand."

"You're right." answered Lowden. "I haven't any kick coming because he's sizing me up, but I do wish he'd look at something else for a change. He must have my mug pretty well photographed on his memory by this time."

The trains moving over the division demanded the despatcher's attention at this point, and it was some hours later before he found time to inquire further into the situation at Cactus. Again he was obliged to call that station some little time before he received any response.

"What'd you wake me up for?" complained Lowden. "I was pounding my ear something scandalous."

Hope your visitor is sleeping comfortably, too." said the despatcher. "It was because I was worried about him that I called you. Is he camping with you to-night? "

" Sure," replied Lowden. "He's in the bunk-room ; that's why I'm sleeping on the table."

"Nothing like hospitality, Jack. Sure he ain't walking in bis sleep again tonight?"

"I'll just look and see.

"Well, I'll be darned," came over the wire a moment later, "if the old goat hasn't flew the coop again, gold dust and all. The sack was laying on the chair when I went to sleep. Ain't he the limit?"

"He certainly is," agreed the despatcher, "but you're not much better. You'll let that gold mine get away from you if you don't stay awake until you find out where it is."

"If he shows up again, there won't be any more naps for me until I trail him to the spring." declared Lowden. "I've written Myrtle all about that gold mine and I must find it now."

The next day Conductor Johnson was obliged to make another stop at the siding. Having heard of Jack's prospector friend through the rumors about Vigo, he dropped off at the office to get some first-hand information.

" Hear you're a mine-owner now. lack." he began by way of introduction.

Jack smiled glumly.

"I am and I ain't, Bill." he said. "I got a kind of a vanishing partner, and it's pretty hard to tell where I'm at. Don't know whether lie's suspicious of me or what, but he don't stick around long enough for me to get that mine located."

Jack looked about uneasily, as if he expected his vanishing partner to arise out of the sand of the desert.

"I've heard a good deal about the matter in Vigo." said Johnson, " and the old man's story don't hold much water with me. There's no spring nearer here than Alkali Basin, unless it's broke loose in the last couple of years. It's my own private opinion that the old man is expecting to get his free gold off No. 42 to-night. There's a rumor on the pike that she'll carry a whole car-load of it from the Frisco mint. I got your friend sized for a hold-up man."

"By thunder! You may be right, Johnson," exclaimed the operator. "That'd explain his mysterious actions, though I don't see how he'd get away with it. It's sixty miles to the mountains, and that's some walk on the desert."

"You don't know what he's got behind the sand ridge. There may be half a dozen of 'em over there with horses, guns, and all the rest of it. If he shows up to-night, give him the glad hand, but tell the despatcher to have 42 prepared for a hold-up at Cactus."

"Sure, I'll do that," replied the operator. "It won't do any harm, though I hope it don't turn out that way. I'd hate to give up my dreams of that goldmine."

"It don't look reasonable to me," said Johnson, "that if be did have a rich prospect out there, he'd be in much of a hurry to call in a partner and give him half. Sounds pretty fishy."

"Guess you're right about that," agreed the operator. "He's either nutty or else that free-gold story is a stall. I'll watch him pretty close if he shows up to-night."

Having implanted the hold-up idea firmly in Lowden's mind, Johnson climbed aboard the caboose, and the long string of alkali-covered box cars resumed their dusty journey.

That evening the despatcher at Vigo, busily engaged in putting out train-orders, disentangling complications arising from hot-boxes and other unexpected delays to nearly every train on the division, snorted profanely when Cactus broke in on the wire and feverishly took the circuit.

"What's broke loose down there?" he asked angrily. "Can't you let me get the 'red ball' out of the hole before you chip in?"

"Stop 42 at Rawley," continued the metallic voice from Cactus in the same feverish manner. "There's a hold-up man here. He made me set the signal red and then chased me into the bunkroom. He didn't know I had an instrument in here."

"How many of them are there?" asked the despatcher.

"One is all I've seen so far. but he's got guns enough to do the job all by himself. He's a regular walking arsenal. There may be others outside."

"It's too late to stop 42 at Rawley; they left there ten minutes ago. Is there any obstruction on the track?"

"Don't know. Say," continued Lowden, "he's listening right at the door. Think he's heard me pounding this key. He's opening the door and coming in—"

The wire remained open a few seconds. Then came a string of unintelligible dots— then silence.

"Looks like he's done for Lowden," said the chief who had been standing by. "Order out a special and give them right over 42 to Tinhorn. We'll load it up with rangers. If Lowden's been murdered, we'll make it hot for whoever did the job."

The call-boy was hurried out to find a crew for the special, while the roundhouse was ordered to have an engine on the main line inside of thirty minutes.

Two coaches were switched to the depot platform, and as the rumor of the hold-up circulated about town, the grim, stern-faced, armed rangers of the desert brigade made their appearance and took their places inside the waiting coaches.

On the siding below the depot a box car stood at the stock pen. Saddled horses were loaded rapidly into it with such supplies as were needed for a desert campaign.

In a remarkably short space of time the special hurried out into the dreary waste on its mission of vengeance.

In the mean time No. 42 approached Cactus. The engineer seeing the red signal out, grunted dismally:

"Too bad he couldn't put his orders out at a regular stop instead of holding us up at the jumping-off place of the whole system."

The conductor hurried to the telegraph-office to learn the cause of the unexpected delay to his train. As he entered, a curious spectacle confronted him. Jack Lowden stood in the doorway of the bunk-room, his hands high above his head and his gaze riveted intently on the empty chair at the telegraph-table.

"Look out!" he screamed as the conductor entered. "Look out! Don't you see he's going to shoot!"

Slowly his upraised hands clasped his temple, and he dropped in a senseless heap.

The conductor, thoroughly alarmed, despatched the brakeman through the coaches in search of medical assistance. When the shack returned a few moments later, fortunately with one of the company's physicians, Lowden sat propped against the wall talking wildly of holdups, free gold, and Myrtle.

"Now long's he been out here?" asked the physician.

"Couple of years that I know of," replied the conductor, explaining the tableau he saw when he came into the office.

"Humph, no wonder he's been seeing things if he's been here that long. Garry him into the Pullman," tersely ordered the physician. "I'll get his transportation to El Paso from Tinhorn."

A partly written letter to Myrtle which lay on the telegraph-table furnished the physican with all the confirmation he needed for his statement that Lowden had been "seeing things." It read:

My recent acquaintance who has been coming and going so mysteriously the last couple of evenings is, I fear, not a prospector at all, but will more likely prove to be a hold-up man with designs upon 42 to-night.

"I see," said the physician, turning to the conductor, "he's been having an imaginary visitor out here. 'The old man of the desert' they usually call him. Simply a hallucination produced bv the desire for human companionship."

Some weary months later Jack became convalescent. Lounging upon the veranda of the El Paso hospital was now his daily pastime. Beside him usually sat a sweet-faced old lady— his mother— and a blooming girl of nineteen.

"Jack, dear," the girl said, "when I read that rambling letter from you telling about the old man coming to visit you, I knew that something was wrong, for even away back in Ohio we have heard of the 'old man of the desert,' and your mother and I were almost on the point of coming out here when she received the message that you were dangerously ill. Oh, Jack! Suppose you had followed him out on the desert to search for gold!"

She shuddered at the awful possibility.

"If what they say is true," replied Jack, "that's where he generally leads his victims— somewhere out in the sands to die of heat and thirst; but that holdup idea of Johnson's kept me on the job and no doubt saved my life. I'd heard lots of tales about the old fellow before he came to see me, but never suspected his identity.

"I remember everything distinctly; his general appearance, weapons, and all up to the time I called the despatcher and told him of the hold-up I thought was coming off. Strange what realistic hallucinations one gets on the desert."

______________

14: To Be Taken with a Grain of Salt

Charles Dickens

1812-1870

All the Year Round, Christmas 1865

Christmas ghost stories were a Victorian tradition; and Dickens wrote several. The best known is "A Christmas Carol"; this is another.

I HAVE always noticed a prevalent want of courage, even among persons of superior intelligence and culture, as to imparting their own psychological experiences when those have been of a strange sort. Almost all men are afraid that what they could relate in such wish would find no parallel or response in a listener's internal life, and might be suspected or laughed at. A truthful traveller, who should have seen some extraordinary creature in the likeness of a sea-serpent, would have no fear of mentioning it; but the same traveller, having had some singular presentiment, impulse, vagary of thought, vision (so called), dream, or other remarkable mental impression, would hesitate considerably before he would own to it. To this reticence I attribute much of the obscurity in which such subjects are involved. We do not habitually communicate our experiences of these subjective things as we do our experiences of objective creation. The consequence is, that the general stock of experience in this regard appears exceptional, and really is so, in respect of being miserably imperfect.

In what I am going to relate, I have no intention of setting up, opposing, or supporting any theory whatever. I know the history of the Bookseller of Berlin, I have studied the case of the wife of a late Astronomer-Royal as related by Sir David Brewster, and I have followed the minutest details of a much more remarkable case of Spectral Illusion occurring within my private circle of friends. It may be necessary to state as to this last, that the sufferer (a lady) was in no degree, however distant, related to me. A mistaken assumption on that head might suggest an explanation of a part of my own case— but only a part— which would be wholly without foundation. It cannot be referred to my inheritance of any developed peculiarity, nor had I ever before any at all similar experience, nor have I ever had any at all similar experience since.

It does not signify how many years ago, or how few, a certain murder was committed in England, which attracted great attention. We hear more than enough of murderers as they rise in succession to their atrocious eminence, and I would bury the memory of this particular brute, if I could, as his body was buried, in Newgate Jail. I purposely abstain from giving any direct clue to the criminal's individuality. When the murder was first discovered, no suspicion fell— or I ought rather to say, for I cannot be too precise in my facts, it was nowhere publicly hinted that any suspicion fell— on the man who was afterwards brought to trial. As no reference was at that time made to him in the newspapers, it is obviously impossible that any description of him can at that time have been given in the newspapers. It is essential that this fact be remembered.

Unfolding at breakfast my morning paper, containing the account of that first discovery, I found it to be deeply interesting, and I read it with close attention. I read it twice, if not three times. The discovery had been made in a bedroom, and, when I laid down the paper, I was aware of a flash— rush— flow— I do not know what to call it— no word I can find is satisfactorly descriptive— in which I seemed to see that bedroom passing through my room, like a picture impossibly painted on a running river. Though almost instantaneous in its passing, it was perfectly clear; so clear that I distinctly, and with a sense of relief, observed the absence of the dead body from the bed.

It was in no romantic place that I had this curious sensation, but in chambers in Piccadilly, very near to the corner of St. James's Street. It was entirely new to me. I was in my easy-chair at the moment, and the sensation was accompanied with a peculiar shiver which started the chair from its position. (But it is to be noted that the chair ran easily on castors.) I went to one of the windows (there are two in the room, and the room is on the second floor) to refresh my eyes with the moving objects down in Piccadilly. It was a bright autumn morning, and the street was sparkling and cheerful. The wind was high. As I looked out, it brought down from the Park a quantity of fallen leaves, which a gust took, and whirled into a spiral pillar. As the pillar fell and the leaves dispersed, I saw two men on the opposite side of the way, going from west to east. They were one behind the other. The foremost man often looked back over his shoulder. The second man followed him, at a distance of some thirty paces, with his right hand menacingly raised. First, the singularity and steadiness of this threatening gesture in so public a thoroughfare attracted my attention ; and next, the more remarkable circumstance that nobody heeded it. Both men threaded their way among the other passengers with a smoothness hardly consistent even with the action of walking on a pavement ; and no single creature, that I could see, gave them place, touched them, or looked after them. In passing before my windows, they both stared up at me. I saw their two faces very distinctly, and I knew that I could recognise them anywhere. Not that I had consciously noticed anything very remarkable in either face, except that the man who went first had an unusually lowering appearance, and that the face of the man who followed him was of the colour of impure wax.

I am a bachelor, and my valet and his wife constitute my whole establishment. My occupation is in a certain Branch Bank, and I wish that my duties as head of a Department were as light as they are popularly supposed to be. They kept me in town that autumn, when I stood in need of change. I was not ill, but I was not well. My reader is to make the most that can be reasonably made of my feeling jaded, having a depressing sense upon me of a monotonous life, and being "slightly dyspeptic." I am assured by my renowned doctor that my real state of health at that time justified no stronger description, and I quote his own from his written answer to my request for it. As the circumstances of the murder, gradually unravelling, took stronger and stronger possession of the public mind, I kept them away from mine by knowing as little about them as was possible in the midst of the universal excitement. But I knew that a verdict of Wilful Murder had been found against the suspected Murderer, and that he had been committed to Newgate for trial. I also knew that his trial had been postponed over one Sessions of the Central Criminal Court, on the ground of general prejudice and want of time for the preparation of the defence. I may further have known, but I believe I did not, when, or about when, the Sessions to which his trial stood postponed would come on.

My sitting-room, bedroom, and dressing-room are all on one floor. With the last there is no communication but through the bedroom. True, there is a door in it, once communicating with the staircase; but a part of the fitting of my bath has been— and had been for some years— fixed across it. At the same   period, and as a part of the same arrangement, the door had been nailed up and canvased over.

I was standing in my bedroom late one night, giving some directions to my servant before he went to bed. My face was towards the only available door of communication with the dressing-room, and it was closed. My servant's back was towards that door. While I was speaking to him, I saw it open, and a man look in, who very earnestly and mysteriously beckoned to me. That man was the man who had gone second of the two along Piccadilly, and whose face was the colour of impure wax. The figure, having beckoned, drew back, and closed the door. With no longer pause than was made by my crossing the bedroom, I opened the dressing-room door and looked in. I had a lighted candle already in my hand. I felt no inward expectation of seeing the figure in the dressing-room, and I did not see it there.

Conscious that my servant stood amazed, I turned round to him, and said: "Derrick, could you believe that in my cool senses I fancied I saw a—"

As I there laid my hand upon his breast, with a sudden start he trembled violently, and said, "O Lord, yes, sir! A dead man beckoning!"

Now I do not believe that this John Derrick, my trusty and attached servant for more than twenty years, had any impression whatever of having seen any such figure, until I touched him. The change in him was so startling, when I touched him, that I fully believe he derived his impression in some occult manner from me at that instant.

I bade John Derrick bring some brandy, and I gave him a dram, and was glad to take one myself. Of what had preceded that night's phenomenon I told him not a single word. Reflecting on it, I was absolutely certain that I had never seen that face before, except on the one occasion in Piccadilly. Comparing its expression when beckoning at the door with its expression when it had stared up at me as I stood at my window, I came to the conclusion that on the first occasion it had sought to fasten itself upon my memory, and that on the second occasion it had made sure of being immediately remembered.

I was not very comfortable that night, though I felt a certainty, difficult to explain, that the figure would not return. At daylight I fell into heavy sleep, from which I was awakened by John Derrick's coming to my bedside with a paper in his hand.

This paper, it appeared, had been the subject of an altercation at the door between its bearer and my servant. It was a summons to me to serve upon a Jury at the forthcoming Sessions of the Central Criminal Court at the Old Bailey. I had never before been summoned on such a Jury, as John Derrick well knew. He believed— I am not certain at this hour whether with reason or otherwise— that that class of Jurors were customarily chosen on a lower qualification than mine, and he had at first refused to accept the summons. The man who served it had taken the matter very coolly. He had said that my attendance or non-attendance was nothing to him; there the summons was; and I should deal with it at my own peril, and not at his.

For a day or two I was undecided whether to respond to this call, or take no notice of it. I was not conscious of the slightest mysterious bias, influence, or attraction, one way or other. Of that I am as strictly sure as of every other statement that I make here. Ultimately I decided, as a break in the monotony of my life, that I would go.

The appointed morning was a raw morning in the month of November. There was a dense brown fog in Piccadilly, and it became positively black and in the last degree oppressive east of Temple Bar. I found the passages and staircases of the Court House flaringly lighted with gas, and the Court itself similarly illuminated. I think that, until I was conducted by officers into the Old Court and saw its crowded state, I did not know that the Murderer was to be tried that day. I think that, until I was so helped into the Old Court with considerable difficulty, I did not know into which of the two Courts sitting my summons would take me. But this must not be received as a positive assertion, for I am not completely satisfied in my mind on either point. I took my seat in the place appropriated to Jurors in waiting, and I looked about the Court as well as I could through the cloud of fog and breath that was heavy in it. I noticed the black vapour hanging like a murky curtain outside the great windows, and I noticed the stifled sound of wheels on the straw or tan that was littered in the street; also, the hum of the people gathered there, which a shrill whistle, or a louder song or hail than the rest, occasionally pierced. Soon afterwards the Judges, two in number, entered, and took their seats. The buzz in the Court was awfully hushed. The direction was given to put the Murderer to the bar. He appeared there. And in that same instant I recognised in him the first of the two men who had gone down Piccadilly.

If my name had been called then, I doubt if I could have answered to it audibly. But it was called about sixth or eighth in the panel, and I was by that time able to say "Here!" Now, observe. As I stepped into the box, the prisoner, who had been looking on attentively, but with no sign of concern, became violently agitated, and beckoned to his attorney. The prisoner's wish to challenge me was so manifest, that it occasioned a pause, during which the attorney, with his hand upon the dock, whispered with his client, and shook his head. I afterwards had it from that gentleman, that the prisoner's first affrighted words to him were, "At all hazards, challenge that man!"

But that, as he would give no reason for it, and admitted that he had not even known my name until he heard it called and I appeared, it was not done. Both on the ground already explained, that I wish to avoid reviving the unwholesome memory of that Murderer, and also because a detailed account of his long trial is by no means indispensable to my narrative, I shall confine myself closely to such incidents in the ten days and nights during which we, the Jury, were kept together, as directly bear on my own curious personal experience. It is in that, and not in the Murderer, that I seek to interest my reader. It is to that, and not to a page of the Newgate Calendar, that I beg attention.

I was chosen Foreman of the Jury. On the second morning of the trial, after evidence had been taken for two hours (I heard the church clock strike), happening to cast my eyes over my brother-jurymen, I found an inexplicable difficulty in counting them. I counted them several times, yet always with the same difficulty. In short, I made them one too many. I touched the brother-juryman whose place was next me, and I whispered to him, "Oblige me by counting us." He looked surprised by the request, but turned his head and counted. "Why," says he, suddenly, "we are thirt— but no, it's not possible. No. We are twelve." According to my counting that day, we were always right in detail, but in the gross we were always one too many. There was no appearance—no figure— to account for it ; but I had now an inward foreshadowing of the figure that was surely coming.

The jury were housed at the London Tavern. We all slept in one large room on separate tables, and we were constantly in the charge and under the eye of the officer sworn to hold us in safe-keeping. I see no reason for suppressing the real name of that officer. He was intelligent, highly polite, and obliging, and (I was glad to hear) much respected in the city. He had an agreeable presence, good eyes, enviable black whiskers, and a fine sonorous voice. His name was Mr. Harker

When we turned into our twelve beds at night, Mr. Harker's bed was drawn across the door. On the night of the second day, not being disposed to lie down, and seeing Mr. Harker sitting on his bed, I went and sat beside him, and offered him a pinch of snuff. As Mr. Harker's hand touched mine in taking it from my box, a peculiar shiver crossed him, and he said, "Who is this?"

Following Mr. Harker's eyes, and looking along the room, I saw again the figure I expected— the second of the two men who had gone down Piccadilly. I rose, and advanced a few steps; then stopped, and looked round at Mr. Harker. He was quite unconcerned, laughed, and said in a pleasant way, "I thought for a moment we had a thirteenth juryman, without a bed. But I see it is the moonlight."

Making no revelation to Mr. Harker, but inviting him to take a walk with me to the end of the room, I watched what the figure did. It stood for a few moments by the bedside of each of my eleven brother jurymen, close to the pillow. It always went to the right-hand side of the bed, and always passed out crossing the foot of the next bed. It seemed, from the action of the head, merely to look down pensively at each recumbent figure. It took no notice of me, or of my bed, which was that nearest to Mr. Harker's. It seemed to go out where the moonlight came in, through a high window, as by an aerial flight of stairs.

Next morning at breakfast, it appeared that everybody present had dreamed of the murdered man last night except myself and Mr. Harker. I now felt as convinced that the second man who had gone down Piccadilly was the murdered man (so to speak), as if it had been borne into my comprehension by his immediate testimony. But even this took place, and in a manner for which I was not at all prepared.

On the fifth day of the trial, when the case for the prosecution was drawing to a close, a miniature of the murdered man, missing from his bedroom upon the discovery of the deed, and afterwards found in a hiding-place where the murderer had been seen digging, was put in as evidence. Having been identified by the witness under examination, it was handed up to the Bench, and thence handed down to be inspected by the Jury. As an officer in a black gown was making his way with it across to me, the figure of the second man who had gone down Piccadilly impetuously started from the crowd, caught the miniature from the officer, and gave it to me with his own hands, at the same time saying, in a low and hollow tone— before I saw the miniature, which was in a locket—" I was younger then, and my face was not then drained of blood." It also came between me and the brother juryman to whom I would have given the miniature, and between him and the brother juryman to whom he would have given it, and so passed it on through the whole of our number, and back into my possession. Not one of them, however, detected this.

At table, and generally when we were shut up together in Mr. Harker's custody, we had from the first naturally discussed the day's proceedings a good deal. On that fifth day, the case for the prosecution being closed, and we having that side of the question in a completed shape before us, our discussion was more animated and serious. Among our number was a vestry-man— the densest idiot I have ever seen at large— who met the plainest evidence with the most preposterous objections, and who was sided with by two flabby parochial parasites; all the three impanelled from a district so delivered over to fever that they ought to have been upon their own trial for five hundred murders. When these mischievous blockheads were at their loudest, which was towards midnight, while some of us were already preparing for bed, I again saw the murdered man. He stood grimly behind them, beckoning to me. On my going towards them, and striking into the conversation, he immediately retired. This was the beginning of a separate series of appearances, confined to that long room in which we were confined. Whenever a knot of my brother jurymen laid their heads together, I saw the head of the murdered man among theirs. Whenever their comparison of notes was going against him, he would solemnly and irresistibly beckon to me.

It will be borne in mind that down to the production of the miniature, on the fifth day of the trial, I had never seen the Appearance in Court. Three changes occurred now that we entered on the case for the defence. Two of them I will mention together, first. The figure was now in Court continually, and it never there addressed itself to me, but always to the person who was speaking at the time. For instance: the throat of the murdered man had been cut straight across. In the opening speech for the defence it was suggested that the deceased might have cut his own throat. At that very moment, the figure, with its throat in the dreadful condition referred to (this it had concealed before), stood at the speaker's elbow, motioning across and across its windpipe, now with the right hand, now with the left, vigorously suggesting to the speaker himself the impossibility of such a wound having been self-inflicted by either hand. For another instance: a witness to character, a woman deposed to the prisoner's being the most amiable of mankind. The figure at that instant stood on the floor before her, looking her full in the face, and pointing out the prisoner's evil countenance with an extended arm and an outstretched finger.

The third change now to be added impressed me strongly as the most marked and striking of all. I do not theorise upon it; I accurately state it, and there leave it. Although the Appearance was not itself perceived by those whom it addressed, its coming close to such persons was invariably attended by some trepidation or disturbance on their part. It seemed to me as if it were prevented, by laws to which I was not amenable, from fully revealing itself to others, and yet as if it could invisibly, dumbly, and darkly overshadow their minds. When the leading counsel for the defence suggested that hypothesis of suicide, and the figure stood at the learned gentleman's elbow, frightfully sawing at its severed throat, it is undeniable that the counsel faltered in his speech, lost for a few seconds the thread of his ingenious discourse, wiped his forehead with his handkerchief, and turned extremely pale. When the witness to character was confronted by the Appearance, her eyes most certainly did follow the direction of its pointed finger, and rest in great hesitation and trouble upon the prisoner's face. Two additional illustrations will suffice. On the eighth day of the trial, after the pause which was every day made early in the afternoon for a few minutes' rest and refreshment, I came back into Court with the rest of the Jury some little time before the return of the Judges. Standing up in the box and looking about me, I thought the figure was not there, until, chancing to raise my eyes to the gallery, I saw it bending forward, and leaning over a very decent woman, as if to assure itself whether the Judges had resumed their seats or not. Immediately afterwards that woman screamed, fainted and was carried out. So with the venerable, sagacious, and patient Judge who conducted the trial. When the case was over, and he settled himself and his papers to sum up, the murdered man, entering by the Judges' door, advanced to his Lordship's desk, and looked eagerly over his shoulder at the pages of his notes which he was turning. A change came over his Lordship's face ; his hand stopped ; the peculiar shiver, that I knew so well, passed over him ; he faltered, " Excuse me, gentlemen, for a few moments. I am some- t o b e take n wit h a grai n o f sal t 44 1 what oppressed by the vitiated air ; " and did not recover until he had drunk a glass of water.

Through all the monotony of six of those interminable ten days— the same Judges and others on the bench, the same murderer in the dock, the same lawyers at the table, the same tones of question and answer rising to the roof of the Court, the same scratching of the Judge's pen, the same ushers going in and out, the same lights kindled at the same hour when there had been any natural light of day, the same foggy curtain outside the great windows when it was foggy, the same rain pattering and dripping when it was rainy, the same footmarks of turnkeys and prisoner day after day on the same sawdust, the same keys locking and unlocking the same heavy doors— through all the wearisome monotony which made me feel as if I had been Foreman of the Jury for a vast period of time, and Piccadilly had flourished coevalIy with Babylon, the murdered man never lost one trace of his distinctness in my eyes, nor was he at any moment less distinct than anybody else. I must not omit, as a matter of fact, that I never once saw the Appearance which I call by the name of the murdered man look at the murderer. Again and again I wondered, "Why does he not?" But he never did.

Nor did he look at me, after the production of the miniature, until the last closing minutes of the trial arrived. We retired to consider at seven minutes before ten at night. The idiotic vestryman and his two parochial parasites gave us so much trouble that we twice returned into Court to beg to have certain extracts from the Judge's notes re-read. Nine of us had not the smallest doubt about those passages, neither, I believe, had any one in the Court; the dunder-headed triumvirate, however, having no idea but obstruction, disputed them for that very reason. At length we prevailed, and finally the Jury returned into Court at ten minutes past twelve.

The murdered man at that time stood directly opposite the Jury-box, on the other side of the Court. As I took my place, his eyes rested on me with great attention; he seemed satisfied, and slowly shook a great grey veil, which he carried on his arm for the first time, over his head and whole form. As I gave in our verdict, "Guilty," the veil collapsed, all was gone, and his place was empty.

The murderer, being asked by the Judge, according to usage whether he had anything to say before sentence of death should be passed upon him, indistinctly muttered something which was described in the leading newspapers of the following day as "a few rambling, incoherent, and half-audible words, in which he was understood to complain that he had not had a fair trial, because the Foreman of the Jury was prepossessed against him."

The remarkable declaration that he really made was this:

"My Lord, I knew I was a doomed man, when the Foreman of the Jury came into the box. My Lord, I knew he would never let me off , because before I was taken, he somehow got to my bedside in the night, woke me, and put a rope round my neck."

________________

15: Circumstantial Evidence

Harold Mercer

1882-1952

World's News (Sydney) 11 April 1934

The author was an Australian newspaperman and short story writer.

THE fools seemed to think that they could treat me as they liked; but I am one who has ever prided himself on avenging every insult, every wrong. You may be sure that I was determined to be even with Hal Travers, who had superceded me in Helen's affections, the old man. her father, who had encouraged him. and Helen, who had snubbed me.

Then the idea came to me by which I could exact a most thorough vengeance. Old Mathers would die in such a way that it would be certain that the blame for his death would fall upon Hal Travers. It was easy enough to create a chain of circumstantial evidence that would hang him; and Helen would suffer, as she deserved, in the general calamity, in grief for both her father and her lover. When she was broken, disconsolate. I would marry her; and she would never know the hand I had had in, the matter

Once my decision was made, there was no need for hurry; I could gloat over the details and the ultimate result, preparing the way gradually.

Hal Travers had roused my hatred from the first time I saw him, even before I realised that the interest Helen was showing in him was something more than that. He was handsome in a way, but it was his easy manner, and his constant laugh that made him most attractive to her. I am not one of the fools who laugh easily, and I felt my disadvantage.

There had been, nothing definite between Helen and myself; but my position in the house was almost that of one of the family, and the general , anticipation was that, in course of time, we would be married. It was almost as a matter of course that I took Helen about, proud to be seen with the bright young beauty; when the arrival of Travers put me into the background, I was naturally inflamed by jealous anger.

It was an ill-advised impulse that prompted me to warn Mathers against Travers. I had got hold of a story of a young Travers, a bank clerk, who had received a sentence of three years' imprisonment in Brisbane for embezzlement a few years before. His admissions, at his trial, of the loose living that had dissipated the money was salt to the dish of scandal I took to Mathers. The grave, although disbelieving, way in which he listened made me believe that I had scored a point; in the rash folly of my anger I had not realised that he might make inquiries. The way he spoke to me a week later was positively offensive.

"Martin," he said— in friendly moments he called me "Mart"— "I am surprised that you should have told me that story about Travers. You must have known it was false. Travers is as fine as his family history; a brave chap, too— he was merely a boy in the war, but he won distinction, and he holds medals for life-saving... I think you're dangerous, Martin. I'm sorry to say that. I don't know that I care about your coming to the house."

That had come after a lapse in which my temper had got the best of me; I did not notice what he was saying, and I did not care what I said myself.

"Why, you damned old fool!"— I cried. "Do you think I'm going to be thrown aside like an old shoe? I'll have Helen if I have to wipe out both you and Travers!"

It was foolish saying anything like that, especially before the servants, who came when, in my passion, I refused to leave the house. It was a tactical error which I regretted when I had formulated my plan.

However, I hoped it was all forgotten when I made my apologies. I laid myself out to be a personal friend of Travers, succeeding so well that we went surfing together, and I became a regular visitor at his camp cottage at Palva Bay.

I took a revolver out, and laughingly challenged him to a shooting match on the rocks under the cliffs. I was a crack shot once; but, ot course, my frequent drinking orgies and drugs have played the devil with my nerves. Anyway I wanted Travers to win.

It gave me an opportunity to make him a presentation of a revolver with an inscription on it— "In recognition of superior markmanship to my own poor shooting—" It was with that revolver that Mathers was going to be shot; that tribute to Travers's markmanship was a clever point

It was at the club that I made the presentation; the point was to see that there were many who would admire the little weapon, and know that it was his.

"Thanks, old man. Now I will be able to shoot the old man if he won't let me have Helen," he laughed.

My heart almost leapt. Naturally I took pains that that light remark would not be forgotten.

"That was rather a queer remark for Travers to make; I hope he doesn't do any harm with the revolver," I said to Carr and Horley, who had been with us.

"What remark was that?" asked Horley.

"Why, 'I will be able to shoot the old man (that's Mathers, of course) if he won't let me have Helen, ' " I said.

"It was a joke," said Carr.

But I knew they would remember. Travers was a fool who never suspected anyone; he had unconsciously made Mathers easier for me., I wrote Helen a letter on the pretext that I found it difficult to say what I wished, asking her to marry me. The result was, of course, certain— "If you cannot think of me as a lover I hope you can still address me as friend," I said. I also made some references to her father, which she would be forced to answer.

The plan succeeded admirably.

"Dear friend," she wrote— I knew she would accept the hint as an act of kindness— "it is impossible for me to say 'yes' to you; it would be impossible for us to marry.... Certainly my father has some hostility to you, which I do not clearly understand..."

Had I dictated what I wanted it could not have been better for my purpose. I found an envelope covering a note Helen had written about some theatre appointment in Travers's flat, and slipped it into my pocket when he wasn't looking.

Into that envelope I placed Helen's letter, keeping it in my pocket ready to drop in his camp cottage, where it could be found— in the drawer where he kept his revolver. When that revolver was found near the shot body of old Mathers, the letter in the drawer— a significant place— seeming as if it had been written to him, would be linked up with the remark he had made before myself, Carr, Horley, and others in the club. Altogether, I had reason to chuckle over a good chain of circumstantial evidence.

The Monday on which Travers was to go to the Empire League's dinner suggested a good opportunity for finding Mathers alone; Helen, I understood, would be out with some friends that night. On my way to kill Mathers I would give a 'phone call in a feigned voice to Travers at the dinner, telling him that Mathers wanted to see him urgently, if he could run out he could return in half an hour-time to hear the speeches. Travers would arrive In the midst of the turmoil created by the shooting of Mathers and, while I made good my flight, his appearance of innocence would look like a desperate bluff. There would be the evidence of people at the Empire League function about his abrupt departure to go to Mathers, no doubt looking a good deal worried at the mystery call.

It was all pretty perfect. On Sunday we surfed, and I challenged Travers to a shooting match. He beat me easily.

"What about my having a turn with your revolver. See how we go with different shooters," I suggested.

He beat me again; with the job I had in view my quivering, unsteady hand perturbed me. However, I had possession of his revolver, and hoped that he would not notice that we had not re-exchanged the weapons. He had actually tossed my revolver into the usual drawer, and was about to close it, when he hesitated.

"I say, Mart, you've got my shooter; here's yours," he said. "I value that as a tribute to my skill, you know."

That was only a mild disappointment, however. It was easy enough to go to the camp cottage on Monday, when it was empty; and I knew it so well that there was no difficulty about making an entry. Once inside. I left the front door ajar to dissipate the suspicions. of any who might see me that I had made a secret entry.

But the sudden opening of the door as I was examining the little weapon was a shock; a greater shock to see a tanned, shabby man looking strangely at me.

"I didn't expect you to be here, Mr. Dark," he said. "Mr. Travers said yesterday he would let me have some fishing tackle; he said he would leave it on the table."

It was there, to prove his statement.

"Travers asked me to fix this revolver; something went wrong with it. He particularly wanted it by this afternoon," I explained, making the best of the situation.

It was awful, waiting for the time to arrive. I tried to use the brandy, which was my recourse, sparingly; when I set out, it made me feel that I was my own man.

I knew from the way the coins rattled as I inserted them in the slot of the isolated public telephone near the Mathers' house, to give the ring to Travers, that I was very shaky. It was with difficulty that I assumed the voice of Mathers' manservant.

Hardly had I left the box when a car pulled up near me with a hail.

"Hallo, Martin!" cried Small. "Going up to the Mathers', are you? If you like, you can jump in; it's only a hundred yards, but..."

"No; I'm not going to the Mathers', thanks," I said. "And I'm out for a walk, because I want a walk."

Bowen, the man servant, was standing on the porch; I hid behind a shrub to avoid being seen. Directly he disappeared, I crept to the house. The window of the old man's library was slightly up, but the curtains hung down out of reach. The room was lighted, however, and through them I made out a figure,  standing, which, suggested Mathers.

I was shaking— frightened, unusually frightened, that if I delayed I would let go forever the beautiful revenge I had planned. The shadow behind the curtain moved forward, and I fired. The cry that followed, and the disappearance of the shadow, assured me of success. I fired again, however, at the floor where the body would be: and then I fled through the night, every nerve jangling.

"Hey Martin, what's the hurry?" Somebody I did not recognise, but who evidently knew me called. I only fled past him, not pausing until, from sheer panting exhaustion. I stopped at the foot of the hill, leaning against the stone wall of the little bridge under which the gully stream flows.

It seemed that I was in a nightmare; its extreme point was reached when I found that I still held, clutched in my hand, the revolver I had intended to be such good evidence aganist Travers. In my pause I had forgotten my plans.

Petulantly I tossed the weapon into the water; and as it splashed, a policeman, one I did not know, loomed out of the darkness with a sharp, "What was that you threw into the water?"

My shaking condition naturally roused his suspicion; I knew the water would be searched, and the revolver found; and it would be known that I had had it, and had thrown it there.

My plans had failed. Well, I killed old Mathers. Why should they torture me with the waiting for the trial, telling me lies? I have been waiting for years, and still they keep the shadow of the rope over me. The torture has become unbearable. I am writing this confession so that I can be tried, and a finish will be made of all my suspense.

"HE IS QUITE mad," said the lunacy official who showed me the document. "Murder was on his mind, and he thinks he is a murderer. As a matter of fact, he fired his shot at the shadow of the Mathers's manservant, moving forward to close the window, and although Bowen jumped aside when he heard the  shot, to avoid any more, he missed by miles."

________________

16: Guarded

Mearle Prout
fl. 1933-39

Weird Tales March 1938

THE sound of a shot suddenly broke the stillness of the May morning, and echoed back from across the valley. A puff of blue smoke arose from a clump of green-briars and drifted away downwind. Out in the road, Abner Simmons dropped the bag of grain he was carrying and, with a look of dumb surprize, sank in a quivering heap to the ground. Half his side had been shot away.

The green-briars parted with a sudden life and Jed Tolliver emerged, straightening his long form as he shambled toward the road. As he walked he broke his double-barreled shotgun, flicked out the empty cartridge and blew through the barrel, sending a thin stream of acrid smoke out of the chamber. He stooped over his fallen enemy.

"Said I'd get you," he reminded the other brutally. He inserted a fresh cartridge and closed the gun with a snap.

The man in the road rolled over with a convulsive movement and stared up at him.

"That kid brother of yours is next— and last," Jed continued. "Then I'll be through with the lot of you."

Abner grinned. It is an awful thing to see a dying man grin. Jed shuddered in spite of himself.

"You can't, Jed— not Ezekiel—"

It was not a pleading. Rather, it was calm, assured, as though the other were stating a known fact. Jed shuddered again, before he felt quick anger rising.

"I got you, didn't I?" he said, ejecting a thick stream of tobacco juice. "What makes you think I won't get Ezekiel the same way?"

"You won't, Jed— you can't— because— I won't let you!"

He was fast weakening from the frightful flow of blood. Overcome from the effort of speaking, Abner closed his eyes and lay still. A second later a sudden convulsive movement shook his body, and his eyes opened again. This time they were fixed and staring.

With a grunt of satisfaction Jed shouldered his gun and started back up the mountain, moving with the long effortless stride of the Tennessee mountaineer. He did not fear punishment for his crime. Here in the Tennessee mountains the long arm of the law seldom reached. The only thing to fear in a case of this kind was the dead man's relatives, and now there was only one— Ezekiel, a slim lad of twenty, who could not even shoot expertly.

Yes, Jed reflected as his long strides carried him through the sparse growth of cedar and blackjack, this part of Tennessee would soon again be a decent, God-fearing community… Foreigners, the Simmonses had been, from somewhere back East— Carolina, or Virginia, maybe. They hadn't been like the mountain-folk…

And what was that crazy talk Abner had made? He'd stop Jed from getting Ezekiel? How could he, if he was dead? Jed chuckled to himself. Here in Tennessee, folk didn't believe…

MORE than a week passed before Jed again took his well-oiled shotgun from its place on the wall and started over the mountain. He was in no great hurry about Ezekiel— instead, he rather enjoyed waiting. Ezekiel was the last of the three Simmons brothers, and knowing that the foreigner was over there, and that he was going to kill him, gave life a curious sort of zest… Likely the kid didn't even know who shot his brother. Jed laughed silently at the thought, adding to himself that the boy probably wouldn't do anything about it if he did know. He wasn't like the mountain people…

But this morning all of Jed's impatience had returned. The sun shone hotly on the Tennessee hills, and raised an almost visible veil of vapor from the tiny branch which Sowed through the hollow. Well, he'd waited long enough. With a grimace of distaste at the three-mile traipse across two mountains, Jed swung his gun over his shoulder and started down the slope.

When, an hour and a half later, he arrived at the small clearing which was the Simmons place, he was not as tired as he had expected to be. The nervous exhilaration of the man-hunt buoyed him up, made him tensely aware of things around him. He paused only a moment at the fringe of scrub oak that bordered the clearing; then, bending almost double, he sprinted a hundred feet to the grape-arbor.

Safe inside the leafy bower, Jed leaned his gun against a supporting post and looked about. Here the vines had been trained over a rude wooden lattice so that a thick wall and roof of leaves now effectively hid him from anyone outside.

Jed parted the leaves carefully and peered out. A hundred feet behind him was the low wall of forest he had just left; two hundred feet in front of him was the house—a rude two-room shack; two hundred feet beyond that the wall of the forest began again. Jed looked at the house more closely. There was no sign of movement, but the thin line of smoke which curled from the chimney told him that Ezekiel was inside, probably preparing his midday meal. With a sigh of contentment he sat down and leaned back closer to his gun, idly listening to the chatter of birds in the forest, and the rustling of the leaves in the arbor.

How long Jed sat there he did not know. He was suddenly aroused from a semi-stupor by the sound of a banging door. Startled into instant activity, he swung around to peer through the leaves. Ezekiel was leaving the house, swinging in his hand an empty water-bucket. Going to the spring, Jed reckoned. If so, his path would take him within fifty feet of the arbor. Jed gloated.

With hands suddenly unsteady, the man in the arbor laid his gun on the ground, the muzzle barely extending through the leaves. Why take a chance? He would wait— at fifty feet he couldn't miss.

Unmindful of his danger, Ezekiel came slowly down the path, bearing diagonally nearer to the arbor… Jed suddenly wondered why he no longer heard the aimless chatter of birds in the forest, why the light wind no longer stirred the broad leaves above him. It was uncanny, this noonday quiet. Impatiently, he shook off the feeling.

"So I can't do it, Abner?" he whispered to the empty air, but somehow the words clutched at his throat, and he wished he hadn't said it. No matter, a few seconds now—

Jed cursed the trembling of his hands as he aimed. What was the matter with him? He could see Ezekiel's slender form now above the barrel of his gun; he nerved himself to pull tire trigger. The top of his head suddenly gone cold, Jed dropped the gun and looked quickly around him. No, the day was bright as ever— yet he could have sworn… Half-heartedly now, he picked up the gun to sight at the form which had already passed the nearest point. He had not been wrong! A black nebulous cloud hovered over the barrel of his gun and created the illusion of darkest night!

Shrieking a curse, Jed Tolliver leapt upright and pointed, not aimed, the gun at where Ezekiel should be. He snapped both triggers simultaneously, but as he fired something clutched at his arm, and the hot lead sizzled harmlessly through the air.

Shaking as with a chill, blind rage within him struggling with black fear, the mountaineer stood irresolutely within his leafy ambush. He was quickly aroused to activity by a loud report and the crash of lead against the wooden lattice. A sharp pain burned his left arm where one of the pellets had found its mark. Ezekiel had fled to the house and opened fire.

Without waiting to reload his gun, Jed crashed through the side of the bower and fled to the safety of the trees. As he entered, buckshot spattered harmlessly around him.

Safe within the sheltering growth, Jed halted to reload his gun.

"Damn you, Abner!" he shouted to the stunted oaks. "I'll get him yet!"

As he turned to go he thought he heard a low mocking laugh, but reasoned later that it was only a squirrel chattering a protest at the sound of his voice.

JED reached home in a blue funk. The long tramp across the mountains in the early summer heat had melted away most of his fears, but his nerves were still badly shaken. Now that he could look at the incident in a sober light, he refused to credit his senses. As the distance between himself and the scene increased, he had come more and more to believe the occurrence an hallucination, brought on by the long walk through the heat. After all, he recalled, he had almost fallen asleep in the arbor while waiting for Ezekiel to appear. Perhaps he had dreamed part of it?…

However logical Jed believed his explanation, he did not again go near the Simmons place. Weeks passed. Always he promised himself that he would soon finish the task so ingloriously begun, but day by day he waited, until nearly three months had gone. At first he had feared Ezekiel had recognized him in those few seconds it had taken to sprint from the grape-arbor to the cover of the woods. Later, as he heard nothing of it, he decided he was safe from that side. The end came in an unexpected manner. One afternoon early in August Jed had walked to the village. He stayed longer than he had intended, and shadows were already growing long when he started home. Not wishing to be out later than necessary, he took a short-cut through the woods which would take him within a half-mile of the Simmons place.

The sun was setting as he entered the Simmons hollow, a half-mile below the house. He felt vaguely uneasy. Though he told himself he was not frightened, he found himself wishing for the protection of his gun. Nervously, his hand strayed to the hunting-knife stuck in his belt, and tested the keen edge.

Walking diagonally across the hollow, which was largely devoid of trees, he turned aside to go around a cluster of young cedars which was directly in his path. Suddenly he drew back sharply. Again his hand tested the keen edge of that knife, but not this time from nervousness. Jed was not thinking now of defense.

Two hundred feet beyond the cedars, on the smooth unbroken grass floor of the hollow, was a man milking. His back was turned to the cedars, but Jed thought he recognized that slim youthful form. He believed it was Ezekiel.

Stepping lightly, one hand on his belt where he could immediately grasp the knife, Jed moved into the open. Halfway across the level space, his hand moved yet closer to the knife, while the ghost of a grin curved his lips. Without a doubt it was Ezekiel Simmons. The man milking did not look up. The milk jetted into the half-filled bucket with a low murmur, just loud enough to mask Jed's guarded footsteps.

Step by step Jed advanced. If only Ezekiel did not see him! If only the cow did not sense his presence and turn unexpectedly! Step by step further—Jed was tense with excitement. There was no midday sun this time to blind his eyes and fill his soul with a nameless fear. Nor would he be unnerved by the twilight stillness; it was always still at sunset, here in these mountains…

Ten feet now. The milk still swished into the pail uninterruptedly, the steady grinding of the cow's molars never ceased.

Suddenly Jed tugged at his belt and leapt forward.

"Got you!" he shouted aloud.

But the exultant cry died suddenly into a moan of horror. The arm bearing the knife poised high for the blow, Jed felt something like an electric shock course through its length. Instead of swinging forward to strike the man in front of him, the knife turned in his hand, his wrist and elbow bent at a crazy angle, and the razor-edge steel ripped through the cords of his neck.

Staggered more by his realization of the awful consequences than by present pain, Jed sank to the grass, while gouts of blood spurted from a torn jugular. His first mad terror past, he became aware that Ezekiel was standing over him, scorn darkening his features.

"So it was you, Tolliver. Abner warned me— about you."

"I'd have got you too— only Abner—"

"Abner was a good brother. He told me— weeks before he died— that if anything happened, he'd— guard me."

Jed felt himself weaker. His head was strangely without weight, and objects around swam lazily in the pale twilight. He lay back on the grass.

"Should have got you, Ezekiel— shouldn't have— missed," he murmured sleepily as the shadows gathered.

He raised his head slightly to listen. Was that a light mocking laugh he heard in the grass beside him? He listened again, before the darkness came down. No— he could not be sure…

______________

17: The Virus of Hell

William H. Pope
fl. 1910s-1930s

Weird Tales Feb 1934

Born in Arkansas; author of a small number of short stories between 1919 and 1934; nothing else is known.

"ISN'T it about time for— for it to begin?"

The words fell hollowly on the air of the sealed chamber, like words dropped in the stagnant silence of a vault. My body jerked spasmodically and I shot a startled look toward the other four men entombed with me in this lead-walled room a score of feet underground.

Enloe and Ward had reacted to the sudden stimulus as I had done; they were glaring resentfully at Fenwick, who had spoken. But Boothe was watching me as though he had not heard the doom-laden warning, his cold, tawny eyes appraising me sardonically. I flushed under his scrutiny and he turned away, a wraith of a smile on his thin lips.

I did not like Boothe, nor he me; some day there would be an accounting, but this year of 1985, with the last pitiful remnant of Right suspended above a seething maelstrom of Evil, was no time for personal differences. I could not forget that in an adjoining chamber, lead-sheathed like this to guard against espionage by our enemies' vision-rays, a white-haired, devoted scientist was laboring day and night to release us from our crushing bondage, even eating and sleeping in his hastily equipped laboratory to save precious minutes and avoid the possibility of fatal discovery. So I swallowed my anger and watched Boothe as he rose with the springy grace of a great cat and crossed the room to a panel of translucent quartz. With his heavy hand on an inset switch he turned to us, his insolently accusing eyes fleeting over me as he spoke:

"Fenwick recalled us from morbid anticipation. Behold the latest victim!"

And he closed the switch, again letting his glance flit toward me with a trace of suggestiveness in it.

The blood started again to my face, to recede swiftly as the panel glowed with light, and leave my skin cold with the realization of this daily horror to which we could not grow accustomed. We leaned forward, nerves taut as violin strings, faces drawn with horror and impotent grief.

At first the panel pictured only a swirling confusion of shadows, incomplete and shifting rapidly. Boothe guided a tiny indicator on the illuminated globe beside the panel, and the scene blurred, then sprang into startling clearness when the needle stopped on one of the numbered squares. Through this televistic window we looked into the Public Square of Colony 4, situated more than five hundred miles from where we sat here in Colony 6 on the south Atlantic seaboard. So great was the magic of the reproducing electrical waves which picked up the light vibrations and etched them on the six-foot square panel, that we could see the set features, the grim attitude of ghastly expectancy graven on the faces of the multitude which milled restlessly in the open square. But this was not the scene for which our nerves clamored. Boothe adjusted the indicator a minute fraction, and a gasp escaped from our dry throats.

The new view showed a raised platform in the middle of the Square, a huge cube of concrete above which a black, fan-shaped thing of metal was suspended between four slender columns of steel set in the concrete. The eyes of the waiting throng were glued to this platform with the terrible fascination which compels one to keep his gaze on the gibbet during an execution. And execution this was to be; even as we watched, a figure mounted the platform steps with a defiant stride and faced the multitude with proudly uplifted head.

"Whitmore!" croaked Ward. "Gad, what nerve!"

"And there comes Black George, damn him!" rasped Enloe.

A tall, slouching man in a brown uniform was following Whitmore up the wide steps. He was not a negro, but his skin was so swarthy as to have earned him the sobriquet of "Black" George. He was the official executioner of the International Council, and he smiled cruelly as he looked over the sea of hate-filled faces and jerked his thumb insinuatingly at the fan-shaped thing above. Whitmore's lips began to move; he was addressing the crowd, confirmed orator that he was, and Boothe swiftly closed another switch on the other side of the panel. Instantly the words became clearly audible:

"—neither myself nor any other of that determined band will let fall a hint of their whereabouts. Together they are the Damocletian sword held over the heads of our cursed criminal masters by the thread of their labors, and when those labors are complete the sword will fall with crushing vengeance. Stand fast, friends. Die, if need be, as I shall die. But do nothing to jeopardize the safety of the two who will soon free you from the fetters of Organized Crime. The day of reckon—"

The brave speech was never completed. The International Council was not of a mind to allow such an inflammatory message to be broadcast. A half-dozen uniformed guards leaped to the platform under direction of the officer in charge. Swiftly they seized Whitmore, binding his hands and feet and forcibly bending his head, securing it in place with a metal band at the end of a spring. Black George raised his arm up one of the colunms and from the slitted, fan-shaped muzzle of the machine came a sheet of crimson flame, thin as a knife-blade and infinitely swifter. Whitmore's head was sheared cleanly from its neck, quivering at the end of the spring, while the body stood erect for a moment, then slumped in a heap on the platform.

Black George leered mockingly at the spectators.

A deep murmur welled up from the multitude, a murmur that swelled into a booming roar. A wave of infuriated humanity surged toward the execution platform, but Black George and the guards quickly demounted the flame-projector and wheeled its menacing muzzle in a slow arc about them. The wave stopped before that deadly threat, and brown uniforms, brandishing flame-pistols, began to work through the milling mob, cutting out the leaders and hurrying them away. The riot was over.

BOOTHE opened the switches. "Enough for today, gentlemen." We understood his slight emphasis upon "today." Tomorrow, at this hour, the tragic scene would be repeated in a different Colony with a fresh victim, as it had been repeated now for ten days. As there were only ten Colonies, this was Number 4's second sacrifice, though the Council didn't always take them in exact rotation. Tomorrow it might be our turn again or one of the others'. We never knew until a short bit before the execution hour, the uncertainty being a part of the Council's punishment for our stubbornness.

Hence I knew the meaning of the glances cast at me by the sardonic Boothe; knew with sickening certainty what was in the minds of the men in that room, in the minds of all the oppressed colonists.

I was the one Whitmore and all these devoted people were shielding with their lives— I, and one other, Nathan Woodruff, the white-haired scientist, who was at this very moment absorbed with his chemical formulæ in the adjoining room, striving with might and brain to evolve that which would lift the curse from the harassed Colonies. We two were the ones mentioned by Whitmore in his last speech, the ones desired above all things by the International Council, and we could at any time stop the fearful slaughter which was decreed irrevocably for each and every day until we should be surrendered.

The thought was horrible. For ten days and nights I had suffered with the knowledge that a life was being given for mine with every rotation of the earth. I couldn't sleep without starting up from a grisly dream; even my waking hours were haunted by the look of agony on the faces of the victims of that hellish flame.

Victims of loyalty!

I got up from my chair, shaky but grimly determined. Boothe was watching me quizzically, but I gave him no heed.

"Men," I said steadily, "Whitmore was like a father to me, and I feel a little groggy. I've got to have some fresh air—"

Enloe stepped in my path. "We all feel that way, son, but we would feel far worse if we permitted you to carry out what's in your mind. Sit down, Draughon."

He had read my design on my face, I suppose, but I was desperate. "I will not," I told him stubbornly. "Sit here and watch man after man give his life that I may live? God forbid that I should forget the principles for which we live! Let me out. I'm going to stop this butchery."

It was not bravado; I meant what I said. Even death was preferable to those grisly nightmares. But he pushed me back to my chair.

"God forbid," he said sternly, "that you should so have misinterpreted the principles for which we live! The Colonial Constitution is founded on Truth, Honor, Justice, and I should violate at least two of the cardinal principles if I allowed you to give yourself up."

"It would gain a few days' respite, save a few lives," I argued. "In the meantime Professor Woodruff will finish his work. And I am no longer of benefit to the Cause."

"Without you, Draughon, today there would be no Cause to die for. Two weeks ago when you and Woodruff were thrown into the glass prison at Washington, condemned to die under the Flame for conspiring against the Council, the Colonies lost all hope. And then the greed of Joroon De Berrie gave you your chance and you accomplished the death of De Berrie, his lieutenant, Muir, and the scoundrelly traitor Dured Akridge. Then you effected the release of Woodruff from prison, the first escape from its grim gates in its history. That is why a man willingly dies each day to preserve your freedom; it is through you that they have been given new hope that the long reign of terror is doomed. If you surrender, Draughon, those men, including Whitmore, will have died in vain. Let's not render their sacrifice futile."

The others nodded their approval of Enloe's rebuking lecture. Seeing the matter in this new light made me feel better until Boothe heaved his bulk to the floor and spoke with maddening ambiguity.

"The Council's decree calling for a victim each day until you and the professor are delivered into their hands is merely revenge on their part, my dear quixotic fellow, and you could not add to your laurels by becoming a martyr."

He sat down, that fleeting, irritating smile on his lips. I was about to retort angrily, when the panel communicating with the laboratory slid back and the tall figure of Woodruff in a white chemist's robe stood framed in the opening. His eyes were alight with a glow of exultation, and a half-smile played about his lips.

"Gentlemen," he said with a quiet touch of pride, "the work is complete— and successfully so!"

A SIGH of relief escaped us. Fenwick sobbed emotionally. Mingled with my own gratification was a thrill of pride in my own small part in the triumph. Woodruff strode to the small table and placed on it a bottle filled with a milky fluid. Beside it he placed another of the same size containing a liquid slightly different in appearance. He stepped back and faced us.

"Those bottles of fluid, friends, are the result of years of theory and weeks of effort. Together they represent more potential force for good and evil than it would be possible otherwise to concentrate in any given spot on the earth's surface. The one I have named simply the Serum of Right; the other, because of its malefic properties, I have called the Virus of Hell!"

We fidgeted uneasily in our chairs, memories of the great War of the Chemists of 1960 flooding into our minds. That murderously short conflict had shaken the world with horror. What new flood of destruction and agony had the professor developed in his crucibles and test-tubes?

Woodruff smiled reassuringly.

"There is no possibility of explosion, gentlemen; nor can the fluids generate a lethal gas. They are to be administered hypodermically."

I stared at him in astonishment. Ward, Fenwick, even Enloe, looked askance. Boothe grunted contemptuously.

"And is this what we have been waiting for— what men have been dying for each day— a mere sedative?" he asked raspingly. "And when the effects of the potion wear off— saying our enemies can be induced to take it— what then?"

Woodruff let his eyes play over Boothe for long, flaying seconds; eyes that were at once pitying and disdainful. Boothe's aplomb was shaken by that scornful scrutiny and he subsided, flushing darkly. The chemist gave his attention to the rest of us, ignoring Boothe.

"An explanation is in order, gentlemen, lest you join with Boothe in believing that I have wasted my time at the expense of more valuable lives, but you must be content with a simple outline; details are too technical. First, I will summarize our situation, designating the two continental factions present in the calculation simply as Good and Evil, which, in the last analysis, and with a few exceptions, they really are. You are perfectly familiar, of course, with the gradual breakdown of the public moral fiber which permitted Evil to gain open control of the government, which they had directed sub rosa for many years, and of the refusal of a small but high-principled minority to accept that condition, and of the shambles which followed their rebellion. But it was not Evil's intention to eradicate the rebels, for they numbered in their ranks the brainiest and most talented men of the era; it is significant that the men selected by nature to make each forward step of civilization are men of honor, integrity, and sympathy. No worth-while contribution to life can be made by one of low principles.

"Evil, selfishly shrewd, recognized this, and instead of eliminating the type they segregated Good into colonies so that they could profit by Good's progress and yet not be hampered by its conscience."

This was old to us; I saw the sneering face of Boothe open in a wide yawn. Woodruff also noticed and resumed:

"Perhaps I am boring you, but this preamble is necessary to your understanding why I concentrated my efforts on developing the fluid in these bottles instead of perfecting a new lethal gas, a deadly ray, or a destructive rearrangement of atomic forces. Men, I ask a very pointed question to support my contention: Is it feasible for the twenty-odd thousand Good to engage the quarter-billion Evil in a battle for supremacy?"

Enloe, always seeing good in the worst of us, asked:

"But isn't your classification too rigid? Surely there must be countless millions of folk on the continent who are not evil. They simply follow the path of least resistance."

"A good gas would wipe them out, lock, stock, and barrel," interjected Boothe savagely. "But a soporific— my God!"

The sarcasm was serenely ignored by the gray-haired chemist.

"That indeed would be the obvious remedy. But Enloe brought out the objection to it. Our creed is Truth, Honor, Justice. We would be false to every principle should we attempt to slaughter our persecutors. We had a horrible example of wholesale murder in the late war when whole cities died as a single man."

There was no gainsaying this fact. But what was his plan?

"Friends," and his voice was solemn, yet ringing with conviction, as of a man who has stumbled upon a great truth and is awed by its majestic grandeur. "Friends, to us has been given the power to usher in the Millennium." Almost reverently he picked up one of the bottles, which I now saw was marked with a small blue label; the other one was red. "A few drops of this liquid injected near the spinal bulb will transform the most vicious creature of the cesspools of Evil into the man his Creator intended him to be!"

In a twinkling it all came to me, and I gasped at the sheer audacity of the idea. Ward, Fenwick, Enloe stared at the chemist with a tinge of awe as the meaning of his words dawned upon them. Even Boothe was impressed, but he picked the weak point of the plan.

"Granted the fluid will do as you say," he said heavily. "You will have to convert your sinner before he will consent to being a saint. None will consent to the injection willingly, and if we have to kill them to make them like it, how resurrect them afterward?"

Sarcasm had become insolence. The scientist looked at him coldly.

"An injection would do you no harm!" he said bluntly. "There will be men brave enough to start the thing. I'm sure, and once the leaders of Evil are reached the rest will be easy. It grows in geometrical progression."

"How does it work?" this from Ward, who was a minor scientist.

"Through the autonomic nervous system. I won't tire you with a long technical exposition; it has taken me years of theorizing to work this matter out, and even then the basic idea was not original. Even back in the early 1900's scientists had a vague notion that major emotions were the result of physiological causations; part of their remarkable leniency toward proved criminals was prompted by a belief that the culprit was not wholly to blame for his crime, but was the victim of a diseased mind. In working on this theory I discovered a very minute bacillus which fed on certain of the nerve cells; a culture of this bacillus injected into animals makes them exceedingly vicious— two drops injected into a timid rabbit in thirty minutes will turn him into a ferocious carnivore, preferring mice and even his own offspring to his customary vegetable diet! My discovery of the bacilli was made possible by the atomoscope; they are not apparent under the most powerful microscope, and the finest porcelain filter passes them like open-mesh screening. This fluid, the Serum, is a perfect antitoxin; and with the nervous system free of the lurking devils, the subject's mind becomes as pure and innocent as that of a child."

"And the other bottle?" queried Boothe in a speculative tone.

"That is the virus. It was necessary to work the two out together."

Woodruff's face was grave as he picked up the red-labeled vial, and he spoke in a hushed voice like a man telling forbidden things.

"The Virus of Hell! Never was a substance better named. I hesitate to predict the result were a number of men inoculated with this fluid. Fiends from hell they would be in truth, with never a spark of mercy left for friend or foe; wanton cruelty would motivate their actions, and the strangling of helpless babes would be tame sport to their blood-lusting spirits!"

He shook the vial slightly and held it before our eyes in the glow from the light-cone in the ceiling.

"See! The bacilli of hell swirling hungrily in their culture, invisible but clouding the liquor as if the smoke-fumes of the pit itself were diffused in the bottle! But few of us are entirely free of this terrible microbe, men, much as it was with the tubercle bacilli a generation or so ago; but not even the lowest brute in the deepest dive is thoroughly inoculated. Knowing the cruelty of some of our oppressors, you may imagine what they would become with this."

HE REPLACED the vial on the table and regarded us seriously.

"It will be necessary to begin at the top— with Luigi Caldoni, say, and the rest of the Council. After that it should be simple."

Luigi Caldoni, supreme chief of the International Council! Caldoni' s order it was which called for a death each day until we should be delivered to the Council. If the professor's serum could change that brute's nature it would be miraculous indeed.

"Shall we call for volunteers?" Woodruff's voice broke into my thoughts. I was rising when Boothe interrupted.

"Cast lots. It's the only fair way, and there's no need to leave this room. Remember Akridge."

I did remember the traitor and thought of his hideous death without remorse. Boothe was busily breaking toothpicks, which he always carried in his pockets. He finished and showed us five uneven slivers.

"I omitted the professor," he stated. "He's done his bit. Short pick wins honors."

He arranged them in his cupped hand, exposed ends even, and passed them about.

Enloe drew, then Ward and Fenwick and I. We then compared sticks. Boothe chuckled grimly.

"Draughon it is. Are you satisfied, or shall it be a process of elimination?"

But to this I objected, and after some argument the others let me have my way. Woodruff then drew me into the laboratory with him and closed the door behind us. He seated me on a stool while he busied himself at his long table littered with test-tubes, beakers of liquids and other chemical paraphernalia.

"I must work while we talk, Garfield. It will be best for you to start tonight, and this amnesiac must be finished for you. Can you think of a way to contact with Caldoni and the Council?"

My effort to surrender myself an hour or so ago was still in my mind; so I outlined a sketchy plan. He shook his head decidedly, and measured a minute quantity of a colorless liquid in a graduated tube before he spoke.

"I don't like it. They're a suspicious crew, and their spies have doubtless told them we're working on some scheme; hence the willing sacrifice each day to protect you and me. You mustn't have too rigid a search, you know, when you get in their hands."

Right there the difficulty of the task struck me with full force, and I admitted my helplessness.

"There is the weak point," he said. "You must get before the Council with as little interference as possible. At best it's a hazardous job, and if it weren't for the certain results to be obtained if successful I would abandon the whole scheme. But the future of the world is at stake, Garfield, and it must go through. That fool, Boothe, would rather fight, sating his hate with the blood of thousands rather than accomplishing his end by strategy."

He added a few white crystals to his liquid and watched them dissolve with a foaming action.

"It is almost complete, I will add the volatile agent later."

He turned to me and sat down on the edge of the table.

"I have a plan," he said slowly. "I would go myself, only for the fact that I would have no chance to accomplish my purpose. They will give you that chance because they desire information from you concerning De Berrie. My plan is to have the W-R drop you in Washington tonight. Seemingly you will be trying to avoid notice, but will be picked up. If you think best you can tell them you learned that the Colonists were about to betray you and you fled, believing the safest place was under their noses. That will be plausible and should lull their suspicion so that they will not search you closely for some engine of destruction. Besides, they will be eager to get you before the Council and claim the reward. Of course, if they become too inquisitive you may have to fight your way clear, but I hope not."

He studied for several minutes, then resumed: "Once before the Council, it will not be so difficult, if you undergo the same proceedings as when we faced them before, There will be only Caldoni, Wharton, and one or two others. You can approach them closely under some pretext and spray a quantity of this amnesiac"— he indicated the liquid in the tube—"into the air. In a moment they will be unconscious and remain so for a period determined by the amount of fluid liberated— ample time for your purpose. Then inject the serum in the back of the neck, intramuscular. Afterward it would be best to conceal yourself for a bit to give the drug a chance to do its work. As I remember, the Council room has several filing-cabinets set in curtained alcoves that would offer a temporary refuge. When the drug gets in its action you will be perfectly safe and can explain the whole matter."

"It seems too fantastic to be true," I muttered. "There'll be a slip-up somewhere. Things so wonderful don't work out so smoothly."

"It will work," he stated positively. "I have proved it by exhaustive tests on animals; the reaction should be the same with any mammal. The only possibility of a slip-up, as you call it, lies in the application. Once you get the Council, they will bring the rest to heel. In a week there will be clinics in every city and hamlet where the serum will be administered, by force, if necessary."

"But the anesthetic and the hypo— how will I carry them to avoid discovery? And if the amnesiac is to be sprayed openly, how can I escape its effects myself?"

"You will be doctored," he smiled, "or, rather, show the effects of doctoring. On your left hand will grow a monstrous boil with a rubber core containing enough amnesiac for nearly any contingency. By squeezing the boil with thumb or finger the liquid will be discharged. The mustache which you will wear as a disguise will contain minute glass capsules containing a nullifying agent which a brush of your hand will liberate. It will protect you for the required time, as the amnesiac is very volatile and will soon dissipate. The syringe, containing half a dozen injections of the Serum, can be concealed in a hollow shoe heel which can be fixed by the time you're ready to start."

"You think of everything," I said admiringly.

"I've been studying the matter for days. Now run along home for a few hours' rest. I'll get those fellows in yonder to help me shape things up and get the ship ready."

A SURLY, brown-uniformed guard convoyed me into the Council room and seated me in a chair facing the crescent-shaped desk behind which the Council would gather presently.

"Their Excellencies will be in when they see fit," he admonished me. "You'd better set tight. Curiosity in prisoners ain't healthy. But you've been here before and know it, I reckon." With that he left me and closed the door leading into the corridor.

As the sanctum of the High Tribunal under the Reorganization, the room had some of the features of the ordinary courtroom combined with fixtures of a great private office. Before me sat the desk already mentioned, a few feet out from the back wall which was bare save for the portraits of the gentry who had established the regime. In this wall immediately behind the desk was a small door, used, I knew, exclusively by the Council. Behind me were a number of chairs used during certain conclaves by lesser leaders of the Administration. To either side were huge filing-cabinets built in sections against the walls and extending the full length of the forty-foot room, broken only by a curtained alcove on either side, possibly for the use of clerks transcribing the proceedings. In the lofty ceiling was the great flaring light-cone for use during night sessions of the Council. On the floor was a thick carpet.

It was the custom for prisoners to be left to their own devices for varying periods in this room, and I suspected that the ceiling contained peepholes through which the prisoner could be observed and notes made of his behavior when he fancied himself absolutely alone. So, while I had little belief that I would be subjected to espionage because my guilt was already established, I put on an anxious look as though I feared the worst, though in reality it was difficult to avoid an air of complacence and a chuckle of triumph.

So far everything had gone according to schedule. At midnight the professor's space-ship, the W-R, had landed in the garden of the secluded house where I had lived with friends since my escape from prison. Enloe had accompanied the pilot and brought with him another man who proceeded deftly to make me over in such fashion that I doubted my own identity after a look into a mirror. The boil on my hand was so realistic that it almost throbbed, and I easily fell into the habit of keeping the hand partly raised as though in a sling. I was also equipped with a pair of shoes with one screw-on heel in which Enloe had placed the precious syringe, loaded and ready for use. With my mustache firmly attached I climbed into the space-flyer for the first time since my return from the moon, and we shot into the sky.

An hour later I was sneaking along a motorway a short distance out of Washington, the Tower a lighted spire against the sky. In another hour I had been arrested and exultantly identified. In their eagerness they had swallowed my story without question, given me only the most superficial of searches, and had even joked about my sore hand. Now I was to face the Council and endure a merciless grilling. I repressed a smile with difficulty.

Twice before I had been in this building; once at the farcical trial which had condemned Woodruff and me to death; a second time in another room from this, where I had undergone an inquisition which had led by devious means to the horrible death of the then guiding light of the Council and his most trusted aide, De Berrie, and the warden of the Glass Prison, Calvin Muir. Caldoni the ruler, Wharton, Papke, Hoffman— lesser lights of the evil regime— had not forgotten that blow, and if this desperate scheme fell flat I could expect the most horrible death inherently cruel minds could devise, and Caldoni was a genius at refined torture.

It must not fail. My own life was of small moment, but those trusting, sacrificing thousands in the Colonies must be freed from bondage and the shadow of dreadful doom lifted from their souls.

I stiffened in my chair as the private door behind the desk swung silently and four men filed solemnly into the chamber.

I THRILLED in every fiber as they took their seats inside the curve of the desk. These four men, Caldoni, Papke, Hoffman, Wharton, held the fate of the Colonies in their hands, and I held theirs in mine! But I maintained a sullen calm; these men were shrewd, and behavior out of character with my situation would arouse their suspicion. So I sat unmoved and returned their cold inspection with the defiant stare I knew they expected. Caldoni pressed a button on the desk, and a hidden loud-speaker filled the room with its blaring voice:

"Garfield Draughon, resident Colony 7; convicted jointly with Nathan Woodruff of conspiracy to revolt; responsible for disappearance of Council-chief Joroon De Berrie, Warden Muir, and one other. Escaped from prison on eve of execution and delivered his accomplice, Woodruff. Arrested 4 a. m. by Inspectors Gregg and Peddy on Motorway 62-A en route to city. Prisoner was seeking refuge in city because of rumor that Colonists were about to surrender him to Council to stop daily executions. Prisoner alone and unarmed."

The facts stated briefly for the edification of the Council, the metallic voice hushed. Caldoni eyed me with stern disfavor, poorly concealing the triumph he felt at having me in his power.

"You have heard the charge. What is your answer?"

"Since I am already convicted, why plead innocence?"

Hoffman and Papke frowned. Caldoni's eyes smoldered. Here, I saw, was a human volcano, quick to erupt his deadly passion. Small wonder that even his associates stood in dread of him and underlings quaked in his presence. But the knowledge of the powerful amnesiac under my fingers gave me courage.

"Where are De Berrie and Muir?" he snapped.

"Where they can no longer harm the Colonies," I answered cheerfully. "Muir was sacrificed by the moon people in their underground temple; De Berrie and I escaped, but De Berrie was killed by a scorpion in the cavern leading from the mountain. Their own greed killed them, not I."

Caldoni's eyes burned as the devils of wrath stirred his temper. "Liar!" he snarled, leaning forward. "Give me the truth or I will have your tongue burned from your throat. Where have you hidden De Berrie and Muir?"

I jumped to my feet. Four flame-pistols flashed up to cover me and for a split second I hesitated, minded to let them have it by pressing the bulb in my palm, but I was several feet away and to have full effect the amnesiac must be released at close range. If I could gain just four more short steps! So I appeared to be properly awed by their weapons and lifted my arms to show my harmlessness. But I vented my resentment of the insult in speech.

"Gangster methods and gangster odds," I said hotly. "Save your insults for your associates, Caldoni!"

I regretted the foolish bravado almost instantly. My hot temper was jeopardizing my mission, for Caldoni was as unstable as an explosive gas. If I watched my tongue I was fairly safe, for I felt sure they would not harm me while they believed I held information vital to them. Their refusal to accept the truth which I had given them had built a wall of security about me. Under cover of their amazement at my audacity I gained several inches.

Caldoni trembled with fury. His brown eyes grew murky with hate, and Hoffman on one side and Papke on the other laid restraining hands on his arms, speaking swiftly in an undertone.

Whatever they said had an effect, for I could see the tremendous effort the man made to control his passion. His voice shook.

"Come closer!" He beckoned with his pistol and I obeyed with alacrity, coming so near that he motioned me to stop. Then he fastened his hot gaze on my face as if trying to conquer my stubborn spirit with the very deadliness of his power. He raised himself erect, a more commanding position.

"You will tell me about De Berrie and Muir. You will also tell me the whereabouts of Woodruff. Or I will kill you in this room!"

He lifted the flame-pistol menacingly.

He was at the breaking-point. I was cold with fear lest I stretch my bluff too far and spoil everything. But I was not yet in just the position I desired.

"I have told you the truth about De Berrie and Muir, Caldoni," I answered steadily. "I will tell nothing about Professor Woodruff. And you will not kill me here, for the people would not believe that you had captured me at all and your prestige with the masses would be shalcen."

His face purpled. The other Councillors rose. I inched forward. Hoffman spoke, worriedly, I thought:

"Draughon, don't be a fool! We will deal leniently with you if you assist us. And if you don't, we will have our way and you will suffer ten thousand deaths for your refusal. We have the power, the wealth, and the might to crush your Colonies if they are not submissive— wipe them from very existence!"

I took a short step, lifting my arm in an apparently innocent dramatic gesture— that potent left arm!

"You, the representatives of organized Evil, have all that you say," I told them earnestly. "But your rule is built on sand. With all your resources you lack the one essential of success in any undertaking— brains! And the brains of civilization are concentrated in the ten Colonies. In the end they will conquer!"

Caldoni spoke softly, huskily, as if to himself.

"I may not kill, but I can maim!" I saw him stealthily lift his pistol. "You shall be carried through the streets of the Colonies a wretched, limbless cripple, the body of a man and nothing more, to show how Luigi Caldoni rewards those who make sport of him!"

The showdown had come. I read it instantly in his eyes. There was no mercy, no bluff in those hot pools of hate, only malign cruelty swirling in their brown depths. He took quick aim at my uplifted arm— and I clenched my fist!

Almost simultaneously with the ejection of the spray of amnesiac I swept my right hand across the mustache, crushing the capsules of antidote and removing the appendage. The four Councillors stiffened as they inhaled the powerful fumes; then they slumped heavily in the chairs beneath them, heads sagging on their breasts. Caldoni's pistol dropped from his nerveless fingers.

WITH the pungent fumes of the antidote reeking in my head I acted swiftly. In a jiffy the detachable heel came off and the syringe dropped into my hand. I leaned over Caldoni and shot a heavy dose of the Serum into his neck muscles just at the edge of his hair. Hoffman, Papke, and Wharton got an injection in turn, and I stepped back, my work accomplished. Remained only to conceal myself until the drug had done its work. And then I distinctly heard a noise in the corridor!

I whirled, knocking my hand against the horn of the crescent desk and dropping the syringe which I had intended to put in my pocket. But there was no time to retrieve it; I leaped for the protection of the alcove curtains just as the door opened and a uniformed guard entered the room. Through a fold of the drapery I watched, wishing heartily that I had snatched up Caldoni's pistol.

The man came close to the desk, staring puzzled at the relaxed figures. "Your Excellency " he began hesitantly, and then stopped.

Caldoni stirred, lifted his head sluggishly and stared vacantly at the guard. The fellow stood there goggling, his mouth open. He was tongue-tied with fear that he had roused the tyrant from a nap and thereby incurred his displeasure. I watched the tableau from my covert with keen interest. In a few moments now Caldoni should react to the heavy dose of Serum. I grinned in happy excitement, and studied Caldoni, who seemed to be recovering more quickly than the others. The guard, afraid to speak until given permission, also waited.

And now if Woodruff's theories and painstaking experiments were accurate should begin the transmogrification of the evil genius who held the Colonies under his iron thumb. The lines of cruelty about his mouth should disappear; the perpetual frown on his forehead should be effaced, and the evil cunning lurking always in his eyes should be succeeded by a look of gentleness and compassion. I waited, confident these things would happen.

Nothing of the sort took place.

But a change there was, one that I could not believe and could only stare at in incredulous amazement, stupefied like the craven guard who was watching open-mouthed. Caldoni's face was altering slowly and through no muscular action of his own. It was losing its human stamp and becoming a mask of consummate evil. Like a mirror it reflected the foul emotions, the malignant passions of the man-brute. Ferocity, rapacity, cunning, lust— in short a monster dwarfing the foul creation of Frankenstein was emerging from what had once been a man. And as the awful thing was a-borning there was growing upon me the numbing conviction that I was responsible for the horrible metamorphosis, because in some way, for some reason, the syringe had been loaded with the Virus of Hell!

Stark terror gripped me. My brain reeled as it comprehended the enormity of the thing that had happened. Before we had lived in the shadow of fear and suffering, enduring much at the hands of our oppressors. But those oppressors had been human. Now they were devils, fiends from the Pit whose orgies of blood and rapine would shame the deeds of Lucifer himself in the reign of Hell they would inaugurate.

To this day I have regretted that I didn't rush Caldoni and try to get the pistol he had dropped and kill them all. If I had succeeded it would have saved many lives and incalculable agony. But I didn't, and the secret knowledge of my cowardice has shamed me cruelly. Yet most men would have been just as craven as I in the same situation. I was a score of feet from Caldoni, with a heavy desk intervening, and the pistol was on the floor by his feet. The man was alert now, fully recovered from the anesthetic, and endeavoring to readjust his mind to the new sensation he was doubtless experiencing. The other Councillors were stirring, reviving rapidly. Moreover, while the guard was seemingly petrified with wonderment and fright, he was fully armed and would regain his wits quickly enough at sight of a prisoner running amok.

I repeat that I am ashamed of my lack of courage to take the chance, small though it certainly was, in the light of what subsequently happened. My only consolation is that it was Destiny.

Caldoni spoke, his voice vibrant with menace.

"The prisoner— Draughon— where is he?"

The guard jerked tremblingly to attention and stammered:

"Your Excellency— I— I do not know. Isn't he here?"

"Fool! Do you see him? Where have you been? Answer, dog!"

The harsh words completed the fellow's demoralization. He pleaded abjectly for mercy.

"Your Excellency— I— have mercy on me! I have not left my post at the door save to bring Mr. Hoffman a message from his daughter saying she is coming—"

"You lie!" Caldoni stooped swiftly and recovered the pistol, pointing it at the guard. "Ten thousand hells shall you suffer for letting him escape!"

His voice rose to a scream. His hand lifted, a thin sheet of flame leaped from the pistol and the guard's half-lifted left arm dropped from its shoulder and thumped suddenly on the floor.

A scream of horror broke from the man's lips. It had happened so swiftly that he scarcely realized it. He stared stupidly at the thing by his feet, his lips working soundlessly.

But the end was not yet. Maddened by the scene before him, his new-born cruelty whetted by the act, Caldoni shifted his aim and lopped off the remaining arm. Then, as the man crumpled in a faint, the monster deliberately severed each leg at the hip and regarded the shambles with deep satisfaction. The other Councillors, now fully awake, applauded the deed.

Caldoni pressed a button. In a few moments another uniformed man appeared, who shrank back horrified from the thing on the floor, yet was quick-witted enough to save himself a like fate, perhaps, by saluting smartly and affecting to ignore that which had turned his face as gray as a corpse.

"The prisoner, Draughon, has escaped," Caldoni said coldly. "See that the building is searched and the exits guarded. If he is not returned in two hours, every attendant in the Tower shall become like that thing on the floor who failed in his duty. Send in clearers to remove this offal."

The attendant saluted again with a hand that trembled, and withdrew. After he had gone, Caldoni spoke to his confreres, and they rose and filed out the private door, leaving me alone with the luckless wretch who had been the first to reap the horror I had innocently sown.

He might live— the Flame Cut cleanly with no loss of blood, cauterizing the stump; but far better should he never awake. I stared at the mess of arms and legs and shuddered numbly. I was the cause of that, and in a few minutes more I would suffer a like fate, or worse. Through the slightly open door I could hear footsteps hurriedly approaching, and from my slit in the curtains I watched with tense nerves. When the searchers came close enough I would take them by surprize, seize a pistol and at least take some of my enemies with me. I would never be taken alive, a plaything for Caldoni's fiendish torture.

THE door was pushed wide and two men in the familiar brown suits entered with a stretcher and began to pick up the pieces of their luckless fellow. My taut nerves relaxed a little; these men were intent only on their clean-up job, with no thought of prisoners. So thorough indeed was their work that one of them, looking about him to make sure the task was done, spied the shiny barrel of the little syringe lying half buried in the deep pile of the carpet. With a muttered word to his companion he walked over to the desk and picked it up, scrutinized it closely, and dropped it into his pocket. Then they picked up their ghastly burden and hurried away, closing the door behind them. I cursed my awkwardness in dropping the syringe, which still held a couple of cubic centimeters, but in the stress of my predicament I thought little of it. My escape was already known; so the clue amounted to nothing. Even if the fellow turned his find over to the Council they would think it had contained the amnesiac which I had used to put them to sleep.

But I could not stay in my hiding-place indefinitely; sooner or later the alcoves would be searched and I would be discovered— at a disadvantage. Better to be caught making a bid for freedom than be trapped like a rat. I stepped from behind the curtains, intent on investigating what lay behind the Council's private door, and had gained the middle of the room when I brought up with a jerk, an icy thrill coursing over me.

The corridor door behind me had opened!

I whirled, poised to leap and attack with the ferocity of a trapped animal fighting for its life. But the effort died a-borning, my lifted arms hung limply and I sheepishly muttered:

"I beg your pardon!"

The girl surveyed me coolly, critically. For my part I knew that I was facing the prettiest young woman I had ever seen. She was dressed in an aviator's costume of soft leather and she held her helmet crushed in one small, gauntleted hand. Her cheeks were abloom with health and the zest of youth sparkled in her blue eyes. Despite the desperate peril of my position I felt a thrill that most certainly was not prompted by danger; under other circumstances I should have enjoyed the meeting immensely, though I had always been rather shy in the company of women, but in this case she undoubtedly meant disaster. I tore my mind from the allure of her and wondered who she could be who thus boldly entered the Council room when the Council was presumably in session. It was a step not lightly taken. Then I remembered the half-delivered message of the luckless guard. She was Hoffman's daughter.

The recognition effectually dampened my little thrill of admiration. Caldoni's torture would be rendered not one whit more endurable by my being delivered to it even by the prettiest of women. At the same time my whole nature revolted at the thought of being brutal to this beautiful girl, beating her into unconsciousness so that I could make my escape. No! A principle is a principle, even if foolish and quixotic.

"And you, I take it, are the prisoner, Draughon, whose supposed escape has turned every attendant in the Tower into a madman! You do not look dangerous."

She said it musingly; there was neither fright nor malice in the low, clear tones. A wild hope flared in my mind.

"I'm sure I'm not, Miss Hoffman," I smiled, putting every atom of winsomeness I possessed into my voice. "I'm just a badly frightened young man in the most desperate plight one could imagine, wondering how long you will postpone calling a guard."

"You know me?" she asked, surprized, ignoring my hint.

Swiftly I told her what had occurred, not omitting the fate of the wretch who had attempted to deliver her message to her father. When I concluded she frowned and her eyes darkened with anger.

"Caldoni is a brute!" she exclaimed bluntly with a fine disregard for possible consequences. "He controls the Council body and soul— including my father. I'm glad you thwarted him this once."

She studied for a bit, appraising me again with her eyes. I waited, hardly daring to hope, yet conscious that her very hesitation was a point in my favor. Would she leave me without giving the alarm?

Sudden determination showed in her eyes and her small chin tilted stubbornly. She came to me and held out her ungloved right hand impulsively. I took it and, not without some grace, I hope, bent low, kissing it. The impulse had come to me spontaneously, this revival of a courtly custom almost forgotten by our generation. A faint flush deepened the pink in her cheeks, but she was not displeased.

"I like you, Mr. Draughon," she said frankly. "Come. I have decided to help you!"

A LITTLE dazed by the sudden turn of events, I followed her through the private door and up a spiraling stair which led us to the flat roof of the Tower. The landing-stage was bare, as a hasty glance proved, save for a slim stratoplane. Straight to the machine she led the way with never a glance to the side or behind to see if we were observed. With superb nerve she opened the door and motioned me into the snug, low cabin, as if she were taking an honored guest for an outing instead of conniving at the escape of the most badly wanted prisoner on the continent. She took her seat at the controls and headed the ship upward obliquely across the freight and passenger lanes until she slipped into the stratosphere, straightening out at forty thousand feet. Then she cut the speed to a mere coast, locked the controls and turned about.

"That was easy," she smiled, giving me her eyes freely. "But now that I have you, Mr. Draughon, I confess I don't know what to do with you!"

She pointed to the observation mirror on the instrument board.

"See those ships quartering the field of view? Those are military scouts investigating all pleasure and commercial craft. I caught the order going out just as I landed on the Tower. Were I to set you down anywhere, you would be taken at once, and I should be obliged to explain to Caldoni why I had turned traitress." She sniffed her contempt of the Council chief. "So, what am I to do?"

Her words banished the sense of security which the removal from immediate danger had engendered in my mind. It began to look like a case of the frying-pan versus the fire. But I found it strangely difficult to concentrate on my own peril. My thoughts had strayed into channels new to them but alluringly sweet, and I found it hard to analyze my emotions. Was I falling in love with this enemy of my people, a daughter of the infamous Council? Reason told me that she was among them, but not of them; but was a girlish impulse, born of pity for my hopeless plight, a true indication of her real character?

And yet there was no ignoring the turmoil in my mind, no setting aside of the sweet thrill her presence and her interest in me afforded by cold logic. Why, I was realizing this minute that the peril she had got herself into was giving me more real concern than my own desperate plight!

"The best course is to get rid of me as soon as possible," I told her earnestly. "Land me anywhere and let me shift for myself. I couldn't enjoy freedom knowing that you had paid for it, and a plane may stop us any minute—"

She shook her small, helmeted head. "This ship has the insignia of the Council on wings and hull. They will never stop me unless I should make some blunder. But we can't cruise about for ever. I'm expecting a radio from dad any minute."

She looked apprehensively toward the small loud-speaker in a corner of the cabin, then fell to studying me searchingly.

"Miss Hoffman," I begged, "consider yourself. You probably do not realize just how badly wanted I am, and just how frenzied the Council is at this moment. I—" and then I hesitated, wondering how much it would be safe to tell her of myself and our plans. Surely I could not tell her that my scheme had miscarried and I had made a ravening beast of her father! Swiftly I covered my confusion plausibly:

"Oh, well, I may as well make a clean breast of everything. I have been in hiding in Colony 6— you know, of course, where it is situated— and I came to Washington for the express purpose of winning the Council over to us by means of a wonderful drug, a discovery of Professor Woodruff, whom you have doubtless heard much of lately. The plan miscarried, but I managed to hide in an alcove, from which I had just emerged when you found me. Not even your father could save you from Caldoni's fury if he gets an inkling of this. Land me at once— signal one of those scouts— take me back to the Tower, anything, only wash your hands of me before they find out. Believe me. I'd rather die a thousand deaths than have you suffer one moment at the hands of that fiend!"

I hushed, realizing that I was speaking so warmly in the stress of my new emotion that it savored of melodrama. And my eyes must have been even more eloquent, for she colored hotly and her own eyes fell. The next moment they lifted, narrowed, and her voice was a little chilly.

"If I thought you believed I would do such a thing I would do it at once. I don't do things by halves, Mr. Draughon, and not all of us outside the Colonies approve of the International Council, or deserve the character that they merit."

I mumbled an apology, but she didn't even hear it. Her mobile features cleared swiftly and a sunshiny smile broke out. She clapped her hands together delightedly.

"The very thing!" she exclaimed. "Safe; perfectly safe. And what a huge joke on Mr. Caldoni!"

She turned quickly to the controls, studying the compass and the observation mirror. I couldn't tell what course she selected, but I knew that we began a slow, descending spiral. Some time later we landed with a slight jar, and we climbed out onto the landing-stage atop a tall building.

For one unnerving moment I thought she had returned to the Tower, but she airily beckoned me to follow and led the way to a door which opened onto a narrow staircase. We descended two or three flights and passed into a corridor thickly carpeted and illuminated softly by subdued light-cones. Finally she opened a door and motioned me into a luxurious apartment.

"Not even Caldoni dares enter here, Mr. Draughon!" she cried triumphantly. "My home!"

I halted in consternation. "But— but— Miss Hoffman—" I stammered in confusion.

She drew herself up regally, her eyes flashing.

"Your hesitancy, sir, is not flattering! I said this was my home, not my father's!" She eyed me levelly. "I trust that was why you seemed to hesitate?"

Touchy! As proud as a queen, and, queen-like, her motives were not to be questioned. I was reared by grandparents who refused to accept the changing customs and my ideas of propriety had been obsolete for a generation. I made haste to regain lost ground.

"My thought was only of you," I mumbled.

She smiled quick forgiveness and rested her hand briefly on my arm. Then she fixed a satisfying lunch for the two of us, and we chatted for an hour. Then she rose, worriedly, and said:

"I must be gone for a while. I'm worried because I haven't had a radio from dad. In the library are books, the announcer, and the television mirror. I'll be back presently with the latest inside news and we'll map out a plan to get you away safely."

BUT it was night when she returned, struggling bravely against a terrible agitation, her eyes reddened with weeping.

"My father," she said in answer to my anxious question. "Dead!"

Her chin quivered, tears welled afresh from her eyes, and she buried her face child-like against my coat and cried unrestrainedly. I comforted her as best I could and patted her shoulder in a man's awkward attempt to soften a sorrow that only time can assuage. Curiosity, sympathy, and above all, a dark shadow of suspicion filled my mind. Presently she drew away and lifted her head, striving to regain control of herself.

"It happened hours ago," she said dully. "The Council were entering their private shuttle after a conference to go to the ground floor of the Tower. Dad was the last to enter and the shuttle started too soon. He stepped under the panel and into the open tube."

Suspicion ripened. "Was Caldoni in the shuttle?"

She flashed me a look of bitter understanding. "I think so, too. Yes, he was at the control."

Tragedy again. The Virus of Hell! I could see Caldoni starting the shuttle a split-second too quick, allowing his compatriot to step into the empty shuttle-tube for a thousand-foot fall. I could almost hear the faint echo of sardonic laughter floating up the dark cylinder to meet the luckless man plunging to his death.

"I must be gone for two or three days. You will be safe, and there is ample food in the storage room. Under no circumstances try to get away from the apartment, for there is a tight cordon of guards about the city. Caldoni executed the Tower attendants this afternoon; so you may be sure of a sharp lookout. They are confident you are still in the city and are determined that you shall not get away. You will be here when I return?"

She looked at me mutely pleading. I promised.

THE next three days were a nightmare of suspense. I paced those rooms until I nearly wore paths in the thick pile of the rugs. I turned over a thousand schemes in my mind and discarded them as fast as they formed. Without outside aid, escape was simply impossible. The prestige of the Council was at stake; the lives of countless guards depended upon my recapture, and there was no chance of a relaxing of their interest.

The announcer kept me abreast of current events. Through it I learned the details of Hoffman's funeral at his old home in Maryland; of the large number of planes which formed the cortege; and of the subsequent departure of Miss Merrilee Hoffman with her aunt for a brief visit to New York. But of the Colonies there was no mention, and the news service was strangely silent concerning my escape and Caldoni's activities. Censored, I decided with disappointment.

Nor was the television mirror more productive of information. The second and third days I kept the mirror charged and viewed the Colonies in rotation, a wearisome and monotonous task as the hours produced only the peaceful scenes of small cities going about their daily affairs. It seemed ominously significant that the daily executions had ceased without apparent rime or reason.

Why? Because Caldoni was hatching some subtle, yet horrible, deviltry! Of this I was certain; and when, the morning of the fourth day, the girl hurriedly entered the apartment, the look of stark horror on her sweet face confirmed my forebodings. She threw herself into a chair and stared at me in such evident distress that I listened for the tread of Caldoni's men in the corridor.

"The Colonies!" she brought out at last. "Oh, those poor people!"

Little by little I got the story, a story so packed with horror and agony, with brutish lust and nameless evil, that I shall give none of the harrowing details here. A horde of murderous devils, five hundred strong, the very scum and riffraff of the cesspools of crime, had descended on Colony 7 last night. They had beaten down the resistance of the able-bodied men (possession of lethal weapons by Colonists was strictly forbidden) and staged a saturnalia of crime that beggars description. Murder and pillage and rapine were followed by the torch, and this morning the beautiful little city mourned over its ashes while the specter of death haunted hundreds of families. The foul horde had withdrawn from the ruins to a camp by the Potomac to which they had taken a number of young women and the spoil they had gathered, spoil which, it seemed, was disappointingly meager. I could well understand that last, for the Council had impoverished the Colonies by excessive taxation, a policy which was to be followed by a bitter sequel.

I was sick with horror. Colony 7 had been my home until I became a fugitive. I had no relatives, but all my friends, save Professor Woodruff, had lived there. I asked thickly:

"And the Council took no action?"

She shook her head. "Caldoni is busy and refuses to be seen or disturbed. I was told confidentially that he is personally conducting some experiments in the National Laboratory, but I know he is no chemist; so the report must be false."

But I knew the report was true, damnably true! That sharp-eyed attendant had thought to curry favor with Caldoni by giving him that cursed syringe, and Caldoni in turn had taken it to the Federal chemists. And with the knowledge of the contents of the syringe, the devilish subtlety of the fiend had contrived a revenge that was diabolically perfect. No wonder the executions had ceased; there must be plenty of victims for this new torture, beside which the clean death of the Flame was a mercy. And once the Virus had been analyzed, it was simple for modern chemists to produce the stuff in quantities. Then Caldoni had gathered a motley crew of ruffians, inoculated them and turned them loose to wreak their raging cruelty on the helpless Colonies.

"I must go back," I told her. "Those are my people and my place is with them. There might be some way I could help in stopping this slaughter."

"I thought you would want to go," she said dully. "Do you know you are going to your death? I didn't tell you all of it. It is whispered that Caldoni means to annihilate the Colonies. Every hour is bringing men into Washington, men selected and summoned by Caldoni himself from all over the continent. And those of us who do not approve, dare not object."

"Good God!" I muttered aghast. "And the Colonies are weaponless! Surely there are enough high-minded people in the country to prevent such wholesale murder!"

"There are!" she defended with a flare of her old spirit. "But they are leader less, and by the time they could be organized it would be too late. Caldoni rules by might and fear, and these men he is gathering around him are his trusted aides and supporters. They would quell a hasty rebellion at once. My father once told Caldoni he would bring about the downfall of the Administration by his wanton cruelty, and nearly lost his life for his plain talk. No, my friend, only Caldoni's death can avert national disaster!"

"All the more reason why I should not sit idly here and let him accomplish his hellish work! The Colonies must be warned!"

"Yes, but I can warn them without exposing you to danger."

"You?" I cried in astonishment. "Why should you risk yourself in such a way?"

"Because— because—" Her voice trembled and her eyes filled. A suspicion as sweet as it was incredible swept into my mind. I started toward her, but she eluded me, lifting her hand.

"I knew you would go," she said tremulously. "It is what I would want you to do, only— only— so I prepared a way. I have permission to go back to Maryland with some— some flowers. You can hide under them."

She went into her bedroom. When she came back she was in her jaunty aviator's costume of soft leather. But the glow and vivacity which I had associated with the garb was absent. She beckoned me to follow and we went out on the roof.

THERE was no trouble. The aerial patrol stopped us in the passenger lane— I heard the thump of the magnetic grapnels as they shot a bridge across to us over a few feet of space. The door opened, letting in a wave of icy air followed by an officer's head, which I could just get a peep of through my leafy bower. He saluted the girl respectfully, cast a perfunctory glance around and passed us on, never dreaming that the mass of loosely piled flowers and wreaths concealed the notorious Garfield Draughon. But the girl would not let me come out until she landed, some time later.

To my surprize I recognized the familiar pines of the Georgian landscape and in the near distance a small city which could only be Colony 6. I turned to her in astonished gratification.

"You could never have made it across country," she said. "Good luck and— good-bye!"

She held out both her hands, her eyes swimming. I took them— and her. And there in that old abandoned field whose barren sand streaks were hot under the glare of the Southern sun we forgot the smoke of burning homes, the cruelty of human beasts, and the dark shadow of nameless peril that was sweeping on to engulf us in its sinister gloom. We remembered only that we lived— and loved!

I watched until the tiny plane disappeared in the fathomless blue, my heart sick with longing and fear and gloomy forebodings. Then I tore myself away from the spot, and hurried on to the Colony with my ominous tidings.

PURELY by accident I ran into Enloe almost at once. I had long since shaved off my mustache, and he recognized me. But there was no welcome in his somber eyes as he jerked his head for me to follow him into a dim little restaurant, where he selected a table behind a screen.

"Spies are everywhere," he explained shortly. "It's death to be seen with you. Great God, Draughon, what did you do?"

I told him briefly, concluding with:

"Who loaded that syringe?"

"I did myself. The bottle, however, was handed to me by Boothe. I've lain awake nights wondering if he could have done such a thing as— oh, it's possible; indeed, it's the only explanation. Queer fellow, Boothe, thinking of violence only as a means to an end. I believe it was he who instigated the attack on Woodruff a few days ago. He is now trying to organize a column to attack Washington and seize the Council!"

"Is he mad?"

"We are all mad, Draughon," he said despondently. "The tragedy of Number 7 infuriated the people. Some of them blame you and Woodruff, and it's fortunate that you met me before you were recognized. Let's go to the laboratory. I'm taking care of Woodruff there, and besides, it's too dangerous to remain here."

By devious ways and unfrequented streets he led the way to the vacant building, owned by him, which stood over our underground retreat. The city seemed unnaturally still, brooding somberly under threat of the approaching doom. Enloe opened the secret panel and I hurried down the ramp and into the dimly lighted chamber, where I saw a figure lying on a cot.

Woodruff caught my hand eagerly, looking up with pain-filled eyes. "I know what happened, Garfield, and who was responsible, but the populace hold it against you and me. They are not to be blamed, poor people. They have suffered deeply. But tell me what Caldoni is doing?"

The two listened horrified while I told them of the massing of gunmen from all parts of the continent, and of their transformation into raging fiends with the Virus of Hell. Woodruff's eyes glowed feverishly, while Enloe jumped up and began to pace the floor, muttering to himself.

"Twice we have been betrayed, Garfield," said the scientist, picking nervously at the sheet, "this time through mistaken zeal. Boothe is a hothead; he believed that the matter could be best settled by violence, so he forced the issue. He hates the Council so bitterly that he wants their death, not their reformation. The poison is as active in his system as in Caldoni's, only it seeks its outlet through slightly different channels. He is the Caldoni of the Colonies."

"When will the attack begin, Draughon?" Enloe stopped his pacing to ask the question. I knew he was thinking of his family.

"Within a few hours at most. Miss Hoffman remarked as she flew over their camp that planes were concentrating there in force, and there were other signs of activity. Of course, they may select some other—"

"A few hours! Ah, no one can predict the movements of madmen! They may be attacking even now—"

He rushed from the laboratory into the small conclave room.

"He has gone to watch the mirror," Woodruff explained. "For days we have lived under the shadow of doom. Since the tragedy of Number 7, the women and children are kept together ready to be rushed into the swamps at the first alarm, and a watchman has been stationed at the city mirror day and night. Until two days ago, when a half-crazed mob attacked me, I have worked day and night compounding the Serum—"

"Serum!" I echoed. Like Boothe I had seen enough of the cursed stuff.

"Et tu, Brute?" Woodruff smiled sadly. "We shall need it, son. We are on the eve of a new life, a new Jerusalem. But first shall come Armageddon—"

Prophetic words! He was interrupted by the shrill, mighty scream of a radio siren which penetrated even this sealed room. Almost instantly came a shout from Enloe, a shout which was drowned at the last by the hoarse voice of the announcer blaring the alarm of the city watchman:

"They are coming— they are coming! Remember the women and children!"

The voice stopped short as the watcher at the mirror presumably rushed away to lend a hand in the frantic preparations.

"Garfield!" Woodruff's voice snapped me to attention. He had lifted himself to the side of the cot, and his eyes gleamed with a hot brilliance. "Hand me that square bottle on the shelf above the atomoscope. Quick!"

Swiftly I gave it him, and he shook from it two large black tablets, one of which he swallowed.

"Thenopolin," he said. "A marvelous stimulant, but dangerous. I keep it for emergencies. Now help me."

He got weakly to his feet and took a staggering step. I helped him into his clothes, and he strengthened rapidly. The tablet seemed to have poured vigor into his muscles and nerves, for when he was ready he hurried me to the exit panel. Enloe had disappeared.

IN THE street men were hurrying about, secreting their valuables, gathering what crude weapons they could muster, and routing out a few brave, stubborn women who had resolved to stay with their men. They paid no attention to us until we turned south at a fast trot down a narrow street and caught up with a large column of women and children under the convoy of a picked guard who were hurrying them along to shelter in the near-by swamp.

These men, seeing us fleeing, sought to halt us and began to throw stones and hiss when we ran on past. I was as puzzled at Woodruff's behavior as the indignant guards, but to my panted questions he paid no attention until we reached the edge of a thin growth of scrub oak that marked the boundary of the swamp. Then he slowed to a fast walk.

"The W-R— is in— this swamp— ahead," he said jerkily. "It's— only hope!"

He swayed and would have fallen if I hadn't caught him. He sank to the ground and dug his fingers spasmodically into the sand while he fought against the pain of his broken ribs.

"We are not flying from the danger, Garfield. We are taking the only means of repairing the damage done by that hot-headed fool, Boothe. It means slaughter; God, what slaughter! And the innocent must die with the guilty. But it is the only way," he murmured to himself, a film of pain clouding the unnatural brilliance of his eyes. "I have prayed we could avoid it, but it must be. Come. We have no time to lose.

"We could not have helped them back there," he said suddenly as we pushed our way through the undergrowth. "We would only have been killed with the rest of them, and then would have come the end of civilization!"

He continued to talk half to himself, his voice vibrant with a strange excitement. I knew he was feverish, and thought he was uttering the wild fancies of irresponsibility.

"Strange that on two men should depend the fate of civilization, Garfield, after nature has labored on the race for a million years! That we two should be the instruments to end the reign of Evil on earth and usher in the dawn of a brighter day, christening it with the blood of thousands!"

He laughed wildly, "A figure of speech— blood. The Dew kills horribly, but bloodlessly."

My mind reeled at the import of his words. Memories came to me, memories of the tales I had heard in my childhood, blood-curdling stories of the War of the Chemists, and the vanishing of cities.

The Dew of Death! That dread chemical which brought such horror into the world that after the War its use was unanimously abolished by the nations, the formula destroyed, and experiments leading toward its re-discovery prohibited under pain of death! I felt certain now that the feverish chemist was raving, and I was sick at heart, but his next words shook my conviction.

"When those ravening wolves descended on Colony 7 they little dreamed that beneath their feet lay the agent that would avenge their crimes!" He was still talking half to himself, weaving through the undergrowth as he searched for landmarks, seemingly oblivious to my presence. "I stumbled on the formula accidentally and made a quantity of it before I realized the blackness of the deed I was planning against my fellow men. But against mad dogs, ah, it is different. It is legitimate. God himself sanctions its use as a weapon in the hands of the weak and oppressed. No one knew of the cylinders of death in our old laboratory, Garfield. Not Akridge, the traitor. Not even you. I had thought to let them lie buried for ever, but there came this mistake. Only they can now cope with the Virus of Hell. And who knows but that Boothe performed his act at the behest of Destiny? Ah, the ship!"

We had almost bumped into the W-R hidden in the dense undergrowth of the swamp. We fought our way around its tapering hull until we came to the lode. But I had to boost Woodruff into the opening, for he was too exhausted to climb in unaided.

I closed the lock and took the controls while he lay down to rest. I lifted the ship gently out of the tangle of brush and above the tree-tops, where the vision mirror gave a clear field of observation.

The sky was dotted with planes. Like a swarm of dragon-flies they came zooming out of the north to drop in a swift spiral to the fields about the city. The mirror showed swarms of men leaping from them, converging from all sides upon the doomed Colony. Woodruff came up and peered over my shoulder at the grim scene.

"Altitude, Garfield." His voice was clear now, but tinged with pain. "We dare not risk a battle in the air. We can't help our friends, but we can avenge them. Make all speed to Number 7."

WE SHOT upward until the earth was but a dim panorama of blurred colors; then I straightened out at tremendous speed, the thin air of the stratosphere offering little resistance. Fifteen minutes later the mirror pictured our objective and I poised the ship and dropped like a plummet, snapping on the repulsion beam at a scant five hundred feet to float to an easy landing. Our descent had been so swift I was confident no chance patrol had observed it, and as the mirror showed the city to be deserted, we climbed out of the lock and stared about at the blackened ruins.

I swore deeply at the scene of desolation and destruction, shuddering as I glimpsed a blackened human hand, a woman's hand, lying in the street attracting a swarm of flies. The bodies had been removed, but the men had overlooked this mute reminder of that night of horror. The professor grasped my arm.

"Men die while we brood, Garfield. Back to the ship and land at the laboratory. We can not carry the cylinders far. I should have told you."

I took the controls again and lifted the ship over the ruins to the precipitous hillside near by, in which was the hidden workshop, a partly natural cavern which I had not seen since the night I took De Berrie, Muir, and Akridge on their fatal voyage to the moon. But the place had not been ravaged, due to the Council's ignorance of its existence.

The chemist led the way to the back, where the cave narrowed to a mere fissure, ending in a blank wall of earth.

He pushed a light bar into my hand. "I built that wall, Garfield. The cylinders are stored behind it. Take this bar and dig."

I worked desperately, and in a short while the crowbar broke through the packed earth. Soon the hole was large enough, and I crawled through, flashing on a light.

The fissure was packed with slim steel cylinders, tapering to a valve at one end on which there was a threaded snout. There were twenty of them, and we labored mightily getting them out of the narrow place and carrying them to the W-R, where we packed them in the stern convenient to a two-inch vent-pipe in the floor through which they could be discharged. Then we climbed aboard and turned south with our cargo of frightful death.

But it had taken time to load the cylinders, and a little more to encompass the thousand-mile round trip. Even before we reached the Colony I knew we were too late; the mirror was fogged with the blurry light rays reflected from weaving clouds of smoke, and far, far below us I began to see black specks of planes shooting swiftly into the north, their work of destruction finished.

Woodruff seemed to have steeled his heart.

"Don't take it so hard, son. We could have done nothing if we had got back sooner. The Dew doesn't discriminate between friend and foe. We must follow them to their base, where we can wipe them from the face of the earth they desecrate."

I shan't describe clearly the scenes and events following our arrival in what had once been Colony 6. Even now the memory nauseates me. and my dreams are filled with horrid phantoms that beckon me with blackened fingers and shake bloody heads when I try desperately to explain that I was not wholly to blame for the catastrophe precipitated by Dennison Boothe.

But he paid the penalty for his deed. We found him in the street, mutilated beyond description. Only by his cold, tawny eyes did I recognize him, eyes which the agony of death had left wide and staring. The women and children were saved— ironic mercy, perhaps, since they were spared only to mourn the loss of husbands, sweethearts, and fathers. We found the bodies of a few devoted women who had killed themselves on the broken bodies of their loved ones. Others wandered aimlessly about, staring unseeingly at the heaps of the slain, dumb with a grief that seared their very souls. We labored with the yet alive until the sun rose next morning, flooding afresh the scene of horror with light that rendered the ruins and tragedies more starkly poignant. Then we climbed aboard the W-R and drove swiftly toward the source of the nameless evil which had wrought this havoc, the professor utterly exhausted, and myself buoyed up only by the grim determination to blast Caldoni and his horde of fiends back into the hell from which they had sprung.

As before, I trusted to altitude to screen us until we reached our objective. Then we could drop, discharge our dread cargo and climb swiftly back to heights impossible for a plane. But it was not danger of meeting the patrol which occupied my mind. I was thinking of Merrilee and our parting in that sun-drenched field. Was she also thinking of me? And would she mourn me as dead when the news of the massacre reached her city?

As if in answer to my thoughts the mirror in front of me pictured the Administration city miles below, and a cluster of white planes parked in a great field on the bank of the Potomac. I shut off speed and began to drop. Woodruff, I saw, had dragged himself to his post and was screwing a length of hose to the snout of a cylinder. While I watched, he removed the cap from the vent-pipe and lowered the hose so that it trailed a few feet below the hull. With his hand on the release-valve he waited for my signal, a white-haired Nemesis with death in his fingers.

I kept a sharp lookout for a patrol craft; the fact that we had sighted none so far was in itself suspicious, and I expected to be greeted by a swarm of them at any moment. But we fell to five hundred feet unmolested and I risked a survey of the ground below. This was more disquieting than the unnatural absence of patrol craft. The great encampment was deserted, save for the tents and the scores of planes. I shouted to Woodruff to stay his hand.

"There isn't a soul here! The camp is dead as a hammer. Where can they have gone?"

THE scientist staggered forward and studied the mirror. Then he turned to me with a look on his face such as I had never seen, the look, I imagine, of the Avenging Angel contemplating the destruction of the ungodly!

"Think, Garfield, think!" His voice was vibrant with exultation. "Does a mad dog respect his master? Caldoni changed slumbering brutes into ravening wolves who lusted for blood, loot, and women. In the two colonies they destroyed they got no loot, thanks to the Council's own avariciousness; in the last they got no women, due to our fore-thought!" His voice became hushed as he drove home his terrible point; "At the very door of their camp was the richest city in the world— a city famed for its beautiful women. The wolves have returned to the master who bred them!"

Appalled by his prediction, I shifted the direction-finder on the mirror until the city sprang into the field. Distance gave us a full, though minute, view of the whole terrain. And from the south came streams of tiny men who swarmed rapidly through the streets. The horde had fallen upon the Administration city!

"The well-spring of Evil will be dredged to its depths," murmured the professor, falling back into his strain of feverish but prophetic speech. "Caldoni the archfiend is falling at the hands of the monsters he created, and Organized Crime is reaping the whirlwind it sowed. The God of Justice caused Caldoni to gather the flower of the cohorts of Evil into one spot that they might be destroyed at the height of their triumph, and a new Jerusalem arise from the ashes of Babylon!"

He staggered back to his cylinder, still muttering. Here I may add that at the conclusion of our desperate venture Woodruff paid outraged nature the penalty by being confined to his bed for three months, recovering eventually to rank high in the councils of the new government.

I drove the great ship low over the house-tops of the city, and Death perched his grim skeleton on our stern and rode with us. We were not molested, since the aerial patrol had either joined the invaders or fled the city as thousands of the townfolk had done at the first warning, the mirror showing swarms of departing planes, and motorways choked with the fleeing columns of the poor. Had it not been that I felt certain Merrilee had escaped in her plane, I confess, with some shame perhaps, that I could not have gone through with my part in what history now refers to as the end of the Crime Era. Nevertheless I kept a sharp eye on the roof-tops over which we skimmed, hoping to identify the landing-stage frequented by her dear self.

I began the first loop of a great flat spiral which would shorten with each lap, beginning at the outskirts of the city so that none might take alarm and escape retribution, until we should end our ghastly journey over the source of the foul corruption— the Tower building of the infamous International Council.

Behind us a faint, almost invisible fog was forming like one of the great ephemeral nebulae of space from which the worlds and the flaming suns are born. In truth, the simile is apt, for from this deadly man-made nebula a new world of Honor, Justice and Love was evolved. But the agony of its birth was awful.

Tiny golden crystals, propelled by a gas of its own generation, spewed from the trailing hose; crystals which combined with the oxygen in the air and formed the pale mist in our wake. This mist was invisible from below, for it melted rapidly, drifting down in a fine precipitation like an imperceptible drizzle out of an apparently clear sky. And the ravening horde below, intent on murder and looting and ravishment, tore at their throats and bodies in throes of torture and knew not whence came their death. I would not turn on the audio attachment of the mirror, lest my purpose weaken, but I knew that the triumphant shouts of the destroying fiends were changing into yells of terror and pain, and then into choking gasps that were quickly stilled.

Incessantly trickled the golden crystals from the cylinders of death, replenished when emptied by one whose strength for the task was upheld only by the conviction that he was the instrument of God's vengeance. Steadily fell the ghastly precipitation, filming the city with the Dew— and death.

Thousands died, some innocent, no doubt, among the many guilty. They were martyrs to the cause, unwillingly, perchance, but unavoidably. But it was horrible.

And then I screamed and tore at the controls like a madman. Below and not a hundred yards ahead of the relentlessly advancing curtain of death was a tiny figure on a landing-stage, a figure that waved a white scarf and looked upward at the great ship of metal soaring so near at hand.

Merrilee!

To this day I have no clear idea of what I did, or how. I only know that somehow I managed to land the space-ship on the stage and grasped her dear form just in time to save it from the pale mist of the condensing crystals, a few feet behind us. I believe that I threw her bodily through the lock! But the slightest touch of that damp nebula would have taken her from me for ever.

I would have followed her unhesitatingty.

And at last, poised over the iniquitous Tower, we looked shudderingly down on the city of the dead, Merrilee's hand fast clasped in my own. Professor Woodruff lurched forward, muttering:

"It is finished— man's bondage to Crime. The night was dark, but the dawn shall be glorious! Caldoni has perished, exhorting his evil spawn, and the Virus of Hell has burned a path for the Serum of Right to follow! God's in His heaven, all's well—"

He crumpled to the floor unconscious.

_______________

18: The Adventure of the Voodoo Moon

Eugene Thomas
fl.  1930s

Detective Fiction Weekly, 1 Feb 1936

"The Lady From Hell", one of the most outrageous woman villains, appeared in a series of stories of Detective Fiction Weekly in the mid-1930s. Thomas's output shows a strong interest in occult; his last known appearance in print was "Brotherhood of Mt Shasta", 1946.

1: Crooks on Holiday

THE LADY FROM HELL was standing on the upper deck of the little inter-island steamer as it neared the coast of Haiti. Her crown of flaming red hair was beaten back from her smooth forehead and her white dress modeled tightly to her body by the strong trade wind.

She and her companion in crime, Adrian Wylie, had just completed one of the most amazing coups in their whole career, and were now on a vacation. The Lady from Hell had been emphatic on that point before leaving Havana.

"Nothing is to tempt us into mingling business with pleasure," she had told Wylie. "Not even if we stumble across the vaults of a bank wide open and unguarded."

Now, the second day out from Havana, the sun was just rising over the blue bubbles dreaming on the horizon that were the mountains of Haiti, and still she could not account for the vague sense of disquiet, the little feeling of apprehension that had been growing in her ever since the steamer passed between Morro Castle and its smaller counterpart on the other side of Havana harbor.

No one on the little steamer dreamed that she was the notorious Lady from Hell, whose fame had already filtered even to the West Indies. And if they had, it would have seemed incredible that this graceful, beautiful woman could have started her career by poisoning her own father; could have escaped from a Turkish prison— the only time in her career that the net of the law had closed about her; could have held up and robbed the Orient Express, a deed that had filled the press of the world, although her part in it had never even been suspected.

The daring coup in Havana that had added a large sum to the bank account of Adrian Wylie, her chief of staff, and herself had not been brought to the attention of the Cuban police. And, although the police of half a dozen European countries knew her well and swore when her name was mentioned, there was not a single thing with which she could be charged, so cleverly had her tracks been covered, so adroitly her coups planned.

She turned away and began to stride up and down the deck. More than one passenger turned to stare at her as she passed with a rippling grace of motion, a little lithe stride that told of perfect muscles and the agility of a cat.

A sound made her turn as a passenger came up behind her and fell into step with her.

"Good evening, Mrs. Legrand," he said in English, with the faintest of accents. "You are up early."

"I was eager to catch a sight of Haiti," Vivian responded with a smile. "The mountains there are lovely."

"They are lovely," he responded, "Even though Haiti is my home I never tire of seeing her mountains grow about the horizon line." Then he added, "We dock in a few hours. See that headland there," and he pointed to an amethyst bulk that thrust itself out into the sea. "That is Cap St. Feral. The port is just beyond it."

There was an impression of power, perfectly controlled, about Carlos Benedetti that was perfectly evident to Vivian Legrand as she surveyed him for a fleeting instant through narrowed eyes. His face was unhealthily pale, the nose slightly crooked, the black eyes very sharp and alert beneath the close-cropped and sleek black hair. He had the air of one to whom the world had been kind, and from it he had learned assurance and a kind of affability.

But behind his assurance— this affability—  the Lady from Hell sensed something that was foreign to the face he presented to the world, something that made her cautious.

"Do we dock?" she queried. "I thought that we landed in small boats."

"The word was incorrectly used," he admitted. "I should have said that we arrive. Cap St. Feral is not modern enough to possess a dock for a ship of this size, small as the vessel is." He hesitated a moment. "I assume that you are not familiar with Cap St. Feral."

"No," Vivian said. "This is my first visit to Haiti."

The man's oblique stare was annoying her. Not that she was unaccustomed to the bold stare that men give beautiful women. But this was different. Had the man been wiser he might have taken warning at the hard light that lay in the depths of her greenish eyes.

But he went on suavely:

"To those of us who know the island it offers little in the way of entertainment," he said, "but to a stranger it might be interesting. If you care to have me, I should be glad to offer my services as a guide while you are in port."

A casual enough courtesy offered to a stranger by a native of a place. Vivian thanked him and watched, with a calculating eye, as he bowed and walked on down the deck. The man was sleek, well groomed and obviously wealthy. His spotless Panama was of the type that cannot, ordinarily, even be bought in Equador, where they are woven. A hat so fine and silky that usually they are reserved as gifts to persons in high position. And the white suit that he wore had not come from an ordinary tailor.

It was made of heavy white silk— Habatui silk that in the East sells for its weight in gold, literally.

Adrian Wylie found Vivian on deck. In a few swift words she told him of the invitation and of the intuitive warning she had felt.

Wylie nodded slowly. "That explains something that had been puzzling me," he said. "For an hour last night the purser insisted on buying me drinks in the smoking room and casually asking questions about the two of us. And hardly five minutes after he left me I saw him talking earnestly to Benedetti at the door of the purser's office. Evidently the man hunted you up for the first thing this morning, after his talk with the purser."

Benedetti, they knew from the ship's gossip, was an exceedingly wealthy sugar planter, who owned the whole of an exceedingly fertile island called He de Feral, not far from the port of Cap St. Feral. The Haitian Sugar Centrals—  actually the sugar trust, so ship gossip ran— had attempted to drive him out of business, and failed miserably. Despite a price war, he had managed to undersell the trust and still make a profit. Then he had been offered a staggering sum for the island, and had refused. The offer was still open, so she had been told, and any time he cared to sell the sugar trust would be only too eager to buy him out.

A little smile formed on Vivian's lips. Benedetti, she suspected, was accustomed to having his own way where women were concerned. And the Lady from Hell knew full well her own attractiveness as a woman.

But even the Lady from Hell, astute as she was, could not have fathomed the dark reason that lay behind Benedetti's advances.

2: Danger's Warning

THE FAINT SOUND of drums somewhere in the distance; a regular, rhythmic beat, as though a gigantic heart, the heart of Black Haiti, were beating in the stillness of the blazing moon, hung over the little city of Cap St. Feral as the Lady from Hell, Wylie and Benedetti rode through the sun-washed streets.

The heat that hung about them like a tangible thing seemed to be intensified and crystallized by the monotonous beating of the lonely drums.

The Lady from Hell turned to Benedetti with a question, the brilliant sunlight through the trees overarching the road catching her hair and turning it into a halo of flame about her exquisitely lovely face.

"Voodoo drums," he said. "The night of the Voodoo Moon is approaching. The drums will keep on sounding until the climax of the Snake Dance. They're beating like this all over the island, even in Port-au-Prince. Worshipers in the cathedral can hear the sound of the drums from the hills outside the city drifting through the intoning of the mass. Then, almost as if they had been silenced by a gigantic hand, they will all stop at the same moment— the climax of the Snake Dance."

Vivian stole another glance at the people along the roadside as their car passed. Voodoo. It was something out of a book to her, something a little unsettling to come so closely in contact with. And it seemed difficult to believe that the happy, smiling faces were the faces of people who had run mad through the streets of Port-au-Prince, so history said, tearing President Guillaume Sam to bloody bits while he still lived.

Benedetti caught the thought in her mind.

"You have not lived here, Mrs. Legrand," he said quietly. "You cannot understand the place that Voodoo holds in these people's lives; the grip it has upon them. And you are not familiar with the effect of rhythms upon the nerve centers. It does strange things to blacks, and to whites things stranger still."

He leaned forward and flung a few words in Creole French at the driver— words that Vivian Legrand, fluent as her French was, could barely follow. The car stopped before a long, rambling structure, of gleaming white coquina, half hidden behind crimson hibiscus bushes.

"I brought you here for lunch," he said. "It would be unbearably hot on the ship and there is no hotel at which you would want to eat, even if you could, in the town itself. This is a little house that I maintain, so that I may have a comfortable place to stay when necessity or business compels me to be in town. I took the liberty of assuming that Dr. Wylie and yourself would have lunch with me here."

Vivian looked about her curiously as their host opened the little gate and ushered them into the flower garden that surrounded the house.

From the whitewashed, angular, stone walls of the old house, almost smothered in pink Flor de Amour, her eyes went to the table set beneath a flowering Y'lang-y'lang tree in the center of the close-cropped lawn. An old woman stood beside it, an ancient crone with more than a trace of white blood in her, one of those incredibly ancient people that only primitive races can produce. Her face was a myriad of tiny wrinkles and her parchment skin had the dull, leathery hue and look that is common in the aged of the Negro race.

The woman turned slowly as the trio approached and her eyes fastened on Vivian. In her cold, yellow eyes was a look almost of fear. Something that was like lurking terror coiled in the depths of those alert, flashing eyes and rendered them stony, glassy, shallow.

And then, as Benedetti and Wylie went on past her she made a gesture, an unmistakable gesture for Vivian to halt, and her voice, lowered until it was barely a sibilant whisper, came to Vivian's ears in French.

"Do not stay here," she said. "You must not stay."

There was definite horror in her eyes, and fear also, as her glance flitted from Vivian toward Benedetti. Despite the whisper to which her voice had been lowered there was fear to be distinguished in her tones also.

Her face was impassive as she turned away. Only her eyes seemed alive. They were cold, deadly bits of emerald. The Lady from Hell abhorred the unknown. All through her criminal career the unsolved riddle, the unsolved personality, the unexplained situation, inflamed her imagination. She would worry over it as a dog worries a bone.

And how her mind hovered over this problem with relentless tenacity, her brain working swiftly, with smooth precision. Her intuition had been right, after all. The feeling of danger, of disquiet, of apprehension that had haunted her ever since the coast line of Haiti came in sight over the horizon had not been wrong. She knew now, beyond a shadow of doubt, that danger hovered over her like a vulture.

The fear that she had glimpsed in the old woman's eyes, Vivian reasoned, was fear for herself should she be caught warning the white woman. But what was the danger against which she was warned, and why should this old woman, who had never seen her before, take what was obviously a risk to warn her against it?

Luncheon was just over when a long hoot sounded from the steamer.

"The warning whistle," Benedetti told her. "A signal to the passengers that the steamer will sail in an hour."

He turned to Vivian.

"My roses," he said, "are so lovely that I took the liberty of requesting Lucilla to cut an armful of them for you to take back to the ship as a remembrance."

There was a distinct warning in the old woman's veiled eyes as Vivian stretched out her hands for the big bunch of pale yellow roses that Lucilla brought; not only warning, but that same terror and fear that had stood starkly in them a short time before. Instinctively Vivian stiffened and looked about her, her nerves tense. Was the danger, whatever it was, ready to spring? But the scene seemed peaceful enough.

"How lovely they are!" she exclaimed, and wondered if it could be her imagination that made the old woman seem reluctant to part with the flowers. Then she gave a little exclamation of pain as she took them from Lucilla. "Like many other lovely things, there are thorns," she said ruefully, gazing at the long, thorny stems, still slightly damp from standing in water.

"That is true," Benedetti said, and there seemed to be an expression of relief in his eyes. "Our Haitian roses are lovely, but there have longer and sharper thorns than any other roses I know."

"Don't you think we had better be leaving?" Vivian queried, glancing at her watch. The shimmering heat haze that covered everything seemed to have blurred her vision, and she had to peer closely at the little jewelled trinket to make out the time. "It's a long drive back to the ship."

"There is still plenty of time," Benedetti assured her. "The warning whistle is supposed to sound an hour before sailing time, but it always is nearer two hours." Then he gave a little exclamation of concern. "But you are ill," he said as Vivian swayed a little.

"Just the heat," she said. "I am not yet accustomed to it."

The flowers she had been holding tumbled to the table and thence to the ground. The long-stemmed yellow blossoms gave no hint of the fact that from the moment Benedetti's message had been delivered to the old woman until the moment before they had been placed in Vivian's hands their stems and thorns had been soaking in a scum-covered fluid brewed by Lucilla herself.

"You must go inside for a few moments. You must rest," Benedetti said sharply. "I should have realized that you were not accustomed to heat. It might be fatal for you to drive back to the ship in this sun without a rest."

Wylie, a look of concern on his face, took Vivian's arm and helped her to her feet. Even then, with her vision blurred and an overpowering drowsiness creeping over her, the Lady from Hell did not realize that she had been drugged. It was not until she reached the threshold of the room to which she had been guided that the truth burst upon her dulled senses with the force of a thunderbolt.

Stacked neatly against the whitewashed walls of the room was the baggage she had left in her cabin on the steamer!

Dizzily, clutching at the door for support, she turned… just in time to see a short heavy club descend with stunning force on Wylie's head. And then, even as her companion crumpled to the stone flooring, blackness flooded her brain.

3: Vivian Legrand Trapped

DUSK HAD FALLEN with tropic swiftness before Vivian awoke. She had not been conscious of her journey, wrapped in coco fiber matting from the house where she had been drugged, to Benedetti's launch, nor of the subsequent trip to the man's home on the Ille de Feral.

Now, anger smoldering in her greenish eyes, she faced him across the dining room table. In the dim room the table floated in a sea of amber candlelight. Barefooted black girls passed in and out, their voices keyed to the soft stillness, a thing of pauses and low voices. The whole thing, to Vivian, seemed to take on a character of unreality— a dream in which anything might happen.

She waited for Benedetti to speak after the slender black girl drew out her chair for her. But the man did not, so finally she broke the silence herself.

"What do you hope to gain by this?" she queried.

"Won't you try your soup?" he said bitterly. "I am sure that you will find it very good."

He halted as one of the girls stopped beside his chair and said something in Creole in a low voice. He rose to his feet.

"Will you pardon me?" he said. "There is someone outside, with a message. I shall be gone only a moment."

He disappeared through the door beside the staircase, the door that Vivian imagined led to the rear of the house.

Swiftly she beckoned the black maid to her, slipped the glittering diamond from her finger, and folded the girl's hand about it.

"Come to my room tonight," she whispered tensely, "when it is safe. No one will ever know. And in Port-au-Prince or Cap St. Feral you can sell that ring for sufficient to live like a blanc millionaire for the rest of your days."

The girl's face paled to a dusky brown, she glanced furtively from the glittering jewel in her hand to the pale face of the woman who had given it to her. Vivian caught the hesitation.

"I have others in my room," she urged desperately. "You shall choose from them what you want— two— three— when you sell them there will never have been another girl in Haiti as rich as you will be."

"I will come," the girl said in a whisper and stepped back against the wall. A moment later Benedetti returned.

"I regret to have been so poor a host as to leave you alone for even so short a time," he said.

"Please," Vivian said shortly, and there was in her manner no indication of the triumph that filled her breast. "Why dissemble. You've brought me here for a purpose. Why not tell me what it is?"

Already a scheme was forming in that agile mind of hers. When the girl came to her room that night she would persuade her to find weapons— guide Wylie and herself to a boat so that they might escape. But was Wylie still alive?

Benedetti's answer interrupted her thoughts.

"It is not so much what I hope to gain, as what I hope to keep," he said smoothly. He paused, and through the silence there came to her ears that queer rise and fall of notes from drums that had followed her ever since she arrived in Haiti— the drums of the Voodoo Moon, Benedetti had called it. He leaned forward.

"You might as well know now," he said abruptly. "You have until tomorrow midnight to live."

"Unless?" Vivian queried meaningly. She was very sure that she knew what the man meant.

Benedetti calmly placed the spoon in his plate and pushed it aside.

"There is no proviso. I know nothing of your personal life— of your finances. They are no concern of mine. You may be extremely rich, or completely poor— that does not enter into the matter at all. You have nothing that I care to buy. All I know is that you are young and extremely beautiful." He studied her with a cold dispassionate interest, then sighed, a bit regretfully, it seemed. "That is the reason you must die tomorrow night."

The thing was utterly fantastic. Vivian listened in amazed fascination. She could hardly bring herself to believe that she had heard correctly. So sure had she been that the man's interest in her rose from the fact that he was attracted to her that the thought there might be another, more sinister motive behind the drugging and kidnaping had not occurred to her.

Her green eyes narrowed a trifle— only that, but there was the impression of a steel spring tightening. Then she said quietly:

"Why must I die?"

"Because," he answered, "tomorrow night is the night of the Voodoo Moon— the night when the Papaloi and the Mamaloi present Ogoun Badagri, the Bloody One, with the Goat Without Horns."

"The Goat Without Horns?" Vivian repeated, uncomprehendingly. "What is that?"

"You," the man said tersely. "Tomorrow at midnight, when the Voodoo Moon is fullest, you will be offered as a sacrifice to Ogoun Badagri, the snake god."

For a moment the Lady from Hell stared at him, a chill feeling clutching at her breast. Then an alert look came into her eyes, a look that she quickly veiled. She was listening intently.

"You're not actually in earnest?" she asked quietly. Every nerve was strained to catch that sound again— the drone of an airplane engine that had come faintly to her ears. It was louder now. "You are trying to frighten me, to trap me into something. You will find that I am not easily frightened or trapped."

The sound of the plane was louder now. She shot a furtive glance at Benedetti. Could aid be on the way? Could Benedetti's plans have gone wrong, and a search be underway for them?

"I am very much in earnest," the man opposite her said. "You see, that is the secret of my successful defiance of the sugar trust, the secret of why my laborers never leave me, the secret of why I can manufacture sugar at a cost that the sugar trust cannot possibly equal and still make a profit. Once a year I present the Papaloi and the Mamaloi, the high priest and priestess of Voodoo, with a human sacrifice— a white man or woman— and in turn these two guardians of the great snake see to it that my laborers do not leave, and are kept content with the lowest pay scale in the island of Haiti."

He broke off and smiled.

"You may relax, Mrs. Legrand," he said. "That plane that you hear will not land here. It is the marine mail plane that passes over the island every night between eleven thirty and twelve o'clock."

Vivian looked at him blankly. "Plane?" she said vaguely. "Oh, yes, that is a plane, isn't it? Quite honestly, I had not noticed the sound before you spoke."

It was so well done that it fooled him. She picked up the slender silver fruit knife that lay on the table in front of her, twisting it so that it shone in her fingers, a pale, metallic splinter of light. She regarded him with eyes that had turned mysteriously dark, and leaned forward a little. Her voice, when she spoke, was very soft, and it held a quality of poignancy.

"You seem to live alone here," she said, and her eyes regarded him warmly. "Don't you ever become— lonely?"

There was a world of promise and invitation in the soft tone, in the alluring lips.

He looked at her and tightened his lips.

"That is useless," he said. "You are beautiful, one of the most beautiful women that I have ever seen, but a dozen such women as you could not make up to me for the loss of my plantation. No, my dear, your charm is useless."

"But you wouldn't dare," she said. "A woman cannot simply disappear from a steamer without inquiries being made. This is not the Haiti of twenty years ago. The Americans are in control— they are the police…"

Benedetti shook his head. "Do not raise false hopes. You sent the purser of the steamer a note saying that you had unexpectedly found friends in Cap St. Feral and were breaking your voyage here. The same man who brought the note took yours and your companion's baggage off the ship. By now he has probably forgotten your existence.

"There is nothing to connect you with me, and if inquiries should be made it will simply be assumed that you either left the island or were murdered by a wandering Caco. And as for an Haitian, who might know something of your disappearance, aside from the fact that the secrets of Voodoo are something that are never discussed, there is an island saying: 'Z affaires negres, pas z'z affaires blancs.' And you will find that the affairs of the Negroes are not the affairs of the whites. And then," his voice was bland as he made the significant statement, "there is rarely any proof— left— when the great green snake god has completed his sacrifice."

"And my companion— Dr. Wylie— what have you done with him?" Vivian queried steadily. A bright spark glowed in her narrowed green eyes for a moment. It died slowly.

"He is safe, quite safe," Benedetti assured her, "for the time being. He also will be a sacrifice to Ogoun Badagri."

He said it with simple, sincere ruthlessness; undisguised, but neither vindictive nor cruel.

"You are quite sure of yourself," Vivian said softly, and had Wylie been there he would have recognized the meaning of that tone; the threat of that greenish glow at the back of her eyes. He had seen that cold light in her eyes before. But Benedetti, even had he glimpsed it, would not have known that it was like the warning rattle of a snake before it strikes.

Now, with a swift movement she flung the silver fruit knife she held at the gleaming shirt front of the man opposite her. Her aim was deadly, for few people could throw a knife with the skill and precision of the Lady from Hell.

But Benedetti had caught the glitter of the candlelight on the metal a split second before she launched the knife. His agile mind perceived her intention and he flung himself to one side just in time. The knife thudded into the high back of the chair in which he had been sitting and rested there, quivering.

"You are a fool," the man commented curtly. Striding to the French windows he flung them wide, letting moonlight stream into the room. The sound of the drums came in louder, a barbaric rhythm beating in strange tempo with the pulse in her wrist.

"Look at that," he said, flinging out an arm.

At the edge of the veranda, which ran along the front of the house, lounged a white cotton-clad Haitian, a three-foot cane knife clasped in his fist. Further along, at the edge of the beach, another man leaned against the bole of a coconut tree, and the glitter of the moonlight on steel betrayed the fact that he also was armed with a cane knife.

"Even if you had killed me," he said quietly, "you would have been no better off. You could not escape from the island. There are no boats here. Even the launch on which you arrived has been sent away and will not return until after the ceremony. And if you had attempted to swim, the sea swarms with sharks."

It was after midnight when Vivian went upstairs to her room again. Benedetti escorted her to the door.

"I am locking you in," he told her. "It is really quite useless to do so. You could not escape. There is absolutely no possibility of success. But it is a precaution I always take with my annual—  visitors."

Then he drew from his pocket the diamond ring that Vivian had, earlier in the evening, given to the little black maid.

"You will find," he said with a smile, "that it is useless to attempt to bribe my servants. The fear of the Voodoo in them is greater than the greed for money."

With a slight bow he closed the door, leaving her staring at the blank panels with a sinking feeling in her heart. She was a prisoner in a prison without walls, and yet the sea that girdled the land was a barrier as effective as stone ramparts and iron bars. Instead of one jailer she had dozens— perhaps hundreds— for she realized that every laborer on the island was a potential guard, alert to halt any attempt to escape. She did not attempt to deceive herself by thinking that every native of the place did not know of her presence and the fate for which she was destined.

She wondered what prompted the old woman— Benedetti's servant— to take her life in hand and warn her, back there in Cap St. Feral? The woman had, of course, realized Benedetti's purpose in bringing her here, since it had been she who had prepared the drugged rose stems. It was not for a long time, and then only by accident, that Vivian was to discover that in a Haitian the desire for revenge can transcend even the fear of Voodoo, and that it was to avenge what she considered a wrong that the old woman had warned her.

Vivian turned her thoughts back to her position. She believed she knew where Wylie was being held. On her way down to the dining room a little earlier she had encountered one of the black maids with a tray; had noted the door through which the girl had passed. That, she reasoned, must be the room in which Wylie was held prisoner, unless there were other prisoners in the house of whom she knew nothing.

She smiled a trifle grimly at the thought of being locked in her room. If Benedetti only knew of how little importance a lock— particularly an old-fashioned one such as this— was to her. Opening her suitcase she took out a hand mirror with a long handle. Unscrewing the handle, she removed from the hollow interior a long slender rod of thin steel. This she forced slowly into the thin opening between door and jamb. The rod scraped on metal. She worked it up and down, slowly pressing inward. Bit by bit the sloping tongue of the lock was forced back into its sheath, until the blade slipped through. A twist of the door handle and Vivian was peering out into the corridor.

Darkness hung before her eyes. It was as if a curtain of some impenetrable texture hung before her. She knew nothing of the floor plan of the big, rambling house, but she knew that the room she had seen the girl entering was the last on her side of the corridor, and accordingly she made her way cautiously in that direction, feeling her way, finger-tips trailing the wall, listening intently every step or so for some sound that might warn her of the presence of another person.

Her hand trailing along the wall touched a door— the fifth one she had passed. This was the door she sought. Gently she tried the knob. It was locked. A few minutes' work with the thin steel rod and the door swung inward with only the faintest of sounds. But even that was sufficient to betray her presence to Wylie's alert ears.

"Who is it?" he queried.

"Shhh," she whispered warningly, and, closing the door, crossed swiftly toward the chair where he sat beside the window.

In low, tense whispers she told him of her conversation with Benedetti and of the fate that was in store for both of them.

"We've got to get away tonight," she finished. "It's our only chance. There must be some way— perhaps we can make a raft. At least we can try."

4: The First Victim

WITH WYLIE by her side she made her way to the door; peered cautiously outside. By diligent practice the Lady from Hell had long ago acquired the chatoyant eye— the cat's— good for prowling about and seeing things in the dark, but here in the corridor the blackness was intense, with a tangible quality that was numbing to the senses. The utter opacity was tactile, half fluid, like fog. She crept down the hallway with feline assurance, passing her fingers delicately over objects that came into her path with a touch light enough to stroke a butterfly's wing. The house was a sea of silence, and on its waves the slightest noise made long and screeching journeys.

To Vivian's hearing, sandpapered by suspense, the slight give of the polished boards of the staircase beneath their slow steps produced a terrific noise. By making each step a thing of infinite slowness, they crept forward safely. Each downward step was a desperate and long-drawn-out achievement, involving an exactly calculated expenditure of muscular energy, an unceasing, muscular alertness.

Once, as they reached the bottom of the stairs, there came from the dining room in which they stood the rattle of a clock preparing to ring out a quarter hour. It struck Vivian's tense nerves as a thing of abominable violence— like countless, swift hammer strokes on the innumerable frayed ends of her nerves. She had the sensation of being driven into the woodwork of the floor upon which she stood, of being crushed under an immense and lightning-like pressure.

After what seemed an eternity they reached the further side of the dining room. Under her careful manipulation the latch of the door slipped slowly back. The door moved silently, slowly. A brilliant line of moonlight appeared. Vivian caught her breath sharply.

Standing there in the open ground in front of the veranda stood a Haitian, alert, watchful, armed with a machete.

There was no escape that way. Weaponless, they were helpless before the menace of that shining three-foot length of steel, even if they could cross the moonlit space that lay between the veranda and the man without being detected.

"The back of the house," Vivian whispered to Wylie, her voice barely perceptible.

She knew that the door to the kitchen was beside the staircase they had descended. That much she had observed during her interview with Benedetti earlier in the evening. By locating the staircase first in the blackness, she found the door she sought and opened it. A passageway opened before them, dimly illuminated by a shaft of silver that poured through a half opened door at its further end.

Silently they made their way down the passage and cautiously peered through the partly opened door. Another disappointment.

It was a small room, one wall covered with shelves, boxes and bags stacked high on the other side with a single window, half way up the wall, through which moonlight poured. A storeroom of some sort.

Vivian reached out and caught Wylie's arm, drew him silently into the little room and closed the door.

"There may be weapons here," she said. But she was mistaken. The nearest approach was a broken kitchen knife used, probably, to slash open the burlap bags which stood against the wall.

It was a poor substitute for a weapon, but Vivian took it thankfully. And then she gave a gasp. Her hand, exploring a shelf, had come in contact with something clammy and sticky that clung and would not be shaken off. Her first thought was that it was some monstrous tropical insect. It seemed alive, it clung so persistently, despite her efforts to shake it loose.

Then, as Wylie snapped his cigarette lighter into flame, the tiny glow illuminated an oblong of sticky fly paper fastened to her hand. There was a pile of the sheets upon the shelf. Despite the tenseness of the situation she almost laughed at the uncanny feeling the thing had given her there in the darkness.

In the dim flame of Wylie's lighter they searched again for anything that might prove of assistance to them in their predicament. Bags of flour. Bags of potatoes. Kegs of pig tails and pig snouts in brine— evidently food for the laborers. A half-emptied case of bacale— dried codfish, a staple article of diet in the West Indies— and a can of phosphorescent paint. Also row after row of canned food. But nothing that might be of assistance to them.

Climbing upon a box Vivian peered through the window, then turned back to Wylie, excitement in her voice.

"We can get out this way," she whispered. "There is the limb of a tree almost against the window and shrubbery around the tree."

"Anybody in sight?" Wylie queried.

"No one," Vivian said, and pried the latch of the window with her broken knife blade. It came open with a tearing shriek that sounded like thunder in the silence. Disregarding the noise Vivian slipped through the window and swung on to the limb of the tree. Wylie followed her, and in a moment they stood on the ground in the midst of dense shrubbery.

"We will have to keep in the shadow," she said as they crept silently through the bushes, only an occasional rustling leaf marking their passage. "The moment we step in the moonlight we'll be seen, if anyone is watching."

Even there in the bushes the brilliant moonlight illuminated the ground about them. A faint drumming ebbed to them through the brilliance, faintly touching the dark membrane of the night as they emerged on what seemed to be a well-defined path leading toward the beach.

A sudden opening in the trail, a burst of moonlight, and they stood on a strip of white sand with breakers creaming softly in front of them.

"There," Vivian said, still keeping her voice low. "See that pile of driftwood. We'll make a raft of that. Drag it to the water's edge while I cut vines to lash it together."

Feverishly they worked, Wylie dragging the heavy logs into position, lashing them firmly together with the vines that Vivian cut from the jungle's edge, until at last a crazy-looking affair bobbed up and down in the ripple at the edge of the beach. Makeshift, clumsy, but it would float and it was an avenue of escape, the only avenue that had presented itself.

Vivian returned from a final trip to the jungle, dragging behind her three bamboo poles.

"We can use two of these to shove the thing with, until we get into deep water," she said. "The other we can lash upright as a mast and use my dress as a sail."

At that instant, from the path behind them, came the sound of voices. Vivian flashed a frantic glance at the jungle rearing up behind them, and then leaped on board the raft. Wylie followed. It dipped and swayed, but held their weight. The voices came nearer. Desperately Vivian braced her pole against the sandy bottom and shoved. Wylie followed suit. Sluggishly the clumsy craft moved away from the shore— five feet— ten feet— and than half a dozen men poured through the opening in the jungle and raced across the sand, splashed through the shallow water and surrounded the little craft, gleaming machetes raised threateningly.

Vivian did not see Benedetti when they returned to the house with their captors that night, nor was he visible when she awoke the next morning after a night spent in futile speculation and planning, and descended to the dining room.

A black girl served them breakfast. Golden sunlight poured through the wide French windows, beyond which they could see the beach and the green cove. Nowhere was there evidence of the fate that hung over them. But both knew, and the fact of that knowledge was evident in their eyes, in their short jerky words, that Death's wings were already casting their shadows across them.

The sun was well up when they went on to the veranda. There should have been the click of machetes in the cane fields and the low, lazy laughter of the workers. But everything was still, and that stillness held an ominous meaning.

Wylie was frankly without hope— more so as the day wore on, and Vivian, although she had never admitted defeat, admitted to herself that she saw no way out of the impasse. Benedetti, she saw now, had made no mistake when he told her that escape was impossible.

The day wore on, and still Benedetti did not put in an appearance. Once Vivian asked one of the maids where he could be found and received in answer a queer jumble of Creole French that held no meaning. Later, they essayed a walk to the Sugar Central, whose smokestacks rose on the other side of the cane fields, but one of the ever-present natives stepped slowly in their path, his machete openly in evidence. From the corner of her eyes Vivian could see others, alert, ready, at the edge of the jungle. Their captors were taking no chances.

On the far side of the cleared space Vivian could see a break in the jungle where a path ended. From this path men kept coming and going, and this, she surmised, must lead to the place where they were scheduled to die that night.

It was after dinner when Benedetti made his appearance, and with him stalked tragedy.

Vivian and Wylie were on the broad veranda, walking up and down. Something— some sixth sense— warned Vivian of danger, even before she heard the quick, catlike tread behind her. She made an attempt to swing around an instant too late. Someone leapt on her. A strong arm was locked about her throat. A hand was clamped over her mouth. A knee dug into the small of her back. She wrenched, tore at the gripping hands, even as she saw other hands seizing Wylie; she was aware of Benedetti's face, his features hard as stone. In the same second something dropped over her head and blotted the world into darkness.

How long she was held there motionless on the veranda she did not know. Then came a quick gabble of Creole in Benedetti's voice and the smothering hand was removed.

She flashed a glance around. The place was deserted save for herself, Benedetti and one tall native who stood beside the veranda steps, the ever-present machete in evidence. Obviously a guard.

The man interpreted her look.

"Your companion is gone. You will never see him again," he said, and his voice was indifferent. He might have been speaking of some trivial object that had disappeared. He turned back toward the dining room, where candlelight made a soft glow. Vivian followed. The house seemed curiously still, as if all life had departed from it save these two.

"Gone— you mean— " She could not finish the sentence.

Benedetti nodded and selected a cigarette from a box on a little side table; lit it at one of the candles.

"He will be the first sacrifice to Ogoun Bada-gri. When the great green snake god has finished with him they will come for you. You will be the climax of the ceremony," he told her brutally.

"You mean that you— a white man— will actually permit these men to make a sacrifice of us?" she queried. She knew, before she said it, that any appeal to him would be useless, but her mind was going around frantically, seeking a method of warding off the death that was imminent.

"What is your life and that of your companion to me?" he asked. "Nothing— not so much as the ash from the cigarette— compared with the fact that your death means that I keep my plantation a year longer. I refused close to half a million dollars from the sugar trust for the island. Do you think, then, that I would permit a little thing like your life to rob me of it?"

5: Voodoo Death

VIVIAN DID NOT answer. Her eyes roamed around the room, although already every article in it had been photographed indelibly on her retina. A fly had alighted on the border of the sticky fly paper that lay in the center of the mahogany table. It tugged and buzzed, but the sticky mess held it too firmly.

"You may comfort yourself with the thought," Benedetti went on, "if the fact is any comfort, that you are not the first. There have been others. The little dancing girl from the Port-au-Prince cabaret, a Spanish girl from Santo Domingo…"

He was not boastful, purely meditative as he sat there and smoked and talked, telling Vivian of the victims whose lives had paid for his hold on his sugar plantation. Vivian's eyes were fastened on the feebly fluttering fly on the sticky paper. They, too, were caught like flies in a trap, and unless she could do something immediately— she faced the fact calmly— it would be the end.

Abruptly she leaned forward. There was a stillness in her pose, a stillness in her opaque eyes. Her hands coiled like springs. She found it difficult to keep her detached poise as the scheme began to unfold and take shape in her brain.

She smiled thinly. The air was suddenly electrical, filled with the portent of danger. Benedetti caught the feel of it, and peered at her suspiciously for a moment. The Lady from Hell knew that it was a thousand to one that she would lose. But, if her scheme worked, she could save Wylie's life and her own, and Benedetti might be made to pay for the thing he had attempted—  pay as he had never dreamed that he would have to pay.

Reaching out one hand she moved the candle in front of her, so that its glow fell more on Benedetti's face than her own. Her voice, as she spoke, was quiet, almost meditative. But her eyes told a different story.

"How much time have I to live?" she said.

The man glanced at his watch.

"Roughly, two hours," he said. He might have been estimating the departure time of a steamer, his voice was so calm. "It might be a trifle more or less— the time of my workers is not accurate. When the drums stop they will come for you. And when they start again— well, you will be there then."

She rose to her feet, leaning lightly on the table.

"If I am to die," she said hysterically, "I will die beautiful." Then she added as an explanation, "My makeup is in my room."

But he was on his feet too, alert, wary. "You must not leave my presence," he said. "I cannot permit it. The sacrifice must go to the arms of Ogoun Badagri alive, not a corpse."

His dark eyes held no recognition of the fact that she was a very beautiful woman. Vivian sensed, and rightly, that to him she was merely a woman who might thwart his plans. But she caught the implication in his last sentence.

"I shall not take poison," she said. "You may come with me— watch me, if you wish."

She took a step or two and groped blindly at the table for support. Instinctively he stretched out a hand to steady her.

That was the moment for which she had planned, the instant for which she had been waiting. Benedetti made the fatal mistake that many men had made with the Lady from Hell as an opponent— of underestimating her as an adversary.

Like a striking snake her hand darted to the table, seized one of the heavy candlesticks. Before Benedetti could interfere, had even divined her purpose, the heavy metal fell across his forehead with stunning force. He crumpled to the floor without a murmur.

Leaving him where he had fallen, Vivian ran to the door and peered out. The gigantic black on guard at the veranda steps had heard nothing. He was still standing there, unaware of the drama being enacted within the dining room.

Swiftly she turned back and her slender fingers searched the drawers of the carved mahogany sideboard against the wall until she found what she sought— a heavy, sharp carving knife. She balanced it speculatively in her hand. It would do, she decided.

The man was still standing there when she peered out the door again. He never saw the slender blade as it flew through the air, sped by a hand that had learned its cunning from the most expert knife thrower in Shanghai. The blade went through, sinking into the flesh at the base of his throat as though it had been butter. He died without an outcry.

Now she must work fast, if she were to escape and save Wylie too. Benedetti she bound and gagged and rolled against the sideboard where he was out of the way. But first she had taken his revolver from his side pocket.

Trip after trip she made, first to the flat tin roof of the house, and then to the front of the house. Finally she was satisfied with what she had done, and, snatching up a flashlight from the sideboard, fled toward the path in the jungle that she knew led to the place of sacrifice.

A tropical squall was rising out of the sea beyond the little cove. A cloud, black in the light of the moon, was rising above the horizon. She glanced at it anxiously. Then she plunged into the jungle.

The valences of the palms were motionless against the moonlit sky. The atmosphere, as she pushed her way along, seemed saturated with mystery, dew dripping, bars of green moonlight between the trunks of the trees; the cry of night birds, the patter of something in the dark mystery of the tree roof overhead, the thudding of the drums that had never ceased. Out of that familiar hollow rhythm of drums that had begun to emerge a thread of actual melody— an untra-ditional rise and fall of notes— a tentative attack, as it were, on the chromatic scale of the beat. A tentative abandonment of Africa. It was a night of abandonment, anyhow, a night of betrayal and the peeling off of blanketing layers down to the raw.

Once she stopped short with a sudden emptiness in her chest at sight of what she thought was a man in the path ahead. But it was only a paint-daubed, grinning skull on a bamboo stake planted in the ground— a voodoo ouanga. Then she went ahead again. Evidently there were no guards posted. With every inhabitant of the island concerned in the ceremony in one way or another there would be no need for guards to be posted now.

The rapid sequence of events had edged Vivian's nerves, and the boom of the drums— heavy, maddening, relentless— did nothing to soothe them. That passage through the jungle was galling, fraying the nerve ends like an approaching execution.

A red glow came to her through the trees, and seemed to spread and spread until it included the whole world about her in its malignancy. The drums, with that queer rise and fall of notes that it seemed impossible to achieve with taut skins stretched over drum heads, beat upon her senses, pounded until the air was filled with sounds that seemed to come from the earth, the sky, the forest; dominated the flow of blood with strange excitations.

She had formulated no plan for rescuing Wylie. She could not, until she reached the spot and saw what she had to contend with. She had the gun she had taken from Benedetti, but six cartridges against a horde of drum-maddened blacks— that was only a last resort.

And then she stood on the edge of a clearing that seemed sunk to the bottom of a translucent sea of opalescent flame.

Something that was age-old was happening in that crimson-bathed clearing, something old and dark, buried so deeply under the subtleties of civilization that most men go through life without ever knowing it is there, was blossoming and flowering under the stark madness of those thudding drums.

Coconut fiber torches, soaked in palm oil, flaring red in the blackness of the night lit up the space in front of her like a stage, the torchlight weaving strange scarlet and mauve shadows. Tall trees, lining the clearing opposite her, seemed to shelter masses of people, darker shadows against the red glow of the burning torches.

Two enormous drums, taut skins booming under the frenzied pounding of the palms of two drummers, stood on one side. A dozen, two dozen dancing black figures, male and female,
spun and danced in the center of the clearing, movements graceful and obscene— animal gestures that were identical with similar dances of their ancestors hundreds of years before in Moko or the Congo.

And then she saw Wylie. He was tied to a post in the center of the clearing, and the dancers were milling about him. Beside him stood a woman whom Vivian instinctively knew must be the Mamaloi, the priestess of whom Benedetti had spoken.

Now and then the priestess gave vent to a sound that seemed to stir the dancers to greater activity— to spur the slowly humming throng of watchers to a point of frenzy; a sound such as Vivian had never heard before and never hoped to hear again. When she stopped, it would hang, incredibly high-pitched, small, like a black thrill in the shadow. It was shocking and upsetting out of that ancient thin figure.

Her eyes shifted from the aged figure to the sky line above the trees. The black cloud that, a short time before had been no larger than the palm of her hand on the horizon, was visible through the branches of the trees now. Even as she looked a faint flicker of heat lightning laced through it.

And then, as if at a conductor's signal, more torches flowered on the edge of the clearing, and in their light the Lady from Hell saw half a dozen men staggering forward with an enormous thing of bamboo— a cage— and in that cage was a great snake; a boa constrictor, perhaps, or a python, although neither of them, she seemed to remember, was native to Haiti.

6: White Man's Voodoo

THEY PLACED the cage in the center of the clearing, and Vivian saw that it had been placed so that a small door in the cage was directly opposite Wylie's bound figure. The significance of that fact went through her like a breath of cold wind. If she failed, she also would be bound to that stake. Mentally she could see the little door in the cage opening, the great triangular head of the snake gliding slowly…

Swiftly she bent over and caught up a handful of the black leaf mold underfoot, smeared it over her face, her arms, her neck, her shoulders. A section of the dress she was wearing was ripped off and made into a turban that hid the flaming crown of her hair. More earth was rubbed onto the white of her dress.

Then, with swift leaps, she was on the outer fringe of the dancers, and the chaos of moving arms and legs caught her up and swallowed her as a breaking wave on the beach swallows a grain of sand.

It was a mad thing to do, a desperate thing. She knew that, normally, her crude disguise would not have fooled the natives. The Haitian black seems to have the ability to almost smell the presence of a blanc, much as an animal can smell the presence of another. But, in that flickering torchlight, the crudeness of disguise would not be so apparent, and in that unceasing madness of drums that went on like a black echo of something reborn, she hoped that her alien presence would pass unnoticed long enough for her to accomplish her object.

Slowly she worked her way through the writhing, dancing mass of figures toward the center. She knew that her time was short— that the lesser ceremony was approaching its height. Even as she reached the inner ring of dancers she saw the ancient Mamaloi joining in the dance, while the others kept a respectful distance from her. Monotonously, maddeningly, the priestess twisted and turned and shivered, holding aloft a protesting fowl. Faster and faster she went, and while all eyes were fastened on that whirling figure Vivian managed to reach Wylie's bound figure.

A swift slash with the knife she had hidden beneath her dress and his hands were free.

"Keep still… don't let them see that you're not bound," she whispered. Another motion and the bonds that fastened his ankles to the post were free.

Vivian moved about Wylie with graceful motions, imitating the movements of the blacks about her, and her voice came to him in broken, desperate whispers:

"Signal… you'll recognize it… don't move until then… dead tree by the edge of the clearing… that's the path… I'll be waiting there… it's only chance…"

Then she was gone, breasting her way through the black figures that danced like dead souls come back from Hell in the evil glow of the sputtering torches. And then came a great shout as the Mamaloi caught the chicken she held by the head and whirled it around and around.

Throom… throom… throom. The drums were like coalescing madness. A moan went up from the onlookers and a chill went through Vivian.

She knew from what Benedetti had told her that the chicken was the prelude of what would happen to Wylie. Next, the old woman would slash Wylie's throat… let his life blood spurt into a bowl with which the dancers would be sprinkled. Then would come the lesser ceremony, while the guard at the house would start with her for the ceremony that would end with the door in the great snake's cage being opened…

Vivian snatched a torch from the hands of one of the dancers. The man did not even seem to be aware of the fact that it had been taken away. From beneath her dress she took a stick of dynamite with fuse attached— part of her loot from the storeroom— and touched the fuse to the flame of the torch.

It sputtered and she hurled it with all her strength at her command toward the overhanging tree beneath which the drummers sat, then fled for the bare naked branches of the dead tree that stood where the path entered the clearing—  the spot where she had told Wylie she would meet him.

She had barely reached the spot when there came a tremendous concussion that shook the earth, and a gush of flame. The thing was as startling, as hideously unexpected to the drum, maddened Haitians as a striking snake. Scream after scream— long, jagged screams that ripped red gashes through the dark, were followed by a swift clacking of tongues, a terrified roar as dancers and onlookers milled about, black bodies writhing in the light of the remaining torches. A black tide, rising, filled the clearing with terrified clamor. A moment later there was the sound of running feet and Wylie was at her side.

"This way," she whispered, and guided him into the path.

Both of them knew that it would be only a moment before the startled natives recovered their wits and discovered that their victim was gone. Then they would take up their trail again immediately.

"Where are we going?" Wylie asked her as he ran behind her along the winding jungle trail.

"The house," she answered tersely.

"The house?" He almost halted in his amazement. "But Vivian— that's the first place they'll make for. Even if you've found weapons we can't hold them off forever."

"Wait," she said. "No time to explain now… But if things work out, we'll be off this island before morning, safe and sound."

From behind them a quavering yell rose on the air and the two fugitives knew that Wylie's escape had been discovered. It was a matter of yards and of minutes now. Then they burst from the shadow of the jungle into the moonlight clearing.

"Follow me," she said quickly. "Don't take the path," and he followed her footsteps as she twisted and twined about the space toward the steps.

At the steps he halted a moment in wonder at what he saw there, and then, in spite of the gravity of the situation, a chuckle broke from his panting lips.

"So that's it," he said, and Vivian nodded.

"That's it. Be careful. It's a slim enough chance, but there is just a chance it'll work— the only chance we've got."

"But even that," he said, a thought striking him, as he threaded his way carefully up the steps to the veranda, "will only be temporary. Even if it holds them at bay until dawn— when daylight comes…"

"I know," she said a trifle impatiently, "but long before then— " She broke off suddenly as their pursuers appeared, breaking out from under the palms, just as a flash of lightning came.

"They're here," he whispered. "If the scheme won't work, then it's all up with us."

"It will work," Vivian said confidently.

But, although her tone was cool, confident, there was anxiety in her eyes as she watched the black figures pouring out of the jungle. Vivian knew that her own and Wylie's lives were hanging by the slenderest margin in their criminal career.

The Papaloi, the giant Negro with the white lines and scar ridges criss-crossing his muscular torso, was the first to see them as another flash of lightning illuminated the veranda where they stood. He uttered a single bellow, a stentorian cry, which seemed to shake the house, and bounded toward the stairs. Behind him came part of his followers, while others rushed for the other pair of stairs.

The Papaloi leaped for the steps, his men close behind him. His feet landed in something that slid quickly under him, that clung to his soles. He lost his balance, fell asprawl, his followers in a momentary confusion that quickly increased to panic— the panic of the primitive mind confronted with something unseen that it cannot understand.

The hands of the gigantic black Papaloi were glued now to squares of sticky fly paper that he could not shake off— the fly paper that the Lady from Hell had taken from the storeroom and spent so much precious time placing upon the steps and around the veranda without encountering it, save along the narrow, tortuous trail along which Vivian had led Wylie.

There was a square of fly paper on the Papaloi's face now, clinging there, flapping a little as if alive, persistent as a vampire bat. There were more on the side of his body where he had slipped. He struck at them and accumulated more.

The Mamaloi, that ancient crone, was in trouble also. She had slipped and, in falling, had a sheet of fly paper plastered squarely across her eyes. She was uttering shrill cries of distress as she pawed at her face with hands that were covered with sticky fly paper and glue. All about the two men and women were struggling, shouting in alarm. The silent attack had materialized out of nothing with such appalling swiftness, and continued with such devastating persistence that it robbed them of every thought save alarm.

Robbed of their spiritual leaders, terror was striking at the hearts of the voodoo worshipers. At the edge of the veranda, black men writhed in horror, snatching at one another for support, tearing at the horrible things that clung as if with a million tiny sucking mouths. Their machetes, covered with glue and flapping fly paper, had been dropped, forgotten in the confusion. Torches had dropped underfoot, forgotten, so that the struggle was in darkness, illuminated only by the light of the moon through the clouds and the flashes of lightning. Fly paper in their hair, across their eyes, clinging, hampering, maddening them with the knowledge that some frightful voodoo, stronger than their Papaloi or Mamaloi, had laid hands upon them.

A flare of lightning slashed from the very center of the storm cloud that was now hanging overhead. Its brilliance illuminated, for a moment, the figure of the Lady from Hell, standing at the edge of the veranda, her arms uplifted as if calling down the wrath of the heavens upon them. A shattering blast of thunder followed and a gust of wind swept across the clearing.

That gust of wind was the crowning touch, the straw that was needed to break the camel's back of resistance in that struggling, milling black throng. It set all the loose ends of the fly paper fluttering, where it was not fastened to bodies. And, more than that, it caught up the sticky squares that were still unattached and sent them dancing through the air.

There rose a howl of fear. The demons of these blancs, not content with lying in wait and springing out upon them, were now flying through the air; attacking them from the heavens, sucking from their bodies all their strength.

What use to resist when even the magic of the Papaloi and the Mamaloi was not sufficient to fight off the demons.

They bolted headlong, fly paper sticking to every part of their anatomy. They fell, scaled with the awful things, and promptly acquired more. Women fell and shrieked as they were trampled upon, not from the pain of the trampling feet, but from the fear that they might be left behind at the mercy of the demons. Men, blinded by the sticky things, ran in circles and clutched at whatever they came in contact with.

Then came the low drone of an airplane engine in the distance, flying low because of the storm. Turning, Vivian ran back into the dining room, where Benedetti still lay, bound upon the floor, his eyes glaring hatred at her. Calmly she sat down and wrote upon one of his letterheads which she found in the desk there. Then she snatched off the gag that muffled his mouth.

"The danger is all over," she told the man, "for us. But for you trouble is just beginning."

"You can't escape," he raved at her viciously. "I don't know what you've done, but you won't be able to leave the island. In an hour, two hours— by daylight at least— they will return, and what they will do to you won't be pleasant."

Vivian smiled. The invisible plane seemed to be circling the house now. She waved the paper she had written to dry the ink.

"What the American authorities in Port-au-Prince do to you will not be pleasant, either," she told Benedetti. "Voodoo is forbidden by law. You have not only aided and abetted voodoo ceremonies, but you have also procured human sacrifices for the ceremonial. There was the little French girl from the Port-au-Prince cabaret, and the girl from Santo Domingo— you should not have boasted. For you murdered them as surely as if you had driven a knife in their hearts, and the law will agree with me."

"You'll never live to tell the Americans, even if they believed the tale," he scoffed.

"Oh, yes I will," she mocked. Her voice was as dry and keen as a new ground sword. "Within an hour I shall be on my way to Cape Hatien. Hear that," and she raised an admonitory hand. In the silence the plane could be heard. She threw open the French windows. From where he lay Benedetti could see a Marine plane slanting down toward the comparatively sheltered waters of the little cove.

"In less than ten minutes," she said, "the plane will have taxied up to the beach and the Marine pilot and his observer will be in this room, asking if we need aid. You see," and her smile was completely mocking and scornful now, "you yourself brought about your own downfall— planted the idea in my brain when you told me that the plane passed overhead every night at about this time. There was a can of luminous paint in your storeroom. I saw it, and there he is coming to see what it's all about— and to take you to Cape Hatien—  unless…"

"Unless what?" he queried eagerly.

"Unless you sign this memorandum. It deposes that I have purchased this plantation from you— that you have received the purchase price— and that proper legal transfer to it will be made later."

There was a calculating gleam in the man's eyes as he made assent. His gaze flickered out through the open door to where the plane had already landed on the surface of the cove.

Vivian had caught that gleam. "Of course," she went on smoothly, "we will have the Marine officers sign it as witnesses in your presence. Then you can accompany us back to Cape Hatien in the plane, and the lawyers of the Haitian Sugar Central will be glad to see that memorandum is put in proper legal form before I, in turn, resell the plantation to them. I shall not refuse the price they are willing to pay— and it will not matter to the sugar trust whether you or I are the owner." She gazed at him for a moment. "Well, do you agree?— or do you go to Cape Hatien a prisoner?"

Benedetti shot a glance at the trim, uniformed figure coming cautiously up from the beach. Feverishly he scribbled his name at the bottom of the memorandum.

____________________

Table of Contents

- 1: The Terror of the Pond / Alick Munro
- 2: Birth of a Hero / Alice Duerr Miller
- 3: The Forty-Seven Rônin / Bertram Mitford
- 4: Aunt Joanna / Sabine Baring‑Gould
- 5: On the Plymouth Express / Frank Conly
- 6: $100 / Richard Connell
- 7: Creatures of the Ray / J. L. Aton
- 8: The Man in the Bell / William  Maginn
- 9: The New Sun / J. S. Fletcher

- 10: Who Killed Castelvetri? / Gilbert Frankau

- 11: Black Coffee / Jeffery Farnol
- 12: The Black Ferry / John Galt
- 13: The Old Man of the Desert / Roy O'Toole

- 14: To Be Taken with a Grain of Salt / Charles Dickens

- 15: Circumstantial Evidence / Harold Mercer
- 16: Guarded / Mearle Prout
- 17: The Virus of Hell / William H. Pope

- 18: The Adventure of the Voodoo Moon / Eugene Thomas