Author: Various
Date: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00
Description: Several of the authors in this issue are "ephemerals": writers who managed to sell a handful of stories and then vanished, and for all practical purposes untraceable. This issue ranges from the very well known literary writer Katherine Mansfield, to the extremely unknown Joseph Heighton, ioncluding some regulars in this series. 1: Waxworks / Ethel Lina White 2: The Missing Boatswain / Joseph Heighton 3: The High Rigger / J. Allan Dunn 4: Mr. Aroun's Jewel / William Caine 5: Ghosts / Arthur Gask 6: The Owl / F. A. M. Webster 7: Once it Happened / Achmed Abdullah 8: An Unlocked Window / Ethel Li

PAST MASTERS 122

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

7 April 2023

Contents

1: Waxworks / Ethel Lina White

2: The Missing Boatswain / Joseph Heighton

3: The High Rigger / J. Allan Dunn

4: Mr. Aroun's Jewel / William Caine

5: Ghosts / Arthur Gask

6: The Owl / F. A. M. Webster

7: Once it Happened / Achmed Abdullah

8: An Unlocked Window / Ethel Lina White

9: The Uninvited Guest / Ethel Lina White

10: The Dead Smile / Francis Marion Crawford

11: Poison / Katherine Mansfield

12: Loki's Sword / Edward  Lucas White

13: Zero-Zero / Harry Ashe

14: "To Let." / B. M. Croker

15: More Than He Could Chew / John Baer

16: Blight / H. de Vere Stacpoole

17: The Millennium Engine / Leavitt Ashley Knight

18: As You Please / William Edward Park

19: Freedom / Marjorie Pickthall

20: Murder in a Mortuary / Kennedy Tester

__________________

1: Waxworks

Ethel Lina White

1876-1944

Pearson’s Magazine, Dec 1930

The Australian Women's Weekly,  25 May 1935

This story previously appeared in Past Masters 7, and I managed to omit the whole last page from my original source. Thanks to Roy Glashan for providing the missing text, so here it is in full.

The author wrote many short stories, and they are amazingly difficult to find. It seems that no collection of her short stories has ever been published. So far I have included nine stories  in Past Masters anthologies.

_______

SONIA made her first entry in her notebook:

"Eleven o'clock. The lights are out. The porter has just locked the door. I can hear his footsteps echoing down the corridor. They grow fainter. Now there is silence. I am alone."

She stopped writing to glance at her company. Seen in the light from the street lamp, which streamed in through the high window, the room seemed to be full of people. Their faces were those of men and women of character and intelligence. They stood in groups, as though in conversation, or sat apart, in solitary reverie.

But they neither moved nor spoke. When Sonia had last seen them in the glare of the electric globes, they had been a collection of ordinary waxworks, some of which were the worse for wear. The black velvet which lined the walls of the Gallery was alike tawdry and filmed with dust. The side opposite to the window was built into alcoves, which held highly moral tableaus, depicting contrasting scenes in the career of Vice and Virtue. Sonia had slipped into one of these recesses, just before closing time, in order to hide for her vigil.

It had been a simple affair. The porter had merely rung his bell, and the few courting couples which represented the public had taken his hint and hurried towards the exit.

No one was likely to risk being locked in, for the Waxwork Collection of Oldhampton had lately acquired a sinister reputation. The foundation for this lay in the fate of a stranger to the town— a commercial traveller— who had cut his throat in the Hall of Horrors.

Since then, two persons had, separately, spent the night in the Gallery and, in the morning, each had been found dead.

In both cases the verdict had been "Natural death, due to heart failure."

The first victim— a local alderman had been addicted to alcoholism, and was in very bad shape. The second his great friend— was a delicate little man, a martyr to asthma, and slightly unhinged through unwise absorption in spiritualism.

While the coincidence of the tragedies stirred up a considerable amount of local superstition, the general belief was that both deaths were due to the power of suggestion, in conjunction with macabre surroundings. The victims had let themselves be frightened to death by the Waxworks.

Sonia was there, in the Gallery, to test its truth.

She was the latest addition to the staff of the Oldhampton Gazette. Bubbling with enthusiasm, she made no secret of her literary ambitions, and it was difficult to feed her with enough work. Her colleagues listened to her with mingled amusement and boredom, but they liked her as a refreshing novelty. As for her fine future, they looked to young Wells— the Sporting Editor— to effect her speedy and painless removal from the sphere of journalism.

On Christmas Eve, Sonia took them all into her confidence over her intention to spend a night in the Wax works, on the last night of the old year.

"Copy there," she declared. "I'm not timid and I have fairly sensitive perceptions, so I ought to be able to write up the effect of imagination on the nervous system. I mean to record my impressions, every hour, while they're piping-hot."

Looking up suddenly, she had surprised a green glare in the eyes of Hubert Poke.

When Sonia came to work on the Gazette she had a secret fear of unwelcome amorous attentions, since she was the only woman on the staff. But the first passion she awoke was hatred.

Poke hated her impersonally, as the representative of a force, numerically superior to his own sex, which was on the opposing side in the battle for existence. He feared her, too, because she was the unknown element, and possessed the unfair weapon of charm.

Before she came, he had been the star turn on the Gazette. His own position on the staff gratified his vanity and entirely satisfied his narrow ambition. But Sonia had stolen some of his thunder. On more than one occasion she had written up a story he had failed to cover, and he had to admit that her success was due to a quicker wit.

For some time past he had been playing with the idea of spending a night in the Waxworks, but was deterred by the knowledge that his brain was not sufficiently temperate for the experiment. Lately he had been subject to sudden red rages, when he had felt a thick hot taste in his throat, as though of blood. He knew that his jealousy of Sonia was accountable. It had almost reached the stage of mania, and trembled on the brink of homicidal urge.

While his brain was still creaking with the idea of first-hand experience in the ill-omened Gallery, Sonia had nipped in with her ready-made plan.

Controlling himself with an effort, he listened while the sub-editor issued a warning, to Sonia.

"Bon idea, young woman, but you will find the experience a bit raw. You've no notion how uncanny these big deserted buildings can be."

"That's so," nodded young Wells. "I once spent a night in a haunted house."

Sonia looked at him with her habitual interest. He was short and thick-set, with a three-cornered smile which appealed to her.

"Did you see anything?" she asked.

"No. I cleared out before the show came on. Windy. After a bit, one can imagine anything."

It was then that Poke introduced a new note into the discussion by his own theory of the mystery deaths. Sitting alone in the deserted gallery, Sonia preferred to forget his words. She resolutely drove them from her mind while she began to settle down for the night.

Her first action was to cross to the figure of Cardinal Wolsey and unceremoniously raise his heavy scarlet robe. From under its voluminous folds she drew out her cushion and attaché case, which she had hidden earlier in the evening.

Mindful of the fact that it would grow chilly at dawn, she carried on her arm her thick white tennis coat. Slipping it on, she placed her cushion in the angle of the wall, and sat down to await developments.

The gallery was far more mysterious now that the lights were out. At either end it seemed to stretch away into impenetrable black tunnels. But there was nothing uncanny about it, or about the figures, which were a tame and conventional collection of historical personages. Even the adjoining Hall of Horrors contained no horrors, only a selection of respectable looking poisoners.

Sonia grinned cheerfully at the row of waxworks which were visible in the lamplight from the street.

"So you are the villains of the piece," she murmured. "Later on, if the office is right, you will assume unpleasant mannerisms to try to cheat me into believing you are alive. I warn you, old sports, you'll have your work cut out for you.... And now I think I'll get better acquainted with you. Familiarity breeds contempt."

She went the round of the figures, greeting each with flippancy or criticism. Presently she returned to her corner and opened her notebook ready to record her impressions.

"Twelve o'clock. The first hour has passed almost too quickly. I've drawn a complete blank. Not a blessed thing to record. Not a vestige of reaction. The waxworks seem a commonplace lot, without a scrap of hypnotic force. In fact, they're altogether too matey."

Sonia had left her corner, to write her entry in the light which streamed through the window. Smoking was prohibited in the building, and, lest she should yield to temptation, she had left both her cigarettes and matches behind her, on the office table.

At this stage she regretted the matches. A little extra light would be a boon. It was true she carried an electric torch, but she was saving it, in case of emergency.

It was a loan from young Wells. As they were leaving the office together he spoke to her confidentially.

"Did you notice how Poke glared at you? Don't get up against him. He's a nasty piece of work. He's so mean he'd sell his mother's shroud for old rags. And he's a cruel little devil, too. He turned out his miserable pup to starve in the streets, rather than cough up for the licence."

Sonia grew hot with indignation.

"What he needs to cure his complaint is a strong dose of rat poison," she declared. "What became of the poor little dog?"

"Oh, he's all right. He was a matey chap, and he soon chummed up with a mongrel of his own class."

"You?" asked Sonia, her eyes suddenly soft.

"A mongrel, am I?" grinned Wells. "Well, anyway, the pup will get a better Christmas than his first, when Poke went away and left him on the chain... We're both of us going to overeat and over drink. You're on your own, too. Won't you join us?"

"I'd love to."

ALTHOUGH the evening was warm and muggy the invitation suffused Sonia with the spirit of Christmas. The shade of Dickens seemed to be hovering over the parade of the streets. A red-nosed Santa Claus presided over a spangled Christmas tree outside a toy shop. Windows were hung with tinselled balls and coloured paper festoons. Pedestrians, laden with parcels, called out seasonable greetings.

"Merry Christmas."

Young Wells' three-cornered smile was his tribute to the joyous feeling of festival. His eyes were eager as he turned to Sonia.

"I've an idea. Don't wait until after the holidays to write up the Waxworks. Make it a Christmas stunt and go there to-night."

"I will," declared Sonia.

It was then that he slipped the torch into her hand. "I know you belong to the stronger sex," he said. "But even your nerve might crash. If it does, just flash this torch under the window. Stretch out your arm above your head, and the light will be seen from the street."

"And what will happen then?" asked Sonia.

"I shall knock up the miserable porter and let you out."

"But how will you see the light?"

"I shall be in the street."

"All night?"

"Yes. I sleep there." Young Wells grinned. "Understand," he added loftily, "that this is a matter of principle. I could not let any woman—even one so aged and unattractive as yourself—feel beyond the reach of help."

He cut into her thanks as he turned away with a parting warning.

"Don't use the torch for light, or the juice may give out. It's about due for a new battery."

As Sonia looked at the torch, lying by her side, it seemed a link with young Wells. At this moment he was patrolling the street, a sturdy figure in old tweed overcoat, with his cap pulled down over his eyes. As she tried to pick out his footsteps from among those of the other passersby it struck her that there was plenty of traffic, considering that it was past twelve o'clock.

"The witching hour of midnight is another lost illusion," she reflected.

"Killed by night clubs, I suppose."

It was cheerful to know that so many citizens were abroad, to keep her company. Some optimists were still singing carols. She faintly heard the strains of "Good King Wenceslas." It was in a tranquil frame of mind that she unpacked her sandwiches and thermos.

"IT'S Christmas Day," she thought, as she drank hot coffee. "And I'm spending it with Don and the pup."

At that moment her career grew misty, and the flame of her literary ambition dipped as the future glowed with the warm firelight of home. In sudden elation, she held up her flask and toasted the waxworks.

"Merry Christmas to you all! And many of them."

The faces of the illuminated figures remained stolid, but she could almost swear that a low murmur of acknowledgement seemed to swell from the rest of her company— invisible in the darkness.

She spun out her meal to its limit, stifling her craving for a cigarette. Then, growing bored, she counted the visible waxworks, and tried to memorise them.

"Twenty-one, twenty-two... Wolsey, Queen Elizabeth, Guy Fawkes. Napoleon ought to go on a diet. Ever heard of eighteen days, Nap? Poor old Julius Caesar looks as though he'd been sunbathing on the Lido. He's about due for the melting-pot."

In her eyes they were a second-rate set of dummies. The local theory that they could terrorise a human being to death or madness seemed a fantastic notion.

"No," concluded Sonia. "There's really more in Poke's bright idea."

Again she saw the sun-smitten office— for the big unshielded window faced south—with its blistered paint, faded wallpaper, ink-stained desks, typewriters, telephones, and a huge fire in the untidy grate. Young Wells smoked his big pipe, while the sub-editor— a ginger, pigheaded young man— laid down the law about the mystery deaths.

And then she heard Poke's toneless dead man's voice.

"You may be right about the spiritualist. He died of fright— but not of the waxworks. My belief is that he established contact with the spirit of his dead friend, the alderman, and to learned his real fate."

"What fate?" snapped the sub-editor.

"I believe that the alderman was murdered," replied Poke.

He clung to his point like a limpet in the face of all counter-arguments.

"The alderman had enemies," he said. "Nothing would be easier than for one of them to lie in wait for him. In the present circumstances, I could commit a murder in the Waxworks, and get away with it."

"How?" demanded young Wells.

"How? To begin with, the Gallery is a one-man show and the porter's a bonehead. Anyone could enter and leave the Gallery without his being wise to it."

"And the murder?" plugged young Wells.

With a shudder Sonia remembered how Poke had glanced at his long knotted fingers.

"If I could not achieve my object by fright, which is the foolproof way," he replied, "I should try a little artistic strangulation."

"And leave your marks?"

"Not necessarily. Every expert knows that there are methods which show no trace."

Sonia fumbled in her bag for the cigarettes which were not there.

"Why did I let myself think of that, just now?" she thought. "Really too stupid."

As she reproached herself for her morbidity, she broke off to stare at the door which led to the Hall of Horrors.

When she had last looked at it, she could have sworn that it was tightly closed.... But now it gaped open by an inch.

She looked at the black cavity, recognising the first test on her nerves. Later on, there would be others. She realised the fact that, within her cool, practical self, she carried an hysterical neurotic passenger, who would doubtless give her a lot of trouble through officious suggestions and uncomfortable reminders.

She resolved to give her second self a taste of her quality, and so quell her at the start.

"That door was merely closed," she remarked, as, with a firm step she crossed to the Hall of Horrors and shut the door.

"One o'clock. I begin to realise that there is more in this than I thought. Perhaps I'm missing my sleep. But I'm keyed up and horribly expectant. Of what? I don't know. But I seem to be waiting for— something. I find myself listening— listening. The place is full of mysterious noises. I know they're my fancy.... And things appear to move. I can distinguish footsteps and whispers, as though those waxworks which I cannot see in the darkness are beginning to stir to life."

Sonia dropped her pencil at the sound of a low chuckle. It seemed to come from the end of the Gallery, which was blacked out by shadows.

As her imagination galloped away with her she reproached herself sharply.

"Steady, don't be a fool. There must be a cloak-room here. That chuckle is the air escaping in a pipe— or something. I'm betrayed by my own ignorance of hydraulics."

In spite of her brave words she returned rather quickly to her corner.

WITH her back against the wall she felt less apprehensive. But she recognised her cowardice as an ominous sign.

She was desperately afraid of someone— or something— creeping up behind her and touching her.

"I've struck the bad patch," she told herself. "It will be worse at three o'clock and work up to a climax. But when I make my entry, at three. I shall have reached the peak. After that every minute will be bringing the dawn nearer."

But of one fact she was ignorant. There would be no recorded impression at three o'clock.

Happily unconscious, she began to think of her copy. When she returned to the office— sunken-eyed, and looking like nothing on earth—she would then rejoice over every symptom of groundless fear.

"It's a story all right," she gloated, looking at Hamlet. His gnarled, pallid features and dark, smouldering eyes were strangely familiar to her.

Suddenly she realised that he reminded her of Hubert Poke.

Against her will, her thoughts again turned to him. She told herself that he was exactly like a waxwork. His yellow face— symptomatic of heart-trouble— had the same cheesy hue, and his eyes were like dull black glass. He wore a denture which was too large for him, and which forced his lips apart in a mirthless grin.

He always seemed to smile—even over the episode of the lift—which had been no joke.

It happened two days before. Sonia had rushed into the office in a state of molten excitement, because she had extracted an interview from a personage who had just received the Freedom of the City. This distinguished freeman had the reputation of shunning newspaper publicity, and Poke had tried his luck, only to be sent away with a flea in his ear.

At the back of her mind, Sonia knew that she had not fought level, for she was conscious of the effect of violet-blue eyes and a dimple upon a reserved but very human gentleman. But in her elation she had been rather blatant about her score.

She transcribed her notes, rattling away at her typewriter in a tremendous hurry, because she had a dinner engagement. In the same breathless speed she had rushed towards the automatic lift.

She was just about to step into it when young Wells had leaped the length of the passage and dragged her back.

"Look where you're going," he shouted.

Sonia looked—and saw only the well of the shaft. The lift was not waiting in its accustomed place.

"Out of order," explained Wells before he turned to blast Hubert Poke, who stood by.

"You almighty chump, why didn't you grab Miss Fraser, instead of standing by like a stuck pig?"

At the time Sonia had vaguely remarked how Poke had stammered and sweated, and she accepted the fact that he had been petrified by shock and had lost his head.

FOR the first time she realised that his inaction had been deliberate. She remembered the flame of terrible excitement in his eyes and his stretched ghastly grin.

"He hates me," she thought. "It's my fault. I've been tactless and cocksure."

Then a flood of horror swept over her.

"But he wanted to see me crash. It's almost murder."

As she began to tremble the jumpy passenger she carried reminded her of Poke's remark about the alderman.

"He had enemies."

Sonia shook away the suggestion angrily.

"My memory's uncanny," she thought. "I'm stimulated and all strung up. It must be the atmosphere.... Perhaps there's some gas in the air that accounts for these brain-storms. It's hopeless to be so utterly unscientific. Poke would have made a better job of this."

She was back again to Hubert Poke. He had become an obsession.

Her head began to throb and a tiny gong started to beat in her temples. This time she recognised the signs without any mental ferment.

"Atmospherics. A storm's coming up. It might make things rather thrilling. I must concentrate on my story. Really, my luck's in."

She sat for some time, forcing herself to think of pleasant subjects— of arguments with young Wells and the tennis tournament. But there was always a point when her thoughts gave a twist and led her back to Poke.

Presently she grew cramped and got up to pace the illuminated aisle in front of the window. She tried again to talk to the waxworks, but this time it was not a success.

They seemed to have grown remote and secretive, as though they were removed to another plane, where they possessed a hidden life.

Suddenly she gave a faint scream. Someone— or something— had crept up behind her, for she felt the touch of cold fingers upon her arm.

"Two o'clock. They're only wax. They shall not frighten me. But they're trying to. One by one they're coming to life.:.. Charles the Second no longer looks sour dough. He is beginning to leer at me. His eyes remind me of Hubert Poke."

Sonia stopped writing, to glance uneasily at the image of the Stuart monarch. His black velveteen suit appeared to have a richer pile. The swart curls which fell over his lace collar looked less like horsehair. There really seemed a gleam of amorous interest lurking at the back of his glass optics.

Absurdly, Sonia spoke to him in order to reassure herself.

"Did you touch me? At the first hint of a liberty, Charles Stuart, I'll smack your face. You'll learn a modern journalist has not the manners of an orange girl."

Instantly the satyr reverted to a dummy in a moth-eaten historical costume.

Sonia stood, listening for young Wells' footsteps. But she could not hear them, although the street now was perfectly still. She tried to picture him, propping up the opposite building, solid and immovable as the Rock of Gibraltar.

But it was no good. Doubts began to obtrude.

"I don't believe he's there. After all, why should he stay? He only pretended, just to give me confidence. He's gone."

She shrank back to her corner, drawing her tennis coat closer for warmth. It was growing colder, causing her to think of tempting things—of a hot water bottle and a steaming teapot.

PRESENTLY she realised that she was growing drowsy. Her lids felt as though weighted with lead, so that it required an effort to keep them open.

This was a complication which she had not foreseen. Although she longed to drop off to sleep, she sternly resisted the temptation.

"No. It's not fair. I've set myself the job of recording a night spent in the Waxworks. It must be the genuine thing."

She blinked more vigorously, staring across to where Byron drooped like a sooty flamingo.

"Mercy, how he yearns! He reminds me of— No, I won't think of him... I must keep awake... Bed... blankets, pillows... No."

Her head fell forward, and for a minute she dozed. In that space of time she had a vivid dream.

She thought that she was still in her corner in the Gallery, watching the dead alderman as he paced to and fro, before the window. She had never seen him, so he conformed to her own idea of an alderman— stout, pompous, and wearing the dark-blue, fur-trimmed robe of his office.

"He's got a face like a sleepy pear," she decided. "Nice old thing, but brainless."

And then, suddenly, her tolerant derision turned to acute apprehension on his account, as she saw that he was being followed. A shape was stalking him as a cat stalks a bird.

Sonia tried to warn him of his peril, but, after the fashion of nightmares, she found herself voiceless. Even as she struggled to scream, a grotesquely long arm shot out and monstrous fingers gripped the alderman's throat.

In the same moment she saw the face of the killer. It was Hubert Poke.

SHE awoke with a start, glad to find that it was but a dream. As she looked around her with dazed eyes, she saw a faint flicker of light. The mutter of very faint thunder, together with a patter of rain, told her that the storm had broken.

It was still a long way off. for Oldhampton seemed to be having merely a reflection and an echo.

"It'll clear the air," thought Sonia.

Then her heart gave a violent leap. One of the waxworks had come to life. She distinctly saw it move, before it disappeared into the darkness at the end of the Gallery.

She kept her head, realising that it was time to give up.

"My nerve's crashed," she thought. That figure was only my fancy. I'm just like the others. Defeated by wax."

Instinctively, she paid the figures her homage. It was the cumulative effect of their grim company, with their simulated life and sinister associations, that had rushed her defences.

Although it was bitter to fail, she comforted herself with the reminder that she had enough copy for her article, she could even make capital out of her own capitulation to the force of suggestion.

With a slight grimace she picked up her notebook. There would be no more on-the-spot impressions. But young Wells, if he was still there, would be grateful for the end of his vigil, whatever the state of mind of the porter.

She groped in the darkness for her signal-lamp. But her fingers only scraped bare polished boards.

The torch had disappeared.

In a panic, she dropped down on her knees, and searched for yards around the spot where she was positive it had lain.

It was the instinct of self-preservation which caused her to give up her vain search.

"I'm in danger," she thought. "And I've no one to help me now. I must see this through myself."

She pushed back her hair from a brow which had grown damp.

"There's a brain working against mine. When I was asleep, someone —or something— stole my torch."

Something? The waxworks became instinct with terrible possibility as she stared at them. Some were merely blurred shapes— their faces opaque oblongs or ovals. But others— illuminated from the street— were beginning to reveal themselves in a new guise.

Queen Elizabeth, with peaked chin and fiery hair, seemed to regard her with intelligent malice. The countenance of Napoleon was heavy with brooding power, as though he were willing her to submit. Cardinal Wolsey held her with a glittering eye.

Sonia realised that she was letting herself be hypnotised by creatures of wax—so many pounds of candles moulded to human form.

"This is what happened to those others." she thought. "Nothing happened. But I'm afraid of them. I'm terribly afraid.... There's only one thing to do I must count them again."

She knew that she must find out whether her torch had been stolen through human agency; but she shrank from the experiment, not knowing which she feared more— a tangible enemy or the unknown.

AS she began to count, the chilly air inside the building seemed to throb with each thud of her heart.

"Seventeen, eighteen." She was scarcely conscious of the numerals she murmured. "Twenty-two, twenty-three."

She stopped. Twenty-three? If her tally were correct, there was an extra waxwork in the Gallery.

On the shock or the discovery came a blinding flash of light, which veined the sky with fire. It seemed to run down the figure of Joan of Arc like a flaming torch. By a freak of atmospherics, the storm, which had been a starved, whimpering affair of flicker and murmur, culminated, and ended in what was apparently a thunder-bolt.

The explosion which followed was stunning; but Sonia scarcely noticed it in her terror.

THE unearthly violet glare had revealed to her a figure which she had previously overlooked.

It was seated in a chair, its hand supporting its peaked chin, and its pallid, clean-shaven features nearly hidden by a familiar broad-brimmed felt hat, which— together with the black cape— gave her the clue to its identity.

It was Hubert Poke.

Three o'clock.

Sonia heard it strike, as her memory began to reproduce, with horrible fidelity, every word of Poke's conversation on murder.

"Artistic strangulation." She pictured the cruel agony of life leaking— bubble by bubble, gasp by gasp; it would be slow— for he had boasted of a method which left no tell-tale marks.

"Another death," she thought dully. "If it happens everyone will say that the Waxworks have killed me. What a story.... Only, I shall not write it up."

THE tramp of feet rang out on the pavement below. It might have been the policeman on his beat; but Sonia wanted to feel that young Wells was still faithful to his post.

She looked up at the window, set high in the wall, and, for a moment, was tempted to shout. But the idea was too desperate. If she failed to attract outside attention, she would seal her own fate, for Poke would be prompted to hasten her extinction.

"Awful to feel he's so near, and yet I cannot reach him," she thought. "It makes it so much worse."

She crouched there, starting and sweating at every faint sound in the darkness. The rain, which still pattered on the skylight, mimicked footsteps and whispers. She remembered her dream and the nightmare spring and clutch.

It was an omen. At any moment it would come....

Her fear jolted her brain. For the first time she had a glimmer of hope.

"I didn't see him before the flash, because he looked exactly like one of the waxworks. Could I hide among them, too?" she wondered.

She knew that her white coat alone revealed her position to him. Holding her breath, she wriggled out of it, and hung it on the effigy of Charles II. In her black coat, with her handkerchief-scarf tied over her face, burglar fashion, she hoped that she was invisible against the sable-draped walls.

Her knees shook as she crept from her shelter. When she had stolen a few yards, she stopped to listen.... In the darkness, someone was astir. She heard a soft padding of feet, moving with the certainty of one who sees his goal.

Her coat glimmered in her deserted corner.

In a sudden panic, she increased her pace, straining her ears for other sounds. She had reached the far end of the Gallery, where no gleam from the window penetrated the gloom. Blindfolded and muffled, she groped her way towards the alcoves which held the tableaux.

Suddenly she stopped, every nerve in her body quivering. She had heard a thud, like rubbered soles alighting after a spring.

"He knows now." Swift on the trail of her thought flashed another. "He will look for me. Oh, quick!"

She tried to move, but her muscles were bound, and she stood as though rooted to the spot, listening. It was impossible to locate the footsteps. They seemed to come from every quarter of the Gallery. Sometimes they sounded remote, but, whenever she drew a freer breath, a sudden creak of the boards close to where she stood made her heart leap.

At last she reached the limit of endurance. Unable to bear the suspense of waiting, she moved on.

Her pursuer followed her at a distance. He gained on her, but still withheld his spring. She had the feeling that he held her at the end of an invisible string.

"He's playing with me, like a cat with a mouse," she thought.

If he had seen her, he let her creep forward until the darkness was no longer absolute. There were gradations in its density so that she was able to recognise the first alcove. Straining her eyes, she could distinguish the outlines of the bed where the Virtuous Man made his triumphant exit from life, surrounded by a flock of his sorrowing family and their progeny.

Slipping inside the circle, she added one more mourner to the tableau.

THE minutes passed, but nothing happened. There seemed no sound save the tiny gong beating inside her temples. Even the raindrops had ceased to patter on the skylight.

Sonia began to find the silence more deadly than noise. It was like the lull before the storm. Question after question came rolling into her mind.

"Where is he? What will he do next? Why doesn't he strike a light?"

As though someone were listening-in to her thoughts, she suddenly heard a faint splutter as of an ignited match. Or it might have been the click of an exhausted electric torch.

With her back turned to the room, she could see no light. She heard the half-hour strike, with a faint wonder that she was still alive.

"What will have happened before the next quarter?" she asked.

Presently she began to feel the strain of her pose, which she held as rigidly as any artist's model. For the time— if her presence were not already detected— her life depended on her immobility.

As an overpowering weariness began to steal over her, a whisper stirred in her brain:

"The alderman was found dead on a bed."

The newspaper account had not specified which especial tableau had been the scene of the tragedy, but she could not remember another alcove which held a bed. As she stared at the white dimness of the quilt she seemed to see it blotched with a dark, sprawling form, writhing under the grip of long fingers.

To shut out the suggestion of her fancy, she closed her eyes. The cold, dead air in the alcove was sapping her exhausted vitality, so that once again she began to nod. She dozed as she stood, rocking to and fro on her feet.

Her surroundings grew shadowy. Sometimes she knew that she was in the alcove, but at others she strayed momentarily over strange borders.... She was back in the summer, walking in a garden with young Wells. Roses and sunshine....

She awoke with a start at the sound of heavy breathing. It sounded close to her—almost by her side. The figure of a mourner kneeling by the bed seemed to change its posture slightly.

Instantly maddened thoughts began to flock and flutter wildly inside her brain.

"Who was it? Was it Hubert Poke? Would history be repeated? Was she doomed also to be strangled inside the alcove? Had Fate led her there?"

She waited, but nothing happened. Again she had the sensation of being played with by a master-mind&mdash:dangled at the end of his invisible string.

Presently she was emboldened to steal from the alcove, to seek another shelter. But though she held on to the last flicker of her will, she had reached the limit of endurance. Worn out with the violence of her emotions and physically spent from the strain of long periods of standing, she staggered as she walked.

She blundered round the gallery, without any sense of direction, colliding blindly with the groups of wax-work figures. When she reached the window her knees shook under her and she sank to the ground— dropping immediately into a sleep of utter exhaustion.

SHE awoke with a start as the first grey gleam of dawn was stealing into the Gallery. It fell on the row of waxworks, imparting a sickly hue to their features, as though they were creatures stricken with plague.

It seemed to Sonia that they were waiting for her to wake. Their peeked faces were intelligent and their eyes held interest, as though they were keeping some secret.

She pushed back her hair, her brain still thick with clouded memories. Disconnected thoughts began to stir, to slide about.... Then suddenly her mind cleared, and she sprang up— staring at a figure wearing a familiar black cape.

Hubert Poke was also waiting for her to wake.

He sat in the same chair, and in the same posture, as when she had first seen him, in the flash of lightning. He looked as though he had never moved from his place— as though he could not move. His face had not the appearance of flesh.

As Sonia stared at him, with the feeling of a bird hypnotised by a snake, a doubt began to gather in her mind. Growing bolder, she crept closer to the figure.

It was a waxwork— libellous representation of the actor— Kean.

Her laugh rang joyously through the Gallery as she realised that she had passed a night of baseless terrors, cheated by the power of imagination. In her relief she turned impulsively to the waxworks.

"My congratulations," she said. "You are my masters."

They did not seem entirely satisfied by her homage, for they continued to watch her with an expression half benevolent and half sinister.

"Wait!" they seemed to say.

Sonia turned from them and opened her bag to get out her mirror and comb. There, among a jumble of notes, letters, lipsticks and powder compresses, she saw the electric torch.

"Of course!" she cried. "I remember now, I put it there. I was too windy to think properly.... Well, I have my story. I'd better get my coat."

The Gallery seemed smaller in the returning light. As she approached Charles Stuart, who looked like an umpire in his white coat, she glanced down the far end of the room, where she had groped in its shadows before the pursuit of imaginary footsteps.

A waxwork was lying prone on the floor. For the second time she stood and gazed down upon a familiar black cape— a broad-brimmed conspirator's hat. Then she nerved herself to turn the figure so that its face was visible.

She gave a scream. There was no mistaking the glazed eyes and ghastly grin. She was looking down on the face of a dead man.

It was Hubert Poke.

THE shock was too much for Sonia. She heard a singing in her ears, while a black mist gathered before her eyes. For the first time, in her life she fainted.

When she recovered consciousness she forced herself to kneel beside the body and cover it with its black cape. The pallid face resembled a death-mask, which revealed only too plainly the lines of egotism and cruelty in which it had been moulded by a gross spirit.

Yet Sonia felt no repulsion— only pity. It was Christmas morning, and he was dead, while her own portion was life triumphant. Closing her eyes, she whispered a prayer of supplication for his warped soul.

Presently, as she grew calmer, her mind began to work on the problem of his presence. His motive seemed obvious. Not knowing that she had changed her plan, he had concealed himself in the Gallery, in order to poach her story.

"He was in the Hall of Horrors at first," she thought, remembering the opened door. "When he came out he hid at this end. We never saw each other, because of the waxworks between us; but we heard each other."

She realised that the sounds which had terrified her had not all been due to imagination, while it was her agency which had converted the room into a whispering gallery of strange murmurs and voices. The clue to the cause of death was revealed by his wrist-watch, which had smashed when he fell. Its hands had stopped at three minutes to three, proving that the flash and explosion of the thunderbolt had been too much for his diseased heart— already overstrained by superstitious fears.

SONIA shuddered at a mental vision of his face, distraught with terror and pulped by raw primal impulses, after a night spent in a madman's world of phantasy.

She turned to look at the waxworks. At last she understood what they seemed to say:

"But for us, you would have met— at dawn."

"Your share shall be acknowledged, I promise you," she said, as she opened her notebook.

"Eight o'clock. The Christmas bells are ringing and it is wonderful just to be alive. I'm through the night, and none the worse for the experience, although I cracked badly after three o'clock. A colleague who, unknown to me, was also concealed in the Gallery has met with a tragic fate, caused, I am sure, by the force of suggestion. Although his death is due to heart-failure, the superstitious will certainly claim it is another victory for the Waxworks."

_____________

2: The Missing Boatswain

Joseph Heighton

(told to him by Captain William Sinker)

fl. 1907-1915

The Wide World, May 1915

This magazine occasionally listed reminiscences such as this as "short stories".  There really was an S.S. Warragil, launched 1893, which sank after a collision 1908. There was indeed a Captain William Sinker, who gained his Captaincy in 1902 on the Southern Cross, and died in 1940. It's likely a true story which happened some time in the late 1890s.

SOME years ago I was second officer of the steamship Warrigal, trading to Australia. On one of our voyages the following extraordinary incidents occurred.

We had left London some three weeks when one day it was suddenly discovered that the cook had disappeared. Presumably he had jumped overboard, for no trace of him could be found anywhere on the ship. Another man was installed in his place, and the incident was gradually forgotten, although there were murmurings among the men about its being an unlucky trip. And so it seemed, for on our arrival at Adelaide the bo’sun, a great, burly fellow, was found dead on the floor of his cabin soon after the ship came to anchor.

It was decided to bury him ashore the following morning, and I was deputed by the captain to make the best arrangements I could with an undertaker as soon as we landed. As the men wished to see the last of “poor old Bill,” they were ultimately given permission to go ashore to attend the funeral, the captain stipulating, however, that I should keep a sharp eye on them to see that they did not get drunk, for to some of them the funeral was merely an excuse to go on the spree.

But the day did not end without several of them getting locked up for being drunk and disorderly, and even after I had paid the fines I had the greatest difficulty in getting them back to the ship. I merely mention this incident because it seemed to me very curious at the time that the man who had been promoted to the bo’sun’s position did not come ashore, and seemed, for some reason, to shun the company of the other men. I had noticed certain friction between the crew and the new bo’sun, but with the exception of a little unpleasantness everything went well until the return voyage.

We had called in at Cape Town, and left at midnight, the bo’sun being then on board. At 6 a.m. I sent one of the midshipmen to tell the bo’sun I wanted to speak to him. The lad was away some time, and then returned to say he could not find him.

“Oh, he must be somewhere about,” I replied. “Have another look, and tell him I want to see him at once.”

Again the middy departed on his errand, and after the lapse of about half an hour returned with the same story— he could not find the bo’sun anywhere.

By this time I was getting somewhat impatient, for I had various orders waiting for the bo’sun. Soundly rating the middy for what I thought was negligence on his part, I sent him away a third time and told him to find the bo’sun without fail. When he returned again, however, with the same story, that the bo’sun could not be found, I began to think something was amiss.

Going up to the first officer, I told him what had happened and that the bo’sun did not seem to be on board.

“Nonsense!” he replied. “He must be on board somewhere. You’d better search for him yourself.”

I did so, but could find no trace of the man. The captain was duly informed, and at first refused to believe the story. The crew were promptly ordered to make a search of the vessel, and the passengers, getting wind of the affair, joined in; but, although we hunted high and low all over the ship for a day, no trace of the missing bo’sun could be found.

While the search was being made, however, I heard certain rumours of trouble between the bo’sun and the men, and on making further inquiries discovered that the crew had taken such a strong dislike to the man being promoted that when they had gone ashore at Cape Town they had threatened to “do for him ” if he returned on board. That he did return was evident from the fact that the carpenter had talked with him in his cabin for more than an hour after we left Cape Town, and some other men had seen him also.

Then he had mysteriously disappeared.

I informed the captain of this, and he, after some plain talk to the men, made an entry in the log-book to the effect that the bo’sun appeared to have met his death by throwing himself overboard through fright. It was deemed advisable not to promote any other man in his place, and so we remained without a bo’sun.

The affair was being slowly forgotten when one night, seven days out from Cape Town, a startling incident occurred. I was on the bridge, between midnight and 4 a.m., when a middy came running to me to say that the refrigerating- engineer had fallen into one of the coal-bunkers and seemed badly injured.

I immediately sent for the doctor, and with the assistance of some of the crew the man was got up again. He was fearfully injured. His nose and one arm were broken, and the fall had injured his spine so badly that I believe he ultimately died of his injuries soon after our arrival in London. Indeed, he scarcely recovered consciousness, but now and again he would mutter:—

“The bo’sun pushed me down. The bo’sun pushed me down.”

That was all we could get out of him. I naturally concluded that he was suffering from some hallucination, and took little notice of his mutterings. As it was, the affair cast quite a gloom over the crew and passengers, for it seemed as though the voyage was to be a chapter of accidents and mystery.

However, nothing more occurred to disturb us. We called in at Las Palmas, loaded up with bananas, and eventually reached London twenty- one days after the disappearance of the bo’sun. Everybody turned in as soon as the ship was berthed. Early the next morning I was aroused by a number of the sailors. When I opened the door of my cabin they imparted the startling news that the missing bo’sun was on board.

“Nonsense!” I said.

“But he is,” they persisted. “Bill here has seen him.”

“Bill” was one of the firemen, who said that he had seen the bo’sun hiding in one of the coal- bunkers.

“Absurd,” I told them, angrily. “He can’t possibly be on board. We should have found him.”

They were so persistent, however, that I decided to investigate the story. I went to the chief officer and told him what the men had said. Together we went to one of the manholes and peered into the bunker, but could see nothing. The first officer thereupon suggested that we should go down and see if the man was really hiding there. Calling for a lamp, he held it while I descended the ladder. I was halfway down when, by some accident, he dropped the lamp to the bottom of the bunker, leaving me in total darkness. Feeling my way down the ladder, I reached the bottom and glanced around, but I could see and hear nothing.

A fresh lamp was quickly brought and the first officer descended with it. For a little while, although we searched carefully among the coal, we could discover nothing. Then, suddenly, we noticed what appeared to be two eyes, glaring at us from behind a great heap of coal.

I must confess that at the moment I did not feel very comfortable; those two wildly-staring eyes didn’t seem at all attractive. We called out, “Who is there?” but a moan was the only reply.

“Rather nerve-racking, this!” the chief officer remarked, and we ventured a little nearer to those eyes.

Pulling some of the coal away, we ultimately saw a figure, a most pitiable object, crouching down, moaning and crying. It was the missing bo’sun— quite mad!

Frightened at the men’s threats, he had apparently hidden himself in the bunker to escape from them, thinking that he would thus be able to get safely back to London. Hunger and the darkness, however, had driven him crazy. How he had managed to keep alive at all was a mystery.

With great difficulty we got him on deck, and, after he had been attended to by the doctor, he was taken to the nearest hospital. In a short time he seemed to recover his senses, although his nerves were completely wrecked. It was then that he told us, bit by bit, his strange story. The crew, he said, had all threatened to kill him if he came aboard at Cape Town, and he became so frightened that he determined to hide himself during the voyage. He had crept on deck at night-time, like a stowaway, with the idea of picking up any scraps of food which might be lying about. It was on an occasion when he had ventured a little farther from the manhole than usual that he was seen by the refrigerating- engineer. In his fright he had rushed past the unfortunate engineer and accidentally knocked him into the bunker. This had so added to the bo’sun’s terror that he had decided not to come up again, his intention being, when the ship reached the docks, to slip quietly away. In his madness, however, he had wandered too near the manhole, where he had been seen by several of the crew, whose discovery led to the solving of the mystery.

It is a remarkable fact that, after the ship had been thoroughly searched all over, the man should have remained on board for twenty-one days without a soul knowing about it. He must have completely buried himself under the coal during the time he was being searched for.

__________________

3: The High Rigger

J. Allan Dunn

1872-1941

Short Stories,  25 Dec 1926

JOHN FLEMING, lumberman, was the victim of a form of fear that had been part of him since he could remember, against which he struggled in vain, a fear that oppressed and depressed him with the dread of being known as "yellow."

This was the fear of high places. It came upon him with a swift rush of vertigo, a paralysis of nerves, a flood of nausea that left him a clammy, trembling wretch, clinging for safety or crawling to it, his manhood broken down, shame driving him to solitude.

None doubted his courage in the crew with which he worked after he came back from the war. He had won citations there, risen to a sergeantcy. In the trenches he had known fear of another kind, born of an active imagination— the instinct to run and hide, the terror of sudden death. This he had conquered, banished it utterly, as thousands of high-strung comrades had done.

It was only when he was on a height, suddenly conscious of it, that the Thing attacked him, vanquished him before he could rally his will against it. He could birl a log, ride it through white water, leap from one to another with absolute coordination, without a suggestion of giddiness. His fear did not interfere with his work, he was acknowledged one of the best of the crew; yet he knew that it lurked within him, biding its time, a demon that could turn him in a moment from a man of splendid body, of superb efficiency, into an abject, trembling coward, an object to be laughed at, pitied, scorned.

It came to him in dreams sometimes, the fear of falling— falling to some frightful doom. He would wake sweating and shivering, hoping that he had not called out and betrayed himself. After he came back from the war he hoped that he had acquired strength to overcome it, but the dreams recurred and he felt that the weakness was still there.

He talked about it with the Company doctor one day, a kindly, elderly man. After his confession he sat in the chair across from the other, miserably awaiting a verdict.

The doctor relit his pipe, puffed gravely, manner and voice sympathetic.

"You're the victim of a phobia, son," he said. "There's a long name for it I'll not inflict upon you. The scientific names of ailments always make them sound worse than they are.

"It's a common and sound theory that all things come to us through our senses, rousing emotions to which man, as opposed to the beast, applies reason. The brain cells summon memory. In a coward these recollections may stimulate the emotion of fear, in a bully, those of hatred, You are neither.

"In the trenches you won out with the tally of pride and patriotism, the desire to prove yourself brave. A man may hear or see something that causes him to fly into a rage, but he tells himself that it is not wise to do so. He uses discretion. His conscious self controls the automatic functions of his subconscious.

"But there ate certain phenomena, such -as this fear of yours, that are inherent, protoplasmic, handed on through the generative cells; persistent, though they may not manifest themselves in every generation. Terror of darkness, horror of snakes, your own fear of high places. It may come down from ancestors who lived in trees, or perched in them after sundown for fear of prowling monsters, waking night after night in the fancied danger, or the actual danger; of falling. Our cousins, the apes, still have it. It attacks simultaneously, paralysing your ganglia, short-circuiting your nerves, eliminating brain processes. It isn't anything to be ashamed of, any more than near-sightedness."

"That's an explanation of it," said Fleming. "What I want to know is can I get the best of it?"

The doctor's pipe had gone out while he was talking. He lit a match, regarded the flame contemplatively before he applied it.

"If," he said between puffs, "you were stimulated by some complex emotion or ambition strong enough to control your subconscious and this was threatened by your phobia, I should say that you had a good chance of mastering it, of rallying your will to assume leadership while the other forces offset each other. And, once having won out, the chances are good that the thing might vanish, at least diminish.

"In the meantime," he rose and came over to Fleming, giving him a friendly slap on the shoulder, "why worry about it? You don't have to climb trees or. walk along cliffs in your present job. If you know a lion is certain to attack you, you keep from jungles and menageries. My advice to you is to stop bothering about it, don't herd the thought or memory of it— and stay on the ground. Outside of this, you're a hundred per cent normal. I wish I had your physique. Good luck to you."

The interview had not done him much good. It confirmed the conviction that he was haunted.. If anything it made him moodier, though there were plenty of times when he forgot all about it, in the sheer joy of work, of boon companionship, laboring through the long day, sleeping quietly through the nights.

Through the winter, as trees were felled, swampers prepared the skid-roads, scalers gauged the cut, teamsters sledded the logs down. to the river over the iced ways, while the snubrope men eased them down the declines; the fear was dormant. Spring was heralded. The rains came, the river broke its frozen bonds and the crew went gaily to its banks and prepared to spill the great rollways where the logs had been piled high, sidewise to the stream; making ready for high water to commence the drive.

Fleming had hard work to keep up the study on his course in engineering mechanics. He turned in with the rest, too tired, too exhausted for anything but replenishing sleep. One thing he saw clearly, that lumbering in the Eastern states was played out. The sleds now carried as much as a hundred sticks to the load where once five logs was the limit.

So far, this was his trade, the extent of his experience. He talked with others of the vast stands of timber still on the Pacific Coast, of the methods employed there, vastly different from these in their mechanical development. There he might put in practice what he had learned from his course, advance in engineering, become a boss. He thought of it in the scant intervals between active labor, sometimes for a few moments before slumber and digestion drugged him.

Then the Thing leaped out of covert.

The winter had been a severe one. It was approved practice to break down the rollways by teasing and prying out the lowermost and outer log on a rollway, when the upper tiers were apt to come crashing, roaring down to the river bed, there to lie on the ice until the flood waters bore them off, or be carried away by the already running current. Now ice had welded the logs together and nothing short of destructive dynamiting would stampede the ways. They had to break them out from the top, tier by tier, timber by timber.

Fleming was assigned to the work, heaving with his heavy, steel-shod peavey, putting the strength of his shoulder and back muscles into it, loosening the grip of the ice, sending the big trunk rolling down to the bouldered beach. He worked forward from the rear of the huge stack to the rivermost log and paused for a moment to wipe the sweat from his eyes. The river was breaking up. Brown water showed in widening channels amid the gray ice which the great balks helped to crush. He looked down from the combined height of rollway and steep bank and instantly the fear possessed him from head to foot, with paralysis of nerves, with overwhelming nausea and giddiness. Instinctively he thrust the shoe of his peavey deep into the bark and clung to the pole, his head bowed, shivering, bathed in clammy sweat, the strength out of him.

The man beside him saw him sway, sprang forward, boot-calks sinking in the logs, giving him secure footing, catching Fleming's shoulder in the grip of his strong fingers, holding him, easing him down till he lay on the top of the stack, writhing, groaning in agony of spirit. The Thing, its dastardly end accomplished, was retreating, skulking off.

"You sick, buddy?" asked the man with rough but ready sympathy.

"I guess I am," muttered Fleming. "I'll have to get off of here."

He refused assistance, clambering down hazardously, his face haggard, gray with his experience. The busy, alert foreman was close by.

"Hurt?" he asked crisply. He needed all his men. The river was going out, the logs had to be got into the water.

"I got a spell of dizziness up there," said Fleming dully. "I'll be all right in a minute. It happens to me sometimes."

The boss looked at him sharply, but without suspicion of the real cause.

"Bilious, I reckon," was his verdict. "I git that way myself at times. It'll work off. Soon's you can, roll them loose logs inter the stream. She's breakin' up fast. We'll lose high water, first thing you know. Better not go on the ways again."

Fleming nodded, went to work. The fear had passed, but the memory, the shame of it, were still vivid. The incident did not pass undiscussed. He was known as a good man. Little things make up the riverman's talk. He overheard one verdict that seemed to be generally accepted.

"Touch of that damn gas, I reckon. He got it good, they say. Got a "Craw dee Gare" on top of it. Much good thet does a man."

That shamed him too. But he did not contradict it. The rollways were broken out, the drive started. The logs reached the sawmill boom down river and he was paid off. He did not join in the general celebration. His turkey was packed and he took the first train out for Boston, then New York.

Two weeks later he was on the Pacific Coast. A week more and he was in Washington, the last stand of Big Timber. He was through with the pineries. Now it was Douglas fir, giants of first growth, with some cedar and hemlock.

He applied at an agency. The agent asked him swift questions, surveying his strong, supple figure, his hands, with quick appreciative appraisal; using terms unfamiliar, though he guessed their meaning.

"You ain't a high-rigger? I could land you pretty. What are you? Hook-tender, chaser, choker setter? You don't look like a fireman, or a donkey puncher. I can use any of 'em. Fallers, buckers and swampers."

"I'm a good axman or sawyer. I'll take a swamper's job if I can't get anything else."

"Axman! Fallers we call 'em out here. You come from Maine? You'll find things run different here. All right. Six a day and found. Good chow. First class camp. Radio in the bunkhouse. Ten dollars fee in advance. There's your receipt. Show it to me in the morning. Meet me at the depot. You go out tomorrow morning with a crew to Olympia. Ship in from there. Now then, next man."

ii

LOUISE WOOD— her real name was Alice Louise, she told Fleming— was the daughter of the manager of the Company's store. She was an out-of-doors girl, a woodswoman, slender but athletic, bronze-haired and gray-eyed, intensely interested in the life and activities of the Camp, knowing so much about its workings that Fleming was amazed at her. Aside from the girls he had met during the preparations for his going overseas, the ones he had met in France, most of those that Fleming had known had been backwoods types, or the hybrid women of the rivertowns.

Alouise was different, mentally alert, up-to-date. At first he hardly knew what she looked like. He was normal enough, not shy, but the Thing had created within him an inhibition that kept him away from intimacy with the opposite sex. Suppose a girl he cared for should discover him a coward?

Probably he would hardly have spoken to her, since she did not wait upon the men, had not her father been an old white water wanigan man of Maine and Northern Pennsylvania. He recognized Fleming as akin in race and spirit and made him welcome, spinning old yarns to which Fleming listened patiently enough, gradually coming out of his shell at the girl's frank friendship.

The first thing he knew he realized that he was in love with her— and that she liked him. He took her to the dances at the cross-roads and their acquaintanceship ripened.

He was not without rivals, plenty of them. None serious until "Spider" Reeves appeared upon the scene.

There was nothing derogatory about the nickname. It was chosen not because of his personal appearance but because of his occupation. Spider was a high-rigger, a hero in his way, handsome and debonair, as became his calling. He had an infectious gaiety, a devil-may-care swagger, a ready twinkle in his brown eyes, a way of wearing his well-cut clothes that caught the feminine eye—and held it. Beside him Fleming felt a serious, almost clumsy clown at times, when Reeves sang the latest songs or showed Alouise the newest steps.

It was a new world Fleming was in, lumberman born and bred though he was, and its unfamiliarity at first estranged him.

Here were no rushing streams with white-water rapids, no jams, no wanigan crew or shanty men, no ice, snow only in January and that not enough to stop operations. There was no birling of logs, no riding of them, no clearing up the banks after the first rush of the drive with the picked 'rear' outfit, laughing at mishaps, racing each other while the bateaux darted here and there to keep the logs moving.

All was mechanical, or nearly so. Once they built skidroads on the Pacific Coast, corduroyed them with small logs and the bull teams— twenty-yoke of patient oxen— tolled the timber down them. Then came donkey engines and cables to supplant the oxen and the bullwhacker vanished from the skidways. Now they built a standard gauge railroad into the new area, taking in six-drummed donkey engines especially designed by mechanical engineers to move the big timbers over the rough lands of the Douglas fir forests. The old ground-lead system was done away with, where, no matter how swampers cleared roads or snipers shaped the butts like sled-runners, the logs would hang up and cables snap, with loss of life and time. High-lead logging was the order of the new day and the lumberjacks became timber mechanics.

There were still fallers and sawyers but drag and link-saws run by machinery, working vertically and horizontally, threatened to oust these.

The men had to have a knowledge of rigging, of mechanics. There were rail-road crews, graders, bridge-builders track-layers and operating crews. Blacksmiths and donkey and doctors and punchers. Specialists everywhere, hookmen, high-riggers, choker setters and firemen. Of the old-timers there remained the swampers and snipers, woodbucks and loaders, whistle punks to signal the action of the cable, filers, the bull cook and his flunkeys,

Efficiency and speed, aided by machinery. Electricity and gasoline for motive power. A radio in the bunkhouse, a garage for the men's own cars that carried them to the cross-roads dances. Bath-houses, a laundry, a drying room. Five hundred men in camp, married many of them, family cottages, a school and the store. The men worked only eight hours a day. The old rallies, the fight from early dawn until after dark to get the drive going, to use the ice while it lasted for the sledding, and beat the thaws; all were gone. The timberjacks shaved, bathed and dressed in store clothes after hours. There was no mote singing of chanteys while steaming clothes hung on poles about the blazing fire, clothes wet from a dozen immersions where life was risked in the icy torrent among charging timbers; no legends told of Timber Spooks and Wood Demons, of great achievements in dam breaking or riding rapids. Those who stayed in the bunkhouse played rummy while the phonograph ground out Broadway ballads and foxtrots. The latest films were shown twice a week. There was a surgery and an emergency hospital.

The glamor of the pine woods logging was missing, the burly rivermen, red- shirted or mackinawed, poling and peaveying, breaking out the rollways or the key-log of a jam, the fights and feasts; all that was like a dream. Salt pork and beans, sourdough bread and molasses were replaced by a menu that included fresh salmon and green peas.

No more reunions at the sawmill towns, sorting of logs, the revelry that followed the pay-off, the wrestling, the often brutal settlements of physical supremacy. No more calked boots and stagged pants. The timberjacks wore one piece overalls, like garagemen.

There was one mill in the state, Alouise told him, that produced half a million feet of fir lumber for every eight hours its headsaws ran. The mammoth bull donkey engines— wood yarders— weighed thirty tons, handling steel cables nineteen hundred feet in length, one eighth of an inch short of two in thickness, hauling in logs at a speed of four hundred and forty feet a minute. The handlers had to know how to splice wire rope.

It was Alouise who helped Fleming to adapt himself. While her father lamented the old days of Bangor, of Saginaw, of runs on the Kennebec, the girl, with all the details of modern Jogging clear in her mind, talked of new methods with his new assistant. He did not know that she admired his gravity, his determination to go ahead, to master all the branches of the business. She was human enough, she liked to dance, to ride, to swim, to talk nonsense, but she was modern, energetic, womanly, but eager to accomplish something worth while. If she married a man it would be as partner-mate rather than housewife, though she kept house for her father.

As Fleming became adjusted some measure of glamor returned. The big up-to-date way of handling the lumber got into his spirit. He admired its efficiency and began to see his way to become a more important part of it than the mere swinger of an ax. He commenced to use brain as well as brawn, applying what he had book- learned, watching, questioning, taking up
courses more directly connected with the business. There -were many things to learn and he wanted a general mastery, but he had to take what practical opportunities came along.

From one man, born. on the eastern slope, who took a notion to him, he learned the mechanics of block and tackle, lifts and leverages. He studied knots and splices as eagerly as an advanced boy-scout and became acquainted with the principles of rigging the lead cables and overheads that upheld the heavy butts and sent them along without drag.

There were the trees. The love of them was ingrained in him. It had made a lumberman of him in the first place. Sometimes, he fancied, the affinity might go back to the time of the Younger World, when he had acquired the fear that now never came to him, even in dreams. Those were held by Alouise.

They rode together through the forests, amid the enormous firs that towered on the slopes. There was inspiration among these giants though they were set to slay them, to bring them toppling down. But this was for the housing of men and his employments, the advancement of the age. They were no longer in the Younger World. Government reserving, wise timber men replanting. The ultimate mission of these trees must have been designed for their present purposes. Among the enormous trunks man's most powerful and ingenious machinery labored to an appointed end.

There were firs that towered three hundred feet, twelve feet in diameter at the stately pillar's base. Once chosen firs had furnished masts where the wind filled sails to waft the commerce of the world, to speed discoverers. The song of the sea was in their crowns. There was timber centuries old before Columbus sighted Watling Island. Now sail had gone and steam was passing, electricity was being harnessed from the waters that once ran to waste. All was advancement. And they, as they talked about it, idling their mounts through the aisles where the sun slanted, were part of it, one with it.

From the standpoint of romance the high-rigger was easily the outstanding figure. Reeves, with his likable swagger, his steady head and brave heart, spurred and belted, climbing with saw and ax up a straight shaft a hundred and fifty feet to rig a "high-lead spar," was a picturesque sight.

The high-rigger came to the area as soon as the logging railroad was completed and the great donkey engines sledded under their own power to their settings. At each of these big trees were selected by the foremen, left by the fellers. Gallant sights were Reeves and his fellows, carefree as steeple-jacks, spurred like game-cocks, with a climbing rope attached to a linesman's belt, circling the tree, hitched up as the climb progressed, trimming the tapering column as they went.

High up, seemingly no larger than a woodpecker, Spider worked to forty feet or so of the top, chopped an undercut, sawed through, and then braced himself as the crown of timber and limbs and foliage swung out and went crashing down while the lopped tree swung in vast circles as he clung, riding it as a puncher forks a bucking bronco, swinging to its gyrations; nothing to hold him but spurs, a taut rope and leather belt, his muscle and his nerve. If he should be shaken loose, even if the rope caught, he might hang head-down, with a snapped spine. It happened. Insurance companies did not hunt for premiums from high-riggers.

Fleming, leaning for a breathing space upon his ax, watched Spider in fascinated admiration. But the sweat turned cold on his body as he watched, knowing what would happen to him if he dared such an ascent.

Or would it? It sometimes seemed to him as if his love for Alouise had exorcised the Thing. He remembered his talk with the doctor. If some all powerful emotion or ambition could stimulate him sufficiently to offset the immediate attack, allow him to summon his will, rally his reasoning faculties, it might vanish. He had both these things now.

When the term commenced and Alouise began to teach in the little school, he had idle hours in which he used to test himself. If he could climb, gaze down— but he must not do that at first. He got a belt and rope and spurs and, in some place where he would not be overlooked, he made his first timorous essays.

The trunk soared skyward above him to what seemed an unbiddable height. Fleming tested his rope and belt, clasped the trunk, set in his spurs and lifted himself, hitching up the circling cord and leaning back a little. It was much the way a South Sea Islander goes after coconuts. He made steady progress for twenty feet, then stopped, as he would to lop off a limb. There were none this low down, Presently he went on. Ten feet more. Then, for the first time in his attempts, he looked down.

Instantly the ground seemed to heave like the sea in a groundswell, the solid trunk to rock. He went faint at the pit of his stomach and vertigo attacked him. He fought it off, with a vision of Alouise. He dug in his spurs and held on, until the dizziness passed, reluctantly, sullenly, and the thwarted Thing within him sulked in temporary defeat.

Fleming gritted his teeth, set his jaw and went on to where a limb impeded progress. He did not look down again. Next time for that. Descent was not easy. He had not the trained agility of Reeves, clear as a gymnast. But he touched ground and stood against the trunk, still in his harness, his head against the bark, moist with effort and the clammy ooze of glandular excretion from sheer terror. He put up a little prayer in that moment, of thankfulness, of humility, of hope and petition.

Little by little he fought it out. It was his battleground, a tree trunk; the Armageddon of his spirit, and the trials were very real. He was gaining ground. The tests were not decisive. He made the offensive, expecting encounter, it did not come unexpectedly upon him. But he was winning. He had not spoken to Alouise about it. He feared her shrinking from him, knowing her own resolute way of facing things, her abhorrence of cowardice. She had wormed out of him something of his record in the war and shown herself proud of it. If he conquered, then he could tell her. The defeated fear would be a trophy. She would understand. She wanted a man to be strong in every way. She frankly admired the daring of Reeves. Reeves, inclined to be a will o' the wisp in love, sought out by other girls, attached himself to Alouise.

There were occasions when Fleming might have spoken, if he had not been obsessed by his weakness, times when he fancied Alouise gave him the opportunity, even made it, and wondered why he did not respond. After these she openly favored Reeves, only to check him if he showed signs of appropriation.

The trees nearest the railroad were logged off, the yarders moved back into the woods, a loading engine taking the trunks to the loader. Its track ran close to the spar tree, two great blocks on loadlines directly over the center of the car in use. Two lines were used, each with huge tongs. A pair of these gripped the front end of a log and yanked it free of the pile. The tongs of the other set lifted the other end and the balk swung parallel to the car, the top loader signalling and the loading engineer lowering the log into place.

Back farther the last wedge was sledged home in a fir that was all of seven centuries old, a towering column of three hundred feet. It came down thundering, shaking the ground as it leaped as if in a final agony, the buckers swarmed upon it and sawed it into lengths of twenty-four to eight feet, bridge timbers and plank material, marked off for them by a scaler. The butt logs measured full twelve feet about the bark.

The hook tender swung his choker setters to a big log, the rigging was pulled down from the haulback line, the choker cable girdled the timber. A whistle punk pulled on his wire, a distant electric whistle tooted shrilly and the log moved in a slow roll, its nose lifting as it crashed down the line while the choker setters swabbed their foreheads and thrust a fresh "chew" into their lean jaws, waiting for the next set of rigging to come along. The monarch was down, its forest life ended, its real usefulness begun.

Spider was to rig a spar. There was more to it than the topping. After that he must reclimb with a light line and small block and, with helpers and the aid of a donkey engine— not a yarder— rig the guy-line and blocks. First the high lead block through which the main hauling line must pass, a shapen mass of wood and metal weighing fifteen hundred pounds, to be suspended a hundred and fifty feet from the ground, as high as possible for the maximum effect of the drag. Then a second block for the lead of the haulback cable. Sometimes smaller blocks for the rigging of loading lines.

The spar tree itself was stoutly guyed with heavy steel cables before the heavy blocks were hung, before the yarding, roading and loading engines came to their carefully appointed places. The last were mounted on sled runners of hewn logs and hauled into position. All in all it was an important operation.

"But Spider was the central figure, watched as he climbed, watched as he yelled warning and the lookers on scattered before the top came rushing down, watched as he swung in dizzy circles, as he took up the light line, helped rig the big blocks and at the last came to earth, usually sliding down a cable as a sailor descends halyards, a smile on his face and a light in his eyes, running his fingers through his curly hair and singing.

iii

IT WAS Sunday afternoon. Fleming called at the store, which had dwelling rooms attached, and found Reeves ahead of him. Spider made a face at him, sufficiently friendly, but the look of a rival. The two men got along well enough though their temperaments differed.

"Alouise tells me she promised to go with you for a walk," he said. "You've got to take me along. Starting a new setting tomorrow and I've got to rig a spar. Never can tell what might happen. So you can't shake me. You can choose your own way but I'm tagging. You haven't got the heart to say no, neither of you. Suppose poor Spider gets a ride?"

"Don't," said Alouise. "Do you want to spoil our afternoon? You've never had an accident."

"Tm clever, that's why. But I've had a sort of hunch that I'm overdue, just the same," he added soberly. "Do I get a bid, or do I just naturally crash the gate?"

The girl looked demurely at Fleming.

"Its John's party," she said.

For a moment Fleming rebelled. He wanted Alouise to himself, he believed she would prefer it. He knew what Reeves would do in his place. Make some quick excuse, say something witty but eminently to the point that would make Fleming feel out of it, force his hand for withdrawal. He had the right of way. He glanced at Reeves and Spider grinned at him.

"Not afraid of me, are you?"

The girl flushed. Fleming tried to speak off-handedly.

"Not yet. Glad to have you along, of course."

"Of course. Come on, we'll chirrup to the birdies, pick the pretty flowers. Take along some ice-cream and candy and guzzle it. Make a peaceful picnic of it. How about Rocky Glen?'

The girl had once said she wanted to go there and Fleming knew that Reeves remembered it. He was always scoring small points. Fleming had meant to suggest it himself. He saw her face light up and acquiesced,

It was not far, a- gorge between the steeper slopes where the trees did not find congenial soil, save for dwarf growth. There were bushes there with scrub oaks, birch ash and aspen and sumach. Berries. Flowers. A small cascade at the head, falling to a streamlet, Reeves insisted upon walking.

"I've got to climb all day tomorrow," he said, "Let me tread the good old earth while I can. Listen, Alouise, tomorrow's Armistice Day. You get a holiday. We poor timber mechanics have got to labor. Contracts are contracts. What is the mere memory of past glory? Fleming won't get a chance to wear his croix de guerre and I, a 'umble ranker, as the Tommies say, can't sit around and swap yarns of how we licked the Boches."

"You didn't tell me you had a decoration," said Alouise to Fleming.

"More chump he. Ee's a bloomin' 'ero. I saw the cross in his turkey bag. Made him tell the gang all about it. It wasn't much. I can climb trees but Fleming there climbed into cosy little machine-gun nests and chased out the Heines. Wouldn't think it to look at him, would you?"

Fleming laughed it off. Reeves was generous enough, but somehow gave the effect, to Fleming, of having deliberately underrated his own prowess. He thought the girl fancied so, too.

They picnicked in the shadow of big rocks at the foot of the cascade, Reeves keeping them in merry mood, telling of his escapades during the war that he seemed to have treated only as a medium for escaping onerous duty. Once in a while he told a story with a thrill to it, always related in the third person, with a laughing denial that he had anything to do with it that enhanced the suggestion of concealment. He made Fleming tell how he won the Cross, and the story came lamely enough.

"I'm not a hero," Fleming said.

"Tosh! Likewise spoofing. We'll prove it. We are in the trenches. Zero hour approaches. See that bush up there, covered with flowers? Those are plumes in the helmet of a Prussian officer, make him a general. Trophies for the applauding fair. I'll race you for 'em."

Fleming looked hard at him. Reeves laughed back.

"No wager on it, old scout. We're not breaking lances. Come on."

The bush was two thirds of the way up the steep side of the glen. Not so hard a climb. It was not like going to the top of a cliff, looking down.

Alouise was looking on. She wanted the flowers, had said mere so. But he had a sense of being trapped, of imminent disaster. The Thing seemed to stir within him. He willed it down.

"Come on," he said. "Alouise, you start us."

They were off, clambering in short rushes, catching at bushes, scrambling over rocks, evenly matched, both in top condition, making for the goal. Slowly Fleming began to forge ahead. He was winning. Reeves had held the spotlight all the afternoon. This time—

He was within fifty feet of the flowers when the dirt gave way under his feet. He clutched at a bush and it came out by the roots. He dug the toes of his shoes, his knees and fingers into the shallow soil, slid to rock, weathered and treacherous. His legs shot into space. He was falling— falling!

One hand caught in a crevice and he was braked, drawing up his feet, twisting over on his back. He lost his grip and went slithering down, sidewise. The rock sheered off abruptly and he looked into space, far down to the brawling little torrent.

The Thing had him! He flung out arms and legs, but there was no strength in him. Waves of vertigo and faintness assailed him. He sprawled, slipping, slipping. In a moment he was going to fall. Black horror enveloped him—

He came really to himself at the foot of the falls again, vaguely conscious that Reeves had rescued him. He was lying on some turf, the girl wetting his forehead with her handkerchief. He would not open his eyes. Shame seared him. He heard Reeves talking.

"He isn't hurt. No bones broken. Hardly scratched. I got him just as he was going over. Might have rolled clean to the bottom. He'd fainted. Hanged if I don't believe he funked it. By Jimminy, we didn't get the flowers, at that! Back in a jiffy."

Reeves was going up the cliff again. It was no use shamming. He looked up.

He might have misread the look in her eyes, but he was miserable.

"I heard what Spider said. He's right. I funked it. I told you I wasn't a hero, Alouise. I'm a coward."

She was puzzled, grieved. He did not look at her again.

"He'll get your flowers for you," he said. "I'll be getting along."

She said nothing as he went, looking after him with the same perplexed, hurt gaze,

He had failed— failed! The Thing was his master. Failed before her and before Reeves, who had known that he had been frightened. He remembered now scraps of Reeves' talk in the descent, soothing, reassuring, condescending, as if to a terrified child.

This was the end of it all. Love and ambition. They had not aided him. He went back in utter humiliation, did not appear at supper, crawled into his bunk and lay there. Reeves came in late, chaffing the crowd.

"Anyone seen Fleming?" he asked. But he did not come over to the bunk. They had talked him over, Alouise and Reeves. They despised him.

He tried to get his time next morning. His foreman referred him to the superintendent, busy, harassed.

"Nothing doing, Fleming. Were behind time on contracts. You're not sick?"

"No, sir."

"When you signed on you agreed to give ten days notice or forfeit two weeks pay, outside of illness or accident. We have to make our agreements that way. We have our own to fulfil, under penalty. Your pay check is due in eight days, anyway. You can give notice if you want to— quit."

He put a sting in the last word that pricked Fleming's pride, numb as it was. He had forgotten the clause in the agreement. It was fair enough.

"You're a good man, Fleming. Got good reports about you. You ought to go up in this business. Studying I hear, asking questions. Don't be a fool. Think it over. I'll admit we need you."

That was some salve. Reeves would not gossip, he was sure. The girl was out of his life but— He hesitated for a minute and, as the superintendent turned to the field phone, walked out and got his ax.

The irony of fate detailed him to help with the spar crew. They needed expert axmen to trim stumps, undercut them so the steel cable guys could be anchored to them. The work was not arduous. For a while he stood idle. Spider was getting ready to climb the tree, laughing and exchanging badinage. If his hunch of being "overdue" persisted, he failed to show it.

Standing apart, Fleming saw Alouise come to the setting with her father. There had been some brief exercises at the school and then it was dismissed. The rigging of the spar was something worth watching, Reeves the principal actor. He did not look toward her. Reeves chatted with her, warned her back, showed her where the top would fall.

"It'll bounce and shiver its timbers," he said. "Get in the clear. Here's where the Spider gets busy."

He waved his hand, ran to the tree, jumped at it and clung, four feet up, be- fore he began to climb with extraordinary speed, wielding ax and saw as he disposed of the lower limbs.

"Looks like Spider was out fer a record," said a swamper. "Made a bet likely."

"Bet a kiss with Wood's gal. He's sparkin' her. He's showin' off."

"Best high-rigger in camp."

"Watch him climb."

Reeves' actions were so smooth and coordinate, his muscles flowed with such lack of apparent effort that the usual jerky, inchworm manner of the high-rigger was missing. He went up the tree with the suppleness of a panther. As he lopped or sawed off the lower limbs he leaned back to the limit of his circle cord and the slack of his belt, spurs deep; seeming to stand braced backwards while he plied his tools, leaving the spar trim. This exercise rested his climbing muscles and, the moment the trimming was ended, he swung ax or saw to his belt again, the sun shining on their gleaming metal, and started up once more.-

At a hundred feet he waved his hand again, taking his scarlet neckerchief to use as a banner, This was not bravado but a special salute for the benefit of Alouise, who stood watching him. She had looked, too, for Fleming, but he took care she should not see him. The night had brought counsel to Alouise. Fleming could not be the self-styled coward he proclaimed him- self unless he had never earned that croix de guerre. Reeves had suggested that, but the girl's good sense could not reconcile that idea with the fact that he had never mentioned it.

"Might have been caught off base with it some time," said Reeves. "Or— I'll bet you this is the solution. He got shell-shocked, that's why he funks in a pinch. Lost his nerve. It's a rotten shame."

His sympathy was word-shallow. The girl's went deeper. She had come close to loving Fleming, she was not sure that she did not love him for all the frailty that she had claimed to despise in any man. A tenderness leavened her thoughts of him. His other qualities took on their normal rating.

She resolved before the day was over to seek him out, to try and get his confidence. Why couldn't he have been more like Reeves, death-daring, reckless, climbing until he was only a miniature figure on a long pole, the strokes of his ax coming down to them faintly?

She wasn't in love with Spider, her woman's instinct told her that he was unstable as water, uncertain as the wind. But the sight of that gallant figure appealed to other feminine instincts in her, awakening to the sight of a man excelling in strength, taking grave risks with a light in his eyes and a smile on his lips.

Reeves' bandanna caught on the snag of an untrimmed limb, that jerked it from the light grasp he had upon it. It came fluttering down, scarlet in the sun.

"Thet's sure bad luck," said the swamper near Fleming. "Fer a high- rigger to lose anything while he's climbin', thet's the worst kind of a hoodoo. Allus works,"

"Aw, what's a handkerchief? If it was his ax or his saw, now."

"You wait an' see. It allus works, I tell ye. Means his mind ain't on the job. Thinking of the gel instead of the tree."

"You talk like an old woman. He's up to his mark now, starting to undercut." The tiny figure had lost individuality.

As it swung the ax it looked like a marionette.

They could see the blows fall, the dull sound of the chop coming afterward, then the bright chips sailing down, clean cut as a knife whittling. Reeves had to score deep to ensure the proper fall of the top when he sawed-in opposite his cut. He had to judge every blow to a nicety; to gauge the wind, the symmetry of the twisted the crown, things instinctive enough to any experienced feller but assuming an acuter problem when tackled a hundred and fifty feet from the ground. The top would fall before he had sawed clean through, it would leave more or less of a nub that Spider, with due pride in turning out a perfect job, would clear away before he went down for his light block and tackle.

The little crowd of spectators and workers stepped back out of danger. Wood drew his daughter into standing timber. A falling top had vagaries, it was apt to spin; breaking boughs, sharp as javelins, might be flung in any direction, in a dozen.

Reeves finished with his ax, poured kerosene on his saw from the phial he carried and set to work; rhythmical, expert, swinging from side to side with his stroke, as easily as a sailor hauled to a masthead in a bosun's chair for scraping and slushing. His body strained back to the limit to permit of the free play of the saw, his knees rode the trunk, his spurs were sunk in the bark. His head was on one side, watching, listening for the first creak that would tell him the top was going. The wind was a bit gusty and that was a handicap. And he was bothered too with the loss of his kerchief. Someone had picked it up, but the idle jingle of the woods repeated itself to him:

Look out when you climb the highlead rig

If you lose the little you lose the big.

Silly stuff, all of it, the effort of a would-be woods poet who thought more of his rhymes than actual meaning. There were a lot of couplets to fit every job, ax rhyming with backs and hope with rope; just nonsense, but he couldn't get it out of his head. His sawing timed itself to it.

He wished he hadn't lost that silk bandanna. Marred his performance—a clumsy trick like that.

Ah! The almost severed top groaned, rocked a little. A puff of wind backed it from its intended lurch toward the under-cut, then released it. It was going. Now he had to ride, to spin, hanging on with all his skill and strength. There she went!

Below, they saw the top teeter, start to fall, hang for a split pulse-beat and then seem to twist, to wrench itself free and come hurtling down. They saw, too, as the beheaded trunk started its wild circlings that something had gone wrong; some flaw of the fir, some trick of the wind had

The trunk had split with swift and irresistible, unreckoned force. It flung Reeves off, breaking hand grip and spurhold, flung him backward with vicious suddenness. It had loosened the taut girdle of his rope and, as some men shouted and began to run toward the tree, as a girl screamed, his limp body, head down, began to slip. The rope circle had been big enough to clasp the fir at the base; now, unless the bark held it, or some projection of a lopped branch caught it, he might fall, to bring up with a jerk that would break his back— or might snap the cord.

Some shouted, more held their breath, gasping with relief when the cord braked, held, leaving the helpless figure hanging.

"Must hev cracked his skull agen the trunk when she split," said the swamper as the superintendent hurried forward.

"He's out," the super cried. "Who'll go up and get him down? Take up a line and block and put a bight round him, we'll lower him. Come on now."

No one came forward, An assistant rigger muttered something about a "hoodooed tree." Someone suggested sending for Hansen, another high-rigger, but he was at a distant setting.

"He's liable to die before we get him," said the super. "Hanging the way he is, with a cracked skull, maybe. Hasn't anyone here got the guts to tackle it?"

Alouise stood by with clasped hands, looking up at the limp figure. The tree still quivered. It had avenged indignity.

The men looked at each other. Few of them were climbers, most of them touched with superstition at the catastrophe.

"I'll go up."

The super wheeled to face Fleming, standing with set face, his jaws clamped until the muscles stood out upon it, his eyes luminous with purpose.

"Can you climb?"

The girl ran forward.

"You?" she gasped. "No—"

"He saved my life yesterday," answered Fleming. "I can climb. I've got an outfit at the bunkhouse."

"Where's your belt and spurs?" the super demanded of the assistant-rigger.

"I don't tote em when Reeves is on the job," said the man sullenly. "What's more, I'm married. I've got a wife and kids to think of."

The super turned from him impatiently. The bunkhouse was half a mile from this setting. He looked for a messenger, holding Fleming back.

"You'll need your wind," he said.

"I'll go." The girl was off at racing speed, running like a doe, light and swift of foot. She reached the bunkhouse, breathing fast but unspent, demanding of the flunkey leisurely sweeping out the place where Fleming kept his things. The man pointed to a wide shelf where the turkey bags were piled, marked with names or initials.

She found Fleming's while he fumbled, and ransacked it, gathering up belt and spurs, the stout length of cord with its spliced in snaphooks.

A leather case fell to the floor, opening as it fell. The flunkey picked it up.

"Fleming's craw-de-gare," he said. "Got his name on it. What's up, Miss?"

She did not answer him, but snatched the case from him and thrust it inside her blouse, leaving him stupidly scratching his head. Back she sped, sprinting at the last while Fleming ran to meet her and buckled on the outfit, the superintendent helping with the spurs.

"Are you sure?" she asked him. "I found your cross, John. Your name's on it. For bravery. You are brave, but—"

Her father caught her away.

"You're hinderin' things, Al," he said. "You've done your bit. Let him be."

Fleming read the message in her eyes. She loved him. She would have told him so, even then, let him know that she loved him whether he went or not, beseeching him not to attempt a fatal risk. Light flamed in his own eyes. Once more he was taking the offensive. He was going to win. Forces were rallying within him, Love, and the ambitions it had strengthened.

They gave him the line for attaching the block, the light pulley and the rope, attaching them carefully, escorting him to the tree. It was still now, quiescent.

It was a straight climb. He told himself he would not look down, not that he must not. His spirit was flaming high. He felt the play of his muscles as he climbed, thankful for his tests and the experience they had given him in hitching the rope, for the lessons he had taken in rope-work. He was no high-rigger, probably never would be. That job was only a specialists in the big business he meant to master— was going to master— an accessory and aid, like the pilot to a ship. But he could climb, he could fasten the block securely, using the split to help wedge the hitches, and he could reeve through the long rope. Some one had given him a hand ax that he thrust into his belt.

Up he went, stopping to rest a moment now and then, leaning back. He knew that Alouise, with a prayer on her lips, was watching him, his cross over her heart that throbbed for his peril.

Up until he could see the face of Reeves, blotched from the blood that had run into it, smeared with wet crimson on the forehead, the body limp as a partly filled sack, the limbs loose. He would have to go carefully, when he reached it, to fasten his pulley in place.

The Thing that had seemed to be cowed, made its sortie when he was within a dozen feet of Reeves. Cold sweat broke out on his forehead, trickling into his eyes. He wanted to vomit, the tree seemed to spin. But he fought it off. He had expected it, he was ready for it. It was only material fear, a weakness of the body. His will was master.

There came a cheer from below, faint but heartening, as he started on again. It flushed his blood into fresh circulation, recharged his nerves. Again the sound rose up.

He was up to Reeves now and then the supreme test came. His own body cord was unable to pass the other until he undid its snaps, putting it about the tree above Reeves'. Fleming clamped hard with his knees, drove his spurs deep, caught with one hand at the taut rope that supported Spider, got it clear— and then he was past. The block and long rope were free, its ground end carefully tended by the superintendent. He kept his eyes on the split, creeping up by inches.

He wrapped the loose rope in figure eights about the forking break, made fast, attached the pulley, reeved through the rope end, attached his ax to it for a weight and sent it gliding down, as the hurrahs came up to him. `

His head was clear, the nausea was past. Exaltation flooded him. The Thing was downed. It had vanished, fled in ignominious defeat, the unfair heritage exorcised by his spirit. Never to come back. He knew that, even as he had known fear behind him when he charged the machine-gun nests at the head of his little squad.

He looked down. He saw the group of men, bodies dwarfed, squatty from the perspective, their faces turned upward, tiny spots of white. He saw Alouise, and he waved his hand.

He was not through yet. It was no easy task properly to fasten the bight about Reeves, securing it to his belt, to hold the senseless body while he unsnapped the body cord. But it was done at last and he gave the signal. Men tailed on the rope, easing down their burden.

Fleming leaned back. He was tired with his supreme efforts but he was jubilant. There was new strength and purpose in him. Again he looked down to see Alouise waving her scarf at him. The rope came up to him with a loop in it, into which he stepped.

The solid earth felt good to him. A litter had been fetched and Reeves was already being borne to the hospital. The doctor had pronounced him stunned. He would recover, rig spars again perhaps.

Men surrounded Fleming, shaking his hand, clapping him on the back. Then they stood back, for Alouise. Her eyes were glowing softly through happy tears. Her hands sought his breast, pinned something there.

"Its Armistice Day," she said with a break in her voice. "You ought to wear this. There is no cross for what you've done, but you "

Fleming claimed his reward, given freely, for all the lookers on.

The super had sent for Hansen. Another tree had been chosen. Hansen stood ready, phlegmatic, unexcited by the accident. The work had to go on.

"I don't suppose you want to go up again, Fleming?" asked the super, with a smile.

"I don't think I'd want it as a regular job," said Fleming.

"I've got a better one for you. You're all of a man. Come to my office in the morning. You'd better take the rest of the day off. Come on, boys, let's get busy."

______________________

4: Mr. Aroun's Jewel

William Caine

1873-1925

The Follies, Feb 1922

MR. AROUN was a horrible little old gentleman with large and lustrous eyes, a parrot nose, several chins and a complexion like that of a lemon. He had several eyebrows and one or two lashes, but was otherwise apparently hairless. For an Armenian or a Kurd or a Levantine Jew or a Czecho-Polak or whatever he was, he spoke English quite creditably.

Nobody knew whence he came or what he did, but he lived in Grosvenor Square and had pots of money and spent it like a Government Department and so nobody cared.

His house was full of wonderful Oriental things— rugs and silk pictures and curtains and porcelain and jades and crystals and ivories and ambers and san- jaks and penangs and jehads.

He had innumerable dark servants who, rumor reported, were slaves. When he wanted one of them, Mr. Aroun clapped his hands together. It was like the Arabian Nights or the Turkish Baths.

He was said to own the finest collection of precious stones in the world. Certainly Mrs. Aroun was always marvelously,be-« baubled. Except for one gem, she never seemed to wear the same jewelry twice. To this gem I shall come in a moment; but first I must tell you about Mrs. Aroun.

She was a young Frenchwoman (originally from Tonkin or New Caledonia, I forget which), say about twenty-four, plain enough, not in the least clever, not in the slightest degree well-bred and not to the remotest extent charming. She possessed, however, vitality— a very uncommon amount of it.

She was very well made and could ride, skate or dance with anybody and for as long as was required. She had a loud, harsh voice, and the thirigs she said in it could be repeated only in whispers. She always laughed at these things to point their frightfulness and her laugh was like a clap of thunder.

She was obviously impossible for any society save that of London or Port Said. In London, however, she went down quite comfortably, even as did the dinners she gave.

And now about the jewel.

It was a prodigy. Two-and-a-half inches square and set all alone as a pendant in four silver claws, it flashed and burned and glowed with every splendid color that you can imagine: The purple of old Bristol glass, the red of wine, the blue of the summer midday sky, the gold of flame, the green of the wave breaking under the prow of a boat, all shifted and mingled and contrasted and glanced in and out of one another as the thing rose and fell upon the bosom of its wearer. It was more like a West Highland sunset than a stone.

Old Aroun called it a black opal and perhaps it was one; but to the ordinary black opal this was as an arc lamp to a tallow candle.

Mrs. Aroun wore it always. She made no secret of the fact that she slept with it. It was her god. Half the time she was talking to you she had her eyes lowered to watch the colors come and go. At times she would forget to make any answer, so wholly engrossed had she become in the business of breathing and thus producing novel combinations.

I have said that she was a robust and athletic young person, but this is true only of her first year in Grosvenor Square. In her second year a change began.

First, she gave up riding before breakfast, which had been her laudable custom. She was too tired now of a morning, she said, for that. Then she gave up riding altogether. It fatigued her. She began to go home from her dances earlier and earlier, and at last she went to dances no more.

It was the same with skating. She was seen no longer at Prince's. Her high natural color fell off; her cheeks fell in. She took to painting her face, but that helped her not at all. Steadily she grew haggard.

Now, when she came out of doors, it was but to drive in her vast car two or three times round the park. Then home, weeping with weariness. Now, when she welcomed her guests at the head of her stairs, she crouched (always with the great blazing jewel on her hollow bosom) in a high-backed chair, propped with many cushions.

Soon it was impossible for her so much as to sit through a dinner-party. Her voice became thin and low; her noisy laugh was a cackle. Before the eyes of her w'orld she aged thirty years in as many weeks.

Old Aroun had every specialist in London to her. He had a man up from Birmingham and another from Edinburgh. They all diagnosed her case differently and all prescribed different remedies. You w r ould have thought that one or other of them might have done something for the poor soul, if only by accident. The more of them she saw, the worse she got.

Old Aroun, shaking his ugly head in reply to kind inquiries, spoke of anaemia, of neurasthenia, hinted at consumption, mentioned chronic dyspepsia, spinal trouble, heart trouble, trouble with the lymphatic glands, trouble with the piriform ducts, trouble with the rotarian follicles. It all depended on who had last examined poor Mrs. Aroun.

At length she took definitely to her bed and was no more seen,— for she  had no friends at all— and was presently forgotten.

ii

TOWARD the end of his second year in Grosvenor Square Mr. Aroun went to dine with the Earl of Parracombe. He took down Lady Lilith Woody, the only unmarried daughter of the house. Her mother being dead, this maiden was Mr. Aroun's hostess. The circumstance shows how much the Earl thought of Mr. Aroun or— but perhaps it is the same thing— how useful he found him.

Halfway through dinner Mr. Aroun said to Lady Lilith: "My ouaife will be dade in a oveek. I sal want a new one. Ouill you be her? Yace?"

Lady Lilith didn't pretend to think that he was joking; nor did she slosh him a back-hander across the mouth. She said:

"You waste no time, do you?''

Mr. Aroun explained that he had no time to waste because he was not so young as he had been. He asked Lady Lilith what good she supposed his money was to him unless he had a wife on whom to spend it, a wife who should entertain for him, do him credit with her gowns and show off his jewelry.

"My great, beeg, black opal. You would lak to ovayre him on your beeoudyval nake, Lady Lilith?" he asked her. "Yace?"

That was a thing which, for nearly twenty-four months, Lady Lilith (like every woman who had ever set eyes on that famous gem) had lusted to do. Her eyes gleamed and she held out one finger to Mr. Aroun.

"Put it there," she said.

And she thought: "How pleased the dear old governor will be, bless him!"

She was a good daughter.

This seems to be the place to tell you that she was also a young woman of remarkable vitality. She was only just good-looking enough for a peer's daughter but her figure was divine, though its contours were rather those of Artemis than Aphrodite. (If you are a classical scholar, like me, you will gather that her lines were less voluptuous than athletic. If you are not, please understand that that is what I mean.)

She was indeed easily the most active young person in society. She fenced, boxed, wrestled, rowed, rode, played lawn- tennis, golf and polo, skated, skied, shot, fished, climbed, danced and turned somersaults better than any other girl in Burke.

Poor Mrs. Aroun, at her best, had never been a quarter so vital as was Lady Lilith.

Which reminds me that Mrs. Aroun passed away within the week, just as her husband had predicted.

Three Knighted specialists—I believe one of them was even a baronet—were with her at the end: A Heart Man, a Lung Man, and a Blood Man.

Not one of them knew what was the matter with her, but as they signed a joint certificate to the effect that the cause of her death had been heart failure brought about by pernicious anaemia of the lungs, it was not considered necessary to hold an inquest.

She died with the great black opal between her fingers, and the last thing she saw was a little spear of green fire.

Mr. Aroun unclasped the jewel from her neck and put it away in his strongroom while the three doctors went into the library to quarrel about the cause of death, and finally, like good Englishmen, achieve a compromise satisfactory to no one.

iii

MR. AROUN wanted to be married next day but Lady Lilith said no. She was not one, she told him, to be swayed by any considerations of false sentiment; but she was an Earl's daughter, damn it all! and a decent interval must be allowed to elapse. Besides she had her trousseau to prepare. What about this day three months?

Mr. Aroun couldn't get her to make it a day less. She was a girl who could be very firm where principle was involved.

They were married in St. Judas's, Berkeley Square, by the bride's uncle, the Bishop of Bognor.

As they drove away from the church Lady Lilith (maintcnant Aroun) said:

"How about that opal, Gaga?" This was her pet name for her husband.

Mr. Aroun took it from inside his waistcoat and laid it her ready palm. She gave a scream.

"Hell!" she said, "It's dead."

The stone that had been so gorgeous was one uniform tint of smoky white. It was about as interesting as a tablet of Cascara Sagrada.

"This won't do," she said. "You must arrange for a divorce, naturally. Please tell the chauffeur to stop and then you must get out and I'll drive on to the house alone. I shall not see you again. So good-by to you and here's your blooming opal."

Mr. Aroun laughed like a corncrake. "Oh, no," he said; "it is all raight, my dear shile. He is not dade. Look again more closer. Don' you see, there in his middle, lak a somethings rade lak a 'ot coal in among w'ite ashes. Yace?"

Lady Lilith examined the jewel. "Yes," she said, "there's still a bit of red there. But what of it? This thing's no manner of use to me, so if you don't mean to get out, I shall." She took up the speaking-tube.

"No, no," said Mr. Aroun. "I tell you the jewel is all raight. He is only a little seek. He must be wore, you see, if he is to sparkle. He 'ave live three month in my strong room and he is seek. But when you have wore him one day, two days, he sal come all 'andsome again and better as ever, yace. I swear it. See, he is more lively already, just because you 'ave 'ole him in your pretty liddle 'and."

Lady Lilith bent over the jewel and turned it between her fingers as she had so often seen her poor friend, the late Mrs. Aroun do.

"Why," she said, "dash my skin if you're not right, Gaga! There's a bit of orange that wasn't there just now. And I'll be blowed if I don't see a purple patch next to it. And here's a glint of green. I say, this is rather exciting. Well, perhaps we'd better drive on to the house; but there'll be no going down into Devonshire together, old dear, unless the improvement is much more marked before traintime."

When train-time came they went down into Devonshire together. Their destination was one of the Earl's many houses, lent by him for the honeymoon and reroofed and redecorated throughout at the bridegroom's expense. And ideal nook it was— but this is not a sentimental story.

iv

ALL that winter and the next spring and summer Lady Lilith Aroun wore her famous black opal triumphantly. Everybody agreed that it was more marvelous than ever.

She was painted in it, just as the late Mrs. Aroun had been painted in it, and by the same man, because he still cost the most. He certainly made a much finer job of the opal this time. Practise, I suppose, or perhaps the thing had actually gained in splendor.

At any rate, it was quite splendid enough to satisfy Lady Lilith, and I can't say any more for it than that. It was written about in every number of all the magazines and Lady Lilith's publicity-agent would have been a happy man if he hadn't been Lady Lilith's publicity-agent.

Wearing it, Lady Lilith fenced, boxed, wrestled, rowed, rode, played lawn-tennis, golf and polo, skated, skied, shot, fished, climbed, danced and turned somersaults as usual. She also gave dinners, balls, at homes and bridge-parties, went to them, acted in all the Charity Theatricals, saw all the plays and heard all the concerts, visited all the picture-shows, ate and drank too much, smoked more than was good for her, gambled whenever she had the chance, talked on end, and otherwise justified her position as a leader of society.

She and her opal became household words in the remotest comers of Caithness, Galway and Cornwall. In the Scilly Islands they talked of hardly anything else.

But with autumn it was noticed that she was not being quite so brisk or looking so bonny as usual. She was heard to complain of lassitude.

One day she went home from shooting before the final beat. On another she quitted the river with only seven salmon in her creel. On a third she sat out quite two fox-trots after dinner.

A Lieutenant in the Guards beat her with the foils. A Captain in the Horse Gunners threw her at wrestling. A Commander in the Navy made her nose bleed.

Her color was less vivid, though she applied it thicker and thicker; her eyes less sparkling; her lines less Artemisque; her tread less elastic; her stockings less amply filled.

By the time she returned to London everybody was talking about it. Caithness was in a pucker. The Scilly Islands streamed with tears. It was so sad. Such a splendid young lady! Think of her beginning to fail! And at her age! Terrible! Dear, dear! Alack!

With the first of the winter she developed a hacking cough. Six specialists were instantly called in. She was inoculated, x-rayed, hypnotized, psycho-analyzed, osteopathed, heliotheraped.

Nothing did her any good. The cough continued; got worse. She became thin, emaciated, a living skeleton. Her blood grew sluggish, low in temperature, watery. She could hardly crawl out of one gown and into another.

Her appetite fell off. Her hair fell out. She couldn't sleep. It was all she could do to receive her guests three nights a week as usual and go out to their houses the other four.

Always she wore the black opal. From it she was by no means to be parted. The only real pleasure she had now in life was making its colors dance and blaze. It, at any rate, showed no signs of failing.

She lingered nearly eighteen months and died, in the twenty-fifth year of her life, on Monday, the seventh of April.

v

MR. AROUN removed the black opal from Lady Lilith's neck and put it away in his strong room, while the five doctors who had attended her at the end went into the library to make up some sort of a story for the Authorities.

Not one of them had the vaguest idea of what had killed Lady Lilith. Most of them suspected that heart-failure was the ultimate cause of her death, but beyond that they were wholly in the dark. However, they had to do rather better than that and so they settled on Cope's disease, a malady which they invented ad hoc .

Meanwhile, Mr. Aroun had got through to Miss Vesta Burns (whose soubriquet was "The Living Spark") in her dressing- room at the Brontosaurian Music Hall.

"Is that you, my dear shile?" he inquired paternally. "Yace? Well, this is just to tell you that Lady Lilith is dade and to aska you to nayum the appiday. The sooner what you give me the right to hang that opal all round your luvully nake, the bedder I shall be satisfieded. Wednesday? Raight! I shall arrange everythinks. Goodnaight, my love."

He rang off and went to speed up the doctors.

_________________

5: Ghosts

Arthur Gask

1869-1951

The Mail, Adelaide, 8 April 1944.

IT was the ending of the fourth day of the 'Hylden versus Hylden and Carnarvon' divorce case, and excitement was running high. Not, indeed, that there had been any excitement in the court itself for His Honor, Judge Bevan- Royal, was a stern martinet, and emotion was given no rein when he was presiding on the Bench.

Fifty-five years of age, he had been admitted to the practice of the law in the Old Country some 30 years previously. Migrating, however, to South Australia, he had soon made his mark, and at 45 had been elevated to the Bench. Of an austere morality, and with a well-known distaste for dealing with cases of matrimonial infidelity, it was nevertheless generally conceded he was by far the best divorce judge in the State. Devoid of sentiment and cold as ice where a pretty face was concerned, it was agreed on all sides that in any case he was handling he would hold the scales of justice to the balance of the finest gossamer of a spider's web.

Never influenced in the slightest degree by the most passionate appeal of counsel, and, indeed, regarding all their eloquence as an attempt to fog the issues involved, his mind would sink like a plummet to the bottom rock of facts, and guilt or innocence was determined by him in an atmosphere as calm and still as that of an age-old hermetically sealed tomb.

But if there had been no apparent excitement in the court it was very different outside, as Sir Miles and Lady Hylden were among the best-known figures in society circles in Adelaide, and Dr. Carnarvon was one of its most promising young medical men. The knight was a wealthy man in the middle fifties, and his wife, the lovely Madelaine Adair before her marriage, was nearly 30 years younger than he. They had been married two years, and there were no children. Madelaine was Sir Miles' third wife.

It was the old, old story, of an elderly lover passionately enamored of a young girl, and she marrying him for position and all that wealth could give.

By no means could it be said that Sir Miles was a pleasant character, either in looks or ways. Short and stout, with his head coming straight off his shoulders, he had a red, vein-lined face and hard, searching eyes. Undoubtedly, however, he was most capable, and, with the courage and tenacity of a bull-dog, he had bullied his way to fortune, and in his colorful life obtained nearly all he wanted. He had wanted Madelaine, and he had got her, like everything else—by purchase.

On her part, Madelaine was of some character, and certainly no weakling. With never any real affection for her husband, she might yet have made him a good wife if she had ever learnt to respect him, but, with his passion for her quickly cooling, he had lost all interest in her, and was soon on the look-out again for favors from any pretty woman who happened to take his fancy. Also, of late, he had become a hard and heavy drinker.

So, less than a year after their marriage, they had both begun to go their own ways. Madelaine had been the bright society butterfly, enjoying herself as best she could, and, with no interference from her husband, making her own circle of friends.

Then, suddenly, and without the slightest warning, Sir Miles had pulled her up with a jerk, accused her of unfaithfulness, turned her out of the house, and had the papers served, naming Dr. Carnarvon as the co-respondent. He claimed £5,000 damages. Both Lady Hylden and the doctor strenuously denied the charge, and the cream of the South Australian Bar had been briefed by the contending parties.

In the course of the proceedings in the court two very different pictures of Sir Miles had been given. In one he had been held up as an affectionate, very wronged, and very shocked husband, who had suddenly found himself betrayed by the one man above all others he should have been able to trust—the family medical adviser. In the other, he had been portrayed as the neglecting and unscrupulous husband who, getting tired of his wife and scheming to be rid of her, had deliberately thrown her as much as possible in the doctor's way, just biding his time until be thought he had accumulated enough evidence of guilt against her.

He told the court he had had no suspicions at all until one night, coming home from a public dinner a good hour before he was expected, he had seen a man rush out from one of the french windows, and get away by scaling the garden wall. He had recognised the man as Dr. Carnarvon.

At once instituting inquiries, he had learnt the doctor had been in the habit of paying secret visits to the house, not coming up openly in his car, but parking the car in an unfrequented lane some hundreds of yards away.

In the witness box both Lady Hylden and the doctor had denied the secret visits, and, referring to the particular night when Sir Miles averred he had recognised the doctor running from the house, Madelaine had sworn she had had no visitors at all that evening, adding scornfully that, if she had had one, her husband had certainly been in no condition to recognise who he was, as he, Sir Miles, had been three-parts intoxicated when he had arrived home.

In the course of the trial, what was considered as one of the strongest points made by counsel against Madelaine had been that her personal maid, who had been turned out of the house at the same time as her mistress, had most mysteriously disappeared directly after she had had been served with a subpoena to attend the court. If she had been put in the witness box, insisted counsel, from her would have been dragged the damning admission of the many secret visits of Dr. Carnarvon. Making matters look even worse, it had been shown that the day before the girl had disappeared Madelaine had cashed a cheque for £100.

It was true, Madelaine had explained this cheque by stating she had drawn it to use at the races. As, however, it was well known she had never taken much interest in racing, and, indeed, could not mention one single horse on which she had ever placed more than £1, the explanation had been regarded by everyone as very weak and unconvincing.

With the adjournment of the court on the fourth afternoon, Judge Bevan-Royal retired to his private room, and, taking off his wig and disrobing, leant back tiredly in a big arm-chair, and thoughtfully considered the three parties in the case. He had met them all socially. Sir Miles he detested, he could not help admiring the wife, and, from what he had seen of Dr. Carnarvon, he liked him.

Of course, however, Lady Hylden and the doctor were guilty! There could be so doubt about that and on the morrow he would grant the petition for the dissolution of the marriage. But he had no sympathy with the husband, and would give him no damages. By his neglect and general manner of living he had contributed to his wife's infidelity. At any rate, he looked a satyr, and, possibly, nay probably, was every bit as bad as she was.

Had not he, Bevan-Royal, with his own eyes, seen him making up to that young widow-woman at that garden party the previous week? Yes, he had watched him ogling her in that horrid way. Perhaps he would marry her next and she would be wife number four.

He was sorry for Dr. Carnarvon. It would mean utter ruin for him, even if his name was not removed from the medical register. But then he had gone into things with his eyes open, and he must take the consequences.

His meditations were interrupted by an attendant knocking on the door and entering the room. "A young gentleman would like to speak to Your Honor," he said. "His name is Smith, and he says he comes from England."

"Smith!" exclaimed the judge. "What does he want?"

"He says his business is private, Your Honor, but he'll only keep you a minute or two."

"Show him in," frowned the judge, and a smart young man in the uniform of the mercantile marine was ushered in. He was unusually good-looking, with a smiling, open countenance.

"Judge Bevan-Royal?" he asked. "Then, pardon my troubling you, sir," he went on, "but I come under peculiar circumstances. My mother died rather suddenly some six months ago, and I found among her things an old newspaper cutting of many years back, saying you had been made a judge here in Adelaide. Never having heard her speak of you, I was curious if she had ever known you, and thought that if ever I were in Adelaide, I would come and see you to find out."

The judge's eyes were hooded, and he was regarding his visitor intently.

"What was your mother's Christian name?" he asked after a few moments' hesitation.

"Gertrude, sir," was his reply. "She was a hospital nurse."

"Then I did know her," nodded the judge. "She nursed me through a very serious illness, and, the doctors said, saved my life. I have always had most grateful feelings for her." He frowned. "I wrote to her after I had come out here, but the letter was returned through the Dead Letter Office. She had gone away, and left no address."

"She did it on purpose, sir," said the boy. "She didn't want my father to know where she was. He had been very unkind to her, and she had left him before I was born. I have never seen him, and do not even know if he is alive."

"Then you are the only child?" said the judge. "How old are you?"

"Twenty-five next birthday, sir," replied the boy. He spoke proudly. "I am first officer on s.s. Nerbudda."

They chatted on for quite awhile, and, learning the boy would be in Adelaide until the following afternoon, the judge invited him to dinner at a hotel that evening, They had a very pleasant meal together, and, in parting, the judge asked him to write to him occasionally, adding that if ever he could be of any service to him, he would be most happy to do all he could.

The judge slept badly that night, and the next morning, when he took his seat on the Bench, it was noticed he was paler than usual. The court was crowded. Lady Hylden was not present, but both Sir Miles and Dr. Carnarvon were. Sir Miles looked vindictively confident, but the doctor, though he tried not to show it, was obviously ill at ease. The spectators, generally, having little doubt what the judgment was going to be, thought it very plucky on the doctor's part, to be intending to receive the blow in public.

In a profound and impressive silence, the judge commenced in calm, unhurried tones. He regretted, he said, that none of the parties to the case had impressed him very favorably, as, undoubtedly, much of the testimony given had been exaggerated, even to the point of deliberate falsehood. The petitioner had exaggerated to support his contention of the respondents' guilt, and they had exaggerated in their insistence on their innocence.

Referring specifically to the petitioner, the judge went on, it was surely hard to credit that, if the guilty association of his wife with Dr. Carnarvon had been continuing for so long, he would have had no suspicions of what was happening until the full realisation of it came to him on that particular night— as he put it— with the suddenness of a clap of thunder.

He had admitted, he had allowed— even more than that— that he had encouraged Dr. Carnarvon to be his wife's escort on many occasions. Himself engrossed in business matters, he had asked the doctor to deputise for him, and, in consequence, the two had gone about together to pictures, theatres, concerts, and other public functions. His contention was that his only motive had been to give his wife pleasure, and that he was exposing her to danger had never entered into his mind.

Yet, the petitioner was a shrewd, alert, and far-seeing man, as was evidenced by his business successes, and, surely, it would have been imagined, he would have been one of the last persons not to have noticed what was going on under his very eyes, and seen whither things were leading. Turning to the matter of the co-respondent's innocence or guilt, the judge said he was faced with another problem, as he had to ask himself if it were possible, a single, unattached man of Dr. Carnarvon's age could have been so much in the company of so attractive a woman as Lady Hylden without any feelings beyond those of mere friendship being aroused. If so, the question was— with the many opportunities he had had— had he kept those feelings under wise and proper control? Was it probable he had?

Coming to the disappearance of Lady Hylden's maid, His Honor said, he was not putting that in the scales as determining either innocence or guilt, as it was impossible to say which side her evidence would have favored. Certainly, placed in the witness-box, her evidence might have gone far to prove the wife's guilt; on the other hand, however, might it not have helped to establish her innocence? Without knowing which party to the action— if, indeed, either party—  were responsible for this shameful attempt to impede the course of justice, he, the judge, would have to ignore the incident altogether.

After speaking for upwards of an hour, he gave his judgment in one short sentence, which exploded like a bomb in the court. "Viewing all the circumstances, I am not satisfied the case for the petitioner has been made out, and therefore do not grant the petition for the dissolution of the marriage."

For a few seconds a stunned and amazed silence followed, and, then, an almost audible sigh of relief rippled round. Sir Miles was seen to be absolutely purple in his fury, while Dr. Carnarvon's face was white and unsmiling.

That same evening the judge was about to sit down to dinner, when his wife came in from answering the telephone.

"It was Dr. Bentley," she said. "He rang up to say Sir Miles had a stroke of apoplexy half an hour ago, and passed away almost at once."

His Honor did not appear to be much interested.

"Only what might have been expected," he remarked. "He looked that type of man."

The daughter of the house, the judge's only child, came in. She was a good-looking girl of 21, and the apple of her father's eye.

"Oh, dad," she exclaimed with animation, "I've something which will interest you. Jean Matthews and I were having lunch today at the Old Grotto cafe, and at a table near us was such a handsome young officer in Merchant Navy uniform. I did so admire him, and—" she laughed merrily,— "I think he was interested in me, because he kept looking in our direction."

The judge was examining the pattern of the carpet, but he glanced up affectionately at her. "And wasn't that quite natural?" he smiled. "Aren't you worth looking at?"

"But that's not what I want to tell you," she went on. She spoke impressively. "This boy, dad, was so much like you. He had your shaped head, your eyes, and his hair was even wavy like yours. The likeness was so striking."

"Then I must be a type," smiled the judge, and he turned the conversation by asking her how she was getting on with her golf.

________________

6: The Owl

F. A. M. Webster

1886-1949

Weird Tales, Aug 1933

ALISON MERCER was one of the loveliest creatures ever created by the good God. In her case, moreover, beauty was something more than merely skin deep. One came to gasp at the sheer loveliness of her pale face, and the perfect proportions of her slim body, but stayed to wonder, as the days went by, and one came to realize the greater beauties of her stainless soul.

What a girl she was! Pure gold clean through, body and soul alike, all white-hot youth and innocence, unafraid and utterly unsoilable. That was Alison Mercer.

And, because she was what she was, her friends turned up their eyes in horror when they heard of her engagement to Simeon Stroud.

Why did she accept his proposal of marriage? You'll have to ask her father about that. You see, no one knows what passed between old Tom Mercer and Alison, that time she came back from a ski-ing holiday in Scandinavia. All Alison saw was that the old man had aged about a hundred years in less than thirty days, and her deep, sea-green eyes went wide with worry.

"Daddy, darling," she expostulated, "you've been gambling again!"

"Nothing much, m'dear— bit of a flutter," mumbled old Tom uncomfortably. "Leastways, that's what it looked like at first. Hell! How was I to know the dumed stock was going to drop twenty points in twenty-four hours?" he exploded. "A fellow gave me a sure tip, I tell you. I can't explain how the certainty came unstuck. All I know is that the chap who landed me in the cart is willing to do the right thing by me. He's awfully anxious to meet you, Alison!"

"Is he, Daddy? Well, I'll try to be extra nice to him, if he's going to help you out of your troubles. Tom Mercer shot a queer, sidelong look at his daughter, and his eyes were very anxious.

"You'll find Stroud a sound sort of fellow," he suggested.

"What is he, Daddy, a financier, or a company promoter?"

"Neither, my dear. He's by way of being a famous archaeologist and is a great authority on ancient South American civilizations. He's only just back from a big exploration in those parts. I thought he'd know what he was talking about, or I shouldn't have put money into Chilean Nitrates."

"Ugh," shuddered the girl, "those old Aztecs worshipped birds and wore cloaks of feathers. I can't bear birds, so I hope we'll be able to keep him off that subject."

Strangely enough, Alison's first impression of Simeon Stroud, when he came to Horley Grange and was presented by her father, awakened in her mind all the horrors of her secret pet obsession. Some people can't stay in the same room with a cat, others can't stand the sight of snakes or spiders. Alison Mercer couldn't abide the touch of a bird and, once, when a girl friend had caught a sparrow and placed it, fluttering, in Alison's hand, she had fainted clean away. She loved all God's creatures— don't let there be any mistake about that— but there was something about the smoothness of a bird's breast and the palpitation of a bird's wings that made her feel physically sick.

And Simeon Stroud was like a bird. Not a decent daylight warbler, but some beastly nocturnal fowl, that flew on silent wings and peered in through sleeping people's windows, with horrible, luminous eyes. Such night-fowls live on flesh. But there was nothing predatory about Simeon Stroud's appearance. Upon the other hand, one gathered the impression that this little man was abnormally wise; but one felt, also, that his knowledge was abysmally evil. Further than that, he had a quick way of turning his head sharply from side to side, and of shooting furtive, inquiring glances all over the place, while he spoke in a queer, twittering sort of voice. His nose, set between wide, staring eyes, descended almost straight from below his forehead and ended in a sharp, under-turned point. A soft, fluffy fringe of hair, which encircled his face from one ear to the other, did not improve his appearance.

Despite an almost nauseating feeling of revulsion, Alison —probably for the sake of her father—accepted the advances of this strange suitor. The first time he embraced her the girl nearly fainted, for that fluffy fringe of face-hair, which he favoured, felt horribly soft—just like the breast feathers of a bird, in fact. Her whole body went cold and rigid with sheer, stark terror at his touch, and yet she contrived to accept that first caress without betraying her true feelings.

Most people in Horley referred to the newly-engaged couple as "Beauty and the Beast", but there was one acknowledgeable student of mythology who likened them, artfully enough, to Pallas Athene and her owl.

Alison feared a scene when a light-hearted friend disclosed the nature of their latest nick-name, for she knew the violence of her fiance's temper. But, far from being displeased, Stroud positively preened himself, smiling oddly all the time, and finally gave himself a quick shake, for all the world like a bird ruffling up its feathers to get the dust out of them.

"After all," he said quietly, "Pallas Athene was one of the most beautiful and virtuous of the goddesses of ancient Greece, while it is generally conceded that the owl is the wisest of birds."

"Well, let's hope you won't develop its nocturnal habits after you are married, Mr. Stroud," teased the irresponsible visitor.

When they were alone that evening, Alison looked long and thoughtfully at her future husband. He had evidently found that the cap, supplied by the nick-name, was a good fit, and was well content to wear it. He really was rather like an owl, she told herself, and, for the first time, out there in the halfdark of the veranda, she noted the queer, luminous quality of his tawny-gold eyes. Then, as she continued to study him, she saw that the tops of his ears were Puckishly pointed.

An involuntary shiver ran through her, but she allowed no sign of distress to escape her when he rose presently and came to kiss her good night. When she was alone, however, her head dropped to her folded arms and her slim shoulders heaved spasmodically. They were to be married soon and, after that, there would be no blessed hours of darkness and peace and solitude to follow after that detested evening embrace. She would be the property of Simeon Stroud, body and soul, and again she shuddered at the thought, while there broke from her lips a pitiful little cry: "I am doing it all for you. Daddy; I am doing it all for you!"

A week before Alison's wedding was due to take place, Hugh Davenant arrived home in England. He went straight from the boat to stay with his married sister at Exton, a small village a couple of miles beyond Horley. Next morning he drove into the town to make some much-needed additions to his wardrobe, for he had worn nothing but the thinnest of garments in the South American tropics, and such European suits as he had brought home with him had been purchased ready-made, and were appallingly badly cut. His sister was unable to accompany him, but he had something to tell her upon his return at lunch-time.

"They say that the world's a small place," he announced, as he unfolded his dinner napkin, "and I'm beginning to believe it."

"Did you run across a pal in Horley, Hugh?" inquired his brother-in-law.

"God forbid that I should ever call Simeon Stroud a pal of mine," Davenant answered piously.

"So you know our local 'lion', do you, dear?" queried his sister. "He settled among us about twelve months ago. You'll meet his future wife this afternoon. She's coming over for tennis."

Hugh put down his knife and fork hurriedly, and there was a look of real concern on his clear-cut, handsome features.

"Do you mean to say that that man is going to be married?" he queried.

"Yes, dear, and to a most charming girl. But why do you ask? He's supposed to be tremendously rich."

"Listen, Claudia," said Hugh, "Simeon Stroud may be as rich as Croesus, for all I know. That doesn't alter the fact that he's a most unutterable swine. The South American Indians could tell you some queer tales of his cruelties. But, apart from that, I happen to know that he got mixed up with the followers of some horrible, filthy sect out in South America, people who claim to be descendants of the old Aztec priests. Between them they tried to revive some ancient form of bird worship; but, when it came to a question of permitting the sacrifice of young girls to a heathen deity, even a corrupt South American government stuck in its toes, and wouldn't stand for that sort of thing."

"My Lord! Someone ought to warn Alison's father," broke in Lambert.

''I think you'd find it a pretty thankless task," responded his wife. "Most people imagine that Tom Mercer has sold Beauty to the Beast."

"That's bad," commented Davenant. "Is she a nice sort of girl?"

A slow smile spread over Claudia Lambert's features. "You just wait until you see her, my lad," she answered.

When Alison arrived at the Lamberts' place that afternoon, the party was in full swing and Hugh giving an amazing display of agility on the tennis-court.

The girl stood quite still, and her breath ceased for an instant, as she caught sight of the players; for that lean, bronzed man who bounded agilely about the court with wonderful athletic ease, provided the very beau-ideal of all her dreams; and she knew, instinctively, that his hand was of the right size to hold her heart.

"I wonder whether you are admiring my brother's superabundant energy or his personal appearance most?" said Claudia softly, and Alison came out of her reverie with a self-conscious start.

"He's rather a dear," went on Claudia, "and his fitness is perfectly amazing, for he was very badly gassed, to say nothing of being buried alive, when a land mine was blown up during the War. By the way, Alison, he's just come home from the parts of South America where Mr. Stroud made all his discoveries. So you'll have something in common to start with when I introduce him to you presently."

It was not, however, of South America that Hugh talked to Alison when Claudia presented him at the conclusion of the set. In point of fact he seemed, rather, to go out of his way to avoid touching upon that particular topic. When Alison asked him, point-blank, if he knew her fiancé, he replied shortly that he had met him.

After that first meeting the affair developed with amazing rapidity. If one believed in the existence of such mysterious affinities as "soul-mates", one would have said that Alison Mercer had found hers, with her first sight of Hugh Davenant, playing tennis, like a lambent flame, on the Lamberts' court. Expressed in more mundane speech the fact remains that she fell head over heels in love with him right away. And, because this was so, and because she was intensely loyal to her father and to the promise she had given to Simeon Stroud, she seemed, to Hugh, inexplicably cold at their next meeting.

It was the day after the Lamberts' party, and Hugh had induced his sister to take him to call at Horley Grange, because he intended dropping a hint of warning in old Tom Mercer's ear. It wasn't an easy task to perform, for Alison's father was most mysteriously "in funds", wherefore, from that old reprobate's point of view, "everything was for the best, in this best of all possible worlds".

None the less, Hugh knew a great deal more about the activities in South America of Simeon Stroud than he had let fall at his sister's luncheon-table. He had heard tales of a temple, hidden away in the secret heart of the forest, where men made human sacrifice to a bird which, even allowing for the extravagance of native legends, must be something quite abnormal in the avian world. Once, on a hunting expedition in that same forest, he had found the body of a young girl, frightfully and filthily mutilated, and with the eyes pecked out. Upon another occasion he had met a newly-blinded man who ran screaming through the trees, with blood streaming from features which had been tom to ribbons by rending talons.

These things he had seen with his own eyes. And men said that it was Simeon Stroud, who had discovered the secrets of long-dead Aztec priests, selling his soul in exchange for those secrets, who had revived the awful rites attendant upon the worship of the Great Bird.

Tom Mercer laughed, but took no offence, when his young visitor hinted that he should, as a father, make further inquiries before permitting his daughter's marriage to take place.

"You're a sly dog, Davenant," he chuckled, "and Alison is a wonderfully desirable girl, but I'm afraid you're a bit too late in the field. We are under great obligations to Simeon Stroud."

They had been pacing the terrace of Horley Grange as they talked, but now Hugh Davenant stopped suddenly in midstride.

Was he in love with this glorious girl who had come so suddenly into his life? Pity? Ah, yes! He had pitied her from the bottom of his heart, ever since he had heard that she was destined to marry Simeon Stroud. But, even though pity is so close to love, as hate is akin to fear, the notion of loving her, himself, had never entered his head, until Tom Mercer had made his covert suggestion.

Then, as they stood there, the girl came round the comer of the house and the man knew, recognizing the finger of Fate as clearly as the girl had done yesterday, when she had seen him for the first time upon the Lamberts' tennis-court, that he loved Alison Mercer with all his soul.

The wonder and the glory of the great revelation held him, however, for but the briefest instant. There was something woefully amiss with the present situation. Why were Alison's cheeks wet with tears? What could have happened to bring to her eyes, which normally reflected nothing but the serenity of her soul, that look of sheer, naked terror that now informed them? Why was she trembling, and why came and went her breath in little frightened gasps?

Behind her stood Simeon Stroud, who might have answered all those questions.

At the sight of her parent, the last shreds of a tremendous determination, which had sustained her, deserted Alison Mercer. With a little stifled cry, half-tears, half-laughter, she ran to her father, drawing his protecting arms closely about her body and hiding her face upon his breast.

"Why, my precious, why now, what's amiss?" he soothed her, and his voice was wonderfully tender.

''Oh, Daddy, it was awful, awful!" sobbed the girl. ''We were watching the sunset, Simeon and I, and, although the light has not yet gone, a great white owl came flying silently out of the woods and settled on my shoulder. It was an owl, and yet it was different to any owl I have ever seen, and, oh, Daddy, it was utterly evil! "There, there, little one, come along to old Nannie, she'll stay with you, while you lie down for a bit. Simeon, will you look after Davenant? I'll be coming back with a shotgun shortly, I'm not too fond of owls myself."

"I am sorry," Stroud answered, "but I have an important letter to write before the mail leaves. Perhaps Mr. Davenant will excuse me?"

When Mercer returned to the terrace a few minutes later he carried a loaded gun tucked under his arm and his face was very grave.

"Davenant, my boy," he volunteered, "I'm a bluff, John Bull sort of chap, without much imagination, probably, but I'm damned if I like this business!"

"Miss Mercer has told you what really happened then?" Hugh questioned sharply.

"Yes, it appears that Stroud got a bit amorous, round there at the back of the house. Alison swears that when she refused to allow him to kiss her, in full view of the windows of the servants' quarters, he lost his temper and uttered a most peculiar cry. Whereupon, or so she says, that blessed, great owl that scared her so badly came winging up from the woods. It may be only her imagination, of course, but she declares that the bird flew straight for her eyes, and only settled on her shoulder at a word from Stroud. I suppose you don't think there is anything in all this business?"

Hugh did not reply. For long moments he remained leaning against the balustrade, while he puffed thoughtfully at his pipe. Then he, in his turn, asked a question.

"One hates to work on hearsay, Mr. Mercer," he stated apologetically, "but local gossip has it that Stroud has got you under his thumb. You can tell me to mind my own business if you like, of course; but, frankly, just how deeply are you in his debt?"

"I owe him £20,000."

"Was the advance made after he became engaged to your daughter?"

"Yes," said Mercer, speaking very low, and the red colour which flushed his face was no reflection of the setting sun.

Hugh dropped a kindly hand upon the old fellow's shoulder. "Transfer your debt to me," he said. "I don't pretend to be a millionaire, but I'd pay a good deal more than the money you owe Simeon Stroud to secure your daughter's happiness."

Tom Mercer looked this sudden saviour in the eyes with startled delight. "Why, yes," he breathed. "That would be one way of setting Alison free, wouldn't it?"

The girl herself reacted strangely to the news of her release from the hateful engagement, to which she had committed herself for her father's sake. Old Tom, who insisted upon acquainting her with the glad tidings, just as if her salvation was entirely of his own devising, wished to save her the painful task of giving her fiancé his congé in person. But to this plan she would not consent.

"No, Daddy," she said firmly, "we're treating Simeon pretty badly, anyway. The least I can do, in common decency, is to see him and tell him how sorry I am if the breaking off of our engagement should cause him any pain."

"Spoken like my own brave, little girl," said her father heartily. "But, at least, you must let me be present at the interview."

Alison smiled as she shook her head, but she was neither smiling, nor feeling particularly courageous as she took her way to the dark house where Stroud lived, deep in the woods.

She found him seated in a deep chair in his gloomy, book-lined library. When he rose to greet her, and would have taken her in his arms, she pushed him gently away.

"Simeon," she said, pausing just inside the door, "I am afraid I have come to hurt you. This engagement of ours has been all a dreadful mistake. I have never loved you; and Simeon, there is something about you— something birdlike— that simply terrifies me. I have tried to go through with it, for my father's sake; but, oh, Simeon, I just couldn't face it all, when it came to the final pinch."

Stroud returned to his seat without a word, and then the girl realized, with a half-stifled gasp of horror, that a great owl had fluttered silently out of the shadows and was perched upon the high back of its master's chair. The fascination of the moment was frightful. Man's and bird's alike, the two pairs of eyes fronting her glowed luminous and golden in the half-dark. Man and bird alike seemed to brood, with heads sunk forward; and the girl saw, with a shudder, that each had sharply-pointed ears; but, whereas those of the great bird were feathered, those of the gross man were tip-pointed with tufts of hair.

"So," sneered Simeon, "you do not find yourself able to love me, my fair Alison?"

"Oh, please, I'm so sorry," she broke in.

The man silenced her with never a gesture, never a movement, but only by the luminous intensity of the stare he turned upon her. And, from close beside his head, the owl stared at her too.

"I was not thinking of you or me," he answered in his soft, bird-like voice. "I was only pitying your father, who must suffer for this sudden folly of yours."

Something in the covert sneer aroused the girl's anger.

"My father will pay you back the money with which you sought to buy me," she flared back at him.

The man rose slowly to his feet and moved towards her down the length of the room. And, as he came, the owl fluttered up from the back of the chair and floated forward, not a foot above his head. Bird and man, together, they presented an awful picture of incarnate evil. Alison shrank back with a low moan of fear, for Simeon Stroud's hand was rising, each moment his eyes seemed to grow larger, and his lips were framing the strange call which, she felt sure, would unloose that grim, familiar fluttering overhead to attack her eyes.

Then the unbearable tension was broken. A sharp rap echoed from the panels and the door was flung open.

"Mr. Davenant has called for Miss Mercer, sir!" announced a manservant, and Alison ran past him into the well-lit hall where Hugh was waiting. One last, frightened look she threw back into the gloomy library. Simeon Stroud still stood there, hand half-raised and sombre eyes smouldering in deep sockets, but of the owl that had fluttered above his head she could see no sign.

Next day Simeon Stroud received his £20,000 from old Tom Mercer's solicitor, and, from that time onwards, the folks of Horley saw him no more. From that time, too, Alison Mercer became a changed woman. All the carefree happiness of girlhood returned to her, she had found love and she had no fear of taking between her two hands the best of all gifts the gods may bestow upon mortals. But summer had come and gone again before Hugh returned to Horley, to ask for her hand in marriage and to receive such a joyful assent as set his whole soul singing.

They were to be married just before Christmas, and Hugh had taken an old-fashioned, furnished house at Uleswood in the Lake District for their honeymoon. The place was in wild country, not far from Ullswater. There was a distinct similarity between the two names and it never occurred to Hugh that "ule" is the old English form for "owl"; and that "Uleswood" is, therefore, "Owlswood", otherwise he might have chosen another locality for their honeymoon. On the other hand, he might not have done so; for Stroud seemed to have vanished entirely from their lives, and it is doubtful if they ever gave a thought to him, until Alison received, among the last of many wedding-presents, four silver pepper-castors fashioned to represent owls. No card accompanied this gift, but she entertained no doubt as to whence it had come; and yet, for some reason, which she did not even attempt to explain to herself, she did not mention the matter to Hugh. Those four silver symbols filled her with a strange, vague dread, and perhaps she feared that mention to Hugh of her former fiance might cast some shadow upon the magic wonder of their honeymoon.

The house at Uleswood proved to be a perfect little gem of steep-gabled roofs, leaded and mullioned windows and oak-panelled rooms. The night they arrived was one of gorgeous moonlight, the bedroom was hot and close with the resinous reek of the pine-logs blazing in the hearth, and Alison set the window wide open before she crept into bed.

MIDNIGHT was long past when a finger of moonlight stole softly across the floor, crept up the wall and travelled sveltely on until it rested upon two heads—one dark, the other golden —which lay so close to one another. Hugh stirred uneasily and murmured in his sleep.

"Twhitt! Twhoo!!"

Hugh's sleepy eyes opened and he turned in search of that beauty of soul and body that the night had given entirely into his keeping.

"Twhitt! Twhoo!!"

Faint and from far away the homed owl's cry came echoing.

Hugh's hand stretched out and touched the soft, warm curve of his bride's breast, that rose and fell so gently. The lovely warmth of living flesh comforted him, banished the vague fear which the owl's cry had aroused in his half- wakened fancy. A small hand sought for and encircled his fingers. His head sank back upon the pillow. Sleep was returning.

"Twhitt! Twhoo!!"

Louder— and nearer now! Great evil eyes, luminous and eerie, glared in through the leaded panes. Wide wings were spread and a vast form floated silently towards the open casement. Hugh Davenant turned restlessly and shuddered in his sleep. The moon was gone, swallowed up by a bank of black-bellied clouds. The white mystery circled slowly above the wedded lovers slumbering in that soft, warm bed. Silence, abysmal darkness. Nothing save twin lamps of fear that floated through the gloom.

Hugh Davenant dreamed that he was back in a front-line trench in Flanders. And it was as it had been in the beginning. Once more the blind night rocked to the awfu roar of big guns, once more the trench-lights soared, greet and ghastly, towards the storm-dark skies; and yet, once more, the dreaded North-East gas wind came blowing out of the blackness across No Man's Land, with death enfolded beneath the silence of its wings— its wings silent as those o: an owl.

"Twhitt! Twhoo!!"

The claws of the gas clouds were searching for Davenant's windpipe, its wings descended upon his face, tearing and rending his flesh. A catch at the back of his throat—water fo: breath. Fight it off! Kill those bloody swine in the helmet who were following up the foul veils of death they had let loose.

Something was striking at his eyes now. God! If they should blind him. Then, at last, his hands closed upon living flesh. Something human to battle with— something that couldn't kill, as the poison-gas killed— a soft, human throat— the shrill whistle of life's breath crushed out by merciless hands. Dear God, if he could only see! See and exult at the sight of starting eyeballs, glimpse the black tongue protruding through snarling lips. Curse this gas-helmet that was blinding him.

He released his hands to snatch it off and felt his fingers sink into soft feathers, while something tore at his face with rending agony.

"Oh, Christ! Jesu Christ, save me!"

Weak and agonized, the pitiful prayer echoed in his ears, and he knew, as the mists of dream-madness cleared from his brain, that it was around her throat—his wife's throat—that his hands had been locked in the awful death-grip.

His hand stretched out towards the lamp beside the bed, but before his fingers could find the switch, something soft and feathery struck him in the face again, and again a hooked beak pecked savagely at his eyes.

"Oh! Jesu Christ, save us both from the Power of the Beast!"

Again that feeble, piteous cry for aid; and, as if in answer from overhead, a terrifying scream of baffled, evil rage:

"Twhitt! Twhoo!!"

Hugh's fumbling fingers found the switch, the room was flooded with light and he saw a great owl, as big as an eagle, it seemed, go circling round the room for the last time.

As it vanished through the window, Hugh, heedless of the blood streaming from his features, snatched up the revolver, which long habit overseas had accustomed him to placing always upon a table beside his bed, and sprang to the open casement. As he reached the window the moon sailed into sight and he saw the great owl flying fast and low above the ground, as it circled towards the house for a fresh attack.

The vastness of it seemed to fill all the space of night as it rushed upon him. But the man's nerves were steady as chilled steel, as he fired again and again, aiming with deadly deliberation to send the heavy bullets smashing into the evil brain behind those luminously glowing eyes.

And then it was over. With a last wild shriek, the awful cry of some lost soul hurled down to face everlasting damnation, the great owl heeled over and fluttered slowly to the earth.

Alison crept shakily across the room, fingering her bruised throat with tender touch. She closed and barred the casement and turned to tend the man whose handsome features had been cut to ribbons by the cruel talons of the great bird.

AND in the morning, a gardener, coming early to his work, found beneath the window of the honeymooning couple the dead body of a man with strangely pointed ears and a fringe of soft hair encircling his features. The rest of his face was unidentifiable, for heavy bullets had smashed their way through between the eyes and the head was almost blown to pieces.

But to whom, save Simeon Stroud, could those pointed, hair-tipped ears and that strange fringe of feathery fluff about the chin have belonged?

______________

7: Once it Happened

Achmed Abdullah

1881-1945

Liberty, 19 Nov 1938

HE entered the church and sat down in one of the back pews. He had not come to pray; considered prayer— and faith— a surrender of his intelligence, an emotional escape. He had come merely because, walking up the Avenue for a breath of fresh air, he had felt faint. Not with pain, but with fear.

He withdrew his hand from his pocket and looked at it in the dim light.

His right hand: a cunning hand; a physician's hand. Last week, under the N-ray out of control, it had suddenly shriveled, now hung limp and lifeless. He knew that, if not cut off, the newly formed cells at the junction of the healthy and shriveled parts would become cancerous and disperse throughout the body. It must be amputated at once. Tomorrow Angus Kerr would enter Roosevelt Hospital— would leave it a cripple.

"My personal sacrifice," he thought, slipping his hand back in the pocket, " to science."

Science was the god in whom he believed implicitly— with, had he known, a rather pathetic faith.

The other god? The one housed here in this church, on the glittering pomp of the altar and frescoed on the ceiling against the rose-and-turquoise background of winged angels?

Pah! What was he but a tribal deity of the ancients? A totem for silly, ignorant people who refused to look reality in the face! This god whom they worshiped here and to whom they droned their fatuous prayers was a mere dream, an unsubstantial and eviscerated illusion. A sane man had no illusions. And he, Angus M'Pherson Kerr, was sane straight through.

He had worked, keenly and soundly, all his life. First at Watson's, that great old Scottish school. Then at Edinburgh; the University of Paris; London. Finally a postgraduate course at Harvard. Getting his M. D. and Ph. D. Days and nights of study and toil. Taking nothing— absolutely nothing— for granted until he had in- vestigated it himself, convinced himself. So that today he was a great scientist; one of the greatest— he reflected with cold pride— even if his chance discovery of the N-ray had never occurred.

For, he owned up, it had been chance, not the result of minute research. And, he mused, it was odd how, on that winter evening in his laboratory, he had held in his hand, so suddenly, the power— of life and death? He was not yet sure. Sure, though, that it spelled an amazing rejuvenation of life. Sure that ultimately it would divulge to him the secret of life itself; would allow him— and instinctively he gave a little shudder at the thought— to create life.

But that was still in the future. What he already had was good enough to start with; would put him above Lister, Koch, Pasteur, Mme. Curie. Besides, it would give him all the money he needed to continue his experiments, since in his breast pocket was an offer from a leading pharmaceutical concern. Five hundred thousand dollars spot cash. Then royalties— and they would be enormous.

He glanced at the praying men and women. Doubtless they imagined that the Lord on the altar could bestow upon them the priceless gift of salvation.

Well—he, Angus M'Pherson Kerr, M. D., Ph. D., could bestow upon them a far more priceless gift.

This woman across the aisle, for instance. Sixty, if she was a day, flabby, raddled, her hair gray and brittle— why, he could make her thirty once more. And the middle-aged man over there— he could change him into his former self, a trim and elegant buck swinging down the Avenue and ogling the girls.

But he was not able— at least, not yet— to restore a thing utterly destroyed. Such as his own right hand.

Well— he would keep on experimenting. He would learn how to harness the ray completely; too, how to employ it in the remaking of limb or tissue. Though not soon enough for himself, since his hand was going to be amputated tomorrow by Professor Harlow Murchison. The same Harlow Murchison who had assisted him with the N-ray experiments until they had quarreled.

QUEER chap, Harlow Murchison. Finest surgeon in America. Yet as superstitious as any Highland crofter back home in Scotland.

Why, this afternoon, only a few hours ago— when, with Angus Kerr as interested spectator, he had finished operating on a badly wounded policeman— he had said to the latter's pretty young wife:

"I've done all I can. The rest is up to you. Pray! Pray to the greatest physician of them all. You'll find Him in any church between the Bowery and the Bronx."

Ridiculous to try this sort of poppycock on a man like himself, a thinking man, a great scientist. And that's what Harlow Murchison had done on that evening, some years ago, after Angus Kerr's first successful N-ray experiment....

" Angus," Murchison had said, "this experiment of yours needs prayer. Otherwise it had better not be. You can rejuvenate the body. You've done it with an animal. And I don't doubt that ultimately you'll succeed with a human being. But by doing so, by thus altering the appointed life span of the individual, may you not, for all you know, change his character and harm his soul? "

"I," bluntly, "do not believe in the soul."

"And once," had been the soft rejoinder, "I heard of an egg, such an erudite Scotch egg, that had misgivings in the matter of the hen."

Angus Kerr had shrugged his shoulders, too angry to reply, while the other had continued:

"You're a great scientist. You've gone far. And you can go much farther. Here in this laboratory a wonderful truth has been revealed to you. And," sharply, "I use the word 'revealed'— mind you! God— in whom I believe—permits us, means for us, to find out. But He watches jealously how we treat what we do find out. Take your rejuvenation process. You must ask yourself, Are you doing good to mankind by putting it to practical use? Or are you, perhaps, doing harm?"

"Ye're talking like a Presbyterian minister."

"My father was one. So was yours." A short silence. "Our brains have been given to us by One greater than we only in order that we may serve— not ourselves, our vanity, but mankind. And, as we serve..."

"Brothers, let us pray!" Angus Kerr had interrupted with savage irony.

Harlow Murchison had stopped helping the other with his experiments, had turned more and more to surgery; while, in the months to come, Angus Kerr had devoted nearly all his time and energy to his researches, keeping on doggedly, stubbornly, almost bitterly.

It was no selfish conceit which drove him on. It was, on the contrary, his desire to help mankind. And if, in the beginning, in the probative, tentative stage of his experiments, he did not succeed, dealt out death instead of new life, well— defiantly— it could not be helped.

Those two crippled slum children, for instance, whose bones he had treated with direct application of the ray. He had succeeded in straightening out their fantastically twisted limbs. Then, within the month, they had died. But, in spite of it, it had not been a failure.

For it had helped him to correct an error in his formula. The children had been a sacrifice to science— as his own right hand was a sacrifice.

There were moments when, to better the scheme of life, one had to wipe it out completely before one could create a new and finer pattern. It was nothing but the proper balance and economy of nature.

That woman of fifty-eight, the first to take a strong dose of it, and who had shed her wrinkled skin and stood forth in youthful radiant beauty. A triumph—though afterward she had gone mad. In her lucid intervals she had begged to be made old again; to be— her curious words— "as old in my body as I am in my mind."

And that banker who, at seventy-two, had wanted to mate with twenty-six. The Elixir had made that possible. But the young wife? She had been fond of the man before the N-ray treatment— but, after the treatment, had recoiled from senility made over in a brand-new mold of youth. She had called on Angus Kerr. Had cursed him terribly. Had cried that, when she looked within her husband's soul— oh, thought Angus Kerr, why would people blab about the soul?— she had not found rich, passionate youth, but only the obscenities of an old satyr.

COME to think of it, the people whom he had treated seemed all to be unhappy after a while. Almost afraid. As if their new young bodies and their old minds did not dovetail, were— oh— at outs.

Well, he'd continue with his experiments and would notify the pharmaceutical concern to wait before marketing his Viva Elixir. He had not yet signed the contract; and there was only one copy of his formula— it was here, securely in his pocket.

He would take up the point with them as soon as he got out of Roosevelt Hospital. Which reminded him: It was getting late. He needed a good night's rest before the operation tomorrow.

Quite a shock, such an operation, for a man of his years. Suppose he should not be able to survive it, he who had still so many things to do in life, so many scientific discoveries to make.

The thought was bitter.

Bitter his heart as he looked at the worshipers. Fools! Fools all, with the droning prayers!

He could not make out the words. they were.

"But deliver us from evil..."

It would be evil— his grim reflection— if he were to die. Evil if his active brain were stilled forever.

Yes— death was an evil thing. For it spelled a full stop, complete annihilation.

But he knew what

Yet, he recalled, his father, in explaining the Lord's Prayer, had said that what was meant by this passage was not the evil of dying but the evil of living. The old clergyman, on his deathbed, had turned to his weeping wife and son, telling them not to worry, for there was in Holy Scriptures one saying that had given hope and comfort to uncounted millions. He had quoted it:

"For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life."

ANGUS KERR sighed. His own lost youth in the memory of his father's words. His own lost faith.

Faith. A meaningless thing— as the soul was a mean- ingless thing. There were only facts. Facts clean as the snow, strong as the sea, naked as an unsheathed knife, and— with, again, the thought of the morrow, the oper- ation, occurring to him— terrible as an army with banners.

Terrible the fact that he might not survive the operation; that, even if he did, he would be a cripple. And all at once he was conscious, deep within him, of rebellion at his fate; and with rebellion came panic; and— he being a strong, violent man— with panic came blind rage.

He stared at the altar.

Inside his soul— the soul which he denied and ridiculed— he screamed:

"Show me Your power, O powerless symbol! Deliver me from evil— if You can! You can't! You can't! Pah— I have more power than You! I, at least, can rejuvenate life! And You can do nothing— nothing..."

And, with horrible mockery, the scream in his soul rising to a hysterical pitch:

"Deliver me from evil— from the evil of being a cripple! Why don't You? Oh— why don't You?"

And then with actual spoken words, in a thin, cracked, tremulous voice with an undertone of sobbing pain:

"Oh—why don't You...?"

His forehead was moist with icy sweat. He took out his handkerchief to wipe it—and he gave a start.

His right hand—he had used it! Why— it was shriveled, limp, lifeless. He— he could not have used it!

And yet, here it was— his right hand. Still clutching the handkerchief with strength. The warm blood coursing through it tinglingly. The fingers moving, moving.

He was conscious, the next moment, of something in the secret inner recesses of his being; a flaming hope and prophecy, as of a nameless and radiant ecstasy which invaded him. He shook his head.

Then he pulled himself together.

A— a miracle?

No, no! he told himself, with all his dour Aberdeen stubbornness. Miracles were superstitions. Perhaps a retroactive quality in the N-ray had cured as suddenly as it had shriveled.

That must be it. Tomorrow morning, in his laboratory, he would begin the proper experiments.

He got up. He walked down the aisle. He smiled— a rather embarrassed, rather self-conscious smile— as, with his right hand, he took the formula of his rejuvenating discovery out of his pocket, took out the letter from the pharmaceutical concern, tore up both and dropped the pieces on the tessellated marble floor.

The pieces fluttered about. An usher hurried up; said to him in a whisper:

" What's the idea— throwing bits of paper about in the house of God...?'

Angus Kerr looked at the other.

"It's the verra thing for the house of God," he replied in his broadest Scots. " Ye see— ye might call it my personal offering, man."

And he went toward the door. He told himself that life was out there, calling to him, waiting for him. Work was waiting for him. Some great scientific work. Some un- selfish work. Something— oh— tower-high above pride and conceit and greed. Something— oh, yes! the almost triumphant thought— to bless the race of man and praise the Lord thereby.

_____________

8: An Unlocked Window

Ethel Lina White

Pearson’s Magazine, March 1926

Filmed for the "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" TV show. (This story appeared in Past Masters 78, but some of the text was missing. Thanks to Roy Glashan of Roy Glashan's Library for finding the missing text.)

"HAVE YOU locked up, Nurse Cherry?"

"Yes, Nurse Silver."

"Every door? Every window?"

"Yes, yes."

Yet even as she shot home the last bolt of the front door, at the back of Nurse Cherry's mind was a vague misgiving.

She had forgotten— something.

She was young and pretty, but her expression was anxious. While she had most of the qualities to ensure professional success, she was always on guard against a serious handicap.

She had a bad memory.

Hitherto, it had betrayed her only in burnt Benger and an occasional overflow in the bathroom. But yesterday's lapse was little short of a calamity.

Late that afternoon she had discovered the oxygen-cylinder, which she had been last to use, empty— its cap carelessly unscrewed.

The disaster called for immediate remedy, for the patient, Professor Glendower Baker, was suffering from the effects of gas-poisoning. Although dark was falling, the man, Iles, had to harness the pony for the long drive over the mountains, in order to get a fresh supply.

Nurse Cherry had sped his parting with a feeling of loss. Iles was a cheery soul and a tower of strength.

It was dirty weather with a spitting rain blanketing the elephant-grey mounds of the surrounding hills. The valley road wound like a muddy coil between soaked bracken and dwarf oaks.

Iles shook his head as he regarded the savage isolation of the landscape.

"I don't half like leaving you— a pack of women— with him about. Put up the shutters on every door and window, Nurse, and don't let no one come in till I get back."

He drove off—his lamps glow-worms in the gloom.

Darkness and rain. And the sodden undergrowth seemed to quiver and blur, so that stunted trees took on the shapes of crouching men advancing towards the house.

Nurse Cherry hurried through her round of fastening the windows. As she carried her candle from room to room of the upper floors, she had the uneasy feeling that she was visible to any watcher.

Her mind kept wandering back to the bad business of the forgotten cylinder. It had plunged her in depths of self-distrust and shame. She was overtired, having nursed the patient single-handed, until the arrival, three days ago, of the second nurse. But that fact did not absolve her from blame.

"I'm not fit to be a nurse," she told herself in bitter self-reproach.

She was still in a dream when she locked the front door. Nurse Silver's questions brought her back to earth with a furtive sense of guilt.

Nurse Silver's appearance inspired confidence, for she was of solid build, with strong features and a black shingle. Yet, for all her stout looks, her nature seemed that of Job.

"Has he gone?" she asked in her harsh voice.

"Iles? Yes."

Nurse Cherry repeated his caution.

"He'll get back as soon as he can," she added, "but it probably won't be until dawn."

"Then," said Nurse Silver gloomily, "we are alone."

Nurse Cherry laughed.

"Alone? Three hefty women, all of us able to give a good account of ourselves."

"I'm not afraid." Nurse Silver gave her rather a peculiar look. "I'm safe enough."

"Why?"

"Because of you. He won't touch me with you here."

Nurse Cherry tried to belittle her own attractive appearance with a laugh.

"For that matter," she said, "we are all safe."

"Do you think so? A lonely house. No man. And two of us."

Nurse Cherry glanced at her starched nurse's apron. Nurse Silver's words made her feel like special bait— a goat tethered in a jungle, to attract a tiger.

"Don't talk nonsense," she said sharply.

The countryside, of late, had been chilled by a series of murders. In each case, the victim had been a trained nurse. The police were searching for a medical student— Sylvester Leek. It was supposed that his mind had become unhinged, consequent on being jilted by a pretty probationer. He had disappeared from the hospital after a violent breakdown during an operation.

Next morning, a night-nurse had been discovered in the laundry— strangled. Four days later, a second nurse had been horribly done to death in the garden of a villa on the outskirts of the small agricultural town. After the lapse of a fortnight, one of the nurses in attendance on Sir Thomas Jones had been discovered in her bedroom— throttled.

The last murder had taken place in a large mansion in the very heart of the country. Every isolated cottage and farm became infected with panic. Women barred their doors and no girl lingered late in the lane, without her lover.

Nurse Cherry wished she could forget the details she had read in the newspapers. The ingenuity with which the poor victims had been lured to their doom and the ferocity of the attacks all proved a diseased brain driven by malignant motive.

It was a disquieting thought that she and Nurse Silver were localized. Professor Baker had succumbed to gas-poisoning while engaged in work of national importance and his illness had been reported in the Press.

"In any case," she argued, "how could— he— know that we're left tonight?"

Nurse Silver shook her head.

"They always know."

"Rubbish! And he's probably committed suicide by now. There hasn't been a murder for over a month."

"Exactly. There's bound to be another, soon."

Nurse Cherry thought of the undergrowth creeping nearer to the house. Her nerve snapped.

"Are you trying to make me afraid?"

"Yes," said Nurse Silver, "I am. I don't trust you. You forget."

Nurse Cherry coloured angrily.

"You might let me forget that wretched cylinder."

"But you might forget again."

"Not likely."

As she uttered the words— like oil spreading over water— her mind was smeared with doubt.

Something forgotten.

She shivered as she looked up the well of the circular staircase, which was dimly lit by an oil-lamp suspended to a cross-bar. Shadows rode the walls and wiped out the ceiling like a flock of sooty bats.

An eerie place. Hiding-holes on every landing.

The house was tall and narrow, with two or three rooms on every floor. It was rather like a tower or a pepper-pot. The semi-basement was occupied by the kitchen and domestic offices. On the ground-floor were a sitting-room, the dining-room and the Professor's study. The first floor was devoted to the patient. On the second floor were the bedrooms of the nurses and of the Iles couple. The upper floors were given up to the Professor's laboratorial work.

Nurse Cherry remembered the stout shutters and the secure hasps. There had been satisfaction in turning the house into a fortress. But now, instead of a sense of security, she had a feeling of being caged.

She moved to the staircase.

"While we're bickering," she said, "we're neglecting the patient."

Nurse Silver called her back.

"I'm on duty now."

Professional etiquette forbade any protest. But Nurse Cherry looked after her colleague with sharp envy.

She thought of the Professor's fine brow, his wasted clear-cut features and visionary slate-grey eyes, with yearning. For after three years of nursing children, with an occasional mother or aunt, romance had entered her life.

From the first, she had been interested in her patient. She had scarcely eaten or slept until the crisis had passed. She noticed too, how his eyes followed her around the room and how he could hardly bear her out of his sight.

Yesterday he had held her hand in his thin fingers.

"Marry me, Stella," he whispered.

"Not unless you get well," she answered foolishly.

Since then, he had called her "Stella." Her name was music in her ears until her rapture was dashed by the fatal episode of the cylinder. She had to face the knowledge that, in case of another relapse, Glendower's life hung upon a thread.

She was too wise to think further, so she began to speculate on Nurse Silver's character. Hitherto, they had met only at meals, when she had been taciturn and moody.

To-night she had revealed a personal animus against herself, and Nurse Cherry believed she guessed its cause.

The situation was a hot-bed for jealousy. Two women were thrown into close contact with a patient and a doctor, both of whom were bachelors. Although Nurse Silver was the ill-favoured one, it was plain that she possessed her share of personal vanity. Nurse Cherry noticed, from her painful walk, that she wore shoes which were too small. More than that, she had caught her in the act of scrutinizing her face in the mirror.

These rather pitiful glimpses into the dark heart of the warped woman made Nurse Cherry uneasy.

The house was very still; she missed Nature's sounds of rain or wind against the window-pane and the cheerful voices of the Iles couple. The silence might be a background for sounds she did not wish to hear.

She spoke aloud, for the sake of hearing her own voice.

"Cheery if Silver plays up to-night. Well, well! I'll hurry up Mrs. Iles with the supper."

Her spirits rose as she opened the door leading to the basement. The warm spicy odour of the kitchen floated up the short staircase and she could see a bar of yellow light from the half-opened door.

When she entered, she saw no sign of supper. Mrs. Iles— a strapping blonde with strawberry cheeks— sat at the kitchen-table, her head buried in her huge arms.

As Nurse Cherry shook her gently, she raised her head.

"Eh?" she said stupidly.

"Gracious, Mrs. Iles. Are you ill?"

"Eh? Feel as if I'd one over the eight."

"What on earth d'you mean?"

"What you call 'tight.' Love-a-duck, my head's that swimmy—"

Nurse Cherry looked suspiciously at an empty glass upon the dresser, as Mrs. Iles's head dropped like a bleached sunflower.

Nurse Silver heard her hurrying footsteps on the stairs. She met her upon the landing.

"Anything wrong?"

"Mrs. Iles. I think she's drunk. Do come and see."

When Nurse Silver reached the kitchen, she hoisted Mrs. Iles under the armpits and set her on unsteady feet.

"Obvious," she said. "Help get her upstairs."

It was no easy task to drag twelve stone of protesting Mrs. Iles up three flights of stairs.

"She feels like a centipede, with every pair of feet going in a different direction," Nurse Cherry panted, as they reached the door of the Ileses' bedroom. "I can manage her now, thank you."

She wished Nurse Silver would go back to the patient, instead of looking at her with that fixed expression.

"What are you staring at?" she asked sharply.

"Has nothing struck you as strange?"

"What?"

In the dim light, Nurse Silver's eyes looked like empty black pits.

"To-day," she said, "there were four of us. First, Iles goes. Now, Mrs. Iles. That leaves only two. If anything happens to you or me, there'll only be one."

AS NURSE CHERRY put Mrs. Iles to bed, she reflected that Nurse Silver was decidedly not a cheerful companion. She made a natural sequence of events appear in the light of a sinister conspiracy.

Nurse Cherry reminded herself sharply that Iles's absence was due to her own carelessness, while his wife was addicted to her glass.

Still, some unpleasant suggestion remained, like the sediment from a splash of muddy water. She found herself thinking with horror of some calamity befalling Nurse Silver. If she were left by herself she felt she would lose her senses with fright.

It was an unpleasant picture. The empty house— a dark shell for lurking shadows. No one on whom to depend. Her patient— a beloved burden and responsibility.

It was better not to think of that. But she kept on thinking. The outside darkness seemed to be pressing against the walls, bending them in. As her fears multiplied, the medical student changed from a human being with a distraught brain, to a Force, cunning and insatiable— a ravening blood-monster.

Nurse Silver's words recurred to her.

"They always know." Even so. Doors might be locked, but they would find a way inside.

Her nerves tingled at the sound of the telephone-bell, ringing far below in the hall.

She kept looking over her shoulder as she ran downstairs. She took off the receiver in positive panic, lest she should be greeted with a maniac scream of laughter.

It was a great relief to hear the homely Welsh accent of Dr. Jones.

He had serious news for her. As she listened, her heart began to thump violently.

"Thank you, doctor, for letting me know," she said. "Please ring up directly you hear more."

"Hear more of what?"

Nurse Cherry started at Nurse Silver's harsh voice. She had come downstairs noiselessly in her soft nursing-slippers.

"It's only the doctor," she said, trying to speak lightly. "He's thinking of changing the medicine."

"Then why are you so white? You are shaking."

Nurse Cherry decided that the truth would serve her best.

"To be honest," she said, "I've just had bad news. Something ghastly. I didn't want you to know, for there's no sense in two of us being frightened. But now I come to think of it, you ought to feel reassured."

She forced a smile.

"You said there'd have to be another murder soon. Well— there has been one."

"Where? Who? Quick."

Nurse Cherry understood what is meant by the infection of fear as Nurse Silver gripped her arm.

In spite of her effort at self-mastery, there was a quiver in her own voice.

"It's a— a hospital nurse. Strangled. They've just found the body in a quarry and they sent for Dr. Jones to make the examination. The police are trying to establish her identity."

Nurse Silver's eyes were wide and staring.

"Another hospital nurse? That makes four."

She turned on the younger woman in sudden suspicion.

"Why did he ring you up?"

Nurse Cherry did not want that question.

"To tell us to be specially on guard," she replied.

"You mean— he's near?"

"Of course not. The doctor said the woman had been dead three or four days. By now, he'll be far away."

"Or he may be even nearer than you think."

Nurse Cherry glanced involuntarily at the barred front door. Her head felt as if it were bursting. It was impossible to think connectedly. But—somewhere— beating its wings like a caged bird, was the incessant reminder.

Something forgotten.

The sight of the elder woman's twitching lips reminded her that she had to be calm for two.

"Go back to the patient," she said, "while I get the supper. We'll both feel better after something to eat."

In spite of her new-born courage, it needed an effort of will to descend into the basement. So many doors, leading to scullery, larder and coal-cellar, all smelling of mice. So many hiding-places.

The kitchen proved a cheerful antidote to depression. The caked fire in the open range threw a red glow upon the Welsh dresser and the canisters labelled 'Sugar' and 'Tea.' A sandy cat slept upon the rag mat. Everything looked safe and homely.

Quickly collecting bread, cheese, a round of beef, a cold white shape, and stewed prunes, she piled them on a tray. She added stout for Nurse Silver and made cocoa for herself. As she watched the milk froth up through the dark mixture and inhaled the steaming odour, she felt that her fears were baseless and absurd.

She sang as she carried her tray upstairs. She was going to marry Glendower.

The nurses used the bedroom which connected with the sick chamber for their meals, in order to be near the patient. As the night-nurse entered, Nurse Cherry strained her ears for the sound of Glendower's voice. She longed for one glimpse of him. Even a smile would help.

"How's the patient?" she asked.

"All right."

"Could I have a peep?"

"No. You're off duty."

As the women sat down, Nurse Cherry was amused to notice that Nurse Silver kicked off her tight shoes.

"You seem very interested in the patient, Nurse Cherry," she remarked sourly.

"I have a right to feel rather interested." Nurse Cherry smiled as she cut bread. "The doctor gives me the credit for his being alive."

"Ah! But the doctor thinks the world of you."

Nurse Cherry was not conceited, but she was human enough to know that she had made a conquest of the big Welshman.

The green glow of jealousy in Nurse Silver's eyes made her reply guardedly.

"Dr. Jones is decent to every one."

But she was of too friendly and impulsive a nature to keep her secret bottled up. She reminded herself that they were two women sharing an ordeal and she tried to establish some link of friendship.

"I feel you despise me," she said. "You think me lacking in self-control. And you can't forget that cylinder. But really, I've gone through such an awful strain. For four nights, I never took off my clothes."

"Why didn't you have a second nurse?"

"There was the expense. The Professor gives his whole life to enrich the nation and he's poor. Then, later, I felt I must do everything for him myself. I didn't want you, only Dr. Jones said I was heading for a break-down."

She looked at her left hand, seeing there the shadowy outline of a wedding-ring.

"Don't think me sloppy, but I must tell some one. The Professor and I are going to get married."

"If he lives."

"But he's turned the corner now."

"Don't count your chickens."

Nurse Cherry felt a stab of fear.

"Are you hiding something from me? Is he— worse?"

"No. He's the same. I was thinking that Dr. Jones might interfere. You've led him on, haven't you? I've seen you smile at him. It's light women like you that make the trouble in the world."

Nurse Cherry was staggered by the injustice of the attack. But as she looked at the elder woman's working face, she saw that she was consumed by jealousy. One life lay in the shadow, the other in the sun. The contrast was too sharp.

"We won't quarrel to-night," she said gently. "We're going through rather a bad time together and we have only each other to depend on. I'm just clinging to you. If anything were to happen to you, like Mrs. Iles, I should jump out of my skin with fright."

Nurse Silver was silent for a minute.

"I never thought of that," she said presently. "Only us two. And all these empty rooms, above and below. What's that?"

From the hall came the sound of muffled knocking. Nurse Cherry sprang to her feet.

"Someone at the front door."

Nurse Silver's fingers closed round her arm like iron loops.

"Sit down! It's him!"

THE two women stared at each other as the knocking continued. It was loud and insistent. To Nurse Cherry's ears, it carried a message of urgency.

"I'm going down," she said. "It may be Dr. Jones."

"How could you tell?"

"By his voice."

"You fool! Any one would imitate his accent."

Nurse Cheery saw the beads break out round Nurse Silver's mouth. Her fear had the effect of steadying her own Serves.

"I'm going down to find out who it is," she said. "It may be important news about the murder."

Nurse Silver dragged her away from the door.

"What did I say? You are the danger. You've forgotten already.

"Forgotten— what?"

"Didn't Iles tell you to open to no one? No one?"

Nurse Cherry hung her head. She sat down, in shamed silence.

The knocking ceased. Presently, they heard it again, at the back door.

Nurse Silver wiped her face.

"He means to get in." She laid her hand on Nurse Cherry's arm. "You're not even trembling. Are you never afraid?"

"Only of ghosts."

In spite of her brave front, Nurse Cherry was inwardly quaking at her own desperate resolution. Nurse Silver had justly accused her of endangering the household. Therefore, it was her plain duty to make once more the round of the house, either to see what she had forgotten, or to lay the doubt.

"I'm going upstairs," she said. "I want to look out."

"Unbar a window?" Nurse Silver's agitation rose in a gale. "You shall not! It's murdering folly! Think! That last nurse was found, dead, inside her bedroom!"

"All right, I won't!"

"You'd best be careful. You've been trying to spare me, but, perhaps, I've been trying to spare you. I'll only say this. There is something strange happening in this house!"

Nurse Cherry felt a chill at her heart. Only, since she was a nurse, she knew that it was really the pit of her stomach. Something was wrong? If, through her wretched memory, she again were the culprit, she must expiate her crime by shielding the others at any risk to herself.

She had to force herself to mount the stairs. Her candle, flickering in the draught, peopled the walls with distorted shapes. When she reached the top landing, without stopping to think, she walked resolutely into the laboratory and the adjoining room.

Both were securely barred and empty. Gaining courage, she entered the attic. Under its window was a precipitous slope of roof, without gutter or water-pipe to give finger-hold. Knowing that it would be impossible for any one to gain an entry, she opened the shutter and unfastened the window.

The cold air on her face refreshed her and restored her to calm. She realised that she had been suffering, to a certain extent, from claustrophobia.

The rain had ceased and a wind arisen. She could see a young, harried moon flying through the clouds. The dark humps of the bills were visible against the darkness, but nothing more.

She remained at the window for some time, thinking of Glendower. It was a solace to remember the happiness which awaited her once this night of terror was over.

Presently, the urge to see him grew too strong to be resisted. Nurse Silver's words had made her uneasy on his behalf. Even though she offended the laws of professional etiquette, she determined to see for herself that all was well.

Leaving the window open so that some air might percolate into the house, she slipped stealthily downstairs. She stopped on the second floor to visit her own room and that of Nurse Silver. All was quiet and secure. In her own quarters Mrs. Iles still snored in the sleep of the unjust.

There were two doors to the patient's room. The one led to the nurses' room, where Nurse Silver was still at her meal. The other led to the landing.

Directly Nurse Cherry entered she knew that her fear had been the premonition of love. Something was seriously amiss. Glendower's head tossed uneasily on the pillow. His face was deeply flushed. When she called him by name he stared at her, his luminous, grey eyes were ablaze.

He did not recognise her, for, instead of "Stella," he called her "Nurse."

"Nurse, Nurse." He mumbled something that sounded like "Man," and then slipped back in her arms, unconscious.

Nurse Silver entered the room at her cry. As she felt his pulse she spoke with dry significance.

"We could do with oxygen now!"

Nurse Cherry could only look at her with piteous eyes. "Shall I telephone for Dr. Jones?" she asked humbly.

"Yes."

It seemed like the continuation of an evil dream when she could get no answer to her ring. Again and again she tried desperately to galvanize the dead instrument.

Presently, Nurse Silver appeared on the landing.

"Is the doctor coming?"

"I— I can't get any answer." Nurse Cherry forced back her tears, "Oh, whatever can be wrong?"

"Probably a wet creeper twisted round the wire. But it doesn't matter now. The patient's sleeping."

Nurse Cherry's face registered no comfort. As though the shocks of the last few minutes had set in motion the arrested machinery of her brain, she remembered, suddenly, what she had forgotten.

The larder window.

She recollected now what had happened. When she entered the larder on her round of locking up, a mouse had run over her feet. She ran to fetch the cat, which chased it into a hole in the kitchen. In the excitement of the incident, she had forgotten to return, to close the window.

Her heart leapt violently as the realization that, all these hours, the house had been open to any marauder. Even while she and Nurse Silver had listened, shivering, to the knocking at the door, she had already betrayed the fortress.

"What's the matter?" asked Nurse Silver.

"Nothing. Nothing."

She dared not tell the older woman. Even now it was not too late to remedy her omission.

In her haste, she no longer feared the descent into the basement. She could hardly get down the stairs with sufficient speed.

As she entered the larder the wire-covered window flapped in the breeze. She secured it, and was just entering the kitchen when her eye fell on a dark patch in the passage.

It was the footprint of a man.

Nurse Cherry remembered that Iles had been in the act of getting fresh coal into the cellar when he had been called away to make his journey. He had not time to clean up, and the floor was still sooty with rain-Soaked dust.

As she raised her candle the footprint gleamed faintly. Stooping hastily, she touched it.

It was still damp.

AT first she stood as if petrified, staring at it stupidly. Then, as she realized that, in front of her, lay a freshly-made imprint, her nerve snapped completely. With a scream she dropped her candle and tore up the stairs, calling on Nurse Silver.

She was answered by a strange voice. It was thick, heavy, indistinct. A voice she had never heard before.

Knowing not what awaited her on the other side of the door, yet driven on by the courage of ultimate fear, she rushed into, the nurses' sitting room.

No one was there save Nurse Silver. She sagged back in her chair, her eyes half-closed, her mouth open.

From her lips issued a second uncouth cry.

Nurse Cherry put her arm round her. "What is it? Try to tell me."

It was plain that Nurse Silver was trying to warn her of some peril. She pointed to her glass and fought for articulation.

"Drugs! Listen! When you lock out, you lock in!"

Even as she spoke her eyes turned up horribly, exposing the balls in a blind white stare.

Almost mad with terror, Nurse Cherry tried to revive her. Mysteriously, through some unknown agency, what she had so dreaded had come to pass.

She was alone.

And somewhere— within the walls of the house— lurked a being— cruel and cunning— who, one after another, had removed each obstacle between himself and his objective.

He had marked down his victim. Herself.

In that moment she went clean over the edge of fear. She felt that it was not herself— Stella Cherry— but a stranger in the blue print uniform of a hospital nurse, who calmly speculated oh her course of action.

It was impossible to lock herself in the patient's room, for the key was stiff from disuse. And she had not the strength to move furniture which was sufficiently heavy to barricade the door.

The idea of flight was immediately dismissed. In order to get help she would have to run miles. She could not leave Glendower and two helpless women at the mercy of the baffled maniac.

There was nothing to be done. Her place was by Glendower. She sat down by his bed and took his hand in hers.

The time seemed endless. Her watch seemed sometimes to leap whole hours and then to crawl, she waited— listening to the myriad sounds in a house at nightfall. There were faint rustlings, the cracking of woodwork, the scamper of mice.

And a hundred times, some one seemed to steal up the stairs and linger just outside her door.

It was nearly 3 o'clock when suddenly a gong began to beat inside her temples. In the adjoining room was the unmistakable tramp of a man's footsteps.

It was not imagination on her part. They circled the room and then advanced toward the connecting door.

She saw the handle begin to turn slowly.

In one bound, she reached the door and rushed on to the landing and up the stairs. For a second, she paused before her own room. But its windows were barred and the door had no key. She could not be done to death there, in the dark.

As she paused, she heard the footsteps on the stairs. They advanced slowly, driving her on before them. Demented with terror, she fled up to the top story, instinctively seeking the open window.

She could go no higher. At the attic door she waited.

Something black appeared on the staircase wall. It was the shadow of her pursuer— a grotesque and distorted herald of crime.

Nurse Cherry gripped the balustrade to keep herself from falling. Everything was growing dark. She knew that she was on the point of fainting, when she was revived by sheer astonishment and joy.

Above the balustrade appeared the head of Nurse Silver.

Nurse Cherry called out to her in warning.

"Come quickly! There's a man in the house!"

She saw Nurse Silver start and fling back her head as if in alarm.

Then occurred the culminating horror of a night of dread.

A mouse ran across the passage.

Raising her heavy shoe, Nurse Silver stamped upon it, grinding her heel upon the tiny creature's head.

In that moment, Nurse Cherry knew the truth.

Nurse Silver was a man.

HER brain raced with lightning velocity. It was like a searchlight, piercing the shadows and making the mystery clear.

She knew that the real Nurse Silver had been murdered by Sylvester Leek; on her way to the case. It was her strangled body which had just been found in the quarry. And the murderer had taken her place. The police description was that of a slightly built youth, with refined features. It would be easy for him to assume the disguise of a woman. He had the necessary medical knowledge to pose as nurse. Moreover, as he had the night-shift, no one in the household had come into close contact with him, save the patient.

But the patient had guessed the truth.

To silence his tongue, the killer had drugged him, even as he had disposed of the obstructing presence of Mrs. Iles. It was he, too, who had emptied the oxygen cylinder, to get Iles out of the way.

Yet, although he had been alone with his prey for hours, he had held his hand.

Nurse Cherry, with her new mental lucidity, knew the reason. There is a fable that the serpent slavers its victim, before swallowing it. In like manner, the maniac— before her final destruction— had wished to coat her with the foul saliva of fear.

All the evening he had been trying to terrorise her— plucking at each jangled nerve up to the climax of his feigned unconsciousness.

Yet, she knew that he, in turn, was fearful lest he should be frustrated in the commission of his crime. Since his victim's body, had been discovered in the quarry, the establishment of her identity would mark his hiding place. While Nurse Cherry was at the attic window, he had cut the telephone wire and donned his own shoes for purposes of flight.

SHE remembered his emotion during the knocking at the door. It was probable that it was Dr. Jones who stood without, come to assure himself that she was not alarmed. Had it been the police, they would have effected an entry. The incident proved that nothing had been discovered, and it was useless to count on outside help.

She had to face it— alone.

In the dim light from the young moon, she saw the murderer enter the attic. The grotesque travesty of his nursing disguise added to the terror of the moment.

His eyes were fixed on the open window. It was plain that he was pretending to connect it with the supposed intruder. She, in her turn, had unconsciously deceived him. He probably knew nothing of the revealing footprint he had left in the basement passage.

"Shut the window, you damned fool!" he shouted.

As he leant over the low ledge to reach the swinging casement window, Nurse Cherry rushed at him in the instinctive madness of self-defence— thrusting him forward, over the sill.

She had one glimpse of dark, distorted features blotting out the moon and of arms sawing the air, like a starfish, in a desperate attempt to balance.

The next moment, nothing was there.

She sank to the ground, covering her ears with her hands to deaden the sound of the sickening slide over the tiled roof.

It was a long time before she was able to creep down to her patient's room. Directly she entered, its peace healed her like balm. Glendower slept quietly— a half-smile playing round his lips, as though he dreamt of her.

Thankfully, she went from room to room, unbarring each window and unlocking each door— letting in the dawn.

__________________

9: The Uninvited Guest

Ethel Lina White

The Novel Magazine June 1928

Observer (Adelaide) 11 Aug 1928

"LOOK! She's burning the table cloth!"

The country girl cried out in horror as the ultra-smart, Eton-cropped young woman at the next table pressed her cigarette-end against the snowy damask.

The town youth— who was the country girl's cavalier— wrinkled his nose in disgust.

"Rotten bad form Gives her away. I'll bet anything she's a crasher."

"Crasher?"  Echoed the country girl, whose name was Teddy. "Whatever is that?"

They were in the supper room of an expensive mansion, which was the scene of one of the biggest balls of the season. Delphiniums and madonna lilies were banked up almost to the deep blue Italian ceiling , and, through the great crystal doors, Teddy could see the red lacquer and gilt of the famous Chinese salon.

"Marvellous!" she whispered.

Outwardly she resembled any London debutante She was both slim and shingled, and dressed in a petal-frock of orchid mauve. Her liquid powder and lipstick were of the right shades, in these days of sales catalogues, any country girl who knows her job, need not look classified.

But, inwardly, Teddy was about as sophisticated as a child at its first pantomime. It thrilled her, just to remember the last night she had stood at the garden gate at home, staring at the dark, quiet fields, scented with new mown hay.  Within 24 hours the express had rattled her up to London. She had barely been enfolded within the powdery hug of her old schoolmate, Rosamond when Rosamond's special cavalier had called at the tiny basement flat, to carry them off to the ball.

Piccadilly was jammed with traffic and glittered with the lights of congested vehicles. To Teddy it was a dark lane, stuck with fireflies, as, steeped in enchantment, she lay back while the others cursed each traffic block.

Her happiness suffered its first check when Rosamond's cavalier informed her of the existence of the crasher.

She looked at him in real dismay.

He was a typical town youth, charming and correct; but he had an uneasy feeling that he would rather be dancing with Rosamond.

" 'Crasher'," she repeated. "Is it really true, Mr. Parnell, that people in London come to balls without invitations."

"Crowds," Parnell assured her. "Easiest thing in the world. Your hostess doesn't one-half of her guests. You see, she broadcasts for dancing, men. Take me. I was told to bring a friend— but I brought you."

"Sweet of you," said Teddy, gratefully, "But it makes me feel quite guilty to think I don't know my hostess."

As she spoke she looked up and met the full gaze of a man who, in spite of the throng, had arrested her attention and held it, by his air of high adventure.

Young Parnell smiled.

"I'm vouching for you. But, seriously, this crasher business is overdone. I was at a dance last week where there was a famine, half-time. In common decency the crasher should bar the buffet. Hulloa, Rosamond!"

His face grew wistful, as Rosamond, beautiful in a sheath of crushed golden tissue, appeared— partnerless.

Teddy was growing awkward, for Parnell was Rosamond's property, when the situation was suddenly saved. The fascinating stranger had whispered in. Parnell's ear, and he had mumbled an introduction.

Next minute they were wandering together towards the ballroom, and the adventure was spiced with the personal element.

Teddy looked up into her partner's blue-black eyes— chill as Arctic seas, they held the glint of high adventure.

"You're a friend of Mr. Parnell's, I suppose," she said. "Have you known him long?"

"Long enough to know him." He looked at her and added abruptly:— "Are you from the country?"

Teddy made a grimace. She hoped that her dress looked like the French model from which it had been copied.

"Now, I wonder how you knew that," she said forlornly.

"I didn't. I ask all my partners that. In hopes. Once I fell in love with a country girl. Adorable creature. Freckled like a cowslip. She need to water the milk for market. I helped her do it. I staved on in the country until my cash gave out. I was bitten by bulls, but I stuck it— for her. Since then I've been searching for another country girl.

"Why?"

"To fall in love again."

"But you must know crowds of London girls, if you want to fall in love," said Teddy. "I expect you know lots of people here."

He threw her what Teddy would describe as "an old-fashioned look.

"Not so many. Do you?"

"Of course not. I'm a stranger. But, according to Mr. Parnell, there are a lot of other strangers here. Uninvited guests, I mean.... Look! There's one.'

They had halted by the carved mantelpiece, which was one of the marvels of the mansion. A sleek-haired woman, with geranium-red lips, repeated the gesture of the girl at the supper table. She put down her cigarette and left it smouldering on the mantelpieces

Teddy sprang forward and picked it up.

"That's the second time I've seen that happen tonight. Appalling. Take it from me," she added with proud sophistication, "that woman's a crasher."

Her partner began to laugh.

"No, you're mistaken. That lady's well known in society. Chucking about her cigarette stubs is only one of her playful little tricks."

"Well! I call it an abuse of hospitality," said Teddy.

"Quite. But that sort of graceful gesture is hot characteristic of the crasher. He's generally an acquisition— a good dancer and well behaved. finally, he's a bit of a buccaneer and does it for the sport. I rather admire him, myself.'

"You can't!" said Teddy.

"Why not?  It shows a spirit of adventure. Life's so tame. So far the game's dead easy, but you never know when you are going to be shown up. I don't envy the crasher that. Hot. Let's go out!"

They crossed the road and sat under the shade of the plane trees that fringed the park. The foliage glittered like jade in the light of the electric standards. Red buses lurched by in the road. From the house floated the strains of the band. Teddy thought of last night; the empty fields, only the harsh cry of the corncrake and the gurgle of the watercress-choked brook.

Her life had been empty as the night. She met men— in novels and on the screen. As she caught the smile in the blue-black eyes of the stranger, she exulted in a sense of contrast.

"You were introduced to me merely as Teddy," he said. "Another name, by any chance?"

"An awful one. I'm fearfully ashamed of it. Smith."

Her partner looked at her thoughtfully. "That's my idea of rather a useful name," he observed. "Mine is Brown. Spelt with two b's."

"Like the pencil," said Teddy. "B.B. means 'very soft.' I don't think you are that."

"Thanks. I'll return the compliment.'

"Of course." Teddy laughed. "Country girls are up to all the tricks of the trade. Don't forget we always water the milk!"

During the next hour under the plane trees, they made the joint discoveries that Brown's other name was Valentine; that he cherished a secret passion for leeks, but had an aversion for walking over the joints of paving stones.

Further— that Teddy's lucky day was Friday; that she had an ambition to fly, but had only got so far as going down a coalmine.

"Of course," she admitted, "it was down instead of up. But it was a thrill, with real rats. Oh, good gracious! There's Rosamond."

She sprang to her feet as a slim figure in a golden tissue frock, accompanied by a black coat, appeared on the steps of the mansion.

They waved to her frantically. "Going on?" asked Brown.

"Yes. To a Mrs. Eddystone's dance, in Hertford street."

Brown pulled down the corner of his mouth.

"Oh, haven't you been asked?" cried Teddy. "What a pity.''

"I've received no invitation. But— is that that an obstacle?"

As they crossed the road, Teddy put out her hand impulsively. '

"Good-bye. I've enjoyed to-night like anything."

"Aren't you going in to get your cloak?" asked Brown.

"No. We left our things in the car. Oh, I— I must have a last peep! It looks like a scene on the stage."

Teddy looked reluctantly through the great glass doors.

"Going on is a silly idea, just when one is nicely set," she remarked. "And it does seem so rude not to wish your hostess good-night."

"It you want to," said Brown, "there she is."

At his words, Teddy had a sharp pang of I disappointment. Brown had indicated a stout brunette in kingfisher blue.

Yet, earlier in the evening, Parnell had pointed out to Teddy the gracious lady of the mansion— a willowy aristocrat in green and silver— her beautiful hair powdered by time.

Brown had given himself away by his ignorance.

He was a crasher.

As Teddy squashed into the two-seater, she observed that Piccadilly was no longer starred with fireflies. There were only lights. Foggy lights, too, although there was no rain.

"What ages you and your man were parked outside," said Rosamond. "Was he nice, and what's his name?"

"Brown."

Parnell glanced at Rosamond.

"Rather a useful sort of name— Brown," he observed.

Teddy turned upon him suddenly.

"But he's your friend. You ought to know all about him."

Parnell laughed

"I've a bit of a confession to make. I mistook him for another chap I knew slightly. But, probably, he's one of the Browns of Peckham. And his coat was the right cut."

Both Parnell and Rosamond began to laugh. Their mirth moved Teddy to righteous wrath.

"I call that rotten. You don't know what kind of suspicious character you were palming off on me. I've read that these society crushes are thick with detectives, looking out for cat burglars."

"Don't worry," said Rosamond. "No one would carry you off, even if you paid him for it. Sheik-stuff does not appeal to the modern partner. No nerve."

Teddy was moved to defence of her late partner.

"Mr. Brown has the necessary nerve, anyway," she announced defiantly.

"How do you know?"

Teddy remained silent. Whatever happened she would not give the crasher away.

Presently Parnell stopped the car. "Let's park here!" he said.

It was easy to tell at which house the ball was in progress. But in spite of lights and awning, Teddy curled her lip.

"What dingy street!"

"It's only Mayfair, darling," said Rosamond. "Considered not too bad an address. For a country lass, you seem to be giving yourself airs."

"I only meant I liked the other house better," explained Teddy.

Already she felt a hundred years older than the girl of last night. She thought with longing, of the brilliant scene she had just left.

In a dream she followed the others into the ballroom. Second-rate decorations, to her eyes; dim illuminations and a poor crowd.

She heard a whisper pass between Parnell and Rosamond,

"You must find Teddy a partner."

"Quite. Why, here's luck! Teddy, our friend Mr. Brown is here, looking for you!"

Teddy blinked, as suddenly the lights grew brighter. The adventurous blue-black eyes were laughing down into hers.

Then she remembered her suspicions.

"I thought you said you'd not been invited here," she said.

"Well— have you?"

"No. But that's different." Brown laughed.

"A little thing like the lack of an invitation doesn't beep me away. I judge a house by its door knocker, and I rather fancied the cut of this one. Mercury—  the god of dishonest people. Besides, I wanted to see you again."

"But think of the risk!" cried Teddy.

"Isn't that pretty cool, coming from you?"

"You mean I like risks. But I invited to go down the coalmine."

Brown shrugged his shoulders.

"I'm here, any way. Won't you dance?" Teddy pinched her little finger.

"I'm not sure that I want to dance with you."

"Why, what's wrong? I don't seem the success I was ten minutes ago. What happened in the car to change the whole course of my destiny?'

Teddy's lips softened.

"First of all," she said, "will you answer me two questions truthfully?"

"Nothing to do with the income tax?"

"Don't be silly! First, is Brown really your name?"

"No."

"But— why?"

"I chose that name to go with Smith."

Teddy's colour rose.

"My name is Smith," she said. "I was born and christened Teddy Smith, and I can prove it in a Court of Law."

"Think again before you swear to it!" warned Brown.

Teddy laughed.

"Of course, my name is really Theodora. But I am Smith."

"What's the second question?" asked Brown.

"Well—it's rather a personal one. But— are you really an uninvited guest?"

"Yes."

"Oh, dear!" cried Teddy, in dismay. Brown only laughed at her.

"What are you going to do about it? Expose me to my hostess? That is, if you know who she is."

"I may know better than you."

"Then point her out to me!"

Teddy looked around for Rosamond and Parnell, but they had spun away. She felt abandoned to her fate.

Her humiliation lay in the fact that she really welcomed her fate. Suddenly she decided to accept the situation. If the crasher liked to run the risk, it was none of her affair....

The Charleston claimed them. Later, when Teddy met Rosamond she spoke quite kindly of the house.

"I understand now what you mean. This place isn't so showy as the other, but it has atmosphere. That ceiling is Adams, isn't it?"

Rosamond put her tongue in her cheek as she nodded, and Teddy danced off again.

Sitting on the stairs, Brown related some of his war experiences. They meant much to him, but were not so sensational as Teddy expected.

"Didn't you get the V.C.?" she asked. "No. But I got the gate."

"But I'm sure you did something really cheeky. Held up a regiment of Germans with a penny pistol, or rescued your colonel under fire."

"I couldn't. I was my colonel. I don't know why you harp on this idea of my nerve. Are you getting hungry?

"Yes. It's ages since the last supper."

"Then we'll go down. They made a feature of the spread in this house. None of your bite-and-toothful affairs here.

Teddy cried out as she caught sight of the supper room through the glass doors.

"Fruit growing on real trees! Yes? What's that?"

A fat, powdered footman repeated his request.

"Your card of invitation, madam?"

Teddy had turned and pointed out the golden Rosamond and her cavalier, who were standing a few paces from them down the queue.

"They have mine." ... ,

Suddenly the smile left her face as she remembered that Brown was a crasher and had no card....

The inevitable show-up was at hand.

She made a lighting decision to stand by him.

"I don't think I want any supper," she said, "Let's dance again!"

To her surprise he merely nodded to the footman as he drew her through the doors.

"You know you're hungry," he said, "and so am I."

Teddy gasped as he steered her to tactfully placed table apart from the mob.

"But you hadn't an invitation."

"Didn't need one. Mrs. Eddystone is my aunt."

Teddy felt as though a jam of ice had melted round her heart as Brown went on.

"Quaint idea this, of showing cards. There were 200 extra guests at my aunt's last affair and some people never got a crumb, so she vowed she d be even with the crasher. I hear there's some idea of wearing a badge.''

"But why didn't they ask you for our invitation cards at the door?" asked Teddy

"Because it's impossible to know who have already shown theirs, with people drifting in and out all the time... But would you excuse me a moment? There are some people over there I know."

In blissful content Teddy watched him fight his way through the crowded room. Then her glance shifted to the glass doors of the supper room.

She was just in time to see Rosamond and Parnell interrogated by the powdered footman, so she stood up in order to attract their attention.

Her movement caught Rosamond's eyes. Her face scarlet with mortification, she made a frantic signal to Teddy before she practically ran away on the heels of the vanishing Parnell.

In incredulous horror Teddy watched and interpreted the ignominy of their departure. In that moment she realized her own position.

She was a crasher.

She had crashed into the houses of total strangers— smoked their cigarettes, eaten their food, drunk their wine. That she had been an innocent offender made no difference to the cold fact.

As her brain grew clearer she understood the reason why they had left their wraps in the car and made such informal entries. Unused to London, she had thought it to be the custom.

She had been completely taken in. If she had questioned how Rosamond— a mannequin at three pounds a week— could have gained the entry to such houses, she had the explanation in the fact that the invitations had proceeded from that young exquisite, Parnell.

Looking up, she realized that the worst was in store. The footman, to whom she had pointed out Rosamond as her sponsor, was advancing in her direction.

Teddy tried to grapple with her exact problem. She knew that if a total stranger were found in any one's house, at home, he would be handed over to the police. In any case, she would be the victim of a horribly unpleasant scene. Parnell and Rosamond had made their get away, but she was trapped.

At any moment Brown might return to the table, to be the witness of her exposure.

"Not before him!" she murmured desperately.

The footman's circuitous advance was blocked by an eddy of fresh guests. It was her moment for action. Her quick eyes had already noticed a door at the far end of the room.

She slipped through the press like an electric hare, praying that the footman had lost sight of her. It was exactly like a bad nightmare, and she wished that she could wake up and find herself where she was last night, in the safety of the dark, scented country.

As she ran, her brain worked like a racing engine. The door might be locked. If it were, she was doomed. Or it might lead to the servants' quarters, in which case she was still doomed.

But she banked on the chance that it might lead to a room which would communicate with the great hall. Once there she could leave the house with dignity.

As her fingers, gripped the door handle her heart fluttered with suspense. To her joy the knob yielded easily. In another second she was on the safe side of the door with the supper room shut out. Then she discovered that both surmises had been wrong, for the door led to a spiral staircase.

"Never mind!" she said. "It will probably lead to a passage which connects with the gallery."

If she could only reach the great central staircase she would be safely shuffled again into the pack of the guests and could make a speedy exit.

It was the work of a minute to rush up the stairs. They ended in a short passage barred by another door.

She opened it cautiously, only to be met with fresh disappointment.

She found herself in a small apartment— probably a dressing room— which, in turn, led to a large bedroom. From the nearness of the orchestra Teddy could tell that this room opened out directly to the central gallery, which was her goal. She could see its door, which was slightly open, outlined in brilliant light, and could hear laughter and footsteps.

Holding her breath, she advanced a step into the bedroom. It was the most wonderful apartment she had ever seen, with its aquamarine walls and coral and diver furniture. A subdued light filtered through a great mother-of-pearl bowl, suspended from the. ceiling.

Teddy took another step, when she was arrested by the sounds of a rustle and a cough.

To her horror she realized that someone was in bed. A frail old lady, in a plum satin peignoir was propped up amid the monstrous cushions of the bed.

Suddenly Teddy remembered that Brown had told her of Mrs. Eddystone's mother, who— after listening to the wireless until every station had closed down— insisted on her door being ajar in order to enjoy the dance music.

She slipped back into the darkness of the dressing room. It was maddening to he thus arrested, with safety only the other side of the door. For half a minute she considered the idea of making a dash for it.

Her commonsense rejected the plan. If the old lady screamed, she had a vision of every one pursuing her down the stair* case, with the absurdity of. a comedy film.

She walked over to the open window of the dressing room. Outside was a small balcony, supported by slender iron pillars, which arose from the verandah on the ground floor.

To Teddy, who had made many an escape from her bedroom window, it was the easiest descent.  The only danger lay in detection from the road.

She stood for some time in hesitation, fearing to venture. Presently, however, she gritted her teeth. It meant the murder of her orchid frock, and she kissed one fragile petal as she climbed over the balcony.

"What a night!" she murmured as she lowered herself down the pillar, foot by foot, to the sound of rending georgette.

Before she reached the bottom she knew that her luck was out. A circle of light played on her face, and she literally fell into the arms of a waiting policeman.

Resisting an instinctive desire to kick, Teddy spoke with dignity.

"Thank you. Mr. Officer. Not that I required any help. May I ask why you are detaining me?"

"What are you doing here?" was his stern response.

"Surely you could see I was merely leaving the house."

The policeman looked at her closely as he propelled her towards the front door.

"We must see about that," he said.

Teddy felt that the bad dream was growing intolerable. She felt she must wake up, or die, when she saw the tall figure of Mr. Brown on the doorstep. He won staring down the street. When his eyes fell upon her he gave a cry of greeting,

"I was just looking for you," he said. "Where did you get to?"

Teddy realized that his recognition might prove her salvation.

"Will you kindly explain to this officer that I'm a guest and not a cat-burglar?" she said haughtily. "You see, he saw me coming down from that window."

Mr. Brown's adventurous eyes lit up as she indicated the balcony. She thanked her lucky stars that she was dealing with a quick wit.

"Great!" he said. "Then you've won. What did I bet you you wouldn't do it?"

The policeman looked prim, but his disapproval vanished in the rustle of a note. Almost in the same second Brown hailed a taxi.

"I'll take you home. Nip in!"

Teddy sank back on the seat, suddenly humiliated by the shame of her adventure. She nearly broke down when she tried to explain.

"Honestly, I believed Rosamond was a properly invited guest. Honestly, I never dreamt we were crashers. Honestly, I didn't!"

"Of course not," agreed Brown. "It was a horrible suck-in for you. Now, when shall I see you again?"

"Never."

In spite of his appeals, she turned from him with averted face.

"You don't understand. I feel too humiliated. I never want to see you again. No, it's no good. Never!"

"That's done it," said Brown ruefully. "Now, will you, in turn, believe me when I tell you that I'm a crasher, too, for the first time in a pure life?"

"You— a— crasher?"

Teddy's eyes were sparkling as she turned and faced him— the chasm which divided them bridged. "Tell me all!"

"Your fault," grumbled Brown. "I was a common-or-garden guest at the  first house, of course: but I wanted to see you again, so I determined to be a crasher, for the first and last time, at the Eddystones'. I went straight to that fat, powdered footman, and said, 'Didn't know my aunt was giving a dance. Tell her I'm here, at once!' I mumbled a name, and slipped him a note, feeling sure the chap wouldn't bother about the message. That was why, when we met at the supper room. I got by him, through my bluff, plus his guilty conscience. But I lived a lifetime in that second. I felt I couldn't stick being exposed before you, and I vowed I'd never crash again...  What a night!"

"What a night!" echoed Teddy.

They were passing Piccadilly Circus, where once a winged god used to surmount a fountain. But, even in his exile by the Thames, Eros heard their laughter.*

_______

* The famous statue was removed to Embankment Gardens in 1922 for the construction of Piccadilly Circus tube station, and returned to its former location when construction was completed in 1931.—Ed

___________________

10: The Dead Smile

Francis Marion Crawford

1854-1909

Ainslee’s Magazine, Aug 1899

SIR HUGH OCKRAM smiled as he sat by the open window of his study, in the late August afternoon; and just then a curiously yellow cloud obscured the low sun, and the clear summer light turned lurid, as if it had been suddenly poisoned and polluted by the foul vapours of a plague. Sir Hugh’s face seemed, at best, to be made of fine parchment drawn skin-tight over a wooden mask, in which two eyes were sunk out of sight, and peered from far within through crevices under the slanting, wrinkled lids, alive and watchful like two toads in their holes, side by side and exactly alike. But as the light changed, then a little yellow glare flashed in each. Nurse Macdonald said once that when Sir Hugh smiled he saw the faces of two women in hell— two dead women he had betrayed. (Nurse Macdonald was a hundred years old.) And the smile widened, stretching the pale lips across the discoloured teeth in an expression of profound self-satisfaction, blended with the most unforgiving hatred and contempt for the human doll. The hideous disease of which he was dying had touched his brain. His son stood beside him, tall, white and delicate as an angel in a primitive picture; and though there was deep distress in his violet eyes as he looked at his father’s face, he felt the shadow of that sickening smile stealing across his own lips and parting them and drawing them against his will. And it was like a bad dream, for he tried not to smile and smiled the more. Beside him, strangely like him in her wan, angelic beauty, with the same shadowy golden hair, the same sad violet eyes, the same luminously pale face, Evelyn Warburton rested one hand upon his arm. And as she looked into her uncle’s eyes, and could not turn her own away, she knew that the deathly smile was hovering on her own red lips, drawing them tightly across her little teeth, while two bright tears ran down her cheeks to her mouth, and dropped from the upper to the lower lip while she smiled— and the smile was like the shadow of death and the seal of damnation upon her pure, young face.

“Of course,” said Sir Hugh very slowly, and still looking out at the trees, “if you have made up your mind to be married, I cannot hinder you, and I don’t suppose you attach the smallest importance to my consent—”

"Father!” exclaimed Gabriel reproachfully.

“No; I do not deceive myself," continued the old man, smiling terribly. “You will marry when I am dead, though there is a very good reason why you had better not— why you had better not,” he repeated very emphatically, and he slowly turned his toad eyes upon the lovers.

"What reason?” asked Evelyn in a frightened voice.

"Never mind the reason, my dear. You will marry just as if it did not exist." There was a long pause. “Two gone,” he said, his voice lowering strangely, "and two more will be four— all together— for ever and ever, burning, burning, burning bright.”

At the last words his head sank slowly back, and the little glare of the toad eyes disappeared under the swollen lids; and the lurid cloud passed from the westering sun, so that the earth was green again and the light pure. Sir Hugh had fallen asleep, as he often did in his last illness, even while speaking.

Gabriel Ockram drew Evelyn away, and from the study they went out into the dim hall, softly closing the door behind them, and each audibly drew breath, as though some sudden danger had been passed. They laid their hands each in the other’s, and their strangely-like eyes met in a long look, in which love and perfect understanding were darkened by the secret terror of an unknown thing. Their pale faces reflected each other’s fear.

"It is his secret," said Evelyn at last. “He will never tell us what it is.”

“If he dies with it," answered Gabriel, "let it be on his own head!”

"On his head!” echoed the dim hall. It was a strange echo, and some were frightened by it, for they said that if it were a real echo it should repeat everything and not give back a phrase here and there, now speaking, now silent. But Nurse Macdonald said that the great hall would never echo a prayer when an Ockram was to die, though it would give back curses ten for one.

"On his head!” it repeated quite softly, and Evelyn started and looked round.

“It is only the echo,”’ said Gabriel, leading her away.

They went out into the late afternoon light, and sat upon a stone seat behind the chapel, which was built across the end of the east wing. It was very still, not a breath stirred, and there was no sound near them. Only far off in the park a song-bird was whistling the high prelude to the evening chorus.

“It is very lonely here,” said Evelyn, taking Gabriel’s hand nervously, and speaking as if she dreaded to disturb the silence. “If it were dark, I should be afraid.”

“Of what? Of me?” Gabriel’s sad eyes turned to her.

“Oh no! How could I be afraid of you? But of the old Ockrams— they say they are just under our feet here in the north vault outside the chapel, all in their shrouds, with no coffins, as they used to bury them.”

“As they always will— as they will bury my father, and me. They say an Ockram will not lie in a coffin.”’

“But it cannot be true— these are fairy tales— ghost stories!" Evelyn nestled nearer to her companion, grasping his hand more tightly, and the sun began to go down.

“Of course. But there is the story of old Sir Vernon, who was beheaded for treason under James II. The family brought his body back from the scaffold in an iron coffin with heavy locks, and they put it in the north vault. But ever afterwards, whenever the vault was opened to bury another of the family, they found the coffin wide open, and the body standing upright against the wall, and the head rolled away in a corner, smiling at it.”

"As Uncle Hugh smiles?” Evelyn shivered.

“Yes, I suppose so," answered Gabriel, thoughtfully. “Of course I never saw it, and the vault has not been opened for thirty years— none of us have died since then.”

“And if— if Uncle Hugh dies— shall you—” Evelyn stopped, and her beautiful thin face was quite white.

“Yes. I shall see him laid there too— with his secret, whatever it is.” Gabriel sighed and pressed the girl’s little hand.

“T do not like to think of it,” she said unsteadily. “‘O Gabriel, what can the secret be? He said we had better not marry— not that he forbade it— but he said it so strangely, and he smiled— uhh!” Her small white teeth chattered with fear, and she looked over her shoulder while drawing still closer to Gabriel. “And, somehow, I felt it in my own face—”

‘So did I,”’ answered Gabriel in a low, nervous voice. “Nurse Macdonald—” He stopped abruptly.

"What? What did she say?”

"Oh — nothing. She has told me things— they would frighten you, dear. Come, it is growing chilly.” He rose, but Evelyn held his hand in both of hers, still sitting and looking up into his face.

"But we shall be married, just the same— Gabriel! Say that we shall!”

“Of course, darling— of course. But while my father is so very ill, it is impossible—”

“O Gabriel, Gabriel, dear! I wish we were married now!” cried Evelyn in sudden distress. “I know that something will prevent it and keep us apart.”

"Nothing shall!”

“Nothing?”

"Nothing human,” said Gabriel Ockram, as she drew him down to her.

And their faces, that were so strangely alike, met and touched— and Gabriel knew that the kiss had a marvellous savour of evil, but on Evelyn’s lips it was like the cool breath of a sweet and mortal fear. And neither of them understood, for they were innocent and young. Yet she drew him to her by her lightest touch, as a sensitive plant shivers and waves its thin leaves, and bends and closes softly upon what it wants; and he let himself be drawn to her willingly, as he would if her touch had been deadly and poisonous; for she strangely loved that half voluptuous breath of fear, and he passionately desired the nameless evil something that lurked in her maiden lips.

“It is as if we loved in a strange dream,”’ she said.

“I fear the waking,”’ he murmured.

“We shall not wake, dear— when the dream is over it will have already turned into death, so softly that we shall not know it. But until then—"

She paused, and her eyes sought his, and their faces slowly came nearer. It was as if they had thoughts in their red lips that foresaw and foreknew the deep kiss of each other.

"Until then—” she said again, very low, and her mouth was nearer to his.

"Dream— till then," murmured his breath.

ii

NURSE MACDONALD was a hundred years old. She used to sleep sitting all bent together in a great old leathern arm-chair with wings, her feet in a bag footstool lined with sheepskin, and many warm blankets wrapped about her, even in summer. Beside her a little lamp always burned at night by an old silver cup, in which there was something to drink.

Her face was very wrinkled, but the wrinkles were so small and fine and near together that they made shadows instead of lines. Two thin locks of hair, that was turning from white to a smoky yellow again, were drawn over her temples from under her starched white cap. Every now and then she woke, and her eyelids were drawn up in tiny folds like little pink silk curtains, and her queer blue eyes looked straight before her through doors and walls and worlds to a far place beyond. Then she slept again, and her hands lay one upon the other on the edge of the blanket; the thumbs had grown longer than the fingers with age, and the joints shone in the low lamplight like polished crab-apples.

It was nearly one o’clock in the night, and the summer breeze was blowing the ivy branch against the panes of the window with a hushing caress. In the small room beyond, with the door ajar, the girl-maid who took care of Nurse Macdonald was fast asleep. All was very quiet. The old woman breathed regularly, and her indrawn lips trembled each time as the breath went out, and her eyes were shut.

But outside the closed window there was a face, and violet eyes were looking steadily at the ancient sleeper, for it was like the face of Evelyn Warburton, though there were eighty feet from the sill of the window to the foot of the tower. Yet the cheeks were thinner than Evelyn’s, and as white as a gleam, and the eyes stared, and the lips were not red with life; they were dead, and painted with new blood.

Slowly Nurse Macdonald’s wrinkled eyelids folded themselves back, and she looked straight at the face at the window while one might count ten.

"Is it time?” she asked in her little old, far-away voice.

While she looked the face at the window changed, for the eyes opened wider and wider till the white glared all round the bright violet, and the bloody lips opened over gleaming teeth, and stretched and widened and stretched again, and the shadowy golden hair rose and streamed against the window in the night breeze. And in answer to Nurse Macdonald’s question came the sound that freezes the living flesh.

That low-moaning voice that rises suddenly, like the scream of storm, from a moan to a wail, from a wail to a howl, from a howl to the fear-shriek of the tortured dead— he who has heard knows, and he can bear witness that the cry of the banshee is an evil cry to hear alone in the deep night. When it was over and the face was gone, Nurse Macdonald shook a little in her great chair, and still she looked at the black square of the window, but there was nothing more there, nothing but the night, and the whispering ivy branch. She turned her head to the door that was ajar, and there stood the girl in her white gown, her teeth chattering with fright.

“It is time, child,” said Nurse Macdonald. “I must go to him, for it is the end.”

She rose slowly, leaning her withered hands upon the arms of the chair, and the girl brought her a woollen gown and a great mantle, and her crutch-stick, and made her ready. But very often the girl looked at the window and was unjointed with fear, and often Nurse Macdonald shook her head and said words which the maid could not understand.

“It was like the face of Miss Evelyn,” said the girl at last, trembling.

But the ancient woman looked up sharply and angrily, and her queer blue eyes glared. She held herself by the arm of the great chair with her left hand, and lifted up her crutch-stick to strike the maid with all her might. But she did not.

"You are a good girl,” she said, “but you are a fool. Pray for wit, child, pray for wit— or else find service in another house than Ockram Hall. Bring the lamp and help me under my left arm.”

The crutch-stick clacked on the wooden floor, and the low heels of the woman’s slippers clappered after her in slow triplets, as Nurse Macdonald got toward the door. And down the stairs each step she took was a labour in itself, and by the clacking noise the waking servants knew that she was coming, very long before they saw her.

No one was sleeping now, and there were lights, and whisperings, and pale faces in the corridors near Sir Hugh’s bedroom, and now some one went in, and now some one came out, but every one made way for Nurse Macdonald, who had nursed Sir Hugh’s father more than eighty years ago.

The light was soft and clear in the room. There stood Gabriel Ockram by his father’s bedside, and there knelt Evelyn Warburton, her hair lying like a golden shadow down her shoulders, and her hands clasped nervously together. And opposite Gabriel, a nurse was trying to make Sir Hugh drink. But he would not, and though his lips were parted, his teeth were set. He was very, very thin and yellow now, and his eyes caught the light sideways and were as yellow coals.

“Do not torment him,” said Nurse Macdonald to the woman who held the cup. “Let me speak to him, for his hour is come.”

“Let her speak to him,”’ said Gabriel in a dull voice.

So the ancient woman leaned to the pillow and laid the feather-weight of her withered hand, that was like a brown moth, upon Sir Hugh’s yellow fingers, and she spoke to him earnestly, while only Gabriel and Evelyn were left in the room to hear.

“Hugh Ockram,” she said, “this is the end of your life; and as I saw you born, and saw your father born before you, I am come to see you die. Hugh Ockram, will you tell me the truth?”

The dying man recognised the little far-away voice he had known all his life, and he very slowly turned his yellow face to Nurse Macdonald; but he said nothing. Then she spoke again.

“Hugh Ockram, you will never see the daylight again. Will you tell the truth?”

His toad-like eyes were not yet dull. They fastened themselves on her face.

"What do you want of me?” he asked, and each word struck hollow upon the last. “‘I have no secrets. I have lived a good life.”

Nurse Macdonald laughed— a tiny, cracked laugh, that made
her old head bob and tremble a little, as if her neck were ona
steel spring. But Sir Hugh’s eyes grew red, and his pale lips began to twist.

"Let me die in peace,” he said slowly.

But Nurse Macdonald shook her head, and her brown, moth-like hand left his and fluttered to his forehead.

"By the mother that bore you and died of grief for the sins you did, tell me the truth!”

Sir Hugh’s lips tightened on his discoloured teeth.

"Not on earth,” he answered slowly.

“By the wife who bore your son and died heart-broken, tell me the truth!”

"Neither to you in life, nor to her in eternal death.”

His lips writhed, as if the words were coals between them, and a great drop of sweat rolled across the parchment of his forehead. Gabriel Ockram bit his hand as he watched his father die. But Nurse Macdonald spoke a third time.

"By the woman whom you betrayed, and who waits for you
this night, Hugh Ockram, tell me the truth!”

“It is too late. Let me die in peace.”

The writhing lips began to smile across the set yellow teeth, and the toad eyes glowed like evil jewels in his head.

“There is time,” said the ancient woman. “‘Tell me the name of Evelyn Warburton’s father. Then I will let you die in peace.”

Evelyn started back, kneeling as she was, and stared at Nurse Macdonald, and then at her uncle.

"The name of Evelyn’s father?” he repeated slowly, while the awful smile spread upon his dying face.

The light was growing strangely dim in the great room. As Evelyn looked, Nurse Macdonald’s crooked shadow on the wall grew gigantic. Sir Hugh’s breath came thick, rattling in his throat, as death crept in like a snake and choked it back. Evelyn prayed aloud, high and clear.

Then something rapped at the window, and she felt her hair ise upon her head in a cool breeze, as she looked around in spite of herself. And when she saw her own white face looking in at the window, and her own eyes staring at her through the glass, wide and fearful, and her own hair streaming against the pane, and her own lips dashed with blood, she rose slowly from the floor and stood rigid for one moment, till she screamed once and fell straight back into Gabriel’s arms. But the shriek that answered hers was the fear-shriek of the tormented corpse, out of which the soul cannot pass for shame of deadly sins, though the devils fight in it with corruption, each for their due share.

Sir Hugh Ockram sat upright in his deathbed, and saw and cried aloud:

"Evelyn!” His harsh voice broke and rattled in his chest as he sank down. But still Nurse Macdonald tortured him, for there was a little life left in him still.

“You have seen the mother as she waits for you, Hugh Ockram. Who was this girl Evelyn’s father? What was his name?”

For the last time the dreadful smile came upon the twisted lips, very slowly, very surely now, and the toad eyes glared red, and the parchment face glowed a little in the flickering light. For the last time words came.

“They know it in hell.”

Then the glowing eyes went out quickly, the yellow face turned waxen pale, and a great shiver ran through the thin body as Hugh Ockram died.

But in death he still smiled, for he knew his secret and kept it still, on the other side, and he would take it with him, to lie with him for ever in the north vault of the chapel where the Ockrams lie uncoffined in their shrouds— all but one. Though he was dead, he smiled, for he had kept his treasure of evil truth to the end, and there was none left to tell the name he had spoken, but there was all the evil he had not undone left to bear fruit.

As they watched— Nurse Macdonald and Gabriel, who held Evelyn still unconscious in his arms while he looked at the father— they felt the dead smile crawling along their own lips— the ancient crone and the youth with the angel’s face. Then they shivered a little, and both looked at Evelyn as she lay with her head on his shoulder, and, though she was very beautiful, the same sickening smile was twisting her young mouth too, and it was like the foreshadowing of a great evil which they could not understand.

But by and by they carried Evelyn out, and she opened her eyes and the smile was gone. From far away in the great house the sound of weeping and crooning came up the stairs and echoed along the dismal corridors, for the women had begun to mourn the dead master, after the Irish fashion, and the hall had echoes of its own all that night, like the far-off wail of the banshee among forest trees.

When the time was come they took Sir Hugh in his winding-sheet on a trestle bier, and bore him to the chapel and through the iron door and down the long descent to the north vault, with tapers, to lay him by his father. And two men went in first to prepare the place, and came back staggering like drunken men, and white, leaving their lights behind them.

But Gabriel Ockram was not afraid, for he knew. And he went in alone and saw that the body of Sir Vernon Ockram was leaning upright against the stone wall, and that its head lay on the ground near by with the face turned up, and the dried leathern lips smiled horribly at the dried-up corpse, while the iron coffin, lined with black velvet, stood open on the floor.

Then Gabriel took the thing in his hands, for it was very light, being quite dried by the air of the vault, and those who peeped in from the door saw him lay it in the coffin again, and it rustled a little, like a bundle of reeds, and sounded hollow as it touched the sides and the bottom. He also placed the head upon the shoulders and shut down the lid, which fell to with a rusty spring that snapped.

After that they laid Sir Hugh beside his father, with the trestle bier on which they had brought him, and they went back to the chapel.

But when they saw one another’s faces, master and men, they were all smiling with the dead smile of the corpse they had left in the vault, so that they could not bear to look at one another until it had faded away.

iii

GABRIEL OCKRAM became Sir Gabriel, inheriting the baronetcy with the half-ruined fortune left by his father, and still Evelyn Warburton lived at Ockram Hall, in the south room that had been hers ever since she could remember anything. She could not go away, for there were no relatives to whom she could have gone, and besides, there seemed to be no reason why she should not stay. The world would never trouble itself to care what the Ockrams did on their Irish estates, and it was long since the Ockrams had asked anything of the world.

So Sir Gabriel took his father’s place at the dark old table in the dining-room, and Evelyn sat opposite to him, until such time as their mourning should be over, and they might be married at last. And meanwhile their lives went on as before, since Sir Hugh had been a hopeless invalid during the last year of his life, and they had seen him but once a day for the little while, spending most of their time together in a strangely perfect companionship.

But though the late summer saddened into autumn, and autumn darkened into winter, and storm followed storm, and rain poured on rain through the short days and the long nights, yet Ockram Hall seemed less gloomy since Sir Hugh had been laid in the north vault beside his father. And at Christmastide Evelyn decked the great hall with holly and green boughs, and huge fires blazed on every hearth. Then the tenants were all bidden to a New Year’s dinner, and they ate and drank well, while Sir Gabriel sat at the head of the table. Evelyn came in when the port wine was brought, and the most respected of the tenants made a speech to propose her health.

It was long, he said, since there had been a Lady Ockram. Sir Gabriel shaded his eyes with his hand and looked down at the table, but a faint colour came into Evelyn’s transparent cheeks. But, said the grey-haired farmer, it was longer still since there had been a Lady Ockram so fair as the next was to be, and he gave the health of Evelyn Warburton.

Then the tenants all stood up and shouted for her, and Sir Gabriel stood up likewise, beside Evelyn. And when the men gave the last and loudest cheer of all there was a voice not theirs, above them all, higher, fiercer, louder— a scream not earthly, shrieking for the bride of Ockram Hall. And the holly and the green boughs over the great chimney-piece shook and slowly waved as if a cool breeze were blowing over them. But the men turned very pale, and many of them set down their glasses, but others let them fall upon the floor for fear. And looking into one another’s faces, they were all smiling strangely, a dead smile, like dead Sir Hugh’s. One cried out words in Irish, and the fear of death was suddenly upon them all, so that they fled in panic, falling over one another like wild beasts in the burning forest, when the thick smoke runs along before the flame; and the tables were overset, and drinking glasses and bottles were broken in heaps, and the dark red wine crawled like blood upon the polished floor.

Sir Gabriel and Evelyn stood alone at the head of the table before the wreck of the feast, not daring to turn to see each other, for each knew that the other smiled. But his right arm held her and his left hand clasped her right as they stared before them; and but for the shadows of her hair one might not have told their two faces apart. They listened long, but the cry came not again, and the dead smile faded from their lips, while each remembered that Sir Hugh Ockram lay in the north vault, smiling in his winding-sheet, in the dark, because he had died with his secret.

So ended the tenants’ New Year’s dinner. But from that time on Sir Gabriel grew more and more silent, and his face grew even paler and thinner than before. Often without warning and without words, he would rise from his seat, as if something moved him against his will, and he would go out into the rain or the sunshine to the north side of the chapel, and sit on the stone bench, staring at the ground as if he could see through it and through the vault below, and through the white winding-sheet in the dark, to the dead smile that would not die.

Always when he went out in that way Evelyn came out presently and sat beside him. Once, too, as in summer, their beautiful faces came suddenly near, and their lids drooped, and their red lips were almost joined together. But as their eyes met, they grew wide and wild, so that the white showed in a ring all round the deep violet, and their teeth chattered, and their hands were like hands of corpses, each in the other’s, for the terror of what was under their feet, and of what they knew but could not see.

Once, also, Evelyn found Sir Gabriel in the chapel alone, standing before the iron door that led down to the place of death, and in his hand there was the key to the door; but he had not put it into the lock. Evelyn drew him away, shivering, for she had also been driven in waking dreams to see that terrible thing again, and to find out whether it had changed since it had lain there.

“I’m going mad,” said Sir Gabriel, covering his eyes with his hand as he went with her. “I see it in my sleep, I see it when I am awake— it draws me to it, day and night— and unless I see it I shall die!”

“I know,” answered Evelyn, "I know. It is as if threads were spun from it, like a spider’s, drawing us down to it." She was silent for a moment, and then she started violently and grasped his arm with a man’s strength, and almost screamed the words she spoke. “But we must not go there!” she cried. “We must not go!”

Sir Gabriel’s eyes were half shut, and he was not moved by the agony of her face.

“I shall die, unless I see it again,” he said, in a quiet voice not like his own. And all that day and that evening he scarcely spoke, thinking of it, always thinking, while Evelyn Warburton quivered from head to foot with a terror she had never known.

She went alone, on a grey winter’s morning, to Nurse Macdonald’s room in the tower, and sat down beside the great leathern easy-chair, laying her thin white hand upon the withered fingers.

“Nurse,” she said, “what was it that Uncle Hugh should have told you, that night before he died? It must have been an awful secret— and yet, though you asked him, I feel somehow that you know it, and that you know why he used to smile so dreadfully.”

The old woman’s head moved slowly from side to side.

“I only guess— I shall never know,” she answered slowly in her cracked little voice.

"But what do you guess? Who am I? Why did you ask who my father was? You know I am Colonel Warburton’s daughter, and my mother was Lady Ockram’s sister, so that Gabriel and I are cousins. My father was killed in Afghanistan. What secret can there be?”

“I do not know. I can only guess.”

“Guess what?” asked Evelyn imploringly, and pressing the
soft withered hands, as she leaned forward. But Nurse Macdonald’s wrinkled lids dropped suddenly over her queer blue eyes, and her lips shook a little with her breath, as if she were asleep.

Evelyn waited. By the fire the Irish maid was knitting fast, and the needles clicked like three or four clocks ticking against each other. And the real clock on the wall solemnly ticked alone, checking off the seconds of the woman who was a hundred years old, and had not many days left. Outside the ivy branch beat the window in the wintry blast, as it had beaten against the glass a hundred years ago.

Then as Evelyn sat there she felt again the waking of a horrible desire— the sickening wish to go down, down to the thing in the north vault, and to open the winding-sheet, and see whether it had changed; and she held Nurse Macdonald’s hands as if to keep herself in her place and fight against the appalling attraction of the evil dead.

But the old cat that kept Nurse Macdonald’s feet warm, lying always on the bag footstool, got up and stretched itself, and looked up into Evelyn’s eyes, while its back arched, and its tail thickened and bristled, and its ugly pink lips drew back in a devilish grin, showing its sharp teeth. Evelyn stared at it, half fascinated by its ugliness. Then the creature suddenly put out one paw with all its claws spread, and spat at the girl, and all at once the grinning cat was like the smiling corpse far down below, so that Evelyn shivered down to her small feet, and covered her face with her free hand, lest Nurse Macdonald should wake and see the dead smile there, for she could feel it.

The old woman had already opened her eyes again, and she touched her cat with the end of her crutch-stick, whereupon its back went down and its tail shrunk, and it sidled back to its place on the bag footstool. But its yellow eyes looked up sideways at Evelyn, between the slits of its lids.

"What is it that you guess, nurse?" asked the young girl again.

“A bad thing— a wicked thing. But I dare not tell you, lest it might not be true, and the very thought should blast your life. For if I guess right, he meant that you should not know, and that you two should marry, and pay for his old sin with your souls.”

“He used to tell us that we ought not to marry—"

“Yes— he told you that, perhaps— but it was as if a man put poisoned meat before a starving beast, and said ‘do not eat’ but never raised his hand to take the meat away. And if he told you that you should not marry, it was because he hoped you would; for of all men living or dead, Hugh Ockram was the falsest man that ever told a cowardly lie, and the cruelest that ever hurt a weak woman, and the worst that ever loved a sin.”

"But Gabriel and I love each other,” said Evelyn very sadly.

Nurse Macdonald’s old eyes looked far away, at sights seen long ago, and that rose in the grey winter air amid the mists of an ancient youth.

“If you love, you can die together,” she said, very slowly. "Why should you live, if it is true? I am a hundred years old. What has life given me? The beginning is fire; the end is a heap of ashes; and between the end and the beginning lies all the pain of the world. Let me sleep, since I cannot die.”

Then the old woman’s eyes closed again, and her head sank a little lower upon her breast.

So Evelyn went away and left her asleep, with the cat asleep on the bag footstool; and the young girl tried to forget Nurse Macdonald’s words, but she could not, for she heard them over and over again in the wind, and behind her on the stairs. And as she grew sick with fear of the frightful unknown evil to which her soul was bound, she felt a bodily something pressing her, and pushing her, and forcing her on, and from the other side she felt the threads that drew her mysteriously; and when she shut her eyes, she saw in the chapel behind the altar, the low iron door through which she must pass to go to the thing.

And as she lay awake at night, she drew the sheet over her face, lest she should see shadows on the wall beckoning to her; and the sound of her own warm breath made whisperings in her ears, while she held the mattress with her hands, to keep from getting up and going to the chapel. It would have been easier if there had not been a way thither through the library, by a door which was never locked. It would be fearfully easy to take her candle and go softly through the sleeping house. And the key of the vault lay under the altar behind a stone that turned. She knew the little secret. She could go alone and see.

But when she thought of it, she felt her hair rise on her head, and first she shivered so that the bed shook, and then the horror went through her in a cold thrill that was agony again, like myriads of icy needles, boring into her nerves.

iv

THE old clock in Nurse Macdonald’s tower struck midnight. From her room she could hear the creaking chains and weights in their box in the corner of the staircase, and overhead the jarring of the rusty lever that lifted the hammer. She had heard it all her life. It struck eleven strokes clearly, and then came the twelfth, with a dull half stroke, as though the hammer were too weary to go on, and had fallen asleep against the bell.

The old cat got up from the bag footstool and stretched itself, and Nurse Macdonald opened her ancient eyes and looked slowly round the room by the dim light of the night lamp. She touched the cat with her crutch-stick, and it lay down upon her feet. She drank a few drops from her cup and went to sleep again.

But downstairs Sir Gabriel sat straight up as the clock struck, for he had dreamed a fearful dream of horror, and his heart stood still, till he awoke at its stopping, and it beat again furiously with his breath, like a wild thing set free. No Ockram had ever known fear waking, but sometimes it came to Sir Gabriel in his sleep.

He pressed his hands to his temples as he sat up in bed, and his hands were icy cold, but his head was hot. The dream faded far, and in its place there came the master thought that racked his life; with the thought also came the sick twisting of his lips in the dark that would have been a smile. Far off, Evelyn Warburton dreamed that the dead smile was on her mouth, and awoke, starting with a little moan, her face in her hands, shivering.

But Sir Gabriel struck a light and got up and began to walk up and down his great room. It was midnight, and he had barely slept an hour, and in the north of Ireland the winter nights are long.

“I shall go mad,”’ he said to himself, holding his forehead. He knew that it was true. For weeks and months the possession of the thing had grown upon him like a disease, till he could think of nothing without thinking first of that. And now all at once it outgrew his strength, and he knew that he must be its instrument or lose his mind— that he must do the deed he hated and feared, if he could fear anything, or that something would snap in his brain and divide him from life while he was yet alive. He took the candlestick in his hand, the old-fashioned heavy candlestick that had always been used by the head of the house. He did not think of dressing, but went as he was, in his silk night clothes and his slippers, ana ne opened the door. Everything was very still in the great old house. He shut the door behind him and walked noiselessly on the carpet through the long corridor. A cool breeze blew over his shoulder and blew the flame of his candle straight out from him. Instinctively he stopped and looked round, but all was still, and the upright flame burned steadily. He walked on, and instantly a strong draught was behind him, almost extinguishing the light. It seemed to blow him on his way, ceasing whenever he turned, coming again when he went on— invisible, icy.

Down the great staircase to the echoing hall he went, seeing nothing but the flaring flame of the candle standing away from him over the guttering wax, while the cold wind blew over his shoulder and through his hair. On he passed through the open door into the library, dark with old books and carved bookcases; on through the door in the shelves, with painted shelves on it, and the imitated backs of books, so that one needed to know where to find it — and it shut itself after him with a soft click. He entered the low-arched passage, and though the door was shut behind him and fitted tightly in its frame, still the cold breeze blew the flame forward as he walked. And he was not afraid; but his face was very pale, and his eyes were wide and bright, looking before him, seeing already in the dark air the picture of the thing beyond. But in the chapel he stood still, his hand on the little turning stone tablet in the back of the stone altar. On the tablet were engraved words: “Clavis sepulchri Clarissimorum Dominorum De Ockram”— (“the key to the vault of the most illustrious lords of Ockram.") Sir Gabriel paused and listened. He fancied that he heard a sound far off in the great house where all had been so still, but it did not come again. Yet he waited at the last, and looked at the low iron door. Beyond it, down the long descent, lay his father uncoffined, six months dead, corrupt, terrible in his clinging shroud. The strangely preserving air of the vault could not yet have done its work completely. But on the thing’s ghastly features, with their half-dried, open eyes, there would still be the frightful smile with which the man had died— the smile that haunted—

As the thought crossed Sir Gabriel’s mind, he felt his lips writhing, and he struck his own mouth in wrath with the back of his hand so fiercely that a drop of blood ran down his chin, and another, and more, falling back in the gloom upon the chapel pavement. But still his bruised lips twisted themselves. He turned the tablet by the simple secret. It needed so safer fastening, for had each Ockram been coffined in pure gold, and had the door been open wide, there was not a man in Tyrone brave enough to go down to that place, saving Gabriel Ockram himself, with his angel’s face and his thin, white hands, and his sad unflinching eyes. He took the great old key and set it into the lock of the iron door; and the heavy, rattling noise echoed down the descent beyond like footsteps, as if a watcher had stood behind the iron and were running away within, with heavy dead feet. And though he was standing still, the cool wind was from behind him, and blew the flame of the candle against the iron panel. He turned the key.

Sir Gabriel saw that his candle was short. There were new ones on the altar, with long candlesticks, and he lit one, and left his own burning on the floor. As he set it down on the pavement his lip began to bleed again, and another drop fell upon the stones.

He drew the iron door open and pushed it back against the chapel wall, so that it should not shut of itself, while he was within; and the horrible draught of the sepulchre came up out of the depths in his face, foul and dark. He went in, but though the fetid air met him, yet the flame of the tall candle was blown straight from him against the wind while he walked down the easy incline with steady steps, his loose slippers slapping the pavement as he trod.

He shaded the candle with his hand, and his fingers seemed to be made of wax and blood as the light shone through them. And in spite of him the unearthly draught forced the flame forward, till it was blue over the black wick, and it seemed as if it must go out. But he went straight on, with shining eyes.

The downward passage was wide, and he could not always see the walls by the struggling light, but he knew when he was in the place of death by the larger, drearier echo of his steps in the greater space, and by the sensation of a distant blank wall. He stood still, almost enclosing the flame of the candle in the hollow of his hand. He could see a little, for his eyes were glowing used to the gloom. Shadowy forms were outlined in the dimness, where the biers of the Ockrams stood crowded together, side by side, each with its straight, shrouded corpse, strangely preserved by the dry air, like the empty shell that the locust sheds in summer. And a few steps before him he saw clearly the dark shape of headless Sir Vernon’s iron coffin, and he knew that nearest to it lay the thing he sought.

He was as brave as any of those dead men had been, and they were his fathers, and he knew that sooner or later he should lie there himself, beside Sir Hugh, slowly drying to a parchment shell. But he was still alive, and he closed his eyes a moment, and three great drops stood on his forehead.

Then he looked again, and by the whiteness of the winding-sheet he knew his father’s corpse, for all the others were brown with age; and, moreover, the flame of the candle was blown toward it. He made four steps till he reached it, and suddenly the light burned straight and high, shedding a dazzling yellow glare upon the fine linen that was all white, save over the face, and where the joined hands were laid on the breast. And at those places ugly stains had spread, darkened with outlines of the features and of the tight-clasped fingers. There was a frightful stench of drying death.

As Sir Gabriel looked down, something stirred behind him, softly at first, then more noisily, and something fell to the stone floor with a dull thud and rolled up to his feet; he started back, and saw a withered head lying almost face upward on the pavement, grinning at him. He felt the cold sweat standing on his face, and his heart beat painfully.

For the first time in all his life that evil thing which men call fear was getting hold of him, checking his heart-strings as a cruel driver checks a quivering horse, clawing at his backbone with icy hands, lifting his hair with freezing breath, climbing up and gathering in his midriff with leaden weight.

Yet presently he bit his lip and bent down, holding the candle in one hand, to lift the shroud back from the head of the corpse with the other. Slowly he lifted it. Then it clove to the half-dried skin of the face, and his hand shook as if some one had struck him on the elbow, but half in fear and half in anger at himself, he pulled it, so that it came away with a little ripping sound. He caught his breath as he held it, now yet throwing it back, and now yet looking. The horror was working in him, and he felt that old Vernon Ockram was standing up in his iron coffin, headless, yet watching him with the stump of his severed neck.

While he held his breath he felt the dead smile twisting his lips. In sudden wrath at his own misery, he tossed the death-stained linen backward, and looked at last. He ground his teeth lest he should shriek aloud.

There it was, the thing that haunted him, that haunted Evelyn Warburton, that was like a blight on all that came near him.

The dead face was blotched with dark stains, and the thin, grey hair was matted about the discoloured forehead. The sunken lids were half open, and the candle light gleamed on something foul where the toad eyes had lived. But yet the dead thing smiled, as it had smiled in life; the ghastly lips were parted and drawn wide and tight upon the wolfish teeth, cursing still, and still defying hell to do its worst— defying, cursing, and always and for ever smiling alone in the dark.

Sir Gabriel opened the winding-sheet where the hands were, and the blackened, withered fingers were closed upon something stained and mottled. Shivering from head to foot, but fighting like a man in agony for his life, he tried to take the package from the dead man’s hold. But as he pulled at it the claw-like fingers seemed to close more tightly, and when he pulled harder the shrunken hands and arms rose from the corpse with a horrible look of life following his motion— then as he wrenched the sealed packet loose at last, the hands fell back into their place still folded.

He set down the candle on the edge of the bier to break the seals from the stout paper. And, kneeling on one knee, to get a better light, he read what was within, written long ago in Sir Hugh’s queer hand.

He was no longer afraid.

He read how Sir Hugh had written it all down that it might perchance be a witness of evil and of his hatred; how he had loved Evelyn Warburton, his wife’s sister; and how his wife had died of a broken heart with his curse upon her, and how Warburton and he had fought side by side in Afghanistan, and Warburton had fallen; but Ockram had brought his comrade’s wife back a full year later, and little Evelyn, her child, had been born in Ockram Hall. And next, how he had wearied of the mother, and she had died like her sister with his curse on her. And then, how Evelyn had been brought up as his niece, and how he had trusted that his son Gabriel and his daughter, innocent and unknowing, might love and marry, and the souls of the women he had betrayed might suffer another anguish before eternity was out. And, last of all, he hoped that some day, when nothing could be undone, the two might find his writing and live on, not daring to tell the truth for their children’s sake and the world’s word, man and wife.

This he read, kneeling beside the corpse in the north vault, by the light of the altar candle; and when he had read it all, he thanked God aloud that he had found the secret in time. But when he rose to his feet and looked down at the dead face it was changed, and the smile was gone from it for ever, and the jaw had fallen a little, and the tired, dead lips were relaxed. And then there was a breath behind him and close to him, not cold like that which had blown the flame of the candle as he came, but warm and human. He turned suddenly.

There she stood, all in white, with her shadowy golden hair— for she had risen from her bed and had followed him noiselessly, and had found him reading, and had herself read over his shoulder. He started violently when he saw her, for his nerves were unstrung— and then he cried out her name in the still place of death:

“Evelyn!”

“My brother!” she answered, softly and tenderly, putting out both hands to meet his.

__________________

11: Poison

Katherine Mansfield

Kathleen Murry, 1888-1923

Collier’s,  24 Nov 1923

THE post was very late. When we came back from our walk after lunch it still had not arrived. “Pas encore, Madame,” sang Annette, scurrying back to her cooking. We carried our parcels into the dining-room. The table was laid. As always, the sight of the table laid for— two— for two people only— and yet so finished, so perfect, there was no possible room for a third, gave me a queer, quick thrill as though I’d been struck by that silver lightning that quivered over the white cloth, the brilliant glasses, the shallow bowl of freesias.

“Blow the old postman! Whatever can have happened to him?’’ said Beatrice. “Put those things down, dearest.”

“Where would you like them?”

She raised her head; she smiled her sweet, teasing smile.

“Anywhere— silly.”

But I knew only too well that there was no such place for her, and I would have stood holding the squat liqueur bottle and the sweets for months, for years, rather than risk giving another tiny shock to her exquisite sense of order.

“Here— I’ll take them.” She plumped them down on the table with her long gloves and a basket of figs. “ 'The Luncheon Table. Short story by— by—’ ” She took my arm. “Let’s go onto the terrace  —” and I felt her shiver. “Ca sent,” she said faintly, “de la cuisine...”

I had noticed lately — we had been living in the south for two months — that when she wished to speak of food, or the climate, or, playfully, of her love for me, she always dropped into French.

We perched on the balustrade under the awning. Beatrice leaned over, gazing down— down to the white road with its guard of cactus spears. The beauty of her ear, just her ear, the marvel of it was so great that I could have turned from regarding it to all that sweep of glittering sea below and stammered: “You know— her ear! She has ears that are simply the most...”

She was dressed’ in white, with pearls ‘round her throat and lilies-of- the-valley tucked into her belt. On the third finger of her left hand she wore one pearl ring— no wedding ring.

“Why should I, mon ami? Why should we pretend? Who could possibly care?”

And of course I agreed, though privately, in the depths of my heart, I would have given my soul to have stood beside her in a large, yes, a large, fashionable church, crammed with people, with old reverend clergymen, with The Voice that breathed o'er Eden, with palms and the smell of scent, knowing there was a red carpet and confetti outside, and somewhere, a wedding cake and champagne and a satin shoe to throw after the carriage— if I could have slipped our wedding ring onto her finger.

Not because I cared for such horrible shows, but because I felt it might possibly lessen this ghastly feeling of absolute freedom— her absolute freedom, of course.

Oh, God! What torture happiness was— what anguish! I looked up at the villa, at the windows of our room hidden so mysteriously behind the green straw blinds. Was it possible that she ever came moving through the green light and smiling that secret smile, that languid, brilliant smile that was just for me? She put her arm round my neck; the other hand softly, terribly, brushed back my hair.

“Who are you?” Who was she? She was— Woman.

On the first warm evening in Spring, when lights shone like pearls through the lilac air and voices murmured in the fresh-flowering gardens, it was she who sang in the tall house with the tulle curtains. As one drove — in the moonlight through the foreign city, hers was the shadow that fell across the quivering gold of the shutters. When the lamp was lighted, in the new-born stillness her steps passed your door. And she looked out into the autumn twilight, pale in her furs, as the automobile swept by...

In fact, to put it shortly, I was twenty-four at the time. And when she lay on her back, with the pearls slipped under her chin, and sighed, “I’m thirsty, dearest. Donne-moi un orange,’ I would gladly, willingly, have dived for an orange into the jaws of a crocodile— if crocodiles ate oranges.

“Had I two little feathery wings

And were a little feathery bird...”

sang Beatrice.

I seized her hand. “You wouldn’t fly away?”

“Not far. Not farther than the bottom of the road.”

“Why on earth there?”

She quoted: " 'He cometh not, she said'."

“Who? The silly old postman? But you’re not expecting a letter.”

“No, but it’s maddening all the same. Ah!” Suddenly she laughed and leaned against me. “There he is— look— like a blue beetle.”

And we pressed our cheeks together and watched the blue beetle begin- ning to climb.

“Dearest,” breathed Beatrice. And the word seemed to linger in the air, to throb in the air like the note of a violin.

“What is it?”

“I don’t know,” she laughed softly. "A wave of —a wave of affection, I
suppose.”

I put my arm round her. “Then you wouldn’t fly away?”

And she said rapidly and softly: “No! No! Not for worlds. Not really. I love this place. I’ve loved being here. I could stay here for years, I believe. I’ve never been so happy as I have these last two months, and you’ve been so perfect to me, dearest, in every way.”

This was such bliss— it was so extraordinary, so unprecedented, to hear her talk like this that I had to try to laugh it off.

“Don’t! You sound as if you were saying goodbye.”

“Oh, nonsense, nonsense. You mustn’t say such things even in fun. She slid her little hand under my white jacket and clutched my shoulder. “You’ve been happy, haven’t you?”

“Happy? Happy? Oh, God — if you knew what I feel at this moment... Happy! My Wonder! My Joy!”

I dropped off the balustrade and embraced her, lifting her in my arms. And while I held her lifted, I pressed my face in her breast and muttered:

“You are mine?” And for the first time in all the desperate months I’d known her, even counting the last month of— surely— Heaven— I believed her absolutely when she answered:

“Yes, I am yours.”

The creak of the gate and the postman’s steps on the gravel drew us apart. I was dizzy for the moment. I simply stood there, smiling, I felt, rather stupidly. Beatrice walked over to the cane chairs.

“You go— go for the letters,” said she.

I— well—I almost reeled away. But I was too late. Annette came running. "Pas de lettres,” said she.

My reckless smile in reply as she handed me the paper must have surprised her. I was wild with joy. I threw the paper up into the air and sang out:

“No letters, darling!" as I came over to where the beloved woman was lying in the long chair.

For a moment she did not reply. Then she said slowly, as she tore off the newspaper wrapper: “The world forgetting, by the world forgot.”

There are times when a cigarette is just the very one thing that will carry you over the moment. It is more than a confederate, even; it is a secret, perfect little friend who knows all about it and understands absolutely. While you smoke you look down at it— smile or frown, as the occasion demands; you inhale deeply and expel the smoke in a slow fan. This was one of those moments. I walked over to the magnolia and breathed my fill of it. Then I came back and leaned over her shoulder. But quickly she tossed the paper away onto the stone.

“There’s nothing in it,” said she. “Nothing. There’s only some poison trial. Either some man did or didn’t murder his wife, and twenty thousand people have sat in court every day and two million words have been wired all over the world after each proceeding.”

“Silly world!” said I, flinging into another chair. I wanted to forget the paper, to return, but cautiously, of course, to that moment before the postman came. But when she answered I knew from her voice the moment was over for now. Never mind. I was content to wait— five hundred years, if need be— now that I knew.

“Not so very silly,” said Beatrice. “After all it isn’t only morbid curiosity on the part of the twenty thousand.”

“What is it, darling?” Heaven knows I didn’t care.

“Guilt!” she cried. “Guilt! Didn’t you realize that? They’re fascinated like sick people are fascinated by anything— any scrap of news about their own case. The man in the dock may be innocent enough, but the people in court are nearly all of them poisoners. Haven’t you ever thought” — she was pale with excitement— “of the amount of poisoning that goes on? It’s the exception to find married people who don’t poison each other— married people and lovers. Oh,” she cried, “the number of cups of tea, glasses of wine, cups of coffee that are just tainted. The number I’ve had myself, and drunk, either knowing or not knowing— and risked it. The only reason why so many couples”— she laughed— “survive, is because the one is frightened of giving the other the fatal dose. That dose takes nerve! But it’s bound to come sooner or later. There’s no going back once the first little dose has been given. It’s the beginning of the end, really— don’t you agree? Don’t you see what I mean?”

She didn’t wait for me to answer. She unpinned the lilies-of-the-valley - and lay back, drawing them across her eyes.

“Both my husbands poisoned me,”— said Beatrice. “My first husband gave— me a huge dose almost immediately, but my second was really an artist in his way. Just a tiny pinch, now and again, cleverly disguised—oh, so cleverly!— until one morning I woke up and in every single particle of me, to the ends of my fingers and toes, there was a tiny grain. I was just in time."

I hated to hear her mention her husbands so calmly, especially today. It hurt. I was going to speak, but suddenly she cried mournfully:

‘Why? Why should it have happened to me? What have I done? Why have I been all my life singled out by... It’s a conspiracy.”

I tried to tell her it was because she was too perfect for this horrible world— too exquisite, too fine. It frightened most people. I made a little joke.

“But I— I haven’t tried to poison you.”

Beatrice gave a queer small laugh and bit the end of a lily stem.

“You!” said she. “You wouldn’t hurt a fly!”

Strange. That hurt, though. Most horribly.

Just then Annette ran out with our apéritifs. Beatrice leaned forward and took a glass from the tray and handed  it to me. I noticed the gleam of the pearl on what I called her pearl finger. How could I be hurt at what she said?

“And you,” I said, taking the glass, “you've never poisoned anybody.”

That gave me an idea; I tried to explain.

“You— you do just the opposite. What is the name for one like you who, instead of poisoning people, fills them— everybody, the postman, the man who drives us, our boatman, the flower-seller, me— with new life, with something of her own radiance, her beauty, her—”

Dreamily she smiled; dreamily she looked at me.

“What are you thinking of— my lovely darling?”

“I was wondering,” she said, “whether, after lunch, you’d go down to the post office and ask for the afternoon letters. Would you mind, dearest? Not that I’m expecting one— but— I just thought, perhaps— it’s silly not to have the letters if they’re there. Isn’t it? Silly to wait till tomorrow.” She twirled the stem of the glass in her fingers. Her beautiful head was bent. But I lifted my glass and drank, sipped rather— sipped slowly, deliberately, looking at that dark head and thinking of— post-men and blue beetles and farewells that were not farewells and....

Good God! Was it fancy? No, it wasn’t fancy. The drink tasted chill, bitter, queer.

___________________

12: Loki's Sword

Edward  Lucas White

1866-1934

Lukundoo and Other Stories, 1927

i

THORKELL VILGERDSON was not only reputed the handsomest youth in all Norway, but was famous as a redoubtable champion, who had unfailingly killed his man in every combat, and who was so skillful with weapons that he had never been seriously wounded in any of the countless affrays in which he had taken part. Therefore, although every one of the thirty-nine other men on the Sea-Raven hated him venomously, not one challenged him, or provoked him, or affronted him in any way, but all were most scrupulously civil.

They all hated him. The three chieftains, Half, dan Ingolfson, Kollgrim Erlendson, and Lodbrok Isleifson, who owned the ship and had planned the adventure, hated him because, to their incredulous amazement, they found themselves indubitably afraid of him. Their six thralls, Vifill, Ulf, Hundi, Kepp, Sokholf and Erp, hated him, even more than they hated their own masters, for his air of ineffable superiority. The twenty-six other Vikings hated him because they felt themselves his inferiors and were unwilling to acknowledge it, even in their thoughts. Most of all his four perfidious sham friends, Hrodmar Finngerdson, Sigurd Atlison, Gellir Kollskeggson and Bodvar Egilson, who had hatched the plot to lure him to his doom and put him out of the way, and had enticed him to join the expedition, hated him for his beauty, his grace, his jaunty demeanor and his vivacious wit. Attack him they dared not, and, sulking inwardly, they bided their time, outwardly suave and smiling, but with furtive winks at each other.

Their opportunity came after a storm which drove them, they knew not where or whither, for, in those times, stars were the mariners' only guides. Throughout three nights and three days they saw neither star nor sun; in fact, could see barely two ships' lengths through the driving scud and sluicing rain; and all that time they dared not set so much as a rag of sail, but, taking turns, every man of them, thralls, warriors and chieftains alike, with but brief snatches of uneasy sleep, labored mightily at the oars, to keep the ship head to gale, or bailed furiously to keep her afloat. So terrific was the tempest that Kollgrim, their acknowledged leader, was unwilling to relinquish the helm and clung to it until exhaustion compelled him to rest. Even when he signalled for a relief neither Halfdan nor Lodbrok showed any alacrity for undertaking his momentous task. As they hesitated, although only for an instant, Thorkell seized the tiller just as Kollgrim's grasp loosened. So well did he steer, so completely did he justify his reputation as a seaman, that thereafter it was rather Kollgrim who acted as relief to him than he to Kollgrim: every man of them all, Kollgrim included, felt safer with Thorkell at the helm.

An hour or two before sunset of the long northern day the storm blew itself out, the sky cleared, and the wind slackened and shifted to a fair breeze. They stepped their mast, hoisted their yard, set a full sail, and, Halfdan at the tiller, and Lodbrok on lookout at the prow, the rest feasted. Champing and munching unhurriedly they despatched a vast quantity of food, washed down with copious drafts of mead. When no one could swallow another mouthful, Sigurd took the helm and Bodvar the lookout's place, and, while Halfdan and Lodbrok ate, the rest disposed themselves to sleep, most of them to larboard, on the spare oars and coils of rope, under the rowing-benches.

During the brief northern night Sigurd and Bodvar set the Sea-Raven on a true course by a whole skyful of brilliant constellations, but, before dawn, they saw the stars hidden all round the horizon and gradually higher up, until only a few showed blurredly directly overhead; so that, when the sleepers waked, they found themselves enveloped in dense fog, and, soon after dawn, the wind slackened until they had to man the oars to keep headway on the ship. The weary thralls and Kollgrim roused last. After Kollgrim waked Thorkell was the only sleeper and he slept heavily, exhausted by his overexertion at the tiller.

Eyeing him as he lay on a coil of rope, Hrodmar and Gellir beckoned Sigurd and Bodvar. They resigned their posts to willing reliefs and picked their way amidships over and among the resting men and toiling rowers. Kollgrim, Lodbrok and Halfdan joined them and the seven conferred. All conned Thorkell and all agreed that he was fast asleep and far from rousing. Then the three chieftains beckoned their six thralls and instructed them. Erp and Ulf took convenient lengths of ratline and knotted in each a clean-running noose. Vifill paired with Hundi and Sokholf with Kepp, each pair choosing a length of light rope, thicker than a big man's thumb. Cautiously the six crawled towards Thorkell, every man aboard, except a few sleepers and such oarsmen as were abaft of Thorkell's position, watching their approach with malicious relish. Hundi and Vifill slipped their rope under Thorkell's knees; Kepp and Sokholf took a turn with theirs round his ankles, Ulf and Erp each noosed a wrist: when all six were ready they looked towards Kollgrim, and, at his nod, the two nooses tightened and the ropes were knotted fast round Thorkell's knees and ankles. Even that did not waken him and, as Erp and Ulf pulled their cords and dragged his arms wide, his four pretended friends sprang on him, turned him on his face, and, after a violent struggle, for, even with knees and ankles lashed, Thorkell fought like a wildcat, they pinioned his arms behind him and turned him once more face upward, trussed and helpless.

Then they gloated over him, told him what they really thought of him, and insulted him to their hearts' content. Halfdan, who was an acclaimed skald, composed and chanted over him an impromptu drapa of triumph. Even the thralls expressed their envious malignity. Gellir proposed to run him through and Bodvar to throw him overboard. But Kollgrim demurred. The thirty-four freemen had taken oath to a pledge of mutual fellowship, as was customary in all Viking voyages, and he pointed out that they were bound, all of them, by their oath and must keep its letter, if not its spirit.

Lodbrok thereupon suggested that they set him adrift, bound as he was, in their smallest boat, which had been half stove during the storm and was presumably leaky; putting into it with him a small hide flask of water and one smoked fish. Then they could accuse him of wilful desertion.

By then it was nearer noon than sunrise, but no sight of the sun had they had, nor could any man, in that fog, conjecture the sun's place in the sky. Their outlook was all gray mist and smooth groundswell, for there was not a catspaw of breeze.

From the boat they took its sail, mast and oars; but they did not search it carefully. In it they laid a leather flask of water and two little smoked fish. In it they laid Thorkell, trussed as he was, but, as they launched the boat, Kollgrim cut the ropes at his knees and ankles.

As boat and ship drifted apart his enemies mocked him, their grinning faces peering between and over the shields which lined the low rail.

"Hoist your sail!" Bodvar jeered at him, "and make for Norway or Iceland, as you prefer. You are about as far from the one as from the other. You have no worse or better chance, either way."

"Hope you relish your provender!" Gellir called.

"You'll need both oars soon," Hrodmar shrilled, "and I don't see either."

"Don't you wish you had a bailer!" Sigurd shouted.

Soon he saw only fog. He eyed the dirty water sloshing about in the dory's bilge. The boat was not leaking rapidly, but it was leaking. No water had lapped over the gunwales and the big groundswells were long and smooth. Of air there was not a breath. For the time being he had only the leaks to fear. And, in the bow, jammed under the tiny fore-thwart in the triangular cubby-hole, he saw a small wooden scoopbailer. It meant more to him than the two little fish and the leather water-bottle under the after thwart.

He conned the edges of the gunwales and thwarts. He saw two sharp splinters. The larger and sharper was where he could not use it; but, painfully and with great exertion, he wriggled, hunched and wrenched himself until he brought the cords which bound his wrists against the other splinter. With efforts distressing at once, and not long afterwards agonizing, he sawed the rope against the splinter. Panting, a jelly of exhaustion, shivering and sweating, he all but fainted; but he found fresh energy every time he glanced at the bilge-water.

At last, just as hope and strength together were failing him, the cord parted. A few jerks and twists of his arms and hands and they were free. He shook himself, beat his arms against his chest and sprang upon the bailer. To his great satisfaction it was not long before no deftness could scoop it up half full; the boat was not leaking too fast for him.

As the dense fog and breathless calm continued to brood over the waters and the slow groundswell even abated, his cockleshell kept afloat not only all that day and night, but throughout the two following days and nights. But the third night after he had been set adrift found him near exhaustion. More than half his time was occupied in bailing and his muscles ached. He was afraid to sleep for fear of foundering before he woke. Once, in spite of himself, he fell deeply asleep and roused to find the gunwales almost awash, so that the most desperate fury of bailing barely sufficed to save him. In the  furry of effort his remaining fish went overboard in a scoopful of water, unheeded. His flask he had emptied by dusk of the second day, control himself all he could.

As the slow dawn whitened the fog after the short arctic night he thought he was delirious, for he seemed to hear the roar of surf on rocks and not far off.

Then, suddenly, all at once, the fog thinned, sunrays lanced the last wisps of it, the air cleared, he saw the sun plain, saw the sky cloudless, saw the horizon all round and beheld, close to him and opposite the just-risen sun, a rocky coast.

Instantly he realized that his enemies had been vastly in error as to the position of the Sea-Raven and had set him adrift only a few leagues east of Iceland. In spite of his buzzing head, his parched mouth, his shivering and trembling limbs, his general faintness, he felt new vigor infused all through him. With his pitiful beechen scoop he alternately bailed and paddled. The current, he felt, was drawing him towards the cliffs. He saw a headland close. With his bailer he strove to guide the skiff towards it. The currents were kind and towards that headland he drifted. He saw no beach, but many flattopped rocks just awash, some hardly wet by the lazy surges. Between them and him he saw no broken water. If his boat dashed into or scraped against a rock he might leap to it without a ducking.

Actually he had the luck to achieve just that and saw his boat stove and smashed after he had firm footing on almost dry basalt.

He stood in his doublet, hose and brogues, with only his inner girdle, without belt, mantle, sword, a dagger, or even belt-knife. Everything on him was damp from the fog and the splashing of his long bailing; but, though his teeth chattered in the chilly morning air, doubly chilly to him after the milder temperature out at sea, he was not the half-frozen waif he would have been if he had had to swim ashore.

To his left, to southwards, the cliffs seemed beaten by the surf. Before him, to westwards, he thought he espied a bit of beach not far ahead. To his right, northwards, he seemed to descry a headland afar across a fiord. He walked westwards, swaying, tot, tering, stumbling, even staggering, but keeping his feet. Gulls and other sea-fowl wheeled and screamed above and about him. Not a hundred paces from his landing-place he came upon a little rill trickling down a nook in the cliff. He knelt and scooped up a handful of icy water. Then he lay beside the rivulet and counted a slow hundred between each handful of the water and the next. Before his thirst was entirely quenched he stood up.

Then he scanned the rocks for birds' nests. He saw many; but, of the scores of eggs he broke, but one was eatable. This he sipped and slowly swallowed its contents. He felt new life all over him.

Not stumbling now he stepped heedfully forward. He felt strangely large and light and whatever he gazed at looked dim and vague. But he felt really able to walk. He rounded a jutting elbow of the cliff.

Before him, irradiated by the slant sunrays, he saw three handsome young noblewomen, walking arm in arm. All were bareheaded, each with a forehead ribbon round her fiowing hair. The middlemost was tall, full-contoured, with very black locks. She was enveloped in a crimson mantle. The girl on her right was of medium height, slender, with glossy brown tresses and wore a mantle of dark blue. The third was small and very lovely, her hair golden, her cheeks pink, her eyes blue, all set off by a mantle of bright grass-green.

Thorkell thought them norns come to escort him to Valhalla. A cloud, gray and then inky black, swept between him and his outlook. He felt himself topple.

ii

WHEN Thorkell came to himself he was in bed in the pitch dark. He felt about him and found that he was in a sort of bunk, a wall on his right hand and, on his left, a polished board. He ran his hand along its upper edge. He was rather deep down in his berth and under him was an infinity of yielding feather-bed. He was well covered with warm quilts. He tried to stretch, but the space was too short for him. He composed himself and slept again.

When he woke the second time it was daylight and he saw by his bunk a tall, spare, elderly noblewoman, severe-looking, hatchet-faced, with a lean and stringy neck and gray hair. She was clad in garments of undyed wool of the usual rusty brown.

"Son," she warned him, "you must not try to speak. Drink this slowly."

And, as he weakly tried to raise himself in the wall-bed, she supported him with her right arm, at the same time holding to his lips with her left hand a silver goblet. Thorkell tasted a delicious posset, compounded of milk, mead, honey, barley-meal, and a of other ingredients unknown to him. He swallowed most of it, fell back among his down pillows and slept again at once.

His third waking was again in full daylight. He felt more like himself. He saw that his bed occupied most of one side of a fair-sized room, wainscoted in dark wood and with a low ceiling, similarly panelled. Opposite his bunk stood a high, narrow table. In the wall by the foot of his bunk was a low doorway, its door shut. In the opposite wall was a window, whose contracted casements had small panes of fish-gut membrane, stretched across wooden lattices. The panes were bright with the glare of brilliant sunshine full on them and much light filtered through, so that the room was well-lighted. By his bed, facing the window, in one of the two chairs, sat a tall, magnificently dignified, elderly man, grayhaired, ruddy of complexion, broad-shouldered, wrapped in a reddish-brown mantle of fine wool. He wore a gold neck-chain from which hung a large, flat, oval gold amulet-case.

"Son," he said, "you must not yet attempt to speak. Hearken and remember. You are housed at Hofstadir, on Revdarfiord, by Faskrudness, on the east coast of Iceland. I, Thorstein Vilgerdson, am , master of Hofstadir. We know nothing of you except that my daughter and my two nieces found you early in the morning, day before yesterday, on the strand by Faskrudness. My wife has been caring for you and she now tells me that you will soon be able to be up and about. Only after you are well and strong will I permit you to tell your story. Meanwhile you are our guest. Do as I bid you. Be silent, compose your mind, repose yourself, and help my wife to restore you to strength and vigor. When you are yourself we shall talk again. Now sleep."

Thorkell was compliantly mute and his host rose and left him.

Two mornings later Thorkell woke to find Thorstein again seated by his bed. And he saw, on the table opposite his bed, a tray with a goblet and a hunch of bread on it.

"Son," the old man queried, "are you entirely awake?"

After Thorkell's affirmation Thorstein said: "My wife judges that you are now sufficiently recovered to tell your story. But you had best first fortify yourself with some food."

And he himself rose and fetched the tray from the table. Thorkell acquiesced and swallowed a few mouthfuls. Then he settled himself back on his pillows, his host resumed his armchair, and Thorkell began his story by naming himself.

"A Vilgerdson!" the old man exclaimed, "and from Rogaland! We must be cousins, however distant. In my long life I have never known or heard of any Norwegian Vilgerdsons; as far as my knowledge goes our family has long been wholly Icelandic. We are descended from Floki Vilgerdson, of Rogaland, the first voyager who ever wintered in Iceland. A hundred and thirty-six years ago he sailed past the headlands of Faxafloi and wintered in the Breidifiord. But he and his associates were so carried away by the abundance of fish and the ease of catching them that they neglected to cure enough hay and their live-stock all perished. Therefore he sailed home next spring. But, twenty and more years later, when past middle age, after most of the west and north of Iceland had already been settled, Floki returned and chose a home here in the east on this very spot. I am his great-great-great-grandson and heir to him and all his."

"I," said Thorkell, "am great-great-great-great-grandson to Snorri Vilgerdson, younger brother to Floki the Viking and settler. For both were sons of Vilgerd Vilgerdson of Rogaland."

"Then," said his host, "you are a fourth cousin to my children and they are your fourth cousins. You are one of us. And now tell me your story."

When Thorkell had said his say and had answered all his host's questions the old man said:

"My wife opines that it will now benefit you to be out of bed and in the open air. My younger sons, Thorgils and Thorbrand, will help you to dress and will assist you to walk about, for, although you may resent the suggestion, you are not yet strong enough for it to be well for you to attempt walking unassisted."

And he called his sons, handsome youths, who clasped hands with Thorkell, called him "cousin" after their father's explanation, and, when the old man had gone out, assisted him to rise. He found he needed assistance. They helped him to don a shirt of the finest linen, knitted hose of soft wool, noblemen's shoes, a doublet of the best woolen cloth, and a fine crimson mantle of wool delightful to feel and handle. They girded him with an outer belt, but there was no sign of sword-belt, sword, poniard or knife. Each of them wore a belt-knife with a staghorn heft, and a dagger and sword, with steel guards and hilts of walrus ivory, pommelled with gold.

One on each side of him they supported him as he strove to stand and they guided him through the doorway into a spacious, plank-floored, high-raftered hall, lighted by many small windows placed high up in the tall gable-ends; low, narrow doors were all down both long sides, with an ample fireplace in a big chimney-piece midway of one side; at one end was the main doorway, at the other a door almost as large. His helpers conducted him out through the main doorway and to a bench in the sunlight where they seated him. Thorbrand sat by him, Thorgils a walked away.

Thorkell found the cool, soft breeze invigorating and yet mild, for it was near midsummer and as genial as it ever is in Iceland. The slant sunrays warmed him. He basked and gazed about him. He saw close by a strongly built storehouse of stone and great ash beams, high-gabled, though its roof was not as steep and tall as that of the mansion. Further away he made out a big sheepfold, with sheds, a large cattle-byre, an ample stable and two very large barns. In whatever direction he looked the extensive level space in which the buildings were grouped was bounded by a stone wall, breast-high, and not of boulders, but of roughly squared blocks.

Some two hundred yards or more distant, topping a low hill, was a temple; for, with its great size, its high and steep roof, its scalloped shingles, its horsehead and fish-tail ornaments at the ridge-pole ends and eave-ends, its carven gable-ends, it could be nothing else.

Some of the thralls were busy about the buildings and several maid-servants passed in and out. Thorkell saw no men-at-arms, nor any of the family except the two brothers. Thorbrand sat smiling, but mute. Thorkell kept mute and basked. After a time Thorgils came back and Thorbrand strolled away. When Thorbrand returned he said:

"Mother thinks that you were best back in your bed."

Thorkell acquiesced and suffered himself to be escorted indoors. In bed he ate some food brought by a tow-headed serving-maid. Soon he slept.

He woke near dusk of the long northern day and again ate what the same maid brought him and was again soon asleep.

Next morning Thorstein was again sitting by him when he woke. As before he enquired how he felt and himself served him with food and drink. When he had reset the tray on the table and reseated himself he said:

"Young man, I and my family have talked over you and your story. I and my daughter and my nieces believe you. But all five of my sons, my two daughters-in-law, my accountant, my seneschal, my skald and everyone of my men-at-arms are convinced that you are not a castaway from any ship, though likely enough a Norwegian and no Icelander. They are unanimously of the opinion that you are a spy craftily insinuated into our community by our enemies. They point out that your clothing was dry when you were carried in here; that neither it nor your hair showed any signs of your having been swimming; that such a marvel as your having leapt ashore from a ship's-boat drifting without sail, oars or rudder is too improbable for them to believe it other than a clumsy invention. They all insist that I would imperil myself and all my household if I were to accept your story and keep you here as a guest. My word is law here, but I feel that it would be unwise for me to disregard so unanimous, so insistent and so clamorous a dissent from my views.

"Now, young man, if you have in fact been sent here by the Miofifirthers or the Seydisfirthers you had best admit it at once and make a clean breast of the whole matter. You shall not be harmed in any way. I will have you fed and cared for until you are fit for a short journey, and then I will equip you with flint and steel, a belt-knife, a dagger, a sword and sword-belt, a horseman's cloak, a good horse, well bitted, saddled and girthed, and a supply of food; and I will send a thrall to guide you round the head of Revdarfiord and to speed you on your way. But if you are what you assert you are and claim our protection and hospitality as the dues of a castaway, you must convince all my household of the truth of your tale."

"I am Thorkell Vilgerdson of Rogaland in Norway," he replied. "I know nothing of any Miofifirthers or Seydisfirthers or of any foes of yours. I never set foot on Iceland until I leapt ashore from my drifting boat soon after sunrise of the morning on which I encountered your daughter and nieces. I have never, in Iceland, set eyes on any Icelanders except members of your household. What I have told you is true in every particular. But how may I convince you of its truth?"

"As you must know from my name and my sons' names," Thorstein answered, "we are steadfast adherents of the old faith. Those who suspect you, and my wife, the most embittered of those against you, in particular, would be at once convinced if you take formal oath to the truth of your statements, an oath sworn upon your own blood and the sacred ring of our holy temple, calling Thor and Odin to witness. If you are willing to take oath, as I suggest, no one here will any longer doubt you."

"I am entirely willing," Thorkell declared. "I am more than willing, I am eager. The suspicions of your household are natural, if you have crafty enemies near at hand and live under threat of being raided. I will swear as you suggest."

"I infer," said Thorstein, "that you also, then, like all here at Hofstadir, are a firm believer in the gods of our fathers."

"I am indeed," Thorkell affirmed.

"Have you met Christians ?" his host queried.

"Too many," said Thorkell, "too many by far."

"Have you talked with any about their beliefs ?" the old man inquired.

"With many," Thorkell said.

"And what do you think of them?" Thorstein pressed him.

"It seems to me," said Thorkell, "that they claim to have a system of sorcery and magic far more efficacious and far cheaper than ours. That is about all I can gather from their talk. Their religion costs far less than ours because they hold that no blood-sacrifices are necessary, stating that one man, hundreds of years ago, achieved one sacrifice by which all men may benefit forever, no other being required after that one. How this could be or can be I cannot conceive. But such appears to be their view. Then they seem to think that priests can be largely dispensed with: certainly they have far fewer than we and their priests are cheaper to maintain than ours, as they require less in the way of ornaments, raiment, food and servants. Then, though no one of them has conveyed to me what they mean, they all allege that their invocations win surer and more effective responses than those which we receive from our deities. That is all I can make out about their novelties."

"Your impressions," Thorstein said, "tally with mine. Christians are utterly incomprehensible to me. In particular, they all rant about peace on earth and good-will to men. Yet, since they became Christians, the Miofifirthers and the Seydisfirthers are just as implacably hostile to us here as before. My father repeatedly made overtures to them proposing conferences to negotiate for a reconciliation, for mutual concessions, for laying our differences and the damage done to each side before the Althing for reference to the courts and for a decision and settlement, for a termination of the feud and the establishment of harmony and amity. I have made similar proffers. But they have been inexorably hostile. In fact, since they became Christians, they seem, if possible, even more ferocious, rancorous and blood-thirsty than before."

"That," said Thorkell, "is just about the attitude towards us heathen of all the Christians I have ever met or heard of. Their idea of peace is unqualified submission or total extermination for us, and complete triumph and unquestioned domination for themselves. Not one will listen to proposals of compromise, accommodation or mutual forbearance. They seem to me opinionated, bigoted, fanatical, overbearing and arrogant. We must fight or perish, there appears to be no other way." [

"You speak sensibly, my son, it seems to me," the old man said. "You have convinced me that you are sincere. Your oath in the temple will convince all my household and all my retainers."

Then he rose and went out.

iii

AGAIN Thorgils and Thorbrand entered the bedroom and helped Thorkill to dress. This time he needed little assistance. And this time they girt him with a sword-belt, and equipped him with a handy belt-knife, a fine dagger and a sword in a decorated scabbard. Out they escorted him, Thorkell now walking easily and unaided. In the open he found awaiting him Thorstein, his three elder sons, Thorfinn, Thorgeir and Thord; a handsome and very blond young giant who was presented to him as "Finnvard Sigurdson, of Faskrudsfiord, my future son-in-law," Thorstein's house-skald, Olmod Borkson; and his seneschal, Ari Gormson. There were a score of men-at-arms lounging about.

After the presentations they set off towards the temple, Thorstein linking arms with Thorkell and leading the way.

"I myself," he said, "am Gothi of this temple, which my grandfather, Thorleif Vilgerdson, built with timber fetched from Norway."

The temple, Thorkell judged, was a full hundred feet long. Temple fashion the end under the gable which they approached was doorless. The side-wall had two ample doorways, each near an end. They passed in by that nearest them towards the right end of the side-wall, and turned to their left. In behind them straggled the men-at-arms, who had trooped after them. Thorkell could feel the reverential awe with which the great, hulking, burly, truculent spearmen entered the holy place. Midway of the opposite long-wall they passed the High Seat, between the tall pillars, each with its three consecrated bolts of gilded bronze. They were visible even in the dim light afforded by the small latticed windows, gut-paned, high up in the gable ends. Towards the end of the temple they entered the oval, defined by a ring of thin slabs of stone set on edge. Inside the oval, near the end of it towards the further gable of the building, was an altar of the customary form, a great thick slab of dressed stone, full three ells square, supported by four stone posts, squared, carved with runes, and set deep in the beaten earth floor. The slab of the altar was also carved with runes. On it lay the great holy ring, of solid silver, weighing full thirty pounds.

Thorstein lifted the great ring and slid it up his right arm to the shoulder. There Thorfinn tied it with a crimson wool ribbon, slipped under his father's left arm-pit and crossed on his left shoulder; so that the ring would not slide down the arm. Then, standing on Thorstein's right, Thorkell unsheathed his dagger and with its point lightly slashed the back of his left hand, tilting it till the dagger-blade ran with blood. Then, placing his left hand on the temple-ring and holding the dagger point down over the center of the altar, he swore:

"As my blood drips upon this altar from the point of this dirk, so may my blood and the heart's blood of all my kin, of any wife I may wed, of any children I may have, of all those dear to me, be spilt upon the earth, if my oath is not truthful. I swear by my own blood, by the holy ring which I grasp, by this altar, by the pillars of the High Seat, by their sacred bolts, before Thor and Odin, that I am Thorkell Vilgerdson of Rogaland in Norway, and that I am newly castaway on the coast of Iceland and have never, in Iceland, seen or spoken with any Icelander excepting dwellers here at Hofstadir.

"If I my oath is false may my heart's blood and the blood of all those dear to me be spilt upon the earth as my blood now drips from the point of my dirk. Before Odin and Thor I have sworn."

Thereafter Thorfinn removed the Gothi's ring from his father's arm and he and Thorstein laid it in its place midway of the altar-slab.

Outside the temple Thorgils dressed the slash on the back of Thorkell's left hand. Then Thorstein first and after him his sons in the order of their ages, clasped hands with Thorkell, each uttering the formula:

"You are our dear and trusted cousin."

Finnvard followed. Then Ari, Olmod and the men-at-arms saluted Thorkell, crying: "We are brothers in arms. From the temple Thorstein led Thorkell into the storehouse and into that part of it which was used as an armory.

"Look over these weapons," he said, "and select a sword, poinard and belt-knife to your mind. Try first those you now have; if they suit you, keep them. But be sure that the balance of the sword is precisely what you prefer and that you are armed as you desire."

Outside, in the mild sunshine of a day unusually mellow for Iceland, they sat on the benches flanking the doorway and chatted until after midday. Then Thorstein cautioned Thorkell that a man who had been exposed and exhausted as he had had best lie down an hour or so before his first heavy meal after his privations.

When Thorgils wakened and summoned him he found in the great hall a numerous assemblage. He was presented by Thorstein to Thorkatla his wife, to his daughter Thorgerd and his two nieces Thorarna and Thordis, whom he had encountered on the beach. Thorarna was the tall, full-contoured, black-tressed beauty, and Thordis the exquisite blonde whom he had thought the most beautiful of the three. Thorfinn's wife Arnora and Thord's wife Valdis were personable young women.

Thorstein occupied the High Seat, facing the fireplace. To the left and right of him sat his family, on benches ranged along that side of the hall, but far enough from the wall to leave space for anyone to walk behind them and to pass in or out of any door. On the opposite side of the hall, flanking the chimney-piece, was a similar row of benches, occupied by the men-at-arms, more than forty together. Towards the ends of the hall sat such dependents and thralls as were not busy serving the feast. The servitors carried in more than eighty light, collapsible tables, each in three parts, a square top and two trestles. One was placed before each diner. The fare was varied and abundant, but notably characteristic of Iceland. There were unlimited supplies of fresh whey in jars, pitchers and bowls; bowls of curd; platters heaped with slices of cheese, both new and aged; there was even an overabundance of [51] smoked and fresh fish, cooked in every known manner; plenty of tender fat mutton, beef and veal, and, each borne in by two brawny thralls, two great platters, one piled with convenient cuts of stewed horseflesh, the other with similar collops of horseflesh roasted. There was a moderate supply of manchets of excellent rye, barley and wheaten bread, handed along in smallish flat osier baskets or on similar trays. Maids continually passed and repassed proffering basins of warm water and towels; for, in those days, forks were unknown, and, besides plates and spoons of beechwood from Norway and belt knives, fingers were the only table implements, and frequent washing of the hands was necessary for comfort.

Thorgils and Thorbrand, between whom Thorkell sat, plied him with offerings of every viand brought in and saw that his goblet was kept full of wellaged, fragrant mead. Even more than the large household and lavish fare Thorkill was impressed by the chimney-piece, which faced him on his left, and by its fireplace, not aglow with smouldering peat, but ablaze with a generous heap of crackling driftwood. He commented on this to Thorbrand.

"I have never seen any other chimney or fireplace except ours," was his reply. "It is said that two halls in the river-valleys about Faxafloi have chimney fireplaces, and that there is another in a mansion on Breidifiord. But none of us have seen any. My great grandfather had this built of native stone, for there is much fire-resisting rock on our island."

"This," Thorkell said, "is the only chimney fireplace I have myself ever seen. My home, like every other hall I have ever entered till now, has only a fireplace midway of its floor, so that the smoke blackens the rafters before it finds the hole in the roof."

After the feast Thorstein called for silence. "We have with us," he said, "what is almost as good as a visiting skald, a guest who has had marvellous adventures. All of us will now listen to Thorkell Vilgerdson of Rogaland in Norway, if he will be so good as to accede to my request that he tell us of his dangers and of his escape."

Thorkell blushed, but was encouraged by the smiling, eager faces turned towards him. He took couragę, stood up, and told his tale, haltingly at first, later more fluently. After he had finished and sat down Olmod twanged his harp and recited a drapa describing and praising the exploits of Floki Vilgerdson the viking and settler. When he ceased the company dispersed to bed.

During the ensuing days Thorkell became well acquainted with Hofstadir, its denizens and its neighborhood. As soon as he felt his full strength and vigor return he spent his mornings with Thorgir, Thorbrand, Thorgils and Finnvard at fencing, target practice with spears or arrows, wrestling, and other such manly exercises. At all of these he excelled, yet his genial demeanor was so winsome that his easy victories gave no offence to his companions.

They also went swimming together, and fishing, both in the many nearby streams, and offshore in a very handy small boat, heavily built, blunt bowed, yet a good sailor. Thorkell was amazed at the numbers of fish and at the rapidity with which they could be caught. A hook thrown into the water was taken almost at once.

They rode about the neighborhood on fine mounts, for, in those early days, Icelandic horses were still fully equal to Norwegian horses, as the breed was kept up by constant importations of tall, strong, speedy and spirited stallions.

After not many days Thorkell learned the country further afield, for he was invited to accompany Thorstein on a tour of inspection of his district; for he was not only Gothi, that is, priest, of the temple at Hofstadir, but also Gothi, that is, magistrate, of a district called a gothorth, all Iceland being divided into gothorths. Thorstein made his tour attended by his five sons; by several cousins, among whom were Thorlak Vilgerdson of Thelmark and Thorvald Vilgerdson of Husavik; by many thing-men, dependents and yeomen; and by a strong guard of well-horsed spearmen.

Thorkell was much edified by Thorstein's promptness at settling controversies and redressing grievances. The old man displayed an uncanny intuition and seemed to know all his vassals' thoughts, motives, wants, desires and needs without being told.

After the tour was over, at a moment when Thorstein was at ease, Thorkell ventured to express his admiration. His host smiled.

"A chieftain," he said, "must possess the faculty of seeing into his vassals' hearts and of knowing their thoughts without question asked and answer given; even without any uttered word. A man who cannot divine the unspoken thoughts of his dependents will not long retain the prestige vital for a Gothi, or for any sort of chieftainship. Necessarily, I know much without being told, with hardly even a glance. Mostly for instance, I can foresee months in advance, sometimes even years in advance, what girl each youth will woo for his wife, what maiden each lad desires, even what lad finds favor in each maiden's eyes.  Such must any chieftain divine."

At Hofstadir Thorkell was soon at home among the buildings. Not less than by the chimney, inset fireplace and lavish wood fire was he impressed by the fortifications of the homestead. It was protected all round with a dry moat, the earth from which, thrown up on the inner side, formed a considerable rampart, topped on all four sides of the enclosure by a solid wall of large, roughly squared blocks of stone. At the corners were jutting, bulging circular bastions well stockaded with birch logs, set deep in the earth, butt up and touching each other, everyone fully three spans broad at the upturned butt, for, in those early days, the primeval woods of Iceland furnished logs much larger than any now obtainable on the island. The stockades, like the walls, were breast-high. Thorkell had never seen a bastion before, nor heard of one, and was much impressed by the novelty, originality and manifest adequacy of the device. The idea of a bastion, that it affords defenders of a fortification an opportunity of shooting sideways at an assailant crossing the fosse or scaling the parapet, appears so obvious to us that we can scarcely realize that there ever was a time when it was unknown. Yet, hundreds, even thousands of years after it was common and a matter of course in the Mediterranean countries, it had not yet penetrated the ruder northern lands. In fact, in all parts of the world, men were not quick to conceive the idea, and, as with other devices, very slow to adopt it from foemen.

Almost as much was Thorkell impressed by the bath-house, a small structure, one might say a hut, built of sod and stone, with a low door and only one very tiny window. Inside there was room for only one person and a pail of water beside a very small stone stove. This was heated almost red-hot and then the bather, with a dipper, poured on it water which at once filled the hut with steam, both cleansing and refreshing.

On either side of the chimney-piece in the great hall was a sort of trophy of spears, shields and swords arranged in a pattern like a six-pointed star; six short pikes crossed and lashed to pegs, six small round shields set between the radiating spears, and twelve swords, two by each shield. Above the fireplace was another, of six long swords, their points together, their hilts apart, with shields between.

Thorkell, inquiring about these, was told that they had been placed there by Thorstein's grandfather, Thorleif Vilgerdson, who had built the hall and temple. The spears and swords forming the two flanking trophies were fine and valued weapons of former Vilgerdsons: the trophy over the fireplace was formed of the very sword worn all his life by Floki Vilgerdson the Viking and settler, and of five cunningly exact replicas of it, made at Thorleif Vilgerdson's command by Hoskuld Vestarson, a famous smith.

"I do not myself know," said Thorstein, "which is Floki's blade. My father told me that he did not know. No one knows. No man has used any one of those six swords since before I was born. It is told that Floki's blade is enchanted, that no one except a Vilgerdson could wield it, that to anyone not a Vilgerdson it would be heavier than a thick bar of iron; but that, in time of peril to Floki's heirs or kin, it is magical to infuse into its wielder superhuman valor, swiftness, dexterity and strength. It is also told of Floki's blade that it knows friend from foe and will not smite a friend, no matter how frenziedly its wielder believes him a foe, nor yet will it fail to smite a treacherous foe, no matter how implicitly its wielder trusts the traitor. We have come to regard these swords as almost as holy as the bolts in the pillars by the High Seat in our temple, as almost as sacred as the temple ring itself. Their presence in our hall we regard as a protection and safeguard to us all, as a sort of talisman for Hofstadir. We all and all my men-at-arms and thingmen and retainers reverence and treasure them."

Thorkell could see that they were very handsome swords.

He learned that Thorstein never had fewer than sixty men-at-arms on duty, but not all of them were ever at Hofstadir itself. Some were on watch along the cliffs, on the lookout for an attack from seaward. There were always two or more patrol-boats on the offing conning the sea northwards. The lookouts on the cliffs also watched the fiord for signs of an attempt to attack in boats from its northern shore. And some men-at-arms were always scattered about at the farmsteads of Thorstein's thingmen and other dependents, especially towards the head of Revdarfiord, round which must come any attack in force by land.

Thorkatla he found kind-hearted, but taciturn, sharp-tongued when she did speak, and of a very stern, harsh and austere disposition. Thorgerd, staid, astute and shrewd, was yet, by nature, trustful, unsuspicious, confiding, artless and unaffected. She gave Thorkell an experience entirely novel to him. For she displayed for him a warm sisterly interest, as to which she was entirely frank and open, while indubitably ardently in love with her handsome Finnvard.

Thorarna and Thordis he greatly admired and liked. He could not make out at first which he liked better. That both were manifestly deeply in love with him he took as a matter of course. He had long become habituated to having attractive maidens fall in love with him on short acquaintance and show it. The immemorial usages of Scandinavian life made it absolutely unthinkable, in the Iceland of those days, that a young man and a young woman should ever be alone together, even for a moment. But, on the other hand, life in Iceland was so free, open, frank, spontaneous, unconventional and inartificial that not only were lads and lasses constantly encountering each other about the dwellings, but that not merely was chatting a matter of course and unremarked, but that such young folk as Thorkell, Thorarna and Thordis might and did walk about together out of doors, and sit together side by side conversing for hours in the hall, in full sight of those about them, unnoticed and left to themselves.

In this way Thorkell became rapidly wellacquainted with both his host's nieces and heard from each her story; stories very much alike and of a kind far too common in Iceland at that period, and for centuries later. The envenomed and unremitting enmity between the Revdarfirthers and their neighbors the Miofifirthers and Seydisfirthers had resulted in recurrent reprisals.

Thorarna was the only survivor of an overwhelmingly successful assault upon her father's homestead. Her father, Thorstein's brother Thorleik, had been killed in the fighting, and, when the buildings were set on fire by the victorious assailants, all the family had perished in the flames except Thorarna, who, a child of three, had been saved by her faithful nurse.

Thordis, the only daughter of Thorstein's brother Thorgest, was the survivor of a similar massacre.

Much of the evening leisure at Hofstadir was taken up with tales of such atrocities as these and of like assaults on homesteads, some by one side, some by the other; some craftily planned, artfully delivered and overwhelmingly successful; others, resulting in drawn battles and leaving the homestead in mourning for some of its defenders, but unpillaged and unburnt; yet others unplanned, impulsive, foolhardy, undermanned or bungled in delivery and resulting in the utter discomfiture of the assailants. Thorkell sat in silence and listened to many long tales of this kind from Olmod the house-skald, from Thorstein himself and from his elder sons. From them also he listened to even longer tales of complaints against one or the other side before the Althing at Thingvellir, nearly every year at the twoweeks summer meeting of this national assembly. They told in great detail of the impassioned accusations of the plaintiffs, of the indignant rejoinders of the defendants, of the citations of the respondents before the high court of justice, of the evidence of the witnesses for each side, of the arguments of the lawmen, of the disagreements of the judges, of their occasional agreement, of their verdicts and judge ments and of the indemnities they assessed upon the convicted aggressors. In almost every case Thorkell heard of the ignoring or flouting of the court's decision and of yet further reprisals, duels, forays and outrages. What astonished him most was that, in all these tales of duels, murders, treacheries, ambushes, pillagings, outrages, butcheries, massacres and arson and of their consequences, the narrators talked as if the Althing were an efficient legislature with power to see to it that its enactments be observed as the law of the island; as if the courts had the authority they assumed to have and could enforce their judgments, verdicts, decrees and penalties; as if, in truth, law and justice did exist in Iceland: whereas, in fact, it appeared from every tale he listened to, from every detail of every narrative, that their vaunted Althing was merely a turbulent yearly social gathering, accomplishing nothing except the waste of time in futile wrangling, making a vain show of counterfeiting a sham legislature, which empty pretense all Icelanders kept up with a curious mingling of unconscious self-deception and shamefaced effrontery; that the courts, while generally spoken of with respect, were in fact derided by all malefactors, and unable to give effect to their decrees, judgments and verdicts, to enforce their penalties or to exact the indemnities they granted, so that they were, on the whole, a costly, time-wasting, exhausting and pitiable farce.

It was plain to Thorkell that the Icelanders, if his host and his household were fair samples, had somehow duped themselves into fancying that they had courts which dispensed justice and a government which maintained law and order; whereas it was manifest that they lived in a condition of utter anarchy, where there was no protection for life or property except the fighting prowess of the men of a homestead as concerned themselves, their folk and their possessions; or of the men-at-arms of a chieftain for him and his. It was plain that beautiful Thordis, magnificent Thorarna, lovely Thorgerd, fair Arnora, dainty Valdis and stern Thorkatla were living in daily peril of a horrible death and were safe only in so far as their men could protect them. Yet they, like their men, boasted of the noble freedom of life in Iceland, pitied the servile condition of Norwegians under their tyrannical king, vaunted their island institutions, and lauded the system of local gothorths, yearly elections, yearly assemblies at Thingvellir of their unwieldy and ineffective Althing, and the complex, lengthy, laborious and fruitless procedure of their fatuous courts. Local pride seemed a passion which blinded them to the most glaring imperfections of anything Icelandic.

iv

BUT IT mattered very little what was the subject or the nature of the conversation, Thorkell found himself more than contented with any length of time which he might spend with either Thorarna or Thordis. Yet, after not many days, he . was aware of a difference in his feelings for the two and of theirs for him. Thordis never avoided him, but never put herself in his way. If everything was favorable and they happened to be thrown together accidentally, she frankly enjoyed being with him, but never did anything to prolong a chat or to bring one about. Thorarna, on the contrary, was most ingenious in postponing the termination of a colloquy, and was most fertile in clever, adroit, and unobtrusive devices which resulted in their being together.

Before many days life at Hofstadir, for Thorkell, consisted chiefly of endeavoring to be with Thordis. Once, when he was basking in her smiles, her face suddenly clouded and she said:

"There! Thorarna has gone! Please, please try to spend more of your time with her and less with me. From childhood she and I have been happy together, and nothing has ever blurred our love for each other and our unreserved mutual confidence until she began to grow jealous of me. Since she fell in love with you we have become alienated; she is chilly to me, distant, reticent, even unfriendly, I grieve that we are estranged. I love her and I want her to love me. I do not want her to hate me. Please do all you can to placate her. She keeps her countenance and is always outwardly serene, sedate and stately. But she rages inwardly and is so infuriated when you talk to me that I dread her. Please avoid me and propitiate her all you . Please promise me that you will do as I can. ask."

Thorkell promised, and, for some days, barely greeted Thordis and had no converse with her whatever, whereas he spent long hours with Thorarna, and, to his amazement, found that he enjoyed her society keenly; yet, even more to his amazement, felt that, when he was not with Thorarna, he longed for Thordis so acutely that he could hardly restrain himself from seeking her out and telling her how much he loved her.

The long spell of clear, mild weather merged into weather decidedly warm, weather which would have been warm even for Scotland or England. Thorstein, with a large retinue of spearmen, rode out to visit and inspect the outlying fringe of farms tenanted by his dependents or thingmen. It was a very fair day and they had expected an easy jaunt and an early return to Hofstadir. So it turned out for Thorstein and most of his company. But, early in the day, they heard a report, hardly more than a rumor, of distress at a farmstead isolated among uplands at the extreme southwestern point of Thorstein's gothorth, very much out of their way. Thorbrand offered to ride there and investigate and Thorkell volunteered to go with him. He demurred to his father's suggestion that he take some of the men-at-arms, declaring that he and Thorkell could make better time alone. Off they set. Their errand was easily accomplished and the rumor found untrue and everyone safe and well at Mossfell. But, on their return, they encountered conditions peculiar to Iceland. There it frequently happens during a prolonged spell of warm weather that great quantities of snow are melted high up on the plateaus or in hollows among the upper foot-hills, and, very occasionally, that the waters are dammed back by ice accumulated in some valley, ravine, gorge or glen, and, if the hot weather lasts on, are suddenly released by the crumbling of the ice-dam. Such a sudden and terrific freshet roared across their homeward way and presented a torrent of deep water not only unfordable, but impossible to swim. They were, perforce, compelled to await the ebbing of the transitory flood and so did not reach Hofstadir until the gradual twilight, insensible gloaming and lingering dusk had melted into semi-darkness.

Thorbrand, sedulously careful of their weary mounts, bade Thorkell go at once into the hall. Between the stable and the mansion, out of sight of either behind the storehouse, he encountered Thordis.

She burst into tears; crying:

"Oh! My Love! My Love! Ref and Karli rode in after sunset on lathered horses reporting that you and Thorbrand had been ambushed and killed. Oh! My Love! My Love!"

Thorkell caught her in his arms and they clung together, she sobbing, her head on his breast, he with one arm about her, his other hand stroking her hair, whispering:

"My Darling! My Darling!"

Suddenly her arms relaxed, she pulled away from him, pushed him from her, and cried, in a strangled whisper:

"Let me go! Thorarna might see us! Be careful! Thorarna must not see us together! Let me go! Avoid me! Keep away from me, hardly speak to me! She must not see us together! Let me go!"

And she sprang away and vanished like a frightened hare.

The weather, for two days afterwards, was not merely warm, but hot, weather which would have been hot anywhere; an occurrence very unusual for Iceland, but not unknown, especially on the east coast. On account of the heat the fire in the hall was allowed to go out entirely, and, at the evening meal, two of the benches of the men-at-arms were set across the fireplace, close against the stone work of the chimney-piece.

During these two days Thorkell spent as much time with Thorarna as he could arrange, and found her fascinating, but moody, high-strung and capricious. He sedulously avoided Thordis. Only for one moment did they have an opportunity to exchange a few words. Then Thordis, on the verge of tears and gasping, said:

"Oh! I am so afraid of Thorarna. I don't know what I dread, but I am in the most fearful dread of her. She is very suspicious of you. I think she conjectures that you and I love each other. You are too distant with her for her peace of mind. Thorarna, like all her mother's family, is petulant, choleric, touchy, irascible, hot-tempered, acrimonious, vindictive, impulsive, precipitate and hot-headed. Oh, I am so afraid of her!"

Thorkell tried to calm her, but could not.

Early the third morning, just after dawn had brightened into day, the lookouts gave the alarm. And too late! For, when the garrison of Hofstadir had barely armed and were not yet all at their posts, there fell upon them three simultaneous and perfectly coordinated assaults; from the west along the strand, from the south down the slope, and from the north, from across the fiord by a party which had made an unopposed landing on the shore.

Thorkell was among the defenders of the western home side of the enclosure, and, despite the hard fight he and his companions put up, their assailants succeeded in crossing the trench and scaling the wall. But thereupon they were beaten back by a desperate rally of the denizens, in which Thorkell played more than his part, for he, single-handed, successively slew five formidable antagonists. As their foemen wavered he sprang at a sixth, parried his thrust and a deadly stroke on his helmet.

The sword snapped!

As his adversary was half stunned and wholly dazed by the force of the blow Thorkell whirled about and made a dash for the hall. There he leapt upon one of the benches set across the fireplace, seized the hilt of one of the six identical swords, wrenched it from its fastenings, and, waving it, dashed out.

As he cleared the doorway he heard elated shouts and an exultant cheer. Glancing to his right he saw men in chain-mail hauberks vaulting the eastern wall of the enclosure. He recognized, in the lead, Lodbrok and Halfdan, the chiefs, Gellir, Sigurd and Bodvar, his treacherous friends, and others from the crew of the Sea-Raven. He instantly divined that they had blundered into Miofifiord or Seydisfiord, had fraternized with the Seydisfirthers and Miofifirthers and had readily agreed, for their share in the prospective loot, to take part in capturing and sacking the richest homestead in eastern Iceland.

On fire with his chance of revenge he flew at Lodbrok, and, as he charged, it seemed to him that never had he run so swiftly, never had he felt so strong, so capable, so eager for a fray, so sure of success.   He beat back Lodbrok's guard and swung a full arm sweep of his blade at his head. The sword went up like a feather and came down like a battle axe. As if through cheese it clove helm, skull, jaw and chin down into the breast-bone. Lodbrok fell like a pole-axed ox, and, as Thorkell saw him go down, almost in two halves, he realized that he was wielding Floki's blade.

He whirled on Gellir and the sweep of the sword cut clean through not only both forearms between wrist and elbow, but also through the stout ash shaft of the pike he wielded. Behind Gellir was Halfdan, no mean adversary, truculent, wary and skilled. He held his bright, round, arabesqued shield close against his left shoulder and lunged cunningly and viciously. Barely parrying his thrust Thorkell swung his great sword, and, lo! it shore clean through shield, gorget, hauberk, shoulder and arm, so that his left forequarter fell clear of Halfdan and he was dead before he crumpled on the earth.

Similarly Thorkell slew Bodvar, Sigurd and Hrodmar. Two the sharp sword beheaded at a single sweep; one it cleft under the sword-arm, through his ribs, into his liver; of the fourth its point pierced his heart through shield and hauberk.

Instinct made Thorkell spin round and he faced Kollgrim Erdlendson, leader of the Vikings and most redoubtable of them all. Their swords clashed and Kollgrim's failed, snapped before the hilt, so that Thorkell's blade shore off his right shoulder, slicing through the rings of his chain-mail hauberk as if it had been of hemp, and he died as his fellow chieftain Halfdan Ingolfson had died. Although their chiefs were all dead the Vikings, descrying but one defender before them, were swarming over the wall. Among them Thorkell dashed and at each stroke of Floki's blade a foeman died. Yet Thorkell must have been overwhelmed by mere numbers if some of the Vilgerdsons and their menat-arms, now victorious to north and south, had not flocked to his aid, amazed to see that Hofstadir had been saved by his unaided valor and spurred on by admiration of him.

Thorkell at their head they drove the survivors of the Sea-Raven's crew in headlong flight across the wall and trench, and Thorkell beheld in the distance the thralls Erp, Ulf, Hundi, Kepp, Sokholf and Vifill, standing ready with spare shields, spears, bows and quivers, cast away their burdens and turn in flight before the foremost of the fleeing Vikings reached them.

The fight was over. The assailants were everywhere beaten and routed. Thorstein forbade pursuit on foot, and only some twenty of the men-at-arms found horses ready, mounted and sped out of the main gateway of the enclosure to complete the rout of the assailants, who left more than forty corpses behind them.

Of the victors twelve spearmen had fallen and with them seven of Thorstein's dependent yeomen, four of his thing-men, and two cousins, Thorberg Vilgerdson of Snowfell and Thorod Vilgerdson of Gelsbank. Thorkell, Thorstein himself and Thorfinn were were the only unwounded warriors among the defenders. All the rest of the family, all the cousins, thing-men, yeomen, and men-atarms had suffered one or more wounds; but, of the family, only Thord was wounded seriously. His wounds were at once bound up and the blood staunched.

Then, with one accord, every warrior of them all acclaimed Thorkell as their savior. They cheered him and saluted him as "hero." Thorfinn and Thorgeir seized him by the elbows, and, following their father and followed by the cheering throng, marched him into the great hall and up to the High Seat. There Thorstein stood aside and motioned Thorkell to mount the dais and occupy the High Seat. Before his dazed astonishment could protest, Thorfinn and Thorgeir had gently forced him into it. There he sat, Floki's blade, still red, point down between his knees, his hands crossed on the pommel of the upright hilt.

Thorstein shouted:

"Mead for the hero! Not a man of us shall touch horn or bowl to lip until the hero has had his fill of my best mead. Mead for the hero!"

At the call Thorarna appeared from the kitchen through the rear doorway carrying with both hands a great bowl high before her. Down the hall she came, her face lit with a triumphant smile, magnificent and stately. Before the High Seat she knelt and offered the bowl to Thorkell. The fighters cheered again.

As Thorarna held up the bowl, Thorkell, to his horror, felt his right hand grasp the sword-hilt with a grip he could not loosen, felt the sword raise itself and his arm till the blade swung high above Thorarna, felt the magic of the sword drag down his arm in a deadly sweep, felt and saw the blow descend, felt and saw the blade shear through Thorarna's left shoulder, shoulder-blade, collar-bone and ribs, cleaving her to the very heart. She crumpled in a horrid welter of spilt mead, gushing blood, disordered raiment and huddled flesh.

The onlookers stood, frozen mute.

Into the hall rushed Thordis and Thorgerd, screaming: "Do not drink! The mead is poisoned! Do not drink! The mead is poisoned!"

At sight of the High Seat, Thorkell on it and what lay before him, Thordis collapsed in a faint.

Thorgerd was at once absorbed in tending her cousin.

Thorstein shouted for his thralls.

"Ref! Karli! Mar! Odd! Remove that carrion! Cleanse the dais!"

And, when his orders had been obeyed and the dais and hall were again seemly, he called once more:

"Mead for the hero!"

Thordis, now restored, though tottering, her golden-haired, pink-cheeked, blue-eyed loveliness amazing even in her confusion, herself carried to Thorkell a horn. He took it, quaffed it as he sat and handed it back to her. Then Thorstein shouted:

"Mead for all of us, and more mead for the hero!"

Maid servants flocked in with bowls, horns and goblets and behind them thralls with pails of mead to replenish those drained. All drank, Thorkell too, a second horn offered him by Thordis. From her knees he raised her and made her stand beside the High Seat.

Then Thorstein shouted:

"Hail the hero!"

Whereupon all the warriors cheered Thorkell until they were hoarse. Into the ensuing silence Thorstein spoke clearly and gravely:

"To-morrow we shall revel in honor of our deliverance, victory and safety. And the banquet shall be the wedding feast of my niece Thordis and of her bridegroom, my cousin, Thorkell Vilgerdson of Rogaland in Norway, our hero!"

_______________

13: Zero-Zero

Harry Ashe
fl. 1930s

Esquire June 1934

The Ford Timotor or "tin goose", which features in this story, was introduced in 1925, and production finished in 1933, but some remained in service until WW2. Carried up to 9 passengers. Cruising speed 115 mph.—Ed.

Ford publicity photo

FOG DRIFTED lazily across the Washington airport and blurred out the sharp outlines of the hangars. Beads of moisture formed on half a dozen planes and trickled gayly down the wings and struts.

A pilot glanced about him. "—Thick enough to row a boat in," he muttered. "Bill better not try to get in with those passengers from Newark."

A mechanic nodded in silent agreement. In the dispatcher's office a worried young man chewed viciously on a pencil. "How's she looking?" he asked the weather man at his elbow.

"—Worse," was the laconic reply. "—Temperature and dew point the same. Fog closing in fast. Zero ceiling, zero visibility."

"How's Baltimore?" the Dispatcher asked.

"—Five hundred ceiling, quarter mile visibility," he was told.

The Dispatcher turned to the radio operator. "What's Bill's position?"

"—Over Havre de Grace," was the answer. "Tell him to put down at Baltimore and entrain his passengers," was the order. "And tell him to hurry up about it!"

"Okay," nodded the radio man.

The big ship droned and whined its way over the Maryland countryside. Glistening highways slipped by and railroads curved and darted as though perplexed as to course. Straight as a homing pigeon the flying tin goose streaked south.

Bill Banning, first pilot, squinted through the clouded windshield and turned to Larry Weston, his co-pilot. "Getting pretty soupy, Son. See if you can get a weather report."

Larry nodded as he adjusted the headphones. For several moments he listened to the signals of the radio beam then deftly turned the dial to the frequency used by his company. Almost immediately he heard the even, unexcited voice of the Dispatcher. "Washington calling Banning, ship fifty- two ...Washington calling Banning, ship fifty-two."

Larry answered promptly through the transmitter: "Okay, Washington... Go ahead." ... He turned to Bill. "Orders to land at Baltimore, Skipper," he said. "Washington has closed in solid."

"Oh, yeah?" mused Bill. "And they guarantee us beautiful weather at Baltimore, I suppose?"

"—Five hundred feet," said Larry.

"Oh, sure," Banning observed. "Say, if those weather birds had to fly in some of the ceilings they report they wouldn't be so optimistic."

"Well, we've got the beam, haven't we?" argued Larry.

"Sure, we've got the beam," snorted Bill. "But we can still smack things coming in with a low ceiling and don't forget it!" He glanced with amused contempt at the younger man. "The trouble with you young punks is," he pointed out, "that you haven't been in enough jams. Your diapers are too clean!"

Larry grinned and walked back to the cabin to see how the passengers were getting along. There were six of them— five who had flown before and one, a middle-aged woman, who was making her first air journey.

"Why there's nothing to it," she kept saying. "You don't even know you're moving."

Larry walked down the aisle by her. "Oh, you're one of the chauffeurs who drives us, aren't you?" she gushed.

"No, Madam, I'm not," bristled Larry, forgetting company rules that a passenger is always right even if she walks into a propeller.

Bill didn't like the looks of things. The ceiling was crowding him lower and lower. Straggling wisps of fog enveloped the plane and obscured the ground. Bill glanced at the altimeter... only two hundred feet... and Department of Commerce regulations demanded five hundred foot minimum.... Perhaps he ought to cut back to the Aberdeen Army field... Of course it was more convenient for the company and passengers to make Baltimore... Okay if the ceiling there held. If not, he must reverse his course... Guess he'd better contact Washington. A moment later he spoke into the transmitter: "Banning, ship fifty-two, calling Washington..."

Quickly the response came: "Okay, Banning, go ahead."

"Any change in Baltimore weather?" Bill asked. "Go ahead."

"...You've got about two hundred feet, Bill, but it's getting worse. Better sit down at the next emergency field."

Bill knew he was about over Edgewood field located between Baltimore and Aberdeen but all he could see below him was grayish vapor that blotted out the world.

"—Can't make it," he advised calmly. "Socked in tight. I'm going back to Aber-

"...Okay, Bill, whatever you think best. Keep us advised your position..."

Larry was back in the cockpit now as Bill carefully turned and banked towards the new course.

No ground or sky or helping horizon was visible now to check the position of the ship. Regardless of instruments— the least panic, the slightest overcontrolling meant disaster at that altitude.

Alone in a world of vapor the ship flew steadily north. Suddenly, Larry's headphones barked another report... Grimly he turned to the first pilot. "Aberdeen reports zero-zero."

"The hell you say," answered Bill. Then derisively he added: "Oh, well, we've got the beam. Pilot." Larry squirmed in his seat. "Listen, Son," went on Bill, "get busy and tell Washington we're in a jam. Find out if we can get in at Camden or Harrisburg or LeBourget!"

As Larry, visibly sweating, talked to Washington again, Bill put the tin goose in a steady climb, leveling her off when the altimeter indicated a thousand feet. Then he throttled back the motors to save gas.

Larry removed the headphones and from his expression Bill knew the answer. "I suppose Miami or maybe Los Angeles is open," he commented hopefully.

"Yeah," answered Larry humorlessly, "—and Spartanburg is clear, unlimited."

"Spartanburg?" repeated Bill, "what do they think this is— the Graf Zeppelin?"

"They didn't have much to say," grunted Larry. "—Seemed sort of worried about us. I just asked for the nearest field that was open and they said Spartanburg."

Bill glanced at the fuel gauges. "—Not today, Josephine," he said and added: "Go back and soothe the passengers, Larry."

Larry returned in a moment. "They don't need soothing," he advised, "and the old gal wants to know what time we'll reach Washington."

Bill grinned. "Tell her our celestial radio is not working," he said, "but that we're in constant communication with hell."

Larry was beginning to look a little haggard. "I don't think it's exactly the time for wisecracks," he said abruptly.

"No?" For a swift interval Bill removed his concentrated gaze from the instrument board. "Maybe you would like the banking business better," he suggested coldly.

Larry flushed. Bill, holding one hand steadily on the control wheel, reached for his own headphones and adjusted them. Then he reversed his course and followed the radio beam south toward Washington.

Steadily the long dashes sounded in his ears.

Larry noted the new course but said nothing. Methodically Bill checked the time and also the gas showing in the fuel gauges. "We'll ride it out as long as we can," he remarked and radioed Washington to that effect. "I'm climbing up through it, if possible," he added. "Advise me immediately any improvement your weather."

Two thousand feet; three thousand; five thousand. Still that grayish mist enveloped them. Six thousand; seven thousand; eight thousand. Both men were grim faced now. "Fun, isn't it?" Bill mocked.

"Oh, sure," nodded Larry, one hand nervously fingering the buckle of his safety belt.

Ninety-six hundred feet now and the light in the cockpit grew brighter. Bill glanced upward through the hatch. "—Thinning out," he observed.

Then like a glistening submarine emerging from the depths, the ship stuck her nose above the foaming crest of clouds and emerged into full sunlight.

Bill looked at his watch and the fuel gauges again. "About fifty minutes more gas," he observed.

The passengers were enchanted. In every direction a solid floor of clouds extended like a whipped cream concoction of the gods. Above, the sun shone brilliantly.

Bill waved back to the passengers. "Blissful ignorance," he murmured.

"Don't tell them there isn't a Santa Claus," Larry grunted.

Fifteen minutes later the beam signals ceased. "—Cone of silence," remarked Bill. "You can tell the old gal that Washington is directly below. Ask her if she's getting off here."

Larry smiled lamely.

The minutes flew by at fast cruising speed. Gas in the fuel gauges disappeared like water from a faucet. "And they want to cut pilots' pay," mused Bill.

Picking up the Richmond beam he flew for awhile on that course and then reversed back toward Washington. The sun continued to smile with unlimited insolence.

Abruptly the earphones barked through the static: "Washington calling Banning, ship fifty-two..." Bill promptly answered "...What's your position, Bill?" snapped the question, "and how much gas have you?"

"I'm on the Richmond beam," said Bill, "and I've damned little gas. How much ceiling have you now?" he asked seriously. "Still zero-zero," was the grim answer. "What're you going to do?"

"I'm coming down," Bill advised. "I'll pick up the other beam east of here and follow it northwest toward you and Hagerstown. That ought to keep me from smacking the monument."

Once on the new course the motors were throttled back and their sound was more muffled, less complaining. Downward now the ship forsook the sunlight and dipped her wings into the soft, ensnaring fog-bank.

Bill concentrated on the artificial horizon and the bank and turn. Down, down; six thousand, four thousand, two thousand. Moisture streaked the windshield. Larry sat tensely in his seat. Bill began to sweat

Slowly and steadily the needle of the altimeter marked the descent. Eight hundred feet now, four hundred, two hundred. Bill opened the throttles, leveled off and continued anxiously along the beam. Suddenly he spoke into the transmitter. "I'm flying at two hundred feet," he called. "For God's sake listen for my motors and try and tell me when to cut the gun!"

Gratefully he heard the reply: "Okay."

Visions taunted him— the myriad obstructions about the field, smoke stacks and power lines and hangars— the Army pilot who crashed into the radio towers at Arlington— the ship that fell in the Potomac. God! ... A stream of sweat rolled down his face and wilted his collar.

The beam signals ceased for a moment. "—Cone of silence," he muttered, "—ought to be close to the field now."

Seconds later he picked up the vital message: "We can hear you, Bill. Better cut the gun."

Quickly Bill closed the throttles and glided in as flat as he dared. Earnestly he eyed the air speed indicator.

The earphones grated again: "Right over the field, Bill, but you sound too high. Better give her the gun— quick!"

Bill rammed the throttles forward and flew ahead. He glanced at the compass. Three thirty-two degrees it read reassuringly. That would carry him clear of the six hundred foot Arlington radio towers. Beams have been known to quit, he reasoned.

Larry eyed him anxiously. "What now?" he asked.

"How much gas?" snapped Bill.

"—Can just see it in the gauges," was the reply.

Bill throttled back until the ship was almost wabbly. "I'm going to turn and approach from the northwest," he said.

Suddenly Larry grabbed the wheel and maneuvered abruptly to one side.

"What the devil do you mean?" demanded Bill, regaining control.

"—Didn't— didn't you see it?" said Larry weakly. "I— I think it was the Washington monument."

"—Monument, hell!" replied Bill angrily. "You're seeing things. We're on the beam west of it. Touch those controls again and I'll poke you in the jaw!"

Bill banked and turned and headed for the field again. "I've got to chance it this time," he told EWA. "—Not enough gas to keep going. I'm coming in from the northwest this time. For God's sake, holler!"

A dozen men were grouped outside the operations building at the airport. A dozen cigarettes lay strewn upon the ground. Telephones rang heedlessly in the traffic offices and fear blanketed the field as heavily as the fog.

Every man listened intently and cursed the murmur of traffic on the highway. The window of the radio room was open and the operator within moistened and remoistened his lips.

Faintly a sound reached the group and steadily grew in volume. A dozen voices shouted in unison: "That's Bill!"

The operator spoke hurriedly but clearly: "We can hear you, Bill. Throttle down... You must be at the edge of the field. Better cut her. Cut her!"

The sound of the motors faded. Propellers whistled softly and stopped. Bill had cut the switches. There was an agonizing lapse of time and then in the gray murk came a familiar rumble and quiet again. The tin goose had landed.

A HALF HOUR later Bill and Larry broke away from their back-slapping friends and stood before the soda fountain.

"You're going to report me of course?" asked Larry, glumly.

"Forget it, Son," said Bill. "You've learned your lesson. And remember, Larry," he added, "if you must fly blind there's just one co-pilot to have in the cockpit."

"Who's that?" asked Larry.

Bill didn't smile. "—God!" he answered.

Larry's hand was trembling as he raised his soda glass. "Get hold of yourself," advised Bill kindly.

"I'm— I'm okay,"' answered Larry but the glass slipped from his fingers and shattered upon the floor.

Carefully, Bill placed his own half-filled glass back upon the counter.

_________________

14: "To Let."

B. M. Croker

1849-1920

London Society Christmas 1890

In the British tradition of Christmas Ghost stories.

"List, list, O list!"— Hamlet, Act 1.

SOME YEARS ago, when I was a slim young spin, I came out to India to live with my brother Tom: he and I were members of a large and somewhat impecunious family, and I do not think my mother was sorry to have one of her four grown-up daughters thus taken off her hands. Tom's wife, Aggie, had been at school with my eldest sister; we had known and liked her all our lives, and regarded her as one of ourselves; and as she and the children were at home when Tom's letter was received, and his offer accepted, she helped me to choose my slender outfit, with judgment, zeal, and taste; endowed me with several pretty additions to my wardrobe; superintended the fitting of my gowns and the trying on of my hats, with most sympathetic interest, and finally escorted me out to Lucknow, under her own wing, and installed me in the only spare room in her comfortable bungalow in Dilkousha.

My sister-in-law is a pretty little brunette, rather pale, with dark hair, brilliant black eyes, a resolute mouth, and a bright, intelligent expression. She is orderly, trim, feverishly energetic, and seems to live every moment of her life. Her children, her wardrobe, her house, her servants, and last, not least, her husband, are all models in their way; and yet she has plenty of time for tennis, and dancing, and talking and walking. She is, undoubtedly, a remarkably talented little creature, and especially prides herself on her nerve, and her power of will, or will power. I suppose they are the same thing? and I am sure they are all the same to Tom, who worships the sole of her small slipper. Strictly between ourselves, she is the ruling member of the family, and turns her lord and master round her little finger. Tom is big and fair (of course), the opposite to his wife, quiet, rather easy-going and inclined to be indolent; but Aggie rouses him up, and pushes him to the front, and keeps him there. She knows all about his department, his prospects of promotion, his prospects of furlough, of getting acting appointments, and so on, even better than he does himself. The chief of Tom's department— have I said that Tom is in the Irritation Office?— has placed it solemnly on record that he considers little Mrs. Shandon a surprisingly clever woman. The two children, Bob and Tor, are merry, oppressively active monkeys, aged three and five years respectively. As for myself, I am tall, fair— and I wish I could add pretty! but this is a true story. My eyes are blue, my teeth are white, my hair is red— alas, a blazing red; and I was, at this period, nineteen years of age; and now I think I have given a sufficient outline of the whole family.

We arrived at Lucknow in November, when the cold weather is delightful, and everything was delightful to me. The bustle and life of a great Indian station, the novelty of my surroundings, the early morning rides, picnics down the river, and dances at the "Chutter Munzil," made me look upon Lucknow as a paradise on earth; and in this light I still regarded it, until a great change came over the temperature, and the month of April introduced me to red-hot winds, sleepless nights, and the intolerable "brain-fever" bird. Aggie had made up her mind definitely on one subject: we were not to go away to the hills until the rains. Tom could only get two months' leave (July and August), and she did not intend to leave him to grill on the plains alone. As for herself and the children— not to speak of me— we had all come out from home so recently that we did not require a change. The trip to Europe had made a vast hole in the family stocking, and she wished to economize; and who can economize with two establishments in full swing? Tell me this, ye Anglo-Indian matrons? With a large, cool bungalow, plenty of punkahs, khuskhus tatties, ice, and a thermantidote, surely we could manage to brave May and June— at any rate the attempt was made. Gradually the hills drained Lucknow week by week; family after family packed up, warned us of our folly in remaining on the plains, offered to look for houses for us, and left by the night mail. By the middle of May, the place was figuratively empty. Nothing can be more dreary than a large station in the hot weather— unless it is an equally forsaken hill station in the depths of winter, when the mountains are covered with snow, the mall no longer resounds with gay voices and the tramp of Jampanies, but is visited by bears and panthers, and the houses are closed, and, as it were, put to bed in straw! As for Lucknow in the summer, it was a melancholy spot; the public gardens were deserted, the chairs at the Chutter Munzil stood empty, the very bands had gone to the hills! the shops were shut, the baked white roads, no longer thronged with carriages and bamboo carts, gave ample room to the humble ekka, or a Dhobie's meagre donkey, shuffling along in the dust.

Of course we were not the only people remaining in the place, grumbling at the heat and dust and life in general; but there can be no sociability with the thermometer above 100° in the shade. Through the long, long Indian day we sat and gasped, in darkened rooms, and consumed quantities of "Nimbo pegs," i.e. limes and soda-water, and listened to the fierce hot wind roaring along the road and driving the roasted leaves before it; and in the evening, when the sun had set, we went for a melancholy drive through the Wingfield Park, or round by Martiniere College, and met our friends at the library, and compared sensations and thermometers. The season was exceptionally bad (but people say that every year), and presently Bobby and Tor began to fade: their little white faces and listless eyes appealed to Aggie as Tom's anxious expostulations had never done. "Yes, they must go to the hills with me." But this idea I repudiated at once; I refused to undertake the responsibility— I, who could scarcely speak a word to the servants— who had no experience! Then Bobbie had a bad go of fever— intermittent fever; the beginning of the end to his alarmed mother; the end being represented by a large gravestone! She now became as firmly determined to go, as she had previously been resolved to stay; but it was so late in the season to take a house. Alas, alas, for the beautiful tempting advertisements in the Pioneer, which we had seen and scorned! Aggie wrote to a friend in a certain hill station, called (for this occasion only) "Kantia," and Tom wired to a house agent, who triumphantly replied by letter, that there was not one unlet bungalow on his books. This missive threw us into the depths of despair; there seemed no alternative but a hill hotel, and the usual quarters that await the last comers, and the proverbial welcome for children and dogs (we had only four); but the next day brought us good news from Aggie's friend Mrs. Chalmers.

"Dear Mrs. Shandon (she said),

"I received your letter, and went at once to Cursitjee, the agent. Every hole and corner up here seems full, and he had not a single house to let. To-day I had a note from him, saying that Briarwood is vacant; the people who took it are not coming up, they have gone to Naini Tal. You are in luck. I have just been out to see the house, and have secured it for you. It is a mile and a half from the club, but I know that you and your sister are capital walkers. I envy you. Such a charming place— two sitting-rooms, four bedrooms, four bath-rooms, a hall, servants' go-downs, stabling, and a splendid view from a very pretty garden, and only Rs. 800 for the season! Why, I am paying Rs. 1000 for a very inferior house, with scarcely a stick of furniture and no view. I feel so proud of myself, and I am longing to show you my treasure-trove. Telegraph when you start, and I shall have a milkman in waiting and fires in all the rooms.

"Yours sincerely,

"Edith Chalmers."

We now looked upon Mrs. Chalmers as our best and dearest friend, and began to get under way at once. A long journey in India is a serious business, when the party comprises two ladies, two children, two ayahs, and five other servants, three fox terriers, a mongoose, and a Persian cat— all these animals going to the hills for the benefit of their health— not to speak of a ton of luggage, including crockery and lamps, a cottage piano, a goat, and a pony. Aggie and I, the children, one ayah, two terriers, the cat and mongoose, our bedding and pillows, the tiffin basket and ice basket, were all stowed into one compartment, and I must confess that the journey was truly miserable. The heat was stifling, despite the water tatties. One of the terriers had a violent dispute with the cat, and the cat had a difference with the mongoose, and Bob and Tor had a pitched battle; more than once I actually wished myself back in Lucknow. I was most truly thankful to wake one morning, to find myself under the shadow of the Himalayas— not a mighty, snow-clad range of everlasting hills, but merely the spurs— the moderate slopes, covered with scrub, loose shale, and jungle, and deceitful little trickling watercourses. We sent the servants on ahead, whilst we rested at the Dâk bungalow near the railway station, and then followed them at our leisure. We accomplished the ascent in dandies— open kind of boxes, half box, half chair, carried on the shoulders of four men. This was an entirely novel sensation to me, and at first an agreeable one, so long as the slopes were moderate, and the paths wide; but the higher we went, the narrower became the path, the steeper the naked precipice; and as my coolies would walk at the extreme edge, with the utmost indifference to my frantic appeals to "Beetor! Beetor!"— and would change poles at the most agonizing corners— my feelings were very mixed, especially when droves of loose pack ponies came thundering downhill, with no respect for the rights of the road. Late at night we passed through Kantia, and arrived at Briarwood, far too weary to be critical. Fires were blazing, supper was prepared, and we despatched it in haste, and most thankfully went to bed and slept soundly, as any one would do who had spent thirty-six hours in a crowded compartment, and ten in a cramped wooden case.

The next morning, rested and invigorated, we set out on a tour of inspection; and it is almost worth while to undergo a certain amount of baking in the sweltering heat of the lower regions, in order to enjoy those deep first draughts of cool hill air, instead of a stifling, dust-laden atmosphere; and to appreciate the green valleys and blue hills, by force of contrast to the far-stretching, eye-smarting, white glaring roads, that intersect the burnt-up plains— roads and plains, that even the pariah abandons, salamander though he be!

To our delight and surprise, Mrs. Chalmers had by no means overdrawn the advantages of our new abode. The bungalow was solidly built of stone, two-storied, and ample in size. It stood on a kind of shelf, cut out of the hillside, and was surrounded by a pretty flower garden, full of roses, fuchsias, and carnations. The high road passed the gate, from which the avenue descended, direct to the entrance door, at the end of the house, and from whence ran a long passage. Off this passage three rooms opened to the right, all looking south, and all looking into a deep, delightful, flagged, verandah. The stairs were very steep. At the head of them, the passage and rooms were repeated. There were small nooks, and dressing-rooms, and convenient out-houses, and plenty of good water; but the glory of Briarwood was undoubtedly its verandah: it was fully twelve feet wide, roofed with zinc, and overhung a precipice of a thousand feet— not a startlingly sheer khud, but a tolerably straight descent of grey-blue shale, rocks, and low jungle. From it there was a glorious view, across a valley, far away, to the snowy range. It opened at one end into the avenue, and was not inclosed; but at the side next the precipice, there was a stout wooden railing, with netting at the bottom, for the safety of too enterprising dogs or children. A charming spot, despite its rather bold situation; and as Aggie and I sat in it, surveying the scenery and inhaling the pure hill air, and watching Bob and Tor tearing up and down, playing horses, we said to one another that "the verandah alone was worth half the rent."

"It's absurdly cheap," exclaimed my sister-in-law complacently. "I wish you saw the hovel I had, at Simla, for the same rent. I wonder if it is feverish, or badly drained, or what?"

"Perhaps it has a ghost," I suggested facetiously; and at such an absurd idea we both went into peals of laughter.

At this moment Mrs. Chalmers appeared, brisk, rosy, and breathlessly benevolent, having walked over from Kantia.

"So you have found it," she said as we shook hands. "I said nothing about this delicious verandah! I thought I would keep it as a surprise. I did not say a word too much for Briarwood, did I?"

"Not half enough," we returned rapturously; and presently we went in a body, armed with a list from the agent, and proceeded to go over the house and take stock of its contents.

"It's not a bit like a hill furnished house," boasted Mrs. Chalmers, with a glow of pride, as she looked round the drawing-room; "carpets, curtains, solid, very solid chairs, and Berlin wool-worked screens, a card-table, and any quantity of pictures."

"Yes, don't they look like family portraits?" I suggested, as we gazed at them. There was one of an officer in faded water colours, another of his wife, two of a previous generation in oils and amply gilded frames, two sketches of an English country house, and some framed photographs— groups of grinning cricketers, or wedding guests. All the rooms were well, almost handsomely, furnished in an old-fashioned style. There was no scarcity of wardrobes, looking-glasses, or even armchairs, in the bedrooms, and the pantry was fitted out— a most singular circumstance— with a large supply of handsome glass and china, lamps, old moderators, coffee and teapots, plated side dishes, and candlesticks, cooking utensils and spoons and forks, wine coasters and a cake-basket. These articles were all let with the house (much to our amazement), provided we were responsible for the same. The china was spode, the plate old family heirlooms, with a crest— a winged horse— on everything, down to the very mustard spoons.

"The people who own this house must be lunatics," remarked Aggie, as she peered round the pantry; "fancy hiring out one's best family plate, and good old china! And I saw some ancient music-books in the drawing-room, and there is a side saddle in the bottle khana."

"My dear, the people who owned this house are dead," explained Mrs. Chalmers. "I heard all about them last evening from Mrs. Starkey."

"Oh, is she up there?" exclaimed Aggie, somewhat fretfully.

"Yes, her husband is cantonment magistrate. This house belonged to an old retired colonel and his wife. They and his niece lived here. These were all their belongings. They died within a short time of one another, and the old man left a queer will, to say that the house was to remain precisely as they left it for twenty years, and at the end of that time, it was to be sold and all the property dispersed. Mrs. Starkey says she is sure that he never intended it to be let, but the heir-at-law insists on that, and is furious at the terms of the will."

"Well, it is a very good thing for us," remarked Aggie; "we are as comfortable here, as if we were in our own house: there is a stove in the kitchen, there are nice boxes for firewood in every room, clocks, real hair mattresses— in short, it is as you said, a treasure-trove."

We set to work to modernize the drawing-room with phoolkaries, Madras muslin curtains, photograph screens and frames, and such-like portable articles. We placed the piano across a corner, arranged flowers in some handsome Dresden china vases, and entirely altered and improved the character of the room. When Aggie had despatched a most glowing description of our new quarters to Tom, and when we had had tiffin, we set off to walk into Kantia to put our names down at the library, and to inquire for letters at the post-office. Aggie met a good many acquaintances— who does not, who has lived five years in India in the same district?

Among them Mrs. Starkey, an elderly lady with a prominent nose and goggle eyes, who greeted her loudly across the reading-room table, in this agreeable fashion:

"And so you have come up after all, Mrs. Shandon. Some one told me that you meant to remain below, but I knew you never could be so wicked as to keep your poor little children in that heat." Then coming round and dropping into a chair beside her, she said, "And I suppose this young lady is your sister-in-law?"

Mrs. Starkey eyed me critically, evidently appraising my chances in the great marriage market. She herself had settled her own two daughters most satisfactorily, and had now nothing to do, but interest herself in other people's affairs.

"Yes," acquiesced Aggie; "Miss Shandon— Mrs. Starkey."

"And so you have taken Briarwood?"

"Yes, we have been most lucky to get it."

"I hope you will think so, at the end of three months," observed Mrs. Starkey, with a significant pursing of her lips. "Mrs. Chalmers is a stranger up here, or she would not have been in such a hurry to jump at it."

"Why, what is the matter with it?" inquired Aggie. "It is well built, well furnished, well situated, and very cheap."

"That's just it— suspiciously cheap. Why, my dear Mrs. Shandon, if there was not something against it, it would let for two hundred rupees a month. Common sense would tell you that!"

"And what is against it?"

"It's haunted! There you have the reason in two words."

"Is that all? I was afraid it was the drains. I don't believe in ghosts and haunted houses. What are we supposed to see?"

"Nothing," retorted Mrs. Starkey, who seemed a good deal nettled at our smiling incredulity.

"Nothing!" with an exasperating laugh.

"No, but you will make up for it in hearing. Not now— you are all right for the next six weeks— but after the monsoon breaks, I give you a week at Briarwood. No one would stand it longer, and indeed you might as well bespeak your rooms at Cooper's Hotel now. There is always a rush up here in July, by the two months' leave people, and you will be poked into some wretched go-down."

Aggie laughed, rather a careless ironical little laugh, and said, "Thank you, Mrs. Starkey; but I think we will stay on where we are— at any rate for the present."

"Of course it will be as you please. What do you think of the verandah?" she inquired, with a curious smile.

"I think, as I was saying to Susan, that it is worth half the rent of the house."

"And in my opinion the house is worth double rent without it;" and with this enigmatic remark, she rose, and sailed away.

"Horrid old frump!" exclaimed Aggie, as we walked home in the starlight. "She is jealous and angry that she did not get Briarwood herself— I know her so well. She is always hinting, and repeating stories about the nicest people— always decrying your prettiest dress, or your best servant."

We soon forgot all about Mrs. Starkey, and her dismal prophecy, being too gay, and too busy, to give her, or it, a thought. We had so many engagements— tennis-parties and tournaments, picnics, concerts, dances, and little dinners. We ourselves gave occasional afternoon teas in the verandah— using the best spode cups and saucers, and the old silver cake-basket— and were warmly complimented on our good fortune in securing such a charming house and garden. One day the children discovered, to their great joy, that the old chowkidar belonging to the bungalow possessed an African grey parrot— a rare bird indeed in India; he had a battered Europe cage, doubtless a remnant of better days, and swung on his ring, looking up at us inquiringly, out of his impudent little black eyes.

The parrot had been the property of the former inmates of Briarwood, and as it was a long-lived creature, had survived its master and mistress, and was boarded out with the chowkidar, at one rupee per month.

The chowkidar willingly carried the cage into the verandah, where the bird seemed perfectly at home.

We got a little table for its cage, and the children were delighted with him, as he swung to and fro, with a bit of cake in his wrinkled claw.

Presently he startled us all by suddenly calling "Lucy," in a voice that was as distinct as if it had come from a human throat. "Pretty Lucy— Lu— cy."

"That must have been the niece," said Aggie. "I expect she was the original of that picture over the chimney-piece in your room; she looks like a Lucy."

It was a large, framed, half-length photograph of a very pretty girl, in a white dress, with gigantic open sleeves. The ancient parrot talked incessantly now that he had been restored to society; he whistled for the dogs, and brought them flying to his summons— to his great satisfaction, and their equally great indignation. He called "Qui hye" so naturally, in a lady's shrill soprano, or a gruff male bellow, that I have no doubt our servants would have liked to have wrung his neck. He coughed and expectorated like an old gentleman, and whined like a puppy, and mewed like a cat, and, I am sorry to add, sometimes swore like a trooper; but his most constant cry was, "Lucy, where are you, pretty Lucy— Lucy— Lu— cy?"

AGGIE and I went to various picnics, but to that given by the Chalmers (in honour of Mr. Chalmers' brother Charlie, a captain in a Ghoorka regiment, just come up to Kantia on leave) Aggie was unavoidably absent. Tor had a little touch of fever, and she did not like to leave him; but I went under my hostess's care, and expected to enjoy myself immensely. Alas! on that selfsame afternoon, the long-expected monsoon broke, and we were nearly drowned! We rode to the selected spot, five miles from Kantia, laughing and chattering, indifferent to the big blue-black clouds that came slowly, but surely, sailing up from below; it was a way they had had for days, and nothing had come of it! We spread the table-cloth, boiled the kettle, unpacked the hampers, in spite of sharp gusts of wind and warning rumbling thunder. Just as we had commenced to reap the reward of our exertions, there fell a few huge drops, followed by a vivid flash, and then a tremendous crash of thunder, like a whole park of artillery, that seemed to shake the mountains— and after this the deluge. In less than a minute we were soaked through; we hastily gathered up the table-cloth by its four ends, gave it to the coolies, and fled. It was all I could do to stand against the wind; only for Captain Chalmers I believe I would have been blown away; as it was, I lost my hat, it was whirled into space. Mrs. Chalmers lost her boa, and Mrs. Starkey, not merely her bonnet, but some portion of her hair. We were truly in a wretched plight, the water streaming down our faces, and squelching in our boots; the little trickling mountain rivulets were now like racing seas of turbid water; the lightning was almost blinding; the trees rocked dangerously, and lashed one another with their quivering branches. I had never been out in such a storm before, and sincerely hope I never may again. We reached Kantia more dead than alive, and Mrs. Chalmers sent an express to Aggie, and kept me till the next day. After raining as it only can rain in the Himalayas, the weather cleared, the sun shone, and I rode home in borrowed plumes, full of my adventures, and in the highest spirits. I found Aggie sitting over the fire in the drawing-room, looking ghastly white: that was nothing uncommon; but terribly depressed, which was most unusual.

"I am afraid you have neuralgia?" I said, as I kissed her.

She nodded, and made no reply.

"How is Tor?" I inquired, as I drew a chair up to the fire.

"Better— quite well."

"Any news— any letter?"

"Not a word— not a line."

"Has anything happened to Pip"— Pip was a fox-terrier, renowned for having the shortest tail and being the most impertinent dog in Lucknow— "or the mongoose?"

"No, you silly girl! Why do you ask such ridiculous questions?"

"I was afraid something was amiss; you seem rather down on your luck."

Aggie shrugged her shoulders, and then said, "Pray, what put such an absurd idea into your head? Tell me all about the picnic," and she began to talk rapidly, and to ask me various questions; but I observed that once she had set me going— no difficult task— her attention flagged, her eyes wandered from my face to the fire. She was not listening to half I said, and my most thrilling descriptions were utterly lost on this indifferent, abstracted little creature! I noticed from this time, that she had become strangely nervous (for her). She invited herself to the share of half my bed; she was restless, distrait, and even irritable; and when I was asked out to spend the day, dispensed with my company with an alacrity that was by no means flattering. Formerly, of an evening she used to herd the children home at sundown, and tear me away from the delights of the reading-room at seven o'clock; now she hung about the library, until almost the last moment, until it was time to put out the lamps, and kept the children with her, making transparent pretexts for their company. Often we did not arrive at home till half-past eight o'clock. I made no objections to these late hours, neither did Charlie Chalmers, who often walked back with us and remained to dinner. I was amazed to notice that Aggie seemed delighted to have his company, for she had always expressed a rooted aversion to what she called "tame young men," and here was this new acquaintance dining with us, at least twice a week!

About a month after the picnic we had a spell of dreadful weather— thunderstorms accompanied by torrents. One pouring afternoon, Aggie and I were cowering over the drawing-room fire, whilst the rain came fizzing down among the logs, and ran in rivers off the roof, and out of the spouts. There had been no going out that day, and we were feeling rather flat and dull, as we sat in a kind of ghostly twilight, with all outdoor objects swallowed up in mist, listening to the violent battering of the rain on the zinc verandah, and the storm which was growling round the hills. "Oh, for a visitor!" I exclaimed; "but no one but a fish, or a lunatic, would be out on such an evening."

"No one, indeed," echoed Aggie, in a melancholy tone. "We may as well draw the curtains, and have in the lamp and tea to cheer us up."

She had scarcely finished speaking, when I heard the brisk trot of a horse along the road. It stopped at the gate, and came rapidly down our avenue. I heard the wet gravel crunching under his hoofs, and— yes, a man's cheery whistle. My heart jumped, and I half rose from my chair. It must be Charlie Chalmers braving the elements to see me!— such, I must confess, was my incredible vanity! He did not stop at the front door as usual, but rode straight into the verandah, which afforded ample room, and shelter for half a dozen mounted men.

"Aggie," I said eagerly, "do you hear? It must be— — "

I paused, my tongue silenced, by the awful pallor of her face, and the expression of her eyes, as she sat with her little hands clutching the arms of her chair, and her whole figure bent forward in an attitude of listening— an attitude of rigid terror.

"What is it, Aggie?" I said. "Are you ill?"

As I spoke, the horse's hoofs made a loud clattering noise on the stone-paved verandah outside, and a man's voice— a young man's eager voice— called, "Lucy."

Instantly a chair near the writing-table was pushed back, and some one went quickly to the window— a French one— and bungled for a moment with the fastening. I always had a difficulty with that window myself. Aggie and I were within the bright circle of the firelight, but the rest of the room was dim, and outside the streaming grey sky was spasmodically illuminated by occasional vivid flashes, that lit up the surrounding hills as if it were daylight. The trampling of impatient hoofs, and the rattling of a door-handle, were the only sounds that were audible for a few breathless seconds; but during those seconds Pip, bristling like a porcupine, and trembling violently in every joint, had sprung off my lap and crawled abjectly under Aggie's chair, seemingly in a transport of fear. The door was opened audibly, and a cold, icy blast swept in, that seemed to freeze my very heart, and made me shiver from head to foot. At this moment there came, with a sinister blue glare, the most vivid flash of lightning I ever saw. It lit up the whole room, which was empty save for ourselves, and was instantly followed by a clap of thunder, that caused my knees to knock together, and that terrified me and filled me with horror. It evidently terrified the horse too; there was a violent plunge, a clattering of hoofs on the stones, a sudden loud crash of smashing timber, a woman's long, loud, piercing shriek, which stopped the very beating of my heart, and then a frenzied struggle in the cruel, crumbling, treacherous shale, the rattle of loose stones, and the hollow roar of something sliding down the precipice.

I rushed to the door and tore it open, with that awful despairing cry still ringing in my ears. The verandah was empty; there was not a soul to be seen, or a sound to be heard, save the rain on the roof.

"Aggie," I screamed, "come here! Some one has gone over the verandah, and down the khud! You heard him."

"Yes," she said, following me out; "but come in— come in."

"I believe it was Charlie Chalmers"— shaking her violently as I spoke. "He has been killed— killed— killed! And you stand, and do nothing. Send people! Let us go ourselves! Bearer! Ayah! Khidmatgar!" I cried, raising my voice.

"Hush! It was not Charlie Chalmers," she said, vainly endeavouring to draw me into the drawing-room. "Come in— come in."

"No, no!" pushing her away, and wringing my hands. "How cruel you are! How inhuman! There is a path. Let us go at once— at once!"

"You need not trouble yourself, Susan," she interrupted; "and you need not cry and tremble;— they will bring him up. What you heard was supernatural; it was not real."

"No— no— no! It was all real. Oh! that scream is in my ears still."

"I will convince you," said Aggie, taking my hand as she spoke. "Feel all along the verandah. Are the railings broken?"

I did as she bade me. No, though very wet, and clammy, the railing was intact!

"Where is the broken place?" she asked, imperatively.

Where, indeed?

"Now," she continued, "since you will not come in, look over, and you will see something more presently."

Shivering with fear, and the cold, drifting rain, I gazed down as she bade me, and there, far below, I saw lights moving rapidly to and fro, evidently in search of something. After a little delay they congregated in one place. There was a low, buzzing murmur— they had found him— and presently they commenced to ascend the hill, with the "hum-hum" of coolies carrying a burden. Nearer and nearer the lights and sounds came; up to the very brink of the khud, past the end of the verandah. Many steps and many torches— faint blue torches held by invisible hands— invisible but heavy-footed bearers carried their burden slowly upstairs, and along the passage, and deposited it with a dump in Aggie's bedroom! As we stood clasped in one another's arms, and shaking all over, the steps descended, the ghostly lights passed up the avenue, and gradually disappeared in the gathering darkness. The repetition of the tragedy was over for that day.

"Have you heard it before?" I asked with chattering teeth, as I bolted the drawing-room window.

"Yes, the evening of the picnic, and twice since. That is the reason I have always tried to stay out till late, and to keep you out. I was hoping and praying you might never hear it. It always happens just before dark: I am afraid you have thought me very queer of late. I have told no end of stories to keep you and the children from harm. I have— — "

"I think you have been very kind," I interrupted. "Oh, Aggie, shall you ever get that crash, and that awful cry out of your head?"

"Never!" hastily lighting the candles as she spoke.

"Is there anything more?" I inquired tremulously.

"Yes; sometimes at night, the most terrible weeping and sobbing in my bedroom;" and she shuddered at the mere recollection.

"Do the servants know?" I asked anxiously.

"The ayah Mumà has heard it, and the khánsámáh says his mother is sick, and he must go, and the bearer wants to attend his brother's wedding. They will all leave."

"I suppose most people know too?" I suggested dejectedly.

"Yes; don't you remember Mrs. Starkey's warnings, and her saying that without the verandah the house was worth double rent? We understand that dark speech of hers now, and we have not come to Cooper's Hotel yet."

"No, not yet. I wish we had. I wonder what Tom will say? He will be here in another fortnight. Oh, I wish he was here now!"

In spite of our heart-shaking experience, we managed to eat, and drink, and sleep, yea, to play tennis— somewhat solemnly, it is true— and go to the club, where we remained to the very last moment; needless to mention, that I now entered into Aggie's manœuvre con amore. Mrs. Starkey evidently divined the reason of our loitering in Kantia, and said in her most truculent manner, as she squared up to us—

"You keep your children out very late, Mrs. Shandon."

"Yes, but we like to have them with us," rejoined Aggie, in a meek apologetic voice.

"Then why don't you go home earlier?"

"Because it is so stupid, and lonely," was the mendacious answer.

"Lonely is not the word I should use. I wonder if you are as wise as your neighbours now? Come now, Mrs. Shandon."

"About what?" said Aggie, with ill-feigned innocence.

"About Briarwood. Haven't you heard it yet? The ghastly precipice and horse affair?"

"Yes, I suppose we may as well confess that we have."

"Humph! you are a brave couple to stay on. The Tombs tried it last year for three weeks. The Paxtons took it the year before, and then sub-let it; not that they believed in ghosts— oh, dear no!" and she laughed ironically.

"And what is the story?" I inquired eagerly.

"Well, the story is this. An old retired officer and his wife, and their pretty niece, lived at Briarwood a good many years ago. The girl was engaged to be married to a fine young fellow in the Guides. The day before the wedding, what you know of happened, and has happened every monsoon ever since. The poor girl went out of her mind, and destroyed herself, and the old colonel and his wife did not long survive her. The house is uninhabitable in the monsoon, and there seems nothing for it but to auction off the furniture, and pull it down; it will always be the same as long as it stands. Take my advice, and come into Cooper's Hotel. I believe you can have that small set of rooms at the back. The sitting-room smokes— but beggars can't be choosers."

"That will only be our very last resource," said Aggie, hotly.

"It's not very grand, I grant you; but any port in a storm."

Tom arrived, was doubly welcome, and was charmed with Briarwood, chaffed us unmercifully, and derided our fears until he himself had a similar experience, and heard the phantom horse plunging in the verandah, and that wild, unearthly and utterly appalling shriek. No, he could not laugh that away; and seeing that we had now a mortal abhorrence of the place, that the children had to be kept abroad in the damp till long after dark, that Aggie was a mere hollow-eyed spectre, and that we had scarcely a servant left, that— in short, one day, we packed up precipitately and fled in a body to Cooper's Hotel. But we did not basely endeavour to sub-let, nor advertise Briarwood as "a delightfully situated pucka built house, containing all the requirements of a gentleman's family." No, no. Tom bore the loss of the rent, and— a more difficult feat— Aggie bore Mrs. Starkey's insufferable "I told you so."

AGGIE was at Kantia again last season. She walked out early one morning to see our former abode. The chowkidar and parrot are still in possession, and are likely to remain the sole tenants on the premises. The parrot suns and dusts his ancient feathers in the empty verandah, which re-echoes with his cry of "Lucy, where are you— pretty Lucy?" The chowkidar inhabits a secluded go-down at the back, where he passes most of the day in sleeping, or smoking the soothing "huka." The place has a forlorn, uncared-for appearance now; the flowers are nearly all gone; the paint has peeled off the doors and windows; the avenue is grass-grown. Briarwood appears to have resigned itself to emptiness, neglect, and decay, although outside the gate there still hangs a battered board, on which, if you look very closely, you can decipher the words "To Let."

______________

15: More Than He Could Chew

John Baer
fl. 1920s

Detective Story Magazine 16 April 1927

THEY accused Charley Ney of everything under the sun, but they never said he was inconsistent. He could be mean, cruel, tricky, fiendish, but through all of the episodes of his hectic if brief career there ran one quality which was characteristic of him. Perhaps the best single word with which to describe it is noise. His friends, and-enemies, discussing his achievements, frequently said, "Yeh, that sounds just like him," thus putting it more accurately than they thought, for there was indeed plenty of sound to the things he did. He ate noisily, drank moisily and roared when he spoke; he dressed loudly ; and he snored, making a racket even in his sleep. Nor were his criminal exploits deficient in this respect. He was in his element in free-for-all brawls featured by screams and shouts and cracking heads and crashing chairs. Gun fights amused him: the sudden barking of automatics, the clatter of broken windows, the frightened cries of passers-by were music to his ears. Blowing open safes was a hobby with him; he scorned the use of pillows or blankets or other sound deadeners, and did his work in his own magnificent way. Twice he wrecked not only the safe he was cracking, but also the room in which it stood, and on one other occasion he rocked the whole block.

But loud as his actions were, he did not permit them to speak for themselves. Charley told the world. He did things and bragged about them, Sometimes he bragged: first and about matters which seemed impossible—and then he went ahead and did that which couldn't be done. He bragged before, during and after. In the end, he bragged his head off. We don't mean that as a colloquialism. We mean it literally.

The climax was grandiose. Charley banged out of life even as he had banged through it. When Charley cashed if they had to call not only the cops but also the fire department.

Big words, these; it would appear as though we were becoming a bit noisy on our own account. Well, then, after you know the whole story, come back to this beginning and check us up. We don't think you'll find an exaggeration. Charley is the kind of fellow who makes good or busts, or who makes good and busts.

He was more commonly known as "Bosco Charley." They had called him "Blabbermouth" until one day he broke a bottle over the head of an old friend who addressed him by this nickname during a casual conversation. He approved of Bosco, of course, for he considered himself a worthy successor to the famous chap who ate 'em alive. Like most men who run wild, Charley got away with it for a while. He finally did a killing so raw as to make his other homicides appear tame in comparison. He got away with that, too, or so it seemed.

Willy Reiger was the victim, a lad of good family who had become mixed up with a bad crowd. In many respects Willy was a likable fellow, but he possessed an uncontrollable temper, and this led to his undoing.

The trouble began in Benny Peplaw's room, while Charley was busting a crap game. Willy was almost broke when he discovered that the Bosco boy had rung in a pair of loaded dice.

There was a hot argument which ended when Charley struck Willy without warning and knocked him down. Now. Bosco had it on the other in weight, reach and. height, but Willy Reiger was not lacking in gumption, and so when he got up, he waded into the man-eater. He gave as good as he got, too, because he was speedier and cleverer. To gain the advantage, the Bosco resorted to the simple expedient of fouling. He brought his knee up sharply while in a clinch, and so sent the Reiger lad reeling back, doubled up in pain.

One of the other players chose this particular moment to open the door and look out to see if the fight had attracted the attention of the other occupants of the house. Charley's next blow sent Reiger through the open door into the hall, where he toppled to the floor.

That should have settled it. The fight was over; Willy Reiger lay still and did not even moan. But it was the Bosco's nature to put a theatrical finish to his work.

"And now," he growled, "I'm goin' to pitch this idiot outa here."

Despite the protests of the others, he picked up the unconscious Reiger and hurled him down the stairs. The verdict of the examining physician was that William Reiger had died as the result of having his neck broken.

Augie Wentz beat it, giving the police no chance to question him. The other three witnesses were Bosco Charley Ney, Benny Peplaw and George Brock. Peplaw told the story and Ney and Brock swore to it.

"Charley Ney, Brock and Willy Reiger came to my room to have a chat with me," said Benny Peplaw. "After a while, Willy Reiger and Brock got up to go and when they were in the hall, I went to the door to call something after Willy. I saw that Willy Reiger was just at the head of the stairs, and I said, 'Hey, Willy, you're going to the dance in Okane's hall to-morrow night, arent you? And Willy turned and said, sure he was going. And then, before he turned around again, he took a forward step and the first thing you know he was rolling down the stairs, with Brock running after him. Charley Ney was in my room when this happened, but he heard the noise and came out and the two of us ran down and then Brock said, "Somebody better get a doctor,' so I telephoned, for an ambulance, but when the doctor come he said Willy had broke his neck and was dead."

The examining physician, after the autopsy, stated in his report that there were bruises on William Reiger's face and body, but that they could be explained by the fall down the stairway.

Thus the case hung two weeks later when Norman Dike became involved in it. Dike explained his interest in the tragedy to the district attorney whom he visited in order to exchange informal opinions.

"The fault," admitted Dike, "is as much mine as any one else's. I am Willy Reiger's half brother. When I was ten years old, my widowed. mother married again, but I kept the name of Dike in accordance with a wish expressed in my father's will.

"I was always fond of Willy; he was a good kid, a pleasant lad, and in many respects a likable young man. He was hot-headed and at times stubborn— understand me right— I'm not trying to paint him an angel. What I am regretting is that I was not more patient with him. You see, after Willy's father died, it was up to me to run the family. I took care of the financial end of it pretty well— I am the vice president of a company manufacturing kitchen utensils and have a healthy income. But I frequently let Willy's temper rile me. Mother wasn't strong enough to hold him and I was too quick-tempered myself to reason with him. I have been away on a six-month trip to.the Middle West, interesting jobbers in our line. During that time Willy went completely bad, and it seems. he didn't last long at it. But in spite of everything, he deserves a square deal. If he was murdered—"

The district attorney held tp a hand. "The evidence of eyewitnesses is to the fact—"

"Yes, yes, I know that," interrupted Dike. "I'm referring to the whispers. I've had private detectives on this thing."

"And they have heard neighborhood whispers and gossip to the effect that

Detective Story Magazine

Bosco Charley Ney killed William Reiger by hurling him down the stairs. Augie Wentz was on the scene, too— he had a grudge against Bosco Charley and he started the whispers before doing his disappearing stunt."

"Well?" asked Dike.

"Well," answered the district attorney, "suppose we find Wentz. What of it? On the witness stand he will be out-talked three to one. The police have tried their best to trip up Brock, Peplaw and Charley Ney and to sweat the truth out of them, but they stick to their yarn. And the medical testimony, while it does not altogether prove their story, does not contradict it, either. Frankly, Mr. Dike, do you believe we have a good case against this Bosco Charley."

"I believe the case as it stands is hopeless," replied Dike promptly. "And I have also been so advised by my own detectives. Now let me ask you a frank question. Do you believe the whispers?"

The district attorney spoke without hesitation: "I can't say that Ney killed your brother or that the whispers are supported by sound evidence, but I will say emphatically that this story they tell about Bosco Charley is completely in keeping with his character."

"Thank you," said Norman Dike.

One month later, Mr. Massinger, director of the neighborhood social centre told Dike the same thing, almost using the district attorney's exact words. "And if I were you," added Massinger, "I would drop at once the idea of going after Charley privately."

"But it would be entirely safe," protested Dike. "He has never seen me and doesn't know me from Adam."

"Murder," said Massinger, "is murder."

"But I didn't say I'd murder him. I said I'd make him pay."

"Same thing. Besides, you'd be out of your class."

"The term they use in this neighborhood," cut in Dike, "is to 'get' a fellow. I am no imbecile. I know I can't get this Bosco by beating him up. It is my intention to use my head, not my fists or a gun. I have not as yet met Charley personally, but I have had so many reports on him that I feel that I understand his character perfectly. I'm going to drive at his greatest weakness. I know his type; I'm sure I can get him. It can be done by the simple process of coaxing the bragging fool into getting himself."

It was not difficult for Norman Dike to meet Posco Charley and get on speaking terms with him. Dike went into Sicondo's pool room and during a lull in the general conversation, offered in a loud voice to take on anybody in the place for a ten-dollar side bet.

Charley stepped toward him and roared, "Grab a cue and kiss your money good-by. Let a feller what can shoot pool show you how."

Bosco Charley won the bet but Dike's game was good enough to win his opponent's respect. They played on subsequent evenings and Dike found. that in order to become chatty with the Bosco it was necessary merely to brag. This invariably started Bosco bragging too, and since Dike was a good listener, the two got along famously.

To guard against even the possibility of suspicion, Dike had taken a room in the neighborhood and let it be known that he lived by his wits. While never becoming definite on this subject, he tossed off the impression that his specialty was picking pockets. He met many of the neighborhood characters, but of course he concentrated on Charley Ney.

He kept careful note of all facts which seemed pertinent or helpful to him in his mission. His interest extended even to Charley's customs, habits and personal characteristics and peculjarities. In regard to the latter, it amused him to learn that the Bosco had an equal fondness for hard drink and hard candy. Bosco Charley could apparently drink and survive anything it was possible to brew or distill. And he ate hard candy literally by the pound— taffy, penny jaw-bteakers, rock candy —anything at all so long as it was hard. It was an even bet among the boys that when you met the Bosco he would be noisily crunching something hard and sweet between his teeth,

But after all, none of the Bosco's characteristics was more outstanding than his braggadocio. And he was happiest when he could couple his words with action. When he was challenged to make good his recklessness beggared description.

Dike almost succumbed to a heart attack on one of the occasions on which the Bosco put his insanity on exhibition. The incident occurred in Sicondo's pool room, which was on the second story of a ramshackle building on a water-front street. This parlor was no modern emporium; there were no fancy trimmings or furniture. Besides the tables, the room held only two wooden benches, a few straight-backed chairs and a potbellied stove to furnish heat.

It was January; when Dike came in at about ten o'clock, the lid of the stove was red. Bosco Charley did not show up until shortly after midnight, and he was raving mad when he appeared.

"Went out to crack a box," growled Charley, "but I had a bum steer and when I get there what do I find but every room in the place lit up and a party goin' on. I know when that guy throws a party he has dicks there to protect his guests. Crackin' a crib while dicks is watchin' is one of the few things I ain't tried yet. Dang shame, because I'm loaded with N. G. and achin' to listen to some noise."

"You got the nitroglycerin on you?" asked Dike.

"Yeh, sure." Bosco took a glass bottle filled with a colorless liquid out of his pocket and set it on a pool table.

"Hey, you," cried Sicondo instantly. "Watch out with that stuff. I don't want this place blown up."

"How do you get that way!" roared Bosco. "Tellin' me to watch out! Say, you got a nerve. You think I'm a amachoor? I handled more of this—"

"I know, I know," broke in Sicondo, "but accidents will happen to the best experts. If a lighted match—"

"The bottle's corked, ain't it?" demanded Bosco. "Besides, that's how much you know about it— a lighted match won't hurt it none."

There were now just ten men in the place. All of them ʻhad listened alertly to the conversation. Little Eddy Coyle, a shoplifter, spoke up nervously:

"If a lit match touched that stuff we'd all be blown to heaven."

"Of course," added Sicondo.

"Wanna bet?" asked Bosco.

"You get out of here quick!" cried Sicondo, "Are you crazy? Hey, listen, for the lova Mike! Bosco, don't—"

Bosco Charlie was calmly pouring some of the contents of the bottle into an empty ash tray.

"Your last chance," said Bosco. "Put up your money or shut up. Twenty-five dollars I can stick a lit match in it, Who's bettin'?"

And thereupon the Bosco casually struck a match. Several of the onlookers, including Dike, edged toward the door.

Sicondo pleaded: "Please— please— man alive, don't—"

"Pikers!" sneered Charley. "Nobody takes my bet, eh? All right."

And then Bosco Charley Ney thrust the flaming end of the match into the liquid in the ash tray. Sicondo screamed and threw himself upon the floor. Eddy Coyle toppled over in a faint.

The flame went out; that was all.

The Bosco laughed loudly and long. "Babies, cowards, nitwits! Let a fellow who knows his business show you something. Here— looka this."

He struck another match. He held the flame carefully near the top of the liquid. This time he got a result— a quiet, smoky flame. Of the ten men who had been present, there were now only six left, and all of these were at the other end of the room.

"And now," grinned Bosco, "I'm going to pour the rest of this stuff from the ash tray into the stove!"

At that the room cleared as if by magic, Sicondo pulling Coyle out by the legs. From the far end of the hall, Dike and one other tarried a moment to see Bosco lift the stove lid.

The six were in the hall on the lower floor when Charley appeared at the head of the stairs and called down: "C'me on up, scarecrows! It's all over. C'me on, the ash tray's empty— see?"

Nevertheless several minutes passed before the others filed up the stairs, all of them but Coyle. He filed out, and home and to bed.

"Is anybody got anything to say?" asked Charley.

There was a long pause. Then Sicondo ventured:

"You were just kidding us, Bosco. Fooled us that time all right, all right. The stuff ain't nitroglycerin at all. Some little joker you are, ain't you?"

Charley's eyes narrowed. "So I'm bluffing am I?" He tossed a roll of bills on a table. "Who wants to make some easy money? Here it is. Just grab it and run. When you get down on the street, run like blazes, because I'll throw the bottle with the rest of the stuff after you, so that it will hit you or the sidewalk near you. Now whoever thinks this stuff ain't nitroglycerin, just grab the money and run. Go ahead somebody— anybody. If you get away alive with the money it's yourn."

This time the silence was profound.

"You guys gimme a pain," growled Bosco. He strode to a window, opened it and looked up and down the deserted street. "Well, I was going to make an explosion to-night anyhow, so here goes." And with this he hurled the glass bottle out of the window. Before the terrific crash which followed had died, Charley yelled:

"Just a little louder and it woulda sounded like a war! Cheese it now, let's beat it, everybody!"

The police investigation arrived nowhere. The nearest officer had been five blocks away at the time of the explosion. Every one within a few blocks' radius had heard the noise; no one had seen how it happened. Bosco had thrown the bottle slantwise so that it did not explode in front of the pool room window. The police had no reason to believe, or suspect, that the trouble had been caused by some one in Sicondo's place.

A rather large hole had been torn in the pavement and a few windows had been broken. A department expert gave it as his opinion that the explosive was either nitroglycerin or dynamite. But nobody could think of a sensible reason why the charge should have been set off at all. There was, of course, no sensible reason. And so the very inanity of the act balked the efforts to solve the mystery.

Two weeks elapsed before Dike broached Bosco on the subject of explosives.

"Listen, Charley, I've been reading up on N. G. and I think I can handle it. There's no money in my line, and

I'd like to try cracking safes. But where do I get the stuff? Where do you get it?"

"From a juicelegger," Bosco told him.

"A which?"

"A juicelegger— a guy who makes the stuff and bootlegs it among crib workers. See?"

"Do you have to go to him for it?"

"No— I wouldn't have the stuff on me while I'm on the street except when I go to and from work. This guy delivers it to me. We do it like this: I give him my order and pay him. Then I tell him at what time during the following day I'll be out. While I'm out, he comes to my room and puts a bottle full of the stuff— like you saw in the pool room— on my table. See? I ain't there when it's delivered, so the cops can't catch me accepting it."

"Good idea. But how does he get in your room?"

"Walks in. I always leave the door open in the daytime. You been in my place— a kind of boarding house with over twenty rooms. People coming and going all the time; no way of keeping track of them. If the police found the stuff on me I could just say it was a plant, and the landlord would back me up by saying that a lot of fellows had passed in and out and any one of them could have put the bottle in my room to frame me. And then I would say I didn't know what was in the bottle and I had never seen no N. G. before."

"Got yourself covered nicely," commented Dike. "But ain't it dangerous for your juicelegger to stand the stuff on your table instead of hiding it some A

"Listen, fella, if you ever monkey with N. G. there's one thing you always want to remember. Always keep the stuff in plain sight. If you stick it away in some drawer where you can't see it, you might forget about it and knock against it, or the thing it's in, accidentally. But if you got it where you can look it in the eye, you'll always have it on your mind and there won't be no accidents."

"That's right, too," admitted Dike. "Well, when I make up my mind definitely, I'll let you get some of it for me."

"Glad to help you out," offered Bosco.

About a week later, on a bitter-cold evening, they met again. From Bosco's somewhat unsteady gait, it was apparent that he had been drinking, and as usual he was again crunching something hard between his teeth.

"Say," said Bosco, "C'me on up my place. That fella I told you about was up my place this afternoon while I was out. Let's see if he left the stuff there."

"Sure, I'll trot up with you," accepted Dike. "What are you eating again— candy?"

"Rock candy— want a hunk?"

"Ugh!" groaned Dike.

" 'Sgood stuff," Bosco assured him. "White rock candy. Hunk o' candy and shot o' hooch— jush like rock 'n' tye. 'Sgood for a cold, 'sgood for measles or anything you got."

"Thank you— not for me."

As soon as they entered Bosco's toom, Dike saw the glass bottle on the centre of the table standing against the left wall. But to his surprise he noticed that the bottle had burst.

Bosco paid no attention to it. He busied himself taking off his overcoat and hanging it in a closet. He merely waved toward the table and mumbled:

"There you are. Prompt delivery, ain't it?"

"Ves, siree, your juicelegger is there with the goods. Say listen— what's the matter with this joint? Don't they furnish heat? This is one of the coldest nights this winter, and it's almost as cold in here as outside."

"Been— been havin' a li'l' trouble." Bosco settled himself heavily in a chair near the table. He did not, however, face the table; his right side was toward it. "The fool boiler went on the blink four days ago. Dumb plumber wasted a lotta time tryin' to fix it and then said it couldn't be done. The landlord'll have to get a new boiler. Won't have no heat for another day or two. Ain't afraid of a little cold, are you?"

With this, Bosco took a paper bag out of his pocket and put it on the table. He fumbled in the bag for several moments, and then, becoming impatient, he tipped it open and dumped out its contents.

"Is that the rock candy?" asked Dike.

"Yeh, let's eat it up— eat it all up." Then suddenly, "Say, where's that bottle? There was a bottle on—"

"Got it in my hand," cut in Dike. "I'll put it over here on the mantelpiece. You're kind of unsteady— might knock against"

"Aw, that's all right. I'm careful fellow that way. C'me on, let's eat up this stuff and kill this pint bottle too"

"We couldn't eat all of that candy in a week," laughed! Dike.

"Rats. 'Could eat it all me'self."

"All that candy?"

"All of it— 'bout a pound and a half left."

"Bologny!"

"What's bologny ?"

"One fellow couldn't eat all that stuff— what I mean is, not at one clip. Course, if he took a couple of days he—"

"Eat it in twenty minutes," offered Bosco.

"Bologny!" repeated Dike.

Bosco's eyes narrowed. "You calling me a liar?"

"Not a liar. Just a bluffer."

"Then call me!" Bosco put several bills on the table. "There's fifty dollars says I can eat this candy in twenty minutes."

"I'll take you on that," said Dike promptly. "TIl give you an even break for your money. Make it an hour. If you swallowed this hard stuff whole, it would make you sick for a month. You'll have to bite it up into little bits first and that takes time. One hour, And I won't sit here and watch you, either. I'm going up to Sicondo's place where it's warm. I know you're honest and won't throw the candy out of the window or anything like that."

"Say, who you talking to— what—"

"I said you were honest. I'll take More Than He Could Chew
your word for it. Ill be back in an hour. If you haven't eaten the candy— all of it— you lose."

"Kiss your money good-by!" roared Charley. "Bosco eats 'em alive and he goin' to do his stuff." Going down the stairs, Dike heard Bosco laughing:

" 'Magine! Calling me a bluffer! Ha! Thass a good one. I'Il show him!"

Norman Dike did not go to Sicondo's pool room. He went to his own home. In his library he took a book from a shelf and began reading:

Nitroglycerin freezes at 34.04 degrees Fahrenheit. Like water, it expands in freezing, and may thus burst the vessel containing it. When it freezes it changes into whitish crystals, and when it is solid it is much more liable to explosion by simple percussion than when it is liquid. Nitroglycerin is a heavy, colorless oil, which, like the glycerin from which it is derived, tastes sweet.

Dike laid aside the book. His thoughts wandered back to Charley's room. Some of the whitish crystals which had burst from bottle, still lay on the table when Bosco dumped the rock candy from the bag. Dike had removed the broken bottle— but he had left some of the frozen nitroglycerin— and pieces of the rock candy had rolled near it. The rock candy also resembled a whitish crystal. Charley was just enough "under" not to tell them apart. And the nitroglycerin would taste sweet when Charley put it into his mouth. It would be all rock candy to Bosco Charley until he used his teeth on a frozen nitro-glycerine crystal.

Of course, Charlie would try to eat everything on the table.

The police found neither rock candy nor nitroglycerin. Dike had set the bottle with the remainder of the stuff so close to the edge of the mantelpiece that the jar of Charley's falling body and the toppling chair had sent it crashing to the floor, where it also exploded. The strange affair remained a mystery to every one, including Mr. Massinger, the director of the community center.

On hearing of the tragedy, Massinger reflected: "Dike said that the way to get a fellow like Charley Ney was to coax him into getting himself. But of course Dike had nothing to do with this, for it is manifestly impossible that even a fool and a braggart could be coaxed to take himself off in this absurd manner."

____________

16: Blight

H. de Vere Stacpoole

1863-1951

Popular Magazine 20 Nov 1919

TOWNLEY is an insignificant little man till you look at his face; then you forget his size and all the things that at a first glance make for insignificance, for his face is lit by a spirit, patient and indomitable, kindly, genial, and full of genius. He is a doctor and his patients live in all sorts of places. He has been called to consultations in the forests of India, in the forests of the Amazon, in the plantations of English dukes and American millionaires, always in places where trees grow, for his patients are trees. He is a tree doctor. He will attend vines and bushes and flowers, but trees are his specialty, or, rather, sick trees, and if you can get Townley to talk on the subject he will tell you that trees and plants and flowers are just like men and women and children, subject to cancer, subject to tumors, parasitic diseases and all sorts of maladies, some known, some partly known, some unknown. That they can show like and dislike, that they can fret and pine. He will tell you that flowers and plants and trees require love as well as attention, that Luther Burbank is a lover as well as a magician and that the roses of Dean Hole drew their perfection from the heart of the gardener no less than from the soil of the garden. And so he will go on till you fancy yourself talking to a mystic and a poet, and you will be right, he is both, but he is also one of the most practical men on earth. He was born and educated in England; and his genius came to him perhaps through his father who was a gardener at Kew. But England could not hold him, her ideas were too small, her trees too few. in America where tree doctoring is a profession and patients to be reckoned in hundreds of millions, he found his soil. A book on transplantation published when he was twenty-five gave him fame right off, and he never looked back.

However, I am not setting out to write a biography of William Townley, but a story he told me and which has more to do with men than trees. This is his story:

I THOUGHT I knew something about rubber at that time. I had studied it, vine and tree— under glass. I thought I knew something about men, too, I had studied them, man and boy— but under glass, as you may say. I hadn't then come on to the fact that all man's experience contained in mind and books is a small thing compared to what he doesn't know of man and nature. Men run in a herd in a big groove of their own cutting, the country around is pretty much unknown. Even Shakespeare ran in it else his works wouldn't be of universal appeal.

I had not seen the Amazon then, either, and he who has not seen the Amazon has not really seen God.

It was a book of mine on the parasitic diseases of trees that brought me the letter, and the letter was from Colonel Alonzo Perreira, of the Esperanza plantation on the right bank of the Amazon, one thousand seven hundred and fifty miles from the mouth. It was a strange letter, typewritten in faultless English, practical in a way, yet producing. on my mind the feeling that the writer was under the dominion of an agitation and an urgency not entirely accountable for in the matter.

The trees on the Esperanza estate had come under a blight of some sort, that was the gist of the business, he wanted me to come and see them, to come at once, without a moment's delay. Money was of no object, absolutely none, and after all this and the signature was the postscript in manuscript, "Come, I pray you, at once."

He gave me the name of his agents in Philadelphia, Milligan & Forsyth. I wrote them and got the reply that Perreira was the richest rubber man on the Amazon, that he had cabled me a credit on them of twenty thousand dollars— ending with the perfectly superfluous advice that I would be well advised from a monetary point of view to take up the proposition.

I was not thinking so much of the money. I wanted to see the Amazon, I wanted to see those sick trees, and I wanted to see Perreira, this multi-millionaire who lived seventeen hundred miles from Para, which lies seventeen hundred miles from everywhere. It seemed to me that Perreira was as sick as his trees. My mind is like that. I sometimes imagine things, and sometimes I am right.

That letter was the call of a sick man, it seemed to me, not the hail of a planter only concerned about his pocket. The fancy came to me that Perreira loved his trees and then, somehow, my mind refused that idea for no special reason. I sometimes refuse ideas for no special reason, and sometimes I am right.

But I was going. They have a cable up the Amazon, and I cabled that day,' Saturday, it was, and on the Tuesday following I started.

I had fixed my fee at ten thousand dollars and traveling expenses. I could have had twenty, but I wanted a holiday and I wanted to see the Amazon, and I am not a hog, anyway.

I took passage up the Amazon in a big ecean-going steamer, the R. M. S. Tamar, and I was on deck most of the time I was not asleep or at meals. The Amazon is not a river, it is a moving sea, and all the trees in the world seem to have grouped themselves on the banks to watch it; palms and matamatas and sand boxes, embaubas and ferns, in leagues and millions, and the forests you drop at sunset you pick up at dawn with the blue toucans still yelping over them and the great butterflies coming out to see the ship, and the blazing parrots screeching at her, and the egrets drifting over her like puffs of snow, white as the egrets you dropped a thousand miles back, and the river just as broad and the trees just as many and as new and fresh and green as they were before the pyramids were built or Egypt thought of.

Then one morning at breakfast the captain said to me, "In an hour we will be at the Esperanza landing stage."

Then as I stood on deck with my traps beside me I saw the plantation open beyond a cape of trees and the landing stage, big as a deep-sea wharf, and in another ten minutes I was shaking hands with Perreira. He had come down to meet me and he was something of the sort of man I had expected to meet; nervy, dried up and dark as a native, a Peruvian of the best sort and with all the manners of a Spanish grandee.

I liked him, right off, but I did not like his house, nor the dinner he put before me that day. I was unused to houses with scarcely any furniture, to farina and black beans and coffee without sugar or milk, but one gets used to most things after a little while, and after a while I got used to Perreira's way of living; I had other things to think of besides comfort and food.

Those trees— the second day I was there he took me off into the forest past a palm belt and into the true jungle where the giants stood festooned with climbing vines and bush ropes, then close to a pachuaba palm, standing on its exposed roots as if they were stilts, he showed me a rubber tree, the first we had come on. He showed me where it had been tapped.

"You see," said Perreira, "it has given scarcely any milk, look at it, touch it, it is sick."

It was. I could see that at a glance. The bark had a leprous look, dry beyond ordinary, and scaling off in parts, though not much.

"Let's look at another," said I.

"There is no use," said Perreira, "they are all the same, for hundreds of miles, wherever my estate reaches, they are the same. It began last year. It does not reach beyond my estate, the blight only touches me."

"That is strange," said I.

"Yes," said he, "it is strange."

He said no more but stood looking at me as I cut some of the bark off for microscopical examination, then we went back to the house and I set to work that day in the little laboratory he had rigged up for me. I worked for several days and with entirely negative results. I could discover no fungus or parasite to account for the condition of the bark. There was a thickening of the cellular tissue and the fistular cavities were reduced in size, empty, or blocked. That was all.

On the night when I told Perreira of my results we were sitting in his office, which was the coolest and pleasantest room in the house, in cane rockers and with a table laden with rum, crushed ice, lime juice, and cigars between us.

"You can arrive at no conclusion, then," said he, "except that my trees are dying from, shall we say, a general debility without appreciable cause?"

"That is so," I replied.

"In your book," said he, "there is a chapter at the end which speaks of the likes and dislikes of trees, a strange chapter in a practical book, yet it was the mind revealed in that chapter that caused me to send for you; here, said I, is a man who sees beyond the surface and who is not afraid to say what he' sees and to whom I can speak what I think. Now I am going to tell you what I think. I would not tell it to any other man but you. I think my trees are blighted by _an act of mine; that they are dying because, out there in the forest, many days journey from here, my brother lies dead and unburied.'

"Did you kill him?" said I.

The words came from me almost without volition, our minds seemed for a moment absolutely in tune, and it was as though I had read his thoughts and repeated them like a gramophone.

"In a way I did," replied he, as though the question were quite an ordinary one. Then he rose up and began to mix some drinks at the little table where the tray stood. I watched him as he handled the sugar and the rum and the pounded ice, measuring everything carefully, but doing so, evidently, with his mind a thousand miles away.

Then, when he had handed me my drink, he took his own and sat down again in the cane rocker.

"I will tell you exactly what happened," said he, "and how it happened, but I must first tell you that we are an unlucky family— or were, for I am the last of them all. My grandfather was a trader of Lima and my father inheriting all his wealth began trade in rubber with Para and eventually took up this estate. He was a hard man to the natives, and he was killed one day by a blow-gun man; walking in the garden here something flecked his cheek and stuck to it; he plucked it off thinking it was a flying insect and found that it was a blow-gun dart. He knew that he must die in twenty minutes or so, and, coming into the house, he made his will leaving the estate to my eldest brother, Ramon. Juan, the second eldest, was appointed overseer under Ramon, with succession in the event of Ramon's death, while I, the youngest, was directed to study law so that I might be of assistance to my brothers in the management of the business. My father was a very clever man, and he knew the tricks of lawyers and how they prey on business men for the sake of their fees. I was to be the lawyer of the firm, with a share in the profits of the business and succession to the estate should I survive the others. Having made his will and smoked a cigarette, he died. I said we were an unlucky family, and three was our unlucky number. We were three, nine is a multiple of three, and nine years after the death of my father my eldest brother Ramon died a violent death. He was out crocodile shooting with Juan and the breech of his rifle burst, killing him.

"I was at Para when the news reached me, and I came here by the first steamer and found Juan quite broken down with grief. Juan was a big, domineering, violent-tempered man, yet I found him on my arrival in tears, weak as a woman and the shadow of his old self, without volition and with only one desire— to get rid of the estate. All this surprised me, for I had loved Ramon far more than Juan had appeared to love him, yet I was myself, though, indeed, sad enough, as you may imagine.

"I did not wish to part with the estate, and without my consent a sale would have been impossible. I argued with Juan, pointing out the folly of such a course with rubber increasing in value as it then was, offering at the same time to leave Para and come up and help him in the practical working of the business. He agreed with this, and after a while he began to recover and find his old interest in life, and in six months he was himself again, domineering, violenttempered, a hog— as you say in America— for work and the terror of the malingerers and bad hands. A man difficult to get on with, yet with whom I never hada differ. ence, for I knew his temper to a hair and managed to lead him by humoring him.

"So it went on for three years— for three years, mark you— till, one day, Pedro, the chief of the workers on the estate, came back from the forests with a tale.

"Pedro had been sent with half a dozen of the hands on an exploring expeditien with a view to discovering new rubber tracts. You must know that this estate is so vast that for us, the owners, or, rather, for me the owner, it is beyond the river belt in large parts, unknown.

"Pedro at a point six days' journey away had found a rich rubber tract, but he had found something else which in his flowery language he described as a river of gold. He had done gold mining in his young days and he was not wrong. He had found a river with large deposits of auriferous sand and from the specimens he brought back with him we determined that the thing was worth exploring. That was human nature. We were rich, richer than many an American millionaire, for our riches rested on the firm foundation of the forests, they and Para were our real gold mines, yet, such is the power of the yellow metal that we could not rest and we, who had gold a thousand times beyond our needs, dreamed of gold and talked of gold as though we were beggars. We set about making preparations for a great expedition. We arranged to take twenty men including Pedro and to build a hut or tambo at the end of each day's march so that, were the river to prove workable, we might establish a regular road to it through the jungle with resting places for the gold getters and their burdens.

"All our men were native to the spot and used to the forests, with that instinct for direction which the forest breeds in men. We started on a Tuesday and the third of the month, and just as the sun was rising above the trees.

"Pedro led the way with the hands and we followed on the beaten track left by them. We had had luck from the first, one of the men injuring his foot against the thorny stem of a pachiuba palm. We had to lie up for a day at the first tambo we built. We built our second tambo, like fools, close to a great patch of embauba trees. These trees, you must know, are poisonous with malaria. Pedro said it did not matter, so far from the river, but he was wrong, for next morning Juan was in a fever. No one else was touched. I wished to delay the march or even return till he was better, but he would not listen to this. It was not in his nature to turn back or to lie up for a touch of fever, so we pushed on ever deeper into the forest and ever . farther from help. He was worse that night, but the next morning he declared himself better, though his appearance had now begun to alarm me; his face was shrunk and his eyes were brilliant as the eyes of a woman at a féte, and. his hands shook as they held the coffee cup, but his legs, under the dominion of his powerful will, seemed unaffected. He would go forward, and forward we went.

"That evening he seemed better. We had now reached the fringe of the true: wilderness, the rubber trees had ceased, and we had struck a great belt of matamatas and fig which grow together finely. Mixed with them were unknown trees, and everywhere the vine and the liantasse and brush rope festooned the air; the trees seemed hung with drapery of torn lace festooned with orchids, and the air shoots of the wild pine and the tubes of the water vine rushed up through the gloom to be lost where the parrots shrieked and the monkeys chattered.

"The moon was near the full, and when she rose the noises of the night began; you have heard the Mother of the Moon, that little owl which fills the night here with its melancholy cry, but you have not heard it out there in the forest, nor the roar of the howling monkeys rocking themselves on the branches, nor the hundred sounds made by unknown things that only speak at night when the moon turns all that place into a great green cave like a cave of the sea where the vines and the air shoots seem climbing up through green and waving water.

"Next morning Juan declared himself still better, but it was the declaration of a man on the verge of bankruptcy. He did not know it, nor did I know that the fever, though suppressed, was still working in him, so we pushed on making good progress day by day, each night building a tambo, a work that only took the hands three hours, and. each morning leaving it behind us. So it went on till we had built our sixth resting place by the bank of the little river that held the gold.

"Pedro had spoken truth. The river is small, but it is there, and its mud and sand are laden with gold deposited through the ages and brought down from some source of gold far up to the west, but maybe, indeed, not so far—who can tell?

" 'We are rich,' said Juan as he sat that night when we had finished washing and weighing a specimen of the sand taken at haphazard, 'we are rich enough to command fleets and armies. We will be kings.'

"I had never heard him talk in an extravagant way before; it was the fever that he had been carrying for days like a demon in his bosom and which was now about to claim him.

"At supper he talked like a man drunk, I thought it was the gold; it was the fever. Next morning I knew.

"Ah, that was a bad time, six days' march from any help, with few drugs and the roughest food, without a woman for a nurse, for in sickness as in childhood what can we do without a woman's hand?

"The tambo was given over to the sick man, and for three days he lay fighting the disease with what poor help we could give hirh, then on the evening of the third day he sent for me. I was asleep in a shack we had built among the trees when Pedro called me saying that Juan wished for me at once. I came, and there he was, lying on the bed of leaves we had made for him, his eyes half closed and his hands folded on his breast.

" 'He opened his eyes when he heard my step and motioned me to sit down on the ground beside him. Then he closed his eves for a moment. I thought he had fallen asleep, but he was not asleep. Suddenly in a clear, sane voice he began to speak to me.

" 'When I sent for you from Para,' said he, 'I told you that Ramon had died from an accident, that his gun had burst while he was out shooting with me. Have you seen that gun?'

" 'No,' I replied, wondering what he meant. I thought for a moment that his mind was wandering, but I dismissed that idea, his manner and his tone spoke of perfect sanity.

" 'No," he replied, 'you took my word for it, you did not ask for evidence of his death, you did not imagine that I lied to you. Ramon did not die from an accident. I killed him.'

" 'You killed him!'

" 'I killed him. Would you prefer the word murder? I murdered him. I am near death, and I wish to confess.'

"I sat with my hands folded. I knew he was speaking the truth, my tongue lay like a pebble in my mouth. Then I said:

" 'You murdered Ramon!'

" 'Call it that,' he said.

" 'But why— but why?' I asked, speaking as though to get out of a darkness that had suddenly surrounded me. 'Why— why?'

" 'It was done in passion, about a girl,' he replied. 'She favored him; I loved her; he was the real master of Esperanza, I never cared for Ramon— you know my temper; I often held it in, often; he always managed to cross my wishes, yet I held my temper in. I hated him at times, for he was always right on business matters, and somehow I was always wrong, that touched my pride. Then I fell in love; she was the daughter of a seringuero, as low down as that, but she had eyes like the night; but Roman had been before me with her, she would not look at me, the daughter of a seringuero.

" 'Then Ramon and I had our quarrel, and I killed him in the woods not far from that spit where the alligators sun themselves. We had our guns with us. I wrapped his head in leaves and threw his gun in the river beyond the spit, where it lies six fathoms deep. I carried him home and told the hands it was an accident; there is no questioning of statements at Esperanza.

" 'I killed him, and now that I am dying I tell you and ask your forgiveness.'

"I sat without speaking. Ramon was my favorite brother, this thing had stricken the life in me, Juan was dying, the whole world seemed suddenly to have come to an end.

"He asked me to forgive him. I scarcely knew what he meant. I had no anger in my heart, only grief. Had he been strong ahd well all would have been different, then rage would have filled me, no doubt, and I would have avenged Ramon or handed the murderer to justice, but he was dying and he had confessed. Did I forgive him? Before God, I cannot sav whether I did or not. I cannot read my mind as it was just then. It seemed, indeed, just then a blank, but I know that when he asked again,  'Do you forgive me?' I answered, 'Yes.'

" 'Then," said he, 'I die in peace.' He closed his eyes and I left the tambo.

The sun was setting and the open space by the river was filled with the light of sunset, great moths flew in the golden, gauzy light and the smell of the forest was altering; few men seem to have noticed this change in the scents that fill the air of the forest when day begins to turn into night. I believe I myself had not noticed it till just then. My senses had suddenly become more acute as though the shock I had received had sharpened them, also my perception of things, as though my mind, ever so slightly joggled from its base, were seeing things from a fresh viewpoint.

Right before me between two branches a bird-eating spider had spread its huge web in which a little colored bird had become entangled. This thing which was common seemed to me new and monstrous and strange— strange as the new world which had suddenly surrounded me.

I walked a little way among the trees, and, taking my seat on a fallen log, I tried to pull my mind together, to think and to remember,

Pictures of Ramon came up before me and of our boyhood. I had always been his favorite. I was the youngest brother, rather delicate, the spoiled child of the family. Ramon had always stood between me and the rough things of life, he had been generous to me with money. Had I forgiven his murderer?

" 'Had I betrayed Roman? Looking into my heart I could find no anger against Juan. Death had intervened, destroying anger and the thoughts of vengeance, but I had not forgiven him. I had said the words, it is true, but I had spoken out of a mind rendered negative by contending forces and under dominion of the great power exercised by the dying.

"That power was on me still.

"I left the trees and returned toward the tambo. Pedro and the others had lit a fire some distance away. It was now dark, and the flicker of it showed against the night of the trees and strangely fierce against the still silver of the moonlight.

" 'At the door of the tambo I paused. There was no sound, I entered and struck a match. Juan was still lying on his back with his hands folded, but he was not dead; he was sunk in a profound sleep, his face had changed, miraculously as though he had gained ten years of youth and his forehead was dewed by a gentle perspiration. Death had passed him by, the fever had left him, he would not die; he would recover and be well and strong again. He had been at the turning point when he had sent for me to make his confession, and that sudden ease coming to his mind had cast the die for life.

"The match went out. I lit another and stood till it burned my fingers gazing on him.

"Then I went out into the night and came to the fire where Pedro and the others were seated smoking, with the great white moths flitting about them and the great white moon shining above. I told them that I would look after Juan that night and then I went and lay down in my shack among the trees with all the noises of the forest around me and the great problem before me staring at me like a sphinx..

"My forgiveness was withdrawn with the withdrawal of death. I was now the judge and also the guardian of the honor of our house and its good name.

"Would you believe me that in that terrible position and freighted with that great trust, I slept? I slept as soundly as the man in the tambo, and with the first screaming of the parrots and yelping of the toucans I woke.

"The dawn was strong, and, creeping toward the hut,-I looked in. Juan was still asleep, lying, now, on his right side and breathing easily and lightly. I entered and, listening, I counted his respirations. They were normal. In an hour or so he would wake a new man, weak, very weak, but on the road to recovery. Yet he must never return to Esperanza. I did not say that, Justice said it, and the ghosts of my forefathers and the ghost of Ramon.

"I left the place, and, going to where the men were still asleep, I woke Pedro.

" 'Pedro,' said I, 'Senhor Juan is dead, rouse the hands, collect the stores, and give the order to march. There is no need to dig a grave, the tambo will be his tomb, so he has willed it.'

"The men awoke yawning in the light that was now 'full, and without question, and like beasts of burden they shouldered their loads. Pedro gave the order to march, and they wheeled back along the road we had come, I, following, leaving the golden river and the sleeping man, who was my brother, in the tambo that was to be his tomb.

"You are the only man who knows this and now my heart seems lighter. You can understand, and also that the judge pays for his office a far larger sum than the salary he receives. That was three years ago, and now see in the third year my trees are telling me that my payment is due. I have got to die like them, but first I have got to bury what remains of Juan. It is all a fate working out intricately. I don't know how I will die, maybe the fever will take me as it took him when I make my journey into the forest to find his bones and to bury them."

"I MADE THAT JOURNEY with him," finished Townley. "When he had told me that story it was as though a strong bond had been woven between us. I went with him. We found the old ruined tambos, one by one, but we did not reach the river, for in the fourth tambo from the start we found a skeleton. It was the skeleton of Juan. He had dragged himself back thus far, miraculously, despite the want of food and the weakness that must have been his. It was the knowledge of this fact that killed Perreira— with the help of a Mauser pistol.

"We buried the brothers beneath a great matamata tree.

"That is the Amazon, where the men are as strange as the trees, and the trees as the river, and where the great plantations turn rubber into gold that no man can spend in a climate that few men can live in— where the sure things are fever and fate and the shouting of the toucans by day and the roaring of the howling monkeys by night."

________________

17: The Millennium Engine

Leavitt Ashley Knight
fl  1910s

The Popular Magazine, 23 Feb 1915

TIME finally enables us to answer the old vexed question about Armitage and Bartlett. For twenty years after the Second Industrial Revolution, historians fiercely debated whether these two astonishing men were mad. Those who said they were agreed that the madness of Armitage was not the madness of Bartlett. Armitage, they said, was money-mad; Bartlett charity-mad. But others insisted that Armitage was nothing but a common self-respecting business man of the nineteenth-century type magnified one hundred diameters. As for Bartlett, said they, he was one of those rare minds which blossom forth among mankind once in a millennium, a great-hearted man strangely impelled at the same time by remorseless logic and empowered with diabolical ingenuity.

Now that the outcome of the Second Industrial Revolution is entirely clear, we know which of these opinions about the men who precipitated that cataclysm is correct. A simple report of the facts will dispel the superstition which still lingers vigorously in many quarters.

The facts are these:

IN 1934 the railroads of the United States were in the middle of an era of healthful prosperity. They had entirely recovered from the long series of political attacks that had been directed against them in the first decade of the twentieth century. Even the New York, New Haven & Hartford was earning five per cent of wholly honest dividends.

Remarkable as this was, though, it was overshadowed by the development of the motor truck and the automobile highways. Between 1920 and 1930, no fewer than 653,288 motor trucks were manufactured annually. It was in 1931 that New York City, Boston, Chicago, and Detroit passed antihorse laws, forbidding all animal-drawn vehicles to traverse their streets. Small freight, passengers, and the mails were, by 1926, almost universally moved about by motor within the hundred-mile radius of every large city. Gone was the famous old infamous old Commuters' Local, with its sooty locomotive, its stifling cars of tinder, and its stiff, jolting jog trot. Vanished was the leisurely old Rural Free Delivery postman, thumbing through the countryside's post cards while his white mare ambled along nibbling grass by the roadside. The en-tire country was ribboned with magnificent macadam roads like the Lincoln Highway— the first large one to be built. When, in August, 1933, the Great Gulf Road from Tampa to Galveston was thrown open, the enormous interurban system was complete, and you might have raced over a rock roadbed seventy feet wide from any city of ten thousand to any other city of ten thousand in our country.

It was inevitable that all this should have affected the railroads, But the effect was much less serious than one might have guessed prior to the facts. True, all local passenger service by rail had ceased ; everybody came and went by motor cycle, by car, or by motor bus. But the railroads did not complain. Tney had never made much money out of commuters, most of whom they had hauled at from one-fourth to one-half cent per mile. Local freight of the lighter sort, too, had all been diverted from the way of steel. But once again the railroad presidents shrugged their shoulders and said: "We'll lose a little, but not enough to make us worry. Short-haul freight is expensive, and it's a horrible nuisance." And they cited familiar statistics to show that the labor charges and the delays in handling mixed car lots of local freight ate up nearly all the profits, and that the big money for the common carriers all came from the transporting of bulk freight over long distances.

"Hurrah for the motor truck!" said President Wheeling, of the Pennsylvania. "It has swept our tracks clean of every confounded local train, passenger and freight alike. And it has left us with a clear way for solid trains of coal, iron, wheat, and lumber. Thanks to the great god, chauffeur, we railways are better off than ever!"

ON A sun-washed May morning in 1934, there crawled out of the door of a great office building in lower Broadway a strange, almost comic little car. Through the throngs on the sidewalk it wormed its way to the road and there halted, while a crowd gathered.

It was a weird contrivance, that car. It seemed to be made wholly of copper. Its wheels carried tires a foot wide and spokes half an inch thick. Yet the whole car was smaller than a five-hundred-dollar runabout! The crowd laughed. So did the two men aboard the car. Then they started it up Broadway very slowly, and the engine roared like a hungry tiger. Roared so loud that even its muffler seemed like a gauze veil hung before its fury. When the crowd heard that, they followed, wondering.

A little above Forty-second Street, the car overhauled two Giant No. 8 motor trucks which were panting desperately over an enormous ninety-ton steel girder. The girder rode stolidly on three sets of wheels and refused to move more than ten feet a minute. The driver of the little copper car signaled to the two Giants No. 8 to uncouple. They did so, while Broadway murmured. Then up dashed the little copper toy, slipped beneath the titanic beam, lifted a couple of heavy jacks, screwed them up from the car's platform until they bore firmly against the girder.

Then a lever moved, the tiger in the invisible engine roared again, and ninety tons of metal leaped forward like a grasshopper.

"Good Lord ! They're making thirty miles an hour!" a man in the crowd yelled hysterically. Then the street lost its head. Men shouted as at a victorious army. A swarm of motorists raced after the vanishing copper car. Far up Broadway traffic policemen were bellowing to its driver : "Halt ! Halt !"

But the comic copper car did not halt. On it screamed, and overhead the ninety-ton girder raced, until it reached a store in the upper nineties. There it drew up at the curb. And the pursuing multitudes of motorists saw in a show window a duplicate of the comic copper car. And on the plate glass in front of it, this sign :

THE MILLENNIUM CAR.

500 Horse Power for $500.

BARTLETT & ARMITAGE,

Manufacturers and sole retailers.

Amos Bartlett. John Armitage.

A host of excited noises rippled through the crowd, and the name of John Armitage rose rhythmically above the blur of gossip and excitement. For John Armitage was the copper king. He it was who had been the private secretary of the elder Guggenheim from 1918 to 1925. Then, in that memorable wave of religious revivals during the summer of 1925, the entire Guggenheim family joined the Catholic Church, and all the Guggenheim men became Dominican friars. John Armitage headed the syndicate that bought the Guggenheim properties. And after four years Armitage was the majority stockholder in the syndicate. Then the three mountains of pure copper were discovered on Armitage lands in Peru. Men estimated the Armitage fortune at eight hundred million— and that was conservative.

Then fate played a wild trick. She set a young chap in Hartford, Connecticut, at work upon the problem of tempering copper. And within ten months this Amos Bartlett had discovered the now well-known process of polarizing copper atoms. It turned the soft metal into a stuff 8.33 times as strong as the finest vanadium steel. The process, as every high-school boy knows, was almost as cheap as picking up a copper bar and setting it down again.

But this was not the most startling quality of the polarized copper. One night, while he was "monkeying" with a bar over an electric furnace, young Bartlett discovered that the coefficient of expansion had been reduced eighty-eight per cent, while the melting point had been raised by polarization from twelve hundred degrees Centigrade to about thirty-five hundred. For nearly a year, these facts lingered in Amos Bartlett's mind as mere curiosities. Then one night, as he was falling asleep, "a great light from within seemed suddenly to be kindled," so he wrote afterward, "and I saw, in that vast space which imagination holds but which lies nowhere between the stars, an engine of polarized copper racing at a speed invisible to mortal eye. Racing, with every shaft and bearing red-hot. An engine driven by nitroglycerin! An engine enduring easily the frightful heat of explosives. I sprang from my bed crying like a lunatic: 'I shall overturn the world!' "

Remember, it was in May, 1934, that the first Millennium car, driven by nitroglycerin, burst upon the bewildered gaze of mankind. Backed by the immeasurable fortune of John Armitage, the comic little thing in copper was manufactured simultaneously in eight stupendous factories, and, through an ingenious system, sold directly to the public. The engine was of incredible simplicity— "a worm-gear shaft stuck inside a pipe," so the popular saying ran at the time. Selling at "one horse power one dollar," Bartlett & Armitage cleared at least one hundred dollars on their smallest cars— five hundred horse power.

Armitage went around chuckling to himself like a silly schoolboy. He boasted that he would die a multibillionaire. He opened a chain of banks to handle the avalanches of gold that were pouring into his coffers. And yet at times he scowled, sulked, and fell into a strange melancholy.  The reason whereof men soon discovered through a babbling stenographer in the office of Armitage's corporation lawyer. The worm that gnawed Armitage's cruel heart and scheming, brain was young Amos Bartlett. For Amos was a Connecticut Yankee— one of the old Bartletts from back of Farmington Ridge, you know. And he had joined the corporation of Bartlett & Armitage with the explicit and binding agreement that one Amos Bartlett own fifty-one per cent of the stock and be not required to divulge his secret polarizing process.

In the largest of the Bartlett & Armitage factories there stood a huge, low, windowless building surrounded by two high fences of copper wire, through which flowed, day and night, a deadly electric current. Every morning Amos Bartlett entered this place alone. An hour later there rolled from the south end of the structure a monster Emden electric truck bearing ten thousand tons of polarized copper— enough for the day's output of the eight factories. When unloaded, the truck was heaped with pure copper bars and swiftly vanished within the house of mystery.

IN NOVEMBER, 1934— six months after the Millennium car had been placed on the market— the four largest old-style motor-truck firms went suddenly into the hands of a receiver. Ten days later, eleven more announced that they would close. On Christmas Day, of the two hundred and twenty-one commercial motor factories which had been flourishing for years, there remained only eight, and these eight were the Bartlett & Armitage plants.

In January, sixty-five of the finest abandoned factories were bought— by Bartlett & Armitage. Armitage said he picked them up to avert a national panic. But the only person who believed him was Amos Bartlett.

September and harvest! In the opulent main street of Chamberlain, South Dakota, there came together, of a cool, autumn morning, the twenty bonanza farmers of Brule County. They and their families rode in great limousines. And behind them followed their hired men driving giant trucks loaded to the top with wheat.

Sixty trucks there were, each as large as a small, old-fashioned freight car of thirty tons' capacity. And beneath each there purred a Millennium Engine. At a signal, the parade whirled into the Missouri River Highway and headed southeast.

The twenty bonanza farmers of Brule County were taking their crops to market, as their ancestors did of old. They were going to a breakfast-food factory in Paterson, New Jersey. And after cashing in there, farmers, families, and hired men were going over to New York for a hilarious week of celebration.

From Wheeler to Yankton, the great highway veered northward from the Missouri and followed the railroad. As the marketing tourists whirled over the macadam at a steady thirty miles an hour, a small boy in one limousine cried out: "Oh, mamma! What are those yellow streaks out there?"

The mother looked. "Those, my dear, are steel rails— trains used to run on them."

"But steel is black," objected the lad.

"The yellow is rust— thick rust."

At that an older farmer laughed harshly and chuckled:  "We've got 'em at last— those thievin' Wall Street fellers! Fifty years an' more they've been squeezin' us with their freight rates an their rotten service an' their dirty politics. They've made their millions by crookedness, an' now they're losin' 'em all. The Millennium Engine's a great victory fer th' common people!"

The yellow streaks followed the party like a specter to Sioux City, from Sioux City to Chicago, from Chicago to Cleveland, from Cleveland to Paterson. Sometimes there were two streaks, sometimes four, and in the great towns, a hundred. In the vast sidings and switch yards of the old-time railway centers, there stood huddled in a dismal congestion and hideously forlorn silence, miles upon miles of abandoned box cars. Hundreds of huge black locomotives clustered about the still roundhouses, cold and unguarded.

Why should they be watched? Thieves do not steal worthless things. And all these properties of the greatest business in America had been reduced to junk almost overnight. The Wall Street Journal, in its famous edition of the Second Black Friday, had estimated conservatively that the Millennium Engine had cost the United States as follows:

Paid-up capital

$17,822,590,000

Estimated market value of real-estate holdings

$ 9,710,425,000

Estimated value of rolling stock, rails, and other equipment, as junk

$   225,670,000

Realizable assets

$ 9,936,095,000

Absolute loss

$ 7,886,495,000

Add to this the losses of the rail mills, car shops, equipment factories, and other industries directly dependent upon the railway business. The Wall Street Journal computed these to be in excess of nine hundred million dollars. So the Millennium Engine, in less than a year, had ruined nearly nine billion dollars' worth of property! It was the devilish business ingenuity of Armitage that had accomplished this Second Industrial Revolution at such a dizzy speed. Absolutely sure of the possibilities of the Millennium Engine, the copper king had flung his entire fortune into it. He had bought up the greatest mechanical geniuses of the country. He had retained the six cleverest advertising managers. He paid his workmen a minimum of five dollars a day and sped up the output of his seventy-three factories to sixty-six thousand cars a day! On the morning of the Second Black Friday there were in service on American highways nearly four million cars— or one to every thirty inhabitants.

For all these cars, Bartlett & Armitage had received spot cash. Four hundred millions net profit in six months!

Of course, the railroads had fought desperately to hold their long-distance bulk-freight business. But it was a hopeless struggle. In the first place, the freight train was completely out-stripped by the Millennium Engine. Few persons are aware that the average speed of the American freight train in the early twentieth century was only one mile per hour from the time of loading to that of unloading. This ridiculous velocity was due to the unavoidable delays in switch yards, on sidings— waiting for clear headway— and at loading and unloading points. It was clearly proved, as early as 1910, that mule-drawn canal boats, hauling directly from producer to consumer, traveled more than twice as fast as engine-drawn trains on steel rails. The historical reader interested in curious facts may verify these startling comparisons in the railway statistics of that day.

The second cause of the railroads' failure to compete against the Millennium Engine was the staggering cost of making and breaking cargo. A shipper by rail was obliged to cart his goods to a freight station, dump them onto a platform, have them weighed and recorded, then loaded into a car. The receiving party had to go to his freight station with teams or motors, wait his turn— which sometimes took half a day— load his freight, and haul it home, perhaps a block, perhaps five miles.

Now all these heavy charges were unavoidable. They were the consequence of the railway system itself, which, by having a highly specialised roadbed, was compelled to place its receiving and distributing stations along that roadway.

The Millennium Engine, on the other hand, loaded at the shipper's door and unloaded at the buyer's. One man ran it easily from Chicago to New York in forty hours, with sixty tons aboard. Unlike the 'nineteenth-century cars, this one carried steel tires a foot wide; and every highway was rolled as smooth as a table and as hard as solid rock, every time a Millennium Engine traversed it.

Amos Bartlett's breakfast coffee stood untasted and cold behind his morning newspaper. For the day was the Second Black Friday, and the inventor and multimillionaire was reading the black-bordered Wall Street Journal which announced that the combined railroads of America had, after long secret conferences, confessed themselves hopelessly bankrupt. They declared that their creditors would not receive more than twenty-five cents on^the dollar. The stockholders would receive nothing. The article continued :

This is the most appalling single disaster in the world's history. All the money losses of Napoleon's wars were trifling beside this one. Who is it that must bear the brunt of the frightful shock? The 425,000 stockholders of the railways and affiliated industries. The 155,000 stockholders of the banks which have held the bonds and short-time notes of the bankrupts. And some 200,000 other creditors.

But does the violence of the blow reach no farther? Answer, after you have considered that, during the past sixty days, 2,133,950 men have been discharged, and are standing on the street corners, wondering dumbly to what they can turn their hands, and how they may feed their children. Conductors, locomotive engineers, brakemen, wipers, firemen, boiler makers, signalmen, trackmen, section gangs, gatemen, ticket agents, freight agents— a mighty army robbed of the opportunity to earn a living. And to them' there look for bread and clothing a greater, more helpless multitude of eight or ten million women and children.

If this is the price of progress, then better the, old sooty locomotive and the commuters' local and the weary weeks of waiting for slow freight!

AMOS BARTLETT rubbed his brow, as if something was stinging the inside of his head. He flung the paper down, seized his hat, and started for his factory, to prepare the day's supply of polarized copper.

A doorman in gorgeous uniform opened the heavy carved oaken portal for the gaunt young man who had invented an engine and chaos. Amos Bartlett stepped out— and his foot came down upon something soft. Dumbly he glanced down.

On the doorstep lay a gray-haired woman, her dead face contorted by some cruel poison. Beside her, two dead children. In her stiff hand a note, which, as by intuition, Amos seized and read with bulging eyes:

You have robbed me of all I had. It was only a few shares of Pennsylvania stock. I hope you are enjoying yourself. Maybe you are fiddling. Nero did, when Rome burned. You will say I should have gone to the charity societies. But I will not take doles from anybody. Sarah Mellerton.

"Not to the factory!" Amos snapped to his chauffeur. "Go to Mr. Armitage's— fast, too!"

Armitage met his partner at the door. His fat, wrinkled chin vibrated maliciously, and he cackled: "Well, my boy! We've got 'era on the run, eh? Told you we'd put 'em under inside two years. Went faster than I figured. Did you clean up on the Stock Exchange?"

"What?" Amos asked dully.

Armitage stared uncomprehendingiy. "Ain't you been selling short on railroads these past two months? I tipped you off long ago. Remember? Say, boy! Don't mind telling you that I've cleaned up two hundred million at the short game! I've placed thirty-day selling orders on every railroad stock. I began delivering ten days ago. Cleaned up fifteen points or better."

"What are we going to do about this?" Amos broke in sharply, and he thrust the newspaper's tale of horror under his partner's eyes.

"I guess we've done enough already." Armitage winked heavily. "Guess we'd better lie quiet for a while. I'm going to North Africa—  hunting trip, you know. Some of these agitators or fellows that are stung will go dippy and come after us with a gun. Better come along, Amos."

"I'm going to see this through." Amos clicked his jaws.

"You want to buy up a lot of bankrupt railroads and banks— make twenty per cent, like any junk dealer, eh?" Armitage half shut his wicked eyes. "Keep away, Amos ! Sure money, but almighty dangerous! You've got half a billion, all in safe stuff— cash or copper or our own stock. Don't be greedy!"

"You don't understand." Amos laughed harshly. "You and I have made four hundred millions in six months. How? By a new engine of my inventing that has wiped out nine billions of railroad property. Wiped it out as by a fire! There are honest men and women starving this morning— all over America! I've got to do something about it." And then he told of what he had found on his doorstep.

Armitage paled a little. "Not a bad idea, Amos!" He wagged his head. "We'll give a few millions to the charities. Relief fund, y'know. Tell our advertising managers to get the stunt in as reading matter in all the papers. Will keep the cranks away. Yep. Fine idea, my boy. Put me down for— mmm!— well, I'll begin with a million. If people cheer, I'll follow it up with more."

"That doesn't sound right to me." Amos frowned. "Those poor devils don't need charity ! It's an insult to them! They need work— honest work. They need to be— well, insured ajainst the horrible losses they've suffered."

"Insured?" Armitage stared in comic bewilderment. "What the devil d'ye mean?"

"It's simple, now that I get to thinking about it." Amos rushed along. "Here I've invented an engine that has done more damage than all the fires and earthquakes and wars of the last fifty years. It has ruined people who aren't to blame for the ruin at all. They weren't careless. They weren't doing anything wrong. The thing hit them like a cyclone— out of clear sky!"

"Humph!" snorted Armitage. "That's the fortunes of business! Every man takes that sort of chance— just as he does with fire and cyclones."

"But the sensible man takes out insurance against fire and cyclones and death," Amos broke in excitedly. "Why, Armitage, there's insurance against almost every sort of calamity to-day. The employers' liability law is insurance against accidents around machinery. Over in Germany and France the governments insure everybody against sickness, old age, and death. In England the insurance companies insure thousands of people against bankruptcy, burglary, defalcation, and a hundred other business misfortunes "

"Sure!" Armitage half sneered. "But—"

"There's no but!" Amos sprang up, a new light in his swift gray eyes. "If people can be insured against ordinary bankruptcy and other losses, they can be insured against progress!"

"Are you out of your head, my boy?" Armitage put his hands on Bartlett's shoulders.

"Never clearer in my life ! I see everything in a new light! That's it! That's it, Armitage! Progress! It's the great curse and the greatest blessing in the world! It's like a fire that burns a forest to the roots and enriches the land with the ashes. It's a disease that wracks a man horribly and then leaves him in better health than ever.

"Now, if some of us are allowed to reap the rewards of progress under the rotection of patents or by processes which the government allows us to keep secret, why in simple justice ought not those who suffer through our prosperity be somehow protected?"

"They are protected," Armitage persisted stubbornly. "Look at the charities— thousands of 'em— every kind— loan associations, and all that—"

"Rot, Armitage!" Bartlett sneered. "Would you be willing to cease insuring this fine house of yours against fire, and, when it burns to the ground, would you go whimpering to the United Charities Society and say : 'Good people, my home is destroyed. Give me shelter for the night. And to-morrow please build me a nice new home— a little twentyfive-thousand-dollar one will do, seeing that I am an object of charity!' "

"Insurance is another thing "

"It is, as things are. But it ought not be! That's my point, Armitage! Men have insured themselves agaittst the lesser evils, and against the greater ones which happen often and with visible violence. But here's a tremendous evil which strikes somewhat indirectly. Indirect, but its course is perfectly clear. It can't be suppressed, because progress is the most precious thing in the world. Why not pay a fair price, then, for this precious thing? Why not pay for its damages?"

"People can't take out insurance after the house has burned!" Armitage protested feebly.

"Your mind," smiled Bartlett, "is under the spell of law. I'm not thinking of law. I'm thinking of the empty bellies of those two million poor devils who are standing on the street corners this morning."

"What are you going to do, Amos?" the copper king asked, with hardening voice.

"I'm going to Washington to see the President of the United States." The inventor rose and headed for the door. "And, by the way, Armitage, I'd like to
have you give me power of attorney over— well, say about five hundred million dollars of your wealth."

"You're out of your wits !" Armitage raged. "I won't let you give any such wad away to a pack of bankrupts -"

"I won't give it away. But I may invest it at a pretty low interest rate."

"No, sir! I'll give you five million for relieving distress— if you'll see that my name's decently mentioned. But

"Then," Amos said slowly, as he set his hat on his head, "I withdraw from the firm— and my polarizing process goes with me. Good-by, Armitage."

"Hold on there, my boy! D-d-don't do anything rash!" The copper king chattered like a frightened ape. "We'll— I'll— I guess you can have that five hundred m-m-millions. You won't throw it away, will you, Amos? You'll be very careful with it? W-won't you?"

"You'll get it all back some day." Amos smiled. "Call your lawyer, quick!"

THERE REMAINS little to tell. But that little marks one of the great turning points in the world's history. All day Saturday, all day Sunday, Amos Bartlett toiled over figures in the east office of the White House. Around him sat the haggard financiers of New York— the stoical, pale, ruined mill operators of the Pittsburgh district, the heartsick bankers of Chicago, and the frightened, babbling, useless "leaders" of the Senate and the House. The president snapped out questions, now to one, now to another. Amos scribbled, commented, argued.

On Monday morning came the president's special message to Congress. It called a special session and announced that the firm of Bartlett & Armitage had made the following extraordinary offer to the government:

1. Bartlett & Armitage would turn over to the United States treasury $800,000,000 in cash and the highest grade of negotiable securities— mostly bonds, national and municipal—and would accept in exchange theretore United States bonds, on which the payment of the first ten years' interest might be deferred.

2. This exchange would be made with the understanding that the government would raise a like sum by a special tax upon the four million Millennium cars in operation, and by a special highway toll on all vehicles and by other means, to be selected by Congress.

3. Of the total $1,600,000,000 thus raised, the government would loan to embarrassed banks, against good security, sufficient cash to enable them to resume business.

4. Similar loans would be made to factories and businesses of high standing, provided these might readily manufacture or deal in other goods than those called for exclusively by railways. All such loans would be made under the condition that business be immediately resumed, and the men who were discharged as a result of the panic be reemployed.

5. The government would buy, at its actual value, all real-estate holdings of the bankrupt railroads, and pay for the same in long-term bonds. If no use could be found for the land occupied by rails, it might be sold off in small parcels.

6. The government would immediately issue emergency bills, and distribute them to large business enterprises and banks in exchange for first-class national and municipal bonds, on the basis of $900 for every $1,000 par value of bonds. This would be done on condition that the bank or business receiving the bills resume business within forty-eight hours after the exchange.

Congress met at noon. Two days later the panic was over. Every bank in the country opened its doors. Within a week nearly every large factory was in full blast.

There remains to note only a paragraph or two in the president's special message after the horrors of the past fortnight had passed. Said the president:

"Thanks to the sudden masterly insight of Amos Bartlett, we know to-day what the greatest task of a government is, and how that task must be faced and discharged. The perpetual problem of society is the problem of protecting mankind against the devastations of genius and economic progress. This cannot be solved by suppressing genius and making progressiveness a crime. The human race depends, for the continuous furthering of its happiness and welfare, upon the revolutionary ingenuities of master minds. Without these we should to-day be living in caves, garbed in the skins of wild beasts and gnawing roots.

"But every revolutionary invention has played havoc with thousands of innocent, honest people. The invention of powder ruined armorers all over Europe. The invention of steam engines ruined whole armies of sailing masters and coach drivers. The invention of the locomotive ruined the owners of canal boats and road houses. And so on through the entire list.

"It used to be the fashion to say that there was AN industrial revolution in the late eighteenth century. We now know that there IS industrial revolution, sometimes violent and swift, sometimes mild and slow. It is not an event. It is a continuous flux of affairs. The machinery of life is ahvays changing, always growing more effective. It is always bettering the world in the long run. It is ahvays crushing somebody.

"The social and political problems of the past generation were overwhelmingly problems about insuring people against the pangs of progress. Until today men have been blind to this, and so radicals and conservatives alike have misinterpreted the issue. The conservative did not know that industrial revolution is continuous. He thought that once in a thousand years society might be upset by some new device; but, for the rest of the time, business conditions and political methods were— or ought to be— immutable, uniform, static. Hence he fought honestly for the preservation of the status quo.

"The radical, on the other hand, did not realize that the horrors of the sweat shop, the sickening congestion in the city slums, the grotesque, miasmic existence in Pennsylvania iron mills, the evils of contract labor and reckless immigration, the absurd injustices of the law— that was worded to fit conditions long since extinct— and nearly all other acute diseases of the social order at the beginning of the twentieth century had their origin in progress itself. It was the railroad that made the crowded cities. It was the inventor, with his power looms, peggers, and lathes, who filled the upper stories with workmen. It was the telegraph that hastened agreements between men far apart and quickened the pace of business appallingly. It was the exceeding simplicity of operating the stocking-knitting machine and the burnisher and a hundred other instruments that drew "children to the mills, where once only men had toiled.

"The radical did not see that the employers who figured in this whole hideous system were simply doing what they had been educated to do— what their fathers before them had done. The radical did not see that the old rules of business had become monstrous as a result of the greater intensity of all business and its wider range and its vaster proportions.

"Radical and conservative alike were in error. They did not see that great men and new ideas are perilous to mankind and yet must be encouraged. They are the higher forces of nature. And, 'like sea, fire, and lightning, they are good servants and bad masters. Society must insure against them, by protective devices and by money. Neither radical nor conservative saw that nearly all of the old-time trusts grew up and flourished on the strength of some patent monopoly granted by the State. The Harvester Trust would have been im-
possible had not the government allowed inventors to own and traffic in their revolutionary devices. The Standard Oil Company would have had a much more modest career if it had not been cMowed to buy and control secret refining processes and patent machinery and to use the same in competition regardless of consequences. The Telephone Trust could not have become the most powerful of its day but for the hundreds of patents it controlled.

"Ninety-nine times out of a hundred such patent monopolies worked injuries too slight or too diffuse to be discerned clearly at the time. But nobody was looking for injuries. Had a careful seeker done so, he would have discovered hundreds of little factories that had been closed, thousands of men thrown out of work, scores of firms brought into bankruptcy.

"The old-fashioned individualist and the radical friend of progress seem to have combined in writing the patent laws. And the result, seen in the light of a later day, was weird and ghastly. Virtually they said to the man with a revolutionary device : 'You have had a great thought. You deserve a rich reward. To encourage you and others in the way . of economic progress, we shall make you absolute master of your device for many years. You may ruin all your competitors and thereby throw thousands of men out of work. You may make worthless thousands of rival machines. People may not like that. But they'll have to endure it. It is the price of progress.'

"Hereafter we shall say: 'Enjoy the rewards of your patent up to the point where its manufacture causes disaster. From that point on, the government will control it, so as to prevent, or at least compensate for, the pangs of progress.' "

______________

18: As You Please

William Edward Park
fl 1910s

Top-Notch Magazine, Mar 1913

RISING from the supper table at Haynes' Excelsior Cafe, Hifalutin Beggs languidly plucked a battered cane from the hatrack close by, and, with this adornment, and his crippled hat in his left hand, sauntered across to the desk.

"My indebtedness?" he queried, in high-bred tones.

"Fifteen cents," returned the pronounced blonde behind the cash register.

"With pleasure, ma'mselle. Your ever-obedient servant kisses your hand. No, no— don't expostulate. Oblige me by keeping the change."

The girl eyed the coins protestingly.

"But there isn't any change!"

"Ah! Is it so? Then, I pray you, forgive the oversight." Beggs sauntered out. "And now," he mused, "to my library, where I may glance over the great molder of public opinion before retiring to my downy cot."

He turned into the reading room of the Wallacetown Exchange Hotel, and, settling languidly into the most comfortable of the horde of vacant chairs, picked up the Wallacetown Evening Eclipse. His eye indifferently scanned the headlines, one after another. And then, suddenly, for as much as three continuous seconds, he sat bolt upright.

"My, my!" he murmured, in shocked tones. Then, as he eventually collapsed into a posture of semirepose: "To think of it— my old friend, William Degray! Too bad!';

And, with a faint touch of real interest, he reposefully read an item couched under impressive headlines.

CAN'T RAISE $50.

IS SENT TO JAIL FOR 30 DAYS.

William Degray, Convicted of Disorderly Conduct,

Receives Exemplary Sentence from His Honor.

"His honor!" mused Beggs. "That sounds just like Wallacetown. So Billy got into a scrap with a bird named Pete Glasscap, eh? It's just like Billy to use his fists. " And couldn't raise fifty bucks to pay his fine? That's queer— decidedly queer." He reflected. "Good chap, that same William. He's helped me out of more than one tight corner. Looks as though reciprocity were foreordained— provided I have the wherewithal to recipross."

Rising, he turned his pockets, one after another, inside out. The inventory totaled two nickels, a Lincoln penny, and a quarter overweighted with too large a wad of lead. Beggs, replacing the funds in the treasury, thoughtfully scratched his head.

"Now, that is too bad— too utterly bad," he muttered. "Guess we'll see Billy anyway, Hilliard. All right, Beggs— but remember"— the undertone grew sharp— ''when you can't help financially, you mustn't sympathize. Sympathy is just charity turned shoddy."

ii

TEN minutes later found Hilliard B. Beggs seated with Chief Benjamin Magruder in the latter's private smoking room at the Wallacetown police station, where, to an obligato played by the shifting hoofs of the fire-hall horses on the farther side of the partition, they conversed.

"Friend of young Degray, are you?" questioned Chief Magruder. "Well, he's a fine young man."

"Fifty dollars' fine or thirty days," ventured Hifalutin.

The chief, disappointed, tugged thoughtfully at his scraggly mustache. "Oh, you kin go in and see him," he snorted, disgusted at the theft of his witticism. "He's right here in the cooler. I'm going to take him over to Carisford jail on Wednesday, on the noon car."

Rising, he unlocked the heavy cell door. Hifalutin, ushered into the cell room, by the faint light trickling in through the dingy, barred window, beheld a young man sitting with his head sunk under his hands. The chief, retiring, closed the door behind him.

"I say, Billy—"

The young man glanced joyously up at the cheery sound.

"A friend at last," he yelled gleefully.

Hifalutin, doffing his battered hat, bowed low. "Right you are, Mr. Degray. This is Hilliard B. Beggs, at your service."

"Aw, slush!'' The young man's tone was bitter disappointment, and the sunshine fled from his face. "So they've run you in, too. Well, it means company, anyway, since I'm dead sure you haven't enough coin to pay your fine."

"Correct about the funds, William. Go up to the head of the class." Hifalutin nonchalantly seated himself upon the bench opposite his cell comrade. "I have just thirty-six cents, including a plugged quarter. Also, six nights' lodging paid for, which constitutes unusual affluence. But what's your trouble, anyway? Unburden yourself to an old enemy."

"It's all Pete Glasscap's doing," burst forth Degray, with angry vigor. "He trumped up this charge just to tie me up good and tight for a month."

"Then you didn't hit Pete, after all?"

Degray gazed down at the concrete floor. "I hit Pete all right.'" A faint chuckle escaped him. "You can just bet I hit him. Nobody who saw Pete in the witness box would ever dream of indicting him for perjury. But that was part of his game. He met me here, and we had a chat, and a drink or two, and the first thing I knew there was an argument— and you know just where I land in an argument?"

"In the other fellow's face?"

"Precisely. And after that I landed here. And Pete Glasscap "

His fist vibrated vengefully.

"But why should Pete Glasscap want to lock you up? I thought you were friends?" Hifalutin's tone was suspicious.

"Can't you understand, you muttonhead? We have a bet on."

"A bet?"

"That's the real esperanto. We were down at the club one night, and Pete offered to bet me a thousand dollars even that I couldn't beat my way from Halifax to Detroit inside of a month. I started without a cent, and the stipulation was that I must not wire home for money. I have to be in Detroit by Friday noon to win the bet. There's a thousand bucks in it for me if I land there on time. If I don't, Pete cops the thousand. He's going to leave me here till he gets the money, and then he'll come tooting down with a bunch of fellows in motor cars to bail me out, and I'll have to treat them to a champagne supper into the bargain."

"But why should he—"

"Why? Why, you boob? He just thought I was a bit too near Detroit— that's all. He's been haunting me in a motor car ever since the start, and when he found me here, two days' walking from Detroit, and with six days to spare, he picked a quarrel, and— well, I smashed him. Perfectly fair, every bit of it, according to the bet— but I'm out a cool thousand. Nobody here knows me, the people won't believe my yarn, I can't wire home for funds— and so I'm stuck.''

iii

"I SEE— I see," mused Hifalutin dreamily. "But the saddest part of it is, nobody here knows me, either. Not that I'm hampered by that— possibly I'm better off. But I'm busted. I'm stalled. And so you've only four days left to reach Detroit. Pete certainly was on the safe side when he landed you for thirty."

Hifalutin's heart bled for his friend, but his pocket was bloodless. Had he possessed fifty dollars, he would gladly have given it. He did not possess fifty dollars. His assets consisted solely of sympathy, which was a commodity he scorned to bestow.

"Billy," he remarked wisely, "you are well off right now. At one thousand dollars, you bought this lesson on the bargain counter. I congratulate you— I envy you. If I had a temper like yours, I'd welcome such a lesson. A hasty temper does a man no good, particularly when he hasn't much brains. It—"

"Say, what are you trying to do?"

"To admonish you, Billy."

"Then you just make your exit while the exiting is good."

Hifalutin made his exit. On the way to the cheap lodging house where he was spending his few days in Wallacetown, he pondered the problem. Had he been in funds, he could have helped his friend win the thousand dollars. He was not in funds. He saw no means of raising the sum of fifty dollars except by honest labor; and to raise so large a sum by honest labor would require more like forty days than four. Even provided he lived on nothing, which he regarded as unlikely, it would be a colossal task. He dismissed from his mind the idea of honest labor the instant it occured.

"My library again," he murmured, when, after a reposeful night, he dismissed breakfast from his thoughts and sauntered across to the hotel. "Possibly," he reflected, "the morning paper will contain the want ad of a millionaire desiring to adopt a young and promising specimen of mankind, and offering a liberal allowance. Shall we accept the job, Hilliard? We certainly shall, Beggs. What's more, we'll wire our application at once, and ask an avdance on the allowance to tide Billy over his present difficulties."

Settling himself in a chair, he reached for the most convenient paper. As he did so, he became suddenly conscious that there were others in the reading room. One corner was shut off by a screen. From behind the screen came the muffled sound of voices. Above the hotel clerk's desk, at the farther end of the room, hung a small mirror; and the mirror, dangling at an angle, showed Hifalutin the farther side of the screen. A little, stout man with a very ruddy nose was leaning forward in a chair, evidently in anxious converse with another man but half visible, but whose extreme thinness in the half section was very impressive.

"But why did you do that?" snarled the ruby-nosed man, in a voice remarkably thick and soggy for so early an hour.

"Had to," rasped his companion. "This town's been so stung with subscription fakers that there isn't any other way. I lost three prospects before I got hep. Then I put it over right along, and they tumbled. Great stunt— Merchants' Bugle, regular three dollars a year for two dollars, and you don't have to pay a cent, Mr. Merchant, till the first copy arrives, and you know it's all right."

"And how the deuce are you going to get the first copy to them?" The fat man's soggy tone was thinned by a dash of irascibility.

"Easy as jumping off Brooklyn Bridge. I got the girl over there"— he nodded toward the public stenographer's little office— "to typewrite the list. Sent it in to the Merchants' Bugle with a request to mail sample copies to every one."

"They won't do it."

"I typewrote Joe Gollan's name to it. He's their western Ontario man. That will fetch them."

"And I have to hang around here till those papers come "

"I have everything timed right to a second. This is Tuesday. The papers reach here to-morrow morning. You finish up the small towns to-day and to-morrow— cut the price all to pieces if you like, but get the cash. Then come in here on Thursday and collect. I'll move on to London and play the game there."

"How many orders have you?"

"Seventy-eight. Pretty good little town— eh?" The thin man's tone was hearty. "That means, at our cut price, one hundred and fifty-six bucks. Give me seventy-eight from the last haul, and take the list."

"A'right, Dobson." The fat man counted out the bills and passed them across to his companion. "Gimme the orders."

"Here you are, Cole. And here's a duplicate of the list I sent to the Bugle."

iv

HIFALUTIN ruefully watched the currency disappear into the lean man's wallet. A moment later, the lean man vanished from the mirror. Hifalutin dropped his eyes to the news stand just in time to see Dobson cross his range of vision. Dobson, traversing the lobby, made his exit into the street. A few seconds later the carmine-nosed Cole, also crossing Hifalutin's range of vision, wabbled a trifle unsteadily toward the bar.

Hifalutin leaned forward, his attitude one of profound thought. Already he had forgotten Cole and Dobson; his thoughts were with Billy Degray, who would leave next day at noon for a twenty-eight days' sojourn in the county jail at Carisford. At the thought he was thrilled with a stoic sort of gladness that he had not demeaned himself to the common, ordinary level of offering sympathy where he could not contribute cash. He relinquished the paper unread, and, rising, hobbled wearily toward the door. As he did so, his quick eye glimpsed something lying on the floor, almost at his feet.

"My prayers are answered," he breathed.

Stooping, he picked up a bunch of papers held together by an elastic band. As he examined them more closely, a disgusted exclamation escaped him. Instead of the lean man's bills, this was the bunch of subscription orders, which the fat little fellow with the ruby headlight must have dropped.

Hifalutin turned involuntarily toward the bar. Halfway he halted, pondering. Then, quietly pocketing the orders, he retraced his steps, resuming his obscure seat and his newspaper.

After all, Cole was a shyster. Cole would use these orders, if he had them, to defraud each merchant represented on the list of two dollars of lawful money. In return, each merchant would receive one sample copy of a weekly trade paper, nominally worth ten cents. A few minutes earlier he, Hilliard B. Beggs, had mourned his inability, handicapped as he was by lack of cash, to bestow upon his friend anything warmer than sympathy. Here, without a cent of cash, he could, by the simple expedient of forgetting to return the orders, do a good turn to each of seventy-eight honest merchants, not one of them less deserving probably than Billy Degray.

The little fat man bustled frantically forth from the bar. Hifalutin, deeply engrossed in his paper, felt his cold, suspicious glance. Cole wabbled awkwardly about the big room, colliding with chairs at every turn, his eyes intent upon the floor. For a few minutes he searched behind the screen. When he came forth, Hifalutin, still ensconced behind his paper in his same old place, once more felt the man's curious stare. Eventually, halting in his wabbly progress, the fat man fumbled in his pocket, and drew forth a paper. Hifalutin, glancing up, saw that he smiled contentedly.

"The duplicate list," mused Hifalutin; and he knew, from the smile of contentment encircling the carmine nose, that the fat man was mentally scheming to collect by means of the list instead of the signed orders.

v

COLE, a trifle relieved, wabbled to the desk, evidently to report his loss to the clerk. A few minutes later he returned to the bar. Hifalutin sat a while in meditation, mourning the frustration of his plans for doing good and for preventing the honest merchants from being done in the same way.

Suddenly he started to his feet.

"Whew!" he whistled.

For an instant he mentally balanced chances. The sample copies of the trade paper were due next morning— Wednesday. The fat man, having toured the small towns round about, would commence his collection stunt on Thursday.

"I'll save them yet," chuckled Hifalutin, "and— well, maybe they'll be so grateful that they'll lend a helping hand to Billy."

At the post office next morning Mr. Beggs learned that no letters had arrived for him.

"Or papers?" he questioned, severely eying the girl behind the wicket.

"No papers."

"Ah, signorina, may I trouble you to look just once more? Is there not— I ask it with all humility— at least a copy of the Merchants' Bugle yearning for me to take it to my bosom?"

"There was a whole bunch of Bugles come in this morning, but they're all distributed," replied the girl. "And there ain't none for you."

Hifalutin sighed. "You could floor me with a bit of thistledown," he murmured.

That was 9.30. At 11.30 the cheerful vagrant called upon Chief Magruder.

"I want to save you that trip to Carisford," he remarked. "Here's the money for Billy Degray's fine."

The chief laid both hands on the cheerful vagrant's shoulders. "Honest, now, friend, do you think he's worth it?"

"Honest, he isn't. But I'll pay it just the same."

vi

HALF an hour later Hifalutin parted from Billy Degray, far beyond the town limits, and safely on the way to Detroit.

"Thanks, a million times, old man," bellowed Billy, as he vanished in a cloud of dust. "I'll wire that money, sure, the minute I cash in on that bet."

At the post office Beggs mailed a letter to the Bugle. Then, on afterthought, he filed a telegram to the same atldress.

For nearly two days he dwelt in comparative luxury at the Wallacetown Exchange. On Saturday morning he caught his first glimpse of the previous night's issue of the Evening Eclipse. It contained a startling and shocking announcement.

Mr. A. G. P. Cole, representing the Merchants Bugle, of Chicago, had been the victim of a unique swindle. Mr. Cole, who was collector for the paper, on making his regular rounds in Wallacetown, discovered to his surprise that an impostor had preceded him by a couple of days, and collected from the merchants upward of one hundred and fifty dollars, on the strength of a bunch of stolen orders for subscriptions which, doubtless, would never be filled. Mr. Cole had wired Mr. Peter J. Dobson, his fellow representative in the district, who was in the city trying to straighten things out.

Hifalutin dropped the paper like a red-hot coal.

"Beggs," he exclaimed, "It's time for you to invest what is left of that money in a railroad ticket. Right you are, Hilliard," he added approvingly. "That's the time you hit the nail on the head, old boy." Then, rising, in a slightly louder tone: "The grips, Aloysius. No— I prefer the open air. These hacks are stifling. I'll walk to the depot."

And, followed by an imaginary valet bearing a couple of ghost grips in his nonexistent hands, Hifalutin Beggs sauntered rapidly down Sydenham

Street toward the depot.

Halfway he collided with a bunch of seething, vibrant, explosive anger, which gripped him by the sleeve.

"That's the man," hissed a shrill, rasping voice.

Hifalutin, gently releasing his sleeve from the determined grip, gazed reproachfully into the red, angry face of G. J. Watkins, hardware merchant. Accompanying Watkins was the ruby-nosed man, who gesticulated violently.

"Have him arrested at once," yelled Watkins, glancing nervously up and down street. "Hang that chump Magruder— he's never around when you want him. Here, Mr. Man, you just come along with me. I'll escort you to the cooler."

"With pleasure, Mr. Watkins," murmured Hilliard B. Beggs urbanely. "Come along, Mr. Cole. I'm only too glad to meet you."

Mr. Cole shrank.

"Dobson is here, isn't he?" demanded Watkins anxiously.

"He went to the station to give the chief a description of the swindler," faltered Cole. "But— don't you think, Mr. Watkins, it might be better if we settled this thing on the quiet and got our money back ?"

"Money back," growled Mr. Watkins savagely. "Money back! This place has just been bled white by subscription swindlers. We merchants wouldn't take a thousand dollars each to settle this thing. Nothing but a penitentiary sentence for him will satisfy us."

They found the tall, thin man in nervous consultation with Chief Magruder. At sight of Hifalutin Beggs' placid countenance, he instinctively drew away.

"Good morning, Mr. Beggs!" said the chief, genially extending his hand.

"Beggs, eh? Steals, you mean," blustered Watkins. "Well, Magruder, I want you to arrest Beggs for fraud."

"Arrest me!" Hifalutin's eyes grew wide. "For fraud. Watkins, I accept your apologies right now, on the spot— you can offer them any time you're ready."

"He collected two dollars from me for a year's subscription to the Merchants' Bugle, and never turned in the money. He's the swindler you fellows are after. Go ahead, Mr. Dobson, and lay the information."

"I forgive you again, Mr. Watkins." There was not a trace of anger in Beggs' tone. "Yes, and I forgive you seventy times seven, if you persist in wronging me. I did collect the money. What's more, I turned in the subscriptions. They will be filled. I have paid the Merchants' Bugle company's draft to cover the amount, less my commission— here is the draft. And here—"

He handed Magruder a letter, and, with a quick movement, blocked the doorway. Magruder read aloud:

Chicago, June 8, 1912.

Mr. Hilliard B. Beggs, Wailacetown, Ontario.

Dear Sir: We have your kind order inclosing list of seventy-eight names of new subscribers to the Merchants' Bugle, and have entered these names on our list. We allow you the customary commission of one dollar and forty cents on each three-dollar subscription. Kindly honor our draft for one hundred and twenty-four dollars and eighty cents on presentation. We shall appreciate your further orders.

"As for these men, Dobson and Cole, regarding whom you telegraphed, they are undoubtedly impostors. We have received complaints regarding them in the past, and—"

Hilliard, standing in the doorway, blocked the wild rush of Dobson and Cole for the freedom of the outer world. An instant later Magruder's hands each gripped a perspiration-wilted collar.

"Please don't hurry away, gentlemen," he begged. "The letter goes on to say," he explained, "that there's a warrant out for these two birds, and that the company's posted a reward of fifty dollars for them. Just tell them, Mr. Beggs, that I've landed the chaps, and to send along the fifty bucks. And if you call afterward, I'll make it right with you."

Dobson shook his fist. "Faker!" he hissed savagely. "You never canvassed a single one of those names. You stole our list "

"Whatever I did, boys," remarked  Hilliard B. Beggs soothingly, "was done unselfishly. I merely wanted to help a very dear friend who was in trouble. And, after I'd helped him, unlike you, he turned out honest and delivered the goods."

_______________

19: Freedom

Marjorie Pickthall

1883-1922

The Windsor Magazine June 1919

The Red Book Magazine April 1923

THE ledge was a narrow one, adrift with albatross feathers and cushioned a foot thick with ferns. Under it the mist fell away three hundred feet, full of the sound of the waves and of the bull seals bellowing on the heels of the storm. There was another sound too. Lewen had been lying on the ledge a long while, listening to that faint, hoarse crying. Every time he heard it, he trembled, and the ferns shook on him a rain of moisture fine as dew.

He crushed his chin against the rock in the effort to keep his mouth shut. But he couldn't. One word idiotically repeated ran through his teeth in an irresistible flood.

"A man," he babbled, "—a man, man, man, man, man—"

His stringy body writhed on the rock; he bit his own fingers. There seemed left to him no more of a man's attributes than passions and bones. Finally, in a gust of terror, he rose and fled inland, crouching.

He jerked and twitched as he ran. But his naked feet bore him steadily over rock and peat-swamp and tussock-meadow till the top of the windswept rata-forest rose before him, dark and solid as a roof, a harbor of safety to his fear.

It was almost dark in the rata-forest. The roof of leaves was everywhere within reach; for so heavy was the wind's hand on them that the trees grew along the ground, lifting vertical branches. It was sodden everywhere with wet, from which mosses and liverworts sucked life. He ran on. His passage left no trace in the spongy soil.

The forest, slanting again to the sea, told him when he had crossed the island. He followed the reeking tunnel of a seal-path till he came to the seaward edge again. Here, in an open space, green-gray and very still, grown with tall purple flowers, he had his lair— a hut of driftwood cunningly built under the last low edge of the rata so that it was invisible alike from shore and sea.

He was whimpering and swaying on his gaunt legs, but he did not stop at the hut. He staggered to the beach beneath it, dropped on all fours above a pool, and stared at what that gray mirror returned to him. He questioned avidly every feature: the broad face weatherworn out of the very likeness of flesh, the shock of rust-red hair, the noticeable dark eyes, the scar on the cheek. Henderson's scar! He sobbed once. His lips moved. "God help me!" he whispered. "I daren't. I daren't! Even now, there aint a soul from Wyndham to Melbourne wouldn't know me!"

Trembling ceaselessly, he crawled into the hut and lay down, his hands over his ears. "If only he wouldn't call," he muttered, "—if only he wouldn't call!" Presently he slept, but woke screaming from the usual dream. "Not that!" he cried, clawing at his throat. "Not that! They aint goin' to serve me like they served the chap at Broome! First an' last, I'll keep my freedom, if nothin' more! Freedom! Keep away, curse you!" He slept again, moaning, on his heap of dried moss.

But with the moon-dawn he was awake and running over the island. He ran blindly. Sea-birds struck at him with their fierce beaks as he passed their nests in the tussock; bogs sucked at his feet; knived grasses cut them. He stopped for nothing in his fury of haste. His face, if one could have seen it, was a battleground of longing and fear. But he had made, and wore, a mask of dried birdskins. Through the delicate stuff his features showed pale and blurred.

That hoarse and feeble crying had fallen silent long before he came to the other beach; but the man's body still lay on the edge of the tussock where he had crawled from the sea. Shaking, Lewen bent over him. He handled him reluctantly; but there was hunger in his hands. At last he lifted his masked face to the masked sky.

"Why did he come here?" he whispered. "Why did he come ashore here, curse him? I tell you— they sha'n't take it away. Not my— freedom! And— he's alive yet, thank God."

He gathered the body into his great bony arms; adjusting his burden, he crept away with it into the gray and silver night.

WHEN Pelliot opened his eyes, he was lying in the hut under the edge of the rata; he was feeble, in pain and helpless. He saw that his leg was bound between splints of wood padded with moss and down. The hut's opening framed a dawn yellow as wattle-flower in a rift of the eternal cloud, a vast empty sea, and a spiral of sea-birds that fought and clamored above the beach.

The desolation took Pelliot suddenly. He cried out hysterically. His call was heard. Out of the heart of the bird-cloud, a figure broke, and came running to the hut.

Lewen stooped and entered, and sound died on Pelliot's lips as he faced that gray body, worn as if by the wash of tides, and the blank glimmer of the birdskin mask.

"God!" was jerked from him at last. "Where am I, and— what are you?"

"You're on the Lode, mate."

"But— there's no man on the Lode— if you're a man!"

"I'm a man, matey; and I'm on the Lode."

Pelliot's gaze wandered; he was very weak. "You saved my life, then," he murmured. "You heard me call."

"Aye, I heard you."

Silence, filled only by the ceaseless going of the wind in the rata-forest. Pelliot snuggled into the moss. "Oh, the sea," he said, "the damn tremenjous sea!" He fell asleep.

He slept all day. Rain pierced the ill-built hut, and all day Lewen sat sheltering him from the wet with his own great body. He sat very still, drugged with content to be once more within sight and touch of another man.

Pelliot woke again toward night. Lewen fed him with eggs. He did not seem to know he had slept. He said: "My leg's broke."

"Aye."

"When I called,— there in the mist and the sea,— I never thought there was a livin' soul to hear."

"I heard.Your ship gone?"

"Don't know. A yacht, she was, the Clair-de-Lune. Steward, I was. It— seems a long while ago. I was washed off. The lifeline broke when I was carryin' grog to Batcheller. He'd had enough already. He was tryin' to push her past the Lode in the teeth of a sou'easter."

"Not many tries."

"I believe you." His eyes, bright as a bird's, rested on Lewen with a certain dread. He was a small man, with a weak, cheery face. He said nervously: "You been here a long time?"

"Pretty long."

"You swim ashore like me?"

After a silence, Lewen said heavily: "I come in a boat."

The little steward wriggled out of the moss. Lewen had taken his wet clothes, and he shone in the dusk with all a red-haired man's whiteness of skin, covered all over with a sandy fluff that made him look more birdlike than ever. Hope blazed in him readily. "Boat? You come in a boat? Why in thunder didn't you go away in it, then? Where is it?"

"That hut's built of it."

Pelliot shrank back into the moss; bewildered, the hope died out of him in a moment. He was once more weak, small, ill. He tried to speak, and failed. Then he said fretfully, "Take that thing off your face," and once more slid into unconsciousness.

Lewen looked down at him. "I got nothin' to fear from him," he said, with the air of a man trying passionately to reassure himself. "I got nothin' to fear."

The next time Pelliot woke, he was stronger. He had recovered memory; his identity burned with a clearer flame. Easily, as a weak man will, he had accepted the situation. He was grateful to Lewen, full of plans for their escape from the Lode. An innocent, garrulous little man— Lewen indeed had nothing to fear from him, and his desperate heart warmed to him.

"What do you find to eat here?" he questioned, picking birdlike at his breakfast of fish.

''Eggs, fish, young birds; there's a sort o' bulb in the meadows, and a seaweed good to eat, and a seal now and then."

"You got no gun?"

"No."

"But you got fire?"

"Aye."

The little steward was silent. He glanced at Lewen with a timid look. He said, with some trouble: "You been mighty good to me."

Behind the birdskin mask, Lewen's lips just shaped the word: "Lonely."

"We may be here— a long time. We better be— friends, eh?"

"Aye, we'll be friends." Lewen was wondering if the honest little man would like to take food from his hands— if he knew.

"Then why not let me see that face o' yours, chum?"

Next moment Pelliot shut his eyes. For he thought his death had come, and he did not want to see it.

After a time, a space of frozen minutes, he heard Lewen's savage voice.

"Look at me!"

Pelliot's eyes sought the mask so near his face. He saw Lewen's face like the face of a drowned man through water, and sickened.

"Look at me, you! This is the third time you spoke o' my face!"

"No offense, chum. I—"

"I keep it hid because I choose to. I stay on the Lode because I choose to. I broke up the boat for fear sometime I'd— be called to go away— to go away— from the only place where I can live."

Pelliot shut his eyes again— opened them with a jerk to Lewen's next words.

"You believe in God A'mighty?"

The little steward searched within his mind, found some unknown strength there, and answered: "Yes, I do."

"Then you'll swear to me, here and now."

"What'll I swear?"

"That never, so help you, when you come to be took off the Lode— as took you will be, for the whalers call here three or four times a year— that never will you let a livin' soul know there was another man here with you!"

He gave him the oath, a dreadful one enough, framed by wild men for wild deeds. Pelliot took it; at the end, he looked up with his odd birdlike boldness. "I'd 'a' done what you asked me without swears," he said mildly. But Lewen was gone.

Gone, drifting about the island that was his world, blown like a wisp of weed between the gray sea and the dripping rata-forest. He had no count of time. He stayed on the hills till his passion was worn out. When he returned to the hut, he found that the steward, thinking himself deserted, had crawled as far as the beach and there fallen in a faint. Lewen carried him back. Recovering, the little man clung to him like a child.

"I thought you'd gone for good an' left me, chum!"

"No. It's you that'll be took, and me that'll be left."

"What'll take me?"

"A ship. I— hide when they come."

Pelliot looked at him curiously. "How'd you know I'd keep my oath?"

Lewen began to tremble. "I'd kill you if I thought you wouldn't. I a'most left you to die as it was. Hours I left you on the beach there after I heard you call."

"If you're so afraid o' me, why did you save me?"

"Lonely," said Lewen vaguely, "lonely." He was spent. Unconsciously his hand sought Pelliot's. They crouched together for hours, in a deep dream of the wind and the rain and the sea.

PELLIOT began to mend, from that time. He began to share Lewen's extraordinary life, if life that savage existence could be called. Soon he filled it. With his cheap and friendly chatter, his adaptability, his shallow optimism, he fed that starved spirit as any common food would have fed the gaunt body. Lewen began dimly to feel himself not utterly cast out, since he was allowed both freedom and a friend. But the friend would go.

All day long from the shelter of the hut Pelliot strained eyes and soul to the sea-line, where at any hour might show the saving stain of smoke. Lewen watched as ceaselessly. Sometimes distrust tormented him. Pelliot would tell; he would have to tell; he would be sure to tell. At such times he saw no safety for himself while Pelliot lived. And his fear would seize him and drive him forth, like the demoniac of old, into waste places. He endured agonies, crouched in the dark rata-forest above the foul seal-paths, planning the little man's death. He would go away to the other side of the island and leave Pelliot alone. He would creep up on him in the dark.... Then he would be safe again. Safe, but— lonely. Yes, he would keep his freedom. Freedom was his religion: of its bitter wine his soul made its one sacrament. For it he had given absolutely everything, and if necessary, would give Pelliot. Then he would drag himself back to the hut and listen greedily while that cheery soul chattered hopefully of the world, the world beyond those desolate seas that made and kept him free. Lewen tried to picture the hut without Pelliot. His mind fell away from that blank as the birds fell away from the cliffs in a gale. He could not foresee or imagine what would happen when a ship came.

Once and once only the wind blew away the pall of cloud that is drawn over the subantarctic skies, revealing a night divinely clear, lighted with the southern stars.

And that night Lewen saw the first ship.

He was standing on the hilltop— so stamped with the desolation of the place around him that he seemed curiously invisible. And he saw the ship in a moment, complete and near; by some trick of mist and shadow, it was as if she had risen on a sudden from the sea. An old sailing ship, beautiful under the stars!

She had stood in too close in the dark. She was working out from the very shadow of the cliffs, drawing slowly against the tide. He could have flung a stone on her deck, he thought.

Any sound she made was lost in the sound of the swell on the beaches. But once a dog barked on board her. Lewen flung himself face-down in the tussock at the homely sound, as if it had been a shot.

She was gone when he lifted his head. Next morning the tide brought ashore a half-peeled potato. He buried it in a ridge of shingle for fear he would have to show it to Pelliot. But the tide washed it out and flung it ashore again; he buried the trivial thing four times before it rotted away.

The next ship came by day.

Lewen was sitting at the doorway of the hut, plaiting a net from dry grass, a net to gather eggs in. The little steward was drowsing behind him. She came, that nameless grimy tramp of the far South, wallowing out of a rain-squall; she had the same effect on Lewen, in the midst of that solitude, as a great blaze of color and light, a burst of sound. His senses reeled before that squat steamer doggedly furrowing the vast gray swells. He dropped his hands on his knees. His mouth opened. All his life ran into one channel— sight!

Then she whistled— once. She too was close in; and there had been castaways on the Lode before Lewen.

The sound cut through his very heart. He had no breath for a moment when Pelliot woke, crying suddenly out of sleep: "What's that?"

"A mollymawk."

Lewen was some time realizing that he had spoken. Pelliot sank back in the moss with a little querulous sound. "I must 'a' been dreaming," he said. "I thought I was goin' to Kew on a penny steamer with my girl. I got a girl in Shepherd's Bush," he confided wistfully to Lewen's back.

Lewen remained motionless. He was watching— watching— watching the tramp grow dim in the far rain, her wake die out, even the grimy trail of smoke lose itself in the mist. He thought a faint smell of the smoke was brought to him on the wind. She too had been close— close enough to signal. And Pelliot knew nothing.

He pulled himself erect by the side of the crazy doorway. He wondered dully to find himself shaking like grass in the wind, and clammy with sweat. He went away softly, and sat on the beach, trying to order his clumsy thoughts. Vague phrases came to him in the turmoil, and he caught at them desperately.

"If he's to go," was his slow conclusion, "he'll see the ship, not me. If he sees the ship, I'll take it for a sign— a sign he's to go. I can't do fairer nor that, can I?" he demanded of the free wind. "If he sees the ship, he can go. So help me, I wont hinder him." Then suddenly he bent his savage masked face to his bony knees and wept.

Pelliot saw the third ship.

It was Lewen who slept, twitching like a dog, on the moss- heap—Pelliot who crawled to him, trailing his bound leg, and shook him in a breathless silence. Lewen woke and said: "What is it?"

The steward mouthed at him. It was horrible. No sound came from his twisting lips. Lewen could see the thud of his heart jerking under his shirt.

"What is it, matey?" But he knew.

Still dumb, Pelliot dragged at him, doglike. Lewen rose, went to the doorway, and looked. He stayed there, very still.

A whaler was anchored under the lee of the penguin-rocks. On the beach beneath the cliffs and the rata-forest, a cutter was just grounding; as he watched, a man sprang out of her into the surf, and the oars flashed silver-bright against the pallid dawn.

His only thought was, that now it had come.

Behind him, Pelliot found speech with a shriek. He screamed like a girl. He dragged himself along the ground to Lewen, caught him about the knees, pounded him with his fists. "Oh, my Lord," he cried, "don't you see? It's a ship! It's men!" He sobbed. "It's life, life! Come on, come on! They may go, they may put off again! Oh, chum, for the sake o' pity, help me down quick!"

Lewen stood like a tree, silent. And that silence was a hand laid on the little steward to make him still. His struggling fists dropped. His jaw dropped. He glared up at Lewen with blank eyes. A fleck of froth showed at his lips. "You," he choked,  "you— aint cornin'?"

LEWEN flung up his arms and stood so for a minute, as a man stands who has been killed on his feet by a bullet. Then he turned, slowly as if it hurt him, and drew off the birdskin mask. For the first time Pelliot saw the face of the man who had saved him.

But was it the first time? It held a strange familiarity.

"Look at me, mate." Lewen spoke very gently. "Maybe you've seen my picture in the papers. Aye, there's not a man from Wyndham to Melbourne wouldn't know me. I'm Mark Lewen. I'm the man that killed Henderson at Cossack."

After some minutes Pelliot moved, sighed weakly. "That—"

"That brute? Aye, that's me. And I can't leave the Lode. I aint safe if a human bein' sees me. I aint safe if I leave the Lode. For then they'll take me and hang me. I'm only free— here."

The little steward looked vaguely at the sea. "How did you get here?"

"I'd shipped on board a whaler— just such another. Two days out, a man looked at me, and drew away as if I was a leper. 'Take your hands out o' my dish, Judas!' That's what he said. I struck him, and they ironed me. They was for takin' me back... I broke away. On a wild night I took the dinghy and come here. They thought I was drowned. Only because o' that I'm safe. They'd hunt me down if they knew I was here. They'd know me. There was the irons—"

Pelliot turned his eyes slowly on the other. He seemed abstracted, like a man half awake. "That was how you got your fire, then," he said musingly.

He leaned forward, turned back Lewen's ragged sleeve, and exposed the ring of a handcuff thrust far up the arm. "There's flints on the beach," he said absently. Then: "So you— ain't cornin'?"

"As God's my judge," said Lewen in a strange wail, "it's death if any man sees me and knows me."

Pelliot began to tremble. "And me?"

"I won't hinder your goin'. So help me, I won't hinder you. I'll trust you!"

Without a word, Pelliot began to crawl down the slope toward the beach.

FLAT under a ledge of the rata, Lewen watched him.

Once he looked back. Lewen said aloud clearly: "It can't be done. I'd be known." His great hands twitched as he suppressed the instinct to run and help the little man. Now and then his haggard eyes blurred. He muttered advice that Pelliot could not possibly hear. "Keep to the left, mate. Easy does it. Mind the place where the stones slide. Easy, now. Take it sideways and let yourself go."

Pelliot crawled on, dragging his broken leg. He moved inch by inch, it seemed to Lewen. He was a weakly little man, after all. He was grunting with agony, sick with faintness. Perhaps he was not fitted for a diet of sea-birds' eggs and fish. He could see the men below on the beach, gathered about the cutter. They had not scattered. He wondered what they had come for. He shouted to them, but his voice was a hoarse whisper. He crawled on feverishly.

He fixed his eyes on a stone, dragged himself up to it; rested a moment, fixed his eyes on a tussock, dragged himself to that; rested once more, gained a tuft of leaves, and sank face-down in them. With a great effort he crawled on again, on and on— on toward life and safety and everything that made the world.

_______________

20: Murder in a Mortuary

Kennedy Tester
fl 1937-42

Street & Smith’s Detective Story Magazine May 1940

Nothing is known of this author apart from a handful of crime stories.

WHEN Mike Yenner suddenly pulled the car up to the curb and shut off the motor, the girl at his side let out a frightened gasp.

"Mike! What are you stopping for?"

He talked through the dead cigar he held clenched tightly in his teeth.

"Got some business to tend to."

She peered through the car window. They had stopped in front of a rambling building of modified Spanish architecture. A blue neon sign glowed over the entrance.

"Vernon Mortuary," she read. "Mike, are you nuts?"

"No, baby," he said very quietly. His gloved hand had taken the keys out of the ignition lock. "I like the looks of this place. Let's go in."

She gasped again. "But I don't like mortuaries," she protested in terror.

"Neither does anybody else," he grunted philosophically. "But business is business. Come on."

He led her away from the car, up the shrub-bordered walk to the front entrance. It was a dark night and there were no street lights in the vicinity. The blue neon sign cast an eerie glow upon them as they passed under it. The girl shivered. Mike threw away his cigar.

He rang the bell, and they waited in silence until the door opened.

A stout little man with curiously pouting lips peered out at them.

"How do you do?" he murmured inquiringly.

"Howdy," said Mike. "I want to make some arrangements about a funeral."

"Certainly," said the stout little man. He ushered them in.

"You wish," he said, "to make arrangements in advance of need, through our prepayment plan? If so, we can discuss the matter more comfortably in the office."

"Hell," Mike grunted. "I just want to see your caskets. I got a friend who ain't expected to live the night out."

The man tugged at his pouting lips.

"I see. May I take this opportunity to introduce myself? I am Mr. Vernon."

"Glad to know you," Mike responded. "My name is Jones. It's a very uncommon name." He laughed abruptly, then added as an afterthought: "This is Mrs. Jones."

Vernon nodded absently.

"Now, if you will just follow me," he murmured, "you can make your selection from one of the most complete lines of caskets in the city."

He led them up a thickly carpeted stairs. An overpowering sweetness assailed them.

"Flowers," said Mike succinctly.

The girl shivered and tugged at his coat.

"Mike," she whispered. "You must be crazy! You don't know anybody who's dying!"

"Shut up," he growled. "You always was a dumb number."

She followed meekly, her heavily rouged lips moving with her thoughts. Vernon swung open a pair of French doors at the head of the stairs and switched on a light. The resultant glow showed them row upon row of softly illumined caskets. Mike could hear the girl's sharp intake of breath.

Disregarding her, he wandered about. Vernon talked volubly, extolling the virtues of each casket, pointing out construction details and finishes.

Mike listened gnd looked for fifteen minutes. Then he shrugged his shoulders and turned to the girl.

"Daisy," he said, "you pick one out."

"No!" she gasped. "I couldn't—"

"Nuts," Mike growled. "Just pick out the kind you'd like to have for yourself."

She couldn't control the frightened little cry that escaped her lips.

Vernon looked up sharply. Accustomed to all forms of emotion, the girl's reluctance to enter the room had seemed natural to him. But this man's tactlessness was going a bit too far.

"Please," he murmured, "I know it is difficult to make decisions of this nature. If you will just indicate which type of casket you think most suitable, Mrs. Jones, I think your husband and I can conclude our arrangements without further embarrassment."

"That's right," Mike concurred. "Don't be so jumpy, baby."

She swallowed, and turned to look swiftly around the room.

Vernon took this opportunity to study the features of the man who* seemed so careless of his wife's naturally distrait nerves. Jones was well dressed, a rather plain-looking man. The kind you see downtown every day and never notice. His eyes were a bit unusual— bright and sharp. He wore pigskin gloves, and his topcoat was of a bit too jaunty a cut. When he came too close, you got the breath of stale cigar smoke. The girl stopped before a pearl- gray casket. It was severely plain outside, but the interior was a mass of satin ruffles. She nodded mutely to Mike.

"How much is that job?" Mike inquired.

Vernon drew an envelope from the interior and opened it.

"This casket sells for two hundred and eighty-five dollars," he said. "It includes our complete service in every detail, including use of our chapel, organ music, and motor equipment."

"Nuts," Mike growled. "It ain't good enough."

His eyes swept the room. They lighted on a bronze casket, obviously the most expensive item in the room.

"How much is that?" he asked.

"That," said Mr. Vernon, "is our finest sarcophagus, made of time- enduring bronze. Its price, including our complete service, is one thousand one hundred and fifty dollars."

"That's better," Mike said. "We'll
take that. Now show us over the rest of the place."

"Gladly," Vernon purred. Though he had privately formed a dislike for Jones' gruff lack of tact, he was obviously impressed by the man's utter contempt for the expense involved in the selection he had just made. He switched out the lights and led them downstairs.

"This," he said, opening a carved oak door, "is our chapel."

He switched on more lights. A churchlike, lofty room glowed with soft color. Mike saw row on row of pews, and in the chancel a glimpse of graduated organ pipes. Vernon followed his gaze.

"That," he said proudly, "is our pipe organ. One hundred and four stops. Electrically operated. The family room is to the right of the chancel, where the entire service may be observed without subjecting the family to the gaze of the visitors here in the nave."

"It's O.K.," Mike pronounced. "Show us some more."

Vernon switched out the lights. The girl clung to Mike's arm.

"Mike," she whimpered. "I got to sit down. This place gives me the willies. It's so dark."

"In a minute, baby," he grunted. "This is interesting."

Vernon opened another door.

"This is one of our reposing rooms," he said, switching on more lights. "Here the body of the deceased iies in repose until time for the service."

Mike looked around the decorously furnished room. ,

"Nice place," he said. "It's sure quiet around here at night, Mr. Vernon. Don't you have any other help?"

Vernon shrugged. "Oh, certainly. But things have been very quiet for several days, and I am taking one of my assistants' place tonight. Another will relieve me at midnight, and I shall retire. The mortuary, you see, must always be on call."

"That's right," Mike agreed. "People don't die just during business hours. Now, how about showing us the place where you do your embalming?"

"Our preparation room?" Vernon said. "Of course. We are very proud of our facilities in that line."

Vernon switched out the reposing- room lights and led them down the hall. He unlocked a door and flipped another switch.

"Mike!" the girl chattered. "When are we going to get out of this place?"

He poked her into silence with his elbow.

Vernon led them to a brilliantly lighted room. It looked like the surgery of a modern hospital, all in white spotless tile. Two porcelain- enameled tables were set on chrome- plated pedestals in the middle of the floor. Glass cases flanked one wall, and through the glass gleamed shining instruments and rows of bottles.

Mike stayed near the door. The girl walked mechanically after Vernon. When they had neared the middle of the room, Mike cleared his throat.

"Nice place," he said again.

"We have spared no expense," Vernon murmured without looking around. "It is air-conditioned, soundproofed, and equipped with the latest scientific equipment to insure careful preservation of the features."

Mike reached out for the open door, swung it shut.

It closed with a muffled jar.

Vernon and the girl swung around. The girl screamed. Mike's gloved hand had come out of his topcoat pocket. It held a blue automatic.

The look in Mike's eyes was brittle.

"Soundproof, eh?" he grunted. "That's swell. That's something I didn't figure on. Now you can scream all you want, Daisy."

She implored him with fear-filled eyes.

"Mike, what are you gonna do?"

"Yes," Vernon interposed nervously. "For God's sake, Mr. Jones, put that weapon away!"

"Shut up, you," Mike growled. "I'm gonna make Daisy talk. And how she's gonna talk!"

She stood rooted to the floor, paralyzed with horror.

"Daisy," he said, "you double- crossed me. You wrote a letter to someone telling them just where to find me. Now who did you write that letter to, and when did you mail it?"

"Mike," she choked, "I swear—"

"The hell with that," Mike said fiercely. "You ain't smart enough to double-cross anybody, baby. You wrote a letter to someone telling them just where to find me. You printed it in capital letters, with a lead pencil, on a writing tablet. But you were too dumb to notice when you tore off the sheet of paper to mail it that the pencil left little marks on the rest of the pad. I could read your letter from those faint little marks. Want me to repeat it to you, word for word?"

The girl rocked unsteadily. Then she seemed to regain her composure.

"O.K.," she panted. "I did it. I thought you were two-timing me. I thought you had grown tired of me, I wrote the letter. But I'll help you escape, Mike. I didn't mail it until this afternoon. It's not too late, Mike! They won't get it until tomorrow morning's mail."

"Who won't get it?" he persisted fiercely.

She swallowed. "The F.B.I. I sent it to the local office."

"I thought so," Mike said. "Well, the G-men won't get Mike Yenner. I've been too smart for them all along. They don't even know what I look like, and they haven't got any prints. And believe me, baby, you're never going to tell them!"

"I must have been crazy, Mike. I didn't know what I was doing!" the girl cried hysterically.

"Please," said Vernon. "Mr. Jones, or Yenner, or whoever you are, put away that gun!"

"Shut up!" Mike thundered. "What do you suppose I came here for? Daises going to have the best funeral this town can offer, and you're going to furnish it."

"Mike!" the girl screamed.

He grinned at her.

The automatic went up and a shot blasted the tiled room into myriad echoes. The force of the slug spun the girl around. She collapsed heavily on the floor. Vernon looked down at her sprawled body and at the widening pool of blood on the tile floor.

"You've killed her," he pronounced hoarsely.

"Sure," Mike agreed. "Doublecrossing little rat. But she was my wife, and she ain't going to be tossed off into a ditch. You're going to give her the best funeral you got."

"Sure, sure," soothed Vernon, in as steady a voice as he could muster.

"Get going," Mike ordered. "We'll go up and get that bronze coffin, first. You lead the way. Any time you feel like trying any tricks, remember this .38 poking in your back."

He prodded Vernon. The latter complied without hesitation. He led Mike back up the stairs, switching on lights as he went.

He drew out a cart from an adjoining closet, and Mike helped him
transfer the heavy casket. Then they moved it to a freight elevator at the rear of the building. All this while Mike kept Vernon covered. He said nothing, and Vernon made no comment.

Together they wheeled the cart into the preparation room. Mike directed Vernon as the latter arranged the girl's lifeless form in the casket.

Vernon was sweating as he silently closed the lid of the casket. He paused to wipe his round face with a crumpled handkerchief. Mike was watching him impatiently, as though he hadn't a nerve in his body.

Vernon's lips pressed resolutely together.

"This is horrible," he said. "It's a travesty. I won't go on with it."

Mike squeezed out a derisive grin.

"You want to live, don't you, little man?" he said thickly. "Yeah, sure you do. Well, you'll do what I tell you to, or you'll wind up in one of your own coffins."

But Vernon had been able to steady himself a little. He hadn't the faintest notion who this Mike fellow was, except that his name wasn't Jones, and that he was a desperate man— perhaps insane.

"No," Vernon said defiantly. "I won't help you. You'll kill me anyway before you go away, because I saw you murder that girl. If I'm going to die tonight. I'll be damned if I'll do it with any more of your dirty work on my conscience."

Mike's stare was impersonal. He wasn't seeing the round little man whose pouty lips were compressed with the defiance of his words. He was seeing raw courage, and Mike was always impressed by that.

He laughed deep in his throat.

"You got me wrong, Vernon. I'm not a mug that kills just for fun. I never croaked anybody unless I had o ... to keep on living myself. My wife... well, you heard her admit what she did to me. She was going to turn me in to the G-men. But you... what have I got against you? You ain't done nothing to me, and you ain't going to."

"I'll tell the police about you quickly enough if I ever get out of this alive," Vernon went on obstinately.

"Sure," Mike grunted. "But that don't worry me none. Plenty of guys have done the same. And what did it get them? I'm still O.K., and I never spent an hour in stir. And I never will. I'm too smart. I ain't like the mugs the G-men have run down before. I work alone, and I don't work the same kind of job twice. One time it's a bank. Next time it's a snatch, or mebbe hijacking a dope runner. And I don't stay in one place. The G-men never figure where I am ahead of time, or what kind of a job I'll pull off next. See these gloves? No fingerprints of mine down in Washington. Why, they don't even have much of an idea what I look like. Go on; describe me. What would you say I look like?"

Vernon appraised him. He was thinking that there wasn't much that was distinctive about Mike to describe. His clothes— but he'd probably he wearing something else tomorrow. His face— it was a very ordinary one, a little squarish, a little on the swarthy side. Certainly there was nothing about it your eyes could hook into. No scars, no twisted nose, nothing at all to distinguish him from any one of hundreds of men you could see on the streets very day.

"I think I'd recognize you if I ever saw you again," he told Mike.

"But you won't," Mike answered. "Because I'll be somewhere else, and what you'll be able to tell the police here won't help much to find me in some burg hundreds of miles away. So, you see, I ain't worried about you. I ain't going to bump you off unless you make me do it. Now get that coffin up into your chapel. We're going to give Daisy a funeral. She was a swell looker, but she was dumb. Mebbe I had to knock her off; so what? I can give her a decent funeral, can't I?"

Vernon stared at Mike. There was too much sincerity in his bragging to doubt what he said. Here was a criminal who actually believed himself invulnerable— even to the point where he could indulge in every fancy that occurred to him. Vernon could see how it must have tickled his vanity— his disproper- tionate sense of grandeur— to bring this girl here to murder her, where he could further indulge in his whims by giving her a funeral.

Mike pulled out a watch and consulted it.

"Fifteen after eleven," he pronounced. "At twelve your assistant comes. We'll need him to help load that casket in your hearse. Then he will drive the hearse, while you sit beside me in my car. We'll go to a place up in the country I know about and give Daisy a decent burial. But if your man tries any funny stuff while he's following me in the hearse, you'll go out like a light. I'll tell him that. I got it all worked out, see?"

"What happens after that?" Vernon inquired.

Mike studied him impersonally. "I'll tie you and him up. If you yell loud enough, somebody'll likely hear you in a day or two. By that time I'll be somewhere else."

"If you'll promise—"

"Promise?" Mike laughed thickly. "The only thing you got to worry about, little man, is yourself. Just don't let yourself make any mistakes. Say, it would be nice to have some organ music at Daisy's funeral. Can you play that thing?"

"Yes," Vernon answered. "But it's electric. I'll have to go up to the office and turn on the juice."

"I'll go with you," Mike said. "I don't want you to make any mistakes. A little organ music would be just the thing. What do you play —hymns and stuff?"

Vernon led him out of the preparation room, Mike following. The gun never left its focal point on the middle of Vernon's round body.

"Hymns, religious arias; there are some good secular ballads, too."

"Gee," Mike grunted. "That'll be swell. I didn't figure on that."

Vernon switched on the office lights, walked to a black box set with toggle switches. He flipped one.

"What's that thing?" Mike asked suspiciously.

"It turns on the juice so the organ will play," Vernon told him. "They run by electricity now. In the old days a boy used to have to pump the air by hand."

Vernon switched out the office lights, and they worked their way back to the preparation room. Then began the lugubrious job of wheeling the heavy bronze casket to the chapel. They placed it in proper position in the chancel. Then Mike had to have flowers, so they collected a few sprays from various parts of the building and displayed them about the sarcophagus.

Mike let out a breath of satisfaction. He sat down in a pew and drew a cigar from his pocket.

Vernon looked at him sharply.

"It's not customary to smoke at a funeral," he said.

Mike chuckled and put away the cigar. "O.K.," he growled. "Now get up there behind that organ and play some music."

Vernon went to the organ.

Mike saw him sit down. There was a little hum as he flipped another switch, then a glorious burst of music filled the chapel. Mike could just see the top of Vernon's round little head as he played. Mike leaned back in satisfaction.

One piece floated harmoniously into another. They were all unfamiliar to Mike, but he knew instinctively that Daisy was getting a fine funeral. He glanced at his watch. Twenty to twelve. He could see Vernon's head nod as his hands went over the keys.

A lull in the music came suddenly as the melody died away in a whisper. Mike cotild hear Vernon murmuring in low tones.

"What's that you're saying?" he growled.

"I'm praying," Vernon answered, looking up. "It wouldn't be a proper funeral without a prayer for that poor girl."

Mike glowed. The versatility of this round little undertaker amazed him.

"Say, that's swell," he grunted. "Get out here in front of the casket like they do at funerals, where I can hear you."

The soft music stopped abruptly.

Vernon got up, walked to the casket. He went through a ritual he had heard so many times that he knew every word by heart.

When he had finished, Mike looked at his watch again. It was a quarter to twelve.

"When does your man get here? A little before twelve, mebbe?" he asked.

"No," said Vernon. "Usually a little after. I've never known him to relieve anyone ahead of time."

"That's right," Mike agreed. "Human nature, ain't it? We'll have another song or two on the organ, then we'll go up and wait for him. Which door will he come in?"

"Front door," Vernon answered. "The other doors are bolted from the inside."

"Good," said Mike. "Go on and play some more."

He relaxed with his watch in one hand, gun in the other. When the music softened, as it did occasionally, he could still hear Vernon praying softly. That pleased Mike. He liked things done well.

When the clock stood at eleven fifty-five, he got up. Vernon, raising his chubby head, saw him, and the music stopped.

"Time to go up front," said Mike.

Vernon led the way, Mike's gun still trained upon him. Mike was breathing huge, satisfied breaths. There never was a crook in the whole world who did things the swell way Mike did them.

They reached the entrance vestibule. There were chairs handy and they sat down to wait. Mike was trying to hum the strain of the last piece Vernon had played.

Vernon sat very quietly, his lips pursed up in a round pout. Little sweat beads formed slowly on his forehead.

They heard footsteps on the porch. Mike looked at his watch. It stood at a minute past midnight.

"He almost made it on time," he said.

The door opened, and a tall, angular young man entered and closed the door softly behind him before he saw Mike and the gun that was held in his gloved fist.

"Hello," said the newcomer. "What's going on here?"

He backed up a little, seemingly undecided whether to raise his hands or not. He saw Vernon sitting placidly in the chair, and Vernon's hands were not up, so the young man did not raise his.

"Bob," said Vernon, "this is Mike. He's had a little private funeral here tonight. He's going to make us take the casket somewhere out in the country. You're going to have to drive the funeral car."

"That's right," Mike expanded. "Your boss will sit with me in my ear. You'll follow me in the hearse, and I'll be watching you from the rear-vision mirror. It'll just be too bad for your boss if you don't follow, and follow close."

"I'm sorry I couldn't warn you in any way," said Vernon. "But my hands have been tied, figuratively. It's too bad, Bob, but I guess we're in for it. Mike has promised to tie us up without further harm when he's through with us."

"Sure," Mike explained. "I ain't a mug that kills just to see blood spilled. You guys won't get hurt, if you don't make any mistakes."

The angular young man grinned reassuringly at Vernon.

"That's all right," he said. "We'll behave ourselves, won't we, Mr. Vernon?"

Vernon nodded. Mike stood up.

"We got a long way to go," he pronounced. "We better get busy. Where do you guys load the casket onto the hearse?"

"There's a porte-cochere opening out from the chapel onto the driveway," Vernon explained.

"Good," said Mike. "We'll take the casket there, unlock the doors, and all three of us will go back to your garage and get out the hearse."

They worked their way back to the chapel. Bob and Vernon first, Mike close behind, gun in readiness.

They removed the sprays from the casket, and wheeled it out of the chapel to a set of double doors.

Vernon fumbled with the bolt. His fingers were shaking. Mike spoke to him impatiently.

Finally the bolt came free, and Vernon sprawled face down on the floor. Mike swore, but the door burst open, and three shadowy figures appeared. Before Mike could swing his gun a hard fist knocked his arm awry and his gun spurted flame and echoing sound harmlessly.

He let his trigger finger ease off even before the gun had emptied itself. Three guns were pointed directly at him, and he could feel a fourth pressing suddenly into his back. The pistol slid from his fingers helplessly.

"That's the stuff, Mike," said the angular young man. "Here's some jewelry to wear, just to keep you from making any more mistakes."

Mike's jaw sagged. He saw the angular young man snap on a pair of handcuffs over his pigskin gloves.

Vernon got up cautiously. He was shaking shamelessly. His full lips quivered.

"Thank God," he breathed. "You made it."

Mike stared at them all. It was a very personal stare now. Something had gone wrong with Mike's plans, and he wanted to know how it had happened.

"I get it," he said heavily. "You're G-men. But how did you know I was here?"

"We didn't, until Vernon called us on the phone and told us to intercept his assistant and come in his place," said the angular young man.

"Don't hand me that stuff," Mike growled. "He didn't know I was coming, and he sure didn't use the phone while I was here. Unless... unless that was a phone switch he threw back there in the office when he said he was turning on the juice for the organ. But, hell, a guy can't make a phone call and play music, too."

"I told you that was an electric organ," Vernon explained, still shaking. "It's arranged to play either manually or mechanically. Something like the old-time player piano. I can't play a note myself."

Mike nodded bitterly. "So you wasn't playing at all. You was sitting back of that organ talking to the G-men on a telephone."

"Nice work, Mr. Vernon," said the angular young man. "You used your head."

"I bought that intercommunicating phone system a year ago," said Vernon. "We had it fixed so we could talk to the organist during a funeral, to give him his cues. The switch I flipped in the main office connected the organ extension with an outside line. I had the exchange operator get the F.B.I. office for me. She must have been plenty excited, she didn't close her key all the while I talked."

"So you wasn't praying after all," Mike choked.

"You can call it what you like," Vernon sighed. "But, man, I never prayed so hard, or so fast, in all my life!"

_______________

Table of Contents

- 1: Waxworks / Ethel Lina White
- Unnamed
- 3: The High Rigger / J. Allan Dunn
- 4: Mr. Aroun's Jewel / William Caine
- 5: Ghosts / Arthur Gask
- 6: The Owl / F. A. M. Webster
- 7: Once it Happened / Achmed Abdullah
- 8: An Unlocked Window / Ethel Lina White
- 9: The Uninvited Guest / Ethel Lina White

- 10: The Dead Smile / Francis Marion Crawford

- 11: Poison / Katherine Mansfield
- 12: Loki's Sword / Edward  Lucas White
- 13: Zero-Zero / Harry Ashe
- 14: "To Let." / B. M. Croker
- 15: More Than He Could Chew / John Baer
- 16: Blight / H. de Vere Stacpoole

- 17: The Millennium Engine / Leavitt Ashley Knight

- 18: As You Please / William Edward Park
- 19: Freedom / Marjorie Pickthall
- 20: Murder in a Mortuary / Kennedy Tester