Author: Various
Date: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00
Description: 21 short stories mostly from old newspapers and magazines, and some from books. All in the Life+70 years pubic domain. 1: The Strange Hallucination of Mr. Jackerson / D. H. Souter 2: Two and a Telephone / Edward Dyson 3: Nada Crosby's Jewels / Anonymous 4: Leonard's Reward / Edward Dyson 5: The Girl from Gunnedah / Edward S. Sorenson 6: Personally Conducted / George Allan England 7: The Little Grey Ghost / Alice C. Tomholt 8: Valley of the Black Sun / Leroy Yerxa 9: The Nail / Pedro de Alarçon 10: In the Garden of the Gods / William McLeod Raine 11: The Exploits of Mr. White / Clarence Herbert

PAST MASTERS 208

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

17 March 2025

Contents

1: The Strange Hallucination of Mr. Jackerson / D. H. Souter

2: Two and a Telephone / Edward Dyson

3: Nada Crosby's Jewels / Anonymous

4: Leonard's Reward / Edward Dyson

5: The Girl from Gunnedah / Edward S. Sorenson

6: Personally Conducted / George Allan England

7: The Little Grey Ghost / Alice C. Tomholt

8: Valley of the Black Sun / Leroy Yerxa

9: The Nail / Pedro de Alarçon

10: In the Garden of the Gods / William McLeod Raine

11: The Exploits of Mr. White / Clarence Herbert New

12: What Was It? / Fitz-James O'Brien

13: The Pale Ape / M. P. Shiel

14: The Gentlemen in Possession / Katharine Tynan

15: The Man Who Was Two / Harold Ward

16: The Brand of Cain / Harold Ward

17: Hankenson's Perfect Crime / Harold Ward

18: The Lost Club / Arthur Machen

19: The Crystal Trench / A. E. W. Mason

20: The People of the Pit / Abraham Merritt

21: Seven Turns in a Hangman's Rope / Henry S. Whitehead

__________

1: The Strange Hallucination of Mr. Jackerson

D. H. Souter

1862-1935

The Lone Hand, 1 April 1914

There was an outbreak of smallpox in Sydney in 1914, introduced no doubt by a merchant seaman; and there were any number of jokes about strange vaccination side effects. (I worked on international passenger arrivals at a major Australian port in the early 1960s and had to be vaccinated against smallpox, which was then still endemic in south-east Asia; all I got was a sore arm.) This story was illustrated by several of the author's stylish pen-and-ink drawings; he was more famed as an artist than an author. I have selected one of them as an example.

—TW

JACKERSON was virtuously indignant. He fairly bubbled with indignation. He wrote a letter to the Herald about it, and signed it "Disgusted Business Man." It described him exactly; he might just as well have put his own name to it.

Because of a pimply sailor off a tramp steamer, fondling a maid in the shadow of a Redfern veranda, the trade of Sydney was being hung up. Business was dead. Ships were passing the port for other marts, and doctors, playing on the credulous fears of the people and supported by a perfidious Government. were earning two to four hundred pounds a day. No wonder Jackerson protested: his business had fallen off quite one per cent in the last three weeks, and four of his staff had been absent from the office for two days because of vaccinated arms. His typist, a pale, fair-haired little woman of nearly thirty, wept silently as he dictated his protest. Her eyes were quite wet and steamy, and she had to wipe her spectacles twice, while Jackerson dug up many-syllabled epithets of condemnation.

"What are you crying for?" he demanded.

"Oh, Mr. Jackerson, I feel so funny."

"You look it," he said; which was as near kindly humor as Jackerson ever got.

"My arm pains so, and do you know... I never used to be able to eat rice pudding, but now... I simply pine for it. I would like to eat rice-pudding all day."

That afternoon she rang up to say that she was too sick to come to the office, and Jackerson got a letter from Melbourne that made it necessary for him to visit that city in the course of the next fortnight. A ridiculous, panic-born quarantine law required that he should be successfully vaccinated before he could leave the State; so Jackerson added a postscript to his protest, and submitted his arm to the vaccinator that same afternoon.

"Confounded humbug," he spluttered, as the doctor proceeded to infect him with cow-pox. "How do I know what microbe you are putting into me? People die of it sometimes, don't they? Their arms fall off, they swell up all over and go off pop!"

"Oh, no," said the doc.; "these are only rumors. What I have known it do sometimes, though, is this: if you have any latent trouble about you, it may bring it out or relieve you of it altogether."

Jackerson told him about his typist and her sudden taste for rice-pudding. The doctor smiled and added it, with variations, to his stock of professional jokes.

That evening Jackerson dined at the Club and exchanged grievance with two other fat business men who carried their left arms in slings, and were quite as indignant as Jackerson. They ate well, drank well, and digested badly. Business stagnated, and, according to them, half the population of Sydney was being shifted to North Head.

You never met Jackerson, did you? He was just the ordinary sort of Commission Agent, Short, fat, rather vulgar, and smoked expensive cigars. He was also a bachelor, close upon fifty, and reputed fairly well in. If he had any relations he never spoke of them. He knew a lot of people, but he had no friends— especially in business hours, of which he maintained there were twenty-four in his working day. Women he had always detested. The only reason why he employed a woman typist was that no male secretary would put up with him. It was his proud boast that he had never spent a shilling on a woman in his life. He had never taken one out to lunch or to the theatre, or bought one a pair of gloves in his born days. He had never looked at one twice, and when the Cafe Caroomah introduced lady waitresses, he took his lunch at the Civic, although it cost him an extra shilling, and sometimes eighteen pence.

And now the marvellous was happening.

He said "Good morning" quite pleasantly to his landlady, and scared her dumb. The maid who brought him his Squeezed Oats asked him how he felt "to-day"; and he yodelled back that "except that he didn't know what the vaccination was going to do to him, he never felt better in his life."

Then he remembered his principles, and was properly nasty all the way into business, when he fell from grace again and called his typist "my dear."

He told her to "go to the devil" in the next breath; and, locking himself into his private room, wondered if he was going mad. He had never felt like this before. If he would only let himself go he felt he could be guilty of unutterable things. In his mind's eye he saw visions of fair women whom his sub-consciousness had noted with secret approval, and now held up to him as marvels of missed opportunities. Even his anaemic typist had an attractiveness which so far he had not considered as one of her possible assets. His office window looked from a tenth story into King Street, now splashed with winter sunlight; and where yesterday he would have only seen hurrying traffic, he now saw throngs of dainty women escorted by adoring men; or else, banded in merrily defensive groups of three or four, they swept like a plague through the heart of the city, throwing smiles, glances and peals of laughter with terrible effect at everybody. Jackerson was hit in two or three places before he was able to entrench himself behind his desk again.

He worked quite hard all the morning until one o'clock struck; and, though he walked with averted eyes through the outer office, he was quite conscious of the presence of his anaemic typist seated at her table eating rice-pudding with the gusto of a gourmet.

He rode down in the lift with a stout, elderly female— at least, that is how he would have described her the previous day; but now he saw that her lines were rather satisfying, and that the years had been thwarted in their course of destructiveness by the generous development of her curves. Some people might have thought that her hair was turning grey; but Jackerson knew that it was pale gold. Two giggling girls got in on the seventh floor. One of them jostled Jackerson and spread her podgy fingers on his vest when the lift started. The other girl cried, "Oh!" and clapped her hand to her mouth to prison a laugh, but it slipped out in spite of her; and Jackerson was not the least bit annoyed, although he felt that he ought to be. He was even quite polite when the lift got to the ground floor, and allowed them to get out first; but when he found himself comparing their figures as they preceded him along the corridor, a shudder shook his whole frame, and he resolutely shut his eyes until he fell down two steps at the front entrance, and picked himself up on the pavement.

Here things were, if possible, rather worse. Sydney's feminine population seemed to be holding high holiday. There might have been men about, too, but Jackerson never saw them, Nothing but girls. Demurely shy girls, girls with big flop hats, and girls with dinky little hats. Girls with hats that hid all but the tip of a piquant nose, a perfect rosebud of a mouth, or the curve of an audacious chin. Some of them peeped mischievously from enveloping furs, and some of them only had a diaphanous blouse between them and the weather; but all of them appealed to Jackerson.

He fought hard against it. He even had a whisky and bitters at the Australia to buck him up; but, unluckily, he met the full team of "The Dancing Mistress" ballet in the vestibule, and loitered at the cigar-stand, buying about ten shillings worth of unnecessary smokes for the mere pleasure of breathing the same atmosphere as the bewitching coryphées. By and by they drifted elsewhere and Jackerson sighed and sidled down to the Cafe Caroomah, deliberately selecting a table which commanded a good view of the servery.

"He even had a whisky and bitters at the Australia to buck him up; but, unluckily, he met the full team of The Dancing Mistress ballet in the vestibule."

He didn't eat any lunch; he was too busy watching a continual cross-current of pretty waitresses passing in perpetual review before him. The one-o'clock rush passed; he lingered on, racked by conflicting emotions. Why had all womankind suddenly become desirable in his eyes? Was his brain softening? He performed a complex mental calculation in brokerage. It came out correct; he checked it with a stubby pencil on a corner of the table cloth to make sure— and then he drew an awkward oval with a fuzzy top, two dots, three curves, and a central straight line, and recognised as the thing they used to draw at school and call a girl's face. He felt the cold perspiration soak into his cholera belt. He was in the grip of some terrible disease, creeping atrophasia, maybe, something that would send him to a rest house where he would be fed on sterilised goat milk and isinglass. Much better be dead, or married.

The horror of the thing struck him full in face. He seized his hat, and, never waiting for his check, flung half-a-crown to the girl in the pay desk and dashed out into the street. There was an optician's just opposite. He went in and bought the darkest pair of blue spectacles they had in stock, evading all the opticians' suggestions about the sort best suited for weak eyes.

"This vaccination," said the spectacle man, "occasionally affects the vision. Sight, which has been perfectly normal, has sometimes become abnormal, in which case—"

Jackerson didn't wait for any more. He dashed out into the street, jumped into a taxi, and drove to the blighter who had blinded him. The place was full of women. A woman admitted him to a hall where women sat in rows, sat. on stairs, stood in corners; and one, an absolute dream in brown velvet, was perched on the hall-stand.

"This way to the gentlemen's waiting-room," said the maid; "the doctor is very busy." Through a half open doorway Jackerson glimpsed a score of more or less disrobed women exhibiting bare limbs and watching their blood congealing on tiny scars. It was no place for Jackerson. The solitude of his office and the distractions of business offered safety. He tore along the street as fast as his legs could carry him. Through his blue glasses he saw a marvellous world of perpetual moonlight, where shadowy nymphs flitted gracefully in a luminous haze, gazing on him with eyes irridescent with a light that never was on sea or land, and thrilling him with unknown and extravagant delights.

His perturbation grew as he neared his office. He knew that he would have to pass his typist before he could reach the security of his own room, and he felt a dangerous premonition that he would find some new attraction in her. He tried to think how rotten she looked when she had the influenza; but he could only recall the pathetic appeal of her big, grey eyes, and the plaintive droop of her thin lips. He pulled his hat over his eyes and bumped his nose on his private doorjamb. The blue spectacles fell on the floor and were trodden to smithereens. He locked himself in his room and dictated his letters through the telephonette. The staff tapped their foreheads and winked. "Old Jacker," they surmised, "had been chasing quids so hard that he had gone ratty." The head ledger-keeper schemed how he would run the show while Jackerson was in the private hospital.

Five o'clock came. The clerks changed their coats carefully, because of tender arms, took their hats, and left Jackerson penned in his private den. He felt quite lonely when he heard his typist's boot-heels pit-pat out into the corridor. The place seemed to have suddenly emptied, because one fair-haired, pale, plain, little woman had left it and was hurrying towards some unknown suburb. If he had only known in what direction to let his fancy follow her, it would have been some consolation. She might be going down to the Quay, or up to the railway, or waiting at some street corner for a tram.

It was quite exhausting, these footling mental journeys to all the points of the compass. It had to be stopped. He was a strong-minded man— at least he had that reputation. He would focus his mind upon—

The door opened and a dishevelled female of uncertain years appeared before him. She bore a bucket and a broom. She was one of the cleaners; but as far as Jackerson was concerned, she was the only woman in the world for him. He opened his arms to her. She threw the bucket at him, prodded him in the wind with the broom, and escaped. Jackerson's luck was out. He switched off the light and tramped downstairs. On the fifth floor Madame Elise had her Costumerie. The place was closed for the night, but a single electric bulb illuminated the showroom. From the sixth flight Jackerson could peer through the fanlight and see a row of exquisite female figures.

By intuition he knew them to be exquisite, though they were all draped in shroudings of unbleached calico. Here a roguish eye peeped, there a crimson, lip pouted, or the swell of a seductive bosom showed, Jackerson was a man whom difficulties only spurred to greater effort. In less than five minutes he was inside the Costumerie, and with amorous anxiety, carried the waxed effigies to a corner of the room beyond the range of chance espionage. Stripping them of their calico wrappings he arranged the effigies in a circle, and sat on the floor to admire them.

His seraglio held six and a-half visions of loveliness. One of them stopped short at her waistband, and Jackerson wept at the tragic incompleteness. A woman with a bust like hers should have been carried all the way down. The half-goddess he held in the crook of his left arm. He was insanely happy, never in all his life had he so enjoyed himself. He kissed the paint off their cheeks and lips, and bit their waxen chins as if they had been chocolates. The wax clogged his teeth; but he didn't care. In his clumsy ardor one of the women fell and lost her head. It didn't matter; Jackerson had lost his long ago.

When Madame Elise arrived at the Costumerie in the morning, he was asleep in the centre of the circle. She promptly went into hysterics and did not return until they had lodged him in the Receiving House at Darlinghurst.

He was away from the office quite a while.

People were told that he was suffering from over-vaccination.

The day before he went back to business he discharged his typist by letter. Now he dictates his correspondence to a bottle-nosed ex-pressman who lost his job because of his white whiskers.

_______________

2: Two and a Telephone

Edward Dyson

1865-1931

Punch (Melbourne) 1 Feb 1912

(As by Ed. Ward)

IT IS THE OFFICE of Mr. Gilbert Hogg, general agent, a rather smart apartment of its kind, with unusual pictures on the wall, all in black-and-white, neatly-framed Norman Lindsay drawings, a couple of Phil May originals, two or three smart caricatures of local celebrities, and a fine, bold Rembrandt print in the place of honour.

Mr. Gilbert Hogg is evidently a general agent of some taste and judgment ; his furniture is simple in design, but very pleasing; his carpet is well chosen, like his wallpaper, and the whole room harmonises nicely with Mr. Gilbert Hogg himself, a dark-haired man of about thirty, who sits at the well-kept office table tucked in the right hand corner of the room as we face him.

Opposite Mr. Hogg and against the wall is a cosy saddle-back couch, just behind on his left is a door, in the same wall a fireplace with neat irons and bronze fender, and a skin rug. Conspicuously, placed on the mantelpiece is a cabinet photograph of a handsome woman of twenty-four.

Gilbert Hogg, general agent, appears to be rather troubled. He jabs the pen into the ink with unnecessary energy, crippling the instrument beyond repair. He makes a few distempered drawings on the blotting paper, roughs up his hair, and then hurls the unoffending pen into a far corner, springs up, kicks his chair back, and starts walking the carpet. After two desperate laps, Mr. Hogg pulls up, and says, "D—n!" with great emphasis. He scratches his ear, continues the scratching down his chin, and half round his neck, ending with both hands in his hair, and repeats the good, familiar expletive. "D—n," says Mjr. Hogg. The ejaculation affords him little comfort, and he goes on ruefully:

"What's the good of a man being bad, if he can get no good out of it ? There was a time when I could jakey a bit, and be as merry as a lark—merry as a lark? Gee whizz! I was as merry as a whole barnyard of game cocks, and now I drift into a miserable little wickedness, and I'm as worried as a Wowser with a yellow-haired Flossie on his conscience."

He crosses to the mantel-shelf, and takes the cabinet photograph, looking at it ruefully.

"This comes of being married. Dreadful thing being married; it robs you of your nerve. Wonder if I'd undo it if I could?"

He looks fondly at the photograph.

"Not much. She's the best on earth." He kisses the picture. "That's the trouble, I shouldn't have married the best on earth, I should have been content with the second best, or say something third-rate, then being found out mightn't look so frightful a possibility. Being found out by absolutely the best woman on earth must be a ghastly trying business."

He goes on addressing the photo.

"Don't find me out, Ruth, old girl. Don't, there's a darling. Best not. Square and all, best not— best for you, and best for me."

A sharp ring at the telephone causes him to start like a guilty thing. He goes to the telephone stand on the table, the photograph still in his hand.

"Hello! Hello! Yes—yes. That you, Maria, darling? What? What? Nonsense; I said Maria. How absurd of you to think I said Maria. Of course, I haven't forgotten. Yes, a private room at the Geneva, and the nicest little dinner I could dig out. Yes, it will be safer to meet there. A quarter to seven. That was the arrangement. I thought we'd fixed it all nicely. What? What? Oh, hush!"

He looks anxiously at the photograph, and hastily places it on the shelf, returning to the telephone.

"You love me so much you just had to ring me up. Well, well, but we must be careful. Nothing to be ashamed of. I know all about that; but don't forget I'm married, and my wife's notions of these things don't coincide with mine or yours. Married yourself? Of course, you are; but your husband's in South Kensington, my wife is in South Yarra. What? Hello! What? Oh, certainly."

He kisses into the receiver, and rings off.

"Confound the woman, I wish she hadn't those large, appealing blue eyes. I never could withstand large, appealing blue eyes."

Goes to the shelf, and replaces the photograph on its stand.

"It's all right now, old girl. Come, don't look like that. You know I was a miserable sinner when you married me. Oh, yes you did. Didn't you take me for better or worse? Well, this is a bit of the worse."

He kisses the picture again, and goes back to his work. After a few moments devoted to securing a new pen and a fresh nib, and some little, rueful regard to the telephone, he resumes his writing, but is only just settled down to his stroke when the door behind him opens, and a pretty, dark woman of twenty-four, the original of the photograph, steals in, and covers his eyes with her two hands.

"Maria!" ejaculates Hogg.

"Maria?" Ruth's face hardens. "Maria?" she repeats, liberating, him.

Hogg turns on her with an expression of consternation.

"By Jove, Ruth!"

"You said Maria."

"Of course, I did. Of course, I said Maria. I always say Maria now. Since you insisted on my dropping swear words, Maria is my favourite expletive. Where other men say fearful things, I say Maria. Man must say something, you know."

Ruth Laughing: "Oh, is that it? Maria! Ma-r-i-i-a-a! It does sound a bit like bad language."

"Yes, the sort the cat uses."

"So you picked it up from the cat."

"Of course." "I wish I knew which cat. You knew so many."

She seats herself on his knee, one arm about his neck.

"But I only know Tomcats now, Ruth. You've completely reformed me."

"I'd just give my little finger to be sure of that."

He takes her little finger, and kisses it.

"My darling, I'm not worth it— not worth one joint of this little finger."

"You're worth the whole world to me. Gilbert."

"Am I?" He glances anxiously at the telephone. "I wish I deserved you. I wish it came natural to me to have an angel wife."

"Now, Gilbert, you know perfectly well I am no angel. You'll know a great deal more on that point if— if—"

Anxiously: "If what, dear?"

"Well, if there is too much Maria, for instance."

"Maria!" He yells the word as an expletive.

"Naughty Gilbert. That must have been meant for a frightful swear."

She kisses him again, and smothers him in a hug from which he finds it difficult to extricate himself.

"But my sweet wife has not told me what it is brings her into the sweltering city this beastly afternoon."

"There, I would have forgotten." She takes a paper from her pocket. "Bracket and Branscombe want to you about this. I can't make head or tail of it, and the more they explain the less I understand. Do run down and see them about it."

"Why, certainly. I suppose it's all right if you had the things."

Taking his hat— "Will you come?"

"No- The heat is awful. I'll stay till you return."

"Right-o. I shan't be five minutes."

He goes out, and she moves about the room, humming an pir. Comes to his photograph, and looks at it closely. "Oh! Oh!" (in an ecstasy). "Oh, the darling— the dear!"

She takes the photograph.

"The precious darling. There's a wet spot on my photograph. He's been kissing me."

The telephone bell rings sharply.

"Who can that be ? I'll answer it." She goes to the telephone, and giving, a very fair assumption of her husband's voice calls:

"Hello! Hello! Yes. Yes. Who is it ?"

"Maria."

"Maria ?"

"Yes, of course. Maria Wibley, you foolish boy."

Ruth covers the receiver with her hand. Fiercely— "Maria? Maria Wibley. What can she want with my husband?" Into the 'phone— "Oh, I beg your pardon, dear. What is it ?"

"You did not give me the number."

"The number—which number?"

"Of the room, stupid."

'The room?"

"Yes, the room at the restaurant. The Geneva, you know, for the dinner this evening."

Ruth (aside, her whole face changed, her manner cold and calculating) : "The Geneva this evening. This, then, is the meeting to organise the new Agency Club?"

Into the 'phone— "Oh, thirteen, sweetheart."

"Thirteen? How could you? Such an unlucky number."

"Yes, isn't it?"

"There's one more kiss, and I promise I won't bother you again."

Ruth turns from the telephone and sits against the table.

"One more kiss. Maria. So that is the Maria he expected— Maria Wibley? My friend! The cat! The devil! What am I to do? My God, what am I to do? To lose him would be worse than death. I can't lose him. I can't live without him. What to do? What to do?"

She hears his step returning, and, rushing to the couch, throws herself upon it, with her face to the wall.

Hogg enters, throws aside his hat, and looks about for his wife.

"Ruth!" He sees her on the couch, and hastens to her, turning her face to him. "Why, what's the matter, old girl?"

"It's all right, dear. I felt a little faint. The great heat. Get me a drink, will you?"

He goes to the water bottle, fills a glass, his manner betraying some anxiety, and gives her a drink.

"This is very unlike you, Ruth."

"Yes, it is. I'm ashamed of myself." She sits up. "Have you made it all right with the drapers?"

"Yes. You got mixed over the payments for those previous things."

He has seated himself beside her, with his arm about her. "My sweetheart." Draws her fondly to him and kisses her.

"Gilbert, I— I have something to tell you."

"Something important. What's wrong ?"

"When I said it was the heat of the day upset me, I did not tell the whole truth."

"No. You are making me anxious."

"There is something else. It has been on mv inind for some hours."

"And vou are going to confide in inc."

"I think I had better."

"Yes, yes, of course—why not?"

"Why not, as you say? My whole happiness seems threatened."

"Good heavens, girl, why don't you tell me?"

"It's about Mrs. Wibley."

He starts from her, a look of amazement and apprehension in his face.

"About Mrs. Willley— Mrs. Wiblev, vou said ?"

"Maria."

"Maria!" He almost shrieks the word.

"Her name is Maria, you know."

"Is it? Why, yes, of course it is. I'd forgotten."

"Mrs. Wibley and I have quarrelled."

"Quarrelled— recently?"

"Yes, to-day."

Hogg—away from her, and standing erect— "Out with it, Ruth, say it, whatever it is."

"I called on Mrs. Wibley to-day. Our conversation turned upon husbands, then upon my husband in particular. I was saying that you were, well, rather fast before I married you, but that I had completely reformed you."

" Reformed me! You— You said this to her— to Mrs. Wibley?"

"Yes. Why not? I have reformed you—" (taking his hand), "haven't I, Gilbert?"

"I— eh—. Well, go on."

"Mrs. Wibley was quite unpleasant, I thought. She sneered. She said she did not believe in these post-nuptial reformations. I said that it was true, whether she believed or not, that my husband was devoted to me, as I was to him. She laughed at that, noisily, coarsely, I thought. It hurt me. It seemed rude, vulgar. 'Your husband is like every other woman's husband, Mrs. Hogg,' she said. 'He's good when he's watched.' I said that that was a shameful remark. 'Nonsense,' She replied, 'don't be a fool. Gilbert can be led like other men if a pretty woman makes the attempt.' I said it was false, that her accusations were scandalous. and then—then—"

"Well, what then?"

"Then she said she could lead you herself."

"She said that to you."

"Yes. I was furious with her, and left the house without another word. It upset me terribly."

"My darling, my dear wife."

"At first I thought I would not tell vou, that I would keep a watch, and see if she intended carrying out her threat."

"Ruth!"

"Then it seemed to me that that was not trusting you. I resolved to speak out. You don't love her, Gilbert ?"

"No, no— It was like her infernal impudence."

"And she couldn't lead you away from me?"

"She could only drive me closer to your heart, my sweet wife."

Ruth rises, throws her arms about him, and breathes a sigh of great satisfaction. "And now you'll promise me you'll not speak to her again, will you? After what she has said to your wife you should cut her dead."

"Ye-es, I suppose so."

"You know she cannot be my friend. How can she be yours. We have done with her."

Gilbert, firmly— "Yes."

"Then, tell her so."

"Oh, I say, I couldn't do that! What, to the woman's face?"

"There's the 'phone. Tell her over the 'phone."

"I couldn't— I have not the face."

"I will."

"Don't, Ruth. Just let her drop."

"You are afraid. There was something in what she said, then."

"No, no; I swear there was nothing in it but a woman's conceit or a woman's vindictiveness."

"Then let me."

"After all it would serve her right— the fool, the idiot."

Ruth (at the 'phone): "It would."

She rings up and calls for a number.

Gilbert: "What are you going to say?"

"Wait and hear." An answer comes over the 'phone. Ruth assumes her husband's voice and calls:

"Is that you, Mrs. Wibley? It is I, Gilbert Hogg. My wife is here with me. I wish to tell you that from this moment our acquaintance ceases. You will guess why. You understand, we are now strangers."

There is a confused sound in the 'phone.

Gilbert: "What did she say?"

"I daren't repeat it, Gilbert. It was much worse than Maria."

"So that's ended. Thank God!"

He takes Ruth in his arms. "Yes. Yes, thank God that's ended."

"I feel quite happy, Ruth. Say, old girl, let's go out to dinner to-night, will you?"

"To the Geneva?"

"Yes."

"A private room?"

"Why, of course."

"Darling."

"Dearest."

(Curtain.)

____________

3: Nada Crosby's Jewels

Anonymous

Punch (Melbourne) 14 Jan 1904

THE ADVANCED BURGLAR had been arrested upon suspicion of being a plumber, an hotel-broker or other daylight-robber. The arrest had been made in Bendigo, and the detective was bringing his man back to Melbourne. As is usual in such cases, the criminal and the detective grew chatty and confidential on their journey to the metropolis. That is the way with thieves and thief-takers. The clue to many a crime is secured and— with some unscrupulous detectives— the seed of many a put-up job is sown upon journeys following on an arrest for some totally different offence.

"I haven't seen much of you hanging about in the way of business," remarked the D.

"No," said the advanced burglar, "we work upon improved methods now. The old style is played out. There are so many phizgigs and informers and amateurs about that the common or garden detective can trace an ordinary burglar. We have to give thought to the Pursuit of our Profession nowadays. We have to carefully plan it out weeks beforehand, and arrange all details carefully, so that suspicion must fall upon an amateur— that is some of the servants— instead of any of us advanced professionals engaged in the job."

"Work that you can take a pride in, eh?" queried the detective, interestedly.

"Yes," was the reply of the advanced burglar. "Work showing careful thought and artistic development, brilliant in conception and neat in execution. But, bless your soul, the best laid schemes of men and mice gang aft agley, and the most admirably planned coup will sometimes be upset by an accident quite trivial and impossible to foresee. There was the case of Nada Crosby's jewels—"

"The famous singer?" said the detective; "I didn't see any report of it. You don't mean to say that the fair diva had her valuable jewels stolen, and didn't report the circumstance to the police?"

"No," answered the advanced burglar, "what I mean to say is that everything was arranged for as neat a little robbery as could be imagined, and the bottom fell out of the whole concern simply because of an idiot of an amateur photographer. The thing is over and done with now, so there's no harm in giving you all the particulars."

The advanced burglar handed the arresting detective a cigar, lighted another himself, and, leaning back in the railway carriage, told the story of his design and disappointment.

"Nada, as you know, had a lot of jewels, and I figured it out that I could see my way to lay hands upon them— not, of course, in Melbourne, but whilst she was on tour somewhere where she would want her diamonds, but where there was only the ordinary country police supply— no D's, you know. I knew that she would be certain to make a professional tour of Bushland, that she would want to wear her jewels at the concerts, and that in all probability she would not just for one night in each place make any special arrangements for depositing them in a country bank. After careful consideration I decided that the best town in which to bring off the coup was Wombatta. It is a fairly large, but not too large town, and just suited for my purpose. Of course, I knew all about Nada's movements, when her train would arrive, what hotel she would stay at, and all details.

"I was at the station busying myself with the luggage and the baggage, and followed with it in a cab. At the station all the company, manager and all, fancied that I belonged to the hotel. When we got to the hotel, I bustled in with some of the luggage, and made myself so generally useful and business-like that the hotel people thought I must be the manager or some important member of the company. The result was that I was able to get all the bearings of the rooms, the balcony and the jewels themselves.

"The precious articles were enclosed in their plush cases, and these were kept in a strong iron box amongst the diva's personal baggage. I knew exactly where to lay my hands upon the iron box, how to reach her bedroom from the balcony, and had found a secret spot in which to hide the box in case the loss was discovered and a search made before the company left early in the morning. I hung about the hotel, dodging in and out, waiting for my prize to return from the concert with all her valuables on her.

"Then my bad luck commenced. The diva was going out to a special supper given in her honour.  She went straight from the concert and wore her jewels.  She wouldn't return to the hotel until after closing-up time. I learned these and other particulars from an idiot of an amateur photographer,  who was staying at the hotel, and who knew Nada and all her projected movements very well. By loitering now in the bar, now in the premises and around the place generally, I had no difficulty in escaping attention when the hotel closed. As a matter of fact, I hid in a little-used half-cupboard, half-storeroom opening on to the balcony, and waited

"At length the diva returned to the hotel, but seemed a long while retiring to rest. I heard her maid come along a passage and knock at a door. Some hurried conversation took place, and finally the maid went back to her mistress.

"It must have been about three o'clock in the morning when I felt it safe to venture quietly along the balcony and collar the swag. It was the easiest job I ever tackled, for there was only the one box locked, and ready to be carried away. I crept down-stairs, hid the box safely, and put in time quietly until he hotel was astir early in the morning. This was almost before daybreak, for the company had far to travel that day.

"But," said the detective, impatiently, "that is all right as far as it goes. Whereabouts do the failure and the amateur photographer come in?"

"I'm coming to that directly," replied the advanced burglar. Naturally I kept my ears open for any news of the robbery, but heard none until after the distinguished visitors had driven away amidst the cheers of the crowd. Then I picked up with the idiotic amateur photographer, who said—

" 'Curious thing happened here last night, but all parties interested have decided to keep the matter out of the papers. A housebreaker entered the great singer's room last night, and got away with the strong-box in which she carries her jewels."

" 'Yes,' I remarked, indifferently; 'did he get away with much plunder?'

"The irritating idiot laughed, and said:

" 'What do you think? I should just like to see his face when he opened that strong-box. The fair singer had promised to let me take a photograph of her collection of jewels, and as she was wearing them yesterday afternoon and evening, it was arranged that as soon as she returned from the supper she would send them along by her maid to my room, so that I could photograph them first thing this morning, and return them before the company started. I've got the photographs, the fair owner has the jewels, and the enterprising burglar has only an empty iron box!'

"Hard luck, wasn't it?" concluded the advanced burglar, and the detective concurred.

_____________

4: Leonard's Reward

Edward Dyson

Punch (Melbourne)  11 Oct 1917

(As by Ward Edson)

WALKER was the most cordially detested man I had ever met. I was not long enough acquainted with the dear man, or in sufficiently close contact to have worked up the warm loathing for Henry that all the neighbours felt, but even at a distance, and without previous acquaintance or preliminary enquiry, Walker was sufficiently unpleasant.

You disliked the man for just living. Distrust of him was instinctive. His appearance, it was said with some truth, would turn a dog against him.

Henry Justin Walker's actions and attitudes were not deliberately planned to conciliate the people with whom he came in contact, or to conciliate public opinion at Woonah.

The man was a widower of about fifty-six, a short, heavily-built, bony man with thick, close-cropped hair and whiskers, and small, slow, sullen eyes. It was explained that there were sons and daughters, but all had fled from him as soon as they found their legs.

Walker's wife had died with the greatest pleasure imaginable, after twenty years of connubial blister with Mr. H. J. Walker.

"She was buried with real and abiding satisfaction," Morton said, and Morton had known her as well as it was possible for any of the neighbours to know anything of Walker. "I never saw relief so profoundly impressed upon the face of a corpse." Morton was wont to add— "Wherever that woman is, she is glad to be dead."

Henry was left alone in his large, square, bluestone house, a very gaol of a place, a bitter vicious, sullen man, without a discoverable friend, or even acquaintance, in the wide, wide world.

Only an entire stranger would work for Walker, and no man could remain an entire stranger to Walker for any length of time.

So, in time, Henry ceased the effort to work his land, and devoted himself to the task of becoming the most pertinacious and complete common nuisance known to man.

In the absence of proofs to the contrary, I may say he succeeded. He fought with everybody, he abused everybody, he would take unimaginable trouble to work off the meanest little schemes to the detriment of a neighbour, and any movement for the betterment of local conditions found in Henry Justin Walker an energetic and persistent opponent.

Most of the people in the district met Walker warmly in his own spirit, giving word for word and hurt for hurt; but Leonard's attitude was that of a man who regarded Walker as a distressing but inevitable defect in the landscape to which it was advisable to shut one's eyes, an evil odor to which it was expedient to close one's nose, and' an awful noise that necessitated the plugging of one's ears.

Ned Leonard was a neighbouring farmer who had come into the district in recent years; but it is-held that under his attitude of ignoring Walker lurked a hatred even keener than, that his neighbours cherished for the bête noir of Woonah.

Presently, when Henry Justin Walker became fully seized of the insulting significance of Leonard's treatment of him he began a dead set at the newcomer.

The first overt act on Walker's part towards his neighbour was purely malicious. Finding Leonard's big bay mare in the American waggon standing unguarded before the office of the "Banner" in Woonah township one day, Walker, who knew the mare well, passed under her nose, making an. ostentatious flourish of his pocket handkerchief.

Naturally, Jennie came near to throwing a back somersault, and bolted, arriving home with the shafts, the rest of the American waggon lay in scattered fragments along the road.

It was believed in the district that Leonard's Jennie had at same time in her career "seen a ghost." She was as staid a neddy as any sober-going farmer could desire; but show her a fluttering bit of white linen, and she lost all horse-sense and judgment, and, if not under strong restraint, went through anything to get away from her especial abomination.

On this occasion she practically went through Holloway's store. At any rate, she raked down the verandah, tore out the front window, and scattered Holloway's natty display of household! goods and ware all along the road.

Leonard, in addition to the practical loss of the trap, had to pay Holloway substantial damages, and Ned was in no position to part with ready money. The result of the trouble was a mortgage of £200 on the farm, for which Leonard had to pay 6 per cent, and the usual "charges" of those gentle philanthropists the financial agents.

Everybody thoroughly understood that Walker's act in flourishing the handkerchief under Jennie's nose was done with malice aforethought. He had anticipated the result, he openly rejoiced in it, and when next Ned passed along the road which Walker's stone house fronted, Henry sat on the gate, and greeted him with a guffaw that might have been, heard a mile off, and which followed Ned to his own door.

Ned Leonard was no angel himself. His blood was hot enough but he had restraint. Walker's laugh raised all the black bile in him. He would have felt less compunction about shooting Walker at that moment than over the killing of a predatory dingo.

But Walker was secure. "You cannot have the law on a man for merely using his pocket handkerchief in the street," as Morton explained to Ned. "If your horse had a bitter prejudice against pocket handkerchiefs, it is for you to keep an eye upon her in civilised resorts where people use handkerchiefs. I don't believe 'Walker ever used a handkerchief in his life before, but you can't prove that. You can't prove deliberate intention. He's got you, and you have to let it go at that."

Leonard shook his head. "No, I haven't," he said; "I'll get even with the dog yet."

That was the beginning of an open and malignant feud between Walker and Leonard.

Leonard no longer held his mouth, stopped his nose, and plugged his ears.

He met Henry Justin Walker in his cornet paddock one morning. Walker habitually cut across that paddock on his way to the township.

"Get off my land, you dog!" said Leonard. Henry Walker stood and grinned a mirthless grin like the grimace of a satyr.

"Get off!" Leonard repeated, approaching him threatingly.

They fought there and then. Leonard had some little proficiency in pugilism, and was a strong, well-set-up man of forty-four; but Walter was extremely powerful and, moreover, a dirty fighter. He fought all in. Anything that helped him went. He would bite, kick or gouge, and had no absurd prejudices against the use of sticks and stones.

Mrs. Leonard found her husband lying in an unconscious state some little time after, with a wound in his head, the result of a blow from a club as big as a fencing post.

Again Walker had no recourse to law. The blow had been dealt in self-defence. Moreover, Walker continued to use the paddock. He even walked in it more than before, and with insolent ostentation.

Ned Leonard was in a state of everlasting fury. He posted notices warning trespassers of prosecution. He set man traps, and one day, to his tremendous satisfaction, Walker was taken in a spring trap that nearly broke his leg, and caused him to walk with a limp for weeks.

This was some comfort, but the gratification was short-lived. Presently, Henry Justin Walker appeared in the paddock again, and with a pick and shovel, and his bovine laugh rattled at Leonard's windows.

This time Henry could not be put off. Walker had actually applied for a mining lease of a section of Leonard's corner paddock, and obtained it under the privilege of the mining on private property act.

Now, fortified by the law, Walter made daily excursions upon Leonard's land. Ned could not deny him access; and to maintain his right, Walker made some specious show of carrying on mining operations.

A fierce summer was upon Woonah, and Walker put in just enough time in his shaft to give an air of plausibility to his claim. The rest of the day he spent sitting on the flat rock overhanging the big, deep, quarried, spring-fed dam that was Leonard's chief water supply.

Sometimes Walker dangled his feet in the water from this rock, sometimes he drowsed upon it with a bottle of rum at his elbow, finding sufficient satisfaction in the knowledge that every hour so spent added to Leonard's fury.

Leonard had come to Woonah with the money carefully saved from long service in an office in the city. He had come with the determination to make his land pay, if hard continuous work and fair intelligence could do it. Now his better resolutions were forgotten, swamped by the burning passion of antipathy Walker had implanted in his heart.

It seemed now that nothing mattered but the necessity of being rid of this haunting incubus.

The thought of Walker as of something supernatural that must poison his whole life and enervate his every effort if he could not throw it off.

Then one morning, Billy, Leonard's helping hand, dashed into Leonard's kitchen, white-faced breathless, and stood facing his boss, scarcely able to articulate, so agitated was the boy.

"Walker!" he gasped. "He's in the dam. He's drowndin'!"

Leonard arose from the table. "He's fallen in ?" he said.

"Yes, yes. The big flat rock fell in with him. Quick, quick!"

"Why should I be quick?"

"But he's drowndin'. It's deep. He can't swim."

"Let him drown." Leonard sat down.

"But you must— you must, Ned," pleaded Mrs. Leonard. "You can't leave a fellow creature to perish."

Leonard looked his wife coldly in the eye, and strode forth. He went to the stables, threw the log-snagging harness on a horse, and then led the animal down to the quarry holes. The big flat root had gone. There was Walker still afloat, an empty rum bottle keeping him company.

Ned went into the water, fastened the snagging appliance to Walker's body, and then, going to his horse's head, deliberately towed the corpse out of the water on to the grass, where it lay, limp and contorted.

"I won't have the d—d carrion on my land," said Ned to the boy.

He struck the horse a blow, and drove it . across the paddock, towing Walker's body behind, out through a. broken set of rails on to the high road, where he cut the objectionable thing loose.

"I couldn't leave that to fester in my dam!" said Leonard, pointing to the body. "Now I don't care a curse what becomes of it."

Ned turned deliberately, replaced his rails, drove the horse back to the, stable, and, going indoors, resumed the task on which he had been engaged when first Billy appeared.

His wife came in a few moments later, pale as death, regarding Leonard with terrified eyes.

"I didn't think you could do it, Ned," she said.

Ned turned on her. "I have no more respect for that carcase that I would have for the body of a dog," he said.

"Billy has gone for the constable," said Mrs. Leonard. "Oh, this is terrible— terrible!"

Constable Hover took up Walker's body, and that evening came further astonishing news. Walker was not dead. There had remained a spark of life in his body, and on this Hover and Dr. Beachcoom had worked for three hours, till at length animation was restored.

Walker was taken on to the Horsham Hospital, and was very bad for some time, pneumonia having resulted from his great misadventure.

One thing Woonah gained from Walter's misadventure— he never returned to the district.

Henry Justin Walker sold his Woonah property, and in the course of three hard years, Leonard almost forgot him. But Ned was having a terrible hard time. The first mortgage had necessitated a second, and now, with the red hand of drought upon him, Leonard saw no prospect of lifting either.

Then came news of Walker's death. Henry had died in a Melbourne suburb, generally execrated.

There was a will. Walker had died worth twenty-seven thousand pounds.

The will bequeathed the whole of that money, "to," as the testament said, "the only man who deemed my life worth saving, the man who rescued me from drowning— Edward Leonard, of Woonah."

Walker had accepted Ned's action in dragging him from the water as an act of grace. Probably he had been told nothing but the bare fact that Ned had actaully dragged him from the dam.

Certainly, Walker never knew that in the darkness of the night previous to the accident Leonard had gone under the overhanging rock, and, with a pick, so loosened its foundations that it must subside with the weight of the first man who might tread upon it.

________

5: The Girl from Gunnedah

Edward S. Sorenson

1869-1939

Punch (Melbourne)  5 Dec 1916

WHEN MAT CONYERS went out back to win fortune, for a commendable purpose, Pauline Cowdery was living with her mother in Gunnedah; but now, a a he rode homeward to renew the pleasantries of three years ago, he reflected that she had charge of a small school in the bush. This, for a bushman, was a more ideal place for amatory pursuits than Gunnedah town; but there was an ugly doubt in Conyers' mind, in consequence of which no place at all seemed befitting just then. He had not won the fortune he had been so sure of, and he suspected that his return would not make Miss Cowdery feel any happier than usual. They had corresponded for a time; at first her letters began with, "My dear Mat," which subsequently became "Dear Mr. Conyers," and culminated in ominous silence after his last literary effort. He had sent her a nice card since then, an Easter greeting. This, too, had been unfruitful.

"Absence makes the heart grow fonder," he repeated many times as he rode along—"fonder of somebody else!"

The schoolhouse was a one-roomed weatherboard building, standing opposite the Cross Roads, and fronting a big scrub. Mrs. Cowdery's home was a mile further down the main road, which skirted the scrub. The other road ran through it, and was little used, except by Rusmus Bolger, a bachelor farmer. Conyers intended to put up at the farm for a week or so, that place being the nearest to his divinity. For the time being he hid his horses in the scrub and posted himself among the bushes at one side of the cross roads. He judged by the sun that school would soon be out, and Pauline would be walking home. A man could say a lot in the course of a mile walk on a lonely road, and Mrs. Cowdery would be glad to see him, and would ask him to tea; then Pauline would play the piano, and he would sing that song he sang to her last in Gunnedah, which he reckoned would make a stir among the old memories. Later she would see him to the gate, and if he had not won her before; then he was confident she would yield when he said "good night." They had been as good as sweethearts.

His thoughts were suddenly interrupted by the appearance of Rusmus Bolger. The big farmer halted at the end of the scrub track, holding a cabbage under one arm and a turkey under the other, and looked towards the school.

"Not out yet," he remarked, depositing his poultry and his vegetable on the ground, consulted his watch, which he carried in a leather pouch on his belt, and finally seated himself on the end of a log.

"Make they a good Sunday dinner," he said, addressing the cabbage and the gobbler. "Ought to ask I up arter this."

School came out, and the yelling juveniles dispersed in various directions. Bolger peered through the bushes, nervous and excited, and as Miss Cowdery stepped out he murmured fulsomely, "Dearest Pauline!" making at the same time a clumsy effort at throwing a kiss— which she couldn't see. Conyers stared— and frowned. He itched to kick the fellow, but Bolger was so big, and a scene just then would not improve matters. Apart from his bigness, and a matter of finances, there was nothing about the simple agriculturist to attract a smart young woman like Miss Cowdery. He was as dull as ditchwater, and his face was like tanned hogskin, set in a frame of tawny bristles that swept down under his throat from both ears. His chin and upper lit were shaven. He was well over forty, and half that time, to Conyers' knowledge, he had been in pursuit of a wife. The most neglected women laughed at him and called him a "big booby." Yet Conyers was jealous, knowing no other cause for Pauline's indifference. The booby had money, and matrimony is very often a matter of money.

Miss Cowdery came on to the road, carrying a pink parasol. Rusmus stepped out to meet her. So did Conyers, to the other's discomfiture. The smiles evaporated from his broad face, and a look of defeat and resentment came into his eyes.

"Day, Rusmus," said Conyers. "Going to market?"

Rusmus scowled. "Did ye want to see I?" suspiciously.

"Not just now; I'll be down to-night," answered Conyers. "How d'ye do, Miss Cowdery?"

"Why, Mr. Conyers, you're quite a stranger!" said that young lady, shaking hands delightedly. Rusmus couldn't shake hands; he was handicapped with too much farm produce. "When did you get back?" she asked.

"Just arrived," he answered.

"Lookin' for a job, baint ye?" Bolger interposed viciously.

Conyers didn't notice him.

"How's your mother?" he asked.

"Cabbage an' turkey for she," added Rusmus, pushing forward and nodding right and left.

"Oh, thank you! I'm sure she will be delighted." said Miss Cowdery with a faint blush. "I'll take the cabbage, and Mr. Conyers will carry the bird for me."

"I'll carry't," said Rusmus emphatically. The corner of his eye for a moment rested fiercely on the presumptuous Conyers.

"But there's really no necessity to trouble you, Mr. Bolger "

"No trouble't all," said Mr. Bolger, warning the young man off with a frown.

"Mr Conyers is coming up to see mother," Miss Cowdery concluded.

"I'll be company for him comin' back," said Bolger. "He be goin' to th' farm."

"Don't put yourself out on my account, Rusmus," said Conyers. "I'm used to bein' alone, an' I know the way to the farm."

"There be a pair on us, then," Rasmus returned with a vibrating laugh. "Come along, Miss Cowd'ry."

Conyers took the cabbage and walked on one side of the little school teacher, and Bolger walked on the other with the turkey. Conversation was strained and awkward. Mr. Bolger was the most embarrassed of the three, and he soon began to loathe turkeys. The presence of the intermeddling Conyers had turned his good intentions into a farce.

"Lovely weather we're having, aren't we?" Miss Cowdery remarked when they had studied landscape for some tirrie.'

"Splendid weather," Conyers assented.

"Grand weather," Bolger corroborated.

She scanned the firmament during the next few yards.

"I think we'll soon have rain," she said then.

"I think so," Conyers agreed.

"I think we will," Bolger iterated, looking aloft.

His foot hooked a protruding root, and in the effort to recover himself he, dropped the turkey. The bird, with a couple of kicks, freed its legs and cut into the scrub, Bolger plunging after it with his hat in his hand and distress signals streaming behind. Miss Cowdery laughed, and went on.

"Mother will, be disappointed," she said.

"Was she expecting the turkey?" asked  Conyers.

"She was expecting MY. Bolger," Miss Cowdery answered. "I wanted to pet rid of him, though, as you were coming up."

Conyers felt flattered, and for awhile his feet seemed to tread on air.

"Seems to have quite an attachment for your family," he said generously.

"Yes," Miss Cowdery admitted. "Don't be surprised to hear of a wedding in our neighbourhood in the near future."

Conyers was suddenly chilled.

"Young men must be pretty scarce round 'ere," he remarked sarcastically.

"Why so?"

"Rusmus Bolger's old enough to be your father."

"Well, he'll be a father, or, more correctly, a stepfather."

"Oh," said Conyers, his spirits on the up grade again. "It's your mother he's after?"

"Of course, goose! Did you think he'd be running after a chicken like me?"

"Old birds have young ideas at times," said Conyers. "You left off writing to me."

"It was best, Mr. Conyers," she rejoined. "It isn't customary, you know, for ladies to write to their gentlemen friends. It gives rise to false impressions. Here's mother: she'll be glad to see you."

Conyers was puzzled. At one moment he was at fever heat, at the next he felt like an ice chest. Three years ago he understood her, he thought, and was quite at his ease in her company; but the present Pauline Cowdery moved in a new atmosphere. Then she was the girl friend; now the young woman with expectations, more polished, more reserved, perhaps with loftier ideals. At all events, she made him feel that she was above him.

They were still sitting at table after tea when a horseman arrived. Pauline received him in the front room, and thereafter Matthew saw no more of her, though he heard her animated voice and merry laughter at frequent intervals. Then they adjourned to the piano, and both played and sang as though they were enjoying each other. Matthew tried to appear unconcerned, but it was hard, despite the old lady's efforts to entertain him.

"You'll help me with the washing up, won't you, Mr. Convers?" she said, bustling round the table nfter explaining that Pauline would be engaged for an hour or more; "and they don't want us, you know." Mr. Conyers chuckled and nodded, because her smiles and wink indicated that there was a joke about the premises somewhere. "You used to be quite smart at wiping the cups when we were in Gunnedah," she added.

So, while the young man in the front room monopolised Pauline, Matthew wiped the cups for mother, and put away the plates and dishes. After that he filled the kettle, like a good fellow, and cut the least bit of wood for the morning. Then the old lady produced a peck or two of green peas and emptied them out on the table.

"You used to like shelling peas in Gunnedah, Mr. Conyers," she insinuated. " 'Twill seem like old times to you."

Mr. Conyers drew his chair up and commenced on the pile of pods with rebellion in his eyes. It was a terrible infliction, but his patience survived it. He glanced at the clock, wondering if that person in the next room was going to make a night of it.

"It's early yet," said Mrs. Cowdrey. "Let me see; there's the raisins for the pudding. You used to enjoy stoning raisins when we were in Gunnedah. They were good times in Gunnedah, weren't they now, Mr. Conyers?"

"They were," Mr. Conyers admitted, and sighed.

The raisins took an hour. It was now 10.30.

The entertainment beyond the partition had ceased, and only a low laugh occasionally reached his ears. Mr. Conyers, consumed by jealousy, began to probe into the why and wherefore of things, and the information he elicited made him sadder than ever.

"He'll be going directly," said Mrs. Cowdery. "Meantime, I'll get you to peel a few small onions. You remember how we used to pickle them in Gunnedah?"

"Dynamite Gunnedah!" muttered Conyers. Aloud he said, "I'd be only too pleased, Mrs. Cowdery, but I'm afraid I can't stay "

"Oh, stay as long as you used to," she said laughing. "I'll make a drop of coffee, if you don't mind blowing up the fire for me, and we can do the onions while the kettle's boiling. Many's the time you blew the fire for Pauline when we were in Gunnedah. You remember those nights, Mr. Conyers?"

"Mr. Bolger will be tired of waitin' for me," Mr. Conyers protested. "An' my horses are tied up in the scrub. I'm sorry to— er—"

"Well, you'll come again, Mr. Conyers, won't you? I do like to talk to someone I knew in Gunnedah. And I'll be glad to see Mr. Bolger any time, tell him."

An hour later Mr. Conyers was admitted into the farmhouse by the crusty Bolger.

"Wonder ye didn't put 'n th' night while ye wur bart it," was that worthy's welcoming remark.

"You must make allowances for lovers, you know, Rusmus," said Conyers maliciously.

Rusmus dropped on to a block at the corner of the fireplace, and regarded him with the serious, meditative look of an owl.

"Did you overtake the gobbler, Rusmus?"

"Sit ye down," said Rusmus, motioning him to the block opposite. He spoke almost savagely, and for a minute after Conyers was seated he stared sulkily into the dying fire.

"Look ye 'ere, Conyers," he said presently, "that gal up yon es good es b'longs to I, an've 'ave no right to come poking abaht sp'ilin' things. 'Tis onfriendly."

"Well, that's pretty cool!" gasped Conyers, straightening up. "She was my girl before I went away, as you're aware, an' you took a mean advantage by makin' up to her in my absence. An' now— well, I would never a thought it of you, Rusmus!"

"How wor she your'n?" Rusmus demanded. "Ye wur never engaged to she; ye wur never th' man to ask she; an' ye've been away these three year. I tell ye, Conyers, 'tis I have the best right to she, an' I'll take it as onfriendly if so be ye don't disappear in th' twenty-four hour."

"The case seems to be a bit involved," said Conyers, grinning. "I thought Mrs. Cowdery was the peg you were tryin' to get your cap on."

Bolder shot two vindictive side glances at him, then crossed his legs and stroked his chin in silence.

"You send her cabbages," Conyers pursued, "an' the chook that stampeded was intended for her."

"Never mind abart they." said Bolger. "I know what I'm adoin' of, Mat Conyers; an' I want to know what be your intentions— right now."

"Well, franklv. Rusmus, I came back to take her in tow asrain; but. seem' as you're so struck, an' I'm not particularly shook on her myself. I don't mind giving way to an old mate if vou like to make it worth while."

"Spit it out." said Rusmus as Conyers paused.

"You'll admit you've got no show while I'm about," Conyers went on. "You haven't my good looks—"

"Never mind th' danged looks. Go on."

"You haven't my youth "

"I haven't yer poverty neither," snapped Bulger.

"Well then, the position is this," said Conyers. "I've got the girl, an' I'm hard up: you've got plenty of money, an' you want her."

"Ave?"

"Buy me out."

"Buy ye out!" cried Bolger. "Out'n what?"

"Mv right, title an' interest in Pauline Cowdery."

"How much?"

"One 'undred pounds."'

"Phugh!" cried Bolger, slewing away. "Ye never 'ad'n th' title 'n int'rest in she."

"You'll see all about that if I remain in the running," said Conyers. "She won't look in the direction of your pumpkin patch. Didn't she try to shake you off tins afternoon— before I'd said more'n good day to her?"

Mr. Bolger recalled this circumstance with a grimace.

"It be a big lot o' money to pay for the chance of a gal," he grumbled.

"It's your only chance," said Conyers. "Faint heart never won fair lady."

"This 'ere touches th' heart an' th' pocket same time," said Bolger meditatively. "An' there baint no guarantee es I'll get she arter all."

"You've got to risk that: I'll guarantee you'll not get her any other way," said Conyers. "Stands to reason," he went on, thrusting out his chest. "Here am I— young, smart, an' good lookin' "

"An' poor as Lazarus," snapped Bolger.

"An' there you, a slommicky, thick-headed, ugly old fossil—"

"Don't be too darn pussonal, Conyers," Bolger interrupted, fidgetting uneasily on his block.

"Why," Conyers went on, "It's worth half the farm to you to get a formidable rival like me out of the way, an' have her all to yerself 'ere in the quiet bush. A man that couldn't win a girl under those circumstances wants poll-axin'. An' it's only because I'm dead pushed, an' must realise on the security, mind you, that I'd countenance such a proceeding at all."

"I'll give ye £25 down, an' £75 when I marry she," Rusmus bargained.

"Won't do," said Conyers seriously. "Haggling over the price like that is an insult to Pauline Cowdery. What would she think of me, selling out for a paltry sum like that? I'm ashamed of you, Rusmus i"

"Fifty poun' down," said Rusmus.

"There ain't a girl in the district can hold a candle to Pauline," Conyers went on. "She's a real charm anyway you take-her.... Dunno as I ought to give up my claim at all. 'Tisn't the right thing to do by her. Girls fret terrible after a chap they're shook on; I must see her again first, anyhow. I'd like one kiss "

" 'Ere," said Rusmus anxiously, "I'll give ye £60 now if so be ye sign th' agreement, an' clear out'n 'ere be sun up to-morrow 'thout sayin' good bye. There y'are!"

Conyers considered, while Rusmus produced a cash bag and writing materials. 'Conyers was really in a tremor of excitement at his success, but he was afraid a too-ready acceptance would arouse the other's suspicions. He haggled for another half-hour ; then, with much show of reluctance and many remorseful mutterings, ns "Poor little Pauline! You will take care of her, won't you, Rusmus," he pocketed the money, and surrendered his privileges in the following terms:

"This is to certify that I have received the sum of £60 from Rusmus Bolger, Esq., for my right, title and interest; if any, in the person of Pauline Cowdery, spinster; and I promise faithfully that henceforth I will not make love to her, or see her, or write to her; neither will I talk, walk, ride, or dance with her, or connive and covenant with her in any way whatsoever. God save the Queen.

"(Signed) Matthew Conyers."

Conyers departed north next morning;  and that evening Rusmus Bolger called on the Cowderys.

"Where's Mr. Conyers?" asked the widow.

"Mrs. Cowdery," said Rusmus seriously; "that man be a fraud. He-he-betrayed ye."

"Goodness me!" cried the old lady in shocked tones.

"I didn't ought to tell ye," said Rusmus; "but, seein' as ye be a neighbour "

"Whatever do you mean?" Mrs. Cowdery demanded angrily, as Rusmus paused and made grimaces at the cat.

"He told me, Mrs. Cowdery, that, bein' a friend o' your'n, he didn't care to be pokin' abart, there bein' an old love affair 'tween him an' she—"

"Who's she?"

"Miss Pauline. An' seein' as he be hooked to 'nother gal up country "

He shut up like an oyster as Mrs. Cowdery. dropped into a chair and laughed heartily. "Oh, the goose!" she said. "As though he didn't know last night!"

"Know what?"

"Why, she's to be married shortly to Mr. Crosby, the station manager."

Bolger's mouth opened involuntarily, and pale, blotches broke out on his tanned cheeks. Mrs. Cowdery was rocking herself and smiling, good-naturedly.

"Poor Mat," she said musingly. "He used to be such a help to us when we were in Gunnedah. I'm sorry he went away without saying goodbye."

"That a fact?" Mr. Bolger, having just now found his voice, gasped out.

"About Mr. Conyers "

"Bart... Crosby "

"Oh, yes. Didn't you know?"

" 'Tis a fact!" Bolger couldn't believe it.

"Of course. Why, what's the matter, Mr. Bolger?"

Bolger looked as if he was going to have a fit. Suddenly he brought his hand down hard on his thigh and jumped up.

"You'll excuse I, Mrs. Cowdery," he said awkwardly. "I forgot to feed th' pigs!" And dabbing his hat on his head he retreated in disorder.

A YEAR later, Mat Conyers received a letter from Pauline's mother.

"You will be surprised to hear that we have had a double wedding since you left," she wrote. "The contracting parties, as you will guess, were Pauline and Mr. Crosby, and myself and your friend of the farm...  Don't forget to call when you're round this way, and we'll have a chat about old times in Gunnedah.

Yours faithfully, Helen Bolger."

_______________

6: Personally Conducted

George Allan England

1877-1936

Adventure Dec 1910

GAY sparkled the January sun upon the waters of the Vieux Port with their swarming, bright-sailed craft, and gay rang out the songs from little groups here, there, along the Quai.

In the air floated strange odors from the carts of waffle-sellers, vendors of fried fish, dealers in pink-fleshed sea-urchins. An old peasant woman, her brows bound with a kerchief of blue, passed by.

Everywhere loitered the holiday throng— free, happy, careless, for it was Sunday morning on the waterfront at Marseilles, and over the Mediterranean the great sun of Provence was glowing warm.

But in the heart of Robert Fleming rose no response to all that life, color and gaiety as he stood aft on the lower deck of the Bois Sacré, the little Chateau d'If steamer, and moodily gazed out through the jungle of shipping at the sea. To him that southern merrymaking meant less than nothing. The thermometer of his spirits marked minus four hundred, the absolute zero of empty space; for Bob was stone broke there, more than three thousand long and weary miles— wet miles— from little old Broadway.

He was hungry, too. He needed a bath, a sleep, a shave and several other things that had of late been rarities for him. With a rueful squint in his blue eyes and a twist of his humorous mouth he glanced down at his shoes. One of them was torn.

"Hmm!" reflected Bob. "Even though that San Reno watch-dog did commit suicide, that doesn't make his tooth-marks whole, now, does it?" Sadly he shook his head.

"Rather objectionable, that is, for a fact," he admitted to himself. "So are these burns on my coat where the cinders landed that night. Never again for mine, bareback-riding stunts on a French locomotive tender!" And with solemnity he raised his right hand into the sunlit air.

"Never again for Monte Carlo, either!" he growled. "Say, it seems to me the hotel chap there might have let me have my razor, at least, when he foreclosed on the baggage. Oh, hang the place and the luck and— everything! I was the original Solid ivory, all right enough, to leave home that way just because a girl said 'No,' and because my governor got nasty about it with his remarks that if I wasn't man enough to win her, I wasn't man enough to suit Fim?! Uncommonly fond, the governor was, of Eleanor. I reckon it runs in the family; I've still got it bad, myself, even after all that's happened because of her. Bad, bad mighty bad!

"What kind of a fool idea did I have, anyhow? Thought I'd make things better by coming over here and trying to forget 'em? The devil!" And he shrugged his shoulders, over which hung by straps five shiny pairs of marine-glasses—glasses that represented his last desperate hope of salvation from the pit of hunger.

"I wonder what she'd say, now, if she knew," he presently resumed. "I suppose I might rig up some way to cable home— but no, not in a thousand years, after what the pater said when I vamoosed! Nobody can tell me to go hang— nobody at all— no, not even Fleming, Senior! Nothing doing with the cable. I'll plug this game along myself, now that ve gone and got mired, even if I have to live and die a Frenchman. It's lucky I was brought up on languages and such— otherwise I'd certainly be in bad. Well, I've played square, anyhow, and made a game fight of it, and I'm not dead— yet! But these glasses aren't such a much, now, are they, to stand off the wolf with, eh?" Contemplatively he studied his slim little stock in trade.

"Cost me my last three francs to hire 'em and to get the concession on this tub, today, with badge," he reflected sadly. ''Let's see— two francs a pair I'll charge. If I let em all, that's ten. I stand to clear seven francs, if the tourists bite! Seven francs! A dollar forty. Magnificent! But—supposing they don't bite, what then? Huh, it's me to the fast-cure, that's all. They say fasting isn't so bad, once you get the hang of it. But Pm not keen on sleeping out on the race-track, down there by the Prado. No, not visibly!" By comparison, even "Grandpa's" fifty-centime cots in the rue du Musée looked palatial. Bob groaned.

As though answering that groan, the little steamer's whistle shrilled up into the bright morning air, piercing through the jumble of noises on the Quai.

"Montez à bord, messieurs!" harangued the ticket-seller on the wharf. "Montez à bord!"

Bob walked to the stern, sat down on one of the dingy red cushions, and whistled, too— a bar from "All In, Down and Out!" Through force of habit he felt for his pipe, but, recalling that he hadn't even a fill of the cheapest brown-papery French tobacco, relapsed to inaction. There was nothing to do for a little while yet, anyhow. Even that brief respite from humiliation was a boon. Not until the steamer should have left the picr did Bob plan to invade the upper deck where the passengers had, for the most part, already been assembled when he had come aboard. For, once away from the land, he felt there would be less chance of escape from his projected importunities. But at thought of what lay before him he set his teeth and swore.

The boat, her engines panting and coughing, swung gradually under way. Out from the tangle of yachts and sailboats she drew and began threading her passage among the fishing craft in the Bassin— some lying at anchor with red and yellow sails furled, others slowly moving hither or yon. The tall buildings on either hand of the port began to slip away. Past a row of gray torpedo-boats lying side by side the steamer plowed. Far ahead the huge fabric of the transporter-bridge, straddling like a spidery steel Colossus of Rhodes across the entrance to the harbor, began to loom vast and high. "Great guns, now for it!" gulped Bob, wetting his parched lips. He realized that at last the moment was at hand when he must swallow his pride— if he were subsequently to swallow anything else—and when, for the first time in his life, he must approach the Public, that inchoate, close-fisted monster, with the idea of trying to sell it something. '"Here's where I win out—or swear off the eating habit. Buck up!"

ii

HE took a grip on himself, slung the glasses over his strong shoulder as nonchalantly as he could, set his hat straight, and then, with the most unwilling feet that ever a man dragged, started along the narrow runway that led amidships to the upper deck.

A couple of men were leaning over the rail, close by the stair. Bob noticed them subconsciously. One was of medium build; the other tall and lean, yet powerful. Italians both, they seemed. Tourists they certainly were not. The shorter one wore a dingy white béret, or flap cap, with its wide borders lopping down about his ears. From his loose lips dangled a cigarette. He seemed a bit greasy, Bob thought; even his black mustache shone, as with nervous fingers he twisted it. The taller shot at Bob a furtive, quick, all-seeing glance from as evil a pair of eyes as ever glowered in a man's head. But Bob was too vastly perturbed by his approaching ordeal to give them more than passing note. For now he was at the companionway— was climbing— was on the upper deck.

He looked inquiringly at a sailor there, a stout chap, with a broad and hairy chest showing through the open V of his blouse, a red-tasseled cap on his curly head. The sailor nodded. "Ca ira, c'matin," he remarked confidentially, fore-hoping a division of the spoils. Bob tried to smile, but failed. Not the clear meridional sunlight, not the freshening breeze as the steamer drew near the bridge, not all the life and beauty of that magnificent scene, could infuse him with cheer. For now, immediately, he stood face to face with the most humiliating moment he had ever yet known in all his eightand-twenty years. The time was upon him!

By the starboard rail an elderly double-chinned Frenchman was sitting with madame his wife— true bourgeois types, visitors, perhaps, from some provincial town. These good folk Bob addressed with stammering and uncertain solicitation. To them he heid out a pair of glasses. "Two francs for the trip, monsieur! Only two francs for the entire trip!"

But monsieur merely shook a negativing finger, then with his cane continued to point out to madame the ancient Greek inscription on Fort St. Jean, abeam. To Bob he paid no further heed than to the steamer's funnel. Bob, for the first time in his life, realized the precise difference between buying a thing and trying to sell it. A quick stab of fear pierced through his anger and humiliation. He turned, reddening, to a whiskered German tourist, who rebuffed him by not even glancing up from a muchthumbed Baedeker. Bob felt hot desires to punch the German's jowl, but remembered his status and moved away slowly from one passenger to another, offering, always offering, the glasses.

Fate favored at the sixth encounter. The boat had now passed the forts and was abreast the Chateau du Pharo, where once dwelt Napoleon III. A little Swiss lady in black, batted by this lure, showed interest in the glasses; but at the price she stuck. She offered one franc. Bob demanded one-franc-filty. They compromised on onctwenty-five. He handed her the glass, then waited, sick at heart, while she fumbled out the coin, The silve: piece and the five hig, worn coppers seemed to burn his palm. Hastily he pocketed them, and with the remaining stock began again his penitential plea.

The Bois Sacré, veering to pass an inbound three-master, was now abreast the beacon on the point and was beginning to make her manners to the swell of the open sea. Around her spiraled the gulls, screaming. A slim, swilt motor-boat clove the waters far indeed; the brr-r-r-r-r of its exhaust crackled sharply through the golden morning air. To north, to south, the coast opened out—gray-white mountain ranges, with terraced slopes to which clung dul green patches of olive-orchards as they climbed toward dazzling patches of snow en distant peaks.

Keenly the sea-wind blew. Before it the white-caps curled, frothing the clear green waters to spun silver. Beyond the long smudge from an outbound liner. From the gilded statue of Notre Dame, high above the city, and from the lenses and metal roofs of the lighthouses in the harbor flashed the reflected sun. Already, far ahead, showed the squat Chateau d'If, crouching on its barren isle of cream-tinted volcanic rock.

But Bob was caring for nothing of all this. The interest of the tourists, their enthusiasms and eager platitudes stirred him not even to a smile. He stood there, suddenly very sick at heart, trembling a little, dazed and gasping; for, close up to the bow, leaning on her graceful elbow on the rail—sat she!

Clad in a long and loose coat of pongee, with a wide straw hat whence fluttered a scarf of crimson silk, there she was— Eleanor. Her face was hidden from him, but by the contour of her cheek and by the masses of her reddish-brown hair he knew her only too well. His heart struck work a minute, then threshed out like a frightened colt. With widened eyes he stared, the glasses dangling from his hand, a type and image of dismay.

All his one-time courage gone, Bob's first clear thought was of retreat, of self-effacement— anything to escape the gross humiliation of discovery. But that was not to he. For the girl, turning to watch a purple fisher-boat that foamed heeling past, its broad lateen outspread like a huge bird's wing, swept the deck with her eyes. She saw him. As from the lash of a dog-whip Bob cringed under the impact of her gaze. With but a momentary heightening of color, with hardly a quiver of the lids, she looked him over for a moment, took in the details of his shabbiness, observed the glasses, finished with a study of his ragged shoe. Before that steady look Bob shrank, quivering, and to his checks mounted a burning torrent of blood.

Then suddenly the manhood in him fared out. Toward her he took a step or two along the rolling deck. But Eleanor, with an almost imperceptible shrug, a lifting of the arched eyebrows, a little smile, turned back again to her contemplation of the sea. The indifference of her back inhibited him, numbed and paralyzed him. The stammering words he had half formulated perished on his lips.

For a moment his face went yellow-white as ivory. Then into his fine eves leaped twin fires of caustic anger. Vanished in an instant all notions of retreat. And with a fixity of purpose that denied even the possibility of failure, his head held high, voice resonant, he began once more:

"Two francs, messieurs, mesdames—only two francs for the entire trip! Indispensable, messieurs! Magnificent view— two francs, two francs, mesdames! Only two francs!"

iii

UP THE long, winding incline from the landing-stage to the gate in the wall surrounding the chateau the passengers were climbing, single file. Bob, with but a single pair of glasses now hanging from his shoulder, watched them from the deck. Tn his heart lay a bitterness the like of which he never had thought possible. Upon his lip curled a smile, more than half a snecr, that showed the even white row of his teeth. And to himself he muttered something that wouldn't look well in print.

Not even the coins that weighted his pecket diverted his bitter thoughts. The picturesqueness of the scowling walls and towers with the lighthouse over all, the surf-washed rocks, the long brown rolls of fisherman's nets drying in the sun— nothing of this appealed to him, for the crimson hat of Eleanor had just disappeared within the gate. The girl had gone without so much as even a single backward glance at him.

"Odd, infernally odd, eh," thought he, "that the world shouldn't be big enough to spare me this? I might have known she was on this side of the pond— she comes over almost every Winter— but this sort of hard luck beats me!"

He paused a moment, then resumed: "I suppose she's with that everlasting Aunt Ellen of hers. Probably left the old person at the hotel, whichever one she's at. No entrée for me there, that's evident. Ah, well—" Puzzled, angry, sore, he felt again for the tobacco that was not.

Toward him, along deck, lounged the graft-hunting sailor.

"Is it that monsieur goes ashore?" asked he.

Bob shook a surly head and grunted. Already, in more prosperous days, he had visited the place. It held nothing of interest for him now, even had Eleanor's presence there not withheld him. He turned away disgustedly and went below to sit and wait the intervening three-quarters of an hour till the party should have returned, Gloomily he resigned himself to bitterness and ennui.

By the rail the two Italians were still standing. They seemed undecided about something— perplexed, in disagreement. At sight of Bob, the tall one nudged the other and lowered his voice, but not before Bob had caught a sinister word or two— "L'Inglesa! Non c'è pericolo, ti dico!"— that whetted his attention and drew his eyes to narrow slits.

The Italians moved away toward the gangplank. Bob looked out to sea and began whistling again, carelessly enough, but his heart was thudding. "L'Inglesa?" thought he. "The Englishwoman?" But there was no Englishwoman aboard. "They must mean Eleanor!" he realized, mad clear through in an instant that such ruffians should even have dared speak of her atall. And, too, "Non c'è pericolol"—'No danger!"—What could that mean? Danger to whom? Boh's mind boiled with sudden violent suspicion, with increased anger. A hard look came into his eyes.

"I guess," said he, half aloud, as the two fellows started up the foot-path, "I rather guess, my friends, that you'll bear watching!"

Into his thoughts came the memory of two costly rings that Eleanor always wore— rings that the men might possibly have seen. Once there had been three rings, but— Bob grimaced sourly at the recollection of how that third ring had been given back to him. Never since that day, five months ago, had it left its pocket; never had even the bitterest hardships of the past weeks so much as tempted him to pawn it— the ring that she had worn. Bob shook himself back into the present and looked up. The two men had vanished. Quickly he left the Bois Sacré and followed them.

By the time he reached the stony yard which lay within the wall and in front of the château they had already passed the castle entrance. Bob steered a quick passage between the Scylla of post-card and shell-souvenir booths to right, and the Charybdis of a beer-garden with hurdy-gurdy music to left, and pressed forward through the main gate with the half-effaced inscription, BAT'A, into the square inner court.

"Not here! And Eleanor's not here, either!" thought he, with a quick glance round at the stone well to one side, the pavement worn smooth by feet innumerable, the shuttered windows and the ironrailed stair that wound up, story by story, to the interior balconies whence opened the tiers of cells.

Two sirens behind a show-case smiled on him, proffering more post-cards: but Bob only touched the badge upon his lapel and shook his head, then picked up one of the little pale blue tapers laid out for visitors, and started up the first flight of ancient stone steps.

Since, save for the two card-sellers, the court was empty, Bob knew the party must all be above with the guide, doing the conventional round— inspecting the cell of the Iron Mask, the dungeons of the Abbé Faria and of Monte Cristo, the iron-lidded oubliettes with their black and hideous memories, the lookout-platform, the towers, and all the rest. Up he climbed. As he went, a sound of voices and of footsteps echoing on stone, above, told him the chateau-keeper was leading his flock along one of the hanging galleries.

Bob paused, suddenly embarrassed. Perhaps the party might be coming down. Perhaps he might have to meet Eleanor face to face on the narrow stair. If so— since she could not possibly have divined his motive in following her, a motive morveover, probably quite groundless— he could reap nothing from this espionage save a harvest of added scorn.

The girl might think him trying to dispose of the last pair of glasses which still hung over his shoulder. She might imagine he had sought her here, in this undeniably romantic spot, to beg a moment's parley on the high terrace overlooking the vast blue floor of the Mediterranean, gold-spangled by the magic sun. She might even— but Bob put all contingencies away. No matter what might come of it, he felt he must press on and up toward the square of blue that gleamed above the battlements; for, rounding the opposite side of the enclosure, on the second balcony above him, passed the guide. After him, singly or in little groups, straggled the tourists, holding their smoking tapers. Bob waited, watched, till the last of them had reached the stairs leading to the stairs atop the castle, but Eleanor was not among them— and neither were the two Italian rowdies.

Bob thought a moment, then— thought quick and hard, with a curious premonitory sinking round his heart. To his forehead he pressed a corded hand. His hunger and his weakness had all vanished. He knew, from a previous visit, that sometimes a tourist lingered in some vault or cell to carve initials in the stern, forbidding walls— to trace them there with candle smoke; perhaps to gaze out through the rusty grilled slits of windows at the sea, with banal reminiscence. But Eleanor was not that kind. If she were not with the others there must be some more cogent reason. The absence of the ruflians, too, strengthened his presentiment into a heart-sickening certainty. Their absence and the girl's, he knew, would not be noticcd for some time. Occasionally visitors preferred to wander by themselves rather than follow the guide. The island afforded many a secluded place to sit and think. Oft-times tourists wailed over from one boat to the next. Every circumstance in the strange old place favored a bold crime and a successful getaway.

"By heaven," gasped Bob, 'there's something wrong here— dead wrong! I'm going to find out what it is, right now!"

On up the stairs he ran, to the third gallery; then stopped, undecided, glancing this way and that, at the grim square doors and openings of the cells.

"Eh? What's that?" cried he. For from behind the iron-bound planks of the corner door, farthest from where he stood, issued a dull, faint sound— a sound as of a cry, quick-stifled.

"Good Lord!" he gulped, then with blind fury hurled himself along the runway toward the door.

iv

BUT before he slung his weight against it he stopped short. Even in his fear and rage he understood the futility of an assault upon that girded strength; understood, too, the danger of making any outcry, of summoning help, even though time remained for that. Quick as an clectric spark the necessity of stratagem flashed to him; and with three cautious, furtive taps upon the door, he whispered sibilantly through the crack where the time-warped wood had shrunk from the stone jamb:

"Sssss-tttt!... Un momento! ... Un momentin!"

Inside, he heard a quick and startled word, then an answering voice. Followed a brief silence. Then a bolt grated. The door swung back an inch or two. The space widened. Out through the opening lowered a dark and evil eye.

Bob heard an oath. Against the door a weight was thrown; but already Bob's foot was in the crack. With scarlet rage Bob's whole strength, thewed by years of training, hurled itself against the oaken planking. The door burst inward. Bob recled through, just as the taller of the Italians, overbalanced, sat down heavily on the bricked floor.

So quickly it all happened that Bob never quite knew the exact sequence of events. Half-blinded by his sudden entry from dazzling light to darkness, he caught only a glimpse of a white something crouched at the farther side of the round dungeon— of a gaping black cavity in the center of the floor— of a muscular and vicious figure that leaped toward him. Then Bob struck out, struck as though to kill, struck with every ounce of strength in his hard arm and knotted shoulder.

He felt his fist go crack! against a jaw. He felt something give and crumple— saw the figure lying contorted on the bricks; heard a gasping cry— the voice of Eleanor. But, before he could run to her, up scrambled the other Italian. In the half-light glimmering through the doorway, Bob saw a flicker of steel in a raised hand.

Bob dodged and circled. To close in on that blade, that murderous hand, he realized were suicide. And, as by inspiration, he swung the heavy marine-glasses free from his shoulder. By the long strap he whirled them, as a gaucho whirls the bola. Backward he stepped. Then with a quick forward run he drove them, full force, at the Italian's brutal head.

They struck with a dull, crushing impact. Up flew the man's arms. The blade clanked as it spun against the wall. It dropped no quicker than the man. Bob saw him sprawl, twitch and grow still.

"Bob!" he heard the girl's cry.

To her he ran. By her he knelt. In his vigorous arms he raised her, half-fainting, half-hysterical, "Hurt? Hurt, little girl?" he cried.

"Oh, they— they said—"

"No matter what they said, or what they offered to show you, in here," Bob answered, divining all, shuddering at the black menace of the abyss, the mouth of the oublietie that yawned in the middle of the vaulted dungeon. "No matter about that! Are you hurt— hurt? Tell me!"

"Only my finger, maybe. I fought— when they tried—"

Bob raised her hand to his trembling lips.

"They didn't get the rings, after all, did they? They'll get nothing but about ten years apiece!" he laughed, with a quick reaction of nerves. "And I— say— I've got one you can wear again if— oh, hang it!  Shall I wire the governor, and make the rest of this trip a— 'personally conducted'? Tell him the— marine-glass business is a sure winner— and— and— shall I, little girl?"

Eleanor's arms about his neck, there in the gloom, her lips on his, gave all the answer that he asked.

_____________

7: The Little Grey Ghost

Alice C. Tomholt

1887-1949

Weekly Times (Melbourne) 2 Nov 1918

THE LITTLE sitting-room was all cosy with firelight, and the soft, quiet glow of a rose-shaded lamp. And everywhere was the sweetness of the spring flowers that she had gathered from the garden only that morning.

A quaint green bowl of late freesias beside Jimmie's ash-tray on one of the small tables seemed to be trying to speak to her— to plead with her through the medium of its fragrant breath. But she had outgrown all that kind of thing, she told herself. She had come into contact with too many of the realities of life to be able to imagine any longer that flowers had voices, soft, dulcet, fairy-like voices with which to hold sweet converse with human souls. And, besides, she thought miserably, now that shipwreck had befallen the lives of Jimmie and herself, and they had mutually decided to separate, it would take far more than the breath of freezias, be it ever so intoxicating and piercing, to persuade her to stay with him.

This last foolish little quarrel, which was really just one of an incessant run of previous ones, had grown somehow into a mountain that would stand immovably forever between them. But she was glad, she assured herself defiantly, that they had at last decided to end it all; glad that they had decided to sell up their home— the little home that they had furnished so gladly and blindly just a few short years before. It was far better to settle things completely between them, and each go their separate ways. The house, if it remained as it was for one of them to continue living in, would prove too much of a link with the past.

Yes, it was far better. They would both be far happier, she told herself, as she sat on the hearthrug in front of the flickering fire, sorting out her letters and papers from her drawer of the little writing-desk that she had shared with Jimmie. Nothing had been the same since little Jimmie Junior had gone out of their lives. It seemed that it could never be the same again. His going had upset their nerves, and had made them unsatisfied with life as it had been before his glorious coming. This incessant squabbling over little things— little silly things that grew somehow into terrible mountains before they quite knew where they were— was very wearying. It was perhaps no wonder that they had both grown so irritable and snappy. Why, this little argument after dinner tonight. How ridiculous it seemed, looking back on it now. It had begun just with a slight difference of opinion about the meaning of a certain speech in the third act of a play that they had gone quite happily to see the evening before. And yet it had proved the severing-knife that was to finally cut asunder the vows which should have bound them for all time!

She lifted the papers and things one by one out of her drawer as it lay on the rug before her; the soft light of the rose-shaded lamp gleaming on the gold of her hair and accentuating the softness of the brown velvet frock that Jimmie had admired so much— when they were not in a squabbling mood! There were so many foolish things that had to be burnt— Jimmie's extravagant courtship letters, for instance, and a flower or two that she had kept for some silly sentimental reason connected with the time or place of their giving. Most of them were from Jimmie. There was the red rose that he had picked from the wild wealth of her old home garden on the blue-skied afternoon when he had asked her to marry him. It was wrapped up in tissue-paper, and crumbly with age. And in another piece of tissue-paper was the beautiful white rose that he had thrown through her window when she was so dreadfully ill with a fever just the spring before their marriage.

It was so foolish of people to keep things like that, she thought now. They always had to be destroyed at some time or other. She herself intended to travel for a while when things were completely settled between Jimmie and herself, and she could, of course, not be burdened with the care of superfluous possessions.

But a little ache of pain tugged irresistibly at her heart-strings as she laid several little withered treasures on the pile of letters that lay, awaiting cremation, on the rug beside her. It was strange, how the breath of flowers , lingered to haunt one with memories so long after they had died.

Jimmie, set of mouth and grim of eye, had taken his drawer into the dining room. They did not intend to waste any time, now that their minds were so completely settled upon this matter of separation. He had fiercely switched on every light in the dining room, and flung back the silken shades. But it must be horribly cold in there without a fire, she thought, with quite unconscious wifely solicitude.

The folding-door that divided the two rooms was half-open! She could hear the angry rustle of papers, and an occasional sound of tearing. She wished vaguely that he had closed the door between them. She— she hated the sound of tearing paper, especially when that same paper was, in all probability, the delicately-tinted Ascolan Bond on which she had written so many dear little things to him when their lives had been golden with love, not gray with an obstinate anger and impending loss.

She wished he would burn those letters, instead of tearing them up so viciously. It would be a far more dignified ending for the poor things, she told herself miserably.

But she roused herself then with swiftly returning defiance and anger. What a weak idiot she had been to allow her thoughts to wander on in such a ridiculous fashion. He could let the miserable, neglected, pink-eyed, beastly little French poodle next door eat her letters for all she cared!

One letter in the far corner of her drawer was tied separately with a dainty piece of white ribbon. She could not burn that one, she thought, with sudden panic. It was the one Jimmie had written to her the night before their wedding. It had prophesied such blissful joy for them both— such eternal love.

And it had all ended in this.

A little ugly smile of bitterness spoilt her fresh young mouth for a moment. She would burn this letter, too, she decided with a sudden fierce determination. It seemed such a mockery now, with the horridness of that stormy quarrel of an hour ago still so fresh in her mind.

But, as she was adding the letter to the pile of others at her side, a certain strange thickness about it arrested her attention. Some other foolish little treasure had evidently been placed in it. Just for a moment she wondered curiously what it was, then remembered.

It was one of the little silken socks which she had found stowed away somehow between the padding of the big green chair against which she was now leaning, just about a week after little Jimmie Junior had died. Taking the tiny thing from out its precious wrapping with slim hands that trembled a little, it seemed to her that he had come back into the room a wistful-eyed little grey ghost, reproving her quite silently for the present wretched state of affairs between Jimmie Senior and herself. Oh, she told herself, with a sudden tremulous hurrying of her breath, he had belonged to them both, that adorable little creature who had stayed so short a while to bless them and make a heaven of their little home. Everything had been so beautiful, so complete, in those days. Jimmie and she had never had the slightest ghost of an inclination to quarrel over silly little things while Jimmie Junior reigned like a splendid small king over them. If he had lived he would have proved an unbreakable, precious link, binding them in love to all that was sweetest and best in life.

She remembered the night she had found those socks, and how she had cried, and how tenderly Jimmie had comforted her, and how she had given one of the little silken things into his keeping, placing her own one in the most precious covering she could think of. And how reverently Jimmie and she had placed each ot their small mementoes in their respective drawers of the little writing-desk.

Oh if only that palship were theirs now! If ony that distressing habit ot petty arguing had not sprung up like a devil between them— smiling and playful at first, but growing gradually hideous and leering, and, at last, destructive.

A lonely little figure in the soft roseglow of lamp and firelight, she quite still on the rug beside the forgotten litter of papers about the tumbled drawer. How very quiet it was in the room now. The windows were opened wide to the cool sweetness of the night air, yet not a breath of wind from the garden stirred the daintiness of the muslin curtains. Even Jimmie had grown strangely quiet in the next room— as if he had fallen asleep over the tearing up of her letters. She wished vaguely that the wind would spring up. Even the fire had died down into a quiet red glow. It seemed that the little grey ghost of Jimmie Junior was whispering everywhere, and that at last he crept close to her side to plead with her, just as the fragrant breath of the freezias had tried to do so little a while before.

She pressed his tiny sock close to her lips with a sudden irrepressible little sob that fell softly across the silence of the room, and dropped her goldeny head forward on arms flung out across the soft padding of the chair in which she and Jimmie and Jimmie Junior had so often sat all together in absolute happiness and content. Her world seemed to have fallen completely about her ears. She seemed to be suffocating in the dust of its destruction. But she smothered her sobs fiercely in a cushion. She did not want Jimmie to guess that her heart was just breaking with the loneliness of it all.

She did not know that in the next room also the little gray ghost was whispering and pleading. Jimmie, too, had found a tiny sock— his share of the pair that had been found that night so long ago. But he was a man. He did not cry. He just sat perfectly still, with the tiny sock-thing clenched closely in his big hand, until across the throbbing silence there fell that smothered sob.

With a little glad thrill of joy swiftly soothing her lonely fears, she surrendered herself completely when he knelt beside her and gathered her into his arms.

"We're such a pair of fools," she heard him say huskily, as he kissed the top of her goldeny head.

And a little grey ghost stole out contentedly into the silence of the night.

_______________

8: Valley of the Black Sun

Leroy Yerxa

1915-1946

Amazing Stories, April 1943

THE Gypsy girl's soft fingers traced the delicate lines in the palm of Gloria Duncan's hand. The Gypsy's forehead wrinkled slightly and when their eyes met across the table, there was a look of fear in them that made her lips firm and white. An expression of bewilderment that mirrored itself on the faces of Gloria Duncan and the tanned young man at her side.

"Well?" Gloria said. "I came to have my fortune told. What do you see in my future that's bright? Any tall, dark young men?"

She turned to blond-headed Ray Walters, and the deep love in her eyes betrayed her innermost thoughts. At the expression on his face, she hesitated. Walters looked as though he had seen a ghost. His dark eyes were on the Gypsy. Slowly, Gloria Duncan faced the Gypsy girl once more. The thing that had started as a lark for the two of them, had for some reason beyond her ken become dark and sinister.

"I— I don't understand," she didn't know why dread welled into her heart. "Please, what is the matter with you two?"

The Gypsy girl beyond the table stood up slowly. She moistened her lips.

"I'm sorry, Miss Duncan. You— have— no— future!"

Gloria Duncan laughed. Somehow, there was nothing else to do. They had come here, Ray and she, because Ebon Vale had gained no mean reputation as a foreteller of the future. Contrary to the world's usual picture of a fortune teller, Ebon Vale was lovely. Even as she stood before them now, swaying against the table, her wide-set blue eyes, the mass of golden hair piled in curls atop her head, made her more a queen than Gypsy.

Gloria had laughed because Ray believed in these silly things the readers of the palm could tell. Now, she laughed again, but the hysterical, frightening ring of her laughter mocked her from the curtains of the little room.

"Everyone has a future. I've paid to find out. I know this is all a joke, but after all..."

She stopped, waiting for Ebon Vale to explain herself. Ray Walters stepped close to the table that separated the couple from the strange girl with the golden hair, chilled by the look on Ebon Vale's face. There was too much fear there. Too much certainty. Her words had the ring of sincerity that frightened him.

"Look here, Miss Vale," his face was quiet and earnest, but pale. "Miss Duncan came here because we thought it would be fun. Gloria and I plan to get married next week. With all the emotional strain she is now under, I hate to worry her with foolish things. Be a sport and give her a good future with three kiddies and a cottage with roses, will you?"

He smiled at her, waiting. Ebon Vale's expression did not change. She drew away from them and her head lifted with that slight touch of haughtiness that characterizes true faith.

"You came here because you wished to laugh at me," she answered. "You thought me the dirty, tent-show fortune teller who would take your money and tell you lies. I will not take your money and I cannot lie."

"Then you mean...?"

"Exactly what I said," Ebon Vale answered through tight lips. "No one is more sorry than I that Miss Duncan has no future."

She tossed two coins on the table, turned her smoothly-clad young back to the bewildered couple and walked through the curtains. They stood alone, staring at the two half-dollars they had paid.

Gloria Duncan's fingers groped out and into Ray Walters' big brown palm. She looked up at him, smiling.

"Let's get out of here," she urged. "The darn place gives me the creeps."

There were tears in her eyes as she spoke. Gloria Duncan, for the first time in her carefree life, was deathly afraid.

SCAR VALLEY, Ray Walters had often thought, was the nicest bit of scenery he had ever had the pleasure of driving through. Nearly sixty miles from town and several minutes from the state highway, the rugged walls of Scar Valley were seen by few. They had often come here in the past, Gloria and himself to sit for hours along the Scar River, admiring the sharp, clean-cut cliffs and the green lushness of the valley itself.

There were tales in the little Pennsylvania towns about the "Scar." Simple hill people told their folk-tales of the whimsies, little round-bellied, flame-shaped people who darted up and down the cliffs at night, trying to lure travelers over the steep walls. All these stories made the Scar a more interesting place to visit.

Today, as Walters felt the hard firmness of the steering wheel once more in his grasp, he breathed a sigh of relief. Gloria had settled quietly into the soft leather cushions and was staring over the top of the cliffs and at the sun beyond.

"What a horrible girl," she shuddered suddenly. "It's— it's good to be out in the sun again."

Walters turned carefully, looked at her. Gloria Duncan was the prettiest girl he had ever seen. In three days they would be married. All the freshness of those cool chestnut locks of hair, the warm gray eyes would be his. Every inch of her from slim ankles to the laughing lips would be his treasure.

They rode in silence for several minutes. The valley was nearly three miles long and another five minutes would take them through the high gap that closed it from the world. In spite of himself, the Vale girl troubled Walters. He knew that Gloria was thinking of her also.

"You have no future."

He shivered, remembering the words and what they implied. What in the name of common sense could happen to Gloria? She was a picture of health.

Although the Pennsylvania sun still burned high in the sky, a slight haze came in slowly and darkened the valley. Without realizing it, Walters drove a bit faster. Something tense and shadowlike was dropping down over Scar Valley. He switched on his parking lights, he might meet another car on the road.

The haze grew thicker.

"Ray?"

"What is it, sweet?"

"That haze? I've never seen it this way before. It's getting quite dark."

He sat forward on his cushion, eyes glued to the darkening road. Still a mile to go. He switched on the headlights and they cut ahead through the gathering darkness. Ray Walters shook his head.

"I don't like it," he said worriedly. "Almost like an eclipse. There aren't any scheduled, are there?"

She snuggled closer to him in the broad seat, her fingers seeking his arm.

"I don't read the papers," she laughed nervously.

IT was getting to be a nuisance now.

The darkness had settled completely, making a world of blackness with them in the center of it, a world that something other than common sense told him consisted of Gloria, himself, and that queer girl back in the old house.

"I wish we hadn't come," Gloria's voice was becoming hysterical. "There's going to be a storm. Maybe— maybe this is what Ebon Vale meant."

Ebon Vale! Walters' fingers tightened on the wheel and automatically he pushed harder on the accelerator. His fingers were wet and white beads of perspiration started from his face.

Ebon Vale— black valley! One and the same. The girl's name meant black valley. Why hadn't he thought of it before?

The Scar River came in tight beside them now and the road plunged into the last mile. The canyon was close, twisting out toward daylight and safety. The girl at his side, overcome with terror, clung close to him. High above him on the blank walls of the canyon he thought he saw sudden flashes of flamelike light. They darted up and down against the black curtain of rock.

Far ahead around the last curve, daylight filtered in—the sunlight that he was fighting to reach. One more curve, high above the roaring chasm of the Scar's swirling bed...

A lonely pine marked the curve. Ray Walters spun the wheel around, felt the tires spin in six inches of loose sand. He realized with a curious chill that he had been going too fast! They started to turn, to twist toward the edge of the sand- covered rock. He jammed down the foot brake, pulling the wheel around as far as it would go. Gloria screamed. It echoed against the stone walls, hurtling back to them with all the pent-up fear that was in her heart. The car tipped crazily up on two wheels and spilled over the edge of the canyon. It fell end over end into the deep swirling water below.

Through Ray Walters' head, as they poised that one second in mid air, one message pounded home a million times.

"You have no future! You-have-no-future! You... have... no...

"YOU are safe now. There is no cause to worry." Ray Walters heard the voice seemingly from far away, and recognized it at once. It was Ebon Vale. He tried to sit up and was surprised to find that no river water soaked his clothing. Rather, he felt as though he had been long and refreshingly asleep. Nothing in Ebon Vale's room had changed.

Ebon Vale, cool and lovely, was standing over him. She was clothed in an ankle-length robe of shining, translucent material. It wrapped smoothly around her body leaving the wealth of long hair, the smooth shoulders free. As he stared up at her from the couch, she smiled. Something far-away and haunting in that smile brought him upright, frightened for Gloria.

"Gloria... where is she?" He tried to stand up, felt her force him backward with a light touch of her hand and realized that his body was without strength to resist. It was as though a strange spell had been cast over him.

"I told your fiancee that she had no future," Ebon Vale said swiftly. "She was killed when your car went over the cliff."

He forced himself upright, staring at her with angry eyes.

"You lie," he shouted hoarsely. "You— you..."

Ebon Vale's expression didn't change. The same look of patience was there. He allowed himself to fall back against the brocaded pillows of the couch.

"Believe me," she said. "It was not my choice that you stay in the Valley of the Black Sun. I am not in control..."

"Wait a minute," Walters got up from the couch, stood over her. She shrank away from him as he looked down at her. "The valley of what?"

"You were left alone in the Valley of the Black Sun," she explained. "Those who see the sun fade here, can never see it arise again elsewhere. Gloria Duncan is dead, but of the two, perhaps she is the most fortunate."

He clutched the softness of her arms above the elbows and shook her.

"You've done something to Gloria! The black sun business, the wreck. They were your doing."

"No! Please release me. I only predict. I cannot force the decisions of the Whimsies."

"Whimsies?" Walters released her, letting his arms fall hopelessly at his side. "Either I'm crazy or you are. What in the devil are the Whimsies?"

Ebon Vale stepped away from him, rubbing the red marks that showed on her arms where he had gripped her. Her head dropped forward humbly.

"Perhaps in your world I am crazy," she admitted. "When you hear the story of the valley you will believe me. They will convince you."

Ray Walters, feeling that he was about to lose the last bit of remaining sense he had, sank back to the edge of the couch. Could this be happening in the center of Pennsylvania on the banks of a normal river encased by the granite walls of a natural valley? But there was no mistaking Ebon Vale's sincerity. At least to him, she was being honest.

"All right," he said finally. "Tell me the story and what part I'm to play in this crazy business."

"You play no part," she answered simply. "The Whimsies have chosen you to be my mate. You will live here away from the sight of normal man and act as figure-head ruler of the Whimsies, even as I will be their Queen."

"THERE are tone scales and light scales," said Ebon Vale, "that are not audible or visible to human senses."

She sat on the low rock wall of the garden behind the great house, her fingers toying with the stem of a queerly blackened daisy. Ray Walters sat at her feet, conscious of the intense blackness of everything about him. The valley looked the same as it had before, with the difference that everything was in black and white. The trees, the land, the cliffs that towered in a distance, were in fine shades of black and gray. His eyes saw no color, even in the girl. She was like a figure cut from black paper and placed there on the wall before him. He listened patiently, trying to find some clue to this insanity.

"Most people consider the Whimsies are part of a fairy tale," Ebon Vale went on. "For many years people have seen them here at night, bright flaming beings, and gone away thinking that they could not actually exist.

"Yet, the Whimsies are very much alive. Some say they are imps of hell, sent here to practice their mischief."

"And you?" Ray asked. "How did a girl like yourself get into this black mess?"

She leaned back against a stone that was higher than the rest.

"The Whimsies chose me because I had come here to live. They changed my vision so that I saw their world in this valley, not my own. Just as, in a like manner, they have changed you.

"The Valley of the Black Sun is as it is, because in your eyes as they now are, a vast curtain of cloud hangs over it. The sun filters through that screen changing it to a light that is not visible to the human eye. If you do not believe, look up."

Walters studied the sky above them. Far to the west a vast ball of blackness was sinking over the cliff. The sun turned black as night. Yet the valley seemed to responds to its light, sending shades of gray and black across the opposite wall.

"It will be night soon," Ebon Vale said. "Then the Whimsies will come to take their place here."

The blackness of the sun was gone. The girl stood up, looking pale and lovely against the wall.

"It's all wild— impossible," Walters confessed, "but I'm beginning to believe it. What of the Whimsies? I still know little of the part I am to play."

Ebon Vale's face grew tense. She stepped close to him and her hair, blowing in the dark air, swept from her neck and against his coat. Her arms reached up and around his neck.

"I am alone with you, a girl who is to be your queen," her lips were warm against his. He pulled his head away, startled.

"You still wish to know the part you are to play?" she asked, drew his head down again.

This time he did not force her from him. With the warmness of her pressed to him, lips soft against his own.

For a moment he forgot Gloria and the world he had lost only this afternoon. He closed his eyes tightly.

The depths of his eyeballs suddenly shot white hot fire into his brain.

There was daylight; bright, flashing sunlight in his eyes. He wasn't holding Ebon Vale. In the flashing intensity of the light that cut into him, he saw Gloria. She stood, arms about his neck, staring up at him beseechingly. Her expression of humiliation and sorrow sent him reeling backward. With effort he opened his eyes again.

Ebon Vale was still there, several feet from him, staring with fright at the man before her.

"Gloria!" he shouted. "I saw her. She was here, in my arms."

He was sure now, that Gloria was not dead. Whatever the spell that was upon him, Gloria was alive and suffering. He would for the time being, do as he was told. Later, when he knew something of this wild fantasy he faced, there would be time. There was the small comfort that when he wished, his longing could for a minute erase this world in black and white and regardless of its terrors, bring back his own colorful surroundings.

"Okay, my Queen," he said with a touch of sarcasm in his voice. "I'll behave myself from now on."

Did he fancy it, or was there a sudden look of intense hatred in the eyes of the girl who took his hand.

"We must go now," she said. "The Whimsies will be waiting."

THE queer black sun was gone. Scar Valley seemed asleep under a black drape of night. As Ray Walters followed the girl down the incline from the old house, he wanted to close his eyes once more; summon that vision of his own world. He thought of Gloria and that look in her eyes of horrified anguish. Ebon Vale had said she was dead. But she wasn't!

The road was short to the cliff. He followed Ebon Vale quietly, depending on her as he would a staff. He had been here before. He and Gloria had sat beneath these very trees, feasting their eyes on the green of the valley. It was changed now... dark and dead, like a flat photo in black and white.

He stumbled forward like a man in a deep dream. Ahead, on the face of the cliff tiny flashes of red flame flickered up and faded against the rock. There were more of them now, seeming to fly inward toward the rock wall&mdash converging in a group around the large hole of a cave.

The girl turned, a smile on her lips.

"It will not be long," she whispered. "You need not be afraid."

At that moment fear was far from Walters' mind. Only a curious, dull feeling of distrust. A feeling that Ebon Vale, her body swaying ahead of him like a white torch in the darkness, was planning his destiny alone. The feeling that this world of black was of her making and hers alone. But in spite of every attempt he made to hate her, there came that overpowering attraction to her body.

The forest cleared and across a short stretch of black meadow a great hole opened into the face of the cliff. Through it poured a steady, darting stream of the red flashes he had seen against the wall.

"We are here," she stopped, took his arm and held herself close to him. "You may lead."

Walters crossed the meadow like a man led to his own hell and went down the sharp incline into the cave. Ahead was only blackness. It was broken by the steady flow of the fire-like Whimsies who darted through the air on all sides of them.

From below, warm air and the steady chatter of tiny, musical voices drifted up. He went down, Ebon Vale's hand still tightly clenched on his arm.

Then the cave opened wide and a huge chamber confronted them. Walters stopped short, his eyes wide with what he saw. The Whimsies -were alive! They had sharply pointed little faces, tiny horns and paunchy bellies that appeared to have absorbed more than their share of food.

They were tiny folk, hardly more than eight inches tall. Their bodies were for the most part, feathery and brightly red. Long, arrow-pointed tails twisted behind them as they swirled through the air.

EBON VALE went ahead of him again, across the open cavern to a huge rock that was carved roughly to seat a human figure. She turned her face to him, sank back into the rock chair and motioned him toward her. The cavern was alive with the light of the Whimsies now. He went forward and sank down beside her.

"You need not fear for your safety or your sanity," she said quietly. "Some would call these people my brain children. They are harmless."

The Whimsies seemed wildly excited now. They swirled into a tight circle around the pair and one of them settled to Ebon Vale's knee.

He was slightly larger than the others and his tail spread across her lap and dropped over the edge. He spoke, and his voice was loud and shrill, like a small child's.

"Our queen brings a visitor?"

She reached down and stroked the sprite's head gently.

"I bring you a ruler," she corrected gently. "He will stay with me and help with our affairs."

At once an angry shout went up around her.

"We need no king. Our land is well ruled by you. The affairs of the Whimsies are not for humans."

Ebon Vale held her arm aloft. Anger flashed in her eyes and for the second time, Ray Walters could swear he saw cruel sadism there.

"I wish this man to rule," she shouted. "My wish is not to be questioned."

The Whimsie on her knee turned to the flashing horde behind him.

"The valley of the black sun will be ruled as our queen sees fit," he squealed. "You will remain silent."

Returning his attention to Ebon Vale, he continued.

"There are affairs for our queen tonight," his tiny eyes flashed devilishly.

"Hearts to be mended— fun to be had— worries are over— the Whimsies are mad."

The word mad— mad— mad went bounding around the cavern on the lips of the tiny throng.

"It's all a damned nightmare!" Ray Walters whispered to himself. "A crazy, insane dream."

His head was pounding with the shrill shouting in his ears. He closed his eyes tightly, trying to escape the sound. Then it happened again...

At once Ebon Vale was gone. The Whimsies were gone. In the girl's place, seated on the cave chair was Gloria Duncan.

HE wanted to speak to her, but he couldn't. She sat there before him, in the empty black cave. Her lips moved and he knew she was begging him to free her.

"Take me home," the lips moved freely. "Please, take me home before it's too late."

"Too late for what?" he wanted to scream. Something bit sharply into his shoulder. His eyes snapped open with pain. The Whimsie had jumped from Ebon Vale's knee and plunged his hard, arrow-like tail into Walters' shoulder. The girl seemed to be waiting for him, still angry from her quarrel with the Whimsies.

"You are tired?" she asked. Her voice was edged with sarcasm. "I suggest that your eyes remain open."

"Yes," the Whimsie settled once more on her lap. "You'll be much more contented."

Something within Ray Walters rebelled.

He wondered suddenly why he had not fought his way out of here long ago. Why he had succumbed so gracefully to Ebon Vale's every wish? He was still sure that somewhere Gloria was waiting for him alive. If he could not force himself from the dream in any other manner, he'd fight his way out.

He stood up quickly, wondering what the reaction would be.

"You grow bored so soon?" Ebon

Vale arose, to stand before him with flashing eyes. "I suggest you cause me no further trouble. It was difficult enough to obtain you."

"Obtain?" Blind anger came over him. "I don't understand. Did you plan all this deliberately?"

He wanted to turn away. To go from the cave in spite of all she could do to prevent it. The slumberous passion that arose in Ebon Vale's eyes held him as though he were tied. She pressed against him and the warmth of the entire place seeped into his body. Her eyes seemed to drink from his own and as she stared, Walters realized that he was being hypnotized as surely as though he stared into the eyes of a cobra.

The intense desire to sleep came over him. The cave flashed bright with the flame of the Whimsies, and grew black before his eyes. In his sleep nothing troubled him. No visions of Gloria. No black sun.

LIKE a broken record, the voice said over and over:

"I am Akimba— I am Akimba— I am Ak..."

"Go away Akimba and let me sleep." Walters rolled over on the rough floor, felt a sharp twinge of pain in his shoulder and sat up. Rubbing his eyes he looked about.

He was still in the cavern, but the place was deserted. Or was it? What about Akimba, the troublesome voice?

He stood up and brushed the sand from his trousers. Yes, Akimba was there. He was the Whimsie who had sat on Ebon Vale's knee. The little red sprite who had ruled the works. Akimba fluttered down from his place on the cave shelf, hit the floor with a thump and strutted across the sand. Now that Walters had time to look him over more closely, the little chap wasn't half as hard to believe. He had legs that were feather-covered, and a small bare stomach. As he walked, he wobbled a little under the weight of his load.

"Too much honey," Akimba said wryly, rubbing his stomach. "Can't leave the stuff alone."

As insane as it seemed to talk with something one couldn't even believe existed, Ray Walters had no choice.

"Where is the girl, Ebon Vale," he asked. "The rest of— of you. Why are we alone?"

Akimba grasped his stomach and pulled it up to the position of an inflated chest.

"They're gone," he announced proudly. "I've been assigned to guard you. Three black suns have passed since you slept first. We are to go to our queen now that you have awakened."

The thought entered Walters' mind that here was an opportunity to escape. What possible chance would the tiny Whimsie have to hold him, once he decided to go?

"If you're looking me over with any thought of me being helpless," the sprite said suddenly, "perish the thought or it will perish you. My tail can get mighty poisonous when I want it to."

Walters chuckled.

"Smart little fellow aren't you?"

Akimba snorted.

"None smarter," he agreed. "I even had ideas of being king until you came along."

Hold everything, Walters thought. Perhaps there is a chance.

"Just what does this kingship consist of," he asked. "Now that I'm here, I'd like to know my duties."

"It ain't the job it used to be," Akimba's face darkened. "There was a time..."

He stopped suddenly, as though fearing to go on.

"There was a time..." Walters prompted. "Go on, tell me about yourself." Akimba settled down comfortably.

"If she finds out," he said with a glance toward the door, "I'll lose my neck. Well! What the heck, why not?"

AKIMBA talked fast, his tiny voice sounding like a badly tuned flute.

"The valley of the black sun was our home long before Ebon Vale came here," he started. "People have seen us for centuries. We do no harm in our cave and at a distance we just look like fireflies."

"But where did you come from?" Walters broke in. "What do you do here?"

Akimba's eyes twinkled.

"Ever hear of Rip Van Winkle and the dwarfs?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Well, we're like the dwarfs," Akimba went on. "We were here from the beginning, and there just isn't any reason for us. We like it here. No one troubled us until Ebon Vale came.

"You see, she learned the magic of the black sun."

Walters was growing interested.

"How," he asked, "am I able to see your world and the black sun? When I came here before, I never suspected."

"That's a simple story," Akimba answered. "Ebon Vale is a strange woman. No, let me say she is the complex personalities of many women. She came here many years ago and in her heart was the secret of seeing things no other could see."

Walters sat down and crossed his legs. For a moment they were silent.

"Why?" Walters asked, "do you say she is a part of many women?"

Akimbo grinned wisely.

"Ebon Vale would have died a hundred years ago, were she not able to utilize the minds of younger women to preserve her own body."

The Whimsie's words left Walters thunderstruck.

"A hundred— years...?"

"Ebon Vale came here two hundred years ago. She came from an eastern country across the sea. She remains invisible until she wishes to regain more youth. Then, with her secrets, she draws young girls to her side and takes from them what she wishes."

In Walters' brain there surged the memory of Gloria Duncan. How, at times, when he closed his eyes, she and not Ebon Vale was before him.

Then this was the explanation. It was not Ebon Vale at all that was beside him, but Gloria Duncan, imprisoned within the Gypsy's body.

Akimba was growing impatient with the pause.

"Well," he asked, "what more does the mighty, but helpless king wish to know?"

"The black sun?" Walters begged. "Tell me about it. Why do I see it?"

Akimba shook his head sadly.

"That I do not know. It is some sort of spell that Ebon Vale casts upon you. I think you humans call it hypnosis. I understand little, except that without it we Whimsies would be rid of all you humans, and could dance about the cliffs to our hearts' content without bowing to a queen and king."

He spat the last words out as though they were very distasteful to him.

IN Ray Walters' mind a plan was slowly formulating. A plan that might be wild, but not nearly as fantastic as the things he had just listened to.

"How would you like to be free?" he asked suddenly. "How would you like to be rid of both your queen and myself?"

Akimba's eyes danced with joy, then his face darkened.

"Can't be done," he said. "We've tried."

"Give me a chance," Walters begged. "I'd do anything to get out of this nightmare myself."

Akimba thought for a long time. His tail danced about restlessly.

"All right," he said finally. "Go ahead, and welcome. What do I have to do?"

"Just get me out of this place," Walters answered quickly. "Show me the way back to Ebon Vale's house and I'll do the rest."

"You can't find out her secret," Akimba cried. "She'll kill us all."

"How?"

"With her magic." Akimba was truly distressed. "She makes us bring her food, clothing. She makes us frighten all people away so that she may have the valley to herself. If we don't do it, she'll destroy the screen that brings the black sun and we will all perish."

"Listen to me, little man. This valley protects you and her, because your eyes are tuned to the screen that makes it dark and safe. To us humans who come here every day there is no black sun. It is the bright sun, splashing down on green and brown and all the colors of the universe."*

_______

* Let no thought of fantasy enter your minds so far as the "black sun" is concerned. There exist, beyond the approach of the human eye, certain light rays that are invisible. Experiments create artificial black light. Yet there can be no doubt that it is possible for black light to exist in a natural state; in other words, light that we cannot see with the eyes we now have, and yet would be clearly visible with some other type of eye.

Watch a dog some time as he stops suddenly in his track and starts barking loudly at some object that in our eyes does not exist. Is there any proof that it does not exist in the dog's eyes? —Ed.

Akimba was properly startled with this statement.

"You don't mean that Ebon Vale has been lying to us That she has no power over our world?"

Walters nodded.

"I mean exactly that," he said. "If you existed for centuries before she came, why should you depend on her now?"

Akimba stood up, stomping his feathered feet angrily.

"What are we waiting for?" he shouted.

RAY WALTERS was almost upon the old house before he could see it through the black mist that covered his eyes. Akimba, anxious and worried, he left behind at the cave door. Once, just before he opened the door to the old house in the valley, Walters closed his eyes. Sun flashed in them and the valley was green again. Daylight blinded him and he opened them quickly.

Somehow Ebon Vale's spell only partly worked on him. It Was on her failure that he must depend. If, when the struggle came, could he close his eyes tightly enough?

The door opened protestingly under his hand. The huge room at the front was empty. He could hear a silvery voice, singing somewhere beyond the door. Opening it slowly he saw Ebon Vale as lovely as ever, standing with her back turned to him. She turned, as though sensing his presence.

He went to her, clenching his teeth. She tried to catch his eyes with hers, but he looked straight at her throat and riveted his gaze there. Her arms went about him, holding him close to her. For that next instant he fought off the desire to look at her face; her smooth cheek, her deep eyes.

A shiver ran through him and he remembered that this was not a girl, but a creature who ruled the valley with youthfulness stolen from others.

Closing his eyes tightly, he concentrated on seeing Gloria Duncan. He heard her gasp with surprise as his arms went around her waist. Then, as she screamed her hatred, he pressed his lips tightly to hers.

The brilliance of a thousand suns seemed to strike him directly in the face. Light tore through his head, pounding against every nerve in his body. He opened his eyes.

He saw Ebon Vale, as lovely as she had ever been. Her body, tense and fighting at first, gradually relaxed against him. Her eyes were vague in his sight. He could only see lips and soft, waving hair. The face changed. The pain went from his head and it was as though he was gradually awakening. Coming through the darkness into the light, and the light felt good once more.

He knew she was drawing him back and that she was no longer frightened, but determined. The couch was behind them, but before he reached it the face close to his began to change. The features of Ebon Vale faded. In their place were the blurred, lovable dimples, the faithful eyes of Gloria Duncan. He held her closer, breathing a prayer for what was taking place. Suddenly they were falling, together, through space.

WHEN Gloria Duncan awakened that morning in City Hospital, she was radiantly happy once more. She looked around her at the clean curtains, the spotless walls.

"Ray!" She raised her voice gently.

Walters sat beside her smiling. His eyes were covered with a bandage.

"Yes, Sweet. Feel better this morning?"

She sighed, stretching back comfortably on the smooth pillows.

"Much, Ray. I'd like you to tell me something."

For a moment fear ran through him. Fear for what she might know. He steeled himself.

"Go on," he urged. "Ask your questions."

Gloria sat up, leaning on one elbow.

"Doctor Saunders says they found us lying unconscious in each other's arms, on the river bank," she said. "How did we escape?"

"I think in the excitement I must have pulled you out of the water and then passed out," he answered.

She smiled at him tenderly.

"Doctor says I'll have these bandages off my eyes in a couple of days," he said. "I can't understand what happened to my eyesight. He says that I was stone blind when they brought me in. A film which he can't describe, is already fading away."

Ray Walters took her hand in his, after fumbling for it.

She said: "We're safe, the fortune teller was wrong, I have a future. That's all there is to it."

"I wish that was all there is to it," he said softly. "They couldn't locate Ebon Vale when they went for her. There was some talk about finding the body of an old woman in the house where she had been."

Walters held her tightly against him.

"It's like the old fables of the firefly Whimsies," he said. "You can't believe the things the old timers say about Scar Valley. It's a breeding place for myths."

"It was odd," Gloria breathed as he released his hold on her. "I had sure a mess of conflicting dreams until I regained consciousness here. You know, I saw those Whimsies you mentioned..."

__________________

9: The Nail

Pedro de Alarçon

1833-1891

Transl George F. Duysters, fl. 1890s-1900s

In: The Lock and Key Library: Mediterranean,  1909

THE THING which is most ardently desired by a man who steps into a stagecoach, bent upon a long journey, is that his companions may be agreeable, that they may have the same tastes, possibly the same vices, be well educated and know enough not to be too familiar.

When I opened the door of the coach I felt fearful of encountering an old woman suffering with the asthma, an ugly one who could not bear the smell of tobacco smoke, one who gets seasick every time she rides in a carriage, and little angels who are continually yelling and screaming for God knows what.

Sometimes you may have hoped to have a beautiful woman for a traveling companion; for instance, a widow of twenty or thirty years of age (let us say, thirty-six), whose delightful conversation will help you pass away the time. But if you ever had this idea, as a reasonable man you would quickly dismiss it, for you know that such good fortune does not fall to the lot of the ordinary mortal. These thoughts were in my mind when I opened the door of the stagecoach at exactly eleven o'clock on a stormy night of the Autumn of 1844. I had ticket No. 2, and I was wondering who No. 1 might be. The ticket agent had assured me that No. 3 had not been sold.

It was pitch dark within. When I entered I said, "Good evening," but no answer came. "The devil!" I said to myself. "Is my traveling companion deaf, dumb, or asleep?" Then I said in a louder tone: "Good evening," but no answer came.

All this time the stagecoach was whirling along, drawn by ten horses.

I was puzzled. Who was my companion? Was it a man? Was it a woman? Who was the silent No. 1, and, whoever it might be, why did he or she not reply to my courteous salutation? It would have been well to have lit a match, but I was not smoking then and had none with me. What should I do? I concluded to rely upon my sense of feeling, and stretched out my hand to the place where No. 1 should have been, wondering whether I would touch a silk dress or an overcoat, but there was nothing there. At that moment a flash of lightning, herald of a quickly approaching storm, lit up the night, and I perceived that there was no one in the coach excepting myself. I burst out into a roar of laughter, and yet a moment later I could not help wondering what had become of No. 1.

A half hour later we arrived at the first stop, and I was just about to ask the guard who flashed his lantern into the compartment why there was no No. 1, when she entered. In the yellow rays I thought it was a vision: a pale, graceful, beautiful woman, dressed in deep mourning.

Here was the fulfillment of my dream, the widow I had hoped for.

I extended my hand to the unknown to assist her into the coach, and she sat down beside me, murmuring: "Thank you, sir. Good evening," but in a tone that was so sad that it went to my very heart.

"How unfortunate," I thought. "There are only fifty miles between here and Malaga. I wish to heaven this coach were going to Kamschatka." The guard slammed the door, and we were in darkness. I wished that the storm would continue and that we might have a few more flashes of lightning. But the storm didn't. It fled away, leaving only a few pallid stars, whose light practically amounted to nothing. I made a brave effort to start a conversation.

"Do you feel well?"

"Are you going to Malaga?"

"Did you like the Alhambra?"

"You come from Granada?"

"Isn't the night damp?"

To which questions she respectively responded:

"Thanks, very well."

"Yes."

"No, sir."

"Yes!"

"Awful!"

It was quite certain that my traveling companion was not inclined to conversation. I tried to think up something original to say to her, but nothing occurred to me, so I lost myself for the moment in meditation. Why had this woman gotten on the stage at the first stop instead of at Granada? Why was she alone? Was she married? Was she really a widow? Why was she so sad? I certainly had no right to ask her any of these questions, and yet she interested me. How I wished the sun would rise. In the daytime one may talk freely, but in the pitch darkness one feels a certain oppression, it seems like taking an unfair advantage.

My unknown did not sleep a moment during the night. I could tell this by her breathing and by her sighing. It is probably unnecessary to add that I did not sleep either. Once I asked her: "Do you feel ill?" and she replied: "No, sir, thank you. I beg pardon if I have disturbed your sleep."

"Sleep!" I exclaimed disdainfully. "I do not care to sleep. I feared you were suffering."

"Oh, no," she exclaimed, in a voice that contradicted her words, "I am not suffering."

At last the sun rose. How beautiful she was! I mean the woman, not the sun. What deep suffering had lined her face and lurked in the depths of her beautiful eyes!

She was elegantly dressed and evidently belonged to a good family. Every gesture bore the imprint of distinction. She was the kind of a woman you expect to see in the principal box at the opera, resplendent with jewels, surrounded by admirers.

We breakfasted at Colmenar. After that my companion became more confidential, and I said to myself when we again entered the coach: "Philip, you have met your fate. It's now or never."

ii

I REGRETTED the very first word I mentioned to her regarding my feelings. She became a block of ice, and I lost at once all that I might have gained in her good graces. Still she answered me very kindly: "It is not because it is you, sir, who speak to me of love, but love itself is something which I hold in horror."

"But why, dear lady?" I inquired.

"Because my heart is dead. Because I have loved to the point of delirium, and I have been deceived."

I felt that I should talk to her in a philosophic way and there were a lot of platitudes on the tip of my tongue, but I refrained. I knew that she meant what she said. When we arrived at Malaga, she said to me in a tone I shall never forget as long as I live: "I thank you a thousand times for your kind attention during the trip, and hope you will forgive me if I do not tell you my name and address."

"Do you mean then that we shall not meet again?"

"Never! And you, especially, should not regret it." And then with a smile that was utterly without joy she extended her exquisite hand to me and said: "Pray to God for me."

I pressed her hand and made a low bow. She entered a handsome victoria which was awaiting her, and as it moved away she bowed to me again.

TWO MONTHS later I met her again.

At two o'clock in the afternoon I was jogging along in an old cart on the road that leads to Cordoba. The object of my journey was to examine some land which I owned in that neighborhood and pass three or four weeks with one of the judges of the Supreme Court, who was an intimate friend of mine and had been my schoolmate at the University of Granada.

He received me with open arms. As I entered his handsome house I could but note the perfect taste and elegance of the furniture and decorations.

"Ah, Zarco," I said, "you have married, and you have never told me about it. Surely this was not the way to treat a man who loved you as much as I do!"

"I am not married, and what is more I never will marry," answered the judge sadly.

"I believe that you are not married, dear boy, since you say so, but I cannot understand the declaration that you never will. You must be joking."

"I swear that I am telling you the truth," he replied.

"But what a metamorphosis!" I exclaimed. "You were always a partisan of marriage, and for the past two years you have been writing to me and advising me to take a life partner. Whence this wonderful change, dear friend? Something must have happened to you, something unfortunate, I fear?"

"To me?" answered the judge somewhat embarrassed.

"Yes, to you. Something has happened, and you are going to tell me all about it. You live here alone, have practically buried yourself in this great house. Come, tell me everything."

The judge pressed my hand. "Yes, yes, you shall know all. There is no man more unfortunate than I am. But listen, this is the day upon which all the inhabitants go to the cemetery, and I must be there, if only for form's sake. Come with me. It is a pleasant afternoon and the walk will do you good, after riding so long in that old cart. The location of the cemetery is a beautiful one, and I am quite sure you will enjoy the walk. On our way, I will tell you the incident that ruined my life, and you shall judge yourself whether I am justified in my hatred of women."

As together we walked along the flower-bordered road, my friend told me the following story:

Two years ago when I was Assistant District Attorney in ——, I obtained permission from my chief to spend a month in Sevilla. In the hotel where I lodged there was a beautiful young woman who passed for a widow but whose origin, as well as her reasons for staying in that town, were a mystery to all. Her installation, her wealth, her total lack of friends or acquaintances and the sadness of her expression, together with her incomparable beauty, gave rise to a thousand conjectures.

Her rooms were directly opposite mine, and I frequently met her in the hall or on the stairway, only too glad to have the chance of bowing to her. She was unapproachable, however, and it was impossible for me to secure an introduction. Two weeks later, fate was to afford me the opportunity of entering her apartment. I had been to the theater that night, and when I returned to my room I thoughtlessly opened the door of her apartment instead of that of my own. The beautiful woman was reading by the light of the lamp and started when she saw me. I was so embarrassed by my mistake that for a moment I could only stammer unintelligible words. My confusion was so evident that she could not doubt for a moment that I had made a mistake. I turned to the door, intent upon relieving her of my presence as quickly as possible, when she said with the most exquisite courtesy: "In order to show you that I do not doubt your good faith and that I'm not at all offended, I beg that you will call upon me again, intentionally."

Three days passed before I got up sufficient courage to accept her invitation. Yes, I was madly in love with her; accustomed as I am to analyze my own sensations, I knew that my passion could only end in the greatest happiness or the deepest suffering. However, at the end of the three days I went to her apartment and spent the evening there. She told me that her name was Blanca, that she was born in Madrid, and that she was a widow. She played and sang for me and asked me a thousand questions about myself, my profession, my family, and every word she said increased my love for her. From that night my soul was the slave of her soul; yes, and it will be forever.

I called on her again the following night, and thereafter every afternoon and evening I was with her. We loved each other, but not a word of love had ever been spoken between us.

One evening she said to me: "I married a man without loving him. Shortly after marriage I hated him. Now he is dead. Only God knows what I suffered. Now I understand what love means; it is either heaven or it is hell. For me, up to the present time, it has been hell."

I could not sleep that night. I lay awake thinking over these last words of Blanca's. Somehow this woman frightened me. Would I be her heaven and she my hell?

My leave of absence expired. I could have asked for an extension, pretending illness, but the question was, should I do it? I consulted Blanca.

"Why do you ask me?" she said, taking my hand.

"Because I love you. Am I doing wrong in loving you?"

"No," she said, becoming very pale, and then she put both arms about my neck and her beautiful lips touched mine.

Well, I asked for another month and, thanks to you, dear friend, it was granted. Never would they have given it to me without your influence.

My relations with Blanca were more than love; they were delirium, madness, fanaticism, call it what you will. Every day my passion for her increased, and the morrow seemed to open up vistas of new happiness. And yet I could not avoid feeling at times a mysterious, indefinable fear. And this I knew she felt as well as I did. We both feared to lose one another. One day I said to Blanca:

"We must marry, as quickly as possible."

She gave me a strange look. "You wish to marry me?"

"Yes, Blanca," I said, "I am proud of you. I want to show you to the whole world. I love you and I want you, pure, noble, and saintly as you are."

"I cannot marry you," answered this incomprehensible woman. She would never give a reason.

Finally my leave of absence expired, and I told her that on the following day we must separate.

"Separate? It is impossible!" she exclaimed. "I love you too much for that."

"But you know, Blanca, that I worship you."

"Then give up your profession. I am rich. We will live our lives out together," she said, putting her soft hand over my mouth to prevent my answer.

I kissed the hand and then, gently removing it, I answered: "I would accept this offer from my wife, although it would be a sacrifice for me to give up my career; but I will not accept it from a woman who refuses to marry me."

Blanca remained thoughtful for several minutes; then, raising her head, she looked at me and said very quietly, but with a determination which could not be misunderstood: "I will be your wife, and I do not ask you to give up your profession. Go back to your office. How long will it take you to arrange your business matters and secure from the government another leave of absence to return to Sevilla?"

"A month."

"A month? Well, here I will await you. Return within a month, and I will be your wife. To-day is the fifteenth of April. You will be here on the fifteenth of May?"

"You may rest assured of that."

"You swear it?"

"I swear it."

"You love me?"

"More than my life."

"Go, then, and return. Farewell."

I left on the same day. The moment I arrived home I began to arrange my house to receive my bride. As you know I solicited another leave of absence, and so quickly did I arrange my business affairs that at the end of two weeks I was ready to return to Sevilla.

I must tell you that during this fortnight I did not receive a single letter from Blanca, though I wrote her six. I started at once for Sevilla, arriving in that city on the thirtieth of April, and went at once to the hotel where we had first met.

I learned that Blanca had left there two days after my departure without telling anyone her destination.

Imagine my indignation, my disappointment, my suffering. She went away without even leaving a line for me, without telling me whither she was going. It never occurred to me to remain in Sevilla until the fifteenth of May to ascertain whether she would return on that date. Three days later I took up my court work and strove to forget her.

A FEW MOMENTS after my friend Zarco finished the story, we arrived at the cemetery.

This is only a small plot of ground covered with a veritable forest of crosses and surrounded by a low stone wall. As often happens in Spain, when the cemeteries are very small, it is necessary to dig up one coffin in order to lower another. Those thus disinterred are thrown in a heap in a corner of the cemetery, where skulls and bones are piled up like a haystack. As we were passing, Zarco and I looked at the skulls, wondering to whom they could have belonged, to rich or poor, noble or plebeian.

Suddenly the judge bent down, and picking up a skull, exclaimed in astonishment:

"Look here, my friend, what is this? It is surely a nail!"

Yes, a long nail had been driven in the top of the skull which he held in his hand. The nail had been driven into the head, and the point had penetrated what had been the roof of the mouth.

What could this mean? He began to conjecture, and soon both of us felt filled with horror.

"I recognize the hand of Providence!" exclaimed the judge. "A terrible crime has evidently been committed, and would never have come to light had it not been for this accident. I shall do my duty, and will not rest until I have brought the assassin to the scaffold."

ii

MY FRIEND ZARCO was one of the keenest criminal judges in Spain. Within a very few days he discovered that the corpse to which this skull belonged had been buried in a rough wooden coffin which the grave digger had taken home with him, intending to use it for firewood. Fortunately, the man had not yet burned it up, and on the lid the judge managed to decipher the initials: "A.G.R." together with the date of interment. He had at once searched the parochial books of every church in the neighborhood, and a week later found the following entry:

"In the parochial church of San Sebastian of the village of ——, on the 4th of May, 1843, the funeral rites as prescribed by our holy religion were performed over the body of Don Alfonzo Gutierrez Romeral, and he was buried in the cemetery. He was a native of this village and did not receive the holy sacrament, nor did he confess, for he died suddenly of apoplexy at the age of thirty-one. He was married to Doña Gabriela Zahara del Valle, a native of Madrid, and left no issue him surviving."

The judge handed me the above certificate, duly certified to by the parish priest, and exclaimed: "Now everything is as clear as day, and I am positive that within a week the assassin will be arrested. The apoplexy in this case happens to be an iron nail driven into the man's head, which brought quick and sudden death to A.G.R. I have the nail, and I shall soon find the hammer."

According to the testimony of the neighbors, Señor Romeral was a young and rich landowner who originally came from Madrid, where he had married a beautiful wife; four months before the death of the husband, his wife had gone to Madrid to pass a few months with her family; the young woman returned home about the last day of April, that is, about three months and a half after she had left her husband's residence to go to Madrid; the death of Señor Romeral occurred about a week after her return. The shock caused to the widow by the sudden death of her husband was so great that she became ill and informed her friends that she could not continue to live in the same place where everything recalled to her the man she had lost, and just before the middle of May she had left for Madrid, ten or twelve days after the death of her husband.

The servants of the deceased had testified that the couple did not live amicably together and had frequent quarrels; that the absence of three months and a half which preceded the last eight days the couple had lived together was practically an understanding that they were to be ultimately separated on account of mysterious disagreements which had existed between them from the date of their marriage; that on the date of the death of the deceased, both husband and wife were together in the former's bedroom; that at midnight the bell was rung violently and they heard the cries of the wife; that they rushed to the room and were met at the door by the wife, who was very pale and greatly perturbed, and she cried out: "An apoplexy! Run for a doctor! My poor husband is dying!" That when they entered the room they found their master lying upon a couch, and he was dead. The doctor who was called certified that Señor Romeral had died of cerebral congestion.

Three medical experts testified that death brought about as this one had been could not be distinguished from apoplexy. The physician who had been called in had not thought to look for the head of the nail, which was concealed by the hair of the victim, nor was he in any sense to blame for this oversight.

The judge immediately issued a warrant for the arrest of Doña Gabriela Zahara del Valle, widow of Señor Romeral.

"Tell me," I asked the judge one day, "do you think you will ever capture this woman?"

"I'm positive of it."

"Why?"

"Because in the midst of all these routine criminal affairs there occurs now and then what may be termed a dramatic fatality which never fails. To put it in another way: when the bones come out of the tomb to testify, there is very little left for the judge to do."

In spite of the hopes of my friend, Gabriela was not found, and three months later she was, according to the laws of Spain, tried, found guilty, and condemned to death in her absence.

I returned home, not without promising to be with Zarco the following year.

iv

THAT WINTER I passed in Granada. One evening I had been invited to a great ball given by a prominent Spanish lady. As I was mounting the stairs of the magnificent residence, I was startled by the sight of a face which was easily distinguishable even in this crowd of southern beauties. It was she, my unknown, the mysterious woman of the stagecoach, in fact, No. 1, of whom I spoke at the beginning of this narrative.

I made my way toward her, extending my hand in greeting. She recognized me at once.

"Señora," I said, "I have kept my promise not to search for you. I did not know I would meet you here. Had I suspected it I would have refrained from coming, for fear of annoying you. Now that I am here, tell me whether I may recognize you and talk to you."

"I see that you are vindictive," she answered graciously, putting her little hand in mine. "But I forgive you. How are you?"

"In truth, I don't know. My health—that is, the health of my soul, for you would not ask me about anything else in a ballroom—depends upon the health of yours. What I mean is that I could only be happy if you are happy. May I ask if that wound of the heart which you told me about when I met you in the stagecoach has healed?"

"You know as well as I do that there are wounds which never heal."

With a graceful bow she turned away to speak to an acquaintance, and I asked a friend of mine who was passing: "Can you tell me who that woman is?"

"A South American whose name is Mercedes de Meridanueva."

On the following day I paid a visit to the lady, who was residing at that time at the Hotel of the Seven Planets. The charming Mercedes received me as if I were an intimate friend, and invited me to walk with her through the wonderful Alhambra and subsequently to dine with her. During the six hours we were together she spoke of many things, and as we always returned to the subject of disappointed love, I felt impelled to tell her the experience of my friend, Judge Zarco.

She listened to me very attentively and when I concluded she laughed and said: "Let this be a lesson to you not to fall in love with women whom you do not know."

"Do not think for a moment," I answered, "that I've invented this story."

"Oh, I don't doubt the truth of it. Perhaps there may be a mysterious woman in the Hotel of the Seven Planets of Granada, and perhaps she doesn't resemble the one your friend fell in love with in Sevilla. So far as I am concerned, there is no risk of my falling in love with anyone, for I never speak three times to the same man."

"Señora! That is equivalent to telling me that you refuse to see me again!"

"No, I only wish to inform you that I leave Granada to-morrow, and it is probable that we will never meet again."

"Never? You told me that during our memorable ride in the stagecoach, and you see that you are not a good prophet."

I noticed that she had become very pale. She rose from the table abruptly, saying: "Well, let us leave that to Fate. For my part I repeat that I am bidding you an eternal farewell."

She said these last words very solemnly, and then with a graceful bow, turned and ascended the stairway which led to the upper story of the hotel.

I confess that I was somewhat annoyed at the disdainful way in which she seemed to have terminated our acquaintance, yet this feeling was lost in the pity I felt for her when I noted her expression of suffering.

We had met for the last time. Would to God that it had been for the last time! Man proposes, but God disposes.

v

A FEW DAYS later business affairs brought me to the town wherein resided my friend Judge Zarco. I found him as lonely and as sad as at the time of my last visit. He had been able to find out nothing about Blanca, but he could not forget her for a moment. Unquestionably this woman was his fate; his heaven or his hell, as the unfortunate man was accustomed to saying.

We were soon to learn that his judicial superstition was to be fully justified.

The evening of the day of my arrival we were seated in his office, reading the last reports of the police, who had been vainly attempting to trace Gabriela, when an officer entered and handed the judge a note which read as follows:

"In the Hotel of the Lion there is a lady who wishes to speak to Judge Zarco."

"Who brought this?" asked the judge.

"A servant."

"Who sent him?"

"He gave no name."

The judge looked thoughtfully at the smoke of his cigar for a few moments, and then said: "A woman! To see me? I don't know why, but this thing frightens me. What do you think of it, Philip?"

"That it is your duty as a judge to answer the call, of course. Perhaps she may be able to give you some information in regard to Gabriela."

"You are right," answered Zarco, rising. He put a revolver in his pocket, threw his cloak over his shoulders and went out.

Two hours later he returned.

I saw at once by his face that some great happiness must have come to him. He put his arms about me and embraced me convulsively, exclaiming: "Oh, dear friend, if you only knew, if you only knew!"

"But I don't know anything," I answered. "What on earth has happened to you?"

"I'm simply the happiest man in the world!"

"But what is it?"

"The note that called me to the hotel was from her."

"But from whom? From Gabriela Zahara?"

"Oh, stop such nonsense! Who is thinking of those things now? It was she, I tell you, the other one!"

"In the name of heaven, be calm and tell me whom you are talking about."

"Who could it be but Blanca, my love, my life?"

"Blanca?" I answered with astonishment. "But the woman deceived you."

"Oh, no; that was all a foolish mistake on my part."

"Explain yourself."

"Listen: Blanca adores me!"

"Oh, you think she does? Well, go on."

"When Blanca and I separated on the fifteenth of April, it was understood that we were to meet again on the fifteenth of May. Shortly after I left she received a letter calling her to Madrid on urgent family business, and she did not expect me back until the fifteenth of May, so she remained in Madrid until the first. But, as you know, I, in my impatience could not wait, and returned fifteen days before I had agreed, and not finding her at the hotel I jumped to the conclusion that she had deceived me, and I did not wait. I have gone through two years of torment and suffering, all due to my own stupidity."

"But she could have written you a letter."

"She said that she had forgotten the address."

"Ah, my poor friend," I exclaimed, "I see that you are striving to convince yourself. Well, so much the better. Now, when does the marriage take place? I suppose that after so long and dark a night the sun of matrimony will rise radiant."

"Don't laugh," exclaimed Zarco; "you shall be my best man."

"With much pleasure."

MAN PROPOSES, but God disposes. We were still seated in the library, chatting together, when there came a knock at the door. It was about two o'clock in the morning. The judge and I were both startled, but we could not have told why. The servant opened the door, and a moment later a man dashed into the library so breathless from hard running that he could scarcely speak.

"Good news, judge, grand news!" he said when he recovered breath. "We have won!"

The man was the prosecuting attorney.

"Explain yourself, my dear friend," said the judge, motioning him to a chair. "What remarkable occurrence could have brought you hither in such haste and at this hour of the morning?"

"We have arrested Gabriela Zahara."

"Arrested her?" exclaimed the judge joyfully.

"Yes, sir, we have her. One of our detectives has been following her for a month. He has caught her, and she is now locked up in a cell of the prison."

"Then let us go there at once!" exclaimed the judge. "We will interrogate her to-night. Do me the favor to notify my secretary. Owing to the gravity of the case, you yourself must be present. Also notify the guard who has charge of the head of Señor Romeral. It has been my opinion from the beginning that this criminal woman would not dare deny the horrible murder when she was confronted with the evidence of her crime. So far as you are concerned," said the judge, turning to me, "I will appoint you assistant secretary, so that you can be present without violating the law."

I did not answer. A horrible suspicion had been growing within me, a suspicion which, like some infernal animal, was tearing at my heart with claws of steel. Could Gabriela and Blanca be one and the same? I turned to the assistant district attorney.

"By the way," I asked, "where was Gabriela when she was arrested?"

"In the Hotel of the Lion."

My suffering was frightful, but I could say nothing, do nothing without compromising the judge; besides, I was not sure. Even if I were positive that Gabriela and Blanca were the same person, what could my unfortunate friend do? Feign a sudden illness? Flee the country? My only way was to keep silent and let God work it out in His own way. The orders of the judge had already been communicated to the chief of police and the warden of the prison. Even at this hour the news had spread throughout the city and idlers were gathering to see the rich and beautiful woman who would ascend the scaffold. I still clung to the slender hope that Gabriela and Blanca were not the same person. But when I went toward the prison I staggered like a drunken man and was compelled to lean upon the shoulder of one of the officials, who asked me anxiously if I were ill.

vi

WE ARRIVED at the prison at four o'clock in the morning. The large reception room was brilliantly lighted. The guard, holding a black box in which was the skull of Señor Romeral, was awaiting us.

The judge took his seat at the head of the long table; the prosecuting attorney sat on his right, and the chief of police stood by with his arms folded. I and the secretary sat on the left of the judge. A number of police officers and detectives were standing near the door.

The judge touched his bell and said to the warden:

"Bring in Doña Gabriela Zahara!"

I felt as if I were dying, and instead of looking at the door, I looked at the judge to see if I could read in his face the solution of this frightful problem.

I saw him turn livid and clutch his throat with both hands, as if to stop a cry of agony, and then he turned to me with a look of infinite supplication.

"Keep quiet!" I whispered, putting my finger on my lips, and then I added: "I knew it."

The unfortunate man arose from his chair.

"Judge!" I exclaimed, and in that one word I conveyed to him the full sense of his duty and of the dangers which surrounded him. He controlled himself and resumed his seat, but were it not for the light in his eyes, he might have been taken for a dead man. Yes, the man was dead; only the judge lived.

When I had convinced myself of this, I turned and looked at the accused. Good God! Gabriela Zahara was not only Blanca, the woman my friend so deeply loved, but she was also the woman I had met in the stagecoach and subsequently at Granada, the beautiful South American, Mercedes!

All these fantastic women had now merged into one, the real one who stood before us, accused of the murder of her husband and who had been condemned to die.

There was still a chance to prove herself innocent. Could she do it? This was my one supreme hope, as it was that of my poor friend.

Gabriela (we will call her now by her real name) was deathly pale, but apparently calm. Was she trusting to her innocence or to the weakness of the judge? Our doubts were soon solved. Up to that moment the accused had looked at no one but the judge. I did not know whether she desired to encourage him or menace him, or to tell him that his Blanca could not be an assassin. But noting the impassibility of the magistrate and that his face was as expressionless as that of a corpse, she turned to the others, as if seeking help from them. Then her eyes fell upon me, and she blushed slightly.

The judge now seemed to awaken from his stupor and asked in a harsh voice:

"What is your name?"

"Gabriela Zahara, widow of Romeral," answered the accused in a soft voice.

Zarco trembled. He had just learned that his Blanca had never existed; she told him so herself—she who only three hours before had consented to become his wife!

Fortunately, no one was looking at the judge, all eyes being fixed upon Gabriela, whose marvelous beauty and quiet demeanor carried to all an almost irresistible conviction of her innocence.

The judge recovered himself, and then, like a man who is staking more than life upon the cast of a die, he ordered the guard to open the black box.

"Madame!" said the judge sternly, his eyes seeming to dart flames, "approach and tell me whether you recognize this head?"

At a signal from the judge the guard opened the black box and lifted out the skull.

A cry of mortal agony rang through that room; one could not tell whether it was of fear or of madness. The woman shrank back, her eyes dilating with terror, and screamed: "Alfonzo, Alfonzo!"

Then she seemed to fall into a stupor. All turned to the judge, murmuring: "She is guilty beyond a doubt."

"Do you recognize the nail which deprived your husband of life?" said the judge, arising from his chair, looking like a corpse rising from the grave.

"Yes, sir," answered Gabriela mechanically.

"That is to say, you admit that you assassinated your husband?" asked the judge, in a voice that trembled with his great suffering.

"Sir," answered the accused, "I do not care to live any more, but before I die I would like to make a statement."

The judge fell back in his chair and then asked me by a look: "What is she going to say?"

I, myself, was almost stupefied by fear.

Gabriela stood before them, her hands clasped and a far-away look in her large, dark eyes.

"I am going to confess," she said, "and my confession will be my defense, although it will not be sufficient to save me from the scaffold. Listen to me, all of you! Why deny that which is self-evident? I was alone with my husband when he died. The servants and the doctor have testified to this. Hence, only I could have killed him. Yes, I committed the crime, but another man forced me to do it."

The judge trembled when he heard these words, but, dominating his emotion, he asked courageously:

"The name of that man, madame? Tell us at once the name of the scoundrel!"

Gabriela looked at the judge with an expression of infinite love, as a mother would look at the child she worshiped, and answered: "By a single word I could drag this man into the depths with me. But I will not. No one shall ever know his name, for he has loved me and I love him. Yes, I love him, although I know he will do nothing to save me!"

The judge half rose from his chair and extended his hands beseechingly, but she looked at him as if to say: "Be careful! You will betray yourself, and it will do no good."

He sank back into his chair, and Gabriela continued her story in a quiet, firm voice:

"I was forced to marry a man I hated. I hated him more after I married him than I did before. I lived three years in martyrdom. One day there came into my life a man whom I loved. He demanded that I should marry him, he asked me to fly with him to a heaven of happiness and love. He was a man of exceptional character, high and noble, whose only fault was that he loved me too much. Had I told him: 'I have deceived you, I am not a widow; my husband is living,' he would have left me at once. I invented a thousand excuses, but he always answered: 'Be my wife!' What could I do? I was bound to a man of the vilest character and habits, whom I loathed. Well, I killed this man, believing that I was committing an act of justice, and God punished me, for my lover abandoned me. And now I am very, very tired of life, and all I ask of you is that death may come as quickly as possible."

Gabriela stopped speaking. The judge had buried his face in his hands, as if he were thinking, but I could see he was shaking like an epileptic.

"Your honor," repeated Gabriela, "grant my request that I may die soon."

The judge made a sign to the guards to remove the prisoner.

Before she followed them, she gave me a terrible look in which there was more of pride than of repentance.

I DO NOT wish to enter into details of the condition of the judge during the following day. In the great emotional struggle which took place, the officer of the law conquered the man, and he confirmed the sentence of death.

On the following day the papers were sent to the Court of Appeals, and then Zarco came to me and said: "Wait here until I return. Take care of this unfortunate woman, but do not visit her, for your presence would humiliate instead of consoling her. Do not ask me whither I am going, and do not think that I am going to commit the very foolish act of taking my own life. Farewell, and forgive me all the worry I have caused you."

Twenty days later the Court of Appeals confirmed the sentence, and Gabriela Zahara was placed in the death cell.

THE MORNING of the day fixed for the execution came, and still the judge had not returned. The scaffold had been erected in the center of the square, and an enormous crowd had gathered. I stood by the door of the prison, for, while I had obeyed the wish of my friend that I should not call on Gabriela in her prison, I believed it my duty to represent him in that supreme moment and accompany the woman he had loved to the foot of the scaffold.

When she appeared, surrounded by her guards, I hardly recognized her. She had grown very thin and seemed hardly to have the strength to lift to her lips the small crucifix she carried in her hand.

"I am here, señora. Can I be of service to you?" I asked her as she passed by me.

She raised her deep, sunken eyes to mine, and, when she recognized me, she exclaimed:

"Oh, thanks, thanks! This is a great consolation for me, in my last hour of life. Father," she added, turning to the priest who stood beside her, "may I speak a few words to this generous friend?"

"Yes, my daughter," answered the venerable minister.

Then Gabriela asked me: "Where is he?"

"He is absent—"

"May God bless him and make him happy! When you see him, ask him to forgive me even as I believe God has already forgiven me. Tell him I love him yet, although this love is the cause of my death."

We had arrived at the foot of the scaffold stairway, where I was compelled to leave her. A tear, perhaps the last one there was in that suffering heart, rolled down her cheek. Once more she said: "Tell him that I died blessing him."

Suddenly there came a roar like that of thunder. The mass of people swayed, shouted, danced, laughed like maniacs, and above all this tumult one word rang out clearly:

"Pardoned! Pardoned!"

At the entrance to the square appeared a man on horseback, galloping madly toward the scaffold. In his hand he waved a white handkerchief, and his voice rang high above the clamor of the crowd: "Pardoned! Pardoned!"

It was the judge. Reining up his foaming horse at the foot of the scaffold, he extended a paper to the chief of police.

Gabriela, who had already mounted some of the steps, turned and gave the judge a look of infinite love and gratitude.

"God bless you!" she exclaimed, and then fell senseless.

As soon as the signatures and seals upon the document had been verified by the authorities, the priest and the judge rushed to the accused to undo the cords which bound her hands and arms and to revive her.

All their efforts were useless, however. Gabriela Zahara was dead.

__________________

10: In the Garden of the Gods

William McLeod Raine

1871-1954

Redbook, Sep 1905

WHEN ONE is in the Garden of the Gods one should be, I suppose, in Elysian humor. My mood, to the contrary, for private reasons of my own, was. thunderous. I lay on my elbow among the kinnikinic where I had flung myself down in the shade of a silver spruce. But the sun was higher now, and its rare, untempered beat was on me. Naturally I used the shifting orb as a text on the futility of life. What was the use of arranging things comfortably when they always disarranged themselves as promptly as possible? Now, there was Katherine—

The sound of a revolver cracked into my sombre discontent. Hard on its echoes came the slap of running feet, and, as I guessed, the swish of petticoats. A raucous command to stop brought me to my feet instantly. It also brought the runner to a halt just out of my sight beyond the shoulder of the hill.

“I dare you to touch me,” panted a high-pitched voice that struck in me a bell of recognition.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” replied he of the hoarse bellow, soothingly. ‘You know that mighty well.”

“If you put a finger on me I'll cry for help.”

“There wouldn’t anybody hear, Miss,” replied the heavy bass.

“You— you coward!” Her voice was like a whip.

“Oh, you can call me anything you like but you got to go along with me, Miss," he said sullenly.

“I’ll not go a step.”

“I reckon you got to go, lady.”

“May I go, too?” My contribution to the conversation came from the knoll just above them.

They whirled as at the press of a button. The man was a huge hulking fellow in corduroys, but he did not look the villain by a long shot. Indeed, his guileless face, lit with amazement at my words, begged to offer a guarantee of honesty. Here certainly was no finished desperado. The first glimpse of him relieved my mind. We were in no personal danger at least.

“Who in time are you?” he wanted to know.

“Tavis Q. Damron, at your service. And you— since introductions are going?”

The young woman— she was a Miss Katherine Gray, stopping at the same hotel as I at Manitou— promptly took the opportunity to slip behind my back. For me, I was in a glow of triumph. It had not been twenty-four hours since Miss Gray had informed me that she meant never to speak again to me. And already the favoring gods had brought her to me on the run. In my relation I felt myself a match for a score of lowering countrymen.

“He shot at me,” she cried over my shoulder.

“It went off accidentally,” protested the man.

“I don’t care. He shot.”

“He'll not do it again,” I promised, complacently.

My unlucky triumph must have crept into my voice. I felt her appraise with deliberate eye my sixty-six scant inches. Nothing “hips” me more than an inference that I am short. To be sure, I am not a giant physically. Neither was Napoleon.

“I’m sorry not to meet with your approbation,” I said huffily.

“Oh, I did not say that. It would be unjust. You can’t help being little,” she was pleased to say, and I swear I heard the chuckle in her voice.

“Any more than you can help being offensive when you are in the humor.”

“Don’t take it so to heart. You may grow yet. You are very young, you know.”

“Perhaps I am de trop. Very likely you were looking for somebody else when you came galloping down the hill,” I said sulkily.

“I was looking for a man.” Her casual eye swept the valley. Tavis Q. Damron really did not appear to be on the map.

“I am certain you will not have to look long,” I assured her with excessive politeness.

“Thank you.” She glanced scornfully at me. "I suppose you mean that for a compliment? I think it impertinent, if you want to know.”

It was odd how we had almost forgotten the presence of our friend in corduroys; yet not so strange either, for he looked the picture of awkward indecision, much more the detected schoolboy than the “bad man” bandit. His fat, red hand, wandering restlessly about, included us in its orbit.

“I say, my man! Put up that gun! You make me nervous,” I barked.

“It might go off again accidentally,” suggested Miss Gray derisively. "We can’t risk Mr. Damron’s fainting. I suppose you have no restoratives with you, Mr. Corduroy?”

There came a shout from the cliff five hundred feet above. A man standing on the edge was beckoning to us.

“Somebody appears to want us to come and to share his beautiful view,” I said.

Corduroy’s indecision came to an end. “I guess we better be going back, Miss.”

“I  thought I understood her to say she did not care to go back,” I said, eyeing him steadily.

Corduroy shifted uneasily. "She hadn’t any call to run away. Her father’s up there.”

“He’s a prisoner,” explained Miss Gray.

I gasped. "A prisoner?”

“Yes. Mr. Halloway is keeping him on that cliff and won’t let him leave,” she said, quite calmly.

“Halloway! Bob Halloway?”

She nodded defiantly. "Yes, Bob Halloway.”

“But— why the thing is impossible. ”

“Isn’t it ridiculous?” She gave a sudden charming smile. ‘I didn’t know the West was so delightfully primitive, ”

“Surely one can’t hold up a copper king in that primeval fashion. It has to be done on Wall street.” Reflecting on Simon Gray’s probable reflections, I smiled. Immediately I regretted my indiscretion. The study of Miss Gray’s moods was a  continual education. They were teaching me just now that she might laugh at that which I might not.

“Isn’t it humorous?” said Miss Gray, a little too sweetly. ‘‘Don’t let me curb your gayety. He’s only my father.”

Instantly I switched the indecorous mirth from my face. "I don’t see how he dares,” I murmured, to bridge the pause.

“Dares! I thought you knew Bob Halloway better,” she said scornfully. “He dares anything.”

I did know him better. He would stick at nothing. Whatever else his smiling insolence covered, it did not hide any lack of courage to back his recklessness. He was the type of man that women find fascinating, especially women of the high-spirited, chivalrous order. You know the sort of scamp I mean— the kind whose dark, unscrupulous eyes and devil-may-care fearlessness draw the poor moths to the singeing flame. And though for his unworthiness his father two years before had shipped him to a ranch in Colorado and cut him adrift, my resurrected suspicions painted him a rival still to be feared. Katherine had liked him then; she liked him now. I knew it from the moment when the picturesque vagabond galloped up to our hotel two days before and offered her his strong brown hand and candid smile.

I meditated. "Of course it is a holdup of some sort. He isn’t doing it for fun. What does he want?”

Looking up, I happened to catch Katherine Gray’s eyes. They were blushing. “Oh!” I exclaimed understandingly.

“Nothing of the kind! Don’t be silly, Tavis,” she told me sharply.

“Then I’m hanged if I can understand. I seem to be playing blind euchre with my eyes shut. First one finds Miss Katherine Gray, daughter and sole heir to Simon Gray, the Copper King, scudding over the mountains with Mr. Corduroy’s revolver barking at her.”

“I told you it was accidental,” growled the bass voice. "I couldn’t catch her, so I took out my gun to frighten her into stopping.”

“Then one hears that the Copper King himself is viewing scenery he does not enjoy, under enforced restraint at the hands of a young man who used to lead cotillions with his daughter before he fell into evil ways. You know I told you he was a scamp.”

“Don’t be a parrot, Mr. Damron,” Katherine snapped. “I told you yesterday that I wasn’t interested in your opinion of Mr. Halloway. You so often forget that you are not my chaperon.”

“Of course I don’t want to rub it in, but if you had listened to—"

“Grandmother Damron. Well, I didn’t— and I’m not going to.” Miss Gray’s chin was in the air. She wheeled and began to climb the hillside.

“Where are you going?” I asked.

She can be very deaf on occasion.

“Oh, up the hill,” she flung over her shoulder in answer to my question repeated.

“But you said you weren’t going back.”

“Can’t I change my mind, Grandmother?”

“You don’t need to be rude,” I said sulking.

I toiled in her wake, and Corduroy in mine. The pace she set soon had us puffing. Miss Gray is one of those young women who do outdoor things better than most men. She never fainted in her life, and nerves are a fairy tale to her. It always ruffles my temper and my vanity to do a twosome with her at golf.

“Hello, you people! Just in time for lunch. Glad to see you, Damron,” sang out Halloway cheerily as we emerged from the aspens into view at the rear of the cliff.

A most appealing luncheon was set forth on the white table cloth spread on a camp table among the boulders. Halloway, in his shirt sleeves, was making coffee, opening cans of deviled ham, unpacking a box of fried chicken, and otherwise endeavoring to be several places at once. He fell immediately to issuing orders.

“Bring that box of ice with the bottles in it from the wagon, John. I say, Damron, do you know how to broil bacon? Well, you’ll never learn younger. Shake those coals down and set to work, my son. And don’t let the coffee boil over.” His enthusiasm was contagious. I found myself obeying him mechanically. ‘You might unpack the sandwiches, Kate. We’re going to have the jolliest little lunch you ever saw. I suspect you are hungry. Scudding over these hills is great for the appetite. By the way, you made a fine run of it.” He was so genial and friendly to her that one could hardly believe he knew that his confederate had just brought her back under the menace of his revolver.

Miss Gray probably thought his assurance was akin to cheek. At any rate she gave him the full benefit of her unwillowy five foot seven. He met with smiling admiration her level indignant eyes; and indeed the girl’s long curves, her frank good looks, her flashing sunburnt beauty, had led captive many a man’s fancy. Turning on her heel, she joined her father. Simon Gray, multimillionaire, was seated morosely on a rock, frowning down into the Garden of the Gods with blazing eyes. Far below a dozen dwarfed carriages might be seen wheeling along the red ribbon of road, and many burros with tourists on their backs crawled like ants among the rocks, but for all practical purposes the grim-eyed captain of industry was as much a prisoner as if the gates of a jail had closed on him.

His dignity was too precious to be risked in a futile attempt to escape from the long legged powerful young athlete. Possibly it was because I was so interested in the situation that I burnt the bacon to a crisp. Miss Grey, with one of her sudden changes of humor, drove me from the fire and broiled the bacon herself. The truth is that despite her frowns the girl was enjoying herself hugely. The excitement of a new experience filliped through her blood.

I joined Mr. Gray and we conversed in whispers. He explained to me the absolute necessity of his being in Denver that afternoon to attend an important meeting of the Copper Consolidated Corporation. It was the day of the biennial election of officers. He had bought Consolidated stock sufficient to win the control from the present management, but without his presence or his proxies the old management would still be able to carry the election and reinstate itself. James Halloway was president of the Consolidated, and the two men had been fighting for control more years than one.

"Last call for dinner in the dining car,” sang out Halloway, and notwithstanding our lack of harmony the sharp air of the Rockies had made us hungry enough to sink, for the moment, at least, all differences. Halloway, easy, alert, and masterful, dispensed refreshments with debonair hospitality to his unwilling guests.

“Finest bacon I ever ate. It would be a pleasure to have you for a housekeeper, Miss Gray," our host tossed out audaciously.

“You are such a good provider, Mr. Halloway, that I am sure it would be a pleasure to be your housekeeper," returned Miss Gray demurely. “And if I neglected my duties you could always send your man out to shoot at me.”

“Ah! That only shows my solicitude to detain you. One couldn’t bear the idea of having you leave our party, and yet one couldn’t in common politeness desert Mr. Gray to follow you. It remained only to send a message via John requesting you to return.”

“Well, he delivered it,” the girl said, dimpling reminiscently.

Halloway smiled. “I’m afraid John is a little abrupt sometimes.” Her eyes mocked him boldly.

"In your profession of highwayman, abruptness, one would think, might sometimes be essential.”

“It was cruel of you to desert us without warning,” he said, ignoring her irony.

“I went to get help.”

“That was good of you, but we did not really need it,” he returned, misunderstanding her promptly. "Though of course we are very glad to have Damron with us.”

“I suppose you know that it will be a criminal offense to keep Mr. Gray here till night as you threaten. You invited him here to a picnic. You have no right to detain him a moment longer than he desires. Your outrageous course is very much against the law, Mr. Halloway,” I said stiffly.

He looked politely interested. "Is it? No, I didn’t know just how illegal it was. Of course I guessed I was skating on thin ice, but the truth is that I didn’t get legal advice. That shows the advantage of having a lawyer along when one goes buccaneering. How much could they give me, Damron?”

“You'll not think it so much of a joke when you are behind the bars.”

“No, I daresay not. I expect I would better enjoy it while I have the opportunity. Try one of these peaches, Miss Gray.” He leaned against a rock and smoked the placid post-prandial cigar of him whose soul is at peace. I, too, had lit up, but my mind was far from equable. I was possessed by the vision of a headlong generous girl under the fascination of this charming young vagabond. Yet I confess that for myself I admired as much as I disliked his dare-devil indifference to consequences, though for the life of me I could not guess what his game was or how it could advantage him to detain the Copper King on this mountain top against his will.

He expounded his easy philosophy with airy candor. “After all, laws are made for man, not man for the laws. Mr. Gray is a capitalist, and he can tell you that laws are to be obeyed with discretion. There would not be any use in having them if somebody did not break them occasionally. Well, this is my day off. I’m playing ping-pong with the statutes of Colorado”

“But why?” I demanded. “What good does it do you?”

“Oh come, Damron! Mayn’t I have a secret or two of my own? I don’t suppose you ever explained publicly just why you happen to be spending your vacation in Colorado instead of Timbuctoo.”

I fear I blushed. Glancing covertly at my reason, I found it the fairest under the sun, but too present to admit of discussion.

Suddenly Simon Gray cut crisply into the talk for the first time.

“Of course I understand why you are holding me here, Halloway. You are working under instructions from your father to keep me until after the election this afternoon. But the thing is too bare-faced. It won’t hold in law. It’s a conspiracy.” Halloway’s masterful eyes looked straight at him.

“I have not seen or heard from my father in two years, Mr. Gray. He does not have anything to do with his scalawag son. You do not need to look beyond me to place the responsibility for this. But you’re right in one thing. I intend that you shall not reach Denver in time for the Copper Consolidated meeting.”

They were both dominant men, and their eyes met like the flash of steel.

“No? Why not?” asked Gray quietly, his lids narrowing to long watchful slits.

“Because you are going there to take what doesn’t belong to you— to vote away from my father and his associates the control of a business which they have given twenty years of their lives to build. Theirs is a legitimate business enterprise. They developed and extended it gradually. It grew to be a big thing. Then you took a fancy for copper. You—"

“You don’t know what you are talking about young man. I am going there to take what the law allows me— what I have bought and paid for in the open market,” broke in Gray harshly.

“Yes, the law allows it to you, and it doesn't allow me to interfere. That is where the law is defective. It is true, too, that you have manipulated the market in such a way as to get temporary control of a majority of the stock. But that does not affect the fact that my father and his friends have the moral right to direct the affairs of the Consolidated. Their whole life is bound up in it. You are interested simply for speculative purposes. They have earned the right to direct its affairs. You haven’t.”

“Such talk is sheer folly. You do not understand finance, sir. You have been living outside of the currents of business. The matter is a plain business one, not an ethical or sentimental affair at all.”

Halloway’s daring eyes swept whimsically across the table and rested momentarily on Katherine. “I am trying to keep it on a business basis so that sentiment may not interfere, sir.”

Then Katherine spoke with silken cruelty. “You have a very flattering opinion of my father, Mr. Halloway. It makes his daughter proud to know that one of such notable achievement thinks so highly of him.”

Halloway bowed, a sardonic smile on his good-looking face. “I can hardly expect my course to commend itself to Miss Gray,” he said simply.

Miss Katherine’s dark flashing eyes showed their anger at the presumption of this lawless, high-handed youth. She had, in company with many charming women, a capacity for injustice, but she had, too, a quick instinctive appreciation for fine points of character. Her feelings were outraged that this young man, who had once wanted to marry her and who still held much fascination for her, had taken advantage of his position as host to overreach her father. But she was very much a creature of moods, and I knew her well enough to fear the revulsion which would follow when she began to take into account his motive— loyalty to a father who had disowned him. And I was certain that even now there was running through her rage an admiration of his audacity that would remain when the anger had evaporated.

Just now, however, she treated his remarks in very cavalier fashion. The burden of such conversation as there was rested on Halloway. It consisted for the most part in genially ironical remarks on the charms of an outdoor life. Katherine was aloofly viewing the scenery with occasional side-shot glances at the offending youth; I watched events in a moody silence, and Corduroy still discussed his dinner some fifty yards from us. As for Simon Gray, he sat in a brown study, his eyes fixed intently on a syphon he did not see. I wondered what plan was filtering into that alert, fertile brain of his.

I was soon to learn. Halloway carried over to Corduroy a bottle of ale, and in his absence the Copper King found chance to enlist his daughter in the scheme. Presently Miss Katherine strolled leisurely toward the cluster of great brown rocks which cropped out near the edge of the bluff. She carried a magazine with her.

“You're not going to run away again, Kate,” Halloway called after her.

She shook her head.

“Word of honor?”

“Word of honor,” she called gaily back to him. “But if you doubt—"

Her smile was an invitation. Halloway did not accept it at once, but, plainly eager to be off, stuck to the magnate for a long ten minutes. Then, "Hang duty!” he said, and with a word of caution to his accomplice, he disappeared after her behind the rocks. His long shadow had scarcely trailed out of view before old Gray and a flask of old Scotch were laying siege to Corduroy. The task of sapping his loyalty was no easy one. It took thirty minutes of argument— of threats, cajolery, promises, interspersed with frequent internal applications of the contents of the flask— to win him over. There were times when I despaired of hooking our shy fish, and even after he had swallowed the bait he fought against being landed. Every moment I expected to see Halloway’s impudent curly head rising over the brow of the hill. I was as nervous as a youngster awaiting a caning, but they don’t make them more cool and game than old Gray was. Our joint pocket books happened to carry five hundred twenty-five dollars, and it took all we had except some silver change to buy a release. But in the end I had the satisfaction of seeing the rotund millionaire and Corduroy legging it down the hill toward Manitou. I am not going to pretend that I have often spent as bad a quarter of an hour as the one which followed, during which I saw their figures lessen in the distance. It was not until they had reached the red thread of the valley road that I breathed freely

I was ready now for the villain to re-enter, and, as if pat to his cue, the alluring vagabond I had cast for the part sauntered into view. He was very much engrossed with his companion, and— I noticed it with a pang of envy— she with him. Both of them seemed always to radiate health and vitality, but my jaundiced eyes found about them now a scarce decently subdued sparkle of exhilaration. They were in a world primeval and everybody else forgotten. There have been times when I have trod air and breathed champagne myself, but that did not make me any less sulky now. I resented to the bottom of my soul their Eden from which I was excluded.

They were almost on me before they wakened to things mundane.

“Hello, Damron!” Halloway looked over the plateau and brought his eyes back to me. ‘‘Where’s Mr. Gray?”

Katherine started and looked guilty. I verily believe that till this moment the minx had forgotten she was in a conspiracy to worst him.

I pointed to the disappearing specks. “On his way to a telegraph office. He is going to have the Consolidated election postponed till to-morrow,” I said with malicious triumph.

“What did you do with John?”

“Bought him. You should have stayed here. If you want a thing well done, you know!”

“Oh! You seem to have been quite active.” He looked long at the figures through a pair of field glasses. ‘‘Why didn’t you go along?” he asked presently.

“I thought I would stay and break the news of our little surprise to you,” I said tartly.

He turned his genial, impudent smile on me. “That was good of you, Damron. You deserve something for that.” His eyes met Katherine’s for an instant. She nodded, blushing. He tucked her arm under his, and they beamed down on me. ‘‘We have a little surprise, too. Miss Gray and I are engaged to be married. We arranged it while you were buying my partner in crime.”

I offered my congratulations with a wooden face.

Katherine has always been able to twist her father round that supple little finger of hers. It did not surprise me at all to read in the papers two days later that an adjustment of the affairs of the C. C. C. had been made satisfactory to the warring factions and that by this arrangement President Halloway was allowed to retain his position and continue his policy. The breach between Bob Halloway and his father was immediately healed. Friends industriously circulated the information that the difference had been due merely to the clashing of two proud natures which did not understand each other. They point to the fact that since his marriage Bob has been in every way equal to the business responsibilities of his important position in the Consolidated. One understands that he has now entirely sown his wild oats. He reaps golden opinions everywhere.

I don’t join in the general chorus much myself— but I’m hanged if I can hate him as much as I would like.

____________

11: The Exploits of Mr. White

Clarence Herbert New

1862-1933

Blue Book  Nov 1924

(as by Culpeper Zandtt)

WITH a different expression, Henry W. Chandler would have been a rather fine-looking man. With the habitual scowl on his face, it was strong enough to impress itself on the memory as something of a driving force, but the impression was unpleasant— repellent. He was successful through sheer ability and domination— and was hated, not only by everyone in his employ, but by a majority of those with whom he came in contact. To give the man such extenuating credit as there may be in his case, part of this was due to dyspepsia— though dyspepsia, being curable, is a poor excuse. He invariably ate his meals in a hurry, even when there was no hurry. In order to be conscious that he was eating, when his mind was racing over a thousand other things, he chose food with a tang and a kick in it. He smoked too much. There was a perceptible increase in his nervous irritability as the years passed. And the joke of the situation— or tragedy, as one looks at it— was that he very strongly desired the good opinion of his fellow-men— and women. Consider him, during a typical morning:

Chandler reached his office on the stroke of nine, as usual. A letter dictated on the previous afternoon should have been on his desk for signature with the morning mail, but hadn't been finished because the stenographer, being in doubt over two or three words, had waited to look them up in her larger dictionary at home. She had reached the office before him and brought in the letter before nine-fifteen— but the sarcastic way in which he looked from her to the clock, without a word, upset her completely. It was simply human nature to justify herself:

"The small dictionary, here, didn't give all the meanings of four words you used in this letter, Mr. Chandler— and I wanted to look them up at home to be sure! I've written the letter exactly as you dictated it, but I hope you'll let me substitute other words in three cases, because these really don't mean what you were trying to convey!"

"Miss Grant— I'm paying you thirty dollars a week as a competent stenographer! You're supposed to know enough of the English language, without extra study in a library, to catch any misuse of a word while I'm dictating, and mention it at the time."

"I did that once, and you nearly blew my head off!"

"Wait! I'm doing the talking! When I tell you that I want a letter on my desk when I get here in the morning, I mean just that! Fifteen minutes later won't do at all! If you'd spend less time powdering your nose, perhaps you might get your work done on time! That's all!"

For a moment the girl's eyes were full of tears, but when she went back to her desk in the outer office, her face was flaming— she was too mad to cry. Her bag came out of a drawer, and within three seconds she was dabbing nose and cheeks with a powder-pad as she squinted into the little mirror inside. It was entirely automatic habit— she didn't even know she was doing it until one of the other girls leaned over and whispered: "Nix on the rouge, Sally— you had a lot on before! Mebbe that's what he was sore about this time!"

MEANWHILE, Bowers, who covered some of the middle States, came in, after just completing a trip, and was asked to report at once in the boss' office. He would have preferred getting his memoranda and a full report in shape, but if Chandler wanted it half-baked, that settled it. He went in— to be raked over concerning a contract he'd failed to land.

"I think I can get that account in about four or five months, Mr. Chandler," he responded. "Denton's brother-in-law is one of the Excelsior Mills company. I guess there's a lot of family argument at home about throwing some business that way if the price is right. And the Excelsior people made him an offer of ten carloads that we simply couldn't touch—"

"How do you know we couldn't! Why didn't you wire in— put it up to me! I'm running this business, Bowers!"

"Well, if you told me to offer a lower price than theirs, Mr. Chandler, I wouldn't do it— because our goods cost more than that to make! There's nothing in cut-throating to get trade— you know that as well as I do! The Excelsior people are going to skimp on those goods; they've got to! Denton's going to be sick of the contract in a month— he'll cancel what's left of it in two or three. He knows exactly what our goods are— and when he gets through with that brother-in-law of his, I'll land him for a good big order. Outside of that one miss, I think I've done pretty well, this trip. How about it?"

"Oh-h-h— nothing to suggest medals, Bowers— nothing to write home about! Good average trip, perhaps— but we can't run this business on averages— got to do a shade better than that! I think I could have sold Denton something of a bill in spite of the brother-in-law— a salesman has to have the bulldog hang-on and never take no for an answer. No— I think with more application you might have done a good deal better. In fact, I'm giving you easier territory to cover next time, and letting Greer see what he can do with yours! I don't know how many cigars and theater tickets you charge up on your expense-account, but it seems to me ample, Bowers— ample!"

"That'll be about all the discussion we need in this case, Mr. Chandler. You've ridden me once or twice before when there was no excuse for it. I can sell goods anywhere in the United States— with the next man— and there are plenty of men who want the sort of ability I've got. So I'll just write out a full report of my trip, turn in my orders, and get whatever's coming to me from the cashier. You can't talk to me like this, because I wont take it."

"Suit yourself, Bowers— suit yourself! I've never yet had an employee who was indispensable in my business. I'm perfectly frank with all of them— believe in telling 'em exactly where they stand, for their own good. I think there's nothing more to say. Close the door when you go out."

CHANDLER'S private secretary was a little more privileged than the other girls, partly because he was unconsciously attracted by her to the point of overlooking what he considered minor faults, partly because she was the unusual type of woman who possesses keen business intelligence. Added to this, she had enough intuition to sense a little of the real man underneath his repellent shell. If it suited Maude Walters for any good reason to be late in reaching the office, she was late— but she also worked for hours in the evening if there was need of it. On this particular day she came down with her hair bobbed. She was the type which acquires added witchery from that style of coiffure, and Chandler secretly owned to its effectiveness when she removed her hat; but he had gone on record as being vehemently opposed to the practice, and so his comment was like a whiplash to the girl:

"Hmph! Had to join the fool-brigade at last, did you? Couldn't go on looking like a decent, self-respecting woman! Oh— all right! I suppose what you've got inside your head is still working! "

She knew she was more attractive with her bobbed hair— had hoped her employer would notice the difference and like it even if he was slow to say so. Being more hurt than angry, she quietly went out to the wash-room so that he wouldn't see the tears rolling down her face. Her mother was an invalid; she was helping a sister through art-school and a brother in the Massachusetts "Tech." Otherwise, she would have walked out of the building for the last time, without another word to her employer. He noticed that she was unusually reserved for the next week or two — clumsily handed her a box of cheap candy, one morning, as a peace-offering. But they were like two people trying to understand each other with a high wall between them, over or through which neither could see.

"THESE are detached examples of what Chandler was like in his own office. Similar irritability and lack of tact were slowly but surely setting him apart in his clubs, and in the houses to which he was invited with less frequency each year. He might have gone on to a life of almost complete isolation had it not been for an incident on the Sleepy Hollow turnpike one afternoon when he was out in his car— alone. An acquaintance— Samuel F. Wentworth, the Wall Street magnate— had broken down at the side of the road, where mechanics from the nearest repair-shop had told him it would be an all-night job to put his car in shape. So Chandler, rather ungraciously, invited the stranded motorist to ride back with him. On the way down to the city he maliciously hogged the road once or twice to prevent other cars from passing him, and then raced them as far as he dared with his higher-powered machine. While in the act of doing this, he seemed to enjoy it— but when the other motorists disappeared, leaving an echo of curses trailing along the road, the manufacturer's face clouded over with depression. The zest was gone. He was totally unconscious that Wentworth had been closely observing his actions— and the reaction from them. Back in the, city, the financier surprised him with an invitation to dine at one of the more famous clubs. After dinner, he started an unusual discussion while they were smoking.

"Chandler— it didn't seem to me that you were getting much fun out of those brushes on the road, coming down. Eh?"

"No! I wasn't! Confound it all, Wentworth, I was only in fun! Just meant to tease 'em a little and then race 'em— if there were no traffic-bulls in sight. Why couldn't they take it in the same spirit? Why should they curse me as they did when I slowed down and let 'em by?"

"Well, if I'd been in one of those other cars, I think I'd have misunderstood you myself. There's a lot in the way a thing is done, you know. Out West, you may call a man a liar, a darned old skunk, or any other pet name— provided you smile. If it's done with a scowl such as you habitually wear, one gets a chunk of lead in him, pronto. You seem to have forgotten me altogether during the thirty-odd years since we first knew each other. I was Sammy Wentworth, from the next village, one of the old swimming-hole gang. We used to go trout-fishing together, you and I, but of course we've changed a lot since then. In those days I thought you a mighty likable boy. Kinda shy and reserved, but good-hearted and a pretty good sport. Well— I believe you are still, Hen— inside. But whether it's just your misfortune or a result of hard business dealing while you've been making your pile, you certainly have managed to stir up a lot of antagonism lately. You pay nearly top-notch wages in this town— for service— and I guess you get it. But the money is about all that makes your employees stick. In this club and at least two others I could mention, you might ask ten men to dine with you— and be met by excuses. How about it? Am I right?"

"Absolutely— Sam! Funny, I didn't recognize you as one of the old gang! And it's worrying me so that I'm thinking of giving up my business— living abroad—"

"Then you'll add gobs of homesickness to more or less ostracism wherever you go. If you ask me, I'd say stick it out right here. Find out what it is that's wrong— go to work systematically to overcome it. Make people like you, Hen!"

"Lord— if I only could! Didn't one of the old writers say something, somewhere, about 'seeing yourself the way other folks size you up?' Never knew just how it was put— but that was the gist of it."

Oh, wad some pow'r the giftie gie us

To see oursel's as ithers see us.

"That's it! Who wrote it? I must get that! What's it in?"

"Robbie Burns. It's part of his 'Lines to a Louse.' And by Jove— I believe that's about the only way you'd really take a tumble to yourself, Hen! I might talk all night and not make the idea penetrate as it would if you were— say in the fourth dimension— looking down at yourself, just as you are— day by day."

"Hmph! If I could do that, I might figure die difficulty out and overcome it. But of course such a thing is merely a crazy idea— utterly impossible! No man could ever see himself as he appears to those around him!"

"H-m-m— six months ago, I'd have agreed with you as to that. Now— I'm not so sure."

"What do you mean? How could such a thing be possible?"

"Well, there's a man I know who has some of the most peculiar gifts and ideas I ever ran across. He did me a service that was worth a heap of money. Then, at my suggestion, he tackled the case of a friend who happened to be in a most serious condition— did so much for him that he was glad to pay a big sum of money for it. Say, Hen— let me put it up to you straight and see how much in earnest you may get? Suppose it was possible for this friend of mine to do exactly what we've been talking about? I don't guarantee he can, or would even attempt it— but if he did, he'd probably succeed. Suppose that, in making you see yourself exactly as you appear to other people, he automatically suggested the remedy? Suppose, when he finally got through, that your whole personality had changed to such an extent that your employees were dead stuck on you, your business relations pleasant everywhere, your social invitations increasing every month? What do you think it would be worth? If the experiment actually panned out as I've suggested, how much would you be willing to pay for it?"

"Hmph! I wouldn't know just how to limit the amount! Haven't the faintest idea how one could put a price upon a service of that sort. I'll be frank with you, Sam— now that you've recalled the old days. I'm forty-five— unmarried, no near relatives— worth possibly two or three millions; and I know that because of some defect in my make-up I'm hated by people I really want to like me. I can see the ostracism getting a little more pronounced every year, though it doesn't seem to affect the money-making ability as yet. In fact, I think the directors of two banks re-elected me as chairman- because I'm considered utterly cold-blooded and lacking in sentiment. Now— I can see the thing working out just as yon say, before very long. I'll get so disheartened that I'll simply end it all! Well— how is a man to set a price on remedying all that? Of course I think you're plumb crazy in suggesting that there may be a remedy, but I'm desperate enough to try most anything— and pay for it. Whatever it costs!"

"Just sit here a few minutes while I go out and telephone my friend! If he's disengaged this evening, I don't think you have any engagement important enough to prevent our going there. Eh?"

IN about forty minutes, Wentworth and Chandler got out of a taxi before one of the finest apartment-buildings on Riverside Drive and went up to a suite on the seventh floor with an extensive view up and down the river— the luxurious home of a Mr. Pennington White.

Chandler's first impression of the man who got out of a big leather chair to greet them was both disappointing and intriguing. His clothes were in such perfect taste that one didn't notice them. In face and manner he was so like thousands of other men similar in type that there seemed to be nothing about him which held one's attention— and yet there was a vague familiarity, as if one had been introduced to him before. For a while, his eyelids were half lowered, giving him a rather sleepy look. His manner, while thoroughly courteous, conveyed some impression that he would have been equally well satisfied if left to his books and his pipe, that evening, without callers. It seemed to the manufacturer that Wentworth took a very unconventional way of presenting him— merely asking their host:

"Pen, before introducing my friend, have you any idea as to his identity?"

White's eyes opened more fully in a searching glance which traveled over Chandler from head to foot and missed nothing— then narrowed again, speculatively.

"I think so— but just let me dip into my files a bit. I'll make sure— possibly dig up something which may be of use."

The manufacturer had noticed as they came into the comfortable living-room that its walls on three sides were lined with bookshelves to the height of one's head, and he now saw that one entire side was filled with metal filing-cases such as are used for letters and documents. Running his finger along a row until it rested on the letter he wanted, White took out a file and drew from it half a dozen Sunday supplement illustrations— glancing from them to his caller. Apparently his first guess was at fault, for he replaced the file, thought a moment, then pulled out another that yielded but two illustrations, with a few odd news-clippings of biographical data which he read entirely through before replacing the file. Then he resumed his leather chair by the broad table, filled and lighted his pipe before speaking.

"It would seem from my available data, Mr. Chandler," he observed, "that you are not very popular, socially. I have two rotogravure pictures of you— one, as chairman of the board of the Ampremattock National Bank— and the other as chairman of a certain manufacturers' association. If you were known well in society, there would be a dozen or more pictures to choose from— snapshots at Palm Beach, Virginia Hot Springs, Asheville, Newport, Bretton Woods— yachting, golfing, riding, steamer-pictures. Were you popular among your business associates, there would be much more data on your activities— group pictures with various committees and business leaders. You are reputed to be worth two or three millions— to be a force in the business world, unmarried, with little taste for the usual rich-men's recreations— a man with a country constitution, coming originally from Blenkinville, Ohio, where your first job was that of freight-handler in the local railway station. Now, on the face of it, your lack of popularity under these conditions is unusual— sufficiently so to be remarkable, and arouse my interest. One of those clippings in my file— which of course I wont show you— would constitute sufficient grounds for a libel-suit if you were foolish enough to bring one. It states pretty flatly that you are probably one of the most generally disliked men in New York.

The city editor was taking a big chance when he let that paragraph stand as it was written— evidently gambling on the belief that you wouldn't give him an opening to prove the statements in court. Well, my business depends a good deal upon study of physiognomy, and human nature as I find it. You give me the impression of qualities decidedly the reverse of inborn meanness— of being a fairly good sport. So — I don't just get it! Why are you so unpopular— if I'm right in my deductions?"

Chandler smiled— rather grimly. "If I knew exactly, Mr. White, it would be a simpler matter to remedy the fact. Apparently you've had nothing upon which to base your opinion except a prejudiced news-paragraph which might have been written by a personal enemy, and the mere absence of other data which you think your files should contain. But you've scored with your diagnosis. I know this: that my manner and what I say to various people seem to be repellent when nothing is further from my intention than to insult anybody, to really hurt his or her feelings— can't understand why they don't take what I say as I mean it, for their own good—"

"Ah! Now you've said something! Nobody likes to be told anything for his own good unless the intention is thoroughly disguised under a tactful manner! I think I'm beginning to visualize how you generally talk and act with people. Suppose you could watch yourself from the outside for a month, as a mere spectator— and at the same time have, as the sole occupation before you, the task of ingratiating yourself with everyone you meet? Wouldn't that show the reason for what I infer and you admit— indicate a positive way to reverse the condition?"

"Wentworth and I were discussing exactly that supposition— which of course is clearly impossible!"

"Oh, hold on, now— go slow! Impossible is a bluffing word— more front than solidity. I sometimes think it's altogether bluff. Er— will you gentlemen amuse yourselves here for twenty minutes or so while I dig up something in another room? Kato will bring you a snack of refreshments and tobacco. I want to figure out a little experiment."

TAKING the two rotogravure portraits with him, White went into his bedroom, which was unusually spacious and had a mahogany wardrobe built along one whole side. From over a hundred different suits in this, he selected one which almost exactly duplicated that worn by the manufacturer at the moment. Before putting it on, he sat down before a dresser with a trefoil mirror— the two pictures stuck up before him. As he had shaved just before dinner, his face was smooth enough to allow him to etch tiny marks upon it with a grease-pencil and then work them into the skin so that they were not perceptible at three or four feet distance— his first and most artistic work being upon the frown wrinkles of the forehead, particularly those between the eyes. By means of a drug injected under the skin, he produced little swellings in certain muscles, scarcely perceptible, yet making a subtle alteration in his facial expression. Inside of half an hour he had produced so exact a counterpart of the man in the other room that the effect was startling. He went out to the others, placed a table-mirror on the broad table in front of Chandler, and took a chair beyond it, so that the manufacturer could look directly from his own reflections to his double. With a vocal inflection which made both of them almost jump, he said:

"I've had no time to familiarize myself with your voice, your habitual gestures and mannerisms, Mr. Chandler— but to illustrate my point, I'll guess at them for a few moments. Let us suppose that you have just seated yourself at a restaurant or club table. You toss the menu aside, as I do this pamphlet— too nervous and irritable to glance through it. You wont stand for any suggestions from the waiter.

"Don't tell me what to eat! If I didn't know that much, I wouldn't come here! Bring me a lobster Newberg, with plenty of butter! Lyonnaise potatoes— sausages and buckwheat-cakes. Then some ice-cream. I want a cocktail while I'm waiting— and a big cup of coffee. Needn't stop to play marbles while you're getting the order, you know!"

OF course some of the tones in White's voice were not quite perfect, though none but Chandler himself would have noticed any marked difference— and even he recognized his habitual manner beyond any question. It was so natural, in fact, that he couldn't see why it should be considered offensive. It was his way of talking to a waiter— the food was so exactly what he sometimes ordered that it made his mouth water, though he had dined less than
two hours before. He kept looking from his reflection in the mirror to the man at the end of the table in utter amazement— it was as if that man were merely another reflection in a second mirror. As for Wentworth, he had seen White do startling things before— but this was beyond any of them. The man resumed his own voice and manner to do a little explaining:

"Had you been of a more pronounced type, Mr. Chandler, it would have been much more difficult to impersonate you. But like myself, you are the average type — similar complexion, size, weight, general appearance. There should be no difficulty in doing what I suggested."

"I'm afraid it wouldn't work, Mr. White! In this little talk to the waiter, just now, I think almost anybody would say that you hit off my voice and manner perfectly. The fact that I see nothing objectionable in it is proof to me, also. If you expect to give me a course of lessons like this, arguing in each case to show me what you consider wrong in my manner, it would be an endless undertaking, and I probably wouldn't agree with you at the end."

"No— I don't think you would. Nothing was further from my intention than any such course of lessons, because they would lack the one thing necessary to drive the point home— contrast. If that waiter had been standing by this table and you had been watching his face, you would have comprehended in less than a moment what was offensive. If I were sitting at the desk in your office giving your employees hell, as I think you probably do now and then, you would get the detached point of view and see exactly how you appear to them. What I suggest is that you take me down to your office as a Western cousin who is visiting you, with the idea of possibly investing in your business. Let me sit there a few hours each day, reading my paper or listening to you as you transact it,— going out to lunch with you, dining at your club, afterward,— until I'm familiar with every little habit and mannerism you have. Then after I've done that for a week or two— we change places. I make you up exactly as the supposed .cousin looked— by no means impossible or even difficult; I make myself up as you. To all intents, I am you for the next few weeks. During that time you are to cultivate, as my cousin, the liking and good will of everybody you meet— both men and women. That will be your sole business, aside from watching me and avoiding the things I do in your place. After business hours each day you stop at a certain gymnasium, take a systematic course of setting-up exercises until you're in much better physical shape— and eat what the professor says you must eat! A good deal of your offensive manner, Mr. Chandler, is caused by chronic dyspepsia. That will have to come out of you before we get anywhere."

"But— but— hang it all, man! Why, this scheme of yours simply couldn't be carried out unless you hypnotized everybody in my office! The idea is preposterous! Do you think for one moment that you could get away with anything like that? Not in a hundred years! Don't you suppose that my office force, seeing me every day, know me beyond all possibility of substitution?"

"I'll lay a little side bet of a thousand dollars that they don't know you anywhere near as well as that— and prove it by taking your place down there for half a day— any time! Look here, Mr. Chandler— this isn't theory or mental derangement with me! I know exactly what I'm talking about— have tested it in hundreds of ways. If you were of unusual type, that would be another matter altogether— but you're not. Let me see if I understand your frame of mind correctly? If you actually were the sort of man you appear to be among those who come in daily contact with you, the case would be almost hopeless. There might be a slant reaching way back through your inheritance which would be very difficult to combat— like trying to change the leopard's spots. But you wouldn't have come up here with our mutual friend unless you were fundamentally a whole lot better than that, inside— and worried about an unknown fault which you seem helpless to correct. You find yourself drifting toward heart-breaking isolation, have reached the point where you'll do almost anything to switch away from that and come back to normal popularity among your acquaintances. Isn't this pretty close to the real situation?"

"Your intuition is kinda uncanny, White — but I guess I might as well admit that you've described my case exactly! You seem to think you can solve my problem and pull me out of this. Wentworth appears to be even more positive than you are. I've always prided myself upon having an open mind— being the sort of guy who'll try anything once. I still think your proposition absolutely crazy— impractical, impossible; but I'll try it! I wont even ask how much it's going to cost!"

"It will be expensive— because I run not only a constant risk of personal injury, but am liable to arrest for conspiracy as an impostor— oh, on several different counts. It's a ticklish business— in fact, I don't know of anyone else attempting it. And there's one thing I'll have to have distinctly understood— with Wentworth, here, as witness to it: no matter how outrageous you may think anything I do or say, you're not to interfere by act or word at the time. Take it up with me when we're alone, if you like— but it must be hands off before anyone else!"

"The idea being— "

"That any mix-up or argument between us would nullify everything I'd done and force explanations which nobody would believe when he heard them. We might both land in jail on the charge of making away with the missing Mr. Chandler and conspiring to steal his business. I fancy Wentworth might guarantee that I wont appropriate any of your funds or queer your business— if you play the game, and let me alone."

"BUT how the devil can you handle the business in my place— knowing absolutely nothing about it?"

"I'm assuming that you have, or can arrange to have, some sort of a directors' room or conference-room immediately back of your office— a room to which, ordinarily, nobody would have access but you or your secretary, and from which even she can be kept out if necessary— "

"Yes. I have such a room— naturally. Two doors. One from my office— the other a private exit to a little side hall, always locked on the inside. No possibility of anyone seeing into that room unless he bores a hole through the oak partition."

"Then that simplifies the whole proposition. While I'm studying you, as the Western cousin, I have a desk in that room and stay there most of the time— with a camouflaged dictaphone on your own desk and mine for a word or two of guidance at any time. Several times a day I come out and read my newspaper in your office, to watch you more closely, but go back to my own when you have any confidential interview on hand. When we change places, you become I in that other office. When there are checks or letters to be signed, I'll manage to put them off a few minutes until I can take them in to you for execution. During business interviews, if we are sitting in the same room, I'll arrange a code of signals by which you convey to me: 'Yes'— 'No'— 'Agree'— 'Object'— 'Put off for the present'— 'Delay for an hour or two.' If you are in the private office, you can use a buzzer or a snapper-sounder to convey the same information through the dictaphone. In this way, there should be no difficulty in handling any business which may come up."

"Gosh, White! I didn't believe you could make a practical suggestion on what seemed to me a prohibitive complication— but I guess, after all, it might work. Still — it seems to me there must be times when you can't stall— when it'll arouse suspicion if you don't sign something! "

"Then I'd better practice up on your signature— but you can bet your sweet life I wont use it unless I have to, because that's forgery— a State's prison offense. As a matter of fact, it would be difficult to convince the police department in any mixup that I'm not guilty of several State's prison offenses. The only safe course is to bull it through, against any evidence, that I actually am Henry W. Chandler— and can prove it in a number of ways. If they can't shake that fact, they can't touch me as long as I commit no criminal act in your personality. Well— how about it? If I'm a crook, you run a frightful risk of being done out of your identity and your fortune, after I'm once established. If I'm honest, we'll undoubtedly put you where you want to be among your fellow-men. Feel like gambling— or don't you?"

"I'll play! I've got to, whether I think it's safe or not, White— because I'll go crazy with melancholia if I don't!"

NEXT week the psycho-analyst— as he was considered by physicians in the neighborhood where he lived— appeared in Chandler's office and was sarcastically greeted as a cousin from Denver. He wore a mustache which had cost a hundred dollars to make, and was worth it. Also, he seemed to be raising a beard. His personality was genial— pleasant. Upon everyone in the office to whom he was introduced, he made a very winning impression. When it was understood that he would be in New York for some time and would Have a desk in the conference-room back of the private office, there was a feeling of satisfaction among the employees, who hoped that his influence as a relative might have some effect in toning down his unpleasant cousin. But another streak which showed how thoroughly Chandler misunderstood his own manner and reactions led him to be even more exasperating than usual during the following week. If he had started out to show the specialist his extreme limit in that direction, he couldn't have succeeded better— and yet White was positive that the man was unconscious of the causes leading up to the effect he produced.

AT the end of ten days an intervening holiday closed the office from Thursday to Monday. This seemed a favorable time for the change of identities, so that when Monday came, it was White who appeared in the office as the unpopular boss— and Chandler who came back as the more genial Westerner, Silas Burnett. The greatest risk in this change had seemed to be a strong probability that Chandler would forget himself from time to time— revert to his sarcastic manner; but, after considering this in various ways, White decided the safest course was to give him something else to think about, and started in to reproduce the other man's personality with no attempt at modification.

It took an hour or so of very carefully watching his tongue and actions for Chandler to break himself into his new identity. Then— to his surprise— he discovered that he had been covertly watching the specialist during the past ten days, noting the employees with whom he seemed to be upon such pleasant, easy terms. One, for example, was Maude Walters, his private secretary— who had a desk in his office which she used except when he was having a confidential talk with some one. He had always liked Maude, but had never been able to get upon really friendly terms because of his manner. Now, with this strange new sense of detachment which came so much easier than he thought it would, he found himself chatting pleasantly with her, getting more of an insight into her home life than he'd ever had. She amazed him by accepting a dinner and theater invitation one evening, and while loyally close-mouthed as to complaints against her employer, said quite frankly that the man seemed unable to distinguish between that which stung like a whiplash and a pleasanter manner of putting things. This she emphasized next day with a glance in Burnett's direction when her supposed employer unburdened himself of a few cutting remarks in regard to something she had apparently overlooked. Just for the sake of driving home the point of what he could do when he was in top form, she started to defend herself with rather more spirit than usual— and White played up to the opportunity in a thoroughly artistic manner. Without quite saying the utterly unforgivable thing, he displayed an originality in sarcastic innuendo which made the real Chandler squirm in his chair with, clenched fists and the impulse to slap the fellow's face. (Confound him— couldn't he see how unjust and unreasonable he was with the girl! There were tears in her eyes when she went out of the room!)

White sensed exactly what was in his mind— inwardly grinning, and reflecting that the job might be easier than he'd anticipated. He heard the scrape of the chair as Chandler sprang to his feet and impulsively came across the room— so was ready for him when the girl had gone out: "Steady, old chap! Steady! You forgot yourself, then! It wont do! You'll get us both in hot water if you don't learn to control yourself!"

"But damn it all, White—"

"S-s-s-h! Lower, man— whisper!"

"I never talked to a girl like that, you know— least of all, a nice girl like Maude!"

"You used almost those identical words to her a couple of weeks ago— and your manner was even more offensive! Just ask her, if you don't believe me! Fortunately we've got the eternal triangle to start your first realization— when two men are interested in the same girl, it sharpens both their perception and their imagination a heap. Now, let's see if we can't carry the same awakening along with us when I begin to ride one of your office men— or salesmen. Get back there into your hole until I bring some checks to sign. Might tell Maude that you remonstrated with me— see what she says."

THERE might have been more risk of Chandler's relapsing into bits of his sarcastic manner while impersonating Silas Burnett had it not been for his being made a general confidant of the office force— a condition which the specialist had himself started before the change of identities for exactly this purpose. So it had come about that whenever White, as the supposed Chandler, was particularly unpleasant to some clerk or girl, the victim made a point of rehearsing all the details to the supposed Burnett and asking what he thought of a man who would talk and act that way— the impression being that Burnett had considerable influence with his cousin and would remonstrate with him. Several times when Chandler didn't at first see anything much out of the way in White's manner with a certain individual— thought him about right in each particular case— he came to revise his opinion after hearing how it struck the general viewpoint of the office. Maude Walters opened his eyes a good deal by asking every little while if he had happened to catch any of the interviews with business acquaintances.

"He thinks he's joshing them and is rather funny, Mr. Burnett— but he doesn't laugh much when he's talking, and he hasn't any more sense of humor than a hen! I heard him telling one of the bank men that 'he supposed he had to stand for graft from his womenfolks like all the rest, and look pleasant when the bills came in.' Now, that was Chandler's idea of joking— being funny. He knew that man had an expensive wife who kept his nose on the grindstone. It would have been risky if he'd said that to a pretty good friend. To just a business acquaintance— a bank man, mind you— it was the sort of impertinence no man will take from anybody! Gresham had plenty of tact— didn't appear to hear the remark at all. But he's got it in for Chandler all the same, and the boss may find it out sometime when he wants a little note-accommodation."

"You seem to think he isn't quite as bad inside as he sounds, Miss Walters."

"I know he isn't! Don't ask me how I reason it out, because I can't tell you. Just the intuition every woman has, I guess. Sometimes it makes me want to scream, when I hear him queering himself as he does!"

ALL this sort of thing, of course, assisted Chandler materially in getting the outside point of view on himself— day by day, he understood more clearly just what it had been in his manner and talk which antagonized everyone with whom he came in contact. And with the horrible example White put up before his eyes, he came unconsciously to adopt a manner as different from it as he could think up. This was quite in keeping with his personality as the supposed Burnett. He found, to his amazement, that he was steadily ingratiating himself, not only with everybody in the office, but with people who came in to do business with Chandler — officials of two or three banks, for instance, to whom White introduced him as his cousin when they had gone together to get a note discounted or discuss some extension of the business. With these people he dropped a few hints which he hoped might bear fruit, later.

All things considered, White had been handling the business very well— with its owner's advice constantly available when needed. But he knew, better than anyone else possibly could know, that he was bound to strike complications sooner or later. Probably the one case which opened Chandler's eyes to himself more than any of the others was that of his former salesman Bowers, whose real ability he missed a good deal more than he would have admitted to anybody. Bowers happened in one day and Miss Walters introduced him to the supposed Burnett while he was waiting to see the boss. After an exceedingly pleasant chat upon business conditions, in which Bowers showed how thoroughly he understood them, the pseudo Chandler returned from lunch— and the real Chandler, in the private office, listened closely to the interview with the aid of the dictaphone. Bowers had gone with a rival concern, but said he was handicapped through not being always sure of their goods, and would consider a proposition if his old employer cared to make one. White instantly reacted as he knew Chandler would in the circumstances.

"I could use you, Bowers, of course— just as I could use any man who has had experience in selling on the road. But I'd expect you to begin at a little Jess than I paid before, until I see whether you make good. H-m-m— you've been with those people long enough to get a good deal of dope on the way they do business. Suppose you stay there another month and learn all you can for me about their secret processes? If you brought me anything really valuable, I might take you back at your old salary— "

"Mr. Chandler, that sort of thing is done, I know. Technically, I suppose it wouldn't be considered much worse than sharp business practice. But I'm not built that way— I'd see you in hell before I'd do it! I guess there isn't much use in our trying to get together; we just don't think the same way, at all!"

The real Chandler was fairly dancing up and down in the other office. Hurrying out into the little rear hall, he caught Bowers before the elevator stopped to take him down— and said hastily:

"Er— Bowers— I happened to overhear the wind-up of that talk you had with my — er— cousin. From what he said the other day, I think he'd like to have you back— without any strings to it either. He's in poor health, but the treatment he's taking seems to be doing him good. Suppose you drop in again about five or six weeks from now and see if he isn't a little more human? Hey?"

Dodging back into the office, he locked the door again and went through to where White was sitting at his desk— alone for the moment.

"Say, look here, White! I think you went entirely too far with Bowers! I'd give a good deal to get him back— he's a crackerjack salesman—"

"Then you never should have talked to him as you did when he left."

"Whaddya mean— talked to him! I never said anything as insulting and nasty as you did, just now!"

"Say— man! Just ask Maude Walters exactly what you did say! She sat here and heard the whole talk— every word. She'll give it to you in detail. Just ask her!"

"Very well! I'll do that. But— er— I prefer that you don't call her by her first name any more. It's— too familiar!"

"Eternal triangle again, eh? Bully! Now look here, Burnett! I'm running this business— not you! See? I hire my employees— and I fire 'em! If Maude gets up-stage and puts on airs, I'll fire her so quick she wont know what's happened for an hour or two! Do you get that? If you want her to stay here, keep your mouth shut! If she objects to what I call her, tell her she can take it up with me, herself— "

"Oh— er— she's never said a word about it! I just thought—"

And with that, the conversation lapsed.

IN whatever White did, he believed in thoroughness— in getting each of his faculties ninety per cent efficient if he could. His hands, at times, were interesting to watch, so perfectly did he make them coordinate with his brain in whatever he wished to make them do. He'd become not only a fine draftsman but an excellent all-round mechanic. The question of ever having to sign Chandler's name upon letters or checks was one he hadn't fully considered until the man brought it up as one of the imminent, likely things which might have to be done. He couldn't begin any too soon in making his imitation of Chandler's signature a perfect one, and so he commenced at once when he reached his own apartment every night to practice copying the signature from letters and checks which he had no difficulty in obtaining. Each night's practice-work he methodically burned when he had finished, so that there were never any telltale scraps of paper or "reverse blotters" left around. In a very short time he saw that his imitation was to all intents perfect, but kept on practicing so that he shouldn't forget it. While doing this, he mentioned occasionally to bookkeepers and other clerks in the office that he was beginning to be troubled with rheumatism in his hands— took medicine, in their presence, from a bottle which he had emptied and then refilled with black tea. Twice he called in the head bookkeeper to ask if his signature on a check appeared to be as usual— saying that it was sometimes painful for him to hold the pen while signing and was in doubt whether he had botched the signature. These little casual occurrences passed into office history as mere incidents in the day's activities— yet were noted and remembered, none the less. Then, out of a clear sky, the emergency came. In leaving the building with him, one night, the real Chandler got his fingers caught in the revolving door somehow, and broke two of them. Nothing was said until after a doctor had set them and they were home in Chandler's uptown apartment. Then— the manufacturer tried to realize just how serious the predicament was.

"Of course this stops my signing anything for two or three weeks, anyhow! How long do you suppose it would take you to imitate my signature well enough to pass examination with a magnifying glass?"

"Fortunately, I can do that now! Some complication like this was bound to happen sooner or later, as you yourself said in the beginning— so we couldn't risk being caught napping. I'll take most of the papers into your office to sign, as we've been doing— and sign others in Blake's presence so that he can swear to it if questioned. For two or three days, you'd better not show up at the office at all— your bandaged fingers might be too much of a coincidence. And if the police get after me in any way, you'd best keep as far out of it as you can— because the first thing they'd do with you is telephone Denver for information at any address you gave. You wouldn't be known there, of course— which is mighty suspicious on the face of it. I thought of going West, myself— renting and living in a house for a few weeks before we started— but the necessity seemed too remote. Damned sorry, now, that I didn't!"

IN the morning White called at three of the banks in which Chandler maintained active accounts and had brief talks with the cashiers— explaining the trouble he'd been having with rheumatism, showing the cramped position into which it sometimes drew his fingers, and leaving with each of them a sample signature while his fingers were stiff and painful to move. At first they were merely sorry to learn of his trouble— passed along the signature to their paying-tellers, and thought no more about it. Chandler's checks for the next week were the routine sort, made out to familiar names. Then— it occurred to the real Chandler that if some kind of a mixup did occur, and he thought it advisable to leave the city for a while, he hadn't quite a hundred dollars in his clothes. With his fingers out of commission, appearing as another man whose resources nobody but his supposed cousin knew anything about, he suddenly realized that he had no way of getting any money unless he borrowed it from Sam Wentworth— and Sam had left the city upon one of his yacht-cruises which might be prolonged indefinitely.

Up to this time he had simply drawn a check for a few hundred when he was out of funds, and when the bookkeeper had cashed it, handed the money to White, who passed it on to his supposed cousin at first opportunity. So it now seemed to him that he ought to have a reserve-fund of several thousands in cash for emergencies. Suppose something happened to White! The specialist saw the point instantly, and drew a check for ten thousand which the bookkeeper cashed and handed over to him. Chandler receipted for it as Burnett, an hour later. The whole transaction was perfectly straight. The supposed Chandler undoubtedly had a right to draw his own money as long as he had a balance in the bank— and do what he pleased with it, afterward. But it just happened that Chandler had never drawn so large an amount in cash before from that particular bank except for his regular pay-rolls— and on the face of it, this ten thousand had nothing to do with the pay-rolls.

The paying teller cashed the check without a moment's hesitation for John Blake, the bookkeeper, whom he had known for years— there seemed to be nothing out of the way about the signature. But the amount stuck in his mind. Later he mentioned it to the cashier— showing the voucher. He saw nothing wrong with the signature either— but it suddenly occurred to him that something about that recent interview with Chandler had been vaguely sticking in his mind. As he thought it over, it seemed that there had been something peculiar about Chandler himself. In a moment, he had it. The manufacturer had never before talked with him when there hadn't been a sort of nasty innuendo in his manner— uncalled-for sarcasm. Yet this time the man had been to all intents a gentleman— worried over the impression that bodily ills might be creeping upon him — annoyed by this handicap on the handling of his business. (White recalled after leaving the banks that he might have slipped a little on this point.) With the teller, Mr. Gresham stepped into the president's office and showed him the check, calling attention to the unusual amount as the account had been running.

"Taylor— did you ever hear of a case where an impostor got control a man's business and impersonated him so perfectly that he actually got away with it?"

"Not to any such extent as you imply concerning Chandler! It would be practically impossible! You talked with the man yourself— did you notice anything suspicious at the time?"

"Not a thing! If he'd made some of his too-familiar remarks about my. wife and daughters,— Chandler's idea of humor, you know,— I'd never have thought of his visit again. But for the first time in my acquaintance with him, the man was a gentleman. And that's rather like scraping off some of the indelible spots from a menagerie-animal. "

"Might have been too worried about himself to joke! Nothing wrong with this signature. A little shaky in spots, but rheumatism would account for that. Why not go see Chase— and Hillman? He would have gone to their banks too."

"THIS suggestion was carried out— the impression being in each case that Chandler hadn't been in his usual form when they saw him. After a conference between officials of the three banks, the matter crystalized, next morning, with the unexpected appearance in Chandler's office of a bank detective, and two other plain-clothes men. The detective requested an interview with Chandler at once. Being told that he hadn't yet appeared, he sat down in that gentleman's office to wait— and closely watched the actions of the clerical force when the boss finally came in. If the man was an impostor, nobody in his entire outfit seemed to suspect it— and some had been there for a good many years. Upon being shown the ten-thousand-dollar voucher, the supposed Chandler laid it on his desk while he lighted a cigar— then picked it up and wanted to know what was the .matter with it. Did he recall signing it? Why— of course he did! Wasn't getting softening of the brain— yet! What was the money for? Well— really— was that any of the detective's business? Yes— it was! Chandler thought not— told the detective that he could either talk sense, keep inside his authority, or get out! For a second or two it was in the detective's mind to arrest the manufacturer— take a chance on "third degree" at the Central Office to get something out of the man which would justify such a proceeding. But— he didn't quite dare. He had no shadow of grounds upon which to base what would be obviously an outrage if the man were innocent. (White knew exactly what was in his mind— and the perspiration was trickling down his back at thought of the possibilities. In any rough handling, some of the almost imperceptible marks on his face might become smudged — and then, well, there was no telling where he would land.) Finally, the detective said:

"Mr. Chandler— the bank people are uneasy about that check for some reason or other. I've got my orders to make what investigation I can. I'm going to fetch two or three of your office force down for a little talk with the inspector at the Central Office. Ain't going to hurt 'em none— prob'ly wont keep 'em long— "

"If you've got anything like that on your mind, I'll go down there with them! You can't abuse any of my clerks without grounds for it!"

"Naw! You'll stay right here with one of the men sitting outside, there, till we get back! When we want you, there wont be any doubt about the invitation!"

In the inspector's office John Blake— the head bookkeeper— was asked how long he had known Chandler— whether it would be possible to mistake anyone else for him? Blake smiled pleasantly. He thought an acquaintance of over twenty-five years should enable him to know his employer by sight, anyhow. Maude Walters fairly snapped at the inspector. What sort of a fool did he think she was! Mr. Chandler had been in poor health for a long time— was suffering from rheumatism now, but was under a specialist's treatment and showing signs of improvement. She had noticed that he was less sarcastic and aggressive, at times. This was sheer blind luck for White, inasmuch as it accounted for his milder manner at the banks in a perfectly normal way.

WHEN one of the clerks— Twombly— was questioned, he fairly exploded: Did the inspector think there was another man like Chandler in Greater New York? "Why say! If there were two men in the city with his disposition, when he's in his best form, they'd be either in a museum or playin' the vawdeville circuit." The inspector finally looked at the bank detective and dismissed Chandler's employees with an apology for the trouble they'd been put to. There appeared to be no question whatever that Chandler was Chandler. He'd said unhesitatingly that he signed the check. He was drawing upon his own bank-balance — which was ample. It was emphatically nobody's business what he did with the money. Well— then? What was it all about? The inspector suggested that the bank-officials had better write their apologies to Mr. Chandler— and make them pretty conciliatory.

Meanwhile,— "Burnett" had found it impossible to keep away from the office building altogether, had been at the end of the hall when the police came up in the elevator and went into his office. He expected to see White dragged out, handcuffed— and was nearly crazy over the whole mess. He couldn't resume his own identity, because nobody would believe that he wasn't an impostor, even if he knew how to restore his face to its old expression— which he didn't. If he did succeed in doing that, it sent White to State's prison without much doubt. He was like a man in a maze— and this culmination of their experiment proved the final eye-opener which sponged the old offensive manner out of his system. He'd had a convincing demonstration of what he really had been, had seen himself mirrored as others saw him. If White proved straight, eventually gave him back his own identity with signs of marked improvement already showing in it, as they had planned, he thought he'd had a lesson which would insure his treating everyone courteously for the rest of his life.

THERE were many bad moments when Chandler couldn't help doubting White, who had the manufacturer's fate absolutely in his hands. He could remain Chandler— keep Chandler's millions. If anything happened to Sam Wentworth, there wasn't a way in the world by which Chandler could dislodge him. But Pennington White was merely carrying out with his usual thoroughness one of his business ventures. He reinstated Chandler within a month— when his fingers were all nicely healed up. On the following evening the manufacturer had a long talk with Wentworth— finally asking him what he thought would be an acceptable sum to offer White.

"H-m-m-m— do your employees seem to like you a little better, now, than they did? Find anybody at the clubs to dine with you, occasionally— now?"

"Sam— Pen White held a mirror up in front of me until I couldn't help seeing the spots— and he made me keep up my gym-training with the professor until I feel ten years younger! I— I— well, you know— I— I honestly think folks are beginning to like me a little!"

"And— Maude Walters? Seems to me I heard something about her?"

"Maude's going to marry me— to be sure I don't slip back."

"H-m-m— that New Bedford mill's been paying nine per cent right along, hasn't it? Four or five hundred shares might buy you a pretty desirable partner in it— eh? Think that's too much— for what was done to you? For what almost happened to White? Considering the millions he scrupulously gave back— instead of keeping them?"

"Too much? No! I'm damned if it is! I'll offer those shares to him, anyway!"

__________

12: What Was It?

Fitz-James O'Brien

1828-1862

Harper’s New Monthly Magazine March 1859

IT is, I confess, with considerable diffidence that I approach the strange narrative which I am about to relate. The events which I purpose detailing are of so extraordinary and unheard-of a character that I am quite prepared to meet with an unusual amount of incredulity and scorn. I accept all such beforehand. I have, I trust, the literary courage to face unbelief. I have, after mature consideration, resolved to narrate, in as simple and straightforward a manner as I can compass, some facts that passed under my observation in the month of July last, and which, in the annals of the mysteries of physical science, are wholly unparalleled.

I live at No.— Twenty-sixth Street, in this city. The house is in some respects a curious one. It has enjoyed for the last two years the reputation of being haunted. It is a large and stately residence, surrounded by what was once a garden, but which is now only a green inclosure used for bleaching clothes. The dry basin of what has been a fountain, and a few fruit-trees, ragged and unpruned, indicate that this spot, in past days, was a pleasant, shady retreat, filled with fruits and flowers and the sweet murmur of waters.

The house is very spacious. A hall of noble size leads to a vast spiral staircase winding through its center, while the various apartments are of imposing dimensions. It was built some fifteen or twenty years since by Mr. A—, the well-known New York merchant, who five years ago threw the commercial world into convulsions by a stupendous bank fraud. Mr. A—, as every one knows, escaped to Europe, and died not long after of a broken heart. Almost immediately after the news of his decease reached this country, and was verified, the report spread in Twenty-sixth Street that No.— was haunted. Legal measures had dispossessed the widow of its former owner, and it was inhabited merely by a care taker and his wife, placed there by the house agent into whose hands it had passed for purposes of renting or sale. These people declared that they were troubled with unnatural noises. Doors were opened without any visible agency. The remnants of furniture scattered through the various rooms were, during the night, piled one upon the other by unknown hands. Invisible feet passed up and down the stairs in broad daylight, accompanied by the rustle of unseen silk dresses, and the gliding of viewless hands along the massive balusters. The care taker and his wife declared that they would live there no longer. The house agent laughed, dismissed them, and put others in their place. The noises and supernatural manifestations continued. The neighborhood caught up the story, and the house remained untenanted for three years. Several persons negotiated for it; but somehow, always before the bargain was closed, they heard the unpleasant rumors, and declined to treat any further.

It was in this state of things that my landlady— who at that time kept a boarding-house in Bleecker Street, and who wished to move farther up town— conceived the bold idea of renting No.— Twenty-sixth Street. Happening to have in her house rather a plucky and philosophical set of boarders, she laid down her scheme before us, stating candidly everything she had heard respecting the ghostly qualities of the establishment to which she wished to remove us. With the exception of two timid persons,— a sea captain and a returned Californian, who immediately gave notice that they would leave,— all of Mrs. Moffat's guests declared that they would accompany her in her chivalric incursion into the abode of spirits.

Our removal was effected in the month of May, and we were all charmed with our new residence. The portion of Twenty-sixth Street where our house is situated— between Seventh and Eighth Avenues— is one of the pleasantest localities in New York. The gardens back of the houses, running down nearly to the Hudson, form, in the summer time, a perfect avenue of verdure. The air is pure and invigorating, sweeping, as it does, straight across the river from the Weehawken heights, and even the ragged garden which surrounded the house on two sides, although displaying on washing days rather too much clothesline, still gave us a piece of greensward to look at, and a cool retreat in the summer evenings, where we smoked our cigars in the dusk, and watched the fireflies flashing their dark-lanterns in the long grass.

Of course we had no sooner established ourselves at No.—-than we began to expect the ghosts. We absolutely awaited their advent with eagerness. Our dinner conversation was supernatural. One of the boarders, who had purchased Mrs. Crowe's Night Side of Nature for his own private delectation, was regarded as a public enemy by the entire household for not having bought twenty copies. The man led a life of supreme wretchedness while he was reading this volume. A system of espionage was established, of which he was the victim. If he incautiously laid the book down for an instant and left the room, it was immediately seized and read aloud in secret places to a select few. I found myself a person of immense importance, it having leaked out that I was tolerably well versed in the history of supernaturalism, and had once written a story, entitled "The Pot of Tulips," for Harper's Monthly, the foundation of which was a ghost. If a table or a wainscot panel happened to warp when we were assembled in the large drawing-room, there was an instant silence, and every one was prepared for an immediate clanking of chains and a spectral form.

After a month of psychological excitement, it was with the utmost dissatisfaction that we were forced to acknowledge that nothing in the remotest degree approaching the supernatural had manifested itself. Once the black butler asseverated that his candle had been blown out by some invisible agency while he was undressing himself for the night; but as I had more than once discovered this colored gentleman in a condition when one candle must have appeared to him like two, I thought it possible that, by going a step farther in his potations, he might have reversed his phenomenon, and seen no candle at all where he ought to have beheld one.

Things were in this state when an incident took place so awful and inexplicable in its character that my reason fairly reels at the bare memory of the occurrence. It was the tenth of July. After dinner was over I repaired with my friend, Dr. Hammond, to the garden to smoke my evening pipe. The Doctor and myself found ourselves in an unusually metaphysical mood. We lit our large meerschaums, filled with fine Turkish tobacco; we paced to and fro, conversing. A strange perversity dominated the currents of our thought. They would not flow through the sun-lit channels into which we strove to divert them. For some unaccountable reason they constantly diverged into dark and lonesome beds, where a continual gloom brooded. It was in vain that, after our old fashion, we flung ourselves on the shores of the East, and talked of its gay bazaars, of the splendors of the time of Haroun, of harems and golden palaces. Black afreets continually arose from the depths of our talk, and expanded, like the one the fisherman released from the copper vessel, until they blotted everything bright from our vision. Insensibly, we yielded to the occult force that swayed us, and indulged in gloomy speculation. We had talked some time upon the proneness of the human mind to mysticism, and the almost universal love of the Terrible, when Hammond suddenly said to me, "What do you consider to be the greatest element of Terror?"

The question, I own, puzzled me. That many things were terrible, I knew. Stumbling over a corpse in the dark; beholding, as I once did, a woman floating down a deep and rapid river, with wildly lifted arms, and awful, upturned face, uttering, as she sank, shrieks that rent one's heart, while we, the spectators, stood frozen at a window which overhung the river at a height of sixty feet, unable to make the slightest effort to save her, but dumbly watching her last supreme agony and her disappearance. A shattered wreck, with no life visible, encountered floating listlessly on the ocean, is a terrible object, for it suggests a huge terror, the proportions of which are veiled. But it now struck me for the first time that there must be one great and ruling embodiment of fear, a King of Terrors to which all others must succumb. What might it be? To what train of circumstances would it owe its existence?

"I confess, Hammond," I replied to my friend, "I never considered the subject before. That there must be one Something more terrible than any other thing, I feel. I cannot attempt, however, even the most vague definition."

"I am somewhat like you, Harry," he answered. "I feel my capacity to experience a terror greater than anything yet conceived by the human mind,—something combining in fearful and unnatural amalgamation hitherto supposed incompatible elements. The calling of the voices in Brockden Brown's novel of 'Wieland' is awful; so is the picture of the Dweller of the Threshold, in Bulwer's 'Zanoni'; but," he added, shaking his head gloomily, "there is something more horrible still than these."

"Look here, Hammond," I rejoined, "let us drop this kind of talk, for Heaven's sake!"

"I don't know what's the matter with me to-night," he replied, "but my brain is running upon all sorts of weird and awful thoughts. I feel as if I could write a story like Hoffman to night, if I were only master of a literary style."

"Well, if we are going to be Hoffmanesque in our talk, I'm off to bed. How sultry it is! Good night, Hammond."

"Good night, Harry. Pleasant dreams to you."

"To you, gloomy wretch, afreets, ghouls, and enchanters."

We parted, and each sought his respective chamber. I undressed quickly and got into bed, taking with me, according to my usual custom, a book, over which I generally read myself to sleep. I opened the volume as soon as I had laid my head upon the pillow, and instantly flung it to the other side of the room. It was Goudon's "History of Monsters"— a curious French work, which I had lately imported from Paris, but which, in the state of mind I had then reached, was anything but an agreeable companion. I resolved to go to sleep at once; so, turning down my gas until nothing but a little blue point of light glimmered on the top of the tube, I composed myself to rest.

The room was in total darkness. The atom of gas that still remained lighted did not illuminate a distance of three inches round the burner. I desperately drew my arm across my eyes, as if to shut out even the darkness, and tried to think of nothing. It was in vain. The confounded themes touched on by Hammond in the garden kept obtruding themselves on my brain. I battled against them. I erected ramparts of would-be blankness of intellect to keep them out. They still crowded upon me. While I was lying still as a corpse, hoping that by a perfect physical inaction I should hasten mental repose, an awful incident occurred. A Something dropped, as it seemed, from the ceiling, plumb upon my chest, and the next instant I felt two bony hands encircling my throat, endeavoring to choke me.

I am no coward, and am possessed of considerable physical strength. The suddenness of the attack, instead of stunning me, strung every nerve to its highest tension. My body acted from instinct, before my brain had time to realize the terrors of my position. In an instant I wound two muscular arms around the creature, and squeezed it, with all the strength of despair, against my chest. In a few seconds the bony hands that had fastened on my throat loosened their hold, and I was free to breathe once more. Then commenced a struggle of awful intensity. Immersed in the most profound darkness, totally ignorant of the nature of the Thing by which I was so suddenly attacked, finding my grasp slipping every moment, by reason, it seemed to me, of the entire nakedness of my assailant, bitten with sharp teeth in the shoulder, neck, and chest, having every moment to protect my throat against a pair of sinewy, agile hands, which my utmost efforts could not confine— these were a combination of circumstances to combat which required all the strength and skill and courage that I possessed.

At last, after a silent, deadly, exhausting struggle, I got my assailant under by a series of incredible efforts of strength. Once pinned, with my knee on what I made out to be its chest, I knew that I was victor. I rested for a moment to breathe. I heard the creature beneath me panting in the darkness, and felt the violent throbbing of a heart. It was apparently as exhausted as I was; that was one comfort. At this moment I remembered that I usually placed under my pillow, before going to bed, a large yellow silk pocket handkerchief, for use during the night. I felt for it instantly; it was there. In a few seconds more I had, after a fashion, pinioned the creature's arms.

I now felt tolerably secure. There was nothing more to be done but to turn on the gas, and, having first seen what my midnight assailant was like, arouse the household. I will confess to being actuated by a certain pride in not giving the alarm before; I wished to make the capture alone and unaided.

Never losing my hold for an instant, I slipped from the bed to the floor, dragging my captive with me. I had but a few steps to make to reach the gas-burner; these I made with the greatest caution, holding the creature in a grip like a vice. At last I got within arm's-length of the tiny speck of blue light which told me where the gas-burner lay. Quick as lightning I released my grasp with one hand and let on the full flood of light. Then I turned to look at my captive.

I cannot even attempt to give any definition of my sensations the instant after I turned on the gas. I suppose I must have shrieked with terror, for in less than a minute afterward my room was crowded with the inmates of the house. I shudder now as I think of that awful moment. I saw nothing! Yes; I had one arm firmly clasped round a breathing, panting, corporeal shape, my other hand gripped with all its strength a throat as warm, and apparently fleshly, as my own; and yet, with this living substance in my grasp, with its body pressed against my own, and all in the bright glare of a large jet of gas, I absolutely beheld nothing! Not even an outline,— a vapor!

I do not, even at this hour, realize the situation in which I found myself. I cannot recall the astounding incident thoroughly. Imagination in vain tries to compass the awful paradox.

It breathed. I felt its warm breath upon my cheek. It struggled fiercely. It had hands. They clutched me. Its skin was smooth, like my own. There it lay, pressed close up against me, solid as stone,— and yet utterly invisible!

I wonder that I did not faint or go mad on the instant. Some wonderful instinct must have sustained me; for, absolutely, in place of loosening my hold on the terrible Enigma, I seemed to gain an additional strength in my moment of horror, and tightened my grasp with such wonderful force that I felt the creature shivering with agony.

Just then Hammond entered my room at the head of the household. As soon as he beheld my face— which, I suppose, must have been an awful sight to look at— he hastened forward, crying, "Great heaven, Harry! what has happened?"

"Hammond! Hammond!" I cried, "come here. Oh! this is awful! I have been attacked in bed by something or other, which I have hold of; but I can't see it—I can't see it!"

Hammond, doubtless struck by the unfeigned horror expressed in my countenance, made one or two steps forward with an anxious yet puzzled expression. A very audible titter burst from the remainder of my visitors. This suppressed laughter made me furious. To laugh at a human being in my position! It was the worst species of cruelty. Now, I can understand why the appearance of a man struggling violently, as it would seem, with an airy nothing, and calling for assistance against a vision, should have appeared ludicrous. Then, so great was my rage against the mocking crowd that had I the power I would have stricken them dead where they stood.

"Hammond! Hammond!" I cried again, despairingly, "for God's sake come to me. I can hold the— the Thing but a short while longer. It is overpowering me. Help me! Help me!"

"Harry," whispered Hammond, approaching me, "you have been smoking too much."

"I swear to you, Hammond, that this is no vision," I answered, in the same low tone. "Don't you see how it shakes my whole frame with its struggles? If you don't believe me, convince yourself. Feel it,— touch it."

Hammond advanced and laid his hand on the spot I indicated. A wild cry of horror burst from him. He had felt it!

In a moment he had discovered somewhere in my room a long piece of cord, and was the next instant winding it and knotting it about the body of the unseen being that I clasped in my arms.

"Harry," he said, in a hoarse, agitated voice, for, though he preserved his presence of mind, he was deeply moved, "Harry, it's all safe now. You may let go, old fellow, if you're tired. The Thing can't move."

I was utterly exhausted, and I gladly loosed my hold.

Hammond stood holding the ends of the cord that bound the Invisible, twisted round his hand, while before him, self-supporting as it were, he beheld a rope laced and interlaced, and stretching tightly round a vacant space. I never saw a man look so thoroughly stricken with awe. Nevertheless his face expressed all the courage and determination which I knew him to possess. His lips, although white, were set firmly, and one could perceive at a glance that, although stricken with fear, he was not daunted.

The confusion that ensued among the guests of the house who were witnesses of this extraordinary scene between Hammond and myself,—who beheld the pantomime of binding this struggling Something,— who beheld me almost sinking from physical exhaustion when my task of jailer was over— the confusion and terror that took possession of the bystanders, when they saw all this, was beyond description. The weaker ones fled from the apartment. The few who remained clustered near the door, and could not be induced to approach Hammond and his Charge. Still incredulity broke out through their terror. They had not the courage to satisfy themselves, and yet they doubted. It was in vain that I begged of some of the men to come near and convince themselves by touch of the existence in that room of a living being which was invisible. They were incredulous, but did not dare to undeceive themselves. How could a solid, living, breathing body be invisible, they asked. My reply was this. I gave a sign to Hammond, and both of us— conquering our fearful repugnance to touch the invisible creature— lifted it from the ground, manacled as it was, and took it to my bed. Its weight was about that of a boy of fourteen.

"Now, my friends," I said, as Hammond and myself held the creature suspended over the bed, "I can give you self-evident proof that here is a solid, ponderable body which, nevertheless, you cannot see. Be good enough to watch the surface of the bed attentively."

I was astonished at my own courage in treating this strange event so calmly; but I had recovered from my first terror, and felt a sort of scientific pride in the affair which dominated every other feeling.

The eyes of the bystanders were immediately fixed on my bed. At a given signal Hammond and I let the creature fall. There was the dull sound of a heavy body alighting on a soft mass. The timbers of the bed creaked. A deep impression marked itself distinctly on the pillow, and on the bed itself. The crowd who witnessed this gave a sort of low, universal cry, and rushed from the room. Hammond and I were left alone with our Mystery.

We remained silent for some time, listening to the low, irregular breathing of the creature on the bed, and watching the rustle of the bedclothes as it impotently struggled to free itself from confinement. Then Hammond spoke.

"Harry, this is awful."

"Aye, awful."

"But not unaccountable."

"Not unaccountable! What do you mean? Such a thing has never occurred since the birth of the world. I know not what to think, Hammond. God grant that I am not mad, and that this is not an insane fantasy!"

"Let us reason a little, Harry. Here is a solid body which we touch, but which we cannot see. The fact is so unusual that it strikes us with terror. Is there no parallel, though, for such a phenomenon? Take a piece of pure glass. It is tangible and transparent. A certain chemical coarseness is all that prevents its being so entirely transparent as to be totally invisible. It is not theoretically impossible, mind you, to make a glass which shall not reflect a single ray of light—a glass so pure and homogeneous in its atoms that the rays from the sun shall pass through it as they do through the air, refracted but not reflected. We do not see the air, and yet we feel it."

"That's all very well, Hammond, but these are inanimate substances. Glass does not breathe, air does not breathe. This thing has a heart that palpitates,— a will that moves it,— lungs that play, and inspire and respire."

"You forget the strange phenomena of which we have so often heard of late," answered the Doctor, gravely. "At the meetings called 'spirit circles,' invisible hands have been thrust into the hands of those persons round the table— warm, fleshly hands that seemed to pulsate with mortal life."

"What? Do you think, then, that this thing is—"

"I don't know what it is," was the solemn reply; "but please the gods I will, with your assistance, thoroughly investigate it."

We watched together, smoking many pipes, all night long, by the bedside of the unearthly being that tossed and panted until it was apparently wearied out. Then we learned by the low, regular breathing that it slept.

The next morning the house was all astir. The boarders congregated on the landing outside my room, and Hammond and myself were lions. We had to answer a thousand questions as to the state of our extraordinary prisoner, for as yet not one person in the house except ourselves could be induced to set foot in the apartment.

The creature was awake. This was evidenced by the convulsive manner in which the bedclothes were moved in its efforts to escape. There was something truly terrible in beholding, as it were, those second-hand indications of the terrible writhings and agonized struggles for liberty which themselves were invisible.

Hammond and myself had racked our brains during the long night to discover some means by which we might realize the shape and general appearance of the Enigma. As well as we could make out by passing our hands over the creature's form, its outlines and lineaments were human. There was a mouth; a round, smooth head without hair; a nose, which, however, was little elevated above the cheeks; and its hands and feet felt like those of a boy. At first we thought of placing the being on a smooth surface and tracing its outline with chalk, as shoemakers trace the outline of the foot. This plan was given up as being of no value. Such an outline would give not the slightest idea of its conformation.

A happy thought struck me. We would take a cast of it in plaster of Paris. This would give us the solid figure, and satisfy all our wishes. But how to do it? The movements of the creature would disturb the setting of the plastic covering, and distort the mold. Another thought. Why not give it chloroform? It had respiratory organs—that was evident by its breathing. Once reduced to a state of insensibility, we could do with it what we would. Doctor X—-was sent for; and after the worthy physician had recovered from the first shock of amazement, he proceeded to administer the chloroform. In three minutes afterward we were enabled to remove the fetters from the creature's body, and a well-known modeler of this city was busily engaged in covering the invisible form with the moist clay. In five minutes more we had a mold, and before evening a rough facsimile of the mystery. It was shaped like a man,—distorted, uncouth, and horrible, but still a man. It was small, not over four feet and some inches in height, and its limbs revealed a muscular development that was unparalleled. Its face surpassed in hideousness anything I had ever seen. Gustave Doré, or Callot, or Tony Johannot, never conceived anything so horrible. There is a face in one of the latter's illustrations to "Un Voyage où il vous plaira," which somewhat approaches the countenance of this creature, but does not equal it. It was the physiognomy of what I should have fancied a ghoul to be. It looked as if it was capable of feeding on human flesh.

Having satisfied our curiosity, and bound every one in the house to secrecy, it became a question what was to be done with our Enigma. It was impossible that we should keep such a horror in our house; it was equally impossible that such an awful being should be let loose upon the world. I confess that I would have gladly voted for the creature's destruction. But who would shoulder the responsibility? Who would undertake the execution of this horrible semblance of a human being? Day after day this question was deliberated gravely. The boarders all left the house. Mrs. Moffat was in despair, and threatened Hammond and myself with all sorts of legal penalties if we did not remove the Horror. Our answer was, "We will go if you like, but we decline taking this creature with us. Remove it yourself if you please. It appeared in your house. On you the responsibility rests." To this there was, of course, no answer. Mrs. Moffat could not obtain for love or money a person who would even approach the Mystery.

The most singular part of the transaction was that we were entirely ignorant of what the creature habitually fed on. Everything in the way of nutriment that we could think of was placed before it, but was never touched. It was awful to stand by, day after day, and see the clothes toss, and hear the hard breathing, and know that it was starving.

Ten, twelve days, a fortnight passed, and it still lived. The pulsations of the heart, however, were daily growing fainter, and had now nearly ceased altogether. It was evident that the creature was dying for want of sustenance. While this terrible life struggle was going on, I felt miserable. I could not sleep of nights. Horrible as the creature was, it was pitiful to think of the pangs it was suffering.

At last it died. Hammond and I found it cold and stiff one morning in the bed. The heart had ceased to beat, the lungs to inspire. We hastened to bury it in the garden. It was a strange funeral, the dropping of that viewless corpse into the damp hole. The cast of its form I gave to Dr. X—, who keeps it in his museum in Tenth Street.

As I am on the eve of a long journey from which I may not return, I have drawn up this narrative of an event the most singular that has ever come to my knowledge.

NOTE.—It was rumored that the proprietors of a well-known museum in this city had made arrangements with Dr. X— to exhibit to the public the singular cast which Mr. Escott deposited with him. So extraordinary a history cannot fail to attract universal attention.

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13: The Pale Ape

M. P. Shiel

1865-1947

In: The Pale Ape and Other Pulses. 1911.

"A big thing of a pig."

—Aristophanes.

YESTERDAY again I stood and looked at Hargen Hall from the lake; and it is this that has brought me to write of my life in it. Wintry winds were whistling through the withered bracken and the branches, whirling withered birch-leaves about the south quadrangle; and no birds sang.

When I first entered it I was a girl, one might say— gay enough; but now I have known what one never forgets; and the days and the hairs grow grey together.

Five titled names among my friends gained me an entrance to Hargen in the fall of the year '08. I arrived on the evening of 10th November; and shall never forget the strangeness of the impression made on my mind that night: for even ere I rounded into sight of the house, the sound of the waters far off filled me with a feeling of the eerily dreary— the house being almost surrounded with mountain and cliff, down which a series of cascades shower; and that night I had some difficulty in catching quite everything that was said to me, though in two or three days, maybe, my ear became used to the tumult.

It was four days before I met Sir Philip Lister himself— Davenport, the old butler, told me that his master was "indisposed"— but Sir Philip sent me a polite missive inviting me to take things carelessly a little: so I spent the first days in learning my pupil's moods, and in roaming over the place, from "Queen Elizabeth's Room"— behind the bed still hung a velvet shield broidered with the royal arms in white wire— to the apes and the cascades. A sense of forlornness pervaded it all, for scarcely ten of us were in all the desert of that place, with an occasional glimpse of two or three gardeners, or a groom. The kitchen was now a panelled hall like a chapel, with windows of painted glass containing the six coats-of-arms of the Lister Lynns, a hall in whose vastness the cook and her assistant looked awfully forlorn and small; and hardly even a housemaid ever now entered all that part of the east wing which had been singed by a fire fifty-five years since.

It was on the fourth forenoon, a day of "the Indian summer," that my pupil took me to see the apes. There were three of them— two chimpanzees, one gibbon— in three rooms of wire-netting close to the east line of cliffs, i.e., about six hundred yards from the house. There, chuckling and chattering in the shadow of chestnuts, they lived their lives, anon speculating like philosophers upon their knots, or hearkening to the waters which chanted near in their ears. And there was a fourth room of netting in the row, but empty; as to which my pupil said to me:

"The one that used to be in this fourth room was huge, Miss Newnes, and had a pale face. He died some time before I came to Hargen: but his ghost walks when the moon is at the full."

"Now Esmé," I muttered. (Her name was Esmé Martagon, daughter of the Marquis de Martagon and of Margaret Lister, Sir Philip's sister; the child being at this time twelve years of age, and an orphan— a rather pretty elf with ebon curls, but as changeable as the shapes of mercury, now bursting with alacrity, and now cursed with black turns of sadness.)

"But if I have seen it?" she gravely replied, gazing up at me with her great eyes.

"The ghost of an ape, Esmé," I muttered.

For answer, flying off into vivacity, she cried to me:

"Come, you shall hear it!"— and she led the way northward through the park, until we walked down a dark path tremulous with spray, where one of the smaller waterfalls came down. By stepping on the tops of rocks in its froth, one could get, in the rear of the torrent, into a grotto, where the greenery grew very vigorous and gay from the perpetual spray; and when I had followed Esmé's career into this hollow in the rock, she hollaed into my ear in opposition to the tons of thunder sounding down: "Now, listen a little: this one is named 'The Ape.'"

For some minutes— three to six— I heard nothing but the burden of the cascade's murmur, and was now about to say something sceptical, when there sounded what I am bound to say affected me in a rather startling way— a sound very sharp and energetic— the chuckle, chuckle of a monkey— most pressing, most imperative, in its summons to the attention. It was over in a moment; but presently came again: and in the course of half an hour's listening it came altogether five times, not quite at regular intervals, but still with a kind of periodicity: and I concluded that some small cause, perhaps only a condition of the wind, acted ever and anon to modify the cataract's tract, and produce this curious cackling.

My pupil hollaed to me: "And if you kept on waiting to hear, and listening to it, do you know what would happen to you, Miss Newnes?"— and when I asked what, she called:

"You would go stark mad!"

"Not I," I said.

One of the shadows darkened the child's face; and presently she remarked: "I should, I know."

"Three of the ladies of the Listers, and one of the Lynns, have— among them my mother's mother.

"It is in the blood, I think."

I started!— for I now suddenly believed her. Indeed, to my consciousness, there was something ironic in the torrent's chuckle, and at once, taking the child's hand, I said: "Come."

Late in the day when we were together in what is called "the Great Hall," Esmé, ever sage beyond her age, again spoke of the chuckling cascade, begging me not to mention or show it to her Cousin Huggins when he came: for a young man of this name, who had hardly been at Hargen since he was six, was coming from India in some months, and was expected to spend a month with us.

It was that night that, for the first time, I saw Sir Philip Lister: for he dined with Esmé and Mrs. Wiseman and me in the main building dining-room, the old Davenport waiting upon us in state with his silent footsteps, we five making a pretty insignificant group in that great room, whose array of windows have a south aspect upon the south quadrangle.

It has (or had) tapestry all round, and rows of Jacobean carving-tables, which give the room an air of very gloomy state; and a wood-fire bickered on the iron-work fire-back, under whose oak over-mantel Sir Philip sat with Esmé and me ten minutes, then took himself away into his own sequestered nook of the house.

Two days after this he again had dinner with us, and again the day after that; but that third time the child, in one of her chatterbox fits, chanced to observe that "Uncle Philip is lending his presence since Miss Newnes has come"— and, like a bird that shies, Sir Philip showed himself no more to us for many days.

I regretted this, for his presence interested me, his manners were in such a high degree grave, dignified, and gracious. He was big, and, if not handsome, interesting to the eye— quaint, one might say— his face smooth like an actor's, his hair longer than usual, with great owl-eyes, whose glowering underlook was thronged, to my thinking, with mysteries of sorrow— something shifting, though, uncandidly shy, in them. His age I guessed to be about forty-five.

He was engaged in the writing of what I heard was "a great work," six volumes long, on "The Old Kingdom" (fourth of sixth dynasty of Egyptian Kings), and lived a life of such privacy, that it was three weeks ere I met him afresh. Meantime, Esmé and I entered upon the course of our adventurous studies— "adventurous," for never for two hours together was my pupil the same girl. Esmé had fits of headache; and she had fits of reading, when she feasted upon volumes with a hungry vulture's greed; and she had fits of indolence, dormouse torpors, fits of crying, dark-minded lamentations, fits of flightiness, of crazy dissipation, of craving for— wine. As for her knowledge, it was astonishing in such a child, and she anon plied me with queries to which I could find no reply.

On a forenoon in the fourth week, when she was feeling out of sorts, we were sauntering in the park, when, for once, I saw Sir Philip out of doors. We came upon him with his face against the ape-house netting, gazing in at the gibbon— so eagerly, that we were near him ere he seemed to hear us. When he suddenly saw us, he stood struck into a posture as of suspense, but presently was very affable in his reserved manner, and conversed with me some minutes about the apes and their various traits. They had the names of Egyptian kings, the chimpanzees being Pepy II, and Khety, and the gibbon Sety I; and at the gibbon Sir Philip shook his finger, saying with a playful solemnity: "That fellow! That fellow!"— I had no idea what he meant.

Suddenly, in the midst of our talk, he— with a certain awkwardness of his lids— proposed a picnic-luncheon out of doors to which Esmé and I readily assented. But three minutes afterwards he started, furtively murmuring the words: "I must be getting back to work," and was gone— to my astonishment!

After this he again made himself very scarce for three weeks.

Esmé and I, meantime, got into the habit of spending our hours of labour in the great hall, sitting on a day-bed that lay in the solar-room gallery there—the gallery from which of old one gazed down upon the retainers at table below; and those days of my life, that I whiled away in that place, are to me at present days touched with much strangeness and a tone of Utopia. But the great place was quite plain and empty— a plain ceiling, plain white walls, oak-panelled half-way up: only, as it was lighted by fourteen great windows with shields of painted glass, when the sun glowed through them, it transfigured that old room into glory-land.... But it is gone from me now like a dream, and I shall not see it again.

It was on the Thursday afternoon of my thirteenth week at Hargan that I received from Sir Philip Lister a singular missive: he had injured his thumb, he said, and wished to know if I would "kindly write from his dictation." But what, then, I asked myself, was to become of Esmé meantime? I did not wish to leave the child! However, I could not say no: and so entered that day the sacred den. He, with his fingers in a sling, instantly jumped up with a gush of apologies, showering upon me a thousand thanks that were at once gushing and shy, till the shyness triumphed, and he was suddenly silent and done. Then, I sitting at an old abbey-table, he on an old farm-house settle, he dictated to me with his eyes closed, in a low tone, all about Khufu, and Khafra, and the things of "the Pyramid Age," until I had the impression that he was himself something Egyptian and most ancient, and I with him, and in which age of the world we were I was not at some moments certain. In the midst of the dictating he all at once pressed his left palm upon his forehead, as if tired or muddled, his eyes tight shut; and, jumping up, he muttered to me, "thank you! thank you!" offering me his hand. Some of his actions had a wonderful swiftness and suddenness; and that hand of his which I touched was as chill as snow: so that I made haste from him.

That night I retired, as usual, soon after eleven to my room, which was in a rather remote and lonely region of the house; and was soon asleep. Two hours later I awoke terrified— I could not quite tell why— but so terrified, that I found myself sitting up in bed— with a singular sound, or the memory or dream of a singular sound, lingering about my ears: and I was trembling, my brow was wet with sweat.

Through my two windows, which stood open, shone the full moon's light, lying over the floor, lighting the stump-work tapestry on my right; and I could hear the night-breeze breathing drearily through the leaves of the cedar, some of whose branches, held up with chains, brushed my panes. For some minutes I sat so, hearing my heart beating in my ears, the breezes shivering through the tree, the streams showering, the soundlessness of the house and hour, and as conscious of some living spirit hovering round me as though I saw it. If it had lasted long, I must have lost consciousness, or else cast off the oppression of it with a shriek: but presently something reached my ear— a chuckle, a little giggle of glee, just distinct enough to convince me that it was due to no lunacy of my ear: and immediately, with a creeping in my hair, but a species of rage and desperation elevating me, I was out of bed, and at one of the windows: for just after the chuckle a sharp rush through the leafage of the cedar seemed to reach me, and I rushed to see.

What I saw made me faint— whether instantly or after some seconds I cannot say: I know that when I came to my senses I was seated on the floor with my forehead leaning on my old oak chair, and the tower-clock was now sounding the hour of three. But however soon I may have swooned after seeing it, it was not so instantly that I could have the slightest doubt as to the actualness of what my eyes saw. For though the moonlight left the interior regions of the tree's leafage in some obscurity, I was sure that some brute of the ape species with a pale face was hanging there in the cedar— hanging head-downward among the network of chains and branches in such a way as to see into my chamber; and I have an impression of hearing— either before I fell, or through my swoon afterwards— a succession of chucklings; and then a voice somewhere remonstrating, pleading, commanding, in a secret species of shout; and then a strangled outcry of horror, of anguish, somewhere, all mingled with a dream of the chuckle of the chuckling stream.

But the strongest of my impressions was undoubtedly that drowning outcry of horror— an impression so strong, that I could hardly believe it to be a dream, or all a dream. This cry was somehow connected in my mind from the first with old Davenport; and this feeling was confirmed in me when Davenport was nowhere to be seen the next day, nor for four days after.

Mrs. Wiseman, the housekeeper, who for days was pale, and occasionally fell into a vacant staring, told me that Davenport was "suffering." She asked me no questions as to the night, but I twice caught her eye piercingly bent upon me with a meaning of inquiry, of anxiety, in it; and the same thing was true of Sir Philip when, three days later, he appeared towards evening: for he took my hand with a tender solicitude, and a lingering look of question in his gaze. As for Davenport, when I next saw him it was under a tree in the park, where he sat like a convalescent, in his flesh that pathetic pallor of the flesh of aged people who have passed through an illness; and the wrappings round his neck could not wholly hide from my eyes that his throat had been most brutally bruised.

During those days it was as if a blow had fallen upon Hargen. Esmé no longer laughed, and a lower tone of talk overtook us all. It was obvious that each held the consciousness of a secret which none dared breathe to another; and in vain I consumed days of musing in seeking to see into the meaning of these things. For my part, I was ailing, nor could quite hide it. I had the thought of moving out of my room, which I now shrank from entering even in the day-time, but did not care to show so openly that I was afraid. Through the nights I burned a light, but slept with my nerves awake. Not that I was ever of a very nervous temperament, I think: but terror infected me like a sickness in those days; the stare of eyes of affright in the night was ever present in my imagination; and Hargen soon grew to be to my haunted heart the very home of gloom. Then one day, on a sudden, all this trouble of mind rushed away from me like a shadow; and my being galloped into a mood of gladness in which gloom was abolished, and I forgot to be appalled in the dark.

I will tell of it very briefly. It happened that one afternoon when Esmé and I were sitting listlessly in that solar-room gallery, an open grammar lying idle between us, suddenly behind us, there rose out of the floor, as it seemed, a young man who clapped his fingers over Esmé's eyes, smiling with me the while. "Cousin Huggins!" the child cried out— much surprised, for Huggins Lister was not expected at Hargen for some days yet. He caught her up in his big arms, and bussed her like a gun, for he was a being made all of ardours and horse-play: and then he looked into my eyes, and I looked into his eyes.

It was as if I had always known him— long before I was born; and what hurried me more into the sort of maelstrom in which I was now caught was the circumstance, that on the day after that first day Esmé took a chill, remained in bed, and I was all alone with Huggins Lister in that wilderness of Hargen. The young man was, or pretended to be, interested in old things, and would have me show him all the cassone and old needlework, the Spanish glasses giving their glints of gold, the old girandoles with their amorini. He dined with me, we two alone, and Mrs. Wiseman: for Sir Philip more than ever kept himself to himself. Only, on the fourth evening when Huggins Lister and I were walking in the park, Sir Philip suddenly appeared before us, walking with precipitate steps the other way; did not pause, nor utter a sound, as he passed by us with a bowed brow, his hat raised; but when he had gone some way beyond us, he stopped, and— shook his finger at us! was going, too, I am sure, to venture to say something, but failed; and suddenly was gone on his way again. I remember being very offended at the moment: but a moment more, God forgive me, had forgotten that Sir Philip Lister lived.

I showed the young man the apes, and the Queen's Room, and the cascades, save one, and the ivory inlay of the two Spanish chests, and the Tudor fireplaces, and what was in "the long gallery"; and still he wished to see things. And just under the window that lights the great staircase, there stands on the landing a sedan-chair painted with glaring variegations, the window-glass casting the gauds of the six coats-of-arms of the Lister-Lynns upon the already gaudy chair: in which chair he got me to sit— it was high noon, on the open stair, but we were as solitary there as if night veiled us in a monastery; and, indeed, all that waste of Hargen seemed but made to beguile and mislead our feet to our fate— he got me to sit in it, I say, and then, having me well in his bondage in the sedan-chair, began to sob to me with passion; and when I hid away my face for pity of him there in his passion on his knees, and dashed one wild tear from my eyes, the young man ravished my lips with his lips, there in the chair on the stair that day. I could not help it, for in respect of me Huggins Lister came, and saw, and conquered! and I was as one drugged with honey-dew, and dancing drugged, in Huggins Lister's hands.

Also, the young man persuaded like a hurricane! and hurried me as madly into marriage as those sand-forms of the sand-storm which madly waltz into oneness. Within six months, he said, he would arrange everything so as to proclaim the marriage; but meantime it must be secret, and must be immediate! Against this tyranny I made a feint of resistance; but half-heartedly; and it availed me nothing: indeed, he was dear to me, and near, and had me all in the hollow of his hand and heart. And so one forenoon I stole out of Hargen gates, and met him at a house in St. Arvens townlet, the place of our marriage; but, as we were passing out, married, from the door of the house, my heart bounded into my mouth to see Sir Philip Lister walking hardly ten yards away. Yes, he who never left home was there before my eyes in the broad light in St. Arvens street with his oak-stick— walking away from us, indeed, seeming unaware of our presence: yet I have an impression, too, of his head half-turned toward us a moment, of a face ashen with agitation: and my heart, for all its warmth, shivered as with a mortal chill in me.

My reeling feet led me back to Hargen in a kind of dream, a wedded wife, as wild with thoughts as with wine that day, for I was my beloved's, and he was mine: and in what way I spent that day I could not say, since I was new in heaven, and can but remember my fruitless efforts to hide from Esmé's eyes the state of my mind: for she had lately risen from her ailment, and I made a pretence of study with her, and I was severe with my dear, denying him my presence until the evening; and even then retired betimes, leaving him sighing.

My chamber-door I barricaded with a chair— a bridal childishness, since, to secure the room, I should have locked it. And I lay awake for a long hour, looking at the luminosity of the full moon, until, wearied out by the reel of my day's dream, I fell into a brief sleep.

From this a roar awoke me: and may a sound like that sound never more come to me to summon me with its trump. I understood that some soul was in extremis, and out of the deeps of grief and horror was horridly appealing to his God; and, finding myself on the ground, I knelt one wild second, crying aloud: "Almighty God, guard my love from harm in this house of horror." A moment more I had thrown a gown round me, and was gone out of the door.

As I ran along the corridor, trying to strike a light to the candle that I carried, there seemed to reach my ear from somewhere a chuckle very hushed and low, like the jackal chattering over its carrion; and my fingers were so shaken by this thing, that they failed to bring the match into relation with the candle's wick. When the heat reached my hand I dashed down the match. Still running, I lit another— or half lit it: for in the instant when the match fused at the scratch, saw— or in some manner knew— that some mad and monstrous animal was with me; at the same moment the match went out, or was puffed out; and a thing most chilly cold touched my skin. I felt pain then, the pain of the awe of the darkness; and I stood palsied. But within some seconds, I think, I was rushing afresh toward the corridor-end, without the candlestick now, which had dropped from me; so that I could not see that the portal at the end, which I expected to be open as usual, was shut; and I rushed with a shock upon it. It was not only shut, but locked!— finding which, I, standing there, piled the passion of my whole soul into cry on cry, crying "Huggins! Sir Philip! Davenport! Huggins!" then I stood, hearing the streams murmuring as through eternity in the silence of the night, and the strong knocking of my heart against my side— but no reply to my calls.

This was not very astonishing, as my room was in such a solitary part of the mansion: and I stood imprisoned, suffering, expecting every second the coming upon me of that which would strike me dead with fright. The stillness lasted half a minute, perhaps, and then I became aware of a sound outside the door, a bumping going down the stairs in a regular way, like something massive being dragged down, with bump, bump, bump: and such was the solemnity and mystery of this thing to me in my solitude there in that gruesome gloom, that to linger any longer there in my pain soon grew to be impossible to me; and before I knew what I was doing I was out of a window, moving along a ledge fifty feet aloft toward the next window. The ledge was scarcely more than a foot wide, I think, and how I dared it, and why I did not fall, I can't now say. With my nose close to the wall— conscious all the time of drizzle tossed by high winds, conscious of the night full of a wild light, though the moon was quite hidden— I stepped flutteringly along over thin snow in dizzy suspense, keeping my sob until I should reach the next window: and there, as I leapt, I gave it vent, and fainted at my safety. I did not cease to hear, though, the bumping sound going down; and when it got to the bottom, something in me gave me the dauntlessness of heart to go after it.

Down I crept, haltingly, crouching, stair by stair. Halfway down I seemed to hear something being dragged over the floor below. I went on down. The sound had now gone out through a doorway, and I knew which doorway; but as I followed that way, my bare toes struck upon something cold, and I dropped upon my hands over it. I moaned then for pity of myself, because it was dark, and because I did so suffer. But I was conscious, as I dropped, of a rattle of matches, for I still had the match-box in my hand, without knowing that I had it: and the desire took me to strike a light. It was some time, though, before I would, or could, and when I eventually ventured, I saw the sight of the body of the old butler in his night-attire lying wildly before me on the floor: and I knew by a look that was in his eyes that they were for ever sightless.

At the same moment I was aware of the slamming of a door some way off; and again I knew which door— the little side-portal by the kitchen-entrance, leading out northward into the park— and again something gave vigour to my knees, and lifted my feet, to go to see. I made my way to the little portal; opened it slowly; my soles were out on the snow. And before me on the short gravel-path going north into the park I distinctly saw the pale ape, bearing a body against his breast. A moment later he laid down his heavy load, and bent over it; and when I saw him horribly muttering over it, something in me stooped, took up a stone, and threw it at the brute.

It went straight to his head.

After some seconds the creature raised himself slowly, and raced with reeling feet into the darkness of the park.

I staggered then to the body, and saw that it was Huggins Lister strangled; and on the body of my beloved my senses left me.

IT WAS ten in the day before I knew anything more; and then I lay on a bed, on one side of it Esmé, on the other side Mrs. Wiseman.

The latter had a fixed stare; and from the manner in which Esmé was smiling, with her face held sideward, while she persistently counted on her fingers, I could make out that the child was now insane.

I lay still, I said nothing; little I cared.

Presently a girl named Bertha entered to murmur the words: "He isn't found yet"; and from some words murmured in reply by Mrs. Wiseman, I gathered that Sir Philip Lister had disappeared.

Little I cared, I lay still and sullen, with closed lids.

Near noon again came the news that the men seeking for Sir Philip Lister could even yet discover no trace of him; but at about live in the evening he was found dying in the hollow of the rock that lies behind the cascade that they call "The Ape," and was brought to the Hall.

Very soon afterwards Mrs. Wiseman, who had then left my side, flew in again to me with crying eyes, imploring me to try and go for a moment to the dying man, who was hungering to have one sight of me; and I let her throw some clothes over me, and was led by her to the death-bed.

By this time I knew— for Mrs. Wiseman during the day had revealed it to me in a flood of tears— that Sir Philip Lister's mother had too much listened to the chuckling cascade, and so had borne him the being he was— a being capable at any agitation of shedding his human nature to resume the nature of the brute, and hurling away human raiment with his human nature in the murderous turbulence of his nocturnal revels— he who in my eyes had been so perfect in gentleness, so shy, so staid! But none the less I shuddered to the soul when he touched my hand to pant at me through the death-ruckle rolling in his throat: "I have loved you well"— a shudder which perhaps saved me from death or from madness, for I had lapsed that day into a mad apathy. It was nearly night then, and the light in there was very dreary; but I could still see that the hair which overgrew the ogre's frame was considerably more than an inch deep— greenish, and gross as the gorilla's. It clasped him round the throat and round the wrists in lines perfectly defined, like a perfect coat of fur that he wore; and it did not thin, but continued no less thick where it abruptly ended than everywhere else.

But he had "loved me well," and I him now— for if he had been perniciously jealous, it was for love of me that he had been jealous; and in dying he looked into my eyes with human eyes, kindly, mildly, looking "I have loved you well"; and when with his last strength he pointed to where the pebble I had flung had sunk into his skull, then I lifted my voice and wept to God because of him, and myself, and Hargen Hall and all, not caring any longer if my face was buried in the horror of his hairy breast. And so he died, and Huggins Lister, and I was left alive.

____________

14: The Gentlemen in Possession

Katharine Tynan

1859-1931

The Queenslander, 17 Oct 1914

WHEN Belinda Grove-Smith, the daughter of a prosperous stockbroker of Evangelical leanings, married Jack Gascoigne, a poor artist, it was a severe blow to the Grove-Smith family.

Jack was then unknown to Fame. Today his posters make him famous all over England and farther, and he is held in the highest regard by the Grove-Smith family, who make a deal of capital out of him at suburban tennis and tea parties. At the time of his marriage his brother artists predicted a brilliant future for him; but if their predictions reached the Grove-Smith family they simply did not believe them.

Belinda was a little person who knew her own mind. A staunch little woman, brown-eyed and gentle, with a bubbling sense of humour which had overflowed all her days, discreetly, on her highly respectable surroundings. She was a perpetual wonder to Jack Gascoigne. How she had ever sprung in such a soil as the Grove-Smiths! Belinda was a freak, a jest of Nature, else it would have been as risky an experiment for her and Jack Gascoigne to marry as his artist friends feared at first, before they met Jack's wife.

Papa pursy, prosperous and prim— mamma exuding a stately respectability at every pore— the Grove-Smith sons and other than Belinda, qualifying for as honourable positions as their parents filled so happily— no wonder they didn't understand Jack Gascoigne. Mrs. Grove-Smith found it necessary to explain to her rich suburban friends that dear John's parentage had been quite unimpeachable; his father a distinguished officer in the army; his mother the daughter of Sir Beverley Bindon. The suburb believed her or not, according to its nature; but there was an inflexibility in its manner of receiving Mrs. Grove-Smith's assurances which boded ill for its acceptance of Bella's marriage.

Bella simply didn't care a pin. The parents were very good to her. Even Mrs. Grove-Smith, whom Jack's friends— the one or two he dared present at Fairgrove— pronounced a holy terror, had really a tender, maternal heart under her somewhat overwhelming exterior. It was not in her, nor was it in Peregrine Grove-Smith, to bear the unhappiness of one of the children. And there was really nothing very bad about Jack except that he had no money, was that feckless thing, an artist, and had such very odd ways. When he turned up in a grey flannel shirt the very day Lady Druce came to tea— the Grove-Smiths had asked Lady Druce so many times, and this was the very first time she had come— it was a blow to the Grove-Smiths. Mrs. Grove-Smith, presiding over the tea table, was nearly turned to stone when she heard Jack explaining to Lady Druce, with demonstrations, that he always had a clean shirt by making a new turn on his cuffs. It was nothing that Lady Druce laughed heartily, seemed delighted with Jack, and asked him to lunch next day. As Lucy, newly home from Paris, said, Jack was 'impayable'; and Lady Druce, who had not included the Grove-Smiths, beyond Belinda, in her invitations, was plainly interested in Jack for malicious reasons and none other.

It was rather a relief to all the Grove-Smiths that the engagement was a short one. Jack was not very keen about Fairgrove, and had steadily rejected all social advances from the Pendlehurst people. There had been a good many— and were actuated by curiosity, the Grove-Smiths felt sure. It was as well Jack did not respond to them, for one never knew what audacity he might commit. To be sure some people might find his audacities amusing. Not so the Grove-Smiths. In a spirit of pious resignation they saw the wedding through. Jack's speech at the wedding breakfast was something sever to be forgotten. It was with a sign of very real relief that Mrs. Grove-Smith saw the newly-married couple depart in a motor for Folkestone on their way abroad. She was quite determined that Jack should only be asked to Fairgrove for family occasions. He was really too awful. That squashing of his top hat now— bought at the last moment in deference to the wishes of the Grove-Smith family; Jack had somehow or other contrived to get it on to his chair while he returned thanks for himself and Belinda, and had then sat down on it. Pendlehurst had roared over his expression when he took it up and set it sideways on his handsome dark head. The Grove-Smiths had seen nothing to laugh at. To them it was, as Mrs. Grove-Smith described it, a painfully vulgar exhibition.

However, Belinda seemed to enjoy it more than anybody; and she went off with Jack, looking as radiantly happy a bride as ever left a parental roof. So long as the child was happy— Mrs. Grove-Smith said to Mr. Grove-Smith, and he answered gloomily that when Bella ceased to be happy with that queer fellow there was always room for her at Fairgrove; suggested further that there need be no change in Belinda's room yet awhile, till they saw how the marriage worked.

"Oh, it will work well enough, Peregrine," Mrs. Grove-Smith replied, with an air as though the prophesy were the other way about. "Strange as it may seem, Bella is devoted to him. And I must say that beyond his queerness and his occasional vulgarities there seems no harm in John."

As the months passed Mr. Grove-Smith acknowledged the perspicacity of his wife, as he was ever ready to do Belinda's happiness seemed quite unclouded; although it was something of a mystery to the Grove-Smiths how she could be happy in such a tiny house, even though there was a very liberal allowance of garden. Everything was rather cut at elbows. The garden was permitted to run wild because Jack liked it so. Jack objected to curtains, so there were none. The floors were bare except for an ancient Persian rug— the Grove-Smiths called them rags— flung here and there. There were pictures all over the place— pictures and well-worn books and Jack's pipes. You never knew when you might come on Jack's old coats, or his slippers. They were all over the house. There was very little furniture, and what there was was shabby, although it might be beautiful. The Grove-Smiths couldn't see the beauty. They liked their furniture new from Maple's or Waringa. Jack's pair of Scotch terriers sat in the chairs and growled at Mrs. Grove-Smith when she tried to dispossess them. How Bella could be happy, after the comfort, even luxury, of life at Fairgrove! But of her happiness there was no doubt.

At first Mrs. Grove-Smith made various suggestions to her daughter for the bettering of things. She presented Bella with some new furniture and a drawing room carpet, over which Jack groaned as though he were in intolerable pain, although he was too good-hearted a fellow to let his mother-in-law see his distaste. Bella took a humorous view of it. She would run and kiss Jack when he averted his eyes from her wedding-presents. There were the two big vases in modern Dresden for which Aunt Maria, Mr. Grove-Smith's rich sister, had paid a huge sum at the Stores. They seemed to draw Jack's eyes by some magnetic power whenever he came into Bella's drawing-room. It used to make Bella laugh until the tears ran.

Now Bella's dot had been a quite in considerable one. Mr. Grove-Smith did not believe in giving his money away while he lived; and he knew better than to let a Bohemian like Jack squander his girl's money. The sum he put down with Bella would, he thought, keep them going for a bit in addition to Jack's earnings. He had no idea how little Jack's earnings amounted at the moment. He supposed Jack had an allowance from old General Gascoigne, his uncle in Hampshire, who had been too bad with gout to come to the wedding.

This little assumption was quite unfounded. As a matter of fact, General Gascoigne had pitched Jack to the deuce when he refused to give up Miss Grove-Smith for a little lady who was the daughter of an old flame of the General's. The General hadn't thought of inquiring the young people's wishes in the matter. He knew his own; and it was no use Jack's telling him that Maisie Fairfax wouldn't have looked at him. The General thought he knew better. He had been allowing Jack a couple of hundred a year. Now he withdrew it. Jack said nothing about the withdrawal of the allowance, even to Bella, though it leaked out after they were married. He was not greatly concerned about it. He had a belief in himself, somewhat incompatible with a very real humility. With Bella by his side he was going to accomplish wonders. And with the dot, and what he had in hand, they could tide over the time till success came.

Still, it was wonderful how the money melted. To make a long story short, Jack and Bella were in monetary difficulties within eighteen months of their marriage. It happened just a week before midsummer when Bella, coming home one day from an outing with Baby— baby was just eight months old, and had been an expensive addition to the family circle, for Bella was only beginning to learn economy, and Baby had everything of the very best—Bella coming in happy because of the beautiful air and the happy time she had been enjoying with Baby, was met by Parker, the manservant, with a serious, not to say gloomy, wink.

"I wouldn't if I was you go into the dinin'-room, ma'am," he said. "Mr. Gascoigne— e' 'as visitors."

Bella didn't the least bit in the world understand why she was not to go into the dining-room because Jack had visitors. Then a sudden happy thought struck her. Perhaps some one had come to buy a picture.

"Is Mr. Gascoigne with his visitors, Parker?" she asked, her hand on the door handle.

Parker had an insufferable familiarity from Mrs. Grove-Smith's point of view. He was an old soldier who had served Jack faithfully during his days of batchelorhood, and Jack had been adamant though so easy-going usually, when Mrs. Grove-Smith had suggested replacing him by a neat parlour-maid. Parker acted as model to Jack occasionally and was a very efficient as well as devoted servant. Jack didn't see himself getting rid of him for a parlour-maid of Mrs. Grove-Smith's choosing, even if he did join in the conversation as he handed round the dishes and behave as one of the family generally. It only showed that Parker was a friendly chap, said Jack to his horrified mother-in-law.

"Mr. Gascoigne's gone out, ma'am," he said, quietly but firmly preventing Bella from turning the door-handle. "I was to say— if you'll come in 'ere, ma'am..."

He guided the alarmed Bella towards the drawing-room door, opened it and part pushed, part guided her within.

"I was to say that Satterthwaite and Mason 'as put in... a couple of gentlemen— for... a little matter o' thirty pounds or so for frames. I did tell 'im as it was no use a-puttin' their bills be'ind the droring-room fire. I've 'ad considerable experience— 'im, too, for the matter o' that; an' it only riles 'em. 'E 'asn't opened the last dozen or so; an' if 'e 'ad 'e'd nave known as it was comin' nearer an' nearer to their ultimatum. 'E said you wasn't to trouble. 'E'd be back soon as ever 'e could raise the oof— them there were 'is words— an' you wasn't to trouble your dear little 'eart."

"Oh, Parker!" said Belinda, very pale, and supporting herself by leaning one hand on the drawing-room table. "What do you mean? Who are those dreadful people in the dining-room? You said gentlemen— but what have gentlemen got to do with Satterthwaite and Mason and Mr. Gascoigne's frames? I don't understand you a bit."

"Bless your innocent 'eart!" said Parker, executing a more solemn wink than before. "W'y, they're bailiffs. Don't you take on so, ma'am. Many's the time we've 'ad 'em in before. W'y, Mr. Gascoigne, time was 'e felt lonesome if 'e 'adn't a gentleman in possession, as 'e calls 'em. 'E's very popular in the profession, master is. I've been told by some o' them there gentlemen as they'd as soon be put in with us as anywhere in London. W'y, I've known them and Mr. Gascoigne to sit up 'arf the night a-singin' comic songs, an' they laughin' fit to die at Master's play-actin'. I've known 'em go off with tears in their eyes at partin' from us. My word! we 'aye 'ad some nights. There'd be a policeman or two in off the beat— any one Mr. Gascoigne picked up on his way 'ome, thinkin' as they looked cold an' 'ungry."

The colour began to come back to Bella's cheeks, although whatever of Grove-Smith there was in her composition was still alarmed and shocked at bailiffs being in possession of her pretty house. Still, her sense of humour carried her through many things. Oh, Jack, Jack! What a dear, delightful, irresponsible, good-hearted fellow he was!

"Mr. Gascoigne is sure to find the money, Parker?" she said, still trembling a little, but with a smile drawing at the corners of her month.

"Bless your 'eart— yes! That is s'posin' 'e finds any of 'is friends at 'ome. 'Tis unfortunate, rayther, that it should come this very minute. If the worst comes to the worst, w'y there's plenty we can pop,' 'm. Wot's thirty pounds? It's low of Satterthwaite and Mason, seein 'all as we've paid 'em."

At this moment of all others there came a tremendous rat-tat at the front door. Mamma! No one ever knocked like that except mamma, who had once been kept waiting by Parker, and had used that special rat-tat by way of protest ever since.

" 'Tis your ma, ma'am," said Parker. "I'll say you're not at 'ome."

"You can't do that, Parker," said Bella. "Poor mamma! It's so hot, and she's walked all the way up the hill from the railway station. And she'll want her lunch."

"Your ma'll find out 'oo we've got in our dinin'-room," said Parker in a sepulchral whisper. "If I know anythink of ladies, your ma's just the one to find out."

While they hesitated the drawing-room door opened, and Mrs. Grove-Smith made her appearance.

"I found your door on the latch, Bella," she said, not noticing Parker in the obscurity of the room, after the brilliant frosty sunshine outside. "It's very careless of that man of yours. You ought to speak to him about it. It would never happen if you had taken that excellent creature I brought you."

Parker glided from the room before Mrs. Grove-Smith had time to recognise his presence.

Mrs. Grove-Smith deposited herself in the nearest easy chair.

"Your sisters are all out for the day," she said. "So I thought I'd ask myself to lunch with you." She was opening her cloak and taking off her bonnet, with its nodding plumes, as she spoke. "John not at home?" she went on. Jack Gascoigne'e relatives by marriage were the only people who ever called him John. "I suppose not, else I should find you in the studio. I must say it is a blessing to find John out sometimes. A man who is always at home is something of a nuisance. You'll excuse me saying so, my dear Bella. That incessant posing for him must be very tiresome. You should send him out oftener; you should indeed. Why, is anything the matter, Bella?"

Mrs. Gascoigne was indeed looking pale and disturbed. How on earth was she going to conceal from her mother the presence of those awful men in the dining-room? Mrs. Grove-Smith had a lynxeyed sharpness as her daughter knew; and it was very difficult to frustrate her in anything she wanted to do.

"There is nothing at all the matter, mamma," she said hastily. "And I am delighted to have you. But, I was thinking of proposing a little jaunt. Why shouldn't I put on my hat?— I shouldn't be a minute— we could catch the eleven forty, and the two of us lunch in town and look at the shops. It isn't often I have an opportunity for such gaieties now."

"What on earth do you mean, Bella?" Mrs. Grove-Smith asked in a tone of offence. "I've only just come on, and I am very tired. Lunch in your little quiet dining-room would suit me much better than the crowds of Regent-street. Anything will do for me. You know I'm not exacting. Whatever you have will suit me very well. It's not so often I have the chance of having lunch alone with you. You ought really to send John out more, Bella. Why shouldn't he teach drawing as Mr. Smithers used to do? It would give him an occupation."

Bella passed over the implied strictures on Jack. She hastened to propitiate her mother.

"Of course, darling, I am delighted to have you," she said. "I was only thinking—in fact, supposing we have our lunch out-of-doors in the garden. I'll tell Parker. He's so clever. He'll turn us out a delightful little hot-weather lunch. You shall see, dearest mamma!"

"Bella!" said Mrs. Grove-Smith in a deep voice. "No lunches in the garden for me. I know those small gardens. Nests of earwigs and spiders. No, thanks, my dear. I am quite satisfied with your dining-room and the cold mutton. Dear me, you mustn't think of running out to lunch. With a husband like yours it would be most unwise to get a habit of extravagance."

Bella was at her wits' end. It was time to give Parker instructions about the lunch if she could not move mamma, and she could not.

"Darling," she said, "I am so sorry, but some friends of Jack's are waiting for him in the dining-room. Most important business. I've nowhere else I can put them. Would you mind having lunch in here?"

"My dear Bella, why didn't you say so at first? It's a pity to bring food into your drawing-room. Still, why didn't you tell me before that the dining-room was occupied without so much beating about the bush? I am a most easily pleased person. I don't care really where I have my lunch, or if I have any lunch at all."

Bella ran off relieved, and gave Parker his instructions. A little cold soup, the wing of a chicken, a salad, an omelette and black coffee to follow she suggested, with perhaps some of Parker's delicious pastry.

"In the drawing-room, Parker," she added. "I've told Mamma that some of Mr. Gascoigne's friends are waiting for him in the dining-room. She is quite satisfied about it."

Parker nodded his head, but remarked to himself gloomily as Mrs. Gascoigne ran off, that, "if he knew anythink, the likes of 'er was not so easy satisfied."

Coming back to the drawing-room, Bella found her mother, bonnet and cloak laid aside, patting her hair in front of the glass.

As Bella came in she turned about.

"My dear Belinda," she said, with a majestic air, "you have seen your husband's friends, of course?"

"No; they didn't want to see me. It was Jack— Jack—" She was about to say that Jack had seen them, but some instinct of caution arrested the words on her lips. "Jack may be back at any moment," she went on lamely. "They really don't want to see me."

"I think you said important business, Belinda. Has it not occurred to you that you ought to see them? Supposing they came to offer John employment? My dear Belinda, I really think it very silly of you to stuff your husband's callers away like that in the dining-room without even discovering their business. A woman can do so much. Your Papa often said that without a woman like me by his side he could have done nothing, positively nothing. A woman's smiles, my dear Belinda, a woman's tact—"

"They're not patrons, mamma," Belinda put in. "I assure you they are not patrons. They are just some friends of Jack's."

"But you'll ask them to lunch, Bella? You're not going to leave them without lunch?"

"Parker will see to them. Please don't bother, mamma. Let us have our lunch in peace together. I wonder if baby's in yet? Ah, that was nurse's ring!"

She ran out and opened the hall door, Baby's return was most opportune. Mrs. Grove-Smith was an adoring grandmother. The inspection of baby's first tooth would distract her from those horrid men in the dining-room. And Jack might return at any moment.

However, baby's toilet needed some attention before he was presented to his grandmother. Picking him up in her arms Belinda ran with him upstairs, while nurse took the mail-cart round the back way.

To take off baby's bonnet and cloak, to sponge his face and brush up his silky curls, was a matter of a few moments. When Belinda came downstairs again carrying him in her arms she had almost forgotten the wretched men in the dining room. Baby had said something which she was almost certain bore a striking resemblance to "mamma."

At the bottom of the stairs Parker confronted her with a catastrophe face.

"She 'as gone in!" he said, with a jerk of his thumb backward over his shoulder in the direction of the diningroom.

If nurse hadn't appeared opportunely Belinda would certainly have let baby fall. However, nurse, a brown-faced little person, who never displayed any curiosity about things which didn't concern her, took baby from his mother and went away upstairs.

"Oh, Parker," said Belinda, in a horrifled whisper— "what am I to do?"

"I knowed as she'd do it," said Parker gloomily. "They won't tell. Bless your 'eart, they won't tell. They're used to keepin' things to theirselves. Best thing you can do, ma'am, is to go in an' talk too— if you can do it without makin' a fuss. Keep 'er off 'em as much as you can. I'll 'urry up lunch. Your mamma's always 'ungry when she comes 'ere."

Bella opened the door and went in. Once again the humorous faculty that had so often stood her friend came to her aid.

Mrs. Grove-Smith had sat down in the easy chair by the window. She had turned it so as to command a good view of the visitors. Facing her across the table sat two men, one bottle-nosed with a distressing cough and watery eyes— the other, small, shrewd, with a good-humoured, twinkling face.

This one turned about as Bella came in. Bella had glanced in terror at her mother. To her relief, and somewhat also to her mystification, Mrs. Grove-Smith wore her blandest smile.

"This gentleman tells me, Bella," she said; then she introduced Bella with a wave of her hand; "Mrs. Gascoigne— Mr. Spink. Mr. Spink tells me, Bella...."

"As 'ow we're dealers in picture, ma'am," the little man put in hastily. "We thought as 'ow, me an' my friend Bowcher— 'ave another coughdrop, Bill!—as 'ow your good gentleman might 'ave somethink in our line. 'Is picturs are gittin' arsked for. I can tell you. Me 'an Bowcher, we thought as 'ow we'd secure somethink before his prices was beyond us. We ain't exactly Bond-street, nor yet 'Aymarket. Still, a fair price....."

"My son-in-law will be back presently," said Mrs. Grove-Smith, leaving Bella out of it. "You must discuss it with him. Of course there is a very great demand for his pictures. You mustn't expect to get them too cheap. I know he has some framed, and beautifully framed, too, that he might let you have."

"Lor' bless you, mum," said Mr. Spink mendaciously, "we ain't 'ere along of 'is frames. 'Tis picturs we're after."

"Of course," said Mrs. Grove-Smith. "I quite understand it is pictures. Still to the non-professional eye like mine, the frame counts."

"Lor' bless you, mum, don't be callin' yourself names," said Mr. Spink handsomely, "if I 'ad an eye like yours, taint's much it'ud let slip."

Bella could stand it no longer. She left the rest to Providence and Mr. Spink, and slipped out to laugh and cry together in the intervals of looking up and down the road to see if Jack was in sight.

When she came back she found Parker announcing lunch and Mrs. Grove-Smith, in high good-humour, concluding a discussion on pictures with Mr. Spink.

"I quite agree with you, Bella," she said, as she sat down to the dainty meal Parker had provided, "that it wouldn't really do to ask them to lunch. I had no idea picture-dealers belonged to such a humble class; and Mr. Spink, although very intelligent, seemed never to have heard of Whistler— thought I was talking about some one who performed on a tinwhistle. Still— I think I've sold one or two pictures for Jack. I could see they were pleased by my attention. The madness of your neglecting them as you were doing! My dearest Bella, as I have often said to you, a man's success in life depends on his wife's diplomacy."

There was the sound of a latch-key in the door, which Bella heard, but her mother did not. Yet Jack did not appear for quite a long time. When he came in he was apparently in high good humour, and kissed his mother-in-law as well as his wife. It was the first time he had kissed Mrs. Grove-Smith on his own account, and she looked quite pleased over it. She did not notice the shy, humorous, apologetic look he sent his wife across the table.

"I hope you've done some business, John," she said.

"Thanks to you, ma'am," said Jack. "It was a matter of thirty pounds. They weren't long over it either. It was very kind of you to go in and talk to them."

"Your wife would have left them severely alone," Mrs. Grove-Smith said, smiling and exhilarated. "We must teach her some worldly wisdom, John. Are they gone?''

"Oh, yes, they've gone, well pleased with you, ma'am, and themselves."

Bella did not dare meet Jack's eyes, though she scolded him about it afterwards. But that day marked the beginning of a much better understanding between Jack Gascoigne and his wife's family, especially his mother-in-law. As I have said earlier, the Grove-Smiths are extremely proud of Jack now that he is famous. Mrs. Grove-Smith is fond of telling how the first step upwards was accomplished through her intervention.

"Of course, Jack has nothing to do with those kind of people now," she will say. "He goes only to the big dealers and private patrons. But I may say that he was very glad when I sold his first picture for thirty pounds,"—it has come to be that in the course of time and Mrs. Grove-Smith really believes what she says—"and the dear fellow has never forgotten it. He says that was really his turning point. They were such odd creatures. You know Jack used them for that picture of his, 'The Men in Possession.' It was, rather audacious of him, for after all they were nearly his first customers. But the picture is considered very clever. I don't care for low life myself. But the furniture is very realistically painted. I always tell Jack it was too bad of him. Mr. Spink might have been offended, and the other dealer, too."

"Not a bit of it, ma'am," says Jack. "You never saw a pair of men better pleased. I never see Spink that I haven't to stand him a drink for it."

Jack's eccentricities are much more tolerable in his mother-in-law's eyes than of old, to her rebuke is a smiling one.

"My dear Jack, in your position—"

But, after all, Jack can do anything he pleases, seeing that he is a famous person, as Mrs. Grove-Smith remarks to her neighbours with an air of honest pride when Jack does something very much out of the ordinary.

_____________

15: The Man Who Was Two

Harold Ward

1879-1950

Popular Detective Aug 1940

TO The Governor and Members of The Board of Pardons: Some six years ago, according to the Daily Press, Captain John Connors of the Detective Bureau of the New York City Police Department was killed in a wreck of the Oscaloosa Limited between Chicago, Illinois, and Clinton, Iowa. His body, horribly mangled and disfigured beyond recognition, was shipped home, where it was buried with all the honors due a man of his position.

In view of the fact that his was the only body not positively identified, together with the further fact that he was a personal friend of tlie conductor, one James Bailey, zvho testified at tlie inquest tlxat lie had talked with Conners not over five minutes before the wreck, his family and friends accepted the remains without question.

I alone know the true story of John Conners.

I am making this statement in the hope that a great wrong may be righted.

ii

CAPTAIN John Conners had been in the West in search of a gang of forgers who had made New York their headquarters. Failing to locate his men, he was on his way home wlten a telegram intercepted him at Denver asking him to keep an eye open for one Simon Latham, wanted in New York for murder.

Latham, known throughout the country as a gunman and gangster, had, according to the telegram, committed a crime of unusual atrocity, killing two policemen in cold blood and making his escape unscathed. He was believed to have gone to Denver, where he was known to have friends. Conners. being well acquainted with him, was asked to stop over in the Colorado city to assist the police in their search.

Two days spent in Denver convinced him that there was nothing to be gained by a longer stay.

The second day out of the Western metropolis he was passing through the train on his way to the observation car when he suddenly located his quarry slumped down in a seat in the smoking compartment. In spite of the fact that Latham had disguised himself to the best of his ability by growing a stubby beard and donning smoked glasses, Conners had no trouble in recognizing him.

Latham was alone in the compartment at the time. Before he had time to make a move Conners had him covered.

"Up with your hands, Latham!" he commanded.

The gunman obeyed the order. "Who d'ye think I am, damn yeh?" he snarled.

Conners smiled. "I don't think — I know!" he answered. "You are—"

He was interrupted by a crash. His revolver flew from his hand as he pitched forward into the arms of the man he had arrested. An instant later both men were huried across the car and buried under a mass of debris.

Then hell broke loose. The wrecked train was enveloped in flames. Clouds of scalding steam drove the rescuers back time after time. The air was filled with the shrieks of the wounded and the groans of the dying. Men worked like demons to save those who were buried beneath the burning wreckage.

Conners and Latham, hidden under the debris of two cars, were among the last to be found. The body of the policeman was little more than a charred mass of flesh. Under him, yet protected to a certain extent by his form, was Simon Latham. He, too, had suffered terrible injuries, yet within his shell still lingered the breath of life.

As they dragged the form of the murderer from beneath the wreckage even the hardened physicians and volunteer nurses gasped with astonishment that he still lived. His face had been parboiled by the scalding steam until the flesh hung in strips. His body, from which the clothes had been burned, was a solid mass of burns.

Swathed in cotton, saturated with oil, they rushed him to the hospital. A week passed. He remained unidentified.

After a month he took a slight turn for the better. Finally he was able to speak a few words. Physicians and nurses gathered around his bed and asked him to identify himself.

He answered them listlessly, seemingly as a child repeats a lesson.

He was Simon Latham, gunman, gangster— murderer! He was wanted in New York, he told them, for the killing of two policemen. Captain Conners had been about to arrest him when the wreck intervened.

They expected him to die. It was an impossibility, said the physicians, for a man in his condition to continue living. They believed that he realized it and was making a death-bed confession. They summoned a priest. To the Holy Father he repeated the same story.

And then he got well— as well as a man can get who has passed through hell.

The New York police were notified. When he left the hospital it was with handcuffs on his wrists. Yet he made no resistance. His spirit was broken. He reiterated his confession, denying nothing, admitting everything. The State furnished him with an attorney. Acting on the lawyer's advice he threw himself on the mercy of the court. A kind-hearted judge,-taking his physical condition into consideration, sentenced him to life imprisonment rather than the chair.

iii

SIMON LATHAM became a model prisoner. He went about his appointed tasks in a solemn, mechanical sort of way, a broken-down old man scarcely out of his teens— a man whose face was seamed with myriad scars, twisted and contorted out of shape by muscular contraction. His short-cropped hair was snow-white, his form bent and feeble. In his eyes was a far-away look— the look of a dog that has lost its master.

Eventually he was made a trusty. He performed his work with a servility that surprised those who had known him in former years.

Everyone remembers the prison break of some weeks ago. Five hundred men— the dregs of civilization— armed with a miscellaneous collection of weapons garnered from God knows where, threw themselves against the little irroup of guards in the big diniug-hall. For two hours the battle waged to and fro. Eventually the officials, better armed, better disciplined, won out. Yet the victory was not gained without considerable loss.

As is always the case, many of the prisoners aligned themselves on the side of law and order. Among them was Simon Latham, the lifer.

When the trouble broke loose Latham was standing midway between the row of prisoners and die little knot of guards. As the missiles flew through the air he was caught between two fires. Something— a dish or bowl— struck him squarely on the head. He dropped to the floor unconscious.

For five minutes the battle waged across his body. Then he recovered consciousness and plunged into the fray with almost maniacal strength, aiding the guards wherever possible. When the affair was ended and the mutineers were finally herded back into their cells he was bleeding from a dozen wounds.

Here is the peculiar feature: Immediately after the fight Latham, the model prisoner, became a prison outlaw. He refused to obey prison discipline, insisted on hobnobbing with the guards, and attempted to escape whenever occasion offered itself.

He was taken before the warden. The latter, who had taken a great interest in the case of the former gunman, especially since his services at the time of the break, tried argument.

Latham insisted to the warden that he was being unjustly held. He asserted that he was not Simon Latham, the outlaw, but Captain John Conners, the policeman!

The warden, a man not prone to forget favors, finally ordered him taken from the cell where he had been confined after his outbreak and placed in the insane ward under observation. He is there now.

Here are the facts as I deduce them. I am positive that I am right :

Captain Conners was in the act of arresting Latham when the wreck occurred. He had, as I have said, drawn his revolver and with it covered the murderer.

"Who d'ye think I am, damn yeh?" the gangster demanded.

"I don't think— I know," Conners answered. "You are—"

Before he could finish his sentence the cars were piled together. He was thrown forward and received a terrific blow on the head. Then and there all memory disappeared.

But in his subconscious mind were the thoughts that had been flashing through his brain while he was making the arrest!

His subconscious memory retained nothing but the impressions of Simon Latham. He had known Latham for years. His history was, to the policeman, an open book.

He was about to utter Latham's name when the blow came that erased all memory. So while the conscious mind of Captain John Conners was obliterated, there remained in the tiny cells in the back of his head the recollection of the man who stood before him at that last instant.

Latham was killed. His body, mutilated beyond all recognition, was buried as Captain John Conners. Conners, disfigured and mutilated, speaking only the thoughts that, as I have said, were in his mind at that last instant— thoughts that had only to do with Simon Latham— accepted the role of Simon Latham, lived it, accepted the punishment of Simon Latham!

Yet somewhere in those tiny cells of subconsciousness remained the policeman. He could not be the renegade that Latham had been, because it was not in his make-up, even though in his own mind he was Latham. Why? Because his training had all been on the side of law and order.

Then came the prison break. That flying dish, striking him on the head, removed, in some way, the pressure against his brain. Immediately the role of Simon Latham was forgotten and he started in again where he had left off six years before. He was again Captain Conners, policeman and guardian of the law. As Captain John Conners he plunged into the fight against the convicts.

I am positive, gentlemen, that I am right. I asked that you allow me to return home to my family and friends. For, Your Excellency and Gentlemen of the Board of Pardons, I am Captain John Conners! I trust that you will accept my word. I have no other proof."

____________

16: The Brand of Cain

Harold Ward

1879-1950

(As by Ward Sterling)

Popular Detective Aug 1940

DOCTOR ANDREWS, the physician who had been called in by the coroner, gave as his opinion thai Waldo Fellows had met death shortly after midnight. The condition of the body, he said, proved his contention. Then, too, the fact that the blood with which the sheets were smeared had dried and hardened caused him to stick to his statement.

Yet Orville Hitchens. Fellows' secretary, swore that his employer had been alive and well at two o'clock in the morning.

Hitchens stated that he bad been summoned by Fellows at one o'clock and requested to drive to Amboy, two miles away, for some bromide. Mr. Fellows had been extremely nervous of late and found himself unable to sleep. Finding that he had no bromide— a drug that he was accustomed to taking— he had awakened the secretary. Hitchens asserted that he had taken the light car, made the trip and returned just before , the clock struck two. Fellows had taken a dose of the drug and Hitchens had again retired.

Henry Phelps, the drug clerk, verified Hitchens' statement as to the purchase of the bromide, while Landes. the chauffeur, told of getting out the light car for the secretary, who had driven it himself.

In spite of this Doctor Andrews stuck to his statement that the murdered man had been dead at least ten hours when he made his examination. Swenson, the valet, had discovered the murder when he went to awaken his master at eight o'clock.

It was nearly ten o'clock when Coroner Stevenson arrived, accompanied by Doctor Andrews and Bram Dwyer, the New York detective, who, with myself, was spending a few days' vacation in the little village. The prominence of the murdered man, coupled with the fact that the detective and Stevanson were old friends, caused the New Yorker to interest himself in the case at the latter's request.

Fellows was a gentleman farmer— a man worth several millions of dollars made in Wall Street, who, tired of life in the city, had purchased Samoset Farm just at the edge of Amboy township and. after stocking it with the finest blooded cattle and horses that money could buy, had settled clown to a life of rustic bliss. As time passed he had added to his acreage by purchasing adjoining farms until half the township was his.

He had erected a mansion around which he had built smaller homes for his employes. These with the great barns, sheds for the machinery, dairy and offices made Samoset Farm almost a small town.

Such a man as Waldo Fellows set down in the midst of a rural community is bound to be sought out by his fellowmen. Twice he had reluctantly allowed himself to represent his district in the State Legislature. The Governor's chair could have been his for the asking. His fellow-townsmen loved him for the nobility of his character. Yet he had enemies by the score— many of them the small landowners whose farms surrounded his. For the man who does things on a big scale is certain sooner or later to tramp on the toes of others.

But who among those he had offended hated him to the extent of taking his life?

ii

FELLOWS was murdered in bed, apparently in cold blood, for there was no evidence of a struggle of any kind. Nothing in the room had been disturbed. So far as could be ascertained nothing of value had been taken. The fact that the bedding was not mussed led to the belief that the murderer had struck while his victim was asleep.

None of the servants nor Mrs. Fellows— who slept just across the hall— had heard any noise save when Hitchens returned from the drug store with the drug which Fellows had requested. Mrs. Fellows had called over the transom to Hitchens to ask what was the matter and he had told her of his employer's sleeplessness.

The bottle of bromide with a small quantity gone was found on the table beside the bed. Bromide seldom acts inside of half to three-quarters of an hour. Hence, assuming that Hitchens had told the truth— and everything pointed to his having done so— Fellows must, if he was killed in his sleep, have met death not earlier than three o'clock.

Yet the blood which had flowed from the wound, the condition of the body— everything— led a cool, conservative medical man to declare that death had struck at least three hours earlier. Nor could his testimony be shaken.

There were twelve servants who slept in the house, all occupying the upper floor, with the exception of Hitchens, Marie, Mrs. Fellows' maid, and Swenson, the valet.

Watson, the butler and general man about the house, was the last person to bed and, according to his own statement, the first up in the morning. He had personally locked all the doors and windows on the first floor. They were all locked when he made his rounds in the morning.

Hitchens, in going to the drug store, had left the house by the side door. This he had left unlocked, relocking it upon his return. This led to the assumption on the part of some of the officials that the murderer had entered the place by that door during the secretary's absence, hiding until his return, and after Fellows was asleep had struck the fatal blow and escaped by the same door, springing the lock after him.

There was no other way of looking at the matter unless one went on the theory that the deed had been committed by one of the servants or Mrs. Fellows. And the latter was unthinkable, while the servants, all of them had been in Fellows' employ for years and were known to be absolutely loyal.

Of course the windows of the sleeping rooms on the second floor were open. A man of agility might have gained an entrance in this way. But luckily there had been a slight rainfall earlier in the evening and, as a result, the ground was in a condition to take impressions easily. The coroner and the sheriff made a thorough search for marks of a ladder or footprints, but were positive that there was none beneath any of the windows.

And there was always to be considered the lack of motive. Aside from the farmers who were jealous of the big landowner there was no one known to hold a grudge against him.

My friend Dwyer declined to assist the officials in their hunt for footprints, contenting himself with dawdling about the house as if greatly bored with the whole affair. Conversant as I am with his methods, I admit that this surprised me, for he is usually energy personified when there is some perplexing problem to be untangled. Eventually, however, the officials, nonplussed, were forced to turn to him for advice. He answered with a shrug of his shoulders, absolutely refusing to be drawn into a discussion of the case.

Following the time-worn methods, the sheriff called all of the servants together and examined them, eliciting no more information than had already been gained. It was at this point that Dwyer, who had listened to the questioning without comment, offered a suggestion:

"There's a band of gypsies camped a few miles the other side of town," he remarked quietly. "Their chief is old Father Lipki, a friend of mine. The old fellow knows his business from the ground up — fortune telling, mind reading and all of that sort of stuff. In fact, he's assisted me on more than one occasion. I know that you'll laugh at me for the suggestion, but let me bring him here. I'll guarantee that he'll have the murderer by the heels inside of half an hour. How he does it I don't pretend to know. It's positively uncanny, the way he pulls off his stunts. But if it's results you want, then Lipki is your man."

The sheriff sneered. Coroner Stevenson, in spite of his friendship for the detective, suppressed a smile with difficulty.

"You don't want us to think that you believe in such rol. do you, Bram?" he inquired.

My friend shrugged his shoulders again.

"You asked for my opinion." he answered. "I'm giving it to you. I'll take a chance on Father Lipki. In fact, as I have stated. I have many a time. The man has powers beyond the understanding of men like us. But of course it's up to you and the sheriff."

iii

DARKNESS had fallen when Dwyer and the coroner again drove up to the Fellows home accompanied by Father Lipki, the gypsy.

A typical member of his race was Lipki, a wrinkled little figure far past the age allotted to man. But in spite of his years he carried himself like a youth of twenty and his black, beady eyes glittered like those of a boy as he prepared the stage for the affair, his huge brass earrings rattling like castanets as he hurried here and there.

The spot selected by the coroner, upon the advice of Dwyer, for the test of Lipki's powers was the huge living-room on the lower floor. The servants were ordered to carry out all of the furniture with the exception of the chairs, which were arranged along the wall. Then every member of the household with the exception of the widow was ordered to be present.

The old man, mumbling to himself, drew a large circle on the floor in the center of the room with a piece of charcoal, after which he commanded us to seat ourselves just outside the circular mark, warning us under penalty of death not to enter the circle unless commanded to do so by him.

His next act was to produce a brazier, which he lighted and placed in the center of the circle. By its side he placed a small vessel containing water.

The lights were then turned out. For an instant we were in darkness. Then the brazier flamed up, filling the room with an unearthly bluish-greenish sort of glare. Chanting to himself, the old man threw a pinch of powder into the flames at intervals; the light would turn for a second into a vivid red, then die away again to the dull, sickly bluishgreen.

Suddenly he seated himself cross-legged at the side of the brazier and bowed his head. Closing Ins eyes as if in prayer, he mumbled to himself in an unintelligible jargon. I confess to a feeling of nervousness ; I could tell from the expression on their faces that the others were the same.

The tension was becoming almost unbearable when the old man slowly raised himself to a standing position and, seizing the vessel of water, sprinkled it on the floor inside the circle, being extremely careful that not a single drop fell outside the mark.

"I must protect you from the powers of evil!" he explained.

Keeping carefully inside the mark, he made the rounds, touching each of us lightly on the forehead, making on each of us the sign of the cross.

"In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost!" I heard him mumble to himself.

Reseating himself on the floor, he again bowed his head and once more his lips moved as if in prayer. Suddenly he fell over and for several minutes writhed about as if in terrific pain. I leaped to my feet to assist him, but the strong hand of Bram Dwyer held me back.

"Remember!" he shouted. "The old man commanded us, regardless of what happened, not to cross the line!"

After three or four minutes the spasms ceased and the gypsy seemingly none the worse for his experience arose and addressed us:

"My friends," he commenced in his halting, broken English, "you have asked me here to use my arts in the detection of one who has committed a crime— the crime of murder. I have done my best. Inside this circle have I wrestled with the powers of darkness and the spirits of light. I know not which one of you committed this foul deed. No one knows save God.

"Yet He who created all things will not allow the crime of murder to pass unnoticed. Therefore I say unto you this:

"If he who committed this crime is in this room there will appear upon his forehead the sign of the cross— the mark that God placed upon Cain.'

"This alone can I do. More than that I am not allowed, for my powers are limited."

He signaled for Dwyer to turn on the lights. An instant later we were blinking at the unaccustomed brightness. The old man seized the brazier and held it close to the face of each of us, gazing into our eyes as if seeking to read there the secret he was bent upon-obtaining.

Then came a shriek! A gasp of astonishment— of horror! A cry! I turned my head, my eyes following the gaze of the others.

Upon the forehead of Hitchens was the sign of the cross!

For a second there was silence— cold, oppressive silence. The secretary gazed from one to another of us mutely, questioningly. Then his eyes sought the mirror above the fireplace. Afterward I recalled that Dwyer had seated him in front of the glass. His face became drawn. The sweat stood out on his forehead in great beads.

Slowly, as if stunned, his fingers sought the accursed mark upon his forehead. He spat upon his hand and rubbed the spittle across the spot as if to erase it. He held the tips of his fingers in front of his eyes, surveying them thoughtfully, dazed.

Then, without warning, he dropped to his knees, his arms outstretched towards the swarthy man within the circle.

"I did it! I did it!" he shrieked.

iv

"NO, I never met Lipki until yesterday," Dwyer chuckled to us as, two hours later, Hitchens safely lodged in ail, he sat with the coroner, the sheriff and myself in the former's parlor and went over the various phases of the case.

"I'm a fairly good judge of character and when I noticed him begging on Main Street yesterday I immediately placed the old fellow as being far above the average of his class mentally and capable of playing almost any part he might be called upon to take. I realized far better than the rest of you that the murderer was too clever to be captured unless some subterfuge was used and when you appealed to me, Stevenson, my thoughts reverted at once to the old man. A falsehood or two in the interests of justice is, in my opinion, perfectly allowable. And that I was correct in my estimate is proved by what happened.

"What appealed to me from the very start was the apparent lack of motive. Had we been able to supply a motive we might have been able to have laid our hands on the man who struck the blow. But in the absence of one, it became necessary to take some radical step. To imagine that one of the farmers hereabouts would become jealous enough to strike Fellows down was absurd. And, granting that some of them might have the nerve, they lacked the imagination to pull off so mysterious a crime.

"I was confident in my own mind that Hitchens was the guilty party. Why? Because he was the only man who had an opportunity to kill Fellows. But, on the other hand, his frank statements apparently eliminated him from the suspects.

"Let us analyze the affair a trifle deeper : Doctor Andrews swears that Fellows was killed shortly after midnight. We now know that he was correct. But Hitchens bobs up with the story of being in conversation with the murdered man at two o'clock. He was able to prove his statements by two reputable and disinterested witnesses— Landes. the chauffeur, and Phelps, the drug clerk. Therefore my conclusion was that either Hitchens was lying or that the physician was. wrong. But my experience has taught me that medical men are, as a general pule, cold-blooded — that is, they figure things out with mathematical accuracy and. by the law of averages, they are right ninety-nine times out of a hundred. Therefore Hitchens was lying. But so far as we knew there was no motive.

"Now, the average man has deep within him a streak of superstition and a fear of whatever he does not understand. Therefore I took the indolent attitude before the servants, finally working things up to a climax so that they expected wonderful things from the gypsy whom I had touted so highly. As soon as you gave your permission I hunted lip the old man, whose name, by the way, is not Lipki, but Rodereigo. For ten dollars he agreed to play the part the way I told him to— and that he sustained my estimate of him I believe you will all agree. I spent the afternoon in coaching him.

"I felt that, in case Hitchens did not confess, we would have lost nothing. But I was betting on the superstitious streak in his makeup and won out.

"We all know now what his motive was. He had been systematically robbing his employer for years. Fellows had become suspicious and last night notified the secretary that they would go . over the books together today. Hitchens waited until his employer was sleeping, then entered the room by means of a key that he had secured possession of, struck the fatal blow, then went through the mummery of going to the village after the bromide, thus providing himself with an almost perfect alibi. With Fellows dead, he figured that, as confidential man, he would be retained for a year or two to come, finally reaching a point where he could get his hands on a large sum of money and make his escape before bis defalcations were discovered."

"But," rumbled the sheriff, "I'm still in the dark as to how the gypsy caused that black cross to appear on his forehead just by mumbling a few prayers. Those people know a lot of black art that we more civilized people will never be able to understand."

Dwyer grinned. "I furnished the 'black art' myself," he answered. "It cost me ten cents at the drug store. The old man made the cross on Hitchens' forehead first, if you will recall the affair. He had just dipped his hand into the vessel of what looked like water. He only pretended to dip his hand into it when he annointed the rest of you. The heat of the brazier brought out the mark— or started it— when he held it up and pretended to peer into your faces.

"What was it? Merely a ten percent solution of ammonium chloride— the same stuff from which invisible ink is made. The old man's skin being dark, it didn't come out on his hand as it did on Hitchens' forehead. And that's the whole story."

__________

17: Hankenson's Perfect Crime

Harold Ward

1879-1950

(As by Ward Sterling)

Popular Detective Aug 1940

HAVING decided to kill Chester O'Hearn, Hankenson c o m menced making his plans. He had often read of the perfect crime— the fool proof crime to which there is no clew, but which always ends disastrously for the perpetrator because of some straggling little thread left untied. In his case there would be no slip-up. The average murderer, he believed, killed on impulse; few, if any, went about it as he was doing, weighing every minor detail, covering every track as he proceeded.

Carefully— for he felt that he had months ahead of him in which to complete his arrangements— he went over every possible contingency. Every method of killing known to civilized man was carefully jotted down, newspaper clippings relating to crime were card-indexed and filed away for future reference.

When he had secured all of the information he desired, he sat down, spread the various data before him and dissected them bit by bit. This work completed, he tabulated the results carefully — then rejected the whole. The crimes of others served him as an object lesson in what to avoid.

There were two pitfalls to be watched for. One was the fact that O'Hearn was carrying on a liaison with Mrs. Hankenson. In spite of their efforts to avoid scandal several people of their acquaintance knew which way the straws were blowing, and one or two had hinted at the facts to the husband. And O'Hearn was a man of great wealth and Hankenson's cousin. Hankenson, upon his death, would inherit the greater part of his millions.

Therefore any suspicion of murder would cause people to look naturally in Hankenson's direction.

Therefore there must be no suspicion of murder.

To kill O'Hearn and have it appear as a suicide would never do either. People always talked too much about suicide and inquired into the whys and wherefores. Talking might cause some blundering officer to accidentally guess at the truth.

After debating the matter thoroughly in his own mind, he finally decided that there was but one solution to the problem.

First— O'Hearn must be killed in such a way that it would look like an accident.

Second— When the killing took place Hankenson must be close by, but not actually present.

Third— Others must be witnesses to the tragedy. There must be enough witnesses to prove conclusively that an accident had been the cause of death, and they must be men and women whose testimony would be accepted without a question of doubt in any court in the land.

These things having been decided upon, Hankenson had next to select a method of committing the deed.

O'Hearn was an ardent sportsman, hunter and trapshooter. What, then, would be more natural than that he should be killed in the field and by his own gun? But how?

It took Hankcnson several weeks to decide this point. Here, as before, details were mentally discussed, catalogued and discarded. The solution was finally reached through the application of chemistry. And, having arrived at a decision, Hankenson applied himself vigorously and with his usual painstaking thoroughness to the task of putting the affair through to a successful conclusion.

In an obscure drug store in another city he purchased a small bottle of nitric acid. Several weeks later he motored to the metropolis, a hundred miles distant, in order to secure fifteen cents' worth of sulphuric acid. Laying both purchases aside, he waited several weeks, finally finding occasion to make a trip to a third town, where he bought a bottle of glycerin. He now had the ingredients to manufacture enough nitro-glycerin to blow up a regiment— all purchased in such a way that suspicion could never be traced to him.

But he was wary. The time was not yet ripe. There was always the chance that some over-alert clerk might, through some unforeseen circumstance, remember his face and connect him with the purchase of one of the chemicals. It was best to wait until the memory of his small purchases faded from their minds. It was lack of attention to such small details that had caused others to be caught. In his case nothing was too tiny to be overlooked. His was a brain that could foresee all contingencies.

Six weeks passed before he was ready to act. One day while visiting O'Hearn's bachelor apartments he managed to pocket half a dozen shells such as his cousin used in his favorite gun. Again he waited for weeks to see if the theft was noticed. Finding that it was not, he proceeded to carefully draw the wads from three of the shells, uncrimping the edges in such a way that it would not be noticed. He even wore gloves to avoid tell-tale finger-prints.

Pouring out the charges of powder and shot, he poured into the empty shells enough nitro-glycerin— which he compounded from his chemicals— to make small bombs out of each, replaced the wads, and, turning back the edges carefully, he looked over his handiwork.

To all appearances the shells were identical with their mates. Yet when the hammer struck the cap it would create an explosion sufficient to tear the very head off of the unfortunate OTIearn. The terrific jar would explode the other shells and the remaining evidence would be destroyed.

Naturally, as Hankenson knew, there would be an inquiry. But as a method of committing a murder it was so unique that it would never be suspected. Instead, the company which manufactured the cartridges would be blamed. Accidents are always likely to happen in powder factories. In the end the coroner's jury would decide that something had gone wrong with the formula when the powder was made. He, as O'Hearn's next of kin, would bring suit against the manufacturers and the latter, for their own protection, wcrdd settle as speedily as possible in order to avoid unnecessary publicity.

He next poured the acid and glycerin down the sewer. The bottles in which the chemicals came he broke into small pieces and buried in the ashes. Thus he covered his tracks as he went along.

The hunting season opened next day. He and O'Hearn had made all arrangements to leave early in the morning for a forenoon's sport among the ducks. A large party of friends was to accompany them. The friends were to be the necessary witnesses.

Waiting until late in the evening, he hastened to O'Hearn's rooms. A matter of business would, he stated, keep him in town for an hour or two after the party had started. As soon as he could conveniently get away, he would motor out to the club grounds and join the others.

O'Hearn was examining his hunting gear and filling the pockets of his coat with cartridges as Hankenson knew he would be. Waiting until the other had left the room for a second, he removed three of the shells from the right-hand pocket, dropping into their place the three filled with the deadly nitroglycerin.

He knew O'Hearn's habits. At the club grounds the sportsmen would divide into small parties, each picking out his individual "blind." Most of them would go in parties of twos. With Hankenson absent, O'Hearn would occupy a blind alone until his partner's arrival. With the ducks flying thick, one of the three "fixed" cartridges would surely be fired inside of the first half hour. By the time he arrived, the others would be on their way back, carrying with them the mangled remains of Chester O'Hearn.

ii

SOMEONE has remarked that it is the little things that effect human destinies. In this case it was a small leak in a rubber boot that saved Chester O'Hearn's life and prevented Carl Hankenson from committing the perfect crime.

O'Hearn had been suffering from a slight cold. Arriving at the clubhouse, he no sooner set foot on the ground than he accidentally stepped into a tiny pool of water. An instant later he discovered the leak in his boot. There were no other boots available, and to enter the blind with those he wore meant to invite an illness. Never of a robust constitution, he feared to take a chance. As a result he sat on a log along the bank of the river, his dog by his side, watching the others fill their bags.

The morning turned out warmer than usual. Finding his heavy canvas hunting coat, its pockets loaded down with shells, too heavy over his thick sweater, O'Hearn divested himself of it and laid it on the grass close by. Stretching out, he filled his pipe and took matters as philosophically as could be expected of an enthusiastic sportsman forced to keep out of the game at the opening of the hunting season with the ducks thicker than ever before in history.

Meanwhile Hankenson, driving slowly, reached the grounds. Looking around carefully, he was astonished to find no evidence of the tragedy. Where there should have been a white-faced little group of men standing around a blanket-covered form, all of the members of the party, as far as he could see, were busily engaged in banging away at the feathered game.

He hesitated an instant. It would never do to go back now that he had come this far. Someone might have seen him. The "accident" was certain to happen shortly. To turn back now would be equivalent to admitting a guilty knowledge. Nor would he dare enter the blind with O'Hearn. For when one of the "doctored" shells exploded, anyone within a radius of a dozen feet would be in danger.

Moving slowly, trying to think of some excuse to keep out of the other's company, he rounded a curve in the pathway. He was almost upon O'Hearn before he noticed the other sprawled upon the river bank, half asleep.

iii

DOGS are affectionate animals. The one owned by O'Hearn was no exception to the rule. Forced to remain with its master when the other canines of the party were enjoying a full day's sport, it longed for a romp. Hankenson had often played with it in times gone past. Recognizing its friend, it leaped to its feet, and, tail waving, started toward him.

Hankenson's gun was in his hand. It was this that probably caused a streak of peculiar dog reasoning to flash through the animal's brain.

"Here," he probably thought to himself, "is why my master has been waiting. Now that he's arrived, let's get started."

Seizing O'Hearn's hunting coat in his mouth, the animal leaped toward Hankenson, the heavily loaded pockets of the coat swinging wildly.

As it fawned upon the newcomer one of the loaded pockets struck the butt of Hankenson's shotgun.

Nitro-glycerin explodes upon concussion!

___________________

18: The Lost Club

Arthur Machen

Arthur Llewellyn Jones, 1863-1947

The Whirlwind, 20 Dec 1890

ONE HOT AFTERNOON in August a gorgeous young gentleman, one would say the last of his race in London, set out from the Circus end, and proceeded to stroll along the lonely expanse of Piccadilly Deserta. True to the traditions of his race, faithful even in the wilderness, he had not bated one jot or tittle of the regulation equipage; a glorious red and yellow blossom in his woolly and exquisitely-cut frock coat proclaimed him a true son of the carnation; hat and boots and chin were all polished to the highest pitch; though there had not been rain for many weeks his trouser-ends were duly turned up, and the poise of the gold-headed cane was in itself a liberal education. But ah! the heavy changes since June, when the leaves glanced green in the sunlit air, and the club windows were filled, and the hansoms flashed in long processions through the streets, and girls smiled from every carriage.

The young man sighed; he thought of the quiet little evenings at the Phoenix, of encounters of the Row, of the drive to Hurlingham, and many pleasant dinners in joyous company. Then he glanced up and saw a bus, half-empty, slowly lumbering along the middle of the street, and in front of the "White Horse Cellars" a four-wheeler had stopped still (the driver was asleep on his seat), and in the "Badminton" the blinds were down. He half expected to see the Briar Rose trailing gracefully over the Hotel Cosmopole; certainly the Beauty, if such a thing were left in Piccadilly, was fast asleep.

Absorbed in these mournful reflections the hapless Johnny strolled on without observing that an exact duplicate of himself was advancing on the same pavement from the opposite direction; save that the inevitable carnation was salmon colour, and the cane a silver-headed one, instruments of great magnifying power would have been required to discriminate between them. The two met; each raised his eyes simultaneously at the strange sight of a well-dressed man, and each adjured the same old-world deity.

"By Jove! old man, what the deuce are you doing here?"

The gentleman who had advanced from the direction of Hyde Park Corner was the first to answer.

"Well, to tell the truth, Austin, I am detained in town on— ah— legal business. But how is it you are not in Scotland?"

"Well, it's curious; but the fact is, I have legal business in town also."

"You don't say so? Great nuisance, ain't it? But these things must be seen to, or a fellow finds himself in no end of a mess, don't you know?"

"He does, by Jove! That's what I thought."

Mr. Austin relapsed into silence for a few moments.

"And where are you off to, Phillipps?"

The conversation had passed with the utmost gravity on both sides. At the joint mention of legal business, it was true, a slight twinkle had passed across their eyes, but the ordinary observer would have said that the weight of ages rested on those unruffled brows.

"I really couldn't say. I thought of having a quiet dinner at Azario's. The Badminton is closed, you know, for repairs or somethin', and I can't stand the Junior Wilton. Come along with me, and let's dine together."

"By Jove! I think I will. I thought of calling on my solicitor, but I dare say he can wait."

"Ah! I should think he could. We'll have some of that Italian wine— stuff in salad oil flasks— you know what I mean."

The pair solemnly wheeled round, and solemnly paced towards the Circus, meditating, doubtless, on many things. The dinner in the little restaurant pleased them with a grave pleasure, as did the Chianti, of which they drank a good deal too much; "quite a light wine, you know," said Phillipps, and Austin agreed with him, so they emptied a quart flask between them, and finished up with a couple of glasses apiece of Green Chartreuse. As they came out into the quiet street smoking vast cigars, the two slaves to duty and "legal business" felt a dreamy delight in all things, the street seemed full of fantasy in the dim light of the lamps, and a single star shining in the clear sky above seemed to Austin exactly of the same colour as Green Chartreuse. Phillipps agreed with him. "You know, old fellow," he said, "there are times when a fellow feels all sorts of strange things— you know, the sort of things they put in magazines, don't you know, and novels. By Jove, Austin, old man, I feel as if I could write a novel myself."

They wandered aimlessly on, not quite knowing where they were going, turning from one street to another, and discoursing in a maudlin strain. A great cloud had been slowly moving up from the South, darkening the sky, and suddenly it began to rain, at first slowly with great heavy drops, and then faster and faster in a pitiless, hissing shower; the gutters flooded over, and the furious drops danced up from the stones. The two walked on as fast as they could, whistling and calling "Hansom!" in vain; they were really getting very wet.

"Where the dickens are we?" said Phillipps. "Confound it all I don't know. We ought to be in Oxford Street."

They walked on a little farther, when suddenly, to their great joy, they found a dry archway, leading into a dark passage or courtyard. They took shelter silently, too thankful and too wet to say anything. Austin looked at his hat; it was a wreck; and Phillipps shook himself feebly, like a tired terrier.

"What a beastly nuisance this is," he muttered: "I only wish I could see a hansom."

Austin looked into the street; the rain was still falling in torrents; he looked up the passage, and noticed for the first time that it led to a great house, which towered grimly against the sky. It seemed all dark and gloomy, except that from some chink in a shutter a light shone out. He pointed it out to Phillipps, who stared vacantly about him, then exclaimed:

"Hang it! I know where we are now. At least, I don't exactly know, you know, but I once came by here with Wylliams, and he told me there was some club or somethin' down this passage; I don't recollect exactly what he said. Hullo! why there goes Wylliams. I say, Wylliams, tell us where we are!"

A gentleman had brushed past them in the darkness and was walking fast down the passage. He heard his name and turned round, looking rather annoyed.

"Well, Phillipps, what do you want? Good evening, Austin; you seem rather wet, both of you."

"I should think we were wet; got caught in the rain. Didn't you tell me once there was some club down here? I wish you'd take us in, if you're a member."

Mr. Wylliams looked steadfastly at the two forlorn young men for a moment, hesitated, and said:

"Well, gentlemen, you may come with me if you like. But I must impose a condition; that you both give me your word of honour never to mention the club, or anything that you see while you are in it, to any individual whatsoever."

"Certainly not," replied Austin; "of course we shouldn't dream of doing so, should we, Phillipps?"

"No, no; go ahead, Wylliams, we'll keep it dark enough."

The party moved slowly down the passage till they came to the house. It was very large and very old; it looked as though it might have been an embassy of the last century. Wylliams whistled, knocked twice at the door, and whistled again, and it was opened by a man in black.

"Friends of yours, Mr. Wylliams?"

Wylliams nodded and they passed on.

"Now mind," he whispered, as they paused at a door, "you are not to recognize anybody, and nobody will recognize you."

The two friends nodded, and the door was opened, and they entered a vast room, brilliantly-lighted with electric lamps. Men were standing in knots, walking up and down, and smoking at little tables; it was just like any club smoking-room. Conversation was going on, but in a low murmur, and every now and then someone would stop talking, and look anxiously at a door at the other end of the room, and then turn round again. It was evident that they were waiting for someone or somebody. Austin and Phillipps were sitting on a sofa, lost in amazement; nearly every face was familiar to them. The flower of the Row was in that strange club-room; several young noblemen, a young fellow who had just come into an enormous fortune, three or four fashionable artists and literary men, an eminent actor, and a well-known canon. What could it mean? They were all supposed to be scattered far and wide over the habitable globe, and yet here they were. Suddenly there came a loud knock at the door; and every man started, and those who were sitting got up. A servant appeared.

"The President is awaiting you, gentlemen," he said, and vanished.

One by one the members filed out, and Wylliams and the two guests brought up the rear. They found themselves in a room still larger than the first, but almost quite dark. The president sat at a long table and before him burned two candles, which barely lighted up his face. It was the famous Duke of Dartington, the largest landowner in England. As soon as the members had entered he said in a cold hard voice: "Gentlemen, you know our rules; the book is prepared. Whoever opens it at the black page is at the disposal of the committee and myself. We had better begin." Someone began to read out the names in a low distinct voice, pausing after each name, and the member called came up to the table and opened at random the pages of a big folio volume that lay between the two candles. The gloomy light made it difficult to distinguish features, but Phillipps heard a groan beside him, and recognized an old friend. His face was working fearfully, the man was evidently in an agony of terror.

One by one the members opened the book; as each man did so he passed out by another door. At last there was only one left; it was Phillipps's friend. There was foam upon his lips as he passed up to the table, and his hand shook as he opened the leaves. Wylliams had passed out after whispering to the president, and had returned to his friends' side. He could hardly hold them back as the unfortunate man groaned in agony and leant against the table: he had opened the book at the black page. "Kindly come with me, Mr. D'Aubigny," said the president, and they passed out together.

"We can go now," said Wylliams, "I think the rain has gone off. Remember your promise, gentlemen. You have been at a meeting of the Lost Club. You will never see that young man again. Good night."

"It isn't murder, is it?" gasped Austin.

"Oh no, not at all. Mr. D'Aubigny will, I hope, live for many years; he has disappeared. Good night; there's a hansom that will do for you."

The two friends went to their homes in dead silence. They did not meet again for three weeks, and each thought the other looked ill and shaken. They walked drearily, with grave averted faces down Piccadilly, each afraid to begin the recollection of the terrible club. Of a sudden Phillipps stopped as if he had been shot. "Look there, Austin," he muttered, "look at that." The posters of the evening papers were spread out beside the pavement, and on one of them Austin saw in large blue letters, "Mysterious disappearance of a Gentleman." Austin bought a copy and turned over the leaves with shaking fingers till he found the brief paragraph—

St. John D'Aubigny, of Stoke D'Aubigny, in Sussex has disappeared under mysterious circumstances. Mr. D'Aubigny was staying at Strathdoon, in Scotland, and came up to London, as it is stated, on business, on August 16th. It has been ascertained that he arrived safely at King's Cross, and drove to Piccadilly Circus, where he got out. It is said that he was last seen at the corner of Glass House Street, leading from Regent Street into Soho. Since the above date the unfortunate gentleman, who was much liked in London society, has not been heard of. Mr. D'Aubigny was to have been married in September. The police are extremely reticent.

"Good God! Austin, this is dreadful. You remember the date. Poor fellow, poor fellow!"

"Phillipps, I think I shall go home."

D'Aubigny was never heard of again. But the strangest part of the story remains to be told. The two friends called Wylliams, and charged him with being a member of the Lost Club, and an accomplice in the fate of D'Aubigny. The placid Mr. Wylliams at first stared at the two pale, earnest faces, and finally roared with laughter.

"My dear fellows, what on earth are you talking about? I never heard such a cock-and-bull story in my life. As you say, Phillipps, I once pointed out to you a house said to be a club, as we were walking through Soho; but that was a low gambling club, frequented by German waiters. I am afraid the fact is that Mario's Chianti was rather too strong for you. However, I will try to convince you of your mistake."

Wylliams forthwith summoned his man, who swore that he and his master were in Cairo during the whole of August, and offered to produce the hotel bills. Phillipps shook his head, and they went away. Their next step was to try and find the archway where they had taken shelter, and after a good deal of trouble they succeeded. They knocked at the door of the gloomy house, whistling as Wylliams had done. They were admitted by a respectable mechanic in a white apron, who was evidently astonished at the whistle; in fact he was inclined to suspect the influence of a "drop too much." The place was a billiard table factory, and had been so (as far as they learnt in the neighbourhood) for many years. The rooms must once have been large and magnificent, but most of them had been divided into three or four separate workshops by wooden partitions.

Phillipps sighed; he could do no more for his lost friend; but both he and Austin remained unconvinced. In justice to Mr. Wylliams, it must be stated that Lord Henry Harcourt assured Phillipps that he had seen Wylliams in Cairo about the middle of August; he thought, but could not be sure, on the 16th; and also, that the recent disappearances of some well-known men about town are patent of explanations which would exclude the agency of the Lost Club.

________________

19: The Crystal Trench

A. E. W. Mason

1865-1948

The Strand Magazine Dec 1915

In: The Four Corners of the World, 1917

IT WAS LATE in the season, and for the best part of a week the weather had been disheartening. Even to-day, though there had been no rain since last night, the mists swirled in masses over a sunless valley green as spring, and the hill-sides ran with water. It pleased Dennis Challoner, however, to believe that better times were coming. He stood at a window of the Riffelalp Hotel, and imagined breaches in the dark canopy of cloud.

"Yes," he said, hopefully, "the weather is taking up."

He was speaking to a young girl whose name he did not know, a desultory acquaintance made during the twelve hours which he had passed at the hotel.

"I believe it is," she answered. She looked out of the window at two men who were sitting disconsolately on a bench. "Those are your men, aren't they? So you climb with guides!"

There was a note of deprecation in her voice quite unmistakable. She was trying not to show scorn, but the scorn was a little too strong for her. Challoner laughed.

"I do. With guides I can go where I like, when I like. I don't have to hunt for companions or make arrangements beforehand. I have climbed with the Blauers for five years now, and we know each other's ways."

He broke off, conscious that in her eyes he was making rather feeble excuses to cover his timidity and incompetence.

"I have no doubt you are quite right," she replied. There was a gentle indulgence in her voice, and a smile upon her lips which cried as plainly as words, "I could tell you something if I chose." But she was content to keep her triumphant secret to herself. She laid her hand upon the ledge of the window, and beat a little tattoo with her finger-tips, so that Challoner could not but look at them. When he looked he understood why she thus called his attention. She wore a wedding-ring.

Challoner was surprised. For she was just a tall slip of a girl. He put her age at nineteen or less. She was clear-eyed and pretty, with the tremendous confidence of one who looks out at life from the secure shelter of a school-room. Then, with too conscious an unconsciousness, she turned away, and Challoner saw no more of her that day.

But the hotel was still full, though most of the climbers had gone, and in the garden looking over the valley of Zermatt, at six o'clock that evening, a commotion broke out about the big telescope. Challoner was discussing plans for the morrow with his guides by the parapet at the time, and the three men turned as one towards the centre of the clamour. A German tourist was gesticulating excitedly amidst a group of his compatriots. He broke through the group and came towards Challoner, beaming like a man with good news.

"You should see— through the telescope— since you climb. It is very interesting. But you must be quick, or the clouds will close in again."

"What do you mean?" Challoner asked.

"There, on the top of the Weisshorn, I saw two men."

"Now? At six o'clock in the evening— on a day of storm?" Challoner cried. "It's impossible."

"But I have seen them, I tell you."

Challoner turned and looked down and across the valley. The great curtain of cloud hung down in front of the hills like wool. The lower slopes of dark green met it, and on them the black pines marched up into the mist. Of rock and glacier and soaring snow not an inch was visible. But the tourist clung to his story.

"It is my first visit to the mountains. I was never free before, and I must go down to-morrow morning. I thought that even now I should never see them— all the time I have been here the weather has been terrible. But at the last moment I have had the good fortune. Oh, I am very pleased."

The enthusiasm of this middle-aged German business man, an enthusiasm childlike as it was sincere, did not surprise Challoner. He looked upon that as natural. But he doubted the truth of the man's vision. He wanted so much to see that he saw.

"Tell me exactly what you saw," Challoner asked, and this was the story which the tourist told.

He was looking through the telescope when suddenly the clouds thinned, and through a film of vapour he saw, very far away and dimly, a soaring line of black like a jagged reef, and a great white slope more solid than the clouds, and holding light. He kept his eye to the lens, hoping with all his soul that the wonderful vision might be vouchsafed to him, and as he looked, the screen of vapour vanished, and he saw quite clearly the exquisite silver pyramid of the Weisshorn soaring up alone in the depths of a great cavern of grey cloud. For a little while he continued to watch, hoping for a ray of sunlight to complete a picture which he was never to forget, and then, to his amazement and delight, two men climbed suddenly into his vision on to the top of the peak. They came from the south or the south-west.

"By the Schalligrat!" exclaimed Challoner. "It's not possible!"

"Yes," the tourist protested. He was sure. There was no illusion at all. The two men did not halt for a second on the top. They crossed it, and began to descend the long ridge towards the St. Nicholas valley.

"I am sure," he continued. "One of the climbers, the one in front, was moving very slowly and uncertainly like a man in an extremity of weakness. The last was strong. I saw him lift the rope between them, which was slack, and shake the snow off it "

"You saw that?" exclaimed Challoner. "What then?"

"Nothing. The clouds closed again over the peak, and I saw no more."

Challoner had listened to the story with a growing anxiety. He took the chair behind the telescope, and sat with his eye to the lens for a long while. But he saw only writhing mists in a failing light. He rose and moved away. There was no mountaineer that day in the hotel except himself. Not one of the group about the telescope quite understood the gravity of the story which had been told them— if it were true. But it could not be true, Challoner assured himself.

It was just possible, of course, that on a fine day some party which had adventured upon a new ascent might find itself on the top of the Weisshorn at six o'clock in the evening. But on a day like this no man in his senses would be on any ridge or face of that mountain at all, even in the morning. Yet the tourist's story was circumstantial. That was the fact which troubled Challoner. The traverse of the Weisshorn from the Schallijoch, for instance, was one of the known difficult climbs of the Pennine Alps. There was that little detail, too, of the last man shaking the snow from the slack of the rope. But no doubt the tourist had read the year-books of the Austrian Alpine Club. Certainly he must have been mistaken. He wanted to see; therefore he saw. It was inconceivable that the story should be true.

Thus Challoner thought all through that evening and the next day. But as he left the dining-room the manageress met him with a grave face, and asked him into her office. She closed the door when he had entered the room, and said:

"There has been an accident."

Challoner's thoughts flew back to the story of the tourist.

"On the Weisshorn?"

"Yes. It is terrible!" And the woman sat down, while the tears came into her eyes and ran down her cheeks.

Two young Englishmen, it appeared, Mark Frobisher and George Listen, had come up from the valley a week ago. They would not hear of guides. They had climbed from Wasdale Head and in the Snowdon range. The Alpine Club was a body of old fogies. They did not think much of the Alps.

"They were so young— boys! Mr. Frobisher brought a wife with him."

"A wife?" exclaimed Challoner.

"Yes. She was still younger than he was, and she spoke as he did— knowing nothing, but full of pride in her husband, and quite confident in his judgment. They were children— that is the truth— and very likely we might have persuaded them that they were wrong— if only Herr Ranks had not come, too, from Vienna about the same time."

Challoner began dimly to understand the tragedy which had happened. Ranks was well known amongst mountaineers. Forty years old, the right age for endurance, he was known for a passion for long expeditions undertaken with very small equipment; and for a rather dangerous indifference as to the companions he climbed with. He had at once proposed the Schalligrat ascent to the two Englishmen. They had gone down to Randa, slept the night there, and in bad weather had walked up to the Weisshorn hut, with provisions for three days. Nothing more had been heard of the party until this very afternoon, when Ranks and George Liston, both exhausted and the latter terribly frost-bitten, staggered into the Randa hotel.

"That's terrible," said Challoner. But still more terrible was the story which the Austrian had to tell. He had written it out at once very briefly, and sent it up to the Riffelalp. The manageress handed the letter to Challoner.

"We stayed in the hut two days," it ran, "hoping that the weather would lift. The next morning there were promising signs, and taking our blankets we crossed the Schalliberg glacier, and camped on the usual spur of the Schallihorn. We had very little food left, and I know now that we ought to have returned to Randa. But I did not think of the youth of my companions. It was very cold during the night, but no snow fell, and in the morning there was a gleam of sunshine. Accordingly we started, and reached the Schallijoch in four hours and a half. Under the top of the col we breakfasted, and then attacked the ridge. The going was very difficult; there was often a glaze of black ice upon the rocks, and as not one of us knew the ridge at all, we wasted much time in trying to traverse some of the bigger gendarmes on the western side, whereas they were only possible on the east. Moreover, the sunlight did not keep its promise: it went out altogether at half-past ten; the ridge became bitterly and dangerously cold, and soon after midday the wind rose. We dared not stop anywhere, and our food was now altogether exhausted. At two o'clock we found a shelter under a huge tower of red rock, and there we rested. Frobisher complained of exhaustion, and was clearly very weak. Listen was stronger, but not in a condition for a climb which I think must always be difficult and was now hazardous in the extreme. The cold had made him very sleepy. We called a council of war. But it was quite evident to me that we could not get down in the state in which we were, and that a night upon the ridge without food or drink was not to be thought of. I was certain that we were not very far from the top, and I persuaded my friends to go forward. I climbed up and over the red tower by a small winding crack in its face, and with great difficulty managed, by the help of the rope, to draw my friends up after me. But this one tower took more than an hour to cross, and on a little snow-col like a knife-edge on the farther side of it, Frobisher collapsed altogether. What with the cold and his exhaustion his heart gave out. I swear that we stayed with him until he died— yes, I swear it— although the wind was very dangerous to the rest of us, and he was evidently dying. We stayed with him— yes. When all was over, I tied him by the waist with a piece of spare rope we carried to a splinter of rock which cropped out of the col, and went on with Listen. I did not think that we should either of us now escape, but the rock-towers upon the arete came to an end at last, and at six o'clock we stood on the mountain-top. Then we changed the order, Liston going now first down the easy eastern ridge. The snow was granulated and did not bind, and we made very slow progress. We stopped for the night at a height, I should think, of thirteen thousand feet, with very little protection from the wind. The cold was terrible, and I did not think that Liston would live through the night. But he did, and today there was sunlight, and warmth in the sunlight, so that moving very carefully we got down to the hut by midday. There, by a happy chance, we found some crusts and odds and ends of food which we had left behind; and after a rest were able to come on to Randa, getting some milk at the half-way chalet on the way down. Liston is frost-bitten in the feet and hands, but I think will be able to be moved down to the clinic at Lucerne in a couple of days. It is all my fault. Yes. I say that frankly. I alone am to blame. I take it all upon my shoulders. You can say so freely at the Riffelalp. 'Ranks takes all the blame.' I shall indeed write to-morrow to the Zurich papers to say that the fault is mine."

Challoner read the message through again. The assumption of magnanimity in the last few lines was singularly displeasing, and the eager assertion that the party had not left Probisher until he was actually dead seemed to protest overmuch.

"That's a bad letter," said Challoner. "He left Frobisher still alive upon the ridge," and the desolation of that death in the cold and the darkness and the utter loneliness of those storm-riven pinnacles soaring above the world seemed to him appalling. But the manageress had no thoughts to spare for the letter.

"Who will tell her?" she asked, rocking her body to and fro, and fixing her troubled eyes on Challoner. "It is you. You are her countryman."

Challoner was startled.

"What do you mean?"

"I told you. Mr. Frobisher brought a wife with him. Yes. They had only been married a couple of months. She is a year or two younger than he is— a child. Oh, and she was so proud of him. For my part I did not like him very much. I would not have trusted him with the happiness of anyone I cared for. But she had given him all her heart. And now she must be told!"

"She is in the hotel now?" Challoner asked.

"Yes. You were talking to her yesterday."

Challoner did not need the answer.

"Very well. I will tell her." And he turned away, his heart sick at the task which lay before him. But before he had reached the door the woman called him back.

"Could we not give her just one more night of confidence and contentment? Nothing can be done until to-morrow. No one in the hotel knows but you and I. She will have sorrow enough. She need not begin to suffer before she must. Just one more night of quiet sleep."

So she pleaded, and Challoner clutched at the pica. He was twenty-six, and up to the moment life had hidden from him her stern ordeals. How should he break the news? He needed time carefully to prepare the way. He shrank from the vision of the pain which he must inflict.

"Yes, it can all wait until to-morrow," he said, and he went out of the office into the hall. There was a sound of music in the big drawing-room— a waltz, and the visitors were dancing to it. The noise jarred upon his ears, and he crossed towards the garden door in order to escape from it. But to reach the garden he had to pass the ballroom, and as he passed it he looked in, and the irony of the world shocked him so that he stood staring upon the company with a white face and open-mouthed. Frobisher's widow was dancing. She was dancing with all the supple grace of her nineteen years, her face flushed and smiling, whilst up there, fourteen thousand feet high on the storm-swept ridge of the Weisshorn, throughout that bitter night her dead husband bestrode the snow, and nodded and swayed to the gale. As she whirled past the door she saw him. She smiled with the pleasant friendliness of a girl who is perfectly happy, and with just a hint of condescension for the weaker vessel who found it necessary to climb with guides. Challoner hurried out into the garden.

He went up to her room the next morning and broke the news to her as gently as he could. He was prepared for tears, for an overwhelming grief. But she showed him neither. She caught at an arm of a chair, and leaning upon it, seated herself when he began to speak. But after that she listened, frowning at him in a perplexity like a child over some difficult problem of her books. And when he had finished she drew a long breath.

"I don't know why you should try to frighten me," she said. "Of course, it is not true."

She would not believe— no, not even with Ranks's letter in her hand, at which she stared and stared as though it needed decoding.

"Perhaps I could read it if I were alone," she said at last, and Challoner left her to herself.

In an hour she sent for him again. Now indeed she knew, but she had no tears wherewith to ease her knowledge. Challoner saw upon her face such an expression of misery and torture as he hoped never to see again. She spoke with a submission which was very strange. It was only the fact of her youth, not her consciousness of it, which seemed to protest against her anguish as against an injustice.

"I was abrupt to you," she said. "I am sorry. You were kind to me. I did not understand. But I understand now, and there is something which I should like to ask you. You see, I do not know."

"Yes?"

"Would it be possible that he should be brought back to me?"

She had turned to the window, and she spoke low, and with a world of yearning in her voice.

"We will try."

"I should be so very grateful."

She had so desolate a look that Challoner made a promise of it, even though he knew well the rashness of the promise.

"You will go yourself?" she asked, turning her face to him.

"Of course."

"Thank you. I have no friends here, you see, but you."

Eight guides were collected that afternoon in the valley. Challoner brought down his two, and the whole party, under the guide-chief, moved up to the Weisshorn hut. Starting the next morning with a clear sky of starlight above their heads, they crossed the mountain by the eastern arete, and descending the Schalligrat, found young Probisher tied by the waist and shoulders to a splinter of rock as Ranks had described. He was astride a narrow edge of snow, a leg dangling down each precipice. His eyes stared at them, his mouth hung open, and when any stray gust of wind struck the ridge, he nodded at them with a dreadful pleasantry. He had the air, to Challoner's eyes, of a live paralytic rather than of a man frozen and dead. His face was the colour of cheese.

With infinite trouble they lifted him back on to the mountain summit, and roped him round in a piece of stout sacking. Then they dragged him down the snow of the upper part of the ridge, carried him over the lower section of rock, and, turning off the ridge to the right, brought him down to the glacier.

It was then three o'clock in the afternoon, and half an hour later the grimmest episode of all that terrible day occurred. The lashing of the rope got loose as they dragged the body down the glacier, and suddenly it worked out of the sacking and slid swiftly past them down a steep slope of ice. A cry of horror broke from the rescue party. For a moment or two they watched it helplessly as it gathered speed and leapt into the air from one little hummock to another, the arms tossing and whirling like the arms of a man taken off his guard. Then it disappeared with a crash into a crevasse, and the glacier was empty.

The party stood for a little while aghast, and the illusion which had seized upon Challoner when he had first come in sight of the red rock-tower on the other ridge attacked him again. He could not get it out of his thoughts that this was a living man who had disappeared from their gaze, so natural had all his movements been.

The party descended to the lip of the crevasse, and a guide was lowered into it. But he could not reach the bottom, and they drew him up again.

"That is his grave," said Joseph Blauer, solemnly; and they turned away again and descended to Randa.

"How shall I meet that girl?" Challoner asked himself, in a passion of remorse. It seemed to him that he had betrayed a trust, and the sum of treachery deepened in him when he did tell it that night at the Riffelalp. For tears had their way with her at last. She buried her face in her arms upon the table, and sobbed as though her heart would burst.

"I had so hoped that you would bring him back to me," she said. "I cannot bear to think of him lying for ever in that loneliness of ice."

"I am very sorry," Challoner stammered, and she was silent. "You have friends coming out to you?" he asked.

He went down into the hall, and a man whose face he remembered came eagerly towards him. Challoner was able to identify him the next moment. For the man cried out:

"It is done. Yes, it is in all the Zurich papers. I have said that I alone am to blame. I have taken the whole responsibility upon my shoulders." Herr Ranks brimmed with magnanimity.

ii

TOWARDS CHRISTMAS of that year Challoner, at his chambers in the Temple, received a letter in an unfamiliar hand. It came from Mrs. Frobisher. It was a letter of apology. She had run away into hiding with her sorrow, and only during the last weeks had she grown conscious of the trouble which Challoner had taken for her. She had quite forgotten to thank him, but she did so now, though the thanks were overlate. Challoner was very glad to receive the letter. From the day when he had seen her off from the new station in the valley, he had lost sight of her altogether, but the recollection of her pale and wistful face at the carriage window had haunted him. With just that look, he had thought, might some exile leave behind every treasured thing and depart upon a long journey into perpetual banishment. This letter, however, had a hint, a perfume of spring-time. Stella Frobisher— by that name she signed— was beginning to recreate her life.

Challoner took a note of her address, and travelled into Dorsetshire on the Saturday. Stella Frobisher lived in a long and ancient house, half farm, half mansion, set apart in a rich country close to Arishmell Cove. Through a doorway one looked into a garden behind the house which even at that season was bright with flowers. She lived with the roar of the waves upon the shingle in her ears and the gorse-strewn downs before her eyes. Challoner had found a warm and cheerful welcome at that house, and came back again to it. Stella Frobisher neither played the hermit nor made a luxury out of her calamitous loss. She rebuilt her little world as well as she could, bearing herself with pride and courage. Challoner could not but admire her; he began to be troubled by what seemed to him the sterility of a valuable life. He could not but see that she looked forward to his visits. Other emotions were roused in him, and on one morning of summer, with the sea blue at her feet and the gorse a golden flame about her, he asked her to marry him.

Stella Frobisher's face grew very grave.

"I am afraid that's impossible," she said, slowly, a little to his surprise and a great deal to his chagrin. Perhaps she noticed the chagrin, for she continued quickly, "I shall tell you why. Do you know Professor Kersley?"

Challoner looked at her with astonishment.

"I have met him in the Alps."

Stella Frobisher nodded. "He is supposed to know more than anyone else about the movements of glaciers."

Dimly Challoner began to understand, and he was startled.

"Yes," he answered.

"I went to call on him at Cambridge. He was very civil. I told him about the accident on the Weisshorn. He promised to make a calculation. He took a great deal of trouble. He sent for me again and told me the month and the year. He even named a week, and a day in the week." So far she had spoken quite slowly and calmly. Now, however, her voice broke, and she looked away. "On July 21st, twenty-four years from now, Mark will come out of the ice at the snout of the Hohlicht glacier."

Challoner did not dispute the prophecy. Computations of the kind had been made before with extraordinary truth.

"But you won't wait till then?" he cried, in protest.

For a little while she found it difficult to speak. Her thoughts were very far away from that shining sea and homely turf.

"Yes," she said at last, in a whisper; "I am dedicated to that as a nun to her service." And against that dead man wrapped in ice, his unconquerable rival, Challoner strove in vain.

"So you must look elsewhere," Stella said. "You must not waste your life. I am not wasting mine. I live for an hour which will come."

"I am in too deep, I am afraid, to look elsewhere," said Challoner, gloomily. Stella Frobisher looked at him with a smile of humour playing about her mouth.

"I should like to feel sorry about that," she said. "But I am not noble, and I can't."

They went together down to the house, and she said: "However, you are young. Many things will happen to you. You will change."

But as a matter of fact he did not. He wanted this particular woman, and not another. He cursed himself considerably for his folly in not making sure, when the rescue party got down from the rocks on to the glacier, that the rope about the sacking was not working loose. But such reproaches did not help forward his suit. And the years slipped away, each one a trifle more swiftly than that which had gone before. But in the press of a rising practice he hardly noticed their passage. From time to time Stella Frobisher came to town, sat in the Law Courts while he argued, was taken to shop in Bond Street, and entertained at theatres. Upon one such visit they motored— for motors had come now— on an evening in June down the Portsmouth road, and dined at the inn at Ockham. On their way she said, simply:

"It is the year."

"I know," replied Challoner. "Shall I come with you?"

She caught his hand tightly for a moment.

"Oh, if you could! I am a little afraid— now."

He took her out to Randa. There were many changes in the valley. New hotels had sprung up; a railway climbed nowadays to the Riffelalp; the tourists came in hundreds instead of tens; the mountains were overrun. But Challoner's eyes were closed to the changes. He went up through the cleft of the hills to where the glaciers come down from the Weisshorn and the Schallijoch and the Morning Pass; and as July drew on, he pitched a camp there, and stood on guard like a sentinel.

There came a morning when, coming out of his tent on to a knoll of grass, he saw below him on the white surface of the glacier, and not very far away, something small and black.

"It's a pebble, no doubt," he thought, but he took his axe and climbed down on to the ice. As he approached the object the surer he became. It was a round pebble, polished black and smooth by the friction of the ice. He almost turned back. But it was near, and he went on. Then a ray of sunlight shot down the valley, and the thing flickered. Challoner stooped over it curiously and picked it up. It was a gold watch, lying with its dial against the ice, and its case blackened save for a spot or two where it shone. The glass was missing and the hands broken, and it had stopped. Challoner opened it at the back; the tiny wheels, the coil of the mainspring, were as bright as on the day when the watch was sold. It might have been dropped there out of a pocket a day or two ago. But ice has its whims and vagaries. Here it will grind to powder, there it will encase and preserve. The watch might have come out of the ice during this past night. Was the glacier indeed giving up its secrets?

Challoner held the watch in his hand, gazing out with blind eyes over the empty, silent world of rock and ice. The feel of it was magical. It was as though he gazed into the sorcerer's pot of ink, so vivid and near were those vanished days at the Riffelalp and the dreadful quest on the silver peak now soaring high above his head. He continued his search that morning. Late in the afternoon he burst into the hotel at Randa. Stella Frobisher drew him away into the garden, where they were alone. He gave the watch into her hands, and she clasped it swiftly against her heart with an unearthly look of exaltation upon her face.

"It is his?" asked Challoner.

"Yes. I will go up."

Challoner looked at her doubtfully. He had been prepared to refuse her plea, but he had seen, and having seen, he consented.

"To-morrow— early. Trust me. That will be time enough."

He collected porters that evening, and at daybreak they walked out from the chalets and up the bank of the glacier, left the porters by his tent, and he led her alone across the glacier and stopped.

"Here," he said. In front of her the glacier spread out like a vast fan within the cup of the hills, but it was empty.

"Where?" she asked, in a whisper, and Challoner looked at her out of troubled eyes, and did not answer. Then she looked down, and at her feet just below the surface of the glacier, as under a thick sheet of crystal, she saw after all these years Mark Frobisher. She dropped on her knees with a loud cry, and to Challoner the truth about all these years came home with a dreadful shock.

Under the ice Mark Frobisher lay quietly, like a youth asleep. The twenty-four years had cut not a line about his mouth, not a wrinkle about his eyes. The glacier had used him even more tenderly than it had used his watch. The years had taken no toll of him. He was as young, his features were as clear and handsome, as on the day when he had set out upon his tragic expedition. And over him bent his wife, a woman worn, lined, old. For the first time Challoner realised that all her youth had long since gone, and he understood for the first time that, as it was with her, so, too, it was with him. Often enough he had said, "Oh, yes, I am getting on. The years are passing." But he had used the words with a laugh, deferring to convention by the utterance of the proper meaningless thing. Now he understood the meaningless thing meant the best part of everything. Stella Frobisher and he were just a couple of old people, and their good years had all been wasted.

He gently raised Stella Frobisher to her feet.

"Will you stand aside for a little?" he said. "I will call you."

She moved obediently a few yards away, and Challoner summoned the porters. Very carefully they cut the ice away. Then he called aloud:

"Stella!" And she returned.

There was no sheet of ice between them now; the young man and the worn woman who had spent a couple of months of their youth together met thus at last. But the meeting was as brief as a spark.

The airs of heaven beat upon Mark Frobisher, and suddenly his face seemed to quiver and his features to be obscured. Stella uttered a scream of terror, and covered her face with her hands. For from head to foot the youth crumbled into dust and was not. And some small trifle tinkled on the ice with a metallic sound.

Challoner saw it shining at the bottom of the shallow trench of ice. It was a gold locket on a thin chain. It was still quite bright, for it had been worn round the neck and under the clothes. Challoner stooped and picked it up and opened it. A face stared boldly out at him, the face of a girl, pretty and quite vulgar, and quite strange to him. A forgotten saying took shape slowly in his memory. What was it that the woman who had managed the hotel at the Riffelalp had said to him of Frobisher?

"I did not like him. I should not trust him."

He looked up to see Stella Frobisher watching him with a white face and brooding eyes.

"What is that?" she asked.

Challoner shut the locket.

"A portrait of you," he said, hastily.

"He had no locket with a portrait of me," said Stella Frobisher.

Over the shoulder of a hill the sun leapt into the sky and flooded the world with gold.

________________

20: The People of the Pit

Abraham Merritt

1884-1943

All-Story Weekly, January 5, 1918

NORTH of us a shaft of light shot half way to the zenith. It came from behind the five peaks. The beam drove up through a column of blue haze whose edges were marked as sharply as the rain that streams from the edges of a thunder cloud. It was like the flash of a searchlight through an azure mist. It cast no shadows.

As it struck upward the summits were outlined hard and black and I saw that the whole mountain was shaped like a hand. As the light silhouetted it, the gigantic fingers stretched, the hand seemed to thrust itself forward. It was exactly as though it moved to push something back. The shining beam held steady for a moment; then broke into myriads of little luminous globes that swung to and fro and dropped gently. They seemed to be searching.

The forest had become very still. Every wood noise held its breath. I felt the dogs pressing against my legs. They too were silent; but every muscle in their bodies trembled, their hair was stiff along their backs and their eyes, fixed on the falling lights, were filmed with the terror glaze.

I looked at Anderson. He was staring at the North where once more the beam had pulsed upward.

"It can't be the aurora," I spoke without moving my lips. My mouth was as dry as though Lao T'zai had poured his fear dust down my throat.

"If it is I never saw one like it," he answered in the same tone. "Besides who ever heard of an aurora at this time of the year?"

He voiced the thought that was in my own mind.

"It makes me think something is being hunted up there," he said, "an unholy sort of hunt— it's well for us to be out of range."

"The mountain seems to move each time the shaft shoots up," I said. "What's it keeping back, Starr? It makes me think of the frozen hand of cloud that Shan Nadour set before the Gate of Ghouls to keep them in the lairs that Eblis cut for them."

He raised a hand— listening.

From the North and high overhead there came a whispering. It was not the rustling of the aurora, that rushing, crackling sound like the ghosts of winds that blew at Creation racing through the skeleton leaves of ancient trees that sheltered Lilith. It was a whispering that held in it a demand. It was eager. It called us to come up where the beam was flashing. It drew. There was in it a note of inexorable insistence. It touched my heart with a thousand tiny fear-tipped fingers and it filled me with a vast longing to race on and merge myself in the light. It must have been so that Ulysses felt when he strained at the mast and strove to obey the crystal sweet singing of the Sirens.

The whispering grew louder.

"What the hell's the matter with those dogs?" cried Anderson savagely. "Look at them!"

The malemutes, whining, were racing away toward the light. We saw them disappear among the trees. There came back to us a mournful howling. Then that too died away and left nothing but the insistent murmuring overhead.

The glade we had camped in looked straight to the North. We had reached I suppose three hundred mile above the first great bend of the Koskokwim toward the Yukon. Certainly we were in an untrodden part of the wilderness. We had pushed through from Dawson at the breaking of the Spring, on a fair lead to the lost five peaks between which, so the Athabascan medicine man had told us, the gold streams out like putty from a clenched fist. Not an Indian were we able to get to go with us. The land of the Hand Mountain was accursed they said. We had sighted the peaks the night before, their tops faintly outlined against a pulsing glow. And now we saw the light that had led us to them.

Anderson stiffened. Through the whispering had broken a curious pad-pad and a rustling. It sounded as though a small bear were moving towards us. I threw a pile of wood on the fire and, as it blazed up, saw something break through the bushes. It walked on all fours, but it did not walk like a bear. All at once it flashed upon me— it was like a baby crawling upstairs. The forepaws lifted themselves in grotesquely infantile fashion. It was grotesque but it was— terrible. It grew closer. We reached for our guns— and dropped them. Suddenly we knew that this crawling thing was a man!

It was a man. Still with the high climbing pad-pad he swayed to the fire. He stopped.

"Safe," whispered the crawling man, in a voice that was an echo of the murmur overhead. "Quite safe here. They can't get out of the blue, you know. They can't get you— unless you go to them—"

He fell over on his side. We ran to him. Anderson knelt.

"God's love!" he said. "Frank, look at this!" He pointed to the hands. The wrists were covered with torn rags of a heavy shirt. The hands themselves were stumps! The fingers had been bent into the palms and the flesh had been worn to the bone. They looked like the feet of a little black elephant! My eyes traveled down the body. Around the waist was a heavy band of yellow metal. From it fell a ring and a dozen links of shining white chain!

"What is he? Where did he come from?" said Anderson. "Look, he's fast asleep— yet even in his sleep his arms try to climb and his feet draw themselves up one after the other! And his knees— how in God's name was he ever able to move on them?"

It was even as he said. In the deep sleep that had come upon the crawler arms and legs kept raising in a deliberate, dreadful climbing motion. It was as though they had a life of their own— they kept their movement independently of the motionless body. They were semaphoric motions. If you have ever stood at the back of a train and had watched the semaphores rise and fall you will know exactly what I mean.

Abruptly the overhead whispering ceased. The shaft of light dropped and did not rise again. The crawling man became still. A gentle glow began to grow around us. It was dawn, and the short Alaskan summer night was over. Anderson rubbed his eyes and turned to me a haggard face.

"Man!" he exclaimed. "You look as though you have been through a spell of sickness!"

"No more than you, Starr," I said. "What do you make of it all?"

"I'm thinking our only answer lies there," he answered, pointing to the figure that lay so motionless under the blankets we had thrown over him. "Whatever it was— that's what it was after. There was no aurora about that light, Frank. It was like the flaring up of some queer hell the preacher folk never frightened us with."

"We'll go no further today," I said. "I wouldn't wake him for all the gold that runs between the fingers of the five peaks— nor for all the devils that may be behind them."

The crawling man lay in a sleep as deep as the Styx. We bathed and bandaged the pads that had been his hands. Arms and legs were as rigid as though they were crutches. He did not move while we worked over him. He lay as he had fallen, the arms a trifle raised, the knees bent.

"Why did he crawl?" whispered Anderson. "Why didn't he walk?"

I was filing the band about the waist. It was gold, but it was like no gold I had ever handled. Pure gold is soft. This was soft, but it had an unclean, viscid life of its own. It clung to the file. I gashed through it, bent it away from the body and hurled it far off. It was—  loathsome!

All that day he slept. Darkness came and still he slept That night there was no shaft of light, no questing globe, no whispering. Some spell of horror seemed lifted from the land. It was noon when the crawling man awoke. I jumped as the pleasant drawling voice sounded.

"How long have I slept?" he asked. His pale blue eyes grew quizzical as I stared at him. "A night— and almost two days," I said. "Was there any light up there last night?" He nodded to the North eagerly. "Any whispering?"

"Neither," I answered. His head fell back and he stared up at the sky.

"They've given it up, then?" he said at last.

"Who have given it up?" asked Anderson.

"Why, the people of the pit," replied the crawling man quietly.

We stared at him. "The people of the pit," he said. "Things that the Devil made before the Flood and that somehow have escaped God's vengeance. You weren't in any danger from them— unless you had followed their call. They can't get any further than the blue haze. I was their prisoner," he added simply. "They were trying to whisper me back to them!"

Anderson and I looked at each other, the same thought in both our minds.

"You're wrong," said the crawling man. "I'm not insane. Give me a very little to drink. I'm going to die soon, but I want you to take me as far South as you can before I die, and afterwards I want you to build a big fire and burn me. I want to be in such shape that no infernal spell of theirs can drag my body back to them. You'll do it too, when I've told you about them—" he hesitated. "I think their chain is off me?" he said.

"I cut it off," I answered shortly.

"Thank God for that too," whispered the crawling man.

He drank the brandy and water we lifted to his lips.

"Arms and legs quite dead," he said. "Dead as I'll be soon. Well, they did well for me. Now I'll tell you what's up there behind that hand. Hell!"

"Now listen. My name is Stanton— Sinclair Stanton. Class 1900, Yale. Explorer. I started away from Dawson last year to hunt for five peaks that rise like a hand in a haunted country and run pure gold between them. Same thing you were after? I thought so. Late last fall my comrade sickened. Sent him back with some Indians. Little later all my Indians ran away from me. I decided I'd stick, built a cabin, stocked myself with food and lay down to winter it. In the Spring I started off again. Little less than two weeks ago I sighted the five peaks. Not from this side though— the other. Give me some more brandy.

"I'd made too wide a detour," he went on. "I'd gotten too far North. I beat back. From this side you see nothing but forest straight up to the base of the Hand Mountain. Over on the other side—"

He was silent for a moment.

"Over there is forest too. But it doesn't reach so far. No! I came out of it. Stretching miles in front of me was a level plain. It was as worn and ancient looking as the desert around the ruins of Babylon. At its end rose the peaks. Between me and them— far off— was what looked like a low dike of rocks. Then— I ran across the road!

"The road!" cried Anderson incredulously.

"The road," said the crawling man. "A fine smooth Stone road. It ran straight on to the mountain. Oh, it was road all right— and worn as though millions and millions of feet had passed over it for thousands of years. On each side of it were sand and heaps of stones. After while I began to notice these stones. They were cut, and the shape of the heaps somehow gave me the idea that a hundred thousand years ago they might have been houses. I sensed man about them and at the same time they smelled of immemorial antiquity. Well—

"The peaks grew closer. The heaps of ruins thicker. Something inexpressibly desolate hovered over them; something reached from them that struck my heart like the touch of ghosts so old that they could be only the ghosts of ghosts. I went on.

"And now I saw that what I had thought to be the low rock range at the base of the peaks was a thicker litter of ruins. The Hand Mountain was really much farther off. The road passed between two high rocks that raised themselves like a gateway."

The crawling man paused.

"They were a gateway," he said. "I reached them. I went between them. And then I sprawled and clutched the earth in sheer awe! I was on a broad stone platform. Before me was— sheer space! Imagine the Grand Canyon five times as wide and with the bottom dropped out. That is what I was looking into. It was like peeping over the edge of a cleft world down into the infinity where the planets roll! On the far side stood the five peaks. They looked like a gigantic warning hand stretched up to the sky. The lip of the abyss curved away on each side of me.

"I could see down perhaps a thousand feet. Then a thick blue haze shut out the eye. It was like the blue you see gather on the high hills at dusk. And the pit— it was awesome; awesome as the Maori Gulf of Ranalak, that sinks between the living and the dead and that only the freshly released soul has strength to leap— but never strength to cross again.

"I crept back from the verge and stood up, weak. My hand rested against one of the pillars of the gateway. There was carving upon it. It bore in still sharp outlines the heroic figure of a man. His back was turned. His arms were outstretched. There was an odd peaked headdress upon him. I looked at the opposite pillar. It bore a figure exactly similar. The pillars were triangular and the carvings were on the side away from the pit. The figures seemed to be holding something back. I looked closer. Behind the outstretched hands I seemed to see other shapes.

"I traced them out vaguely. Suddenly I felt unaccountably sick. There had come to me an impression of enormous upright slugs. Their swollen bodies were faintly cut— all except the heads which were well marked globes. They were— unutterably loathsome. I turned from the gates back to the void. I stretched myself upon the slab and looked over the edge.

"A stairway led down into the pit!"

"A stairway!" we cried.

"A stairway," repeated the crawling man as patiently as before, "It seemed not so much carved out of the rock as built into it. The slabs were about six feet long and three feet wide. It ran down from the platform and vanished into the blue haze."

"But who could build such a stairway as that?" I said. "A stairway built into the wall of a precipice and leading down into a bottomless pit!"

"Not bottomless," said the crawling man quietly. "There was a bottom. I reached it!"

"Reached it?" we repeated.

"Yes, by the stairway," answered the crawling man. "You see— I went down it!

"Yes," he said. "I went down the stairway. But not that day. I made my camp back of the gates. At dawn I filled my knapsack with food, my two canteens with water from a spring that wells up there by the gateway, walked between the carved monoliths and stepped over the edge of the pit.

"The steps ran along the side of the rock at a forty degree pitch. As I went down and down I studied them. They were of a greenish rock quite different from the granitic porphyry that formed the wall of the precipice. At first I thought that the builders had taken advantage of an outcropping stratum, and had carved from it their gigantic flight. But the regularity of the angle at which it fell made me doubtful of this theory.

"After I had gone perhaps half a mile I stepped out upon a landing. From this landing the stairs made a V shaped turn and ran on downward, clinging to the cliff at the same angle as the first flight; it was a zig-zag, and after I had made three of these turns I knew that the steps dropped straight down in a succession of such angles. No strata could be so regular as that. No, the stairway was built by hands! But whose? The answer is in those ruins around the edge, I think— never to be read.

"By noon I had lost sight of the five peaks and the lip of the abyss. Above me, below me, was nothing but the blue haze. Beside me, too, was nothingness, for the further breast of rock had long since vanished. I felt no dizziness, and any trace of fear was swallowed in a vast curiosity. What was I to discover? Some ancient and wonderful civilization that had ruled when the Poles were tropical gardens? Nothing living, I felt sure— all was too old for life. Still, a stairway so wonderful must lead to something quite as wonderful I knew. What was it? I went on.

"At regular intervals I had passed the mouths of small caves. There would be two thousand steps and then an opening, two thousand more steps and an opening— and so on and on. Late that afternoon I stopped before one of these clefts. I suppose I had gone then three miles down the pit, although the angles were such that I had walked in all fully ten miles. I examined the entrance. On each side were carved the figures of the great portal above, only now they were standing face forward, the arms outstretched as though to hold something back from the outer depths. Their faces were covered with veils. There were no hideous shapes behind them. I went inside. The fissure ran back for twenty yards like a burrow. It was dry and perfectly light. Outside I could see the blue haze rising upward like a column, its edges clearly marked. I felt an extraordinary sense of security, although I had not been conscious of any fear. I felt that the figures at the entrance were guardians— but against what?

"The blue haze thickened and grew faintly luminescent. I fancied that it was dusk above. I ate and drank a little and slept. When I awoke the blue had lightened again, and I fancied it was dawn above. I went on. I forgot the gulf yawning at my side. I felt no fatigue and little hunger or thirst, although I had drunk and eaten sparingly. That night I spent within another of the caves, and at dawn I descended again.

"It was late that day when I first saw the city— ."

He was silent for a time.

"The city," he said at last, "there is a city you know. But not such a city as you have ever seen— nor any other man who has lived to tell of it. The pit, I think, is shaped like a bottle; the opening before the five peaks is the neck. But how wide the bottom is I do not know— thousands of miles maybe. I had begun to catch little glints of light far down in the blue. Then I saw the tops of— trees, I suppose they are. But not our kind of trees— unpleasant, snaky kind of trees. They reared themselves on high thin trunks and their tops were nests of thick tendrils with ugly little leaves like arrow heads. The trees were red, a vivid angry red. Here and there I glimpsed spots of shining yellow. I knew these were water because I could see things breaking through their surface— or at least I could see the splash and ripple, but what it was that disturbed them I never saw.

"Straight beneath me was the— city. I looked down upon mile after mile of closely packed cylinders. They lay upon their sides in pyramids of three, of five— of dozens— piled upon each other. It is hard to make you see what that city is like— look, suppose you have water pipes of a certain length and first you lay three of them side by side and on top of them you place two and on these two one; or suppose you take five for a foundation and place on these four and then three, then two and then one. Do you see? That was the way they looked. But they were topped by towers, by minarets, by flares, by fans, and twisted monstrosities. They gleamed as though coated with pale rose flame. Beside them the venomous red trees raised themselves like the heads of hydras guarding nests of gigantic, jeweled and sleeping worms!

"A few feet beneath me the stairway jutted out into a Titanic arch, unearthly as the span that bridges Hell and leads to Asgard. It curved out and down straight through the top of the highest pile of carven cylinders and then it vanished through it. It was appalling— it was demonic—"

The crawling man stopped. His eyes rolled up into his head. He trembled and his arms and legs began their horrible crawling movement. From his lips came a whispering. It was an echo of the high murmuring we had heard the night he came to us. I put my hands over his eyes. He quieted.

"The Things Accursed!" he said. "The People of the Pit! Did I whisper. Yes — but they can't get me now— they can't!"

After a time he began as quietly as before.

"I crossed the span. I went down through the top of that— building. Blue darkness shrouded me for a moment and I felt the steps twist into a spiral. I wound down and then— I was standing high up in— I can't tell you in what, I'll have to call it a room. We have no images for what is in the pit. A hundred feet below me was the floor. The walls sloped down and out from where I stood in a series of widening crescents. The place was colossal— and it was filled with a curious mottled red light. It was like the light inside a green and gold flecked fire opal. I went down to the last step. Far in front of me rose a high, columned altar. Its pillars were carved in monstrous scrolls— like mad octopuses with a thousand drunken tentacles; they rested on the backs of shapeless monstrosities carved in crimson stone. The altar front was a gigantic slab of purple covered with carvings.

"I can't describe these carvings! No human being could— the human eye cannot grasp them any more than it can grasp the shapes that haunt the fourth dimension. Only a subtle sense in the back of the brain sensed them vaguely. They were formless things that gave no conscious image, yet pressed into the mind like small hot seals— ideas of hate— of combats between unthinkable monstrous things— victories in a nebulous hell of steaming, obscene jungles— aspirations and ideals immeasurably loathsome—

"And as I stood I grew aware of something that lay behind the lip of the altar fifty feet above me. I knew it was there— I felt it with every hair and every tiny bit of my skin. Something infinitely malignant, infinitely horrible, infinitely ancient. It lurked, it brooded, it threatened and it— was invisible!

"Behind me was a circle of blue light. I ran for it. Something urged me to turn back, to climb the stairs and make away. It was impossible. Repulsion for that unseen Thing raced me onward as though a current had my feet. I passed through the circle. I was out on a street that stretched on into dim distance between rows of the carven cylinders.

"Here and there the red trees arose. Between them rolled the stone burrows. And now I could take in the amazing ornamentation that clothed them. They were like the trunks of smooth skinned trees that had fallen and had been clothed with high reaching noxious orchids. Yes— those cylinders were like that— and more. They should have gone out with the dinosaurs. They were— monstrous. They struck the eyes like a blow and they passed across the nerves like a rasp. And nowhere was there sight or sound of living thing.

"There were circular openings in the cylinders like the circle in the Temple of the Stairway. I passed through one of them. I was in a long, bare vaulted room whose curving sides half closed twenty feet over my head, leaving a wide slit that opened into another vaulted chamber above. There was absolutely nothing in the room save the same mottled reddish light that I had seen in the Temple. I stumbled. I still could see nothing, but there was something on the floor over which I had tripped. I reached down— and my hand touched a thing cold and smooth— that moved under it— I turned and ran out of that place— I was filled with a loathing that had in it something of madness— I ran on and on blindly—  wringing my hands— weeping with horror—

"When I came to myself I was still among the stone cylinders and red trees. I tried to retrace my steps; to find the Temple. I was more than afraid. I was like a new loosed soul panic-stricken with the first terrors of hell. I could not find the Temple! Then the haze began to thicken and glow; the cylinders to shine more brightly. I knew that it was dusk in the world above and I felt that with dusk my time of peril had come; that the thickening of the haze was the signal for the awakening of whatever things lived in this pit.

"I scrambled up the sides of one of the burrows. I hid behind a twisted nightmare of stone. Perhaps, I thought, there was a chance of remaining hidden until the blue lightened and the peril passed. There began to grow around me a murmur. It was everywhere— and it grew and grew into a great whispering. I peeped from the side of the stone down into the street. I saw lights passing and repassing. More and more lights— they swam out of the circular doorways and they thronged the street. The highest were eight feet above the pave; the lowest perhaps two. They hurried, they sauntered, they bowed, they stopped and whispered— and there was nothing under them!"

"Nothing under them!" breathed Anderson.

"No," he went on, "that was the terrible part of it— there was nothing under them. Yet certainly the lights were living things. They had consciousness, volition, thought— what else I did not know. They were nearly two feet across— the largest. Their center was a bright nucleus — red, blue, green. This nucleus faded off, gradually, into a misty glow that did not end abruptly. It too seemed to fade off into nothingness — but a nothingness that had under it a somethingness. I strained my eyes trying to grasp this body into which the lights merged and which one could only feel was there, but could not see.

"And all at once I grew rigid. Something cold, and thin like a whip, had touched my face. I turned my head. Close behind were three of the lights. They were a pale blue. They looked at me— if you can imagine lights that are eyes. Another whiplash gripped my shoulder. Under the closest light came a shrill whispering. I shrieked. Abruptly the murmuring in the street ceased. I dragged my eyes from the pale blue globe that held them and looked out— the lights in the streets were rising by myriads to the level of where I stood! There they stopped and peered at me. They crowded and jostled as though they were a crowd of curious people— on Broadway. I felt a score of the lashes touch me—

"When I came to myself I was again in the great Place of the Stairway, lying at the foot of the altar. All was silent. There were no lights—  only the mottled red glow. I jumped to my feet and ran toward the steps. Something jerked me back to my knees. And then I saw that around my waist had been fastened a yellow ring of metal. From it hung a chain and this chain passed up over the lip of the high ledge. I was chained to the altar!

"I reached into my pockets for my knife to cut through the ring. It was not there! I had been stripped of everything except one of the canteens that I had hung around my neck and which I suppose They had thought was—  part of me. I tried to break the ring. It seemed alive. It writhed in my hands and it drew itself closer around me! I pulled at the chain. It was immovable. There came to me the consciousness of the unseen Thing above the altar. I groveled at the foot of the slab and wept. Think— alone in that place of strange light with the brooding ancient Horror above me—  a monstrous Thing, a Thing unthinkable— an unseen Thing that poured forth horror—

"After awhile I gripped myself. Then I saw beside one of the pillars a yellow bowl filled with a thick white liquid. I drank it. If it killed I did not care. But its taste was pleasant and as I drank my strength came back to me with a rush. Clearly I was not to be starved. The lights, whatever they were, had a conception of human needs.

"And now the reddish mottled gleam began to deepen. Outside arose the humming and through the circle that was the entrance came streaming the globes, They ranged themselves in ranks until they filled the Temple. Their whispering grew into a chant, a cadenced whispering chant that rose and fell, rose and fell, while to its rhythm the globes lifted and sank, lifted and sank.

"All that night the lights came and went— and all that night the chant sounded as they rose and fell. At the last I felt myself only an atom of consciousness in a sea of cadenced whispering; an atom that rose and fell with the bowing globes. I tell you that even my heart pulsed in unison with them! The red glow faded, the lights streamed out; the whispering died. I was again alone and I knew that once again day had broken in my own world."

"I slept. When I awoke I found beside the pillar more of the white liquid. I scrutinized the chain that held me to the altar. I began to rub two of the links together. I did this for hours. When the red began to thicken there was a ridge worn in the links. Hope rushed up within me. There was, then, a chance to escape."

"With the thickening the lights came again. All through that night the whispering chant sounded, and the globes rose and fell. The chant seized me. It pulsed through me until every nerve and muscle quivered to it. My lips began to quiver. They strove like a man trying to cry out on a nightmare. And at last they too were whispering the chant of the people of the pit. My body bowed in unison with the lights— I was, in movement and sound, one with the nameless things while my soul sank back sick with horror and powerless. While I whispered I— saw Them!"

"Saw the lights?" I asked stupidly.

"Saw the Things under the lights," he answered. "Great transparent snail-like bodies— dozens of waving tentacles stretching from them—  round gaping mouths under the luminous seeing globes. They were like the ghosts of inconceivably monstrous slugs! I could see through them. And as I stared, still bowing and whispering, the dawn came and they streamed to and through the entrance. They did not crawl or walk— they floated! They floated and were— gone!

"I did not sleep. I worked all that day at my chain. By the thickening of the red I had worn it a sixth through. And all that night I whispered and bowed with the pit people, joining in their chant to the Thing that brooded above me!

"Twice again the red thickened and the chant held me— then on the morning of the fifth day I broke through the worn links of the chain. I was free! I drank from the bowl of white liquid and poured what was left in my flask. I ran to the Stairway. I rushed up and past that unseen Horror behind the altar ledge and was out upon the Bridge. I raced across the span and up the Stairway.

"Can you think what it is to climb straight up the verge of a cleft world — with hell behind you? Hell was behind me and terror rode me. The city had long been lost in the blue haze before I knew that I could climb no more. My heart beat upon my ears like a sledge. I fell before one of the little caves feeling that here at last was sanctuary. I crept far back within it and waited for the haze to thicken. Almost at once it did so. From far below me came a vast and angry murmur. At the mouth of the rift I saw a light pulse up through the blue; die down and as it dimmed I saw myriads of the globes that are the eyes of the pit people swing downward into the abyss. Again and again the light pulsed and the globes fell. They were hunting me. The whispering grew louder, more insistent.

"There grew in me the dreadful desire to join in the whispering as I had done in the Temple. I bit my lips through and through to still them. All that night the beam shot up through the abyss, the globes swung and the whispering sounded— and now I knew the purpose of the caves and of the sculptured figures that still had power to guard them. But what were the people who had carved them? Why had they built their city around the verge and why had they set that Stairway in the pit? What had they been to those Things that dwelt at the bottom and what use had the Things been to them that they should live beside their dwelling place? That there had been some purpose was certain. No work so prodigious as the Stairway would have been undertaken otherwise. But what was the purpose? And why was it that those who had dwelt about the abyss had passed away ages gone, and the dwellers in the abyss still lived? I could find no answer— nor can I find any now. I have not the shred of a theory.

"Dawn came as I wondered and with it silence. I drank what was left of the liquid in my canteen, crept from the cave and began to climb again. That afternoon my legs gave out. I tore off my shirt, made from it pads for my knees and coverings for my hands. I crawled upward. I crawled up and up. And again I crept into one of the caves and waited until again the blue thickened, the shaft of light shot through it and the whispering came.

"But now there was a new note in the whispering. It was no longer threatening. It called and coaxed. It drew."

A new terror gripped me. There had come upon me a mighty desire to leave the cave and go out where the lights swung; to let them do with me as they pleased, carry me where they wished. The desire grew. It gained fresh impulse with every rise of the beam until at last I vibrated with the desire as I had vibrated to the chant in the Temple. My body was a pendulum. Up would go the beam and I would swing toward it! Only my soul kept steady. It held me fast to the floor of the cave; And all that night it fought with my body against the spell of the pit people.

"Dawn came. Again I crept from the cave and faced the Stairway. I could not rise. My hands were torn and bleeding; my knees an agony. I forced myself upward step by step. After a while my hands became numb, the pain left my knees. They deadened. Step by step my will drove my body upward upon them."

"And then— a nightmare of crawling up infinite stretches of steps — memories of dull horror while hidden within caves with the lights pulsing without and whisperings that called and called me— memory of a time when I awoke to find that my body was obeying the call and had carried me half way out between the guardians of the portals while thousands of gleaming globes rested in the blue haze and watched me."

Glimpses of bitter fights against sleep and always, always— a climb up and up along infinite distances of steps that led from Abaddon to a Paradise of blue sky and open world!

"At last a consciousness of the clear sky close above me, the lip of the pit before me— memory of passing between the great portals of the pit and of steady withdrawal from it— dreams of giant men with strange peaked crowns and veiled faces who pushed me onward and onward and held back Roman Candle globules of light that sought to draw me back to a gulf wherein planets swam between the branches of red trees that had snakes for crowns."

"And then a long, long sleep— how long God alone knows— in a cleft of rocks; an awakening to see far in the North the beam still rising and falling, the lights still hunting, the whispering high above me calling."

"Again crawling on dead arms and legs that moved— that moved — like the Ancient Mariner's ship— without volition of mine, but that carried me from a haunted place. And then— your fire— and this— safety!"

The crawling man smiled at us for a moment. Then swiftly life faded from his face. He slept.

That afternoon we struck camp and carrying the crawling man started back South. For three days we carried him and still he slept. And on the third day, still sleeping, he died. We built a great pile of wood and we burned his body as he had asked. We scattered his ashes about the forest with the ashes of the trees that had consumed him. It must be a great magic indeed that could disentangle those ashes and draw him back in a rushing cloud to the pit he called Accursed. I do not think that even the People of the Pit have such a spell. No.

But we did not return to the five peaks to see.

____________

21: Seven Turns in a Hangman's Rope

Henry S. Whitehead

1882-1932

Adventure 15 July 1932

I FIRST BECAME acutely aware of the dreadful tragedy of Saul Macartney one sunny morning early in the month of November of the year 1927. On that occasion, instead of walking across the hall from my bathroom after shaving and the early morning shower, I turned to the left upon emerging and, in my bathrobe and slippers, went along the upstairs hallway to my workroom on the northwest corner of the house into which I had just moved, in the west coast town of Frederiksted on the island of Santa Cruz.

This pleasant room gave a view through its several windows directly down from the hill on which the house was located, across the pretty town with its red roofs and varicolored houses, directly upon the indigo Caribbean. This workroom of mine had a north light from its two windows on that side and, as I used it only during the mornings, I thus escaped the terrific sun drenching to which, in the absence of any shade without, the room was subjected during the long West Indian afternoon.

The occasion for going in there was my desire to see, in the clear morning light, what that ancient oil painting looked like; the canvas which, without its frame, I had tacked up on the south wall the evening before.

This trophy, along with various other items of household flotsam and jetsam, had been taken the previous afternoon, which was a day after my arrival on the island, out of a kind of lumber room wherein the owners of the house had plainly been storing for the best part of a century the kinds of things which accumulate in a family. Of the considerable amount of material which my houseman, Stephen Penn, had taken out and stacked and piled in the upper hallway, there happened to be nothing of interest except this good-sized painting— which was about three feet by five in size. Stephen had paused to examine it curiously and it was this which drew my attention to it.

Under my first cursory examination, which was little more than a glance, I had supposed the thing to be one of those ubiquitous Victorian horrors of reproduction which fifty years ago might have been observed on the walls of most middle-class front parlors, and which were known as chromos. But later that evening, on picking it up and looking at it under the electric light, I found that it was honest paint, and I examined it more closely and with a constantly increasing interest.

The painting was obviously the work of a fairly clever amateur. The frame of very old and dry wood had been riddled through and through by wood-worms; it literally fell apart in my hands. I left it there on the floor for Stephen to brush up the next morning and took the canvas into my bedroom where there was a better light. The accumulations of many years' dust and grime had served to obscure its once crudely bright coloration. I carried it into my bathroom, made a lather of soap and warm water, and gave it a careful and much needed cleansing, after which the scene delineated before me assumed a surprising freshness and clarity.

After I had dried it off with a hand towel, using great care lest I crack the ancient pigment, I went over it with an oiled cloth. This process really brought it out, and although the canvas was something more than a century old, the long-obscured and numerous figures with which it had been almost completely covered seemed once more as bright and clear— and quite as crude— as upon the long distant day when that rather clever amateur artist had laid down his (or perhaps her) brush after putting on the very last dab of vermilion paint.

The subject of the old painting, as I recognized quite soon, was an almost forgotten incident in the history of the old Danish West Indies. It had, quite obviously, been done from the viewpoint of a person on board a ship. Before me, as the setting of the scene, was the well known harbor of St Thomas with its dull red fort at my right— looking exactly as it does today. At the left-hand margin were the edges of various public buildings which have long since been replaced. In the midst, and occupying nearly the entire spread of the canvas, with Government Hill and its fine houses sketched in for background, was shown the execution of Fawcett, the pirate, with his two lieutenants; an occasion which had constituted a general holiday for the citizens of St Thomas, and which had taken place, as I happened to be aware, on the eleventh of September, 1825. If the picture had been painted at that time, and it seemed apparent that such was the case, the canvas would be just one hundred and two years old.

My interest now thoroughly aroused, I bent over it and examined it with close attention. Then I went into my work-room and brought back my large magnifying glass.

My somewhat clever amateur artist had left nothing to the imagination. The picture contained no less than two hundred and three human figures. Of these only those in the remoter backgrounds were sketched in roughly in the modern manner. The actual majority were very carefully depicted with a laborious infinitude of detail; and I suspected then, and since have found every reason to believe, that many, if not most of them, were portraits! There before my eyes were portly Danish worthies of a century ago, with their ladyfolk, all of whom had come out to see Captain Fawcett die. There were the officers of the garrison. There were the gendarmes of the period, in their stiff looking uniforms after the manner of Frederick the Great.

There were Negroes, some with large gold rings hanging from one ear; Negresses in their bebustled gingham dresses and bare feet, their foulards or varicolored head handkerchiefs topped by the broad-brimmed plaited straw hats which are still to be seen along modern St Thomas's concrete drives and sidewalks. There was the executioner, a huge, burly, fierce-looking black man; with the police-master standing beside and a little behind him, gorgeous in his glistening white drill uniform with its gilt-decorations. The two stood on the central and largest of the three scaffolds.

The executioner was naked to the waist and had his woolly head bound up in a tight-fitting scarlet kerchief. He had only that moment sprung the drop, and there at the end of the manila rope (upon which the artist had carefully painted in the seven turns of the traditional hangman's knot placed precisely under the left ear of the miscreant now receiving the just reward of his innumerable villainies) hung Captain Fawcett himself, the gruesome central figure of this holiday pageant— wearing top boots and a fine plum-colored laced coat.

On either side, and from the ropes of the two smaller gibbets, dangled those two lesser miscreants, Fawcett's mates. Obviously their several executions, like the preliminary bouts of a modern boxing program, had preceded the main event of the day.

The three gibbets had been erected well to the left of the central space which I have described. The main bulk of the spectators was consequently to the right as one looked at the picture, on the fort side.

After more than a fascinating hour with my magnifying glass, it being then eleven o'clock and time to turn in, I carried the brittle old canvas into my workroom and by the rather dim light of a shaded reading lamp fastened it carefully at a convenient height against the south wall with thumbtacks. The last tack went through the arm of the hanging man nearest the picture's extreme left-hand margin. After accomplishing this I went to bed.

The next morning, as I have mentioned, being curious to see how the thing looked in a suitable light, I walked into the workroom and looked at it.

I received a devastating shock.

My eye settled after a moment or two upon that dangling mate whose body hung from its rope near the extreme left-hand margin of the picture. I found it difficult to believe my eyes. In this clear morning light the expression of the fellow's face had changed startlingly from what I remembered after looking at it closely through my magnifying glass. Last night it had been merely the face of a man just hanged; I had noted it particularly because, of all the more prominent figures, that face had been most obviously an attempt at exact portraiture.

Now it wore a new and unmistakable expression of acute agony.

And down the dangling arm, from the point which that last thumbtack had incontinently transfixed, there ran, and dripped off the fellow's fingers, a stream of bright, fresh red blood...

ii

BETWEEN the time when the clipper schooner, which had easily overhauled the Macartney trading vessel Hope— coming north across the Caribbean and heavily laden with sacked coffee from Barranquilla— had sent a challenging shot from its swivel-gun across the Hope's bows, and his accomplishing the maneuver of coming about in obedience to that unmistakable summons, Captain Saul Macartney had definitely decided what policy he should follow.

He had made numerous voyages in the Hope among the bustling trade ports of the Caribbean and to and from his own home port of St Thomas, and never before, by the Grace of God and the Macartney luck, had any freetrader called up on him to stand and deliver on the high seas. But, like all seafaring men of Captain Macartney's generation, plying their trade in those latitudes in the early 1820's, he was well aware of what was now in store for him, his father's ship and the members of his crew. The Hope would be looted; then probably scuttled, in accordance with the freetraders' well-nigh universal policy of destroying every scrap of evidence against them. As for himself and his men, they would be confronted with the formula— 'Join, or go over the side!'

A pirate's recruit was a pirate, at once involved in a status which was without the law. His evidence, even if he were attempting the dangerous double game of merely pretending to join his captor, was worthless.

There was no possible ray of hope, direct resistance being plainly out of the question. This might be one of the better established freebooters, a piratical captain and following whose notoriety was already so widespread, who was already so well known, that he would not take the trouble to destroy the Hope; or, beyond the usual offer made to all volunteers for a piratical crew— constantly in need of such replacements— to put the captured vessel, officers and crew through the mill; once they were satisfied that there was nothing aboard this latest prize to repay them for the trouble and risk of capture and destruction.

The Hope, laden almost to her gunwales with sacked coffee, would provide lean pickings for a freetrader, despite the value of her bulk cargo in a legitimate port of trade like Savannah or Norfolk. There were cases, known to Captain Macartney, where a piratical outfit under the command of some notable such as Edward Thatch— often called Teach, or Blackbeard— or England, or Fawcett, or Jacob Brenner, had merely sheered off and sailed away in search of more desirable game as soon as it was plain that the loot was neither easily portable nor of the type of value represented by bullion, silks, or the strong box of some inter-island trading supercargo.

It was plain enough to Captain Saul Macartney, whose vessel had been stopped here about a day's sail south-south-west of his home port of St Thomas, capital of the Danish West Indies, and whose cargo was intended for delivery to several ship's brokerage houses in that clearing house port for the vast West Indian shipping trade, that this marauder of the high seas could do nothing with his coffee. These ideas were prominent in his mind in the interval between his shouted orders and the subsequent period during which the Hope, her way slacking rapidly, hung in the wind, her jibs, booms and loose rigging slapping angrily while the many boats from the freetrading vessel were slung outboard in a very brisk and workmanlike manner and dropped one after the other into the water alongside until every one— seven in all— had been launched.

These boats were so heavily manned as to leave them very low in the water. Now the oars moved with an almost delicate precision as though the rowers feared some mis-chance even in that placid sea. The Hope's officers and crew— all of the latter Negroes— crowded along their vessel's starboard rail, the mates quiet and collected as men taking their cue from their superior officer; the crew goggle-eyed, chattering in low tones among themselves in groups and knots, motivated by the sudden looming terror which showed in a gray tinge upon their black skins.

Then, in a strident whisper from the first mate, a shrewd and experienced bucko, hailing originally from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, wise in the ways of these tropical latitudes from twenty years' continuous seafaring: 'God! It's Fawcett himself!'

Slowly, deliberately, as though entirely disdainful of any possible resistance, the seven boats drew toward the doomed Hope. The two foremost edged in close alongside her star-board quarter and threw small grapples handily from bow and stern and so hung in under the Hope's lee.

Captain Saul Macartney, cupping his hands, addressed over the heads of the intervening six boatloads the man seated in the sternsheets of the outermost boat.

'Cargo of sacked Brazil coffee, Captain, and nothing else to make it worth your while to come aboard me— if you'll take my word for it. That's the facts, sir, so help me God!'

In silence from all hands in the boats and without any immediate reply from Fawcett, this piece of information was received. Captain Fawcett sat there at the sternsheets of his longboat, erect, silent, presumably pondering what Captain Saul Macartney had told him. He sat there calm and unruffled, a fine gold laced tricorn hat on his head, which, together with the elegance of his wine-colored English broadcloth coat, threw into sharp relief his brutal, unshaven face with its sinister, shining white scar— the result of an old cutlass wound— which ran diagonally from the upper corner of his left ear forward down the cheek, across both lips, clear to the edge of his prominent chin.

Fawcett, the pirate, ended his reflective interval. He raised his head, rubbed a soiled hand through his beard's stubble and spat outboard.

'Any ship's biscuit left aboard ye?' he inquired, turning his eye along the Hope's freeboard and thence contemplatively about her masts and rigging. 'We're short.'

'I have plenty, Captain. Will it answer if I have it passed over the side to ye?'

The two vessels and the seven heavily laden boats lay tossing silently in the gentle swell. Not a sound broke the tension while Captain Fawcett appeared to deliberate.

Then a second time he spat over the side of his longboat and rubbed his black stubbly chin with his hand, reflectively. Then he looked across his boats directly at Captain Saul Macartney. The ghost of a sour grin broke momentarily the grim straight line of his maimed and cruel mouth.

'I'll be comin' aboard ye, Captain,' he said very slowly, 'if ye have no objection to make.'

A bellow of laughter at this sally of their captain's rose from the huddled pirate crew in the boats and broke the mounting tension. A Negro at the Hope's rail cackled hysterically, and a chorus of gibes at this arose from the motley crews of the boats grappled alongside.

In the silence which followed Captain Fawcett muttered a curt, monosyllabic order. The other five boats closed in with haste, two of them passing around the Hope's stern and another around her bow. It was only a matter of a few seconds before the entire seven hung along the Hope's sides like feasting wolves upon the flanks of a stricken deer. Then at a second brief order their crews came over the rails quietly and in good order, Fawcett himself arriving last upon the Hope's deck. No resistance of any kind was offered. Captain Macartney had had the word passed quietly on that score while the pirates' boats were being slung into the water.

After the bustling scramble involved in nearly a hundred men climbing over the Hope's rail from the seven boats and which was, despite the excellent order maintained, a maneuver involving considerable noisy activity, another and even a more ominous silence settled down upon the beleaguered Hope.

Supported by his two mates, one of whom was a small, neat, carefully dressed fellow, and the other an enormous German who sported a cavalry-man's moustache and walked truculently, Captain Fawcett proceeded directly aft, where he turned and faced forward, a mate on either side of him, and leaned against the superstructure of Captain Macartney's cabin.

Macartney's mates, taking pattern from this procedure, walked over from the rail and flanked him where he stood just aft of the Hope's foremast. The rest of the freebooters, having apparently been left free by their officers to do as they pleased for the time being, strolled about the deck looking over the vessel's superficial equipment, and then gathered in little knots and groups about the eleven Negro members of the Hope's crew.

Through this intermingling the comparative silence which had followed their coming aboard began to be dissipated with raillery, various low-voiced sallies of crude wit at the Negroes' expense, and an occasional burst of nervous or raucous laughter. All this, however, was carried on, as Captain Macartney took it in, in what was to him an unexpectedly restrained and quiet manner, utterly at variance with the reputed conduct of such a group of abandoned villains at sea, and to him, at least, convincing evidence that something sinister was in the wind.

This expectation had its fulfilment at a harsh blast from the whistle which, at Fawcett's nod, the huge German mate had taken from his pocket and blown.

Instantly the pirates closed in and seized those members of the Hope's Negro crew who stood nearest them; several, sometimes five or six, men crowding in to overpower each individual. Five or six of the pirates who had been as though without purpose near the forward hatchway which led below decks began forthwith to knock out the wedges. The Hope's Negroes, with a unanimity which bespoke the excellent discipline and strategy which Fawcett was generally understood to maintain, were hustled forward and thrust into the forecastle; the hatch of which, as soon as they were all inside, was forthwith closed tight and at once nailed fast by the undersized little Englishman who was Fawcett's ship's carpenter.

None of the Hope's crew had been armed. None seemed to Captain Macartney to have been even slightly injured in the course of this rough and effective handling. Captain Macartney surmised, and rightly, that the pirates' intention was to preserve them alive either for ultimate sale into slavery, which was of course then extant throughout the West India Islands, or, perhaps, to convey them as shore servants to Fawcett's settlement which, it was generally believed, was well in the interior of the island of Andros in the Bahama group, where a network of interlacing creeks, rendering anything like pursuit and capture well-nigh out of the question, had made this private fastness a stronghold.

But Captain Macartney had little time to waste thinking over the fate of his crew. With perhaps a shade less of the roughness with which the Negroes had been seized he and his mates were almost simultaneously surrounded and marched aft to face their captors. It seemed plain that the usual choice was to be given only to the three of them.

Fawcett did not hesitate this time. He looked at the three men standing before him, lowered his head, relaxed his burly figure and barked out—

'Ye'll join me or go over the side.'

He pointed a dirty finger almost directly into the face of the older mate, who stood at his captain's right hand.

'You first,' he barked again. 'Name yer ch'ice, and name it now.'

The hard-bitten New Hampshire Yankee stood true to the traditions of an honest sailorman.

'To hell with ye, ye damned scalawag,' he drawled, and spat on the deck between Captain Fawcett's feet.

There could be but one reply on the part of a man of Fawcett's heady character to such an insult as this. With a speed that baffled the eye the great pistol which hung from the right side of his belt beneath the flap of his fine broad-cloth coat was snatched free, and to the accompaniment of its tearing roar, its huge ounce ball smote through the luckless Yankee's forehead. As the acrid cloud of smoke from this detonation blew away Captain Macartney observed the huge German mate lifting the limp body which, as though it had been that of a child, he carried in great strides to the nearer rail and heaved overboard.

Fawcett pointed with his smoking weapon at Macartney's other mate, a small-built fellow, originally a British subject from the Island of Antigua. The mate merely nodded comprehendingly. Then— 'The same as Elias Perkins told ye, ye blasted swab, and may ye rot deep in hell.'

But Fawcett's surly humor appeared to have evaporated, to have discharged itself in the pistoling of the other man whose scattered brains had left an ugly smear on the Hope's clean deck. He merely laughed and, with a comprehensive motion of his left hand, addressed the larger of his mates, who had resumed his position at his left.

'Take him, Franz,' he ordered.

The huge mate launched himself upon the Antiguan like a ravening beast. With lightning-like rapidity his enormous left arm coiled crushingly about the doomed man's neck. Simultaneously, his open right hand against his victim's forehead, he pushed mightily. The little Antiguan's spine yielded with an audible crack and his limp body slithered loosely to the deck. Then with a sweeping, contemptuous motion the huge mate grasped the limp form in one hand, lifting it by the front of the waistcoat and, whirling about, hurled it with a mighty pitch far outboard.

The German mate had not yet resumed his place beside Fawcett when Captain Saul Macartney addressed the pirate leader.

'I'm joining you, Captain,' he said quietly.

And while the surprised Fawcett stared at him the newly enlisted freebooter, who had been Captain Saul Macartney of the schooner Hope, with a motion which did not suffer by comparison with Fawcett's for its swiftness, had produced a long dirk, taken the two lightning strides necessary for an effective stroke, and had plunged his weapon with a mighty upward thrust from under the ribs through the German mate's heart.

Withdrawing it instantly, he stooped over the sprawled body and wiped the dirk's blade in a nonchalant and leisurely manner on the dead ruffian's fine cambric shirt frill. As he proceeded to this task he turned his head upward and slightly to the left and looked squarely in the eye the stultified pirate captain who stood motionless and staring in his surprise at this totally unexpected feat of his newest recruit. From his crouching position Saul Macartney spoke, quietly and without emphasis—

'Ye see, sir, I disliked this larrikin from the minute I clapped eyes on him and I'll call your attention to the fact that I'm a sound navigator, and— ' Saul Macartney smiled and showed his handsome teeth— 'I'll ask your notice preliminary to my acting with you aft that it might equally well have been yourself that I scragged, and perhaps that'll serve to teach ye the manner of man that you're now taking on as an active lieutenant!'

Then Saul Macartney, his bantering smile gone now, his Macartney mouth set in a grim line, his cleansed dirk held ready in his sound right hand, stood menacingly before Captain Fawcett, their breasts almost touching, and in a quarter-deck voice inquired: 'And will ye be taking it or leaving it, Captain Fawcett?'

iii

IT WAS more than two months later when the Hope, her hull now painted a shining black, her topmasts lengthened all round by six feet, her spread of canvas vastly increased, eight carronade ports newly cut along her sides, and renamed the Swallow, entered the harbor of St Thomas, dropped her anchor and sent over her side a narrow long-boat.

Into this boat, immediately after its crew of six oarsmen had settled down upon their thwarts and laid their six long sweeps out upon the harbor water, interested onlookers observed two officers descend over the Swallow's side, where they occupied the sternsheets together. As the boat, rowed man-o'-war style, rapidly approached the wharves it was observed by those on shore that the two men seated astern were rather more than handsomely dressed.

The shorter and heavier man wore a fine sprigged long coat of English broadcloth with lapels, and a laced tricorn hat. His companion, whose appearance had about it something vaguely familiar, was arrayed in an equally rich and very well tailored, though somewhat plainer, coat of a medium blue which set off his handsome figure admirably. This person wore no hat at all, nor any shade for his head against the glare of the eleven o'clock sun save a heavy crop of carefully arranged and naturally curly hair as black as a crow's wing.

So interesting, indeed, to the loungers along the wharves had been the entrance of this previously unknown vessel into the harbor and the subsequent coming ashore of these two fine gentlemen, that a considerable knot of sightseers was already assembled on the particular jetty toward which the longboat, smartly rowed, came steadily closer and closer. The hatless gentleman, who was by far the taller and handsomer of the two, appeared to be steering, the taut tiller ropes held firmly in his large and very shapely hands.

It was the Herr Rudolph Bernn, who had observed the crowd collecting on the jetty through the open windows of his airy shipping office close at hand, and who had clapped on his pith sun helmet and hastened to join the group, who was the first to recognize this taller officer.

'Gude Gott! If id iss nod der Herr Captain Saul Macartney. Gude Gott, how dey will be rejoiced— Oldt Macartney andt de Miss Camilla!'

Within five minutes the rapidly approaching longboat had been laid aside the pier head in navy style. Without any delay the two gentlemen, whose advent had so greatly interested the St Thomas harbor watchers, stepped ashore with an air and mounted the jetty steps side by side. At once Saul Macartney, whose fine clothes so well became him, forged ahead of his well dressed, shaved and curled companion. He wore the dazzling smile which revealed his magnificent teeth and which had served to disarm every woman upon whom it had been consciously turned since his eighth year or thereabouts.

Like a conquering hero this handsome young man— who had taken clearance from the South American port of Barranquilla nearly three months before and subsequently disappeared into thin air along with his vessel and all hands off the face of the waters— now stepped jauntily across the jetty toward the welcoming group whose numbers were, now that the news of his homecoming was beginning to trickle through the town, constantly increasing. He was instantaneously surrounded by these welcoming acquaintances who sought each to outdo his neighbor in the enthusiastic fervency of his congratulatory greetings.

During this demonstration the redoubtable and notorious Captain Fawcett stood quietly looking on through its milling course, a sardonic smile faintly relieving the crass repulsiveness of his maimed countenance. The pirate had been 'shaved to the blood' that morning; dressed for the occasion with the greatest care. His carefully arranged locks were redolent of the oil of Bergamot, filched a week before out of the accessories of a lady passenger taken from the luckless vessel on which she had been coming out to the West Indies to join her planter husband. This lady had, after certain passing attentions from Saul Macartney, gone over the Swallow's side in plain sight of the volcanic cone of Nevis, the island of her destination.

That Macartney had brought Captain Fawcett ashore with him here in St Thomas was a piece of judgement so lamentably bad as to need no comment of any kind. His doing so initiated that swift course of events which brought down upon his handsome head that ruinous doom which stands, probably, as unique among the annals of retribution; that devasting doom which, for its horror and its strangeness, transcends and surpasses, in all human probability, even the direst fate, which, in this old world's long history, may have overtaken any other of the sons of men.

But the sheer effrontery of that act was utterly characteristic of Saul Macartney.

In the course of the long, painstaking, and probably exhaustive research which I, Gerald Canevin, set in motion in order to secure the whole range of facts forming the basis of this narrative— an investigation which has extended through more than three years and has taken me down some very curious by-paths of antique West Indian history as well as into contact with various strange characters and around a few very alluring corners of research— one aspect of the whole affair stands out in my mind most prominently. This is the fact that— as those many who nowadays increasingly rely for guidance upon the once discredited but now reviving science of astrology would phrase it— Saul Macartney was in all ways 'a typical Sagittarian'!

One of the more readily accessible facts which I looked up out of ancient, musty records in the course of this strange affair was the date of his birth. He had been born in the city of St Thomas on the twenty-eighth of November, in the year 1795. He was thus twenty-nine— in his thirtieth year and the full vigor of his manhood— at the time when Captain Fawcett had captured the Hope and, having lightened that vessel by emptying her hold of her cargo which he consigned to the sea, and having scuttled his own disabled vessel, had sailed for his home base among the Andros creeks.

From there a month later the transformed Swallow had emerged to maraud upon the Spanish Main. He was not yet out of his twenties when he had chosen to tempt fate by coming ashore with Fawcett in St Thomas. He was still short of thirty when a certain fateful day dawned in the month of September, 1825.

True to this hypothetical horoscope of his and to every sidereal circumstance accompanying it, Saul Macartney was an entirely self-centered person. With him the 'main chance' had always been paramount. It was this addiction to the main chance which had caused him to join Fawcett. A similar motive had actuated him in the notable coup which had at once, because of its sheer directness and the courage involved in it, established him in the high esteem of the pirate captain. There had been no sentiment in his killing of the gigantic mate, Franz. He was not thinking of avenging his own faithful lieutenant whom that hulking beast had slain with his bare hands before his eyes a moment before he had knifed the murderer.

His calculating sense of self-interest had been the sole motive behind that act. He could quite as easily have destroyed Fawcett himself, as he characteristically pointed out to that ruffian. He would have done so with equal ruthlessness save for his knowledge of the fact that he would have been overwhelmed immediately thereafter by Fawcett's underlings.

There is very little question but what he would have before very long succeeded to the command of the Swallow and the control of the considerable commerce in the slave trade and other similar illegitimate sources of revenue which went with the command of this piratical enterprise. He had already inaugurated the replacement of Captain Fawcett by himself in the esteem of that freebooter's numerous following well before the refurbished Swallow had sailed proudly out upon her current voyage. His unquestionable courage and enormous gift of personality had already been for some time combining actively to impress the pirate crew. Among them he was already a dominating figure.

Since well before he had attained manly maturity he had been irresistible to women. He was a natural fighter who loved conflict for its own sake. His skill with weapons was well-nigh phenomenal. In the prosecution of every affair which concerned his own benefit, he had always habituated himself to going straight to the mark. He was, in short, as it might be expressed, both with respect to women and the securing of his own advantage in general affairs, thoroughly spoiled by an unbroken course of getting precisely what he wanted.

This steady impact of continuous success and the sustained parallel effect of unceasing feminine adulation had entrenched in his character the fatal conviction that he could do as he pleased in every imaginable set of conditions.

The first reversal suffered in this unbroken course of selfish domination inaugurated itself not very long after he had stepped ashore with Captain Fawcett beside him. After ten minutes or so, Macartney gradually got himself free from the crowd of friends congratulating him there on the jetty.

Stimulated as he always was by such adulation, highly animated, his Irish blue eyes flashing, his smile unabated, his selfish heart full to repletion of his accustomed self-confidence, he disentangled himself from the still increasing crowd and, with several bows and various wavings of his left hand as he backed away from them, he rejoined Fawcett, linked his right arm through the crook of the pirate captain's left elbow and proceeded to conduct him into the town. Those fellows on the wharf were small fry! He would, as he smilingly mentioned in Fawcett's ear, prefer to introduce the captain at once into a gathering place where he would meet a group of gentlemen of greater importance.

They walked up into the town and turned to the left through the bustling traffic of its chief thoroughfare and, proceeding to the westward for a couple of hundred feet or so, turned in through a wide arched doorway above which, on its bracket, perched guardian-like a small gilded rooster. This was Le Coq d'Or, rendezvous of the more prosperous merchants of the flourishing city of St Thomas.

A considerable number of these prosperous worthies were already assembled at the time of their arrival in Le Coq d'Or. Several Negroes under the direction of the steward of this club-like clearing house were already bringing in and placing on the huge polished mahogany table the planter's punch, swizzles of brandy or rum, and sangaree such as always accompanied this late-morning assembly. It lacked only a minute or two of eleven, and the stroke of that hour was sacred at Le Coq d'Or and similar foregathering places as the swizzle hour. No less a personage than M. Daniell, some years before a refugee from the Haitian revolution and now a merchant prince here in the Danish colonial capital, was already twirling a carved swizzle stick in the fragrant iced interior of an enormous silver jug.

But this hospitable activity, as well as the innumerable conversations current about that board, ceased abruptly when these city burghers had recognized the tall, handsome gentleman in blue broadcloth who had just stepped in among them. It was, indeed, practically a repetition of what had occurred on the jetty, save that here the corporate and individual greetings were, if anything, more intimate and more vociferous.

Here were the natural associates, the intimates, the social equals of the Macartneys themselves— a well-to-do clan of proud, self-respecting personages deriving from the class of Irish Protestant high gentry which had come into these islands three generations before upon the invitation of the Danish Colonial Government.

Among those who rose out of their chairs to surround Saul Macartney with hilarious greetings was Denis Macartney, his father. He had suspected that the Old Man would be there. The two clasped each other in a long and affectionate embrace, Denis Macartney agitated and tearful, his son smiling with an unforced whimsicality throughout the intensive contact of this reunion. At last the Old Man, his tears of happiness still flowing, held off and gazed fondly at his handsome, strapping son, a pair of still trembling hands upon the shoulders of the beautiful new broadcloth coat.

'An' where, in God's own name, have ye been hidin' yourself away, me boy?' he asked solicitously.

The others grouped about, and now fallen silent, hovered about the edge of this demonstration, the universal West Indian courtesy only restraining their common enthusiasm to clasp the Macartney prodigal by his bronzed and shapely hands, to thump his back, to place kindly arms about his broad shoulders, later to thrust brimming goblets of cut crystal upon him that they might drink his health and generously toast his safe and unexpected return.

'I'll tell ye all about that later, sir,' said Saul Macartney, his dazzling smile lighting up his bronzed face. 'Ye'll understand, sir, my anxiety to see Camilla; though, of course, I looked in upon ye first off.'

And thereupon, in his sustained bravado, in the buoyancy of his fatal conviction that he, Saul Macartney, could get away with anything whatever he might choose to do, and taking full advantage of the disconcerting effect of his announcement that he must run off, he turned to Captain Fawcett, who had been standing close behind him and, an arm about the captain's shoulders, presented him formally to his father, to M. Daniell and, with a comprehensive wave of his disengaged arm, to the company at large; and, forthwith, well before the inevitable effect of this act could record itself upon the corporate mind of such a group, Saul Macartney had whirled about, reached the arched doorway almost at a run, and disappeared in the blinding glare, on his way to call upon his cousin Camilla.

The group of gentlemen assembled in Le Coq d'Or that morning, intensely preoccupied as they had been with the unexpected restoration to their midst of the missing mariner, Macartney, had barely observed the person who had accompanied him. They were now rather abruptly left facing their new guest, and their immediate reaction after Macartney's hasty departure was to stage a greeting for this very evil-looking but highly dandified fellow whom they found in their midst. To this they proceeded forthwith, actuated primarily by the unfailing and highly developed courtesy which has always been the outstanding characteristic of the Lesser Antilles.

There was not a man present who had not winced at the name which Saul Macartney had so clearly pronounced in the course of his threefold introduction of Captain Fawcett. For this name, as that of one of the principal maritime scourges of the day, was indeed very familiar to these men, attuned as they were to seafaring matters. Several of them, in fact, vessel owners, had actually been sufferers at the hands of this man who now sat among them.

Courtesy, however— and to a guest in this central sanctum— came first. Despite their initial suspicion, by no single overt act, nor by so much as a single glance, did any member of that polished company allow it to be suspected that he had at least given harborage to the idea that Saul Macartney had brought Fawcett the pirate here to Le Coq d'Or and left him among them as a guest.

Besides, doubtless, it occurred to each and every one of these excellent gentlemen, apart from the impossibility of such a situation being precipitated by anyone named Macartney— which was an additional loophole for them— the name of Fawcett was by no means an uncommon one; there might well be half a dozen Fawcetts on Lloyd's List who were or had been commanders of ships. It was, of course, possible that this over-dressed, tough-looking sea hawk had fooled the usually astute Saul.

As for Fawcett himself, the wolf among these domestic cattle, he was enjoying the situation vastly. The man was intelligent and shrewd, still capable of drawing about him the remnants of a genteel deportment; and, as the details of his projected coming ashore here had been quite fully discussed with Saul Macartney, he had anticipated and was quite well prepared to meet the reaction released at the first mention of that hated and dreaded name of his, and which he now plainly sensed all about him. There was probably even a touch of pride over what his nefarious reputation could evoke in a group like this to nerve him for the curious ordeal which had now begun for him.

It was, of course, his policy to play quietly a conservative— an almost negative— role. He busied now his always alert mind with this, returning courtesy for courtesy as his hosts toasted him formally, assured him of their welcome, exchanged with him those general remarks which precede any real breaking of the ice between an established group and some unknown and untried newcomer.

It was Old Macartney who gave him his chief stimulation by inquiring: 'An' what of me dear son, Captain? Ye will have been in his company for some time, it may be. It would be more than gracious of ye to relate to us— if so be ye're aware of it, perchance— what occurred to him on that last voyage of his from Sout' America.'

At this really unexpected query the entire room fell silent. Every gentleman present restrained his own speech as though a signal had been given. Only the Negro servants, intent upon their duties, continued to speak to each other under their breaths and to move soft-footedly about the room.

Captain Fawcett recognized at once that Mr Denis Macartney's question contained no challenge. He had even anticipated it, with a thin yarn of shipwreck, which he and Saul had concocted together. In a sudden access of whimsical bravado he abandoned this cooked-up tale. He would give them a story...

He turned with an elaborate show of courtesy to Old Macartney. He set down his half emptied goblet, paused, wiped his maimed mouth with a fine cambric handkerchief and set himself, in the breathless silence all about him, to reply.

'The freetraders took him, sir,' said Captain Fawcett. Then he nodded twice, deprecatingly; next he waved a hand, took up his goblet again, drank off its remaining contents in the sustained, pregnant silence, and again turned to Saul's father.

Settling himself somewhat more comfortably in his chair, he then proceeded to relate, with precise circumstantial detail, exactly what had actually taken place, only substituting for himself as the captor the name of the dreaded Jacob Brenner, who, like himself, had a place of refuge among the Andros creeks, and whom Captain Fawcett regarded with profound and bitter detestation as his principal rival.

He told his story through in the atmosphere of intense interest all about him. He made Captain Saul Macartney pretend to join the cutthroat Brenner and, the wish greatly father to the thought, brought his long yarn to a successful conclusion with the doughty Saul staging a desperate hand-to-hand encounter with his captor after going ashore with him on Andros Island, together with a really artistic sketching-in of his escape from the pirate settlement in a dinghy through the intricacies of the mosquito-infested creeks; and his ultimate harborage— 'well-nigh by chance, or a trace of what he names "the Macartney luck", sir'— with himself.

'I've a very pleasant little spot there on Andros,' added Captain Fawcett.

Then, satisfying another accession of his whimsicality: 'I'm certain any of you would be pleased with it, gentlemen. It's been good— very good and pleasurable, I do assure you— to have had Captain Macartney with me.'

And Fawcett, the pirate, whose own longboat had fetched him ashore here from that very vessel whose capture by freetraders on the high seas he had just been so graphically recounting, with a concluding short bow and a flourish of the left hand, took up his recently replenished crystal goblet and, again facing the senior Macartney, toasted him roundly on this, the glad occasion of his seafaring son's prosperous return.

Saul Macartney walked rapidly across the crowded main thoroughfare so as to avoid being recognized and stopped. He turned up a precipitous, winding and abruptly cornered street of varying width, and, following it between the many closely walled residences among which it wound, mounted at a rapid stride to a point two-thirds of the way up the hill. Here he paused to readjust his clothes and finally to wipe the sweat induced by his pace from his bronzed face with another fine cambric handkerchief like that being used by his colleague about this time down there at Le Coq d'Or. The two of them had divided evenly four dozen of these handkerchiefs not long before from the effects of a dandified French supercargo now feeding the fishes.

It was a very sultry day in the middle of the month of May, in that Spring period when the rata drums of the Negroes may be heard booming nightly from the wooded hills in the interior of the islands; when the annual shift in the direction of the trade wind between the points east and west of north seems to hang a curtain of sultriness over St Thomas on its three hillsides. It was one of those days when the burros' tongues hang out of dry mouths as they proceed along dusty roads; when centipedes leave their native dust and boldly cross the floors of houses; when ownerless dogs slink along the inner edges of the baking, narrow sidewalks in the slits of house shade away from the sun.

Saul Macartney had paused near the entrance to the spacious mansion of his uncle, Thomas Lanigan Macartney, which stood behind a stately grille of wrought iron eleven feet high, in its own grounds, and was approached through a wide gateway above which the cut stone arch supported a plaque on which had been carved the Macartney arms. Through this imposing entrance, his face now comfortably dry and his fine broadcloth coat readjusted to his entire satisfaction, Saul Macartney now entered and proceeded along the broad, shell-strewn path with its two borders of cemented pink conch shells toward the mansion.

Through the accident of being his father's first-born son and the rigid application of the principle of primogeniture which had always prevailed among the Macartney clan in the matter of inheritances, old T. L. Macartney possessed the bulk of the solid Macartney family fortune. He had married the only daughter of a retired Danish general who had been governor of the colony. Dying in office, the general had left behind him the memory of a sound administration and another substantial fortune which found its way through that connection into the Macartney coffers.

The only reason why Saul Macartney had not led his heavenly endowed cousin, Camilla, to the altar long before, was merely because he knew he could marry her any time. Camilla's lips had parted and her blue eyes become mysterious, soft and melting, at every sight of him since about the time she was eight and he ten. As for Saul Macartney, he could not remember the time when it had not been his settled intention to marry his cousin Camilla when he got ready. He was as sure of her as of the rising and setting of the sun; as that failure was a word without meaning to him; as that the Santa Cruz rum was and always would be the natural drink of gentlemen and sailors.

Jens Sorensen, the black butler, who had witnessed his arrival, had the door open with a flourish when Saul was halfway between the gate and the gallery. His bow as this favored guest entered the house was profound enough to strain the seams of his green broadcloth livery coat.

But black Jens received no reward for his assiduousness from the returned prodigal, beyond a nod. This was not like Saul in the least, but black Jens understood perfectly why Captain Macartney had not quizzed him, paused to slap mightily his broad back under his green coat, or to tweak the lobe of his right ear ornamented with its heavy ring of virgin gold, all of which attentions black Jens could ordinarily expect from this fine gentleman of his family's close kinfolk. There had been no time for such persiflage.

For, hardly had black Jens's huge, soft right hand begun the motion of closing the great door, when Camilla Macartney, apprised by some subtlety of 'the grapevine route' of her cousin's arrival, appeared on the threshold of the mansion's great drawing room, her lips parted, her eyes suffused with an inescapable emotion. Only momentarily she paused there. Then she was running toward him across the polished mahogany flooring of the wide hallway, and had melted into the firm clasp of Saul Macartney's brawny arms. Raising her head, she looked up into his face adoringly and Saul, responding, bent and kissed her long and tenderly. No sound save that occasioned by the soft-footed retirement of black Jens to his pantry broke the cool silence of the dignified hall. Then at last in a voice from Camilla Macartney that was little above a whisper: 'Saul— Saul, my darling! I am so glad, so glad! You will tell me all that transpired— later, Saul, my dear. Oh, it has been a dreadful time for me.'

Withdrawing herself very gently from his embrace, she turned and, before the great Copenhagen mirror against the hallway's south wall, made a small readjustment in her coiffure— her hair was of the purest, clearest Scandinavian gold, of a spun silk fineness. Beckoning her lover to follow, she then led the way into the mansion's drawing room.

As they entered, Camilla a step in advance of Macartney, there arose from a mahogany and rose-satin davenport the thickset figure of a handsome young man of about twenty-four, arrayed in the scarlet coat of His Britannic Majesty's line regiments of infantry. This was Captain the Honorable William McMillin, who, as a freshly commissioned coronet-of-horse, had actually fought under Wellington at Waterloo ten years before. Recently he had attained his captaincy, and sold out to undertake here in the Danish West Indies the resident management of a group of Santa Cruzian sugar estates, the property of his Scottish kinsfolk, the Comyns.

These two personable captains, one so-called because of his courtesy title, and the other with that honorable seafaring title really forfeited, were duly presented to each other by Camilla Macartney; and thereby was consummated another long stride forward in the rapid march of Saul Macartney's hovering doom.

The Scottish officer, sensing Saul's claim upon that household, retired ere long with precisely the correct degree of formality.

As soon as he was safely out of earshot Camilla Macartney rose and, seizing a small hassock, placed it near her cousin's feet. Seating herself on this, she looked up adoringly into his face and, her whole soul in her eyes, begged him to tell her what had happened since the day when he had cleared the Hope from Barranquilla.

Again Saul Macartney rushed forward upon his fate.

He told her, with circumstantial detail, the cooked-up story of shipwreck, including a touching piece of invention about three days and nights in the Hope's boats and his timely rescue by his new friend, Fawcett, master of the Swallow— a very charitable gentleman, proprietor of a kind of trading station on Andros in the Bahamas. Captain Fawcett, who had considerately brought the prodigal back to St Thomas, was at the moment being entertained in Le Coq d'Or.

Camilla Macartney's eyes grew wide at the name of Saul's rescuer. The first intimation of her subsequent change of attitude began with her exclamation: 'Saul! Not— not Captain Fawcett, the pirate! Not that dreadful man! I had always understood that his lying-up place was on the Island of Andros, among the creeks!'

Saul Macartney lied easily, reassuringly. He turned upon his cousin— anxious, now, as he could see, and troubled— the full battery of his engaging personality. He showed those beautiful teeth of his in a smile that would have melted the heart of a Galatea.

Camilla dropped the subject, entered upon a long explication of her happiness, her delight at having him back. He must remain for breakfast. Was his friend and benefactor, Captain Fawcett, suitably housed? He might, of course, stay here— her father would be so delighted at having him . . .

It was as though she were attempting, subconsciously, to annihilate her first faint doubt of her cousin Saul, in this enthusiasm for his rescuer. She rose and ran across the room, and jerked violently upon the ornamental bell rope. In almost immediate response to her ring black Jens entered the room softly, bowed before his mistress with a suggestion of prostrating himself.

'A place for Captain Macartney at the breakfast table. Champagne; two bottles— no, four— of the 1801 Chablis— is Miranda well along with the shell-crustadas?'

Again Camilla Macartney was reassured. All these commands would be precisely carried out.

Thereafter for a space, indeed, until the noon breakfast was announced, conversation languished between the cousins. For the first time in his life, had Saul Macartney been to the slightest degree critically observant, he would have detected in Camilla's bearing a vague hint that her mind toward him was not wholly at rest; but of this he noticed nothing. As always, and especially now under the stimulation of this curious game of bravado he and Fawcett were playing here in St Thomas, no warning, no sort of premonition, had penetrated the thick veneer of his selfishness, his fatuous conviction that any undertaking of his must necessarily proceed to a successful outcome.

He sat there thinking of how well he had managed things; of the chances of the Swallow's next venture on the Main; of the ripe physical beauty of Camilla; of various women here in the town.

And Camilla Macartney, beautiful, strangely composed, exquisitely dressed, as always, sat straight upright across from him, and looked steadily at her cousin, Saul Macartney. It was as though she envisaged vaguely how he was to transform her love into black hatred. A thin shadow of pain lay across her own Irish-blue eyes.

Captain the Honorable William McMillin, like many other personable young gentlemen before him, had been very deeply impressed with the quality of Camilla Macartney. But it was not only that West Indian gentlewoman's social graces and cool blond beauty that were responsible for this favorable impression. The young captain, a thoroughly hard-headed Scot with very much more behind his handsome forehead than the necessary knowledge of military tactics possessed by the ordinary line regiment officer, had been even more deeply impressed by other qualities obviously possessed by his West Indian hostess. Among these was her intellect; unusual, he thought, in a colonial lady not yet quite twenty-eight. Nothing like Miss Macartney's control of the many servants of the household had ever seemed possible to the captain.

From black Jens, the butler, to the third scullery maid, all of them, as they came severally under the notice of this guest, appeared to accord her a reverence hardly distinguishable from acts of worship. In going about the town with her, either walking for early evening exercise or in her father's barouche to make or return formal calls, the trained and observant eye of the young Scotsman had not failed to notice her effect upon the swarming Negro population of the town.

Obeisances from these marked her passage among them. The gay stridency of their street conversations lulled itself and was still at her passing.

Doffed hats, bows, veritable obeisances in rows and by companies swayed these street loiterers as her moving about among them left them hushed and worshipful in her wake.

Captain McMillin noted the very general respectful attitude of these blacks toward their white overlords, but, his eyes told him plainly, they appeared to regard Camilla Macartney as a kind of divinity.

In the reasonable desire to satisfy his mounting curiosity Captain McMillin had broached the matter to his hostess. A canny Scot, he had approached this matter indirectly. His initial questions had had to do with native manners and customs, always a safe general topic in a colony.

Camilla's direct answers had at once surprised him with their clarity and the exactitude of their information. It was unusual and— as the subject broadened out between them and Camilla told him more and more about the Negroes, their beliefs, their manner of life, their customs and practises— it began to be plain to Captain McMillin that it was more than unusual; if someone entitled to do so had asked him his opinion on Camilla Macartney's grasp of this rather esoteric subject, and the captain had answered freely and frankly, he would have been obliged to admit that it seemed to him uncanny.

For behind those social graces of hers which made Camilla Macartney a notable figure in the polite society of this Danish Colonial capital, apart from the distinction of her family connection, her commanding position as the richest heiress in the colony, her acknowledged intellectual attainments, and the distinguished beauty of face and form which lent a pervading graciousness to her every act, Camilla Macartney was almost wholly occupied by two consuming interests.

Of these, the first, generally known by every man, woman and child in St Thomas, was her preoccupation with her cousin, Saul Macartney. The other, unsuspected by any white person in or out of Camilla Macartney's wide acquaintance, was her knowledge of the magic of the Negroes.

The subject had been virtually an obsession with her since childhood. Upon it she had centered her attention, concentrated her fine mind and using every possible opportunity which her independent position and the enormous amount of material at hand afforded, had mastered it in theory and practise throughout its almost innumerable ramifications.

There was, first, the obeah. This, deriving originally from the Ashantee slaves, had come into the West Indies through the gate of Jamaica. It was a combined system of magical formulas and the use of drugs. Through it a skillful practitioner could obtain extraordinary results. It involved a very complete materia medica, and a background setting for the usage and practise thereof, which reached back through uncounted centuries into rituals that were the very heart of primitive savagery.

The much more greatly extended affair called Voodoo, an extraordinarily complex fabric of 'black', 'white', and revelatory occultism, had made its way through the islands chiefly through the Haitian doorway from its proximate source, Dahomey, whence the early French colonists of Hispaniola had brought their original quotas of black slaves.

Voodoo, an infinitely broader and more stratified system than the medicinal obeah, involved much that appeared to the average white person mere superficial Negro 'stupidness'. But in its deeper and more basic aspects it included many very terrible things, which Camilla Macartney had encountered, succeeded in understanding, and appropriated into this terrific fund of black learning which was hers as this fell subject took her through the dim backgrounds of its origin to the unspeakable snake worship of Africa's blackest and deadliest interior.

The considerable Negro population of the island, from the most fanatical Hougan presiding in the high hills over the dire periodic rites of the 'baptism' and the slaughter of goats and bullocks and willingly offered human victims whose blood, mingled with red rum, made that unholy communion out of which grew the unnameable orgies of the deep interior heights, down to the lowliest piccaninny gathering fruits or stealing yams for the sustenance of his emaciated body— every one of these blacks was aware of this singular preoccupation; acknowledged the supremacy of this extraordinarily gifted white lady; paid her reverence; feared her acknowledged powers; would as soon have lopped off a foot as to cross her lightest wish.

Captain the Honorable William McMillin made up his mind that her grasp of these matters was extraordinary. His questionings and Camilla's informative replies had barely touched upon the edge of what she knew.

And the former captain, her cousin, Saul Macartney, did not know that his heiress cousin cherished any interest except that which she had always demonstrated so plainly in his own direction.

Going in to breakfast, Saul Macartney was nearly knocked off his feet by the physical impact of his uncle's greeting. Camilla's father had been spending the morning overlooking a property of his east of the town, in the direction of Smith's Bay. He had thus missed meeting Saul at Le Coq d'Or, but had learned of his nephew's arrival on his way home. The town, indeed, was agog with it.

So sustained was his enthusiasm, the more especially after imbibing his share of the unusually large provision of wine for a midday meal which his daughter's desire to honor the occasion had provided, that he monopolized most of his nephew's attention throughout breakfast and later in the drawing room after the conclusion of that meal. It was perhaps because of this joviality on his uncle's part that Saul Macartney failed to observe the totally new expression which had rested like a very small cloud on Camilla Macartney's face ever since a short time before going into the dining room.

His uncle even insisted upon sending the prodigal home in the English barouche, and in this elegant equipage— with its sleek, Danish coach horses and the liveried Negroes on its box with cockades at the sides of their glistening silk toppers— he made the brief journey down one hill, a short distance through the town, and up another one to his father's house.

Here, it being well after two o'clock in the afternoon, and siesta hour, he found Fawcett, whom the Old Man had taken under his hospitable wing. The two had no private conversation together. Both were in high spirits and these Old Macartney fostered with his cordials, his French brandy and a carafe of very ancient rum. The three men sat together over their liquor during the siesta hour, and during the session Old Macartney did most of the talking. He did not once refer to his son's capture by Brenner, the freebooter.

He confined himself in his desire to be entertaining to his son's benefactor, Captain Fawcett, to a joyous succession of merry tales and ripe, antique quips. Saul Macartney had therefore no reason to suspect, nor did it happen to occur to Fawcett to inform him, that the latter's account of Macartney's adventures since the time he had last been heard from until the present was in any wise different from the tale of shipwreck upon which they had agreed and which Macartney had told out in full to his cousin, Camilla.

The three had not finished their jovial session before various strange matters affecting them very nearly, odd rumors, now being discussed avidly in various offices, residences, and gathering places about St Thomas, were gathering headway, taking on various characteristic exaggerations and, indeed, running like wildfire through the town.

In a place like St Thomas, crossroads and clearing house of the vast West Indian trade which came and went through that port and whose prosperity was dependent almost wholly upon shipping, even the town's riff-raff was accustomed to think and express itself in terms of ships.

It was an unimportant, loquacious Negro youth who started the ball a-rolling. This fellow, a professional diver, came up to one of the wharves in his slab-sided, home-made rowboat where he lounged aft, submitting to the propulsion of his coal-black younger brother, a scrawny lad of twelve. This wharf rat had had himself rowed out to the vessel from which the two notables he had observed had come ashore that morning. It was from the lips of this black ne'er-do-well that various other wharfside loiterers learned that the beautiful clipper vessel lying out there at anchor was provided with eight carronade ports.

Out of the idle curiosity thus initially aroused there proceeded various other harbor excursions in small boats. The black diver had somehow managed to miss the stanchion of the 'long tom' which Fawcett, in an interval of prudence, had had dismounted the night before. The fact that the Swallow carried such an armament, however, very soon trickled ashore.

This nucleus of interesting information was soon followed up and almost eclipsed in interest by the various discussions and arguments which were soon running rife among the shipping interests of the town over the extra-ordinary numbers of the Swallow's crew.

A round dozen, together with the usual pair of mates to supplement the captain, as all these experts on ships were well aware, would ordinarily suffice for a vessel of this tonnage. Accounts and the terms of the various arguments varied between estimates ranging from seventy-five to a hundred men on board the Swallow.

A side issue within this category was also warmly discussed. Crews of vessels with home ports in the islands were commonly Negro crews. This unprecedented gathering of men was a white group. Only two— certain of the debaters held out firmly that they had observed three— Negroes were to be perceived aboard the Swallow, and one of these, a gigantic brown man who wore nothing but earrings and a pair of faded dungaree trousers, was plainly the cook in charge of the Swallow's galley, and the other, or others, were this fellow's assistants.

But the town got its real fillip from the quite definite statement of a small-fry worthy, one Jeems Pelman, who really gave them something to wrangle about when he came ashore after a visit of scrutiny and stated flatly that this rakish, shining, black hulled clipper was none other vessel than the Macartneys' Hope, upon both hull and rigging of which he had worked steadily for three months in his own shipyard when the Hope was built during the winter of 1819.

All these items of easily authenticated information bulked together and indicated to the comparitively unsophisticated, as well as to the wiseacres, only one possible conclusion. This was that the Macartney vessel, in command of which Captain Saul Macartney was known to have cleared from a South American port three months earlier, had in some as yet unexplained fashion been changed over into a free-trading ship and that the harsh-featured seadog in his fine clothes who had accompanied Captain Macartney ashore that morning could very well be none other than its commander.

A certain lapse of time is ordinarily requisite for the loquacious stage of drunkenness to overtake the average hard-headed seafaring man. The crew of Fawcett's longboat, after three weeks' continuous duty at sea, had bestowed the boat safely, engaged the services of an elderly Negro to watch it in their absence, and drifted into the low rum shop nearest their landing place; and there not long after their arrival Fawcett's boatswain, a Dutch island bruiser, had been recognized by several former acquaintances as a sailorman who had gone out of the harbor of St Eustasia in a small trading schooner which had disappeared off the face of the wide Caribbean three years previously.

The rum-induced garrulity of this gentleman, as the report of it went forth and flared through the town, corroborated the as yet tentative conclusion that a fully manned pirate ship lay for the time being at anchor in the peaceful harbor of St Thomas; and that its master, whose identity as a certain Captain Fawcett had spread downward through the social strata from Le Coq d'Or itself, was here ashore, hobnobbing with the town's high gentry, and actually a guest of the Macartneys.

By three o'clock in the afternoon the town was seething with the news. There had been no such choice morsel to roll on the tongue since Henry Morgan had sacked the city of Panama.

The first corroboration of that vague, distressing, but as yet unformed suspicion which had lodged itself in Camilla Macartney's mind came to her through Jens Sorensen, the butler. The 'grapevine route', so-called— that curious door-to-door and mouth-to-ear method of communication among the Negroes of the community— is very rapid as well as very mysterious. Black Jens had heard this devastating story relayed up to him from the lowest black riff-raff of the town's waterfront a matter of minutes after the name of their guest, seeping downward from Le Coq d'Or, had met, mingled with, and crowned the damnatory group of successive details from the wharves.

To anyone familiar with the effect of Voodoo upon the Negro mentality there would be nothing surprising in the fact that black Jens proceeded straight to his mistress to whisper the story without any delay. For fear is the dominant note of the Voodooist. The St Thomas Negroes were actuated in their attitude toward Camilla Macartney by something infinitely deeper than that superficial respect which Captain McMillin had noted. They feared her and her proven powers as they feared the dread demigod Damballa, tutelary manifestation of the unnamed Guinea-Snake himself.

For it was not as one who only inquires and studies that Camilla Macartney commanded awe and reverence from the St Thomas Negroes. She had practised this extraordinary art and it was her results as something quite tangible, definite and unmistakable which formed the background of that vast respect, and which had brought black Jens cringing and trembling into her presence on this particular occasion.

And black Jens had not failed to include in his report the drunken sailorman's leering account of that captive lady's treatment by Saul Macartney— how an innocent young wife, off Nevis, had been outrageously forced into Saul's cabin, and when he had tired of her, how he had sent her back to the deck to go across the plank of death.

What desolation penetrated deep and lodged itself there in Camilla Macartney's soul can hardly be guessed at. From that moment she was convinced of the deep infamy of that entrancing lover-cousin of hers whom she had adored with her whole heart since the remoteness of her early childhood.

But, however poignantly indescribable, however extremely devastating, may have been her private feelings, it is certain that she did not retire as the typical gentlewoman of the period would have done to eat out her heart in solitary desolation.

Within ten minutes, on the contrary, in response to her immediately issued orders, the English barouche with its sleek Danish horses, its cockaded servants on the box, was carrying her down the hill, rapidly along through the town, and then the heavy coach horses were sweating up the other hill toward her uncle's house. If the seed of hatred, planted by Saul's duplicity, were already sprouting, nevertheless she would warn him. She dreaded meeting him.

Saul Macartney, summoned away from the somewhat drowsy end of that afternoon's convivial session with Fawcett and the Old Man, found his cousin awaiting him near the drawing room door. She was standing, and her appearance was calm and collected. She addressed him directly, without preamble.

'Saul, it is known in the town. I came to warn you. It is running about the streets that this Captain Fawcett of yours is the pirate. One of his men has been recognized. He talked in one of the rum shops. They say that this ship is the Hope, altered into a different appearance. I advise you to go, Saul— go at once, while it is safe!'

Saul Macartney turned his old disarming smile upon his cousin. He could feel the liquor he had drunk warming him, but his hard Irish head was reasonably clear. He was not befuddled. He stepped toward her as though impulsively, his bronzed face flushed from his recent potations, his arms extended and spread in a carefree gesture as though he were about to take her in his embrace.

'Camilla, allana, ye should not sadden your sweet face over the likes of me. I know well what I'm about, me darling. And as for Fawcett— well, as ye're aware of his identity, ye'll know that he can care for himself. Very suitably, very suitably indeed.'

He had advanced very close upon her now, but she stood unmoving, the serious expression of her face not changed. She only held up a hand in a slight gesture against him, as though to warn him to pause and think. Again Saul Macartney stepped lightly toward his doom.

'And may I not be having a kiss, Camilla?' His smiling face was unperturbed, his self-confidence unimpaired even now. Then, fatally, he added, 'And now that ye're here, acushla, why should ye not have me present my friend, the captain? 'Twas he, ye'll remember, that brought me back to ye. I could be fetching him within the moment.'

But Camilla Macartney merely looked at him with a level gaze.

'I am going now,' she said, ignoring his suggestion and the crass insult to her gentility involved in it, and which beneath her calm exterior had outraged her and seared her very soul. The seed was growing apace. 'I have warned you, Saul.'

She turned and walked out of the room and out of the house; then across the tiled gallery and down the black marble steps, and out to her carriage.

Saul Macartney hastened back to his father and Fawcett. Despite his incurable bravado, motivated as always by his deep seated selfishness, he had simply accepted the warning just given him at its face value. He addressed his drowsing father after a swift, meaningful glance at Fawcett: 'We shall be needing the carriage, sir, if so be it's agreeable to ye. We must be getting back on board, it appears, and I'll be hoping to look in on ye again in the morning, sir.'

And without waiting for any permission, and ignoring his father's liquor-muffled protests against this abrupt departure, Saul Macartney rang the bell, ordered the family carriage to be waiting in the shortest possible time, and pressed a rix-dollar into the Negro butler's hand as an incentive to hasten the process.

Within a quarter of an hour, after hasty farewells to the tearful and now well befuddled Old Man, these two precious scoundrels were well on their way through the town toward the jetty where they had landed, and where, upon arrival, they collected their boat's crew out of the rum shop with vigorous revilings and not a few hearty clouts, and were shortly speeding across the turquoise and indigo waters of St Thomas harbor toward the anchored Swallow.

Inside half an hour from their going up over her side and the hoisting of the longboat, the Swallow, without reference to the harbormaster, clearance, or any other formality, was picking her lordly way daintily out past Colwell's Battery at the harbor mouth, and was soon lost to the sight of all curious watchers in the welcoming swell of the Caribbean.

This extraordinary visit of the supposedly long-drowned Captain Macartney to his native town, and the circumstances accompanying it, was a nine-days' wonder in St Thomas. The widespread discussion it provoked died down after a while, it being supplanted in current interest by the many occurrences in so busy a port-of-call. It was not, of course, forgotten, although it dropped out of mind as a subject for acute debate.

Such opinion as remained after the arguments had been abandoned was divided opinion. Could the vessel possibly have been the Macartneys' Hope? Was this Captain Fawcett who had brought Saul Macartney ashore Captain Fawcett, the pirate? Had Captain Saul Macartney really thrown in his lot with freetraders, or was such a course unthinkable on his part?

The yarn which Captain Fawcett had spun in Le Coq d'Or seemed the reasonable explanation— if it were true. In the face of the fact that no other counter-explanation had been definitely put forward by anybody, this version was tacitly accepted by St Thomas society; but with the proviso, very generally made and very widely held, that this fellow must have been the Captain Fawcett after all. Saul Macartney had either been fooled by him, or else Saul's natural gratitude had served to cover, in his estimation of the fellow, any observed shortcomings on the part of this rescuer and friend-in-need.

Camilla Macartney made no allusion whatever, even within the family circle, to the story Saul had told her. She was not, of course, called upon to express any opinion outside. She was quite well aware that both versions were falsehoods.

She faced bravely, though with a sorely empty and broken heart, all her manifold social obligations in the town. Indeed, somewhat to distract her tortured mind, wherein that seed of hate was by now growing into a lusty plant, the heiress of the Macartney fortune engaged herself rather more fully than usual that summer season in the various current activities. She forced herself to a greater pre-occupation than ever in her attention to her occult pursuits. She even took up afresh the oil painting, long ago abandoned by her, which had been one of her early 'accomplishments'.

It was during this period— a very dreadful one for her, succeeding as it did, abruptly upon her momentary happiness at her cousin Saul's restoration to the land of the living which had dissipated her acute and sustained grief over his presumptive loss at sea in the Hope— that she undertook, with what obscure premonitory motive derived from curious skill in the strange and terrible arts of the black people can only be darkly surmised— another and very definite task.

This was the painting of a panoramic view of the town as seen from the harbor. At this she toiled day after day from the awninged afterdeck of one of the smaller Macartney packet vessels. This boat had been anchored to serve her purpose at the point of vantage she had selected. She worked at her panorama in the clear, pure light of many early summer mornings. Before her on the rather large canvas she had chosen for this purpose there gradually grew into objectivity the wharves, the public buildings, the fort, the three hills with their red-roofed mansions, set amid decorative trees. Her almost incredible industry was, really, a symptom of the strange obsession now beginning to invade her reason. Camilla Macartney had suffered a definite mental lesion.

The scrupulous courtesy of the St Thomians, that graceful mantle of manners which has never been allowed to wear thin, was unobtrusively interposed between the respected Macartneys and the dreadful scandal which had reached out and touched their impeccable family garment of respectability. By no word spoken, by no overt act, by not so much as a breath were they reminded of Captain Macartney's recent visit ashore or his hasty and irregular departure. Captain McMillin, therefore, as a guest of Camilla's father, heard nothing of it. He sensed, however, a certain indefinite undercurrent of family trouble and, yielding to this sure instinct, ended his visit with all the niceties of high breeding and departed for Santa Cruz.

Just before he left, on the morning after the farewell dinner which had been given as a final gesture in his honor, the captain managed to convey to Camilla the measure of his appreciation. He placed, as it were, his sword at her disposal! It was very nicely made— that gesture of gallantry. It was not to be mistaken for the preliminary to a possible later offer of marriage. It was anything but braggadoccio. And it was somehow entirely appropriate to the situation. The handsome, upstanding captain left with his hostess precisely the impression he intended; that is, he left her the feeling that he was an adequate person to depend upon in a pinch, and that she had been invited to depend upon him should the pinch come.

A third of the way up one of the low mountains north-ward and behind the three gentle hills on the southern slopes of which the ancient city of St Thomas is built, there stood— and still stands— a small stone gentry residence originally built in the middle of the eighteenth century by an exiled French family which had taken refuge in this kindly Danish colony and played at raising vanilla up there on their airy little estate overlooking the town and the sea.

This place was still known by its original name of Ma Folie— a title early bestowed upon it by Mme la Marquise, who had looked up at it through a window in her temporary apartment in the Hotel du Commerce, in the town, while the roofing was being placed upon her new house, there and then assuring herself that only perched upon the back of one of those diminutive burros which cluttered up the town streets could anyone like herself possibly manage the ascent to such a site.

Ma Folie was now one of the many Macartney properties. It belonged to Camilla, having come to her as a portion of her maternal inheritance, and upon it she had re-established the vanilla planting, helped out by several freshly cleared acres in cocoa. No donkey was required nowadays to convey a lady up the tortuous, steep, little trail from the town to Ma Folie. A carriage road led past its unpretentious square entrance posts of whitewashed, cemented stone, and when Camilla Macartney visited her hillside estate the English barouche carried her there, the long climb causing the heavy coach horses to sweat mightily and helping, as the coal-black coachman said, to keep them in condition.

It was up here that she had long ago established what might be called her laboratory. It was at Ma Folie, whose village housed only Negroes selected by herself as her tenant-laborers, that she had, in the course of years, brought the practice of the 'strange art' to its perfection. She had for some time now confined her practise to meeting what might be called charitable demands upon her.

Talismans to protect; amulets to attract or repel; potent ouangas— only such modest products of the fine art of Voodoo as these went out from that occult workshop of hers at Ma Folie— went out into the eager, outstretched hands of the afflicted whose manifold plights had engaged Camilla Macartney's sympathy; to the relief of those abject ones who called upon her, in fear and trembling, as their last resort against who knows what obscure devilish attacks, what outrageous charmings, wrought by that inimical ruthlessness of one Negro to another which Caucasians hardly suspect.

No vanilla pod, no single cocoa bean, had been stolen from Ma Folie estate since Camilla Macartney had planted it afresh nine years before...

It was at about ten o'clock in the morning of a day near the middle of August that a kind of tremor of emotion ran through the town of St Thomas, a matter of minutes after a report of the official watcher and the many other persons in the town and along the wharves whose sustained interest in shipping matters caused their eyes to turn ever and anon toward the wide harbor mouth. The Swallow, which three months before had literally run away, ignoring all the niceties of a ship's departure from any port and even the official leavetaking, was coming in brazenly, lilting daintily along under the stiff trade, her decks visibly swarming with the many members of her efficient and numerous crew.

She came up into the wind like a little man-o'-war, jauntily, her sails coming down simultaneously with a precision to warm the hearts of those ship-wise watchers, her rigging slatting with reports like musket shots, the furling and stowing of canvas a truly marvelous demonstration of the efficiency which now reigned aft.

These details of rapid-fire seamanship, swiftly as they were being handled, were as yet incomplete when the long-boat went straight down from its davits into the water and Saul Macartney followed his boat's crew over the side and picked up his tiller ropes.

The Swallow's anchorage this time was closer in, and it seemed no time at all to the thronging, gaping watchers on the jetty before he sprang ashore and was up the steps. There was no rum shop for the boat's crew this time. Without their officer's even looking back at them over his shoulder the oarsmen pushed off, turned about and rowed back to the Swallow.

Saul Macartney was, if possible, even more debonair than ever. His self-confident smile adorned his even more heavily bronzed face. He was hatless, as usual, and his handsome figure was mightily set off by a gaily sprigged waistcoat and a ruffled shirt of fine cambric which showed between the silver braided lapels of the maroon-colored coat of French cloth with a deep velvet collar, the pantaloons of which, matching the coat's cloth, were strapped under a pair of low boots of very shining black leather.

The throng on the jetty was plainly in a different mood as compared to the vociferous, welcoming mob of three months before. They stayed close together in a little phalanx this time and from them came fewer welcoming smiles.

Plainly sensing this, Saul Macartney bestowed on this riffraff of the wharves no more than a passing glance of smiling raillery. He passed them and entered the town with rapid, purposeful strides as though intent on some very definite business and, utterly ignoring the hum of released though muted conversation which rose behind him as though from an aroused swarm of bees, entered the main thoroughfare, turned sharply to his left along it, proceeded in this direction some forty feet, and turned into the small office of one Axel Petersen, a purveyor of ships' stores.

Blond, stout, genial Axel Petersen stared from his broad, comfortable desk at this entrance and allowed his lower jaw to sag. Then he rose uncertainly to his feet and his four neatly garbed mulatto clerks rose from their four respective high stools with him and, in precise conformity with their employer's facial reaction, their four pairs of mottled-iris eyes rounded out altogether like saucers, and their four lower jaws sagged in unison.

Saul Macartney threw back his head and laughed aloud. Then, addressing Petersen: 'Axel, Axel! I couldn't've thought it of ye! 'Tis but stores I'm after, man— vast stores, the likes of which ye might be selling in the course of a week to five vessels, if so be ye had the fortune to get that many all in one week!' Then, a shade more seriously, ' 'Tis pork I want; beans, coffee in sacks, limes by the gunny sack— a hundred and one things, all of them written down to save ye trouble, ye great, feckless porker! And here— beside the list which I'm handing ye now— is the reassurance— '

And Saul Macartney, thrusting his list of ship's supplies neatly printed on a long slip of paper under the nose of the stultified Petersen, slapped down upon the desk top beside it the bulging purse which he had hauled out of the tail pocket of his beautiful, maroon colored French coat.

'There's two hundred and fifty English sovereigns there forninst ye, Axel. Ye can have it counted out or do it yourself, and if that does not suffice to cover the list, why, there's another shot in the locker behind it, ye omadhoun— ye fat robber of pettifogging ships' stewards!'

And before the protruding, bemused blue eyes of portly Axel Petersen Saul Macartney shook banteringly a thick sheaf of Bank of England ten pound notes. By the time he had returned these to the same capacious pocket, he was at the door, had paused, turned and, leaning for an instant nonchalantly against its jamb, remarked— 'Ye're to have the stores piled on your wharf not an instant later than two o'clock this day.' Then, the bantering smile again to the fore, and shaking a long, shapely forefinger toward the goggling dealer in ships' stores, he added, 'Ye'll observe, Axel, I'm not taking your stores by force and arms. I'm not sacking the town— this time!'

Then Saul Macartney was gone, and Axel Petersen, muttering unintelligibly as he assembled his scattered wits and those of his four clerks, the heavy purse clutched tightly by its middle in one pudgy hand, and the long list of the Swallow's required stores held a little unsteadily before his nearsighted blue-eyes, methodically began the process of getting this enormous order assembled.

It was with a perfectly calm exterior that Camilla Macartney received her cousin Saul a quarter of an hour later. The turmoil beneath this prideful reserve might, perhaps, be guessed at; but as the art of guessing had never formed any part of Saul Macartney's mental equipment, he made no effort in that direction.

He began at once with his usual self-confident directness upon what he had come to say.

'Camilla, acushla, I've come to ye in haste, 'tis true, and I'm asking your indulgence for that. 'Twas gracious of ye, as always, to be here at home when I chanced to arrive.

'I'll go straight to the point, if so be ye have no objections to make, and say in plain words what I well know to have been in the hearts of the two of us this many a year. I'm askin' ye now, Camilla— I'm begging ye with my whole soul to say that ye'll drive down with me now, Camilla, to the English Church, and the two of us be married, and then sail with me for the truly magnificent home I've been establishing for ye over on Andros.'

Camilla Macartney continued to sit, outwardly unmoved, where she had received him when black Jens had shown him into the drawing room. She had not been looking at her cousin during this characteristically confident and even impulsive declaration of his. Her eyes were upon her hands which lay, lightly clasped, in her lap, and she did not raise them to reply. She did not, however, keep him waiting. She said in a perfectly level voice in which there was apparently no single trace or indication of the tearing, internal emotion which surged through her outraged heart at this last and unforgivable insult— 'I shall not become your wife, Saul— now or ever.'

Then, as he stood before her, his buoyant self-confidence for once checked, his face suddenly configured into something like the momentary grotesqueness of Axel Petersen's, she added, in that same level tone, which had about it now, however, the smallest suggestion of a rising inflection: 'Do not come to me again. Go now— at once.'

This final interview with her cousin Saul was unquestionably the element which served to crystallize into an active and sustained hatred the successive emotional crises and their consequent abnormal states of mind which the events here recorded had stirred up within this woman so terribly equipped for vengeance. The seed of hatred was now a full-grown plant.

Upon a woman of Camilla Macartney's depth and emotional capacity the felonious behavior of Saul Macartney had had a very terrible, and a very deep-reaching, mental effect. She had adored and worshipped him for as long as she could remember. He had torn down and riven apart and left lying about her in brutally shattered fragments the whole structure of her life. He had smashed the solid pride of her family into shreds. He had disgraced himself blatantly, deliberately, with a ruthless abandon. He had piled insult to her upon insult. He had taken her pure love for him, crushed and defiled it.

And now these irresistible blows had had the terrible effect of breaking down the serene composure of this gentlewoman. All her love for her cousin and all her pride in him were transformed into one definite, flaming and consuming purpose: she must wipe out those dreadful stains!

Arrived in the empty library, Camilla Macartney went straight to the great rosewood desk, and without any delay wrote a letter. The black footman who hurried with this missive down the hill actually passed Saul Macartney, likewise descending it. Within a very short time after its reception the captain of the little packet-vessel— upon which, anchored quite close to shore, Camilla Macartney had been painting her nearly finished panorama of the town— had gone ashore to round up his full crew. The packet itself, with Camilla Macartney on board, sailed out of St Thomas harbor that afternoon in plain sight of the restocked Swallow, whose great spread of gleaming white canvas showed gloriously under the afternoon's sun as she laid her course due southwest. The packet, laying hers to the southward, rolled and tossed at a steady eight-knot clip under the spanking trade, straight for the Island of Santa Cruz.

Captain the Honorable William McMillin was summoned from his seven o'clock dinner in his estate house up in the gentle hills of the island's north side, and only his phlegmatic Scottish temperament, working together with his aristocratic self-control, prevented his shapely jaw from sagging and his blue eyes from becoming saucer-like when they had recorded for him the identity of this wholly unexpected visitor. Camilla Macartney wasted none of the captain's time, nor was her arrival cause for any cooling of the excellent repast from which he had arisen to receive her.

'I have not,' said she downrightly in response to the astonished captain's initial inquiry as to whether she had dined. 'And,' she added, 'I should be glad to sit down with you at once, if that meets your convenience, sir. It is, as you may very well have surmised, a very deep and pressing matter upon which I have ventured to come to you. That, I should imagine, would best be discussed while we sit at table, and so without delay.'

Again the captain demonstrated his admirable manners. He merely bowed and led the way to the door of his dining room.

Once seated opposite Captain McMillin, Camilla Macartney again went straight to her point. The captain quite definitely forgot to eat in the amazing and immediate interest of what she proceeded to say.

'I am offering the reward of a thousand English sovereigns for the apprehension at sea and the bringing to St Thomas for their trials of the free-trader, Fawcett, and his mates. It may very well be no secret to you, sir, that a member of our family is one of these men. I think that any comment between us upon that subject will be a superfluity. You will take note, if you please, that it is I, a member of our family, who offer the reward I have named for his apprehension. You will understand— everything that is involved.

'Earlier this day it was proposed to me that I should sail away upon a ship without very much notice. I have come here to you, sir, on one of my father's vessels— Captain Stewart, her commander, a trusted man in our employ, has accompanied me all the way to your door. He is here now, waiting in the hired calèche which I secured in Frederiksted for the drive here to your house. Perhaps you will be good enough to have some food taken to him.

'I have come, Captain McMillin, in all this haste, actually to request you to do the same thing that I mentioned— you made me see, when you were our guest, that I could wholly rely upon you, sir. I am here to ask you, as a military man, to command the expedition which I am sending out. I am asking you to sail back with Captain Stewart and me for St Thomas— tonight.'

Captain McMillin looked at Camilla Macartney across the length of his glistening mahogany dining table. He had been listening very carefully to her speech. He rang his table bell now that he was sure she was finished, and when his serving man answered this summons, ordered him to prepare a repast for the waiting ship's captain, and to send in to him his groom. Then, with a bow to his guest, and pushing back his chair and rising, he said: 'You will excuse me, Miss Macartney, I trust, for the little time I shall require to pack. It will not occupy me very long.'

iv

THE story of how the Hyperion, newest and swiftest of all the Macartney vessels, was outfitted and armed for the pursuit and capture of Captain Fawcett is a little epic in itself. It would include among many details extant the intensive search among the shipping resources of St Thomas, for the swivelgun which, two days after Captain McMillin's arrival on the scene, was being securely bolted through the oak timbers of the Hyperion's afterdeck.

A surprisingly complete record of this extraordinary piece of activity survives among the ancient colonial archives. Perhaps the recording clerk of the period, in his Government House office, was, like everyone else in St Thomas, fascinated by the ruthless swiftness with which that job, under the impact of Camilla Macartney's eye, was pushed through to a successful conclusion in precisely forty-eight hours. Nothing like this rate of speed had ever been heard of, even in St Thomas. The many men engaged in this herculean task at Pelman's Shipyard worked day and night continuously in three eight-hour shifts.

It is significant that these shipwrights and other skilled artisans were all Negroes. They had assembled in their scores and dozens from every quarter of the widespread town, irrespective of age or the exactions of their current employment, from the instant that the grapevine route spread through the black population of the town the summons to this task which Camilla Macartney had quietly uttered in the ear of her butler, Jens Sorensen.

The Hyperion, under the command of her own officers but with the understanding that Captain McMillin was in sole charge of the expedition, came up with the Swallow a little under four days from the hour of her sailing out of St Thomas harbor.

Captain McMillin caught Fawcett at a vast disadvantage. The Swallow, very lightly manned at the moment, hung in stays, her riding sails flapping with reports like pistol shots as her graceful head was held into the wind. She lay some ten ship-lengths away to the leeward of an American merchant vessel about which the Swallow's boats— now nine in number— were grouped, a single member of the crew in each. Fawcett and his two lieutenants, and nine-tenths of his crew of cut-throats, were ransacking their prize, whose officers, crew and passengers had been disposed of under nailed hatches. They appeared, indeed, to be so thoroughly occupied in this nefarious work as to have ignored entirely any preparations for meeting the Hyperion's attack— a circumstance sufficiently strange to have impressed Captain McMillin profoundly.

The Hyperion's officers, unable to account for this singular quiescence on the part of the pirates, attributed it to their probably failing to suspect that the Hyperion was anything but another trading vessel which had happened to blunder along on her course into this proximity. With a strange, quick gripping at the heart, quite new in his experience, Captain McMillin permitted himself to suspect, though for a brief instant only, that something of the strange power which he had glimpsed in his contacts with Camilla Macartney, might in some extraordinary fashion be somehow responsible for this phenomenon.

But this thought, as too utterly ridiculous for harborage in a normal man's mind, he put away from him instanter.

The strategy of the situation appeared to be simple. And Captain McMillin formulated his plan of attack accordingly, after a brief consultation with his officers.

Realizing that there could be no effective gunnery from the handful of men in charge of the Swallow, Captain McMillin ordered a dozen men in charge of the Hyperion's second mate over the side in the largest of the boats. The maneuver of dropping an already manned boat from the davits— a risky undertaking in any event— was handled successfully, an exceptionally quiet sea contributing to the management of this piece of seamanship.

This boat's crew, all Negroes and all armed with the pistols and cutlasses which had been hastily served out to them, had no difficulty whatever in getting over the Swallow's side and making themselves masters of the pirate vessel. The dozen Negroes had butchered the seven members of the pirate crew left on board the Swallow within forty seconds of their landing upon her deck, and Mr Matthews, the officer in charge of them, hauled down with his own hand the Jolly Roger which, true to the freetrading traditions of the Main, flaunted at the Swallow's main peak.

The magnificent cooperation of the fifteen Negroes constituting the Hyperion's deck crew made possible the next daring piece of seamanship which the Hyperion's captain had agreed to attempt. This was Captain McMillin's plan.

The Hyperion should lay alongside the American vessel, grapple to her and board— with all hands— from deck to deck. This idea, almost unheard of in modern sea warfare, had suggested itself as practicable in this instance to Captain McMillin, from his reading. Such had been the tactics of the antique Mediterranean galleys.

For the purpose of retaining the outward appearance of a simple trader, Captain McMillin had concealed the thirty-three additional members of his heavily armed crew, and these had not been brought on deck until he was almost ready to have the grapples thrown. These reserves now swarmed upon the Hyperion's deck in the midst of a bedlam of shouts, yells and curses, punctuated by pistol shots, from the pirate crew on board their prize.

These were taken at a vast disadvantage. Their prize vessel was immobile. They had, for what appeared to Captain McMillin some inexplicable reason, apparently failed until the very last moment to realize the Hyperion's intentions. Most of them were busily engaged in looting their prize. Under this process five of the Swallow's nine boats had already been laden gunwale deep with the miscellaneous plunder already taken out of the American ship. Two of these laden small boats and two others of the Swallow's nine were crushed like eggshells as the Hyperion closed in and threw her grappling hooks.

Then, in a silence new and strange in Captain McMillin's previous experience in hand-to-hand fighting, his forty-eight black fighting men followed him over the rails and fell upon the pirates.

Within three minutes the American vessel's deck was a shambles. Camilla Macartney's black myrmidons, like militant fiends from some strange hell of their own, their eyeballs rolling, their white teeth flashing as they bared their lips in the ecstasy of this mission of wholesale slaughter, spread irresistibly with grunts and low mutterings and strange cries about that deck.

Not a member of the pirate crew escaped their ruthless onslaught. Hard skulls were split asunder and lopped arms strewed the deck, and tough bodies were transfixed, and the gasping wounded were trampled lifeless in the terrible energy of these black fighting men.

Then abruptly, save for a harsh sobbing sound from laboring panting lungs after their terrific exertion, a strange silence fell, and toward Captain McMillin, who stood well-nigh aghast over the utter strangeness of this unprecedented carnage which had just taken place under his eye and under his command, there came a huge, black, diffidently smiling Negro, his feet scarlet as he slouched along that moist and slippery deck, a crimson cutlass dangling loosely now from the red hand at the end of a red arm. This one, addressing the captain in a low, humble and deprecating voice, said— 'Come, now, please, me Marster— come, please sar, see de t'ree gentlemahn you is tell us to sabe alive!'

And Captain McMillin, bemused, followed this guide along that deck slushed and scarlet with the life blood of those pulped heaps which had been Captain Fawcett's pirate crew, stepped aft to where, behind the main deckhouse, three trussed and helpless white men lay upon a cleaner section of that vessel's deck, under the baleful eye of another strapping black man with red feet and a naked red cutlass brandished in a red hand.

The Swallow, her own somewhat blood-soiled deck now shining spotless under the mighty holystonings it had received at the hands of its prize crew of twelve under command of the Hyperion's second mate, the Danish flag now flying gaily from her masthead, followed the Hyperion into St Thomas harbor on the second day of September, 1825. The two vessels came up to their designated anchorages smartly, and shortly thereafter, and for the last time, Saul Macartney, accompanied by his crony, Captain Fawcett, and his colleague, the other pirate mate, was rowed ashore in the familiar longboat.

But during this short and rapid trip these three gentlemen did not, for once, occupy the sternsheets. They sat forward, their hands and feet in irons, the six oarsmen between them and Mr Matthews, the Hyperion's mate, who held the tiller rope, and Captain the Honorable William McMillin, who sat erect beside him.

v

I HAVE already recorded my first horrified reaction to the appearance of the handsome black-haired piratical mate whose painted arm my innocent thumbtack had penetrated. My next reaction, rather curiously, was the pressing, insistent, sudden impulse to withdraw that tack. I did so forthwith— with trembling fingers, I here openly confess.

My third and final reaction which came to me not long afterward and when I had somewhat succeeded in pulling myself together, was once more to get out my magnifying glass and take another good look through it. After all, I told myself, I was here confronted with nothing more in the way of material facts than a large-sized, somewhat crudely done and very old oil painting.

I got the glass and reassured myself. The 'blood' was, of course— as now critically examined, magnified by sixteen diameters— merely a few spattered drops of the very same vermilion pigment which my somewhat clever amateur artist had used for the red roofs of the houses, the foulards of the Negresses and those many gloriously flaming flower blossoms.

Quite obviously these particular spatters of red paint had not been in the liquid state for more than a century. Having ascertained these facts beyond the shadow of any lingering doubt in the field of every-day material fact, my one remaining bit of surviving wonderment settled itself about the minor puzzle of just why I had failed to observe these spots of ancient, dry, and brittle paint during the long and careful scrutiny to which I had subjected the picture the evening before. A curious coincidence, this— that the tiny red spots should happen to be precisely in the place where blood would be showing if it had flowed from my tack wound in that dangled painted arm.

I looked next, curiously, through my glass at the fellow's face. I could perceive now none of that acutely agonized expression which had accentuated my first startled horror at the sight of the blood.

And so, pretty well reassured, I went back to my bedroom and finished dressing. And thereafter, as the course of affairs proceeded, I could not get the thing out of my mind. I will pass over any attempt at describing the psychological processes involved and say here merely that by the end of a couple of weeks or so I was in that state of obsession which made it impossible for me to do my regular work, or, indeed, to think of anything else. And then, chiefly to relieve my mind of this vastly annoying preoccupation, I began upon that course of investigatory research to which I have already alluded.

When I had finished this, had gone down to the end of the last bypath which it involved, it was well on in the year 1930. It had taken three years, and— it was worth it.

I was in St Thomas that season and St Thomas was still operating under the régime which had prevailed since the spring of 1917, at which time the United States had purchased the old Danish West Indies from Denmark as a war measure, during the presidency of Woodrow Wilson.

In 1930 our naval forces had not yet withdrawn from our Virgin Island Colony. The administration was still actively under the direction of his Excellency Captain Waldo Evans, U.S.N. Retired, and the heads of the major departments were still the efficient and personable gentlemen assigned to those duties by the Secretary of the Navy.

My intimate friend, Dr Pelletier, the pride of the U.S.N. Medical Corps, was still in active charge of the Naval Hospital, and I could rely upon Dr Pelletier, whose interest in and knowledge of the strange and outré beliefs, customs and practises of numerous strange corners of this partly civilized world of ours were both deep and, as it seemed to me, virtually exhaustive.

To this good friend of mine, this walking encyclopedia of strange knowledge, I took, naturally, my findings in this very strange and utterly fascinating story of old St Thomas. We spent several long evenings together over it, and when I had imparted all the facts while my surgeon friend listened, as is his custom, for hours on end without a single interruption, we proceeded to spend many more evenings discussing it, sometimes at the hospitable doctor's bachelor dinner table and afterward far into those tropic nights of spice and balm, and sometimes at my house which is quite near the old T. L. Macartney mansion on Denmark Hill.

In the course of these many evenings I added to the account of the affair which had emerged out of my long investigation two additional phases of this matter which I have not included in my account as written out here because, in the form which these took in my mind, they were almost wholly conjectural.

Of these, the first took its point of departure from the depiction of the rope, as shown in the painting, with which Saul Macartney had been hanged. I have mentioned the painstaking particularity with which the artist had put in the minor details of the composition. I have illustrated this by stating that the seven traditional turns of the hangman's knot were to be seen showing plainly under Captain Fawcett's left ear. The same type of knot, I may add here, was also painted in laboriously upon the noose which had done to death Fawcett's other mate.

But Saul Macartney's rope did not show such a knot. In fact, it showed virtually no knot at all. Even under the magnifying glass a knot expert would have been unable to name in any category of knots the inconspicuous slight enlargement at the place where Saul Macartney's noose was joined. Another point about this rope which might or might not have any significance, was the fact that it was of a color slightly but yet distinctly different from the hemp color of the other two. Saul Macartney's rope was of a faint greenish-blue color.

Upon this rather slight basis for conjecture I hazarded the following enlargement.

That Camilla Macartney, just after the verdict of the Danish Colonial High Court had become known to her— and I ventured to express the belief that she had known it before any other white person— had said in her quiet voice to her black butler, Jens Sorensen: 'I am going to Ma Folie. Tonight, at nine o'clock precisely, Ajax Mendoza is to come to me there.'

And— this is merely my imaginative supplement, it will be remembered, based on my own knowledge of the dark ways of Vodoo— burly black Ajax Mendoza, capital executioner in the honorable employ of the Danish Colonial Administration, whose father, Jupiter Mendoza, had held that office before him, and whose grandfather, Achilles Mendoza (whose most notable performance had been the racking of the insurrectionist leader, Black Tancrède, who had been brought back to the capital in chains after the perpetration of his many atrocities in the St Jan Uprising of the slaves in 1733), had been the first of the line; that Ajax Mendoza, not fierce and truculent as he looked standing there beside the policemaster on Captain Fawcett's gallow platform, but trembling, and cringing, had kept that appointment to which he had been summoned.

Having received his orders, he had then hastened to bring to Camilla Macartney the particular length of thin manila rope which was later to be strung from the arm of Saul Macartney's gallows and had left it with her until she returned it to him before the hour of the execution; and that he had received it back and reeved it though its pulley with even more fear and trembling and cringings at being obliged to handle this transmuted thing whose very color was a terror and a distress to him, now that it had passed through that fearsome laboratory of 'white missy who knew the Snake...'

And my second conjectural hypothesis I based upon the fact which my research had revealed to me that all the members of the honorable clan of Macartney resident in St Thomas had, with obvious propriety, kept to their closely shuttered several residences during the entire day of that public execution. That is, all of the Macartneys except the heiress of the great Macartney fortune, Camilla.

Half an hour before high noon on that public holiday the English barouche had deposited Camilla Macartney at one of the wharves a little away from the center of the town where that great throng had gathered to see the pirates hanged, and from there she had been rowed out to the small vessel which had that morning gone back to its old anchorage near the shore.

There, in her old place under the awning of the afterdeck, she had very calmly and deliberately set up her easel and placed before her the all but finished panorama upon which she had been working, and had thereupon begun to paint, and so had continued quietly painting until the three bodies of those pirates which had been left dangling 'for the space of a whole hour', according to the sentence, 'as a salutary example', and had then ended her work and gone back to the wharf carrying carefully the now finished panorama to where the English barouche awaited her.

By conjecture, on the basis of these facts, I managed somehow to convey to Dr Pelletier, a man whose mind is attuned to such matters, the tentative, uncertain idea— I should not dare to name it a conviction— that Camilla Macartney, by some application of that uncanny skill of hers in the arts of darkness, had, as it were, caught the life principle of her cousin, Saul Macartney, as it escaped from his splendid body there at the end of that slightly discolored and curiously knotted rope, and fastened it down upon her canvas within the simulacrum of that little painted figure through the arm of which I had thrust a thumb tack!

These two queer ideas of mine, which had been knocking about inside my head, strangely enough did not provoke the retort, 'Outrageous!' from Dr Pelletier, a man of the highest scientific attainments. I had hesitated to put such thoughts into words, and I confess that I was surprised that his response in the form of a series of nods of the head did not seem to indicate the indulgence of a normal mind toward the drivelings of some imbecile.

Dr Pelletier deferred any verbal reply to this imaginative climax of mine, placed as it was at the very end of our discussion. When he did shift his mighty bulk where it reclined in my Chinese rattan lounge chair on my airy west gallery— a sure preliminary to any remarks from him— his first words surprised me a little.

'Is there any doubt, Canevin, in your mind about the identity of this painted portrait figure of the mate with Saul Macartney himself?'

'No,' said I. 'I was able to secure two faded old ambrotypes of Saul Macartney— at least, I was given a good look at them. There can, I think, be no question on that score.'

For the space of several minutes Pelletier remained silent. Then he slightly shifted his leonine head to look at me.

'Canevin,' said he, 'people like you and me who have seen this kind of thing working under our very eyes, all around us, among people like these West Indian blacks, well— we know.'

Then, more animatedly, and sitting up a little in his chair, the doctor said: 'On that basis, Canevin— on the pragmatic basis, if you will, and that, God knows, is scientific, based on observation— the only thing that we can do is to give this queer, devilish thing the benefit of the doubt. Our doubt, to say nothing of what the general public would think of such ideas!'

'Should you say that there is anything that can be done about it?' I inquired. 'I have the picture, you know, and you have heard the— well, the facts as they have come under my observation. Is there any— what shall I say?— any responsibility involved on the basis of those facts and any conjectural additions that you and I may choose to make?'

'That,' said Pelletier, 'is what I meant by the benefit of the doubt. Thinking about this for the moment in terms of the limitations, the incompleteness, of human knowledge and the short distance we have managed to travel along the road to civilization, I should say that there is— a responsibility.'

'What shall I do— if anything?' said I, a little taken aback at this downrightness.

Again Dr Pelletier looked at me for a long moment, and nodded his head several times. Then: 'Burn the thing, Canevin. Fire— the solvent. Do you comprehend me? Have I said enough?'

I thought over this through the space of several silent minutes. Then, a trifle hesitantly because I was not at all sure that I had grasped the implications which lay below this very simple suggestion—

'You mean—?'

'That if there is anything in it, Canevin— that benefit of the doubt again, you see— if, to put such an outrageous hypothesis into a sane phrase, the life, the soul, the personality remains unreleased, and that because of Camilla Macartney's use of a pragmatic "magical" skill such as is operative today over there in the hills of Haiti; to name only one focus of this particular cultus— well, then...'

This time it was I who nodded; slowly, several times. After that I sat quietly in my chair for long minutes in the little silence which lay between us. We had said, it seemed to me, everything that was to be said. I— we— had gone as far as human limitations permitted in the long investigation of this strange affair. Then I summoned my houseman, Stephen Penn.

'Stephen,' said I, 'go and find out if the charcoal pots in the kitchen have burned out since breakfast. I imagine that about this time there would be a little charcoal left to burn out in each of them. If so, put all the charcoal into one pot and bring it out here on the gallery. If not, fix me a new charcoal fire in the largest pot. Fill it about half full.'

'Yes, sar,' said Stephen, and departed on this errand.

Within three minutes the excellent Stephen was back. He set down on the tile floor beside my chair the largest of my four kitchen charcoal pots. It was half full of brightly glowing embers. I sent him away before I went into the house to fetch the painting. It is a curious fact that this faithful servitor of mine, a zambo or medium-brown Negro, and a native of St Thomas, had manifested an increasing aversion to anything like contact with or even sight of the old picture, an aversion dating from that afternoon when he had discovered it, three years before, in the lumber room of my Santa Cruzian hired residence.

Then I brought it out and laid it flat, after clearing a place for it, on the large plain table which stands against the wall of the house on my gallery. Pelletier came over and stood beside me, and in silence we looked long and searchingly at Camilla Macartney's panorama for the last time.

Then, with the sharp, small blade of my pocketknife, I cut it cleanly through again and again until it was in seven or eight strips. A little of the brittle old paint cracked and flaked off in this process. Having piled the strips one on top of another, I picked up the topmost of the three or four spread newspapers which I had placed under the canvas to save the table top from my knife point, and these flakes and chips I poured first off the newspaper's edge upon the glowing embers. These bits of dry, ancient pigment hissed, flared up, and then quickly melted away. Then I burned the strips very carefully until all but one were consumed.

This, perhaps because of some latent dramatic instinct whose existence until that moment I had never really suspected, was the one containing the figure of Saul Macartney. I paused, the strip in my hand, and looked at Pelletier. His face was inscrutable. He nodded his head at me, however, as though to encourage me to proceed and finish my task.

With perhaps a trifle of extra care I inserted the end of this last strip into the charcoal pot.

It caught fire and began to burn through precisely as its predecessors had caught and burned, and finally disintegrated into a light grayish ash. Then a very strange thing happened—

There was no slightest breath of air moving in that sheltered corner of the gallery. The entire solid bulk of the house sheltered it from the steady northeast trade— now at three in the afternoon at its lowest daily ebb, a mere wavering, tenuous pulsing.

And yet, at the precise instant when the solid material of that last strip had been transmuted by the power of the fire into the whitish, wavering ghost of material objects which we name ash— from the very center of the still brightly glowing charcoal embers there arose a thin, delicate wisp of greenish blue smoke which spiraled before our eyes under the impact of some obscure pulsation in the quiet air about us, then stiffened, as yet unbroken, into a taut vertical line, the upper end of which abruptly turned, curving down upon itself, completing the representation of the hangman's noose; and then, instantly, this contour wavered and broke and ceased to be, and all that remained there before our fascinated eyes was a kitchen charcoal pot containing a now rapidly dulling mass of rose-colored embers.

End

Table of Contents

- 1: The Strange Hallucination of Mr. Jackerson / D. H. Souter

- 2: Two and a Telephone / Edward Dyson
- 3: Nada Crosby's Jewels / Anonymous
- 4: Leonard's Reward / Edward Dyson

- 5: The Girl from Gunnedah / Edward S. Sorenson

- 6: Personally Conducted / George Allan England

- 7: The Little Grey Ghost / Alice C. Tomholt
- 8: Valley of the Black Sun / Leroy Yerxa
- 9: The Nail / Pedro de Alarçon

- 10: In the Garden of the Gods / William McLeod Raine

- 11: The Exploits of Mr. White / Clarence Herbert New

- 12: What Was It? / Fitz-James O'Brien

- 13: The Pale Ape / M. P. Shiel

- 14: The Gentlemen in Possession / Katharine Tynan

- 15: The Man Who Was Two / Harold Ward
- 16: The Brand of Cain / Harold Ward
- 17: Hankenson's Perfect Crime / Harold Ward
- 18: The Lost Club / Arthur Machen
- 19: The Crystal Trench / A. E. W. Mason
- 20: The People of the Pit / Abraham Merritt

- 21: Seven Turns in a Hangman's Rope / Henry S. Whitehead