Author: Various
Date: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00
Description: 20 short stories in the Life+70 yrs public domain, the oldest from 1706, by Daniel Defoe. This is the last issue of Past Masters for 2025; next will appear sometime in January 2026. 1: Ferdinando Eboli / Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley 2: The Midnight Guest / Heath Crichton 3: A Community of Two / Edward Dyson 4: The Contamination of Santa Claus / Silas Snell 5: The Art Critics/ Fred M. White 6: The Celestial Adventure of Sin Loo / Richard Stillman Powell 7: Imprisoned with the Pharaohs / Harry Houdini 8: That Nice Mr. Tait / Edward Dyson 9: The Apparition of Mrs. Veal / Daniel Defoe 10: The Winni

PAST MASTERS 244

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

18 Dec 2025

Contents

1: Ferdinando Eboli / Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

2: The Midnight Guest / Heath Crichton

3: A Community of Two / Edward Dyson

4: The Contamination of Santa Claus / Silas Snell

5: The Art Critics/ Fred M. White

6: The Celestial Adventure of Sin Loo / Richard Stillman Powell

7: Imprisoned with the Pharaohs / Harry Houdini

8: That Nice Mr. Tait / Edward Dyson

9: The Apparition of Mrs. Veal / Daniel Defoe

10: The Winning Shot / Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

11: The Ghostly Vengeance/ A. Hyatt Verrill

12: Flush of Gold / Jack London

13: Not a Bad Deal / Anthony Hope

14: The Mine Layer / C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne

15: Sand / Malcolm Jameson

16: The Severed Hand / Wilhelm Hauff

17: The Accident / Harold Mercer

18: Farewell to Fame / Mark Hellinger

19: The Unrest-Cure / 'Saki'

20: A Tragic Honeymoon / George R. Sims

_______________

1: Ferdinando Eboli

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

1797-1851

(as by "The Author of Frankenstein.")

In: The Keepsake, 1829

DURING THIS QUIET TIME of peace, we are fast forgetting the excitements and astonishing events of the last war; and the very names of Europe’s conquerors are becoming antiquated to the ears of our children. Those were more romantic days than these; for the revulsions occasioned by revolution or invasion were full of romance; and travellers in those countries in which these scenes had place hear strange and wonderful stories, whose truth so much resembles fiction, that, while interested in the narration, we never give implicit credence to the narrator. Of this kind is a tale I heard at Naples. The fortunes of war perhaps did not influence its actors; yet it appears improbable that any circumstances so out of the usual routine could have had place under the garish daylight that peace sheds upon the world.

WHEN MURAT, then called Gioacchino, king of Naples, raised his Italian regiments, several young nobles, who had before been scarcely more than vine-dressers on the soil, were inspired with a love of arms, and presented themselves as candidates for military honours. Among these was the young Count Eboli. The father of this youthful noble had followed Ferdinand to Sicily; but his estates lay principally near Salerno, and he was naturally desirous of preserving them; while the hopes that the French government held out of glory and prosperity to his country made him often regret that he had followed his legitimate but imbecile king to exile. When he died, therefore, he  recommended his son to return to Naples, to present himself to his old and tried friend, the Marchese Spina, who held a high office in Murat’s government, and through his means to reconcile himself to the new king. All this was easily achieved. The young and gallant Count was permitted to possess his patrimony; and, as a further pledge of good fortune, he was betrothed to the only child of the Marchese Spina. The nuptials were deferred till the end of the ensuing campaign.

Meanwhile the army was put in motion, and Count Eboli only obtained such short leave of absence as permitted him to visit for a few hours the villa of his future father-in-law, there to take leave of him and his affianced bride. The villa was situated on one of the Apennines to the north of Salerno, and looked down, over the plain of Calabria, in which Paestum is situated, on to the blue Mediterranean. A precipice on one side, a brawling mountain torrent, and a thick grove of ilex, added beauty to the sublimity of its site. Count Eboli ascended the mountain path in all the joy of youth and hope. His stay was brief. An exhortation and a blessing from the Marchese, a tender farewell, graced by gentle tears, from the fair Adalinda, were the recollections he was to bear with him, to inspire him with courage and hope in danger and absence. The sun had just sunk behind the distant isle of Istria, when, kissing his lady’s hand, he said a last "Addio,” and with slower steps, and more melancholy mien, rode down the mountain on his road to Naples.

That same night Adalinda retired early to her apartment, dismissing her attendants; and then, restless from mingled fear and hope, she threw open the glass door that led to a balcony looking over the edge of the hill upon the torrent, whose loud rushing often lulled her to sleep; but whose waters were concealed from sight by the ilex trees, which lifted their topmost branches above the guarding parapet of the balcony.

Leaning her cheek upon her hand, she thought of the dangers her lover would encounter, of her loneliness the while, of his letters, and of his return. A rustling sound now caught her ear: was it the breeze among the ilex trees? her own veil was un waved by every wind, her tresses even, heavy in their own rich beauty only, were not lifted from her cheek. Again those sounds. Her blood retreated to her heart, and her limbs trembled. What could it mean? Suddenly the upper branches of the nearest tree were disturbed ; they opened, and the faint starlight showed a man’s figure among them. He prepared to spring from his hold, on to the wall. It was a feat of peril. First the soft voice of her lover bade her "Fear not,” and on the next instant he was at her side, calming her terrors, and recalling her spirits, that almost left her gentle frame, from mingled surprise, dread, and joy. He encircled her waist with his arm, and pouring forth a thousand passionate expressions of love, she leant on his shoulder, and wept from agitation; while he covered her hands with kisses, and gazed on her with ardent adoration.

Then in calmer mood they sat together; triumph and joy lighted up his eyes, and a modest blush glowed on her cheek; for never before had she sat alone with him, nor heard unrestrained his impassioned assurances of affection. It was indeed Love’s own hour. The stars trembled on the roof of his eternal temple; the dashing of the torrent, the mild summer atmosphere, and the mysterious aspect of the darkened scenery, were all in unison, to inspire security and voluptuous hope. They talked of how their hearts, through the medium of divine nature, might hold commune during absence; of the joys of re-union, and of their prospect of perfect happiness.

The moment at last arrived when he must depart. "One tress of this silken hair,” said he, raising one of the many curls that clustered on her neck. “I will place it on my heart, a shield to protect me against the swords and balls of the enemy.” He drew his keen-edged dagger from its sheath. "Ill weapon for so gentle a deed,” he said, severing the lock, and at the same moment many drops of blood fell fast on the fair arm of the lady. He answered her fearful inquiries by showing a gash he had awkwardly inflicted on his left hand. First he insisted on securing his prize, and then he permitted her to bind his wound, which she did half laughing, half in sorrow, winding round his hand a riband loosened from her own arm. "Now farewell,” he cried; “I must ride twenty miles ere dawn, and the descending Bear shows that midnight is past.” His descent was difficult, but he achieved it happily, and the stave of a song, whose soft sounds rose like the smoke of incense from an altar, from the dell below, to her impatient ear, assured her of his safety.

As is always the case when an account is gathered from eye-witnesses, I never could ascertain the exact date of these events. They occurred however while Murat was king of Naples, and when he raised his Italian regiments. Count Eboli, as aforesaid, became a junior officer in them, and served with much distinction; though I cannot name either the country, or the battle in which he acted so conspicuous a part, that he was on the spot promoted to a troop.

Not long after this event, and while he was stationed in the north of Italy, Gioacchino, sending for him to headquarters late one evening, intrusted him with a confidential mission, across a country occupied by the enemy’s troops, to a town possessed by the French. It was necessary to undertake the expedition during the night, and he was expected to return on that, succeeding the following, day. The king himself gave him his despatches and the word ; and the noble youth, with modest firmness, protested that he would succeed, or die, in the fulfilment of his trust.

It was already night, and the crescent moon was low in the west, when Count Ferdinando Eboli mounting his favourite horse, at a quick gallop, cleared the streets of the town; and then, following the directions given him, crossed the country among the fields planted with vines, carefully avoiding the main road. It was a beauteous and still night; calm, and sleep, occupied the earth; war, the bloodhound, slumbered; the spirit of love alone had life at that silent hour. Exulting in the hope of glory, our young hero commenced his journey, and visions of aggrandizement and love formed his reveries. A distant sound roused him; he checked his horse and listened; voices approached; when recognising the speech of a German, he turned from the path he was following, to a still straighter way. But again the tone of an enemy was heard, and the trampling of horses. Eboli did not hesitate; he dismounted, tied his steed to a tree, and, skirting along the enclosure of the field, trusted to escape thus unobserved. He succeeded after an hour’s painful progress, and arrived on the borders of a stream, which, as the boundary between two states, was the mark of his having finally escaped danger. Descending the steep bank of the river, which, with his horse, he might perhaps have forded, he now prepared to swim. He held his despatch in one hand, threw away his cloak, and was about to plunge into the water, when from under the dark shade of the argine, which had concealed them, he was suddenly arrested by unseen hands, cast on the ground, bound, gagged and bhnded, and then placed in a httle boat, which was sculled with infinite rapidity down the stream.

There seemed so much of premeditation in the act that it baffled conjecture, yet he must beheve himself a prisoner to the Austrian. While, however, he still vainly reflected, the boat was moored, he was hfted out, and the change of atmosphere made him aware that they entered some house. With extreme care and celerity, yet in the utmost silence, he was stripped of his clothes, and two rings he wore, drawn from his fingers; other habiliments were thrown over him; and then no departing footstep was audible: but soon he heard the splash of a single oar, and he felt himself alone. He lay perfectly unable to move; the only relief his captor or captors had afforded him being the exchange of the gag for a tightly bound handkerchief. For hours he thus remained, with a tortured mind, bursting with rage, impatience, and disappointment; now writhing, as well as he could, in his endeavours to free himself, now still, in despair. His despatches were taken away, and the period was swiftly passing when he could by his presence have remedied in some degree this evil. The morning dawned; and though the full glare of the sun could not visit his eyes, he felt it play upon his hmbs. As the day advanced, hunger preyed on him, and though amidst the visitation of mightier, he at first disdained this minor, evil; towards evening, it became, in spite of himself, the predominant sensation. Night approached, and the fear that he should remain, and even starve, in this unvisited solitude had more than once thrilled through his frame, when feminine voices and a child’s gay laugh met his ear. He heard persons enter the apartment, and he was asked in his native language, while the ligature was taken from his mouth, the cause of his present situation. He attributed it to banditti; his bonds were quickly cut, and his handed eyes restored to sight. It was long before he recovered himself. Water brought from the stream, however, was some refreshment, and by degrees he resumed the use of his senses, and saw that he was in a dilapidated shepherd’s cot; with no one near him save the peasant girl and a child who had liberated him. They rubbed his ankles and wrists, and the little fellow offered him some bread, and eggs; after which refreshment, and an hour’s repose, Ferdinando felt himself sufficiently restored to revolve his adventure in his mind, and to determine on the conduct he was to pursue.

He looked at the dress which had been given him in exchange for that which he had worn. It was of the plainest and meanest description. Still no time was to be lost; and he felt assured that the only step he could take was to return with aU speed to the head-quarters of the NeapoHtan army, and inform the king of Ins disasters and his loss.

It were long to follow his backward steps, and to tell all of indignation and disappointment that swelled his heart. He walked painfully but resolutely all night, and by three in the morning entered the town where Gioacchino then was. He was challenged by the sentinels; he gave the word confided to him by Murat, and was instantly made prisoner by the soldiers. He declared to them his name and rank, and the necessity he was under of immediately seeing the king. He was taken to the guard-house, and the officer on duty there listened with contempt to his representations, telling him that Count Ferdinando Eboli had returned three hours before, ordering him to be confined for further examination as a spy. Eboli loudly insisted that some impostor had taken his name; and while he related the story of his capture, another officer came in, who recognised his person; other individuals acquainted with him joined the party; and as the impostor had been seen by none but the officer of the night, his tale gained ground.

A young Frenchman of superior rank, who had orders to attend the king early in the morning, carried a report of what was going forward to Murat himself. The tale was so strange that the king sent for the young Count; and then, in spite of having seen and believed in his counterfeit a few hours before, and having received from him an account of his mission, which had been faithfully executed, the appearance of the youth staggered him, and he commanded the presence of him who, as Count Eboli, had appeared before him a few hours previously. As Ferdinand stood beside the king, his eye glanced at a large and splendid mirror. His matted hair, his blood-shot eyes, his haggard looks, and torn and mean dress, derogated from the nobility of his appearance; and still less did he appear like the magnificent Count Eboli, when, to his utter confusion and astonishment, his counterfeit stood beside him.

He was perfect in all the outward signs that denoted high birth; and so like him whom he represented, that it would have been impossible to discern one from the other apart. The same chestnut hair clustered on his brow ; the sweet and animated hazel eyes were the same; the one voice was the echo of the other. The composure and tlignity of the pretender gained the suffrages of those around. When he was told of the strange appearance of another CountEboh, he laughed in a frank good humoured manner, and turning to Ferdinand, said, “ You honour me much, in selecting me for your personation ; but there are two or three tilings I like about myself so well, that you must excuse my unwillingness to exchange myself for you.” Ferdinand would have answered, but the false Count, with greater haughtiness, turning to the king, said, “Will your majesty decide between us? I cannot bandy words with a fellow of this sort.” Irritated by scorn, Ferdinand demanded leave to challenge the pretender; who said, that if the king and his brother officers did not think that he should degrade himself and disgrace the army by going out with a common vagabond, he was willing to chastise him, even at the peril of his own life. But the king, after a few more questions, feeling assured that the unhappy noble was an impostor, in severe and menacing terms reprehended him for his insolence, teUing him that he owed it to his mercy alone that he was not executed as a spy, ordering him instantly to be conducted without the walls of the town, with threats of weighty' punishment if he ever dared to subject his impostures to further trial.

It requires a strong imagination, and the experience of much misery, fully to enter into Ferdinand’s feelings. From high rank, glory, hope, and love, he was hurled to utter beggary and disgrace. The insulting words of his triumphant rivals and the degrading menaces of his so lately gracious sovereign, rang in his ears; every nerve in his frame writhed with agony. But, fortunately for the endurance of human life, the worst misery in early youth is often but a painful dream, which we cast off when slumber quits our eyes. After a struggle with intolerable anguish, hope and courage revived in his heart. His resolution was quickly made. He would return to Naples, relate his story to the Marchese Spina, and through his influence obtain at least an impartial hearing from the king. It was not, however, in his peculiar situation, an easy task to put his determination into effect. He was pennyless; his dress bespoke poverty ; he had neither friend nor kinsman near, but such as would behold in him the most impudent of swindlers. Still his courage did not fail him. The kind Italian soil, in the autumnal season now advanced, furnished him with chestnuts, arbutus berries, and grapes. He took the most direct road over the hills, avoiding towns, and indeed every habitation; travelling principally in the night, when, except in cities, the officers of government had retired from their stations. How he succeeded in getting from one end of Italy to the other it is difficult to say; but certain it is, that, after the interval of a few weeks, he presented himself at the Villa Spina.

With considerable difficulty he obtained admission to the presence of the Marchese, who received him standing, with an inquiring look, not at all recognising the noble youth. Ferdinand requested a private interview, for there were several visitors present. His voice startled the Marchese, who complied, taking him into another apartment. Here Ferdinand disclosed himself, and, with rapid and agitated utterance, was relating the history of his misfortunes, when the tramp of horses was heard, the great bell rang, and a domestic announced Count Ferdinando Eboli.

“It is himself,” cried the youth, turning pale. The words were strange, and they appeared still more so, when the person announced entered; the perfect semblance of the young noble, whose name he assumed, as he had appeared, when last, at his departure, he trod the pavement of the hall. He inclined his head gracefully to the baron, turning with a glance of some surj^rise, but more disdain, tow^ards Fercbnand, exclaiming, Thou here!”

Ferdinand drew himself up to his full height. In spite of fatigue, ill fare, and coarse garments, his manner was full of dignity. The Marchese looked at him fixedly, and started as he marked his proud mien, and saw in his expressive features the very face of Eboli. But again he was perplexed when he turned and discerned, as in a mirror, the same countenance reflected by the newcomer, who underwent this scrutiny somewhat impatiently. In brief and scornful words, he told the Marchese that this was a second attempt in the intruder to impose himself as Count Eboli; that the trick had failed before, and would again; adding, laughing, that it was hard to be brought to prove himself to be himself, against the assertion of a bricconey whose likeness to him, and matchless impudence, were his whole stock in trade.

"Why, my good fellow,” continued he, sneeringly, "you put me out of conceit with myself, to think that one, apparently so like me, should get on no better in the world.”

The blood mounted into Ferdinand’s cheeks on his enemy’s bitter taunts; with difficulty he restrained himself from closing with his foe, while the words traitorous imposter!” burst from his lips. The baron commanded the fierce youth to be silent, and, moved by a look that he remembered to be Ferdinand’s, he said, gently, “By your respect for me, I adjure you to be patient; fear not but that I will deal impartially.” Then turning to the pretended Eboli, he added that he could not doubt but that he was the true Count, and asked excuse for his previous indecision. At first the latter appeared angry, but at length he burst into a laugh, and then, apologizing for his ill breeding, continued laughing heartily at the perplexity of the Marchese. It is certain, his gayety gained more credit with his auditor than the indignant glances of poor Ferdinand. The false Count then said that, after the king’s menaces, he had entertained no expectation that the farce was to be played over again. He had obtained leave of absence, of which he profited to visit his future fatherin-law, after having spent a few days in his own palazzo at Naples. Until now, Ferdinand had listened silently with a feeling of curiosity, anxious to learn aU he could of the actions and motives of his rival ; but at these last words he could no longer contain himself. “What!” cried he, “hast thou usurped my place in my own father’s house, and dared assume my power in my ancestral halls?” A gush of tears overpowered the youth; he hid his face in his hands. Fierceness and pride lit up the countenance of the pretender. “By the eternal God and the sacred cross, I swear,” he exclaimed, “that palace is my father’s palace; those halls the halls of my ancestors!” Ferdinand looked up with surprise; “And the earth opens not,” he said, “to swallow the perjured man.” He then, at the call of the Marchese, related his adventures, while scorn mantled on the features of his rival. The Marchese, looking at Ijotli, could not free himself from doubt. He turned from one to the other: in spite of the wild and disordered appearance of poor Ferdinand, there was something in him that forbade his friend to condemn him as the impostor; but then it was utterly impossible to pronounce such the gallant and noble-looking youth, who could only be acknowledged as the real Count by the disbelief of the other’s tale. The Marchese, calling an attendant, sent for his fair daughter. This decision,” said he, “shall be made over to the subtle judgment of a woman, and the keen penetration of one who loves.” Both the youths now smiled— the same smile ; the same expression— that, of anticipated triumph. The baron was more perplexed than ever.

ADALINDA had heard of the arrival of Count Eboli, and entered, resplendent in youth and happiness. She turned quickly towards him who resembled most the person she expected to see; when a well-known voice pronounced her name, and she gazed aghast on the double appearance of the lover. Her father, taking her hand, briefly explained the mystery, and bade her assure herself which was her affianced husband.

"Signorina,” said Ferdinand, disdain me not because I appear before you thus in disgrace and misery. Your love, your goodness will restore me to prosperity and happiness.”

“I know not by what means,” said the wondering girl, "but surely you are Count Eboli.”

“Adalinda,” said the rival youth, "waste not your words on a villain. Lovely and deceived one, I trust, trembling I say it, that I can with one word assure you that I am Eboli.”

"Adalinda,” said Ferdinand, “I placed the nuptial ring on your finger; before God your vows were given to me.”

The false Count approached the lady, and bending one knee, took from his heart a locket, enclosing hair tied with a green riband, which she recognised to have worn, and pointed to a slight scar on his left hand.

Adalinda blushed deeply, and turning to her father, said, motioning towards the kneeling youth,

"He is Ferdinand.”

All protestations now from the unhappy Eboli were vain. The Marchese would have cast him into a dungeon; but, at the earnest request of his rival, he was not detained, but thrust ignominiously from the villa. The rage of a wild beast newly chained was less than the tempest of indignation that now filled the heart of Ferdinand. Physical suffering, from fatigue and fasting, was added to his internal anguish; for some hours madness, if that were madness which never forgets its ill, possessed him. In a tumult of feelings there was one predominant idea: it was, to take possession of his father’s house, and to try, by ameliorating the fortuitous circumstances of his lot, to gain the upper hand of his adversary. He expended his remaining strength in reaching Naples, entered his family palace, and was received and acknowledged by his astonished domestics.

One of his first acts was to take from a cabinet a miniature of his father encircled with jewels, and to invoke the aid of the paternal spirit. Refreshment and a bath restored him to some of his usual strength; and he looked forward with almost childish delight to one night to be spent in peace under the roof of his father’s house. This was not permitted. Ere midnight the great bell sounded: his rival entered as master, with the Marchese Spina.

The result may be divined. The Marchese appeared more indignant than the false Eboli. He insisted that the unfortunate youth should be imprisoned. The portrait, whose setting was costly, found on him, proved him guilty of robbery. He was given into the hands of the police, and thrown into a dungeon. I will not dwell on the subsequent scenes. He was tried by the tribunal, condemned as guilty, and sentenced to the galleys for life.

On the eve of the day when he was to be removed from the Neapolitan prison to work on the roads in Calabria, his rival visited him in his dungeon. For some moments both looked at the other in silence. The impostor gazed on the prisoner with mingled pride and compassion: there was evidently a struggle in his heart. The answering glance of Ferdinand was calm, free, and dignified. He was not resigned to his hard fate, but he disdained to make any exhibition of despair to his cruel and successful foe. A spasm of pain seemed to wrench the bosom of the false one; and he turned aside, striving to recover the hardness of heart which had hitherto supported him in the prosecution of his guilty enterprise. Ferdinand spoke first.

"What would the triumphant criminal with his innocent victim?”

His visitant replied haughtily, "Do not address such epithets to me, or I leave you to your fate: I am that which I say I am.”

"To me this boast,” cried Ferdinand, scornfully; “but perhaps these walls have ears.”

“Heaven, at least, is not deaf,” said the deceiver; “ favouring Heaven, which knows and admits my claim. But a truce to this idle discussion. Compassion— a distaste to see one so very like myself in such ill condition— a foolish whim perhaps, on which you may congratulate yourself— has led me hither. The bolts of your dungeon are drawn; here is a purse of gold; fulfil one easy condition, and you are free.”

"And that condition?”

"Sign this paper.”

He gave to Ferthnand a writing, containing a confession of his imputed crimes. The hand of the guilty youth trembled as he gave it; there was confusion in his mien, and a restless uneasy rolling of his eye. Ferdinand wished in one mighty word, potent as lightning, loud as thunder, to convey his burning disdain of this proposal: but expression is weak, and calm is more full of power than storm. Without a word, he tore the paper in two pieces, and threw them at the feet of his enemy.

With a sudden change of manner, his visitant conjured him, in voluble and impetuous terms, to comply. Ferdinand answered only by requesting to be left alone. Now and then a half word broke uncontrollably from his lips; but he curbed himself. Yet he could not hide his agitation when, as an argument to make him yield, the false Count assured him that he was already married to Adalinda. Bitter agony thrilled poor Ferdinand’s frame; but he preserved a calm mien, and an unaltered resolution. Having exhausted every menace and every persuasion, his rival left liim, the purpose for which he came unaccomplished. On the morrow, with many others, the refuse of mankind. Count Ferdinando Eboli was led in chains to the unwholesome plains of Calabria, to work there at the roads.

I must hurry over some of the subsequent events; for a detailed account of them would fill volumes. The assertion of the usurper of Ferdinand’s right, that he was already married to Adalina, was, like all else he said, false. The day was, however, fixed for their union, when the illness and the subsequent death of the Marchese Spina delayed its celebration. Adalinda retired, during the first months of mourning, to a castle belonging to her father not far from Arpino, a town of the kingdom of Naples, in the midst of the Apennines, about fifty miles from the capital. Before she went, the deceiver tried to persuade her to consent to a private marriage. He was probably afraid that, in the long interval that was about to ensue before he could secure her, she would discover his imposture. Besides, a rumour had gone abroad that one of the feUow-prisoners of Ferdinand, a noted bandit, had escaped, and that the young Count was his companion in flight. Adalinda, however, refused to comply with her lover's entreaties, and retired to her seclusion with an old aunt, who was blind and deaf, but an excellent duenna.

The false Eboli seldom visited his mistress; but he was a master in his art, and subsequent events showed that he must have spent all his time disguised in the vicinity of the castle. He contrived by various means, unsuspected at the moment, to have all Adalinda’s servants changed for creatures of his own; so that, without her being aware of the restraint, she was, in fact, a prisoner in her own house. It is impossible to say what first awakened her suspicions concerning the deception put upon her. She was an Italian, with all the habitual quiescence and lassitude of her countrywomen in the ordinary routine of life, and with all their energy and passion when roused. The moment the doubt darted into her mind, she resolved to be assured; a few questions relative to scenes that had passed between poor Ferdinand and herself sufficed for this. They were asked so suddenly and pointedly that the pretender was thrown off his guard ; he looked confused, and stammered in his repHes. Their eyes met, he felt that he was detected, and she saw that he perceived her now confirmed suspicions. A look such as is peculiar to an impostor, a glance that deformed his beauty, and filled his usually noble countenance with the hideous lines of cunning and cruel triumph, completed her faith in her own discernment. How,” she thought, could I have mistaken this man for my own gentle Eboh?” Again their eyes met: the pecuhar expression of his terrified her, and she hastily quitted the apartment.

Her resolution was quickly formed. It was of no use to attempt to explain her situation to her old aunt. She determined to depart immediately for Naples, throw herself at the feet of Gioacchino, and to relate and obtain credit for her strange history. But the time was already lost when she could have executed this design. The contrivances of the deceiver were complete— she found herself a prisoner. Excess of fear gave her boldness, if not courage. She sought her jailor. A few minutes before, she had been a young and thoughtless girl, docile as a child, and as unsuspecting. Now she felt as if she had suddenly gi'own old in wisdom, and that the experience of years had been gained in that of a few seconds.

During their interview, she was wary and firm; while the instinctive power of innocence over guilt gave majesty to her demeanour. The contriver of her ills for a moment cowered beneath her eye. At first he would by no means allow that he was not the person he pretended to be: but the energy and eloquence of truth bore down his poor Ferdinand and herself sufficed for this. They were asked so suddenly and pointedly that the pretender was thrown off his guard; he looked confused, and stammered in his relies. Their eyes met, he felt that he was detected, and she saw that he perceived her now confirmed suspicions. A look such as is peculiar to an impostor, a glance that deformed his beauty, and filled his usually noble countenance with the hideous lines of cunning and cruel triumph, completed her faith in her own discernment. "How,” she thought, could I have mistaken this man for my own gentle Eboli?” Again their eyes met: the pecuhar expression of his terrified her, and she hastily quitted the apartment.

Her resolution was quickly formed. It was of no use to attempt to explain her situation to her old aunt. She determined to depart immediately for Naples, throw herself at the feet of Gioacchino, and to relate and obtain credit for her strange history. But the time was already lost when she could have executed this design. The contrivances of the deceiver were complete— she found herself a prisoner. Excess of fear gave her boldness, if not courage. She sought her jailor. A few minutes before, she had been a young and thoughtless girl, docile as a child, and as unsuspecting. Now she felt as if she had suddenly grown old in wisdom, and that the experience of years had been gained in that of a few seconds.

During their interview, she was wary and firm ; while the instinctive power of innocence over guilt gave majesty to her demeanour. The contriver of her ills for a moment cowered beneath her eye. At first he would by no means allow that he was not the person he pretended to he: but the energy and eloquence of truth bore down his artifice, so that, at length driven into a corner, he turned— a stag at bay. Then it was her turn to quail; for the superior energy of a man gave liim the mastery. He declared the truth. He was the elder brother of Ferdinand, a natural son of the old Count Eboli. His mother, who had been wronged, never forgave her injurer, and bred her son in deadly hate for his parent, and a belief that the advantages enjoyed by his more fortunate brother were rightfully his own. His education was rude; but he had an Italian’s subtle talents, swiftness of perception, and guileful arts.

“It would blanch your cheek,” he said to his trembling auditress, “could I describe all that I have suffered to achieve my purpose. I would trust to none— I executed all myself. It was a glorious triumph, but due to my perseverance and my fortitude, when I and my usurping brother stood, I, the noble, he, the degraded outcast, before our sovereign.”

HAVING rapidly detailed his history, he now sought to win the favourable ear of Adalinda, who stood with averted and angry looks. He tried by the varied shows of passion and tenderness to move her heart. Was he not, in truth, the object of her love? Was it not he who scaled her balcony at Villa Spina? He recalled scenes of mutual overflow of feeling to her mind, thus urging arguments the most potent with a dehcate woman: pure blushes tinged her cheek, but horror of the deceiver predominated over every other sentiment. He swore that as soon as they should be united he would free Ferdinand, and bestow competency, nay, if so she willed it, half his possessions, on him. She coldly replied, that she would rather share the chains of the innocent and misery, than link herself with imposture and crime. She demanded her hberty, but the untamed and even ferocious nature that had borne the deceiver through his career of crime now broke forth, and he invoked fearful imprecations on his head, if she ever quitted the castle except as his wife. His look of conscious power and unbridled wickedness terrified her ; her flashing eyes spoke abhorrence : it would have been far easier for her to have clied than have yielded the smallest point to a man who made her feel for one moment his irresistible power, arising from her being an unprotected woman, wholly in his hands. She left him, feeling as if she had just escaped from the impending sword of an assassin.

One hour’s deliberation suggested to her a method of escape from her terrible situation. In a wardrobe at the castle lay in their pristine gloss the habiliments of a page of her mother, who had died suddenly, leaving these unworn relics of his station. Dressing herself in these, she tied up her dark shining hair, and even, with a somewhat bitter feehng, girded on the slight sword that appertained to the costume. Then, through a private passage leading from her own apartment to the chapel of the castle, she glided with noiseless steps, long after the Ave Maria sounded at twenty-four o’clock, had, on a November night, given token that half an hour had passed since the setting of the sun. She possessed the key of the chapel door— it opened at her touch; she closed it behind her, and she was free. The pathless hills were around her, the starry heavens above, and a cold wintry breeze murmured around the castle walls ; but fear of her enemy conquered every other fear, and she tripped lightly on, in a kind of ecstasy, for many a long hour over the stony mountain-path— she, who had never before walked more than a mile or two at any time in her life, till her feet were blistered, her shght shoes cut through, her way utterly lost. At morning’s dawn she found herself in the midst of the wild ilex-covered Apennines, and neither habitation nor human being apparent.

She was hungry and weary. She had brought gold and jewels with her; but here were no means of exhanging these for food. She remembered stories of banditti; but none could be so ruffian-like and cruel as him from whom she fled. This thought, a little rest, and a draught of water from a pure mountain-spring, restored her to some portion of courage, and she continued her journey. Noonday approached; and, in the south of Italy, the noonday sun, when unclouded, even in November, is oppressively warm, especially to an Italian woman, who never exposes herself to its beams. Faintness came over her. There appeared recesses in the mountain-side along which she was travelling, grown over with bay and arbutus: she entered one of these, there to repose. It was deep, and led to another that opened into a spacious cavern lighted from above: there were cates, grapes, and a flagon of wine, on a rough hewn table. She looked fearfully around, but no inhabitant appeared. She placed herself at the table, and, half in dread, ate of the food presented to her, and then satf'her elbow on the table, her head resting on her little snow white hand ; her dark hair shading her brow and clustering round her throat. An appearance of languor and fatigue diffused through her attitude, while her soft black eyes filled at intervals with large tears, as pitying herself, she recurred to the cruel circumstances of her lot. Her fanciful but elegant dress, her feminine form, her beauty and her grace, as she sat pensive and alone in the rough unhewn cavern, formed a picture a poet would describe with deliglit, an artist love to paint.

She seemed a being of another world; a seraph, all light and beauty; a Ganymede, escaped from his thrall above to his natal Ida. It was long before I recognised, looking down on her from the opening hill, my lost Adalinda.” Thus spoke the young Count Eboli, when he related this story; for its end was as romantic as its commencement.

When Ferdinando had arrived a galley-slave in Calabria, he found himself coupled with a bandit, a brave fellow, who abhorred his chains, from love of freedom, as much as his fellow-prisoner did, from all the combination of disgrace and misery they brought upon him. Together they devised a plan of escape, and succeeded in effecting it. On their road, Ferdinand related his story to the outlaw, who encouraged him to hope a favourable turn of fate; and meanwhile invited and persuaded the desperate man to share his fortunes as a robber among the wild hills of Calabria.

THE CAVERN where Adalinda had taken refuge was one of their fastnesses, whither they betook themselves at periods of imminent danger for safety only, as no booty could be collected in that unpeopled solitude; and there, one afternoon, returning from the chase, they found the wandering, fearful, sohtary, fugitive girl; and never was lighthouse more welcome to tempest-tost sailor than was her own Ferdinand to his lady-love.

Fortune, now tired of persecuting the young noble, favoured liim still further. The story of the lovers interested the bandit chief, and promise of reward secured him. Ferdinand persuaded Adalinda to remain one night in the cave, and on the following morning they prepared to proceed to Naples ; but at the moment of their departure they were surprised by an unexpected visitant: the robbers brought in a prisoner— it was the impostor. Missing on the morrow her who was the pledge of his safety and success, but assured that she could not have wandered far, he despatched emissaries in all directions to seek her; and himself, joining in the pursuit, followed the road she had taken, and was captured by these lawless men, who expected rich ransom from one whose appearance denoted rank and wealth. Mlien they discovered who their prisoner was, they generously delivered him up into his brother’s hands.

Ferdinand and Adalinda proceeded to Naples. On their arrival, she presented herself to Queen Caroline; and, through her, Murat heard with astonishment the device that had been practised on him. The young Count was restored to his honours and possessions, and within a few months afterwards was united to his betrothed bride.

The compassionate nature of the Count and Countess led them to interest themselves warmly in the fate of Ludovico, whose subsequent career was more honourable but less fortunate. At the intercession of his relative, Gioacchino permitted him to enter the army, where he distinguished himself, and obtained promotion. The brothers were at Moscow together, and mutually assisted each other during the horrors of the retreat. At one time overcome by drowsiness, the mortal symptom resulting from excessive cold, Ferdinand lingered behind his comrades; but Ludovico refusing to leave him, cbagged him on in spite of himself, till, entering a village, food and fire restored him, and his life was saved. On another evening, when wind and sleet added to the horror of their situation, Ludovico, after many ineffective struggles, slid from his horse lifeless; Ferdinand was at his side, and, dismounting, endeavoured by every means in his power to bring back pulsation to his stagnant blood. His comrades went forward, and the young Count was left alone with his dying brother in the white boundless waste. Once Ludovico opened his eyes and recognised him; he pressed his hand, and his lips moved to utter a blessing as he died. At that moment the welcome sounds of the enemy’s approach roused Ferdinand from the despair into which his dreadful situation plunged him. He was taken prisoner, and his life was thus saved. When Napoleon went to Elba, he, with many others of his countrymen, was liberated, and returned to Naples.

________________

2: The Midnight Guest

Heath Crichton
fl. 1912

The Armidale Express 26 Jan 1912

Nothing can be discovered about this author, who wrote a mere handful of stories, all before World War 1. The name is probably a pseudonym. The newspaper says "Author of 'Philip Thorn, Detective', etc." Couldn't find anything about that book (or series of stories), either. This is the first of 4 stories which were published in many rural Australian newspapers under the general title "Chandos, Gentleman and Burglar". The stories bear a perhaps too-
close resemblance  to E. W. Hornung's Raffles, Gentleman Burglar stories published 1898-1909.

I HAVE NOT always blessed the day I met Chandos, for it has Ied me into countless thrilling  situations, but when I look back upon them associated as they were with his extraordinary personality, I am bound to regard these  episodes as the most adventurous parts of my life.

At times I have allowed the better part uf my nature to assert itself, and then I acknowledge that Chandos was a villain. But before long I always came round to the reflection that I, certainly, ought never to be his judge. Chandos was no ordinary villain. There are things which he would never stoop to do— things which merchant princes in. the city might regard as smart, and successful enterprise.

I could never call him a common thief because he had nothing in common with ordinary thieves. He stole for the fun of the thing at first, and then he made the discovery that he could turn it into a high art. He never did a thing without doing it as nearly perfectly as lay in his power. That is why he made a high art of his profession.  Sheer devilry, and love of thrills were really the characteristics in him which dragged him inevitably, irresistibly into bis unorthodox form of life, and caused himself to make himself an outlaw. Other men might have degenerated with his success, become brutalised, and ended by being utterly unscrupulous. But Chandos had a strain of noble character twisted up in his strangly constituted brain, which saved him from that disaster. Besides, he had an infinite sense of humour, and that alone would have prevented him from becoming ordinary.

"Jerry," he once said to me, as the clock once struck 1 a.m., and we sat smoking in darkness save for the dying twinkle of the fire, "don't you thank your lucky stars you weren't forced by fortune and fate into being an actor who had to pretend all the time, or into the dull monotony of being a king, and having to be a paragon perpetually? What king ever enjoyed the delight of standing on the landing of some ancestral hall in pitch darkness, knowing he wavs within reach of some glorious diamond necklace, which, a single creak of the stairs: caused by his own careless!ess would rob him of completely?"

When I recall how I have known Chandos face a raging tiger, far from the scene of our lawless exploits and shoot it just at the instant when the merest hesitation would have ended in a ghastly form of death for him, I know he is no common thief. He gave the tiger a sporting chance because it pleased him to take the risk. Had he failed at the psychological moment the tiger would have won. But fortunately he did not fail.

Let me tell you of the first moving chapter in my life when fate dragged Chandos into my path.

"WELL!"

My heart gave a tremendous leap, and I looked up, holding a gold watch in one hand and several rings in the other.

Advanced two paces from the door, stood a man who had uttered the remark. To me it signified the end of things. I read in his eye that in one glance he had taken in the whole situation. I was convicted, by a look, of being a thief.

He regarded me with a cold, impassive face. Towering to nearly six feet in height, while I was kneeling practically at his feet, he had me at a tremendous disadvantage. My first impulse was to leap up, hurl a chair at him and bolt. But it needed no second glance to realise the folly of such a proceeding. Athletic though I was, I saw I should have met my-match here, even if we had started level. And there was that peculiarly alert look in his eyes which told me he was taking in my every movement, ready for emergencies. On second thoughts I abandoned the idea of violence and resolved to try subtlety.

"We did not expect you to return until to-morrow, Lord Verard," I said, with as much ease as I could command.

"Indeed." His expression did not alter in the slightest, but he softly closed the door by which he had entered, so quietly that I had not heard him. Then he threw a light overcoat on a chair back, sat on the chair, and contemplated me with the calm scrutiny one bestows upon a dead beetle after it is securely pinned down.

Suddenly a flash of intuition struck me. It left a vague hope of escape.

"Lord Kelyn might be glad to see you before you turn in, Lord Verard. If you wish it I will let him know you have arrived," I said.

For days the old earl, to whom I was acting as secretary, had been looking forward to his son's return, but had I got out of that room under the circumstances, it would have been my most remote thought to call his lordship.

"May I ask who you are?" Lord Verard asked, lighting a cigarette.

"Gerald Norton, Lord Kelyn's private secretary," I replied in a level voice.

"And may I ask also," he went on, "whether it is usual for you to remain at your duties until three o'clock in the morning ?"

"I suffer from insomnia, and I was wandering about downstairs, inspecting the treasures, to kill time," I lied readily. "Shall I call Lord Kelyn?"

"Not just at this moment," he said. "I am more interested in you." The remark was so pointed that I could not evade its meaning.

"That is good of you," I observed feeling decidedly uneasy.

"As a rule I have an excellent memory for faces," he went on, "and unless I err, I have met you before."

"Indeed!" I said, a little surprised. Lord Verard had been travelling abroad for three years, whereas I had only been employed by his father for six months, and I did not remember even hearing of Lord Verard before that.

"Yes, I fancy we were at Oxford together," he went on. "Surely you were at Pembroke— let me see, nine years ago?"

"Eleven," I said, surprised, but unspeakably ashamed. To be caught stealing by an old 'Varsity companion—

"Eleven! So long ago. It makes me feel old," he continued musingly while my brain began to work at express speed. He must know. He could not possibly believe the story of insomnia. Was he merely tantalising me, or working v up the situation for a more dramatic accusation? He must be an intimate friend of many of my old associates. This meant social ruin in the worst sense for me. True, the social world had very little to do with me in these days, for a private secretary with a comparatively modest income has small opportunity for meeting well-to-do college friends of other days when he is dependent upon what he earns. But this would spell utter degradation. It meant my beginning life afresh, perhaps in the colonies, under an assumed name, even if I were able to think of some way out of the difficulty of the moment. If I could not escape it would probably mean prison. I would cheerfully have sacrificed the few possessions I had in my room upstairs, for an hour's clear start from Lord Kelyn's house.

I still had no recollection of meeting Lord Verard, and the fact that he had remembered me after all these years, although we could only have known one another slightly at Pembroke, was surprising.

"I am afraid my memory is not the best in the world," I said, "and at first I could not recall your face, but now it is beginning to come back to me." I hoped he would not see I was lying. "After all," I added, "people change a good deal in ten years."

"Yes, I suppose I have changed a little," he replied, "and you, too, have altered." As he said this he g.ave a lightning glance towards the safe into which I had deliberately replaced the valuables I was touching when he entered the room. The significance of the glance could not be misinterpreted, but I calmly closed the safe, locked it, and put the key in my pocket. What was he going to do? Did he expect me to remain there to be daintily tortured until such time as he chose to deliver a cutting sermon on the immorality of stealing  My blood began to boil but I preserved a calm demeanour.

I rose to my feet and smiled. Nobody will ever know what an effort of will that smile cost.

"I hope, Lord Verard, I shall have the pleasure of discussing Oxford days with you. Meanwhile, forgive me, but I am sure the Earl would never forgive me if I fail to inform him of your arrival now. You have not been with him these last few weeks, so you cannot understand with what pleasure he has looked forward to your return. It would be better for me to awake him and tell him than for you to go direct to his room."

Lord Verard looked at me rather strangely, but went on smoking his cigarette in silence until my hand touched the knob of the door.

"I think you are rather foolish," he began.

I wheeled round. "Why?"

"To disturb Lord Kelyn at this hour," he went on, "and I really wish you would not."

"He is almost certain to be awake," I replied, "and he may even have heard you arrive. I will return in two minutes."

I closed the door behind me, and paused in the hall to think. Upon the next twenty-four hours my whole future depended. I must get out of the house inside three minutes, before Lord Verard suspected what I was doing.

The hall was in darkness, save for the glint of the moon through the great window. At least, I must secure my money, which was in my room. No sound caine from the room I had just left. I darted quickly up the broad stairs, my feet making no sound on the thick carpets and hurried along the corridor, my heart beating like a steam hammer. I could not think of the future. My mind was in a whirl. In my room I thrust one or two travelling necessities into a bag, picked up an ulster, and pocketed £5— all I had, in the world, since a panic on the the Stock Exchange and a wild gamble had ruined me a fortnight ago.

I dared not return the way I had come up, for to meet Lord Verard, would have been fatal. I turned, down a flight of stairs, leading to the back of the house which would present no difficulty. In a moment I had pressed the catch back, climbed out on the grass, and closed the window behind me with a sigh of relief.

I was free— free in the sense that I was a criminal not captured. I had enough money to get me to London and keep me in hiding for a v.ec; Gr fo, ard that was the end of my tether. Nowhere could I approach my friends. Gerard Norton's description would be ia the hands of the police everywhere.  I shuddered to think of the cold, printed notices that I was "wanted."

The night breeze refreshed me somewhat. I began to think of my immediate plans. Cudthorpe Station lay four miles away. There was a slow train at 4.20 to Boynton Junction. I should reach there before 5 a.m. and could pick up the 5.30 express for London. Meanwhile, what was going on at the Hall? Lord Verard would soon find out I had fled, and would give the alarm.

I remembered with relief that even if he thought of tracking me to Cudthorpe he could not follow in Lord Kelyn's car, because it had been broken down for two days. Any-how, Cudthorpe was my only hope, and I hurried on, arriving at the station with five minutes to spare. I was in an agony of suspense until the train moved off, and then sank back on the cushions, crushed. For the first time the significance of that awful night's work began to sink in-to my brain. For the first time in my life I was a social pariah. And it was all due to the one mad freak of the Stock Exchange which had swallowed my all within a few hours, leaving me desperate and reckless— so reckless that I had—

But I could not bear to think of it.

The journey to Boynton seemed to last an eternity. My nerves were beginning to quiver, and when the train began to slacken s »ce 1 at the junction, I almost felt prepared to see a couple of uniformed policemen, with handcuffs dangling, awaiting me. But the little platform was i almost deserted.

Half an hour to wait. And the possibility of a telegram putting the railway authorities on my track every moment! In a very agitated frame of mind I put my bag in the care of the solitary porter, and walked off the platform into the village. It was impossible, in the circumstances, to sit still, or pace up and down the small station. The village was deserted. I walked for nearly a mile in the country beyond, and then returned.

To my alarm a motor-car dashed up to the station when I was still some distance away. Could it be— ?  I strained my eyes, and to my relief I saw it was of a different shape from that of Lord Kelyn. I noticed a figure alight and enter the station. Then a queer feeling of nervousness overtook me. I stood still. Was it possible that Lord Verard had hurried over to one of the large houses and borrowed a motor-car for the chase? If so, I was merely walking into the trap now. There could be no question as to my guilt once matters came to be investigated. The mere fact that I had a key for the safe— the key which it had taken me three days to make from a wax mould-was quite enough to prove my guilt. And Lord Verard had seen me relock the safe.

To my intense joy I saw the man who had left the car, re-enter it, and a few moments later the motor was careering on its way into the distance- I felt immense relief  and walked on to the station with comparatively bouyant tread.

Sitting alone in his room was the sleepy porter to whom I had handed my bag.

His jaw dropped when he saw me, and he appeared to be covered with confusion.

"Are you Mr. Gerald Norton, sir?" he asked.

My head turned dizzy at the question. Then they were on my track ! I pulled myself together with a jerk.

"No, certainly not," I replied "My name in Mansfield— Francis Mansfield. Why do you ask ?"

The porter scratched his head in bewildered fashion.

" But your bag, sir— I hope it's all right?"

"What on earth do you mean, man?" I asked, sharply.

"It's gone."

"Gone! Where?"

"A gentleman came here in a motor-car not five minutes' ago, andsa d he was expecting Mr. Gerard Norton. I told him a gentleman had left his bag, and when he saw it, he said 'Yes, that's it. I'd better take it in the car, and pick him up.' And he took it."

My lips felt parched, and my brain reeled. Here was a queer situation. Why had he not waited for me? What good was a bag with a suit of pyjamas and a few odds and ends in it to Lord Verard ? What ought I to say to the porter?

"Oh, an' he left a note, sur, but this surprise drove it out of my head. He said it would explain in case Mr. Norton missed his way and caime back."

"Oh, that's all right. I'm Mr. Norton's valet," I said, with happy inspiration, taking the note with trembling hand. I turned my back to the man as I opened it and read:

I told you you were taking a foolish course. Just one final word of warning to prevent you from making an ass of yourself. Think what you are doing. I will not expose you if you return. You can take the 5.35 train back, and return the same way you came. You can yet be in bed before anyone is up in the house. To save you the , trouble of carrying your bag again, I am replacing it under the window which you left by. Again, I say, don't be an ass. Return. l would take you back with me in the car, but delicacy prevents me from suggewsting that we should make the journey together in the circumstances.

The letter nearly fell from my hand. It would have given me unspeakable relief, but for one thing.  And Lord Verard in his generous forgiveness, had never dreamed of that.

I had attempted to steal because I was desperate— and that desperation was caused by my having forged Lord Kelyn's name to a promissory note, which would fall due in a fortnight. I pressed my hand to my forehead, and tried to think.

"Don't be an ass. Return." The words seemed to din in my ears. Perhaps I might be able to raise the money in a fortnight by borrowing from some friend. At any rate it would be flying in the face of fortune to resist the invitation in my hand.

The train steamed into the opposite platform. On the spur of the moment I crossed the line and started the journey to Cudthorpe. I hardly realised what I was doing, until I found myself at the window. I picked up the bag and climbed in-to the servants' hall, making my way upstairs with a heavy heart. Already I had begun to regret my return, when my eyes fell on a note propped up in the centre of my dressing table. I recognized the writing as that I had read at the station. Hastily I tore it open and read :

I have rarely been more entertained, but I cannot let you take such an extremely unnecessary step as running away before you are found out. I should not have troubled about you, but I admire courage, and you did it well. Rest content, my friend. I am not, and never shall be, Lord Verard, whom you may greet in a few hours now with calm assurance. Nor was I at Pembroke, but in the course of discreet inquiries lately I had heard of your athletic record at Oxford.

One thing more I must explain. You were at the wrong safe. The diamonds are kept in the other one, but in my concern for your welfare I quite forgot their existence. I have a fancy to renew the acquaintance, so if you care to leave your bedroom door unlocked I will come in a week hence.— Chandos."

Chandos! Then it was the dare-devil, elusive gentleman burglar who had led me such a dance. And I still had an unblemisned character! I laughed at the irony of the idea until I remembered the promissory note. Then I opened the window and stared out at the distant hills for hours. I had much to think of. In a week Chandos was coming here.

Sleep was out of the question after such a revelation as I had received in the quaint letter Chandos left in such an audacious manner on my dressing-table. For me to have bolted from a burglar was an odd enough situation, but to be led back to safety by one, and that one Chandos, the brilliant elusive thief, who was merely a name to the police, was a comedy of a strange order. I almost laughed later in the day when I met the real Lord Verard, for whom I had mistaken Chandos. The two men were as unlike as it was possible for two men to be. Lord Verard was short, and his manner was brusque, in striking contrast to the easy grace and fascinating way of the notorious burglar. Moreover, I took an instinctive dislike to him on account of his demeanour to me.

He regarded me as a sort of family hireling, and I had not been earning my own living long enough to learn how to submit to that sort of thing.

During the first few days I was so full of a sense of relief at not having been found out that I felt far happier than I had done for weeks. But that promissory note, at present lying in the hands of the moneylenders with its forged signature of Lord Kelyn, began to obtrude itself upon my thoughts. Only about ten days remained before it fell due. And then I should have come to the end of my tether. I must make a clean bolt then, or stand my trial on a charge of forgery. I wrote to two old friends explaining that I was in urgent need of £300 for a little while, but drew blank. A third appeal also failed, and the outlook became very black. As I lay awake at nights sometimes, the words of Chandos reverted to my mind:

The diamonds are kept in the other safe.

After my first fright, I had never dreamed of repeating my desperate plan of raising badly-needed funds. And yet the thought had always been there that those precious glittering stones in the house could raise me from the depths of despair to comparative affluence, at least for a year or so. In three more days according to the note left by Chandos, he was to renew our strangely-made acquaintance in an equally strange fashion. It sounded utterly mad. I could not believe he would risk entering the place again and take the additional risk of coming into my room.

True, it was just the sort of prank that one would expect the humorous Chandos to carry out.

I FOUND myself gradually being worked up to a state of nervous agitation as the day, or rather, the night, arrived, but on the evening before Chandos was due all thought of him was banished by an utterly unlooked-for event. Lord Kelyn made up his mind to go abroad with Lord Verard in a couple of days, and he presented me with a cheque for three months' salary in lieu of notice.

Three months' salary and I wanted £800 to redeem myself from jeopardy. It left me about £250 short, and it might as well have left a deficit of a million sterling. I sat up late that night thinking over the events of the last few months, and cursing the gambling spirit which had brought me to such a predicament. I was on the verge of a precipice, and all through my own folly. Moreover, as far as I could see, there was no way of avoiding the crash. Probably I should go to Canada or Mombasa— anywhere where I could hide myself from the charge of forgery. And I was to begin life anew with a capital of £50.

The clock struck midnight. I knocked the ashes out of my pipe. According to Chandos he was due to give me a call in the course of a few hours. Of course, he had never meant it. It was one of his jokes. With a heavy heart I made my way upstairs, and got into bed.

But I could not sleep. For an hoar or so I read and then tossed and turned until the deep-voiced , clock on the landing chimed tbe hour of 2 a.m. I found myself listening intently for the slightest sound. Two-thirty. The longer I remained awake, the more sensitive my ears became in the darkness and silence. I stared at tbe ceiling which it was too dark to see, and it struck me how impossible it would be for anyone to break into a house unheard, while one of its occupants lay awake listening, listening.

Suddenly I got the strangest surprise I had ever experienced in my life. A match was struck within four yards of where I lay, and by its glow I saw Chandos sitting in my armchair, lighting a cigarette as calmly as though it were broad daylight, and he bad every right to be there. There was a look of infinite amusement on his face while the flare lasted, and then I beard a sigh of contentment and saw only the rosy end of his cigarette. I put my hand out and turned on the electric switch. He sat perfectly unperturbed and smiled at me as though revelling in the surprise he had sprung upon me.

'How the— how did you get there?' I ejaculated.

'You kindly left the door unfastened.'

'But I never heard you come in.'

'Really! You flatter me. Did you expect me to send a drum ahead as a sort of herald?'

'I did not expect you at all as a matter of fact,' I replied.

'That is curious,' he said, with a tinge of regret. 'It is one of my firmest rules in life never to break my word, and yet people constantly express surprise when I do what I have said I would do. I am sorry, however,if my visit displeases you.'

He half rose from his arm-chair. 'It merely struck me that you might feel a little— er— easier in your mind after a chat, considering the circumstances of our last meeting.'

Here I had Chandos revealed in all his chivalry. I quite believe he would have vanished, and I should never have seen him again had I simply indicated that I wished him to go. He was beginning to fascinate me. I motioned him to be seated again.

'You caught me stealing,' I said.

He blew out a cloud of smoke.

'I assure you I should not have known it, had you not revealed the innermost secrets of your guilty heart when you looked up and saw me standing there,' be said. 'Certainly the hour was a peculiar one, and I might have been forgiven for a vague suspicion, but you precipitated my view.'

'Then, tell me why you, Chandos, of all people, took the trouble to prevent me from running away?'

'It would have been a little unjust— on you, wouldn't it?' he replied, musingly.

'And you have come now to—'

'To apologise for any little inconvenience I may have caused you.'

'It is good of you,' I observed. 'And what other reason had you?'

'I am very fond of country houses. But, dear me, I had almost forgotten. Can yon tell me if it is true that Lord Kelyn is leaving England in a few days?'

'It is.'

'Ah!' There was silence. 'I don't want to dissect your heart and soul,' he went on, in a curious voice,' but it would interest me enormously if you would tell me exactly what made you break into that safe.'

'Stock Exchange losses,' I replied, bluntly.

'Desperation, eh?' I nodded.

'Then you have done more than lose your own money?'

'How do you know?' I asked, jerkily, raising myself on my elbow.

'You haven't got the face of a thief,' he said, 'and if you had merely lost your own money you would have cut your losses, and decided to grin and bear it. I'm sorry for you.'

'Thanks, you're consoling.' The memory of what I had done made me bitter.

'My dear fallow, don't imagine I was preaching. I was only interested in tbe psychology of the thing. I suppose also, for some reason, I was interested in you. It may, have been a sort of fellow-feeling. It if so rarely one can be intimate with a man of education and refinement on such a delicate subject as theft.'

'I am not a thief,' I replied,

'Not a skilled one, certainly,' he retorted, with a gentle smile. I bit my lips in a flood of virtuous indignation.

'Now, don't look angry,' he added, in his gentlest tones, 'and do let me persuade you to put that revolver which you have in your right hand, under  the pillow.'

I stared. I had a revolver there. It had been a delicate piece of forethought on my part in case his visit should prove awkward. I pulled it from under the bedclothes.

'How did you know?' I asked.

'You kept that hand hidden in a rather obvious way, and considering I saw it under your pillow four hours ago the deduction was comparatively easy.'

'You have been in this room before?'

'I took that liberty while you were drowsing over your pipe downstairs,' he said, unmoved.

'Where have you been since?'

'Tucked up in a couch somewhere. It was very comfortable.'

'Suppose I had used this revolver now to force you to surrender?' I suggested.

His eyes were full of devilment and laughter.

'Try,' he said. 'I thought of the bare possibility of that, and removed the bullets from the cartridges.'

I looked at them. The revolver was as harmless as a toy.

'Come, come,' he said, 'you must forgive a little rescourcefulness on my part, considering all things. By the way, I wonder if you ran tell me whether anyone left this house and went to London today?'

'London? No, not that I am aware of,' I replied, puzzled.

'You seem mystified. I was only thinking of those diamonds that interested you so much.' Then it dawned on me why be had come back.

'You scoundrel,' I snapped. ' And you expected me to help you to steal them.'

Chandos raised his eyebrows, and his eyes twinkled.

'Do you really suggest.' he asked 'that I should be likely to come to you for assistance?'

I felt rather crushed. 'Well, the diamonds are quite secure,' I replied, 'and they are not in their usual place of security. Lord Verard took them to his room to look over them before they are sent to the bank tomorrow.'

'Thanks, drawled Chandos. 'It's an awful bore to open a safe and find it empty.'

He pulied out his watch. 'It is getting late. I am afraid I must go. If you happen to be in town this week call on Essex Vaughan,' he said, scribbling an address off Piccadilly. 'He always knows where I am, but don't let his servants hear you ask for "Chandos" that's all.'

And as though it had been the most usual visit in the world, he shook hands, went out, and closed the bedroom door after him. I leaned back in bed and laughed. 'This is preposterous,' I thought. 'If I strove my hardest to convince anyone what had happened tonight they would only think me mad.' It was growing light when I at last fell asleep.

NEXT MORNING I felt sorely tempted to ask whether burglars had been in the place, but I thought it discreet to remain silent. Nothing was said of intruders, so I gathered tbat Chandos had vanished as mysteriously as be came, without taking anything with him.

Just before noon Lord Kelyn received a wire saying the London Bank's representative would call, as requested to take charge of tbe diamonds. He was coming by tbe 2.20 train. The car was sent to the station to meet him, but it was nearly three o'clock before a servant announced that a gentleman from the Central Bank had arrived, and was waiting in the library. The earl and Lord Verard went in together. Some strange instinct prevented me from going with them. Instead, I remained in the room where I was, drawn by an irresistible force to the window. I wanted to see that bank's representative as he left. Of course my fears were wildly improbable, but there seemed to be some connection between Chandos and those diamonds. My heart began to leat quickly when at last I heard the hall door close, and I waited to see the man go out. He passed close to the window, and happened to look up as he went. The worst had happened. The Kelyn diamonds were tucked away in an ordinary handbag secure in the care of— Chandos.

Not a flicker of recognition could have been observed on his face as he glanced up, but there was a roguish glint in his eye. It must have been an intense moment for him to feel that he was recognised at such a moment. Why did he trust me so blindly? My brow was wet with perspiration. I started vaguely to go to the door, and give the alarm, but something held me back. I had not the least idea what. One-half of my being urged me to cry out ; the other held me spell-bound. I collapsed into a chair and stared mutely at the gateway through which Chandos had gone.

I had been doing, so for about four minutes, perhaps, when the gate opened, and Lord Kelyn's car drove through. It did not reed any great intelligence on my part to divine the identity of the man sitting by the side of the chauffeur. It must be the bank's real representative. I felt rooted more firmly than ever to the chair.

The hall bell rang and there was a silence for a few moments, and then I heard voices raised.

'You're an idiot,' I heard Lord Verard cry. 'I tell you the bank's representative had already got the diamonds, and signed a receipt for them.'

Consternation began to reign, and within sixty seconds Lord Verard, the bank representative, and the chauffeur were tearing down the drive in the motor-car.

I staggered to the sideboard and poured out a whisky and soda with an unsteady hand. They were chasing a thief, but they did not know the sort of man they were after. I felt sure that with the Kelyn diamonds in his possession, Chandos would be more than equal to the occasion.

It was a full hour belore they returned— alone, as I anticipated. In my heart of hearts I was glad, though I did not realise then why it was so. I have since tried to analyse the reason with indifferent success. Probably it was partly the sence of chaos into which my own feelings had been thrown by the financial difficulties, and partly the result of the magnetic charm Chandos.

In the car they had scoured the district in vain. Now, it was all over, they saw the symplicity with which the whole thing had been worked. The pseudo bank messenger had said that he had walked from the station, explaining that the car had broken down. The car had, as a matter of fact, broken down, so that when the real bank messenger arrived at the station, the chauffeur was delayed for more than half an hour until be found that one of the ignition wires had been unscrewed. The neatness of the trick was worthy of Chandos. Probably the thrilling wait in the house until he left with the diamonds (knowing as he did that the car might arrive any moment) was to him the greatest joy of the whole performance.

Lord Kelyn's departure for tbe Continent was delayed by this daring coup, and for two or three days detectives and police hovered round the place until I shuddered at the sight of a helmet. It had such a peculiar significance for me. Four days more and my sands would have run down. I could picture myself walking about London, and turning aside every time I met a policeman, lest he should arrest me on a charge of forgery. I had one clear day before the sword was to fall when Lord Kelyn and Lord Verard left England, assured by Scotland Yard that the diamonds would yet be found.

I hid myself in London at once, unable to make up my mind to fly the country. After a week of intense loneliness there I was drawn to the address of Essex Vaughan. It was ten o'clock when I rang the bell at his flat, and a sumptuous-looking footman bowed me in. Without thinking, I had given my own name.

'Mr. Vaughan is out for the moment, sir,' said the servant. 'but if you can to wait, be may not he long.

I was ushered into a room which showed the extraordinarily fine taste of its owner. Pictures by Rossetti, Burne-Jones, and Whistler bung on the walls, and curios and old Chinese bronres of great beauty were dotted here and there. Being somewhat of a connoisseur myself I got up and admired these things when I was left alone. Suddenly my eyes fell on an envelope in the centre of the mantelpiece. It was addressed to 'Gerard Norton, Esq.'

Wonderingly I took it up. It must be meant for me. I toyed with It in my fingers for several minutes, and then tore it open, taking two sheets out. Something suspiciously like tears came into my eyes. It was the fatal promissory note, torn in two.

Before I had time to puzzle the thing out the door opened softly, and in stalked Chandos with extended hand.

'You— you know something about this,' I said, holding out the mutilated document, the possession of which left me free.

'Rubbish. That's nothing, my dear fellow. Sit down.'

'But how did you know—'

'I told you I took the liberty of exploring your room, and I noticed a letter from old Isaacstein. It was significant, and I was deeply interested in you, somehow. I read it. I put two and two together, and I called on the old money-lender. Discreet inquiries showed me I was right in what I guessed. I owed you a debt of gratitude— and there you are. I hoped you would call for the thing.'

It was impossible to thank him in words, so I took his hand. The door opened again and the servant came in.

'A note for you, sir,' he said to Chandos. Chandos held a finger up warningly as the man went out, afterwards holding the envelope so that I could see it. It was addressed to 'Essex Vaughan, Esq.'

'I trust you, you see,' he said, and I looked in amazement at the outward and visible form presented to the world by the brilliant thief known as 'Chandos.'

________________

3: A Community of Two

Edward Dyson

1865-1931

The Lone Hand, 1 April 1909

"IF YOU DO I'll shoot you!" said the woman.

The man stood ten paces away in the keen sunshine, that splashed white upon the rocks. His legs were planted wide apart, his fingers clawed a thick beard. He was like a brute at bay. He cursed in a low voice, but his words were  audible.

"What sort of woman are you?" he cried. "What sort of human creature are you? Years of this life have not taught you to forget your most ridiculous pruderies."

"Nor to forget my God."

He laughed wildly.

"Neither has it taught me to forget him— the man you killed."

"You lie! There is no answer for that but that you are a liar." His mood changed, and he began mockingly; "O, High Priestess of the Proprieties, it is a pity our island affords no mirror in which you might see yourself in your best pose, as Mrs. Grundy of the Savage Lands, exponent of the respectabilities to a community of gulls, champion of virtue in the desert. A mere girdle of tatters ill beseems the monument of middle-class rectitude. The promptings of the Nonconformist Conscience and the precepts of gentility, as it is practised in a dull London suburb, must be maintained in corsets and ample gowns. Mrs. Grundy strips badly; in the buff she is simply grotesque. As Diana, now, you would be admirable, as Mother Grundy you're an absolute travesty."

A hot blush burned through her brown skin; the woman's hands pulled nervously at her poor fragment of skirt. For a long time she had ceased to crave for the ambush of clothes. Custom had made her proudly unconscious in her rude garment, but the man's gibes pricked old instincts. They hurt. She shrank back. Shame flooded her veins. Truth, she had much to be proud of. Standing there in the broad day; tall, square-shouldered, deep-breasted, straight of limb; face, bust and legs burnt a golden brown; her feet a little wider for the long absence of boots, but shapely and strong; her face proud and finely moulded, and her tumble of thick hair, like polished copper shot with red and gold, caught up loosely in a band of brown fibre— she was very beautiful. And the man knew it, felt it with a surge of revolt against the inaccessible, even as he sneered. He noticed her emotion with a thrill of vicious joy, and continued formally:

"Fortunately, Madame's intense sense of decorum, and her accurate conceptions of the correct thing in conduct, were susceptible to modifications in the matter of dress, otherwise I could not have permitted myself the liberty of a call." He turned on his heel, and laughed coarsely.

"This costume would hardly do in the society whose moral code Madame so worthily sustains on the Silent Islands."

He was a good-looking devil in his kilt of bird skins, brown as leather, and as hard and clean. Simple living, open-air life, and the stress and interest of battling for existence in primitive conditions had perfected a man naturally hale and strong. His close beard was in keeping with his character in the strange drama of wild life these two played alone; so was the roughly-cropped dark hair that lent a Velasquez grace to his powerful head.

The woman squared her shoulders again, and took up scorn as a shield. "Julian Dale was once a gentleman," she said. "He—"

What more she meant to say was drowned in his bellow of derision.

"And Madame Albert is still a lady," he cried. "A perfect lady— God pity her! When my bones whiten on the rock under the nesting-place there, and she sits utterly alone, she will have still the proud consciousness of remaining a perfect lady to sustain and comfort her."

He had made another palpable hit. Her cheek blanched a little, and she shrank into the doorway of her hut.

"You are a brute!" she stammered, trembling to tears. "A wretch! Go-go away from me. Why do you make me hate you? Oh, why do you do it?"

She disappeared, closing the stout door after her, and Dale stood for a couple of minutes staring at the hut, cursing in whispers.

"Fool! Idiot! Beast! "he muttered. "No wonder she abhors you! Ass! Ape!"

He fell into a rumble of slum expletives.

"Heaven, how sweet she is! She is adorable! She is damnable! But l am master here." He clenched his hands on his breast. "My will shall be done."

Helen Albert's hut was built against a huge rock, in the fringe of vegetation where the palms began to climb the slope that swelled into a black, barren range a few miles inland. Before were large, smooth sand-dunes, sheltering shallow lagoons gleaming like mirrors. In the far right was a sweep of white beach and blue bay, with an elbow of cliff in the distance; to the left was forest. The island was like a monk's head, with its tonsure of domed mountain and its sparse fringe of trees. To the north was a sprinkling of tiny isles, but all bleak and barren. It was Dale who had named them the Silent Islands.

The man took up his weapons, a roughly-fashioned bow and arrows, a stone club, and a wooden shaft to which was lashed a blade of crystal. The club had a plaited loop for his wrist. He swung the weapon angrily, walking towards his cave-house. There were two homes on the island ; they stood a quarter of a mile apart. There were two residents; and there was that between them which promised eternal division. Three were saved from the wreck— the man, the woman, and the woman's husband. Even on the ship there had been enmity between Julian Dale and Ralph Albert. The former's admiration for Helen was bold and open, and Albert was jealous of every eye that fed on her beauty, and quick to detect an insult to himself in even formal compliments from good-looking men. After three months of the island life, Dale and Albert hated each other as completely as two savage men could hate, with every reason in the world for hatred. Dale hated Albert because he possessed the one woman and had her love and companionship to glorify this life of barrenness and desolation, and Albert hated Dale because he trembled for his possession.

The husband terrified himself with grim reflections on the possibilities of their position; he fed his wife's imagination with his dreams of the horror that would beset her should anything happen to him.

The hut was built with great labor, strong enough to resist attack; the revolver and the belt of cartridges were carefully secreted for her defence in the hour of greatest danger.

Mrs. Albert was the conventional, well-bred, delicately-nurtured woman. She had been brought up in a household in which nobody ever dreamed of doubting that English middle-class morality would keep in any climate, or believed for a moment that its stringent rules of good conduct might be modified in Martaban or any latitude. Her wits had not been sharpened on the rough sides of life, because her life had had no roughnesses. Only within about two years had she discovered the necessity of thinking for herself. Consequently Dale, although the true provider and the natural leader of their little commonwealth of three, was regarded by her as something of an ogre. Dale helped the impression with frequent sullenness and a disposition to savage derision.

Then came the inevitable battle— a brutal fight, in which the two men tore at each other like famished tigers. Mrs. Albert found her husband unconscious on the sand, and Dale creeping away, bleeding from many wounds. She had only her husband's version of the quarrel, and it represented him as the high-minded defender of domestic honor, and Dale as the bad beast. Ralph had no wounds, but he bled from an internal hurt, and remained pale and weak, while Dale, after drying his cuts in the sun, like a savage, was about again in two days. A month later Albert sickened with a fever, and in a week he died.

Dale dug his enemy's grave in a dim corner, walled with rock and shaded with dipping palms. For a time the distracted woman refused to allow him to touch her sacred dead, but succumbed to her helplessness, and Julian carried the body to the burying-place, and laid it, reverently enough, in the ground. After that, for many days, he left Helen alone with her grief, placing at her door every evening a share of the birds trapped, the fish caught, or the fruit and eggs gathered by his labor.

One morning she went to him, pale and composed. She called him "Mr." Dale, and thanked him formally for his service, much as she might have thanked a stranger at home, whose kindness must be acknowledged, but who must not be given to feel himself in any way encouraged. She said she would be a burden to him no longer. Julian cursed bluntly. Her insensibility maddened him. He had sloughed prinks and proprieties as easily as he had sloughed civilised raiment, but at no time had he lived by conventions as she had. He hungered and thirsted for close companionship. In every drop of his blood there was a craving for her, and his passion was met with cold circumspection.

She had been his social superior ; traces of the pride of it lingered in her manner. The situation often appealed to his sardonic humor, and he laughed long, but always with something of fury. This was a year later, when she had learned to fish and hunt and search for herself. Physically she expanded in the new and strange life, but soul and mind were true to her breeding. Meanwhile, her poor clothing fell from her shred by shred, till little but a kilt remained, but she carried her revolver like a chatelaine, her protection against the one danger the island offered— Julian Dale.

Dale had his moments of tenderness and humility— moments when he crept in the sand to kiss her feet, but he could not kill her distrust or weaken the barriers, and the revulsion always threw him into moods of bitterness, in which he was often coarse, delighting to outrage her prudery, deriding her scrupulousness with vindictive irony. But there was one thing he could not do. He fell short of the true savage in lacking the heart to assert the right of might against the beloved. When Julian grew most urgent, Helen had Ralph's precepts in mind, and was hugging her belief that Dale had killed her husband. She would seek cover in the hut, and Dale, sprawling in the shade, amused and tortured himself with biting speech.

"Madame's precious reputation cannot long survive this," he said. "Madame hears me? The affair becomes scandalous. Already her set is whispering darkly. It is the favorite theme of four o'clocks in all the islands. She lives alone, she is too much abroad without a chaperone, and that man from the cave house under the hill hangs about persistently. He's obviously a common person too, without a rag to his back— a sans-culotte. And talking of rags, have you noticed Madame's gowns of late? Positively indecorous. Shocking, my dear! She engages in menial employment, she eats with her fingers, and neglects church shamefully. Can we continue to receive her?"

It was poor sport, but the days were long, long days, the loneliness of a desert brooded on the Silent Islands, and the man's passion turned on him and ate his heart.

He often found her by Albert's grave, sometimes in tears, and he resented it fiercely. Eventually he did not seek to hide his anger. One day, after hours of desperate weariness, he sought her out, stung to fury by her seeming indifference. She sat near the grave, weaving a net of fibre.

"So, Madame," he snarled, "sitting with your bones?"

She flushed. "Am I to have no refuge?" she said.

"Yes, Helen, here is your refuge— your inevitable refuge, in my arms, next my heart." His tone sank to humbleness; he extended yearning arms.

She shrank from him.

"You are wise to tell me that here by the grave of the man you—"

"Murdered!" He snapped the word fiercely. "Say it. It is his abominable story. The dead man's lies live in you."

"You have neither shame nor reverence."

"Reverence! Have I ever said an ill word of  your dead man? These dreary years I have born with the scorn and hate his jealousy and vindictiveness bred in you, but you will not let him rest; you hold him up between my love and you, this grisly thing, and I bear it no longer. I tell you now your dead man was a liar and a cur— always a liar, always a coward! Murdered? I murdered him? He attacked me, I fought with bare hands, while he gashed my body with a flint, and I murdered him!"

He snarled like a wolf.

"It is not true ! " she cried, facing him, angry-eyed.

"Then why had he no wounds and I so many? No, Madame, Dale the savage fought like a man, your hero fought like a brute, and he died from no injury at my hands, but because he was not man enough to live without the bolsters of civilisation. Did he tell you how we three came ashore ? I know the tale he would fashion for your ear. Did he tell God's truth, and say I dragged your insensible body through the storm, and held you to the spars for hours, while he clung to it, whining pitifully for assistance— assistance I could only give by abandoning you."

"It is false, false, false!" The woman's face greyed under its tan.

"You came to in his arms down there on the sand. I knew he would lie to you. I knew you would believe him. But do you forget Albert could not swim? Even when I had the trouble of teaching him in the lagoon a month later, it did not occur to your woman's wit as curious that this lumbering fool had brought you alive through the whirlpool. You were prepared to credit him with miracles. Helen, Helen, for God's sake come from the vault, come with me. Be human! Love me, for I adore you."

He moved towards her, but she backed away again, cowering, shocked. "No, no," she cried. "You have traduced him for your own end. He was good, he was brave." Her hand went to the revolver.

Julian stood erect, and gibed at her: "That is another of your ridiculous delusions," he said, indicating the revolver. "Do you think that would have saved you for one moment, had it not been strong in my heart here to win you fairly, honorably— fool that I am?" He beat his breast with heavy hands. "The powder must be perished ere this. The thing is harmless. Even if not, would I care? Look into my eyes. Would I care?"

He moved nearer, and she looked, and terror seized her.

"I'll shoot; I will, I will," she cried. She pointed the revolver in a quavering hand.

"Shoot then!" he said.

He strode towards her, she closed her eyes, and a report echoed up the slopes. Julian fell forward. She saw him on hands and knees, his head bent to the ground, and a tide of horror swept over her. The shooting had been convulsive, there was no active intention behind it, and now that it was done, contrition, fear, pity, a storm of emotions assailed her. Dale remained in this position for a moment, and then pulled himself to his feet, clinging to the rocks, and turned without a word, and moved away. For 20 yards or so he went stumblingly, but after that he walked erect and with a firm step. She,watched him go into his cave, and then moved towards the spot where he had fallen. A cry broke from her lips. There was blood upon the grass.

Every moment of the two hours that followed was fraught with terror and suffering to Helen Albert. She tried to console herself with the belief that no serious harm had come to Dale, but he did not re-appear, and she pictured him bleeding to death, perhaps dead in his hovel. The thought drove her to the cave.

"Mr, Dale! Mr. Dale!" she cried.

Her voice broke in an agony of apprehension. In the dim light she saw his form stretched on the bed of leaves and grass against the wall. "Speak to me," she pleaded.

"In God's name, Madame, what are you doing here?" piped a jeering voice. "Think what you are doing ! You here alone in my house! Your reputation will be ruined." Dale's passion had gone out with his blood; he was weak and vindictive. "Here," he said, "take this, you may need it again." He threw something that struck her, and fell in the sunlight. It was a bullet. "I cut it out with a flint," Dale continued. "I told you the powder was spent."

"Can I do nothing for you?" she pleaded tremulously.

He drove her away with words of petulant scorn. Rising on one arm he flung his last words after her. "You will find no fish in your beach-pool, and no eggs in your accessible nests till I am well again," he said.

Dale had been generous enough in health to stock her pool, a basin left by the falling tide, and to steal eggs into the nests accessible to her, and to say no word of it, leaving her to believe in her independence; but sickness, weakness, and despair bred a viperish femininity in him,

Helen had much to think of in the next few days before Dale was astir again, and the thoughts worked many changes. They evoked profound sadness, but she saw the world from a higher eminence. She breathed a purer atmosphere, existence took on a new significance. When Dale was well, she took his gifts of fish and birds submissively, and with gratitude. But if she had changed so had he. He no longer sought her, he spoke no word of love to her. Indeed, he spoke little of anything. It would seem that he had bowed his head to the inevitable and put passion and anger out of his
heart. "I am going to make another attempt to get around the island to the east," he told her one day a few weeks later. "I shall not be gone more than three days. You have nothing to fear here."

She recollected in the following hour of desolation that she had not been near the grave for a week.

Three days passed, and Dale had not returned. Three more days went by, and she was alone. Helen was now oppressed with a great fear for Dale. The pain that commenced in vague uneasiness developed into a grief that oppressed her, bowed her to the ground. She indulged in storms of tears.

All her womanliness swept back upon her. She cried his name aloud in her loneliness. She pictured him lost, perishing of hunger or thirst, wounded perhaps, crawling on the ground, perhaps dead, and the past assailed her as a furious reproach. She shut it out with hands drenched in her tears, and knew that to have him back, pleading at her feet, she would give her life. She walked miles and miles seeking him. She cried, "Julian! Julian! Julian!" from the crags, and only echoes mocked her. She knew loneliness and it bred despair.

On the seventh night she sat on a sand dune overlooking the sea that was but a black void in the moonless night, when, raising her head from bitter thoughts, her tear-laden eyes saw dancing lights in the darkness out across the water. For half a minute she stared, thrown forward on hands and knees, and then sprang to her feet with a great cry:

"A ship! A ship! A ship!"

She rushed down from the sand-heap. At the fire that always burned on a sheltered ledge in the hill she lit a torch, and sped up the rise to the flat where their beacon was piled. She thrust the torch into the brittle brushwood, and saw the flames take hold. Then another cry broke from her laboring breast, a cry of terror. She tore at the fire, she beat out the flames with her hands, and, lying face down on  the smoking twigs, was convulsed in a passion of weeping.

They would forsake him! cried her soul within her. They would not wait. They would take her and leave him. Leave him alone! Leave him to suffer there alone, alone, alone! He would come back sick, wounded, famished, and find that she had deserted him. It could not be.

She struck at the few sparks that remained with a feverish energy, and lay sobbing, with arms outspread, and her face to the earth. She had not moved when the grey dawn touched the edge of the sea, but a little later she arose, and stumbled towards Dale's cave, as she had done a hundred times during the last four days. Hope was dead within her, but she peered into the cavern and called his name.

"Julian! Julian!" She fancied a dark figure lay against the wall, and stole nearer. It was he. He lay upon his side, his arms above his head, and slept the sleep of utter exhaustion. After being lost for four days he had fought his way round the island, and, half-starved and worn as if with years of suffering, had crept into his cave to eat and sleep.When Julian Dale awoke it was broad day, the sun shone in at his door, and on his breast rested the head of a sobbing woman; her fingers clung to him with tender insistence, her beautiful hair veiled his grey face.

Out on the blue bay a tall ship lay at anchor, her white sails slipping on the spars like half-shed garments; and the song of her sailors stole to the lovers in their cave with a faint sense of enchantment.

_____________

4: The Contamination of Santa Claus

Silas Snell

Edward Dyson, 1865-1931

The Tocsin, Christmas Number 1897

Reprinted in Labor Call (Melbourne) 7 Dec 1939

GODOLPHIN DAWES, Esq., retired to bed rather earlier than usual on Christmas Eve. Godolphin was one of those hard, practical, business-like persons who quite eschew sentiment, and he always celebrated Christmas by over-eating himself, excepting when he marked the occasion by over-drinking. There are many people who celebrate Christmas in this way, and live through the joyous season in a gorged condition that makes their skin too tight for summer wear, and gives them a strained look about the eyes, suggestive of wild nightmares and bloodstained banshees. I have a theory that thorough, impartial, scientific investigation would establish beyond dispute the fact that overfeeding is responsible for all the Christmas ghosts and goblins that walk, and that have left an indelible impression upon English literature.

Mr. Dawes' hard practical nature made his experience, after retiring to bed on that Christmas Eve, all the more remarkable.

Godolphin is certain that he had not slept long when he was disturbed by the sound of somebody moving in the room. He listened intently, and heard distinctly the patter of feet and the sound of sterterous breathing, and he quaked under the sheets, and a clammy perspiration suddenly welled all over his body, for it is no pleasant thing for a short puffy man of sixteen stone, stricken with dyspepsia, to have to deal with a burglar at the dead of night.

Mr. Dawes listened with all his ears. Alas! he could not be mistaken, somebody was certainly moving in the room, and yet the footsteps were like those of a child. It the intruder was an adult he must certainly be a dwarf.

The conviction gave Godolphin courage, and, slipping silently out of bed, he cautiously turned the gas full on, then sharply struck a match and ignited it. Instantly the room was flooded with light, and Dawes swung round and confronted a figure, the sight of which made him gasp and plump his ample proportions down on the bed, where he sat, glaring fatuously, purple-faced, with his mouth wide open, and his eyes standing out from his head like those of an appalled lobster. The figure was the quaintest imaginable— human and yet elfish— elfish in its smallness, and strange supernatural atmosphere, and a suggestion of great age, sipation in the face, and the childish, and yet quite human in the signs of his almost beery leer with which it regarded Godolphin.

Still it was not unfamiliar. The respectable Mr. Dawes felt sure that he had met it before under more favorable conditions. At length he remembered—

"Santa Claus."

The little figure nodded its head, and looked around in an abashed way as if seeking an opportuhity to escape.

Dawes, amazed beyond expression, still glared at his visitor, who stood opposite to him, backed against the wall, a woeful object. The man regarded his dilapidated little jacket, his wee boots, all worn and broken, his shrunken, ill-nourished figure.

"In reduced circumstances?" he muttered, and again the little figure nodded and grinned feebly. Santa Claus looked as if he had indeed come down in the world; but his carbuncled nose, with its purple tints, his streaked cheeks, and weak, shifty, bloodshot eyes testified eloquently to the cause.

"Drink?" queried Dawes again, feeling he must say something.

"Don't mind if I do," replied the visitor, becoming suddenly alert, and looking eagerly round the room.

"You misunderstand me," said Dawes. "I meant to ask was it drink brought you to this?"

"Oh," said Santa Claus, disappointedly. "Yes, it was the drink." Then he continued in an apologetic tone: "You see it was always about when I came visiting people at this time of the year, and I started nipping five hundred years ago. Before that I was a strict teetotaller, I can assure you. It's all the fault of careless people who would persist in putting temptation in my way. In nine out of every twelve houses I visited there was a bottle or a decanter of brandy handy, and, well, I got into the habit of helping myself. At first I just took the drainings out of the glasses, but the habit grew on ine. I suppose you haven't got a drop about, have you? I prefer Irish."

Mr. Dawes produced a decanter and a glass mechanically, and, whilst Santa Claus helped himself to a grown man's dose he sat still and gazed wonderiugly upon the elf. Santa was dressed much as he was pictured in English prints, but his clothes were very seedy and much faded, and the bag he carried on his back had no toys sticking out of it, but instead something that looked suspiciously like a burglar's jemmy. He looked older too and much battered, and he had thin legs, and his corporation was more suggestive of drink than honest tissue.

"You won't give me away, will you?" said the Christmas sprite, pitifully, in his weak thin voice. "You are the first human being to have seen me since my. fall, and I shouldn't like the others to know what a wreck I am. Men still represent me as a jolly little sober redcheeked healthy fellow. It would just break my heart if I were to see myself like this on a Christmas card."

As he spoke he noticed a gathering sternness in the eye of Godolphin Dawes, and he cowered and trembled under it. Dawes arose and stepped towards him, and diving his hand into his bag, drew forth a jemmy, a dark lantern and a bunch of skeleton keys.

"What are these?" he demanded. Santa Claus looked very abject indeed as he stammered—

"Oh, them? Well, you see, I can't get down some of these modern chimneys, and I have had to take a pointer or two from my friends the burglars."

"I see you have!" thundered Dawes as he dipped his hand into the bag aagin and produced several small valuables belonging to himself. "I thought it was Santa Claus' mission to go about distributing gifts. It seems to me your pretensions of philanthropy are merely a thin disguise under which you carry on the most nefarious practices."

A great tear rolled down the little man's nose; he shivered and mumbled, and protested his innocence, unconscious of the fact that in his hand he still held Godolphin's gold watch and chain.

"These protestations of innocence will not help you," said Dawes, sternly, clutching his watch. Dawes is a J.P., and the position he had now taken up came natural to him. "Better confess all, and throw yourself on the mercy of the court; but remember what you say will be used in evidence against you."

"I will! I will!" faltered Santa Claus. "It is all on account of the drink— really!; really!; it's all the accursed drink. I used to cart round toys for the children when I was young and innocent. I did, your Honor; but when the drink craving got hold of me I commenced to pawn the stock in order to get liquor through the year, because, you know, I only get out on Christmas Eve. Then I gradually got into a way of picking up bits of jewellery in the houses I visited, and went from bad to worse, until I came to this. Now I usually collect valuables enough on my Christmas Eve tour to keep me in whisky all the year round. I sell out to a Jew fence in the Ghetto— London, you know."

"Scandalous!; scandalous!" growled Dawes.

"Keep my secret, won't you?" pleaded Santa Claus. "It would be dreadful to have the children disbelieve in me. I couldn't outlive their contempt You'll let me go, and say nothing about this— I'm sure you will?"

"Couldn't think of it!" thundered Dawes. "It will ill become me as a good citizen and a magistrate to permit so dangerous a character to remain at large."

"But what would you do with me?" pleaded poor Santa.

"I will have you sent to an inebriates' retreat."

Godolphin Dawes made a grab at his visitor, but Santa dodged him and fled up and down the room, crying piteously: "Not an inebriates' retreat! Please not an inebriates' retreat! Anvthing but that!"

Presently he raised himself into the air and, seeing him in the act of making a dash for the window, the magistrate seized a heavy soap dish, and let fly. and Santa Claus and the dish went through the pane at the same time with a great crash, and Godolphin. Overbalancing, pitched head foremost over a chair,  bringing down the dressing table, and raising such a racket as to awaken everybody in the house.

When Dawes came to he was prostrate amongst the ruins of the dressing-table and mirror, and his relations were all gathered about him. asking fifty questions at once; but that drunken reprobate, Santa Claus, was gone, and the only hint of him that remained was a faint smell of spirits in the air.

__________

5: The Art Critics

Fred M. White

1859-1935

The Windsor Magazine, Oct 1911

The Sun (Kalgoorlie) 5 Nov 1911

CYRUS T. COWMEADOW lay back puffing thoughtfully at his green cigar. Perhaps he was in rapt contemplation of the beauty of the night. Overhead was a powder of stars; in front of the restaurant kept by the polite Pietro Antelli the city lay in the fragrance of the April evening. Cyrus had dined both wisely and well, so also had little Antonio Broganza, the artist.

"Antonio, my brave," Cowmeadow said presently, "I begin to see my way."

Antonio smiled. When Cyrus T. began to see his way, the money began to flow; and, like all his clan, Antonio had not the gift for saving.

"Tell me the story again, Antonio," the American went on. "Who was the artist who painted the missing picture? Not that it much matters so long us he was ancient and famous. And be quite certain, my dark-eyed boy, that the facts are cold-drawn and planed at the edges."

"The great masterpiece of Guido, from the altar at the Church of the Blessed Sacrament here, you mean, signor," Antonio murmured. "Oh, yes! It was the glory of the chancel. It hung there for three centuries, till there was trouble with the French in 1740. Then the Guido he vanished and never more seen again. The French forces they included several soldiers of fortune, and one of them was a Lord Loring, sent away from England over some family trouble. Ancestor of Lord Loring who was ambassador at Rome odder day. 'E dead now, They say Guido at Loring Castle, in Scotland. But all that legend."

"What ho!" Cyrus quoted softly. "Proceed, sunny child of the South. And since that time the space over the altar has been blank. Suppose I could produce the picture? What would it fetch?"

"Hundred thousand pound," Antonio said promptly. "In America perhaps more. On the back of the picture one of the monks of San Bommo had written its story. Illuminated on vellum was the story, and attached to the back of the canvas. Also the story of what you calls pilgrimage to England to try and get the picture back. All in the museum here."

"You could make a faithful copy of all that, Antonio?"

Antonio modestly thought that he could. His white teeth showed in a flashing smile.

"I am an artist," he said, "also a restorer. We have been restorers for three generations. I patch and darn, or I copy same as the original—makes no difference. And no expert he can say where or which. I copy you that picture if we could only find him."

"You mean that you have all the materials at hand, Antonio?"

"Right. O, signor. Old parchments, old vellums, old paper, and old pigments—pigments such as are not to he found anywhere else. When Garibaldi made trouble, they came from a monastery. My father wept tears of joy when he got them. I can clean paint and gilt and lettering off old vellum, and write them and paint them as I do please. And then comes the expert from Bond Street, and he say: 'Behold, illuminated page of fifteenth-century work.' And I smile."

"There are no flies on you, unsophisticated child of the sunny South," Cyrus said. "If ever there were, they have yielded to treatment. What was the famous Guido supposed to be like?"

"Sorta copy in the museum here," Antonio explained. "Dauba."

"So much the better. You could make up a copy of it?"

"To deceive the universe," Antonio said proudly. "I have the old canvas, the old pigments, and the old varnish, the secret of which is lost. In three months the blooming fools from Bonda Street would come and say: 'Behold the lost Guido!' But there is a flaw, signor."

"There is the very devil of a flaw, Antonio," Cyrus agreed.

"Yes, I thought you would spota him, signor. They say whence comes the Guido?

Tell um the story of him being found. And there I fail—I have not the imagination, not the blooming nerve. And I am not what you call taking confederates. If it all fell easily and naturally, you understand—"

"0h, I understand right enough," Cyrus said. "This is where Cyrus T. comes in. This is his department on the first floor. You make the picture, and I'll do the rest. Got an old frame?"

"Make an old frame," Antonio suggested, "A moulding from one and as beda from another, and clamps from a third. All genuine old material with the ancient gold on it."

"Right O, dear boy! Then break it in two and cover it with dust and cobwebs. Manage that?"

"Manage anything," Antonio said promptly. "All in your hands. And you say what price, Antonio?"

"Well, say two thousand pounds. If the whole of the Session's legislation passes, I'll call it five. More money than you ever made in your life, Antonio. No chance of the real picture turning up?"

"E never turn up," Antonio responded. "Lost or destroyed long ago. No fear!"

"Well, there certainly isn't much,"Cyrus admitted. "When can you get to work, Antonio?"

The clever little Italian could get to work at once. He would have to put other tasks aside, and he needed money. For the next three months he would have to think of nothing else. He could get along in the meantime with a thousand dollars. Cyrus T. promptly counted out the notes.

"Now, you set to work without any further delay," he said. "I'm going as far as Paris for a month, Funny thing if I happened to run up against Lord Loring there. Spends most of his time in Paris, he does. He flings it about, Antonio; it's a family weakness. He was in New York last fall, looking for beauty and intelligence embedded in a ton or two of dollars, but nothing materialized. Guess I'm going to be as good as a father to Lord Loring. I'll come back later and report progress."

IL was well towards the end of July before Cyrus T. returned to Florence. Antonio welcomed him with open arms. The great work progressed famously. Would the Signor Cowmeadow come round to the studio and look for himself? Cyrus replied dryly that he would.

"As the bridegroom said to the parson who asked if he would take the woman for his wife, I've come on purpose," he said drily. "I guess I'm going to be satisfied."

He was. As a matter of fact, he was never more satisfied. Never had he fully appreciated the craft and skill of the little man before. The picture was practically finished. It stood there in a wonderful frame of black and gold; the subdued tint of the ages clung to it like a fragrance. There was the sooty grime on the canvas, and there was the discoloured story of the great work in gold and black and blue, a little faded and stained, as it had come from the cunning hand of the monk centuries before. Bond Street would have passed it as genuine at a glance.

"It's great," Cyrus cried— "immense! If only the story was as good as the picture, we should just sit down and divide one hundred thousand pounds between us. But it ain't, Antonio— it ain't."

"Whata yer mean to say— there is the chance of being found out?"

"No, I don't, Antonio. The story's all right if we are content with a few thousands each. The trouble is, I can't think of a story whereby we can get the lot. To try the game on here means confederates, and you don't like confederates, Antonio."

Antonio was quite emphatic on that point.

"Very well, then; our game is to play for safety. If we 'discover' the picture here, there will be all kinds of inquiries and cross-examinations, and perhaps a battle between experts that'll keep the game going for years. I can put everything right if we are only modest. But the main part of the plunder is going to a blue-eyed boy, the head of a northern clan, who will never know his luck, and never know he did a bloated Chicago millionaire in the eye. By Jove, Antonio, I've got it! We shall make ten thousand pounds apiece yet. Then you can return to your vineyard and die respectable."

A WEEK OR TWO later Cyrus T. departed en route for London. From Paris he had despatched a large case to a certain address in the fair town of Perth, where it was to remain till called for. At the Gare du Nord, Cyrus, quite by accident, he encountered Lord Loring. But then these "accidents" always do happen to the shrewd and far-seeing who never neglect the opportunities. The clean, well-set-up Englishman greeted Cyrus in the most friendly fashion. He rather liked the company of American millionaires. In the late autumn he was going out to America again. In common honesty to his long-enduring mortgagees, it was only fair that he should do something. He gladly fell in with the suggestion that he should share a coupé with Cowmeadow. Was Cyrus going over for the grouse?

"Well, I'm looking forward to a go at the birds," Cyrus explained. "I meant to take a shoot myself, but I got tangled up with a little gamble in Paris, and that kept me. Don't know that the two hundred thousand dollars I made on the deal was worth all the trouble. No chance of picking up a really good moor as late as this I suppose? I'd share one up to one thousand pounds."

Here was a chance direct from the hands of the gods, and Loring promptly and gratefully accepted it.

"I'm short-handed this year," he explained; "one or two good guns have failed me. The man who was going to have the shoot died suddenly. If you like to come in—"

"I'll certainly come and look at it," Cyrus said indifferently. "When are you going up?"

Loring replied that he was going up on the first of August. Would Cowmeadow come along and take pot luck at the Castle for a few days, and look round? There would be plenty of time to decide. With a frown on his face, Cyrus went through his engagement book.

"Sorry I can't manage it," he said. "But I can get away for a few days on the third. That do you?"

As a matter of fact, it did Lord Loring very well. He was going to make one thousand pounds that he had not in the least expected, and he was going to shoot his birds as well.

Cyrus turned up at Loring Castle on the day arranged, bringing no more than a couple of suitcases and a square deal package that he seemed to regard with considerable anxiety. He praised the grand old place, the rooms and the grounds; he was not satisfied until he had examined everything from parapet to basement. There was nothing suspicious about this; Loring had entertained Americans before now, and recognised the symptoms. For the next two days Cyrus ask nothing better than to prowl about the house, looking into any dark corner and finding interest everywhere. On the third evening be asked for a fire in his dressing-room, as the night was chilly. After this boon was granted, he locked the door and proceeded to open the deal cane. The covering was promptly consumed in the fire, and the contents of the box disposed of presently to Cyrus T.'s satisfaction. There was only one thing that marred his content— he was not quite sure, after all, whether or not he could stay for the shooting. His partner in New York was ill, and his old enemy, Gilead J. Broff, was taking advantage of the situation. At any moment he might be called to return home again.

"At any rate, I'll just chance it till the end of the week," he said. "Let's go and sit in that jolly old gun-room of yours and have a final cigar. Ever get any burglars here?"

"Never heard of such a thing," Lord Loring laughed.

"Well, the place is worth a visit," Cyrus responded. "Still, I suppose that old silver would not sell except or its face value. All the same, I like to sleep with a revolver under my pillow. I've got one in my dressing-room now."

Lord Loring smiled at the suggestion as he made his way up to bed. An hour later he was aroused by the whiplike crack of a revolver. The unexpected had happened. Then came a shout and a hoarse cry, and once more that spitting of the revolver. Loring staggered into the corridor and looked about him.

At the far end of the corridor there appeared Cyrus in a blaze of glory not entirely unconnected with the violent hues of his pyjamas, He staggered with his hand to his side; he suggested strife not wholly devoid of personal triumph.

"What on earth is the matter?" Loring demanded.

"Guess I've left my mark on them," Cyrus responded. "I winged one of the chaps— broke his arm. He managed to get out of the big window at the end of the corridor. What I want to know is what those chaps were after? What were they doing in the ruined west wing? "

"What chaps are you talking about?" Loring asked irritably.

"Why, the burglars, of course! I heard them go past my door. Always sleep with one eye open; you had to, out West, when I was a young man. Ought to have called you up, of course, but wasn't quite sure which your room is. So I followed them along the corridor to the deserted wing. Three of 'em altogether. They were pulling a whole lot of lumber about, as if looking for something. By sheer had luck I happened to sneeze. They were on to me like a flash. Pretty hot whilst it lasted, sonny, only was quicker with my gun than they were."

"What— you don't mean to say that they actually—"

"That's what I'm getting at," Cyrus said coolly. "I'll show you the bullet marks. I got one under the jaw with my fist, and winged another with a shot. Then they concluded to leave by a large majority. Only wish you had been there, my boy."

"Only wish I had," Loring said fervently. "But what on earth were those fellows doing there? It's not exaggerating to say that nothing in the whole wing has been touched for a century. The rooms are packed with lumber of all kinds. Everything superannuated is shoved in there"

"Well, I guess the best thing we can do is to go and see," Cyrus suggested. "Get your candlestick, and I'll fetch mine. Not that we shall find anything."

The big room bore signs of a struggle. A long splinter, obviously the work of a bullet, been torn from an angle of the panelled wall. A heap of rotting canvases in tarnished frames were scattered all over the floor. On one of these lay a sheet of paper, which Loring picked up. He saw at a glance that here was a rough sketch-plan of the old wing and some notes in pencil, evidently scratched there for the guidance of the burglars.

"Very odd!" he muttered. "Anybody would imagine that some treasure was buried here. Sort of Robert Louis Stevenson business. Left-hand corner under the pile, two from the bottom. What does that mean? Angle next to the dormer window. Dash it, there must be something here, Cowmeadow! Black and gold frame, illuminated description on the back of the canvas. Jove, it's a picture they're after!"

"Shouldn't wonder,"Cyrus responded: "Some forgotten picture they've got on the track of. Old family servant left a diary or something of that sort. They tell me these old stories are often handed down in the servants' hall from one generation to another. Silly game, for the most part, but they have been true sometimes. More than one masterpiece has been unearthed that way. There isn't one of those missing in your family, I suppose?"

"Oh, well, we have plenty of legends," Loring said indifferently. "There's the story of the Guido, for instance— the big picture from the Church of the Blessed Sacrament at Florence. An ancestor of mine had it beyond doubt, but I'll take my oath he never brought it here. The old boy died suddenly, and they say his body-servant could have told a story. All bosh, of course!"

"Well, I guess I'm not so sure of that." Cyrus protested. "These old facts have a curious way of turning up again. I'll just see if there's anything in that paper, anyway."

Loring nodded as he proceeded to light a cigarette. He watched Cyrus pulling a heap of dusty frames about for the next half hour. Then the American gave a dramatic start.

"By the Great Jerusalem, I've found it!" he cried. "It was lying at my feet all the time. Those chaps had actually got on the scent before I intruded on them. Look at this!"

Loring came forward a little more eagerly. On the floor was a fine carved black-and-gold frame, and in it a picture partly cut away from the stretcher. The cut was clean and fresh, as the even edges of the canvas showed.

"This is what they were after," Cyrus said in a voice trembling with excitement. "They must have been actually cutting the picture away as I came in. What a find! Guess I know something about pictures. I've made money out of 'em. Help me to turn the frame ever. If there's a neat little illuminated panel of vellum on the back, I guess we've found the Florentine Guido."

Surely enough, the panel in question was on the back of the canvas. Cyrus reverently picked up the frame and carried it along the corridor to his room. He poked up the fire and helped himself to a cigarette— to steady his nerves, he said.

"Well, I guess you are up against the luck," he exclaimed. "Everything is going your way, sonny. You've got a little picture card there worth one hundred thousand pounds. You'd get that price for it in America in a week, and I'll guarantee to find you a customer."

"If you will, you shall have my grateful thanks," Loring said.

"And ten thousand pounds," Cyrus said coolly. "Guess we'll make a business deal of this. Never lose a chance of piling the dollars in what's pasted in my hat. Lots of men would have kept their necks shut and bought that picture or a few cents."

"Oh, well," Loring laughed, "I'm sure I'm quite agreeable! Only we shall have to hear first what experts have to say on the subject. It may only be a copy."

"Well, I'll give you e cheque for a hundred thousand dollars on the off-chance," Cyrus drawled. "Just you make out a little story on the subject and send it to The Times, and let the experts know that they are welcome here; and I'll stay and see the fun through?

Bond Street rose at the bait like one man. This letter in The Times had stirred the critics to the deepest depths. There was something in the direct simplicity of the story that appealed to them. And the local police were equally impressed. They noted the splintered panelling; they found an old type of revolver bullet that fitted a weapon they had discovered in the castle grounds. Four chambers in the revolver had been discharged. There were blood spots on the corridor window and the marks of feet on the flower-bed below. The authorities had an important clue, and an arrest might be expected at any moment. Most of the papers took up the story with alacrity, and the main-line expresses were packed with critics.

A score of the big dealers reached the castle during the next few days. There was only one opinion, and that unanimously in favour of the Guido. Beyond all question, it was the missing masterpiece from the altar of the old church at Florence. Everything tallied exactly; there was not a flaw to be detected anywhere; every detail of the legend dovetailed beautifully. At the very least the picture was worth ten thousand pounds. It might have to remain in the possession of the purchaser for some time— Americans were not buying just now— but Mr.Preset, of the famous firm of Preset & Co., was prepared to pay ten thousand pounds for the picture now.

Lord Loring politely declined; also he politely declined an offer of double the money from Sir George Doubleday, of Doubledays Limited, a few minutes later.

"My price is one hundred thousand pounds?" he said, "and I shall take nothing less. After to-day the picture will not be on view; I'm sending it to London."

Sir George sighed and shook his head. In the present state of the market—The market must have taken a surprising and gratifying turn for the better, for next day Sir George, on behalf of a distinguished client, made an offer of seventy thousand pounds. Loring tossed the telegram in the fire. Two days later came an urgent telephone message from Sir George, to the effect that he was brining his client down to see the picture, and that no doubt Lord Loring's desire would be accomplished. Two days later still The Times came out with the announcement that the famous Guido had changed hands for one hundred and ten thousand pounds, and that the fortunate possessor was Mr. Emanuel S. Blickstein, of Pittsburg, Pa. It was some hours later that Cyrus T. Cowmeadow left Loring Castle, plus ten thousand pounds and a promise to return in a day or two unless urgent business did not call him to Chicago. Probably it did, for Loring Castle has not seen the ingenious Cyrus from that day to this.

Cyrus T. reviewed the situation as he travelled back to London. He had done very well, inasmuch as the thing was safe, and anything like greed might have ruined the whole situation. The real lucky one was Lord Loring, who would never know what a friendly joke Fate had played on him. On the whole, Cyrus was proud of his artistic effect. Still, there was more money to be made, and Cyrus was going to lose no time in liquidating his stock whilst the market was still in his favour. The Guido had been removed to Mr. Blickstein's suite of rooms at the Imperial Hotel, and many receptions had been given in its favour. The rest of the time the Guido reposed in the hotel strong-room.

Cyrus called at the end of one of these receptions, and contrived to find his way into the private sitting-room of the great steel magnate. The Guido reposed in state upon an easel. Mr. Blickstein did not receive his visitor with fervour amounting to enthusiasm.

"What do you want?" he asked. "I told you not to come here again. The past is past, Cyrus."

"O.K.!" Cyrus said cheerfully. "I came here, my boy, to save you one hundred and ten thousand pounds."

"Oh, really! In what way? And what do you want for doing it?"

"Ten thousand pounds, my noble Semite," Cyrus went on. "Shut the door. Anybody near us? No? Then, my good Croesus— your Guido is a forgery! Never mind how I know—I do know! And I'm the only man in the world, bar one, who is acquainted with the fact."

"Oh, oh! Then Lord Loring—"

"Loring is as innocent as a child. Here, turn the picture over on its hook. Now look at that panel there. Genuine, you say? Very well, then; take off the bead round it and look on the other side of the vellum. You'll find some illuminated lettering on the reverse. In fact, the vellum was taken from a missal done ten years after Guido was dead or before he was born—I forget which. Then ask one cf those Bond Street prophets."

"I've been had!" Blickstein cried. "I'll have the law on everybody! I'll punish everybody, and—"

"My dear chap,"Cyrus said soothingly, "you'll do nothing of the kind. You'll keep your mouth shut, my friend. The picture has been passed by the leading experts of Europe as the real and genuine terrapin. It'll go down to generations yet to be born as the Guido, and, as time goes on, it will get more valuable. And if you're ever hard up for one hundred and twenty thousand pounds, you can raise the boodle on that postcard. Why tell anybody? Why make a fuss? Why let your enemies know that Emanuel S. has been had? It's good advice I'm giving you, Emanuel, and I guess that it's cheap at ten thousand pounds. See?"

Blickstein controlled himself creditably. He also reached for his cheque book; he saw the soundness of Cowmeadow's reasoning.

"This is to be a secret between us?" he asked.

"Obviously," Cyrus said, "I'll take an open cheque, sonny."

"All right!" Blickstein snapped. "In that case, I'll make it payable to bearer."

___________

6: The Celestial Adventure of Sin Loo

Richard Stillman Powell

(R. H. Barbour) 1870-1944

Black Cat magazine, March 1898

SIN LOO paused again beneath a lamp post and again examined the slip of paper held in his hand. On it was written an address. To that address Sin Loo had been traveling for over an hour; for the contents of the twin baskets hanging from the ends of the pole across his shoulder were being impatiently awaited by the person who had penned the directions. A dozen times had Loo held the paper forth to passers-by and softly asked, "Wha-lat?" And not once had assistance been denied. Some, captivated by Loo's artless and helpless countenance, had even walked to the nearest corner and from there indicated the right direction. Already, had he but known it, Loo had passed the house he was seeking a half dozen times, for, since a half hour ago, he had been breathlessly hurrying around the same block. And now he studied the slip of paper again with perplexed eyes. But to him it was only a series of faint black scratches, sadly deficient in symmetry and sense, when judged by his idea of what correct writing should be.

For Sin Loo was not a low-born Chinaman; a fact indicated by the silken texture of his blouse that shimmered faintly in the light, by the neatness of his two little cloth slippers, and by the cleanliness of the slim hand that held the address. Sin Loo sighed, shook his head despondently, and, clutching the bit of paper tightly, looked about him in bewilderment and alarm.

It was very dark; the long sidewalks were practically deserted, and the scurrying cabs and carriages with the blazing lights suggested to Sin Loo the passing of so many fiery-orbed dragons, of the kind impressed upon his memory by his grandmother's fairy tales, told years before under the twilight of Canton skies.

Presently, as he hurried on, his eyes caught sight of a figure in the distance, and on the moment he was fleeing down the avenue as though the evil one himself were upon his heels. For a whole block he fled, the baskets swaying and bobbing about him as though suddenly invested with life. Then he paused and glanced fearfully back, and a long-drawn sigh of relief escaped him; the blue-coated demon was no longer in sight.

Sin Loo, during his brief residence amongst them, had learned to look upon policemen as the incarnation of all evil, and to fly from them as he would have flown from the Purple Ogres of his grandmother's tales.

Out of all reckoning now, Sin Loo held forth his precious slip of paper and looked about for assistance. But no one was to be seen until, presently, his troubled gaze, searching the dim street, encountered a wonderful sight. At a little distance a canopy of striped doth reached from a residence into the street, and from under it shone a radiant blaze of light. Sin Loo was but eighteen, and curiosity seized upon him. Cautiously he moved forward. A throng of people barred the way, and Sin Loo crept into the shadow of the group. From there he could see a strip of beautiful crimson carpet running from the street across the sidewalk, up a flight of high, broad steps, and through a portal luminous with golden light, from whence issued forth the subdued strains of what seemed celestial music. Surely, thought Sin Loo, here lived the blessed gods!

Wondering curiosity got the upper hand of fear, and Sin Loo began to worm his way forward through the crowd. But the swinging baskets seriously retarded progress until the onlookers, becoming aware of his presence, opened up a path for him with cries of, "Here's another of 'em! Make way there for Li Hung Chang!" and Sin Loo, smiling timidly upon all, advanced until the beautiful crimson carpet lay at his feet. He stretched forth one little slipper until it rested caressingly upon the edge of the carpet, and then heaved a sigh of ecstasy. The carpet was for all the world like the soft down on the breasts of the white ducks that his grandfather raised on the Choo-Kiang!

Suddenly Loo darted back with a cry of absolute terror. There was a great noise, the people behind pressed forward, a carriage with the fiercest of eyes stopped, with a clanking of chains, before the awning; two resplendent beings in red and blue livery darted forward and swung open the door; and an angel— two angels— in white, stepped out. But it was not the carriage that had frightened Sin Loo. Nay; but there, not two steps away, terrible, demoniac, stood a huge Blue-Coated One, waving a huge stick toward Sin Loo! With a yell of agony Sin Loo strove to retreat. But no, the crowd held him. There was but one way open. His profane feet trod the carpet of the gods, and with three bounds he stood in the portal of Paradise!

Struck with the danger of his predicament, Sin Loo glanced fearfully back, only to meet the eyes of the Blue-Coated One who barred the way. He was laughing loudly with the rest of the throng, but to Sin Loo he appeared to be gnashing his teeth with disappointment over the escape of his prey. To remain there was to be lost. Sin Loo gazed about him, and for a moment was lost in awe and admiration of his surroundings. Near at hand, lined by flowering shrubs and waving palms, rose a great staircase, winding slowly upward to be lost in another flood of light from above. About him were blazing lights, banks of brilliant blossoms, graceful festoons of swaying vines; in his nostrils what seemed the odors of a thousand plum gardens, and in his ears such music as they had never heard. A burst of laughter aroused him. Down the great staircase, holding their brilliant draperies about them, came a group of goddesses. In desperation Sin Loo darted to a great curtain, whose soft folds shed a dozen hues under the light. Behind this he would hide. He lifted a corner, when, as though by magic means, the curtain was whisked from his grasp, and before him, dazzling in jewels and radiant apparel, with hand outstretched, stood,— ah, yes, it could be the queen of the goddesses, no less, in wait to rebuke his presumption.

With quaking heart, Sin Loo turned to flee. But lo! the entrance was gone from sight. Behind him stood sentinel two huge ogres in shining armor, and clasping great glittering blades, the sight of which sent thrills of terror coursing through the marrow of Loo's trembling bones. Before him stood, sat, or walked a multitude of gods. He closed his eyes and awaited annihilation. Presently he opened them again, and found himself still alive. Then he sought to escape in the throng, flattening himself and his awkward burdens against the nearest flower-screened wall, and hiding behind the great marble pillars and the tall palms. But he could not avoid notice; murmured comment greeted his stealthy progress, and the eyes of gods and goddesses followed him. Then the music began again, and in a moment the great gold and white hall was a wonderful kaleidoscope, for the inhabitants of Paradise in their gorgeous dresses, with their flashing gems and waving plumes, were dancing together. Sin Loo, forgetting his terror for the moment, peeped from behind a tall and feathery fern, and thought that never had his most magnificent dreams pictured Paradise one thousandth part as wonderful as it was. Before him two gods, one in a mass of pale blue silk and creamy lace, the other clad in russet leather, slashed here and there to show a lining of crimson satin, were talking together. Sin Loo listened with might and main, but the words were strange and not to be understood.

"Magnificent sight, isn't it?" the one in blue was saying in languid tones. "Ought to be, though, since they've been over six months in preparing for it. I hear there were over a thousand invitations sent out."

"Yes," replied the other. "By the way, have you seen Jack Vandergrift and his wife?"

"Can't say; probably wouldn't have known them if I had."

"Yes, you would, though. Mrs. Jack's been getting ready for this affair for months and months. Told me the other day that she had secured the finest rig-out of them all. Seems that she went to the high Mogul, or whatever you call him, of a Chinese acting troop that's playing in Chinatown, and engaged costumes for herself and Jack. She's to be a celestial princess or something, and Jack's to be an emperor. Had to deposit a cool thousand apiece for the costumes, don't you know. Can't understand what's keeping them."

"I saw a Chinaman awhile ago carrying a couple of baskets slung over his shoulder like those the vegetable carriers use in California, only smaller. Fine get-up, but didn't look much like an emperor."

"Yes, saw him myself. Everybody's speaking of him. Never saw a finer Chinaman make-up in my life. Acts his part, too. I say if you see Jack or his wife, let me know. Engaged to her for supper."

"Won't do you any good. We're to be paired off, helter-skelter, by our hostess with a view to artistic effect, and marched into supper like a double file of convicts. Look, I believe the hour of doom approaches. Come on!"

The pair hurried away, and Sin Loo now noticed that both music and dancing had ceased and that all Paradise was flocking to the far end of the hall. To be alone was more terrifying than to be amidst the crowd; in Loo's case safety lay in numbers; and with his baskets flopping to and fro he scuttled down the room, a ludicrous little figure, slipping and sliding on the waxed surface of the ball-room floor like a duck on ice.

The queen of the goddesses, assisted by lesser deities, was going and coming amongst the crowd, forming it couple by couple into line of march. Here Richelieu was giggling with a nineteenth century milk maid; there one of his Swiss guard was whispering soft nothings into the pink ear of a Highland lass; yonder, a black-garbed and black-masked executioner leaned on his broad-ax and joked with a pretty Parisian cyclienne. Soldiers and peasants, kings and queens, lords and ladies, favorites of mythology and celebrities of nursery rhyme, were all here, waiting for the orchestra hidden in the balcony above to strike up the martial air. Already the hostess had raised her fan, when suddenly her gaze sweeping about the hall caught sight of a skulking blue-clad figure. She advanced and seized Sin Loo by the sleeve.

"This way, please;" and Loo, his knees knocking together with fright, was led to the rear of the line.

"You will take me in, please," said the hostess. Again she lifted her fan and again lowered it without making the expected signal, for across the floor from the entrance hurried a lady in simple evening costume, a black vizard held before her eyes, while at the alcoved doorway, his entrance impeded for a moment by the two knights-at-arms who raised gleaming blades to bar his progress, a man in conventional broadcloth and linen paused with a look of serio-comic helplessness.

"It was our costumes!" exclaimed the lady with the vizard, breathlessly, between her hostess' expressions of pleasure and playful reprimand. "They never came, and as we couldn't miss this, here we are at the eleventh hour, plain nobodies!

"What was the trouble? I don't know. I only know they were incomparable. I engaged them last week, and they were to be delivered this evening. Ko Ha, the Chinese actor—  Gracious! What's that?"

Sin Loo, groveling on his knees, was begging for mercy in high-pitched, terror-filled vowels. He had heard his master's name and knew that the time of reckoning had come at last. Mrs. Jack sprang forward.

"I really believe— it is Ko Ha's valet! Where—"

But there was no need of asking. Sin Loo's bundle lay beside him, and from an overturned basket— one of the properties of the Chinese theater— flowed a dazzling stream of gold-embroidered silks and satins.

"My costume!" cried Mrs. Jack.

"And mine!" cried her husband, as, laughing, he drew the treasures from the other basket.

"You— you wretch!" cried Mrs. Jack. "Where have you been? How came you here? Why—"

But Sin Loo was deaf to all questioning. In his shrill treble he was gabbling monotonously forth all the prayers ever taught him by his beloved grandmother.

Then the orchestra played an extra waltz; Mr. and Mrs. Jack Vandergrift hurried away to don their costumes; and Sin Loo, still clutching the slip of paper tightly in his hand, was conducted through the great portal, down the beautiful crimson carpet, and so forth from the presence of the outraged gods.

The throng on the sidewalk was gone. Only the Blue-Coated One remained. With a startled cry Sin Loo looked once, and then fled into the darkness. And, strange to tell, the demon only grinned!

_______________

7: Imprisoned with the Pharaohs

Harry Houdini

Ehrich Weiss, 1874-1926

Ghost written by H. P. Lovecraft, 1890-1937

Weird Tales, May/June/July 1924

MYSTERY ATTRACTS MYSTERY. Ever since the wide appearance of my name as a performer of unexplained feats, I have encountered strange narratives and events which my calling has led people to link with my interests and activities. Some of these have been trivial and irrelevant, some deeply dramatic and absorbing, some productive of weird and perilous experiences, and some involving me in extensive scientific and historical research. Many of these matters I have told and shall continue to tell very freely; but there is one of which I speak with great reluctance, and which I am now relating only after a session of grilling persuasion from the publishers of this magazine, who had heard vague rumors of it from other members of my family.

The hitherto guarded subject pertains to my nonprofessional visit to Egypt fourteen years ago, and has been avoided by me for several reasons. For one thing, I am averse to exploiting certain unmistakably actual facts and conditions obviously unknown to the myriad tourists who throng about the pyramids and apparently secreted with much diligence by the authorities at Cairo, who cannot be wholly ignorant of them. For another thing, I dislike to recount an incident in which my own fantastic imagination must have played so great a part. What I saw— or thought I saw— certainly did not take place; but is rather to be viewed as a result of my then recent readings in Egyptology, and of the speculations anent this theme which my environment naturally prompted. These imaginative stimuli, magnified by the excitement of an actual event terrible enough in itself, undoubtedly gave rise to the culminating horror of that grotesque night so long past.

In January, 1910, I had finished a professional engagement in England and signed a contract for a tour of Australian theatres. A liberal time being allowed for the trip, I determined to make the most of it in the sort of travel which chiefly interests me; so accompanied by my wife I drifted pleasantly down the Continent and embarked at Marseilles on the P. & O. Steamer Malwa, bound for Port Said. From that point I proposed to visit the principal historical localities of lower Egypt before leaving finally for Australia.

The voyage was an agreeable one, and enlivened by many of the amusing incidents which befall a magical performer apart from his work. I had intended, for the sake of quiet travel, to keep my name a secret; but was goaded into betraying myself by a fellow-magician whose anxiety to astound the passengers with ordinary tricks tempted me to duplicate and exceed his feats in a manner quite destructive of my incognito. I mention this because of its ultimate effect— an effect I should have foreseen before unmasking to a shipload of tourists about to scatter throughout the Nile Valley. What it did was to herald my identity wherever I subsequently went, and deprive my wife and me of all the placid inconspicuousness we had sought. Traveling to seek curiosities, I was often forced to stand inspection as a sort of curiosity myself!

We had come to Egypt in search of the picturesque and the mystically impressive, but found little enough when the ship edged up to Port Said and discharged its passengers in small boats. Low dunes of sand, bobbing buoys in shallow water, and a drearily European small town with nothing of interest save the great De Lesseps statue, made us anxious to get on to something more worth our while. After some discussion we decided to proceed at once to Cairo and the Pyramids, later going to Alexandria for the Australian boat and for whatever Greco-Roman sights that ancient metropolis might present.

The railway journey was tolerable enough, and consumed only four hours and a half. We saw much of the Suez Canal, whose route we followed as far as Ismailiya and later had a taste of Old Egypt in our glimpse of the restored freshwater canal of the Middle Empire. Then at last we saw Cairo glimmering through the growing dusk; a winkling constellation which became a blaze as we halted at the great Gare Centrale.

But once more disappointment awaited us, for all that we beheld was European save the costumes and the crowds. A prosaic subway led to a square teeming with carriages, taxicabs, and trolley-cars and gorgeous with electric lights shining on tall buildings; whilst the very theatre where I was vainly requested to play and which I later attended as a spectator, had recently been renamed the American Cosmograph. We stopped at Shepheard's Hotel, reached in a taxi that sped along broad, smartly built-up streets; and, amidst the perfect service of its restaurant, elevators, and generally Anglo-American luxuries, the mysterious East and immemorial past seemed very far away.

The next day, however, precipitated us delightfully into the heart of the Arabian Nights atmosphere; and in the winding ways and exotic skyline of Cairo, the Bagdad of Harun-al-Rashid seemed to live again. Guided by our Baedeker, we had struck east past the Ezbekiyeh Gardens along the Mouski in quest of the native quarter, and were soon in the hands of a clamorous cicerone who— notwithstanding later developments— was assuredly a master at his trade.

Not until afterward did I see that I should have applied at the hotel for a licensed guide. This man, a shaven, peculiarly hollow-voiced, and relatively cleanly fellow who looked like a Pharaoh and called himself Abdul Reis el Drogman, appeared to have much power over others of his kind; though subsequently the police professed not to know him, and to suggest that reis is merely a name for any person in authority, whilst 'Drogman' is obviously no more than a clumsy modification of the word for a leader of tourist parties— dragoman.

Abdul led us among such wonders as we had before only read and dreamed of. Old Cairo is itself a story-book and a dream— labyrinths of narrow alleys redolent of aromatic secrets; Arabesque balconies and oriels nearly meeting above the cobbled streets; maelstroms of Oriental traffic with strange cries, cracking whips, rattling carts, jingling money, and braying donkeys; kaleidoscopes of polychrome robes, veils, turbans, and tarbushes; water-carriers and dervishes; dogs and cats; soothsayers and barbers; and over all the whining of blind beggars crouched in alcoves, and the sonorous chanting of muezzins from minarets limned delicately against a sky of deep, unchanging blue.

The roofed, quieter bazaars were hardly less alluring. Spice, perfume, incense, beads, rugs, silks, and brass. Old Mahomoud Suleiman squats cross-legged amidst his gummy bottles while chattering youths pulverize mustard in the hollowed-out capital of an ancient classic column; a Roman Corinthian, perhaps from neighboring Heliopolis, where Augustus stationed one of his three Egyptian legions. Antiquity begins to mingle with exoticism. And then the mosques and the museum— we saw them all, and tried not to let our Arabian revel succumb to the darker charm of Pharaonic Egypt which the museum's priceless treasures offered. That was to be our climax, and for the present we concentrated on the mediaeval Saracenic glories of the Califs whose magnificent tomb-mosques form a glittering faery necropolis on the edge of the Arabian Desert.

At length Abdul took us along the Sharia Mohammed Ali to the ancient mosque of Sultan Hassan, and the tower-flanked Babel-Azab, beyond which climbs the steep-walled pass to the mighty citadel that Saladin himself built with the stones of forgotten pyramids. It was sunset when we scaled that cliff, circled the modern mosque of Mohammed Ali, and looked down from the dizzy parapet over mystic Cairo— mystic Cairo all golden with its carven domes, its ethereal minarets and its flaming gardens.

Far over the city towered the great Roman dome of the new museum; and beyond it— across the cryptic yellow Nile that is the mother of eons and dynasties— lurked the menacing sands of the Libyan Desert, undulant and iridescent and evil with older arcana.

The red sun sank low, bringing the relentless chill of Egyptian dusk; and as it stood poised on the world's rim like that ancient god of Heliopolis— Re-Harakhte, the Horizon-Sun— we saw silhouetted against its vermeil holocaust the black outlines of the Pyramids of Gizeh— the palaeogean tombs there were hoary with a thousand years when Tut-Ankh-Amen mounted his golden throne in distant Thebes. Then we knew that we were done with Saracen Cairo, and that we must taste the deeper mysteries of primal Egypt— the black Kern of Re and Amen, Isis and Osiris.

The next morning we visited the Pyramids, riding out in a Victoria across the island of Chizereh with its massive lebbakh trees, and the smaller English bridge to the western shore. Down the shore road we drove, between great rows of lebbakhs and past the vast Zoological Gardens to the suburb of Gizeh, where a new bridge to Cairo proper has since been built. Then, turning inland along the Sharia-el-Haram, we crossed a region of glassy canals and shabby native villages till before us loomed the objects of our quest, cleaving the mists of roadside pools. Forty centuries, as Napoleon had told his campaigners there, indeed looked down upon us.

The road now rose abruptly, till we finally reached our place of transfer between the trolley station and the Mena House Hotel. Abdul Reis, who capably purchased our Pyramid tickets, seemed to have an understanding with the crowding, yelling, and offensive Bedouins who inhabited a squalid mud village some distance away and pestiferously assailed every traveller; for he kept them very decently at bay and secured an excellent pair of camels for us, himself mounting a donkey and assigning the leadership of our animals to a group of men and boys more expensive than useful. The area to be traversed was so small that camels were hardly needed, but we did not regret adding to our experience this troublesome form of desert navigation.

The Pyramids stand on a high rock plateau, this group forming next to the northernmost of the series of regal and aristocratic cemeteries built in the neighbourhood of the extinct capital Memphis which lay on the same side of the Nile, somewhat south of Gizeh, and which flourished between 3400 and 2000 B.C. The greatest Pyramid, which lies nearest the modern road, was built by King Cheops or Khufu about 2800 B.C. and stands more than 450 feet in perpendicular height. In a line southwest from this are successively the Second Pyramid, built a generation later by King Khephren, and though slightly smaller, looking even larger because set on higher ground, and the radically smaller Third Pyramid of King Mycerinus, built about 2700 B.C. Near the edge of the plateau and due east of the Second Pyramid, with a face probably altered to form a colossal portrait of Khephren, its royal restorer, stands the monstrous Sphinx— mute, sardonic, and wise beyond mankind and memory.

Minor Pyramids and the traces of ruined minor Pyramids are found in several places, and the whole plateau is pitted with the tombs of dignitaries of less than royal rank. These latter were originally marked by mastabas, or stone benchlike structures about the deep burial shafts, as found in other Memphian cemeteries and exemplified by Perneb's Tomb in the Metropolitan Museum of New York. At Gizeh, however, all such visible things have been swept away by time and pillage; and only the rock-hewn shafts, either sand-filled or cleared out by archaeologists, remain to attest their former existence. Connected with each tomb was a chapel in which priests and relatives offered food and prayer to the hovering ka or vital principle of the deceased. The small tombs have their chapels contained in their stone mastabas or superstructures, but the mortuary chapels of the Pyramids, where regal Pharaohs lay, were separate temples, each to the east of its corresponding Pyramid, and connected by a causeway to a massive gate-chapel or propylon at the edge of the rock plateau.

The gate-chapel leading to the Second Pyramid, nearly buried in the drifting sands, yawns subterraneously southeast of the Sphinx. Persistent tradition dubs it the "Temple of the Sphinx"; and it may perhaps be rightly called such if the Sphinx indeed represents the Second Pyramid's builder Khephren. There are unpleasant tales of the Sphinx before Khephren, but whatever its elder features were, the monarch replaced them with his own that men might look at the colossus without fear.

It was in the great gateway-temple that the life-size diorite statue of Khephren now in the Cairo museum was found; a statue before which I stood in awe when I beheld it. Whether the whole edifice is now excavated I am not certain, but in 1910 most of it was below ground, with the entrance heavily barred at night. Germans were in charge of the work, and the war or other things may have stopped them. I would give much, in view of my experience and of certain Bedouin whisperings discredited or unknown in Cairo, to know what has developed in connection with a certain well in a transverse gallery where statues of the Pharaoh were found in curious juxtaposition to the statues of baboons.

The road, as we traversed it on our camels that morning, curved sharply past the wooden police quarters, post office, drug store, and shops on the left, and plunged south and east in a complete bend that scaled the rock plateau and brought us face to face with the desert under the lee of the Great Pyramid. Past Cyclopean masonry we rode, rounding the eastern face and looking down ahead into a valley of minor Pyramids beyond which the eternal Nile glistened to the east, and the eternal desert shimmered to the west. Very close loomed the three major Pyramids, the greatest devoid of outer casing and showing its bulk of great stones, but the others retaining here and there the neatly fitted covering which had made them smooth and finished in their day.

Presently we descended toward the Sphinx, and sat silent beneath the spell of those terrible unseeing eyes. On the vast stone breast we faintly discerned the emblem of Re-Harakhte, for whose image the Sphinx was mistaken in a late dynasty; and though sand covered the tablet between the great paws, we recalled what Thutmosis IV inscribed thereon, and the dream he had when a prince. It was then that the smile of the Sphinx vaguely displeased us, and made us wonder about the legends of subterranean passages beneath the monstrous creature, leading down, down, to depths none might dare hint at— depths connected with mysteries older than the dynastic Egypt we excavate, and having a sinister relation to the persistence of abnormal, animal-headed gods in the ancient Nilotic pantheon. Then, too, it was I asked myself an idle question whose hideous significance was not to appear for many an hour.

OTHER TOURISTS now began to overtake us, and we moved on to the sand-choked Temple of the Sphinx, fifty yards to the southeast, which I have previously mentioned as the great gate of the causeway to the Second Pyramid's mortuary chapel on the plateau. Most of it was still underground, and although we dismounted and descended through a modern passageway to its alabaster corridor and pillared hall, I felt that Abdul and the local German attendant had not shown us all there was to see.

After this we made the conventional circuit of the Pyramid plateau, examining the Second Pyramid and the peculiar ruins of its mortuary chapel to the east, the Third Pyramid and its miniature southern satellites and ruined eastern chapel, the rock tombs and the honeycombings of the Fourth and Fifth dynasties, and the famous Campbell's Tomb whose shadowy shaft sinks precipitously for fifty-three feet to a sinister sarcophagus which one of our camel drivers divested of the cumbering sand after a vertiginous descent by rope.

Cries now assailed us from the Great Pyramid, where Bedouins were besieging a party of tourists with offers of speed in the performance of solitary trips up and down. Seventy minutes is said to be the record for such an ascent and descent, but many lusty sheiks and sons of sheiks assured us they could cut it five if given the requisite impetus of liberal baksheesh. They did not get this impetus, though we did let Abdul take us up, thus obtaining a view of unprecedented magnificence which included not only remote and glittering Cairo with its crowned citadel background of gold-violet hills, but all the Pyramids of the Memphian district as well, from Abu Roash on the north to the Dashur on the south. The Sakkara step Pyramid, which marks the evolution of the low mastaba into the true Pyramid, showed clearly and alluringly in the sandy distance. It is close to this transition-monument that the famed tomb of Perneb was found— more than four hundred miles north of the Theban rock valley where Tut-Ankh-Amen sleeps. Again I was forced to silence through sheer awe. The prospect of such antiquity, and the secrets each hoary monument seemed to hold and brood over, filled me with a reverence and sense of immensity nothing else ever gave me.

Fatigued by our climb, and disgusted with the importunate Bedouins whose actions seemed to defy every rule of taste, we omitted the arduous detail of entering the cramped interior passages of any of the Pyramids, though we saw several of the hardiest tourists preparing for the suffocating crawl through Cheops' mightiest memorial. As we dismissed and overpaid our local bodyguard and drove back to Cairo with Abdul Reis under the afternoon sun, we half regretted the omission we had made. Such fascinating things were whispered about lower Pyramid passages not in the guide books; passages whose entrances had been hastily blocked up and concealed by certain uncommunicative archaeologists who had found and begun to explore them.

Of course, this whispering was largely baseless on the face of it; but it was curious to reflect how persistently visitors were forbidden to enter the Pyramids at night, or to visit the lowest burrows and crypt of the Great Pyramid. Perhaps in the latter case it was the psychological effect which was feared— the effort on the visitor of feeling himself huddled down beneath a gigantic world of solid masonry; joined to the life he has known by the merest tube, in which he may only crawl, and which any accident or evil design might block. The whole subject seemed so weird and alluring that we resolved to pay the Pyramid plateau another visit at the earliest possible opportunity. For me this opportunity came much earlier than I expected.

That evening, the members of our party feeling somewhat tired after the strenuous program of the day, I went alone with Abdul Reis for a walk through the picturesque Arab quarter. Though I had seen it by day, I wished to study the alleys and bazaars in the dusk, when rich shadows and mellow gleams of light would add to their glamor and fantastic illusion. The native crowds were thinning, but were still very noisy and numerous when we came upon a knot of reveling Bedouins in the Suken-Nahhasin, or bazaar of the coppersmiths. Their apparent leader, an insolent youth with heavy features and saucily cocked tarbush, took some notice of us, and evidently recognized with no great friendliness my competent but admittedly supercilious and sneeringly disposed guide.

Perhaps, I thought, he resented that odd reproduction of the Sphinx's half-smile which I had often remarked with amused irritation; or perhaps he did not like the hollow and sepulchral resonance of Adbul's voice. At any rate, the exchange of ancestrally opprobrious language became very brisk; and before long Ali Ziz, as I heard the stranger called when called by no worse name, began to pull violently at Abdul's robe, an action quickly reciprocated and leading to a spirited scuffle in which both combatants lost their sacredly cherished headgear and would have reached an even direr condition had I not intervened and separated them by main force.

My interference, at first seemingly unwelcome on both sides, succeeded at last in effecting a truce. Sullenly each belligerent composed his wrath and his attire, and with an assumption of dignity as profound as it was sudden, the two formed a curious pact of honor which I soon learned is a custom of great antiquity in Cairo— a pact for the settlement of their difference by means of a nocturnal fist fight atop the Great Pyramid, long after the departure of the last moonlight sightseer. Each duellist was to assemble a party of seconds, and the affair was to begin at midnight, proceeding by rounds in the most civilized possible fashion.

In all this planning there was much which excited my interests. The fight itself promised to be unique and spectacular while the thought of the scene on that hoary pile overlooking the antediluvian plateau of Gizeh under the wan moon of the pallid small hours appealed to every fiber of imagination in me. A request found Abdul exceedingly willing to admit me to his party of seconds; so that all the rest of the early evening I accompanied him to various dens in the most lawless regions of the town— mostly northeast of the Ezbekiyeh— where he gathered one by one a select and formidable band of congenial cutthroats at his pugilistic background.

Shortly after nine our party, mounted on donkeys bearing such royal or tourist-reminiscent names as "Rameses," "Mark Twain," "J. P. Morgan," and "Minnehaha," edged through street labyrinths both Oriental and Occidental, crossed the muddy and mast-forested Nile by the bridge of the bronze lions, and cantered philosophically between the lebbakhs on the road to Gizeh. Slightly over two hours were consumed by the trip, toward the end of which we passed the last of the returning tourists, saluted the last inbound trolley-car, and were alone with the night and the past and the spectral moon.

Then we saw the vast Pyramids at the end of the avenue, ghoulish with a dim atavistical menace which I had not seemed to notice in the daytime. Even the smallest of them held a hint of the ghastly— for was it not in this that they had buried Queen Nitocris alive in the Sixth Dynasty; subtle Queen Nitocris who once invited all her enemies to a feast in a temple below the Nile, and drowned them by opening the water-gates? I recalled that the Arabs whisper things about Nitocris, and shun the Third Pyramid at certain phases of the moon. It must have been over her that Thomas Moore was brooding when he wrote a thing muttered about by Memphian boatmen:

The subterranean nymph that dwells
'Mid sunless gems and glories hid—
The lady of the Pyramid!'

Early as we were, Ali Ziz and his party were ahead of us; for we saw their donkeys outlined against the desert plateau at Kafrel-Harem; toward which squalid Arab settlements, close to the Sphinx, we had diverged instead of following the regular road to the Mena House, where some of the sleepy, inefficient police might have observed and halted us. Here, where filthy Bedouins stabled camels and donkeys in the rock tombs of Khephren's courtiers, we were led up the rocks and over the sand to the Great Pyramid, up whose time-worn sides the Arabs swarmed eagerly; Abdul Reis offering me the assistance I did not need.

As most travelers know, the actual apex of this structure has long been worn away, leaving a reasonably flat platform twelve yards square. On this eery pinnacle a squared circle was formed, and in a few moments the sardonic desert moon leered down upon a battle which, but for the quality of the ringside cries, might well have occurred at some minor athletic club in America. As I watched it, I felt that some of our less desirable institutions were not lacking; for every blow, feint, and defense bespoke "stalling" to my not inexperienced eye. It was quickly over, and despite my misgivings as to methods I felt a sort of proprietary pride when Abdul Reis was adjudged the winner.

Reconciliation was phenomenally rapid, and amidst the singing, fraternizing, and drinking which followed, I found it difficult to realize that a quarrel had ever occurred. Oddly enough, I myself seemed to be more a center of notice than the antagonists; and from my smattering of Arabic I judged that they were discussing my professional performances and escapes from every sort of manacle and confinement, in a manner which indicated not only a surprising knowledge of me, but a distinct hostility and skepticism concerning my feats of escape. It gradually dawned on me that the elder magic of Egypt did not depart without leaving traces, and that fragments of a strange secret lore and priestly cult-practises have survived surreptitiously amongst the fellaheen to such an extent that the prowess of a strange hahwi or magician is resented and disputed. I thought of how much my hollow-voiced guide Abdul Reis looked like an old Egyptian priest or Pharaoh or smiling Sphinx ... and wondered.

Suddenly something happened which in a flash proved the correctness of my reflection and made me curse the denseness whereby I had accepted this night's events as other than the empty and malicious "frame-up" they now showed themselves to be. Without warning, and doubtless in answer to some subtle sign from Abdul, the entire band of Bedouins precipitated itself upon me; and having produced heavy ropes, soon had me bound as securely as I was ever bound in the course of my life, either on the stage or off.

I struggled at first, but soon saw that one man could make no headway against a band of over twenty sinewy barbarians. My hands were tied behind my back, my knees bent to their fullest extent, and my wrists and ankles stoutly linked together with unyielding cords. A stifling gag was forced into my mouth, and a blindfold fastened tightly over my eyes. Then, as Arabs bore me aloft on their shoulders and began a jouncing descent of the Pyramid, I heard the taunts of my late guide Abdul, who mocked and jeered delightedly in his hollow voice, and assured me that I was soon to have my "magic powers" put to a supreme test which would quickly remove any egotism I might have gained through triumphing over all the tests offered by America and Europe. Egypt, he reminded me, is very old, and full of inner mysteries and antique powers not even conceivable to the experts of today, whose devices had so uniformly failed to entrap me.

How far or in what direction I was carried, I cannot tell; for the circumstances were all against the formation of any accurate judgment. I know, however, that it could not have been a great distance; since my bearers at no point hastened beyond a walk, yet kept me aloft a surprisingly short time. It is this perplexing brevity which makes me feel almost like shuddering whenever I think of Gizeh and its plateau— for one is oppressed by hints of the closeness to everyday tourist routes of what existed then and must exist still.

The evil abnormality I speak of did not become manifest at first. Setting me down on a surface which I recognized as sand rather than rock, my captors passed a rope around my chest and dragged me a few feet to a ragged opening in the ground, into which they presently lowered me with much rough handling. For apparent eons I bumped against the stony irregular sides of a narrow hewn well which I took to be one of the numerous burial-shafts of the plateau until the prodigious, almost incredible depth of it robbed me of all bases of conjecture.

The horror of the experience deepened with every dragging second. That any descent through the sheer solid rock could be so vast without reaching the core of the planet itself, or that any rope made by man could be so long as to dangle me in these unholy and seemingly fathomless profundities of nether earth, were beliefs of such grotesqueness that it was easier to doubt my agitated senses than to accept them. Even now I am uncertain, for I know how deceitful the sense of time becomes when one is removed or distorted. But I am quite sure that I preserved a logical consciousness that far; that at least I did not add any full-grown phantoms of imagination to a picture hideous enough in its reality, and explicable by a type of cerebral illusion vastly short of actual hallucination.

All this was not the cause of my first bit of fainting. The shocking ordeal was cumulative, and the beginning of the latter terrors was a very perceptible increase in my rate of descent. They were paying out that infinitely long rope very swiftly now, and I scraped cruelly against the rough and constricted sides of the shaft as I shot madly downward. My clothing was in tatters, and I felt the trickle of blood all over, even above the mounting and excruciating pain. My nostrils, too, were assailed by a scarcely definable menace: a creeping odor of damp and staleness curiously unlike anything I had ever smelled before, and having faint overtones of spice and incense that lent an element of mockery.

Then the mental cataclysm came. It was horrible— hideous beyond all articulate description because it was all of the soul, with nothing of detail to describe. It was the ecstasy of nightmare and the summation of the fiendish. The suddenness of it was apocalyptic and demoniac— one moment I was plunging agonizingly down that narrow well of million-toothed torture, yet the next moment I was soaring on bat-wings in the gulfs of hell; swinging free and swoopingly through illimitable miles of boundless, musty space; rising dizzily to measureless pinnacles of chilling ether, then diving gaspingly to sucking nadirs of ravenous, nauseous lower vacua.... Thank God for the mercy that shut out in oblivion those clawing Furies of consciousness which half unhinged my faculties, and tore harpylike at my spirit! That one respite, short as it was, gave me the strength and sanity to endure those still greater sublimations of cosmic panic that lurked and gibbered on the road ahead.

ii

IT WAS VERY GRADUALLY that I regained my senses after that eldritch flight through stygian space. The process was infinitely painful, and colored by fantastic dreams in which my bound and gagged condition found singular embodiment. The precise nature of these dreams was very clear while I was experiencing them, but became blurred in my recollection almost immediately afterward, and was soon reduced to the merest outline by the terrible events— real or imaginary— which followed. I dreamed that I was in the grasp of a great and horrible paw; a yellow, hairy, five-clawed paw which had reached out of the earth to crush and engulf me. And when I stopped to reflect what the paw was, it seemed to me that it was Egypt. In the dream I looked back at the events of the preceding weeks, and saw myself lured and enmeshed little by little, subtly and insidiously, by some hellish ghoul-spirit of the elder Nile sorcery; some spirit that was in Egypt before ever man was, and that will be when man is no more.

I saw the horror and unwholesome antiquity of Egypt, and the grisly alliance it has always had with the tombs and temples of the dead. I saw phantom processions of priests with the heads of bulls, falcons, cats, and ibises; phantom processions marching interminably through subterraneous labyrinths and avenues of titanic propylaea beside which a man is as a fly, and offering unnameable sacrifice to indescribable gods. Stone colossi marched in endless night and drove herds of grinning andro-sphinxes down to the shores of illimitable stagnant rivers of pitch. And behind it all I saw the ineffable malignity of primordial necromancy, black and amorphous, and fumbling greedily after me in the darkness to choke out the spirit that had dared to mock it by emulation.

In my sleeping brain there took shape a melodrama of sinister hatred and pursuit, and I saw the black soul of Egypt singling me out and calling me in inaudible whispers; calling and luring me, leading me on with the glitter and glamor of a Saracenic surface, but ever pulling me down to the age-mad catacombs and horrors of its dead and abysmal pharaonic heart.

Then the dream faces took on human resemblances, and I saw my guide Abdul Reis in the robes of a king, with the sneer of the Sphinx on his features. And I knew that those features were the features of Khephren the Great, who raised the Second Pyramid, carved over the Sphinx's face in the likeness of his own and built that titanic gateway temple whose myriad corridors the archaeologists think they have dug out of the cryptical sand and the uninformative rock. And I looked at the long, lean, rigid hand of Khephren; the long, lean, rigid hand as I had seen it on the diorite statue in the Cairo Museum— the statue they had found in the terrible gateway temple— and wondered that I had not shrieked when I saw it on Abdul Reis.... That hand? It was hideously cold, and it was crushing me; it was the cold and cramping of the sarcophagus... the chill and constriction of unrememberable Egypt.... It was nighted, necropolitan Egypt itself... that yellow paw... and they whisper such things of Khephren....

But at this juncture I began to awake— or at least, to assume a condition less completely that of sleep than the one just preceding. I recalled the fight atop the Pyramid, the treacherous Bedouins and their attack, my frightful descent by rope through endless rock depths, and my mad swinging and plunging in a chill void redolent of aromatic putrescence. I perceived that I now lay on a damp rock floor, and that my bonds were still biting into me with unloosened force. It was very cold, and I seemed to detect a faint current of noisesome air sweeping across me. The cuts and bruises I had received from the jagged sides of the rock shaft were paining me woefully, their soreness enhanced to a stinging or burning acuteness by some pungent quality in the faint draft, and the mere act of rolling over was enough to set my whole frame throbbing with untold agony.

As I turned I felt a tug from above, and concluded that the rope whereby I was lowered still reached to the surface. Whether or not the Arabs still held it, I had no idea; nor had I any idea how far within the earth I was. I knew that the darkness around me was wholly or nearly total, since no ray of moonlight penetrated my blindfold; but I did not trust my senses enough to accept as evidence of extreme depth the sensation of vast duration which had characterized my descent.

Knowing at least that I was in a space of considerable extent, reached from the surface directly above by an opening in the rock, I doubtfully conjectured that my prison was perhaps the buried gateway chapel of old Khephren— the Temple of the Sphinx— perhaps some inner corridor which the guides had not shown me during my morning visit, and from which I might easily escape if I could find my way to the barred entrance. It would be a labyrinthine wandering, but no worse than others out of which I had in the past found my way.

The first step was to get free of my bonds, gag, and blindfold; and this I knew would be no great task, since subtler experts than these Arabs had tried every known species of fetter upon me during my long and varied career as an exponent of escape, yet had never succeeded in defeating my methods.

Then it occurred to me that the Arabs might be ready to meet and attack me at the entrance upon any evidence of my probable escape from the binding cords, as would be furnished by any decided agitation of the rope which they probably held. This, of course, was taking for granted that my place of confinement was indeed Khephren's Temple of the Sphinx. The direct opening in the roof, wherever it might lurk, could not be beyond easy reach of the ordinary modern entrance near the Sphinx; if in truth it were any great distance at all on the surface, since the total area known to visitors is not at all enormous. I had not noticed any such opening during my daytime pilgrimage, but knew that these things are easily overlooked amidst the drifting sands.

Thinking these matters over as I lay bent and bound on the rock floor, I nearly forgot the horrors of abysmal descent and cavernous swinging which had so lately reduced me to a coma. My present thought was only to outwit the Arabs, and I accordingly determined to work myself free as quickly as possible, avoiding any tug on the descending line which might betray an effective or even problematical attempt at freedom.

This, however, was more easily determined than effected. A few preliminary trials made it clear that little could be accomplished without considerable motion; and it did not surprise me when, after one especially energetic struggle, I began to feel the coils of falling rope as they piled up about me and upon me. Obviously, I thought, the Bedouins had felt my movements and released their end of the rope; hastening no doubt to the temple's true entrance to lie murderously in wait for me.

The prospect was not pleasing— but I had faced worse in my time without flinching, and would not flinch now. At present I must first of all free myself of bonds, then trust to ingenuity to escape from the temple unharmed. It is curious how implicitly I had come to believe myself in the old temple of Khephren beside the Sphinx, only a short distance below the ground.

The belief was shattered, and every pristine apprehension of preternatural depth and demoniac mystery revived, by a circumstance which grew in horror and significance even as I formulated my philosophical plan. I have said that the falling rope was piling up about and upon me. Now I saw that it was continuing to pile, as no rope of normal length could possibly do. It gained in momentum and became an avalanche of hemp, accumulating mountainously on the floor and half burying me beneath its swiftly multiplying coils. Soon I was completely engulfed and gasping for breath as the increasing convolutions submerged and stifled me.

My senses tottered again, and I vainly tried to fight off a menace desperate and ineluctable. It was not merely that I was tortured beyond human endurance— not merely that life and breath seemed to be crushed slowly out of me— it was the knowledge of what those unnatural lengths of rope implied, and the consciousness of what unknown and incalculable gulfs of inner earth must at this moment be surrounding me. My endless descent and swinging flight through goblin space, then, must have been real, and even now I must be lying helpless in some nameless cavern world toward the core of the planet. Such a sudden confirmation of ultimate horror was insupportable, and a second time I lapsed into merciful oblivion.

When I say oblivion, I do not imply that I was free from dreams. On the contrary, my absence from the conscious world was marked by visions of the most unutterable hideousness. God! ... If only I had not read so much Egyptology before coming to this land which is the fountain of all darkness and terror! This second spell of fainting filled my sleeping mind anew with shivering realization of the country and its archaic secrets, and through some damnable chance my dreams turned to the ancient notions of the dead and their sojournings in soul and body beyond those mysterious tombs which were more houses than graves. I recalled, in dream-shapes which it is well that I do not remember, the peculiar and elaborate construction of Egyptian sepulchers; and the exceedingly singular and terrific doctrines which determined this construction.

All these people thought of was death and the dead. They conceived of a literal resurrection of the body which made them mummify it with desperate care, and preserve all the vital organs in canopic jars near the corpse; whilst besides the body they believed in two other elements, the soul, which after its weighing and approval by Osiris dwelt in the land of the blest, and the obscure and portentous ka or life-principle which wandered about the upper and lower worlds in a horrible way, demanding occasional access to the preserved body, consuming the food offerings brought by priests and pious relatives to the mortuary chapel, and sometimes— as men whispered— taking its body, or the wooden double always buried beside it, and stalking noxiously abroad on errands peculiarly repellent.

For thousands of years those bodies rested gorgeously encased and staring glassily upward when not visited by the ka, awaiting the day when Osiris should restore both ka and soul, and lead forth the stiff legions of the dead from the sunken houses of sleep. It was to have been a glorious rebirth— but not all souls were approved, nor were all tombs inviolate, so that certain grotesque mistakes and fiendish abnormalities were to be looked for. Even today the Arabs murmur of unsanctified convocations and unwholesome worship in forgotten nether abysses, which only winged invisible kas and soulless mummies may visit and return unscathed.

Perhaps the most leeringly blood-congealing legends are those which relate to certain perverse products of decadent priestcraft— composite mummies made by the artificial union of human trunks and limbs with the heads of animals in imitation of the elder gods. At all stages of history the sacred animals were mummified, so that consecrated bulls, cats, ibises, crocodiles, and the like might return some day to greater glory. But only in the decadence did they mix the human and animal in the same mummy— only in the decadence, when they did not understand the rights and prerogatives of the ka and the soul.

What happened to those composite mummies is not told of— at least publicly— and it is certain that no Egyptologist ever found one. The whispers of Arabs are very wild, and cannot be relied upon. They even hint that old Khephren— he of the Sphinx, the Second Pyramid, and the yawning gateway temple— lives far underground wedded to the ghoul-queen Nitocris and ruling over the mummies that are neither of man nor of beast.

It was of these— of Khephren and his consort and his strange armies of the hybrid dead— that I dreamed, and that is why I am glad the exact dream-shapes have faded from my memory. My most horrible vision was connected with an idle question I had asked myself the day before when looking at the great carven riddle of the desert and wondering with what unknown depth the temple close to it might be secretly connected. That question, so innocent and whimsical then, assumed in my dream a meaning of frenetic and hysterical madness... what huge and loathsome abnormality was the Sphinx originally carven to represent?

My second awakening— if awakening it was— is a memory of stark hideousness which nothing else in my life, save one thing which came after, can parallel; and that life has been full and adventurous beyond most men's. Remember that I had lost consciousness whilst buried beneath a cascade of falling rope whose immensity revealed the cataclysmic depth of my present position. Now, as perception returned, I felt the entire weight gone; and realized upon rolling over that although I was still tied, gagged, and blindfolded, some agency had removed completely the suffocating hempen landslide which had overwhelmed me. The significance of this condition, of course, came to me only gradually; but even so I think it would have brought unconsciousness again had I not by this time reached such a state of emotional exhaustion that no new horror could make much difference. I was alone ... with what?

Before I could torture myself with any new reflection, or make any fresh effort to escape from my bonds, an additional circumstance became manifest. Pains not formerly felt were racking my arms and legs, and I seemed coated with a profusion of dried blood beyond anything my former cuts and abrasions could furnish. My chest, too, seemed pierced by a hundred wounds, as though some malign, titanic ibis had been pecking at it. Assuredly the agency which had removed the rope was a hostile one, and had begun to wreak terrible injuries upon me when somehow impelled to desist. Yet at the time my sensations were distinctly the reverse of what one might expect. Instead of sinking into a bottomless pit of despair, I was stirred to a new courage and action; for now I felt that the evil forces were physical things which a fearless man might encounter on an even basis.

On the strength of this thought I tugged again at my bonds, and used all the art of a life-time to free myself as I had so often done amidst the glare of lights and the applause of vast crowds. The familiar details of my escaping process commenced to engross me, and now that the long rope was gone I half regained my belief that the supreme horrors were hallucinations after all, and that there had never been any terrible shaft, measureless abyss of interminable rope. Was I after all in the gateway temple of Khephren beside the Sphinx, and had the sneaking Arabs stolen in to torture me as I lay helpless there? At any rate, I must be free. Let me stand up unbound, ungagged, and with my eyes open to catch any glimmer of light which might come trickling from any source, and I could actually delight in the combat against evil and treacherous foes!

How long I took in shaking off my encumbrances I cannot tell. It must have been longer than in my exhibition performances, because I was wounded, exhausted, and enervated by the experiences I had passed through. When I was finally free, and taking deep breaths of a chill, damp, evilly spiced air all the more horrible when encountered without the screen of gag and blindfolded edges, I found that I was too cramped and fatigued to move at once. There I lay, trying to stretch a frame bent and mangled, for an indefinite period, and straining my eyes to catch a glimpse of some ray of light which would give a hint as to my position.

By degrees my strength and flexibility returned, but my eyes beheld nothing. As I staggered to my feet I peered diligently in every direction, yet met only an ebony blackness as great as that I had known when blindfolded. I tried my legs, blood-encrusted beneath my shredded trousers, and found that I could walk; yet could not decide in what direction to go. Obviously I ought not to walk at random, and perhaps retreat directly from the entrance I sought; so I paused to note the direction of the cold, fetid, natron-scented air-current which I had never ceased to feel. Accepting the point of its source as the possible entrance to the abyss, I strove to keep track of this landmark and to walk consistently toward it.

I had a match-box with me, and even a small electric flashlight; but of course the pockets of my tossed and tattered clothing were long since emptied of all heavy articles. As I walked cautiously in the blackness, the draft grew stronger and more offensive, till at length I could regard it as nothing less than a tangible steam of detestable vapor pouring out of some aperture like the smoke of the genie from the fisherman's jar in the Eastern tale. The East ... Egypt... truly, this dark cradle of civilization was ever the wellspring of horrors and marvels unspeakable!

The more I reflected on the nature of this cavern wind, the greater my sense of disquiet became; for although despite its odor I had sought its source as at least an indirect clue to the outer world, I now saw plainly that this foul emanation could have no admixture or connection whatsoever with the clean air of the Libyan Desert, but must be essentially a thing vomited from sinister gulfs still lower down. I had, then, been walking in the wrong direction!

After a moment's reflection I decided not to retrace my steps. Away from the draft I would have no landmarks, for the roughly level rock floor was devoid of distinctive configurations. If, however, I followed up the strange current, I would undoubtedly arrive at an aperture of some sort, from whose gate I could perhaps work round the walls to the opposite side of this Cyclopean and otherwise unnavigable hall. That I might fail, I well realized. I saw that this was no part of Khephren's gateway temple which tourists know, and it struck me that this particular hall might be unknown even to archaeologists, and merely stumbled upon by the inquisitive and malignant Arabs who had imprisoned me. If so, was there any present gate of escape to the known parts or to the outer air?

What evidence, indeed, did I now possess that this was the gateway temple at all? For a moment all my wildest speculations rushed back upon me, and I thought of that vivid melange of impressions— the descent, suspension in space, the rope, my wounds, and the dreams that were frankly dreams. Was this the end of life for me? Or indeed, would it be merciful if this moment were the end? I could answer none of my own questions, but merely kept on, till Fate for a third time reduced me to oblivion.

This time there were no dreams, for the suddenness of the incident shocked me out of all thought either conscious or subconscious. Tripping on an unexpected descending step at a point where the offensive draft became strong enough to offer an actual physical resistance, I was precipitated headlong down a black flight of huge stone stairs into a gulf of hideousness unrelieved.

That I ever breathed again is a tribute to the inherent vitality of the healthy human organism. Often I look back to that night and feel a touch of actual humor in those repeated lapses of consciousness; lapses whose succession reminded me at the time of nothing more than the crude cinema melodramas of that period. Of course, it is possible that the repeated lapses never occurred; and that all the features of that underground nightmare were merely the dreams of one long coma which began with the shock of my descent into that abyss and ended with the healing balm of the outer air and of the rising sun which found me stretched on the sands of Gizeh before the sardonic and dawn-flushed face of the Great Sphinx.

I prefer to believe this latter explanation as much as I can, hence was glad when the police told me that the barrier to Khephren's gateway temple had been found unfastened, and that a sizeable rift to the surface did actually exist in one corner of the still buried part. I was glad, too, when the doctors pronounced my wounds only those to be expected from my seizure, blindfolding, lowering, struggling with bonds, falling some distance— perhaps into a depression in the temple's inner gallery— dragging myself to the outer barrier and escaping from it, and experiences like that... a very soothing diagnosis. And yet I know that there must be more than appears on the surface. That extreme descent is too vivid a memory to be dismissed— and it is odd that no one has ever been able to find a man answering the description of my guide. Abdul Reis el Drogman— the tomb-throated guide who looked and smiled like King Khephren.

I have digressed from my connected narrative— perhaps in the vain hope of evading the telling of that final incident; that incident which of all is most certainly an hallucination. But I promised to relate it, and I do not break promises. When I recovered— or seemed to recover— my senses after that fall down the black stone stairs, I was quite as alone and in darkness as before. The windy stench, bad enough before, was now fiendish; yet I had acquired enough familiarity by this time to bear it stoically. Dazedly I began to crawl away from the place whence the putrid wind came, and with my bleeding hands felt the colossal blocks of a mighty pavement. Once my head struck against a hard object, and when I felt of it I learned that it was the base of a column— a column of unbelievable immensity— whose surface was covered with gigantic chiseled hieroglyphics very perceptible to my touch.

Crawling on, I encountered other titan columns at incomprehensible distances apart; when suddenly my attention was captured by the realization of something which must have been impinging on my subconscious hearing long before the conscious sense was aware of it.

From some still lower chasm in earth's bowels were proceeding certain sounds, measured and definite, and like nothing I had ever heard before. That they were very ancient and distinctly ceremonial, I felt almost intuitively; and much reading in Egyptology led me to associate them with the flute, the sambuke, the sistrum, and the tympanum. In their rhythmic piping, droning, rattling, and beating I felt an element of terror beyond all the known terrors of earth— a terror peculiarly dissociated from personal fear, and taking the form of a sort of objective pity for our planet, that it should hold within its depths such horrors as must lie beyond these aegipanic cacophonies. The sounds increased in volume, and I felt that they were approaching. Then— and may all the gods of all pantheons unite to keep the like from my ears again— I began to hear, faintly and afar off, the morbid and millennial tramping of the marching things.

It was hideous that footfalls so dissimilar should move in such perfect rhythm. The training of unhallowed thousands of years must lie behind that march of earth's inmost monstrosities... padding, clicking, walking, stalking, rumbling, lumbering, crawling... and all to the abhorrent discords of those mocking instruments. And then— God keep the memory of those Arab legends out of my head!— the mummies without souls... the meeting-place of the wandering kas... the hordes of the devil-cursed pharaonic dead of forty centuries... the composite mummies led through the uttermost onyx voids by King Khephren and his ghoul-queen Nitocris....

The tramping drew nearer— Heaven save me from the sound of those feet and paws and hooves and pads and talons as it commenced to acquire detail! Down limitless reaches of sunless pavement a spark of light flickered in the malodorous wind and I drew behind the enormous circumference of a Cyclopic column that I might escape for a while the horror that was stalking million-footed toward me through gigantic hypostyles of inhuman dread and phobic antiquity. The flickers increased, and the tramping and dissonant rhythm grew sickeningly loud. In the quivering orange light there stood faintly forth a scene of such stony awe that I gasped from sheer wonder that conquered even fear and repulsion. Bases of columns whose middles were higher than human sight... mere bases of things that must each dwarf the Eiffel Tower to insignificance... hieroglyphics carved by unthinkable hands in caverns where daylight can be only a remote legend....

I would not look at the marching things. That I desperately resolved as I heard their creaking joints and nitrous wheezing above the dead music and the dead tramping. It was merciful that they did not speak... but God! their crazy torches began to cast shadows on the surface of those stupendous columns. Hippopotami should not have human hands and carry torches ... men should not have the heads of crocodiles....

I tried to turn away, but the shadows and the sounds and the stench were everywhere. Then I remembered something I used to do in half-conscious nightmares as a boy, and began to repeat to myself, "This is a dream! This is a dream!" But it was of no use, and I could only shut my eyes and pray ... at least, that is what I think I did, for one is never sure in visions— and I know this can have been nothing more. I wondered whether I should ever reach the world again, and at times would furtively open my eyes to see if I could discern any feature of the place other than the wind of spiced putrefaction, the topless columns, and the thaumatrophically grotesque shadows of abnormal horror. The sputtering glare of multiplying torches now shone, and unless this hellish place were wholly without walls, I could not fail to see some boundary or fixed landmark soon. But I had to shut my eyes again when I realized how many of the things were assembling— and when I glimpsed a certain object walking solemnly and steadily without any body above the waist.

A fiendish and ululant corpse-gurgle or death-rattle now split the very atmosphere— the charnel atmosphere poisonous with naftha and bitumen blasts— and in one concerted chorus from the ghoulish legion of hybrid blasphemies. My eyes, perversely shaken open, gazed for an instant upon a sight which no human creature could even imagine without panic, fear, and physical exhaustion. The things had filed ceremonially in one direction, the direction of the noisome wind, where the light of their torches showed their bended heads— or the bended heads of such as had heads. They were worshipping before a great black fetor-belching aperture which reached up almost out of sight, and which I could see was flanked at right angles by two giant staircases whose ends were far away in shadow. One of these was indubitably the staircase I had fallen down.

The dimensions of the hole were fully in proportion with those of the columns— an ordinary house would have been lost in it, and any average public building could easily have been moved in and out. It was so vast a surface that only by moving the eye could one trace its boundaries... so vast, so hideously black, and so aromatically stinking.... Directly in front of this yawning Polyphemus-door the things were throwing objects— evidently sacrifices or religious offerings, to judge by their gestures. Khephren was their leader; sneering King Khephren or the guide Abdul Reis, crowned with a golden pshent and intoning endless formulae with the hollow voice of the dead. By his side knelt beautiful Queen Nitocris whom I saw in profile for a moment, noting that the right half of her face was eaten away by rats or other ghouls. And I shut my eyes again when I saw what objects were being thrown as offerings to the fetid aperture or its possible local deity.

It occurred to me that, judging from the elaborateness of this worship, the concealed deity must be one of considerable importance. Was it Osiris or Isis, Horus or Anubis, or some vast unknown God of the Dead still more central and supreme? There is a legend that terrible altars and colossi were reared to an Unknown One before ever the known gods were worshipped....

And now, as I steeled myself to watch the rapt and sepulchral adorations of those nameless things, a thought of escape flashed upon me. The hall was dim, and the columns heavy with shadow. With every creature of that nightmare throng absorbed in shocking raptures, it might be barely possible for me to creep past to the far-away end of one of the staircases and ascend unseen; trusting to Fate and skill to deliver me from the upper reaches. Where I was, I neither knew nor seriously reflected upon— and for a moment it struck me as amusing to plan a serious escape from that which I knew to be a dream. Was I in some hidden and unsuspected lower realm of Khephren's gateway temple— that temple which generations have persistently called the Temple of the Sphinx? I could not conjecture, but I resolved to ascend to life and consciousness if wit and muscle could carry me.

Wriggling flat on my stomach, I began the anxious journey toward the foot of the left-hand staircase, which seemed the more accessible of the two. I cannot describe the incidents and sensations of that crawl, but they may be guessed when one reflects on what I had to watch steadily in that malign, wind-blown torchlight in order to avoid detection. The bottom of the staircase was, as I have said, far away in shadow, as it had to be to rise without a bend to the dizzy parapeted landing above the titanic aperture. This placed the last stages of my crawl at some distance from the noisome herd, though the spectacle chilled me even when quite remote at my right.

At length I succeeded in reaching the steps and began to climb; keeping close to the wall, on which I observed decorations of the most hideous sort, and relying for safety on the absorbed, ecstatic interest with which the monstrosities watched the foul-breezed aperture and the impious objects of nourishment they had flung on the pavement before it. Though the staircase was huge and steep, fashioned of vast porphyry blocks as if for the feet of a giant, the ascent seemed virtually interminable. Dread of discovery and the pain which renewed exercise had brought to my wounds combined to make that upward crawl a thing of agonizing memory. I had intended, on reaching the landing, to climb immediately onward along whatever upper staircase might mount from there; stopping for no last look at the carrion abominations that pawed and genuflected some seventy or eighty feet below— yet a sudden repetition of that thunderous corpse-gurgle and death-rattle chorus, coming as I had nearly gained the top of the flight and showing by its ceremonial rhythm that it was not an alarm of my discovery, caused me to pause and peer cautiously over the parapet.

The monstrosities were hailing something which had poked itself out of the nauseous aperture to seize the hellish fare proffered it. It was something quite ponderous, even as seen from my height; something yellowish and hairy, and endowed with a sort of nervous motion. It was as large, perhaps, as a good-sized hippopotamus, but very curiously shaped. It seemed to have no neck, but five separate shaggy heads springing in a row from a roughly cylindrical trunk; the first very small, the second good-sized, the third and fourth equal and largest of all, and the fifth rather small, though not so small as the first.

Out of these heads darted curious rigid tentacles which seized ravenously on the excessively great quantities of unmentionable food placed before the aperture. Once in a while the thing would leap up, and occasionally it would retreat into its den in a very odd manner. Its locomotion was so inexplicable that I stared in fascination, wishing it would emerge farther from the cavernous lair beneath me.

Then it did emerge... it did emerge, and at the sight I turned and fled into the darkness up the higher staircase that rose behind me; fled unknowingly up incredible steps and ladders and inclined planes to which no human sight or logic guided me, and which I must ever relegate to the world of dreams for want of any confirmation. It must have been a dream, or the dawn would never have found me breathing on the sands of Gizeh before the sardonic dawn-flushed face of the Great Sphinx.

The Great Sphinx! God!— that idle question I asked myself on that sun-blest morning before... what huge and loathsome abnormality was the Sphinx originally carven to represent? Accursed is the sight, be it in dream or not, that revealed to me the supreme horror— the unknown God of the Dead, which licks its colossal chops in the unsuspected abyss, fed hideous morsels by soulless absurdities that should not exist. The five-headed monster that emerged ... that five-headed monster as large as a hippopotamus... the five-headed monster— and that of which it is the merest forepaw...

But I survived, and I know it was only a dream.

______________

8: That Nice Mr. Tait

Edward Dyson

1865-1931

Punch (Melbourne) 12 Dec 1911

A STRANGER had arrived at Gobong on the previous evening. He was now in possession of one of the old paling huts near the Red Dam. Smoke drifted from the mud-chimney to convince the few poor, remaining inhabitants of the shattered hamlet that they were labouring under no delusion.

"He's a curious sorter bloke," said Martin. "Don't seem pertickler civil, does he?"

Martin had drawn himself to the top-rail of the fence; Simon Scobie was squatted on his heels, with his shoulder-blades to a post; Brophy was extended languorously upon a sheet of bark; Dixon sat on an old tub, surveying his job. Dibbs and Henderson and Sandy Saunders sprawled lazily along the smithy-wall. Beyond their small patch of shade the white morning sunlight shone hotly upon everything. The plain lay simmering under a thin mirage that glittered like the ghost of a tropic sea.

"I called on him 'bout an hour ago in the way o' business," continued Martin. " 'Fine mornin, mister,' I sez. Sez he, offhand like, 'I don't care a hang about your met'rologic opinion, my man. Go to the devil!' "

"Go on! did he?" ejaculated Henderson.

"Well, look at him when he landed off the waggon, an' walked into my bar," said Scobie.

" 'Are you thinkin' o' stayin' long at Gobong?' says I. 'Mind your own infernal business,' says he, 'an' that's servin' me witli a stiff whisky.' "

" I'd 'a' lifted him wan by the eye widout more argyment," said Brophy, bitterly. "Then when he'd drunk his whisky, slingin' off at the liquor, says he: 'That's the stuff that depopulated Gobong. How dare you sell me harness polish for clean whisky, you scaly ruffian?' he says."

"I would 'a' landed him wan more for manners," said Bropny, emphatically. "What's he after, anyhow?"

Dixon had private information that led him to believe the stranger was representing the syndicate owning the diamond-drill, and his presence indicated that work was to be resumed almost immediately. Saunders thought it highly probable that the man was a land-speculator, who intended buying town blocks. Dibbs was of opinion that this was the mysterious investor who for years past had been on the point of establishing a big steam sawmill in the blue-gum country two miles back.

Speculation was cut short by the sudden appearance of the stranger. He came from the direction of the hotel, and was in a highly irascible temper.

"Hi, you," he said, beckoning the publican with open insolence, "is it asking too much to expect you to attend to your confounded hot-house bar?"

"I beg pardon," said Simon Scobie, rising hastily. "I thought the missus—" He hurried off, and the stranger followed in a leisurely manner.

The others remained silent for a few moments after his departure, looking at each other with grave faces. Even Brophy was impressed. The man who assumed such an attitude towards Gobong must have a good deal behind him. He was a man to be respected, or at least propitiated.

"S'pose we have a drink," ventured Dixon, turning a speculative eye upon the job, as if calculating its value in beer. The response was acquiescent, sudden, and unanimous.

The party entered the bar of The Shearers' Rest with some diffidence. Saunders even removed his hat. The stranger was standing at the counter, drinking whisky and water. He was a man of about forty-eight, a couple of inches over middle height, with a square, active, lean figure, from the bony lines of which his clothes hung neatly. His face was clean-shaven and pale, as faces went at Gobong, scrubby, dark brows overhung keen, contemptuous eyes, the nose was straight and fine, the mouth portentous, the firm pressure of the lips turning them outwards into a grim pout. But the firmness of the face weakened into petulance; it suggested an aristocratic type, vulgarised by little passions. The man's clothes were good, the clothes of a city-dweller, careful in his choice of tailors, but the dust of Gobong was upon him, and there were evidences of neglect obviously not habitual to the man.

Dixon and his friends edged into the corner of the bar-counter furthest from the stranger, and remained there huddled like sheep, silent, but curious, and presently the other turned upon them, surveying them minutely, with increasing dislike.

Then the man faced Scobie again, and said slowly and distinctly:

"Can't a man come into your shanty, and drink your pestilent whisky, without being mooned at as if lie were a freak?"

"Mine's a long beer!" said Dixon, quickly, without emotion, but as an assertion of his right of place. The party suddenly assumed unconsciousness of the stranger's presence, and after Dixon had satisfied Scobie that the new job would cover all expenses, the others ordered "long beers " too, which they drank very slowly, and in an ominous silence.

The stranger did not attempt to disguise the irritation with which the atmosphere of the bar afflicted him, and presently snatched up his glass, and uttering an ejaculation of impatience, retreated to a stool near the door. To show their fine indifference, the men of Gobong fell into an airy discussion of favourite topics, but with an abiding consciousness of the presence of the man, and a sense of antagonism filled the bar.

After about ten minutes the newcomer sprang to his feet again and approached the publican.

"Give me some whisky in a bottle," he said. "The conversation of these men would ruin the nervous system of a cart-horse."

He took his whisky and marched out, and Dixon and his company watched the doorway for a moment after his departure, with some show of apprehension.

"Well, I'm blowed!" sighed Henderson, much relieved. "An' I didn't fitch him a smack iv the fist," Brophy said, with touching regret.

"His name's Tait— Raymond Tait," Scobie spoke with the air of a man offering valuable information.

"But what's his game?"

"Oh, you jest leave him to me. I'll get it all out of him."

But Simon Scobie got nothing out of Mr. Raymond Tait; the reason of his visit to Gobong remained a mystery, and in the course of a few weeks the new resident had inspired the resentment of every man and woman in the place, and was the terror of the township. Tait was almost childishly malicious, and made no effort whatever to veil his contempt for all those with whom he came in contact. He favoured the people, individually and in the mass, with an eloquent flow of gratuitous abuse, and Henderson was the only man who made any show of resisting his audacious domination. The others were subdued, partly by the awe Tait's fearless and masterful truculence inspired and partly by the lurking suspicion that he would prove, after all, to be a man of consequence, with a special mission, by which those people who had not earned his more particular dislike might expect to profit when the time came.

Meanwhile, Raymond Tait continued to live alone. He "batched" in the paling hut that had been Carrot Brown's. The hut was raised on piles about eighteen inches above the ground— shallow floods taking frequent possession of Gobong in the wet months— there were many holes in the floor and more in the walls, but he attempted to mend none, and he "batched" in the most slovenly manner. His bunk was a mere tangle of blankets; he fed in a perfunctory way, and drank Scobie's whisky morning, noon, and night, and all the time he grew shabbier, dustier, and more vagabondish; the daily shave being the only orderly custom of his better days to which he remained faithful.

Tait's abuse of his fellow-citizens was the expression of a soured heart, but its bitterness was not without a grim and sardonic humour, which latter, however, was wasted upon its victims. The man found the joy of a cynical imp in irritating the simple souls surrounding him, but his delight was never manifested in the faintest semblance of a grin.

He would sit for hours in Scobie's bar, indulging at intervals in scurrilous criticism of Scobie's customers, their minds and their manners. Sometimes the remarks were addressed to the publican, with an insinuation that they were strictly confidential, although well within the hearing of the subjects. At other times the criticism assumed the form of an eloquent soliloquy. Rarely did Tait address the men directly.

No longer had Dixon, Henderson, Dibbs, Saunders and the others any sense of comfort in the bar of the Shearers' Rest, no longer was there any real ease or security at the popular leaning places, Tait's manner of overlooking the little gatherings being quite sufficient to put all under a painful constraint, and give the big men the air of bad little boys before the judgment-seat of an angry master.

His favourite position in the bar was on a big cask near the door, apart from the others. Perched aloof, he wore the habitual expression of a man whose boots were pinching him, and had always a glass of whisky within reach.

"A peculiar thing I've noticed about this township of yours, Scobie," he said, "is the fact that every soul worth a curse left it long ago. You haven't remarked that. I didn't expect it of you, for the simple reason that you are an ass. Give me some more drink. Your whisky is bad, and so is your company. They are congenial spirits."

Then, being served and refreshed again, he continued in a mood of bitter reflection, addressing the wall:

"It's a pity Dante didn't know Gobong; he would have made it infamous as a dry corner of his Inferno, where the men drive you mad by staring mutely at you like demented sheep."

Breaking into ferocity, and turning to Scobie, he cried: "Blast it all, landlord, if you will persist in turning your bar into an asylum for idiots, why don't you provide separate accommodation for gentlemen?"

His manner of leaving the bar varied little. He never failed to convey the idea that he was driven out by the unbearable stupidity of Simon Scobie's guests or their uncouth behaviour.

"In heaven's name let me go," he said, a few minutes later; "the imbecility of Gobong is contagious. Ten minutes more, and I shall be fraternising with these rabbits!"

Tait was not always understood in Gobong, but the men were satisfied at least that he meant no compliments. Brophy was ever first to break the dubious silence that followed the enemy's escape.

"I'll be batin' that man," he said, with the air of one foretelling calamities; "I'll be dalin' wid him yet!"

But Thomas Henderson was the one man who broke into open revolt.

A long-suffering man was Henderson, but Raymond Tait stung him into action. Henderson, who was a bit of a politician, was explaining to the corner at full length the influence of the new Forests Preservation Act on the future of Gobong, when Tait's clear, metallic voice cut in angrily:

"Landlord, is there no means of stopping the drone of that barbarous Scot? He buzzes in my head like a blowfly. In humanity's name, gag him, kill him, swill him with drink, and charge it to me!"

Henderson whirled on his heel, his sandy whiskers fairly bristled, his round red nose glittered in the lamplight; all the Scotch in him came to the surface.

"An' who the de'il're you to stay a mon's ixpression o' hie's honest opeenion?" he snorted, reverting to his brogue in his just wrath. "I'll ha' ye know Tam Henderson can pay fer his ain drink; an' if he canna, he'll owe for it, like a Briton, an' no' be beholdin' to the likes o' you."

"Henderson is a lierring-fed, parritch-blooded, scurvy savage," hissed Tait in cold anger, addressing the world at large and keeping his eyes studiously off the angry Scot. " He's a chuckle-headed, blatlier-skiting, feckless creature, who has drowned his little soul in the beer he is too mean to pay for. He's the direct descendant of the dirtiest Scot that has left his smudge on history, and is a disgrace to his forebear at that."

"He can gi' you a blow o' the neb!" cried Henderson, falling into fury, wildly throwing aside his vest and hat. and dancing about in an awkward fighting attitude. "He can gi' you a good blow o' the neb, for a' that!"

But the others, who should have rejoiced to see Gobong assert itself against the intruder, fell upon Tam, and restrained him, although he struggled nobly.

While this was going on Tait was continuing his biting invective, spitting insulting adjectives with the venom of a snake, apparently quite indifferent to Henderson's threatened attack. After that Henderson came in for much more than his share of Tait's abuse. The fact that the Scot showed his irritation gave additional zest to the devilment in which the newcomer indulged himself, and in most of his bar-room speeches and moralisings there was a covert reference to his enemy, which Tam was acute enough to detect, and under which he writhed, muttering darkly in his wrath.

Sometimes the allusion was more direct, and then Henderson broke into open revolt again, and struggled fiercely to get at the traducer, while Dixon, Saunders and Dibbs hung on to him, and endeavoured to soothe him with soft words.

"The last man on Gobong will be a starveling Scot," said Tait, one evening, about a week after Henderson's first outbreak; "and he is only staying for the profit he hopes to make out of the bones of the other miserables."

Henderson shifted uneasily, scowling under his bushy brows. Conversation in the men's corner lost interest, and Tait continued from his eminence:

"I can picture the lank ghoul prowling about with his bag, raking up the ribs of his friends, and sourly estimating the value of the combined skulls as raw material for the bone-miller. Heaven knows, their most amazing thickness should give the barbarian a sordid joy."

The others were somewhat dubious as to the drift of all this, but Tam Henderson understood well enough, and his sensitive nose glowed redly, a certain indication of rising choler. After a minute's silence, Tait continued his soliloquy, thoughtfully, but with rancour:

"They are all as stupid as cows; they have no more moral sense than Coolgardie blacks, and they don't wash themselves as civilised people should, but one's gorge rises at the idea of this indecent Caledonian battening on their bones. And how ugly the creature is! It lowers like a sulking monkey."

Tam eluded nis friends this time, and dashing at Tait, with a bovine roar, struck him heavily in the face, rolling him off the barrel, heels over head. Very fierce was Tam Henderson, and an awe-inspiring object, dancing round his prostrate foe, throwing his limbs about, and shouting diabolical threats in his native dialect. But he was presently captured by his friends, and Raymond Tait resumed his seat, and sat glaring at the wall, his face whiter than usual, and a thin flow of blood staining one cheek, while Tam struggled with Saunders, and Dibbs, and Scobie, a few feet away, and raved of sudden death.

"The scoundrel!" piped Tam. "I e'en ha' his blude. Let me be. I'll crack his sconce on the wall."

They dragged Tam away, and Tait continued his vicious soliloquy.

After this Mr. Raymond Tait forgot his other antipathies, sinking them in an intense hatred of Thomas Henderson, and Henderson, having tasted blood, was always hot for battle. He had only to see Tait in the distance to bristle like an angry hog.

Several times the lone township was awakened in the early hours, or disturbed in the late ones, by the shouts of the combatants, and rushed out to find Henderson and Tait locked in a vehement embrace, rolling each other over the stones.

Raymond Tait, retired gentleman, had no chance with Tam Henderson, ex-miner, in a physical contest, and Tam had none with Tait in a verbal battle. But Tam no longer permitted the disagreement to be merely colloquial for any length of time. His disposition was to rush Tait on the first provocation.

This policy maddened Raymond. Released from his enemy, he would spit and splutter like an enraged monkey.

One day at noon the foes were discovered fighting on the road. Henderson had Tait down in the dirt, jabbing his face into the fine, yellow dust, half suffocating, and ejaculating with every thrust:

"Noo will ye give in? Noo will ye give in?"

They rescued Tait again, and while they held him Tait showered deadly insults upon him, defaming his father and his mother, reviling his country, and classing him with all the unclean beasts and carrion-birds known to zoology.

"I'll kill him wi' me own hands," squealed Henderson. " I'll murder him wi' me fist."

With whisky they soothed Tam for the time being; but one morning, a few days later, when Gobong was shaken out of its bunks at about three o'clock by a shocking explosion, the dazed people instinctively associated the crash with the Tait-Henderson imbroglio.

Half-dressed, wondering, and blundering, the people rushed towards Tait's hut.

A miracle had occurred. Tait's hut was no longer there. Where the hut had stood was a deep excavation, to the moist earth of which a little smoke was clinging. Raymond Tait was gone.

But when daylight came fearful evidence of his fate was discovered. Saunders found a man's leg in a tree; Scobie found a hand. A time of fearful and feverish interest followed at Gobong. Police came out from Benalla; a great detective from Melbourne spent half a day at the township, and then arrested Tam Henderson.

Poor Tam was practically tried, judged, and executed before appearing in court. The papers were short of stirring news, and they made the most of the Gobong Tragedy. When they had discovered all they could and had placed it before the public in the most edifying shape, the general conclusion was that Tam Henderson should be hung as soon as a rope could be secured. The verdict in the police court ease was murder. Tam was committed.

At the next criminal sessions, Tam was tried. Much was made of the great enmity between accused and deceased. Half a dozen witnesses had heard Tam threaten to murder Tait.

Then came the detective's evidence. The explosion had been effected with a dynamite plug. Henderson was the only man on Gobong who had dynamite. A half-burnt train of gunpowder was traced from Tam's hut to Tait's hut.

Henderson was the only man on Gobong who had blasting powder. The case was clear enough to hang an angel, and Tam did not claim to be an angel; he only claimed that he was guiltless, that he knew nothing of the affair.

Relatives of Tait's appeared at the trial. Tait had been a thorn in their sides for years. Before going to Gobong he had been guilty of a serious embezzlement. His guilt was covered up and he was made an allowance on the strict condition that he went to the country, and remained there.

This accounted for his appearance at Gobong.

To everybody's surprise and most people's disgust, the jury disagreed.

There was a second trial some months later, when the sensation had passed, and again the jury disagreed. The Crown was hurt and indignant. The Crown thought Henderson should have been hanged and out of the way long ago.

While the advisability of arranging a third tria was being debated, the Attorney-General received a letter from an Australian in Brazil. The letter explained that an accompanying letter had been sent to him from Australia, with a request that he would put the proper stamps on the envelope and post it. Knowing his friend Tait's eccentric character, he had hastened to do so. The letter was of extraordinary interest. It ran:

Gobong, June 2, 1868.

The Attorney-General, Victoria:

Dear Sir

I trust that by the time this letter reaches you Thomas Henderson will be well and truly hanged. It is a matter of some regret that I cannot be present at the hanging. I should not have written you but when a man elaborates an excellent joke, he hates to take it down to the grave with him. I wish to state that, weary of the world, and eager to give this pestilent Scot Henderson as bad an ending as he deserves, I deliberately blew myself into kingdom come. The dynamite, detonater, powder and fuse I used for this final blow-out of mine, I stole from the hut of the scrofulous Caledonian hereinbefore mentioned. I laid the train from the direction of his door with malice aforethought, and send the letter in the most roundabout way I can think of, in the fond hope that it will not reach you till Henderson has been suspended for the maximum legal time on the end of a rope.

Yours faithfully,

Raymond Tait.

Having satisfied themselves as to the authenticity of this letter, the Crown authorities magnanimously decided to liberate Thomas Henderson, to the great disgust of Raymond Tait's spirit, I have no doubt.

___________

9: The Apparition of Mrs. Veal

Daniel Defoe

1661-1731

First published in 1706

When first published, it was under the wonderfully long-winded title "A True Relation of the Apparition of One Mrs. Veal the Next Day After Her Death to One Mrs. Bargrave at Canterbury the 8th of September, 1705".

THIS THING is so rare in all its circumstances, and on so good authority, that my reading and conversation have not given me anything like it. It is fit to gratify the most ingenious and serious inquirer. Mrs. Bargrave is the person to whom Mrs. Veal appeared after her death; she is my intimate friend, and I can avouch for her reputation for these fifteen or sixteen years, on my own knowledge; and I can confirm the good character she had from her youth to the time of my acquaintance. Though, since this relation, she is calumniated by some people that are friends to the brother of Mrs. Veal who appeared, who think the relation of this appearance to be a reflection, and endeavor what they can to blast Mrs. Bargrave's reputation and to laugh the story out of countenance. But by the circumstances thereof, and the cheerful disposition of Mrs. Bargrave, notwithstanding the ill usage of a very wicked husband, there is not yet the least sign of dejection in her face; nor did I ever hear her let fall a desponding or murmuring expression; nay, not when actually under her husband's barbarity, which I have been a witness to, and several other persons of undoubted reputation.

Now you must know Mrs. Veal was a maiden gentlewoman of about thirty years of age, and for some years past had been troubled with fits, which were perceived coming on her by her going off from her discourse very abruptly to some impertinence. She was maintained by an only brother, and kept his house in Dover. She was a very pious woman, and her brother a very sober man to all appearance; but now he does all he can to null and quash the story. Mrs. Veal was intimately acquainted with Mrs. Bargrave from her childhood. Mrs. Veal's circumstances were then mean; her father did not take care of his children as he ought, so that they were exposed to hardships. And Mrs. Bargrave in those days had as unkind a father, though she wanted neither for food nor clothing; while Mrs. Veal wanted for both, insomuch that she would often say, "Mrs. Bargrave, you are not only the best, but the only friend I have in the world; and no circumstance of life shall ever dissolve my friendship." They would often condole each other's adverse fortunes, and read together Drelincourt upon Death, and other good books; and so, like two Christian friends, they comforted each other under their sorrow.

Some time after, Mr. Veal's friends got him a place in the custom-house at Dover, which occasioned Mrs. Veal, by little and little, to fall off from her intimacy with Mrs. Bargrave, though there was never any such thing as a quarrel; but an indifferency came on by degrees, till at last Mrs. Bargrave had not seen her in two years and a half, though above a twelvemonth of the time Mrs. Bargrave hath been absent from Dover, and this last half-year has been in Canterbury about two months of the time, dwelling in a house of her own.

In this house, on the eighth of September, one thousand seven hundred and five, she was sitting alone in the forenoon, thinking over her unfortunate life, and arguing herself into a due resignation to Providence, though her condition seemed hard: "And," said she, "I have been provided for hitherto, and doubt not but I shall be still, and am well satisfied that my afflictions shall end when it is most fit for me." And then took up her sewing work, which she had no sooner done but she hears a knocking at the door; she went to see who was there, and this proved to be Mrs. Veal, her old friend, who was in a riding-habit. At that moment of time the clock struck twelve at noon.

"Madam," says Mrs. Bargrave, "I am surprised to see you, you have been so long a stranger"; but told her she was glad to see her, and offered to salute her, which Mrs. Veal complied with, till their lips almost touched, and then Mrs. Veal drew her hand across her own eyes, and said, "I am not very well," and so waived it. She told Mrs. Bargrave she was going a journey, and had a great mind to see her first. "But," says Mrs. Bargrave, "how can you take a journey alone? I am amazed at it, because I know you have a fond brother." "Oh," says Mrs. Veal, "I gave my brother the slip, and came away, because I had so great a desire to see you before I took my journey." So Mrs. Bargrave went in with her into another room within the first, and Mrs. Veal sat her down in an elbow-chair, in which Mrs. Bargrave was sitting when she heard Mrs. Veal knock. "Then," says Mrs. Veal, "my dear friend, I am come to renew our old friendship again, and beg your pardon for my breach of it; and if you can forgive me, you are the best of women." "Oh," says Mrs. Bargrave, "do not mention such a thing; I have not had an uneasy thought about it." "What did you think of me?" says Mrs. Veal. Says Mrs. Bargrave, "I thought you were like the rest of the world, and that prosperity had made you forget yourself and me." Then Mrs. Veal reminded Mrs. Bargrave of the many friendly offices she did her in former days, and much of the conversation they had with each other in the times of their adversity; what books they read, and what comfort in particular they received from Drelincourt's Book of Death, which was the best, she said, on the subject ever wrote. She also mentioned Doctor Sherlock, and two Dutch books, which were translated, wrote upon death, and several others. But Drelincourt, she said, had the clearest notions of death and of the future state of any who had handled that subject. Then she asked Mrs. Bargrave whether she had Drelincourt. She said, "Yes." Says Mrs. Veal, "Fetch it." And so Mrs. Bargrave goes up-stairs and brings it down. Says Mrs. Veal, "Dear Mrs. Bargrave, if the eyes of our faith were as open as the eyes of our body, we should see numbers of angels about us for our guard. The notions we have of Heaven now are nothing like what it is, as Drelincourt says; therefore be comforted under your afflictions, and believe that the Almighty has a particular regard to you, and that your afflictions are marks of God's favor; and when they have done the business they are sent for, they shall be removed from you. And believe me, my dear friend, believe what I say to you, one minute of future happiness will infinitely reward you for all your sufferings. For I can never believe" (and claps her hand upon her knee with great earnestness, which, indeed, ran through most of her discourse) "that ever God will suffer you to spend all your days in this afflicted state. But be assured that your afflictions shall leave you, or you them, in a short time." She spake in that pathetical and heavenly manner that Mrs. Bargrave wept several times, she was so deeply affected with it.

Then Mrs. Veal mentioned Doctor Kendrick's Ascetic, at the end of which he gives an account of the lives of the primitive Christians. Their pattern she recommended to our imitation, and said, "Their conversation was not like this of our age. For now," says she, "there is nothing but vain, frothy discourse, which is far different from theirs. Theirs was to edification, and to build one another up in faith, so that they were not as we are, nor are we as they were. But," said she, "we ought to do as they did; there was a hearty friendship among them; but where is it now to be found?" Says Mrs. Bargrave, "It is hard indeed to find a true friend in these days." Says Mrs. Veal, "Mr. Norris has a fine copy of verses, called Friendship in Perfection, which I wonderfully admire. Have you seen the book?" says Mrs. Veal. "No," says Mrs. Bargrave, "but I have the verses of my own writing out." "Have you?" says Mrs. Veal; "then fetch them"; which she did from above stairs, and offered them to Mrs. Veal to read, who refused, and waived the thing, saying, "holding down her head would make it ache"; and then desiring Mrs. Bargrave to read them to her, which she did. As they were admiring Friendship, Mrs. Veal said, "Dear Mrs. Bargrave, I shall love you forever." In these verses there is twice used the word "Elysian." "Ah!" says Mrs. Veal, "these poets have such names for Heaven." She would often draw her hand across her own eyes, and say, "Mrs. Bargrave, do not you think I am mightily impaired by my fits?" "No," says Mrs. Bargrave; "I think you look as well as ever I knew you."

After this discourse, which the apparition put in much finer words than Mrs. Bargrave said she could pretend to, and as much more than she can remember— for it cannot be thought that an hour and three quarters' conversation could all be retained, though the main of it she thinks she does— she said to Mrs. Bargrave she would have her write a letter to her brother, and tell him she would have him give rings to such and such; and that there was a purse of gold in her cabinet, and that she would have two broad pieces given to her cousin Watson.

Talking at this rate, Mrs. Bargrave thought that a fit was coming upon her, and so placed herself on a chair just before her knees, to keep her from falling to the ground, if her fits should occasion it; for the elbow-chair, she thought, would keep her from falling on either side. And to divert Mrs. Veal, as she thought, took hold of her gown-sleeve several times, and commended it. Mrs. Veal told her it was a scoured silk, and newly made up. But, for all this, Mrs. Veal persisted in her request, and told Mrs. Bargrave she must not deny her. And she would have her tell her brother all their conversation when she had the opportunity. "Dear Mrs. Veal," says Mrs. Bargrave, "this seems so impertinent that I cannot tell how to comply with it; and what a mortifying story will our conversation be to a young gentleman. Why," says Mrs. Bargrave, "it is much better, methinks, to do it yourself." "No," says Mrs. Veal; "though it seems impertinent to you now, you will see more reasons for it hereafter." Mrs. Bargrave, then, to satisfy her importunity, was going to fetch a pen and ink, but Mrs. Veal said, "Let it alone now, but do it when I am gone; but you must be sure to do it"; which was one of the last things she enjoined her at parting, and so she promised her.

Then Mrs. Veal asked for Mrs. Bargrave's daughter. She said she was not at home. "But if you have a mind to see her," says Mrs. Bargrave, "I'll send for her." "Do," says Mrs. Veal; on which she left her, and went to a neighbor's to see her; and by the time Mrs. Bargrave was returning, Mrs. Veal was got without the door in the street, in the face of the beast-market, on a Saturday (which is market-day), and stood ready to part as soon as Mrs. Bargrave came to her. She asked her why she was in such haste. She said she must be going, though perhaps she might not go her journey till Monday; and told Mrs. Bargrave she hoped she should see her again at her cousin Watson's before she went whither she was going. Then she said she would take her leave of her, and walked from Mrs. Bargrave, in her view, till a turning interrupted the sight of her, which was three-quarters after one in the afternoon.

Mrs. Veal died the seventh of September, at twelve o'clock at noon, of her fits, and had not above four hours' senses before her death, in which time she received the sacrament. The next day after Mrs. Veal's appearance, being Sunday, Mrs. Bargrave was mightily indisposed with a cold and sore throat, that she could not go out that day; but on Monday morning she sends a person to Captain Watson's to know if Mrs. Veal was there. They wondered at Mrs. Bargrave's inquiry, and sent her word she was not there, nor was expected. At this answer, Mrs. Bargrave told the maid she had certainly mistook the name or made some blunder. And though she was ill, she put on her hood and went herself to Captain Watson's, though she knew none of the family, to see if Mrs. Veal was there or not. They said they wondered at her asking, for that she had not been in town; they were sure, if she had, she would have been there. Says Mrs. Bargrave, "I am sure she was with me on Saturday almost two hours." They said it was impossible, for they must have seen her if she had. In comes Captain Watson, while they were in dispute, and said that Mrs. Veal was certainly dead, and the escutcheons were making. This strangely surprised Mrs. Bargrave, when she sent to the person immediately who had the care of them, and found it true. Then she related the whole story to Captain Watson's family; and what gown she had on, and how striped; and that Mrs. Veal told her that it was scoured. Then Mrs. Watson cried out, "You have seen her indeed, for none knew but Mrs. Veal and myself that the gown was scoured." And Mrs. Watson owned that she described the gown exactly; "for," said she, "I helped her to make it up." This Mrs. Watson blazed all about the town, and avouched the demonstration of truth of Mrs. Bargrave's seeing Mrs. Veal's apparition. And Captain Watson carried two gentlemen immediately to Mrs. Bargrave's house to hear the relation from her own mouth. And when it spread so fast that gentlemen and persons of quality, the judicious and sceptical part of the world, flocked in upon her, it at last became such a task that she was forced to go out of the way; for they were in general extremely satisfied of the truth of the thing, and plainly saw that Mrs. Bargrave was no hypochondriac, for she always appears with such a cheerful air and pleasing mien that she has gained the favor and esteem of all the gentry, and it is thought a great favor if they can but get the relation from her own mouth. I should have told you before that Mrs. Veal told Mrs. Bargrave that her sister and brother-in-law were just come down from London to see her. Says Mrs. Bargrave, "How came you to order matters so strangely?" "It could not be helped," said Mrs. Veal. And her brother and sister did come to see her, and entered the town of Dover just as Mrs. Veal was expiring. Mrs. Bargrave asked her whether she would drink some tea. Says Mrs. Veal, "I do not care if I do; but I'll warrant you this mad fellow"— meaning Mrs. Bargrave's husband— "has broke all your trinkets." "But," says Mrs. Bargrave, "I'll get something to drink in for all that"; but Mrs. Veal waived it, and said, "It is no matter; let it alone"; and so it passed.

All the time I sat with Mrs. Bargrave, which was some hours, she recollected fresh sayings of Mrs. Veal. And one material thing more she told Mrs. Bargrave, that old Mr. Bretton allowed Mrs. Veal ten pounds a year, which was a secret, and unknown to Mrs. Bargrave till Mrs. Veal told her.

Mrs. Bargrave never varies in her story, which puzzles those who doubt of the truth, or are unwilling to believe it. A servant in the neighbor's yard adjoining to Mrs. Bargrave's house heard her talking to somebody an hour of the time Mrs. Veal was with her. Mrs. Bargrave went out to her next neighbor's the very moment she parted with Mrs. Veal, and told her what ravishing conversation she had had with an old friend, and told the whole of it. Drelincourt's Book of Death is, since this happened, bought up strangely. And it is to be observed that, notwithstanding all the trouble and fatigue Mrs. Bargrave has undergone upon this account, she never took the value of a farthing, nor suffered her daughter to take anything of anybody, and therefore can have no interest in telling the story.

But Mr. Veal does what he can to stifle the matter, and said he would see Mrs. Bargrave; but yet it is certain matter of fact that he has been at Captain Watson's since the death of his sister, and yet never went near Mrs. Bargrave; and some of his friends report her to be a liar, and that she knew of Mr. Bretton's ten pounds a year. But the person who pretends to say so has the reputation to be a notorious liar among persons whom I know to be of undoubted credit. Now, Mr. Veal is more of a gentleman than to say she lies, but says a bad husband has crazed her; but she needs only present herself, and it will effectually confute that pretence. Mr. Veal says he asked his sister on her death-bed whether she had a mind to dispose of anything. And she said no. Now the things which Mrs. Veal's apparition would have disposed of were so trifling, and nothing of justice aimed at in the disposal, that the design of it appears to me to be only in order to make Mrs. Bargrave satisfy the world of the reality thereof as to what she had seen and heard, and to secure her reputation among the reasonable and understanding part of mankind. And then, again, Mr. Veal owns that there was a purse of gold; but it was not found in her cabinet, but in a comb-box. This looks improbable; for that Mrs. Watson owned that Mrs. Veal was so very careful of the key of her cabinet that she would trust nobody with it; and if so, no doubt she would not trust her gold out of it. And Mrs. Veal's often drawing her hands over her eyes, and asking Mrs. Bargrave whether her fits had not impaired her, looks to me as if she did it on purpose to remind Mrs. Bargrave of her fits, to prepare her not to think it strange that she should put her upon writing to her brother, to dispose of rings and gold, which look so much like a dying person's request; and it took accordingly with Mrs. Bargrave as the effect of her fits coming upon her, and was one of the many instances of her wonderful love to her and care of her, that she should not be affrighted, which, indeed, appears in her whole management, particularly in her coming to her in the daytime, waiving the salutation, and when she was alone; and then the manner of her parting, to prevent a second attempt to salute her.

Now, why Mr. Veal should think this relation a reflection— as it is plain he does, by his endeavoring to stifle it— I cannot imagine; because the generality believe her to be a good spirit, her discourse was so heavenly. Her two great errands were, to comfort Mrs. Bargrave in her affliction, and to ask her forgiveness for her breach of friendship, and with a pious discourse to encourage her. So that, after all, to suppose that Mrs. Bargrave could hatch such an invention as this, from Friday noon to Saturday noon— supposing that she knew of Mrs. Veal's death the very first moment— without jumbling circumstances, and without any interest, too, she must be more witty, fortunate, and wicked, too, than any indifferent person, I dare say, will allow. I asked Mrs. Bargrave several times if she was sure she felt the gown. She answered, modestly, "If my senses be to be relied on, I am sure of it." I asked her if she heard a sound when she clapped her hand upon her knee. She said she did not remember she did, but said she appeared to be as much a substance as I did who talked with her. "And I may," said she, "be as soon persuaded that your apparition is talking to me now as that I did not really see her; for I was under no manner of fear, and received her as a friend, and parted with her as such. I would not," says she, "give one farthing to make any one believe it; I have no interest in it; nothing but trouble is entailed upon me for a long time, for aught I know; and, had it not come to light by accident, it would never have been made public." But now she says she will make her own private use of it, and keep herself out of the way as much as she can; and so she has done since. She says she had a gentleman who came thirty miles to her to hear the relation; and that she had told it to a roomful of people at the time. Several particular gentlemen have had the story from Mrs. Bargrave's own mouth.

This thing has very much affected me, and I am as well satisfied as I am of the best-grounded matter of fact. And why we should dispute matter of fact, because we cannot solve things of which we can have no certain or demonstrative notions, seems strange to me; Mrs. Bargrave's authority and sincerity alone would have been undoubted in any other case.

___________

10: The Winning Shot

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

1859-1930

Bow Bells, 11 July 1883.

"CAUTION.— The public are hereby cautioned against a man calling himself Octavius Gaster. He is to be recognised by his great height, his flaxen hair, and deep scar upon his left cheek, extending from the eye to the angle of the mouth. His predilection for bright colours— green neckties, and the like— may help to identify him. A slightly foreign accent is to be detected in his speech. The man is beyond the reach of the law, but is more dangerous than a mad dog. Shun him as you would shun the pestilence that walketh at noonday. Any communications as to his whereabouts will be thankfully acknowledged by A.C.U., Lincoln's Inn, London."

THIS IS a copy of an advertisement which may have been noticed by many readers in the columns of the London morning papers during the early part of the present year. It has, I believe, excited considerable curiosity in certain quarters, and many guesses have been hazarded as to the identity of Octavius Gaster and the nature of the charge brought against him. When I state that the "caution" has been inserted by my elder brother, Arthur Cooper Underwood, barrister-at-law, upon my representations, it will be acknowledged that I am the most fitting person to enter upon an authentic explanation.

Hitherto the horror and vagueness of my suspicion, combined with my grief at the loss of my poor darling on the very eve of our wedding, have prevented me from revealing the events of last August to anyone save my brother.

Now, however, looking back, I can fit in many little facts almost unnoticed at the time, which form a chain of evidence that, though worthless in a court of law, may yet have some effect upon the mind of the public.

I shall therefore relate, without exaggeration or prejudice, all that occurred from the day upon which this man, Octavius Gaster, entered Toynby Hall up to the great rifle competition. I know that many people will always ridicule the supernatural, or what our poor intellects choose to regard as supernatural, and that the fact of my being a woman will be thought to weaken my evidence. I can only plead that I have never been weak-minded or impressionable, and that other people formed the same opinions of Octavius Gaster that I did.

Now to the story.

IT WAS AT Colonel Pillar's place at Roborough, in the pleasant county of Devon, that we spent our autumn holidays. For some months I had been engaged to his eldest son Charley, and it was hoped that the marriage might take place before the termination of the Long Vacation.

Charley was considered "safe" for his degree, and in any case was rich enough to be practically independent, while I was by no means penniless.

The old Colonel was delighted at the prospect of the match, and so was my mother; so that look what way we would, there seemed to be no cloud above our horizon.

It was no wonder, then, that that August was a happy one. Even the most miserable of mankind would have laid his woes aside under the genial influence of the merry household at Toynby Hall.

There was Lieutenant Daseby, "Jack," as he was invariably called, fresh home from Japan in Her Majesty's ship Shark, who was on the same interesting footing with Fanny Pillar, Charley's sister, as Charley was with me, so that we were able to lend each other a certain moral support.

Then there was Harry, Charley's younger brother, and Trevor, his bosom friend at Cambridge.

Finally there was my mother, dearest of old ladies, beaming at us through her gold-rimmed spectacles, anxiously smoothing every little difficulty in the way of the two young couples, and never weary of detailing to them her own doubts and fears and perplexities when that gay young blood, Mr. Nicholas Underwood, came a-wooing into the provinces, and forswore Crockford's and Tattersall's for the sake of the country parson's daughter.

I must not, however, forget the gallant old warrior who was our host; with his time-honoured jokes, and his gout, and his harmless affectation of ferocity.

"I don't know what's come over the governor lately," Charley used to say. "He has never cursed the Liberal Administration since you've been here, Lottie; and my belief is that unless he has a good blow-off, that Irish question will get into his system and finish him."

Perhaps in the privacy of his own apartment the veteran used to make up for his self-abnegation during the day.

He seemed to have taken a special fancy to me, which he showed in a hundred little attentions.

"You're a good lass," he remarked one evening, in a very port-winey whisper. "Charley's a lucky dog, egad! and has more discrimination than I thought. Mark my words, Miss Underwood, you'll find that young gentleman isn't such a fool as he looks!"

With which equivocal compliment the Colonel solemnly covered his face with his handkerchief, and went off into the land of dreams.

HOW WELL I remember the day that was the commencement of all our miseries!

Dinner was over, and we were in the drawing-room, with the windows open to admit the balmy southern breeze.

My mother was sitting in the corner, engaged on a piece of fancy-work, and occasionally purring forth some truism which the dear old soul believed to be an entirely original remark, and founded exclusively upon her own individual experiences.

Fanny and the young lieutenant were billing and cooing upon the sofa, while Charley paced restlessly about the room.

I was sitting by the window, gazing out dreamily at the great wilderness of Dartmoor, which stretched away to the horizon, ruddy and glowing in the light of the sinking sun, save where some rugged tor stood out in bold relief against the scarlet background.

"I say," remarked Charley, coming over to join me at the window, "it seems a positive shame to waste an evening like this."

"Confound the evening!" said Jack Daseby.

"You're always victimising yourself to the weather. Fan and I ar'n't going to move off this sofa— are we, Fan?"

That young lady announced her intention of remaining by nestling among the cushions, and glancing defiantly at her brother.

"Spooning is a demoralising thing— isn't it, Lottie?" said Charley, appealing laughingly to me.

"Shockingly so," I answered.

"Why, I can remember Daseby here when he was as active a young fellow as any in Devon; and just look at him now! Fanny, Fanny, you've got a lot to answer for!"

"Never mind him, my dear," said my mother, from the corner. "Still, my experience has always shown me that moderation is an excellent thing for young people. Poor dear Nicholas used to think so too. He would never go to bed of a night until he had jumped the length of the hearthrug. I often told him it was dangerous; but he would do it, until one night he fell on the fender and snapped the muscle of his leg, which made him limp till the day of his death, for Doctor Pearson mistook it for a fracture of the bone, and put him in splints, which had the effect of stiffening his knee. They did say that the doctor was almost out of his mind at the time from anxiety, brought on by his younger daughter swallowing a halfpenny, and that that was what caused him to make the mistake."

My mother had a curious way of drifting along in her conversation, and occasionally rushing off at a tangent, which made it rather difficult to remember her original proposition. On this occasion Charley had, however, stowed it away in his mind as likely to admit of immediate application.

"An excellent thing, as you say, Mrs. Underwood," he remarked; "and we have not been out to-day. Look here, Lottie, we have an hour of daylight yet. Suppose we go down and have a try for a trout, if your mamma does not object."

"Put something round your throat, dear," said my mother, feeling that she had been outmanœuvred.

"All right, dear," I answered; "I'll just run up and put on my hat."

"And we'll have a walk back in the gloaming," said Charley, as I made for the door.

When I came down, I found my lover waiting impatiently with his fishing basket in the hall.

We crossed the lawn together, and passed the open drawing-room windows, where three mischievous faces were looking at us.

"Spooning is a terribly demoralising thing," remarked Jack, reflectively staring up at the clouds.

"Shocking," said Fan; and all three laughed until they woke the sleeping Colonel, and we could hear them endeavouring to explain the joke to that ill-used veteran, who apparently obstinately refused to appreciate it.

We passed down the winding lane together, and through the little wooden gate, which opens on to the Tavistock road.

Charley paused for a moment after we had emerged and seemed irresolute which way to turn.

Had we but known it, our fate depended upon that trivial question.

"Shall we go down to the river, dear," he said, "or shall we try one of the brooks upon the moor?"

"Whichever you like?" I answered.

"Well, I vote that we cross the moor. We'll have a longer walk back that way," he added, looking down lovingly at the little white-shawled figure beside him.

The brook in question runs through a most desolate part of the country. By the path it is several miles from Toynby Hall; but we were both young and active, and struck out across the moor, regardless of rocks and furze-bushes.

Not a living creature did we meet upon our solitary walk, save a few scraggy Devonshire sheep, who looked at us wistfully, and followed us for some distance, as if curious as to what could possibly have induced us to trespass upon their domains.

It was almost dark before we reached the little stream, which comes gurgling down through a precipitous glen, and meanders away to help to form the Plymouth "leat."

Above us towered two great columns of rock, between which the water trickled to form a deep, still pool at the bottom. This pool had always been a favourite spot of Charley's, and was a pretty cheerful place by day; but now, with the rising moon reflected upon its glassy waters, and throwing dark shadows from the overhanging rocks, it seemed anything rather than the haunt of a pleasure-seeker.

"I don't think, darling, that I'll fish, after all," said Charley, as we sat down together on a mossy bank. "It's a dismal sort of place, isn't it?"

"Very," said I, shuddering.

"We'll just have a rest, and then we will walk back by the pathway. You're shivering. You're not cold, are you?"

"No," said I, trying to keep up my courage; "I'm not cold, but I'm rather frightened, though it's very silly of me."

"By jove!" said my lover, "I can't wonder at it, for I feel a bit depressed myself. The noise that water makes is like the gurgling in the throat of a dying man."

"Don't, Charley; you frighten me!"

"Come, dear, we mustn't get the blues," he said, with a laugh, trying to reassure me. "Let's run away from this charnel-house place, and— Look!— see!— good gracious! what is that?"

Charley had staggered back, and was gazing upwards with a pallid face.

I followed the direction of his eyes, and could scarcely suppress a scream.

I have already mentioned that the pool by which we were standing lay at the foot of a rough mound of rocks. On the top of this mound, about sixty feet above our heads, a tall dark figure was standing, peering down, apparently, into the rugged hollow in which we were.

The moon was just topping the ridge behind, and the gaunt, angular outlines of the stranger stood out hard and clear against its silvery radiance.

There was something ghastly in the sudden and silent appearance of this solitary wanderer, especially when coupled with the weird nature of the scene.

I clung to my lover in speechless terror, and glared up at the dark figure above us.

"Hullo, you sir!" cried Charley, passing from fear into anger, as Englishmen generally do. "Who are you, and what the devil are you doing?"

"Oh! I thought it, I thought it!" said the man who was overlooking us, and disappeared from the top of the hill.

We heard him scrambling about among the loose stones, and in another moment he emerged upon the banks of the brook and stood facing us.

Weird as his appearance had been when we first caught sight of him, the impression was intensified rather than removed by a closer acquaintance.

The moon shining full upon him revealed a long, thin face of ghastly pallor, the effect being increased by its contrast with the flaring green necktie which he wore.

A scar upon his cheek had healed badly and caused a nasty pucker at the side of his mouth, which gave his whole countenance a most distorted expression, more particularly when he smiled.

The knapsack on his back and stout staff in his hand announced him to be a tourist, while the easy grace with which he raised his hat on perceiving the presence of a lady showed that he could lay claim to the savoir faire of a man of the world.

There was something in his angular proportions and the bloodless face which, taken in conjunction with the black cloak which fluttered from his shoulders, irresistibly reminded me of a blood-sucking species of bat which Jack Daseby had brought from Japan upon his previous voyage, and which was the bugbear of the servants' hall at Toynby.

"Excuse my intrusion," he said, with a slightly foreign lisp, which imparted a peculiar beauty to his voice. "I should have had to sleep on the moor had I not had the good fortune to fall in with you."

"Confound it, man!" said Charley; "why couldn't you shout out, or give some warning? You quite frightened Miss Underwood when you suddenly appeared up there."

The stranger once more raised his hat as he apologised to me for having given me such a start.

"I am a gentleman from Sweden," he continued, in that peculiar intonation of his, "and am viewing this beautiful land of yours. Allow me to introduce myself as Doctor Octavius Gaster. Perhaps you could tell me where I may sleep, and how I can get from this place, which is truly of great size?"

"You're very lucky in falling in with us," said Charley. "It is no easy matter to find your way upon the moor."

"That can I well believe," remarked our new acquaintance.

"Strangers have been found dead on it before now," continued Charley. "They lose themselves, and then wander in a circle until they fall from fatigue."

"Ha, ha!" laughed the Swede; "it is not I, who have drifted in an open boat from Cape Blanco to Canary, that will starve upon an English moor. But how may I turn to seek an inn?"

"Look here!" said Charley, whose interest was excited by the stranger's allusion, and who was at all times the most open-hearted of men. "There's not an inn for many a mile round; and I daresay you have had a long day's walk already. Come home with us, and my father, the Colonel, will be delighted to see you and find you a spare bed."

"For this great kindness how can I thank you?" returned the traveller. "Truly, when I return to Sweden, I shall have strange stories to tell of the English and the hospitality!"

"Nonsense!" said Charley. "Come, we will start at once, for Miss Underwood is cold. Wrap the shawl well round your neck, Lottie, and we will be home in no time."

We stumbled along in silence, keeping as far as we could to the rugged pathway, sometimes losing it as a cloud drifted over the face of the moon, and then regaining it further on with the return of the light.

The stranger seemed buried in thought, but once or twice I had the impression that he was looking hard at me through the darkness as we strode along together.

"So," said Charley at last, breaking the silence, "you drifted about in an open boat, did you?"

"Ah, yes," answered the stranger; "many strange sights have I seen, and many perils undergone, but none worse than that. It is, however, too sad a subject for a lady's ears. She has been frightened once to-night."

"Oh, you needn't be afraid of frightening me now," said I, as I leaned on Charley's arm.

"Indeed there is but little to tell, and yet is it sorrowful.

"A friend of mine, Karl Osgood of Upsala, and myself started on a trading venture. Few white men had been among the wandering Moors at Cape Blanco, but nevertheless we went, and for some months lived well, selling this and that, and gathering much ivory and gold.

" 'Tis a strange country, where is neither wood nor stone, so that the huts are made from the weeds of the sea.

"At last, just as what we thought was a sufficiency, the Moors conspired to kill us, and came down against us in the night.

"Short was our warning, but we fled to the beach, launched a canoe and put out to sea, leaving everything behind.

"The Moors chased us, but lost us in the darkness; and when day dawned the land was out of sight.

"There was no country where we could hope for food nearer than Canary, and for that we made.

"I reached it alive, though very weak and mad; but poor Karl died the day before we sighted the islands.

"I gave him warning!

"I cannot blame myself in the matter.

"I said, 'Karl, the strength that you might gain by eating them would be more than made up for by the blood that you would lose!'

"He laughed at my words, caught the knife from my belt, cut them off and eat them; and he died."

"Eat what?" asked Charley.

"His ears!" said the stranger.

We both looked round at him in horror.

There was no suspicion of a smile or joke upon his ghastly face.

"He was what you call headstrong," he continued, "but he should have known better than to do a thing like that. Had he but used his will he would have lived as I did."

"And you think a man's will can prevent him from feeling hungry?" said Charley.

"What can it not do?" returned Octavius Gaster, and relapsed into a silence which was not broken until our arrival in Toynby Hall.

Considerable alarm had been caused by our nonappearance, and Jack Daseby was just setting off with Charley's friend Trevor in search of us. They were delighted, therefore, when we marched in upon them, and considerably astonished at the appearance of our companion.

"Where the deuce did you pick up that second-hand corpse?" asked Jack, drawing Charley aside into the smoking-room.

"Shut up, man; he'll hear you," growled Charley. "He's a Swedish doctor on a tour, and a deuced good fellow. He went in an open boat from What's-it's-name to another place. I've offered him a bed for the night."

"Well, all I can say is," remarked Jack, "that his face will never be his fortune."

"Ha, ha! Very good! very good!" laughed the subject of the remark, walking calmly into the room, to the complete discomfiture of the sailor. "No, it will never, as you say, in this country be my fortune,"— and he grinned until the hideous gash across the angle of his mouth made him look more like the reflection in a broken mirror than anything else.

"Come upstairs and have a wash; I can lend you a pair of slippers," said Charley; and hurried the visitor out of the room to put an end to a somewhat embarrassing situation.

Colonel Pillar was the soul of hospitality, and welcomed Doctor Gaster as effusively as if he had been an old friend of the family.

"Egad, sir," he said, "the place is your own; and as long as you care to stop you are very welcome. We're pretty quiet down here, and a visitor is an acquisition."

My mother was a little more distant. "A very well-informed young man, Lottie," she remarked to me; "but I wish he would wink his eyes more. I don't like to see people who never wink their eyes. Still, my dear, my life has taught me one great lesson, and that is that a man's looks are of very little importance compared with his actions."

With which brand new and eminently original remark, my mother kissed me and left me to my meditations.

Whatever Doctor Octavius Gaster might be physically, he was certainly a social success.

By next day he had so completely installed himself as a member of the household that the Colonel would not hear of his departure.

He astonished everybody by the extent and variety of his knowledge. He could tell the veteran considerably more about the Crimea than he knew himself; he gave the sailor information about the coast of Japan; and even tackled my athletic lover upon the subject of rowing, discoursing about levers of the first order, and fixed points and fulcra, until the unhappy Cantab was fain to drop the subject.

Yet all this was done so modestly and even deferentially, that no one could possibly feel offended at being beaten upon their own ground. There was a quiet power about everything he said and did which was very striking.

I remember one example of this, which impressed us all at the time.

Trevor had a remarkably savage bulldog, which, however fond of its master, fiercely resented any liberties from the rest of us. This animal was, it may be imagined, rather unpopular, but as it was the pride of the student's heart it was agreed not to banish it entirely, but to lock it up in the stable and give it a wide berth.

From the first, it seemed to have taken a decided aversion to our visitor, and showed every fang in its head whenever he approached it.

On the second day of his visit we were passing the stable in a body, when the growls of the creature inside arrested Doctor Gaster's attention.

"Ha!" he said. "There is that dog of yours, Mr. Trevor, is it not?"

"Yes; that's Towzer," assented Trevor.

"He is a bulldog, I think? What they call the national animal of England on the Continent?"

"Pure-bred," said the student, proudly.

"They are ugly animals— very ugly! Would you come into the stable and unchain him, that I may see him to advantage. It is a pity to keep an animal so powerful and full of life in captivity."

"He's rather a nipper," said Trevor, with a mischievous expression in his eye; "but I suppose you are not afraid of a dog?"

"Afraid?— no. Why should I be afraid?"

The mischievous look on Trevor's face increased as he opened the stable door. I heard Charley mutter something to him about its being past a joke, but the other's answer was drowned by the hollow growling from inside.

The rest of us retreated to a respectable distance, while Octavius Gaster stood in the open doorway with a look of mild curiosity upon his pallid face.

"And those," he said, "that I see so bright and red in the darkness— are those his eyes?"

"Those are they," said the student, as he stooped down and unbuckled the strap.

"Come here!" said Octavius Gaster.

The growling of the dog suddenly subsided into a long whimper, and instead of making the furious rush that we expected, he rustled among the straw as if trying to huddle into a corner.

"What the deuce is the matter with him?" exclaimed his perplexed owner.

"Come here!" repeated Gaster, in sharp metallic accents, with an indescribable air of command in them. "Come here!"

To our astonishment, the dog trotted out and stood at his side, but looking as unlike the usually pugnacious Towzer as is possible to conceive. His ears were drooping, his tail limp, and he altogether presented the very picture of canine humiliation.

"A very fine dog, but singularly quiet," remarked the Swede, as he stroked him down.

"Now, sir, go back!"

The brute turned and slunk back into its corner. We heard the rattling of its chain as it was being fastened, and next moment Trevor came out of the stable-door with blood dripping from his finger.

"Confound the beast!" he said. "I don't know what can have come over him. I've had him three years, and he never bit me before."

I fancy— I cannot say it for certain— but I fancy that there was a spasmodic twitching of the cicatrix upon our visitor's face, which betokened an inclination to laugh.

Looking back, I think that it was from that moment that I began to have a strange indefinable fear and dislike of the man.

WEEK FOLLOWED week, and the day fixed for my marriage began to draw near.

Octavius Gaster was still a guest at Toynby Hall, and, indeed, had so ingratiated himself with the proprietor that any hint at departure was laughed to scorn by that worthy soldier.

"Here you've come, sir, and here you'll stay; you shall, by Jove!"

Whereat Octavius would smile and shrug his shoulders and mutter something about the attractions of Devon, which would put the Colonel in a good humour for the whole day afterwards.

My darling and I were too much engrossed with each other to pay very much attention to the traveller's occupations. We used to come upon him sometimes in our rambles through the woods, sitting reading in the most lonely situations.

He always placed the book in his pocket when he saw us approaching. I remember on one occasion, however, that we stumbled upon him so suddenly that the volume was still lying open before him.

"Ah, Gaster," said Charley, "studying, as usual! What an old bookworm you are! What's the book? Ah, a foreign language; Swedish, I suppose?"

"No, it is not Swedish," said Gaster; "it is Arabic."

"You don't mean to say you know Arabic?"

"Oh, very well— very well indeed!"

"And what's it about?" I asked, turning over the leaves of the musty old volume.

"Nothing that would interest one so young and fair as yourself, Miss Underwood," he answered, looking at me in a way which had become habitual to him of late. "It treats of the days when mind was stronger than what you call matter; when great spirits lived that were able to exist without these coarse bodies of ours, and could mould all things to their so-powerful wills."

"Oh, I see; a kind of ghost-story," said Charley. "Well, adieu; we won't keep you from your studies."

We left him sitting in the little glen still absorbed in his mystical treatise. It must have been imagination which induced me, on turning suddenly round half an hour later, to think that I saw his familiar figure glide rapidly behind a tree.

I mentioned it to Charley at the time, but he laughed my idea to scorn.

I ALLUDED just now to a peculiar manner which this man Gaster had of looking at me. His eyes seemed to lose their usual steely expression when he did so, and soften into something which might be almost called caressing. They seemed to influence me strangely, for I could always tell, without looking at him, when his gaze was fixed upon me.

Sometimes I fancied that this idea was simply due to a disordered nervous system or morbid imagination; but my mother dispelled that delusion from my mind.

"Do you know," she said, coming into my bedroom one night, and carefully shutting the door behind her, "if the idea was not so utterly preposterous, Lottie, I should say that that Doctor was madly in love with you?"

"Nonsense, 'ma!" said I, nearly dropping my candle in my consternation at the thought.

"I really think so, Lottie," continued my mother. "He's got a way of looking which is very like that of your poor dear father, Nicholas, before we were married. Something of this sort, you know."

And the old lady cast an utterly heart-broken glance at the bed-post.

"Now, go to bed," said I, "and don't have such funny ideas. Why, poor Doctor Gaster knows that I am engaged as well as you do."

"Time will show," said the old lady, as she left the room; and I went to bed with the words still ringing in my ears.

Certainly, it is a strange thing that on that very night a thrill which I had come to know well ran through me, and awakened me from my slumbers.

I stole softly to the window, and peered out through the bars of the Venetian blinds, and there was the gaunt, vampire-like figure of our Swedish visitor standing upon the gravel walk, and apparently gazing up at my window.

It may have been that he detected the movement of the blind, for, lighting a cigarette, he began pacing up and down the avenue.

I noticed that at breakfast next morning he went out of his way to explain the fact that he had been restless during the night, and had steadied his nerves by a short stroll and a smoke.

After all, when I came to consider it calmly, the aversion which I had against the man and my distrust of him were founded on very scanty grounds. A man might have a strange face, and be fond of curious literature, and even look approvingly at an engaged young lady, without being a very dangerous member of society.

I say this to show that even up to that point I was perfectly unbiased and free from prejudice in my opinion of Octavius Gaster.

"I SAY!" remarked Lieutenant Daseby, one morning; "what do you think of having a picnic to-day?"

"Capital!" ejaculated everybody.

"You see, they are talking of commissioning the old Shark soon, and Trevor here will have to go back to the mill. We may as well compress as much fun as we can into the time."

"What is it that you call nicpic?" asked Doctor Gaster.

"It's another of our English institutions for you to study," said Charley. "It's our version of a fête champêtre."

"Ah, I see! That will be very jolly!" acquiesced the Swede.

"There are half a dozen places we might go to," continued the Lieutenant. "There's the Lover's Leap, or Black Tor, or Beer Ferris Abbey."

"That's the best," said Charley. "Nothing like ruins for a picnic."

"Well the Abbey be it. How far is it?"

"Six miles," said Trevor.

"Seven by the road," remarked the Colonel, with military exactness. "Mrs. Underwood and I shall stay at home, and the rest of you can fit into the waggonette. You'll all have to chaperon each other."

I need hardly say that this motion was carried also without a division.

"Well," said Charley, "I'll order the trap to be round in half an hour, so you'd better all make the best of your time. We'll want salmon, and salad, and hard-boiled eggs, and liquor, and any number of things. I'll look after the liquor department. What will you do, Lottie?"

"I'll take charge of the china," I said.

"I'll bring the fish," said Daseby.

"And I the vegetables," added Fan.

"What will you do, Gaster?" asked Charley.

"Truly," said the Swede, in his strange, musical accents, "but little is left for me to do. I can, however, wait upon the ladies, and I can make what you call a salad."

"You'll be more popular in the latter capacity than in the former," said I, laughingly.

"Ah, you say so," he said, turning sharp round upon me, and flushing up to his flaxen hair. "Yes. Ha! ha! Very good!"

And with a discordant laugh, he strode out of the room.

"I say, Lottie," remonstrated my lover, "you've hurt the fellow's feelings."

"I'm sure I didn't mean to," I answered. "If you like I'll go after him and tell him so."

"Oh, leave him alone," said Daseby. "A man with a mug like that has no right to be so touchy. He'll come round right enough."

It was true that I had not had the slightest intention of offending Gaster, still I felt pained at having annoyed him.

After I had stowed away the knives and plates into the hamper, I found that the others were still busy at their various departments. The moment seemed a favourable one for apologising for my thoughtless remark, so without saying anything to anyone, I slipped away and ran down the corridor in the direction of our visitor's room.

I suppose I must have tripped along very lightly, or it may have been the rich thick matting of Toynby Hall— certain it is that Mr. Gaster seemed unconscious of my approach.

His door was open, and as I came up to it and caught sight of him inside, there was something so strange in his appearance that I paused, literally petrified for the moment with astonishment.

He had in his hand a small slip from a newspaper which he was reading, and which seemed to afford him considerable amusement. There was something horrible too in this mirth of his, for though he writhed his body about as if with laughter, no sound was emitted from his lips.

His face, which was half-turned towards me, wore an expression upon it which I had never seen on it before; I can only describe it as one of savage exultation.

Just as I was recovering myself sufficiently to step forward and knock at the door, he suddenly, with a last convulsive spasm of merriment, dashed down the piece of paper upon the table and hurried out by the other door of his room, which led through the billiard-room to the hall.

I heard his steps dying away in the distance, and peeped once more into his room.

What could be the joke that had moved this stern man to mirth? Surely some masterpiece of humour.

Was there ever a woman whose principles were strong enough to overcome her curiosity?

Looking cautiously round to make sure that the passage was empty, I slipped into the room and examined the paper which he had been reading.

It was a cutting from an English journal, and had evidently been long carried about and frequently perused, for it was almost illegible in places. There was, however, as far as I could see, very little to provoke laughter in its contents. It ran, as well as I can remember, in this way:—

"Sudden Death in the Docks.— The master of the bark-rigged steamer Olga, from Tromsberg, was found lying dead in his cabin on Wednesday afternoon. Deceased was, it seems, of a violent disposition, and had had frequent altercations with the surgeon of the vessel. On this particular day he had been more than usually offensive, declaring that the surgeon was a necromancer and worshipper of the devil. The latter retired on deck to avoid further persecution. Shortly afterwards the steward had occasion to enter the cabin, and found the captain lying across the table quite dead. Death is attributed to heart disease, accelerated by excessive passion. An inquest will be held to-day."

And this was the paragraph which this strange man had regarded as the height of humour!

I hurried downstairs, astonishment, not un-mixed with repugnance, predominating in my mind. So just was I, however, that the dark inference which has so often occurred to me since never for one moment crossed my mind. I looked upon him as a curious and rather repulsive enigma— nothing more.

When I met him at the picnic, all remembrance of my unfortunate speech seemed to have vanished from his mind. He made himself as agreeable as usual, and his salad was pronounced a chef-d'œuvre, while his quaint little Swedish songs and his tales of all climes and countries alternately thrilled and amused us. It was after luncheon, however, that the conversation turned upon a subject which seemed to have special charms for his daring mind.

I forget who it was that broached the question of the supernatural. I think it was Trevor, by some story of a hoax which he had perpetrated at Cambridge. The story seemed to have a strange effect upon Octavius Gaster, who tossed his long arms about in impassioned invective as he ridiculed those who dared to doubt about the existence of the unseen.

"Tell me," he said, standing up in his excitement, "which among you has ever known what you call an instinct to fail. The wild bird has an instinct which tells it of the solitary rock upon the so boundless sea on which it may lay its egg, and is it disappointed? The swallow turns to the south when the winter is coming, and has its instinct ever led it astray? And shall this instinct which tells us of the unknown spirits around us, and which pervades every untaught child and every race so savage, be wrong? I say, never!"

"Go it, Gaster!" cried Charley.

"Take your wind and have another spell," said the sailor.

"No, never," repeated the Swede, disregarding our amusement. "We can see that matter exists apart from mind; then why should not mind exist apart from matter?"

"Give it up," said Daseby.

"Have we not proofs of it?" continued Gaster, his gray eyes gleaming with excitement. "Who that has read Steinberg's book upon spirits, or that by the eminent American, Madame Crowe, can doubt it? Did not Gustav von Spec meet his brother Leopold in the streets of Strasbourg, the same brother having been drowned three months before in the Pacific? Did not Home, the spiritualist, in open daylight, float above the housetops of Paris? Who has not heard the voices of the dead around him? I myself—"

"Well, what of yourself?" asked half a dozen of us, in a breath.

"Bah! it matters nothing," he said, passing his hand over his forehead, and evidently controlling himself with difficulty. "Truly, our talk is too sad for such an occasion." And, in spite of all our efforts, we were unable to extract from Gaster any relation of his own experiences of the supernatural.

It was a merry day. Our approaching dissolution seemed to cause each one to contribute his utmost to the general amusement. It was settled that after the coming rifle match Jack was to return to his ship and Trevor to his university. As to Charley and myself, we were to settle down into a staid respectable couple.

The match was one of our principal topics of conversation. Shooting had always been a hobby of Charley's, and he was the captain of the Roborough company of Devon volunteers, which boasted some of the crack shots of the county. The match was to be against a picked team of regulars from Plymouth, and as they were no despicable opponents, the issue was considered doubtful. Charley had evidently set his heart on winning, and descanted long and loudly on the chances.

"The range is only a mile from Toynby Hall," he said, "and we'll all drive over, and you shall see the fun. You'll bring me luck, Lottie," he whispered, "I know you will."

Oh, my poor lost darling, to think of the luck that I brought you!

There was one dark cloud to mar the brightness of that happy day.

I could not hide from myself any longer the fact that my mother's suspicions were correct, and that Octavius Gaster loved me.

Throughout the whole of the excursion his attentions had been most assiduous, and his eyes hardly ever wandered away from me. There was a manner, too, in all that he said which spoke louder than words.

I was on thorns lest Charley should perceive it, for I knew his fiery temper; but the thought of such treachery never entered the honest heart of my lover.

He did once look up with mild surprise when the Swede insisted on relieving me of a fern which I was carrying; but the expression faded away into a smile at what he regarded as Gaster's effusive good-nature. My own feeling in the matter was pity for the unfortunate foreigner, and sorrow that I should have been the means of rendering him unhappy.

I thought of the torture it must be for a wild, fierce spirit like his to have a passion gnawing at his heart which honour and pride would alike prevent him from ever expressing in words. Alas! I had not counted upon the utter recklessness and want of principle of the man; but it was not long before I was undeceived.

There was a little arbour at the bottom of the garden, overgrown with honeysuckle and ivy, which had long been a favourite haunt of Charley and myself. It was doubly dear to us from the fact that it was here, on the occasion of my former visit, that words of love had first passed between us.

After dinner on the day following the picnic I sauntered down to this little summer-house, as was my custom. Here I used to wait until Charley, having finished his cigar with the other gentlemen, would come down and join me.

On that particular evening he seemed to be longer away than usual. I waited impatiently for his coming, going to the door every now and then to see if there were any signs if his approach.

I had just sat down again after one of those fruitless excursions, when I heard the tread of a male foot upon the gravel, and a figure emerged from among the bushes.

I sprang up with a glad smile, which changed to an expression of bewilderment, and even fear, when I saw the gaunt, pallid face of Octavius Gaster peering in at me.

There was certainly something about his actions which would have inspired distrust in the mind of anyone in my position. Instead of greeting me, he looked up and down the garden, as if to make sure that we were entirely alone. He then stealthily entered the arbour, and seated himself upon a chair, in such a position that he was between me and the doorway.

"Do not be afraid," he said, as he noticed my scared expression. "There is nothing to fear. I do but come that I may have talk with you."

"Have you seen Mr. Pillar?" I asked, trying hard to seem at my ease.

"Ha! Have I seen your Charley?" he answered, with a sneer upon the last words. "Are you then so anxious that he come? Can no one speak to thee but Charley, little one?"

"Mr. Gaster," I said, "you are forgetting yourself."

"It is Charley, Charley, ever Charley!" continued the Swede, disregarding my interruption. "Yes, I have seen Charley. I have told him that you wait upon the bank of the river, and he has gone thither upon the wings of love."

"Why have you told him this lie?" I asked, still trying not to lose my self-control.

"That I might see you; that I might speak to you. Do you, then, love him so? Cannot the thought of glory, and riches, and power, above all that the mind can conceive, win you from this first maiden fancy of yours? Fly with me, Charlotte, and all this, and more, shall be yours! Come!"

And he stretched his long arms out in passionate entreaty.

Even at that moment the thought flashed through my mind of how like they were to the tentacles of some poisonous insect.

"You insult me, sir!" I cried, rising to my feet. "You shall pay heavily for this treatment of an unprotected girl!"

"Ah, you say it," he cried, "but you mean it not. In your heart so tender there is pity left for the most miserable of men. Nay, you shall not pass me— you shall hear me first!"

"Let me go, sir!"

"Nay; you shall not go until you tell me if nothing that I can do may win your love."

"How dare you speak so?" I almost screamed, losing all my fear in my indignation. "You, who are the guest of my future husband! Let me tell you, once and for all, that I had no feeling towards you before save one of repugnance and contempt, which you have now converted into positive hatred!"

"And is it so?" he gasped, tottering backwards towards the doorway, and putting his hand up to his throat as if he found a difficulty in uttering the words. "And has my love won hatred in return? Ha!" he continued, advancing his face within a foot of mine as I cowered away from his glassy eyes. "I know it now. It is this— it is this!" and he struck the horrible cicatrix on his face with his clenched hand. "Maids love not such faces as this! I am not smooth, and brown, and curly like this Charley— this brainless schoolboy; this human brute who cares but for his sport and his—"

"Let me pass!" I cried, rushing at the door.

"No; you shall not go— you shall not!" he hissed, pushing me backwards.

I struggled furiously to escape from his grasp. His long arms seemed to clasp me like bars of steel. I felt my strength going, and was making one last despairing effort to shake myself loose, when some irresistible power from behind tore my persecutor away from me and hurled him backwards on to the gravel walk.

Looking up, I saw Charley's towering figure and square shoulders in the doorway.

"My poor darling!" he said, catching me in his arms. "Sit here— here in the angle. There is no danger now. I shall be with you in a minute."

"Don't Charley, don't!" I murmured, as he turned to leave me.

But he was deaf to my entreaties, and strode out of the arbour.

I could not see either him or his opponent from the position in which he had placed me, but I heard every word that was spoken.

"You villain!" said a voice that I could hardly recognise as my lover's. "So this is why you put me on a wrong scent?"

"That is why," answered the foreigner, in a tone of easy indifference.

"And this is how you repay our hospitality, you infernal scoundrel!"

"Yes; we amuse ourselves in your so beautiful summer-house."

"We! You are still on my ground and my guest, and I would wish to keep my hands from you; but, by heavens—"

Charley was speaking very low and in gasps now.

"Why do you swear? What is it, then?" asked the languid voice of Octavius Gaster.

"If you dare to couple Miss Underwood's name with this business, and insinuate that— "

"Insinuate? I insinuate nothing. What I say I say plain for all the world to hear. I say that this so chaste maiden did herself ask—"

I heard the sound of a heavy blow, and a great rattling of the gravel.

I was too weak to rise from where I lay, and could only clasp my hands together and utter a faint scream.

"You cur!" said Charley. "Say as much again, and I'll stop your mouth for all eternity!"

There was a silence, and then I heard Gaster speaking in a husky, strange voice.

"You have struck me!" he said; "you have drawn my blood!"

"Yes; I'll strike you again if you show your cursed face within these grounds. Don't look at me so! You don't suppose your hankey-pankey tricks can frighten me?"

An indefinable dread came over me as my lover spoke. I staggered to my feet and looked out at them, leaning against the doorway for support.

Charley was standing erect and defiant, with his young head in the air, like one who glories in the cause for which he battles. Octavius Gaster was opposite him, surveying him with pinched lips and a baleful look in his cruel eyes. The blood was running freely from a deep gash on his lip, and spotting the front of his green necktie and white waistcoat. He perceived me the instant I emerged from the arbour.

"Ha, ha!" he cried, with a demoniacal burst of laughter. "She comes! The bride! She comes! Room for the bride! Oh, happy pair, happy pair!"

And with another fiendish burst of merriment he turned and disappeared over the crumbling wall of the garden with such rapidity that he was gone before we had realised what it was that he was about to do.

"Oh, Charley," I said, as my lover came back to my side, "you've hurt him!"

"Hurt him! I should hope I have! Come, darling, you are frightened and tired. He did not injure you, did he?"

"No; but I feel rather faint and sick."

"Come, we'll walk slowly to the house together. The rascal! It was cunningly and deliberately planned, too. He told me he had seen you down by the river, and I was going down when I met young Stokes, the keeper's son, coming back from fishing, and he told me that there was nobody there. Somehow, when Stokes said that, a thousand little things flashed into my mind at once, and I became in a moment so convinced of Gaster's villainy that I ran as hard as I could to the arbour."

"Charley," I said, clinging to my lover's arm, "I fear he will injure you in some way. Did you see the look in his eyes before he leaped the wall?"

"Pshaw!" said Charley. "All these foreigners have a way of scowling and glaring when they are angry, but it never comes to much."

"Still, I am afraid of him," said I, mournfully, as we went up the steps together, "and I wish you had not struck him."

"So do I," Charley answered; "for he was our guest, you know, in spite of his rascality. However, it's done now and it can't be helped, as the cook says in 'Pickwick,' and really it was more than flesh and blood could stand."

I must run rapidly over the events of the next few days. For me, at least, it was a period of absolute happiness. With Gaster's departure a cloud seemed to be lifted off my soul, and a depression which had weighed upon the whole household completely disappeared.

Once more I was the light-hearted girl that I had been before the foreigner's arrival. Even the Colonel forgot to mourn over his absence, owing to the all-absorbing interest in the coming competition in which his son was engaged.

It was our main subject of conversation and bets were freely offered by the gentlemen on the success of the Roborough team, though no one was unprincipled enough to seem to support their antagonists by taking them.

Jack Daseby ran down to Plymouth, and "made a book on the event" with some officers of the Marines, which he did in such an extraordinary way that we reckoned that in case of Roborough winning, he would lose seventeen shillings; while, should the other contingency occur, he would be involved in hopeless liabilities.

Charley and I had tacitly agreed not to mention the name of Gaster, nor to allude in any way to what had passed.

On the morning after our scene in the garden, Charley had sent a servant up to the Swede's room with instructions to pack up any things he might find there, and leave them at the nearest inn.

It was found, however, that all Gaster's effects had been already removed, though how and when was a perfect mystery to the servants.

I know of few more attractive spots than the shooting-range at Roborough. The glen in which it is situated is about half a mile long and perfectly level, so that the targets were able to range from two to seven hundred yards, the further ones simply showing as square white dots against the green of the rising hills behind.

The glen itself is part of the great moor and its sides, sloping gradually up, lose themselves in the vast rugged expanse. Its symmetrical character suggested to the imaginative mind that some giant of old had made an excavation in the moor with a titanic cheese-scoop, but that a single trial had convinced him of the utter worthlessness of the soil.

He might even be imagined to have dropped the despised sample at the mouth of the cutting which he had made, for there was a considerable elevation there, from which the riflemen were to fire, and thither we bent our steps on that eventful afternoon.

Our opponents had arrived there before us, bringing with them a considerable number of naval and military officers, while a long line of nondescript vehicles showed that many of the good citizens of Plymouth had seized the opportunity of giving their wives and families an outing on the moor.

An enclosure for ladies and distinguished guests had been erected on the top of the hill, which, with the marquee and refreshment tents, made the scene a lively one.

The country people had turned out in force, and were excitedly staking their half-crowns upon their local champions, which were as enthusiastically taken up by the admirers of the regulars.

Through all this scene of bustle and confusion we were safely conveyed by Charley, aided by Jack and Trevor, who finally deposited us in a sort of rudimentary grandstand, from which we could look round at our ease on all that was going on.

We were soon, however, so absorbed in the glorious view, that we became utterly unconscious of the betting and pushing and chaff of the crowd in front of us.

Away to the south we could see the blue smoke of Plymouth curling up into the calm summer air, while beyond that was the great sea, stretching away to the horizon, dark and vast, save where some petulant wave dashed it with a streak of foam, as if rebelling against the great peacefulness of nature.

From the Eddystone to the Start the long rugged line of the Devonshire coast lay like a map before us.

I was still lost in admiration when Charley's voice broke half-reproachfully on my ear.

"Why, Lottie," he said, "you don't seem to take a bit of interest in it!"

"Oh, yes I do, dear," I answered. "But the scenery is so pretty, and the sea is always a weakness of mine. Come and sit here, and tell me all about the match and how we are to know whether you are winning or losing."

"I've just been explaining it," answered Charley. "But I'll go over it again."

"Do, like a darling," said I; and settled myself down to mark, learn, and inwardly digest.

"Well," said Charley, "there are ten men on each side. We shoot alternately; first, one of our fellows, then one of them, and so on— you understand?"

"Yes, I understand that."

"First we fire at the two hundred yards range— those are the targets nearest of all. We fire five shots each at those. Then we fire five shots at the ones at five hundred yards— those middle ones; and then we finish up by firing at the seven hundred yards range— you see the target far over there on the side of the hill. Whoever makes the most points wins. Do you grasp it now?"

"Oh, yes; that's very simple," I said.

"Do you know what a bull's eye is?" asked my lover.

"Some sort of sweetmeat, isn't it?" I hazarded.

Charley seemed amazed at the extent of my ignorance. "That's the bull's-eye," he said; "that dark spot in the centre of the target. If you hit that, it counts five. There is another ring, which you can't see, drawn round that, and if you get inside of it, it is called a 'centre,' and counts four. Outside that, again, is called an 'outer,' and only gives you three. You can tell where the shot has hit, for the marker puts out a coloured disc, and covers the place."

"Oh, I understand it all now," said I, enthusiastically. "I'll tell you what I'll do Charley; I'll mark the score on a bit of paper every shot that is fired, and then I'll always know how Roborough is getting on!"

"You can't do better," he laughed as he strode off to get his men together, for a warning bell signified that the contest was about to begin.

There was a great waving of flags and shouting before the ground could be got clear, and then I saw a little cluster of red-coats lying upon the greensward, while a similar group, in grey, took up their position to the left of them.

"Pang!" went a rifle-shot, and the blue smoke came curling up from the grass.

Fanny shrieked, while I gave a cry of delight, for I saw the white disc go up, which proclaimed a "bull," and the shot had been fired by one of the Roborough men. My elation was, however, promptly checked by the answering shot which put down five to the credit of the regulars. The next was also a "bull," which was speedily cancelled by another. At the end of the competition at the short range each side had scored forty-nine out of a possible fifty, and the question of supremacy was as undecided as ever.

"It's getting exciting," said Charley, lounging over the stand. "We begin shooting at the five hundred yards in a few minutes."

"Oh, Charley," cried Fanny in high excitement, "don't you go and miss, whatever you do!"

"I won't if I can help it," responded Charley, cheerfully.

"You made a 'bull' every time just now," I said.

"Yes, but it's not so easy when you've got your sights up. However, we'll do our best, and we can't do more. They've got some terribly good long-range men among them. Come over here, Lottie, for a moment."

"What is it, Charley?" I asked, as he led me away from the others. I could see by the look in his face that something was troubling him.

"It's that fellow," growled my lover. "What the deuce does he want to come here for? I hoped we had seen the last of him!"

"What fellow?" I gasped, with a vague apprehension at my heart.

"Why, that infernal Swedish fellow, Gaster!"

I followed the direction of Charley's glance, and there, sure enough, standing on a little knoll close to the place where the riflemen were lying, was the tall, angular figure of the foreigner.

He seemed utterly unconscious of the sensation which his singular appearance and hideous countenance excited among the burly farmers around him; but was craning his long neck about, this way and that, as if in search of somebody.

As we watched him, his eye suddenly rested upon us, and it seemed to me that, even at that distance, I could see a spasm of hatred and triumph pass over his livid features.

A strange foreboding came over me, and I seized my lover's hand in both my own.

"Oh, Charley," I cried, "don't— don't go back to the shooting! Say you are ill— make some excuse, and come away!"

"Nonsense, lass!" said he, laughing heartily at my terror. "Why, what in the world are you afraid of?"

"Of him!" I answered.

"Don't be so silly, dear. One would think he was a demi-god to hear the way in which you talk of him. But there! that's the bell, and I must be off."

"Well, promise, at least, that you will not go near him?" I cried, following Charley.

"All right— all right!" said he.

And I had to be content with that small concession.

The contest at the five hundred yards range was a close and exciting one. Roborough led by a couple of points for some time, until a series of "bulls" by one of the crack marksmen of their opponents turned the tables upon them.

At the end of it was found that the volunteers were three points to the bad— a result which was hailed by cheers from the Plymouth contingent and by long faces and black looks among the dwellers on the moor.

During the whole of this competition Octavius Gaster had remained perfectly still and motionless upon the top of the knoll on which he had originally taken up his position.

It seemed to me that he knew little of what was going on, for his face was turned away from the marksmen, and he appeared to be gazing into the distance.

Once I caught sight of his profile, and thought that his lips were moving rapidly as if in prayer, or it may have been the shimmer of the hot air of the almost Indian summer which deceived me. It was, however, my impression at the time.

And now came the competition at the longest range of all, which was to decide the match.

The Roborough men settled down steadily to their task of making up the lost ground; while the regulars seemed determined not to throw away a chance by over-confidence.

As shot after shot was fired, the excitement of the spectators became so great that they crowded round the marksmen, cheering enthusiastically at every "bull."

We ourselves were so far affected by the general contagion that we left our harbour of refuge, and submitted meekly to the pushing and rough ways of the mob, in order to obtain a nearer view of the champions and their doings.

The military stood at seventeen when the volunteers were at sixteen, and great was the despondency of the rustics. Things looked brighter, however, when the two sides tied at twenty-four, and brighter still when the steady shooting of the local team raised their score to thirty-two against thirty of their opponents.

There were still, however, the three points which had been lost at the last range to be made up for.

Slowly the score rose, and desperate were the efforts of both parties to pull off the victory.

Finally, a thrill ran through the crowd when it was known that the last red-coat had fired, while one volunteer was still left, and that the soldiers were leading by four points.

Even our unsportsman-like minds were worked into a state of all-absorbing excitement by the nature of the crisis which now presented itself.

If the last representative of our little town could but hit the bull's-eye the match was won.

The silver cup, the glory, the money of our adherents, all depended upon that single shot.

The reader will imagine that my interest was by no means lessened when, by dint of craning my neck and standing on tiptoe, I caught sight of my Charley coolly shoving a cartridge into his rifle, and realised that it was upon his skill that the honour of Roborough depended.

It was this, I think, which lent me strength to push my way so vigorously through the crowd that I found myself almost in the first row and commanding an excellent view of the proceedings.

There were two gigantic farmers on each side of me, and while we were waiting for the decisive shot to be fired, I could not help listening to the conversation, which they carried on in broad Devon, over my head.

"Mun's a rare ugly 'un," said one.

"He is that," cordially assented the other.

"See to mun's een?"

"Eh, Jock; see to mun's moo', rayther!— Blessed if he bean't foamin' like Farmer Watson's dog— t' bull pup whot died mad o' the hydropathics."

I turned round to see the favoured object of these flattering comments, and my eyes fell upon Doctor Octavius Gaster, whose presence I had entirely forgotten in my excitement.

His face was turned towards me; but he evidently did not see me, for his eyes were bent with unswerving persistence upon a point midway apparently between the distant targets and himself.

I have never seen anything to compare with the extraordinary concentration of that stare, which had the effect of making his eyeballs appear gorged and prominent, while the pupils were contracted to the finest possible point.

Perspiration was running freely down his long, cadaverous face, and, as the farmer had remarked, there were some traces of foam at the corners of his mouth. The jaw was locked, as if with some fierce effort of the will which demanded all the energy of his soul.

To my dying day that hideous countenance shall never fade from my remembrance nor cease to haunt me in my dreams. I shuddered, and turned away my head in the vain hope that perhaps the honest farmer might be right, and mental disease be the cause of all the vagaries of this extraordinary man.

A great stillness fell upon the whole crowd as Charley, having loaded his rifle, snapped up the breech cheerily, and proceeded to lie down in his appointed place.

"That's right, Mr. Charles, sir— that's right!" I heard old McIntosh, the volunteer sergeant, whisper as I passed. "A cool head and a steady hand, that's what does the trick, sir!"

My lover smiled round at the gray-headed soldier as he lay down upon the grass, and then proceeded to look along the sight of his rifle amid a silence in which the faint rustling of the breeze among the blades of grass was distinctly audible.

For more than a minute he hung upon his aim. His finger seemed to press the trigger, and every eye was fixed upon the distant target, when suddenly, instead of firing, the rifleman staggered up to his knees, leaving his weapon upon the ground. To the surprise of everyone, his face was deadly pale, and perspiration was standing on his brow.

"I say, McIntosh," he said, in a strange, gasping voice, "is there anybody standing between the target and me?"

"Between, sir? No, not a soul, sir," answered the astonished sergeant.

"There, man, there!" cried Charley, with fierce energy, seizing him by the arm, and pointing in the direction of the target, "Don't you see him there, standing right in the line of fire?"

"There's no one there!" shouted half a dozen voices.

"No one there? Well, it must have been my imagination," said Charley, passing his hand slowly over his forehead. "Yet I could have sworn— Here, give me the rifle!"

He lay down again, and having settled himself into position, raised his weapon slowly to his eye. He had hardly looked along the barrel before he sprang up again with a loud cry.

"There!" he cried; "I tell you I see it! A man dressed in volunteer uniform, and very like myself— the image of myself. Is this a conspiracy?" he continued, turning fiercely on the crowd. "Do you tell me none of you see a man resembling myself walking from that target, and not two hundred yards from me as I speak?"

I should have flown to Charley's side had I not known how he hated feminine interference, and anything approaching to a scene. I could only listen silently to his strange wild words.

"I protest against this!" said an officer coming forward. "This gentleman must really either take his shot, or we shall remove our men off the field and claim the victory."

"But I'll shoot him!" gasped poor Charley.

"Humbug!" "Rubbish!" "Shoot him, then!" growled half a score of masculine voices.

"The fact is," lisped one of the military men in front of me to another, "the young fellow's nerves ar'n't quite equal to the occasion, and he feels it, and is trying to back out."

The imbecile young lieutenant little knew at this point how a feminine hand was longing to stretch forth and deal him a sounding box on the ears.

"It's Martell's three-star brandy, that's what it is," whispered the other. "The 'devils,' don't you know. I've had 'em myself, and know a case when I see it."

This remark was too recondite for my understanding, or the speaker would have run the same risk as his predecessor.

"Well, are you going to shoot or not?" cried several voices.

"Yes, I'll shoot," groaned Charley— "I'll shoot him through! It's murder— sheer murder!"

I shall never forget the haggard look which he cast round at the crowd. "I'm aiming through him, McIntosh," he murmured, as he lay down on the grass and raised the gun for the third time to his shoulder.

There was one moment of suspense, a spurt of flame, the crack of a rifle, and a cheer which echoed across the moor, and might have been heard in the distant village.

"Well done, lad— well done!" shouted a hundred honest Devonshire voices, as the little white disc came out from behind the marker's shield and obliterated the dark "bull" for the moment, proclaiming that the match was won.

"Well done, lad! It's Maister Pillar, of Toynby Hall. Here, let's gie mun a lift, carry mun home, for the honour o' Roborough. Come on, lads! There mun is on the grass. Wake up, Sergeant McIntosh. What be the matter with thee? Eh? What?"

A deadly stillness came over the crowd, and then a low incredulous murmur, changing to one of pity, with whispers of "leave her alone, poor lass— leave her to hersel'!"— and then there was silence again, save for the moaning of a woman, and her short, quick cries of despair.

For, reader, my Charley, my beautiful, brave Charley, was lying cold and dead upon the ground, with the rifle still clenched in his stiffening fingers.

I heard kind words of sympathy. I heard Lieutenant Daseby's voice, broken with grief, begging me to control my sorrow, and felt his hand, as he gently raised me from my poor boy's body. This I can remember, and nothing more, until my recovery from my illness, when I found myself in the sick-room at Toynby Hall, and learned that three restless, delirious weeks had passed since that terrible day.

Stay!— do I remember nothing else?

Sometimes I think I do. Sometimes I think I can recall a lucid interval in the midst of my wanderings. I seem to have a dim recollection of seeing my good nurse go out of the room— of seeing a gaunt, bloodless face peering in through the half-open window, and of hearing a voice which said, "I have dealt with thy so beautiful lover, and I have yet to deal with thee." The words come back to me with a familiar ring, as if they had sounded in my ears before, and yet it may have been but a dream.

"And this is all!" you say. "It is for this that a hysterical woman hunts down a harmless savant in the advertisement columns of the newspapers! On this shallow evidence she hints at crimes of the most monstrous description!"

Well, I cannot expect that these things should strike you as they struck me. I can but say that if I were upon a bridge with Octavius Gaster standing at one end, and the most merciless tiger that ever prowled in an Indian jungle at the other, I should fly to the wild beast for protection.

For me, my life is broken and blasted. I care not how soon it may end, but if my words shall keep this man out of one honest household, I have not written in vain.

WITHIN A FORTNIGHT after writing this narrative, my poor daughter disappeared. All search has failed to find her. A porter at the railway station has deposed to having seen a young lady resembling her description get into a first-class carriage with a tall, thin gentleman. It is, however, too ridiculous to suppose that she can have eloped after her recent grief, and without my having had any suspicions. The detectives are, however, working out the clue.

— Emily Underwood

____________

11: The Ghostly Vengeance

A. Hyatt Verrill

1871-1954

Strange Stories Oct 1939

DO I believe in ghosts? Listen, Mister, seeing's believing, isn't it. I've seen ghosts, leastwise, I've seen one— and, by Judas, I'm not hankering to see another.

No, I wasn't "seeing things," and I'm no drinking man and never was. And what's more every man aboard the ship saw the same, not once but maybe a dozen times.

Of course, such things can't happen these days, what with Seamen's Unions, wireless and radio, and all the rest. Why, Lord love you, a skipper ain't master of his own ship these days, with shore law aboard ship. But in the days when I went to sea a master was master, and the only law out of soundings was what the Old Man said. You don't see why law and unions and radio should keep ghosts from boarding ships, you say? Well, maybe they don't; there may be haunted ships sailing the seas nowadays for all I know. But when I say such things can't happen these days, I mean the things that were the reason for the ghost being aboard the Enterprise.

I was second mate on the Enterprise at the time, a full-rigged ship that was a sweet sight for a sailorman's eyes, what with her clipper bow and pole bowsprit and topmasts and flying kites carrying royals and skysails. Reminded me of some women, she did— pretty as a picture but with the devil in her heart. For all her sweet looks the Enterprise was a hell ship once she dropped a towline and yards were braced and she was on her course.

No, it wasn't the ship herself, as fine a hooker as ever I signed articles on, but the Old Man. If ever the devil paced a quarter-deck he was Cap'n Prout. Part owner he was and a good navigator, but surly as a bull whale with an iron in his side and with eyes as cold and cruel as the eyes of a tiger shark.

A Downeaster, he was forever making out to be a religious, God-fearing Christian. And along with all that, he was the most superstitious man I've ever come across.

Eastwood, the mate, was a real bucko and tougher than the Old Man himself. I never laid claims to being soft myself, but, by glory, it turned my stomach the way that bucko mate and the old sea-louse of a skipper treated the men aboard the Enterprise. I recollect one day when we were a week or so out, one of the boys was ordered aloft to clear a block that was jammed on the main royal halyards. He was just a kid and green— never been to sea before, and he couldn't make it above the lower topsail yard. All the cussing of the mate didn't move him, and grabbing a belaying pin, Mr. Mate jumped for the ratlines.

"Don't trouble to go aloft, Mr. Eastwood," said the Old Man. "As long as he don't wish to go up I'll bring him down."

THEN he out with the pistol he always carried and fired away at the boy. At the second shot the lad gave an awful yell and came tumbling down. Lucky for him he landed in the mainsail that had been clewed up or he'd have been smashed flat when he hit the deck. He wasn't hurt very bad, just his arm broke where the bullet hit, but no fault of the canting old murderer aft that he wasn't killed.

It wasn't a happy ship, and worst of all, we were bound for Valparaiso which meant we'd be two or maybe three months at sea with no chance of the men jumping ship and getting clear of the floating hell she was. It was a wonder they didn't mutiny afore we crossed the Line, but they, were a decent crew— mostly Yanks, with a sprinkling of Blue Noses, and the bos'n who was a Portugee from Fayal. A steady, hard-working sailor man he was, for all his yellow skin and the creepy yarns of ghosts and witches and Lord knows what he was forever spinning.

I had to berth aft and eat at the cabin table with the Old Man and Eastwood, but I left the dirty work to them, and the men all knew that I hated the pair as much as did any of the fo'c'sle hands. Once or twice the Old Man and me had words over it, but he knew he couldn't scare me and couldn't do without me, either, so he decided to let me be.

We had a pretty fair run till we were off the Amazon. Then it fell flat calm and we drifted with the current for three mortal weeks. And hot! Like an oven it was, decks so blazing hot even the men couldn't go barefooted, and the pumps going half the time to slosh the decks and topsides to stop the seams from opening up. That greasy, flat calm made the skipper uglier than ever. It was downright ghastly, and we'd all of us gone stark, staring mad if a light wind hadn't come up and we got under way at last.

It was a day or two after we was again on our course that the mate ordered the bo'sun aft to do some little job on the cabin skylight.

The Old Man was below, reading his Bible, while Manuel was working. I didn't see just how it happened, but somehow or other the bo'sun dropped his hammer through the open skylight and it landed alongside the cap'n down below.

The next second the Old Man was roaring and cussing up the companionway.

"Damn you, you lousy black Portugee!" he yelled, as he saw Manuel bending over the skylight looking down for his hammer. "You tried to murder me, damn you. Take that, you blankety-blank son of Satan!"

As he spoke he yanked out his pistol and before the bo'sun could turn about, the Old Man fired point-blank.

MANUEL gave a blood-curdling yell, clapped one hand to his side and staggered for'ard. Before he got to the break of the poop the damned old pirate fired again, and the bo'sun jerked and fell face down onto the deck just abaft the mizzenmast.

The Old Man stuck his pistol back under his coat and turned to where I was standing too cussed mad and shocked to move.

"Mr. Barton," he said in a nasty tone and grinning like a shark. "Have that carrion tossed overside and have the men swab up that mess on the deck. Any man who dares attempt violence on this ship will meet the same end."

It was cold-blooded murder, and I could see the crew for'ard drawing together and looking ugly. They had seen Manuel killed. I expected they'd start a mutiny any minute. And, by glory, if they had, I wouldn't have lifted a finger or said a word to stop them. Still, I was an officer and I managed to keep a civil tongue though it pretty near choked me.

"Do you mean, sir," I said, "that the bo'sun is not to be given Christian burial?"

"Burial?" he roared, his eyes blazing. "Christian burial for a murderous mutineer! Obey my orders, Mr. Barton, or you'll go next."

"You can murder the hands," I told him, "and get by with it— maybe. But you can't shoot your officers, and you know it, you brute. If you won't give Manuel proper burial you'll be damned sorry for this before the voyage is over. You can heave the bo'sun's body over the rail, but that won't be the end of him."

I thought sure he'd shoot me, he was so furious. He half-drew his pistol, his lips snarled back over his big teeth and his eyes blazing. But just then the first came up.

"No good starting a row 'twixt officers," said he. "Leastwise, not over a dead Portugee swab. Maybe," turning to me, "if you're so damned particular about holding obsequies over him. Mister, you can play sky pilot yourself. That is, if Captain Prout has no objections."

"By Judas, I will," I told him.

If looks could kill I'd have been as dead as the bo'sun from the look the Old Man give me. He was that mad he couldn't speak. But Eastwood said something to him in a low voice, began arguing with him, and I went for'ard.

I ordered a couple of hands aft to pick up Manuel's body, told the sailmaker to sew him up in an old staysail, and hunted about to find something to put at the bo'sun's feet to carry him down to Davy Jones. All I could find were some links of old anchor chain.

I reckon the crew had seen and heard all that had gone on 'twixt me and the skipper aft, but I just told them the Old Man wouldn't read the service, so I'd attend to it myself.

It was about six bells in the forenoon by the time the body was sewed up and ready. The men lifted the corpse onto a hatch cover. Pulling off their caps, they carried it to the starboard rail where I read the service.

Then the hatch cover was tipped, and poor Manuel slid off and splashed into the sea. The links of chain were pretty light to sink him, what with the air inside the canvas covering, and he went down kind of slowly. The ship being under weigh, he went slipping aft, sinking all the time, and in the clear water we could see him as a sort of pale green shadow, getting smaller and smaller, with bubbles of air coming up like those from a diver's helmet.

WE WERE just barely making steerage way and by eight bells the breeze failed, and it came flat calm with a fog making. Not a thick, greasy pea-soup fog like we have on the Banks or in the Channel, but a thin wispy fog that drifted across the water like smoke. Uneven it was, too. One minute we could see for a couple of miles across the ocean though everything was hid higher than the lower topsail yards. Next minute it would be clear to starboard and thick to port or 'tother way about, or maybe clear for'ard and thick astern or viceversa.

Tricky weather for navigating, but down there with practically the whole South Atlantic to ourselves there wasn't much chance of running afoul another ship, especially as we weren't making headway enough to keep the logline taut. The sun went down in a bank of murky gray, and when the moon came out, the sea had a sort of ghostly look; black as Jonah's pocket when fog hid the moon, and light as day the next minute with the wisps of fog looking like drifting snow.

I was standing at the port rail close to the mizzen rigging, the mate being below, and the cap'n was pacing the quarter-deck to starboard, when I heard him give a strange choking cry. I swung about and there he stood staring astern with his head stuck out and his eyes ready to pop out of their sockets. The next minute he started running aft drawing his pistol as he went.

Wondering what in thunderation he'd seen, I ran aft on the port side. But he beat me to the taffrail where he stood shouting a string of the worst cuss words I ever heard. Then he up with his pistol, began shooting.

"Damn your soul!" he yelled between shots. "Go back to hell where you belong! Take that, you— "

Then, by glory, I saw what he was firing at. There, surrounded by an unholy greenish light of phosphoresence bobbing up and down in our wake, twisting and turning in the eddies, was a long, shapeless sort of thing that was somehow sort of humanlooking at that. The minute I saw it I knew what it was.

It was Manuel!

His body, sewed in canvas, had come back from Davy Jones. Either the chain links had busted through the rotten old sailcloth and let the corpse bob up, or else there hadn't been enough weight to keep it down when it got into a current or maybe sucked into our wake. Whatever the reason, there was the body bobbing along astern just as if Manuel was being towed along by the Enterprise.

The first shot from the Old Man's pistol splashed the water close alongside the body, but the second bullet hit it square. It may have been my imagination, but it seemed to me there was a queer sound, something like a groan, came from the corpse when the shot struck it.

At the first report, the man at the wheel turned and looked astern. The next second he let out a fearful yell and releasing the wheel, ran forward as if the devil was at his heels. I jumped for the wheel that was spinning and 'twixt catching the spokes and shouting for the superstitious idiot to come back, I had enough to attend to without watching the bos'ns body, though I heard the cap'n blazing away at it until he emptied his pistol.

Pretty soon the helmsman came crawling back, whiter than a new topsail, and without looking astern took over the wheel. By then there wasn't a sign of the corpse, but the Old Man was still standing at the taffrail, holding his empty gun and looking dazed, his face the color of putty.

AT SOUND of the shooting, Eastwood had come rushing up the companionway, expecting to find a mutiny had broken out, for he had his pistol in his hand. When he saw nothing, he asked the cap'n what he'd been shooting at. The Old Man began to swear frightfully.

"That blankety-blank bo'sun!" he shouted. "Following after us and trying to board us. But by the eternal I settled him. Filled his rotten carcass full of lead, damn his soul!"

Eastwood gave a hard sort of laugh. He wasn't superstitious like the skipper.

"Better come below, sir, and have a shot of rum," he said. "A bit uncanny to see such a sight, but I've seen more than one dead body do the same thing. Nothing supernatural to worry over, Cap'n."

The Old Man was shaking all over and his mouth, usually so hard and cruel, was loose and dribbling as he went below with the mate. He was scared, that was plain, being so superstitious.

Soon as the pair had gone below, two of the men came aft and wanted to know what the shooting was. When I told them they looked mighty uneasy and glanced about into the shadows and stood staring first to port and then to starboard as if expecting to see their dead shipmate appear at any minute. The sailmaker, a wizened old fellow, spoke first.

"It's bad business, sir," he said as solemn as an owl. "Manny's uneasy, and you can lay to that, Mr. Barton. He'll be hangin' about and bringin' bad luck to the ship, sir. But praise God, Mr. Barton, 'tis none of us nor you, sir, what he's after."

"Shut up and go forward," I ordered him. "You're talking like an ass. There's nothing strange about a dead body floating when there isn't enough weight to sink it. We haven't made ten knots since we dropped Manuel over the rail and the current's running faster than we sailed. Anyhow, he's gone for good now. The cap'n's bullets let the air out of the canvas and he'll go to the bottom. You'll never see him again."

Without a word they went forward, but I knew I hadn't changed their opinions any. Sailormen are a superstitious lot, forever looking for omens and most of them in those days believed in spirits and ghosts and apparitions.

At four bells the Old Man came on deck looking about as usual, and I ducked below to get some tobacco. Just as I started back there was a fearsome screech from the deck.

"Mutiny!" I said to myself, and grabbing up my pistol, I went up the companionway in two jumps.

Before I reached the deck I could hear the Old Man's voice and it sounded as if he was being strangled.

"Do— do you see him?" he choked.

Then I heard the helmsman answering. "No, sir, I don't see nothin'."

So the cap'n thought he still saw Manuel's body, while the man at the wheel didn't see. But soon as I reached the deck I saw. And, by Judas, I'm telling you, Mister. I felt like a bucket of cold water had been dumped down my back. I could feel the hair rising on my head.

There, by the main rigging, one leg already over the rail was Manuel coming aboard the ship!

I saw him just as plain as I see you now. His clothes were dripping water, there was a big red splotch on the front of his shirt, and his face was a sickly green-white like the belly of a shark.

I'm not a scary man, and up to that minute I'd never believed in ghosts. But when with my own two eyes I saw Manuel's ghost dragging itself over the ship's rail, coming aboard from out the sea, I felt as if I was being strangled.

THE cap'n was holding fast to the mizzen backstay with one hand and pointing at the ghost with the other. He was groaning as if in mortal pain and his face was the color of mildewed canvas.

The man at the wheel was seeing the ghost, too. Letting go the spokes, he went to his knees, crossing himself and shaking so his teeth chattered. The next second the cap'n let go the backstay, whipped out his pistol, fired at the ghost and. fell flat on the deck. I jumped to him, thinking he'd had a stroke, and I pretty near had one myself when I saw the ghost simply fade away like a wisp of fog. The next minute it was gone, and Eastwood came along.

"Look after the cap'n," I yelled at him and ran forward, taking mighty good care to go to starboard and not to port where I'd seen Manuel's spirit a minute before. I was mortally scared, but I'd got my senses back.

"Where the blazes did he go?" I shouted to a bunch of the men.

The sailmaker shook his head and glanced about nervously. "We don't know, sir, but he'll never rest easy till he even scores with the Old Man. Didn't I say he'd bring bad luck to the ship?"

"I don't believe in ghosts," I declared, "but I saw what the cap'n fired at was straddling the port rail by the main rigging."

One of the men laughed, a sort of dry cackling laugh. "What you and the Old Man saw was Manny's ghost, and you can lay to that Mr. Barton, sir."

"Follow me," I ordered grimly, leading the way to the spot where I had seen whatever it was coming in over the port rail.

I jumped back as if I'd seen a coiled cobra there. Plain on the deck planking was a big splotch of blood and a trail of blood and water led to it from the rail!

At sight of this the men turned and ran for the fo'c'sle hatch and fairly tumbled down it, banging the cover shut after them. I headed in the other direction, and never stopped till I was on the quarter-deck. Not a soul was in sight. The helmsman had vanished, gone forward I supposed. Eastwood had managed to get the Old Man below and to his berth where he was clean off his head, babbling and shouting about ghosts and dead men while the mate was telling him he'd had a hallucination or something.

"Mr. Barton, call two men and search the ship," Eastwood shouted up to me. "Go through her from decks to bilges and from stem to stern and find the damned sailor who's been playing ghost."

I knew it wouldn't be any use, for by now I was positive it was no mortal I'd seen. But I managed to rout out some of the men and, lashing the wheel, for not one would come aft, I ordered two of them to search the ship with me. Not one would budge from the forward deck. Though they hadn't seen the ghost, they were so scared they'd have let themselves be shot down rather than move twenty feet aft.

"Don't surprise me that Manny came aboard," declared one man when at last I gave up. "He was murdered and can't rest easy. But he hasn't anything against us so didn't show hisself for'ard. Most likely wants a word with the Old Man."

BY the time I went aft the skipper had gone to sleep, and I guess Eastwood had followed his own advice to the Old Man and taken more than a "tot" of rum, for he was snoring like a grampus on the cabin settee, although 'twas time for his watch on deck. I knew I couldn't sleep if I did turn in, so I stood out his watch on top of my own, pacing up and down the deck.

Long about three bells the skipper came on deck. It was pretty light by then, and he looked liked he'd risen from a sick bed, being pale and pasty and having black rings under his eyes and his lips sort of quivering. For a time he stood staring astern as if half-expecting to see the bo'sun's body still bobbing along in our wake. Then he gave a sort of sigh of relief and swept the horizon, after which he stepped forward to the break of the poop.

The next second he let out a Godawful yell and stood staring, popeyed and shaking, at the deck below. I jumped forward expecting to see Manuel's ghost. It wasn't there but there was something just as uncanny. There, plain on the planking was a big splotch of blood. I couldn't breathe for a second, I was that flabbergasted. I'd seen that splotch of blood mopped up and the deck swabbed as clean as the rest of the deck, yet there is was back again and as fresh and red as if it hadn't been there more than five minutes.

Well, when the men forward saw me and the cap'n staring speechless they came aft to find out what we saw. When they did see it they turned and ran as if the ghost was chasing them.

The Old Man went clean off his head. He whipped out his pistol and began shooting at that blood stain. And every time a bullet hit the deck that damnable red splotch got bigger and bigger before my eyes. By the time the last shot was fired, it covered a spot bigger than the head of a harness cask.

I know, because there wasn't a man aboard who'd go near it, and to cover it up, I had to roll a cask onto it. That didn't hide the whole of it, so I nailed a patch of old canvas over it.

When the skipper had emptied his gun he gave a fearful screech and heaved the pistol over the rail into the sea, fell on his knees and begun babbling prayers. The shooting aroused Eastwood from his sleep, and he came alongside us, kind of wobbly and with bleary eyes. But he was a lot more wobbly when he saw the bloodstained deck, and his eyes fairly bulged. Then he let out a string of cuss words and began damning the Old Man something awful. I don't expect the cap'n even heard him, for he kept right on praying and babbling until suddenly he dropped to the deck, kicking and writhing as if he had a fit.

"Here, help me get the Old Man below," I yelled at the mate.

For a second Eastwood looked dazed, staring at the skipper like he'd never seen him before. Then he quit swearing and helped me lift the Old Man. Together we carried him below. I couldn't wait to see if the skipper came out of his fit, for the ship was yawing and I could hear the sails thrashing and yards buckling in the breeze that was coming up with the

Lucky it was that the wind wasn't strong, or we'd have been in a holy mess aloft. As it was we were aback, and the ship was roiling awful. Sailormen may be scary, but they're never too afraid to man braces or jump to lifts and sheets when there's need of it to save a ship. They worked lively enough when I shouted orders to them.

WE GOT sails trimmed and the Enterprise back on her course, and I managed to get two men to the wheel, one not daring to come aft alone. Then I hid the red stain on deck like I've said and, being dogtired, I stretched out on the bench alongside the skylight. I dared not go below and turn in for fear some other damned thing would go wrong.

The fog lifted with the sun, and when I woke up it was clear weather, the sun shining bright with a tenknot breeze filling the sails and a crinkly blue sea with little white caps flashing in the sunlight. For a minute I thought I'd been dreaming about the ghost of Manuel— until my eyes fell on that square of canvas I'd nailed to the deck, and I remembered what was under it. I was hungry enough to eat the chafing gear off the main rigging, and after taking a squint aloft and seeing everything was ship-shape, I ducked below to get a cup of coffee and a snack of breakfast.

Eastwood was already at the table, but he wasn't eating anything, just gulping down hot black coffee. He neither looked up nor spoke when I came in. When I asked him how the skipper was, he just jerked his head toward the cap'n's cabin without answering.

"You'd better go on deck soon as you've finished," I said to him. "I'm about all in, standing watch the whole blessed night long."

"Mind your own damned business," he snarled. But he went up just the same.

When I'd eaten, I took a look into the cap'n's cabin. The Old Man was lying in his berth, his eyes shut, moaning in his sleep.

I turned in and slept like a log till near eight bells when I went on deck to shoot the sun. Everything was shipshape, the mate pacing back and forth and the men at the wheel seeming easy enough. When Eastwood saw me with my sextant, he ducked below and came up with his, and we took sights as usual. But he didn't say a damned word except to holler "eight bells" when the sun crossed the meridian.

The breeze held well until after sundown when it got fitful and puffy, but it was a bright moonlight night, clear as a bell with the sea like a sheet of silver. About two bells, Eastwood came across to where I was standing and spoke to me for the first time since breakfast.

"What's your opinion of all this monkey business, Mr. Barton?" he asked. "I don't know," I told him. "What do you think of it?"

He looked about as if expecting to see Manuel's ghost sneaking up on us. Then, speaking in low tones:

" 'Twixt you and me I think the bo'sun has come back to haunt the Old Man," he said. "I've been a damned tough man, but I never killed a man in cold blood the way he killed Manuel."

I had never liked Eastwood, and I remembered the way he'd man-handled the men, and I thought I'd take a good dig at him now.

"Maybe you didn't have a hand in killing Manuel," I said, "but you stood by the Old Man when it came to giving him Christian burial. Maybe Manuel has it in for you on that account."

The mate's face went white as chalk in the moonlight.

"My God, I hadn't thought of that!" he gasped. "Do you think—"

An awful scream from the cabin cut him short. I jumped for the companionway and went down without touching the steps. The door to the skipper's cabin was open, and I dashed for it not knowing what to expect to find. And then as I reached the doorway I run plumb into something I couldn't see. It was soft and squashy and cold— deadly cold— and wet. Yet there wasn't a blessed thing there 'twixt me and the cabin where a night light was still burning inside.

THEN I felt like my legs had given way under me, for the thing I'd struck slid past me and I heard a voice. " 'Scuse me, Meester Barton," was whispered in my ear.

It was Manny's voice, and I reeled back against the door casing weak as a frayed yarn, knowing I'd bumped into the bo'sun's ghost. I don't know how long I stood there trying to catch my breath and stop shaking like a to'gallant sail in a squall. A yell from on deck brought me to my senses. Forgetting all about the Old Man, I made for the deck, scared stiff that I'd bump into the ghost again.

The two men at the wheel were chattering like monkeys and the mate was hanging onto a backstay looking like a corpse. But I scarcely noticed him, for hovering just above the port rail, like a cloud of steam, was the ghost. I could see the main shrouds and backstays right through it. It didn't have legs as far as I could see, but the body and head! An awful sight indeed for mortal eyes to see. It was Manuel's form, but somehow terrible.

Then I heard the Old Man's voice, moaning and babbling, just behind me. The next second he passed within three feet of where Eastwood and I stood, but he never so much as turned his head towards us. He was like a man walking in his sleep, his eyes fixed straight ahead. Then before I knew what he was about he was climbing over the poop rail.

For a second he stood there staring at the awful thing that seemed to be floating away from the ship. The next second the Old Man gave a blood curdling scream and jumped overboard. He struck the water right  alongside the ghost and the specter vanished like a snuffed-out candle flame.

I found my voice then. "Man overboard!" I yelled.

That brought the mate to his senses. He grabbed a life-ring and heaved it. Scared as the men were, they jumped to braces and sheets and backed the yards. But all we saw was the life-ring bobbing on the waves. There was never a sign of the skipper. Eastwood drew a long deep breath like a man coming up for air after almost drowning.

"I reckon he paid his debt," he said in a half-whisper. "Maybe now he's gone the ghost won't trouble us more."

It didn't. We never saw it again. From that time on the old Enterprise was a happy ship. Eastwood was a changed man. He was as easy-going a master as ever I sailed with. A mighty strange thing happened, Mister, when we were rounding the Horn. The piece of canvas I'd nailed over the bloodstain got loose and the wind tore it clear away. And where it had been the deck was as clean and white as ever, and that, Mister, is the gospel truth.

___________

12: Flush of Gold

Jack London

1876-1916

The Grand Magazine of Fiction April 1908

Collected in: Lost Face, 1919

LON MCFANE was a bit grumpy, what of losing his tobacco pouch, or else he might have told me, before we got to it, something about the cabin at Surprise Lake. All day, turn and turn about, we had spelled each other at going to the fore and breaking trail for the dogs. It was heavy snowshoe work, and did not tend to make a man voluble, yet Lon McFane might have found breath enough at noon, when we stopped to boil coffee, with which to tell me. But he didn't. Surprise Lake? it was Surprise Cabin to me. I had never heard of it before. I confess I was a bit tired. I had been looking for Lon to stop and make camp any time for an hour; but I had too much pride to suggest making camp or to ask him his intentions; and yet he was my man, lured at a handsome wage to mush my dogs for me and to obey my commands. I guess I was a bit grumpy myself. He said nothing, and I was resolved to ask nothing, even if we tramped on all night.

We came upon the cabin abruptly. For a week of trail we had met no one, and, in my mind, there had been little likelihood of meeting any one for a week to come. And yet there it was, right before my eyes, a cabin, with a dim light in the window and smoke curling up from the chimney.

"Why didn't you tell me—" I began, but was interrupted by Lon, who muttered—

"Surprise Lake— it lies up a small feeder half a mile on. It's only a pond."

"Yes, but the cabin— who lives in it?"

"A woman," was the answer, and the next moment Lon had rapped on the door, and a woman's voice bade him enter.

"Have you seen Dave recently?" she asked.

"Nope," Lon answered carelessly. "I've been in the other direction, down Circle City way. Dave's up Dawson way, ain't he?"

The woman nodded, and Lon fell to unharnessing the dogs, while I unlashed the sled and carried the camp outfit into the cabin. The cabin was a large, one-room affair, and the woman was evidently alone in it. She pointed to the stove, where water was already boiling, and Lon set about the preparation of supper, while I opened the fish-bag and fed the dogs. I looked for Lon to introduce us, and was vexed that he did not, for they were evidently old friends.

"You are Lon McFane, aren't you?" I heard her ask him. "Why, I remember you now. The last time I saw you it was on a steamboat, wasn't it? I remember . . . "

Her speech seemed suddenly to be frozen by the spectacle of dread which, I knew, from the tenor I saw mounting in her eyes, must be on her inner vision. To my astonishment, Lon was affected by her words and manner. His face showed desperate, for all his voice sounded hearty and genial, as he said—

"The last time we met was at Dawson, Queen's Jubilee, or Birthday, or something— don't you remember?— the canoe races in the river, and the obstacle races down the main street?"

The terror faded out of her eyes and her whole body relaxed. "Oh, yes, I do remember," she said. "And you won one of the canoe races."

"How's Dave been makin' it lately? Strikin' it as rich as ever, I suppose?" Lon asked, with apparent irrelevance.

She smiled and nodded, and then, noticing that I had unlashed the bed roll, she indicated the end of the cabin where I might spread it. Her own bunk, I noticed, was made up at the opposite end.

"I thought it was Dave coming when I heard your dogs," she said.

After that she said nothing, contenting herself with watching Lon's cooking operations, and listening the while as for the sound of dogs along the trail. I lay back on the blankets and smoked and watched. Here was mystery; I could make that much out, but no more could I make out. Why in the deuce hadn't Lon given me the tip before we arrived? I looked at her face, unnoticed by her, and the longer I looked the harder it was to take my eyes away. It was a wonderfully beautiful face, unearthly, I may say, with a light in it or an expression or something "that was never on land or sea." Fear and terror had completely vanished, and it was a placidly beautiful face— if by "placid" one can characterize that intangible and occult something that I cannot say was a radiance or a light any more than I can say it was an expression.

Abruptly, as if for the first time, she became aware of my presence.

"Have you seen Dave recently?" she asked me. It was on the tip of my tongue to say "Dave who?" when Lon coughed in the smoke that arose from the sizzling bacon. The bacon might have caused that cough, but I took it as a hint and left my question unasked. "No, I haven't," I answered. "I'm new in this part of the country—"

"But you don't mean to say," she interrupted, "that you've never heard of Dave— of Big Dave Walsh?"

"You see," I apologised, "I'm new in the country. I've put in most of my time in the Lower Country, down Nome way."

"Tell him about Dave," she said to Lon.

Lon seemed put out, but he began in that hearty, genial manner that I had noticed before. It seemed a shade too hearty and genial, and it irritated me.

"Oh, Dave is a fine man," he said. "He's a man, every inch of him, and he stands six feet four in his socks. His word is as good as his bond. The man lies who ever says Dave told a lie, and that man will have to fight with me, too, as well— if there's anything left of him when Dave gets done with him. For Dave is a fighter. Oh, yes, he's a scrapper from way back. He got a grizzly with a '38 popgun. He got clawed some, but he knew what he was doin'. He went into the cave on purpose to get that grizzly. 'Fraid of nothing. Free an' easy with his money, or his last shirt an' match when out of money. Why, he drained Surprise Lake here in three weeks an' took out ninety thousand, didn't he?" She flushed and nodded her head proudly. Through his recital she had followed every word with keenest interest. "An' I must say," Lon went on, "that I was disappointed sore on not meeting Dave here to-night."

Lon served supper at one end of the table of whip-sawed spruce, and we fell to eating. A howling of the dogs took the woman to the door. She opened it an inch and listened.

"Where is Dave Walsh?" I asked, in an undertone.

"Dead," Lon answered. "In hell, maybe. I don't know. Shut up."

"But you just said that you expected to meet him here to-night," I challenged.

"Oh, shut up, can't you," was Lon's reply, in the same cautious undertone.

The woman had closed the door and was returning, and I sat and meditated upon the fact that this man who told me to shut up received from me a salary of two hundred and fifty dollars a month and his board.

Lon washed the dishes, while I smoked and watched the woman. She seemed more beautiful than ever— strangely and weirdly beautiful, it is true. After looking at her steadfastly for five minutes, I was compelled to come back to the real world and to glance at Lon McFane. This enabled me to know, without discussion, that the woman, too, was real. At first I had taken her for the wife of Dave Walsh; but if Dave Walsh were dead, as Lon had said, then she could be only his widow.

It was early to bed, for we faced a long day on the morrow; and as Lon crawled in beside me under the blankets, I ventured a question.

"That woman's crazy, isn't she?"

"Crazy as a loon," he answered.

And before I could formulate my next question, Lon McFane, I swear, was off to sleep. He always went to sleep that way— just crawled into the blankets, closed his eyes, and was off, a demure little heavy breathing rising on the air. Lon never snored.

And in the morning it was quick breakfast, feed the dogs, load the sled, and hit the trail. We said good-bye as we pulled out, and the woman stood in the doorway and watched us off. I carried the vision of her unearthly beauty away with me, just under my eyelids, and all I had to do, any time, was to close them and see her again. The way was unbroken, Surprise Lake being far off the travelled trails, and Lon and I took turn about at beating down the feathery snow with our big, webbed shoes so that the dogs could travel. "But you said you expected to meet Dave Walsh at the cabin," trembled on the tip of my tongue a score of times. I did not utter it. I could wait until we knocked off in the middle of the day. And when the middle of the day came, we went right on, for, as Lon explained, there was a camp of moose hunters at the forks of the Teelee, and we could make there by dark. But we didn't make there by dark, for Bright, the lead-dog, broke his shoulder-blade, and we lost an hour over him before we shot him. Then, crossing a timber jam on the frozen bed of the Teelee, the sled suffered a wrenching capsize, and it was a case of make camp and repair the runner. I cooked supper and fed the dogs while Lon made the repairs, and together we got in the night's supply of ice and firewood. Then we sat on our blankets, our moccasins steaming on upended sticks before the fire, and had our evening smoke.

"You didn't know her?" Lon queried suddenly. I shook my head.

"You noticed the colour of her hair and eyes and her complexion, well, that's where she got her name— she was like the first warm glow of a golden sunrise. She was called Flush of Gold. Ever heard of her?"

Somewhere I had a confused and misty remembrance of having heard the name, yet it meant nothing to me. "Flush of Gold," I repeated; "sounds like the name of a dance-house girl." Lon shook his head. "No, she was a good woman, at least in that sense, though she sinned greatly just the same."

"But why do you speak always of her in the past tense, as though she were dead?"

"Because of the darkness on her soul that is the same as the darkness of death. The Flush of Gold that I knew, that Dawson knew, and that Forty Mile knew before that, is dead. That dumb, lunatic creature we saw last night was not Flush of Gold."

"And Dave?" I queried.

"He built that cabin," Lon answered, "He built it for her . . . and for himself. He is dead. She is waiting for him there. She half believes he is not dead. But who can know the whim of a crazed mind? Maybe she wholly believes he is not dead. At any rate, she waits for him there in the cabin he built. Who would rouse the dead? Then who would rouse the living that are dead? Not I, and that is why I let on to expect to meet Dave Walsh there last night. I'll bet a stack that I'd a been more surprised than she if I had met him there last night."

"I do not understand," I said. "Begin at the beginning, as a white man should, and tell me the whole tale."

And Lon began. "Victor Chauvet was an old Frenchman— born in the south of France. He came to California in the days of gold. He was a pioneer. He found no gold, but, instead, became a maker of bottled sunshine— in short, a grape-grower and wine-maker. Also, he followed gold excitements. That is what brought him to Alaska in the early days, and over the Chilcoot and down the Yukon long before the Carmack strike. The old town site of Ten Mile was Chauvet's. He carried the first mail into Arctic City. He staked those coal-mines on the Porcupine a dozen years ago. He grubstaked Loftus into the Nippennuck Country. Now it happened that Victor Chauvet was a good Catholic, loving two things in this world, wine and woman. Wine of all kinds he loved, but of woman, only one, and she was the mother of Marie Chauvet."

Here I groaned aloud, having meditated beyond self-control over the fact that I paid this man two hundred and fifty dollars a month.

"What's the matter now?" he demanded.

"Matter?" I complained. "I thought you were telling the story of Flush of Gold. I don't want a biography of your old French wine-bibber."

Lon calmly lighted his pipe, took one good puff, then put the pipe aside. "And you asked me to begin at the beginning," he said.

"Yes," said I; "the beginning."

"And the beginning of Flush of Gold is the old French wine-bibber, for he was the father of Marie Chauvet, and Marie Chauvet was the Flush of Gold. What more do you want? Victor Chauvet never had much luck to speak of. He managed to live, and to get along, and to take good care of Marie, who resembled the one woman he had loved. He took very good care of her. Flush of Gold was the pet name he gave her. Flush of Gold Creek was named after her— Flush of Gold town site, too. The old man was great on town sites, only he never landed them.

"Now, honestly," Lon said, with one of his lightning changes, "you've seen her, what do you think of her— of her looks, I mean? How does she strike your beauty sense?"

"She is remarkably beautiful," I said. "I never saw anything like her in my life. In spite of the fact, last night, that I guessed she was mad, I could not keep my eyes off of her. It wasn't curiosity. It was wonder, sheer wonder, she was so strangely beautiful."

"She was more strangely beautiful before the darkness fell upon her," Lon said softly. "She was truly the Flush of Gold. She turned all men's hearts . . . and heads. She recalls, with an effort, that I once won a canoe race at Dawson— I, who once loved her, and was told by her of her love for me. It was her beauty that made all men love her. She'd 'a' got the apple from Paris, on application, and there wouldn't have been any Trojan War, and to top it off she'd have thrown Paris down. And now she lives in darkness, and she who was always fickle, for the first time is constant— and constant to a shade, to a dead man she does not realize is dead.

"And this is the way it was. You remember what I said last night of Dave Walsh— Big Dave Walsh? He was all that I said, and more, many times more. He came into this country in the late eighties— that's a pioneer for you. He was twenty years old then. He was a young bull. When he was twenty-five he could lift clear of the ground thirteen fifty-pound sacks of flour. At first, each fall of the year, famine drove him out. It was a lone land in those days. No river steamboats, no grub, nothing but salmon bellies and rabbit tracks. But after famine chased him out three years, he said he'd had enough of being chased; and the next year he stayed. He lived on straight meat when he was lucky enough to get it; he ate eleven dogs that winter; but he stayed. And the next winter he stayed, and the next. He never did leave the country again. He was a bull, a great bull. He could kill the strongest man in the country with hard work. He could outpack a Chilcat Indian, he could outpaddle a Stick, and he could travel all day with wet feet when the thermometer registered fifty below zero, and that's going some, I tell you, for vitality. You'd freeze your feet at twenty-five below if you wet them and tried to keep on.

"Dave Walsh was a bull for strength. And yet he was soft and easy-natured. Anybody could do him, the latest short-horn in camp could lie his last dollar out of him. 'But it doesn't worry me,' he had a way of laughing off his softness; 'it doesn't keep me awake nights.' Now don't get the idea that he had no backbone. You remember about the bear he went after with the popgun. When it came to fighting Dave was the blamedest ever. He was the limit, if by that I may describe his unlimitedness when he got into action, he was easy and kind with the weak, but the strong had to give trail when he went by. And he was a man that men liked, which is the finest word of all, a man's man.

"Dave never took part in the big stampede to Dawson when Carmack made the Bonanza strike. You see, Dave was just then over on Mammon Creek strikin' it himself. He discovered Mammon Creek. Cleaned eighty-four thousand up that winter, and opened up the claim so that it promised a couple of hundred thousand for the next winter. Then, summer bein' on and the ground sloshy, he took a trip up the Yukon to Dawson to see what Carmack's strike looked like. And there he saw Flush of Gold. I remember the night. I shall always remember. It was something sudden, and it makes one shiver to think of a strong man with all the strength withered out of him by one glance from the soft eyes of a weak, blond, female creature like Flush of Gold. It was at her dad's cabin, old Victor Chauvet's. Some friend had brought Dave along to talk over town sites on Mammon Creek. But little talking did he do, and what he did was mostly gibberish. I tell you the sight of Flush of Gold had sent Dave clean daffy. Old Victor Chauvet insisted after Dave left that he had been drunk. And so he had. He was drunk, but Flush of Gold was the strong drink that made him so.

"That settled it, that first glimpse he caught of her. He did not start back down the Yukon in a week, as he had intended. He lingered on a month, two months, all summer. And we who had suffered understood, and wondered what the outcome would be. Undoubtedly, in our minds, it seemed that Flush of Gold had met her master. And why not? There was romance sprinkled all over Dave Walsh. He was a Mammon King, he had made the Mammon Creek strike; he was an old sour dough, one of the oldest pioneers in the land— men turned to look at him when he went by, and said to one another in awed undertones, 'There goes Dave Walsh.' And why not? He stood six feet four; he had yellow hair himself that curled on his neck; and he was a bull— a yellow-maned bull just turned thirty-one.

"And Flush of Gold loved him, and, having danced him through a whole summer's courtship, at the end their engagement was made known. The fall of the year was at hand, Dave had to be back for the winter's work on Mammon Creek, and Flush of Gold refused to be married right away. Dave put Dusky Burns in charge of the Mammon Creek claim, and himself lingered on in Dawson. Little use. She wanted her freedom a while longer; she must have it, and she would not marry until next year. And so, on the first ice, Dave Walsh went alone down the Yukon behind his dogs, with the understanding that the marriage would take place when he arrived on the first steamboat of the next year.

"Now Dave was as true as the Pole Star, and she was as false as a magnetic needle in a cargo of loadstone. Dave was as steady and solid as she was fickle and fly-away, and in some way Dave, who never doubted anybody, doubted her. It was the jealousy of his love, perhaps, and maybe it was the message ticked off from her soul to his; but at any rate Dave was worried by fear of her inconstancy. He was afraid to trust her till the next year, he had so to trust her, and he was pretty well beside himself. Some of it I got from old Victor Chauvet afterwards, and from all that I have pieced together I conclude that there was something of a scene before Dave pulled north with his dogs. He stood up before the old Frenchman, with Flush of Gold beside him, and announced that they were plighted to each other. He was very dramatic, with fire in his eyes, old Victor said. He talked something about 'until death do us part'; and old Victor especially remembered that at one place Dave took her by the shoulder with his great paw and almost shook her as he said: 'Even unto death are you mine, and I would rise from the grave to claim you.' Old Victor distinctly remembered those words 'Even unto death are you mine, and I would rise from the grave to claim you.' And he told me afterwards that Flush of Gold was pretty badly frightened, and that he afterwards took Dave to one side privately and told him that that wasn't the way to hold Flush of Gold— that he must humour her and gentle her if he wanted to keep her.

"There is no discussion in my mind but that Flush of Gold was frightened. She was a savage herself in her treatment of men, while men had always treated her as a soft and tender and too utterly-utter something that must not be hurt. She didn't know what harshness was . . . until Dave Walsh, standing his six feet four, a big bull, gripped her and pawed her and assured her that she was his until death, and then some. And besides, in Dawson, that winter, was a music-player— one of those macaroni-eating, greasy-tenor-Eye-talian-dago propositions— and Flush of Gold lost her heart to him. Maybe it was only fascination— I don't know. Sometimes it seems to me that she really did love Dave Walsh. Perhaps it was because he had frightened her with that even-unto-death, rise-from-the-grave stunt of his that she in the end inclined to the dago music-player. But it is all guesswork, and the facts are, sufficient. He wasn't a dago; he was a Russian count— this was straight; and he wasn't a professional piano-player or anything of the sort. He played the violin and the piano, and he sang— sang well— but it was for his own pleasure and for the pleasure of those he sang for. He had money, too— and right here let me say that Flush of Gold never cared a rap for money. She was fickle, but she was never sordid.

"But to be getting along. She was plighted to Dave, and Dave was coming up on the first steamboat to get her— that was the summer of '98, and the first steamboat was to be expected the middle of June. And Flush of Gold was afraid to throw Dave down and face him afterwards. It was all planned suddenly. The Russian music-player, the Count, was her obedient slave. She planned it, I know. I learned as much from old Victor afterwards. The Count took his orders from her, and caught that first steamboat down. It was the Golden Rocket. And so did Flush of Gold catch it. And so did I. I was going to Circle City, and I was flabbergasted when I found Flush of Gold on board. I didn't see her name down on the passenger list. She was with the Count fellow all the time, happy and smiling, and I noticed that the Count fellow was down on the list as having his wife along. There it was, state-room, number, and all. The first I knew that he was married, only I didn't see anything of the wife . . . unless Flush of Gold was so counted. I wondered if they'd got married ashore before starting. There'd been talk about them in Dawson, you see, and bets had been laid that the Count fellow had cut Dave out.

"I talked with the purser. He didn't know anything more about it than I did; he didn't know Flush of Gold, anyway, and besides, he was almost rushed to death. You know what a Yukon steamboat is, but you can't guess what the Golden Rocket was when it left Dawson that June of 1898. She was a hummer. Being the first steamer out, she carried all the scurvy patients and hospital wrecks. Then she must have carried a couple of millions of Klondike dust and nuggets, to say nothing of a packed and jammed passenger list, deck passengers galore, and bucks and squaws and dogs without end. And she was loaded down to the guards with freight and baggage. There was a mountain of the same on the fore-lower-deck, and each little stop along the way added to it. I saw the box come aboard at Teelee Portage, and I knew it for what it was, though I little guessed the joker that was in it. And they piled it on top of everything else on the fore-lower-deck, and they didn't pile it any too securely either. The mate expected to come back to it again, and then forgot about it. I thought at the time that there was something familiar about the big husky dog that climbed over the baggage and freight and lay down next to the box. And then we passed the Glendale, bound up for Dawson. As she saluted us, I thought of Dave on board of her and hurrying to Dawson to Flush of Gold. I turned and looked at her where she stood by the rail. Her eyes were bright, but she looked a bit frightened by the sight of the other steamer, and she was leaning closely to the Count fellow as for protection. She needn't have leaned so safely against him, and I needn't have been so sure of a disappointed Dave Walsh arriving at Dawson. For Dave Walsh wasn't on the Glendale. There were a lot of things I didn't know, but was soon to know— for instance, that the pair were not yet married. Inside half an hour preparations for the marriage took place. What of the sick men in the main cabin, and of the crowded condition of the Golden Rocket, the likeliest place for the ceremony was found forward, on the lower deck, in an open space next to the rail and gang-plank and shaded by the mountain of freight with the big box on top and the sleeping dog beside it. There was a missionary on board, getting off at Eagle City, which was the next step, so they had to use him quick. That's what they'd planned to do, get married on the boat.

"But I've run ahead of the facts. The reason Dave Walsh wasn't on the Glendale was because he was on the Golden Rocket. It was this way. After loiterin' in Dawson on account of Flush of Gold, he went down to Mammon Creek on the ice. And there he found Dusky Burns doing so well with the claim, there was no need for him to be around. So he put some grub on the sled, harnessed the dogs, took an Indian along, and pulled out for Surprise Lake. He always had a liking for that section. Maybe you don't know how the creek turned out to be a four-flusher; but the prospects were good at the time, and Dave proceeded to build his cabin and hers. That's the cabin we slept in. After he finished it, he went off on a moose hunt to the forks of the Teelee, takin' the Indian along.

"And this is what happened. Came on a cold snap. The juice went down forty, fifty, sixty below zero. I remember that snap— I was at Forty Mile; and I remember the very day. At eleven o'clock in the morning the spirit thermometer at the N. A. T. & T. Company's store went down to seventy-five below zero. And that morning, near the forks of the Teelee, Dave Walsh was out after moose with that blessed Indian of his. I got it all from the Indian afterwards— we made a trip over the ice together to Dyea. That morning Mr. Indian broke through the ice and wet himself to the waist. Of course he began to freeze right away. The proper thing was to build a fire. But Dave Walsh was a bull. It was only half a mile to camp, where a fire was already burning. What was the good of building another? He threw Mr. Indian over his shoulder— and ran with him— half a mile— with the thermometer at seventy-five below. You know what that means. Suicide. There's no other name for it. Why, that buck Indian weighed over two hundred himself, and Dave ran half a mile with him. Of course he froze his lungs. Must have frozen them near solid. It was a tomfool trick for any man to do. And anyway, after lingering horribly for several weeks, Dave Walsh died.

"The Indian didn't know what to do with the corpse. Ordinarily he'd have buried him and let it go at that. But he knew that Dave Walsh was a big man, worth lots of money, a hi-yu skookum chief. Likewise he'd seen the bodies of other hi-yu skookums carted around the country like they were worth something. So he decided to take Dave's body to Forty Mile, which was Dave's headquarters. You know how the ice is on the grass roots in this country— well, the Indian planted Dave under a foot of soil— in short, he put Dave on ice. Dave could have stayed there a thousand years and still been the same old Dave. You understand— just the same as a refrigerator. Then the Indian brings over a whipsaw from the cabin at Surprise Lake and makes lumber enough for the box. Also, waiting for the thaw, he goes out and shoots about ten thousand pounds of moose. This he keeps on ice, too. Came the thaw. The Teelee broke. He built a raft and loaded it with the meat, the big box with Dave inside, and Dave's team of dogs, and away they went down the Teelee.

"The raft got caught on a timber jam and hung up two days. It was scorching hot weather, and Mr. Indian nearly lost his moose meat. So when he got to Teelee Portage he figured a steamboat would get to Forty Mile quicker than his raft. He transferred his cargo, and there you are, fore-lower deck of the Golden Rocket, Flush of Gold being married, and Dave Walsh in his big box casting the shade for her. And there's one thing I clean forgot. No wonder I thought the husky dog that came aboard at Teelee Portage was familiar. It was Pee-lat, Dave Walsh's lead-dog and favourite— a terrible fighter, too. He was lying down beside the box.

"Flush of Gold caught sight of me, called me over, shook hands with me, and introduced me to the Count. She was beautiful. I was as mad for her then as ever. She smiled into my eyes and said I must sign as one of the witnesses. And there was no refusing her. She was ever a child, cruel as children are cruel. Also, she told me she was in possession of the only two bottles of champagne in Dawson— or that had been in Dawson the night before; and before I knew it I was scheduled to drink her and the Count's health. Everybody crowded round, the captain of the steamboat, very prominent, trying to ring in on the wine, I guess. It was a funny wedding. On the upper deck the hospital wrecks, with various feet in the grave, gathered and looked down to see. There were Indians all jammed in the circle, too, big bucks, and their squaws and kids, to say nothing of about twenty-five snarling wolf-dogs. The missionary lined the two of them up and started in with the service. And just then a dog-fight started, high up on the pile of freight— Pee-lat lying beside the big box, and a white-haired brute belonging to one of the Indians. The fight wasn't explosive at all. The brutes just snarled at each other from a distance— tapping at each other long-distance, you know, saying dast and dassent, dast and dassent. The noise was rather disturbing, but you could hear the missionary's voice above it.

"There was no particularly easy way of getting at the two dogs, except from the other side of the pile. But nobody was on that side— everybody watching the ceremony, you see. Even then everything might have been all right if the captain hadn't thrown a club at the dogs. That was what precipitated everything. As I say, if the captain hadn't thrown that club, nothing might have happened.

"The missionary had just reached the point where he was saying 'In sickness and in health,' and 'Till death us do part.' And just then the captain threw the club. I saw the whole thing. It landed on Pee-lat, and at that instant the white brute jumped him. The club caused it. Their two bodies struck the box, and it began to slide, its lower end tilting down. It was a long oblong box, and it slid down slowly until it reached the perpendicular, when it came down on the run. The onlookers on that side the circle had time to get out from under. Flush of Gold and the Count, on the opposite side of the circle, were facing the box; the missionary had his back to it. The box must have fallen ten feet straight up and down, and it hit end on.

"Now mind you, not one of us knew that Dave Walsh was dead. We thought he was on the Glendale, bound for Dawson. The missionary had edged off to one side, and so Flush of Gold faced the box when it struck. It was like in a play. It couldn't have been better planned. It struck on end, and on the right end; the whole front of the box came off; and out swept Dave Walsh on his feet, partly wrapped in a blanket, his yellow hair flying and showing bright in the sun. Right out of the box, on his feet, he swept upon Flush of Gold. She didn't know he was dead, but it was unmistakable, after hanging up two days on a timber jam, that he was rising all right from the dead to claim her. Possibly that is what she thought. At any rate, the sight froze her. She couldn't move. She just sort of wilted and watched Dave Walsh coming for her! And he got her. It looked almost as though he threw his arms around her, but whether or not this happened, down to the deck they went together. We had to drag Dave Walsh's body clear before we could get hold of her. She was in a faint, but it would have been just as well if she had never come out of that faint; for when she did, she fell to screaming the way insane people do. She kept it up for hours, till she was exhausted. Oh, yes, she recovered. You saw her last night, and know how much recovered she is. She is not violent, it is true, but she lives in darkness. She believes that she is waiting for Dave Walsh, and so she waits in the cabin he built for her. She is no longer fickle. It is nine years now that she has been faithful to Dave Walsh, and the outlook is that she'll be faithful to him to the end."

Lon McFane pulled down the top of the blankets and prepared to crawl in.

"We have her grub hauled to her each year," he added, "and in general keep an eye on her. Last night was the first time she ever recognized me, though."

"Who are the we?" I asked.

"Oh," was the answer, "the Count and old Victor Chauvet and me. Do you know, I think the Count is the one to be really sorry for. Dave Walsh never did know that she was false to him. And she does not suffer. Her darkness is merciful to her."

I lay silently under the blankets for the space of a minute.

"Is the Count still in the country?" I asked.

But there was a gentle sound of heavy breathing, and I knew Lon McFane was asleep.

___________

13: Not a Bad Deal

Anthony Hope

Anthony Hope Hawkins, 1863-1933

Collected in: Sport Royal and Other Stories, 1893

THE little volume of verses entitled, "To Lalage," made quite a stir in the literary world. One critic of note said that it was instinct with classic grace; another that it was informed by the true spirit of Hellas; a third that it had a whiff of Hymettus; a fourth that it was hardly suitable for family reading; and on the strength of all this laudation, "To Lalage" was a success, and several copies were bonâ fide sold to complete strangers. Imagine, then, the bitterness of heart with which Adrian Pottles, the gifted author, saw himself compelled to maintain strict anonymity, and to conceal from a world thirsting to know him that he was the "A. P." whose initials appeared in Old English letters on the title-page. Yet he did not hesitate; for he knew that if his uncle, Mr. Thomas Pottles, of Clapham Common, discovered that he wrote not only verses, which was bad, but amatory verses, which was atrocious, his means of present livelihood and prospects of future affluence would vanish into thin air. For Mr. Pottles was a man of strict views; and, whether one regarded this world or the next, there could be no question that a bank clerk of Evangelical connections committed a grave fault in writing love poems. So poor Adrian had to make up his mind to remain unknown, and to hold his tongue even when he heard that another man had been claiming the authorship of "To Lalage." Luckily, perhaps, he failed to find out who this miscreant was, or probably his indignation would have overcome his prudence, and he would at any cost have claimed his own.

The secret was well kept; and Adrian received the usual check at Christmas-time, and with it the usual invitation to spend the festive season with his uncle, and to bring with him his young friend Peter Allison, to whom old Mr. Pottles had taken a great fancy. Peter was a man of many engagements, but, sought after as he was and proclaimed himself to be, he remembered the good cheer at Mr. Pottles', and accepted the invitation. They went down together; Adrian bewailing his hard fortune and denouncing the impostor; Peter warmly sympathizing, but counseling continued silence and prudence.

"Ah, if I could only claim it!" cried Adrian, opening his Gladstone bag and gazing fondly at half a dozen neat, clean copies of "To Lalage." "I should be the lion of the season, Peter."

Peter smiled and shook his head. "A fortune is better than fame, Adrian," said he.

For a day or two all went well at Clapham. The old gentleman was in the best of tempers, and the two young men did their best to keep him in it, indorsing all his views as to the lax morality and disgraceful tone which pervaded modern literature and modern society; and when they had done their duty in this way they rewarded themselves by going in next door and having tea with Dora Chatterton, a young lady whom they both thought charming. Indeed, Adrian thought her so charming that, after a short acquaintance, he sent her a copy of "To Lalage"— with the author's kind regards. Now, Miss Dora Chatterton adored genius. She had thought both Adrian and Peter very pleasant young men; she had perceived that they both thought her a very pleasant young woman; and she had been rather puzzled to know which of them she would, in a certain event, make up her mind to prefer. "To Lalage" settled the question. It was the gifted author, A. P., who deserved her love; and A. P. obviously stood, not for Peter Allison, but for Adrian Pottles.

The very next morning she called early at Mr. Pottles'. She found him alone; the boys, he explained, had gone for a walk. Dora was disappointed; but, failing the author himself, she was content to pour her praises into the ears of an appreciative and proud uncle. She did so, expressing immense admiration for Adrian's modesty in not having told Mr. Pottles of his achievement.

"Humph!" said Mr. Pottles. "Let me see these— er— things."

The effect of "To Lalage" on Mr. Pottles was surprising, and particularly so to Dora. In less than ten minutes she found herself being shown the door, and intrusted with a letter to her mother in which Mr. Pottles stated that she had been reading wicked books, and ought, in his opinion, to be sent to her own room for an indefinite period.

"And I shall know if you don't give it her," said Mr. Pottles viciously.

Thus it happened that Adrian and Peter, as they were returning, met poor Dora on the steps with this horrid note in one hand and her pocket-handkerchief in the other— for Mrs. Chatterton shared Mr. Pottles' views, and Dora did not enjoy having to deliver the note. They were just hastening up to speak to her, when Mr. Pottles himself appeared on the steps, holding out "To Lalage" in his hand. Adrian grasped the situation.

"For Heaven's sake, Peter," he whispered, "say you wrote the beastly thing; I'm ruined if you don't."

"Eh? But he'll kick me out."

"I'll stand a pony."

"Two," said Peter firmly.

"Well, two; but be quick."

Then Peter spoke up like a man, and accepted the blame of "To Lalage."

"But your initials aren't A. P.," objected Mr. Pottles.

"To avoid suspicion, I reversed the order; mine are P. A."

"James," said Mr. Pottles to the footman, "pack Mr. Allison's bag."

But Dora gave Peter the kindest and most admiring glance as she murmured softly to Adrian, "They're lovely! Oh, don't you wish you could write verses, Mr. Pottles?"

Adrian started. He had not bargained for this; but Peter had overheard, and interposed:

"I am more than consoled by your approval, Miss Chatterton."

Mr. Pottles called to Adrian, and he had to go in, leaving Dora and Peter in close conversation, and to assure his uncle solemnly that he had been entirely disappointed and deceived in Peter, and, worse still, in Dora, and that he never wished to see either of them again. Mr. Pottles shook him by the hand and forgave him.

Adrian passed a wretched week. In several newspapers he saw it openly stated that Peter now admitted he was the author of "To Lalage." Peter wrote that the fifty pounds were most convenient, and that he had had a most charming letter from Dora, and that all the literary world was paying him most flattering attentions. Adrian ground his teeth, but he had to write back, thanking Peter for all his kindness.

Meanwhile Mr. Pottles grew restless. Every paper he took up was full of the praises of "To Lalage." The author was becoming famous, and Mr. Pottles began to doubt whether he had done well to drive him forth with contumely.

"Adrian," he said suddenly one morning, "I don't know that I did justice to young Allison. I shall have another look at that book. I shall order it at Smith's."

"I— I happen to have a copy," said Adrian timidly.

"Get it," said Mr. Pottles. Mr. Pottles read it— first with a deep frown, then with a judicial air, then with a smile, lastly with a chuckle.

"Ask him to dinner," he said. "Oh, and, Adrian, we'll have the Chattertons. I wish you could do something to get your name up, my boy."

"You like it, uncle?"

"Yes, and I like the manly way he owned to it. If he had prevaricated about it, I'd never have forgiven him."

After this Adrian did not dare to confess. It was too bad. Here were both his uncle and Dora admiring Peter for his poems, and crediting Peter with candor and courage. He was to lose both fame and Dora! It was certainly too much. A sudden thought struck him. He went to town, called on Peter, and, as the police reports say, "made a communication" to him.

"It makes me look a scoundrel," objected Peter.

"Two hundred— at six months," suggested Adrian.

"And she is a nice girl— No, I'm dashed—"

"A monkey at three!" cried Adrian.

"Done!" said Peter.

It was a sad tale of depravity on one side, and of self-sacrificing friendship on the other, that Mr. Pottles and Dora Chatterton listened to that evening.

"He had made," said Adrian sadly, "a deliberate attempt to rob me of my fame before, and he repeated it. And yet, uncle, an old friend— boyhood's companion— how could I betray him? It was weak, but I could not. I stood by, and let him deceive you."

"You're a noble fellow," said Mr. Pottles, in tones of emotion.

"Indeed, yes," said Dora, with an adoring glance.

"There, let us say no more about it," pursued Adrian magnanimously. "I have my reward," and he returned Dora's glance behind Mr. Pottles' broad back.

The next time he met Peter, he said, "I am really immensely indebted to you, old fellow. My uncle has come down handsome, and if the monkey now would be conv—"

"By Gad, yes!" said Peter. He took it in crisp notes, and carefully pocketed them.

"And is Miss Dora kind?" he asked.

"She's an angel."

"And you are generally prosperous?"

"Thanks to you, my dear old friend."

"Then," said Peter, producing a piece of paper from his pocket, "you might persuade your publishers to withdraw this beastly thing." It was a writ, and it claimed an injunction to restrain Peter from claiming the authorship of "To Lalage."

"Then you've been publicly claiming it?"

"I had to keep up the illusion, Adrian. Do me justice."

"But," said Adrian, "how, Peter— how does it happen that the writ is dated the day before we went to Clapham?"

He paused. Peter grinned uneasily. A light broke in on Adrian.

"Why," he exclaimed, "you're the villain who—"

"Exactly. Wonderfully provident of me, wasn't it? What, you're not going?"

"Never let me see your face again," said Adrian. "I have done with you."

He rushed out. Peter whistled gently, and said to himself, "Not a bad deal! He must stop the action, or the old man will twig."

Then he whistled again, and added, "Glad I got it in notes. He'd have stopped a check."

A third time he whistled, and chuckled and said, "Now, I wonder if old Adrian'll make five hundred and fifty out of it! Not a bad deal, Peter, my boy!"

__________

14: The Mine Layer

C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne

1865-1944

The Saturday Evening Post  21 Nov 1914

Journal (Adelaide), 3 April 1915

THE GRIMSBY TWINS' otter trawl was down, scratching up fish from the Dogger-bank below, and John Henry Shepherd, the elder of the twins, was smoking in the wheelhouse and keeping the little steamboat approximately on her course. Arthur Cleethorpes Shepherd, his brother, and the only other hand on deck, was seated, with his back against the main hatch, reading war news from a stale copy of The Grimsby Gazette, to them came the strains of ecclesiastical music from the cabin skylight, skylight, proving that a certain Captain Shepherd was awake and— and was working his way through Messrs. Moody and Sankev's Collection of Hymns.

The Steam Trawler Grimsby Twins' harmonium had a compass of two octaves only; but  Captain Shepherd was a resourceful man, and when his music encroached beyond those narrow limits he whistled the missing notes with his own lips very efficiently. Mixed with the music that came from the skylight there drifted a fine aroma of onions, hinting that tea— with fried cod sounds— was under way, and that presently the watch would be changed.

"Owt fresh i' t' paper, Clee?" called out John Henry.

"Aye; they're asking for more hands for them trawlers they've set on at mine sweeping. I wish the old man would let us go."

"Well, he won't,"  said the elder twin in a husky whisper. "Said only just now, when  I took the wheel from him, that all war was a crime and a mistake, and recommended me when she was easy, to put up a bit of prayer to be delivered from the sin of wanting to chip in. I've a durn good mind― Hey, Clee, what's that packet coming out of the mist ahead there?"

He grabbed the binocular from its box and clapped it to his eyes.

"It's a Grimsby-man.  GY.4696! Why, there's no such number!"

"Looks more to me like a Dutch boat."

"Looks to me like that Lowestoft craft, the Bishop Something."

"Bishop Argles. That's her. You can tell by that fancy vane Old Man Argles snipped on his foretruck. But she's strangely mucked up! Those Lowestoft fellows have the queerest ideas of fishing. What for have they got that big derrick rigged aft?"

It was at this moment the S. T. Grimsby Twins struck the mine. She had missed it with her bows by a good fathom, but the drag of the heavy trawl warp over the quarter made her gait somewhat crab wise; and, with the help of a lifting swell, she dropped down on the infernal machine almost amidships, so that one of its strikers was rammed thoroughly home by a downward blow from her starboard bilge keel. Capt. Shepherd's first intimation of disaster was his being plucked from the harmonium stool by some unseen force and flung violently against the cabin roof.

The yell of the explosion and the crash of smashing steel and iron came to him next, and by the time he had fallen back to the cabin floor the stink of the yellow melinite fumes was making him cough and choke. The companion way was gushing wreckage and sea water, and he reached the deck by a scramble through the skylight. His vessel was in halves. Already the forward half was cruising away drunkenly by itself, with four dazed fishermen hanging on to the windlass; the poop end was sinking visibly; and in the churning water between the two there swirled about the dead and shattered bodies of his twin sons, one of them headless.

Ice was hot compared with the trawler skipper's coolness then. In an instant of time all that he loved in the world and all that he owned in the world was plucked from him. He did not whimper; he did not, after the manner of his kind, bombard heaven and all beneath it with furious curses; instead, he gazed with stolid eyes ait the other trawler looming through the mist, and nodded.

"It's what they said," he muttered, "and what I wouldn't believe― mines sown broadcast over the North Sea. O God, forgive me for not believing before what the, British Government said, and give me life to pay back a bit of what I owe. Amen."

After which prayer he jumped overboard and swam to the Grimsby Twins  boat, which had been blown clear and floated undamaged. Then he clambered into her and set about rescuing those of his men who still floated about on wreckage.

The council of war which decided the fate of some three thousand men and— so it is said— no less than five German ships of war took place in the trawler's jolly-boat  some 20 minutes later.  There were seven men on board of her, including Capt. Shepherd, as survivors of the fishing steamer's complement; and two of them were  wounded― one badly. Among them, also wet and miserable, was Joe, the trawler's cat.

"I suppose most of you think that good old Grimsby's the place we want to see next?" began Capt. Shepherd.

"You pet!" said Olssen, the third hand.

"I'm no' sure," said McCrae, chief engineer, looking hard at his superior officer.

"You're thinking of Jimmy, Mac?" suggested Capt. Shepherd.

"I am, cap. He was ma sister's son."

"And he's now down— or parts of him are— among the cod on the bank below. Olssen, your brother's not here either?"

"Nein."

"Nor your boy, Dick?"

"He was smashed to a pulp, with young Olssen, by the winch falling on them," said old Dick. He clutched at a sob in his throat. "A splendid lad he was, too — the young beggar. And there were your two pups and all, skipper. I saw them go out, too, in the middle of that stinking yellow smoke. We've always been a bit of what you might call a family ship— very comfortable, too, and no trouble ever that meant anything. I'm sorry them cod sounds I was frying for you was wasted, chaps."

Capt. Shepherd nodded to the compliment, and then hit the gunwale a hard blow with his fist to call the meeting to business.

"Look here, men; we've all suffered, and we've got to get busy if we're going to show ourselves better than Joe, and do anything besides mewling. I'll own up I've been a man with a wrong idea. I've lea away by a discourse once given in our Chapel, which said that at bottom the Dutchmen only wanted a bit of argument and some prayer to make them reasonable. That's wrong. What they want is hell, and I'm the man to give it to them. Do you come in on the usual share terms as arranged for this fishing fleet?"

"If we were fitted as a man-of-war," said McCrae cautiously, "I'd be wi' ye on the nod."' He indicated with the wave of a hand the heavily built boat that carried them lumberingly over the fog-covered swells. "This is all I can see beyond the end of ma neb at present. But perhaps you've a scheme, cap?"

"Aye," said Capt. Shepherd, heavily. "I have what you might call a strategy in my head. Man and boy, I've fished the Dogger— with short holidays in the Iceland seas— these 40 years, and I know it, sea bank and sea top, better than most. I know the ways of the cod: I know the thoughts of the men that fish them, and I know the tracks of the shipping. come fog, come fine, as a North Sea fisherman should. I got but one short look at yon spawn of Beelzebub that was laying those mines from Tommy Argles's boat— I  bet some language came out when they cut Tommy's throat, by-the-way— and she was steering north an' by east to half a ticktack. Now do you see the scheme?"

They did not. Capt. Shepherd went on patiently to explain.

"They'll lay one line of mines across the ship track from south to north; and then, when they've covered it. they'll turn and lay another parallel to it, so that a ship which misses one line will be gathered by the next."

McCrae held up a brown hand and spat into it. "That's sound metapheesics. Cap., it's a pleasure to listen to ye. Go on!"

"We'll pull out west from here; we'll i miss the mines in the first line— and, fellers, you can take it from me, He will help us― and we'll wait for Mister Blessed Murder Spreader as he comes for down on his next trip. Then we'll get aboard and attend to his people; and when we've done that I'll tell you what we'll do next. Any objections?"

They looked at one another thoughtfully and conned the matter over. Your ease coast fisherman is always a mightily independent person, and sees to it that his private opinion has full weight; but there was no amendment and the heavy boat was got under way. Capt. Shepherd, wooden-faced and silent, tucked his arm over an oar in the stern notch and steered. As utensils of navigation he had a watch-chain compass, a big silver watch, and his nose; and he held a course through the fog as unfalteringly as a keeper might tread across familiar heather.

Thrice they saw steam trawlers from Hull and Grimsby and Scarborough. Once they were hailed; but they made no attempt to break their voyage or even to give a hint of its purpose. They were all silent except Joe, the cat. Joe, having less control than his betters, spat and swore aloud as he licked the yellow melinite stain from his salty fur.

"We don't want the navy butting in," Capt. Shepherd said as an afterthought. "We'll make this a fisherman's job; and if afterward they say we're a pack of pirates— well, I hope they'll have to own we're efficient pirates. The dead were our dead, and we're going to arrange the funeral ceremony without help or interference. Spell-o at the oars! Two of you other feller take a turn now."

The mine laying trawler crossed their track on its return trip exactly as Capt. Shepherd had calculated; and, though her lookout saw them and commented, the Officer in charge made no attempt to slow down or pick them up. But some such courtesy as that had been anticipated. The boat lay in the steamer's track, stem to bow, and at full pressure on her oars; and under Capt. Shepherd's handling she presently rasped down the trawler's side, Men who spend their lives boarding fish on to the carriers in all varieties of North Sea weather are impossible to beat at that sort of game.

What followed was by no means a massacre. The seven men tumbled over on to the mine-cluttered decks without resistance, certainly, the cat following them. They had two iron belaying pins among them, and quickly picked up other weapons; but, if it had not been for the surprise of their boarding, they would have been driven in quick time over into the sea whence they came. The surprise gave them the first start, however, and their toughness and the wild ferocity of their attack did the rest.

Capt. Shepherd found an axe and wielded it bloodily. They cleared the main deck under a spray of revolver bullets from an officer in the pilot house. Capt. Shepherd went for him, ignoring the revolver, got the axe well home on his right shoulder blade, and cleft him through to the middle. There was no asking for or giving quarter. The invaders cleared the decks of Germans and then went below to the forecastle engine-room, and cabin, and killed there, leaving only two alive. These two were English, and in the stokehold, and they heard hard things from their saviours about Englishmen who, even under duress, work for Germans and do not kill them.

"So back to your kennel, you whipped pups!" said Capt. Shepherd at the end of his discourse on their personal appearance and behaviour. "And keep a full head of steam. We're away to the suth'ard-east'ard on pressing business.  Are you other fellers all sound? Where's Albert Henry?"

"Albert Henry got a bayonet in his stomach, and clapped his arms round the Dutchman that put it there and jumped with him into the ditch."

"And I think Hull Harry died just as we boarded. He must have been worse hurt than we guessed at when the Twins blew up."

"That leaves five," said Capt. Shepherd. "You, Olssen, take the wheel. Your course is sou-'east-'n'by'east. Mac, get below and learn up the coffee mill; and rub the fear o' God into those putty-livers that are firing her. And the rest of you swill down decks. I'm going to worry out how these mines are launched, and I want a clear head for it; so don't any of you fellers disturb me.... Oh, yes, and there's one other thing. One of you hunt up a Dutch ensign— they're bound to have one aboard— and get it bent on to the signal halyards and ready to break out if any of their cruisers overhaul us."

The fishermen obeyed these orders none too promptly. They were all of them more or less cut and scratched and, to start with, they gave one another rough first aid. Then, at Dick's suggestion, they raided galley and larder and pocketed a meal; and then, with food to refer to between whiles, they started to work; and each, according to the North Sea habit, set himself to do two men's toil.

Meantime Capt. Shepherd, who had never in his life seen a floating sea mine, either on a ship's deck or elsewhere, set to work to puzzle out from the mass of boiler iron and steel cable before him how he could sink, burn, and destroy his hated enemies without blowing up the S. T. Bishop Argles in the process. After he had done a given amount of execution he did not in the least mind what became of her or, for that matter, of himself or his crew. He was a man now entirely reckless, and, if he gave a thought for his mates, concluded they were the same. He had received irreparable injury; the bigger injury he could do to any German in return the happier he should die— that was all.

The ravelling out of the plan for a fleet of floating sea mines is no job for an amateur; but Capt. Shepherd was not the ordinary layman in this matter. He was a North Sea fisherman, which is as much as to say that he was a mechanic, sailorman, carpenter, and rule-of-thumb scientist combined; and he picked up intelligently the details of mooring tackle, riding cables, depth adjustments, striker adjustment, and all the rest of the intricate apparatus.

He reasoned it out piecemeal from A to Z and back again tediously, from Z to A, slurring over nothing, concentrating thoughtfully on every doubtful  point until it became entirely clear. Now and again Joe bumped a sympathetic nose against leg, and he always pulled the cat's tail gratefully in recognition of the attention.

The North Sea, too, was kind to them in being comfortably covered with fog. In fine weather Capt. Shepherd was no better navigator than any other man who has grasped the truths of Norie's Epitome; but in a thick grey blanket of fog. even among the fisher skippers, there were few to equal him. With a sluggish compass on a pole, a handful of tallow smeared into the bottom of the lead, and a nose to sniff the wet air, he could feel his way from any part of the North Sea to any other part with unfaltering accuracy.

At intervals a hand would living the lead to him and he would examine and sniff at the arming.

"Huh! Sand and small shells, and one of them brown creepy things, and that crisp brass-wire smell! We are just off the south-east corner of that hole where I carried away a trawl beam in Nought-one. Tell Olssen to give her half a point more starboard, and take another cast of the lead in twenty minutes; and if there's black sand with these same shells you needn't bother me for another hour. I guess that half point will just overtake the drift."

So, on across his chosen line in the German coast, Capt. Shepherd did not trouble with charts. He carried a map of the contours of the North Sea floor in his head and had resourcefulness enough for all other requirements. Once he was tailed by a hurrying German destroyer, but had backed away into the fog with a ported helm by the time she had come to look for him, and so escaped enquiries. The incident gave him an idea, however. He went to the engine room skylight and hailed down to one of his impressed stokers— "Hey, you putty-feller there, what did the Dutchmen do with your fishing gear when they took you?"

"Slung it overboard, sir."

"All of it?"

"All of it except the warps."

"Did they jettison the otter boards?"

"Yes, sir."

"But didn't Capt. Argles carry a spare?"

The two stokers consulted. "Yes, sir; there's a spare otter board used as a floor for one of the fish boxes."

"Good!" said the captain, and he proceeded to get it on deck. "We'll call the depth here 26 fathoms, and we'll shackle one of these devil's machines on to the otter board, with enough drift of painter to keep it just under the surface when we're towing it out a quarter of a mile abeam of us. How's that. fellers? Take that mine there, marked 32, that's next under the derrick; and handle it like eggs or it'll go off hot. And that'll be the end of our tale, and our job'll he left undone. By crumbs, fellers, be careful! Keep it in your heads that we've a stack of these Dutchmen to kill before our own time comes."

Success came that very night! From out the mist and the darkness a German light cruiser came pelting up at a five-and-twenty-knot gait, with guns nosing round for prey and searchlights blazing. She sighted the trawler and hove-to, with engines working full speed astern, athwart the Bishop Argles' trawl warp, bawling questions. "Ja! Ja!" shouted Capt. Shepherd in polite response.  "No comprennay!'

Meantime Mr. McCrae had set the deck winch going, and hove in on the trawl warp until he drew the mine and its murderous striker into place. It hit the cruiser squarely beneath her bilge, amidships. It blew her half in two: it exploded some if not all of her boilers, and these— or the mine— exploded her magazines.

Heaven yelled to the din of the blasts. The fog lit to a flaming yellow. The Bishop Argles rocked and tossed like a cork in a flooded gutter with the shock; and when the reeking-smoke of the melinite blew to him, Joe, the cat, spat and swore with excited frenzy.

"Good puss, then!"' said Capt. Shepherd. "Hates a Dutchman, doesn't he? Get the slack of that trawl warp hove in, Mac, will you? And then we'll stem on again. Back to your course, Olssen."

"AYE," said Dick, the old fisherman. "Here's a sandwich for you, skipper. You missed your dinner, so you'll need it. The meat's some kind of liver sausage with black things in it; but I fried it with onions, so you'll never notice the taste. And here's a can of hard-boiled tea."

"Thank you, Dick. Now go and take a spell at the wheel and send Olssen to me, aft here. And, Dick, if he doesn't seem to want to come, or if he shows awkward in any way, throw him over into the pond."

"Aye!" said the burly old man. "I was expecting that, too. skipper. Olssen's a Dutchman of sorts himself."

Olssen came, and was sharply bidden to stand ten feet from his interviewer. "And now, my man," said Capt. Shepherd, "as the only feller who speaks German on this packet, why the whiskers didn't you palaver that brass-edged Dutchman when I told you to? Frightened?"

"Nein; it was nod dot exactly."

"Kind o' forgot they murdered your brother a few hours ago, did you?"

"Mein Gott, nein!"

"Look here, my feller, what countryman are you? An Olssen should be some sort of a Sou'wegian."

"Deutschland uber alles!" murmured Olssen softly, and rushed. Capt. Shepherd stepped lightly aside, but left one heavy carpet-slippered foot behind him. Olssen struck wildly, hit nothing, tripped over the foot, and tumbled over the rail into the North Sea— where he remained.

"They're everywhere, those Dutchmen!" commented Capt. Shepherd patiently and cut himself some tobacco. "They'll do with a lot of weeding out. I must weed."

IT WAS dark again when the Bishop Argles entered the Heligoland Bight, and she was steaming without lights. Furthermore, her engine room and cabin skylights were covered with tarpaulins, and the binnacle lights were muffled, so that not the smallest ray could escape seaward. The clothing of her people were dried by now, and Capt. Shepherd's carpet slippers showed their colours in full brilliancy. A more desperate venture than the one they were set on it would be impossible to find, but none of the bipeds showed emotion. Fishermen are not a demonstrative lot at any time, and these few survivors of what was once a happy family ship were perhaps dulled with grief; anyway, they had decided that it was worth dying to encompass a certain ambition against the enemy, and there was an end of it.

So they ate, drank, kept watches, and behaved as normal fishermen should. Joe, the cat, was the exception. Joe complained personally and individually to each of the crew in turn; except, of course, the two pariahs in the stokehole—and had his neck tickled or his tail pulled in good tempered toleration. Everybody liked Joe, but nobody was going to be worried too much about his obvious forebodings. He went to McCrae last of all as that excellent person came up to cool off at the tiddley door. Mr. McCrae was wiping grease from his hands and face with a wad of cotton waste and thriftily transferring it to his boots.

"Fey!" he said to Dick, who had been trying to tempt the cat with a bone. "Fey, that's what ails the puir beastie. "I thought second sight of that kind was confined to humans. Here's a proof to the contrary. It would be a vera interesting topic to write an article on for The E'nb'ro' Review if ever we get hame again, which we shalln't. Dick, there was an eye in that egg you fried for ma breakfast this morning. I'll trouble you to pull the meaty bits out in the future. They're ower rich for ma stomach."

A new danger cropped up as they neared their goal. The British Navy, both on the water and below it— though mostly below it— was keeping "watch and ward" on the German ships that were cooped up inside: but Capt. Shepherd instinctively felt that the British Navy would not want him as an ally on any terms whatever.

He felt the point of view to be narrow-minded in the highest degree, but saw no means just then of changing it. He had no time at the moment to stop and argue an ethic point with the British Navy. So he did his best to avoid conversation with any of its units. Twice snaky destroyers sighted him and turned to speak, but the fog was still his friend, and his old tactics of going astern on a swerving helm carried him out of reach. He chuckled as one of them let off a round stream of gunfire at some object which they mistook for the trawler among the sea mists; but the submarines worried Capt. Shepherd most.

A hand reported— "There's a drainpipe cruising alongside us to starboard, skipper."

Well, there it was—an insignificant periscope, with a trifling wake of white water behind it and nothing to show whether it was British or German— or, for that matter, Venezuelan. There would be a hull down below, too, twice as big as the Bishop Argles', and full of men only too keen to interfere with his righteous work. Capt. Shepherd at last got seriously annoyed. His red face, inside its frame of whiskers, deepened to a fine plum colour.

"Hard aport with that helm!" he ordered. "Hard over with it, now— yes, and steady on that. I'll make that chap dive or I'll scrape his deck plates." And dive is what the submarine promptly did. Her periscope slid under water as though it had been pulled down by a string; and the little steamboat lumbered over her without touching, and drove ahead down the North Sea without scathe from the torpedoes.

Perhaps they thought she was an ordinary blundering trawler, and it was an even chance whether she was their friend or an enemy's ship. Capt. Shepherd could not tell her captain's thoughts. He did not even know whether the submarine was a British or a German craft; but they saw her no more. Perhaps, again, when once more she get her eye above water and could see, he Bishop Argles had vanished in the fog. There is a large element of chance in modern sea-warfare.

Anyway, Capt. Shepherd and his fellow fishermen were satisfied. They fully decided that none of them liked submarines. It was to one of these subaqueous craft, however— and the probabilities point to its being German— that they owed their pilotage through the enemy's most dangerous defences.

A periscope appeared out of he gloom on their starboard hand and converged into their course ahead.

"Follow that feller!" said Capt. Shepherd to Dick, who was in the wheelhouse, and applied himself to a study of the seascape through his night glasses.

"Appears if he's trolling for mackerel," observed Dick, as presently the periscope swerved off on a new course.

"Follow every turn he makes, to a fathom," said Capt. Shepherd. "We're going through a hedge of mince just now end I shouldn't like to spoil any of them; so, as he's got the chart of how they're laid and we haven't, we'll just keep narrowly in his wake. But, as there may be other Dutchmen wanting to use this same gap in the hedge after us, I reckon we'll just put a bramble or two in it that may scratch them. Mac!"

"Yes. cap."

"Don't bawl so loud, Mac. That drainpipe affair ahead there may have ears as well as an eye, for all we know. Just get aft and dump in them boilers numbered 32 and 37 over the counter as quick as you like. The moorings are ready shackled on at the right depth; so there's nothing to delay you."

"Right, cap!" said the engineer; and, with the help of a couple of hands, he set about his work. He spat on each mine for luck as they lowered it over the stern.

"Amazing queer dance this chap is taking us!" said Dick, with his eyes on the faint phosphorescence of the periscope's wake. He sawed hard at the wheel, with a busy clatter of cogs.

"There you are again. Can you take her through this dance backward again, d'ye think, skipper?"

"No, Dick. For one reason. Mac's sealing up the hole behind us. For another, we're— we're going into harbour, Dick. We shall see your boy and my two inside an hour from now. D'ye mind?"

"That's all right, skipper. You and I have been good shipmates for a long time now, and we never differed on anything that mattered. We shan't differ on this, anyway. I'm sorry I cooked so badly for you sometimes— that's all."

"Only one person I'm real sorry about is poor old Joe. He's no special quarrel against these Dutchmen, and he knows what's coming as well as any Christian, and hates it fit to burst himself. I did think of heading him up in a cask with a couple of pounds of meat, and letting him adrift to get a chance."

"Now let me think!" He conned over in his head the bearings of the zigzag course, and mentally reckoned the length of each leg.

"We shall be just over the 25-fathom patch, and the nor'-east point of Heligoland will be bearing about due west— or; say, west-'n'by-north. Huh?" Capt. Shepherd took a cast of the sea himself to make sure, and he smiled with professional appreciation of his own skill when the depth and the matter brought up by the arming of the tallow proved the accuracy of his mental reckoning.

"You may send her along―" he began, when the deep boom of a big siren close at hand drowned the words. It was answered by another, higher in note, the trawler's other side, and two rockets sped up into the fog from two more ships ahead. He put his lips to Dick's hairy ear, and bawled:—

"We're right in among the fleet of them; and if we don't look quick we shalln't get our work done. Gimme that wheel; and do you go aft and tell Mac to get those mines overboard and into the water as quick as he can whip them off the deck."

Somehow, and I hardly think it could have been from the submarine that unconsciously piloted them through the mine field, the Germans had got wind of an enemy's presence: and an alarm spread round the invisible fleet with furious noise and bustle. Sirens, with long blasts and short, boomed messages; searchlights made the fog iridescent, but did not penetrate it; and there was all the indescribable turmoil and alarm of a great war fleet caught at anchor by an invisible destroyer that had penetrated their outer and inner defences.

The fishermen wore the only people who look it coolly. They had their work to do, and did it as though it was their daily routine. Mine after mine— German-made— was lifted from their decks and dropped into the still water astern; and Capt. Shepherd, in the steering pulpit, leaned over the spokes of the wheel and wove his way accurately among the noises. Launches and picket boats at high speed began to pant by them unseen through the fog. One of these presently fouled one of the drifting mines and blew it up with an appalling explosion. And then some big ship got an attack of the nerves and with every light gun she could, bring to bear fired into what necessarily must have been one of her own boats.

"They're beginning to pay," said Capt. Shepherd at the wheel. "O, Lord, give me time to send in more of the bill, and make them pay sit least half of what's owing!" He glanced over his shoulder at the after deck.

"Mac!"

"Yes, Cap."

"When you get to the last two of them boilers, hang one over each quarter, and tell me."

"Right!" said McCrae, and waved a hand.

Other spurts of firing burst out; and then there was a crash as some launch's boiler exploded to a shell, and the shrill scream of hurt men.

"The Dutchmen will call this a raid by the whole British Fleet in to-morrow's papers," commented Capt. Shepherd. "They'll never own up they've been shooting into their own ships. By whiskers I shall have to look lively now! All this firing's bringing on a breeze that'll clear the fog. Yes, Mac?"

"They're all over in the ditch, cap, bar those last two. I've slung one over each quarter, as you said."

"Thank you, Mac!" The wheel went over, and the Bishop Argles headed for the line of invisible ships where the noise of defence was loudest. They sighted her when she was a hundred yards away, and saluted her with a very tornado of fire. Her funnel was shorn off close to the fiddley top by a shell from a great gun, which did not explode there, but acted against a friend in the farther line. Rifle bullets and small shells from quick firers swept over her like a hailstorm, and a score of heavier missiles skated along her rusty iron sides; but she was end-on, and so, as a target, she was small— and there is no doubt that the gunners were scared and nervous. The German at the range and the German in action are two very different marksmen. Normally, at ten knots, that hundred yards should have taken about one-third of a minute; but some of the shells had penetrated beneath wind and water, and the trawler was sinking fast and dropping pace every second.

"Go on, old girl!" Capt. Shepherd urged.  ''Hey, now! Just another score of fathoms and that's all I ask from you. Joe, you brute, get off my shoulder, or don't claw!"

The little steamer, with her engines by some marvel untouched, and with her burden of mines by a greater marvel unexploded, drew up to the great battle cruiser with still some freeboard stowing; and then Capt. Shepherd jammed his helm hard aport. Her bow almost scraped along the warship's flank, and her stern swung in. There was a lull in the big guns' fire, as they could not be depressed sufficiently to get their sights on her, and the rifleman were firing from the hip and hurting their friends across the way.

Then the starboard quarter of the Bishop Argles swung in against the big cruiser's side, just below the forward barbettes, and the mine was cracked between them— and a volcano burst forth that rivalled Etna! The ammunition blew up on board of her, and then a magazine. Boilers caught the infection, and then more gun ammunition and more magazines.

The huge ship blew to pieces piecemeal and sank compartment by compartment; but she went to the sea floor none the less efficiently. And she was one of the biggest cruisers on the world's navy list. As for the trawler, she was spread as mere scum on the troubled waters of the Heligoland Bight.

NOW this ought to be the end of the tale; but history compels me to record that Capt. Shepherd still resides in England. Odd to relate, he seems well off. In his house is an enlarged photograph of two young men curiously alike and in that wooden attitude affected by fishermen when they face the camera. It is framed simply in oak; but the frame is notable. It is studded thickly with curious bronze spikes, which the intelligent observer will recognise, after thought, as once having been carried on the helmets of German infantrymen at the rate of one spike to one man. There are 76 spikes round the frame. A queer-looking cat, with one ear missing and a foreleg that has been broken and very badly mended, limps round the garden in Capt. Shepherd's company. If you shake anything yellow at the cat he spits at you. How these latter things came to pass cannot be related here. They belong to another tale.

Underneath the portraits is a newspaper clipping, also framed, which runs thus:

"New York.

—Berlin report by wireless that a British destroyer flotilla made a determined raid on a German fleet last night off Heligoland. The British loss was thirteen destroyers sunk and three captured. Their loss in men was very heavy. The Germans had one unimportant cruiser slightly damaged."

_____________________

15: Sand

Malcolm Jameson

(As by 'Colin Keith')

1891-1945

Astounding, Nov 1942

THE grimmest Joke on Mars is the daily weather forecast. You see it— if you can see anything— just as you leave the skyport at Ghengiz. It is engraved in inch-deep letters on a monolithic block of permalite, and even that unabradable stone is worn round on the corners from years of sand blasting. The standing prophecy says:

WEATHER FOR TODAY AND TOMORROW

Hot, dry, and windy, with sandstorms
and shifting dunes.

It is a triumph in paradoxes, for it is not only a masterpiece of accuracy, but of understatement as well.

Special Investigator Billy Neville found that out before he had been on the ruddy planet five minutes. The light scout cruiser that had brought him hardly had her grapnels firmly engaged in the deeply anchored mooring net than he could see a small blue police tank careening across the field toward him. He could only glimpse it now and then, for the driving sand was as impenetrable to vision as is flinging sleet. Then the little tank bumped alongside and a moment later a man crawled through the lee entry port. He carried a heavy suit on his arm.

"Here you are, sir," he said, "your anabrad. Put it on over your uniform, otherwise you'd be naked and flayed after about a minute out there."

Neville picked up the garment. It was not greatly unlike a diving suit except that it was unarmored. It was of a tough, rubbery texture, had leaded soles for weight, and a helmet with flexible, unscratchable glanrite goggles. He put it on, shook hands with the skipper of the cruiser, then stepped out into the blast.

The local man helped him into the little tank and pulled down the lid. Then it veered away from the cruiser, rose on one set of treads, and sailed dizzily across the field, heeled over at a sharp angle to the "breeze." The driver slowed at the gate just long enough to grin and point out the forecast for the day. Then he pulled his blue bronco back into the wind and bucked his way up what Neville took to be the main street of Ghengiz.

"The boss'll be glad to see you," yelled the driver, above the steady hissing of the rain of sand on the tank's foreplate. "Things have sure gone to hell here, and I don't mean maybe."

Billy Neville granted. He had not the faintest idea of what Martian problems were, nor anything about the planet. But it was, a safe assumption that when he was sent anywhere, things were tough. Just now he was coming from Venus after a hectic year spent in cleaning up the gooroo peddlers. He had hoped for a few weeks' leave on Earth en route, but apparently that was not to be.

He disregarded his garrulous driver and peered out the sand-stricken visiport. He could not help but notice how peculiar Martian architecture was. None of the buildings had any opening whatever below the second-floor level, and few there, unless on the lee side of the house. All were supplied with rows of grab irons or outside ladders by which the climb from street to door could be made. He guessed, and rightly, that on some days the shifting dunes partly buried the buildings. This day, though, the street was clean and glistening, as if made of polished steel.

The tank teetered and bucked its way ahead, cut a corner, skidded hard against the buildings on the lee side of the street, caromed off and wheezed to a stop before a gloomy structure of heavy permalite.

"Local headquarters," said the driver, and pushed up the hatch. "Take the right-hand ladder."

Neville grabbed at it and climbed, like a rigger going up a smokestack. Two floors up he came to a sheltered platform and a door. The door was yanked open and he darted in. A minute later be was in the presence of a haggard and weary-looking major of the Interplanetary Police. The major was just hanging up the phone.

"Well, Neville," said he, scrutinizing the young S. I. with hard, blue eyes, "you hit here at the psychological moment. The Xerxes has just been robbed. That is the fifth this year, the fifteenth in the last four years. I've ordered a copter and as soon as it comes we'll fly out and look it over while the trail is hot. I am afraid this will be as hard a nut to crack as all the others have been. But maybe I'm getting stale. That's why I asked for you. A new broom, you know—"

"I hope so, sir," said Billy Neville, modestly. He was still wondering what it was all about. He knew that the only industry on Mars was the production of super-diamonds and that there had been a number of robberies of mines. But that was all he did know. In the jungles of steaming Venus one did not bother much about anything but the immediate job in hand.

He waited, but the major did not see fit to speak again. He merely sat tapping nervously on his desk and frowning down at the papers on his blotter. Then he raised his eyes and looked wearily at Neville, but still said nothing.

"Nasty weather you're having," observed Neville, politely, waving his hand toward the outside generally. "Does it blow like this all the time?" The older cop smiled feebly.

"The obvious answer to that crack is the old wheeze they used to use back in Wyoming. No. It does not. It'll breeze along like this for a week or so. Then it'll set in and blow like hell. But if you think this is bad, you ought to see it down in the equatorial regions. They have sand typhoons there. The mines are in the temperate zone with only strong trade winds to worry over. Yet these circumpolar breezes you see up here are gentle zephyrs compared to those." He sighed, and added, "It's not the wind that we mind. It's those damned dunes. They won't stay put. Mars, my boy, is not a nice place to live."

The phone buzzed. The worry on the major's face deepened as he picked up the earpiece.

"Yes? … What! The Hannibal! … How do you know it was eleven days ago? … Oh, hypnosene, eh? They just came to and found the safe blown and looted. … I see. Well, do what you can. They knocked over the Xerxes not five hours ago. I'm going there first."

He hung up and spread his hands despairingly.

"Gas, always gas. And always a different gas. First it was cyanogen, then phosgene, carbon monoxide, chloroform. We devised masks. Then they sprung thanatogen, neuronoxylene and other fancy ones. There are never any clues— we can't catch 'em— we can't stop 'em. I'm going nuts."

"It might help if you began at the beginning," suggested Billy Neville, mildly. "You know I got here less than half an hour ago."

"To be sure," replied the major, scribbling on a pad. "In just a moment— "

The phone buzzed again. That time it was a husky voice saying the copter was ready.

"Come on," said the major, buckling on a blaster. "I'll explain on the way."

WIND— and sand— swept Ghengiz faded behind them. They were up out of the dust. Two navigators were busily taking sights on the Sun, and on Deimos and Phobos, both, fortunately, happening to be up.

"The only way you can find your way around this blasted planet," explained the distraught major, "is by stellar navigation. The terrain doesn't mean a damn thing. That range of dunes you are looking at won't be there in another hour. They will not only move west, but they will change their whole contour doing it. Sometimes you see a town— sometimes you don't. It all depends on whether it happens to be buried. We never know. On Earth you can figure the tides, but dunes are different. They move haphazardly and at random rates of speed."

"I'm beginning to find Mars interesting," remarked the special investigator.

"Yeah? Well, listen. Mars is a queer customer. If you know a geologist whose heart you want to break, bring him here and ask him to explain it to you. As near as I can make out, the planet congealed suddenly while it was still a viscous mass of about half iron and half granite, mixed indiscriminately. Somewhere you find outcroppings of steel, in other places stone. Later on it must have acquired an atmosphere. At least we have plenty of it now. That weathered the granite and gave us all this sand. The sand goes round and round and comes out nowhere. At the Equator the dunes are a mile high. At the poles there are no dunes. In between you have every depth. Look!"

He had the copter brought lower and pointed to a deep valley between two ranges of dunes. It looked almost as if there was a mountain lake in its depths. But there was more. A considerable town could be seen in the very midst of the shiny spot. It was a mass of small domes dependent upon a larger central dome, above which rose a slender minaret or smokestack reaching high to the skies. The top of the stack was at least as high as the neighboring dune crests. A turretlike structure sat atop it and sprouted a double ventilator, one cowl turned into the wind, the other away.

"That is a mine— a big one— the Wellington," said the major. "It is sitting on bed steel, and beneath it is a rich pocket of diamonds. When Mars solidified only part of the carbon went into solution in the iron. Bits of it were pressed into Martian diamonds, far harder and of purer fire than anything ever found on Earth. They are immensely valuable. The tough job for a prospector is finding them, for he never gets more than a fleeting glimpse of the real surface of this planet. After that comes the tougher job of building the mine in spite of the steady waves of dunes that roll over it and keep burying it. Once a mine is set, everything is grand— or would be if somebody had not thought up a way to rob them."

The copter rose higher and continued on southward. A little later it dipped again and the major pointed out something else.

"Another mine— the Robert E. Lee, I believe. It's buried now."

Neville looked. All he saw was a tiny circular building supporting a turret. But above the turret stood the same type of double ventilator he had seen at Wellington.

"Until the dune passes," added the major, "they must draw and expel their air through that trunk. It is also an access and escape hatch. What has us stumped is that all the robberies take place while the mine is submerged and yet no one ever enters through the trunk or leaves by it. How they get in and get away is what we want to find out. For they usually kill everybody in it and pick the place clean before they leave. If you can solve that one, you are as good as you are reputed to be."

Neville did not answer. He wanted to know more. After all, promotions in the I. P. went by merit, not pull, and despite the dejection and apparent defeatist attitude of the major, he knew he must have something on the ball. He would not have been made supervisor of Mars otherwise. So Neville merely bobbed his head and continued to listen.

"There's the Xerxes now!" exclaimed the major, indicating a blob on top a sand dune. It did not look in the least like the full-fledged mine Neville had been shown before. It was just another lonely turret sitting on the sand, like the Robert E. Lee.

The copter circled in the sandy gale, made five tries and finally lassooed the turret with her grapple noose. Then they snubbed down and held bobbing against the turret lee.

"You get an idea," murmured the major, "how impossible it would be for a criminal copter to approach the air intake and pollute it. It takes many tries, and at that it is not always successful. When you think of the armed guards at the top of the trunk— "

But they were already being hauled over the parapet into the turret. Four grim-looking men stood there, armed with electronic rifles. On the floor lay a fifth, dead. He was hideously bloated and covered with purple blotches that stood out in great welts.

"Just in time, inspector," said one who appeared to be their leader. "The air below is clearing now. I think you can go down."

He turned and indicated the graphs hanging on the ventilation ducts. The one on the intake side showed the irregularity— straight air being brought in for days and days. But the exhaust index showed the automatic and continuous samplers of incoming and outgoing air had done their work well. Eight hours earlier the needle had jumped far out and left a quavering track in the poison zone. Since that time it had dribbled its way more and more to the center. The latest reading showed the usual exhaust air— just air, slightly warm, slightly polluted, but no worse.

Major Martin indicated a trapdoor and one of the men pulled it open. A minute later they were climbing down a short ladder into a compartment below. The hatch closed over them, shutting out the howling banshee of the Martian gale. The two huge ventilating trunks filled up one half the circular platform, a tiny elevator being hung between them. The other half of the circle was occupied by a circular iron staircase that went down and down. The major led the way down it a few steps, then thumped the outer wall. It was solid permalite.

"The only access to these mines," he said, "is through these chimneys until the trough comes, and the chimneys have no openings in them except at the top. Another copter load of our operatives will be along in about five minutes to begin at the top and search downward. They will not find anything, but it is routine, starting with a search of the guards up there and then this chimney, inch by inch. We may as well go on down."

They retraced their steps to the upper platform, got into the elevator, and started down. The descent took several minutes, but shortly they emerged into a circular room at the base of the chimney. Overhead great ducts carried the ventilation system, and an outlet immediately above was blowing clean, fresh air. Two corpses lay on the floor, blotched and bloated like the dead guard above. Apparently, from their attitudes, they had died instantly. Major Martin gave them but a glance.

"Necrogen," he said. "It kills at the first whiff."

A corridor took them through the living compartments where the men ate and slept when off shift. The bunks were full of dead. Here and there a body lay slumped in a chair or across a table. It was the same in the office where the heavy safe stood open and empty, its door hanging loosely on warped hinges. It was the same down in the pit, where tough-jawed machines cut the diamond-bearing iron matrix away in chunks. It was the same in the stamp room, and no different in the place where the acid vats were in which the matrix was dissolved away from the imprisoned sparklers. There was no one left alive in the Xerxes. Shortly a careful tally showed that not one of the employees was missing; they were all present— dead. Then the major showed Neville the great iron doors that gave the plant its lower exit onto the iron subsurface of the planet.

"That door opens outward." he said, "and at this moment against a pile of fine sand a thousand feet deep."

"Tunnel?" suggested Neville.

"You don't do much tunneling through diamond-studded steel," replied Major Martin dryly, but we keep searching for them. There are none. Moreover, even if there were, there could be no practicable outlet. They have yet to invent a mole or any kind of vehicle that can navigate under sand. The only locomotion available on Mars are the crawlers, as we call the little tanks. Copters are reserved for police use only."

Neville glanced at the ventilating duct over head and at the scattered corpses. The job was obviously done by admitting poison into the air-feed system, but how could the murderer get away, even if he had a gas-proof suit?

"What about the guard at the top of the chimney?" he asked sharply. "Why couldn't they have pulled the job, thrown the loot and other evidence down to an outside confederate, and then turned in the alarm?"

"They could have," admitted the major, "but they didn't. Two of the members of that guard are my own trusted operatives, acting under cover. We had another down here, but we've lost that poor fellow. No, it is an outside job."

Neville thought that over. Then his eye caught a little mound of raw diamonds beside one of the acid vats. They had evidently come out of the processing machine just as the robbery occurred, and had therefore not been picked up the collectors and added to the other stock in the vault. He was amazed to see that they were of a11 different colors— ruby-red, emerald-green, water-white, sapphire-blue, moss-green, pink, yellow and pale-blue.

"Do Martian diamonds come like this— all colors out of one hole?"

The major nodded.

"Another tough aspect of the case. If they only produced red ones at one place and white at another, we might hope to trace them after they are stolen. But Martian diamonds are wonderfully uniform in respect to everything but color, and those are invariably mixed as you see them here. It makes it nearly impossible to find the fence."

"Hm-m-m," said Neville, pocketing the handful of sparklers.

WHEN they arrived at the Hannibal they found it completely uncovered, and were able to land in its lee on the slick hard surface of the mother planet. The story there was much the same, accept that the gas had not killed, but put to sleep. The only dead were the tower guards, and they appeared to have been rayed down from behind.

Neville took the occasion to have a close look at the outside of the mine. He could not rid himself of the suspicion that there must be some way to enter one except at the very top or bottom. He scrutinized especially closely the slender stack that rose twelve hundred feet above him. On its lee side an iron ladder rose all the way to its pinnacle, otherwise the chimney was bare, sand-blasted permalite. Neville set up a telecamera and made careful shots of the chimney all the way up and from every angle.

"I've seen enough," he said at last, picking up a few sample of the Hannibal stones. "This is a job that will take some thinking over."

"I'll say," said Major Martin, sourly.

By nightfall they were back in Ghengiz and at headquarters.

"What do you think?" asked the major desperately. "You have inspected two, and when you've seen one you have seen them all. The technique is identical. Who is doing it, and how?"

"Dunno," smiled Neville, who had slumped back in his chair and was gazing dreamily at the ceiling. "I haven't got that far yet. What I'm trying to dope out is the motive."

"Motive! Why, money, of course."

"Sure. But how much money? Even pirates don't go into wholesale massacre for the sake of a few bushels of diamonds once in a while. And the details of the Hannibal incident prove that the robber doesn't have to kill to get at his loot. It seems to me— "

The phone was buzzing.

"Yes," acknowledged the major wearily. He listened a moment, grunted, then hung up. He turned to Neville.

"The miners at the Cortez and Attila have struck. They are afraid to go on working and demand a police escort to bring them into the labor barracks here at Ghengiz, That makes the sixth mine to shut up out of fear of bandits."

"I'm not surprised," said Neville calmly, "and that gives us our No. 1 suspect. Tell me who stands to gain most by closing all these mines, and you will name the man behind these robberies. He is a clever man and thoroughly unscrupulous. What is his name?"

Major Martin frowned at his desk, considered the question a moment, then said, "Mario Hustings answers the specifications. I have thought of him as a possibility before. But there is absolutely no hookup. Moreover, he is our most dignified, wealthy and powerful citizen. We will have to practically convict him before we even accuse him. He is owner of the Consolidated, which embraces the Wellington, the Custer and the Scipio—"

"I thought you had an antitrust law here," challenged Neville.

"We have. But it was enacted after Hustings built his first three mines. Since then they must be individually owned and operated, or be shut down and revert to the public domain. The only monopoly that Hustings has is the Martian Construction Co., and he has that by virtue of patent rights. He devised the type of building you have seen, and when anyone gets a charter to open a mine it is Hustings' company that does the construction work. After that he has no more to do with it."

"That's interesting," murmured Neville. "One more question. How much have your diamond exports fallen off since the robberies began?"

"Not any. Which doesn't prove a thing. Of course, the sales of Consolidated have risen with the robberies, but so have those of the independents. It has been the custom of the diamond industry from the beginning of time to maintain an even supply so as not to break the price. All the companies have reserves— much of it here in the government vaults. So when one or two mines fade from the picture, the others make up the loss out of stock. You won't get an anywhere along that trail, I'm afraid. Even if you suspected the other companies were acting as fences, you still could not prove the diamonds were stolen unless you catch the thief in the act. Martian diamonds are indistinguishable."

"I'm not so sure of that," said Neville. "On Earth they are all different."

The major talked on, his gloom deepening as he talked. Mars was surrounded by a cordon of fast cruisers, giving absolute assurance that no unauthorized ships landed or left. The only port of entry was Ghengiz, and the most minute searches were made of every ship coming and departing. Major Martin was willing to stake his reputation that not one of the stolen diamonds had been taken away from the planet yet. The outbound cargoes were all from the government-bonded warehouses. The more he talked, the more hopeless he made the case appear. There were no criminals on Mars, or any place for than to hang out. Ghengiz was the only town, and it was well policed. Otherwise there were only the mines.

Neville yawned, got up and stretched.

"I'm going to putter around in the laboratory for a while before I turn in," he said. "By the way, will you have your operatives get me a few diamonds from each of the mines? Make sure they were mined there, too, and were not just in the vault."

"Certainly," agreed the major, and jabbed a button. "I already have them."

The next activities of Special Operative Billy Neville might have mystified another man, but Major Martin took them with patience and a measure of hope. For he knew that Neville was reputed to be the best trouble-shooter on the force. Neville spent hours studying the enlarged photos of the mine stack. He spent other hours sitting before a huge vacuum tube in which he bombarbed diamonds with high-tension current. The results were not wholly encouraging. Some threw back  phosphorescence of an apricot hue, others of pale-green, red and orange. But, to his disappointment, not all the sample diamonds from the mines showed distinguishing phosphorescent colors. After that he sat in the dark for a while, idly rubbing them with a silk rag.

By morning, though, he was reasonably satisfied. His next request was that sample lots of diamonds be brought to him from the bins of the mines in the bonded warehouse. After he had looked over a few of those he announced his intention of calling on Mr. Hustings.

"What for?" asked the major.

"To size him up, for one thing," replied Neville, casually, "and to jolt him for another. Please have two of your best shadows on the job, for I want him tailed from the time I leave."

The local inspector merely raised his eyebrows, but signified he would comply.

"While I am gone," added Neville, "I would like to have a crawler made ready, with an assortment of pipe wrenches, nipples and connections in it. And a container of harmless gas with a distinctive odor to it. Peppermint oil, say."

"Done," was all the major could say.

THE interview with the diamond magnate was brief. Neville found him in the offices of his company and was admitted immediately. The millionaire met him at the door and shook his hand cordially. Mario Hustings was a fine-looking man for all his sixty years, well built, bronzed and with a genial smile.

"Well, well," he said, as he pumped the hand, "So you've come to solve our crime wave, eh? I wish you luck, but I fear you will be here quite a while. I am sure you will, unless you are far more competent than our local sleuths."

"On the contrary, Mr. Hustings," said Neville, evenly, "I expect to return to Earth within a very few days. I find the case simpler than I expected, It is already solved. I do not think you will have any more robberies."

"Ah," said Mr. Hustings, dropping the hand. It was a long-drawn "ah" and ended with a rising inflection.

"The culprit is still at large," Neville hastened to add, "but we expect to apprehend him shortly."

"Good work," said Hustings heartily. "That will be a great relief to us all. Cigar?"

"No, thanks. There are a few loose ends to pick up yet and I can't stay."

Neville hurried back to the laboratory and spent another hour hurriedly scanning the dossiers of all of Hustings' employees. By the time he had found what he wanted, the tank was ready. Major Martin chose to accompany him.

"Find me a mine," said Neville, "that is about half submerged."

The rough riding little vehicle lurched off, swaying and plunging in the wind to the steady hissing of the driving sand against its sides. They plowed through lesser dunes, but as they got farther south the dunes became more and more mountainous. At times the tank would climb steeply, only to fall into a side-slide and go slithering down the face of the wave, like a wind-blown chip in the ocean. As the wind rose, they caught fewer and fewer glimpses of the sky through the curtain of driving sand above them. The tank driver made his way by compass and other mysterious instruments on his dash.

Presently it halted, crawled ahead and stopped. At first Neville could see nothing. But in a moment he made out that they were in the lee of a segment of a stack. He could not see the top of it, for it was obscured by the whipping sheets of sand, but he could see a few rungs of the outside ladder leading upward.

"They can't see us, either," he pointed out to the major, meaning the men of the tower guard.

"Now let's rig a safety line and get around on the windward side of this chimney. That is what I am interested in."

The other side was smooth, seamless permalite, despite its continual assault by sand. They had to wait for fully an hour until the growing dune had pushed them thirty feet higher. Then Neville saw what he was looking for— a little projection. It was the stub of a one-inch pipe, sticking out just far enough to admit a cap being screwed on. A helper brought the bag of wrenches and a moment later the cap was off, the connection being made, and the tank of aromatic oil brought up to be hooked on to them.

Neville screwed the last union home, then hunted for the other thing he was looking for. It was only a few feet away and almost invisible, it was camouflaged so perfectly. It was simply a short lever, recessed in the face of the chimney wall. He tripped the valve on the gas container, waited until its contents hissed away, then seized the lever and jerked it down. A small section of the wall slid open, making a doorway just large enough to admit a man clad in an anabrad Or a gas-proof suit. He beckoned to Martin to follow and ducked inside. Then he shut the panel quickly so that no more sand would blow in.

Down below the alarm sirens were howling and men were shouting.

"Better get word to them it is a false alarm," suggested Neville. "We don't want to be cut down as burglars."

They stayed but a few minutes, then went out as they had come in. They wanted to get out before the secret door could be buried by sand.

"IT'S AS simple as that," Neville remarked on the way back to base. "This thing has been planned for years. There are several of those pipe connections and secret doors at different levels. They were put there when they built the stacks. The pipes lead into the intake air duct, the door is so closely fitted and so placed that the most rigid inspection of the interior would hardly be expected to reveal it. I spotted them on my enlargements of the plates. They have gone undiscovered from the outside for the reason that it is impossible to inspect the weather side of one of these chimneys except as we just did, and heretofore no one has thought it necessary to do that.

"Hustings' man could simply come here, screw on his poison gas whenever the sand rose to the proper level, go down and rob the place as soon as the gas did its work. Ten minutes later he could make his getaway, unseen and unsuspected."

"Hustings' man, huh?" growled the major. "How are you going to prove that? It is true his company built the chimneys, but that does not necessarily involve him personally."

"It's going to be hard," admitted Neville, "but I think I can do it."

BACK at headquarters they encountered two sheepish operatives. Shortly after Neville's visit, Hustings had hopped into a crawler and hurried away to the southward. The I. P. men trailed him in two other tanks, but he lost them in a sandstorm. When last seen he was heading somewhat to the westward.

"That would be the Scipio," was the major's guess.

"Absolutely. That is where his poison gas is made," asserted Neville. "Apparently he took my visit seriously."

"How do you know that?" demanded Major Martin.

"His head chemist there formerly worked for Tellurian Chemical. He is a recognized expert on lethal gases. Moreover, the present superintendent of the Scipio was formerly a construction foreman for the Martian Building Co. It is my hunch that all of Hustings' accomplices live and work at the Scipio. I found out plenty this morning when I read their dossiers. We can make the arrest any time now. I am satisfied—"

The alarm bell on the wall began to tap. The phone buzzed.

"Sorry, Neville. But you are dead wrong about Hustings," the major said after he had taken the message. "The Scipio has just been knocked off. Hustings wouldn't kill his own men."

"Oh, wouldn't he?" said Neville grimly.

A moment later the door opened and Hustings himself walked in. His genial manner was gone. It was plain that he was excited and angry.

"A fine lot of policemen we have here!" he roared. "Yesterday you tell me you have broken the robbery ring, yet just now I get word my Scipio Mine has been robbed and all its people murdered. Necrogen again. What about the man you said you were going to take into custody? What are you waiting for?"

"For you to come back," said Neville quietly. "The man is in custody. Put the nippers on him, boys."

The two operatives sprang forward and despite Hustings' roars slapped the irons about his wrists.

"You got away with a lot, Hustings, but it's all over now. Your killing the man who built your trick chimneys for you and the man who made up your poison gases along with the jackals that did the dirty work won't let you out. It merely saves us that many trials and a mass execution. We have enough on you to hang you without their testimony."

"You can't connect me with those chimneys," Hustings yelled, his eyes ablaze and his face purple, "or the gas, either. Suspect and be damned, but what can you prove?"

"Well," drawled Neville, "leaving out of account the train of circumstantial evidence— of which there is a lot, I assure you— and the quite obvious advantage it would be to you to have all the other mines driven out of business, we have the simple fact that you are in possession of all the diamonds stolen from the looted mines. They are all impounded in this very building."

"Pah!" snorted Hustings, struggling with his wristlets. "Martian diamonds do not carry any brand. The phosphorescent test is meaningless here— they all respond the same—"

"So I discovered," said Neville dryly, "or, rather, most do. However, I applied a test you seem to have overlooked. Did you ever hear of triboluminescence? It is astonishing that a man of your cunning should have missed it—"

Hustings was glaring, panting.

"Rub a diamond in the dark with wool or silk and it is likely to give off a dim light. Your Martian gems are most responsive to it. The Hannibal stones, for example, glow pale green, whereas the Custer's are a deep magenta. Every local mine has its characteristic color. What's more to the point, the vaults in the warehouse bear that out. Each mine's output corresponds with the stones it produces. Except yours. In your vault we found not only stones from your mines, but several bushels each from all the robbed mines. But none at all from the unrobbed mines! If you can explain that— and where you have been the last six hours— you have nothing to worry about. Take him away, boys!"

Special Investigator Billy Neville sank into a chair. He was tired, and the ceaseless whine of driving sand was getting on his nerves.

"It's all yours now, major," he said. "Call a cruiser, won't you? I want to see some water for a change— not sand."

______________

16: The Severed Hand

("Die Geschichte von der Abgehauenen Hand," 1826)

Wilhelm Hauff

1802-1827

Weird Tales Oct. 1925

There are two known English translations of this story: by C. A. Feiling, 1844, and R. Arrowsmith in 1907. The reprint in Weird Tales does not identify the translator.

I WAS born in Constantinople; my father was a dragoman at the Porte, and he also carried on a fairly lucrative business in sweet-scented perfumes and silk goods. He gave me a good education; he partly instructed me himself, and also he had me instructed by one of our priests. He at first intended that I should succeed him in business, but as I showed greater aptitude in my studies than he had expected, he destined me, on the advice of his friends, to be a doctor; for if a doctor has learned a little more than the ordinary charlatan, he can make his fortune in Constantinople. Many Frenchmen frequented our house, and one of them persuaded my father to allow me to travel to the city of Paris in his native land, where such learning could be best acquired, and free of charge. He wished to take me with him gratuitously on his journey home. My father, who had also traveled in his youth, agreed, and the Frank told me to hold myself in readiness three months thence.

I was beside myself with joy at the idea of seeing foreign countries, and eagerly awaited the moment when we should embark. The Frank at last concluded his business and prepared himself for the journey. On the evening before our departure my father led me into his little bedroom. There I saw splendid clothes and weapons lying on the table. My gaze was chiefly attracted to an immense heap of gold, for I had never before seen so much collected together.

My father embraced me and said: "Behold, my son, I have procured clothes for your journey. These weapons are yours; they are the same which my grandfather hung around me when I went abroad. I know that you can use them aright, but make use of them only when you are attacked; on such occasions, however, defend yourself bravely. My property is not large; behold, I have divided it into three parts: one part for you, another for my support and spare money, but the third is to me a sacred and untouched property— it is for you in the hour of need." Thus spake my old father, tears standing in his eyes, perhaps from some foreboding, for I never saw him again.

The journey passed off very well; we soon reached the land of the Franks, and six days later we arrived in the large city of Paris. There my Frankish friend hired a room for me, and advised me to spend wisely my money, which amounted in all to two thousand dollars. I lived three years in this city, and learned what is necessary for a skilful physician to know. I should not, however, be stating the truth if I said that I liked being there, for the customs of this nation displeased me; besides, I had only a few chosen friends there, and these were noble young men.

The longing for home at last possessed me mightily; during the whole of that time I had not heard anything from my father, and I therefore seized a favorable opportunity of returning home. An. embassy from Prance left for Turkey. I acted as surgeon to the suite of the ambassador and arrived happily in Stamboul.

My father's house was looked, and the neighbors, who were surprized at seeing me, told me my father had died two months ago. The priest who had instructed me in my youth brought the key; alone and desolate I entered the empty house. Everything waB just as my father had left it, except that the gold which I was to inherit was gone. I questioned the priest about it, and he said, bowing: "Your father died a saint, for he has bequeathed his gold to the Church." This was, and remained, inexplicable to me. However, what could I do? I had no witness against the priest, and had to be content that he had not considered the house and the goods of my father as a bequest.

This was the first misfortune that I encountered. Henceforth nothing but ill-luck attended me. My reputation as a doctor would not spread at all, because I was ashamed to act the charlatan; and I felt everywhere the want of the recommendation of my father, who would have introduced me to the richest and most distinguished persons, but who now no longer thought of the poor Zalcukos! My father's goods also had no sale, for his customers had deserted him after his death, and new ones are only to be got slowly.

Thus when I was one day meditating sadly over my position, it occurred to me that I had often seen in Prance men of my nation traveling through the country exhibiting their goods in the markets of the towns. I remembered that the people liked to buy of them, because they came from abroad, and that such a business would be most lucrative. Immediately I resolved what to do. I disposed of my father's house, gave part of the money to a trusty friend to keep for me, and with the rest I bought what are very rare in Prance: shawls, silk goods, ointments and oils; then I took a berth on board a ship, and thus entered upon my second journey to the land of the Pranks.

It seemed as if fortune had favored me again as soon as I had turned my back upon the Castles of the Dardanelles. Our journey was short and successful. I traveled through the large and small towns of the Pranks, and found everywhere willing buyers of my goods. My friend in Stamboul always sent me fresh stores, and my wealth increased day by day. When at last I had saved so much that I thought I might venture on a greater undertaking, I traveled with my goods to Italy. I also employed my knowledge of physic, which brought me not a little money. On reaching a town, I had it published that a Greek physician had arrived, who had already healed many; and my balsam and medicine gained me many a sequin. Thus at length I reached the city of Florence in Italy.

I resolved to remain in this city for some time, partly because I liked it so well, partly also because I wished to reeruit myself from the exertions of my travels. I hired a vaulted shop, in that part of the town called Santa Croce, and not far from this a couple of well-appointed rooms at an inn, leading out upon a balcony. I immediately had my bills circulated, which announced me to be both physician and merchant. Scarcely had I opened my shop when I was besieged by buyers, and in spite of my high prices I sold more than anyone else, because I was obliging and friendly toward my customers.

THUS I had already lived four days happily in Florence, when one evening, as I was about to close my vaulted room, and was examining once more the contents of my ointment boxes, as I was in the habit of doing, I found in one of the small boxes a piece of paper, which I did not remember to have put in it.

I unfolded the paper, and found in it an invitation to be on the bridge which is called Ponte Vecchio that night exactly at midnight. For a long time I sat and wondered as to who it might be who had invited me there; and not knowing a single soul in Florence, I thought perhaps I should be secretly conducted to a patient— a thing which had often occurred before. I therefore determined to proceed thither, but took care to gird on the sword which my father had once presented to me.

When it was close upon midnight I set out on my journey, and soon reached the Ponte Vecchio. I found the bridge deserted, and determined to await the appearance of him who had called me. It was a cold night; the moon shone brightly, and I looked down upon the waves of the Amo, which sparkled in the moonlight. It was striking 12 o'clock from all the churches of the city, when I looked up and saw a tall man standing before me completely covered in a scarlet cloak, one end of which hid his face.

At first I was somewhat frightened, because he had made his appearance so suddenly; but shortly afterward I was myself again and said: "If it is you who ordered me here, what do you want?" The man in scarlet turned round and said in an undertone: "Follow!" At this, however, I felt a little timid about going alone with this stranger. I stood still and said: "Not so, sir; kindly first tell me where; you might also let me see your countenance a little, so that I may convince myself you mean me no harm." The red one, however, seemed to pay no attention to this. "If you are unwilling, Zaleukos, remain," he replied, and continued his way. I grew angry. "Do you think," I exclaimed, "a man like me allows himself to be made a fool of, to be forced to wait on this cold night for nothing?"

In three bounds I had reached him, seized him by the cloak, and cried still louder, whilst laying hold of my saber with the other hand. His cloak remained in my hand, but the stranger had disappeared round the

I became calmer by degrees. I had the cloak, at any rate, and it was this which would give me the key to this remarkable adventure. I put it on and continued on my way home. When I was at a distance of about a hundred paces from it, someone brushed very closely by me and whispered in the language of the Franks: "Take care, Count; nothing can be done tonight." Before I had time to turn round, this somebody had passed, and I merely saw a shadow hovering along the houses. I perceived that these words did not concern me, but rather the cloak; yet it gave me no explanation concerning the affair.

On the following morning I considered what was to be done. At first I had intended to have the cloak cried in the streets, as if I had found it But then the stranger might send for it by a third person, and thus no light would be thrown upon the matter. Whilst I was thus thinking, I examined the cloak more closely. It was made of thick Genoese velvet scarlet in color, edged with astrakhan fur and richly embroidered with gold. The magnificent appearance of the fur put a thought in my mind which I resolved to carry out.

I carried it into my shop and exposed it for sale, but placed such a high price upon it that I was sure nobody would buy it My object in this was to scrutinize everybody sharply who asked for the fur cloak; for the figure of the stranger, which I had seen but superficially, though with some certainty, after the loss of the cloak, I should recognize amongst a thousand.

There were many would-be purchasers for the cloak, the extraorordinary beauty of which attracted everybody; but none resembled the stranger in the slightest degree, and nobody was willing to pay such a high price as two hundred sequins for it. What astonished me was that when I asked if there was not such a cloak in Florence, everybody answered, "No," and all assured me that they never had seen so precious and tasteful a pieee of work.

EVENING was drawing near, when at last a young man appeared, who had already been to my plaee, and had already offered me a great deal for the cloak. He threw a purse with sequins upon the table, and exclaimed: "Of a truth, Zaleukos, I must have your cloak, even if I should turn into a beggar over it!" He immediately began to count out his pieces of gold. I was in a dangerous position: I had exposed the cloak only to attract the attention of my stranger, and now a young fool came to pay an immense price for it. However, what could I do? X yielded; for on the other hand I was delighted at the idea of being so handsomely recompensed for my nocturnal adventure.

The young man put the cloak around him and went away, but on reaching the threshold he returned; unfastening a pieee of paper which had been tied to the cloak, and throwing it toward me, he exclaimed: "Here, Zaleukos, hangs something which I dare say does not belong to the cloak." I picked up the piece of paper carelessly, but behold, on it these words were written: "Bring the cloak at the appointed hour tonight to the Ponte Vecehio, and four hundred sequins are yours." I stood thunderstruck. Thus I had lost my fortune and completely missed my aim! Yet I did not think long X picked up the two hundred sequins, jumped after the one who had bought the cloak, and said: "Dear friend, take hack your sequins and give me the cloak; I can not possibly part with it." He first regarded the matter as a joke; but when he saw that I was in. earnest, he became angry at my demand, called me a fool, and finally it came to blows.

I was fortunate enough, to wrench the cloak away from him in the scuffle, and was about to run away with it, when the young man called the police to his assistance, and we both appeared before the judge. The latter was mueh surprized at the accusation, and adjudicated the cloak in favor of my adversary. I offered the young man twenty, fifty, eighty, even a hundred sequins in addition to his two hundred, if he would part with the cloak. What my entreaties eould not do, my gold did. He accepted it. I went away with the cloak triumphantly, and had to appear to the whole city of Florenee as a madman. I did not care, however, about the opinion of the people, for I knew that I had profited after all by the bargain.

Impatiently I awaited the night. At the same hour as before I went with the cloak under my arm toward the Ponte Vecchio. With the last stroke of 12 the figure appeared out of the darkness and came toward me. It was unmistakably the man whom I had seen the day berore.

"Have yon the cloak?" he asked me. "Yes, sir," I replied; "but it cost me a hundred sequins ready money—"

"I know it," replied the other. "Look: here are four hundred." He went with me toward the wide balustrade of the bridge, and counted out the money. There were four hundred; they sparkled magnificently in the moonlight; their glitter rejoiced my heart. Alas! I did not anticipate that this would be its last joy. I put the money in my pocket, and was desirous of looking thoroughly at my kind and unknown benefactor; but he wore a mask, through which dark eyes stared at me frightfully. "I thank you, sir, for your kindness," I said to him; ''what else do you require of me? I tell you beforehand it must be an honorable transaction."

"There is no occasion for alarm," he replied, whilst winding the cloak around his shoulders; "I require your assistance as surgeon, not for one alive, but dead."

"What do you mean?" I exclaimed, full of astonishment.

"I arrived with my sister from abroad," he said, and beckoned me at the same time to follow him. "I lived here with her at the house of a friend. My sister died yesterday suddenly of a disease, and my relatives wish to bury her tomorrow. According to an old custom of our family, all are to be buried in the tomb of our ancestors; many, notwithstanding, who died in foreign countries are buried there and embalmed. I do not begrudge my relatives her body, but for my father I want at least the head of his daughter, in order that he may see her once more."

This custom of severing the heads of beloved relatives appeared to me somewhat dreadful, yet I did not dare object to it lest I should offend the stranger. I told him that I was acquainted with the embalming of the dead, and begged him to conduct me to the deceased. Vet I could not help asking why all this must be done mysteriously and at night. He answered me that his relatives, who considered his intention horrible, objected to it by daylight; if the head were severed, then they could say no more about it; although he might have brought me the head to embalm, yet a natural feeling had prevented him from severing it himself.

In the meantime we had reached a large, splendid house. My companion pointed it out to me as the end of our nocturnal walk. We passed the principal entrance of the house, entered a little door, which the stranger carefully locked behind him, and now ascended in the dark a narrow spiral staircase. It led toward a dimly lighted passage, out of which we entered a room lighted by a lamp fastened to the ceiling.

In this room was a bed, on which the corpse lay. The stranger turned aside his face, evidently endeavoring to hide his tears. He pointed toward the bed, telling me to do my business well and quickly, and left the room.

I took my instruments, which as surgeon I always carried about with me, and approached the bed. Only the head of the corpse was visible, and it was so beautiful that I experienced involuntarily the deepest sympathy. Dark hair hung down in long plaits, the features were pale, the eyes closed. I took my sharpest knife, and with one stroke cut the throat. But oh horror! the dead opened her eyes, but immediately closed them again, and with a deep sigh she now seemed to breathe her last. At the same moment a stream of hot blood shot toward me from the wound. I was convinced that the poor creature had been killed by me. I had no doubt that she was dead, for there was no recovery from this wound. I stood for several minutes in painful anguish at what had happened. Had the man of the red cloak deceived me, or had his sister merely been apparently dead ? The latter seemed to me more likely. But I dared not tell the brother of the deceased that perhaps a less deliberate eut might have awakened her without killing her; therefore I wished to sever the head completely; but once more the dying woman groaned, stretched herself out in painful movements, and died.

Fright overpowered me, and, shuddering, I hastened out of the room. But outside in the passage it was dark, for the light was out. I felt my way haphazard along the wall in the dark and descended the stairway. I found the door ajar, and breathed more freely on reaching the street. Urged on by terror, I rushed toward my dwelling place, and buried myself in the cushions of my bed, trying to forget the terrible thing I had done.

But sleep deserted me, and only the morning admonished me again to take courage. It seemed to me probable that the man who had induced me to commit this nefarious deed might not denounce me. I immediately resolved to set to work in my vaulted room, and if possible to assume an indifferent look. But alas! an additional circumstance increased my anxiety still more. My cap and my girdle, as well as my instruments, were wanting, and I was uncertain whether I had left them in the room of the murdered girl or whether I had lost them in my flight. The former seemed indeed the more likely, and thus I could easily be discovered as the murderer.

At the accustomed hour I opened my vaulted room. My neighbor came in, as was his wont every morning, for he was a talkative man.

"Well," he said, "what do you say about the terrible affair which occurred during the night ? " I pretended not to know anything. "What, do you not know what is known all over the town? Are you not aware that the loveliest flower in Florence, Bianca, the governor's daughter, was murdered last night? I saw her only yesterday driving through the streets in so cheerful a manner with her intended one, for today the marriage was to have taken place." I felt each word of my neighbor like a sword-thrust. Many a time my torment was renewed, for every one of my customers told me of the affair, each one more ghastly than the one before, and yet nobody could relate anything more terrible than that which I had seen

About midday a police officer entered my shop. "Signor Zaleukos," he said, producing the things which I had missed, "do these things belong to you?" I determined not to aggravate the affair by telling a lie, and acknowledged myself as the owner of the things. The police officer asked me to follow him, and led me toward a large building which I soon recognized as the prison. There he showed me into a room.

My situation was terrible, as I thought of it in solitude. The frightful idea of having committed a murder, unintentionally, constantly presented itself to my mind. I also could not conceal from myself that the glitter of the gold had captivated my feelings, otherwise I should not have fallen blindly into the trap.

Two hours after my arrest I was led out of my cell. I descended several steps until at last I reached a great hall. Around a long table draped in black were seated twelve men, mostly old men. There were benches along the sides of the hall, filled with the most distinguished personages of Florence. The galleries, which were above, were thickly crowded with spectators. When I had stepped toward the table covered with black cloth, a man with a gloomy and sad countenance arose; it was the governor. He told the assembly that he, as the father of the murdered girl, could not sentence, and that he resigned his place on this occasion to the eldest of the senators. The eldest of the senators was at least ninety years old. He stood in a bent attitude, and his temples were covered with thin white hair, but his eyes were as yet very fiery, and his voice powerful and weighty. He com-menced by asking me whether I confessed to the mUrder. I requested him to allow me to speak, and related undauntedly and with a clear voice what I had done.

I noticed that the governor, during my recital, at one time turned pale, and at another time red. When I had finished, he rose angrily. "What, wretch!" he exclaimed ; "do you even dare to impute to another person the crime which you have committed from greediness?" The senator reprimanded him for his interruption, since he had voluntarily renounced his right; besides, it was not clear that I did the deed from greediness, for, according to his own statement, nothing had been stolen from the victim. He even went farther. He told the governor that he must give an account of the early life of his daughter, for then only would it be possible to decide whether I had spoken the truth or not. At the same time he adjourned the court for the day, in order, as he said, to consult the papers of the deceased, which the governor would give him.

I was taken back to my prison, where I spent a wretched day, always fervently wishing that a link might be discovered between the deceased and the man of the red cloak. Pull of hope, I entered the Court of Justice the next day. Several letters were lying on the table. The old senator asked me whether they were in my handwriting. I looked at them and noticed that they must have been written by the same hand as the other two papers which I had received. I communicated this to the senators, but no attention was paid to my statement, and they told me that I might have written both, for the signature of the letters was undoubtedly a Z, the first letter of my name. The letters contained threats against the deceased, and warnings against the marriage she was about to contract.

The governor seemed to have given extraordinary information concerning me, for I was treated with more suspicion and rigor on this day. To justify myself, I referred to my papers, which must be in my room, but was told they had been looked for without success. Thus at the conclusion of this sitting all hope vanished, and on my being brought into court the third day, judgment was pronounced on me. I was convicted of wilful murder, and condemned to the evening of this terrible day which had decided my fate, I was sitting in my lonely cell; my hopes were gone, my thoughts stedfastly fixed upon death, when the door of my prison opened, and in came a man, who for a long time looked at me silently. "Is it thus I find you again, Zaleukos?" he said. I had not recognized him by the dim light of my lamp, but the sound of his voice roused in me old remembrances. It was Valetti, one of those few friends whose acquaintance I had made in Paris when I was studying there. He said he had accidentally come to Florence, where his father, who was a distinguished man, lived. He had heard about my affair, and had come to hear from my own lips how I could have committed such a crime.

I related to him the whole affair. He seemed much surprized at it, and adjured me, as my only friend, to tell him all, so that I should not leave the world with a lie behind me. I confirmed my assertions with an oath that I spoke the truth, and that I was not guilty of anything, except that the glitter of the gold had dazzled me and that I had not perceived the improbability of the stranger's story. "Did you know Bianca?" Valetti asked me. I assured him that I had never seen her. Valetti now related to me that a profound mystery rested on the affair, that the governor had very much accelerated my condemnation, and now a report was spread that I had known Bianca for a long time and had murdered her out of revenge for her marriage with someone else. I told him that all this coincided exactly with the man of the red cloak, but that I was unable to prove his participation in the affair. Valetti embraced me weeping, and promised me to do all he could to save my life.

I had little hope, though I knew that Valetti was a clever man, well versed in the law, and that he would do all in his power to save my life. For two long days I was in uncertainty; at last Valetti appeared.

"I bring consolation, though painful," he said. "You will live and be free with the loss of one hand."

Affected, I thanked my friend for saving my life. He told me that the governor had been inexorable in regard to having the affair investigated a second time, but that he had at last agreed, in order not to seem unjust, that if a similar case could be found in the law books of the history of Florence, my punishment should be the same as the one recorded in these books. Valetti and his father had searched in the old books day and night, and at last found a case quite similar to mine. The sentence was: that his left hand be cut off, his property confiscated, and he himself banished forever. This was my punishment also, and he asked me to prepare for the painful hour which awaited me. I will not describe to you that terrible hour, when I laid my hand upon the block in the public market place and my own blood shot over me in broad streams.

VALETTI took me to his house until I had recovered; he then most generously supplied me with money for traveling, for all I had acquired with so much difficulty had fallen a prey to the law. I left Florence for Sicily and embarked on the first ship that I found for Constantinople: My hope was fixed upon the sum whioh I had entrusted to my friend. I also requested to be allowed to live with him. But great was my astonishment when he asked me why I did not wish to live in my own house. He told me that some unknown man had bought a house in the Greek quarter in my name, and this very man had also told the neighbors of my early arrival. I immediately proceeded thither, accompanied by my friend, and was received by all my old acquaintances joyfully.

An old merchant gave me a letter, which the man who bought the house for me had left behind. I read as follows: "Zaleukos! Two hands are prepared to work incessantly, in order that you may not feel the loss of one of yours. The house which you see and all its contents are yours, and every year you will receive enough to be counted amongst the rich of your people. Forgive him who is unhappier than yourself!"

I could guess who had written the letter, and in answer to my question the merchant told me it had been a man whom he took for a Frank, and who had worn a scarlet cloak. I knew enough to understand that the stranger was, after all, not entirely devoid of noble intentions. In my new house I found everything arranged in the best style, also a vaulted room stored with goods, more splendid than I had ever had.

Ten years have passed since. I still continue my commercial travels, more from old custom than necessity, yet I have never again seen that country where I became so unfortunate. Every year since, I have received a thousand gold-pieces; and although I rejoice to know that unfortunate man to be so noble, yet he cannot relieve me of the sorrow of my soul, for the terrible picture of the murdered Bianca is continually on my mind.

__________

17: The Accident

Harold Mercer

1882-1952

The Bulletin, 14 Dec 1922

PARKINSON was passionately devoted to his wife, who fully returned his affection, and this night he made for home with gladness in his step, because of the bracelet which a special bit of luck had enabled him to purchase. It was a trinket she had wistfully admired in a jeweller's window only a week before, and Parkinson, as he walked, was lost to his surroundings in anticipation of the surprise it was going to mean to her.

He woke from his abstraction sharply at a sudden tumult of shouts as he was crossing Pitt-street. A tram was charging down on him, and he had hastened to avoid it before he noticed two motor-cars speeding abreast on the other side. To stand still meant annihilation by the tram, to check himself and spring backward was likewise impossible, and it seemed equally impossible to avoid the oncoming cars. All this flashed upon him in one nightmare moment; then he leapt forward, taking what appeared to be the least appalling risk.

Trembling and shaken, he realised with amazement that he had escaped. Dizzily he watched the rush of people from all directions into the middle of the street, and it dawned upon him that there had been an accident— probably caused by the efforts of the car-drivers to avoid running him down. Yet he felt too sick to investigate, and moved away. A curious nausea assailed him as he thought that he, himself, might be lying there in the street, the life crushed out of him; and the wife he loved might wait wonderingly for his return until the gruesome news was brought to her. He visioned himself as actually dead, and found himself wondering whether consciousness would cease abruptly, or whether the impulses of thought would move onward in dream-action as real to the dreamer as actuality. What was actuality, anyway?

It seemed to him that his thoughts had reached the brink of an abyss filled with black mists of confusion; and from the dizziness of further thinking he checked himself with an effort. Yet the same thoughts returned often in subsequent days, always bringing with them a vague bewilderment.

"That narrow shave has upset me," he would mutter. "I must try to put it out of my mind."

But his escape had made another difference, which he noted sometimes with amazement. He put it down to the shock of thinking of his wife as a grief stricken widow, and the effect it had had on his mind. He had been, before, a fond, well-intentioned husband, whose intentions went astray very often; but now all the old carelessness had gone. He had no longer a weakness for lingering with friends, but always hurried home after the daily routine of his work. And his business went with a curious smoothness. Matters he had planned in an abstract fashion, happily ignoring the difficulties but hardly hoping for actual success, he now carried through triumphantly. The uncanny way the obstacles vanished had in it a nightmarish touch. Wealth came to him. Soon he was able to plan out that bungalow it had been his life's dream to buy his wife; and he actually did one evening drive home his own motor-car.

There was happiness, of course, in the realisation of these long-cherished dreams; but it was saddened by a strange feeling of separation from his wife. While he joyfully heaped luxuries upon her, and warmed to the momentary gladness each of his gifts brought her, he was aware that she was fretting, as though continuously her heart was yearning for something she had not. And. strangely, he found it difficult to speak to her about this phase, though a hundred times he tried to do it. Then she became ill, and with an ever-growing weakness and indifference, she lay in her bed and wept weakly. He would put his arms around her, and with loving solici-tude try to win back to normality her stricken spirit; but always she appeared to be oblivious of his presence. He became desperate as he watched her wasting away.

ONE AFTERNOON as she lay with his arm around her shoulder, in the last stage of her weakness, a strange change came over her. His glance had wandered through the window, out over the sunlit garden, and he had sensed a joyous note of Spring in the air— the hum of new-born life, the sweet scent of awakened beauty. Then, turning to her, he saw a swift ecstasy sweep away the worn sadness of her face. And as he looked into the eyes so suddenly starry, she flung her arms about him in a passionate embrace. Parkinson's senses reeled under the shock of delight, and he was but mistily conscious when she rose from the bed, her arms still linked around him....

The mists cleared and he found himself in a radiant countryside, his wife, aglow with happiness, beside him. He was still trying to adjust himself to the sudden transition when she said:

"It's glorious to have you again!"

"Have me again?" he echoed wonderingly.

"I have wished for nothing but death since that day you were killed in Pitt street," she said.

For one amazed instant Parkinson was at a loss; then he knew everything— and the music of an eternal Spring was lilting in his ears.

"POOR SOUL!" said the nurse, reverentially laying-out the body; "she died heart-broken— and for a man who must have been a waster. They say he was drunk on the day he was killed."

_________________

18: Farewell to Fame

Mark Hellinger

1903-1947

The Daily Telegraph (Sydney) 30 Nov 1947

THIS is the case history of a horrible ham. It could be stretched into a novel, or a movie. But we haven't time for that. So we'll just change the man's real name to Harry, clean the yarn up a bit, and serve it for what it's worth. Which probably isn't much.

Harry's career, it you wish to call it that, began some twenty-five years ago in a small Eastern town. A minor stock company made the mistake of playing there for a few weeks; and Harry busied himself round the theatre, doing odd jobs. When the company moved on, Harry made up his mind to move on with it.

A lack of funds didn't stymie him for long. He forged his aunt's name to a sizable cheque and blew town, feeling fairly certain that auntie wouldn't prosecute her dead sister's son. He was correct.

So Harry went on his way, spending the savings of a woman who had been kind to him, and living the life of a first-rate heel among second-rate actors. It wasn't long before he had an acting job with the company one night, when the juvenile lead was too drunk to show up, Harry stepped into his role, and did passably well. The juvenile was fired, and Harry was a hero. Very few people ever knew that Harry had supplied the original quart that started the juvenile on his drinking bout.

A couple of years of this stock work and Harry landed on Broadway. He didn't work too much nor too hard, but he managed to get by. Then he met an ambitious young lady who doubled between the chorus line and a night club., spot. And since she was making enough to support them both, he saw no harm in marrying her.

The marriage ended when Harry went to Hollywood. The talkies were just coming in, and any actor who could put two words together without stuttering was regarded as something of a genius. So Harry packed the clothes his wife had bought him, and told her to buy herself a divorce. He was quite generous about it, too. He assured her there were no hard feelings

Harry didn't do too badly in the movies. For a while he worked rather steadily. Personally, however, he was never very popular. He made too many passes at other guy's lasses. And he wasn't above reaching for a bit of blackmail when a husband wasn't too husky.

AFTER an absence of some fifteen years, Harry went back to his home town for a short visit. He was delighted to find himself a great celebrity, a giant fish in a usually placid lake. And at a dinner party one evening he met Dora Wilson, who was the wife of the richest man in town. In most respects Dora was a sane and sensible young woman. But the poor girl was movie-crazy. And when Harry bent over her hand and gave her routine number six with the soulful eyes, poor Dora was a finished female.

Later, when Harry was back on the Coast, Dora wrote him all the time. At first he paid little attention to her letters. But Harry was now getting much less work than ever before. And as the producers grew colder and Dora's letters grew warmer, Harry began to consider the lady seriously

HE was no longer satisfied in Hollywood. He decided it was time to retire— quite naturally, on someone else's money. And Dora's husband was the logical victim.

Harry phoned Dora and told her he loved her. Then he outlined a divorce plan for her, advising her how to involve both her husband and his innocent secretary. In that way, he pointed out, there was bound to be a substantial amount of alimony. Which they would, of course, one day give to charity.

Because she was genuinely in love, Dora followed his instructions. She obtained her divorce and plenty of money. And Harry made certain he could get his hands on it whenever he wanted it. So he came back to the small town, and he and Dora were married. He enjoyed the stares of the natives, and he liked being sought after.

When anyone mentioned the career he had given up, he smiled ironically.

'Hollywood!' he would say in disgust. 'Don't mention it to me. I'm so glad to be away from there!'

ONE NIGHT, after they had been married a year or so, Dora asked Harry point blank just what it was that he had against Hollywood. 'I know you love me, dear,' she said, 'but that alone wouldn't make you give up your acting career. 'Just why was it that you left the movies? Surely you can tell me now.'

Harry shrugged.

'I'll be happy to tell you,' he replied. 'I was no longer satisfied in Hollywood. I felt my talent was going to waste. They're a hunch of stupid oafs out there, my dear, and they insisted on casting me in the same type of role in every picture.

'So, eventually, I quit.' He waved a hand. 'I just couldn't go on the rest of my life,' he sighed, 'playing the part of a heel.'

________________

19: The Unrest-Cure

'Saki'

H. H. Munro, 1870-1916

The Westminster Gazette, 1 April 1910,

Collected in: The Chronicles of Clovis, 1911

ON THE RACK in the railway carriage immediately opposite Clovis was a solidly wrought travelling bag, with a carefully written label, on which was inscribed, 'J. P. Huddle, The Warren, Tilfield, near Slowborough.' Immediately below the rack sat the human embodiment of the label, a solid, sedate individual, sedately dressed, sedately conversational. Even without his conversation (which was addressed to a friend seated by his side, and touched chiefly on such topics as the backwardness of Roman hyacinths and the prevalence of measles at the Rectory), one could have gauged fairly accurately the temperament and mental outlook of the travelling bag's owner. But he seemed unwilling to leave anything to the imagination of a casual observer, and his talk grew presently personal and introspective.

'I don't know how it is,' he told his friend, 'I'm not much over forty, but I seem to have settled down into a deep groove of elderly middle-age. My sister shows the same tendency. We like everything to be exactly in its accustomed place; we like things to happen exactly at their appointed times; we like everything to be usual, orderly, punctual, methodical, to a hair's breadth, to a minute. It distresses and upsets us if it is not so. For instance, to take a very trifling matter, a thrush has built its nest year after year in the catkin-tree on the lawn; this year, for no obvious reason, it is building in the ivy on the garden wall. We have said very little about it, but I think we both feel that the change is unnecessary, and just a little irritating.'

'Perhaps,' said the friend, 'it is a different thrush.'

'We have suspected that,' said J. P. Huddle, 'and I think it gives us even more cause for annoyance. We don't feel that we want a change of thrush at our time of life; and yet, as I have said, we have scarcely reached an age when these things should make themselves seriously felt.'

'What you want,' said the friend, 'is an Unrest-cure.'

'An Unrest-cure? I've never heard of such a thing.'

'You've heard of Rest-cures for people who've broken down under stress of too much worry and strenuous living; well, you're suffering from overmuch repose and placidity, and you need the opposite kind of treatment.'

'But where would one go for such a thing?'

'Well, you might stand as an Orange candidate for Kilkenny, or do a course of district visiting in one of the Apache quarters of Paris, or give lectures in Berlin to prove that most of Wagner's music was written by Gambetta; and there's always the interior of Morocco to travel in. But, to be really effective, the Unrest-cure ought to be tried in the home. How you would do it I haven't the faintest idea.'

It was at this point in the conversation that Clovis became galvanized into alert attention. After all, his two days' visit to an elderly relative at Slowborough did not promise much excitement. Before the train had stopped he had decorated his sinister shirt-cuff with the inscription, 'J. P. Huddle, The Warren, Tilfield, near Slowborough.'

Two mornings later Mr Huddle broke in on his sister's privacy as she sat reading Country Life in the morning room. It was her day and hour and place for reading Country Life, and the intrusion was absolutely irregular; but he bore in his hand a telegram, and in that household telegrams were recognized as happening by the hand of God. This particular telegram partook of the nature of a thunderbolt. 'Bishop examining confirmation class in neighbourhood unable stay rectory on account measles invokes your hospitality sending secretary arrange.'

'I scarcely know the Bishop; I've only spoken to him once,' exclaimed J. P. Huddle, with the exculpating air of one who realizes too late the indiscretion of speaking to strange Bishops. Miss Huddle was the first to rally; she disliked thunderbolts as fervently as her brother did, but the womanly instinct in her told her that thunderbolts must be fed.

'We can curry the cold duck,' she said. It was not the appointed day for curry, but the little orange envelope involved a certain departure from rule and custom. Her brother said nothing, but his eyes thanked her for being brave.

'A young gentleman to see you,' announced the parlour-maid.

'The secretary!' murmured the Huddles in unison; they instantly stiffened into a demeanour which proclaimed that, though they held all strangers to be guilty, they were willing to hear anything they might have to say in their defence. The young gentleman, who came into the room with a certain elegant haughtiness, was not at all Huddle's idea of a bishop's secretary; he had not supposed that the episcopal establishment could have afforded such an expensively upholstered article when there were so many other claims on its resources. The face was fleetingly familiar; if he had bestowed more attention on the fellow-traveller sitting opposite him in the railway carriage two days before he might have recognized Clovis in his present visitor.

'You are the Bishop's secretary?' asked Huddle, becoming consciously deferential.

'His confidential secretary,' answered Clovis. 'You may call me Stanislaus; my other name doesn't matter. The Bishop and Colonel Alberti may be here to lunch. I shall be here in any case.'

It sounded rather like the programme of a Royal visit.

'The Bishop is examining a confirmation class in the neighbourhood, isn't he?' asked Miss Huddle.

'Ostensibly,' was the dark reply, followed by a request for a large-scale map of the locality.

Clovis was still immersed in a seemingly profound study of the map when another telegram arrived. It was addressed to 'Prince Stanislaus, care of Huddle, The Warren, etc.' Clovis glanced at the contents and announced: 'The Bishop and Alberti won't be here till late in the afternoon.' Then he returned to his scrutiny of the map.

The luncheon was not a very festive function. The princely secretary ate and drank with fair appetite, but severely discouraged conversation. At the finish of the meal he broke suddenly into a radiant smile, thanked his hostess for a charming repast, and kissed her hand with deferential rapture. Miss Huddle was unable to decide in her mind whether the action savoured of Louis Quatorzian courtliness or the reprehensible Roman attitude towards the Sabine women. It was not her day for having a headache, but she felt that the circumstances excused her, and retired to her room to have as much headache as was possible before the Bishop's arrival. Clovis, having asked the way to the nearest telegraph office, disappeared presently down the carriage drive. Mr Huddle met him in the hall some two hours later, and asked when the Bishop would arrive.

'He is in the library with Alberti,' was the reply.

'But why wasn't I told? I never knew he had come!' exclaimed Huddle.

'No one knows he is here,' said Clovis; 'the quieter we can keep matters the better. And on no account disturb him in the library. Those are his orders.'

'But what is all this mystery about? And who is Alberti? And isn't the Bishop going to have tea?'

'The Bishop is out for blood, not tea.'

'Blood!' gasped Huddle, who did not find that the thunderbolt improved on acquaintance.

'Tonight is going to be a great night in the history of Christendom,' said Clovis. 'We are going to massacre every Jew in the neighbourhood.'

'To massacre the Jews!' said Huddle indignantly. 'Do you mean to tell me there's a general rising against them?'

'No, it's the Bishop's own idea. He's in there arranging all the details now.'

'But— the Bishop is such a tolerant, humane man.'

'That is precisely what will heighten the effect of his action. The sensation will be enormous.'

That at least Huddle could believe.

'He will be hanged!' he exclaimed with conviction.

'A motor is waiting to carry him to the coast, where a steam yacht is in readiness.'

'But there aren't thirty Jews in the whole neighbourhood,' protested Huddle, whose brain, under the repeated shocks of the day, was operating with the uncertainty of a telegraph wire during earthquake disturbances.

'We have twenty-six on our list,' said Clovis, referring to a bundle of notes. 'We shall be able to deal with them all the more thoroughly.'

'Do you mean to tell me that you are meditating violence against a man like Sir Leon Birberry,' stammered Huddle; 'he's one of the most respected men in the country.'

'He's down on our list,' said Clovis carelessly; 'after all, we've got men we can trust to do our job, so we shan't have to rely on local assistance. And we've got some Boy-scouts helping us as auxiliaries.'

'Boy-scouts!'

'Yes; when they understood there was real killing to be done they were even keener than the men.'

'This thing will be a blot on the Twentieth Century!'

'And your house will be the blotting-pad. Have you realized that half the papers of Europe and the United States will publish pictures of it? By the way, I've sent some photographs of you and your sister, that I found in the library, to the Martin and Die Woche; I hope you don't mind. Also a sketch of the staircase; most of the killing will probably be done on the staircase.'

The emotions that were surging in J. P. Huddle's brain were almost too intense to be disclosed in speech, but he managed to gasp out: 'There aren't any Jews in this house.'

'Not at present,' said Clovis.

'I shall go to the police,' shouted Huddle with sudden energy.

'In the shrubbery,' said Clovis, 'are posted ten men, who have orders to fire on any one who leaves the house without my signal of permission. Another armed picquet is in ambush near the front gate. The Boy-scouts watch the back premises.'

At this moment the cheerful hoot of a motor-horn was heard from the drive. Huddle rushed to the hall door with the feeling of a man half-awakened from a nightmare, and beheld Sir Leon Birberry, who had driven himself over in his car. 'I got your telegram,' he said; 'what's up?'

Telegram? It seemed to be a day of telegrams.

'Come here at once. Urgent. James Huddle,' was the purport of the message displayed before Huddle's bewildered eyes.

'I see it all!' he exclaimed suddenly in a voice shaken with agitation, and with a look of agony in the direction of the shrubbery he hauled the astonished Birberry into the house. Tea had just been laid in the hall, but the now thoroughly panic-stricken Huddle dragged his protesting guest upstairs, and in a few minutes' time the entire household had been summoned to that region of momentary safety. Clovis alone graced the tea-table with his presence; the fanatics in the library were evidently too immersed in their monstrous machinations to dally with the solace of teacup and hot toast. Once the youth rose, in answer to the summons of the front-door bell, and admitted Mr Paul Isaacs, shoemaker and parish councillor, who had also received a pressing invitation to The Warren. With an atrocious assumption of courtesy, which a Borgia could hardly have outdone, the secretary escorted this new captive of his net to the head of the stairway, where his involuntary host awaited him.

And then ensued a long ghastly vigil of watching and waiting. Once or twice Clovis left the house to stroll across to the shrubbery, returning always to the library, for the purpose evidently of making a brief report. Once he took in the letters from the evening postman, and brought them to the top of the stairs with punctilious politeness. After his next absence he came half-way up the stairs to make an announcement.

'The Boy-scouts mistook my signal, and have killed the postman. I've had very little practice in this sort of thing, you see. Another time I shall do better.'

The housemaid, who was engaged to be married to the evening postman, gave way to clamorous grief.

'Remember that your mistress has a headache,' said J. P. Huddle. (Miss Huddle's headache was worse.)

Clovis hastened downstairs, and after a short visit to the library returned with another message:

'The Bishop is sorry to hear that Miss Huddle has a headache. He is issuing orders that as far as possible no firearms shall be used near the house; any killing that is necessary on the premises will be done with cold steel. The Bishop does not see why a man should not be a gentleman as well as a Christian.'

THAT was the last they saw of Clovis; it was nearly seven o'clock, and his elderly relative liked him to dress for dinner. But, though he had left them for ever, the lurking suggestion of his presence haunted the lower regions of the house during the long hours of the wakeful night, and every creak of the stairway, every rustle of wind through the shrubbery, was fraught with horrible meaning. At about seven next morning the gardener's boy and the early postman finally convinced the watchers that the Twentieth Century was still unblotted.

'I don't suppose,' mused Clovis, as an early train bore him townwards, 'that they will be in the least grateful for the Unrest-cure.'

___________

20: A Tragic Honeymoon

George R. Sims

1847—1922

Collected in: My Two Wives, 1894

MY CHAMBER-MAID at the —— Hotel, Scarborough, was a nice, motherly, middle-aged woman. I like motherly, middle-aged women for chamber-maids. They know their business better, and they answer the bell quicker than young, flighty chamber-maids. And they are not so fond of reading the letters you leave about you, and prying into your private affairs.

The bump of curiosity is strongly developed in some women, and you find striking examples of the length to which female curiosity will go in hotels, lodging-houses, and places where they let apartments.

I stayed for a fortnight once in private apartments in Broadstairs, and when I left I recommended them to a friend of mine. He took them later on in the season without saying that they had been recommended to him by anyone. The landlady was a gossip— the kind of landlady that comes in herself to clear away the tea-things, and stands at the door for half an hour with the tray in her hand, while she tells you her trials and troubles, and throws in an anecdote or two concerning her former lodger.

I suffered considerably from this kind of landlady in my early days when hotels were beyond my means, and when I had to be content with two rooms in an unfashionable quarter.

It is only fair to say that in after-life I turned my sufferings to good account, and used up a lot of material that had been supplied by lodging-housekeepers.

My friend who took my old apartments at Broadstairs was full of his adventures when he met me again. He assured me that he had learnt more about me in one week than he had learnt in all the ten years he had known me. His informant was the landlady.

She had furnished him with a full, true and particular account of a lodger she had had earlier in the season— a lodger who was always writing and walking up and down the room, and muttering to himself, and she had grave misgivings that he had a crime on his conscience, because one day she picked up a sheet of paper he had left on the table, and it was all about a robbery or something. She fancied her lodger had begun to write a confession of what he had done, and then thought better of it, for she put the paper back, and the next day she found it all torn and 'scrobbled up' in the waste-paper basket. With an utter lack of consideration the landlady gave my real name, and furthermore furnished my friend with choice extracts from some of my private letters, and wound up by saying: 'I wonder what he could have been, sir; I'm sure there was something wrong about him.'

I have a friend, a celebrated novelist, whose housemaid for years read every letter that he left on his table, and a good many that he put away in the pigeon-holes of his desk, and when, in consequence of having stayed out till one o'clock in the morning on a bank holiday, she received notice, her temper got the better of her discretion, and she gave her astonished master a 'bit of her mind', and referred to various matters which she could only have become acquainted with by a very close study of his correspondence.

Hotel servants are not so inquisitive as private servants and lodging-house servants. They have not the same opportunity for minutely investigating; but even in hotels there are chamber-maids who want to know all about the guests, and who chatter among themselves concerning No. 157, No. 63, or No. 215, and speculate as to his profession, his financial position, and his moral qualities. Chamber-maids in large hotels have some curious experiences, and, as the records of the law courts plainly show, they are close observers, and are able months, sometimes years, afterwards to identify parties, and to favour the court with detailed statements worthy of a detective or a paid spy.

Let me hasten to remove the impression that I wish to be 'down' on chamber-maids. As a whole I look upon them as very worthy and decidedly useful members of the community. But I still prefer, when I am staying for any length of time at a hotel, to have a chamber-maid who has passed her first youth and settled down to a staid and matronly sort of person.

Such a chamber-maid was Agnes, who, a few years ago, when for some five days I had to keep my room at the —— Hotel, Scarborough, showed me the greatest kindness and consideration, gave me my medicine, and, like a good, kind-hearted woman, endeavoured to cheer me up and amuse me whenever she came in to tidy up the room, or to see how I was getting on, or to inquire if I wanted anything.

It was one morning while she was dusting my room that she told me the story which I am about to relate. I had been (not entirely without a view to copy) asking her questions as to her experiences as a chamber-maid, and after telling me one or two incidents in her professional career, she informed me that the most curious experience she had ever had in her life was while she was a chamber-maid at one of the big London hotels much frequented by people on their way to the Continent.

'I've seen people arrested there,' said Agnes, 'nice quiet people, that you would never have suspected of anything wrong; and I've seen runaway couples stopped just as they were coming downstairs to go off by the Continental mail. There's always something or other happening in a big hotel, but of all the extraordinary affairs that ever came under my notice the most terrible was one that happened about a year before I left. I was the head-chamber-maid on the third floor then, and had, of course, to look generally after all the rooms, and see that everything was right. One day we received a letter from the country, ordering a suite of rooms to be reserved for a newly-married couple on a certain date.

'The bride and bridegroom were coming up to London on their way to spend their honeymoon abroad, and they would break the journey at our hotel, going on by the Continental train the next day.

'The housekeeper came up to me with the letter, and gave me instructions to get a suite on my floor ready, and to see that everything was in proper order. The bridegroom had been a constant visitor at the hotel in his bachelor days, and the manager was anxious that everything should be made as comfortable for him and the young lady as possible.

'As soon as I had received my orders I began to execute them, and I had the rooms thoroughly turned out, and everything dusted and rearranged. I put clean curtains at the windows, and womanlike, always feeling interested in bridals and honeymoons, I took extra pains to make the rooms look cheerful and pretty, and I think I succeeded.

'The following evening, about an hour before the young couple were to arrive, I went in and gave a last look round to see that everything was right, and just went over the mantelpiece myself with a duster and gave the furniture a flick here and there where the dust— that no power on earth can keep out of a London room— had settled down again.

'Satisfied that everything was in perfect order, I closed the door and went to give some instructions to one of the girls about lighting a fire in a room at the end of the corridor, which was always a fearful nuisance to us when a fire was wanted in it. But so sure as we were full up, and that room had to be given to a visitor, the visitor would want a fire lit in it. It seemed just as if it was to be. It became a joke all over the hotel at last.

'Whenever a message came up that No. 63 was let, we always used to say, "Of course there's a fire wanted," and, upon my word, it really always was so.

'The girl whose business it was to light the fire passed me in the corridor.

' "Oh," I said to her, "I was coming to see you about No. 63. Be sure to have the window open and the door open when you light the fire.'

' "I've got 'em open," she said, "but the wind's the wrong way or something, and the fire won't light at all."

' "Oh, nonsense!" I said; "I'll come and see to it."

'We went back together and into the room. The gentleman who'd taken it was already there. He was standing with his hands in his pockets looking at the fireplace, and he seemed the picture of misery.

' "Poor young fellow!" I said to myself "he looks ill and unhappy, and wants cheering up. This is not the sort of room to make him feel at home, any way."

' "If you could do without a fire, sir," I said, "it would be better. We always have a trouble with this fireplace. I am sorry to say it smokes."

' "I must have a fire," said the young gentleman. "If I can't have one here, give me another room."

' "I'm afraid we're full up, sir," I said; "but I'll go and see what can be done if you don't mind waiting a little."

'I really was sorry for the poor young gentleman, he looked so utterly wretched, and I couldn't bear to think of him, ill as he evidently was, shut up in that dreadful No. 63. half suffocated all night. There's nothing I think makes one feel so miserable as a room full of smoke, especially when you're away from home and alone.

'Leaving the girl to struggle with the fire, I went downstairs to the housekeeper's room to see if there was a chance of putting the young gentleman anywhere else, if it was only for the night. As luck would have it, a telegram had just been received from a gentleman who was to have come from Scotland that night. He had missed his train, and wouldn't be in London till the following evening. The room reserved for him was on the fourth floor, immediately over the sitting-room on the third floor which we were keeping for the newly-married pair.

'Having obtained permission, I went back to the young gentleman in No. 63, and told him that if he did not mind we would give him a room on the fourth floor, No. 217, where he could have a fire and be comfortable. I explained to him, however, that he would have to be moved on the following day if he intended staying on.

' "Thank you very much," he said; "that will do very well. I shall not want the room after tomorrow."

'I called one of the porters and told him to take the gentleman's portmanteau up to 217, and then I went to the chamber-maid for the fourth floor, and asked her to get a fire lighted at once.

'When I came downstairs the newly-married couple had just arrived, and were being shown to their rooms.

'I took in the warm water myself and had an opportunity of seeing the young lady. She was very pretty, I thought, and she looked quite a picture in her lovely travelling dress.

'The bridegroom was a tall, handsome gentleman, but much older than the young lady. I'd seen him several times at the hotel, and so, of course, I knew him. I should say he was about forty-five, and she couldn't have been more than nineteen. It was about seven o'clock when they came, and they ordered dinner for eight o'clock. Of course it was known among all the servants on the floor that they were a newly-married couple. It would have been even if we hadn't been told beforehand.

'You can trust hotel servants for knowing a honeymoon when they see one. Plenty of brides and bridegrooms like to pretend that they've been married ever so long, especially at the very first, but they never deceive us. I remember a private sitting-room waiter telling me a story of a newly-married couple once, who, when he went into the sitting-room at breakfast time, began to talk to each other in a way to make him believe they'd been married for years. But when the young lady was pouring out the tea, and said to her husband, "How many lumps of sugar do you take, dear?" he had all his work to prevent himself from grinning. He did smile, and the poor young things went quite scarlet both of them, and he went out of the room and had a good laugh all to himself in the service-room, and, of course, told it to everybody as a good joke. Men have no sympathy with young married people; they're not like women-folk in these matters.

'Of course I had no opportunity of seeing the bride and bridegroom again for some time. But the sitting-room waiter told us they seemed nice people, and the young lady was full of spirits.

'I went downstairs to supper at ten o'clock, and was back on duty again soon after ten-thirty. I had one or two things to see to, and when I had finished I sat down to do a little needlework.

'It must have been nearly eleven o'clock, when a bell rang violently. The waiter for the floor had gone downstairs for his supper, so I went into the service-room and saw that it was the sitting-room bell of the bride and bridegroom. While I was looking at the indicator, the bell rang again, this time more violently still. I ran along the corridor to the room and knocked at the door.

' "Come in! come in!" cried a man's voice, and I went in, and there I saw the poor young bride in a chair and her husband bending over her.

' "Some water, quick!" he cried. "She's fainted."

'I ran into the bedroom and brought some water and a towel, and bathed her face.

' "Is anything the matter, sir?" I said.

' "Yes!" he exclaimed, "it's terrible. I wouldn't have had such a thing happen for the world. Look, don't you see?"

'He pointed to her hands, where they lay quite helpless in her lap.

'On one hand— the hand that wore the wedding-ring— was a big, bright drop of blood. It had fallen right on the wedding-ring, and stained her hand as well.

' "Oh dear!" I cried, feeling quite faint myself, "what is it?"

' "I don't know," he said; "I can't understand it. It's the most awful thing I ever knew in my life."

'He seemed quite terrified himself, and certainly it was a dreadful thing, especially to anybody who was at all superstitious or who believed in omens.

'I took the towel, and dipped it in the water and wiped the blood-stain from the poor young lady's hand. Presently she opened her eyes and looked about her.

' "Are you better, my darling?" her husband said, stooping over her, and touching her forehead with his lips.

' "Yes, I'm better, dear," she said; "but it was so dreadful! Oh, what does it mean? what does it mean?"

'She glanced down at her hand with a look of horror in her eyes, and when she saw that the blood had been removed she gave a deep sigh of relief.

'Seeing she was a little better, I got up off my knees— I had been kneeling beside her— and went back into the bedroom with the water.

'I was a little bit dazed myself, for I couldn't understand how that drop of bright red blood could have got on the poor dear's hand.

'I was just putting the tumbler down on the washstand, when I heard a shriek from the bride, followed by a cry from the bridegroom. I ran back into the sitting-room, and there I found them both standing with terrified faces.

'They couldn't speak, but the bridegroom pointed to his wife's hand.

'It was stained with blood again.

' "It has dropped upon her hand— this moment!" cried the gentleman. "I saw it, I saw it— with my own eyes!"

' "Dropped!" I exclaimed; "where— where from?"

'I saw the gentleman look up at the ceiling; my eyes followed his, and then I felt as if I should go through the floor. On the ceiling above was a dark moist patch, and slowly dripping from it were drops of blood.

' "I can't stop here," wailed the poor young bride. "Take me away, take me away!"

' "My dear young lady," I said, trying to soothe her, "don't be frightened; nothing can hurt you here."

'I don't know why I said it, but I felt I must say something.

'The gentleman's face was very pale, and I could see he was trembling. He was terribly upset, and who could wonder at it?

'I think he guessed that something awful had happened up above. I did, and it had come upon me all at once who was in that room. It was the young gentleman who had looked so ill and miserable, and who had wanted a fire in 63.

' "Take her in the next room, sir," I whispered. "She won't see it there, and I'll go and find out what it means."

' "No, no," she cried. "I can't— I won't stay here! Oh, it is too horrible, and on my wedding-day— on my wedding-day!"

'She wrung her hands, and then put them over her face.

'And there on her hand— the hand with the wedding-ring-was still that terrible blood-stain.

'I could not stand it any longer. I felt as if I should go off myself, so I made a desperate effort and got out of the room, and ran downstairs to the manager.

' "Something dreadful's happened, sir, and it's in No. 217. Please go at once. There's blood dripping through the ceiling of No. 13."

' "Good heavens!" exclaimed the manager. "What do you mean?"

'He was at supper when I told him, and he started up quite horrified.

' "Please come at once, sir. The poor young lady's seen it, and she's in a terrible way."

'The manager went up the stairs at once, and I followed him as fast as I could. On the first floor he met one of the porters, and he told him to come with us, and we all three went up on to the fourth floor, and the manager went straight to No. 217 and knocked at the door.

'There was no answer.

'The chamber-maid on the floor had come up, seeing something was the matter, and she gave the manager her master-key.

'He put it in the door and turned it, but the door did not open.

'It was bolted on the inside.

' "Go and get something at once," the manager said to the porter; we must break the door open."

'It seemed an hour while we waited outside that door for the man to fetch his tools.

' "You're sure it's blood?" the manager said to me.

' "Oh yes, sir; I could see it by the stain on the ceiling, and some of it had dropped on to the young lady's hand."

' "What an awful thing!" he exclaimed. "Who's in here— do you know?"

' "Yes, sir. It's a young gentleman who came this afternoon, and we put him into 63 first, and moved him up here because of the smoke. He would have a fire!"

' "I'm afraid it's a case of suicide."

' "It's something dreadful, sir, I'm sure, or the blood couldn't have soaked through like that."

'Presently the porter came back, but it was a long job and a hard job to get that door open, the bolt held so firmly; but at last it went with a terrific crash, and then we all stood outside and peered into the room.

'There was no light, but the fire was still burning brightly, and by the glow it cast over the room we saw something was lying on the floor.

'The chamber-maid brought a light, and the manager went in first and knelt down by the "something".

'He had sent for the doctor directly I'd told him about the blood, and at that moment the doctor came up with the sub-manager.

'The doctor went in and looked at the body while the light was held up for him.

' "He's dead," he said, and the words almost made my heart stand still, though I had expected them.

'The poor young fellow had gashed his throat in a frightful way, and was lying in a pool of blood on the floor.

'I was in the room while they examined the body, but I couldn't look at it. I turned my back and looked at the fireplace. There was a lot of burnt paper on the hearth, and some bits of torn-up letters and envelopes that hadn't fallen into the fire.

'The young fellow had been burning his letters and papers.

'I knew then why he was so particular about having a fire in his room.

'The doctor finished his examination, and then he got up and turned to the manager.

' "It's a case of suicide," he said. "Do you know anything about him?"

' "No; we've never seen him before; he only came this afternoon."

' "Well, you'd better not let anything be touched to-night. Nothing can be done for him. You'll send for the police at once?"

' "Of course."

' "Then, until they come you'd better lock up the room, and leave everything as it is. I'll come down and sit in your room and wait for the police if you like."

' "Yes," said the manager, "that will be best. I've been here ten years, and this is the first case of suicide we've had in the hotel."

'As soon as we were all outside, the manager pulled the door to, but it wouldn't lock. He had forgotten that it had been burst open.

' "I see," said the doctor, "you can't lock it up. You'd better put a man outside, then, to see that nobody goes in. He must remain there till the police come."

'So the porter was put on guard outside, and we all went along the corridor, looking very scared and frightened, as you can imagine, except the doctor, and of course doctors never look scared at anything— they take it all as a matter of business.

'I had been so horrified at seeing the young fellow lying there dead that everything else had gone out of my head; but when we got to the top of the stairs I remembered the young lady, and all at once I thought perhaps it would be only right if the doctor were to see her.

'I spoke to the manager, and he turned to the doctor at once.

' "Doctor," he said, "there are very painful circumstances connected with this unhappy business. It seems, at least so the chamber-maid tells me, that blood must have dropped through into the room below."

' "I don't wonder at that," said the doctor; "there's quite a pool on the floor."

' "Unfortunately, the room below is occupied by a newly-married couple, and the blood has fallen on the young lady. The chamber-maid tells me she is terribly upset. I think, perhaps, you had better see her."

' "Certainly I will, but I don't think, under the circumstances, it will be advisable to tell her the truth."

' "No, not if you can help it."

' "I'll see how she is, and try to reassure her, somehow. Where is she?"

' "I'll take you to her," I said. "The poor young lady fainted, and I left her almost beside herself; and no wonder, for the blood was on her hands."

' "Dear me!" said the doctor, his face looking quite grave; "and on her wedding-night, too. Poor thing! why, it's enough to turn her brain."

'I led the way to No. 13 and knocked at the door, and without waiting for an answer, opened it and said: "If you please, sir, here's our doctor, in case the young lady would like to see him."

'Then I pulled the door to again, for I had had enough of horrors, and went to sit in the service-room with two of the waiters.

'I wanted to be with somebody, for I felt too upset and nervous to be alone.

'The waiters were full of it, as anything of that sort soon goes all over a hotel, and they wanted to know all about it, but I said I couldn't talk of it, it had upset me too much; but I told them there was no doubt that the young fellow in No. 217 had killed himself, and that he was quite dead.

'The doctor was with the young lady quite half an hour. He passed me on his way downstairs, and I asked him how she was, and if there was anything I could do.

' "She's a little better now," he said, "but, of course, very much upset. I've persuaded her that it is only someone who has met with an accident and lost a quantity of blood, and although it was a very unpleasant experience, there is nothing for her to take to heart, or to be alarmed at; but I called the husband on one side and told him the truth, and he thinks it better they should go to another hotel."

' "Well, sir," I said, "under the circumstances it will be, perhaps. It would be a dreadful thing for her to know that at the very beginning of her married life there was a suicide's body lying above her."

' "Yes, that's a woman's way of looking at it, no doubt. You can go if you like and see if you can help them to pack and put their things together. I'm going to ask the manager to send out and get them rooms in another hotel, so that they have no bother."

'I could see that the doctor was really sorry for the poor bride and bridegroom, and who could help being, under the circumstances?

'I went in and helped to pack the things they had unpacked, and they were very grateful. I could see they were both awfully shocked and worried, and hardly knew what they were doing.

'Presently the manager came up and said he had got rooms for them at another hotel near, and we got all the luggage down and put it on a cab, and then they came down and drove away.

'It was past midnight when they went, and as I watched them going down the great staircase, the poor girl trembling and holding on to her husband's arm for support, and he as white as a ghost, I couldn't help thinking myself that it was about as unhappy a beginning to a honeymoon as their worst enemy, if they had one, could have wished for them.

'OF COURSE the police were very soon in the hotel, and had taken possession of the room where the suicide lay. I didn't hear anything more that night, for I was tired out and upset, and glad to go to bed when it came to my turn to go off duty; and the next morning when I got up I heard the body had been taken away in the night to the mortuary, and that an inquest was to be held on it.

'Of course I was called at the inquest to give my evidence, and it was then I heard all about the poor young gentleman.

'His friends had been found and communicated with, and it seems that the young gentleman had been disappointed in love, and had been very strange in his manner, and very desponding for some time, but nobody thought he meant to kill himself.

'His brother, who was one of the witnesses, stated that he had been in love with a young lady who had not returned his affection, and this young lady had recently married, and that seemed to have preyed upon his mind very much. "In fact," said the brother, "he killed himself on the very day that the marriage took place."

'A good deal of evidence was given by the doctor and others, and the jury brought in a verdict of temporary insanity.

'After the case was over I saw our manager go away with the brother, and they were talking together. Of course I went back to the hotel, but all day I couldn't help thinking things over, and I thought to myself how strange it was that he should have killed himself right over the room in which there was a young lady who had only been married that day.

'That evening when I went downstairs, the manager called me into his office and said he wanted to ask me a question or two.

' "When that poor fellow came to the hotel, did he ask any questions of you?" he said. "Did he mention any names, and ask if they were in the hotel or coming to the hotel?"

' "No, sir," I said; "he only asked for a fire."

' "It was your idea to put him in the room above— 217?"

' "Yes, sir. I did it because 63 smoked so badly."

' "Well, it's rather an odd coincidence, then. Do you know that he came to this hotel because the young lady he was in love with was coming to stay here with her husband. He had found out somehow they were coming here after the marriage."

' "Good gracious, sir!" I exclaimed, beginning to see what the manager meant, "you don't mean to say that the young lady in 13 was the one he wanted to marry?"

' "Yes, there is no doubt, from what the brother has told me, that it is so."

'And I had put him, quite by accident, in the room above the bride and bridegroom. Only one thin floor separated him from the girl he had broken his heart over, and on her bridal night, while he lay a corpse above her, his blood had dripped through and had fallen on her hands and stained her wedding-ring.

'He had doubtless timed his suicide. He had intended to take his life upon her wedding-day, and in the building in which she was to pass the first hours of her married life with the husband of her choice.

'But I am sure he did not know when he planned that terrible tragedy that she would be the first to see his life-blood flow-that her cry of horror would be the first thing to lead to the discovery of his terrible fate.

'It was chance that had brought that about— coincidence, as the manager called it— and I had been the innocent means of bringing it to pass.

'I don't know whether the poor bride ever learned the truth. I hope she didn't, for it isn't the sort of thing a woman would ever be able to forget. If she had known the truth that night when she felt a cold, wet splash, and looked at her wedding-ring— but there, it isn't a thing to think about, is it, sir?'

I said that I didn't think it was; but after Agnes had finished her story and left me to myself I thought a good deal about it, and it has remained upon the tablets of my memory until now.

In one thing I cordially agree with Agnes, that it was a strange experience for a chamber-maid. I doubt if many chamber-maids have had one stranger.

End

Table of Contents

- 1: Ferdinando Eboli / Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

- 2: The Midnight Guest / Heath Crichton

- 3: A Community of Two / Edward Dyson

- 4: The Contamination of Santa Claus / Silas Snell

- 5: The Art Critics/ Fred M. White

- 6: The Celestial Adventure of Sin Loo / Richard Stillman Powell

- 7: Imprisoned with the Pharaohs / Harry Houdini

- 8: That Nice Mr. Tait / Edward Dyson

- 9: The Apparition of Mrs. Veal / Daniel Defoe

- 10: The Winning Shot / Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

- 11: The Ghostly Vengeance/ A. Hyatt Verrill
- 12: Flush of Gold / Jack London
- 13: Not a Bad Deal / Anthony Hope
- 14: The Mine Layer / C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
- 15: Sand /
- 16: The Severed Hand / Wilhelm Hauff
- 17: The Accident / Harold Mercer
- 18: Farewell to Fame / Mark Hellinger
- 19: The Unrest-Cure / 'Saki'
- 20: A Tragic Honeymoon / George R. Sims