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The Ape, The Idiot and Other People
Fourth Edition



THE APE, THE IDIOT & OTHER PEOPLE



By

W. C. MORROW



PHILADELPHIA
J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
1910


Copyright, 1897
By
J. B. Lippincott Company



The stories in this volume are published with the kind permission of
the periodicals in which they originally appeared--_Lippincott's
Magazine_, Philadelphia, and the _Overland Monthly_, the _Argonaut_,
the _Examiner_, the _News Letter_, and the _Call_, all of San
Francisco.




CONTENTS


                                                 Page

The Resurrection of Little Wang Tai                 9

The Hero of the Plague                             24

His Unconquerable Enemy                            48

The Permanent Stiletto                             67

Over an Absinthe Bottle                            90

The Inmate of the Dungeon                         109

A Game of Honor                                   134

Treacherous Velasco                               147

An Uncommon View of It                            168

A Story Told by the Sea                           188

The Monster-Maker                                 213

An Original Revenge                               245

Two Singular Men                                  256

The Faithful Amulet                               275




The Resurrection of Little Wang Tai


A train of circus-wagons, strung along a dusty road, in the Santa Clara
Valley, crept slowly under the beating heat of a July sun. The dust
rolled in clouds over the gaudy wagons of the menagerie. The outer
doors of the cages had been opened to give access of air to the panting
animals, but with the air came the dust, and the dust annoyed Romulus
greatly. Never before had he longed for freedom so intensely. Ever
since he could remember he had been in a cage like this; it had been so
all through his childhood and youth. There was no trace in his memory
of days when he of a time had been free. Not the faintest recollection
existed of the time when he might have swung in the branches of
equatorial forests. To him life was a desolation and a despair, and the
poignancy of it all was sharpened by the clouds of dust which rolled
through the grated door.

Romulus, thereupon, sought means of escape. Nimble, deft,
sharp-sighted, he found a weak place in his prison, worked it open, and
leaped forth upon the highway a free anthropoid ape. None of the
sleepy, weary drivers noticed his escape, and a proper sense of caution
caused him to seek security under a way-side shrub until the procession
had safely passed. Then the whole world lay before him.

His freedom was large and sweet, but, for a while, perplexing. An
almost instinctive leap to catch the trapeze-bar that had hung in his
cage brought his hands in contact with only unresisting air. This
confused and somewhat frightened him. The world seemed much broader and
brighter since the black bars of his prison no longer striped his
vision. And then, to his amazement, in place of the dingy covering of
his cage appeared a vast and awful expanse of blue heaven, the
tremendous depth and distance of which terrified him.

The scampering of a ground-squirrel seeking its burrow soon caught his
notice, and he watched the little animal with great curiosity. Then he
ran to the burrow, and hurt his feet on the sharp wheat-stubble. This
made him more cautious. Not finding the squirrel, he looked about and
discovered two owls sitting on a little mound not far away. Their
solemn gaze fastened upon him inspired him with awe, but his curiosity
would not permit him to forego a closer view. He cautiously crept
towards them; then he stopped, sat down, and made grotesque faces at
them. This had no effect. He scratched his head and thought. Then he
made a feint as though he would pounce upon them, and they flew.
Romulus gazed at them with the greatest amazement, for never before had
he seen anything skim through the air. But the world was so wide and
freedom so large that surely everything free ought to fly; so Romulus
sprang into the air and made motions with his arms like to those the
owls had made with their wings; and the first grievous disappointment
which his freedom brought came when he found himself sprawling on the
field.

His alert mind sought other exercise. Some distance away stood a house,
and at the front gate was a man, and Romulus knew man to be the meanest
and most cruel of all living things and the conscienceless taskmaster
of weaker creatures. So Romulus avoided the house and struck out across
the fields. Presently he came upon a very large thing which awed him.
It was a live-oak, and the birds were singing in the foliage. But his
persistent curiosity put a curb upon his fears, and he crept closer and
closer. The kindly aspect of the tree, the sweetness of the shade which
it cast, the cool depths of its foliage, the gentle swaying of the
boughs in the soft north wind--all invited him to approach. This he
did, until he arrived at the gnarled old bole, and then he leaped into
the branches and was filled with delight. The little birds took flight.
Romulus sat upon a limb, and then stretched himself at full length upon
it and enjoyed the peace and comfort of the moment. But he was an ape
and had to be employed, and so he ran out upon the smaller branches and
shook them after the manner of his parents before him.

These delights all exploited, Romulus dropped to the ground and began
to explore the world again; but the world was wide and its loneliness
oppressed him. Presently he saw a dog and made quickly for him. The
dog, seeing the strange creature approach, sought to frighten it by
barking; but Romulus had seen similar animals before and had heard
similar sounds; he could not be frightened by them. He went boldly
towards the dog by long leaps on all fours. The dog, terrified by the
strange-looking creature, ran away yelping and left Romulus with
freedom and the world again.

On went Romulus over the fields, crossing a road now and then, and
keeping clear of all living things that he found. Presently he came to
a high picket-fence, surrounding a great inclosure, in which sat a
large house in a grove of eucalyptus-trees. Romulus was thirsty, and
the playing of a fountain among the trees tempted him sorely. He might
have found courage to venture within had he not at that moment
discovered a human being, not ten feet away, on the other side of the
fence. Romulus sprang back with a cry of terror, and then stopped, and
in a crouching attitude, ready to fly for his life and freedom, gazed
at the enemy of all creation.

But the look he received in return was so kindly, and withal so
peculiar and so unlike any that he had ever seen before, that his
instinct to fly yielded to his curiosity to discover. Romulus did not
know that the great house in the grove was an idiot-asylum, nor that
the lad with the strange but kindly expression was one of the inmates.
He knew only that kindness was there. The look which he saw was not the
hard and cruel one of the menagerie-keeper, nor the empty, idle,
curious one of the spectators, countenancing by their presence and
supporting with their money the infamous and exclusively human practice
of capturing wild animals and keeping them all their lives in the
torture of captivity. So deeply interested was Romulus in what he saw
that he forgot his fear and cocked his head on one side and made a
queer grimace; and his motions and attitude were so comical that Moses,
the idiot, grinned at him through the pickets. But the grin was not the
only manifestation of pleasure that Moses gave. A peculiar vermicular
movement, beginning at his feet and ending at his head, was the
precursor of a slow, vacant guffaw that expressed the most intense
delight of which he was capable. Moses never before had seen so queer a
creature as this little brown man all covered with hair; he never
before had seen even a monkey, that common joy of ordinary childhood,
and remoter from resemblance to human kind than was Romulus. Moses was
nineteen; but, although his voice was childlike no longer and his face
was covered with unsightly short hair, and he was large and strong,
running mostly to legs and arms, he was simple and innocent. His
clothes were much too small, and a thick growth of wild hair topped his
poll, otherwise innocent of covering.

Thus gazed these two strange beings at each other, held by sympathy and
curiosity. Neither had the power of speech, and hence neither could lie
to the other. Was it instinct which made Romulus believe that of all
the bipedal devils which infested the face of the earth there was one
of so gentle spirit that it could love him? And was it by instinct that
Romulus, ignorant as he was of the larger ways of the world, discovered
that his own mind was the firmer and cleverer of the two? And, feeling
the hitherto unimaginable sweetness of freedom, did there come to him a
knowledge that this fellow-being was a prisoner, as he himself had
been, and longed for a taste of the open fields? And if Romulus so had
reasoned, was it a sense of chivalry or a desire for companionship that
led him to the rescue of this one weaker and more unfortunate than he?

He went cautiously to the fence, and put through his hand and touched
Moses. The lad, much pleased, took the hand of the ape in his, and at
once there was a good understanding between them. Romulus teased the
boy to follow him, by going away a few steps and looking back, and then
going and pulling his hand through the fence--doing this
repeatedly--until his intention worked its way into the idiot's mind.
The fence was too high to be scaled; but now that the desire for
freedom had invaded his being, Moses crushed the pickets with his huge
feet and emerged from his prison.

These two, then, were at large. The heavens were lifted higher and the
horizon was extended. At a convenient ditch they slaked their thirst,
and in an orchard they found ripe apricots; but what can satisfy the
hunger of an ape or an idiot? The world was wide and sweet and
beautiful, and the exquisite sense of boundless freedom worked like
rich old wine in unaccustomed veins. These all brought infinite delight
to Romulus and his charge as over the fields they went.

I will not tell particularly of all they did that wild, mad, happy
afternoon, while drunk and reeling with freedom. I might say in passing
that at one place they tore open the cage of a canary-bird swinging in
a cherry-tree out of sight of the house, and at another they unbuckled
the straps which bound a baby in a cart, and might have made off with
it but for fear of arrest; but these things have no relation to the
climax of their adventures, now hastening to accomplishment.

When the sun had sunk lower in the yellow splendor of the west and the
great nickel dome of the observatory on Mount Hamilton had changed from
silver to copper, the two revellers, weary and now hungry again, came
upon a strange and perplexing place. It was a great oak with its long,
cone-shaped shadow pointed towards the east and the cool depths of its
foliage that first attracted them. About the tree were mounds with
wooden head-boards, which wiser ones would have known the meaning of.
But how could an ape or an idiot know of a freedom so sweet and silent
and unencompassed and unconditional as death? And how could they know
that the winners of so rich a prize should be mourned, should be wetted
with tears, should be placed in the ground with the strutting pomp of
grief? Knowing nothing at all of things like this, how could they know
that this shabby burying-ground upon which they had strayed was so
unlike that one which, in clear sight some distance away, was ordered
in walks and drive-ways and ornamented with hedges, and fountains, and
statues, and rare plants, and costly monuments--ah, my friends, how,
without money, may we give adequate expression to grief? And surely
grief without evidence of its existence is the idlest of indulgences!

But there was no pomp in the shadow of the oak, for the broken fence
setting apart this place from the influence of Christian civilization
enclosed graves holding only such bones as could not rest easy in soil
across which was flung the shadow of the cross. Romulus and Moses knew
nothing of these things; knew nothing of laws prohibiting disinterment
within two years; knew nothing of a strange, far-away people from Asia,
who, scorning the foreign Christian soil upon which they walked,
despising the civilization out of which they wrung money, buried their
dead in obedience to law which they had not the strength to resist, and
two years afterwards dug up the bones and sent them to the old home to
be interred for everlasting rest in the soil made and nourished by a
god of their own.

Should either Romulus or Moses judge between these peoples? They were
in better business than that.

Their examination of a strange brick furnace in which printed prayers
were burned, and of a low brick altar covered with the grease of
used-up tapers, had hardly been finished when an approaching cloud of
dust along the broken fence warned them to the exercise of caution.
Romulus was the quicker to escape, for a circus-train makes a trail of
dust along the road, and with swift alacrity he sprang into the boughs
of the oak, the heavy Moses clambering laboriously after, emitting
guffaws in praise of the superior agility of his guardian. It made
Moses laugh again to see the little hairy man stretch himself on a
branch and sigh with the luxurious comfort of repose, and he nearly had
fallen in trying to imitate the nimble Romulus. But they were still and
silent when the cloud of dust, parting at a gate, gave forth into the
enclosure a small cavalcade of carriages and wagons.

There was a grave newly dug, and towards this came the procession,--a
shallow grave, for one must not lie too deep in the Christian soil of
the white barbarian,--but it was so small a grave! Even Romulus could
have filled it, and, as for Moses, it was hardly too large for his
feet.

For little Wang Tai was dead, and in this small grave were her fragile
bones to rest for twenty-four months under three feet of Christian law.
Interest tempered the fright which Romulus and Moses felt when from the
forward carriage came the sound of rasping oboes, belly-less fiddles,
brazen tom-toms, and harsh cymbals, playing a dirge for little Wang
Tai; playing less for godly protection of her tiny soul than for its
exemption from the torture of devils.

With the others there came forth a little woman all bent with grief and
weeping, for little Wang Tai had a mother, and every mother has a
mother's heart. She was only a little yellow woman from Asia, with
queer wide trousers for skirts and rocker-soled shoes that flapped
against her heels. Her uncovered black hair was firmly knotted and
securely pinned, and her eyes were black of color and soft of look, and
her face, likely blank in content, was wet with tears and drawn with
suffering. And there sat upon her, like a radiance from heaven, the
sweetest, the saddest, the deepest, the tenderest of all human
afflictions,--the one and the only one that time can never heal.

So they interred little Wang Tai, and Romulus and Moses saw it all, and
paper prayers were burned in the oven, and tapers were lighted at the
altar; and for the refreshment of the angels that should come to bear
little Wang Tai's soul to the farther depths of blue heaven some savory
viands were spread upon the grave. The grave filled, the diggers hid
their spades behind the oven, Romulus watching them narrowly. The
little bent woman gathered her grief to her heart and bore it away; and
a cloud of dust, widening away alongside the broken fence, disappeared
in the distance. The dome of Mount Hamilton had changed from copper to
gold; the purple canyons of the Santa Cruz Mountains looked cold
against the blazing orange of the western sky; the crickets set up
their cheerful notes in the great old oak, and night fell softly as a
dream.

Four hungry eyes saw the viands of the grave, and four greedy nostrils
inhaled the aroma. Down dropped Romulus, and with less skill down fell
Moses. Little Wang Tai's angels must go supperless to heaven this
night--and it is a very long road from Christendom to heaven! The two
outlaws snatched, and scrambled, and fought, and when all of this
little was eaten they set their minds to other enterprises. Romulus
fetched the spades and industriously began to dig into Wang Tai's
grave, and Moses, crowing and laughing, fell to as assistant, and as
the result of their labor the earth flew to either side. Only three
feet of loose Christian law covered little Wang Tai!

                    *      *      *      *      *

A small yellow woman, moaning with grief, had tossed all night on her
hard bed of matting and her harder pillow of hollowed wood. Even the
familiar raucous sounds of early morning in the Chinese quarter of San
Jose, remindful of that far-distant country which held all of her heart
not lying dead under Christian sod, failed to lighten the burden which
sat upon her. She saw the morning sun push its way through a sea of
amber and the nickel dome of the great observatory on Mount Hamilton
standing ebony against the radiant East. She heard the Oriental jargon
of the early hucksters who cried their wares in the ill-smelling
alleys, and with tears she added to the number of pearls which the dew
had strewn upon the porch. She was only a small yellow woman from Asia,
all bent with grief; and what of happiness could there be for her in
the broad sunshine which poured forth from the windows of heaven,
inviting the living babies of all present mankind to find life and
health in its luxurious enfolding? She saw the sun climb the skies with
imperious magnificence, and whispering voices from remote Cathay
tempered the radiance of the day with memories of the past.

Could you, had your hearts been breaking and your eyes blinded with
tears, have seen with proper definition the figures of a strange
procession which made its way along the alley under the porch? There
were white men with three prisoners--three who so recently had tested
the sweets of freedom, and they had been dragged back to servitude. Two
of these had been haled from the freedom of life and one from the
freedom of death, and all three had been found fast asleep in the early
morning beside the open grave and empty coffin of little Wang Tai.
There were wise men abroad, and they said that little Wang Tai, through
imperfect medical skill, had been interred alive, and that Romulus and
Moses, by means of their impish pranks, had brought her to life after
raising her from the grave. But wherefore the need of all this talk? Is
it not enough that these two brigands were whipped and sent back into
servitude, and that when the little yellow woman from Asia had gathered
her baby to her breast the windows of her soul were opened to receive
the warmth of the yellow sunshine that poured in a flood from heaven?




The Hero of the Plague


I

On a sweltering July day a long and ungainly shadow, stretching thirty
feet upon the ground, crept noiselessly up an avenue leading to a
fashionable hotel at a great summer resort. The sun was setting, and
its slanting rays caused the shadow to assume the appearance of an
anamorphosis of ludicrous proportions. It was a timid shadow--perhaps a
shadow of strange and unnerving experiences.

The original of it was worthy of study. He was a short, stout,
stoop-shouldered man; his hair was ragged and dusty, his beard
straggling and scant. His visible clothing consisted of a slouch hat,
torn around the rim and covered with dust; a woollen shirt; a pair of
very badly soiled cotton trousers; suspenders made of rawhide strips,
fastened to his trousers with wooden pins, and the strangest of old
boots, which turned high up at the toes like canoes (being much too
long for his feet), and which had a rakish aspect.

The man's face was a protest against hilarity. Apparently he had all
the appurtenances of natural manhood, yet his whole expression would
have at once aroused sympathy, for it was a mixture of childishness,
confidence, timidity, humility, and honesty. His look was vague and
uncertain, and seemed to be searching hopelessly for a friend--for the
guidance of natures that were stronger and minds that were clearer. He
could not have been older than thirty-five years, and yet his hair and
beard were gray, and his face was lined with wrinkles. Occasionally he
would make a movement as if to ward off a sudden and vicious blow.

He carried a knotty stick, and his ample trousers-pockets were filled
to such an extent that they made him appear very wide in the hips and
very narrow in the shoulders. Their contents were a mystery. The
pockets at least produced the good effect of toning down the marvellous
ellipticity of his legs, and in doing this they performed a valuable
service.

"Hullo! who are you?" gruffly demanded a porter employed in the hotel,
as the disreputable-looking man was picking his way with great nicety
up the broad interior stairs, afraid that his dusty boots would deface
the polished brasses under foot.

"Baker," promptly replied the man, in a small, timid voice, coming to a
halt and humbly touching his hat.

"Baker? Well, what's your other name?"

"Mine?"

"Yes, yours."

The stranger was evidently puzzled by the question. He looked vacantly
around the ceiling until his gaze rested upon a glass chandelier above
him; but, finding no assistance there, his glance wandered to an oriel,
in which there was a caged mocking-bird.

"Jess Baker--that's all," he answered at last, in his thin voice and
slow, earnest manner.

"What! don't know your other name?"

"No, I reckin not," said Baker, after a thoughtful pause. "I reckin
it's jess Baker--that's all."

"Didn't they ever call you anything else?"

"Me?"

"Yes, you."

Again Baker looked helplessly around until he found the chandelier, and
then his eyes sought the oriel. Then he started as if he had received a
blow, and immediately reached down and felt his ankles.

"Yes, sir," he answered.

"What was it?"

"Hunder'd'n One," he quietly said, looking at his questioner with a
shade of fear and suspicion in his face.

The porter believed that a lunatic stood before him. He asked:

"Where are you from?"

"Georgy."

"What part of Georgia?"

Again was Baker at sea, and again did his glance seek the chandelier
and the oriel.

"Me?" he asked.

"Yes, you. What part of Georgia are you from?"

"Jess Georgy," he finally said.

"What do you want here?"

"Well, I'll tell you. I want you to hire me," he replied, with a faint
look of expectancy.

"What can you do?"

"Me?"

"Yes, you."

"Oh, well, I'll tell you. Most everything."

"What salary do you want?"

"Me?"

"Of course you."

"Want?"

"Yes."

"Oh, well, about five dollars a day, I reckin."

The porter laughed coarsely. "You needn't talk to me about it," he
said; "I'm not the proprietor."

"The which?" asked Baker.

"The boss."

"Oh, ain't you?" and then he looked very much puzzled indeed.

The porter had had sufficient amusement, and so he demanded, in a
brusque and menacing tone, "Now, say--you get away from here quick! We
don't want no crazy tramps around here. You understand?"

Baker did not stir, but stood looking helplessly at the porter,
surprised and grieved.

"Get out, I say, or I'll set the dogs on you!"

A look of deep mortification settled on Baker's face, but he was not
frightened; he did not move a muscle, except to glance quickly around
for the dogs.

"Ain't you going, you crazy old tramp? If you don't I'll lock you up
and send for the sheriff;" and the porter rattled some keys in his
pocket.

Instantly a great horror overspread the countenance of Baker from
Georgia. He looked wildly about and seemed ready to run, and labored
with an imaginary weight that clung to his ankles. He took a single
step in his agitation, and suddenly realized that no such encumbrance
detained him. He shook off the delusion and sprang to the bottom of the
stairs. His whole appearance had changed. Humility had given way to
uncontrollable fear, and he had become a fleeing wild beast that was
hunted for its life. He sprang through the outer door and reached the
ground in another bound, and gathered his strength for immediate flight
from terrors without a name.

"Stop, there!" called a stern, full voice.

Baker obeyed instantly; obeyed as might a man long accustomed to the
most servile obedience; as might a dog that has been beaten until his
spirit is broken. He bared his head, and stood in the warm glow of the
fading light, meek and submissive. All signs of fear had disappeared
from his face; but he was no longer the Baker from Georgia who, a few
minutes ago, had trudged along the gravelled walk after the ungainly
shadow. He had sought a thing and had not found it--had bitten a rosy
apple and was choked with dust. Even the rakish boots looked
submissive, and showed their brass teeth in solemn acquiescence to an
inevitability; and somehow they looked not nearly so rakish as
formerly.

The voice that had checked Baker had not a kindly tone; it was that of
a suspicious man, who believed that he had detected a thief in the act
of making off with dishonest booty stored in ample pockets. Yet his
face had a generous look, though anger made his eyes harsh. The two men
surveyed each other, anger disappearing from the face of one to give
place to pity, the other regarding him with mild docility.

"Come along with me," said the gentleman to Baker.

Evidently Baker had heard those words before, for he followed quietly
and tamely, with his dusty old hat in his left hand and his head bowed
upon his breast. He walked so slowly that the gentleman turned to
observe him, and found him moving laboriously, with his feet wide apart
and his right hand grasping an invisible something that weighted down
his ankles. They were now passing the end of the hotel on their way to
the rear, when they came near a hitching-post, to which rings were
affixed with staples. Baker had been looking around for something, and,
as the gentleman (who was Mr. Clayton, the proprietor of the hotel)
stopped near the post, Baker walked straight up to it, without having
looked to the left or the right. Upon reaching it he dropped the
invisible something that he carried in his right hand, laid his hat on
the ground, slipped the rawhide suspenders from his shoulders,
unbuttoned his shirt, pulled it over his head, and laid it on the grass
alongside his hat. He then humbly embraced the post and crossed his
hands over a ring to which a chain was attached. He laid his cheek
against his bare right arm and waited patiently, without having uttered
a protest or made an appeal. The old boots looked up wistfully into his
sorrowing face.

His naked back glistened white. It was a map on which were traced a
record of the bloody cruelties of many years; it was a fine piece of
mosaic--human flesh inlaid with the venom of the lash. There were
scars, and seams, and ridges, and cuts that crossed and recrossed each
other in all possible directions. Thus stood Baker for some time, until
Mr. Clayton kindly called to him:

"Put on your shirt."

He proceeded to obey silently, but was confused and embarrassed at this
unexpected turn of events. He hesitated at first, however, for he
evidently did not understand how he could put on his shirt until his
hands had been released.

"Your hands are not chained," explained Mr. Clayton.

The revelation was so unexpected that it almost startled the man from
Georgia. He pulled out one hand slowly, that a sudden jerk might not
lacerate his wrist. Then he pulled out the other, resumed his shirt and
hat, picked up the imaginary weight, and shuffled along slowly after
his leader.

"What is your name?" asked the gentleman.

"Hunder'd'n One."

They were soon traversing the corridor in the servants' quarter of the
hotel, when Baker halted and ventured to say:

"I reckin you'r in the wrong curryder." He was examining the ceiling,
the floor, and the numbers on the doors.

"No, this is right," said the gentleman.

Again Baker hobbled along, never releasing his hold on the invisible
weight. They halted at No. 13. Said Baker, with a shade of pity in his
voice,--

"'Taint right. Wrong curryder. Cell hunder'd'n one's mine."

"Yes, yes; but we'll put you in this one for the present," replied the
gentleman, as he opened the door and ushered Baker within. The room was
comfortably furnished, and this perplexed Baker more and more.

"Hain't you got it wrong?" he persisted. "Lifer, you know. Hunder'd'n
One--lifer--plays off crazy--forty lashes every Monday. Don't you
know?"

"Yes, yes, I know; but we'll not talk about that now."

They brought a good supper to his room, and he ate ravenously. They
persuaded him to wash in a basin in the room, though he begged hard to
be permitted to go to the pump. Later that night the gentleman went to
his room and asked him if he wanted anything.

"Well, I'll tell you. You forgot to take it off," Baker replied,
pointing to his ankles.

The gentleman was perplexed for a moment, and then he stooped and
unlocked and removed an imaginary ball and chain. Baker seemed
relieved. Said the gentleman, as Baker was preparing for bed:

"This is not a penitentiary. It is my house, and I do not whip anybody.
I will give you all you want to eat, and good clothes, and you may go
wherever you please. Do you understand?"

Baker looked at him with vacant eyes and made no reply. He undressed,
lay down, sighed wearily, and fell asleep.


II.

A stifling Southern September sun beat down upon the mountains and
valleys. The thrush and the mocking-bird had been driven to cool
places, and their songs were not heard in the trees. The hotel was
crowded with refugees from Memphis. A terrible scourge was sweeping
through Tennessee, and its black shadow was creeping down to the Gulf
of Mexico; and as it crept it mowed down young and old in its path.

"Well, Baker, how are you getting along?" It was the round, cheerful
voice of Mr. Clayton.

The man from Georgia was stooping over a pail, scouring it with sand
and a cloth. Upon hearing the greeting he hung the cloth over the pail
and came slowly to the perpendicular, putting his hands, during the
operation, upon the small of his back, as if the hinges in that region
were old and rusty and needed care.

"Oh, well, now, I'll tell you. Nothin' pertickler to complain on,
excep'----"

"Well?"

"I don't believe it's quite exactly right."

"Tell me about it."

"Well, now, you see--there ain't nobody a-listenin', is there?"

"No."

"I think they ought to give me one more piece, any way."

"Piece of what?"

"Mebbe two more pieces."

"Of what?"

"Pie. It was pie I was a-talkin' about all the time."

"Don't they give you sufficient?"

"Pie?"

"Yes."

"No, sir; not nigh enough. An'--an'--come here closter. I'm a-gittin'
weak--I'm a-starvin'!" he whispered.

"You shall not starve. What do you want?"

"Well, now, I was jess a-thinkin' that one or two more pieces fur
dinner every day--every day----"

"Pie?"

"Yes, sir; pie. I was a-talkin' about pie."

"You shall certainly have it; but don't they give you any?"

"What? Pie?"

"Yes."

"Oh, well, they do give me some."

"Every day?"

"Yes, sir; every day."

"How much do they give you?"

"Pie?"

"Yes."

"Well, I'll tell you. About two pieces, I believe."

"Aren't you afraid that much more than that would make you sick?"

"Oh, well, now, I'm a-goin' to tell you about that, too, 'cause you
don't know about it. You see, I'm mostly used to gittin' sick, an' I
ain't mostly used to eatin' of pie." He spoke then, as he always spoke,
with the most impressive earnestness.

Baker had undergone a great change within the two months that had
passed over him at the hotel. Kindness had driven away the vacant look
in his eyes and his mind was stronger. He had found that for which his
meagre soul had yearned--a sympathizing heart and a friend. He was fat,
sleek, and strong. His old boots--the same as of yore, for he would not
abandon them--looked less foolish and seemed almost cheerful. Were they
not always in an atmosphere of gentleness and refinement, and did they
not daily tread the very ground pressed by the bravest and richest
boots in the land? It is true that they were often covered with slops
and chickens' feathers, but this served only to bring out in bolder
relief the elevating influences of a healthy morality and a generous
prosperity that environed them. There are many boots that would have
been spoiled by so sudden an elevation into a higher sphere of life;
but the good traits of Baker's boots were strengthened not only by a
rooting up of certain weaknesses, but also by the gaining of many good
qualities which proved beneficial; and to the full extent of their
limited capability did they appreciate the advantages which their
surroundings afforded, and looked up with humble gratitude whenever
they would meet a friend.

There were six hundred guests at the hotel, and they all knew Baker and
had a kind word to give him. But they could never learn anything about
him other than that his name was Baker--"jess Baker, that's all"--and
that he came from Georgia--"jess Georgy." Occasionally a stranger would
ask him with urgent particularity concerning his past history, but he
then would merely look helpless and puzzled and would say nothing. As
to his name, it was "jess Baker;" but on rare occasions, when pressed
with hard cruelty, his lips could be seen to form the words,
"Hunder'd'n One," as though wondering how they would sound if he should
utter them, and then the old blank, suffering look would come into his
face. It had become quite seldom that he dodged an imaginary blow, and
the memory of the ball and chain was buried with other bitter
recollections of the past. He had free access to every part of the
house, and was discreet, diligent, faithful, and honest. Sometimes the
porters would impose upon his unfailing willingness and great strength
by making him carry the heaviest trunks up three or four flights of
stairs.

One day the shadow of death that was stealing southward passed over the
house containing so much life, and happiness, and wealth, and beauty.
The train passed as usual, and among the passengers who alighted was a
man who walked to the counter in a weary, uncertain manner. One or two
persons were present who knew him, and upon grasping his hand they
found that it was cold. This was strange, for the day was very hot. In
his eyes was a look of restlessness and anxiety, but he said that he
had only a pain across the forehead, and that after needed rest it
would pass away. He was conducted to a room, and there he fell across
the bed, quite worn out, he said. He complained of slight cramps in the
legs and thought that they had been caused by climbing the stairs.
After a half-hour had passed he rang his bell violently and sent for
the resident physician. That gentleman went to see him, and after
remaining a few minutes went to the office, looking anxious and pale.
He was a tall, quiet man, with white hair. He asked for Mr. Clayton,
but when he was informed that that gentleman was temporarily absent he
asked for Baker.

"Is your patient very ill, doctor?" inquired the cashier, privately and
with a certain dread.

"I want Baker," said the doctor, somewhat shortly.

"Nothing serious, I hope."

"Send me Baker instantly."

The physician had a secret of life and death. To treat it wisely he
required confidants of courage, sagacity, patience, tact, and prompt
action. There were only two to whom he should impart it,--one was the
proprietor and the other the man from Georgia.

When Baker had come the physician led him up-stairs to the floor which
held the patient's room, brought him to the window at the end of the
corridor and turned him so that the light fell full upon his face.

"Baker, can you keep a secret?"

"Me?"

"Yes; can you keep a secret?"

"Well, let me tell you about it; I don't know; mebbe I can."

"Have you ever seen people die?"

"Oh, yes, sir!"

"A great many in the same house?"

"Yes, sir; yes, sir."

"Baker," said the physician, placing his hand gently on the broad
shoulder before him, and looking the man earnestly in the eyes, and
speaking very impressively--"Baker, are you afraid to die?"

"Me?"

"Yes."

"Die?"

"Yes."

There was no expression whatever upon his patient, gentle face. He
gazed past the physician through the window and made no reply.

"Are you afraid of death, Baker?"

"Who? Me?"

"Yes."

There was no sign that he would answer the question or even that he
comprehended it. He shifted his gaze to his upturned boot-toes and
communed with them, but still kept silence.

"There is a man here, Baker, who is very ill, and I think that he will
die. I want some one to help me take care of him. If you go into his
room, perhaps you, too, will die. Are you afraid to go?"

"Was you a-talkin' 'bout wantin' me to wait on him?"

"Yes."

A brighter look came into Baker's face and he said:

"Oh, now, I'll tell you; I'll go."

They entered the stranger's room and found him suffering terribly. The
physician already had put him under vigorous treatment, but he was
rapidly growing worse. Baker regarded him attentively a moment, and
then felt his pulse and put his hand on the sufferer's forehead. A look
of intelligence came into his sad, earnest face, but there was not a
trace of pallor or fear. He beckoned the physician to follow him out to
the passage, and the two went aside, closing the door.

"He's a-goin' to die," said Baker, simply and quietly.

"Yes; but how do you know?"

"Well, I'll tell you about that; I know."

"Have you seen it before?"

"Hunderds."

"Are you afraid of it?"

"Me?"

"Yes."

"Oh, well, they all ought to know it," he said, with a sweep of his
hand towards the corridors.

"Hurry and find Mr. Clayton first and bring him to me."

Baker met Mr. Clayton at the main entrance below and beckoned him to
follow. He led the way into a dark room stored with boxes and then into
the farther corner of it. There he stood Mr. Clayton with his back
against the wall and looked straight into his face. His manner was so
mysterious, and there was so strange an expression in his face,--a kind
of empty exaltation it seemed,--and his familiarity in touching Mr.
Clayton's person was so extraordinary, that that gentleman was alarmed
for Baker's sanity. Then Baker leaned forward and whispered one
terrible word,--

"_Cholery!_"

Cholera! Great God! No wonder that Mr. Clayton turned deathly pale and
leaned heavily against the wall.

At midnight the stranger died, and none in the house had heard of the
frightful danger which had come to assail them. The physician and Baker
had been with him constantly, but their efforts had availed nothing;
and after preparing him for the grave they went out and locked the
door. Mr. Clayton was waiting for them. The anxious look in the faces
of the two gentlemen was intensified; Baker's evinced nothing but calm
consciousness of responsibility. The guests were slumbering.

"We must alarm the house," whispered Mr. Clayton.

The doctor shook his head sadly. "If we do," he said, "there will be a
panic; and, besides, the night air of these mountains is very cool, and
if they go from their warm beds into it, likely without taking time to
dress, the danger will be great."

They both seemed helpless and undecided, and in need of some one to
choose between two evils for them. They turned to Baker in silence and
for his decision. He seemed to have expected it, for without a word,
without submitting it for their concurrence, he went to the end of that
passage and rapped upon a door. There was an answer, Baker mentioned
his name, the door was opened, and the dreadful news was quietly
imparted. The guest was terror-stricken, but a word from Baker gave him
heart, and he hastily but quietly began preparations to leave the
house. Thus went Baker from one door to another, imposing silence and
care and careful dressing, and advising the people to take with them
such bedding as they could. Mr. Clayton and the physician, observing
the remarkable success of Baker's method, adopted it, and soon the
three men had the great house swarming. It was done swiftly, quietly,
and without panic, and the house became empty.

But selfishness appeared without shame or covering. Every one in the
house wanted Baker's assistance, for all the porters had fled, and
there was none other than he to work. So he staggered and toiled under
the weight of enormous trunks; listened to a hundred orders at once;
bore frightened children and fainting women in his strong, sure arms;
labored until his face was haggard and his knees trembled from
exhaustion. He did the work of fifty men--a hundred men.

The seeds of the plague had been sown. Towards morning the physician
retired to his room, stricken down. Baker administered to his needs,
and discovered a surprising knowledge of the malady and its treatment.
A few of those who had scattered about in the surrounding hills were
taken down and brought to the house moaning with fear and pain. Baker
treated them all. Mr. Clayton and a few other stout hearts provided him
with whatever he ordered, and assisted in watching and in administering
the simple remedies under his direction. These were such as the
resources of the hotel permitted,--warm blankets, hot brandy, with
water and sugar, or pepper and salt in hot water, heated bricks at the
feet, and rubbing the body with spirits of camphor. Many recovered,
others grew worse; the physician was saved.

At sunrise, while Baker was working vigorously on a patient, he
suddenly straightened himself, looked around somewhat anxiously, and
reeled backward to the wall. The strong man had collapsed at last.
Leaning against the partition, and spreading out his arms against it to
keep from falling, he worked his way a few feet to the door, and when
he turned to go out his hand slipped on the door-facing and he fell
heavily upon his face in the passage. He lay still for a moment, and
then crawled slowly to the end of the passage and lay down. He had not
said a word nor uttered a groan. It was there, silent, alone, and
uncomplaining, that Mr. Clayton found this last victim of the plague
waiting patiently for death. Others were hastily summoned. They put him
upon a bed, and were going to undress him and treat him, but he firmly
stopped them with uplifted hand, and his sunken eyes and anxious face
implored more eloquently than his words, when he said:

"No, no! Now, let me tell you: Go an' take care of 'em."

Mr. Clayton sent them away, he alone remaining.

"Here, Baker; take this," he gently urged.

But the man from Georgia knew better. "No, no," he said; "it won't do
no good." His speech was faint and labored. "I'll tell you: I'm struck
too hard. It won't do no good. I'm so tired.... I'll go quick ...
'cause I'm ... so tired."

His extreme exhaustion made him an easy prey. Death sat upon his face,
and was reflected from his hollow, suffering, mournful eyes. In an hour
they were dimmer; then he became cold and purple. In another hour his
pulse was not perceptible. After two more hours his agony had passed.

"Baker, do you want anything?" asked Mr. Clayton, trying to rouse him.

"Me?" very faintly came the response.

"Yes. Do you want anything?"

"Oh, ... I'll tell you: The governor ... he found out my brother ...
done it ... an' ... an' he's goin' to ... pardon me.... Fifteen years,
an' played off ... played off crazy.... Forty lashes every Monday ...
mornin'.... Cell hunder'd'n one's mine.... Well, I'll tell you:
Governor's goin' to ... pardon me out."

He ceased his struggling to speak. A half-hour passed in silence, and
then he roused himself feebly and whispered:

"He'll ... pardon ... me."

The old boots stared blankly and coldly at the ceiling; their patient
expression no longer bore a trace of life or suffering, and their calm
repose was undisturbed by the song of the mocking-bird in the oriel.




His Unconquerable Enemy


I was summoned from Calcutta to the heart of India to perform a
difficult surgical operation on one of the women of a great rajah's
household. I found the rajah a man of a noble character, but possessed,
as I afterwards discovered, of a sense of cruelty purely Oriental and
in contrast to the indolence of his disposition. He was so grateful for
the success that attended my mission that he urged me to remain a guest
at the palace as long as it might please me to stay, and I thankfully
accepted the invitation.

One of the male servants early attracted my notice for his marvellous
capacity of malice. His name was Neranya, and I am certain that there
must have been a large proportion of Malay blood in his veins, for,
unlike the Indians (from whom he differed also in complexion), he was
extremely alert, active, nervous, and sensitive. A redeeming
circumstance was his love for his master. Once his violent temper led
him to the commission of an atrocious crime,--the fatal stabbing of a
dwarf. In punishment for this the rajah ordered that Neranya's right
arm (the offending one) be severed from his body. The sentence was
executed in a bungling fashion by a stupid fellow armed with an axe,
and I, being a surgeon, was compelled, in order to save Neranya's life,
to perform an amputation of the stump, leaving not a vestige of the
limb remaining.

After this he developed an augmented fiendishness. His love for the
rajah was changed to hate, and in his mad anger he flung discretion to
the winds. Driven once to frenzy by the rajah's scornful treatment, he
sprang upon the rajah with a knife, but, fortunately, was seized and
disarmed. To his unspeakable dismay the rajah sentenced him for this
offence to suffer amputation of the remaining arm. It was done as in
the former instance. This had the effect of putting a temporary curb on
Neranya's spirit, or, rather, of changing the outward manifestations of
his diabolism. Being armless, he was at first largely at the mercy of
those who ministered to his needs,--a duty which I undertook to see was
properly discharged, for I felt an interest in this strangely distorted
nature. His sense of helplessness, combined with a damnable scheme for
revenge which he had secretly formed, caused Neranya to change his
fierce, impetuous, and unruly conduct into a smooth, quiet, insinuating
bearing, which he carried so artfully as to deceive those with whom he
was brought in contact, including the rajah himself.

Neranya, being exceedingly quick, intelligent, and dexterous, and
having an unconquerable will, turned his attention to the cultivating
of an enlarged usefulness of his legs, feet, and toes, with so
excellent effect that in time he was able to perform wonderful feats
with those members. Thus his capability, especially for destructive
mischief, was considerably restored.

One morning the rajah's only son, a young man of an uncommonly amiable
and noble disposition, was found dead in bed. His murder was a most
atrocious one, his body being mutilated in a shocking manner, but in my
eyes the most significant of all the mutilations was the entire removal
and disappearance of the young prince's arms.

The death of the young man nearly brought the rajah to the grave. It
was not, therefore, until I had nursed him back to health that I began
a systematic inquiry into the murder. I said nothing of my own
discoveries and conclusions until after the rajah and his officers had
failed and my work had been done; then I submitted to him a written
report, making a close analysis of all the circumstances and closing by
charging the crime to Neranya. The rajah, convinced by my proof and
argument, at once ordered Neranya to be put to death, this to be
accomplished slowly and with frightful tortures. The sentence was so
cruel and revolting that it filled me with horror, and I implored that
the wretch be shot. Finally, through a sense of gratitude to me, the
rajah relaxed. When Neranya was charged with the crime he denied it, of
course, but, seeing that the rajah was convinced, he threw aside all
restraint, and, dancing, laughing, and shrieking in the most horrible
manner, confessed his guilt, gloated over it, and reviled the rajah to
his teeth,--this, knowing that some fearful death awaited him.

The rajah decided upon the details of the matter that night, and in the
morning he informed me of his decision. It was that Neranya's life
should be spared, but that both of his legs should be broken with
hammers, and that then I should amputate the limbs at the trunk!
Appended to this horrible sentence was a provision that the maimed
wretch should be kept and tortured at regular intervals by such means
as afterwards might be devised.

Sickened to the heart by the awful duty set out for me, I nevertheless
performed it with success, and I care to say nothing more about that
part of the tragedy. Neranya escaped death very narrowly and was a long
time in recovering his wonted vitality. During all these weeks the
rajah neither saw him nor made inquiries concerning him, but when, as
in duty bound, I made official report that the man had recovered his
strength, the rajah's eyes brightened, and he emerged with deadly
activity from the stupor into which he so long had been plunged.

The rajah's palace was a noble structure, but it is necessary here to
describe only the grand hall. It was an immense chamber, with a floor
of polished, inlaid stone and a lofty, arched ceiling. A soft light
stole into it through stained glass set in the roof and in high windows
on one side. In the middle of the room was a rich fountain, which threw
up a tall, slender column of water, with smaller and shorter jets
grouped around it. Across one end of the hall, half-way to the ceiling,
was a balcony, which communicated with the upper story of a wing, and
from which a flight of stone stairs descended to the floor of the hall.
During the hot summers this room was delightfully cool; it was the
rajah's favorite lounging-place, and when the nights were hot he had
his cot taken thither, and there he slept.

This hall was chosen for Neranya's permanent prison; here was he to
stay so long as he might live, with never a glimpse of the shining
world or the glorious heavens. To one of his nervous, discontented
nature such confinement was worse than death. At the rajah's order
there was constructed for him a small pen of open iron-work, circular,
and about four feet in diameter, elevated on four slender iron posts,
ten feet above the floor, and placed between the balcony and the
fountain. Such was Neranya's prison. The pen was about four feet in
depth, and the pen-top was left open for the convenience of the
servants whose duty it should be to care for him. These precautions for
his safe confinement were taken at my suggestion, for, although the man
was now deprived of all four of his limbs, I still feared that he might
develop some extraordinary, unheard-of power for mischief. It was
provided that the attendants should reach his cage by means of a
movable ladder.

All these arrangements having been made and Neranya hoisted into his
cage, the rajah emerged upon the balcony to see him for the first time
since the last amputation. Neranya had been lying panting and helpless
on the floor of his cage, but when his quick ear caught the sound of
the rajah's footfall he squirmed about until he had brought the back of
his head against the railing, elevating his eyes above his chest, and
enabling him to peer through the open-work of the cage. Thus the two
deadly enemies faced each other. The rajah's stern face paled at sight
of the hideous, shapeless thing which met his gaze; but he soon
recovered, and the old hard, cruel, sinister look returned. Neranya's
black hair and beard had grown long, and they added to the natural
ferocity of his aspect. His eyes blazed upon the rajah with a terrible
light, his lips parted, and he gasped for breath; his face was ashen
with rage and despair, and his thin, distended nostrils quivered.

The rajah folded his arms and gazed down from the balcony upon the
frightful wreck that he had made. Oh, the dreadful pathos of that
picture; the inhumanity of it; the deep and dismal tragedy of it! Who
might look into the wild, despairing heart of the prisoner and see and
understand the frightful turmoil there; the surging, choking passion;
unbridled but impotent ferocity; frantic thirst for a vengeance that
should be deeper than hell! Neranya gazed, his shapeless body heaving,
his eyes aflame; and then, in a strong, clear voice, which rang
throughout the great hall, with rapid speech he hurled at the rajah the
most insulting defiance, the most awful curses. He cursed the womb that
had conceived him, the food that should nourish him, the wealth that
had brought him power; cursed him in the name of Buddha and all the
wise men; cursed by the sun, the moon, and the stars; by the
continents, mountains, oceans, and rivers; by all things living; cursed
his head, his heart, his entrails; cursed in a whirlwind of
unmentionable words; heaped unimaginable insults and contumely upon
him; called him a knave, a beast, a fool, a liar, an infamous and
unspeakable coward.

The rajah heard it all calmly, without the movement of a muscle,
without the slightest change of countenance; and when the poor wretch
had exhausted his strength and fallen helpless and silent to the floor,
the rajah, with a grim, cold smile, turned and strode away.

The days passed. The rajah, not deterred by Neranya's curses often
heaped upon him, spent even more time than formerly in the great hall,
and slept there oftener at night; and finally Neranya wearied of
cursing and defying him, and fell into a sullen silence. The man was a
study for me, and I observed every change in his fleeting moods.
Generally his condition was that of miserable despair, which he
attempted bravely to conceal. Even the boon of suicide had been denied
him, for when he would wriggle into an erect position the rail of his
pen was a foot above his head, so that he could not clamber over and
break his skull on the stone floor beneath; and when he had tried to
starve himself the attendants forced food down his throat; so that he
abandoned such attempts. At times his eyes would blaze and his breath
would come in gasps, for imaginary vengeance was working within him;
but steadily he became quieter and more tractable, and was pleasant and
responsive when I would converse with him. Whatever might have been the
tortures which the rajah had decided on, none as yet had been ordered;
and although Neranya knew that they were in contemplation, he never
referred to them or complained of his lot.

The awful climax of this situation was reached one night, and even
after this lapse of years I cannot approach its description without a
shudder.

It was a hot night, and the rajah had gone to sleep in the great hall,
lying on a high cot placed on the main floor just underneath the edge
of the balcony. I had been unable to sleep in my own apartment, and so
I had stolen into the great hall through the heavily curtained entrance
at the end farthest from the balcony. As I entered I heard a peculiar,
soft sound above the patter of the fountain. Neranya's cage was partly
concealed from my view by the spraying water, but I suspected that the
unusual sound came from him. Stealing a little to one side, and
crouching against the dark hangings of the wall, I could see him in the
faint light which dimly illuminated the hall, and then I discovered
that my surmise was correct--Neranya was quietly at work. Curious to
learn more, and knowing that only mischief could have been inspiring
him, I sank into a thick robe on the floor and watched him.

To my great astonishment Neranya was tearing off with his teeth the bag
which served as his outer garment. He did it cautiously, casting sharp
glances frequently at the rajah, who, sleeping soundly on his cot
below, breathed heavily. After starting a strip with his teeth,
Neranya, by the same means, would attach it to the railing of his cage
and then wriggle away, much after the manner of a caterpillar's
crawling, and this would cause the strip to be torn out the full length
of his garment. He repeated this operation with incredible patience and
skill until his entire garment had been torn into strips. Two or three
of these he tied end to end with his teeth, lips, and tongue,
tightening the knots by placing one end of the strip under his body and
drawing the other taut with his teeth. In this way he made a line
several feet long, one end of which he made fast to the rail with his
mouth. It then began to dawn upon me that he was going to make an
insane attempt--impossible of achievement without hands, feet, arms, or
legs--to escape from his cage! For what purpose? The rajah was asleep
in the hall--ah! I caught my breath. Oh, the desperate, insane thirst
for revenge which could have unhinged so clear and firm a mind! Even
though he should accomplish the impossible feat of climbing over the
railing of his cage that he might fall to the floor below (for how
could he slide down the rope?), he would be in all probability killed
or stunned; and even if he should escape these dangers it would be
impossible for him to clamber upon the cot without rousing the rajah,
and impossible even though the rajah were dead! Amazed at the man's
daring, and convinced that his sufferings and brooding had destroyed
his reason, nevertheless I watched him with breathless interest.

With other strips tied together he made a short swing across one side
of his cage. He caught the long line in his teeth at a point not far
from the rail; then, wriggling with great effort to an upright
position, his back braced against the rail, he put his chin over the
swing and worked toward one end. He tightened the grasp of his chin on
the swing, and with tremendous exertion, working the lower end of his
spine against the railing, he began gradually to ascend the side of his
cage. The labor was so great that he was compelled to pause at
intervals, and his breathing was hard and painful; and even while thus
resting he was in a position of terrible strain, and his pushing
against the swing caused it to press hard against his windpipe and
nearly strangle him.

After amazing effort he had elevated the lower end of his body until it
protruded above the railing, the top of which was now across the lower
end of his abdomen. Gradually he worked his body over, going backward,
until there was sufficient excess of weight on the outer side of the
rail; and then, with a quick lurch, he raised his head and shoulders
and swung into a horizontal position on top of the rail. Of course, he
would have fallen to the floor below had it not been for the line which
he held in his teeth. With so great nicety had he estimated the
distance between his mouth and the point where the rope was fastened to
the rail, that the line tightened and checked him just as he reached
the horizontal position on the rail. If one had told me beforehand that
such a feat as I had just seen this man accomplish was possible, I
should have thought him a fool.

Neranya was now balanced on his stomach across the top of the rail, and
he eased his position by bending his spine and hanging down on either
side as much as possible. Having rested thus for some minutes, he began
cautiously to slide off backward, slowly paying out the line through
his teeth, finding almost a fatal difficulty in passing the knots. Now,
it is quite possible that the line would have escaped altogether from
his teeth laterally when he would slightly relax his hold to let it
slip, had it not been for a very ingenious plan to which he had
resorted. This consisted in his having made a turn of the line around
his neck before he attacked the swing, thus securing a threefold
control of the line,--one by his teeth, another by friction against his
neck, and a third by his ability to compress it between his cheek and
shoulder. It was quite evident now that the minutest details of a most
elaborate plan had been carefully worked out by him before beginning
the task, and that possibly weeks of difficult theoretical study had
been consumed in the mental preparation. As I observed him I was
reminded of certain hitherto unaccountable things which he had been
doing for some weeks past--going through certain hitherto inexplicable
motions, undoubtedly for the purpose of training his muscles for the
immeasurably arduous labor which he was now performing.

A stupendous and seemingly impossible part of his task had been
accomplished. Could he reach the floor in safety? Gradually he worked
himself backward over the rail, in imminent danger of falling; but his
nerve never wavered, and I could see a wonderful light in his eyes.
With something of a lurch, his body fell against the outer side of the
railing, to which he was hanging by his chin, the line still held
firmly in his teeth. Slowly he slipped his chin from the rail, and then
hung suspended by the line in his teeth. By almost imperceptible
degrees, with infinite caution, he descended the line, and, finally,
his unwieldy body rolled upon the floor, safe and unhurt!

What miracle would this superhuman monster next accomplish? I was quick
and strong, and was ready and able to intercept any dangerous act; but
not until danger appeared would I interfere with this extraordinary
scene.

I must confess to astonishment upon having observed that Neranya,
instead of proceeding directly toward the sleeping rajah, took quite
another direction. Then it was only escape, after all, that the wretch
contemplated, and not the murder of the rajah. But how could he escape?
The only possible way to reach the outer air without great risk was by
ascending the stairs to the balcony and leaving by the corridor which
opened upon it, and thus fall into the hands of some British soldiers
quartered thereabout, who might conceive the idea of hiding him; but
surely it was impossible for Neranya to ascend that long flight of
stairs! Nevertheless, he made directly for them, his method of
progression this: He lay upon his back, with the lower end of his body
toward the stairs; then bowed his spine upward, thus drawing his head
and shoulders a little forward; straightened, and then pushed the lower
end of his body forward a space equal to that through which he had
drawn his head; repeating this again and again, each time, while
bending his spine, preventing his head from slipping by pressing it
against the floor. His progress was laborious and slow, but sensible;
and, finally, he arrived at the foot of the stairs.

It was manifest that his insane purpose was to ascend them. The desire
for freedom must have been strong within him! Wriggling to an upright
position against the newel-post, he looked up at the great height which
he had to climb and sighed; but there was no dimming of the light in
his eyes. How could he accomplish the impossible task?

His solution of the problem was very simple, though daring and perilous
as all the rest. While leaning against the newel-post he let himself
fall diagonally upon the bottom step, where he lay partly hanging over,
but safe, on his side. Turning upon his back, he wriggled forward along
the step to the rail and raised himself to an upright position against
it as he had against the newel-post, fell as before, and landed on the
second step. In this manner, with inconceivable labor, he accomplished
the ascent of the entire flight of stairs.

It being apparent to me that the rajah was not the object of Neranya's
movements, the anxiety which I had felt on that account was now
entirely dissipated. The things which already he had accomplished were
entirely beyond the nimblest imagination. The sympathy which I had
always felt for the wretched man was now greatly quickened; and as
infinitesimally small as I knew his chances for escape to be, I
nevertheless hoped that he would succeed. Any assistance from me,
however, was out of the question; and it never should be known that I
had witnessed the escape.

Neranya was now upon the balcony, and I could dimly see him wriggling
along toward the door which led out upon the balcony. Finally he
stopped and wriggled to an upright position against the rail, which had
wide openings between the balusters. His back was toward me, but he
slowly turned and faced me and the hall. At that great distance I could
not distinguish his features, but the slowness with which he had
worked, even before he had fully accomplished the ascent of the stairs,
was evidence all too eloquent of his extreme exhaustion. Nothing but a
most desperate resolution could have sustained him thus far, but he had
drawn upon the last remnant of his strength. He looked around the hall
with a sweeping glance, and then down upon the rajah, who was sleeping
immediately beneath him, over twenty feet below. He looked long and
earnestly, sinking lower, and lower, and lower upon the rail. Suddenly,
to my inconceivable astonishment and dismay, he toppled through and
shot downward from his lofty height! I held my breath, expecting to see
him crushed upon the stone floor beneath; but instead of that he fell
full upon the rajah's breast, driving him through the cot to the floor.
I sprang forward with a loud cry for help, and was instantly at the
scene of the catastrophe. With indescribable horror I saw that
Neranya's teeth were buried in the rajah's throat! I tore the wretch
away, but the blood was pouring from the rajah's arteries, his chest
was crushed in, and he was gasping in the agony of death. People came
running in, terrified. I turned to Neranya. He lay upon his back, his
face hideously smeared with blood. Murder, and not escape, had been his
intentions from the beginning; and he had employed the only method by
which there was ever a possibility of accomplishing it. I knelt beside
him, and saw that he too was dying; his back had been broken by the
fall. He smiled sweetly into my face, and a triumphant look of
accomplished revenge sat upon his face even in death.




The Permanent Stiletto


I had sent in all haste for Dr. Rowell, but as yet he had not arrived,
and the strain was terrible. There lay my young friend upon his bed in
the hotel, and I believed that he was dying. Only the jewelled handle
of the knife was visible at his breast; the blade was wholly sheathed
in his body.

"Pull it out, old fellow," begged the sufferer through white, drawn
lips, his gasping voice being hardly less distressing than the
unearthly look in his eyes.

"No, Arnold," said I, as I held his hand and gently stroked his
forehead. It may have been instinct, it may have been a certain
knowledge of anatomy that made me refuse.

"Why not? It hurts," he gasped. It was pitiful to see him suffer, this
strong, healthy, daring, reckless young fellow.

Dr. Rowell walked in--a tall, grave man, with gray hair. He went to the
bed and I pointed to the knife-handle, with its great, bold ruby in the
end and its diamonds and emeralds alternating in quaint designs in the
sides. The physician started. He felt Arnold's pulse and looked
puzzled.

"When was this done?" he asked.

"About twenty minutes ago," I answered.

The physician started out, beckoning me to follow.

"Stop!" said Arnold. We obeyed. "Do you wish to speak of me?" he asked.

"Yes," replied the physician, hesitating.

"Speak in my presence then," said my friend; "I fear nothing." It was
said in his old, imperious way, although his suffering must have been
great.

"If you insist----"

"I do."

"Then," said the physician, "if you have any matters to adjust they
should be attended to at once. I can do nothing for you."

"How long can I live?" asked Arnold.

The physician thoughtfully stroked his gray beard. "It depends," he
finally said; "if the knife be withdrawn you may live three minutes; if
it be allowed to remain you may possibly live an hour or two--not
longer."

Arnold never flinched.

"Thank you," he said, smiling faintly through his pain; "my friend here
will pay you. I have some things to do. Let the knife remain." He
turned his eyes to mine, and, pressing my hand, said, affectionately,
"And I thank you, too, old fellow, for not pulling it out."

The physician, moved by a sense of delicacy, left the room, saying,
"Ring if there is a change. I will be in the hotel office." He had not
gone far when he turned and came back. "Pardon me," said he, "but there
is a young surgeon in the hotel who is said to be a very skilful man.
My specialty is not surgery, but medicine. May I call him?"

"Yes," said I, eagerly; but Arnold smiled and shook his head. "I fear
there will not be time," he said. But I refused to heed him and
directed that the surgeon be called immediately. I was writing at
Arnold's dictation when the two men entered the room.

There was something of nerve and assurance in the young surgeon that
struck my attention. His manner, though quiet, was bold and
straightforward and his movements sure and quick. This young man had
already distinguished himself in the performance of some difficult
hospital laparotomies, and he was at that sanguine age when ambition
looks through the spectacles of experiment. Dr. Raoul Entrefort was the
new-comer's name. He was a Creole, small and dark, and he had travelled
and studied in Europe.

"Speak freely," gasped Arnold, after Dr. Entrefort had made an
examination.

"What think you, doctor?" asked Entrefort of the older man.

"I think," was the reply, "that the knife-blade has penetrated the
ascending aorta, about two inches above the heart. So long as the blade
remains in the wound the escape of blood is comparatively small, though
certain; were the blade withdrawn the heart would almost instantly
empty itself through the aortal wound."

Meanwhile, Entrefort was deftly cutting away the white shirt and the
undershirt, and soon had the breast exposed. He examined the
gem-studded hilt with the keenest interest.

"You are proceeding on the assumption, doctor," he said, "that this
weapon is a knife."

"Certainly," answered Dr. Rowell, smiling; "what else can it be?"

"It _is_ a knife," faintly interposed Arnold.

"Did you see the blade?" Entrefort asked him, quickly.

"I did--for a moment."

Entrefort shot a quick look at Dr. Rowell and whispered, "Then it is
_not_ suicide." Dr. Rowell looked puzzled and said nothing.

"I must disagree with you, gentlemen," quietly remarked Entrefort;
"this is not a knife." He examined the handle very narrowly. Not only
was the blade entirely concealed from view within Arnold's body, but
the blow had been so strongly delivered that the skin was depressed by
the guard. "The fact that it is not a knife presents a very curious
series of facts and contingencies," pursued Entrefort, with amazing
coolness, "some of which are, so far as I am informed, entirely novel
in the history of surgery."

A quizzical expression, faintly amused and manifestly interested, was
upon Dr. Rowell's face. "What is the weapon, doctor?" he asked.

"A stiletto."

Arnold started. Dr. Rowell appeared confused. "I must confess," he
said, "my ignorance of the differences among these penetrating weapons,
whether dirks, daggers, stilettos, poniards, or bowie-knives."

"With the exception of the stiletto," explained Entrefort, "all the
weapons you mention have one or two edges, so that in penetrating they
cut their way. A stiletto is round, is ordinarily about half an inch or
less in diameter at the guard, and tapers to a sharp point. It
penetrates solely by pushing the tissues aside in all directions. You
will understand the importance of that point."

Dr. Rowell nodded, more deeply interested than ever.

"How do you know it is a stiletto, Dr. Entrefort?" I asked.

"The cutting of these stones is the work of Italian lapidaries," he
said, "and they were set in Genoa. Notice, too, the guard. It is much
broader and shorter than the guard of an edged weapon; in fact, it is
nearly round. This weapon is about four hundred years old, and would be
cheap at twenty thousand florins. Observe, also, the darkening color of
your friend's breast in the immediate vicinity of the guard; this
indicates that the tissues have been bruised by the crowding of the
'blade,' if I may use the term."

"What has all this to do with me?" asked the dying man.

"Perhaps a great deal, perhaps nothing. It brings a single ray of hope
into your desperate condition."

Arnold's eyes sparkled and he caught his breath. A tremor passed all
through him, and I felt it in the hand I was holding. Life was sweet to
him, then, after all--sweet to this wild dare-devil who had just faced
death with such calmness! Dr. Rowell, though showing no sign of
jealousy, could not conceal a look of incredulity.

"With your permission," said Entrefort, addressing Arnold, "I will do
what I can to save your life."

"You may," said the poor boy.

"But I shall have to hurt you."

"Well."

"Perhaps very much."

"Well."

"And even if I succeed (the chance is one in a thousand) you will never
be a sound man, and a constant and terrible danger will always be
present."

"Well."

Entrefort wrote a note and sent it away in haste by a bell-boy.

"Meanwhile," he resumed, "your life is in imminent danger from shock,
and the end may come in a few minutes or hours from that cause. Attend
without delay to whatever matters may require settling, and Dr.
Rowell," glancing at that gentleman, "will give you something to brace
you up. I speak frankly, for I see that you are a man of extraordinary
nerve. Am I right?"

"Be perfectly candid," said Arnold.

Dr. Rowell, evidently bewildered by his cyclonic young associate, wrote
a prescription, which I sent by a boy to be filled. With unwise zeal I
asked Entrefort,--

"Is there not danger of lockjaw?"

"No," he replied; "there is not a sufficiently extensive injury to
peripheral nerves to induce traumatic tetanus."

I subsided. Dr. Rowell's medicine came and I administered a dose. The
physician and the surgeon then retired. The poor sufferer straightened
up his business. When it was done he asked me,--

"What is that crazy Frenchman going to do to me?"

"I have no idea; be patient."

In less than an hour they returned, bringing with them a keen-eyed,
tall young man, who had a number of tools wrapped in an apron.
Evidently he was unused to such scenes, for he became deathly pale upon
seeing the ghastly spectacle on my bed. With staring eyes and open
mouth he began to retreat towards the door, stammering,--

"I--I can't do it."

"Nonsense, Hippolyte! Don't be a baby. Why, man, it is a case of life
and death!"

"But--look at his eyes! he is dying!"

Arnold smiled. "I am not dead, though," he gasped.

"I--I beg your pardon," said Hippolyte.

Dr. Entrefort gave the nervous man a drink of brandy and then said,--

"No more nonsense, my boy; it must be done. Gentlemen, allow me to
introduce Mr. Hippolyte, one of the most original, ingenious, and
skilful machinists in the country."

Hippolyte, being modest, blushed as he bowed. In order to conceal his
confusion he unrolled his apron on the table with considerable noise of
rattling tools.

"I have to make some preparations before you may begin, Hippolyte, and
I want you to observe me that you may become used not only to the sight
of fresh blood, but also, what is more trying, the odor of it."

Hippolyte shivered. Entrefort opened a case of surgical instruments.

"Now, doctor, the chloroform," he said, to Dr. Rowell.

"I will not take it," promptly interposed the sufferer; "I want to know
when I die."

"Very well," said Entrefort; "but you have little nerve now to spare.
We may try it without chloroform, however. It will be better if you can
do without. Try your best to lie still while I cut."

"What are you going to do?" asked Arnold.

"Save your life, if possible."

"How? Tell me all about it."

"Must you know?"

"Yes."

"Very well, then. The point of the stiletto has passed entirely through
the aorta, which is the great vessel rising out of the heart and
carrying the aerated blood to the arteries. If I should withdraw the
weapon the blood would rush from the two holes in the aorta and you
would soon be dead. If the weapon had been a knife, the parted tissue
would have yielded, and the blood would have been forced out on either
side of the blade and would have caused death. As it is, not a drop of
blood has escaped from the aorta into the thoracic cavity. All that is
left for us to do, then, is to allow the stiletto to remain permanently
in the aorta. Many difficulties at once present themselves, and I do
not wonder at Dr. Rowell's look of surprise and incredulity."

That gentleman smiled and shook his head.

"It is a desperate chance," continued Entrefort, "and is a novel case
in surgery; but it is the only chance. The fact that the weapon is a
stiletto is the important point--a stupid weapon, but a blessing to us
now. If the assassin had known more she would have used----"

Upon his employment of the noun "assassin" and the feminine pronoun
"she," both Arnold and I started violently, and I cried out to the man
to stop.

"Let him proceed," said Arnold, who, by a remarkable effort, had calmed
himself.

"Not if the subject is painful," Entrefort said.

"It is not," protested Arnold; "why do you think the blow was struck by
a woman?"

"Because, first, no man capable of being an assassin would use so gaudy
and valuable a weapon; second, no man would be so stupid as to carry so
antiquated and inadequate a thing as a stiletto, when that most
murderous and satisfactory of all penetrating and cutting weapons, the
bowie-knife, is available. She was a strong woman, too, for it requires
a good hand to drive a stiletto to the guard, even though it miss the
sternum by a hair's breadth and slip between the ribs, for the muscles
here are hard and the intercostal spaces narrow. She was not only a
strong woman, but a desperate one also."

"That will do," said Arnold. He beckoned me to bend closer. "You must
watch this man; he is too sharp; he is dangerous."

"Then," resumed Entrefort, "I shall tell you what I intend to do. There
will undoubtedly be inflammation of the aorta, which, if it persist,
will cause a fatal aneurism by a breaking down of the aortal walls; but
we hope, with the help of your youth and health, to check it.

"Another serious difficulty is this: With every inhalation, the entire
thorax (or bony structure of the chest) considerably expands. The aorta
remains stationary. You will see, therefore, that as your aorta and
your breast are now held in rigid relation to each other by the
stiletto, the chest, with every inhalation, pulls the aorta forward out
of place about half an inch. I am certain that it is doing this,
because there is no indication of an escape of arterial blood into the
thoracic cavity; in other words, the mouths of the two aortal wounds
have seized upon the blade with a firm hold and thus prevent it from
slipping in and out. This is a very fortunate occurrence, but one which
will cause pain for some time. The aorta, you may understand, being
made by the stiletto to move with the breathing, pulls the heart
backward and forward with every breath you take; but that organ, though
now undoubtedly much surprised, will accustom itself to its new
condition.

"What I fear most, however, is the formation of a clot around the
blade. You see, the presence of the blade in the aorta has already
reduced the blood-carrying capacity of that vessel; a clot, therefore,
need not be very large to stop up the aorta, and, of course, if that
should occur death would ensue. But the clot, if one form, may be
dislodged and driven forward, in which event it may lodge in any one of
the numerous branches from the aorta and produce results more or less
serious, possibly fatal. If, for instance, it should choke either the
right or the left carotid, there would ensue atrophy of one side of the
brain, and consequently paralysis of half the entire body; but it is
possible that in time there would come about a secondary circulation
from the other side of the brain, and thus restore a healthy condition.
Or the clot (which, in passing always from larger arteries to smaller,
must unavoidably find one not sufficiently large to carry it, and must
lodge somewhere) may either necessitate amputation of one of the four
limbs or lodge itself so deep within the body that it cannot be reached
with the knife. You are beginning to realize some of the dangers which
await you."

Arnold smiled faintly.

"But we shall do our best to prevent the formation of a clot,"
continued Entrefort; "there are drugs which may be used with effect."

"Are there more dangers?"

"Many more; some of the more serious have not been mentioned. One of
these is the probability of the aortal tissues pressing upon the weapon
relaxing their hold and allowing the blade to slip. That would let out
the blood and cause death. I am uncertain whether the hold is now
maintained by the pressure of the tissues or the adhesive quality of
the serum which was set free by the puncture. I am convinced, though,
that in either event the hold is easily broken and that it may give way
at any moment, for it is under several kinds of strains. Every time the
heart contracts and crowds the blood into the aorta, the latter expands
a little, and then contracts when the pressure is removed. Any unusual
exercise or excitement produces stronger and quicker heart-beats, and
increases the strain on the adhesion of the aorta to the weapon. A
fright, fall, a jump, a blow on the chest--any of these might so jar
the heart and aorta as to break the hold."

Entrefort stopped.

"Is that all?" asked Arnold.

"No; but is not that enough?"

"More than enough," said Arnold, with a sudden and dangerous sparkle in
his eyes. Before any of us could think, the desperate fellow had seized
the handle of the stiletto with both hands in a determined effort to
withdraw it and die. I had had no time to order my faculties to the
movement of a muscle, when Entrefort, with incredible alertness and
swiftness, had Arnold's wrists. Slowly Arnold relaxed his hold.

"There, now!" said Entrefort, soothingly; "that was a careless act and
might have broken the adhesion! You'll have to be careful."

Arnold looked at him with a curious combination of expressions.

"Dr. Entrefort," he quietly remarked, "you are the devil."

Bowing profoundly, Entrefort replied: "You do me too great honor;" then
he whispered to his patient: "If you do _that_"--with a motion towards
the hilt--"I will have _her_ hanged for murder."

Arnold started and choked, and a look of horror overspread his face. He
withdrew his hands, took one of mine in both of his, threw his arms
upon the pillow above his head, and, holding my hand, firmly said to
Entrefort,--

"Proceed with your work."

"Come closer, Hippolyte," said Entrefort, "and observe narrowly. Will
you kindly assist me, Dr. Rowell?" That gentleman had sat in wondering
silence.

Entrefort's hand was quick and sure, and he used the knife with
marvellous dexterity. First he made four equidistant incisions outward
from the guard and just through the skin. Arnold held his breath and
ground his teeth at the first cut, but soon regained command of
himself. Each incision was about two inches long. Hippolyte shuddered
and turned his head aside. Entrefort, whom nothing escaped,
exclaimed,--

"Steady, Hippolyte! Observe!"

Quickly was the skin peeled back to the limit of the incisions. This
must have been excruciatingly painful. Arnold groaned, and his hands
were moist and cold. Down sank the knife into the flesh from which the
skin had been raised, and blood flowed freely; Dr. Rowell handled the
sponge. The keen knife worked rapidly. Arnold's marvellous nerve was
breaking down. He clutched my hand fiercely; his eyes danced; his mind
was weakening. Almost in a moment the flesh had been cut away to the
bones, which were now exposed,--two ribs and the sternum. A few quick
cuts cleared the weapon between the guard and the ribs.

"To work, Hippolyte--be quick!"

The machinist had evidently been coached before he came. With slender,
long-fingered hands, which trembled at first, he selected certain tools
with nice precision, made some rapid measurements of the weapon and of
the cleared space around it, and began to adjust the parts of a queer
little machine. Arnold watched him curiously.

"What----" he began to say; but he ceased; a deeper pallor set on his
face, his hands relaxed, and his eyelids fell.

"Thank God!" exclaimed Entrefort; "he has fainted--he can't stop us
now. Quick, Hippolyte!"

The machinist attached the queer little machine to the handle of the
weapon, seized the stiletto in his left hand, and with his right began
a series of sharp, rapid movements backward and forward.

"Hurry, Hippolyte!" urged Entrefort.

"The metal is very hard."

"Is it cutting?"

"I can't see for the blood."

In another moment something snapped. Hippolyte started; he was very
nervous. He removed the little machine.

"The metal is very hard," he said; "it breaks the saws."

He adjusted another tiny saw and resumed work. After a little while he
picked up the handle of the stiletto and laid it on the table. He had
cut it off, leaving the blade inside Arnold's body.

"Good, Hippolyte!" exclaimed Entrefort. In a minute he had closed the
bright end of the blade from view by drawing together the skin-flaps
and sewing them firmly.

Arnold returned to consciousness and glanced down at his breast. He
seemed puzzled. "Where is the weapon?" he asked.

"Here is part of it," answered Entrefort, holding up the handle.

"And the blade----"

"That is an irremovable part of your internal machinery." Arnold was
silent. "It had to be cut off," pursued Entrefort, "not only because it
would be troublesome and an undesirable ornament, but also because it
was advisable to remove every possibility of its withdrawal." Arnold
said nothing. "Here is a prescription," said Entrefort; "take the
medicine as directed for the next five years without fail."

"What for? I see that it contains muriatic acid."

"If necessary I will explain five years from now."

"If I live."

"If you live."

Arnold drew me down to him and whispered, "Tell her to fly at once;
this man may make trouble for her."

Was there ever a more generous fellow?

                    *      *      *      *      *

I thought that I recognized a thin, pale, bright face among the
passengers who were leaving an Australian steamer which had just
arrived at San Francisco.

"Dr. Entrefort!" I cried.

"Ah!" he said, peering up into my face and grasping my hand; "I know
you now, but you have changed. You remember that I was called away
immediately after I had performed that crazy operation on your friend.
I have spent the intervening four years in India, China, Tibet,
Siberia, the South Seas, and God knows where not. But wasn't that a
most absurd, hare-brained experiment that I tried on your friend!
Still, it was all that could have been done. I have dropped all that
nonsense long ago. It is better, for more reasons than one, to let them
die at once. Poor fellow! he bore it so bravely! Did he suffer much
afterwards? How long did he live? A week--perhaps a month?"

"He is alive yet."

"What!" exclaimed Entrefort, startled.

"He is, indeed, and is in this city."

"Incredible!"

"It is true; you shall see him."

"But tell me about him now!" cried the surgeon, his eager eyes
glittering with the peculiar light which I had seen in them on the
night of the operation. "Has he regularly taken the medicine which I
prescribed?"

"He has. Well, the change in him, from what he was before the
operation, is shocking. Imagine a young dare-devil of twenty-two, who
had no greater fear of danger or death than of a cold, now a cringing,
cowering fellow; apparently an old man, nursing his life with pitiful
tenderness, fearful that at any moment something may happen to break
the hold of his aorta-walls on the stiletto-blade; a confirmed
hypochondriac, peevish, melancholic, unhappy in the extreme. He keeps
himself confined as closely as possible, avoiding all excitement and
exercise, and even reads nothing exciting. The constant danger has worn
out the last shred of his manhood and left him a pitiful wreck. Can
nothing be done for him?"

"Possibly. But has he consulted no physician?"

"None whatever; he has been afraid that he might learn the worst."

"Let us find him at once. Ah, here comes my wife to meet me! She
arrived by the other steamer."

I recognized her immediately and was overcome with astonishment.

"Charming woman," said Entrefort; "you'll like her. We were married
three years ago at Bombay. She belongs to a noble Italian family and
has travelled a great deal."

He introduced us. To my unspeakable relief she remembered neither my
name nor my face. I must have appeared odd to her, but it was
impossible for me to be perfectly unconcerned. We went to Arnold's
rooms, I with much dread. I left her in the reception-room and took
Entrefort within. Arnold was too greatly absorbed in his own troubles
to be dangerously excited by meeting Entrefort, whom he greeted with
indifferent hospitality.

"But I heard a woman's voice," he said. "It sounds----" He checked
himself, and before I could intercept him he had gone to the
reception-room; and there he stood face to face with the beautiful
adventuress,--none other than Entrefort's wife now,--who, wickedly
desperate, had driven a stiletto into Arnold's vitals in a hotel four
years before because he had refused to marry her. They recognized each
other instantly and both grew pale; but she, quicker witted, recovered
her composure at once and advanced towards him with a smile and an
extended hand. He stepped back, his face ghastly with fear.

"Oh!" he gasped, "the excitement, the shock,--it has made the blade
slip out! The blood is pouring from the opening,--it burns,--I am
dying!" and he fell into my arms and instantly expired.

The autopsy revealed the surprising fact that there was no blade in his
thorax at all; it had been gradually consumed by the muriatic acid
which Entrefort had prescribed for that very purpose, and the
perforations in the aorta had closed up gradually with the wasting of
the blade and had been perfectly healed for a long time. All his vital
organs were sound. My poor friend, once so reckless and brave, had died
simply of a childish and groundless fear, and the woman unwittingly had
accomplished her revenge.




Over an Absinthe Bottle


Arthur Kimberlin, a young man of very high spirit, found himself a
total stranger in San Francisco one rainy evening, at a time when his
heart was breaking; for his hunger was of that most poignant kind in
which physical suffering is forced to the highest point without
impairment of the mental functions. There remained in his possession
not a thing that he might have pawned for a morsel to eat; and even as
it was, he had stripped his body of all articles of clothing except
those which a remaining sense of decency compelled him to retain. Hence
it was that cold assailed him and conspired with hunger to complete his
misery. Having been brought into the world and reared a gentleman, he
lacked the courage to beg and the skill to steal. Had not an
extraordinary thing occurred to him, he either would have drowned
himself in the bay within twenty-four hours or died of pneumonia in the
street. He had been seventy hours without food, and his mental
desperation had driven him far in its race with his physical needs to
consume the strength within him; so that now, pale, weak, and
tottering, he took what comfort he could find in the savory odors which
came steaming up from the basement kitchens of the restaurants in
Market Street, caring more to gain them than to avoid the rain. His
teeth chattered; he shambled, stooped, and gasped. He was too desperate
to curse his fate--he could only long for food. He could not reason; he
could not understand that ten thousand hands might gladly have fed him;
he could think only of the hunger which consumed him, and of food that
could give him warmth and happiness.

When he had arrived at Mason Street, he saw a restaurant a little way
up that thoroughfare, and for that he headed, crossing the street
diagonally. He stopped before the window and ogled the steaks, thick
and lined with fat; big oysters lying on ice; slices of ham as large as
his hat; whole roasted chickens, brown and juicy. He ground his teeth,
groaned, and staggered on.

A few steps beyond was a drinking-saloon, which had a private door at
one side, with the words "Family Entrance" painted thereon. In the
recess of the door (which was closed) stood a man. In spite of his
agony, Kimberlin saw something in this man's face that appalled and
fascinated him. Night was on, and the light in the vicinity was dim;
but it was apparent that the stranger had an appearance of whose
character he himself must have been ignorant. Perhaps it was the
unspeakable anguish of it that struck through Kimberlin's sympathies.
The young man came to an uncertain halt and stared at the stranger. At
first he was unseen, for the stranger looked straight out into the
street with singular fixity, and the death-like pallor of his face
added a weirdness to the immobility of his gaze. Then he took notice of
the young man.

"Ah," he said, slowly and with peculiar distinctness, "the rain has
caught you, too, without overcoat or umbrella! Stand in this
doorway--there is room for two."

The voice was not unkind, though it had an alarming hardness. It was
the first word that had been addressed to the sufferer since hunger had
seized him, and to be spoken to at all, and have his comfort regarded
in the slightest way, gave him cheer. He entered the embrasure and
stood beside the stranger, who at once relapsed into his fixed gaze at
nothing across the street. But presently the stranger stirred himself
again.

"It may rain a long time," said he; "I am cold, and I observe that you
tremble. Let us step inside and get a drink."

He opened the door and Kimberlin followed, hope beginning to lay a warm
hand upon his heart. The pale stranger led the way into one of the
little private booths with which the place was furnished. Before
sitting down he put his hand into his pocket and drew forth a roll of
bank-bills.

"You are younger than I," he said; "won't you go to the bar and buy a
bottle of absinthe, and bring a pitcher of water and some glasses? I
don't like for the waiters to come around. Here is a twenty-dollar
bill."

Kimberlin took the bill and started down through the corridor towards
the bar. He clutched the money tightly in his palm; it felt warm and
comfortable, and sent a delicious tingling through his arm. How many
glorious hot meals did that bill represent? He clutched it tighter and
hesitated. He thought he smelled a broiled steak, with fat little
mushrooms and melted butter in the steaming dish. He stopped and looked
back towards the door of the booth. He saw that the stranger had closed
it. He could pass it, slip out the door, and buy something to eat. He
turned and started, but the coward in him (there are other names for
this) tripped his resolution; so he went straight to the bar and made
the purchase. This was so unusual that the man who served him looked
sharply at him.

"Ain't goin' to drink all o' that, are you?" he asked.

"I have friends in the box," replied Kimberlin, "and we want to drink
quietly and without interruption. We are in Number 7."

"Oh, beg pardon. That's all right," said the man.

Kimberlin's step was very much stronger and steadier as he returned
with the liquor. He opened the door of the booth. The stranger sat at
the side of the little table, staring at the opposite wall just as he
had stared across the street. He wore a wide-brimmed, slouch hat, drawn
well down. It was only after Kimberlin had set the bottle, pitcher, and
glasses on the table, and seated himself opposite the stranger and
within his range of vision, that the pale man noticed him.

"Oh! you have brought it? How kind of you! Now please lock the door."

Kimberlin had slipped the change into his pocket, and was in the act of
bringing it out when the stranger said,--

"Keep the change. You will need it, for I am going to get it back in a
way that may interest you. Let us first drink, and then I will
explain."

The pale man mixed two drinks of absinthe and water, and the two drank.
Kimberlin, unsophisticated, had never tasted the liquor before, and he
found it harsh and offensive; but no sooner had it reached his stomach
than it began to warm him, and sent the most delicious thrill through
his frame.

"It will do us good," said the stranger; "presently we shall have more.
Meanwhile, do you know how to throw dice?"

Kimberlin weakly confessed that he did not.

"I thought not. Well, please go to the bar and bring a dice-box. I
would ring for it, but I don't want the waiters to be coming in."

Kimberlin fetched the box, again locked the door, and the game began.
It was not one of the simple old games, but had complications, in which
judgment, as well as chance, played a part. After a game or two without
stakes, the stranger said,--

"You now seem to understand it. Very well--I will show you that you do
not. We will now throw for a dollar a game, and in that way I shall win
the money that you received in change. Otherwise I should be robbing
you, and I imagine you cannot afford to lose. I mean no offence. I am a
plain-spoken man, but I believe in honesty before politeness. I merely
want a little diversion, and you are so kind-natured that I am sure you
will not object."

"On the contrary," replied Kimberlin, "I shall enjoy it."

"Very well; but let us have another drink before we start. I believe I
am growing colder."

They drank again, and this time the starving man took his liquor with
relish--at least, it was something in his stomach, and it warmed and
delighted him.

The stake was a dollar a side. Kimberlin won. The pale stranger smiled
grimly, and opened another game. Again Kimberlin won. Then the stranger
pushed back his hat and fixed that still gaze upon his opponent,
smiling yet. With this full view of the pale stranger's face, Kimberlin
was more appalled than ever. He had begun to acquire a certain
self-possession and ease, and his marvelling at the singular character
of the adventure had begun to weaken, when this new incident threw him
back into confusion. It was the extraordinary expression of the
stranger's face that alarmed him. Never upon the face of a living being
had he seen a pallor so death-like and chilling. The face was more than
pale; it was white. Kimberlin's observing faculty had been sharpened by
the absinthe, and, after having detected the stranger in an
absent-minded effort two or three times to stroke a beard which had no
existence, he reflected that some of the whiteness of the face might be
due to the recent removal of a full beard. Besides the pallor, there
were deep and sharp lines upon the face, which the electric light
brought out very distinctly. With the exception of the steady glance of
the eyes and an occasional hard smile, that seemed out of place upon
such a face, the expression was that of stone inartistically cut. The
eyes were black, but of heavy expression; the lower lip was purple; the
hands were fine, white, and thin, and dark veins bulged out upon them.
The stranger pulled down his hat.

"You are lucky," he said. "Suppose we try another drink. There is
nothing like absinthe to sharpen one's wits, and I see that you and I
are going to have a delightful game."

After the drink the game proceeded. Kimberlin won from the very first,
rarely losing a game. He became greatly excited. His eyes shone; color
came to his cheeks. The stranger, having exhausted the roll of bills
which he first produced, drew forth another, much larger and of higher
denominations. There were several thousand dollars in the roll. At
Kimberlin's right hand were his winnings,--something like two hundred
dollars. The stakes were raised, and the game went rapidly on. Another
drink was taken. Then fortune turned the stranger's way, and he won
easily. It went back to Kimberlin, for he was now playing with all the
judgment and skill he could command. Once only did it occur to him to
wonder what he should do with the money if he should quit winner; but a
sense of honor decided him that it would belong to the stranger.

By this time the absinthe had so sharpened Kimberlin's faculties that,
the temporary satisfaction which it had brought to his hunger having
passed, his physical suffering returned with increased aggressiveness.
Could he not order a supper with his earnings? No; that was out of the
question, and the stranger said nothing about eating. Kimberlin
continued to play, while the manifestations of hunger took the form of
sharp pains, which darted through him viciously, causing him to writhe
and grind his teeth. The stranger paid no attention, for he was now
wholly absorbed in the game. He seemed puzzled and disconcerted. He
played with great care, studying each throw minutely. No conversation
passed between them now. They drank occasionally, the dice continued to
rattle, the money kept piling up at Kimberlin's hand.

The pale man began to behave strangely. At times he would start and
throw back his head, as though he were listening. For a moment his eyes
would sharpen and flash, and then sink into heaviness again. More than
once Kimberlin, who had now begun to suspect that his antagonist was
some kind of monster, saw a frightfully ghastly expression sweep over
his face, and his features would become fixed for a very short time in
a peculiar grimace. It was noticeable, however, that he was steadily
sinking deeper and deeper into a condition of apathy. Occasionally he
would raise his eyes to Kimberlin's face after the young man had made
an astonishingly lucky throw, and keep them fixed there with a
steadiness that made the young man quail.

The stranger produced another roll of bills when the second was gone,
and this had a value many times as great as the others together. The
stakes were raised to a thousand dollars a game, and still Kimberlin
won. At last the time came when the stranger braced himself for a final
effort. With speech somewhat thick, but very deliberate and quiet, he
said,--

"You have won seventy-four thousand dollars, which is exactly the
amount I have remaining. We have been playing for several hours. I am
tired, and I suppose you are. Let us finish the game. Each will now
stake his all and throw a final game for it."

Without hesitation, Kimberlin agreed. The bills made a considerable
pile on the table. Kimberlin threw, and the box held but one
combination that could possibly beat him; this combination might be
thrown once in ten thousand times. The starving man's heart beat
violently as the stranger picked up the box with exasperating
deliberation. It was a long time before he threw. He made his
combinations and ended by defeating his opponent. He sat looking at the
dice a long time, and then he slowly leaned back in his chair, settled
himself comfortably, raised his eyes to Kimberlin's, and fixed that
unearthly stare upon him. He said not a word; his face contained not a
trace of emotion or intelligence. He simply looked. One cannot keep
one's eyes open very long without winking, but the stranger did. He sat
so motionless that Kimberlin began to be tortured.

"I will go now," he said to the stranger--said that when he had not a
cent and was starving.

The stranger made no reply, but did not relax his gaze; and under that
gaze the young man shrank back in his own chair, terrified. He became
aware that two men were cautiously talking in an adjoining booth. As
there was now a deathly silence in his own, he listened, and this is
what he heard:

"Yes; he was seen to turn into this street about three hours ago."

"And he had shaved?"

"He must have done so; and to remove a full beard would naturally make
a great change in a man."

"But it may not have been he."

"True enough; but his extreme pallor attracted attention. You know that
he has been troubled with heart-disease lately, and it has affected him
seriously."

"Yes, but his old skill remains. Why, this is the most daring
bank-robbery we ever had here. A hundred and forty-eight thousand
dollars--think of it! How long has it been since he was let out of
Joliet?"

"Eight years. In that time he has grown a beard, and lived by
dice-throwing with men who thought they could detect him if he should
swindle them; but that is impossible. No human being can come winner
out of a game with him. He is evidently not here; let us look farther."

Then the two men clinked glasses and passed out.

The dice-players--the pale one and the starving one--sat gazing at each
other, with a hundred and forty-eight thousand dollars piled up between
them. The winner made no move to take in the money; he merely sat and
stared at Kimberlin, wholly unmoved by the conversation in the
adjoining room. His imperturbability was amazing, his absolute
stillness terrifying.

Kimberlin began to shake with an ague. The cold, steady gaze of the
stranger sent ice into his marrow. Unable to bear longer this
unwavering look, Kimberlin moved to one side, and then he was amazed to
discover that the eyes of the pale man, instead of following him,
remained fixed upon the spot where he had sat, or, rather, upon the
wall behind it. A great dread beset the young man. He feared to make
the slightest sound. Voices of men in the bar-room were audible, and
the sufferer imagined that he heard others whispering and tip-toeing in
the passage outside his booth. He poured out some absinthe, watching
his strange companion all the while, and drank alone and unnoticed. He
took a heavy drink, and it had a peculiar effect upon him: he felt his
heart bounding with alarming force and rapidity, and breathing was
difficult. Still his hunger remained, and that and the absinthe gave
him an idea that the gastric acids were destroying him by digesting his
stomach. He leaned forward and whispered to the stranger, but was given
no attention. One of the man's hands lay upon the table; Kimberlin
placed his upon it, and then drew back in terror--the hand was as cold
as a stone.

The money must not lie there exposed. Kimberlin arranged it into neat
parcels, looking furtively every moment at his immovable companion, and
_in mortal fear that he would stir_! Then he sat back and waited. A
deadly fascination impelled him to move back into his former position,
so as to bring his face directly before the gaze of the stranger. And
so the two sat and stared at each other.

Kimberlin felt his breath coming heavier and his heart-beats growing
weaker, but these conditions gave him comfort by reducing his anxiety
and softening the pangs of hunger. He was growing more and more
comfortable and yawned. If he had dared he might have gone to sleep.

Suddenly a fierce light flooded his vision and sent him with a bound to
his feet. Had he been struck upon the head or stabbed to the heart? No;
he was sound and alive. The pale stranger still sat there staring at
nothing and immovable; but Kimberlin was no longer afraid of him. On
the contrary, an extraordinary buoyancy of spirit and elasticity of
body made him feel reckless and daring. His former timidity and
scruples vanished, and he felt equal to any adventure. Without
hesitation he gathered up the money and bestowed it in his several
pockets.

"I am a fool to starve," he said to himself, "with all this money ready
to my hand."

As cautiously as a thief he unlocked the door, stepped out, reclosed
it, and boldly and with head erect stalked out upon the street. Much to
his astonishment, he found the city in the bustle of the early evening,
yet the sky was clear. It was evident to him that he had not been in
the saloon as long as he had supposed. He walked along the street with
the utmost unconcern of the dangers that beset him, and laughed softly
but gleefully. Would he not eat now--ah, would he not? Why, he could
buy a dozen restaurants! Not only that, but he would hunt the city up
and down for hungry men and feed them with the fattest steaks, the
juiciest roasts, and the biggest oysters that the town could supply. As
for himself, he must eat first; after that he would set up a great
establishment for feeding other hungry mortals without charge. Yes, he
would eat first; if he pleased, he would eat till he should burst. In
what single place could he find sufficient to satisfy his hunger? Could
he live sufficiently long to have an ox killed and roasted whole for
his supper? Besides an ox he would order two dozen broiled chickens,
fifty dozen oysters, a dozen crabs, ten dozen eggs, ten hams, eight
young pigs, twenty wild ducks, fifteen fish of four different kinds,
eight salads, four dozen bottles each of claret, burgundy, and
champagne; for pastry, eight plum-puddings, and for dessert, bushels of
nuts, ices, and confections. It would require time to prepare such a
meal, and if he could only live until it could be made ready it would
be infinitely better than to spoil his appetite with a dozen or two
meals of ordinary size. He thought he could live that long, for he felt
amazingly strong and bright. Never in his life before had he walked
with so great ease and lightness; his feet hardly touched the
ground--he ran and leaped. It did him good to tantalize his hunger, for
that would make his relish of the feast all the keener. Oh, but how
they would stare when he would give his order, and how comically they
would hang back, and how amazed they would be when he would throw a few
thousands of dollars on the counter and tell them to take their money
out of it and keep the change! Really, it was worth while to be so
hungry as that, for then eating became an unspeakable luxury. And one
must not be in too great a hurry to eat when one is so hungry--that is
beastly. How much of the joy of living do rich people miss from eating
before they are hungry--before they have gone three days and nights
without food! And how manly it is, and how great self-control it shows,
to dally with starvation when one has a dazzling fortune in one's
pocket and every restaurant has an open door! To be hungry without
money--that is despair; to be starving with a bursting pocket--that is
sublime! Surely the only true heaven is that in which one famishes in
the presence of abundant food, which he might have for the taking, and
then a gorged stomach and a long sleep.

The starving wretch, speculating thus, still kept from food. He felt
himself growing in stature, and the people whom he met became pygmies.
The streets widened, the stars became suns and dimmed the electric
lights, and the most intoxicating odors and the sweetest music filled
the air. Shouting, laughing, and singing, Kimberlin joined in a great
chorus that swept over the city, and then----

                    *      *      *      *      *

The two detectives who had traced the famous bank-robber to the saloon
in Mason Street, where Kimberlin had encountered the stranger of the
pallid face, left the saloon; but, unable to pursue the trail farther,
had finally returned. They found the door of booth No. 7 locked. After
rapping and calling and receiving no answer, they burst open the door,
and there they saw two men--one of middle age and the other very
young--sitting perfectly still, and in the strangest manner imaginable
staring at each other across the table. Between them was a great pile
of money, arranged neatly in parcels. Near at hand were an empty
absinthe bottle, a water-pitcher, glasses, and a dice-box, with the
dice lying before the elder man as he had thrown them last. One of the
detectives covered the elder man with a revolver and commanded,--

"Throw up your hands!"

But the dice-thrower paid no attention. The detectives exchanged
startled glances. They looked closer into the faces of the two men, and
then they discovered that both were dead.




The Inmate of the Dungeon


After the Board of State Prison Directors, sitting in session at the
prison, had heard and disposed of the complaints and petitions of a
number of convicts, the warden announced that all who wished to appear
had been heard. Thereupon a certain uneasy and apprehensive expression,
which all along had sat upon the faces of the directors, became visibly
deeper. The chairman--a nervous, energetic, abrupt, incisive
man--glanced at a slip of paper in his hand, and said to the warden,--

"Send a guard for convict No. 14,208."

The warden started and became slightly pale. Somewhat confused, he
haltingly replied, "Why, he has expressed no desire to appear before
you."

"Nevertheless, you will send for him at once," responded the chairman.

The warden bowed stiffly and directed a guard to produce the convict.
Then, turning to the chairman, he said,--

"I am ignorant of your purpose in summoning this man, but of course I
have no objection. I desire, however, to make a statement concerning
him before he appears."

"When we shall have called for a statement from you," coldly responded
the chairman, "you may make one."

The warden sank back into his seat. He was a tall, fine-looking man,
well-bred and intelligent, and had a kindly face. Though ordinarily
cool, courageous, and self-possessed, he was unable to conceal a strong
emotion, which looked much like fear. A heavy silence fell upon the
room, disturbed only by the official stenographer, who was sharpening
his pencils. A stray beam of light from the westering sun slipped into
the room between the edge of the window-shade and the sash, and fell
across the chair reserved for the convict. The uneasy eyes of the
warden finally fell upon this beam and there his glance rested. The
chairman, without addressing any one particularly, remarked,--

"There are ways of learning what occurs in a prison without the
assistance of either the warden or the convicts."

Just then the guard appeared with the convict, who shambled in
painfully and laboriously, as with a string he held up from the floor
the heavy iron ball which was chained to his ankles. He was about
forty-five years old. Undoubtedly he once had been a man of uncommon
physical strength, for a powerful skeleton showed underneath the sallow
skin which covered his emaciated frame. His sallowness was peculiar and
ghastly. It was partly that of disease, and partly of something worse;
and it was this something that accounted also for his shrunken muscles
and manifest feebleness.

There had been no time to prepare him for presentation to the board. As
a consequence, his unstockinged toes showed through his gaping shoes;
the dingy suit of prison stripes which covered his gaunt frame was
frayed and tattered; his hair had not been recently cut to the prison
fashion, and, being rebellious, stood out upon his head like bristles;
and his beard, which, like his hair, was heavily dashed with gray, had
not been shaved for weeks. These incidents of his appearance combined
with a very peculiar expression of his face to make an extraordinary
picture. It is difficult to describe this almost unearthly expression.
With a certain suppressed ferocity it combined an inflexibility of
purpose that sat like an iron mask upon him. His eyes were hungry and
eager; they were the living part of him, and they shone luminous from
beneath shaggy brows. His forehead was massive, his head of fine
proportions, his jaw square and strong, and his thin, high nose showed
traces of an ancestry that must have made a mark in some corner of the
world at some time in history. He was prematurely old; this was seen in
his gray hair and in the uncommonly deep wrinkles which lined his
forehead and the corners of his eyes and of his mouth.

Upon stumbling weakly into the room, faint with the labor of walking
and of carrying the iron ball, he looked around eagerly, like a bear
driven to his haunches by the hounds. His glance passed so rapidly and
unintelligently from one face to another that he could not have had
time to form a conception of the persons present, until his swift eyes
encountered the face of the warden. Instantly they flashed; he craned
his neck forward; his lips opened and became blue; the wrinkles
deepened about his mouth and eyes; his form grew rigid, and his
breathing stopped. This sinister and terrible attitude--all the more so
because he was wholly unconscious of it--was disturbed only when the
chairman sharply commanded, "Take that seat."

The convict started as though he had been struck, and turned his eyes
upon the chairman. He drew a deep inspiration, which wheezed and
rattled as it passed into his chest. An expression of excruciating pain
swept over his face. He dropped the ball, which struck the floor with a
loud sound, and his long, bony fingers tore at the striped shirt over
his breast. A groan escaped him, and he would have sunk to the floor
had not the guard caught him and held him upright. In a moment it was
over, and then, collapsing with exhaustion, he sank into the chair.
There he sat, conscious and intelligent, but slouching, disorganized,
and indifferent.

The chairman turned sharply to the guard. "Why did you manacle this
man," he demanded, "when he is evidently so weak, and when none of the
others were manacled?"

"Why, sir," stammered the guard, "surely you know who this man is: he
is the most dangerous and desperate----"

"We know all about that. Remove his manacles."

The guard obeyed. The chairman turned to the convict, and in a kindly
manner said, "Do you know who we are?"

The convict got himself together a little and looked steadily at the
chairman. "No," he replied, after a pause. His manner was direct, and
his voice was deep, though hoarse.

"We are the State Prison Directors. We have heard of your case, and we
want you to tell us the whole truth about it."

The convict's mind worked slowly, and it was some time before he could
comprehend the explanation and request. When he had accomplished that
task he said, very slowly, "I suppose you want me to make a complaint,
sir."

"Yes,--if you have any to make."

The convict was getting himself in hand. He straightened up, and gazed
at the chairman with a peculiar intensity. Then firmly and clearly he
answered, "I've no complaint to make."

The two men sat looking at each other in silence, and as they looked a
bridge of human sympathy was slowly reared between them. The chairman
rose, passed around an intervening table, went up to the convict, and
laid a hand on his gaunt shoulder. There was a tenderness in his voice
that few men had ever heard there.

"I know," said he, "that you are a patient and uncomplaining man, or we
should have heard from you long ago. In asking you to make a statement
I am merely asking for your help to right a wrong, if a wrong has been
done. Leave your own wishes entirely out of consideration, if you
prefer. Assume, if you will, that it is not our intention or desire
either to give you relief or to make your case harder for you. There
are fifteen hundred human beings in this prison, and they are under the
absolute control of one man. If a serious wrong is practised upon one,
it may be upon others. I ask you in the name of common humanity, and as
one man of another, to put us in the way of working justice in this
prison. If you have the instincts of a man within you, you will comply
with my request. Speak out, therefore, like a man, and have no fear of
anything."

The convict was touched and stung. He looked up steadily into the
chairman's face, and firmly said, "There is nothing in this world that
I fear." Then he hung his head, and presently he raised it and added,
"I will tell you all about it."

At that moment he shifted his position so as to bring the beam of light
perpendicularly across his face and chest, and it seemed to split him
in twain. He saw it, and feasted his gaze upon it as it lay upon his
breast. After a time he thus proceeded, speaking very slowly, and in a
strangely monotonous voice:

"I was sent up for twenty years for killing a man. I hadn't been a
criminal: I killed him without thinking, for he had robbed me and
wronged me. I came here thirteen years ago. I had trouble at first--it
galled me to be a convict; but I got over that, because the warden that
was here then understood me and was kind to me, and he made me one of
the best men in the prison. I don't say this to make you think I'm
complaining about the present warden, or that he didn't treat me
kindly: I can take care of myself with him. I am not making any
complaint. I ask no man's favor, and I fear no man's power."

"That is all right. Proceed."

"After the warden had made a good man out of me I worked faithfully,
sir; I did everything they told me to do; I worked willingly and like a
slave. It did me good to work, and I worked hard. I never violated any
of the rules after I was broken in. And then the law was passed giving
credits to the men for good conduct. My term was twenty years, but I
did so well that my credits piled up, and after I had been here ten
years I could begin to see my way out. There were only about three
years left. And, sir, I worked faithfully to make those years good. I
knew that if I did anything against the rules I should lose my credits
and have to stay nearly ten years longer. I knew all about that, sir: I
never forgot it. I wanted to be a free man again, and I planned to go
away somewhere and make the fight all over,--to be a man in the world
once more."

"We know all about your record in the prison. Proceed."

"Well, it was this way. You know they were doing some heavy work in the
quarries and on the grades, and they wanted the strongest men in the
prison. There weren't very many: there never are very many strong men
in a prison. And I was one of 'em that they put on the heavy work, and
I did it faithfully. They used to pay the men for extra work,--not pay
'em money, but the value of the money in candles, tobacco, extra
clothes, and things like that. I loved to work, and I loved to work
extra, and so did some of the other men. On Saturdays the men who had
done extra work would fall in and go up to the captain of the guard,
and he would give to each man what was coming to him. He had it all
down in a book, and when a man would come up and call for what was due
him the captain would give it to him, whatever he wanted that the rules
allowed.

"One Saturday I fell in with the others. A good many were ahead of me
in the line, and when they got what they wanted they fell into a new
line, waiting to be marched to the cells. When my turn in the line came
I went up to the captain and said I would take mine in tobacco. He
looked at me pretty sharply, and said, 'How did you get back in that
line?' I told him I belonged there,--that I had come to get my extra.
He looked at his book, and he said, 'You've had your extra: you got
tobacco.' And he told me to fall into the new line. I told him I hadn't
received any tobacco; I said I hadn't got my extra, and hadn't been up
before. He said, 'Don't spoil your record by trying to steal a little
tobacco. Fall in.' ... It hurt me, sir. I hadn't been up; I hadn't got
my extra; and I wasn't a thief, and I never had been a thief, and no
living man had a right to call me a thief. I said to him, straight, 'I
won't fall in till I get my extra, and I'm not a thief, and no man can
call me one, and no man can rob me of my just dues.' He turned pale,
and said, 'Fall in, there.' I said, 'I won't fall in till I get my
dues.'

"With that he raised his hand as a signal, and the two guards behind
him covered me with their rifles, and a guard on the west wall, and one
on the north wall, and one on the portico in front of the arsenal, all
covered me with rifles. The captain turned to a trusty and told him to
call the warden. The warden came out, and the captain told him I was
trying to run double on my extra, and said I was impudent and
insubordinate and refused to fall in. The warden said, 'Drop that and
fall in.' I told him I wouldn't fall in. I said I hadn't run double,
that I hadn't got my extra, and that I would stay there till I died
before I would be robbed of it. He asked the captain if there wasn't
some mistake, and the captain looked at his book and said there was no
mistake; he said he remembered me when I came up and got the tobacco
and he saw me fall into the new line, but he didn't see me get back in
the old line. The warden didn't ask the other men if they saw me get my
tobacco and slip back into the old line. He just ordered me to fall in.
I told him I would die before I would do that. I said I wanted my just
dues and no more, and I asked him to call on the other men in line to
prove that I hadn't been up.

"He said, 'That's enough of this.' He sent all the other men to the
cells, and left me standing there. Then he told two guards to take me
to the cells. They came and took hold of me, and I threw them off as if
they were babies. Then more guards came up, and one of them hit me over
the head with a club, and I fell. And then, sir,"--here the convict's
voice fell to a whisper,--"and then he told them to take me to the
dungeon."

The sharp, steady glitter of the convict's eyes failed, and he hung his
head and looked despairingly at the floor.

"Go on," said the chairman.

"They took me to the dungeon, sir. Did you ever see the dungeon?"

"Perhaps; but you may tell us about it."

The cold, steady gleam returned to the convict's eyes, as he fixed them
again upon the chairman.

"There are several little rooms in the dungeon. The one they put me in
was about five by eight. It has steel walls and ceiling, and a granite
floor. The only light that comes in passes through a slit in the door.
The slit is an inch wide and five inches long. It doesn't give much
light, because the door is thick. It's about four inches thick, and is
made of oak and sheet-steel, bolted through. The slit runs this
way,"--making a horizontal motion in the air,--"and it is four inches
above my eyes when I stand on tiptoe. And I can't look out at the
factory-wall forty feet away unless I hook my fingers in the slit and
pull myself up."

He stopped and regarded his hands, the peculiar appearance of which we
all had observed. The ends of the fingers were uncommonly thick; they
were red and swollen, and the knuckles were curiously marked with deep
white scars.

"Well, sir, there wasn't anything at all in the dungeon, but they gave
me a blanket, and they put me on bread and water. That's all they ever
give you in the dungeon. They bring the bread and water once a day, and
that is at night, because if they come in the daytime it lets in the
light.

"The next night after they put me in--it was Sunday night--the warden
came with the guard and asked me if I was all right. I said I was. He
said, 'Will you behave yourself and go to work to-morrow?' I said, 'No,
sir; I won't go to work till I get what is due me.' He shrugged his
shoulders, and said, 'Very well: maybe you'll change your mind after
you have been in here a week.'

"They kept me there a week. The next Sunday night the warden came and
said, 'Are you ready to go to work to-morrow?' and I said, 'No; I will
not go to work till I get what is due me.' He called me hard names. I
said it was a man's duty to demand his rights, and that a man who would
stand to be treated like a dog was no man at all."

The chairman interrupted. "Did you not reflect," he asked, "that these
officers would not have stooped to rob you?--that it was through some
mistake they withheld your tobacco, and that in any event you had a
choice of two things to lose,--one a plug of tobacco, and the other
seven years of freedom?"

"But they angered me and hurt me, sir, by calling me a thief, and they
threw me in the dungeon like a beast.... I was standing for my rights,
and my rights were my manhood; and that is something a man can carry
sound to the grave, whether he's bond or free, weak or powerful, rich
or poor."

"Well, after you refused to go to work what did the warden do?"

The convict, although tremendous excitement must have surged and boiled
within him, slowly, deliberately, and weakly came to his feet. He
placed his right foot on the chair, and rested his right elbow on the
raised knee. The index finger of his right hand, pointing to the
chairman and moving slightly to lend emphasis to his narrative, was the
only thing that modified the rigid immobility of his figure. Without a
single change in the pitch or modulation of his voice, never hurrying,
but speaking with the slow and dreary monotony with which he had begun,
he nevertheless--partly by reason of these evidences of his incredible
self-control--made a formidable picture as he proceeded:

"When I told him that, sir, he said he'd take me to the ladder and see
if he couldn't make me change my mind.... Yes, sir; he said he'd take
me to the ladder." (Here there was a long pause.) "And I a human being,
with flesh on my bones and the heart of a man in my body. The other
warden hadn't tried to break my spirit on the ladder. He did break it,
though; he broke it clear to the bottom of the man inside of me; but he
did it with a human word, and not with the dungeon and the ladder. I
didn't believe the warden when he said he would take me to the ladder.
I couldn't imagine myself alive and put through at the ladder, and I
couldn't imagine any human being who could find the heart to put me
through. If I had believed him I would have strangled him then and
there, and got my body full of lead while doing it. No, sir; I could
not believe it.

"And then he told me to come on. I went with him and the guards. He
brought me to the ladder. I had never seen it before. It was a heavy
wooden ladder, leaned against the wall, and the bottom was bolted to
the floor and the top to the wall. A whip was on the floor." (Again
there was a pause.) "The warden told me to strip, sir, and I
stripped.... And still I didn't believe he would whip me. I thought he
just wanted to scare me.

"Then he told me to face up to the ladder. I did so, and reached my
arms up to the straps. They strapped my arms to the ladder, and
stretched so hard that they pulled me up clear of the floor. Then they
strapped my legs to the ladder. The warden then picked up the whip. He
said to me, 'I'll give you one more chance: will you go to work
to-morrow?' I said, 'No; I won't go to work till I get my dues.' 'Very
well,' said he, 'you'll get your dues now.' And then he stepped back
and raised the whip. I turned my head and looked at him, and I could
see it in his eyes that he meant to strike.... And when I saw that,
sir, I felt that something inside of me was about to burst."

The convict paused to gather up his strength for the crisis of his
story, yet not in the least particular did he change his position, the
slight movement of his pointing finger, the steady gleam of his eye, or
the slow monotony of his speech. I had never witnessed any scene so
dramatic as this, and yet all was absolutely simple and unintentional.
I had been thrilled by the greatest actors, as with matchless skill
they gave rein to their genius in tragic situations; but how
inconceivably tawdry and cheap such pictures seemed in comparison with
this! The claptrap of the music, the lights, the posing, the wry faces,
the gasps, lunges, staggerings, rolling eyes,--how flimsy and
colorless, how mocking and grotesque, they all appeared beside this
simple, uncouth, but genuine expression of immeasurable agony!

The stenographer held his pencil poised above the paper, and wrote no
more.

"And then the whip came down across my back. The something inside of me
twisted hard and then broke wide open, and went pouring all through me
like melted iron. It was a hard fight to keep my head clear, but I did
it. And then I said to the warden this: 'You've struck me with a whip,
in cold blood. You've tied me up hand and foot, to whip me like a dog.
Well, whip me, then, till you fill your belly with it. You are a
coward. You are lower, and meaner, and cowardlier than the lowest and
meanest dog that ever yelped when his master kicked him. You were born
a coward. Cowards will lie and steal, and you are the same as a thief
and liar. No hound would own you for a friend. Whip me hard and long,
you coward. Whip me, I say. See how good a coward feels when he ties up
a man and whips him like a dog. Whip me till the last breath quits my
body; if you leave me alive I will kill you for this.'

"His face got white. He asked me if I meant that, and I said, 'Yes;
before God I do.' Then he took the whip in both hands and came down
with all his might."

"That was nearly two years ago," said the chairman. "You would not kill
him now, would you?"

"Yes. I will kill him if I get a chance; and I feel it in me that the
chance will come."

"Well, proceed."

"He kept on whipping me. He whipped me with all the strength of both
hands. I could feel the broken skin curl up on my back, and when my
head got too heavy to hold it straight it hung down, and I saw the
blood on my legs and dripping off my toes into a pool of it on the
floor. Something was straining and twisting inside of me again. My back
didn't hurt much; it was the thing twisting inside of me that hurt. I
counted the lashes, and when I counted to twenty-eight the twisting got
so hard that it choked me and blinded me; ... and when I woke up I was
in the dungeon again, and the doctor had my back all plastered up, and
he was kneeling beside me, feeling my pulse."

The prisoner had finished. He looked around vaguely, as though he
wanted to go.

"And you have been in the dungeon ever since?"

"Yes, sir; but I don't mind that."

"How long?"

"Twenty-three months."

"On bread and water?"

"Yes; but that was all I wanted."

"Have you reflected that so long as you harbor a determination to kill
the warden you may be kept in the dungeon? You can't live much longer
there, and if you die there you will never find the chance you want. If
you say you will not kill the warden he may return you to the cells."

"But that would be a lie, sir; I will get a chance to kill him if I go
to the cells. I would rather die in the dungeon than be a liar and
sneak. If you send me to the cells I will kill him. But I will kill him
without that. I will kill him, sir.... And he knows it."

Without concealment, but open, deliberate, and implacable, thus in the
wrecked frame of a man, so close that we could have touched it, stood
Murder,--not boastful, but relentless as death.

"Apart from weakness, is your health good?" asked the chairman.

"Oh, it's good enough," wearily answered the convict. "Sometimes the
twisting comes on, but when I wake up after it I'm all right."

The prison surgeon, under the chairman's direction, put his ear to the
convict's chest, and then went over and whispered to the chairman.

"I thought so," said that gentleman. "Now, take this man to the
hospital. Put him to bed where the sun will shine on him, and give him
the most nourishing food."

The convict, giving no heed to this, shambled out with a guard and the
surgeon.

                    *      *      *      *      *

The warden sat alone in the prison office with No. 14,208. That he at
last should have been brought face to face, and alone, with the man
whom he had determined to kill, perplexed the convict. He was not
manacled; the door was locked, and the key lay on the table between the
two men. Three weeks in the hospital had proved beneficial, but a
deathly pallor was still in his face.

"The action of the directors three weeks ago," said the warden, "made
my resignation necessary. I have awaited the appointment of my
successor, who is now in charge. I leave the prison to-day. In the mean
time, I have something to tell you that will interest you. A few days
ago a man who was discharged from the prison last year read what the
papers have published recently about your case, and he has written to
me confessing that it was he who got your tobacco from the captain of
the guard. His name is Salter, and he looks very much like you. He had
got his own extra, and when he came up again and called for yours the
captain, thinking it was you, gave it to him. There was no intention on
the captain's part to rob you."

The convict gasped and leaned forward eagerly.

"Until the receipt of this letter," resumed the warden, "I had opposed
the movement which had been started for your pardon; but when this
letter came I recommended your pardon, and it has been granted.
Besides, you have a serious heart trouble. So you are now discharged
from the prison."

The convict stared and leaned back speechless. His eyes shone with a
strange, glassy expression, and his white teeth glistened ominously
between his parted lips. Yet a certain painful softness tempered the
iron in his face.

"The stage will leave for the station in four hours," continued the
warden. "You have made certain threats against my life." The warden
paused; then, in a voice that slightly wavered from emotion, he
continued: "I shall not permit your intentions in that regard--for I
care nothing about them--to prevent me from discharging a duty which,
as from one man to another, I owe you. I have treated you with a
cruelty the enormity of which I now comprehend. I thought I was right.
My fatal mistake was in not understanding your nature. I misconstrued
your conduct from the beginning, and in doing so I have laid upon my
conscience a burden which will embitter the remaining years of my life.
I would do anything in my power, if it were not too late, to atone for
the wrong I have done you. If, before I sent you to the dungeon, I
could have understood the wrong and foreseen its consequences, I would
cheerfully have taken my own life rather than raised a hand against
you. The lives of us both have been wrecked; but your suffering is in
the past,--mine is present, and will cease only with my life. For my
life is a curse, and I prefer not to keep it."

With that the warden, very pale, but with a clear purpose in his face,
took a loaded revolver from a drawer and laid it before the convict.

"Now is your chance," he said, quietly: "no one can hinder you."

The convict gasped and shrank away from the weapon as from a viper.

"Not yet--not yet," he whispered, in agony.

The two men sat and regarded each other without the movement of a
muscle.

"Are you afraid to do it?" asked the warden.

A momentary light flashed in the convict's eyes.

"No!" he gasped; "you know I am not. But I can't--not yet,--not yet."

The convict, whose ghastly pallor, glassy eyes, and gleaming teeth sat
like a mask of death upon his face, staggered to his feet.

"You have done it at last! you have broken my spirit. A human word has
done what the dungeon and the whip could not do.... It twists inside of
me now.... I could be your slave for that human word." Tears streamed
from his eyes. "I can't help crying. I'm only a baby, after all--and I
thought I was a man."

He reeled, and the warden caught him and seated him in the chair. He
took the convict's hand in his and felt a firm, true pressure there.
The convict's eyes rolled vacantly. A spasm of pain caused him to raise
his free hand to his chest; his thin, gnarled fingers--made shapeless
by long use in the slit of the dungeon-door--clutched automatically at
his shirt. A faint, hard smile wrinkled his wan face, displaying the
gleaming teeth more freely.

"That human word," he whispered,--"if you had spoken it long
ago,--if--but it's all--it's all right--now. I'll go--I'll go to
work--to-morrow."

There was a slightly firmer pressure of the hand that held the
warden's; then it relaxed. The fingers which clutched the shirt slipped
away, and the hand dropped to his side. The weary head sank back and
rested on the chair; the strange, hard smile still sat upon the marble
face, and a dead man's glassy eyes and gleaming teeth were upturned
towards the ceiling.




A Game of Honor


Four of the five men who sat around the card-table in the cabin of the
"Merry Witch" regarded the fifth man with a steady, implacable look of
scorn. The solitary one could not face that terrible glance. His head
drooped, and his gaze rested upon some cards which he idly fumbled as
he waited, numbed and listless, to hear his sentence.

The more masterful one of the four made a disdainful gesture towards
the craven one, and thus addressed the others:

"Gentlemen, none of us can have forgotten the terms of our compact. It
was agreed at the beginning of this expedition that only men of
unflinching integrity should be permitted to participate in its known
dangers and possible rewards. To find and secure the magnificent
treasure which we are seeking with a sure prospect of discovering it,
we must run the risk of encounters with savage Mexican soldiers and
marines, and take all the other dangerous chances of which you are
aware. As the charterer of this vessel and the leader of the expedition
I have exercised extraordinary care in selecting my associates. We have
been and still are equals, and my leadership as the outfitter of the
expedition gives me no advantage in the sharing of the treasure. As
such leader, however, I am in authority, and have employed, unsuspected
by you, many devices to test the manhood of each of you. Were it not
for the fact that I have exhausted all reasonable resources to this
end, and have found all of you trustworthy except one, I would not now
be disclosing the plan which I have been pursuing."

The three others, who had been gazing at the crestfallen one, now
stared at their leader with a startled interest.

"The final test of a man's character," calmly pursued the leader, "is
the card-table. Whatever there may be in him of weakness, whether it be
a mean avarice, cowardice, or a deceitful disposition, will there
inevitably appear. If I were the president of a bank, the general of an
army, or the leader of any other great enterprise I would make it a
point to test the character of my subordinates in a series of games at
cards, preferably played for money. It is the only sure test of
character that the wisdom of the ages has been able to devise."

He paused, and then turned his scornful glance upon the cringing man,
who meanwhile had mustered courage to look up, and was employing his
eyes as well as his ears to comprehend the strange philosophy of his
judge. Terror and dismay were elements of the expression which
curiously wrinkled his white face, as though he found himself standing
before a court of inscrutable wisdom and relentless justice. But his
glance fell instantly when it encountered that of his judge, and his
weak lower lip hung trembling.

"We have all agreed," impressively continued the leader, "that the one
found guilty of deceiving or betraying the others to the very smallest
extent should pay the penalty which we are all sworn to exact. A part
of this agreement, as we all remember, is that the one found derelict
shall be the first to insist on the visitation of the penalty, and that
should he fail to do so--but I trust that it is unnecessary to mention
the alternative."

There was another pause, and the culprit sat still, hardly breathing,
and permitting the cards to slip from his fingers to the floor.

"Mr. Rossiter," said the leader, addressing the hapless man in a tone
so hard and cold that it congealed the marrow which it pierced, "have
you any suggestion to make?"

The doomed man made such a pitiful struggle for self-mastery as the
gallows often reveals. If there was a momentary flash of hope based on
a transient determination to plead, it faded instantly before the stern
and implacable eyes that greeted him from all sides of the table.
Certainly there was a fierce struggle under which his soul writhed, and
which showed in a passing flush that crimsoned his face. That went by,
and an acceptance of doom sat upon him. He raised his head and looked
firmly at the leader, and as he did so his chest expanded and his
shoulders squared bravely.

"Captain," said he, with a very good voice, "whatever else I may be, I
am not a coward. I have cheated. In doing so I have betrayed the
confidence of all. I remember the terms of the compact. Will you kindly
summon the skipper?"

Without any change of countenance, the leader complied.

"Mr. Rossiter," he said to the skipper, "has a request to make of you,
and whatever it may be I authorize you to comply with it."

"I wish," asked Mr. Rossiter of the skipper, "that you would lower a
boat and put me aboard, and that you would furnish the boat with one
oar and nothing else whatever."

"Why," exclaimed the skipper, aghast, looking in dismay from one to
another of the men, "the man is insane! There is no land within five
hundred miles. We are in the tropics, and a man couldn't live four days
without food or water, and the sea is alive with sharks. Why, this is
suicide!"

The leader's face darkened, but before he could speak Mr. Rossiter
calmly remarked,--

"That is my own affair, sir;" and there was a fine ring in his voice.

                    *      *      *      *      *

The man in the boat, bareheaded and stripped nearly naked in the
broiling sun, was thus addressing something which he saw close at hand
in the water:

"Let me see. Yes, I think it is about four days now that we have
travelled together, but I am not very positive about that. You see, if
it hadn't been for you I should have died of loneliness.... Say! aren't
you hungry, too? I was a few days ago, but I'm only thirsty now. You've
got the advantage of me, because you don't get thirsty. As for your
being hungry--ha, ha, ha! Who ever heard of a shark that wasn't always
hungry? Oh, I know well enough what's in your mind, companion mine, but
there's time enough for that. I hate to disturb the pleasant relation
which exists between us at present. That is to say--now, here is a
witticism--I prefer the outside relation to the inside intimacy. Ha,
ha, ha! I knew you'd laugh at that, you sly old rogue! What a very sly,
patient old shark you are! Don't you know that if you didn't have those
clumsy fins, and that dreadfully homely mouth away down somewhere on
the under side of your body, and eyes so grotesquely wide apart, and
should go on land and match your wit against the various and amusing
species of sharks which abound there, your patience in pursuing a
manifest advantage would make you a millionaire in a year? Can you get
that philosophy through your thick skull, my friend?

"There, there, there! Don't turn over like that and make a fool of
yourself by opening your pretty mouth and dazzling the midday sun with
the gleam of your white belly. I'm not ready yet. God! how thirsty I
am! Say, did you ever feel like that? Did you ever see blinding flashes
that tear through your brain and turn the sun black?

"You haven't answered my question yet. It's a hypothetical
question--yes, hypothetical. I'm sure that's what I want to say.
Hypo--hypothetical question. Question; yes, that's right. Now, suppose
you'd been a pretty wild young shark, and had kept your mother anxious
and miserable, and had drifted into gambling and had gone pretty well
to the dogs. Do sharks ever go to the dogs? Now, that's a poser.
Sharks; dogs. Oh, what a very ridiculously, sublimely amusing old
shark! Dreadfully discreet you are. Never disclose your hand except on
a showdown. What a glum old villain you are!

"Pretty well to the dogs, and then braced up and left home to make a
man of yourself. Think of a shark making a man of himself! And
then--easy there! Don't get excited. I only staggered that time and
didn't quite go overboard. And don't let my gesticulations excite you.
Keep your mouth shut, my friend; you're not pretty when you smile like
that. As I was saying--oh!...

"How long was I that way, old fellow? Good thing for me that you don't
know how to climb into a boat when a fellow is that way. Were you ever
that way, partner? Come on like this: Biff! Big blaze of red fire in
your head. Then--then--well, after awhile you come out of it, with the
queerest and crookedest of augers boring through your head, and a
million tadpoles of white fire darting in every direction through the
air. Don't ever get that way, my friend, if you can possibly keep out
of it. But then, you never get thirsty. Let me see. The sun was over
there when the red fire struck, and it's over here now. Shifted about
thirty degrees. Then, I was that way about two hours.

"Where are those dogs? Do they come to you or do you go to them? That
depends. Now, say you had some friends that wanted to do you a good
turn; wanted to straighten you up and make a man of you. They had
ascertained the exact situation of a wonderful treasure buried in an
island of the Pacific. All right. They knew you had some of the
qualities useful for such an expedition--reckless dare-devil, afraid of
nothing--things like that. Understand, my friend? Well, all swore oaths
as long as your leg--as long as your--oh, my! Think of a shark having a
leg! Ha, ha, ha! Long as your leg! Oh, my! Pardon my levity, old man,
but I must laugh. Ha, ha, ha! Oh, my!

"All of you swore--you and the other sharks. No lying; no deceit; no
swindling. First shark that makes a slip is to call the skipper and be
sent adrift with one oar and nothing else. And all, my friend, after
you had pledged your honor to your mother, your God, yourself, and your
friends, to be a true and honorable shark. It isn't the hot sun
broiling you and covering you with bursting blisters, and changing the
marrow of your bones to melted iron and your blood to hissing lava--it
isn't the sun that hurts; and the hunger that gnaws your intestines to
rags, and the thirst that changes your throat into a funnel of hot
brass, and blinding bursts of red fire in your head, and lying dead in
the waist of the boat while the sun steals thirty degrees of time out
the sky, and a million fiery tadpoles darting through the air--none of
them hurts so much as something infinitely deeper and more cruel,--your
broken pledge of honor to your mother, your God, yourself, and your
friends. That is what hurts, my friend.

"It is late, old man, to begin life all over again while you are in the
article of death, and resolve to be good when it is no longer possible
to be bad. But that is our affair, yours and mine; and just at this
time we are not choosing to discuss the utility of goodness. But I
don't like that sneer in your glance. I have only one oar, and I will
cheerfully break it over your wretched head if you come a yard
nearer....

"Aha! Thought I was going over, eh? See; I can stand steady when I try.
But I don't like that sneer in your eyes. You don't believe in the
reformation of the dying, eh? You are a contemptible dog; a low, mean,
outcast dog. You sneer at the declaration of a man that he can and will
be honest at last and face his Maker humbly, but still as a man. Come,
then, my friend, and let us see which of us two is the decent and
honorable one. Stake your manhood against mine, and stake your life
with your manhood. We'll see which is the more honorable of the two;
for I tell you now, Mr. Shark, that we are going to gamble for our
lives and our honor.

"Come up closer and watch the throw. No? Afraid of the oar? You
sneaking coward! You would be a decent shark at last did the oar but
split your skull. See this visiting card, you villain? Look at it as I
hold it up. There is printing on one side; that is my name; it is I.
The other side is blank; that is you. Now, I am going to throw this
into the water. If it falls name up, I win; if blank side up, you win.
If I win, I eat you; if you win, you eat me. Is that a go?

"Hold on. You see, I can throw a card so as to bring uppermost either
side I please. That wouldn't be fair. For this, the last game of my
life, is to be square. So I fold one end down on this side, and the
other down on that side. When you throw a card folded like that no
living shark, whether he have legs or only a tail, can know which side
will fall uppermost. That is a square game, old man, and it will settle
the little difference that has existed between you and me for four days
past--a difference of ten or fifteen feet.

"Mind you, if I win, you are to come alongside the boat and I am to
kill you and eat you. That may sustain my life until I am picked up. If
you win, over I go and you eat me. Are you in the game? Well, here
goes, then, for life or death.... Ah! you have won! And this is a game
of honor!"

                    *      *      *      *      *

A black-smoking steamer was steadily approaching the drifting boat, for
the lookout had reported the discovery, and the steamer was bearing
down to lend succor. The captain, standing on the bridge, saw through
his glass a wild and nearly naked man making the most extraordinary
signs and gestures, staggering and lurching in imminent danger of
falling overboard. When the ship had approached quite near the captain
saw the man toss a card into the water, and then stand with an ominous
rigidity, the meaning of which was unmistakable. He sounded a blast
from the whistle, and the drifting man started violently and turned to
see the steamer approaching, and observed hasty preparations for the
lowering of a boat. The outcast stood immovable, watching the strange
apparition, which seemed to have sprung out of the ocean.

The boat touched the water and shot lustily forward.

"Pull with all your might, lads, for the man is insane, and is
preparing to leap overboard. A big shark is lying in wait for him, and
the moment he touches the water he is gone."

The men did pull with all their might and hallooed to the drifting one
and warned him of the shark.

"Wait a minute," they cried, "and we'll take you on the ship!"

The purpose of the men seemed at last to have dawned upon the
understanding of the outcast. He straightened himself as well as he
could into a wretched semblance of dignity, and hoarsely replied,--

"No; I have played a game and lost; an honest man will pay a debt of
honor."

And with such a light in his eyes as comes only into those whose vision
has penetrated the most wonderful of all mysteries, he leaped forth
into the sea.




Treacherous Velasco


Sitting at the open window of her room in the upper story of the
farmhouse, on the Rancho San Gregorio, Señora Violante Ovando de
McPherson watched, with the deepest interest, a cloud of dust which
rose in the still May air far down the valley; for it was evident that
the color in her cheeks and the sparkle in her violet-black eyes spoke
a language of devotion and happiness. Her husband was coming home, and
with him his vaqueros, after a tedious drive of cattle to San
Francisco. He had been gone but a month; but what an interminable
absence that is to a wife of a year! She had watched the fading of the
wild golden poppies; she had seen the busy workers of the bee-hives
laying up their stores of honey culled from the myriads of flowers
which carpeted the valley; and she had ridden over the Gabilan Hills to
see the thousands of her husband's cattle which dotted them. She had
been respectful of her housekeeping duties, and had directed Alice, the
sewing-girl, in the making of garments for the approaching hot season.
Yet, busy as she thought she was, and important as she imagined herself
to be in the management of the great ranch, time had dragged itself by
in manacles. But now was coming the cloud of dust to lift the cloud of
loneliness; and if ever a young wife's heart quickened with gladness,
it was hers.

Presently the fine young Scotchman leaped from his horse, clasped his
wife in his arms, asked a few hurried questions concerning her welfare
during his absence, untied a small buckskin bag which depended from the
pommel of his saddle, and, remarking, "I thought you might need some
spending-money, Violante," held up the bag containing gold, containing
a hundred times more gold than her simple tastes and restricted
opportunities would permit her to employ. But was not her Robert the
most generous of men? Other eyes than hers saw it--those of Basilio
Velasco, one of the vaqueros; a small, swarthy man, with the blackest
and sharpest of eyes, in which just then was a strange glitter.

What a handsome couple were the young husband and wife, as, arm-in-arm,
they entered the house--he so large, and red, and masculine; she so
dark, and reliant, and feminine! Beautiful Spanish girls were plentiful
in those youthful days of California; but Violante had been known as
the most beautiful of all the maidens between the Santa Barbara Channel
and the Bay of Monterey. Hard-headed and fiery-tempered Scotch
Presbyterian; gentle, patient, and faithful Catholic; they were the
happiest and most devoted of couples.

"Well, little Violante," he said, "take the bag up to your room, and
give us dinner; for before we rest we must ride over to the range and
look after the cattle, and after that you and I shall have a good, long
visit."

These pleasant duties were quickly dispatched, and the dusty men, led
by her husband, galloped away. From the open window of her room she saw
the receding cloud of dust, wondering at that urgent sense of duty
which could make so fond a husband leave her, even though for a short
time, after so long a separation. Thus she sat, dreamily thinking of
her great happiness in having him once again at home, and drinking in
the rich perfume of the racemes of wistaria-blossoms which covered the
massive vine against the house. This old vine, springing from the
ground beneath the window at which she sat, spread its long arms almost
completely over that part of the wall, divided on either side for the
window, and hung gracefully from beneath the eaves, embowering their
lovely owner in a tangled mass of purple blossoms. It was an exquisite
picture--the pretty wife sitting there, in the whitest of lawns,
looking out over the hills from this frame of gorgeous flowers--all the
more charming from her unconsciousness of its beauty. Behind her, at
the opposite side of the room, sat her maid, Alice, sewing in silence.

As the señora looked dreamily over the hills, she became aware of the
peculiar actions of a man on horseback, who was approaching the house
from the direction in which her husband and the vaqueros had
disappeared. That which summoned her attention was the fact that the
man was approaching by an irregular route, which no ordinary
circumstance would have required. He had such a way of keeping behind
the trees that she could not determine his identity. It looked strange
and mysterious, and something impelled her to drop the lace curtain
over the window, for behind it she could watch without danger of being
seen.

The horseman disappeared, and this made her uneasiness all the greater,
but she said nothing to Alice. Soon she noticed the man on foot
approaching the house, in a watchful, skulking fashion, slipping from
one tree or one bit of shrubbery to another. Then, with a swift run, he
came near, and, stealthily and noiselessly as a cat, began to ascend to
her window by clambering up the wistaria-vine. Her spirit quailed and
her cheeks blanched when she saw the naked blade of a dagger held
between his teeth. She understood his mission--it was her life and the
gold; and the glittering eyes of the robber she recognized as those of
Basilio Velasco. After a moment of nerveless terror the ancient
resisting blood of the Ovandos sprang into alert activity, and this
gentlest and sweetest of young women armed her soul to meet Death on
his own ground and his own terms, and try the issue with him.

She gave no alarm, for there was none in the house except herself and
Alice. To have given way to fear would have destroyed her only hope of
life. Quietly, in a low tone, she said,--

"Alice, listen, but do not say a word." There was an impressiveness in
her manner that startled the nervous, timid girl; but there were also
in it a strength and a self-reliance that reassured her. She dropped
her work and regarded her mistress with wonder. "Look in the second
drawer of the bureau. You will find a pistol there. Bring it to me
quickly, without a word, for a man is clambering up the vine under my
window to rob me, and if we make any outcry or lose our heads we are
dead. Place full confidence in me, and it will be all right."

Alice, numb and nervous with fear, found the pistol and brought it to
her mistress.

"Go and sit down and keep quiet," she was told; and this she did.

Violante, seeing that the weapon was loaded, cocked it, and glanced out
the window. Basilio was climbing very slowly and carefully, fearing
that the least disturbance of the vine would alarm the señora. When he
had come sufficiently near to make her aim sure, Violante suddenly
thrust aside the curtain, leaned out the window, and brought the barrel
of the weapon in line with Velasco's head.

"What do you want, Basilio?" she asked.

Hearing the musical voice, the Spaniard quickly looked up. Had the
bullet then imprisoned in the weapon been sent crashing through his
vitals, he would have received hardly a greater shock than that which
quivered through his nerves when he saw the black barrel of the pistol,
the small but steady hand which held it aimed at his brain, and the
pale and beautiful face above it. Thus holding the robber at her mercy,
she said firmly to the girl,--

"Alice, there is nothing to fear now. Run as fast as you can to the
west end of the house, about a hundred yards away, and you will find
this man's horse tied there somewhere in the shrubbery. Mount it, and
ride as fast as God will let you. Find my husband, and tell him I have
a robber as prisoner."

The girl, almost fainting, passed out of the room, found the horse, and
galloped away, leaving these two mortal enemies facing each other.

Velasco had heard all this, and he heard the horse clattering up the
road to the range beyond the hills of Gabilan. The picture of a fierce
and angry young Scotchman dashing up to the house and slaying him
without a parley needed no elaboration in his dazed imagination. He
gazed steadily at the señora and she at him; and, while he saw a
strange pity and a sorrow in her glance, he saw also an unyielding
determination. He could not speak, for the knife between his teeth held
his tongue a prisoner. If only he could plead with her and beg for his
life!

"Basilio," she quietly said, seeing that he was preparing to release
one hand by finding a firmer hold for the other, "if you take either of
your hands away from the vine I will shoot you. Keep perfectly still.
If you make the least movement, I will shoot. You have seen me throw
apples in the air and send a bullet through every one with this
pistol."

There was no boastfulness in this, and Velasco knew it to be true.

"I would have given you money, Basilio, if you had asked me for it; but
to come thus with a knife! You would have killed me, Basilio, and I
have never been unkind to you."

If he could only remove the dagger from his mouth! Surely one so kind
and gentle as she would let him go in peace if he could only plead with
her! But to let the dagger fall from his teeth would be to disarm
himself, and he was hardly ready for that; and there was much thinking
and planning to be done within a very few minutes.

Velasco, still with his gaze on the black hole in the pistol-barrel,
soon made a discouraging discovery; the position in which he had been
arrested was insecure and uncomfortable, and the unusual strain that it
brought upon his muscles became painful and exhausting. To shift his
position even in the smallest way would be to invite the bullet. As the
moments flew the strain upon particular sets of muscles increased his
pain with alarming rapidity, and unconsciously he began to speculate
upon the length of time that remained before his suffering would lead
him into recklessness and death. While he was thus approaching a very
agony of pain, with the end of all human endurance not far away,
another was suffering in a different manner, but hardly less severely.

The beautiful señora held the choice of two lives in the barrel of her
pistol; but that she should thus hold any life at all was a matter that
astounded, perplexed, and agonized her; that she had the courage to be
in so extraordinary a position amazed her beyond estimation. Now, when
one reflects that one is courageous, one's courage is questionable. And
then, she was really so tender-hearted that she wondered if she could
make good her threat to shoot if the murderer should move. That he
believed she would was sufficient.

But after the arrival of her husband--what then? With his passionate
nature could he resist the temptation to cut the fellow's throat before
her very eyes? That was too horrible to think of. But--God!--the robber
himself had a knife! By thus summoning her husband was she not inviting
him to a mortal struggle with a desperate man better armed than he? It
would have been easy to liberate Basilio and let him go his way; but
she knew that her husband would follow and find him. Now that the
mischief of notifying him had been done, it was best to keep the
prisoner with her, that she might plead for his life. Therein lay her
hope that she could avert the shedding of blood by either of the men.
Her suspense; her self-questionings; her dread of a terrible
termination to an incident which already had assumed the shape of a
tragedy; her fearful responsibility; the menacing possibility that she
herself, in simple defence of her life, might have to kill Basilio; her
trepidation on the score of her aim and the reliability of the
pistol--all these things and others were wearing her out; and at last
she, too, began to wonder how long she could bear the strain, and
whether or not her husband would arrive in time to save her.

Meanwhile, Velasco, racked to the marrow by the pains which tortured
him, and driven by a desire to drop the dagger and plead for his life
and by fear of parting with his weapon, was urged to despair, and
finally to desperation. All the supplication that his face and eyes
could show pleaded eloquently for him, and with this silent pleading
came evidence of his physical agony. The muscles of his arms and legs
twitched and trembled, and his labored breathing hissed as it split
upon the edge of the knife. He was unable longer to control the muscles
of his lips; the keen edge of his weapon found a way into the flesh at
either side of his mouth, and two small streams of blood trickled down
his chin and fell upon his breast. Not for a moment did he take his
gaze from her eyes; and thus these two regarded each other in a silence
and a stillness that were terrible. A crisis had to come. Here was a
test of nerve that inevitably would make a victim of one or the other.
The spectacle of the man's agony, the pitiful sight of his imploring
look, were more than the feminine flesh of which Violante was composed
could bear.

The crash came--Basilio was the first to break down. Whether
voluntarily or not, he released his hold upon the knife, which went
clattering through the vine-branches to the ground. In another instant
his tongue, now free, began pouring forth a supplication in the Spanish
language with an eloquence which Violante had never heard equalled.

"Oh, señora!" he said, "who but an angel could show a mercy tenderer
than human? And yet, as I hope for the mercy of the Holy Virgin, there
are a sweetness and a kindness in your face that belong to an angel of
mercy. Oh, Mother of God! surely thy unworthy son has been brought into
this strait for the trying of his soul, and for its chastisement and
purification at the hands of thy sweetest and gentlest of daughters;
for thou hast put it into her heart--which is as pure as her face is
beautiful--to spare me from a most horrible end. Thou hast whispered
into her mother-soul that one of thy sons, however base and
undeserving, should not be sent unshriven to the judgment-seat of the
most Holy Christ, thy son. Through the holy church thou hast
enlightened her soul to the duties of a Christian, for in her beautiful
face shines the radiance of heaven.--Ah, señora! see me plead for
mercy! Behold the agonies which beset me, and let my sufferings unlock
the door of your heart. Let me go in peace, señora; and you shall find
in me a slave all the days of my life--the humblest and most devoted of
slaves, happy if you beat me, glorying in my slavery if you starve me,
and giving praise to Almighty God if you trample me under your feet.
Señora, señora, release me, for time is pressing--I can barely escape
if you let me go this instant. Would you have my blood on your hands?
Can you face the Virgin with that? Oh, señora--señora----"

Her head swam, and all her senses were afloat in a sea of agonies.
Still she looked down into his eyes as he continued his pleadings, but
the outlines of his body were wavering and uncertain, and inexpressible
suffering numbed her faculties. Still she listened vaguely to his
outpouring of speech; and it was not until her husband, with two of his
vaqueros, dashed up on horseback that either of these two strangely
situated sufferers was aware of his approach. Seeing him, Violante
threw her arms abroad, and the pistol went flying to the ground; and
then she sank down to the floor, and the brilliant sunshine became
night and the shining glories of the day all nothingness.

                    *      *      *      *      *

She awoke and found herself lying on her bed, with her husband sitting
beside her, caressing her hands and watching her anxiously. It was a
little time before she could summon her faculties to exercise and to an
understanding of her husband's endearing words; but, seeing him safe
with her, her next thought was of Velasco.

"Where is Basilio?" she asked, starting up and looking fearfully about.

"He is safe, my dear one. Think no more of Basilio, who would have
harmed my Violante. Be calm, for my sake, sweet wife."

"Oh, I can't, I can't! You must tell me about Basilio." And, in a
frightened whisper, she asked, "Did you kill him?"

"No, loved one; Basilio is alive."

She sank back upon her pillow. "God be praised!" she whispered.

Suddenly she started again and looked keenly into her husband's eyes.
"You have never deceived me," she hurriedly said; "but, Robert, I must
know the truth. Have no fear--I can bear it. For God's sake, my
husband, tell me the truth!"

Alarmed, he took her in his arms, and said, "Be calm, my Violante; for
as the Almighty is my witness, Basilio is alive."

"Alive! alive!" she cried; "what does that mean? You are keeping
something back, my husband. I know your passionate nature too well--you
could not let him off so easily. Tell me the whole truth, Robert, or I
shall go mad!"

There was a frantic earnestness in this that would have made evasion
unwise.

"I will, Violante; I will. Listen--for upon my soul, this is the whole
truth: When I saw you drop the pistol and sink back upon the floor, I
knew that you had fainted. I ordered the vaqueros to secure the weapon
and make Basilio descend to the ground. Then I ran upstairs, placed you
on the bed, loosened your clothing, and did what I could to restore
you. But you remained unconscious----"

"Basilio! Basilio! tell me about him."

"I went to the window and sent one of the men to the hacienda for a
doctor for you, and told the other to bring Basilio to this room. He
came in very weak and trembling, for he had fallen from the vine and
was slightly stunned, but not much hurt. He expected me to kill him
here in this room, but I could not do that--I was afraid on your
account, Violante. He was very quiet and ill----"

"Hurry, Robert, hurry!"

"He said nothing. I spoke to him. He hung his head and asked me if I
would let him pray. I told him I would not kill him. A great light
broke over his face. He fell at my feet and clasped my knees and kissed
my boots and wept like a child. It was pitiful, Violante."

"Poor Basilio!"

"He begged me to punish him. He removed his shirt and implored me to
beat him. I told him I would not touch him. He said he would be your
slave and mine all his life; but he insisted that he must make some
physical atonement--he must be punished. 'Very well,' I said. Then I
turned to Nicolas and told him to give Basilio some light punishment,
as that would relieve his mind. Nicolas took him down and lashed him to
the back of a horse, and turned the animal into the horse-corral. Then
Nicolas came back and told me what he had done. I replied that it was
all right, and that as soon as I could leave you I would go and release
Basilio. And then I told Nicolas to go to the range and look up Alice
and bring her home, for she was too weak to come back with me."

"And Basilio is in the corral now?"

"Yes."

"How was he lashed to the horse?"

"I don't know--Nicolas didn't tell me; but you may be sure that he is
all right."

She threw her arms around her husband's neck and kissed him again and
again, saying, "My noble, generous husband! I love you a thousand times
more than ever. Now go, Robert, at once, and release Basilio."

"I can't leave you, dear."

"You must--you shall! I am fully recovered. If you don't go, I will."

"Very well."

No sooner had he left the room than she sprang out of the bed, caught
up a penknife, and noiselessly followed him; he did not suspect her
presence close behind him as he went towards the corral. When they had
gone thus a short distance from the house her alert ear caught a
peculiar sound that sent icicles through her body. They were feeble
cries of human agony, and they came from a direction other than that of
the corral. Heedlessly, and therefore unwisely, she ran towards their
source, without having summoned her husband, and soon she came upon a
fearful spectacle.

McPherson pursued his way to the corral; but when he arrived there he
was surprised not to find Basilio in the enclosure. The gate was
closed--the horse to which he was lashed could not have escaped through
it. Looking about, he read the signs of a commotion that must have
occurred among the horses, caused, undoubtedly, by the strange sight of
a man lashed in some peculiar way to the back of one of their number.
The ground was torn by flying hoofs in all directions; there had been a
wild stampede among the animals. Even when he entered, possibly more
than a half-hour after Basilio was introduced among them, they were
huddled in a corner, and snorted in alarm when he approached them. The
horse to which Nicolas had lashed Basilio was not to be seen. Annoyed
at the stupidity of Nicolas, McPherson looked about until he found the
place in the fence through which Basilio's horse had broken; only two
of the rails had been thrown down. Alarmed and distressed, McPherson
leaped over the fence, took up the trail of the horse, and followed it,
running. Presently he discovered that the horse, in his mad flight, had
broken through the fence enclosing the apiary, and had played havoc
among the twenty or more bee-hives therein. Then McPherson saw a
spectacle that for a little while took all the strength out of his
body.

The señora, guided by a quicker sense than that of her husband, had
gone straight to the apiary. There she saw the horse, with Basilio,
naked to the waist, strapped upon his back, the animal plunging madly
among the bee-hives, kicking them to fragments as the vicious insects
plied him with their stings. Basilio was tied with his face to the sun,
which poured its fierce rays into his eyes; for Nicolas was devoted to
the señora, and he had been determined to make matters as uncomfortable
for the ingrate as possible. Upon Basilio's unprotected body the bees
swarmed by hundreds, giving him a score of stings to one for the horse,
and he was utterly helpless to protect himself. Already the poison of a
thousand stings had been poured into his face and body; his features
were hideously swollen and distorted, and his chest was puffed out of
resemblance to a human shape, and was livid and ghastly.

Without a moment's hesitation, the señora flew through the gate and
went to the deliverance of Basilio, praying to God with every breath.
His cries were feeble, for his strength was nearly gone, and his
incredible agony, aided by the poison of the bees, had sent his wits
astray. For Violante to approach the maddened horse and the swarming
bees was to offer herself to death; but what cared she for that, when
another's life was at stake? Into this desperate situation she threw
herself. With the coolness of a trained horsewoman, she finally twisted
the fingers of one hand into the frantic horse's nostrils, bringing him
instantly under control. In another moment, unmindful of the stings
which the bees inflicted upon her face and hands, she had cut Basilio's
lashings and caught his shapeless body in her arms as it slipped to the
ground. Then, taking him under the arms, she dragged him, with uncommon
strength, from the enclosure and away from the murderous assaults of
the bees.

He moaned; his head rolled from one side to the other. His eyes were
closed by the swelling of the lids, and he could not see her; but even
had this not been so, he was past knowing her. She laid him down in the
shade of a great oak, and she saw from his faint and interrupted gasps
that in another moment all would be over with him. Unconscious of the
presence of her husband, who now stood reverently, with uncovered head,
behind her, she raised to heaven her blanched face and beautiful eyes,
and softly prayed, "Holy mother of Jesus, hear the prayer of thy
wretched daughter, and intercede for this unshriven spirit." She
glanced down at Basilio, and saw that he was dead. Feebly she staggered
to her feet, and, seeing her husband, cried out his name, stretched out
her arms towards him, and sank unconscious into his strong grasp; and
thus he bore her to the house, kissing her face, while tears streamed
down his cheeks.




An Uncommon View of It


Mr. Clarke Randolph was stupefied by a discovery which he had just
made--his wife had proved unfaithful, and the betrayer was his nearest
friend, Henry Stockton. If there had been the least chance for a doubt,
the unhappy husband would have seized upon it, but there was none
whatever.

Let us try to understand what this meant to such a man as Randolph. He
was a high-bred, high-spirited man of thirty, descended from a long
line of proud and chivalrous men; educated, refined, sensitive,
generous, and brave. His fine talents, his dash, his polished manner,
his industry, his integrity, his loftiness of character, had lifted him
upon the shoulders of popularity and prosperity; so that, in the city
of his home, there was not another man of his age, a member of his
profession, the law, who was so well known, so well liked, or wielded
such a power.

He had been married four years. His wife was beautiful, winning, and
intelligent; and she had always had from him the best devotion that a
husband could give his wife. He and Stockton had been friends for many
years. Next to his wife, Randolph had loved and trusted him above all
others.

Such was the situation. At one stroke he had lost his wife, his home,
his best friend, his confidence in human nature, his spirit, his
ambition. These--and essentially they were all that made up his life,
except the operation of purely animal functions--had gone all at once
without a moment's warning.

Well, there was something to be done. A keen sense of the betrayal, a
smarting under the gross humiliation, urged him to the natural course
of revenge. This, as he sat crouched down in a chair in his locked
office, he began systematically to prepare. The first idea--always
first in such cases--was to kill. That, in the case of a man of his
spirit and temperament, was a matter of course. Fear of the legal
consequences found no place within him. Besides, suicide after the
killing would settle that exceedingly small part of the difficulty.

So it was first decided that as the result of this discovery three
persons had to die,--his wife, his friend, and himself. Very well; that
took a load from his mind. An orderly and intelligent arrangement of
details now had to be worked out. A plan which would bring the largest
results in the satisfaction of a desire for revenge must be chosen. The
simple death of those two, the bare stoppage of breath, would be wholly
inadequate. First, the manner of taking their lives must have the
quality of strength and a force which in itself would have a large
element of satisfaction; hence it must be striking, deliberate, brutal
if you wish, revolting if you are particular. Second, it must be
preceded by exposure, denunciation, publication, scorn, contempt, and
terror.

That much was good--what next? There were various available means for
taking life. A revolver suggested itself. It makes a dark, red spot;
the very sight of the weapon, held steadily and longer than necessary,
levelled at the place where the spot is to appear, is terrifying; there
is a look of fright; then uplifted arms, an appeal for mercy, a protest
of innocence, a cry to God; after that the crash, a white face, a
toppling to the floor, eyes rolled upward, bluish lips apart, a dark
pool on the carpet--all that was very good. The wretched man felt
better now that he was beginning to think so clearly.

But there was poison also--poison in variety: arsenic, which burns and
corrodes, causing great pain, often for hours; strychnine, which acts
through the nerves, producing convulsions and sometimes a fixed
distortion of the features, which even the relaxation of death cannot
remove; corrosive sublimate, prussic acid, cyanide of potassium--too
quick and deadly. It must be a poison, if poison at all, which will
bring about a sensible progression through perceptible stages of
suffering, so that during this time the efficiency of physical pain may
be raised by the addition of mental suffering.

Were these all the methods? Yes--enough for this purpose. Then, which
should it be--revolver or poison? It was a difficult problem. Let it
first be settled that the three should be together, locked in a room,
and that the two guilty ones should suffer first, one at a time.

The revolver won.

Randolph was in the act of leaving his office to go and buy the weapon,
when he was startled by what he saw in his office-mirror. It required a
moment for him to recognize his own reflection. His face was
unnaturally white; a discoloration was under his eyes, which had a
glassy appearance; his lips were pressed tightly together, the corners
of his mouth drawn down, large dark veins standing out on his temples.
Fearing that if, while in this condition, he should apply to a gunsmith
for a revolver he would be refused, he stood for some time before the
mirror trying to restore the natural expression of his face. He kneaded
his lips to remove their stiffness, pinched his cheeks to bring back
their color, rubbed down the ridged veins, and scraped a little of the
white plaster from the wall and with it concealed the dark color under
his eyes. Then he went forth with a firm step, bought the revolver
without difficulty, tried it, satisfied himself that it was reliable,
loaded it, put it into his pocket, and returned to his office.

For there were certain matters of property to be attended to. He had a
considerable fortune, all his separate possession; his wife had brought
him nothing. He now felt sufficiently clear-minded to dispose of his
estate intelligently. He drew his will--a holographic instrument--devising
his wealth to various persons and benevolent societies.

He glanced at his office-clock. There would be four long hours yet
before the time for going home to dinner. Fortunately for his plans,
Stockton was to dine with them that evening, and neither of the guilty
ones knew that they had been discovered. How should Randolph employ
these weary hours? There was nothing to do, nothing even to think of.
He tried to read a newspaper, then a book, and failed; looked out upon
the crowds which thronged the street; counted the passing cars awhile;
tried other things, failed at everything, and then sat down.

Something was beginning to work in the wretched man. Let us see: his
wife, while pretending the warmest affection for him, was receiving the
guilty attentions of a traitor in the house; she had betrayed her
husband, had wrecked his life, had driven him to his death. Really,
therefore, she had swept aside all the obligations which the marriage
relation imposed. In essence she was no longer his wife, but a criminal
enemy who, with deliberate and abounding malice, had destroyed him. He
could go to the grave with a willing heart, but he could not permit her
to live and enjoy his downfall and gloat over his destruction.

But would she really do that? And, then,--God!--she was a woman! In
spite of all that she had done, she was a woman! A strong man, his
strength reinforced by a revolver, employs deception to bring a woman
into a room, locks the door, insults, humiliates, and terrifies her,
brandishes a revolver, and then kills her like a rat in its hole. Can a
brave man, of mature judgment and in possession of his faculties, do
such a thing? Why, it would be not only murder, but cowardice as well!
No; it could not be done. She was still a woman, with all the weakness,
all the frailty which her sex imposed. It could not be done.

After all, it would be far sweeter revenge to let her live, bearing
through life a brand of infamy. That would be much better. She would
lose her high position and the respect of her friends; the newspapers
would publish her shame to the world, pointing her out by name as the
depraved woman who had betrayed her husband and driven him to murder
and suicide; they would have her portrait in their columns; her name
and crime would be hawked upon the street by loud-crying news-boys;
sermons denouncing her would be preached in all the churches; her shame
would be discussed everywhere--in homes, shops, hotels, and bar-rooms
in many cities.

Not only that, but she would be stripped of all the property which she
had enjoyed so much. She would be turned adrift upon the streets, for
no one would help her, none have a kind word for her, none give her
even the respect which money might command. Being thus turned out upon
the world all friendless and alone, and being naturally depraved, she
would seek the protection of fast and shady men. Thus started, and soon
taking to drink, as such women always do, down she would plunge into a
reckless and shameless career, sinking lower and lower, losing her
beauty; becoming coarse, loud, and vulgar; then, arriving at that stage
when her beauty no longer could be a source of revenue, drifting into
vile dens, consorting with the lowest and most brutal blackguards,
finding herself dragged often before police-magistrates, first for
drunkenness and then for theft, serving short terms in prison with
others as low; finally, one night brought shrieking with delirium
tremens to the police-station, bundled out to the hospital, strapped
firmly to an iron bed, and then dying with foul oaths on her lips--such
a life would be infinitely worse than death; such revenge immeasurably
vaster than that of the pistol. Then it was finally decided that she
must live and suffer.

As to the friend--as to Stockton, the betrayer, the sneak, the
coward--_he_ should die like a dog. _That_ decision could not be
reconsidered. He should not be granted the privilege of a duel, for not
only was he wholly undeserving of such consideration, but by such means
his life might be spared. Undoubtedly _she_ loved him; perhaps he loved
her. He living and the husband killed in a duel, their satisfaction
would be doubled--having wrecked and humiliated him and driven him to
despair, they then killed him. After that they could enjoy each other's
society openly, unmolested, and without fear of detection or
punishment. Besides, they might marry and both be happy. This was
unthinkable. He must be killed, he must die like a dog, and he must go
to his death with a foul stain on his name.

These things being settled, the wretched man reread the will. As the
woman was to live, she must be mentioned in the document. He tore up
the will and wrote another, in which he bequeathed her one dollar,
setting forth her shame as the reason for so small a bequest. Then he
wrote out a separate statement of the whole affair, sealed it,
addressed it to the coroner, and placed it in his pocket. It would be
found there after awhile.

Well, why this trembling in every member, this unaccountable nausea,
this unconquerable feeling of horror and repugnance as the draft of the
picture was contemplated? Did instinct arise and dumbly plead for
mercy? What mercy had been shown that mercy could be expected? None
whatever. There was not only revenge to be satisfied, but justice also.
Still, it was horrible! Admit that she deserved it all, deserved even
more, she was a woman! No act of hers could deprive her of her natural
claims upon the stronger sex. As a woman she had inalienable rights
which even she could not forfeit, which men may not withhold. And then,
where could be the benefit of adding physical suffering to mental? One
surely would weaken the force of the other. The lower she should fall
and the deeper her degradation, the smaller would become the efficiency
of her mental agony; and yet mental suffering was the kind which it was
desired should fall upon her.

It would be well, therefore, to leave her some money--a considerable
amount of money--in order that, holding herself above the want which,
in her case, would lead to degradation and a blunting of the
sensibilities, she might suffer all the more keenly; in order that the
memory of her shame might be forever poignant, forever a cause for the
sharpest regrets. This would be better in other ways: her shame
published, she could never associate with those fine characters who had
been her friends; her lover dead and his memory disgraced, he could not
be present to console her; for society she would have only those whom
her fortune would attract, and they were not of a kind to satisfy such
a woman as she; she would always be within sight of the old life and
its pleasures, but just beyond the pale--sufficiently near to see and
long for, but too far to reach, and forever kept back by the cold
glance of contempt and disdain from the high circle in which she had
been reared.

Therefore, it were better to leave her the bulk of his fortune. So he
tore up the second will and wrote a third, in which, while naming her
as his principal legatee, he incorporated the story of her shame. He
felt better now than at any other time since his discovery. He walked
about the room, looked out the window, then fell into his chair again.

How strangely alike in many respects are all animals, including man! he
thought. There are qualities and passions common to them all,--hate,
fear, anger, revenge, love, fondness for offspring. In what is man
superior to the others? Manifestly in self-control, a sense of justice,
the attribute of mercy, the quality of charity, the power to forgive,
the force of benevolence, the operation of gratitude; an appreciation
of abstractions; an ability to compare, contrast, and adjust;
consciousness of an inherent tendency to higher and better
achievements. To the extent that he lacks these does he approach more
closely to the lower orders. To the degree that the passions common to
all have mastery over him does he lack the finer qualities which
distinguish his species. The desire to kill when hurt, angered, or
threatened is the stronger the lower we descend in the scale of the
orders--the lower we descend even among the members of the same order.
The least developed men are the most brutal. Revenge is the malice of
anger.

It is strange that his thoughts should have taken such a turn!

And then, the fundamental instinct which guards the perpetuation of the
species is common to all, and its manifestations are controlled by a
universal law, whose simple variations do not impair its integrity.
Love and mating--these are the broad lines upon which the perpetuation
of the species starts. What possible abstractions are there in them? Is
not their character concrete and visible? Whatever fine sentiments are
evolved, we know their source and comprehend their function. There is
no mystery here.

What is this jealousy, which all animals may have? It is an instinctive
resentment, by one of a mated pair, of something which interferes with
a pleasant established system, the basis of which is perpetuation of
the species. Higher mankind has the ability to dissect it, analyze it,
understand it, and guard against its harmful operation; herein lie
distinguishing qualities of superiority. If, when his jealousy is
roused, he is unable to act any differently from the lion, the horse,
or the dog, then, in that regard, he is not superior to them. Man,
being an eater of meat, is a savage animal, like the dog, the tiger,
the panther, the lion. His passions are strong, as are theirs; but he
has qualities which enable him to hold them in check. If an animal have
a strong attachment for his mate, he will fight if she be taken from
him; this is the operation of jealousy. If he be a savage animal, he
will kill if he can or dare. Few males among the animals will kill
their deserting mates; that is left for man, the noblest of the
animals. The others are content to kill the seducer. What thankfulness
there is for escape from an act, so recently contemplated, which would
have placed its perpetrator below the level of the most savage of the
brutes! In what, of all that was now proposed to be done, was there any
quality to distinguish the acts from those of the most savage brute,
except a more elaborate detail, the work of superior malice and
ferocity? Is it a wonder that Randolph shuddered when he thought of it?

The broadest characteristic of all animals, including man, is
selfishness. In man it reaches its highest form and becomes vanity,
pride, and a ridiculous sense of self-importance. But man alone is
conscious of its existence, character, and purpose; he alone encourages
its rational development and suppresses the most evil of its abuses.
The animal which would fight or kill from jealousy is moved by a
selfish motive only. It proceeds to satisfy its anger or gratify its
revenge without any regard to the ethics, without any thought of its
obligations to nature, without the slightest wish to inquire whether
there may not be in the cause of its jealousy a natural purpose which
is proceeding upon the very lines that led to its mating. A man,
however, can think of these things, weigh them carefully, understand
them approximately, and then advance in the light of wisdom. If not, he
is no better, in this regard, than the animal which cannot so reason
and understand.

This manner of thinking was bringing the unhappy man closer to himself.

Then, having faced the proposition that he had been considering his own
case all along, he found the situation to be somewhat like this: He had
a certain understanding which should operate to remove him from
influences which with men of inferior conceptions would be more
powerful; not being a brute, he should rise above impulses which a
brute is constrained by its nature to obey. So much was clear. Then
what should he do? He pondered this long and seriously.

Was it possible to wipe out the past with exposure, humiliation, shame,
and blood? He had been proud of her; he had loved her; he had been
very, very happy with her. She had been his inspiration; a part of his
hopes, ambition, life. True, she had undone all this, but the memory of
it remained. Until this recent act of shame, she had been kind,
unselfish, gentle, and faithful. Who knows why she fell? Who could
sound the depths of this strange mystery; who measure the capacity of
her resistance; who judge her frailty with a righteous mind; who say
that at that very moment she was not suffering unspeakable things? And
then, was there any one so noble of character, with integrity so
unfailing and so far beyond temptation, that he might say he was better
than she? Her weakness--should we presume to call it depravity when we
cannot know, and might we with intelligent knowledge of our own conduct
lay the whole responsibility upon her, and none upon that which made
her? If we are human, let us seek wherein we may convince ourselves
that we are not brutes. Compassion is an attribute of a noble
character. The test of manhood is the exercise of manly qualities.

What good would come from this revenge of humiliation and exposure? It
would not mend the wrong; it would not save life; it would be only
proof of the vanity, the sense of self-importance, of the injured one.
Would it be possible to spare her? Yes. That finally was settled. She
should live; she should have the property; she should be left to enjoy
life as best she could without the shadow of a stain upon her name.
That were the nobler part, the test of manhood. And then, the past
could not be forgotten!

Randolph felt so much better after arriving at this decision that he
marvelled at himself. He walked about the room feeling strong and
elastic. He tore up the will because it charged her crime upon her;
tore up the letter to the coroner; collected all the scraps of paper
and carefully burned them. Then he drew a new will, free from stain,
leaving all his property to his wife. He did not only that, but he
wrote her a letter--formal, of course--merely saying that he had found
his life a mistake; this he sealed, addressed, and placed in his
pocket.

Stockton--the false friend, the betrayer and destroyer--he should die,
he should die like a dog. But not with a stain on his name--that were
impossible, because it would reflect upon _her_.

Here was a new situation. The two men would be found dead, likely in
the same room--the friend and the husband. What would people think? A
duel? For what reason? Murder and suicide? Who had handled the weapon,
and for what possible cause? The road which suspicion would travel was
too short and wide. The fair name of the wife was to be guarded--that
had been decided upon, and now it was the first consideration.

There were other matters to be thought of. Suppose that Stockton had
been the husband and Randolph the friend. God! let us think. Have
brutes, frenzied with rage and jealousy, the power to hold nature's
mirror before the heart, to feel compassion, to exercise charity, to
weigh with a steady hand the weaknesses and frailties of their kind, to
feel humility, to bow the head before the inscrutable ways of nature?
Have they not? No? Well, then, have men? If they have not, they are no
better in that regard than brutes. Besides, would it punish Stockton to
kill him? There can be no punishment in death; it can be only in dying;
but even dying is not unpleasant, and death is the absence of
suffering. There was no way under heaven to give him adequate
punishment.

Nor was that all. _She_ loved him--that must be so. What would be the
benefit of removing him from her life? It would be merely revenge--revenge
upon both of them; and where lies the nobility of such revenge? If they
both should live, both go unexposed, they might be happy together.

After all, whom would that disturb, with whose pleasure interfere?
Surely no sound of their happiness could penetrate the grave; violence
would be done to none of nature's laws. Why should they not be happy?
If they could, why should they not? Was there any reason under the sun
that wisdom, charity, compassion, and a high manhood could give why
they should not be happy?

But suppose that she should suspect the cause of her husband's suicide;
this would likely poison her life, for the consciousness of guilt would
give substance to suspicion. The result would be an abhorrence of self,
a detestation of the participant in her sin, a belief that the blood of
her husband was upon her head, and a long train of evils which would
seriously impair, if not wholly destroy, the desired serenity of her
life. Was there any way to prevent the birth of such a suspicion?

Yes; there was a way. As soon as Randolph had worked it out he felt as
if an enormous load had been removed from him. His eyes shone brightly,
his cheeks were flushed, and a look of pride and triumph lighted up his
face.

He returned to his chair, removed the revolver from his pocket, and
laid it on the table; wrote his wife an affectionate letter, in which
he told her that he had just become aware of an incurable ailment which
he had not the courage to face through months or years of suffering,
and begged her to look to Stockton for friendship and advice; wrote to
Stockton, charging him with her protection; burned the last will that
he had made and drew a new one, in which he left them the property
jointly, on condition that they marry within two years. Then, with a
perfectly clear head, he laid down his pen and sighed, but his face was
bright and tranquil. He picked up the revolver, cocked it, placed the
muzzle against his temple, and without the tremor of a nerve he pressed
the trigger.




A Story Told by the Sea


One night, when the storm had come up from the south, apparently for
the sole purpose of renewing war with its old enemy, the Peninsula of
Monterey, I left the ancient town, crossed the neck of the peninsula,
and descended on the other side of the Santa Lucia slope to see the
mighty battle on Carmel Bay. The tearing wind, which, charged with
needles of rain, assailed me sharply, did nobler work with the ocean
and the cypresses, sending the one upon a riotous course and rending
the other with groans. I arrived upon a cliff just beyond a pebbly
beach, and with bared head and my waistcoat open, stood facing the
ocean and the storm. It was not a cold night, though a winter storm was
at large; but it was a night of blind agonies and struggles, in which a
mad wind lashed the sea and a maddened sea assailed the shore, while a
flying rain and a drenching spray dimmed the sombre colors of the
scene. It was a night for the sea to talk in its travail and yield up
some of its mysteries.

I left the cliff and went a little distance to the neighborhood of a
Chinese fishing-station, where there was a sand-beach; and here, after
throwing off my coat and waistcoat, I went down to have a closer touch
with my treacherous friend. The surf sprang at me, and the waves,
retreating gently, beckoned me to further ventures, which I made with a
knowledge of my ground, but with a love of this sweet danger also. A
strong breaker lifted me from my footing, but I outwitted it and
pursued it in retreat; there came another afterwards, and it was armed,
for, towering above me, it came down upon me with a bludgeon, which
fell heavily upon me. I seized it, but there my command upon my powers
ceased; and the wave, returning, bore me out. A blindness, a vague
sense of suffocation, an uncertain effort of instinct to regain my hold
upon the ground, a flight through the air, a soft fall upon the
sand--it was thus that I was saved; and I still held in my hand the
weapon with which my old friend had dealt me the blow.

It was a bottle. Afterwards, in my room at Monterey, I broke it and
found within it a writing of uncommon interest. After weeks of study
and deciphering (for age and imperfect execution made the task serious
and the result uncertain), I put together such fragments of it as had
the semblance of coherence; and I found that the sea in its travail had
yielded up one of its strangest mysteries. No hope of a profitable
answer to this earnest cry for help prompts its publication; it is
brought forth rather to show a novel and fearful form of human
suffering, and also to give knowledge possibly to some who, if they be
yet alive, would rather know the worst than nothing. The following is
what my labor has accomplished:

I am Amasa D. Keating, an unhappy wretch, who, with many others, am
suffering an extraordinary kind of torture; and so great is the mental
disturbance which I suffer, that I fear I shall not be able to make an
intelligent report. I am but just from a scene of inconceivable
terrors, and, although I am a man of some education and usually equal
to the task of intelligent expression, I am now in a condition of
violent mental disturbance, and of great physical suffering as well,
which I fear will prove a hindrance to the understanding of him who may
find this report. At the outset, I most earnestly beg such one to use
the swiftest diligence in publishing the matter of this writing, to the
end that haply an expedition for our relief may be outfitted without
delay; for, if the present state of affairs continue much longer with
those whom I have left behind, any measure taken for their relief will
be useless. As for myself and my companion, we expect nothing but
death.

I will hasten to the material part of my narrative, with the relation
only of so much of the beginning as may serve for our identification.

On the 14th of October, 1852, we sailed from Boston in the brig
"Hopewell," Captain Campbell, bound for the islands of the South
Pacific Ocean. We carried a cargo of general merchandise, with the
purpose of trading with the natives; but we desired also to find some
suitable island which we might take possession of in the name of the
United States and settle upon for our permanent home. With this end in
view, we had formed a company and bought the brig, so that it might
remain our property and be used as a means of communication between us
and the civilized world. These facts and many others are so familiar to
our friends in Boston, that I deem it wholly unnecessary to set them
forth in fuller detail. The names of all our passengers and crew stand
upon record in Boston, and are not needed to be written here for ampler
identification.

No ill-fortune assailed us until we arrived in the neighborhood of the
Falkland Islands. Cape Horn wore its ugliest aspect (for the brig was a
slow sailer, and the Antarctic summer was well gone before we had
encountered bad weather),--an unusual thing, Captain Campbell assured
us; from that time forward we had a series of misfortunes, which ended
finally, after two or three months, in a fearful gale, which not only
cost some of the crew their lives, but dismasted our vessel. The storm
continued, and, the brig being wholly at the mercy of the wind and the
sea, we saw that she must founder. We therefore took to the boats with
what provisions and other necessary things we could stow away. With no
land in sight, and in the midst of a boiling sea, which appeared every
moment to be on the eve of swamping us, we bent to our oars and headed
for the northwest. It is hardly necessary to say that we had lost our
reckoning; but, after a manner, we made out that we were nearly in
longitude 136.30 west, and about upon the Tropic of Capricorn. This
would have made our situation about a hundred and seventy miles from a
number of small islands lying to the eastward of the one hundred and
fortieth meridian. The prospect was discouraging, as there was hardly a
sound person in the boats to pull an oar, so badly had the weather used
us; and besides that, the ship's instruments had been lost and our
provisions were badly damaged.

Nevertheless, we made some headway. The poor abandoned brig, seemingly
conscious of our desertion, behaved in a very singular fashion; urged
doubtless by the wind, she pursued us with pathetic struggles--now beam
on, again stern foremost, and still again plunging forward with her
nose under the water. Her pitching and lurching were straining her
heavily, and, with her hold full of water, she evidently could live but
a few minutes longer. Meanwhile, it was no small matter for us to keep
clear of her, for whether we would pull to this side or that she
followed us, and sometimes we were in danger. There came an end,
however, for the brig, now heavily water-logged, rose majestically on a
great wave and came down side on into the trough; she made a brave
struggle to right herself, but in another moment she went over upon her
beam, settled, steadied herself a moment, and then sank straight down
like a mass of lead. This brought upon us a peculiar sense of
desolation; for, so far as we knew (and Captain Campbell had sailed
these seas before), there was hardly a chance of our gaining land
alive.

Much to our surprise, we had not rowed more than twenty knots when (it
being about midnight) a fire was sighted off our port bow,--that is to
say, due west. This gave us so great courage that we rowed heartily
towards it, and at three in the morning, to our unspeakable happiness,
we dragged our boats upon a beautiful sand-beach. So exhausted were we
that with small loss of time we made ourselves comfortable and soon
were sound asleep upon firm ground.

The next sun had done more than half its work before any of us were
awake. Excepting some birds of lively plumage, there was not a living
thing in sight; but no sooner had we begun to stir about than a number
of fine brown men approached us simultaneously from different
directions. A belt was around their waists, and from it hung a short
garment, made of bark woven into a coarse fabric; and also hanging from
the belt was a heavy sword of metal. Undoubtedly the men were savages;
but there was a dignity in their manner which set them wholly apart
from the known inhabitants of these South Sea Islands. Our captain, who
understood many of the languages and dialects of the sub-tropical
islanders, found himself at fault in attempting verbal intercourse with
these visitors, but it was not long before we found them exceedingly
apt in understanding signs. They showed much commiseration for us, and
with manifestations of friendship invited us to follow them and test
their hospitality. This we were not slow in doing.

The island--we were made to know on the way--was a journey of ten hours
long and seven wide, and our eyes gave us proof of its wonderful
fecundity of soil, for there were great banana plantations and others
of curious kinds of grain. The narrowness of the roads convinced us
that there were no wagons or beasts of burden, but there were many
evidences of a civilization which, for these parts, was of
extraordinary development; such, for instance, as finely cultivated
fields and good houses of stone, with such evidences of an æsthetic
taste as found expression in the domestic cultivation of many of the
beautiful flowers which grew upon the island. These matters I mention
with some particularity, in order that the island may be recognized by
the rescuers for whom we are eagerly praying.

The town to which we were led is a place of singular beauty. While
there is no orderly arrangement of streets (the houses being scattered
about confusedly), there is a large sense of comfort and room and a
fine character of neatness. The buildings are all of rough stone and
are not divided into apartments; the windows and doors are hung with
matting, giving testimony of an absence of thieves. A little to one
side, upon a knoll, is the house of the king, or chief. It is much like
the others, except that it is larger, a chamber in front serving as an
executive-room, where the king disposes of the business of his
rulership.

Into this audience-room we were led, and presently the king himself
appeared. He was dressed with more barbaric profusion than his
subjects; about his neck and in his ears were many fine pieces of
jewelry of gold and silver, evidently the work of European artisans,
but worn with a complete disregard of their original purpose. The king,
a large, strong, and handsome man, received us with a kindly smile; if
ever a human face showed kindness of heart, it was his. He had us to
understand at once that we were most welcome, that he sympathized with
us in our distress, and that all our wants should be attended to until
means should be found for restoring us to our country, or sending us
whithersoever else we might desire to go.

It was not at all likely, he said (for he spoke German a little), that
any vessel from the outside world would ever visit the island, as it
appeared to be unknown to navigators, and it was a law upon the island
that the inhabitants of no other islands should approach. At certain
times of the moon, however, he sent a boat to an island, many leagues
away, to bear some rare products of his people in exchange for other
commodities, and, should we so desire, we might be taken, one at a
time, in the boat, and thus eventually be put in the way of passing
vessels. With what appeared to be an embarrassed hesitation, he
informed us that he was compelled to impose a certain mild restraint
upon us--one which, he hurried to add, would in no way interfere with
our comfort or pleasure. This was that we be kept apart from his
people, as they were simple and happy, and he feared that association
with us would bring discontent among them. Their present condition had
come about solely through the policy of complete isolation which had
been followed in the past.

We received this communication with a delight which we took no pains to
conceal; and the king seemed touched by our expressions of gratitude.
So in a little while we were established as a colony about three miles
from the town, the quick hands of the natives having made for us, out
of poles, matting, and thatch, a sufficient number of houses for our
comfort; and the king placed at our disposal a large acreage for our
use, if we should desire to help ourselves with farming; for which
purpose an intelligent native was sent to instruct us. It was on the
10th day of May, 1853, that we went upon the island, and the 14th when
we went into colony.

I cannot pause to give any further description of this beautiful island
and our delightful surroundings, but must hasten away to a relation of
the terrible things which presently befell us. We had been upon the
island about a month, when the king (who had been to visit us twice)
sent a messenger to say that a boat would leave on the morrow, and that
if any one of us wished to go he could be taken. The messenger said
that the king's best judgment was that the sickly ones ought to go
first, as, in the event of serious illness, it would be better that
they should die at home. We overlooked this singular and savage way of
stating the case, for our sense of gratitude to the king was so great
that the expression of a slight wish from him was as binding upon us as
law. Hence from our number we selected John Foley, a carpenter, of
Boston, as the hardships of the voyage had developed in him a quick
consumption, and he had no family or relatives in the colony, as many
others of us had. The poor fellow was overcome with gratitude, and he
left us the happiest man I ever saw.

I must now mention a very singular thing, which upon the departure of
Foley was given a conspicuous place in our attention. We were in a
roomy valley, which was nearly surrounded by perpendicular walls of
great height, and from no accessible point was the sea visible. On
several occasions some of the younger men had sought to leave the
valley for the shore, but at each attempt the native guards set over us
had suddenly appeared at the few passes which nature had left in the
wall, and kindly but firmly had turned our young men back, saying that
it was the king's wish we should not leave the valley. The older heads
among us discouraged these attempts to escape, holding them to be
breaches of faith and hospitality; but the knowledge of being absolute
prisoners weighed upon us nevertheless, and became more and more
irksome. When, therefore, our companion was taken away, an organized
movement was made among the young men to gain an elevated position
commanding a view of the sea, in order to observe the direction taken
by Foley's boat. The plan was to divide into bodies and move
simultaneously in force upon all the points of egress, and overcome,
without any resort to dangerous violence, the two or three guards who
had been seen at those points. When our men arrived at these places
they encountered the small number it was customary to see, and were
pushing their way through, when suddenly there appeared a strong body
of natives, who drew their heavy swords and assumed so threatening an
attitude that our men lost no time in retreating. A report of this
occurrence was made to the colony, each of the parties of young men
having had an exactly similar experience. While there appeared to be no
good ground for the feeling of uneasiness which spread throughout the
colony, a sense of oppression came over the stronger ones and of fear
over the weaker; and, a council having been held, it was decided to ask
an explanation of the king.

Other things of some interest had happened; among them, a surreptitious
acquiring of considerable knowledge of the island language by me. For
this reason I was chosen as ambassador to the king. My mission was a
failure, as the king, though gracious, informed me that this plan was
necessary in securing complete isolation from his people; and he
instructed me to tell my people that any member of our colony found
beyond the lines would be punished with death. In addition to this, the
king, seemingly hurt that we should have questioned the propriety of
his actions, said that thenceforward he himself would make the
selections of our people for deportation. The man's evident superiority
of character impressed me with no little effect, and the sincerity with
which he regarded us as belonging to a race inferior to his in mental
and moral strength confounded me and placed me at a disadvantage.

When I took the news to the colony, a mood bordering upon hopelessness
came upon our people. The ones of hastier temper suggested a revolt and
a seizure of the island; but this was so insane an idea that it was put
away at once.

Not long afterwards the king sent for Absalom Maywood, one of our young
men, unmarried, but with a mother among us. Maywood, at first very low
with scurvy on the brig, had drifted into other ailments, and was now
an invalid and much wasted. I will not dwell upon the pathetic parting
between him and his aged mother, nor upon the deeper gloom that fell
upon the colony. What was becoming of these men? None might know
whither they were taken and none could guess their after-fate. Behind
our efforts to be cheerful and industrious there were heavy hearts, and
possibly thoughts and fears that dared not seek expression.

The third man was taken--again a sickly one--this time a consumptive
farmer, named Jackson; and some time afterward a fourth, an elderly
woman, with a cancer; she was Mrs. Lyons, formerly a milliner in South
Boston. Then the patience and hope which had sustained us gave way, and
we were in a condition close upon despair. The cooler ones among the
men assembled quietly apart and debated what to do. Our captain, a man
quiet and brave, still the leader in our councils, and always advising
patience and obedience, presided at this meeting. There was one
dreadful thought upon every mind, but no man had the courage to bring
it forth; but after there had been some discussion without any profit,
Captain Campbell made this speech:

"My friends, it does not become us longer to seek to conceal the
thought which all of us have, and which, sooner or later, must be
spoken. It is a matter of common knowledge that upon many of the
islands of these seas there exists the horrible practice of
cannibalism."

Not a word was spoken for a long time, and all were glad that it had
come out at last. Not one man looked at his neighbor or dared raise his
glance from the ground, and there was a weight upon the hearts of all.

"Nevertheless," resumed the captain, "it is extremely difficult to
believe that this evil is upon us, for you must have noticed that only
the lean and sickly ones have been taken, and surely this cannot mean
cannibalism."

Some had not thought of this, and they looked up quickly, with brighter
faces; whereupon Captain Campbell proceeded:

"You must have observed, however, that all of the sick and weakly have
gone, and this brings a new situation upon us. I have an idea, which I
will not give expression to now, and my desire in calling you together
was to determine its correctness or falsity. For this purpose, some man
of daring and agility must risk his life."

Nearly every man present made offer of his services, but the captain
shook his head and begged them all to remain quiet.

"It is necessary," he added, "that this man understand the language,
and I fear there is not one among you."

Each man, taken aback, looked at his neighbor and then all at me, as I
stepped forward. The captain regarded me gratefully and said:

"Let there now be a binding secrecy among us, for the others of the
colony must not know now, and perhaps never. If our fear find a ground
in truth, there is all the greater reason for keeping these matters
secret among ourselves. Is that well understood? Then, Mr. Keating, the
plan is this: When the next one of us is taken, you are by strategy,
but in no event by violence, to escape from this imprisonment and
discover the fate of that one and make report to us."

A week afterwards (these things occurring now with greater frequency)
Lemuel Arthur, a young man of twenty-two, was taken away about one
o'clock in the afternoon. My whole plan having been studied out, I
arrayed myself in the style of the natives, stained my skin with ochre,
blackened my eyebrows and hair with a mixture of soot and tallow, and
without difficulty slipped by the guards and found myself at large and
free upon the island. I gained a high point and saw no sign of a boat
making ready to put off with Arthur. When darkness had come I descended
to the village. I kept upon the outskirts and remained as much as
possible in shadow. I dared not talk with any one, but I could listen;
and presently I learned something that made my heart stand still.

"It has been so long since we had one," said a native to his fellow.

"Yes; and this one will be delicious. They say he is young and fat.
Why, we have not touched any since the four men and their woman with
the jewelry came upon the island from a wreck."

"True; but this one will not go around among so many of us--many must
go without."

"What of that? Those not supplied now will have all the keener relish
when their turn comes. All that are left now are good and fat, as the
king has taken away all the lean and sickly ones. He would not allow
the people to touch them, although some of them begged very hard. So,
to make sure, they were placed in the kiln."

So heavy a sickness fell upon me when I heard this that I was near upon
a betrayal of my presence; and certainly I lost some of the talk which
these men were having. Presently I realized that nothing indicating a
horrible fate for my friends had been said; my own fears were
sufficient to give a frightful color to their language. When I looked
about me again they were gone, and so with much caution I moved to
another part of the town, keeping always in shadow. At a certain place
I heard another conversation, as follows:

"Does he know what they will do with him?"

"No; but he fears something. He does not understand the language. He
tried to get away this afternoon to go to the sea-shore, where he
thought the boat was waiting, and when they made an effort to keep him
quiet he became very angry."

"What did they do then?"

"They took him to the king, who was so kind that the young man became
quiet. Our king is so gentle, and they always believe what he tells
them,"--whereupon the fellow broke into a hearty laugh.

"And do the others suspect nothing?"

"There is doubt about that. Kololu, the farmer, has reported that they
appear uneasy and disturbed, and hold secret meetings."

"What do you think they would do if they should discover everything?"

"Revolt, I think, for they appear to be fighters."

"But they have no arms, and we are more than a hundred to one."

"That is true, and so no lives would be lost on either side. After the
revolt they would merely be kept in closer confinement, and no harm
would come in the end. They could be taken one at a time, as is the
present intention."

"They might refuse to eat sufficient, and hence become lean."

"That would come about surely, but it would last only for a time; for
you have noticed that even our own people, when condemned, though they
lose flesh at first, invariably become reconciled to their end, and at
last become fatter than ever."

The words of this man, who was evidently a functionary of the king,
inspired me with so great a horror that I could bear to hear no more;
so I moved away, considering whether I should return to the colony and
report what I had heard already or remain to see this ghastly tragedy
to the end. As there was nothing to be gained by returning at once, I
decided to stay, for through the horror of it all might come some
suggestion of a means of deliverance.

I soon became aware, by the making of all the people towards a certain
quarter, that something of unusual importance was afoot; so as best I
could I worked my way around to the point of convergence, which was in
the neighborhood of the king's house, and there I saw an extraordinary
preparation under way. A large bonfire was burning in an open place;
standing around it, in a circle having a generous radius, were hundreds
of the strange half-savages of the island, kept at their proper
distance by an armed patrol; in a clear space at one side, on higher
ground, was an elevated seat, which I surmised was reserved for the
king. Manifestly a matter of some moment was to be attended to, having
likely a ceremonious character. The most curious feature of all this
affair was the activity of a number of workers engaged in dragging
large, hot stones from the fire and arranging them in the form of an
oblong mound. This mound had one peculiar feature: a hollow space,
about six feet long and two feet wide, was left within it, and the men,
under the instructions of a leader, were fashioning it to a depth
approaching two feet, all the stones being very hot and difficult to
handle, even with the aid of barrows.

While they were still at work, the great repressed excitement under
which the people labored found an excuse for expression in the arrival
of the king, who, tricked out in unusual finery, walked solemnly ahead
of his attendants to his elevated seat. Then he gave an order which,
from my distance, I could not hear. I pushed a little closer under the
safety which the occasion lent, and overheard this conversation:

"How many will get some of it?"

"Only forty, I hear. You know the women are not allowed to have it."

"Yes."

"The leading men will be supplied. It makes them strong and wise. The
next one will be given to sixty of the men who carry swords."

"And the next after that?"

"To more of the swordsmen; and so on until they all have had some, and
then the common people will be taken in like rotation, but given a
smaller allowance."

At this juncture, a strange procession moved from the king's house. It
was led by two priests chanting dolefully; behind them walked four men,
armed with curious implements--flails, no doubt. Then came four
warriors, and behind them, firmly bound and completely naked, walked my
young friend, Arthur; after him came six warriors. Arthur's white skin
showed in strong contrast to that of the brown men around him. His face
was very pale, and his eyes, staring wide, swept a quick glance around
for a stray hope.

The group stopped in front of the king; the natives faced and made an
obeisance and awaited further orders. Before all this had been done, a
man in front of me said to another:

"Those hot stones will cool, I fear."

"There is no danger; they will keep their heat a long time. If they
were too hot, they would burn it."

"True."

"They are much too hot now, but it will be some time before they will
be needed."

"Will they use the sword first, as they did with those who had the
jewelry?"

"No; the best part then was spilled. This is a new idea of the king's.
The flails will do just as well and will make it very tender besides.
Our king is a wise man."

By this time young Arthur (the king having given his order) was
surrounded by the armed men, and between him and them were the four who
carried flails. His hands had been bound to a strong post sunk in the
ground. The king raised his hand as a signal, and the four men brought
down their flails with moderate force upon Arthur's naked body. These
implements were heavy, and evidently care was taken not to break the
skin. When the poor fellow felt the blows, he shrank and quivered, but
uttered no sound. They fell again.

What was I doing all this time? What was I thinking? I do not know; but
when the second blows had been delivered and Arthur had cried out in
his agony, I sprang through the encircling line of savages, dashed into
the midst of the group surrounding the prisoner, snatched a sword from
a warrior, leaped upon the king and split his head in twain, turned,
cut Arthur's bonds, caught him by the hand, and fled at full speed with
him into the darkness. Never had been a surprise more complete--the
people had seen one of their own number, as they supposed, free the
prisoner and murder their king. Soon there came a howl, and some
started in pursuit; but--there was the body of the king, and the stones
were hot and waiting! There was no longer authority! Our pursuers fell
off, one by one, and the others, thus discouraged, gave up the chase.
We ran to the shore, found a boat, and put out to sea.

We are free--we two; but to what purpose? We have no idea of the
direction of the land; we are without food; we dare not return to our
friends, for only in the desperate hope of our finding land can there
be the least encouragement for their rescue. We have rowed all night;
it is now well into the following afternoon; we have had nothing to eat
or drink, and we are beginning to suffer; we both are naked and the sun
seemingly will burn us up. I therefore make this record with material
which I had been prudent to provide for such an emergency, and I shall
now give it to the sea, with such earnest prayers for its discovery as
can come only from a most unhappy human being in a desperate extremity.




The Monster-Maker


A young man of refined appearance, but evidently suffering great mental
distress, presented himself one morning at the residence of a singular
old man, who was known as a surgeon of remarkable skill. The house was
a queer and primitive brick affair, entirely out of date, and tolerable
only in the decayed part of the city in which it stood. It was large,
gloomy, and dark, and had long corridors and dismal rooms; and it was
absurdly large for the small family--man and wife--that occupied it.
The house described, the man is portrayed--but not the woman. He could
be agreeable on occasion, but, for all that, he was but animated
mystery. His wife was weak, wan, reticent, evidently miserable, and
possibly living a life of dread or horror--perhaps witness of repulsive
things, subject of anxieties, and victim of fear and tyranny; but there
is a great deal of guessing in these assumptions. He was about
sixty-five years of age and she about forty. He was lean, tall, and
bald, with thin, smooth-shaven face, and very keen eyes; kept always at
home, and was slovenly. The man was strong, the woman weak; he
dominated, she suffered.

Although he was a surgeon of rare skill, his practice was almost
nothing, for it was a rare occurrence that the few who knew of his
great ability were brave enough to penetrate the gloom of his house,
and when they did so it was with deaf ear turned to sundry ghoulish
stories that were whispered concerning him. These were, in great part,
but exaggerations of his experiments in vivisection; he was devoted to
the science of surgery.

The young man who presented himself on the morning just mentioned was a
handsome fellow, yet of evident weak character and unhealthy
temperament--sensitive, and easily exalted or depressed. A single
glance convinced the surgeon that his visitor was seriously affected in
mind, for there was never bolder skull-grin of melancholia, fixed and
irremediable.

A stranger would not have suspected any occupancy of the house. The
street door--old, warped, and blistered by the sun--was locked, and the
small, faded-green window-blinds were closed. The young man rapped at
the door. No answer. He rapped again. Still no sign. He examined a slip
of paper, glanced at the number on the house, and then, with the
impatience of a child, he furiously kicked the door. There were signs
of numerous other such kicks. A response came in the shape of a
shuffling footstep in the hall, a turning of the rusty key, and a sharp
face that peered through a cautious opening in the door.

"Are you the doctor?" asked the young man.

"Yes, yes! Come in," briskly replied the master of the house.

The young man entered. The old surgeon closed the door and carefully
locked it. "This way," he said, advancing to a rickety flight of
stairs. The young man followed. The surgeon led the way up the stairs,
turned into a narrow, musty-smelling corridor at the left, traversed
it, rattling the loose boards under his feet, at the farther end opened
a door at the right, and beckoned his visitor to enter. The young man
found himself in a pleasant room, furnished in antique fashion and with
hard simplicity.

"Sit down," said the old man, placing a chair so that its occupant
should face a window that looked out upon a dead wall about six feet
from the house. He threw open the blind, and a pale light entered. He
then seated himself near his visitor and directly facing him, and with
a searching look, that had all the power of a microscope, he proceeded
to diagnosticate the case.

"Well?" he presently asked.

The young man shifted uneasily in his seat.

"I--I have come to see you," he finally stammered, "because I'm in
trouble."

"Ah!"

"Yes; you see, I--that is--I have given it up."

"Ah!" There was pity added to sympathy in the ejaculation.

"That's it. Given it up," added the visitor. He took from his pocket a
roll of banknotes, and with the utmost deliberation he counted them out
upon his knee. "Five thousand dollars," he calmly remarked. "That is
for you. It's all I have; but I presume--I imagine--no; that is not the
word--_assume_--yes; that's the word--assume that five thousand--is it
really that much? Let me count." He counted again. "That five thousand
dollars is a sufficient fee for what I want you to do."

The surgeon's lips curled pityingly--perhaps disdainfully also. "What
do you want me to do?" he carelessly inquired.

The young man rose, looked around with a mysterious air, approached the
surgeon, and laid the money across his knee. Then he stooped and
whispered two words in the surgeon's ear.

These words produced an electric effect. The old man started violently;
then, springing to his feet, he caught his visitor angrily, and
transfixed him with a look that was as sharp as a knife. His eyes
flashed, and he opened his mouth to give utterance to some harsh
imprecation, when he suddenly checked himself. The anger left his face,
and only pity remained. He relinquished his grasp, picked up the
scattered notes, and, offering them to the visitor, slowly said:

"I do not want your money. You are simply foolish. You think you are in
trouble. Well, you do not know what trouble is. Your only trouble is
that you have not a trace of manhood in your nature. You are merely
insane--I shall not say pusillanimous. You should surrender yourself to
the authorities, and be sent to a lunatic asylum for proper treatment."

The young man keenly felt the intended insult, and his eyes flashed
dangerously.

"You old dog--you insult me thus!" he cried. "Grand airs, these, you
give yourself! Virtuously indignant, old murderer, you! Don't want my
money, eh? When a man comes to you himself and wants it done, you fly
into a passion and spurn his money; but let an enemy of his come and
pay you, and you are only too willing. How many such jobs have you done
in this miserable old hole? It is a good thing for you that the police
have not run you down, and brought spade and shovel with them. Do you
know what is said of you? Do you think you have kept your windows so
closely shut that no sound has ever penetrated beyond them? Where do
you keep your infernal implements?"

He had worked himself into a high passion. His voice was hoarse, loud,
and rasping. His eyes, bloodshot, started from their sockets. His whole
frame twitched, and his fingers writhed. But he was in the presence of
a man infinitely his superior. Two eyes, like those of a snake, burned
two holes through him. An overmastering, inflexible presence confronted
one weak and passionate. The result came.

"Sit down," commanded the stern voice of the surgeon.

It was the voice of father to child, of master to slave. The fury left
the visitor, who, weak and overcome, fell upon a chair.

Meanwhile, a peculiar light had appeared in the old surgeon's face, the
dawn of a strange idea; a gloomy ray, strayed from the fires of the
bottomless pit; the baleful light that illumines the way of the
enthusiast. The old man remained a moment in profound abstraction,
gleams of eager intelligence bursting momentarily through the cloud of
sombre meditation that covered his face. Then broke the broad light of
a deep, impenetrable determination. There was something sinister in it,
suggesting the sacrifice of something held sacred. After a struggle,
mind had vanquished conscience.

Taking a piece of paper and a pencil, the surgeon carefully wrote
answers to questions which he peremptorily addressed to his visitor,
such as his name, age, place of residence, occupation, and the like,
and the same inquiries concerning his parents, together with other
particular matters.

"Does any one know you came to this house?" he asked.

"No."

"You swear it?"

"Yes."

"But your prolonged absence will cause alarm and lead to search."

"I have provided against that."

"How?"

"By depositing a note in the post, as I came along, announcing my
intention to drown myself."

"The river will be dragged."

"What then?" asked the young man, shrugging his shoulders with careless
indifference. "Rapid undercurrent, you know. A good many are never
found."

There was a pause.

"Are you ready?" finally asked the surgeon.

"Perfectly." The answer was cool and determined.

The manner of the surgeon, however, showed much perturbation. The
pallor that had come into his face at the moment his decision was
formed became intense. A nervous tremulousness came over his frame.
Above it all shone the light of enthusiasm.

"Have you a choice in the method?" he asked.

"Yes; extreme anæsthesia."

"With what agent?"

"The surest and quickest."

"Do you desire any--any subsequent disposition?"

"No; only nullification; simply a blowing out, as of a candle in the
wind; a puff--then darkness, without a trace. A sense of your own
safety may suggest the method. I leave it to you."

"No delivery to your friends?"

"None whatever."

Another pause.

"Did you say you are quite ready?" asked the surgeon.

"Quite ready."

"And perfectly willing?"

"Anxious."

"Then wait a moment."

With this request the old surgeon rose to his feet and stretched
himself. Then with the stealthiness of a cat he opened the door and
peered into the hall, listening intently. There was no sound. He softly
closed the door and locked it. Then he closed the window-blinds and
locked them. This done, he opened a door leading into an adjoining
room, which, though it had no window, was lighted by means of a small
skylight. The young man watched closely. A strange change had come over
him. While his determination had not one whit lessened, a look of great
relief came into his face, displacing the haggard, despairing look of a
half-hour before. Melancholic then, he was ecstatic now.

The opening of the second door disclosed a curious sight. In the centre
of the room, directly under the skylight, was an operating-table, such
as is used by demonstrators of anatomy. A glass case against the wall
held surgical instruments of every kind. Hanging in another case were
human skeletons of various sizes. In sealed jars, arranged on shelves,
were monstrosities of divers kinds preserved in alcohol. There were
also, among innumerable other articles scattered about the room, a
manikin, a stuffed cat, a desiccated human heart, plaster casts of
various parts of the body, numerous charts, and a large assortment of
drugs and chemicals. There was also a lounge, which could be opened to
form a couch. The surgeon opened it and moved the operating-table
aside, giving its place to the lounge.

"Come in," he called to his visitor.

The young man obeyed without the least hesitation.

"Take off your coat."

He complied.

"Lie down on that lounge."

In a moment the young man was stretched at full length, eyeing the
surgeon. The latter undoubtedly was suffering under great excitement,
but he did not waver; his movements were sure and quick. Selecting a
bottle containing a liquid, he carefully measured out a certain
quantity. While doing this he asked:

"Have you ever had any irregularity of the heart?"

"No."

The answer was prompt, but it was immediately followed by a quizzical
look in the speaker's face.

"I presume," he added, "you mean by your question that it might be
dangerous to give me a certain drug. Under the circumstances, however,
I fail to see any relevancy in your question."

This took the surgeon aback; but he hastened to explain that he did not
wish to inflict unnecessary pain, and hence his question.

He placed the glass on a stand, approached his visitor, and carefully
examined his pulse.

"Wonderful!" he exclaimed.

"Why?"

"It is perfectly normal."

"Because I am wholly resigned. Indeed, it has been long since I knew
such happiness. It is not active, but infinitely sweet."

"You have no lingering desire to retract?"

"None whatever."

The surgeon went to the stand and returned with the draught.

"Take this," he said, kindly.

The young man partially raised himself and took the glass in his hand.
He did not show the vibration of a single nerve. He drank the liquid,
draining the last drop. Then he returned the glass with a smile.

"Thank you," he said; "you are the noblest man that lives. May you
always prosper and be happy! You are my benefactor, my liberator. Bless
you, bless you! You reach down from your seat with the gods and lift me
up into glorious peace and rest. I love you--I love you with all my
heart!"

These words, spoken earnestly, in a musical, low voice, and accompanied
with a smile of ineffable tenderness, pierced the old man's heart. A
suppressed convulsion swept over him; intense anguish wrung his vitals;
perspiration trickled down his face. The young man continued to smile.

"Ah, it does me good!" said he.

The surgeon, with a strong effort to control himself, sat down upon the
edge of the lounge and took his visitor's wrist, counting the pulse.

"How long will it take?" the young man asked.

"Ten minutes. Two have passed." The voice was hoarse.

"Ah, only eight minutes more!... Delicious, delicious! I feel it
coming.... What was that?... Ah, I understand. Music.... Beautiful!...
Coming, coming.... Is that--that--water?... Trickling? Dripping?
Doctor!"

"Well?"

"Thank you,... thank you.... Noble man,... my saviour,... my bene ...
bene ... factor.... Trickling,... trickling.... Dripping, dripping....
Doctor!"

"Well?"

"Doctor!"

"Past hearing," muttered the surgeon.

"Doctor!"

"And blind."

Response was made by a firm grasp of the hand.

"Doctor!"

"And numb."

"Doctor!"

The old man watched and waited.

"Dripping, ... dripping."

The last drop had run. There was a sigh, and nothing more.

The surgeon laid down the hand.

"The first step," he groaned, rising to his feet; then his whole frame
dilated. "The first step--the most difficult, yet the simplest. A
providential delivery into my hands of that for which I have hungered
for forty years. No withdrawal now! It is possible, because scientific;
rational, but perilous. If I succeed--_if?_ I _shall_ succeed. I _will_
succeed.... And after success--what?... Yes; what? Publish the plan and
the result? The gallows.... So long as _it_ shall exist, ... and _I_
exist, the gallows. That much.... But how account for its presence? Ah,
that pinches hard! I must trust to the future."

He tore himself from the revery and started.

"I wonder if _she_ heard or saw anything."

With that reflection he cast a glance upon the form on the lounge, and
then left the room, locked the door, locked also the door of the outer
room, walked down two or three corridors, penetrated to a remote part
of the house, and rapped at a door. It was opened by his wife. He, by
this time, had regained complete mastery over himself.

"I thought I heard some one in the house just now," he said, "but I can
find no one."

"I heard nothing."

He was greatly relieved.

"I did hear some one knock at the door less than an hour ago," she
resumed, "and heard you speak, I think. Did he come in?"

"No."

The woman glanced at his feet and seemed perplexed.

"I am almost certain," she said, "that I heard foot-falls in the house,
and yet I see that you are wearing slippers."

"Oh, I had on my shoes then!"

"That explains it," said the woman, satisfied; "I think the sound you
heard must have been caused by rats."

"Ah, that was it!" exclaimed the surgeon. Leaving, he closed the door,
reopened it, and said, "I do not wish to be disturbed to-day." He said
to himself, as he went down the hall, "All is clear there."

He returned to the room in which his visitor lay, and made a careful
examination.

"Splendid specimen!" he softly exclaimed; "every organ sound, every
function perfect; fine, large frame; well-shaped muscles, strong and
sinewy; capable of wonderful development--if given opportunity.... I
have no doubt it can be done. Already I have succeeded with a dog,--a
task less difficult than this, for in a man the cerebrum overlaps the
cerebellum, which is not the case with a dog. This gives a wide range
for accident, with but one opportunity in a lifetime! In the cerebrum,
the intellect and the affections; in the cerebellum, the senses and the
motor forces; in the medulla oblongata, control of the diaphragm. In
these two latter lie all the essentials of simple existence. The
cerebrum is merely an adornment; that is to say, reason and the
affections are almost purely ornamental. I have already proved it. My
dog, with its cerebrum removed, was idiotic, but it retained its
physical senses to a certain degree."

While thus ruminating he made careful preparations. He moved the couch,
replaced the operating-table under the skylight, selected a number of
surgical instruments, prepared certain drug-mixtures, and arranged
water, towels, and all the accessories of a tedious surgical operation.
Suddenly he burst into laughter.

"Poor fool!" he exclaimed. "Paid me five thousand dollars to kill him!
Didn't have the courage to snuff his own candle! Singular, singular,
the queer freaks these madmen have! You thought you were dying, poor
idiot! Allow me to inform you, sir, that you are as much alive at this
moment as ever you were in your life. But it will be all the same to
you. You shall never be more conscious than you are now; and for all
practical purposes, so far as they concern you, you are dead
henceforth, though you shall live. By the way, how should you feel
_without a head_? Ha, ha, ha!... But that's a sorry joke."

He lifted the unconscious form from the lounge and laid it upon the
operating-table.

                    *      *      *      *      *

About three years afterwards the following conversation was held
between a captain of police and a detective:

"She may be insane," suggested the captain.

"I think she is."

"And yet you credit her story!"

"I do."

"Singular!"

"Not at all. I myself have learned something."

"What!"

"Much, in one sense; little, in another. You have heard those queer
stories of her husband. Well, they are all nonsensical--probably with
one exception. He is generally a harmless old fellow, but peculiar. He
has performed some wonderful surgical operations. The people in his
neighborhood are ignorant, and they fear him and wish to be rid of him;
hence they tell a great many lies about him, and they come to believe
their own stories. The one important thing that I have learned is that
he is almost insanely enthusiastic on the subject of surgery--especially
experimental surgery; and with an enthusiast there is hardly such a
thing as a scruple. It is this that gives me confidence in the woman's
story."

"You say she appeared to be frightened?"

"Doubly so--first, she feared that her husband would learn of her
betrayal of him; second, the discovery itself had terrified her."

"But her report of this discovery is very vague," argued the captain.
"He conceals everything from her. She is merely guessing."

"In part--yes; in other part--no. She heard the sounds distinctly,
though she did not see clearly. Horror closed her eyes. What she thinks
she saw is, I admit, preposterous; but she undoubtedly saw something
extremely frightful. There are many peculiar little circumstances. He
has eaten with her but few times during the last three years, and
nearly always carries his food to his private rooms. She says that he
either consumes an enormous quantity, throws much away, or is feeding
something that eats prodigiously. He explains this to her by saying
that he has animals with which he experiments. This is not true. Again,
he always keeps the door to these rooms carefully locked; and not only
that, but he has had the doors doubled and otherwise strengthened, and
has heavily barred a window that looks from one of the rooms upon a
dead wall a few feet distant."

"What does it mean?" asked the captain.

"A prison."

"For animals, perhaps."

"Certainly not."

"Why!"

"Because, in the first place, cages would have been better; in the
second place, the security that he has provided is infinitely greater
than that required for the confinement of ordinary animals."

"All this is easily explained: he has a violent lunatic under
treatment."

"I had thought of that, but such is not the fact."

"How do you know?"

"By reasoning thus: He has always refused to treat cases of lunacy; he
confines himself to surgery; the walls are not padded, for the woman
has heard sharp blows upon them; no human strength, however morbid,
could possibly require such resisting strength as has been provided; he
would not be likely to conceal a lunatic's confinement from the woman;
no lunatic could consume all the food that he provides; so extremely
violent mania as these precautions indicate could not continue three
years; if there is a lunatic in the case it is very probable that there
should have been communication with some one outside concerning the
patient, and there has been none; the woman has listened at the keyhole
and has heard no human voice within; and last, we have heard the
woman's vague description of what she saw."

"You have destroyed every possible theory," said the captain, deeply
interested, "and have suggested nothing new."

"Unfortunately, I cannot; but the truth may be very simple, after all.
The old surgeon is so peculiar that I am prepared to discover something
remarkable."

"Have you suspicions?"

"I have."

"Of what?"

"A crime. The woman suspects it."

"And betrays it?"

"Certainly, because it is so horrible that her humanity revolts; so
terrible that her whole nature demands of her that she hand over the
criminal to the law; so frightful that she is in mortal terror; so
awful that it has shaken her mind."

"What do you propose to do?" asked the captain.

"Secure evidence. I may need help."

"You shall have all the men you require. Go ahead, but be careful. You
are on dangerous ground. You would be a mere plaything in the hands of
that man."

Two days afterwards the detective again sought the captain.

"I have a queer document," he said, exhibiting torn fragments of paper,
on which there was writing. "The woman stole it and brought it to me.
She snatched a handful out of a book, getting only a part of each of a
few leaves."

These fragments, which the men arranged as best they could, were (the
detective explained) torn by the surgeon's wife from the first volume
of a number of manuscript books which her husband had written on one
subject,--the very one that was the cause of her excitement. "About the
time that he began a certain experiment three years ago," continued the
detective, "he removed everything from the suite of two rooms
containing his study and his operating-room. In one of the bookcases
that he removed to a room across the passage was a drawer, which he
kept locked, but which he opened from time to time. As is quite common
with such pieces of furniture, the lock of the drawer is a very poor
one; and so the woman, while making a thorough search yesterday, found
a key on her bunch that fitted this lock. She opened the drawer, drew
out the bottom book of a pile (so that its mutilation would more likely
escape discovery), saw that it might contain a clew, and tore out a
handful of the leaves. She had barely replaced the book, locked the
drawer, and made her escape when her husband appeared. He hardly ever
allows her to be out of his sight when she is in that part of the
house."

The fragments read as follows: "... the motory nerves. I had hardly
dared to hope for such a result, although inductive reasoning had
convinced me of its possibility, my only doubt having been on the score
of my lack of skill. Their operation has been only slightly impaired,
and even this would not have been the case had the operation been
performed in infancy, before the intellect had sought and obtained
recognition as an essential part of the whole. Therefore I state, as a
proved fact, that the cells of the motory nerves have inherent forces
sufficient to the purposes of those nerves. But hardly so with the
sensory nerves. These latter are, in fact, an offshoot of the former,
evolved from them by natural (though not essential) heterogeneity, and
to a certain extent are dependent on the evolution and expansion of a
contemporaneous tendency, that developed into mentality, or mental
function. Both of these latter tendencies, these evolvements, are
merely refinements of the motory system, and not independent entities;
that is to say, they are the blossoms of a plant that propagates from
its roots. The motory system is the first ... nor am I surprised that
such prodigious muscular energy is developing. It promises yet to
surpass the wildest dreams of human strength. I account for it thus:
The powers of assimilation had reached their full development. They had
formed the habit of doing a certain amount of work. They sent their
products to all parts of the system. As a result of my operation the
consumption of these products was reduced fully one-half; that is to
say, about one-half of the demand for them was withdrawn. But force of
habit required the production to proceed. This production was strength,
vitality, energy. Thus double the usual quantity of this strength, this
energy, was stored in the remaining ... developed a tendency that did
surprise me. Nature, no longer suffering the distraction of extraneous
interferences, and at the same time being cut in two (as it were), with
reference to this case, did not fully adjust herself to the new
situation, as does a magnet, which, when divided at the point of
equilibrium, renews itself in its two fragments by investing each with
opposite poles; but, on the contrary, being severed from laws that
theretofore had controlled her, and possessing still that mysterious
tendency to develop into something more potential and complex, she
blindly (having lost her lantern) pushed her demands for material that
would secure this development, and as blindly used it when it was given
her. Hence this marvellous voracity, this insatiable hunger, this
wonderful ravenousness; and hence also (there being nothing but the
physical part to receive this vast storing of energy) this strength
that is becoming almost hourly herculean, almost daily appalling. It is
becoming a serious ... narrow escape to-day. By some means, while I was
absent, it unscrewed the stopper of the silver feeding-pipe (which I
have already herein termed 'the artificial mouth'), and, in one of its
curious antics, allowed all the chyle to escape from its stomach
through the tube. Its hunger then became intense--I may say furious. I
placed my hands upon it to push it into a chair, when, feeling my
touch, it caught me, clasped me around the neck, and would have crushed
me to death instantly had I not slipped from its powerful grasp. Thus I
always had to be on my guard. I have provided the screw stopper with a
spring catch, and ... usually docile when not hungry; slow and heavy in
its movements, which are, of course, purely unconscious; any apparent
excitement in movement being due to local irregularities in the
blood-supply of the cerebellum, which, if I did not have it enclosed in
a silver case that is immovable, I should expose and ..."

The captain looked at the detective with a puzzled air.

"I don't understand it at all," said he.

"Nor I," agreed the detective.

"What do you propose to do?"

"Make a raid."

"Do you want a man?"

"Three. The strongest men in your district."

"Why, the surgeon is old and weak!"

"Nevertheless, I want three strong men; and for that matter, prudence
really advises me to take twenty."

                    *      *      *      *      *

At one o'clock the next morning a cautious, scratching sound might have
been heard in the ceiling of the surgeon's operating-room. Shortly
afterwards the skylight sash was carefully raised and laid aside. A man
peered into the opening. Nothing could be heard.

"That is singular," thought the detective.

He cautiously lowered himself to the floor by a rope, and then stood
for some moments listening intently. There was a dead silence. He shot
the slide of a dark-lantern, and rapidly swept the room with the light.
It was bare, with the exception of a strong iron staple and ring,
screwed to the floor in the centre of the room, with a heavy chain
attached. The detective then turned his attention to the outer room; it
was perfectly bare. He was deeply perplexed. Returning to the inner
room, he called softly to the men to descend. While they were thus
occupied he re-entered the outer room and examined the door. A glance
sufficed. It was kept closed by a spring attachment, and was locked
with a strong spring-lock that could be drawn from the inside.

"The bird has just flown," mused the detective. "A singular accident!
The discovery and proper use of this thumb-bolt might not have happened
once in fifty years, if my theory is correct."

By this time the men were behind him. He noiselessly drew the
spring-bolt, opened the door, and looked out into the hall. He heard a
peculiar sound. It was as though a gigantic lobster was floundering and
scrambling in some distant part of the old house. Accompanying this
sound was a loud, whistling breathing, and frequent rasping gasps.

These sounds were heard by still another person--the surgeon's wife;
for they originated very near her rooms, which were a considerable
distance from her husband's. She had been sleeping lightly, tortured by
fear and harassed by frightful dreams. The conspiracy into which she
had recently entered, for the destruction of her husband, was a source
of great anxiety. She constantly suffered from the most gloomy
forebodings, and lived in an atmosphere of terror. Added to the natural
horror of her situation were those countless sources of fear which a
fright-shaken mind creates and then magnifies. She was, indeed, in a
pitiable state, having been driven first by terror to desperation, and
then to madness.

Startled thus out of fitful slumber by the noise at her door, she
sprang from her bed to the floor, every terror that lurked in her
acutely tense mind and diseased imagination starting up and almost
overwhelming her. The idea of flight--one of the strongest of all
instincts--seized upon her, and she ran to the door, beyond all control
of reason. She drew the bolt and flung the door wide open, and then
fled wildly down the passage, the appalling hissing and rasping gurgle
ringing in her ears apparently with a thousandfold intensity. But the
passage was in absolute darkness, and she had not taken a half-dozen
steps when she tripped upon an unseen object on the floor. She fell
headlong upon it, encountering in it a large, soft, warm substance that
writhed and squirmed, and from which came the sounds that had awakened
her. Instantly realizing her situation, she uttered a shriek such as
only an unnamable terror can inspire. But hardly had her cry started
the echoes in the empty corridor when it was suddenly stifled. Two
prodigious arms had closed upon her and crushed the life out of her.

The cry performed the office of directing the detective and his
assistants, and it also aroused the old surgeon, who occupied rooms
between the officers and the object of their search. The cry of agony
pierced him to the marrow, and a realization of the cause of it burst
upon him with frightful force.

"It has come at last!" he gasped, springing from his bed.

Snatching from a table a dimly-burning lamp and a long knife which he
had kept at hand for three years, he dashed into the corridor. The four
officers had already started forward, but when they saw him emerge they
halted in silence. In that moment of stillness the surgeon paused to
listen. He heard the hissing sound and the clumsy floundering of a
bulky, living object in the direction of his wife's apartments. It
evidently was advancing towards him. A turn in the corridor shut out
the view. He turned up the light, which revealed a ghastly pallor in
his face.

"Wife!" he called.

There was no response. He hurriedly advanced, the four men following
quietly. He turned the angle of the corridor, and ran so rapidly that
by the time the officers had come in sight of him again he was twenty
steps away. He ran past a huge, shapeless object, sprawling, crawling,
and floundering along, and arrived at the body of his wife.

He gave one horrified glance at her face, and staggered away. Then a
fury seized him. Clutching the knife firmly, and holding the lamp
aloft, he sprang toward the ungainly object in the corridor. It was
then that the officers, still advancing cautiously, saw a little more
clearly, though still indistinctly, the object of the surgeon's fury,
and the cause of the look of unutterable anguish in his face. The
hideous sight caused them to pause. They saw what appeared to be a man,
yet evidently was not a man; huge, awkward, shapeless; a squirming,
lurching, stumbling mass, completely naked. It raised its broad
shoulders. _It had no head_, but instead of it a small metallic ball
surmounting its massive neck.

"Devil!" exclaimed the surgeon, raising the knife.

"Hold, there!" commanded a stern voice.

The surgeon quickly raised his eyes and saw the four officers, and for
a moment fear paralyzed his arm.

"The police!" he gasped.

Then, with a look of redoubled fury, he sent the knife to the hilt into
the squirming mass before him. The wounded monster sprang to its feet
and wildly threw its arms about, meanwhile emitting fearful sounds from
a silver tube through which it breathed. The surgeon aimed another
blow, but never gave it. In his blind fury he lost his caution, and was
caught in an iron grasp. The struggling threw the lamp some feet toward
the officers, and it fell to the floor, shattered to pieces.
Simultaneously with the crash the oil took fire, and the corridor was
filled with flame. The officers could not approach. Before them was the
spreading blaze, and secure behind it were two forms struggling in a
fearful embrace. They heard cries and gasps, and saw the gleaming of a
knife.

The wood in the house was old and dry. It took fire at once, and the
flames spread with great rapidity. The four officers turned and fled,
barely escaping with their lives. In an hour nothing remained of the
mysterious old house and its inmates but a blackened ruin.




An Original Revenge


On a certain day I received a letter from a private soldier, named
Gratmar, attached to the garrison of San Francisco. I had known him but
slightly, the acquaintance having come about through his interest in
some stories which I had published, and which he had a way of calling
"psychological studies." He was a dreamy, romantic, fine-grained lad,
proud as a tiger-lily and sensitive as a blue-bell. What mad caprice
led him to join the army I never knew; but I did know that there he was
wretchedly out of place, and I foresaw that his rude and repellant
environment would make of him in time a deserter, or a suicide, or a
murderer. The letter at first seemed a wild outpouring of despair, for
it informed me that before it should reach me its author would be dead
by his own hand. But when I had read farther I understood its spirit,
and realized how coolly formed a scheme it disclosed and how terrible
its purport was intended to be. The worst of the contents was the
information that a certain officer (whom he named) had driven him to
the deed, and that _he was committing suicide for the sole purpose of
gaining thereby the power to revenge himself upon his enemy_! I
learned afterward that the officer had received a similar letter.

This was so puzzling that I sat down to reflect upon the young man's
peculiarities. He had always seemed somewhat uncanny, and had I proved
more sympathetic he doubtless would have gone farther and told me of
certain problems which he professed to have solved concerning the life
beyond this. One thing that he had said came back vividly: "If I could
only overcome that purely gross and animal love of life that makes us
all shun death, I would kill myself, for I know how far more powerful I
could be in spirit than in flesh."

The manner of the suicide was startling, and that was what might have
been expected from this odd character. Evidently scorning the flummery
of funerals, he had gone into a little canyon near the military
reservation and blown himself into a million fragments with dynamite,
so that all of him that was ever found was some minute particles of
flesh and bone.

I kept the letter a secret, for I desired to observe the officer
without rousing his suspicion of my purpose; it would be an admirable
test of a dead man's power and deliberate intention to haunt the
living, for so I interpreted the letter. The officer thus to be
punished was an oldish man, short, apoplectic, overbearing, and
irascible. Generally he was kind to most of the men in a way; but he
was gross and mean, and that explained sufficiently his harsh treatment
of young Gratmar, whom he could not understand, and his efforts to
break that flighty young man's spirit.

Not very long after the suicide certain modifications in the officer's
conduct became apparent to my watchful oversight. His choler, though
none the less sporadic, developed a quality which had some of the
characteristics of senility; and yet he was still in his prime, and
passed for a sound man. He was a bachelor, and had lived always alone;
but presently he began to shirk solitude at night and court it in
daylight. His brother-officers chaffed him, and thereupon he would
laugh in rather a forced and silly fashion, quite different from the
ordinary way with him, and would sometimes, on these occasions, blush
so violently that his face would become almost purple. His soldierly
alertness and sternness relaxed surprisingly at some times and at
others were exaggerated into unnecessary acerbity, his conduct in this
regard suggesting that of a drunken man who knows that he is drunk and
who now and then makes a brave effort to appear sober. All these
things, and more, indicating some mental strain, or some dreadful
apprehension, or perhaps something worse than either, were observed
partly by me and partly by an intelligent officer whose watch upon the
man had been secured by me.

To be more particular, the afflicted man was observed often to start
suddenly and in alarm, look quickly round, and make some unintelligent
monosyllabic answer, seemingly to an inaudible question that no visible
person had asked. He acquired the reputation, too, of having taken
lately to nightmares, for in the middle of the night he would shriek in
the most dreadful fashion, alarming his roommates prodigiously. After
these attacks he would sit up in bed, his ruddy face devoid of color,
his eyes glassy and shining, his breathing broken with gasps, and his
body wet with a cold perspiration.

Knowledge of these developments and transformations spread throughout
the garrison; but the few (mostly women) who dared to express sympathy
or suggest a tonic encountered so violent rebuffs that they blessed
Heaven for escaping alive from his word-volleys. Even the garrison
surgeon, who had a kindly manner, and the commanding general, who was
constructed on dignified and impressive lines, received little thanks
for their solicitude. Clearly the doughty old officer, who had fought
like a bulldog in two wars and a hundred battles, was suffering deeply
from some undiscoverable malady.

The next extraordinary thing which he did was to visit one evening (not
so clandestinely as to escape my watch) a spirit medium--extraordinary,
because he always had scoffed at the idea of spirit communications. I
saw him as he was leaving the medium's rooms. His face was purple, his
eyes were bulging and terrified, and he tottered in his walk. A
policeman, seeing his distress, advanced to assist him; whereupon the
soldier hoarsely begged,--

"Call a hack."

Into it he fell, and asked to be driven to his quarters. I hastily
ascended to the medium's rooms, and found her lying unconscious on the
floor. Soon, with my aid, she recalled her wits, but her conscious
state was even more alarming than the other. At first she regarded me
with terror, and cried,--

"It is horrible for you to hound him so!"

I assured her that I was hounding no one.

"Oh, I thought you were the spir--I mean--I--oh, but it was standing
exactly where you are!" she exclaimed.

"I suppose so," I agreed, "but you can see that I am not the young
man's spirit. However, I am familiar with this whole case, madam, and
if I can be of any service in the matter I should be glad if you would
inform me. I am aware that our friend is persecuted by a spirit, which
visits him frequently, and I am positive that through you it has
informed him that the end is not far away, and that our elderly
friend's death will assume some terrible form. Is there anything that I
can do to avert the tragedy?"

The woman stared at me in a horrified silence. "How did you know these
things?" she gasped.

"That is immaterial. When will the tragedy occur? Can I prevent it?"

"Yes, yes!" she exclaimed. "It will happen this very night! But no
earthly power can prevent it!"

She came close to me and looked at me with an expression of the most
acute terror.

"Merciful God! what will become of me? He is to be murdered, you
understand--murdered in cold blood by a spirit--and he knows it and
_I know it_! If he is spared long enough he will tell them at the
garrison, and they will all think that I had something to do with it!
Oh, this is terrible, terrible, and yet I dare not say a word in
advance--nobody there would believe in what the spirits say, and they
will think that I had a hand in the murder!" The woman's agony was
pitiful.

"Be assured that he will say nothing about it," I said; "and if you
keep your tongue from wagging you need fear nothing."

With this and a few other hurried words of comfort, I soothed her and
hastened away.

For I had interesting work on hand: it is not often that one may be in
at such a murder as that! I ran to a livery stable, secured a swift
horse, mounted him, and spurred furiously for the reservation. The
hack, with its generous start, had gone far on its way, but my horse
was nimble, and his legs felt the pricking of my eagerness. A few miles
of this furious pursuit brought me within sight of the hack just as it
was crossing a dark ravine near the reservation. As I came nearer I
imagined that the hack swayed somewhat, and that a fleeing shadow
escaped from it into the tree-banked further wall of the ravine. I
certainly was not in error with regard to the swaying, for it had
roused the dull notice of the driver. I saw him turn, with an air of
alarm in his action, and then pull up with a heavy swing upon the
reins. At this moment I dashed up and halted.

"Anything the matter?" I asked.

"I don't know," he answered, getting down. "I felt the carriage sway,
and I see that the door's wide open. Guess my load thought he'd sobered
up enough to get out and walk, without troubling me or his
pocket-book."

Meanwhile I too had alighted; then struck a match, and by its light we
discovered, through the open door, the "load" huddled confusedly on the
floor of the hack, face upward, his chin compressed upon his breast by
his leaning against the further door, and looking altogether vulgar,
misshapen, and miserably unlike a soldier. He neither moved nor spoke
when we called. We hastily clambered within and lifted him upon the
seat, but his head rolled about with an awful looseness and freedom,
and another match disclosed a ghastly dead face and wide eyes that
stared horribly at nothing.

"You would better drive the body to headquarters," I said.

Instead of following, I cantered back to town, housed my horse, and
went straightway to bed; and this will prove to be the first
information that I was the "mysterious man on a horse," whom the
coroner could never find.

About a year afterwards I received the following letter (which is
observed to be in fair English) from Stockholm, Sweden:

    "Dear Sir,--For some years I have been reading your remarkable
    psychological studies with great interest, and I take the liberty
    to suggest a theme for your able pen. I have just found in a
    library here a newspaper, dated about a year ago, in which is an
    account of the mysterious death of a military officer in a hack."

Then followed the particulars, as I have already detailed them, and the
very theme of post-mortem revenge which I have adopted in this setting
out of facts. Some persons may regard the coincidence between my
correspondent's suggestion and my private and exclusive knowledge as
being a very remarkable thing; but there are likely even more wonderful
things in the world, and at none of them do I longer marvel. More
extraordinary still is his suggestion that in the dynamite explosion a
dog or a quarter of beef might as well have been employed as a
suicide-minded man; that, in short, the man may not have killed himself
at all, but might have employed a presumption of such an occurrence to
render more effective a physical persecution ending in murder by the
living man who had posed as a spirit. The letter even suggested an
arrangement with a spirit medium, and I regard that also as a queer
thing.

The declared purpose of this letter was to suggest material for another
of my "psychological studies;" but I submit that the whole affair is of
too grave a character for treatment in the levity of fiction. And if
the facts and coincidences should prove less puzzling to others than to
me, a praiseworthy service might be done to humanity by the
presentation of whatever solution a better understanding than mine
might evolve.

The only remaining disclosure which I am prepared now to make is that
my correspondent signed himself "Ramtarg,"--an odd-sounding name, but
for all I know it may be respectable in Sweden. And yet there is
something about the name that haunts me unceasingly, much as does some
strange dream which we know we have dreamt and yet which it is
impossible to remember.




Two Singular Men


The first of these was a powerful Italian, topped with a dense brush of
rebellious black hair. The circumstances leading up to his employment
in the Great Oriental Dime Museum as the "Marvellous Tuft-nosed Wild
Man, Hoolagaloo, captured on the Island of Milo, in the Ægean Sea,
after a desperate struggle," were these:

He had been a wood-chopper, possessed of prodigious strength and a
violent temper. One day he and a companion in the mountains fell out
and fought. The Italian then had to walk twenty miles to find a
surgeon, being in great need of his services. When he presented himself
to the surgeon his face was heavily bandaged with blood-soaked cloths.
He began to fumble in his pockets, and his face betrayed deep anxiety
when he failed to find what he sought.

"What is the matter?" asked the surgeon, "and what are you seeking?"

The man uncovered his mouth and in a voice like the sound of an
ophicleide, answered:

"Mina nosa."

"Your nose!"

"Aha. T'ought I bring 'im, butta no find."

"Brought your nose in your pocket!"

"Dunno--may be losta. Fella fighta me; cut offa da nose."

The surgeon assured him that the severed nose would have been useless.

"But I wanta da nose!" exclaimed the man, in despair.

The surgeon said that he could make a new one, and the man appeared
greatly relieved in mind. A removal of the bandages disclosed the fact
that a considerable part of the nose was gone. The surgeon then
proceeded to perform the familiar rhinoplastic operation, which
consists in making a V-shaped incision through the skin of the forehead
immediately above the nose, loosening it, and bringing it down with a
half-turn, to keep the cuticle outward, and covering the nose-stump
with it. In preparing for this he made an interesting discovery. The
place for the man's nose was long and his forehead low, so that in
order to secure sufficient length for the flap he had to encroach on
the hair-covered scalp. There was no help for it. With some misgivings
the surgeon shaved the hair and then performed the operation with
admirable success.

His fears, however, in time were realized. All around the end of the
nose there appeared a broad line of black hair. When the skin was in
its normal position above the forehead the hair on the upper edge of it
had grown downward; but as the skin was inverted in its new position
the hair, of course, grew upward, curving towards the eyes. It gave the
man a grotesque and hideous appearance, and this made him furious. The
surgeon, having a quick wit and a regard for the integrity of his
bones, introduced him to Signor Castellani, proprietor of the Great
Oriental Dime Museum, and that enterprising worthy immediately engaged
him. And thus it was that the man became the greatest curiosity in the
world.

Among his companions in the museum were the Severed Lady, who
apparently was nonexistent below the waist; the Remarkable Tattooed
Lady, who had been rescued from Chinese pirates in the Coral Sea, and
some others. To them the tuft-nosed man was known as Bat--surmised to
be a contraction of Bartolommeo.

The other singular man with which this narrative is concerned was a
small, delicate, mild-mannered, impecunious fellow, who made a living
by writing for the press. He and Castellani were friends, and he was on
excellent terms with the "freaks." But as this narrative is to tell the
little secrets of the museum, it should be explained that the real
object of the young man's deepest admiration was Mademoiselle Zoë, the
Severed Lady, billed also as the Wonderful French Phenomenon. She was
known in private life as Muggie (formerly Muggy, and probably
originally Margaret), and she was the only daughter and special pride
of Castellani. Zoë was rosy-cheeked, pretty, and had a freckled nose.
The impecunious writer was named Sampey. Sampey secretly loved Zoë.

As the Severed Lady, Mademoiselle Zoë's professional duties were
monotonous. They gave her abundant opportunities for observation and
reflection, and, being young and of the feminine sex, she dreamed.

What she observed most was eyes. These were the eyes that looked at her
as she rested in her little swing when on exhibition. Her gilt booth
was very popular, for she was pretty, and some kind-hearted visitors at
the show pitied the poor thing because she ended at the waist! But far
from being depressed by the apparent absence of all below the lower
edge of her gold belt with its glittering diamond buckle, she was
cheerful, and now and then would sing a little song. Her sweetness of
manner and voice and the plumpness of her rounded arms and shoulders
were what had won Sampey's heart and made him all the more zealous in
his useful occupation of devising the names which Castellani bestowed
on his freaks.

Hoolagaloo had suffered a turning of the head by his good fortune. He
imagined that because he was monstrous he was great. That made him
arrogant and presumptuous. He, too, loved Zoë. Thus it came about that
a rivalry was established between Sampey and the Wild Man of Milo. How
was it with Zoë? Which loved she?--or loved she either? Observing and
reflecting, she dreamed. As it was eyes only that she saw, it was of
eyes only that she dreamed.

"Ah," sighed this innocent girl, "that I could see in reality the eyes
of my dreams! So many, many eyes stare at me in my booth, and yet the
eyes of my dreams come not! Blue eyes, brown eyes, black eyes, hazel
eyes, gray eyes, all of every shade, but not yet have come the eyes I
so long to see! Those which do come are commonplace; their owners are
commonplace--just ordinary mortals. I'm sure that princes, knights, and
heroes _must_ have the eyes that beam on me as I sleep. I'm sure,
indeed, that such eyes will come in time, and that by such a sign I
shall know my hero, my master, my love!"

She cautiously asked the Wild Man of Milo about it one day, but his
answer was a coarse guffaw; then, seeing that he had made a mistake, he
kissed her. The hair of his tufted nose thus got into her pretty blue
eyes, and she shuddered.

Then she went to Sampey, who was wise, cool, and politic. He listened,
amazed, but attentive. The opportunity of his life had come. When he
had gathered up his dismayed and scattered wits, he gravely answered:

"Muggie, these eyes that appear in your dreams--is it a particular
color or a certain expression which they have?"

"Color," she answered.

"What color?"

"A soft, pale, limpid amber."

She said it so innocently, so earnestly, so sweetly, that he could
doubt neither her sincerity nor her sanity. Thus the crisis had fallen
upon him and had nearly crushed him.

Nevertheless, he set his wits at work. Pondering, analyzing, ransacking
every nook in the warehouse of his mental resources, he fought bravely
with despair. Presently a bright ray of intelligence, descended Heaven
knows whence, swept across his thought-pinched face. This bright beam,
growing more and more effulgent, mounting higher and higher till it
illuminated all his faculties, finally lighted up his way to become one
of the two singular men of this narrative.

"I see," he said, trying to veil the glow of triumph in his face, "that
you have not wholly mastered the problem of the eyes. True, it is only
heroes that have amber eyes. But such eyes are a badge of heroism sent
by heaven; and, though a man may not have been heroic in any outward
sense, when the essence of true heroism is breathed into him his eyes,
without his knowledge of the fact, may assume the amber hue of your
dreams. Sometimes, in the development of the spirit of heroism, this
color is only transient; in time it may become permanent. Muggie, these
dreams indicate your destiny. You should marry none but a hero, and
when he comes you will know him by his amber eyes." With this Sampey
sighed, for Muggie was looking earnestly into his gray eyes.

Had he thus, in blind self-sacrifice to the whim of a foolish girl,
cast himself into a pit? If so, what meant his light step and cheerful
smile as soon as she was out of sight?

Mademoiselle Zoë, the Severed Lady, swung in half-person and sang her
little song on a night a week or two afterwards, just as she had sung
and swung many a night before. Wondering eyes of every kind were
staring at her, and presently her foolish little heart gave a great
bound. There before her, regarding her with infinite tenderness, was a
divine pair of soft, pale, limpid amber eyes! (A woman in the audience
happened also to see this extraordinary spectacle, and it frightened
her so badly that she fainted, thinking she had seen a corpse.)

The amber eyes instantly disappeared, along with their owner, one
Sampey. A thumpy little heart in a round, plump body knew that it was
he; knew, therefore, that her destiny was come, and, most extraordinary
of all, in the shape of her good father's literary bureau! Yet what
shock there was next day, when the hero of her dreams came to her with
his ordinary pale-gray eyes, blurred somewhat and inclined to humidity!

"Sampey!" she exclaimed in dismay, tumbled thus rudely from the clouds.

"Muggie!"

"Your eyes last night--then you were a hero; but to-day----"

"A hero!" innocently echoed Sampey.

"Why, yes! Last night you had amber eyes--such beautiful eyes--the
hero-eyes of my dreams!"

"My dear child, you certainly were dreaming."

"Oh, no! I saw them! My heart jumped so! I knew you--I knew you--and
your eyes were amber!"

Sampey smiled sadly and a little complacently, and with great modesty
said:

"I can't doubt you, my dear child, but I assure you that I was
unconscious of my amber eyes. I wish that I could feel at liberty to
confess to you that lately I have had strange whisperings of heroism in
my soul--but that would be boasting, and true heroism is always modest.
Still, I ought not to be surprised that you discovered the actual
presence before I was aware even of its existence; but such, indeed, my
dear, is the peculiarity of the true hero--he is ever unaware of his
own heroism." He took her hand languishingly and squeezed it. She
blushed and fled.

Signor Castellani, besides being wealthy, was a man of business. His
daughter should marry a man who had money sufficient to insure his
worth. With perspicacity rare in a man, he had observed that the two
singular men of this narrative admired his daughter. Now, Bat, being a
freak, was making money rapidly, while Sampey was only a poor literary
bureau! Castellani felt the need of a partner. Why should not a partner
be a son-in-law? Surely Bat was much more desirable than Sampey!

Sampey was wise and Bat was foolish. On the other hand, Bat was
courageous and Sampey was timid. Bat had the courage of a brute. Sampey
knew that there were certain ways of frightening brave brutes--he had
even seen a prize-fighter join a church. He prepared for Bat.

One day he entered the museum between exhibitions and sought the Wild
Man of Milo. That worthy was leisurely smoking a cigarette in a quiet
corner, and was making the smoke curl up gracefully over the hairy tuft
on his nose. Sampey was paler than usual and a little nervous, for the
business of his visit was tinged with hazard. Bat, who happened to feel
good-natured, gave the first greeting.

"Hey!" he called out.

Sampey went straight to him.

"You lika da show, ha, Samp? You come effery day. Gooda place, ha,
Samp?"

"A very good place, Bat," quietly answered Sampey, who tried hard to
appear indifferent as he fumbled nervously in his pocket.

"Signor Castellani, he biga mon, reecha mon, gooda mon. You like 'im?"

"Very much." Sampey was acting strangely.

Bat's eyes twinkled a little dangerously.

"You lika da gal, too, ha, Samp?"

"The--ah--the tattooed woman? Yes, very well, indeed."

"Ha, you sly Samp! I spik about da leetle ploompa gal--da Mug."

"Oh! Muggie? Castellani's daughter?"

"Ha."

"Well, I don't know her so very well."

"You don' know da Mugga?" Bat's look was becoming dangerously fierce.
He straightened himself up from his lounging posture, and his big
muscles swelled. "You don' know da Mugga! You tink I no see. You loafa
da Mugga! You wanta marry her! You tink 'er reecha, pooty. You miseraba
sneaka!" Here Bat, who had worked himself into a fury, swore an
eloquent Italian oath.

Sampey's time had come. The two men were alone,--Bat furious and
desperate with jealousy; Sampey fearful, but determined; brutality
against wit, strength against cunning, fury against patience, a bulldog
matched with a mink, a game-cock pitted against an owl.

Sampey pretended to have dropped something accidentally. He stooped to
pick it up, and some seconds elapsed before he pretended to have found
it. While he was searching for it he approached nearer to Bat, and when
he straightened up he brought his face very close to Bat's, and
suddenly raised his eyes and stared steadily into those of the Wild Man
of Milo.

Bat meanwhile had kept up an insulting tirade, his evident purpose
being to force the gentle writer into a fight. But when Sampey raised
his eyes and fixed them in a peculiar stare, Bat regarded him a moment
in speechless wonder, and then sprang back with a livid face, and in
terror cried out:

"Santa Maria!"

For half a minute he gazed, horrified, at the sight which confronted
him, his mouth open, his eyes staring--fascinated, terror-stricken, and
aghast. Sampey, the gentle, usually dove-eyed, was now transformed.
Those were not the accustomed gray eyes with which Bat was familiar,
nor yet the limpid, amber eyes which had set poor Zoë's heart bounding;
Sampey gazed upon his victim with eyes that were a fierce and
insurrectionary scarlet!

Bat, contumelious now no longer, dashed wildly away. He spread his
wonderful tale. Castellani, whom it finally reached, frowned, thinking
that Bat was drunk. The Tattooed Lady laughed outright. Zoë wondered
and was troubled; but that night, just before the curtain of her gilt
booth was drawn at the close of the exhibition, there stood her hero
Sampey, gazing tenderly at her with eyes of a soft, pale, limpid amber.
And she slept soundly after that.

When Sampey visited the museum next day, he was eyed with considerable
curiosity by the freaks. Castellani asked him directly what Bat meant
by his stories. Sampey had expected this question, and was ready for
it. After binding the showman to everlasting secrecy, he said:

"I have made a great discovery, but it is impossible for me to go into
all its details. It must be sufficient at present for me to say that
after many years of scientific experiment I have learned the secret of
changing the color of my eyes at will."

He said this very simply, as though unconscious of announcing one of
the most extraordinary things to which the ages have given birth.

But Castellani was a study. Some great shock, resembling apoplexy,
seemed to have invaded his system. Being a shrewd business man, he
presently recovered his composure, and then in the most indifferent
manner remarked that a person who could change the color of his eyes at
will ought to be able, perhaps, if he should get started right, to make
a little money, possibly, out of the accomplishment; and then he
offered Sampey forty dollars a week to pose as a freak in the Great
Oriental Dime Museum. Sampey, who knew that the Wild Man of Milo's
salary was two hundred dollars a week (which, although large, was well
earned, seeing that everybody had to pull the tuft on his nose to be
sure that it grew there), asked time to consider the splendid offer,
which to him was a fortune.

There was the certainty of losing Zoë when she should learn that his
amber eyes were not really heroic. He went to a retired showman and
asked him what salaries might be commanded by a man with a hair-tufted
nose and a man who could change the color of his eyes to any other
color at will. This showman answered:

"I've seen Castellani's man with the tuft. He gets two hundred dollars
a week. That is pretty high. If you can bring me a man who can change
the color of his eyes at will to any other color, I will pay him a
thousand dollars a week and start in the business again."

Sampey slept not a wink that night.

Meanwhile a change had taken place in Zoë: she had suddenly become more
charming than ever. Her gentleness and sweetness had become conspicuously
augmented, and she was so kind and sweet-mannered to all, including the
Wild Man of Milo (whom she had formerly avoided through instinctive
fear), that Bat took greater heart and swore to win her, though he
might have to wade through oceans of Sampey blood. Mark this: Stake not
too much on a woman's condescension to _you_; it may come through love
for another.

Zoë was innocent, honest, and confiding. Innocence measures the
strength of faith. The charm of faith is its absurdity. Zoë believed in
Sampey.

Sampey, grown surprisingly bold and self-reliant, named his terms to
Castellani--a half-interest in the business--and Castellani, swear and
bully and bluster as he might, must accept. This made Sampey a rich man
at once. Castellani, exceedingly gracious and friendly after the
signing of the compact, proposed a quiet supper in his private
apartments in celebration of the new arrangement, and presently he and
Zoë and Sampey were enjoying a very choice meal. Zoë was dazzlingly
radiant and pretty, but a certain strange constraint sat between her
and Sampey. Once, when she dropped her napkin and Sampey picked it up,
his hand accidentally touched one of her daintily slippered feet, and
his blushes were painful to see.

While they were thus engaged, Bat, without ceremony, burst in upon
them, his face aglow and his eyes flashing triumph. He carried in his
hand a small box, which he rudely thrust under their noses. When Sampey
saw it he turned deathly pale and shrank back, powerless to move or
speak.

"I ketcha da scound!" exclaimed Bat, shaking his finger in the cowering
Sampey's face. "I watch 'im; I ketcha da scound! He play you da dirtee
tr-r-icks!"

The Wild Man of Milo placed the box on the table and raised the lid.
Within appeared a number of curious, small, cup-shaped trinkets of
opaque white glass, each marked in the centre with an annular band of
color surrounding a centre of clear glass, the range of colors being
great, and the trinkets arranged in pairs according to color. There
were also a vial labelled "cocaine" and a small camel's-hair brush.

"You looka me," resumed Hoolagaloo, greatly excited. "I maka mine eye
changa colah, lika da scounda Samp."

With that he dipped the brush into the vial and applied it to his eyes.
Then he picked up two of the curious little glass cups, and slipped
them, one at a time, over his eyeballs and under his eyelids, where
they fitted snugly. They were artificial eyes which Sampey had had made
to cover his natural eyeballs on occasion. Bat struck a mock-tragic
attitude and hissed:

"Diavolo!"

By a strange accident he had picked out two which were not mates. One
of his eyes was a soft, pale, limpid amber and the other a fierce and
insurrectionary red. These, with his tufted nose and his tragic
attitude, gave him an appearance so grotesque and hideous that Zoë,
after springing to her feet and throwing her arms wildly aloft, fell in
a dead faint into Sampey's arms.

Bat gloated over his rival; Castellani was dumfounded. Presently
Sampey's nerve returned with his wits.

"Well," he remarked, contemptuously, drawing Zoë closer and holding her
with a tender solicitude--"well, what of it?"

His insolence enraged Hoolagaloo. "H--hwat of eet! Santa Maria! Da
scound! Ha, ha! Da gal no marry you now!"

Sampey deliberately moved Zoë so that he might reach his watch, and
after looking calmly at it a moment he said:

"Muggie and I have been married just thirty hours."

The announcement stunned the Wild Man. Castellani himself had a hard
mental struggle to realize the situation, and then, with his accustomed
equanimity and his old-time air of authority, he said:

"Well, phat is oll the row aboot, annyhow? D'ye want to shpile th'
mon's thrick, Misther Bat? An' thin, Misther Bat, it's a domned gude
wan, it is; an' more'n thot, me gintlemanly son-in-law is me partner,
too, Misther Bat, I'd have ye know, an' he's got aut'ority in this
show."

That finished the Wild Man of Milo. He staggered out, shaved his nose,
bought an axe, and fled to the mountains to chop wood again, leaving
the Mysterious Man with the Spectre Eyes to become the happiest husband
and the most prosperous freak and showman in the world.




The Faithful Amulet


A quaint old rogue, who called himself Rabaya, the Mystic, was one of
the many extraordinary characters of that odd corner of San Francisco
known as the Latin Quarter. His business was the selling of charms and
amulets, and his generally harmless practices received an impressive
aspect from his Hindu parentage, his great age, his small, wizened
frame, his deeply wrinkled face, his outlandish dress, and the barbaric
fittings of his den.

One of his most constant customers was James Freeman, the
half-piratical owner and skipper of the "Blue Crane." This queer little
barkentine, of light tonnage but wonderful sailing qualities, is
remembered in every port between Sitka and Callao. All sorts of strange
stories are told of her exploits, but these mostly were manufactured by
superstitious and highly imaginative sailors, who commonly demonstrate
the natural affinity existing between idleness and lying. It has been
said not only that she engaged in smuggling, piracy, and "blackbirding"
(which is kidnapping Gilbert Islanders and selling them to the
coffee-planters of Central America), but that she maintained special
relations with Satan, founded on the power of mysterious charms which
her skipper was supposed to have procured from some mysterious source
and was known to employ on occasion. Beyond the information which his
manifests and clearance papers divulged, nothing of his supposed shady
operations could be learned either from him or his crew; for his
sailors, like him, were a strangely silent lot--all sharp, keen-eyed
young fellows who never drank and who kept to themselves when in port.
An uncommon circumstance was that there were never any vacancies in the
crew, except one that happened as the result of Freeman's last visit to
Rabaya, and it came about in the following remarkable manner:

Freeman, like most other men who follow the sea, was superstitious, and
he ascribed his fair luck to the charms which he secretly procured from
Rabaya. It is now known that he visited the mystic whenever he came to
the port of San Francisco, and there are some to-day who believe that
Rabaya had an interest in the supposed buccaneering enterprises of the
"Blue Crane."

Among the most intelligent and active of the "Blue Crane's" crew was a
Malay known to his mates as the Flying Devil. This had come to him by
reason of his extraordinary agility. No monkey could have been more
active than he in the rigging; he could make flying leaps with
astonishing ease. He could not have been more than twenty-five years
old, but he had the shrivelled appearance of an old man, and was small
and lean. His face was smooth-shaved and wrinkled, his eyes deep-set
and intensely black and brilliant. His mouth was his most forbidding
feature. It was large, and the thin lips were drawn tightly over large
and protruding teeth, its aspect being prognathous and menacing.
Although quiet and not given to laughter, at times he would smile, and
then the expression of his face was such as to give even Freeman a
sensation of impending danger.

It was never clearly known what was the real mission of the "Blue
Crane" when she sailed the last time from San Francisco. Some supposed
that she intended to loot a sunken vessel of her treasure; others that
the enterprise was one of simple piracy, involving the killing of the
crew and the scuttling of the ship in mid-ocean; others that a certain
large consignment of opium, for which the customs authorities were on
the lookout, was likely about to be smuggled into some port of Puget
Sound. In any event, the business ahead must have been important, for
it is now known that in order to ensure its success Freeman bought an
uncommonly expensive and potent charm from Rabaya.

When Freeman went to buy this charm he failed to notice that the Flying
Devil was slyly following him; neither he nor the half-blind
charm-seller observed the Malay slip into Rabaya's den and witness the
matter that there went forward. The intruder must have heard something
that stirred every evil instinct in him. Rabaya (whom I could hardly be
persuaded to believe under oath) years afterwards told me that the
charm which he sold to Freeman was one of extraordinary virtue. For
many generations it had been in the family of one of India's proudest
rajahs, and until it was stolen the arms of England could not prevail
over that part of the far East. If borne by a person of lofty character
(as he solemnly informed me he believed Freeman to be) it would never
fail to bring the highest good fortune; for, although the amulet was
laden with evil powers as well as good, a worthy person could resist
the evil and employ only the good. Contrariwise, the amulet in the
hands of an evil person would be a most potent and dangerous engine of
harm.

It was a small and very old trinket, made of copper and representing a
serpent twined grotesquely about a human heart; through the heart a
dagger was thrust, and the loop for holding the suspending string was
formed by one of the coils of the snake. The charm had a wonderful
history, which must be reserved for a future story; the sum of it being
that as it had been as often in the hands of bad men as of good, it had
wrought as many calamities as blessings. It was perfectly safe and
useful--so Rabaya soberly told me--in the hands of such a man as
Freeman.

Now, as no one knows the soundings and breadth of his own wickedness,
the Flying Devil (who, Rabaya explained, must have overheard the
conversation attending its transference to Freeman) reflected only that
if he could secure possession of the charm his fortune would be made;
as he could not procure it by other means, he must steal it. Moreover,
he must have seen the price--five thousand dollars in gold--which
Freeman paid for the trinket; and that alone was sufficient to move the
Malay's cupidity. At all events, it is known that he set himself to
steal the charm and desert from the barkentine.

From this point on to the catastrophe my information is somewhat hazy.
I cannot say, for instance, just how the theft was committed, but it is
certain that Freeman was not aware of it until a considerable time had
passed. What did concern him particularly was the absence of the Malay
when the barkentine was weighing anchor and giving a line for a tow out
to sea. The Malay was a valuable sailor; to replace him adequately was
clearly so impossible a task that Freeman decided, after a profitless
and delaying search of hours, to leave port without him or another in
his place. It was with a heavy heart, somewhat lightened by a confident
assumption that the amulet was safe in his possession, that Freeman
headed down the channel for the Golden Gate.

Meanwhile, the Flying Devil was having strange adventures. In a hastily
arranged disguise, the principal feature of which was a gentleman's
street dress, in which he might pass careless scrutiny as a thrifty
Japanese awkwardly trying to adapt himself to the customs of his
environment, he emerged from a water-front lodging-house of the poorer
sort, and ascended leisurely to the summit of Telegraph Hill, in order
to make a careful survey of the city from that prominent height; for it
was needful that he know how best to escape. From that alluring
eminence he saw not only a great part of the city, but also nearly the
whole of the bay of San Francisco and the shores, towns, and mountains
lying beyond. His first particular attention was given to the "Blue
Crane," upon which he looked nearly straight down as she rolled gently
at her moorings at the foot of Lombard Street. Two miles to the west he
saw the trees which conceal the soldiers' barracks, and the commanding
general's residence on the high promontory known as Black Point, and
these invited him to seek concealment in their shadows until the advent
of night would enable him to work his way down the peninsula of San
Francisco to the distant blue mountains of San Mateo. Surmising that
Freeman would make a search for him, and that it would be confined to
the docks and their near vicinity, he imagined that it would not be a
difficult matter to escape.

After getting his bearings the Malay was in the act of descending the
hill by its northern flank, when he observed a stranger leaning against
the parapet crowning the hill. The man seemed to be watching him. Not
reflecting that his somewhat singular appearance might have accounted
for the scrutiny, his suspicions were roused; he feared, albeit
wrongly, that he was followed, for the stranger had come up soon after
him. Assuming an air of indifference, he strolled about until he was
very near the stranger, and then with the swiftness and ferocity of a
tiger he sprang and slipped a knife-blade between the man's ribs. The
stranger sank with a groan, and the Malay fled down the hill.

It was a curious circumstance that the man fell in front of one of the
openings which neglect had permitted the rains to wash underneath the
parapet. He floundered as some dying men will, and these movements
caused him to work his body through the opening. That done, he started
rolling down the steep eastern declivity, the speed of his flight
increasing with every bound. Many cottages are perched precariously on
this precipitous slope. Mrs. Armour, a resident of one of them, was
sitting in a rear room near the window, sewing, when she was amazed to
see a man flying through the sash close beside her. He came with so
great violence that he tore through a thin partition into an adjoining
room and landed in a shapeless heap against the opposite wall. Mrs.
Armour screamed for help. A great commotion ensued, but it was some
time before the flight of the body was connected with a murder on the
parapet. Nevertheless, the police were active, and presently a dozen of
them were upon the broad trail which the murderer had left in his
flight down the hill.

In a short time the Malay found himself in the lumber-piles of the
northern water-front. Thence, after gathering himself together, he
walked leisurely westward in the rear of the wire-works, and traversed
a little sand-beach where mothers and nurses had children out for an
airing. The desperate spirit of perversity which possessed the man (and
which Rabaya afterwards explained by the possession of the amulet),
made reckless by a belief that the charm which he carried would
preserve him from all menaces, led him to steal a small hand-satchel
that lay on the beach near a well-dressed woman. He walked away with
it, and then opened it and was rejoiced to find that it contained some
money and fine jewelry. At this juncture one of the children, who had
observed the Malay's theft, called the woman's attention to him. She
started in pursuit, raising a loud outcry, which emptied the adjacent
drinking-saloons of a pursuing crowd.

The Malay leaped forward with ample ability to outstrip all his
pursuers, but just as he arrived in front of a large swimming
establishment a bullet from a policeman's pistol brought him to his
knees. The crowd quickly pressed around him. The criminal staggered to
his feet, made a fierce dash at a man who stood in his way, and sank a
good knife into his body. Then he bounded away, fled swiftly past a
narrow beach where swimming-clubs have their houses, and disappeared in
the ruins of a large old building that lay at the foot of a sandy bluff
on the water's edge. He was trailed a short distance within the ruins
by a thin stream of blood which he left, and there he was lost. It was
supposed that he had escaped to the old woollen-mill on Black Point.

As in all other cases where a mob pursues a fleeing criminal, the
search was wild and disorderly, so that if the Malay had left any trail
beyond the ruins it would have been obliterated by trampling feet. Only
one policeman was in the crowd, but others, summoned by telephone, were
rapidly approaching from all directions. Unintelligent and
contradictory rumors bewildered the police for a time, but they formed
a long picket line covering an arc which stretched from North Beach to
the new gas-works far beyond Black Point.

It was about this time that Captain Freeman cast off and started out to
sea.

The summit of Black Point is crowned with the tall eucalyptus-trees
which the Flying Devil had seen from Telegraph Hill. A high fence,
which encloses the general's house, extends along the bluff of Black
Point, near the edge. A sentry paced in front of the gate to the
grounds, keeping out all who had not provided themselves with a pass.
The sentry had seen the crowd gathering towards the east, and in the
distance he noticed the brass buttons of the police glistening in the
western sunlight. He wondered what could be afoot.

While he was thus engaged he observed a small, dark, wiry man emerging
upon the bluff from the direction of the woollen-mill at its eastern
base. The stranger made straight for the gate.

"You can't go in there," said the soldier, "unless you have a pass."

"Da w'at?" asked the stranger.

"A pass," repeated the sentry; and then, seeing that the man was a
foreigner and imperfectly acquainted with English, he made signs to
explain his remark, still carrying his bayonet-tipped rifle at
shoulder-arms. The stranger, whose sharp gleam of eye gave the soldier
an odd sensation, nodded and smiled.

"Oh!" said he; "I have."

He thrust his hand into his side-pocket, advancing meanwhile, and
sending a swift glance about. In the next moment the soldier found
himself sinking to the ground with an open jugular.

The Malay slipped within the grounds and disappeared in the shrubbery.
It was nearly an hour afterwards that the soldier's body was
discovered, and, the crowd of police and citizens arriving, it became
known to the garrison that the desperate criminal was immediately at
hand. The bugle sounded and the soldiers came tumbling out of barracks.
Then began a search of every corner of the post.

It is likely that a feeling of relief came to many a stout heart when
it was announced that the man had escaped by water, and was now being
swiftly carried down the channel towards the Golden Gate by the ebb
tide. He was clearly seen in a small boat, keeping such a course as was
possible by means of a rude board in place of oars. His escape had
occurred thus: Upon entering the grounds he ran along the eastern
fence, behind the shrubbery, to a transverse fence separating the
garden from the rear premises. He leaped the fence, and then found
himself face to face with a large and formidable mastiff. He killed the
brute in a strange and bold manner--by choking. There was evidence of a
long and fearful struggle between man and brute. The apparent reason
for the man's failure to use the knife was the first necessity of
choking the dog into silence and the subsequent need of employing both
hands to maintain that advantage.

After disposing of the dog the Flying Devil, wounded though he was,
performed a feat worthy of his _sobriquet_; he leaped the rear fence.
At the foot of the bluff he found a boat chained to a post sunk into
the sand. There was no way to release the boat except by digging up the
post. This the Malay did with his hands for tools, and then threw the
post into the boat, and pushed off with a board that he found on the
beach. Then he swung out into the tide, and it was some minutes
afterwards that he was discovered from the fort; and then he was so far
away, and there was so much doubt of his identity, that the gunners
hesitated for a time to fire upon him. Then two dramatic things
occurred.

Meeting the drifting boat was a heavy bank of fog which was rolling in
through the Golden Gate. The murderer was heading straight for it,
paddling vigorously with the tide. If once the fog should enfold him he
would be lost in the Pacific or killed on the rocks almost beyond a
peradventure, and yet he was heading for such a fate with all the
strength that he possessed. This was what first convinced his pursuers
that he was the man whom they sought--none other would have pursued so
desperate a course. At the same time a marine glass brought conviction,
and the order was given to open fire.

A six-pound brass cannon roared, and splinters flew from the boat; but
its occupant, with tantalizing bravado, rose and waved his hand
defiantly. The six-pounder then sent out a percussion shell, and just
as the frail boat was entering the fog it was blown into a thousand
fragments. Some of the observers swore positively that they saw the
Malay floundering in the water a moment after the boat was destroyed
and before he was engulfed by the fog, but this was deemed incredible.
In a short time the order of the post had been restored and the police
had taken themselves away.

The other dramatic occurrence must remain largely a matter of surmise,
but only because the evidence is so strange.

The great steel gun employed at the fort to announce the setting of the
sun thrust its black muzzle into the fog. Had it been fired with shot
or shell its missile would have struck the hills on the opposite side
of the channel. But the gun was never so loaded; blank cartridges were
sufficient for its function. The bore of the piece was of so generous a
diameter that a child or small man might have crept into it had such a
feat ever been thought of or dared.

There are three circumstances indicating that the fleeing man escaped
alive from the wreck of his boat, and that he made a safe landing in
the fog on the treacherous rocks at the foot of the bluff crowned by
the guns. The first of these was suggested by the gunner who fired the
piece that day, two or three hours after the destruction of the fleeing
man's boat; and even that would have received no attention under
ordinary circumstances, and, in fact, did receive none at all until
long afterwards, when Rabaya reported that he had been visited by
Freeman, who told him of the two other strange circumstances. The
gunner related that when he fired the cannon that day he discovered
that it recoiled in a most unaccountable manner, as though it had been
loaded with something in addition to a blank cartridge. But he had
loaded the gun himself, and was positive that he had placed no shot in
the barrel. At that time he was utterly unable to account for the
recoil.

The second strange occurrence came to my knowledge through Rabaya.
Freeman told him that as he was towing out to sea that afternoon he
encountered a heavy fog immediately after turning from the bay into the
channel. The tow-boat had to proceed very slowly. When his vessel had
arrived at a point opposite Black Point he heard the sunset gun, and
immediately afterwards strange particles began to fall upon the
barkentine, which was exactly in the vertical plane of the gun's range.
He had sailed many waters and had seen many kinds of showers, but this
was different from all others. Fragments of a sticky substance fell all
over the deck, and clung to the sails and spars where they touched
them. They seemed to be finely shredded flesh, mixed with particles of
shattered bone, with a strip of cloth here and there; and the particles
that looked like flesh were of a blackish red and smelled of powder.
The visitation gave the skipper and his crew a "creepy" sensation, and
awed them somewhat--in short, they were depressed by the strange
circumstance to such an extent that Captain Freeman had to employ stern
measures to keep down a mutiny, so fearful were the men of going to sea
under that terrible omen.

The third circumstance is equally singular. As Freeman was pacing the
deck and talking reassuringly to his crew his foot struck a small,
grimy, metallic object lying on the deck. He picked it up and
discovered that it, too, bore the odor of burned powder. When he had
cleaned it he was amazed to discover that it was the amulet which he
had bought that very day from Rabaya. He could not believe it was the
same until he had made a search and found that it had been stolen from
his pocket.

It needs only to be added that the Flying Devil was never seen
afterwards.

                    *      *      *      *      *

Electrotyped and Printed by J. B. Lippincott Company,
Philadelphia, U. S. A.






End of Project Gutenberg's The Ape, the Idiot & Other People, by W. C. Morrow