TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

Obvious errors and omissions in punctuation have been fixed.

The book was published in 1893.




  MY FRIEND
  THE MURDERER

  _AND OTHER MYSTERIES AND
  ADVENTURES_


  BY

  A. CONAN DOYLE

  AUTHOR OF
  “THE WHITE COMPANY,” “THE FIRM OF GIRDLESTONE,” ETC., ETC.


  NEW YORK

  INTERNATIONAL BOOK COMPANY

  310-318 SIXTH AVENUE




  BY

  UNITED STATES BOOK COMPANY.

  [_All rights reserved._]




CONTENTS.


      PAGE

MY FRIEND THE MURDERER,      7

THE GULLY OF BLUEMANSDYKE,      31

THE PARSON OF JACKMAN’S GULCH,      60

THE SILVER HATCHET,      79

THE MAN FROM ARCHANGEL,      99

THAT LITTLE SQUARE BOX,      129

A NIGHT AMONG THE NIHILISTS,      155

BONES, THE APRIL FOOL OF HARVEY’S SLUICE,      171

SELECTING A GHOST,      209

THE MYSTERY OF SASASSA VALLEY,      232

THE AMERICAN’S TALE,      248

OUR DERBY SWEEPSTAKES,      258




MY FRIEND THE MURDERER.


“Number 43 is no better, Doctor,” said the head-warder, in a slightly
reproachful accent, looking in round the corner of my door.

“Confound 43!” I responded from behind the pages of the _Australian
Sketcher_.

“And 61 says his tubes are paining him. Couldn’t you do anything for
him?”

“He’s a walking drug-shop,” said I. “He has the whole British
pharmacopœia inside him. I believe his tubes are as sound as yours are.”

“Then there’s 7 and 108, they are chronic,” continued the warder,
glancing down a blue slip of paper. “And 28 knocked off work
yesterday--said lifting things gave him a stitch in the side. I want
you to have a look at him, if you don’t mind, Doctor. There’s 31,
too--him that killed John Adamson in the Corinthian brig--he’s been
carrying on awful in the night, shrieking and yelling, he has, and no
stopping him either.”

“All right, I’ll have a look at him afterward,” I said, tossing my
paper carelessly aside, and pouring myself out a cup of coffee.
“Nothing else to report, I suppose, warder?”

The official protruded his head a little further into the room. “Beg
pardon, Doctor,” he said, in a confidential tone, “but I notice as 82
has a bit of a cold, and it would be a good excuse for you to visit him
and have a chat, maybe.”

The cup of coffee was arrested half-way to my lips as I stared in
amazement at the man’s serious face.

“An excuse?” I said. “An excuse? What the deuce are you talking about,
McPherson? You see me trudging about all day at my practice, when I’m
not looking after the prisoners, and coming back every night as tired
as a dog, and you talk about finding an excuse for doing more work.”

“You’d like it, Doctor,” said Warder McPherson, insinuating one of his
shoulders into the room. “That man’s story’s worth listening to if you
could get him to tell it, though he’s not what you’d call free in his
speech. Maybe you don’t know who 82 is?”

“No, I don’t, and I don’t care either,” I answered, in the conviction
that some local ruffian was about to be foisted upon me as a celebrity.

“He’s Maloney,” said the warder, “him that turned Queen’s evidence
after the murders at Bluemansdyke.”

“You don’t say so?” I ejaculated, laying down my cup in astonishment.
I had heard of this ghastly series of murders, and read an account of
them in a London magazine long before setting foot in the colony. I
remembered that the atrocities committed had thrown the Burke and Hare
crimes completely into the shade, and that one of the most villainous
of the gang had saved his own skin by betraying his companions. “Are
you sure?” I asked.

“Oh, yes, it’s him right enough. Just you draw him out a bit, and
he’ll astonish you. He’s a man to know, is Maloney; that’s to say, in
moderation;” and the head grinned, bobbed, and disappeared, leaving me
to finish my breakfast and ruminate over what I had heard.

The surgeonship of an Australian prison is not an enviable position.
It may be endurable in Melbourne or Sydney, but the little town of
Perth has few attractions to recommend it, and those few had been
long exhausted. The climate was detestable, and the society far from
congenial. Sheep and cattle were the staple support of the community;
and their prices, breeding, and diseases the principal topic of
conversation. Now as I, being an outsider, possessed neither the
one nor the other, and was utterly callous to the new “dip” and the
“rot” and other kindred topics, I found myself in a state of mental
isolation, and was ready to hail anything which might relieve the
monotony of my existence. Maloney, the murderer, had at least some
distinctiveness and individuality in his character, and might act as
a tonic to a mind sick of the commonplaces of existence. I determined
that I should follow the warder’s advice, and take the excuse for
making his acquaintance. When, therefore, I went upon my usual
matutinal round, I turned the lock of the door which bore the convict’s
number upon it, and walked into the cell.

The man was lying in a heap upon his rough bed as I entered, but,
uncoiling his long limbs, he started up and stared at me with an
insolent look of defiance on his face which augured badly for our
interview. He had a pale, set face, with sandy hair and a steely-blue
eye, with something feline in its expression. His frame was tall and
muscular, though there was a curious bend in his shoulders, which
almost amounted to a deformity. An ordinary observer meeting him in
the street might have put him down as a well-developed man, fairly
handsome, and of studious habits--even in the hideous uniform of the
rottenest convict establishment he imparted a certain refinement to
his carriage which marked him out among the inferior ruffians around
him.

“I’m not on the sick-list,” he said, gruffly. There was something in
the hard, rasping voice which dispelled all softer illusions, and made
me realize that I was face to face with the man of the Lena Valley and
Bluemansdyke, the bloodiest bushranger that ever stuck up a farm or cut
the throats of its occupants.

“I know you’re not,” I answered. “Warder McPherson told me you had a
cold, though, and I thought I’d look in and see you.”

“Blast Warder McPherson, and blast you, too!” yelled the convict, in
a paroxysm of rage. “Oh, that’s right,” he added, in a quieter voice;
“hurry away; report me to the governor, do! Get me another six months
or so--that’s your game.”

“I’m not going to report you,” I said.

“Eight square feet of ground,” he went on, disregarding my protest, and
evidently working himself into a fury again. “Eight square feet, and I
can’t have that without being talked to and stared at, and--oh, blast
the whole crew of you!” and he raised his two clenched hands above his
head and shook them in passionate invective.

“You’ve got a curious idea of hospitality,” I remarked, determined not
to lose my temper, and saying almost the first thing that came to my
tongue.

To my surprise the words had an extraordinary effect upon him. He
seemed completely staggered at my assuming the proposition for which
he had been so fiercely contending--namely, that the room in which we
stood was his own.

“I beg your pardon,” he said; “I didn’t mean to be rude. Won’t you
take a seat?” and he motioned toward a rough trestle, which formed the
headpiece of his couch.

I sat down, rather astonished at the sudden change. I don’t know that
I liked Maloney better under his new aspect. The murderer had, it is
true, disappeared for the nonce, but there was something in the smooth
tones and obsequious manner which powerfully suggested the witness of
the Queen, who had stood up and sworn away the lives of his companions
in crime.

“How’s your chest?” I asked, putting on my professional air.

“Come, drop it, Doctor, drop it!” he answered, showing a row of white
teeth as he resumed his seat upon the side of the bed. “It wasn’t
anxiety after my precious health that brought you along here; that
story won’t wash at all. You came to have a look at Wolf Tone Maloney,
forger, murderer, Sydney-slider, ranger, and Government peach. That’s
about my figure, ain’t it? There it is, plain and straight; there’s
nothing mean about me.”

He paused as if he expected me to say something; but as I remained
silent, he repeated once or twice, “There’s nothing mean about me.”

“And why shouldn’t I?” he suddenly yelled, his eyes gleaming and his
whole satanic nature reasserting itself. “We were bound to swing, one
and all, and they were none the worse if I saved myself by turning
against them. Every man for himself, say I, and the devil take the
luckiest. You haven’t a plug of tobacco, Doctor, have you?”

He tore at the piece of “Barrett’s” which I handed him, as ravenously
as a wild beast. It seemed to have the effect of soothing his nerves,
for he settled himself down in the bed and reassumed his former
deprecating manner.

“You wouldn’t like it yourself, you know, Doctor,” he said; “it’s
enough to make any man a little queer in his temper. I’m in for six
months this time for assault, and very sorry I shall be to go out
again, I can tell you. My mind’s at ease in here; but when I’m outside,
what with the Government and what with Tattooed Tom of Hawkesbury,
there’s no chance of a quiet life.”

“Who is he?” I asked.

“He’s the brother of John Grimthorpe, the same that was condemned on my
evidence; and an infernal scamp he was, too! Spawn of the devil, both
of them! This tattooed one is a murderous ruffian, and he swore to have
my blood after that trial. It’s seven year ago, and he’s following me
yet; I know he is, though he lies low and keeps dark. He came up to me
in Ballarat in ’75; you can see on the back of my hand here where the
bullet clipped me. He tried again in ’76, at Port Philip, but I got the
drop on him and wounded him badly. He knifed me in ’79, though, in a
bar at Adelaide, and that made our account about level. He’s loafing
round again now, and he’ll let daylight into me--unless--unless by some
extraordinary chance someone does as much for him.” And Maloney gave a
very ugly smile.

“I don’t complain of _him_ so much,” he continued. “Looking at it in
his way, no doubt it is a sort of family matter that can hardly be
neglected. It’s the Government that fetches me. When I think of what
I’ve done for this country, and then of what this country has done for
me, it makes me fairly wild--clean drives me off my head. There’s no
gratitude nor common decency left, Doctor!”

He brooded over his wrongs for a few minutes, and then proceeded to lay
them before me in detail.

“Here’s nine men,” he said; “they’ve been murdering and killing for
a matter of three years, and maybe a life a week wouldn’t more than
average the work that they’ve done. The Government catches them and
the Government tries them, but they can’t convict; and why?--because
the witnesses have all had their throats cut, and the whole job’s been
very neatly done. What happens then? Up comes a citizen called Wolf
Tone Maloney; he says ‘The country needs me, and here I am.’ And with
that he gives his evidence, convicts the lot, and enables the beaks to
hang them. That’s what I did. There’s nothing mean about me! And now
what does the country do in return? Dogs me, sir, spies on me, watches
me night and day, turns against the very man that worked so very hard
for it. There’s something mean about that, anyway. I didn’t expect them
to knight me, nor to make me Colonial Secretary; but, damn it! I did
expect that they would let me alone!”

“Well,” I remonstrated, “if you choose to break laws and assault
people, you can’t expect it to be looked over on account of former
services.”

“I don’t refer to my present imprisonment, sir,” said Maloney, with
dignity. “It’s the life I’ve been leading since that cursed trial that
takes the soul out of me. Just you sit there on that trestle, and I’ll
tell you all about it; and then look me in the face and tell me that
I’ve been treated fair by the police.”

I shall endeavor to transcribe the experiences of the convict in his
own words, as far as I can remember them, preserving his curious
perversions of right and wrong. I can answer for the truth of his
facts, whatever may be said for his deductions from them. Months
afterward, Inspector H. W. Hann, formerly governor of the jail at
Dunedin, showed me entries in his ledger which corroborated every
statement. Maloney reeled the story off in a dull, monotonous voice,
with his head sunk upon his breast and his hands between his knees.
The glitter of his serpent-like eyes was the only sign of the emotions
which were stirred up by the recollection of the events which he
narrated.

       *       *       *       *       *

You’ve read of Bluemansdyke (he began, with some pride in his tone).
We made it hot while it lasted; but they ran us to earth at last, and
a trap called Braxton, with a damned Yankee, took the lot of us. That
was in New Zealand, of course, and they took us down to Dunedin, and
there they were convicted and hanged. One and all they put up their
hands in the dock, and cursed me till your blood would have run cold
to hear them--which was scurvy treatment, seeing that we had all been
pals together; but they were a blackguard lot, and thought only of
themselves. I think it is as well that they were hung.

They took me back to Dunedin jail, and clapped me into the old cell.
The only difference they made was, that I had no work to do and was
well fed. I stood this for a week or two, until one day the governor
was making his round, and I put the matter to him.

“How’s this?” I said. “My conditions were a free pardon, and you’re
keeping me here against the law.”

He gave a sort of a smile. “Should you like very much to go out?” he
asked.

“So much,” said I, “that unless you open that door I’ll have an action
against you for illegal detention.”

He seemed a bit astonished by my resolution.

“You’re very anxious to meet your death,” he said.

“What d’ye mean?” I asked.

“Come here, and you’ll know what I mean,” he answered. And he led me
down the passage to a window that overlooked the door of the prison.
“Look at that!” said he.

I looked out, and there were a dozen or so rough-looking fellows
standing outside in the street, some of them smoking, some playing
cards on the pavement. When they saw me they gave a yell and crowded
round the door, shaking their fists and hooting.

“They wait for you, watch and watch about,” said the governor. “They’re
the executive of the vigilance committee. However, since you are
determined to go, I can’t stop you.”

“D’ye call this a civilized land,” I cried, “and let a man be murdered
in cold blood in open daylight?”

When I said this the governor and the warder and every fool in the
place grinned, as if a man’s life was a rare good joke.

“You’ve got the law on your side,” says the governor; “so we won’t
detain you any longer. Show him out, warder.”

He’d have done it, too, the black-hearted villain, if I hadn’t begged
and prayed and offered to pay for my board and lodging, which is
more than any prisoner ever did before me. He let me stay on those
conditions; and for three months I was caged up there with every
larrikin in the township clamoring at the other side of the wall. That
was pretty treatment for a man that had served his country!

At last, one morning up came the governor again.

“Well, Maloney,” he said, “how long are you going to honor us with your
society?”

I could have put a knife into his cursed body, and would, too, if we
had been alone in the bush; but I had to smile, and smooth him and
flatter, for I feared that he might have me sent out.

“You’re an infernal rascal,” he said; those were his very words, to
a man that had helped him all he knew how. “I don’t want any rough
justice here, though; and I think I see my way to getting you out of
Dunedin.”

“I’ll never forget you, governor,” said I; and, by God! I never will.

“I don’t want your thanks nor your gratitude,” he answered; “it’s not
for your sake that I do it, but simply to keep order in the town.
There’s a steamer starts from the West Quay to Melbourne to-morrow, and
we’ll get you aboard it. She is advertised at five in the morning, so
have yourself in readiness.”

I packed up the few things I had, and was smuggled out by a back door
just before daybreak. I hurried down, took my ticket under the name
of Isaac Smith, and got safely aboard the Melbourne boat. I remember
hearing her screw grinding into the water as the warps were cast
loose, and looking back at the lights of Dunedin as I leaned upon the
bulwarks, with the pleasant thought that I was leaving them behind me
forever. It seemed to me that a new world was before me, and that all
my troubles had been cast off. I went down below and had some coffee,
and came up again feeling better than I had done since the morning
that I woke to find that cursed Irishman that took me, standing over me
with a six-shooter.

Day had dawned by that time, and we were steaming along by the coast,
well out of sight of Dunedin. I loafed about for a couple of hours, and
when the sun got well up some of the other passengers came on deck and
joined me. One of them, a little perky sort of fellow, took a good long
look at me, and then came over and began talking.

“Mining, I suppose?” says he.

“Yes,” I says.

“Made your pile?” he asks.

“Pretty fair,” says I.

“I was at it myself,” he says; “I worked at the Nelson fields for three
months, and spent all I made in buying a salted claim which busted up
the second day. I went at it again, though, and struck it rich; but
when the gold wagon was going down to the settlements, it was stuck up
by those cursed rangers, and not a red cent left.”

“That was a bad job,” I says.

“Broke me--ruined me clean. Never mind, I’ve seen them all hanged for
it; that makes it easier to bear. There’s only one left--the villain
that gave the evidence. I’d die happy if I could come across him. There
are two things I have to do if I meet him.”

“What’s that?” says I, carelessly.

“I’ve got to ask him where the money lies--they never had time to make
away with it, and it’s _cachéd_ somewhere in the mountains--and then
I’ve got to stretch his neck for him, and send his soul down to join
the men that he betrayed.”

It seemed to me that I knew something about that _caché_, and I felt
like laughing; but he was watching me, and it struck me that he had a
nasty, vindictive kind of mind.

“I’m going up on the bridge,” I said, for he was not a man whose
acquaintance I cared much about making.

He wouldn’t hear of my leaving him, though. “We’re both miners,” he
says, “and we’re pals for the voyage. Come down to the bar. I’m not too
poor to shout.”

I couldn’t refuse him well, and we went down together; and that was the
beginning of the trouble. What harm was I doing anyone on the ship?
All I asked for was a quiet life, leaving others alone and getting
left alone myself. No man could ask fairer than that. And now just you
listen to what came of it.

We were passing the front of the ladies’ cabins, on our way to
the saloon, when out comes a servant lass--a freckled currency
she-devil--with a baby in her arms. We were brushing past her, when she
gave a scream like a railway whistle, and nearly dropped the kid. My
nerves gave a sort of a jump when I heard that scream, but I turned and
begged her pardon, letting on that I thought I might have trod on her
foot. I knew the game was up, though, when I saw her white face, and
her leaning against the door and pointing.

“It’s him!” she cried; “it’s him! I saw him in the court-house. Oh,
don’t let him hurt the baby!”

“Who is it?” asked the steward and half-a-dozen others in a breath.

“It’s him--Maloney--Maloney, the murderer--oh, take him away--take him
away!”

I don’t rightly remember what happened just at that moment. The
furniture and me seemed to get kind of mixed, and there was cursing,
and smashing, and someone shouting for his gold, and a general stamp
round. When I got steadied a bit, I found somebody’s hand in my mouth.
From what I gathered afterward, I conclude that it belonged to that
same little man with the vicious way of talking. He got some of it out
again, but that was because the others were choking me. A poor chap can
get no fair play in this world when once he is down--still I think he
will remember me till the day of his death--longer, I hope.

They dragged me out on to the poop and held a damned court-martial--on
_me_, mind you; _me_, that had thrown over my pals in order to serve
them. What were they to do with me? Some said this, some said that; but
it ended by the captain deciding to send me ashore. The ship stopped,
they lowered a boat, and I was hoisted in, the whole gang of them
hooting at me from over the bulwarks. I saw the man I spoke of tying up
his hand though, and I felt that things might be worse.

I changed my opinion before we got to the land. I had reckoned on the
shore being deserted, and that I might make my way inland; but the
ship had stopped too near the Heads, and a dozen beach-combers and
such like had come down to the water’s edge and were staring at us,
wondering what the boat was after. When we got to the edge of the surf
the coxswain hailed them, and after singing out who I was, he and his
men threw me into the water. You may well look surprised--neck and crop
into ten feet of water, with shark as thick as green parrots in the
bush, and I heard them laughing as I floundered to the shore.

I soon saw it was a worse job than ever. As I came scrambling out
through the weeds, I was collared by a big chap with a velveteen coat,
and half a dozen others got round me and held me fast. Most of them
looked simple fellows enough, and I was not afraid of them; but there
was one in a cabbage-tree hat that had a very nasty expression on his
face, and the big man seemed to be chummy with him.

They dragged me up the beach, and then they let go their hold of me and
stood round in a circle.

“Well, mate,” says the man with the hat, “we’ve been looking out for
you some time in these parts.”

“And very good of you, too,” I answers.

“None of your jaw,” says he. “Come, boys, what shall it be--hanging,
drowning, or shooting? Look sharp!”

This looked a bit too like business. “No, you don’t!” I said. “I’ve got
Government protection, and it’ll be murder.”

“That’s what they call it,” answered the one in the velveteen coat, as
cheery as a piping crow.

“And you’re going to murder me for being a ranger?”

“Ranger be damned!” said the man. “We’re going to hang you for peaching
against your pals; and that’s an end of the palaver.”

They slung a rope round my neck and dragged me up to the edge of the
bush. There were some big she-oaks and blue-gums, and they pitched on
one of these for the wicked deed. They ran the rope over a branch, tied
my hands, and told me to say my prayers. It seemed as if it was all up;
but Providence interfered to save me. It sounds nice enough sitting
here and telling about it, sir; but it was sick work to stand with
nothing but the beach in front of you, and the long white line of surf,
with the steamer in the distance, and a set of bloody-minded villains
round you thirsting for your life.

I never thought I’d owe anything good to the police; but they saved me
that time. A troop of them were riding from Hawkes Point Station to
Dunedin, and hearing that something was up, they came down through the
bush and interrupted the proceedings. I’ve heard some bands in my time,
Doctor, but I never heard music like the jingle of those traps’ spurs
and harness as they galloped out on to the open. They tried to hang me
even then, but the police were too quick for them; and the man with the
hat got one over the head with the flat of a sword. I was clapped on to
a horse, and before evening I found myself in my old quarters in the
city jail.

The governor wasn’t to be done, though. He was determined to get rid of
me, and I was equally anxious to see the last of him. He waited a week
or so until the excitement had begun to die away, and then he smuggled
me aboard a three-masted schooner bound to Sydney with tallow and hides.

We got fair away to sea without a hitch, and things began to look a bit
more rosy. I made sure that I had seen the last of the prison, anyway.
The crew had a sort of an idea who I was, and if there’d been any rough
weather, they’d have hove me overboard, like enough; for they were a
rough, ignorant lot, and had a notion that I brought bad luck to the
ship. We had a good passage, however, and I was landed safe and sound
upon Sydney Quay.

Now just you listen to what happened next. You’d have thought they
would have been sick of ill-using me and following me by this
time--wouldn’t you, now? Well, just you listen. It seems that a cursed
steamer started from Dunedin to Sydney on the very day we left, and
got in before us, bringing news that I was coming. Blessed if they
hadn’t called a meeting--a regular mass meeting--at the docks to
discuss about it, and I marched right into it when I landed. They
didn’t take long about arresting me, and I listened to all the speeches
and resolutions. If I’d been a prince there couldn’t have been more
excitement. The end of all was that they agreed that it wasn’t right
that New Zealand should be allowed to foist her criminals upon her
neighbors, and that I was to be sent back again by the next boat. So
they posted me off again as if I was a damned parcel; and after another
eight hundred-mile journey I found myself back for the third time
moving in the place that I started from.

By this time I had begun to think that I was going to spend the rest
of my existence travelling about from one port to another. Every man’s
hand seemed turned against me, and there was no peace or quiet in any
direction. I was about sick of it by the time I had come back; and if I
could have taken to the bush I’d have done it, and chanced it with my
old pals. They were too quick for me, though, and kept me under lock
and key; but I managed, in spite of them, to negotiate that _caché_ I
told you of, and sewed the gold up in my belt. I spent another month in
jail, and then they slipped me aboard a bark that was bound for England.

This time the crew never knew who I was, but the captain had a pretty
good idea, though he didn’t let on to me that he had any suspicions.
I guessed from the first that the man was a villain. We had a fair
passage, except a gale or two off the Cape; and I began to feel like
a free man when I saw the blue loom of the old country, and the saucy
little pilot-boat from Falmouth dancing toward us over the waves. We
ran down the Channel, and before we reached Gravesend I had agreed with
the pilot that he should take me ashore with him when he left. It was
at this time that the captain showed me that I was right in thinking
him a meddling, disagreeable man. I got my things packed, such as they
were, and left him talking earnestly to the pilot, while I went below
for my breakfast. When I came up again we were fairly into the mouth of
the river, and the boat in which I was to have gone ashore had left us.
The skipper said the pilot had forgotten me; but that was too thin, and
I began to fear that all my old troubles were going to commence once
more.

It was not long before my suspicions were confirmed. A boat darted
out from the side of the river, and a tall cove with a long black
beard came aboard. I heard him ask the mate whether they didn’t need
a mud-pilot to take them up the reaches, but it seemed to me that he
was a man who would know a deal more about handcuffs than he did about
steering, so I kept away from him. He came across the deck, however,
and made some remark to me, taking a good look at me the while. I
don’t like inquisitive people at any time, but an inquisitive stranger
with glue about the roots of his beard is the worst of all to stand,
especially under the circumstances. I began to feel that it was time
for me to go.

I soon got a chance, and made good use of it. A big collier came
athwart the bows of our steamer, and we had to slacken down to dead
slow. There was a barge astern, and I slipped down by a rope and was
into the barge before anyone had missed me. Of course I had to leave my
luggage behind me, but I had the belt with the nuggets round my waist,
and the chance of shaking the police off my track was worth more than
a couple of boxes. It was clear to me now that the pilot had been a
traitor, as well as the captain, and had set the detectives after me. I
often wish I could drop across those two men again.

I hung about the barge all day as she drifted down the stream. There
was one man in her, but she was a big, ugly craft, and his hands were
too full for much looking about. Toward evening, when it got a bit
dusky, I struck out for the shore, and found myself in a sort of marsh
place, a good many miles to the east of London. I was soaking wet and
half dead with hunger, but I trudged into the town, got a new rig-out
at a slop-shop, and after having some supper, engaged a bed at the
quietest lodgings I could find.

I woke pretty early--a habit you pick up in the bush--and lucky for me
that I did so. The very first thing I saw when I took a look through
a chink in the shutter was one of these infernal policemen, standing
right opposite and staring up at the windows. He hadn’t epaulettes nor
a sword, like our traps, but for all that there was a sort of family
likeness, and the same busybody expression. Whether they’d followed me
all the time, or whether the woman that let me the bed didn’t like the
looks of me, is more than I have ever been able to find out. He came
across as I was watching him, and noted down the address of the house
in a book. I was afraid that he was going to ring at the bell, but I
suppose his orders were simply to keep an eye on me, for after another
good look at the windows he moved on down the street.

I saw that my only chance was to act at once. I threw on my clothes,
opened the window softly, and, after making sure that there was nobody
about, dropped out on to the ground and made off as hard as I could
run. I travelled a matter of two or three miles, when my wind gave out;
and as I saw a big building with people going in and out, I went in
too, and found that it was a railway station. A train was just going
off for Dover to meet the French boat, so I took a ticket and jumped
into a third-class carriage.

There were a couple of other chaps in the carriage, innocent-looking
young beggars, both of them. They began speaking about this and that,
while I sat quiet in the corner and listened. Then they started on
England and foreign countries, and such like. Look ye now, Doctor, this
is a fact. One of them begins jawing about the justice of England’s
laws. “It’s all fair and above-board,” says he; “there ain’t any secret
police, nor spying, like they have abroad,” and a lot more of the same
sort of wash. Rather rough on me, wasn’t it, listening to the damned
young fool, with the police following me about like my shadow?

I got to Paris right enough, and there I changed some of my gold, and
for a few days I imagined I’d shaken them off, and began to think of
settling down for a bit of rest. I needed it by that time, for I was
looking more like a ghost than a man. You’ve never had the police after
you, I suppose? Well, you needn’t look offended, I didn’t mean any
harm. If ever you had you’d know that it wastes a man away like a sheep
with the rot.

I went to the opera one night and took a box, for I was very flush.
I was coming out between the acts when I met a fellow lounging along
in the passage. The light fell on his face, and I saw that it was the
mud-pilot that had boarded us in the Thames. His beard was gone, but I
recognized the man at a glance, for I’ve a good memory for faces.

I tell you, Doctor, I felt desperate for a moment. I could have knifed
him if we had been alone, but he knew me well enough never to give me
the chance. It was more than I could stand any longer, so I went right
up to him and drew him aside, where we’d be free from all the loungers
and theatre-goers.

“How long are you going to keep it up?” I asked him.

He seemed a bit flustered for a moment, but then he saw there was no
use beating about the bush, so he answered straight:

“Until you go back to Australia,” he said.

“Don’t you know,” I said, “that I have served the Government and got a
free pardon?”

He grinned all over his ugly face when I said this.

“We know all about you, Maloney,” he answered. “If you want a quiet
life, just you go back where you came from. If you stay here, you’re a
marked man; and when you are found tripping it’ll be a lifer for you,
at the least. Free trade’s a fine thing, but the market’s too full of
men like you for us to need to import any!”

It seemed to me that there was something in what he said, though he
had a nasty way of putting it. For some days back I’d been feeling a
sort of homesick. The ways of the people weren’t my ways. They stared
at me at the street; and if I dropped into a bar, they’d stop talking
and edge away a bit, as if I was a wild beast. I’d sooner have had a
pint of old Stringybark, too, than a bucketful of their rotgut liquors.
There was too much damned propriety. What was the use of having money
if you couldn’t dress as you liked, nor bust it properly? There was no
sympathy for a man if he shot about a little when he was half-over.
I’ve seen a man dropped at Nelson many a time with less row than
they’d make over a broken window-pane. The thing was slow, and I was
sick of it.

“You want me to go back?” I said.

“I’ve my orders to stick fast to you until you do,” he answered.

“Well,” I said, “I don’t care if I do. All I bargain is that you keep
your mouth shut and don’t let on who I am, so that I may have a fair
start when I get there.”

He agreed to this, and we went over to Southampton the very next
day, where he saw me safely off once more. I took a passage round to
Adelaide, where no one was likely to know me; and there I settled,
right under the nose of the police. I’ve been there ever since, leading
a quiet life, but for little difficulties like the one I’m in for now,
and for that devil, Tattooed Tom of Hawkesbury. I don’t know what made
me tell you all this, Doctor, unless it is that being kind of lonely
makes a man inclined to jaw when he gets a chance. Just you take
warning from me, though. Never put yourself out to serve your country;
for your country will do precious little for you. Just you let them
look after their own affairs; and if they find a difficulty in hanging
a set of scoundrels, never mind chipping in, but let them alone to do
as best they can. Maybe they’ll remember how they treated me after I’m
dead, and be sorry for neglecting me. I was rude to you when you came
in, and swore a trifle promiscuous; but don’t you mind me, it’s only
my way. You’ll allow, though, that I have cause to be a bit touchy now
and again when I think of all that’s passed. You’re not going, are you?
Well, if you must, you must; but I hope you will look me up at odd
times when you are going your round. Oh. I say, you’ve left the balance
of that cake of tobacco behind you, haven’t you? No: it’s in your
pocket--that’s all right. Thank ye, Doctor, you’re a good sort, and as
quick at a hint as any man I’ve met.

       *       *       *       *       *

A couple of months after narrating his experiences, Wolf Tone Maloney
finished his term, and was released. For a long time I neither saw
him nor heard of him, and he had almost slipped from my memory, until
I was reminded, in a somewhat tragic manner, of his existence. I had
been attending a patient some distance off in the country, and was
riding back, guiding my tired horse among the bowlders which strewed
the pathway, and endeavoring to see my way through the gathering
darkness, when I came suddenly upon a little wayside inn. As I walked
my horse up toward the door, intending to make sure of my bearings
before proceeding further, I heard the sound of a violent altercation
within the little bar. There seemed to be a chorus of expostulation or
remonstrance, above which two powerful voices rang out loud and angry.
As I listened, there was a momentary hush, two pistol shots sounded
almost simultaneously, and with a crash the door burst open and a pair
of dark figures staggered out into the moonlight. They struggled for a
moment in a deadly wrestle, and then went down together among the loose
stones. I had sprung off my horse, and, with the help of half a dozen
rough fellows from the bar, dragged them away from one another.

A glance was sufficient to convince me that one of them was dying
fast. He was a thick-set, burly fellow, with a determined cast of
countenance. The blood was welling from a deep stab in his throat, and
it was evident that an important artery had been divided. I turned
away from him in despair, and walked over to where his antagonist was
lying. He was shot through the lungs, but managed to raise himself up
on his hand as I approached, and peered anxiously up into my face. To
my surprise I saw before me the haggard features and flaxen hair of my
prison acquaintance, Maloney.

“Ah, Doctor!” he said, recognizing me. “How is he? Will he die?”

He asked the question so earnestly that I imagined he had softened at
the last moment, and feared to leave the world with another homicide
upon his conscience. Truth, however, compelled me to shake my head
mournfully, and to intimate that the wound would prove a mortal one.

Maloney gave a wild cry of triumph, which brought the blood welling
out from between his lips. “Here, boys,” he gasped to the little group
around him. “There’s money in my inside pocket. Damn the expense!
Drinks round. There’s nothing mean about me. I’d drink with you, but
I’m going. Give the Doc. my share, for he’s as good----” Here his
head fell back with a thud, his eye glazed, and the soul of Wolf Tone
Maloney, forger, convict, ranger, murderer, and Government peach,
drifted away into the Great Unknown.

       *       *       *       *       *

I cannot conclude without borrowing the account of the fatal quarrel
which appeared in the columns of the _West Australian Sentinel_. The
curious will find it in the issue of October 4, 1881:

“FATAL AFFRAY.--W. T. Maloney, a well-known citizen of New Montrose,
and proprietor of the Yellow Boy gambling saloon, has met with his
death under rather painful circumstances. Mr. Maloney was a man who
had led a checkered existence, and whose past history is replete with
interest. Some of our readers may recall the Lena Valley murders, in
which he figured as the principal criminal. It is conjectured that
during the seven months that he owned a bar in that region, from twenty
to thirty travellers were hocussed and made away with. He succeeded,
however, in evading the vigilance of the officers of the law, and
allied himself with the bushrangers of Bluemansdyke, whose heroic
capture and subsequent execution are matters of history. Maloney
extricated himself from the fate which awaited him by turning Queen’s
evidence. He afterward visited Europe, but returned to West Australia,
where he has long played a prominent part in local matters. On Friday
evening he encountered an old enemy, Thomas Grimthorpe, commonly
known as Tattooed Tom, of Hawkesbury. Shots were exchanged, and both
were badly wounded, only surviving a few minutes. Mr. Maloney had the
reputation of being not only the most wholesale murderer that ever
lived, but also of having a finish and attention to detail in matters
of evidence which has been unapproached by any European criminal. _Sic
transit gloria mundi!_”




THE GULLY OF BLUEMANSDYKE.

A TRUE COLONIAL STORY.


Broadhurst’s store was closed, but the little back room looked very
comfortable that night. The fire cast a ruddy glow on ceiling and
walls, reflecting itself cheerily on the polished flasks and shot-guns
which adorned them. Yet a gloom rested on the two men who sat at either
side of the hearth, which neither the fire nor the black bottle upon
the table could alleviate.

“Twelve o’clock,” said old Tom, the storeman, glancing up at the wooden
timepiece which had come out with him in ’42. “It’s a queer thing,
George, they haven’t come.”

“It’s a dirty night,” said his companion, reaching out his arm for a
plug of tobacco. “The Wawirra’s in flood, maybe; or maybe their horses
is broke down; or they’ve put it off, perhaps. Great Lord, how it
thunders! Pass us over a coal, Tom.”

He spoke in a tone which was meant to appear easy, but with a painful
thrill in it which was not lost upon his mate. He glanced uneasily at
him from under his grizzled eyebrows.

“You think it’s all right, George?” he said, after a pause.

“Think what’s all right?”

“Why, that the lads are safe.”

“Safe! Of course they’re safe. What the devil is to harm them?”

“Oh, nothing; nothing, to be sure,” said old Tom. “You see, George,
since the old woman died, Maurice has been all to me; and it makes me
kinder anxious. It’s a week since they started from the mine, and you’d
ha’ thought they’d be here now. But it’s nothing unusual, I s’pose;
nothing at all. Just my darned folly.”

“What’s to harm them?” repeated George Hutton again, arguing to
convince himself rather than his comrade. “It’s a straight road from
the diggin’s to Rathurst, and then through the hills past Bluemansdyke,
and over the Wawirra by the ford and so down to Trafalgar by the bush
track. There’s nothin’ deadly in all that, is there? My son Allan’s as
dear to me as Maurice can be to you, mate,” he continued; “but they
know the ford well, and there’s no other bad place. They’ll be here
to-morrow night, certain.”

“Please God they may!” said Broadhurst; and the two men lapsed into
silence for some time, moodily staring into the glow of the fire and
pulling at their short clays.

It was indeed, as Hutton had said, a dirty night. The wind was howling
down through the gorges of the western mountains, and whirling and
eddying among the streets of Trafalgar; whistling through the chinks in
the rough wood cabins, and tearing away the frail shingles which formed
the roofs. The streets were deserted, save for one or two stragglers
from the drinking shanties, who wrapped their cloaks around them and
staggered home through the wind and rain toward their own cabins.

The silence was broken by Broadhurst, who was evidently still ill at
ease.

“Say, George,” he said, “what’s become of Josiah Mapleton?”

“Went to the diggin’s.”

“Ay; but he sent word he was coming back.”

“But he never came.”

“An’ what’s become of Jos Humphrey?” he resumed, after a pause.

“He went diggin’, too.”

“Well, did he come back?”

“Drop it, Broadhurst; drop it, I say,” said Hutton, springing to his
feet and pacing up and down the narrow room. “You’re trying to make a
coward of me! You know the men must have gone up country prospectin’
or farmin’, maybe. What is it to us where they went? You don’t think I
have a register of every man in the colony, as Inspector Burton has of
the lags.”

“Sit down, George, and listen,” said old Tom. “There’s something queer
about that road; something I don’t understand, and don’t like. Maybe
you remember how Maloney, the one-eyed scoundrel, made his money in
the early mining days. He’d a half-way drinking shanty on the main
road up on a kind of bluff, where the Lena comes down from the hills.
You’ve heard, George, how they found a sort of wooden slide from his
little back room down to the river; an’ how it came out that man after
man had had his drink doctored, and been shot down that into eternity,
like a bale of goods. No one will ever know how many were done away
with there. _They_ were all supposed to be farmin’ and prospectin’, and
the like, till their bodies were picked out of the rapids. It’s no use
mincing matters, George; we’ll have the troopers along to the diggin’s
if those lads don’t turn up by to-morrow night.”

“As you like, Tom,” said Hutton.

“By the way, talking of Maloney--it’s a strange thing,” said
Broadhurst, “that Jack Haldane swears he saw a man as like Maloney,
with ten years added to him, as could be. It was in the bush on Monday
morning. Chance, I suppose; but you’d hardly think there could be two
pair of shoulders in the world carrying such villainous mugs on the top
of them.”

“Jack Haldane’s a fool,” growled Hutton, throwing open the door and
peering anxiously out into the darkness, while the wind played with his
long grizzled beard, and sent a train of glowing sparks from his pipe
down the street.

“A terrible night!” he said, as he turned back toward the fire.

Yes, a wild, tempestuous night; a night for birds of darkness and for
beasts of prey. A strange night for seven men to lie out in the gully
at Bluemansdyke, with revolvers in their hands, and the devil in their
hearts.

       *       *       *       *       *

The sun was rising after the storm. A thick, heavy steam reeked up from
the saturated ground and hung like a pall over the flourishing little
town of Trafalgar. A bluish mist lay in wreaths over the wide tract of
bushland around, out of which the western mountains loomed like great
islands in a sea of vapor.

Something was wrong in the town. The most casual glance would have
detected that. There was a shouting and a hurrying of feet. Doors
were slammed and rude windows thrown open. A trooper of police came
clattering down with his carbine unslung. It was past the time for Joe
Buchan’s saw-mill to commence work, but the great wheel was motionless,
for the hands had not appeared.

There was a surging, pushing crowd in the main street before old Tom
Broadhurst’s house, and a mighty clattering of tongues. “What was
it?” demanded the new-comers, panting and breathless. “Broadhurst has
shot his mate.” “He has cut his own throat.” “He has struck gold in
the clay floor of his kitchen.” “No; it was his son Maurice who had
come home rich.” “Who had not come back at all.” “Whose horse had come
back without him.” At last the truth had come out; and there was the
old sorrel horse in question whinnying and rubbing his neck against
the familiar door of the stable, as if entreating entrance; while two
haggard, gray-haired men held him by either bridle and gazed blankly at
his reeking sides.

“God help me,” said old Tom Broadhurst; “it is as I feared!”

“Cheer up, mate,” said Hutton, drawing his rough straw hat down over
his brow. “There’s hope yet.”

A sympathetic and encouraging murmur ran through the crowd.

“Horse ran away, likely.”

“Or been stolen.”

“Or he’s swum the Wawirra an’ been washed off,” suggested one Job’s
comforter.

“He ain’t got no marks of bruising,” said another, more hopeful.

“Rider fallen off drunk, maybe,” said a bluff old sheep-farmer.
“I kin remember,” he continued, “coming into town ’bout this hour
myself, with my head in my holster, an’ thinking I was a six-chambered
revolver--mighty drunk I was.”

“Maurice had a good seat; he’d never be washed off.”

“Not he.”

“The horse has a weal on its off fore-quarter,” remarked another, more
observant than the rest.

“A blow from a whip, maybe.”

“It would be a darned hard one.”

“Where’s Chicago Bill?” said someone; “he’ll know.”

Thus invoked, a strange, gaunt figure stepped out in front of the
crowd. He was an extremely tall and powerful man, with the red shirt
and high boots of a miner. The shirt was thrown open, showing the
sinewy throat and massive chest. His face was seamed and scarred with
many a conflict, both with Nature and his brother man; yet beneath his
ruffianly exterior there lay something of the quiet dignity of the
gentleman. This man was a veteran gold-hunter; a real old Californian
’forty-niner, who had left the fields in disgust when private
enterprise began to dwindle before the formation of huge incorporated
companies with their ponderous machinery. But the red clay with the
little shining points had become to him as the very breath of his
nostrils, and he had come half way round the world to seek it once
again.

“Here’s Chicago Bill,” he said; “what is it?”

Bill was naturally regarded as an oracle, in virtue of his prowess and
varied experience. Every eye was turned on him as Braxton, the young
Irish trooper of constabulary, said, “What do you make of the horse,
Bill?”

The Yankee was in no hurry to commit himself. He surveyed the animal
for some time with his shrewd little gray eye. He bent and examined
the girths; then he felt the mane carefully. He stooped once more and
examined the hoofs and then the quarters. His eye rested on the blue
weal already mentioned. This seemed to put him on a scent, for he gave
a long, low whistle, and proceeded at once to examine the hair on
either side of the saddle. He saw something conclusive apparently,
for, with a sidelong glance under his shaggy eyebrows at the two old
men beside him, he turned and fell back among the crowd.

“Well, what d’ye think?” cried a dozen voices.

“A job for you,” said Bill, looking up at the young Irish trooper.

“Why, what is it? What’s become of young Broadhurst?”

“He’s done what better men has done afore. He has sunk a shaft for gold
and panned out a coffin.”

“Speak out, man! what have you seen?” cried a husky voice.

“I’ve seen the graze of a bushranger’s bullet on the horse’s quarter,
an’ I’ve seen a drop of the rider’s blood on the edge of the saddle--
Here, hold the old man up, boys; don’t let him drop. Give him a swig of
brandy an’ lead him inside. Say,” he continued, in a whisper, gripping
the trooper by the wrist, “mind, I’m in it. You an’ I play this hand
together. I’m dead on sich varmin. We’ll do as they do in Nevada,
strike while the iron is hot. Get any men you can together. I s’pose
you’re game to come yourself?”

“Yes, I’ll come,” said young Braxton, with a quiet smile.

The American looked at him approvingly. He had learned in his
wanderings that an Irishman who grows quieter when deeply stirred is a
very dangerous specimen of the genus _homo_.

“Good lad!” he muttered; and the two went down the street together
toward the station-house, followed by half a dozen of the more resolute
of the crowd.

One word before we proceed with our story, or our chronicle rather, as
every word of it is based upon fact. The colonial trooper of fifteen or
twenty years ago was a very different man from his representative of
to-day. Not that I would imply any slur upon the courage of the latter;
but for reckless dare-devilry and knight-errantry the old constabulary
has never been equalled. The reason is a simple one. Men of gentle
blood, younger sons and wild rakes who had outrun the constable, were
sent off to Australia with some wild idea of making their fortunes. On
arriving they found Melbourne by no means the El Dorado they expected;
they were unfit for any employment, their money was soon dissipated,
and they unerringly gravitated into the mounted police. Thus a sort of
colonial “Maison Rouge” became formed, where the lowest private had as
much pride of birth and education as his officers. They were men who
might have swayed the fate of empires, yet who squandered away their
lives in many a lone wild fight with native and bushranger, where
nothing but a mouldering blue-ragged skeleton was left to tell the tale.

       *       *       *       *       *

It was a glorious sunset. The whole western sky was a blaze of flame,
throwing a purple tint upon the mountains, and gilding the sombre edges
of the great forest which spreads between Trafalgar and the river
Wawirra. It stretched out, a primeval, unbroken wilderness, save at
the one point where a rough track had been formed by the miners and
their numerous camp-followers. This wound amid the great trunks in
a zigzag direction, occasionally making a long detour to avoid some
marshy hollow or especially dense clump of vegetation. Often it could
be hardly discerned from the ground around, save by the scattered
hoof-marks and an occasional rut.

About fifteen miles from Trafalgar there stands a little knoll, well
sheltered and overlooking the road. On this knoll a man was lying as
the sun went down that Friday evening. He appeared to shun observation,
for he had chosen that part in which the foliage was thickest; yet he
seemed decidedly at his ease as he lolled upon his back, with his pipe
between his teeth and a broad hat down over his face. It was a face
that it was well to cover in the presence of so peaceful a scene--a
face pitted with the scars of an immaterial small-pox. The forehead
was broad and low; one eye had apparently been gouged out, leaving
a ghastly cavity; the other was deep-set, cunning, and vindictive.
The mouth was hard and cruel; a rough beard covered the chin. It was
the cut of face which, seen in a lonely street, would instinctively
make one shift the grasp of one’s stick from the knob end to the
ferrule--the face of a bold and unscrupulous man.

Some unpleasing thought seemed to occur to him, for he rose with a
curse and knocked the ashes out of his pipe. “A darned fine thing,” he
muttered, “that I should have to lie out like this! It was Barrett’s
fault the job wasn’t a clean one, an’ now he picks me out to get the
swamp-fever. If he’d shot the horse as I did the man, we wouldn’t need
a watch on this side of the Wawirra. He always was a poor white-livered
cuss. Well,” he continued, picking up a gun which lay in the grass
behind him, “there’s no use my waiting longer; they wouldn’t start
during the night. Maybe the horse never got home, maybe they gave them
up as drowned; anyhow, it’s another man’s turn to-morrow, so I’ll just
give them five minutes and then make tracks.” He sat down on the stump
of a tree as he spoke and hummed the verse of a song. A sudden thought
seemed to strike him, for he plunged his hand into his pocket, and
after some searching extracted a pack of playing cards wrapped in a
piece of dirty brown paper. He gazed earnestly at their greasy faces
for some time. Then he took a pin from his sleeve and pricked a small
hole in the corner of each ace and knave. He chuckled as he shuffled
them up, and replaced them in his pocket. “I’ll have my share of the
swag,” he growled. “They’re sharp, but they’ll not spot that when the
liquor is in them. By the Lord, here they are!”

He had sprung to his feet and was bending to the ground, holding his
breath as he listened. To the unpractised ear all was as still as
before--the hum of a passing insect, the chirp of a bird, the rustle
of the leaves; but the bushranger rose with the air of a man who has
satisfied himself. “Good-by to Bluemansdyke,” said he; “I reckon it
will be too hot to hold us for a time. That thundering idiot! he’s
spoiled as nice a lay as ever was, an’ risked our necks into the
bargain. I’ll see their number an’ who they are, though,” he continued;
and, choosing a point where a rough thicket formed an effectual screen,
he coiled himself up, and lay like some venomous snake, occasionally
raising his head and peering between the trunks at the reddish streak
which marked the Trafalgar road.

There could be no question now as to the approach of a body of
horsemen. By the time our friend was fairly ensconced in his
hiding-place the sound of voices and the clatter of hoofs was
distinctly audible, and in another moment a troop of mounted men came
sweeping round the curve of the road. They were eleven all told,
armed to the teeth, and evidently well on the alert. Two rode in
front with rifles unslung, leisurely scanning every bush which might
shelter an enemy. The main body kept about fifty yards behind them,
while a solitary horseman brought up the rear. The ranger scanned them
narrowly as they passed. He seemed to recognize most of them. Some
were his natural enemies, the troopers; the majority were miners who
had volunteered to get rid of an evil which affected their interests
so closely. They were a fine bronzed set of men, with a deliberate air
about them, as if they had come for a purpose and meant to attain it.
As the last rider passed before his hiding-place the solitary watcher
started and growled a curse in his beard. “I know his darned face,” he
said; “it’s Bill Hanker, the man who got the drop on Long Nat Smeaton
in Silver City in ’53; what the thunder brought him here? I must be off
by the back track, though, an’ let the boys know.” So saying, he picked
up his gun, and with a scowl after the distant party, he crouched down
and passed rapidly and silently out of sight into the very thickest
part of the bush.

       *       *       *       *       *

The expedition had started from Trafalgar on the afternoon of the same
day that Maurice Broadhurst’s horse, foam-flecked and frightened,
had galloped up to the old stable-door. Burton, the inspector of
constabulary, an energetic and able man, as all who knew him can
testify, was in command. He had detached Braxton, the young Irishman,
and Thompson, another trooper, as a vanguard. He himself rode with the
main body, gray-whiskered and lean, but as straight in the back as when
he and I built a shanty in ’39 in what is now Burke Street, Melbourne.
With him were McGillivray, Foley, and Anson, of the Trafalgar force;
Hartley, the sheep-farmer, Murdoch, and Summerville, who had made their
pile at the mines; and Dan Murphy, who was cleaned out when the clay of
the “Orient” turned to gravel, and had been yearning for a solid square
fight ever since. Chicago Bill formed the rear-guard, and the whole
party presented an appearance which, though far from military, was
decidedly warlike.

They camped out that night seventeen miles from Trafalgar, and next
day pushed on as far as where the Stirling road runs across. The
third morning brought them to the northern bank of the Wawirra, which
they forded. Here a council of war was held, for they were entering
what they regarded as enemy’s country. The bush track, though wild,
was occasionally traversed both by shepherds and sportsmen. It would
hardly be the home of a gang of desperate bushrangers. But beyond the
Wawirra the great rugged range of the Tápu Mountains towered up to the
clouds, and across a wild spur of these the mining track passed up to
Bluemansdyke. It was here, they decided at the council, that the scene
of the late drama lay. The question now was, What means were to be
taken to attack the murderers?--for that murder had been done no man
doubted.

All were of one mind as to what the main line of action should be. To
go for them straight, shoot as many as possible on sight, and hang
the balance in Trafalgar: that was plain sailing. But how to get at
them was the subject of much debate. The troopers were for pushing on
at once, and trusting to Fortune to put the rangers in their way. The
miners proposed rather to gain some neighboring peak, from which a good
view of the country could be obtained, and some idea gained of their
whereabouts. Chicago Bill took rather a gloomy view of things. “Nary
one will we see,” said he; “they’ve dusted out of the district ’fore
this. They’d know the horse would go home, and likely as not they’ve
had a watch on the road to warn them. I guess, boys, we’d best move
on an’ do our best.” There was some discussion, but Chicago’s opinion
carried the day, and the expedition pushed on in a body.

After passing the second upland station the scenery becomes more and
more grand and rugged. Great peaks two and three thousand feet high
rose sheer up at each side of the narrow track. The heavy wind and rain
of the storm had brought down much _débris_, and the road was almost
impassable in places. They were frequently compelled to dismount and
to lead the horses. “We haven’t far now, boys,” said the inspector
cheerily, as they struggled on; and he pointed to a great dark cleft
which yawned in front of them between two almost perpendicular cliffs.
“They are there,” he said, “or nowhere.” A little higher the road
became better and their progress was more rapid. A halt was called,
guns were unslung, and their pistols loosened in their belts, for the
great gully of Bluemansdyke, the wildest part of the whole Tápu range,
was gaping before them. But not a thing was to be seen; all was as
still as the grave. The horses were picketed in a quiet little ravine,
and the whole party crept on on foot. The southern sun glared down
hot and clear on the yellow bracken and banks of fern which lined the
narrow, winding track. Still not a sign of life. Then came a clear
low whistle from the two advanced troopers, announcing that something
had been discovered, and the main body hurried up. It was a spot for
deeds of blood. On one side of the road there lowered a black gnarled
precipice; on the other was the sullen mouth of the rugged gully. The
road took a sharp turn at this spot. Just at the angle several large
bowlders were scattered, lining and overlooking the track. It was at
this angle that a little bed of mud and trampled red clay betokened
a recent struggle. There could be no question that they were at the
scene of the murder of the two young miners. The outline of a horse
could still be seen in the soft ground, and the prints of its hoofs as
it kicked out in its death-agony were plainly marked. Behind one of
the rocks were the tracks of several feet, and some pistol-wadding was
found in a tuft of ferns. The whole tragedy lay unclosed before them.
Two men, careless in the pride of their youth and their strength, had
swept round that fatal curve. Then a crash, a groan, a brutal laugh,
the galloping of a frightened horse, and all was over.

What was to be done now? The rocks around were explored, but
nothing fresh discovered. Some six days had elapsed, and the birds
were apparently flown. The party separated and hunted about among
the bowlders. Then the American, who could follow a trail like a
bloodhound, found tracks leading toward a rugged pile of rocks on the
north side of the gully. In a crevice here the remains of three horses
were found. Close to them the rim of an old straw hat projected through
the loose loam. Hartley, the sheep-farmer, sprang over to pick it up;
he started back in the act of stooping, and said in an awe-struck
whisper to his friend Murphy “There’s a head under it, Dan!” A few
strokes of a spade disclosed a face familiar to most of the group--that
of a poor travelling photographer, well known in the colony by the
_sobriquet_ of “Stooping Johnny,” who had disappeared some time before.
It was now in an advanced stage of putrefaction. Close to him another
body was discovered, and another beside that. In all, thirteen victims
of these English thugs were lying under the shadow of the great north
wall of the Bluemansdyke gully. It was there, standing in silent awe
around the remains of these poor fellows, hurried into eternity and
buried like dogs, that the search-party registered a vow to sacrifice
all interests and comforts for the space of one month to the single
consideration of revenge. The inspector uncovered his grizzled head as
he solemnly swore it, and his comrades followed his example. The bodies
were then, with a brief prayer, consigned to a deeper grave, a rough
cairn was erected over them, and the eleven men set forth upon their
mission of stern justice.

       *       *       *       *       *

Three weeks had passed--three weeks and two days. The sun was sinking
over the great waste of bushland, unexplored and unknown, which
stretches away from the eastern slope of the Tápu Mountains. Save some
eccentric sportsman or bold prospector, no colonist had ever ventured
into that desolate land; yet on this autumn evening two men were
standing in a little glade in the very heart of it. They were engaged
tying up their horses, and apparently making preparations for camping
out for the night. Though haggard, unkempt, and worn, one still might
recognize two of our former acquaintances--the young Irish trooper and
the American Chicago Bill.

This was the last effort of the avenging party. They had traversed the
mountain gorges, they had explored every gully and ravine, and now they
had split into several small bands, and, having named a trysting-place,
they were scouring the country in the hope of hitting upon some trace
of the murderers. Foley and Anson had remained among the hills,
Murdoch and Dan Murphy were exploring toward Rathurst, Summerville and
the inspector had ascended along the Wawirra, while the others in three
parties were wandering through the eastern bushland.

Both the trooper and the miner seemed dejected and weary. The one had
set out with visions of glory, and hopes of a short cut to the coveted
stripes which would put him above his fellows; the other had obeyed
a rough wild sense of justice; and each was alike disappointed. The
horses were picketed, and the men threw themselves heavily upon the
ground. There was no need to light a fire; a few dampers and some rusty
bacon were their whole provisions. Braxton produced them, and handed
his share to his comrade. They ate their rough meal without a word.
Braxton was the first to break the silence.

“We’re playing our last card,” he said.

“And a darned poor one at that,” replied his comrade.

“Why, mate,” he continued, “if we did knock up agin these all-fired
varmin, ye don’t suppose you and I would go for them? I guess I’d up
an’ shove for Trafalgar first.”

Braxton smiled. Chicago’s reckless courage was too well known in the
colony for any words of his to throw a doubt upon it. Miners still tell
how, during the first great rush in ’52, a blustering ruffian, relying
upon some similar remark of the pioneer’s, had tried to establish a
reputation by an unprovoked assault upon him; and the narrators then
glide imperceptibly into an account of Bill’s handsome conduct toward
the widow--how he had given her his week’s clean-up to start her in
a drinking shanty. Braxton thought of this as he smiled at Chicago’s
remarks, and glanced at the massive limbs and weather-beaten face.

“We’d best see where we are before it grows darker,” he said; and
rising, he stacked his gun against the trunk of a blue-gum tree, and
seizing some of the creepers which hung down from it, began rapidly and
silently to ascend it.

“His soul’s too big for his body,” growled the American, as he watched
the dark lithe figure standing out against the pale-blue evening sky.

“What d’ye see, Jack?” he shouted; for the trooper had reached the
topmost branch by this time, and was taking a survey of the country.

“Bush, bush; nothing but bush,” said the voice among the leaves. “Wait
a bit, though; there’s a kind of hill about three miles off away to the
nor’east. I see it above the trees right over there. Not much good to
us, though,” he continued, after a pause, “for it seems a barren, stony
sort of place.”

Chicago paced about at the bottom of the tree.

“He seems an almighty long time prospectin’ it,” he muttered, after ten
minutes had elapsed. “Ah, here he is!” and the trooper came swinging
down and landed panting just in front of him.

“Why, what’s come over him? What’s the matter, Jack?”

Something was the matter. That was very evident. There was a light in
Braxton’s blue eyes and a flush on the pale cheek.

“Bill,” he said, putting his hand on his comrade’s shoulder, “it’s
about time you made tracks for the settlements.”

“What d’ye mean?” said Chicago.

“Why, I mean that the murderers are within a league of us, and that I
intend going for them. There, don’t be huffed, old man,” he added; “of
course I knew you were only joking. But they are there, Bill; I saw
smoke on the top of that hill, and it wasn’t good, honest smoke, mind
you; it was dry-wood smoke, and meant to be hid. I thought it was mist
at first; but no, it was smoke. I’ll swear it. It could only be them:
who else would camp on the summit of a desolate hill? We’ve got them,
Bill; we have them as sure as Fate.”

“Or they’ve got us,” growled the American. “But here, lad, here’s my
glass; run up and have a look at them.”

“It’s too dark now,” said Braxton; “we’ll camp out to-night. No fear of
them stirring. They’re lying by there until the whole thing blows over,
depend upon it; so we’ll make sure of them in the morning.”

The miner looked plaintively up at the tree, and then down at his
fourteen stone of solid muscle.

“I guess I must take your word for it,” he grumbled; “but you are
bushman enough to tell smoke from mist, and a dry-wood fire from an
open one. We can’t do anything to-night till we feel our way, so I
allow we’d best water the horses an’ have a good night’s rest.”

Braxton seemed to be of the same mind; so after a few minutes’
preparation the two men wrapped themselves in their cloaks, and lay,
two little dark spots, on the great green carpet of the primeval bush.

With the first gray light of dawn Chicago sat up and roused his
comrade. A heavy mist hung over the bushland. They could hardly see
the loom of the trees across the little glade. Their clothes glistened
with the little shining beads of moisture. They brushed each other
down, and squatted in bush fashion over their rough breakfast. The haze
seemed to be lifting a little now; they could see fifty yards in every
direction. The miner paced up and down in silence, ruminating over a
plug of “Barrett’s twist.” Braxton sat on a fallen tree sponging and
oiling his revolver. Suddenly a single beam of sunshine played over
the great blue-gum. It widened and spread, and then in a moment the
mist melted away and the yellow leaves glowed like flakes of copper
in the glare of the morning sun. Braxton cheerily snapped the lock of
the pistol, loaded it, and replaced it in his belt. Chicago began to
whistle, and stopped in the middle of his walk.

“Now, young un,” he said, “here’s the glass.”

Braxton slung it round his neck, and ascended the tree as he had done
the night before. It was child’s play to the trooper--a splendid
climber, as I can testify; for I saw him two years later swarming up
the topmost backstay of the Hector frigate in a gale of wind for a bet
of a bottle of wine. He soon reached the summit, and shuffling along a
naked branch two hundred feet from the ground, he gained a point where
no leaves could obstruct his view. Here he sat straddle-legged; and,
unslinging the glass, he proceeded to examine the hill, bush by bush
and stone by stone.

An hour passed without his moving. Another had almost elapsed before he
descended. His face was grave and thoughtful.

“Are they there?” was the eager query.

“Yes; they are there.”

“How many?”

“I’ve only seen five; but there may be more. Wait till I think it out,
Bill.”

The miner gazed at him with all the reverence matter has toward mind.
Thinking things out was not his strong point.

“Blamed if I can help you,” he said, apologetically. “It kinder don’t
come nat’ral to me to be plottin’ and plannin’. Want o’ eddication,
likely. My father was allowed to be the hardest-headed man in the
States. Judge Jeffers let on as how the old man wanted to hand in his
checks; so he down an’ put his head on the line when the first engine
as ran from Vermont was comin’ up. They fined him a hundred dollars
for upsettin’ that ’ere locomotive; an’ the old man got the cussedest
headache as ever was.”

Braxton hardly seemed to hear this family anecdote; he was deep in
thought.

“Look here, old man,” said he; “sit down by me on the trunk and listen
to what I say. Remember that you are here as a volunteer, Bill--you’ve
no call to come; now, I am here in the course of duty. Your name is
known through the settlement; you were a marked man when I was in the
nursery. Now, Bill, it’s a big thing I am going to ask you. If you and
I go in and take these men, it will be another feather in your cap, and
in yours only. What do men know of Jack Braxton, the private of police?
He’d hardly be mentioned in the matter. Now, I want to make my name
this day. We’ll have to secure these men by a surprise after dusk, and
it will be as easy for one resolute man to do it as for two; perhaps
easier, for there is less chance of detection. Bill, I want you to stay
with the horses, and let me go alone.”

Chicago sprang to his feet with a snarl of indignation, and paced
up and down in front of the fallen trees. Then he seemed to master
himself, for he sat down again.

“They’d chaw you up, lad,” he said, putting his hand on Braxton’s
shoulder. “It wouldn’t wash.”

“Not they,” said the trooper. “I’d take your pistol as well as my own,
and I’d need a deal of chawing.”

“My character would be ruined,” said Bill.

“It’s beyond the reach of calumny. You can afford to give me one fair
chance.”

Bill buried his face in his hands, and thought a little.

“Well, lad,” he said, looking up, “I’ll look after the horses.”

Braxton wrung him by the hand. “There are few men would have done it,
Bill; you are a friend worth having. Now, we’ll spend our day as best
we can, old man, and lie close till evening; for I won’t start till an
hour after dusk; so we have plenty of time on our hands.”

The day passed slowly. The trooper lay among the mosses below the
great blue-gum in earnest thought. Once or twice he imagined he
heard the subterranean chuckle and slap of the thigh which usually
denoted amusement on the part of the miner; but on glancing up at
that individual, the expression of his face was so solemn, not to say
funereal, that it was evidently an illusion. They partook of their
scanty dinner and supper cheerfully and with hearty appetites. The
former listlessness had given place to briskness and activity, now
that their object was in view. Chicago blossomed out into many strange
experiences and racy reminiscences of Western life. The hours passed
rapidly and cheerily. The trooper produced a venerable pack of cards
from his holster and proposed euchre; but their gregariousness, and
the general difficulty of distinguishing the king of clubs from the
ace of hearts, exercised a depressing influence upon the players.
Gradually the sun went down on the great wilderness. The shadow fell on
the little glade, while the distant hill was still tipped with gold;
then that too became purplish, a star twinkled over the Tápu range, and
night crept over the scene.

“Good-by, old man,” said Braxton. “I won’t take my carbine; it would
only be in the way. I can’t thank you enough for letting me have this
chance. If they wipe me out, Bill, you’ll not lose sight of them, I
know; and you’ll say I died like a man. I’ve got no friends and no
message, and nothing in the world but this pack of cards. Keep them,
Bill; they were a fine pack in ’51. If you see a smoke on the hill in
the morning you’ll know all’s well, and you’ll bring up the horses
at once. If you don’t, you’ll ride to Fallen Pine, where we were to
meet--ride day and night, Bill--tell Inspector Burton that you know
where the rangers are, that Private Braxton is dead, and that he said
he was to bring up his men, else he’d come back from the grave and lead
them up himself. Do that, Bill. Good-by.”

A great quiet rested over the heart of that desolate woodland. The
croak of a frog, the gurgle of a little streamlet half hidden in the
long grass--no other sound. Then a wakeful jay gave a shrill chatter,
another joined, and another; a bluefinch screamed; a wombat rushed
past to gain its burrow. Something had disturbed them; yet all was
apparently as peaceful as before. Had you been by the jay’s nest,
however, and peered downward, you would have seen something gliding
like a serpent through the brushwood, and caught a glimpse, perhaps,
of a pale, resolute face, and the glint of a pocket-compass pointing
north-by-east.

It was a long and weary night for Trooper Braxton. Any moment he might
come on an outpost of the rangers, so every step had to be taken slowly
and with care. But he was an experienced woodman, and hardly a twig
snapped as he crawled along. A morass barred his progress, and he
was compelled to make a long detour. Then he found himself in thick
brushwood, and once more had to go out of his way. It was very dark
here in the depth of the forest. There was a heavy smell, and a dense
steam laden with miasma rose from the ground. In the dim light he saw
strange creeping things around him. A bushmaster writhed across the
path in front of him, a cold dank lizard crawled over his hand as he
crouched down; but the trooper thought only of the human reptiles in
front, and made steadily for his goal. Once he seemed to be pursued
by some animal; he heard a creaking behind him, but it ceased when he
stopped and listened, so he continued his way.

It was when he reached the base of the hill which he had seen from
the distance that the real difficulty of his undertaking began. It
was almost conical in shape, and very steep. The sides were covered
with loose stones and an occasional large bowlder. One false step here
would send a shower of these tell-tale fragments clattering down the
hill. The trooper stripped off his high leather boots and turned up his
trousers; then he began cautiously to climb, cowering down behind every
bowlder.

There was a little patch of light far away on the horizon, a very
little gray patch, but it caused the figure of a man who was moving
upon the crest of the hill to loom out dim and large. He was a sentry
apparently, for he carried a gun under his arm. The top of the hill was
formed by a little plateau about a hundred yards in circumference.
Along the edge of this the man was pacing, occasionally stopping to
peer down into the great dusky sea beneath him. From this raised edge
the plateau curved down from every side, so as to form a crater-like
depression. In the centre of this hollow stood a large white tent.
Several horses were picketed around it, and the ground was littered
with bundles of dried grass and harness. You could see these details
now from the edge of the plateau, for the gray patch in the east
had become white, and was getting longer and wider. You could see
the sentry’s face, too, as he paced round and round. A handsome,
weak-minded face, with more of the fool than the devil impressed on it.
He seemed cheerful, for the birds were beginning to sing, and their
thousand voices rose from the bush below. He forgot the forged note, I
think, and the dreary voyage, and the wild escape, and the dark gully
away beyond the Tápu range; for his eye glistened, and he hummed a
quaint little Yorkshire country air. He was back again in the West
Riding village, and the rough bowlder in front shaped itself into the
hill behind which Nelly lived before he broke her heart, and he saw
the ivied church that crowned it. He would have seen something else
had he looked again--something which was not in his picture: a white
passionless face which glared at him over the bowlder, as he turned
upon his heel, still singing, and unconscious that the bloodhounds of
justice were close at his heels.

The trooper’s time for action had come. He had reached the last
bowlder; nothing lay between the plateau and himself but a few loose
stones. He could hear the song of the sentry dying away in the
distance; he drew his regulation sword, and, with his Adams in his
left, he rose and sprang like a tiger over the ridge and down into the
hollow.

The sentry was startled from his dream of the past by a clatter and a
rattling of stones. He sprang round and cocked his gun. No wonder that
he gasped, and that a change passed over his bronzed face. A painter
would need a dash of ultramarine in his flesh-tints to represent it
now. No wonder, I say; for that dark, active figure with the bare feet
and the brass buttons meant disgrace and the gallows to him. He saw
him spring across to the tent; he saw the gleam of a sword, and heard
a crash as the tent-pole was severed and the canvas came down with a
run upon the heads of the sleepers. And then above oaths and shouts he
heard a mellow Irish voice: “I’ve twelve shots in my hands. I have ye,
every mother’s son. Up with your arms! up, I say, before there is blood
upon my soul. One move, and ye stand before the throne.” Braxton had
stooped and parted the doorway of the fallen tent, and was now standing
over six ruffians who occupied it. They lay as they had wakened, but
with their hands above their heads, for there was no resisting that
quiet voice, backed up by the two black muzzles. They imagined they
were surrounded and hopelessly outmatched. Not one of them dreamed that
the whole attacking force stood before them. It was the sentry who
first began to realize the true state of the case. There was no sound
or sign of any reinforcement. He looked to see that the cap was pressed
well down on the nipple, and crept toward the tent. He was a good shot,
as many a keeper on Braidagarth and the Yorkshire fells could testify.
He raised his gun to his shoulder. Braxton heard the click, but dared
not remove his eye or his weapon from his six prisoners. The sentry
looked along the sights. He knew his life depended upon that shot.
There was more of the devil than the fool in his face now. He paused a
moment to make sure of his aim, and then came a crash and the thud of
a falling body. Braxton was still standing over the prisoners, but the
sentry’s gun was unfired, and he himself was writhing on the ground
with a bullet through his lungs. “Ye see,” said Chicago, as he rose
from behind a rock with his gun still smoking in his hand, “it seemed
a powerful mean thing to leave you, Jack; so I thought as I’d kinder
drop around promiscus, and wade in if needed--which I was, as you can’t
deny. No, ye don’t,” he added, as the sentry stretched out his hand to
grasp his fallen gun; “leave the wepin alone, young man; it ain’t in
your way as it lies there.”

“I’m a dead man!” groaned the ranger.

“Then lie quiet, like a respectable corpse,” said the miner, “an’ don’t
go a-squirmin’ toward yer gun. That’s ornary uneddicated conduct.”

“Come here, Bill,” cried Braxton, “and bring the ropes those horses are
picketed with. Now,” he continued, as the American, having abstracted
the sentry’s gun, appeared with an armful of ropes, “you tie these
fellows up, and I’ll kill any man who moves.”

“A pleasant division of labor--eh, old Blatherskite?” said Chicago,
playfully tapping the one-eyed villain Maloney on the head. “Come on;
the ugliest first!” So saying, he began upon him and fastened him
securely.

One after another the rangers were tied up--all except the pounded
man, who was too helpless to need securing. Then Chicago went down
and brought up the horses, while Braxton remained on guard; and by
mid-day the cavalcade was in full march through the forest _en route_
for Fallen Pine, the rendezvous of the search-party. The wounded man
was tied on to a horse in front, the other rangers followed on foot for
safety, while the trooper and Chicago brought up the rear.

       *       *       *       *       *

There was a sad assemblage at Fallen Pine. One by one they had dropped
in, tanned with the sun, torn by briers, weakened by the poisonous
miasma of the marshlands, all with the same tale of privation and
failure. Summerville and the inspector had fallen in with blacks above
the upper ford, and had barely escaped with their lives. Troopers Foley
and Anson were well, though somewhat gaunt from privation. Hartley had
lost his horse from the bite of a bushmaster. Murdoch and Murphy had
scoured the bush as far as Rathurst, but without success. All were
dejected and weary. They only waited the arrival of two of their number
to set out on their return to Trafalgar.

It was mid-day, and the sun was beating down with a pitiless glare on
the little clearing. The men were lying about on the shady side of the
trunks, some smoking, some with their hats over their faces and half
asleep. The horses were tethered here and there, looking as listless as
their masters. Only the inspector’s old charger seemed superior to the
weather--a shrewd, _blasé_ old horse, that had seen the world, and was
nearly as deeply versed in woodcraft as his master. As Chicago said,
“Short of climbin’ a tree, there weren’t nothin’ that horse couldn’t
do; an’ it would make a darned good try at that if it was pushed.” Old
“Sawback” seemed ill at ease this afternoon. Twice he had pricked up
his ears, and once he had raised his head as if to neigh, but paused
before committing himself. The inspector looked at him curiously and
put his meerschaum back into its case. Meerschaums were always a
weakness of poor Jim Burton’s. “Demme it, sir!” I have heard him say,
“a gentleman is known by his pipe. When he comes down in the world his
pipe has most vitality.” He put the case inside his uniform and went
over to the horse. The ears were still twitching.

“He hears something,” said the inspector. “By Jove, so do I! Here,
boys, jump up; there’s a body of men coming!” Every man sprang to his
horse’s head. “I hear hoofs, and I hear the tramp of men on foot. They
must be a large party. They’re heading straight for us. Get under
cover, boys, and have your guns loose.” The men wheeled right and left,
and in a very few moments the glade was deserted. Only the brown barrel
of a gun here and there among the long grass and the ferns showed
where they were crouching. “Steady, boys!” said Burton; “if they are
enemies, don’t fire till I give the word. Then one by one aim low, and
let the smoke clear. Rangers, by Jove!” he added, as a horseman broke
into the clearing some way down, with his head hanging down over his
horse’s neck. “More,” he growled, as several men emerged from the bush
at the same point. “By the living powers, they are taken! I see the
ropes. Hurrah!” And next moment Braxton and Chicago were mobbed by nine
shouting, dancing men, who pulled them and tugged at them and slapped
them on the back and dragged them about in such a way that Maloney
whispered, with a scowl:

“If we’d had the grit to do as much, we’d have been free men this day!”

And now our story is nearly done. We have chronicled a fact which, we
think, is worthy of a wider circulation than the colonial drinking-bar
and the sheep-farmer’s fireside; for Trooper Braxton and his capture
of the Bluemansdyke murderers have long been household words among our
brothers in the England of the Southern seas.

We need not detail that joyful ride to Trafalgar, nor the welcome, nor
the attempt at lynching; nor how Maloney, the arch-criminal, turned
Queen’s evidence, and so writhed away from the gallows. All that may
be read in the colonial press more graphically than I can tell it. My
friend Jack Braxton is an officer now, as his father was before him,
and still in the Trafalgar force. Bill I saw last in ’61, when he came
over to London in charge of the bark of the _Wellingtonia_ for the
International Exhibition. He is laying on flesh, I fear, since he took
to sheep-farming, for he was barely brought up by seventeen stone,
and his fighting weight used to be fourteen; but he looks well and
hearty. Maloney was lynched in Placerville--at least, so I heard. I
had a letter last mail from the old inspector; he has left the police,
and has a farm at Rathurst. I think, stout-hearted as he is, he must
give a little bit of a shudder when he rides down to Trafalgar for the
Thursday market, and comes round that sharp turn of the road where the
bowlders lie, and the furze looks so yellow against the red clay.




THE PARSON OF JACKMAN’S GULCH.


He was known in the Gulch as the Reverend Elias B. Hopkins, but it was
generally understood that the title was an honorary one, extorted by
his many eminent qualities, and not borne out by any legal claim which
he could adduce. “The Parson” was another of his _sobriquets_, which
was sufficiently distinctive in a land where the flock was scattered
and the shepherds few. To do him justice, he never pretended to have
received any preliminary training for the ministry or any orthodox
qualification to practise it. “We’re all working in the claim of the
Lord,” he remarked one day, “and it don’t matter a cent whether we’re
hired for the job or whether we waltzes in on our own account”--a
piece of rough imagery which appealed directly to the instincts
of Jackman’s Gulch. It is quite certain that during the first few
months his presence had a marked effect in diminishing the excessive
use both of strong drinks and of stronger adjectives which had been
characteristic of the little mining settlement. Under his tuition, men
began to understand that the resources of their native language were
less limited than they had supposed, and that it was possible to convey
their impressions with accuracy without the aid of a gaudy halo of
profanity.

We were certainly in need of a regenerator at Jackman’s Gulch about
the beginning of ’53. Times were flush then over the whole colony,
but nowhere flusher than there. Our material prosperity had had a bad
effect upon our morals. The camp was a small one, lying rather better
than a hundred and twenty miles to the south of Ballarat, at a spot
where a mountain torrent finds its way down a rugged ravine on its way
to join the Arrowsmith River. History does not relate who the original
Jackman may have been, but at the time I speak of the camp it contained
a hundred or so adults, many of whom were men who had sought an asylum
there after making more civilized mining centres too hot to hold
them. They were a rough, murderous crew, hardly leavened by the few
respectable members of society who were scattered among them.

Communication between Jackman’s Gulch and the outside world was
difficult and uncertain. A portion of the bush between it and Ballarat
was infested by a redoubtable outlaw named Conky Jim, who, with a small
gang as desperate as himself, made travelling a dangerous matter.
It was customary, therefore, at the Gulch, to store up the dust and
nuggets obtained from the mines in a special store, each man’s share
being placed in a separate bag on which his name was marked. A trusty
man, named Woburn, was deputed to watch over this primitive bank. When
the amount deposited became considerable, a wagon was hired, and the
whole treasure was conveyed to Ballarat, guarded by the police and by
a certain number of miners, who took it in turn to perform the office.
Once in Ballarat, it was forwarded on to Melbourne by the regular gold
wagons. By this plan the gold was often kept for months in the Gulch
before being dispatched; but Conky Jim was effectually checkmated, as
the escort party were far too strong for him and his gang. He appeared,
at the time of which I write, to have forsaken his haunts in disgust,
and the road could be traversed by small parties with impunity.

Comparative order used to reign during the daytime at Jackman’s
Gulch, for the majority of the inhabitants were out with crowbar
and pick among the quartz ledges, or washing clay and sand in their
cradles by the banks of the little stream. As the sun sank down,
however, the claims were gradually deserted, and their unkempt owners,
clay-bespattered and shaggy, came lounging into camp, ripe for any
form of mischief. Their first visit was to Woburn’s gold store,
where their clean-up of the day was duly deposited, the amount being
entered in the store-keeper’s book, and each miner retaining enough
to cover his evening’s expenses. After that all restraint was at an
end, and each set to work to get rid of his surplus dust with the
greatest rapidity possible. The focus of dissipation was the rough
bar, formed by a couple of hogsheads spanned by planks, which was
dignified by the name of the “Britannia drinking saloon.” Here Nat
Adams, the burly bar-keeper, dispensed bad whiskey at the rate of two
shillings a noggin, or a guinea a bottle, while his brother Ben acted
as croupier in a rude wooden shanty behind, which had been converted
into a gambling hell and was crowded every night. There had been a
third brother, but an unfortunate misunderstanding with a customer had
shortened his existence. “He was too soft to live long,” his brother
Nathaniel feelingly observed on the occasion of his funeral. “Many’s
the time I’ve said to him, ‘If you’re arguin’ a pint with a stranger,
you should always draw first, then argue, and then shoot, if you judge
that he’s on the shoot.’ Bill was too purlite. He must needs argue
first and draw after, when he might just as well have kivered his man
before talkin’ it over with him.” This amiable weakness of the deceased
Bill was a blow to the firm of Adams, which became so short-handed
that the concern could hardly be worked without the admission of a
partner, which would mean a considerable decrease in the profits.

Nat Adams had had a roadside shanty in the Gulch before the discovery
of gold, and might, therefore, claim to be the oldest inhabitant.
These keepers of shanties were a peculiar race, and, at the cost of a
digression, it may be interesting to explain how they managed to amass
considerable sums of money in a land where travellers were few and far
between. It was the custom of the “bushmen”--_i.e._, bullock drivers,
sheep tenders, and the other white hands who worked on the sheep-runs
up country--to sign articles by which they agreed to serve their master
for one, two, or three years at so much per year and certain daily
rations. Liquor was never included in this agreement, and the men
remained, perforce, total abstainers during the whole time. The money
was paid in a lump sum at the end of the engagement. When that day came
round, Jimmy, the stockman, would come slouching into his master’s
office, cabbage-tree hat in hand.

“Morning, master!” Jimmy would say. “My time’s up. I guess I’ll draw my
cheque and ride down to town.”

“You’ll come back, Jimmy.”

“Yes, I’ll come back. Maybe I’ll be away three weeks, maybe a month. I
want some clothes, master, and my bloomin’ boots are well nigh off my
feet.”

“How much, Jimmy?” asks his master, taking up his pen.

“There’s sixty pound screw,” Jimmy answers, thoughtfully; “and you
mind, master, last March, when the brindled bull broke out o’ the
paddock. Two pound you promised me then. And a pound at the dipping.
And a pound when Millar’s sheep got mixed with ourn.” And so he goes
on, for bushmen can seldom write, but they have memories which nothing
escapes.

His master writes the cheque and hands it across the table. “Don’t get
on the drink, Jimmy,” he says.

“No fear of that, master,” and the stockman slips the cheque into
his leather pouch, and within an hour he is ambling off upon his
long-limbed horse on his hundred-mile journey to town.

Now Jimmy has to pass some six or eight of the above-mentioned roadside
shanties in his day’s ride, and experience has taught him that if he
once breaks his accustomed total abstinence, the unwonted stimulant has
an overpowering effect upon his brain. Jimmy shakes his head warily as
he determines that no earthly consideration will induce him to partake
of any liquor until his business is over. His only chance is to avoid
temptation; so, knowing that there is the first of these houses some
half mile ahead, he plunges into a bypath through the bush which will
lead him out at the other side.

Jimmy is riding resolutely along this narrow path, congratulating
himself upon a danger escaped, when he becomes aware of a sunburned,
black-bearded man who is leaning unconcernedly against a tree beside
the track. This is none other than the shanty-keeper, who, having
observed Jimmy’s manœuvre in the distance, has taken a short cut
through the bush in order to intercept him.

“Morning, Jimmy!” he cries, as the horseman comes up to him.

“Morning, mate; morning!”

“Where are ye off to to-day, then?”

“Off to town,” says Jimmy sturdily.

“No, now--are you, though? You’ll have bully times down there for a
bit. Come round and have a drink at my place--just by way of luck.”

“No,” says Jimmy, “I don’t want a drink.”

“Just a little damp.”

“I tell ye I don’t want one,” says the stockman, angrily.

“Well, ye needn’t be so darned short about it. It’s nothin’ to me
whether you drinks or not. Good mornin’.”

“Good mornin’,” says Jimmy, and has ridden on about twenty yards when
he hears the other calling on him to stop.

“See here, Jimmy!” he says, overtaking him again. “If you’ll do me a
kindness when you’re up in town, I’d be obliged.”

“What is it?”

“It’s a letter, Jim, as I wants posted. It’s an important one too, an’
I wouldn’t trust it with everyone; but I knows you, and if you’ll take
charge on it it’ll be a powerful weight off my mind.”

“Give it here,” Jimmy says, laconically.

“I hain’t got it here. It’s round in my caboose. Come round for it with
me. It ain’t more’n quarter of a mile.”

Jimmy consents reluctantly. When they reach the tumble-down hut the
keeper asks him cheerily to dismount and to come in.

“Give me the letter,” says Jimmy.

“It ain’t altogether wrote yet, but you sit down here for a minute and
it’ll be right,” and so the stockman is beguiled into the shanty.

At last the letter is ready and handed over. “Now, Jimmy,” says the
keeper, “one drink at my expense before you go.”

“Not a taste,” says Jimmy.

“Oh, that’s it, is it?” the other says, in an aggrieved tone. “You’re
too damned proud to drink with a poor cove like me. Here--give us back
that letter. I’m cursed if I’ll accept a favor from a man whose too
almighty big to have a drink with me.”

“Well, well, mate, don’t turn rusty,” says Jim. “Give us one drink an’
I’m off.”

The keeper pours out about half a pannikin of raw rum and hands it
to the bushman. The moment he smells the old familiar smell his
longing for it returns, and he swigs it off at a gulp. His eyes shine
more brightly, and his face becomes flushed. The keeper watches him
narrowly. “You can go now, Jim,” he says.

“Steady, mate, steady,” says the bushman. “I’m as good a man as you. If
you stand a drink, I can stand one too, I suppose.” So the pannikin is
replenished, and Jimmy’s eyes shine brighter still.

“Now, Jimmy, one last drink for the good of the house,” says the
keeper, “and then it’s time you were off.” The stockman has a third
gulp from the pannikin, and with it all his scruples and good
resolutions vanish forever.

“Look here,” he says, somewhat huskily, taking his cheque out of his
pouch. “You take this, mate. Whoever comes along this road, ask ’em
what they’ll have, and tell them it’s my shout. Let me know when the
money’s done.”

So Jimmy abandons the idea of ever getting to town, and for three weeks
or a month he lies about the shanty in a state of extreme drunkenness,
and reduces every wayfarer upon the road to the same condition. At last
one fine morning the keeper comes to him. “The coin’s done, Jimmy,” he
says; “it’s about time you made some more.” So Jimmy has a good wash
to sober him, straps his blanket and his billy to his back, and rides
off through the bush to the sheep-run, where he has another year of
sobriety, terminating in another month of intoxication.

All this, though typical of the happy-go-lucky manners of the
inhabitants, has no direct bearing upon Jackman’s Gulch, so we must
return to that Arcadian settlement. Additions to the population there
were not numerous, and such as came about the time of which I speak
were even rougher and fiercer than the original inhabitants. In
particular, there came a brace of ruffians named Phillips and Maule,
who rode into camp one day and started a claim upon the other side of
the stream. They out-gulched the Gulch in the virulence and fluency
of their blasphemy, in the truculence of their speech and manner, and
in their reckless disregard of all social laws. They claimed to have
come from Bendigo, and there were some among us who wished that the
redoubted Conky Jim was on the track once more, as long as he would
close it to such visitors as these. After their arrival the nightly
proceedings at the “Britannia bar” and at the gambling hell behind
became more riotous than ever. Violent quarrels, frequently ending in
bloodshed, were of constant occurrence. The more peaceable frequenters
of the bar began to talk seriously of lynching the two strangers,
who were the principal promoters of disorder. Things were in this
unsatisfactory condition when our evangelist, Elias B. Hopkins, came
limping into the camp, travel-stained and footsore, with his spade
strapped across his back and his Bible in the pocket of his moleskin
jacket.

His presence was hardly noticed at first, so insignificant was the man.
His manner was quiet and unobtrusive, his face pale, and his figure
fragile. On better acquaintance, however, there was a squareness and
firmness about his clean-shaven lower jaw, and an intelligence in his
widely opened blue eyes, which marked him as a man of character. He
erected a small hut for himself, and started a claim close to that
occupied by the two strangers who had preceded him. This claim was
chosen with a ludicrous disregard for all practical laws of mining, and
at once stamped the new-comer as being a green hand at his work. It was
piteous to observe him every morning, as we passed to our work, digging
and delving with the greatest industry, but, as we knew well, without
the smallest possibility of any result. He would pause for a moment
as we went by, wipe his pale face with his bandanna handkerchief, and
shout out to us a cordial morning greeting, and then fall to again
with redoubled energy. By degrees we got into the way of making a
half-pitying, half-contemptuous inquiry as to how he got on. “I hain’t
struck it yet, boys,” he would answer, cheerily, leaning on his spade;
“but the bed-rock lies deep just hereabouts, and I reckon we’ll get
among the pay gravel to-day.” Day after day he returned the same reply,
with unvarying confidence and cheerfulness.

It was not long before he began to show us the stuff that was in him.
One night the proceedings were unusually violent at the drinking
saloon. A rich pocket had been struck during the day, and the striker
was standing treat in a lavish and promiscuous fashion, which had
reduced three parts of the settlement to a state of wild intoxication.
A crowd of drunken idlers stood or lay about the bar, cursing,
swearing, shouting, dancing, and here and there firing their pistols
into the air out of pure wantonness. From the interior of the shanty
behind there came a similar chorus. Maule, Phillips, and the roughs
who followed them were in the ascendant, and all order and decency was
swept away.

Suddenly, amid this tumult of oaths and drunken cries, men became
conscious of a quiet monotone which underlay all other sounds and
obtruded itself at every pause in the uproar. Gradually first one man
and then another paused to listen, until there was a general cessation
of the hubbub, and every eye was turned in the direction whence this
quiet stream of words flowed. There, mounted upon a barrel, was Elias
B. Hopkins, the newest of the inhabitants of Jackman’s Gulch, with a
good-humored smile upon his resolute face. He held an open Bible in
his hand, and was reading aloud a passage taken at random--an extract
from the Apocalypse, if I remember right. The words were entirely
irrelevant, and without the smallest bearing upon the scene before him;
but he plodded on with great unction, waving his left hand slowly to
the cadence of his words.

There was a general shout of laughter and applause at this apparition,
and Jackman’s Gulch gathered round the barrel approvingly, under the
impression that this was some ornate joke, and that they were about to
be treated to some mock sermon or parody of the chapter read. When,
however, the reader, having finished the chapter, placidly commenced
another, and having finished that rippled on into another one, the
revellers came to the conclusion that the joke was somewhat too
long-winded. The commencement of yet another chapter confirmed this
opinion, and an angry chorus of shouts and cries, with suggestions as
to gagging the reader, or knocking him off the barrel, rose from every
side. In spite of roars and hoots, however, Elias B. Hopkins plodded
away at the Apocalypse with the same serene countenance, looking as
ineffably contented as though the babel around him were the most
gratifying applause. Before long an occasional boot pattered against
the barrel, or whistled past our parson’s head; but here some of the
more orderly of the inhabitants interfered in favor of peace and order,
aided, curiously enough, by the afore-mentioned Maule and Phillips,
who warmly espoused the cause of the little Scripture-reader. “The
little cuss has got grit in him,” the latter explained, rearing his
bulky red-shirted form between the crowd and the object of its anger.
“His ways ain’t our ways, and we’re all welcome to our opinions, and
to sling them round from barrels or otherwise, if so minded. What I
says, and Bill says, is, that when it comes to slingin’ boots instead
o’ words it’s too steep by half; an’ if this man’s wronged we’ll
chip in an’ see him righted.” This oratorical effort had the effect
of checking the more active signs of disapproval, and the party of
disorder attempted to settle down once more to their carouse, and to
ignore the shower of Scripture which was poured upon them. The attempt
was hopeless. The drunken portion fell asleep under the drowsy refrain,
and the others, with many a sullen glance at the imperturbable reader,
slouched off to their huts, leaving him still perched upon the barrel.
Finding himself alone with the more orderly of the spectators, the
little man rose, closed his book, after methodically marking with a
lead pencil the exact spot at which he stopped, and descended from his
perch. “To-morrow night, boys,” he remarked in his quiet voice, “the
reading will commence at the ninth verse of the fifteenth chapter of
the Apocalypse,” with which piece of information, disregarding our
congratulations, he walked away with the air of a man who has performed
an obvious duty.

We found that his parting words were no empty threat. Hardly had the
crowd begun to assemble next night before he appeared once more upon
the barrel and began to read with the same monotonous vigor, tripping
over words, muddling up sentences, but still boring along through
chapter after chapter. Laughter, threats, chaff--every weapon short of
actual violence--was used to deter him, but all with the same want of
success. Soon it was found that there was a method in his proceedings.
When silence reigned, or when the conversation was of an innocent
nature, the reading ceased. A single word of blasphemy, however, set
it going again, and it would ramble on for a quarter of an hour or
so, when it stopped, only to be renewed upon similar provocation.
The reading was pretty continuous during that second night, for the
language of the opposition was still considerably free. At least it was
an improvement upon the night before.

For more than a month Elias B. Hopkins carried on this campaign. There
he would sit, night after night, with the open book upon his knee, and
at the slightest provocation off he would go, like a musical box when
the spring is touched. The monotonous drawl became unendurable, but it
could only be avoided by conforming to the parson’s code. A chronic
swearer came to be looked upon with disfavor by the community, since
the punishment of his transgression fell upon all. At the end of a
fortnight the reader was silent more than half the time, and at the end
of the month his position was a sinecure.

Never was a moral revolution brought about more rapidly and more
completely. Our parson carried his principle into private life. I
have seen him, on hearing an unguarded word from some worker in the
gulches, rush across, Bible in hand, and perching himself upon the
heap of red clay which surmounted the offender’s claim, drawl through
the genealogical tree at the commencement of the New Testament in
a most earnest and impressive manner, as though it were especially
appropriate to the occasion. In time an oath became a rare thing among
us. Drunkenness was on the wane too. Casual travellers passing through
the Gulch used to marvel at our state of grace, and rumors of it went
as far as Ballarat, and excited much comment therein.

There were points about our evangelist which made him especially fitted
for the work which he had undertaken. A man entirely without redeeming
vices would have had no common basis on which to work, and no means of
gaining the sympathy of his flock. As we came to know Elias B. Hopkins
better, we discovered that in spite of his piety there was a leaven of
old Adam in him, and that he had certainly known unregenerate days. He
was no teetotaller. On the contrary, he could choose his liquor with
discrimination, and lower it in an able manner. He played a masterly
hand at poker, and there were few who could touch him at “cut-throat
euchre.” He and the two ex-ruffians, Phillips and Maule, used to
play for hours in perfect harmony, except when the fall of the cards
elicited an oath from one of his companions. At the first of these
offences the parson would put on a pained smile and gaze reproachfully
at the culprit. At the second he would reach for his Bible, and the
game was over for the evening. He showed us he was a good revolver
shot too, for when we were practising at an empty brandy bottle outside
Adams’ bar he took up a friend’s pistol and hit it plumb in the centre
at twenty-four paces. There were few things he took up that he could
not make a show at apparently, except gold-digging, and at that he was
the veriest duffer alive. It was pitiful to see the little canvas bag,
with his name printed across it, lying placid and empty upon the shelf
at Woburn’s store, while all the other bags were increasing daily, and
some had assumed quite a portly rotundity of form, for the weeks were
slipping by, and it was almost time for the gold-train to start off
for Ballarat. We reckoned that the amount which we had stored at the
time represented the greatest sum which had ever been taken by a single
convoy out of Jackman’s Gulch.

Although Elias B. Hopkins appeared to derive a certain quiet
satisfaction from the wonderful change which he had effected in the
camp, his joy was not yet rounded and complete. There was one thing for
which he still yearned. He opened his heart to us about it one evening.

“We’d have a blessing on the camp, boys,” he said, “if we only had a
service o’ some sort on the Lord’s day. It’s a temptin’ o’ Providence
to go on in this way without takin’ any notice of it except that maybe
there’s more whiskey drunk and more card-playin’ than on any other day.”

“We hain’t got no parson,” objected one of the crowd.

“Ye fool!” growled another, “hain’t we got a man as is worth any three
parsons, and can splash texts around like clay out o’ a cradle? What
more d’ye want?”

“We hain’t got no church!” urged the same dissentient.

“Have it in the open air,” one suggested.

“Or in Woburn’s store,” said another.

“Or in Adams’ saloon.”

The last proposal was received with a buzz of approval which showed
that it was considered the most appropriate locality.

Adams’ saloon was a substantial wooden building in the rear of the bar,
which was used partly for storing liquor and partly for a gambling
saloon. It was strongly built of rough-hewn logs, the proprietor
rightly judging, in the unregenerate days of Jackman’s Gulch, that
hogsheads of brandy and rum were commodities which had best be secured
under lock and key. A strong door opened into each end of the saloon,
and the interior was spacious enough, when the table and lumber were
cleared away, to accommodate the whole population. The spirit barrels
were heaped together at one end by their owner, so as to make a very
fair imitation of a pulpit.

At first the Gulch took but a mild interest in the proceedings, but
when it became known that Elias B. Hopkins intended, after reading
the service, to address the audience, the settlement began to warm up
to the occasion. A real sermon was a novelty to all of them, and one
coming from their own parson was additionally so. Rumor announced that
it would be interspersed with local hits, and that the moral would be
pointed by pungent personalities. Men began to fear that they would be
unable to gain seats, and many applications were made to the brothers
Adams. It was only when conclusively shown that the saloon could
contain them all with a margin that the camp settled down into calm
expectancy.

It was as well that the building was of such a size, for the assembly
upon the Sunday morning was the largest which had ever occurred in
the annals of Jackman’s Gulch. At first it was thought that the whole
population was present, but a little reflection showed that this was
not so. Maule and Phillips had gone on a prospecting journey among
the hills, and had not returned as yet; and Woburn, the gold-keeper,
was unable to leave his store. Having a very large quantity of the
precious metal under his charge, he stuck to his post, feeling that
the responsibility was too great to trifle with. With these three
exceptions the whole of the Gulch, with clean red shirts, and such
other additions to their toilet as the occasion demanded, sauntered in
a straggling line along the clayey pathway which led up to the saloon.

The interior of the building had been provided with rough benches;
and the parson, with his quiet, good-humored smile, was standing at
the door to welcome them. “Good morning, boys,” he cried cheerily, as
each group came lounging up. “Pass in! pass in! You’ll find this is as
good a morning’s work as any you’ve done. Leave your pistols in this
barrel outside the door as you pass; you can pick them out as you come
out again; but it isn’t the thing to carry weapons into the house of
peace.” His request was good-humoredly complied with, and before the
last of the congregation filed in there was a strange assortment of
knives and fire-arms in this depository. When all had assembled the
doors were shut and the service began--the first and the last which was
ever performed at Jackman’s Gulch.

The weather was sultry and the room close, yet the miners listened
with exemplary patience. There was a sense of novelty in the situation
which had its attractions. To some it was entirely new, others were
wafted back by it to another land and other days. Beyond a disposition
which was exhibited by the uninitiated to applaud at the end of certain
prayers, by way of showing that they sympathized with the sentiments
expressed, no audience could have behaved better. There was a murmur
of interest however, when Elias B. Hopkins, looking down on the
congregation from his rostrum of casks, began his address.

He had attired himself with care in honor of the occasion. He wore a
velveteen tunic, girt round the waist with a sash of China silk, a pair
of moleskin trousers, and held his cabbage-tree hat in his left hand.
He began speaking in a low tone, and it was noticed at the time that
he frequently glanced through the small aperture which served for a
window, which was placed above the heads of those who sat beneath him.

“I’ve put you straight now,” he said, in the course of his address;
“I’ve got you in the right rut, if you will but stick in it.” Here he
looked very hard out of the window for some seconds. “You’ve learned
soberness and industry, and with those things you can always make up
any loss you may sustain. I guess there isn’t one of ye that won’t
remember my visit to this camp.” He paused for a moment, and three
revolver shots rang out upon the quiet summer air. “Keep your seats,
damn ye!” roared our preacher, as his audience rose in excitement. “If
a man of ye moves, down he goes! The door’s locked on the outside, so
ye can’t get out anyhow. Your seats, ye canting, chuckle-headed fools!
Down with ye, ye dogs, or I’ll fire among ye!”

Astonishment and fear brought us back into our seats, and we sat
staring blankly at our pastor and each other. Elias B. Hopkins, whose
whole face and even figure appeared to have undergone an extraordinary
alteration, looked fiercely down on us from his commanding position
with a contemptuous smile on his stern face.

“I have your lives in my hands,” he remarked; and we noticed as he
spoke that he held a heavy revolver in his hand, and that the butt of
another one protruded from his sash. “I am armed and you are not. If
one of you moves or speaks, he is a dead man. If not, I shall not harm
you. You must wait here for an hour. Why, you _fools_” (this with a
hiss of contempt which rang in our ears for many a long day), “do you
know who it is that has stuck you up? Do you know who it is that has
been playing it upon you for months as a parson and a saint? Conky Jim,
the bushranger, ye apes? And Phillips and Maule were my two right-hand
men. They’re off into the hills with your gold----Ha! would ye?” This
to some restive member of the audience, who quieted down instantly
before the fierce eye and the ready weapon of the bushranger. “In an
hour they will be clear of any pursuit, and I advise you to make the
best of it and not to follow, or you may lose more than your money.
My horse is tethered outside this door behind me. When the time is
up I shall pass through it, lock it on the outside, and be off. Then
you may break your way out as best you can. I have no more to say to
you, except that ye are the most cursed set of asses that ever trod in
boot-leather.”

We had time to indorse mentally this outspoken opinion during the long
sixty minutes which followed; we were powerless before the resolute
desperado. It is true that if we made a simultaneous rush we might bear
him down at the cost of eight or ten of our number. But how could such
a rush be organized without speaking, and who would attempt it without
a previous agreement that he would be supported? There was nothing for
it but submission. It seemed three hours at the least before the ranger
snapped up his watch, stepped down from the barrel, walked backward,
still covering us with his weapon, to the door behind him, and then
passed rapidly through it. We heard the creaking of the rusty lock, and
the clatter of his horse’s hoofs as he galloped away.

It has been remarked that an oath had for the last few weeks been a
rare thing in the camp. We made up for our temporary abstention during
the next half-hour. Never was heard such symmetrical and heartfelt
blasphemy. When at last we succeeded in getting the door off its hinges
all sight of both rangers and treasure had disappeared, nor have we
ever caught sight of either the one or the other since. Poor Woburn,
true to his trust, lay shot through the head across the threshold of
his empty store. The villains, Maule and Phillips, had descended upon
the camp the instant that we had been enticed into the trap, murdered
the keeper, loaded up a small cart with the booty, and got safe away to
some wild fastness among the mountains, where they were joined by their
wily leader.

Jackman’s Gulch recovered from this blow, and is now a flourishing
township. Social reformers are not in request there, however, and
morality is at a discount. It is said that an inquest has been held
lately upon an unoffending stranger who chanced to remark that in
so large a place it would be advisable to have some form of Sunday
service. The memory of their one and only pastor is still green among
the inhabitants, and will be for many a long year to come.




THE SILVER HATCHET.


On December 3, 1861, Dr. Otto von Hopstein, Regius Professor of
Comparative Anatomy of the University of Buda-Pesth, and Curator of
the Academical Museum, was foully and brutally murdered within a
stone-throw of the entrance to the college quadrangle.

Besides the eminent position of the victim and his popularity among
both students and townsfolk, there were other circumstances which
excited public interest very strongly, and drew general attention
throughout Austria and Hungary to this murder. The _Pesther Abendblatt_
of the following day had an article upon it, which may still be
consulted by the curious, and from which I translate a few passages
giving a succinct account of the circumstances under which the crime
was committed, and the peculiar features in the case which puzzled the
Hungarian police.

“It appears,” said that very excellent paper, “that Professor von
Hopstein left the University about half-past four in the afternoon,
in order to meet the train which is due from Vienna at three minutes
after five. He was accompanied by his old and dear friend, Herr
Wilhelm Schlessinger, sub-Curator of the Museum and Privat-docent of
Chemistry. The object of these two gentlemen in meeting this particular
train was to receive the legacy bequeathed by Graf von Schulling to
the University of Buda-Pesth. It is well known that this unfortunate
nobleman, whose tragic fate is still fresh in the recollection of
the public, left his unique collection of mediæval weapons, as well
as several priceless black-letter editions, to enrich the already
celebrated museum of his Alma Mater. The worthy Professor was too much
of an enthusiast in such matters to intrust the reception or care of
this valuable legacy to any subordinate; and, with the assistance of
Herr Schlessinger, he succeeded in removing the whole collection from
the train, and stowing it away in a light cart which had been sent by
the University authorities. Most of the books and more fragile articles
were packed in cases of pinewood, but many of the weapons were simply
done round with straw, so that considerable labor was involved in
moving them all. The Professor was so nervous, however, lest any of
them should be injured, that he refused to allow any of the railway
employés (_Eisenbahn-diener_) to assist. Every article was carried
across the platform by Herr Schlessinger, and handed to Professor von
Hopstein in the cart, who packed it away. When everything was in,
the two gentlemen, still faithful to their charge, drove back to the
University, the Professor being in excellent spirits, and not a little
proud of the physical exertion which he had shown himself capable of.
He made some joking allusion to it to Reinmaul, the janitor, who, with
his friend Schiffer, a Bohemian Jew, met the cart on its return and
unloaded the contents. Leaving his curiosities safe in the store-room,
and locking the door, the Professor handed the key to his sub-curator,
and bidding everyone good evening, departed in the direction of his
lodgings. Schlessinger took a last look to reassure himself that all
was right, and also went off, leaving Reinmaul and his friend Schiffer
smoking in the janitor’s lodge.

“At eleven o’clock, about an hour and a half after Von Hopstein’s
departure, a soldier of the 14th regiment of Jäger, passing the front
of the University on his way to barracks, came upon the lifeless
body of the Professor lying a little way from the side of the road.
He had fallen upon his face, with both hands stretched out. His head
was literally split in two halves by a tremendous blow, which, it
is conjectured, must have been struck from behind, there remaining
a peaceful smile upon the old man’s face, as if he had been still
dwelling upon his new archæological acquisition when death had
overtaken him. There is no other mark of violence upon the body, except
a bruise over the left patella, caused probably by the fall. The most
mysterious part of the affair is that the Professor’s purse, containing
forty-three gulden, and his valuable watch have been untouched. Robbery
cannot, therefore, have been the incentive to the deed, unless the
assassins were disturbed before they could complete their work.

“This idea is negatived by the fact that the body must have lain
at least an hour before anyone discovered it. The whole affair is
wrapped in mystery. Dr. Langemann, the eminent medico-jurist, has
pronounced that the wound is such as might have been inflicted by a
heavy sword-bayonet wielded by a powerful arm. The police are extremely
reticent upon the subject, and it is suspected that they are in
possession of a clew which may lead to important results.”

Thus far the _Pesther Abendblatt_. The researches of the police failed,
however, to throw the least glimmer of light upon the matter. There
was absolutely no trace of the murderer, nor could any amount of
ingenuity invent any reason which could have induced anyone to commit
the dreadful deed. The deceased Professor was a man so wrapped in his
own studies and pursuits that he lived apart from the world, and had
certainly never raised the slightest animosity in any human breast. It
must have been some fiend, some savage, who loved blood for its own
sake, who struck that merciless blow.

Though the officials were unable to come to any conclusions upon the
matter, popular suspicion was not long in pitching upon a scapegoat.
In the first published accounts of the murder the name of one Schiffer
had been mentioned as having remained with the janitor after the
Professor’s departure. This man was a Jew, and Jews have never been
popular in Hungary. A cry was at once raised for Schiffer’s arrest;
but as there was not the slightest grain of evidence against him,
the authorities very properly refused to consent to so arbitrary a
proceeding. Reinmaul, who was an old and most respected citizen,
declared solemnly that Schiffer was with him until the startled cry
of the soldier had caused them both to run out to the scene of the
tragedy. No one ever dreamed of implicating Reinmaul in such a matter;
but still it was rumored that his ancient and well-known friendship for
Schiffer might have induced him to tell a falsehood in order to screen
him. Popular feeling ran very high upon the subject, and there seemed
a danger of Schiffer’s being mobbed in the street, when an incident
occurred which threw a very different light upon the matter.

On the morning of December 12th, just nine days after the mysterious
murder of the Professor, Schiffer, the Bohemian Jew, was found lying
in the northwestern corner of the Grand Platz stone dead, and so
mutilated that he was hardly recognizable. His head was cloven open in
very much the same way as that of Von Hopstein, and his body exhibited
numerous deep gashes, as if the murderer had been so carried away and
transported with fury that he had continued to hack the lifeless body.
Snow had fallen heavily the day before, and was lying at least a foot
deep all over the square; some had fallen during the night, too, as was
evidenced by a thin layer lying like a winding-sheet over the murdered
man. It was hoped at first that this circumstance might assist in
giving a clew by enabling the footsteps of the assassin to be traced;
but the crime had been committed, unfortunately, in a place much
frequented during the day, and there were innumerable tracks in every
direction. Besides, the newly fallen snow had blurred the footsteps to
such an extent that it would have been impossible to draw trustworthy
evidence from them.

In this case there was exactly the same impenetrable mystery and
absence of motive which had characterized the murder of Professor
von Hopstein. In the dead man’s pocket there was found a note-book
containing a considerable sum in gold and several very valuable bills,
but no attempt had been made to rifle him. Supposing that anyone to
whom he had lent money (and this was the first idea which occurred to
the police) had taken this means of evading his debt, it was hardly
conceivable that he would have left such a valuable spoil untouched.
Schiffer lodged with a widow named Gruga, at 49 Marie Theresa Strasse,
and the evidence of his landlady and her children showed that he had
remained shut up in his room the whole of the preceding day in a state
of deep dejection, caused by the suspicion which the populace had
fastened upon him. She had heard him go out about eleven o’clock at
night for his last and fatal walk, and as he had a latch-key she had
gone to bed without waiting for him. His object in choosing such a late
hour for a ramble obviously was that he did not consider himself safe
if recognized in the streets.

The occurrence of this second murder so shortly after the first threw
not only the town of Buda-Pesth, but the whole of Hungary, into a
terrible state of excitement and even of terror. Vague dangers seemed
to hang over the head of every man. The only parallel to this intense
feeling was to be found in our own country at the time of the Williams
murders described by De Quincey. There were so many resemblances
between the cases of Von Hopstein and of Schiffer that no one could
doubt that there existed a connection between the two. The absence of
object and of robbery, the utter want of any clew to the assassin, and,
lastly, the ghastly nature of the wounds, evidently inflicted by the
same or a similar weapon, all pointed in one direction. Things were in
this state when the incidents which I am now about to relate occurred,
and in order to make them intelligible I must lead up to them from a
fresh point of departure.

Otto von Schlegel was a younger son of the old Silesian family of that
name. His father had originally destined him for the army, but at the
advice of his teachers, who saw the surprising talent of the youth, had
sent him to the University of Buda-Pesth to be educated in medicine.
Here young Schlegel carried everything before him, and promised to
be one of the most brilliant graduates turned out for many a year.
Though a hard reader, he was no bookworm, but an active, powerful young
fellow, full of animal spirits and vivacity, and extremely popular
among his fellow-students.

The New Year examinations were at hand, and Schlegel was working
hard--so hard that even the strange murders in the town, and the
general excitement in men’s minds, failed to turn his thoughts from
his studies. Upon Christmas Eve, when every house was illuminated,
and the roar of drinking songs came from the Bierkeller in the
Student-quartier, he refused the many invitations to roystering suppers
which were showered upon him, and went off with his books under his arm
to the rooms of Leopold Strauss, to work with him into the small hours
of the morning.

Strauss and Schlegel were bosom friends. They were both Silesians,
and had known each other from boyhood. Their affection had become
proverbial in the University. Strauss was almost as distinguished a
student as Schlegel, and there had been many a tough struggle for
academic honors between the two fellow-countrymen, which had only
served to strengthen their friendship by a bond of mutual respect.
Schlegel admired the dogged pluck and never-failing good temper of
his old playmate; while the latter considered Schlegel, with his many
talents and brilliant versatility, the most accomplished of mortals.

The friends were still working together, the one reading from a volume
on anatomy, the other holding a skull and marking off the various parts
mentioned in the text, when the deep-toned bell of St. Gregory’s church
struck the hour of midnight.

“Hark to that!” said Schlegel, snapping up the book and stretching out
his long legs toward the cheery fire. “Why, it’s Christmas morning, old
friend! May it not be the last that we spend together!”

“May we have passed all these confounded examinations before another
one comes!” answered Strauss. “But see here, Otto, one bottle of wine
will not be amiss. I have laid one up on purpose;” and with a smile on
his honest South German face, he pulled out a long-necked bottle of
Rhenish from among a pile of books and bones in the corner.

“It is a night to be comfortable indoors,” said Otto von Schlegel,
looking out at the snowy landscape, “for ’tis bleak and bitter enough
outside. Good health, Leopold!”

“_Lebe hoch!_” replied his companion. “It is a comfort, indeed, to
forget sphenoid bones and ethmoid bones, if it be but for a moment. And
what is the news of the corps, Otto? Has Graube fought the Swabian?”

“They fight to-morrow,” said Von Schlegel. “I fear that our man will
lose his beauty, for he is short in the arm. Yet activity and skill may
do much for him. They say his hanging guard is perfection.”

“And what else is the news among the students?” asked Strauss.

“They talk, I believe, of nothing but the murders. But I have worked
hard of late, as you know, and hear little of the gossip.”

“Have you had time,” inquired Strauss, “to look over the books and the
weapons which our dear old Professor was so concerned about the very
day he met his death? They say they are well worth a visit.”

“I saw them to-day,” said Schlegel, lighting his pipe. “Reinmaul, the
janitor, showed me over the store-room, and I helped to label many of
them from the original catalogue of Graf Schulling’s museum. As far as
we can see, there is but one article missing of all the collection.”

“One missing!” exclaimed Strauss. “That would grieve old Von Hopstein’s
ghost. Is it anything of value?”

“It is described as an antique hatchet, with a head of steel and a
handle of chased silver. We have applied to the railway company, and no
doubt it will be found.”

“I trust so,” echoed Strauss; and the conversation drifted off into
other channels. The fire was burning low and the bottle of Rhenish was
empty before the two friends rose from their chairs and Von Schlegel
prepared to depart.

“Ugh! It’s a bitter night!” he said, standing on the doorstep and
folding his cloak round him. “Why, Leopold, you have your cap on. You
are not going out, are you?”

“Yes, I am coming with you,” said Strauss, shutting the door behind
him. “I feel heavy,” he continued, taking his friend’s arm, and walking
down the street with him. “I think a walk as far as your lodgings, in
the crisp frosty air, is just the thing to set me right.”

The two students went down Stephen Strasse together and across Julien
Platz, talking on a variety of topics. As they passed the corner of
the Grand Platz, however, where Schiffer had been found dead, the
conversation turned naturally upon the murder.

“That’s where they found him,” remarked Von Schlegel, pointing to the
fatal spot.

“Perhaps the murderer is near us now,” said Strauss. “Let us hasten on.”

They both turned to go, when Von Schlegel gave a sudden cry of pain and
stooped down.

“Something has cut through my boot!” he cried; and feeling about with
his hand in the snow, he pulled out a small glistening battle-axe, made
apparently entirely of metal. It had been lying with the blade turned
slightly upward, so as to cut the foot of the student when he trod upon
it.

“The weapon of the murderer!” he ejaculated.

“The silver hatchet from the museum!” cried Strauss in the same breath.

There could be no doubt that it was both the one and the other. There
could not be two such curious weapons, and the character of the wounds
was just such as would be inflicted by a similar instrument. The
murderer had evidently thrown it aside after committing the dreadful
deed, and it had lain concealed in the snow some twenty metres from the
spot ever since. It was extraordinary that of all the people who had
passed and repassed none had discovered it; but the snow was deep, and
it was a little off the beaten track.

“What are we to do with it?” said Von Schlegel, holding it in his hand.
He shuddered as he noticed by the light of the moon that the head of it
was all dabbled with dark-brown stains.

“Take it to the Commissary of Police,” suggested Strauss.

“He’ll be in bed now. Still, I think you are right. But it is nearly
four o’clock. I will wait until morning, and take it round before
breakfast. Meanwhile, I must carry it with me to my lodgings.”

“That is the best plan,” said his friend; and the two walked on
together talking of the remarkable find which they had made. When they
came to Schlegel’s door, Strauss said good-by, refusing an invitation
to go in, and walked briskly down the street in the direction of his
own lodgings.

Schlegel was stooping down putting the key into the lock, when a
strange change came over him. He trembled violently, and dropped the
key from his quivering fingers. His right hand closed convulsively
round the handle of the silver hatchet, and his eye followed the
retreating figure of his friend with a vindictive glare. In spite of
the coldness of the night the perspiration streamed down his face. For
a moment he seemed to struggle with himself, holding his hand up to his
throat as if he were suffocating. Then, with crouching body and rapid,
noiseless steps, he crept after his late companion.

Strauss was plodding sturdily along through the snow, humming snatches
of a student song, and little dreaming of the dark figure which pursued
him. At the Grand Platz it was forty yards behind him; at the Julien
Platz it was but twenty; in Stephen Strasse it was ten, and gaining
on him with panther-like rapidity. Already it was almost within arm’s
length of the unsuspecting man, and the hatchet glittered coldly in the
moonlight, when some slight noise must have reached Strauss’s ears, for
he faced suddenly round upon his pursuer. He started and uttered an
exclamation as his eye met the white set face, with flashing eyes and
clenched teeth, which seemed to be suspended in the air behind him.

“What, Otto!” he exclaimed, recognising his friend. “Art thou ill? You
look pale. Come with me to my---- Ah! hold, you madman, hold! Drop that
axe! Drop it, I say, or by heaven I’ll choke you!”

Von Schlegel had thrown himself upon him with a wild cry and uplifted
weapon; but the student was stout-hearted and resolute. He rushed
inside the sweep of the hatchet and caught his assailant round the
waist, narrowly escaping a blow which would have cloven his head. The
two staggered for a moment in a deadly wrestle, Schlegel endeavoring
to shorten his weapon; but Strauss with a desperate wrench managed
to bring him to the ground, and they rolled together in the snow,
Strauss clinging to the other’s right arm and shouting frantically for
assistance. It was as well that he did so, for Schlegel would certainly
have succeeded in freeing his arm had it not been for the arrival of
two stalwart gendarmes, attracted by the uproar. Even then the three of
them found it difficult to overcome the maniacal strength of Schlegel,
and they were utterly unable to wrench the silver hatchet from his
grasp. One of the gendarmes, however, had a coil of rope round his
waist, with which he rapidly secured the student’s arms to his sides.
In this way, half pushed, half dragged, he was conveyed, in spite of
furious cries and frenzied struggles, to the central police station.

Strauss assisted in coercing his former friend, and accompanied the
police to the station; protesting loudly at the same time against any
unnecessary violence, and giving it as his opinion that a lunatic
asylum would be a more fitting place for the prisoner. The events of
the last half-hour had been so sudden and inexplicable that he felt
quite dazed himself. What did it all mean? It was certain that his
old friend from boyhood had attempted to murder him, and had nearly
succeeded. Was Von Schlegel, then, the murderer of Professor von
Hopstein and of the Bohemian Jew? Strauss felt that it was impossible,
for the Jew was not even known to him, and the Professor had been his
especial favorite. He followed mechanically to the police station, lost
in grief and amazement.

Inspector Baumgarten, one of the most energetic and best known of
the police officials, was on duty in the absence of the Commissary.
He was a wiry little active man, quiet and retiring in his habits,
but possessed of great sagacity and a vigilance which never relaxed.
Now, though he had had a six hours’ vigil, he sat as erect as ever,
with his pen behind his ear, at his official desk, while his friend,
Sub-inspector Winkel, snored in a chair at the side of the stove. Even
the inspector’s usually immovable features betrayed surprise, however,
when the door was flung open and Von Schlegel was dragged in with pale
face and disordered clothes, the silver hatchet still grasped firmly in
his hand. Still more surprised was he when Strauss and the gendarmes
gave their account, which was duly entered in the official register.

“Young man, young man,” said Inspector Baumgarten, laying down his pen
and fixing his eyes sternly upon the prisoner, “this is pretty work for
Christmas morning; why have you done this thing?”

“God knows!” cried Von Schlegel, covering his face with his hands
and dropping the hatchet. A change had come over him; his fury and
excitement were gone, and he seemed utterly prostrated with grief.

“You have rendered yourself liable to a strong suspicion of having
committed the other murders which have disgraced our city.”

“No, no, indeed!” said Von Schlegel, earnestly. “God forbid!”

“At least you are guilty of attempting the life of Herr Leopold
Strauss.”

“The dearest friend I have in the world,” groaned the student. “Oh, how
could I! How could I!”

“His being your friend makes your crime ten times more heinous,” said
the inspector, severely. “Remove him for the remainder of the night to
the---- But steady! Who comes here?”

The door was pushed open and a man came into the room, so haggard
and careworn that he looked more like a ghost than a human being. He
tottered as he walked, and had to clutch at the backs of the chairs as
he approached the inspector’s desk. It was hard to recognize in this
miserable looking object the once cheerful and rubicund sub-Curator of
the Museum and Privat-docent of Chemistry, Herr Wilhelm Schlessinger.
The practised eye of Baumgarten, however, was not to be baffled by any
change.

“Good morning, mein herr,” he said; “you are up early. No doubt the
reason is that you have heard that one of your students, Von Schlegel,
is arrested for attempting the life of Leopold Strauss?”

“No; I have come for myself,” said Schlessinger, speaking huskily, and
putting his hand up to his throat. “I have come to ease my soul of the
weight of a great sin, though, God knows, an unmeditated one. It was I
who---- But, merciful heavens! there it is--the horrid thing! Oh, that
I had never seen it!”

He shrank back in a paroxysm of terror, glaring at the silver hatchet
where it lay upon the floor, and pointing at it with his emaciated hand.

“There it lies!” he yelled. “Look at it! It has come to condemn me. See
that brown rust on it! Do you know what that is? That is the blood of
my dearest, best friend, Professor von Hopstein. I saw it gush over the
very handle as I drove the blade through his brain. Mein Gott, I see it
now!”

“Sub-inspector Winkel,” said Baumgarten, endeavoring to preserve his
official austerity, “you will arrest this man, charged on his own
confession with the murder of the late Professor. I also deliver into
your hands Von Schlegel here, charged with a murderous assault upon
Herr Strauss. You will also keep this hatchet”--here he picked it from
the floor--“which has apparently been used for both crimes.”

Wilhelm Schlessinger had been leaning against the table, with a face of
ashy paleness. As the inspector ceased speaking, he looked up excitedly.

“What did you say?” he cried. “Von Schlegel attack Strauss!--the two
dearest friends in the college! I slay my old master! It is magic, I
say; it is a charm! There is a spell upon us! It is--Ah, I have it!
It is that hatchet--that thrice accursed hatchet!” and he pointed
convulsively at the weapon which Inspector Baumgarten still held in his
hand.

The inspector smiled contemptuously.

“Restrain yourself, mein herr,” he said. “You do but make your case
worse by such wild excuses for the wicked deed you confess to. Magic
and charms are not known in the legal vocabulary, as my friend Winkel
will assure you.”

“I know not,” remarked his sub-inspector, shrugging his broad
shoulders. “There are many strange things in the world. Who knows but
that----”

“What!” roared Inspector Baumgarten, furiously. “You would undertake to
contradict me! You would set up your opinion! You would be the champion
of these accursed murderers! Fool, miserable fool, your hour has come!”
and rushing at the astounded Winkel, he dealt a blow at him with the
silver hatchet which would certainly have justified his last assertion
had it not been that, in his fury, he overlooked the lowness of the
rafters above his head. The blade of the hatchet struck one of these,
and remained there quivering, while the handle was splintered into a
thousand pieces.

“What have I done?” gasped Baumgarten, falling back into his chair.
“What have I done?”

“You have proved Herr Schlessinger’s words to be correct,” said Von
Schlegel, stepping forward, for the astonished policemen had let go
their grasp of him. “That is what you have done. Against reason,
science, and everything else though it be, there is a charm at work.
There must be! Strauss, old boy, you know I would not, in my right
senses, hurt one hair of your head. And you, Schlessinger, we both know
you loved the old man who is dead. And you, Inspector Baumgarten, you
would not willingly have struck your friend the sub-inspector?”

“Not for the whole world,” groaned the inspector, covering his face
with his hands.

“Then is it not clear? But now, thank Heaven, the accursed thing is
broken, and can never do harm again. But see, what is that?”

Right in the centre of the room was lying a thin brown cylinder of
parchment. One glance at the fragments of the handle of the weapon
showed that it had been hollow. This roll of paper had apparently been
hidden away inside the metal case thus formed, having been introduced
through a small hole, which had been afterward soldered up. Von
Schlegel opened the document. The writing upon it was almost illegible
from age; but as far as they could make out it stood thus, in mediæval
German:

“Diese Waffe benutzte Max von Erlichingen um Joanna Bodeck zu ermorden,
deshalb beschuldige Ich, Johann Bodeck, mittelst der macht welche mir
als mitglied des Concils des rothen Kreuzes verliehen wurde, dieselbe
mit dieser unthat. Mag sie anderen denselben schmerz verursachen den
sie mir verursacht hat. Mag Jede hand die sie ergreift mit dem blut
eines freundes geröthet sein.

  “‘Immer übel--niemals gut,
  Geröthet mit des freundes blut.’”

Which may be roughly translated:

“This weapon was used by Max von Erlichingen for the murder of Joanna
Bodeck. Therefore do I, Johann Bodeck, accurse it by the power which
has been bequeathed to me as one of the Council of the Rosy Cross. May
it deal to others the grief which it has dealt to me! May every hand
that grasps it be reddened in the blood of a friend!

  “‘Ever evil, never good,
  Reddened with a loved one’s blood.’”

There was a dead silence in the room when Von Schlegel had finished
spelling out this strange document. As he put it down Strauss laid his
hand affectionately upon his arm.

“No such proof is needed by me, old friend,” he said. “At the very
moment that you struck at me I forgave you in my heart. I well know
that if the poor Professor were in the room he would say as much to
Herr Wilhelm Schlessinger.”

“Gentlemen,” remarked the inspector, standing up and resuming his
official tones, “this affair, strange as it is, must be treated
according to rule and precedent. Sub-inspector Winkel, as your superior
officer, I command you to arrest me upon a charge of murderously
assaulting you. You will commit me to prison for the night, together
with Herr von Schlegel and Herr Wilhelm Schlessinger. We shall take our
trial at the coming sitting of the judges. In the meantime take care
of that piece of evidence”--pointing to the piece of parchment--“and
while I am away devote your time and energy to utilizing the clew you
have obtained in discovering who it was who slew Herr Schiffer, the
Bohemian Jew.”

The one missing link in the chain of evidence was soon supplied. On
December 28th the wife of Reinmaul the janitor, coming into the bedroom
after a short absence, found her husband hanging lifeless from a hook
in the wall. He had tied a long bolster-case round his neck and stood
upon a chair in order to commit the fatal deed. On the table was a note
in which he confessed to the murder of Schiffer, the Jew, adding that
the deceased had been his oldest friend, and that he had slain him
without premeditation, in obedience to some incontrollable impulse.
Remorse and grief, he said, had driven him to self-destruction; and he
wound up his confession by commending his soul to the mercy of Heaven.

The trial which ensued was one of the strangest which ever occurred in
the whole history of jurisprudence. It was in vain that the prosecuting
council urged the improbability of the explanation offered by the
prisoners, and deprecated the introduction of such an element as magic
into a nineteenth-century law-court. The chain of facts was too strong,
and the prisoners were unanimously acquitted. “This silver hatchet,”
remarked the judge in his summing up “has hung untouched upon the
wall in the mansion of the Graf von Schulling for nearly two hundred
years. The shocking manner in which he met his death at the hands of
his favorite house-steward is still fresh in your recollection. It has
come out in evidence that, a few days before the murder, the steward
had overhauled the old weapons and cleaned them. In doing this he
must have touched the handle of this hatchet. Immediately afterward he
slew his master, whom he had served faithfully for twenty years. The
weapon then came, in conformity with the Count’s will, to Buda Pesth,
where, at the station, Herr Wilhelm Schlessinger grasped it, and,
within two hours, used it against the person of the deceased Professor.
The next man whom we find touching it is the janitor Reinmaul, who
helped to remove the weapons from the cart to the store-room. At the
first opportunity he buried it in the body of his friend Schiffer. We
then have the attempted murder of Strauss by Schlegel, and of Winkel
by Inspector Baumgarten, all immediately following the taking of the
hatchet into the hand. Lastly comes the providential discovery of the
extraordinary document which has been read to you by the clerk of the
court. I invite your most careful consideration, gentlemen of the jury,
to this chain of facts, knowing that you will find a verdict according
to your consciences without fear and without favor.”

Perhaps the most interesting piece of evidence to the English reader,
though it found few supporters among the Hungarian audience, was that
of Dr. Langemann, the eminent medico-jurist, who has written text-books
upon metallurgy and toxicology. He said:

“I am not so sure, gentlemen, that there is need to fall back upon
necromancy or the black art for an explanation of what has occurred.
What I say is merely a hypothesis, without proof of any sort, but
in a case so extraordinary every suggestion may be of value. The
Rosicrucians, to whom allusion is made in this paper, were the most
profound chemists of the early Middle Ages, and included the principal
alchemists whose names have descended to us. Much as chemistry has
advanced, there are some points in which the ancients were ahead of
us, and in none more so than in the manufacture of poisons of subtle
and deadly action. This man Bodeck, as one of the elders of the
Rosicrucians, possessed, no doubt, the recipe of many such mixtures,
some of which, like the _aqua tofana_ of the Medicis, would poison by
penetrating through the pores of the skin. It is conceivable that the
handle of this silver hatchet has been anointed by some preparation
which is a diffusible poison, having the effect upon the human body
of bringing on sudden and acute attacks of homicidal mania. In such
attacks it is well known that the madman’s rage is turned against those
whom he loved best when sane. I have, as I remarked before, no proof
to support me in my theory, and simply put it forward for what it is
worth.”

With this extract from the speech of the learned and ingenious
professor, we may close the account of this famous trial.

The broken pieces of the silver hatchet were thrown into a deep pond,
a clever poodle being employed to carry them in his mouth, as no one
would touch them for fear some of the infection might still hang
about them. The piece of parchment was preserved in the museum of
the University. As to Strauss and Schlegel, Winkel and Baumgarten,
they continued the best of friends, and are so still for all I know
to the contrary. Schlessinger became surgeon of a cavalry regiment,
and was shot at the battle of Sadowa five years later, while rescuing
the wounded under a heavy fire. By his last injunctions his little
patrimony was to be sold to erect a marble obelisk over the grave of
Professor von Hopstein.




THE MAN FROM ARCHANGEL.


On the fourth day of March, in the year 1867, I being at that time
in my five-and-twentieth year, I wrote the following words in my
note-book, the result of much mental perturbation and conflict:

“The solar system, amid a countless number of other systems as large
as itself, rolls ever silently through space in the direction of the
constellation of Hercules. The great spheres of which it is composed
spin and spin through the eternal void ceaselessly and noiselessly. Of
these one of the smallest and most insignificant is that conglomeration
of solid and of liquid particles which we have named the earth. It
whirls onward now as it has done before my birth, and will do after my
death--a revolving mystery, coming none know whence, and going none
know whither. Upon the outer crust of this moving mass crawl many
mites, of whom I, John McVittie, am one, helpless, impotent, being
dragged aimlessly through space. Yet such is the state of things among
us that the little energy and glimmering of reason which I possess
is entirely taken up with the labors which are necessary in order to
procure certain metallic disks, wherewith I may purchase the chemical
elements necessary to build up my ever-wasting tissues, and keep a
roof over me to shelter me from the inclemency of the weather. I thus
have no thought to expend upon the vital questions which surround me
on every side. Yet, miserable entity as I am, I can still at times
feel some degree of happiness, and am even--save the mark!--puffed up
occasionally with a sense of my own importance.”

These words, as I have said, I wrote down in my note-book, and they
reflected accurately the thoughts which I found rooted far down in
my soul, ever present and unaffected by the passing emotions of the
hour. Every day for seven months I read over my words, and every day
when I had finished them I said to myself, “Well done, John McVittie;
you have said the thought which was in you. You have reduced things
to their least common measure!” At last came a time when my uncle,
McVittie of Glencairn, died--the same who was at one time chairman of
committees of the House of Commons. He divided his great wealth among
his many nephews, and I found myself with sufficient to provide amply
for my wants during the remainder of my life, and became at the same
time owner of a bleak tract of land upon the coast of Caithness, which
I think the old man must have bestowed upon me in derision, for it
was sandy and valueless, and he had ever a grim sense of humor. Up to
this time I had been an attorney in a midland town in England. Now I
saw that I could put my thoughts into effect, and, leaving all petty
and sordid aims, could elevate my mind by the study of the secrets of
nature. My departure from my English home was somewhat accelerated by
the fact that I had nearly slain a man in a quarrel, for my temper was
fiery, and I was apt to forget my own strength when enraged. There
was no legal action taken in the matter, but the papers yelped at
me, and folk looked askance when I met them. It ended by my cursing
them and their vile, smoke-polluted town, and hurrying to my northern
possession, where I might at last find peace and an opportunity for
solitary study and contemplation. I borrowed from my capital before I
went, and so was able to take with me a choice collection of the most
modern philosophical instruments and books, together with chemicals and
such other things as I might need in my retirement.

The land which I had inherited was a narrow strip, consisting mostly
of sand, and extending for rather over two miles round the coast of
Mansie Bay, in Caithness. Upon this strip there had been a rambling,
gray-stone building--when erected or wherefore none could tell me--and
this I had repaired, so that it made a dwelling quite good enough
for one of my simple tastes. One room was my laboratory, another my
sitting-room, and in a third, just under the sloping roof, I slung
the hammock in which I always slept. There were three other rooms,
but I left them vacant, except one which was given over to the old
crone who kept house for me. Save the Youngs and the McLeods, who were
fisher-folk living round at the other side of Fergus Ness, there were
no other people for many miles in each direction. In front of the house
was the great bay, behind it were two long barren hills, capped by
other loftier ones beyond. There was a glen between the hills, and when
the wind was from the land it used to sweep down this with a melancholy
sough and whisper among the branches of the fir-trees beneath my attic
window.

I dislike my fellow-mortals. Justice compels me to add that they
appear for the most part to dislike me. I hate their little crawling
ways, their conventionalities, their deceits, their narrow rights and
wrongs. They take offence at my brusque outspokenness, my disregard for
their social laws, my impatience of all constraint. Among my books
and my drugs in my lonely den at Mansie I could let the great drove
of the human race pass onward with their politics and inventions and
tittle-tattle, and I remained behind stagnant and happy. Not stagnant
either, for I was working in my own little groove, and making progress.
I have reason to believe that Dalton’s atomic theory is founded upon
error, and I know that mercury is not an element.

During the day I was busy with my distillations and analyses. Often
I forgot my meals, and when old Madge summoned me to my tea I found
my dinner lying untouched upon the table. At night I read Bacon,
Descartes, Spinoza, Kant--all those who have pried into what is
unknowable. They are all fruitless and empty, barren of result, but
prodigal of polysyllables, reminding me of men who while digging for
gold have turned up many worms, and then exhibit them exultantly as
being what they sought. At times a restless spirit would come upon me,
and I would walk thirty and forty miles without rest or breaking fast.
On these occasions, when I used to stalk through the country villages,
gaunt, unshaven, and dishevelled, the mothers would rush into the road
and drag their children indoors, and the rustics would swarm out of
their pot-houses to gaze at me. I believe that I was known far and wide
as the “mad laird o’ Mansie.” It was rarely, however, that I made these
raids into the country, for I usually took my exercise upon my own
beach, where I soothed my spirit with strong black tobacco, and made
the ocean my friend and my confidant.

What companion is there like the great, restless, throbbing sea? What
human mood is there which it does not match and sympathize with? There
are none so gay but that they may feel gayer when they listen to its
merry turmoil, and see the long green surges racing in, with the glint
of the sunbeams in their sparkling crests. But when the gray waves toss
their heads in anger, and the wind screams above them, goading them on
to madder and more tumultuous efforts, then the darkest-minded of men
feels that there is a melancholy principle in Nature which is as gloomy
as his own thoughts. When it was calm in the Bay of Mansie the surface
would be as clear and bright as a sheet of silver, broken only at one
spot, some little way from the shore, where a long black line projected
out of the water, looking like the jagged back of some sleeping
monster. This was the top of the dangerous ridge of rocks known to the
fishermen as the “ragged reef o’ Mansie.” When the wind blew from the
east the waves would break upon it like thunder, and the spray would
be tossed far over my house and up to the hills behind. The bay itself
was a bold and noble one, but too much exposed to the northern and
eastern gales, and too much dreaded for its reef, to be much used by
mariners. There was something of romance about this lonely spot. I have
lain in my boat upon a calm day, and, peering over the edge, I have
seen far down the flickering, ghostly forms of great fish--fish, as it
seemed to me, such as naturalists never knew, and which my imagination
transformed into the genii of that desolate bay. Once, as I stood by
the brink of the waters upon a quiet night, a great cry, as of a woman
in hopeless grief, rose from the bosom of the deep and swelled out
upon the still air, now sinking and now rising, for a space of thirty
seconds. This I heard with my own ears.

In this strange spot, with the eternal hills behind me and the eternal
sea in front, I worked and brooded for more than two years unpestered
by my fellow-men. By degrees I had trained my old servant into habits
of silence, so that she now rarely opened her lips, though I doubt not
that when twice a year she visited her relations in Wick her tongue
during those few days made up for its enforced rest. I had come almost
to forget that I was a member of the human family, and to live entirely
with the dead, whose books I pored over, when a sudden incident
occurred which threw all my thoughts into a new channel.

Three rough days in June had been succeeded by one calm and peaceful
one. There was not a breath of air that evening. The sun sank down in
the west behind a line of purple clouds, and the smooth surface of the
bay was gashed with scarlet streaks. Along the beach the pools left by
the tide showed up like gouts of blood against the yellow sand, as if
some wounded giant had toilfully passed that way and had left these
red traces of his grievous hurt behind him. As the darkness closed
in, certain ragged clouds which had lain low on the eastern horizon
coalesced and formed a great, irregular cumulus. The glass was still
low, and I knew that there was mischief brewing. About nine o’clock
a dull, moaning sound came up from the sea, as from a creature who,
much harassed, learns that the hour of suffering has come round again.
At ten a sharp breeze sprang up from the eastward. At eleven it had
increased to a gale, and by midnight the most furious storm was raging
which I ever remember upon that weather-beaten coast.

As I went to bed the shingle and sea-weed was pattering up against my
attic-window, and the wind was screaming as though every gust were a
lost soul. By that time the sounds of the tempest had become a lullaby
to me. I knew that the gray walls of the old house would buffet it
out, and for what occurred in the world outside I had small concern.
Old Madge was usually as callous to such things as I was myself. It
was a surprise to me when, about three in the morning, I was awoke
by the sound of a great knocking at my door and excited cries in the
wheezy voice of my housekeeper. I sprang out of my hammock and roughly
demanded of her what was the matter.

“Eh, maister, maister!” she screamed in her hateful dialect. “Come
doun, mun; come doun! There’s a muckle ship gaun ashore on the reef,
and the puir folks are a’ yammerin’ and ca’in’ for help--and I doobt
they’ll a’ be drooned. Oh, Maister McVittie, come doun!”

“Hold your tongue, you hag!” I shouted back in a passion. “What is it
to you whether they are drowned or not? Get back to your bed and leave
me alone.” I turned in again, and drew the blankets over me. “Those
men out there,” I said to myself, “have already gone through half the
horrors of death. If they be saved they will but have to go through
the same once more in the space of a few brief years. It is best,
therefore, that they should pass away now, since they have suffered
that anticipation which is more than the pain of dissolution.” With
this thought in my mind I endeavored to compose myself to sleep once
more, for that philosophy which had taught me to consider death as a
small and trivial incident in man’s eternal and ever-changing career,
had also broken me of much curiosity concerning worldly matters. On
this occasion I found, however, that the old leaven still fermented
strongly in my soul. I tossed from side to side for some minutes
endeavoring to beat down the impulses of the moment by the rules of
conduct which I had framed during months of thought. Then I heard a
dull roar amid the wild shriek of the gale, and I knew that it was the
sound of a signal-gun. Driven by an uncontrollable impulse, I rose,
dressed, and, having lit my pipe, walked out on to the beach.

It was pitch dark when I came outside, and the wind blew with such
violence that I had to put my shoulder against it and push my way
along the shingle. My face pringled and smarted with the sting of
the gravel which was blown against it, and the red ashes of my pipe
streamed away behind me dancing fantastically through the darkness. I
went down to where the great waves were thundering in, and, shading
my eyes with my hand to keep off the salt spray, I peered out to sea.
I could distinguish nothing, and yet it seemed to me that shouts and
great inarticulate cries were borne to me by the blasts. Suddenly as
I gazed I made out the glint of a light, and then the whole bay and
the beach were lit up in a moment by a vivid blue glare. They were
burning a colored signal-light on board of the vessel. There she lay
on her beam-ends right in the centre of the jagged reef, heeled over
to such an angle that I could see all the planking of her deck. She
was a large two-masted schooner, of foreign rig, and lay perhaps a
hundred and eighty or two hundred yards from the shore. Every spar and
rope and writhing piece of cordage showed up hard and clear under the
livid light which sputtered and flickered from the highest portion of
the forecastle. Beyond the doomed ship out of the great darkness came
the long rolling lines of black waves, never ending, never tiring,
with a petulant tuft of foam here and there upon their crests. Each
as it reached the broad circle of unnatural light appeared to gather
strength and volume, and to hurry on more impetuously until, with a
roar and a jarring crash, it sprang upon its victim. Clinging to the
weather shrouds I could distinctly see some ten or twelve frightened
seamen, who, when their light revealed my presence, turned their white
faces toward me and waved their hands imploringly. I felt my gorge
rise against these poor cowering worms. Why should they presume to
shirk the narrow pathway along which all that is great and noble among
mankind has travelled? There was one there who interested me more than
they. He was a tall man who stood apart from the others, balancing
himself upon the swaying wreck as though he disdained to cling to rope
or bulwark. His hands were clasped behind his back and his head was
sunk upon his breast; but even in that despondent attitude there was
a litheness and decision in his pose and in every motion which marked
him as a man little likely to yield to despair. Indeed, I could see by
his occasional rapid glances up and down and all around him that he was
weighing every chance of safety; but though he often gazed across the
raging surf to where he could see my dark figure upon the beach, his
self-respect, or some other reason, forbade him from imploring my help
in any way. He stood, dark, silent, and inscrutable, looking down on
the black sea, and waiting for whatever fortune Fate might send him.

It seemed to me that that problem would very soon be settled. As I
looked, an enormous billow, topping all the others, and coming after
them, like a driver following a flock, swept over the vessel. Her
foremast snapped short off, and the men who clung to the shrouds were
brushed away like a swarm of flies. With a rending, riving sound the
ship began to split in two, where the sharp back of the Mansie reef was
sawing into her keel. The solitary man upon the forecastle ran rapidly
across the deck and seized hold of a white bundle which I had already
observed, but failed to make out. As he lifted it up the light fell
upon it, and I saw that the object was a woman, with a spar lashed
across her body and under her arms in such a way that her head should
always rise above water. He bore her tenderly to the side and seemed to
speak for a minute or so to her, as though explaining the impossibility
of remaining upon the ship. Her answer was a singular one. I saw her
deliberately raise her hand and strike him across the face with it. He
appeared to be silenced for a moment or so by this; but he addressed
her again, directing her, as far as I could gather from his motions,
how she should behave when in the water. She shrank away from him,
but he caught her in his arms. He stooped over her for a moment and
seemed to press his lips against her forehead. Then a great wave came
welling up against the side of the breaking vessel, and, leaning over,
he placed her upon the summit of it as gently as a child might be
committed to its cradle. I saw her white dress flickering among the
foam on the crest of the dark billow, and then the light sank gradually
lower, and the riven ship and its lonely occupant were hidden from my
eyes.

As I watched those things my manhood overcame my philosophy, and I felt
a frantic impulse to be up and doing. I threw my cynicism to one side
as a garment which I might don again at leisure, and I rushed wildly to
my boat and my sculls. She was a leaky tub, but what then? Was I, who
had cast many a wistful, doubtful glance at my opium bottle, to begin
now to weigh chances and to cavil at danger? I dragged her down to the
sea with the strength of a maniac, and sprang in. For a moment or two
it was a question whether she could live among the boiling surge, but a
dozen frantic strokes took me through it, half-full of water but still
afloat. I was out on the unbroken waves now, at one time climbing,
climbing up the broad black breast of one, then sinking down, down on
the other side, until looking up I could see the gleam of the foam all
around me against the dark heavens. Far behind me I could hear the wild
wailings of old Madge, who, seeing me start, thought no doubt that my
madness had come to a climax. As I rowed I peered over my shoulder,
until at last on the belly of a great wave which was sweeping toward
me I distinguished the vague white outline of the woman. Stooping over
I seized her as she swept by me, and with an effort lifted her, all
sodden with water, into the boat. There was no need to row back, for
the next billow carried us in and threw us upon the beach. I dragged
the boat out of danger, and then lifting up the woman I carried her to
the house, followed by my housekeeper, loud with congratulation and
praise.

Now that I had done this thing a reaction set in upon me. I felt that
my burden lived, for I heard the faint beat of her heart as I pressed
my ear against her side in carrying her. Knowing this, I threw her down
beside the fire which Madge had lit, with as little sympathy as though
she had been a bundle of faggots. I never glanced at her to see if she
were fair or no. For many years I had cared little for the face of a
woman. As I lay in my hammock upstairs, however, I heard the old woman,
as she chafed the warmth back into her, crooning a chorus of “Eh, the
puir lassie! Eh, the bonnie lassie!” from which I gathered that this
piece of jetsam was both young and comely.

       *       *       *       *       *

The morning after the gale was peaceful and sunny. As I walked along
the long sweep of sand I could hear the panting of the sea. It was
heaving and swirling about the reef, but along the shore it rippled in
gently enough. There was no sign of the schooner, nor was there any
wreckage upon the beach, which did not surprise me, as I knew there was
a great undertow in those waters. A couple of broad-winged gulls were
hovering and skimming over the scene of the shipwreck, as though many
strange things were visible to them beneath the waves. At times I could
hear their raucous voices as they spoke to one another of what they saw.

When I came back from my walk the woman was waiting at the door for me.
I began to wish when I saw her that I had never saved her, for here
was an end of my privacy. She was very young--at the most nineteen,
with a pale, somewhat refined face, yellow hair, merry blue eyes,
and shining teeth. Her beauty was of an ethereal type. She looked so
white and light and fragile that she might have been the spirit of
that storm-foam from out of which I plucked her. She had wreathed
some of Madge’s garments round her in a way which was quaint and not
unbecoming. As I strode heavily up the pathway she put out her hands
with a pretty childlike gesture, and ran down toward me, meaning, as
I surmise, to thank me for having saved her; but I put her aside with
a wave of my hand and passed her. At this she seemed somewhat hurt,
and the tears sprang into her eyes; but she followed me into the
sitting-room and watched me wistfully. “What country do you come from?”
I asked her, suddenly.

She smiled when I spoke, but shook her head.

“Français?” I asked. “Deutsch?” “Espagnol?”--each time she shook her
head, and then she rippled off into a long statement in some tongue of
which I could not understand one word.

After breakfast was over, however, I got a clew to her nationality.
Passing along the beach once more, I saw that in a cleft of the ridge a
piece of wood had been jammed. I rowed out to it in my boat and brought
it ashore. It was part of the sternpost of a boat, and on it, or rather
on the piece of wood attached to it, was the word “Archangel,” painted
in strange, quaint lettering. “So,” I thought, as I paddled slowly
back, “this pale damsel is a Russian. A fit subject for the White
Czar, and a proper dweller on the shores of the White Sea!” It seemed
to me strange that one of her apparent refinement should perform so
long a journey in so frail a craft. When I came back into the house I
pronounced the word “Archangel” several times in different intonations,
but she did not appear to recognize it.

I shut myself up in the laboratory all the morning, continuing a
research which I was making upon the nature of the allotropic forms of
carbon and of sulphur. When I came out at mid-day for some food, she
was sitting by the table with a needle and thread mending some rents in
her clothes, which were now dry. I resented her continued presence, but
I could not turn her out on the beach to shift for herself. Presently
she presented a new phase of her character. Pointing to herself and
then to the scene of the shipwreck, she held up one finger, by which
I understood her to be asking whether she was the only one saved. I
nodded my head to indicate that she was. On this she sprang out of the
chair, with a cry of great joy, and holding the garment which she was
mending over her head, and swaying it from side to side with the motion
of her body, she danced as lightly as a feather all round the room,
and then out through the open door into the sunshine. As she whirled
round she sang in a plaintive, shrill voice some uncouth, barbarous
chant, expressive of exultation. I called out to her, “Come in, you
young fiend; come in, and be silent!” but she went on with her dance.
Then she suddenly ran toward me, and catching my hand before I could
pluck it away, she kissed it. While we were at dinner she spied one of
my pencils, and taking it up she wrote the two words “Sophie Ramusine”
upon a piece of paper, and then pointed to herself as a sign that that
was her name. She handed the pencil to me, evidently expecting that I
would be equally communicative, but I put it in my pocket as a sign
that I wished to hold no intercourse with her.

Every moment of my life now I regretted the unguarded precipitancy with
which I had saved this woman. What was it to me whether she had lived
or died? I was no young hot-headed youth to do such things. It was bad
enough to be compelled to have Madge in the house, but she was old
and ugly, and could be ignored. This one was young and lively, and so
fashioned as to divert attention from graver things. Where could I send
her, and what could I do with her? If I sent information to Wick it
would mean that officials and others would come to me, and pry and peep
and chatter--a hateful thought. It was better to endure her presence
than that.

I soon found that there were fresh troubles in store for me. There is
no place safe from the swarming, restless race of which I am a member.
In the evening, when the sun was dipping down behind the hills,
casting them into dark shadow, but gilding the sands and casting a
great glory over the sea, I went, as is my custom, for a stroll along
the beach. Sometimes on these occasions I took my book with me. I did
so on this night, and stretching myself upon a sand-dune I composed
myself to read. As I lay there I suddenly became aware of a shadow
which interposed itself between the sun and myself. Looking round, I
saw, to my great surprise, a very tall, powerful man, who was standing
a few yards off, and who, instead of looking at me, was ignoring my
existence completely, and was gazing over my head with a stern set face
at the bay and the black line of the Mansie reef. His complexion was
dark, with black hair and short curling beard, a hawk-like nose, and
golden earrings in his ears--the general effect being wild and somewhat
noble. He wore a faded velveteen jacket, a red flannel shirt, and high
sea-boots, coming half-way up his thighs. I recognized him at a glance
as being the same man who had been left on the wreck the night before.

“Hullo!” I said, in an aggrieved voice. “You got ashore all right,
then?”

“Yes,” he answered, in good English. “It was no doing of mine. The
waves threw me up. I wish to God I had been allowed to drown!” There
was a slight foreign lisp in his accent which was rather pleasing. “Two
good fishermen, who live round yonder point, pulled me out and cared
for me--yet I could not honestly thank them for it.”

“Ho! ho!” thought I, “here is a man of my own kidney.” “Why do you wish
to be drowned?” I asked.

“Because,” he cried, throwing out his long arms with a passionate,
despairing gesture, “there--there in that blue smiling bay lies my
soul, my treasure--everything that I loved and lived for.”

“Well, well,” I said. “People are ruined every day, but there’s no use
making a fuss about it. Let me inform you that this ground on which you
walk is my ground, and that the sooner you take yourself off it the
better pleased I shall be. One of you is quite trouble enough.”

“One of us?” he gasped.

“Yes--if you could take her off with you I should be still more
grateful.”

He gazed at me for a moment as if hardly able to realize what I
said, and then, with a wild cry, he ran away from me with prodigious
speed and raced along the sands toward my house. Never before or
since have I seen a human being run so fast. I followed as rapidly
as I could, furious at this threatened invasion, but long before I
reached the house he had disappeared through the open door. I heard a
great scream from the inside, and, as I came nearer, the sound of the
man’s bass voice speaking rapidly and loudly. When I looked in, the
girl Sophie Ramusine was crouching in a corner, cowering away, with
fear and loathing expressed on her averted face and in every line of
her shrinking form. The other, with his dark eyes flashing, and his
outstretched hands quivering with emotion, was pouring forth a torrent
of passionate, pleading words. He made a step forward to her as I
entered, but she writhed still further away, and uttered a sharp cry
like that of a rabbit when the weasel has him by the throat.

“Here!” I said, pulling him back from her. “This is a pretty to-do!
What do you mean? Do you think this is a wayside inn or place of public
accommodation?”

“Oh, sir,” he said, “excuse me. This woman is my wife, and I feared
that she was drowned. You have brought me back to life.”

“Who are you?” I asked, roughly.

“I am a man from Archangel,” he said, simply: “a Russian man.”

“What is your name?”

“Ourganeff.”

“Ourganeff!--and hers is Sophie Ramusine. She is no wife of yours. She
has no ring.”

“We are man and wife in the sight of Heaven,” he said, solemnly,
looking upward. “We are bound by higher laws than those of earth.” As
he spoke the girl slipped behind me and caught me by the other hand,
pressing it as though beseeching my protection. “Give me up my wife,
sir,” he went on. “Let me take her away from here.”

“Look here, you--whatever your name is,” I said, sternly, “I don’t want
this wench here. I wish I had never seen her. If she died it would be
no grief to me. But as to handing her over to you, when it is clear she
fears and hates you, I won’t do it. So now just clear your great body
out of this, and leave me to my books. I hope I may never look upon
your face again.”

“You won’t give her up to me?” he said, hoarsely.

“I’ll see you damned first!” I answered.

“Suppose I take her,” he cried, his dark face growing darker.

All my tigerish blood flushed up in a moment. I picked up a billet
of wood from beside the fireplace. “Go,” I said, in a low voice; “go
quick, or I may do you an injury.” He looked at me irresolutely for a
moment, and then he left the house. He came back again in a moment,
however, and stood in the doorway looking in at us.

“Have a heed what you do,” he said. “The woman is mine, and I shall
have her. When it comes to blows, a Russian is as good a man as a
Scotchman.”

“We shall see that,” I cried, springing forward, but he was already
gone, and I could see his tall form moving away through the gathering
darkness.

For a month or more after this things went smoothly with us. I never
spoke to the Russian girl, nor did she ever address me. Sometimes
when I was at work at my laboratory she would slip inside the door
and sit silently there watching me with her great eyes. At first this
intrusion annoyed me, but by degrees, finding that she made no attempt
to distract my attention, I suffered her to remain. Encouraged by this
concession, she gradually came to move the stool on which she sat
nearer and nearer to my table, until, after gaining a little every day
during some weeks, she at last worked her way right up to me, and used
to perch herself beside me whenever I worked. In this position she
used, still without ever obtruding her presence in any way, to make
herself very useful by holding my pens, test-tubes, bottles, etc., and
handing me whatever I wanted with never-failing sagacity. By ignoring
the fact of her being a human being, and looking upon her as a useful
automatic machine, I accustomed myself to her presence so far as to
miss her on the few occasions when she was not at her post. I have a
habit of talking aloud to myself at times when I work, so as to fix my
results better in my mind. The girl must have had a surprising memory
for sounds, for she could always repeat the words which I let fall in
this way, without, of course, understanding in the least what they
meant. I have often been amused at hearing her discharge a volley of
chemical equations and algebraic symbols at old Madge, and then burst
into a ringing laugh when the crone would shake her head, under the
impression, no doubt, that she was being addressed in Russian.

She never went more than a few yards from the house, and indeed never
put her foot over the threshold without looking carefully out of each
window in order to be sure that there was nobody about. By this I
knew that she suspected that her fellow-countryman was still in the
neighborhood, and feared that he might attempt to carry her off. She
did something else which was significant. I had an old revolver, with
some cartridges, which had been thrown away among the rubbish. She
found this one day, and at once proceeded to clean it and oil it. She
hung it up near the door, with the cartridges in a little bag beside
it, and whenever I went for a walk she would take it down and insist
upon my carrying it with me. In my absence she would always bolt the
door. Apart from her apprehensions she seemed fairly happy, busying
herself in helping Madge when she was not attending upon me. She was
wonderfully nimble-fingered and natty in all domestic duties.

It was not long before I discovered that her suspicions were well
founded, and that this man from Archangel was still lurking in the
vicinity. Being restless one night, I rose and peered out of the
window. The weather was somewhat cloudy, and I could barely make out
the line of the sea and the loom of my boat upon the beach. As I gazed,
however, and my eyes became accustomed to the obscurity, I became aware
that there was some other dark blur upon the sands, and that in front
of my very door, where certainly there had been nothing of the sort
the preceding night. As I stood at my diamond-paned lattice still
peering and peeping to make out what this might be, a great bank of
clouds rolled slowly away from the face of the moon, and a flood of
cold, clear light was poured down upon the silent bay and the long
sweep of its desolate shores. Then I saw what this was which haunted
my doorstep. It was he, the Russian. He squatted there like a gigantic
toad, with his legs doubled under him in strange Mongolian fashion,
and his eyes fixed apparently upon the window of the room in which the
young girl and the housekeeper slept. The light fell upon his upturned
face, and I saw once more the hawk-like grace of his countenance,
with the single deeply-indented line of care upon his brow, and the
protruding beard which marks the passionate nature. My first impulse
was to shoot him as a trespasser, but as I gazed my resentment changed
into pity and contempt. “Poor fool!” I said to myself, “is it then
possible that you, whom I have seen looking open-eyed at present
death, should have your whole thoughts and ambition centred upon this
wretched slip of a girl--a girl, too, who flies from you and hates you!
Most women would love you--were it but for that dark face and great
handsome body of yours--and yet you must needs hanker after the one
in a thousand who will have no traffic with you.” As I returned to my
bed I chuckled much to myself over this thought. I knew that my bars
were strong and my bolts thick. It mattered little to me whether this
strange man spent his night at my door or a hundred leagues off, so
long as he was gone by the morning. As I expected, when I rose and went
out there was no sign of him, nor had he left any trace of his midnight
vigil.

It was not long, however, before I saw him again. I had been out for a
row one morning, for my head was aching, partly from prolonged stooping
and partly from the effects of a noxious drug which I had inhaled the
night before. I pulled along the coast some miles, and then, feeling
thirsty, I landed at a place where I knew that a fresh-water stream
trickled down into the sea. This rivulet passed through my land, but
the mouth of it, where I found myself that day, was beyond my boundary
line. I felt somewhat taken aback when, rising from the stream at which
I had slaked my thirst, I found myself face to face with the Russian.
I was as much a trespasser now as he was, and I could see at a glance
that he knew it.

“I wish to speak a few words to you,” he said, gravely.

“Hurry up, then!” I answered, glancing at my watch. “I have no time to
listen to chatter.”

“Chatter!” he repeated angrily. “Ah, but there! you Scotch people are
strange men. Your face is hard and your words rough, but so are those
of the good fishermen with whom I stay, yet I find that beneath it all
there lies kind, honest natures. No doubt you are kind and good too, in
spite of your roughness.”

“In the name of the devil,” I said, “say your say and go your way. I am
weary of the sight of you.”

“Can I not soften you in any way?” he cried. “Ah, see--see here!” He
produced a small Grecian cross from inside his velvet jacket. “Look
at this. Our religions may differ in form, but at least we have some
common thoughts and feelings when we see this emblem.”

“I am not so sure of that,” I answered.

He looked at me thoughtfully.

“You are a very strange man,” he said at last. “I cannot understand
you. You still stand between me and Sophie. It is a dangerous position
to take, sir. Oh, believe me, before it is too late. If you did but
know what I have done to gain that woman--how I have risked my body,
how I have lost my soul. You are a small obstacle to some which I have
surmounted--you, whom a rip with a knife or a blow from a stone, would
put out of my way forever. But God preserve me from that,” he cried,
wildly. “I am deep--too deep--already. Anything rather than that.”

“You would do better to go back to your country,” I said, “than to
skulk about these sandhills and disturb my leisure. When I have proof
that you have gone away, I shall hand this woman over to the protection
of the Russian Consul at Edinburgh. Until then, I shall guard her
myself, and not you, nor any Muscovite that ever breathed shall take
her from me.”

“And what is your object in keeping me from Sophie?” he asked. “Do you
imagine that I would injure her? Why, man, I would give my life freely
to save her from the slightest harm. Why do you do this thing?”

“I do it because it is my good pleasure to act so,” I answered. “I give
no man reasons for my conduct.”

“Look here!” he cried, suddenly blazing into fury, and advancing toward
me with his shaggy mane bristling and his brown hands clenched. “If I
thought you had one dishonest thought toward this girl--if for a moment
I had reason to believe that you had any base motive for detaining
her--as sure as there is a God in heaven I should drag the heart out of
your bosom with my hands.” The very idea seemed to have put the man in
a frenzy, for his face was all distorted and his hands opened and shut
convulsively. I thought that he was about to spring at my throat.

“Stand off!” I said, putting my hand on my pistol. “If you lay a finger
on me I shall kill you.”

He put his hand into his pocket, and for a moment I thought that he was
about to produce a weapon, too, but instead of that he whipped out a
cigarette and lit it, breathing the smoke rapidly into his lungs. No
doubt he had found by experience that this was the most effectual way
of curbing his passions.

“I told you,” he said, in a quieter voice, “that my name is
Ourganeff--Alexis Ourganeff. I am a Finn by birth, but I have spent my
life in every part of the world. I was one who could never be still
nor settle down to a quiet existence. After I came to own my own ship,
there is hardly a port from Archangel to Australia which I have not
entered. I was rough and wild and free, but there was one at home,
sir, who was prim and white-handed and soft-tongued, skilful in little
fancies and conceits which women love. This youth, by his wiles and
tricks stole from me the love of the girl whom I had ever marked as
my own, and who up to that time had seemed in some sort inclined to
return my passion. I had been on a voyage to Hammerfest for ivory, and
coming back unexpectedly I learned that my pride and treasure was to be
married to this soft-skinned boy, and that the party had actually gone
to the church. In such moments, sir, something gives way in my head,
and I hardly know what I do. I landed with a boat’s crew--all men who
had sailed with me for years, and who were as true as steel. We went
up to the church. They were standing, she and he, before the priest,
but the thing had not been done. I dashed between them and caught her
round the waist. My men beat back the frightened bridegroom and the
lookers-on. We bore her down to the boat and aboard our vessel, and
then, getting up anchor, we sailed away across the White Sea until the
spires of Archangel sank down behind the horizon. She had my cabin, my
room, every comfort. I slept among the men in the forecastle. I hoped
that in time her aversion to me would wear away, and that she would
consent to marry me in England or in France. For days and days we
sailed. We saw the North Cape die away behind us, and we skirted the
gray Norwegian coast, but still, in spite of every attention, she would
not forgive me for tearing her from that pale-faced lover of hers. Then
came this cursed storm which shattered both my ship and my hopes, and
has deprived me even of the sight of the woman for whom I have risked
so much. Perhaps she may learn to love me yet. You, sir,” he said,
wistfully, “look like one who has seen much of the world. Do you not
think that she may come to forget this man and to love me?”

“I am tired of your story,” I said, turning away. “For my part, I think
you are a great fool. If you imagine that this love of yours will pass
away, you had best amuse yourself as best you can until it does. If, on
the other hand, it is a fixed thing, you cannot do better than cut your
throat, for that is the shortest way out of it. I have no more time to
waste on the matter.”

With this I hurried away and walked down to the boat. I never looked
round, but I heard the dull sound of his feet upon the sands as he
followed me.

“I have told you the beginning of my story,” he said, “and you shall
know the end some day. You would do well to let the girl go.”

I never answered him, but pushed the boat off. When I had rowed some
distance out I looked back and saw his tall figure upon the yellow sand
as he stood gazing thoughtfully after me. When I looked again, some
minutes later, he had disappeared.

For a long time after this my life was as regular and as monotonous as
it had been before the shipwreck. At times I hoped that the man from
Archangel had gone away altogether, but certain footsteps which I saw
upon the sand, and more particularly a little pile of cigarette ash
which I found one day behind a hillock from which a view of the house
might be obtained, warned me that, though invisible, he was still in
the vicinity. My relations with the Russian girl remained the same as
before. Old Madge had been somewhat jealous of her presence at first,
and seemed to fear that what little authority she had would be taken
away from her. By degrees, however, as she came to realize my utter
indifference, she became reconciled to the situation, and, as I have
said before, profited by it, as our visitor performed much of the
domestic work.

And now I am coming near the end of this narrative of mine, which I
have written a great deal more for my own amusement than for that of
anyone else. The termination of the strange episode in which these
two Russians had played a part was as wild and as sudden as the
commencement. The events of one single night freed me from all my
troubles, and left me once more alone with my books and my studies, as
I had been before their intrusion. Let me endeavor to describe how this
came about.

I had had a long day of heavy and wearying work, so that in the evening
I determined upon taking a long walk. When I emerged from the house
my attention was attracted by the appearance of the sea. It lay like
a sheet of glass, so that never a ripple disturbed its surface. Yet
the air was filled with that indescribable moaning sound which I have
alluded to before--a sound as though the spirits of all those who lay
beneath those treacherous waters were sending a sad warning of coming
troubles to their brethren in the flesh. The fishermen’s wives along
that coast know the eerie sound, and look anxiously across the waters
for the brown sails making for the land. When I heard it I stepped back
into the house and looked at the glass. It was down below 29°. Then I
knew that a wild night was coming upon us.

Underneath the hills where I walked that evening it was dull and
chill, but their summits were rosy-red and the sea was brightened by
the sinking sun. There were no clouds of importance in the sky, yet
the dull groaning of the sea grew louder and stronger. I saw, far to
the eastward, a brig beating up for Wick, with a reef in her topsails.
It was evident that her captain had read the signs of nature as I had
done. Behind her a long, lurid haze lay low upon the water, concealing
the horizon. “I had better push on,” I thought to myself, “or the wind
may rise before I get back.”

I suppose I must have been at least half a mile from the house when I
suddenly stopped and listened breathlessly. My ears were so accustomed
to the noises of nature, the sighing of the breeze and the sob of the
waves, that any other sound made itself heard at a great distance.
I waited, listening with all my ears. Yes, there it was again--a
long-drawn, shrill cry of despair ringing over the sands and echoed
back from the hills behind me--a piteous appeal for aid. It came from
the direction of my house. I turned and ran back homeward at the top of
my speed, ploughing through the sand, racing over the shingle. In my
mind there was a great dim perception of what had occurred.

About a quarter of a mile from the house there is a high sandhill,
from which the whole country round is visible. When I reached the top
of this I paused for a moment. There was the old gray building--there
the boat. Everything seemed to be as I had left it. Even as I gazed,
however, the shrill scream was repeated, louder than before, and the
next moment a tall figure emerged from my door--the figure of the
Russian sailor. Over his shoulder was the white form of the young girl,
and even in his haste he seemed to bear her tenderly and with gentle
reverence. I could hear her wild cries and see her desperate struggles
to break away from him. Behind the couple came my old housekeeper,
stanch and true--as the aged dog, who can no longer bite, still snarls
with toothless gums at the intruder. She staggered feebly along at the
heels of the ravisher, waving her long, thin arms, and hurling, no
doubt, volleys of Scotch curses and imprecations at his head. I saw at
a glance that he was making for the boat. A sudden hope sprang up in my
soul that I might be in time to intercept him. I ran for the beach at
the top of my speed. As I ran I slipped a cartridge into my revolver.
This I determined should be the last of these invasions.

I was too late. By the time I reached the water’s edge he was a hundred
yards away, making the boat spring with every stroke of his powerful
arms. I uttered a wild cry of impotent anger, and stamped up and down
the sands like a maniac. He turned and saw me. Rising from his seat
he made me a graceful bow, and waved his hand to me. It was not a
triumphant or a derisive gesture. Even my furious and distempered mind
recognized it as being a solemn and courteous leave-taking. Then he
settled down to his oars once more, and the little skiff shot away
out over the bay. The sun had gone down now, leaving a single dull,
red streak upon the water, which stretched away until it blended with
the purple haze on the horizon. Gradually the skiff grew smaller and
smaller as it sped across this lurid band, until the shades of night
gathered round it and it became a mere blur upon the lonely sea.
Then this vague loom died away also, and darkness settled over it--a
darkness which should never more be raised.

And why did I pace the solitary shore, hot and wrathful as a wolf whose
whelp has been torn from it? Was it that I loved this Muscovite girl?
No--a thousand times no. I am not one who, for the sake of a white skin
or a blue eye, would belie my own life, and change the whole tenor of
my thoughts and existence. My heart was untouched. But my pride--ah,
there I had been cruelly wounded. To think that I had been unable to
afford protection to the helpless one who craved it of me, and who
relied on me! It was that which made my heart sick and sent the blood
buzzing through my ears.

That night a great wind rose up from the sea, and the wild waves
shrieked upon the shore as though they would tear it back with them
into the ocean. The turmoil and the uproar were congenial to my vexed
spirit. All night I wandered up and down, wet with spray and rain,
watching the gleam of the white breakers, and listening to the outcry
of the storm. My heart was bitter against the Russian. I joined my
feeble pipe to the screaming of the gale. “If he would but come back
again!” I cried, with clenched hands; “if he would but come back!”

He came back. When the gray light of morning spread over the eastern
sky and lit up the great waste of yellow, tossing waters, with the
brown clouds drifting swiftly over them, then I saw him once again.
A few hundred yards off along the sand there lay a long dark object,
cast up by the fury of the waves. It was my boat, much shattered
and splintered. A little farther on a vague, shapeless something
was washing to and fro in the shallow water, all mixed with shingle
and with sea-weed. I saw at a glance that it was the Russian, face
downward and dead. I rushed into the water and dragged him up on to
the beach. It was only when I turned him over that I discovered that
she was beneath him, his dead arms encircling her, his mangled body
still intervening between her and the fury of the storm. It seemed
that the fierce German Sea might beat the life from him, but with all
its strength it was unable to tear this one-idea’d man from the woman
whom he loved. There were signs which led me to believe that during
that awful night the woman’s fickle mind had come at last to learn the
worth of the true heart and strong arm which struggled for her and
guarded her so tenderly. Why else should her little head be nestling
so lovingly on his broad breast, while her yellow hair entwined itself
with his flowing beard? Why, too, should there be that bright smile of
ineffable happiness and triumph, which death itself had not had power
to banish from his dusky face? I fancy that death had been brighter to
him than life had ever been.

Madge and I buried them there on the shores of the desolate northern
sea. They lie in one grave deep down beneath the yellow sand. Strange
things may happen in the world around them. Empires may rise and may
fall, dynasties may perish, great wars may come and go, but, heedless
of it all, those two shall embrace each other forever and aye in their
lonely shrine by the side of the sounding ocean. I sometimes have
thought that their spirits flit like shadowy sea-mews over the wild
waters of the bay. No cross or symbol marks their resting-place, but
old Madge puts wild flowers upon it at times; and when I pass on my
daily walk and see the fresh blossoms scattered over the sand, I think
of the strange couple who came from afar and broke for a little space
the dull tenor of my sombre life.




THAT LITTLE SQUARE BOX.


“All aboard?” said the captain.

“All aboard, sir!” said the mate.

“Then stand by to let her go.”

It was nine o’clock on a Wednesday morning. The good ship Spartan was
lying off Boston Quay with her cargo under hatches, her passengers
shipped, and everything prepared for a start. The warning whistle had
been sounded twice, the final bell had been rung. Her bowsprit was
turned toward England, and the hiss of escaping steam showed that all
was ready for her run of three thousand miles. She strained at the
warps that held her like a greyhound at its leash.

I have the misfortune to be a very nervous man. A sedentary literary
life has helped to increase the morbid love of solitude which, even in
my boyhood, was one of my distinguishing characteristics. As I stood
upon the quarter-deck of the Transatlantic steamer, I bitterly cursed
the necessity which drove me back to the land of my forefathers. The
shouts of the sailors, the rattle of the cordage, the farewells of my
fellow-passengers, and the cheers of the mob, each and all jarred upon
my sensitive nature. I felt sad, too. An indescribable feeling, as of
some impending calamity, seemed to haunt me. The sea was calm and the
breeze light. There was nothing to disturb the equanimity of the most
confirmed of landsmen, yet I felt as if I stood upon the verge of a
great though indefinable danger. I have noticed that such presentiments
occur often in men of my peculiar temperament, and that they are not
uncommonly fulfilled. There is a theory that it arises from a species
of second-sight--a subtle spiritual communication with the future. I
well remember that Herr Raumer, the eminent spiritualist, remarked
on one occasion that I was the most sensitive subject as regards
supernatural phenomena that he had ever encountered in the whole of his
wide experience. Be that as it may, I certainly felt far from happy as
I threaded my way among the weeping, cheering groups which dotted the
white decks of the good ship Spartan. Had I known the experience which
awaited me in the course of the next twelve hours, I would even then,
at the last moment, have sprung upon the shore, and made my escape from
the accursed vessel.

“Time’s up!” said the captain, closing his chronometer with a snap, and
replacing it in his pocket.

“Time’s up!” said the mate. There was a last wail from the whistle, a
rush of friends and relatives upon the land. One warp was loosened, the
gangway was being pushed away, when there was a shout from the bridge,
and two men appeared running rapidly down the quay. They were waving
their hands and making frantic gestures, apparently with the intention
of stopping the ship. “Look sharp!” shouted the crowd. “Hold hard!”
cried the captain. “Ease her! stop her! Up with the gangway!” and the
two men sprang aboard just as the second warp parted, and a convulsive
throb of the engine shot us clear of the shore. There was a cheer from
the deck, another from the quay, a mighty fluttering of handkerchiefs,
and the great vessel ploughed its way out of the harbor, and steamed
grandly away across the placid bay.

We were fairly started upon our fortnight’s voyage. There was a general
dive among the passengers in quest of berths and luggage, while a
popping of corks in the saloon proved that more than one bereaved
traveller was adopting artificial means for drowning the pangs of
separation. I glanced round the deck and took a running inventory of
my _compagnons de voyage_. They presented the usual types met with
upon these occasions. There was no striking face among them. I speak
as a connoisseur, for faces are a specialty of mine. I pounce upon a
characteristic feature as a botanist does on a flower, and bear it
away with me to analyze at my leisure, and classify and label it in my
little anthropological museum. There was nothing worthy of me here.
Twenty types of young America going to “Yurrup,” a few respectable
middle-aged couples as an antidote, a sprinkling of clergymen and
professional men, young ladies, bagmen, British exclusives, and all
the _olla podrida_ of an ocean-going steamer. I turned away from them
and gazed back at the receding shores of America, and, as a cloud of
remembrances rose before me, my heart warmed toward the land of my
adoption. A pile of portmanteaus and luggage chanced to be lying on one
side of the deck, awaiting their turn to be taken below. With my usual
love for solitude I walked behind these, and sitting on a coil of rope
between them and the vessel’s side, I indulged in a melancholy reverie.

I was aroused from this by a whisper behind me. “Here’s a quiet place,”
said the voice. “Sit down, and we can talk it over in safety.”

Glancing through a chink between two colossal chests, I saw that
the passengers who had joined us at the last moment were standing at
the other side of the pile. They had evidently failed to see me as I
crouched in the shadow of the boxes. The one who had spoken was a tall
and very thin man with a blue-black beard and a colorless face. His
manner was nervous and excited. His companion was a short, plethoric
little fellow, with a brisk and resolute air. He had a cigar in his
mouth, and a large ulster slung over his left arm. They both glanced
round uneasily, as if to ascertain whether they were alone. “This is
just the place,” I heard the other say. They sat down on a bale of
goods with their backs turned toward me, and I found myself, much
against my will, playing the unpleasant part of eavesdropper to their
conversation.

“Well, Muller,” said the taller of the two, “we’ve got it aboard right
enough.”

“Yes,” assented the man whom he had addressed as Muller; “it’s safe
aboard.”

“It was rather a near go.”

“It was that, Flannigan.”

“It wouldn’t have done to have missed the ship.”

“No; it would have put our plans out.”

“Ruined them entirely,” said the little man, and puffed furiously at
his cigar for some minutes.

“I’ve got it here,” he said at last.

“Let me see it.”

“Is no one looking?”

“No; they are nearly all below.”

“We can’t be too careful where so much is at stake,” said Muller, as
he uncoiled the ulster which hung over his arm, and disclosed a dark
object which he laid upon the deck. One glance at it was enough to
cause me to spring to my feet with an exclamation of horror. Luckily
they were so engrossed in the matter on hand that neither of them
observed me. Had they turned their heads they would infallibly have
seen my pale face glaring at them over the pile of boxes.

From the first moment of their conversation a horrible misgiving had
come over me. It seemed more than confirmed as I gazed at what lay
before me. It was a little square box made of some dark wood, and
ribbed with brass. I suppose it was about the size of a cubic foot. It
reminded me of a pistol-case, only it was decidedly higher. There was
an appendage to it, however, on which my eyes were riveted, and which
suggested the pistol itself rather than its receptacle. This was a
trigger-like arrangement upon the lid, to which a coil of string was
attached. Beside this trigger there was a small square aperture through
the wood. The tall man, Flannigan, as his companion called him, applied
his eye to this and peered in for several minutes with an expression of
intense anxiety upon his face.

“It seems right enough,” he said at last.

“I tried not to shake it,” said his companion.

“Such delicate things heed delicate treatment. Put in some of the
needful, Muller.”

The shorter man fumbled in his pocket for some time, and then produced
a small paper packet. He opened this, and took out of it half a handful
of whitish granules, which he poured down through the hole. A curious
clicking noise followed from the inside of the box, and both the men
smiled in a satisfied way.

“Nothing much wrong there,” said Flannigan.

“Right as a trivet,” answered his companion.

“Look out! here’s some one coming. Take it down to our berth. It
wouldn’t do to have any one suspecting what our game is, or, worse
still, have them fumbling with it, and letting it off by mistake.”

“Well, it would come to the same, whoever let it off,” said Muller.

“They’d be rather astonished if they pulled the trigger,” said the
taller, with a sinister laugh. “Ha, ha! fancy their faces! It’s not a
bad bit of workmanship, I flatter myself.”

“No,” said Muller. “I hear it is your own design, every bit of it,
isn’t it?”

“Yes, the spring and the sliding shutter are my own.”

“We should take out a patent.”

And the two men laughed again with a cold, harsh laugh, as they took up
the little brass-bound package and concealed it in Muller’s voluminous
overcoat.

“Come down, and we’ll stow it in our berth,” said Flannigan. “We won’t
need it until to-night, and it will be safe there.”

His companion assented, and the two went arm-in-arm along the deck
and disappeared down the hatchway, bearing the mysterious little box
away with them. The last words I heard were a muttered injunction from
Flannigan to carry it carefully, and avoid knocking it against the
bulwarks.

How long I remained sitting on that coil of rope, I shall never know.
The horror of the conversation I had just overheard was aggravated by
the first sinking qualms of sea-sickness. The long roll of the Atlantic
was beginning to assert itself over both ship and passengers. I felt
prostrated in mind and in body, and fell into a state of collapse,
from which I was finally aroused by the hearty voice of our worthy
quartermaster.

“Do you mind moving out of that, sir?” he said. “We want to get this
lumber cleared off the deck.”

His bluff manner and ruddy, healthy face seemed to be a positive insult
to me in my present condition. Had I been a courageous or a muscular
man I could have struck him. As it was, I treated the honest sailor to
a melodramatic scowl, which seemed to cause him no small astonishment,
and strode past him to the other side of the deck. Solitude was what
I wanted--solitude in which I could brood over the frightful crime
which was being hatched before my very eyes. One of the quarter-boats
was hanging rather low down upon the davits. An idea struck me, and,
climbing on the bulwarks, I stepped into the empty boat and lay down in
the bottom of it. Stretched on my back, with nothing but the blue sky
above me, and an occasional view of the mizzen as the vessel rolled, I
was at least alone with my sickness and my thoughts.

I tried to recall the words which had been spoken in the terrible
dialogue I had overheard. Would they admit of any construction but the
one which stared me in the face? My reason forced me to confess that
they would not. I endeavored to array the various facts which formed
the chain of circumstantial evidence, and to find a flaw in it; but
no, not a link was missing. There was the strange way in which our
passengers had come aboard, enabling them to evade any examination
of their luggage. The very name of “Flannigan” smacked of Fenianism,
while “Muller” suggested nothing but Socialism and murder. Then their
mysterious manner; their remark that their plans would have been ruined
had they missed the ship; their fear of being observed; last, but not
least, the clenching evidence in the production of the little square
box with the trigger, and their grim joke about the face of the man who
should let it off by mistake--could these facts lead to any conclusion
other than that they were the desperate emissaries of some body,
political or otherwise, and intended to sacrifice themselves, their
fellow-passengers, and the ship, in one great holocaust? The whitish
granules which I had seen one of them pour into the box formed no doubt
a fuse or train for exploding it. I had myself heard a sound come from
it which might have emanated from some delicate piece of machinery.
But what did they mean by their allusion to to-night? Could it be that
they contemplated putting their horrible design into execution on the
very first evening of our voyage? The mere thought of it sent a cold
shudder over me, and made me for a moment superior even to the agonies
of sea-sickness.

I have remarked that I am a physical coward. I am a moral one also.
It is seldom that the two defects are united to such a degree in
the one character. I have known many men who were most sensitive to
bodily danger, and yet were distinguished for the independence and
strength of their minds. In my own case, however, I regret to say that
my quiet and retiring habits had fostered a nervous dread of doing
anything remarkable, or making myself conspicuous, which exceeded, if
possible, my fear of personal peril. An ordinary mortal placed under
the circumstances in which I now found myself would have gone at once
to the captain, confessed his fears, and put the matter into his hands.
To me, however, constituted as I am, the idea was most repugnant. The
thought of becoming the observed of all observers, cross-questioned
by a stranger, and confronted with two desperate conspirators in
the character of a denouncer, was hateful to me. Might it not by
some remote possibility prove that I was mistaken? What would be my
feelings if there should turn out to be no grounds for my accusation?
No, I would procrastinate; I would keep my eye on the two desperadoes
and dog them at every turn. Anything was better than the possibility of
being wrong.

Then it struck me that even at that moment some new phase of the
conspiracy might be developing itself. The nervous excitement seemed
to have driven away my incipient attack of sickness, for I was able to
stand up and lower myself from the boat without experiencing any return
of it. I staggered along the deck with the intention of descending
into the cabin and finding how my acquaintances of the morning were
occupying themselves. Just as I had my hand on the companion-rail, I
was astonished by receiving a hearty slap on the back, which nearly
shot me down the steps with more haste than dignity.

“Is that you, Hammond?” said a voice which I seemed to recognize.

“God bless me,” I said as I turned round, “it can’t be Dick Merton!
Why, how are you, old man?”

This was an unexpected piece of luck in the midst of my perplexities.
Dick was just the man I wanted; kindly and shrewd in his nature, and
prompt in his actions, I should have no difficulty in telling him
my suspicions, and could rely upon his sound sense to point out the
best course to pursue. Since I was a little lad in the second form at
Harrow, Dick had been my adviser and protector. He saw at a glance that
something had gone wrong with me.

“Hullo!” he said, in his kindly way, “what’s put you about, Hammond?
You look as white as a sheet. _Mal de mer_, eh?”

“No, not that altogether,” said I. “Walk up and down with me, Dick; I
want to speak to you. Give me your arm.”

Supporting myself on Dick’s stalwart frame, I tottered along by his
side; but it was some time before I could muster resolution to speak.

“Have a cigar?” said he, breaking the silence.

“No, thanks,” said I. “Dick, we shall all be corpses to-night.”

“That’s no reason against your having a cigar now,” said Dick, in his
cool way, but looking hard at me from under his shaggy eyebrows as he
spoke. He evidently thought my intellect was a little gone.

“No,” I continued; “it’s no laughing matter, and I speak in sober
earnest, I assure you. I have discovered an infamous conspiracy,
Dick, to destroy this ship and every soul that is in her;” and I then
proceeded systematically, and in order, to lay before him the chain of
evidence which I had collected. “There, Dick,” I said, as I concluded,
“what do you think of that? and, above all, what am I to do?”

To my astonishment he burst into a hearty fit of laughter.

“I’d be frightened,” he said, “if any fellow but you had told me as
much. You always had a way, Hammond, of discovering mares’ nests. I
like to see the old traits breaking out again. Do you remember at
school how you swore there was a ghost in the long room, and how it
turned out to be your own reflection in the mirror? Why, man,” he
continued, “what object would any one have in destroying this ship?
We have no great political guns aboard. On the contrary, the majority
of the passengers are Americans. Besides, in this sober nineteenth
century, the most wholesale murderers stop at including themselves
among their victims. Depend upon it, you have misunderstood them, and
have mistaken a photographic camera, or something equally innocent, for
an infernal machine.”

“Nothing of the sort, sir,” said I, rather touchily. “You will learn to
your cost, I fear, that I have neither exaggerated nor misinterpreted a
word. As to the box, I have certainly never before seen one like it. It
contained delicate machinery; of that I am convinced, from the way in
which the men handled it and spoke of it.”

“You’d make out every packet of perishable goods to be a torpedo,” said
Dick, “if that is to be your only test.”

“The man’s name was Flannigan,” I continued.

“I don’t think that would go very far in a court of law,” said Dick;
“but come, I have finished my cigar. Suppose we go down together and
split a bottle of claret. You can point out these two Orsinis to me if
they are still in the cabin.”

“All right,” I answered; “I am determined not to lose sight of them all
day. Don’t look hard at them, though; for I don’t want them to think
that they are being watched.”

“Trust me,” said Dick; “I’ll look as unconscious and guileless as a
lamb;” and with that we passed down the companion and into the saloon.

A good many passengers were scattered about the great central table,
some wrestling with refractory carpet-bags and rug-straps, some having
their luncheon, and a few reading and otherwise amusing themselves. The
objects of our quest were not there. We passed down the room and peered
into every berth; but there was no sign of them. “Heavens!” thought I,
“perhaps at this very moment they are beneath our feet, in the hold or
engine-room, preparing their diabolical contrivance!” It was better to
know the worst than remain in such suspense.

“Steward,” said Dick, “are there any other gentlemen about?”

“There’s two in the smoking-room, sir,” answered the steward.

The smoking-room was a little snuggery, luxuriously fitted up, and
adjoining the pantry. We pushed the door open and entered. A sigh of
relief escaped from my bosom. The very first object on which my eye
rested was the cadaverous face of Flannigan, with his hard-set mouth
and unwinking eye. His companion sat opposite to him. They were both
drinking, and a pile of cards lay upon the table. They were engaged
in playing as we entered. I nudged Dick to show him that we had found
our quarry, and we sat down beside them with as unconcerned an air as
possible. The two conspirators seemed to take little notice of our
presence. I watched them both narrowly. The game at which they were
playing was “Napoleon.” Both were adepts at it; and I could not help
admiring the consummate nerve of men who, with such a secret at their
hearts, could devote their minds to the manipulating of a long suit or
the finessing of a queen. Money changed hands rapidly; but the run of
luck seemed to be all against the taller of the two players. At last he
threw down his cards on the table with an oath and refused to go on.

“No, I’m hanged if I do!” he said; “I haven’t had more than two of a
suit for five hands.”

“Never mind,” said his comrade, as he gathered up his winnings; “a few
dollars one way or the other won’t go very far after to-night’s work.”

I was astonished at the rascal’s audacity, but took care to keep my
eyes fixed abstractedly upon the ceiling, and drank my wine in as
unconscious a manner as possible. I felt that Flannigan was looking
toward me with his wolfish eyes to see if I had noticed the allusion.
He whispered something to his companion which I failed to catch. It was
a caution, I suppose, for the other answered, rather angrily:

“Nonsense! Why shouldn’t I say what I like? Over-caution is just what
would ruin us.”

“I believe you want it not to come off,” said Flannigan.

“You believe nothing of the sort,” said the other, speaking rapidly
and loudly. “You know as well as I do that when I play for a stake I
like to win it. But I won’t have my words criticised and cut short by
you or any other man; I have as much interest in our success as you
have--more, I hope.”

He was quite hot about it, and puffed furiously at his cigar for a few
minutes. The eyes of the other ruffian wandered alternately from Dick
Merton to myself. I knew that I was in the presence of a desperate man,
that a quiver of my lip might be the signal for him to plunge a weapon
into my heart; but I betrayed more self-command than I should have
given myself credit for under such trying circumstances. As to Dick, he
was as immovable and apparently as unconscious as the Egyptian Sphinx.

There was silence for some time in the smoking-room, broken only by the
crisp rattle of the cards as the man Muller shuffled them up before
replacing them in his pocket. He still seemed to be somewhat flushed
and irritable. Throwing the end of his cigar into the spittoon, he
glanced defiantly at his companion, and turned toward me.

“Can you tell me, sir,” he said, “when this ship will be heard of
again?”

They were both looking at me; but though my face may have turned a
trifle paler, my voice was as steady as ever as I answered:

“I presume, sir, that it will be heard of first when it enters
Queenstown Harbor.”

“Ha, ha!” laughed the angry little man; “I knew you would say that.
Don’t you kick me under the table, Flannigan; I won’t stand it. I know
what I am doing. You are wrong, sir,” he continued, turning to me;
“utterly wrong.”

“Some passing ship, perhaps,” suggested Dick.

“No, nor that either.”

“The weather is fine,” I said; “why should we not be heard of at our
destination?”

“I didn’t say we shouldn’t be heard of at our destination. No doubt we
shall in the course of time; but that is not where we shall be heard of
first.”

“Where, then?” asked Dick.

“That you will never know. Suffice it that a rapid and mysterious
agency will signal our whereabouts, and that before the day is out. Ha,
ha!” and he chuckled once again.

“Come on deck!” growled his comrade; “you have drunk too much of that
confounded brandy-and-water. It has loosened your tongue. Come away!”
and taking him by the arm he half led him, half forced him out of the
smoking-room, and we heard them stumbling up the companion together,
and on to the deck.

“Well, what do you think now?” I gasped, as I turned toward Dick. He
was as imperturbable as ever.

“Think!” he said; “why, I think what his companion thinks--that we have
been listening to the ravings of a half-drunken man. The fellow stunk
of brandy.”

“Nonsense, Dick! you saw how the other tried to stop his tongue.”

“Of course he did. He didn’t want his friend to make a fool of himself
before strangers. May be the short one is a lunatic, and the other his
private keeper. It’s quite possible.”

“Oh, Dick, Dick,” I cried; “how can you be so blind? Don’t you see that
every word confirmed our previous suspicion?”

“Humbug, man!” said Dick; “you’re working yourself into a state of
nervous excitement. Why, what the devil do _you_ make of all that
nonsense about a mysterious agent who would signal our whereabouts?”

“I’ll tell you what he meant, Dick,” I said, bending forward and
grasping my friend’s arm. “He meant a sudden glare and a flash seen far
out at sea by some lonely fisherman off the American coast. That’s what
he meant.”

“I didn’t think you were such a fool, Hammond,” said Dick Merton,
testily. “If you try to fix a literal meaning on the twaddle that
every drunken man talks, you will come to some queer conclusions. Let
us follow their example, and go on deck. You need fresh air, I think.
Depend upon it, your liver is out of order. A sea-voyage will do you a
world of good.”

“If ever I see the end of this one,” I groaned, “I’ll promise never to
venture on another. They are laying the cloth, so it’s hardly worth
while my going up. I’ll stay below and finish my smoke.”

“I hope dinner will find you in a more pleasant state of mind,” said
Dick; and he went out, leaving me to my thoughts until the clang of the
great gong summoned us to the saloon.

My appetite, I need hardly say, had not been improved by the incidents
which had occurred during the day. I sat down, however, mechanically
at the table, and listened to the talk which was going on around me.
There were nearly a hundred first-class passengers, and as the wine
began to circulate, their voices combined with the clash of the dishes
to form a perfect Babel. I found myself seated between a very stout and
nervous old lady and a prim little clergyman; and as neither made any
advances, I retired into my shell, and spent my time in observing the
appearance of my fellow-voyagers. I could see Dick in the dim distance
dividing his attentions between a jointless fowl in front of him and
a self-possessed young lady at his side. Captain Dowie was doing the
honors at my end, while the surgeon of the vessel was seated at the
other. I was glad to notice that Flannigan was placed almost opposite
to me. As long as I had him before my eyes I knew that, for the time
at least, we were safe. He was sitting with what was meant to be a
sociable smile on his grim face. It did not escape me that he drank
largely of wine--so largely that even before the dessert appeared
his voice had become decidedly husky. His friend Muller was seated a
few places lower down. He ate little, and appeared to be nervous and
restless.

“Now, ladies,” said our genial captain, “I trust that you will consider
yourselves at home aboard my vessel. I have no fears for the gentlemen.
A bottle of champagne, steward. Here’s to a fresh breeze and a quick
passage! I trust our friends in America will hear of our safe arrival
in twelve days, or a fortnight at the very latest.”

I looked up. Quick as was the glance which passed between Flannigan and
his confederate, I was able to intercept it. There was an evil smile
upon the former’s thin lips.

The conversation rippled on. Politics, the sea, amusements, religion,
each was in turn discussed. I remained a silent though an interested
listener. It struck me that no harm could be done by introducing the
subject which was ever in my mind. It could be managed in an off-hand
way, and would at least have the effect of turning the captain’s
thoughts in that direction. I could watch, too, what effect it would
have upon the faces of the conspirators.

There was a sudden lull in the conversation. The ordinary subjects of
interest appeared to be exhausted. The opportunity was a favorable one.

“May I ask, captain,” I said, bending forward and speaking very
distinctly, “what you think of Fenian manifestoes?”

The captain’s ruddy face became a shade darker from honest indignation.

“They are poor cowardly things,” he said, “as silly as they are wicked.”

“The impotent threats of a set of anonymous scoundrels,” said a
pompous-looking old gentleman beside him.

“Oh, captain!” said the fat lady at my side, “you don’t really think
they would blow up a ship?”

“I have no doubt they would if they could. But I am very sure they will
never blow up mine.”

“May I ask what precautions are taken against them?” said an elderly
man at the end of the table.

“All goods sent aboard the ship are strictly examined,” said Captain
Dowie.

“But suppose a man brought explosives aboard with him?” said I.

“They are too cowardly to risk their own lives in that way.”

During this conversation Flannigan had not betrayed the slightest
interest in what was going on. He raised his head now, and looked at
the captain.

“Don’t you think you are rather underrating them?” he said. “Every
secret society has produced desperate men--why shouldn’t the Fenians
have them too? Many men think it a privilege to die in the service of a
cause which seems right in their eyes though others may think it wrong.”

“Indiscriminate murder cannot be right in anybody’s eyes,” said the
little clergyman.

“The bombardment of Paris was nothing else,” said Flannigan; “yet the
whole civilized world agreed to look on with folded arms, and change
the ugly word ‘murder’ into the more euphonious one of ‘war.’ It seemed
right enough to German eyes; why shouldn’t dynamite seem so to the
Fenian?”

“At any rate their empty vaporings have led to nothing as yet,” said
the captain.

“Excuse me,” returned Flannigan, “but is there not some room for
doubt yet as to the fate of the Dotterel? I have met men in America
who asserted from their own personal knowledge that there was a coal
torpedo aboard that vessel.”

“Then they lied,” said the captain. “It was proved conclusively at the
court-martial to have arisen from an explosion of coal-gas--but we
had better change the subject, or we may cause the ladies to have a
restless night;” and the conversation once more drifted back into its
original channel.

During this little discussion Flannigan had argued his point with a
gentlemanly deference and a quiet power for which I had not given him
credit. I could not help admiring a man who, on the eve of a desperate
enterprise, could courteously argue upon a point which must touch
him so nearly. He had, as I have already mentioned, partaken of a
considerable quantity of wine; but though there was a slight flush
upon his pale cheek, his manner was as reserved as ever. He did not
join in the conversation again, but seemed to be lost in thought.

A whirl of conflicting ideas was battling in my own mind. What was I to
do? Should I stand up now and denounce them before both passengers and
captain? Should I demand a few minutes’ conversation with the latter in
his own cabin, and reveal it all? For an instant I was half resolved
to do it, but then the old constitutional timidity came back with
redoubled force. After all there might be some mistake. Dick had heard
the evidence, and had refused to believe in it. I determined to let
things go on their course. A strange reckless feeling came over me. Why
should I help men who were blind to their own danger? Surely it was the
duty of the officers to protect us, not ours to give warning to them. I
drank off a couple of glasses of wine, and staggered upon deck with the
determination of keeping my secret locked in my own bosom.

It was a glorious evening. Even in my excited state of mind I could
not help leaning against the bulwarks and enjoying the refreshing
breeze. Away to the westward a solitary sail stood out as a dark speck
against the great sheet of flame left by the setting sun. I shuddered
as I looked at it. It seemed like a sea of blood. A single star was
twinkling faintly above our main-mast, but a thousand seemed to gleam
in the water below with every stroke of our propeller. The only blot in
the fair scene was the great trail of smoke which stretched away behind
us like a black slash upon a crimson curtain. It seemed hard to believe
that the great peace which hung over all Nature could be marred by a
poor miserable mortal.

“After all,” I thought, as I gazed upon the blue depths beneath me,
“if the worst comes to the worst, it is better to die here than to
linger in agony upon a sick-bed on land.” A man’s life seems a very
paltry thing amid the great forces of Nature. All my philosophy could
not prevent my shuddering, however, when I turned my head and saw
two shadowy figures at the other side of the deck, which I had no
difficulty in recognizing. They seemed to be conversing earnestly,
but I had no opportunity of overhearing what was said; so I contented
myself with pacing up and down, and keeping a vigilant watch upon their
movements.

It was a relief to me when Dick came on deck. Even an incredulous
confidant is better than none at all.

“Well, old man,” he said, giving me a facetious dig in the ribs, “we’ve
not been blown up yet.”

“No, not yet,” said I; “but that’s no proof that we are not going to
be.”

“Nonsense, man!” said Dick; “I can’t conceive what has put this
extraordinary idea into your head. I have been talking to one of your
supposed assassins, and he seems a pleasant fellow enough; quite a
sporting character, I should think, from the way he speaks.”

“Dick,” I said, “I am as certain that those men have an infernal
machine, and that we are on the verge of eternity, as if I saw them
putting the match to the fuse.”

“Well, if you really think so,” said Dick, half awed for the moment by
the earnestness of my manner, “it is your duty to let the captain know
of your suspicions.”

“You are right,” I said; “I will. My absurd timidity has prevented my
doing so sooner. I believe our lives can only be saved by laying the
whole matter before him.”

“Well, go and do it now,” said Dick; “but for goodness’ sake don’t mix
me up in the matter.”

“I’ll speak to him when he comes off the bridge,” I answered; “and in
the mean time I don’t mean to lose sight of them.”

“Let me know of the result,” said my companion; and with a nod he
strolled away in search, I fancy, of his partner at the dinner-table.

Left to myself, I bethought me of my retreat of the morning, and
climbing on the bulwark I mounted into the quarter-boat, and lay down
there. In it I could reconsider my course of action, and by raising my
head I was able at any time to get a view of my disagreeable neighbors.

An hour passed, and the captain was still on the bridge. He was talking
to one of the passengers, a retired naval officer, and the two were
deep in debate concerning some abstruse point in navigation. I could
see the red tips of their cigars from where I lay. It was dark now--so
dark that I could hardly make out the figures of Flannigan and his
accomplice. They were still standing in the position which they had
taken up after dinner. A few of the passengers were scattered about the
deck, but many had gone below. A strange stillness seemed to pervade
the air. The voices of the watch and the rattle of the wheel were the
only sounds which broke the silence.

Another half-hour passed. The captain was still upon the bridge. It
seemed as if he would never come down. My nerves were in a state of
unnatural tension, so much so that the sound of two steps upon the deck
made me start up in a quiver of excitement. I peered over the side of
the boat, and saw that our suspicious passengers had crossed from the
other side and were standing almost directly beneath me. The light of
a binnacle fell full upon the ghastly face of the ruffian Flannigan.
Even in that short glance I saw that Muller had the ulster, whose use
I knew so well, slung loosely over his arm. I sank back with a groan.
It seemed that my fatal procrastination had sacrificed two hundred
innocent lives.

I had read of the fiendish vengeance which awaited a spy. I knew that
men with their lives in their hands would stick at nothing. All I could
do was to cower at the bottom of the boat and listen silently to their
whispered talk below.

“This place will do,” said a voice.

“Yes, the leeward side is best.”

“I wonder if the trigger will act?”

“I am sure it will.”

“We were to let it off at ten, were we not?”

“Yes, at ten sharp. We have eight minutes yet.”

There was a pause. Then the voice began again--

“They’ll hear the drop of the trigger, won’t they?”

“It doesn’t matter. It will be too late for anyone to prevent its going
off.”

“That’s true. There will be some excitement among those we have left
behind, won’t there?”

“Rather! How long do you reckon it will be before they hear of us?”

“The first news will get in in about twenty-four hours.”

“That will be mine.”

“No, mine.”

“Ha, ha! we’ll settle that.”

There was a pause here. Then I heard Muller’s voice in a ghastly
whisper, “There’s only five minutes more.”

How slowly the moments seemed to pass! I could count them by the
throbbing of my heart.

“It’ll make a sensation on land,” said a voice.

“Yes, it will make a noise in the newspapers.”

I raised my head and peered over the side of the boat. There seemed no
hope, no help. Death stared me in the face, whether I did or did not
give the alarm. The captain had at last left the bridge. The deck was
deserted, save for those two dark figures crouching in the shadow of
the boat.

Flannigan had a watch lying open in his hand.

“Three minutes more,” he said. “Put it down upon the deck.”

“No, put it here on the bulwarks.”

It was the little square box. I knew by the sound that they had placed
it near the davit, and almost exactly under my head.

I looked over again. Flannigan was pouring something out of a paper
into his hand. It was white and granular--the same that I had seen him
use in the morning. It was meant as a fuse, no doubt, for he shovelled
it into the little box, and I heard the strange noise which had
previously arrested my attention.

“A minute and a half more,” he said. “Shall you or I pull the string?”

“I will pull it,” said Muller.

He was kneeling down and holding the end in his hand. Flannigan stood
behind with his arms folded, and an air of grim resolution upon his
face.

I could stand it no longer. My nervous system seemed to give way in a
moment.

“Stop!” I screamed, springing to my feet. “Stop, misguided and
unprincipled men!”

They both staggered backward. I fancy they thought I was a spirit,
with the moonlight streaming down upon my pale face.

I was brave enough now. I had gone too far to retreat.

“Cain was damned!” I cried, “and he slew but one; would you have the
blood of two hundred upon your souls?”

“He’s mad!” said Flannigan. “Time’s up! Let it off, Muller.”

I sprang down upon the deck.

“You shan’t do it!” I said.

“By what right do you prevent us?”

“By every right, human and divine.”

“It’s no business of yours. Clear out of this!”

“Never!” said I.

“Confound the fellow! There’s too much at stake to stand on ceremony.
I’ll hold him, Muller, while you pull the trigger.”

Next moment I was struggling in the herculean grasp of the Irishman.
Resistance was useless; I was a child in his hands.

He pinned me up against the side of the vessel, and held me there.

“Now,” he said, “look sharp. He can’t prevent us.”

I felt that I was standing on the verge of eternity. Half-strangled
in the arms of the taller ruffian, I saw the other approach the fatal
box. He stooped over it and seized the string. I breathed one prayer
when I saw his grasp tighten upon it. Then came a sharp snap, a strange
rasping noise. The trigger had fallen, the side of the box flew out,
and let off--_two gray carrier-pigeons_!

       *       *       *       *       *

Little more need be said. It is not a subject on which I care to dwell.
The whole thing is too utterly disgusting and absurd. Perhaps the best
thing I can do is to retire gracefully from the scene, and let the
sporting correspondent of the _New York Herald_ fill my unworthy place.
Here is an extract clipped from its columns shortly after our departure
from America:

 “Pigeon-flying Extraordinary.--A novel match has been brought off,
 last week, between the birds of John H. Flannigan, of Boston, and
 Jeremiah Muller, a well-known citizen of Ashport. Both men have
 devoted much time and attention to an improved breed of bird, and the
 challenge is an old-standing one. The pigeons were backed to a large
 amount, and there was considerable local interest in the result. The
 start was from the deck of the Transatlantic steamship Spartan, at ten
 o’clock on the evening of the day of starting, the vessel being then
 reckoned to be about a hundred miles from the land. The bird which
 reached home first was to be declared the winner. Considerable caution
 had, we believe, to be observed, as British captains have a prejudice
 against the bringing off of sporting events aboard their vessels.
 In spite of some little difficulty at the last moment, the trap was
 sprung almost exactly at ten o’clock. Muller’s bird arrived in Ashport
 in an extreme state of exhaustion on the following afternoon, while
 Flannigan’s has not been heard of. The backers of the latter have
 the satisfaction of knowing, however, that the whole affair has been
 characterized by extreme fairness. The pigeons were confined in a
 specially invented trap, which could only be opened by the spring. It
 was thus possible to feed them through an aperture in the top, but any
 tampering with their wings was quite out of the question. A few such
 matches would go far toward popularizing pigeon-flying in America,
 and form an agreeable variety to the morbid exhibitions of human
 endurance which have assumed such proportions during the last few
 years.”




A NIGHT AMONG THE NIHILISTS.


“Robinson, the boss wants you!”

“The dickens he does!” thought I; for Mr. Dickson, Odessa agent of
Bailey & Co., corn merchants, was a bit of a Tartar, as I had learned
to my cost. “What’s the row now?” I demanded of my fellow clerk; “has
he got scent of our Nicolaieff escapade, or what is it?”

“No idea,” said Gregory; “the old boy seems in a good enough humor;
some business matter, probably. But don’t keep him waiting.” So
summoning up an air of injured innocence, to be ready for all
contingencies, I marched into the lion’s den.

Mr. Dickson was standing before the fire in a Briton’s time-honored
attitude, and motioned me into a chair in front of him. “Mr. Robinson,”
he said, “I have great confidence in your discretion and common
sense. The follies of youth will break out, but I think that you have
a sterling foundation to your character underlying any superficial
levity.”

I bowed.

“I believe,” he continued, “that you can speak Russian pretty fluently.”

I bowed again.

“I have, then,” he proceeded, “a mission which I wish you to undertake,
and on the success of which your promotion may depend. I would not
trust it to a subordinate, were it not that duty ties me to my post at
present.”

“You may depend upon my doing my best, sir,” I replied.

“Right, sir; quite right! What I wish you to do is briefly this: The
line of railway has just been opened to Solteff, some hundred miles up
the country. Now, I wish to get the start of the other Odessa firms in
securing the produce of that district, which I have reason to believe
may be had at very low prices. You will proceed by rail to Solteff, and
interview a Mr. Dimidoff, who is the largest landed proprietor in the
town. Make as favorable terms as you can with him. Both Mr. Dimidoff
and I wish the whole thing to be done as quietly and secretly as
possible--in fact, that nothing should be known about the matter until
the grain appears in Odessa. I desire it for the interests of the firm,
and Mr. Dimidoff on account of the prejudice his peasantry entertain
against exportation. You will find yourself expected at the end of
your journey, and will start to-night. Money shall be ready for your
expenses. Good-morning, Mr. Robinson; I hope you won’t fail to realize
the good opinion I have of your abilities.”

“Gregory,” I said, as I strutted into the office, “I’m off on a
mission--a secret mission, my boy; an affair of thousands of pounds.
Lend me your little portmanteau--mine’s too imposing--and tell Ivan to
pack it. A Russian millionaire expects me at the end of my journey.
Don’t breathe a word of it to any of Simpkins’s people, or the whole
game will be up. Keep it dark!”

I was so charmed at being, as it were, behind the scenes, that I crept
about the office all day in a sort of cloak-and-bloody-dagger style,
with responsibility and brooding care marked upon every feature;
and when at night I stepped out and stole down to the station, the
unprejudiced observer would certainly have guessed, from my general
behavior, that I had emptied the contents of the strong-box, before
starting, into that little valise of Gregory’s. It was imprudent of
him, by the way, to leave English labels pasted all over it. However, I
could only hope that the “Londons” and “Birminghams” would attract no
attention, or at least that no rival corn-merchant might deduce from
them who I was and what my errand might be.

Having paid the necessary roubles and got my ticket, I ensconced myself
in the corner of a snug Russian car, and pondered over my extraordinary
good fortune. Dickson was growing old now, and if I could make my mark
in this matter it might be a great thing for me. Dreams arose of a
partnership in the firm. The noisy wheels seemed to clank out “Bailey,
Robinson & Co.,” “Bailey, Robinson & Co.,” in a monotonous refrain,
which gradually sank into a hum, and finally ceased as I dropped into a
deep sleep. Had I known the experience which awaited me at the end of
my journey it would hardly have been so peaceable.

I awoke with an uneasy feeling that some one was watching me closely;
nor was I mistaken. A tall dark man had taken up his position on the
seat opposite, and his black sinister eyes seemed to look through me
and beyond me, as if he wished to read my very soul. Then I saw him
glance down at my little trunk.

“Good heavens!” thought I, “here’s Simpkins’s agent, I suppose. It was
careless of Gregory to leave those confounded labels on the valise.”

I closed my eyes for a time, but on reopening them I again caught the
stranger’s earnest gaze.

“From England, I see,” he said in Russian, showing a row of white
teeth in what was meant to be an amiable smile.

“Yes,” I replied, trying to look unconcerned, but painfully aware of my
failure.

“Travelling for pleasure, perhaps?” said he.

“Yes,” I answered eagerly. “Certainly for pleasure; nothing else.”

“Of course not,” said he, with a shade of irony in his voice.
“Englishmen always travel for pleasure, don’t they? Oh, no; nothing
else.”

His conduct was mysterious, to say the least of it. It was only
explainable upon two hypotheses--he was either a madman, or he was the
agent of some firm bound upon the same errand as myself, and determined
to show me that he guessed my little game. They were about equally
unpleasant, and, on the whole, I was relieved when the train pulled up
in the tumble-down shed which does duty for a station in the rising
town of Solteff--Solteff, whose resources I was about to open out, and
whose commerce I was to direct into the great world channels. I almost
expected to see a triumphal arch as I stepped on to the platform.

I was to be expected at the end of my journey, so Mr. Dickson had
informed me. I looked about among the motley crowd, but saw no Mr.
Dimidoff. Suddenly a slovenly, unshaved man passed me rapidly, and
glanced first at me and then at my trunk--that wretched trunk, the
cause of all my woes. He disappeared in the crowd; but in a little time
came strolling past me again, and contrived to whisper as he did so,
“Follow me, but at some distance,” immediately setting off out of the
station and down the street at a rapid pace. Here was mystery with a
vengeance! I trotted along in his rear with my valise, and on turning
the corner found a rough droschky waiting for me. My unshaven friend
opened the door, and I stepped in.

“Is Mr. Dim----” I was beginning.

“Hush!” he cried. “No names, no names; the very walls have ears. You
will hear all to-night;” and with that assurance he closed the door,
and, seizing the reins, we drove off at a rapid pace--so rapid that I
saw my black-eyed acquaintance of the railway carriage gazing after us
in surprise until we were out of sight.

I thought over the whole matter as we jogged along in that abominable
springless conveyance.

“They say the nobles are tyrants in Russia,” I mused; “but it seems to
me to be the other way about, for here’s this poor Mr. Dimidoff, who
evidently thinks his ex-serfs will rise and murder him if he raises the
price of grain in the district by exporting some out of it. Fancy being
obliged to have recourse to all this mystery and deception in order to
sell one’s own property! Why, it’s worse than an Irish landlord. It is
monstrous! Well, he doesn’t seem to live in a very aristocratic quarter
either,” I soliloquized, as I gazed out at the narrow crooked streets
and the unkempt dirty Muscovites whom we passed. “I wish Gregory or
some one was with me, for it’s a cut-throat-looking shop! By Jove, he’s
pulling up; we must be there!”

We _were_ there, to all appearance; for the droschky stopped, and my
driver’s shaggy head appeared through the aperture.

“It is here, most honored master,” he said, as he helped me to alight.

“Is Mr. Dimi----” I commenced; but he interrupted me again.

“Anything but names,” he whispered; “anything but that. You are too
used to a land that is free. Caution, oh sacred one!” and he ushered
me down a stone-flagged passage, and up a stair at the end of it. “Sit
for a few minutes in this room,” he said, opening a door, “and a repast
will be served for you;” and with that he left me to my own reflections.

“Well,” thought I, “whatever Mr. Dimidoff’s house may be like, his
servants are undoubtedly well trained. ‘Oh sacred one!’ and ‘revered
master!’ I wonder what he’d call old Dickson himself, if he is so
polite to the clerk! I suppose it wouldn’t be the thing to smoke
in this little crib; but I could do a pipe nicely. By the way, how
confoundedly like a cell it looks!”

It certainly did look like a cell. The door was an iron one, and
enormously strong, while the single window was closely barred. The
floor was of wood, and sounded hollow and insecure as I strode across
it. Both floor and walls were thickly splashed with coffee or some
other dark liquid. On the whole, it was far from being a place where
one would be likely to become unreasonably festive.

I had hardly concluded my survey when I heard steps approaching
down the corridor, and the door was opened by my old friend of the
droschky. He announced that my dinner was ready, and, with many bows
and apologies for leaving me in what he called the “dismissal room,”
he led me down the passage, and into a large and beautifully furnished
apartment. A table was spread for two in the centre of it, and by the
fire was standing a man very little older than myself. He turned as I
came in, and stepped forward to meet me with every symptom of profound
respect.

“So young and yet so honored!” he exclaimed; and then seeming to
recollect himself, he continued, “Pray sit at the head of the table.
You must be fatigued by your long and arduous journey. We dine
_tête-à-tête_; but the others assemble afterward.”

“Mr. Dimidoff, I presume?” said I.

“No, sir,” said he, turning his keen gray eyes upon me. “My name is
Petrokine; you mistake me perhaps for one of the others. But now, not a
word of business until the council meets. Try your _chef’s_ soup; you
will find it excellent, I think.”

Who Mr. Petrokine or the others might be I could not conceive. Land
stewards of Dimidoff’s, perhaps; though the name did not seem familiar
to my companion. However, as he appeared to shun any business questions
at present, I gave in to his humor, and we conversed on social life in
England--a subject in which he displayed considerable knowledge and
acuteness. His remarks, too, on Malthus and the laws of population were
wonderfully good, though savoring somewhat of Radicalism.

“By the way,” he remarked, as we smoked a cigar over our wine, “we
should never have known you but for the English labels on your luggage;
it was the luckiest thing in the world that Alexander noticed them.
We had had no personal description of you; indeed we were prepared to
expect a somewhat older man. You are young indeed, sir, to be intrusted
with such a mission.”

“My employer trusts me,” I replied; “and we have learned in our trade
that youth and shrewdness are not incompatible.”

“Your remark is true, sir,” returned my newly made friend; “but I am
surprised to hear you call our glorious association a trade! Such a
term is gross indeed to apply to a body of men banded together to
supply the world with that which it is yearning for, but which, without
our exertions, it can never hope to attain. A spiritual brotherhood
would be a more fitting term.”

“By Jove!” thought I, “how pleased the boss would be to hear him! He
must have been in the business himself, whoever he is.”

“Now, sir,” said Mr. Petrokine, “the clock points to eight, and the
council must be already sitting. Let us go up together, and I will
introduce you. I need hardly say that the greatest secrecy is observed,
and that your appearance is anxiously awaited.”

I turned over in my mind as I followed him how I might best fulfil my
mission and secure the most advantageous terms. They seemed as anxious
as I was in the matter, and there appeared to be no opposition, so
perhaps the best thing would be to wait and see what they would propose.

I had hardly come to this conclusion when my guide swung open a large
door at the end of a passage, and I found myself in a room larger and
even more gorgeously fitted up than the one in which I had dined.
A long table, covered with green baize and strewn with papers, ran
down the middle, and round it were sitting fourteen or fifteen men
conversing earnestly. The whole scene reminded me forcibly of a
gambling hell I had visited some time before.

Upon our entrance the company rose and bowed. I could not but remark
that my companion attracted no attention, while every eye was turned
upon me with a strange mixture of surprise and almost servile respect.
A man at the head of the table, who was remarkable for the extreme
pallor of his face as contrasted with his blue-black hair and mustache,
waved his hand to a seat beside him, and I sat down.

“I need hardly say,” said Mr. Petrokine, “that Gustave Berger, the
English agent, is now honoring us with his presence. He is young,
indeed, Alexis,” he continued to my pale-faced neighbor, “and yet he is
of European reputation.”

“Come, draw it mild!” thought I, adding aloud, “If you refer to me,
sir, though I am indeed acting as English agent, my name is not Berger,
but Robinson--Mr. Tom Robinson, at your service.”

A laugh ran round the table.

“So be it, so be it,” said the man they called Alexis. “I commend your
discretion, most honored sir. One cannot be too careful. Preserve
your English _sobriquet_ by all means. I regret that any painful duty
should be performed upon this auspicious evening; but the rules of
our association must be preserved at any cost to our feelings, and a
dismissal is inevitable to-night.”

“What the deuce is the fellow driving at?” thought I. “What is it to me
if he does give his servant the sack? This Dimidoff, wherever he is,
seems to keep a private lunatic asylum.”

“_Take out the gag!_” The words fairly shot through me, and I started
in my chair. It was Petrokine who spoke. For the first time I noticed
that a burly stout man, sitting at the other end of the table, had
his arms tied behind his chair and a handkerchief round his mouth. A
horrible suspicion began to creep into my heart. Where was I? Was I in
Mr. Dimidoff’s? Who were these men, with their strange words?

“Take out the gag!” repeated Petrokine; and the handkerchief was
removed.

“Now, Paul Ivanovitch,” said he, “what have you to say before you go?”

“Not a dismissal, sirs,” he pleaded; “not a dismissal: anything but
that! I will go into some distant land, and my mouth shall be closed
forever. I will do anything that the society asks, but pray, pray do
not dismiss me.”

“You know our laws, and you know your crime,” said Alexis, in a cold,
harsh voice. “Who drove us from Odessa by his false tongue and his
double face? Who wrote the anonymous letter to the Governor? Who cut
the wire that would have destroyed the arch-tyrant? You did, Paul
Ivanovitch; and you must die.”

I leaned back in my chair and fairly gasped.

“Remove him!” said Petrokine; and the man of the droschky, with two
others, forced him out.

I heard the footsteps pass down the passage and then a door open and
shut. Then came a sound as of a struggle, ended by a heavy, crunching
blow and a dull thud.

“So perish all who are false to their oath,” said Alexis, solemnly; and
a hoarse “Amen” went up from his companions.

“Death alone can dismiss us from our order,” said another man further
down; “but Mr. Berg--Mr. Robinson is pale. The scene has been too much
for him after his long journey from England.”

“Oh, Tom, Tom,” thought I, “if ever you get out of this scrape you’ll
turn over a new leaf. You’re not fit to die, and that’s a fact.” It was
only too evident to me now that by some strange misconception I had got
in among a gang of cold-blooded Nihilists, who mistook me for one of
their order. I felt, after what I had witnessed, that my only chance
of life was to try to play the _rôle_ thus forced upon me until an
opportunity for escape should present itself; so I tried hard to regain
my air of self-possession, which had been so rudely shaken.

“I am indeed fatigued,” I replied; “but I feel stronger now. Excuse my
momentary weakness.”

“It was but natural,” said a man with a thick beard at my right hand.
“And now, most honored sir, how goes the cause in England?”

“Remarkably well,” I answered.

“Has the great commissioner condescended to send a missive to the
Solteff branch?” asked Petrokine.

“Nothing in writing,” I replied.

“But he has spoken of it?”

“Yes; he said he had watched it with feelings of the liveliest
satisfaction,” I returned.

“’Tis well! ’tis well!” ran round the table.

I felt giddy and sick from the critical nature of my position. Any
moment a question might be asked which would show me in my true colors.
I rose and helped myself from a decanter of brandy which stood on a
side-table. The potent liquor flew to my excited brain, and as I sat
down I felt reckless enough to be half amused at my position, and
inclined to play with my tormentors. I still, however, had all my wits
about me.

“You have been to Birmingham?” asked the man with the beard.

“Many times,” said I.

“Then you have, of course, seen the private workshop and arsenal?”

“I have been over them both more than once.”

“It is still, I suppose, entirely unsuspected by the police?” continued
my interrogator.

“Entirely,” I replied.

“Can you tell us how it is that so large a concern is kept so
completely secret?”

Here was a poser; but my native impudence and the brandy seemed to come
to my aid.

“That is information,” I replied, “which I do not feel justified in
divulging even here. In withholding it I am acting under the direction
of the chief commissioner.”

“You are right--perfectly right,” said my original friend Petrokine.
“You will no doubt make your report to the central office at Moscow
before entering into such details.”

“Exactly so,” I replied, only too happy to get a lift out of my
difficulty.

“We have heard,” said Alexis, “that you were sent to inspect the
Livadia. Can you give us any particulars about it?”

“Anything you ask I will endeavor to answer,” I replied, in desperation.

“Have any orders been made in Birmingham concerning it?”

“None when I left England.”

“Well, well, there’s plenty of time yet,” said the man with the
beard--“many months. Will the bottom be of wood or iron?”

“Of wood,” I answered at random.

“’Tis well!” said another voice. “And what is the breadth of the Clyde
below Greenock?”

“It varies much,” I replied; “on an average about eighty yards.”

“How many men does she carry?” asked an anæmic-looking youth at the
foot of the table, who seemed more fit for a public school than this
den of murder.

“About three hundred,” said I.

“A floating coffin!” said the young Nihilist, in a sepulchral voice.

“Are the store-rooms on a level with or underneath the state-cabins?”
asked Petrokine.

“Underneath,” said I decisively, though I need hardly say I had not the
smallest conception.

“And now, most honored sir,” said Alexis, “tell us what was the reply
of Bauer, the German socialist, to Ravinsky’s proclamation.”

Here was a deadlock with a vengeance. Whether my cunning would have
extricated me from it or not was never decided, for Providence hurried
me from one dilemma into another and a worse one.

A door slammed downstairs, and rapid footsteps were heard approaching.
Then came a loud tap outside, followed by two smaller ones.

“The sign of the society!” said Petrokine; “and yet we are all present;
who can it be?”

The door was thrown open, and a man entered, dusty and travel-stained,
but with an air of authority and power stamped on every feature of his
harsh but expressive face. He glanced round the table, scanning each
countenance carefully. There was a start of surprise in the room. He
was evidently a stranger to them all.

“What means this intrusion, sir?” said my friend with the beard.

“Intrusion!” said the stranger. “I was given to understand that I
was expected, and had looked forward to a warmer welcome from my
fellow-associates. I am personally unknown to you, gentlemen, but I am
proud to think that my name should command some respect among you. I am
Gustave Berger, the agent from England, bearing letters from the chief
commissioner to his well-beloved brothers of Solteff.”

One of their own bombs could hardly have created greater surprise had
it been fired in the midst of them. Every eye was fixed alternately on
me and upon the newly arrived agent.

“If you are indeed Gustave Berger,” said Petrokine, “who is this?”

“That I am Gustave Berger these credentials will show,” said the
stranger, as he threw a packet upon the table. “Who that man may be I
know not; but if he has intruded himself upon the lodge under false
pretences, it is clear that he must never carry out of the room what he
has learned. Speak, sir,” he added, addressing me: “who and what are
you?”

I felt that my time had come. My revolver was in my hip-pocket; but
what was that against so many desperate men? I grasped the butt of it,
however, as a drowning man clings to a straw, and I tried to preserve
my coolness as I glanced round at the cold, vindictive faces turned
toward me.

“Gentlemen,” I said, “the _rôle_ I have played to-night has been a
purely involuntary one on my part. I am no police spy, as you seem
to suspect; nor, on the other hand, have I the honor to be a member
of your association. I am an inoffensive corn-dealer, who by an
extraordinary mistake has been forced into this unpleasant and awkward
position.”

I paused for a moment. Was it my fancy that there was a peculiar noise
in the street--a noise as of many feet treading softly? No, it had died
away; it was but the throbbing of my own heart.

“I need hardly say,” I continued, “that anything I may have heard
to-night will be safe in my keeping. I pledge my solemn honor as a
gentleman that not one word of it shall transpire through me.”

The senses of men in great physical danger become strangely acute, or
their imagination plays them curious tricks. My back was toward the
door as I sat, but I could have sworn that I heard heavy breathing
behind it. Was it the three minions whom I had seen before in the
performance of their hateful functions, and who, like vultures, had
sniffed another victim?

I looked round the table. Still the same hard, cruel faces. Not one
glance of sympathy. I cocked the revolver in my pocket.

There was a painful silence, which was broken by the harsh, grating
voice of Petrokine.

“Promises are easily made and easily broken,” he said. “There is but
one way of securing eternal silence. It is our lives or yours. Let the
highest among us speak.”

“You are right, sir,” said the English agent; “there is but one course
open. He must be dismissed.”

I knew what that meant in their confounded jargon, and sprang to my
feet.

“By Heaven,” I shouted, putting my back against the door, “you shan’t
butcher a free Englishman like a sheep! The first among you who stirs,
drops!”

A man sprang at me. I saw along the sights of my Derringer the gleam
of a knife and the demoniacal face of Gustave Berger. Then I pulled
the trigger, and, with his hoarse scream sounding in my ears, I was
felled to the ground by a crashing blow from behind. Half-unconscious,
and pressed down by some heavy weight, I heard the noise of shouts and
blows above me, and then I fainted away.

When I came to myself I was lying among the _débris_ of the door,
which had been beaten in on the top of me. Opposite were a dozen of
the men who had lately sat in judgment upon me, tied two and two, and
guarded by a score of Russian soldiers. Beside me was the corpse of
the ill-fated English agent, the whole face blown in by the force of
the explosion. Alexis and Petrokine were both lying on the floor like
myself, bleeding profusely.

“Well, young fellow, you’ve had a narrow escape,” said a hearty voice
in my ear.

I looked up, and recognized my black-eyed acquaintance of the railway
carriage.

“Stand up,” he continued: “you’re only a bit stunned; no bones broken.
It’s no wonder I mistook you for the Nihilist agent, when the very
lodge itself was taken in. Well, you’re the only stranger who ever came
out of this den alive. Come downstairs with me. I know who you are, and
what you are after now; I’ll take you to Mr. Dimidoff. Nay, don’t go in
there,” he cried, as I walked toward the door of the cell into which I
had been originally ushered. “Keep out of that; you’ve seen evil sights
enough for one day. Come down and have a glass of liquor.”

He explained as we walked back to the hotel that the police of
Solteff, of which he was the chief, had had warning and been on the
look-out during some time for this Nihilist emissary. My arrival in so
unfrequented a place, coupled with my air of secrecy and the English
labels on that confounded portmanteau of Gregory’s, had completed the
business.

I have little more to tell. My Socialistic acquaintances were all
either transported to Siberia or executed. My mission was performed to
the satisfaction of my employers. My conduct during the whole business
has won me promotion, and my prospects for life have been improved
since that horrible night, the remembrance of which still makes me
shiver.




BONES.

THE APRIL FOOL OF HARVEY’S SLUICE.


Abe Durton’s cabin was not beautiful. People have been heard to assert
that it was ugly, and, even after the fashion of Harvey’s Sluice,
have gone the length of prefixing their adjective with a forcible
expletive which emphasized their criticism. Abe, however, was a stolid
and easy-going man, on whose mind the remarks of an unappreciative
public made but little impression. He had built the house himself, and
it suited his partner and him, and what more did they want? Indeed he
was rather touchy upon the subject. “Though I says it, as raised it,”
he remarked, “it’ll lay over any shanty in the valley. Holes? Well,
of course there are holes. You wouldn’t get fresh air without holes.
There’s nothing stuffy about _my_ house. Rain? Well, if it does let the
rain in, ain’t it an advantage to know it’s rainin’ without gettin’ up
to unbar the door. I wouldn’t own a house that didn’t leak some. As to
its bein’ off the perpendic’lar, I like a house with a bit of a tilt.
Anyways it pleases my pard, Boss Morgan, and what’s good enough for him
is good enough for you, I suppose.” At which approach to personalities
his antagonist usually sheered off, and left the honors of the field to
the indignant architect.

But whatever difference of opinion might exist as to the beauty of the
establishment, there could be no question as to its utility. To the
tired wayfarer, plodding along the Buckhurst road in the direction of
the Sluice, the warm glow upon the summit of the hill was a beacon of
hope and of comfort. Those very holes at which the neighbors sneered
helped to diffuse a cheery atmosphere of light around, which was doubly
acceptable on such a night as the present.

There was only one man inside the hut, and that was the proprietor, Abe
Durton himself, or “Bones,” as he had been christened with the rude
heraldry of the camp. He was sitting in front of the great wood fire,
gazing moodily into its glowing depths, and occasionally giving a fagot
a kick of remonstrance when it showed any indication of dying into a
smoulder. His fair Saxon face, with its bold simple eyes and crisp
yellow beard, stood out sharp and clear against the darkness as the
flickering light played over it. It was a manly, resolute countenance,
and yet the physiognomist might have detected something in the lines
of the mouth which showed a weakness somewhere, an indecision which
contrasted strangely with his herculean shoulders and massive limbs.
Abe’s was one of those trusting, simple natures which are as easy to
lead as they are impossible to drive; and it was this happy pliability
of disposition which made him at once the butt and the favorite of the
dwellers in the Sluice. Badinage in that primitive settlement was of a
somewhat ponderous character, yet no amount of chaff had ever brought a
dark look on Bones’s face, or an unkind thought into his honest heart.
It was only when his aristocratic partner was, as he thought, being put
upon, that an ominous tightness about his lower lip and an angry light
in his blue eyes, caused even the most irrepressible humorist in the
colony to nip his favorite joke in the bud, in order to diverge into
an earnest and all-absorbing dissertation upon the state of the weather.

“The Boss is late to-night,” he muttered, as he rose from his chair,
and stretched himself in a colossal yawn. “My stars, how it does rain
and blow! Don’t it, Blinky?” Blinky was a demure and meditative owl,
whose comfort and welfare was a chronic subject of solicitude to its
master, and who at present contemplated him gravely from one of the
rafters. “Pity you can’t speak, Blinky,” continued Abe, glancing up
at his feathered companion. “There’s a powerful deal of sense in your
face. Kinder melancholy too. Crossed in love, maybe, when you was
young. Talkin’ of love,” he added, “I’ve not seen Susan to-day;” and
lighting the candle which stood in a black bottle upon the table, he
walked across the room and peered earnestly at one of the many pictures
from stray illustrated papers, which had been cut out by the occupants
and posted up upon the walls.

The particular picture which attracted him was one which represented a
very tawdrily dressed actress simpering over a bouquet at an imaginary
audience. This sketch had, for some inscrutable reason, made a deep
impression upon the susceptible heart of the miner. He had invested the
young lady with a human interest by solemnly, and without the slightest
warrant, christening her as Susan Banks, and had then installed her as
his standard of female beauty.

“You see my Susan,” he would say, when some wanderer from Buckhurst, or
even from Melbourne, would describe some fair Circe whom he had left
behind him. “There ain’t a girl like my Sue. If ever you go to the old
country again, just you ask to see her. Susan Banks is her name, and
I’ve got her picture up at the shanty.”

Abe was still gazing at his charmer, when the rough door was flung
open, and a blinding cloud of sleet and rain came driving into the
cabin, almost obscuring for the moment a young man who sprang in and
proceeded to bar the entrance behind him, an operation which the force
of the wind rendered no easy matter. He might have passed for the
genius of the storm, with the water dripping from his long hair and
running down his pale, refined face.

“Well,” he said, in a slightly peevish voice, “haven’t you got any
supper?”

“Waiting and ready,” said his companion cheerily, pointing to a large
pot which bubbled by the side of the fire. “You seem sort of damp.”

“Damp be hanged! I’m soaked, man, thoroughly saturated. It’s a night
that I wouldn’t have a dog out, at least not a dog that I had any
respect for. Hand over that dry coat from the peg.”

Jack Morgan, or Boss, as he was usually called, belonged to a type
which was commoner in the mines during the flush times of the first
great rush than would be supposed. He was a man of good blood,
liberally educated, and a graduate of an English university. Boss
should, in the natural course of things, have been an energetic curate,
or struggling professional man, had not some latent traits cropped
out in his character, inherited possibly from old Sir Henry Morgan,
who had founded the family with Spanish pieces of eight gallantly won
upon the high seas. It was this wild strain of blood no doubt which
had caused him to drop from the bedroom window of the ivy-clad English
parsonage, and leave home and friends behind him to try his luck with
pick and shovel in the Australian fields. In spite of his effeminate
face and dainty manners, the rough dwellers in Harvey’s Sluice had
gradually learned that the little man was possessed of a cool courage
and unflinching resolution, which won respect in a community where
pluck was looked upon as the highest of human attributes. No one ever
knew how it was that Bones and he had become partners; yet partners
they were, and the large, simple nature of the stronger man looked with
an almost superstitious reverence upon the clear, decisive mind of his
companion.

“That’s better,” said the Boss, as he dropped into the vacant chair
before the fire and watched Abe laying out the two metal plates, with
the horn-handled knives and abnormally pronged forks. “Take your mining
boots off, Bones; there’s no use filling the cabin with red clay. Come
here and sit down.”

His gigantic partner came meekly over and perched himself upon the top
of a barrel.

“What’s up?” he asked.

“Shares are up,” said his companion. “That’s what’s up. Look here,” and
he extracted a crumpled paper from the pocket of the steaming coat.
“Here’s the _Buckhurst Sentinel_. Read this article--this one here
about a paying lead in the Conemara mine. We hold pretty heavily in
that concern, my boy. We might sell out to-day and clear something--but
I think we’ll hold on.”

Abe Durton in the mean time was laboriously spelling out the article in
question, following the lines with his great forefinger, and muttering
under his tawny mustache.

“Two hundred dollars a foot,” he said, looking up. “Why, pard, we hold
a hundred feet each. It would give us twenty thousand dollars! We might
go home on that.”

“Nonsense!” said his companion; “we’ve come out here for something
better than a beggarly couple of thousand pounds. The thing is bound to
pay. Sinclair the assayer has been over there, and says there’s a ledge
of the richest quartz he ever set eyes on. It is just a case of getting
the machinery to crush it. By the way, what was to-day’s take like?”

Abe extracted a small wooden box from his pocket and handed it to his
comrade. It contained what appeared to be about a teaspoonful of sand
and one or two little metallic granules not larger than a pea. Boss
Morgan laughed, and returned it to his companion.

“We sha’n’t make our fortune at that rate, Bones,” he remarked; and
there was a pause in the conversation as the two men listened to the
wind as it screamed and whistled past the little cabin.

“Any news from Buckhurst?” asked Abe, rising and proceeding to extract
their supper from the pot.

“Nothing much,” said his companion. “Cockeyed Joe has been shot by
Billy Reid in McFarlane’s Store.”

“Ah!” said Abe, with listless interest.

“Bushrangers have been around and stuck up the Rochdale station. They
say they are coming over here.”

The miner whistled as he poured some whiskey into a jug.

“Anything more?” he asked.

“Nothing of importance, except that the blacks have been showing a bit
down New Sterling way, and that the assayer has bought a piano and is
going to have his daughter out from Melbourne to live in the new house
opposite on the other side of the road. So you see we are going to
have something to look at, my boy,” he added as he sat down, and began
attacking the food set before him. “They say she is a beauty, Bones.”

“She won’t be a patch on my Sue,” returned the other decisively.

His partner smiled as he glanced round at the flaring print upon the
wall. Suddenly he dropped his knife and seemed to listen. Amid the wild
uproar of the wind and the rain there was a low rumbling sound which
was evidently not dependent upon the elements.

“What’s that?”

“Darned if I know.”

The two men made for the door and peered out earnestly into the
darkness. Far away along the Buckhurst road they could see a moving
light, and the dull sound was louder than before.

“It’s a buggy coming down,” said Abe.

“Where is it going to?”

“Don’t know. Across the ford, I s’pose.”

“Why, man, the ford will be six feet deep to-night, and running like a
mill-stream.”

The light was nearer now, coming rapidly round the curve of the road.
There was a wild sound of galloping with the rattle of the wheels.

“Horses have bolted, by thunder!”

“Bad job for the man inside.”

There was a rough individuality about the inhabitants of Harvey’s
Sluice, in virtue of which every man bore his misfortunes upon his own
shoulders, and had very little sympathy for those of his neighbors. The
predominant feeling of the two men was one of pure curiosity as they
watched the swinging, swaying lanterns coming down the winding road.

“If he don’t pull ’em up before they reach the ford he’s a goner,”
remarked Abe Durton resignedly.

Suddenly there came a lull in the sullen splash of the rain. It was but
for a moment, but in that moment there came down on the breeze a long
cry which caused the two men to start and stare at each other, and then
to rush frantically down the steep incline toward the road below.

“A woman, by Heaven!” gasped Abe, as he sprang across the gaping shaft
of a mine in the recklessness of his haste.

Morgan was the lighter and more active man. He drew away rapidly from
his stalwart companion. Within a minute he was standing panting and
bareheaded in the middle of the soft muddy road, while his partner was
still toiling down the side of the declivity.

The carriage was close on him now. He could see in the light of the
lamps the raw-boned Australian horse as, terrified by the storm and
by its own clatter, it came tearing down the declivity which led to
the ford. The man who was driving seemed to see the pale set face in
the pathway in front of him, for he yelled out some incoherent words
of warning, and made a last desperate attempt to pull up. There was
a shout, an oath, and a jarring crash, and Abe, hurrying down, saw a
wild infuriated horse rearing madly in the air with a slim dark figure
hanging on to its bridle. Boss, with the keen power of calculation
which had made him the finest cricketer at Rugby in his day, had
caught the rein immediately below the bit, and clung to it with silent
concentration. Once he was down with a heavy thud in the roadway as
the horse jerked its head violently forward, but when, with a snort
of exultation, the animal pressed on, it was only to find that the
prostrate man beneath its forehoofs still maintained his unyielding
grasp.

“Hold it, Bones,” he said, as a tall figure hurled itself into the road
and seized the other rein.

“All right, old man, I’ve got him;” and the horse, cowed by the sight
of a fresh assailant, quieted down, and stood shivering with terror.

“Get up, Boss, it’s safe now.”

But poor Boss lay groaning in the mud.

“I can’t do it, Bones.” There was a catch in the voice as of pain.
“There’s something wrong, old chap, but don’t make a fuss. It’s only a
shake; give me a lift up.”

Abe bent tenderly over his prostrate companion. He could see that he
was very white, and breathing with difficulty.

“Cheer up, old Boss,” he murmured. “Hullo! my stars!”

The last two exclamations were shot out of the honest miner’s bosom as
if they were impelled by some irresistible force, and he took a couple
of steps backward in sheer amazement. There at the other side of the
fallen man, and half shrouded in the darkness, stood what appeared
to Abe’s simple soul to be the most beautiful vision that ever had
appeared upon earth. To eyes accustomed to rest upon nothing more
captivating than the ruddy faces and rough beards of the miners in the
Sluice, it seemed that that fair, delicate countenance must belong to
a wanderer from some better world. Abe gazed at it with a wondering
reverence, oblivious for the moment even of his injured friend upon the
ground.

“Oh, papa,” said the apparition, in great distress, “he is hurt, the
gentleman is hurt;” and with a quick feminine gesture of sympathy, she
bent her lithe figure over Boss Morgan’s prostrate figure.

“Why, it’s Abe Durton and his partner,” said the driver of the buggy,
coming forward and disclosing the grizzled features of Mr. Joshua
Sinclair, the assayer to the mines. “I don’t know how to thank you,
boys. The infernal brute got the bit between his teeth, and I should
have had to have thrown Carrie out and chanced it in another minute.
That’s right,” he continued, as Morgan staggered to his feet. “Not much
hurt, I hope.”

“I can get up to the hut now,” said the young man, steadying himself
upon his partner’s shoulder. “How are you going to get Miss Sinclair
home?”

“Oh, we can walk!” said that young lady, shaking off the effects of her
fright with all the elasticity of youth.

“We can drive and take the road round the bank so as to avoid the
ford,” said her father. “The horse seems cowed enough now; you need not
be afraid of it, Carrie. I hope we shall see you at the house, both of
you. Neither of us can easily forget this night’s work.”

Miss Carrie said nothing, but she managed to shoot a little demure
glance of gratitude from under her long lashes, to have won which
honest Abe felt that he would have cheerfully undertaken to stop a
runaway locomotive.

There was a cheery shout of “Good-night,” a crack of the whip, and the
buggy rattled away in the darkness.

“You told me the men were rough and nasty, pa,” said Miss Carrie
Sinclair, after a long silence, when the two dark shadows had died away
in the distance, and the carriage was speeding along by the turbulent
stream. “I don’t think so. I think they are very nice.” And Carrie
was unusually quiet for the remainder of her journey, and seemed more
reconciled to the hardship of leaving her dear friend Amelia in the
far-off boarding school at Melbourne.

That did not prevent her from writing a full, true, and particular
account of their little adventure to the same young lady upon that very
night.

“They stopped the horse, darling, and one poor fellow was hurt. And oh,
Amy, if you had seen the other one in a red shirt, with a pistol at his
waist! I couldn’t help thinking of you, dear. He was just your idea.
You remember, a yellow mustache and great blue eyes. And how he did
stare at poor me! You never see such men in Burke Street, Amy;” and so
on, for four pages of pretty feminine gossip.

In the mean time poor Boss, badly shaken, had been helped up the hill
by his partner and regained the shelter of the shanty. Abe doctored him
out of the rude pharmacopœia of the camp, and bandaged up his strained
arm. Both were men of few words, and neither made any allusion to what
had taken place. It was noticed, however, by Blinky, that his master
failed to pay his usual nightly orisons before the shrine of Susan
Banks. Whether this sagacious fowl drew any deductions from this,
and from the fact that Bones sat long and earnestly smoking by the
smouldering fire, I know not. Suffice it that as the candle died away
and the miner rose from his chair, his feathered friend flew down upon
his shoulder, and was only prevented from giving vent to a sympathetic
hoot by Abe’s warning finger, and its own strong inherent sense of
propriety.

       *       *       *       *       *

A casual visitor dropping into the straggling township of Harvey’s
Sluice shortly after Miss Carrie Sinclair’s arrival would have
noticed a considerable alteration in the manners and customs of its
inhabitants. Whether it was the refining influence of a woman’s
presence, or whether it sprang from an emulation excited by the
brilliant appearance of Abe Durton, it is hard to say--probably
from a blending of the two. Certain it is that that young man had
suddenly developed an affection for cleanliness and a regard for the
conventionalities of civilization, which aroused the astonishment and
ridicule of his companions. That Boss Morgan should pay attention
to his personal appearance had long been set down as a curious and
inexplicable phenomenon, depending upon early education; but that
loose-limbed easy-going Bones should flaunt about in a clean shirt
was regarded by every grimy denizen of the Sluice as a direct and
premeditated insult. In self-defence, therefore, there was a general
cleaning up after working hours, and such a run upon the grocery
establishment, that soap went up to an unprecedented figure, and a
fresh consignment had to be ordered from McFarlane’s store in Buckhurst.

“Is this here a free minin’ camp, or is it a darned Sunday-school?”
had been the indignant query of Long McCoy, a prominent member of the
reactionary party, who had failed to advance with the times, having
been absent during the period of regeneration. But his remonstrance met
with but little sympathy; and at the end of a couple of days a general
turbidity of the creek announced his surrender, which was confirmed by
his appearance in the Colonial Bar with a shining and bashful face, and
hair which was redolent of bear’s grease.

“I felt kinder lonesome,” he remarked apologetically, “so I thought
as I’d have a look what was under the clay;” and he viewed himself
approvingly in the cracked mirror which graced the select room of the
establishment.

Our casual visitor would have noticed a remarkable change also in the
conversation of the community. Somehow, when a certain dainty little
bonnet with a sweet girlish figure beneath it was seen in the distance
among the disused shafts and mounds of red earth which disfigured the
sides of the valley, there was a warning murmur, and a general clearing
off of the cloud of blasphemy, which was, I regret to state, an
habitual characteristic of the working population of Harvey’s Sluice.
Such things only need a beginning; and it was noticeable that long
after Miss Sinclair had vanished from sight there was a decided rise in
the moral barometer of the gulches. Men found by experience that their
stock of adjectives was less limited than they had been accustomed to
suppose, and that the less forcible were sometimes even more adapted
for conveying their meaning.

Abe had formerly been considered one of the most experienced valuators
of an ore in the settlement. It had been commonly supposed that he
was able to estimate the amount of gold in a fragment of quartz
with remarkable exactness. This, however, was evidently a mistake,
otherwise he would never have incurred the useless expense of having
so many worthless specimens assayed as he now did. Mr. Joshua Sinclair
found himself inundated with such a flood of fragments of mica, and
lumps of rock containing decimal percentages of the precious metals,
that he began to form a very low opinion of the young man’s mining
capabilities. It is even asserted that Abe shuffled up to the house one
morning with a hopeful smile, and, after some fumbling, produced half a
brick from the bosom of his jersey, with the stereotyped remark, “that
he thought he’d struck it at last, and so had dropped in to ask him to
cipher out an estimate.” As this anecdote rests, however, upon the
unsupported evidence of Jim Struggles, the humorist of the camp, there
may be some slight inaccuracy of detail.

It is certain that what with professional business in the morning and
social visits at night, the tall figure of the miner was a familiar
object in the little drawing-room of Azalea Villa, as the new house
of the assayer had been magniloquently named. He seldom ventured upon
a remark in the presence of its female occupant; but would sit on the
extreme edge of his chair in a state of speechless admiration while she
rattled off some lively air upon the newly imported piano. Many were
the strange and unexpected places in which his feet turned up. Miss
Carrie had gradually come to the conclusion that they were entirely
independent of his body, and had ceased to speculate upon the manner
in which she would trip over them on one side of the table while the
blushing owner was apologizing from the other. There was only one
cloud on honest Bones’s mental horizon, and that was the periodical
appearance of Black Tom Ferguson, of Rochdale Ferry. This clever young
scamp had managed to ingratiate himself with old Joshua, and was a
constant visitor at the villa. There were evil rumors abroad about
Black Tom. He was known to be a gambler, and shrewdly suspected to be
worse. Harvey’s Sluice was not censorious, and yet there was a general
feeling that Ferguson was a man to be avoided. There was a reckless
_élan_ about his bearing, however, and a sparkle in his conversation,
which had an indescribable charm, and even induced the Boss, who was
particular in such matters, to cultivate his acquaintance while forming
a correct estimate of his character. Miss Carrie seemed to hail his
appearance as a relief, and chattered away for hours about books
and music and the gayeties of Melbourne. It was on these occasions
that poor simple Bones would sink into the very lowest depths of
despondency, and either slink away, or sit glaring at his rival with
an earnest malignancy which seemed to cause that gentleman no small
amusement.

The miner made no secret to his partner of the admiration which he
entertained for Miss Sinclair. If he was silent in her company, he
was voluble enough when she was the subject of discourse. Loiterers
upon the Buckhurst road might have heard a stentorian voice upon the
hill-side bellowing forth a vocabulary of female charms. He submitted
his difficulties to the superior intelligence of the Boss.

“That loafer from Rochdale,” he said, “he seems to reel it off kinder
nat’ral, while for the life of me I can’t say a word. Tell me, Boss,
what would _you_ say to a girl like that?”

“Why, talk about what would interest her,” said his companion.

“Ah, that’s where it lies!”

“Talk about the customs of the place and the country,” said the Boss,
pulling meditatively at his pipe. “Tell her stories of what you have
seen in the mines, and that sort of thing.”

“Eh? You’d do that, would you?” responded his comrade more hopefully.
“If that’s the hang of it I am right. I’ll go up now and tell her about
Chicago Bill, an’ how he put them two bullets in the man from the bend
the night of the dance.”

Boss Morgan laughed.

“That’s hardly the thing,” he said. “You’d frighten her if you told her
that. Tell her something lighter, you know; something to amuse her,
something funny.”

“Funny?” said the anxious lover, with less confidence in his voice.
“How you and me made Mat Houlahan drunk and put him in the pulpit of
the Baptist church, and he wouldn’t let the preacher in in the morning.
How would that do, eh?”

“For Heaven’s sake don’t say anything of the sort,” said his Mentor, in
great consternation. “She’d never speak to either of us again. No, what
I mean is that you should tell about the habits of the mines, how men
live and work and die there. If she is a sensible girl that ought to
interest her.”

“How they live at the mines? Pard, you are good to me. How they live?
There’s a thing I can talk of as glib as Black Tom or any man. I’ll try
it on her when I see her.”

“By the way,” said his partner listlessly, “just keep an eye on that
man Ferguson. His hands arn’t very clean, you know, and he’s not
scrupulous when he is aiming for anything. You remember how Dick
Williams, of English Town, was found dead in the bush. Of course it was
rangers that did it. They do say, however, that Black Tom owed him a
deal more money than he could ever have paid. There’s been one or two
queer things about him. Keep your eye on him, Abe. Watch what he does.”

“I will,” said his companion.

And he did. He watched him that very night. Watched him stride out of
the house of the assayer with anger and baffled pride on every feature
of his handsome swarthy face. Watched him clear the garden paling
at a bound, pass in long rapid strides down the side of the valley,
gesticulating wildly with his hands, and vanish into the bushland
beyond. All this Abe Durton watched, and with a thoughtful look upon
his face he relit his pipe and strolled slowly backward to the hut upon
the hill.

       *       *       *       *       *

March was drawing to a close in Harvey’s Sluice, and the glare and
heat of the antipodean summer had toned down into the rich mellow
hues of autumn. It was never a lovely place to look upon. There was
something hopelessly prosaic in the two bare rugged ridges, seamed and
scarred by the hand of man, with iron arms of windlasses, and broken
buckets projecting everywhere through the endless little hillocks of
red earth. Down the middle ran the deeply rutted road from Buckhurst,
winding along and crossing the sluggish tide of Harper’s Creek by
a crumbling wooden bridge. Beyond the bridge lay the cluster of
little huts with the Colonial Bar and the Grocery towering in all the
dignity of whitewash among the humble dwellings around. The assayer’s
veranda-lined house lay above the gulches on the side of the slope
nearly opposite the dilapidated specimen of architecture of which our
friend Abe was so unreasonably proud.

There was one other building which might have come under the category
of what an inhabitant of the Sluice would have described as a “public
edifice” with a comprehensive wave of his pipe which conjured up images
of an endless vista of colonnades and minarets. This was the Baptist
chapel, a modest little shingle-roofed erection on the bend of the
river about a mile above the settlement. It was from this that the
town looked at its best, when the harsh outlines and crude colors were
somewhat softened by distance. On that particular morning the stream
looked pretty as it meandered down the valley; pretty, too, was the
long rising upland behind, with its luxuriant green covering; and
prettiest of all was Miss Carrie Sinclair, as she laid down the basket
of ferns which she was carrying, and stopped upon the summit of the
rising ground.

Something seemed to be amiss with that young lady. There was a look
of anxiety upon her face which contrasted strangely with her usual
appearance of piquant insouciance. Some recent annoyance had left its
traces upon her. Perhaps it was to walk it off that she had rambled
down the valley; certain it is that she inhaled the fresh breezes
of the woodlands as if their resinous fragrance bore with them some
antidote for human sorrow.

She stood for some time gazing at the view before her. She could
see her father’s house, like a white dot upon the hill-side, though
strangely enough it was a blue reek of smoke upon the opposite slope
which seemed to attract the greater part of her attention. She lingered
there, watching it with a wistful look in her hazel eyes. Then the
loneliness of her situation seemed to strike her, and she felt one of
those spasmodic fits of unreasoning terror to which the bravest women
are subject. Tales of natives and of bushrangers, their daring and
their cruelty, flashed across her. She glanced at the great mysterious
stretch of silent bushland beside her, and stooped to pick up her
basket with the intention of hurrying along the road in the direction
of the gulches. She started round, and hardly suppressed a scream as
a long, red-flannelled arm shot out from behind her and withdrew the
basket from her very grasp.

The figure which met her eye would to some have seemed little
calculated to allay her fears. The high boots, the rough shirt, and the
broad girdle with its weapons of death were, however, too familiar to
Miss Carrie to be objects of terror; and when above them all she saw
a pair of tender blue eyes looking down upon her, and a half-abashed
smile lurking under a thick yellow mustache, she knew that for the
remainder of that walk ranger and black would be equally powerless to
harm her.

“Oh, Mr. Durton,” she said, “how you did startle me!”

“I’m sorry, miss,” said Abe, in great trepidation at having caused his
idol one moment’s uneasiness. “You see,” he continued, with simple
cunning, “the weather bein’ fine and my partner gone prospectin’,
I thought I’d walk up to Hagley’s Hill and round back by the bend,
and there I sees you accidental-like and promiscuous a-standin’ on a
hillock.” This astounding falsehood was reeled off by the miner with
great fluency, and an artificial sincerity which at once stamped it as
a fabrication. Bones had concocted and rehearsed it while tracking the
little footsteps in the clay, and looked upon it as the very depth of
human guile. Miss Carrie did not venture upon a remark, but there was a
gleam of amusement in her eyes which puzzled her lover.

Abe was in good spirits this morning. It may have been the sunshine,
or it may have been the rapid rise of shares in the Conemara, which
lightened his heart. I am inclined to think, however, that it was
referable to neither of these causes. Simple as he was, the scene which
he had witnessed the night before could only lead to one conclusion.
He pictured himself walking as wildly down the valley under similar
circumstances, and his heart was touched with pity for his rival. He
felt very certain that the ill-omened face of Mr. Thomas Ferguson of
Rochdale Ferry would never more be seen within the walls of Azalea
Villa. Then why did she refuse him? He was handsome, he was fairly
rich. Could it----? no, it couldn’t; of course it couldn’t; how could
it! The idea was ridiculous--so very ridiculous that it had fermented
in the young man’s brain all night, and that he could do nothing but
ponder over it in the morning, and cherish it in his perturbed bosom.

They passed down the red pathway together, and along by the river’s
bank. Abe had relapsed into his normal condition of taciturnity. He
had made one gallant effort to hold forth upon the subject of ferns,
stimulated by the basket which he held in his hand, but the theme was
not a thrilling one, and after a spasmodic flicker he had abandoned
the attempt. While coming along he had been full of racy anecdotes and
humorous observations. He had rehearsed innumerable remarks which were
to be poured into Miss Sinclair’s appreciative ear. But now his brain
seemed of a sudden to have become a vacuum, and utterly devoid of any
idea save an insane and overpowering impulse to comment upon the heat
of the sun. No astronomer who ever reckoned a parallax was so entirely
absorbed in the condition of the celestial bodies as honest Bones while
he trudged along by the slow-flowing Australian river.

Suddenly his conversation with his partner came back into his mind.
What was it Boss had said upon the subject? “Tell her how they live at
the mines.” He revolved it in his brain. It seemed a curious thing to
talk about; but Boss had said it, and Boss was always right. He would
take the plunge; so, with a premonitory hem he blurted out:

“They live mostly on bacon and beans in the valley.”

He could not see what effect this communication had upon his
companion. He was too tall to be able to peer under the little straw
bonnet. She did not answer. He would try again.

“Mutton on Sundays,” he said.

Even this failed to arouse any enthusiasm. In fact she seemed to be
laughing. Boss was evidently wrong. The young man was in despair. The
sight of a ruined hut beside the pathway conjured up a fresh idea. He
grasped at it as a drowning man to a straw.

“Cockney Jack built that,” he remarked. “Lived there till he died.”

“What did he die of?” asked his companion.

“Three star brandy,” said Abe, decisively. “I used to come over of a
night when he was bad and sit by him. Poor chap! he had a wife and
two children in Putney. He’d rave, and call me Polly, by the hour. He
was cleaned out, hadn’t a red cent; but the boys collected rough gold
enough to see him through. He’s buried there in that shaft; that was
his claim, so we just dropped him down it an’ filled it up. Put down
his pick too, an’ a spade an’ a bucket, so’s he’d feel kinder perky and
at home.”

Miss Carrie seemed more interested now.

“Do they often die like that?” she asked.

“Well, brandy kills many; but there’s more get’s dropped--shot, you
know.”

“I don’t mean that. Do many men die alone and miserable down there,
with no one to care for them?” and she pointed to the cluster of houses
beneath them. “Is there anyone dying now? It is awful to think of.”

“There’s none as I knows on likely to throw up their hand.”

“I wish you wouldn’t use so much slang, Mr. Durton,” said Carrie,
looking up at him reprovingly out of her violet eyes. It was strange
what an air of proprietorship this young lady was gradually assuming
toward her gigantic companion. “You know it isn’t polite. You should
get a dictionary and learn the proper words.”

“Ah, that’s it!” said Bones, apologetically. “It’s gettin’ your hand on
the proper one. When you’ve not got a steam drill, you’ve got to put up
with a pick.”

“Yes, but it’s easy if you really try. You could say that a man was
’dying,’ or ’moribund,’ if you like.”

“That’s it,” said the miner, enthusiastically. “’Moribund’! That’s
a word. Why, you could lay over Boss Morgan in the matter of words.
’Moribund!’ There’s some sound about that.”

Carrie laughed.

“It’s not the sound you must think of, but whether it will express your
meaning. Seriously, Mr. Durton, if anyone should be ill in the camp you
must let me know. I can nurse, and I might be of use. You will, won’t
you?”

Abe readily acquiesced, and relapsed into silence as he pondered over
the possibility of inoculating himself with some long and tedious
disease. There was a mad dog reported from Buckhurst. Perhaps something
might be done with that.

“And now I must say good-morning,” said Carrie, as they came to the
spot where a crooked pathway branched off from the track and wound up
to Azalea Villa. “Thank you ever so much for escorting me.”

In vain Abe pleaded for the additional hundred yards, and adduced the
overwhelming weight of the diminutive basket as a cogent reason. The
young lady was inexorable. She had taken him too far out of his way
already. She was ashamed of herself; she wouldn’t hear of it.

So poor Bones departed in a mixture of many opposite feelings. He had
interested her. She had spoken kindly to him. But then she had sent
him away before there was any necessity; she couldn’t care much about
him if she would do that. I think he might have felt a little more
cheerful, however, had he seen Miss Carrie Sinclair as she watched
his retiring figure from the garden-gate with a loving look upon her
saucy face, and a mischievous smile at his bent head and desponding
appearance.

The Colonial Bar was the favorite haunt of the inhabitants of
Harvey’s Sluice in their hours of relaxation. There had been a fierce
competition between it and the rival establishment termed the Grocery,
which, in spite of its innocent appellation, aspired also to dispense
spirituous refreshments. The importation of chairs into the latter had
led to the appearance of a settee in the former. Spittoons appeared
in the Grocery against a picture in the Bar, and, as the frequenters
expressed it, the honors were even. When, however, the Grocery led a
window-curtain, and its opponent returned a snuggery and a mirror, the
game was declared to be in favor of the latter, and Harvey’s Sluice
showed its sense of the spirit of the proprietor by withdrawing their
custom from his opponent.

Though every man was at liberty to swagger into the Bar itself, and
bask in the shimmer of its many colored bottles, there was a general
feeling that the snuggery, or special apartment, should be reserved
for the use of the more prominent citizens. It was in this room that
committees met, that opulent companies were conceived and born, and
that inquests were generally held. The latter, I regret to state,
was, in 1861, a pretty frequent ceremony at the Sluice; and the
findings of the coroner were sometimes characterized by a fine breezy
originality. Witness when Bully Burke, a notorious desperado, was shot
down by a quiet young medical man, and a sympathetic jury brought in
that “the deceased had met his death in an ill-advised attempt to stop
a pistol-ball while in motion,” a verdict which was looked upon as a
triumph of jurisprudence in the camp, as simultaneously exonerating the
culprit, and adhering to the rigid and undeniable truth.

On this particular evening there was an assemblage of notabilities in
the snuggery, though no such pathological ceremony had called them
together. Many changes had occurred of late which merited discussion;
and it was in this chamber, gorgeous in all the effete luxury of the
mirror and settee, that Harvey Sluice was wont to exchange ideas. The
recent cleansing of the population was still causing some ferment in
men’s minds. Then there was Miss Sinclair and her movements to be
commented on, and the paying lead in the Conemara, and the recent
rumors of bushrangers. It was no wonder that the leading men in the
township had come together in the Colonial Bar.

The rangers were the present subject of discussion. For some few days
rumors of their presence had been flying about, and an uneasy feeling
had pervaded the colony. Physical fear was a thing little known in
Harvey’s Sluice. The miners would have turned out to hunt down the
desperadoes with as much zest as if they had been so many kangaroos. It
was the presence of a large quantity of gold in the town which caused
anxiety. It was felt that the fruits of their labor must be secured
at any cost. Messages had been sent over to Buckhurst for as many
troopers as could be spared, and in the mean time the main street of
the Sluice was paraded at night by volunteer sentinels.

A fresh impetus had been given to the panic by the report brought in
to-day by Jim Struggles. Jim was of an ambitious and aspiring turn of
mind, and after gazing in silent disgust at his last week’s clean up,
he had metaphorically shaken the clay of Harvey’s Sluice from his feet,
and had started off into the woods with the intention of prospecting
round until he could hit upon some likely piece of ground for himself.
Jim’s story was that he was sitting upon a fallen trunk eating his
mid-day damper and rusty bacon, when his trained ear had caught the
clink of horses’ hoofs. He had hardly time to take the precaution of
rolling off the tree and crouching down behind it, before a troop of
men came riding down through the bush, and passed within a stone-throw
of him.

“There was Bill Smeaton and Murphy Duff,” said Struggles, naming two
notorious ruffians; “and there was three more that I couldn’t rightly
see. And they took the trail to the right, and looked like business all
over, with their guns in their hands.”

Jim was submitted to a searching cross-examination that evening; but
nothing could shake his testimony or throw a further light upon what he
had seen. He told the story several times and at long intervals; and
though there might be a pleasing variety in the minor incidents, the
main facts were always identically the same. The matter began to look
serious.

There were a few, however, who were loudly sceptical as to the
existence of the rangers, and the most prominent of these was a young
man who was perched on a barrel in the centre of the room, and was
evidently one of the leading spirits in the community. We have already
seen that dark curling hair, lack-lustre eye, and thin cruel lip in the
person of Black Tom Ferguson, the rejected suitor of Miss Sinclair.
He was easily distinguishable from the rest of the party by a tweed
coat, and other symptoms of effeminacy in his dress, which might have
brought him into disrepute had he not, like Abe Durton’s partner,
early established the reputation of being a quietly desperate man.
On the present occasion he seemed somewhat under the influence of
liquor, a rare occurrence with him, and probably to be ascribed to his
recent disappointment. He was almost fierce in his denunciation of Jim
Struggles and his story.

“It’s always the same,” he said; “if a man meets a few travellers in
the bush, he’s bound to come back raving about rangers. If they’d seen
Struggles there, they would have gone off with a long yarn about a
ranger crouching behind a tree. As to recognizing people riding fast
among tree-trunks--it is an impossibility.”

Struggles, however, stoutly maintained his original assertion, and all
the sarcasms and arguments of his opponent were thrown away upon his
stolid complacency. It was noticed that Ferguson seemed unaccountably
put out about the whole matter. Something seemed to be on his mind,
too; for occasionally he would spring off his perch and pace up and
down the room with an abstracted and very forbidding look upon his
swarthy face. It was a relief to everyone when suddenly catching up his
hat, and wishing the company a curt “Good-night,” he walked off through
the bar, and into the street beyond.

“Seems kinder put out,” remarked Long McCoy.

“He can’t be afeard of the rangers, surely,” said Joe Shamus, another
man of consequence, and principal shareholder of the El Dorado.

“No, he’s not the man to be afraid,” answered another. “There’s
something queer about him the last day or two. He’s been long trips in
the woods without any tools. They do say that the assayer’s daughter
has chucked him over.”

“Quite right too. A darned sight too good for him,” remarked several
voices.

“It’s odds but he has another try,” said Shamus. “He’s a hard man to
beat when he’s set his mind on a thing.”

“Abe Durton’s the horse to win,” remarked Houlahan, a little bearded
Irishman. “It’s sivin to four I’d be willin’ to lay on him.”

“And you’d be afther losing your money, a-vich,” said a young man with
a laugh. “She’ll want more brains than ever Bones had in his skull, you
bet.”

“Who’s seen Bones to-day?” asked McCoy.

“I’ve seen him,” said the young miner. “He came round all through the
camp asking for a dictionary--wanted to write a letter likely.”

“I saw him readin’ it,” said Shamus. “He came over to me and told me
he’d struck something good at the first show. Showed me a word about as
long as your arm--’abdicate,’ or something.”

“It’s a rich man he is now, I suppose,” said the Irishman.

“Well, he’s about made his pile. He holds a hundred feet of the
Conemara, and the shares go up every hour. If he’d sell out he’d be
about fit to go home.”

“Guess he wants to take somebody home with him,” said another. “Old
Joshua wouldn’t object, seein’ that the money is there.”

I think it has been already recorded in this narrative that Jim
Struggles, the wandering prospector, had gained the reputation of being
the wit of the camp. It was not only in airy badinage, but in the
conception and execution of more pretentious practical pleasantries
that Jim had earned his reputation. His adventure in the morning had
caused a certain stagnation in his usual flow of humor; but the company
and his potations were gradually restoring him to a more cheerful
state of mind. He had been brooding in silence over some idea since
the departure of Ferguson, and he now proceeded to evolve it to his
expectant companions.

“Say, boys,” he began. “What day’s this?”

“Friday, ain’t it?”

“No, not that. What day of the month?”

“Darned if I know!”

“Well, I’ll tell you now. It’s the first o’ April. I’ve got a calendar
in the hut as says so.”

“What if it is?” said several voices.

“Well, don’t you see, it’s All Fools’ day. Couldn’t we fix up some
little joke on some one, eh? Couldn’t we get a laugh out of it? Now
there’s old Bones, for instance; he’ll never smell a rat. Couldn’t we
send him off somewhere and watch him go maybe? We’d have something to
chaff him on for a month to come, eh?”

There was a general murmur of assent. A joke, however poor, was always
welcome to the Sluice. The broader the point, the more thoroughly was
it appreciated. There was no morbid delicacy of feeling in the gulches.

“Where shall we send him?” was the query.

Jim Struggles was buried in thought for a moment. Then an unhallowed
inspiration seemed to come over him, and he laughed uproariously,
rubbing his hands between his knees in the excess of his delight.

“Well, what is it?” asked the eager audience.

“See here, boys. There’s Miss Sinclair. You was saying as Abe’s gone
on her. She don’t fancy him much you think. Suppose we write him a
note--send it him to-night, you know.”

“Well, what then?” said McCoy.

“Well, pretend the note is from her, d’ye see? Put her name at the
bottom. Let on as she wants him to come up an’ meet her in the garden
at twelve. He’s bound to go. He’ll think she wants to go off with him.
It’ll be the biggest thing played this year.”

There was a roar of laughter. The idea conjured up of honest Bones
mooning about in the garden, and of old Joshua coming out to
remonstrate with a double-barrelled shot-gun, was irresistibly comic.
The plan was approved of unanimously.

“Here’s pencil and here’s paper,” said the humorist. “Who’s goin’ to
write the letter?”

“Write it yourself, Jim,” said Shamus.

“Well, what shall I say?”

“Say what you think right.”

“I don’t know how she’d put it,” said Jim, scratching his head in great
perplexity. “However, Bones will never know the differ. How will this
do? ‘Dear old man. Come to the garden at twelve to-night, else I’ll
never speak to you again,’ eh?”

“No, that’s not the style,” said the young miner. “Mind, she’s a lass
of eddication. She’d put it kinder flowery and soft.”

“Well, write it yourself,” said Jim, sulkily, handing him over the
pencil.

“This is the sort of thing,” said the miner, moistening the point of it
in his mouth. “’When the moon is in the sky--’”

“There it is. That’s bully,” from the company.

“’And the stars a-shinin’ bright, meet, O meet me, Adolphus, by the
garden-gate at twelve.’”

“His name ain’t Adolphus,” objected a critic.

“That’s how the poetry comes in,” said the miner. “It’s kinder
fanciful, d’ye see. Sounds a darned sight better than Abe. Trust him
for guessing who she means. I’ll sign it Carrie. There!”

This epistle was gravely passed round the room from hand to hand, and
reverentially gazed upon as being a remarkable production of the human
brain. It was then folded up and committed to the care of a small
boy, who was solemnly charged under dire threats to deliver it at the
shanty, and to make off before any awkward questions were asked him.
It was only after he had disappeared in the darkness that some slight
compunction visited one or two of the company.

“Ain’t it playing it rather low on the girl?” said Shamus.

“And rough on old Bones?” suggested another.

However, these objections were overruled by the majority, and
disappeared entirely upon the appearance of a second jorum of whiskey.
The matter had almost been forgotten by the time that Abe had received
his note, and was spelling it out with a palpitating heart under the
light of his solitary candle.

       *       *       *       *       *

That night has long been remembered in Harvey’s Sluice. A fitful breeze
was sweeping down from the distant mountains, moaning and sighing among
the deserted claims. Dark clouds were hurrying across the moon, one
moment throwing a shadow over the landscape, and the next allowing the
silvery radiance to shine down, cold and clear upon the little valley,
and bathe in a weird mysterious light the great stretch of bushland on
either side of it. A great loneliness seemed to rest on the face of
Nature. Men remarked afterward on the strange eerie atmosphere which
hung over the little town.

It was in the darkness that Abe Durton sallied out from his little
shanty. His partner, Boss Morgan, was still absent in the bush, so that
beyond the ever-watchful Blinky there was no living being to observe
his movements. A feeling of mild surprise filled his simple soul that
his angel’s delicate fingers could have formed those great straggling
hieroglyphics; however, there was the name at the foot, and that was
enough for him. She wanted him, no matter for what, and with a heart as
pure and as heroic as any knight-errant, this rough miner went forth at
the summons of his love.

He groped his way up the steep winding track which led to Azalea Villa.
There was a little clump of small trees and shrubs about fifty yards
from the entrance of the garden. Abe stopped for a moment when he had
reached them in order to collect himself. It was hardly twelve yet, so
that he had a few minutes to spare. He stood under their dark canopy
peering at the white house vaguely outlined in front of him. A plain
enough little dwelling-place to any prosaic mortal, but girt with
reverence and awe in the eyes of the lover.

The miner paused under the shade of the trees, and then moved on to the
garden-gate. There was no one there. He was evidently rather early.
The moon was shining brightly now, and the country round was as clear
as day. Abe looked past the little villa at the road which ran like a
white winding streak over the brow of the hill. A watcher behind could
have seen his square athletic figure standing out sharp and clear. Then
he gave a start as if he had been shot, and staggered up against the
little gate beside him.

He had seen something which caused even his sunburned face to become
a shade paler as he thought of the girl so near him. Just at the bend
of the road, not two hundred yards away, he saw a dark moving mass
coming round the curve, and lost in the shadow of the hill. It was but
for a moment; yet in that moment the quick perception of the practised
woodman had realized the whole situation. It was a band of horsemen
bound for the villa; and what horsemen would ride so by night save the
terror of the woodlands--the dreaded rangers of the bush?

It is true that on ordinary occasions Abe was as sluggish in his
intellect as he was heavy in his movements. In the hour of danger,
however, he was as remarkable for cool deliberation as for prompt and
decisive action. As he advanced up the garden he rapidly reckoned up
the chances against him. There were half a dozen of the assailants
at the most moderate computation, all desperate and fearless men.
The question was whether he could keep them at bay for a short time
and prevent their forcing a passage into the house. We have already
mentioned that sentinels had been placed in the main street of the
town. Abe reckoned that help would be at hand within ten minutes of the
firing of the first shot.

Were he inside the house he could confidently reckon on holding his
own for a longer period than that. Before he could rouse the sleepers
and gain admission, however, the rangers would be upon him. He must
content himself with doing his utmost. At any rate he would show Carrie
that if he could not talk to her he could at least die for her. The
thought gave him quite a glow of pleasure, as he crept under the shadow
of the house. He cocked his revolver. Experience had taught him the
advantage of the first shot.

The road along which the rangers were coming ended at a wooden gate
opening into the upper part of the assayer’s little garden. This gate
had a high acacia hedge on either side of it, and opened into a short
walk also lined by impassable thorny walls. Abe knew the place well.
One resolute man might, he thought, hold the passage for a few minutes
until the assailants broke through elsewhere and took him in the rear.
At any rate, it was his best chance. He passed the front door, but
forbore to give any alarm. Sinclair was an elderly man, and would be
of little assistance in such a desperate struggle as was before him,
and the appearance of lights in the house would warn the rangers of
the resistance awaiting them. O for his partner the Boss, for Chicago
Bill, for any one of twenty gallant men who would have come at his call
and stood by him in such a quarrel! He turned into the narrow pathway.
There was the well-remembered wooden gate; and there, perched upon the
gate, languidly swinging his legs backward and forward, and peering
down the road in front of him, was Mr. John Morgan, the very man for
whom Abe had been longing from the bottom of his heart.

There was short time for explanations. A few hurried words announced
that the Boss, returning from his little tour, had come across
the rangers riding on their mission of darkness, and overhearing
their destination, had managed, by hard running and knowledge of
the country, to arrive before them. “No time to alarm any one,”
he explained, still panting from his exertions; “must stop them
ourselves--not come for swag--come for your girl. Only over our bodies,
Bones;” and with these few broken words the strangely assorted friends
shook hands and looked lovingly into each other’s eyes, while the tramp
of the horses came down to them on the fragrant breeze of the woods.

There were six rangers in all. One who appeared to be leader rode in
front, while the others followed in a body. They flung themselves
off their horses when they were opposite the house, and after a few
muttered words from their captain, tethered the animals to a small
tree, and walked confidently toward the gate.

Boss Morgan and Abe were crouching down under the shadow of the hedge,
at the extreme end of the narrow passage. They were invisible to the
rangers, who evidently reckoned on meeting little resistance in this
isolated house. As the first man came forward and half turned to give
some order to his comrades, both the friends recognized the stern
profile and heavy mustache of Black Ferguson, the rejected suitor of
Miss Carrie Sinclair. Honest Abe made a mental vow that he at least
should never reach the door alive.

The ruffian stepped up to the gate and put his hand upon the latch. He
started as a stentorian “Stand back!” came thundering out from among
the bushes. In war, as in love, the miner was a man of few words.

“There’s no road this way,” explained another voice, with an infinite
sadness and gentleness about it which was characteristic of its owner
when the devil was rampant in his soul. The ranger recognized it. He
remembered the soft languid address which he had listened to in the
billiard-room of the Buckhurst Arms, and which had wound up by the mild
orator putting his back against the door, drawing a derringer, and
asking to see the sharper who would dare to force a passage. “It’s that
infernal fool Durton,” he said, “and his white-faced friend.”

Both were well-known names in the country round. But the rangers were
reckless and desperate men. They drew up to the gate in a body.

“Clear out of that!” said their leader, in a grim whisper; “you can’t
save the girl. Go off with whole skins while you have the chance.”

The partners laughed.

“Then curse you, come on!”

The gate was flung open and the party fired a straggling volley, and
made a fierce rush toward the gravelled walk.

The revolvers cracked merrily in the silence of the night from the
bushes at the other end. It was hard to aim with precision in the
darkness. The second man sprang convulsively into the air, and fell
upon his face with his arms extended, writhing horribly in the
moonlight. The third was grazed in the leg and stopped. The others
stopped out of sympathy. After all, the girl was not for them, and
their heart was hardly in the work. Their captain rushed madly on, like
a valiant blackguard as he was, but was met by a crashing blow from
the butt of Abe Durton’s pistol, delivered with a fierce energy which
sent him reeling back among his comrades with the blood streaming from
his shattered jaw, and his capacity for cursing cut short at the very
moment when he needed to draw upon it most.

“Don’t go yet,” said the voice in the darkness.

However, they had no intention of going yet. A few minutes must
elapse, they knew, before Harvey’s Sluice could be upon them. There was
still time to force the door if they could succeed in mastering the
defenders. What Abe had feared came to pass. Black Ferguson knew the
ground as well as he did. He ran rapidly along the hedge, and the five
crashed through it where there was some appearance of a gap. The two
friends glanced at each other. Their flank was turned. They stood up
like men who knew their fate and did not fear to meet it.

There was a wild medley of dark figures in the moonlight, and a ringing
cheer from well-known voices. The humorists of Harvey’s Sluice had
found something even more practical than the joke which they had come
to witness. The partners saw the faces of friends beside them--Shamus,
Struggles, McCoy. There was a desperate rally, a sweeping fiery rush, a
cloud of smoke, with pistol-shots and fierce oaths ringing out of it,
and when it lifted, a single dark shadow flying for dear life to the
shelter of the broken hedge was the only ranger upon his feet within
the little garden. But there was no sound of triumph among the victors;
a strange hush had come over them, and a murmur as of grief--for there,
lying across the threshold which he had fought so gallantly to defend,
lay poor Abe, the loyal and simple-hearted, breathing heavily with a
bullet through his lungs.

He was carried inside with all the rough tenderness of the mines. There
were men there, I think, who would have borne his hurt to have had the
love of that white girlish figure, which bent over the blood-stained
bed and whispered so softly and so tenderly in his ear. Her voice
seemed to rouse him. He opened his dreamy blue eyes and looked about
him. They rested on her face.

“Played out,” he murmured; “pardon, Carrie, morib----” and with a faint
smile he sank back upon the pillow.

However, Abe failed for once to be as good as his word. His hardy
constitution asserted itself, and he shook off what might in a weaker
man have proved a deadly wound. Whether it was the balmy air of the
woodlands which came sweeping over a thousand miles of forest into the
sick man’s room, or whether it was the little nurse who tended him
so gently, certain it is that within two months we heard that he had
realized his shares in the Conemara, and gone from Harvey’s Sluice and
the little shanty upon the hill forever.

I had the advantage, a short time afterward, of seeing an extract
from the letter of a young lady named Amelia, to whom we have made a
casual allusion in the course of our narrative. We have already broken
the privacy of one feminine epistle, so we shall have fewer scruples
in glancing at another. “I was bridesmaid,” she remarks, “and Carrie
looked charming” (underlined) “in the vail and orange blossoms. Such
a man, he is, twice as big as your Jack, and he was so funny, and
blushed, and dropped the prayer-book. And when they asked the question
you could have heard him roar ‘I do!’ at the other end of George
Street. His best man was a darling” (twice underlined). “So quiet and
handsome and nice. Too gentle to take care of himself among those rough
men, I am sure.” I think it quite possible that in the fulness of time
Miss Amelia managed to take upon herself the care of our old friend Mr.
Jack Morgan, commonly known as the Boss.

A tree is still pointed out at the bend as Ferguson’s gum-tree. There
is no need to enter into unsavory details. Justice is short and sharp
in primitive colonies, and the dwellers in Harvey’s Sluice were a
serious and practical race.

It is still the custom for a select party to meet on a Saturday evening
in the snuggery of the Colonial Bar. On such occasions, if there be a
stranger or guest to be entertained, the same solemn ceremony is always
observed. Glasses are charged in silence; there is a tapping of the
same upon the table, and then, with a deprecating cough, Jim Struggles
comes forward and tells the tale of the April joke, and of what came of
it. There is generally conceded to be something very artistic in the
way in which he breaks off suddenly at the close of his narrative, by
waving his bumper in the air with “An’ here’s to Mr. and Mrs. Bones.
God bless ’em!” a sentiment in which the stranger, if he be a prudent
man, will most cordially acquiesce.




SELECTING A GHOST.

THE GHOSTS OF GORESTHORPE GRANGE.


I am sure that Nature never intended me to be a self-made man. There
are times when I can hardly bring myself to realize that twenty years
of my life were spent behind the counter of a grocer’s shop in the East
End of London, and that it was through such an avenue that I reached
a wealthy independence and the possession of Goresthorpe Grange. My
habits are Conservative, and my tastes refined and aristocratic. I have
a soul which spurns the vulgar herd. Our family, the D’Odds, date back
to a prehistoric era, as is to be inferred from the fact that their
advent into British history is not commented on by any trustworthy
historian. Some instinct tells me that the blood of a Crusader runs in
my veins. Even now, after the lapse of so many years, such exclamations
as “By’r Lady!” rise naturally to my lips, and I feel that, should
circumstances require it, I am capable of rising in my stirrups and
dealing an infidel a blow--say with a mace--which would considerably
astonish him.

Goresthorpe Grange is a feudal mansion--or so it was termed in the
advertisement which originally brought it under my notice. Its right
to this adjective had a most remarkable effect upon its price, and the
advantages gained may possibly be more sentimental than real. Still,
it is soothing to me to know that I have slits in my staircase through
which I can discharge arrows; and there is a sense of power in the
fact of possessing a complicated apparatus by means of which I am
enabled to pour molten lead upon the head of the casual visitor. These
things chime in with my peculiar humor, and I do not grudge to pay
for them. I am proud of my battlements and of the circular uncovered
sewer which girds me round. I am proud of my portcullis and donjon
and keep. There is but one thing wanting to round off the mediævalism
of my abode, and to render it symmetrically and completely antique.
Goresthorpe Grange is not provided with a ghost.

Any man with old-fashioned tastes and ideas as to how such
establishments should be conducted, would have been disappointed at
the omission. In my case it was particularly unfortunate. From my
childhood I had been an earnest student of the supernatural, and a
firm believer in it. I have revelled in ghostly literature until there
is hardly a tale bearing upon the subject which I have not perused. I
learned the German language for the sole purpose of mastering a book
upon demonology. When an infant I have secreted myself in dark rooms
in the hope of seeing some of those bogies with which my nurse used to
threaten me; and the same feeling is as strong in me now as then. It
was a proud moment when I felt that a ghost was one of the luxuries
which my money might command.

It is true that there was no mention of an apparition in the
advertisement. On reviewing the mildewed walls, however, and the
shadowy corridors, I had taken it for granted that there was such a
thing on the premises. As the presence of a kennel presupposes that
of a dog, so I imagined that it was impossible that such desirable
quarters should be untenanted by one or more restless shades. Good
heavens, what can the noble family from whom I purchased it have
been doing during these hundreds of years! Was there no member of it
spirited enough to make away with his sweetheart, or take some other
steps calculated to establish a hereditary spectre? Even now I can
hardly write with patience upon the subject.

For a long time I hoped against hope. Never did rat squeak behind the
wainscot, or rain drip upon the attic floor, without a wild thrill
shooting through me as I thought that at last I had come upon traces
of some unquiet soul. I felt no touch of fear upon these occasions.
If it occurred in the night-time, I would send Mrs. D’Odd--who is a
strong-minded woman--to investigate the matter, while I covered up my
head with the bedclothes and indulged in an ecstasy of expectation.
Alas, the result was always the same! The suspicious sound would be
traced to some cause so absurdly natural and commonplace that the most
fervid imagination could not clothe it with any of the glamour of
romance.

I might have reconciled myself to this state of things, had it not
been for Jorrocks of Havistock Farm. Jorrocks is a coarse, burly,
matter-of-fact fellow, whom I only happened to know through the
accidental circumstance of his fields adjoining my demesne. Yet this
man, though utterly devoid of all appreciation of archæological
unities, is in possession of a well-authenticated and undeniable
spectre. Its existence only dates back, I believe, to the reign of the
Second George, when a young lady cut her throat upon hearing of the
death of her lover at the battle of Dettingen. Still, even that gives
the house an air of respectability, especially when coupled with blood
stains upon the floor. Jorrocks is densely unconscious of his good
fortune; and his language when he reverts to the apparition is painful
to listen to. He little dreams how I covet everyone of those moans and
nocturnal wails which he describes with unnecessary objurgation. Things
are indeed coming to a pretty pass when democratic spectres are allowed
to desert the landed proprietors and annul every social distinction by
taking refuge in the houses of the great unrecognized.

I have a large amount of perseverance. Nothing else could have raised
me into my rightful sphere, considering the uncongenial atmosphere in
which I spent the earlier part of my life. I felt now that a ghost must
be secured, but how to set about securing one was more than either Mrs.
D’Odd or myself was able to determine. My reading taught me that such
phenomena are usually the outcome of crime. What crime was to be done,
then, and who was to do it? A wild idea entered my mind that Watkins,
the house-steward, might be prevailed upon--for a consideration--to
immolate himself or someone else in the interests of the establishment.
I put the matter to him in a half-jesting manner; but it did not seem
to strike him in a favorable light. The other servants sympathized with
him in his opinion--at least, I cannot account in any other way for
their having left the house in a body the same afternoon.

“My dear,” Mrs. D’Odd remarked to me one day after dinner, as I sat
moodily sipping a cup of sack--I love the good old names--“my dear,
that odious ghost of Jorrocks’ has been gibbering again.”

“Let it gibber!” I answered, recklessly.

Mrs. D’Odd struck a few chords on her virginal and looked thoughtfully
into the fire.

“I’ll tell you what it is, Argentine,” she said at last, using the pet
name which we usually substituted for Silas, “we must have a ghost
sent down from London.”

“How can you be so idiotic, Matilda?” I remarked, severely. “Who could
get us such a thing?”

“My cousin, Jack Brocket, could,” she answered, confidently.

Now, this cousin of Matilda’s was rather a sore subject between us.
He was a rakish, clever young fellow, who had tried his hand at many
things, but wanted perseverance to succeed at any. He was, at that
time, in chambers in London, professing to be a general agent, and
really living, to a great extent, upon his wits. Matilda managed
so that most of our business should pass through his hands, which
certainly saved me a great deal of trouble; but I found that Jack’s
commission was generally considerably larger than all the other items
of the bill put together. It was this fact which made me feel inclined
to rebel against any further negotiations with the young gentleman.

“O yes, he could,” insisted Mrs. D., seeing the look of disapprobation
upon my face. “You remember how well he managed that business about the
crest?”

“It was only a resuscitation of the old family coat-of-arms, my dear,”
I protested.

Matilda smiled in an irritating manner. “There was a resuscitation of
the family portraits, too, dear,” she remarked. “You must allow that
Jack selected them very judiciously.”

I thought of the long line of faces which adorned the walls of my
banqueting-hall, from the burly Norman robber, through every gradation
of casque, plume, and ruff, to the sombre Chesterfieldian individual
who appears to have staggered against a pillar in his agony at the
return of a maiden MS. which he grips convulsively in his right hand.
I was fain to confess that in that instance he had done his work
well, and that it was only fair to give him an order--with the usual
commission--for a family spectre, should such a thing be attainable.

It is one of my maxims to act promptly when once my mind is made up.
Noon of the next day found me ascending the spiral stone staircase
which leads to Mr. Brocket’s chambers, and admiring the succession
of arrows and fingers upon the whitewashed wall, all indicating the
direction of that gentleman’s sanctum. As it happened, artificial
aids of the sort were entirely unnecessary, as an animated flap-dance
overhead could proceed from no other quarter, though it was replaced by
a deathly silence as I groped my way up the stair. The door was opened
by a youth evidently astounded at the appearance of a client, and I was
ushered into the presence of my young friend, who was writing furiously
in a large ledger--upside down, as I afterward discovered.

After the first greetings, I plunged into business at once.

“Look here, Jack,” I said, “I want you to get me a spirit, if you can.”

“Spirits you mean!” shouted my wife’s cousin, plunging his hand into
the waste-paper basket and producing a bottle with the celerity of a
conjuring trick. “Let’s have a drink!”

I held up my hand as a mute appeal against such a proceeding so
early in the day; but on lowering it again I found that I had almost
involuntarily closed my fingers round the tumbler which my adviser
had pressed upon me. I drank the contents hastily off, lest anyone
should come in upon us and set me down as a toper. After all there was
something very amusing about the young fellow’s eccentricities.

“Not spirits,” I explained, smilingly; “an apparition--a ghost. If such
a thing is to be had, I should be very willing to negotiate.”

“A ghost for Goresthorpe Grange?” inquired Mr. Brocket, with as much
coolness as if I had asked for a drawing-room suite.

“Quite so,” I answered.

“Easiest thing in the world,” said my companion, filling up my
glass again in spite of my remonstrance. “Let us see!” Here he took
down a large red note-book, with all the letters of the alphabet in
a fringe down the edge. “A ghost you said, didn’t you? That’s G.
G--gems--gimlets--gas-pipes--gauntlets--guns--galleys. Ah, here we
are. Ghosts. Volume nine, section six, page forty-one. Excuse me!” And
Jack ran up a ladder and began rummaging among a pile of ledgers on a
high shelf. I felt half inclined to empty my glass into the spittoon
when his back was turned; but on second thoughts I disposed of it in a
legitimate way.

“Here it is!” cried my London agent, jumping off the ladder with a
crash, and depositing an enormous volume of manuscript upon the table.
“I have all these things tabulated, so that I may lay my hands upon
them in a moment. It’s all right--it’s quite weak” (here he filled our
glasses again). “What were we looking up, again?”

“Ghosts,” I suggested.

“Of course; page 41. Here we are. ‘J. H. Fowler & Son, Dunkel Street,
suppliers of mediums to the nobility and gentry; charms sold--love
philtres--mummies--horoscopes cast.’ Nothing in your line there, I
suppose.

I shook my head despondently.

“’Frederick Tabb,’” continued my wife’s cousin, “’sole channel of
communication between the living and the dead. Proprietor of the
spirits of Byron, Kirke White, Grimaldi, Tom Cribb, and Inigo Jones.’
That’s about the figure!”

“Nothing romantic enough there,” I objected. “Good heavens! Fancy a
ghost with a black eye and a handkerchief tied round its waist, or
turning summersaults, and saying, ‘How are you to-morrow?’” The very
idea made me so warm that I emptied my glass and filled it again.

“Here is another,” said my companion, “’Christopher McCarthy; bi-weekly
séances--attended by all the eminent spirits of ancient and modern
times. Nativities--charms--abracadabras, messages from the dead.’ He
might be able to help us. However, I shall have a hunt round myself
to-morrow, and see some of these fellows. I know their haunts, and it’s
odd if I can’t pick up something cheap. So there’s an end of business,”
he concluded, hurling the ledger into the corner, “and now we’ll have
something to drink.”

We had several things to drink--so many that my inventive faculties
were dulled next morning, and I had some little difficulty in
explaining to Mrs. D’Odd why it was that I hung my boots and spectacles
upon a peg along with my other garments before retiring to rest.
The new hopes excited by the confident manner in which my agent had
undertaken the commission, caused me to rise superior to alcoholic
reaction, and I paced about the rambling corridors and old-fashioned
rooms, picturing to myself the appearance of my expected acquisition,
and deciding what part of the building would harmonize best with its
presence. After much consideration, I pitched upon the banqueting-hall
as being, on the whole, most suitable for its reception. It was a long
low room, hung round with valuable tapestry and interesting relics of
the old family to whom it had belonged. Coats of mail and implements
of war glimmered fitfully as the light of the fire played over them,
and the wind crept under the door, moving the hangings to and fro with
a ghastly rustling. At one end there was the raised dais, on which
in ancient times the host and his guests used to spread their table,
while a descent of a couple of steps led to the lower part of the hall,
where the vassals and retainers held wassail. The floor was uncovered
by any sort of carpet, but a layer of rushes had been scattered over
it by my direction. In the whole room there was nothing to remind one
of the nineteenth century; except, indeed, my own solid silver plate,
stamped with the resuscitated family arms, which was laid out upon an
oak table in the centre. This, I determined, should be the haunted
room, supposing my wife’s cousin to succeed in his negotiation with
the spirit-mongers. There was nothing for it now but to wait patiently
until I heard some news of the result of his inquiries.

A letter came in the course of a few days, which, if it was short,
was at least encouraging. It was scribbled in pencil on the back of
a playbill, and sealed apparently with a tobacco-stopper. “Am on the
track,” it said. “Nothing of the sort to be had from any professional
spiritualist, but picked up a fellow in a pub yesterday who says he can
manage it for you. Will send him down unless you wire to the contrary.
Abrahams is his name, and he has done one or two of these jobs before.”
The letter wound up with some incoherent allusions to a check, and was
signed by my affectionate cousin, John Brocket.

I need hardly say that I did not wire, but awaited the arrival of
Mr. Abrahams with all impatience. In spite of my belief in the
supernatural, I could scarcely credit the fact that any mortal could
have such a command over the spirit-world as to deal in them and barter
them against mere earthly gold. Still, I had Jack’s word for it that
such a trade existed; and here was a gentleman with a Judaical name
ready to demonstrate it by proof positive. How vulgar and commonplace
Jorrocks’ eighteenth-century ghost would appear should I succeed in
securing a real mediæval apparition! I almost thought that one had
been sent down in advance, for, as I walked round the moat that night
before retiring to rest, I came upon a dark figure engaged in surveying
the machinery of my portcullis and drawbridge. His start of surprise,
however, and the manner in which he hurried off into the darkness,
speedily convinced me of his earthly origin, and I put him down as
some admirer of one of my female retainers mourning over the muddy
Hellespont which divided him from his love. Whoever he may have been,
he disappeared and did not return, though I loitered about for some
time in the hope of catching a glimpse of him and exercising my feudal
rights upon his person.

Jack Brocket was as good as his word. The shades of another evening
were beginning to darken round Goresthorpe Grange, when a peal at the
outer bell, and the sound of a fly pulling up, announced the arrival
of Mr. Abrahams. I hurried down to meet him, half expecting to see a
choice assortment of ghosts crowding in at his rear. Instead, however,
of being the sallow-faced, melancholy-eyed man that I had pictured to
myself, the ghost-dealer was a sturdy little podgy fellow, with a pair
of wonderfully keen sparkling eyes and a mouth which was constantly
stretched in a good-humored, if somewhat artificial, grin. His sole
stock-in-trade seemed to consist of a small leather bag jealously
locked and strapped, which emitted a metallic chink upon being placed
on the stone flags of the hall.

“And ’ow are you, sir?” he asked, wringing my hand with the utmost
effusion. “And the missus, ’ow is she? And all the others--’ow’s all
their ’ealth?”

I intimated that we were all as well as could reasonably be expected,
but Mr. Abrahams happened to catch a glimpse of Mrs. D’Odd in
the distance, and at once plunged at her with another string of
inquiries as to her health, delivered so volubly and with such an
intense earnestness, that I half expected to see him terminate his
cross-examination by feeling her pulse and demanding a sight of her
tongue. All this time his little eyes rolled round and round, shifting
perpetually from the floor to the ceiling, and from the ceiling to the
walls, taking in apparently every article of furniture in a single
comprehensive glance.

Having satisfied himself that neither of us was in a pathological
condition, Mr. Abrahams suffered me to lead him upstairs, where a
repast had been laid out for him to which he did ample justice. The
mysterious little bag he carried along with him, and deposited it under
his chair during the meal. It was not until the table had been cleared
and we were left together that he broached the matter on which he had
come down.

“I hunderstand,” he remarked, puffing at a trichinopoly, “that you want
my ’elp in fitting up this ’ere ’ouse with a happarition.”

I acknowledged the correctness of his surmise, while mentally wondering
at those restless eyes of his, which still danced about the room as if
he were making an inventory of the contents.

“And you won’t find a better man for the job, though I says it as
shouldn’t,” continued my companion. “Wot did I say to the young gent
wot spoke to me in the bar of the Lame Dog? ‘Can you do it?’ says he.
‘Try me,’ says I, ’me and my bag. Just try me.’ I couldn’t say fairer
than that.”

My respect for Jack Brocket’s business capacities began to go up
very considerably. He certainly seemed to have managed the matter
wonderfully well. “You don’t mean to say that you carry ghosts about in
bags?” I remarked, with diffidence.

Mr. Abrahams smiled a smile of superior knowledge. “You wait,” he
said; “give me the right place and the right hour, with a little of
the essence of Lucoptolycus”--here he produced a small bottle from his
waistcoat pocket--“and you won’t find no ghost that I ain’t up to.
You’ll see them yourself, and pick your own, and I can’t say fairer
than that.”

As all Mr. Abrahams’ protestations of fairness were accompanied by a
cunning leer and a wink from one or other of his wicked little eyes,
the impression of candor was somewhat weakened.

“When are you going to do it?” I asked, reverentially.

“Ten minutes to one in the morning,” said Mr. Abrahams, with decision.
“Some says midnight, but I says ten to one, when there ain’t such a
crowd, and you can pick your own ghost. And now,” he continued, rising
to his feet, “suppose you trot me round the premises, and let me see
where you wants it; for there’s some places as attracts ’em, and some
as they won’t hear of--not if there was no other place in the world.”

Mr. Abrahams inspected our corridors and chambers with a most critical
and observant eye, fingering the old tapestry with the air of a
connoisseur, and remarking in an undertone that it would “match
uncommon nice.” It was not until he reached the banqueting-hall,
however, which I had myself picked out, that his admiration reached
the pitch of enthusiasm. “’Ere’s the place!” he shouted, dancing, bag
in hand, round the table on which my plate was lying, and looking not
unlike some quaint little goblin himself. “’Ere’s the place; we won’t
get nothin’ to beat this! A fine room--noble, solid, none of your
electro-plate trash! That’s the way as things ought to be done, sir.
Plenty of room for ’em to glide here. Send up some brandy and the box
of weeds; I’ll sit here by the fire and do the preliminaries, which
is more trouble than you’d think; for them ghosts carries on hawful
at times, before they finds out who they’ve got to deal with. If you
was in the room they’d tear you to pieces as like as not. You leave
me alone to tackle them, and at half-past twelve come in, and I lay
they’ll be quiet enough by then.”

Mr. Abrahams’ request struck me as a reasonable one, so I left him with
his feet upon the mantelpiece, and his chair in front of the fire,
fortifying himself with stimulants against his refractory visitors.
From the room beneath, in which I sat with Mrs. D’Odd, I could hear
that, after sitting for some time, he rose up and paced about the hall
with quick impatient steps. We then heard him try the lock of the door,
and afterward drag some heavy article of furniture in the direction of
the window, on which, apparently, he mounted, for I heard the creaking
of the rusty hinges as the diamond-paned casement folded backward,
and I knew it to be situated several feet above the little man’s
reach. Mrs. D’Odd says that she could distinguish his voice speaking
in low and rapid whispers after this, but that may have been her
imagination. I confess that I began to feel more impressed than I had
deemed it possible to be. There was something awesome in the thought
of the solitary mortal standing by the open window and summoning in
from the gloom outside the spirits of the nether world. It was with a
trepidation which I could hardly disguise from Matilda that I observed
that the clock was pointing to half-past twelve, and that the time had
come for me to share the vigil of my visitor.

He was sitting in his old position when I entered, and there were no
signs of the mysterious movements which I had overheard, though his
chubby face was flushed as with recent exertion.

“Are you succeeding all right?” I asked as I came in, putting on as
careless an air as possible, but glancing involuntarily round the room
to see if we were alone.

“Only your help is needed to complete the matter,” said Mr. Abrahams,
in a solemn voice. “You shall sit by me and partake of the essence of
Lucoptolycus, which removes the scales from our earthly eyes. Whatever
you may chance to see, speak not and make no movement, lest you break
the spell.” His manner was subdued, and his usual cockney vulgarity had
entirely disappeared. I took the chair which he indicated, and awaited
the result.

My companion cleared the rushes from the floor in our neighborhood,
and, going down upon his hands and knees, described a half-circle with
chalk, which enclosed the fireplace and ourselves. Round the edge of
this half-circle he drew several hieroglyphics, not unlike the signs of
the zodiac. He then stood up and uttered a long invocation, delivered
so rapidly that it sounded like a single gigantic word in some uncouth
guttural language. Having finished this prayer, if prayer it was, he
pulled out the small bottle which he had produced before, and poured a
couple of teaspoonfuls of clear transparent fluid into a phial, which
he handed to me with an intimation that I should drink it.

The liquid had a faintly sweet odor, not unlike the aroma of certain
sorts of apples. I hesitated a moment before applying it to my lips,
but an impatient gesture from my companion overcame my scruples, and I
tossed it off. The taste was not unpleasant; and, as it gave rise to no
immediate effects, I leaned back in my chair and composed myself for
what was to come. Mr. Abrahams seated himself beside me, and I felt
that he was watching my face from time to time, while repeating some
more of the invocations in which he had indulged before.

A sense of delicious warmth and languor began gradually to steal over
me, partly, perhaps, from the heat of the fire, and partly from some
unexplained cause. An uncontrollable impulse to sleep weighed down my
eyelids, while at the same time my brain worked actively, and a hundred
beautiful and pleasing ideas flitted through it. So utterly lethargic
did I feel that, though I was aware that my companion put his hand
over the region of my heart, as if to feel how it were beating, I did
not attempt to prevent him, nor did I even ask him for the reason of
his action. Everything in the room appeared to be reeling slowly round
in a drowsy dance, of which I was the centre. The great elk’s head at
the far end wagged solemnly backward and forward, while the massive
salvers on the tables performed cotillons with the claret-cooler and
the épergne. My head fell upon my breast from sheer heaviness, and I
should have become unconscious had I not been recalled to myself by
the opening of the door at the other end of the hall.

This door led on to the raised dais, which, as I have mentioned, the
heads of the house used to reserve for their own use. As it swung
slowly back upon its hinges, I sat up in my chair, clutching at the
arms, and staring with a horrified glare at the dark passage outside.
Something was coming down it--something unformed and intangible,
but still a _something_. Dim and shadowy, I saw it flit across the
threshold, while a blast of ice-cold air swept down the room, which
seemed to blow through me, chilling my very heart. I was aware of the
mysterious presence, and then I heard it speak in a voice like the
sighing of an east wind among pine-trees on the banks of a desolate sea.

It said: “I am the invisible nonentity. I have affinities and am
subtle. I am electric, magnetic, and spiritualistic. I am the great
ethereal sigh-heaver. I kill dogs. Mortal, wilt thou choose me?”

I was about to speak, but the words seemed to be choked in my throat;
and, before I could get them out, the shadow flitted across the hall
and vanished in the darkness at the other side, while a long-drawn
melancholy sigh quivered through the apartment.

I turned my eyes toward the door once more, and beheld, to my
astonishment, a very small old woman, who hobbled along the corridor
and into the hall. She passed backward and forward several times, and
then, crouching down at the very edge of the circle upon the floor,
she disclosed a face the horrible malignity of which shall never be
banished from my recollection. Every foul passion appeared to have left
its mark upon that hideous countenance.

“Ha! ha!” she screamed, holding out her wizened hands like the talons
of an unclean bird. “You see what I am. I am the fiendish old woman. I
wear snuff-colored silks. My curse descends on people. Sir Walter was
partial to me. Shall I be thine, mortal?”

I endeavored to shake my head in horror; on which she aimed a blow at
me with her crutch, and vanished with an eldritch scream.

By this time my eyes turned naturally toward the open door, and I was
hardly surprised to see a man walk in of tall and noble stature. His
face was deadly pale, but was surmounted by a fringe of dark hair which
fell in ringlets down his back. A short pointed beard covered his chin.
He was dressed in loose-fitting clothes, made apparently of yellow
satin, and a large white ruff surrounded his neck. He paced across the
room with slow and majestic strides. Then turning, he addressed me in a
sweet, exquisitely modulated voice.

“I am the cavalier,” he remarked. “I pierce and am pierced. Here is my
rapier. I clink steel. This is a blood stain over my heart. I can emit
hollow groans. I am patronized by many old Conservative families. I am
the original manor-house apparition. I work alone, or in company with
shrieking damsels.”

He bent his head courteously, as though awaiting my reply, but the same
choking sensation prevented me from speaking; and, with a deep bow, he
disappeared.

He had hardly gone before a feeling of intense horror stole over me,
and I was aware of the presence of a ghastly creature in the room, of
dim outlines and uncertain proportions. One moment it seemed to pervade
the entire apartment, while at another it would become invisible, but
always leaving behind it a distinct consciousness of its presence.
Its voice, when it spoke, was quavering and gusty. It said: “I am
the leaver of footsteps and the spiller of gouts of blood. I tramp
upon corridors. Charles Dickens has alluded to me. I make strange and
disagreeable noises. I snatch letters and place invisible hands on
people’s wrists. I am cheerful. I burst into peals of hideous laughter.
Shall I do one now?” I raised my hand in a deprecating way, but too
late to prevent one discordant outbreak which echoed through the room.
Before I could lower it the apparition was gone.

I turned my head toward the door in time to see a man come hastily and
stealthily into the chamber. He was a sunburnt powerfully built fellow,
with ear-rings in his ears and a Barcelona handkerchief tied loosely
round his neck. His head was bent upon his chest, and his whole aspect
was that of one afflicted by intolerable remorse. He paced rapidly
backward and forward like a caged tiger, and I observed that a drawn
knife glittered in one of his hands, while he grasped what appeared to
be a piece of parchment in the other. His voice, when he spoke, was
deep and sonorous. He said, “I am a murderer. I am a ruffian. I crouch
when I walk. I step noiselessly. I know something of the Spanish Main.
I can do the lost treasure business. I have charts. Am able-bodied and
a good walker. Capable of haunting a large park.” He looked toward me
beseechingly, but before I could make a sign I was paralyzed by the
horrible sight which appeared at the door.

It was a very tall man, if, indeed, it might be called a man, for
the gaunt bones were protruding through the corroding flesh, and the
features were of a leaden hue. A winding-sheet was wrapped round the
figure, and formed a hood over the head, from under the shadow of
which two fiendish eyes, deep set in their grisly sockets, blazed and
sparkled like red-hot coals. The lower jaw had fallen upon the breast,
disclosing a withered, shrivelled tongue and two lines of black and
jagged fangs. I shuddered and drew back as this fearful apparition
advanced to the edge of the circle.

“I am the American blood-curdler,” it said, in a voice which seemed
to come in a hollow murmur from the earth beneath it. “None other is
genuine. I am the embodiment of Edgar Allan Poe. I am circumstantial
and horrible. I am a low-caste spirit-subduing spectre. Observe
my blood and my bones. I am grisly and nauseous. No depending on
artificial aid. Work with grave-clothes, a coffin-lid, and a galvanic
battery. Turn hair white in a night.” The creature stretched out its
fleshless arms to me as if in entreaty, but I shook my head; and it
vanished, leaving a low, sickening, repulsive odor behind it. I sank
back in my chair, so overcome by terror and disgust that I would have
very willingly resigned myself to dispensing with a ghost altogether,
could I have been sure that this was the last of the hideous procession.

A faint sound of trailing garments warned me that it was not so. I
looked up, and beheld a white figure emerging from the corridor into
the light. As it stepped across the threshold I saw that it was that of
a young and beautiful woman dressed in the fashion of a bygone day. Her
hands were clasped in front of her, and her pale proud face bore traces
of passion and of suffering. She crossed the hall with a gentle sound,
like the rustling of autumn leaves, and then, turning her lovely and
unutterably sad eyes upon me, she said,

“I am the plaintive and sentimental, the beautiful and ill-used. I
have been forsaken and betrayed. I shriek in the night-time and glide
down passages. My antecedents are highly respectable and generally
aristocratic. My tastes are æsthetic. Old oak furniture like this would
do, with a few more coats of mail and plenty of tapestry. Will you not
take me?”

Her voice died away in a beautiful cadence as she concluded, and she
held out her hands as if in supplication. I am always sensitive to
female influences. Besides, what would Jorrocks’s ghost be to this?
Could anything be in better taste? Would I not be exposing myself
to the chance of injuring my nervous system by interviews with such
creatures as my last visitor, unless I decided at once? She gave me a
seraphic smile, as if she knew what was passing in my mind. That smile
settled the matter. “She will do!” I cried; “I choose this one;” and
as, in my enthusiasm, I took a step toward her I passed over the magic
circle which had girdled me round.

“Argentine, we have been robbed!”

I had an indistinct consciousness of these words being spoken, or
rather screamed, in my ear a great number of times without my being
able to grasp their meaning. A violent throbbing in my head seemed
to adapt itself to their rhythm, and I closed my eyes to the lullaby
of “Robbed, robbed, robbed.” A vigorous shake caused me to open them
again, however, and the sight of Mrs. D’Odd in the scantiest of
costumes and most furious of tempers was sufficiently impressive to
recall all my scattered thoughts, and make me realize that I was lying
on my back on the floor, with my head among the ashes which had fallen
from last night’s fire, and a small glass phial in my hand.

I staggered to my feet, but felt so weak and giddy that I was compelled
to fall back into a chair. As my brain became clearer, stimulated by
the exclamations of Matilda, I began gradually to recollect the events
of the night. There was the door through which my supernatural visitors
had filed. There was the circle of chalk with the hieroglyphics round
the edge. There was the cigar-box and brandy-bottle which had been
honored by the attentions of Mr. Abrahams. But the seer himself--where
was he? and what was this open window with a rope running out of it!
And where, O where, was the pride of Goresthorpe Grange, the glorious
plate which was to have been the delectation of generations of D’Odds?
And why was Mrs. D. standing in the gray light of dawn, wringing her
hands and repeating her monotonous refrain? It was only very gradually
that my misty brain took these things in, and grasped the connection
between them.

Reader, I have never seen Mr. Abrahams since; I have never seen the
plate stamped with the resuscitated family crest; hardest of all, I
have never caught a glimpse of the melancholy spectre with the trailing
garments, nor do I expect that I ever shall. In fact my night’s
experiences have cured me of my mania for the supernatural, and quite
reconciled me to inhabiting the humdrum nineteenth-century edifice on
the outskirts of London which Mrs. D. has long had in her mind’s eye.

As to the explanation of all that occurred--that is a matter which is
open to several surmises. That Mr. Abrahams, the ghost-hunter, was
identical with Jemmy Wilson, _alias_ the Nottingham crackster, is
considered more than probable at Scotland Yard, and certainly the
description of that remarkable burglar tallied very well with the
appearance of my visitor. The small bag which I have described was
picked up in a neighboring field next day, and found to contain a
choice assortment of jemmies and centrebits. Footmarks deeply imprinted
in the mud on either side of the moat showed that an accomplice from
below had received the sack of precious metals which had been let down
through the open window. No doubt the pair of scoundrels, while looking
round for a job, had overheard Jack Brocket’s indiscreet inquiries, and
promptly availed themselves of the tempting opening.

And now as to my less substantial visitors, and the curious grotesque
vision which I had enjoyed--am I to lay it down to any real power over
occult matters possessed by my Nottingham friend? For a long time I
was doubtful upon the point, and eventually endeavored to solve it by
consulting a well-known analyst and medical man, sending him the few
drops of the so-called essence of Lucoptolycus which remained in my
phial. I append the letter which I received from him, only too happy to
have the opportunity of winding up my little narrative by the weighty
words of a man of learning:

  “ARUNDEL STREET.

 “DEAR SIR: Your very singular case has interested me extremely. The
 bottle which you sent contained a strong solution of chloral, and the
 quantity which you describe yourself as having swallowed must have
 amounted to at least eighty grains of the pure hydrate. This would of
 course have reduced you to a partial state of insensibility, gradually
 going on to complete coma. In this semi-unconscious state of
 chloralism it is not unusual for circumstantial and _bizarre_ visions
 to present themselves--more especially to individuals unaccustomed
 to the use of the drug. You tell me in your note that your mind was
 saturated with ghostly literature, and that you had long taken a
 morbid interest in classifying and recalling the various forms in
 which apparitions have been said to appear. You must also remember
 that you were expecting to see something of that very nature, and that
 your nervous system was worked up to an unnatural state of tension.
 Under the circumstances, I think that, far from the sequel being an
 astonishing one, it would have been very surprising indeed to any one
 versed in narcotics had you not experienced some such effects.--I
 remain, dear sir, sincerely yours,

  “T. E. STUBE, M.D.

  “ARGENTINE D’ODD, ESQ.
  “THE ELMS, BRIXTON.”






THE MYSTERY OF SASASSA VALLEY.

A SOUTH AFRICAN STORY.


Do I know why Tom Donahue is called “Lucky Tom?” Yes; I do; and that
is more than one in ten of those who call him so can say. I have
knocked about a deal in my time, and seen some strange sights, but
none stranger than the way in which Tom gained that sobriquet, and
his fortune with it. For I was with him at the time.--Tell it? Oh,
certainly; but it is a longish story and a very strange one; so fill up
your glass again, and light another cigar while I try to reel it off.
Yes, a very strange one; beats some fairy stories I have heard; but
it’s true, sir, every word of it. There are men alive at Cape Colony
now who’ll remember it and confirm what I say. Many a time has the
tale been told round the fire in Boers’ cabins from Orange State to
Griqualand; yes, and out in the Bush and at the Diamond Fields too.

I’m roughish now, sir; but I was entered at the Middle Temple once, and
studied for the Bar. Tom--worse luck!--was one of my fellow-students;
and a wildish time we had of it, until at last our finances ran short,
and we were compelled to give up our so-called studies, and look about
for some part of the world where two young fellows with strong arms
and sound constitutions might make their mark. In those days the tide
of emigration had scarcely begun to set in toward Africa, and so we
thought our best chance would be down at Cape Colony. Well--to make
a long story short--we set sail, and were deposited in Cape Town with
less than five pounds in our pockets; and there we parted. We each
tried our hands at many things, and had ups and downs; but when, at the
end of three years, chance led each of us up-country and we met again,
we were, I regret to say, in almost as bad a plight as when we started.

Well, this was not much of a commencement; and very disheartened we
were, so disheartened that Tom spoke of going back to England and
getting a clerkship. For you see we didn’t know that we had played out
all our small cards, and that the trumps were going to turn up. No; we
thought our “hands” were bad all through. It was a very lonely part
of the country that we were in, inhabited by a few scattered farmers,
whose houses were stockaded and fenced in to defend them against the
Kaffirs. Tom Donahue and I had a little hut right out in the Bush; but
we were known to possess nothing, and to be handy with our revolvers,
so we had little to fear. There we waited, doing odd jobs, and hoping
that something would turn up. Well, after we had been there about a
month something did turn up upon a certain night, something which was
the making of both of us; and it’s about that night, sir, that I’m
going to tell you. I remember it well. The wind was howling past our
cabin, and the rain threatened to burst in our rude window. We had a
great wood-fire crackling and sputtering on the hearth, by which I
was sitting mending a whip, while Tom was lying in his bunk groaning
disconsolately at the chance which had led him to such a place.

“Cheer up, Tom--cheer up,” said I. “No man ever knows what may be
awaiting him.”

“Ill-luck, ill-luck, Jack,” he answered. “I always was an unlucky dog.
Here have I been three years in this abominable country; and I see lads
fresh from England jingling the money in their pockets, while I am as
poor as when I landed. Ah, Jack, if you want to keep your head above
water, old friend, you must try your fortune away from me.”

“Nonsense, Tom; you’re down in your luck to-night. But hark! Here’s
some one coming outside. Dick Wharton, by the tread; he’ll rouse you,
if any man can.”

Even as I spoke the door was flung open, and honest Dick Wharton, with
the water pouring from him, stepped in, his hearty red face looming
through the haze like a harvest-moon. He shook himself, and after
greeting us sat down by the fire to warm himself.

“Whereaway, Dick, on such a night as this?” said I. “You’ll find the
rheumatism a worse foe than the Kaffirs, unless you keep more regular
hours.”

Dick was looking unusually serious, almost frightened, one would say,
if one did not know the man. “Had to go,” he replied--“had to go. One
of Madison’s cattle was seen straying down Sasassa Valley, and of
course none of our blacks would go down _that_ Valley at night; and if
we had waited till morning, the brute would have been in Kaffirland.”

“Why wouldn’t they go down Sasassa Valley at night?” asked Tom.

“Kaffirs, I suppose,” said I.

“Ghosts,” said Dick.

We both laughed.

“I suppose they didn’t give such a matter-of-fact fellow as you a sight
of their charms?” said Tom, from the bunk.

“Yes,” said Dick, seriously--“yes; I saw what the niggers talk about;
and I promise you, lads, I don’t want ever to see it again.”

Tom sat up in his bed. “Nonsense, Dick; you’re joking, man! Come, tell
us all about it. The legend first, and your own experience afterward.
Pass him over the bottle, Jack.”

“Well, as to the legend,” began Dick--“it seems that the niggers have
had it handed down to them that that Sasassa Valley is haunted by a
frightful fiend. Hunters and wanderers passing down the defile have
seen its glowing eyes under the shadows of the cliff; and the story
goes that whoever has chanced to encounter that baleful glare has
had his after-life blighted by the malignant power of this creature.
Whether that be true or not,” continued Dick, ruefully, “I may have an
opportunity of judging for myself.”

“Go on, Dick--go on,” cried Tom. “Let’s hear about what you saw.”

“Well, I was groping down the Valley, looking for that cow of
Madison’s, and I had, I suppose, got half-way down, where a black
craggy cliff juts into the ravine on the right, when I halted to have
a pull at my flask. I had my eye fixed at the time upon the projecting
cliff I have mentioned, and noticed nothing unusual about it. I then
put up my flask and took a step or two forward, when in a moment there
burst, apparently from the base of the rock, about eight feet from the
ground and a hundred yards from me, a strange, lurid glare, flickering
and oscillating, gradually dying away and then reappearing again.--No,
no; I’ve seen many a glow-worm and fire-fly--nothing of that sort.
There it was, burning away, and I suppose I gazed at it, trembling in
every limb, for fully ten minutes. Then I took a step forward, when
instantly it vanished, vanished like a candle blown out. I stepped
back again; but it was some time before I could find the exact spot
and position from which it was visible. At last, there it was, the
weird reddish light, flickering away as before. Then I screwed up my
courage, and made for the rock; but the ground was so uneven that it
was impossible to steer straight; and though I walked along the whole
base of the cliff, I could see nothing. Then I made tracks for home;
and I can tell you, boys, that until you remarked it, I never knew it
was raining, the whole way along.--But hollo! what’s the matter with
Tom?”

What indeed? Tom was now sitting with his legs over the side of the
bunk, and his whole face betraying excitement so intense as to be
almost painful. “The fiend would have two eyes. How many lights did you
see, Dick? Speak out!”

“Only one.”

“Hurrah!” cried Tom--“that’s better.” Whereupon he kicked the blankets
into the middle of the room, and began pacing up and down with long,
feverish strides. Suddenly he stopped opposite Dick, and laid his hand
upon his shoulder: “I say, Dick, could we get to Sasassa Valley before
sunrise?”

“Scarcely,” said Dick.

“Well, look here; we are old friends, Dick Wharton, you and I. Now,
don’t you tell any other man what you have told us, for a week. You’ll
promise that; won’t you?”

I could see by the look on Dick’s face as he acquiesced that he
considered poor Tom to be mad; and indeed I was myself completely
mystified by his conduct. I had, however, seen so many proofs of my
friend’s good sense and quickness of apprehension, that I thought it
quite possible that Wharton’s story had had a meaning in his eyes which
I was too obtuse to take in.

All night Tom Donahue was greatly excited, and when Wharton left he
begged him to remember his promise, and also elicited from him a
description of the exact spot at which he had seen the apparition, as
well as the hour at which it appeared. After his departure, which must
have been about four in the morning, I turned into my bunk and watched
Tom sitting by the fire splicing two sticks together, until I fell
asleep. I suppose I must have slept about two hours; but when I awoke
Tom was still sitting working away in almost the same position. He had
fixed the one stick across the top of the other so as to form a rough
⊤, and was now busy in fitting a smaller stick into the angle between
them, by manipulating which, the cross one could be either cocked up or
depressed to any extent. He had cut notches, too, in the perpendicular
stick, so that by the aid of the small prop, the cross one could be
kept in any position for an indefinite time.

“Look here, Jack!” he cried, whenever he saw that I was awake. “Come
and give me your opinion. Suppose I put this cross-stick pointing
straight at a thing, and arranged this small one so as to keep it so,
and left it, I could find that thing again if I wanted it--don’t you
think I could, Jack--don’t you think so?” he continued nervously,
clutching me by the arm.

“Well,” I answered, “it would depend on how far off the thing was, and
how accurately it was pointed. If it were any distance, I’d cut sights
on your cross-stick; then a string tied to the end of it, and held in
a plumb-line forward, would lead you pretty near what you wanted. But
surely, Tom, you don’t intend to localize the ghost in that way?”

“You’ll see to-night, old friend--you’ll see to-night. I’ll carry this
to the Sasassa Valley. You get the loan of Madison’s crowbar, and come
with me; but mind you tell no man where you are going, or what you want
it for.”

All day Tom was walking up and down the room, or working hard at the
apparatus. His eyes were glistening, his cheeks hectic, and he had all
the symptoms of high fever. “Heaven grant that Dick’s diagnosis be
not correct!” I thought, as I returned with the crowbar; and yet, as
evening drew near, I found myself imperceptibly sharing the excitement.

About six o’clock Tom sprang to his feet and seized his sticks. “I can
stand it no longer, Jack,” he cried; “up with your crowbar, and hey
for Sasassa Valley! To-night’s work, my lad, will either make us or
mar us! Take your six-shooter, in case we meet the Kaffirs. I daren’t
take mine, Jack,” he continued, putting his hands upon my shoulders--“I
daren’t take mine; for if my ill-luck sticks to me to-night, I don’t
know what I might not do with it.”

Well, having filled our pockets with provisions, we set out, and as
we took our wearisome way toward the Sasassa Valley, I frequently
attempted to elicit from my companion some clew as to his intentions.
But his only answer was: “Let us hurry on, Jack. Who knows how many
have heard of Wharton’s adventure by this time! Let us hurry on, or we
may not be first in the field!”

Well, sir, we struggled on through the hills for a matter of ten miles;
till at last, after descending a crag, we saw opening out in front of
us a ravine so sombre and dark that it might have been the gate of
Hades itself; cliffs many hundred feet shut in on every side the gloomy
bowlder-studded passage which led through the haunted defile into
Kaffirland. The moon, rising above the crags, threw into strong relief
the rough, irregular pinnacles of rock by which they were topped, while
all below was dark as Erebus.

“The Sasassa Valley?” said I.

“Yes,” said Tom.

I looked at him. He was calm now; the flush and feverishness had passed
away; his actions were deliberate and slow. Yet there was a certain
rigidity in his face and glitter in his eye which showed that a crisis
had come.

We entered the pass, stumbling along amid the great bowlders. Suddenly
I heard a short quick exclamation from Tom. “That’s the crag!” he
cried, pointing to a great mass looming before us in the darkness.
“Now, Jack, for any favor use your eyes! We’re about a hundred yards
from that cliff, I take it; so you move slowly toward one side and I’ll
do the same toward the other. When you see anything, stop, and call
out. Don’t take more than twelve inches in a step, and keep your eye
fixed on the cliff about eight feet from the ground. Are you ready?”

“Yes.” I was even more excited than Tom by this time. What his
intention or object was I could not conjecture, beyond that he wanted
to examine by daylight the part of the cliff from which the light
came. Yet the influence of the romantic situation and my companion’s
suppressed excitement was so great that I could feel the blood coursing
through my veins and count the pulses throbbing at my temples.

“Start!” cried Tom; and we moved off, he to the right, I to the left,
each with our eyes fixed intently on the base of the crag. I had
moved perhaps twenty feet, when in a moment it burst upon me. Through
the growing darkness there shone a small, ruddy, glowing point, the
light from which waned and increased, flickered and oscillated, each
change producing a more weird effect than the last. The old Kaffir
superstition came into my mind, and I felt a cold shudder pass over me.
In my excitement I stepped a pace backward, when instantly the light
went out, leaving utter darkness in its place; but when I advanced
again, there was the ruddy glare glowing from the base of the cliff.
“Tom, Tom!” I cried.

“Ay, ay!” I heard him exclaim, as he hurried over toward me.

“There it is--there, up against the cliff!”

Tom was at my elbow. “I see nothing,” said he.

“Why, there, there, man, in front of you!” I stepped to the right as I
spoke, when the light instantly vanished from my eyes.

But from Tom’s ejaculations of delight it was clear that from my former
position it was visible to him also. “Jack,” he cried, as he turned and
wrung my hand--“Jack, you and I can never complain of our luck again.
Now heap up a few stones where we are standing. That’s right. Now we
must fix my sign-post firmly in at the top. There! It would take a
strong wind to blow that down; and we only need it to hold out till
morning. O Jack, my boy, to think that only yesterday we were talking
of becoming clerks, and you saying that no man knew what was awaiting
him, too! By Jove, Jack, it would make a good story!”

By this time we had firmly fixed the perpendicular stick in between
two large stones; and Tom bent down and peered along the horizontal
one. For fully a quarter of an hour he was alternately raising and
depressing it, until at last, with a sigh of satisfaction, he fixed the
prop into the angle, and stood up. “Look along, Jack,” he said. “You
have as straight an eye to take a sight as any man I know of.”

I looked along. There beyond the further sight was the ruddy
scintillating speck, apparently at the end of the stick itself, so
accurately had it been adjusted.

“And now, my boy,” said Tom, “let’s have some supper and a sleep.
There’s nothing more to be done to-night; but we’ll need all our wits
and strength to-morrow. Get some sticks and kindle a fire here, and
then we’ll be able to keep an eye on our signal-post, and see that
nothing happens to it during the night.”

Well, sir, we kindled a fire, and had supper with the Sasassa demon’s
eye rolling and glowing in front of us the whole night through. Not
always in the same place though; for after supper, when I glanced along
the sights to have another look at it, it was nowhere to be seen. The
information did not, however, seem to disturb Tom in any way. He merely
remarked: “It’s the moon, not the thing, that has shifted;” and coiling
himself up, went to sleep.

By early dawn we were both up, and gazing along our pointer at the
cliff; but we could make out nothing save the one dead monotonous slaty
surface, rougher perhaps at the part we were examining than elsewhere,
but otherwise presenting nothing remarkable.

“Now for your idea, Jack!” said Tom Donahue, unwinding a long thin
cord from round his waist. “You fasten it, and guide me while I take
the other end.” So saying, he walked off to the base of the cliff,
holding one end of the cord, while I drew the other taut, and wound
it round the middle of the horizontal stick, passing it through the
sight at the end. By this means I could direct Tom to the right or
left, until we had our string stretching from the point of attachment,
through the sight, and on to the rock, which it struck about eight feet
from the ground. Tom drew a chalk circle of about three feet diameter
round the spot, and then called to me to come and join him. “We’ve
managed this business together, Jack,” he said, “and we’ll find what
we are to find, together.” The circle he had drawn embraced a part of
the rock smoother than the rest, save that about the centre there were
a few rough protuberances or knobs. One of these Tom pointed to with a
cry of delight. It was a roughish, brownish mass about the size of a
man’s closed fist, and looking like a bit of dirty glass let into the
wall of the cliff. “That’s it!” he cried--“that’s it!”

“That’s what?”

“Why, man, _a diamond_, and such a one as there isn’t a monarch in
Europe but would envy Tom Donahue the possession of. Up with your
crowbar, and we’ll soon exorcise the demon of Sasassa Valley!”

I was so astounded that for a moment I stood speechless with surprise,
gazing at the treasure which had so unexpectedly fallen into our hands.

“Here, hand me the crowbar,” said Tom. “Now, by using this little round
knob which projects from the cliff here, as a fulcrum, we may be able
to lever it off.--Yes; there it goes. I never thought it could have
come so easily. Now, Jack, the sooner we get back to our hut and then
down to Cape Town, the better.”

We wrapped up our treasure, and made our way across the hills toward
home. On the way, Tom told me how, while a law-student in the Middle
Temple, he had come upon a dusty pamphlet in the library, by one Jans
van Hounym, which told of an experience very similar to ours, which had
befallen that worthy Dutchman in the latter part of the seventeenth
century, and which resulted in the discovery of a luminous diamond.
This tale it was which had come into Tom’s head as he listened to
honest Dick Wharton’s ghost-story; while the means which he had adopted
to verify his supposition sprang from his own fertile Irish brain.

“We’ll take it down to Cape Town,” continued Tom, “and if we can’t
dispose of it with advantage there, it will be worth our while to ship
for London with it. Let us go along to Madison’s first, though; he
knows something of these things, and can perhaps give us some idea of
what we may consider a fair price for our treasure.”

We turned off from the track accordingly, before reaching our hut, and
kept along the narrow path leading to Madison’s farm. He was at lunch
when we entered; and in a minute we were seated at each side of him,
enjoying South African hospitality.

“Well,” he said, after the servants were gone, “what’s in the wind now?
I see you have something to say to me. What is it?”

Tom produced his packet, and solemnly untied the handkerchiefs which
enveloped it. “There!” he said, putting his crystal on the table; “what
would you say was a fair price for that?”

Madison took it up and examined it critically. “Well,” he said, laying
it down again, “in its crude state about twelve shillings per ton.”

“Twelve shillings!” cried Tom, starting to his feet. “Don’t you see
what it is?”

“Rock-salt!”

“Rock-salt be d--d! a diamond.”

“Taste it!” said Madison.

Tom put it to his lips, dashed it down with a dreadful exclamation, and
rushed out of the room.

I felt sad and disappointed enough myself; but presently, remembering
what Tom had said about the pistol, I, too, left the house, and made
for the hut, leaving Madison open-mouthed with astonishment. When
I got in, I found Tom lying in his bunk with his face to the wall,
too dispirited apparently to answer my consolations. Anathematizing
Dick and Madison, the Sasassa demon, and everything else, I strolled
out of the hut, and refreshed myself with a pipe after our wearisome
adventure. I was about fifty yards from the hut, when I heard issuing
from it the sound which of all others I least expected to hear. Had it
been a groan or an oath, I should have taken it as a matter of course;
but the sound which caused me to stop and take the pipe out of my
mouth was a hearty roar of laughter! Next moment, Tom himself emerged
from the door, his whole face radiant with delight. “Game for another
ten-mile walk, old fellow?”

“What! for another lump of rock-salt, at twelve shillings a ton?”

“’No more of that, Hal, an’ you love me,’” grinned Tom. “Now look here,
Jack. What blessed fools we are to be so floored by a trifle! Just sit
on this stump for five minutes, and I’ll make it as clear as daylight.
You’ve seen many a lump of rock-salt stuck in a crag, and so have I,
though we did make such a mull of this one. Now, Jack, did any of
the pieces you have ever seen shine in the darkness brighter than any
fire-fly?”

“Well, I can’t say they ever did.”

“I’d venture to prophesy that if we waited until night, which we
won’t do, we would see that light still glimmering among the rocks.
Therefore, Jack, when we took away this worthless salt, we took the
wrong crystal. It is no very strange thing in these hills that a piece
of rock-salt should be lying within a foot of a diamond. It caught our
eyes, and we were excited, and so we made fools of ourselves, and _left
the real stone behind_. Depend upon it, Jack, the Sasassa gem is lying
within that magic circle of chalk upon the face of yonder cliff. Come,
old fellow, light your pipe and stow your revolver, and we’ll be off
before that fellow Madison has time to put two and two together.”

I don’t know that I was very sanguine this time. I had begun in fact to
look upon the diamond as a most unmitigated nuisance. However, rather
than throw a damper on Tom’s expectations, I announced myself eager
to start. What a walk it was! Tom was always a good mountaineer, but
his excitement seemed to lend him wings that day, while I scrambled
along after him as best I could. When we got within half a mile he
broke into the “double,” and never pulled up until he reached the round
white circle upon the cliff. Poor old Tom! when I came up, his mood
had changed, and he was standing with his hands in his pockets, gazing
vacantly before him with a rueful countenance.

“Look!” he said--“look!” and he pointed at the cliff. Not a sign of
anything in the least resembling a diamond there. The circle included
nothing but flat slate-colored stone, with one large hole, where we
had extracted the rock-salt, and one or two smaller depressions. No
sign of the gem.

“I’ve been over every inch of it,” said poor Tom. “It’s not there.
Someone has been here and noticed the chalk, and taken it. Come home,
Jack; I feel sick and tired. Oh! had any man ever luck like mine!”

I turned to go, but took one last look at the cliff first. Tom was
already ten paces off.

“Hollo!” I cried, “don’t you see any change in that circle since
yesterday?”

“What d’ye mean?” said Tom.

“Don’t you miss a thing that was there before?”

“The rock-salt?” said Tom.

“No; but the little round knob that we used for a fulcrum. I suppose we
must have wrenched it off in using the lever. Let’s have a look at what
it’s made of.”

Accordingly, at the foot of the cliff we searched about among the loose
stones.

“Here you are, Jack! We’ve done it at last! We’re made men!”

I turned round, and there was Tom radiant with delight, and with a
little corner of black rock in his hand. At first sight it seemed to be
merely a chip from the cliff; but near the base there was projecting
from it an object which Tom was now exultingly pointing out. It
looked at first something like a glass eye; but there was a depth and
brilliancy about it such as glass never exhibited. There was no mistake
this time; we had certainly got possession of a jewel of great value;
and with light hearts we turned from the valley, bearing away with us
the “fiend” which had so long reigned there.

There, sir; I’ve spun my story out too long, and tired you perhaps.
You see, when I get talking of those rough old days, I kind of see
the little cabin again, and the brook beside it, and the bush around,
and seem to hear Tom’s honest voice once more. There’s little for me
to say now. We prospered on the gem. Tom Donahue, as you know, has set
up here, and is well known about town. I have done well, farming and
ostrich-raising in Africa. We set old Dick Wharton up in business, and
he is one of our nearest neighbors. If you should ever be coming up our
way, sir, you’ll not forget to ask for Jack Turnbull--Jack Turnbull of
Sasassa Farm.




THE AMERICAN’S TALE.


“It air strange, it air,” he was saying as I opened the door of the
room where our social little semi-literary society met; “but I could
tell you queerer things than that ’ere--almighty queer things. You
can’t learn everything out of books, sirs, nohow. You see, it ain’t the
men as can string English together and as has had good eddications, as
finds themselves in the queer places I’ve been in. They’re mostly rough
men, sirs, as can scarce speak aright, far less tell with pen and ink
the things they’ve seen; but if they could they’d make some of your
Europeans’ har riz with astonishment. They would, sirs, you bet!”

His name was Jefferson Adams, I believe; I know his initials were J.
A., for you may see them yet deeply whittled on the right-hand upper
panel of our smoking-room door. He left us this legacy, and also some
artistic patterns done in tobacco juice upon our Turkey carpet; but
beyond these reminiscences our American story-teller has vanished from
our ken. He gleamed across our ordinary quiet conviviality like some
brilliant meteor, and then was lost in the outer darkness. That night,
however, our Nevada friend was in full swing; and I quietly lit my pipe
and dropped into the nearest chair, anxious not to interrupt his story.

“Mind you,” he continued, “I hain’t got no grudge against your men
of science. I likes and respects a chap as can match every beast and
plant, from a huckleberry to a grizzly with a jaw-breakin’ name; but
if you wants real interestin’ facts, something a bit juicy, you go to
your whalers and your frontiersmen, and your scouts and Hudson Bay men,
chaps who mostly can scarce sign their names.”

There was a pause here, as Mr. Jefferson Adams produced a long cheroot
and lit it. We preserved a strict silence in the room, for we had
already learned that on the slightest interruption our Yankee drew
himself into his shell again. He glanced round with a self-satisfied
smile as he remarked our expectant looks, and continued through a halo
of smoke:

“Now, which of you gentlemen has ever been in Arizona? None, I’ll
warrant. And of all English or Americans as can put pen to paper, how
many has been in Arizona? Precious few, I calc’late. I’ve been there,
sirs, lived there for years; and when I think of what I’ve seen there,
why, I can scarce get myself to believe it now.

“Ah, there’s a country! I was one of Walker’s filibusters, as they
chose to call us; and after we’d busted up, and the chief was shot,
some on us made tracks and located down there. A reg’lar English and
American colony, we was, with our wives and children, and all complete.
I reckon there’s some of the old folk there yet, and that they hain’t
forgotten what I’m agoing to tell you. No, I warrant they hain’t, never
on this side of the grave, sirs.

“I was talking about the country, though; and I guess I could astonish
you considerable if I spoke of nothing else. To think of such a land
being built for a few ‘Greasers’ and half-breeds! It’s a misusing of
the gifts of Providence, that’s what I calls it. Grass as hung over a
chap’s head as he rode through it, and trees so thick that you couldn’t
catch a glimpse of blue sky for leagues and leagues, and orchids
like umbrellas! Maybe some on you has seen a plant as they calls the
’fly-catcher,’ in some parts of the States?”

“Dianœa muscipula,” murmured Dawson, our scientific man _par
excellence_.

“Ah,‘Die near a municipal,’ that’s him! You’ll see a fly stand on
that ’ere plant, and then you’ll see the two sides of a leaf snap
up together and catch it between them, and grind it up and mash it
to bits, for all the world like some great sea squid with its beak;
and hours after, if you open the leaf, you’ll see the body lying
half-digested, and in bits. Well, I’ve seen those fly-traps in Arizona
with leaves eight and ten feet long, and thorns or teeth a foot or
more; why, they could--But darn it, I’m going too fast!

“It’s about the death of Joe Hawkins I was going to tell you; ’bout
as queer a thing, I reckon, as ever you heard tell on. There wasn’t
nobody in Montana as didn’t know of Joe Hawkins--’Alabama’ Joe, as he
was called there. A reg’lar out and outer, he was, ’bout the darndest
skunk as ever man clapt eyes on. He was a good chap enough, mind ye, as
long as you stroked him the right way; but rile him anyhow, and he were
worse nor a wild-cat. I’ve seen him empty his six-shooter into a crowd
as chanced to jostle him a-going into Simpson’s bar when there was a
dance on; and he bowied Tom Hooper ’cause he spilt his liquor over his
weskit by mistake. No, he didn’t stick at murder, Joe didn’t; and he
weren’t a man to be trusted further nor you could see him.

“Now, at the time I tell on, when Joe Hawkins was swaggerin’ about
the town and layin’ down the law with his shootin’-irons, there was
an Englishman there of the name of Scott--Tom Scott, if I rec’lects
aright. This chap Scott was a thorough Britisher (beggin’ the present
company’s pardon), and yet he didn’t freeze much to the British set
there, or they didn’t freeze much to him. He was a quiet, simple
man, Scott was--rather too quiet for a rough set like that; sneakin’
they called him, but he weren’t that. He kept hisself mostly apart,
and didn’t interfere with nobody so long as he were left alone. Some
said as how he’d been kinder ill-treated at home--been a Chartist, or
something of that sort, and had to up stick and run; but he never spoke
of it hisself, an’ never complained. Bad luck or good, that chap kept a
stiff lip on him.

“This chap Scott was a sort o’ butt among the men about Montana, for he
was so quiet an’ simple-like. There was no party either to take up his
grievances; for, as I’ve been saying, the Britishers hardly counted him
one of them, and many a rough joke they played on him. He never cut up
rough, but was polite to all hisself. I think the boys got to think he
hadn’t much grit in him till he showed ’em their mistake.

“It was in Simpson’s bar as the row got up, an’ that led to the queer
thing I was going to tell you of. Alabama Joe and one or two other
rowdies were dead on the Britishers in those days, and they spoke their
opinions pretty free, though I warned them as there’d be an almighty
muss. That partic’lar night Joe was nigh half drunk, an’ he swaggered
about the town with his six-shooter, lookin’ out for a quarrel. Then
he turned into the bar, where he know’d he’d find some o’ the English
as ready for one as he was hisself. Sure enough, there was half a
dozen lounging about, an’ Tom Scott standin’ alone before the stove.
Joe sat down by the table, and put his revolver and bowie down in
front of him.‘Them’s my arguments, Jeff,’ he says to me,‘if any
white-livered Britisher dares give me the lie.’ I tried to stop him,
sirs; but he weren’t a man as you could easily turn, an’ he began to
speak in a way as no chap could stand. Why, even a ‘Greaser’ would
flare up if you said as much of Greaserland! There was a commotion at
the bar, an’ every man laid his hands on his wepins; but afore they
could draw we heard a quiet voice from the stove: ‘Say your prayers,
Joe Hawkins; for, by Heaven, you’re a dead man!’ Joe turned round, and
looked like grabbin’ at his iron; but it weren’t no manner of use. Tom
Scott was standing up, covering him with his derringer; a smile on his
white face, but the very devil shining in his eye. ‘It ain’t that the
old country has used me over-well,’ he says, ‘but no man shall speak
agin’ it afore me, and live.’ For a second or two I could see his
finger tighten round the trigger, an’ then he gave a laugh, an’ threw
the pistol on the floor. ‘No,’ he says, ‘I can’t shoot a half-drunk
man. Take your dirty life, Joe, an’ use it better nor you have done.
You’ve been nearer the grave this night than you will be agin until
your time comes. You’d best make tracks now, I guess. Nay, never look
black at me, man; I’m not afeard at your shootin’-iron. A bully’s nigh
always a coward.’ And he swung contemptuously round, and relit his
half-smoked pipe from the stove; while Alabama slunk out o’ the bar,
with the laughs of the Britishers ringing in his ears. I saw his face
as he passed me, and on it I saw murder, sirs--murder, as plain as ever
I seed anything in my life.

“I stayed in the bar after the row, and watched Tom Scott as he shook
hands with the men about. It seemed kinder queer to me to see him
smilin’ and cheerful-like; for I knew Joe’s bloodthirsty mind, and
that the Englishman had small chance of ever seeing the morning. He
lived in an out-of-the-way sort of place, you see, clean off the trail,
and had to pass through the Flytrap Gulch to get to it. This here gulch
was a marshy gloomy place, lonely enough during the day even; for it
were always a creepy sort o’ thing to see the great eight- and ten-foot
leaves snapping up if aught touched them; but at night there were never
a soul near. Some parts of the marsh, too, were soft and deep, and a
body thrown in would be gone by the morning. I could see Alabama Joe
crouchin’ under the leaves of the great Flytrap in the darkest part of
the gulch, with a scowl on his face and a revolver in his hand; I could
see it, sirs, as plain as with my two eyes.

“’Bout midnight Simpson shuts up his bar, so out we had to go. Tom
Scott started off for his three-mile walk at a slashing pace. I just
dropped him a hint as he passed me, for I kinder liked the chap. ‘Keep
your derringer loose in your belt, sir,’ I says, ‘for you might chance
to need it.’ He looked round at me with his quiet smile, and then I
lost sight of him in the gloom. I never thought to see him again. He’d
hardly gone afore Simpson comes up to me and says, ‘There’ll be a nice
job in the Flytrap Gulch to-night, Jeff; the boys say that Hawkins
started half an hour ago to wait for Scott and shoot him on sight. I
calc’late the coroner’ll be wanted to-morrow.’

“What passed in the gulch that night? It were a question as were asked
pretty free next morning. A half-breed was in Ferguson’s store after
daybreak, and he said as he’d chanced to be near the gulch ’bout one in
the morning. It warn’t easy to get at his story, he seemed so uncommon
scared; but he told us, at last, as he’d heard the fearfullest screams
in the stillness of the night. There weren’t no shots, he said, but
scream after scream, kinder muffled, like a man with a serapé over his
head, an’ in mortal pain. Abner Brandon and me, and a few more, was in
the store at the time; so we mounted and rode out to Scott’s house,
passing through the gulch on the way. There weren’t nothing partic’lar
to be seen there--no blood nor marks of a fight, nor nothing; and when
we gets up to Scott’s house, out he comes to meet us as fresh as a
lark. ‘Hullo, Jeff!’ says he, ‘no need for the pistols after all. Come
in an’ have a cocktail, boys.’ ‘Did ye see or hear nothing as ye came
home last night?’ says I. ‘No,’ says he; ’all was quiet enough. An owl
kinder moaning in the Flytrap Gulch--that was all. Come, jump off and
have a glass.’ ‘Thank ye,’ says Abner. So off we gets, and Tom Scott
rode into the settlement with us when we went back.

“An allfired commotion was on in Main Street as we rode into it. The
’Merican party seemed to have gone clean crazed. Alabama Joe was gone,
not a darned particle of him left. Since he went out to the gulch nary
eye had seen him. As we got off our horses there was a considerable
crowd in front of Simpson’s, and some ugly looks at Tom Scott, I can
tell you. There was a clickin’ of pistols, and I saw as Scott had his
hand in his bosom too. There weren’t a single English face about.
’Stand aside, Jeff Adams,’ says Zebb Humphrey, as great a scoundrel
as ever lived, ‘you hain’t got no hand in this game. Say, boys, are
we, free Americans, to be murdered by any darned Britisher?’ It was
the quickest thing as ever I seed. There was a rush an’ a crack; Zebb
was down, with Scott’s ball in his thigh, and Scott hisself was on the
ground with a dozen men holding him. It weren’t no use struggling,
so he lay quiet. They seemed a bit uncertain what to do with him at
first, but then one of Alabama’s special chums put them up to it.
’Joe’s gone,’ he said; ‘nothing ain’t surer nor that, an’ there lies
the man as killed him. Some on you knows as Joe went on business to
the gulch last night; he never came back. That ’ere Britisher passed
through after he’d gone; they’d had a row, screams is heard ’mong the
great flytraps. I say agin he has played poor Joe some o’ his sneakin’
tricks, an’ thrown him into the swamp. It ain’t no wonder as the body
is gone. But air we to stan’ by and see English murderin’ our own
chums? I guess not. Let Judge Lynch try him, that’s what I say.’ ‘Lynch
him!’ shouted a hundred angry voices--for all the rag-tag an’ bobtail
o’ the settlement was round us by this time. ‘Here, boys, fetch a rope,
and swing him up. Up with him over Simpson’s door?’ ‘See here, though,’
says another, coming forrard; ‘let’s hang him by the great flytrap in
the gulch. Let Joe see as he’s revenged, if so be as he’s buried ’bout
theer.’ There was a shout for this, an’ away they went, with Scott
tied on his mustang in the middle, and a mounted guard, with cocked
revolvers, round him; for we knew as there was a score or so Britishers
about, as didn’t seem to recognize Judge Lynch, and was dead on a free
fight.

“I went out with them, my heart bleedin’ for Scott, though he didn’t
seem a cent put out, he didn’t. He were game to the backbone. Seems
kinder queer, sirs, hangin’ a man to a flytrap; but our’n were a
reg’lar tree, and the leaves like a brace of boats with a hinge between
’em and thorns at the bottom.

“We passed down the gulch to the place where the great one grows, and
there we seed it with the leaves, some open, some shut. But we seed
something worse nor that. Standin’ round the tree was some thirty
men, Britishers all, an’ armed to the teeth. They was waitin’ for us
evidently, an’ had a business-like look about ’em, as if they’d come
for something and meant to have it. There was the raw material there
for about as warm a scrimmidge as ever I seed. As we rode up, a great
red-bearded Scotchman--Cameron were his name--stood out afore the rest,
his revolver cocked in his hand.‘See here, boys,’ he says, ‘you’ve got
no call to hurt a hair of that man’s head. You hain’t proved as Joe
is dead yet; and if you had, you hain’t proved as Scott killed him.
Anyhow, it were in self-defence; for you all know as he was lying in
wait for Scott, to shoot him on sight; so I say agin, you hain’t got no
call to hurt that man; and what’s more, I’ve got thirty six-barrelled
arguments against your doin’ it.’ ‘It’s an interestin’ pint, and worth
arguin’ out,’ said the man as was Alabama Joe’s special chum. There was
a clickin’ of pistols, and a loosenin’ of knives, and the two parties
began to draw up to one another, an’ it looked like a rise in the
mortality of Montana. Scott was standing behind with a pistol at his
ear if he stirred, lookin’ quiet and composed as having no money on the
table, when sudden he gives a start an’ a shout as rang in our ears
like a trumpet. ‘Joe!’ he cried,‘Joe! Look at him! In the flytrap!’
We all turned an’ looked where he was pointin’. Jerusalem! I think we
won’t get that picter out of our minds agin. One of the great leaves
of the flytrap, that had been shut and touchin’ the ground as it lay,
was slowly rolling back upon its hinges. There, lying like a child in
its cradle, was Alabama Joe in the hollow of the leaf. The great thorns
had been slowly driven through his heart as it shut upon him. We could
see as he’d tried to cut his way out, for there was a slit in the thick
fleshy leaf, an’ his bowie was in his hand; but it had smothered him
first. He’d lain down on it likely to keep the damp off while he were
awaitin’ for Scott, and it had closed on him as you’ve seen your little
hothouse ones do on a fly; an’ there he were as we found him, torn and
crushed into pulp by the great jagged teeth of the man-eatin’ plant.
There, sirs, I think you’ll own as that’s a curious story.”

“And what became of Scott?” asked Jack Sinclair.

“Why, we carried him back on our shoulders, we did, to Simpson’s
bar, and he stood us liquors round. Made a speech too--a darned fine
speech--from the counter. Somethin’ about the British lion an’ the
’Merican eagle walkin’ arm in arm forever an’ a day. And now, sirs,
that yarn was long, and my cheroot’s out, so I reckon I’ll make tracks
afore it’s later;” and with a “Good-night!” he left the room.

       *       *       *       *       *

“A most extraordinary narrative!” said Dawson. “Who would have thought
a Dianœa had such power!”

“Deuced rum yarn!” said young Sinclair.

“Evidently a matter-of-fact, truthful man,” said the doctor.

“Or the most original liar that ever lived,” said I. I wonder which he
was.




OUR DERBY SWEEPSTAKES.


“Bob!” I shouted.

No answer.

“Bob!”

A rapid crescendo of snores ending in a prolonged gasp.

“Wake up, Bob!”

“What the deuce is the row?” said a very sleepy voice.

“It’s nearly breakfast-time,” I explained.

“Bother breakfast-time!” said the rebellious spirit in the bed.

“And here’s a letter, Bob,” said I.

“Why on earth couldn’t you say so at once? Come on with it;” on which
cordial invitation I marched into my brother’s room and perched myself
upon the side of his bed.

“Here you are,” said I: “Indian stamp--Brindisi postmark. Who is it
from?”

“Mind your own business, Stumpy,” said my brother, as he pushed back
his curly tangled locks, and, after rubbing his eyes, proceeded to
break the seal. Now, if there is one appellation for which above all
others I have a profound contempt, it is this one of “Stumpy.” Some
miserable nurse, impressed by the relative proportions of my round
grave face and little mottled legs, had dubbed me with the odious
nickname in the days of my childhood. I am not really a bit more stumpy
than any other girl of seventeen. On the present occasion I rose in
all the dignity of wrath, and was about to dump my brother on the head
with the pillow by way of remonstrance, when a look of interest in his
face stopped me.

“Who do you think is coming, Nelly?” he said. “An old friend of yours.”

“What! from India? Not Jack Hawthorne?”

“Even so,” said Bob. “Jack is coming back and going to stay with us.
He says he will be here almost as soon as his letter. Now don’t dance
about like that. You’ll knock down the guns, or do some damage. Keep
quiet like a good girl, and sit down here again.” Bob spoke with all
the weight of the two-and-twenty summers which had passed over his
towsy head, so I calmed down and settled into my former position.

“Won’t it be jolly?” I cried. “But, Bob, the last time he was here he
was a boy, and now he is a man. He won’t be the same Jack at all.”

“Well, for that matter,” said Bob, “you were only a girl then--a nasty
little girl with ringlets, while now----”

“What now?” I asked.

Bob seemed actually on the eve of paying me a compliment.

“Well, you haven’t got the ringlets, and you are ever so much bigger,
you see, and nastier.”

Brothers are a blessing for one thing. There is no possibility of any
young lady getting unreasonably conceited if she be endowed with them.

I think they were all glad at breakfast-time to hear of Jack
Hawthorne’s promised advent. By “all” I mean my mother and Elsie and
Bob. Our cousin Solomon Barker looked anything but overjoyed when I
made the announcement in breathless triumph. I never thought of it
before, but perhaps that young man is getting fond of Elsie, and is
afraid of a rival; otherwise I don’t see why such a simple thing should
have caused him to push away his egg, and declare that he had done
famously, in an aggressive manner which at once threw doubt upon his
proposition. Grace Maberly, Elsie’s friend, seemed quietly contented,
as is her wont.

As for me, I was in a riotous state of delight. Jack and I had been
children together. He was like an elder brother to me until he became
a cadet and left us. How often Bob and he had climbed old Brown’s
apple-trees, while I stood beneath and collected the spoil in my little
white pinafore! There was hardly a scrape or adventure which I could
remember in which Jack did not figure as a prominent character. But he
was “Lieutenant” Hawthorne now, had been through the Afghan War, and
was, as Bob said, “quite the warrior.” Whatever would he look like?
Somehow the “warrior” had conjured up an idea of Jack in full armor
with plumes on his head, thirsting for blood, and hewing at somebody
with an enormous sword. After doing that sort of thing I was afraid
he would never descend to romps and charades and the other stock
amusements of Hatherley House.

Cousin Sol was certainly out of spirits during the next few days. He
could be hardly persuaded to make a fourth at lawn-tennis, but showed
an extraordinary love of solitude and strong tobacco. We used to
come across him in the most unexpected places, in the shrubbery and
down by the river, on which occasions, if there was any possibility
of avoiding us, he would gaze rigidly into the distance, and utterly
ignore feminine shouts and the waving of parasols. It was certainly
very rude of him. I got hold of him one evening before dinner, and
drawing myself up to my full height of five feet four and a half
inches, I proceeded to give him a piece of my mind, a process which Bob
characterizes as the height of charity, since it consists in my giving
away what I am most in need of myself.

Cousin Sol was lounging in a rocking-chair with the _Times_ before him,
gazing moodily over the top of it into the fire. I ranged up alongside
and poured in my broadside.

“We seem to have given you some offence, Mr. Barker,” I remarked, with
lofty courtesy.

“What do you mean, Nell?” asked my cousin, looking up at me in
surprise. He had a very curious way of looking at me, had cousin Sol.

“You appear to have dropped our acquaintance,” I remarked; and then
suddenly descending from my heroics, “You _are_ stupid, Sol! What’s
been the matter with you?”

“Nothing, Nell. At least, nothing of any consequence. You know my
medical examination is in two months, and I am reading for it.”

“Oh,” said I, in a bristle of indignation, “if that’s it, there’s
no more to be said. Of course, if you prefer bones to your female
relations, it’s all right. There are young men who would rather make
themselves agreeable than mope in corners and learn how to prod people
with knives.” With which epitome of the noble science of surgery, I
proceeded to straighten some refractory antimacassars with unnecessary
violence.

I could see Sol looking with an amused smile at the angry little
blue-eyed figure in front of him. “Don’t blow me up, Nell,” he said; “I
have been plucked once, you know. Besides,” looking grave, “you’ll have
amusement enough when this--what is his name?--Lieutenant Hawthorne
comes.”

“Jack won’t go and associate with mummies and skeletons, at any rate,”
I remarked.

“Do you always call him Jack?” asked the student.

“Of course I do, John sounds so stiff.”

“Oh, it does, does it?” said my companion, doubtfully.

I still had my theory about Elsie running in my head. I thought I might
try and set the matter in a more cheerful light. Sol had got up, and
was staring out of the open window. I went over to him and glanced up
timidly into his usually good-humored face, which was now looking very
dark and discontented. He was a shy man, as a rule, but I thought that
with a little leading he might be brought to confess.

“You’re a jealous old thing,” I remarked.

The young man colored and looked down at me.

“I know your secret,” said I, boldly.

“What secret?” said he, coloring even more.

“Never you mind. I know it. Let me tell you this,” I added, getting
bolder: “that Jack and Elsie never got on very well. There is far more
chance of Jack’s falling in love with me. We were always friends.”

If I had stuck the knitting-needle which I held in my hand into cousin
Sol, he could not have given a greater jump. “Good heavens!” he said,
and I could see his dark eyes staring at me through the twilight. “Do
you really think that it is your sister that I care for?”

“Certainly,” said I, stoutly, with a feeling that I was nailing my
colors to the mast.

Never did a single word produce such an effect. Cousin Sol wheeled
round with a gasp of astonishment, and sprang right out of the window.
He always had curious ways of expressing his feelings, but this one
struck me as being so entirely original that I was utterly bereft of
any idea save that of wonder. I stood staring out into the gathering
darkness. Then there appeared, looking in at me from the lawn, a very
much abashed and still rather astonished face. “It’s you I care for,
Nell,” said the face, and at once vanished, while I heard the noise of
somebody running at the top of his speed down the avenue. He certainly
was a most extraordinary young man.

Things went on very much the same at Hatherley House in spite of cousin
Sol’s characteristic declaration of affection. He never sounded me as
to my sentiments in regard to him, nor did he allude to the matter
for several days. He evidently thought that he had done all which was
needed in such cases. He used to discompose me dreadfully at times,
however, by coming and planting himself opposite me, and staring at me
with a stony rigidity which was absolutely appalling.

“Don’t do that, Sol,” I said to him one day; “you give me the creeps
all over.”

“Why do I give you the creeps, Nelly?” said he. “Don’t you like me?”

“Oh yes, I like you well enough,” said I. “I like Lord Nelson, for that
matter; but I shouldn’t like his monument to come and stare at me by
the hour. It makes me feel quite all-overish.”

“What on earth put Lord Nelson into your head?” said my cousin.

“I’m sure I don’t know.”

“Do you like me the same way you like Lord Nelson, Nell?”

“Yes,” I said, “only more.” With which small ray of encouragement poor
Sol had to be content, as Elsie and Miss Maberly came rustling into
the room and put an end to our _tête-à-tête_.

I certainly did like my cousin. I knew what a simple true nature lay
beneath his quiet exterior. The idea of having Sol Barker for a lover,
however--Sol, whose very name was synonymous with bashfulness--was too
incredible. Why couldn’t he fall in love with Grace or with Elsie? They
might have known what to do with him; they were older than I, and could
encourage him, or snub him, as they thought best. Gracie, however, was
carrying on a mild flirtation with my brother Bob, and Elsie seemed
utterly unconscious of the whole matter. I have one characteristic
recollection of my cousin which I cannot help introducing here, though
it has nothing to do with the thread of the narrative. It was on the
occasion of his first visit to Hatherley House. The wife of the Rector
called one day, and the responsibility of entertaining her rested with
Sol and myself. We got on very well at first. Sol was unusually lively
and talkative. Unfortunately a hospitable impulse came upon him; and
in spite of many warning nods and winks, he asked the visitor if he
might offer her a glass of wine. Now, as ill luck would have it, our
supply had just been finished, and though we had written to London,
a fresh consignment had not yet arrived. I listened breathlessly for
the answer, trusting she would refuse; but to my horror she accepted
with alacrity. “Never mind ringing, Nell,” said Sol, “I’ll act as
butler;” and with a confident smile he marched into the little cupboard
in which the decanters were usually kept. It was not until he was
well in that he suddenly recollected having heard us mention in the
morning that there was none in the house. His mental anguish was so
great that he spent the remainder of Mrs. Salter’s visit in the
cupboard, utterly refusing to come out until after her departure. Had
there been any possibility of the wine-press having another egress,
or leading anywhere, matters would not have been so bad; but I knew
that old Mrs. Salter was as well up in the geography of the house as
I was myself. She stayed for three-quarters of an hour waiting for
Sol’s reappearance, and then went away in high dudgeon. “My dear,”
she said, recounting the incident to her husband, and breaking into
semi-scriptural language in the violence of her indignation, “the
cupboard seemed to open and swallow him!”

       *       *       *       *       *

“Jack is coming down by the two o’clock train,” said Bob one morning,
coming in to breakfast with a telegram in his hand.

I could see Sol looking at me reproachfully; but that did not prevent
me from showing my delight at the intelligence.

“We’ll have awful fun when he comes,” said Bob. “We’ll drag the
fish-pond, and have no end of a lark. Won’t it be jolly, Sol?”

Sol’s opinion of its jollity was evidently too great to be expressed in
words; for he gave an inarticulate grunt as answer.

I had a long cogitation on the subject of Jack in the garden that
morning. After all, I was becoming a big girl, as Bob had forcibly
reminded me. I must be circumspect in my conduct now. A real live man
had actually looked upon me with the eyes of love. It was all very well
when I was a child to have Jack following me about and kissing me; but
I must keep him at a distance now. I remembered how he presented me
with a dead fish once which he had taken out of the Hatherley Brook,
and how I treasured it up among my most precious possessions, until an
insidious odor in the house had caused the mother to send an abusive
letter to Mr. Burton, who had pronounced our drainage to be all that
could be desired. I must learn to be formal and distant. I pictured our
meeting to myself, and went through a rehearsal of it. The holly-bush
represented Jack, and I approached it solemnly, made it a stately
courtesy, and held out my hand with, “So glad to see you, Lieutenant
Hawthorne!” Elsie came out while I was doing it, but made no remark. I
heard her ask Sol at luncheon, however, whether idiocy generally ran
in families, or was simply confined to individuals; at which poor Sol
blushed furiously, and became utterly incoherent in his attempts at an
explanation.

       *       *       *       *       *

Our farmyard opens upon the avenue about half-way between Hatherley
House and the lodge. Sol and I and Mr. Nicholas Cronin, the son of
a neighboring squire, went down there after lunch. This imposing
demonstration was for the purpose of quelling a mutiny which had broken
out in the hen-house. The earliest tidings of the rising had been
conveyed to the House by young Bayliss, son and heir of the henkeeper,
and my presence had been urgently requested. Let me remark in
parenthesis that fowls were my special department in domestic economy,
and that no step was ever taken in their management without my advice
and assistance. Old Bayliss hobbled out upon our arrival, and informed
us of the full extent of the disturbance. It seems that the crested
hen and the Bantam cock had developed such length of wing that they
were enabled to fly over into the park; and that the example of these
ringleaders had been so contagious, that even such steady old matrons
as the bandy-legged Cochin China had developed roving propensities,
and pushed their way into forbidden ground. A council of war was held
in the yard, and it was unanimously decided that the wings of the
recalcitrants must be clipped.

What a scamper we had! By “we” I mean Mr. Cronin and myself; while
cousin Sol hovered about in the background with the scissors, and
cheered us on. The two culprits clearly knew that they were wanted; for
they rushed under the hayricks and over the coops, until there seemed
to be at least half a dozen crested hens and Bantam cocks dodging about
in the yard. The other hens were mildly interested in the proceedings,
and contented themselves with an occasional derisive cluck, with the
exception of the favorite wife of the Bantam, who abused us roundly
from the top of the coop. The ducks were the most aggravating portion
of the community; for though they had nothing to do with the original
disturbance, they took a warm interest in the fugitives, waddling
behind them as fast as their little yellow legs would carry them, and
getting in the way of the pursuers.

“We have it!” I gasped, as the crested hen was driven into a corner.
“Catch it, Mr. Cronin! Oh, you’ve missed it! you’ve missed it! Get in
the way, Sol. Oh, dear, it’s coming to me!”

“Well done, Miss Montague!” cried Mr. Cronin, as I seized the wretched
fowl by the leg as it fluttered past me, and proceeded to tuck it under
my arm to prevent any possibility of escape. “Let me carry it for you.”

“No, no; I want you to catch the cock. There it goes! There--behind the
hayrick. You go to one side, and I’ll go to the other.”

“It’s going through the gate!” shouted Sol.

“Shoo!” cried I. “Shoo! Oh, it’s gone!” and we both made a dart into
the park in pursuit, tore round the corner into the avenue, and there I
found myself face to face with a sunburned young man in a tweed suit,
who was lounging along in the direction of the house.

There was no mistaking those laughing gray eyes, though I think if I
had never looked at him some instinct would have told me that it was
Jack. How could I be dignified with the crested hen tucked under my
arm? I tried to pull myself up; but the miserable bird seemed to think
that it had found a protector at last, for it began to cluck with
redoubled vehemence. I had to give it up in despair, and burst into a
laugh, while Jack did the same.

“How are you, Nell?” he said, holding out his hand; and then, in an
astonished voice, “Why, you’re not a bit the same as when I saw you
last!”

“Well, I hadn’t a hen under my arm then,” said I.

“Who would have thought that little Nell would have developed into a
woman?” said Jack, still lost in amazement.

“You didn’t expect me to develop into a man, did you?” said I, in high
indignation; and then, suddenly dropping all reserve, “We’re awfully
glad you’ve come, Jack. Never mind going up to the house. Come and help
us to catch that Bantam cock.”

“Right you are,” said Jack, in his old cheery way, still keeping his
eyes firmly fixed upon my countenance. “Come on!” and away the three
of us scampered across the park, with poor Sol aiding and abetting
with the scissors and the prisoner in the rear. Jack was a very
crumpled-looking visitor by the time he paid his respects to the mother
that afternoon, and my dreams of dignity and reserve were scattered to
the winds.

       *       *       *       *       *

We had quite a party at Hatherley House that May. There were Bob, and
Sol, and Jack Hawthorne, and Mr. Nicholas Cronin; then there were Miss
Maberly, and Elsie, and mother, and myself. On an emergency we could
always muster half a dozen visitors from the houses round, so as to
have an audience when charades or private theatricals were attempted.
Mr. Cronin, an easy-going athletic young Oxford man, proved to be
a great acquisition, having wonderful powers of organization and
execution. Jack was not nearly as lively as he used to be, in fact we
unanimously accused him of being in love; at which he looked as silly
as young men usually do on such occasions, but did not attempt to deny
the soft impeachment.

“What shall we do to-day?” said Bob one morning. “Can anybody make a
suggestion?”

“Drag the pond,” said Mr. Cronin.

“Haven’t men enough,” said Bob; “anything else?”

“We must get up a sweepstakes for the Derby,” remarked Jack.

“O, there’s plenty of time for that. It isn’t run till the week after
next. Anything else?”

“Lawn-tennis,” said Sol, dubiously.

“Bother lawn-tennis!”

“You might make a picnic to Hatherley Abbey,” said I.

“Capital!” cried Mr. Cronin. “The very thing. What do you think, Bob?”

“First-class,” said my brother, grasping eagerly at the idea. Picnics
are very dear to those who are in the first stage of the tender
passion.

“Well, how are we to go, Nell?” asked Elsie.

“I won’t go at all,” said I; “I’d like to awfully, but I have to plant
those ferns Sol got me. You had better walk. It is only three miles,
and young Bayliss can be sent over with the basket of provisions.”

“You’ll come, Jack?” said Bob.

Here was another impediment. The Lieutenant had twisted his ankle
yesterday. He had not mentioned it to anyone at the time; but it was
beginning to pain him now.

“Couldn’t do it, really,” said Jack. “Three miles there and three back.”

“Come on. Don’t be lazy,” said Bob.

“My dear fellow,” answered the Lieutenant, “I have had walking enough
to last me the rest of my life. If you had seen how that energetic
general of ours bustled me along from Cabul to Candahar, you’d
sympathize with me.”

“Leave the veteran alone,” said Mr. Nicholas Cronin.

“Pity the war-worn soldier,” remarked Bob.

“None of your chaff,” said Jack. “I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” he
added, brightening up. “You let me have the trap, Bob, and I’ll drive
over with Nell as soon as she has finished planting her ferns. We can
take the basket with us. You’ll come, won’t you, Nell?”

“All right,” said I. And Bob having given his assent to the
arrangement, and everybody being pleased, except Mr. Solomon Barker,
who glared with mild malignancy at the soldier, the matter was finally
settled, and the whole party proceeded to get ready, and finally
departed down the avenue.

       *       *       *       *       *

It was an extraordinary thing how that ankle improved after the last
of the troop had passed round the curve of the hedge. By the time the
ferns were planted and the gig got ready Jack was as active and lively
as ever he was in his life.

“You seem to have got better very suddenly,” I remarked, as we drove
down the narrow winding country lane.

“Yes,” said Jack. “The fact is, Nell, there never was anything the
matter with me. I wanted to have a talk with you.”

“You don’t mean to say you would tell a lie in order to have a talk
with me?” I remonstrated.

“Forty,” said Jack, stoutly.

I was too lost in contemplation of the depths of guile in Jack’s nature
to make any further remark. I wondered whether Elsie would be flattered
or indignant were anyone to offer to tell so many lies in her behalf.

“We used to be good friends when we were children, Nell,” remarked my
companion.

“Yes,” said I, looking down at the rug which was thrown over my knees.
I was beginning to be quite an experienced young lady by this time,
you see, and to understand certain inflections of the masculine voice,
which are only to be acquired by practice.

“You don’t seem to care for me now as much as you did then,” said Jack.

I was still intensely absorbed in the leopard’s skin in front of me.

“Do you know, Nelly,” continued Jack, “that when I have been camping
out in the frozen passes of the Himalayas, when I have seen the hostile
array in front of me; in fact,” suddenly dropping into bathos, “all the
time I was in that beastly hole Afghanistan, I used to think of the
little girl I had left in England.”

“Indeed!” I murmured.

“Yes,” said Jack, “I bore the memory of you in my heart, and then when
I came back you were a little girl no longer. I found you a beautiful
woman, Nelly, and I wondered whether you had forgotten the days that
were gone.”

Jack was becoming quite poetical in his enthusiasm. By this time he had
left the old bay pony entirely to its own devices, and it was indulging
in its chronic propensity of stopping and admiring the view.

“Look here, Nelly,” said Jack, with a gasp like a man who is about to
pull the string of his shower-bath, “one of the things you learn in
campaigning is to secure a good thing whenever you see it. Never delay
or hesitate, for you never know that some other fellow may not carry it
off while you are making up your mind.”

“It’s coming now,” I thought in despair, “and there’s no window for
Jack to escape by after he has made the plunge.” I had gradually got to
associate the ideas of love and jumping out of windows, ever since poor
Sol’s confession.

“Do you think, Nell,” said Jack, “that you could ever care for me
enough to share my lot forever? could you ever be my wife, Nell?”

He didn’t even jump out of the trap. He sat there beside me, looking at
me with his eager gray eyes, while the pony strolled along, cropping
the wild flowers on either side of the road. It was quite evident that
he intended having an answer. Somehow as I looked down I seemed to see
a pale, shy face looking in at me from a dark background, and to hear
Sol’s voice as he declared his love. Poor fellow! he was first in the
field at any rate.

“Could you, Nell?” asked Jack once more.

“I like you very much, Jack,” said I, looking up at him nervously;
“but”--how his face changed at that monosyllable!--“I don’t think I
like you enough for that. Besides, I’m so young, you know. I suppose
I ought to be very much complimented and that sort of thing by your
offer; but you mustn’t think of me in that light any more.”

“You refuse me, then?” said Jack, turning a little white.

“Why don’t you go and ask Elsie?” cried I in despair. “Why should you
all come to me.”

“I don’t want Elsie,” cried Jack, giving the pony a cut with his whip
which rather astonished that easy-going quadruped. “What do you mean by
’all,’ Nell?”

No answer.

“I see how it is,” said Jack, bitterly; “I’ve noticed how that cousin
of yours has been hanging round you ever since I have been here. You
are engaged to him.”

“No, I’m not,” said I.

“Thank God for that!” responded Jack, devoutly. “There is some hope
yet. Perhaps you will come to think better of it in time. Tell me,
Nelly, are you fond of that fool of a medical student?”

“He isn’t a fool,” said I, indignantly, “and I am quite as fond of him
as I shall ever be of you.”

“You might not care for him much and still be that,” said Jack,
sulkily; and neither of us spoke again until a joint bellow from Bob
and Mr. Cronin announced the presence of the rest of the company.

If the picnic was a success, it was entirely due to the exertions of
the latter gentleman. Three lovers out of four was an undue proportion,
and it took all his convivial powers to make up for the shortcomings of
the rest. Bob seemed entirely absorbed in Miss Maberley’s charms, poor
Elsie was left out in the cold, while my two admirers spent their time
in glaring alternately at me and at each other. Mr. Cronin, however,
fought gallantly against the depression, making himself agreeable to
all, and exploring ruins or drawing corks with equal vehemence and
energy.

Cousin Sol was particularly disheartened and out of spirits. He
thought, no doubt, that my solitary ride with Jack had been a
prearranged thing between us. There was more sorrow than anger in his
eyes, however, while Jack, I regret to say, was decidedly ill-tempered.
It was this fact which made me choose out my cousin as my companion
in the ramble through the woods which succeeded our lunch. Jack had
been assuming a provoking air of proprietorship lately, which I was
determined to quash once for all. I felt angry with him, too, for
appearing to consider himself ill used at my refusal, and for trying to
disparage poor Sol behind his back. I was far from loving either the
one or the other, but somehow my girlish ideas of fair play revolted
at either of them taking what I considered an unfair advantage. I felt
that if Jack had not come I should, in the fulness of time, have ended
by accepting my cousin; on the other hand, if it had not been for Sol,
I might never have refused Jack. At present I was too fond of them both
to favor either. “How in the world is it to end?” thought I. I must
do something decisive one way or the other; or perhaps the best thing
would be to wait and see what the future might bring forth.

Sol seemed mildly surprised at my having selected him as my companion,
but accepted the offer with a grateful smile. His mind seemed to have
been vastly relieved.

“So I haven’t lost you yet, Nell,” he murmured, as we branched off
among the great tree-trunks and heard the voices of the party growing
fainter in the distance.

“Nobody can lose me,” said I, “for nobody has won me yet. For goodness’
sake don’t talk about it any more. Why can’t you talk like your old
self two years ago, and not be so dreadfully sentimental?”

“You’ll know why some day, Nell,” said the student, reproachfully.
“Wait until you are in love yourself, and you will understand it.”

I gave a little incredulous sniff.

“Sit here, Nell,” said Cousin Sol, manœuvring me into a little bank
of wild strawberries and mosses, and perching himself upon a stump of
a tree beside me. “Now all I ask you to do is to answer one or two
questions, and I’ll never bother you any more.”

I sat resignedly, with my hands in my lap.

“Are you engaged to Lieutenant Hawthorne?”

“No!” said I, energetically.

“Are you fonder of him than of me?”

“No, I’m not.”

Sol’s thermometer of happiness up to a hundred in the shade at least.

“Are you fonder of me than of him, Nelly?” in a very tender voice.

“No.”

Thermometer down below zero again.

“Do you mean to say that we are exactly equal in your eyes?”

“Yes.”

“But you must choose between us some time, you know,” said Cousin Sol,
with mild reproach in his voice.

“I do wish you wouldn’t bother me so!” I cried, getting angry, as
women usually do when they are in the wrong. “You don’t care for me
much or you wouldn’t plague me. I believe the two of you will drive me
mad between you.”

Here there were symptoms of sobs on my part, and utter consternation
and defeat among the Barker faction.

“Can’t you see how it is, Sol?” said I, laughing through my tears at
his woe-begone appearance. “Suppose you were brought up with two girls
and had got to like them both very much, but had never preferred one
to the other, and never dreamed of marrying either, and then all of a
sudden you are told you must choose one, and so make the other very
unhappy, you wouldn’t find it an easy thing to do, would you?”

“I suppose not,” said the student.

“Then you can’t blame me.”

“I don’t blame you, Nelly,” he answered, attacking a great purple
toadstool with his stick. “I think you are quite right to be sure of
your own mind. It seems to me,” he continued, speaking rather gaspily,
but saying his mind like the true English gentleman that he was, “it
seems to me that Hawthorne is an excellent fellow. He has seen more of
the world than I have, and always does and says the right thing in the
right place, which certainly isn’t one of my characteristics. Then he
is well born and has good prospects. I think I should be very grateful
to you for your hesitation, Nell, and look upon it as a sign of your
good-heartedness.”

“We won’t talk about it any more,” said I, thinking in my heart what a
very much finer fellow he was than the man he was praising. “Look here,
my jacket is all stained with horrid fungi and things. We’d better go
after the rest of the party, hadn’t we? I wonder where they are by
this time?”

It didn’t take very long to find that out. At first we heard shouting
and laughter coming echoing through the long glades, and then, as we
made our way in that direction, we were astonished to meet the usually
phlegmatic Elsie careering through the wood at the very top of her
speed, her hat off, and her hair streaming in the wind. My first idea
was that some frightful catastrophe had occurred--brigands possibly,
or a mad dog--and I saw my companion’s big hand close round his stick;
but on meeting the fugitive it proved to be nothing more tragic than a
game of hide-and-seek which the indefatigable Mr. Cronin had organized.
What fun we had, crouching and running and dodging among the Hatherley
oaks! and how horrified the prim old abbot who planted them would have
been, and the long series of black-coated brethren who have muttered
their orisons beneath the welcome shade! Jack refused to play on
the excuse of his weak ankle, and lay smoking under a tree in high
dudgeon, glaring in a baleful and gloomy fashion at Mr. Solomon Barker;
while the latter gentleman entered enthusiastically into the game,
and distinguished himself by always getting caught, and never by any
possibility catching anybody else.

Poor Jack! He was certainly unfortunate that day. Even an accepted
lover would have been rather put out, I think, by an incident which
occurred during our return home. It was agreed that all of us should
walk, as the trap had been already sent off with the empty baskets,
so we started down Thorny Lane and through the fields. We were just
getting over a stile to cross old Brown’s ten-acre lot, when Mr. Cronin
pulled up, and remarked that he thought we had better get into the
road.

“Road?” said Jack. “Nonsense! We save a quarter of a mile by the field.”

“Yes, but it’s rather dangerous. We’d better go round.”

“Where’s the danger?” said our military man, contemptuously twisting
his mustache.

“O, nothing,” said Cronin. “That quadruped in the middle of the field
is a bull, and not a very good-tempered one either. That’s all. I don’t
think that the ladies should be allowed to go.”

“We won’t go,” said the ladies in chorus.

“Then come round by the hedge and get into the road,” suggested Sol.

“You may go as you like,” said Jack rather testily, “but I am going
across the field.”

“Don’t be a fool, Jack,” said my brother.

“You fellows may think it right to turn tail at an old cow, but I
don’t. It hurts my self-respect, you see, so I shall join you at the
other side of the farm.” With which speech Jack buttoned up his coat in
a truculent manner, waved his cane jauntily, and swaggered off into the
ten-acre lot.

We clustered about the stile and watched the proceedings with anxiety.
Jack tried to look as if he were entirely absorbed in the view and in
the probable state of the weather, for he gazed about him and up into
the clouds in an abstracted manner. His gaze generally began and ended,
however, somewhere in the direction of the bull. That animal, after
regarding the intruder with a prolonged stare, had retreated into the
shadow of the hedge at one side, while Jack was walking up the long
axis of the field.

“It’s all right,” said I. “It’s got out of his way.”

“I think it’s leading him on,” said Mr. Nicholas Cronin. “It’s a
vicious, cunning brute.”

Mr. Cronin had hardly spoken before the bull emerged from the hedge,
and began pawing the ground, and tossing its wicked black head in the
air. Jack was in the middle of the field by this time, and affected to
take no notice of his companion, though he quickened his pace slightly.
The bull’s next manœuvre was to run rapidly round in two or three small
circles; and then it suddenly stopped, bellowed, put down its head,
elevated its tail, and made for Jack at the very top of its speed.

There was no use pretending to ignore its existence any longer. Jack
faced round and gazed at it for a moment. He had only his little cane
in his hand to oppose to the half ton of irate beef which was charging
toward him. He did the only thing that was possible, namely, to make
for the hedge at the other side of the field.

At first Jack hardly condescended to run, but went off with a languid
contemptuous trot, a sort of compromise between his dignity and his
fear, which was so ludicrous that, frightened as we were, we burst into
a chorus of laughter. By degrees, however, as he heard the galloping
of hoofs sounding nearer and nearer, he quickened his pace, until
ultimately he was in full flight for shelter, with his hat gone and
his coat-tails fluttering in the breeze, while his pursuer was not ten
yards behind him. If all Ayoub Khan’s cavalry had been in his rear,
our Afghan hero could not have done the distance in a shorter time.
Quickly as he went, the bull went quicker still, and the two seemed to
gain the hedge almost at the same moment. We saw Jack spring boldly
into it, and the next moment he came flying out at the other side as
if he had been discharged from a cannon, while the bull indulged in
a series of triumphant bellows through the hole which he had made. It
was a relief to us all to see Jack gather himself up and start off for
home without a glance in our direction. He had retired to his room by
the time we arrived, and did not appear until breakfast next morning,
when he limped in with a very crestfallen expression. None of us was
hard-hearted enough to allude to the subject, however, and by judicious
treatment we restored him before lunch-time to his usual state of
equanimity.

       *       *       *       *       *

It was a couple of days after the picnic that our great Derby
sweepstakes was to come off. This was an annual ceremony never omitted
at Hatherley House, where, between visitors and neighbors, there were
generally quite as many candidates for tickets as there were horses
entered.

“The sweepstakes, ladies and gentlemen, comes off to-night,” said
Bob in his character of head of the house. “The subscription is ten
shillings. Second gets quarter of the pool, and third has his money
returned. No one is allowed to have more than one ticket, or to sell
his ticket after drawing it. The drawing will be at seven thirty.” All
of which Bob delivered in a very pompous and official voice, though
the effect was rather impaired by a sonorous “Amen!” from Mr. Nicholas
Cronin.

       *       *       *       *       *

I must now drop the personal style of narrative for a time. Hitherto my
little story has consisted simply in a series of extracts from my own
private journal; but now I have to tell of a scene which only came to
my ears after many months.

Lieutenant Hawthorne, or Jack, as I cannot help calling him, had been
very quiet since the day of the picnic, and given himself up to
reverie. Now, as luck would have it, Mr. Solomon Barker sauntered into
the smoking-room after luncheon on the day of the sweepstakes, and
found the Lieutenant puffing moodily in solitary grandeur upon one of
the settees. It would have seemed cowardly to retreat, so the student
sat down in silence, and began turning over the pages of the _Graphic_.
Both the rivals felt the situation to be an awkward one. They had been
in the habit of studiously avoiding each other’s society, and now they
found themselves thrown together suddenly, with no third person to act
as a buffer. The silence began to be oppressive. The Lieutenant yawned
and coughed with over-acted nonchalance, while honest Sol felt very hot
and uncomfortable, and continued to stare gloomily at the paper in his
hand. The ticking of the clock, and the click of the billiard balls
across the passage, seemed to grow unendurably loud and monotonous. Sol
glanced across once; but catching his companion’s eye in an exactly
similar action, the two young men seemed simultaneously to take a deep
and all-absorbing interest in the pattern of the cornice.

“Why should I quarrel with him?” thought Sol to himself. “After all, I
want nothing but fair play. Probably I shall be snubbed; but I may as
well give him an opening.”

Sol’s cigar had gone out; the opportunity was too good to be neglected.

“Could you oblige me with a fusee, Lieutenant?” he asked.

The Lieutenant was sorry--extremely sorry--but he was not in possession
of a fusee.

This was a bad beginning. Chilly politeness was even more repulsing
than absolute rudeness. But Mr. Solomon Barker, like many other shy
men, was audacity itself when the ice had once been broken. He would
have no more bickerings or misunderstandings. Now was the time to come
to some definite arrangement. He pulled his armchair across the room,
and planted himself in front of the astonished soldier.

“You’re in love with Miss Nelly Montague,” he remarked.

Jack sprang off the settee with as much rapidity as if Farmer Brown’s
bull were coming in through the window.

“And if I am, sir,” he said, twisting his tawny mustache, “what the
devil is that to you?”

“Don’t lose your temper,” said Sol. “Sit down again, and talk the
matter over like a reasonable Christian. I am in love with her too.”

“What the deuce is the fellow driving at?” thought Jack, as he resumed
his seat, still simmering after his recent explosion.

“So the long and the short of it is that we are both in love with her,”
continued Sol, emphasizing his remarks with his bony forefinger.

“What then?” said the Lieutenant, showing some symptoms of a relapse.
“I suppose that the best man will win, and that the young lady is quite
able to choose for herself. You don’t expect me to stand out of the
race just because you happen to want the prize, do you?”

“That’s just it,” cried Sol. “One of us will have to stand out. You’ve
hit the right idea there. You see, Nelly--Miss Montague, I mean--is,
as far as I can see, rather fonder of you than of me, but still fond
enough of me not to wish to grieve me by a positive refusal.”

“Honesty compels me to state,” said Jack, in a more conciliatory voice
than he had made use of hitherto, “that Nelly--Miss Montague, I
mean--is rather fonder of _you_ than of me; but still, as you say, fond
enough of me not to prefer my rival openly in my presence.”

“I don’t think you’re right,” said the student. “In fact, I know you
are not; for she told me as much with her own lips. However, what you
say makes it easier for us to come to an understanding. It is quite
evident that as long as we show ourselves to be equally fond of her,
neither of us can have the slightest hope of winning her.”

“There’s some sense in that,” said the Lieutenant, reflectively; “but
what do you propose?”

“I propose that one of us stand out, to use your own expression. There
is no alternative.”

“But who is to stand out?” asked Jack.

“Ah, that is the question!”

“I can claim to having known her longest.”

“I can claim to having loved her first.”

Matters seemed to have come to a deadlock. Neither of the young men was
in the least inclined to abdicate in favor of his rival.

“Look here,” said the student, “let us decide the matter by lot.”

This seemed fair, and was agreed to by both. A new difficulty arose,
however. Both of them felt sentimental objections toward risking their
angel upon such a paltry chance as the turn of a coin or the length of
a straw. It was at this crisis that an inspiration came upon Lieutenant
Hawthorne.

“I’ll tell you how we will decide it,” he said. “You and I are both
entered for our Derby sweepstakes. If your horse beats mine, I give up
my chance; if mine beats yours, you leave Miss Montague forever. Is it
a bargain?”

“I have only one stipulation to make,” said Sol. “It is ten days
yet before the race will be run. During that time neither of us must
attempt to take an unfair advantage of the other. We shall both agree
not to press our suit until the matter is decided.”

“Done!” said the soldier.

“Done!” said Solomon.

And they shook hands upon the agreement.

       *       *       *       *       *

I had, as I have already observed, no knowledge of the conversation
which had taken place between my suitors. I may mention incidentally
that during the course of it I was in the library, listening to
Tennyson, read aloud in the deep musical voice of Mr. Nicholas Cronin.
I observed, however, in the evening that these two young men seemed
remarkably excited about their horses, and that neither of them was in
the least inclined to make himself agreeable to me, for which crime I
am happy to say that they were both punished by drawing rank outsiders.
Eurydice, I think, was the name of Sol’s; while Jack’s was Bicycle. Mr.
Cronin drew an American horse named Iroquois, and all the others seemed
fairly well pleased. I peeped into the smoking room before going to
bed, and was amused to see Jack consulting the sporting prophet of the
_Field_, while Sol was deeply immersed in the _Gazette_. This sudden
mania for the Turf seemed all the more strange, since I knew that if my
cousin could distinguish a horse from a cow, it was as much as any of
his friends would give him credit for.

The ten succeeding days were voted very slow by various members of
the household. I cannot say that I found them so. Perhaps that was
because I discovered something very unexpected and pleasing in the
course of that period. It was a relief to be free of any fear of
wounding the susceptibilities of either of my former lovers. I could
say what I chose and do what I liked now; for they had deserted me
completely, and handed me over to the society of my brother Bob and
Mr. Nicholas Cronin. The new excitement of horse-racing seemed to
have driven their former passion completely out of their minds. Never
was a house so deluged with special tips and every vile print which
could by any possibility have a word bearing upon the training of the
horses or their antecedents. The very grooms in the stable were tired
of recounting how Bicycle was descended from Velocipede, or explaining
to the anxious medical student how Eurydice was by Orpheus out of
Hades. One of them discovered that her maternal grandmother had come
in third for the Ebor Handicap; but the curious way in which he stuck
the half-crown which he received into his left eye, while he winked at
the coachman with his right, throws some doubt upon the veracity of
his statement. As he remarked in a beery whisper that evening, “The
bloke’ll never know the differ, and it’s worth ’arf a dollar for him to
think as it’s true.”

As the day drew nearer the excitement increased. Mr. Cronin and I used
to glance across at each other and smile as Jack and Sol precipitated
themselves upon the papers at breakfast, and devoured the list of the
betting. But matters culminated upon the evening immediately preceding
the race. The Lieutenant had run down to the station to secure the
latest intelligence, and now he came rushing in, waving a crushed paper
frantically over his head.

“Eurydice is scratched!” he yelled. “Your horse is done for, Barker!”

“What!” roared Sol.

“Done for--utterly broken down in training--won’t run at all!”

“Let me see,” groaned my cousin, seizing the paper; and then, dropping
it, he rushed out of the room, and banged down the stairs, taking four
at a time. We saw no more of him until late at night, when he slunk
in, looking very dishevelled, and crept quietly off to his room. Poor
fellow, I should have condoled with him had it not been for his recent
disloyal conduct toward myself.

Jack seemed a changed man from that moment. He began at once to pay me
marked attention, very much to the annoyance of myself and of some one
else in the room. He played and sang and proposed round games, and, in
fact, quite usurped the _rôle_ usually played by Mr. Nicholas Cronin.

I remember that it struck me as remarkable that on the morning of the
Derby-day the Lieutenant should have entirely lost his interest in the
race. He was in the greatest spirits at breakfast, but did not even
open the paper in front of him. It was Mr. Cronin who unfolded it at
last and glanced over its columns.

“What’s the news, Nick?” asked my brother Bob.

“Nothing much. O yes, here’s something. Another railway accident.
Collision, apparently. Westinghouse brake gone wrong. Two killed,
seven hurt, and--by Jove! listen to this: ‘Among the victims was one
of the competitors in the equine Olympiad of to-day. A sharp splinter
had penetrated its side, and the valuable animal had to be sacrificed
upon the shrine of humanity. The name of the horse is Bicycle.’ Hullo,
you’ve gone and spilled your coffee all over the cloth, Hawthorne! Ah!
I forgot, Bicycle was your horse, wasn’t it? Your chance is gone, I
am afraid. I see that Iroquois, who started low, has come to be first
favorite now.”

Ominous words, reader, as no doubt your nice discernment has taught you
during, at the least, the last three columns. Don’t call me a flirt and
a coquette until you have weighed the facts. Consider my pique at the
sudden desertion of my admirers, think of my delight at the confession
from a man whom I had tried to conceal from myself even that I loved,
think of the opportunities which he enjoyed during the time that Jack
and Sol were systematically avoiding me, in accordance with their
ridiculous agreement. Weigh all this, and then which among you will
throw the first stone at the blushing little prize of the Derby Sweep?

Here it is as it appeared at the end of three short months in the
_Morning Post_: “August 12th.--At Hatherley Church, Nicholas Cronin,
Esq., eldest son of Nicholas Cronin, Esq., of the Woodlands, Cropshire,
to Miss Eleanor Montague, daughter of the late James Montague, Esq.,
J.P., of Hatherley House.”

Jack set off with the declared intention of volunteering for a
ballooning expedition to the North Pole. He came back, however, in
three days, and said that he had changed his mind, but intended to
walk in Stanley’s footsteps across Equatorial Africa. Since then he
has dropped one or two gloomy allusions to forlorn hopes and the
unutterable joys of death; but on the whole he is coming round very
nicely, and has been heard to grumble of late on such occasions as the
under-doing of the mutton and the over-doing of the beef, which may be
fairly set down as a very healthy symptom.

Sol took it more quietly, but I fear the iron went deeper into his
soul. However, he pulled himself together like a dear brave fellow as
he is, and actually had the hardihood to propose the bridesmaids, on
which occasion he became inextricably mixed up in a labyrinth of words.
He washed his hands of the mutinous sentence, however, and resumed
his seat in the middle of it, overwhelmed with blushes and applause.
I hear that he has confided his woes and his disappointments to Grace
Maberley’s sister, and met with the sympathy which he expected. Bob
and Gracie are to be married in a few months, so possibly there may be
another wedding about that time.