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Title: The black cat, vol. I, no. 4, January 1896
Author: Various
Release date: August 9, 2026 [eBook #79322]
Language: English
Original publication: Boston: The Shortstory Publishing Co., 1895
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/79322
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BLACK CAT, VOL. I, NO. 4, JANUARY 1896 ***
The Black Cat
January 1896.
Contents
=In Solomon’s Caverns.= Charles Edward Barns.
=An Angel of Tenderfoot Hill.= Frederick Bradford.
=In Miggles’ Alley.= Herman Brownson.
=The Missing Link.= James Buckham.
=Unchallenged.= Katharine Morrow.
=Aidu.= Hero Despard.
=Mrs. Emory’s Boarder.= C. Marie Mott.
5 CENTS
THE SHORTSTORY PUBLISHING CO., 144 HIGH ST. BOSTON, MASS.
4. Copyright 1895 by The Shortstory Publishing Co.
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The Black Cat
A Monthly Magazine of Original Short Stories.
No. 4. JANUARY, 1896. 5 cents a copy,
50 cents a year.
Entered at the Post-Office at Boston, Mass., as second-class matter.
=IMPORTANT.=—The entire contents of this magazine are covered
by copyright and publishers everywhere are cautioned against
reproducing any of the stories, either wholly or in part.
Copyright, 1895, by the Shortstory Publishing Company. All rights
reserved.
In Solomon’s Caverns.
BY CHARLES EDWARD BARNS.
Three men stood in the doorway of the Bohemian Club, that meeting-place
of men of the world from all over the world. It was the hour of noon,
when the human tide in this busy quarter of San Francisco is at
its height. Just as the party was about to separate, their way was
temporarily blocked by a squad of policemen, who escorted a score or more
of Chinamen handcuffed in pairs.
“What’s up?” asked one of the club-men.
“Opium smuggling,” replied the police captain.
“Speaking of opium,” said another of the trio, turning to his companions,
“reminds me of an experience that befell a traveler in the Holy Land, an
experience in which opium saved a man’s life.”
“Tell us about it.”
“It’s too long a story for the sidewalk, but if you will step upstairs
and join me in a dish of frijoles, with etceteras, I’ll tell you all
about it.”
“It happened in the ancient city of Jerusalem,” said the speaker,
after they were seated in the Bohemian’s dining-room, whose walls bore
picturesque record of many a “High and Low Jinks” in the club’s history.
“Not many people know that the famous walled hamlet stands on a shell
of rock; in other words, that there is a series of wonderful caverns
extending for some miles in an intricate chain underneath the city, and
that a little hole near the Golden Gate of the Holy Land, barely large
enough to admit a man, is the only entrance and exit. These caverns,
unlike the caves of Kentucky, were made by man. The stones which came
from them were used in the building of Solomon’s Temple, just one
thousand years before Christ. The old king employed eighty thousand men
to cut out these stones, forty thousand working by day and as many by
night, so you see that there must have been plenty of elbow room, and
you can judge of the vastness of the present caverns. You remember the
passage in 1 Kings,—that in the building of the temple ‘there was neither
hammer, nor axe, nor any tool of iron heard.’
“One lovely spring morning, this man I’m telling about, who had a passion
for out-of-the-way adventures, started for these caverns with a trusty
dragoman guide, his mind bent on exploring the subterranean chambers
further than had any one before him. In fact, he had a secret idea that
he might discover a passage leading to the cavern under the pool of
Siloam on the other side of the city; but this plan he kept to himself
until he had reached the caverns, and spent an hour or more studying
the marks left by the tools of Solomon’s workmen. When he finally
revealed his scheme, the dragoman combated with the greatest vehemence an
undertaking that, he said, might cost them their lives.
“Not at all affected by this dismal prophecy, which, in fact, added a
certain relish to the adventure, the explorer took accurate bearings, and
pressed on to what appeared to be the lowest spot in the whole series
of caverns. Here, to his amazement, his guide sat down and absolutely
refused to go farther. It was useless for his master to attempt to urge
him on by the assurance that they could not be far from the south wall,
where he hoped to find a connecting passage to the pool of Siloam. The
old chap sat immovable, declaring that to go farther, provided as they
were with but two torches and little food, meant certain death. He even
appealed to Allah to restore his master to reason.
“But, guide or no guide, the explorer was determined to hang on to his
project as a dog does to a bone. A few yards away rose a huge ledge that
promised a better view of the caverns’ unexplored depths. Directing
the dragoman to remain where he was seated and to answer whenever he
heard his master’s call, he picked up his staff and started toward the
ledge, promising that if he could find no outlet without going beyond
calling distance he would give up his search. Once on his way to the
ledge the man stopped, and, looking back to make sure that the dragoman
understood his instruction, saw the old fellow sitting just as he had
left him, the staff of his torch supported by his breast, so that the
light shone full upon him, while his hands, which were thus left free,
were rolling a cigarette, breaking an opium pill and sprinkling it into
the tobacco, as was his custom. With a loud cry, which the guide returned
in a deep guttural that resounded in a decidedly ghostly fashion in the
grim caverns, the man passed on, lighted now only by the flame of his
own torch. No sooner had he reached the high ledge than, seeing another
still higher, farther on, he started for that, calling each moment, and
as often hearing the sound of encouragement ever further and further
away. Suddenly the answer, ‘Aiya!’ rose to a shrill scream, like that of
a wounded animal. Instinctively he turned back, and called again. There
was no answer. Another and yet another cry echoed vainly down the grim
caverns. Seized with dread of some awful catastrophe, he rushed back the
way he had come. When finally he reached his starting point he found,
to his amazement, that the dragoman’s lamp was out; but by the light of
his own he could see the man still sitting there in the hollow where he
had left him, upright and motionless. Again he spoke, and again. The man
made no reply. Then, thrusting his torch forward, he caught his first
glimpse of the guide’s face, and stood rigid with terror. The bronze
countenance was of a deathly pallor; the mouth was drawn as in agony,
and the eyes were wide open,—so wide that the whites glowed through the
darkness like phosphorescent globes. At the first touch the man fell
heavily backward. As his master bent, attempting to raise the body, he
saw, to his amazement, the torch, which he had laid aside, flicker and
die. Then he understood. They were in a lake of deadly gas, which, being
heavier than the air, had settled to the bottom of the cave. He groped
for his torch, found it, and lighted it again, testing the lake of deadly
carbon. Soon he found that if he lowered the light below his hips, when
standing erect, it would go out. Thus he was half submerged in a lake of
death, where he was safe only as long as he stood upright. Malook had
seated himself, hence was literally drowned. Drawing a deep breath and
holding it, he stooped and placed his hand on the guide’s heart. The
action made him doubly sure of the deadly nature of the gas. The heart
was still, and his own almost ceased beating in the brief moment spent in
the suffocating carbon. But, even in the presence of death and danger,
the instinct of self-preservation did not fail him. In a moment he had
possessed himself of the dead man’s torch, his knapsack and luncheon, and
his staff, and then, sacrilege though it seemed, he rifled his pockets.
Here he found only tobacco and a box containing about a hundred little
pellets of opium. These last he was about to put back, but, missing the
pocket, he thrust the box into his own, and hurried to a higher and
safer place. Once there, he set himself to puzzling out his next course
of action. To make his way back to the entrance of the cave after these
miles of wandering would be impossible. He had trusted his guide too
implicitly for that. His only hope was to reach the pool of Siloam, which
he was still doggedly convinced was not far away, although of a passage
through there was no record. With this idea he started out once more,
wandering aimlessly first this way and then that, finally bringing up,
faint and exhausted, by the side of a body of still water. Grateful for
this discovery, he scooped a little into his hands, bathed his hot head,
and, as he was hungry, took a few mouthfuls of food. Finally, in the
face of danger, just as has been told of famous generals in the thick of
battle, he sat down and rolled a cigarette. The food and the tobacco,
topped by a strong pull at his brandy flask, renewed his courage, and
he set himself once more to reviewing the situation. From his extreme
fatigue, he felt convinced that he had wandered miles. His legs ached as
they never had before, and this, too, although he was accustomed to the
severest mountain climbing. Looking at his watch, he was surprised to
find that it was night in the world beyond and above him. Satisfied that
even if he came near the passage to the pool the darkness would deceive
him, he resolved to rest where he was until daybreak. An inventory of his
supplies convinced him that he might fight off starvation for three days,
but that at the extreme limit. Possessed by these frightful thoughts, he
lay back, and, overcome by fatigue, soon fell into a slumber troubled
by the most horrible dreams. In the midst of one of these nightmares he
awoke with a scream, which resounded appallingly. The sense of desolation
was almost unbearable. Indeed, if his torch had not been lighted,
he would certainly have lost his reason. He knew that madness often
preceded death under such circumstances, and in his desperation resolved
that at the first signs of a failing mind he would put an end to his
existence with his revolver. The case was desperate. Oil and food were
low; above him stretched a crust of rock from forty to one hundred feet
thick, through which no sound or ray of light from the outer world could
penetrate. As a test of his courage, he put out his torch, but found that
he could not endure the torture for long, though he resolved to inure
himself to the strain of the intense darkness and silence, at any cost.
Oil was now as precious as blood drops.
“When at last his watch told him that the night had worn away, he took
another morsel of food and a sip of brandy, rose, and started out again,
keeping close to the pool. As he walked, he heard a slight sound, like
that made by a leaping fish. Here, at last, was a chance to test his
theory. If that fish had eyes, then this cavern lake connected with the
pool of Siloam. If not—At the end of a full hour spent in searching for
the fish he finally caught the squirming thing in his hands, and brought
it to the light. It was eyeless! In his rage the man flung the ugly thing
back into the water. A moment later, however, the thought of the poverty
of his supplies sent him groping on hands and knees for the object of
his wrath, which he killed and cleaned, storing it away in his bag. He
even bagged a huge bat that, frightened by his torch, flew so near that
he brought it down with his staff, saving it as carefully as if it had
been a chicken. For all that he knew, its few drops of blood might be the
means of preserving his life.
“For three days and nights he wandered away from that pool, each
time, however, bringing up there again, as though propelled by fate.
Fortunately it was impossible for him to find his way back to the guide’s
body; that visible presence of death would undoubtedly have extinguished
the last spark of his own life. As it was, with each hour he felt his
flesh fail and his strength wane, until finally it was only by a supreme
effort that he could drag himself along. By this time he had become
so accustomed to the darkness that he lighted his torch only under
compulsion, determined to save his oil for some possible emergency. It
was while he was groping his way, unlighted, through the darkness, that
a rat ran across his path, so near that he struck at and killed it. Upon
feeling of it he found that it seemed sleek and prosperous, while its
cheeks were pouched out with what proved on examination to be kernels
of grain. This discovery, however, only aggravated his despondency, for
it convinced him that even the vermin knew the secret of the passageway
which he alone had no way of finding out. Then, driven to one of the
extremities to which desperate men are reduced, he wrote a message to the
world, spent half a day in catching another rat, tied the message to it,
and set it free, laughing meanwhile at his own folly.
“And now began the epoch in his underground existence when not only his
bodily strength but his mind itself rapidly failed him. Each hour his
excursions in search of the mythical passage became shorter and shorter,
and the idea of any land beyond this gloomy pit faded further and further
into the region of dreams. Finally he gave up any active struggle, and
lay for hours in a half-tranced condition, roused only occasionally by
the sharper pangs of hunger. In this state he lost all trace of day and
night, although he still had with him the less important record of the
hours. Even in this semi-stupor, however, he noticed that there was a
strange stir of the water every now and then for a certain period in
the twenty-four hours, and that for the same length of time there was
absolute quiet. In one of his waking intervals it suddenly occurred to
him, though why he could not explain, that this phenomenon was in some
way connected with day and night. The idea that these strange periodical
tremblings on the surface of the lake might furnish the clue to that
long-sought outlet to the world above roused him to one last effort.
Dragging himself towards the further end, whence the ripplings started,
he was rewarded by a glimpse of what seemed to be a slender thread
extending from the ceiling directly down into the lake, and which proved
upon examination to be nothing else than an iron tube some four inches in
diameter. That touch of cold metal thrilled him like an electric battery.
This pipe then—this slender thread—this well-tube—was the only connecting
link between himself and the habitations of man. But how could he make
use of this knowledge? The solution of this problem suggested itself only
when, after almost an hour spent in crouching close to the tube, with his
ear against it, he distinctly heard the force-pump working above him,
and saw the water stir as he had seen it so often. That sound went to
his heart like the battle-cry to the soldier’s. For some reason he felt
sure that the pipe would be his salvation. Throwing off his shoes and
stockings, he clambered into the icy water, and with his feet he traced
the pipe down until he found the end and actually felt the water gushing
up. Then he made his way back to his resting-place, where he sank,
exhausted with joy.
“It was not until the next day, or, at least, until after the next long
period of quiet, that he could command himself sufficiently to write the
following note by the light of the last few remaining drops of oil:—
“‘I am in the cavern underneath the city. This is the fourth or fifth day
of my entombment. My guide, Iesa Malook, is dead. As only he knew the
way out, I am lost. For God’s sake, come to the rescue! Take this to the
consul general. He will understand all. Lose no time. All my food and oil
are gone. I cannot live much longer.’
“This urgent message he signed, wrapped in a shred of handkerchief,
tied to a cork of his now empty flask, and in total darkness he dragged
himself back to the well-tube. Then he leaped into the lake with the
precious message, and, following the course of the pipe, held the packet
under the end, and felt it leave his hand and soar up through the tube to
the land of sunshine and freedom. Though nearly killed by the shock of
the icy water, he crept back to his resting-place, triumphant. He somehow
felt that with the first pumping of water his message must fall out,
attract the attention of his unknown rescuers, and that in a few hours
more he should be rescued. But he had sadly miscalculated. For three days
more he lived on the little opium pellets that he had taken from the body
of Malook. By this time his food was quite exhausted, and the effect of
the strange drug was to plunge him in the most frightful and fantastic
waking dreams. Once he dreamed that he was being garroted for the murder
of Malook; and the vision was so vivid that he felt convinced that such
an end actually awaited him if he returned to the world above, and prayed
for immediate death. Before long he was obliged to double the dose, in
order to lessen the gnawing of hunger, and the saving grace was soon
reduced to a day’s supply. These pills were his last comfort. With them
gone, he resolved upon suicide. Upon drawing his revolver, however, he
found that, straining with all his might, he lacked the strength needed
to lift the hammer. Nothing was left, then, except to swallow the three
remaining pills, which he did, with the hope that they might bring the
end. This done, he lay back motionless, and, listening to the rhythm of
his heart-beat, which sounded farther and farther away, he sank into a
slumber which he prayed and believed would be his last.
“When he awoke he was lying on the grassy slopes of the valley of the
Kedron, not far from the tomb of Absalom. It was twilight, and in the
setting sun the Mount of Olives shone like a pyramid of fire. Looking
about him, he saw that Malook’s body was lying at his side. Around him
stood a strange group, all conversing in strange tongues,—Jews with
yellow and black gowns, Russian pilgrims, Bedouins in flowing scarlet,
and English tourists in cork helmets. Suddenly some one bent over him. It
was the consul. A great joy lighted up his kind face, as he exclaimed,
‘Good God!—he has opened his eyes—he breathes!—he lives! It is a
miracle—nothing short of a miracle!’
“Yes,” concluded the speaker, as he deliberately swallowed two pellets
drawn from a small, thimble-shaped box that he had leisurely taken from
his vest pocket while speaking, “opium saved that man from starvation,
but it made him an opium fiend for life.”
An Angel of Tenderfoot Hill.
BY FREDERICK BRADFORD.
Evening service at the Blackhawk Presbyterian Church was just finished.
As the unpainted door swung open before the little body of home-bound
worshipers, a broad-shouldered, blue-eyed young man, who for the last
half hour had been patrolling the plank walk outside, strode up to the
doorway. Standing there with his back against the sash, his eyes gleaming
good-humoredly under the stares and winks of certain unregenerate members
of the congregation, Jim Hewson recalled a little grimly that the door of
a church was the last place where he would have whiled away his Sunday
half hours a year ago. But, then, a year ago he had not known Alice
Huyler. Now it seemed to him that he had never known any one else.
Alice was the organist, and would be the last to come out. Meantime,
Jim, listening dreamily to the notes of the voluntary, found his mind
drifting idly back over the past two years of his life. He remembered
how he had come to Blackhawk as the agent for the B. & S. Stage Company,
without a string or tie of any kind to bind him to place or person. He
was not a bad boy then, he thought, though he had lived in some pretty
hard sections, and maybe was a bit too familiar with their customs. It
seemed to him that he had started wrong, somehow,—had not met the right
sort of people at first. The overland stage boys were all right,—good,
big-hearted fellows,—but hardly the friends for a young man who might
some day aspire to mingle with the best society of Blackhawk—for they
had a best society there, even if it was only a mining camp. Their Four
Hundred was composed chiefly of member’s of the Presbyterian church, and
actually numbered about twoscore.
It did not take long for “pretty Jim,” as the boys affectionately called
him, to distinguish himself as a gentleman able to put away his share of
forty rod “mountain dew” and lead reckless expeditions in search of a
good time. Before he had been there two weeks he broke up a dance at old
Prouty’s hall by deliberately shooting out the candles and decorating the
ceiling with bullet holes, “just to stampede the outfit,” he said. If
this was his only object it was a dismal failure so far as the “ladies”
were concerned; they simply refused to be stampeded, but sat down in the
middle of the floor and screamed; the “gents,” however, made it a great
success by climbing over each other’s heads in frantic endeavor to be
among the first to get out of the narrow door. This brilliant stroke
of genius gave Jim such prestige among the boys that they unanimously
elected him foreman of the “Mulligan Guards Hose Company No. 1,” an
organization that served as a social club for the young men of the camp.
Their “business meetings” always ended in a free-for-all-high-old-time,
and when they went out for a practise run at their usual hour,—10
P.M.,—the knowing citizens, by common consent, went home to bed.
It was after one of these little runs somebody suggested that the
Presbyterians were having a “mush and milk debauch or strawberry
hurrah,”—he didn’t know which—over on Main Street, and he thought the
boys might be able “to enliven the proceedings a little” by “lending
their distinguished presence.” This suggestion was unfortunate, in view
of the fact that Henrich Schwer, the People’s Candidate for mayor and
the Poor Man’s Friend, had sent over to the hose house a keg of beer and
demijohn of whiskey as a “slight testimonial of his esteem,” but the idea
was promptly acted upon, and the boys all marched over to the church to
the tune of “The Mulligan Guards,” a ditty much in vogue in those days.
What they did there Jim could not now remember distinctly; he had a dim
recollection of helping to buy out a doll-baby bazaar presided over by
several pretty but embarrassed young ladies, and of somebody in his crowd
having a “difficulty” with Deacon Huyler, during which the others formed
a ring and sold pools on the fight. Anyway, he was very much ashamed
of the whole business, and testified to this the next night by asking
Stancliff, the Sunday-school superintendent,—a good young man whom he
had often, and, he was now convinced, unjustly, characterized as a weak
sister,—to take him around for the second night of the bazaar. Stancliff
was glad to do so, and Jim, in the main, enjoyed his somewhat novel
associations. The good sisters of the church, ever ready to snatch a
brand from the burning, took him up and introduced him to all the pretty
girls, incidentally relieving him of half a month’s salary for votes in
all sorts of impossible things. No, they did not introduce him to quite
all the pretty girls; there was one, a tall, slight girl in a dark dress,
with pale golden hair, brushed primly from her forehead, escaping down
her back in a single plait, child fashion, to whom, for some occult
reason, he was not presented. Moreover, though he took pains to keep as
much as possible in the neighborhood of this particular young lady, she
seemed to be perfectly oblivious to his six feet two and bright blue
eyes. Piqued by her obvious indifference, he finally asked Stancliff
for an introduction, and was gratified to see that worthy gentleman
engaged a few moments later in earnest conversation with this fair-haired
member of the Blackhawk Four Hundred. But when Stancliff finally came
back he appeared to have forgotten Jim’s request altogether, and seemed
embarrassed and annoyed about something. Jim divined what that something
was, and felt the blood rush to his neck in anger. He had been snubbed,
deliberately snubbed, and there was only one thing to do, in the ethics
of Blackhawk, and that was to “get square.”
There was a dangerous glitter in his eyes as he silently watched
Stancliff, who was trying to make a feeble joke about nothing in
particular.
“See here, Stan,” he finally said, “there’s no use of your getting red
in the face and clawin’ away from it. I know what’s the matter with you;
yer frien’ don’t want no introduction to me, won’t have it nohow; that’s
right, aint it?”
“Well, you know, last night—she was here—and the boys—of course you had
no hand in it, but you see girls—church girls—are particular, and—
“Oh, yes, I know about that; it’s all right fer as you’re concerned,
Stan; you are a bully little feller—treated me white down to the ground,
and I aint got nothin’ agin _you_. You have an onpleasant duty to
perform, an’ it comes hard, but I’ll help you out. We were—well—drowsy
last night—drowsier’n duchesses—the whole billin’ of us, and some—mind I
don’t say who—some of us made fools of ourselves and licked her dad, an’
she holds it agin _me_; thinks she’s too good to ’sociate with fellers
what has got a little hell in ther’ necks. But, Stan, don’t you let it
escape yer two-by-four mem’ry; she will know me better before the night’s
over, and its a stack of blues to whites I take her home when this
Sunday-school gymnasium lets out, see?”
To the last statement Mr. Stancliff could not subscribe. He admired Jim,
as most young men who are admittedly good admire those admittedly bad,
and envied him his supreme self-confidence, but, to tell the truth, he
expected to be Alice Huyler’s escort that night himself.
Not long after, supper was announced in an adjoining room, and the young
people passed out in couples. This was Jim’s opportunity; he purchased
two tickets, and, without hesitation, he stepped up to Alice Huyler
before Stancliff’s astonished eyes, and said: “Miss Huyler, I know you,
and you think you know me well enough not to want to know me any better;
that’s so, aint it? Well, you’re making a dead mistake. Now, I’ve two
tickets for supper, an’ I don’t want to sit alongside of an empty chair.
Will you break bread with a publican and sinner to-night?”
She did not answer at once, but looked about vaguely, as if seeking
some avenue of escape. “That’s right; think it over,” Jim went on. “I
disremember the circumstances an’ I don’t know whether he belonged to
your church or not, but there was a man down in Galilee a few thousand
years ago that went around hunting up the kind of fellers what was here
last night. I give you my word, Miss Huyler, that if you go in to supper
with me it will not stand as an introduction to-morrow unless you wish.
I came here because I wanted to do the right thing, and I want you to
help me;” then, after a pause, he added significantly, “The hose house is
still open.”
Before Alice had time to shape an excuse, Jim had her hand safely on his
arm and was in the supper room. What he said to the girl there Stancliff
never knew, but that he talked to some purpose was evident from the fact
that he walked home with her that night.
This was the beginning of their acquaintance, but, as Jim acknowledged
to himself, “he hadn’t no walk over.” Alice Huyler was a girl of
Puritan ideals of life, an earnest, consistent church member, with very
distinct, if somewhat bigoted, views of right and wrong. Jim did not
come up to her standard; she did not approve of him at all, but felt
it her Christian duty to do what she could to save his soul, and, with
a mental reservation against committing herself in any way, passively
permitted his attentions, as their acquaintance progressed. She could
not help admiring the big, handsome fellow with his strong, masterful
ways; but this weakness she justified to herself by reason of the real
good that was in him. Once she let her heart go out to him unreservedly
upon learning that he had soundly thrashed two cowboys for insulting a
poor little German woman who lived down on the school lands and earned a
precarious livelihood by taking in washing; but she repented, and vainly
tried to tear the new-born love from her heart when she heard that he,
with a dozen other “Guards,” had been arrested and fined for disturbing
a prohibition “mass meeting” to the extent of forcing the candidate to
announce from a burning dry-goods box that he was the Lone Star candidate
for “reform and free whisky.” But Jim squared himself by promptly and
vigorously denying the charge; he even went so far as to have his friend,
the editor of _The Daily Tomahawk_, print a full account of the affair,
in which it was credited to some Southsiders who had pleaded guilty and
paid fines under the names of U. S. Grant, Henry Ward Beecher, Dr. Mary
Walker, and others.
But, however much Alice cared for Jim, she gave him no sign. To her
Puritan notions she joined a certain wisdom in the world’s ways, and,
like most Western maidens, was not to be lightly won; so, though Jim
had been her devoted slave for a year—first from pique and a desire to
get “square,” and later from a real fondness for the girl,—he had made
uncertain progress with his suit. Finally, moved partly by a young man’s
desire for worldly advancement, but chiefly by a dogged resolution to
break the bond that he could not untie, he had accepted a clerkship with
a rich merchant, who monopolized the business for miles around a little
border town in Western Arizona. To-night he waited to see Alice for the
last time before he went—perhaps for the last time in his life.
She came out of church presently, and smiled up into his face as she
laid her hand lightly upon his arm with an air of proprietorship. They
walked along in silence, hardly noticing the path which led them through
a kind of lovers’ byway over Tenderfoot Hill. At the summit they sat
down and looked over the camp, peaceful in the moonlight that veiled its
shortcomings.
“It seems good to be here, doesn’t it? just you and me,” Jim said,
drawing a long breath of contentment. “I feel away above the boys up here
with you.”
“I wish you could get above some of their ways, wherever you are; but
that’s too much to hope for, I suppose,” the girl replied, not too
graciously; for Jim’s manner that evening was portentous, and she was
not sure enough of her own feelings to want to hear what he might have
to say. But Jim, who had hitherto shown fight when his associates were
aspersed, now only replied wearily:—
“I know you are not fond of the gang I travel with, but their ways are
mine for the time being, an’ I’ve no call to be above them; you’re hard
on us, just the same.” Then, after a pause, he added bitterly: “It seems
to me you are always just a little flintier after a sermon. I don’t seem
to belong to the kind of crowd you people want to save; it’s only the
good ones you’re after, I guess.”
“Don’t think that,” she cried earnestly; “you wrong the church and you
are unjust to me. For my part, I would do anything in the world to make
any one better or bring a soul nearer to God. O Jim, there is so much
that is good and noble in you, why won’t you give yourself a chance? If
I could only make you understand that _you_ are the one I want to save.”
Unconsciously, she took his hand and clung to it in the fervor of her
appeal. That much Jim understood, and he promptly imprisoned her hand in
both of his, saying, “I don’t know about your saving me—I guess you had
better let that job out; but you can make me better, little one; you can
make me better with a word, and bring me so near heaven that my head
will bump the stars. It’s taking a mean advantage of you to tell you now;
and, honestly, I didn’t mean to do it, but I love you, Alice, I love you.
I was going away to-morrow without saying a word, ’cause I knowed I was a
dead loser, anyway, and I aint the kind to squeal; but just now it seemed
to me that sometime when you kinder got to thinking of the past you would
miss something, and then you’d be glad to know that Jim loves you, and
that he’s keeping you in his heart. You don’t care for it now—that’s all
right; but know it—know it good—it’s not hard to say; I love you—yes, I
love you better than—I do the gang,” he ended lamely; but quickly, fired
by the purpose of a great sacrifice for that love, he added, in a tone
that carried conviction, “and I’ll shake ’em to-morrow if you say the
word.”
For a moment Alice was stunned by the suddenness of her return to
earth; but she saw nothing incongruous in her appeal and his reply; she
could only think that he loved her and that he was going away. For a
few moments she sat without speaking, her face gleaming softly in the
moonlight, her slim fingers lying passive in the strong hand that touched
hers so reverently. Then she answered simply: “Now that you have said it,
Jim, I am not sorry, though I would have prevented it if I could. I can’t
help being glad to know that you love me—the knowledge is sweet to me; it
would be to any woman, I think; but, O Jim, I don’t know all of my own
heart; I can only say that you are very, very dear to me.”
“No, no,” she cried, as he sought to draw her to him, “not that, Jim, not
now; I want to be honest with you—with myself. You are dear to me, Jim,
it’s true, but I have no confidence in you—I can’t trust you; I am sorry,
but I can’t. That sounds hard, I know, and it’s a poor return to make for
the love you offer; but what can I say? If you could prove to me that you
care more for me than anything else it would come all right, I know, and
I’d wait for you, Jim, I’d wait years. I can’t say more than that.”
“Alice,” the man said slowly, “I don’t want you to say more than that.
I know what waiting means, an’ its only a grain of hope; but that’s
tons and tons more than I deserve. I told you that I was going away
to-morrow, and I am; but don’t feel that you drove me out of the camp;
whatever happens, you ain’t got nothing to answer for. The fact is, it’s
getting too teetotally civilized up here for me, anyway; this thing of
building in railroads and developing the country afterwards is ruining
this section for a young man. I’ve got a lay-out down in Arizona, and
I am going to play it. You think I can’t keep straight? Well, I think
I can, if it will pay dividends; and if you say, ‘Jim, come back to me
in two years, good and pious like,’ I’ll do it, Alice; I’ll do it if it
breaks me.”
“Perhaps I oughtn’t to say it,” the girl answered gently; “but it’s our
only chance. In two years, if you want to come back and say again what
you have said to-night, I’ll listen.”
When Jim went home that night he astonished Ed Saulsbury, his room-mate,
by making him a present of his silver whisky flask and writing out his
resignation as foreman of Hose Company No. 1.
Jim’s resignation was received by the boys with sincere regret, and a
committee was appointed, which prevailed upon him to defer his departure
a day, in order that they might send him away with proper honors. The
next morning the following invitation, printed upon glazed cardboard in
gold lettering, was issued:—
Mr. James Hewson,
(alias JIM)
late Foreman of the Mulligan Guards Hose Company No. 1, being
about to leave Blackhawk for the benefit of his health and
morals, and the good of the town, it is proposed by a few of
his delighted friends to give him an old-time complimentary
send-off hop, at
Prouty’s Hall,
this, Monday, evening, the tenth, to which you are respectfully
invited.
The dance was a great success, despite the fact that Jack Gillis got more
on board than was good for him, and insisted upon setting fire to the
hall, just to give Jim a chance to make a last run with the Hose Company.
* * * * *
In the barren little Arizona town of San Biciente a man struggled,
and toiled, and dreamed away the two dreary years of his probation.
True, many of the asperities of the rough life were smoothed away by
the daily increasing favor shown by Don Jose Macias, the rich merchant
with whom he lived and worked, and by the assiduous caretaking of Don
Jose’s pretty black-eyed daughter, Josfita. Moreover, the better class
natives, attracted by his aptitude in acquiring the Spanish tongue and
by the boyish _bonhomie_ that had made Jim the joy and pride of the
“Blackhawk Mulligan Guards Hose Company,” showed themselves more than
ready to initiate him into certain Mexican methods of killing any time
not occupied by his business. But, though chuses, monte, cock-fights,
and bayles were seductive sports to a young man of Jim’s temperament,
his promise to Alice was far more potent. Occasionally, to be sure, he
so far fell from grace as to try his luck at the cards or to sun himself
a little too long in Josfita’s admiring glances. Jim did not attain his
full growth as a man at one bound. But the memory of that face as he had
seen it, shining with tenderness for him, and of that voice, bidding him
prove himself worthy of her trust, was never long absent from his mind.
Alice had said that she would wait for him. That assurance was the pillar
of cloud by day and fire by night that guided this wanderer through the
desert of distasteful toil and sordid living to the promised land of life
with the woman he worshiped. And so the years dragged by.
That promised land seemed very real and near to Jim one spring morning,
two years after his arrival, when he boarded the stage that was to carry
him toward Blackhawk. Indeed, it was only an hour before that Jim,
sitting in the little room behind the shop with his patron, had rejected
an estate of earthly acres for this immaterial Canaan.
“You go back to your own country, that’s all right,” the little man had
said unctuously, pressing upon his former clerk a glass of the rare
wine reserved ordinarily for weddings and fête days. “You find it much
changed. _Poco tempo_ you come back. I like your work. You be my partner.
You lack Josfita? All right. She have two hundred thousand dollars. You
marry her, my _bien good amigo_.”
But if Jim’s eyes had glistened and Jim’s breath had come short upon his
realization of the Don’s generosity, that was simply through joy that he
had seen what stood to him for all the kingdoms of the earth unrolled
before him, and had renounced them for the woman who waited for him in
the North.
Before he went he had assured the Don both of his undying gratitude and
of his sorrow that he could not accept his offer, in a manner so delicate
that that worthy Mexican realized the full import of the young man’s
words only after Jim, seated in the rickety stage-coach, had put at least
five miles between himself and San Biciente.
Thirty-six hours later, when the evening train thundered into the big,
new brownstone railroad station at Blackhawk, the passengers watched a
little curiously the big man in the garb of a cow-puncher, who alighted
from the car and stood for a moment on the platform with the set stare
and stiff movements of one in a trance. In those two years of banishment,
hundreds of miles from railroads and newspapers, Jim’s life had been
untouched by the farthest wave of the widening sea of change. At the
end of two years San Biciente and the country about it were exactly as
he had first found them. On the day that he boarded the stage-coach at
San Biciente he himself was the same Jim, a little bigger and stronger,
perhaps, and, but for the picturesque long hair, more handsome. His
blue eyes shone complacently beneath his wide sombrero, and his broad
shoulders, under the rolling shirt collar and bright neck-handkerchief,
swung with a certain air of harmless satisfaction. In fact, it was not
until he had found himself seated in the railroad car that whirled him
over the last stage of his journey, and caught the curious glances bent
upon him by the conventionally garbed wearers of patent leather shoes and
stiff derby hats, that it occurred to Jim that he was not of the world
about him. Then, as the train bore him farther and farther, through rows
of newly erected houses, and past enormous factories, which seemed to
have sprung like magic among the familiar hills and valleys, the sparkle
faded from his eyes, and his big shoulders drooped forward. Even the gold
band on his sombrero, that had cost him a good twenty-five dollars at San
Biciente, seemed to have lost its glitter.
As he hurried up Blackhawk’s main thoroughfare, lined now with imposing
shops and warehouses, he felt that in some inexplicable way everything
had grown away from and above him. Upon the very spot where the old
engine house had stood a brownstone club house projected its imposing
front upon the street. A brick hotel, glittering with electric lights,
reared its five stories in the place of the yellow-painted corner store,
whose upstairs dance hall had been the scene of the “stampede.”
And the church,—the little unpainted church where he had met Alice, and
at whose door he had waited for her on that memorable evening two years
ago? Even on the threshold of this long-expected meeting Jim felt drawn
by an irresistible impulse towards the spot around which clustered so
many sacred memories. But as he drew near to the familiar meeting of ways
where the old church had stood the man stopped short and drew his hand
across his eyes as if to brush away a mist. The little church was gone,
wiped out of existence like a picture from a slate! Nothing but a marble
tablet, placed over the arched doorway of a pretentious granite edifice,
assured him that this was still the site of the First Presbyterian Church
of Blackhawk. At the sight of that last transformation Jim’s heart
sank. In all that delirium of progress could Alice alone have remained
unchanged? The doubt descended like a black cloud, blotting out all his
happy visions of an hour ago. As he stood irresolute, looking up and down
the street, the deep notes of an organ floated out through the open door
of the church. To Jim, standing outside in the darkness, the solemn music
seemed to promise the strengthening of his purpose and the solution of
all his doubts and anxieties. Yielding once more to that undefined but
irresistible impulse that had brought him hither, he stole through the
doorway and into the church. Service had already begun when Jim, entering
on tiptoe, seated himself in a pew near the door, reverently removing his
sombrero, which he placed on the floor next the aisle. Around him there
were flowers, and bright lights, and all the modern church’s appeals to
the unregenerate, but Jim noted with a sinking heart that among this
fashionably garbed congregation there was not a single familiar face or
figure. Again that sickening doubt descended on the man, bowing his head
with a weight like that of a physical burden, and for the time blotting
out church, and lights, and flowers. Even when the service was finished
and the congregation was dispersing to the sound of the organ’s voluntary
Jim waited, his head bowed, his eyes fixed like those of a man in a
trance—waited until the sound of a man’s voice, that seemed to speak to
him across the gulf of two years, sounded in his ears. It was Stancliff,
the Sunday-school superintendent of other days, coming down the aisle,
talking eagerly to a young woman, whose face, looking up into his own,
was hidden, but who, by token of her dress and bearing, belonged to that
invading throng whom Jim had already come to hate. As they passed the
pew where Jim still sat, the folds of the woman’s dress brushed against
his sombrero, and for a moment she looked around. In that moment Jim
saw her face. It was the face of Alice Huyler, but so changed under its
modish capote, set jauntily on the waving yellow hair, so ripened in its
expression and molding, above all, so radiant with emotions and interests
that Jim had never touched that it seemed more alien than that of any
stranger in the congregation. As he sat there waiting for the couple to
pass by him and out of the church, Jim did not attempt to define the
relations between Stancliff and Alice. He did not ask to know whether
Stancliff was husband, lover, or friend to this woman,—the woman that he
had loved and who had promised to wait for him. What he did know was that
the years had opened between himself and Alice a yawning chasm, a chasm
that no memories nor promises, however sacred, could ever bridge.
Rapt in such thoughts, he sat, half dazed, until the congregation had
dispersed and the sexton appeared to put out the lights. Then, rousing,
he fumbled for his sombrero, which had been swept under a neighboring
pew, recovered it, and, rising, passed slowly, with bowed head, out into
the night.
In Miggles’ Alley.
BY HERMAN BROWNSON.
His real name was Tim O’Hagan, but in Miggles’ Alley he was familiarly
known as Shingles. This was because, while a bootblack by profession,
he spent a large share of his life on the roof of a five-story tenement
house, tending his baby brother. On this particular occasion, however, he
rose above his callings of bootblack and nursemaid, and became a hero.
The region about Miggles’ Alley is not precisely a hotbed of heroism.
Indeed, there is probably not a corner of America in which the
poverty-stricken and depraved of all nations meet in such strength as
here, where the social sewers from the four corners of the earth seem to
empty themselves. But Shingles, looking down upon the streets from the
high plane of the tenement housetop, saw more of the color, and whirl,
and bigness of the streets than of their mud and meanness. He saw the
circus parade as it swept gleaming by. He saw the crowd pouring through
the neighboring streets,—a black river of humanity.
Best of all, he looked almost daily on the wonderful maneuvers of the
fire company, whose engine house, opposite one entrance of the tenement
house, was Shingles’ favorite resort. On those rare occasions when he was
free to ply his trade, Shingles earned several dimes and nickels, and
incidentally many golden opinions, from the good-natured fire laddies,
who recognized a kindred spirit in this mite of ten. And when chained
by duty to his post on the roof, Shingles could, if he liked, exchange
occasional salutes with the objects of his worship as they lounged in
the street below. As for those moments when the alarm gong rang, and
his friends at the engine house jumped into their places on the hose
carriage or the hook-and-ladder trucks, and were whirled off to scenes of
adventure, those were periods of combined pride and pain to Shingles.
The pride was for his comrades; the pain that he, by reason of his ten
years and absorbing occupation, was cut off from any share in these deeds
of daring. Only in make-believe could he climb ladders and rescue people
from burning buildings; and, while it was easy to play circus parade with
the baby and pussy cat in a soap-box on rollers for the band chariot, the
heroism of the fire laddie called for a greater exercise of talent.
On this June morning Shingles’ mother, who was to-day engaged in
scrubbing at one of the big insurance buildings on Broadway, left the
youngster with his charge on the roof, screaming back strict injunctions
to the boy to keep the baby amused. To this task Shingles addressed
himself with an ardor born of the beautiful day and the necessity for
some occupation for the long hours that stretched between now and
supper-time. What could he do to amuse the baby and incidentally himself?
Why, “play fire,” of course. His engine house experience, joined to
his observations from the roof, had given him a familiarity with the
fire laddies’ modes of operation that resulted in the most stirring
realism. The baby seemed pleased, and listened with open-mouthed wonder,
while big brother imitated the clatter and clangor of the engine gong
or the hoarse shouts of the firemen, and gazed with special delight at
Tim’s astonishing climb up an imaginary ladder as foreman of the Rescue
Corps. Indeed, he was so much amused by this new game that he did not
wince while Shingles tied one end of the clothes-line around the tiny
figure, puffing and blowing laboriously for imaginary smoke the while.
Baby even thought it great fun, until brother bore him over to the edge
of the roof and began to let him down, down,—a tiny morsel of humanity
dangling five stories above the pavements of Miggles’ Alley. Then fun
changed to fright, and baby set up a lusty howl. It was this scream that
aroused Shingles from his realistic play to the grim earnestness of
the situation. There was no ladder waiting below; there were no brave
comrades,—only himself, a mite of ten, clutching in his small hand the
very end of the rope from which dangled the helpless figure of his
tiny brother. Real fear gripped at the little fellow’s heart. Slowly,
painfully, he began to pull in that endless length of line. Inch by
inch he brought that tiny, swaying figure nearer to the housetop. Then
suddenly a knot in the rope caught in the iron railing. Cold perspiration
rolled down the little fellow’s cheeks. Already his strength was failing
him. To slacken a single foot meant to loosen his hold altogether. He
tried to call for help, but the shrill little voice attracted no more
attention than had the baby’s feebler wail. In the neighborhood of
Wiggles’ Alley children lift up their voices in lamentation so often
that nothing short of an alarm of fire or murder excites special notice.
Suddenly, in this moment of agonizing terror, the boy was seized by an
inspiration. On his left rose a large chimney. Around this the little
fellow drew the taut rope, making it fast to the clothes-hook in the
masonry. Then he rushed to the edge of the roof, and shouted, “Fire,
fire, in Miggles’ Alley!”
At this sound the firemen lounging in the street below leaped to their
feet. Looking up, they recognized the figure on the roof’s edge as that
of their little comrade, and, convinced that this was no false alarm,
rushed into the engine house. A moment later the street below resounded
with the rumble of trucks, the whang of gongs, and the rush of the
surging crowd. In this focal point of cosmopolitan New York, where a
quarter of a million people are located within a stone’s throw of a
common center, the elements of a stirring scene are always at hand. At
the sound of the alarm, Chinamen crept from their basement bunks in Mott
Street,—reeking with opium, and dazed by the noise; long-haired Hebrews
tumbled into the alley from their sweat shops; swarthy Italians came
pell-mell from their hovels; and the Arab lost his fez, which, in the
surging crowds, was trampled under foot. By the time that the engines
and hook-and-ladder company reached the alley they found it jammed with
a mass of excited humanity, whose eyes were focused upon a tiny white
bundle that swayed in mid-air, seventy feet above the pavement. At once
the firemen realized that they had been duped; but the necessity for
effort did not escape them. Up shot the great ladders, one above another,
and then an agile rescuer began the swift ascent. The crowd cheered in
a babel of tongues; but as the climber reached the last few rounds, and
began creeping out over the slender threads towards the precious prize,
a hush fell upon the multitude. Now he was almost there—now he stood
directly under the dangling mite—now he put forth his hand with extremest
caution. The crowd stood on tiptoe. Not a soul breathed. Then, just as
the strong hand touched the hem of the little frock, the child began
struggling once more, this time so violently that, in the very moment of
apparent safety, it slipped from the noose and fell.
In that moment even the hardened faces of the multitude below, accustomed
to sights of all degrees of danger and wickedness, blanched with terror;
eyes bleared by drink or opium were shudderingly averted from the awful
scene that seemed inevitable. Meantime the tiny bundle of humanity, in
its wild plunge downward, struck a rope stretched across the alley,
hanging full of wet clothes. The strand broke with the strain, and the
child was lost in the flying mass of white. A few stray rags fluttered
down—but the baby—? It had disappeared like a wraith. Strong arms
outstretched to make a desperate effort to catch the flying waif fell
helpless at many a side. The vast crowd stood speechless, dumfounded.
An instant later a deaf old Irish woman in the second story tenement
looked up from her work and gave a shrill cry of surprise as she saw
crawling through the window that led from the fire-escape where she had
just laid her feather-bed to air, an almost naked child with scarlet bars
around its little body. “By all the saints together!” she cried, dropping
on her knees, “if thot kid didn’t rain down from heaven oi’ll niver say
another _pather noster_ as long as I live!”
And it took the combined eloquence of Shingles and his distracted mother
to convince the old lady of the child’s earthly origin.
[Illustration]
The Missing Link.
BY JAMES BUCKHAM.
When it was announced that Frederick Henderson had given twenty-five
thousand dollars towards founding a library in Woodville, his fellow
townsmen were not merely surprised, but amazed. Every one knew that
Henderson was in receipt of only a fairly comfortable salary, that he
had no private fortune, and that he had received no recent bequest.
They knew, also, that he, with his wife and children, occupied a rented
house, kept no servants, and, in short, lived after the usual fashion of
small clerks’ families. Where, then, could he have obtained twenty-five
thousand dollars, and why did he give it for a library instead of using
it to feather his own nest? For five days town gossip buzzed about this
mystery like bees in a clover patch, until finally, on the sixth, one
man, bolder than the rest, went to Henderson and asked pointblank the
meaning of his strange munificence.
To him the founder of the Woodville Library told the following story:—
“There were five of us who went, early last June, for a camping trip in
the Flat-top Mountains, away up in the northwest corner of Colorado.
We were all young fellows—the oldest still considerably on the frisky
side of forty—and it is hardly necessary to say that the object of our
expedition was a good time. Incidentally, of course, we expected to
acquire a surplus fund of health and enough game to make our friends glad
to welcome us home again. Furthermore, I hoped to bring back as much of
the scenery of Northern Colorado as could be sandwiched between some two
hundred photographic plates.
“Our outfit for camping was complete. We had a canvas-covered mountain
wagon, drawn by two horses, and filled with nearly a ton of provisions
and baggage. In addition, every man was mounted and equipped in true
cowboy fashion,—furnished with everything _en regle_, from rifle and
revolver to ‘slickers’ and lariat.
“For two weeks we journeyed leisurely up through that wonderful mountain
country northwest of Denver. In the clear, dry, bracing air the very
breath of life was an infinite joy. Our eyes feasted continually upon
some of the most marvelous scenery and atmospheric effects in that
wonderland of the West. Our route lay over Berthold Pass into Middle
Park and Twenty-mile Park, great successive terraces of rolling woodland
and prairie, shut in by higher and ever higher ranges of the Rockies. By
gradual stages we reached Steamboat Springs, six thousand feet above the
level of the sea; then Trapper’s Lake, four thousand feet higher, its
clear, cool waters rippling at the base of volcanic cliffs, seamed and
stained by centuries of conflict with frost and storm. Ever higher and
higher we climbed, through grand and gloomy cañons, shaded by forests
which had never echoed with the woodsman’s axe,—on and up, till at last
we reached the second step of the mighty mountain stairway. And here we
camped, on a fair meadow, at the foot of the last and highest range of
the Flat-tops. On all sides save one our little meadow was surrounded by
an almost impenetrable timber-fall. On the left the land lay open, and
sloped steeply up to the crowning range of cliffs.
“On that last and loftiest plateau the first chapter of a strange story
began.
“We had been in camp a week or more, and had shot a couple of deer and
caught several goodly messes of trout, when one day the impulse seized
me to take my camera, climb to the top of the last and highest range of
Flat-top Mountains, and capture some bird’s-eye views of the surrounding
country. I started early one morning, carrying with me only my camera,
three double plate-holders, and some lunch.
“The ascent proved longer and harder than I had anticipated. I was
obliged to make my way up to the level of the last plateau through a
deep and tangled ravine, down which brawled a mountain stream. There was
no sign of path. The high and thickly wooded sides of the ravine made
a perpetual twilight, and as I toiled upward the way grew steeper and
narrower, till at last there was scarcely room for the roaring brook.
I was obliged to enter its bed and wade, sometimes knee-deep in the icy
water, climbing now and then over some slippery rock that blocked the
way, at infinite pains lest I should drop my camera or my precious plates.
“Finally, however, I reached the top of the slope and came out into a
grove of scattered pines, through which I could see a clearing that lay
just beyond. I was about to leave the fringe of trees and step into the
open ground, when a rifle-shot not far away startled me. It was followed,
in a minute or two, by another shot from a slightly different direction.
The next moment a wounded deer bounded into the little mountain meadow,
sprang with convulsive leaps across it, and fell dead on the opposite
edge.
“Scarcely had the deer fallen, when a hunter, rifle in hand, came running
through the clearing to the spot. Just as he drew his knife to bleed
the animal a second hunter appeared. He also was running, but stopped
as he saw the other man bending over the deer, and approached him more
leisurely. All this took place in a very brief space of time, while I
stood watching, just within the edge of pines.
“I saw the first hunter, who had finished bleeding the deer, rise and
confront the other man as he approached. Then I heard excited and heated
talk between them. As they stood wrangling over the little gray mound
on the edge of the forest, the sudden inspiration seized me to take a
picture of the vivid scene. Up to this moment I had been a perfectly
passive observer. I had not even removed the tripod of the camera from my
shoulder. So great had been my surprise at seeing the deer bound across
the clearing and fall dead, and then the two strange hunters rushing in
to claim it, that for a few minutes I totally lost the consciousness of
self. My whole being was absorbed in wonder and curiosity. But when the
quarreling hunters began to wrangle the spell was broken, and I said to
myself, ‘There is a forest picture worth taking!’
“Screened by the overhanging trees, and with no further thought than to
add to my collection a unique bit of backwoods life, I hastily swung
the tripod from my shoulder, affixed the camera, focused, inserted a
plate-holder, made the exposure, and secured a view of the two hunters as
they stood wrangling over the fallen deer.
“Suddenly, as if moved by ungovernable anger, the men locked arms and
began to struggle fiercely. My first impulse was to rush out and separate
the angry contestants. My second impulse—when I realized that I was
unarmed and alone—was to slink away into the shadow of the woods and
let the men settle their own difficulty. My third impulse (a compromise
between the two, but cowardly still,) was to take advantage of the
absorbing passion of the contestants and possess myself of another and
still more striking photograph,—a phase of real life seldom presented to
the manipulator of lenses. This, accordingly, I did.
“What followed almost froze the blood in my veins. I saw the smaller but
more active of the two men, by a sudden and swift backward motion of the
right hand, draw a flashing knife from his belt. The next instant it was
buried in the breast of his antagonist. The stricken man tottered, took a
step backward, and fell, apparently tripping over the horns of the deer.
The long arms, thrown backward, remained outspread in the grass; the
body, after a few convulsive movements, lay still. I could see the shaft
of the murderer’s knife sticking out of the breast of the dead man’s coat.
“I can hardly explain the impulse which led me, at this point, to slip
another plate-holder into my camera, and with trembling hand remove
the cap! The former pictures had been taken chiefly from curiosity,
though that feeling was combined, in the second instance, with a certain
restless mental recoil from the inertia of cowardice. But the third
photograph was due to an entirely unaccountable impulse. I do not know
what inspired me to take it. I hardly understand how I was able to break
the spell of horror which had seized me as I saw the murderous blow of
the knife and the fall of the dying man. I seemed to perform the act
under a kind of hypnotic influence. I obeyed dreamily, as under the spell
of another’s will.
“The moment of exposure for the third plate was strangely opportune. The
slayer bent over quickly and withdrew the knife from the heart of his
victim. In the very instant consumed by the act my camera did its work.
This was proved by the subsequent development of the plates.
“As quickly as possible I reversed the plate-holder and exposed another
plate. The murderer had gathered his rifle under his arm, and, half
averted in the attitude of flight, stood looking back at his victim. The
pause was but momentary, yet long enough for swift-registering light to
record. Then the guilty man turned and ran rapidly away through the woods.
“I calmly took the second plate-holder from the camera and replaced it in
the box. Then I did what some men of more physical bravery than I possess
would, perhaps, have shrunk from doing. I walked out into the presence
of Death—alone in that great listening, mysterious wilderness—knelt
down, and placed my finger upon the pulse of the murdered man. I knew,
before I did it, that he was dead. His flesh was still warm, but the last
fluttering spark of life had departed.
“Back to my camera, and down the steep ravine, with its brawling brook, I
went; though every step I took seemed like a step in a dream.
“It was early afternoon when I reached camp. The boys were stretched out
smoking, after their noonday meal. As I gazed into their unsuspecting,
friendly faces an impenetrable wall seemed to rise between me and the
full confession which I had intended to make. How could I tell them what
a coward I had been? Would they not turn from me? Would they not despise
me? I strove hard to overcome this reduplicated weakness—this cowardice
upon cowardice—but could not. I simply told the boys that I had found a
dead hunter, with a knife thrust through his heart, on the plateau above.
Even then they would scarcely believe me, till I had minutely described
the dead man.
“‘Why, it’s that big Chicago tenderfoot, Stetson!’ exclaimed George
Lincoln. ‘I saw him down at the settlement the other day. He is the
fellow, you know, who came out here for his health and liked it so well
that he bought up a claim and started in to ranching. He tallies with
your description of the murdered man to a T.’
“‘He must have friends in the settlement,’ I replied. ‘We must report the
case at once.’
“Two hours later George Lincoln and I rode into the little village, six
miles below our mountain meadow. We dismounted at the store, which was
the only public gathering-place in the settlement, and soon had a motley
crowd about us listening to our story,—Americans, Mexicans, Germans, and
half-breeds. There was no constable, no coroner, no public officer of any
kind in the village. But a searching party was organized, to report at
our camp next morning, at daybreak, when I was to guide them to the spot
where the murdered man lay.
“Sunrise of the next morning found us entering the gloomy pass where the
brook came foaming down from the heights above. We had to ascend the
narrow ravine on foot, as horses would have been useless in such a place.
When we reached the clearing beyond the pines I led my party directly to
the spot where man and deer lay stretched side by side in the strange
companionship of death. The dark, stern faces circled round, and for some
minutes no word was spoken. Then the storekeeper, a huge, sandy-whiskered
Yankee, exclaimed:—
“‘By God, boys, it makes my blood boil! Stetson never drawed his
knife—see it there in his belt? The damned coward that was raslin’ with
him stabbed him unawares. Some sneakin’ Mexican, I’ll bet my head!’
“One or two dark faces in the group grew darker as the impetuous Yankee
spoke. There were Mexicans in the searching party.
“‘I’ll take my oath it was Marcelino!’ continued the big storekeeper
loudly. ‘You all know he had a grudge against Stetson. He came into my
store to get some ca’tridges for his Winchester yestiddy mornin’. Said
he was goin’ out huntin’ on the Flat-tops. Him and Stetson was up here
together, and it stands to reason he done it. The’ ain’t one of ye das
say he didn’t!’
“No one dared contradict the big storekeeper, and no one cared to, for,
in spite of the lack of positive proof, we all felt that he was right.
“A litter was hastily put together, and we carried the dead man down to
the settlement. That afternoon a swift rider started for the nearest
telegraph station, to wire Stetson’s brother in Chicago. The latter
had been to see Stetson twice since he had settled down on his mountain
ranch, and was well known in the village.
“Meanwhile suspicion had fastened more and more strongly upon the
Mexican, Pedro Marcelino. As the storekeeper said, he had gone hunting
on the very morning of the murder, and in the same direction as Stetson.
Since then he had not returned.
“On the morning of the fourth day after the tragedy the murdered
man’s brother arrived, bringing with him a detective from Denver.
After attending to the obsequies of his murdered brother, and leaving
instructions with the detective to spare no expense in tracing the
murderer, Cyrus Stetson returned to Chicago.
“About a week later our party broke up camp and returned home. The
tragedy had cast such a gloom over us that we no longer had any zest for
sport. I was especially glad to get away from the spot with my oppressive
secret. The longer it was concealed, the less I felt like disclosing it,
and yet the more painful and remorseful it became.
“As soon as I reached Woodville I immersed myself in business cares, and
for a time succeeded in drowning the reproachful voice within. But one
morning, about two months after my return to the city, I picked up a
paper and was confronted by the following paragraph:—
“‘WAS HE THE MURDERER?
“‘HAHN’S PEAK, COLO., Sept. 28.—The Mexican, Pedro Marcelino,
who was arrested in the southern part of the State two weeks
since and brought here for trial, on the charge of having
murdered Albert Stetson while the two men were out hunting,
last June, seems likely to escape conviction, as the case now
in progress before the County Court fails to develop evidence
sufficient to convict the suspected man. All who are acquainted
with the facts of the case believe that Marcelino was the
murderer, but, as only circumstantial evidence can be adduced
to prove his guilt, it is more than likely that he will escape
the noose. Every attempt is being made by Cyrus Stetson, the
brother of the murdered man, to obtain evidence which will lead
to the absolute conviction of the guilty party. The case,
which is the most important on the docket, will probably be
given to the jury before the close of this week.’
“By the time I had finished reading this item I was actually trembling
from head to foot. But I made a resolve. I would develop those negatives,
and if they proved to be as graphic and exact as I had every reason to
expect I would overcome my cowardly self-shielding reticence, tell my
story as an eye-witness of the murder—for to me it seemed murder, and not
manslaughter—and submit my photographs as evidence.
“I went immediately to my ‘dark-room,’ developed the negatives, and
examined them closely. They were surprising even to myself, not only in
their clearness and distinctness of detail, but in the marvelous nicety
with which they had caught and fixed the very moments of the tragedy
which would be most convincing as evidence.
“The day, fortunately, was bright, and I secured two or three good
prints from each negative in the shortest possible time, packed a small
strap-bag, and, without saying a word to anybody, took the train for
Glenwood Springs, the nearest point by rail to Hahn’s Peak. Here I
procured a good horse, and by riding all night reached the county-seat
early the next morning. I turned in at the little hotel for a few hours’
sleep, and, bidding the landlord call me without fail at half past eight
o’clock, threw myself on a bed without removing my clothes, and was
asleep inside of five minutes.
“The harsh little bell in the court-house tower was proclaiming the hour
for the morning session when I rose from my hastily eaten breakfast and
passed into the village street. Already little groups of men, coming
from all directions, were centering at the court-house. I gathered, from
scraps of conversation which I overheard, that it was the last day of the
murder trial. The last available testimony had been taken. To-day the
arguments were to be made, and the case given to the jury, who, it was
feared, could not possibly return a verdict of ‘guilty’ upon the scanty
evidence so far produced.
“I entered the court room a few minutes before nine o’clock. A group
of lawyers stood talking within the bar. I asked to have the State’s
attorney pointed out to me. He was a small man, with a plump waistcoat
and a boyish, closely shaven face. I stepped up to the bar and beckoned
him. A few moments’ conversation served to acquaint him with the purpose
of my trip and the nature of my evidence. The round, cheery face of the
State’s attorney fairly shone as I finished my story. Then the sheriff’s
thunderous rap called the court to order, and the State’s attorney had
only time to say, ‘Hold yourself in readiness to be called to the witness
stand,’ when the preliminary exercises began.
“The clerk’s monotonous monologue was succeeded by a rustling, sibilant
pause; and then began the deep, slow voice of the judge: ‘Evidence having
been completed in the case of State _versus_—’
“‘May it please your honor!’ exclaimed the State’s attorney, starting
briskly to his feet. ‘Having come into possession of new and important
evidence in the case now before the court, the counsel for the State
requests permission to submit the same before the case is closed.’
“The judge turned his keen gray eyes curiously and inquiringly upon the
State’s attorney. Every head in the room was bent forward in an attitude
of keenest attention.
“‘We have been so fortunate,’ continued the State’s attorney, ‘as to
discover, at the last moment, an eye-witness of the murder of Albert
Stetson. The evidence which this witness has to offer is absolutely
convincing in character. May it please your honor to call to the witness
stand Mr. John Henderson, of Woodville, Colorado?’
“There was a moment’s absolutely breathless pause. Then the deep tones of
the judge’s voice broke the silence:—
“‘Mr. Henderson may take the stand.’
“The prisoner at the bar eyed me keenly as I came forward. I recognized
his face the instant my eyes fell upon it. It was the same which had
looked back, half fearfully, half exultantly, at the dead man stretched
in the grass of the clearing. A moment’s uneasiness in the deep-set eyes
gave place to a stolid stare of defiance, as I took my place on the
witness-stand. What proof could the new accuser bring, beyond his own
unsupported statement?
“There was a kind of fierce, yet calm, exultation in my heart as I told
my straightforward story,—exultation not due alone to the thought of
bringing guilt to justice, but, also, and, perhaps, even more to the
thought of my own triumph over myself, in that most manly atonement which
a coward can make for his cowardice,—the confession of his own weakness.
“I could not resist noting the effect of my story on the prisoner as
I proceeded. When I first mentioned the fact that I carried my camera
with me up the mountain I detected a slight start and aversion of
face on the part of the Mexican. When I described the bounding of the
wounded deer into the clearing, its fall on the opposite edge, and
the appearance of the two hunters hastening to the spot the prisoner
seemed to tremble slightly. But when I confessed the natural timidity
which led me to take a photograph of the struggling hunters, instead
of rushing out to separate them, a deathly pallor overspread the man’s
face, and he clutched at the railing before him for support. Then, as
I kept relentlessly on, describing the knife-thrust, the fall of the
murdered man, the withdrawing of the weapon from his bosom, and the
snap-shot photograph of the murderer while engaged in that very act,
then the backward look of mingled triumph and terror, perpetuated by the
relentless camera, and, finally, the hurried flight through the woods,
the man’s chin sank upon his bosom, and his whole frame shook with abject
fear.
“The most intense excitement now reigned in the little court room.
Attention was divided between myself and the prisoner, until I drew
forth the photographs and held them out to the State’s attorney to be
submitted to the jury. At this stage of the proceedings, impelled, it
would seem, by a strange, ungovernable fascination, the prisoner, though
almost palsied with fear, stretched out his hand and snatched one of the
photographs as they were being passed to the jury. It happened to be the
one which represented the murderer drawing the knife from his victim’s
bosom, while the light fell full and strong upon the pale, upturned
face of the murdered man. As his eyes fell upon this awful portrayal of
a scene which he supposed was pictured alone in his own haunting and
accusing memory, the superstitious Mexican shrieked with terror and fell
heavily upon the floor. I shall never forget the horrible intensity of
fear and despair in that cry, nor the picture of the round-faced State’s
attorney standing over the prostrate form, with accusing finger pointed
downward, and cheery countenance for once tragically solemn as he bent
his triumphant eyes upon the jury.
“Of course the jury pronounced a verdict of guilty without leaving their
seats, and the Mexican, abject, cowering, and self-convicted, was hurried
away to jail, hemmed in by a howling mob. The brother of the murdered
Albert Stetson came to me as soon as he could force his way through the
crowd, intent upon obtaining a sight of the strange, pictured testimony,
seized my hand, and fairly overwhelmed me with grateful acknowledgments.”
At this point Henderson stopped short, as though his story were finished.
“But what in the name of common sense has all this to do with your
endowment of the Woodville Library?” asked the mystified listener.
“Oh, yes; on the day after my return to Woodville I received a letter
from Cyrus Stetson, notifying me that he would call the next morning to
pay the reward of twenty-five thousand dollars offered by him for the
apprehension of his brother’s murderer. Now, I had known nothing of any
such reward. My testimony in the case had been given simply with the idea
of convicting the murderer and at the same time partially atoning for my
own cowardice. But it isn’t every day that twenty-five thousand dollars
is thrown into the hands of a man in my circumstances; and I may as well
confess that the thought of all that the money could do for my family
and myself was a strong temptation. On the other hand, to accept it was
to accept a reward for my own cowardice and so to forfeit my last shred
of self-respect. Between these two courses I could see no middle way.
Well, you can imagine how fierce the battle was between conscience and
self-interest when I tell you that I never breathed a word of all this
to a soul, even to my wife, but lay awake all night, my mind oscillating
like a pendulum between two decisions. In the end, however, conscience
conquered. I determined to refuse the reward, with the request that Mr.
Stetson keep it for the family of the murdered man. But when Stetson
arrived the next morning he simply wouldn’t hear of a refusal, declared
that the dead man had left no family, pooh-poohed all my objections, and,
in short, so far overcame my scruples in the heat of the conversation
that when he left his check for twenty-five thousand dollars was in my
pocket.
“No sooner was he gone, however, and my excitement was cooled than all my
doubts of the night before returned threefold. For the five days that I
was the secret possessor of that twenty-five thousand dollars I was the
most unhappy man on the face of the earth. And it was only when I had
converted the entire sum into an endowment for the Woodville Library that
I finally felt at peace with myself and the world.”
[Illustration]
Unchallenged.
BY KATHERINE MORROW.
The moonlight fell through the climbing roses over the wide piazza of a
country house where some people were sitting. It was midsummer in the
foot-hills of the California Sierras, and the insects, the dogs, and the
water in the ditch had their voices in the air with the people.
The talk, uninfluenced by the beauty of the night, had been mostly of
murders and scenes of blood. Then a girl shook it off quickly.
“Alice and I sleep outside now. Also Ned, the restless, takes to a
hammock. It’s glorious.”
There had been too many tales of an abnormal nature for the equilibrium
of the timid ones. A voice came from the corner:—
“It isn’t safe.”
Ned Carter laughed with his sisters.
“I’ve a little revolver—a beauty,” he said, “and nothing could come
within half a mile! Besides, there are the dogs.”
“Yes,” the three admitted in chorus, “we’re too much on the alert for
impressions. We’re too anxious to waken for anything to escape.”
“Oh,” said a girl from the steps, “I’ve heard this sort of thing before.
I’ll venture you snore profoundly all night.”
“I advise you not to test us in disguise,” they retorted. Ned added with
vigor: “I’d bet my twelve-mule threshing machine that neither man, woman,
child, nor animal could pass our front gate at any hour of the night
unchallenged.” He laughed: “Ah, the gleam on my pistol in the moonlight!”
At eleven that night two who had been guests of Ned and his sisters sat
together, scheming.
“We’ll do it,” they said as they separated.
The next afternoon two girls in a cart drove a fat mare over hot
stretches of brown meadows and along dusty roads that lay over the
hills. They darted into stray coverts, and drove among the stones of dry
creek-beds. As they rattled home in the twilight a collection of bleached
cattle bones lay at their feet.
Under the awnings of a little gray cottage a woman waited.
“You’re late,” she said as they came up. “But here’s Joe.”
“Bring up the riding-horses to-night, Joe, and put on men’s saddles,”
called his young mistress as she went in the house.
“And now, mother, may we have tea? We want to be ready by midnight.”
As the clock struck twelve Mrs. Head laughed her apprehension and her
sense of the effect of light opera. The girls were in men’s canvas suits
and summer sombreros. Bulky bundles were tied to their saddle strings and
they supported others on their shoulders.
“But we’ve really no sign of defense,” they suddenly exclaimed, looking
at each other.
In a moment Mrs. Head had produced two huge leather pistol cases. When
they were strapped on, no belligerent cow-boy or primitive desperado
could have hit a more happy effect of emphasizing independence.
The girls strode out to their horses and, tightening the girths, took
their mounts quickly.
“We’ll stay out on the haystack when we come back, remember; so please go
to sleep and forget us.”
The moon was full in the heavens and the unwooded part of their hilly
road lay bright before them. The horses felt their bits resentfully,—kept
to a walk along the crest of the hill and down the rocky, pine-dotted
slope of the flat. Everything but the soft brilliance of the night seemed
to fall away. The soul of summer hovered.
“Let’s give the horses their heads the first two miles. We’ll creep the
last half—near the house.”
The beasts went forward at a bound. A level road shut in by the hills lay
before them. There was a strange specter sense of being at one with power
as the horses raced neck and neck through the silence. The caressing
radiance was an intoxicant.
Finally they reached the stony hill which lay between them and the main
road. The heated horses took it slowly, climbing through the shadow and
rousing the uncanny wail of a wandering coyote and the hoot of a curious
owl.
They reined up as they swung into the stage road, and gave the horses a
mouthful of water from a tiny spring.
If there was anybody to meet, this would be the place.
The horses’ ears were in constant motion, though there seemed nothing but
the easy pace of their own hoofs to give attention to. Suddenly, from
an obscure bridle-path, three horsemen came into the road, and toward
them. There was no time to arrange concerted action. The beating of
their hearts made suffocation an experience, until one was visited by an
inspiration.
“Answer anything in Mexican,” she gasped; “that will pass us.”
It suddenly dawned upon their consciousness that under the shadow of this
very oak, on this awkward turn of the winding grade, the mail stage had
been held up and robbed, just a month before. There had been shooting,
and a wounded driver and passenger dripping blood over the wheels into
the dust.
But the men had reined up before them.
The instant of silence compassed eons of apprehension before one of the
men spoke.
“How far to Mokelumne Hill, partners?”
Promptly it came, though burdened with an unnatural guttural inflection:—
“_Quien sabe!_”
Daring to risk no more, the girls pulled out and, passing the horsemen,
rode quietly down the road.
The men watched them disappear, ignoring an impulse to follow, before
they continued on their journey.
“A couple of suspicious-looking greasers up to no good,” said one, as
they trotted ahead through the night.
The outbuildings of the Carter ranch appeared ahead. The girls grasped
each other’s hands.
“The pistol cases,” they whispered. “They saved our lives!”
At a little weather-beaten cabin used as a smithy the girls dismounted.
It was as if they pledged themselves in epic measure, standing there,
silent, in the spirit of the adventure.
Tying their horses, they loaded themselves with the bundles, and walked
cautiously, slowly, towards the gulch they must cross before they reached
the road lying in front of the house. They crept through its thick,
uncertain shadows with the animal stealth of the forest, and found
themselves up in the high light of the roadway. Forty yards lay between
them and the gate which shut in people, and dogs, and a little revolver
that was pretty in the moonlight.
Their watch showed one o’clock.
Step by step they accomplished with almost suspended breath. Of a sudden
a dried fig leaf under foot filled the air with a sharp crackling.
Transfixed with a horror that raised their hair, one balanced on the ends
of her toes, the other crouched low on her knees.
But the moments returned no echoes of an alarm.
Nearer they moved and almost imperceptibly nearer. The breath from their
lungs seemed a thousand voices. At last they stood together at the gate,
looking up at the white house spreading its piazza over three who were in
slumber.
With motion so fraught with care it seemed motionless, they managed to
arrange a series of things on its fence pickets. Then they salaamed low
in a burlesque of social mockery, and waved their hands in a pantomimic
farewell.
Little by little, they moved up the road again, through the gulch, and on
to their horses. Not a note from the throats of the dogs followed them.
Mounting, they walked the half mile to the spring before they even dared
express their elation.
“It’s too good to go to sleep on,” said one.
“Let’s ride on it,” said the other.
They chose the black depths of the twisting stage road, and, leaving the
moon-bathed open, took four miles of wooded riding. The farm dogs below
in the valley barked greeting, but no one else seemed abroad in the land.
The spirit of the night was wholly theirs.
At three o’clock they were home. They stabled the horses and walked back
to a lonely haystack. Ginger beer, crackers, and blankets had been stowed
there, so they made festive toasts to their success before they settled
to sleep with the dews of the morning.
The sun was hurrying on toward the breakfast hour when a girl at the
Carter farm wakened her companions.
“Horrors!” she cried aloud.
All three sat up in their hammocks. Visions of Ku Klux, White Caps, and
midnight assassins ran riot in their minds. A certain terror stiffened
their very joints.
Facing them from the inside of the gate hung a long white placard,
printed in letters of flaming red:—
“We are Iron-Jawed Hyenas of the West and our food is Gore.”
Two red hand-marks decorated each end. Underneath hung a calf’s skull and
cross-bones, livid with fiery symbols. Along the fence were rows of bones
bearing the same ghastly stamp, and on another post hung another placard:—
“Thirty years have we been on your track and at last we have found you!”
In a moment a contagion of laughter reached even the kitchen. The truth
had dawned! As they swayed in the clutches of a mild hysteria, a mounted
messenger appeared with a note addressed to Mr. Edward Carter.
The young man read it aloud to his sisters:—
“Mr. Carter will please deliver to the bearer his twelve-mule
threshing machine.
“_Merciless Ben, the Hairlifter_
“_Tomahawk Tom, of Toyone._”
[Illustration]
Aidu.
BY HERO DESPARD.
In the early fall of 1880 I was in Dahbol, India, having run down from
Bombay, upon a sister who had set up a little bungalow there.
Dahbol is charmingly situated between the sea and the wooded heights of
the Western Ghauts, and as nothing pressed me at the time, I remained
there, spending my time rambling about the place and sometimes running
into a chance adventure. Thus it happened that the following strange
experience befell me.
One evening, in the cool of the late twilight, I was strolling about
through the sea-end of the town, and, stopping before a small temple
which was a little removed from the houses around, stood studying out the
lines of the usual grotesque figures cut upon its face. Dense shadows
cast by the rising moon threw the entrance into such obscurity that
nothing could be seen within. In fact, I thought the place deserted for
the time, and was about to obey an impulse to step up into the shadows
banked in the doorway, when, suddenly, a human figure hurled itself upon
me from out the darkness with such force that I staggered back and almost
lost my footing. I had instinctively thrown out my arms and clasped the
figure for support, and now, as I recovered my balance and looked down,
it was into the face of the fairest woman I have ever seen in any land.
The marvelousness of her beauty served to steady my faculties where
ordinarily I should have felt bewildered, and, still holding her close,
for she trembled as if she would fall from my arms, I said in such
Hindustani as I was capable of:
“Something has frightened you. You are fleeing from danger?”
“Sir,” she answered, in a voice soft and rich, though broken by low
gasps, “I must hasten;” and she pulled against my arms for release.
From my knowledge of the country, I felt sure no woman like the one who
stood before me could safely venture into the streets at this hour, and,
having an Anglo-Saxon’s feelings for all womankind, I acted on a quickly
formed resolve.
“I do not know what sends you out into the night, nor what pursuit you
fear, but I am ready to take you where you wish to go,” I said.
“I must go far from this place,—and alone,” she answered, speaking
agitatedly.
“We will go,” I said reassuringly. “I will take you to your own people.”
Upon this her slender body trembled anew, and replying, “I have no
people. I cannot stay here,” she turned from me and began to walk quickly
away.
I as quickly followed, walking behind her through street after street,
she choosing the deserted by-ways, until we came out through some
suburban orchards, and finally reached the edge of a stretch of thick
forest which belts the eastern side of the town. Here she stopped
suddenly, and, turning to me, said entreatingly:
“Leave me! You cannot help.”
I looked at the town behind, at the forest in front, and felt it a moral
impossibility to obey.
“I think I can,” I ventured, “if you will confide in me. I have a sister
here in whose care I can place you, and if anything is threatening you I
can hide you with her. She is an English doctor, and is devoting her life
to work among your countrywomen.”
It would be impossible to describe the changes of expression which
flashed over her face at this. Relief, questioning, consent, and doubt
arose from the depths of her dark eyes and looked out at me. For some
time she stood thus, inwardly debating, and at last answered:
“Yes, if I may come out alone once in seven days.”
“You shall have perfect liberty, of course,” I eagerly assured her.
This promise seemed so completely to allay any lurking feeling of fear or
doubt that at once she laid her hand upon mine, saying, “I will go with
you.”
Now, I had no hesitation whatever in taking this girl to my sister,
who, as I had said, lived in India for the purpose of dealing with the
conditions of life surrounding the Oriental women. Indeed, no sooner had
she seen Aidu and heard her story than she insisted upon taking this
beautiful waif into our household as one of ourselves; and as time passed
and the lovableness of her nature was fully revealed to us, we found that
we had rescued one of the rarest of pearls from the depths of the human
sea around us.
She was pathetically gentle, and when the first constraint of the
situation wore off showed herself possessed of a brilliant though
unformed mind.
My sister built many hopes upon Aidu—for that was the name of our waif—as
a future coadjutor in her chosen work; though I may as well confess at
once that I had other intentions about her.
After only a few weeks spent in her society, I found myself deeply in
love, and but for one singular, inexplicable circumstance would have
begged her then and there to become my wife.
The mystery was this:
While she looked the perfection of sweet and elastic health and possessed
an unusually pure vitality, no one ever saw Aidu partake of food. At
first we thought that perhaps she shrank from burdening us, and believed
that in some way she secretly procured cheap food outside. To all
questions on the subject she returned a jesting reply, or else remained
pleadingly silent. Once only, during each week, was she seen to leave
the house, when she went upon those twilight walks for which she had
stipulated. And the mystery of her sustenance, puzzling at first, grew
darker and denser every day, the more so as Aidu steadily became more
radiant in health and tinted like a ripe pomegranate from a fountain of
rich vitality. Indeed, she seemed the incarnation of some flawless vital
force consciously masking itself in human form.
But there came a day when I could restrain my love no longer.
My jealousy of those walks, during which she went I knew not where nor
whom to see, became at last unbearable, and I determined to push my
misgivings to a conclusion by questioning her outright.
Late in the afternoon of one of these seventh days of the week, on which
she never failed of her twilight walk, I sought her where she sat in the
shade of a trellised veranda, and, seating myself beside her, took her
hands in my own.
“Aidu, you must know how I love you!” I said impetuously.
I could wipe out the fact of my own soul sooner than I could forget the
measureless depth and meaning of the look she gave me, straight from
her lifted eyes! Oh, cold and reasonable Westerner! Never, even through
eternity, will you know the infinity of meaning hidden in the lotus-heart
of love, never having looked into the eyes of Aidu raised in a pure and
perfect confession!
“I love you!” she murmured. Echo of my own words only, but enough.
“You will not go out alone again, now, Aidu?” I questioned pleadingly.
“I would _try_ to do what you ask, even that which I cannot,” she said
wistfully.
Having gained so much, I was in a measure satisfied; but I determined,
in virtue of my now undoubted right, to follow her should she again go
on her secret errand. This I hoped she would not do; but later I saw her
steal out from the house and walk away, not briskly, as was usual, but
with a certain languor, as if pulling against her will. It was an easy
matter to follow her at a little distance, for she went straight forward,
as to a well-known goal, never once looking back. On she went, past the
houses of the town, out into a stretch of the suburban orchards, until we
stood again upon the edge of the same tangled forest where we had stopped
on the evening I first found her. Surely, it could not be that Aidu would
venture within those dense shadows!
Yes, even here she did not hesitate, but forced her way through the
gloomy thicket, deftly stepping over obstructions and pushing away the
drooping vines as if the path were a clear and familiar one. And all the
while I followed, possessed by an intensity of curiosity and feeling
which must have given me the eyes of a night animal, for I never for a
moment lost sight of her; but, while she walked easily and swiftly, I
rushed on, panting through excitement, until when, at last, she halted
and leaned back against a tree in an attitude of expectation, I stopped,
trembling and weak from agitation.
And now that happened which is burnt into my memory forever.
As she stood there, motionless, her slight figure in its snowy garments
dully outlined against the dark tree trunk, I noted that Aidu’s eyes
were fixed upon a certain spot in the ground before her, whither mine
followed. At first I saw only a faint glow in the grass at her feet, like
the light of two phosphorescent insects side by side, but as this rapidly
grew and widened, the shape of a dark head was outlined within the rays.
Brighter and brighter the light grew until—yes, a cobra’s hooded head
appeared! and from the glowing eyes streamed the rapidly increasing light
in a coruscating flood.
Horror-stricken, I looked at Aidu! She was gazing down into those
burning, venomous eyes, whose radiance was momentarily intensified until
her rapt face and figure, the coiled length of the serpent, and even the
grass and trees around were illuminated as by the shining of two small
suns.
Under this compelling gaze Aidu’s languor melted. Her form dilated and
changed in my sight as if the very crucible of vital life were there,
purging away the particles of mortality and building her form anew out of
imperishable materials. Her glowing beauty was indescribable; it was a
revelation.
And now the monster slowly raised himself, stretching up out of his
coils, until his scintillating, fiery orbs were on a level with the
smiling, dewy eyes of the woman whom I loved. She leaned gently forward
and softly stroked the mottled neck. A tremor shook my whole body. In
that moment I was overwhelmed by the horrible certainty that here I
beheld the rites of the ancient mystic serpent worship still practised in
certain parts of India; and that Aidu, my Aidu, served as the unwilling
instrument of the priests of the temple, from whose fearful power she had
vainly attempted to escape on the night of our first meeting.
Crazed by a fury of conflicting emotions, I seized a stone that lay near
and hurled it upon the erect serpent. It struck his neck just below the
level of Aidu’s matchless chin, and as the ugly head dropped suddenly
down upon the coils of his body, slowly settling to the ground, the
wonderful light faded, and a heart-rending shriek from Aidu rang through
the woods. I sprang to her side, and lifted her in my arms!
“Aidu! my love!” I cried, “speak to me.”
But the exquisite form hung relaxed in my embrace, and the white lids
slowly shut down over the eyes of my love.
The fearful spell had been broken, but at what cost! By arresting too
suddenly that strange, magnetic current, I had checked the fountain from
which her life was fed.
Aidu was dead!
[Illustration]
Mrs. Emory’s Boarder.
BY C. MARIE MOTT.
I saw him pass every day; not that I watched for him, but it’s against
human nature that a woman should sit at a window all day and never look
out. Besides, it was winter and I was watching the passers-by creep over
my slippery sidewalk, with all a property-holder’s anxious solicitude for
their safety.
I was turning away when he appeared and sped over the ice without the
slightest fear. How we women love courage! And he was not only fearless,
but handsome and well built, with just such broad shoulders and such an
assured carriage as a frail little spinster with her own way to make in
the world most admires.
I’m sure a dressmaker ought to appreciate a fine figure, if any one
can. To-day, sitting there watching the familiar figure disappear in
the distance, I felt my heart flutter like a girl’s. Well, well, the
sensation was strange and new; it was late, too late, perhaps, in
coming,—and yet it was not all unpleasant.
As I took up my work I sighed. Forty years I had spent beneath this roof,
never repining at my lot, dull and cheerless though it was, content to
pass all my life rendering others charming, that they might the more
readily gain the love it was my fate always to have missed. I had never
hoped to possess happiness. Why should I? I am no imbecile. No one pauses
in a garden, undecided whether to pluck the glowing half-open rosebud or
the homely mignonette.
Hitherto I had been happy enough in my cozy home, content to have my life
history written in the words: “Stitch, stitch, stitch.” But to-day all my
woman’s nature rose in passionate protest against my loveless, unloving
life. I shuddered as I thought of the long, lonely future.
“With him,” I thought, “life would be worth the living.” True, he was
considerably younger than I, but what matter years when the heart is
fresh?
But how could I win him?
I am not what is called a strong-minded woman. I have no longing to
approach the polls. But I do think there ought to be an amendment to the
constitution, giving women the right—not to vote, but to propose. There
are so many fine men declining into forlorn, crabbed old bachelorhood
simply because they do not know enough to ask some sweet women to
make them comfortable in homes of their own. Now, a woman knows by
instinct when her ideal presents himself, and wouldn’t waste half a
lifetime in coming to the point. My ideal was late in coming, but now
that he had come I would let no foolish timidity on my part blight the
happiness that might be ours. By a few discreet questions I discovered
that he lived with my next-door neighbor, Mrs. Emory; and I felt quite
conscience-smitten when I remembered that I had not called on her since
she moved here, a fortnight ago. That very night I ran in, and was glad
that she insisted on my staying to tea. All the time that we talked I
watched him furtively. He was the only one of the boarders whom she
treated like a member of the family. He sat on a lounge before the fire,
and I saw that he was even handsomer than I had thought. His large
eyes were full of tender melancholy. His hair was dark and silky, and,
though he had no moustache, his whiskers gave character to a face that
otherwise might have seemed almost effeminate in its beauty. Even his
silence prepossessed me in his favor. I myself am fonder of talking than
of listening. So my love grew. Before leaving, I pressed Mrs. Emory to
call soon and bring Tom with her. She saw my deep interest, and, as I
said good-by in the doorway, told me his full history. After his family
had been killed in that dreadful river accident he had made his home with
her. He was perfectly independent, but I did not care for that. Riches
have no weight with me, or any woman truly in love.
Next day, as he passed my window, he smiled such a pleased recognition
that I sang over my work all the afternoon. That very afternoon Mrs.
Brown told me they would drop in to tea. I made great preparations. A
younger woman would have spent all the time before her mirror. I did
not. I thought I knew the effect of good cookery on the affections of the
other sex. Well, I don’t think there was a cozier room or a better table
than mine in the United States. We had a delightful time, the first of
a pleasant series. Soon Tom got into the habit of coming alone. Never
shall I forget the night when he first kissed me good-by or the hours
when he would sit with his head on my shoulder in the soft firelight.
Don’t be shocked; he knew nothing about society’s cold formalities. At
length he became mine. I use the expression advisedly, because he seemed
so helpless and confiding, and I vowed to love, protect, and cherish him.
The obeying I meant should be furnished by the other partner. I did make
him happy. How I love to linger over that brief period when we were all
the world to each other. Alas! But I must go on, even though my heart
bleeds afresh at each remembrance.
There was a snake in my Eden. Why is it that every member of the other
sex is born with a propensity for staying out nights? No one can
appreciate more truly than I the good qualities of the so-called stronger
sex. But when my Tom took to keeping late hours I confess that I became
embittered and made angry speeches that now I would give the world to
recall. If only he had “talked back” at me we might have made up, and I
would have retracted my bitter, angry words. But he only sat gazing at me
with those melancholy poetic eyes, his very silence adding fuel to the
flames of my indignation.
It was during this period of estrangement that one night he stayed out
so late that I went to my room without waiting for his return. I don’t
know how long I slept, when suddenly I was awakened from troubled dreams
by a most appalling noise. It seemed as if all the toot-horns ever
manufactured had joined partnership with countless steam whistles for the
production of this—well, there are times when the privilege of profanity
would be beyond the price of rubies.
I listened. All was silent. Pshaw! it was a nightmare. No, a long low
moaning tone, then a gradual swell, and it burst on the night air:—
“As all the fiends from heaven that fell
Had pealed the banner cry of hell.”
I threw up the window. Ah, how mistaken I had been. Dear Tom, with a few
companions, was giving me a pleasant surprise. Two of them were in the
middle of a duet. At least, one began the theme, and then another took it
up, after which all joined in a grand chorus which sounded just like a
Wagner opera.
I never did care for midnight serenades, and I fear my voice was none too
pleasant when I begged them to desist. At any rate, they all went off in
high dudgeon and Tom with them. A woman’s patience isn’t always elastic,
and I banged down the window, got into bed, and pulled the blanket over
my ears.
When I found he was still absent the next morning my resentment changed
to alarm. I was just doing up my hair when Mrs. Emory rushed in. A glance
at her face was enough, and I fainted. When I revived she told me the
horrible truth. The lifeless body of my beloved Tom had been found in
her garden early that morning. There was a bullet hole in his forehead,
and his dark silky hair was stained with blood. He had been ruthlessly
slain,—cut off in his prime by the hand of a midnight assassin.
When I grew calm I tried to assuage my grief by attending to the last
sad obsequies. To-day a little mound under a locust tree on the edge
of my garden marks the spot where the former companion of my joys and
sorrows lies at rest. And every evening, as I stand beside his grave or
sit watching the sunset light tinge the white tombstone on which “Tom” is
carved in large letters, I vow anew that I will never keep a second pet.
No other cat shall enter the temple sacred to his memory.
[Illustration]
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To Story Tellers:—
The publishers of the THE BLACK CAT desire only the most fascinating
stories that can be told,—stories that both in plot and handling are
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THE SHORTSTORY PUBLISHING CO.,
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Copyright, 1895, by The Shortstory Publishing Co.
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[signature, illegible] _Governor of New Hampshire._
[signature, illegible] _Ex-Governor of New Hampshire._
[signature, illegible] _Secretary of State._
[signature, illegible] _R. R. Commissioner._
[signature, illegible] _Mayor of Concord._
[signature, illegible] _Sec’y Board of Agriculture._
[signature, illegible] _County Solicitor._
[signature, illegible] _Insurance Commissioner._
[signature, illegible] _Cashier Merrimac Co. Bank._
[signature, illegible] _Practising Physician._
[signature, illegible] _Treas. Loan and Trust Savings Bank._
Puritana has cured case after case that had been given up as hopeless.
It has cured case after case from head to foot, whether the suffering
was due to disordered _Blood_, _Liver_, _Stomach_, _Kidneys_, _Lungs_,
_Brain_, _Nerves_, or _Skin_. A trial proves its worth.
If you are a sufferer get of your druggist this great disease-conquering
discovery (the price is $1, for the complete treatment, consisting or one
bottle of Puritana Compound, one bottle of Puritana Pills, and one bottle
of Puritana Tablets), or write to the undersigned and you will bless the
day when you heard of Puritana. The Puritana Compound Co., Concord, N. H.
* * * * *
USED EVERY WEEK DAY
MONDAY
TUESDAY
WEDNESDAY
THURSDAY
FRIDAY
SATURDAY
SUNDAY
SAPOLIO
BRINGS REST ON SUNDAY.
Armstrong & Co. Boston, Mass.
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