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ce Vl UE ION 


MRSHEN of SHENSI 
4yH.Bedford Jones 


THE THRILL BOOK 


2 rs SEMIMONTHLY 


Vol. Ill CONTENTS FOR OCTOBER 1, 1919 


COMPLETE NOVELETTES 
Mr. Shen of Shensi . : . é, H. Bedferd-Jenes 
A Step and a Heal... 5 ‘ ‘ Harry Geldcesn.. 
SERIALS 
The Gift-Wife ee os : Rupert Hughes . 
In Four Parts—Part U1. 


The Heads of Cerberus ‘ A Francis Stevens . 

In Five Parts—Part IV. 

SHORT STORIES. 

Recoiling Sparks . i . : Rey W. Hinds . 
Between Two Worlds . ‘ . ‘ é é Ada Louvie Evans 
An Eccentric . ‘ < F ‘ ‘ ‘ Roy Lesfie . ‘ 
Ghosts of Chaacmol ‘ ‘ - ‘ ‘ Anthony T. Lorenz P 
The Mouse and the Cheese . ‘ ‘ . Will H. Greenfield. 
A Perfect Melody. ... a ee Newten A. Fasessie . 
Werds That Came Alive . ‘ . ‘ Mary Carotyn Davies . 
At the Hands of the Master. i Everett McNeill . 
The Escape . : - F ‘ Mordaunat Hall 


Violets? . . - * Harold de Pelo 
Crimson Flowers . ‘ j Ted Robbias . 
The Song from the Dead . ‘ . Pearl Bragg . 


MISCELLANEOUS 


Leve’s Silence—Verse . A és é a ‘ Arnold Tyson 

‘Such Beauty—Verse . P é é ‘ , Roy le Moyne . m 
A Thousand Miles—Verse . P ‘ Charles Kiproy . . 
Dim Usksewa—V erse . ° F P Carl Baxtom . ; 
Qme Like Yourself—Verse . . Alphonse de la Ferté . 
The Distant Stars—Verse . F z - . Francois de Vallient . 
Remble-Thoughts . _ é < - ‘ . . ‘ z P 
Beyond a Single Day—Verse a ek Philip Kennedy 


DEPARTMENTS 


Thrilling Experiences . ‘ _ : si P . . P - 
Cross-Trails . ho ie > J . ; The Eéitor 


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YEARLY SUBSCRIPTION, $3.60 SINGLE COPIES, 15 CENTS 


Thrill Book No. 1—Page 2 


In the Thrill Book for October 15th 


A Complete Novel 
By MURRAY LEINSTER = 
Be Cale Acton neato ate, Sots, gemnee Leccok amet ateanee ecivestsite == 
an = 


The Ultimate Ingredient = 
By GREYE LA SPINA = 
An invisible-man story—but ite Bop sos from the usual development of 2 


Amaratite 
By RALPH ROEDER = 
The secret of an invincible army of colored soldiers in a Central American = 


revolution 


The Mystery of the Timber Tract 


By FRANCIS METCALFE 
A weird tale of the North Woods 


@ 
Like Princes 
By EUGENE A. CLANCY = 
A vovelty in nautical yarns—with an unusuel brand of humor and an ie 


A Recruit for the Lambs § 
By L. R. RIDGE == 
Applied psychology and Filipino wild men 


Several Other Unusua) Short Stories and Installments of the Two 
Exceptional Serials = 


The Gift-Wife 
é 


By RUPERT HUGHES 


The Heads of Cerberus 


By FRANCIS STEVENS 


Semi-Monthly 


Vol. Il 


OCTOBER 1, 1919 


No. 1 


CHAPTER I. 
GENTLEMBN OF NOWHERE. 


RATHER small man, quite 
A plump, wearing a silk hat and 
frock coat, his features showing 
a bare hint of the Oriental, entered the 
St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco. 
He greeted the desk clerk and requested 
his room key. Another man, who car- 
ried a light malacca stick, entered the 
hotel by the same doorway, cast his eyes 
about the lobby, and paused to light 
a cigarette—which, however, he flung 
aside almost immediately. 
As the small, plump gentleman turned 
from the desk, a young man stood be- 
fore him. 


“Beg pardon, sir. Aren’t you Prince 


Kou Chang? My name’s Smith, of the 
Chronicle; if you could spare me fave 
minutes, I’m very anxious to obtain 
an interview with you * 

A bland smile broke across the faintly 
Oriental features. “Certainly, Mr. 
Smith!” he rejoined in clear, excellent 
English. “But, I beg you, forget the 
title! There are no princes in China 
now, you know. Will you come into 
one of the parlors and be comfortable? 
I am quite at your disposal.” 

After the two, leisurely strolled the 
man with the light malacca stick. He 
was a brown-faced man with a minis- 
terial severity in his dress. He wore a 
wig of dark, false hair which contrasted 
with his shrewd gray eyes; the wig 
was ill-fitting and rather obvious, 


4 MR. SHEN OF SHENSI 


Meantime, Prince Kou Chang was dis- 
coursing to the reporter with suave 
ease. 

‘Yes, I am proceeding to-night to 
Washington,” he observed. “A special 
emissary from the republic of China? 
Yes. But, I beg of you, do not make 
any mention of my mission. I am very 
glad to give you an interview on any 
other subject you may desire. For in- 
tance——” 

While the prince chatted with the 
reporter, the man with the wig and the 
malacca stick returned to the desk in 
the lobby, and scribbled upon a card 
the following words: 

ReveREND JoHN Upprjyoun, of the Saving 
Grace Mission, Grant Street, Chinatown. 
Would like to see you regarding Mr. Shen 

of Shensi. 

The writer passed the card to the 
clerk behind the counter. 

“Please send this to Prince Kou 
Chang at once. You will find him in 
the parlors.” 

Five minutes afterward, the reporter 
was striding briskly away, and Prince 
Kou Chang was approaching the desk 
in evident haste, the card in his hand. 
The Reverend John Updejohn advanced 
to meet him, with a grave inclination of 
his head that passed for greeting. 

“You are Prince Kou Chang?” he 
inquired. 

The eyes of the Oriental—those eyes 
which had almost no slant to them at 
all—seemed to pass over the face and 
figure of his interlocutor with a sear- 


ing, withering intensity, as a tongue of- 


red: flame licks out and over a stone 
wall. Like stone, indeed, were those 
gray eyes which met his gaze; hard and 
brilliant and crystal-clear as the agate 
of Yunnan. 

“T am, sir,” responded the Oriental. 
“Do you wish to speak with me in pri- 
vate?” 

“Not at all,” answered the man of the 
wig. “As you may see by my card, I 
am a missionary, in close touch with 


Chinatown here; one of my friends, the 
late Mr. Praser x 
“Perhaps,” said Prince Kou Chang, 
smiling, “we had best be seated, sir !’”’ 
The missionary bowed grave assent. 
Five minutes later the two men were 
comfortably ensconced in deep chairs, 


and the prince proffered cigarettes: 
which were refused. He _ himself 
lighted one. 

“Proceed, Mr. Updejohn,” he said. 
calmly. 


“A friend of mine, a Mr. Fraser—he 
died in France last year—left some 
notes about a man who called himself 
Mr. Shen of Shensi; those notes were 
given me, and I found them of intense 
interest. Seeing in the morning papers 
that you had arrived here, I took the 
liberty of coming to ask if you know 
anything about this man, Mr. Shen.” 

“Ah! Why ask me?’ inquired the 
prince. 

“You are said to be on a diplomatic 
mission and you would probably know 
about this Mr. Shen if any one would.” 

The prince nodded. “I know of the 
man,” he said thoughtfully. “But there 
are certain circumstances about your 
coming to me which are not clear. 
What, if I may ask, did Mr. Fraser’s 
notes say? I have heard of him as a 
Sinologue of great learning and abil- 
ity.” 

“Yes; his death was a loss to learn- 
ing,” said Updejohn. “It seems that 
Fraser had come into touch with a- 
Chinese scientist, who called himself 
Mr. Shen of Shensi. 

“This Mr. Shen, I gather, was at the 
time an agent of Japan. He was not 
only a scientist, but practiced exten- 
sively the arts of Chinese magic. Un- 
fortunately for himself, he defied the 
Japanese power, or at least got into 
serious trouble with the Japanese, and 
was supposed to be killed. Fraser al- 
ways had an idea that the man was not 
dead, but would turn up in this country 
as a terrorist agent. 


MR. SHEN OF SHENSI 5 


“In a disjointed note, Fraser said that 
this Mr. Shen had been responsible for 
the bolshevist madness in Russia—this 
alone serves to show what manner of 
man Mr. Shen was, for Fraser must 
have known the fact absolutely.” 

Prince Kou Chang gazed across the 
lobby with unfathomable, careless eyes. 

“Have you, by any chance,” he in- 
quired, “a copy of this note?” 

“I believe I have.” Updejohn 
clapped a hand to his pocket. He pro- 
duced a paper scribbled in pencil and 
handed it to the prince. The latter read 
the writing with evident interest ; it was 
unsigned and jerky, but its purport was 
quite clear: 

Shen is not dead, but alive. His hand is 
against every man’s now. Chinese, Japs, hate 
and fear him. Established self in Russia 
through bolshevism ; started revolution there, 
diverted it to Red channels. 

Will eventually return here unless killed. 
Adherence to bolshevism matter of expedi- 
ence. Japs will go any length to kill him; 
China ditto. They can’t do it. 

The prince nodded and returned the 
paper. “I see,” he said smilingly, “that 
you have a comprehensive knowledge 
of this Mr. Shen! It is substantially 
correct, so far as I can judge.” 

Quickening mterest shone in the agate 
eyes of the missionary. “This infamous 
person is then alive? In such case, my 
information should be laid before——” 

The prince held up one hand in good- 
humored protest. “My dear sir, to the 
best of my knowledge this man was 
killed in Russia. But, granted that he 
is alive, why on earth would he come 
to this country? He is, I understand, 
a sort of human Ishmaelite, a destroyer, 
with personal ambition perhaps behind 
his work. What could he hope to do 
in such a country as this?) Why come 
here?” 

“T don’t know,” answered the mis- 
sionary bluntly. “If he’s dead, as re- 
ported, so much the better; I don’t be- 
lieve he’d come here in any case. No- 
body would flock to his standard.” 


The prince laughed. “Oh, as for 
that, you have plenty of parlor bolshev- 
ists, and the wild-eyed radicals who call 
themselves mystics; I speak as a for- 
eigner, you understand. This sort of 
person, I imagine, would be as putty 
in the clever hands of Mr. Sken. How- 
ever, you may safely assert that he is 
dead. The fact is proven, I think.” 

“I’m very glad to hear it,” said the 
missionary earnestly. He rose. “You 
have greatly relieved my secret appre- 
hensions, sir. Although I am only a 
private citizen, I take unashamed inter- 
est in the affairs of my country. Sir, 
good morning!” 

“Good morning.” 

The prince bowed. For an instant 
he watched the figure of the missionary 
leaving the hotel, then he turned and 
walked swiftly to the elevators. Once 
in his own room, he took down the 
telephone receiver and called the China- 
town exchange; speakmg fluent Man- 
darin now, he requested a certain num- 
ber. 

“Is this the Society of Benevolent 
Sons?” he igquired. “I would like to 
speak with Li Far Huan, the venerable 
merchant on the floor above. I will 
hold the line.” 

He waited until another voice an- 
swered him. 

“Li Far Huan? I am glad you rec- 
ognize my voice,” he said, smiling a 
little as though he had detected a strange 


‘agitation at the other end of the wire. 


“TI have work for you. There is a mis- 
sionary, the Reverend John Updejohn 
of the Saving Grace Mission in Grant 
Street. Please interview him immedi- 
ately on my behalf; he has just left me. 
He has a very extensive knowledge of 
Mr. Shen of Shensi—you understand ? 
I shall be here until noon. You must 
¢all me before that time and inform 
me that all danger is removed. Good- 
by!” 

Taking the telephone directory, the 
prince ran his finger down the H column 


6 MR. SHEN OF SHENSI 


until it halted at the name of Maurice 
Hoskins. Reverting to his excellent 
English, with a queerly cruel little smile 
playing about his eyes, he called the 
Hoskins residence on Nob Hill. When 
response came, he asked for Mr. Hos- 
kins, refusing to give his name. 

“Mr. Hoskins?” he said at length. 
“This is the gentleman from whom you 
have been receiving messages for some 
months—ah! I see that you under- 
stand. May I inquire if the commisions 
have been executed ?” 

He listened for a moment 
nodded. 

“Quite right; it was not a question 
of money at all,” he assented. “So 
everything is ready for me? That is 
good, very good! I shall install my own 
servants there to-night and get up my 
own baggage. I wish that you would 
send your car for me at noon exactly 
—no, do not come yourself. The chauf- 
feur will inquire for Prince Kou Chang, 
at-the St. Francis——” 

He broke off for an instant, then 
his voice bit out with sudden acerbity: 

“Kindly remember, sir, that we are 
speaking over the telephone!” he said 
severely. “I will get the location of 
the house when I see you, and not be- 
_ fore. If you fail to observe the caution 
I have commanded, I will not be an- 
swerable for consequences. That is 
all.” 

He turned to his suit case and began 
to pack. Presently he took from his 
pocket a railroad ticket to Washington, 
with a Pullman reservation for that 
night’s overland train. From his suit 
case he produced a large automatic pis- 
tol and pointed it at the tickets, which 
he held in his left hand. He pressed 
the trigger, but no shot ensued ; instead, 
the tickets vanished. For an instant one 
edge showed near his fingers. He 
moved the pistol slightly ; the edge van- 
ished, and so did half his hand. 

The prince tossed the pistol into the 
suit case again. Smiling, he scratched 


and 


a match, held it to the tickets which had 
reappeared in his hand, and watched 
them dissolve in smoke. 

‘“‘So passes the Manchu prince, Kou 
Chang!’ he murmured, then started as 
the telephone summoned him with its 
insistent jangle. The connection was 
established from below. 

“Yes,” he said in Mandarin, “it is 
I. Ah, Li Far Huan! You have suc- 
ceeded ?” 

His countenance changed suddenly. 
His eyes widened ; a livid pallor crossed 
his face, to be sueceeded by an angry 
rush of color. 

“No such mission ?” he repeated. ““No 
such person in the city? Ah—well, I 
shall call you again. Very well.” 

He hung up. Seizing the telephone 
book, he turned to the S list. There 
was no Saving Grace Mission anywhere 
in the city. He turned to the U’s. 
There was no Reverend John Upde- 
john in the city. There was no Up- 
dejohn at all! 

“Ten thousand hells!” said the prince 
softly, staring at the wall. “Who was 
he?” 


CHAPTER II 
KENRICK TAKES HOLD. 


O men sat in an office far above 

Market Street—an office whose 
wide windows overlooked the sparkling 
bay, with its ferries and ships, and 
whose view leaped across to the yellow 
hills of the farther shores. 

One of the men, whose sparkling 
blue eyes looked odd in conjunction 
with a dark wig, was Kenrick the ex- 
plorer—James Kenrick, much better 
known in the purlieus of the Royal Geo- 
graphical Society and the khans of 
Samacrand than in his home town of 
San Francisco. The other man was 
Colonel Blank, who ostensibly cen- 
ducted this brokerage office and whose 
connection with the United States gov- 
ernment was altogether unobtrusive. 

“You have no photos of Mr. Shen 


MR. SHEN OF SHENSI 7 


of Shensi to verify your theory ?” asked 
Colonel Blank. 

“Don’t need any,” rejoined Kenrick, 
preducmg a pipe and filling it care- 
fully. “We know thatthe Chinese em- 
bassy in Washingten deneunces this 
Prince Kou Chang as an impostor. We 
know that Kou Chang left the St. Fran- 
cis and vanished; we know that his 
transportation to Washington was never 
used. In other words, he got into the 
country on forged papers. 

“That he is Shen, there is do doubt 
whatever. I followed him into the 
hotel, knowing that I’d seen his face 
in Vladivostock a couple of months ago. 
Can’t remember his name there. I hap- 
pen to know the real Prince Kou very 
well; I merely used the Shen of Shensi 
matter with this fellow on impulse. As 
it chanced, I hit the nail on the head, 
and he teek to fight.” 

“I think you’re right.” Colonel Blank 
tipped back his chair and gazed over 
the bay with grave eyes. “In.any event, 
I'll go the limit on your judgment and 
knowledge of such things. Have you 
any idea as to whom he’ll work in 
with ?” 

“Plenty.” Kenrick touched a match 
to his pipe and relaxed in his chair. 
“Maurice Haskins.” 


“Eh?” The other glanced around, 
startled. “Young Hoskins—the mil- 
liomaire? The crank who calls himself 


a bolshevik and se forth? Well, you’re 
away off there, my friend—away off! 
Haven’t you seen the morning papers?” 
Kenrick puffed. “Nope. What about 
Hoskins ?” 
“Committed suicide last night.” 
“Huh-huh; I was looking for some- 
thing of that kind. Say, this fellow is 
Mr. Shen of Shensi, and don’t make 
any mistake about it! Il bet he got 
in with Hoskins, used him for weeks 
and months frem a distance, and when 
he got here decided to shut Hoskins’ 
mouth. The millionaire kid was a bit 
cracked, anyhow ; ran around with these 


cults and long-hairet! pents from dewn 
the coast. Shen killed him, probably 
got a slice of his wad, and is now com- 
fortably settled somewhere and ready 
to work.” 

“The hell you say!” ejaculated the 
other man, then held silence a space. 
“Look here, Kenrick, how on earth can 
we tackle this fellow? From all you 
say, he’s more or less impervious to 
the usual methods——” 

Kenrick grinned. He put a hand to 
his head and removed his wig. Against 
his bald skull appeared three cicatrices 
of old burns, starring the skin white. 

“Colonel,” he said, fingering the scars, 
“you can’t tackle this man;-you simply 
can’t do it, that’s all! He-knows:- more 
than all of us put together. But I-can 
tackle him, because I knew exactly what 
to expect from him and I tan meet him 
at his own game. 

“See those scars? I got those when 
I was initiated as a Taoist monk, up in 
Mongolia. Those Taoists are magi- 
cians ; no fake about ’em, either! I was 
a young fool and I took a notion to 
learn their magic. Well, I learned it 
and I tell you what, it cost me some- 
thing! Shen is a crack Taoist, among 
other things ; he’s a scientist of the first 
water; and I’ll bet that he’s come here 
with something big up his sleeve!” 

“What can he gain?” 

“Don’t ask me.” Kenrick shrugged 
his shoulders and replaced his wig. 
“I’m going to look up everything that 
Hoskins did for the last six months; 
rather, I’ll let you do that for me, with 
your organization. Get me the dope by 
to-night. Throw every man yeu’ve got 
on that job! Hoskins was not a real 
criminal ; he was just a plain fool, and 
the chances are he left plenty of tracks. 
As for me, I'll drop out of sight after 
to-day.” 

“But you'll want help——” 

“No, thanks!’ Kenrick rose with 2 
litheness that betrayed his physical con- 
dition. “I can reach you if I want help 


8 MR. SHEN OF SHENSI 


—when I want it. Until then, leave 
things to me.” 

“But this is madness!” protested the 
other. “Man, you can’t go at this 
alone——” 

“Huh!” sniffed Kenrick scornfully. 
“Have you any one who knows the 
Chinese dialects? Not one. Have you 
any one who has a smattering of science 
and Taoist magic? Far from it. Have 
you any one who has seen and talked 
with Mr. Shen of Shensi? Echo an- 
swers no. Ergo, let me be the goat! 
That China boy of mine will provide 
all the assistance I need just now; the 
chief thing is for you to get your men 
out on the Hoskins job and have a re- 
port for me at the earliest possible mo- 
ment.” 

“Very well,” assented the other help- 
lessly. “You'll be at your rooms?” 

“TI will not, but that boy of mine will, 
unless Shen has spotted me already and 
kills him. He joins me to-night. I 
have rooms over toward the Jap quar- 
ter, on Sutter street.” 

“You talk pretty glibly of killing 

ple——” 

“Think we’re dealing with puppy 
dogs?” exploded Kenrick. “Good Lord, 
man! Wakeup! See you later, I hope. 
So long!” 

Leaving the office, the explorer de- 
scended to the street. Here an auto- 
mobile awaited him, at the wheel a slim, 
mild-eyed Szechuan boy by the name 
of Tsing. Kenrick climbed in beside 
the driver, and ordered the car out along 
‘Post Street. Not until they had crossed 
Van Ness did he break silence. 

_ “Tl get out at Gough, and you take 

the car home, Tsing. Leave instruc- 

tions with the landlady to take care of 

my mail. Wait there until a messenger 

boys comes. Then bring my bag and 

the message over to the new rooms. 
ome in the car. We'll want it.” 

“Yes, sir,” answered Tsing and drew 
in to the curb. 

_ This Szechuan boy was a trifle decep- 


tive in appearance. He looked half his 
age, and his gentle eyes had fooled many 
a man into the other world, for Tsing 
was bred from Chinese and Mongol 
and Cossack, and his soul was a thing 
of steel that was utterly responsive to 
only one master-hand—that of Ken- 
rick. 

Ill pleased with himself, Kenrick 
strode on toward his new quarters. 

“Should have nabbed that yellow 
devil there at the hotel,” he reflected. 
“The trouble was that I couldn’t be sure 
until I got word from Washington that 
he was a fraud! If I’d known that he 
was Shen, I’d have taken a chance and 


done it. I was a fool to let him slip 
through me there! Now he’s dropped 
out of sight.” 


He spent the afternoon working out 
chess problems and trying to arrive at 
some conclusion regarding what Mr. 
Shen expected to accomplish in the 
United States. 

He could get nowhere on the matter, 
however. That Mr. Shen of Shensi 
cared nothing for bolshevik principles 
and interests was a matter of course— 
except as they might be turned to his 
own advantage. 

In what that advantage could consist 
was beyond Kenrick. Looking -at it 
from every possible angle, he could not 
reach any logical end. 

“We're dealing with the impossible 
and the illogical,” he decided finally, as 
darkness was falling. “One thing is 
certain—Shen will have to work within 
the routine of tricks; and that means 
that he’ll have to work through a 
woman. Since he can’t transcend the 
intelligence of his medium, he’ll have 
to pick her carefully. Since she must 
know this city and this country very 
well to give him information, she’ll have 
to be a white girl. Good! If there’s 
anything in the papers within the next 
few days about a gir! disappearing we 
may begin on the supposition that Shen 
is working the old tricks.” 


MR. SHEN 


As six o’clock passed with no sign 
of Tsing, Kenrick sallied forth and ob- 
tained dinner at one of the hotels in 
the vicinity. At seven he was again 
in his rooms. At seven thirty, Tsing 
knocked at the door and entered. 

“This letter came by mail.” The boy 
extended an envelope, followed by a 
parcel. “And this package by mes- 
senger, fifteen minutes ago.” 

Kenrick seized first upon the pack- 
age. He opened it, to find a second 
package inside, with a sealed envelope. 
The latter contained a curt note from 
Colonel Blank: 


This was found among the effects of Hos- 
kins. JI¢ was sent him by parcels post from 
Tientsin six months ago; he paid duty on 
it. Whether it has any bearing on present 
matters, I can’t say. 

Aside from this, nothing whatever. Re- 
cent activities quite barren of suggestions. 


Kenrick glanced up. “You brought 
the evening papers? Good. Let’s see 
about this——” 

He opened the package and brought 
to view a strip of very ordinary Chinese 
embroidery, five feet long and two in 
width. Aside from the embroidery, this 
was decorated with small round mir- 
rors, each one half an mch in diameter, 
sewed to the cloth. Kenrick viewed it 
with unconcealed disgust and tossed it 
to Tsing, who already knew all there 
was to know about the present enter- 
prise. 

“Tsing, things like that are sold by 
the score to tourists. You can buy 
‘em right here in Chinatown! See if 
you can find anything suspicious about 
it. -Looks all right to me, except I 
don’t see why Hoskins would import 
such a thing from Tientsin. By the 
way, any news in Chinatown about our 
friend Mr. Shen?” 

“Yes, master. It is known that he 
is here. The On Leong and the Suey 
Leong Tongs have made peace very 
hurriedly; when the tiger comes, the 
jackals slink away! Everyone is much 


OF SHENSI 9 
excited, and nobody knows anything 
very definite. Rumors are plentiful.” 
Kenrick nodded and tore open the 
letter which had come by mail. As he 
read it, a slow whistle broke from him. 


Dear Missionary UppeyJoHN: We had a 
very pleasant conversation, and I thank you 
for the warning conveyed. 

I hope to see you again before long, upon 
which occasion I promise you an interesting 
entertainment. I shall send for you when I 
am ready. Sincerely, 

Prince Kou CHANG. 


Kenrick laughed. “Tsing, we just 
got out of there in time! He traced 
me down without great difficulty; not 
a hard matter, perhaps. He’ll not find 
us in this place, however. We’re rea- 
sonably safe here. Nothing out of the 
ordinary with that bit of embroidery, 
eh? Well, hand me those papers.” 

Five minutes later, Kenrick looked 
up. “Tsing! Did you read about the 
accident last night? A car returning 
from the beach resorts ran square into 
another car, on the Twin Peaks boule- 
vard—struck head on. Two men killed. 
Woman in first car swears the second 
car showed no lights and was invisible; 
second car party swears lights were on 
full. A witness has been found who 
corroborates woman of first car—says 
other car could not be seen. Yet there 
was not a trace of fog! I want you 
to take me out there to-night, now!” 

Tsing held up one slender hand in 
protest. 

“One minute, master! Look at this.” 
He held up the embroidery and touched 
the looking-glass. ornaments. They 
were very loose. “I cut one off—see! 
There is a trace of glue on its back. 
One could write books on rice paper, 
concealing the paper in small segments 
behind each of these things, and send 
full instructions from China to this 
place without the customs men observ- 
ing.” 

Kenrick leaped to his feet. ‘Good 
boy! We’ve established the link, then. 


10 MR. SHEN OF SHENSI 


New to this place on the boulevard— 


quick! Did you ever hear of black 
light ?” 

“Never, except in magic,” returned 
Tsing dryly. 


“Then we've something to learn. 
-Husfle, now! We've run Mr. Shen to 
earth.” 


CHAPTER WI. 
THE BLACK RAY. 


AS the car sped out toward Golden 
Gate Park, Kenrick felt a thrill 
of confidence m his own deductions. 
“We have to cut off this deviltry 
without delay,” the satd. “Once Mr. 
Shen gets settled, trell be mvuinerable! 
As his menacing letter testified, how- 
ever, he’s not yet ready for action. If 
“we can strike now, hit him before he 
gets intrenched, we7l win!” 
Tsmg did net respond. He had no 
fear of Mr. Shen, lacked afl interest 
in the man; his devotion to Kenrick 
was entire and absolute. He asked no 
questions about the affair in hand, and 
seemed, indeed, an automaton. He was 
far from that, however. His quick 
brain had pterced the secret of the em- 
broidered panel almost at once. 

-. That discovery had tremendously en- 
couraged Kenrick. The link between 
Mr. Shen and the dead Hoskins was 
definitely established; he had no doubt 
that Hoskins had acted as a tool for 
Mr. Shen. 

“Probably,” he confided to his com- 
panion, “Hoskins fitted up some sort of 
laboratory for Mr. Shen—got him lo- 
cated. And then Shen killed him , 

“No proof of that, master,”’ cut in 
Tsing. 

“The fact itself is the best proof.” 
Kenrick chuckled. “If we run foul 
of the gentleman there'll be no talk 
abeut proof!” 

“You have located him, then,” stated 
Tsing with simple confidence. 

“We will locate him, I think, if we 
can find the scene of that accident. It 


was not a great way from the tunnel 
entrance.” 

The car putred smoothly on its way, 
cut across from the park to the Twin 
Pesks road, and headed back toward 
town. Turning from the coast road, 
Tsing slowly crawled toward the tunnel 
entrance. It was a region of new dwell- 
ings, a real-estate addition completed 
within the past year or two; many of 
the residences were large and formal, 
surrounded by gardens or emplaced 
amid thick trees. 

The night was meonless, and Ken- 
rick’s scrutiny of the roadside houses 
was of little avail. A constant trickle 
of cars' was on the read. When the 
headlights suddenly brought into sight 
a pile of wreckage beside the road, 
Kenrick ordered Tsing to pass on, then 
to turn and pass the spot. 

Kenrick had no clear and definite idea 
in seeking Mr. Shen hereabouts. Upon 
reading the account of the remarkable 
accident of the previous night, into his 
brain had flashed the notion that Mr. 
Shen was concerned withit. Would not 
a shaft of black light enclosing one 
automobile explain that very queer ac- 
cident? Kenrick knew well enough that 
black light was no impossibility, at least 
where Mr. Shen of Shensi was con- 
cerned; the man was fameus—or in- 
famous—for his knowledge of light and 
for his clever handling of lights in view 
of their positive effects upon the hu- 
man system. Why deem Dlack light 
impossible ? 

Near the scene of wreck, Kenrick 
ordered the car pulled up beside the 
road. Now that his theory was facing 
the facts, he felt # a strangely vague 
and futile theory. For a space he sat 
in silence, watchtng the passing cars, 
searching the house illummations, strug- 
gling to find some basis for ‘his “hunch.” 
He could fand none whatever. The 
scene was very prosaic and natural. 

“Drive home, Tsmg,” he said at fast. 
“We've failed for this time.” 


MR. SHEN OF SHENSI 11 


None the less, as the car sped. home, 
Kenrick felt profoundly that his basic 
thought had been right, and that he was 
leaving behind him some tangible ex- 
planation of the mystery, had he only 
been able to grasp it. This conviction 
lingered with him in the night. Twice 
he wakened, striving to catch some 
elusive suggestion from his subcon- 
scious self, but failing in each effort. 

When he read the morning papers, 
however, the situation changed sud- 
denly. 

Upon the previous night, a girl had 
been abducted—a graduate nurse from 
the Mount Zion Hospital, who roomed 
not far from that institution. She was 
a young woman of unquestionable char- 
acter and high ediication. One of the 
hospital doctors had presumably sent 
his car for her; she had been last seen 
by her landlady while entering the car. 
The doctor in question did not own such 
a car and denied all knowledge of the 
matter. The Mary Hills case was 
spread broadcast over the first page of 
every morning paper. 

What attracted the lively interest of 
Kenrick was not the fulfillment of the 
prophecy he had made about just such 
an event, but the description of the car 
itself. Twice. had the car been noted, 
once by the landlady, and once by the 
the occupants of another car at the very 
crest of the Twin Peaks; and each time 
for the same reason. The curtains of 
the limousine appeared to be up, yet in 
each report was the strange fact that 
the car seemed “filled with darkness.” 
It contained no lights, and no lights, 
according to the reports, shone through 
it from the far sidet 

Naturally, this odd report met with 
unmerciful jesting from the news- 
papers, but Kenrick read it aloud to 
Tsing with frowning concentration. 

“That was Mr. Shen,” he concluded. 
“And he is in possession of black light, 
Tsing! Can you realize the power that 
it puts in his hands? Why, it’s incred- 


ible! Think of what it would do for 
crime—let alone war! The weapon is 
almost beyond comprehension. And 
that car was heading for some spot on 
the boulevard—a spot somewhere near 
the point of our trip last night. Tsing, 
I want to ask something of you.” 

The gentle, almost mournful eyes of 
the Szechuan boy met the gaze of Ken- 
rick, and a smile filled their dark depths. 

“Anything, master.” 

“May I use you—with the crystal 
ball?” Kenrick was grave, his agate 
eyes tinged with a somber reflection. 
“You know that I would not ask this, 
did I not consider the emergency seri- 
ous for both of us. I have no doubt 
that at this moment Mr. Shen is mak- 
ing use of this. girl, and that he either 
is now, or has already been trying to 
find me. Fortunately he has nothing of 
mine in his possession; the affair will 
be hard for him, especially if I fight 
him through you.” 

Tsing rose, smiling. ‘Why it trou- 
bles you to use me, master, I cannot 
tell; but now or always I am ready. 
Shall I get the box?” 

Kenrick inclined his head, and Tsing 
disappeared. 

There was a telephone in the room, 
almost the only article of luxury, for 
Kenrick had taken these lodgings in an 
old-fashioned and sordid end of town. 
Stepping to the instrument, he called 
the number of Colonel Blank’s office. 

“Kenrick speaking,” he said, upon 
hearing the colonel’s voice. “I’m well 
on the track of things; expect to know 
definitely to-night. I want you to trace 
up something for me. See if Hoskins 
was engaged in any real-estate activity 
in the neighborhood of the Twin Peaks 
tunnel ; if so, get a record of the trans- 
actions. If not, get me a list of any 
new houses erected near there in the 
past eight months—high-class houses, 
I mean.” 

“You think our man’s in that quar- 
ter?” demanded the other. 


12 MR. SHEN OF SHENSI 


“Yes, but it’s a mighty slender think 
so far. For Heaven’s sake don’t fly off 
the handle and try any rough stuff until 
I call you in! I’m going to look things 
up to-night.” 

“Where shail I send the information 
if I get it?” 

“Tl send my boy after it at noon. 
By the way, that package you sent me 
proved to be the missing link; the two 
men are connected definitely.” 

“Fine work! I'll be ready for your 
boy at noon.” 

Kenrick turned. Tsing was standing 
before him, holding a large teak box, 
like a tea box; upon the sliding panel in 
front were carven ideographs, gold- 
filled. 

Taking the box, Kenrick set it on the 
table and slid open the panel. He 
brought forth a small ball of crystal, 
and dropped into a chair. From his 
pocket he took the letter he had received 
from Prince Kou Chang, and handed it 
to Tsing; the latter pulled up another 
chair and sat facing him. Kenrick was 
very pale. He had few scruples about 
whatever concerned himself alone, but 
in what he was about to do, he felt that 
he -was touching upon forbidden 
ground; only the emergency justified 
him in his own eyes. 

Tsing sat relaxed, his eyes fastened 
upon the crystal ball in Kenrick’s hand. 

“We must find the writer of that let; 
ter, Tsing.” Kenrick spoke now in 
Mandarin, but flavored his speech with 
the Szechuan accent, the better to con- 
trol his subject. His voice was monot- 
onous. “Center your thought upon that 
‘and forget everything else. Your life 
and mine depend upon our success, and 
many more lives than ours only. The 
man whom we seek has set. half of 
Europe in conflagration, and he is now 
here in this city, seeking to cast this 
country into the blaze also. Even if 
we win, we shall not win without some 
kind of struggle. This man is not 


alone. 
him 

Kenrick’s voice died away. He could 
scarcely repress a secret exultation that 
he had not forgotten the tricks of the 
old Taoist trade—the concentration of 
the will, the mastering of the subject, 
the picture-painting of the mind! 

The eyes of Tsing had lost expres- 
sion. They had become fixed and con- 
stant, slightly dulled, rather lifeless. 

“Are you freed of the body?” in- 
quired Kenrick gravely. 

“Yes, master,” said the dead voice 
of the boy. 

“Then seek the writer of this let- 
ter.” 

There was silence. In the morning 
sunlight that drifted into the room the 
scene was unreal, ghastly. The eyelids 
of Tsing flickered slightly. 

“Speak!” commanded = Kenrick. 
“You have found him?” 

“Yes, master. A small man, well- 
fed, clad in black. He is in a room 
with a woman, who is seated. He is 
holding a crystal ball in front of her 
and ” 

“Where is this place?” 

“A reom. I cannot describe it.” 

“Where is the house?” 

“Master, I—I cannot tell 

For an instant Kenrick leaned for- 
ward as though he were about to utter 
an imperative command. Then abmiptly 
he relaxed, shaking his head a little. 

“Never mind,” he said, although the 
words were reluctant. “Come between 
this man and the woman; prevent her, 
if possible, from obeying him. Keep 
me informed of what takes place be- 
tween them.” 

Silence ensued for a moment. 
Tsing spoke again. 

“He is angry, master. He is fight- 
ing against me—trying to control her— 
ah! The woman has fainted in her 
chair a 

“Waken,” commanded Kenrick 
quietly. In his gray eyes ‘blazed anger 


He has his followers around 


” 


Then 


MR. SHEN OF SHENSI 13 


and pity; he could imagine what was 
passing in that house of mystery, and 
his heart bled for thé girl who was in 
the power of Mr. Shen. 

Ten miinutes later Tsing, with no 
evidence of ill effects, was on his way 
for the car, which was kept in a nearby 
garage on Post Street. He was to 
proceed downtown on various errands, 
and to call at the office of Colonel Blank 
before returning. 

“If he gets me that information,” 
said Kenrick grimly, “the game lies in 
our hands!” 


CHAPTER IV. 


RUN TO EARTH. 


TSING brought back definite word 
from Colonel Blank. 

It appeared that Hoskins had built 
a house, later selling it; the title was 
now vested in a John Smith. The ad- 
dress was in Archer Drive, a side street 
of the new addition close to the Twin 
Peaks tunnel. 

“On the strength of conjecture, this 
settles it,” said Kenrick quietly. He 
then went on with the note from Colonel 
Blank. 


Something is going on under the surface. 
We are advised that several noted radicals 
are heading this way from Eastern points; 
several of them already under indictment 
with appeals or trials pending. Draw your 
own conclusions. Speedy action is impera- 
tive. 

Kenrick carefully tore up the letter. 
The situation, beyond any doubt, was 
threatening. Mr. Shen was obviously 
calling to a conference many of the ex- 
treme radical leaders of the country; 
what he would do with them when he 
got them together, was another matter. 

“He’s not aiming in the dark, how- 
ever,” concluded Kenrick. “He has 
some definite plan in-that devil’s brain 
of his! What he expects to gain out 
of it all, we may never know ” 

“Ah, master!” Tsing, who had been 
perusing the morning papers, looked up 


suddenly. “Did you see that the Cana-: 
dian nationalist and radical, Bourra, is 
to visit San Francisco within two 
weeks? A small item on the last page. 
And the Japanese disturber Ito Hare, 
who has made so much trouble in Nip- 
pon, arrives here next week on a lec- 
turing tour.” 

“Bull’s-eye to you, Tsing!” exclaimed: 
Kenrick, frowning. “The clouds are’ 
indeed gathering, If we fail to strike 
within a day or two, so much the worse 
for us. Let’s go out and look over the- 
situation. Get a line on that house Hos- 
kins built; if it looks good, we can go 
there to-night. Once we can get defi- 
nite assurance that Mr. Shen occupies 
the place, we can have it surrounded 
and raided within ten minutes.” 

“A raid will not catch that sort of 
man,” said Tsing sagely. 

“It can make a lot of trouble for him 
anyway. Come along!” 

Twenty minutes later they had 
reached Archer Drive, a shart addition 
street which held only four houses, all 
of them placed amid trees and gardens. 
A little farther on, Kenrick halted the 
car and got out. 

“T’ll walk up the hill,” he said, “and 
spend an hour or so inspecting the 
place. Don’t bother to come back, 
Tsing; I can take a street car when I 
get through.” 

Tsing assented, and the car rolled 
away. | ; 

Having already noted that a tree-clad 
hill opposite Archer Drive would give 
him a complete view of the situation, 
Kenrick turned from the boulevard and 
bent his way toward the hill in question. 

It was a practically untouched bit of 
land, doubtless held for speculation, and 
with no houses upon it. Working his 
way toward the crest of the rise, Ken- 
rick crossed the summit and descended 
the other side; then, confident that he 
had vanished from sight of any one 
who might have watched him, he re-_ 
traced his steps to the crest again.” 


14 MR. SHEN OF SHENSI 


Gaining this he cautiously picked a 
spot and worked his way forward 
among the trees until he had a clear 
view of the four houses on Archer 
Drive below. 

Taking from their case the high- 
powered binoculars he had brought 
along, he focused upon the dwellings. 
The number of the house built by Hos- 
kins was ten, and at the first glance he 
saw that the second house on the left, 
at the end of the drive, was the one in 
question. He had no need to verify the 
guess by the house number, so different 
was this structure from its neighbors. 

The grounds were surmounted by a 
high brick wall, pierced by an open- 
work gate of iron; this gate was closed. 
The house and garage were of brick 
and appeared to be empty, quite unoc- 
cupied. Doors and windows were 
closed and shuttered. No sign of hu- 
man life appeared about the entire place. 
Trees and shrubs grew thickly around 
the buildings. 

The house was wholly plain in struc- 
ture, and to any one viewing it from 
the level would see nothing out of the 
ordinary. To Kenrick, however, look- 
ing down upon it from above, the slate 
roof appeared false on all sides. Set 
below this roof, in the center of the 
building, was a rounded dome that 
seemed to be a huge skylight of glass. 

“That’s Shen’s mark,” reflected the 
explorer. “Playing with light values is 
his great specialty! Still, we'll have to 
make sure to-night. The raid will have 
to be sudden and sharp and smashing; 
it won’t do to take the law into our 
own hands and then find that a huge 
mistake has been made! Before I can 
call in Colonel Blank, I’ll have to know 
absolutely what I’m doing, beyond any 
chance of error.” 


Motionless under the trees, Kenrick 


waited and watched. 

He was not altogether surprised over 
focating Mr. Shen so easily. Being out 
of the country and unable to apply his 


own peculiar talents, Shen had perforce 
used Hoskins as a tool, and Hoskins 
had none of the Oriental’s genius. So 
far as proof was concerned, the trail 
had been well covered up, but Kenrick 
was not concerned with legal evidence. 

During two long hours Kenrick 
waited patiently, watching for any 
slightest indication that the house was 
inhabited, but finding none. He noted 
with approval that no street light had 
yet been placed at the intersection of 
Archer Drive with the boulevard. He 
could approach unseen after dafk. 

At length he gave up his lonely vigil 
in disgust and traced his way down the 
hill again. He took occasion, when he 
came to the real-estate office at the 
intersection of the boulevard with the 
car line, to drop in and verify his guess 
about the house. 

“Yes, that’s number ten,” said the 
agent. “Sorry I can’t tell you much 
about the place; it’s not listed for sale. 
Occupied? It’s been vacant for some 
time, but I think a party has taken it 
over.” 

Kenrick was more than satisfied with 
this information. He was now morally 
certain that Mr. Shen was in that house, 
but he would have to make sure of it 
beyond all peradventure before calling 
on Colonel Blank. A few hours would 
tell the tale now. If he could reach a 
certainty before midnight, the raid 
could take place at once. 

Upon reaching his rooms, Kenrick 
was a trifle surprised to find that Tsing 
had not yet returned with the car. 

At five o’clock he began to bé dis- 
tinctly worried over the non-arrival of 
Tsing. He called up the garage, but 
they had seen neither car nor boy. At 
length, Kenrick called Colonel Blank, 
and got.that officer on the wire. 

“Has that boy of mine been around 


‘there on any chance?” he inquired. 


of him, old man! He 


ed?” 


“Not a si 
hasn’t vani 


MR. SHEN OF SHENSI 15 


“Plumb gone.” Kenrick’s voice was 
anxious. 

“Give me the car number. I'll take 
it up with the police, and if there’s any- 
thing wrong, I'll have the dope for you 
inside of ten minutes. This begins to 
look serious, Kenrick! You don’t sup- 
pose that our friend has struck a blow ?” 

“Don’t know that any’s been struck 
yet,” said Kenrick dryly. “Tsing may 
be laid up somewhere with an acci- 


“Discovered anything about that 
house yet?” 

“Something. I'll tell you when you 
get a report on Tsing. Hope nothing’s 
wrong !” 

Kenrick rolled a cigarette nervously, 
having given the colonel his telephone 
number and that of his car. Before 
the cigarette was smoked out, the bell 
jangled. 

“Kenrick?” inquired Colonel Blank. 
“Your car was found at five this after- 
noon—picked up where the road comes 
down from the Twin Peaks to the 
street. It had a broken steering knuckle 
and had smashed into an iron light pole ; 
badly wrecked. The police have been 
trying to notify you at your own apart- 
ment.” 

“And Tsing?” 

“No sign of him. Not received at 
any hospital. No blood around the 
car.” 

“Hell!” ejaculated Kenrick savagely. 
“Then Shen’s grabbed him. Colonel, 
I’m going out after supper to investi- 
gate that house. I’m fairly certain that 
Shen is there, but when we jump the 
place, we'll have to shoot to kill and 
can’t make mistakes. I'll call you be- 
fore midnight at your office; keep some 
one at the telephone all evening, will 
you? And when I do send the word, 
be ready to jump quick and hard!” 

“Hold-on! I can come out with a 
search warrant re 


“Nothing doing,” snapped Kenrick. 


“It wouldn’t catch Shen, and he’s the 
one we want. You’ve got to pull the 
gambling raid stuff, quick and sudden; 
only, we don’t want any prisoners! 
Don’t worry. If we catch Shen, he'll 
fight. And now that he’s nabbed Tsing, 
I’m after him to the finish. So long!” 

Kenrick rang up the garage, arranged 
for the wreck of his car to be taken 
care of, and then went out to dinner. 
He could no nothing until after dark. 

The disappearance of Tsing left no 
doubt in his mind that the Szechuan boy 
had been the victim of some infernally 
clever plot laid by Mr. Shen. Kenrick 
accepted this fact in grim silence; he 
was not given to making threats. 

“It was probably meant to nab both 
of us at once,” he reflected. “I was a 
fool to use the car at all, since its num- 
ber could so easily be traced to me! No 
doubt Shen’s accomplices had been fol- 
lowing it steadily, awaiting some oppor- 
tunity to spring the coup, Well, Tsing 
has obviously been made prisoner—not 
killed. That’s one gleam of hope! If 
I can get to work in time we'll save 
him.” 

Returning to his rooms, he summoned 
a taxicab. Then, taking out the teak 
box that held his simple apparatus of 
Taoist magic—which is essentially a 
magic of the will, of hypnotic and 
suggestive powers, rather than a sleight- 
of-hand—Kenrick pocketed the few 
things he desired. An automatic pis- 
tol bulked in his coat pocket. 

He was waiting on the curb when the. 
taxi showed up, and he paused only 
long enough to assure himselr that it 
was a regular car and no trap laid to 
ensnare him; he was suddenly suspi- 
cious of all things and every one. Then, 
giving the driver direction to let him 
out near the tunnel entrance, he en- 
tered the cab. 

The car went out by way of the park, 
doubtless to increase the fare. Upon 
reaching the boulevard, Kenrick was 
not sorry to note that a light fog cloaked 


16 _ MR. SHEN OF SHENSI 


this section of the city, which, added to 
the moonless night, provided exactly 
the obscurity he desired. 

When he left the car, which rolled 
on toward the peaks and town, Ken- 
rick strode on rapidly toward Archer 
Drive. Two of the places in the drive 
were lighted up, but number ten was 
dark. 

As he turned up thg short street, a 
swinging beam of light apprised him 
that a car was also turning. He took 
instant advantage of a telephone pole 
to escape the lights, which pierced the 
thin fog, and saw a large enclosed car 
pass him almost silently, heading up the 
drive. A sudden thrill seized him, as 
he noted that the limousine body ap- 
peared entirely obscure and unlighted. 

He watched the car’s lights approach 
number ten, excitement riding him hard. 
Was Tsing in that car—being brought 
to Mr. Shen at this moment? Would 
the car enter the seemingly deserted 
grounds? Kendrick could follow the 
machine clearly by reason of its head- 
lights, and he waited with burning im- 
. batience. 

But, when the lights came to num- 
ber ten, at the end of the short street, 
they vanished very-abruptly. The car, 
so far as Kenrick could see it, disap- 
peared. He fancied that he heard the 
click of iron, as though a gate had 
closed. Leaping forward, he ran at top 
speed toward the spot where the car 
had been. 

But when he reached it, there was no 
car. The gates of number ten were 
closed, and its driveway was empty 
blackness. The limousine had van- 
ished ! 

CHAPTER V. 

DEVIL’S WORK 
FOR a long moment Kenrick stood 
motionless, watching the drive- 
. way before him. There was no famt- 
est glimmer of light from within the 
house or garage. The porte-cochére, 


which he had noted during the after- 
noon, was a pool of obscurity. 

He moved forward and made a sur- 
prising discovery. The mass of the 
garage was dimly visible to him; but 
when he moved a few steps, so that he 
was looking at the garage beneath fhe 
roof of the porte-cochére, the garage 
vanished! In other words, the porte- 
cochére was filled with a positive, con- 
crete darkness—a sohid body, as it were! 

Kenrick drew a deep breath. He did 
not doubt that from some hidden angle 
had been turned on a black ray con- 
cealing the car which must now be be- 
neath the porte-cochére. Despite im- 
possibilities, despite the wild incredulity 
of the theory, he firmly clung to the 
belief that Mr. Shen of Shensi had dis- 
covered black light. 

He laid a hand on the iron gate, half 
expecting to feel some electric shock. 
None came. Instead, to his renewed 
surprise, he found that only half the 
gate was Jocked ; half of it swung loose. 
unlatched. Was this accident? 

As he stood thus, debating with him- 
self, he caught a faint and instantaneous 
glimmer of light from the doorway 
opening on the porte-cochére. It came 
and was gone again in a flash, but that 
flash decided him, showed him that the 
house. was indeed occupied! It sent a 
thrill of excitement vibrating through 
him. It proved to him that beneath this 
exterior of desertion and darkness 
lurked some hidden occupancy. With- 
out further hesitation, he pushed open 
the iron grille and stepped forward. 

He was still suspicious of striking 
some unseen signal, some concealed 
alarm, but he encountered nothing. 
There was no further gleam of light; 
no sound reached him. 

Ceming to the porte-cochére, Kenrick 
halted abruptly, gripped by a sense of 
the uncanny, a wild clutch of horror 
at the unreality of what faged him. The 
opening was indeed filled with a solid 
obscurity. Holding out his hand and 


MR. SHEN OF SHENSI 17 


moving slowly forward, Kenrick saw 
his hand suddenly vanish, as though he 
had plunged it into an inky mass. Yet 
he felt nothing. An imstant later his 
fingers touched a solid substance, and 
he jumped backward im a plunge - of 
panic. A bitter smile curved his lips. 

“Brace up, fool!” he chided himself 
inwardly. ‘“There’s no mystery here, 
no ghostly terror! You know exactly 
what you’re facing. That was probably 
the vanished car that you touched. 
Let’s see!” 

He stepped forward again, groping. 
He found himself clouded about by an 
invisible darkness, as it were; a dark- 
ness which closed everything to view. 
His hand touched a solid substance, 
and he found that it was the rear end 
of the limousine. 

“Come!” he reflected. “This is not 
so bad. If I’m in the black light, it’s 
a cinch that no one can see me.” 

He turned and directed himself to- 
ward the house doorway. Encounter- 
ing steps, he ascended three of them; 
his outstretched hand came into contact 
with a door, and he groped for the 
knob. Without hesitation he tried the 
door, and it opened, swinging outward. 

At this, which seemed a stroke of 
sheerest good luck, Kenrick paused. It 


was possible that the overconfident: 


servants of Mr. Shen might have left 
gate and door unlocked; yet it seemed 
hardly natural. On the other hand, the 
possibility was tempting! Kenrick 
tried to penetrate the darkness, but 
found himself unable to do so. He 
could feel the door open at his side, 
and knowledge that it would create an 
appreciable draft within the house and 
draw attention, impelled him to close it 
swiftly. 

He stepped forward—two steps. 
And at the second step he could scarcely 
repress a cry of astonishment. 

He had stepped directly into a lighted 
haltway! Behind him, concealing the 
door and threshold, was a blank wall 

2AThrill 


of blackness; the black ray completely 
cut off all vision, though Kenrick could 
not see whence it origmated. 

The hall in front of him was wide 
and absolutely empty except for the 
electric light in the ceiling. It was 
merely a blank corridor, white-tiled. At 
the far end was a heavy curtain that 
presumably cloaked a doorway; the 
curtain was of black velvet. 

Once more and for the last time, Ken- 
rick hesitated. Should he leave as he 
had entered, content with the discovery 
of the black ray? But it was no dis- 
covery. Where it came from he knew 
not. There was no connection estab- 
lished with Mr. Shen. For all proof to 
the contrary, he might have stepped into 
the house of an alderman or a stock 
broker. Should he miss the chance that. 
was now presented to him, of investi~ 
gating the place? 

“Nat this trip!’ decided Kenrick. 
“It’s too good a thing to pass up. Be- 
yond the Alps lies Italy, so let’s draw 
the curtain and start something. If 
they’ve got Tsing here, I'll sure get 
action out of somebody!” 

His: pistol in his right hand, he 
walked toward the curtain at the end 
of the hall. No sound came from be- 
hind that drapery. Putting out his left 
hand, Kenrick swept it aside in one 
swift, decisive gesture. 

There greeted him, as though in 
mute challenge, an impenetrable wall 
of darkness. The light frém the hall 
did not pierce this darkness; it was an- 
other black ray, obviously, that had been 
flung across this doorway. Conscious 
of the risks he ran, but conscious also 
that the black ray would hide him, Ken- 
ri¢k strode forward into it. 

A scornful exclamation escaped his 
lips. A_ single step had taken him 
through the veil! It had been there 
like a threat, a futile menace to the 
spirit. One bold step had conquered it, 

“T wonder if it’s merely some esoteric 
Taoist mummery instead of a scientific 


18 MR. SHEN OF SHENSI 


discovery?” thought Kenrick. “It’s 
along the same lines—but no; it’s a real 
thing, beyond doubt! I’ll give the devil 
his due.” 

He swept his quick, birdlike gaze 
around the room in which he stood, 
hoping that his quest was ended. But, 
as though to mock him, there were only 
cheap chairs about the walls, a cheap 
rug on the floor, a cheap table in one 
corner by a window. An electric light 
cluster was in the ceiling. There was 
nothing else in the room. The walls 
were bare and without ornament. 

Kenrick was puzzled. He felt an 
impulse to doubt, to wonder if he were 
not the victim of some hallucination 
about that black light; but he fought 
it off quickly and stepped forward. A 
second glance showed him somethmg 
upon the table—a photograph. He 
picked it up, gazed at it a moment, 
lifted his eyes to search the room again, 
then scrutinized the picture once more. 
It showed two figures against a dark 
background—two figures in ancient 
Chinese armor, the faces convulsed in 
fury. Slowly, incredulously, Kenrick 
brought himself to realize what that 
photograph meant. 

He knew—none better, since he could 
do the trick himself—that the Taoist 
magicians can throw scraps of paper, 
the familiar “paper men,” to the floor 
and cause armed warriors te_arise be- 
fore all beholders. That this feat de- 
manded a superstitious and pliable au- 
dience, responsive to the least mental 
suggestion of the wizard, Kenrick 
knew. He had had Tsing photograph 
the trick when he performed it, but had 
registered nothing. Here, obviously, 
the phantoms of the imagination had 
been photographed. Or was the picture 
itself some trick? He smiled and laid 
the photograph down. 

“A trick, of course,” he muttered; 
“but a Taoist trick! Shen is here. This 
isn’t evidence. I’ll go farther and fare 
better if I keep on. If it hadn’t been 


for this picture, I might have slunk out 
of here, thinking I had failed!” 

He turned away toward a door which 
he perceived at the opposite side of the 
room. Advancing rapidly to it, he 
grasped the knob and opened it. An-- 
other veil of darkness met him. Scorn- 
fully, he stepped into and through it. 
He was growing irritated by this child- 
ish repetition. All fear of the uncanny. 
blackness had left him. 

Now he came out into such a blaze 
of light that for a moment he was ab- 
solutely dazzled by its brilliance. When 
his eyes perceived what was before 
him, he stood motionless, caught in a 
sudden grip of unbelieving horror. 

The room was very small and en- 
tirely bare except for a chair in the cen- 
ter of the floor. On the chair was set 
a wide basin of brass, filled with earth ; 
and in the basin, the earth tamped about 
his neck, was the head of a man—and 
the head lived! 

Below the basin was nothing, except 
the chair itself. There was nobody to 
that frightful head. It was the head 
of a white man, and the eyes were fas- 
tened upon Kenrick in a horrible living 
stare; color was in the cheeks, and the 
lips moved soundlessly. The absolute 
horror of the thing for an instant para- 
lyzed Kenrick—only for an instant, 
however. 

It came to him suddenly that this 
awful guardian of the place was itself 
no more than a trick of magic; he 
forced down the cold shiver that 


touched him and stepped forward. An- 


gered that his nerve had for a moment 
been daunted by this whim of fancy, 
he lashed out with the pistol in his hand 
and struck the head violently. 

The living head toppled over in the 
dish; to Kenrick’s gaze it seemed that 
blood came from the severed neck. By 
a terrible effort he withdrew his eyes 
from the sight and glanced about, fight- 
ing to regain the self-control that threat- 
ened to leave him. His left hand stole 


MR. SHEN OF SHENSI 19 


inside his coat and touched an object 
there. As though the touch had ban- 
ished his mental trouble, he smiled and 
looked again at the chair. 

And now, as he looked, he saw only 
- a block of wood lying there in the brass 
dish. 

“Ah!” He could scarcely choke back 
the cry of exultant triumph that rose 
to his lips. “Your magic is less than 
mine after all, you devil out of hell! 
Aye, and your will is less than mine 
also! Now, by heavens, I’m getting 
to the heart of things. If that doorway 
does not fead into the hub and center 
of all this deviltry, I miss my guess!” 

He turned, and with swinging strides 
passed to a curtained doorway across 
the room. He seized the curtain and 
jerked it aside, his pistol ready. But his 
arm slowly lowered as he gazed upon 
what lay before him. 

This doorway was not veiled by the 
black ray. Instead, there stretched be- 
fore Kenrick a lighted path three feet 
wide ; a section of carpet showed at the 
bottom, the top was a foot above his 
head. Except for the floor, this path 
was enclosed on all sides by solid black- 
ness. The black ray at work again, 
thought Kenrick! 

He looked at the far end of this 
lighted path. There he saw a section 
of a table, all except a small portion ‘of 
it cut away by the encircling blackness. 
On the table was a card. Nothing else 
was visible. 

Kenrick quietly walked down the path 
of light, scorn in his eyes. When he 
came to the table,-he had reached the 
end. There was nothing ahead of him, 
nothing around him, save the blackness. 
He saw writing on the card, and thrilled 
suddenly as he recognized it for the 
writing of Prince Kou Chang. He 
took up the card. 

As he read it, the scorn died out of 
his eyes, and the exultation died out of 
his heart. Upon the card was written: 


.My Dear Me. Keneicx: Thank you for 
this obliging visit. I flatter myself that you 
responded excellently to my mental sug- 
gestions! It is a pleasure to deal with so 
open-minded a man as you. 

I trust that you are enjoying the enter- 
tainment that I have provided for you. 

Mr. SHEN OF SHENSI. 


CHAPTER VI. 
CAUGHT 


K ENRICK slowly let the card fall 

to the table. His eyes swept about 
in desperation; he saw that now the 
path of light was cut off abruptly be- 
hind him by the black ray. He stood 
in a tiny illuminated island. 

He saw now, too late, how he had 
been trapped, how one thing after an- 
other had been brought to his notice, 
how he had been beguiled into this 
place. They must have known all along 
that he was watching the house! He 
disdained the hint of mental suggestion. 
The game had been well played, that 
was all; a daring game, managed with 
infinite craft and cunning. 

Through the blackness, a faint 
chuckle drifted to him. It was followed 
at once by the bland voice of Mr. Shen 
of Shensi. 

“Put your automatic pistol on the 
table, Mr. Kenrick! To attempt any 
resistance would be utter folly.” 

Kenrick was tempted to fire blindly at 
the voice, but reason checked the im- 
pulse; also, a new element of surprise 
came to him, for it now appeared that 
objects within the scope of the black 
light were not invisible to Mr. Shen! 

Accordingly, he obeyed the suave 
command and placed the pistol on the 
table. As he stepped back, the wall of 
blackness moved toward him, covered 
the table—and then retreated again. 
The pistol was gone. It had been 
snatched by some hand, invisible ‘to 
Kenrick. 

“All this is very interesting, but only 
to a certain extent,” observed Kenrick 


20 MR. SHEN OF SHENSI 


calmly. “Suppose you lift the veil and 
disclose yourself, Mr. Shen!” 

There was no answer, except that the 
pool of light shifted slightly around 
him. Kenrick knew better than to make 
any futile attempt to escape from the 
house, or even from the room in which 
he now was; that wall of blackness held 
him a secure prisoner, totally unable to 
find the door by which he had entered. 

He suddenly perceived, however, that 
the radius of his illuminated island was 
growing wider, the black veil retreat- 
ing before him. With a tacitly elo- 
quent scorn, he took his pipe from his 
pocket, filled and lighted it. Then, 
smoking coolly, he seated himself on 
the table’s edge and watched. 

He was facing a real and tangible 
danger now. All suspense was gone, 
and the icy nerve for which he was 
famed had returned to him in full 
strength. His coolness was not as- 
sumed. Despite the disconcerting 
knowledge that he was trapped, his 
agate eyes betrayed a steely vigilance, 
and uncompromising alertness. He 
knew that trouble lay ahead. 

The blackness continued to retreat 
gradually. Into the light projected, the 
arm of a chair, followed by the chair 
itself; and in the chair was Sitting a 
woman. .Kenrick recognized her im- 
mediately, both by her costume and her 
' face, as the missing nurse who had been 
pictured in all the papers. 
~~ “So you have solved the Mary Hills 
case, Mr. Kenrick!” chuckled the voice 
of the invisible Mr. Shen. “That gave 
you a clew, eh? I thought that you 
might understand the possibilities of 
black light. You observe that the lady 
is unharmed? She is merely asleep and 
she will remain asleep for a time.” 

Kenrick’s teeth tightened upon his 
pipe, but he said nothing. He per- 
ceived that the chair, the table, the rug 
under his feet, were extra fine objects ; 
the room seemed to be magnificently 
furnished. 


“I think you were looking for your 
boy, Tsing?’ came the bland accents. 
“He is just behind you.” 

Kenrick turned and took an abrupt 
step, then halted. 

In another chair, this one an old lac- 
quered temple seat, sat Tsing. He, too, 
was in a State of trance; but his eyes, 
wide open, stared out at Kenrick with 
a glazed, lackluster expression as 
though the brain behind them were 
dead. 

Only with a great effort did Kenrick 
thrust down the hot anger that surged- 
into him. The sight of Tsing in this 
condition, laid beneath the infernal spell 
of Mr. Shen, maddened him; but it like- 
wise warned him. He understood that 
Mr. Shen was conducting all this “en- 
tertainment” with an object—the object 
of mastering him, of deadening his 
mind to the peril that surrounded him, 
of guiding him into some subtle trap 
where he would find himself enmeshed 
in the uncanny net of Mr. Shen’s will. 

He removed his gaze from Tsing, 
knowing that for the present he was 
unable to help the boy. If the chance 
came, he reflected grimly, he would have 
a little surprise in store for Mr. Shen! 

The light had now cleared completely 
from the room, with the exception of 
the four walls, which were hidden from 
sight behind a black veil. This, as Ken- 
rick understood, was to prevent him 
from knowing the position of any pes- 
sible exits. 

As he had suspected, he was now in 
the central room of the house, a room 
some thirty feet square. At the same 
height above him was the glass dome, 
screened now by extended curtains. To 
one side of Kenrick sat the impassive 
Tsing; to the other side, the equally 
impassive figure of the nurse. 

The only other object in the room 
was a large pottery fu dog that stood 
on a stand besidé the table. This fig- 
ufe immediately caught Kenrick’s eye, 
and he regarded it with interest. From 


MR. SHEN OF SHENSI ar 


the glaze, he took it to be of the Tang 
or Sung period. Set in the forehead 
of the dog was a large crystal ball 
which glowed with a peculiar illumina- 
tion, as though lighted by some inward 
fire. Kenrick found himself staring at 
this ball and swiftly removed his gaze. 

“Have done with this childish play, 
Mr. Shen,” he said carelessly. “You 
are only wasting time in trying to im- 
press me, and you will not succeed im 
putting me into any state of trance, I 
assure you.” 

A chuckle from the dark veil made 
answer to him. Then abruptly Mr. 
Shen stepped out into the light.. The 
Oriental’s plump features were smiling. 
He wore the costume of his country, 
and his face seemed to have assumed a 
more pronouncedly Chinese cast than 
when he was clad in Occidental garb. 

“Well, Mr, Kenrick! It is a pleasure 
10 meet you thus alone and untended !” 
exclaimed Mr. Shen blandly. “Un- 
' fortunately, it was not possible to bring 
your boy Tsing here before dark, so 
that, beyond rendering him helpless, I 
have been unable to make use of him 
as I would like.” 

Kenrick made an impatient gesture. 
“Come, Mr. Shen! Enough of this 
mummery. What are you doing in this 
country? For whom are you work- 
ing?” 

“For myself, of course,” said the 
other. “But we must have chairs and 
be comfortable.” 

Mr. Shen clapped his hands as he 
spoke. A block of shadow detached it- 
self from the wall and moved forward 
between the two men. It retreated 
again and left behind it a small table 
and two chairs; on the table were cig- 
arettes and a bottle of wme, with twa 
handsomely carved cups of a reddish 
brown substance. 

“The performance,” sneered Kenrick, 
“denotes good training. Do you really 
expect me to drink with you?” 

“I do,” said Mr. Shen, “for two rea- 


sons. It will be your last drink on 
earth ; and it will be a good one. That 
bottle came from the czar’s cellars, and 
it is port that was bottled about 1750. 
I advised you to join me. Those cups 
of rhinoceros horn are supposed to be 
poison proof, as you are aware.” 

Despite everything, Kenrick was in- 
trigued by the man. One could not 
deny Mr. Shen a certain vague but im- 
pressive force of character. Kenrick 
moved forward to the nearest chair. 
Mr. Shen had already seated himself 
and was pouring wine into the cups 

“It was really a pity about the czar,” 
he observed easily. “Poor fellow! I 
would have saved him with that black 
light of mine, if he had consented to 
my terms. But like all weak persons, 
he was obstinate. Lenine was wise 
enough to fall in with me; in the end, 
he and I shall probably rule most of the 
world.” 

Kenrick smiled derisively. He was 
perfectly well aware that Mr. Shen 
was probably relating the simple truth 
in all this and he fell in with the subject 
of discussion. 

“What use to rule a world of madmen 
and fools?” he inquired, taking one of 
the cigarettes and stowing away his 
pipe. 

“Every use, if the ruler be sane,” Mr. 
Shen chuckled. ‘But, my friend, we 
shall bring‘a new social state out of 
chaos ; my real object in bringing about 
the chaos in Russia was the destruction 
of the church. That has been accom- 
plished, and we are supreme.” 

“And you expect to do the same thing 
in this country ?” 

“Certainly. I shall absolutely destroy 
Christianity. It has failed as a religion, 
as a social power, and as a political or- 
ganization.” 

“Ah!” observed Kenrick. 
why do you fear it?” 

Mr. Shen gave him a sudden flaming 
glance—a glance of malignant hatred, 
of venomous gall—that passed as sud- 


“Then 


22 MR. SHEN OF SHENSI 


denly into bland suavity. He did not 
answer the question, however. 

Kenrick sipped his wine, for he had 
no particular fear of poison. He had 
much more fear of Mr. Shen—fear, 
not for himself, but for the world. This 
was no madman, but a fearfully sane 
genius—a man absolutely without the 
least moral or ethical sense. 

“Upon my word,” said Kenrick, gaz- 
ing at the other, “if such a thing were 
possible, I’d say that you were an am- 
bassador from hell!’ 

Mr. Shen chuckled in frank delight. 
“That,” he answered cheerfully, “is the 
best compliment I have had in years! 
I presume that you have formed some 
idea of my plans for the United States? 
First to use the radicals and create 
chaos; then destroy the radicals, re- 
taining some few men of ability-——” 

“By means of black light?” broke in 
Kenrick scornfully. 

“Only incidentally, my dear Mr. 
Kenrick! I regret that I have not yet 


been able to install much of my appa- . 


ratus in this house; I am occupying it 
only temporarily, until another and 
more secluded establishment shall be 
prepared. This black ray is inferesting 


and valuable in many ways, but I have - 


not yet concluded my experiments. The 
entire subject of colored lights, with 
their effects, is absorbing. The com- 
pound of colors which will produce 
madness, for example; and on the other 
hand the negative rays which entirely 
‘abort the spectrum, destroying light, as 
in this black ray—an inaccurate but de- 
Scriptive title. But now, what about 
yourself?’ 

“Eh?” Kenrick took a fresh ciga- 
rette, and gazed at his captor. “In what 
way ?” 

Mr. Shen smiled blandly. “TI have no 
illusions about you; you are dangerous. 
At this very instant, I fancy that you 
are considering whether to reach out 
and strangle me, or to use some hidden 
weapon against me. That, I assure you, 


would be folly. Two of my men have 
you covered, and at the first sign from 
me, will fire.” 

Kenrick flung back his head in a burst 
of hearty laughter. ‘‘Come, come, Mr. 
Shen!” he exclaimed. “To think of.-a 
magician such as you descending to the 
use of lethal weapons—why, it’s en- 
couraging! See here: do you know the 
force, the actual force, which is des- 
tined to overthrow all your fine schemes 
and bring your whole inferna] system 
of deviltry to nothing?” 

“What is it?” demanded Mr. Shen, 
gravely meeting the gaze of Kenrick. 

“T’ll tell you,” said Kenrick leaning 


-back, “upon one condition. i111 give you 


a sample of how it works. I'll prove 
to you that, against this force, you are 
utterly helpless.” 

For a moment Mr. Shen searched 
his face with intent eyes. Then, read- 
ing the earnestness that underlay Ken- 
rick’s words, he nodded. 

“This is interesting,” he answered 
smoothly. “What is the condition—to 
save your life?” 

“No,” replied Kenrick steadily. “I’m 
thinking only of this boy, Tsing, and 
this woman.” 

He laid down his cigarette and leaned 
forward, his cold eyes on those of Mr. 
Shen. 


CHAPTER VII. 
THE SYMBOL. 


HE woman is no use to you,” said 
Kenrick. “You have failed en- 
tirely to make any use of her—is it 
not so?” 
Mr. Shen sneered. “Ah! 
to know a lot about these things 
Kenrick nodded. “I do. Since this 
is the case, I want you to send that girl 
home. She can tell nothing about you. 
Give her orders to waken in an hour 
and send her home in your car.” 
“Very well,” assented Mr. Shen. 
“But I shall have to get another girl 
somewhere; I had intended to break 


You seem 


"7 


MR. SHEN OF SHENSI 23 


down this one with drugs. Still, let her 
go. It is true that I’ve been able to do 
little with her.” He turned to the 
girl. “Miss Hills; you will waken in 
an hour and you will forget all that 
you know about me and this place. Get 
up and walk to the door.” 

Changing to Mandarin, Mr. Shen 
directed his own servants to take care 
of the nurse as Kenrick had directed. 
Walking steadily across the room, she 
vanished into the blackness that still 
cloaked the walls. Kenrick noted the 
spot very carefully. A door was there! 
. “You want Tsing set free, also?” 
asked Shen mockingly. 

“IT don’t ask the impossible,” re- 
sponded Kenrick. ‘“You’d not ‘“ 

“T’ll destroy his brain and then free 
him, if you like,” suggested the other. 

“At least,” said Kenrick quietly, “set 
his soul free. Remove him from this 
trance, even if you have to put him in 
irons. Get him out of here, so that 
I can deal with you unhampered.” 

Mr. Shen regarded his visitor in 
frank admiration. ‘The reports of 
your cold-steel nerve were not un- 
founded,” he said and sipped again at 
his wine. “You actually expect to deal 
with me, do you?” 

“Certainly. I shall show you very 
plainly how all your hell-foundations 
shall be ruined and destroyed—rather, 
what will destroy them! It is utterly 
impossible for you to succeed 9 

“T have succeeded—in Russia,” ob- 
served Mr. Shen softly. 

“Russia is not the world,” quoth 
Kenrick. “And you'll have a different 
class of people to meet with in this 
country; I’m one of them.” 

“Do you expect to get out of here 
alive?” queried Mr. Shen amusedly. 

Kenrick shrugged his shoulders. “I 
never give up until the end, but I’m not 
thinking of myself primarily.” 

Mr. Shen leaned back and surveyed 
him with thoughtful gaze. ‘You inter- 
est me, Mr. Kenrick,” he said slowly. 


“T’ve learned that you know a good deal 
about China and our hidden mysteries. 
You've written articles that have inter- 
ested even me. I should like immensely 
to probe that brain of yours!” 

“You can’t,” rejoined Kenrick curtly. 

“Conceded.” Mr. Shen gave an affa- 
ble wave of his hand. “I am curious 
to witness this experiment, or rather 
exhibition, of yours. When it is con- 
cluded, I shall offer you a choice—either 
to yield willingly to my power and be 
placed in a condition of suspended ani- 
mation, or to die. The former alterna- 
tive offers you the chance of wakening 
again in a new world, the world that I 
shall create——”’ 

‘“You’re wasting time,” said Kenrick 
impatiently. “I have no intention of 
yielding to your influence on any con- 
ditions. But, first, what about Tsing?” 

Mr. Shen sighed and turned to the 
seated figure of the Szechuan boy. 

“Tsing! -Come here,” he commanded 
abruptly in Mandarin. 

Tsing rose from his seat and stood 
impassively before them, his eyes fixed 
on vacancy. Kenrick leaned back in his 
chair and took a fresh cigarette. He 
took a match from his pocket and 
lighted it. The empty eyes of Tsing 
fastened on the flame. Kenrick waited, 
his gaze fastened intently upon the boy’s 
face. 

“Do you understand my orders ?” said 
Mr. Shen. 

Kenrick moved the match to his cig- 
arette end, then dropped it as the flame 
burned his fingers. The vacant eyes of 
Tsing followed the blaze. Kenrick pro- 
duced a second match and lighted it. 
There seemed to be a struggle in the 
face-of the boy ; his eyelids flickered. 

“T understand the orders, master,”’ he 


> 


said dully. 
Mr. Shen frowned. “Go to the door 
j ”” 
“Wait!” struck in Kenrick, also 


speaking Mandarin. “Tsing, you are 
now obeying my orders, not those of 


24 MR. SHEN OF SHENS? 


Mr. Shen! Go to the door and allow 
yourself to be placed under restraint 
y ithout resisting. When you reach the 
door, waken! Do you understand?” 

“I understand, master,” said Tsing. 
He turned, walked toward the same 
point where the nurse had vanished, and 
disappeared in the black ray. 

Kenrick touched the match to his 
cigarette. Mr. Shen was watching him 
in a mingting of admiration and bewil- 
derment, and now spoke softly. 

“By the lords of hell, but you were 
near to death in that moment! Clever 
—ah, yes! Where, if I may ask, did 
you learn these secrets? That little 
business of the match—focusing his 
brain on you when I recalled -his spirit 
—ah, that was well done!” 

Kenrick smiled. “I know more than 
you give me credit for knowing, Mr. 
Shen. Well, shall I proceed?” 

“By all means.” 

For a moment Kenrick puffed at his 
cigarette. “I imagine,” he said at 
length, “that you have two kinds of 
black light—one which is impenetrable, 
and one which cloaks objects to ex- 
ternal view, but permits them to be seen 
by any one within the ray itself?” 

“I congratulate your acumen!” Mr. 
Shen covered obvious surprise by a 
bland smile. “You are correct. I have 
mot yet concluded all my work on the 
subject, but have produced the two rays 
somewhat as you describe them.” 

“Then,” said Kenrick, “to remove any 
suspicion that I might be trying to as- 
Sassinate you, suppose that you sur- 
round us with what I may call the vis- 
ible ray?” : 

As he spoke, he reached beneath his 
coat and produced a cross of white- 
painted wood, set upon a heavy and dis- 
‘proportionately large base. Mr. Shen 
frowned. 

“What do you mean to do?” he said 


sharply. 


“To prove to you that against this’ 


symbol your black light is useless!” 


Kenrick surveyed him with a careless 
smile. “Your magic arts consist of 
trickery, pure and simple; against the 
living and vital principle of Christianity, 
they are helpless. I shall prove this to 
you within five minutes.” 

“Bah!” snapped the Oriental. “Have 
I not told you that I shall destroy Chris- 
tianity throughout the world as I have 
destroyed it in Russia? But you shall 
see for yourself.” 

He clapped his hands and uttered a 
few words in Mandarin. Instantly the 
black walls began to draw upon the 
two men. Kenrick leaned forward and. 
placed the wooden cross upon the table. 

“Bah—you and your cross!” Mr. 
Shen cackled suddenly. “The trans- 
parent rays shall cover us. Upon the 
table, blotting: out your cross from 
sight, will fall the solid ray. Ah! 
Now watch!” 

About the two men closed the walls 
of blackness. But Kenrick found that 
he himself and the man opposite him 
were distinctly outlined in a crimson 
light, as was the table. Then, unex- 
pectedly, the table vanished. 

A shrill cry broke from Mr. Shen. 
“The cross—what trickery is this?” 

Although the table had vanished, the 
cross stood out in a burning white radi- 
ance, untouched by the black rays! 
Kenrick reached forward and turned 
it about, facing Mr. Shen. Unobserved, 
his thumb pressed a spring in the base. 

“Watch it, Shen? TI’ll not try to 
spring anything on you. This magic 
of mine i8 no more esoteric than yours. 
I was trying to study out any possibility 
of a black light, and it occurred to me 
that, even if you had discovered such 
a thing, it would find itself ineffective 
against one substance.” 

His voice was monotonous, smooth, 
quiet. Mr. Shen stared at the blazing 
cross, his face suddenly looking more 
than ever Oriental and Chinese in the 
crimson-glow that outlined him. 

“So I made experiments,” continued 


MR. SHEN OF SHENSI 25 


Kenrick. ‘This cross, to be frank, is 
painted with a strong solution of ra- 
dium; the radio-active rays are too 
powerful for your black light, that is 
all. I promised you a symbol, and this 
is it—the symbol of the cross, which 
you boast that you will destroy, but 
which will in reality destroy you.” 

A hoarse growl broke from Mr. Shen. 
His features contorted violently; with 
a painful twist, he tore his eyes from 
the cross and fastened them upon Ken- 
rick, a baleful triumph in their dark 
depths. 

“You devil!” he cried out. “You 
have tried to turn my own tricks against 
me! Where did you learn such things? 
A moment longer, and you would have 
had me under the spell ” 

Kenrick stood up. He had failed and 
realized it fully. His one hope had been 
that he might lure Mr. Shen to gaze 
upon that radiant cross long enough. 

“Where did I learn these things?” 
Smiling, he put a hand to his head and 
removed his wig. “Look at those burns, 
Mr. Shen! You are a Taoist. I have 
learned those secrets of Asia likewise! 
And do you know what I resolved? 
That under the symbol of that cross 
you. should be destroyed—aye, though 
I should perish with you! I was pre- 
pared for someésuch trap as this ” 

An appalling, incoherent sound broke 
from Mr. Shen. Starting to his feet, 
he struck the floor with his heel. 

“And I,” he cried out, his face fright- 
ful to witness, “‘was prepared for you!” 

Kenrick tried to throw himself aside, 
but failed. The floor seemed to slide 
from beneath his feet; he felt himself 
going down into darkness, falling 
bodily. 

“But the cross—the cross shall de- 
stroy you!” he shouted as he fell, and 
his words were drowned in the rack- 
ing outburst of an explosion that filled 
the darkness above him with a terrific 
glare. 


CHAPTER VIII. 
THE IDEOGRAPH. 


N° one within a ten-foot radius of 
that cross could possibly have 
lived,” said Kenrick, a trifle unsteadily. 
“J expected to die myself—only the 
plunge into the cellar saved me. More 
than a bomb, it was an incendiary bomb. 
It was intended to destroy Mr. Shen 
and the establishment at once and it 
did so. The deadliest thing ever seen!” 
“The house, at least, is gone,” said 
Colonel Blank; “and I hope the man 
as well.” 
Kenrick lay on the ground at the end 
of Archer Drive, his left leg broken 
by the fall which had plunged him 
through Mr. Shen’s trapdoor. Beside 
him stood Colonel Blank. At the boule-— 
vard end of the street, autos and crowd- 
ing pedestrians were kept back by a 
line of police. 

In front of number ten, and through. 
the grounds, were strewn Colonel 
Blank’s men. A fire engine was pump- 
ing sparks at the corner. The house 
itself was going up in a red ruin of 
flame, already bursting through the 
roof. 

“A good thing for you, Kenrick,” 
said Colonel Blank, “that I took mat- 
ters into my own hands after getting 
your phone message! I knew you would 
run your head into danger and so I 
gathered the crowd and came along. 
We had just got the men nicely posted 
when we heard your explosion, and at 
that we came in on the jump.” 

Kenrick smiled, then sobered as from 
within the burning house came a shot, 
and another. A group of figures ap- 
proached the two men. 

“Here’s a chap who claims to be 
Kenrick’s boy,” said one of them softly. 
The other houses in the drive were 


crowded with sightseers who were well 


within hearing, despite the roar of the 
flames. “Found him tied up.” 
“Tsing!” exclaimed Kenrick joyfully. 


26 MR. SHEN OF SHENSI 


“Yes, master.” Tsing came forward, 
quite impassive as ever. 

“Do yéu know where they took you 
this afternoon? What happened?” 

“A truck ran into me, master, as I 
was coming down the Twin Peaks road. 
Two men seized me before I could get 
out of the car. They took me to the 
office of Li Far Huan, a merchant above 
the tong of Benevolent Sons in China- 
town. There I beat off one of the men, 
but the others overpowered me——” 

“Send there, colonel!’ snapped Ken- 
rick quickly. “Get a squad there at 
once and nab Li Far Huan. Here, 
Tsing! Go with these gentlemen and 
guide them! I'll be at my own rooms 
when you get through—yes, the old 
lodgings.” 

Colonel Blank gave swift instructions 
to one of his aids, who summoned a 
squad of men and departed with Tsing. 

“What about the nurse?” demanded 
Kenrick. 

“Found her first crack—senseless 
from the smoke, I imagine. She’s at 


the hospital by this time. Seems all 
right.” 
“Yes, she’s not hurt. Thank Heaven 


for the way things turned out! Did 
you get any apparatus out of there?” 

“Apparatus be damned!” snorted-the 
other. “We were after you!” 

Kenrick groaned despairingly. “You 
missed the biggest stunt of all, then! 
Mr. Shen had discovered black light ; 
was using it right along. If you'd got- 
ten hold of one of his machines so that 
we could——” 

“Take it easy, old man,” broke in 
Colonel Blank soothingly. “You're all 
right now; no need to get excited——” 

“Confound you! Do you think I’m 
lying?” 

“Just a bit touched in the head, may- 
be. Black light, huh? Very interesting. 
Hello! Here comes the repert. Cool 
down, now !” 

Kenrick forced himself te lie back 
silently. He realized slowly that his 


story would not be credited in its bald 
details; it smacked too highly of wiz- 
ardry—even were he to explain that 
the wizardry consisted of common Ta- 
oist tricks! And the black light—well, 
he would simply have to keep quiet, 
unless some proof could be extracted 
from the house. 

He. saw, however, that there was no 
hope of this. Despite the efforts of 
the firemen, the entire building was by 
this time a shell of flame—a steamy 
vomit of fire was pouring up into the 
sky from the building. 

“What luck?” demanded Colonel 
Blank, as another group joined them. 

“Got two men in a-room together, 
just as the order came to clear out,” 
said a smoke-blackened operative. 
“Both Chinamen, big husky brutes. 
They showed fight, so we left ’em there 
according to orders,” he. added grimly. 
“No one else was found, although we 
had no chance to make a real search. 
The whole interior was blazing.” 

“No sign of a little, fat man in Chi- 
nese costume?” asked Kenrick. 

“No, sir. Not a sign of any one 
else—though he might have been there, 
as I say.” 

Kenrick relaxed, watching the blaze 
with weary eyes. Had that bomb of 
his, cunningly set in the base of the 
cross, failed to do its work? Had he 
risked himself for nothing? He could 
not believe it; yet, as he gazed at the 
pyre that flamed to heaven, he felt sud- 
den fright and uneasiness. 

“Come, Kenrick,” Colonel Blank 
turned to him. “I have an ambulance 
waiting for 7 

“Nothing doing,” said Kenrick firmly. 
“TF stay right here until we know some- 
thing definite about Mr. Shen. Great 
Scott, man! Everything swings on 
that! My leg’s all right.” 

Silence fell on the group. 

Five minutes aftefward, a man ap- 
proached up the drive, one of the po 
licemen keeping the crowd out of the 


MR. SHEN OF SHENSI 27 


way. He saluted Colonel Blank defer- 
entially. 

“Beg pardon, sir; is there a Mr. Ken- 
rick with you?” 

“Right here,” answered Kenrick, 
starting up to his elbow. ‘What is it?” 

The policeman extended a card. “A 
man sent this up to you, sir. He said 
he was Morrissy, Colonel Blank’s as- 
sistant 

“What!” ejaculated the colonel. “I 
have no man of that name——”’ 

“He wasn’t no chink, that I could 
see,” replied the policeman defensively. 
“A kind o’ small man, and spoke just’s 
good English as I do myself! Besides, 
he said he was your assistant and had 
got hurt. He was hurt, all right, too— 
couldn’t hardly walk. I helped him to 
the ambulance, and I guess it got away 
with him a 

“All right, colonel,” Kenrick spoke 
up quietly. “That was Mr. Shen, and 
you’ve no chance on earth to catch 
him now. He’ll have the ambulance 
drop him somewhere and he’ll be gone 
before you could trail him.” 

“What? You think——” 


“Let him go and don’t waste your 
time trying.” Kenrick laughed mirth- 
lessly. “It’s a miracle how he escaped 
that bomb with his life. He must have 
managed to get out of his Chinese-garb 


‘—probably had his American clothes 


on underneath—and crawl away. We 
have just one consolation, that he was 
badly hurt and had some doubt of his 
own condition. You can get after him 
later, if you want to try your hand at 
it; but I advise you to leave things to 
me. By the time I’m out of bed myself, 
will be time enough to take up the 
search. Read this and you'll under- 
stand.” 

Colonel Blank took the card from 
Kenrick’s hand and held it up to the 
light of the conflagration. Upon the 
card had been hastily scribbled a few 
lines in pencil: 

If I die, you live. But if I do not die— 
then you shall taste of hell. 

Beneath this penciled scrawl was a 
large Chinese ideograph embossed 
heavily in scarlet—the ideograph that 
Stood for the English word 

SHEN 


SOO CAO 8 


LOVE’S SILENCE 


By Arnold Tyson 


A 


DEARTH of things. . 
A few stray moments we have learned to trust; 


. the thmgs we hunger for; 


The touch of hands that wither in the dust; 
Some trinkets added to our slender store; 
A lovely room somewhere on which the door 

Of time shuts in a sudden windy gust 

Of fury; little stabs of beauty; rust . 
That gathers on the latchspring; dreams that soar. 


Now through the distant corners of the earth 
Life sends us different ways, through many lands, 
Yet where the voiceless dreamings shall have birth 
The urge and passion of your slender hands, 


The sharp, swift blaze of beauty . . 


. these are worth 


Love’s silence if the spirit understands. 


KNOW not what awakened me. 
There was no impression of sound 
on my senses. As I sat bolt upright 

in bed I could neither see nor hear 


anything unusual in the night. There 
was but one sound—the gentle swish 
of the sea a quarter mile away. My 
bedchamber was ablaze with the silver 
glory of a great moon, hanging in the 
sky like a brilliant mirror throwing back 
the gleam of a mighty conflagration. 
Through my windows I could see the 
palm trees, rearing into the moonlight 
like gigantic toadstools. . 

There was no unusual sound, yet I 
knew that danger lurked near by. I 
sat quietly in bed, staring straight 
through the doorway which led to the 
stairs; sat tense, rigid, afraid that the 
slightest movement would precipitate 
the ominous peril which surely hovered 
in the air. 

An open doorway was between my 
room and the room of my friend, 
Brakely. The stairway leading to our 
chambers came to a landing three feet 
below the thresholds of our rooms, and 
from one side of this landing a few 
steps led to his chamber, while, straight 
ahead, the ascent was taken up by a 
few steps leading to my threshold. 

Thus, in going to his room, Brakely 


mounted to the landing and turned to 
the right, while to reach my room I 
stepped straight across the landing and 
up. A fragment of the landing and a 
few steps were visible from where I 
satin bed. The house was quite old and 
not large. 

For some inexplicable reason I felt 
that I would have to fight off this im- 
pending danger single-handed. Some- 
thing told me I would not have the re- 
enforcement of Brakely’s six feet and 
two hundred fifteen pounds of brawn 
and muscle. I did not even contem- 
plate fleeing into his bedroom, and I 
can explain that no more than I can 
the reason for my awakening. The un- 
seen finger of Providence must touch 
one upon the shoulder in times like this, 
and bid him be on guard. 

No, I did not think of calling upon 
Brakely for help, and this was very 
strange indeed, for we were the best 
of friends and he was one of the bravest 
of men. Butt what is stranger by far 
is the feeling which came over me that 
I would have to fight Brakely. 

Had I not been a man of some cour- 
age this would have thrown me into 
panic, for Brakely, as I said, was of 
massive strength, athletic, and long 
trained in college sports and in a career 


RECOILING SPARKS 29 


where his life more often than not de- 
pended on his ability to crush antag- 
onists. I am a medium-sized man, of 
ordinary strength, and no especial skill 
in battle beyond the natural skill of 
self-preservation born in every man. 

I knew that Brakely was not in his 
bed. The sound of ordinary breathing 
in sleep, when all else was still, was 
audible between the two bedrooms, and 
Brakely’s breathing, in sleep, was far 
from ordinary. He was given to deep, 
heavy breathing always and sometimes 
snoring. 

In that house there was not the faint- 
est sound, strain my ears as I might. 
There was no sound but the suscitated 
throbbing of my own heart, which, the 
longer I sat, began to smite my ear- 
drums with a donging roar. 

Of a sudden I became calm. The 
perspiration dried on my forehead. The 
heart ceased its floundering, steadying 
into normal pulsations. ~The twitching 
faded from my nerves. As a physician, 
I knew that the excitation of danger 
had passed subconsciously into the 
calmness which comes to all men feel- 
ing themselves face to face with the 
utmost test of self-preservation. 

I had it in mind to arise quietly and 
dress, and had one foot almost on the 
floor when I heard a creaking on the 


stairway. I did not attempt to draw 
the foot back. I sat just as I was— 
and waited. 


I had but a moment to wait. 

First I saw a slippered foot setting 
down easily—oh, so easily!—on the 
landing. It had been raised from the 
first step down, and I could see a trou- 
sered leg as far up as the knee. I could 
see a massive white hand clutching the 
banister and part of an arm. I knew 
the leg and arm. They were part of 
the huge body of Mason Brakely—at 
once my friend and my adversary. 

He moved as stealthily and as coldly 
as an iceberg bearing down upon the 
frail hulk of a scheoner. His very 


stealth confirmed my instinctive fears. 
There was no doubt now. He had 
pitted himself against me—and I must 
pit myself against him. 

Still I dared not move. Had I leaped 
from bed, I felt sure the action would 
precipitate the struggle, and my hope 
lay not in struggle, but in keeping out 
of Brakely’s clutches. I feared to Tie 
down again; feared that he would 
spring upon me before I could get out 
from under. 

I glanced at the huge earthen pitcher 
on the washstand, and at once told my- 
self that, if he entered my room, 1 
would grasp the pitcher and endeavor 
to beat him to the floor. I would en- 
deavor to crash it full upon his head, 
hoping that it would merely stun him; 
but, if necessary to save my own life, 
that it would kill him. 

The foot came full upon the landing, 
and was followed, just as quietly, by 
the other foot. Presently the whole 
figure of Brakely, clad in shirt flung 
open at the neck, trousers, and slippers, 
stood upon the landing in the full glare 
of the moonlight—stood for an instant 
like a marble figure of some terrible 
wrath, the moonlight scarce whiter than 
his face and garb. 

The glance he turned into my room 
was fleeting and furtive, and, seeing that 
I was sitting upright, he tried to screen 
his real design by shifting his gaze 
toward his own room. Though there 
was no need of stealth now, he stepped 
just as quietly and just as slowly to 
the stairs leading into the ether chamber 
—and I saw him disappear. I knew 
now with what I had to contend. 

I had seen his eyes. 

As a physician, I knew the nature 
of his madness. It was madness in 
which cunning was equaled only by 
tenacity of design. He had set his 
whole being upon one thing—my life. 
He could be diverted only by a strength 
and cunning greater than his own. A 
strength and cunning which even feebly 


30 RECOILING SPARKS 


approached his own were not in that 
house that night. The nearest human 
habitation was a fisherman’s hut two 
miles down the shore. 

I had seen the terrible eyes—glitter- 
ing like tongues of flame reaching for 
the wretches they had hemmed in. I 
had seen the grim jaws—set as hard as 
the stones of a dungeon. I had seen, 
rising out of the flaring shirt heck, the 
great throat, swollen by torrents of 
fevered blood. I had seen the tousled 
black hair, a strand or two lying rag- 
gedly against the white forehead. 


If. 


The tragic story of Mason Brake:y’s 
young manhood is not unknown, par- 
ticularly in his own State. It will be 
recalled that he was the central figure 
about which fate wove the threads of 
a murder mystery into a drama no less 
thrilling than any in fiction. It will 
be recalled that he was convicted and 
sentenced to death in the electric chair 
and that he spent more than a year in 
the death house. The confession of 
the man who was guilty of the murder, 
a confession which was made a half 
hour before Brakely was to have been 
executed, will ever form one of the 
dramatic pages in criminal anaals. 

Brakely, in fact, was being led to the 
electric chair when the news of the 
confession reached the prison, and he 
collapsed. He faced death without a 
tremor, but was unable to withstand 
the good news. The shock overturned 
his nervous system. 

He had been condemned to die three 
different times, once after each of his 
three trials, the first two having been 
won on appeals. He had three times 
traversed the terrible road up to the 
yery night of execution, only to be given 
a new lease on life. 

The effect of these things on the 
man was profound. It is bad enough, 
of course, to endure once the horrors 


of preexecution, but Brakely made three 
separate journeys to death—journeys 
which covered weeks of anticipation, 
and finally three horrible “last nights.” 

He and I had been college mates; 
more than that, we were the closest of 
friends, and I hardly did anything: else 
in the nineteen months from his arrest 
to his vindication but work for that 
vindication. I hardly did anything else 
but labor with his lawyers and visit 
him in jail and prison. On three differ- 
ent occasions I shook the hand of Mason 
Brakely, thinking it to be for the last 
time, and departed from that death 
house, suffering far more than he, for 
my affection for the man was immeas- 
urable. 

We had scarcely been out of college 
two months when Brakely was arrested. 
Of course there was a woman involved, 
but there is no need to go into details. 
After his vindication Brakely, who also 
was a physician, became a wanderer 
over the face of the earth—a soldier 
of fortune, seeking to forget in adven- 
ture the horrors of that death house. 

He often told me—and I saw him 
at intervals during his wanderings— 
that what clung to him closest were the 
memories of the men who had been 
executed while he was there. Six of 
them there were—four had been led 
away screeching and fighting. The 
cries of these men were never wholly 
quiet in his ears. Their faces’ never 
wholly faded from his vision. 

Brakely, although a physician, had 
never practiced, but he had become 
wealthy in his wanderings. Now, years 
after his release from the death house, 
he had come back to the United States. 
He told me he had become interested 
in electrical development while in Eu- 
rope and that he intended to settle 
down and devote his life to his latest 
hobby. In a short time he made sev- 
eral successful inventions, or rather 
improvements on electrical apparatus, 
and money came to him very fast. 


RECOILING SPARKS 31 


He had inherited a small estate on 
the southern coast, and, needing a va- 
cation, I had gone there with him for 
a couple of months in the late fall. He 
was a hermitlike man now, accessible 
only to myself, and preferred this lonely 
spot to a more pretentious estate which 
he could have had with ease. 

I knew that Brakely was pursuing 
his electrical experiments in the little 
house. He had a room which I never 
was permitted to enter, but I thought 
nothing of that because I myself had 
done considerable research work in 
medicine and chemistry, and I knew 
how desirous I always had been of ex- 
cluding everybody from my laboratory 
until I had achieved the result I sought. 
Engaged in research and experiment, I 
would not even permit my laboratory 
to be swept, and kept the door locked 
constantly. 

So Brakely’s desire for absolute sol- 
itude and secrecy in his laboratory was 
not strange to me. He had nailed 
boards over the windows, and always 
kept the door locked. He worked by 
lamplight. He spent much time in pro- 
found meditation, into which I did not 
intrude. I made the most of my vaca- 
tion in hunting, fishing, motor boating, 
and roaming over the beach and for- 
ests. For days sometimes I would see 
Brakely only in the morning and at 
night. Sometimes he would drop his 
work and meditations, and we would 
have an old-time friendly evening, but 
this was not often. 

Brakely gained the solitude of his 
bedchamber without noise. I sat still 
a few moments, trying to detect by 
some sound or other just what he was 
up to; but he was as quiet in the room 
as he had been on the stairway. That 
was the terrible part of it—the quiet. 
I think it would have relieved me had 
he gone charging about the house in 
maniacal fury. If I had heard a dresser 
drawer open I would have surmised 
that he was reaching for his revolver 


—and I would have known what was 
coming. Even if it meant my certain 
death, it were far better to know it 
than not to be aware of the exact form 
and bent his insanity had _ taken. 
Brakely had a revolver in his room, 
and there were two shotguns and a rifle 
in a closet downstairs. 

But Mason Brakely had not planned 
for me a doom so merciful as a quick 
bullet. He had laid out my end in 
a way much more weird and fantastic, 
as I was soon to learn. 

However, I did not then know what 
he was up to. I shifted my gaze be- 
tween the two doorways for a few 
moments, not knowing from which he 
would choose to strike. Then I real- 
ized that my own safety lay in getting 
my hands on one of the guns down- 
stairs. I arose as quietly as I could. 
There was nothing to be gained by sit- 
ting helpless in bed. 

I slid my feet into shippers, and, 
pajama-clad, tiptoed to the stair door- 
way, keeping a watchful eye also on 
the other doorway. Very cautiously 
I peered around the casing toward 
Brakely’s room. What I saw froze my 
blood for an instant, and then sent it 
racing through my veins. 

He stood on his threshold, crouched 
like a panther, as though he had ex- 
pected me to do the very thing I had 
done. His eyes glittered with weasel 
cunning and his lips laid open in the 
ferocious smile which sets on a man’s 
face when he clutches a throat in mor- 
tal combat. I noticed, however, that 
Brakely did not have his revolver in 
hand. 

There was plainly but one thing for 
me to do—get to the closet containing 
the guns as quickly as I could and be- 
fore he did. I was sure I would have 
to shoot old Brake. I would try to 
wound him, to incapacitate him, but- 
I had to remove the menace from my 
own life, even if I had to kill him. I 
doubted whether I would have much 


32 RECOILING SPARKS 


time to shoot as precisely as I wanted. 
I might have to blow his head off or 
blast his chest away. I would rather 
break one of his legs. 

I could not beat Brakely in a run, 
even had I been able to get out of the 
house. I would have to go two miles 
before I could get help—and I could 
not run two miles. Brakely normally 
had tremendous endurance, and, insane, 
all his muscular and lung stamina would 
be increased beyond measurement. 

I sprang. I was only an instant 
quicker than he, but that instant was 
sufficient to give me momentary ad- 
vantage. I leaped down the stairway 
hike a man pursued by an overwhelm- 
ing vengeance. I say down the staar- 
way, but, as a matter of fact, I went 
only halfway down the stairway. From 
there I vaulted over the banister. 

Brakely vaulted over, too. I thought 
I heard him snarl as he pounced down, 
but I was out from under before his 
huge body reached the floor. The drop 
permitted me to gain on him a little. 
I raced into the next room and across 
it to the closet. It ran through my 
mind that the guns were always loaded. 
I reached the closet and flung open the 
door. 

He was so close upon me that I re- 
alized, with heart turned sick, that I 
would not have time to pick up a gun 
and shoot. He would have his power- 
ful hands upon me before I could turn 
around. I had only one hope left— 
and I grasped it. Even that was hardly 
accessible, so close was he to me now. 
I leaped into the closet and jerked the 
door shut, jamming the heavy bolt into 
its socket just as I felt Brakely’s hand 
turn the knob on the other side. 

I leaned against the doer and 
breathed heavily. Then I fumbled 
about in the dark in search of the 
guns. 

They had been taken out of the 
closet. 


Ill. 


The hope that never dies was a mere 
flicker in my breast now. I could not 
long survive in the closet. It was not 
large, and I soon would draw from 
the air all its oxygen. Besides that, 
I felt sure Brakely could force the 
door. There were at hand, had he 
chosen to get them, an ax, a hammer, 
and a saw. 

The door was stout, but not stout 
enough to resist an ax in the hands 
of a maniac, I was conscious of thank- 
fulness that the old house, built when 
the country was wild and sparsely set- 
tled, was equipped with bolts inside its 
closet doors. Brakely told me once 
that this was for the protection of the 
women, who occasionally sought refuge 
in the closets while their menfolk 
fought off marauders. 

There was absolutely no chance of 
flight. Although I could hear no sound, 
I felt sure Brakely was lying in wait 
outside the door, ready to pounce on 
me the moment I emerged. There was 
no weapon of any kind in the closet. 
There wasn’t a strip of board. Being 
in my pajamas, of course I didn’t even 
have a penknife. 

Realizing that I had but a short time 
in which to act, I endeavored to herd 
some sort of plan from the seething 
thoughts that stampeded through my 
brain. 

Of insanity there are various forms. 
One is the insanity from which every 
vestige of reason has fled. That is 
where the entire brain structure has 
toppled and the nervous system has be- 
come like a network of wires over 
which furious currents race after the 
directing hand has gone wild. It is 
just as though a telegraph operator sat 
at his key and frantically made dots 
and dashes without any effort at form- 
ing letters or wards. The dots and 
dashes flash into the brain and sur- 
charge the whole system with a tur- 


RECOILING SPARKS 33 


bulent, incongruous, and usually fero- 
cious momentum. He has nothing to 
which appeal can be made—he has no 
memory, no knowledge of the things 
about him or of himself. He doesn’t 
even know that he is human. 

I did not think that Brakely’s insanity 
was of this description, because he did 
not rave and he showed a certain 
method in his actions. His was a col- 
lapse of the nervous system, the throw- 
ing out of joint of certain nerve cen- 
ters—better described as a crossing of 
wires—in which the brain was not 
wholly lost. He was desperately in- 
sane, but he still had a coherence of 
thought and control of motive which 
left me a feeble hope. 

There was some part of his brain 
which survived. It was dominated for 
the time by the cells which had col- 
lapsed. It was shuttered off from his 
mad being, as a peace-loving man might 
seek refuge from an angry mob. He 
still had reason. He knew he wanted 
to slay me and that I was seeking to 
evade him. He knew I was in the 
closet, and he knew he had to be watch- 
ful test I escape. I doubt if he knew, 
at the moment, just who I was, but 
that is no matter, for the affections of 
a normal mind do not live when the 
mind falls. 

It was my task to reach the part of 
his brain which was still healthy. I 
might do it by a word. I might not 
be able to do it at all. Had he been 
in a cell, where I could proceed with 
leisure and method, I would have had 
a better chance; but I was the one 
who was ifl a cage, a cage rapidly be- 
come stuffy and unendurable. 

“Brake!’ I cried, my mouth close 
to the keyhole. 

There was no answer, but I thought 
I heard somethmg brush against the 
door. 

“Brake—old boy!” 

Still he did not answer, though I 
could now plainly hear him moving 

3AThrill 


about the room. I cried again and 
again, and very faintly his answer came. 

“Where are you?” he asked. His 
voice was husky—the huskiness of 
frayed nerves. 

“This is Walt!’ I cried frantically, 
overjoyed at this seeming response of 
his real self. My voice apparently had 
darted like a lance to the sober tissues 
of his brain. “This is Walt, and I’m 
locked in this closet!’ 

“What are you doing in there?” 

“I—I stepped in here, and the bolt 
got jammed. I can’t slide it back.” 
He must not have the faintest idea, 
if he were emerging from the cloud, 
of the real facts. 

“Tl get the ax and burst in the 
door,” he shouted. 

“No, no!” I cried. ‘Don’t do that!” 
I did not like to think of Brakely just 
then with an ax in his hand. “Don’t do 
that! I can work it open all right.” 

I fumbled at the bolt a minute, and 
then slid it back. I had to quit the 
closet, and I might as well do it before 
my strength was sapped by the weaken- 
ing air. 

I stepped outside, and saw Brakely 
stariding beside a table. Even in the 
dim light I noticed that there was a 
softer glare in his eye. He was still 
insane, but the lust for blood, tempo- 
rarily at least, had faded. 

“What were you doing in that 
closet?’ he asked me. His tone was 
quizzical, bewildered. 

By what I was able to diagnose in 
hasty observation, it was evident that 
Brakely had suddenly gone insane, as 
a result of earlier blows at his nervous 
system linked with some very recent 
overexertion of faculties. He had, 
after an hour or two perhaps, been 
flung into a violent mood, due to some 
deep concentration of his already tot- 
tering brain. In a spasm of that sort 
he had attempted to achieve by vio- 
lence what, mildly insane, he would 
have tried by cunning. He-had not 


34 RECOILING SPARKS 


lost his cunning, but it had been handi- 
capped by his violent mood. After that 
would come a calculated calmness, 
tricky as only the insane can be. That 
apparently was his plight at the mo- 
ment. 

His whole nervous system for the 
time had been ripped from its moor- 
ings, much as a fisherman’s net is ripped 
away and lashed into shreds and tatters 
by a storm. He suddenly had become 
possessed of a desire to slay me, but 
now the lust for blood had lulled into 
a milder insanity. As long as he was 
that way I might control him; I might 
humor him, and even aid him in carry- 
ing out—provided it was harmless— 
whatever design might be in his shat- 
tered brain. 

That was my diagnosis at the mo- 
ment. I did not know then that he had 
been insane for a week, and that I had 
lived all that time in the shadow of 
death. Had I been watchful in the 
slightest degree, I would have observed 
the change, but—well, I had not been 
watchful. 

I. was soon to learn that his insanity 
was not the result of overwork of re- 
cent date. I was soon to Iearn that 
the hurricane raging in his brain had 
been years in the making, that his 
fancy, peopled by tragic recollections 
which became darker and ever darker 
in his broodings, had evolved the 
ghastly design now unfolding. Had 
I known the thoughts which were 
leaping about, like frightful insects, in 
that cunning brain—had I only known! 

“T got chilly in bed, and was look- 
ing for another quilt, Brake,” I an- 
swered his question. “Some way the 
bolt got jammed.” 

“I’ve been looking for you,” he said 
quietly, never once taking his eyes off 
me. “I’ve something-I want to show 
you—and also I’ve something I want 
you to do for me.” His voice was still 
husky. 

“And you know I'll do it, don’t you, 


Brake?” I said, a great wave of relief 
passing over me. “There’s nothing I 
wouldn’t do for you, Brake, and you 
know it.” 

“I’m not so sure of that,” he said, 
and I didn’t exactly like his tone. 
“However, get on some clothes and 
we'll talk it over.” 

I felt an impulse to dash from the 
house and attempt to hide myself in 
the forest, but I knew he was watch- 
ing me closely—ever so closely—and I 
was too cautious. There was no need 
of enraging him, so long as he was 
mild. 

“T’ll go upstairs and dress,” I said. 

“T’ll go with you.” 

“You’d better stay down here, 
Brake. I'll be down in a minute.” 
I had vague ideas of leaping from an 
upstairs window or of getting hold of 
his revolver, if it were still in his room. 

“T’ll go with you,” he said. He was 
not to be thrown off. He clung closely 
to me, never permitting me to get out 
of arm’s reach for an instant, though 
he did not offer to lay hand on me. 

After I had got into underclothes, 
shirt, and trousers, we walked, side by 
side and without a word, down the 
stairway. He led me straight to the 
door of his mysterious laboratory and 
unlocked it. When the door was pushed 
open I saw that a kerosene lamp was 
burning in the room. There was noth- 
ing visible from where I stood but a 
long workbench on the other side of 
the room, a large table in the center, 
and two small chairs. Bench and table 
were littered with wire, battery jars, 
and other electrical apparatus. The 
floor had its accumulation of junk, too. 

“Step in,” he said. ‘We'll have our 
little talk in here.” 

An unaccountable dread overcame 
me, but, being within grasp of his strong 
hand, I had no choice. I stepped into 
the room and over to the table in the 
center. My eye quickly swept half the 


RECOILING SPARKS as 


room before I gave my whole attention 
to Brakely. So far I had seen nothmg 
unusual. With misgiving I watched 
him close the door, lock it, and thrust 
the key in a pocket in his trousers. I 
turned a quick glance to the windows, 
and saw that they were still boarded 
up. He walked slowly to the other side 
of the table and pulled up one of the 
chairs. 

“Get a chair,” 
down.” 

I turned to obey, and my gaze fell 
for the first time into a corner of the 
room somewhat shaded from the glow 
of the lamp. It was then that I saw 
what speared my heart with the su- 
preme horror of that horrible night. 

In the corner, as grim as the most 
vivid fancy could picture it, stood a 
fully equipped electric chair! 


said he, “and sit 


IV. 


I don’t believe there exists a death 
chamber as weird and as ghastly as 
that room—the house as lonely as a 
lighthouse when the dawn breaks over 
the sea with a storm, and the room, 
windows boarded up and lighted by the 
yellowish pallor from the sputtering 
lamp, seeming to be even farther from 
the world. Thus we sat with the lit- 
tered table between us; my hope not 
nearly so bright as the dilated pupils 
of Brakely’s eyes. And at my back 
—unseen, yet as plain as though it were 
before me, so vivid its impression— 
stood the instrument of death, which I 
now knew that Brakely had fashioned 
for me. 

Studying him as closely as I did now, 
I measured with despair the depth of 
his insanity. It was hopeless, at least 
for some days, and without treatment 
which I was powerless to give at the 
time. He had set his whole being upon 
one thing. I could not circumvent him 
by strength. There was no weapon 


that I could see in the room. My only 
hope lay in outwitting him. 

“Walt,” said he evenly, though in the 
raspy, hoarse voice of the insane, 
“‘you’re a man who has given his life 
to mankind, aren’t you?” 

“T’ve tried,” I said, forcing an air 
of easy assurance, “to stamp out what 
disease I have encountered. That is the 
business of our profession.” 

“That’s it,” he agreed. “That’s it.” 
Your life is wrapped up in a profession 
which seeks to benefit humanity. First 
you nearly worked yourself to death in 
saving me, and then you started out 
to save others. It's wonderful to have 
a friend like you, Walt.” 

“It’s wonderful to have a friend ifke 
you, Brake.” 

Here was the proof of his particular 
affiction—rational msanity. Reasona- 
ble, remembermg everything, retaining 
his affections, knowing every move he 
was making, he was insane upon one 
thing, and upon that, as unswerving 
as the ram of a battleshtp. 

“You and I both, Walt, are alone in 
the world,” said he. ‘‘We’re bachelors, 
and we haven’t any relatives closer than 
cousins.” 

“Yes,” I agreed, knowing ohly too 
well where this was leading. 

“What could be better, then,” he 
asked, elbows on the table and his glit- 
tering eyes pushed nearer to me, “than 
giving our lives to humanity ?”’ 

“That would depend, Brake, on 
whether the end was worth the sacri- 
fice.” 

“It is worth it—and I'l prove it. 
I’m glad to fmd you in a reasonable 
mood. Look back of you—in that cor- 
ner.” 

I faced the hideous thing again, 
standing there as silently and as yawn- 
ingly as the pit of hell. Then I turned 
quickly back to him. 

“That,” said I, “is an electric chair.” 

“Yes, it’s an electric chair, Walt, 
and I’m going to ask you to die in it.” 


36 RECOILING SPARKS 


We looked steadily into each other’s 
eyes a moment, and then Brakely 
reached to the floor and lifted up a 
glass jar, which I now saw for the 
first time. This jar had a capacity of 
a gallon, and over its top was clamped 
a metal cover. The jar was nearly full 
of a greenish liquid. 

“What good will it do humanity,” 
I asked, watching him place the jar 
on the table, ‘for me to die in that 
electric chair?” 

“What good will it do humanity?” 
he repeated. “It will do this good: So 
long as men die in electric chairs, the 
sacrifice we are to make here to-night 
will cause their end to be without hor- 
_ror. It will demonstrate that there is 
absolutely no pain attached to the most 
powerful of electric shocks. It will 
prove to all men that dying by elec- 
tricity is as easy as dying by chlioro- 
form.” 

“And still,” I argued, “it will not re- 
move the horror that all men have of 
death—whether by chloroform or elec- 
tricity.” 

“You have never before been con- 
fronted with death by electricity, Walt, 
else you wouldn't say that. You haven't 
any conception of the horror induced 
in a man’s mind by weeks of waiting 
for that terrible, rending, burning 
shock. You’ve never seen the terror 
on their faces as they are led by your 
cell. You’ve never heard their cries. 
You know nothing about it.’”” He was 
silent a moment. ‘Tell me,” he asked 
quickly, “would you rather die in that 
-ehair or be chloroformed ?” 

' I admitted to myself that I would 
rather be chloroformed, but I said to 
Brakely: “I don’t know that it would 
make any difference, Brake. I really 
don’t. I don’t want to die, but if I 
had to die I don’t know that I’d worry 
much over the method, so long as it 
wasn’t one of torture.” 

“But you,” he countered, “have just 
been sentenced to death.” The earth 


seemed to drop from beneath my feet 
at this. “You have just been sentenced 
to death, and you are to be spared the 
ordeal of waiting. That’s the horror 


_of it, Walt—the waiting, the weeks of 


anticipating that shock, with others 
about you being led to slaughter. You 
think of that shock and the odor of 
burning flesh and hair.” 

Here were the years of brooding 
upon the terrible experiences of his 
youth. Tragedy was heavy upon him, 
and his voice seemed to bleed with it. 

“How are you going to prove by my 
death, Brake, that the end is painless?” 
I asked. 

“I have here,” he said, laying his 
huge hand on the jar, “a chemical 
solution which I compounded after 
years of research. Only within the last 
few days have I learned of its success 
by experiments on myself. There are 
elements of narcotics in it, but its chief 
ingredient is a chemical compound 
which acts as an antithesis to electric 
shock—not the current, mind you, but 
the shock. When this solution is rubbed 
on the hands, feet, and head, or where- 
ever the electrodes touch a man’s body, 
the electric current is admitted to the 
tissues without shock. It doesn’t 
weaken the current; it simply induces, 
when the current meets the liquid, a 
sudden lethargy, with absolutely no sen- 
sation of pain. The victim dozes off, 
with positively none of the sensations 
of pain or death.” 

“And how do you know this?” 

“I’ve tried it on myself,” he said 
calmly, ‘‘at reduced voltage, of course. 
I felt none of the tingliness of elec- 
tricity. There was no shock. I touched 
my hands to two electrodes and there 
was a squeezing sensation, as though 
I were shaking hands with some one, 
and then a_ delightful drowsiness. 
There wasn’t the slightest unpleasant- 
ness about it, Walt; not in the least. 
Why, if I were confronted by death 


RECOILING SPARKS 


like that, I’d sing every day I was in 
a cell, and march out gladly!” 

Poor devil! He didn’t understand 
that when he made his last test he was 
insane, and that electric shocks, untess 
strong enough nearly to kill, are vir- 
tually imperceptible in certain forms of 
insanity. And I couldn’t tefl him he 
was insane! 

“But, Brake,” I argued, more to gain 
time than anything else, for I knew he 
couldn’t be moved from the main point, 
“don’t you think that if State govern- 
ments wanted to reduce the horrors 
of execution, they would adopt the 
chloroform method? Supposmg I do 
die without pain, what good is that go- 
ing to do the men who are to be exe- 
cuted ?” 

“When the results of this experiment 
are published,” he cried, rising to his 
feet in the manner of an impassioned 
orator, “public opinion will demand that 
my discovery be used in every death 
chamber in the country! Then the men 
who are to be executed for years to 
come will be spared the horrors that 
were not spared me. They will meet 
death bravely, instead of like squealing 
pigs. I have prepared everything. 

“TI have written my own story, and 
in it I give such a description of the 
horrors of a death house that nothing 
can stand in the way of their ameliora- 
tion. It will be many years yet before 
capital pumshment is abolished, but it 
won’t be six months before the horrors 
are taken away from it by my discov- 
ery. 

“Just how is your discovery going to 
be made public?” 

“At seven o’clock in the morning,” 
he said, “and I have set the time of 
your death at six-thirty, Doctor Mal- 
bauer and Doctor Traxler will arrive 
here. They are our friends, and I have 
their assurances that they will be here. 
Of course they don’t know what’s go- 
ing on; they think I’m down sick, and_ 
I’ve arranged it so they will get into 


37 


Binffton at six o'clock. It will take 
them an hour to get out here. 

“When they arrive I’ll have your 
body laid out on this table. I’m going 
to clear this junk away and spread a 
sheet- over it. I'll explain things to 
them and they will perform an autopsy. 
Of course they can tell by the brain 
cells and structure of the nerve centers 
and heart whether you died with pain 
or a very little pain or absolutely with- 
out pain. They will find that you died 
absolutely without pain, and the result 
will be given to the world. Then, Walt, 
my old friend, I’ll kill myself. I can’t 
ask you to sacrifice your life unless I’m 
willing to do the same. But that will 
be nothing, so long as my discovery is 
given to the world. I have written its 
formula, and will deliver it to Malbauer 
and Traxler, together with my written 
story. It will be a big thing for the 
newspapers, and the country will rise 
up and demand just what we seek.” 

I sat, amazed, with rapidly diminish- 
ing hope. I say diminishing for lack 
of another word, for I doubt if any- 
thing so small as my hope can dimm- 
ish. I was astounded at the details 
which this insane man had gathered into 
the finished web of his dark design. 
I stared while he smiled. 

“But tell me, Brake,” I asked, “why 
don’t you conduct your experiment on 
a pig or an animal of some kind? Why 
sacrifice our lives when another method 
is available?” 

“A man has got to die,” he said posi- 
tively. ‘I might electrocute a hundred 
pigs and attract no attention. But if 
I electrocute a man—don’t you see? 
Publicity is what we must have—pub- 
licity and a deep investigation. The 
world must have our story and my dis-- 
covery. Walt, I’ve thought this thing 
out thoroughly—and a man has got to 
die!” 

“Then,” I said with some heat, “why 
don’t you climb into that chair and let 
me electrocute you? Why do you 


38 RECOILING SPARKS 


choose me, against my will, when you’re 
the one oe 

“I’d give my soul, Walt,” he inter- 
rupted, “if that were possible. Indeed 
I would. You know, Walt, that if you 
ever got me strapped in that chair you’d 
run for help and wouldn’t finish the 
job.” 

“But you needn’t strap yourself in 
the chair. If I offer to run away you 
can jump out and stop me.” 

“No,” he said; “you’d give me enough 
juice to stun me—and then run off. 
You wouldn’t go through with it, Walt, 
and you know it. As I said, I’ve gone 
into every detail of this thing, and 
there’s only one course to pursue— 
we’ve both got to die; you first, and 
then me.” 

I turned around and looked at a small 
clock I had heard ticking on a shelf. 
It was four-twenty. 

“I have,” I said, forcing a smile, 
“two hours and ten minutes to live.” 

“Two hours and ten mifutes,” he 
agreed. “Don’t you think it’s wonder- 
ful, Walt?” 

“It will be if everything turns out 
all right,” I said. 

“And you agree to die, do you, Wal-. 
ter, old boy?” 

“Well, Brake, I don’t see what else 
I can do. I’m in a corner.” 

“Yes,” he admitted sorrowfully. 
“And I’d hate terribly to have to com- 
pel you to die.” My worst fears were 
confirmed. I was to die anyway, will- 
ing or unwilling. “I want you to go 
to it like the brave man you are, Walt. 
I don’t want to strap you into that chair 
by force. I want to feel that you’re 
as willing as I.to make the sacrifice.” 

“Of course—of course.” 

“And you agree?” 

“If you really think it will achieve 
the end you seek, Ill agree, Brake. 
T’ve a lot of confidence in you.’ 

“Good old Walt!” he cried, thrusting 
his hand across the table. “Good old 
Walt! I knew you were true blue!” 


V. 


As we began our death watch, talk- 
ing much as we had at other and more 
pleasant times, I set to wondering if I 
could not contrive to turn that clock 
backward, having no doubt that he had 
spoken the truth about 1'raxler and 
Malbauer, college mates and old friends 
of both of us. If I could do that— 
set it back, say, forty minutes—I had 
a good chance to return safely to the 
peaceful practice of medicine. But of 
all things I must not do, I must not 
antagonize Brakely. He had deter- 
mined on my death and he would see 
it accomplished. He might hasten it 
if I showed fight. 

He watched me in every movement 
I made. I knew him thoroughly now 
—embodying all the love he really held 
for me, but not abating in the least his 
maniacal cunning. He had taken, and 
would take, all necessary precautions 
from the time he had hidden the fire- 
arms until I lay upon the sheet-covered 
table. 

“Come, Walt,” he said after a few 
minutes, “we'll go upstairs.” 

We went up the stairs side by side, 
talking in a very friendly vein. From 
a linen closet he procured a sheet and 
we went back to the death chamber. 
He cleared the junk from the table 
and spread the sheet over it, talking 
earnestly of his discovery all the time. 

“Brake,” said I, “isn t it customary to 
give a condemned man his breakfast? 
Why don’t you fetch me something 
to eat?” 

“Come into the kitchen,” he sug- 
gested, “and we'll get breakfast.” 

“Brake,” I protested, “I dislike your 
attitude of distrust. I’ve given you 
my word—and I want to be trusted. 
Let’s not doubt each other at a time 
like this. And will you forbid me the 
right of being alone for a while? That 
is not denied the most wretched of mur- 
derers.” 


RECOILING SPARKS 33 


He gazed at me intently. “Walt,” 
said he, “I’ll trust you. You stay here, 
and I'll fetch yonr breakfast.” 

I waited a minute or two after he 
had quit the room, and then, when I 
heard him fumbling around in the 
kitchen, I grasped the clock from the 
shelf and set it back fifteen minutes. 
I did not dare set it back more, for 
fear he would notice it, trusting to other 
opportunities to stretch the time until 
Malbauer and Traxler should arrive. 
The clock now said four-forty-five, but 
of course the nght time was five o’clock. 
Brakely had started a fire, and while 
it was burning up he stepped back to 
the door of the death chamber for a 
moment. 

“Walt,” said he very sorrowfully, 
glancing at the clock, ‘‘you’ve set that 
clock back fifteen minutes.” 

“Why, no——” 

“Yes, you have, Walt.’””’ He stepped 
to the shelf and turned the clock to the 
correct time. “Now I’ have to watch 
you again. Came into the kitchen with 
me.” 

There was a determined light in his 
eye, and I obeyed. In the kitchen I 
found he had hidden various things— 
the poker and everything which might 
be turned into a weapon. 

We both had breakfast of fruit, fried 
ham and eggs, toast and ceffee, but 
there was a strained atmosphere be- 
tween us now. Brakely’s lips had set 
grimly, and I know the man had con- 
vinced himself that he was about to 
confer an enormous benefit on mankind 
and that he was sorry that I, his friend, 
should try to circumvent him. He was 
more intent than ever upon my death. 
He cut my ham into bits, and compelled 
me to eat breakfast with a spoon. 

Then we returned to the death cham- 
ber, At the door, I stopped abruptly, 
determined to make a struggle for my 
life. I sprang upon him, striking htm 
with my fist squarely upon the poimt 
of the jaw, clutching for his throat. 


The blow merely drove his head back 
a little, and before my hand could reach 
his throat he had clutched both my 
wrists in a terrible grasp and flung me. 
into the small chair in which I pre- 
viously had been sitting at the table. 
He shut the door and locked it quickly. 

“Walt,” he said, “I’m awfully sorry 
that you acted this way.”’ He did not 
seem to be angry. “I don’t want to. 
execute you now, but you may force 
me to. I want the body as fresh as 
possible when Malbauer and Traxler 
get here. So let’s not fight any more.” 

“All right, Brake,” I agreed. “T’ll 
yield. It was hard, Brake, to give up 
life with so little warning, but I'll do 
as you say now.” 

I had finally formed a coherent plan, 
and the success of it depended to the 
fullest degree on amicable relations with 
my executioner. 

Arising from the chair before the 
sheet-covered table, upon which more 
than once I had visioned my stark body, 
I asked him if I might examine the elec- 
tric chair. Together we went to it. 

It was an old morris chair fram 
which the cushions had been stripped 
and into which a seat of leather had 
been tacked. Strips of sheet steel had 
been nailed about its structure, form- 
ing the circuit to the electrodes fastened 
one upon each arm for the hands; a 
huge one hanging down from the back 
for the head; another hanging limply 
from a steel strap over the left arm 
for the heart; and the long strip of 
steel, fashioned like the foot rest on 
a barber’s chair, for the feet. A pair 
of copper wires were connected to the 
chair, below the right arm, in screw - 
sockets attached to the sheet steel. 
These wires ran to a switch eight feet 
away and thence to a huge generating 
set against the wall. It was a powerful 
system, I could see that—powerful 
enough to wrench the life from me. 
The chair was equipped with a set of 
straps securely to hold the victim. 


40 RECOILING SPARKS 


It was rather dark in that corner, 
from the position in which the kero- 
sene lamp was set, and, laughing, I sat 
down in the chair and placed my hands 
on the electrodes. Brakely smiled down 
upon me. 

“It won’t be so bad, Walt,” he said. 
“You'll simply fall asleep.” 

“I guess you're right,” said I. 

I sat a few minutes in the chair, 
keeping him busy at talk while I rubbed 
my hands over the strips of steel on 

‘the arms and felt of the ends of wire 
fitted into the screw sockets. Then I 
got up and we resumed our places by 
the table—the sheet-covered table. The 
clock on the shelf now said five-forty- 


one—forty-nine minutes before the 
time of execution. 
“Brake,” I suggested, “that ham 


made me thirsty. Let’s get a pitcher 
of water.” 

“You'll go with me?” he asked. 

“Certainly. I’m resigned now to the 
inevitable.” 

“I’m glad to hear you say that, but 
I could wish you were a little more 
‘enthusiastic about this great contribu- 
tion to mankind.” 

I was principally concerned in saving 
my poor life instead of giving my car- 
cass to his wild dream, but I said noth- 
ing. We went to the kitchen, procured 
a large pitcher of water and two glasses, 
and returned to the horrible yellow 
room. In the kitchen I had seen that 
daylight was coming on—coming on 
with a grayness which turned the sky 
the ashen hue of a corpse. 

In the execution chamber Brake set 
the pitcher and glasses on the table, 
and I did not offer to drink at once, 
for I had drunk in the kitchen. 

“Suppose,” I suggested, “that we de- 
lay the actual execution until we hear 
the steps of Malbauer and Traxler on 
the porch.” 

“You’re sparring for time,” he com- 
“mented. 

“But,” said I, “it will not interfere 


with your plans and it may be of im- 
mense benefif in determining the exact 
state of my body. You can strap me 
in the chair and stand at the switch 
The moment we hear their steps or 
the porch you can throw on the cur- 
rent. If I contemplated trickery, that 
would gain me nothing, for once that 
switch is in . 

“T believe you’re right,” he agreed 
quietly. “We'll do that. It may be 
better to have the body warm when 
we start the autopsy.” 

“Certainly! If I’m going to give up 
my life in this cause I want to do every- 
thing to make the sacrifice profitable. 
I don’t want the experiment to fail 
simply because you killed me too quick.” 

I had taken to pacing the floor now, 
stopping to examine the switch, the 
generating set, and the chair. I did 
not lay my hands on a thing, because 
he watched me like a hawk, although 
he did not object to my walking about. 
Even in his insanity he didn’t wish 
to deny me this slight balm to my nerv-~ 
ousness, 

I walked to the table and poured 
out a glass of water as though about 
to drink, but I did not drink. Glass 
in hand, I sauntered over to the switch 
and studied it intently. I shifted the 
glass from one hand to the other, and 
accidentally spilled half the water on 
the floor beneath the switch. I quickly 
drank the remainder of the water, and 
set the glass back on the table. 

I paced about the room, kicking idly 
at the scraps of junk that lay on the 
floor. It was now eighteen minutes 
after six o’clock, and soon I upset an- 
other glass of water in such fashion 
that it slopped over Brakely’s slippers. 

‘‘You’se nervous,” he said, and there 
was pity in his tone. : 

“I’m extremely nervous,” I_ assured 
him. “Let’s get the Bible and spend 
a few minutes in prayer.” 

We soon had the Bible in the room, 
and now, the better to hear Malbauer 


RECOILING SPARKS 41 


and Traxler when they came, Brakely 
left open the door to the room. The 
sun was rising grandly, and the sky 
had been. enlivened into a_ healthful 
glow. 

We read together a few passages of 
the Scriptures, knelt. and prayed for 
the repose of both our souls, and then, 
tears in his eyes, Brakely quickly pre- 
pared me for the execution. 

He produced a pair of shears and 


cut a wide area of hair away from my 


scalp. Then he cut a round piece out 
of my shirt and undergarment, over 
the heart. Then he anointed my head, 
my breast, and hands thoroughly with 
the greenish solution. Seated in the 
chair, I watched him pull my slippers 
and socks off and lave the soles of my 
feet with the fluid. In a few minutes 
I sat helpless in the chair, my bare 
feet strapped to the foot rest, my arms 
to the arms, and other leather thongs 
holding my legs and trunk securely. 
I felt the cold electrodes clamp down 
upon my head and over my heart. I 
must have had a terrible look upon 
my face, for I was in mortal fear. 

“Good old Walt,” he whispered as 
he worked, and soon he stood by the 
switch. I breathed more easily. 

“Don’t look at me, Brake,” I pleaded, 
“else T’ll lose courage.” 

“T’ll not look, Walt, old boy!” I 
could hear him sobbing gently, a weird 
sob in which insanity and emotion were 
mingled. 

“IT won’t throw in the switch,” he 
promised me, “until we hear them on 
the porch, and I'll give you a signal 
first.” 

“Good old Brake!” said I. 

“Good old Walt!” 

I stared straight ahead, and he did 
not once face me. We had but a tense 
minute or two to wait. 

We first heard the chugging of an 
automobile, and soon a thumping of 
boots on the porch and a clattering at 
the door. 


“There they are, Walt; there they 
are!” cried -Brakely. ‘“‘Good-by, dear 
old Walt; I’ll be with you before the 
day’s over! Good-by i 

The cry died in his throat with a 
sickening gurgle, for he had thrown 
in the switch. His body first became 
stiff, then trembled from head to toe, 
and, shuddering, went down with a 
mighty crash. 

“Help! Help!’ I cried with all the 
strength I could summon into my shak- 
ing voice. 

There was a crash as a front window 
went out, for Malbauer and Traxler 
were men of action, and soon they were 
in the room. Sparks sputtered furi- 
ously from the wire ends lying against 
a strip of sheet steel on the floor near 
the chair, and there was a nauseating 
odor of burning cloth and flesh. 

“Throw off that switch!” I cried. 
“Take the broom there, and don’t step 
on those pieces of steel or in the water !” 

Traxler soon had thrown off the 
switch, and Malbauer and he rushed to 
my side, seeing in my ghastly position 
greater need of help than in Brakely 
on the floor. 

“Brake needs you first!” I cried. 
“Quick—quick! It’s electrocution!” 

They lifted him to the table, and 
Traxler raised an eyelid. 

“He lives,” he said calmly. 

-I collapsed. I sat, sobbing, like a 
stubborn corpse which, strapped in the 
horrible chair, refused to be quiet even 
after life had been burned out of it. 

Brakely was brought back to con- 
sciousness. His powerful body, its en- 
durance swelled by his malady, had re- 
sisted a shock which surely would have 
killed me. Luckily he had fallen in such 
a way as to break the current. ‘His 
feet were horribly burned—but he lived. 

It took me some time to convince 
Malbauer and Traxler that we were not 
both insane, for my nerves refused to 
lie still all through the day, so terrible 


42 RECOILING SPARKS 


had been the experience. Bat they 
finally got my story out of me, and 
until these pages were written it has 
been kept secret. 

I had outwitted Brakely during the 
moments I was walking around the 
reom and while we were praying. In 
kicking idly at the scraps of sheet steel 
there was a method. While walking 
and while on my knees I lined up a 
complete system of scraps of steel and 
connected them with the puddle of 
water which formed beneath the switch 
and in which Brakely stood in his wet 
slippers, so that when he turned on 
the current he get it himself. 


When I sat down in the chair I had 
unloosened the wires from the screw 
sockets and let them drop to the floor. 
It was dark im that spot, and I had 
chosen a moment when Brakely’s eyes 
were turned. From these exposed wire 
ends I kicked my little steel circuit into 
line. ‘Guided by Providence, I saved 
my life and his, too. 

Poor old Brake! He never wholly 
recovered, but violence did not come 
to him again. I visited him often in 
a quiet sanitarium, where he died a 
year ago. We were friends to the end, 
but sometimes I feel that old Brake 
never quite forgave me. 


SUCH BEAUTY 


By Roy le Moyne 
IFE’S bleeding hands are at my throat . . . I see 
The heavy shadows gather in her eyes 
And all her arts, her horde of ready lies 
No longer thrill me with their subtlety. 
Though she still holds me I have shaken free 
The lust of bitterness and vain surprise; 
For every vision that within me dies 
I gain the strength of an eternal mystery. 


I’ve known a heart that does not dream of fear, 
A spirit flamimg with eternal light, 

Music that only the immortals hear 
Amid the open silences of night . . 

Past the tamult that fills the weary ear 
I know stch beauty as my laugh at might. 


HE doctors say that Andrews’ 
death was caused by heart fail- 
ure, and up to the time I pen 

these words no one has ventured an- 
other opinion. Some things are hard 
to say. Very likely the doctors were 
right. No post-mortem was made. But 
the causes of heart failure? 

“You will say, of course, that there is 
no such thing as a dim half world, 
where the spirits of beasts and men, 
rightly tuned to the vibrations of that 
medium, can mingle together on com- 
mon ground. You will say, too, that 
it is preposterously ridiculous to at- 
tribute to an animal the powers of good 
and evil impulse belonging only to man. 
You will scoff utterly and unreservedly 
at the ancient theory of the beast- 
human-devil. So did Bill Johnson, so 
did Tom Patterson, so.did I—a year 
ago. But now, I say, I know of many 
things which formerly had never en- 
tered my most horror-haunted dreams. 

And Andrews, poor fellow! He 
plumbed depths. we never reached. I 
hope that by this time he has lost for- 
ever the memory of those crawling pits 
of blackness into which his quivering 
soul was dragged. 


For ten years Bill Johnson, his man 


Tom Patterson, and myself have spent 
two weeks of each November hunting 
in the Northern woods. Last year was 


no exception. Bill had asked permis- 
sion to invite a new man to join the 
party this time, a young fellow by the 
name of Andrews, who werked im his 
office. Naturally Bill’s indorsement 
was enough for any man. 

At five-thirty o’clock on the after- 
noon of November 17th I was speed- 
ing up the maple-lined drive to Bill’s 
bachelor quarters at Longgreen. Mine 
host commenced to shout airy greetings 
at me when I was still afar off, and 
lifted me to my toes by a slap on 
thé back as I entered his ancestral hall. 

As usual a huge fire was-roaring be- 
hind the library grate, but in the half 
dusk of the big room I stumbled against 


-the back of an armchair and caused the 


occupant to jump in a startled manner. 
At the same instant I was conscious 
of a smothered grow] at my feet, and 
hastened to retract my last step. 

“Shag,” shouted Bill, “get out of 
here!” 

“Beast of a temper,” he muttered as 
a huge, grayish brute got up and ambled 
out of the room. “Don’t know why 
I keep the worthless cur, anyhow.” 
He laughed apologetically, and for the 


44 BETWEEN TWO WORLDS 


few seconds of time that it took for 
the dog to pass through the French 
doors and out of sight down the cor- 
ridor, Bill’s eyes followed him. Then, 
at a stir from the man im the chair, 
he pulled himself up. 

“Sam,” he boomed, “I want you to 
meet Andrews here. Looks as if he 
needed a change, don’t he? Won't a 
week in the little old woods pull the 
crinks out of him, though? Guess we 
could stand a little light here, eh?” 

“Glad to meet you,” I began. “Any 
friend of Bill’s a 

Then I saw that he wasn’t looking 
at me at all. He was slumped back 
in hig chair, with one hand—his right 
—hanging limply over the arm. 
face was turned toward the door. In 
the reflection from the fire his skin 
looked ashen and transparent. Follow- 
ing the direction of his intent gaze, I 
thought I caught a glimpse of the dog’s 
face.grinning against the glass of the 
door, an illusion which seemed to dis- 
solve itself into the dark of the hall 
as, Bill clicked on the switch. 

Andrews drew a quicker breath, like 
a man who has been suddenly released 
from an electric current, and turnéd his 
face toward me—not a remarkable face 
except, perhaps, the eyes. I remember 
that at the time they reminded me start- 
lingly of the helpless, frightened eyes 
of the first rabbit I ever trapped. He 
kfted his hand slowly, as if it had a 
weight at the end of it, and held it out 
to me. He made no attempt to rise. 
With a voice as commonplace as his 
face he said: 

“Very glad to meet you, sir.” 

In surprise I noted that the back of 
‘his hand was clammy and covered with 
red spots. A mere boy he seemed per- 
haps twenty or thereabouts. 

Tom’s call to supper—three blasts on 
a cow’s horn—checked off Bill’s next 
pleasantry in its bright beginning. 

After supper, with Bill and Andrews, 
I returned to the library full of a sense 


His ~ 


of well-being and all I could eat of 
Tom’s nonbeatable fried duck. The 
fire was licking its tongues after some- 
thing up the chimney. Shag lay 
stretched on the fur robe in front of 
the hearth. 

“Say, Sam,” said Bill as he lowered 
his stomach carefully into the biggest 
chair, “do you remember that trail 
along the bluff, where Tom got the big 
bear last fall? By jing, I’m going to 
beat him to that place if it takes a leg! 
If there’s any big game stirring it will 
be along that bluff. We can put An- 
drews here near one of the drinking 
spots on the lake. Ever take a shot 
at a bear, Andrews?” 

We both looked toward the boy 
where he sat in the corner somewhat 
behind my chair. Shag was lying be- 
side him—I had not seen the beast 
move from in front of the fire—licking 
the back of his hand and looking into 
his face. The boy raised his eyes—I 
felt somehow that it was with difficulty 
—to look at Bill. 

“No, Mr. Johnson, I never even saw 
a bear,” he replied slowly and very dis- 
tinctly as if keeping his mind with an 
effort on the words he was speaking. 

“The deuce you haven’t! Well, you'll 
see a bear, and several other things you 
never saw before, on this trip, my boy!” 
prophesied Bill, leaning across the dog 
to slap Andrews’ thin knee resound- 
ingly. Then he straightened up with 
a curse and shouted: ‘You, Shag, get 
out of here! Get aut—of—here!” his 
voice rising higher with every word. 

The dog obeyed his command sul- 
lenly, only stopping at the door to turn 
and show us his bared fangs, and then 
slipping his gray bulk silently down the 
corridor. 

Bill muttered a few minor curses 
against the beast, but I did not venture 
to inquire what- he had done to deserve 
them. Then, settling back into the 
depths of his chair, he began, as I had 
been expecting him to at any moment, 


BETWEEN TWO WORLDS 45 


on his oldest and most cherished moose 
story. I composed myself for a rest- 
ful half hour with my own thoughts, 
as I knew from much experience that 
nothing short of sudden death could 
turn him from that story until the last 
word had been spoken and the period 
added. 

At the place in the middle, where he 
always stopped for a breath, Andrews 
arose nervously and remarked in.a low 
and apologetic voice: 

“If it is all right, Mr. Johnson, I 
believe I'll go to bed. I don’t know 
why, but I seem to be unusually tired 
since. I got here.” 

Bill cast him an unseeing glance, 
waved his hand benignly in his direc- 
tion, muttered, “Sure, sure, make your- 
self at home,” and picked up the moose 
just where he had left him. 

In an effort to distract my mind from 
the cracking of Bill’s favorite joke, I 
watched Andrews from the tail of my 
eye. He walked with a-quick, halting 
step to the glass doors, and was about 
to open them when, as I thought, there 
appeared in a fitful red gleam from the 
fire the face of the dog, Shag, grinning 
out at him from the blackness of the 
hall. 

He hesitated and half turned back. 
Thinking, rather contemptuously, that 
he was probably afraid of the dark, I 
tried to help him out. 

“Want a light:” I asked. “Here’s 
_the switch.” And I pressed it. 

Without so much as a “thank you” 
he turned to the hall and stared up 
and down its brilliantly lighted length. 
My eyes followed his. It was empty. 
The malevolent beast face against the 
glass had been a figment of the fire= 
light then, after all. 

“Good night,” he said, and started to- 
ward the stairs. 

Neither this little occurrence nor any 
of the others made any special im- 
pression upon me at the time. An- 
drews seemed to me merely a super- 


sensitive, rather effeminate young man. 
It is since it has all happened that these 
little things come back to me with such 
tremendous significance, like the finger 
prints and cigar ashes in a detective: 
story. 

As I turned from the hall, Bill, with 
appropriate and dramatic gestures, had 
just emptied his repeater into the old 
bull and was loading up again to meet 
him head on. Our little byplay had 
not swerved him a hair’s-breadth from 
his narrative. 

We lingered on for two hours after 
Andrews had left, loath to lose even 
the first evening of our cherished holi- 
day. Had it not been for the fact 
that we had to make a five o’clock start, 
daylight would have found us still un- 
earthing moldy yarns. However, at 
eleven, Bill’s stockinged feet padded 
up the stairs ahead of me. 

“Night,” he yawned, and rolled to 
his own room at the far end of the 
corridor. 

I knew the way to mine well, and 
proceeded there. In passing Andrews’ 
door I was surprised to see a dim light 
showing through the glass transom. 

“Wasn't so tired, after all,” I thought 
to myself. 

When I was nearly ready for bed it 
happened to enter-my mind that An- 
drews had been looking at my road 
map and had not returned it. I could 
not spend the night without that map 
safe in my right-hand pocket. I put 
my head out of the door. The light 
still shone through the transom, so in 
my stockinged feet I started quickly 
down the hall. About to put my hand 
on Andrews’ doorknob I stopped. 
Something stopped me. [I can account 
in no other way for not rushing into 
Andrew’s room in my usual headlong 
manner. 

From the other side of the door I 
heard voices, Andrews’ low and tense, 
which seemed to be agreeing nervously 
with what the other voice was demand- 


46 BETWEEN TWO WORLDS 


ing. The second voice I could not 
place. It was a low murmur, almost 
continuous, strangely unintelligible, a 
mere jumble of sounds. As I stood 
during those few seconds, listening to 
words I could not understand, there 
came over me a feeling of violent re- 
pulsion for the second speaker. I did 
not know him, but that made no differ- 
ence; I did not want to. I hoped to 
_ Heaven that I should never have to see 
the owner of that voice. 

Steps within the rdom brought the 
speaker close to the door, and Andrews’ 
voice came to me very distinctly. 

“Yes, I will,” he said. “I promise 
you I will do it!” 

The door opened, and I was gripped 
by a sudden nausea. I flattened my- 
self against the wall, yet, in spite of 
my ardent desire to do so, I could not 
close my eyes. They were fixed on 
that lighted slit of doorway from which 
one figure emerged, alone, and turned 
to go down the hall. 

“Good Heaven! Shag!” burst from 
my lips. 

On the instant the dog silently 
whirled and faced me, his face drawn 
into the most satanic expression I ever 
saw on an animal, Andrews closed his 
door and left the hall in darkness. I 
fled precipitately for my room, expect- 
ing every second to feel the fangs of 
that beast at my throat. 


In the morning, after spending rather 
a restless night, I must confess, I was 
inclined to look upon the previous eve- 
ning’s occurrence as a distorted night- 
mare. What reason had I to excite 
myself if Andrews had a spell of talk- 
ing to himself in Hindustani or some 
other unearthly jargon? Perhaps he 
was a ventriloquist. Perhaps Tom was 
the other speaker. As to the dog—well, 
it was his business if he wanted that 
beast hanging around in his room. The 
cause of my queer sickness was too 
much fried duck, of course. By the 


time I was dressed the thing had as- 
sumed normal proportions. 

At four-thirty we had finished a sub- 
stantial breakfast. When Tom and I 
brought up the cars at four forty-five 
we found Bill and Andrews engaged 
in a heated discussion on the froat 
porch. Shag was squatted in the midst 
of the pack of hounds, a place where 
he certainly did not belong. 

“He’s no hunting deg, Andrews, and 
he’d simply be a nuisance! Why, I 
tried him out on wolves once and he 
ran! He ran, mind you, ran from 
a wolf! He hasn’t any nose and no 
eyes to brag of. Why—why—why 
——” Bill ended in a splutter and a 
waving of hands. 

Andrews, paler than he had seemed 
the night before, was regarding him 
steadily. 

“But I promised, Mr. Johnson. I 
promised that he should go.” 

“Promised!” Bill shot at 
“Whom did you promise?” 

Andrews threw a wild and helpless 
look around him and caught at the 
porch post. In spite of the waves of 
horrible nausea that were sweeping 
over me, I managed to control my voice 
enough to speak. I said the first thing 
I could think of to help Andrews out 
of his predicament and stop his suffer- 
ing. Weak-livered fool that I was, I 
said with my tongue cleaving to my 
palate: : 

“He promised me, Bill. 
tell you——” 

My bosom friend hurled his anger 
upon me. 

“Say, what kind of a frame up is 
this? What do you want of that worth- 
less——_” 

Words were coming easier now. A 
strange sense of some one’s approval 
enveloped me. I lied glibly. 

“Oh, I just had a little theory I 
wanted to try out on him. I didn’t sup- 
pose it would make any difference to 
you one way or another——” 


him. 


I forgot to 


BETWEEN TWO WORLDS 47 


Bill shrugged his shoulders resign- 
edly. “Sure, take the beast if you want 
him. But I’m bound you'll be sorry 
enough. Load ’em in, Tom.” 

We rode to Lawton with the pack 
yapping and snuffling at the backs of 
our necks. Shag had refused to ride, 
and was loping along untiringly in the 
rear. Andrews was riding with Bill. 
Tom and I were in my car. 

Our usual first-night stop was at 
Loggerville, but as there was an un- 
commonly bright moon we decided to 
push on the other fifty miles to the 
camp. We ate a cold supper without 
stopping. Twenty miles from camp we 
entered the woods. The going was 
rough from here, and we had to slow 
down to a scant ten miles. About nine 
o’clock the wolves began to tune up 
somewhere behind us. 

“Nice place for a chase,’’ muttered 
Tom, bumping around behind the 
wheel. 

As the howling grew louder and 
closer, he glanced apprehensively over 
his shoulder, and, while thus engaged, 
ran the car squarely into a stump. Bill 
and Andrews spun merrily on ahead. 

Tom climbed out to crank with more 
energy and fiercer curses than I had 
ever seen or heard him exhibit before. 
I cocked my rifle just “in case.” 

Suddenly the howling ceased, and 
was succeeded by a startling stillness. 


A few twigs cracked to the west of. 


the road, where the shadows were dens- 
est, and to my suspicious imagination 
the bushes were alive with slinking 
forms. I risked a shot. A snarl an- 
swered me, and Shag sprang into the 
light, his jaws dripping bloody foam 
and his eyes green against the glare. 
I had a good mind to give him another 
—by mistake, of course, but, as if sens- 
ing my thought, he leaped back of Tom, 
knocking his hand off the crank, 

“The devil!” shouted Tom, and in 
his excitement let fly a precious wrench. 
The dog stood his ground, grinning 


evilly. If the next spin had not started 
the engine I believe Tom would have 
tried to throttle him with his bare 
hands. 

Bill and Andrews had the bunks 
spread up and a fire going when we 
rolled in. Bill was in his usual mood 
of elephantine hilarity, and even An- 
drews was whistling as he puttered 
around with the firewood. 

“Well, you old sawed-off,” were the 
words by which Tom’s_ employer 
greeted him. “Can’t you make that old 
steam roller of Sam’s keep up with a 
real car? Or did it see a ghost and 
shy for you?” 

Tom’s teeth were still on edge over 
the affair of the wrerich. 

“No,” he growled, “I didn’t see no 
ghost, but I did see——” 

A queer sound made me whirl on 
my heel, the hair rising on the back 
of my neck. Bill and Tom caught my 
movement, and turned more leisurely. 

On the other side of the fire I could 
see Andrews in vivid relief against the 
dark bushes, one hand thrown up in 
front of his eyes, the other groping 
aimlessly for a tree trunk beside him. 
I saw, too—oh, what’s the use? I 
couldn’t make any one believe it, but 
I know what I saw. I couldn’t have 
been mistaken in that bright light from 
the fire, and I turned so sick and faint 
that I had to drop on the ground and 
lean my head against a stone. What 
Bill and Tom saw was the dog, Shag, 
calmly licking his paws in front of the 
fire. 

“Hey, Andrews!’ I heard Bill shout. 
“What’s the matter? Get burned?” 

“Spark flew—in my eye,” I heard the 
boy reply faintly after a pause. 

“All right now?” persisted Bill. 

“Yes,” came Andrews’ answer wea- 
rily. 

I felt, rather than saw, his eyes peer- 
ing through the smoke in my direc- 
tion, and, to save any more conspicuous 
incidents, I managed to sit up and pre-_ 


48 BETWEEN TWO WORLDS 


tend to be tying my shoe string when 
Bill again turned toward me. 

It was nearly midnight when our final 
preparations were complete. Bill was 
for turning in immediately, but I asked 
him to wait a few minutes. I felt that 
the time had come to use plain lan- 
guage—after what I had seen. 

We settled ourselves at the other side 
of the fire, away-from the cabin. Bill 
yawned prodigiously. 

“Well, Sam, what’s oh your mind? 
Let’s get this over.” 

With horror choking me, I remem- 
bered Andrews cringing against the tree 
trunk and the thing in front of him, 
and I came straight to the point. 

“Bill, that dog, Shag, has got to be 
killed !”’ 

With the perversity of a good-na- 
tured man who cannot hear any one 
but himself abuse his property, he thun- 
dered: 

“What you got against old Shag, 
Sam? Besides, wasn’t it you that made 
such a hell of a fuss over having him 
come along? Wanted to prove some 
kind of 4 theory on him, didn’t you?” 

“Well, I’ve proved it,” I snapped, 
“and the answer is, he’s got to be 
killed.” 

“You don’t say so.” Bill slid down 
on his spine and crossed his legs stub- 
bornly. 

“Look here, Bill,” I pleaded, ‘you 
know he’s an ugly brute. He’s going 
to hurt somebody some day.” 

“Oh, afraid of him, are you?” Bill 
can be as disagreeable as any man I 
know when he sets out to be. 

“Hardly! But Andrews 

“Seems to me he has quite a fond- 
ness for Andrews. Always tagging 
him around.” 

I groaned. “He has, That’s just it! 
Bill, you’ve got to believe this! I saw 
it! To-night, when Andrews cried out, 
I saw that dog 

A psychic guillotine sliced the next 
word from my memory. I felt a hot, 


fetid, sickening breath on my cheek, 
and turned to gaze mto the green eyes 
of the beast I was condemning. Slavers 
were dripping from his red tongue, and 
the corners of his mouth were turned 
up in his habitual hellish grin. 

“Hello, Shag, old scout!” said Bill. 
“Come here, sir!’ 

The dog belly-crept to his feet and 
fawned upon him, his half-closed eyes 
leering at me while. Bill fondled his 
ears. 

With a groan of helpless disgust I 
lumbered across to the cabin, threw my- 
self onto my blankets, and immediately 
fell into a heavy and dream-harried 
slumber. Seemmgly for hours there’ 
had been ringing through my dreams 
the howling of a wolf, and at last my 
palpitating heart shook me awake to 
hear in reality the last notes of that 
howl echoing and rebounding from for- 
est to heavens. 

Bill was standing by the dying fire, 
his rifle on his arm. 

“Gosh! Some fellow!” he said as I 
emerged. “Must have been right in 
front of the door” 

The hounds were tearing at their 
chains and raising a deafening din. Bill 
looked at them, and the light of battle 
flamed into his eyes. 

“Let’s get him!” he cried. “You 
wake Tom and Andrews while I get 
my hat.” 

I met Tom in the doorway, but when 
I grabbed for Andrews’ shoulder my 
hand sank into the blankets as if they 
had been air. I ripped them back. An- 
drews was not there. Tom was watch- 
ing me, open-mouthed. 

“Seen him leave?” I asked. 

“No,” he whispered. 

Bill was stamping impatiently out- 
side. 

“Where’s Andrews?” I yelled at him. 

“IT dunno. Hurry up. He must be 
round somewhere.” 

“Call him!’ I urged. 

He did, with his usual volume and 


BETWEEN TWO WORLDS 49 


carrying power. A faint howl, far to 
the south, was his answer. 

Something in my expression as I 
burst through the cabin door must have 
pierced even his complacency. 

“Don't think anything’s wrong, do 
you?” 

“TI damn well know it is!” I screamed. 
“If that brute hasn’t killed him already 
it’s going to! Loose those hounds!” 

They took up the trail with a rush, 
and in a few moments we heard them 
baying a mile to the south toward the 
bluffs. Our quickest way to catch them 
was to cut through the woods and come 
out on the bluff above the north end 
of the lake. Tom ran low behind me 
like a bloodhound, and Bill slumped 
after, breathing hard and speechless 
for once. The night had grown cloudy, 
and only now and then did the moon 
break through long enough to show us 
a path through the thickets. Before 
I had gone three rods my knees were 
shaking, my throat was dry, and my 
body wet with a cold perspiration. A 
wild fear that I might be too late drove 
me on. 

The hounds were silent now-—the 
silence that means the slow and deadly 
closing in on the prey with every gasp 
saved for running. As we _ broke 
through the last of the trees on the 
edge of the bluff the moon came out 
again in a brilliant flood. Below us, 
stretching a quarter of a mile to the 
lake shore, lay the level bottoms, as 
flat as a table, every object clear cut 
in the moonlight, and in the center of 
the open place stood a man and beside 
him sat a dog, ears pricked forward in 
intense listening. 

“Andrews!” gurgled Bill. 

“That devil, Shag!’ came through 
Tom's teeth as he raised his rifle and 
held it so without cocking, while a 
half-fearful, half-puzzled expression 
spread over his face. 

On the instant pandemonium broke 

4AThrill 


loose. A score of wolves dashed over 
the bank and turned to face our hounds, 
who were plunging after them. Yelp- 
ing, snapping, barking, they writhed 
into a dark mass and rolled across the 
short grass toward the two motionless 
figures. Then the man was left alone, 
and into the center of the mass leaped 
a gtay cyclone, tearing, slashing, right 
and left, throwing dark forms over his 
shoulder to lie still on the dark-stained 
ss. 

“Good old Shag!” sobbed Bill, pac- 
ing the bluff and fondling his rifte, 
which he dared not use for fear of 
injuring the dogs. ‘Good old fellow! 
Watch him clean ’em up! Thought he 
wouldn’t chase a wolf, did you? Look 
at that!” he exclaimed as an unusually 
vicious toss threw a victim to the 
ground directly below us. 

Then we all three dropped to our 
stomachs with a gasp and peered down 
at the still-twitehing animal. For hor- 
rified seconds we gazed, scarcely trust- 
ing our own eyesight. It was not a 
wolf whose lifeblood was slowly trick- 
ling through the stiff grass. It was 
one of our own hounds! 

Tom was the first to raise his eyes, 
and his exclamation brought the rest 
of us to our senses. The wolves, still 
a full score, had drawn into a quiver- 
ing circle around the two figures—the 
motionless man and the huge, blood- 
spattered dog. Six dark, silent bodies 
dotted the ground. We had had six 
hounds. 

We could hear the quick, panting 
breath of the beasts below as they 
inched forward on trembling haunches, 
and the yellow light of the low, declin- 
ing moon gleamed back from glassy 
eyes and dripping tongues. 

Cursing low and steadily, Tom was 
sliding down the bluff ; I followed him. 
But Bill stood above us like a statue, 
his gun restmg limply on the ground. 

Before we reached the level a hoarse 
cry from Andrews halted us. He had 


50 BETWEEN TWO WORLDS 


thrown out his hands before his face, 
and his head had dropped back between 
his shoulders. There was a roar from 
the beast as it stretched to full height 
on its hind legs, and the intent pack 
arose as one. 

Tom jammed his gun, and I hung 


in a gooseberry bush like a_ rabbit. 


Helpless as in a nightmare, we saw the 
monster spring straight at that defense- 
less throat, saw him spring and drop 
halfway to his goal. 

Then the sound of the gun split our 
ears. A clean shot through the lungs. 
Nobody but a man with nerves like old 
Bill's could have done it at that dis- 
tance. 

The pack scattered like mice at the 
sound of the shot. The man slowly 
collapsed to his knees, then to his full 
length on the grass. Bill was cascad- 
ing earth down on our necks, and we 
all dashed forward. 

Andrews, white as paper and as limp, 
lav where he had fallen, eyes wide 
open, and in them such an expression 
of horror and loathing ef things un- 
speakable and beyond the ken of men 
as I hope never to see again. He did 


not try to speak. I am sure he did 
not see us. Hrs body was limp. Bill 
knelt beside him, chafing his hands and 
speaking his name over and over. 

Shag was writhing in contortions of 
agony, growling and coughing, but his 
eyes were vilely, triumphantly evil—the 
look of the gambler who has his one 
more trick. Fascinated, I followed his 
every move. Was his body grow- 
ing longer as it writhed? Were his 
limbs straightening, his hair. becoming 
shorter? The feeling of sickness, of 
awful nausea, was mounting within me 
again, but, fighting it off, I sprang upon 
him and plunged my knife up to the 
hilt again and again. 

At the same instant Andrews strug- 
gled to a sitting posture, gasped “Yes, 
I—I ’ and dropped back with his 
eyes closed forever on their fearful 
secret. 

The brute we buried where he lay. 
We would have left him to the pleas- 
ure of the elements, except that there 
was that thing about him which no hu- 
man eye should see. A white, furless 
hand had taken the place of his right 
forepaw. 


A THOUSAND MILES 


By Charles Kiproy 


OVE may meet Love and go upon his way 
And never know and never understand 
How life, like some rare flower, might expand; 

How every minute goes and will not stay. 

But some time when the debts we never pay, 
Around us in the gathering darkness stand 
We shall remember how Love’s slender hand 

But for a moment in our fingers lay. 


A thousand miles stretched like a fog between 


Us in the room. . 


. a thousand nameless things 


Rose up like angry knives whose blades are keen, 
And all the heart’s awakened questionings 
Caught in our throats, and eyes sank all unseen 

Into a single pool of wonderings. 


PRECEDING CHAPTERS. 


SYNOPSIS OF 


Two old college-friends, David Jebb and Gaines, meet in the Nord Express, bound for Ostend, 
where they are to embark for America. Jebb is a famous surgeon, who is in charge of a little girl, 
Cynthia Thatcher, whom he is taking to her mother. He confesses to Gaines that he is subject to 
intermittert spells of drinking. when he knows rothing of what he does or says. Gaines gets off the 
train and is left behind. Jebb’s hand is mangled in a door of one of the cars, and he faints. He 
is given brandy by one of the passengers. This starts him off. He leaves the train with (ynthia 
at Cologne and begins to drink. The gext thing he knows he is lying in a strange room. attended 
by a black man. The child is gone and all his money. Suddenly a woman heavily veiled enters. 
She speaks English and from her he learns that he isin a Turkish harem, where he has been 
brought in a state of unconsciousness. The woman’s name is Miruma, and she has been given 


as a wife by the sultan to a pasha named Fehmi. 


The black slave, Djaffer, breaks his arm, and 


Jebb sets it. No tidings can be learned of Cynthia. 


CHAPTER IX. 
THE YANKEE IN THE HAREM. 


UTSIDE there was the crack of 

a whip, the clatter of hoofs 

smacking cobblestones, the rum- 

ble of heavy carriage wheels. Jebb 

hurried to the window overhanging the 

street. Iron bars were fixed in the case- 

ment, and there was a wooden lattice 

within, but he could see in a criss- 
crossed picture a crooked lane. 

Inside the carriage there were packed 
five women, or rather five figures in 
black robes, like hooded mackintoshes, 
with black veils pinned across the face. 
They were like mourners, in costume, 
but not in behavior. Their hilarity was 
infantile; they were cage birds escaped. 


They were all talking at once—all but 
one. Jebb noted that one of the women 
sat still, not laughing, not chattering, 
but gazing back his way. He felt sure 
who it was. 

He could see little from this meager 
window—a skein of twisted street, a 
few old houses, a border of mountains, 
and a strip of sky. Uskub was not 
pretty from here. The only soul he 
knew was gone; he was alone in an 
empty harem. 

He was alone with his problem. He 
had time to think. There was nothing 
else to do. But his thoughts brought 
only new remorses, new problems, new 
despairs. To hate his habit and ta 
swear that he would never touch liquor 
again—that was so old and so futile, 


§2 THE GIFT WIFE 


He had no idea of the date, but, 
judging from his previous experiences, 
at least two weeks must have passed. 
The steamer should have _ reached 
America a week ago, bringing with it 
the mystery of his disappearance. 
Gaines had surely arrived a° few days 
later on another boat. He would tell 
what he knew. The New York papers, 
the papers of his home town, would 
have him pilloried in headlines. 

The police and the detective bureau 
of the press would be publishing him 
broadcast. At first he would be ac- 
cused of the infamy of kidnaping. 
Then people who knew would be tell- 
ing of his habits; his curse would be 
the property of the newspapers. 

He writhed at the shame his other 
self had dragged himself into. He felt 
his future blighted beyond renewal. 
It were better that he should bury him- 
-self here in Uskub, or in some yet re- 
moter place. He could not go back 
and confront the expiation of his un- 
witting crime. 

And then he visioned the mother’s 
suffering. He heard the widow call 
aloud in the night for her child, her 
heart already torn asunder by the imag- 
ined treachery of her husband, and by 
his tragic death in a far country, 

He saw the child wandering among 
strangers, hungry perhaps, terrified as 
only a lost child is térrified, pleading 
with passers-by, who could not under- 
stand what she wanted. He heard the 
mother and the child crying for one 
another in the wilderness of the world. 

He saw John Thatcher lying in his 
grave, beyond the reach of slander, yet 
all the more deserving protection from 
it. The dead man rose in his shroud 
before him, crying: “Where is my 
child? Where is my good name? 
Where is the fruit of my toil, my legacy 
of comfort to my beloved?” And Jebb 
could not answer. He was his brother’s 
keeper, and yet 

Whatever else Jebb felt, he felt one 


thing absolute; that at any cost so- 
ever of hunting, of suffering, of hu- 
miliation, of privation, he must devote 
himself utterly to the finding of that 
child, the clearing of the father’s name, 
and the redemption of his fortune. - 

The task was plain; the means to ac- 
complish it were out of the reach of 
fancy. Jebb’s position was abject. He 
was the helpless pensioner on the mercy 
of a strange woman, whose good name, 
and whose very life he endangered 
every moment. Yet, if he left her roof, 
where should he turn for help, for 
funds, even for foed? 

He tugged and twisted long and 
long at the Gordian knot about him, 
and the sole outcome was weariness, 
hopelessness. And so he fell asleep. 

It was again the sound of sheep trot- 
ting through the dust that woke him; 
again the shepherd’s flute; again the 
dreamy cry of the muezzin was calling 
the sunset prayer. The western flank 
of the distant minaret was crimson. 

Deliciously refreshed, Jebb turned on 
his couch: He raised his head. The 
pain was gone. He sat up without a 
twinge. He rose and walked to the 
street window. His legs were weak, 
but they upheld him. He watched the 
sunset building cloudy bonfires on the 
mountaintops. He heard the clatter of 
the carriage returning with horses at 
full gallop, racing with the gloaming 
which must find no Moslem woman 
abroad. Miruma’s friends were laugh- 
ing, but their laughter was softened by 


the twilight gentleness. And one fig- 
ure was silent. 
And then the door opened and 


Djaffer entered, his arm in the sling, 
but his face beaming gratitude, his 
tones cooing like an old nurse’s.. He 
shuffled here and there, disposing lights. 
When the room was illuminated he went 
to the door and beckoned, and the slave 
girl came in with a laden brass tray 
upon her head. The two slaves whis- 
pered and made much mystery. They 


THE GIFT WIFE 53 


disappeared and returned with more 
trays and more food, and a new table 
to replace the splintered wreck which 
Djaffer carried away with childish 
pride. 

When all was ready they went to 
the door and salaamed their mistress 
in. She was important with new ideas, 
but insisted that Djebb Effendi should 
eat first, though again she refused to 
bear him company. It was plain that 
she was hungry and that she was 
tempted, but her scruples prevailed. 

Miruma had made a point of that 
dinner. It had taxed the resources of 
the kitchen—the cook had been told 
' that a wife of a bey was to dine in 
the harem that night, and Djaffer was 
determined that his benefactor should 
have the best that Uskub could purvey. 

As before, the first rite was the wash- 
ing of the hands in orthodoxly running 
water poured from the graceful ibrik 
into the leyen. Then his hands were 
dried with an embroidered towel. 

Jebb sat waiting for some one to give 
him a fork. 

“Why does not Djebb Effendi be- 
geen?” Miruma asked. 

“‘Well—er—ah—I have nothing to 
eat with?” 

“Mashallah! Has not Allah given 
you many fingers?” 

Thus instructed, he managed to clean 
up a sufficient portion of each dish, 
though he was as awkward as a man 
attempting chopsticks for the first time. 

There followed an embarrassment of 
lamb and mutton, preparations over- 
oily and overcooked, Jebb’s palate said. 
There was a salad in a pie, followed 
with grape sirup, candies, cakes of ses- 
ame seeds and honey, and a hochaf of 
mingled fruits, raisins, cherries, plums, 
flavored with musk and rose water, and 
served ice cold. There was fortunately 
a tortoise-shell spoon for this. 

Again the ibrik and the leyen, and the 
embroidered towel, and, finally and al- 


ways, coffee, served now in silver cups. 
Again she rolled a cigarette for Jebb. 

“Thees tobacco,” she said, “we call 
‘the blond hair of Latakia.’” 

But old Djaffer felt that the guest 
deserved more substantial fumes than 
these. He hastened to bring m a 
narghile. This smoke machine was fa- 
miliar enough to Jebb, though he had 
never run one. When Djaffer had 
lighted it he gave one of the stems to 
Jebb and one to Miruma. They sat a 
moment, drinking the smoke through 
the gurgling water, and it had a pur- 
ring comfort of its own. 

“IT like long-distance telesmoking,” 
said Jebb, and he crossed his legs Turk- 
ish fashion, until botH feet went to 
sleep. Jebb felt that he had waited as 
long as‘he could for information: 

“Has the Hanum Effendi some- 
thing to tell me? Is there any word of 
the child?” 

The veil nodded in distressful nega- 
tive. 

“Nothing have I heard of the 
kuchuk-gul, the leetle rose. It will need 
searching in some other city. That 
needs much money. Allah bringed. 
Djebb Effendi to this place for a great 
purpose, I am sure, but AHah has not 
leaved him the money. I have hoort 
the feeling of Djebb Effendi by to offer 
him of mine. Now, Allah has whees- 
pered to me how Djebb Effendi shall 
earn mooch money queeck and mooch 
power and fame.” 

Jebb’s eyes broadened. 
—Allah’s name.” 

She took her crossed feet in her 
hands and rocked with excitement. 

“Djebb Effendi is Ingiliz Effendi.” 

“No, no; I’m not English; I am 
American.” 

“Eet ees alla the same to us Osman- 
lis. Djebb Effendi is great pheeseetian, 
great soorgeon. In our country we 
theenk the Frank doctors work meera- 
cles. Of old time one believed that 
Allah sent seeckness and—and”—she 


“Tell me in 


54 THE GIFT WIFE 


paused in dread of the great word 
which the Moslems avoid—‘“may he 
keep far from you—the—the cupbearer 
of the world. 

_“At the promenade to-day Jantine 
Hanum is expected. But she comed 
not. She says her younger son, her 
worshiped son, Gani Bey, is in pain 
most frightful. The hanum_ theenk 
somebody is give heem of poison, but 
he is too young to have enemies, and 
he does not die in his pain. 

“Stil they say his mother is tell 
Zobeide Hanum that he soffers so he 
‘is turn in his pain like snake that is 
stuck through weet a spear; then the 
pain goes again. 

“IT begeen to theenk, if Djebb Ef- 
fendi can cure that son, the father pays 
mooch! The father is-Akef Bey, a 
very reech bey. There are no good 
doctors here. Once was a good mis- 
sionary doctor, but he is goed away. A 
young man is come in hees place. 
Djebb Effendi could leeve in Uskub and 
become most terreeble for reechness!” 

The thought of living in Uskub was 
not so appalling to Jebb as it would 
have seemed a few hours before. The 
thought of money was always agree- 
able. In his present state the hint of 
a way to lay hands on an appreciable 
sum was as a rope let down from 
heaven to his drowning soul. 

“I will see this man at once,” he 
said. “It is bad etiquette, but I am 
desperate. I will tell him that I will 
cure his son. {I can, if anybody can.” 

Miruma’s palms were up in protest. 
It would never do. He would be 
treated as a fraud; he would not be per- 
mitted to see the son. Things were 
not done in Turkey in straight lines. 
The Osmanli, like nature, loves a curve. 
Miruma had thought out a plan dur- 
ing the long silences she had kept while 
the other hanums had clattered at their 
gossip, or leaving the carriage on a 
high hill had romped and shrieked in 
the fields like schoolgirls at recess 


Miruma had worked her plot up into 
a scenario: Dyjaffer was to approach 
the elder brother of the sick man, and 
get him to ask how Djaffer had been 
hurt and who was healing him. Djaffer 
was to pour out a wonder story of how 
he had fallen on the street and snapped 
his arm, just as, by Allah’s grace, the 
magical visitor to Uskub, the world- 
famous surgeon, Djebb Effendi, was 
passing. He would say that the great 
Ingiliz doctor was visiting in Uskub 
for a few days to see the mountains. 
Then the elder brother would hurry 
home to tell his mother, and they would 
discuss it with Akef Bey, the father, at 
the bedside of the young bey. Akef 
Bey would call upon Djebb Effendi and 
implore him to save his child. Djebb 
Effendi must be very sorry for the boy, 
but in great haste to be gone. The 
father would beg more, offer more. 
Finally Djebb Effendi would consent, 
asking a fabulous sum. Of course, 
once he had access to the boy, the cure 
was easy—for him. 

Jebb smiled at her unlimited faith in 
his powers, but he had further respect 
for her gifts of management. The plan 
sounded feasible. The element of hy- 
pocrisy was not overlarge. Doctors use 
a grain of it now and then. 

“So I am to wait here till the father 
calls on me?” he said. 

“Mashallah! Here?” gasped Mi- 
ruma. “A man could never call upon 
me. His wife, perhaps, might come, 
but if Jantine Hanum knowed that I 
have a man here a 

There was no word to express that! 

“Wh-what am I to do then?” said 
Jebb. 

“There is in Uskub a large khan— 
a hotel—the Hotel Turiati. Djebb Ef- 
fendi shall go there and command the 
best room, and wait.” 

“I can command the room, but do 
IT get itr I have no money—not even 
baggage.” 

“Of that also I have thinked,” said 


THE GIFT WIFE 


the amazing woman. ‘You shall say 
your baggage is sended to Stamboul. 
You stop but for one—two days.” 

“That accounts for the baggage. But 
shall I say that my money was sent on 
to Stamboul, too?” 

“The money—you moost take that 
from me.” 

Her protesting gesture checked his. 
“Djebb Effendi shall pay me when the 
Akef Bey pay him. Please, please!” 

And forthwith she produced a purse 
and drew from it a bundle of the Im- 
perial Ottoman Bank’s notes, valued at 
five pounds Turkish each. 

But Jebb put out his hand. “Thank 
you! And God bless you for your good 
heart, but I couldn’t.” 

“You moost,” she said laughingly. 

And then an inspiration saved him. 

“T don’t need it. I have this ring. I 
will pawn it.” 

Between the shame of openly bor- 
rowing money from a woman and a 
hostess, and the shame of pawning a 
ring which he had come by in some un- 
imaginable and perhaps criminal man- 
ner, he chose the more subtle crime. 

Miruma sighed at the rejection of her 
offer. It would have given the poor 
shut-in prisoner a wonderful sense of 
beneficent pride to fund the enterprise 
she had invented. After a while of 
low spirits, whose drooping her very 
veil imitated, she yielded—with a re- 
strictive clause. 

“Djebb Effendi must not take the- 
ring to a Jew yourself. He would cheat 
you horribly. It would be knowed in 
all Uskub that the effendi was in need. 
Djaffer shall take the ring and breeng 
you ‘mooch more than you could 
touch. He shall say eet is my reeng. 
It looks a woman’s reeng.” Then a 
gasp. “It ees perhaps a ring some lady 
gived the effendi?” 

There was such a tang of jealous 
fear in her voice that Jebb took the 
plunge and lied with magnificent 
promptitude. 


55 


“No, no. I bought it myself—in— 
Cologne.” And he added with perfect 
truth: “It has no associations for me 
whatever.” 

With which he twisted it from his 
finger and held it out to her. This con- 
vinced her more than any words. The 
veil collapsed with a sigh of relief. 

Suddenly a truth thrilled Jebb to the 
heart; he saw that this woman, for 
whom he had begun to feel a tender- 
ness, had begun to feel jealous of him. 
The implied proprietorship did not ite 
ritate him. It nearly delighted him, and 
the delight was the keener for being 
edged with fear. He tried to mask his 
confusion under an air of business. 

“Can Djaffer go at once so that I 
can leave to-night? I am afraid for 
you every minute I rémain here.” 

“No, no, effendi. Eet is two o’clock; 
the sun is seated for two hours. All 
Uskub is going to sleep. To-morrow 
morning while yet the effendi is sleep 
—inshallah—Djaffer shall have goed 
and comed back with the money.” 

“But how can I slip out in the day- 
light without being seen?” 

“Also that I have theenked. I tell 
you to-morrow day, for now eet is ver’ 
late. The moon is in the branches of 
the cypress like a white swan. I weary 
the effendi. Allah send you the sweet- 
est of sleep!” 

She was gathering herself together 
to stand up. He leaped to his feet to 
help her. To rise from a cross-legged 
position is something of a feat. It’s 
one of the few that harem laziness per- 
mits. Miruma rose straight in air like 
a lark leaping up from a meadow. 

But, as she stepped forward, her foot 
caught on the hem of her robe. She 
lost her poise, swayed, would have fal- 
len, but Jebb had risen from the divan. 
He put out his arm. Her weight was 
upon him so suddenly that he had no 
little difficulty with his own equilibrium. 
The recovery of both was a matter of 
brief and busy delay. 


56 THE GIFT WIFE 


Miruma gave a little cry of alarm at 
her plight, another of dismay at find- 
ing herself in a man’s arms. And then 
she fled, soft-footed, spiritual, like a 
dark cloud trailing along a mountain- 
side. But she left Jebb with a savor of 
rose leaves about him, with arms 
empty, yet strangely tingling: as with 
the very ghost of suppleness, litheness, 
warmth. 

On a mad impulse he ran to the door 
that swung behind her. The old Djaf- 
fer was there. He confronted Jebb 
with all the majesty of the angel at the 
gates of Eden, yet with all the appeal 
of a suppliant, putting up a wounded 
arm in place of a flaming sword. 

Jebb put out the lights, and groped 
his way to the windows where the 
anoonbeams beat in and showered the 
floor. He hung across the ledge over- 
looking the dim, the breathing slumber 
of the garden. Radiance came down 
from the sky like rain. And up from 
a dark fleece of flowers, shrubs, and 
plants came a blur of perfume, and an 
exquisite, inarticulate music from the 
glimmering basin where a jet of water, 
seeking in vain to go higher than its 
source, leaped and lapsed like a tongue 
of silver flame. 

Down a distant street the night 
watchman was already moving, tap- 
tapping with his staff like a blind man 
groping through a paradise. 

The beauty of the fragrant night, 
the glowing sky, the shadowy garden, 
weighed upon Jebb’s heart like a world 
sorrow. He was alone in a vast wil- 
dernéss, and he must go tap-tapping 
through it, searching, but searching 
without eyes or memory. And a 
strange new spell of love was upon him, 
appealing to him to stay. But he had 
no right to stay here or to love what 
was here. 

At another window, a lattice win- 
dow overlooking that same garden, the 
rays of the same moon were playing 
upon the unveiled beauty of Miruma, 


like a blind man’s fingers exploring the 
brows and cheeks and lips of one be- 
loved. And Miruma’s heart was like 
the benighted world, one great mood of 
longing for the forbidden, the unattain- 
able. 

Outside her door, on his humble mat- 
tress, lay Djaffer. And through a lit- 
tle grilled window in the corridor he, 
too, lonelier than all, most cursed of 
all, stared at the same far-gliding, cool- 
gleaming moon, itself an empty, frus- 
trated planet. 


CHAPTER X. 
THE VEILED MAN. 


EBB’S first conscious view of the 
streets of Uskub was. strained 
through the mesh of a woman’s veil. 
He was supposed to be an honest Turk- 
ish wife of the old school, for the veil 
covered even his eyes. 

Usually the eunuch sits like a foot- 
man alongside the coachman and shouts 
“Varda!l’’—Make way !—to the people 
in front of the horses and glares at such 
impertinents as stare into the carriage. 
But this morning Djaffer held the lines 
himself. 

The Serbs, Bulgarians, Albanians, 
and gypsies that make up the popula- 
tion of Uskub certainly paid no heed 
to the long, slim hanum who rode in 
the second-best carriage, which Fehmi 
Pasha allotted to his second-best wife. 

Jebb was too solemn to relish the 
ludicrousness of his own appearance. 
Under the balloonlike space of a black 
charchaf he wore his own clothes, 
cleaned and pressed, and he carried his- 
derby hat, in whieh the scar of a dent 
was not entirely healed. The ring was 
gone from his finger; its diamonds and 
its dark center stone had been trans- 
Jated into gold liras or Turkish sov- 
ereigns, silver piastres, and bronze 
paras with some bank notes—a total of 
one hundred and fifty dollars in Amer- 


ican money. 


THE GIFT WIFE v4 


It had looked like a deal of riches as 
Djaffer poured it into his hand, but 
it was a contemptible sum compared 
with his needs and his distance from 
home. 

Jebb was thinking less of what he 
might encounter than of the fascina- 
tions he must leave. In Constantinople 
the ferije and the yashmak are out of 
style, but in the country towns old fash- 
ions cling, and Miruma had put on a 
costume quite appropriate for a carriage 
in Uskub—a black and shapeless swad- 
dling cloak about her body and a 
creamy yashmak about her face and 
hair. 

Costume customs are no more con- 
sistent in Turkey than America, and 
Miruma felt justified in revealing to 
Jebb in the street glimpses of her that 
she denied him in her home. And now 
he saw her eyes looking through a 
muslin mask of such uncompromising 
opacity that he caught only a small 
melon slice of her beauty—her eyes and 
a bit of forehead, of cheeks, and of 
hair at her temples. 

Her eyes were so beautiful that they 
excelled even the vision he had imag- 
ined when he had only the veil to look 
at. They looked at him now with a 
sad, sweet gaze of farewell and of de- 
votion. It was inconceivable to Jebb 
that this perfect creature should have 
been tossed from one hand to another, 
as one might flip a diamond, not know- 
ing its value. 

Hers were the eyes where a great 
love smoldered. Jebb could hardly en- 
dure the communion with them now. 
The Venus of Milo was luckier than 
many people imagine, since the loss of 
her arms and our ignorance of what 
her hands were doing, concenters all 
the world’s attention on her face, and 
the serene mood that imbues it. So 
Miruma, in hiding all of her but her 
eyes, gave them complete sway. Jebb, 


staring at her, found her eyes so won- 


derfully fair that he felt as if he had 


never seen eyes at all till now. They 
were like twin moons in a sky where 
the stars are blotted out by a haze. 

He could not even guess at her other 
graces—at the line of her nose, the 
curve or color of her lips, her chin, 
her throat, shoulders, or bosom. He 
only knew that she had eyes; she was 
eyes. 

And Miruma, who was such a child 
for laughter at incongruous things, had 
not even a smile for Jebb arrayed in 
his outlandish disguise. She had seen 
him hustling into the carriage and 
showing an immodest amount of trou- 
sers, and a huge pair of American shoes. 
These things did not amuse her. She 
had thought of Jebb as an Allah-sent 
messenger. She had come to recognize 
in him only a lost and troubled wan- 
derer. Yet she regretted his flight all 
the more. He was the one man that 
had understood her, felt sorry for her, 
treated her as a woman, not as a pup- 
pet. 

As the carriage slewed and pitched 
along the choppy sea of the Uskub 
pavements, Jebb paid no heed soever to 
the streets, the people, or the houses 
they passed; he stared solely at the lit- 
tle rift of her through the yashmak, as 
at a glimpse of a lost Eden. He felt it 
a duty to leave Miruma at once, while 
their good fortune held out. Yet he 
felt it an equal duty not to leave her 
to the dreary vacuity of her life. 

He was impelled to a compliment— 
though such things came hard from 
him. 

“Your eyes are glorious——” 

“Mashallah!” she cried. “A compli- 
ment is mos’ bad luck!” She ran on in 
a nervous effort to outrace her desire 
to weep: 

“You weel save the yong son of Akef 
Bey, I know. And then you go far, 
far from Uskub, hunting for the little 
child. You weel find her, I know. 
Then you will go yet more farther to 


58 THE GIFT WIFE 


America. Sometimes maybe you weel 
think of me—yes?” 

“T’ll never forget you! I can’t for- 
give myself for leaving you—taking all 
your charity and doing nothing in re- 
turn.” 

She shook her head sadly. The eyes 
veiled with hopelessness. It was well 
for her that she had been trained to 
the creed: “I am resigned.” 

“Allah has been good to me to let me 
help Djebb Effendi so little moch as I 
have helped him. But Djebb Effendi 
cannot help me. I am beyond that. 
Think no more of me—the cage bird is 
perhaps happier not to get out into 
the cold wood. But one theeng I 
weesh ; that you might also yet save one 
more seeck person before you leave 
Uskub—the first wife of my pasha— 
the only true wife of Fehmi Pasha.” 

“Is she ill?” 

“Terreeble ill. She is ver’ moch 
weak. She has moch pain, and she 
seems to be fading a-way like one 
flower on a too hot day. The doctors 
of Uskub shake their heads and do not 
know. [It is ver’ moch bad when a 
doctor says: ‘I do not know!’ Yes?” 

In the bitterness of his heart Jebb 
demanded: 

“But if she died, the pasha might 
turn to you for comfort.” 

“Tt ees that I am afraiding.” 

“But you said you had hoped to be 
his wife, and the mother of a child for 
him.” 

“That was 
fendi.” 

Her eyelids fell over the timid great 
eyes, and a blush pervaded her temples. 
jJebb understood, and their hands, al- 
most without their volition, met, em- 
braced, enlaced, clung fiercely together 
in a secret adieu. 

All the while Djaffer’s whip was nag- 
ging the old horse through the streets, 
past the horse market, across the an- 
cient bridge, up the heights, beyond the 
citadel, and out on the plains made 


yesterday—Dyjebb _ Ef- 


dreary by innumerable graves; for the 
cemeteries surround Uskub like a dead 
sea. 

The Turks make themselves comfort- 
able in graveyards and love to sit and 
meditate upon the comfortable narghile 
and the comfortable nirvana that is 
reached via the underground route; 
but they take little thought in keeping 
the tombstones of their gone upright. 
The shafts lean to right, to left; they 
fall flat, and weeds cover the carved 
turbans and fezzes and the curly-let- 
tered inscriptions. But even so, they 
make a comfortable bench for the phi- 
losopher to sit upon. 

It was Miruma’s idea that Jebb could 
be best disposed of in one of these 
labyrinths whence he could stroll back 
to Uskub at his leisure. The main 
thing was that he should not be seen 
descending from her carriage. Djaffer 
was alert for his opportunity, and the 
carriage was winding dreary enough 
turns, but always some saunterer, some 
established smoker, or some group of 
veiled women appeared and forbade the 
risk. 

Miruma was saying: “I weesh terri- 
bly moch you could save the first wife 
of Fehmi Pasha.” 

Jebb was saying: “I wish I could 
save-his second wife,’ when the car- 
riage came to an abrupt halt. Djaffer 
called back something softly to Mi- 
ruman, and she, all in a flutter, com- 
manded: 

“Queeck, Djebb Effendi slip off the 
theengs and step out the carriage. 
Queeck or somebody comes.” 

He tore off veil and robe in frantic 
clutches and stood in the road once- 
more an American citizen. 

“When shall I see you again, Mi- 
ruma! When?” 

But Djaffer had cut the horse with 
the whip, the old nag had responded 
with a leap and a gallop. The carriage 
was out of call—all his farewell 
speeches unsaid. There were a thou- 


THE GIFT WIFE 54 


sand things he wanted to tell her. But 
she was out of earshot and her figure 
dwindled with the carriage. 

Her gaze was clinging to him, 
though, and he felt, rather than saw, 
the tears that were pearling and spilling 
from those moon eyes. 

The carriage swerved round a spur 
of land. She was gone. He was alone, 
alone in a graveyard, alone in a grave- 
yard of an unknown people. And a 
cold breeze from the white peaks round 
Uskub was whispering: ‘Miruma! 
Miruma! The sun and the moon!” 


CHAPTER XI. 
THE STREETS OF USKUB. 


EBB, deserted in the tumbled city of 
the dead, made haste to retrace the 
path he had come by. But it seemed 
that he would never have done with 
tombstones. They lined his pathway all 
the long distance into Uskub and up to 
his very hotel. 

Nearing the town, the road filled 
with creatures out of unusual picture 
books. Albanian men in baggy white 
trousers corded with black braid, and 
wearing white skullcaps on their 
cropped pates; veiled women in trou- 
sers, so long and full they had to lift 
them from the mud; Christian peasant 
wives, whose naked faces were almost 
shocking in this environment; bearded 
old farmers perched on short-legged 
asses; Bulgarians of piratical mus- 
tache; smart Turkish officers on glis- 
tening chargers; Greek priests with in- 
verted opera hats on their heads; Ser- 
vian teamSters, whacking yoked buf- 
faloes or oxen; Jews, in dirty gaber- 
dines; and dirtier gypsies, with chil- 
dren they had themselves crippled to 
wheedle alms. 

It was like a shabby masquerade, and 
there seemed to be some vast excite- 
ment simmering among the people. But 
in all the languages Jebb could not find 
a word that gave him a clew. 


Suddenly his weary feet were picked 
up and shod as with wings, or rather 
with roller skates. A military band was 
coming his way, and its music teased 
him with its vague familiarity. At last 
he recognized it. It was one of Sousa’s 
marches. The brass band’s dialect was 
as Turkish as a fez, but he knew that 
they were playing at “The Stars and 
Stripes Forever!’ 

Homesickness and patriotic pride 
wrung his soul like a lemon peel be- 
tween them. To be at home with his 
own people became abruptly a fierce 
longing. Then his heart sank, for he 
wondered if he would ever dare to show 
his face again where he was known. 

Jebb did not pause until at last he 
reached the Hotel Turati, where he was 
accepted at his own recognizance. Here 
he elicited the good news that there 
were British, Austrian, and Russian 
consulates in the town. 

He made haste to the British build- 
ing, but the Albanian kavass on guard 
informed him in a few broken Eng- 
lish phrases that the consul was ill and 
was not likely to be well for some days. 
Jebb stood irresolute, then went to the 
Austrian consulate. He knew it by 
the huge flag swung from the balcony, 
its double-headed black eagle almost 
sweeping the ground. 

Here he was informed that the con- 
sul was in conference with his Russian 
confrére and the two governors of_Us- 
kub, the Turk and the Christian, and 
that the affairs of Turkey were in 
such confusion, added to the increasing 
disorder of the district itself, that there 
was little hope of seeing the consul. 

Jebb looked so downcast at this that 
his informant asked the nature of his 
errand, and introduced himself as Herr 
Xavier Franz Heller von Hellwald, of 
Vienna. Jebb introduced himself as 
a former student at the University of 
Vienna, and the young attaché mellowed 
immediately. 

His brother, he said, was a physician, 


60 


and a graduate of the university, and 
he invited Jebb to join him in coffee 
and tobacco. They adjourned to a cof- 
fee house as kafené, a humble wooden 
structure, with an awning over the 
walk, and cane-bottomed stools. An at- 
‘tendant made them coffee in two small 
brass pots, sweetened it, and brought 
them a glass of water. Jebb, following 
Hellwald’s action, sipped the water, and 
gave back the glass. The attendant 
fetched a twin-stemmed narghile, but 
Hellwald produced cigars of his own, 
which Jebb accepted with relief. He 
was weary of cigarettes and water 
pipes. 

Before many words had passed, he 
and Hellwald had discovered a number 
of acquaintances in common, and Hell- 
wald, sick of glum Uskub, was de- 
lighted, and soon felt able to ask: 

“But what brings you, Herr Doctor 
Chebb, to this dismal cemetery of an 
Uskub ?” 

Jebb shook his head, and then poyred 
forth in halting German, and with halt- 
ing courage, as much of his story as 
he felt it discreet to divulge. He evaded 
the miserable cause of the whole ad- 
venture, and said nothing of his début 
into Turkish life through the door of 
the harem. 

Hellwald listened with as much grav- 
ity as his fat cheeks permitted, and at 
the end of the recital mumbled a be- 
wildered sympathy. 

“Don’t waste sympathy on me,” Jebb 
cried, “but think of the child. What has 
become of her? How shall I find her?” 

“That is a problem, indeed, Herr 
Doctor Chebb. Now, if you knew 
where you lost her. 

“If J only knew!” 

“Tf you knew where you had lost 
her, it would be easier. And yet not 
easy at that. If she had disappeared 
in Vienna, or Berlin, or Paris, we could 
telegraph, and the great engine of the 
police of Europe could be set in mo- 
tion. It would be expensive, but it 


THE GIFT WIFE 


could be done—at least, it might be 
done. But we are m Turkey, and Tur- 
key is in revolution. Nobody knows 
what will happen to-morrow. Nobody 
knows what happened yesterday. We 
only know that Constantinople is cap- 
tured by the revolutionists, and that the 
sultan is prisoner.”’ 

“The sultan a prisoner!” Jebb gasped. 
“The sultan a—why, I thought he was 
the religious head of the nation. Isn’t 
it sacrilege?” 

“The sultan is a Mohammedan like 
the rest. When he goes to Selamlik 
every Friday to pray there is a man at 
the door of the mosque to say to him: 
‘Oh, padishah, be not proud. Remem- 
ber there is a God who is greater than 
thou.” The sultan before Abdul Hamid 
was deposed by the Turkish pope, the 
Sheikh-ul-Islam, and this sultan may be 
put aside the same way. We shall 
know any moment what has been done. 
But it is strange that you have not 
known this. Where have you been 
these last three weeks ?” 

“I do not know,” Jebb stammered. 
“I have been—ill.” 

The Austrian looked at him in com- 
plete befuddiement. He could not 
make him out at all. Suspicion seized 
on the first theories at hand, that Jebb 
was insane or crimihal. Neither theory 
was tenable in the presence of Jebb’s 
intelligence and his manifestly honest 
distress. 

He saw the American knotting his 
brow with the anguish of his thoughts, 
and squeezing his head in his hands, 
as if to keep it from splitting, as he 
groaned: 

“Turkey in revolution! And the lit- 
tle child lost among these savages.” 

“But the Turks are not savages, Herr 
Doctor Chebb,” MHellwald protested. 
“People are people everywhere. In this 
vilayet there is a Turkish governor and 
also a Christian. And if yeu could 
know them both and their intrigues you 
would think the Turk was no worse 


THE GIFT WIFE 61 


than the Christian—he could not be. 
And if you could know the inside of 
the diplomacy of all the European na- 
tions meddling with Turkey, as I know 
it—you would say that we have no 
right to be Pharisees. Under cover of 
helping Turkey and protecting Chris- 
tians, our European nations behave like 
robbers and pirates. The Turks are 
‘bad enough, but we Christians are, if 
possible, worse yet.” 

“But somewhere in Turkey that little 
girl is crying for her mother. Nobody 
understands her, and I cannot find her. 
I don’t know where to begin. But there 
must be somebody to appeal to. Whom 
should I turn to first ?”’ 

Hellwald’s brow was heavy with the 
riddle. 

“The Turks are terribly busy these 
days, Herr Chebb,” he said. ‘They are 
changing the worst despotism of Eu- 
rope to a constitutional monarchy. To 
hunt for a little girl in this turmoil 
would be to hunt for a lost button upon 
a raging battlefield. Better give up the 
child, Herr Chebb. Perhaps, no doubt, 
she has fallen into the hands of kind 
people. People are good to lost chil- 
dren. She will not starve.” 

“But her mother—her widowed 
mother—I should never dare to go back 
to America without the child. I should 
not care to live without finding her. It 
is my one duty on earth, Herr von Hell- 
wald, I must try, and try, and try. You 
see that, don’t vou?” 

Any one seeing Jebb and his terror 
might have been pardoned a moisture 
about the lashes. Two or three large 
tears spilled from Hellwald’s trembling 
eyelids and rolled down, to be lost in 
the wheat field of his beard. 

“What did you say the child’s name 
was?” 

“Cynthia Thatcher.” 

“Tseetia Tat—Tsent—tseend 
He tried again and again, growing an- 
gry at the ridiculous “th,” which his 
tongue and teeth could not manage. 


” 


“Hilf Himmel, Herr Doctor, if some- 
body asks the child her name, and she 
tells it, nobody will be able to repeat 
it or to remember it.” 

Difficulties were barricading Jebb’s 
way so fast that one more made little 
difference. He simply threw himself 
on Hellwald’s generosity. 

“You must help me.” 

“IT will do my all, and gladly. It 
will take much money. In Turkey no- 
body moves—not even the sultan— 
without baksheesh. It is not just what 
we call Tringeld or pourboire, but 
something like what one puts on the 
axles of wheels. You have much 
money, yes’” 

Jebb tossed his hands. “I have a 
hundred and fifty dollars—about six 
hundred marks.” 

“That would not go far in such an 
affair. But perhaps you can cable to 
the mother for money.” 

“The mother is 
widow.” 

Hellwald grew more solemn. A 
blush stained his cheek. 

“I would lend you money gladly for 
such a purpose, Doctor Chebb, but I 
am only a young diplomat with many 
debts. The consulate needs all its 
funds, because of the distress of our 
citizens in this revolution. Perhaps you 
yourself have something to sell or to 
pawn?” 

“T have nothing.” 

“You have a difficult problem, Herr 
Doctor. We must see what we can do. 
Your passports are in good shape, I 
hope.” 

“Passports? I never had any.” 

“You must have had them to get into 
Turkey. And you must have had a 
teskere or you could not have traveled.” 

“If I had them, I lost them, and I 
don’t know where.” 

“Where were you last, did you say?” 

“In Salonica, I think. All I know is 
that the train from Salonica brought 
me here.” 


poor—poor—a 


62 THE GIFT WIFE 


“Salonica! Himmel, it is the very 
home of the revolution. Everything 
started there. 

“It was there that the Young Turks 
formed an army and marched on Con- 
stantinople. The sultan’s soldiers re- 
sisted, the glorious city was bombarded, 
captured, the sultan locked up in his 
palace. We think that the parliament 
will dethrone him to-day, it may be—or 
to-morrow.” 

He sat back, puffing and staring at 
Jebb, and went on: 

“All these things began in Salonica. 
And you have been in Salonica without 
knowing. And how did you get there? 
You could not have dropped into Salon- 
ica from the clouds. You probably 
reached there by the railroad from— 
Constantinople. Have you been in Con- 
stantinople ?” 

“I don’t know.” 

“Did you have the child with you in 
Salonica ?” 

“I don’t know. 
cannot tell 

Hellwald shook his head in dismay. 
He would have believed Jebb to be a 
spy, but a spy would have some story 
to tell. At length, Hellwald said: 

“I might telegraph to our consul in 
Salonica to find if the child has been 
heard of there. He is a good gentle 
man, our consul, a father, and he will 
put the gendarmerie to work. Mean- 
while, you must get money in somé 
way—and then you must go yourself.” 

“Get money—yes, I must get money, 
but how? How?” 

The two men sat wrestling with a 
problem as old as money itself. 


I may have had. I 


CHAPTER XII. 
THE FIRST RAY. 


PAsT the café where Jebb and Hell- 

wald sat pondering flowed the ed- 
dying traffic of the street. Now and 
then a Turk, a Russian, an Austrian, 
or a Macedonian saluted Hellwald, 


after the manner of his race or station, 
and the Austrian answered in kind. 

Among those who passed was a ven- 
erable white-bearded Turk in fez and 
frock coat. Hellwald said to Jebb: 

“That is Akef Bey, one of the leaders 
of the Young Turks. His younger son 
is very ill, and the doctors here can do 
nothing for him. It is a dangerous 
thing to fall ill here in Uskub.” 

Akef Bey saw Hellwald, and greeted 
him with a sad courtesy, in a sweeping 
salute from the brow. 

Hellwald rose. “Excuse me, I must 
ask him how the boy is to-day.” 

He went to the old man and ques- 
tioned him in Turkish. Akef Bey an- 
swered with much excitement and vivid 
gestures of pain and despair. Hellwald 
listened with evident sorrow. Then he 
seemed to brighten with an idea. He 
beckoned Jebb, and managed, by alter- 
nating between Turkish and German 
to introduce Akef Bey to “Herr Doctor 
Chebb von der Vereimigten Staaten von 
Amerika.” 

The letter “j” is as common in Tur- 
key as with us, and the bey did not at 
first connect febb with “Chebb.” He 
shook hands with dignified reserve, 
then suddenly realized the truth. 

“Allah kerim!” he cried, and wrung 
Jebb’s hand with an enthusiasm that 
threatened him with another fracture to 
treat. He explained to Hellwald that 
he had heard of Doctor Jebb from a 
man named Djaffer. Hellwald glowed 
with joy, and broke out into expansive 
Turkish, patting Jebb on the shoulder, 
and waving his hand_ grandiosely. 
Afterward he explained: 

“TI have just told Akef Bey that you 
are one of the most eminent physicians 
in America, and that I knew you well 
in Vienna when you studied there. 
It is near enough to the truth for a 
diplomat.” 

As he was saying this to Jebb, the 
bey was pouring fluent Turkish- into 


THE GIFT WIFE 63 


his other ear. Hellwald translated in 
short asides: 

“He is asking me if you cannot come 
to see his son at once—don’t accept— 
look solemn—you are busy—you are 
leaving town—the other physicians have 
failed to help him, he says—they are 
ignorant dogs—his son cries aloud im 
agony.” 

“Ask him where the agony is,’ 
Jebb. 

The distracted father responded to 
Hellwald’s question by seizing his loins 
in his hand and bending in frightful 
contortions, and then brushing imagi- 
nary sweat from his brow. Jebb un- 
derstood before Hellwald translated. 

Jebb said: “If it is appendicitis, as I 
judge it is, the young fellow must be in 
considerable distress.” 

That was a huge superlative of pain 
for Jebb, and he permitted himself to 
be urged forward. On the way they 
passed a miscellaneous bazaar, where 
a meager supply of drugs was kept for 
the foreign population. There Jebb 
managed to find a large hypodermic 
needle and a supply of tablets, which 
he purchased along with a few of such 
simples as the ejza-hané possessed. 

Then the three resumed their walk. 

A little farther on an embarrassment 
troubled the old man. 

_“Akef Bey wants me to explain,” said 
Hellwald, “that you may tind in his 
home—two other physicians.” 

Jebb stopped short. “Then I can’t 
go.” 

“And why not ?” Hellwald thundered. 

“It’s against our ethical code to call 
on another doctor’s patient.” 

“Ethical nothing! This is no time to 
stand on ceremony.” 

But old conventions held Jebb fast. 
Heliwald explained the situation to 
Akef Bey. The father laid aside all 
courtesy. He seized Jebb’s hand and 
urged him forward, pouring out words 
which Hellwald translated, as he took 


said 


Jebb’s other arm, and pressed~him on 
the way. 

“The bey says that he did not know 
of your distinguished presence in Us- 
kub till after these men came. They 
are not really physicians. When the 
boy fell ill the mother, who is very. 
religious, sent for one of these wild- 
haired dervishes to drive out the wicked 
spirits. When they did not go Akef 
Bey, who is not so religious, ran to the 
nearest Christian missionary—a young 
Schottischer.” 

Schottischer suggested to Jebb only 
a dance till he realized that Hellwald 
was speaking of a Scotchman. His 
heart warmed at the thought of meet- 
ing some one who spoke his own lan- 
guage—or nearly. But Hellwald was 


- explaining how the Turk came to call 


in a missionary to cure his son. 

“Do not be afraid to push him out of 
Akef Bey’s home,” he concluded. “He 
is no doctor and he knows it. He is a 
nice young man, and he will welcome 
you. What the dervish will do, God 
knows. He may summon the evil 
spirits to torment you, but if he is no 
better at calling them in than he is at 
calling them out, you shall have no 
trouble. You will come, yes? Do not 
forget that it means the money for the 
lost child.” 

Jebb assented without further par- 
ley, and Hellwald told the news to the 
overjoyed father. The next turn of 
the street brought them to their desti- 
nation. 


CHAPTER XIII. 
THE DERVISH AND THE SURGEON. 


"THE home of Akef Bey was impor- 
tant in Uskub, large enough to be 
called a konak. A walled garden sur- 
rounded all of it, except the dark-red 
street facade, with the lattice-windowed 
upper story jutting above the lower. 
The bey led them up a broad stair- 
way to a-large hall with a cushioned 
divan along three sides, with low, . 


64 THE GIFT WIFE 


carved tables, mirrors, and Turkish 
hangings. They were asked to sit 
down, and the bey, with hurried sa- 
[aams, lifted a portiére and vanished 
into another room. He reappeared a 
little later and asked them to come in. 

On a low platform covered with bed- 
ding a boy of fifteen lay writhing. 
Over him bent a long-robed, bearded 
man, who seemed to be blowing on the 
boy and touching him lightly with his 
hands. Jebb saw nothing, looked at 
nothing but his patient. He took out 
the hypodermic syringe, and said: 

“Could I have some hot water?” 

Hellwald interpreted; the bey or- 
dered; some one ran from the room. 
Jebb knelt at the bedside and examined 
the glowing body. He noted the right 
leg drawn up close. The bey told, and 
Hellwald translated, the history of the 
case, the earlier attacks of violent nau- 
sea and fever, credited to severe indi- 
gestion. When Jebb tried to touch the 
boy he winced away. 

Jebb glanced toward Hellwald with 
one word: “Appendicitis.” 

By this time some one was kneeling 
at his side with a ewer of steaming 
water and a basin. He filled the 
chamber of the hypodermic needle and 
paused for the tablet to dissolve. Then 
he looked about for the first time. 

Squatting on the floor at his elbow 
and almost touching him was a be- 
whiskered Turk in a long, tawny cloak 
and a very tall, brimless camel’s hair 
hat. Jebb supposed him to be the der- 
vish sheikh Hellwald had spoken of. 

A little aloof stood-an elderly woman, 
evidently the mother—the Jantine Ha- 
num that Miruma had spoken of—for 
her streaming eyes were sunken with 
age and many griefs, and her veil was 
soaked with her tears. Clinging to her 
was one who was apparently a daugh- 
ter, too young to have donned the 
yashmak. She was plainly to be beau- 
tiful soon, but sympathy for her brother 
had made her haggard. 


In the background hovered a young 
man in shabby European costume. 

When the opiate was dissolved Jebb 
made read for the injection. The ter- 
tified boy fought him away, and the 
dervish muttered angrily, but Jebb, half 
expecting to be knifed in the back, 
overcame the boy’s feeble resistance, 
and thrust the needle in the shivering 
flesh. Gani Bey screamed as if he had 
a death wound, and the women echoed 
him piercingly. Even the father closed 
his eyes and toppled against the wall. 
The dervish leaped to his feet with a 
fanatic howl, and raised his hands 
threateningly, but Hellwald caught his 
arm and flung him aside. The family’s 
thoughts were so focused on the boy 
that they did not see the sacrilege. 

Jebb alone was calm. He was al- 
most smiling at his success in inserting 
the opiate so near the center of pain. 
It meant a saving of many minutes in 
the relief that was to follow. Having 
done all he could at the moment, he 
took under his thumb the boy’s wrist 
and mechanically felt for his watch. It 
was not there. He turned to Hellwald, 
but before he could speak he heard 
some one say: 

“Four-r-teen minutes to eleven, doc- 
tor-r.” 

And a watch was placed in his palm 
by a hand that lingered to clasp his as 
the donor continued: 

“T am glad to see a real doctor-r here, 
doctor-r. You are an Amayrican,, I 
presume.. My name is Murison, Donald 
Murison. I am a Presbyterian mission- 
ary, not a physician. I have done my 
best, but it is not much. This horrible 
dervish here gets in the way so with his 
witchcraft and his incantations.” 

Jebb smiled. “May I ask what you 
prescribed ?” 

“There didn’t seem much to do ex- 
cept to give calomel and a hot-water 
bag. But it is hard to keep anything 
on his stomach, outside or in.” 


THE GIFT WIFE 65 


“Had you thought an operation was 
—indicated ?” 

“Ye-es, I supposed so, but I couldn’t 
trust myself to make one. And there is 
no decent surgeon nearer than Salonica. 
I have a set of instruments, but : 

“You have a set of instruments?” 
Jebb demanded eagerly. 

To Jebb in ultimate Uskub, this news 
was as welcome as the sight of a raft 
to a lost swimmer, or a loaded weapon 
to a soldier at bay, or a horse to a 
dismounted knight. 

Murison explained further. “Yes, I 
have a fairly good set of scalpels and 
scissors, and—I don’t know the names 
of the things—and a quantity of ether 
and sterilized gauze. They equipped 
me pretty well when they sent me here, 
but I have never even opened the case. 
If you can use any of the tools you 
are ver-r-y welcome to them.” 

“Thanks, I may need them,” 
Jebb. 

The boy on the divan showed no 
lessening of his pain and the family 
was losing its new hope. 

Jebb took up the needle again, the 
patient’s wild eyes saw it with such a 
shuddering revulsion that Jebb could 
not come near him. He had to content 
himself with an injection into the arm 
he held. 

Suddenly the daughter paused stock- 
still and gazed at the boy. Then she 
whirled her mother round. 

An influence, miraculous to them, 
was at work upon their beloved. As 
stealthily as the sunset flush withdraws 
from the west, the pain oozed out of 
the patient’s flesh. The release from 
crucifying anguish was by pure con- 
trast an almost ineffable delight. The 
shrieks of little Gani Bey were softened 
to murmurs ambiguous between fatigue 
and delight. The knotted muscles re- 
laxed, and he uncotled and lay supine. 
He seemed almost ready for the incred- 
ible luxury of sleep. 

The women breathed fervent phrases 

5A Thrill 


said 


in which the word “Allah” was recur- 
rent. Jebb was a little jealous, per- 
haps, for he said: 

“Tell them it isn’t Allah, but the 
angel anzsthesia.” 

Murison gave the credit to Jebb and 
his opiate, and the women turned to 
him. 

The dervish slipped out of the room 
unnoticed. 

Under the spell of the drug the boy 
permitted Jebb to make a careful ex- 
amination and confirm the theory sug- 
gested by the other symptoms. He 
turned to Murison. 

“Tell them the relief is only tempo- 
rary. The boy is very sick, and the 
pain will come back on him with re- 
newed violence. The cyst will burst 
and flood his body with poison and 
he will die, unless—unless the danger 
is removed at once, and for all time.” 

“By amn—an operation ?” 

“That is the one hope. It would be 
murder to neglect it. I should be a 
criminal unless I urged it.” 

“But it is very dangerous, isn’t it?” 

“It is so common at home that it has 
become a minor operation. I have done 
it hundreds of times.” 

“Is there nothing else to do?’ Muri- 
son temporized, but Jebb answered 
firmly : 

“I operate, or I refuse the case.” 

With much circumlocution Murison 
broached the subject to the parents and 
they were affrighted at the thought. 
But Akef Bey was converted at last 
and gave his consent. He ordered the 
women to their quarters, and put all 
the servants of his household at Jebb’s 
command, while Murison hastened to 
fetch the instruments. - 

While the servants were preparing 
another room as Jebb directed, washing 
it thoroughly, floor, walls, and painted 
windows, with boiling water, bringing 
a long high table from the kitchen, ster- 
ilizing the linen, tearing up sheets for 
bandages, and attending to the hundred 


65 THE GIFT WIFE 


schemes that Jebb improvised to ap- 
proach hospital ideals, Hellwald was 
exercising all his diplomacy in manipu- 
lating a bargain with the father, to 
whom Jebb’s multitude of details bore 
the look of elaborate incantation, and 
impressed him all the more for their 
mystery. 

Akef Bey, who was the soul of gen- 
erosity, and who had but one passion, 
the health and well-being of his adored 
family, exclaimed: 

“If Jebb Effendi saves my boy I shall 
be his slave; all my possessions are 
his.” 

Hellwald brought him gently from 
the peaks of sincere hyperbole, and ex- 
plained that as Jebb was a craftsman, 
not a magician, he scorned to take ad- 
~ vantage of a father’s grief to rob him; 
all he wished was an appropriate fee 
for his learning and his skill. The 
outcome was m Allah’s hands. Jebb 
did not want a reward for a miracle, 
but recompense for his years of study, 
his vast experience, his science. 

There was time enough before Muri- 


son’s return, and during the boiling of | 


the instruments and the preparation of 
the ether for Hellwald to modulate 
through all the stages of a Turkish bar- 
gain. The upshot of it was that Hell- 
wald settled upon one hundred pounds 
Turkish or about five hundred and 
twenty-five dollars, as the fee for the 
operation, whether successful or not. 
He accepted Akef Bey’s word of honor 
as equivalent to a deposit in gold. 

The women begged for the privi- 
lege of a last visit with the boy, still 
slumberous with the opiate. They knelt 
before his couch, shedding silent tears, 
and whispering prayers against the dark 
angels that trouble the dying soul. 
Gani Bey was awake enough and brave 
enough to face the farewell rites. 

Hellwald explained: ‘They are ask- 
ing and granting mutual forgiveness for 
injuries or unkindnesses of the past. 
They call it the helal.” 


The mother and sistér, after the final 
embraces and kisses, suffered them- 
selves to be exiled to the haremitk, 
gazing their farewells as to ome at 
whose lips the Cupbearer of the Sphere 
already held his chalice. 

By this time Jebb was ready with 
the ether, and, smiling courage imto the 
brave eyes of the little stoic, he hid 
them under the hood and watched the 
deep breathing of the obedient youth 
till the drugged soul had ceased to mur- 
mur. 

Then he lifted the body, limp with 
mimic death, and carried it across the 
hall to the room prepared for the opera- 
tion. Hellwald sat outside en the divan, 
trying to divert Akef Bey with such 
conversation as he could force his anxi- 
ous mind to manufacture. As Murison 
went in with Jebb he looked back with 
doleful eves at the shivering father. 
Then he let the curtain at the door fall. 

It seemed many hours, but it was 
hardly the half of one when Murison 
lifted the curtain again for Jebb, who 
reappeared, carrying in his arms the 
burden, still peacefully unaware of its 
new wounds and bandages. 

The surgeon's face wore a look of 
quiet triumph, and Murison, as he lifted 
the curtain at the door of the boy’s 
room, turned back to murmur: 

“Ajayib!’ which is to say: 
derful!” 

The father, the mother, and the sis- 
ter crowded at once to the room to 
find their idol still alive, breathing rau- 
cously and beginning to mutter sleepy 
nonsense as he came back to the world. 
They ctied aloud with joy. 

All the afternoon Jebb ministered to 
the boy, and eased his pain as much as 
he dared. That night he had a couch 
spread for himself on the floor along- 
side, but sleep did not visit him, or 
any one else under that roof. For na- 
ture, the seamstress, was stitching the 
wounds with needles of pain. But by 
the hour when the few swallows of the 


“Won- 


THE GIFT WIFE 67 


early spring woke in the eaves, and the 
muezzins, as regular as the sunrise, 
were crying the name of Allah to the 
four corners of the world, peace fell 
on the racked bedy, and the frightened 
spirit of the boy. And all the house- 
hold slept. 


CHAPTER XIV. 


THE RETURN OF THE SUN AND THE 
MOON. 


EBB performed no miracle at Uskub. 
His patient did not rise and run 
through the streets. In fact, he kept 
his bed and suffered for many days. 
But ordinary people are skeptic of 
miracles, and there was something rea- 
sonable and mechanical and slow and 
convincing about the handicraft of Jebb 
that made a profound effect in the old 
town. 

Legends began to cluster about him. 
He was called “the American,” and 
when he walked the streets he was 
stared at; whispers followed him, and 
pointings of the hand and noddings of 
the head, “Baksana! Ameriquali!’”’ 

When Jebb had carried the young 
bey sufficiently past the shoals to in- 
trust him to the care of his mother 
he went back to Hotel Turati to wait 
until it was safe for him to leave town. 
He was immediately besieged with pa- 
tients of every sort, from the poor Serb, 
who begged him to prescribe for the 
cough of his sick buffalo, to the Brit- 
ish consul, who sent for him on his own 
account. The very dervish sheikh, who 
abhorred him officially, visited him.after 
dark and implored him to come and 
cure his ailing daughter—for the der- 
vish sheikhs marry in Turkey. 

Meanwhile Hellwald had received a 
telegram from the Austrian consulate 
at Salonica saying that the police had 
heard nothing of the lost child. A let- 
ter followed the next day confirming 
the telegram, and adding that the nega- 
tive of the police meant nothing. At 
best they were lazy, and the revolution 


had turned Salonica into a seething 
caldron. The consul strongly advised 
Heliwaid’s friend to come in person to 
make his search and to bring plenty 
of baksheesh to scatter. 

And now Jebb began to wonder if he 
might not have lost the child in some 
other city. Salonica was a long jour- 
ney from his last definite memory of. 
Cologne, and there were various ways 
of arriving there. He must have come 
through Austria, in any case, and he 
persuaded Hellwald to write to the head 
of the Austrian secret service te make 
inquiries. 

But the world is so large a haystack, 
and the child was so small a needle, 
that Jebb took the step only to make 
sure that he was overlooking nothing. 

He waited with increasing impatience 


_ for the young bey to improve enough 


to be left. The boy’s strength and 
youth were mending him as rapidly as 
might be, but the days passed with 
leaden tread. 

What time Jebb was not giving the 
patients who began to regard the Hotel 
Turati as a dispensary, he spent in 
studying a German-Turkish grammar 
lent to him by Hellwald. It served a 
triple purpose; it killed time; it pol- 
ished up and renewed his neglected 
German ; and it equipped him with use- 
ful Turkish phrases, though he found 
the Arabic characters tough to master. 

Before he had learned more than a 
few of the elaborately ceremenial greet- 
ings—it was the third day of Gani 
Bey’s convalescence—a servant brought. 
to his room a request that he grant an 
audience-to Fehmi Pasha. 

The name set Jebb’s nerves a tingle, 
and he stammered, as he told the serv- 
ant to bring the pasha up. 

While he waited he wondered what 
could have led Miruma’s husband to. 
seek him out. His first thought was 
that Djaffer or some other servant 
might have betrayed their secret, and 
he saw Miruma choked to death with a 


68 THE GIFT WIFE 


bowstring, and. the pasha coming with 
eager scimitar to slay him and put him 
in a sack with her, to cast them both 
into the Bosphorus, according to the 
best romantic traditions. 

When the pasha entered, and, salaam- 
ing low, touched his breast, and his 


lips and his brow, and smiled appeas-. 


ingly, Jebb thought of the wiles of the 
bloodthirsty Turk of literature. But 
he pointed to a chair. The pasha bowed 
again, and launched forth into a stream 
of Turkish. The flood carried away all 
of Jebb’s little phrases, and he could 
not even remember how to say that he 
did not speak Turkish. 

The pasha showed his disappointment 
at the check, thought a while, then vep- 
tured in bad French: 

“Dye parle francais oon peu. 
que moosoo le parle?” 

And Jebb answered in worse: 

“Ung poo.” 

Proceeding then with much caution, 
yet with far more mangling of French 
grammar than Jebb realized, the pasha 
explained that he had heard of Jebb’s 
great success. The pasha’s wife—if 
Jebb Effendi would pardon a gentle- 
man for mentioning his wife to another 
gentleman—the pasha’s wife was very 
ill. She was wasting away, and no one 
seemed to know just what, or where, 
or whence her ailment was. Perhaps— 
undoubtedly—Jebb Effendi would know 
at a glance. 

Jebb was so relieved at the nature 
of the pasha’s visit that he consented 
to go at once. Fehmi Pasha begged 
him to honor his poor carriage, which 
waited below, and they went together. 

Fehmi Pasha did not impress Jebb 
so favorably as Akef Bey. There are 
Turks and Turks and Turks. Dis- 
counting—as he tried to—his natural 
prejudice against Fehmi Pasha, the 
jailer and persecutor of Miruma, Jebb 
felt him to be a man of craven and 
clammy nature, effusive, but insincere ; 
showy, yet ungenerous. Jebb learned 


Est-ce 


from such French as was jolted out 
of the pasha that his wife, Nahir Ha- 
num, was a strong-minded woman, a 
sort of Oriental suffragette, and more 
Young Turk than the Young Turks 
themselves. 

Jebb gathered that the pasha was a 
somewhat hanum-pecked husband, and 
quite as much in fear of his wife as in 
love with her. 

When he entered the door of the 
pretentious mansion he saw what the 
pasha meant by his wife’s advanced 
ideas. She had outgrown the more or 
less graceful usages time has mellowed 
in Turkey, and the furniture, the walls, 
everything breathed the spirt of prog- 
ress ill digested, of ostentation displac- 
ing comfort. 

The main hall was covered with im- 
ported wall paper of a tawdry pattern 
that would have offended an American 
farmer of the old school. The pasha 
evidently. admired it as the latest tri- 
umph of new art. 

The pasha’s wife’s couch was not the 
usual mattress upon the floor, but a bed 
from France, a canopied and almost 
coquettish piece of furniture, quaintly 
chaperoned by a banner of velvet, em- 
broidered with a stanza chosen from 
the Koran as Nahir’s particular motto. 

The pasha delicately withdrew after 
the presentation. Jebb could not un- 
derstand how completely Turkish cus- 
tom releases the physician, especially 
the foreign physician, from the restric- 
tions of harem etiquette, and he was 
unable to shake off a chill between the 
shoulder blades. He expected every 
moment to hear the tread of some huge 
black guardian and feel his sword. 

Nahir Hanum was plainly suffering 
a mortal illness; Jebb’s eyes told him 
that. She commanded more French 
than the pasha, but she was se wasted 
away, and so completely prostrated that 
her voice was but a thin wire. Jebb 
had lost his little all of French through 
uneasiness, and he could neither ask the 


THE GIFT WIFE 69 


delicate and technical questions, nor un- 
derstand much of what Nahir Hanum 
had to say. 

He gave up and went back to the 
hall, where the pasha waited anxiously. 

His French was almost too lame to 
express its own lameness, but he man- 
aged to make clear his need of an in- 
terpreter. He was about to suggest that 
Hellwald or Murison be called in when 
the pasha exclaimed: 

“If only my other wife were here. 
She understands English.” 

“Your other wife!” Jebb echoed with 
a great obscure pam about his own 
heart. 

“Yes,” said the pasha apologetically, 
“it is my misfortune to have two wives, 
effendi. I will send for the other at 
once. Perhaps she can repay me now, 
in part, for the enormous expense she 
has pus me to.” 

He was not yet modern style enough 
to have electric bells in his konak, so he 
clapped his hands. A servant appeared, 
whom he dispatched for his coachman. 
When this man arrived he was dis- 
patehed posthaste to request Miruma 
Hanum to come at once. The coach- 
man’s salaam did not conceal his 
amazement at the command. 

Jebb could hardly believe the reality 
of what was taking place. By a sud- 
den shift of scenery and event he was 
to meet Miruma again, and under the 
very roof, in the very presence of the 
tyrant who kept her in fruitless bond- 
age. He could not trust himself to 
utter a word of approval, protest, or 
comment. But the pasha, not realizing 
that he was telling a twice-told tale, 
was excitedly dashing headlong through 
the French language, with such carnage 
to grammar and accent that Jebb would 
have been at a loss to understand a 
word, had he not possessed a scenario 
in his own head. 

He felt a contradiction of emotions 
as he realized the pasha’s resentment 
against the helpless Miruma. Jebb 


would have hated the pasha for loving 
Miruma, yet he could hardly love him 
for his evident dislike. 

The motives of the pasha were not of 
the noblest. He was a decayed politi- 
cian, trained in licking the old sultan’s 
sandals, and in hunting baksheesh, 
which is Turkish for graft. Thrown 
out of that employment and left to 
mope in idleness, he had turmed miserly. 

“The possession of two wives, moo- 
soo,” he said, “was not my wish, but 
my misfortune. My father had but one 
wife, and his father before him. Few. 
Turks except the rich and dissolute 
have endeavored to keep more than one 
wife. The law permits us four, but the 
law does not furnish us with funds. 
And it were easier to keep four tigresses 
in a cage, Moosvo Jebb, than four wives 
in a house. For Turkish women are 
tyrannical, moosoo, and very exacting. 
They fear only the priests. It is the 
priests that keep them under the veil, 
the priests and the fear of other 
women’s gossip. 

“I was content with one wife. Na- 
hir Hanum is a good woman, she has 
borne me many children—why should 
I have desired another wife? I did 
not. But his imperial majesty, the padi- 
shah—whom Allah preserve !—in those 
beautiful days when I enjoyed his 
favor, felt graciously inclined to pre- 
sent me with another. My own wife, 
she is a noble woman, moosoe, but jeal- 
ous—mashallah! She threatened to de- 
stroy herself if I—if I made the other 
woman, this Miruma, my real wife. I 
went through the ceremony, but only 
the ceremony. Miruma Hanum is 
beautiful, I am told, though I have 
never seen her without her veil. 

“The padishah—whom Allah pre- 
serve !—withdrew his favor from me 
soon after he honored me with his ex- 
pensive gift. But Allah manages all 
things best, and perhaps now my sec- 
ond wife will help us to save the life 
of my beloved, my. one true wife. I: 


70 THE GIFT WIFE 


have been told that Miruma Hanum 
has studied the English. Indeed, I have 
had to pay for many English books 
for her diversion. Perhaps now she 
can repay me for them by helping you 
to heal the mother of my sons.” 

Jebb listened in silence, his temples 
throbbing with conflict. At length he 
made so bold as to say: 

“If you do not love and do not see 
your second wife, pasha, why don’t 
you divorce her?” 

He knew well enough why, but he 
asked the question. The pasha squirmed 
a little as he answered: 

“It would be both ungracious and— 
dangerous, effendi, for me to~ttismiss 
the gift of the padishah.” 

But Jebb persisted. ‘The padishah 
is no longer dangerous. I hear that he 
is a prisoner, and in disfavor. Some 
people say that he will be deposed— 
perhaps put to death, and that his 
brother, whom he has kept in prison 
for many years, will be the new sultan.” 

“That is true,” said the pasha, and 
he fingered his prayer beads with nerv- 
ous hands, as if he were counting 
money. But he kept silence. 

At length Jebb said, with an effort 
at guilelessness: 

“If you should grant your second 
wife a-release, she would no longer be 
an—an expense to you.” 

“The release is itself a great ex- 
pense,” said the pasha, thinking hard. 
“I could not dismiss her without pro~ 
viding for her future or repaying the 
—the money I received from the padi- 
shah as her dowry.” 

“Why not repay it?” said Jebb, won- 
dering at his own presumption. 

The pasha gave him a curious look, 
smiled craftily, and said: 

“You surgeons speak easily of am- 
‘putations.” 


Then he changed the subject to cof- 
fee. : 
At length the sound of horses’ hoofs 
outside reminded the pasha that he had 
not yet told the first-wife of the visit 
of the second. He excused himself 
hastily, and entered his wife’s room 
with manifest uneasiness. 

Too restless to sit still, Jebb began 
pacing the floor. His randam steps 
brought him to a window commanding 
the garden. He saw a servant run out 
and open a gate in the wall. A tall 
negro in fez and frock stepped in. His 
wrist was in splints. He bowed low 
before a veiled figure that followed 
with evident reluctance. 

She stood there in the flower-bor- 
dered path—Miruma. 

She looked about the strange place 
timidly, then came forward with reso- 
lution to the foot of the outside stair- 
way leading to the balcony. She 
mounted slowly, pausing often to re- 
new her courage. Between two ter- 
rors, she was compelled to be brave. 
She dared not disobey her lord, the 
pasha; she hardly dared to face her 
superior, the Bash-Kadin. To have met 
her in health for a battle royal would 
have been, perhaps, inspiring; but her 
rival’s helplessness and illness lent her 
a ghostly advantage. 

At length Miruma reached the bal- 
cony, stood before the door leading 
to the very room where Jebb waited, 
gathering all his resources of self-con- 
trol. And at last she entered, saw 
him. 

He knew by the quiver that went 
through her that she had not been pre- 
pared for this meeting. But she made 
no further sign. 

For a long moment they were alone 
together. Then they heard the pasha’s 
voice. 


To be continued in the next issue of THE THRILL BOOK, 
out on October 15th. 


Jonah Ladew and the well?” the 

detective asked, leaning back in 
his chair and contemplating me through 
a cloud of tobacco smoke. “No? Well, 
perhaps it will while away a few min- 
utes of this tiresome trip.” 

And here’s the story as the detective 
told it. 

When I was a very young man, if 
suspicion makes the detective, 1 was far 
further advanced in my profession than 
I am at present. My eyes and ears 
were perpetually seeking for criminal 
faces and whispered: conversations ; my 
mind was a revolving roulette wheel of 
numbered crimes; and my hands were 
continually itching for some rogue’s col- 
lar. 

I first met Jonah Ladew while I was 
spending a hard-earned vacation in 
a little country place many miles from 
the city. It was a beautiful spring day. 
As I walked through the orchard, the 
blossoms above my head seemed like a 
snow-storm arrested in midair. The 
perfume of flowers bathed in dew, the 
singing of a multitude of birds, the 
stream of golden sunlight pouring down 
from a cloudless sky, turned this little 
grove of trees into a veritable Eden and 
for the nonce cleansed my mind of the 


D" I ever tell you the story of 


black, sooty specks of suspicion which 
clung to it like cinders. The world 
seemed a brighter and cleanlier place 
than I had imagined. 

Following a little, winding path, I 
soon found myself on the outskirts of 
the orchard. There, fifty yards in 
front of me, stood a small, white house, 
evidently newly painted and suggesting 
in the sunlight a country girl decked out 
in her finery. An old-fashioned stone 
well was immediately in front of the 
house, and bending over it, hts back to- 
ward me, was the stoeutest man I have 
ever seen. He was so fat, indeed, that 
from the rear he looked like an animal 
dressed in men’s clothes. His small, 
round head was bent forward ; his great, 
red neck was covered with perspiration 
and flies. Although his hands, his 
shoulders, his legs, suggested violent 
movement, he remained perfectly mo- 
tionless till I approached and touched 
him on the arm. At that, he wheeled 
about and faced me. 

“Have you dropped something into. 
the well?” I asked. 

His bulbous cheeks, which had been- 
suffused with blood, now turned sickly 
white; his round, bulging eyes avoided 
mine. 

“What?” he said, in a shrill, piping 


92 AN ECCENTRIC 


voice, and his right hand, like a mon- 
strous, purple beetle, fluttered up to 
his breast. 

“I asked you if you had dropped any- 
thing in the well,” I said: sternly, fixing 
him with my eyes. 

“Dropped anything in the well?” he 
repeated. ‘‘That’s a funny question! 
Why should J drop anything into the 
well °” 

“You were looking down into it as 
though you Had—just this way.” 

Pushing past him, I bent down and 
glanced into the well. Far below, I 
saw a circle of dim light, like a disk of 

lass, which reflected a shadowy head. 
t was water and nothing more. Sud- 
denly I heard a shrill laugh and, look- 
mg up, saw the fat man convulsed with 
merriment. He was tittering liké a 
great washerwoman. 

“Well,” I asked, “what is it?” 

“You looked so funny peering down,” 
he said, gasping and wiping his face 
with his shirt-sleeve. “You looked as 
though you expected to see something. 
You couldn't though, could you?” 

“No—only water. But I think I'll 
have a drink of it. I’m rather thirsty.” 

“No, don’t,” he muttered. ‘That 
water isn’t very good; I never drink 
it.” 

“T think I'll try it just the same. I’m 
partial to the well water about here.” 
Grasping the windlass, I began to turn 
it. 

The bucket came up easily enough: 
But, as I continued to turn the wind- 
lass, I saw a strange expression. steal 
over my companion’s bloated face. 
Bending over the well, he stared down 
with dilated eyes and open mouth. As 
the bucket rose slowly into view, his 
whole huge body began to tremble like 
a figure made of jelly. Suddenly, with 
a hoarse cry, he put his hand into the 
black aperture and, seizing the rim of 
-the bucket, turned it upside down. I 
heard its contents splash back into the 
well. 


‘Nobody ever drinks that water!” he 
cried, turning on me with a strange light 
in his eyes. “Nobody ever drank it 
but brother Joe.” 

“And where’s brother Joe?” 

“Ah,” said he with a titter, “nobody 
knows that—nobody! He left home 
years ago and he never came _ back. 
Since then that water’s been left alone.” 

“Well, if I can’t have a drink, I'll be 
of, Mr. ” 

‘‘Ladew’s my name—Jonah Ladew.” 

“Well, good afternoon, Mr. Ladew.” 

“Good afternoon,” he said, with an- 
other of his girlish titters. Turning 
about, he lumbered off toward the little 
white house. 

for a moment I stood looking irreso- 
lutely at the well, then I hurried back 
to the orchard. When I reached the 
grove of trees, I hid myself behind some 
underbrush and waited. Nearly an 
hour passed. Then I saw the front 
door of the white house open and the 
heavy figure of Jonah Ladew come out. 
Looking about him on all sides, he 
again approached the well. Bending 
over it, he began to turn the windlass. 
From my hiding-place, I could hear him 
talking to himself in a shrill voice. Oc- 
casionally his girlish titter rang out on 
the still air. 

“Ah, there you are, Joseph!” he cried. 
“How do you like it down there? Now 
you’re coming up, you see—up into the 
beautiful, clear air where the flowers 
are blooming. Higher, higher—how 
you’re nearly up. I can see your face 
so plainly. Remember how you used 
to kick me, Joseph? Do you, Joseph? 
That’s high enough, Joseph. Now we'll 
go down, down, down.” ; 

And then Jonah Ladew dropped the 
handle of the windlass; the rope ran 
out ; the bucket fell into the water. He 
raised and lowered that bucket fully 
fifty times, while the birds sang above 
my head, the blossoms fluttered down 
like tiny stars, and the breeze mur- 
mured its soft sefrain through the 


AN ECCENTRIC 73 


branches. It is only by violent contrast 
that the heights of horror can be 
reached. In this beautiful spot that 
tittering mammoth madman crooning 
over his well was peculiarly revolting. 

Finally, bathed in perspiration, I 
leaped to my feet and hurried off to 
the village. Fifteen minutes later I 
entered the mayor’s office. 

“Well, what can I do for you?” the 
mayor asked. 

“There’s a murderer in town!” I 
cried. 

“Where?” said he, looking lazily at 
the windows, the doors, the tables. 

“His name is Jonah Ladew. He lives 
in a small, white house on the other 
side of Smith’s cherry orchard.” 

“Oh, he’s not a murderer,” said the 
mayor wearily. “He’s just an eccen- 
tric.” 

“T know he’s insane, but he’s a mur- 
derer as well. His brother has been 
missing for years. I know where he’s 
been all this time. He’s been at the 
bottom of Jonah’s well.” 

“You have been watching old Jonah 
—I can see that,” said the mayor with 
asmile. “He its a bit eccentric at times, 
but he’s right smart at some things. 
Jonah’s smart at selling apples.” 


“And his brother ?” 

“Why, Joe’s been lying in the grave- 
yard twenty years now. He was shot 
in a drunken scrap down the river. Joe 
was a mean scoundrel. He used to like 
to get a man down ard then jump on 
him. Looked a lot like Jonah, only 
taller. Some people say that Jonah . 
wouldn’t be the way he is if it hadn’t 
been for the beatings Joe used to give 
him. Jonah may be carrying a grudge; 
it wouldn’t surprise me if he was.” 

“And you’re sure of all this?” I 
asked suspiciously. 

“Why, man,” said the mayor, pulling 
his beard and half closing his eyes. “I> 
was one of Joe’s pallbearers! What a 
sweating time we did have of it! He 
was a powerful big man, was Joe.” 


That ended the detective’s narrative. 
For a moment there was silence, broken 
only by the train rumbling over the 
tracks and the rattling of the window- 
panes in their sockets. 

“So Jonah Ladew wasn’t a murderer 
after all?’ I said at length. 

“Well, that all depends,” said the de- 
tective, staring up thoughtfully at the 
ceiling. “Yes and no. It was a crime 
that had been committed in the brain.” 


DIM UNKNOWN 


By Carl Buxton 


BELOVED, how my heart cries out to you 
Like some poor penitent upon his knees 
Who seeks new visions of old mysteries, 
And thinks to raise his failing hopes anew. 
Alas, the treasures of the earth are few; 
Life is a wilderness wherefrom one sees 
The sunlight far above the close-grown trees, 
Wherein we feebly dream our swift days through. 


Behind our smiles we hide our tears, behind 

Our tears, our dreams . . . this much we own 
If one possess the splendid gift to bind 

Unto the spirit by his strength alone 
That which he does not earn but lives to find 

By taking chances with a dim unknown. 


N a dismal morning in the early 
fall I set out along the county 
road for a walk, little knowing 

and caring not at all where my desul- 
tory steps might lead. Fog had crept 
into the narrow valley, and the low, 
blunt-nosed hills showed dimly through 


the mist. I am impressionable, sus- 
ceptible—a victim of moods. I fought 
against the gray cheerlessness of the 
countryside, but it searched me out; 
and I bowed my head beneath the man- 
tle of gloom that settled about me, and 
clung to me, like the folds of a wet 
blanket. 

Not alone were the weather condi- 
tions respbnsible for my dark mood. 
I had received several disappointments 
during the past few days. They were 
in the form of printed slips—short but 
to the point—and came to me, inclosed 
with many familiar typewritten pages, 
in fat self-addressed envelopes. Fur- 
thermore, all my worth-while posses- 
sions I carried in my pockets—and I 
was not overburdened with them. I 
was lonely and among strangers. I had 
no trade, no reliable profession. It 
seemed to me that I had nothing. 


And then suddenly the fog began to 
rise; the gray old hills shrugged them- 
selves free of it, and turned golden 
brown in the warm sunshine. My 
spirits rose with the fog. My musing 
leaped from dour introspection to rosy 
self-appraisement. What if I did have 
only a few dollars? I had youth and 
strength and health; and I had a sys- 
tem with which I could make money 
—much of it—honestly. I had the 
world to live in! The whole wide 
world, with all its strange places and 
its strange people, was mine to study 
and to enjoy. And I had imagination 
—ah, what a gift of the gods that even 
money cafinot buy! 

A little bird twittered in the hedge 
near by. I cut a fancy caper in the 
road, whistled a gay little tune and 
passed blithely on my way. 

I came to a great arched gateway 
at one side of the road which bore the 
inscription “State Hospital.” I passed 
beneath the arch and on to the super- 
intendent‘s office. I entered the office 
and spoke to a man whom I found 
there, seated at a desk. 

“You are the superintendent——” 


A STEP AND A HALF 75 


“Yes,” he interrupted me, “and I 
suppose you are Mr. Brown. You are 
late; I have been waiting for you 
two hours. You may go to Doctor 
Bask’s office and report. He will ex- 
plain your duties. Call in here again 
this evening and fill out a formal appli- 
cation——” 

‘Please excuse me,” I cut in. “I’m 
not Mr. Brown, nor am I an applicant 
for a job. My name is Bistol, Horace 
Bistol, and I have come to look around 
a little, and to talk, perhaps, to a few 
of the inmates—those who are harm- 
less.”” 

“Pardon me, ‘Mr. Horse Pistol, I 
don’t——” 

“Just a moment,” I interjected curtly. 
“Before we go any further let’s get that 
name right—H-o-r-a-c-e B-i-s-t-o-l.” 

“All right,” he returned with an irri- 
tating smile, “spell it as you please; it’s 
your name not mine. But, as I was 
about to explain, I thought when you 
entered that you were the new man we 
are expecting this morning. Go ahead 
and look around as much as you wish. 
The patients you find amusing them- 
selves out there in the yard are trus- 
ties.” 

I thanked the superintendent and 
went out into what he had called the 
yard. This I found to be a great gar- 
den with well-kept flowers and trees, 
and with walks that encircled the many 
buildings and smaller inclosures. 

The day was promising well for me. 
Already I had met and studied, if but 
momentarily, one interesting character. 
I classified the superintendent thus: 
Willing to grant a favor, courteous 
enough in his own peculiar way, 
straight to the point in business mat- 
ters; but too much self-satisfied, cursed 
with a sense of low-grade humor, too 
liable to jump at conclusions, and alto- 
gether lacking in the ability to read 
character. I laughed to myself as I 
thought of how the fellow had mistaken 


me for a job hunter. Couldn’t he see 
that I presented a different type? 
Couldn’t he know that I was not a day 
worker—a _ nonentity to be encom- 
passed, measured, limited by the moa- 
notonous, regular revolutiens of clock 
hands? 

Many men were sauntering about the 
grounds. I noted one in particular. He 
walked a short distance ahead of me, 
leisurely, with a peculiar, free swing 
of movement for a man of so heavy a 
build. His hands were clasped behind 
his back; his head he carried a little 
forward, and he seemed te be wrapped 
in profound study. I do not know 
whether it was the unusual size and 
build of him or whether it was his 
preoccupied manner that distinguished 
him so markedly from the others. 
Slowly I overtook him, a little in doubt 
as to whether or not to acecost him, so 
greatly engrossed was he in his musings. 
At last I decided to run the risk of a 
rebuff. 

‘Good morning,” I said. 

I was almost at his shoulder. He 
paused and turnéd slightly to look down 
at me. ; 

He studied me for a moment out of 
keen but not unkindly gray eyes. There 
were flecks of gray in his wavy brown 
hair, but I judged him to be not over 
thirty-five or forty years of age. His 
face lighted neither with pleasure nor 
surprise at my intrusion. 

Then finally he answered ‘Good 
morning,” seemed to forget my pres- 
ence, and began to move on again in 
his slow abstracted manner. I 
dropped into step at his side, a little at 
a loss as to just what course to follow. 
Evidently the fellow did not want my 
company forced upon him; still, I 
wished to have a word or two with 
him. There was something about him 
that had impressed me, aroused my in- 
terest. At first I had thought this man 
to be an inmate of the place, but now, 
after one look into those sharp eyes 


76 A STEP AND A HALF 


and keen-cut features, of course, { 
thrust that thought aside. 

“This is a fine day,” I began inanely. 

The big fellow stopped short and 
faced me. 

“Yes,” he said,“this is a fine day. 
You wish to converse with me, I see. 
Upon what subject, please? Come, out 
with it! You are a stranger here—a 
newcomer? Most likely you wish to 
discuss with me the hypothetical prin- 
ciples of perpetual motion °”’ 

I was nonplused at this. Was this 
Strapping, hardy,  intelligent-looking 
man, after all, insane—an inmate, and 
not a visitor or an attendant? Had he 
perhaps become unbalanced from brood- 
ing on the intricate impossibilities of 
perpetual motion? I had heard of that 
very thing toppling a man’s reason. I 
decided to humor him. 

“T don’t know much about perpet- 
ual motion,” I answered. “I am deeply 
interested in it though; and perhaps you 
can give me some information on the 
subject. You have made a study of 
a 

He snorted contemptuously. 

“Certainly not!” he replied. “Do 1 
appear as crazy as that? If you have 
atry views on that absurd, mechanically 
impossible proposition, I wish you 
would kindly keep them to yourself. 
There are a lot of deepthinking and 
long-winded expounders of that sub- 
ject here now. Their discourses amused 
me at first; but long since they have 
begun to cloy.” 

“TI am not particularly interested in 
perpetual motion,’ I hastened to assure 
him. 

“Please excuse me,” he begged in mol- 
lified tones; “I was too hasty in judging 
you. But when you’ve been here as 
long as I have, and have had to listen 
to as much senseless chatter about such 
things as I have had to listen to, you 
will become suspicious of strangers 
yourself. They all specialize—just 
what is your specialty?” 


“Why,” I stammered, “I—I’m not 
crazy at all. I—I’m just a 

“Ah, so that’s it,” he said, rudely in- 
terrupting me. “You will find several 
of your sort here, too, and they are as 
bad as, if not worse than, the other 
kinds. They’re not crazy! Oh, no! 
They’re here just because some heart- 
less wretch wants them out of the way 
—heirs to fortunes and all that sort 
of thing. Not crazy—just framed— 
railroaded. Well, I’m nat of your kind, 
and I’m damned glad of it. If you 
wish to have anything more. to say to 
me, just forget that you’re not crazy. 
I’m tired of listening to the yammer- 
ings of lunatics who incessantly pro- 
test that they are not crazy.” 

“I want you to understand,” I 
blurted out hotly, “that I am soft crazy. 
I am no more crazy than you are! I’m 
merely a visitor here.” 

“Oh,” he said, in conciliatory tones, 
“why didn’t you say so before. But 
you have evidently mistaken me for an 
attendant or a visitor, also. Please al- 
low me to insist, truthfully, candidly, 
that I am insane. But,’ he added, “I 
am getting better; I hoped to be cured 
soon.” 

I began to feel a little dizzy from 
the way in which our conversation had 
run. I could not bring myself to be- 
lieve that this man was of unsound 
mind. Still he had insisted sanely, or in- 
sanely, enough that he was insane. I 
checked further conning of the per- 
plexing question and took him at his 
word. At least here was a character 
well worth studying. 

Then as I walked along at his side 
I noticed that my companion limped. 
I was sure that he had not limped while 
I had been walking behind bim a few 
minutes previously. 

“You are lame in the left foot?” I 
asked. 

He started, flew into a fit of rage, 
stamped the mooted fect upon the sol- 
idly packed gravel walk. 


A STEP AND A HALF 77 


“No! Damme! No! I am not 
lame!” 

Then his anger passed as suddenly 
as it had come. He looked at me a 
little sheepishly. 

“I beg your pardon,” he said. “You 
do not understand. I shall explain and 
then, I am sure, you will forgive me 
for having lost my temper. That— 
that which you noticed is not a limp; 
it is a habit—a dastardly, doltish, apish 
habit, that I have been trying to break 
myself of every day for the last four 
years. It—it has largely to do with my 
being -here—a pitiable remnant of my 
former self, a State’s charge, an incom- 
petent, broken in réason. Come and sit 
with me on this bench and I shall tell 
you the story.” 

I went, delighted at the opportunity 
to hear a story such as this one prom- 
ised to be; but I was greatly depressed 
at finding a man of apparently so sound 
a mind and of so good an address, 
avowedly in so sorry a plight. And 
here in his own words is the story 
he told: 


Out in the world of affairs, during 
the several years immediately preced- 
ing my advent here, I followed the busi- 
ness of man hunting. Four years ago 
last summer I was in the employ of a 
private detective agency located in San 
Francisco. This firm made a specialty 
of running down and bringing to jus- 
tice those of the higher order of crooks. 
It was a sort of banker’s protective 
association. I followed many dim and 
crooked trails in those days; and I was 
eonsidered a successful operative—I 
always got my man! 

I had just returned from a long, hard 
trip into Mexico, bringing back with 
me an absconding bank cashier. I was 
looking forward to the enjoyment of a 
quiet week or so about town; when on 
the same day of my arrival the chief 
called me back into his office. 

“Sorry, Bill,” he began, “‘but I’ve got 


to send you out of town again to-day. 
A dude by name of Gentleman Jamison 
has been working a brand-new system 
on some of our air-tight banks here. 
We've got to get him, and get him 
right. This is a particular case. This 
fellow Jamison has had help, and we 
are afraid of the system and of the 
accomplices he has left behind. It’s 
up to you to fetch him back in shape 
to do some talking. He’s a prize slicker, 
right enough—not a bad man though, 
just a nimble-witted dude. You bring 
him back—that’s your end of it; and 
I’ll make him come clean as a white- 
fish—that’s my end of it. I know his 
kind, though, and it won’t take much 
to make him chatty. A little rough 
stuff—third-degree work—and he'll 
come through! Mind now, bring him 
back on the cushions with you, and not 
in a box in the blind. Dead men tell 
no tales, you know, and it’s the tale we 
want this time as much as the man. 

“Here’s the dope on him. I’ve got 
it all in shape for you. He’s a little 
fellow, you’ll notice—a little guy with 
one flat tire—gimpy in the left foot. 
And here’s a map of the lava beds 
of the northern part of the State, show- 
ing an old emigrant trail and the few 
scattered water holes along the way. 
It’s a duplicate of a map Jamison has 
with him. He bought his ticket for 
Redding ; but got off the train at Ander- 
son, and took the stage from there into 
the hills to the east this morning. 
You’ve got time to catch this evening’s 
train and reach Anderson just a day 
behind him. Outfit there and go after 
him. Don’t get any help from the 
sheriff up there, unless you’re sure that 
you'll need it. We want to keep this 
thing quiet till you get back here, so as 
to surprise Jamison’s accomplices. 

“T hate to have te send you out so 
soon after the hard trip you’ve just 
finished, but you’re the only man handy 
now that I feel like trusting with the 
job.” 


78 A STEP AND A HALF 


I grumbled a little, of course, at this 
change in my plans, but that evening 
I boarded the northbound traiv with 
the map, a full description of Jamison, 
and a warrant for his arrest, together 
with more of the chief’s verbal instruc- 
tions and warnings. At Anderson I 
outfitted with a pack horse, a saddle 
horse, a camp outfit, and provisions 
enough to last for more than a month. 
You see, I had some sort of idea of 
what might be awaiting nfe up there in 
that desolate, barren country into which 
I was going. 

About noon on the first day out, I 
met the stage driver on his return trip. 
He told me where Jamison had left 
his stage on the day before to take the 
old emigrant road at the edge of the 
lava beds, afoot with a pack on his 
back. A little farther along I found 
the old road where it crossed the newer 
one which I had been following. I 
found this old road to be more of a 
trail than a road, and more of a puz- 
zle than either a trail or a road. It 
was dim and hard to follow—a crooked 
bare-rock trail running through the 
lava, mile after mile, without dust 
enough in it for the impression of a 
footprint. Only old wheel scars left 
by the ox carts of the pioneers and a 
blaze, here and there, on an occasional, 
forlorn bull pine or a juniper, marked 
the way. Long ago this trail, which 
had once been a section of an impor- 
tant transcontinental thoroughfare, had 
been abandoned, except for the passing 
of some cowman. 

I examined the trail closely at inter- 
vals, and always I found fresh scratches 
on the rocks, which I concluded must 
have been made by hobnails or calks 
in Jamison’s boots. This led me to 
believe that he was not so shrewd as 
the chief had pictured him to me—else 
he would not have worn calks in the 
sales of his boots to betray the way the 
had gone. 

I camped that first night at Jamison’s 


camp of the night before. I did not 
come to this camp till it was almost 
dark, and I was surprised at this; for 
I had gotten an early start that morn- 
ing and had ridden steadily all day. 
I realized that Jamison had been mak- 
ing better time than I had—he could 
not have followed that trail in the dark. 
Certainly he had spent fewer hours in 
traveling thus far than had I. A lame 
man—and a soft, little city dude, at 
that, with a pack on his back. It was 
incredible. But, there was the cogent 
evidence—the indisputable proof. 

The next morning I packed and sad- 
dled by firelight, and then I had to wait 
an hour for the dawn to flush that I 
might see to follow the trail again. I 
was determined to overtake Jamison 
that day if he kept to the trail. 

On the second night I camped beside 
the cold ashes of Jamison’s fire of the 
night before. He had made another 
dry camp, and that square in the mid- 
dle of the trail. I told myself that 
speed stood the fellow well in hand, 
for he seemed to have no caution. Why 
had he not hidden this evidence of his 
campmg place. It seemed, almost, that 
purposely he was leaving landmarks for 
me to follow. And I marveled more 
than ever at the fast gait he must have 
held on to all that day. I was certain 
now that the chief had it wrong about 
the fellow’s being lame. Why, I was 
almost too greatly tired by that day’s 
ride to spread my blankets, and my 
horses had begun to stumble long be- 
fore I called a halt that night. 

On the third morning, already. on 
my way along that old trail that wound 
and twisted among the .rocks, worm- 
img its way upward and eastward into 
the very heart of the lava beds, I met 
the dawn face to face. 

About noon I saw a pyramid of rocks 
at one side of the trail. This pile of 
rocks, as I cerrectly supposed, marked 


-the location of a hot sprmg which was 


platted on my map. Beside the pile 


A STEP AND A HALF 


of rocks I saw a fire; and beside the 
fire I saw a man; and soon I came 
close enough to note that the man 
lumped as he moved about, busy pre- 
paring a meal. Not once did the man 
at the fire glance back along the trail 
as I rode up. He did not even start 
when I came close behind him and or- 
dered him to throw up his hands. He 
turned slowly and smiled at me; then 
he nodded toward my leveled auto- 
matic. 

“Please put it up,” he said. “Look- 
ing down the muzzle—or nozzle, or 
whatever you call it—of one of those 
things rocks my equanimity. Anyway, 
I’m not armed! I’m not going to run, 
and I’m not going to fight. Tie up 
your nags and have dinner; it’s all ready 
—lI’ve been expecting you.” 

I was confounded, of course, at the 
attitude the fellow had taken. Had he 
put up a fight, or shown fright, or tried 
a get-away, or had he become sullen, 
I should have known how to deal with 
him. But this flippant indifference of 
his was new to me, and I put him down 
for a queer one from the start. Be- 
cause I was flustered, I blurted out: 

“See here, I’m Bill Gladding, and I’ve 
got you!” 

Again he smiled his tantalizing smile. 

“And I am Gentleman Jamison,” he 
said with an extravagant bow; “and 
you’ve got me!” 

I dismounted, unsaddled, unpacked, 
and tied the horses to a juniper tree 
close at hand. I pretended the while 
net to watch Jamison too closely; but 
always I kept him in the corner of my 
eye. He made no untoward move, how- 
ever, and I soon became more at ease 
with him. 

“We camp here to-night,” I told him 
as. we sat down to dinner, ‘and to-mor- 
row we hit the back trail.” 

He merely smiled in acquiescence. 

I was in a quandary for a while that 
evening. How was I going to keep a 
safe watch over my man without hav- 


79 


ing to sit up all night. Finally I struck 
upon this plan: We spread our blank- 
ets down to form one bed; we removed 
all the loose rocks from near the head 
of the bed, and I left my pistol close 
to the spring—beyond arm’s length 
from the bed. You see, I did not fancy 
the idea of Jamison’s cracking my head 
with a hunk of lava, or shooting me 
with my own gun while I slept. We 
then turned in, and as we lay there side 
by side on our backs, I handeuffed 
Jamison’s right wrist to my left wrist. 

It was not long until Jamison began 
to snore, and soon afterward I dropped 
off the sleep also. Ina sort of semicon- 
sciousness, I held myself in readiness 
to awaken at Jamison’s first move. 

That first move came some time just 
before dawn. I felt him twist a little 
tentatively, to ascertain, I suppose, 
whether or not I was awake. I lay 
pretending to be asleep, but I was awake 
—wide awake, alert. I wished to learn 
what sort of trick Jamison mtended to 
play. Cautiously I opemed one eye, 
there in the starlight, to gauge care- 
fully the exact distance and location 
of his slim throat. I had taken the 
precaution to keep my right hand out- 
side the blankets, and it lay there now, 
free, ready for an instantaneous, sure 
swing. 

Slowly and carefully Jamison began 
drawing up his legs. When his knees 
had come almost to his chin he shot 
his feet upward and outward, suddenly, 
hurling the top blanket and canvas cov- 
ering into the air in parachute fashion 
directly toward the horses, where I had 
them tied to the juniper tree near the 
foot of the bed. Both horses fell over 
backward at the same time, in one fran- 
tic lunge against the tie ropes, which 
parted like cotton twine. They whirled 
in a flash. Snorting, and with shoes 
ringing hollowly on the lava, they were 
off down the trail in the direction we 
had come. 

Like a fool I had lain there quietly 


80 A STEP AND A HALF 


waiting for Jamison to make his move, 
and when he made it, so surprised was 
I at the manner of it, that I did noth- 
ing to prevent it. I did not even strike 
out with my right hand as I had in- 
tended to do. 

“You dammed fool! why did you do 
that?’ I asked after a moment’s pause. 

“Perhaps I had the nightmare, and 
did it in my sleep,” he answered, cool 
enough. 

“You lie!” I told him. 
on purpose.” 

He was unusually slow in answering 
this time, but his voice did not rise or 
quicken above a drawl. 

“T never lie! I did it for a purpose. 
What are you going to do about it?” 

“First, I am going to try to overtake 
those horses. When I come back I'll 
tell you what next I am going to do!” 

I removed the handcuff from my 
wrist and jerked Jamison roughly to 
his feet. I led him to the juniper and 
handcuffed him securely to it; and there 
I left him, clad only in his light under- 
clothes, shivermg in the cold. 

I stumbled along the trail in the half 
light of dawn, stubbing my toes against 
benches and juts of lava. Only once 
and momentarily did I glimpse the faint 
outlines of the frightened horses streak- 
ing along the ridge. I soon came to 
realize that { might as well try to 
head off a brace of wild geese; so I 
returned to the camp. I unchained 
Jamison from the tree, but immediately 
I replaced the cuffs about his wrists. 

“You're going to wear that jewelry 
from now on till I turn you over to the 
chief for your third degree,’ I said. 
“And I’ll stand for no more funny busi- 
ness frem you!” 

“And what next are you going to do 
abont it?” he asked. 

“I am going to beat you up,” I an- 
swered. “I am going to maul you and 
batter you till you ‘are half dead!’ 

“When ?” 

“Now !” 


“You did it 


“Ail right. Take these off and start 
in.” He evinced neither fear nor sur- 
prise as he held his manacled hands out 
toward me. 

“No,” I said. “Didn’t I just tell you 
that we are going to leave those cuffs 
on?” 

Then with the realization that I was 
in earnest, surprise crept over his face. 
His wide blue eyes narrowed to slits. 
They seemed to harden, and he cen- 
tered them upon my own eyes. His 
voice was a little shaky with his first 
words: 

“You are not going to beat me up 
with these on?” 

I nodded. 

He repeated: “You are mot going to 
beat me up with these on!” 

His voice had become lower, and 
it did not tremble now. Neither was 
there any imterrogation in his tones. 
They were assertive—positively, un- 
mistakably assertive. 

“But UT am,” I[ returned. 

“But you’re not!” he challenged. 

“You're in a fine position to tell me 
what I shall do,” I taunted. 

“Listen! Lay a fmger on me while 
I have these cuffs on, and I’!l kill you! 
I'll get out of this awkward position 
eventually, and when I do, I’ murder 
you in cold blood! I'll outwit you yet. 
I’m shrewder than you are.” 

“Prove it,” I dared him, more to 
spar for time to think than for any other 
reason. 

I had the upper hand—all the ad- 
vantage—everything ; still, something in 
his tenser manner—the look in his eyes 
—the chili—the positiveness in_ his 
words—unnerved me for the moment. 

“All right—to prove it,’’ he came 
back. “You are not shrewd or you 
would not have given me the chance to 
run the horses off.” 

“T hardly conid\have forestalied that,” 
Ihed. “I was asleep. You took an ad- 
va 22 
“No,” ke cut im, “it was ali your 


A STEP AND A HALF 81 


blundering and ignorance of things 
that a man on the trail should know, 
that not only made the thing possible, 
but gave me the idea. Last night I 
watched you tie the horses to thts tree. 
You tied them low, almost to. the 
ground, where the trunk of the tree 
is stiff and without spring. Had you 
tied them a little higher up they could 
not have broken the ropes; the spring 
in the tree there would have neutral- 
ized the shock—would have made the 
strain gradual and ineffective. And 
then, those camp fires of mine that you 
noticed in the trail and chided me about 
—I built them not at my camping places, 
but farther apart, just to confuse you 
and speed you up a bit. There, is that 
proof enough?” 

All this was a revelation to me, and 
he saw that fact registered on my face. 
There was no room for denial. 

“Well,” I rejoined a little shame- 
facedly, “if I accept your proof, I be- 
lieve that justifies me all the more in 
leaving the cuffs on. If you are the 
strategist you proclaim yourself to be, 
I consider myself entitled to all the 
advantage I can get,” I retorted with a 
sneer. 

“Free my hands, and I'll take the 
beating. You'll have advantage enough 
at that. You're a big hulk of a man 
—horse-sized, and undoubtedly used to 
rough-and-tumble bouts. I[’ll bet you’ve 
razooed many a poor plug caught out 
in a fix like my own. Better take ’em 
off,” he said. “Remember, I'll get you 
sooner or later if you don’t!” 

I smiled at him and shook my head 
in refusal. 

“Are you afraid to give me any show 
at all?” he asked. “Are you altogether 
a piker—a cheap sure-thing man?” 

He won his point, in that he roused 
my ire. 

“No, damn you! No, you little runt!” 
I blustered. “I’m not aftaid! Why, I 
can break you in two with one hand!” 

Angrily I unlocked the cuffs and 

6AThrill 


threw them among the rocks. Then 
Jamison squared off—or rather he made 
as if to square off; but my fist caught 
him full and fair in his doll’s face, 
and sent him reeling. It seemed the 
job was going to be easy enough; and 
I was afraid, almost, that it would be 
over all too soon. But he came back 
with a spring that threw me off my 
guard; and then we had it hot and 
heavy. Not that he was any match for 
me, understand. But he was quick 
enough to get away from most of my 
blows, and he certainly could stand up 
against an incredible amount of pun- 
ishment. I struck out for a finish. He 
sprang back. I followed up; and then 
the totally unexpected happened. I 
stubbed my toe against a rock, pitched 
forward, and fetched up on my head 
against a solid spur of lava. 

Hours later, lying on the blankets 
where Jamison had dragged me, I came 
to my senses. My first thought was, 
of course, that Jamison had made his 
get-away. I raised myself on a shaky 
elbow, turned to look around; and then 
I saw him there at the fire frying a 
pan of bacon. Both his eyes were swol- 
len almost shut. His lips were puffed 
into a sort of ridiculous grin, and his 
nose, which formerly had been so 
straight and slender, was now merely 
a bulbous protuberance. 

Jamison had lost the most in facial 
beauty, but I don’t know who had lost 
the most, taken all in all; for I had 
an ugly scalp wound, which Jamison 
had washed and dressed for me. And, 
furthermore, the shock of my fall 
seemed to have unjointed my head from 
my neck and my neck from my shoul- 
ders, and my every tooth seemed loose 
from the jar. 

When I reached out for the cup of 
strong hot coffee Jamison handed me 
a few moments later I noticed for the 
first time that the manacles were dan- 
gling from my wrist by one securely 
locked cuff! 


8a A STEP AND A HALF 


“TY put them there,” he answered my 
mute question. ‘“‘And I threw the key in 
the hot spring. What ate you going 
to do about that?” he asked with the 
hint of a grin in his half-closed eyes. 

]T made no answer. I drank my coffee 
in silence. What was there to say? 

After a moment’s pause, Jamison 
-vouchsafed further explanation: “I left 
ene cuff open, you will notice, so that 
you may lock it about my wrist again 
to-night—if you so desire. But you 
may not so desire! Do you remember 
that story, ‘McTeague,’ by Frank Nor- 
ris? Particularly the finish where the 
bad man finds himself handcuffed to 
a corpse, alone, in the middle of the 
desert? Rather a disconcerting predica- 
ment to be in. Don’t you think so? I 
shouldn’t relish the idea of being hand- 
cuffed to a man I couldn’t get loose 
from at will.” 

I had read the story, and I recalled 
it. The passage Jamison had cited re- 
turned to me instantly, vividly in all its 
gruesome detail. With the key lost, 
I decided in a flash, not-to handcuff 
myself to this irrational freak again. 
Furthermore, I furtively snapped the 
open cuff shut, for I purposed to fore- 
stall the possibility of any capricious 
prank of his doing the thing for me. 

. During the following few days noth- 
ing of interest happened for us. We 
lay around the camp _ recuperating 
against our trip out. I kept a pretty 
close watch over Jamison all the while, 
and this grew to be a strenuous task 
toward evening of the third day. For 
two nights and almost three days now 
IT had slept no more than a wink at a 
time. On the third night I was afraid 
to go to bed lest I fall asleep and give 
Jamison a chance to escape. However, 
shortly after midnight I did lie down, 
and although I tried my best to pre- 
vent it, I did fall asleep. About two 
hours later Jamison awakened me by 
shaking my shoulder roughly. He was 
up and dressed. He had a fire going 


and coffee boiling, also he had two 
light packs made up and both of our 
canteens filled with water. 

“What’s the meaning of this?” I 
asked. 

“We're going to travél,” he answered. 

“We're going to wait for daylight,” I 
countered. 

“I’m on my way as soon as I have 
a bit of breakfast,” he replied. ‘You 
may wait as long as you please.” 

The bubbling coffee had an inviting 
smell. I got up, put on my boots, and 
tried to argue with Jamison as I joined 
him in a light breakfast. 

“You'll get lost,” I told him, “if you 
go ramming around there in the dark.” 

“I’m not afraid of that,” he came 
back. ‘‘I know where I’m going, right 
enough.” 

The fellow was not to be turned 
from his crazy purpose. He got up, 
slipped into his pack straps, swung his 
canteen to his shoulder, and started off 
into the starlight. 

“Come back,” I warned him, “or [ll 
shoot!’ I clicked my automatic for 
effect. It had no effect. 

“T am not responsible for what you 
do,” he called back. ‘Shoot or come 
along. Suit yourself.” 

Without further parley, I took up 
my pack and followed. What else 
could I do? 

Jamison took the back trail, sane 
enough at the start, but we lost it be- 
fore long—that, of course, was in- 
evitable. Daylight found me still fol- 
lowing his crazy course, and cursing 
him. Before lofg I got an idea that 
we were lost ; and I thought for a while, 
because of the way in which Jamison 
continually swerved from one tack to 
another, that he was trying to find the 
trail again. But I was soon disillusioned 
as to this; for he was too bold in the 
choosing of directions, or rather, in 
the changing of the directions. He was 
not looking for the trail, at least not 
in a haphazard way. He would fol- 


A STEP AND A HALF 83 


low only for a short distance one gen- 
eral d#rection; then he would swerve 
abruptly to another, and then to an- 
other, and so on and on. He seemed 
never to entertain any hesitancy as to 
when or where to turn. I came to 
the belief that his only object was to 
lose us more completely; and I was 
sure that he could have no possible idea 
as to where we were wandering. 

That country through which we went 
winding and twisting, is merely a mass 
of rock ridges—ridges and the spurs 
of ridges, and the branches of the 
spurs, with ravines in between, and then 
more ridges—a myriad of lunatically 
designed ridges leading everywhere and 
still nowhere—ridges that dodge around 
one another, that collide with one an- 
other, that merge into one another. 
There is no system, no reason, no key 
to that mad de.ign—that chaos of mal- 
formation. It is all a monotonous.repeé- 
tion of geological confusion—a total 
frustration of order—an utter baffle- 
ment of conformity. 

Hour after hour Jamison sped on 
—yes, sped is the word—and I clung 
to his heels. For a while I contem- 
plated that conglomeration of rock pile 
upon rock pile for some point of iden- 
tification, for some landmark for fu- 
ture reference; but I gained nothing 
for my pains except a headache; and I 
soon gave up all hope of establishing 
for myself any sense of location or di- 
rection. I found my surroundings to 
be all of a piece; and still, strangely, 
they lacked sameness. I lowered my 
eyes, and kept them lowered, to pick 
a way for them among the rocks. 

‘Then I fell into serious error. I 
left off picking my own way among 
the rocks, and began following precisely 
in the footsteps of the man ahead. As 
I have mentioned before, Gentleman 
Jamison limped. I now began to take 
particular note of this limp. It was a 
peculiar limp—different from any that 
I have ever seen a man have, before 


or since. He would take, with his good 
foot, a long stride; and then, with his 
lame foot, a short stride. And always 
when the lame foot would leave the 
ground it would leave with a spring, 
that seemed to enhance the man’s gait 
rather than impair it. Because I 
stepped always in his footsteps I had to 
adjust my strides to his—a long step, 
and then a short one. I began to study 
the secret of the spring in that lame 
foot, and in the days that were to fol- 
low I learned it, too. 

We made a dry camp that night, and 
I was too nearly done for to wait for 
my share of the supper that Jamison 
set about to cook; I immediately spread 
down our one blanket and turned in. 
Nor did I even so much as try to stay 
awake that night to watch my man. 
I had had enough of that self-imposed 
sleeplessness by now, and anyway it 
would have been impossible for me to 
stay awake a minute longer that night. 

On the following morning we were. 
up and at it again before sunrise— 
Jamison in the lead, villainously length- 
ening that already too long and con- 
fusing multiangular way we had come. 
Jamison in the lead with his untiring 
step-and-a-half business, and I in the 


_rear, sometimes only half a step, never 


more than a step behind, always with 
my eyes on his bobbing heels, following 
every swing and movement of his body 
and imitating to an absurd nicety that 
damnable trick walk of his. Af day 
it continued thus, ascending and de- 
scending those interminable rock ridges, 
and crossing the ravines, and 6n and on 
—a step and a half, a step and a half, 
a step and a half. 

Previously I had entertained fears 
of Jamison’s being unable to hang on 
to the trail with me on the way out. 
By now all these fears had become dis-. 
sipated. I knew that if the play should 
come to a show-down, I should be the 
first to go under. Always before I had 
measured a man’s strength, and ability 


84 A STEP AND A HALF 


to do things that require nerve and 
muscle, by the breadth of his shoulders 
and the depth of his chest. But here 
was this little fellow not more than 
half man size teaching me the mean- 
ing of the verb to walk. There was 
not much to him, but what there was 
must have been of spring steel. Along 
in the middle of that forenoon my 
water gave out. The sun was ham- 
mering straight down upon us with the 
terrible white glare of a blast furnace. 
Early in the afternoon my thirst be- 
came painful. I slumped down on a 
spur of lava, for the first rest I had 
taken since morning. Jamison missed 
my presence at his heels, turned, came 
back, and sat down beside me. 

“What's wrong?” he asked. 

“I can’t go much farther without 
water,” I croaked. “But anyway,” I 
complained, “what’s the use of going 
on? We’re lost.” 

“I’m not lost,” he said. 

Then he handed me his canteen. It 
was about a quarter full and I drained 
it before handing it back to him. 

“That’s all the water you'll get till 
after sundown,” he remarked. And 
then he went on to add, “You'll learn 
to do with less water before I’m through 
with you!” 

Shortly after sunset we fetched up 
at a hot spring. Here near the spring 
were a packsaddle and a riding saddle; 
a camp outfit lay scattered about the 
remains of a dead camp fire, and a roll 
of blankets lay spread out upon the 
ground close at hand. It was fully half 
an hour before I recognized the camp 
as our own—the one we had left on 
the morning before. That gives some 
inkling of how totally lost I had been 
during those two days. 

I questioned Jamison, and he held 
forth that he had not been lost—that 
intentionally he had returned to our old 
camp! I wouldn’t believe him; I 
couldn’t have believed him had I tried. 
The thing was too preposterous. That 


zigzag trail we had made couldn’t have 
been back-tracked. Our return to the 
hot spring was through sheer bull luck. 
I was sure of that! 

For two days we rested at the camp. 
In the starlight of the third morning, 
with our light packs and filled can- 
teens, we again shunted off aimlessly 
into that. maze of ridges and ravines 
bent upon another hideous pilgrimage. 
The first two days of this journey were 
without event worth noting; they were 
mere monotonous repetitions of the two 
days of the previous trip. 

For several days a light ash had been 
sifting down upon us from lazy erup- 
tions of Mount Lassen. Intermingled 
with this ash cloud there had been a 
steel-gray veil of smoke, which came, 
also, from the crater of the mountain. 
On the forenoon of the third day the 
indolent breeze shifted, and carried the 
ash cloud and the smoke veil away 
from us to the farther side of the moun- 
tain. We could now quite plainly see 
the mountain itself, with this smoke 
and ash mist rising in funnel fashion 
high into the sky and streaking off in 
an opposite direction to settle low over 
the lava beds again. But I could not 
judge, even approximately, our distafice 
from the mountain. The high, light at- 
mosphere up there has a peculiar trick 
of magnification that I could never get 
used to. 

At first I was overjoyed at this lucid 
reappearance of the mountain. Every 
moment or so I would glance up at it, 
Striving to hold it in my consciousness 
as a landmark. It was the one little 
speck in the whole crazy, befuddling 
make-up of that scurvy country that 
claimed any mark of distinction, any 
individuality. I did not know whether 
we were north or south, east or west 
of the mountain. The sun was too near 
the meridian to permit of my telling by 
it whether the time was in the fore- 
noon or in the afternoon, and my watch 
had long since stopped running. Not- 


A STEP AND A HALF 85 


withstanding this unsettled question of 
direction, however, the mountain for 
the moment was a solace to me. Then, 
because of my steadily growing fatigue, 
the lava beds all about me as far as 
my eyes could carry, began to swing 
and swirl and sway. Old Mount Lassen 
was the one fixed, sane point in all my 
confusing outlook. It seemed the only 
representative visuality remaining to me 
of another world—the outside world. 
An almost irresistible impulse to head 
straight toward it overwhelmed te. 
Stil I knew all the while that Mount 
Lassen was but the nucleus of those 
lava beds, the central, the parental point, 
from which they had at some remote 
time flowed out in a molten mass of 
white-hot billows to curdle into that 
devastated labyrinth of infamous ridges 
and ravines. 

I looked up at the mountain again, 
and another phase of my weakened con- 
dition became manifest. Once, some 
years ago I made a long sea voyage. 
During the entire trip I did not suffer 
from seasickness ; but the moment that 
I put my foot on solid ground again the 
deferred sickness came over me in its 
most violent form. I experienced a re- 
currence of the same sensations as I 
looked up at the mountain now. I found 
that by looking up at that one fixed 
point I, too, seemed to become a steady, 
fixed point, and I could feel the lava 
beds begin to, swing and swirl from 
beneath my feet. I suddenly returned 
my gaze to Jamison’s heels and began 
to swing and sway myself with the 
lava fields once mere. Much better 
this than to be seasick. Jamison con- 
tinued to move always with his funny 
trick walk. My business was to follow 
in that funny trick-walk fashion—a step 
and a half, a step and a half, a step and 
a half—and I tell you I found it busi- 
ness enough to keep me occupied for 
the moment, too. 

I had emptied my own canteen long 
since, and as on fhe previous trip, I 


had finished the emptying of Jamison’s 
also. My mouth was powder dry; my 
lips had begun to crack and shrivel; 
and my tongue—I could tell by the feel 
of it—was beginning to swell. My head 
felt light and seemed to float along yards 
above my shoulders like a toy balloon 
fastened to a string. Jamison kept go- 
ing without a pause or a backward 
glance. I caught myself marveling at 
his ability to hold the pace he had set; 
but I did not wonder at my own abil- 
ity to follow. Strangely, it seemed as 
if I stood apart, inert, watching him 
pick his way. My own effort to pro- 
gress must have become subconscious, 
sort of mechanical, just the humdrum 
operation of lifting my feet and letting 
them fall again in Jamison’s tracks as 
quickly as he would vacate them. My 
simulation of his limp must have grown 
perfect, for I affected it now without 
the slightest effort or inconvenience. 

We came to the edge of a flat table ; it 
was a quarter of a mile across, and had 
not the inequality of surface so large 
as a hen’s egg. Here Jamison had no 
need to so painstakingly pick his steps; 
so he turned to look back at me for the 
first time, I believe, since I had begun 
the mimicking of his gait. He watched 
with surprise, for some little time, my 
crow-hopping along behind him; and 
then it seemed he grasped understand- 
ing of this peculiarity, which had 
caught his notice quickly enough, but 
which he had been so slow to define. 

He began to giggle. He pointed to 
my feet. He tried to speak; his voice 
grated against the sides of his throat, 
and stuck fast. He gulped a couple of 
times and tried again. 

“T got your meat, old top! I got your 
meat! I made a step-and-a-half man 
out of you—a step-and-a-half man!” 

He watched me a while longer; and 
then he threw himself flat upon that lava 
table, and rolled, and laughed, and gib- 
bered about his getting my meat and 
my being a step-and-a-half man. 


86 A STEP AND A HALF 


I flopped on the rock beside hmm, and 
pointed at his feet, and laughed, and 
yammered about meat and step-and-a- 
half men. 

I’ve heard it said that women who 
are not easily moved to tears, find great 
relief in time of stress if they can but 
bring themselves to weep. That orgy 
of mirthless laughter and senseless chat- 
ter brought some such relief to Jamison 
and me. I believe we were both verg- 
ing on the borders of delirium from 
exhaustion and nerve strain, when we 
gave way to those absurd antics; for 
we had gone for hours and days with- 
out speaking to each other except in 
undertones and monosyllables and in 
but few of these. Soon we steadied 
down, and lay there silently resting; 
and when we finally got to our feet to 
push on, it was with strange reanima- 
tion. I could feel it in myself, and I 
could see it in Jamison. 

1 don’t know how long after this 
it was that I began to lose step, and 
then to stumble, and at last to fall. 
Perhaps it was only an hour or two, 
but it seemed much longer. Then 
Jamison struck upon an ingenious idea: 
He began marking time for me in the 
croaking of a bullfrog, and in rhythm 
attuned to the lame. He would say: 
“A step,” slowly, and then with a sort 


of jerk—“and a half! A step—and a 
half! A step—and a half! A step— 
and a half!’ 


This availed its purpose for miles; 
but finally it lost its potency. At last I 
fell. Jamison turned, and came back 
to urge me on. I refused to rise; and 
he sat down beside me to invent some 
new scheme for getting me _ started 
again. I became mildly interested as to 
what the outcome of his speculations 
would be; but it seemed that he was 
unable to contrive any other novel 
stratagem ; so he resorted to argument. 

“Come on,” he urged: “Buck up; 
don’t lay down on me like this. An- 
other hour of hiking and we'll come to 


water. I’m sot lost! I know where 
we are headed for; and it’s not far— 
and that’s on the dead level!” 

I thought of many words with which 
to confute what he had said, but lengthy 
speech I knew would be difficult; so I 
replied merely, “You're a liar!’ and let 
it go at that. 

He ignored the taunt. Then after a 
moment’s silence he replied : 

“Perhaps I should try to get you up 
and going again by kicking you in the 
face. I have heard of men quitting 
like dogs, and then being started again 
in that manner. But I don’t think I'll 
try the system out on you. I don’t 
think there’s any spirit or fight left in 
you. I think you’re just a great big 
fizzle—a farce with jelly bones and rag 
muscles !” 

I looked at him and smiled as best 
I could. 

“No geod,” I returned. “You can’t 
get me riled.” 

“Well, then,” he said, “I'll go on for 
water; I’ll fetch you back some. You 
rest up a bit. But mind, don’t get up 
while I’m away and go rambling about ; 
you'll get lost and I won’t be able to 
find you.” 

“Lost!” I mocked and laughed iron- 
ically. 

“Yes, lost,’ he came back sharply. 
“Stay where you are, and I’ll come back 
in a couple of hours with water.” 

“You'll play hell!” I rejoined. 

I watched him set off alone in his 
ludicrous gait, chanting time to himself 
as he went: A step—and a half, a 
step—and a half, a step—and a half. 
I don’t know whether he kept up this 
insane iteration from force of habit, or 
because he found that it helped him on 
his way as it had helped me. He hob- 
bled along the ridge for a hundred 
yards or so, then turned abruptly, with 
that damned certainty of his, to follow 
a spur of the ridge; then he disap- 
peared. Half an hour later I] caught a 
glimpse of him hobbling along another 


A STEP AND A HALF 87 


ridge not a quarter of a mile away. 
At first I thought he was coming back 
toward me, but he turned sharply in 
the opposite direction, and passed from 
sight again. He was traveling in a big 
arc made up of short tangents and an- 
gles. He had all but completed a semi- 
circle with me as the central point. 
“No, he’s not lost!’ I said to myself 
sarcastically. “Oh, no! He knows 
where he’s going right enough—and so 
do I. He’s going straight to hell!” 
Darkness fell and loneliness crowded 
in with it from every angle of those far- 
reaching lava fields. I wished now 
that I had made another try at going on 
with Jamison. I was afraid to stay 
there alone—but I was still more afraid 
to set out alone. I had not the remotest 
idea of what direction to go in to find 
water, or Jamison, or anything else. 
The moon came up and flooded the 
lava beds with white, mysterious, shift- 
ing light. Hours later I heard irreg- 
ular footsteps—the grating of calks on 
rock. As nearly as I could tell the 
sounds came from near the point where 
I had last seen Jamison disappear. I 
watched that point, and soon I saw 
Jamison top the ridge and go on in an 
opposite direction to that which he had 
traveled along it before. There was 
no gainsaying the fact now. The fel- 
low was actually back-tracking himself 
among those rocks where there had 
been no possible means of leaving even 
a single track! I tried to call out to 
him, but my voice would not carry. I 
watched for him to reappear along my 
ridge, and sure enough, within the half 
hour, there he came, carrying a can- 
teen and half an arm load of juniper 
limbs and a coffeepot. He came up, 
built a fire, and made some coffee. It 
was then that I took particular note 
of the coffeepot, and recognized it as 
the one we had left at the hot spring. 
He had gone back td our old camp, 
and had returned to me in that crooked, 
crazy way he had chosen to travel. 


I knew now that all this was not through 
sheer luck. He had a system—an un- 
canny, unfathomable system all his 
own. He was not lost! Before morn- 
ing I followed him back to our old 
camp at the spring again. 

Once more we rested at the camp— 
for three days this time—and then on 
the morning of the fourth day we set 
out again. This not without remon- 
stration on my part, but Jamison re- 
mained obdurate. “There’s no sense m 
this thing! What’s the idea anyway,” I 
had argued. 

“Third-degree work! Rough stuff!” 
he had answered. “I’m going to wear 
you down to a shadow, and then I’m 
going to wear the shadow down till it 
flickers and fades out. [I'll teach you 
what it means to run down a real bad 
man—and catch him! Take the black 
trail without me, or else come on; yours 
is the choice.” 

I followed him; what else was there 
for me to do—me a prize man hunter? 
I had lost a great deal of flesh on those 
last two trips; I was stiff and sore, but 
otherwise I seemed to be in fair con- 
dition. My muscles had hardened, and 
I was foolish enough to think that I 
could stick it out to the finish. 

“T’ll follow you,” I told him, “till all 
the fires in hell go out! And I won't 
lay down in your tracks again. You'll 
never get my meat. You haven’t got 
the stuff in you to do it!” 

“You’re mistaken in that,’ he an- 
swered. “I have an advantage that 
you haven’t taken into consideration. 
All the time you are following me you 
are lost. When we start out, you don’t 
know when or where we are going to 
finish—you never know whether you are 
going or coming. When first you took 
to following in my footsteps you gave up 
all your initiative—all your individual- 
ity. First you made a little dog of 
yourself, and then by mimicking my gait 
you became a monkey. As long as you 
are fost, your mind will remain out of 


8&8 A STEP AND A HALF 


kilter; and because of that you won’t be 
able to stand the gaff. A man who is 
lost is a man without reason, and a man 
without reason can’t win from me in 
the game we are playing. You'll stay 
lost until you figure out my sure sys- 
tem for going and coming; and that 
you will never da!” 

Here, indeed, was a proposition that 

set me to pondering. All along I had 
rather subconsciously known of his 
holding an advantage over me, and I 
had known, too, that that advantage was 
‘one not wholly physical. I had been 
unable to analyze it beyond that point. 
Now, of course, I knew it for what it 
is was in all its insidiousness. Yes, al- 
ways I had followed under the handi- 
cap of being lost—as irretrievably lost 
as a bit of driftwood in the middle of 
an ocean. As we started on again— 
Jamison in the lead, I bringing up the 
year—I determined to figure out his 
Boasted system. This was of no avail. 
I tell you there is no head nor tail, 
neither starting place nor stopping place, 
to that damnable abortion of creation 
-it’s all middle ground, a gnarl of 
ridges and ravines. I could find no log- 
ical point all along our tortuous way 
from which to begin a reckoning or a 
reasoning, either forward or back. I 
gave my eyes and my thoughts-again 
unreservedly to the flickering heels of 
Jamison. 

We made a dry camp late that night, 
and broke it early the next morning, 
to go clacking over the rocks again, with 
Jamison doggedly leading and me 
apishly following—a pretty brace of 
askew-brained miserables we must have 
seenied. 

In the middle of the afternoon of that 
second day out we came upon an ice 
cave. Jamison and I had each heard 
that these strange freaks of nature 
abound in the lava beds; but this was 
the only one we ever found there. The 
sun was scorching hot; we were both 
footsore and tired, and we threw off 


our packs with the intention of camp- 
ing there for the might. The mouth 
of the cave was not much larger around 
than the head of a barrel, and ice came 
to within a few feet of the surface. 
We dropped to our hands and knees 
and crawled into the cave. The rock 
rim of the opening was hot enough, al- 
most, from the shine of the sun, to 
blister the palms of our hands; but the 
air that came up to us from farther 
within the cave was cold. A yard from 
the surface we found that the immediate 
bounds of the cave became more clearly 
defined, that is the floor became com- 
paratively flat; the walls carried per- 
pendicularly to the low roof, and the 
whole had the appearance of having 
been hewed to symmetrical lines in ap- 
proved tunnel fashion—slightly wider 
at the bottom than at the top. We went 
on a little farther and came to where 
the floor, walls, and ceiling were all of 
solid ice; and here the declination of 
the floor became more marked. Water 
dripped continyously from the ceiling 
to wet our shoulders and trickle down 
the floor. We came to an abrupt rise 
in the floor; this had more the appear- 
ance of an obstruction in the cave than 
a change in the form of the cave itself. 
It was a sort of bench of solid ice, 
perhaps four feet in thickness; and 
there was not more than two feet clear- 
ance between its flat top and the ceiling. 
We noted that the water trickling down 
the decline found passageway beneath 
this bench—between it and the main 
floor. Here is where we should have 
turned back. We didn’t! We 
squirmed across the bench and dropped 
to the floor again on the other side. 
Here the cave widened slightly, and the 
dip of the floor became steeper. We 
judged that it grew even steeper farther 
along, for we could hear water drop- 
ping as if from a miniature waterfall. 
The center of the passage we found to 
be too slippery for good footing; and 
we crowded close to the walls, Jamison 


A STEP AND A HALF 89 


to one and I to the other. Here where 
the water had not run the ice was 
rougher and offered fairly good foot- 
holds. A few feet farther on the light 
dimmed rapidly, almost to darkness. 
The dip of the floor became much more 
noticeable and tricky under foot; and 
somehow we seemed to sense a jump- 
off and danger a little way ahead. We 
paused and turned to retrace our steps. 
Then we heard it!—a grating sound 
coming from the chute above us. And 
then we saw it there in the weird, half 
light of that clammy place—a vague 
form moving, slowly at first, then faster 
—bearing down upon us! It was the 
bench which we had crossed and which 
proved now to be merely a huge cake of 
ice. The water had melted it partly 
loose from the main floor ; and in scram- 
bling over it we had broken it free. 

“Quick!”’ cried Jamison. ‘“‘Close to 
the wall on your side. Get a foothold 
and brace yourself for it!” 

Before his last words were out of 
mouth, the thing was upon us. It came 
with a jar, and our feet skidded from 
under us. We clawed frantically with 
the nails in our boot soles for new 
holds. Jamison found rough ice enough 
for a temporary foothold, and he 
stopped that cake of ice all by himself. 
This gave me time to pick a bit of rough 
ice also, and to brace myself, and to re- 
lieve him of a part of the strain. 

There we stood with every muscle 
knotted, straight, stiff, rigid, human 
props against that weight of ice. There 
was not six inches of space on either 
side of that cake of ice—between it and 
those ice walls. We stood there almost 
shoulder to shoulder, and each with a 
shoulder to that ice block. 

“A man trap,” said Jamison, after a 
moment or so. “‘A man trap set by the 
devil and sprung by a couple of damn 
fools !”” 

My nerves had been twanged like 
banjo strings at the start, but now I 
found myself growing strangely calm. 


“We're in a pretty bad boat,” I an- 
swered, “but I guess we can manage 
to keep cool.” 

I remember now that we both laughed 
at that. 

“A bad boat,” rejoined Jamison. 
bad boat without a sail.” 

“And with the bottom kicked out,” I 
came back, and we both laughed again. 

It’s strange how a man’s sense, or 
nonsense, of humor under such perilous 
conditions will become whetted. 

We stood straining in silence a few 
moments longer. I felt the chill from 
that huge cavern of ice creeping within 
me, until it had searched out the very 
marrow of my bones. I felt the bite of 
the frost more poignantly in my left 
hand and arm than—elsewhere; this I 
attributed to the handcuffs, which still 
dangled from my left wrist. 

To my braced shoulder came a slight 
tremor. J] knew it for what it was, a 
forewarning of further movement on 
the part of the ice block. To quell that 
tremor I strained till my eyes started 
from their sockets. 

“My foot slipped,” grunted Jamison. 
“You held the whole weight of the thing 
for the moment. I didn’t think you 
could do it. My foothold is just about 
gone. How’s yours?” 

“Seems all right so far,” I answered. 

“Do you think you can hold her by 
yourself for a minute or so again, while 
I reach in your pocket for your knife, 
and chip out a good foothold in the 
floor ?” 

It seemed to me an hour before Jami- 
son had that nick ready, and had again 
braced himself to take back his share 
of the load—I know that it was all 
within the passing of a minute, though. 

“That’s better,” he said. “Now give 
the baby to me to take care of till you 
chip out a couple floor notches for 
yourself.” 

I was a little reluctant in taking his 
advice. I knew just how much man 
power it took to hold: that block of ice 


oA 


go A STEP AND A HALF 


in place, and I didn’t think that Jami- 
son could do it alone. Then it seemed 
that my feet were about to slip, too- I 
took the knife from him, and made for 
my own toes two notches in the floor. 
Meanwhile Jamison held that ice cake 
as steady as a church. 

“Easy enough,” he said. “I believe 
I could hold her all day, alone.” 

But his words came with a sort of 
gasp that belied them. The strain of 
that short minute had winded him, just 
as the running of a long race will wind 
a man. 

We stood there motionless again. All 
was silence, except for the sound of 
falling water behind us, which held us 
in fearful speculation of some unknown, 
impending danger just beyond. A 
numbness began creeping over us from 
the cold. Jamison mentioned this. 

“And,” he added, ‘‘we can’t stand here 
and hold this hunk of ice much longer ; 
we'll freeze and snap in two in the mid- 
dle. Anyway if we could hold it here 
for a year, that wouldn’t get us any- 
thing. You get out!” 

“How ?” T asked. 

“Climb over while I hold.” 

“What about you?” 

“Tl take a chance on following you, 
when you get in the clear.” 
“And who’ll hold this 

climb over?” I asked. 

“Tl get over while she’s in motion 
—I’m quick enough to do that—and 
drop to the floor on the other side be- 
fore she reaches the jump-off.” 

“T don’t believe you can do it,” I 
argued. “T’ll hold while you climb out 
first, and then I’ll run the risk, myself, 
of following.” 

“No good,” he returned. ‘‘You’re too 
clumsy. You haven’t the action. You 
wouldn’t stand as fair a chance of mak- 
ing it as I would.” 

“If you won’t go first, we'll both 
stay,” I countered. 

He paused a moment before answer- 
ing this time. 


while you 


“Say,” he said. “I’ve had you sized 
up all wrong from the start. I didn’t 
think you were man enough to make 
that sort of proposal. I’m sorry now 
because of some of the trouble I’ve put 
you to. I thought all along that you 
were a quitter—that you’d squeal if 
things should center to a jam. Here 
now, listen to reason; we haven't all 
day to argue. You climb over while 
I hold; then I’ll follow. My chances 
of being able to follow are ten to one 
better than yours—and you know it! 
I don’t know what in life waits for 
you outside there; but I do know what 
I'll find waiting for me if I get out— 
prison! But I’m not going to think of 
that now. I’m going to do my danined- 
est to follow you out—and I'll come 
close to making it, too!” 

Our teeth were chattering by this 
time, and we were speaking in low 
tones, almost in whispers. To speak 
a word aloud in that place was like 
shouting into a barrel. 

At last I allowed him to persuade me 
to go. With a commingled feeling of 
regret and relief, I scrambled over 
that block of ice, as best I could in 
my half-frozen condition, and scurried 
to the opening of the cave. I listened. 
Almost immediately I heard the ice 
block begin to move; I heard Jamison 
drop to the floor ; I saw him in dim shad- 
owy outline for the fraction of a sec- 
ond, and for the fraction of a second 
only. I heard a terrific crash, which 
seemed to come from far down within 
the earth. The crash reverberated in 
a thousand smaller crashes and finally 
died to silence—a cold deathlike si- 
lence, in which I could hear my racing 
heartbeats, keen and clear as hammer 
blows on steel. 

Then from a hundred miles down 
that dark, ice-walled passageway there 
came a voice—Jamison’s voice—unfa- 
miliar, distorted, uncanny. Sonorous- 
ly it boomed, and rolled, and roared, 
echoed and reechoed. That cave was 


A STEP AND A HALF gl 


a monstrous megaphone, wherein the 
slightest whimper of sound became 
magnified ten thousandfold. I stood 
dumfounded; and it was minutes be- 
fore the meaning of his words broke 
through the awful spell. 

“How did you make it?” they asked. 

“All right.” And then, ‘‘Where are 
you? What has happened to you?” I 
quavered. 

“I got over that block of ice, right 
enough,” the voice boomed back, “but 
not quite-in time. Where [ hit the floor 
it was too steep and slippery to permit 
of my sticking ”» The echoes con- 
fused his words, and he paused to let 
the echoes die away. “I slid over the 
jump-off, and landed on a shelf.”” An- 
other pause. “The ice cake beat me 
here, glanced off and fell a mile or so 
farther on.” 

“What are your chances for climbing 
out,” I questioned with quaking voice. 

““No chance!”’ he roared back. 

With an unpleasant feeling of weak- 
ness at the pit of my stomach, I re- 
peated, ‘““No chance?” 

“None,” he answered. And then he 
went on to explain, brokenly, because 
of the pauses that the echoing bellows 
necessitated. 

“T am here on a narrow shelf.—The 
jump-off is about twenty-five feet, I 
should say, almost directly overhead. 
—The wall above me is as smooth and 
as flat as a plate-glass mirror.—I don’t 
know what there is below me, except 
darkness, and space, and cold.—I can 
sense the space—worlds of it.—The air 
is several degrees colder here than in 
the passageway above. 

“Wait a minute,” he called again. 
“I’m going to try an experiment to find 
out what’s below.” 
later he called back: ‘The experiment 
worked. I twisted together a cquple of 
five-hundred dollar bills—you couldn’t 
find them when you searched me; could 
you?—twisted them together tightly, 
lighted them and let them flutter down 


Several minutes . 


into the pit—I saw by that light—no 
I can’t tell you what I saw.—Imagine, 
if you can, the Grand Cafion of the 
Colorado multipled by the Alps a hun- 
dred times, and the result done in cut- 
glass and set with diamonds.—But its 
bleakness, and coldness, and the vast- 
ness of its solitude is beyond imagina- 
tion.—It is a thousand miles deep.— 
I know. I have seen part way, and 
having seen so much, I can guess the 
rest.—I tell you it’s a thousand miles 
deep.—I paid a thousand dollars for a 
single glimpse of it, and I got my 
money’s worth.—And still, I’d give an- 
other thousand to blot that scene out.— 
I’m terrified with the sheer infinitude of 
it all.” 

‘How can I help you?” I called back 
in despair. 

“By going back to camp, and getting 
the pack rope, and letting one end of 
it down to me.” 

I turned instinctively, as if to start, 
and then an important fact struck me 
square between the eyes. 

I was lost! I would be unable to 
ever find our camp again! I had not 
figured out Jamison’s system. I called 
excitedly to him, to remind him of the 
plight I was in. And he began calling 
back instructions that would make it 
possible for me to follow the back track. 
He disclosed to me the working of that 
system of his for keeping located, which~ 
had so puzzled me all along. 

“Start back along this ridge,” he bel- 
lowed—“‘west toward the sunset.—Fol- 
low till you come to the second spur 
that turns from the ridge on the left— 
Then follow main spurs and the 
branches of the main spurs till the last 
one finally runs out in the bottom of 
the first ravine.-—Turmn to the right along 
the bottom of the ravine.—Go till you 
come to the second spur, leading out 
of the ravine again to the left —Follow 
along this spur and its branches to the 
summit of the next main ridge —Tum 
to the right along this ridge; follow 


g2 A STEP AND A HALF 


to the second spur turning te the left, 
and so on.—Always turn to the right 
on coming to the tops of the ridges 
and to the bottoms of the ravines.— 
Always turn to the left to follow the 
second left-hand spurs.—This is just 
the reverse to the system I used in com- 
ing here. Follow it carefully and you 
will exactly back-track yourself.—lIt 
will take you a day and a half to make it 
back.—Fil your canteen before you 
leave; and don’t try to travel in the 
dark.—Good luck to you.—Say, would 
you mind slipping your automatic down 
the chute to me.—It will give me cour- 
age to wait here in the dark alone till 
you get back.—I’ll listen for it and try 
to stop it when it lands here on this 
shelf———” 

Without pausing for an instant to 
think, I tossed the gun, holster, and 
belt upon the ice floor of the cave, and 
watched it disappear. 

“T got it,” Jamison called in a mo- 
ment. “Thanks, and good-by.—Re- 
member, always the second spur and to 
the left.—Always to the right when you 
first top the ridges; always to the left 
when you leave them at the second spur. 
—Always to the right when you come to 
the bottom of the ravines ; always to the 
left when you leave them at the second 
spur.” 

As the voice died away for the last 
time, fear clutched my heart in a chill 
grasp. Suddenly it came to me—the 
reason Jamison had asked for the gun. 
He knew that he could not wait there 
three days for me to return from the 
spring with the pack rope ; and he knew, 
too, that the pack rope was not long 
enough to be of any use in helpmg him 
out of that hole. 

I turned and without paying the 
slightest heed to the direction I took, 
I began to run. My nerves had been 
keyed too high during the past few 
hours; they gave way. I couldn’t force 
myself to stand still there and wait for 
that shot, which I knew was sure to 


come. I heard it when it came, quiver- 
ing and muffled—but the ice cave was 
rods behind me. I must have run on 
till darkness came, which wasn’t long 
afterward. And then I cowered down 
among the rocks to wait a year for the 
coming of dawn. 

All might long I lay there in a fitful 
nightmarish daze. Daybreak found me 
struggling with my reason—struggling 
to conquer the tumult of fear and the 
mental quaking that had overcome me. 
I began to experience full realization 
of the seriousness of my predicament. 
I knew that if I should succeed in es- 
caping from that place, I must do it wit- 
tmgly and not in a blundering way. 
I recalled the instructions Jamison had 
shouted to me from the cave. I repeated 
them aloud a time or two. I had them 
straight; I was sure of that—and it 
seemed as if Jamison’s voice was say- 
ing them over with me. I was in pos- 
session of the system—the system by 
the aid of which Jamison had traveled 
over those lava beds with such pre- 
cision and confidence that it had all 
seemed sheer wizardry to me. I had the 
system, but I lacked the starting point. 
Without a definite starting point the 
system was useless. In my flight from 
the cave I had taken no heed of the 
spurs that climbed to the main ridge on 
each side. I had left that mam ridge 
and had wandered willy-nilly, I did not 
know in what direction nor how far. 
But I knew that I had circled, and that 
I could not have come far—perhaps a 
mile or two. I decided to circle again 
in an attempt to find the cave. All fore- 
noon I wandered, twisting and wind- 
ing; and then all unexpectedly I came 
out withm a foot or so of the cave 
opening. Here my fear and trembling 
of the night before came over me again. 
I heard what I had feared to hear be- 
fore. A_ piteous, broken, moaning 
sound came up to me, chilled and mag- 
nified ten thousand times by that deep 
ice-walled cavern. At first I thought 


A STEP AND A HALF 93 


that sound came from Jamison—that 
his shot had missed its vital mark, that 
he was not yet dead. I know now that 
Jamison was dead, and that the sound 
existed in my imagination only, or else 
was caused by the wind whistling down 
that hole. There had been but one car- 
tridge in that automatic when I tossed 
it down to Jamison; and I knew that 
he had not wasted tnat one shot—he 
was too sure and careful a man for 
that. 

I was thirsty, but I did not stop to 
drink, nor did I fill the two canteens. 
I snatched them up from where they 
lay among the rocks, and they were but 
half full. We had filled them when 
we first came to the cave, and had 
quenched our thirst from them. 

I hurried along the backbone of the 
ridge. I came to the second branch 
of the ridge leading to the left, and 
I followed this spur till its last branch 
ran out in the bottom of the first ravine. 
I turned here to the right along the 
bottom of the ravine, and passed on 
till I came to the second spur leading 
from the ravine to the left. I fol- 
lowed branch and spur to the top of this 
next ridge, turned at the summit to 
the right, then turned from the top 
of the ridge again to the left at the 
second spur—and so on, all the rest of 
that day until dark. My canteens were 
both empty by this time, and I lay awake 
nearly all night thinking of water. 

After that night, I don’t remember 
much of what happened during the rest 
of the trip out. I got back to our old 
camp at the hot spring all right; but I 
don’t know how long it took me to do 
it. I-.had lost continuity of thought. 
-It must have taken days, though, for 
incidents of that trip stand out clear and 
sharp now in my mind’s eye, without 
any minor incidents in between to link 
them together. 

I remember sunsets—I don’t- know 
how many, though. Wonderful, they 
seemed to me then in my half-demented 


state. Wonderful, gorgeous they seem 
to me now in disjointed memory. 
Sunsets that filled the sky with a riot 
of color; that flooded the lava beds with 
an extravagance of crimson, and orange, 
and gold, that mellowed into mauve; 
that gave way at last to deceitful, 
argent moon spray, and the modest 
sheen of a million stars. 

Dazedly, as if it had all happened 
in a dream, I remember a _ thunder 
shower; and I remember having 
crawled on my hands and knees, like a 
sick bear, in the bottoms of the ravines 
to drink from the freshets. 

At times when I was near to for- 
getting all about that system, Jamison’s 
disembodied voice would come rum- 
bling across those lava beds from that 
ice cave miles away, crying: “Turn to 
the left!” or, “Turn to the right!” as 
the case might demand. Yes, I say 
that he helped me out of that hole, 
even after he was dead! And I don’t 
care how the telling of it sounds. I say 
that he shouted to me: ‘Turn to the 
left ; that’s the second spur!” or, “Turn 
to the right; this is the top of the main 
ridge!” 

i stayed at our old camp a day or 
two, perhaps; and then I took the back 
trail for civilization; and in a httle more 
than due time I came to the stage road. 

At the first settlement I came to on 
this road my actions and my physical 
condition aroused suspicion. Of clothes 
nothing much rertrained to me. My hat 
and overshirt were gone completely; 
my shoes barely hung together; my 
trousers were in tatters; my face was 
covered with a heavy beard; and my 
hair hung low over my ears in a tan- 
gled mass. The handcuffs still dangled 
from my left wrist to further damnify 
my appearance. I asked for water at 
a roadside grass ranch. I drank all the 
water I could hold; and I gathered up 
all the old cans I could find, and filled 
them with water, and tied them on 
strings and hung them to me. And then 


94 A STEP AND A HALF 


I went upon my way. All the people 
whom I met along that way took a curi- 
ous interest in me; all thought that I 
acted strangely, and seemed surprised 
at this, just as if a man who had been 
through such experiences as I had 
should have no justification for acting 
strangely. I was merely and unwit- 
tingly proving the principle that dis- 
aster engenders precaution. I had suf- 
fered grave disaster because of lack of 
water. And now I was taking no fur- 
ther risks. 

At last I came again to the lowlands, 
where the country is more thickly 
populated. I met more people as I 
passed along my unobtrusive way; and 
I became a_ gapingstock for the 
gawkies! Everywhere I was greeted 
with curiosity, and then with more con- 
cern; and at last I was taken to a court 
and tried before a superior judge there, 
as to my sanity. I was found wanting. 
That judge wrapped in his complacency, 
like a big, juicy red apple wrapped in 
tissue paper, couldn’t see wherein I was 
justified in carrying about with me 
through a land of plenty, a great supply 
of water against the possibilities of an- 
other dry spell; as I put it to him. I 
tried to explain; I saw the futility of 
explanation, and became silent, almost 
stoical. What is the use of trying to 
explain to a fat, sleek judge, who has 
always been well watered and well fed, 
the horrors of famine and drought. 
Had he followed my step-and-a-half 
trail across that rock-ribbed hell up there 
under the smoke cloud of old Mount 
Lassen, with his tongue hanging out 
and his throat on fire, perhaps he would 
not have thought my ideas concerning 
water supply and demand quite so crazy 
after all. 

Well, anyway, the judge is still on his 
bench, I suppose ; and Gentleman Jami- 
son is still up there in cold storage ; and 
I am crow-hopping around the grounds 
of an asylum with that damned step- 
and-a-half trick walk of his. 


And that’s the end of the whole mis- 
erable affair! 


The speaker paused. After a mo- 
ment he looked up at me, and there 
were tears in his keen gray eyes. 

“Say,” he remarked, “you are the first 
man who has ever listened to that story. 
You did not interrupt me once. Maybe 
you believe it! Does it ring true?” 
There was humble appeal in his voice. 

“It doesn’t ring quite true,” I an- 
swered. “Not quite true to life. It 
sounds almost like a magazine tale—but 
I believe it! I believe it, every word of 
it!” I hastened to add. 

“And was it well told—told like a 
magazine story?” he asked anxiously. 

“It was,” I assured him; “it un- 
doubtedly was!” 

He turned to me again, with mute 
thanks. He seemed to glean some 
strange satisfaction from my assurance. 
Then he fished from his pocket a stub 
of pencil and a tattered notebook. He 
began to write feverishly, and seemed to 
have forgot my presence entirely. 

I slipped from my end of the bench 
and quietly stole away. My muse was 
dragging me away from there. She 
wanted me to herself, with just a piece 
of paper and a pencil between us. The 
blessed mood was wrapping its won- 
der folds about me again! 

I stopped at the superintendent’s of- 
fice. I wanted to have a word with that 
prosaic, matter-of-fact person before 
leaving the place. 

He smiled up at me as I entered. 

“What luck?” he asked. 

I felt too exhilarant to answer his 
platitude. 

“T would like to ask you a few ques- 
tions,” I began briskly. “A few ques- 
tions about one of the patients out there. 
The big fellow who walks sometimes 
with a limp, and sometimes without.” 

“I know of no such patient,” he an- 
swered. 


“Oh, yes you do,” I contradicted. 


A STEP AND A HALF 95 


“He’s a big fellow—unusually big, and 
well built, with keen gray eyes and a 
pleasing voice. He has just finished 
telling me a story which has to do with 
his being here, and I want a few cor- 
roborative points.” 

The superintendent looked at me and 
smiled in a sort of patronizing way that 
I did not like. It was an amused, almost 
a pitying smile. 


“Have you been letting that fellow 


give you a fill?” he asked. “What sort 
of a yarn has he been spinning now? 
Tell you about being adrift in an open 
boat, or of being lost in the desert with- 
out water? Or was it a love tale?” 

“No one of the three,” I answered 
curtly. “He told me a story—a won- 
derful story—the true story of how he 
lost his reason. A story of the lava 
beds !” 

“He told you wrong,” said the su- 
perintendent. “He isn’t here because 
of the lava beds.” 


“Because of what, then?’ I asked al- 
most angrily. 

“He went crazy trying to make a liv- 
ing writing stories for the magazines. 
Seems that he couldn’t quite come 
through with the dope. Now he spends 
his time making up yarns to tell to peo- 
ple who have nothing of more impor- 
tance to do than to listen to them.” 

“Oh,” I said—just, “oh!” 

I began to feel my muse sneaking 
away to leave me in the lurch. 

“Say,” I began again, after a mo- 
ment’s pause, “did that fellow, Brown, 
whom you were expecting, show up?” 

“No,” he answered; ‘“we’re short- 
handed, too. Need a man i. 

“T’ll take that job,” I said impul- 
sively. 

‘All right,” he came back. “You can 
fill out a formal application blank later. 
Go to Doctor Bask’s office and report. 
He'll explain your duties to you. Call 
in here again this evening.” 


e 


ONE LIKE YOURSELF 


By Alphonse de la Ferté 


You say that I am selfish and intent 
Upon this shadow called myself, this thing 
Of flesh and bones that sirains itself to sing 
Like one whose courage and desire are spent. 
Don't place your faith in this frail instrument 
When it is still, but when the wires ring 
With music bought of rich remembering . . . 
That is its highest purpose and intent. 


How helpless is the flesh beneath the hands 

That strip it of its freedom for a song; 
One like yourself who ever understands 

Can pluck the right from out a world of wrong; 
Come, help me tighten up my armor bands 

So I may go to battle and be strong. 


HAACMOL walks; my father 
saw him,” the Indian lad whis- 
pered. 

Words could not persuade Juan to 
take a step farther into the jungle of 
undergrowth that served as a path to 
Chichen-Itza. 

I took another real from my pocket 
to show him my utter disregard for 
Mayan ghost kings. But it had no 
effect on the credulous Yucatecos. He 
turned on his heel and ran back to the 
hacienda. 

The natives of Yucatan had woven a 
legend about the ruins of Chichen, once 
the seat of the mighty Chaacmol. 
Chaacmol, the Tiger King of Itza. His 
teocallis reeked with the blood of un- 
told victims. Every chamber in the 
great palace on the Gnomon mound had 
witnessed scenes of bloodshed that were 
deigned to please the frightful Kuk-ul- 
can, the feathered serpent sun god of 
Mayapan. 

To the spirit lair of this fiend of a 
thousand years ago I was again jour- 
neying. The narrow, snakelike trail, 
overgrown with tangled underbrush, 
had once served the warriors of Chaac- 
mol in their stealthy advance upon the 


unsuspecting city of the peaceful Co- 
com. That night the last of the Itzacs 
was slain with his three thousand war- 
riors and Chichen became the capital 
of Chaacmol. 

The plain before me was dotted with 
a hundred katunes, the stone books of 
Mayan history, their hieroglyphic carv- 
ings as yet an unsolved mystery of a 
forgotten race. Beyond them rose the 
pyramids crowned by temple and pal- 
ace, dungeon, and nunnery, an almost 
formless mass of crumbling stone. 

As I had trudged the mile of foot- 
path I noticed the air growing more sul- 
try every moment. I glanced behind 
me. The east was wrapped in an omi- 
nous cloud bank that rolled up from 
the distant gulf. It seemed to be rac- 
ing with me in an endeavor to pile it- 
self against the mounds like a barrier, 
impenetrable. 

“If I can but reach the ruins before 
the storm breaks,” I thought hopefully, 
“T’ll be sheltered in the ruined passage- 
ways. Those clouds mean rain, and the 
kind that pours like a deluge out of 
the skies.” 

I reached the foot of the Gnomon 
mound just as the first heavy drops of 


GHOSTS OF CHAACMOL 97 


rain fell pattering on the stones. The 
steps leading to the palace structure 
were broken, but formed a safe ascent. 
Before I knew it I ran bluntly against 
a low wall, encompassing the ceremo- 
nial court of the temple. 

A sheer precipice with nothing but 
the thin air below marked the three 
remaining sides of the pyramid on 
which rose the palace itself. Creeping 
under the low arch of a ruined portal, 
I found myself in a dark and gloomy 
chamber. Its stone walls were covered 
with spectral carvings. 

Out of the darkness of the farther 
corner arose a ghastly form, clothed 
from head to foot in a flowing white 
robe. I shuddered. The words of 
Juan’s warning came back to me. It 
approached the lighted doorway in a 
quick step, and I saw that it was any- 
thing but a ghost. 

“Sehr angenehm,” the man, swathed 
in an artist’s smock, addressed me in 
German. ‘Professor Weber, Hamm, 
Westphalia,’ he declaimed, bowing 
gracefully and shoving a card under 
my nose. “I am an artist,” he added 
needlessly, before I could even ac- 
knowledge the introduction. 

“A rather singular meeting,” I said. 
“Pardon me, but I have no card with 
me. I am Wallace Phelps, hatter, Pat- 
erson, New Jersey.”” I copied his pro- 
cedure as dexterously as possible. 

“I was painting the sunset over those 
ruins,” he said, when I recovered suf- 
ficiently from my surprise to give him 
audience, “and was driven here for 
shelter from the storm.” 

I recognized in Professor Weber the 
little, round-faced German tourist who 
was so effusively welcomed by the Mex- 
ican port officials when he landed at 
Progreso a fortnight before. In the 
Casa Blanca I had overheard his re- 
marks regarding the credulous natives, 
and he repeated the same discourse to 
me. 

In this priggish analysis of the Yu- 

7AThrill 


catecan character he indulged during 
the long hours of the evening. The 
rain poured in torrents. We were 
thrown together for the night, for there 
was no leaving the ruins before day- 
break. 

The storm had completely enveloped 
the plain below. It was dark, “black 
as hate in the heart,” as Tutul, the bard 
of the legend of Canek, sang in the 
ancient Mayan epic. 

Lurid lightning flashes set the ruins 
of the surrounding structures in rugged 
vignette against the storm-filled sky. 
In the ceremonial court the darkness 
seemed palpable. My small flash lamp 
seemed only to accentuate the gloom. 
Nature alone kept up an intermittent 
illumination. 

We were forced to wax congenial. 
I took out a cigar, and, handing another 
to the professor, lighted them, holding 
the flaming match for a moment to a 
massive stone that lay at my feet. It 
was a part of the large column that 
formed an arch in the palace. Sculp- 
tured upon it the head of a tiger, with 
wide-open jaws and bulbous eyes, was 
plainly discernible. 

We were in the sanctuary of the 
Tiger King. 

I turned my flash light on the col- 
umn. The gaping jaws of the beast, 
with its hollow eyes, shone weird. 

“This is the private chapel of Chaac- 
mol,” I said in an almost guttural tone. 
My voice sounded peculiarly deep, and 
almost frightened me. 

“Here the Tiger King held his pri- 
vate devotions,” I said mockingly, and 
swept the chamber with my light, “and 
there”—I focused the beams upon a 
huge sculptured block—‘“is the sacri- 
ficial stone.” 

I thought I heard the professor shud- 
der as I slowly articulated each word. 
I stepped over to the block. On it was 
carved the symbolic figure of Kuk-ul- 
can, the feathered serpent, the image 
of the Mayan sun god. 


98 GHOSTS OF CHAACMOL 


“We tread historic ground, Herr 
Professor,” I continued as though I 
had made an important discovery, ‘for 
this is the very chamber in which 
Chaacmol sacrificed Cheles.” 

“Who was Cheles?” 
Weber asked. 

Cheles was Chaacmol’s only child. 
History relates that he ordered the sac- 
rifice of his own daughter because she 
professed her love for Holcanes, the 
son of Cocom, whose throne the Tiger 
King had usurped. 

“Cheles,” I repeated, “Cheles—little 
bluebird.” 

A flash and a furious detonation cut 
short my words. 

“Chaacmol,” I continued as the thun- 
der died away, “is America’s counter- 
part of the Roman emperor, Tiberius. 
The fiends of the Old and of the New 
World are they—Tiberius and Chaac- 
mol.” 

“T have been in the villa of Tiberius, 
at Capri,” the professor said weakly, 
as if reminiscent of the horrors that the 
dungeons above the Blue Grotto had 
sealed within themselves. 

“I wonder if Cheles was happy in 
her fateful love for Holcanes,” I asked 
as if speaking to myself, “but who 
knows what countless tears she wept 
in her curtained chamber, Cheles, the 
bluebird of Mayapan. Here the lovers 
embraced for the last time, here in the 
sanctuary of Kuk-ul-can they met for 
the mutual sacrifice. 

Before her eyes Holcanes_ was 
stretched upon the block and the puls- 
ing heart torn from his breast, each 
throb a new protestation of his undying 
love. And then the same fate befell 
her, magnified a thousand times be- 
cause she had violated the vow of the 
Mayan vestal. 

“I thought you were a hat manufac- 
turer,” the professor cut in sharply. 

I was taken in surprise. 


“I am,” I began explaining, “but as 


Professor 


I study the ever-changing history of 
headdress, both ancient and modern, I 
naturally become familiar with the 
milieu in which the various designs 
were worn. The Mayan kings and no- 
bles, for instance, wore the quetzal, the 
plumed headgear that was later adopted 
by the Aztecs.” The explanation 
seemed to satisfy Professor Weber, 
Hamm, Westphalia. 

“We are in a chamber of horrors, 
the like of which no dungeon in the 
castles of Europe can equal,” I con- 
tinued, seeing that the German was 
growing steadily more nervous. ‘The 
natives say that on still nights the plain- 
tive farewell song of the maiden can 
be heard, ending in a cry, her spirit 
asking judgment upon her inhuman 
father.” 

The storm grew apace wildly with 
my story of the unhappy princess. For 
a brief space it died down, and only 
the sighing of the norther through the 
corridors of Chaacmol’s palace kept one 
mindful of the tempest. Dawn, it 
seemed, was an eternity away. 

I stepped boldly on the sacrificial 
block and peered through the high slit 
in the wall above, adown the steep side 
of the castle into the pool at its western 
base. 

“Come here, professor,” I said. 
“Through this very window the bleed- 
ing bodies of the lovers were thrown. 
There, in the sacred well, they were 
united—in death.” 

The professor did not stir. 

A flash of lightning illumined the 
dank water in the pool a hundred feet 
below. 

“Could this old limestone pit be given 
a tongue and made to tell what it has 
seen, what world romance could equal 
it,” I said. “Did you hear me, Herr 
Professor ?” 

A faint “Ja” replied. 

“Directly above us is the great open- 
air altar, where on a single morning 
two thousand Itzaen captives were sac- 


GHOSTS OF CHAACMOL 99 


rificed to Kuk-ul-can, or rather to the 
blood lust of Chaacmol,” I continued. 

I could see the glowing tip of the 
professor’s cigar burning faintly against 
the blackness of the storm-clad night. 
I bent another piercing gaze over the 
ponderous jutting wall into the clammy 
darkness of the pit. 

The coloring of my mood suddenly 
changed. The thunder reverberated 
through the crumbling walls. A crash 
in the adjoining chamber startled me. 
I calmed myself, thinking that a block 
of the ancient masonry had dropped 
from one of the arches. 

“What a wild scramble must have 
taken place that morning,” I said with 
a shudder, ‘for the hearts of the vic- 
tims !’’ 

Professor Weber’s affirmations grew 
even fainter than before. 

“Out in the ceremonial court the 
Tiger King’s warriors gathered for 
their feast,” I added, “drunken, mum- 
bling men singing their great war song, 
‘Conex! Conex! Paleche!” 

The words seemed to be caught up 
like an echo from a distant corridor. 

No answer came from the professor. 

For a moment the ruins swam in a 
sea of dazzling blue. Beside me I saw 
a ghastly face. 

“Countless are the nights during 
which Chaacmol hurried through these 
very halls, restless ever, from ¢ham- 
ber to chamber, finding no peace from 
the torturing agonies. The legend says 
that he locks himself in his sanctuary 
as though to shut out the past, and calls 
the name of Cheles as if its very sound 
might soothe his conscience. Do you 
hear me, Herr Professor?” 

I heard his cigar sizzle on the damp 
ground. 

“I am not feeling quite—well—it is 
so—sultry,” he muttered, his voice 
sounding hollow. a 

“Yes, and they say Chaacmo! still 
goes about here. On nights when the 
tropical storms silence the farewell 


song of Cheles he comes here, hoping 
to find rest. The story of the Tiger 
King’s crimes is so terrible that it is 
small wonder that the credulous Yuca- 
tecags say the fiend walks, the proud 
head of the warrior bowed until his 
white quetzal sweeps the ground. Do 
you r 

A faint shriek from the professor 
snatched me out of my wanton rev- 
eries. 

“TLook—look—Chaacmol !” 

I glanced about me. For a moment 
my breath left me. I, too, was bewil- 
dered at the sight. Through the ruined 
ceremonial court, not twenty paces off, 
passed a shrouded figure. I almost lost 
my poise. 

“I see nothing,” I said quietly. * “It 
is your overheated fancy. Calm your- 
self. My conversation has made you 
very nervous.” My imagination, L 
thought, had run rampant with me. 

“You see nothing?” the professor 
groaned. “There, between—the rocks 
—the ghost—Chaacmol !” 

“T see nothing, Herr Professor, I as- 
sure you,” I whispered, my throat 
parched. 

Slowly the shrouded form returned. 
Directly in front of the arched passage- 
way that led from our chamber to the 
ceremonial court it stood, perfectly 
rigid. The rain poured in torrents. 
The figure shook spasmodically, trem- 
bled and groaned in inexpressible ag- 
ony. <A shriek pierced the darkened 
dawn above the howling norther and 
the swish of storm: 

“Cheles! Cheles!” 

A blinding flash and crash that shook 
the ground. sending tottering stones to 
the depths below, accompanied the 
ghost cry. A tree on the jutting ledge 
of the court was in flames. The ap- 
parition laughed, hideously, wildly. 

Then it seemed to wait in hushed 
anxiety. I observed it in the weird 
illumination—a _ ghastly, wan _ face, 
shaggy brows overhanging a pair of 


100 


glassy eyes, vacant and insane, prema- 
turely blanched hair, bony hands out- 
stretched in grim supplication to the 
elements—a true picture of the maniac 
Chaacmol. 

I wondered whether Boecklin could 
have done it justice. Professor Weber 
could certainly not, for, I am sure, he 
never saw it. 

“Conex! Conex! Paleche! Come on, 
come on, ye warriors!” the apparition 
sang the refrain of the ancient Mayan 
war song. 

The professor sank against the wall. 

The specter suddenly seemed to have 
sensed our presence. Hesitatingly it 
came nearer. 

“Are you here again, Cocom, Hol- 
canes? Lift up your voices and rattle 
the death song Canek wrote for you,” 
the apparition moaned, peering through 
the arched door of our chamber. 

Before I was even aware that the 
words were uttered in Spanish the fiend 
was up, and, humming a merry tune, 
danced blithely away to the end of the 
cliffike wall. 

“God, if it should fall!” Fear over- 
took me, not the fear of but for the 
ghost. To grapple with this spirit fiend 
on the edge of the chasm meant certain 
death for both of us. I thought of my 
automatic. I drew it from my pocket 
and aimed. 

But whoever or whatever the appa- 
rition might be, it was doing me no 
harm. 

Lower and lower the specter leaned 
over the ledge. Long it stared into the 
depths. The time passed like a silent 
meditation, a gruesome pondering over 
some unexpiated crime through an eter- 
nity of forlorn hope. 

“Cheles! Cheles!” The reverber- 
ance of the plaintive whisper trembled 
fearfully on the calm. Only the dis- 
tant, rumbling thunder, like a far-off 
antiphonal of penitents, brought me to 
the realization of the tragedy for which 
a forgotten race had set the stage and 


GHOSTS OF CHAACMOL 


furnished the characters, such as no 
modern Belasco could. 

Slowly the specter raised itself and 
glided along the edge of the abyss. 
Again it stood still and bent over the 
brink, peering into the inky waters of 
the pool as though the victims which 
they had engulfed were not quite dead 
and their piteous cries, sirenlike, lured 
the phantom down. 

The apparition swayed, and for the 
briefest second it floated on the thin 
air, then suddenly plunged headlong 
down into the sacred pool. 

I rushed out of the chamber, and, 
leaping over the ruined wall that sep- 
arated us from the ceremonial court, 
reached the spot where the ghost had 
disappeared. The waters of the pool 
were now invisible from above; dark 
and shadowy, they lay concealed amid 
the heavy undergrowth that surrounded 
them. 

The storm had subsided. Occasion- 
ally a belated heavy raindrop pattered 
on the flags of the court. The glowing 
embers of the storm-rift tree made the 
dark dawn more hideous. 

I returned to the professor, who lay 
as if dead, his head resting on the sac- 
rificial stome. [I felt his heart, as 
though I feared he, too, might have 
fallen a victim to Chaacmol. His pulse 
ran heavy. He had fainted, and had 
not witnessed the closing scenes of the 
tragedy. I alone had seen the climax. 

I put my brandy flask to his lips. 
His eyes rolled, like those of a mad- 
man, as hysterical as those of the fren- 
zied Yucatecos he had described in 
José’s tavern. 

Heavily he leaned on my arm as I 
walked with him out of the dank cham- 
ber into the open air of the courtyard. 

The witchery of the storm-passed 
night spread about us. For a long time 
the professor said nothing. He seemed 
gasping for his senses. I asked him 
to accompany me to the roof of the 


GHOSTS OF CHAACMOL 


palace to view the sunrise over 
Chichen-Itza. 

“It will efface all memories of the 
storm.” J sought to lure him on. 

“The storm—that was nothing—the 
other,” he said vaguely. 

Alone I went to the palace roof, just 
as the first rays of the sun reddened 
the distant horizon. The stillness of 
the morning was profound. Suddenly 
the great round sun came flamingly 
through a rift in the cloud banks splen- 
didly, and instantly the whole world 
hummed and sang. 

I understood why these ancient peo- 
ples were worshipers of the sun. Na- 
ture herself taught primal man to re- 
vere the light as a god. After the hid- 
eousness of the night of storm and ter- 
ror I, too, was thankful for the light. 

As the mist cleared from the vale 
and the smaller structures of Chichen 
became visible, each raised on _ its 
squatty pyramid, overgrown by the ver- 
dure of the tropics, I saw, not the 
snakelike columns of Chaacmol’s war- 
riors slinking through the night, but 
the glorious procession of priests com- 
ing up the Sacred Way to the temple 
atop which I stood like a high priest 
awaiting the victims of the morning’s 
sacrifice. 

The weird music of the flute and 
droning boom of the trunkul I seemed 
to hear, instead of the clear bird notes 
that enveloped all. The memories 
which stole over me were intoxicating 
like Balche, the drugged ambrosia of 
Chaacmol’s fiendish concoction. 

I had visited these ruins before, but 
never had a sunrise over the phantom 
city of the Tiger King impressed me 
so. 

I returned to the ceremonial court, 
where the professor sat, his head buried 
in his hands. 

He had no heart for painting that 
day, and wanted to return to Merida 
immediately. I sought to dissuade him 
from making the return trip in the heat 


Io 


of the day, but all was of no avail. I 
warned him that his condition would 
not permit it. Nevertheless we made 
the attempt. 

The journey was made in silence. 
Not once did he mention the happen 
ings of the night. 

As we neared Merida he seemed to 
revive. 

“Did you really see nothing?’ he 
asked incoherently. 

“Absolutely nothing,’ I answered, 
for I knew that an acknowledgment on 
my part would necessitate explanations 
which I would rather not make. 

“I firmly believe that you saw Chaac- 
mol, Herr Professor,” I said finally. 
“You will pardon me if I say that I at 
first mistook it all to be an illusion, cre- 
ated by your overwrought artist’s fancy 
But I remember now, you said you 
are a Westphalian. That accounts for 
it all. You suffer with the psychic 
affliction known to science as second 
sight,’ a dire misfortune for a man of 
your calling. It may ~vin your whole 
career.” 

He seemed flattered when I spoke 
of his career. 

“Do you think so?” he asked. 

“Without a doubt,” I answered sol- 
emnly. “My friend, Doctor Philhower, 
director of the sanitarium at Merida, 
has made a study of this rare and oc- 
cult phenomenon of the mind. I be- 
lieve—I know he can help you. I 
would take you to him in person, only 
I leave Merida early to-morrow.” 

He seemed disappointed. 

“Where are you going, Mr. Phelps?” 
he asked. 

“I shall go to Panama to purchase 
a stock of hats,” I said. 

We reached his hotel, 
Grande. 

Juan drove me to the American Club, 
and I gave him a real for his faith-- 
fulness. 

There I met Doctor Philhower, a 


the Casa 


102 


classmate of mine.at Harvard. Over 
our dinner I related my experience at 
Chichen-Itza. I told him that I had 
advised the professor to consult him. 

“Have you seen to-day’s paper?” he 
asked, pointing to a story under big 
headlines, telling of the mysterious -dis- 
appearance of Don Salo, a wealthy 
+hennequen planter, who had been con- 
fined in Philhower’s hospital. 

The alienist related the story of Don 
Salo. It was a sordid tale, the past of 
a misled life, drained of love, a con- 
geries of waggish follies. 

I listened with interest. 

“And then?” I hung upon my 
friend’s every word. 

“Then came the murder. Don Salo 
was a raving maniac.” 

“Where was the crime enacted?” I 
asked. 

“At the hacienda near Chichen-Itza, 
almost within a stone’s throw of Chaac- 
mol’s palace. The tragedy in his own 
family became closely associated—yes, 


GHOSTS OF CHAACMOL 


completely identified—with the legend 
of the Tiger King: After the tragic 
death of Celeste, his only daughter, a 
beautiful girl, who fell a victim to her 
loyer’s jealousy, Don Salo became 
Chaacmol.” 

In the open window a spray of 
lroneysuckle swung to and fro like a 
spicy censer, filling the room with an 
exotic fragrance. 

“Don Salo,” he continued in a cli- 
mactic monotone, like one closing a sad 
book, “was Chaacmol, and all that took 
place during those bloody carousals a 
thousand years ago, during those nights 
of terror and days of endless sacrifice, 
unparalleled in history, were the acts 
of his vengeance. Again and again 
Don Salo escaped us and revisited the 
scene of the crime. Wandering amid 
the ruins of Chichen-Itza, moaning and 
gesticulating, he set the credulous coun- 
tryside in a frenzy. The peasants have 
seen his ghastly figure just as you saw 
it—for the last time.” 


RA 


THE DISTANT STARS 


By Francois de Vallient 


HE dusk is at the hour’s end. . 


. one hour 


My love, to dream, to pause a while before 
This short, sweet evening close forevermore 
As petals close around a lovely flower. 
Let us retire unto a lonely tower. 
Mount winding stairs and close and lock the door 
Forgetting for 2 moment that a war 
Slays like a monster with despotic power. 


With faces pressed against the windowpane 
We'll watch the myriad flaming, golden bars. 
Of this immortal daylight ebb and wane, 
Then as the darkness cloaks the bitter scars 
That give the shattered earth so deep a pain, 
We'll lose our souls among the distant stars. 


francis Stevens 


SYNOPSIS OF PRECEDING CHAPTERS. 


Through the magic powers of the Dust of Purgatory which they have inhaled from a silver 
vial ornamented with the heads of Cerberus, the three-headed dog of mythology, Terence ‘Tren- 
more, his sister Viola, and their friend, Drayton, pass through Ulithia, the phantom borderland 
of life and are transported over the barriers of time to the Philadelphia of A. D. 2118. The old 
city hall with the historic statue of William Penn still stands, but the system of government is 
entirely different. The chief ruler of the city is a very old man known as Justice Supreme, under 
him are privileged classes known as the Servants and the Superlatives. The whole governmental 
system is called the Penn Service. The masses of the people are kept in abject subjection and 
ignorance, and are known as the Numbers, each individual wearing a button with his number on it. 

The visitors from the Twentieth Century are joined by a burglar, who calls himself Arnold 
Bertram and who has the Cerberus vial in his possession. The more important personages under 
the Penn Service are given names indicating abstract qualities, as Courage, Kindness, Power, 
Contentment, Love, et cetera. The Superlatives are those who possess these qualities in the highest 
degree. Their fitness is determined by election. The visitors are invited by the lady known as 
Loveliest and the man, Cleverest, nephew of Justice Supreme, to witness the election and they 
go to the Temple for that purpose. Candidates who aspire to supplant the Superlatives and fail are 


cast into a pit of punishment. 


CHAPTER XV. 
THE JUSTICE OF PENN SERVICE. 


HE Supreme Servant had already. 
seated himself on his throne of 
gold. His virtuous subordinates 

occupied lesser seats to his right and 
left, while the chairs on the pavement, 
at either side of the dais, were by now 
pretty well filled, mostly by the women- 
folk of the Superlatives. The Numbers 
still waited in their silent, terrible pa- 
tience. When Mr. Justice Supreme 
took his seat they had knelt and again 
risen, a feat only possible because it 
was done as one surging motion. Here 
and there a cry or groan, quickly stifled, 
gave testimony that; even so, the weaker 
folk must have suffered. 

Between the candidates and the front 


ranks of the crowd ran the inclosing 
plush rope. Against it, on the outside, 
the police guard had now faced about 
toward the dais. None of the Num- 
bers, save those immediately behind the 
police, could hope to see what went 
on before the dais. They could hear, 
however, and for that privilege they 
had stood five hours, silent. 

Trenmore glanced at his watch. It 
pointed to eleven fifty-nine. 

And now Courage, whom the Love- 
liest had designated as Mr. Justice Su- 
preme’s right-hand man, arose and 
walked to the front of the platform. 
In his hands he held a document from 
which depended the red ribbons of an 
official seal. Without a preliminary 
word the Servant began reading: 

“To all whom it may concern: Be 


104 


it known by these presents that I, Jus- 
tice Supreme and Spiritual Director of 
the City of Philadelphia under our 
dread lord, Penn, do hereby decree that 
upon the twenty-third day of Septem- 
ber, in the year twenty-one hundred 
and eighteen, there shall be held in the 
sacred temple of Penn, beneath the 
Golden Dome of Justice, a series of 
examinations by which Ce 

The document proceeded to enumer- 
ate the various offices for which can- 
didates might contest, related in detail 
the ghastly penalty of failure, and con- 
cluded abruptly with the signature and 
seal of Mr. Justice Supreme. 

Mr. Courage—and Trenmore thought 
it must have required considerable 
courage to read a document of that 
nature, with its numerous references 
to “this democratic and blessed insti- 
tution, the bulwark of your liberties!” 
—finished and resumed his seat. There 
was a moment’s pause. Then Pity took 
the place of Courage on the platform. 

“The first examination will be held 
in the superlative quality of Kindness.” 

A short, stocky, heavily built man 
emerged from behind the dais and took 
his place, standing fairly upon the 
eagle and dove symbol that covered the 
pit. Either his features or his title, in 
Trenmore’s opinion, must be mislead- 
ing. Those thin, cruel lips, narrow- 
set eyes, and low, slightly protruding 
forehead indicated several possible 
qualities; but benevolence was hardly 
of the number. As agreeably as his 
facial limitations would permit, the 
gentleman smiled up toward Mr. Pity. 

“Is there any other candidate for 
this office’’”’ droned the latter in his 
high, singsong voice. “It entails the 
management and control, under Penn 
Service, of the Bureau of Penn Chari- 
ties for Philadelphia and environing 
suburbs. Any candidate? There is no 
other candidate for Kindest! Present 
incumbent of the office may retire.” 

Having reached this foregone conclu- 


THE HEADS OF CERBERUS 


sion, Pity returned Kindness’ smile, 
and the latter did retire, as far as the 
chairs at one side, where he sat down 
beside a very fleshy, bediamonded and 
prosperous-looking lady whom Viola 
remembered to be his wife. 

Three other offices followed: the 
Wisest, appropriately superintendent 
of the Board of Education; the Bravest, 
chief of the Electrical Bureau; and 
Most Ingenious, this latter holding the 
curious office of providing entertain- 
ment for the Servants of Penn them- 
selves. The holders of these positions 
came out one by one, stood upon the 
fatal symbol, and retired, their right 
to superlativism unquestioned. 

“The fifth quality upon my list is 
Sweetness of Voice. This office carries 
with it the honor, duties, and emolu- 
ments of Director of Civic Music.” 

Out to the eagle with assured tread 
waddled a mountain of flesh, crowned 
by a head of flowing black hair which 
Svengali might have envied, with a 
beard of astounding proportions, and 
somewhere between hair and beard a 
pair of small, piglike eyes. 

“Is there any candidate for this 
office?” droned the bored voice of Mr. 
Pity. “Is there any other candidate 
for this——” 

“Go on out there, boy,” muttered 
Trenmore, giving the Numbers’ candi- 
date a friendly push. As they waited, 
he, like Viola, had conceived a strong 
sympathy for this solitary, youthful 
champion of the despised Numbers. 
“Go on out, boy! Go out and give 
?em hell!’ was the Irishman’s ambigu- 
ous encouragement. 

The candidate, however, cast him a 
grateful glance, sensing the spirit be- 
hind the words. As Mr. Pity uttered 
the third and last call for candidates, 
the young man advanced boldly into 
the arena. 

He was greeted by a low, thunderous 
mutter of applause, starting at the front 
ranks of the crowd and spreading back- 


THE HEADS OF CERBERUS 


ward in a resonant wave. Mr. Jus- 
tice Supreme grasped the arms of his 
thronelike chair and half arose. 

“Silence!” he snarled. “Silence, my 
children! You are committing sacri- 
lege! Do you know the penalty ?”’ 

His answer was the silence he had 
commanded, and the faces in the front 
rows went very white. Their vantage 
point was uncomfortably close to the 
pit. 

“Mr. Pity,” muttered the old man, 
sinking back, “will you kindly pro- 
ceed ?” 

Bowing, the master of ceremonies 
turned once more to the contestants. 

“Candidate, what is your number, 
place of residence, employment, and 
age? Answer in order, please, and 
speak clearly.” He held a fountain 
pen poised over the list In his hand. 

“My number is 57403. My—my. 
I live at 709 Race Street.”” The boy’s 
clear tenor, faltering at first, grew 
firmer. “I am a carpenter’s apprentice. 
I was nineteen years old in June.” 

“Nineteen years and four months, 
odd.” Mr. Pity wrote it down forth- 
with. He capped his pen, replaced it 
in his vest pocket, and smiled down 
upon the young carpenter with such a 
friendly look that Viola’s heart gave a 
leap. Perhaps, after all, the boy was 
to have a fair chance. 

“Very well, young man.” In Mr. 
Pity’s tone was a distinct note of en- 
couragement and approval. “If you 
have the best voice in Philadelphia, 
now is the time to prove it. Sing your 
best. Don’t be afraid of hurting any 
one’s feelings.” 

He smiled wickedly upon the fat man, 
who suddenly lost his composure and 
glanced downward rather anxiously at 
the deadly trap under his feet. “As 
you know,” continued Pity, “you must 
sing without notes or accompaniment, 
but so must your opponent. His Su- 
premity is waiting. Penn, the august, 


105 


will decide through him this free and 
democratic contest! Sing!” 

There was a second’s pause. Then 
the boy, standing above Death and be- 
fore the Throne of Justice, raised his 
clear young voice and sang. His was.a 
ballad of the people, unwritten, passed 
from mouth to mouth. -It redounded 
in rhymes of “love” and “dove,” “thee,” 
and “me.” It was sentiment—crass, 
vulgar, common sentiment—but the air 
had a certain redeeming birdlike lilt. 

“He sings well. Oh, he does sing 
well!” thought Viola. 

The tenor rose to its final high note, 
held it, and died away. No. 57403 
bowed, stepped back one pace, and 
folded his arms. His face was flushed, 
alight, and his clear eyes looked fear- 
lessly upward to his judge. No cheer- 
ing followed, but a great sigh rose 
from the Numbers—a long, simultane- 
ous exhalation, as if each man and 
woman had _ been _ holding breath 
throughout that last high, sweet note. 

“Very good!” exclaimed Mr. Pity, 
again smiling. “There might be some 
criticism of your selection, but to give 
it is not in my province. And now, 
having heard this high-voiced young 
candidate, let us listen to his rival, our 
present esteemed musical director.” He 
bowed to the hairy mountain. “His 
Supremity is waiting. Penn, the benev- 
olent All-Father, will through him de- 
cide this contest. Sing!” 

Straightway an aperture appeared in 
the black beard. White teeth flashed. 
A burst of sound ascended to the golden 
dome and rebounded therefrom, assault- 
ing the ears of the multitude beneath. 
It was a cannonade in bass; the roar 
of awakened hungry lions; the com- 
mingled tumult of a hundred phono- 
graphs all playing Pol Plancon records 
with rasping needles—Plancon intensi- 
fied past endurance by a gigantic 
sounding board, and also—alas !—Plan- 
con hopelessly off key. With an in- 
audible cry Viola clapped her small 


106 


hands over her music-loving ears. She 
saw Sergeant 53 grinning at her, saw 
his lips move, but he might as well have 
talked in a Kansas cyclone. 

The roar crescendoed to a terrible, 
disharmonic laugh. At last Viola rec- 
ognized the music he was murdering. 
Of all selections he had chosen the 
“Serenade of Mephistopheles,” from 
Gounoud’s “Faust,” a number demand- 
ing the most refined, Sardonic, and gen- 
uinely superlative of voices for an en- 
durable rendering. 

Before he ended, Viola was sure she 
must fall upon the porcelain floor and 
writhe in anguish. Fortunately her 
powers of endurance were greater than 
she gave herself credit for. The final 
burst of demoniac mirth died an awful 
death, and Viola’s endurance received 
its reward. Henceforth she could ap- 
preciate the bliss of silence. 

Looking around, the girl half ex- 
pected to see the audience flat, like a 
field of wheat after a wind storm; but, 
though even the policemen wore a some- 
what chastened appearance, they still 
stood. She glanced toward the dais. 
Mr. Pity, with a pained, faraway ex- 
pression, was scribbling at his list. Mr. 
Justice Supreme opened his eyes with 
a start, like a man unexpectedly re- 
lieved from torment. He snarled in- 
coherently and flapped a yellow hand 
at Mr. Pity. The bull of Bashan stood 
his ground, his eyes blinking, his beard 
once more a dark, unbroken jungle. 
As the two Trenmores learned later, 
his complacence was not without foun- 
dation. His wife was a third cousin of 
Mr. Justice Supreme, and he himself 
was distantly connected with the family 
of Mr. Purity, of the dragging leg. 

The master of ceremonies lifted up 
his own thin, piercing voice, like the 
piping of a reed after the bellow of 
thunders. 

“Sir, His Supremity thanks you for 
your wonderful rendering of—er— 
sound.” He turned to the throne. “Mr. 


THE HEADS OF CERBERUS 


Justice Supreme, the contestants in all 
humility submit their respective merits 
to*the high decision of our lord and 
father, Penn!” 

The old dandy dragged himself to 
his feet. The audience was more than 
hushed ; it wasn’t even breathing now. 
No. 57403 cast a pitying glance at the 
bearded mountain and fearlessly eyed 
his judge. 

“Children of Penn,” began that snarl- 
ing, senile voice, “in due legal and sa- 
cred form two contestants have striven 
before the father and protector of us 
all, One is young. He should have 
further perfected his attainments be- 
fore presuming to air them in this sa- 
cred Hall. Yet his very youth excuses 
him, and Penn the All-Father is merci- 
ful. He can forgive even presumption. 
For the magnificent bass voice which 
we have just been privileged to—hm !— 
enjoy, in a rendering of the work of 
a great composer, so exalted above the 
paltry, sentimental balderdash of the 
other contestant—I—I—words fail 
me!” 

Mr. Justice Supreme glared down at 
the contestant he was praising with eyes 
so malevolent that the mountain actu- 
ally cringed—if a mountain can be said 
to cringe. 

“The decision of Penn,” snarled Mr. 
Justice Supreme, “is that No. 57403 be 
dropped into the Pit of the Past. Mercy 
may extend to his immortal soul, but 
not to his presumptuous body! And 
the present musical director will con- 
tinue in office.” 

Dropping back on his throne with a 
gasp of exhaustion, he recovered suffi- 
ciently to rasp out: “Go! And Penn 
bless you!” to the victorious contes- 
tant. 

Then, with the air of one who has 
got through a tedious but necessary 
duty, he let his ancient, villainous body 
relax and his bleared eyes close. 

The mountain removed itself with 
suspicious alacrity. If the look in its 


THE HEADS OF CERBERUS 


porcine eyes went for anything, that 
musical director valued the “blessing 
of Penn” less than the permission to 
vacate an unexpectedly dangerous 
neighborhood. 

But for poor No. 57403 no such re- 
treat was possible. For an instant he 
looked unable to believe his ears. He 
reddened and glanced uneasily about, 
as if to question others of this injus- 
tice, this incredible decision. Then the 
color faded, he drew himself to his 
slender height and bowed to the con- 
demning judge with a dignity worthy 
of some classic young Greek. 

Viola clutched at Terry’s arm in 
frantic appeal, but one mightier even 
than Terence Trenmore was present 
there —a giant crushed, betrayed, bound 
down in fetters of ignorance; but a 
giant none the less. A low growl was 
the first intimation that he had awak- 
ened. It was the voice of the Num- 
bers; a warning protest against this 


blackest wrong. They surged forward. 


It was a little motion—half a step—but 
before it the police were crushed irre- 
sistibly back against the plush rope. 
Alarmed, they faced about with threat- 
ening clubs. The eyes of the enthroned 
figure on the dais snapped open. 

“Silence!” he snarled. “Guard, open 
the pit!’ 

A crouching, striped form = stole 
forth, leaned over the Dove, and the 
symbol dropped. But the young man 
did not drop with it as ordained. He 
had, quite instinctively and naturally, 
stepped backward from the danger. 

“In with him!” 

“No—no—no!” This time it was a 
roaring negative from hundreds of 
throats. Heedless now of sacrilege, the 
Numbers again surged. The plush rope 
stretched and broke. In an instant clubs 
were rising and falling desperately. 
The police might as well have attempted 
to dam Niagara with a toothpick. A 
few Numbers in the front ranks-went 
down, it is true, but over their bodies 


107 


came their fellows, pushed irresistibly 
by the mass behind. 

The former inclosure disappeared. A 
series of piercing shrieks cut the up- 
roar like knife stabs. They came from 
below, and Viola, shuddering in her 
brother’s arm, knew that some unfor- 
tunate had been pushed into the Pit 
of the Past. 

Mr. Pity, finding himself confronted 
by a myriad of upturned, glaring eyes, 
retreated precipitately. But the dais 
was not stormed—not yet. To many 
years of ground-in teaching, too thor- 
ough a dread of the awful power of 
Penn Service held them back. 

“Go to it—go to it, boys!” yelled 
Trenmore, holding Viola in one arm and 
shaking his other fist excitedly. “Down 
with the murdering hounds! Scrape 
the platform like a dirty dish!” 

His great voice merged indistinguish- 
ably with the swelling roar beneath the 
echoing dome. The police were down, 
or helplessly packed in. One more 
surge and the wave would have broken 
over the platform, performing the very 
feat suggested by Trenmore. But in 
that fatal instant of superstitious hesi- 
tance the blare of a bugle rang high 
above the din. It was followed by a 
rattling, crashing sound, mingled with 
shrieks, screams, and horrible, echoing 
sounds of pain and fear unutterable. 

Turning its eyes from the dais, the 
mob knew that its moment of power 
was past. Each one of those colored 
panels in the walls, enameled with the 
figures of strange gods or demons, had 
slid to one side. Each had hidden the 
muzzle of a machine gun. Three of 
them were already in action, spitting 
curses that killed. There were women 
and even babies there, but what cared 
Penn Service for that? They were 
merely Numbers. And Numbers in re- 
volt must be crushed—massacred if 
need be. 

The growl of the giant was trans- 
muted into frantic prayer. Those close 


108 


to the dais flung themselves on their 
knees and stretched supplicating hands 
toward the throne they had all but 
overturned. 

A moment Mr. Justice Supreme 
waited, while the guns still spat and 
swore. Then both his hands went up, 
palms outward. The crashing rattle 
ceased. Only the prayers and shrieks 
continued, mcreased, and echoed from 
the Bome of Justice to the wail of a 
great city, sacked and full of bloody 
wrongs. 

Again the old man raised his yellow, 
skinny hands, this time with a silenging, 
pacifying gesture, and silence followed, 
spreading from before the dais as the 
first growl had spread. Even the 
wounded, so great is the power of life- 
long submission, ceased presently to 
shriek. Only the occasional wail of 
some infant, too young to recognize the 
supremacy of ruthless force, broke the 
ghastly quiet. 

“My children,” began the High Priest 
of Evil, ‘you have sinned grievously.” 
The excitement had invigorated and en- 
nobled’his voice, so that it was no longer 
a snarl, but a dreadful threat. “You 
have been punished a little,’ he cried. 
“Beware lest the great and tender pa- 
tience of Penn be strained to breaking 
and you be punished past any power 
to remedy !” 

He pointed solemnly upward at the 
Red Bell. A shivering groan swept the 
hail. 

“You have broken the sacred silence. 
Beware that it be not broken by a voice 
more awful! Beware that it be not 
broken by a tongue at whose speaking 
you and your sons and your daughters, 
your women and your men, shall fall 
into the ignoble dust from which you 
sprang! Ungrateful Children of Penn, 
gather up your wounded and your dead. 
Depart from this temple which you 
have desecrated. Go home, and on your 
knees thank the old and faithful serv- 
ant who intercedes for you—even you, 


THE HEADS OF CERBERUS 


the graceless children of a kind and 
merciful father! But first yield up the 
body of that young man whose vanity 
and presumption have caused your sor- 
row and his. Yield him, I say! Where 
is he?” 

Mr. Justice Supreme actually tottered 
forward to the platform edge. Like a 
bloodthirsty old ferret, questing some 
particularly tender rabbit, he scanned 
the faces nearest him. The crowd gave 
back. Here and there the head and 
blue shoulders of a policeman bobbed 
into view. But No. 57403 was not pro- 
duced. 

“Give him up?’ yelled the old man. 
Dignity forgotten, he brandished his 
ebony cane like a sword. “Yield him 
up, you—whoever is concealing him! 
Or the guns shall talk to you!” 

He was answered by a low mutter, 
then silence. The Numbers stood with 
set, dogged faces, staring back at their 
oppressor. 

Trenmore gave Viola a_ sudden 
squeeze. “Powers o’ darkness!” he 
whispered exultantly. “The pups have 
the makings of men in them, after all! 
They'll not give him up, their sweet- 
voiced lad. They'll die by the guns, 
men, women, and babes, but ie 

“Surrender him!” The high priest’s 
voice crackled ominously. “I'll give 
you while I count three. One—two— 
thr-ree! Oh, very well then!” 

His right hand started slowly up, 
palm out. A second more and the 
guns would resume their devilish chat- 
ter. There came a swirl in the crowd, 
a struggle, and out into the little open 
by the pit sprang the singer, disheveled, 
but triumphant. 

“Don’t shoot!’ he cried. “Don’t 
shoot! Friends, I thank you for every- 
thing—what you wished for me, what 
you have given, and what you would 
give if I would let you! But you,” he 
turned upon Justice Supreme with the 
Yook and face-of a deathless young god, 
unfearing and scornful, “you I do not 


THE HEADS OF CERBERUS 


even hate! You poor wreck of what 
was one time a man, you are already 
dead and damned in the rottenness of 
your vile body and viler spirit! If you 
are the servant of Penn, then I am 
his enemy. I go to tell him so!” 

And before any can could stir a hand 
the boy had dived, head foremost, into 
the pit. 

A moaning sigh rose, echoed, and fell. 
Those nearest the pit turned aside and 
covered their ears with their hands; but 
the shriek they dreaded never came. 
Presently one of the pit guard, lurking 
out of sight behind the dais, sneaked 
cautiously around, crept to the pit, and 
looked down. Then he raised his eyes 
to the purple, raging face of Mr. Jus- 
tice Supreme. The high priest made 
a gesture with his cane. A moment 
later and the eagle and dove symbol 
swung into place again. 


CHAPTER XVI. 
DISASTER. 


[N barely thirty minutes the hall was 

emptied, cleansed of blood and 
débris, and the ceremony of the “ex- 
aminations” resumed. Mr. Justice Su- 
preme had waited, dozing, on his 
throne. The lesser servants perforce 
waited also, albeit impatiently and with 
much glancing at watches and sotto- 
voce complaint about the delay. 

Sad, silent, and defeated, the Num- 
bers had retired, bearing with them 
their injured and their dead. When 
the hall was at last cleared the lovely, 
milk-white pavement resembled more 
nearly the pit of a slaughter house than 
the floor of a temple. It was smeared 
and slimy with trampled blood, frag- 
ments of clothing, and other fragments 
less pleasant to contemplate. The tem- 
ple force of “white wings,” however, 
made short work of it. They dragged 
out a few lengths of hose, turned on 
a powerful water pressure, and in less 
than five minutes the blood and débris 


109 


were washed down three drains to 
which the pavement imperceptibly 
sloped. The wet floor gleamed whiter 
than ever, and the Red Bell and won- 
derful walls were reflected with re- 
doubled glory. A corps of scrubwomen 
went to work on hands and knees to 
dry and polish the cleansed floor, while 
Mr. Pity, with a final glance at his 
watch, again rose and advanced to the 
platform edge. 

“The next superlative quality on my 
list,” droned the master of ceremonies, 
disregarding the fact that he addressed 
only the bent backs of five inattentive 
scrubwomen, “is that of Quickest. This 
office entails management and control, 
under Penn Service, of the Department 
of Police, involving responsibility for 
the keeping of peace in Philadelphia 
and outlying suburbs.” 

A slim, alert-looking man of about 
forty-five advanced to the pit. 

“Is there any other candidate for 
this office? Any other candidate?” 

Came the click of hurrying heels, and 
round the dais appeared a small, rotund 
figure, surmounted by a _ cherubic 
but troubled countenance. Trenmore 
growled disappointedly. He had hoped 
for Drayton, not Bertram. What mis- 
adventure was keeping his friend away? 

Bertram came up just as the master 
of ceremonies commenced his stereo- 
typed conclusion: ‘“No other candi- 
date for this office. Present holder 
may ” ? 

“Wait a minute there!” cried Tren- 
more, and thrust Bertram forward. 
“Go on—go on in, you fat rascal!” he 
added in a forceful whisper, “Here’s 
the contest for Quickest now. You’ve 
not quite missed it. Go on!” 

Though Bertram struggled vainly to 
face about, the Irishman still pushed 
him forward. He was not wasting such 
an opportunity to delay the proceedings 
in his absent friend’s interest. 

“I__I’ve changed my mind!” the bur- 
glar protested. 


110 


“Are we to understand,” cut in Mr. 
Pity, “that this person does or does 
not wish to compete? Just a minute, 
chief. I don’t know whether or not 
you have a rival.” 

“Certainly not!” spluttered Bertram. 

“Certainly he does!” Trenmore’s af- 
firmative drowned out the burglar’s 
plaintive negative. “If you don’t,” he 
added in his victim’s ear, “I’ll wring 
the round head off you!” 

Mr. Arnold Bertram succumbed. 
Between two dangers, he chose the pit. 

“Very well, y’r honor,” he stam- 


mered. “I—I guess I’ll have a go at 
it.”’ 

“Come forward then,” snapped the 
master of ceremonies impatiently. 


‘What is your number, place of resi- 
dence, occupation, and age? Answer 
in order and speak clearly, please.” 


“My Say, I ain’t got no num- 
ber.”’ 
“What?” Pity glanced frowningly 


af Bertram’s lapel, and saw the green 
button with which Loveliest had sup- 
plied him. “With whose family are 
you connected ?” 

Just then Cleverest, who had been 
sitting quietly amorg the servants, rose 
and strolled to the front. He looked 
Bertram over; then turned to the 
throne. 

“Your Supremity, this is one of those 
four strangers of whom you are al- 
ready informed, Is it permitted that 
the usual questions be omitted ?” 

Both Mr. Pity and the Superlative 
seemed to interpret the inarticulate 
snarl which replied as assent. The lat- 
ter gentleman, after giving Viola an 
encouraging smirk, sauntered back to 
his seat. 

“Very well,” said Pity. “But I must 
call you something, you know. Haven’t 
you any title?” 

“Me name’s Bertram,” conceded the 
burglar. 

“Well—er—Bertram, you now have 
an opportunity to prove yourself the 


THE HEADS OF CERBERUS 


quickest man in the city. Bring around 
that machine there.” 

At the word a thing like a penny-in- 
the-slot scales was trundled over the 
porcelain by two pit guards. They 
brought it to a halt just before Mr. 
Pity. Following it came Mr. Virtue, 
who drew the chief of police aside, 
whispered earnestly to him, and stepped 
back. Suspiciously Bertram eyed the 
contrivance, with its platform and large 
dial. 

“Now, Bertram, place yourself on 
that platform and grasp the lever at 
the right. That’s it. Now. Raise your 
left hand and snap finger and thumb 
nine times!” 

With a dazed look the burglar obeyed. 
The needle on the dial jerked, swept 
around once, quivered, and stopped. 
By the servant’s instructions, Bertram 
performed a number of similar feats, 
all equally trivial. Each time the needle 
made its mysterious record. At last 
Mr. Pity seemed satisfied. 

“Very good. Mr. Virtue, would you 
mind making a note of that percent- 
age? You may step off, Bertram.” 

Still dazed, Bertram again obeyed. 

“You next, chief. Thank you.” 

The mysterious rites of the grasped 
lever and foolish-looking calisthenics 
were repeated. 

“What is the comparison, Mr. Vir- 
tue?” 

The servant figured for a moment 
on the back of an-envelope. 

“Ninety-eight for friend Bertram; 
ninety-five for the chief. Congratula- 
tions to you, my man! Sorry, chief. 
I fear you’re getting old!’ 

The alert man who had been so un- 
ceremoniously superseded stepped off 
the little platform. He did not took 
particularly concerned, thought Tren- 
more—not at all like a man condemned. 
to lose both means of living and life. 

“It’s all in the game, Mr. Virtue,” 
he observed cheerfully. “Tell the boys 


THE HEADS OF CERBERUS 


to send lilies of the valley. When’s 
the funeral ?” 

“Some other time, chief,” retorted 
Virtue with equal jocosity. “The. pit 
is not working right to-day.” 

“The cheerful liar!’ muttered Tren- 
more. “Now tell me, Viola, what’s the 
meaning of yonder small comedy ?” 

The girl, white-lipped and sick at 
heart, laughed mirthlessly. “What does 
it matter? At least, neither Bertram 
nor the other is to be murdered. Terry, 
if Mr. Drayton does not return soon, 
what shall we do when our time 
comes ?”’ 

“He will return—he must—but now 
what’s wrong with the little round 
man?” 

It was evident that Bertram was in 
a difficulty of some sort. The displaced 
chief of police had him firmly by the 
collar. Mr. Virtue was glaring at him 
with an expression of incredulous 
wrath, while Cleverest strode toward 
them, anxiety in every line of his sharp 
features. 

Terence and Viola were at that time 
unable to understand the disgrace of 
Bertram and his immediately subse- 
quent condemnation. It appeared only 
that during their three minutes’ conver- 
sation with one another the burglar had 
committed some act so unpardonable 
that even the intercession of Cleverest 
did not avail him. Apparently the act 
had been witnessed by every one pres- 
ent save the two remaining candidates. 
The accusation was not even formu- 
lated m words. 

“In three hours’ time let him be cast 
into the pit,’’ came the inexorable judg- 
ment from the throne. ‘Let him have 
that three hours to consider and repent 
of his. sacrilege. Penn is just and all- 
merciful. Take the prisoner away! 
Let the former chief resume his official 
duties.” 

The chief celebrated: his rehabilita- 
tion by dragging his presumptive suc- 
cessor off the scene, the latter still sput- 


TII 


tering -and expostulating, his captor 
wearing an expression of serene amuse- 
ment. 

“What next ?” questioned Viola hope- 
lessly. 

The next arrived with great prompt- 
ness. Mr. Pity had no more than 
glanced at his list, after the prisoner’s 
removal, when there came the tramp of 
feet and the sound of an excited voice. 

“Bring him along, men,” it com- 
manded. “Drag the sacrilegious beast 
before the throne! Let his Supremity 
judge the dog!” 

Then appeared the triumphant Mr. 
Mercy, waving on a cohort of four po- 
licemen. In their midst was another 
and much disheveled prisoner. 

“°Tis Bobby !” groaned the Irishman. 

Loveliest appeared, crossed behind 
the guarded prisoner, and defiantly took 
her stand beside Trenmore. Evidently 
the downfall of two of her four pro- 
tégés had alarmed the woman. As 
much occasion for formality had van- 
ished with the Numbers’ exit, she had 
chanced the anger of the throne and 
come to her “big man’s” assistance. 
Once more Mr. Justice Supreme was 
roused from somnolence. 

“Well, well,’ he demanded crossly 
of Mercy. “What’s all this about? 
Are we never to have a moment’s peace 
to finish these examinations? Who is 
that fellow you have there?” 

Mr. Mercy bowed gracefully, silk 
hat for once removed and pressed to 
his triumphant bosom. He cast one 
glance of joyous malice at Loveliest, 
and addressed the throne: 

“Your Supremity, I have a well-nigh 
unbelievable charge to lay against this 
prisoner. Because of the magnitude, 
the incredible audacity of his crime, 
and because one—I might say two— 
of our own number have actually stood 
his sponsor—because of these things, I 
say, I have presumed to interrupt the 
proceedings of this Board of Exam- 
iners in the full faith that———” 


112 


“Get to the point—get to the point, 
man,” cut in the high priest petulantly. 
“What has he done?” 

Again Mercy bowed. ‘Your Su- 
premity, to waste no words, this mad 
and audacious stranger, this insolent 
abuser of Your Supremity’s hospitality, 
who now faces the very throne with 
such brazen effrontery - 

“Well—well? Mr. Mercy, if you 
can’t tell it, step aside, please, and allow 
me to question the prisoner himself!” 

“He has invaded the holy Library 
of Penn,” retorted Mercy, “and perused 
the sacred books !” 

There was a general. movement ‘of 
interest among the bored segvants. 
Several of the women auditors rose 
from their chairs and walked forward 
to obtain a better view of the prisoner. 
Even His Supremity was aroused. His 
face purpled with a rage greater than 
that awakened by the presumptuous 
Numbers, his mouth worked horribly, 
and it was some moments before he 
could sufficiently control his voice to 
speak. “How do you know this?” he 
at last enunciated hoarsely. 

“Because I caught him at it,” replied 
Mercy unguardedly. 

“You? You found him? What were 
you doing in the library?” 

Mr. Mercy started and gasped at the 
trap in which he had caught himself. 
“Why—I—I was passing by and the 
door was open. I looked in and— 
and—— ” 

“Your Supremity, have I permission 
to speak?” 

The interrupter was one of the police 
officers holding Drayton. Mercy turned 
upon him with furious face, but Jus- 
tice Supreme waved him to silence. 
“You may speak, Forty-five. Mr. 
Mercy, I am conducting this inquiry. 
Kindly refrain from intimidating the 
witness.” 

“Your Supremity, two hours ago or 
thereabouts, Mr. Mercy come to me 


THE HEADS OF CERBERUS 


and says, ‘Forty-five, is the door of 
the library locked to-day?’ I says, no, 
I thought not, as Yout Supremity had 
been: in there reading. On days when 
you cared to read, you very seldom 
kept it locked.. No one would ever 
dare go in there, anyway. Then he 
says——” 

“Wait a minute!” came a voice of 
repressed fury from the throne. “Mr. 
Pity, will you take this down, please?” 

Pity drew forth his fountain pen and 
a small blank book. He began to scrib- 
ble furiously. 

“*Your Supremity,’ he says then, ‘is 
the door actually open?’ I didn’t be- 
lieve so, but I walked over into Cor- 
ridor 27 just to have a look. Of course 
the door was shut. Mr. Mercy, he fol- 
lowed right along behind. ‘If I were 
you,” he says, ‘I’d open that daor and 
turn on the fan at the end of the cor- 
ridor. His Supremity was complain- 
ing to me it was that stifling in the 
library it pretty near made him sick. 
Well, I thought it was a queer thing 
Your Supremity hadn’t spoke to me 
if you wished the room ventilated. But 
Mr. Mercy, being one of the Inner 
Order, and of such high authority——” 

“I understand,” snapped the high 
priest. “Get on. You opened it?” 

“I did, Your Supremity, with Mr. 
Mercy looking on. Then I went to 
turn on the fan, and Mr. Mercy strolled 
off. Without meaning to spy on him, 
I followed. My rubber soles don’t 
make much noise, of course, and I guess 
he didn’t hear me. He went around 
a corner. Just before I reached it my- 
self I heard him speaking. Thinking he 
would blame me if he thought I was 
spying on him, I stopped where I was. 
He was talking to this prisoner here, 
as I found out later. First he says, 
‘Were you looking for some one, Mr. 
Drayton?’ The prisoner, he says no; 
he was merely strolling around and got 
lost and can’t find his way back to 
the Green Room. ‘I'll take you there 


THE HEADS OF CERBERUS 


myself,’ says Mr. Mercy. ‘But have 
you seen the library ?’”’ 

At this a sort of gasp came from 
Mercy. He staggered slightly where 
he stood. He dared not interrupt, how- 
ever, and the policeman continued. 

“This Mr. Drayton says, no, he ain’t 
saw it, but he’d be real glad to—in fact, 
there wasn’t anything much he’d rather 
see. So Mr. Mercy says, ‘You go on 
around that corner straight along the 
corridor and you'll come to it. The 
door is open and you can go right in.’ 
This Mr. Drayton says he’s understood 
strangers was not allowed in there. Mr. 
Mercy says, ‘Oh, you’re as good as a 
Superlative already. This library is 
open to officials.’ 

“The gentleman thanked him and 
come on around the corner and past 
me, but Mr. Mercy he goes the other 
way.” 

Mr. Justice Supreme interrupted: 
“Why did you not stop this man? Do 
you mean you allowed him to enter 
without any protest?” 

“T did, Your Supremity. Mr. Mercy 
is my superior, sir, and while I intended 
reporting to Your Supremity—as I am 
doing now—it wasn’t for me to inter- 
fere with his commands or permissions. 
The stranger, he went in the hbrary. 
I stuck around, thinking I’d keep my 
eye on him, at least, to see that he didn’t 
remove none of the books, That would 
be going it a little too streng. But he 
stayed and stayed. Once or twice I 
strolled by, and there he was, reading 
for all he was worth. 

“Then, a while ago, Mr. Mercy comes 
hurrying along again. He stops short, 
like he was surprised. ‘Haven’t you 
got that door shut yet?’ he snaps at 
me. Before I could answer he runs 
to the door, looks in, and _ shouts: 
‘What’s that fellow doing in there? 
Forty-five, go in there and get that man! 
Did you know he was there?’ Before 
I had a chance to say anything he blows 

8AThrill 


113 


his whistle. Twenty-seven and Sev- 
enty-nine comes on the run. Sixty- 
three got there later. We go in and 
grab this Mr. Drayton. He seems sur- 
prised like, and starts to say something 
about Mr. Mercy telling him to go right 
in and read. Mr. Mercy tells him to 
shut up, if he don’t want rough han- 
dling, and he shuts up. Then Mr. 
Mercy orders us to bring the man here. 
That’s all I have to say, Your Suprem- 
ity. If I have taken a liberty in re- 
porting just at this time e 

“Don’t be a fool,’’ snarled His Su- 
premity. “You are about the only hon- 
est man on the force and the one man 
I have never caught in a lie. Mr. 
Mercy, have you any defense ?”’ 

“Simply that this is a. fabrication on 
the part of No. 45,” drawled Mercy. 
Having passed. through the various 
stages of rage, surprise, and fear, he 
had emerged in a mood of dangerous 
calm. ‘I had occasion to discipline the 
fellow recently. This, I presume, is 
his revenge.” 

Mr. Justice Supreme glared at him. 
His next words showed that while the 
servants as a body might be “Masters 
of the City,” Mr. Justice Supreme was 
in turn their very arbitrary tyrant. 
Whether he held this power because 
of his own malignant personality, or 
because of hereditary authority, it was 
power absolute. No. 45 had made no 


- mistake when he braved the certain 


wrath of Mr. Mercy and thereby gained 
the favor of His Supremity. 

“Mr. Mercy,” said the latter with 
snarling bluntness, “you are a liar and 
No. 45 is not! Again and again you 
have recently overstepped the mark, 
thinking, perhaps, that I have no eyes 
and no ears but my own, and that they 
are growing defective with old age. 
We will go into your case fully at a 
more appropriate time and try to cor- 
rect that impression. You will find 
that the exposing of state secrets. to 
help along some petty intrigue of your 


114 


own is not the light offense you appear 
to believe it. 

“Let this prisoner be held as a wit- 
ness—no, I do not care to have him 
held. One who has desecrated the 
realm of sacred knowledge cannot die 
too quickly. Cast him into the pit!” 

A trifle pale, but entirely self-pos- 
sessed, Drayton had stood silent. Even 
now, hearing that by-this-time monot- 
onous decree, he made no attempt to 
defend himself. Indeed, he found com- 
posure for a certain whimsical reflec- 
tion. Twice before he had been con- 
demned to the pit—once, two days ago, 
by Judge Virtue, in this very temple; 
once, in a distant place and age, before 
a tribunal whose proceedings, though 
less promptly fatal, were strangely sim- 
ilar in spirit. And of the two, Penn 
Service was the kindlier. Its con- 
demned neither endured imprisonment 
nor had time to suffer the bitterness 
of unjust disgrace. 

Breaking from her brother’s sustain- 
ing arm, Viola Trenmore pushed her 
way between the police and caught 
Drayton’s cold hand in hers. 

“Mr. Justice Supreme,” she called, 
“may I make an appeal?” 

Drayton turned with a gesture of 
protest. “Viola,” he said earnestly, “go 
back to your brother. You can do noth- 
ing for me.” 

“And do you think we would let you 
die alone?” she whispered fiercely. 

Mr. Justice Supreme gazed down 
upon her, and as he looked his loose 
old mouth spread in a ghastly smile. 
A gleam brightened his lecherous old 
eyes. 

“Are you the young lady who is des- 
tined to assume the title of Loveliest? 
My nephew has spoken to me of you. 
He spoke very highly—very highly in- 


deed. My own eyes confirm his claims - 


for your fitness. Your examination is 
next on the list, I believe, and I assure 
you that you need fear nothing from 
your rival. You will make many 


THE HEADS OF CERBERUS 


friends, my child, and you must count 

me as one of the first.” 
At the words, Lady 

standing by Trenmore, 


Green-eyes, 
gasped and 


. turned very white beneath her rouge. 


Even before the high priest had fin- 
ished, however, her green eyes were 
flashing. A surge of real color backed 
the artificial on her thin cheeks. With 
catlike quickness she had comprehended 
the situation. As though he had grown 
suddenly loathsome, she drew away 
from Trenmore. 

“So!” she spat out. “You were plan- 
ning to betray me, were you? After 
all I have done for you, you meant to 
put that sly puss of a sister of yours 
in my place! You were planning to 
have me thrown in that very pit I saved 
you from such a little while ago! And 
I thought you were honest. Because 
you were so big and strong I took you 
for a real man! Bah! You are no 
better than the rest of these swine—you 
are no better than Mercy or Clever or 
any of the others!” 

Her voice had steadily risen until 
every eye in the hall was focused upon 
them. 

Trenmore could say nothing. His 
face was suffused by a deep, burning 
flood of painful color. At this moment 
what had looked right and just enough 
when Cleverest proposed it appeared in 
a different light. No matter if the 
woman had planned a disagreeable fu- 
ture for Viola, she had also unques- 
tionably saved the girl from a choice 
between death and dishonor; saved 
himself. and Drayton from immediate 
destruction. 

What miasma of treachery existed in 
this ancient city that he, who prided 
himself on his loyalty, had become so 
horribly infected ? 

Up went his head in that old gesture 
of defiant decision. He strode to his 
sister’s sidé, sweeping two policemen 
out of his way, and flung an arm about- 
Viola and his friend together. 


THE HEADS OF CERBERUS 


“Your honor,” he thundered, “that 
lady yonder is right! We have been 
in danger of making ourselves no better 
than the Servants of Penn, Heaven 
judge them for their sins and their 
murderings! No better than your 
honor’s self, and I take shame to admit 
it! But that is over. We three want 
no favors. We want nothing at all 
from any of you, save to go our way 
clean and straight. If you choose to 
murder us, then we will go by way of 
that pit you’re so infatuated with. Ter- 
ence Trenmore has been mad these two 
days past, but he’s sane again now, 
thank Heaven, and can speak for him- 
self and his own!” 

Viola drew a long breath, and stood 
up proudly between the two men. She 
had meant making a desperate plea for 
Drayton’s life, and if that failed she had 
meant to die with him. But this was 
far better—that they three go together, 
not forced; but proudly and avoiding 
shame. From her eyes also the scales 
had been swept away. She knew now 
that this ending had been inevitable— 
that she could never have stood by and 
seen another woman, however hateful, 
murdered that she might go safe. 

The semiamiable expression on the 
High Priest’s face twisted back to its 
habitual snarl. Cleverest stood glower- 
ing like a thundercloud. 

“Nephew,” said Mr. Justice Supreme, 
“your clemency and kindness have been 
thrown away. Do you still wish to raise 
this girl to your side?” 

“Yes!” came the prompt reply. The 
trap mouth clicked shut on the bare 
affirmative. 

“You do?” 

“I do, Your Supremity. As a per- 
sonal favor, I ask that Miss Trenmore 
be urged to speak for herself and that 
her brother be not yet condemned. That 
woman whom we have tolerated too 
long as one of us has insulted him so 
grossly that I cannot wonder at his tak- 
ing umbrage. I ask that she”—he lev- 


12g 


eled a thin forefinger at the mdignant 
Loveliest—“be removed beyond further 
power to poison with her venom, and 
that this girl and her brother be given 
tame to consider before they hurl them- 
selves to destruction. I even ask that 
you grant this other stranger—this 
Drayton—reprieve that he may bid his 
friends farewell. It cannot be that he 
would wish so young and lovely a girl 
to share his fate. If he is a man he 
will urge his friends to accept the life, 
wealth, and high honors which Penn 
Service can bestow. Your Supremity, 
may I hope that my prayer is granted ?” 

The high priest bowed his head. It 
was clear that Cleverest had a tremen- 
dous influence with his uncle and a hold 
on Penn Service far stronger than in- 
dicated by his official position. 

“You ask a great deal, my boy, but 
you always did that. After all, there 
can be no harm in granting your wish. 
The girl is too pretty to be the bride 
of the old war god. If, however”’— 
and his voice rose to the shrill impa- 
tience of the aged—“‘if after due respite 
they still refuse your kindness, then I 
decline to be troubled any further. If 
they refuse they shall all die, and that 
green-eyed she-cat with them. I’m tired 
of seeing the painted fool about. 

“Take these three people away. Lock 
them all up together and let them make 
up their minds once for all. At ten 
to-morrow morning they may either die 
or accept. No great matter which. 
Hold that other man—Bertram—for 
the same hour. Take them away! And 
now, Mr. Pity, there are no further 
candidates. You may omit the rest 
of the proceedings. I want my lunch- 
eon. I’m an old man, Clever, and all 
this excitement is bad for my heart. 
If you ever had any consideration for 
any one but yourself - 

His snarling whine was shut from 
their ears as the three prisoners passed 
into the Green Room, and the red door 
closed behind the last of their guards. 


116 


CHAPTER XVII. 
THEIR LAST CHANCE 


WHEN Justice Supreme commanded 
that the former candidates for 
Superlativism be “all locked up to- 
gether,” the police evidently construed 
the command as including Bertram. It 
was into the bare, steel-walled room 
where that rotund gentleman awaited 
his fate that Trenmore, his sister, and 
Robert Drayton were presently es- 
corted. They were little surprised at 
this. What did amaze them was to 
find their fellow victim not alone. 
Seated on the floor with his back to 
the wall, he was engaged in earnest con- 
versation with a small female person, 
enthroned upon the only chair in the 
room. Moreover, the latter was wag- 
ging an admonitory finger at Bertram 
as if delivering a ‘curtain lecture” of 
the most approved domestic type. 

The chair comprised the entire fur- 
nishing of the cell. There was not even 
the moldy straw, without which no 
medieval dungeon was complete. It 
might be merely a detention cell; or 
perhaps prisoners of the temple passed 
to their doom too swiftly to require 
sleeping accommodations. 

In costume Bertram’s companion em- 
ulated the rainbow for color. Her large 
hat was bright green, lined with pink. 
She wore an old-rose silk sweater over 
a soiled lace blouse, and crumpled blue 
linen skirt; her hosiery was golden yel- 
low, and her down-at-heel pumps had 
once been very elegant green buckskins. 
As the door clanged shut behind the 
newcomers, she turned upon them large, 
inquiring eyes, whose size was accentu- 
ated by the thinness of her face. Her 
complexion, however, was as fine as 
Viola’s own and unmarred by any touch 
of the rouge stick. The yellow button 
displayed upon her old-rose lapel bore 
the number 23000. 

Bertram’s first expression of surprise 
changed to one of genuine concern. 


THE HEADS OF CERBERUS 


“Say, boss,” he questioned Trenmore. 
“What's up? Did they frame you, too? 
Or have you come to kiss your old col- 
lege chump good-by ?” 

“We'll be saying good-by this day 
the way we'll be troubled with no more 
farewells at all,’ retorted Trenmore 
grimly. 

“Are you really in bad, all of you?” 

“We are that. And who’s the lady, 
Bertram ?” 

“A pal of mine,” replied the burglar. 
Taking the small person’s hand, he 
forthwith presented her. “Skidoo, these 
here are the three friends of mine I 
was telling you about. Miss Trenmore 
and Mr. Trenmore and Mr. Drayton. 
Gents and lady, let me nrake you ac- 
quainted with the _ brightest, _ best- 
hearted, prettiest kid in this bughouse 
burg. Her Number is 23000, but that 
ain't no handle for a lady. I call her 
Miss Skidoo.” 

His round face shone with such 
whole-hearted pride in the human rain- 
bow ; he was so clearly assured of her 
cordial reception by any one possess- 
ing brains and eyes that Viola, who 
had at first hung back a trifle, extended 
her hand. 

“We are very glad to meet you, Miss 
Skidoo,” she said gravely, “but sorry 
it has to be in such a place.” 

Terry’s eyes were twinkling. He fol- 
lowed his sister’s lead, however, as did 
Drayton. “Any friend of Mr. Ber- 
tram’s,” Terry contributed, “is bound to 
be most interesting. ’Tis charmed we 
all are, Miss Skidoo!” 

“Same here,” responded No. 23000, 
eying them with a sort of childlike 
solemnity. “Bert's been gassing about 
you folks ever since I met him. But, 
gee! The lookout’s fierce for this 
bunch, ain’t it?” 

“I fear it is about as fierce as pos- 
sible,” sighed Viola. “At least for four 
of us here.” 

“Count me in,” announced the girl. 
“They drug me in, just for comin’ to 


THE HEADS OF CERBERUS 


the temple with Bert. I ain’t done 


> >» 


nothin’. 
“I couldn’t help it,” Bertram de- 


fended himself. “I wasn’t going to fall: 


for the game, but Mr. Trenmore here, 
he says I must. Say, bo, won’t you 
tell the kid that I didn’t want to go 
in the game? She won’t believe noth- 
ing I say.” 

The Irishman, somewhat conscience- 
stricken, hastened to assure No. 23000 
that the blame for Bertram’s downfall 
lay entirely on his shoulders. “He ap- 
peared to have no desire at all for it, 
but I did not and do not yet under- 
stand the way of what happened.” 

“Aw, I didn’t do nothin’ to get sent 
up for,” said the burglar disgustedly. 
“I did cop a medal thing one of them 
guys was wearing on his watch chain, 
but I was going to give it right back 
to him. That weighing machine of 
theirs was a crazy way to test speed. 
I wanted to show ’em what quick really 
meant. So I copped this here medal 
thing off the one they call Mr. Virtue. 
Then I flashed it, and was going to 
explain. They didn’t give me no 
chance. They just jumped on me and 
said I’d been and done sacri—sacri- 
something or other, and that was all.” 

“They was just waitin’ fer a chanst 
to land you,” commented Miss Skidoo 
wisely. “They didn’t never mean you 
should have that job really. Sooner 
or later they’d have framed you. Say, 
folks, let’s set on the floor and fight 
this thing out right.” 

Acquiescing willing enough, Terence 
and Viola between them related the 
various events occurring between Dray- 
ton’s departure from the Green Room 
and his return in the custody of Mercy. 
The.story of cold-blooded cruelty, the 
hints of internecine warfare among the 
Servants and Superlatives—united only 
against their common enemy, the Num- 
bers—was interesting and _ startling 
enough to call forth many exclamations 
from Drayton and Bertram. Miss Ski- 


LIZ 


doo, however, listened with the bored 
look of one who hears an oft-told and 
wearisome tale. 

“Say,” she commented at the end, “a 
erdinary person like you or us”—indi- 
cating herself and Bertram—“ain’t got 
no business mixing in with that gang of 
highbinders. They’re always layin’ for 
each other an’ scrapping among their- 
selves; but say, a snowball’ got a bet- 
ter chanst in a bucket of hot water 
than a straight guy or a plain Number 
around this joint. As I’ve been telling 
Bert here——” 

“Pardon me,” interrupted Drayton 
curiously, “but where did you happen 
to meet Mr. Bertram?” 

She flushed so red that Drayton 
wished he had not asked the question. 
Catching the look in the lawyer’s eye, 
Bertram bristled instantly. 

“Say,” he blurted, “I want you to 
know that Miss Skidoo here is a 
straight, nice kid. I was to a movie 
last night, and she was there with her 
dad. I got talking to the old man. He 
says, come along and get some home 
cooking ; them hotels ain’t no good. I 
stayed so late—talkin’ and playin’ 
seven-up—that they let me bunk out 
in the spare room. That’s all. Straight, 
decent folks, just like there used to be, 
even if they are tagged with numbers 
instead of proper monikers. Get me?” 

They got him. Drayton apologized 
silently with his eyes for the equally 
unvoiced suspicion. 

It seemed that Bertram had bragged 
to-these chance acquaintances of his 
pull with the Superlative, Cleverest. 
Miss Skidoo had warned him earnestly 
against any attempt to supersede the 
chief of police, no matter what his pull 
might be. The present Quickest, it 
seemed, like the musical director and 
most of the other superlatives, was a 
distant connection of “Penn Service.” 
She revealed to him many facts regard- 
ing that “democratic institution,” Sw- 
perlativism—how every man of the Su- 


118 


perlatives, save Cleverest, held his job 
by pure favor, aided by the pull he could 
exercise through family connections. 

“Cleverest, he’s a Servant by birth,” 
the girl explained. ‘He only took on 
that Superlative job because the next 
Justice Supreme can’t be chose from 
the Servants in office. He’s the old 
man’s nephew. When the old man dies 
Cleverest will chuck the law and run 
this city. He was aimin’ to marry 
Loveliest because he wants to be high 
man anywhere he is, and the Loveli- 
est’s husband, when she has one, is sup- 
posed to run this town, outside of the 
Service. But I guess he meant to chuck 
her as soon as the old man passes over. 

“Them Servants, they keep the Serv- 
ice itself right in their own families, 
father to son like. Only Mr. J. S. as 
is, he ain’t got no son. Say, me sister’s 
a-scrublady an’ she’s got a swell job 
scrubbin’ floors right here in the tem- 
ple. Course, she don’t get paid nothing, 
but she’s fed good, and as for clothes, 
the ladies round here gives her a lot. 
That’s how I get these glad rags I’m 
wearin’—from sis. But I tell you a job 
like hern is great for gettin’ wise! 
Folks don’t take much more notice of 
a scrublady than if she was a chair or 
sump’n. She’s told me a lot o’ things. 

“Servants of Penn! Say, I reckon 
if that big image o’ Penn could get 
a peep at what gues on under his feet 
he’d jump right down on top of the 
dome and smash the bell and everything 
else!” 

The flow of her eloquence was in- 
terrupted by Drayton, who had been lis- 
tening with even greater interest than 
the others. “Tell me, Miss Skidoo, 
have you or any of your friends an 
idea of who William Penn really is, or 
rather was?” 

“I dunno nothin’ about that there 
Will-thing. Penn is the Alt-Father. 
He runs heaven and hell just like the 
Servants runs us. I don’t believe in 
him no more. I think there ain’t noth- 


THE HEADS OF CERBERUS 


ing but Philadelphia, and when you 
die you stay dead!” 

“Well, religion aside,” said Drayton, 
“I myself have learned a great deal 
since this morning. The Penn Service 
library was really most informing. If 
its doors could be thrown open to the 
Numbers, I believe they are men enough 
yet to overthrow this government of 
false priests and their sycophants and 
come into their own. It would be 
worth living, just to see it done.” He 
sighed. ‘However, that is not to be. 
We can help the sorrow of this age 
no more than we could cure the grief 
of our own.” 

“Get on with it, Bobby,” said Tren- 
more. “Sure, I’ve a load of curiosity 
I’d hate to die burdened with!” 

“T’ll tell it as briefly as I can. There 
are big gaps in the story as I collated 
it, but the general run is clear enough. 
I became so absorbed that I forgot the 
time and the competitions and every- 
thing else. It seems that after the close 
of the Great War there followed a 
few years of respite. Then Bolshevism, 
that even in our day had rent Russia 
to fighting shreds, had its way of Eu- 
rope. Class war, which spells social 
chaos, ensued. 

“The U. S. A. very sensibly and hast- 
ily declined to be further involved, but 
unfortunately did not stop there. The 
country had been largely militarized 
during Wilson’s second administration ; 
but this new European outbreak swung 
the pacifists back into the saddle. You 
know the delirious possibilities which 
may spring from the brain of a full- 
fledged pacifist. Wilson’s administra- 
tion was over. His successor was a 
weakling; a dreamer, and completely 
under the influence of a man named 
Andrew Power. I'll tell you more of 
that later. Congress—I don’t know 
what they were thinking of, but they 
backed this sawdust president, or rather 
the man behind his chair. According 
to the records, it appeared to all these 


a” 


THE HEADS OF CERBERUS 


wise rulers that the only safety lay in 
complete severance of relations with 
mad-dog Europe. So they severed 
them. They deliberately stopped all 
traffic and communication between the 
United States and Europe. Later, in 
logical sequence, they dropped com- 
munication with our nearest neighbors, 
Canada, Mexico, Central and South 
America.” 

“Why, Mr. 
Viola incredulously. 
they ?” 

“They did. I am telling you what I 
read in books and old newspapers of 
those times. Now this man I spoke 
of, this Andrew. Power, who stood be- 
hind the presidential chair, seems to 
have been a sort of sublimified madman. 
His personality was of the Napoleonic 
order raised to the nth power. He was 
a madman, but he was a reasoning mad- 
man. Taking the theories and work of 
the pacifists, he carried them to a logi- 
cal conclusion. 

“The trouble with the world, he said, 
was that its communities, its nations, 
had grown too bulky and unwieldy. 
He pointed to the case of Switzerland, 
a small, therefore manageable, repub- 
lic, with its efficient, well-equipped 
army, its contented people and high 
rate of wealth per capita. The United 
States was a republic, but it could never 
be like that. It was too big. All the 
really big countries, he said, were ill- 
balanced, ill-governed, and with a high 
percentage of poor and unemployed. 
The ideal nation would consist of not 
over three or four million souls, with a 
democratic government. It should be 
completely isolated from the world in 
a space compelling it to keep the pop- 
ulation within that limit of three or 
four million. Each State in the Union, 
he argued, was a potential ideal repub- 
lic, given the isolation which was ap- 
parently—but only apparently—impos- 
sible.” 

“But,” cried Viola, her eyes wide 


Drayton!” exclaimed 
“How could 


119 


and incredulous, “that was a hundred 
times worse than the secession of the 
South from the North!” 

“IT have told you,” replied Drayton 
wearily, “that this man was mad. The 
whole world, I think, was mad. In this 
country, too, bolshevism had been lift- 
ing its disorganizing clamor. The mad- 
man carried the mad people with him. 
State by State, it seemed, they might 
handle what was daily becoming more 
ungovernable. If some States were rot- 
ten, let them rot alone; not infect the 
others. It was necessary to redistribute 
the population, but that does not ap- 
pear to have troubled their maniacal 
energy. There were riots and battles. 
What sane people remained objected 
strenuously to the whole scheme. But 
Power—this Andrew Power, who stood © 
behind the president—had the majority 
with him. I think that many clever, 
wealthy men foresaw opportunities for 
absolute despotism under open colors. 
At any rate, the scheme was carried 
out, each State accepting a population 
within its powers to feed.” 

“But that, meant the end of civiliza- 
tion, the end of exchange!” 

“Oh, they arranged for exchange of 
products in a limited degree, but all 
other intercommunication, all exchange 
of ideas or moving about of people 
from one State to another, was cut off 
under heavy penalty.” 

“Their coast line, man—their coast 
line?” broke in Trenmore. ‘What was 
Europe doing then?” 

“T don’t know. The history of the 
world ends in that library with the iso- 
lation of Pennsylvania. For all I know, 
the nations of Europe may have emu- 
lated the Kilkenny cats and devoured 
one another, or perhaps they are still 
fighting. Anyway, what these people 
call ‘Philadelphia and its environing 
suburbs’ really includes the whole of 
Pennsylvania. 

“They began here under a sort of 
commission government, but the ‘con- 


120 


tractor gang’—Philadelphia was always, 
you know, peculiarly - 

He never told them, however, what 
it was that Philadelphia was peculiar 
in. There came a sound at the door. 
The heavy bolts slid back, and a man 
entered, partly closing the door behind 
him. The man was Cleverest. For an 
instant he stood, arms folded, glaring 
majestically upon them. 

The captives rose and faced him with 
more or less composure. Had the high 
priest’s nephew come to announce an 
advance of execution or to offer them 
further terms? 

“You’ve stared long enough,” said 
Trenmore brusquely. ‘What is it you 
want with us?” 

“A little fair and decent treatment 
perhaps,” snapped Cleverest. ‘‘Do you 
realize what a very unpleasant position 
you have placed me in? Every man in 
the temple is laughing at me behind 
his hand for standing by a gang of 
beggars and getting insulted for my 
pains!” 

Viola interposed quietly. ‘You are 
mistaken, sir. None of us has ever 
said a word to or about you that could 
be construed as an insult.” 

“Your brother meant to include me 
in his tirade addressed to my uncle,” 
the man retorted gloomily. 

Terry eyed him in obstinate dislike. 
“You led me to forget my honor, sir, 
and conspire against a woman. I’m 
not blaming you so much as myself ; but 
’twas a dirty deal, and well you know 
it |? 

“You were ready enough at the time,” 
sneered Cleverest with more truth than 
was pleasant. ‘However, matters are 
not yet too late to mend. Your death 
won’t help Loveliest now. My uncle 
has settled that once for all. You’ve 
blundered and blundered until the best 
I can do is to save you and your sis- 
ter. Miss Trenmore’”—he eyed the girl 
with a coldly calculating eye—‘I love 
you. I am offering you more than any 


THE HEADS OF CERBERUS 


other man in this city could offer. I 
desire a beautiful and accomplished 
wife, and you are better qualified than 
any one I have met. If you marry 
me you will be not merely Loveliest, 
which is in one sense an empty title, 
but the future Mrs. Justice Supreme!” 

“Unless,” replied Viola very coolly 
and not at all impressed, ‘‘you should 
see fit to depose me before your uncle’s 
death. You could do that, couldn’t 
you?” 

His face expressed surprise, mingled 
with a kind of vulpine admiration. 
“You knew all the time,” he exclaimed 
with a lIaugh, “and hid it from me! 
No danger, my dear. You play fair 
with me and I'll stick to you. I’ve 
never seen a woman yet that could 
touch you for looks, brains, or manner. 
As an added inducement, remember 
that I offer your brother’s life!” 

Viola looked from Drayton to Terry 
and back again at Drayton. 

“Terry!” she whispered at last. “I 
—I can’t. Oh, forgive me, Terry! 
Yes, I'll do it for you. But he must 
save Mr. Drayton, too!” 

“You'll do no such thing!” stormed 
the Irishman. “I’d rather see you dead, 
Viola, then wedded to that fox!” 

“Don’t consider me, Miss Viola,” put 
in Drayton. ‘Save yourself if you 
wish and can. But not—for Heaven’s 
sake, not in that way—not for my 
sake!” 

The girl and the lawyer were look- 
ing into each other’s eyes. The faint 
rose of Viola’s cheeks brightened to a 
livelier hue. Cleverest saw, and jumped 
at the conclusion most natural to a born 
Servant of Penn. 

“Oh, is that it?” he demanded an- 
grily. “Is this man your reason for 
declining my offers? Perhaps I have 
been a bit hasty, after all. The wife 
of Justice Supreme can have had no 
former lovers, dead or living !”’ 

Viola uttered a little, horrified cry. 
The pink flush became a burning flood 


THE HEADS OF CERBERUS 


of color. Drayton sprang, but Terry 
was before him. One second later-the 
Superlative’s body crashed against the 
steel wall of the cell and dropped in 
a limp heap to the floor. 

At the sound of his fall, the door was 
again flung open. The occupants of the 
cell found themselves covered by four 
leyeled rifle barrels. Cleverest had not 
come here alone, and it looked .as if 
the guard were in a mood to fire upon 
them and clear the ceH of life forth- 
with. But finding, upon examination, 
that their superior was merely stunned 
and had suffered no broken bones, they 
decided to leave punishment to their 
masters. With many threats they re- 
tired, bearing the insensible Cleverest 
with them. 

“That settles it!’’ said Drayton. “No- 
body can ever mistake your feelings 
toward them, Terry!” 

“I only wish that I’d killed him,” 
growled the Irishman, 


I2I 


It was seven p. m., and they were 
beginning to wonder if Penn Service 
wasted not even bread and water on 
condemned prisoners, when the door 
bolts again clicked smoothly. 

“Our supper at last!” commented 
Terry with satisfaction. 

He was mistaken. No food-bearing 
jailer appeared, but the chief of police 
himself, alert and smiling. Behind him 
the light glinted on a dozen rifle bar- 
rels. They were taking no further 
chances, it appeared, with the Trenmore 
temper. 

“I have come to make a rather un- 
pleasant announcement,” began Quick- 
est. He spoke with quiet courtesy, but 
firmly and as one prepared for an out- 
break. “You were to have been passed 
to the All-Father in the morning, I 
believe. His Supremity has instructed 
that the time be advanced. Will you 
accompany me without resistance? If 
sO, you may go unfettered.” 


To be concluded in the next number of THE THRILL BOOK, 
out on October 15th. 


CONZRRAT SEEPS? 


RAMBLE-THOUGHTS 
AN optimist is a man who expects his little back-yard garden to become like 


the illustrations in the seed catalogue without doing any work. 


Is it any 


-wonder that vacuous optimism is a subject of American humor? 
So with the pessimist, we might define him, but he is a minority proposition— 


the minority that never comes into power. 
party is non-existent as far as power goes. 


It cannot live in a dark, damp cellar. 


Did you ever stop to think how unlike a mushroom we really are? 


Politically speaking, the minority 
The human mind demands light. 


Get a 


hunch on yourself. With some of you fellows it is necessary to point out what 
you are not in order to show you what you are. Come to think of it, I’ll bet 
you never explored yourself in any definite way; you look at things perhaps, 
but did you ever count the steps as you went downstairs? Did you ever figure 
out the exact width of a street? Did you ever compute the height and weight 
of your friends? And yet I’ve seen men standing on the corner who guessed 
at the weight of people, never missing. It can be done. 

It isn’t that these things are important; after all, everything is relative as 
concerns its position in our own minds. It is simply to show you how alert you 
might be. 


Will H.Greentfield 


HEN Joel Crumpleton was born 
there was the perfect shape 
of a mouse on the calf of his 

left leg. From earliest infancy he was 
strangely influenced to do mouselike 
things, such as stealing bits of food 
and sneaking around when no one was 
stirring in the house. Before he was 
ten years old he was known to every 
one as The Mouse, and only his mother 
remembered to use his given name. 

While The Mouse tried to divide his 
time with strict impartiality between 
eating and sleeping, people who wanted 
to be polite said he worked for his 
father. The latter kept a tiny provi- 
sion shop in London. He sold butter 
and eggs and cheese and pickled pork 
and parafin and groceries of all sorts. 
Mr. Crumpleton was a child of mis- 
fortune, or, as he phrased it, ‘“adver- 
sity’s favorite target.” Bad luck found 
him with unerring frequency. Like the 
leopard, wherever he hid he was 
spotted. The basement of his person- 
ality was perennially under the bruising 
sandal of Nemesis. But in a patience 
competition with Mr. Crumpleton, Job 
himself would have been obliged to be 
content with honorable mention. 

The Mouse was just twenty-three 
years old when the crash came. Most 


unexpectedly Mr. Crumpleton was at- 
tacked by apoplexy, and with shocking 
suddenness he took his place in the 
long line of his honorable ancestors. 
Mrs. Crumpleton, after filling the met- 
ropolitan ear with hysterical panegyrics 
as to her husband’s vasty virtues, made 
an heroic attempt to continue the busi- 
ness. But the business smashed, 
through the chain stores cutting into 
the little trade. Well, hardly smashed ; 
that’s too imposing. The business just 
faded, and one morning the Crumple- 
tons, mother and son, didn’t bother to 
take down the shutttrs. 

When The Mouse took over the sup- 
port of the household he demonstrated 
his complete incompetency. He devel- 
oped an uncompromising antipathy to 
work. Inside of a year he became a 
nocturnal prowler, familiar with the 
deeds of the dive, the dark alley, the 
lonely road, and the midnight hour. 
He took too much tobacco and too lit- 
tle exercise, eating like a pig and drink- 
ing like a duck. In ways that were 
dark and tricks that were the irre- 
ducible minimum of petty outlawry he 
was an acknowledged adept. His fear 
of prison, however, kept him out of 
it, for he never hesitated to sacrifice 
a pal to dodge the dungeon. 


THE MOUSE AND THE CHEESE 


The day of exposure came at length, 
and his cronies knew him for what he 
was—a spineless stool pigeon. They 
had a way of their own of dealing with 
his species, and there was nothing be- 
tween The Mouse and the grave ex- 
cept a ride in the hearse, when the let- 
ter from his uncle in New York ar- 
rived, and The Mouse departed for 
America. 

Mrs. Crumpleton was not sorry to 

see her son leave London. - 
- “Here is the opportunity of your 
life, my dear,” she told The Mouse. 
“Uncle Antheny Crumpleton is a rich 
grocer in New York, and he has quar- 
reled with his son, Jim. He says in 
this letter that if you take an interest 
in his business he will make you his 
heir. Folks call him a miser, I’ve heard, 
but he says he’ll be generous with you 
to spite his son. He’s pleased to think 
you know something about the busi- 
ness, too. It’s a new start for you, 
my dear. I think Uncle Anthony wants 
you for protection also, for he has old- 
fashioned ideas and don’t believe in 
banks. And he is worth over a thou- 
sand pounds if he’s worth a penny!” 

The Mouse smacked his lips at that, 


and three days after he landed in New: 


York he was working like a galley slave 
in Uncle Anthony’s Third Avenue gro- 
cery and delicatessen. He had an un- 
conquerable feeling that he was doing 
a shameful and grossly culpable thing 
in toiling thus, but he nursed visions 
—visions that made the ultimate rob- 
bery of his avuncular relative not 
merely a matter of conjecture, but a 
mathematical certainty. In fact, a curi- 
ous dementia seemed to seized him. He 
couldn’t get enough of work. 

Uncle Anthony was an old skinflint, 
whose venerable and threadbare clothes 
looked well in the charitable light of 
his dingily lighted store. He was mean- 
ness, ingratitude, and heartless cupid- 
ity ten times compounded. He did a 
large credit trade, and did not scruple 


123 


to plunder patrons who bought “by the 
book.” He was their special conveni- 
ence in seasons of financial distress— 
at exorbitant interest. A growing fear 
of robbery rcde him like an old man 
of the sea, yet he refused to make 
room for The Mouse in the dwelling 
part of his store. 

“I can take care of my own,” he 
was wont to assert. “I’ve foiled the 
crooks of New York for twenty-five 
years, and I’m sure I haven’t lost any 
of my old cunning. All I ask you to 
look out for is fire. I’m deathly afraid 
of fire. I can’t tuck heavy gold away 
as conveniently as I can hide the green- 
backs.” 

“Don’t you mean yellowbacks?” The 
Mouse queried one time when they were 
talking on the subject. 

“What’s it to you whether I have 
green or yellow?” rasped his uncle, and 
for several weeks he was as cool as 
an arctic breeze. He did not thaw out 
until one afternoon he stood in the 
rear of the store and saw his son, Jim, 
come in and engage The Mouse in con- 
versation.  . 

Jim Crumpleton looked to be drink- 
ing himself into a premature grave. 
His features were thin and sharp, his 
complexion sallow, his whole appear- 
ance unhealthy. Fine dark eyes in- 
creased the peculiarity without enhanc- 
ing the beauty of his puny face. He 
had a racking cough and seemed floun- 
dering hopelessly in mental fog. 

“Say, Tommy Atkins,” he babbled 
childishly, “can’t you and I get to- 
gether and trim the old man for a 
piece of change? I haven’t had noth- 
ing but whisky for a week, and I feel 
a sleigh ride coming on.” 

The Mouse favored him with a 
stony stare. Out of the tail of his eye 
he caught the shadow of his eavesdrop- 
ping employer as it flung itself athwart 
the basement door. 

“Are we friends or enemies ?” pressed 
the son of the house. 


124 


Then, with the most positive finality, 
The Mouse rendered his decree: 

“Enemies, sir! Them as want to 
cheat or rob my Uncle Anthony can’t 
be no friends of mine. If you know 
when you’re bloody well off you'll get 
out of this here place of business.” 

Jim Crumpleton coughed, stammered, 
choked miserably, and went meekly out. 

That evening, as The Mouse was get- 
ting ready to leave for his ground-floor 
apartment in the next block, his Uncle 
Anthony drew him into his office in the 
rear of the store. 

“My dear boy,” he crooned, “I want 
to tell you that from this date on I 
will pay you a dollar more a week. 
Keep up the good work, Joel, and you'll 
never regret it. I know how to appre- 
ciate honest service. You have worked 
hard—as hard as me almost—to in- 
crease the business. Keep a sharp eye 
out for fire, Joel. My little yellowback 
babies dread the flames, you know. f 
don’t trust the banks, Joel, but I believe 
I can trust you. Have patience, dear 
boy, and some day this business and 
all I have will be yours. Good night. 
Be prompt in the morning. And here 
is a dollar for theater.” 

But it was only a week or so after 
that The Mouse fell from favor in a 
manner that set him thinking. And 
from these thoughts came action. 

During his employer’s absence he de- 
scended to the cellar and quartered a 
whole cheese. Uncle Anthony discov- 
ered this upon his return and flung 
himself at The Mouse with a bellow 
of rage. 

“What do you mean, you dolt!” he 
exploded. “What did you cut that 
cheese for? Didn’t I tell you never to 
cut a whole cheese—didn’t I? How 
dared you?” 

The Mouse backed away without 
speech. He appeared to be considering 
his employer’s sanity. 

“How dared you cut that cheese?” 
sputtered Uncle Anthony wrathfully. 


THE MOUSE AND THE CHEESE 


“Because there was none cut, sir, 
and there were customers waiting for 
it, sir. Besides, sir, I think I can cut a 
cheese every bit as well as the next 
one, sir.” The Mouse’s puzzled air 
and steady gaze dampened the other’s 
ire. 

“Excuse me, Joel; excuse me! I’m 
a bit upset. A cheater of a woman 
skipped out on me owing a pretty stiff 
bill. And her name was Bill, too—ha, 
ha!” His breath dodged back and 
forth through his teeth in wheezy laugh- 
ter. “Did I say Mrs. Bill? I’m wrong; 
her name was Mrs. Williams. All the 
same, though. I hope you won’t mind 
my little outburst. I'll not hold any- 
thing against you,” he concluded with 
expansive generosity. 

“Thank you, sir. I try to please you 
all the time, sir.” 

“You do, Joel, you do. Go home 
now, my dear boy. I’m going to close 
up myself to-night. I’m giving you 
a few hours off.” 

The Mouse left the store, but he 
did not set his course for home. In- 
stead he visited a neighborhood saloon, 
bought a drink, smiled at the discon- 
solate figure of Jim Crumpleton, and 
walked out. As he anticipated, Jim 
followed him to the sidewalk. 

“Got the price on you, cousin mine?” 
he blurted thickly. 

“Do you know where I am living?” 
asked The Mouse, handing him a half 
dollar. , 

“Sure! I’ve watehed you cooking 
your supper through the street window 
many a night.” 

“To-morrow morning I want you to 
call there, Jimmy, old dear. I might 
have something for you. Good night!” 

Next morning, as soon as Uncle An- 
thony had hitched up his horse and 
wagon and started for the wharf, The 
Mouse padded down the cellar and ex- 
amined five whole cheeses that stood 
on a shelf under the stairs. 


THE MOUSE AND THE CHEESE 


“Never touched ’em, just as I fig- 
ured,” he chuckled to himself. Then 
he started in to quarter them with the 
big cheese knife he carried. When he 
halved the fourth cheese he emitted a 
low yelp of delight, dropped the knife, 
and tore at the gaping center with his 
fingers. When he finally ceased paw- 
ing he straightened up with a huge 
bundle of orange-backed bills in his 
trembling hands. For a minute he 
stared at it with cold rigidity of fea- 
ture, like a man in a trance; then he 
laughed and snapped his fingers at the 
world outside. 

Ten minutes later The Mouse stood 
in his little room down the block and 
laughed another laugh of infinite 
amusement. 

“Twelve thousand dollars!” he mut- 
tered rapturously. “In a minute James 
will be here and I'll let him have a few 
notes for them to find, the silly blighter ! 
He chased me out of the store at the 
point of a gun, and I came home to 
arm myself and go back after him— 
didn’t want to notify the police and 
disgrace the family, gorblime me! I'll 
stop and parcel post this bundle home 
to mom, like a good child, and she'll 
know what to do with it—we’ll be able 
to——”’ 

There came a knock on the door. 


125 


“There’s Jimmy boy!” he whispered 
exultingly. He had started for the 
door, when he chanced to glance 
through the little street window. Two 
policemen stood on the steps! His 
heart was ice for a second; then it 
burned like a hot coal and beat at a 
furious pace. 

“He set a trap for me, the old miser !” 
he- gulped. “I’m caught with the 
goods! I can’t hide the stuff here!” 

He looked wildly about him. There 
was a- red-hot fire in the little cook- 
stove, and he clapped his hands at sight 
of it. Rushing to the bed, he reached 
beneath the mattress, wrenched the 
package of money from its hiding place, 
and, stuffing it into the stove, jammed 
down the lid. He laughed as he heard 
a roar in the stove pipe. 

“No jug for mine!’ he breathed. 
“It’s gone—gone! And what can they 
prove?” 

Rap, rap, rap! 

He opened the door. 

“What’s wanted, constable?” In his 
voice there was scorn and contempt 
unutterable. 

“Sorry to trouble you,” said the fore- — 
most officer. “Will you buy a ticket 


for the Police Pension Fund’s benefit 
concert next Saturday night? It won’t 
cost you much!” 


OCTOR HERMAN BOLZA, the 
watery-eyed, spectacled ethnolo- 
gist, bent over his scales and 

weighed out for La Veuve, his musher, 


a thousand dollars in gold dust. For 
Yelk, the Chinaman, he measured out 
a canvas sack of dust thrice the size 
of the Frenchman’s. 

It was at Nome. Before them lay a 
five weeks’ journey south and east 
across the bleak, snow-caked tundra. 
La Veuve, the musher, set up the tepee 
at night while little Bolza was mas- 
saging the paralysis out of his thin legs 
and muttering things in strange lan- 
guages. By day the Frenchman sent his 
long, rawhide lash stinging among the 
dogs or else lumbered on ahead, making 
trail for the struggling animals. The 
flabby-faced, iron-muscled Yelk fol- 
lowed his two companions and the dogs 
with docile patience written on his yel- 
low face. 

Toward the slim, farthest, frozen 
fingers of the Kusokwin River crept 
these toilers of the snows. It was there 
that the Chinaman had once traveled 
alone with a little Welshman, a daring 
voyageur, until one day, under garish 
snow-clouded skies, the yellow man’s 
companion had died. Yelk had kicked 


a hole in the snow, buried his master, 
and set out alone for Nome, staggering 
into the city at length, a gaunt shadow 
of a man. 

It was not alone the fatigue of the 
frightful journey that had made such 
a specter of him. Back there in the 
wilderness he had seen something, 
something terrible, and had fled from it. 
But now in Nome, when Bolza, the 
learned man of science, heard from 
Yelk’s own lips what he had seen, he 
was neither afraid nor astonished; he 
was delighted. Doubtless it would be 
one of those idols which he was seek- 
ing, one of those prehistoric pre-Con- 
fucian things, the lure of which had 
dragged him into this land of frozen 
austerity, in search of odd things for 
a famous ethnological society. 

As an ethnologist of eminent attain- 
ment, Bolza had gone on hundreds of 
odd adventures for several different 
societies of savants. And when he 
learned that Yelk had asserted that the 
thing which had terrified him had been 
placed there by the spirits of his an- 
cestors in resentment because Yelk had 
hearkened to the exhortations of a 
Christian missionary, little Bolza’s eyes 
had sparkled with delight. 


THE PERFECT MELODY 


Evenings, while the smoke of their 
fire rose a hundred miles straight to the 
zenith, the little savant would harangue 
La Veuve and Yelk on a hundred mat- 
ters. 

“By gar!” the Frenchman would ex- 
claim at intervals, to prove that it was 
a case of value received for Bolza’s ex- 
penditure of gold dust. But the China- 
man, peering taciturnly into the fire, 
gave never a word or nod, so that, to 
his companions, his stolid face looked 
like an idol carved from a block of yel- 
low wood. 

When the quicksilver crawled lower, 
the resinous pine sticks no longer suf- 
ficed, and then rose the roar of an arc- 
tic blast lamp, whose bizarre light made 
the three trailers look like ghosts peer- 
ing out of their parkah hoods. 

“To-mollow we go dat way,” Yelk 
would sometimes mumble in oily tones, 
drawing his hand out of its great glove, 
and pointing a thin, yellow finger off 
into the night. 

Bolza and La Veuve would exchange 
looks. Then the ethnologist would fall 
into a droning discussion again of the 
probability of coal lying a thousand feet 
underfoot. Or perhaps .the dismal 
howling of a wolf in the distance would 
deflect him into a dissertation on the 
ancestry of dogs. 

“C'est ca,” La Veuve would mutter, 
playing with his brass earrings, as he 
gave attentive heed to the strange dis- 
course. 

“W’at you t’inkin’ ’bout, Yelk?’ he 
would ask after a while, turning to the 
Chinaman. “Baim-by your tongue 
steek fast,” he would sneer in contempt 
of the Chinaman’s taciturnity. 

Without seeming to hear, the China~ 
man’s inky eyes would remain intent 
upon the faggots. 

“Don’ answer den,’”? La Veuve would 
mutter, with a shrug of his great shoul- 
ders. “Be damn to you den, crazee 
chink;’ he would add, with a grin at 
Bolza. 


127 


“Leaf him alone,” Bolza would com- 
mand. “Yelk iss not a fool. Yelk iss 
not an ordinary Chinaman. Not py a 
damn sight. In his het are the brains 
of great Buddhists—wie? De Chinese 
are a great people. Dey possess mind 
and learning. Vile ve are prattling, La 
Veuve, Yelk is bissy mit great prob- 
lems. Leaf him alone.” 

One day the three overtook Skagway 
Pete and Zilla, his wife. Zilla was as 
ugly a hag as had ever sneered at a ten- 
derfoot or curled her lip in derision at 
a dog that loafed in his harness. She 
cooked them caribou meat, and the men 
ate ravenously. 

Seated before the fire after supper, 
the bearded savant Bolza waxed gar- 
rulous, according to his custom. He 
recounted strange stories of journeys on 
remote oceans, of a trip on a privateer, 
on the Caribbean Sea, of a jaunt on 
camels across Siberia, of a memorable 
game of poker between three million- 
aires at Nampa, Idaho. A chance re- 
mark now and again from Skagway 
Pete, a grunt from La Veuve, a con- 
temptuous, inarticulate wail from Zilla, 
seemed to keep the scientist’s memory 
in an animated clog dance. 

Between the stories, Skagway Pete 
would interpolate laconic queries, gen- 
erally wholly irrelevant. How much 
did the other estimate his dogs to be 
worth? How far had he traveled that 
day? Whom had he encountered on 
the way? 

And once, even Zilla managed to un- 
twist her tangled wits, let her vacuous 
eyes emit a few sparks of intelligence, 
and herself propounded a question. 
What had brought the prying white 
man into Skagway Pete’s domain? 
Whither lay their quest? Had they 
come to bring evil, perchance, unto 
Pete and Zilla, his ever-faithful squaw? 
For answer, Bolza uncorked an en- 
thusiastic narrative of the South Sea 
Islands, beginning with: “Ven I vas 
adrift off de Madeiras 


128 


“Nay,” wailed the woman, imterrupt- 
ing him at the very start, “why came 
the white man hither with this devil- 
faced yellow ghost and this ugly French 
musher ?” 

She spoke in Siwash, but her mate 
repeated the question for her in Eng- 
lish, in obedience to a kick from his 
mistress. 

And straightaway the ethnologist be- 
gan another story of remote adventure, 
the squaw’s husband mumbling a clumsy 
translation for the hag. 

“Nay,” she interrupted harshly, “ask 
this white man why he came hither in 
the dead of winter. Does he bring 
evil?” she ended in a screech. 

Bolza glanced at her peevishly with 
his watery eyes diminishing into mere 
slits, and responded: “My goot man, 
tell your vife dat all dis shall be tald her 
in goot time. She brebared us eggcel- 
lent foot. Her tea iss matchless. Dere- 
fore shall she know vat she desires.” 

When the interpreter’s droning gut- 
turals had conveyed the savant’s 
speech to Zilla, the squaw regarded 
Bolza out of her beady eyes, and said 
contemptuously : ‘“Then wherefore does 
he not speak, this chechahco ?” 

Faithfully the squawman repeated the 
question. 

Bolza conveyed a burning ember to 
his pipe bowl, cleared his throat, and be- 
gan, Skagway Pete repeating the story 
after him in Siwash for Zilla. 

“There be those,” said the squawman, 
his mumbling tones flowing in alternat- 
ing current with the doctor’s, “far to 
the south, where it is always warm, who 
have never seen this land of ice and 
storm. Ignorant chechahcos they be, 
and anxious to pay gold and silver to 
hear by word of mouth how the chil- 
dren of the snows live out the savage 
years—what manner of food they eat, 
what beverage they drink, their habits, 
their ways, their children, their beasts 
of burden, their strange houses, their 
toil. People have wondered much, back 


THE PERFECT MELODY 


in the southland, since first discoveries 
of gold told them there was a north- 
land.” 

“Yea,” wailed Zilla, swaying slowly 
where she sat, as her interest was 
aroused, “and what manner of country 
was his, this man’s, who wears the 
great eye things; he of the pale, thin, 
bewhiskered face?” 

“A land,” quoth Pete, interpreting, 
“where one needs no fire, save to cook; 
where one gathers a mysterious force 
from the air, which sends _ rubber- 
wheeled wagons flying like the wind; 
where there is much dancing and sing- 
ing and wonderful music.” 

“Music,” broke in Zilla, with con- 
tempt, “there be no music save Pete’s. 
Show this paleface, Pete. Show this 
braggart that there be no music but 
thine.” 

Skagway Pete, obedient to the 
squaw’s command, took a mouth organ 
from his pocket, let it creep back and 
forth under his puckered lips, and 
wailed forth shrilly tune after tune— 
tunes heard in Klondike dance halls, 
snatches of airs he had heard Swedes 
whistle down in far Sitka, and lugubri- 
ous recollections of gospel hymns which 
he had heard revivalists chant in front 
of dives in Dawson. 

Holding himself aloof from all no- 
tice of the performance at first, Yelk, 
the Chinaman, latterly set his oily eyes 
in a sudden gaze at the squawman, and 
his face grew hard. 

“R-r-l-lotten,” he muttered in con- 
tempt at last. “He play like damn fool. 
Damn—damn—damn fool! Not music 
ut all.” 

Pete regarded the Celestial in andis- 
guised disgust, deigning not even a re- 
ply. 

But La Veuve, the trailer, was re- 
joiced at this music in the wilderness. 
“Eh bien,” he exclaimed eagerly, “con- 
tinuez, w’y do’n’ you?” 

But Skagway Pete was not listening 


THE PERFECT MELODY 


to the Frenchman. To the squaw he 
was repeating the Mongolian’s words. 

“Ugh,” grunted the hag, “for that 
the devil’s bones will rot! The un- 
believer! The yellow slob! The scum 
of the earth! For those words he will 
yet be smitten dead by Heaven. There 
be no music only Pete’s. Is it not so, 
life of my heart?” 

“Wie?” interrupted Bolza, when Pete 
had repeated his wife’s words in Eng- 
lish. “Vell, I vill dell you someding. 
The Chinaman iss not wholly wrong, 
aldo you blay de inshtrument eggceed- 
ingly vell, my friendt. It iss true dat 
your music and mine, and all white 
men’s, iss ridiculously bad, ven you 
combare it mit Chinese music. Diss iss 
qvite an arbitrayry statement. But I 
vill eggsblain.” 

Bolza’s voice flowed softly on, as 
though he had repeated the dissertation 
on Chinese music often; as though, 
even now, he were facing a class of a 
university. As Skagway Pete mumbled 
a translation after him for Zilla, the 
hag surveyed little Bolza with wither- 
ing contempt. Even La Veuve, as he 
puffed thoughtfully at his pipe, wrin- 
kled his forehead in skepticism. But 
Yelk, the Chinaman, leaned thought- 
fully forward, missing never a word, 
and soon the sphinx mask faded off his 
face, and a glimmer of rapt attention 
smoldered in his eye. 

Now and again Bolza, apparently for- 
getting that Pete was muttering a trans- 
lation for Zilla, let his vocabulary soar 
far above the squawman’s intellect. At 
such times Pete’s words would cease, 
and the hag, visibly aggravated, swayed 
peevishly backward and forward. 

“It iss a scientific fact,” spoke Bolza, 
“dat de Chinese haf reached de highest 
perfection in deir music. Dat iss incon- 
trovertible. Ve vhites half only aggom- 
blished de most elementary steps. Let 
me dell you someding.. De Chinese 
music iss a t’ousand years in advance 
off ours.” 

9AThrill 


129 


Pete had stopped translating, for the 
other’s vocabulary had passed quite out 
of his ken, and the squaw, as she gazed 
into the fire, seemed to have lapsed into 
dreaming. La Veuve listened cynically, 
the ghost of a sneer on his face now 
and again, but vanishing swiftly wher 


-he recalled the thought of the gold the 


savant had paid him. 

But Yelk, educated years ago by the 
missionary in Hunan province, under- 
stood nearly everything. And as he lis- 
tened, his brain swam. The faggots, 
also, had kindled a glow in his eyes. 
Those words! Never, since he had 
sailed away from Changsha in the little 
junk, had the memory of the music of 
his people been conjured back thus. 
Never, since his home had sunk slowly 
away in a line of mist-and sea, had the 
memory of the strange, mournful music 
of his people, unheard in this-alien land, 
begun to throb as now within his break- 
ing heart. And as the savant’s voice 
flowed on, the soft, mystic memories of 
his people’s songs leaped into a rushing 
torrent, while his eyes burned with 
blinding tears. 

The ethnologist, all unconscious of 
the effect of his words, talked on. He 
described the discordant mélange of 
terrific noises, the crash of iron on cym- 
bals, the rasping wail of reeds, the blare 
of rusty brass. And then, he said in 
almost a whisper, there would rise, by 
some splendid magic, the frail, wan 
note, sweet with an almost impossible 
sweetness, the spirit of perfect melody! 

Yelk, who had been swaying slowly 
at first, now shook like a sapling rent 
by tempest. His black eyes burned; 
his heart was afire. 

But the savant, talking on, himself 
mastered by his fantastic text, remained 
all unconscious of Yelk, his Chinaman. 
Always, he said, there would be the 
piercing blasts, the ferocious discords, 
the pound of deafening contrivances ; 
then the instant hush, and then the 
faintest strain of perfect melody, short- 


130 


lived, flimsy, fragile, and sweet with 
tincanny sweetness. 

“Vell,” he continued, ‘dere ve haf de 
highest form off human music. De con- 
drast iss apsolute; its power iss com- 
belling. Our loff for music begins mit 
de simple; it ends mit de complex. It 
begins mit de plain mudder’s lullaby ; it 
ends, de Caucasians t’ink, mit de rhap- 
sodies of Liszt. Ve haf it in Liszt, in 
Wagner, in Tschaikowsky—dis con- 
drast, dis almost disgordant noiss, fol- 
lowed by silence, and den by the frail, 
sveet bit of melody. But it has pro- 
cressed farder yet—over in China. And 
yet men vill not agree mit me. Dey haf 
prechudice for t’ings Chinese. My 
friendt,” he demanded suddenly, turn- 
ing upon the Chinaman, “iss it not so? 

“Ach,” resumed the savant, as the 
other remained silent, ‘dat iss de per- 
fect melody. You haf de roar of terri- 
ble discords, and den, creeping out off 
de silence, dose subdued, fine notes in 
shivering soprano. Dat iss de perfect 
melody, dat which iss cajoled fort’ by 
deligate yellow lips, by t’in yellow fin- 
gers. Ve vhites do not understand it; 
t'erefore ve deride it. Our young 
vimen blay racktime. But you haf de 
perfect melody, Yelk, de _ perfect 
melody !” 

Bolza stopped, and again his watery 
eyes sought the Chinaman’s. “Meim 
Gott!’ he cried, startled. 

Yelk’s face had undergone the change 
of changes. Livid, afire, drawn into a 
grimace, it was no longer the thing of 
wood it had been on all the journey. 

“Mein Gott!” cried the ethnologist 
again. 

The Mongolian did not answer. The 
fire in his brain raged on. In his men- 
tal vision loomed the thing his learned 
master was seeking. The religion of 
his fathers, the dormant fear of Con- 
fucius, the first uncanny fright at be- 
holding the thing—these, wrested into 
life in some strange way by Bolza’s re- 
cital, now stalked before him, mon- 


THE PERFECT MELODY 


strous forms. Yelk shrank back in 
utter fear, as he thought of the dese- 
crating mission he was on. 

And now another thought darted at 
him out of the black night. For five 
years he had been an animal. A 
drunken miner had called him Yelk, and 
he had suffered the name to replace that 
of his fathers. He had washed dishes 
in this alien land, had cooked the white 
devils’ food, had gambled, had been the 
yellow dog of the brutal whites. He 
had whined impotently when the white 
brute had kicked him. 

Slowly had he acquired the brute 
ways of the brutal whites. Drink, vice, 
the life of a dog; and the souls of his 
ancestors forgotten! Forgotten his 
home, his education, his Heaven-born 
people, the temple! Forgotten! Gone! 
Derided by the dogs of white men, 
flogged, spat upon, until at last his face 
had become a sphinx face, his heart a 
lump of granite, and the yesterdays at 
home a void! 

But now, at last, a thin shred of fire, 
ignited, somehow, by the savant’s mum- 
bling words, had shot a blinding, burn- 
ing radiance into the void. Suddenly 
there ripped back into his mind the 
memory of things forgotten, things 
which had been rasped and eroded out 
of existence—familiar forms and faces, 
ghosts of gone events, the passion for 
women of his kind. These had startled 
his heart by this strange little man’s 
dissertation. They were calling, call- 
ing! 

“Yelk!” cried Bolza, regarding the 
other with whitened face. 

The Chinaman, hearing at last, turned 
fiercely upon him. Lust shone madly in 
his eyes, and burned like a lambent 
flame from every line in his yellow face 


_—the sudden lust for things forgotten 
- but recalled, the lust for home, for his 


discarded learning, the desire for 

women of his kind, women with faces 

thin and yellow as the sunshine. 
Yelk sprang like an animal to his 


THE PERFECT MELODY 


feet. His lips were wrenched into an 
animal snarl. From his bosom he 
ripped the white man’s sack of gold, and 
cast it with an inarticulate cry at Bolza’s 
feet. 

His master, the ethnologist, sat like 
a man of stone, speechless at the China- 
man’s terrific outburst in that weird 
pantomime. And La Veuve, the French 
musher, true to his name, which means 
“the widow,” given him in contempt 


131 


years before by a bully in Nome, 
shrank back into the shadows in utter 
terror. Shrank similarly Skagway 
Pete, the squawman, while the hag, her 
eyes glued in fear and fascination to 
the Chinaman’s, shuddered violently. 

Yelk bent, and jerked tight the 
thongs of his snowshoes. Then out of 
the circle of firelight he plunged, into 
the black night, into the shadowy waste 
of snows. 


VIOLETS? 
By Harold de Polo 


HE very house itself looked like the abode of tragedy, standing white and 
bleak as it did on the wind-swept hill under the whirling snow. 


Inside, in a prim, forbidding room, a woman lay dying. 
What made it hard was that the woman did not 


was not the tragical part of it. 
want to die—just yet. 


Mere death 


“If only God had been good enough to wait until the spring,” she told the 
doctor by her side, “then—then I might have seen my violets!” 
All her life, alone, she had lived in her little white house on the hill—with 


her flowers. 
countryside over—and farther. 


They were her only love, her only goal. 
Automobile parties, on Sundays, would leave 


She was known the 


the State road miles away for a look at her famed gardens. 
Again she breathed a fervent prayer and spoke to the physician: 


“Oh, doctor, if only I might see my violets! 


Or if only I might see any 


of my flowers! But my violets! I have always loved my violets more!” 

The doctor was bending over her now, for her head had sunk farther back 
into the pillow and her eyes had closed. Suddenly, however, they opened, and 
with all the strength in her emaciated frame she pushed him away and lurched 


forward to a sitting posture. 


gaunt, plain face was even very, very beautiful. 


There was color in her cheeks now, and her 


She put out her hands and 


clutched at the air, and her voice was stronger as she cried out: 


“Oh, oh, I knew it! 


that He would not take me away without letting me see them! 


I knew that God would be good and kind—I knew 


Look—look! 


My violets—my violets, my violets, my violets !” 

But the voice stopped abruptly, and. she fell back. Her face, though, was 
neither pain-ridden nor longing; it was utterly serene and happy. 

“Queer,” murmured the doctor as he covered her with a sheet, “queer how 
the dying always seem to have those hallucinations !” 

The nurse, who had been off on an errand, entered the room as he finished 


his task. 


“Why—why, doctor,” she asked blankly, standing by the bed, “where did 


they come from? Where are they?” 


“What come from?” he asked, with a frown. 


“The violets—the violets, doctor! 
when I came in the room!” 


There was a very strong smell of them 


“we, =] 
Bree =* ~ 


HE war annoyed Le Grange, as 
T neighbors cooking onions would 
have annoyed him. And, as he 
would have shut his material doors 
against the odor of onions, so he shut 
his spiritual door upon the war, and 
in the seclusion of his own personality 
tried to forget that there were people 
in the world so ill bred as to push 
bayonets in and twist them out at each 
other. 

Le Grange lived in a studio. He not 
only spent part of his days and all of 
his nights in one, as do many of us, 
but he lived in his. 

In no dreamy, reminiscent, reverie- 
filled hour, did he ever live partly in 
the cabin of his brother, who was a 
forest ranger in northern Idaho, or 
partly in the bungalow of his sister in 
California, or in the house in Cleve- 
land where his mother and aunt ex- 
changed thoughts on things to eat and 
things to embroider and things to take. 
His spirit was never in any of these 
places. His thoughts and his interests 
did not roam abroad. He lived in his 
studio, 


Le Grange was thirty-two. He was 


not interested in people either in the 
mass Or as separated units. He lived 
among the skyscrapers of New York, 
not among the people. No baby across 
the aisle in the subway had ever 
changed a muscle in his face. He had 
never given a penny to a child on the 
street. 

Le Grange had never been in love. 
His affection for his mother had not 
greatly influenced his life. His family 
were really not interesting people, and 
he was discerning enough to have ob- 
served it. His actions were little in- 
fluenced by emotion. He had a chaste 
regard for beauty of words and color 
and sound, but his joy in them was not 
really so much pleasure as it was the 
necessary accompaniment to the intelli- 
gence of a cultivated man. 

He was well satisfied. He wanted 
no change in his life. He had pulled 
his daily existence, as it were, on to 
the track of his choosing, and he wished 
it to run on this track as long as it 
ran at all. It seemed possible, probable, 
almost inevitable that it would do so. 

He knew that words sometimes come 
alive and rend their creator. But he 


WORDS THAT CAME ALIVE 


had such perfect control of his sub- 
jects that he felt almost scorn for them. 

A good number of Le Grange’s lyrics 
had been set to music, but he never 
sang them, bought them, listened to 
them or thought at all about them. He 
believed that to say that a poem would 
“set”? well, damned it as mediocre. He 
thought all songs beneath any one’s no- 
tice but that of the ‘‘man in the street,” 
for whom he had always had a con- 
tempt and horror. 

He considered war songs particularly 
absurd. Patriotic songs were like one’s 
children, one liked them for their raison 
d’étre, and not for any good qualities 
they might possess. 

He wrote a war song. But that was 
only for money and to oblige the com- 
poser, who was sincere, and wrote the 
music for it with the fervor which he 
would have liked to put behind a bayo- 
net directed at the kaiser’s stomach. 

The song took well. The composer 
became wealthy. Le Grange, also, be- 
came wealthy. The composer spent his 
money with the complacence of a man 
who, while being willing to do a good 
deed for itself, still is not displeased to 
find that virtue is not its only reward. 

Le Grange did not feel any particu- 
lar glow from duty accomplished. He 
did realize that his lines were rather 
neatly turned. The words were well 
put together, they had an effective 
sound. Especially three or four words 
in the middle of the chorus. 

Newspapers pointed out the fact that 
it was songs like Le Grange’s that stiff- 
ened the morale of an army and of a 
nation. It was undoubtedly true that 
the song did have a very definite effect. 
Tired soldiers sang it and felt their old 
fighting fury come back and sustain 
them. 

Mothers and sweethearts sang it, and 
singing, sent their men to the front. 
It was used at recruiting meetings and 
spurred many men to enlist. 


133 


All this stirred no answering thrill 
in the breast of Le Grange. What hap- 
pened to the song and its singers was 
no concern of his. He really could not 
be expected to care about the victims 
of a piece of hack work. 

If his song—and the composer’s 
music—sang some men to dissolution, 
and others to the spiritual force where 
they created their souls, that was their 
affair. 

If his song swung a nation into step, 
saved it from annihilation, carried it 
on to victory—what was that to him? 
They were rather clever words, espe- 
cially those in the middle of the chorus, . 
three or four, wasn’t it? He almost 
forgot what they were, but had a vague 
recollection that they were clever. 

One night he woke up sharply to hear 
those words saying themselves over 
and over in his mind, the four words 
halfway through the chorus. It was 
hours before he could get to sleep. 
Often when one is half asleep, one feels 
near insanity, is haunted by the possi- 
bility that, if he overworks a bit more, 
if he neglects proper sleep and rest, he 
may some day go insane. Before the 
words would let him sleep, this thought 
had grinned at Le Grange. The next 
morning he shrugged at the whole af- 
fair. He was rather pleased, indeed, 
that the thing had happened, since it 
proved that the words were catchy; no 
wonder they got hold of the people, if 
they got hold of even him, their blasé 
creator, who knew of what they had 
been born. 

Several days later, as he was strolling 
up the Avenue, he suddenly found that 
he was keeping step to the words, 
rhythmically walking to them, and say- 
ing them over and over very distinctly 
in his mind. It annoyed him. He 
changed his step, he trailed, he walked 
faster. He knew that he must be look- 
ing ridiculous, but he was determined 
once for all to put a stop to this. The 
words were good, but he did not wish 


134 


their excellence for their purpose 
proved to him in this way. 

It was not until he met a friend, and 
in the few sentences they exchanged, 
forgot what plagued him, that he was 
able to throw off the influence of the 
pursuing words. 

After that, there were not three con- 
secutive days of his life, that were not 
broken into by misery for a space, while 
his words tormented him to their heart’s 
desire. He grew afraid to sleep. He 
grew afraid to walk. He grew afraid 
to be alone. 

But even now he did not see what the 
words wanted, what they were trying 
to do. 

Suddenly one day, as he was stand- 
yng on a corner of Forty-second Street 
and Sixth Avenue, he knew. He grad- 
ually became aware that he was facing 
a recruiting poster. And as the sight 
of it pierced through the wall of his 
preoccupation, in one agonizing flash 
he knew what the words wanted, and 
in that.same instant knew that they 
must win. Their attack upon him at 
the moment was so sudden, and their 
torture so clever and acute that, as a 
man with a burned hand pulls it from 
the stove, or a man hurt with thirst 
seizes a glass of water and drinks it for 
relief, automatically he entered the place 
and signed himself away into service 
as a private. 

Le Grange went to a training camp, 
and eventually to Europe and to the 
front. Throughout the months which 
passed, he was rebellious, but the words 
gave him no opportunity to be out- 
wardly anything but complacent. 

When his section was told off for 
duty in the trenches, he was afraid, hor- 
ribly afraid. He was almost a maniac 
with fear. But the words were spur- 
ring him, goading him, commanding 
him, and his control was too weak now 
to oppose them. 


WORDS THAT CAME ALIVE 


On the morning when the men 
waited for the last minutes to pass be- 
fore they went over the top, his fear 
was a monstrous thing that stretched 
him upon the rack of his sensitiveness. 
It was now that the words came into 
their own. Their insistence, their domi- 
nance, their tormenting of him, reached 
their hideous climax in those few mo- 
ments. It was as if the words were 
telling him that this was what it had 
all been for, this was what they had 
brought him here for; the seeing that 
he was in this particular place at this 
particular moment, was the task that, 
whatever ruler there may be of words 
in some invisible realm, had sent them 
to accomplish. 

At the breaking moment in the ten- 
sion of the men, at last the command 
came; and they charged with the ea- 
gerness of those last moments added 
to the eagerness engendered in them 
by what they had seen and felt and 
suffered in the months of their wait- 


ing. 

Somewhere out in No Man’s Land, 
Le Grange fell. He was badly wounded, 
and in some strange way by which sol- 
diers often know the fact, some way 
quite removed from scientific or med- 
ical knowledge, Le Grange knew that 
his wound was a mortal one. He knew 
besides that he did not have long to 
live, a few hours perhaps. He was 
in great pain. But strangely, he was 
happy for the only time since the night 
when he had first awakened and thought 
of that especially clever part of the 
song, about the middle of the chorus. 
For the words had stopped torturing 
him. 

He died quite quietly at last, and in 
the eight hours in which he lay there 
alone before his death, the words did 
not once intrude. They had done what 
they had been given to do. Their work 
was ended. 


garden. Far away, over the dis- 

tant hilltops, the dying sun hung 
like a huge paper lantern on an invisi- 
ble wire. Against this lurid back- 
ground the small, bent figure of the 
old man resembled a spider weaving its 
web before the open grate. 

Leaning on the hedge, I spoke to 
him. “So you are at work again, Mr. 
Carewe. How are your flowers pro- 
gressing ?” 

Dropping his shovel nervously, he 
turned his yellow, shrunken face to- 
ward me. From the midst of the roses 
it looked like a misplaced sunflower. 

“So you have been watching me,” 
he cried in a shrill, quavering voice. 
“That is good for people—to watch 
me at work. It may teach them other 
things than gardening.” 

“What, for instance?” 

“Why, life itself. The mind is a 
garden, my friend. What lies hidden 
there must spring to life. These flowers 
are crimson thoughts. See how quickly 
they grow—grow into deeds if I do not 
cut them each day. So must all men 
do if they would live in the sunlight; 
they must cut the crimson thoughts out 
of their gardens, even as I.” 


im CAREWE was working in his 


Once more he bent over his flowers. 
Picking up the shears with grim satis- 
faction, he began cutting off their lan- 
guid, drooping heads. 

“But this must be a very wicked gar- 


den,” I said. “What is buried here?” 

“Ah,” said he, “you would like to 
know that, eh? What a man my son 
was! You can have no idea—such a 
sly one, such a cruel one, such a blood- 
thirsty one! Crimson thoughts were 
in his head continually, but now they 
grow nicely in my garden. He ruined 
me; he tortured me; he made my head 
revolve on my shoulders—yes, actually 
revolve like a wheel. 

“But now I have him here, and he 
supports me in my old age. Each day 
I sell his thoughts—his evil, crimson 
thoughts. What a revenge that is! He 
lies there, grinding his teeth because of 
it, and he can do nothing—nothing. 

“When the hangman was through 
with him they gave me what was left 
for my garden. But have a thought, 
lady ; have a crimson thought for a re- 
membrance.” 

So saying, he rose and hobbled to- 
ward me with a single flower in his 
hand—a flower that glowed like a hand- 
ful of the bloody sunset in the west. 


HE moment I seated myself on 
one of the benches in Washing- 
ton Square I saw the man with 

the slight limp in his right leg. My 
attention was first drawn to him by the 
sharp staccato sound produced by the 
iron point of his heavy, curiously 
twisted cane hitting at regular intervals 
the hard cement of the walk. It was 
held by the odd way he kept turning 
his head from side to side as he ad- 
vanced between the two rows of occu- 
pied benches that lined each side of the 
walk. As he drew near I saw, with 
each turn of his head, a rapierlike 
glance from a pair of deep-set, glinting 
eyes flash swiftly out from under the 
black brim of his soft felt hat and trans- 
fix, for an instant, some occupant of 
a near-by bench. Then as swiftly it 
would dart back and out again to the 
face of some one seated on the opposite 
side of the walk. 

I watched him curiously as he ad- 
vanced toward me, wondering greatly 
what his odd actions meant. Evidently 
he was seeking some one, and yet I felt 
sure that it was not some one he al- 
ready knew. There was no eager ex- 


pectancy, as if he were searching for 
a friend or an acquaintance, in the look 
he flashed into the faces, only a quick, 
keen, intense scrutiny that seemed capa- 
ble of reaching to the very soul at the 
first glance. 

A long black overcoat, with a long 
black cape, reaching below the hands 
—it was a chilly day in early April— 
hung loosely about his tall, gaunt, raw- 
boned frame. His hair was long, jet- 
black, and fell in a mop to his shoul- 
ders. These, the black cape, the black 
mop of hair, and the broad black brim 
of his hat, accentuated like a fitting 
frame a face striking in its dark-yellow 
pallor, in the peculiar greenish glint of 
its intense black eyes and in the angular 
prominence of its bones. There did not 
appear to be a soft line or curve any- 
where on the face. He was a foreigner. 
His features and dress told me this; 
but told me little more, except that I 
felt quite certain he was not a Euro- 
pean. He was probably an Asiatic; 
but of an unfamiliar type, at least to 
my eyes. 

Be that as it may, his appearance, 
his actions at once aroused my interest, 


AT THE HANDS OF THE MASTER 


my curiosity, and the nearer he came 
the louder the regular tap-tap of the 
iron point of his cane sounded, the 
greater became that interest, that curi- 
osity. 

I do not think I took my eyes off 
him once as he approached. I watched 
his every glance with anxious interest, 
hoping that it would reveal the object 
of his search. I felt sure that the dis- 
covery meant very muchto him. There 
was an intensity in his swift glances, 
in his actions, in the way he held his 
body, that showed how great was the 
tension of his nerve forces. He looked 
and acted like a man searching for 
something desperately needed, some- 
thing that he might find at any moment 
or might not find at all. 

When he was almost in front of me 
I involuntarily lifted my eyes to his 
face and met his eyes. I literally felt 
the thrust of that swift, intense glance 
—and it chilled like cold steel. When 
directly in front of me the man stopped 
and stood motionless for a moment. 

“T cannot be mistaken,” he said, still 
thrusting with his eyes and speaking 
slowly, with an odd foreign accent and 
tone. “You are the one man I want.” 

“How can that be?” I answered, 
startled. “I never saw you before. 
How, then, can you want me?” 

He paid not the slightest attention to 
my words, to my question ; but, slipping 
the crook of his cane over his right 
wrist, he thrust his hand into his pocket 
and drew out a card. 

“Ring bell at this address at exactly 
six o’clock this evening.” He handed 
me the card. “Bylif will admit you.” 

I took the card mechanically, hardly 
knowing what I did. I really saw noth- 
ing, felt nothing, but those two intense 
eyes boring into mine. 

“This”—again the hand was thrust 
into the pocket—“‘is for yourself,” and 
he dropped a gold piece into the palm 
of my hand. ‘There will be more when 
your work is completed. At exactly 


137 


six o'clock this evening, remember. 
Now I go to make ready for your com- 
ing.” 

With a last piercing glance he turned 
sharply from me and limped off in the 
direction whence he came without a 
glance in my direction, as if there could 
be no doubt of my obeying his strange 
commands. 

The sharp click of his departing cane 
broke the spell—I had been like one in 
a hypnotic trance—and I jumped to my’ 
feet. Why? I do not know to this 
moment. Possibly it was with the in- 
tention of following the man and ques- 
tioning him; possibly to hand back the 
coin he had given me and to decline 
his strange mission. 

All had happened so abruptly, so 
unexpectedly, and so queerly that my 
mind was in too great confusion to 
record anything clearly. Whatever may 
have been my intentions, when I stood 
on my feet I did nothing, only stared 
after the man until he had passed out 
of sight behind a clump of foliage. For 
a minute longer my tensely listening 
ears heard the sharp, staccato sound 
of the metal point of his cane hitting 
the hard cement of the walk. Then it 
died away in the distance. 

The feel of the heavy coin in my 
hand now arrested my attention. I 
glanced down, and, with a start of sur- 
prise, saw that a gold double eagle lay 
shining on the palm of my hand. 

Twenty dollars! 

And a moment before I had been ab- 
solutely penniless! And I was told 
there would be more to follow, if 

I looked hastily and with curiosity 
greatly awakened down at the card the 
man had given me and which [I still 
held in my hand. It was a plain white 
card, bearing the following imprint in 


black type: 


138 


From the mystery of the card I 
turned quickly to a man seated near 
me with the heavy links of a gold chain 
stretched prominently across his stom- 
ach. 

‘Will you be so kind as to tell me 
the time?” I asked. 

The man ponderously drew out his 
watch and glanced at it. “Quarter after 
five,” he answered. 

“Thanks,” and I hurried.off in the 
direction of Sixth Avenue. 

The hands of the clock in the Jeffer- 
son Market tower had just reached six 
o’clock when I hurried up the steps of 
the high front stoop that gave entrance 
to the sedate-looking brownstone front 
of the house at 13A Perry Street. 
There was nothing suspicious about the 
outward appearance of the place. It 
looked like hundreds of other brown- 
stone houses in New York City. How- 
ever, I thought it a little queer that 
the windows opening on the street were 
all hung with heavy black velvet behind 
the graceful folds of their rich lace cur- 
tains, so that it was impossible to get 
a glimpse of the interior. 

Not a sound, not a sign of life came 
from within as I paused a moment on 
the top step tp listen before pushing the 
electric-bell button. 

A full minute passed without a sound 
coming from within that salent house, 
and I was about to place my finger on 
the button again when I heard the soft 
pit-pat of footfalls, like the sound of a 
heavy beast walking on a soft carpet 
of grass, approaching the dogr. Then 
the door swung softly open, and there 
stood in front of me a huge black man. 
To my startled eyes he looked fully 
seven feet tall and broad in proportion, 
even for that height. 

A snow-white turban crowned his 
head, great gold earrings hung from his 
ears, a sleeveless tunic of the softest 
and*whitest silk, fell from his shoulders 
almost to his knees and was gathered 
about his waist by a belt made from the 


AT THE HANDS OF THE MASTER 


skin of a cobra, the head and fangs 
forming the buckle and the red jeweled 
eyes shining venomously. His great 
arms and the legs to a little above the 
knees were bare. On his feet he wore 
a pair of soft leather sandals. 

A magnificent figure of a man he 
looked as he stood there in the door- 
way, the soft red light of the hall lamp 
that hung a few feet behind him caus- 
ing his form to stand out with startling 
distinctness. 

“You were a minute early. That is 
why I kept you waiting. The Master’s 
commands must be obeyed exactly. I 
am Bylif. Follow me. The Master 
awaits you.” 

He spoke plainly, yet with the same 
curious foreign accent and tone I had 
noticed in his employer’s voice. The 
moment he ceased speaking he stepped 
aside for me to enter, and softly closed 
the door behind me. I heard the click 
of the lock as the key snapped it into 
place. Then he turned from the door 
and led the way toward the far end 
of the hall, where heavy folds of black 
velvet concealed a wide doorway. His 
feet sank into the thick rug that covered 
the hall floor at every step, and again, 
in fancy, I heard the sound of the pit- 
pat of a heavy beast walking softly 
over grass, even as I had heard the foot- 
falls of a man-eating tiger in the jun- 
gles of Asia. 

“This is beginning well,” I, thought 
as I followed Bylif. The door locked 
behind me, the giant black man, the 
darkened house, the silence, disturbed 
only by our footfalls on the soft rug. 
Yes, a good beginning that promises 
much; but what can it all mean? This 
is not Bagdad, or Delhi, but New York! 

At that moment Bylif placed his 
hands on the heavy folds of black vel- 
vet that hung in front of the doorway 
at the far end of the hall, and, holding 
them apart, bowed and turned to me. 

“The Master is within. Enter,” he 


AT THE HANDS OF THE MASTER 


said, making an arched way for me 
under his great right arm. 

For an instant I hesitated, and as I 
did so I thought I saw the great black 
form stiffen and a savage glint come 
into the eyes. But the lure of the ad- 
venture was now hot in my blood and 
drove out all thoughts of possible perils. 
Eager as a boy to be at the mystery of 
these strange doings, I stepped under 
the great arm and between the parted 
folds of velvet into the room beyond. 

As first I could see nothing, for there 
was no light in the room; but I could 
feel the presence of Bylif standing a 
pace behind me, and I knew that he 
had closed the parted folds of the heavy 
portiéres, through which we had en- 
tered, for no light came from the hall. 
I took two steps into the room and 
stopped, a fearful dread creeping into 
my heart. 

“The Master is coming.” Bylif’s 
voice was low-and reverent, like the 
voice of one speaking in the holy of 
holies. ‘‘Listen!” 

Low, weird strains of enchantingly 
beautiful music now came to my ears, 
while at the same moment a soft radi- 
ance began flooding the room with a 
peculiar golden-tinted light. I saw that 
the walls and the windows of the large 
room in which I stood were hung with 
black velvet, excluding all light from 
without, that even the ceiling was. can- 
opied with the same material, and that 
the floor was covered with a heavy 
black velvet rug. 

Directly in the center of the room 
and some two paces in front of me 
stood a couch covered with a great robe 
of black velvet. Close by the side of 
the couch were two chairs, one a great, 
comfortable armchair that seemed to 
invite repose, and the other a rigid, 
armless, straight-backed chair, appar- 
ently made from the blackest of ebony 
and highly polished. 

Some two paces in front of the big, 
comfortable chair was a small, gleam- 


139 


ing ebony table with a top of the whitest 
of polished marble. On this table stood 
a great polished crystal. ball at least a 
foot in diameter and so made that it 
could be revolyed swiftly on its sup- 
porting sockets. 

I shuddered involuntarily as my eyes 
glanced around this ominously fur- 
nished room, and I was about to. turn 
to Bylif, determined to ask him what 
all this mysterious mummery meant, 
when the hangings at the end of the 
room parted, the golden light grew 
brighter, the mysterious music sounded 
louder and nearer. 

Finally, from between the parted 
folds, stepped a tall figure, clothed com- 
pletely in white, from the silk turban 
that crowned the top of the head and 
the loose folds of the silk tunic that 
covered the body and the limbs to the 
soft sandals on the feet. 

It needed but a glance from those 
piercing black eyes for me to recognize 
in this startling apparition the man who 
had given me those strange commands 
in the park. 

Bylif fell on his knees, and, with 
hands outstretched, bowed his head 
thrice to the floor before the tall figure. 

I remained standing, smiling a little 
to think that the man should imagine 
that he could awe or impress an Amer- 
ican by any such weird stage settings ; 
yet I had a slowly increasing dread of 
what these strange and elaborate set- 
tings might portend. 

The mahatma bowed, and, seating 
himself in the straight-backed chair, 
motioned me to take the big comforta- 
ble chair, which was so placed that he 
could look me directly in the face. 

I sat down, wondering greatly what 
was coming and beginning to feel that 
I had been a fool to rush so rashly into 
this strange adventure, yet not willing 
even now to take a backward step. 

Bylif rose from the floor and took 
his station behind the Master’s chair. 

“I am here and ready to learn what 


140 


is wanted of me,” I said as I turned 
my eyes to the face of the Master. 
“Speak, for I am becoming impatient 
of all this mummery.” 

He made no answer, but sat stiffly 
erect in the hard, straight-backed chair, 
his eyes looking steadfastly into my 
eyes as if they were fathoming the very 
depths of my soul. 

The golden light now illuminated the 
dark face, so that I could see its fea- 
tures distinctly. Never have I seen a 
human face that looked less human, 
in the sense of being subjected to hu- 
man feelings, passions, and emotions. 
It was as if he had slipped a marble 
mask over his features. Only his eyes 
appeared to live. 

For a moment we sat thus in silence, 
his eyes looking steadfastly into my 
eyes, then the marble lips moved. 

“Yes,” he said, “I was right. You 
are the man I want—the one man I 
want.” 

He placed a hand in the bosom of 
his tunic and drew. out a small richly 
embroidered leather bag. 

“In this bag are one hundred gold 
pieces—American gold pieces—and the 
eye of Urr.. Keep the jewel, for Urr 
watches over its possessor; but spend 
the gold as freely as you like. I hand 
the bag to Bylif. He will give it to 
you when you go from the house after 
you have served.” 

As he spoke he held the bag up over 
his right shoulder for Bylif to take, but 
not for an instant did the glance from 
his eyes leave my eyes. Bylif took the 
bag and slipped it into the folds of his 
tunic under the cobra belt. 

“The service you are to do is a great 
service.” Again the marble lips moved. 
“It is just that its reward should be 
great. But fear not. No harm can 
come to you from it now or hereafter. 
All is ready. We will begin Bylif!” 

The servant stepped forward, and, 
going to the small black ebony table 
that stood directly in front of me, with 


AT THE HANDS OF THE MASTER 


the crystal ball on its white marble top, 
touched a black button in the. side of 
the table. Instantly the crystal ball 
began revolving, at first slowly, but with 
an ever-increasing speed that soon 
transformed it into a swiftly whirling 
globe of glimmering lights. 

Again and again, during these brief 
scenes, I had tried to speak, had tried 
to move, but I could not utter a sound, 
could not move a muscle. I had not 
been able to do so since the Master had 
seated himself in the straight-backed 
chair and had looked into my eyes. 
Yet, strange as it may seem, I had no 
anxiety, no fear because of this strange 
condition of mind and body, only a 
great curiosity and a greater desire to 
know what all this was the prelude to. 
The Master had said that no harm 
would come to me, and no one who had 
looked into the Master’s eyes could 
doubt his word. 

Now I felt my gaze irresistibly drawn 
to the whirling globe. At the same mo- 
ment Bylif, the giant black man, stepped 
directly behind the crystal, and, stretch- 
ing out his great arms, began to whirl 
swiftly around on his two feet. 

Behind Bylif the heavy folds of black 
velvet that concealed a small alcove 
parted and I saw three musicians—the 
source of the weirdly beautiful music 
—step between the parted curtains and 
out into the room and arrange them- 
selves, one behind the other, directly 
back of the huge turning figure. As 
each took his place he began to whirl 
swiftly around on his feet, even as 
Bylif and the crystal were doing, all 
the while keeping up the music on his 
odd instrument. They were dark- 
skinned thin men, dressed in white tur- 
bans and tunics, and looked as if they 
had just stepped off the streets of one 
of the native villages of India. 

The Master now arose slowly from 
his chair and came and stood by my 
side, resting one hand softly on the top 


“of my head and bending a little down- 


AT THE HANDS OF THE MASTER 


ward so that he could look closely into 
my face. 

His hand was cool, wondrously cool 
and pleasant and quieting to my excited 
nerves. I attempted to lift my eyes 
to his face, but could not take them off 
the whirling globe and the spinning fig- 
ures beyond. 

“Peace be with you.” The Master 
spoke softly. ‘‘Peace go with you. 
Rest, peace, and sleep. Soul rest, body 
rest. Sleep—sleep—and—dream!” 

His words came more slowly, more 
drowsily, with pauses between each 
word, and an irresistible languor began 
stealing slowly over my senses. The 
crystal globe, the whirling Bylif, and 
the three swiftly revolving musicians 
became white, fantastic, ever-changing 
blurs to my tired eyes. 

I longed, above all things, to close my 
eyes, to shut out the sight of those 
tiresome gyrating blurs, but I could not. 
Heavy fingers seemed to hold my eye- 
lids apart, and a force outside of my- 
self compelled me to keep my eyes fixed 
on the spinning blurs. 

The music now became like that 
which one hears in a dream, low, 
ethereal, dreamy, soul-entrancing. The 
golden haze deepened, the whirling fig- 
ures disappeared in a yellow fog, the 
music sounded afar off. Like one 
speaking from a great distance the 
Master’s voice came to my ears. 

“Sleep—and—rest. Soul rest—body 
rest. Sleep!” 

The Master’s hand reached down- 
ward—lI could see it dimly—and passed 
slowly once—twice—three times before 
my eyes. 

Then again the voice of the Master 
sounded in my ears, sounded all 
through my body, as if it were com- 
manding every muscle, every nerve, 
every tissue, every bone and blood drop 
I possessed—commanding even the soul 
itself. 

“Come forth, come forth, spirit of 
man. Come forth, come forth, soul of 


141 


man. Soul, spirit, do my _ bidding. 
Come forth, come forth, I, Ranjit Shah 
Khilji, the mahatma, command you.” 

A great dizziness, a sensation of fall- 
ing from a great height, a whirling, 
blinding, wrenching at all the moorings 
of life, vivid flashes of lightning, crash- 
ings of thunders. Then a sudden sur- 
cease. of all sensations—blackness— 
nothingness. 


My knees hurt, as if I had been a 
long time kneeling on stone. My back 
ached, as if it had been bent awkwardly 
for hours. My elbows and forearms 
felt chilled and sore. I slowly lifted 
my head and opened my eyes. 

I knelt prostrate, with head bowed 
on the hard stone floor, before the in- 
cense-smoking altar of a great temple. 
Priests and attendants moved mysteri- 
ously to and fro in front of the altar. 
Weird voices were chanting a hymn in 
a language I knew I had never heard 
before, and yet I now understood it 
perfectly. Back of the altar, on a huge 
pillowlike throne, sat a great gold image 
of Buddha. Calmly, imperturbably, 
benignly, the serene face and placid 
eyes looked out over the moving forms 
of the priests and the white-robed fig- 
ures of the prostrate worshipers. 

Slowly, dazedly, like one moving in 
a dream, I arose to my feet. As I did 
so a white-robed form that had been 
kneeling by my side also arose. Our 
eyes met. 

It was the Master. 

I was neither startled nor terrified 
at finding myself in the midst of these 
strange surroundings—not even when I 
looked into the face of the Master. 
Like one in a dream, I accepted all 
appearances, all actions, all happenings, 
all scenes—however incredible and un- 
natural they might appear—as if they 
were the most ordinary occurrences. I 
felt queerly. I knew I was myself; 
but I did not seem to be the same per- 
son I had been. My body somehow 


142 


felt strange to me. Yet I accepted this 
condition as a perfectly natural one, 
one that needed no explanation. 

“Zaman Shah”—the compelling eyes 
of the Master were fixed on my eyes 
as he spoke—“Zaman Shah, son of 
Shah Malik Kafur, friend of Ayub 
Khan, the hour has come. Go and per- 
form your mission. Afterward return 
hither swiftly. Peace go with you.” 

I made a low obeisance to the Mas- 
ter, and, without a word, turned and 
walked slowly, with head bowed rever- 
ently, between the long rows of wor- 
shipers, out through the great and won- 
drously carved door of the temple and 
on until I found myself in a little ante- 
chamber adjoining the temple. The 
moment I entered this little room a 
black servant, bowing low before me, 
slipped a pair of richly embroidered 
shoes on my feet, for I had been in 
stocking feet while in the sacred _pre- 
cincts of the temple, and conducted me 
through a narrow passageway and out 
through a small door to where a richly 
furnished palanquin. rested on the 
shoulders of six men. 

The men instantly lowered the con- 
veyance, the bowing servants held apart 
the heavy silk curtains, and I entered, 
the servants clesing the draperies after 
me. 

Then I was borne rapidly away, the 
bearers running so easily that I hardly 
felt a jar. Small, curtained windows 
on each side and in front of the palan- 
guin enabled me fo look out whenever 
I wished. A _ richly framed mirror 
showed me my face, the face of a high 
caste native of India; but even this ex- 
traordinary sight did not startle me. 

For half an hour or more we jour- 
neyed through the narrow and dirty 
streets of what must have been one of 
the large and populous cities of India. 
Everywhere the people made way for 
us in fear and haste. Evidently I was 
now an unusually important personage. 

At the end of that time we passed 


AT THE HANDS OF THE MASTER 


through a great carved marble gateway, 
guarded by two native soldiers armed 
with modern rifles. The guards pre- 
sented arms, and we passed inside with- 
out a question and on through a large 
and beautiful park to the portals of a 
white marble palace. 

“Wait for me here,” I heard my voice 
saying to my bearers as I stepped out 
of the palanquin. I did not even think 
it odd that I should speak their lan- 
guage or that my voice should sound 
like the voice of a stranger. “I will 
return shortly.” 

Through many long- and beautifully 
decorated halls, carpeted with soft thick 
rugs, past many armed guards, who 
always presented arms at my approach 
and stood stiffly erect, past many serv- 
ants who made most humble obei- 
sances, my conductors led me. 

At last they paused before the jewel- 
embroidered, silken hangings of a great 
doorway guarded by two armed attend- 
ants, and, bowing low before me, held 
the silken curtains apart and an- 
nounced : 

“Zaman Shah, the beloved, the thrice 
blessed !” 

“Enter, beloved of the Most High. 
Enter and make glad the eyes of your 
friend,” a deep voice commanded from 
within. 

I stepped between the parted cur- 
tains, and found myself in a great room, 
furnished and adorned with Oriental 
magnificence. Near the center of the 
room a fountain, guarded by marble 
nymphs, played into a large marble 
basin. Graceful swans floated on the 
surface of the pool, and gold and silver 
fish flashed through its waters. Great 
rugs, soft as feathers to the feet, cov- 
ered the floor. Rich tapestries hung 
from the walls. Luxuriant divans, 
buried under soft silken pillows, in- 
vited repose. Golden censers, from 
which floated yellow clouds of sweet- 
smelling incense, swung from the ceil- 


ing. 


AT THE HANDS OF THE MASTER 


On a divan near the pool reclined a 
richly dressed, dark-featured man with 
a cruel, sensual, passionate face. About 
him were grouped a number of beauti- 
ful female slaves. Some were playing 
on native musical instruments, some 
were dancing, and others were frolick- 
ing in the pool, darting and swimming 

_about like mermaids—a wondrous 
scene of Eastern luxury and magnifi- 
cence. 

There was no need of telling me that 
I stood in the innermost sanctuary of 
the great prince, Ayub Khan, one of 
the wealthiest and most powerful of 
the native princes of India, that I stood 
there only because I was supposed to 
be his most intimate and _ best-loved 
friend. Somehow, the moment I 
stepped inside of this magnificent cham- 
ber, I knew this. At the same time, I 
knew that the great purpose that had 
brought me here was nearing its ac- 
complishment. 

I accepted these strange and mysteri- 
ous doings without question, almost 
without wonderment, as one accepts the 
weird happenings of a dream, and yet, 
back of it all, I felt an implacable pur- 
pose controlling my every movement. 

I bowed low and stepped forward to 
go to the prince, and had almost reached 
the divan where he sat, a. smile of 
welcome on his face, when the silken 
curtains that concealed a doorway near 
the divan were thrown violently apart 
and a beautiful girl, her eyes wild with 
terror, her hair disheveled, her silken 
clothing torn, rushed in and threw her- 
self at the feet of the prince. 

Hard behind her came the chief of 
eunuchs, a big brutal negro, from 
whose clutches she had evidently just 
escaped. The negro stopped short be- 
tween the silken hangings, and his black 
face took on a sickening yellowish pal- 
lor at sight of the prince. 

“Mercy! Mercy, great prince!” 
-screamed the girl as she clung to his 
feet. “Mercy! Mercy! I will do your 


143 


bidding. I will be the most humble of 
your slaves, but save me from the death 
bag and the black waters. Save me 
from the clutches of that monster!” 
And she glanced in shuddering dread 
at the negro. 

Prince Ayub Khan jumped to his 
feet, the smile gone, his face black with 
rage, his lips drawn back in a wolfish 
snarl. He glanced from the cringing, 
terrified girl at his feet to the big negro, 
standing as if petrified, between the 
parted curtains. 

“Master, master, the sight of the 
black bag frenzied her. She struggled 
—the wild cat. She escaped from my 
hands. I could not catch her. She 
ran like a fawn. I tried to stop her 
before she got here, but could not. 
Now——” 

The great brute took a step into the 
room, his eyes on the girl, his hands 
outstretched, his fingers spread and 
curved like the talons of a bird of prey. 

“Halt !” 

The prince clapped his hands furi- 
ously. The negro stopped. The girl 
cowered at the feet of the prince. A 
dozen armed attendants rushed into the 
room. The prince pointed to the 
negro. 

“Seize and bind that man. Throw 
him into the deepest dungeon of the 


palace. I'll teach him to bungle my 
orders.” 
“Master! Master!” stammered the 


trembling negro. 

“Silence!” stormed the prince. 

“Master, I—I—I tried. en 

The heavy butt of one of the guns 
of the attendants struck the negro on 
the head. He sank, senseless, to the 
floor and was borne swiftly from the 
room. 

The furious prince now turned to the 
terrified girl clinging to his feet. 

“Here, take this little beast,” he com- 
manded. ‘Tie her in the black bag and 
throw her to the crocodiles. I'll show 
you what it means to disobey me, to 


144 


come unbidden into my presence,” and 
he glared at the horror-stricken, trem- 
bling girls, who had watched this dread- 
ful scene with fear-distorted eyes. 

Two of the attendants seized the un- 
fortunate girl and bore her, shrieking, 
from the room. 

The prince sarrk down on the soft 
pillows of the divan and turned to me 
with the smile of welcome on his face. 

“Come, my friend, take this soft 
cushion by my side. I will have Zillia 
dance for us, Her feet are hke moon- 
beams on mumnuring waters, and her 
form is more graceful than a lily sway- 
ing in the wind. It was for her that 
I sent ,Arilla—the jealous little beast— 
to the black bag and the crocodiles. 
Peace go with her!” He smiled lightly. 
“Come, sit beside me and watch my 
Zillia dance.” And he started to make 
place for me on the divan by his side. 

“Nay, my beloved prince, whose kind 
heart thinks only of giving his friend 
pleasure,” I again heard my strange 
voice saying, “I have something more 
delightful than the dancing of Zillia, 
more pleasing than the smile of a peri 
in paradise, that I would show my 
prince; but there must be no other eyes 
to see, no other ears to hear.” Bend- 
ing low, I whispered in his ear: “The 
queen of all jewels, the eye of Urr, 
from the innermost holy of holies of 
the most sacred temple of Urr, the 
seven-times guarded sacred temple of 
Urr, the jewel my prince has so long 
and so ardently sought, my love has 
secured for him. It is a secret that 
must be most zealously guarded, for 
death hovers ever over the eye of Urr. 
Dismiss all, that our eyes alone may 
look upon its glones.” And I thrust 
my right hand under the folds of my 
silken robe. 

At my whispered words the eyes of 
Prince Ayub-Khan caught fire, his face 
flushed and paled, his body trembled 
with eagerness, and, half rising from 
the divan, he hastily commanded all 


AT THE HANDS OF THE MASTER 


leave the room. Then, summoning the 
two guards at the door, he bade them 
stand without and permit no one to en- 
ter unless at his order. 

The girls, still sick with the horror 
of what they had seen, hurried from 
the room, the guards vanished, and the 
prince and I stood alone in that mag- 
nificent chamber. 

“Now the jewel, the eye of Urr!” 

The hand the prince extended toward 
me trembled. 

“This, the eye of Urr sends thee, thou 
sacrilegious beast!’ And, like light- 
ning, my right hand flashed from under 
the folds of my robe and drove the 
razor-sharp blade of steel it held into 
the throat of the prince and left it stick- 
ing there. 

From the look of dread and horror 
that came into his eyes as he sank, 
voiceless and dying, down on the soft 
cushions of the divan, I knew that the 
words I had spoken had had in them 
a more awful meaning to him than it 
was given me to know. 

He clutched wildly at the dagger, 
but his hands fell nerveless before he 
could touch its haft. With his glazing 
eyes staring at me in horror, his body 
slumped down among the soft cushions 
—and he was dead. 

For a moment I stood and looked 
down on the terror-frozen face, and 
it came to me that I had been made 
the instrument of a just, if terrible, 
vengeance, whose mysterious workings 
I was not to fully understand. 

Now I turned away from the dead 
prince and went slowly from the room, 
still feeling myself under the control 
of a power I must obey. At the door 
I paused, and in the name of the prince 
commanded the two guards standing 
just outside the rich hangings to allow 
no one to enter. Then, clapping my 
hands, I summoned servants to conduct 
me to my palanquin. 

The servants came running, and led 
me obsequiously through the long halls 


AT THE HANDS OF THE MASTER 


of that palace of ‘tragedy to where my 
men stood waiting. 

“To the-temple, and go swiftly!” I 
ordered the bearers as I stepped within 
the palanquin and pulled down the cur- 
tains. 

I felt no compunctions, no pangs of 
conscience, no sorrow for-the deed I 
had done. I was as indifferent to the 
act as the steel blade I had left sticking 
in the victim’s throat. I had no sense 
of responsibility in the matter whatever. 
The hand that struck had not been 
mine, but the brown-skinned hand of 
Zaman Shah. How I came to act 
through the body of Zaman Shah I 
knew not and caied not. Like an au- 
tomaton, I had moved as the strings 
were pulled. 

The great temple was deserted when 
I again entered it, save for one pros- 
trate, white-robed form before the in- 
cense-smoking altar and the great gold 
image of the serene and imperturbable 
Buddha. I went direct to the prostrate 
form and knelt close by its side. 

“It is done,” I heard my voice saying 
as I knelt. 

“And well done,” replied the low 
voice of the Master. “Now we will re- 
turn.” 

I turned my face toward the pros- 
trate form by my side and looked into 
the eyes of the Master. Even as I 
looked his form faded slowly away, all 
but the two eyes. The eyes grew larger, 
approached closer. My head began to 
whirl. Again came the odd sensation 
of falling from a great height, the 
wrenchings at all the moorings of life, 
the sudden release—then blackness— 
nothingness. 


A cool, powerful hand seemed to pass 
before my eyes, sweeping away the 
heavy fog in which all of my senses 
were struggling. I opened my eyes; but 
at first I could see nothing distinctly. 
I was engulfed in a radiant golden haze. 
Then gradually the mistiness cleared 

10AThrill 


145 


and things around me began to assume 
forms and colors. At the same mo- 
ment my mind, my will, my soul seemed 
to be released from the grip of a pow- 
erful hand, and I knew that I was the 
captain of my soul again. 

I lay in the black velvet room on the 
couch. By my side stood the Master, 
looking serenely down into my eyes. 

“Your work is done and well done,” 
he said. “You have performed a great, 
a very great, service to me and to mine 
and to the cause of right and justice. 
Peace go with you!” 

Crossing his two hands on his bosom, 
he bowed low, and, turning, disappeared 
behind the heavy curtains. 

Bylif, the giant negro, now entered, 
wheeling a small table before him, on 
which was a huge silver tray loaded 
with a feast fit for a king. 

The sight of the food made me at 
once realize that I was exceedingly 
hungry, that I felt as if I had not 
tasted food for days. The moment the 
table was in front of me I began eating 
like a half-famished man. 

Now the curtains in front of the 
little alcove where the musicians had 
been were pulled aside, and three beau- 
tiful girls ran joyously out into the 
room and began to dance and sing. 
The moment I had finished eating, Bylif 
waved his hand. The music stopped 
and the girls disappeared behind the 
heavy folds of the black velvet that now 
again concealed the alcove. 

“Come,” ordered Bylif, and led me 
out of the black velvet room and 
through the long hall. 

At the door he paused, and, thrust- 
ing a hand into the folds of his tunic - 
under the cobra belt, drew out the 
small, embroidered leather bag that the 
Master had given him. He unlocked 
the door, opened it, and, as I stepped 
out, he handed me the bag. 

Then the door closed behind me and 
I heard the lock snap into place and 
the soft pit-pat of his footfalls going 


146 


away from the door. I paused for a 
moment on the broad top step and lis- 
tened. The footfalls died away in the 
distance. Not a sound of life or mo- 
tion came from within. 

Two minutes later, while hurrying 
down Greenwich Avenue, I glanced up 
at the Jefferson Market clock, and was 
astounded to see that it was only ten 
minutes after six o’clock. 

And I had entered that mysterious 
building at precisely six o’clock on the 
even of April 5th. 

Could it be possible that I had been 
in the house less than ten minutes ? 

Across the street I saw a news stand. 
A moment later I was staring unbe- 
lievingly at the date line on one of 
the papers. 

“Monday, June sth,” the line read, 
and all the different papers on the stand 
bore the same date. 

I fear the news dealer must have 
thought me insane, for I suddenly 
caught up one of the papers, thrust it 
under his nose, and demanded sav- 
agely: “Is that date correct?” 

‘Sure, boss,” answered the man, giv- 
ing me a startled look. 

I dropped the paper and hurried 
away, anxious to get into a room by 
myself, where I could examine the bag 
Bylif had given me. 

Two months! It seemed incredible, 
impossible! No wonder I had been 
hungry ! 

I hired a room in the first hotel I 
came to, and the moment I had closed 
and locked the door behind me I pulled 
the bag out of my pocket and turned 
out its contents on the bed. 

A hundred twenty-dollar gold pieces 
lay shining on the white bedspread, and 
im their midst lay a beautiful, pearl-in- 
laid, jewel-incrusted ebony box, about 
the size and shape of a large egg. 

At first I could discover no way of 
opening the egg. Then I noticed a lit- 
tle pearl-headed protuberance about 
midway between the two ends. When 


AT THE HANDS OF THE MASTER 


I pressed this with my thumb the cover 
sprang open and I saw, in a little nest 
of silk plush, the largest and most beau- 
tiful ruby my eyes have ever beheld, 
and I have seen some of the world’s 
finest, for, by profession, when I am 
not running wild on some mad adven- 
ture, I am a gem expert. Reverently 
I lifted the precious jewel out of its 
nest and examined it carefully. It was 
perfect and of that exquisite pigeon- 
blood tint that adds so greatly to the 
value of an otherwise perfect ruby. 

For a long time I sat contemplating 
this precious jewel, turning it over and 
over and viewing it in every possible 
angle of light. Then I fell to wonder- 
ing over the strange manner in which 
it had come into my possession. Il 
could not make the thing seem real or 
even possible. The longer I pondered 
the matter the greater became my con- 
fusion of thought. And yet there were 
the one hundred gold pieces, the. mar- 
velous jewel, the eye of Urr, and the 
two months that had passed as but two 
hours! 

A month later came a yet stronger 
and stranger confirmation. 

I was in the reading room of a large 
library when my eyes chanced to fall 
on a recent copy of the London Times. 
As I glanced over it idly my attention 
was seized by the headline that glued 
my eyes to the page. 


PRINCE AYUB KHAN MYSTERIOUSLY 
MURDERED. 


Catcutra, June 25.—News has _ just 
reached the officials here of the mur- 
der, on June 5th, of Prince Ayub Khan, one 
of the wealthiest and most powerful, as well 
as one of the most cruel and _licentious 
nabobs in all India. 

The crime was committed by Zaman Shah, 
the prince’s powerful favorite. Ayub Khan 
was slain by the thrust of a thin, narrow- 
bladed dagger into his throat, in such a man- 
ner as to render his death almost in- 
stantaneous and to still all possible outcry. 
Zaman Shah had been alone with the prince 
when the crime was committed and, when 
he left, he had ordered the two guards sta- 


AT THE HANDS OF THE MASTER 


tioned outside the prince’s private chamber 
to allow no one to enter. 

When the crime was discovered, suspicion 
at once pointed to Zaman Shah, who was 
found in a temple, prostrate before an image 
ot Buddha. He denied all knowledge of 
the deed. Indeed, when arrested, he ap- 
peared like one in a trance and acted as if 
surprised beyond measure to find himself a 
worshiper in a temple. He stoutly affirmed 
that he had not been near Ayub Khan on the 
day of the murder; but the testimony of the 
servants who had seen him enter the palace 
and had conducted him to the prince, and 
that of his palanquin bearers, who had car- 
ried him to and from the palace, was deci- 
sive. He was promptly tried, found guilty, 
and executed by the son of Prince Ayub, 
who had inherited his father’s throne. 

The motive of the crime is unknown, but 
it is rumored that an adept from the mys- 
terious, seven-times guarded, sacred temple 
of Urr, said to be the only living mahatma, 
a human being believed to have preternatural 
powers, was seen in the temple where Zaman 
Shah was found. 

Furthermore, it is known that both Zaman 
Shah and Prince Ayub Khan had aroused 
the wrath of the priests of Urr by causing 
the death of one of their number in an at- 
tempt to steal their sacred jewel, known as 
the eye of Urr. 


147 


Those wise in the mystic lore of India, 
shake their heads and, while affirmmg 
nothing, hint at many strange things and 
talk in low whispers, of the marvelous 
powers of those mysterious beings known 
as mahatmas. 


For a long time I sat staring at the 
paper, reading the names and the par- 
ticulars over and over, mystified, horri- 
fied, terrified, hardly believing the evi- 
dence of my own eyes. There could 
no longer be any doubt in my mind but 
that I had been made the innocent in- 
strument, in the powerful hands of the 
Master, of the killing of Prince Ayub 
Khan and of the death of Zaman Shah, 
in some province of far-off India. 

But how had the marvel been accom- 
plished ? 

I have no idea. I only-know that 
the thing happened to me exactly as I 
have herein written it down. 

And yet how could I have killed a 
man in India and have returned to 
New York City on the same day—that 
fateful fifth of June? 


9 


BEYOND A SINGLE DAY 


By Philip Kennedy 


] DARED not call this growing leve of ours 
A smging imagery of human need 
Until I knew that it was neither greed, 

Nor idle hunger that the heart devours. 

Days come when all of beauty’s red, red flowers 
Shall wither on the stem and turn to seed... . . 
We have been mad with love, yet dare we heed 

The thin, sharp voice that tells of dying powers? 


I know, I know that everything men say 

Conceals the lash, the sting, the fleshly halter; 
Yet love, those of us who must surely pay 

Are those that do not dream and always falter, 
Come let us see beyond a single day, 

And worship sin upon a scarlet altar. 


E was a little slip of a man with 
keen dark eyes. One hand was 
dug deep in his trousers pocket, 

while the fingers of the other twitched 
nervously as he made his way through 
the crowded Café Bourbon, toward our 
table. 

I was seated with French Cosgrave, 
a man of whom I had heard little good, 
but who was decidedly interesting as 
a story-teller. It was only a few min- 
utes before I noticed the little stranger 
entering the place that I had asked per- 
mission to sit at Cosgrave’s table, the 
only one at which there was a vacant 
chair. Two other seats at our table 
were also unoccupied. The stranger 
stood by them for a few seconds, gaz- 
ing around the café, and finally, with 
a profound bow to Cosgrave and my- 
self, we heard him say: 

“Would you mind very, very much 
if I were to take a seat at your table? 
See, every one of ze uzzers are occu- 
pied. It is not done as a rule, I am 
aware——” 

“Certainly, certainly,” chorused Cos- 
grave and myself. The stranger rolled 
his r’s melodiously, and there was no 
disguising the fact that he was a 


Frenchman. He sat down and slipped 
his arms out of his overcoat, and fum- 
bled with something in the right-hand 
pocket. 

“Gif me a marza gran,” he told the 
waiter. 

From his pocket he pulled, with his 
left hand, a gold cigarette case, and, 
snapping it open—always with the left 
hand—he plucked one of the gilt-tipped 
cigarettes from the case, and, putting 
it between his lips, lighted it. 

The orchestra struck up Gounod’s 
“Ave Maria,” and the first few bars 
of the accompaniment were sufficient to 
cause the laughter and hum of conver- 
sation to soften gradually, until the 
audience was only whispering. It was 
a gathering of the upper-bohemian cal- 
iber, where the spendthrift youth and 
the young-old man delighted to sip 
French drinks, chat, and listen to the 
music. 

From this place there had come many 
an exciting piece of news that had filled 
the leading columns of the newspapers. 
Three of the handsome orchestra lead- 
ers had eloped with wealthy women. 
Two of the “Four Hundred” once 
recreated themselves by having a fist 


THE ESCAPE 


fight, without gloves; another fantastic 
person, who pretended to write poetry, 
once sent the patrons into a panic when 
he produced a live snake at one of the 
little, round tables, and began caressing 
it. 

At any rate, it would take a nice- 
sized book to tell everything that had 
happened to make known the name of 
the Café Bourbon, and the manager did 
no‘ indulge in a press agent. 

The stranger swept the place with 
his glistening eyes, and, now and again, 
devoted himself to the big glass of 
black coffee that stood on the table be- 
fore him. 

He was about forty-five years old, 
with heavy, dark eyebrows, and one of 
those chins alleged to denote a certain 
amount of will power. He was immac- 
ulately clad. In his shirt front were 
two large black pearls—larger, even, 
than those worn by the Count of Beau 
Rivage, and I knew those, as I had 
seen the old man in Monte Carlo. 

That the little man was fastidious 
was evident from his waxed mustache, 
the delicate perfume on his fine cam- 
bric handkerchief, his small, well-fitting 
shoes, and the delicate way he flipped 
the ashes from the end of his ciga- 
rette. 

I must confess it; I entered the place 
that night with a premonition that 
something strange would happen; but 
I was not prepared for the stranger’s 
sudden words. 

“You see,” he said, indicating a table 
twenty feet away, almost directly in 
front of me, and behind him,” that man 
wiz zé€ woman wiz ze white feather in 
her hat?” He chose a time when there 
was a lull in the music. 

We both looked. The woman had 
her back turned to our table, the man 
almost faced me. He was handsome, 
about the same age as the Frenchman, 
but decidedly bigger. 

“I am going to keel heem when I 
finish telling you my story.” Both of 


149 


us started perceptibly, and I observed 
that Cosgrave paled. “Don’t you dare 
say one word. Cry out, or give a warn- 
ing, and I wil! keel who does,” he said, 
with strange calm, rapping the coat- 
muffled barrel of a revolver on the brass 
rim of the round marble table. 

The point of the pistol was directed 
between Cosgrave and myself, and a 
look in the Frenchman's eyes told me 
that he meant what he said. 

“You cannot help heem. He is as 
good as dead,” the little man went on. 
“But I want so much that some one 
should hear my story before I do any 
shooting.» I want some one to know 
that it was not altogezer wrong. Un- 
derstand °” 

We nodded. ‘And, messieurs, I want 
you to keep vour eyes all ze time on 
me. Ze first one who regards that cou- 
ple with a sign gets ze bullet from zis 
little pistol I hold in my hand. I mean 
what I say.” 

His left hand no longer shook, and 
he gulped down the rest of his coffee, 
keeping his brilliant eyes fixed on us 
both. 

“You can perfectly well understand 
that some one must know the story, 
even if I must die, too. So please be 
good, and listen—eh?” He raised those 
eyebrows in a questioning glance, and 
again tapped the table with the re- 
volver. 

“Ten years ago I was in Meudon, 
which is not far from the beautiful city 
of Paris. I was then an officer of the 
finest regiment of cavalry in the French 
army. The coat was light blue, with 
black trimmings, and the trousers were 
scarlet. I could ride a horse, perhaps, 
better than any man in my regiment, 
and, though I was not looked upon as a 
big man, even in my own country, I 
was not so very small, either. 

“At a dance one night, given by the 
Marquis de Pelliere, I was introduced 
to the most charming woman I ever 
met in my life. She was one of those 


150 


beautiful French women, with a voice 
like silver, and, from the first time I 
kissed her hand, when I left that night, 
I knew I was in love. Yes, the great 
French rider, Lieutenant de Ramon, 
was in love. I did not feel easy the 
next day. I was happy, and yet I was 
unhappy. I was glad, and sometimes I 
was not glad. It was a singular feeling, 
which I had never before encountered 
-——a wonderful feeling. 

“As I rode with my regiment next 
morning, in parade, before the general, 
I could see, in the mist before my eyes, 
the exquisite figure of this wonderful 
girl. I was gloomy, and yet I thought 
I had seen in her eyes a sparkle of 
admiration for me. This is not conceit, 
as I tell only my story, just as I think 
it then, and it was, perhaps, her regard 
that brought me to her feet, a devoted 
slave. Slave—I would have done any- 
thing for-her—any, any mortal thing! 
And I had just met her once, gentle- 
men.” 

The stranger paused to strike a 
match, and, by slightly narrowing my 
eyes, I could see every movement of the 
doomed man sitting with his compan- 
ion. 

Occasionally I could even catch 
words of the conversation between the 
two. At that time he looked the hap- 
piest man in the crowded place. I could 
feel the beads of perspiration drop from 
my forehead as I thought that in a 
few minutes he would be lying stone 
dead, with a bullet probably marring 
his handsome face. My hands were 
clammy, and the palms were wet, and, 
as I watched that laughing man only a 
few tables away, I tried to think of 
some way to tell him he was doomed. 

I longed to yell: “Get out! Get 
out! You, with the woman, over there 
—run, run for your life!” But even 
as these thoughts passed in my feverish 
head, another rap of the pistol sent a 
shiver through me. 

“Nom de Dieu, will you keep your 


THE ESCAPE 


eyes here? Right here on me, or I 
blow out your brains in an instant. He 
might better die than you, eh, mon- 
sieur? He is a man who deserves 
death, and you will be a martyr for 
him, eef I keel you. Come, now, be 
good, and look always here at me. 
Once not—puff, bang—and then it is 
over, quite over, for you. I mean it, 
every little word.” 

“Paris is an ungodly hole, filled with 
a gang of beings who wish to suck 
every cent from Americans——” I 
caught this one sentence in the dead 
silence from the man with the woman 
with the white feather in her hat. And 
that plumage shook and nodded, bent 
and bowed, in the draft from the open- 
ing doors. 

The little Frenchman smiled sneer- 
ingly. “You hear what he say? Sacré 
cochon! I make heem say somezing 
else before I shoot heem. But, where 
was I in my love tale? Ah, I know. 
I say I would do any mortal zing for 
her. Yes, I would even have sat on 
my fine big black charger in the Grand 
Place of Meudon, and yelled to the 
crowd as they passed: ‘I love Made- 
moiselle Pacard!’ And they could think 
what they willed. 

“I was in the Rue de l’?Ombre when 
I saw her the second time, and, in one 
sweet, beautiful, mellow voice, she told 
me I could come wiz her on her walk 
in the town. Did I accept? I should 
think so, and most quick, too. I laugh 
with great happiness as I walked wiz 
her. I tole her she was most sweet, 
exquisite; and her pretty face become 
all red with blushes to the roots of her 
blue-black hair. She say she like my 
uniform, and zen, without waiting, I 
immediately tell her: ‘I ’ope, dear ma- 
demoisellé, that you like not only my 
uniform?’ To which she answer that 
she likes also ze Lieutenant de Ramon. 
And, messieurs, I blush also with great 
happiness. Nevaire before had I been 
tole such a zing in so sweet a manner.” 


THE ESCAPE 


Again the Frenchman paused, living 
in the thrill of his own story. 

Through my narrowed eyes I saw 
the doomed man puffing rings of smoke 
toward the low ceiling of the room. 

“The music's good here. We'll come 
again to-morrow night,” I heard him 
say. 

The Frenchman did not wince, and I 
hardly think he could have heard the 
utterance. 

“Come again to-morrow night,” I 
thought. ‘To-morrow night they'll be 
thinking where they'll bury you. And 
twill be the grandest piece of excite- 
ment that even old Café Bourbon has 
put forth.” 

I wanted excitement; I wanted to be 
thrilled; but I did not wish to see any 
man murdered in cold blood while I 
looked on, knowing his fate. No man 
was bad enough, in my opinion, to be 
stripped of life in a second, without 
fair warning—nothing more than a 
glimpse of the round hole at the end 
of a pistol barrel—and then a pop. It 
was a death for a murderer. And, 
there before me, as a drop of perspira- 
tion fell to the marble from my tem- 
ple, was the same pistol; harmless un- 
til an insignificant human had touched 
the trigger with just one finger; and 
at that instant a life was to go out. 

“She learn,” the story-teller went on 
in the same easy, glib tones, now get- 
ting to French-English, and then to 
even Anglo-Saxon pronunciation, “how 
much I love her when one day I stop 
her horse when it was running away. 
I was on horseback, and she was driv- 
ing. I save her hfe that day, she after- 
ward tole me. “Will you give me back 
that life?’ I ask, all the fervor of a 
man in love, many days afterward. 

“ "Ves, I will,’ she answer. 

“*You will marry me: I ask again. 

““*VYes, Francois, I will be your 
wife.’ ” 

With irritating coolness, the French- 
man reached forward with his left hand 


151 


for the matches, and held up a light for 
my cigar. While I pulled to get a light, 
I thought a loud yell would startle 
every one in the place, and the little 
Latin would be foiled in his effort to 
get his man’s life. But, as I looked 
down, the sight of the half-cocked pis- 
tol silenced me, and I knew that it 
might silence me for good and all, were 
I to utter a word. 

There was something in the stranger’s 
calm that denoted business—a killing 
business. I might even lose my own 
life, and still the ether man would die, 
too. [ could not turn to see Cosgrave, 
and was as helpless as a lamb. 

The man with his fair companion 
with the big feather in her hat was 
talking earnestly. ‘“‘No, Thuysday,” I 
caught, “I’m going to dine with Craw- 
ford, in Delmonico’s. We're going to 
have a roaring time. It’s his bachelor 
dinner. He’s to be married on Satur- 
day.” 

And still the stranger seemed unper- 
turbed at the words; or was he too in- 
terested in his own story to even hear 
the conversation of the man and the 
woman ? 

By some fiendish design the orches- 
tra began the slow, weary music of 
Chopin’s “Funeral March.” To me 
that was a certain sign that some one 
would die. Never before had I thought 
I was a physical coward, and yet here 
was a man about to be killed, and I 
did not have courage enough to warn 
him because of the pistol in a small 
man’s hand. 

Moisture welled from my face and 
poured down my cheeks. I was hot and 
cold in turns, ltke one suffering from 
a chill. Every instant I expected to 
hear the bang of the little pistol. It 
startled me every time the right hand 
of the desperate man moved and made 
a clinking sound with the barrel on 
the brass mm of the table. His scheme, 
to me, was diabolical, and he seemed 
to gloat over the fact that Cosgrave 


152 


and I showed ourselves such utter cow- 
ards. I listened again. 

“For months and months we were 
as happy as two children. I think she 
love me almost as much as I did her. 
My family had plenty of money, and 
they send me every time just so much 
as I wanted. We had one fine home, 
with horses and carriages, automobiles, 
and life was what you Americans call 
a dream. She love to see me in my 
uniform, and I had many bright new 
ones made. One day I meet one fine 
Englishman, and he tell me that he 
is in a hard fix, and, as I had been 
introduced to him by a great frien’ of 
mine, I lend heem money. Pretty soon 
his big check comes, and he pay me 
back everything, and give a big dinner 
to myself and my wife. 

“*Your wife is one of the most beau- 
tiful women ever I have seen,’ he say 
one day to me. And my answer is 
that I think she is the prettiest woman 
I also have ever set eyes on. 

““Only a soldier can get such a 
woman to fall in love with him,’ he re- 
turn to me with a wink. 

“Afterward he come often to see me. 
In his English riding clothes he look 
a very handsome man, and he could ride 
like one of your cowboys. Just to show 
my wife one day how well he could 
sit in the saddle he do a trick. He 
pick up a handkerchief from the groun’. 

“She look, laugh, and clap him for his 
cleverness, and then I, jealous of the 
applause my wife give to the English- 
man, try the same thing, too. I fail, 
and my wife laugh in a different way. 
I was not pleased.” 

As if mocking the Frenchman while 
he told his story, the man before me, 
looking at the woman, laughed loudly 
and heartily. “He was a cunning little 
beggar,” I heard; and the woman’s sil- 
very laughter echoed as the humdrum 
music of the funeral march still con- 
tinued. 

But the voice of the story-teller drew 


THE ESCAPE 


my attention like a magnet. “After 
that I find the Englishman visiting my 
wife much while I am absent, and, 
though she tell me she cares nozzing 
for him, and don’ want to see him, 
there is not the truth sound in her tone. 
So jealous was I that I was mad. I 
tell her then I keel ze Englishman if 
he bother her, and she laugh and say 
there is no use for that. 

“One day I smile when I see him 
thrown from his horse, and I wish only 
my wife see him also. He was white 
and pale, and could not talk when he 
was picked up, and when they take off 
his coat and his shirt I was there. I 
hoped he would die. I see then on his 
chest a big, red mark, which comes 
from the birth. It was like a triangle 
shape, and, to my mind, was very singu- 
lar. When you see that man dead, I 
tell you I shall shoot, you will also 
find on his chest the red triangle. If 
not, you will know I have keeled a man 
by mistake. But I know my man by 
his face. 

‘Well, like all devils, he get well; 
and my wife, she nurse him in the hos- 
pital. Sometime’ I wish I was ill, so 
I could also be nursed by my beautiful 
wife. Before I come, I see they talk 
much; and, when I am there they talk 
little. It was suspicious, and I was mad 
jealous. 

““*When does he go away?’ I say to 
myself; but he get perfectly well, and 
stay in Meudon. He tell me one day 
he think he will marry a Frenchwoman, 
and stay alway in Meudon. 

“Then come one time when the regi- 
ment is ordered out on the road to 
maneuver, and I am forced to go and 
leave the Englishman in Meudon. I 
say to my wife to come along from 
town to town with me, and she agree. 
Two days afterward I wait my wife in 
one small town. She does not come, 
and I am ill with wonder. 

“T sent her a telegram, and there 
comes no answer. I sent still another, 


THE ESCAPE 


and there is also no response. I am 
so impatient I run back to Meudon, 
and find my wife is not in the house. 
I asked the servants, and discover she 
has been gone three whole days. I seek 
the Englishman, and find he also has 
gone. Then, when I ask others, I am 
tole they left the depot togezzer on a 
train for Paris. My love had gone out 
of my life. Then I keel him for that; 
but now, after I think it over, I would 
forgive him if I hear not afterward of 
what he did to the poor woman.” 

‘‘Dum-dum-te-dum,” the bass viol 
sounded, and then came the higher 
notes of the violin. It was very near 
the man’s end, I thought. 

The shrimpish man paused as if he 
wishéd to lend more dramatic emphasis 
to his plot to end his enemy’s life. 

That enemy, who was alleged to have 
a triangular birthmark on his chest, 
was calling the waiter, and attentively 
I strained my ears to catch whether he 
was giving a fresh order or asking for 
the check. 

Then, not daring even to put my 
hands to my burning head, I saw him 
put his hand in his pocket and pull out 
a roll of bills. Suddenly it flashed 
across my mind that the man might 
get away with his life if the stranger 
was so engrossed in his story that he 
did not observe the pair were leaving 
the café. 

I think my eves widened their vision 
then, for I could distinctly gaze at the 
Frenchman, and, at the same time, see 
the man who was doomed to be killed 
if he were seen leaving. I realized that 
the slightest movement of an eyelash 
would, perhaps, give an inkling to the 
Frenchman as to what was happening 
behind him. My face seemed to me as 
if it had been bathed in moisture, and 
I could see the drops on the marble 
in front of me. Never before had I 
known what real fear was. 

The hat with the white feather moved 
forward and then downward, and my 


153 


beating pulse throbbed as I thought that 
the Frenchman might hear the sound 
of the moving chairs behind him, de- 
spite all the other noise. 

Thank Heaven, the music played on! 
I wish to see no man killed, not even 
one I did not know, if he had stolen 
a man’s wife. 

I could hear the singing sound of 
money as it fell on the marble table, 
and I knew the waiter was getting his 
tip. The stranger, oblivious, appar- 
ently, to what was happening to the 
man, continued his story in the same 
deliberate manner. 

“I took a train for Paris, and 
searched every hotel, big and small. I 
could find no trace of the Englishman 
and my wife. I gave orders to sell 
my home in Meudon, and then told my 
father and mother I was going to take 
a journey for my health. They believed 
I was ill, and I dared not tell them 
what had happened. I went to Lon- 
don, and lived there for years, went 
back and forth from Paris, occasion- 
ally going to see my father. 

“My mother died, and she asked, in 
her dying breath, why my wife. had 
not cOme to see her when she was ill. 
I became a member of several clubs in 
London, and every time I encountered 
an unfamiliar member I stared at him 
in the face to see if it was the man 
I wanted. One day I heard a French- 
woman was dying in a London hospital. 
Nervously I went up to see who it was, 
and, to my horror, found my beautiful 
wife, thin and much aged. She tole 
me the Englishman had brought her 
to London, and then, when he lost his 
money, forced her to go to artists and 
act as a model for them. I forgave 
her before she died, but vowed I would 
keel the man. I tole her that—yes, I 
tole her that. 

“Year after year passed 

Here, once more, I lost the thread of 
the story, so keen was my attention to 
every movement of the man who was 


9 


154 


now about to leave with the woman of 
the white feather. He pushed back his 
chair, and the grating sound, although 
I am by no means a nervous man, 
caused me to shudder. There was a 
mirror back of me, and I thought the 
Frenchman might see the couple re- 
flected in it. 

They were terribly slow about leav- 
ing, and I longed to shout: “Hurry, 
hurry!’ The woman was now stand- 
ing, and the waving feather bobbed up 
and down. They both started to leave. 

The Frenchman’s eyes were blazing. 
He was in no mood to be interrupted. 
They walked just back of his table, and 
I felt Cosgrave shudder. His chair 
slipped a little, and there was an ugly 
grin on the story-teller’s face. The 
pistol turned a little in my direction, 
and, although my eyes gazed directly 
into those of the Frenchman, I followed 
the white feather. The door was open- 
ing. 

I gave them time and thought both 
had escaped, and was about to give vent 
to a sigh of relief when I saw the man 
coming back, evidently for something 
he had forgotten. Would he ever go? 
Or was he really doomed to be meat 
for the Frenchman’s weapon? 

He had forgotten his gloves, and I 
saw- him stand—it seemed for minutes 
—but it must have been for one brief 
second, as he tipped the waiter who 
handed them to him. 

Slowly he seemed to crawl toward 
{he door, and then, to add to my horror, 
the door went to with a slam. Every 
movement of the pair was accentuated, 
and my agony of mind made my vision 
almost double and my hearing wonder- 
fully acute. 

The funeral march stopped. To me 
it was the longest piece ever played in 
the Café Bourbon. The door had been 
closed one second—two seconds—three 
seconds. 

I counted by my beating pulse the 
time, hoping they would be able to get 


THE ESCAPE 


far away before the Frenchman fin- 
ished his story. 

“So I just came in here,” I heard 
him beating his way along, “and 
thought that before bed I would take 
one large glass of coffee. Some people 
take it for their nerves to keep them 
awake; but me, it makes me sleep. 
Nevaire did I think for an instant that 
in this Very place, where I had not 
been before, would I find the man for 
whom I had looked with such care for 
sO many years. And to-morrow I was 
to leave for London! Yet here it was 
that I found him.” He paused an in- 
stant, and then: “I must be grateful 
to a wonderful Providence—very, very 
grateful.” 

He turned to look at the table, and 
his forehead wrinkled when he saw it 
was empty. He had talked too long, 
and I wondered what he was going 
to do. 

Suddenly he jumped to his feet, and, 
with a_catlike movement, swiftly 
turned. Before I could find my tongue 
he was out of the door. 

My first shout to Cosgrave was a 
feeble one; I darted after the stranger, 
overturning the very table at which the 
couple had been seated, and ran out 
of the café into the street, staring in 
a half-dazed condition at a departing 
automobile, in which the little French- 
man was speeding up Fifth Avenue. 

I was satished they had escaped, and 
called to Cosgrave, who, I thought, was 
following me. I looked around, and 
he was not there, and once again, with 
a feeling of .reedom such as I have 
never before experienced, I pushed 
open the door of the Café Bourbon. 

“That’s one of ’em,” I heard the head 
waiter say. 

In an instant I was tackled by two 
big waiters, and they half dragged me 
to where I had been sitting. 

Under the table, with his legs 
sprawled, was Cosgrave. “Unconscious 
with fright,” I thought. 


THE ESCAPE 


A man who appeared to be a physi- 
cian helped the attendants of the café 
to carry Cosgrave into an anteroom. 

“Dead, stone dead,” whispered the 
doctor. 

“How did it happen?” chorused the 
crowd that had managed to force an 
entrance to the small room. “Who 
killed him?” 

The doctor pulled down his shirt, and 
felt his heart. 

“Heart failure,” was the laconic ver- 
dict of the physician. 

I looked over at the relaxed coun- 
tenance of the dead man. Then I gazed 
at his exposed chest. 


155 


On the right-hand side was a tri- 
angular red birthmark. 


I did not tell any one the real cause 
of Cosgrave’s death. He just died there 
—that was all. But now the smell of 
a marza gran makes me ill; when a 
public funeral passes, playing Chapin’s 
dirge, I turn into a side street and 
hurry blocks out of my way to escape 
that ghostly minor lilt. 

And I can tell you this: I have never 
ached for excitement again, nor for a 
seat in the Café Bourbon, and when I 
sit anywhere else I sit with men I 
know. 


EL RC 
THE SONG FROM THE DEAD 
By Pearl Bragg 


HAVE not played,” shuddered Molbring, 


“since she died.” 


“But is it just,”’ I asked, “to neglect your mission to the world?” 


The muscles of Molbring’s face twitched. 
He thrust out his hands despairingly and turned 


muttered ; “I dare not play.” 
from the piano. 
been married only a few days.” 
“There is something.” 


“You were there the night of her American debut. 
He swallowed as if something choked him. 
Again he shuddered. 


“You don’t understand,” he 
We had 


“She was nervous—her initial ap- 


pearance in America. And some one in the gallery—laughed.” 


After a tense silence he continued: 


“Oh, the sight of her—stricken, dazed! 


Then the laughter of the audience quenched suddenly, hideously by her own! 


Those awful days of her delirium! 


Always singing the opening measures of 


her aria, only to break into that mad laughter. She died—laughing!”’ 
Suddenly his eyes blazed ; he crashed back the piano lid. 
An indescribable thrill passed through me as those long-denied fingers united 


with the beloved keys. 


Suddenly I straightened, staring. 


Swiftly, tenderly he slipped into a Brahms melody. 


I knew my Brahms as well as _ he. 


Whence came those alien chords? The next instant angry fingers punished the 


keys; Molbring ceased, his face ghastly. 
“That accursed aria—haunts me!” 


“Did you hear?” he gasped. 


Then I realized the original of those intruding chords. 


They were the intro- 


ductory measures to the aria his wife sang at her last public appearance. 


Molbring’s fingers fumbled over a jangle of tones. 
from the seat and plucked at my sleeve. 

“T hired them to hiss,” he moaned. 
not share the homage; I—/—was to be all!” 
No, not to laugh!” 


hired them to laugh! 


He pulled himself 


I could | 
“T never 


“I wanted to discourage her. 
He sobbed hysterically. 


I moved away, horror-stricken, but could not tear my eyes from him. 
‘Let her sing!” he shouted, attacking the aria with a mad thunder of volume. 


I could not listen, and rushed from the room. Too late! 


—the break—the terrible laugh! 


I heard the voice 


Then I heard Molbring laughing—laughing madly with her! 


THRILLING EXPERIENCES 


We announced in the September Ist number that the best letter 
setting forth a thrilling experierice, would be awarded a prize of $10. 
Since that publication, we have decided upon a fairer way of rewarding 
the writers of interesting letters. It is as follows: 

We will pay the writer of every letter published, at manuscript 
rates. If we do not publish letters submitted to this department, it 
means that we do not consider them interesting enough for publication. 


No letters will be returned. You are advised to keep copies of what you 
send us. 

Four or five hundred words should be the maximum length. The 
“experience” may be some actual, physical adventure or some wandering 
exploration in the pallid borderland that separates this life from the realm 
of the unseen. It must, of course, be bona fide, and must also have some 
particularly striking quality or psychological significance in order to 


receive consideration 


in these columns. 


Letters will be printed over 


the writer’s name, unless contrary instructions are given. 


The Editor, Tue Turitt Boox. 

Dear Sir: The train pulled out of the 
old Pennsylvania Station in Washington. 
According to timeworn tradition, it wan- 
dered along down through peaceful quiet 
Virginia, wending its way toward Richmond, 
stopping at every crossroad to say “How 
do you do” to its friend, the little open-face 
station, or to take a drink or fill up on am- 
munition to have another smoke or two be- 
fore turning in for the night at Richmond. 

The four corners at which we left the 
train is abont twenty miles this side of 
Richmond. We were to spend the summer 
on an old plantation about three miles from 
the station. Mrs. Bayley was living there 
by herself, and, as we wanted a nice quiet 
place to rest up in, she agreed to take us for 
a few weeks. She met us at the station, 
and we had a nice drive through scrub pines 
and over sandy roads. Rather dreary coun- 
try and inclined to have too many snakes 
for my comfort. 

The house was a typical Virginia mansion, 
nestled among tall trees, on top of a slight 
hill. The outhouses were numerous, and 
everything around the whole place was in 
a run-down condition. The building had 
been free of paint for many years, the roof 
was leaky, and—well—you all know the story 
of the Civil War survivors. This was the 
story visualized in its most pitiful aspect, 

Mrs. Bayley confided to us on the way 


over from the station that she had been 
nervous lately, and felt uneasy at being alone 
in the old house, especially at night. It was 
a lonely place, the only people within a mile 
being a family of poor whites who lived in 
the overseer’s old quarters, and Mrs. Bayley 
might just as well have been entirely alone 
as far as any protection from them was con- 
cerned. 

We were delighted with the place, and 
after washing up a bit and settling our bags 
in a convenient place, we meandered around 
to get the lay of the land. The ground 
sloped away from the house in every direc- 
tion, and part way down one side of the 
hill and in a clump of bushes, was the ruin 
of an old spring house. We wandered down 
and looked at it—I must own up to a feeling 
of awe—and just then we noticed a low bush 
beside us shake and rustle as though a heavy 
wind were blowing through the leaves. The 
air was calm. We looked at each other a 
minute, and then simultaneously turned and 
ran up the hill, arriving at the house rather 
breathless and feeling decidedly foolish. We 
looked at each other again and laughed, no 
doubt it had been our imagination. 

We had dinner in an old room adjoining 
what had once been the dining room, but 
was now used as the kitchen. It had a tre- 
mendous fireplace, where a modern range 
had been fitted in, filling up the chimney 
space. Mrs. Bayley amused us by telling of 


THRILLING EXPERIENCES 


a thrilling incident that happened there dur- 
ing the Civil War. It seemed that some raid- 
ers had suddenly surprised the family at din- 
ner, and in the scrimmage that followed, her 
uncle was killed. As the attacking force 
was running away. old Ben took a shot at 
and killed one of them, the Yankee dropping 
not far from the house. They were afraid 
to stir out for a number of days, so they 
took up some of the bricks from the fireplace 
and dug a grave there for the uncle. This 
was very romantic and interesting—but on 
top of the shivery bush episode we were 
just a trifle nervous—I must confess that I 
made no bones about not being the last one 
out of the room after dinner. 

Mrs. Bayley told us some more of her fam- 
ily history that verged on the tragic. One of 
her ancestors had been in the habit of walk- 
ing in his sleep, and one night he walked off 
the edge of the porch and was killed. 

In our room there was a fireplace with 
wood placed ready to light. In one corner 
was an old wardrobe which she had cleaned 
out for us to use. There was also an an- 
tique dresser, and the whole place delighted 
us in every detail. The bed was one of these 
old four-posters, and we had visions of 
dreamless sleep on the downy pillows. We 
couldn’t get the wardrobe door open that 
night to put our things away, and we won- 
dered at that a little But it was nothing 
to cause any umeasiness, for it could easily 
be fixed in the morning. We finally got set- 
tled down for sleep, and, closing our eyes, 
6 at cage mag an ideal place. 

Bang! gg, he flew open and shut 
with a es ye he through the whole 
house, or as ft seemed to me. Now, that 
door had been locked by me when we came 
in, and no one had been near it since. The 
key was now lying in the middle of the floor. 
Harry got up and tried the door; it was 
still locked. We got settled down again, 
this time leaving a little light burning. To 
our amazement, we heard a little creaking 
noise, just aS my eyes were closing, and, 
opening them, we saw the wardrobe door 
moving slowly open. Almost at the same 
time our door again few open. This time 
Harry leaped out of bed and grabbed it, but 
a force stronger than he was manipulating 
it. It swung to and the latch clicked. We 
were feeling mighty queer by that time. 
Suddenly a shot rang out on the night air. 
And we heard the rush of footsteps, a door 
open and some one come running up the 
stairs, and right toward our door. But no 
one entered. I must confess that I grabbed 
Harry and hung on to him terror-stricken, 
and we sat thus until morning appeared. 


157 


At breakfast Mrs. Bayley asked us how we 
had slept, and was very much distressed 
when we confessed what had happened. She 
owned up then that she had had the same 
experience, and had been so frightened that 
she couldn’t stir or make any alarm. She 
said she had been hearing queer noises in 
the house, sounds coming from the attic as 
though men were rattling poker chips, soft 
footsteps passing overhead and along the 
hallway. This was not very comforting, and 
we decided that we could not risk passing 
any more nights like the one we had just 
survived, and so she drove us to the station 
and we gladly took the train back home, and 
breathed sighs of relief when we got in our 
own little modern apartment, whose four 
walls would never harbor such things as 


ghosts. 
A Woman Reaper oF THE Turitt Boox. 


To the Editor of THe Turitt Boox. ; 

Dear Sir: I had been ill and had just 
about recovered—in fact, I intended to re- 
turn to my office duties the next day—when 
my most thrilling experience occurred. 

As to the cause of it, I can’t pretend to 
offer any explanation. Such a thing had 
never happened to me before. Nothing of 
the kind has happened since. Perhaps it was 
due to an overwrought condition of the brain 
and nerves at the prospect of returning to 
my duties after a prolonged absence. Per- 
haps there was something in the tonic I was 
taking that affected me strangely on this 
particular night. I can only relate the facts 
as they occurred. 

My residence is a ten-story apartment 
house. I am on the eighth floor, I went 
to bed on the night in question at ten-thirty, 
and almost immediately fell into a sound 
sleep. Certainly I was dead to the world by 
eleven. 

I dreamed. It was a comical dream—one 
that comes to almost every one, I believe, 
at one time or another. At least: practically 
everybody I have ever asked admits having 
had a dream of this sort. 

I thought I was walking along the street—a 
tather fashionable thoroughfare, thronged 
with well-dressed men and women—and 
that I was in a nightshirt, the extremities of 
which kept growing shorter and shorter. In 
spite of my unusual garb, I felt no embar- 
rassment. No one seeemd to notice me. Ap- 
parently I was doing nothing extraordinary. 
I rather reveled in the luxury of the thing 
—the free, untrammeled sensation of being 
without any clothes to speak of. I walked 
quite slowly and seemed deliberately to keep 
close to the walls of the buildings abutting 
on the sidewalk. 


158 


Presently I appeared to reach a crossing. 
A runaway horse was coming straight at me. 
I felt that I could not move. I pressed close 
to the wall and screamed with fear. 

My own voice awoke me. The dream had 
been wonderfully realistic. I still felt the 
sense of freedom. At first I did not know 
where I was. After several moments of 
half-awakened unconsciousness, I realized 
my situation in all its horror. I was on the 
narrow stone coping that jutted out from 
the wall of the building some six feet below 
my window and eight stories above the 
ground. For the first time in my life, to my 
knowledge, I had indulged in sleepwalking. 

As the truth came to me, a tingling feel- 
ing seemed to start in the soles of my feet 
and to pass like charged wires right through 
my legs and the trunk of my body up to my 
brain, and out to my finger tips. 

Asleep, I could have climbed back to my 
room. Somnambulists are not affected by 
dizziness. Awake, all I could do was to 
press against the wall of the building, every 
perve aquiver, and scream again and again, 
and yet again, with the horror that had 
gripped me. 

1 was afraid to look down into the street or 
even into the open space. I just faced the 
wall and yelled at the top of my lungs until 
they finally called in the aid of the fire de- 
partment to rescue me. 

Perhaps this won’t seem much of an ex- 
perience, but then you see, I am a man who 
has always led a quiet, uneventful, unad- 
venturous life. Very truly yours, 

Chicago, Ill. Henry J. MerRSHON. 


To the Editor of THe THR Book. 

Dear Sm: Have you ever attended yout 
own “wake?” I have. It happened thus. 

I am big and—I flatter myself—of rather 
imposing appearance. I wear—or, rather, I 
once wore—a large mustache in which I took 
some little pride. 

Well, one night some years ago, I met an 
old friend on leaving the office. You know 
the kind. The come-on-old-man-and-let’s- 
have-'nother-drink type that is now prac- 
tically extinct.. It developed into a party. 
We picked up other familiar spirits, had din- 
ner, and then adjourned to some one’s apart- 
ment for a poker session. 

At midnight Barclay, one of the crowd, in- 
sisted that he had to go home. The men- 
tion of home reminded me that I had not 
phoned my wife. I was in no condition to 
talk to her then, but hit on the happy idea 
of having Barclay dispatch a messenger boy 
from the office on the corner as soon as he 
got outside. Of course it was a fool idea, 
but then I was in a fool state. 


- over and made peace. 


THRILLING EXPERIENCES 


Next morning, feeling rather shaky, I jour- 
neyed straight to the office, and muddled 
through my day’s work somehow. Then I 
went home. 

Something strange about the place struck 
me the moment I passed into the vestibule— 
an atmosphere of gloom and mourning, an 
unspeakable, uncanny stillness, a penumbra 
of grief. 

I mounted the stairs to my apartment with 
feelings of trepidation. The door was open. 
I entered, passed along the passageway, and 
went into the parlor. 

I started. A coffin occupied the center of 
the room. The usual undertakers’ trappings 
were around the place. Two women with 
bowed heads sat in ome corner. Another 
knelt at the bier. Two men conversed in 
hushed whispers on the other side of the 
room. 

No one looked up as I came in. I ap- 
proached the coffin, then gave a horrified 


gasp. 

There, laid out in the array of death, the 
face showing signs of severe abrasions in 
spite of the undertaker’s efforts to fix it up 
—was myself. 

My gasp of dismay aroused one of the 
women. She looked up and saw my blanched 
countenance. Then she screamed—screamed 
frightfully in sheer panicky terror. 

“Herbert! Herbert! It’s his ghost!’ were 
the words she uttered as soon as she became 
coherent. 

My wife came running in. At first she, 
too, was terrified, but when I satisfied her 
that I was real, she calmed down and forgot 
to scold me for staying out the night before. 

Of course, Barclay had neglected to dis- 
patch a messenger. When one o'clock in 
the morning came, and I did not put in an 
appearance, my wife, being of nervous tem- 
perament, reported my absence at the local 
police station. 

It so happened that a man of my general 
description—with a very ferocious mustache 
—had been knocked down and killed by a 
trolley at about six o’clock in the evening. 

By this time my wife was in a semi- 
hysterical state, and as the face of the dead 
man was rather badly bashed up, she readily 
identified him as me and prepared for the 
obsequies. 

Of course, we managed to smooth things 
Since that time I 
have never stayed out late with the “boys’— 
and I have shaved off my mustache, but I 
keep the ashes of it in a little vial in my 
dressing table as a memento of the occasion 
when I attended my own funeral. Very truly 
yours, Hersert S. R. 


American Literature. 


HY is it that the teachers of lit- 
erature are afraid to consider 
American literature as a seri- 

ous matter, worthy of study? The 
other branches of thought in the college 
curriculum are given hours of the stu- 
dent’s time, but the average time de- 
voted to our literature consists of about 
two hours a week. There is no reason 
in the world why the instructor should 
not comprehend America’s debt to the 
works of English writers, but this 
doesn’t mean that he should ignore the 
reality of a purely national literature 
that comes within the borders of the 
United States. 

Owen Johnson in his amazingly sub- 
tle story: “Stover at Yale,” shows how 
callously ignorant the average under- 
graduate is of his own country’s art and 
literature. Ninety-five out of a hun- 
dred know hardly anything- about 
“Leaves of Grass”; the writings of the 


Transcendentalists; the “Bigelow Pa- 
pers”; the songs of Foster; the novels 
of Mark Twain. It would be a safe 
wager, for example, that half of them 
have never heard of the development 
of philosophy from Cotton Mather 
through Jonathan Edwards and end- 
ing in the entirely new contribution 
of Pragmatism by William James. 

It may be true that in the early days 
the settler was forced to look back 
across the water whenever he thought 
of culture. This lasted through a good 
two hundred years. The necessity for 
such a background ceased, however, 
with the rapid rise of the New England 
school. The modern college is carry- 
ing on a dead idea. Their catalogues 
display excellent courses in English lit- 
erature, the study of ancient English 
poetry, tendencies in modern English 
literature, et cetera. We look in vain 
for serious consideration of the works 
of Whitman, Hawthorne, and Emer- 
son. We do not find even an attempt 


160 


to take up a consecutive examination 
of Thoreau, Sidney Lanier, Thomas 
Nelson Page, or Frank Norris. Here 
and there one runs across futile little 
spurts at the study of Emerson and 
Poe, mostly abortive in scope and super- 
ficial to a high degree. 

The fact that we are fortunate 
enough to share in the English language 
with England does not mean that we 
are under the necessity of losing our 
own development of literature. The 
facts show the state of affairs is ex- 
actly the contrary. Joseph Conrad ad- 
mitted, when he decided to write in 
English rather than French, that the 
English language was the most perfect 
for the expression of thought. 

The literature of America is to-day 
hardly a local affair. The Colonial 
period is over; the New England era 
a matter of two generations ago. Since 
that time we have had the schools of 
writers who have sprung up almost 
simultaneously in San Francisco, New 
York, Chicago, and in Boston—schools 
that are pointing the way to develop- 
ments that even transcend what has al- 
ready been produced. 

There is too much of the snob and 
too little of the sincere attitude shown 
in the study of things American. It 
is not necessary that we go to any ex- 
treme. We may find solace in the 
poetry of Tennyson, but this does not 
mean that we should neglect a Whit- 
man, whose book has had an enormous 
influence throughout the civilized world. 

A fair amount of level-headedness, 
combined with a fair sense of propor- 
tion, may lead us finally out of a purely 
fictitious snobbery as concerns Ameri- 
can literature. The best way to study 
America is through her literature. Let 


CROSS TRAILS 


the fact rest as to the relative quali- 
ties. First we must know ourselves, 
then we can consciously approach crit- 
icism without making eternal idiots of 
ourselves. 


The Next Number. 


MURRAY LEINSTER always spins 

a good yarn, whether it is one of 
stirring adventure or a scientific fantasy. 
The October 15th issue of THE THRILL 
Book starts off with a complete novel 
by this author—“Juju.” 

Here is a swiftly moving, colorful 
story of African magic, witch doctors, 
a gorilla, a trio of white men and two 
white women. The scenes are laid in 
Portuguese West Africa and the un- 
canny atmosphere of that land of 
strange happenings infolds the plot like 
an enchanted garment. 

Then there is “The Ultimate Ingredi- 
ent,” by Greye la Spina; “Amaratite,” 
by Ralph Roeder; “Like Princes,” by 
Eugene A. Clancy; “The Mystery of 
the Timber Tract,’ by Francis Met- 
calfe; “A Recruit for the Lambs,” by 
L. R. Ridge, and other decidedly un- 
usual short stories, each with a distinctly 
novel and powerful idea—a_ typical 
“thrill.” In addition, there will be in- 
stallments of the serials, “The Gift- 
Wife,” by Rupert Hughes and “The 
Heads of Cerberus,” by Francis Ste- 
vens. 

Neither Rome nor any other large 
city was built in a day. Our ideal of 
what THE THRILL Book should be, can- 
not be attained in a few issues. But we 
are trying to make the magazine a little 
better and still a little better with each 
issue. How do you think we are suc- 
ceeding? 

Tue Epitor.